girls, will you please take the wheel?

eventually, robin catches on, because of course she does. when she confronts steve about it — about being weird and constantly walking by the music store across the way whenever you're working — he shoves her shoulder and brushes past her on the way to the freezer in the back.

"if you have a crush on them, i can help you out," robin says, and it's suddenly like she's dangling a carrot in front of bugs bunny. "but this can't be like, some weird sexual conquest of yours. they're... fragile. sensitive."

steve wrinkles his nose. "what's that supposed to mean?"

"do you want me to put in a good word or not?" robin asks, cocking her hip against the door, "i could be the one thing between you and potentially kissing something other than your pillow this summer—"

"alright, alright, jesus," steve rolls his eyes. "yeah, talk to them, please."

surprisingly, steve doesn't hear about the whole thing from robin again. he figured she'd at least ask if there was anything he wanted her to mention to talk him up, but it all fizzles out just as quickly as it started. so much so that steve wonders if robin forgot about it.

that is, until steve arrives at starcourt for an early shift, before the mall's even open to the public — why scoops opens at 11 a.m. is a mystery to him — and he's casually strolling past the music store, not because he's looking for you, but because that's the usual route he takes, and you're standing outside it, arms crossed.

"hey," you suddenly say, a displeased expression on your face. steve stutters to a stop before turning to look behind him, then pointing at himself. "yeah, you, harrington. who else would i be talking to?"

"um... i don't know," steve answers slowly, wishing he was wearing literally anything other than his scoops uniform right now. really, even his high school basketball uniform would've been at least a little bit better than this. "is everything okay?"

he's confused, if not taken back by your scrappy tone, especially since every time he's seen you interact with customers in the store, you've seemed quite the opposite. he knows everyone has customer service skills, but jeez, were yours really that good?

"no, everything's not okay," you sneer, a frown persistent on your face. even looking as grumpy as you do, steve still thinks you look beautiful, which he knows is a little ridiciulous. you step closer to him and he swallows nervously, your clunky boots meeting the toes of his sneakers. "why did you tell robin you like me? what kind of bullshit is that?"

steve furrows his brows. "what?"

"'what?'" you mock, and steve almost bellows out a laugh, because this whole situation is stupid and you're trying to seem intimidating, he thinks, but it's not really working. "you told robin you like me. you don't."

"why don't you think i like you?"

"first of all, you don't even know me," you say, jabbing your pointer finger at his chest, through the cheap polyester of his sailor uniform. "secondly, you're king steve. hawkins high golden boy. you don't go after people like..." you swallow, then stand up a little straighter. "you date nancy wheelers."

"i haven't been dating nancy for a while now," steve replies easily, slowly reaching out to grab your finger with his larger hand. he locks eyes with you, waiting for you to interject or maybe slap him, but you don't, not as he slowly lowers your hand. "i also... i know i had a certain persona in high school, but that's not who i am anymore. clearly. i work at fucking scoops ahoy, for christ's sake. this is what i have to wear to work. i answer to 8 year olds who scream at me for sundaes."

a dry laugh passes through your lips. you look surprised by it, and steve's equally shocked. his lips upturn in a teasing smile.

"as for getting to know you... you're right about that. maybe that's why i'd like to take you on a date," he continues, watching as you blink, once, twice, then three times. "it's not a joke. i don't know who put that in your head but i would never do that to you, or anyone else. i swear it."

you clear your throat, then glance down at your shoes. you're still toe-to-toe, but it seems less hostile now. you look back up.

"swear on your scoops uniform." you say, pointing at the americana blue shorts he wears — the ones that fall just above his knees.

"my scoops uniform?" steve repeats, "not something more... i dunno, special? like my car or something?"

you shake your head. "nope. without the uniform, you can't work at scoops."

"well we can't have that," he replies with mock sincerity, "otherwise then i couldn't walk by whenever you're working. then how'd i spend my days?"

you narrow your eyes.

steve laughs.

"tonight? 7 pm?" steve asks, a hopeful lilt to his voice. "dinner? you and me?"

you pretend to contemplate it. you pretend like you need to be convinced, as if you haven't secretly been watching him across the food court, biting your lip every time he's on shift, giggling to yourself when he gets exasperated by those kids constantly coming to visit him and beg for more free samples.

you act as if you haven't had a raging crush on steve harrington since the day you started working at starcourt.

"fine," you relent, crossing your arms over your chest. "but don't fuck it up, harrington."

The nightmares don’t stop when he wakes up. That’s the thing nobody tells you. They linger in the corners of his vision, in the fluorescent flicker of the Family Video lights, in the static hum of the television playing previews on loop.

He keeps moving. That helps. Movement means he’s not back there, not strapped to that chair with his face throbbing and blood in his mouth and Robin screaming his name through the drugged haze. Movement means he’s here, now, stocking shelves and rewinding tapes and pretending he’s a person who works a normal job in a normal town where normal things happen.

The coke helps too.

He’s not proud of it. That’s the thing— he knows what it is, knows what he’s doing, knows the way his hands shake when he’s been too many hours without a bump, knows the way his jaw clenches so tight his teeth ache. He knows his mom would die if she knew. His dad would probably laugh, then disinherit him properly this time instead of just threatening it.

He's done it once or twice in high school. Tommy H and Carol would bring it over— back when they were still speaking, back when Steve's house was the designated party spot because his parents were never home and nobody cared what happened to the furniture.

