Summary; Steve may not be the best with words but he shows you his love in his own special way
A/N; Happy Easter everybody!! I haven't written in a while, I had a really bad job interview where I was laughed at for saying I liked to write so I was a little unmotivated I really don't think anybody should be shamed for their interests however I really hope you enjoy this lovelies!! :)
Masterlist
You don’t notice the first note until you’re halfway through your shift.
Family Video is quiet, too quiet. The low hum of the lights fills the space, the occasional whir of the rewinder cutting through it. Steve was off today, and Robin had gone to grab lunch for the both of you, leaving you to work through the returns between the slow trickle of customers.
You were sliding a tape back into its case when a piece of paper slipped loose from between two covers, drifting down onto the counter.
It’s folded neatly.
You frown at it, fingers brushing over the crease, but set it aside for the minute so you can finish the returns before Robin gets back.
The bell above the door jingles loudly as she bursts in, the sound sharp against the quiet.
“Can you believe the diner was out of sandwiches?” she huffs, pushing the door open with her hip, arms full. “Who runs out of bread and meat?”
Her keys slip from her fingers, clattering against the floor.
You only smile at her rambling, finishing the last return as she crouches to grab them, muttering under her breath.
“Shop busy?” she asks through a bite of her burger, already halfway through it, sauce catching at the corner of her mouth.
You shake your head, reaching for your own food.
“The usual. Keith is pining for a date,” you say lightly, “though I think he’s started leaving notes for girls in the cases.”
You set your drink down, scanning for the folded paper again, lifting the crinkling diner bag to find it, now smeared faintly with grease.
You groan.
Robin hums, amused. “Well, whoever brought it back didn’t throw it away, so that’s something.”
“She didn’t ask him out either,” you mutter, crumpling your wrapper as she snatches the note and unfolds it.
There’s a beat.
Then she snorts.
“Definitely not Keith.”
She hands it to you, grin already spreading.
This movie sucks. Don’t watch. I can recommend better ;) – S
You bite back a smile, folding it once more before slipping it into your pocket.
“You two are truly sickening,” Robin says, gagging dramatically.
You turn back to the returns, but the small smile stays with you for the rest of the shift.
The second one shows up a couple of months later.
You hadn’t expected it.
By then, you and Steve Harrington have been together around six months—long enough that things feel easy. Settled. You see each other most weekends, share shifts when you can, his hand always finding yours without thinking.
You didn’t think you’d get another note.
You shrug your jacket on, already running late. Your bag’s missing, your shoes are in the wrong room, and you’re fixing your makeup in the lounge mirror when you reach into your pocket for your lip liner.
Your fingers brush against paper.
You pause.
Then pull it out, already smiling as you unfold it.
Drive safe. Call me when you get home, even if I’m going to see you tomorrow. – S
Your chest warms instantly.
Only Steve could make going to work feel a little less painful.
You head upstairs, the carpet soft under your feet as you crouch by your bedside table, carefully placing it with the first note, reading them both again, like you haven’t already memorised them.
“Shit. Work.”
They don’t stop after that.
They just become part of your relationship.
You start keeping them in a small pot in your bedside cabinet, reading through them on the nights you don’t get to see him, when the quiet feels a little heavier than usual.
You find one on the kitchen counter one morning while trying, unsuccessfully, to tame your hair.
You’re tugging it into a ponytail, strands slipping loose, when you spot the folded paper resting beside the kettle.
Your shoulders drop slightly, tension easing as you walk over.
You forgot to make your lunch. Again. I put something in the fridge for you, don’t ignore it. – S
You read it twice. Maybe three times.
Then you move to the fridge, the soft hum filling the quiet as you open it.
There it is, right on the middle shelf.
A sandwich. Your favourite. Chicken, bacon and lettuce.
A small piece of paper, folded into a heart, tucked neatly beside it.
Your fingers brush over it before you slip it into your pocket, something warm settling in your chest.
“So do I get a kiss as a thank you?”
You jump, heart jolting as the fridge door swings shut.
Steve’s leaning in the doorway, watching you.
“I take other forms of payment too,” he adds, pushing himself off the frame, stepping closer.
His thick, veiny arms wrap around your waist from behind, warm and solid, his chin brushing your shoulder before he presses a soft kiss to your temple.
“You leaving instructions for me now?” you tease, fingers drifting up to his hair, absentmindedly smoothing it back.
“Not that you’d listen anyway,” he murmurs, voice still rough with sleep, the sound vibrating through his chest against your back.
“That’s not true.”
“Cereal for dinner. Three nights ago.”
“…irrelevant.”
He huffs a quiet laugh, nose nudging along your jaw, lips brushing your neck.
“So about those other payment methods…”
You turn in his arms, grinning.
“Would love to, but I’m late for work.”
You press quick kisses across his face before grabbing the sandwich, shoving it into your bag and rushing out.
He just stands there, hands on his hips, watching you go, smiling to himself.
They’re everywhere.
In your hoodie pocket:
This is mine, by the way. I’m letting you keep it. – S
You smile to yourself as your read it. As if you were going to give it back anyway unless it was to get more of his cologne rubbed into it.
Inside your book:
If you’re up this late again, come over instead. – S
Steve know you only really read when you was up late at night and couldnt drift off to sleep but the note only made you laugh, knowing full well that Steve Harrington was most definitely snoring and drooling by that time, even if he didnt mind being woken up to your honey filled voice.
Slipped into your hand at work:
You looked tired today. Let me take care of you tonight. – S
Your cheeks burn at that one, heat creeping up your neck, but when you finally get to his place later, it’s a bath, warm water curling around your skin, and dinner already made.
No expectations. Just care.
And somehow, that makes you love him more.
One night, after a long shift, you’re at his place.
You’re sprawled between his legs, head resting against his chest, wearing one of his old t-shirts. His fingers move slowly through your hair, gentle, rhythmic, enough to pull you under.
You’re just starting to drift when he shifts beneath you.
“Water,” he mutters, easing away.
You frown slightly, watching him go, something off in the way he moves, too restless.
You settle back down, but something crinkles beneath you.
Another note.
You smile, already unfolding it.
You’re still here.
Your chest softens instantly.
But there’s more.
I know we’ve been together a while and it’s not new anymore.
You sit up a little straighter, sleep fading.
But I still get that feeling when I see you. Like I did at the start. I don’t think that’s going anywhere. – S
Your throat tightens as tears threaten to spill,
The door creaks open.
Steve stands there, glass of water in hand, hair messy like he’s run his fingers through it too many times.
“I know it’s dumb,” he rushes out, setting the glass down. “I just, I don’t always say it, but I’m always thinking it. I’m always thinking about you.”
He sits on the edge of the bed, hands fidgeting.
You reach for him immediately, cupping his face.
“It’s not dumb,” you say softly, glancing at the note. “I really like them.”
A pause.
“Yeah?” he asks, quieter.
“Yeah.”
You lean in, pressing your lips to his gently before pulling back.
“I keep all of them, you know.”
His brows lift. “All of them?”
You grin. “Even the first one that got all greasy from mine and Robins lunch”
Something deeper shifts in his expression, the worry leaving his face. This time it was something warmer, like the simple act of keeping his notes meant something more than he’d ever expected.
“Good.” He murmurs, placing a soft kiss in your hair.
You reach for him then, tugging him closer to you by front of his shirt until he’s almost falling on top of you.
“Careful.” He chuckles, hands settling at your waist. “You looked comfortable before.”
“I am comfortable, you just happen to be apart of that” That earns you a softer look from him, as he nuzzles his face in the crook of your neck and leaves peppered kisses on you, making you giggle softly at the sensation.
“You are too”
The next morning, you woke up tucked beneath Steve’s arm, the steady weight of it resting heavily across your waist. He was still soundly asleep, soft snores leaving his mouth every few seconds, his breath warm against the back of your neck. You made no move to get up, just lying there for a moment, relaxed, still, letting yourself exist in the quiet. The room felt warm, faint light slipping through the curtains, casting soft lines across his face as you watched him. His hair was a mess, spiked up from leftover product and sleep, and his face looked softer like this, peaceful in a way it only ever was when he was asleep.
Before you could stop yourself, you twisted slightly in his hold, careful not to wake him, turning towards his bedside table. The sheets shifted softly beneath you as you reached over, fingers brushing against the cool surface before finding a pen and a scrap piece of paper from a notebook he had lying there.
You hesitated for half a second, chewing lightly on your lip as you tried to think of what to say, before you started scribbling.
You don’t have to leave notes for me to know.
You paused, pen hovering above the paper, unsure. You weren’t as good at this as he was—never had been. Your brows furrowed slightly as you thought on it for a few minutes, the quiet stretching around you, before a small smile tugged at your lips.
Then you added,
But don’t stop :)
You folded it carefully, tucking it into the hand that had been resting around your waist, his fingers instinctively curling slightly around it even in his sleep. Gently, you lifted his arm just enough to slip out from under him, the warmth of his body lingering against your skin as you moved.
The mattress dipped slightly as you stood, and the shift must have been enough because he stirred.
You barely made it halfway to the door before you heard him move behind you.
You turned quickly, about to apologise, but he was already awake—sitting up slightly, hair even more dishevelled, blinking down at the note in his hand, trying to make sense of it through sleep-heavy eyes.
“Hey,” he called, voice rough and low, still thick with sleep.
You hovered by the door.
He held the note up slightly, a soft, lazy smirk pulling at his lips as he read the last line.
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
Something warm settled in your chest at that.
Then he shifted, arms opening without a second thought, like he already knew what you’d do next.
You didn’t hesitate, crossing the room in a few quick steps before dropping back into the bed, the sheets cool for only a second before his arms wrapped around you again, pulling you close. His skin was warm, familiar, his grip loose but certain as he tucked you back against him.
This time, neither of you moved.
And for a while, the only thing you could hear was his steady breathing and the quiet hum of the morning stretching on around you.
Warnings: Sexual content, it's rough but like what else do you expect from me at this point, power dynamics, alcohol, smoking, psychological manipulation but like does it count if it's both of you? Graphic violence and description - sorry!, murder both past and present.
Summary: You originally thought agreeing to take a job as the new arts counsellor at a summer camp would be well... boring. But then you meet the camps golden boy Steve Harrington who has a high body count and spark that matches your own. And... what's this about a massacre in 1972?
Word Count: 17k (yes you're reading that right)
A/N: Yes this is what I've been cooking up, kinda scared for everyone to read it considering this is the longest piece I've written (and only the first chapter)
Chapter 1 | Series Masterlist
The Mustang’s engine didn’t so much as idle when you pulled up as it did announce your arrival, a low growl that carries across the empty gravel parking lot like a warning. You cut the ignition and let the silence rush in, encompassing you - the air is thick, humid, alive with cicadas rattling. Something older as well. It’s the kind of quiet that makes you aware of your own heartbeat, the way you breathe, there’s a particular rhythm of being alone in a place like this that has witnessed too many summers.
You check your reflection in the rearview. Lipstick blood red, matte, perfectly outlined. Your sunglasses are vintage, cat-eyed. The look was effortless, despite taking forty-five minutes and three-ish outfit changes, but you weren't trying to make an impression. This was just part of the routine, you knew who you were - someone who knew what she wanted and made sure everyone else knew it too.
The door was stuck when you tried to open it. Humidity swelling the shape, or was it age? Maybe the camp just didn’t want to let you inside its private walls yet. You put your weight into it, feeling the metal give way with a satisfying pop. The gravel crunched under your boots - Doc Martens, vintage floral pattern, scuffed exactly the right amount. You’d spent twenty minutes going at them last night, not for the aesthetic but because you hated looking like you were trying too hard. Which, if you were honest, you were. But that was your private business, not anyone else’s to stick their nose in.
Camp Blood Moon stood before you like a future promised nobody asked about. Made of cedar and stone, built in the late fifties, rebuilt from the ground up after its eventual closure in 2006, reopened in 2008 with new management and ghosts that circled campfire stories. You knew what the reports said. Everyone did. Seven counselors were found dead in one week during ‘72, but the killer was never caught. It was in the brochure as advertising, right next to the canoeing schedules and the arts & crafts curriculum, as if violence was just another activity you could sign up for - gross.
You didn’t believe in ghosts. You believed in knowing the truth of what you were walking into and refusing to blink in case you missed something.
You leaned back into the Mustang and retrieved your cigarettes - American Spirit, that funky yellow pack, because you liked the taste and the name was ironic - and you lit it with a Zippo you’d actually stolen from an ex who’d thought he could tell you what to do. The first puff helped settle your nerves. This summer was about freedom. Your own rules. A particular satisfaction that could only be found while doing something you weren’t supposed to and not giving a fuck.
The gravel lot was particularly empty. A Subaru Outback with an odd “Coexist” sticker and a bike rack behind it. A Jeep Wrangler with the top down, empty coffee cups littering the console, and a single red high heel in the passenger seat. Early arrivals, eager beavers, people who cared about making good impressions with the people who’d be barking orders at them all summer.
You didn’t care to make a good impression. You made sure people knew where they stood with you, and if they didn’t like it, that was their problem.
You were halfway to the lodge when you heard a screen door slap open behind you. You didn’t turn around. You let them come to you. Let them see the silhouette first, the perfect posture, the cigarette held between your fingers perfectly.
“You’re blocking the entrance.”
The voice was dry, guarded, with a rough edge to it that suggested this was someone who’d learned to be careful about which details they revealed. You turned slowly on your heel, exhaling smoke through your nose, letting the moment hang in suspense. The sun was behind you; you knew what you looked like when backlit, and you liked that the other person would have to squint to see you clearly.
The girl was tall, all angles and filled with a nervous but chaotic energy contained in a camp polo that she’d clearly customized - sleeves rolled to the elbows, a small rainbow flag pin on the collar that wasn’t quite straight, like she’d put it on in a hurry and hadn’t checked in the mirror. Her hair looked self-cut, choppy, and still intentional. Her eyes were sharp, assessing every detail, immediately calculating whether you were competition, a threat, or something else entirely.
“Am I?” you asked, not moving.
“You’re also smoking in a no-smoking zone.” The girl’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile but enough to show respect. “I’m supposed to help enforce that. Marnie’s very into rules and safe spaces.”
“Marnie can suck my metaphorical dick.”
The laugh that burst out was surprising, genuine, but quickly controlled. The girl dared to step closer, extending a hand that had paint under the fingernails and calluses on the palm. Someone who worked with their hands often. “Robin. Drama and theater.”
You take her hand. A firm grip, shake, brief, no lingering. “Arts and crafts.”
“Figured.” Robin’s eyes flicked up and down, reassessing. “Been waiting for a new arts director. Marnie’s been on edge about it all week. Something about the last one leaving suddenly.”
“Personal reasons?”
“Family emergency was the official reason.” Robin’s tone made it clear what she thought of bullshit statements. “But the cabin has been empty since June, so you’ll have enough space to spread out. Make it yours.”
You caught the hidden message. Claim some territory. Establish your dominance. Don’t let them push you around.
You liked Robin already.
You walked together up the gravel path, your duffel heavy on your shoulder, nose filled with the smell of pine and lake water settling into your lungs. The camp opened around you - cabins positioned in a semicircle, the dining hall with its banging screen doors, the arts & crafts pavilion with its decorated light and its subtle promise of being yours for the summer.
“So,” Robin said, not quite looking at you, “you drive up from the city?”
“A few hours. I decided to take my time.”
“Must be nice. Having your own wheels.” There was something wishful behind it, quickly masked. “Most of us are stuck here once we arrive. Camp bubble. No escape until August.”
“Sounds like a threat.”
“Just reality.” Robin glances at you, sharp and quick with her judgment. “You don’t seem like someone who likes being stuck in places.”
“I don’t like people telling me where I can and can’t go.”
Robin laughed, a short sound. “Yeah. You’re going to do great here.”
You reached your cabin - “The Princesses Court,” according to the weathered sign out front, which made you raise an eyebrow, and Robin shrugged.
“Last arts director’s joke. Stuck anyway.”
The cabin was better than you’d expected. A screened porch with rocking chairs that had probably been there longer than you’d been alive. A stone fireplace. A bedroom that overlooked the woods. You dropped your duffel on the couch and began unpacking with the efficiency of someone who’d learned to make temporary spaces feel like yours - not because you cared about the actual space, but because you cared about the statement it sent. Clothes laid out in the narrow closet, arranged by color. Toiletries on the bathroom shelf, the expensive skincare routine that was less about vanity behind it and more about having control. You move through the cabin with a purpose, checking sight lines, testing the give of the floorboards, cataloging what you were working with.
“Looking for escape routes?” Robin asked, leaning against the doorway.
“Looking for what I’m working with.”
“Same thing, usually.” She pushes off the frame, stepping inside without asking for permission, and makes herself at home on your porch rocker. “You move like someone who’s been to a camp before. Military school? Or just… princess had a difficult childhood?”
“Who says my childhood was difficult?”
“People who had easy ones don’t normally check for exits first thing after they arrive.” She pulls a cigarette from somewhere - fucking American Spirit, same brand as yours, yellow pack - and lights it with practiced efficiency. “Marnie’s waiting, by the way. She likes to do the welcome speech personally. Something about ‘Honoring the camp’s legacy.’” Gesturing with air quotes. “Fair warning, though: she’ll mention the massacre. She always finds a way to mention it. I think it’s her version of a conversation starter.”
You turned from the window, finally giving her your full attention. “And what do you think? About the whole thing? Camp history or camp mythology?”
Robin’s smile was barely there, guarded again. “I think seven people died, and nobody paid for it. I think this place was closed and then reopened, like that was a reasonable decision.” She exhaled smoke up into the air, watching you through the haze. “I know Marnie was here when it happened. As a camper, not a counselor. Survived somehow - ” She stops. Shrugs it off. “She has her own opinions about who belongs here. About who truly gives themselves fully to the experience.”
“Sounds like a threat.”
“Sounds like a warning.” Robin’s eyes met yours, direct and unnerving. “I’m giving you the friendly version. She’ll probably dress it up in more poetry, and I don’t know fancy adjectives, but the message is the same: conform, commit, or get the fuck out.”
You almost laugh. Conform. Like that was something you did.
“Does it work?
“Depends on whether you’re buying what she’s selling.” Robin pauses, then adds, almost as an afterthought, “Steve’s around too. Sports director. You’ll meet him eventually. He’s - ” She stops. “He’s something.”
“Lead the way,” you said. “Let’s see what Marnie’s selling.”
Robin smiles, unexpectedly genuine considering the reactions she’s given you so far. “That’s the spirit, princess. Welcome to Camp Blood Moon.”
···························
Robin stands again, grounds out her cigarette against your porch railing - leaving the butt there, you notice, a small assertion of herself in your territory - and gestures toward the path. “There’s a mixer tonight, by the way. At sunset. Nothing formal, just the counselors getting drunk and pretending they’re not sizing each other up.” She glances at you, almost testing you. “You should come. I’ll introduce you properly. Or improperly, depending on your preference.”
“Improperly sounds more interesting.”
“Everything’s more interesting when you do it improperly, princess.” She starts walking without you, and you fall into step beside her, your boots crunching gravel in rhythm with hers in long strides. “That’s the thing about this place. The rules are strict until no one gives a fuck. Marnie cares about liability, about appearances, about the camp’s ‘rich history.’ But after dark, after the kids are asleep - ” She shrugs again. “People become who they actually are. For better or worse.”
“And who are you, actually, then?”
Robin looks at you, it’s sharp and sudden, like she’s confused and forgotten you were even capable of asking questions back. Then she smiles briefly and quickly hides it again. “Someone who’s learned not to answer that directly. You’ll find out tonight if you pay attention.”
The main lodge loomed ahead, more cedar and stone to match the camp, and that musty smell of a place that had witnessed too much. Robin holds the door for you - a gesture that feels less polite and more like she wants to watch your face as you enter.
Marnie was waiting inside.
She occupies the space like she had grown in it, feet rooted in the floorboards and the photographs spanning across decades. The same dock from the brochure. Same councilor titles, just with different faces, different swimsuits, but that same fake laughter. She was older than you’d expected - fifties, pushing her sixties, posture rigid with the kind of stubbornness that outlasted both youth and beauty. A cane is leaned against her desk, pure wood, carved with symbols you didn’t bother identifying. Celtic, maybe? Or just random camp craft nonsense meant to imply ancient wisdom.
“Dear.” Her voice was like smoke and gravel combined, a voice that only came from years of shouting over children and wind and her own regrets. “Welcome to Camp Blood Moon.”
You didn’t sit. You weren’t planning on staying long enough to need a chair.
“Robin gave me the tour already,” you said, because it was true and because you wanted Marnie to know you already had alliances starting to form.
“Robin gives everyone the tour.” Marnie’s pale eyes flicked to the girl quietly beside you, something unspoken passing between them - history, tension, an odd weariness of people who had just learned to tolerate each other. “It’s her way of establishing dominance without trying to.” She smiles, papery and insincere. “Sit. Please. I want to talk to you about your predecessor.”
“I prefer standing.”
The smile tightens before dropping entirely. “Your predecessor left suddenly - family emergency. But I want you to understand - this camp requires commitment. Presence.” She leans forward, her hand tightening on that ridiculous ass cane. “The children can sense when you’re distracted with something, when you’re elsewhere. And the camp itself - ” She pauses, all dramatic, looking toward the window like the trees were listening. “The camp remembers who belongs here. Who gives themselves fully.”
You felt the familiar heat in your stomach of someone trying to make you feel small. You smile, sharp and brief - uncaring. “Are you saying I shouldn’t plan on leaving suddenly?”
“I’m saying you should plan on becoming part of something larger than your…” She searched her brain for the word, disapproving as it tastes bitter on her tongue. “Attitude.”
You did laugh then, surprised and real. Attitude. Like that was the worst thing she could use to describe you.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” you said, words empty.
She pushes a key across the desk - brass, heavy, ancient with the Blood Moon crest. “Your pavilion keys. Arts and crafts are to begin again on Monday.” Her hand covers yours as you reach for it; you can feel her papery skin, cold. “And - I’d be careful with the golden boy. He has a way of making you forget your own name.”
You blink. Not because you cared for her warning, but because she’d said it like she actually thought it would work. “Steve?”
“I’ve known that boy since he was a child. Through his father.” Marnie’s eyes went distant, empty, something like real concern breaking through the sweet old lady act. “I’ve watched him with others. Clever ones, pretty ones, the ones who think they’re too good to fall for it.” She pauses, choosing her words as they cost her something in the future. “He collects them. Uses them. Leaves them dry… changed. I don’t want to see that happen again. Not this summer.”
You feel the spark of interest ignite inside of you. It’s like a secret challenge. He collects them. Like you were something to be collected, something to be won, something to help prove you wouldn’t be so easy.
“I’ll be careful,” you said, and this time you almost mean it - but not the way she wanted.
Marnie’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “They all say that.”
You turn to leave, and Robin is already at the door again, waiting, her expression carefully neutral. But you caught something in her glance back at Marnie - something that looked almost like disappointment, or recognition of what was actually happening, perhaps the particular weariness of someone who had watched this play out before and knows the ending.
“Mixer,” Robin said as you stepped back into the bright afternoon light. “Sunset. Don’t be late.”
“I thought you were all about that improper life, that doesn’t include being on time.”
“Fair point.” She starts down the path in her own direction, then stops, looking back at you with that sharp, guarded gaze. “And Princess? Whatever Marnie said about Steve - however she tried to phrase it, whatever she thinks she’s protecting you from - ” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Just remember that warnings are just stories we tell about things that already happened. They don’t have to be your story.”
She walks away before you can dignify an answer, leaving you on the outside with the key heavy in your pocket and the weight of two women’s concern settling into your chest like a challenge.
You didn’t go back inside your cabin. You stand there, watching the afternoon shift toward a dull evening, and you think about the summer waiting ahead of you.
The mixer started at sunset.
You purposefully arrive fifteen minutes late.
