he saw red, but he thought five.

✨ 911 Works:

rock steady | 2.4k | 911 | buddie

The water is hot. Pleasantly so. Roiling gently thanks to the jets. Eddie plunges into it with a sigh pulled from somewhere deep. He sinks onto the bench and tips his head back, submerged enough to rest it comfortably against the ledge of the tub behind him. The water rises as he settles, lapping at his collarbones. Beneath its surface, he stretches his legs out.

It’s a quiet night. The neighborhood children are all tucked up in bed by now, the cars parked in driveways for the evening. The windows are shut, so are the sliding glass doors to yards; the distant, twinkling sounds of conversation and laughter from within long since muted. The noise of the city is inescapable, but here, it’s softer. Further off. It’s almost easy for it to fade into the background in this little corner of suburbia. Instead, crickets chirp from the bushes, the stray croak of a frog from somewhere in the grass joins their song. Overhead, string lights weave through the patio cover beams, casting the porch in a soft, warm glow.

It’s nice here, in Buck’s new backyard. Peaceful.

But, maybe that’s more to do with the company, than the ambiance.

Or, Buck, Eddie, and Buck's new hot tub.

✨

sometimes it returns | 1.6k | 911 | buddie

Eventually Eddie asks, “What are you doing out here?”

“I like the rain,” is Buck’s answer.

Eddie doesn’t understand how. Anything more than a drizzle makes him nauseous these days; storms, downright sick. He’s like a caged animal if Buck’s not within his line of sight when the clouds roll in and the sky turns dark.

They say lightning doesn’t strike the same spot twice, but Eddie’s never been that lucky.

“I don’t,” Eddie says back.

✨

we found our home | 2.1k | 911 | buddie

“Oh, Chris wanted to try—”

“Those new yogurt things!” Buck chirps, snapping his fingers. “Right, good catch! Almost forgot that.”

Eddie has to bite the inside of his cheek as he adds that to the list, too, and the butterflies in his stomach flap their tiny wings.

A fluttery laugh traps itself in his throat. That’s not something he’s ever had happen over a grocery list, the butterflies, but— if there’s anyone that could make that happen, it would be Buck.

It’s just— it feels so domestic, this back and forth as they plan for their week. Buck knowing them well enough to plan out their shopping. Asking Eddie for his input, because they’re not just partners in the field, but partners in their chores, too. Buck anticipating what Eddie’s going to say before he’s even finished saying it.

But, it isn’t just the grocery shopping. It’s— everything, lately.

✨

a hunk, hunk of burning love | 2.9k | 911 | buddie

“So,” Buck tentatively tries, unable to stand the silence that stretches on between them all any longer.

“Buck,” Christopher finally says, and Buck’s spine stiffens under the sudden scrutiny of his stare. “Dad,” Christopher adds, and Buck relaxes — barely — as the sharp gaze flashes towards Eddie, who sits right beside Buck.

“Christopher,” Eddie says, and Buck feels his leg tense up where it presses into his beneath the table.

“You two are firefighters,” Christopher says, and— shit. He’s not beating around the bush. Alright. Okay. “Do all of those fire safety talks you gave me mean nothing to you, Dad?” Christopher asks. “What happened to ‘never leave an open flame unattended,’ Buck?”

Yikes. He’s got him there. Buck ducks his head, feeling properly chastised.

“Chris,” Eddie tries, but Christopher barrels on.

“We can’t have the fire department called on the house of two firefighters because they were too busy playing grabass—”

Buck promptly chokes.

Eddie makes a strangled noise from the back of his throat and his hand flails out, squeezing at Buck’s thigh to stabilize himself.

✨

connecting you to a driver... | 4k | 911 | buddie

The flight from Los Angeles, California to El Paso, Texas is one hour and fifty-five minutes long.

Buck spends one hour and fifteen minutes after he lands in the El Paso International Airport pick-up zone, waiting for his ride. He also racks up one hell of a debt in Uber cancellation fees.

The two are very much connected.

✨

some sunny day | 118/118 chapters | 13.9k | 911 | buddie, gen

A collection of 118-word drabbles, written for the 118dailydrabbles season 8 hiatus challenge on Tumblr!

(Each chapter is it's own; more specific tags and warnings will be listed in the notes at the beginning of each one!)

✨

i blinked and suddenly i had a valentine | 10.6k | 911 | buddie

Jee thrusts the card out towards Eddie. “For you,” she says, cheeks dimpling as her smile turns shy.

It reminds Eddie so much of Christopher, when he was this age. So sweet, so earnest. His heart squeezes in his chest as he accepts Jee’s card.

And— it is just about the cutest fucking thing Eddie’s ever seen, honestly.

The card, clearly handmade, is shaped like a bumblebee. A yellow teardrop body, striped with crooked lines of black marker. Its head is shaped like a heart, with two pipe cleaner antennae sticking out, and this teeny tiny u-shaped smile and a pair of googly eyes glued to make up its face. The kicker, though, are the wings — two big, slightly misshapen pink hearts (clearly cut out by Jee-Yun herself) protruding from either side, each with a little message scribbled out in Jee’s loopy handwriting. The one on the left reads “BEE mine” and a grin breaks out across Eddie’s face, an amused chuckle slipping past his lips. The one on the right, though — it brings an embarrassing lump to Eddie’s throat as he reads, “Happy Valentine’s Day Uncle Eddie!”

Uncle Eddie.

Oh.

✨

from your point of view | 4.3k | 911 | buddie

“Hey, Buck,” Eddie not-quite-slurs. It’s a close thing, though. The glass in his hand is his fourth— no, fifth, and wine always hits him so much harder.

He’s bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked and loose-limbed on the couch, pressed so close to Buck he’s half in his lap.

Buck’s got a steadying arm around his waist— couldn’t avoid the draw to touch even if he wanted to.

“Hm?” Buck asks, feeling a little buzzy himself.

“Buck,” Eddie repeats. “You’re bicyc—bisect— bisexual.”

Buck laughs at Eddie’s stumble. Smiles bright, proud, and nods. “I am,” he agrees.

“Have you ever—” Eddie’s winestained mouth purses; his brow furrows thoughtfully, “— have you ever thought about me?” He sways forward, widens his eyes purposefully, whispers, “Like, y’know.”

✨

who you share it with | 2.2k | 911 | buddie

“Oh, hey, green this time,” Buck’s voice filters in as he swings around the corner of the railing. “What flavor is that? Watermelon or green apple?” He doesn’t pause to let Eddie answer though. “Or maybe strawberry? Although, I think Haribo are the only ones that do that. S’weird though, don’t you think? Strawberry isn’t green, it should be red.”

Eddie, who hasn’t looked up from his book — he’s mastered the art of splitting his attention, by now — snorts and curls his hand into a fist. The ring pop is lodged halfway down his middle finger, a little tight around the knuckle but secure. He stretches his arm out towards Buck, a silent offering.

Buck brightens and veers towards Eddie’s side of the couch. His fingers wind around Eddie’s wrist to steady it and he draws Eddie’s hand up, ducking down halfway to meet it.

He hums delightedly, as he gets his answer.

✨

in your own sweet time | 1.5k | 911 | buddie

“How’d it go?” Buck asks as they reach the Jeep. He jams his thumb into the button on the fob — has to really dig his nail in to get it to work, it’s so worn down— and the locks click open.

“Good,” Eddie answers, sliding into the passenger seat. He runs his tongue over his left molars. Practices his bite. Bares his teeth at Buck in the kind of smile a seven year old Christopher used to flash all the time. “Easy. It was just a filling.”

“No pain then?” Buck asks and the engine purrs to life. He switches the gear to reverse.

“Nope, they numbed me up good. Still feels weird, though,” Eddie says, touching his fingertips to the left side of his upper lip. He prods at it carefully, barely feels it. “Kind of heavy. Like it’s on a lag or something.” He chuckles even though it kind of sucks. “Don’t know how I’m supposed to kiss anyone with only half a working mouth.”

Buck laughs. Puts the car into drive and pulls towards the main road. “Who’re you supposed to be kissing anyway?”

Without thinking, Eddie replies, “You, I hope.” Then freezes.

✨

let love take hold of us | 2.7k | 911 | buddie + christopher

“Hey,” Eddie calls, twisting his shoulder as he stuffs his arm into his jacket sleeve, “take a coat, bud. It’s cold today.”

Christopher, already halfway to the door, pauses to scowl at Eddie. “It’s sunny,” he says.

“It’s supposed to be windy,” Buck supplies, doing up the last button on his coat.

“And it’s December,” Eddie adds.

Christopher rolls his eyes. “In California,” he counters, unimpressed.

Eddie sighs. “It gets cold in California.”

“No,” Christopher says, impatient, “it doesn’t.” Then he’s out the door. Coatless.

“Stubborn,” Buck comments, bumping his shoulder into Eddie’s. “Reminds me of someone.”

Eddie huffs a laugh.

Or, Christopher Diaz and the Consequential Coat Conundrum; featuring christmas tree farms, hot chocolate, and the kind of stubbornness only a thirteen year old can possess.

✨

forever and ever and always | 1.7k | 911 | buddie

“Y’know,” Buck says, drawing the tips of his fingers over Eddie’s knuckles, where they’re slotted with Buck’s other hand in the space between them, “if I took your last name, we’d have the same initials.”

Eddie blinks, suddenly much more awake than he was five seconds ago. “What?”

“Yeah,” Buck continues, oblivious. “You’re E.D., Edmundo Diaz, and I’d be E.D. too. Evan Diaz.”

Eddie’s stomach swoops at the sound of that, and he fixes his eyes on Buck’s face. Stares hard at him until he catches onto it.

“Is that— is that something you’ve thought about before?” Eddie asks.

✨ Stranger Things Works:

for all the pretty mouths and pretty words | 5.4k | st | steddie

Eddie snags both drinks with a thanks to the bartender and turns to head back towards Steve. Things have been going well, things have been going really well — not even that rocky start could put a wrench into things, and the note they left off on before Eddie slipped away was promising. Eddie is eager to see where the rest of the night will take them. He has high hopes.

But, as Eddie is intimately familiar with, highs are not meant to last, and hopes are easy to lose.

Things, meet wrench.

He makes it three steps when his stride stutters because — oh. That’s. That’s Steve, with a girl. A pretty girl. With short, sandy brown hair and freckles. It’s the same pretty girl Eddie had seen with him earlier. The one he’d thought, for a second, might be Steve’s girlfriend. He’d let himself hope she wasn’t, when he first approached, and let himself start to actually believe it when he’d tried his hand at flirting and Steve had flirted back.

But now...

Now Eddie’s not so sure.

Or, the one where Steve puts his foot in his pretty mouth and Eddie pays the price. Featuring: cherry stems, half smoked cigarettes, and the world's biggest misunderstanding.

✨

the privilege of being yours | 3.1k | st | steddie

“What do you think?” Eddie asks, grinning.

“You’re ridiculous,” Steve laughs, already reaching for Eddie’s ankle. He curls his fingers around it and gives it a tug, beckoning Eddie closer. “They’re perfect, you’re perfect. I love them,” he adds, as Eddie scooches into his space.

Steve cups both of his hands to Eddie’s face and kisses him right on the center of his mouth. “I can’t wait to marry you,” he says.

The kiss turns into something else as Eddie’s lips split against Steve’s, and he murmurs back against them, “I can’t wait to marry you.”

When they break apart, Steve taps Eddie’s knee. “Okay, where’s the rest of your sense of tradition? I showed you mine, you show me yours now.”

“Oh, I’ll show you tradition alright,” Eddie responds, and he reaches for his left sleeve.

Or, the one where Steve and Eddie share a rooftop, beloved traditions, and so much love.

✨

hold your breath and just dive right in | 4.5k | st | steddie

“Come on, man, what are you waiting for?” Steve calls, several feet out from the shore where he’s treading water with a perfect, practiced ease. Fucking show off. “An invitation?”

“Ha ha,” Eddie shouts back, deadpan. He makes no movement towards the water, though. Just digs his toes into the sand and wiggles them, watching the tiny grains spill into the spaces between and swallow his feet.

He glances up to stare out at the lake, and his stomach roils uneasily at its vastness. The other end is visible from where he stands, but it still seems so far away. They’re nowhere near the middle either, and even Steve isn’t that far out. It still makes Eddie nervous.

The funny thing is, it isn’t even his recent experiences with Lover’s Lake that’s putting this horrible feeling in his gut. Well, okay, maybe it is a little bit. But mostly, it’s because Eddie already didn’t like the water before that. He’s never been a fan.

Because Eddie Munson does not know how to swim.

Or, the one where Eddie Munson does not know how to swim, and Steve Harrington is nothing if not the perfect teacher.

✨

keep me on a rope | 6.6k | st | steddie, unrequited stommy

Tommy wipes his palms against the side of his jeans and squeezes through the crowd, never once taking his eyes off of Steve as he makes a beeline right for him.

He’s a couple feet away, gearing up to call out his greeting when someone else beats him to it and sidles up to Steve. They touch Steve, putting their palm low on his waist, half tucked up under his blazer. It’s an intimate touch, an almost possessive one in a very casual sort of way.

Tommy freezes in his tracks.

Steve perks up in the presence of his new company, back straightening and body turning into theirs — receptive, familiar.

He tilts his head, just enough that Tommy can see the smile gracing his lips, the softness in his eyes, and the other person dips their own chin, leaning in to whisper something into Steve’s ear. Their curtain of hair sways forward, brushing against Steve’s collar, and Steve reaches up to tuck it behind their ear, giving Tommy a clear view of—

Of Eddie Munson.

Or, Tommy Hagan attends his ten year high school reunion hoping for one thing, and leaves with something else entirely.

✨

trippin stumbling flippin fumbling | 5k | st | steddie

“Don’t be such a coward,” Eddie tells himself. “Fucking— go.”

His body doesn’t move. Not even an inch. His ass stays glued to his seat, his feet firmly planted on the floor. His hands don’t leave ten and two.

“God dammit,” Eddie groans, dropping his forehead down to the wheel.

Except — he underestimates the distance, and rather than pressing into the top of the wheel between his hands, his forehead smacks squarely into the center of the horn.

He jerks back so fast he gives himself whiplash, but the damage is done. There is no taking back the short, sharp, loud honk that emits from the bowels of his traitorous van.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, fuck, shit,” Eddie hisses, eyes going wider than the moon hanging in the sky tonight.

He immediately slouches in his seat, sinking down as low as he can go. But it’s too late. He’s caught Steve and Robin’s attention now, and despite parking off to the side and a little further back, his set of wheels is unmistakable.

They’ve seen him. He can’t leave now. He has no choice but to go inside.

✨

when i turn out the lights | 1.8k | st| stommy

Steve tells everyone who asks him that his first kiss was Sheila Anderson when he was fifteen years old.

But, really, that's not true.

It was Tommy Hagan. When he was fourteen.

Or, the one that tells the real story of Steve Harrington's first kiss.

✨

love grows (where my rosemary goes) | 3.2k | st| steddie

“Do you know you have, like, a trillion freckles on your face?” Steve asks right back, leaning in. His left hand winds itself around the strap of Eddie’s overalls, pulling him in too, and the right one catches Eddie’s jaw. It’s cold from his own lemonade glass, abandoned somewhere by his feet, and his thumb sweeps over the bridge of Eddie’s nose, the apples of his cheeks. Doubles back to tap the single freckle that sits right on the tip.

It’s true — Eddie does have freckles. Maybe not a trillion, but when the sun peeks out from behind the clouds like today and becomes a more permanent resident in the sky, those pesky little polka dots like to make their appearance, painting his face in faint faint dusting. They’re not obvious or anything; nobody really notices them unless they’re looking for them.

But that’s the thing about Steve. He’s always looking. Always seeing.

It’s why Eddie loves him so much.

It’s why — oh. He loves him.

✨

the strength to let it show | 3.2k | st | steddie

So, the thing is, Steve likes Eddie.

As in, he kind of wants to date him. And to kiss him. And to be his boyfriend.

But, he also doesn’t want to tell him that. Not in so many words, anyways. Those have never been Steve’s strong suit, words. He always messes them up. Never picks the right ones, always ends up sticking his foot in his mouth. The thought of sitting Eddie down and making some big… confession is mildly (extraordinarily) terrifying. Big speeches and grand declarations usually are — don’t let the romcoms and the chick flicks fool you. They’re never as easy as they look.

He doesn’t not want to tell Eddie, though, either. So it’s… well, it’s a tricky situation.

Until Robin, brilliant brainy genius Robin, suggests that instead of telling him, he should just show him instead. That way Steve can avoid the dramatic deliverances and still get his point across, just in a way that’s comfortable for him. On his own time. At his own pace. He can gradually show his hand, can drop hint after hint until Eddie gets it (and Robin is confident that he will in no time at all).

So Steve does.

✨

shake it loose together | 6.3k | st | steddie

Steve keeps his voice quiet enough as he sings now, not wanting to disturb the masses just one room over, but it’s still loud enough for him to get a little lost in it. He matches the strokes of his sponge with the tune he’s singing and even starts to wiggle his hips along. It’s hard not to want to dance to this one — Bennie and the Jets, because it came on the radio in the car while he was making his rounds to pick up the kids, and it’s been stuck in his head ever since.

Most of the dishes are clean now, so all that’s left is the silverware. The casserole dish was the last of the major pieces. Steve’s just finishing rinsing it, letting the excess water sluice off the sides before he sets it on the kitchen island with the other plates waiting to be dried.

In the process of turning, two things happen at once:

1. Steve squeezes his eyes shut and tips his head back as he belts out the chorus, “She’s got electric boots, a mohair suit, you know I read it in a magazine, oh. B-b-b-bennie and the jets!”

2. His eyes fly back open to land right on Eddie. where he stands in the doorway — no, leans in the doorway, like he’s been there a while, like he’s gotten comfortable.

✨

to my heart i must be true | 14.4k | st | steddie

Robin starts to smile, this big, evil grin that unfurls slowly across her face, and oh. Oh no. That’s not good. That’s never good. That always means trouble.

Robin sticks her hands on her hips and juts her chin out at Steve. “I bet I can get a Valentine’s date before you can,” she says, all arrogance.

Dustin and Lucas oooh at her fighting words, then turn to Steve for his rebuttal.

“Robin, Robin, are you sure you want to do that?” He asks, standing to his full height. His shoulders roll back, and he feels the patented Harrington Charm flooding back through his body like a switch has been flipped.

“Absolutely certain,” Robin replies, not backing down. She holds out her hand.

Steve shakes his head at her, then lets an easy, confident smile curl his mouth. “You’re gonna regret that,” he says, then smacks his palm into hers, “but you’re on.”

In which a bet is made, Steve’s prowess shines until it doesn’t, and sometimes things don’t end up the way they’re planned.

Sometimes, they end up better.

✨

i was thinking maybe i could lay beside you | 3k | st | steddie

Their room is the last door on the right, just like Joyce told them.

Eddie pushes inside first, immediately flicking the lights on. He spots their bags in the corner and beelines straight for them.

Steve, on the other hand, freezes in the doorway.

Because, oh. Oh.

There’s only one bed.

Which — Steve doesn’t know why this surprises him. This isn’t a hotel. It’s a guest room at a friend’s house. Of course it’s not going to have two beds in one room. He doesn’t know why he was expecting that.

But it’s — it’s fine. This is cool. He can share a bed for the night. He’s shared lots of beds in his day. There’s nothing different about this time.

Except that there is because he doesn’t have to share with just anybody. He has to share with Eddie.

Eddie, who hasn’t even batted an eye at the bed situation. Eddie, who seems cool as a cucumber about it. Eddie, who—

Who’s already shucked his shirt off and has his thumbs hooked into his sweats, about to tug those off too, and jesus fucking christ, Steve can’t do this. He cannot do this.

✨

in all your blame, in all your pain | 2.4k | st | steddie

When Eddie had gotten dragged headfirst into this alternate hellscape dimension, DnD monsters-come-to-life nightmare shitshow, no one told him that by the end of it he’d be offering himself up as bat bait to do his part in putting an end to it all.

No one told him that he’d wind up mangled and shredded and torn apart, but still, somehow, alive.

No one told him that he’d be bedridden for months afterwards, as his body stitched itself back together. That some days would be painful at best, while others would be downright excruciating. That he’d barely be able to walk at first, or bathe himself, or even eat on his own.

No one told him that healing would be the most grueling part of it all.

But those were all things that Eddie could get over. Things that, with time, he could forgive. After all, it’s not like anyone had known that that’s how it was going to play out.

What Eddie could not forgive, however, was the fact that no one, not one single member of their rather large, rather extensive party had told him just how much Steve god damn Harrington loved to play Florence fucking Nightingale in the aftermath.

✨

come and rest your bones with me | 2.6k | st | steddie

“We’re making a fort.”

Steve is barely even halfway through the door when he is accosted with the declaration. His slick raincoat is still zipped up, his wet umbrella still wide open and dripping onto the porch behind him.

“What?” He asks, fumbling to close the umbrella and shake it out before a stack of blankets are being shoved into his arms.

“We are making a fort,” Eddie repeats, grinning at Steve. He’s got his own heap of blankets bundled against his chest, and when Steve glances past his shoulder he can see that the bones of said fort are already mostly established — Wayne’s armchair has already been moved from its cozy corner of the room to now sit directly across from the couch, and the coffee table has been pushed to the side so as to not be a nuisance to the building process.

And, well, it sounds like a lot of fun, actually.

“Yeah, sure, alright,” Steve replies with a huff of a laugh.

✨

hash brown, egg yolk (i will always love you) | 2.8k | st | steddie

Six months is a long time to be apart. A long time to go without seeing Eddie in the flesh. Without hearing his laugh, low and melodic, right against the shell of his ear. Without hugging Eddie around the middle and hooking his chin over Eddie’s shoulder while he stands at the stove and pushes something delicious around a pan. Without kissing Eddie.

But so is the way of being married to a hotshot musician with a band that has more than made it big.

Because that's what Eddie is. And, god, Steve couldn’t be more proud.

Even if it does mean that sometimes he and Eddie have to go long stretches of time without seeing each other.

But that doesn’t matter anymore. Because Eddie is home now, and he’s going to be home for a while. Corroded Coffin just wrapped up the European leg of their tour (“Fucking Europe, Stevie! Can you believe it!”) and they’ve been given a month before their North American leg is set to start. A whole entire month that Eddie already promised he will be spending at home with Steve.

Starting today.

✨

stuck to the gum that's stuck on your shoe | 2.1k | st | platonic stobin

“Talk to me, Steve,” Robin says, “please.”