He remembers those nights in fragments. The way the high made everything sharper, brighter, faster. How his fingers would drum relentlessly on the armrest of his dad's leather recliner while some movie played that none of them were watching. Tommy and Carol would start making out on his parents' couch within twenty minutes, every time, like clockwork. Then they'd escalate— clothes coming off, Carol straddling Tommy's lap, the wet sounds of their kissing filling the room.

Steve would try to focus on the TV, but Tommy would catch his eye. Would grin at him, wolfish and mean, and force Carol to look over too. They'd give him a show— moaning louder, moving slower, making sure he saw everything.

And Steve would sit there, half-hard at best despite his sex drive being kicked into overdrive, palming himself through his jeans because that's all his body would cooperate with. The coke made him want it but wouldn't let him have it properly, and that made him feel even more pathetic, more lonely. So he'd sit there listening to Tommy and Carol fuck on his couch, high off coke, nursing whiskey stolen from his dad's cabinet, feeling like the loneliest person in the world.

But it keeps him awake. Keeps him sharp. Keeps the edges of everything bright and manageable instead of soft and suffocating.

He does a line before his shift. In his car, in the Family Video parking lot, because he’s run out of places where he feels safe enough to let his guard down for the thirty seconds it takes. His hands don’t shake when he does this part. Muscle memory, maybe. Or maybe this is the only thing he’s good at anymore— the efficient mechanical process of self-destruction.

The powder burns going up. Always does. He tips his head back, pinches his nose, blinks hard against the sting. Then comes the drip, bitter and medicinal down the back of his throat, and he swallows it down with the dregs of yesterday’s Dr. Pepper from the cupholder.

The world sharpens. Everything gets louder, brighter, faster. His heartbeat kicks up— too fast, probably dangerous, definitely not sustainable— but god, it feels better than the alternative. Better than the gray nothing that settles over him when he’s sober, the weight that makes it hard to breathe, hard to move, hard to care about anything beyond the fact that he’s still somehow alive when he probably shouldn’t be.

When he walks into Family Video, he’s smiling. It’s not real— hasn’t been real in months— but it’s there. Keith barely looks up from his magazine. Robin does, though. Robin always does.

She’s behind the counter, reorganizing the candy display with the kind of focused intensity that means she’s either avoiding her own thoughts or overthinking his. Probably both. She glances up when the door chimes, and her eyes do a quick assessment, that flash of concern she tries to hide but never quite manages.

“Hey,” she says, and it’s careful. Everything with Robin is careful now, like he’s made of glass, like one wrong word will shatter whatever’s holding him together.

Maybe she’s right.

“Hey,” he says back, and his voice comes out too bright, too fast, words tripping over themselves. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic was insane. Well, not insane, but you know, backed up near the… anyway, I’m here. I’m good. We good?”

Robin’s mouth does something complicated. Not quite a frown, not quite a smile. “Yeah. We’re good.”

She doesn’t believe him. He doesn’t believe him either.

But he moves, because that’s what he does now. Stocks the returns, alphabetizes the new releases, helps a middle-aged woman find something “fun and sexy” for her Pamper-Chef party. His hands move too fast, fumbling tapes, dropping things. His jaw works constantly, chewing nothing, grinding teeth, tongue pressing against the roof of his mouth.

He talks too much. Knows it, can’t stop it. Words pour out of him like water from a broken faucet. It’s jokes that don’t land, observations nobody asked for, rambling tangents that lose their point halfway through. Robin listens, responds when she can, but he sees the way she watches him. The way she’s always watching now.

“You okay?” she asks during their break, sitting on the curb behind the store, watching him smoke a cigarette he doesn’t actually want.

“Yeah,” he lies. “I’m good. Great, actually. Feeling really good today.”

“Steve.”

“I’m fine, Robin.”

“Steve.”

He takes a drag, hands trembling slightly, and doesn’t meet her eyes. The sun is too bright. Everything is too bright. His skin feels too tight, like it doesn’t fit right anymore, like he’s wearing someone else’s body and doing a shit job of pretending it’s his.

“I’m handling it,” he says finally.

“This isn’t handling it.” Her voice cracks slightly. Even though she probably has no clue what “this” entails, she knew it was something to worry about. She saw right through him now, even when they’ve only been friends for less than a year. 

He doesn’t answer. Can’t. Because she’s right, and he knows she’s right, and knowing doesn’t change anything. Knowing doesn’t make the nightmares stop. Doesn’t make the mall go away. Doesn’t bring back the version of himself who existed before that summer, before the Russians, before he learned exactly how much pain a human body can endure before it stops feeling like a body at all.

He finishes his shift. Smiles at customers. Makes change. Recommends movies he hasn’t seen and probably never will. When it’s over, when he’s back in his car in the empty parking lot, he does another line because the crash is coming and he can’t face it sober.

The high doesn’t feel as good the second time. Never does. But it keeps him moving, keeps him functional, keeps him from having to think about the fact that he’s nineteen years old and his life has already ended twice.

He drives home with the windows down, radio too loud, heart hammering against his ribs like it’s trying to escape. The Harrington house is dark when he pulls up. It’s always dark. His parents are in Indianapolis, or maybe Chicago, or maybe they’re dead and nobody bothered to tell him.

He doesn’t go inside.

Instead, he sits in his car, engine running, hands gripping the steering wheel, and tries to remember what it felt like to want something. Anything. A future, a purpose, a reason to keep doing this day after day after day.

Nothing comes.

So he turns the car back on and drives until the tank is almost empty, until the sun starts coming up, until the coke wears off enough that exhaustion finally drags him under.

And tomorrow he’ll do it again.