···························
The mixer had transformed the lodge into a different building than the one you saw earlier today - fairy lights were strung across the exposed beams like small captured stars, the bar on the credenza was stocked with cheap liquor and expensive decisions, and doors were thrown wide open to the deck where the lake waited in its black and infinite expanse. Music poured from a phone shoved in a cup, someone’s delicately curated playlist of indie nostalgia, the soundtrack to summers that existed only in memories and Instagram posts.
You made your entrance late, as you’d planned, and felt the room shift - not dramatically, nothing too obvious, but the subtle recalibration of structured hierarchy that happened when someone walked in who refused to comply. Heads turned, and you pretended not to notice.
You found Robin first, exactly where you predicted her to be - perched on the edge of the bar, one hand wrapped around a drink, the other tangled in the hair of the sailing camp girl. Mel, you learned her name was. They weren’t quite making out, not yet at least, but they occupied that delicious space of teasing before it, foreheads touching, laughter low in their own private space, Robin’s thumb tracing patterns into Mel’s wrist that suggested she’d done this before, knew exactly how to build the anticipation.
“Princess!” Robin’s voice carried across the room without her looking up, still focused on Mel’s mouth like it held answers she needed for life. “You came.”
“You did invite me.”
“I invite everyone.” Now she looked at you, eyes sharpening more with the alcohol, assessing whether you were going to make trouble for her or be interesting. “Mel, this is the new arts director. The one with the car.”
Mel pulled herself from Robin’s orbit with obvious reluctance, turning to evaluate you herself. Her smile was polite, her eyes less so - they were cataloguing your dress, your posture, the way you held your newly acquired drink like a weapon. “The Mustang. Robin’s obsessed by the way..”
“Robin has good taste then.” You take the seat Robin indicates towards, close enough to be part of their circle, separate enough to hold your own. “In cars, at least.”
Robin laughs, that short, surprised sound you’d already learned to recognize as genuine. “And here I thought you were going to be boring. Marnie tired to warn me about you after your little conversation - said you had ‘an attitude.’”
“Marnie’s threatened by anyone who doesn’t need her approval.”
“Everyone needs approval.” Robin’s hand found Mel’s again, automatic and possessive in a way that seems unconscious. “Some of us just try pretending we don’t.”
You don’t answer. You were analysing the room, the patterns of power and desire that shifted like currents under the surface. A girl, in her expensive sundress, was holding court with a book in her lap like a shield. The guy, in the corner, camera raised, capturing moments that would never do his memory of them justice. Rocker boy, with his guitar, was playing something inappropriate and watching the door like he was waiting for permission to exist, yet.
And then the presence you’ve been waiting for arrives.
The door doesn’t open; rather, submits to him. He pauses in the frame, letting the moment linger, the golden light from the deck haloing him like a deliberate stage light. He was - there was no other word for it - beautiful. Not the soft beauty like models in magazines, but something harder, more architectural. With cheekbones that could cut glass. A mouth that smiles without reaching his eyes. Brown hair mussed with the precision of someone who’d spent twenty minutes making it look like he just crawled out of bed.
But you weren’t looking at his face. You were looking at his hands - those long fingers and scarred knuckles, the way they hung loose at his sides like weapons he hadn’t decided to use yet.
“Sorry, I’m late.” His voice drifted across the room, warm and practiced, designed in a way to make each person feel individually addressed. “Marnie wanted to discuss emergency protocols. Again.”
“Steve!” Robin detaches herself from Mel with reluctance, but she is joyous to see him, throwing her arms around him in a greeting that seems the most genuine you’ve seen her. “I was just telling our newbie about you. This is Steve. Steve, this is the trouble I warned you about.”
He turns to you. His eyes were hazel, startlingly so, the color of flickering depending on the lighting. They assessed you with a record-breaking speed, dismissing Robin’s thoughts, and something like interest, maybe, or recognition settled in.
“Hmmm.” He hummed like he was considering the situation before him, its value. “Robin said you might be worth the effort. She didn’t say you were - ”
“Don’t.” You step closer, close enough to smell him - sandalwood and something darker with depth underneath, something that reminds you of your darkest secrets. Close enough to see the small scar bisecting his left eyebrow, the way his smile was practiced, but you can read straight through him. “If you say ‘beautiful,’ I’ll leave. If you say ‘interesting,’ maybe I’ll stay. Choose carefully.”
The smile widened and became something almost real. “Okay then trouble,” he said. “Definitely trouble then.”
“Better.”
You didn’t shake hands. The acknowledgment passed between you like an electrical current, the hair on your arms rising with it. He was studying you now, really studying you, and you let him look because you were doing the same thing - noting the way he held himself, the tension that lingered in his shoulders, the careful control that suggested he was still performing even when he seemed relaxed.
“Drink?” he asked.
“Only if you’re making them.”
“Guess I’m treating you then.” His hand found your lower back - he wasn’t guiding, not exactly, just present. Holding. The pressure was exactly calibrated to make you want to lean into it further or step away, and you couldn’t decide which one you wanted, and the indecision was its own kind of entertainment. “What do you want?”
“Something strong. Something that doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not.”
His laugh was brief, surprised. “Honest. I like that.”
“Careful.” You let him lead you toward the bar, aware of Robin’s eyes stuck on your back, aware of Mel’s speculative attention, aware of the entire room’s subtle reconstruction as Steve’s focus shifted to you. “I don’t need you to like me. I need you to keep up with me.”
He poured your drink himself - whiskey with a mixer, no ice to dilute it. His fingers brushed yours as he handed it over, deliberate, teasing. “Marnie warned you about me, didn’t she?”
“She warned me about something.”
“And you still came anyway.”
“I don’t take warnings well.”
“No.” He leans against the bar, positioning himself perfectly in your vision so you don’t have to turn to face him, so the room is at your back, and he fills your vision. “I don’t imagine you do. The ones who do, well… They don’t last long here. Need too much… supervision. Rule sticklers.” He grabs his own drink, raising it towards you. He’s implying the camp, the lodge, the entire bullshit structured summer starting before you. “The interesting ones need more room to live.”
“The interesting ones need someone who won’t try to manage them.”
His eyes flickered - something’s there, something that wasn’t part of his game. An assessment, maybe. Or the exact moment he realised that you were performing too, that this was a game with two players who both knew the rules.
“Robin tells me you’re an artist,” he said, shifting tactics.
“I teach arts and crafts to children.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
You sip your whiskey, let it burn your throat, let the silence stretch thinner until he almost moves to fill it. “I make things. Sometimes they’re art. Sometimes they’re just… evidence that I was somewhere, that I existed, that I didn’t let the moment pass without marking it mine.”
“And the camp? What will you make here?”
You look at him - really look, past the beauty and the charm and the carefully constructed image. “I haven’t decided yet. I’m still assessing the materials.”
He smiles, and this time it's the first time his eyes reflect it as well, dangerous and delighted. “I’m excellent material,” he says. “If you know how to work with me.”
“Arrogant, aren’t we?”
“Confident.” He leans closer, close enough that his voice drops to intimacy without fanning a whisper, still audible to anyone who cares to listen close enough. “There’s a difference. I’ll show you, if you want.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“It’s a challenge.” He straightens up, breaking the moment, and finishes his drink in one smooth motion. “Find me later. I'll decide whether you’re actually as interesting as you pretend to be, if you’re just another girl who talks tough until someone talks tougher.”
He walks away before you can answer - moving through the crowd with the ease of long practice, touching shoulders, remembering names, being exactly what everyone needed him to be. You watch him go, aware that you’d been dismissed and challenged in the same breath, aware that Robin was suddenly at your elbow with a fresh drink and an expression you couldn’t quite read.
“He’s good,” she said, not quite in the slightest, a public warning.
“He’s practiced.”
“Same thing, when it comes to him.” She hands you the drink, her fingers brushing yours with nothing like Steve’s deliberate intentions. “You don’t have to play into it. Every girl here has heard that challenge. Most of them fail it.”
“And the ones who don’t?”
Robin smiles again, sharp at the edges. “They learn why the challenge exists in the first place.” She nods towards Mel, waiting by the deck doors, patient and wanting more. “I have to go. But Princess - ” She pauses, choosing her words with obvious care. “Steve collects things. Not people - moments. The ones where he knows he wins. Where someone breaks for him. If you’re going to play his game, make sure you’re actually playing, not just… performing for an audience that can see right through you.”
She leaves with a sour taste on your tongue, merging with Mel in the doorway, their bodies fitting together with an urgency of new desire. You stay at the bar, whiskey in hand, watching Steve work through the room and feeling the weight of his challenge settle into your bones like a promise.
When you’ve decided whether you’re actually as interesting as you pretend to be.
You’d decided years ago who you were. You were still committed, every day, every glance, every moment where you chose to be hard rather than soft, sharp rather than yielding. The question wasn’t whether you were interesting.
The question was whether he could handle what happened when you dropped the act.
You finish your drink. Set the glass down with a deliberate clank sound. And waited to see if he’d look back.
He did.
Just once, brief enough to be considered accidental, long enough to be intentional. A glance that said I know you’re still there. I know you’re watching. I know you’re deciding.
Good. Let him know. Let him wait.
You were in no hurry to be collected.
···························
There’s a drinking game that starts an hour later, though calling it a “game” was a bit generous - it was poorly organized, more like a single gravitational collapse of bored counselors towards the scent of alcohol and the particular intimacy that comes with shared transgressions. Someone had dragged cushions from the lodge couches onto the deck and arranged them in a loose circle that left gaps for possible late arrivals and people to leave early if they wanted. The lake was spread out before you, in all its black and infinite glory, fairy lights catching on its surface like someone had drowned stars and decided to call it decoration.
You’d claimed your spot deliberately - not center in front of the lake, not sides, but the place where you could see everyone and everyone could see you. Robin had planted herself to your left, Mel tucked against her side as she’d always been there, the two of them occupying space with ease. The others slowly arranged themselves around you, faces you didn’t know yet, names you hadn’t learned, all of them assessing the new girl with a kind of curiosity.
The boy with the camera was quiet, his watchful eyes moving like he was already editing footage in his head. He settles at the edge of the circle closest to the cabin, still, saying nothing. The one with the guitar and smudged eyeliner wedges himself between you and Robin with desperate, uncontrolled energy, his knee almost touching yours, his smile too eager. “Eddie,” he announces, though no one had asked. “Music director. I do covers, mostly, but I’m working on my originals - ”
“They’re bad,” Robin interrupted, not unkindly. “We’ve all heard.”
Eddie’s smile tightened but held. “You haven’t heard the new stuff.”
“Work faster then,” someone said from across the circle, and you turned to find the girl in the expensive sundress, book face down but within eyesight, her expression suggesting she’d rather be anywhere else. She didn’t introduce herself. She didn’t need to - her posture said she was waiting to see if you were worth acknowledging.
Steve was late to the circle. You noticed the details surrounding his arrival - the way he paused at the deck doors to assess the configuration first, the way his eyes found yours immediately and then moved on, casual, dismissive, calculated. He took the spot across from you, not directly - that would be too obvious, too needy - but slightly offset, so you had to turn to face him.
“Never have I ever,” Robin starts, because of course she did, her voice carrying that particular blend of irony and invitation, “hooked up with someone in this circle.”
It was a safe opening. Strategic. Her eyes found Mel’s, held them, and you understood the game being played - it was a public declaration, the staking of the claim that Mel was hers for the night.
Drinks were raised. Sips are taken. You didn’t drink - too green to have hooked up with anyone here, yet - and you caught the way Steve watches you not drink, his expression unreadable, his own cup raised to all the girls who had small pieces of him.
“Bold,” he said, not to you, to the group. “Getting straight to the personal stuff. I like it.”
“You’ll like this one too,” you said, and you felt the circle shift, all eyes focusing on you. “Never have I ever.” You let the pause stretch. “Regretted a single thing I’ve done at a summer camp.”
Steve drank. Hard, his eyes never leaving yours.
“Targeted much?” the girl in the sundress asked, sharp and skeptical. “New girl collects up all those points from us stuck here,” she gestured vaguely, “ - you would have had to have drunk if you were here more than a day.”
“I don't regret,” you said, which was a lie, but lies were just performances you hadn’t finished yet. “Waste of energy.”
“Philosophical.” Eddie leaned in, and you could smell the cheap beer under expensive cologne. “I like that. I’m - ”
“We’ve established what you do,” the girl in the sundress said, not looking up from her book. “Badly.”
“Nancy,” Robin supplied, the introduction feeling like a small peace offering. “Literature. She’s here because she thinks suffering builds character.”
“I’m here because my mother thinks it builds a college application,” Nancy corrects, but there was something almost like humor in it. “And you are?”
“The new arts director,” Eddie coos before you could answer. “The one with the car. The Mustang. Robin’s latest obsession.”
“Robin knows her women,” you said, and Steve laughs - it’s short, surprised, like he hadn’t meant to.
The game continues. Nancy admits to academic fraud - “ it was a misunderstanding about citation standards” - her tone suggesting the misunderstanding had been someone else’s. The boy with the camera, pressed by Robin’s elbow now, mumbles something about photographing people without permission, his eyes are on his hands, his shoulders hunched. Eddie admitted to crying during Disney movies - “seriously? I can’t be the only one! Come on” - adding vulnerability with his desperate energy.
Steve admits to nothing. His confessions only come with everyone else's. “Never have I ever been good at following rules,” “Never have I ever known when to quit” - he’s vague enough for it to be true, safe enough to be meaningless. You watch him watching you, and you know he was waiting, assessing, deciding whether you were worth the chase.
You match him. Lie for lie, until the circle around you seems to fade back to the main room and you were alone in the game, alone in the night, alone in the electricity sparking between the two of you.
And then she arrives.
You notice her because Steve notices her - his eyes flicking away from you to the deck doors, his posture shifting almost imperceptibly, a small tightening of his mouth that might have been annoyance or might have been anticipation. She was local, you could tell immediately - not camp staff, not a counselor, her clothes were wrong, her hair too styled for the humidity. Someone who “hung around” was a phrase you’d learn later, the phrase that meant she was his, or had been, or wanted to be again.
She was pretty in that soft kind of way, huge blonde hair and anxious eyes, and she made a beeline for Steve like there was no one else around.
“Steve.” She stops just outside the circle of cushions, hovering, her hands twisting together. “I didn’t know you were - I mean, Robin said there was a mixer, and I thought - ”
“Hey, Tiff.” His voice was warm, the golden boy persona, but you saw the way his eyes cut to you, quick, checking whether you were watching. “You know you’re always welcome.”
“I wasn’t sure. After last summer, I thought maybe - ”
“Last summer was last summer.” He patted the cushion beside him, an invitation that looked generous and felt like a dismissal of the conversation she actually wanted to have. “Sit. Join the game.”
She sat. Too close, her shoulder pressing against his, her smile too bright and too hard. You watched her watch him, and you understood something you couldn’t quite name yet - the particular hunger Steve inspired, the way he held it without returning it.
“My turn,” Tiffany said to him, eager, trying to reclaim territory she’d already lost. “Never have I ever - ”
“Never have I ever,” Steve interrupted, not looking at her, his voice dropping to an intimate frequency that felt meant only for you even in the crowded circle, “met someone who made me want to break all my own rules.”
The circle went quiet. Robin’s mouth tightens. Nancy’s eyebrows rose. Eddie’s desperate charm falters, just for a moment.
Tiffany’s face crumpled slightly, quickly hidden - you see it, you were meant to see it - and then she recovers, smile fixed, hands twisting harder.
You don’t look away from Steve. You raised your cup, drank the whole thing, before saying: “Never have I ever walked away from something I wanted because someone told me it was dangerous.”
Tiffany stands up. “I should go. Early morning. Work.”
“Sure,” Steve said, not bothering to look at her. “See you around, Tiff.”
She leaves. The circle absorbed her absence as she’d never been there, and you understood: Steve had wanted you to see that. The message was clear - this is what happens to people who want me. This is what doesn’t happen to you. Yet.
“Walk with me,” he said, and it wasn’t a question, but it wasn’t quite a command either. He stands, extending his hand towards, and you see Robin’s expression - her guardian role, a warning, resigned sigh - and Nancy’s - nothing short of calculating.
You take Steve’s hand.
The circle lets you go.
···························
You don’t speak until you are clear of the lodge, clear of all the lights, the cool night air hits your flushed skin like a slap. You were drunker than you’d realized - the whiskey, the game, the hours of pretending sobriety slipping away now that you were moving, now that the ground was tilted slightly under your feet.
Steve walks beside you, not ahead, his shoulder brushing yours with each step. He was drunk too - you could see it in the looseness of his posture, the way his smile came easier and meant even less.
“You’re unsteady,” he said, not a question.
“You’re observant.”
“Of course I’m observant.” He catches your elbow as you stumble slightly, his grip warm and firm, and not letting go even after you’d steadied. “It’s my job. Watch people. Figure out what they want. What will they do to get it?”
“And what do I want?”
He looked at you, and even drunk, even like this, his eyes were sharp. “You want me to think you’re chasing me. So I’ll chase you back. So neither of us has to admit we both know exactly what this is.”
You laugh, surprised by his honesty, or by his willingness to name the game while still playing it. “And what is this?”
“Convenience.” He guides you around a root in the path, his hand sliding from your elbow to your waist, staying there. “Summer. Boredom. The particular desperation of being young and hot while stuck in the woods with nothing better to do.”
“Ever the romantic.”
“I don’t do romantic things.” His thumb pressed into the hollow of your hip, possessive even through the fabric of your dress. “I do the truth. And honestly? I’ve been thinking about fucking you since I found out you said Marnie can suck your dick.”
You stop walking, turning to face him. The moonlight catches his face, transforming him into something carved, cruel, and beautiful. “Is that really all it took?.”
He steps closer, close enough that you could smell the whiskey on his breath, the sweat on his skin, the particular musk of someone who had been wanting for hours and was done waiting. “I’ve been patient. I don’t like being patient.”
“So stop.”
His mouth was on yours before you’d finished speaking - not gentle, not exploratory, the way first kisses were supposed to be, but hard and exactly what you’d been wanting since the circle, since the game, since he’d dismissed Tiffany like she was nothing and looked at you like you were everything.
You matched him still, your hands finding his hair, his shoulders, the lean muscle of his back. He walked you backward until you hit something solid - a tree, a post, you didn’t care - and pressed against you, his body hard and insistent.
“Here?” you managed against his mouth.
“Can’t wait anymore.” He was already lifting your dress; his hands were rough, drunk enough to be careless, sober enough to know exactly what he was doing. “I need to feel you. Need to know if you’re real.”
“Real as you are.”
“Then we’re both fucked.” He laughs, the sound vibrating against your neck where his mouth had trailed, teeth grazing at your pulse. “Shed’s closer. Or I can take you here, against this tree, where anyone walking by - ”
“Shed.”
He pulls back, just enough to look at you, his eyes dark and wanting, pleased by your answer. “Good girl. Knew you had it in you.”
The equipment shed loomed ahead of you, and he produced the key from his pocket with shaking hands - not from the nerves, you realized, but from restraint, from the effort of not taking you there and then as he’d threatened. He unlocked the door, holding it open for you.
“After you,” he said, but he didn’t step out of the way. He made you squeeze past him, close enough to feel his body heat, his breath on your neck, his hand sliding down your spine to rest at the small of your back.
“Oh he's a gentleman,” you said, your voice steadier than you felt.
“Far from it.” He found the light switch, and the single bulb above you flickered to life - harsh yellow, kayaks stacked around like sleeping animals, life preservers hanging like corpses of the wall, the smell of mildew, rubber, and something metallic you told yourself was just lake water. “I like knowing you're here. Like knowing you can’t leave until I’m done with you,” he finishes as you hear a soft click of the door locking behind him as he steps in.
You turned to face him. “And when will that be?”
He smiles, thinner than before, sharper, all the golden boy charm burned away by alcohol and desire. “When I’m bored. Or when you break. Whichever comes first.”
“I'd like to see you try and break me.”
He steps closer, and closer, enough that you have to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. “Take off the dress. Now. Or I tear it off.”
You don’t move. “Make me.”
He laughed, surprised, delighted all rolled into one - and then his hands were on you, rough and impatient, pulling the dress up and over your head before you could assist or resist the action. He tosses it aside without looking; his eyes are locked on you, his pupils blown wide.
“Better,” he says, but he doesn’t touch you yet. “Now the rest.”
“You first.”
“You think we’re negotiating?” He crosses the final distance now, his chest pressed against yours, so close you could feel his heartbeat, fast and hard and matching your own. “I think you’re stalling. I think you want this as much as I do, but you can’t stand to admit it. Can’t stand to be the girl who wanted the mean fuckboy who treats her like - ”
“Like what?”
“Like this.” His hand was in your hair, pulling, angling your head where he wanted it, and his mouth was on yours - rough, his tongue pushing past your lips without asking, his teeth catching your lower lip hard enough to make you gasp. He tasted like whiskey and cigarettes; there’s something dark that might have been honest if you’d known how to look for it.
You bit back, hard, and felt him laugh against your mouth, felt the vibration rumble in his chest where it pressed against yours, felt his other hand find your waist and pull your hips flush against his, so you could feel how hard he was through his jeans, how much he wanted this, wanted you, had been wanting since the moment you arrived.
“There’s my girl,” he whispers against your jaw, moving to your throat, then the hollow where your pulse hammered. “Knew you weren’t as bitchy as you pretended. I knew you just wanted this - so rough, fucking dirty.”
“And you?” You managed the words barely against his shoulder, your hands fisting his shirt, pulling it up, needing to feel skin, needing to verify that he wanted this as much as you. “What do you want?”
“Everything.” He broke the kiss to let you remove his shirt, and you saw him properly for the first time - broad shoulders, hairy chest trailing down under the waistband of his jeans, muscles with a little bit of pudge in front of them, scattered scars, and a long-healed gash across the bottom of his ribs that you trace with your fingertips. “I want everything, and I want to be the one who decides when you’ve had enough.”
“Kayaking accident?” you ask, pressing a kiss to the scar, watching his face contort.
“Doesn’t matter.” He catches your wrist, pulling your hand up and pressing it over his heart, which is hammering. “Nothing matters besides this moment and what we’re going to do to each other.”
He kisses you again, even rougher than before, his hand fisting in your hair to cradle your head, and your own hands find his jeans, his belt, the button that is keeping him contained. He makes a sound - low, frustrated, pleased - and pushed you back against the kayaks hard enough to make them shift and creak, hard enough that you’ll have bruises tomorrow, hard enough that you’ll remember this, remember him, remember exactly how it felt to be wanted this much by someone who didn’t care if you remembered him at all once summer was gone.
“Eager?” He said, observing the way his hand was already moving down your stomach, finding the edge of your underwear, tearing it slightly as he hooked a finger around the waistband and yanked the fabric down.
“Impatient,” you corrected, because you were, and because he needed to know you were still in this, still choosing him, but still not fully his even as you helped him remove what was left of your clothes, even as you guided his hand where you needed it, even as you gasped and arched and demanded more.
“I warned you,” he said, and then his fingers plunged deep inside you - rough and sudden, exactly what you’d been wanting since the circle, since the game commenced, since he’d looked at you like you were a challenge worth accepting.
The intrusion of his fingers wrenched a sound from your throat that you didn't know you could make - raw, desperate, nothing like the controlled woman who'd walked into this camp eight hours ago. You were wet, embarrassingly so, and the ease with which he filled you spoke to exactly how long you'd been wanting this, how every barbed exchange at the mixer had just been foreplay, how the game itself had been a slow undressing of intent.
"Fuck," he breathes against your ear, working you open with rough precision, curling his fingers to find the spot that made your knees buckle. "You're soaked. You've been thinking about this all night, haven't you? Since I looked at you across that circle and decided I wanted you."
You grip his shoulder, nails digging crescents into the muscle there, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a vocal confirmation. But your body was betraying you - hips rocking into his hand, breath coming in sharp gasps that echoed against the corrugated wooden walls of the shed. The kayaks behind you shifted with your movements, plastic hulls knocking together like hollow drums in your ear.