And now she sounds upset, and that makes Steve feel even worse.

He doesn’t want to say it, doesn’t want to make Robin feel bad. She’s been so excited ever since she got that letter in the mail, going on and on about the linguistics program she’d been accepted into, about the campus and how gorgeous it is, about the surrounding city and how much there is to do there.

Steve doesn’t want to rain on that parade more than he already has.

But he knows that she’s going to wheedle it out of him eventually. Might as well rip the bandaid off now.

He can barely bring himself to say it. It hurts too much to acknowledge. But he does, because he has to. Because he will have to.

“You— you got into college, Rob. You’re going to leave,” Steve finally tells her. Whispers, because if he says it too loud he thinks he might break again.

“Oh, Steve,” Robin breathes.

✨

i wish i knew how (your eyes are like starlight now) | 10.6k | st | steddie

“Mistletoe!” Robin cheers, and Steve’s heart stutters so hard in his chest that he thinks it might crack his ribcage and drop right out the bottom of his stomach.

His eyes fly up, and, sure enough, there hangs one of the many sprigs hung all around the apartment. Small and inconspicuous, but unmistakable. That ridiculous little plant has no idea that it’s just turned Steve’s entire world on its axis.

Across from him, Eddie’s eyes are trained up too, big and round and wide where they stick on the mistletoe. His lips are parted in surprise, and Steve can’t help but stare and think am I going to kiss those now?

When Eddie finally tears his gaze from the plant and lets it flicker down to Steve, a pretty pink dusting blooms across the bridge of his nose and spreads into the apples of his cheeks when he finds Steve already looking back.

Steve spares the mistletoe one last quick peek before he takes a deep breath and steels himself. This is it. He sticks his hands on his hips, aiming for casual, and asks, “What do you say, Munson?”

Or, Steve makes a promise, Robin likes to meddle, and the spirit of Christmas strikes (out) again. And again. And again.

(Until it doesn’t.)

✨

under my umbrella | 5.8k | st | steddie

Steve sidles up to the bench. Munson stands at the other end of it, arms crossed tightly over his chest, glaring out at the street as if that will make the bus show up any quicker. His bangs are flat against his forehead, the rest of his long hair lank and wet over his shoulders.

He looks like a drowned cat.

So Steve holds out his umbrella. Tilts his chin and raises his eyebrows at Munson as an invitation to step under and get out of the rain.

Munson looks at the umbrella for less than a second before he turns back towards the street with a scoff. “No thanks,” he says. “I’m good.”

“Dude,” Steve says, dumbfounded.

“Dude,” Munson parrots mockingly.

“You’re really going to turn down my umbrella?” Steve asks, still holding it out.

“I really am,” Munson replies, showing all of his teeth in a rancorous smile. “Now if you don’t mind,” he adds, taking a large step forward, closer to the curb and further from Steve.

Steve lets out an indignant huff and pulls his umbrella back to himself. Only just refrains from muttering an unsavory name under his breath because he’s a good person now.

Whatever. Let Munson get soaked. Let him freeze.

✨

temptations of trouble | 2.8k | st | steddie

Eddie ignores the flip flopping in his stomach as he meets Steve’s gaze and fits his palms to either side of Steve’s jaw. Cradles his face like he’s something special now. (Because he is.)

And then he leans in to kiss him. Right on those pretty pink lips of his.

It’s short and sweet like it always is, but when Eddie pulls back and opens his eyes, he’s met with Steve’s, wide as fucking saucers, goggling unblinkingly back at him. He can feel Robin’s stare boring into the side of his face, can feel the tiny pinpricks of Nancy’s and Jonathan’s and Argyle’s on his back too. The whole room is quiet enough to hear a god damn pin drop.

Eddie is about to open his mouth and ask what the hell that’s all about when it finally catches up with him.

He just fucking kissed Steve fucking Harrington. On the mouth.

✨

waving down the wind | 10.3k | st | steddie

Eddie furrows his brows, and he’s about to ask Steve what he did come over here for, when Steve starts to shrug out of his jacket. Rolls his shoulders back and lets it slide down his upper arms.

“I came over here,” Steve starts, and he gives his arm a shake when the sleeve gets caught around his elbow. Once it’s off, he bunches his fist into the fabric of the collar. “To give you this,” he finishes and holds out the coat.

Eddie blinks down at it. Then he looks back up at Steve. “What?”

Or, three times Eddie looks cold and Steve does something about it, and one time he’s toasty warm.

✨

the world will follow after | 2.6k | st | steddie

Another glance at the clock and Steve really has to leave now. He barely has time to shove the piece of toast Eddie, so graciously, made for him (crisp, but not too crunchy, and definitely not burnt, with just the right amount of butter spread thin across the top) into his mouth before he’s running towards the door.

He’s about two steps away from it, hand already reaching for the knob, when Eddie catches him. He gives Steve's shoulders a squeeze, then spins Steve around and reaches for his collar next, fussing with it until it’s straightened and flat. He pats Steve twice on the chest and gives him a smile.

“All set now,” he says. Then, “have a nice day at work.”

Steve, at the complete whim of his scrambled brain, smiles back, tells Eddie thanks, glances at his watch, curses under his breath, then leans in to kiss Eddie goodbye.

Then, just as quickly, he’s out the door and in his car and finally on his way to work.

It isn’t until he’s halfway there that it hits him what he’s just done.

He kissed Eddie Munson.

✨

from this moment on | 3.9k | st | steddie

Steve bought the ring a year after they started dating.

It was too soon, way too soon, even if everything they’d been through made it feel like they’d known each other, like they’d been in each other’s corners for forever. One year was entirely too early to be putting marriage on the table, especially when they were still so young. Not to mention, Steve knew that Eddie had a rocky relationship with the concept thanks to his parents, and, truth be told, so did Steve.

But none of that really mattered. Because Steve was that in love. He was that sure of them.

So he bought the ring. Without hesitation.

And he held onto it, for all this time. He’d had a gut feeling, back in 1988. And eight years later it’s still there. Still there and stronger than ever.

✨

can't hide the way you make us glow | 6.3k | st | steddie

“So,” Wayne finally says and looks between them. He gestures his can from Steve to Eddie and back. “Still just friends, huh?” He deadpans.

Steve chokes on his sip of beer, and a grin cracks across Eddie’s face.

“To the general public of Hawkins, sure,” Eddie responds smoothly, hand absentmindedly rubbing Steve’s back as he recovers.

Wayne narrows his eyes at him. “I ain’t the general public of Hawkins, now, am I?”

Eddie shakes his head. “No, I suppose not.”

When he doesn’t elaborate any further, Wayne lifts his eyebrows expectantly. Out with it, boy they say. He barely refrains from waving his hand in a go on then motion.

“Steve and I… we’re, uh,” Eddie’s smile turns soft around the edges, and his hand goes to Steve’s beside him, drawing it into his lap and lacing their fingers together, “we’re going steady now.”

Or, Wayne finds out that Eddie and Steve are EddieandSteve.

✨

good for my boy | 7.4k | st | steddie

Wayne lets the front door swing shut behind him, rattling and smacking into the frame audibly.

“Jesus, Munson!” A voice rings out — the freezer fiend’s, and definitely not Eddie’s. “Took you god damn long enough!” The head finally pops out of the freezer. “I got tired of waiting and — oh.”

The stranger’s hand slips from the handle and the freezer door thumps shut. As does the stranger’s mouth when he looks right into the face of, not Eddie Munson as expected, but Wayne Munson.

Wayne briefly recognizes him as the Harrington boy.

or, the first time Wayne Munson meets Steve Harrington is a complete accident.

✨

if you have a minute | 10.6k | st | steddie

They pass the cigarette back and forth for a few quiet minutes. And there’s something about Eddie’s presence that’s helping just as much as the nicotine.

Eddie holds the cigarette back out for Steve, blows the smoke out in a smooth, steady stream, and tilts his head. “You working tomorrow?” He asks.

Steve shakes his head. “Not tomorrow. Why?”

Eddie pushes himself off of the wall. “Great,” he declares and grins. “We’re doing something then. You and me. I’m gonna take you somewhere.”

Steve’s face scrunches. “What? Where?”

Eddie tuts and wags his finger. “Nope, not telling you,” he says. “You’ll find out tomorrow. Meet at my place at nine. Don’t be late.”

He doesn’t give Steve a chance to argue or further question it. Just throws a little salute and turns on his heel, disappearing around the corner.

Or, the one where Steve’s anxiety doesn’t get the hint that they defeated the Upside Down, and Eddie knows just how to help.

✨

and stars, and stars, and stars | 1.5k | st | steddie

“What are you even painting?” Steve questions, unable to keep himself from asking. Eddie hadn’t told him his plan when he’d first laid Steve out and gathered his brushes — just instructed Steve to stay still and let him paint, he’d see soon enough. But Steve is curious, and it’s been almost an hour now.

Steve carefully tips his head to the side and presses his cheek against his folded arms, trying his best to catch a glimpse of Eddie where he sits atop the backs of Steve’s thighs, bent over his canvas in concentration. His tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth, like it always does when he’s focusing hard enough, and a piece of hair dangles against his cheek, escaping the bandana he’d tied it back with.

“I’m painting an essence,” Eddie answers cryptically, and he draws the brush in a broad stroke, low on Steve’s back.

“An essence?” Steve repeats. “An essence of what?”

“An essence of you,” Eddie says simply. The brush dots Steve’s upper back now, light little taps.

Steve doesn’t know what that means, but he’s looking forward to finding out.

✨

i want to hold your hand | 14k | st | steddie

The film isn’t even on Steve’s radar at this point. He couldn’t say what’s happening anymore, but he doesn’t even care. Forget Geena Davis, forget Jeff Goldblum, Steve can’t stop thinking about Eddie Munson, right there next to him, hand inches away from his own.

Steve’s pinky twitches out, like it’s got a mind of its own, towards Eddie’s hand. His heart is in his throat, breath caught behind it, as his pinky hovers, trembling. He could touch him. Wants to touch him. To hook his pinky over Eddie’s, curl them together, maybe even link the rest of their fingers too.

He’s never wanted to hold somebody’s hand so bad before.

✨

promise me nothing, live 'til we die | 2.9k | st | steddie

“You’ve seriously never had your first kiss, though?”

Eddie snorts. “Why do you sound so disbelieving? Come on, Harrington. I don’t exactly have a long line of suitors winding out my front door, vying for my hand or anything. Nobody wants to swap spit with the local freak. They might catch something.” He gives Steve a scrutinizing look. “I’m not like you, King Steve.”

“I’m not worried about catching anything from you,” Steve says.

Eddie tilts his head, perplexed. “Okay… thanks?”

Steve shakes his head. “No, I mean, if no one else wants to, I will.”

“Will what? Line up outside my door?” Eddie scoffs.

“Kiss you,” Steve says and knocks all the air out of Eddie’s chest. “I’ll do it.”

Eddie’s eyes have got to be as big as dinner plates as he blinks at Steve. “What?”

✨

harlow gold | 4k | st | platonic steve & nancy

Nancy is pretty sure that she could talk to Jonathan about it. He knows a little something about being the black sheep, and Nancy doesn’t think he would judge her for it. But they’d only just broken up, and while it was a mutual decision and an amicable split, she doesn’t think it would be fair to turn to him so soon after for advice about the feelings she already has for someone else.

She doesn’t have any girlfriends to talk to either. Robin is kind of the first close female friend she’s had since Barb.

And despite this budding friendship between herself and Robin, Nancy can’t turn to Robin. She’s the type to ask a lot of questions, and she doesn’t give up easily. She’ll push until she gets the answers she’s looking for. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but Nancy isn’t so sure she’s ready for that kind of inquisition. Not about this.

Which only leaves one person that Nancy trusts enough with something as delicate as this, one person whom she is comfortable enough to confide in:

Steve Harrington.

✨

sloe gin fizzy, do it till you're dizzy | 6.7k | st | steddie

Eddie scoots down on the bed until he’s level with Steve and turns onto his side, shifting closer in the process.

The movement draws Steve, and his head lolls to the side to see what Eddie is up to.

It brings them nearly nose to nose, and Eddie goes a little bit cross-eyed focusing on Steve.

Steve doesn’t flinch away from the closeness. Just breathes and blinks. And then his eyes flicker down to Eddie’s lips and right back up, so quick that Eddie’s hazy brain would have missed it if he hadn’t been paying attention, hadn’t been anticipating it.

Eddie takes it as the invitation it has to be, and slowly, slowly closes the distance. His nose does bump into Steve’s as he enters his space, but he pauses, hesitates with his mouth hovering a hair’s breadth away from Steve’s.

He waits for the rejection, for the brutal shove away, for the disgusted “what the fuck man?”.

But they don’t come.

What does come is Steve’s mouth, pushing forward to press against Eddie’s.

✨

it's my feeling we'll win in the end | 6.3k | st | steddie

Eddie thrusts his hand, fisted around the diploma, into the air like he’s god damn John Bender on the football field, and he lets out a triumphant whoop.

He hears his friends go crazy in their seats again, and when he finds them in the crowd once more he sees that Dustin has climbed up onto his chair, one hand gripping Steve’s shoulder for support while the other is pumping through the air. He’s shouting Eddie’s name, and so is Mike, who is clapping so hard his hands must hurt. Lucas and Max each are holding one corner of a sign spelling out “Eddie the Conqueror” across the center, with hand painted flames licking around the words. It makes Eddie laugh, bright and buoyant, and he shakes the diploma through the air some more.

Eddie’s chest feels tight in the best kind of way as a sudden tidal wave of emotions body slams him, clogging his throat and forcing him to take a sharp, deep breath through his nose. His nostrils flare with it, and a hysterical sort of laugh bubbles up. It’s just, he’s never been this happy before. Never been this proud. Never felt this good.

He’s smiling so big that his cheeks hurt. He feels like he’s walking on fucking air. He did it, he fucking did it.

✨

find my ficlets here

✨

transformative work policy:

fanart, podfics, translations, and any such creations based on my works are always welcome!! if you're not sure about something, just ask!

all i ask in return is that proper credit is given — using the "inspired by" function on ao3; mentioning the source material in notes; linking back to me/my works — whichever fits best with what you're doing!

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“Working hours” with this black ops group are loosely defined at best, and entirely nonexistent at worst. And don’t even get started on pay, because you think at this point that you’re only getting comped whatever the pay is for your cost of living, and that’s only really when you’re on the clock. They’ll pay for the hotel room and sometimes the food, but besides that, you’re on your own.

But, back to those working hours. You don’t know when they stopped, but maybe it was around the time your roomie decided to crack open a bottle of whisky and pour out half of it for you into one of the plastic solo cups they provide with the coffee pot. God knows you’re not working anymore, you’re just sort of sitting idle while he rambles about the room, gesticulating with the bottle. Like he does.

(Plus, you don’t think he’s even being paid for this? Adrian is just here for the fun and because he’s available, and the rest of the team just let him tag along because he’s useful. The thought makes you smirk a little bit.)

You admire his profile as he talks, one finger pressed to your smiling lips as your eyes trail him back and forth, thinking he might eventually hypnotize you. He’s so… expressive. And he has dimples and curly hair, which you’ve always been a sucker for. He hasn’t even taken off his suit; blue on silver on black, with a red visor on the mask discarded on the table. You had watched him remove it, and carefully tried to hide the fact that you were staring as he pulled his wire-rimmed glasses out of a hidden pocket.

You’re very pointedly staring now, sizing him up like your next fucking meal (alcohol does that to you), and Adrian keeps on blathering in one long spiel, pacing in circles like hasn’t even noticed your hungry gaze (alcohol does that to him).

“Is that prescription?” you ask, cutting him off in the middle of his sentence, which you’d barely been paying attention to. Something something Twilight, something something cultural reset.

Adrian stops pacing, looking at you with a deer-in-headlights expression. “Huh?”

You nod at the mask laying on the table by the door. “The visor. Is it prescription?” 

He swivels to look at the mask, and then back to you with an almost bashful laugh. “Uh… yeah?”

“That’s sick.” 

“Really?” Dimples. You take another sip of your whisky to calm yourself, and it burns at the back of your throat. Objectively, you should not be feeling this way about your pseudo-coworker, who also happens to be somewhat of a lunatic. But, y’know, he’s… sweet. To you. Which is the odd thing, but you’ve gone beyond worrying about the details at this point. You’re hunting alien butterfly creatures that live in people’s brains, you can get past a couple character flaws.

“I mean, yeah.” You lick your lips, which have taken on the flavor of the peach liqueur in the whisky. “I wear prescription lenses, too, but they’re a bitch to keep clean on the job. If I could afford prescription hardware, I would. Good on you.”

“Yeah, I mean… yeah, it is fucking cool, thank you!” He grins, his eyes crinkling at the corners and making you clench your jaw with how badly you want to reach out and kiss him long and hard at that exact moment. “I was starting to think no one else would notice how genius it is. Y’know, I don’t even think Peacemaker’s noticed, which is totally not very best friend-like of him, but it’s fine, I’m sure he’ll come around eventually, the guy constantly has a lot of shit on his plate. Like I remember one time, me and him got stuck in a Winnebago that was rolling downhill toward a cliff like something out of Looney Tunes because some idiot crack dealer locked us in there with his load, and-”

He’s pacing again, and the amber colored liquid in the square bottle he grips by the neck sloshes against the glass as he continues waving it around emphatically. And you’ve zoned out again, because now you’re thinking about his hands, and how nice they’d feel on your body. You’ve seen him beat the shit out of people, you know he’s packing some major force in those fists, but you haven’t felt them on your own skin, or had the experience of having them wrapped around your throat for yourself. 

“-then, y’know, Eagly’s a fucking badass, I don’t know if you’ve seen him in action, but the little dude can take a guy out in like one peck. Like do not get caught on the wrong end of those talons is all I’m saying. Anyways, he swooped in and yanked the fucking wheel, so the Winnebago flipped. I mean, can you imagine! A bald eagle rolling a camper. That shit’s gotta be, like, legendary-”

And his quads as he walks, Jesus Christ. You’ve never been super partial to burly, buff guys (sorry Chris), but there’s something to be said for muscle in the right places. Adrian’s legs are nice, you can tell just by the way the fabric of his pants stretches around them when he turns, and fuck his ass is so tight. You nearly salivate just staring at it, thinking about how much you’d love to dig your heels into it, or squeeze it to urge him on as he fucks you. 

Your eyes snap down to your solo cup of whisky, and you frown. When did you drink half of it?

“-but like I’m sure you know Eagly pretty well because he loves you, I can tell. He kind of scooches closer every time you sit near him, it’s really cute actually, I mean, I would scooch closer whenever you sat near me too except I feel like you’d punch me in the dick, good thing my suit’s got a reinforced crotch-”

“Wait, what?” You blink up at him, your brain sort of fizzling out and then rebooting as you stare at him. What did he say? 

Adrian doesn’t miss a beat. “Yeah, the guy who made it was like, ‘That makes no sense, you’re gonna have the worst time trying to take a piss in this,’ and I said, ‘No, dude, have you ever been karate kicked in the nuts before? Shit hurts.’ I still had to pay extra-”

“No, no, what was that shit about scooching closer? To me?” You squint at him. “Babe, are you trying to tell me something?”

He blushes. You know he’s joked about not feeling emotions like other people do, but you wonder how true that really is, because he goes beet fucking red like he’s having trouble breathing as he stares down at his shoes. “I, uh- well, I mean, yeah, I’d scooch closer to you. Theoretically. If- if you wanted me to. And if you weren’t going to punch me in the dick.”

“Why would I punch you in the dick?”

“I don’t know, it’s like… it’s an understandable reaction to someone getting in someone else’s personal space!”

“No, it really isn’t…”

“Well, how was I supposed to know you wouldn’t punch me in the dick?”

You throw up your hand in an exasperated gesture. “When have you ever seen me punch someone in the dick?”

He screws up his face. “UM, I don’t know, you punched Peacemaker in the dick!”

“What? When?”

“When he tried lifting you onto the truck that one time!” 

“That was a misunderstanding, I kneed him because he didn’t give me a heads up!”

“But you did it!”

“Well, the last thing I would want to do to your dick is punch it, all right?”

You both stop and stare at each other for a long moment. You think you might have stopped breathing, too. Yeah, you are definitely tipsy at this point, but you raise a slightly shaking hand to take a casual sip of your drink, as if you aren’t staring at him with bulging eyes like you’re possessed.

He opens his mouth and closes it a few times before he comes out with a response. “Okay.”

You blink. “Okay?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, okay. I mean, what other stuff would you do to my dick?”

“Uh… stuff.” You jerkily stand, nearly sloshing your drink as you try to get your bearings. You set the cup down on the bedside table and turn to look at him with the most awkward, pin-straight posture you could possibly muster, like a high schooler trying to pretend they aren’t drunk in front of their parents. “I’m going to take a shower now. Yeah. I am. I’m going to do that.”

“Oh. Okay.” Adrian looks down at the bottle in his hand, and then shuffles a bit to the side so that you can pass him.

“I mean, unless you wanted to shower first?” You pause at the end of your respective bed, and turn to see him turning down the covers on his own by the window. “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting in bed,” he says flatly, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. He reaches up and undoes a latch on his armor that frees the chestplate, and lifts it over his head in one swift move, leaving him in his tight fitting black undershirt.

You stare at him, scatterbrained until you manage to scowl at him, and the two knives he wears crossed against his lower back. “You’re going to sleep with all your weapons?”

“Yeah.”

“With all the dirt and sweat and fucking blood from fighting?”

“Yeah.” 

“You can’t just… you can’t just get in bed with your outside clothes on, dude!” you splutter, leaning your thigh against the end of the mattress before you, and slow your speech carefully as you declare, “It’s… unsanitary.”

“Oh, and who are you, the sleep police?” Adrian turns to sneer at you. “I thought you were going to take a shower.”

“Well I was, but that was before I knew you weren’t planning on it!” You throw your hand out at him. “Why?”

“Because! If I go to sleep with wet hair it dries all weird, okay? Get off my dick!”

“I’m sure you’ll look just as pretty regardless, Adrian,” you tut condescendingly at him, rolling your eyes as you turn on your heels toward the bathroom. “Do what you want, or fucking join me if you change your mind, I don’t care.”

You don’t register the full weight of your words until you turn on the tap. But, by that time, you also don’t get to see the way Adrian stares at the door to the bathroom like you’ve just presented him with the key to the city.

You very rarely opt for lukewarm showers, but you certainly do now. With the way your blood is humming through your veins like electricity, and you feel hot just from the sight of Adrian’s muscles in that tight fucking shirt, you feel a cold shower is in order. Well, colder, anyways. 