Because Steve Harrington doesn’t know how to do anything else anymore.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

.-.-.-.

Another thing Steve Harrington is strung out on is sex.

Steve Harrington has been fucking. A lot. It gives him almost the same rush as the coke does— that brief obliteration of self, that momentary escape from his own head.

Steve loves sex. Loves the heat of it, the mechanics, the way bodies fit together in configurations that make sense when nothing else does. He loves watching a girl take him, the way her face changes when he pushes inside, the small adjustments her body makes to accommodate him. He loves when they call out his name— proof that he exists, that he's real, that he's here. He loves the pretty sounds they make, the gasps and whimpers that mean he's doing something right. He loves when they tell him he's good at this, that he's making them feel good, because it's the only thing he's still good at anymore. He loves giving those praises right back, feeling them tighten around him when he calls them “pretty” or a “good girl.” He loves pleasing them, loves the focused simplicity of it—read the signs, adjust accordingly, make her come. He loves the rush, the high, the brief euphoria when he finishes, that thirty-second window where his brain goes mercifully quiet.

Then it's over and he's alone again and nothing's changed except now he's sticky and tired and the girl is getting dressed and he has to pretend he'll call.

Tonight when he gets off work, the loneliness hits him the moment he steps inside his empty house.

Robin didn't work today— had the day off, probably spending it with her mom or locked in her room listening to records. He'd been stuck with Keith for the entire shift, and Steve had tried his hardest to handle it. 

He can quit anytime he wants. That's what he tells himself. He knows how and when. So it's no big deal that he kept disappearing to the bathroom to get a bump, something he needed to survive eight hours of Keith's breathing and Keith's commentary and Keith's existence.

On his third trip, Keith had made some joke about him shitting his pants— loud enough that the pretty customer Steve had been on his way to help could definitely hear. The girl he'd been planning to flirt with, get her number, take her out, fuck her, forget her.

Now it's Friday night and Robin is busy. Dustin is busy with whatever nerdy shit he does nowadays. And Steve is bored and alone, still wearing his Family Video vest and polo and jeans, standing in his kitchen that echoes with emptiness.

He'd taken another hit twenty minutes ago and he's never felt more alive, more awake, more like his skin is electric. And unfortunately, with the wake comes that desire— low and insistent in the bottom of his belly, pooling heat that demands attention.

It's almost ridiculous that he doesn't question who to call.

It's not like you and him are anything. You're a good friend. Kind. Pretty in this understated way that sneaks up on him. And maybe if things were different, if he were different, if the world hadn't ended and restarted and ended again—

He doesn't let himself finish the thought.

He dials your number, the one he knows by heart now. 

"Hello?"

Soft. Slightly cautious because it's late.

His eyes are already dilated but he feels them expand wider when your voice comes over the line.

"Steve?" You sound surprised but not unhappy. He hasn’t even said anything to let you know who it was. He hates how his stomach flips at the thought that he’s the only one who calls at this hour. "It's almost midnight."

"I know, I know." He laughs, pacing across the kitchen, cordless phone pressed to his ear. "Are you busy?"

"I'm reading." There's a smile in your voice. "Why?"

"Come over."

A pause. "Now?"

"Yeah, now. I'm bored out of my mind and—" He stops, switches tactics, drops his voice lower. "Come on, honey. You wouldn't want me to drink alone, would you?"

It's code. You both know it's code. This isn't about drinking and it never has been.

You sigh, but it's fond. "You're ridiculous."

"Is that a yes?"

"Give me twenty minutes." You arrive in twenty-two, and he's still wearing his Family Video vest because somewhere between hanging up and you knocking on his door, he'd decided— high and wired and restless— that the kitchen needed to be deep cleaned.

Now.

At 11 PM on a Friday.

He's reorganizing the spice cabinet when you walk in, letting yourself in because he always left the door unlocked for you. He can hear you giggle when you find him in the kitchen. 

"Were you cleaning?"

"Maybe." He grins, abandoning the paprika to pull you into the living room. "Want a beer?"

"Sure."

Within thirty minutes you've killed three bottles between you and migrated to the couch, your legs tucked under you, his arm stretched along the back cushions. The conversation flows easy. It’s of work stories, Robin's latest drama with Keith, the new arrivals at Family Video, but there's an undercurrent humming beneath it all.

You lean in and kiss him.

It starts slow, exploratory, your hand coming up to cup his jaw. But it escalates fast. His hands find your waist, pulling you closer, and you shift to straddle his lap. Your fingers grip the green fabric of his Family Video vest, clutching it tight for leverage as you deepen the kiss.

Steve groans into your mouth, hips already rolling up against you. He can feel himself getting hard, finally, thankfully, and he grinds against your thigh desperately, seeking friction. The vest bunches under your grip, polyester crinkling, and his hands slide up your back under your shirt.

Your skin is so soft. The coke makes him hyperaware of every texture—the cotton of your shirt, the smoothness of your back, the slight roughness of the couch fabric under his knees. But mostly it's you. The heat of you. The way you feel pressed against him.

"Fuck," he breathes against your lips, humping your leg like a teenager, unable to stop himself. "You feel so good."

You make a small sound. It’s like a half-laugh and half-moan, and you grind down on him harder. 

In one swift move he lays you down. 

Now you're kissing him harder, your back against the cushions and him half on top of you. His hands are in your hair, on your waist, pushing up under your shirt to feel bare skin. Your mouth tastes like beer and something sweet— gum, maybe, or chapstick— and he chases the flavor of it with his tongue. 