He withdrew his fingers slowly, deliberately, watching your face as he brought them to his mouth and sucked them clean. The gesture was obscene but hot, and it sent a fresh pulse of heat between your legs. "You taste like summer," he said, his voice dropping to something almost reverent. "Like sweat and lake water."
"Poetic," you managed to gasp out, your voice still scraped raw, still fighting to maintain the upper hand even as you stood naked before him, trembling with unspent need.
"Don't." He catches your wrist as you reach for him, stopping you. "Not yet. I want to take my time with you. I want to know every part of you before I let you have what you came here for."
He turns you around with hands that are suddenly gentle, guiding you to lean against the stacked kayaks. The plastic was cold against your back, a shocking contrast to the heat of his body as he pressed against you, still fully clothed from the waist down, but the buttons were undone, the rough denim of his jeans abrasive against your bare thighs.
"Steve - "
"Patience," he murmurs against your collarbone, his mouth tracing a path downward, teeth grazing the swell of your breast before closing around your nipple with sudden, shocking suction. You arched into him, your hands finding his hair, pulling hard enough to hurt him. He laughs against your skin, the vibration traveling through you, and switches to the other breast, lavishing it with the same attention, leaving you writhing against him, pussy aching.
He denies you. Every time your hips sought him, he shifted away, maintaining the maddening pressure of his mouth down your body, his hands, everywhere but where you needed him. You were panting now, shameless, your earlier control long burned away by the slow torture of his attention.
"Please," you heard yourself say, and hated yourself for it.
"Please, what?" He looks up at you, his lips swollen, his eyes dark with triumph that he's got you to this point. "Say it. Tell me exactly what you want."
"Your mouth," you said, the words tumbling out, stripped of artifice. "I want your mouth on me. Now."
He smiles - slow, predatory, satisfied - and drops to his knees before you. The concrete was hard, unforgiving, and he didn't seem to care; his focus was entirely on the space between your thighs. He pushes your legs wider with rough hands, thumbs spreading you open, and then he was there, his tongue hot and insistent, dragging through your folds with a groan that vibrated against your most sensitive flesh.
You cry out, your hand slapping against the kayak behind you to hold yourself together, fingers finding the carry handle and gripping until your knuckles turn white. He was relentless, working you with lips and tongue and the occasional scrape of teeth, finding your clit and circling it with devastating precision before pulling back to fuck you with his tongue, only to return to the swollen bud and drive you higher, higher, until you were sobbing, your hips bucking against his face, lost completely to the sensation.
He slides two fingers back inside you, curling them, and the combination - his flat tongue, his fingers, the cold air of the shed against your overheated skin - shatters you. You cum with a cry that you try to muffle, your body convulsing around him, pleasure radiating outward in waves that make your vision blur, and your legs threaten to give out. He stays with you through it, easing his movements, drawing out your orgasm until you are whimpering and oversensitive, pushing at his shoulders to escape the intensity.
He rises slowly, wiping his glistening mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes never leaving yours. "Good girl," he says, and you should have hated the condescension, but you were too far gone, too wrecked, your body still humming with aftershocks.
"Your turn," you manage to gasp out, reaching for the loop in his jeans.
He lets you this time. Lets you push the denim down over his hips with his boxers until his cock springs free, thick, heavy, and flushed dark with blood. You wrap your hand around him, watching his face as you stroke, learning what makes his breath hitch, what makes his eyes flutter closed, what makes him groan your name like a prayer or a curse.
The act is short-lived. "Enough," he grits out finally, stopping your hand. "I want to be inside you when I cum. I want to feel you around me."
He turns you again, pushing you over the kayak with a hand between your shoulder blades. The plastic was cold against your stomach and breasts, turning your nipples harder. You heard the tear of the foil, the shift of his groaning, rolling the condom over himself, and then his hand was in your hair again, pulling your head back at an angle that forced your gaze to the single bulb overhead, the moths circling it in frantic orbits.
"Still think you're in control?" he asks, and then he pushes inside you in one hard thrust that drives the air from your lungs.
You bite down on your lip to keep yourself from crying out, tasting copper, feeling the stretch and burn of him filling you. He was huge, veiny, and he doesn’t give you time to adjust - already starting to move immediately after bottoming out. He sets the rhythm - deep, punishing strokes that rock the kayak beneath you, that send the stack shifting and groaning with each impact.
"Don't," he growls, sensing your tension through your shoulders, your resistance to letting go. "Don't you fucking retreat now. Be here. Be here with me."
And god fucking help you, you were. The performance had dropped away somewhere between his fingers inside you and his cock filling you now - there was only sensation, only the brutal honesty of bodies moving together in the dark. You push back against him, meeting his thrusts, demanding more, and he gives it to you - he’s faster, harder, his hand sliding from your hair to your hip, gripping hard enough to bruise, to mark, to make sure you'd feel him tomorrow with every step you took.
"Touch yourself," he orders, his voice ragged now. "I want to feel you cum around me. I want to know I did this. That we did this."
You reach between your legs, fingers finding your clit, swollen and sensitive, and the first touch sends sparks up your spine. He feels it - feels you tighten around him, hears the change in your breathing, and he adjusts his angle, driving into you with strokes that hit something electric, something that has you gasping, arching, losing the rhythm of your own fingers as sensation overwhelms your coordination.
"Steve - " His name escapes before you can stop it, and he groans in response, a sound torn from somewhere primal, his thrusts losing their precision as he chases his own release.
"Again," he demanded. "Say it again."
"Steve." You give him that, give him the vulnerability of naming him while he was inside you, while you were both stripped down to this - sweat, skin, and the wet sounds of fucking that fills the shed like music. "Steve, I'm - "
He knew. His hand left your hip to cover yours, pressing your fingers harder against your clit, guiding the rhythm as his thrusts became erratic. You cum with a cry that you muffle against your lip as you bite down, your pussy clamping around him, pleasure pulsing through you. He follows seconds later, burying his cock deep inside you with a final, brutal thrust, his forehead dropping to your back as he shudders through his own orgasm, his breath hot and fast against your spine.
For a moment - just a single moment - there was only the sound of breathing, the smell of sex and sweat, the cooling press of the kayak against your overheated skin. His hand remained over yours, your fingers still tangled between your legs, and neither of you moved to separate them.
Then he withdraws, carefully, and you hear the snap of the condom being removed.
You turn around, leaning against the kayaks, and watch him. The golden boy was returning, but slower than before, like he was tired, or like you had seen something he couldn’t fully hide anymore.
“You’re different,” you say, not accusing, just observing.
“So are you.” He pulls his shirt over his head, covering the scars. “That’s why this works.”
He finds your dress, holds it out with a gesture that was almost polite, but also distant. “We should get back. Before they notice.”
“Do you care? If they notice?”
Something flickers - surprise, maybe, or the realization that you were still testing him. “No,” he says finally. “I don’t care. That’s kinda the problem.”
He doesn’t explain. You don’t ask. You dress in silence, the intimacy already curdling into something else.
It was only then that you noticed the jacket - HAUSER printed across the front, on the floor, half-hidden behind life preservers.
“Lost and found,” Steve says, casual, borderline bored, picking it up and tossing it into a bin without looking. “People leave things all the time.”
He walks you back, his hand in yours, his thumb tracing patterns that might be affection or might be a habit. At your cabin door, he kisses you - tender, rehearsed, the act fully restored.
“Tomorrow,” he says, not asking.
“Tomorrow,” you agree, not promising.
You watch him walk away, his silhouette disappearing into the trees, and tell yourself the jacket means nothing. Camp turnover was high. People leave things.
You don’t notice that he stops at the tree line, staring into the dark with an expression you couldn’t see, standing there for a long moment before continuing.
You were already inside, checking locks that didn’t exist, wondering why you felt like you were being watched.
···························
The next morning, you could still taste the copper and cheap beer in your mouth, a metallic tang that lingered no matter how many times you brushed your teeth. You stood under the cold shower until you felt your skin go numb, watching water spiral down the drain in hypnotising circles, trying to convince yourself the ache between your thighs was just physical - just the aftermath of rough sex with someone you barely knew.
But you did know him. That was the problem. You knew exactly what kind of person he was, and you’d chosen it anyway.
You dressed with deliberate precision. A White linen dress, one with long sleeves and a high collar - armor disguised as innocence. Sunglasses that hid half your face. The illusion of someone who hadn’t spent the previous night getting fucked against kayak racks by the camp’s resident golden boy while the party continued without you.
Your phone buzzed as you pinned your hair.
Robin: “Survived the night, I see? We need to talk.”
Not a good morning. A ‘how are you even’? Just the assumption that your survival was noteworthy, that the night had indeed been dangerous, that you’d walked through something with a medal you didn’t yet understand.
You found her lingering at the dining hall entrance, exactly where she’d been yesterday, smoking with the same defensive posture. But something had changed. Her face seemed sharper today, the paint on her fingernails was chipped, and her enamel pin was still sitting askew from yesterday. Like she’d been up all night.
“You’re not supposed to smoke here either, ya know,” you said, falling into yesterday's rhythm without thinking.
“I’m not supposed to do a lot of things.” She didn’t look at you. Her eyes were fixed on the dining hall windows - on Steve behind the frying pans, surrounded by children, flipping pancakes in a way that made it look entertaining and effortless. “Steve’s inside. You should see him - it’s quite a show.”
“I saw enough last night.”
“Did you now?” Now she’s looking at you, and her eyes were full of something that wasn’t quite pity and wasn’t quite warning you got yesterday. “No one saw you actually leave the lodge. Either of you. The party went on for hours. People were starting to ask.” She paused, dragging on her cigarette. “Mainly about whatever happened between Steve and Tiffany.”
The name landed differently than it had last night. You remembered her face - the hurt, the desperate smile, the way Steve had dismissed her without even looking. “She’s still here?”
“She’s always around somewhere. That’s the problem.” Robin’s voice was flat, careful. “She came back, waited for him, I guess? But he didn’t show up again, obviously. She left around two, maybe later. No one’s heard from her this morning.” She shrugged, but the gesture was a little too casual. “Probably nothing. Probably just… embarrassed. Hungover. She does that.”
You should press further. Should ask why Robin was telling you this, what she was really trying to say. But you’re hungover as hell, still sore, still caught in the aftermath of something you didn’t fully understand.
“Are you telling me this because you’re worried about Tiffany?” you said.
Robin laughs, short and surprised. “No. I’m not.” She dropped her cigarette, ground it out, and immediately lit another. Her hands were steady, but her breathing was too fast. “I’m telling you because I was watching you last night, before you left. The way you looked at him - the way you played him. Like you knew exactly what he was doing.” She finally turns to face you fully. “That’s rare. Most girls fall head over heels for him. You fell for the thing underneath. Or you at least pretended to.”
“And?”
“And I can’t tell if that makes you safe or more dangerous.” She exhales smoke through her nose, watching you through the haze. “Steve likes people who make him feel alive. Last summer, it was Tiffany - she believed everything he said, gave him everything, and he got bored by August. Let her think they had a future together, then said he had to ‘focus on himself’ and left her entirely…” She stops. Shrugs. “Changed her. She’s not the same. Still sends me emails asking if he’s mentioned her at all.”
“Sad,” you said, not meaning anything by it.
“It’s pathetic,” Robin agrees, but her voice was gentle, almost protective. “I don’t want that for you. I don’t want - ” She stops, frustrated while trying to search for words. “You’re new. You don’t owe him anything. You can still walk away.”
You thought of the shed. The way he’d looked at you - really looked like you were worth everything. The way you’d looked back with that same feeling. “What if I don’t want to walk away?”
“Then you’re his new summer toy.” Robin’s voice hardened. “His distraction. His proof that he’s still interesting, still wanted, still capable of making someone feel special before he gets bored and moves on.” She steps closer, close enough that you could smell the smoke on her breath, the sleeplessness crawling in her skin. “He’ll use you up. Not because he’s cruel - because he’s empty. And emptiness is hunger. It takes everything and gives nothing in return.”
You should be angry. Should try to defend yourself, defend Steve, defend the connection you’d felt in the dark with his hands on your hips and his mouth on your neck.
Instead, you smile - sharp, brief, and nothing like the friendly exchanges you’d had with Robin so far. “Here’s what I think,” you said, your voice steady, your eyes holding hers. “I think Steve’s been playing this game a long time. I think he’s good at it - good at finding girls who want to be consumed, who think they’re also special, who believe his lies about being different, misunderstood, and seen.” You step closer, into her space, matching her intensity. “But I’m guessing he’s never played against someone who knows this mindfuck. Who’s using him right back?”
Robin’s eyes widen, just slightly - surprise across her face, or the first spark of something like respect.
“I’m not his toy,” you continue. “I’m his match. And if he wants to keep me, he has to work for it. He has to be interesting, actually be real.” You pause, letting the words land. “And if he can’t do that? If he tries to play me like he played Tiffany, like he played all the others?” You smile again, wider this time, letting the mask slip. “Then I’ll leave him behind. And he’ll spend the rest of the summer wondering what he did wrong, why he wasn’t enough, why this one got away.”
Robin was silent for a long moment. Then she laughs - almost delighted. “Christ,” she said. “You’re worse than he is.”
“Better,” you corrected. “I’m better. Because I know exactly what I’m doing, and I don’t pretend otherwise.”
She studies you, and you see something shift behind her expression - the worry fading, replaced by curiosity, by the particular hunger of someone who had been bored with the same old show and finally found something interesting.
“I like you,” she said finally, like she was surprised by it. “I don’t want to, but I do.”
“Likewise,” you said, and meant it. There was something about Robin - her refusal to conform to sweetness, the way she saw through everything and stayed anyway. She was the kind of person who could be useful, the kind of person who could be real.
“So what now?” Robin asks, dropping her second cigarette and crushing it under her boot.
“You go in there and play whatever game you’re playing? Let him make you pancakes and pretend he didn’t fuck you?”
“I go in there,” you correct, “and I let him think he’s winning. For now.”
Robin shook her head, but she was smiling. “You’re going to destroy him.”
“I’m going to test him.” You adjust your sunglasses, checking your reflection in the dining hall window. You looked untouched. Unbothered. Like a girl who’d slept a full eight hours and dreamed of nothing. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
You don’t answer. You were already walking towards the door, feeling Robin’s eyes on your back, feeling the morning sun hot against your collarbone where Steve had left a bruise you hadn’t discovered yet.
···························
The dining hall brought both chaos and comfort, the particular symphony of summer camp mornings - children shouting at each other, trays clattering, the smell of syrup, bacon, and too many bodies in a confined space. You move through it automatically, performing normalcy, hunger, and the role of the counselor who had spent a quiet night alone in her cabin preparing for the week ahead.
You found him at the frying pans still, exactly where Robin had shown you he would be.
“Princess!” His smile is wide, public, completely different from the darkness he showed in the shed. It reached his eyes, crinkled at the corners of his mouth, transformed his face into something more approachable, safe. “Sorry, Robin told me her little nickname for you. Chocolate chip or blueberry?”
“Guess it’s stuck now. Surprise me.”
He plated a pancake like it was a theatrical performance, adding butter and syrup in a spiral pattern, and handed it over with a small bow that made the children around him giggle. “Sleep well?”
“Well enough.”
“I didn’t.” He lowered his voice, leaning across the hotplate, close enough that you could smell him - sweat and soap covering the faint lingering traces of last night, of you stuck on his skin. “Couldn’t stop thinking about you. About - ” He glances at the children, at the other counselors. “About the way you moaned, clamped around me.”
“And?”
“And I think you’re the first person who sees what this is and wants to play anyway.” His eyes held yours, and for a moment you see it again - that flash of something real, something hungry, something that reflected your own, and you wanted to feed it. “That’s rare and I - ”
“Steve!” One of the children - a gap-toothed boy named, you’d briefly seen around yesterday - tugged his sleeve, demanding his attention. “The pancake’s burning!”
The moment was broken. Steve turns to the child with the same perfect smile, the same perfect patience, but you can see the edge in his jaw, the brief flicker of annoyance before he buries it. “Shit, thanks buddy, for the save.” He flips the pancake, it’s golden and perfect, and sends the kid off with a high-five that leaves him beaming.
You’re left holding your plate, wondering if you had imagined the intensity, if you were already becoming Tiffany, already becoming the girl who saw things that weren’t there because she wanted them to be there.
“New girl!” The voice came from behind you, amused. “You actually showed up for breakfast. I had twenty bucks on you sleeping through till lunch.”
Nancy Wheeler leans against the beverage station, arms crossed, looking like she’d stepped out of a Ralph Lauren catalog that had been briefly introduced to a forest floor. Her polo shirt was crisp, white, and expensive. Her shorts were cut just so. Everything about her suggested money and boredom - the particular cruelty of beautiful girls who had never needed to be kind a day in their lives.
“I don’t sleep that late,” you said, taking the coffee Nancy was offering because refusing would be a declaration of war you weren't ready for yet.
“You go to bed early too apparently.” Nancy’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “No one saw you leave the party. Or Steve. Coincidence, I’m sure.”
Before you could answer, a shadow fell between them - the boy from last night, camera hanging from his neck like a talisman, his flannel shirt buttoned wrong in a way that suggested he’d either dressed in the dark or didn’t care. “Nance, leave her alone. Not everyone’s entertainment for your summer boredom.”
“Jonathan.” Nancy’s voice softened in a way that made you want to look away, like you’d interrupted something private. “I’m just being friendly.”
“You’re just being you.” But he said it gently, almost fondly, and you saw it then - a history between them, thick and complicated but visible in the way they stood too close without touching or realising. Your name falls off Johnathan's lips with a hesitation, “right? I’m Jonathan. I take photos of the camp. Yearbook stuff.”
“And artistic portraits of trees,” Nancy added, her tone lightening. “Very moody. Very, I am a serious artiste.’”
Jonathan’s cheeks flush, but he smiles, and it transforms his whole face. “Someone has to document the suffering.”
“There’s no suffering at Camp Blood Moon,” Steve calls from where he’s still flipping pancakes, loud enough to carry across the room, to his audience of children and eavesdropping counselors. “Only adventure, friendship, and pancakes that are definitely not burnt, so stop telling people that - ”
The children around him erupted into laughter. Steve plays the moment perfectly, mock-offended and defensive, letting them tease him because it made him more approachable. But his eyes found yours across the room, just for a second, and the look in them was nothing like the golden boy persona. A promise. Later.
“See?” Nancy follows the glance, missing nothing. “He’s good at that. Making everyone feel like they’re the only one he’s looking at.”
“He’s looking at the kids,” you said, keeping your voice neutral.
“He’s looking at you.” Nancy pushes off the beverage station, her smile turning into knowing, almost sympathetic. “Just… be careful. Steve’s summer romances have a body count. And I wish I meant the fun kind.”
She walks away before you can ask what she means, Jonathan trailing behind her with an apologetic look across his face that suggests he’ll be the one hearing about this later, understanding it in ways you couldn’t yet.
You take your pancake to a picnic table near the screen doors, the morning light is filtering through in dusty columns, and the noise of the dining hall becomes a more manageable roar. The table was sticky with syrup, carved with initials and years - J.H. + N.W. '09 prominent among them, surrounded by hearts that had probably meant something once.
“Mind if I join?”
Eddie Munson drops onto the bench across from you without waiting for an answer, his guitar case thumping against the table leg. He was covered in all black clothing, a crow among sparrows, eyeliner smudged in a way that might have been intentional or might have been last night’s leftovers.
“You disappeared last night,” he said, in a teasing tone. “With Harrington.”
“News travels fast.”
“Camp’s a fishbowl.” Eddie pulls a cigarette out from behind his ear, rolling it between his fingers without lighting it - an act of rebellion for the children who were watching from three tables over, wide-eyed. “Also, I caught Tiffany crying in the arts and crafts cabin at about 2 in the morning. Hard to miss and ironic considering that's now yours.”
You set down her fork. “Yeah?”
“Steve’s last… what? Summer project? Emotional support human?” Eddie’s lips curl. “She’s been coming here since she was twelve. Following him around like a puppy. He keeps her on the hook because it’s easy. After all, she’ll do anything for a scrap of his attention, because - ” He stops, seems to reconsider your expression and the way you’re playing with your food. “You don’t care.”
“Old news.”
“Damn.” Eddie’s smile was surprising, transforming his whole face into something almost handsome. “You’re brave or stupid. Steve Harrington eats girls like you for breakfast. And lunch. And dinner. And sometimes midnight snacks.” He leans forward, elbows on the sticky table, close enough that she could smell the clove cigarettes and patchouli. “But you know that, as well, don’t you? I can see it in your face. You’re not here to be eaten. You’re here to bite back.”
Before you can answer, a shadow falls over the table - Steve, finally free of his duties, holding two cups of coffee and wearing a smile that doesn’t match that predatory glint in his eyes.
“Munson,” he says, not looking at Eddie, his gaze fixed on you. “Don’t you have a D&D game to run? Children to corrupt?”
“Don’t you have pancakes to burn? Egos to stroke?” Eddie stands, taking his guitar case into his hand, but he pauses beside you, close enough to murmur: “Remember what I said, princess. Bite hard.”
He saunters off, leaving you with Steve and the weight of his warning.
“Eddie’s a lover of drama,” Steve says, sliding onto the bench beside you, close enough that your thighs touch under the table. Close enough that no one could see his hand slide onto your thigh, fingers pressing just hard enough to remind you of last night. “He thinks he understands me because we grew up together. Because he saw me before…”
“Before what?”
Steve’s smile turns sharp, private, nothing like the golden boy you saw earlier. “Before I learned to play this little fucked up game better than everyone else.” His hand moves higher, thumb tracing circles just near the edge of your panties, hidden by the tablecloth, by the chaos of the dining hall and children shouting three feet away. “You look good this morning. Fresh. Like you didn’t spend last night getting your brains fucked out.”
His voice was low, intimate, filthy in a way that makes your breath catch. “I was thinking about you in the shower,” he continues, casual like he’s discussing the weather, his eyes scanning the room, waving at a child, never breaking his character while his hand did private things under the table. “About how you looked when you came. About how easy it would be to make you do it again.”
“Steve - ”
“Steve!” The voice cut through the noise like a knife through wet sand - sharp, ancient, unmissable. Marnie’s standing by the kitchen entrance, her cane tapping in an impatient rhythm against the floorboards, her pale eyes fixed on both of you with the particular intensity of someone who saw everything. “A word, please. Now.”
Steve’s hand withdraws slowly, deliberately, leaving a phantom warmth on your skin. He stands, adjusting his shorts slightly, his smile never faltering. “Duty calls. The witch has woken.” He leans down, mouth close to her ear, breath hot: “Don’t go anywhere. We’re not finished.”
He walks away, all easy grace and public charm, leaving you with a cold pancake and a body that wouldn’t stop remembering what his hands feel like.
You watch him go, watch Marnie pull him aside near the kitchen doors, their heads bent together in conversation too low to carry any sound. Steve’s posture shifts - shoulders tightening, chin lifting, his mask slipping to reveal something harder underneath. Whatever Marnie was saying, he didn’t like it.
You push your plate away, suddenly not hungry anymore, and stand to clear your tray. The dining hall has begun to empty, children scattering to morning activities like fish released into a stream, counselors drifting toward their assigned posts with the lazy energy of people who had nowhere urgent to be. You dumped your pancake in the trash, the syrup leaving sticky trails down the metal, and turned to find Marnie standing directly behind you. Steve is nowhere to be seen.
“Walk with me,” the old woman says. You know it’s not a request. A command, delivered with the quiet authority of someone who had been giving orders since before you were born.
“I have to get to my post - ”
“Arts and crafts doesn't start for another twenty minutes.” Marnie’s cane gestured toward the side door, the one that leads to the old part of camp, the original cabins no one used anymore from the 1950s that had been “preserved for historical value” but were really just too expensive to tear down. “I want to show you something. Something about this place. About the family that built it.”