The water pressure is complete bullshit, of course. It pathetically trickles out, and it takes longer than usual for your body to get completely soaked. In that time, you lean against the tile and hold your head in your hands as the water drips down your face. How the fuck are you supposed to sleep in the same room as this guy? Between the way you’re just aching to jump his bones, and his inability to stop talking, you don’t think it’s a possibility tonight.

You wonder what he would sound like when you ride him. You wonder if he would finally shut up, or if he would switch to talking to you like a lover instead of a drinking buddy. You wonder if he would beg, or if he’s more dominant than that. 

You’re imagining his head between your thighs. You’re imagining what he’d look like with your hands tangled in his hair. You’re imagining the feeling of his mouth on your skin, the calloused planes of his palms on your breasts and beneath your thighs. You’re… you’re shaking.

The white shower curtain rips open, and Adrian steps in beside you, naked as the day he was born. “Hey, can you pass the soap?”

“What the fuck?” You turn your head to look at him with a bewildered expression, simply refusing to tear your eyes away from his face because you do not want to cross that line and have the image of his dick imprinted in your brain while you try to get to sleep tonight. “Adrian, what are you doing?”

“Well, you said to join you if I changed my mind.” He shrugs, his smile the absolute picture of innocence, but his eyes still rake slowly down your body before finding your face again. 

You blink, searching for a proper response to that. His eyes are green. Jesus Christ, that’s three for three: dimples, curly hair, and green eyes. He’s trying to kill you. 

“I was being sar-” you cut yourself off with a sigh, “yeah, you know what, I did say that. Shit. Fucking… okay. Whatever. Here.” You fumble with the tiny complimentary body wash tube and thrust it toward him. “Go apeshit.”

“You have a really great ass by the way.”

“Adrian.”  

“What? You do. I’m just being honest. I’m not even saying that because this is the first time I’ve seen you naked, I always thought your ass was nice, there just wasn’t a good time to say it.”

Your face is burning. You turn your back on him and try your hardest not to clap your hands over your eyes or do something equally embarrassing. You don’t think Adrian is even fazed by any of this; he wasn’t wearing his glasses, either, and you don’t know how strong his prescription is. You imagine pretty strong, if he needs it in his visor. Maybe there’s a good chance he can’t see the exact details of your tits. Maybe-

He touches your shoulder, and you feel lather running down your back as he starts massaging circles into your skin.

“Are you washing me?” you wheeze, your voice coming out an octave higher, and you really do cover your face again this time. Your heartbeat pounds in your ears, and you can’t focus on anything other than the touch of his hand on your shoulder blade.

“Uh, yeah? I wash your back, you wash mine, right?” He sounds cheery and completely content with everything that’s happening and, despite the sheer oddness of all of it, you don’t really want him to stop. You guess that’s why you haven’t told him to get the hell out, yet.

Maybe you’re just as much of a lunatic as him. “‘Scratch,’ Adrian. It’s fucking ‘scratch.’” 

He pauses. “What?”

“It’s ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine.’”

“That makes no fucking sense.” He shakes his head in your periphery, his hand resuming its circular motion against your back, moving across to your other shoulder. You feel the soft, wet glide like a molten lava trail.

“Of course it makes sense! Why would it be ‘wash?’”

“Why wouldn’t it be ‘wash?’”

“Because it’s about doing your friends favors,” you argue in a wobbly, strained voice as you shiver while his fingers slide down your spine. It raises goosebumps on your skin, despite the heat in your veins and the cool of the water. “Friends don’t wash each other’s backs, genius.”

“So, we’re not friends?”

His hand pauses again just at the curve of your lower back, where it extends down into your tailbone. You bite your lip, and you can feel his eyes on you, the touch of his gaze almost as real as his hand is. Your thighs clench together involuntarily. You simpering little… weak, desperate thing, you are not going to beg for him to touch you. That’s not it. That’s not how this should go.

But, you could turn around and touch him, too. You could probably kiss him, if you were feeling really adventurous. He just basically implied that he wouldn’t be opposed to fucking you, right? That was where the conversation had been going earlier, if you hadn’t been such a pussy. Neither of you is nearly as subtle as you think you are.

You manage to chew your lip enough to tear a gash in it, and salty, coppery blood hits your tongue. You’re losing it, standing on the precipice of something way bigger than the two of you. You’re just an inch away from becoming more than just friends with Adrian, if you don’t reel it in quickly. Your hand comes up to slam against the wall when his fingers, which seem to be discontented to remain idle, start tracing little shapes on your lower back. A star. A diamond. A heart.

“N… No, I- I mean, we are. But I don’t think we’re going to be, if you keep it up.”

He grunts carelessly. “I’m having a hard time not keeping it up, really.”

“What do you mean?” You turn around, and his hand glides across your lower back and to your hip, because he refuses to stop touching you now (not that you want him to stop, either, if you’re being honest with yourself). Your eyes flick down, and you know exactly what he means, because he’s hard as a rock. 

And also thick, and long, and veiny, but hey. What did you expect?

Your eyes linger on his erection for a long time, and drag your gaze slowly from the burst of dark hair at the base of his cock, up the line of his torso and to his chest. His pale skin is riddled with little scars here and there, from small injuries that weren’t serious enough to slow him down. He has a faint spray of freckles on his shoulders, suggesting that he spends at least some time in the sun. It makes you inordinately flustered to think of him doing some sort of outdoor activities to get that toned body of his. 

You clear your throat as you find his gaze again. “Next dumb question,” you say, and he gives you a wide-eyed, vaguely awestruck look that makes you way more confident than it ought to. “Are you gonna fuck me, Adrian?”

His eyelashes flutter. His cheeks are painted with that sweet pink blush again, like he’s been entirely oblivious to the fact that he’s had you melting for him since he cracked open the bottle of Jim Beam. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“I think it’s a fucking fantastic idea, do you?”  

“Yeah, I do.” And he grabs you by the face to kiss you, and crowds you back against the wall. You give a surprised yelp into his open mouth, your arms coming up to wrap around his neck as your back hits the cold tile. He grunts and brushes his soap covered fingers across your cheeks. “Did you bite your lip?”

“Yeah.”

“...Was that because of me?”

You whimper weakly as he slowly, and very purposefully, traces the length of your bottom lip with his tongue like he’s savoring the taste of your blood. “Yeah.”

“That’s so fucking hot.”

He yanks you up off of your feet, making you squeak and hold in a nervous laugh. Your leg bumps the faucet handle, and the water turns ice cold just as Adrian scrambles to hook your legs around his waist. 

“Shit.” Adrian hisses and smacks the wall beside your hip once or twice before he finds the faucet, because he doesn’t stop kissing you. He’s sloppy and rushed and overexcited, but at least he gets the water running warm against as he presses you up against the wall. “I’ve never done this here, have you?”

“Shower sex? No.” You bite his lip as he hitches you up by the back of your thighs, and he groans as his hips jerk up toward yours. “But I think you’re doing a good job.”

“Wait, fuck. Do we need, like, a condom…?” He blinks at you with a glassy look in his eyes. 

“IUD. I have- it’s all good, you’re fine.” You knock your head back against the wall with a whimper high in your throat as he brushes his cock against your entrance. You can feel the world spinning as you tangle your fingers in his wet hair, giving it a small but sharp tug. “Now, if you don’t fuck me I’m gonna-”

You choke when he drives the full length of his cock into you, pushing your hips back against the wall. Your nails scratch down his neck and across his shoulder blades as he splits you open, your legs tightening around his waist while simultaneously trying to spread wider to accommodate him. Adrian spits a curse into your neck, his teeth grazing a vein there as he ruts up into you, filling you so completely that a cry dies in your throat. 

“God, fuck, Adrian,” you sob toward the ceiling, only too aware of him moaning loudly against your skin. He feels better than you had imagined, stretching you out so perfectly that your toes curl as you try your hardest to draw him forward with your legs alone.

“I knew you’d be perfect,” you catch him whispering into the crook of your neck, just barely audible over the trickle of water over your head.

He doesn’t even give you time to adjust before he starts pistoning his hips into yours, jolting you up the wall. Your skin squeaks against the wet tile, and his grunts echo in the curve of your neck. Tears might actually be streaming down your face, but you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from the warm water coming from the showerhead.

Adrian’s hand comes up to brace against the wall beside your head, and he surprises you. “You really think I’m pretty?” He asks with such a genuine note of hope in his voice that you think he must be serious. 

“I think you’re fucking gorgeous,” you breathe, whining when he nips at your jaw with his teeth. You interrupt your train of thought with a series of hoarse cries, because Adrian picks up the pace with less precision, and more just forceful thrusts that drive all the way to the end of you and make you see stars, regardless.

“You’re the most perfect person in the world and I wish I could paint because the only thing I’d be painting is just you over and over and over-” 

He’s blathering into your shoulder, his mouth brushing your skin as it moves and his hips slamming yours back against the wall hard enough that you’re definitely going to be feeling it in the morning. Every bit of desire you have for him surges up inside you like an inferno catching on, like every stroke he makes is stoking that fire within you.

“-so pretty everyone wants you I can’t believe you would let me touch you or even kiss you but you’re letting me do this to you and it’s all I’ve wanted to do since I first saw you-”

It occurs to you to tell him that you’d let him do anything he wants to you at this point, as long as he just doesn’t stop fucking you- but that’s yet another line you refuse to cross for the sake of self preservation. You’re already drunk, and confessing the true scope of your feelings to him in this state would just be a recipe for disaster. 

Oh god, but he’s like a reckoning. You shake your head to compose yourself and scratch your nails along his neck before you take his face in your hands and draw him up to you. His pupils were already blown out, but you think they nearly eclipse his irises when his hips falter and he sucks in a sharp breath. His dark hair is thoroughly drenched, and water drips down his face in little rivulets that you trace with your fingers just before you draw him to your lips.

You feel his small moan vibrate on your lips, and that’s enough. Your legs spasm, and your orgasm suddenly snaps within you like a rubber band, every muscle in your core tightening down on his cock as you see a burst of white behind your closed eyelids. It snuck up on you just as much as it did him.

“Holy fuck-” Adrian loudly gasps against your lips with a startled jolt of his hips, his full weight crushing you up against the wall. His nose nuzzles yours, so intimate in a way that you hadn’t expected from him, and with a few shuddering huffs of breath you feel him come with a rush of warmth deep inside you.

You’re floating somewhere above awareness when he slouches forward, his forehead resting against yours and his eyes closed as he takes deep, steadying breaths. It takes you a moment to realize that he’s just holding you, with his fingers digging into your thighs like he’s just trying to ground himself in your body.

You raise a shaking hand to smooth his wet hair back from his face. “Earth to Adrian. You still with me, babe?”

He grumbles something entirely non-coherent directly in front of your face, and blinks his eyes groggily open at you. 

“The alcohol’s catching up with you, huh?”

He nods.

“Guess I’m washing your back, anyways. C’mon.” You wiggle out of his grip, and you’re only too thankful that you’re smushed up against the shower wall, or else you may have easily slipped and ate shit on the tile. The alcohol is fucking with your head quite a bit now, too, and your movements are a little jerky and uncoordinated as you try to help him get cleaned up.

He’s uncharacteristically quiet. The rest of the shower takes place in complete silence, actually, with the exception of the little grunt he makes when you urge him to bend down so you can get his hair for him. You catch him looking a little dazed as you turn off the water, and he gives you an unfocused stare when you toss a towel at him. You wonder if you actually succeeded in frying the guy’s brains just by fucking him.

But then, back in the room as you clumsily dig through your bag to pull out a night shirt and a pair of underwear, Adrian shuffles directly to his bed and tosses his towel aside before clambouring into it, bare ass to the wind. He flops down face first, and shoves his feet under the turned down comforter.

“Adrian… what are you doing?” You say for what feels like the millionth time this evening. 

“‘M going to bed,” he drawls into the pillow. His entire body shakes as he hiccups, and then turns his head to the side to look up at you with his big green doe-eyes that make your heart do a somersault in your ribcage. “You should tooootally join me. There’s-” hiccup- “lotsa room. We could go again.”

You blink at him as you semi-stagger, semi-walk toward the bed, stooping to pick up pieces of his uniform strewn across the floor as he had, presumably, just ripped everything off as he made his way to the bathroom. “Mm, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Uh, you said it was a great idea,” he argues as you toss his clothes into a pile at the end of the bed.

“That was before the whisky kicked in and we were both staggering… fuckin… drunk-” you accidentally whack your foot against the corner of the bed and bite your lip as you fight not to crumble to the floor. “One of us has to be responsible.”

“I’m-” hiccup- “responstable.”

“Uh-huh.” You stop as your eyes land on the mostly empty Jim Beam bottle on the bedside table. You’re almost positive it had been at least quarter full when you left him to go take a shower. “Adrian, did you drink all that?”

He blinks his eyes open and follows your pointing finger to the bottle. “Oh, yeah. Hhhuuuhh… had to… I lost the cap so we can’t keep it.” When you march forward to snatch it off the table, he grunts dismissively. “Gotta… get rid of it.”

“Guess that’s why you’re worse off than me.” You shake your head and drop the entire bottle into the trash bin. “Aren’t you gonna put something on to sleep in?”

“I don’t have anything.”

You snap your head towards his sprawling, naked form. Your eyes linger on his ass for way too long. “You didn’t bring a single thing to wear?”

“Why… why would I bring a change of clothes to kill bad guys?” 

“I don’t fuckin’ know! Anonymity!” 

He grumbles into the pillow, “I have a mask.”

“Fuck the mask. You can’t sleep in the mask.”

“Sure I can. I fuck in the mask, I can sleep in it. S’a free country.”

You blink, your eyes flicking between Adrian and the mask on the table. “Dude, you fuck in that thing?”

“Hell yeah I do. I could fuck you in the mask. Could do it right now. Go get the mask.” Despite the conviction of his words, he’s slurring them, and his face is still pressed into his pillow as he lies motionless on the bed. 

“I… don’t think that’s gonna happen tonight.” You sigh as you toe forward and grab the end of his comforter, drawing it up over his body. “We’re both way too drunk. We probably… probably shouldn’t have…”

Adrian flops over to look up at you as you, essentially, tuck him in. There’s a note of hurt in his voice when he mumbles, “You regret it?”

You pause, staring down at his expression of confusion and betrayal. Do you regret it? You can’t deny that you hadn’t been hesitant to have sex with him for a litany of reasons- one being that you work with him, and another being that he’s a loose cannon on the best of days. Not exactly relationship material, you think. 

Or, you thought, but now he’s gazing up at you with these wide, dumbfounded eyes, and you’re tucking the comforter up beneath his chin, and he turns his face down and kisses your knuckle even though he looks mildly hurt. And yes, you liked the sex very much. You liked it so much that you can’t trust yourself not to do it again if you don’t shuffle off to your own bed immediately.

“No,” you tell him firmly, combing your fingers through his wet hair as you draw back. “I don’t regret it, but I think we both need to sleep this off.”

“Okay,” Adrian says quietly, his expression relaxing, but his arms come out from under the comforter and he reaches for you with grabby-hands. “Sleep with me?”

You catch one of his hands and give it a gentle squeeze. “G’night, Adrian.”

You hear him sigh in disappointment when you shut off the bedside lamp. His hands audibly plop down onto the mattress as he rasps, “Night.”

You wake from a dreamless sleep sometime in the early hours of the morning, and your throat is bone dry. Smacking at the nightstand a couple times, your phone manages to illuminate and tell you that the time is only 1:30. 

You blink sleep away from your eyes and try to see through the dark as you stumble into the combination vanity, closet, and kitchenette. You knew you brought a water bottle or two, it can’t be that hard to find-

“Hey, what’cha doing?”

You hardly even startle at this point. You’re slowly becoming acclimated to the idea that Adrian is just constantly awake and witness to your every move, which isn’t as disconcerting to you as one might think. “I’m looking for the water. Did you see where I put it?”

“Uhhhhh mini-fridge?”

You reach blindly under the counter and yank the little fridge open, once again smacking around until your hand lands on the shape of a water bottle. “You want some?”

“Yeah, you could spit it into my open mouth-”

“Adrian.”

“What? It would be fucking sexy.” Adrian grunts, and the light clicks on from the main room. Then, he wolf-whistles just before you straighten up from where he’d caught you, bent over in front of the fridge. “Y’know, I was right. You have a really great ass.”

You grumble a half-hearted thanks under your breath as you approach his bedside and thrust a water bottle at him. “I see you’ve sobered up a bit.”

He waves a hand at you dismissively. “Pshh, I wasn’t that drunk.”

“You were drooling all over your pillow.”

“Maybe I always do that.”

“Yeah, okay.” There’s a long pause, wherein you perch on the edge of your mattress and chug an obscene amount of water. Adrian watches your throat work until he, too, succumbs and lifts his bottle to his lips. 

An uncomfortably heavy silence settles between you two, only permeated by the quiet sipping of water and the cheap motel AC unit kicking in. It’s entirely unlike him to be silent and still for more than a couple of seconds, but he’s just sitting there looking despondent and running a hand back and forth over the white comforter, periodically lifting his bottle to take another drink. He doesn’t even really look tired, and you wonder if he ever got to sleep in the first place.

You know that the tension in the air is so thick because you have yet to address the giant fucking elephant in the room; and to address it is to have the most awkward and intimate conversation you can possibly imagine with Adrian, of all people. As much as you love his sense of humor, the idea of baring your soul to him is almost enough to have you running into the bathroom again, and locking the damn door this time.

But, in true Adrian fashion (because damn it all to hell if he ever lets something be), he beats you to the punch. “So, are you? Sober now, I mean.”

You chew your lip again, and reopen the gash you’d put there before. “Yeah. I am.”

He nods, pursing his lips as he looks down at his lap. He was right, his hair does dry… well, not weird, but just rather unruly if he goes to bed with it wet. Dark curls stick up at odd angles, a cowlick on the back of his crown standing straight up and begging you to come over and smooth it down. More curls fall across his forehead and nearly touch the top of his glasses. He blinks slowly, and severe shadows from his lashes cross his face in the golden light of the bedside lamp. You snap your gaze away, the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end.

“So… was that a lie? About just needing to sober up?”

Your thumbs twitch on your bottle. To tell the truth, or to lie? You feel like your mouth just stays dry, no matter how much water you drink. “Look, Adrian, I-”

“Also, I have, like, no pride and a ridiculously thick skull, or- or whatever Peacemaker calls it. So, you don’t have to beat around the bush or anything for my sake, you probably won’t even hurt me-”

“Adrian, I like you too fucking much, don’t you get it?” 

That fully shuts him up, and he locks his jaw as he fixes you with a startled look. You suck your bottom lip through your teeth, perturbed at the taste of blood still apparent on it, and dig your heels into the carpet. 

“The last thing I want to do is hurt you. You’re… one of my closest friends, all right? But I’m afraid that if we keep going like this, I’m not going to want to be friends anymore. And I think I’ll fall in love with you really quickly, and that might be a really bad idea for both of us. You just…” You shake your head, your voice dipping in volume as you stare bashfully down at your feet, “you have no clue how much I want you all the time, baby.”

“Why would it be a bad idea?” he asks you plainly.

“What?” You pick your eyes up off the floor to squint at him, finding him staring at you challengingly, a flush already on his cheeks. 

“I mean, honestly. Name a single reason why it would be a bad idea. Bet’cha can’t.” Adrian throws his empty water bottle across the room, and it makes a gentle tap against the side of the television before skittering to the floor. “I think we’d fuck like rabbits and then I’d wake up every morning and make you pancakes, because I’m really fucking good at those, but you’d have to make the eggs because I always burn them. And I think we’d kick ass together as a cool superhero power couple, and I’d carry your gun for you if you got tired, and I could show you where all my hidden knives are. And you could also do anything you wanted to me, like any time, and I’d be totally fine with it and probably also turned on by it, as long as you call me baby like you just did.”

“Are you serious?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m super hard right now. Probably should’ve warned you, I have a thing about that-”

“No, smartass, I mean are you serious about the other stuff?” You tilt your head at him. “I never really took you for the domestic sort.”

“Tsch- yeah! I’m, like, super domestic. I’m like one of those domestic...ated... cats?” He trails off as you step forward and crawl onto his bed, up his legs to straddle his lap.

“Cats?” you repeat with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m… I…” Adrian’s eyes flick across your face, down to your shirt and bare thighs on either side of his, your knees pressing the comforter taut across his lap and (very prominent) erection. “I don’t know, I have trouble thinking when you’re on top of me-”

Nodding, you reach forward and take his glasses by the wire earpieces, and pull them from his face. He goes stock still, his lips parted in awe as you slide them onto your own face, and give him a sweet smile. “I like your glasses. They look good on you.”

“They look good on you.” His voice cracks. “Can you see in them?”

You blink at him, and then turn your head to look across the room. “A lot better than I thought I would. I think our prescriptions are similar.”

“That means you can also wear my mask.” 

You look back at him, and find that he has his million-mile stare on, like he’s completely lost in thought. You smirk. “Do you want me to wear the mask?”

He blinks, and it’s like you’ve flipped a switch and turned his focus back on. “Uh… no. I mean, yes. Maybe later. I want to look at you.” His eyelashes flutter so fast you think he might take flight for a second. “You’re so fucking beautiful I could stare at you all day.”

“You can touch me, too. Don’t be shy.”

He practically vibrates with anticipation as his palms glide up your thighs, hot and big and just a bit rough. His eyes are everywhere at once; your lips, your eyes, your chest, your thighs, where your hips disappear under your oversized shirt. His fingers catch the hem, and he curls it between them.

“You should totally get naked, too. It’s super unfair that I’m the only one naked right now,” he says breathlessly, nodding the whole time like he’s trying to convince himself as much as you.

“So, do it.” You shrug, trailing a finger up his chest. “Take it off, baby.”

Adrian fists the hem of your shirt and rips it in half up the middle with a loud tear. You gasp, shivering as the garment falls from your shoulders and leaves you in just your panties. “Adrian!”

His eyes are trained on your tits. “What? It’s not like you need it tonight, anyways, and tomorrow we’ll be home…”

“What if that was my only shirt?” you retort.

He looks up at you. “Was it?”

“Well, no-”

“Then there’s your answer. Now, can I go down on you? Because I’ve wanted to for a really long time and I think it’s super hot that you’re wearing my glasses so it’s like I’m watching myself eat your pussy.”

He has such a hopeful expression on his face that you have to hold in a manic string of laughter as you nod at him. “Yeah, sure. Are you going to tear up my underwear, too?”