He's hyperfocused on every detail. The way your lips are slightly swollen already from kissing. The way your chest rises and falls with your breathing, faster now. The little sounds you make when his tongue finds yours. You're so responsive, so fucking perfect under him, and the high he’s on makes him feel like he could do this for hours, could map every reaction, could learn exactly what makes you gasp and whimper and moan.

You're still holding tightly to the green vest, as he desperately humps your leg, his cock aching. He can feel the heat of you even through layers of clothing and it's driving him insane.

God, you're beautiful like this. Hair mussed, lips parted, eyes heavy-lidded. He wants to memorize this. Wants to burn this image into his brain so he can recall it later when he's alone and the house is too quiet and he needs something good to hold onto.

But he's jittery. Coming down from the last high, and his hands are shaking as he tries to unbutton your blouse. The buttons are small, slippery, and his fingers won't cooperate. He fumbles, curses under his breath, tries again.

"Fuck," he mutters, laughing awkwardly because he can feel you watching him struggle. "Sorry, I…long day. My hands are—"

He can't sit still. The exhaustion is creeping back in around the edges, that bone-deep tired that the coke usually keeps at bay. He's desperate for you, wants you. He wants to see more of you, touch more of you, taste more of you, but his body isn't responding the way it should and his brain won't slow down and he needs—

"I need—" he starts, then stops himself.

He stands up abruptly, crosses to where his jacket is draped over a nearby chair. His hands find the baggie in the inner pocket— muscle memory, autopilot— and he's back at the coffee table before he's fully processed what he's doing.

He pulls out his dad's credit card. The one they left behind with a note: For groceries and bills. Don't spend it on anything stupid.

He cuts sharp, clean lines on the glass surface with practiced efficiency. One swipe, two, three—the scraping sound of plastic on glass loud in the quiet room. He leans down. Inhales one line, quick and sharp, the burn immediate and familiar. His throat closes around the drip, bitter and chemical.

He notices the silence then. How quiet you've gotten.

He freezes, finger still pressed to his nose, and slowly looks over at you.

You're watching him. Not moving. Not speaking. Your eyes are wide, lips slightly parted. They’re still swollen from kissing him, and even now, even caught like this, he thinks about how good you look. Hair messed up from his hands, shirt rumpled, sitting there looking at him like... he can't read the expression on your face. Something between shock and concern and something else he doesn't want to name.

Steve sniffs hard, licking his lips where the drip is already coating them. "I'm sorry. I didn't—" He stops, swallows. "Fuck. I'm sorry."

You should leave. He knows you should leave. He's shown you the ugliest part of himself and now you're going to walk out and he'll deserve it and he'll be alone again and—

"Can I try?"

The words don't compute at first. He stares at you.

"What?"

"Can I try it?" you ask again, and your voice is steady, certain.

His eyes dance across your face, trying to see any inclination that you don't mean it. But all he sees is you. You’re pretty and patient and here and you’re looking at him like you actually want to understand this part of him too. The coke makes his heart race faster, makes the moment feel surreal and heightened, makes you look almost ethereal in the low lamplight.

His buzz has his mind like mush, thoughts moving too fast and too slow simultaneously. He should say no. Should tell you to go home, to forget what you saw, to stay away from him and his shit and everything he's become.

Instead he hears himself say, "Yeah. Come here."

You move from the couch to the floor, kneeling beside him at the coffee table. And god, the sight of you like that. On your knees next to him, looking at him with those wide eyes. It sends a bolt of heat straight through him that has nothing to do with the drugs and everything to do with how badly he wants you.

He cuts another line for you— smaller than his, because you've never done this before and he's not completely gone yet. The scraping sound seems louder now, more obscene. He watches you look at it, sees the slight tremor in your breathing. Even nervous, you're gorgeous. He wants to touch you, pull you into his lap, bury his face in your neck.

"Like this?" you ask, leaning forward slightly, and the movement makes your shirt gape at the neckline. He can see the curve of your breast, the shadow between them, and he has to force himself to focus.

"Wait." His hand comes up, gathering your hair back from your face. The strands are soft, slipping through his fingers, and when his knuckles brush the nape of your neck you shiver. He feels the goosebumps rise on your skin and it makes him want to put his mouth there, feel you shiver under his lips. "Yeah. Like that. Cover one nostril with your finger. Atta girl... now inhale through the other. Quick and sharp. Don't stop halfway or you'll waste it."

You hesitate for a second, and he can see the war happening behind your eyes. Then you lean down and do it.

The sound— the sharp inhale, the slight catch in your throat— makes his cock twitch. There's something so intimate about this, watching you do this, teaching you, sharing this fucked-up thing with you. He shouldn't find it hot. Knows he shouldn't. But the coke strips away his ability to lie to himself and the truth is he's never been more turned on in his life.

When you come back up, your face is already changing. Eyes watering immediately, nose scrunching, one hand flying up to cover your face. Even like this— eyes red, nose running— you're beautiful to him. Everything about you is beautiful to him right now, heightened and perfect and his.

"It burns," you say, voice strained and slightly nasal.

"Yeah. That's normal. It'll pass." He reaches out, thumb swiping at the residual powder dusting your nostril. Your skin is so soft under his touch. He wants to touch you everywhere. "Open your mouth."

You do, lips parting, and the sight of your mouth opening obediently for him sends heat pooling in his gut. He rubs the powder on your gums— slow circles with the pad of his thumb that make your eyes go darker, pupils starting to dilate. The bitter taste will hit your tongue, will numb your mouth slightly, and you'll chase that feeling for hours after.