You should have said no. Should have made another excuse, slipped away, found Steve or Robin or anyone who spoke in terms she understood - You looked for anything you could use. But there was something in Marnie’s face, some weight of forbidden knowledge that made refusal feel like cowardice.
“Fine,” you say. “But I don’t care about history lessons.”
Marnie’s smile was thin, all-knowing. “You will.”
···························
You walk together in silence at first, Marnie’s cane tapping in a steady rhythm along the packed dirt path that wound its way from the main compound. The sounds of camp faded into the distance behind them - the shouts of children, the tinny music emitted from the loudspeakers, the constant hum of activity was now being replaced by the deeper quiet that could only exist in the old forest, a place that existed long before the current camp and would exist long after that no one dared brave.
The path climbed gradually, switchbacking up a hill that you wouldn’t have guessed was there, hidden behind the dining hall and the newer cabins. The trees grew thicker here, oak, maple, and birch, their trunks carved with decades of initials and dates, some fresh and sharp, others weathered to pale scars that had nearly healed completely over.
"Steve's great-grandfather actually built this camp," Marnie says, her voice conversational, almost gentle, as if you were discussing the weather. "In 1953. Bought the land from a logging company that had cleared out what they wanted and moved on. He was a religious man. Believed in redemption. What the healing power of nature could do, hard work, and loved fresh air." She pauses at a switchback, breathing harder, her knuckles white on the cane. "He built the first cabins with his own hands. Slept in a tent while he worked. Said the woods spoke to him. Told him where to build, where to clear, where to leave the wild things to grow."
You said nothing, watching a squirrel dart across the path ahead, watching the way the morning light filtered through the canopy in shifting patterns of gold and green.
"His son - Steve's grandfather - took over in 1965. Henry. He was different. Wasn’t a builder but a dreamer. He added the lake, the boathouse, and traditions that still exist today. The campfire songs, the colour war was his favourite though, children throwing those paint balloons at each other, bringing life to the camp.” Marnie’s lips began to curl up, the first sign of real emotion you were able to see from her. “He also believed the woods were special. Not speaking, exactly, but listening. Watching. Waiting for someone worthy to join them." She pauses, looking out into the woods, the emotion quickly dropping from her face as if she can see something you can’t. "He died in 1970. Heart attack was the official reason. But he was found in the woods, not in his bed. And his son - William, Steve's father - was the one who found him."
When you reach the top of the hill, the trees seem to fall away to reveal a small clearing dominated by a single structure - a cabin, older than the others, its logs gray with age and weather, its porch sagging slightly on one side. A plaque beside the door read Harrington House in faded gold lettering, and beneath it, newer brass: Est. 1953. In Memory of Theodore Harrington.
"This was the first building," Marnie says, beginning to climb the porch steps with careful precision. "Theodore's home. His sanctuary." She pushes open the door, which swings inward without resistance, hinges well-oiled despite the building's apparent abandonment.
You follow her inside, ducking under the low doorway starting to cave in on itself, into a space that smells of cedar, dust, and old smoke. The interior was a single room, dominated by a stone fireplace that took up an entire wall, its mantel crowded with framed photographs covered in dust that spanned decades. Black and white giving way to color, Polaroids turning into glossy prints, the evolution of photography captured in the faces of strangers.
"Steve's father," Marnie says, pointing to a photograph near the center of the mantle - a man that almost looks familiar, you can see the resemblance - Steve's jawline, Steve's hair, but somehow less controlled. He’s standing on the dock by the lake, arms outstretched, face tilted toward the sun in an attitude of ecstasy or even surrender. "William. He grew up here, just like Steve has. He was a counselor here in his teens." She pauses, her finger lingering over the frame. "He was here in 1972. When the massacre happened.”
You look at her eyebrow, kinked up. "You sure know a lot about it."
Marnie's smile was thin, quick, so much so that you almost miss it. "I was here, grew up with him. That summer. I was still a camper, not a counselor." She moves to the window, looking out at the vast void of trees. "I saw things. Heard things. The way William looked at people. The way he knew everyone's schedules, their fears, their secrets." She turns back, her pale eyes are sharp. "They never questioned him. He was the Harrington boy. The camp was his birthright. He left after that, claimed he couldn’t handle it, moved to the city, and started a family. Steve was born in 1987. But William came back. After the divorce. Made sure to bring Steve with him every summer. Taught him everything about this place. The history. The traditions. The - " She stops, shaking her head.
"And William?"
"Died in 2006. Drowned in the lake, though the body was never found, and the camp was shut after the investigations." Marnie's voice was flat now. "Steve was nineteen at the time. He found his shoes on the shore, arranged neatly, laces tied. He never spoke to anyone about it. Just found me the next spring, begging me to come back, said he wanted to help reopen the camp. That he needed to be here. That he couldn't let the Harrington legacy end with his father's ghost."
She moves closer now, close enough that you can smell her lavender fabric softener and mothballs, the tang of old age. "Steve helped rebuild this place from nothing. Repaired the docks, started the traditions again, soothed the very spirit of the camp." She pauses, her hand fidgeting with the cane. "But I’ve watched over him for four years now because I knew his father. Because I saw what this camp does to Harrington men. What it turns them into."
You study her. The way she said watches him. The way her knuckles whiten on the cane in the same way again expresses how she really feels. The way she knew William a little too well, the patterns - schedules, fears, secrets - and spoke them like a warning about Steve. "And you're suggesting what exactly?"
"I think this camp doesn't forget." Marnie starts moving towards the door before pausing. "His father couldn't be saved. His grandfather couldn't be saved. The bloodline is cursed. Every woman in those photographs tried and failed." She looks back, and something flickers in her expression - it’s full of grief, or guilt, or the particular weariness of someone who had survived something others hadn't.
You feel something cold start to settle in your chest, a premonition or warning you didn’t want to name. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re new. Because you haven’t been here long enough to have caught onto the pattern. Because I watched you this morning, watched the way you looked at Steve, and I saw something I haven’t seen in a long time. Not since his mother was here. She was a camper, just like me. Same summer." Marnie's voice drops. "She looked at William the way you look at Steve. Like he was worth the cost.” Her eyes hold yours, unblinking, ancient. “You’re not like the other girls he’s tried this with, don’t want to save him. You don’t want to fix him. You want to play his game and win it. You want to consume him before he consumes you.”
“Is that so wrong?”
“It’s honest.” Marnie’s smile was sudden, surprising, transforming her face into something that you could almost consider kindness. “And honesty is rare here. Everyone else wants something from Steve - his attention, his approval, his body, his pain. You want the game itself. The competition. The thrill of matching him move for move until one of you eventually breaks.” She reaches out, her hand is dry and papery on your arm, but surprisingly strong. “But you need to understand what you’re playing for. This camp - it takes things. It takes people. It takes from the Harringtons most of all. They built it, they gave it their blood, their sweat, and most importantly, their ghosts.”
She gestures around the cabin, at the photographs, at the fireplace with its ashes still faintly warm from some recent fire. “Steve thinks he’s playing a game with you. Thinks he’s the predator and you’re the prey, or maybe the other way around if he’s feeling generous. But the camp doesn’t care about your games. The camp only cares about its hunger. And my dear, Steve’s been starving his whole life, feeding other people’s appetites while his own grows and grows, and someday soon he’s going to need something more sustainable.” Her grip tightens. “Don’t let it be you.”
You look through the photographs again, catching some of the newer ones that show Steve’s face evolving from child to man, at the way his eyes gradually learned to hide everything while his smile promised everything. You thought of last night, of the shed, of the way he’d looked at you like you were a meal he wanted to savor and devour all at once. But then you remember the way he softened slightly, letting everything he built fall for a second.
“I told Robin this morning,” you said, voice steady, “that I’m not his toy. I’m his match. That if he wants to keep me, he has to work for it. Be real.”
“And if he can’t?”
“Then I’ll leave him behind. And he’ll be left wondering what if?”
Marnie studies you now for a moment, the silence between you filled with the sounds of the forest outside - a birdsong, wind in the leaves, the distant murmur of camp life continuing without them. Then she laughs - soft, surprised, almost delighted.
"Oh, child," she said, releasing your arm. "You really don't understand yet. Steve doesn't wonder why people leave - he's the one who leaves them. Gets bored eventually. Realizes they aren't worth his time, that they can't handle him, that they aren't worth the effort of him actually being real." She moves toward the door, her cane tapping on the wooden floor again. "The only way to win with Steve Harrington is to refuse to play by his rules. To be so completely yourself that his performance has no audience, no reflection, no purpose. To force him to drop the mask, not because you asked him to, but because you made the mask irrelevant."
The sunlight breaks through the open doorway, Marnie’s silhouette dark against the bright morning outside.“Be different. Be the one who sees the emptiness and doesn’t try to fill it. Be the mirror that shows him what he really is, not what he pretends to be. And then - ” she smiles, thin and knowing, “ - then decide if you still want him. If what’s underneath is worth the price.”
She steps out onto the porch, leaving you alone in the cabin with the ghosts of Harrington men and the weight of generational hunger. You stand there for a long moment, breathing in the smell, listening to the camp resume its rhythm below. Then you move to the mantel, finding the photograph of Steve that looks the most like that version of him you saw last night - the adolescent one, caught mid-laugh, before he’d learned to perform perfectly - and turn it to face the wall.
“Let the games begin,” you said to the empty room, to the woods outside, to whatever might be listening.
And you walk out into the morning, ready to play.
···························
The afternoon begins to settle into a rhythm once you head back - children shouting along the waterfront, the distant thunk of axes at the wood-chopping station, the lazy drift of pollen through the air making people sneeze. You were just starting to inventory paint tubes at the arts pavilion when the scream came.
Not the typical camp scream. Not the shriek of a child who’d seen a spider or stubbed a toe. This was something else - raw, curdled, the sound of a human throat forced to make noises it was never designed to produce. It cut through the afternoon like a blade through canvas, silencing everything in its wake.
Your brush clatters onto the table. Around you, other counselors have frozen. Robin’s outside with her small group of new campers she's touring, and you can just catch Eddie from the music cabin with his guitar half-tuned. For one suspended moment, the whole camp seems to hold its breath, listening to the echo die against the trees.
Then the shouting starts.
Everyone’s running. You find yourself moving with the current of bodies pouring toward the northeast woods, toward the service road that wound behind the old maintenance sheds, toward the source of that sound. The crowd swelled as they moved - counselors abandoning posts, children streaming from the lake in dripping clusters, everyone drawn to the gravity of disaster.
You see Nancy near the front, already there ahead of most, her perfect polo stained with mud where she’d knelt in the dirt. She wasn’t crying. Her face was sharp, focused, her eyes scanning the scene with the methodical assessment of someone who had already started cataloging details. Jonathan’s beside her, camera finally raised, clicking with mechanical precision, capturing the shape on the ground you couldn’t see yet from behind so many people.
“Don’t,” Nancy says to him, low and sharp. “Don’t document this. Not yet.”
“Someone has to,” Jonathan replies, but he lowers the camera, his face pale beneath his stubble.
Eddie pushes past them both, his face stripped of its usual flirtiness and irony. “The boundary line,” he was muttering, more to himself than anyone. “I told them. I told Marnie. No one should go past the marked trails, not after dark, not ever - ”
Then you saw the police car, gravel spraying as they slewed into the turnaround near the dump site, lights silent but doors already opening, officers moving with the brisk efficiency of people who had been trained for this.
The crowd hit a wall, yellow tape already going up, stretched between birch trees. You find yourself wedged between Robin’s sharp shoulder and someone’s damp back, craning to see over heads that bobbed and shifted like reeds in the current.
“What - ”
“Don’t look,” Robin says. Her voice was strange. Tight. Controlled as she grips onto your wrist. “Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.”
But you did. Everyone did. The crowd shifted, parted, and you saw -
Tiffany.
Not really, Tiffany. The shape on the ground wore Tiffany’s dress - the same one from last night - but the body inside it had been emptied. Arranged. Hands folded across the chest, fingers interlaced, the posture of prayer or sleep or submission. The throat was hidden by the angle, by the officers, by the sudden movement of a sheet being drawn up, but you saw the blood anyway. Saw it in the mud, in the leaves, in the dark stain spreading beneath the body like an accusation.
“ - posed,” someone was saying. A police officer, notebook out, speaking to Marnie, who stood rigid as a fence post. “Hands folded. Throat cut. No sign of struggle at the site, which suggests she knew him. Or her. Knew them enough to go quietly into the woods.”
The whispers started then, spreading through the crowd like ripples from a stone. Throat cut. Posed like a prayer. Who was she with last night? Who saw her last? Who was where when?
You felt it moving through the bodies around you - the inventory of guilt, the sudden calculation of alibis, the primitive fear that came from knowing a predator had walked among them while they slept.
“Steve.”
The name cut through the noise. It wasn’t Marnie's - but Nancy’s. Sharp, commanding, the voice of someone who had spent three years on the student paper investigating cheating rings and drug deals and had learned that guilt often looked like the boy with the perfect smile.
“Steve was with her last night,” Nancy continues, her eyes finding him in the crowd with unerring accuracy. “At the party. They talked. Everyone saw.”
The crowd shifted, and there he was.
You watch him emerge, watch the golden boy's performance shatter in real-time. But he doesn’t collapse. Didn’t break. Steve Harrington stood with his shoulders back, his jaw set, his face flushing red - not with shame, but with anger. The controlled, defensive rage of someone who had been accused of things before and had learned to meet suspicion with aggression.
“Yeah, I talked to her,” he said, his voice carrying without shouting, pitched to reach the officers, the crowd, the narrative he was already shaping. “So fucking what? I talked to half the camp last night. So did she! Tiffany was upset - she left around midnight. Before I left for the equipment shed with her.”
Steve’s gesturing towards you, and you feel every head turn, feel the weight of attention shift and settle onto you with sudden, crushing gravity.
“Is that true?” The officer was young, tired, and already overwhelmed.
You begin to open your mouth to confirm, but Steve was already talking over you, his voice hard, defensive, pissed.
“Yeah, it’s fucking true. We were together until - ” he glances at Robin, some silent calculation passing between them, “ - two, three in the morning. I went to Robin’s cabin after, talked for a bit. Then I went back to my own cabin and slept. Alone. Like half the goddamn camp.”
“Can anyone verify - ”
“Verify what?” Steve’s laugh was sharp, bitter, and you could see the crowd gaze shift to an apology for accusing him. “That I slept? That I didn’t sneak out and murder someone I’d known since I was twelve?” He runs a hand through his hair, the gesture violent, frustrated. “Tiffany was fine when she left the party. Upset, yeah, but fine. She was alive. And I was with her, then Robin, then in my own fucking bed. So, unless you’re suggesting I killed her while snoring, maybe look at someone who actually had the opportunity.”
The crowd ripples, still shocked by his language, his aggression, the crack in his perfect facade. The Steve they knew was the patient pancake flipper, the gentle king of children. This was someone harder, meaner, cornered, and lashing out.
“And you?” Nancy’s voice again, scalpel-sharp, her eyes finding yours across the crowd. “Can you confirm this? You were with him?”
You feel Robin stiffen beside you, feel the trap closing. If you lied, you would be feeding her accusations. If she told the truth, you’d just be seen as the new girl, the easy mark, an alibi for the golden boy.
“We were at the equipment shed,” you said, voice steady despite the thud inside your heart. “Until around two. Then I went back to my cabin. Alone.”
“Convenient,” Nancy says.
“What’s convenient?” Steve snaps, stepping forward, his body language suddenly aggressive, protective - or possessive, you couldn’t quite tell. “That we were together? That we were having some fun while someone was killing Tiffany in the woods?” His voice cracked, real grief breaking through the anger. “Jesus Christ, Nancy, I didn’t kill her. I knew her. She was - ” He stops, swallowing, his jaw working overtime. “She was still a friend, were we something last summer - sure, and I don’t see her like that anymore, but fucking hell. I didn’t kill her.”
The whispering shifts, mutated. Suddenly, everyone was calculating something - the timeline, the opportunities, the geography of the camp at night. Steve’s alibi was solid but not perfect. Gaps existed. Shadows where things could hide.
“Everyone will need to provide statements,” the officer was saying, but the crowd was already fragmenting, already retreating into smaller groups, the chemistry of paranoia catalyzing into something harder, more dangerous.
You find yourself standing at the edge of the yellow tape, the woods behind you dark and breathing, the camp in front of you suddenly feeling dangerous, hostile. You see Nancy watching you, Jonathan watching Nancy, Eddie watching everyone with the knowing eyes of someone who had always suspected the camp was cursed. You see Marnie, silent and pale, leaning on her cane like it was the only thing holding her to the earth.
And you see Steve.
He had turned away from the officers, his shoulders tight with anger, his hands shoved in his pockets. But as the crowd shifted, his eyes found yours across the distance. For a moment - less than a breath - something passed between you. Not gratitude for backing him up. Not pleading for your help. Something harder. A warning, maybe. Or a claim.
You’re part of this now. You’re mine.
Then Robin was there, grabbing his arm, pulling him toward the lodge, her body language protective, aggressive, the loyal friend defending her wounded king from the crowd’s hungry eyes. Steve went with her, but he looked back once, just once at Tiffany's body.
A small goodbye.
···························
You walk back to your cabin alone.
The camp had transformed in the hours since the discovery. The paths that had started to feel familiar since your arrival yesterday now seemed alien again, the trees too close, the shadows too deep. You pass other counselors in clusters and campers, whispering, speculating, their eyes sliding over you with suspicion, curiosity, or the blank hunger of people who needed someone to blame.
The new girl. The alibi. The easy explanation.
You pass Nancy and Jonathan on the porch of the admin building, their heads bent together in an urgent conference. Nancy looks up as you pass, her eyes sharp, assessing, already building theories, already hunting for answers.
You pass Eddie, sitting on the steps of the music cabin, his guitar across his knees, but it’s silent. He looks at you with something like pity, and mouths words you can’t hear but understand anyway: Sorry.
Your cabin was as you had left it that morning - the bed unmade, the window open. You close the door behind you and stand in the silence, listening to the camp breathe around you, feeling the isolation settle into your bones like cold.
You slide the bolt locked.
Then, you remember the weight of Nancy’s eyes, the aggression in Steve’s voice, the arrangement of Tiffany’s hands, and you drag the small wooden chair from the desk and wedge it under the handle. A primitive barricade. A desperate gesture.
You sit on the bed. Staring at the door.
The sun begins to set. The camp grew quiet, a hush of shock and fear that was different from the usual silence of night. Somewhere, an owl calls, a branch cracks. Somewhere, Steve Harrington was grieving, and you were left alone with the knowledge that you’d had been publicly claimed by him, used by him, thrown to the wolves while he remained protected, golden, untouchable.
You thought of Tiffany’s hands, folded in prayer.
You thought of Nancy’s eyes, sharp and hunting.
And you thought of Steve’s voice, hard, angry, and defensive, swearing his innocence with the particular rage of someone who had seemed real in the moment.
You lay back on the narrow bed, fully clothed still, your eyes still fixed on the door, on the chair wedged beneath the handle, on the fragile barrier between yourself and the night.
CHAPTER ONE - Day 1
{On a luxury cruise, you find yourself tangled up in a scheme to marry Steve Harrington. Only problem is: you hate him.}
go to landing page
This is the shit.
The sun beats down from high above your lounger on the ship, and your skin soaks it up like a dry sponge. You’ve spent the last three weeks indoors studying for your college finals, and now your reward for crossing that stage in your white coat and being handed a piece of paper is a three-day cruise to the Caribbean.
The only downside is…your parents.
A public pool is not exactly their scene. So, naturally, that’s exactly where you gravitate towards.
Upbeat music bounces across the deck, drumming a happy buzz into your skull. When was the last time you were truly relaxed? Marine Biology is one bitch of a major. A boisterous kid’s laugh cuts through the music, pulling your eyes up. You raise your second margarita to your lips, the cool drink warming your belly in that way only alcohol does.
You’re definitely blaming the booze for the way your eyes linger on a muscled forearm as a man heaves himself over the edge of the pool.
It’s a slippery slope from there— strong hands lead to toned arms, to a smattering of chest hair, and finally to a pair of red swim trunks slung low on his hips. Water pours from him in rivulets, running down the long length of his legs.
You watch his abs flex as he laughs at something the kid calls to him, before his feet start moving your way.
Shit.
You may have had one too many of these Mango Meltdowns, because you were totally just staring at his—
“Hey, stranger.”
You freeze.
Oh God. You know that voice. It’s etched in your dreams. An echo you sometimes hear from across the room. And you always look up, even though you know it’s fruitless.
That thing about your parents being the only downside? Well, scratch that. Because the second one just walked up to you.
You lower your sunglasses slowly, and your vision fills with dripping hair and a teasing smirk.
Steve Harrington.
God, his brown eyes are just as captivating as they were back in in high-school. And middle school. And elementary—point is: Steve has great eyes. And you’ve thought that for as long as you’ve known him.
Which is a long fucking time.
“S-steve?” you stammer, finally finding your voice. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Me?” Steve snorts. “Pretty sure you’re the one crashing my vacation, Princess.”
Princess. Of course. How could you have forgotten? It’s only been four years since you’ve heard that nickname.
For some reason, Steve seems to take your stunned silence as a personal invitation to join you. He plops down on your lounger and rakes a hand through his hair, spraying cool droplets over your sun-warmed skin.
You hiss and push at his back with your foot. “Wha—Steve! Get off, you’re getting me all wet.”
He twists, sending you a wicked grin over his shoulder. “Oh, really?”
You roll your eyes. “Not like that, you perv. Get your own lounger!”
“There aren’t any left,” Steve says, nodding out toward the deck. “Look.”
He’s right. But that doesn’t matter.
“Okay, this is obvious what’s happening here. You know that, right? Where are Danny and Heather?” You sit up, scanning the pool deck for his parents. But you know they wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere that smells like sunscreen and cheap beer.
“I know,” Steve mutters. “I figured it out the second I saw you.”
You turn back to him. “Oh you did, huh? And when was that? Five seconds ago?”
Steve looks at you, then takes a long swig from—your—water bottle. His eyes hold yours as he swallows, daring you to stop him.
You look away. Coward.
“No,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and placing your water bottle back on the ground. He somehow manages to make it look hot. “Saw you the second you stepped on the ship.”
You scoff. “You did not.”
He shrugs, like he couldn’t give a shit whether you believe him. And for some reason, that makes you think it’s probably true. Now you just feel like an idiot.
And…there it is. That shift in the energy between you. You become acutely aware of every sway the ship makes underneath you as your gaze falls to your lap.
This is exactly why you’ve done everything in your power to avoid seeing Steve Harrington once over the last four years. Doesn’t matter that you used to be best friends growing up, or that you—at one point—thought there could be more.
It’s no secret that both your parents and his have been playing matchmaker your entire lives. Unfortunately for the both of you, it’s far less cupid’s arrow, and much more corporate scheme. With both of you being the the only children of wealthy families, the expectation that you would marry each other has been drilled into your heads since kindergarten.
Honestly, one would think all this elitist marry-your-children-off-for-status bullshit would be gone by now. Modern era and all. But, for your family—and the Harringtons—those were the glory days.
They are so unfathomably out of touch with reality.
“What did they tell you?” you ask, softer now. “College graduation trip?”
Steve nods. “Mandatory.”
You groan, tipping your head back against the lounger. It’s a fancy one. One of those fabric ones that dry instantly, but somehow never sag. The kind of luxury the biggest, best cruise ship in the world prides itself on. Only the best for your parents.
Unfortunately for you, the best includes Steve Harrington.
At one point, you agreed with them when it came to him. But not anymore. That all changed the summer before college.
Suddenly the air is too thick. Too charged. You fiddle with the strap of your bathing suit and look around for some excuse to leave.
“What’s with the kid?” You ask, gesturing to the curly headed boy who is waving his hat around trying to get Steve’s attention.