“No, I wanna keep those.”

“That makes perfect sense.” You shake your head before you kiss him deeply, and his tongue dips into your mouth as he rolls over with you, briefly getting tangled in the sheets before he roughly kicks them off. 

You run your fingers through his hair, snickering as he climbs between your legs and his hands deftly tug your panties down. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Depends on how incriminating it is.”

“I’ve never come from someone eating me out before,” you admit quietly, a blush furiously heating your cheeks until you fear that if you touch your face you might burn yourself. 

Adrian fixes you with a deadpan stare, and a slew of emotions cross his face before he lands on something relatively serene and says, “Okay.”

“Okay?” 

He nods and grins, like this is the most casual conversation in the world, and his green eyes bore into yours. “Yeah. You should probably, uh… hold on, though.”

You frown in confusion. “To what?”

He rocks back on his knees, picking up your arms by the wrists, and he very simply places your hands on his head, with a little smile that conveys, ‘it’s no big deal,’ but the tenderness with which he does it sends another message, altogether. Your fingers weave between soft, unruly curls, your fingernails digging in just a bit when he lowers himself down between your thighs, and you come to the conclusion that this is just how he is. Tenderness, closeness, hidden behind casual sighs and dismissive shrugs.

You’re learning. Slowly. 

His breath finds you before his lips do, where you’re wet and swollen and slippery like you haven’t been touched in your fucking life. But he has once already, and still his mouth feels like a searing hot brand between your legs. In fact, you nearly jump out of your skin at the first brush of his tongue through your folds, your hands tightening on his hair and tugging as you buck your hips up against him. 

Adrian grasps your hips and slams them down against the mattress. Sometimes you forget how fucking strong he is. His slight frame really doesn’t give justice to the force behind those lean muscles, because he holds you in an iron grip that you can hardly wiggle out of. It makes you feel small, in a way, that he holds you hostage to his tongue and won’t let you move away from or towards him. 

A long, miserable whine rips out of your lips before you can stop it, and you could blush at how pathetic it sounds, except that Adrian mimics it with a groan against your cunt. Your head is flung back against the pillows, but when you just barely tilt up to glance down at him, you find his green eyes trained directly on you. They start off wide as moons, and then narrow like he’s challenging you to look away as he drags the flat expanse of his tongue slowly over your clit, curling the tip just as it skims the mark.

“Oh, fuck you, Adrian, you’re so fucking good,” you grit out through clenched teeth. Your nails dig into his scalp and he shudders, briefly nuzzling his head up into your touch before he dips down to give you his tongue again. Your breath hitches, and your eyes flutter shut when he sucks on your clit long and hard. “So… s-so good… good boy…”

The moan that Adrian makes is overtly pornographic, and his hips snap once against the mattress so hard that the bed shakes beneath you. He breaks away from you to rest his forehead against your thigh, squeezing your hips tightly in his hold as his hot breath billows across your sweat-damp skin.

You loosen your fingers in his hair to stroke it softly, subconsciously struggling to flatten the cowlick at the back that you’d noticed earlier. Adrian’s eyes are squeezed shut, his shoulders heaving while he tries to steady his breath through his nose. “Did you just come?”

The tips of Adrian’s ears glow pink. He gives you a little nod and then a feeble, “Couldn’t help it.”

So, he can’t just take his praise in stride, he has to react to it with fervor. “That’s really sexy of you,” you blurt out, your voice ragged and just this side of adoring. 

He returns with a quiet mmm, rumbling across your skin as he drags his open mouth along the sensitive flesh of your thigh, his eyes drowsily shut. It takes him another moment to catch his breath, but once he does, he’s right back at it again. Dipping his head down and absolutely going for it with no signs of letting up, and you have to suck in a deep stream of air and scramble for a hold on him somehow.

“Oh- oh my fuckin-g god-” your voice comes out without thinking, wrung thin and anguished, as your foot plants itself in his shoulder. Adrian simply grunts, paying no mind to the fact that you’re effectively kicking the living shit out of him as he sucks so hard on your clit that you threaten to break his vise-hold on your hips.

He was right that you needed something to hold onto, because you feel like you might leave the ground. He works at you relentlessly, devouring you with his lips and tongue and teeth like he can’t get enough of you, his fingertips pressing so hard into your hips that his nails are turning stark white. 

“Fuck, you’re so squirmy,” Adrian groans when he pulls away from you for half a second, and struggles to hold you down when you try to chase his mouth. “Should I tie you down?”

“Do you have anything to tie me down with?” you mutter breathlessly toward the ceiling.

A beat. “Nope. Stay still.”

You fight not to jolt as the next touch of his mouth on you. He dips his tongue into your channel, seemingly trying to draw your arousal out of you that way. You start whining when he finally nuzzles his way back up, giving you soft, teasing licks to your clit that edge you closer and closer to the release of the swell of heat you feel building in your core. Your volume turns up a notch when his tongue starts drawing little circles around the swollen flesh. 

And when his lips come down to latch onto it and gently suck, you know you’re just shy of howling. His soft groans vibrate onto your skin as you scratch at his head and pull on his hair, and you eventually find yourself babbling, “Adrian, please, I’m gonna come, please pleasepleaseplease-”

He sucks harder, moaning like it turns him on just to hear you say it. You heave a few rapid breaths, and then come against his face with a cry that crackles and breaks in your throat as your head arches back, baring your neck forward. Your heels digging into his back, hands scratching, hips flailing like you can somehow escape the barrage of hypersensitivity he’s putting you through.

You really fucking hope no one is in the room next to yours.

His fingertips stick to your skin once he releases his grip on you. He’s practically glowing, grinning from ear to ear at you from between your legs, and it’s a better image than you had imagined. 

You drop your head back with a breathless chuckle. “Okay, Mr. ‘I Have No Pride.’”

“I made you come,” he chirps happily.

“Yeah, you did. It was really good, too.”

“So, why didn’t anyone else?” Adrian pushes his head toward your touch when you stroke your hand gently through his hair. 

“I dunno. They weren’t applying themselves, I guess.”

“That’s stupid. You’re, like, the hottest person ever. Hotter than Doja Cat,” he grumbles petulantly, and you can tell by the look in his eye that he’s dead serious. “Want me to kill them? I should kill them.”

“No.” You trail your fingers down the curve of his face, going for his chin, but he turns his face and sucks your two fingers into his mouth before you can manage it. You stop dead as the pad of his tongue swirls around the digits, and he blinks up at you innocently, despite the lewd connotations of the act. “N-no, I… hhhhh… you’re distracting me.”

He bats his eyes at you, and he slowly pulls back along your fingers until they pop out of his mouth, covered in saliva. “How am I distracting you?”

“You’re- you… you little shit.” You grab him by the chin and draw him up from between your legs. He clumsily crawls up the length of your torso with his cheeks smushed between your fingers as you hiss, “I’m going to fuck the ever-loving shit out of you, I swear to god.” 

“You know, that sounds slightly menacing when you say it like that,” he slurs, his jaw working against your hold. 

“On your back, Chase.”

He grabs you before you can protest, and rolls back over so that you plop down on top of him, your hand still jammed up against his jaw. A blast of air comes out of your lungs in lieu of laughter, and Adrian snorts, shuffling his hips so that he moves back against the pillows.

“Okay, look, I really really really like you,” he says as you pick yourself up, straddling his lap, “but if you’re too good at this I might accidentally fall in love with you. Just to let you know what you’re getting into here.”

“Oh, is that so?” 

“Yeah, and I think I might actually, um, ask you to move in with me, like, immediately. Like tomorrow. Do you rent or own? Doesn’t matter, I can put your name on the lease. Maybe if you own a house it can be income property-”

You cast your eyes down and find him, remarkably, hard and leaking precum as he continues babbling about living situations. You tilt your head, letting him get his stream of consciousness out there in the open, as your eyes catch on a dark wad of fabric beside his pillow. Your underwear, which he’d gingerly set aside instead of tossing across the room like you thought he would.

“Hm, Adrian?”

He blinks up at you, his eyes wide and dilated. “Yeah?”

You pick up the wadded up underwear. “You wanted to keep these, right?”

He licks his lips. “Um. Yes.”

“Hold them for me, then.” You grab his jaw and stuff them in his mouth, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull as he makes a noise of protest, but then actually moans when, presumably, he tastes you on them. “You’re so fucking cute, I haven’t even tied you up. You just want my taste in your mouth, huh?” He nods. “Yeah. Pretty boy.”

He predictably moans again, his hands grasping at every part of you they can reach; your arms, your breasts, the expanse of his palms gliding down the curve of your waist and settling on your thighs. You grab one, lifting it and settling his palm against your throat.

“Hold this for me, too?” You ask him sweetly, giving his bewildered expression a devilish smirk in return. You rock forward, sliding your dripping pussy along his erection, and his hand tightens on your throat just a bit. “That’s it.”

You pick your hips up, reaching between your legs to position him where you want him, and when you sink down onto his cock, the underwear in his mouth does nothing to muffle the obscene groan that he makes. His hand flexes on your throat, and his eyes close and open a few times as he tries to maintain a certain amount of control. Something tells you that he’s not really used to taking it lying down. 

You’re already decently sore from the way he effectively fucked your brains out in the shower. This is just ensuring that you’re going to be feeling it for the rest of the week, but you can’t help yourself. You take him in all the way, making agonized noises the entire time, and then jolt your hips down a little more so you can feel him bottom out. 

“Fucking hell, baby, you’re something else,” you snarl down at him, and his eyes go wide again as you squeeze him, every bit of your aching strength bearing down onto his cock until he whines loudly through the fabric and his fingers tighten on the sides of your throat. “Oh, god, I could ruin you. You could ruin me. I want you to, it would be so easy for you, I wouldn’t even be able to walk in the morning.”

And you’re moving, picking up your hips and letting them fall back down in slow, deep strokes that have him writhing, his free hand in a death grip on your thigh. You raise your hand to press against the back of his on your throat, your fingers weaving in between his, and he flexes them back a bit to make room. 

Even when he’s gagged, he’s noisy. Keening and grunting at you, his jaw tightening every once in a while and the tendons of his neck jumping out at you when your hips meet his. Dark curls hang down his forehead, damp with sweat, and you can’t help but feel like the shower was useless.

No, not useless. It brought you here.

Adrian bucks his hips up suddenly, meeting you halfway when you take a particularly long time on the downstroke. You gasp, tightening your hand on his, and your nails dig into his chest. 

“Oh, you want me to ruin you, don’t you?” You murmur at him, baiting him to do it again. And he does, just like you hoped he would. You pick up the pace in retaliation, letting the lewd sounds of your skin hitting his fill the room. “Silly boy, I knew you would.”

He whimpers, blinking up at you slowly, his face screwing up and tightening in earnest when you rake your nails up and down his chest. He makes a couple pathetic, weak groans in the back of his throat like he wants to convey something to you, but he’s not reaching up to remove your underwear from his mouth.

(You wonder if he even remembers that he can.)

“You gonna come for me?” you ask as his whimpers increase in volume. His cock is so hard, twitching and dragging thick inside you, and his chest jumps with every desperate, ragged breath he takes. “Yeah, you are. Go on, baby, make a mess.”

Adrian gives you a curt shake of his head, and paws at your thigh for a second before his hand slides forward, and his thumb touches your clit.

“Oh fuck, Adrian-” you lurch forward, pressing your throat hard against his palm, your legs seizing up on either side of his hips. He makes you come again with a single fucking touch, and it burns through your core like fire, almost more satisfying than the first because you’re able to feel him inside you this time, something warm and hard and thick to come on.

Apparently, that was all he needed in order to let go. His back arches a bit as he jerks his hips up into yours, and he fills your pulsing cunt until his shallow breaths rattle in his throat, his eyes squeezed so tight that you see a tear collecting in the corner of one. He lays with his head driven back hard into the pillow, whimpering and whining like he’s been mortally wounded. 

Too sore to move just yet, you pull his hand away from your throat and kiss his palm. Adrian’s eyes flutter open, and he finds you with a glazed-over stare, like he might either see you or see through you. Still letting out soft whimpers with each harsh exhale. 

“Oh. Sweetheart,” you giggle, and reach forward to pull the wad of underwear from his mouth. It comes out with a long string of his spit attached to it, and you give him a cheeky smirk as you break the string with your finger and lick it off, rather than wiping it on your skin. 

“You… you’re…” You swear his eyes nearly roll back in his skull before he closes them, trying to collect himself. He takes a deep, long breath, and then splutters, “Willyoumarrymeactually?”

You give him your biggest, goofiest grin, a little bubble of laughter wedging itself deep in your chest. “Get a little more whisky in me, and we’ll see what bright ideas I have then.”

“Okay.”

You lift yourself off of his softening cock, and the release comes with a dribble of his cum sliding down your thigh. He groans, but with one look at him you know that there’s not going to be any more action for the rest of the night. 

You shift to the left, and his hand smacks down onto your thigh. “Mmmm no, you sleep with me.”

“Yeah, obviously. But you came all over the sheets earlier, genius.”

“Oh.”

He takes a deep breath in and opens his eyes in time to see you taking his glasses off. You blink a few times, your eyes having adjusted to the slight difference in your prescriptions, and refocus on his face to find him gazing up at you adoringly. 

“I’m gonna take a guess and say you don’t sleep in these, too?” You wiggle the glasses at him. 

He licks his lips. “No, not… not usually.”

You set the glasses on the bedside table, and then slowly slide off of him, off the bed and onto shaky legs. You take his hand and tug just a bit. “C’mon, pretty. Into my bed.”

He follows your lead without a fuss, making the two step journey to the other bed and plopping down face-first. 

“D’you wanna get pancakes when we wake up?” he asks around a yawn as you nudge his ass, prodding him to scoot over. 

You nod furiously, even though you know he can’t see you as you switch the light off and climb in beside him, curling up against his warm back. “Pancakes sound fucking delicious.”

“Not as delicious as your pus-”

“Adrian.”

"Honey, we have to get back to Hawkins. Steve isn't answering the phone," Maggie said when her call to Robert's office phone was picked up. Even the secretary had sounded surprised when Maggie rang—everyone was aware that Robert Harrington was not bothered during his very important work days.

But this was no ordinary day. This was a day after a mall fire, and their Steve wasn't picking up the phone. He always picked up the phone when she called.

Even in the face of losing their everything, Robert managed to sound annoyed by Maggie's interruption of his workday. "He's probably passed out drunk with that Hagan boy again. I won't miss another important meeting over a hangover."

"But what if he was in the fi—"

"That ice cream shop of his doesn't stay open that late. Nothing in the mall does. He's fine, Maggie. You're overreacting, and we'll be able to laugh at this later."

Fifty minutes. That's how long Maggie managed to listen to Robert's advice before she threw clothes in the first bag she could find and hailed a taxi to the airport. It was the most disorganized plan she'd ever come up with in her life, but all she could think about was her Steve, trapped somewhere within the rubble remains of the building, unable to let anyone know he was still there.

That was the only explanation, the only reason she wouldn't have heard anything yet.

It's not until that afternoon that Maggie arrived in Hawkins. Though closer in miles, her mind still failed to focus on anything other than her son.

What if the worst had happened?

There was so much time missing. The moment Steve had been old enough to take care of himself for a weekend, Maggie had chosen to follow Robert along on all of his business trips. It was easier that way, to pretend as though he wouldn't be betraying her if she hadn't accompanied him. Besides, Steve had always been a good kid. He was fine on his own, always. He told them he never minded it, that it meant he could have a couple of friends over without worrying about keeping too quiet. It was better this way.

Somehow, along the way, a weekend turned into a long weekend, and then eventually a week. And, as their son approached adulthood, Maggie recalled more nights spent calling him to check on him versus being able to hear it straight from him in person. Even then, those calls slowly got shorter until she barely heard more from him than a quick "I'm fine, promise."

God, what she wouldn't give now for all of those years back. Maggie would throw all of it away for one swim meet, for one junior prom, or even one more family dinner spent without yelling about responsibilities and high expectations of the Harrington name. What the hell did a family legacy mean anymore, if it all lead to their Steve being in the mall when it burned down?

All she needed was for Steve to be anywhere but underneath the ruins of Starcourt Mall.

Except, the more Maggie Harrington looked for answers, the more it seemed to be headed for the worst.

Steve wasn't at the house. Nor did Tommy Hagan or Carol Perkins know where he was. In fact, they were quite clear that they never knew where he was nowadays, considering how he'd cut them out of his life entirely.

And that, well, that didn't sound like the Steve that Maggie knew at all. He'd been friends with the two of them his entire life, ever since Bruce Hagan and Robert had introduced their sons to each other as toddlers.

Maggie knew that Steve had a rough go of it after that poor girl went missing at one of his parties, but did that really warrant cutting off all of his friends?

The police station wasn't any help to Maggie, either, stating that there was too much chaos right now, given the recent loss of their chief, Jim Hopper. He'd been a rather brusque man, but he certainly didn't deserve the fate he'd been given. Maggie couldn't grieve for the man yet, though—not until the weight pressing against her chest was lifted. Not until she knew Steve was okay. Oddly enough, though, they did say there had been a handful of kids and some mall workers at the fire site. They didn't know who, though, just that they'd all said Chief Hopper had saved them.

Maggie spent the rest of the day moving from place to place in town, searching for anyone who might have seen her son. There was no one, though. Nothing could help her except for the one place she'd been trying all afternoon to avoid.

By the end of the day, there was no choice but to face the truth. Maggie approached Hawkins Memorial Hospital cautiously, eyes sweeping the lobby as if she might find her son sitting there waiting for someone else.

"How can I help you, ma'am?" the woman at the front desk asked. It wasn't until the third time she asked that Maggie registered the question and was able to force the words out of her mouth.

"Do you have a patient here by the name Steve Harrington?" The words tasted like ash on her tongue and felt heavy on her lips. Even still, she couldn't tell what she wanted the answer to be. A yes, and it meant her poor boy was hurt badly enough to be admitted. Yet, a no meant she still had no idea what happened to him, or if he actually was anywhere near the mall when the fire occurred.

For all she knew, Robert could have been right, and he was simply off nursing a bad hangover with his new friends that didn't include Tommy Hagan. What Maggie wouldn't give now for that to be true. She'd never yell at him for throwing his life away like this ever again if it meant he had a life. God, they'd been too hard on him, and now that could mean that he was here. Did they put their own son here?

"Yes, ma'am, we do. It looks like he was brought in last night by EMS. Are you family?"

The woman's words were simple, matter-of-fact, but hit Maggie's chest like solid blows.

Steve. EMS. Last night.

"Was he—was he in that mall fire?" Maggie's voice had never sounded so small, so unsure. "Is he alive? I need to see him."

"Are you a family member?"

"I'm his mother." Her voice cracked around the word as the tears she'd held back all day finally slipped from her eyes. Maggie Harrington did not break under any pressure placed on her shoulders, and certainly would never do so in public, and yet now she stood in the middle of the hospital lobby with fresh tears carving tracks down her face. "Why wasn't I informed of this? I am his mother, I should know when he gets hurt. I should know when he needs an ambulance, I should know when he's in a goddamn mall fire because I'm his mother! Why didn't I know?"

"Mrs. Harrington, please," the woman at the desk spoke, stern though revealing a hint of sympathy as she watched Maggie crack. "I understand you're upset, but his medical team followed his wishes. They called his emergency contact as soon as he was stabilized."

Stabilized, implying that at one time, Maggie's son had not been in stable condition. He could have died last night, and she wouldn't have known.

At this rate, Maggie was going to pass out in this hospital lobby.

"I didn't get any calls last night," Maggie insisted.

The front desk woman hesitated before clarifying, "We didn't call you last night, Mrs. Harrington. Steve Harrington's emergency contact is a Mrs. Sue Sinclair."

Sue Sinclair? Maggie ran through the other people in Hawkins, thinking through each of the parents she knew who had kids Steve's age. No one by the name of Sue Sinclair came to mind, so what the hell was this woman doing as Maggie's son's emergency contact?

"No, this must be a mistake. I've always been his emergency contact. I'm his mother."

Steve had gotten hurt, and it hadn't been her that he wanted to call. Maggie's stomach turned over and over in her abdomen, and though she hadn't eaten anything since seeing the news on her TV, she could feel the sick growing. What if something worse had happened? Would they have even thought to call her?

Would she have ever known if the Chicago news station hadn't thought to air the news?

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Harrington, it's all right here on file. But I can take you to see him if you'd like. You just have to promise me to be quiet; visiting hours are technically over already." The front desk woman was a saint. Maggie would never be able to thank her enough for this, didn't really have the words to anyway. So she nodded and followed silently through the halls of the hospital.

The entire walk was spent trying to prepare for the state of her son she was about to see. They hadn't told her much, only that he'd needed an ambulance ride and that he had in fact been in the fire. Maggie was expecting large swaths of painful burns to cover her son, or for him to be hooked up to countless machines doing the work of living for him.

Maggie Harrington's first thought when she saw him was that there had to be a mistake, because it didn't look like Steve was in a fire. It looked more like he'd been beaten, considering all the wrapped-up cuts and swollen bruises covering him. Steve was asleep, it looked like, though only IVs of what looked like fluids were connected to his arm and the monitor that emitted a gentle beep with every beat of his heart.

Steve was okay. He was hurt, but he wasn't burned beyond recognition. He was okay.

He also wasn't alone.

There was a little girl asleep on the little couch in the room, head in the lap of the woman who had to be her mother. Both she and the man next to her looked like they'd been woken up to be here, dressed in rumpled clothes and looking downright exhausted.

Maggie didn't recognize them, but they were here for her Steve, and that was good enough for her.

"Are you Steve's mom?" the woman asked after a few moments of Maggie standing in the hospital room without saying anything.

She longed to hold her boy, to wipe away the pain he must be feeling now, even as he slept. She couldn't move, though, couldn't do anything but stand in the doorway feeling more helpless than she ever had before.

"I'm sorry, yes, I am. Maggie," she introduced to the woman, glancing away from Steve for only a moment, to glance back at the woman. "Pardon me, but how do you know Steve?"

There wasn't anyone his age in sight, though she supposed one of his friends could have been hurt too. Wouldn't this family want to be with their own kid, though, if he were hurt too?

"We don't, not really but..." The woman sighed and picked the little girl's head up so she could stand. She walked closer enough to Maggie to hug her, gentle at first but tighter when Maggie leaned into it.

God, she'd been alone all day. No one had cared enough to hug her, but this woman had. Not even Maggie's husband could be here.