He's watching your face so intently. The way your eyelashes flutter. The way your lips look wrapped around his thumb. The pink of your tongue visible behind your teeth. The coke makes him feel like he could stare at you forever and still find new details to fixate on.

As he starts to pull his thumb back, your lips close around it. Your tongue swirls, wet and warm, cheeks hollowing as you suck, and the sight of it punches the air from his lungs.

When his thumb comes out it's with a wet pop that goes straight to his cock.

"Christ," he breathes.

You're going to ruin him. He knows it with absolute certainty. This moment, this image of you on your knees with your pupils blown wide and your lips wet and swollen, is going to live in his head rent-free for the rest of his life.

Then you're on him, kissing him hard, and it's different now. Rougher. More desperate. You're both chasing something— the high, the heat, the obliteration of thought— and your mouths crash together with bruising force.

His tongue swipes into your mouth and yours meets it immediately, tasting him, and the kiss is wet and open and obscene. The sounds fill the room— gasping breaths, the slick slide of tongues, the wet smack of lips separating and meeting again, small desperate noises from both of you that might be pleasure or might be something else entirely.

Steve's hand finds your cunt through your jeans and even through the denim he can feel how wet you are, heat radiating through the fabric. "Fuck," he groans against your mouth, voice wrecked. "So wet already."

But the coke has him in its grip, and despite how badly he wants you, his cock is only half-interested. The blood hasn't rushed south yet, too busy keeping his heart racing at dangerous speeds and his brain firing in every direction.

You rock your hips against his hand, seeking friction, and he helps you. He guides you from the floor back onto the couch, positions himself under you, between your legs.

You grind against him, desperate and needy, your hips rolling in a rhythm that's almost violent. His fingers dig into your sides hard enough to bruise, gripping through your shirt, holding you steady as you drag your pussy against his growing bulge. The denim-on-denim friction is too much and not enough, the scrape of it audible in the quiet room. The fabric on fabric, your breathing getting harsher, small gasps punching out of you with each roll of your hips.

He's getting harder now, finally, blood responding to stimulus even if delayed. But you don't stop. You keep moving, keep grinding, and he keeps pulling you down harder, rougher, the sounds getting wetter somehow even through all the layers. Your arousal soaking through your jeans, his cock straining against his zipper.

His mouth finds yours again. It’s sloppy and open, tongues sliding together, panting into each other's mouths. He can taste the chemical bitterness on your tongue, mixing with beer and something that's uniquely you. He pulls back to kiss down your jaw, your neck, teeth scraping skin. You whimper and it’s high and needy. The sound makes him grind up into you harder.

He pulls your shirt aside roughly, mouth finding your collarbone, and sucks a mark there. Hard. Intentional. His teeth close on skin and you moan, back arching, pushing your breasts toward his face.

His lips find them through your bra, tongue circling your nipple through the thin fabric until it's wet and you're squirming. His eyes when he looks up at you are completely blown. His pupils are so wide the hazel is almost gone, swallowed by black, and when he sees your face he knows you look the same. Wrecked and wild and desperate.

"Need to touch you," he mumbles against your breast, words slurring slightly. "Need to feel you come."

His hand works between your bodies, fumbling with the button of your jeans. He finally gets it open. The pop loud in the room, zipper rasping down, and slides his hand inside your panties.

You're soaked. Swollen and hot and so wet his fingers slide through your folds with no resistance, the obscene slick sound of it making him groan. He finds your clit, circles it with firm pressure, and you cry out loudly.

"Steve!"

He fingers you fast and rough, two fingers pushing inside while his thumb works your clit, and it's frantic— the wet sounds of his fingers pumping in and out of you mixing with your gasps, the squelch of it indecent and perfect. He’s still kissing you open mouthed and sloppy. The pace of his fingers are too quick, the pressure too hard, but you're there, you're close, he can feel it in the way you're clenching around his fingers, can hear it in the pitch of your moans climbing higher.

"Come on," he urges, voice rough and desperate. "Let me feel it. Come for me. Come on my fingers."

You do, crying out his name. "Steve, Steve, Steve.” Your whole body goes rigid before the orgasm tears through you. Your cunt clamps down on his fingers in rhythmic pulses, so tight it almost hurts, and he works you through it, fingers gentling slightly, the wet sounds continuing as he draws it out.

When you finally go limp against him he pulls his hand away. His fingers are shining, coated in you, and without thinking he brings them to his mouth and sucks them clean. The taste of you— salt and musk and something sweet underneath— makes him groan.

You're both panting, sweating, hearts racing from the coke and the exertion and the need that still hasn't been fully satisfied.

He's still only half-hard, the coke keeping his body from catching up to his mind, and he needs more. Needs the friction, needs the build, needs something to chase.

"Keep going," he rasps, hands gripping your hips. "Don't stop."

This time when you grind down the angle is different. It’s harder, more focused. He can feel himself getting there, blood finally rushing where it needs to go, his cock filling out properly against the confines of his jeans.

The sounds are obscene. The fabric scraping, your breathing harsh and ragged, the small mewls punching out of you with each roll of your hips. He's gripping you so hard his knuckles go white, bruises blooming under his fingers, and you're chasing it too, chasing that edge you can't quite reach through the chemical haze.

"That's it," he groans. "Fuck, keep going. Almost there."

When he's finally fully hard, aching and straining against denim, he doesn't wait. Can't wait. He lays you down on the couch, your back hitting the cushions, and you're both fumbling with clothes. Buttons, zippers, fabric pulled and shoved and discarded until you're bare beneath him.