Steve turns. “Oh, that’s Dustin. Met him at the batting cages earlier. His parents asked me to keep an eye on him for a few minutes. An hour and a half later, I’m a goddamn babysitter.”
You wave at Dustin. He smiles a big, toothless grin and mimes for you to push Steve into the pool.
“Well,” you say, letting out a breath as you gather your things. “I’ll let you get back to it, then.”
Steve makes no effort to get out of your way when you stand, so you end up doing an awkward little shuffle thing to get around him. “I’m sure I’ll see you at dinner. How are we doing this? Same as always?”
“Oh, so now I’m getting a say?” His mouth quirks, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. He leans back in your lounger and slides his sunglass down over his eyes. “Funny. Didn’t think that was part of the deal with us.”
You avert your eyes to the pool, and the sun glinting off the surface spears you in the eye. You replace your sunglasses as well before looking back down at him.
So, he is still angry. A small, selfish part of you always wondered if he was.
Well, it’s probably for the best. Considering how you’re still mad at him, too.
A lot can change in four years. But when it comes to you and Steve—some things never will.
“You look nervous,” your mom says.
You’re standing on the top of the stairs leading down to the luxurious dining room, waiting for the Harringtons to arrive. Live piano music drifts through the space, an antithesis to the way your heels pinch your feet and sweat beads on the nape of your neck.
Giant chandeliers hang from the high ceiling, sending a soft glow over crisp white linen and shining silverware. Mom’s auburn curls glint in the light as she leans in to try to fix your dress again.
“I’m not nervous,” you retort, brushing her hand away. You’re wearing an elegant evening gown. Deep blue. It’s pretty, but the thin straps keep falling off your shoulders. Instead of pulling them up, Mom keeps pulling them down. Insisting they look better that way.
You know the truth.
“It’s okay if you are, you know. It has been four years since you’ve seen each other.”
“Leave her alone, Emily,” your dad speaks up from your other side. “I’m sure the Harrington boy is more nervous than she could ever be.”
You huff out a breath. That Harrington boy is all he’s ever been to your dad. A last name. A title.
“He has a name, you know," you snap.
Dad turns to you, green eyes glinting beneath silver brows. His hair has grayed a lot in the last few years. His mouth tilts into a smirk beneath his trimmed mustache. It’s as perfectly put together as the suit he’s wearing. “You really are nervous, aren’t you? Emily, you're sure she said they'd meet us here?"
"Yes dear," Mom replies. "I do know the difference between the top and bottom of the stairs."
Irritation spikes, and you face forward again to hide your grimace. Just get this trip over with. It’s only three days. Then, you can forge ahead with the future you’ve built for yourself. The mission you’ve worked so hard for.
To make the world a better place to live.
“There you are!” A voice calls from the bottom of the stairs. “We were looking everywhere!”
Steve’s Mom, Heather, laughs loudly at the sight of the three of you waiting at the top. She’s a thin, slight woman with wavy brown hair that looks a lot like her son’s. Tonight, she’s in her usual two-piece set. It’s velvet tonight, and the color of a good merlot.
Wine. Now, there’s a thought. God, you need some wine.
Mr. Harrington – or, Danny, as Steve calls him, steps up beside his wife. His suit is a close match to your Father’s. To the untrained eye, they’d look identical in cut and expense. But Dad has never gotten over the fact that Mr. Harrington’s suit is threaded with silver, not silk like his.
It’s a small difference. But to the people in this circle…it’s an entire class divide.
“Got the top and bottom of the stairs mixed up again, Alan?” Danny calls with a smile.
You barely suppress the urge to roll your eyes.
Your parents start down the stairs, plastering on delighted smiles and chuckling about the little mixup, and you’re about to follow when Steve steps into view.
He’s standing at the landing, fiddling with the cufflinks on his navy suit. They seem to wink at you in the dim light of the chandeliers. Teasing you. Daring you.
His lashes brush his cheeks as he works. Faint freckles scatter his face. He always used to get them after playing baseball outside every summer. That thought makes a smile tug at your lips. He hasn't changed much at all. His hair is as tousled as ever, though it look like he’s run his hands through it a few times.
Is he nervous too? No. He’s still angry at you, remember?
You’ve barely started down the steps when his eyes lift.
You really try not to notice how his jaw slackens at the sight of you descending the staircase like a deep blue waterfall. The way his gaze sweeps over you, drinking you in like he hasn’t tasted water in months.
But you do.
Years of practice keep your footing steady, even with your heart jackhammering against your ribs. The sharp click of your heel against the mahogany echoes over the piano, a familiar soundtrack of the life your parents built for you.
When you reach the landing, you look up to find everyone watching you. The Harringtons. Your parents.
Steve extends a hand, and you don’t know why, but you take it. Maybe just to get the attention off you.
Whatever the reason, it works.
our parents and his exchange a heavy, knowing look, but the hostess steps forward, pulling the focus away from you both.
Steve’s looking at your joined hands, and your chest tightens when you notice his shirt sleeve still hanging open, the edges of the crisp linen brushing your wrist.
“Here,” you mutter under your breath, reaching for it.
Your nimble fingers work quickly, securing the cufflinks with practiced ease. You’ve done this many times for him over the years. You used to think he never chose to learn how on purpose.
Because every summer, it gave him an excuse to ask you.
You feel him looking down at you, his gaze a weighty, warm, tangible thing. But you keep your eyes on your task. Because if you look up, even for a second, you’re not sure what you'd do.
The hostess leads the way towards your table, and when your group starts to move, you and Steve follow out of habit.
But for some reason, even after his cufflink is firmly in place, you can’t bring yourself to let go of his hand.
“I can’t believe it’s been this long!” Heather exclaims halfway through dinner.
You tear your eyes away from the window behind the table at the sound of her voice. Even over the clink of silverware and low murmurs of conversation, you can still hear the distant roar of the water as the ship forges through the night.
The depths call to you — a siren song that’s pulled you under completely for the last four years. You drowned willingly, though, wanting to forget.
“I agree,” Dad says, stabbing a piece of steak with his fork and dragging it through the last of the caper sauce on his plate. “We should set sail more often. You know, like we used to.”
Memories are a funny thing.
You would think, since you spent most of the year away from Steve, that you’d have more memories without them in it.
But no.
Your memories are filled with him. You and Steve didn’t live by each other, but you spent a good chunk of the summer together every year. Cruises and resorts were popular with your parents, but your favorite summers were the ones when the Harringtons came to stay at your beach house in South Carolina.
In every stage of your life, he was there. From picking up shells on the shore, to picking each other up for beach parties, he was with you.
Back when everything was good between you.
Until that night, where things were too good…
You reach for your wine glass again.
“Easy there, Princess.” Steve mutters under his breath from his seat beside yours. “At this rate, they might as well just bring you the bottle.”
“Good idea,” you mutter, clinking your glass lightly against his before downing it.
“Those were the days,” Danny chimes in. His hair is slicked back in it’s usual style. If Steve gelled his hair like that, he’d look a lot more like him.
You snort into your glass at the thought. Steve would probably rather cut off his pinky than do that.
God, are you drunk? Already?
Steve drapes an arm around the back of your chair and leans in. He smells good. Familiar. Like hairspray, and that ancient, cheap cologne he always insists on wearing. It’s from a drugstore, you’re pretty sure, which is practically a crime in his family.
Strong, powdery and slightly sweet.
You’ve always liked it.
“We’ve still got two courses to go, you know,” he reminds.
His warm breath ghosts over your ear. You can hardly breathe with him so close to you like this. Maybe you're just drunk off his proximity. That must be it.
“Shut up.”
You hate it when he tells you what to do. Even so, you set your glass down and pick up your fork. You really do need your wits about you—especially if you don’t want to start thinking about dangerous things. That’s what the wine was for.
But it might actually just be making it worse, because now, all you’re left with is a warm belly and a hazy brain that keep replaying the feeling of Steve’s lips on your neck. Your hands in his hair. The way his throat looked in the moonlight, tipped back like that, and the moan that escaped him when you—
Steve’s elbow nudging your ribs jerks you back to reality.
You look up to find the table staring at you.
“Sorry. W-what?” you stammer.
Heather smiles at you, but all you see is a row of pearly whites behind red lipstick. “We were just discussing plans for port tomorrow.”
You nod hesitantly. “I already have plans.”
This isn't your first rodeo.
Avoiding Steve Harrington at all costs and dodging your parents at every opportunity—that is your plan for tomorrow.
Mom and Heather exchange a look across the round table. You know that look.
“We thought it would be nice for you and Steve to get out together,” Mom says. “So, we booked you an exclusive excursion!”
You nearly choke on your wine. Steve shifts in his seat, but says nothing.
Heather nods enthusiastically. “You’ll take a private charter in the morning. I thought snorkeling would be suitable. It’s a youthful activity, and it gives you a chance to share with Steve what you’ve been learning lately. You know, since you study all those exotic fish!”
You go to set your glass down but misjudge the distance, and it scrapes along your plate. The sound echoes too loud through the silence at your table.
Of course. Leave it to this crowd to diminish your education in marine biology and planet conservation to the cute little hobby of memorizing colorful fish.
Sometimes, if you play your cards exactly right, you can finesse your way out of things. But one look at the set of Mom’s jaw—and Heather’s satisfied smirk—and you know.
This is happening whether you want it to or not.
“Thanks,” Steve chimes in easily. “But I was actually just hoping to catch the game tomorrow—”
“Nonsense!” Danny says, pointing his fork at him. “You’re going. End of discussion.”
And that’s how it is with Steve’s family. How it’s always been. There is no discussion.
Ever.
He is ordered around like a chess piece. Nothing but a pawn in his families’ games of status and expectations.
At least you got the freedom to choose your own career.
Steve was required to major in business. Just like his Father. So he could take over the family company. Carry the name.
The same last name that – if your parents have their way – will soon become yours.
There’s something wrong with your key card.
The door to your room won’t open. The lock just keeps flashing red every time you press it to the reader. You try it again. And again. And again.
Finally, with a frustrated sigh, you give up and head down to the front desk.
There you learn, as it turns out, your room has been upgraded. Mysteriously. Anonymously. Oh—and according to the concierge, it just happens to be their exclusive honeymoon suite. He congratulates you as he hands you the key. After profusely correcting him, you drag yourself into the elevator and ride it up to the penthouse floor.
When you tap your card to the reader on the door labeled The Haven, it opens immediately. And as you step into the grand entryway, you already know who you’ll find inside.
“I can’t believe them!” you call, slamming the door behind you.
“I know,” Steve replies instantly, voice carrying from deeper inside the penthouse. “They’re getting desperate.”
You groan in response, kicking your heels off angrily. They clatter onto the marble floor, lying there on their side as if disgraced. Your parents should be disgraced.
“I mean…a fake-out room?” You huff, stomping further into the dimly lit space. “Seriously? I mean, really…where are you? This place is bigger than the Pacific.”
“In here,” Steve calls.
You pass a bedroom, a bathroom, and kitchenette decorated in creams and navy, complete with gold accents that catch the light as you pass. He’s not in any of them.
“Not helpful.”
He sighs, annoyed. “In the living room. I think.”
Finally, you find the space he’s talking about. It’s simple. Plush couch. Glass coffee table. And a gigantic sliding glass door spanning the far wall. The glass has turned into a mirror against the night sky, catching the soft glow of the room and turning it into muted golds and shadows. Beyond it, the ocean is almost invisible. Just a deep black suggestion of movement under the starry sky. You can just make out a private deck, complete with a hot tub.
Steve’s sprawled across the couch. His suit jacket is gone, shirt creased, tie loose. His hair is mussed, and a cold beer dangles from his hand. A baseball game plays on the TV, an announcer talking excitedly about a recent play, but he’s not watching it.
He’s looking at you.
His eyes darken as you step forward, catching on the way your hips sway as you approach. You’re still in your evening gown. After the appropriate amount of time had passed, you excused yourself from dinner and wandered the deck for a long time. Your hair is probably a mess from the wind, and whatever buzz you had is long gone.
But he still looks at you like that. Like he used to.
Your stomach fills with butterflies.
To distract yourself, you lean down and grab the cold beer from him.
“You’re not going to like it,” he warns, but he lets you take it anyway, his fingertips brushing yours in the exchange.
Under his watchful gaze, you lift the bottle to your lips. Right where his mouth was. You watch his throat bob as you take a sip. The sour tang hits your tongue, and you pull away, grimacing.
Yep. Still hate beer.
He raises a hand up to take it back, but you turn and stride away, drink in hand.
“Wait—what?” He pushes up fast, catching you around the waist just before you reach the bedroom door. The heat of his hand burns through the thin fabric of your dress. “Hey! Give it back, Princess. C’mon—you already drank your weight in wine at dinner…”
You fling open the door to the bedroom and he follows close behind.
“Fine.” You shove it back into his chest. “I don’t like it anyway.”
“I know.” He huffs, taking the bottle and placing it on the dresser.
You fold your arms across your chest. He shoves his hands in his pockets. You glance at each other, then away. There are a thousand things left unsaid, but you have no idea how to say them. Or, if you even should.
“So this…excursion thing.” Steve says, watching you closely. “We doin’ it or what?”
You shrug, suddenly tired. “I don’t see how we don’t. They’re going to ask about it.”
“We’ve lied about stuff like this before.”
“Yeah, but my parents…” You trail off, unsure how to describe the recent shift in their behavior lately.
Steve just nods, like he heard you anyway. “Yeah. Somethin’s off with mine too. Can’t figure it out.”
You nod, relieved. “Right? I mean, they’ve always been pushy, but they’re really…rushing. And so tense—what is up with that?”
“Could be a timing thing.” He drags a hand through his hair, and your eyes follow the movement without really meaning to. Four years has changed him. He’s grown out of his boyish features. Broader shoulders. Sharper jaw. A hint of stubble on his chin even when he’s clean-shaven. He looks good. “Like, maybe they think it’s time for an heir or something. You know…biological clock and all that.”
Your jaw drops. All thoughts of how good he looks screech to a halt. “I just graduated college, Harrington! I’m not—”
He smirks. Oh.
“I’m joking, Princess,” he says with a grin, dodging easily when you reach out to slap his arm. “Relax. I have no idea what the hell they’re up to.”
“Okay, well there will be no heir making. Not if I have anything to say about it. Matter of fact— don’t come in my room.”
Steve shakes his head, a grin curling at the corner of his mouth. You have the most ridiculous, intense urge to kiss it off. “You know this is my room, too, right?”
You freeze. “What?”
“Yeah,” he gestures behind you at the single bed. “Only bed in the whole place.”
“Oh, perfect,” you say brightly, sarcasm dripping from your tongue. “That’s just…great.” You don’t know why you didn’t think about that sooner. But the honeymoon suite? Yeah, that tracks. “But wait, there’s a couch!”
Steve groans, dragging a hand down his face. “I don’t fit on that thing. My feet hang off the edge. And no, it doesn’t convert into a bed, I checked.”
“Well, then it’s going to be a long night for you. Or, you could always go buy a new room with your parent’s credit card. But you won’t be sleeping with me.”
The light, teasing energy seems to dim under your words. The soft glow of the lamps grows darker somehow as he looks down at you.
“Don’t worry, Princess,” he breathes. “You keep your hands to yourself this time, and you won’t have to worry about that ever again.”
You gasp, eyes wide. “What did you just say to me?”
He opens his mouth like he might say something, but turns away instead, broad shoulder catching yours as he moves past you. “Forget it.”
But you don’t let him get far. Reaching out, you snatch his shirt and pull him back to face you like a man.
“No, Harrington, you listen to me,” you snap, fingers curling into the warm fabric, his heartbeat thudding against your knuckles. “You don’t get to turn that into this. We shared one night together. That was it. And you were the one who said it meant nothing the next day. So why don’t we just—”
“Me?” His eyes darken. “You told me I was just doing it because my parents told me to.” His jaw pulses. “Like I didn’t have a choice!”
You release him, dropping your gaze so he can’t see the tears springing to your eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
You think about it too much as it is.
“Fine.” Theres a flat edge to Steve’s voice now and it makes your chest ache. His shoulders fall as he turns to leave. “Have it your way, Princess."
You toss and turn all night, and when the soft pink glow of morning spills through the windows, the other side of the bed is still empty.
a/n: hi. so, I went on a cruise over spring break, and I really tried to write a one-shot, but ended up writing a novella instead. sorry not sorry. feel free to come yell at me to finish my other ongoing fics before starting new ones. love u.
summary: reader runs away from steve and her feelings only for robin to deliver a few reality checks
wc: 2.7k
a/n: sorry for leaving it off like that but ch14 is coming tonight so you won’t have to wait too long 😇😇😇
cross posted on ao3! i’ll do that later LOL
Chapter 13
You end up doing the world’s worst job of pretending you’re not interested in Steve. No matter how many times you remind yourself why it’s a bad idea or how much you steel yourself to give him the cold shoulder, as soon as he flashes his stupidly perfect smile at you, you forget yourself and play along with him anyway.
It’s embarrassingly easy, the way your resolve crumbles. One sarcastic comment, one exaggerated eye roll, and you’re right back where you started.
You keep telling yourself it’ll all work out. That next time, you’ll uphold the boundaries you set for yourself, and it’ll get easier to continue to do so because Steve will eventually find a shiny new plaything and stop thinking of you in the way you suspect he does.
Everything finally comes to a head on a Saturday evening in Camden Market.
You’re wandering through the maze of stalls together, shoulder to shoulder in the narrow walkways, when Steve suddenly stops in front of a little storefront selling leather goods. The display is crowded with bags and belts and wallets in every color imaginable, and behind the counter, a little old lady sits brusquely hammering notches into a belt.
“Hang on,” he says, already stepping closer to the displays and plucking a green crescent-shaped bag off its hook. “This is pretty cute, huh?”
You watch with mild curiosity as he turns the bag over in his hands, testing the weight of it. “The color’s nice,” you say casually.
In truth, you like the bag a lot, but you know from experience that if you express even the slightest interest in something Steve will buy it for you. It’s a nice sentiment and you enjoy being pampered, but you’re kind of running out of space in your room to put all the things he’s been getting you recently.
You must not be doing a good job at controlling your face though, because Steve takes one look at you and immediately makes his way over to the counter. “How much?” he asks the lady, holding the bag out to her.
“Fify pounds,” she says, her voice carrying a soft Italian lilt.
He frowns. “That’s it?”
The woman looks at him like he’s mildly insane. “…Yes?” she says. “Fifty is a good price.”
Steve shakes his head immediately. “No, no, that can’t be right. This is real leather, yeah? Good stitching, nice hardware. That’s at least sixty.”
She stares at him like he’s grown a second head. You clamp a hand over your mouth, fighting the laugh that threatens to bubble up out of your chest.
“Sir,” the woman says slowly, “people usually try to pay less.”
“Yeah, I know,” Steve replies earnestly. “But this is good work, and I like to pay more for quality items.” He pauses and squints at her, as if he’s just registering her accent. “Hey wait, are you Italian?”
And just like that, they’re off, talking over each other in rapid bursts of enthusiastic half-Italian and half-English while you stand there with your heart swelling so big you think it might explode out of your chest.
Steve’s smiling so hard his face must hurt, hands flapping around as he attempts to keep up with the woman- Rosetta or Renata or something, you’re not quite sure- who seems to be equally delighted and baffled by the enthusiastic American trying to overpay her.
Fuck, but he’s not even doing this to show off. He’s doing it because he wants to get you this bag you so clearly want, and because he thinks her work deserves more credit than she gives it.
The awful, dizzying realization that you're in way too deep with… whatever it is you feel for him kind of makes you want to throw up. You need to cut this off now before it develops even further and you can’t pretend anymore.
“Hey, can I talk to you for a second outside?” you say, cutting through whatever animated conversation Steve is currently having with the vendor.
He looks confused but acquiesces, leading you out the door with a gentle hand on your back. “Is everything okay? Are you not feeling well, because I can just-”
“Steve,” you interrupt, suddenly feeling very tired. “What are we doing?”
He blinks and looks down at you with nothing but bewilderment in those big hazel eyes. “Well, I’m going to buy you that bag if Rosetta will agree to sell it to me for twenty pounds more than she normally would. And then afterwards I thought it would be fun if we-”
“No, this,” you snap, gesturing between the two of you. “Whatever this is. The outings, the gifts. What’s your endgame here?”
Just like that, every last bit of puppy-like confusion on Steve’s face drains away, immediately replaced by the openly fond look you’ve been trying to ignore for weeks.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asks, voice low and full of affection. “I’m trying to court you. If you’ll let me.”
"You can’t,” you blurt out. The words come out harsher than you intended them, jagged and abrupt in your panic to say something, anything.
Steve flinches as if he’s been slapped. You watch helplessly as the devastation settles into his face, trying to remind yourself that you’re letting him down for the greater good.
"Right," he mutters, his voice cracking. He looks down at the ground, a sad, bitter smile touching his lips. "I see. I thought... I guess I really misread that, didn't I? I’ll just, uh, go then."
"It’s not that I don’t want to," you confess, voice shaky despite your best effort to sound firm. “It’s just… we can’t. I can’t, because you’re Robin’s.”
Steve’s head snaps up at that, eyes wide, searching yours as if he doesn’t quite believe what he just heard. “I’m Robin’s? What does that even mean?“
"You know what I mean,” you say, purposely avoiding his eye while you try to come up with something that’ll hurt him deeply enough for him to stop looking at you with that hopeful little glint in his eye. “You’re her best friend. Her platonic soulmate. You two are fucking… cosmically bound together or something. I’ll never even be able to compare to what you two have. And barring that, can you imagine the fallout if we did try and it didn’t work out? How could I ever force Robin to choose between us?”
"Sweetheart, what the hell are you talking about right now?” he asks incredulously. For the second time in the twelve-odd years you’ve known him, he looks completely unsure of what to do.
"You’ll find someone else, Steve," you tell him, trying to smile through the tears that are now dripping steadily down your face. "What you’re really after is someone who will reciprocate easily, and it won’t be hard for you to find that elsewhere, really! I just can’t sit here and force myself to be the person you choose because Robin isn't an option."
Steve blinks at you, his mouth opening and closing like he’s searching for words that won’t come. His eyes look suspiciously glassy as he takes a careful step in your direction.
Before he can gather his thoughts enough to say something, before he can get close enough to reach out and stop you, you turn and bolt. You weave through the crowd as best as you can through the tears blurring your vision, ignoring his frantic calls of your name as you push towards the nearest Tube station.
When you finally make it back to your flat, the relief of returning to a familiar space nearly bowls you over. You don’t even bother taking off your coat or shoes as you stumble into your bedroom and slump face first into your bed.
You allow yourself to wallow for exactly thirty seconds before you fumble for your phone and call Robin. If anyone can help you sort through your feelings right now, it’s your sister.
Blessedly, she picks up on the second ring. “Little one! I was just about to call you. How are you doing?”
“Steve said he’s courting me!” you whisper-yell into the phone. Harriet and Priya might be gone for the weekend, but you don’t want to be too loud and disturb the people living next door. “He actually fucking said courting! And I- shit, I don’t even remember what I said. I just started saying things, and then I ran. Fuck, I left Steve in the middle of fucking Camden Town!”
Robin must have expected this to happen or something, because she doesn’t even take a beat to process everything you just verbally hurled at her before she’s asking, “Did he actually say courting?”
“Is that seriously what you’re fixating on right now?”
“Yes,” Robin says with extreme feeling. “Who the fuck says they’re courting someone in the twenty-first century? Has Steve been watching a lot of Bridgerton recently or something?”
You groan and drop your head back onto one of your decorative pillows. “Robs, I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you right now.”
She makes an affronted noise. “I’m being serious too! But fine, let’s rewind. Steve finally grew a pair and told you he’s trying to date you, and then you said some fucked up shit to him and ran. What exactly did you say that was so bad?”
“I said we can’t be together because he’s yours,” you mumble.
Somehow, that’s what shocks Robin into silence. “I’m sorry,” she says slowly after a few seconds. “Because he’s whose?”