"Steve saved our little girl's life tonight," the woman said after pulling back enough to grip onto Maggie's elbows, as if to keep her standing. Only another mother who'd been here before would know she needed that strength right now. "Erica told us everything, how he'd sacrificed himself to get her out of that building safely."

Sacrificed. The word sent bile into Maggie's throat, but one look at her son safe in his hospital bed was enough to settle her fear.

"We've been wanting to speak to his parents, after last year," the man spoke, standing up and moving over to her too. "To thank you, for raising such a fine boy."

What? Maggie thought back to last year, trying to recall anything that had been out of the ordinary. They'd been traveling more, but Steve hadn't told them about anything happening.

"What happened last year?"

"He didn't tell you?" the woman seemed confused, and as surprised as she was.

"Steve was babysitting our son, Lucas, and all of his friends," the man explained. "Lucas told us about how he defended him against another boy, one who was...," the man paused, clearly too overcome with anger at the situation to say it aloud, "who was the exact sort of person we warn our kids about."

"We brought him here, too, back then," the woman was quick to reassure, but the words did nothing but settle something icy and cold in Maggie's chest. "We made sure he got the attention he needed. Steve told us he would call you to let you know he was okay, I assumed..."

"He didn't. He never told me," Maggie practically gasped, watching these two parents look upon her son so fondly. Steve hadn't even told her that he'd been in the hospital last year. These two people had been there when she wasn't.

She wasn't there.

Where had she and Robert gone so wrong that when their boy was in the hospital, it was this woman that he wanted to call first instead of them?

"You're Mrs. Sinclair, aren't you? The nurse outside told me you were called for him first."

"Please, it's Sue," the woman said. "This is my husband, Charles. Steve told us you have to travel for work a lot. When he asked us if we would be his emergency contact, he said it was because we were in town and could be here quicker. I assumed he was telling you all of this. I never wanted to impose..."

"Thank you," Maggie breathed out quickly, though the sharp pain in her chest never eased. "Thank you for being there for him. I'm glad Steve's had someone looking after him."

Even when she'd disappointed him, Steve had always defended her. Traveling for work, he'd told the Sinclairs, as if he didn't figure out the truth of why she always went on his father's business trips years ago.

A small noise from Steve halted the conversation. It was high-pitched and whining as he began to move about in the bed. He was in pain, Maggie realized with a startled gasp. Her son didn't wake up fully, though the noises only continued every once in a while.

"Aren't they giving him anything to help?" Maggie asked, sure she was looking a little wild-eyed at the Sinclairs when no one on staff came into the room to check on him. "He's in pain."

"I—" Sue began, though she cut herself off and looked to her husband as if for help.

The way the man's expression darkened considerably did nothing to ease Maggie's nerves.

"They won't tell us much about what happened," Charles started, voice low as though sharing a secret. "But we all know injuries like that don't happen from a fire."

Exactly like Maggie had thought when she'd first seen Steve.

"It's all strange. There was a man here, a Dr. Owens. He said he's from the federal government. He said—"

"What? What did he say?" Maggie pressed when Charles paused, looking at her with clear hesitation.

"He said they can't give Steve any pain medications right now. He was, Steve was drugged with something, some kind of experimental drug, and they don't know how anything will interact with it. There's nothing they can do to help him right now."

The only comfort Maggie had was that Charles and Sue Sinclair appeared as livid about the situation as she felt.

"Drugged?" Maggie gasped, looking between Charles and her son's unconscious form as if waiting for the admission that this was all some cruel joke.

It never came.

"So this Dr. Owens's story is that my son was drugged with some unknown drug and somehow ended up looking like he was beaten in a mall fire? That the federal government is interested in a simple mall fire? That's his story?"

Even as she spoke, Maggie could feel the rage building up in her, warming all of her limbs that she'd previously lost feeling to in the wake of seeing her son like this. How dare this man, this Dr. Owens, try to tell them such blatant lies? Did he think that they wouldn't care enough to search for the answers? Did he think that Maggie wouldn't go to the ends of the Earth to protect her son?

Dr. Owens had another thing coming if he did.

"Something strange is going on in this town," Sue agreed, looking back to where her little girl, Erica, slept soundly on the couch. "Erica wouldn't tell us anything, but obviously she knows what happened."

"You said you have a son, Lucas. Does he know what happened?"

"I think so," Sue said. "He and his friends were there. So were Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers. They said the fire killed Chief Hopper too. I tried asking Joyce Byers what happened but she was acting strange too, just kept saying it was a fire. I don't even understand what they were all doing there at the mall after close anyway."

Joyce Byers. Maggie went to school with Joyce, and had felt terribly when she heard that her youngest had gone missing a couple of years ago. But if this woman knew what Maggie's son was involved in and wasn't saying anything?

"We deserve answers," Maggie stated then. "We need to know what happened to our kids."

"How do you suppose we do that?" Sue asked, looking back at first Erica and then Steve.

"We have to find this Dr. Owens, and we won't take no for an answer this time."

Maggie Harrington may not have done right by her son before. There may have been so much done wrong, so much that she missed, but she would not let this slide anymore. Not when the Sinclairs had done so much, and even still, they were given the same lies. Not when Steve had been drugged and beaten, and all he had to show for it was lying in a bed in pain because the only people who knew what happened refused to help.

Something sinister was happening in Hawkins.

The Sinclairs and Maggie Harrington would find out what.

Second Prize:

Second prize will include the secondborn version of Poet | Artist, an unopened copy of Taemin's Eternal, and open version without photocards of SHINee's Japanese albums Replay, Fire, Boys Meet U, and Dazzling Girl. Plus stickers and extras.

Third prize:

Third prize includes the photobook version of Poet | Artist, a new copy of Key's Good & Great with all inclusions, and open version without photocards of SHINee's Japanese albums Replay, Boys Meet U, Your Number, and 321. Plus stickers and extras.

Fourth Prize:

Fourth prize includes a new copy of SHINee's HARD with all inclusions, new copy of Don't Call Me, no photo card, and open version without photocards of SHINee's ODD plus Japanese albums Juliette and Sing Your Song. Plus stickers and extras.

now for the details:

There will be four winners. First winner chosen gets to choose which prize they want, second chosen get to pick between the remaining three prizes and third choses between the remaining two, and fourth gets the prize that is left.

Now for the rules:

1.) You have to be following me, sorry, it’s for my followers…

2.) no giveaway blogs, and that includes side blogs where all you post are giveaways, I will check.

3.) Likes and reblogs count, just don’t spam your followers please.

4.) You must have your inbox open on the day of the giveaway so I can contact you. I will give the winner 48 hours to respond before going to the next name on the list.

5.) Any winner under 16 must receive parents permission before giving out any private information i.e. name, address, etc.

6.) Open TO THE US ONLY ~ sorry, because of the STUPID tariffs, I am not going to be shipping overseas.

7.) GIVEAWAY WILL END ON JUNE 25TH 2025 AT MIDNIGHT EST IN HONOR OF SHINee’s 17th Anniversary.

I WILL CHOOSE WINNERS USING RANDOM.ORG

GIVEAWAY WILL END ON JUNE 25TH 2025 AT MIDNIGHT EST

You don’t know her as well as he does, but you aren’t strangers by any means. 

“And Mike, well, he’s not old enough to watch her for that long. But he’ll be staying over at Joyce’s so you don’t have to worry about him,” she pauses to sip her drink. “I’d pay you, of course. I don’t know what your schedules look like— I know you’re probably busy with the new job, Steve— but I figured since it’s a few days, I’d offer it to you both.” 

Steve flashes an honest smile and leans forward. “Are you kidding? I’d hang with this squirt for free. I’m actually off this weekend so it works out.” 

Mrs. Wheeler beams, eyes springing to yours. 

“Yeah, I could help too,” you shrug. You also happen to be free this weekend and the extra cash would be nice. 

“Great! You both are so lovely. Oh, I was so worried, I kept telling Ted– well, it doesn’t matter now.” Her bracelets clink and clash as she reaches across the table to cover your hand with hers. “You’ll have to keep an eye on these two. She becomes quite the riot when her Stevie comes over.” 

Steve chuckles and raises his hands in defense. “She owes me a rematch at Candyland so I can’t promise anything.” 

Mrs. Wheeler’s fingers retract from yours, landing on the end of Holly’s pigtail. “She’s really missed having you over. Asks about you still.” 

Holly ducks her nose into her paper, pink traveling up her ears. 

“Is that right?” Steve teases. “I’ll have to swing by more often.” 

“Please. You’re welcome anytime, Steve. Whether Nancy’s here or not.” Her attention drifts to you. “And the same goes for you. Mike won’t stop talking about that comic book you gave him.” 

A smug grin surfaces. Out of all of the kids, Mike is a tough one to please. 

“I’ve never been away from Holly for so long. But I trust you guys.” Mrs. Wheeler pecks Holly’s crown to hide a wobbly smile, her sentence spilling out in a breathy string of words.

She really does trust you both. It would take another set of hands to count the number of times either you or Steve had driven her kids home safely. This is just different. She loves all of her kids equally, but Holly’s her baby. 

Holly’s eyes cast up at her mention, bright as a sunlit gem. 

Mrs. Wheeler smooths her daughter’s sleeves down her shoulders. “But Holly’s a good girl. Right, Hollybear?” 

She turns to bury a toothy smile in her mother’s shirt. 

Mrs. Wheeler is meticulous as she presents each and every detail of Holly’s routine. From car seat safety to emergency contacts to allergies, she covers every question you might have before you have it. 

Steve’s a good listener but he’s cursed with a very short attention span. Mrs. Wheeler lost him somewhere around Holly’s sudden aversion to mac and cheese, but she doesn’t seem to notice. You’ll fill in the gaps for him later. 

This won’t be the first time you’ve babysat with Steve. Dustin roped you both into hunting his pet lizard-turned-alien which very quickly escalated to protecting four children from not one, but several, vicious aliens. Safe to say you two are experienced enough to handle one kid for a couple of nights. 

You haven’t seen Steve much since then. It’s summer now. The demodogs and sentient tunnel vines feel much more like a dream than something that actually happened to you these days. Steve works at the Scoops in Starcourt, or so you’ve heard several times– Dustin only reminds you about every time you see him. But despite being as close to death as you’ve ever been beside Steve, visiting him at work feels strangely wrong. Like crossing a line that neither of you ever drew. 

You would not consider Steve Harrington your friend. You’re friendly, as you might be with a neighbor or coworker, but you don’t talk much outside of ​​world-ending, portal-to-another-dimension kind of events. He’s family in a weird sort of way, bound by the shared trauma and unspoken loyalty— like someone you only see at family reunions, familiar enough to care about but still a stranger in most ways. High school was a long blur and your circle of friends couldn’t have been farther from his. So you don’t know Steve, not really. But of what little pieces of him you have come to know in the last year, he’s not half bad at babysitting.

ᯓ★

On Friday afternoon, you park your car beside Steve’s shiny BMW in the Wheeler’s driveway. You take the house key that had been slipped from Mrs. Wheeler’s key ring to yours and unlock the front door. And you find that inside, it’s completely silent. Holly’s quiet as a mouse but she’s still a kid and kids make noise. 

Your bag drops onto the floor beside Steve’s shoes as you toe off your own. When the kitchen and living room turn up empty you jog upstairs. Alarm sinks in on the last step where you still hear nothing. No shouting, no laughing, no crying, no nothing. 

There’s a large window in the hall upstairs, dividing Nancy’s room from Mike's and Holly’s. In your panic, you miss the suspicious lumps in the drapes that frame it. 

As you brush by, Steve rips the curtain across the rod and shouts, “Ha! Gotch– Oh.” 

Your entire body jerks, fear cinching every nerve. “Christ! Steve!”

“Sorry, sorry!” 

Your nostrils flare with hot air as you shove him, “You scared me!” 

His open palms hover in between your chests, unsure how to help. “I thought you were Holly. Sorry.” He gives you an apologetic once-over before a breathy chuckle escapes. 

“It’s not funny. All the shit we’ve been through. God.” He’s lucky you didn’t punch him. A part of you still wants to. 

“Mommy says that’s not a nice word,” Holly says from behind you. 

You turn, shoulders sagging in relief. “I didn’t mean to say that. Sorry.” 

“Stevie, I was supposed to find you,” she whines incredulously, hands planted on her hips. 

“We can go again. I’ll find a new spot.” 

Her frown mends as quickly as it appeared and she skips back to her room to count. 

“Sorry,” Steve reminds you. “Help me find a spot to hide?” 

Soft eyes, a softer smile. It’s hard to stay mad when he looks at you like that. “Okay.” 

Twenty seconds isn’t very long to hide. Especially when Holly counts as fast as she does and when you spend half of your time standing in the hall. So you end up crouched in the corner of Mike’s closet, Steve arched over you, trying his hardest not to crush your toes. 

“Jesus. Does this kid even wash his clothes?” Steve whisper-shouts. “It smells like something died in here.” His palm snaps to the wall behind your head, the flesh of his arm warming your ear.

“You actually couldn’t have picked a worse place. Oh my God.” You press the neckline of your shirt over your nose. Steve’s wearing enough cologne to drown out the stench of dirty socks, though it’s choking you all the same. 

“We had like three seconds. I panicked!” 

You’re glaring at him but only a fraction of light filters in from underneath the door so you’d guess he doesn't see. 

The closet is the first place Holly checks when she barges into Mike’s room, but you’ve never been happier to be caught so fast. 

“My turn!” She glows in victory, pigtails swishing like yellow ribbons as she shouts. 

Steve huffs. “Let’s take a break. We’ve been playing for like an hour.” 

“Can we play tag?”

“In a little while. I’m tired.” He pinches her neck playfully until she squirms out of reach. “How’d you have all that energy?”

She shrugs with her whole body. “I dunno. I’m a kid.” 

A laugh bubbles out of your throat. When your eyes flit to Steve you find him already smiling at you. 

“What about something a little more chill,” you suggest. “We could color?” 

“Bracelets?” 

“You want to make some?” 

She nods, “I can’t reach them. The beads are on top of my closet.”  

“I’ll get ‘em,” Steve offers. “Come show me where.” 

You fan out her multitude of craft containers across the kitchen table. Beads, charms, strings, all neatly filed away. She pops open a lid and plunks down across from you. Steve takes the seat at the end in between. 

“What color bracelet are you gonna make?” you ask, raking through the rainbow of options. 

“Umm, yellow. No– green!” 

“Nice. Here’s a cute little frog charm. Want that?” 

“Mmmm. No, thank you.” 

“I’ll take it,” Steve says, stretching his hand toward you. 

You drop it in the center of his palm where it clinks against a handful of blue beads. They’re pretty and vibrant like the sea. A flicker of an idea pulls you to grab your own handful. 

Holly slides four beads onto a string, two lime green and two baby pink. She drags the other end up and they all slip off, bouncing in separate directions across the table. You smack one before it dives onto the floor and Steve catches another two mid-air. 

“Can you help me tie it?” Holly asks from under her chair, searching for the fourth. 

“Sure.” Steve swaps his bracelet for hers, triple knotting one end. “I like these colors.”

She resurfaces with a grin, voice lilting as she speaks, “Do you like purple?”

“Yeah, purple’s okay. Do you?” 

She nods, pinching a lilac gem and examining it. 

You slip into a peaceful rhythm. The bead bin rattles as Steve digs his fingers in. He murmurs something about sparkles as he shuffles. Every now and then, you peek up at him. And each time, you find that he’s fully absorbed in this, rubbing his chin or poking his tongue out in concentration. You’d even bet he’s having fun. 

“Can you tie it on me,” Holly asks when she finishes. 

Steve takes her hand gently, fingers engulfing her tinier ones. “This good?” He tugs the strings across each other at her permission, sealing it with an extra knot for good measure.  

Holly starts a second one as you finish your first. You hold it up triumphantly for them to see– red and blue beads between every white pearl. 

“Very patriotic,” Steve teases. 

“It’s for you. For scoops. These are the colors right?” 

He softens, eyes rounding like brown buttons. “Wait, really? Thank you. Wow.” He inspects it fondly where you release it in his palm. “Will you tie it?” His arm shoots over to your side of the table. 

You feel his gaze shift from the bracelet to your face as you lace it. And you pretend that it doesn’t make your cheeks burn. 

“You don’t have to wear it to Scoops if you don’t want to,” you mumble, releasing his wrist. 

“What? Of course, I’m wearing it. No one’s ever made me a bracelet before.” 

Your lips bend up into your cheeks as he leans back in his seat. He twists and turns his arm, looking it over again with a similar expression. “Now, it was supposed to be a surprise, but since I’m almost done, I actually made this for you.” He scoops up the piece he’s been working on and waves it in front of you. 

You cock an eyebrow and smirk. “You sure you didn’t just decide that since I gave you one.” 

“I didn’t! I was planning this the whole time! Right Holly, didn’t I say that?”

“No?” 

“Holly, come on now.” He elbows her arm. “Supposed to back me up.” 

“But you didn’t,” she giggles. 

“Holly doesn’t lie, Steve.” 

“Okay, I didn’t say it. But I thought it. I was gonna give it to you I swear.” He jams another couple of beads on his string. “See! Look, it has your favorite color on there.” 

“It has every color on there.” 

“One of which is your favorite.” 

You roll your eyes as he takes your wrist. His hands are warmer than yours, softer than you expect too. He stills as your palm flips face up. A jagged, fleshy ridge runs from the bottom of your pinky to the meat of your thumb. Steve was there when you got the scar. He’s never said it, but you know he blames himself for it. A demodog had you pinned in that damned junkyard school bus so Steve pushed you out of the way but you caught yourself on a broken window. 

“It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

His head dips in a silent nod. He isn’t sure whether to believe you or not. Either way, he feels sorry still.

His bracelet is a statement piece for sure. It truly has every color under the sun and a random assortment of charms and shells. But it’s sweet that he gave it to you. Even if he totally did not plan to do so at first. 

He makes a second bracelet for Holly with purple string and butterfly pendants. Holly gives her next one to him as thanks, then begins on a third for you. 

Steve stands from the table. “I’m hungry. Grilled cheese okay for dinner Holly?” She nods as do you when he asks you the same. 

Your focus drifts between him and the necklace you’re starting for Holly. He coasts around the kitchen naturally, like you imagine he would in his own house. But it’s a bizarre sight. Steve Harrington cooking you food, in the Wheeler’s kitchen out of all places. 

And he’s about as good as a chef as you expect him to be. He’s clumsy and uncertain, even dropping a spatula on the floor with an, “Oh, shi–ugar…” But he kindly refuses to accept any help or advice when you offer. 

He eventually swings around the kitchen island, brimming with pride, one plate in each hand. They’re set in the space you’ve cleared and you quickly see that the sandwiches have been cut adorably into stars. You just as quickly see– and smell– how burnt they are. They aren’t black, they’re edible for sure. But Holly’s five, and polite as she is, most kids would never willingly eat this. 

So you aren’t surprised when she looks at it in disgust, borderline horror. 

“Look, it’s a star,” Steve beams, oblivious. 

Your chest aches with the desire to laugh and an equal pang of sympathy. 

Holly shakes her head, visibly toning down her expression for his sake. “Can I have something else?” 

“It’s good! I promise, just try it.” 

She slowly shakes no again. 

“Steve,” a peel of laughter escapes your lips. “It’s burnt.” 

He scoffs. “It’s not that burnt.” 

Your mouth twitches in a funny little line and your eyes leap between him and the plate. “It’s pretty burnt, Steve.” 

After a moment of silence, he sighs and picks both plates back up. 

“Wait,” you shout, “I’ll still eat mine! Mine isn’t that bad. You did a good job!” 

He sulks at you. “You’re just saying that. I’ll make new ones.” 

“No, it’s okay, really. I’ll eat this one. I don’t mind.” 

He plants the plate in your grabby hands and spins back toward the stove. 

Round two is much better, still star-shaped, and a few shades lighter. Holly thanks him more than once while eating it without you even asking her to. If only Nancy and Mike were as precious as her. And Steve eats the first attempt, now cold, and admits that it tastes, “slightly burnt.” 

You take the empty plates to the sink to wash while Steve and Holly lug the jewelry kits back upstairs. You meet them in Holly’s room after. They’re playing house, Steve the dad, and Holly the mom, with four babydolls for children. She appoints you to be the neighbor when you join. 

You knock on her bedpost, pretending it’s her front door. “Holly, in one hour you’re gonna take a bath.”

Her head pops out from under the blanket. “Can we watch a movie before bed?” 

“Sure, but we have to do bath now if you wanna watch the whole thing.” 

“Okay!” She kicks the sheets away, jumping off the bed in a race to the bathroom. Steve winces as she steps on his hand. 

“Do you need help?” he asks, sprawled across the bed, socked feet hanging over the edge. 

“No, I got it. You can rest in peace now,” you joke, halfway through the door. 

Holly is self-sufficient enough to bathe herself so all you have to do is supervise. You find a matching polka dot set of pajamas in her dresser and a towel under the bathroom sink. And she gets dry and dressed all by herself, Miss Independent. 

“So there’s The Little Mermaid, E.T., Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory…” Steve trails off, kneeling in front of the entertainment center. 

Holly hands him a VHS tape, “This one?” 

“Ooh, good pick.” Steve feeds the tape into the player and rewinds it. 

You pat the couch cushion beside yours as Holly skips over. Steve hits the light before flopping into the recliner with a satisfied groan. The Jungle Book glows to life on the TV, casting an indigo wash over each of your faces. Holly curls into herself, knees tucked to her chest, arms wrapped tight around them.

“Here,” Steve chucks a blanket from the basket at his side. 

“Thanks.” You scoop it off the floor where it missed the couch and billow it out over you and Holly. “Don’t fall asleep, Harrington.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve folds one leg over the other and crosses his arms, eyes glued to the screen. He reminds you of Mr. Wheeler sitting in his recliner like that. It’s alarming how attractive you find it. He’s not even doing anything worth staring at. You force your eyes back on the TV. 

The credits scroll up the screen for a whole minute before you realize the movie has ended. You aren’t asleep but you aren’t totally awake either. Steve’s not far off by the looks of it and Holly, on the other hand, was out like a light halfway through. Her head presses into your upper arm, her hand scrunched in the blanket on your thigh. The weight is nice, making it all the harder to pick yourself up and get her to bed. 

But thankfully Steve’s there to help. He twists in his chair until his back clicks, smiling when he catches sight of you and Holly. “I’ll carry her up,” he whispers. 

You gently work Holly’s stubborn fingers from the blanket as Steve stands. He pushes the rest of the fabric into your lap before bending to scoop Holly up. 