He can't even wait. Can't take the time to appreciate the sight of you spread out on his couch, can't slow down enough to make this good. He lines himself up and pushes inside in one thrust.

You cry out. It’s sharp and high, and he groans, the sensation muted but present. He can barely feel it, knows it's the same for you, but he can tell you're being stretched. Can see it in the way your mouth falls open, the way your hands scrabble for purchase on his shoulders.

One pump. Two. Then his pace is fast. His hips slapping against yours, the wet crack of skin on skin filling the room, rhythmic and filfthy and loud in the quiet house. He's gripping the back of the couch with one hand for leverage, knuckles white, the other splayed across your hip hard enough to bruise. One knee is up on the cushions, giving him the angle to really take you, to drive deep, and the couch creaks beneath the both of you with every thrust.

It's rough. Unrelenting. The coke has numbed you both out and he's chasing sensation through a fog, trying to feel anything beyond the muted pressure. So he goes harder, faster, like he can fuck his way through the chemical wall if he just doesn't stop.

The little punched-out ah, ah, ah sounds you make with each drive, involuntary and breathless, building on top of each other like a song he wants to memorize.

"Feels so good," you moan.

He changes angles, dropping his weight onto his forearm, bending over you to kiss you. Your tongues sliding together, wet and messy, his mouth swallowing the next gasp before it can escape. Then his mouth finds your neck, and he sucks hard. His teeth scraping skin until you twitch beneath him. Another hickey blooms under his mouth, darker than the first, and he drags his lips lower.

His mouth closes around your nipple, sucking hard, teeth grazing the peak until you arch up into him with a sharp cry that echoes off the walls. He does the same to the other. It’s so wet a string of salvia between his lips and your tit, leaving matching marks. He then pulls back to watch.

Your breasts bounce with each thrust, the movement hypnotic, and he could watch it forever. Your mouth is forming shapes. Os and gasps and his name broken into syllables, “Ste—, Steve—, oh—” the sounds dissolving into each other. You look so sexy like this. Wrecked and flushed, sweat already clinging to your skin, hair fanned out across the cushions, whiny little gasps punching out of you with each drive of his hips like you can't help it, like he's making you make those sounds and you have no say in it.

You're trying to grab at him, trying to match his pace, nails raking down his back hard enough that he hisses through his teeth.

Then he stops.

The sudden absence of movement is almost violent. The room goes quiet. It’s only your ragged breathing and the creak of the couch settling. 

You're so oversensitive, so lost in it, that you don't notice at first. Your hips roll forward chasing friction that isn't there anymore. Then your eyes snap open. They are confused, glazed, pupils swallowed whole by black, and you're about to ask what, why, please— when he slips out of you and reaches for the baggie on the coffee table.

He's back in seconds.

He makes a line between your breasts— careful, practiced, the white powder stark and almost pretty against your damp skin. Then he leans down, nose pressing into the valley between them, one hand splayed flat against your sternum to hold you still. 

He inhales sharp. One smooth, practiced drag, the burn immediate, his exhale warm and humid against your chest. The excess dusts your skin in a fine scatter and he doesn't pull back. Just presses his nose into you, sniffing, breathing you in, his face buried between your breasts, moving it back and forth. His stubble dragging rough against your skin, and you laugh, startled, the sound bright and real and so you that something in his chest does a complicated thing he doesn't have words for.

Then his mouth finds your nipple again and the laugh cuts off into a moan.

He sucks hard, and you cry out, "Steve!" The sensation cutting through the numbness for one sharp moment.

You catch him off guard then, both palms flat against his chest, and push. He goes easily. He falls back against the couch with a breathless laugh, sprawling, looking up at you with blown pupils and that crooked grin that does something unfair to his face.

"Your turn," you say, voice sweet and breathless, and the combination of the two— the sweetness, the breathlessness— makes his stomach clench.

He's grinning as he reaches for the baggie. Makes a line at the curve of his stomach— right above where soft meets the trail of dark hair leading down, the skin there pale and vulnerable. His hand shakes slightly, the powder scattering more than he means it to, and he struggles to concentrate because he can already feel the ghost of your breath against his skin as you lean in. 

"Hold on," he mutters, more to himself than you.

You don't hold on.

Your tongue licks up his happy trail first, wet and warm, and he gasps. His abs contracting involuntarily, the baggie nearly slipping from his fingers.

"Christ—"

You smile against his skin. He can feel it.

You kiss the bottom of his belly— the soft part he's always been self-conscious about— and the second he finishes the line his hand is in your hair. Fisting the strands, gathering them back from your face, knuckles brushing your cheek. He can feel his own pulse in his palm where he grips you. 

You come up to his chest, kissing his pecs, your tongue circling his nipples, and god he wishes he could feel it properly but you look so fucking hot when you glance up at him. Eyes wide and innocent, pupils blown to black, lips parted and shining.

He hasn't told anyone. Wouldn't be doing this with anyone else. The thought hits him like a truck and he pulls you in for another kiss. It’s messy and wet and desperate. You bite his bottom lip hard enough that he should feel pain but the coke has stolen that too.

He gets you on all fours then, your knees dipping into the couch cushions as he kneels up behind you. He worships the curve of your spine with his hands, the nape of your neck with his mouth. The fat of your ass fills his palms and he grips it, spreads you open, then slips back inside.

And he's unrelenting again. Thrust after thrust, your body jolting forward with each one, gasps punching out of you in rhythm with his hips. He can feel you come again— the clench and flutter around his cock— as he circles your clit with determined fingers.