“He’s yours,” you repeat miserably. “He’s your best friend, Robin. If I dated him and it ended in a bad breakup, you’d have to pick sides, and he’d lose the only real family he’s ever had, and-”
“Woah, woah, woah,” she interrupts. “Time out. You need a second to breathe and I need a second to process the absolute bullshit that just came out of your mouth.”
You sniff miserably. “Robin, I’m right and you know it.”
“You are not,” she says firmly. “Steve does not belong to me. What is he, a golden retriever?
“I mean…” you trail off, letting out a watery giggle. “He kinda has the temperament of one.”
Robin huffs exasperatedly. “Okay yes, fine, spiritually he’s a golden retriever. That’s not the point I’m trying to make. Steve is not my property. He was whole before he met me, and he’ll be whole even if I’m no longer friends with him for whatever ridiculous reason.”
Your blood runs cold. “So if you had to pick between us-”
“It would be you,” Robin says without hesitation. “It will always be you. I chose Steve over you once before, remember? I swore I’d never put anyone before my sisters ever again.”
You do remember. When you and Robin were younger, you used to fight all the time, over the littlest things. Practically every single conversation you’d had had ended in an argument of some kind.
One time, she’d been giving you the silent treatment over something particularly nasty you’d said to her the day before even though you had been trying all morning to apologize to her. Instead of acknowledging anything you were saying to her, she’d turned to Steve and asked him if he wanted to go ice skating.
When you followed them to the lake, still attempting to get Robin to even look at you, you’d fallen through a particularly thin patch of ice and nearly drowned.
Robin had been paralyzed with fear watching you drown. It was Steve who’d sprung into action and found a branch big enough to drag you out of the lake.
Since that day, you and your sister never had a serious argument ever again.
“It wasn’t your fault,” you say quietly. “We were teenagers. Everyone’s stupid when they’re fifteen or younger.”
If you close your eyes, you can still feel the shock of the freezing water engulfing you completely. You can still see the way Robin stood on the shore, long limbs locked up in fear.
“Yes, it was,” she says, equally as quiet. “I was ignoring you. I almost lost my sister that day because I was too prideful to let go of my feelings. I won’t make that same mistake again.”
Your chest aches. “Robin…”
“No, listen,” she says. “You’re sitting there convincing yourself that dating Steve would somehow make me choose between the two of you. But if that ever happened, if it somehow came down to that, there isn’t even a question about who I’d pick. It doesn’t matter if you did something absolutely heinous. I’d choose you, every time.”
You frown. “But that’s why I can’t do this. You shouldn’t ever have to make that decision.”
Robin lets out a long, frustrated breath. “Why can’t you just let yourself have what you’ve so desperately wanted for nearly half your life?”
“Because I don’t think it’s me he really wants,” you say, voice tremulous. “Steve loves to be loved. He likes the attention of someone reciprocating his feelings, no matter how shallow they run.”
She snorts. “Is that what you think this is?”
“Isn’t it?” you fire back. “How else am I meant to interpret him suddenly starting to flirt with me immediately after I break up with my former long-term boyfriend? Especially when I’ve lov- liked him for eleven years and he barely even spared me a glance before he came to London.”
Robin says your name softly, like she’s explaining something to a child. “Steve has been pathetically in love with you since the day you walked your ass into his dorm room and chewed him out for being a bad friend.”
Your heart stops. “Don’t play games with me,” you say warningly. “I don’t have the emotional bandwidth for it right now.”
“I’m being serious,” she insists. “I don’t think he realized it then, but he definitely started feeling something for you at that moment. He just didn’t get the opportunity to actually consider what those feelings meant until recently because you ran away from him for eight years.”
That… actually kind of makes sense.
“He never shuts up about you,” Robin continues, her voice gentle but insistent. “Every time I call him these days, all he wants to talk about is you. How funny and sweet and intelligent you are, the way your eyes sparkle in the sunlight. The specific way you say his name. He’s so lovesick it makes me want to hurl.”
You're trying to formulate a response when you hear it.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
The sound of frantic, heavy pounding at your front door makes you nearly jump out of your skin. You freeze, your heart leaping into your throat.
"Sweetheart!" Steve’s voice sounds muffled through the wood and distance, but he’s loud- loud enough that your neighbors are definitely going to complain. He sounds breathless, desperate, and entirely unraveled when he shouts your name. "Please, just open the door! I know you’re in there, I saw that your light was on!"
"Is that him?" Robin asks, her voice dropping into a delighted, conspiratorial whisper.
"He’s here," you breathe, slowly pushing yourself up into a sitting position.
"I'm not leaving!" Steve yells again, followed by another series of rapid-fire knocks. "I don't love Robin! I mean, I do love her, but it’s not her or some kind of stupid ego boost I’m pining after. It’s you! It’s always been you! Please, just let me explain how wrong you are!"
Robin lets out a sharp, triumphant cackle on the other end of the line. "Well," she says, sounding all too pleased with herself. "Sounds like someone’s eager to see you. Go get your man, sis."
"Robin, wait, I don't know what to-”
Click.
She hangs up before you can get another word in edgewise. You’re left with the dial tone buzzing in your ear while the man you’ve loved for eleven years practically tries to take your door off its hinges.
"Raphaella, just one minute! That's all I need!"
You drop your phone on the counter and take a shaky breath, smoothing your hair down and wiping the tears off your face as best as you can while you make your way toward the front door and pull it open.
[steve harrington x reader fanfiction, kind of enemies to friends to lovers, idiots how don’t know how to talk to each other, slow burn, tension, mutual pining, forced proximity, no upside down, little angst, hurt/comfort, eventual smut, happy ending]
warnings: drinking, smoking, weed, violence, blood.
w.c: 11k
synopsis: You and Steve Harrington have never exactly gotten along. Something about his stupid hair and his irritating confidence has a way of getting under your skin that makes it impossible. Unfortunately for both of you, he’s not only your coworker at Family Video — now you’re also part of the same friend group. And when Robin suggests a getaway to the Wheelers’ lake cabin — after a party that doesn’t exactly go as planned — avoiding Steve Harrington, and whatever it is that keeps happening between the two of you, suddenly becomes a lot harder than it should be.
a/n: okay, this is HUGE, but I hope you like it.
part 1
It was one of those suffocating summer afternoons in Hawkins, the kind where the air felt thick enough to chew. The ancient air conditioner at Family Video rattled like it was fighting for its life with every breath, pushing out lukewarm air that barely reached the counter.
You had turned the radio up just a little louder than necessary. Plastic VHS cases snapped shut one after another in your hands as you dropped them into the cart with annoyance.
Two aisles over on your left Steve Harrington was working his daily charm offensive. He leaned casually against the edge of a shelf, green vest stretched over a white t-shirt that did absolutely nothing to hide the fact that he knew exactly how he looked in it. His smile was easy—practiced. You could practically see all the years of rehearsal behind it. The blonde in front of him laughed at something he said, fingers brushing over his bicep.
You hated how easy it was, how one smile and a tilt of his head made girls melt like ice cream on the pavement.
Though lately, your favorite part of the job had been watching that smile falter—watching him scramble when a girl mentioned her boyfriend, or worse, told him his movie recommendations sucked in a gentle way and then asked for you or Robin instead.
But today wasn’t one of those days.
Today he was winning.
You gripped the metal handle of the cart and pushed it down the aisle, humming along to “Start Me Up” by The Rolling Stones that was playing through the speakers. Something upbeat, just the right thing to match the annoyingly confident smile on your face as you got closer to them.
And with one smooth move, you let the cart knock into the edge of the shelf just hard enough to make the entire row tremble. You hid your smile as a cascade of VHS tapes toppled from the other side. Steve cursed and the blonde let out a sharp yelp as the plastic cases clattered against the tile.
You took exactly two seconds before rounding the corner. Steve stood there blinking, a copy of Dirty Dancing at his feet, the blonde staring at the mess in shock. You widened your eyes, pressing a hand dramatically to your chest.
“Oh my God,” you gasped, sugar-sweet. “I’m so so sorry.”
Steve stared at you in disbelief while you kneeled to pick up a tape that had landed near his nikes. He crouched beside you, gathering the fallen cases with visible irritation.
“You good, Harrington?” you asked lightly.
“Fantastic,” he said flatly.
The blonde shifted awkwardly. “I, um… I should go.”
And just like that, she was gone.
You stood, placing the tapes back in his arms with infuriating care.
“Guess gravity’s not really on your side today,” you said with a smile.
You turned away before he could answer, grabbing the cart and pushing it out of the aisle. The metal wheels rattled over the tile as you moved toward the next shelf, already reaching for another stack of tapes like the whole thing had been nothing more than a minor workplace accident.
A few seconds later, you heard footsteps catching up to you.
“You did that on purpose,” Steve’s voice came from just over your shoulder as he dumped the remaining tapes into the cart.
“As if I don’t have better things to do, Harrington.”
“Clearly you don’t.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed,” you said, lifting a case and sliding it back onto the shelf, “I’m working. Can’t say the same about you.”
“I was working,” he shot back immediately.
You finally turned just enough to see him out of the corner of your eye. His hands had landed on his hips, elbows out, vest slightly crooked from crouching to pick up the tapes. His expression was somewhere between annoyed and wounded pride.
Which, if you were being honest, was extremely satisfying.
“Yeah, doing a great job trying not to stare at her boobs. Real proud of you, champ,” you said with false pride as you plucked a tape from his hand before he could react and stocked it yourself.
Steve shot you an annoyed look while you continued lining the tapes back onto the shelf like nothing had happened.
You couldn’t even remember when these little sabotages had started.
Somewhere along the way it had simply… become routine.
Something neither of you acknowledged out loud, and something neither of you seemed willing to stop.
You just remembered the countless times some cute guy in a leather jacket wandered up to the counter asking you about a movie you loved—only for Steve to suddenly appear at your side. He’d smile at the customer, slide the tape across the counter, ring up the price before you could finish explaining anything and wave the guy goodbye. And every single time you’d smack his shoulder as you walked away.
At first it had started with stupid little things.
Calling each other’s name with exaggerated urgency just to ask for help getting a snack stuck in the old vending machine in the break room. Asking painfully obvious questions the exact moment the other one was having a slightly too interesting conversation with a costumer:
“What aisle are comedies in again?”
“What time do we close?”
“What’s the difference between VHS and Betamax?”
Things that were so obviously fake that customers sometimes looked back and forth between the two of you, clearly wondering what the hell was going on.
Over time those innocent interruptions escalated into something more. Something competitive. Each of you pushing a little further just to see how much it would take before the other snapped, which required Robin to step in more than once before things got out of hand.
But the real problem was that it didn’t stay inside the store.
At some point Robin had begun inviting you to movie nights at Steve’s place, or late nights near the lake with Nancy, Jonathan, and Eddie usually bringing cheap beer and good weed.
You and Eddie had gotten along almost immediately, probably because you’d both spent most of high school being comfortably labeled as freaks. And because the two of you had stumbled out of The Hideout drunk together more times than anyone else in that group.
Even with all the time spent around the same people, you and Steve never actually got along.
The only way the two of you seemed capable of interacting was through this strange, borderline hostile back-and-forth where the winner was whoever irritated the other one first.
The bell above the door of Family Video rang cheerfully and brightly as Robin walked in, weaving her way through the aisles toward the two of you.
“What’s new?” she asked casually. Stopping when she noticed Steve’s posture—arms crossed over his chest, jaw tight, clearly done pretending to help with the tapes you kept stealing out of his hands while you restocked tapes calmly like the picture of innocence.
A slow grin spread across her face. “Oh,” she leaned against the end of the shelf, “she got you good, huh?”
“Nothing out of the usual,” you said with a shrug.
“So what was it this time?” she asked, clearly enjoying herself. “Did you convince him the horror aisle was haunted again?”
Steve groaned under his breath, dragging a hand down his face. You smiled slightly as you grabbed another tape from the cart.
“No,” you said, “but that one was a classic.”
Your confession made Robin snort, the sound sharp and sudden, while Steve immediately stepped closer.
“So you admit it was planned,” Steve said, grabbing the tape you were about to reach for and sliding it onto the shelf before you could take it.
“I didn’t say anything,” you replied, rolling your eyes as you pushed the cart farther down the aisle. If he wanted a full confession from you, he’d have to try harder than that.
“You’re unbelievable,” Steve muttered behind you, running a hand through his hair.
“Well,” Robin clapped her hands once, “while you two continue… whatever this is,” she said disappearing briefly into the break room and came back already pulling her vest on. “I have the best weekend plan literally within your reach.”
You and Steve both looked at her.
“All you have to do,” Robin continued dramatically, “is say yes.”
Both of you followed her while she leaned against the counter.
“Weekend at the Wheelers’ lake cabin.”
You were listening now.
“And why exactly would I want to spend an entire weekend trapped with her?” Steve asked, pointing in your direction as you scoffed.
“Well, dingus,” Robin said, strolling over, “because this weekend is supposed to be the hottest one of the summer, and I convinced Nancy—using my pretty persuasive eyes to let us use the cabin.”
She grabbed a random tape from the counter and turned it over in her hands while she kept talking.
“The only downside,” she continued, “is that Friday we’re going to this huge party. So we’re all probably going to be incredibly hungover by the time we wake up on Saturday morning,” Robin shrugged. “But nothing a swim in the lake can’t fix.”
She tossed the tape back onto the counter.
“We stay at the cabin the whole weekend,” she added. “Then we drive back Monday night and show up to work Tuesday like responsible adults.”
When she ended her rambling, the store fell quiet.
You bit your lower lip, the offer was… extremely tempting.
Apparently Steve thought the same thing, because you glanced up and met his eyes for half a second. Just long enough to notice he was already looking at you.
“Sounds great… except we have jobs. Remember?” you said tugging lightly at the edge of your green vest. “And I’m pretty sure Keith isn’t going to believe we all caught the same mysterious flu again.”
“Babe,” Robin said casually, “everything is handled.”
Which made you sigh with relief until you heard her say:
“I promised Keith I’d give him your number.”
“You what?!” Your head snapped toward her so fast your neck almost cracked.
Next to you, Steve let out a laugh, a full helpless laugh like he’d just heard the funniest thing in the world.
“I am not going on a date with Keith,” you said, planting your hands on your hips.
“Yeah,” Steve said, still grinning, “let’s show a little mercy here. The poor Keith couldn’t handle her.”
“And you could?” you shot back those words before you could stop them, stepping closer just enough that Steve had to look down slightly to keep eye contact.
For a moment he didn’t say anything. You watched his throat bob as he swallowed, his eyes widening just a fraction. That alone made the corner of your mouth lift.
“Hey, weirdos!” Robin cut in loudly. “Can we return to the conversation?”
Once she had both your attention again, she sighed dramatically.
“Relax. You’re obviously not going on a date with Keith,” she waved a hand dismissively, “I’m just giving him the wrong number. And honestly, I doubt he’ll complain too much considering the guy can barely look you in the eye.”
And with that, your weekend plans were officially secured.
Over the next few days, the heat settled over Hawkins like a heavy blanket. The kind that made the air feel slow and sticky, like the town itself was melting under the sun. Most people spent their afternoons crammed into the community pool or hiding inside their blessedly air-conditioned homes with a good movie.
Which, unfortunately for you, meant Family Video was packed.
By the fifth indecisive customer of the day—someone who refused to let go of either your arm or Robin’s until they were absolutely certain about their rental—you were starting to feel the exhaustion settle deep in your bones.
Still, Robin managed to make the shifts enjoyable, she really had a talent for turning even the worst customers into some kind of inside joke by the time they walked out the door.
And your routine of bothering Steve?
Still just as effective.
Well…mostly.
There were occasional slip-ups when Steve managed to get ahead of you, throwing out some perfectly timed comment that wiped the smug smile right off your face.
But the thing that annoyed you the most that week, aside from Steve himself, was the fact that your beloved, old car had died again.
Now Eddie had it, claiming he could fix whatever was wrong with it if you just “gave him a couple days and didn’t ask too many questions.” Which meant you’d spent the remains of the week walking under the blazing Hawkins summer sun.
Robin had practically begged you over the phone to let her and Steve pick you up in Harrington’s stupidly perfect beemer but you refused immediately and everytime she brought it up.
That's how Friday finally rolled around.
Outside, the sky had turned its usual soft shades of orange and pink, the golden hour spilling lazily across the empty parking lot. It had been a normal afternoon on a normal day.
Until something genuinely strange happened.
A girl walked into the store. Bright smile and even brighter hair, sun-kissed skin from too many pool days and a tiny tank top that practically screamed summer vacation. She wandered lazily through the aisles before eventually approaching the counter with two tapes in hand.
You leaned casually against a nearby shelf, pretending to reorganize the horror section while Steve stood behind the counter, looking mildly bored.
“Hi,” she said brightly, sliding the tapes across the counter.
“Hey,” Steve replied, offering his usual polite customer smile.
She lifted one of the tapes between two fingers, tilting it toward him with a playful smile.
“Is this one any good?”
It was Top Gun.
Classic bait.
You turned back to the cart, reorganizing the stack of VHS tapes while bracing yourself for whatever ridiculous line Steve was about to deliver this time.
Steve glanced at the cover and simply said. “It’s fine.”
You paused mid-movement, a tape hovering halfway to the shelf. That was… unusually short. The girl seemed to think so too.
“Just fine?” she asked, her smile widening. “Do you think it’s a good movie to watch alone tonight?”
Steve shrugged lightly, “It’s popular. You’ll have a good time.”
Your brow furrowed slightly as you slid the tape into place. Normally this was the part where Steve leaned against the counter, cracked a stupid joke and turned the whole interaction into a five-minute conversation.
Instead he rang the tapes up.
“That’ll be $3.50.”
The girl blinked, clearly recalculating. “Oh. Right.”
She paid, took the bag, and lingered for a moment like she expected something else to happen.
Nothing did.
The bell chimed as she left, and the silence that followed settled heavily across the store.
You slowly turned, walking toward the counter leaving the cart behind.
“What bug bit you?”
Steve looked up from the register. “What?”
“Harrington,” you said, leaning against the counter now, “you just ignored a perfectly good flirt.”
“I didn’t ignore her,” he muttered, a small huff escaping him.
“You gave her a two-word movie review.”
“She asked if it was good.”
“And you said fine.”
Steve grabbed the receipt roll and shoved it back into the drawer.
“Maybe I didn’t feel like talking.”
You studied him for a second. That didn’t sound like him either.
“Huh,” you murmured.
And with that, you simply walked away.
The rest of the closing shift passed quietly. Steve was strangely evasive but still helping without complaint—rewinding returns and organizing the last of the tapes scattered around the store. Which, somehow, made the whole thing feel even stranger.
The lights clicked off one aisle at a time as Steve locked the front door.
You slung your bag over your shoulder.
“Well,” you said, like you had every day that week, “see you next time.”
Steve looked at you like you’d just said something ridiculous.
“You’re not walking home alone.”
You frowned. “That’s what I’ve been doing all week.”
“Not tonight.”
“It’s like fifteen minutes.”
Steve was already grabbing his keys. “Get in the car.”
The sudden authority in his voice made you cross your arms over your chest, raising an eyebrow at him.
He sighed. “You said your car’s dead.”
“And?”
“And it’s late.”
You studied him for a moment, trying to decide if this was another one of your strange competitive standoffs.
But he wasn’t smirking, he was just waiting.
And honestly? You were tired, all you wanted was to get home, take a shower, maybe squeeze in a quick nap if you had time, and get ready for the party later. So you rolled your eyes and walked toward the car.
“Fine, but if you try to kidnap me I’m telling everyone you cried during The NeverEnding Story.”
Steve scoffed, though the corner of his mouth twitched. “I did not cry.”
“You absolutely did.”
The car ride was… weird.
Duran Duran played softly through the radio while you kept shifting in your seat, trying to find a comfortable position that didn’t make you feel weirdly aware of everything.
This was Steve Harrington’s car.
The car.
Shiny and recognizable to every pair of eyes in this town. The same one you’d heard girls in high school talk about like it was some kind of mythical creature. But it was just a car and you didn’t know why your body felt so tense sitting in it now.
It wasn’t a big deal, it was just a car ride. Still, you stared out the window, focusing on the passing houses.
Just as your shoulders finally started to relax, a quick, light tap against your thigh made your whole body tense again. You turned your head slowly, like in those horror movies where the girl stupidly decides to look straight into a dark alley.
“Where to?” Steve asked, eyes still on the road.
“Sorry?” you said, slightly dazed.
“Your house,” he clarified. “Where is it?”
Right. Steve Harrington had never been anywhere near your neighborhood. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood. You loved your house, you were proud of the life your mom had built with years of hard work but it definitely wasn’t the kind of place Steve usually drove through.
“Just take this street on the right,” you said, trying to sound calmer than you felt. Steve nodded.
“If you don’t like the music you can grab another cassette,” he added quietly, tilting his head toward the glove compartment.
“Oh—yeah. Sure.”
You leaned forward and opened it, pulling out a small stack of tapes not because the music was bad, it was okay, but you needed something else to focus on besides the way your heart had stuttered at that brief touch.
Your attention shifted immediately to the labels, and you couldn’t help the small smile that appeared when you recognized one of the names.
“Steve Harrington listens to Black Sabbath?” you asked, glancing at him with amusement.
“Don’t make it weird,” he warned.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” you said, “I just never took you for an Ozzy connoisseur.”
“Eddie left it in my car,” he said with a lazy shrug.
“And?” you asked, turning in your seat to look at him properly now.
Steve hesitated for half a second.
Then a small, almost shy smile appeared.
“It’s kinda good,” he tapped the steering wheel lightly, “good driving music.”
“You bet.” you said sliding the cassette in and turned the volume up just as the famous riff of Paranoid filled the car.
After that, the ride felt easier. Neither of you spoke much beyond the occasional direction, but the atmosphere inside the car had shifted completely.
And you couldn’t help stealing a few glances at Steve, watching him tap his fingers along to the music like he’d known it for years, the tension slowly leaving his shoulders, something calmer settling in his eyes.
It felt oddly surreal.
When the beemer finally parked in front of your house, you stepped out calmly.
“Thanks,” you said.
Steve just nodded, offering a small smile.
You turned and walked toward your front door, feeling his gaze on your back the whole way. Only once you stepped inside and closed the door did you lean against it, letting out a slow breath. The sound of his car pulling away echoed through the quiet street, and only then did your heart calm down.
Well.
Not completely.
But enough.
You had the house to yourself, so you let the hot water run until the tension finally melted out of your muscles. Later, with a small snack in your stomach, you collapsed onto your bed and allowed yourself a quick nap.
Moments later you woke up to the sound of the doorbell. Robin and Nancy had arrived and within minutes your bedroom floor was covered in discarded clothes.
Robin was sprawled across your bed like a starfish while Nancy sat cross-legged beside her, watching you dig through your closet for the third time.
“I don’t understand why you own so many clothes,” Robin said, staring at the ceiling.
“Don’t be mean,” Nancy said with a warm smile, “we’ll make it on time.”
You’d never really had friendships like this before, being an outcast your entire life made it difficult but along the way you started to make these friendships that meant the world to you. And a small part of you realized you liked this ritual—getting ready, chat and gossip, more than the party itself.
When you finally turned around, Nancy smiled.
“That’s actually perfect.”
Robin lifted her head, her eyes widened and she let out a loud whistle.
“Well, well. Who are you trying to impress?”
You glanced down at the black dress that hugged your curves just right, adjusting the thick studded belt around your hips as you pulled on your knee-high boots.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“No, babe,” Robin said immediately. “It is a big deal. You look hot!”
Robin tilted her head dramatically. “If I were a guy and didn’t completely lose my mind when you walked into the room, I’d seriously consider getting my eyesight checked.”
“You have a girlfriend, you know?” you said with a grin.
“Yeah,” Robin said, pointing lazily at Nancy. “She’s the one drooling over you right now.”