“Be right back,” he says, starting toward the stairs. 

You tug the blanket higher, seeking lost comfort in its folds, though it doesn’t compare to the warmth Holly provided. 

Steve pads back down not a minute later. He stops on the last step, hanging over the railing. “You awake?” 

“Barely,” you mumble. 

Steve plods up to the front door to check the locks. He orbits into the kitchen and then back around to the living room to turn the TV off. He’s being the responsible one. You aren’t sure why this surprises you. 

“Come on,” he opens his hand toward you. 

Your arm snakes out from under the blanket, and he lifts you effortlessly. You’ve seen how strong he is, how he fights, but it still surprises you. 

“I was gonna suggest another movie but I don’t think either of us’ll make it.” 

You catch a yawn from Steve. “I know. I’m so tired. It’s not even late.” 

He hums from behind you on the stairs. “Yeah. Who knew this’d be so exhausting.” He’s only being slightly sarcastic. There’s an obvious truth to what he implied, but at the same time, it is so much harder than you realized it would be. 

You stop at the landing, sluggishly turning to face Steve. “Well, goodnight, I guess.” 

“Goodnight.” 

You splinter into opposite ends of the hall. Steve let you have Nancy’s room for obvious reasons, though he wasn’t thrilled about crashing in Mike’s bed. He’s probably better off on the couch after seeing the kid’s closet. 

You change into cozier clothes and untuck Nancy’s quilt. Like with Steve, you and Nancy aren’t really friends. It’s strange being in her room, settling into her bed. And it’s almost stranger that Steve is sleeping across the hall. Yet, there’s an odd comfort in it— being surrounded by people who went through the same thing you did. 

ᯓ★

There’s thumping in the hall– footsteps, too light to be Steve’s. You fight the urge to go back to sleep. Holly needs a babysitter. But it’s not an easy feat, not when you’re swaddled like a baby in blankets much softer than the ones you have at home. You’re warm and it’s so quiet it feels like a gift; that is, until you remind yourself that kids and quiet don’t usually go hand and hand. She could be answering the door to a stranger, scaling the counters, setting the kitchen on fire, the possibilities are endless. 

You force your heavy eyes open and flinch as a much brighter pair come into focus. 

Holly bends over you with this innocent endearment you cannot possibly be mad to be woken by. “Told you, Stevie,” she says. 

“No, you woke ‘em up, goofball.” Steve lingers at the foot of the bed in a pair of striped pajama pants and a faded Olympics tee. You’ve never seen him in pajamas before, or anything quite like it. 

You prop yourself up on your elbows and rub your eyes for a better look. 

“Sorry,” he supplies. His voice is still raspy with sleep and his oh-so-perfect hair shoots up in wild peaks. The sight makes your chest buzz. “She said you had to get up to.” 

You redirect your attention to Holly, pinching the neckline of your shirt back over your shoulder as you sit up. 

“Can we have eggs?” she asks you. 

“Sure.” 

She traps her lip between her two frontmost baby teeth. “Five?” 

“Five eggs!” Steve chides. “Just for you?” 

She turns to nod at him, smile blooming. 

He wears the same joy, ruffling her already unruly bed-head. “What are you a linebacker?” 

She giggles, clueless as to what he’s talking about. 

“Let’s start with two and if you’re still hungry you can have more,” you compromise. 

You are undeniably a better cook than Steve, but the bar is low after yesterday. You serve scrambled eggs and unburnt toast. Holly looks at her plate like she hasn’t been fed a day in her life and she shovels spoonfuls of it in her mouth like it’s her last meal. 

Steve watches her with an anxious frown. “Smaller bites, Holl.” 

She nods but doesn’t exactly slow her pace. Steve chases your eyes, knocking your ankle with his when you don’t look. He gives you that funny face parents make. Help me out. 

You shrug. “It’s just eggs. Babies eat eggs.” 

He cycles through several emotions—frustration that you won’t back him up, disbelief that babies eat eggs, and a lingering fear that she might choke. But he stops himself from asking all the what-ifs, he trusts you. 

Holly swallows half of her glass of chocolate milk in one go. Steve looks mildly horrified. 

“My God. She’s like a little human vacuum,” he mumbles through a mouthful of toast. 

You snort into your glass. If Holly heard him, she’s too preoccupied to care. 

After breakfast, Steve sets her up in front of the TV to watch cartoons while you clear the table. He disappears into the basement in search of a board game but comes back with some deflated, plastic thing. 

“What happened to the board game?” you ask. “What even is that?” 

“It’s a kiddie pool. Let’s go outside. It’s nice out.” 

“I didn’t bring a bathing suit.” 

“Me neither. Just wear that.” 

You wrinkle your nose down at your pajamas. “Go see if she wants to.” 

He smiles, retreating back into the living room. Shortly after, he shouts, “She said yes!” Footsteps pound up the stairs, followed by a second shout, “Don’t run!” 

Mrs. Wheeler calls the house phone and is pleased to hear your good report. She reminds you several times to apply sunscreen to Holly’s ears and that there’s an extra can in the upstairs bathroom. You wrangle Holly over to put her on and promise to call back before bedtime when she refuses to hang up. 

You sift through your bag, changing into the closest thing to swimwear. Steve takes forever in the bathroom, which doesn’t surprise you one bit. He comes out in a crisp white tee, way too expensive-looking for a pool day, and a pair of red gym shorts. 

“What are you, the lifeguard?” you joke. 

His hands snap to his hips. “Uhh, I’ll have you know I’ve been a certified lifeguard for two years, so yeah, actually.” 

You roll your eyes, brushing past him for the extra can of sunscreen. “Are you ready? Holly’s waiting.” 

“Yeah. Let me go blow up the pool. I’ll be outside.” 

You fix your hair in the mirror and tuck a few towels under your arm before heading downstairs. Holly’s already outside, criss-crossed in a big lawn chair and watching Steve with incredible boredom. He stands barefoot in the grass, the deflated pool pressed against his chest. He pulls away from the air valve when he notices you, quickly capping it with his thumb. 

“You okay?” you ask, laughing lightly. 

He nods, red-cheeked and breathless. “Think there’s a hole in it. Been blowin’ for like five minutes.” 

“Huh,” you drop the towels and take one end of the limp plastic. “Try again.” 

He funnels more air inside, it dispurses evenly underneath your palm. You don’t hear any air wheezing out so you turn it over for further inspection. 

“Oh, Steve. Here, look.” 

He pops his mouth off and follows your pointer finger. A second valve at the bottom, unhinged and releasing his hard work steadily. 

“Oh, you’re kidding me. Why’d they put one under there?”

You shrug, plugging it back up. “Holly, let’s get some sunscreen on so your mom doesn’t kill us.” 

Holly hops off the chair and skips to your side. You mist her skin in several layers, lathering a generous amount over her ears. When you move onto yourself, she grabs her basket of toys and climbs into the dry inflatable. Steve retrieves the hose and releases a cool stream into the pool, splashing Holly’s feet.

She squeals and scoots back. “Cold!” 

Steve’s thumb eclipses the opening so the water bursts out in wide a fan. He trains it at Holly, spraying her until she’s soaked and screaming. 

He’s giggling in a way you’ve never heard. Genuine, open-mouthed reels of laughter. You hate to admit it, but it’s really cute. So infectious you can’t help but join. 

He glances back for your reaction, pleasantly satisfied. And your smile incites a great idea. He swings the hose around, aiming it straight at you. 

“Steve!” Your arms shoot out to block the attack but it’s no use. 

“What?” he says, the epitome of innocence. 

Your eyes narrow but a smirk prevails. “Oh, you–” 

Holly tackles the back of his thigh with a scream. Steve stumbles forward and the hose slips from his grasp. 

You lunge for it before he even realizes what happened. And by the time he does, he’s already drenched. “Payback!” You laugh maniacally as he combs his hair out of his eyes. 

He’s laughing too, bent at the waist, still shaking his surprise. But only until he catches your gaze– then comes the glint of something playful, almost daring.

Steve barrels straight through the spray like a bull. He chokes your fingers over the nozzle, bending and bending the line until the water pours straight down your head. 

Holly dashes behind you to wrangle the wiggly tail of the hose, squealing at every layer of mist she catches. 

You and Steve wrestle with it, his hand on your hip, yours pushing his shoulder. He’s gentle but still strong. And his touch sears through the cold water, your skin tingling in his wake. 

The second he sticks the end down the back of your shirt you scream. “Okay, okay! I surrender!” 

He crimps the hose with one hand, smirking deviously. 

“I surrender,” you repeat, heaving through your laughter. 

Holly drops her end of the hose, backing up one slow step at a time. 

“Truce?” 

“Truce,” you nod, stepping up cautiously to shake his hand. 

He accepts your hand, using it to yank you closer and blast you again. You chase and dodge and tackle each other under the blazing sun until your legs feel like jelly. But the game eventually slows as exhaustion creeps in. 

You and Steve collapse in the lawn chairs while Holly lays belly-down in the pool. Water sloshes over the rim onto your toes as she kicks, a brief reprieve from the sticky heat. You're relaxed, but your mind wanders. You keep hoping the Wheelers won’t notice the sudden increase in their water bill. 

“Dustin talks about you all the time.”

You tear your eyes away from Holly, blinking back into reality as you face Steve. “What?”

“Dustin, he talks about you all the time. Kid loves you.” 

“Oh. He’s a sweet kid. Talks about you too. Keeps telling me to come see you at Scoops.”

Steve chuckles, more of a half-hearted puff of amusement than a real one. 

“Which, I’m sorry I haven’t, by the way,” you confess. 

His eyebrows jump, lips parting in soft surprise. “Oh, no. Don’t worry about it. He’s just being Dustin.” 

You press a blade of grass flat under your heel, as if the right words might sprout from the dirt. “I dunno. I mean, don’t you think it’s kinda weird that we don’t like talk? After everything?” 

The words bounce around Steve’s head for a minute. He fixates on your choice of weird. Weird, like bad? Weird like you want to talk? He can’t decide. And he’s afraid if he opens his mouth, the wrong words will tumble out. 

But he tries anyway, “Honestly, I thought you didn’t want to be friends. You were just so… distant after.” 

You rub the length of your arm, lips creasing into a frown. “Sorry, I was just. I don’t even know. Rattled, I guess.” 

“Yeah, rabid dogs with faces that split open and try to eat you tend to have that effect.” 

Your frown melts, little by little. 

“But we should’ve been there for you more. It was a hard time for everybody.” 

His apology echoes in your mind, the ache like a weight on your chest. 

“You could visit if you wanted to. At scoops. I could get you ice cream for free.” 

But the ache doesn’t stand a chance against the way he makes you feel. 

“Okay.” Your cheeks round with a sincere smile. “I’d like that.” 

He turns his head, as if to hide, but you still catch an echo of your own expression. Your eyes flicker across the contours of his profile, following the graceful line from his ear to his collar, before drifting over the sculpted shape of his arms and the long expanse of his thighs. Steve Harrington is objectively attractive. This isn’t the first time you’ve thought so. But it is the first time that fact makes your head spin. 

Maybe it’s the heat. The sun feels like it's roasting you alive, and Steve’s attractiveness certainly isn't helping. You’re feeling strange, thinking crazy things– the kind of thoughts that only come when you’re on the verge of heat stroke certainly. 

You stand abruptly and the grass sways underneath your feet. But you get your bearings before anyone notices. “Holly, can I come sit in the pool?”

Her eyes pop up, grin distorted underneath the water. She props her elbow up and rests her cheek in the palm of her hand. “What’s the password?”

“Umm, can you give me a hint?” 

A high-pitched hum. “Okay. She’s my favorite character.” 

“Uhh, Barbie?” 

“Nooo.” 

“Strawberry Shortcake?”

“Nooo.” 

“Hello Kitty?” 

“You’re really bad at this,” she giggles. It would be really cute if you weren’t possibly dying right now. 

“It’s Care Bears,” Steve interjects, snapping his fingers. “Uhh, the yellow one. Umm, Funshine!” 

“Yes!” Holly glows like the sun on Funshine herself. “Stevie can come in.”

Steve stands but he doesn’t get in. “Come on, Holl. It’s hot.”

“There’s a new password.”

“Okay, okay. Can I have another hint?” you ask. 

Her tongue curls out to lick the sweat off her lip. “My favorite color.” 

“Purple?” 

“Yes,” she nods and sits up. “But I really like yellow and blue and pink too.” 

You sink into the water, unsure if there was ever a wrong answer. It’s shallow and lukewarm, barely grazing the tops of your thighs, but it’s enough to cool the sun off your skin. Steve follows, and the space tightens awkwardly— the inflatable wasn’t built for three. His knee brushes yours while Holly’s toes nudge your foot, but neither of them seems to mind. 

You cup water up to your cheeks and pour it down your arms. 

“Better?” Steve asks, a droll little pinch to his features. 

He’s staring at you which is definitely not helping but you nod anyway. 

“Why don’t we move to the shade?” He stands before you or Holly agrees, offering his hand to pull you up. 

She races Steve to the nearest tree, though he doesn't stand much of a chance dragging the pool behind him. He refills it with fresh water and encourages Holly to splash you gently while he runs inside to make lunch. By the time he returns, you’re feeling much more yourself. 

“Bon Appétit,” Steve announces, lowering himself slowly onto a towel. He carries three animal-shaped plates stocked with fruit and PB&Js, one in each hand, another balanced on his forearm. 

Holly scrambles out of the water, plopping onto the other end of his towel. You get out too, shaking a second one out to lay beside theirs. 

“Lion or hippo?” he asks Holly. 

She hums for a long time, inspecting each plate meticulously before pointing to the lion.

“Good choice.” He sets the plate in front of her crossed legs and passes you the hippo. Steve takes the polar bear for himself, which notably only has half a sandwich. 

“Where’s the other half?” you ask. 

He takes a large bite, pressing his hand to his mouth to reply, “Ran out of bread.” 

“Here.” You rip one of your halves in half. 

“Thanks,” he says, syllables tangling as he chews. 

Holly watches the interaction fondly before pulling apart her own sandwich. It splits in a jagged line, mostly crust on one half. But happily, she thrusts the bigger piece toward Steve, jelly dribbling down her little fist. 

He tilts his head, a growing smile mirroring yours. “You eat it. I have enough now.” 

She crinkles her nose. “You eat it!” 

“No, you!” He squeezes her slim bicep. “You need to get big and strong.” 

“What about you?” 

“I’m already big and strong.” 

She considers this, giving him an obvious once-over that makes you laugh. “Trade?” 

“Okay, trade.” Steve chuckles, exchanging one of his halves for hers. He licks a stripe across his knuckle where her sticky fingers brushed his. It’s as innocent as the gesture can be but something about it has your cheeks burning in a way the sun couldn’t. 

Conversation tapers off, replaced with an easy quiet. Your stomach is satisfied with the food, but it’s your heart that feels the most nourished, steeped in the comfort of good company. You hadn’t expected to enjoy hanging out with Steve or Holly this much. 

Holly slouches into your arm, stretching her legs across the grass like a bridge between the towels. Her heels push into the pudge of Steve’s thigh, the faintest smirk crossing her lips. 

He squeezes her ankle until it darts away. 

Gradually, she presses again and in turn, he squeezes, but this time he doesn’t let go. She squeals as he drags her down your side. But all hell breaks loose when he starts tickling the bottom of her foot. 

She shrieks, thrashing and squirming against his hold, giggling in between gasps. “Ste–vie!” she cries.

Her laugh is too pure of a sound to be real, Steve thinks. His resolve crumbles, grip faltering. And Holly’s heel slams smack into his jaw. Steve winces, bending away to cradle his cheek. 

You straighten up. “You okay? Let me see.” 

Holly’s legs go limp in the grass, her shoulders tense in your lap. 

Steve’s hand slackens unveiling a red splotch not much darker than his sunburnt cheeks. He meets your eyes with a dismissive shake, “It’s okay.” 

You believe him. It doesn’t look nearly awful enough to make your concern stick. And his face has been through worse. Billy Hargrove painting his fists red with Steve’s blood is one of the things you remember most about that night. 

His attention dips down to Holly. She sniffles, eyes glistening in the sunlight with a frown nearly reaching her chin. 

“It’s okay. I’m okay, Holl.” 

Holly putters, whimpers drowning the edges of her words. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay! I promise! It doesn’t even hurt,” he reassures, cupping her kneecap. 

You tug her off the ground and she sinks into your arms naturally. Hot tears pave a path down your neck only to dissolve in the fabric of your shirt. You coax her sobs out, one back rub at a time. 

Steve waits until she settles with this pitiful look on his face. “I know you didn’t mean to Hollybear. Just an accident. Hmm?” 

She nods against your chin. 

He strokes the back of her arm, fingers grazing yours where they work. “Please don’t cry.” 

Holly sniffles. 

“You know what might help me feel better?” She lifts a sweaty cheek off your chest as Steve opens his arms. “A hug.” 

She pushes out of your hands into his. He holds her tight, providing one loving squeeze after another. 

This is not how you pictured Steve to be under normal babysitting circumstances. A voice like sweet honey, eyes warm like the sun. He’s very soft, and so undeniably kind. And not just to Holly, but also you. 

Steve hooks the spare towel closer, draping it across her back. “Lean back,” he tells her. 

She avoids his gaze as she does, tears melting away under his touch. 

“You know what I think?” He cinches the towel at her collar like a cloak. 

She hums. 

“I think we should have popsicles for dessert.” 

Holly meets his eyes then, excitement glimmering underneath the droop of lingering guilt. 

“How does that sound?”

“Good,” she admits meekly. 

A smirk thins his lips. “I dunno though. What if we get a tummy ache?” He pokes her belly through the towel. “Maybe it’s not–”

“No– I want one!”

“I dunnooo,” he sings.

“Please, Stevie! You already said.”

“How bad do you want it? Like this much?” He pinches his fingers together, leaving the slightest gap between them. 

“No, no!” She shakes her head, casting her arms out as far as they’ll go. “This much!” 

He sighs loudly, shoulders sagging for the dramatic touch. “Okay.” 

Holly’s arms curl around his neck as he stands. He’s more than happy to carry her, but the added weight makes him groan. 

You trail behind automatically, half enjoying the show and just as excited for a treat. Steve pins the back door open with his foot, returning a smile you hadn’t realized you were sharing. Your cheeks are starting to protest, sore with overwhelming happiness. 

“What color do you want?” 

“Pink! Pink!” Holly shouts in his ear, loud enough to make you wince. But Steve doesn’t react in the slightest to her volume. You’d all taken a piece of the Upside Down with you after El sealed it up. And just when you seemed to forget it, you’d be reminded in the form of scars, nightmares, headaches, and in Steve’s case, hearing loss. 

He opens the freezer, Holly propped on his hip. She’s far too big to be carried like that comfortably but he does it anyway. 

“Pink for Holly. Red for Steve.” He leans back to find your face. “For you?” 

You purse your lips, “Surprise me.” 

Steve stows Holly on the countertop so he can snip the plastic tips. She receives her popsicle first, then you, and finally Steve. 

“Matching,” Holly observes as you sit beside them on the couch. 

Steve crosses his popsicle over your identically red one when you raise an eyebrow. “Look at that,” he says. 

She hums, gnawing on the plastic wrapper. Steve pushes the ice up for her and thumbs away the dribble at the corner of her mouth. She doesn’t seem to notice, but it catches you off guard. Steve’s such a natural at this you almost can’t believe he’s an only child. 

You turn the TV on to an episode of Care Bears as Holly slumps into Steve’s chest, slurping the last of her slush loudly. 

“Sleepy?” you ask when she kneads her eyes. 

“No.”

You chuckle, combing her frizz back. “Okay.” 

“You know, it’s okay if you are sleepy,” Steve mentions, equally amused. 

“I know. I’m not.” Her tone is casual, a portrait of nonchalance, despite the yawn that slips out afterward. 

You and Steve exchange a look of mutual fondness. 

“I’m pretty tired,” Steve declares, reclining into the cushions with a fake yawn. “I think I’ll take a nap.” 

Holly twists against him to watch. It doesn’t take long for her little fingers to poke and prod his lashline.

He peels one eye open, playfully cocking an eyebrow. 

She giggles and pinches the skin closed. 

You’re trapped between nervously supervising she doesn’t poke his eye out and leaving to get a baby wipe for her hands which you imagine are very sticky with popsicle juice. Either way, you’ll be surprised if Steve doesn’t have pink eye by morning. 

“I’m sleeping,” he whines and headbutts her palm gently. 

“Nooo,” she whines back, wedging her hand across his mouth. Delirium is setting in, a nap is imminent. 

Steve opens his eyes, giddy just the same. “Okay. You got me.” 

Holly frees his mouth to swipe a streak of red from his chin. Her tongue pokes out in prime concentration. 

A staggered laugh of disbelief is shaken from Steve’s chest. He hadn’t expected Holly to be difficult, but she’s been nothing short of delightful. She’s sweeter than Mike and Nancy combined and smarter than he thought kids her age could be. For a self-indulgent second, he hopes that his kids will turn out something like her. 

Holly reels back around to lay on her side, eyelids sagging with an inevitable heaviness. Steve draws the towel up to her chin, fixing his palm to her back. You watch her drift off, eyes slipping up every so often. 

When you’re positive she’s out, you cautiously dislodge the popsicle wrapper from her fingers. Steve passes his as you stand. 

One of the many hard things about kids is all the cleaning. Holly’s as neat as a five-year-old gets, and still, every moment of peace is an opportunity spent putting things back where they belong. You head outside to tip the pool over and collect stray towels and toys that didn’t make it back in. 

By the time you return, Steve’s passed out, mouth ajar, head craned back against the couch. It’s not a particularly attractive expression– he’d probably be embarrassed to wake to your staring– but you can’t find anything other than endearment in yourself.  

You shower and change into fresh clothes and end up on the opposite couch to watch TV. But Care Bears isn’t all that entertaining anymore so you rest your eyes for just a second. 

A second turns to several and when you reopen your eyes you discover the clock is two hours ahead of where it was before. 

The silence is only comforting for a fleeting moment before anxiety creeps in. Your eyes flick from the TV, now powered off, to the other couch where Steve and Holly are not where you left them. Nor are they in the dining room, kitchen, basement, or backyard. You take the stairs two steps at a time and nearly trip over a blanket strewn across the banister when Holly screams. 

You’d have kicked her door off the hinges if it came to it but are thankful it’s already open. Holly is perfectly safe, bent over the remnants of what you assume was a pillow fort. 