Your body shakes and he flushes his chest against your back, bicep coming around your throat in a loose headlock, his mouth finding your neck. The sounds are dirty— wet and slapping, skin on skin, your ass meeting his hips with each brutal thrust. He's being rough but it's controlled, purposeful, chasing something neither of you can quite reach.

"You feel so good for me," he whispers against your ear, breath hot and harsh.

You whimper.

"You're so fucking hot like this."

He knows his breath against your ear makes you feel something because you whisper, "Fuck, more Steve, please." the words broken and desperate.

He's gripping your ass now, guiding you to an even faster tempo, and he can feel the head of his cock brush against something deep inside you. His heavy cock twitches, finally getting close.

He lets out a curse when he feels your teeth sink into his bicep as you cry out. You give a loud moan muffled against his skin. The high makes him feel like he has to return it and his teeth find your shoulder, biting down hard.

He whimpers loudly back in your ear when he feels himself finally reaching the edge, that coiled tension in his gut starting to unravel.

Then his hand finds the middle of your back and presses. Flat and firm, pushing you down. Your hands clutch the armrest, knuckles going white, your forehead bowing down to meet it too as your back arches. The new angle wrings a sharp gasp out of you.

He pulls out.

The noise you make is immediate. High and bereft, hips rolling back on instinct, searching, finding nothing. Your ass lifts and wavers in the air and he watches it with dark blown eyes and says nothing for a moment.

"Stay still."

You don't.

You wiggle back toward him and it’s shameless and chasing. Steve’s palm cracks down.

"Harder," you gasp.

You wiggle again. Deliberately.

He spanks you harder, the sound sharp in the room.

"Steve." His name wrecked in your mouth. "Harder."

So he gives you harder. Everything he has behind it, palm connecting with a sound that's almost too loud, too much. The welt rises fast. The whole spread of his large hand mapped out on your skin in one angry blooming mark that he stares at for a beat too long. It feels like he has done another line right then and there of how euphoric he feels.

Then both hands grip you, nails biting in, spreading you open, and he drops his mouth to you.

His tongue finds your cunt first and he doesn't ease into it. The coke has him wired and single-minded, every nerve lit and humming, and it makes him relentless. His tongue works fast and hard, licking into you with a focused feverish energy that makes you cry out and scrabble uselessly at the armrest. He doesn't let your hips move. Holds you open with both hands and just goes, like he's trying to take you apart, like his brain has locked onto this and won't release until you're shaking.

Then he drags his tongue up to your rim and the sound you make is startled and high and desperate. He presses the tip there and works. It’s fast, hard circles that don't let up, his tongue pushing insistent and relentless, the coke driving him past any point of subtlety. A thumb keeping you open for him, as your other hand finds your cunt and rubs with the same frantic energy and you cry out something that might be his name or might be nothing at all. 

Your hand flies back, grasp his hair. Your grip is hard, fingers twisting into the roots and pulling, and the sharp tug sends a bolt straight down his spine. His breath stutters against you. Even through the coke the sensation cuts through, immediate and grounding, and something low in his chest clenches at the fact that you're holding on to him specifically. Not the couch, not the cushions. Him.

Then he guides you down. Fully flat, stomach to the cushions, your cheek pressed into the fabric. He lines himself up and drives into you in one stroke and the sound you make punches out against the fabric. It’s breathless and broken and loud.

He doesn't stop. Flesh against flesh, the wet slap of it filling the room, mixing with his grunts and the broken syllables he's making of your name, incoherent and desperate and not quite swearing but not quite words either.

Finally he can feel the numbed-out bubble popping in the pit of his stomach. He thinks he's coming. He can't quite tell through the haze, but he continues making faltered thrusts into you anyway, riding it out. 

He pants between your shoulder blades, forehead dropping there too, both of you completely still for a moment except for the heaving of your lungs. His hands are braced on either side of you, trembling slightly. Beneath him you're still clutching the cushions, knuckles slow to release, fingers uncurling one by one as the tension drains out of you. 

He thinks about the mess underneath you both. He's going to have to flip over the cushions later, hide the evidence.

He can feel the aftershocks moving through you. Little waves, involuntary, your body still working through it. You’re twitching and shivering under his weight, hips making these tiny helpless rolls that you probably aren't even aware of. Like your body hasn't gotten the message yet that it's over. Like it's still chasing something, still wringing the last of it out.

He watches it happen. Stays still and just lets you ride it out beneath him, his chest rising and falling against your back, his breath evening out slowly while yours does the opposite. Those soft broken sounds still escaping you, little exhales that aren't quite moans and aren't quite sighs.

Your whole body is flushed and damp, trembling in waves, and he can feel every shiver of it against his skin.

He presses his lips to your shoulder blade. Then between them. Quick and soft and almost reverent… almost. A string of kisses down your spine that don't match anything that came before them.

Eventually the trembling slows. Your breathing deepens. The grip on the cushion finally releases completely.

He eases back. Offers you his hand without thinking about it.

You both sit up slowly, carefully, like the room might tip if you move too fast.

He's still high but he looks at you with concern. "You okay, right?"

"Yeah." Breathless. Smiling. Your voice still hasn't fully come back.

He hates how good you look like this. Wrecked and soft, hair tangled, lips swollen, that particular fucked-out looseness in your expression that the high and the orgasm have conspired to put there. If he really tried— another bump, maybe two— you could probably go again. Go all night. His body is already filing the suggestion away somewhere dangerous.

But something in his chest twists at the sight of you.