“I am not drooling,” Nancy said, rolling her eyes as she stood up. Then she glanced at you again. “…but you do look hot.”
Nancy had been a surprise. Everyone in Hawkins thought they knew Nancy Wheeler, the ambitious girl, the smart one. The one who famously broke Steve Harrington’s heart one Halloween, dated Jonathan Byers for a while, and eventually ended up with Robin. That last part, however, was only known by the small circle you somehow ended up becoming part of.
And the more you got to know Nancy, the more you realized she was far more complicated than people thought which was probably why the two of you got along so well.
While you finished your makeup at the mirror you felt Robin step up behind you.
“So… are we not gonna talk about it?”
“Talk about what?” you asked, focused on perfecting your eyeliner.
“You and Steve.”
Your hand paused for half a second.
“There is no ‘me and Steve,’” you said firmly.
“See?” Robin grinned. “Right there. You two can’t stop having this weird thing.”
“Robin…” Nancy warned.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you said, turning around to face her.
“Oh, come on!” Robin groaned dramatically. “You two are constantly at each other’s throats.” You opened your mouth and she pointed at you. “Don’t deny it.”
You sighed. “I’m not denying it. But that’s all it is. We’re coworkers,” then you casually added, “besides, is not like that all the time, for example he drove me home today.”
You grabbed your leather jacket from the coat rack, when you turned around again Nancy and Robin were staring at you.
“What?” you asked.
“Steve Harrington drove you home?” Nancy tilted her head smiling.
Robin sat down instantly.
“Wait, wait. We’re talking about The Steve? Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington? My once sworn enemy?”
You shrugged. Robin’s expression went from surprise to confusion and back to surprise again.
“Oh my god,” she laughed. “Nancy was right. You two really—”
“There’s no we,” you said quickly.
“Right,” Robin said, grinning like she absolutely did not believe you.
Nancy grabbed her purse from the bed, shaking her head fondly.
“Come on,” she said. “If we don’t leave now we’re going to arrive when everyone’s already drunk.”
Robin jumped up dramatically. “Oh please, that’s the best time to arrive.”
“You say that every time,” you add.
“And every time I’m right.”
You rolled your eyes and flicked the lights off as the three of you made your way down the hallway.
The night air outside felt cooler than it had all day, the kind of late summer warmth that still clung to the pavement but no longer made the air unbearable. Somewhere in the distance you could already hear faint music drifting through the neighborhood.
Robin tossed herself into the passenger seat of Nancy’s car while you slid into the back.
“So,” Robin said immediately, twisting around in her seat. “Just to be clear.”
You groaned. “Robin—”
“You do not like Steve Harrington.”
“I do not like Steve Harrington.”
Nancy started the engine, trying very hard not to smile.
“Well, that's a shame,” Robin said. A beat passed, then she added, “Because he’s definitely going to the party tonight.”
You leaned your head back against the seat.
Great.
Nancy pulled out of the driveway and the car rolled down the quiet Hawkins streets, passing dark houses, glowing porch lights and the occasional group of teenagers walking in the same direction you were headed. The closer you got, the louder the music became.
By the time Nancy parked a few blocks away, you could already hear the bass thumping through the humid night air. Cars lined both sides of the street. The front lawn was crowded with people and the windows of the house glowed with flashing colored lights.
Robin let out a delighted laugh. “Oh yeah,” she said, “this is gonna be a mess.”
You followed them up the driveway, gravel crunching under your boots while the sound of music, laughter and shouting grew louder with every step.
The front door stood wide open, someone inside cheered, beer bottles clinked together. And the moment you stepped through the doorway the heat hit you with force.
The whole house was packed with bodies, the air thick and warm, heavy with the smell of cheap beer, cigarette smoke and something underneath it all that was definitely weed. Colored lights flickered across the living room walls while “Pour Some Sugar On Me” blasted through the speakers loud enough to make the windows vibrate.
Robin immediately grabbed your wrist.
“Kitchen,” she declared, “I need alcohol before I deal with this many people.”
Nancy laughed as Robin dragged the two of you through the crowd, weaving past groups of dancing bodies and people shouting over the music. By the time you pushed into the kitchen, the air smelled even stronger like beer and smoke.
And that’s when you spotted them.
Eddie Munson was leaning against the counter with a red cup in one hand, gesturing wildly as he talked while Jonathan Byers stood beside him looking mildly amused. Eddie spotted you first.
“Look who finally decided to show up,” he said, grinning.
Robin pointed accusingly at him. “You started without us.”
“I have faith you’d catch up,” Eddie replied lazily.
Jonathan lifted his cup slightly in greeting. “Hey.”
You slid up to the counter, grabbing one of the bottles scattered across it and passing it to Robin. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to know this party’s gonna turn into total chaos in ten minutes,” Eddie said.
Robin poured whatever was in the bottle into three plastic cups without asking.
“Perfect,” she said brightly. “Cheers to that.”
The three of you clinked cups while Nancy shook her head fondly. Eddie stepped a little closer to you, a crooked smile pulling at his mouth.
“Still causing trouble?” he said.
“Just enough to keep things interesting,” you shot back with a wink.
“Oh, it reached us alright,” Eddie said, jerking his thumb toward Jonathan. “Me and Byers here have heard some pretty interesting things about you.”
Jonathan tried to hide his smile behind his cup as he took a sip, which made you raise an eyebrow.
“Where’s Steve?” Robin’s voice suddenly cut in. Something in you tensed the moment you heard his name, your body going instinctively on alert.
Eddie shrugged easily. “Don’t worry, Robs,” he said, “he’ll find you,” his eyes flicked toward you when he said it.
Somewhere in the living room the song ended, replaced almost immediately by the roaring engine opening of “Girls, Girls, Girls” by Mötley Crüe that made the crowd erupted.
Robin’s head snapped toward the sound.
“Oh absolutely not,” she said, putting her cup down.
Before anyone could react she grabbed Nancy’s hand again and turned to you.
“Dance floor. Now.”
“Robin—”
Too late.
She was already dragging both of you back toward the living room.
The crowd had grown thicker, bodies moving under flashing lights while people shouted along to the lyrics. You took a long drink from your cup as Robin spun Nancy dramatically before pulling you straight into the chaos too.
You laughed despite yourself, the alcohol warming your chest while the music vibrated through the floor under your boots. A moment later Jonatahn and Eddie appeared beside you again, slipping through the crowd.
“Party favors,” Eddie said casually, pulling out a half-rolled joint.
Robin whooped. “Now we’re talking, Munson.”
The five of you formed a loose circle while Eddie lit it, shielding the flame with his hand. Smoke curled into the humid air. He took the first drag before passing it to Jonatahn, then Robin, Nancy, and finally you.
The music pounded through the room, people shouting the lyrics while the lights flickered across moving bodies. The five of you moved to the rhythm—half dancing, half bumping into each other in the middle of the crowded living room.
You took a slow drag, closing your eyes for a moment, holding the smoke before letting it curl from your lips.
Your head already felt lighter. Warmer.
Somewhere nearby Robin was screaming the chorus while trying to spin Nancy again. You laughed and in the middle of the movement, you bumped into someone.
“Oh—sorry,” you said quickly, turning around.
The guy you’d collided with was tall and very handsome, when you looked at him he was already smiling like he’d been expecting it. He winked at you in that effortless party-boy way that said don’t worry about it.
You laughed softly and smiled back looking at him as you lifted the joint to your lips for another drag when a hand reached in and pulled it right out of your mouth.
You blinked, turning instinctively, your gaze following the hand.
And found yourself staring straight at Steve Harrington.
For a second, everything else seemed to blur around him.
The flashing lights caught in his hair, messy and pushed back like he’d been running his hands through it all night—and somehow it still looked perfect. The sleeves of his jacket were rolled slightly, a red cup dangling loosely from his fingers while the other hand held the joint he’d just stolen from you.
His eyes moved slowly over your face, lingering a second too long. Then he took a drag and exhaled the smoke in your direction.
The same warm feeling that had unsettled you during the drive home flared again between your ribs, sudden and irritating. You could have easily blamed it on the alcohol or the weed, but you knew that wasn’t it.
Something about Steve Harrington had a way of getting under your skin lately, like a splinter you couldn’t quite pull out no matter how hard you tried.
So you did what you did best and ignored it, turning away and letting the music pull you back into the moment as you swayed beside Robin. She smiled and squeezed your waist playfully while you rested your hands on Nancy’s shoulders, grinning at her as the three of you moved together with the rhythm.
But even after a while, you could still feel those hazel eyes wandering over your body while you spun Jonathan around.
After that, the party only seemed to spiral further into chaos.
At some point the group began to scatter. Jonathan slipped outside to talk with his friend Argyle, the one everyone had mentioned had just arrived from California a few days ago. Nancy followed them not long after, weaving through the crowd with a quick wave in your direction.
That left Robin, Eddie, Steve and you somewhere in the middle of the living room.
The room felt warmer now. Your head pleasantly light after finishing the joint. Eddie and you were both laughing about something stupid he’d said while you shook your heads, Robin half-dancing and half-bothering Steve beside you.
Every so often a girl would drift too close to him, one in particular with big hair and an even bigger lack of subtlety, trying to slide into his space and dance with him but Steve barely acknowledged her and you told yourself you didn’t notice.
The music kept pounding through the floor, more bodies packed tight together under the flickering lights in a messy, drunken rhythm. More than once, while dancing you felt a hand brush the small of your back.
You didn’t bother turning around. In a house this packed it could’ve been anyone. Accidental touches were inevitable when people were crammed this close together, shoulders bumping, arms colliding, bodies moving to the same beat.
Still, each time it happened, a shiver was sent down your spine.
Eventually you decided you needed a drink—something stronger than whatever was left in your cup and, more importantly, a moment away from the strange tension coiling in the pit of your stomach.
So you slipped out of the crowd and made your way back to the kitchen.
The difference in noise was immediate. The music still thumped through the walls but it felt slightly muffled here, replaced by the clink of bottles and the hum of conversations.
The counter was a disaster of empty cups and half-finished drinks. Beer didn’t sound appealing anymore, so instead you reached for the sink, turning the faucet and filling a plastic cup with cold water. You drank it all in one go, feeling the coolness sliding down your throat.
“Easy there, princess,“ a deep voice came right beside your ear.
You rolled your eyes immediately, already recognizing it.
To your right—far too close, comfortably invading your personal space stood Billy Hargrove, wearing that same predatory smile like he’d been waiting for the moment you’d end up alone. Getting close to Max meant occasionally running into her stepbrother, and Billy had developed an unfortunate habit of invading your space every single time.
“Relax, Hargrove,” you said, setting the empty cup down on the counter and stepping away from the sink. “It’s just water. Not trying to break any of your drinking records.”
His eyes dragged slowly over you, shameless.
“Shame,” he murmured, “thought a girl like you would be more fun.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” you said with mock sympathy, pouting for a second before your expression went flat again. You refilled your cup with water before turning back to look him straight in the eyes.
“Now get out of my way,” you said as you moved past him, ready to head back toward the living room where the noise and bodies of the party would swallow you again.
But just as you passed him, his hand shot out, closing his fingers around your wrist. Hard.
“Hey,” Billy said lazily, stepping closer behind you. “Where’s the rush?”
Your jaw tightened. “I’m not interested.”
You tried to pull your hand free and his grip tightened. For a moment the noise of the party seemed to dull behind the rushing in your ears.
“I didn’t ask,” Billy replied.
Your patience snapped. You twisted your wrist trying to break his hold.
“Let. Go.” you said firmly.
A few people in the kitchen had started to glance over now, sensing the shift in tone but that only made Billy lean closer, his voice dropping.
“You know,” he said, “most freaks like you would be a little nicer about the attention.”
“Most girls probably don’t have you grabbing them like that.”
You twisted your arm sharply, managing to slip from his grip for a second before pushing through the crowd toward the back door where the music spilled out into the yard.
The cool air hit your face the second you stepped outside.
People were still dancing out here too—clusters of bodies under cheap string lights, someone blasting music from a pair of speakers on the porch.
You barely made it halfway down the steps before you heard boots behind you.
“Hey!” Billy called.
You didn’t stop, you didn’t even turn around. You kept moving toward the edge of the yard but Billy grabbed your wrist again with much more force.
“Seriously, take a fucking hint!” you snapped, turning toward him.
He yanked you closer, and the sudden movement made the cup of water tip over completely, spilling down the front of your dress. The cold water soaking through the fabric made you gasp.
“Alright, sweetheart,” he said, his voice dropping. “Thought a slut like you would be easier. But I like a challenge.”
Your heart slammed against your ribs. Even through the anger burning in your chest, a small part of you pricked with fear—he was a lot bigger than you.
That still didn’t stop your hand from starting to lift, ready to swing at his face.
And just as you were about to, a figure stepped between you, shoving Billy back.
And even with his back turned, you would’ve recognized Steve Harrington anywhere. You hadn’t even seen him come outside but there he was, standing between the two of you.
Billy slowed to a stop, amused.
“Well look at that,” he said. “Pretty boy decided to grow a backbone.”
Steve didn’t say anything at first, his jaw was tight, shoulders tense in a way you’d never seen before.
“Back off.”
Billy scoffed. “Relax, Harrington. We were just talking.”
“Didn’t look like it.”
Billy tilted his head slightly, eyes flicking toward you for half a second before returning to Steve.
“You her boyfriend now?”
“Does it matter?”
“Then mind your own business,” Billy smirked, grabbing Steve by the collar of his shirt before shoving him back.
The next moment happened so fast you almost missed it.
Billy laughed—and Steve, without saying another word, punched him. His fist connected hard with Billy’s jaw, snapping his head to the side.
Gasps erupted around the yard.
Billy stumbled back a step and then he smiled satisfied.
“Oh, you’re dead.” He swung before lunging forward and driving his fist straight into Steve’s face, sending him staggering backward.
Chaos exploded instantly. People shouting. Someone in the background yelling “holy shit!”
Billy lunged forward again but two arms suddenly grabbed him from behind.
“Whoa, whoa—Hargrove!” Eddie shouted, hauling him back. Tommy Hagan jumped in beside him, grabbing Billy’s other arm.
“Chill the hell out!”
Across from them Jonathan was already pulling Steve away as he tried to move forward again.
“Steve—dude, stop!”
“Let go—!” Steve shouted.
“That pussy must be real good for you to defend that freak, Stevie!” Billy shouted with a grin. This was exactly what Billy lived for and Steve was giving it to him for free.
“You’re not helping, Billy boy!” Eddie said, pulling him back harder while Steve tried to wrench himself free from Jonathan again.
Nancy rushed toward you first, worry written all over her face.
“Are you okay?” she said.
Robin appeared half a second later, grabbing your shoulders and scanning your face like she was checking for injuries.
“Did he touch you?” she asked quickly.
You shook your head. You could barely hear them, still trying to process the sudden explosion of everything.
Your eyes were locked on Steve across the yard. He was still glaring at Billy like he might still break free and swing again. Blood on his lip, chest rising and falling heavily as Jonathan kept a firm grip on his arms.
Billy tore himself free from Eddie and Tommy H’s grip and wiped a bit of blood from the corner of his mouth.
Then he laughed pointing at Steve.
“This isn’t over, Harrington,” he said before glancing in your direction. “See you next time, sweetheart.”
Billy disappeared back into the crowd, Tommy following close behind.
Jonathan finally released Steve while Eddie stepped closer, scanning Steve’s face checking the damage. You could barely process what had just happened. The whole thing had exploded so fast. You didn’t know how to approach him—whether to thank him or scold him for getting involved in the first place—but what you did know was that you had never meant for him to end up hurt because of you.
Beside you, Nancy and Robin were talking quickly, trying to calm the situation down.
For the first time Steve looked at you, and you could clearly see the result of the fight, his face smeared with blood, a thin line running from the corner of his lip. His hair, usually annoyingly perfect, was a mess now, pushed out of place from the fight. But it was his eyes that caught you off guard, burning with something you couldn’t quite recognize.
Before you could say anything, Steve turned away and started walking back toward the house.
Your feet followed him instinctively, and you only realized what you were doing when a hand suddenly grabbed your arm. The grip was much softer, nothing like Billy’s, but you still tensed before turning around.
“Where are you going?” Robin asked with concern.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” you said, trying to sound reassuring but Robin didn’t look convinced, her eyes scanned you again, searching for any sign that you might be hurt.
“I’m fine, Robs,” you added, offering her a small forced smile.
It took her a second, but eventually she let go.
You pushed your way back inside the house. The living room was still packed with bodies, music blasting, people dancing like nothing had happened. Like there hadn’t just been a fight outside. You pushed through the crowd, bumping shoulders and muttering quick apologies as you searched for Steve.
He wasn’t anywhere. For a moment you wondered if he’d already left. Maybe he didn’t want to deal with it tonight.
Maybe he didn’t want to deal with you.
When you stepped outside your eyes immediately searched for Steve’s car—but it wasn’t there. You muttered a frustrated curse under your breath, and just as you were about to turn back toward the party, you thought you spotted a familiar figure walking away down the street and. Without thinking, you ran after him.
“Harrington!” you shouted, hoping he’d stop. He didn't. You cursed again under your breath and after half a block you finally caught up to him, grabbing his arm to stop him.
“Steve, I swear to God—” you started, slightly out of breath.
The moment he turned toward you, your stomach twisted. He looked like a complete mess. A bruise already forming along his cheekbone.
“Fuck…Harrington,” you muttered, stepping closer.
Steve immediately pulled away from you.
“Get off,” he said. You were about to protest, but Steve cut you off immediately. “Now’s not a good time for you to start something.”
And for some reason that stung more than the dull throbbing in your wrist. Maybe because you hadn’t even been planning to start a fight this time. Still, instead of stepping back, you moved closer again.
“You’re a real asshole, you know that?" You said, the words coming out sharper than you meant them to, like you were trying to fight the small, unpleasant sting his words had left behind.
“I’m fine,” he said, trying to sound tough, but something in his tone gave him away—and you weren’t about to give in, so you moved closer again.
“Let me see,” you said, reaching toward his face. Steve immediately leaned away.
“I said drop it,” he said, annoyed.
“It’s bleeding.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“That’s not really the point.”
He scoffed under his breath and ran a hand through his hair, wincing slightly as if the movement had pulled at something sore.
For a moment neither of you said anything.
The music from the party carried faintly down the street, distant now. Out here it was quieter—just the hum of streetlights and the occasional laugh drifting from the house behind you. Steve looked like he wanted to keep walking and you had the sudden, uncomfortable feeling that if you let him go now, the moment would disappear along with him.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” you said.
“Done what?” His head snapped toward you.
“That,” you gestured vaguely behind you, toward the party. “Getting into a fight with Billy.”
Steve stared at you like he couldn’t decide if you were serious. “Right,” he said after a second. “Next time I’ll just let him drag you around.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
You crossed your arms, irritation flaring. “I didn’t ask you to get involved.”
The words came out sharper than you expected. Steve looked away first, jaw tightening. For a second you wondered if you’d actually hurt his feelings, which felt… ridiculous, considering he was the one standing there with a split lip and a forming bruise across his cheek.
Still, the thought made something twist uncomfortably in your chest.
“Look, I’m just saying you didn’t have to do that,” you said, a little calmer.
“Well somebody had to.” he said, a little too quickly, like the words had slipped out before he’d had time to think about them.
You frowned slightly. “Why?”
Steve froze. Not dramatically. Just a small pause, like his brain had hit a wall it hadn’t planned for.
“Why what?”
“Why did you do it?” you asked again.
For a moment he didn’t say anything, then he let out a quiet laugh that didn’t sound amused at all.
“Jesus, you’re unbelievable.”
“That’s not an answer, Steve.”
Steve looked at you again, really looked this time, like he was trying to figure something out. Or maybe deciding if the conversation was even worth having. Eventually he exhaled slowly and gestured vaguely down the street.
“Look, my house is like two blocks that way,” he muttered.
You blinked, you were definitely not expecting those words to come out of his mouth.
“What?” you asked, wondering if you just had heard him wrong.
“If you’re gonna keep staring at my face like that,” he added, clearly annoyed, “you might as well help fix it.”
For a second you just stood there.
“You’re inviting me over?” you asked.
Steve immediately grimaced. “I’m not inviting you,” he said quickly, “you followed me.”
“That’s not—.”
“Close enough.”
Despite yourself, you felt the corner of your mouth twitch and Steve noticed.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“Don’t what?” you asked, tilting your head.
“Whatever that is,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward your face.
“You’re the one asking for my help,” you couldn’t help it now, a smug smile slipped onto your lips.
“I said so you could stop staring at me like I’m about to bleed out,” he said, trying to sound indifferent.
“Technically you are bleeding,” you pointed out.
He rolled his eyes and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, looking down at the ground for a moment.
“Are you coming or not?”
You hesitated for half a second. Not because you didn’t want to go. But because a small voice in the back of your head was suddenly very aware of the fact that you were about to walk to Steve Harrington’s house alone with him at night.
Which felt like a terrible idea.
For reasons you couldn’t quite explain.
“Okay,” you said, “walk fast.”
Steve glanced sideways at you when you said that but didn’t comment. Still, he picked up his pace slightly. You fell into step beside him.
For a while neither of you spoke.
The farther you got from the party, the quieter the street became. The bass of the music faded into nothing, replaced by the soft hum of streetlights and the distant sound of a car somewhere far away.
The cold had started to settle into your skin now. You wrapped your arms around yourself in a half-hearted attempt to warm up. The damp fabric of your dress clung uncomfortably to you with every step, making the whole walk feel even more awkward than it already was. You tried not to think about it, but the chill still made your shoulders tense.
Another block passed in silence before Steve finally slowed down as a familiar driveway came into view. Steve’s car sat parked near the garage, the only one there. The house behind it was dark. No lights in the living room. None in the kitchen. Not even the faint glow of a lamp upstairs.
You stopped for half a second, taking it in. For a house that big, it looked strangely empty.
Steve didn’t seem to notice your hesitation as he walked up the driveway and pulled his keys from his pocket. You followed a few steps behind.
Robin had mentioned his house before. Usually as a joke. Something about how Steve basically lived alone half the time because his parents were always gone on some business trip— conferences, meetings. “Important Harrington adult stuff,” she had called it once, rolling her eyes.
At the time you had laughed but standing here now, the joke didn’t feel quite as funny.
Steve unlocked the front door and pushed it open. The house greeted you with the same stillness as the outside.
Dark.
Silent.
Empty.
He stepped inside first, flicking on the hallway light.
You hesitated only a second before stepping in after him.
And just like that, the cold night air was replaced by the quiet cold of Steve Harrington’s empty house.
The hallway light hummed softly overhead, casting a warm glow over polished floors and framed pictures along the walls. The place was big and painfully tidy in the way houses tended to be when no one was really living in them.
Steve kicked the door closed the rest of the way with his heel and tossed his keys onto a small table by the entrance. He walked a few steps into the house before realizing you hadn’t followed.
When he turned back, you were still standing near the door, arms wrapped tightly around yourself. The sight of shoulders trembling slightly made Steve frowned. His eyes dropped briefly to the front of your dress, the fabric still damp and clinging to you.
For a second it looked like he was about to say something but instead he just sighed quietly and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“Wait here,” he muttered.
Before you could ask what he meant, he disappeared down the hallway and up the stairs.
You stayed where you were, listening as the faint creak of floorboards carried through the house. A door opened somewhere upstairs, then closed again. Something shifted, and his footsteps echoed softly in the distance.
The place felt too quiet, like the whole house was holding its breath.
A moment later Steve reappeared. He had taken off his jacket and was holding something in his hands. Without a word, he walked back toward you and held them out. A t-shirt and a pair of sport shorts. You blinked, looking from the clothes to him.
“For the record,” Steve said, already turning away, “you’re dripping on the floor.”
You looked down just to see a small dark spot had already started to form on the hardwood beneath your boots.
“Right,” you muttered.