You release a breath caught in your throat and sag against the doorframe. Steve offers an apologetic smile when he notices. 

Holly glances over but quickly returns to their game. “You’ve destroyed my kingdom!” she shouts, drilling a finger into Steve’s chest. “Off with your head!” 

You’re too stunned to laugh, but a noise of confusion skips out. Steve gawks at Holly in pretend despair, scrubbing any seeping amusement off his lips with the back of his hand. He’s dressed in sweats, Holly in a princess dress. But more importantly, his face has been caked in makeup and his hair twisted into two fluffy knots. 

“You!” Holly yells with a scowl aimed at you. “Hold him down!” 

Steve pleads at your ankles, pressing his forehead to the carpet in prayer. It takes every ounce of you not to break character and laugh. There’s something so surreal about Steve Harrington, former King of Hawkins High, in sparkly eyeshadow, kneeling before a little girl to beg for his life. It’s hilarious as it is heartwarming. 

“If I may propose a suggestion!” You counter, equally dramatic. “A trade! For this silly man’s life, we will help rebuild your kingdom twice as big! Princess I–” 

“Queen!”

Steve snorts but she must miss it. 

“My apologies. Queen Holly, I can assure you this new Kingdom will have all of the finest luxuries that royalty like yourself might desire.” 

She takes a second to process the big words. “Fine!” She sneers, diving onto her mattress which is absent of all its sheets and blankets. “Chop! Chop!”

You bite your lip, chasing the fervent smile away. Steve gets right to work, sorting pillows from most to least sturdy. You steal another chair from Nancy’s desk and help Steve double-knot the roof to it. It’s no mansion, but it is long enough for Steve to lie down in, which is a job well done in your book. Especially when you’re under strict supervision and listening to a thread of loud critiques. 

You lift the door flap for Holly to crawl through. “Your quarters, Your Grace.” 

She glances over her shoulder with a wicked, but mostly adorable, expression. “My name is not Grace! It’s Holly! Queen Holly to you!” 

The explanation dies on your tongue because how can you possibly argue with that? You’re just grateful to still have your head. 

After the grand tour, Queen Holly disappears into one of the tent’s offshoots with a handful of stuffed animals she's referring to as her royal guards. 

Steve scoots closer, whispering behind his hand, “I think we need to stage a coup.” 

You lean into his good ear, affection spilling off your tone, “I didn’t know she could be so mean.” 

“Me neither! She must be hanging out with Mike.” 

“Must be.” You grin for what feels like the millionth time today. 

You’re sitting knee to knee, close enough to catch the heat of Steve’s breath on your cheek. You drag the pad of your finger across his cheekbone where teal eyeshadow has been caked on in several layers. “I like this,” you compliment. 

I kinda forgot she put that on.” He ducks his head bashfully, peeking up through his eyelashes. “Do I look pretty?” 

“The prettiest.” 

He receives it as teasing, but it’s true, you do think Steve is pretty. A strong nose, kind eyes, and sure, maybe the hair. But now that you’re inches apart, you notice twin smile lines, a series of freckles down his cheek, and a faded scar across his forehead. You linger there more than anywhere else, under the guise of judging Holly’s makeup job, of course. 

But the silence twists into something less comfortable with each passing second. A brief twitch of emotion flickers across Steve’s face, gone before you can name it. “So… pizza for dinner?” he blurts out. 

Before you’ve processed what happened, Holly shouts, “Cheese please!” 

Steve splinters from your gaze, calling back, “Yes, My Queen.” 

Dinner is pleasantly easy. The pizza’s delivered and paper plates save you from the hassle of dishes after. You eat at the kitchen table, sharing stories and smiles, strangely like a family. 

And after dinner, Holly has a bath; and after bath, Steve whisks her off to bed. You’re left to your own devices for once, a benevolent bout of peace, but still, you can’t seem to relax. 

The spray of the bathroom light paves the hall leading to Holly’s room. You tiptoe up to the door and peek inside. 

Steve’s on the floor, slouched against the side of the bed cradling Holly to his chest. He flinches as your shadow veers across the moonlit wall.  

“Sorry,” you whisper, dropping onto your knees beside them. 

Holly picks her head up, tear tracks shimmering as she turns. Her lip wobbles through a whimper. 

You soften like wax near a flame, eyes flitting to Steve who looks equally at a loss. 

She curls her knees into his tummy in a way that probably hurts. The poor thing dissolves into fresh tears, spilling out faster than Steve can chase away. 

“Holls, it’s okay, honey. Me and Stevie are here, okay?” 

She strains to speak through a chain of gasps, “I want my Mommy!” 

“I know, I know. She’ll be back before you know it, I promise,” you steer sweat-slick hair behind her ear. 

“I want her now.” 

“We’ve got ya, Holl,” Steve chimes in. 

“We’re right here.” 

“No– Mommy!” 

It goes like this for a while, soothing reassurances met with unyielding resolve. Holly’s not one to be stubborn for no reason. She’s so exhausted and upset it breaks your heart. You try reading and music and back rubs but there seems to be no end to her sobbing. 

Steve strokes her ankle where it’s now tucked underneath her in your lap. He looks exhausted– hair draped over his forehead like a claw, extra weight embedded in each of his eyelids. You’re both at your breaking point. “You wanna sleep with me tonight Hollybear?” he says in a tone gentler than you’ve ever heard. 

“No. Mommy,” she persists. 

“You can sleep with her when she gets back. But tonight you get to have a sleepover with Steve. Or you can even sleep with me in Nancy’s bed, okay?” 

Red-rimmed eyes flick between you and Steve. Neither option is as good as Mom. 

“Both,” Holly whines. 

“Wanna lay with both of us?” 

She nods. “In the middle.” 

“Okay,” you turn to Steve. “We can do that.” Your words are colored like a question but he’s already nodding his answer. 

He shovels Holly from your lap, cheek pressing into hers in an unspoken exchange of relief. “Alright, munchkin. Let’s go steal Nancy’s big bed. Sound good?” 

She hums her approval into his ear. 

Steve pokes Nancy’s door open with his foot, swinging around to the tucked side of the bed. You crawl across your end as Holly slides off his chest. She molds herself against your shoulder, tugging Steve closer when he settles. 

“Goodnight, Hollybear,” he says. 

She steals your hand from underneath the comforter, then his where it lies on the sheet. Your knuckles brush Steve’s where they are stapled to her chest. “Goodnight,” she sighs. 

Steve strokes up and down the back of her hand, his touch a quiet catalyst. She’s asleep in mere minutes, snoring softly, fingers limp against yours. 

Steve nudges your hand where it’s already pressed to his, whispering when you turn, “Am I crazy that I find all of this kinda fun?” 

You shake your head, a smile working its way across your lips. “Guess that would make me crazy too.” 

“I know I always complain about driving those little shits around but Holly’s actually really fun to babysit.” 

“Yeah, she is. At least it’s not the end of the world this time, right?”

“Yeah, that probably helps, huh?” Amusement ebbs into a sigh. “I’m kinda dreading going home, to be honest.”

“Why don’t we put Mike in a wig? Kidnap Holly for ourselves.” 

He snorts into his pillow. “Oh, yeah. That’ll work. ‘Yeah, I dunno Mrs. Wheeler, she had a crazy growth spurt while you were gone.’”

“We’d take good care of her.”

“We would,” he nods. “You’re really good with her.” 

“So are you. Kinda surprised me actually.”

“Really? Cause Dustin tells me weekly I’d make a good mother.” 

“Yeah, but they’re different. Older. And don’t get me wrong, you’re great with them and they love hanging out with you. Holly’s just little. You’re so much gentler with her, and like, you always seem to know what to do.” 

“For the record, I have no clue what I’m doing.”

“Me neither. I don't know what Mrs. Wheeler was thinking asking us to do this.”

Intertwined laughter fades, but something else— something similar— lingers. An almost tangible buzz of energy, as if the silence itself is alive with unspoken words. You entertain the idea that the feeling’s not exclusive to just you. That Steve hears the same jitter in his pulse and feels the same flutter against his ribs. That you aren’t alone to be feeling such a way.    

“Is it–” 

“Are we–”

“Sorry, you go,” he jabbers out. 

The words trickle back down your throat, too thick to cross your tongue again. “You can probably go now,” you decide. 

His gaze jumps to Holly’s chest where his hand is still coupled with one of hers. 

“If you want,” you amend. “You don’t have to.” 

“You don't mind? If I stayed?”

You shake your head.

“Just worried she’ll wake up if I move.” 

You try to flatten your excitement as you reply, “You can stay.” 

His gaze swims with yours across Nancy's room, skimming over the cluttered dresser, the desk strewn with books and pens, to the shuttered closet doors.

“Sorry about– you know– I heard Nancy… dumped you,” you say, immediately regretting the awkward phrasing.

“Harsh,” he squints and casts you a bittersweet grin. “But true.”

“Is it… weird? To be in here?” 

“A little. But not as much as I thought it would be. Hell of a lot better than Mike’s room.” 

You hum, watching the gentle shift in his brows. 

“Is it weird for you?” 

“Me?” you ask. “In what way?” 

“You and Nance. You don’t always see eye to eye.” 

“I mean, yeah. When our decisions involve risking our lives– or the kids– she’s pretty damn impulsive. And she can be real stubborn and selfish sometimes too. But I dunno, I still love her. She’s been sort of like a sister since everything started. I think that’s why we argue.” 

“What does that make me? Your brother?” 

You roll your eyes. “No, you’re the stray dog we adopted.” 

“Okay. That’s just mean.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” Your laugh laps out louder than you intend, but Holly remains still. “I dunno who you’d be. The love interest?”

“I can work with that, sexy love interest–”

You scoff. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Harrington.” 

“Okay, okay. But love interest because…”

“Cause you dated Nance.”

“Oh,” he exhales. 

“You don’t agree? Should we go back to stray dog?” 

“Oh, shut up. I’m going to bed.” Steve rolls onto his side with a sigh. 

“Keep your snoring to a minimum, please.” 

He grumbles, narrowing his eyes at your smirk. “I don’t snore.”

“You do. I could hear it from here last night.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did,” you argue. “It definitely wasn’t Holly.” 

“Whatever. Goodnight.” 

“Night.” 

Only when your eyes are closed does his smile finally emerge. It’s silly how quickly you can pull it out of him. It throws him for a loop every time. But with you at his side, maybe he’ll dream of happier things for once. Either way, it’s easier to fall asleep, just knowing you’re there falling asleep too. 

ᯓ★

“Shhhh!” 

“No, you shhhh,” a lighter voice giggles. 

“Holly,” Steve scolds, mirth buttering his tone. You know he’s smiling by the sound alone. 

Holly’s laughter triples in volume but then is abruptly muffled. 

“Ew– did you just lick me?” 

And this all just sounds way too cute to miss out on. You pry your lashes apart, still sticky with sleep, and flip on your side to face them. 

They freeze, eyes widening adorably in sync. Steve is reclined against the headboard, an arm bent behind his neck. Holly is sprawled halfway across his tummy, toes tickling your side. 

“Sorry,” he offers like you’d be mad. But how could you possibly be anything but enamored waking up to their giggly little voices? If you could be woken up like this every day, you would. 

You shake your head, scratching underneath your eyes. The walls are bathed in muted colors, waiting to be warmed by the sunrise. It’s still early. 

Holly rolls off of Steve onto the floor and barrels out of the room. 

“Where are you going?” he shouts. 

“Potty!” 

Steve turns to you, eyes roving across your bedhead for an embarrassingly long amount of time. “Good morning.”

“Morning.”

“Did she kick you last night?” 

You rake your fingers through your hair, quickly moving them to your lips to stifle a yawn. “Not that I remember.” 

“Oh, you’d remember. Trust me. She was on top of me the whole night.” He’s smiling like an idiot. He couldn’t sound annoyed about it if he tried. 

“Aww, she loves you,” you coo. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, pink dusting his cheeks, “I can’t wait to do this.”

“Hmm?”

“Settle down. Have a family. I wasn’t, like, a hundred percent sure before, but I am now.” 

“You’ll be a good dad.”

He beams at you like he’s just won the lottery. “You think?” 

“For sure.” And he really would. You’re sure of it after last night. 

He opens his mouth to speak but your stomach cuts him off with an obnoxious growl. “Hungry?” Steve chuckles. 

“Shut up.” You swipe your pillow and smack him. 

He smacks you back, pulling it to his chest before you can steal it. “Wanna go out for breakfast?” 

Your brain short circuits. You forget you’re babysitting and not just laying in bed with Steve Harrington for fun. He is not asking you on a date like your heart assumes. 

“Oh, yeah. Sure. For sure,” you sputter out, heat licking up the back of your neck. 

“I’ll go see what she wants,” he slides onto the floor and shakes his legs awake. 

Steve’s tall, even sluggishly slumped over. But even more so as he stretches– arms rising with his shirt, revealing a fraction of golden skin above his waistband. A long, lazy moan climbs out of his chest. 

You push the comforter off before you burst into flames. 

Holly determines she wants IHOP because they put chocolate chips and sprinkles on the pancakes. Steve supplies her with an outfit and wrestles her hair into pigtails with bows to match her skirt. It’s surprisingly coordinated and admittedly cute, but maybe you’re wrong to be so surprised– he knows his way around a comb and a closet. 

“Can I get pancakes?” she asks Steve, perched on the bottom step of the stairs. 

He’s cross-legged on the floor, hunched over to lace her sneakers. “I already told you yes, silly goose.”

“Can I get extra sprinkles?”

“Uhh, does your mom let you?”

She thinks about it before answering. “Yes, I think so.” 

“Sure, then.” He grins, clapping her tied shoes together before standing. 

You shoulder Holly’s bag, stuffed with books and toys and a jacket in case it rains, courtesy of Steve who insisted she might need it. “Ready?” you ask him.

Steve races Holly to the car while you lock up. Mrs. Wheeler installed Holly’s car seat in Steve’s beamer before she left but you’ve yet to use it. 

“It’s too tight,” Holly whines from the car, loud enough to hear from the top of the driveway. 

“I know, ‘m working on it,” Steve assures, working his fingers under the straps. “Just gotta figure it out.”

“Hurry!” 

“I’m hurrying, Holl. Give me a sec’.” 

You open the passenger door and peek around the headrest to view her. The belts are buckled but not tight enough to spark concern. “He’s going as fast as he can, Holly. Be patient.” 

She squirms under his hands, exhaling sharply. And like her, Steve’s frustration mounts, jaw tightening, brow furrowing. His fingers keep slipping and he’s not totally sure which button or strap is for loosening. 

You swing around to Holly’s door and cup Steve’s shoulder. “Let me try.”

He knocks his head on the roof as he pulls out. 

You wince, “Okay?” 

He softens as you reach for his neck, though your fingers never land. Still, the tender look you offer is enough to cure any bumps or bruises he might’ve gotten. 

It’s an unfortunate amount of trial and error before Holly is fastened in properly. Steve cranks the AC on full blast when you finally settle into your seats and circles through radio stations after he backs out. He finds the kid’s station, playing a Muppet’s song that Steve apparently knows every word to. He sings unapologetically loud, a stupid grin sewn to his face. 

When you arrive, Holly happily holds your hand through the parking lot, still clutching tightly as you wait to be seated. She climbs onto your lap to make room on the waiting bench for a woman looking ready to pop out a baby any minute. Steve stands at your other side, arm braced behind your neck. 

“How old is she?” the woman asks you fondly. 

“She’s five,” you return her smile, bouncing your knee. “Right, Holly?”

Holly twists to hide in your neck, nodding. 

“She’s very cute,” she says with such love you already believe her baby is in good hands. “Your sister?” Her eyes flick from yours to Steve who is mostly oblivious to the conversation. 

“No, just babysitting.” 

“Oh, well, you’ll make good parents one day.” 

The comment renders you speechless. It’s not that you hadn’t considered children before, but you hadn’t pictured them with Steve. With his smile, his eyes, his nose. It’s that this woman who doesn’t even know you imagined it before you had. You blink at her stupidly through a forced smile.

Steve squeezes your shoulder, ripping you from your thoughts. “You okay? Table’s ready.” 

You get seated in a booth overlooking the parking lot. 

Holly bends across Steve’s lap to point through the window. “I see our car!” 

“Yeah, that’s her.” 

Holly’s face contorts with confusion. “Her? Your car’s a girl?” 

“Yep–”

The waitress swings over with a handful of menus and a hasty introduction. Steve already knows what he wants and he places Holly’s order after his, making sure to clarify the extra sprinkles when she calls his name repeatedly to remind him. As soon as you decide, the waitress bustles off with the pair of menus to another table. 

Holly slides her paper menu closer, examining each activity. 

Steve picks open the box of crayons, revealing a stingy three– red, green, and blue. “You know, for a multi-million dollar company, you’d think they could afford more than three crayons.”

“And more staff,” you add, eyes tailing another waitress zipping from one table to another. 

Holly points at herself, Steve, and then you, counting, “One, two three. Three crayons for three people.” 

“Yeah, good point,” Steve pats her thigh. “Always the optimist.” 

“Op-ta-nist?”

“Op-ta-mist,” he clarifies. 

She snags the green crayon and presses it to the paper. “What’s that?”

Steve opens and closes his mouth. “Well, it’s like– it’s when you– you’re happy a lot. Grass is always greener on the other side, you know?” 

Steve lost her at the metaphor but she’s too focused on staying inside the lines to care about the definition of optimist anymore. 

“You got there eventually. Sort of,” you tease. 

His foot stabs your ankle under the table. “Shut up.” 

Steve lets Holly win every single round of tic-tac-toe while showering her with praise, convincing her she's a tactical mastermind. You can’t quite tell if she’s onto him, but she’s too busy grinning to say otherwise.

The waitress plants your and Steve’s plates on the table first, reaching behind to scoop Holly’s off her tray next. “And, chocolate chip pancakes with extra sprinkles for the little one.” 

“Thank you,” you manage to say before she leaves to tend to another table flagging her down. “Holly, want syrup?”

“Yes, please.” 

You pour a spiral of maple syrup over Holly’s pancakes. The amount of sugar on her plate might qualify it more as candy than breakfast. And she’s ogling the food like it’ll grow legs and run away. 

“Steve, will you cut them up for her?”

He nods, swallowing a mouthful of scrambled eggs and trading his fork for a knife. As soon as he slides her meal back over, Holly ravages the pancakes, spooning another bite in her mouth before she’s swallowed the last.

The waitress whisks by with drink refills, joy driving her to a smile at the sight of Holly and her half-empty plate. 

“I swear we feed her at home,” Steve chuckles through his own joke. What a dad thing to say. “Can we get some more napkins?” 

And it’s like he knows what’s going to happen. Holly stretches across the table for the syrup bottle, drawing back with an open-mouthed grimace. 

“Uh-oh.” She presses her chin to her chest. There’s a patch of syrup turning the hem of her pink shirt brown. 

“What?” Steve throws a pigtail behind her shoulder so he can see. “Oh. It’s okay.” 

“It was an accident,” Holly explains. 

“I know. It’s okay.” 

“It’s sticky.”

“It’ll wash off.” Steve dunks a clean napkin in his cup of water and dabs it across the stain. 

“It’s too cold,” she complains, pinching the fabric away from her skin. 

“Sorry. It’ll dry. Have to get the syrup out, though.” 

You deliver another wad of napkins to Steve’s hand. He pushes them against her belly, soaking up any excess water. His patience never frays.

Holly looks up, worry etched into her voice, “Will it stain?” 

“I dunno,” you supply truthfully. “We’ll throw it in the wash when we get home.” 

Steve pays the bill with the cash the Wheelers left and scrapes his wallet for change, stacking two quarters on the table when he finds them. “Since you’ve been such a good listener. There’s a sticker machine up front,” he tells Holly. 

Steve might as well have slapped a ticket to Disney World on the table. Holly literally jumps for joy, right out of her seat. She buys a random Lisa Frank sticker and pockets the second coin for her piggy bank. 

It’s Steve’s idea to go to the playground afterward. The park is teeming with life, the kind of chaos that only a weekend morning can bring. Swings creak under the weight of eager kids, and the monkey bars have their own traffic jam. Parents wrap the playground like a barricade, their chatter drowned out by laughter and shouts. But the heat presses down ruthlessly, making every step feel like you’re wading through a sauna.

Holly tears away from Steve’s hand as soon as her shoes hit the mulch, rejoicing in her newfound freedom with a little skip. She races up a set of stairs to wait for a turn on the tallest slide. 

“Should’ve brought sunscreen,” Steve says, eyes following Holly down the slide. She flashes you both a prideful smile from the bottom. 

“She’ll survive. We won’t stay long. It’s too hot.” You pull your shirt out to fan your chest, dabbing the sweat beading at your sternum. 

“Careful!” he shouts as she hops from one platform to the next. She continues to bounce along the path, one wobbly leap at a time. A particularly long jump has Steve cringing. He’s trying really hard not to be overanxious and it’s as sweet as it is amusing. 

He side-eyes your grin with an opposing frown. You don’t even have to say anything for him to know you’re teasing him. “What?” 

You shrug, smile doubling. “You.”

“What about me?” 

“You’re just funny.” 

“My concern is funny to you?” he accuses. 

“She’s fine, Steve.” 

He makes a noise of disagreement, arms crossed and a hip popped out dramatically far. You see why Dustin teases him for being motherly. 

Holly struggles with the monkey bars. She makes it halfway across before her arms start to shake and her hands slip. Steve lunges forward as he watches her plummet to the ground. But before he can swoop in, Holly pops up, dusts the dirt from her skirt with a nonchalant shrug, and marches on, completely unfazed. 

“See. She’s fine,” you reassure.

“Whatever,” Steve grumbles, strolling away to sulk in private. 

He makes a slow lap around the playground, hands planted firmly on his hips, casting a critical eye over the chaos. Meanwhile, you snag a spot on a bench, where most parents are engrossed in magazines or gossip, blissfully detached. You watch Steve get roped into playing a monster, though you can tell he secretly loves it. 

It doesn’t take long for him to start stomping around, roaring and growling, chasing the kids as they shriek and scatter. And when they finally tire him out, he collapses beside you, his shirt clinging to his sweaty back, and his breath coming in ragged bursts. 

“I told her five more minutes,” he says, stretching an arm across the back of the bench behind you. His curls shine honeycomb gold in the spray of sunlight and his skin echoes the warmth of desert sand, softened pink like the blush of sunset. He looks strikingly gorgeous sprawled out beside you. 

Holly trots over not much later, alarmingly upset. 

You sit up, urgently shaking Steve’s thigh to grab his attention. “What happened, honey?” 