The mascara smudged at the corners of your eyes. The marks blooming across your collarbones, your shoulders, your neck— purple and red and unmistakably his. Your hair messed beyond repair. All of it his doing, every bit of it, and the high isn't quite enough to make that feel uncomplicated.

"You sure you're okay?" He asks it before he can stop himself, and he hears it—hears the shift in his own voice, that particular register he falls into. Concerned. Careful. The boy who checks on people, who makes sure everyone got home safe, who asks twice because once never feels like enough.

There he goes again. Falling into it with someone he considers his friend. Someone he secretly, quietly, in the part of himself he doesn't examine too closely… wishes could be something more.

At first it's just the high and the afterglow doing the looking— soft eyes, dopamine-loose smile, drinking in the sight of him equally wrecked. You find the bite mark on his bicep, already darkening. The hickies scattered across his neck and chest that he didn't feel forming, that his body couldn't register through the chemical wall. You look at all of it with something warm and unhurried.

Then the warmth shifts.

It's subtle— only a flicker behind your eyes, there and gone— but he catches it. He's been watching your face all night. He knows its geography now.

Sadness. Worry. Something that looks uncomfortably close to longing.

He knows. Doesn't want to know, but knows anyway— the way you always know the things you're trying hardest not to. You're worried about him. Have been for a while, probably. Tonight wasn't just want, wasn't just the hour and the high and the phone call pulling you here. Some part of you came because you didn't want him to be alone with it.

And some part of him— the part he keeps quietest— knows you want more too. Has known for a while. Files it away in the same place as another bump and just one more night and all the other things he tells himself he'll deal with later.

"I am," you say.

But you aren't looking at him when you say it.

You end up going upstairs to his room anyway, leaving behind the mess. He turns off the lamp. The two of you navigate the dark staircase side by side without touching.

He wouldn't have asked you over if he didn't have the house to himself tomorrow. That's what he tells himself.

He'll probably stay awake anyway while you sleep.

Neither of you shower. His bed is unmade, same as always. You crawl in from opposite sides, the mattress dipping, and normally there'd be talking. There's usually talking. It’s the easy, rambling kind that fills the dark, nothing important, everything comfortable. But the crash is already pulling at him, heavier than usual, the coke's debt coming due all at once. His eyes go leaden. His thoughts slow and blur at the edges.

He thinks, distantly, that he should stay awake. Keep watch. Old habit.

He doesn't.

.-.-.-.

Sunlight hits him first.

White and merciless through the gap in the curtains, straight into his eyes, and he surfaces with a groan already forming in his chest. His head is a closed fist. 

Migraine.

It’s the specific kind that lives behind his left eye, the kind that's been his companion since that summer, another reason the sunglasses are never far, another thing he doesn't explain to people.

He turns over slowly.

Stops.

You're still asleep. Your face is toward him, lashes dark against your cheek, mascara tracked down in faint smudged lines you don't know are there yet. Your brow is slightly furrowed even now— not peaceful, not quite. Like sleep hasn't fully convinced you to let go of something.

That feeling in his chest does what it always does when he looks at you for too long. Pinches. Pulls. Fills up with something warm and complicated and shot through with shame— at the marks on your skin, at the smudged mascara, at the furrow in your sleeping brow that he put there. That he caused, one way or another. The mess downstairs. All of it.

He gets out of bed carefully. Doesn't let himself look at you again.

The living room is exactly what he left it. The coffee table. The scattered clothes. The cushions are slightly out of place.

His hands are shaking before he's fully reached the bottom of the stairs. That familiar morning tremor. He’s anxious before he's had time to think of something to be anxious about, dreading the day before it's started, bone-tired in a way sleep doesn't touch.

He crosses to the coffee table on autopilot. Sits on the ground, his back against the couch. He leans forward, elbows on his knees.

There’s still white lines on the surface of the coffee table, patiently waiting for him.

He stares at it for a long time.

He thinks about you upstairs, brow furrowed in sleep. He thinks about Robin behind the Family Video counter, watching him with that careful, knowing look she tries to hide. He thinks about Dustin calling him Steve the Babysitter like it's an insult that's actually the best thing anyone's ever said to him. He thinks about all the kids. Max and El, even sometimes Mike. All of them. They look at him like he’s someone to look up to. 

He thinks about the mall.

His eyes sting. He pinches at the corners hard, jaw working, forces it back down. He's not doing this. Not right now. Not here when it’s seven in the morning.

He swipes his hand across the table.

The powder catches the light as it goes. It’s white and fine, almost pretty, and scatters into the carpet like snow that's already melting.

He sits there for another moment.

Then he gets up. Finds the vacuum in the hall closet. Runs it methodically over the carpet until the floor is clean, until there's nothing left to see.

After, he goes to the kitchen and pulls out ingredients to make breakfast. 

Pancakes. He can do that.

He hears you pad softly into the kitchen, rubbing your eyes sleepily. You're wearing one of his shirts and it falls to mid-thigh on you.

"Good morning," you say groggily.

"Good morning," he answers back, voice rough from sleep and chemicals and whatever else.

You hop up on a bar stool, cheek in your hand, watching him. He asks, "How do you feel?"

You mumble, "I'm tired."

"Yeah," he says softly. "Me too."

He turns back to the stove. He watches the batter spread slow and pale in the pan.

And he lets himself have it. The tiredness, the quiet, the strange aching ordinariness of standing here while you sit there. He doesn't reach for anything. He doesn’t run. Doesn’t feel like he has to to get another bump to get through the morning. 

He stands in his own kitchen on a Saturday morning and lets it all be exactly as heavy as it is.