“I– I was,” she sucks in a staggered breath, “I was climbing the stairs and– and a boy, he pushed me.” Twin rivulets of tears are unleashed with a blink, converging at the curve of her chin. 

You scan her from head to toe. Nothing looks broken or bloody. “Are you hurt?” 

“No,” she strains. 

You drag her into your chest, pressing a loving cheek to her ear. “Did it scare you?” 

She nods, hiccuping into your neck. 

“I’m sorry, Holly. That wasn’t nice at all.” 

Steve’s gaze shifts between Holly and the playground to search for guilty suspects. He finds none, thankfully, though he’s still itching to wring out whatever parent it is not watching their kid– which is unfortunately most of them.

“Let me see,” he coaxes Holly over for his own checkup. He picks a piece of mulch from her hair and flicks off another stamped into her calf. “Think you’ll make it? Should we call an ambulance?” 

She doesn’t smile at his joke like you hope. 

“Ready to go home?” you ask.

She sniffs into her sleeve. “Yeah.” 

“Alright.” Steve hoists her up as he stands. Holly's long legs wrap around his waist, feet swaying against his thighs as he walks. 

Holly naps on the way home, not by choice but by sheer exhaustion. She convinces herself she didn’t actually fall asleep when she wakes up in the driveway, swearing, “I just closed my eyes.” 

But it’s quickly apparent that twenty minutes was not enough. She cries because her leftover pizza for lunch is cold in the middle and again when she rubs the sauce in her eye. You turn on a movie, hoping to induce another nap, but The Aristocats is just too good to sleep through. Thankfully, her grumpiness wanes into a more manageable pout, her arms uncrossing to snuggle closer to you on the couch.

When the movie ends, she slinks up, her departure leaving your lap cold. After a long-winded debate about what to do, you all finally agree on playing a board game. Steve steers Holly downstairs to pick one out and she returns with a rekindled excitement, dropping the game Twister at your feet. 

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Twister, but you were expecting something easier. Candy Land or Chutes and Ladders. So you let Steve and Holly go first. The round ends in a heap of tangled limbs and giggles, a winner unclear. But Holly wins the match against you, admittedly fair and square. And it’s all fun and games until she insists you and Steve must compete. 

“Ehh, Holly. My arms are tired,” you reason. 

“But I wanna be the referee too,” she whines. “Pleaseee!” 

Steve shrugs at you, a playful little curve to his lips. If you say no, that makes only you the bad guy. And you just can’t bring yourself to break Holly’s heart over something so simple. 

“Okay,” you sigh, ignoring the nervous tick in your chest. 

Holly pushes you by the hips onto the mat to stand opposite Steve. She gets situated on the floor and excitedly flicks the spinner, calling, “Left foot. Blue!” 

You each step toward a blue dot. Easy. 

“Right foot on green.” 

Right foot, green. You’re shoulder to shoulder now, hips angled toward his. 

“Right hand… yellow!” 

“Here we go,” you mumble, bending down to reach yellow. “Okay.” 

Steve chuckles and follows suit, free hand hovering awkwardly behind your shoulder. 

You twist your head until you can’t, just to see the stupid look on his face. “You know, your long legs really give you an unfair advantage here.” 

“Don’t be a sore loser,” he chides, hot breath fanning the back of your already hot neck. 

“Don’t speak so soon, Harrington. You’re the one who’s gonna lose.” 

“Right hand, red,” Holly announces. 

You lean back toward red, headbutting Steve’s side so you don’t fall. He curls into position next, swaying until his back pocket is inches from your nose. 

“Oh my God, Steve. Get your butt out of my face!” You’d shove him if you had an extra hand. 

Holly giggles in that contagious way kids laugh, automatically pulling one from Steve. 

“Don’t make me laugh. If I go down, so are you,” he reminds you. 

“Umm, left foot green,” Holly says. 

Steve groans dramatically, whining. “What! Holly, that’s impossible. Spin again.” 

She cackles, reminiscent of Queen Holly. “Nope, you have to! That’s the rules!”

And somehow, you both make it to green without knocking each other over. But you’re getting distracted– Steve’s hand has brushed your calf three times now and his shirt is loose, hanging off his chest in a way that gives you a clear view of his tummy. This might as well be sabotage. You tear your eyes away. You must focus. You didn’t care much for winning before, but something about Steve brings out your competitive side. 

“Right hand, green.” 

You bow your knee until it’s wedged uncomfortably into your ribcage so you can reach the green. Your thighs quickly begin to ache. You won’t last much longer in this position. Especially not when Steve arches over you like a human bridge, the zipper of his jeans tickling your back where your shirt has scrunched up. 

He shakes his hair out of the way so he can see you, albeit upside down. His smile stretches wide, radiating pure, unfiltered joy. He’s having the time of his life, and admittedly, so are you. 

Your elbow juts out, nearly giving under the weight of his gaze alone. But you snap it back in place and practically beg Holly, “Spin.” 

“Left foot blue!”

You and Steve lunge for the same blue circle. His sock slides against the tarp, leg extending much farther than he’s prepared for. His arm buckles, chest slamming down against your back. Your elbows give out immediately under the force of his weight, jaw slamming into the floor. 

“Shit, sorry! You okay?” 

A burst of laughter tumbles out of your mouth before you can answer. But maybe it’s an answer in itself. Your chin stings but you're fine. Better than fine, even. 

As soon as Steve scrambles off of you, you flip onto your back. His eyes trickle down you in assessment, eyebrows knitting together, mouth twitching like it can’t decide whether to frown or smile. 

“I’m okay,” you manage, smiley and breathless. 

“Did you hit your face?”

“Just my chin.” 

He reaches for your face with hesitant fingers. “Sorry.”

You shake your head, bolstering his wrist as he cups your chin. “I definitely won.” 

And just like that, all his worry washes away. He pries your hand from his wrist, wrenching you up to sit. “Technically, you hit the floor first.” 

You glance over to Holly for her professional referee’s opinion but find she’s no longer there. “Where’s–”

“I found it!” she yells from the upstairs. What exactly she found, you’ve no idea. But she comes stomping down the stairs not a minute later with a little box in her hands. Bandaids, you realize, as she dumps the contents on the twister mat beside you. “They’re Hello Kitty,” she says, stripping the paper backing off of one. 

You let her little fingers stamp it to the curve of your chin. It’s not bleeding, nor does it really hurt that bad, but the gesture is sweet enough to melt your heart. “Thank you, Holly. You’re so gentle. You should be a candy striper.” 

“I don’t think I’m old enough.”

“When you’re older then.”

Steve decides Twister is far too dangerous to keep playing, but Holly demands a game of Mouse Trap so it works out. Steve wins, despite you and Holly’s strategic alliance halfway through. And by then, she’s asked about dinner twice so you shelve the rest of the games and head up to the kitchen to decide together. 

Holly hums into the freezer, “Chicken nuggets… pizza rolls– oh! Eggos, can we have Eggos?” 

Steve bites the inside of his cheek, peering over her, “Why don’t we cook something? We could have a fancy dinner. Like a dinner party.”

“Can we dress up?”

“Sure,” he shrugs, flipping a pack of ground beef over. 

“Pasta?” you call from the pantry.

“Ooh, yeah. Let’s do that.”

Holly sprints upstairs for a costume, much more interested in the party than the dinner. You pull a box of noodles and an unopened jar of sauce from the shelf while Steve grabs a pot from the cabinet and sticks it under the faucet. 

“Careful. Stove’s on,” you announce, flicking the dial on high. 

Steve backs up from the sink slowly, water sloshing over the side of the pot when he bumps the table. 

“Steve,” you chuckle, pulling a dish towel from the oven handle, “It doesn’t need to be that full.” 

“No?” 

“No, dump like, half of that out.” 

He nods, pouring some out and depositing the rest over the stove. “I’m gonna be honest, I’ve never made pasta before.”

“Yeah, I could’ve guessed,” you quip, elbowing his side with the box of noodles in hand. “Pour these in?”

He takes the box and gives it a good shake. “How much?” 

“Maybe half? Little more?” 

He tips it over the water, snapping it back up when much more than half slides out. “Oops.” 

“It’s okay.” You chuck a few stray pieces from the counter into the pot. “Everyone’s getting seconds tonight. What do you like in your pasta?” 

“Sauce?” 

The laugh fizzles out in your throat as you realize he’s not making a joke. “Besides sauce. Cheese? Meat? Spices?” 

“Oh, uhh, I’m not sure.” Steve scratches the back of his neck, hand retracting to fidget with the hem of his shirt. He’s antsy, clearly nervous. Maybe embarrassed of his cooking knowledge, or rather, lack of it. Or perhaps afraid the pasta will end up something like the first set of grilled cheeses. 

“We’ll keep it simple then. Holly probably won’t like it too fancy anyway.” 

Steve nervously watches the water bubble, foam climbing up the sides. “Do you like garlic bread? Saw some in the freezer.” 

You fish the box out and line a pan with three pieces. And with bread in the oven and the pasta starting to boil, you hop on the counter to wait.  

“How long does it take?” Steve asks.

“Not long.” 

You open the drawer beside your legs and find a big wooden spoon. Lucky guess. “Here. Stir.” 

His eyes follow the ladle, stirring with steady hands. It’s a peaceful quiet, his focus unusually soft. Not the urgent, fate of his life kind of determination you’re used to seeing. 

When it’s ready, you pinch the spoon’s neck, fingertips sweeping his for the half a second before he lets go. “Now we strain the water. Then we can add the sauce.” 

You find a strainer and plant it in the sink while Steve carries the pot over and pours. He sets it back on the stove, per your orders, and offers a hand when you struggle with the sauce lid. 

He pins the jar against his chest, knuckles straining white in several attempts to twist the cap. But it pops off after a good shake, spraying sauce across your cheek, and spinning to the floor like a frisbee. 

Steve freezes, gawking at your face with a stupid smile. 

“Steve!” You scoop up a dish towel and smack his arm. 

He throws his hands up and turns a shoulder to you. “I didn’t mean to,” he snickers. 

“Don’t laugh! I’ll pour that whole jar over your head.” 

He doesn’t buy your threat one bit, still laughing as he sets the jar down and steals the towel from your hands. “I’ll get it. Sit still.” 

You summon the most menacing glare you can manage while suppressing a smile. He presses the towel to your cheek, thumb gliding across your skin as he wipes the sauce in one languid motion. His eyes flick down to your lips and you’re positive you aren’t imagining it. 

But you’re sweating and your stomach is churning and– “The pasta!” You ram into Steve’s shoulder trying to get by, rushing to turn the stove temperature down. 

Steve whisks up behind you to see the food. “Is it burnt?” 

“No, no. It should be fine.” You scrape the ladle under the bottom layer of noodles. “Pass me the sauce?”

You avoid his eyes as you take it. Was he going to kiss you? Maybe just thinking about it? Or perhaps there was just sauce near your mouth and you’re spiraling over absolutely nothing. 

You toss the food in sauce and divide it into three plates silently. 

“Holly! Food’s ready,” Steve shouts as he fixes the table with napkins and silverware. 

She clambers down the steps in a tutu and a cardigan that you’re pretty sure is Nancy’s. Her smile drops. “Where are your clothes?” 

Steve looks down at his sweats. “Holly, I think we’ll just–”

“Please, Stevie. It’s a dinner party, remember?” 

His eyes dart to you, though you still can’t bring yourself to look at him. “One sec.”

He swings back into the kitchen wearing a tweed suit jacket, a silky, black one draped over his arm. His is a few sizes too big, shoulder pads drooping down his biceps, and the sleeves swallowing his hands. He pushes the fabric up his elbows to hand you the other jacket. “For you.” 

“Thanks,” you deadpan. It comes off less sarcastic than you aim for. 

Holly and Steve adopt similar grins as you slip the jacket on. “You look dashing,” she compliments. 

“Very,” Steve agrees, taking a seat beside you. 

You spend the rest of dinner internally debating whether he’s flirting or just indulging in Holly’s playful antics. The uncertainty makes your stomach flip, and suddenly you aren’t so hungry anymore. 

After the dinner party concludes, it’s Holly’s suggestion to go for a walk. She wheels her bike out of the garage, fitted with a set of training wheels and a handlebar bursting with tinsel. A yawn rolls off her tongue as she launches down the driveway. It raises your hopes for a smoother bedtime tonight. 

Even as the horizon melts into the Earth, the summer heat clings like a heavy hand. Trees project long shadows along the road, eating what’s left of the sunlight. Bugs buzz and birds chirp, but a sleepy stillness is ubiquitous. 

“What?” you ask suddenly, whipping your head to face Steve. He’s drenched in gold, pale wisps of hair riding the breeze as he strolls. 

“I didn’t say anything.” 

“You’re staring at me. I feel it.” 

“I wasn’t,” he assures. 

You blink at him. You can’t decide whether to be annoyed at such an obvious lie or embarrassed by the truth. 

He jogs ahead before you’ve come up with something to say. Halfway to Holly, he shouts, “Come on, slowpoke!” 

It only takes one loop around the block for the heat to catch up. Holly complains incessantly about her helmet strap being too tight even after Steve fixes it and you’re itchy from sweat and mosquito bites. Steve’s, well, he might be the only content one. Happy even, guiding you home with a subtle bend to his lips and a soft glow tinting his cheeks. 

Holly whines about having to take a bath, and while you might negotiate it another night, you can see the damp line down her back. But like you suspect, all grievances are forgotten the second she gets in. She likes playing in the bath, even if she forgets it. It’s where she keeps her mermaid Barbie and her collection of rubber ducks, coincidentally all named Bob. 

And while bath time might tend to feel like more of a chore as a babysitter, tonight is different. It’s your last night at the Wheelers, and while that’s not new information, it is startlingly sad. You aren’t irritated when she splashes water in your eye or when she leaves a trail of it down the hall for you to clean. You can’t be, not when you know you’ll miss it. 

Steve helps you tuck Holly into Nancy’s bed. After pinky swearing that you’ll both return at your own bedtime, she drifts off easily. You’re thankful, of course, but a piece of you secretly hoped to be needed longer.  

“Must’ve been tired,” Steve whispers, pushing slowly off the bed. “You okay?” 

You nod, tearing your eyes from Holly to meet Steve’s. “Kinda sad.” You shrug, murmuring, “Stupid.” 

“It’s not.” He cups your shoulder and runs a warm hand up and down your arm. “Come on.” 

You take his hand and let him lead you across the hall and down the stairs. He pulls you onto the couch so you land pressed into the same cushion he’s on. “Y’know, babysitting Holly’s a breeze compared to the usual shitheads. We don’t have to worry about her taking my car keys or fighting interdimensional monsters or summoning a gate to hell,” he says. 

A soft laugh parts your lips. “Think Holly will put in a good word for us with her parents?” 

“You kidding? She loves us. Especially me,” he jokes. “Hate to break it to you but I’m definitely her favorite.” 

“No, you are not. Shut up.” 

He catches your fist mid-punch, cradling your hand like it’s made of wet sand. His thumb crosses each divot between your fingers, stroking up and down your knuckle slowly. “I’m sure they’ll ask us to babysit her again at some point.”

You hum in agreement. 

“Besides, we could expand our horizons. There’s like a million other children in Hawkins that need babysitting.” 

Your smile spills into your cheeks. “We?” 

“Yeah, I think we make a pretty damn good team. Don’t you?” 

“I do, but… we don’t have to limit our interactions to just babysitting, you know?” 

“What are you thinking? Dinner and a movie? Next weekend?” His eyes flick from your fingers to your face– to each eye, sweeping down the center of your nose, stopping right at your lips. 

You turn away in an attempt to soothe your heart as it pounds up to your ears. “Smooth, Harrington.” 

He reels you back in gently by the arm, confidence shining through his smile.“What? Did I read this wrong?” He knows he didn’t, he’s teasing you. 

“No,” you mumble, “You didn’t.” 

He leans in to whisper, “Can I kiss you then?” 

You nod, pushing into the soft press of his lips with your own. He’s not hesitant, nor is he harsh. Steve knows how to kiss, that much is clear. He trades your hand for your cheek, gently tilting your face to the side as he pulls away. 

Your eyes flutter open to a doting gaze. One that travels down the lines and slopes of your neck like they’re made of candy. Steve plants a second kiss on your lips, though fleeting in comparison to the first. But he plants several more to make up for it, working his way in a Z down your cheek, across your jaw, and back down your neck. They’re quick, ticklish little pecks of affection. A sweetness if you ever knew it. 

“Steve,” you admonish, though giggles betray your tone. The hands that frame his face glide gently down to his throat, your thumbs meeting at his Adam's apple. “We’re babysitting.” 

“I know,” he says, kissing your lips for a third time. “Just had to get a few extra in there. For all the times I thought about kissing you this weekend.” 

“Don’t say that.”

“Why?” He laughs, bubbly like you’ve surprised him. “It’s true. I thought about it all weekend.” 

You don’t know why you ask– why you even thought of it at a time like this– but you question him, “What about Nance?” 

“What about her?” 

“You don’t…” you trail off, afraid to even speak the possibility into existence. 

“We’re done. We have been. For a lot longer than I was willing to admit,” he admits honestly. 

“Yeah, but do you–”

“I don’t. Still have feelings for her. Not like that, anyway.” 

You meet his eyes, feeling a strange blend of emotions you can’t quite name.

“If you don’t believe me, you’ll just have to let me prove it to you,” he holds your gaze, warm with a sincerity that makes it hard to doubt him. 

“I believe you.” 

You let Steve kiss you several more times on that couch. He’s patient, deliberate, and more kind than you ever imagined he’d be. It’s hard to understand why Nancy would ever let someone like that go. 

ᯓ★

On Monday morning, you blink awake first, the comforting weight of a hand that’s not yours across your hip and another, much lighter one, at your belly. You turn over slowly, finding Steve and Holly wrapped around each other like ivy on trellis. You don’t imagine many people look this pretty asleep. The comb of long lashes kissing the soft flush in his cheeks. The golden lather of sunrise in each wild swoop of hair. The way his lips part for a sigh cuter than you knew one could be. 

He mumbles something unintelligible, sleep talk perhaps. 

You whisper back anyway, “What?” 

Steve sighs, smearing his cheek against the pillow. “Being a creeper.” 

“Me?” 

“Mhmm.” One eye slowly unbinds itself from sleep. Steve adores the tight-lipped smile on your face, broad with an infatuation he forgot could be aimed at him. His hand twitches at your side. 

“You just look so pretty when you sleep,” you admit. Is it too soon to say such things? 

His eye closes as he smiles, nosing into Holly’s hair, selfishly keeping it to himself. You reach across her body to find it, swiping a loving finger across his lips when you do. 

You stay in bed for as long as Holly will allow– which is not very long after she wakes up– but you don’t mind. You watch fondly as Steve helps her brush her teeth and as she helps Steve toast and butter the Eggos. Like Steve, Holly’s a good kid. They’re both helpers at heart. 

And you’re sure to remind Mrs. Wheeler of that when she rings the house to let you know they’re almost home. Holly’s excitement quickly dwindles into sadness the moment she realizes you won’t be staying. But she uses it to bargain one final game of hide and seek before you go. 

“Come on.” Steve drags you by the wrist, bustling upstairs to the bathroom. He throws the shower curtain aside and jumps in, offering his hand to help you after. You sit scrunched together, knee to knee on the porcelain floor, giggling like children. 

“Shhh,” you squeeze his kneecap. “You’re gonna get us found.” 

He jostles your shoulder, mouth agape. “You’re the one who’s laughing!” 

“No,” you insist, though the light in your eyes suggests otherwise. Curiosity sparks and the irrepressible urge to act on it wins. You lean in for a kiss, confirming that’s all it takes to shut Steve up. 

He tastes like maple syrup, loving with his lips as much as his hands. He pulls back for breath and returns for another peck, pressing into the corner of your mouth where your smile keeps drawing higher and higher. 

“Hard to kiss you when you're smiling.” 

“Can’t help it,” you defend. “Never been so happy.” 

He softens like warm icing, a sweet and gooey mess in your arms. But the shake of the front door closing stiffens him. 

“Mommy!” you hear quickly after. 

Steve scrambles up and over the lip of the tub, tugging you out with him. You follow him downstairs where Mrs. Wheeler swings Holly in her arms like she’s much smaller than she really is. Mr. Wheeler steers a suitcase silently through the entryway. 

“Did you have so much fun?” she asks Holly, peppering kisses across her temple. “Ohh, I missed you!” 

Holly revels in the affection overload, bending backward to giggle at you and Steve. 

Mrs. Wheeler grins. “How was she?” 

“Great, as always,” Steve assures. His cheeks are flushed, his hair mussed— though you could chalk that up to bedhead, not the aftermath of your short-lived makeout session.

You nod, adding, “We went swimming and to the park and–”

“IHOP!” Holly yells. “I got pancakes with chocolate chips and extra sprinkles!” 

“Did you? Sounds like you had a lot of fun.” Mrs. Wheeler plants Holly on her feet. “Can you give hugs? Say thank you for being such good babysitters?” 

Holly launches herself at Steve. He sends you a smirk over her shoulder, rocking her side to side in his embrace. You can just hear him say, I told you so. 

But she offers the same enthusiasm and more for you, dragging you onto the floor for a proper goodbye hug. “I don’t want you to go,” she pouts in your ear. 

“We’ll come back. We can have playdates?” 

“Can’t you just live in Nancy’s room? She’s never here anyway.” 

You can’t help but laugh. “I wish I could,” you admit honestly. 

She reluctantly loosens her grip on your shirt when you peel away. 

Mrs. Wheeler sees you and Steve off with a warm smile. Holly darts through her mother’s legs for one final hug on the porch. You wave goodbye, the moment slipping into something bittersweet before Steve bumps his shoulder into yours, a playful grin softening the farewell.

You dawdle up to your car, wringing your hands together when you reach the door. “So.”

“So,” he parrots. 

“This weekend, right?” 

His smirk blooms into a full smile. “Friday? Pick you up at seven?” 

“Okay,” you nod. 

“Okay,” he chuckles, clipping a hand around your jaw and leaning in. 

You turn away so the kiss skips across the softest stretch of your cheek. “Steve.” 

His eyes never leave your face as he assures you, “They’re not looking.” 

“Don’t be so sure.” 

Holly waves at you through the living room window, a smile as wide as her face. Steve’s hand falls down to his side and he takes a platonic step back. You both return her goodbye, but Holly stays, her little hand pressed to the glass. 

“Think she’ll tell?” Steve asks, not an ounce of worry in his tone.