“Bathroom’s up there,” he said, jerking his head vaguely toward the stairs as he started walking toward the kitchen. “Try not to flood the place.”
On another day you would have flipped him off, but at this point you were too cold to argue and far more interested in getting out of that damn dress, so you sighed and headed up the stairs toward the bathroom.
Once inside the bathroom, you kicked off your boots and quickly undressed, letting the damp dress slip to the floor. You stepped out of it and reached for the t-shirt.
It was an old gray gym shirt, the kind they gave out in high school P.E., the faded green letters proudly spelling out Hawkins High School across the front.
You wondered how many times he must have worn it. You remembered passing through the gym doors once or twice and catching glimpses of him inside. His hair a little longer back then, that crooked grin on his face while Tommy H. said something stupid that made Steve laugh, the sound echoing across the gym.
You remembered simply walking past him without stopping, while he tipped his head back and took a slow drink from his water bottle.
You didn’t realize you were gripping the shirt until you snapped yourself out of the thought with a small frown. What were you thinking? With a huff, you pulled the t-shirt over your head. You quickly grabbed the green shorts and were about to put them on when a soft knock sounded on the door.
“Everything alright in there?” Steve’s voice came from the other side.
That's when it hit you.
You were standing in your underwear in the bathroom of the most insufferable guy from your high school years. Heat rushed to your cheeks before you could stop it. This was definitely not how you had imagined the night ending.
You hurried to pull on the shorts, stumbling slightly in the process and bumping your hip against the sink. The dull thud made you suck in a quick breath before straightening quickly and opening the door.
Steve was leaning against the doorframe, one arm braced above him, looking at you with those stupid hazel eyes. He had changed into something more comfortable—sweatpants and a blue polo—and you caught yourself staring a second too long.
You quickly forced your gaze back to his face. Despite the dried blood, you caught the ghost of what looked like a smile forming on his lips before it disappeared again.
“Come in,” you said, stepping aside while Steve brushed past you into the bathroom.
“Sit,” you ordered, pointing at the toilet. To your mild surprise, he actually listened, lowering himself onto the lid while watching you expectantly.
“Where’s your first aid kit?” you asked.
“Down there,” he said, nodding toward the cabinet beneath the sink.
You immediately turned around, crouched down and opened the cabinet. A small plastic box sat toward the back, half hidden behind a stack of neatly folded towels. You grabbed it and stood up, setting it on the edge of the sink. You could feel Steve watching your every move, the weight of his gaze warm against the back of your neck, but you kept your attention on the task.
You flipped the lid open and started digging through the contents—some gauze, a few cotton pads, antiseptic wipes and a small bottle of something that smelled aggressively medicinal.
“Lean forward,” you said, grabbing a cotton pad.
“You really don’t have to—I was just—” Steve started quickly, stumbling over the words.
“Do you want help or not?” you said, glancing at him over your shoulder.
“Bossy,” he muttered, leaning forward
“Bleeding,” you shot back, soaking the cotton with antiseptic before turning toward him, stepping closer.
Up close, the damage looked worse. The bruise along his cheekbone had already darkened, the skin beginning to swell, and the cut at the corner of his lip was still slowly bleeding.
“Hold still,” you said.
You reached up and gently tilted his chin toward the light. You could feel his body going still at your touch. Your fingers were cold from the antiseptic bottle, and you felt the warmth of his skin almost immediately. You focused on the cut, carefully pressing the cotton against the corner of his mouth.
“Jesus—” Steve hissed under his breath.
“Relax,” you muttered, “that means it’s working.”
He gave you a look. You ignored it and kept cleaning the blood from his lip, reaching for another piece of cotton before dabbing gently at the cut again. Up this close you could see things you hadn’t noticed before like the small moles scattered across his face, the way his eyelashes cast small shadows against his cheeks and the way he was watching you now instead of the mirror.
“You’re staring,” he said suddenly and your hand paused for half a second.
“No I’m not, “ you denied quickly, “I’m just doing damage control.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly, ”sure.”
You frowned and dabbed the cut again, a little harder than necessary.
“What the—”
“If you keep talking it’s going to hurt a lot more than you think,” you warned.
Steve huffed out a quiet breath but didn’t argue. You pulled your hand back to grab another piece of cotton when his gaze suddenly dropped and his expression changed.
You followed his line of sight automatically and felt a small knot tighten in your throat with anger.
The skin around your wrist had already begun to darken where Billy’s fingers had wrapped around it earlier, faint bruises forming beneath the surface.
Before you could say anything, Steve reached out and took your hand. His fingers closed gently around your wrist, like the movement had happened before he’d fully thought it through. His brows pulled together slightly as he turned your arm under the bathroom light, studying the forming bruises with quiet concentration.
You hated that look. You hated when people looked at you like you were something fragile. You hated that your body always betrayed how easily it was to leave a mark on you. And you hated even more that you could see the concern slipping through his expression when his jaw tightened.
For a second you thought about yanking your hand back out of pure reflex, but the way his thumb hovered over the bruising— careful, almost hesitant, made you pause.
“That’s going to bruise,” he muttered quietly.
You shrugged like it didn’t matter. Like the dull ache running up your arm was nothing.
“It’s a wrist, Harrington,” you said, “I’m pretty sure I’ll survive.”
For a moment he didn’t answer. His thumb brushed lightly along the edge of the bruise again, as if checking how bad it was.
His eyes flicked up to yours for a second. There was something there — something sharper than annoyance — before his gaze dropped back to your wrist.
You immediately pulled your hand back.
“I said I’m fine,” you snapped, a little too quickly.
Steve lifted his hands in surrender, leaning back slightly.
“Alright,” he said.
But the look on his face made it clear he didn’t believe you for a second. You glanced at him again and that’s when you noticed how one of his hands was red.
You grabbed it before he could hide it.
His knuckles were scraped raw, the skin split in two places where Billy’s face had apparently made contact. Some dried blood had already crusted along the cuts.
“Did you punch a wall too,” you said, turning his hand slightly under the light, “or was Billy’s face just that hard?”
Steve huffed. “Funny.”
The swelling had already started.
You cleared your throat and turned back toward the counter, pretending to focus on the first aid kit instead of the strange tight feeling sitting somewhere in your chest.
Your fingers rummaged through the plastic box. Antiseptic wipes, band-aids but no more cotton pads. You frowned and checked again anyway. Nothing.
“You’re out.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“Cotton, genius.”
Steve leaned back slightly against the sink and exhaled.
“Think there’s more in my room.”
The words came out casually, but the way he didn’t quite look at you when he said it made the suggestion feel oddly less casual.
It was strange.
Normally Steve would’ve just rolled his eyes at you and moved on with his life. That was your usual rhythm at work: sarcasm, annoyance, and the unspoken agreement that neither of you cared much about the other. That’s how things usually were between you two. He never let it show if something actually got to him.
But this Steve felt different.
Bruised.
Quiet.
Letting you take care of him.
You weren’t used to that version of him. And the realization made something in your chest feel uncomfortably soft.
You snapped the lid of the first aid kit shut.
“Fine,” you said.
Steve pushed himself off the toilet and stepped into the hallway, holding the door open for you.
You followed him down the short hallway in silence.
When he pushed open the door to his bedroom, you paused for half a second before stepping inside.
The room looked exactly like you imagined it would. Clean, like the rest of the house. But something about it made it clear it was the only room that was actually lived in.
Your eyes wandered across the room. There were a few posters on the walls, which were covered in the ugliest wallpaper you’d ever seen in your life. Nothing like your own room, which was practically drowning in posters.
Despite the moonlight spilling through the window and bathing everything in a pale blue glow, the room felt strangely warm.
You hadn’t expected that.
Your eyes drifted to the wall beside his desk where a collection of photos had been pinned up.
Steve had already moved away from you, rummaging through one of his drawers for more cotton, but you couldn’t help glancing through them.
On the right, you spotted a picture of him and Robin wearing those ridiculous sailor uniforms from Scoops Ahoy. Steve looked serious while Robin made a silly face that made you smile faintly. Back then you didn’t even know them yet, but even from the photo you could already tell what their dynamic was like.
Dustin appeared in another photo—much younger, unmistakably a kid. Completely different from the angsty but fun teenager you knew now, though the smile was exactly the same. Steve stood beside him, leaning against his car.
There was another picture of the kids Mike, Jane, Lucas, Max, Will and Dustin crammed together on a couch, all asleep in positions that looked deeply uncomfortable, yet the photo carried an undeniable warmth.
Your gaze drifted to another photo, two figures standing with their backs to the camera, looking out over a lake. You recognized them as Jonathan and Steve.
It still seemed strange to you how well they got along now, considering they shared an ex-girlfriend. Maybe that was exactly what had brought them together in the first place.
But still they were so different. You knew Jonathan from high school, quiet, withdrawn, the kind of person who preferred staying invisible. While Steve, on the other hand, had once been the king of Hawkins High.
Your eyes shifted to another picture.
Nancy.
In the photo her hair was longer, and she was smiling shyly while Steve leaned slightly toward her, his head tilted in her direction with an easy grin.
You swallowed, that had clearly been taken when they were still together.
That was the type of girl Steve liked.
Slim, soft-looking, feminine—nothing like you.
You weren’t jealous of Nancy. You and Nancy were just… different. Nancy had changed since then, now she was tougher, sharper and comfortable in her true form but even so, you knew you were nothing alike.
You’d always had your armor—chains, leather jackets, dark eyeliner. You made yourself sharp. A rough edge carefully constructed to keep people at a distance, or that's what you thought.
You were never the type of girl you saw Steve flirting with.
You closed your eyes for a moment, trying to shove the thought away.
When you opened them again, another photo caught your attention.
A recent polaroid.
Eddie and Steve stood in the middle of the frame. Eddie was grinning widely, one arm thrown around Steve’s shoulders while Steve looked mildly annoyed, though the corner of his mouth betrayed him curling upward.
But what made you pause was the arm sticking into the side of the photo.
Someone flipping them off.
A wrist decorated with bracelets and rings.
Your bracelets, your rings.
That was your arm.
And in the photo, Steve’s middle finger was raised right back at you.
A strange warmth spread through your still-cold body.
You hadn’t expected that. Honestly, you hadn’t expected to find anything in his room that suggested you’d somehow made your way into his life at all—even if it had mostly been because of Robin, Eddie, and Max, and now Nancy, Jonathan, and the kids.
But the ghost of your presence there, however small, made your heart beat slightly unevenly.
“Here,” Steve’s voice cut through your thoughts.
You turned around, confused for a second, until you saw the pack of cotton he was holding out to you.
Right. That’s why you were here.
You took it without a word while Steve sat down on the edge of the bed and held out his hand again.
You sat beside him, the mattress dipped slightly under your weight. Neither of you commented on how close you were sitting. Or how your knee brushed lightly against his thigh.
You poured antiseptic onto the cotton, took his hand again, and carefully pressed it against the cuts on his knuckles.
His fingers flexed slightly in yours.
You pretended not to notice.
“Hold still,” you muttered.
“I am holding still.”
“You’re moving.”
“I’m breathing.”
You rolled your eyes but finished cleaning the cuts.
“You know,” he said after a moment, “most people say something when someone gets punched for them.”
You snorted.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You’ve mentioned that.”
“There.”
You finally let go of his hand and leaned back against the headboard without really thinking about it.
The adrenaline from earlier had finally started draining out of your system, leaving nothing but exhaustion behind. Everything had happened so fast that only now did you realize you were actually allowing yourself to close your eyes and breathe.
Steve shifted beside you, lying back on the bed and staring up at the ceiling. Even with a little space between you, you could still feel the warmth of his body.
“You’re still an idiot,” you muttered, opening your eyes again.
“Yeah,” he said after a second, “probably.”
The honesty of it caught you slightly off guard and you let out a quiet laugh. Despite everything, neither of you moved. Neither of you had the energy left to keep arguing.
Silence stretched between you.
Your eyes felt heavier than they had a minute ago. You told yourself you were just gonna rest them. Just for a second.
Across the bed, Steve finally looked away from the ceiling and turned his head toward you.
Your head had tilted slightly to the side, your shoulders had relaxed and your breathing had slowed.
“Unbelievable,” he murmured.
But instead of waking you, he leaned back fully against the pillows.
The room fell quiet again.
A few minutes later, his eyes closed too, and just as sleep started to pull him under, he could’ve sworn he heard a soft, sleepy “thanks” slip from your lips.
And just like that, the long, cruel night finally caught up with both of you.
warnings; no use of y/n, (steve refers to reader as ‘girl’ but no mentions of specific anatomy i don't think), multiple descriptions of vomiting, steve being stupidly sweet, casual/non-sexual nudity, sickfic, fluff
word count; ~4k
a/n; i wrote 99% of this while i was sick and exhausted myself, so i'm not insanely happy with it??? but, uh.. fuck it? right? also this is my first time posting something on here that isn't DOB so pls, pls be nice — i beg you.
You had thought it would get better.
You'd thought that sleep would be enough to get rid of the overpowering warmth that had begun to prickle uncomfortably under your skin, the congestion that left your head feeling like it was just a little bit too big, too heavy, for your body. The better part of the last twelve hours have been spent curled up in bed, hoping to sleep it off.
You're not entirely sure what illness is to blame for your current state, but you're cursing each and every possible one as you stumble into the bathroom and fall to your knees in front of the toilet. An immediate ache from the collision against the floor goes ignored, as does the cold that bites at your shins through the glossy tiles.
Now, as your body rolls and tenses with heaves and coughs that have you spilling the remains of your dinner from the night before into clean porcelain, you can't quite believe that you'd dared to be so naively optimistic.
Time passes in that horrible way it always does when you feel poorly, too slow at times and a total blur at others. Your head has been pillowed on your arm at the edge of the toilet for one of those blurred stretches, time fuzzy while you catch your breath. You hear the loud trill of the phone ringing out from down the hallway and your head shoots up at the sudden noise. You intend on hobbling out of the bathroom to answer it, but the too-quick motion of your head snapping to attention has your stomach turning all over again.
The ringing continues as you upend the final contents of your stomach, and the grating noise of the telephone finally dies off only to pick back up again just as your puking turns into nothing more than dry-heaves, body still protesting despite there being nothing left inside of you to give.
When the roiling of your stomach settles slightly, it takes all of your strength to pull yourself to your feet, flushing the toilet and grabbing the bottle of perfumed bathroom spray to mask the lingering smell that's doing absolutely nothing to ease your nausea.
You fumble for a moment as you locate your thermometer, placing the end of the small glass tube under your tongue as you lean onto your elbows over the sink, head dropping weakly as you wait. When you pull the device from your lips a few minutes later, the little red line reads somewhere around a hundred, and you drop it to the back of the counter with a huff.
Your weight continues rest heavily on the edges of the sink as you flick on the tap and proceed to take a few long sips straight from the stream of cold water, rushing to take in grateful gulps. It clears some of the bitterness from your tongue, washing away the rancid taste of bile and stomach acid while settling cooly in your feverish body.
You push back up, weight resting on your palms until you can regard your unusually pallor complexion in the mirror. Your eyes are bleary, a little wet still with tears from your battle with your own body a few minutes before. The sight of just how truly unwell you look has your stomach turning all over again, the cold water in your stomach suddenly feeling as if it's moving in heavy, churning waves inside of you, as if it's fighting to break free.
You barely make it back to the toilet before you're retching and dumping back out all of the water that you'd forced into your body perhaps a bit too quickly.
You're so exhausted by the time your stomach settles once more, you don't manage more than flushing the toilet and misting the air with another quick spritz of freshener before you've slumped against the wall and begun to doze.
When your boyfriend eventually comes knocking at your front door, the sound isn't enough to rouse you, not even when the noise grows a little more frantic from anxiety, palms slamming against the surface paired with muffled shouts of concern through the thick wood.
You remain entirely unaware as an increasingly worried Steve Harrington begins searching for your spare key with muffled curses. He nearly upends the potted plant you have outside your door, kicking your doormat across the hallway in his haste to unlock your door and shove his way into your apartment. Steve stumbles through several rooms before he finds you in the bathroom and his steps falter at the sight that awaits him.
You look so pathetic it's startling; curled in on yourself in a way that makes you appear smaller, weak and innocent, younger even. Your head is tipped against the wall, lolled to the side until your nose and chin are nearly touching your shoulder. He knows it has to be wreaking havoc on the muscles in your neck, and he nearly winces at the thought, pushing further into the room and squatting down in front of you. Steve's hand finds your cheek, supporting some of the weight of your head to straighten your spine just a touch as he assesses the sickly pallor your skin has taken.
“Oh, honey.” Steve says softly, thumb stroking from your jaw to the apple of your cheek and back down again.
The soft touch is enough to finally wake you and he watches your eyes blink heavily, feverish confusion pulling your brows together as you struggle to focus on the face in front of you. You pout at him and the sight of your lip jutting out is so cute that Steve fails to notice your arm rising weakly from where it was blocked by the toilet. Not until it's too late.
A honeysuckle scented mist sprays in his direction, forcing him to flinch back in surprise as the perfume invades his nostrils.
“Jesus!” Steve exclaims in surprise, hacking slightly at the taste of it on his tongue, “Baby, what the hell?”
Your nose scrunches up as both your arm and the spray bottle fall heavily into your lap. You blink at him slow, “Smells like vom in here.” You explain meekly.
“It smells fine.” He tries to reassure you, pulling the de-odorizer from your weak grip and setting it on the countertop behind himself and effectively out of your reach.
“Wha're you doing 'ere?” You question in a rasp, shaky hand grabbing ahold of his wrist as if trying to prove to yourself that he's real and not some fever-induced hallucination.
“You weren't pickin' up my calls,” He tells you softly, thumb beginning to move across the heated skin of your cheek again, “I knew you were plannin' on staying in to get some cleaning done. When you didn't answer my mind kinda ran wild. Thought you might've slipped and fallen and cracked your head off the kitchen counter or somethin'. I dunno, I just.. I got worried, sweetheart. Came to check in for my own peace of mind,” His gaze trails the length of your body, taking in your wrinkled tshirt, your bare feet, your clammy skin, the puffiness around your eyes, “I'm glad I did.”
“‘'m sorry I didn't pick up the phone,” You apologize quietly, your gaze drifting to the toilet for a moment before slowly meeting his again, “Was busy puking my guts out.”
The way your lip pulls up at the corner from your own dry humor has Steve cracking a smile, his voice fond when it sounds again.
“I see that,” He says with a sigh, “How long you been sick?”
You try to shrug but your shoulders barely move, your body too weak to manage more than a small twitch of your muscles, “Started feeling shitty last night before bed. Slept a lot. Got sick when I woke up this afternoon.” As if suddenly realizing the lack of brightness coming in through the bathroom window, your raspy voice comes again, “Time s'it?”
“Five-ish,” Steve tells you with a frown, pretty brown eyes flicking over your face, “You haven't eaten anything?”
You give him a small shake of your head, his large hand supporting most of the weight of your skull as you do so, “M'sick.”
He sighs, “You still gotta eat, honey. Have to get something in your stomach if you're gonna get your strength back.”
You shake your head again, sad eyes meeting his, “I'll just throw it up. Don't want to get sick again.”
Steve smiles at you pityingly, a sad thing, “We'll try something real small to start, how's that?”
“How small?” You ask nervously.
“Some soup?”
You shake your head.
“Just broth and some crackers?” He bargains.
Your stomach rolls at the mere thought and it must show on your face because he sighs heavily.
“Dry toast?” He tries.
Your eyebrows pull together, but the thought doesn't immediately make you queasy, so you give him an indecisive shrug.
“Let’s try some toast, yeah, honey?” Steve says softly.
His fingers gently brush your hair back from your face and your mind whirls in realization.
“Oh god,” You bemoan weakly, “'s there puke in my hair?”
“No,” He says a little to quickly, “No, baby, there's nothing in your hair.”
You give him a look to say that you don't believe him for a single second, but he's looking at you so fondly that your expression melts away into something soft almost immediately.
“You want me to tie your hair back?” Steve asks, already turning around to peek at the bathroom countertop where there's a mess of hair ties and clips littering the surface.
“The big one.” You tell him, nodding vaguely in the direction of your favorite scrunchie.
He turns back around with the puffy material pinched between his fingers, already combing your hair back and collecting it in a bundle with gentle hands. The sensation of air meeting the clammy nape of your neck feels so good that you let out a small noise of relief, leaning forward to give him more room while he tries to smooth out the lumps in your hair with his fingers.
Once he's managed a messy ponytail, his wide palms rest on the sides of your neck, thumbs ghosting along your jawline as he frowns at the feverish sweat on your brow.
“You taken your temperature at all?” He questions in concern, his fingers meeting your forehead and somehow managing to feel blessedly cool against your overheated skin, “You feel like you're burnin' up, sweetheart.”
“Hundred or so.” You tell him, eyes falling shut as you lean into the feeling of his hand against your sweaty skin.
Steve hums, an unhappy sound, “That's not too bad. Not good by any means, but it's nothin' to be too worried about, huh?” He sounds like he's trying to reassure himself more than you, so you merely nod against his hand. He sighs after a moment, “Right. C'mon. Up we go.” He urges softly, arm curling around your back with one hand gripping at your hip as he pulls you to your feet.
You're not sure how he manages it so effortlessly, the only hint of his strain is the soft grunt he lets out when you collapse against his chest and knock a little bit of the wind from him. You bury your nose into the dip of his clavicle, the strip of skin and scarce chest hair poking out from beneath the collar of his stretched shirt is soft to the touch and masculine smelling and overall a little dizzying — although, the way you sway against him has you wondering if maybe that's just the fever.
“Toast.” Steve reminds you softly, hand slipping beneath your baggy sleep shirt — one that had been his shirt, once upon a time — to run his thumb over the soft, overheated skin at your hip.
You grumble something that's not quite disapproval or approval, a weak sounding thing to protest the thought of moving from your current position, but with an endeared sigh and a soft press of his lips to your sweaty temple, Steve's manhandling you into a better position. Your feet end up over the tops of his, your arms curled up underneath his own to grip weakly onto the backs of his shoulders. He holds you steady with one hand at the center of your spine and the other spread over your backside in likely the least sexual touch he's ever graced to that area of your body.
You manage a weak murmur about him copping a feel and he laughs. It falls over your ear in a breathy little chuckle as Steve carefully waddles the two of you down the hall. His arms continue to hold you tight to his chest while walks you back around the corner leading into your small kitchen, flicking the overhead light on as he goes.
“Hows'it you're mouthy even when you're on your deathbed?” He asks, a small grin on his face as he gently gets you settled up onto one of the kitchen stools where you can rest while he makes you food.
You collapse onto your elbows against the countertop as soon as he releases you, cheek resting heavy in your palm as you peer up at him.
“Dunno..” You tell him quietly, eyes flicking over Steve's face slow in a way that you didn't quite manage in the dim light of the bathroom.
His hair looks a little fluffier than normal, soft and messy in a way that makes you want to run your hands through it, tug soft on the strand that dips down over his forehead and curls toward his eye in that effortlessly beautiful kind of way. Caramel swirls prettily with the darker shades of brown and gold in his eyes, pink lips pulled into a barely-there grin when he turns back toward you after grabbing a half eaten loaf of bread from the cupboard.
You're watching him with a dazed sort of admiration, “How s'it you look so pretty even when I'm on my deathbed?” You counter dreamily, arms crossing against the cool countertop so that you can rest your temple over the tops of them when your head suddenly starts to feel a little too heavy, vision swaying.
Steve laughs softly as he gets two slices of bread into the toaster, “I'm not sure there's a correlation between my good-looks and your health,” The sound of his amusement fades out when he looks back at you and finds your new position, “Oh, Honey..” He says simply, the words pitying.
“'m dizzy.” You tell him with closed eyes. The darkness behind your eyelids doing nothing to slow the spinning in your brain.
“Well I'm sure that not eating all day is at least partially to blame for that,” Steve says softly, “Your body can't fight the virus if you don't give it any fuel.”
You pout petulantly, knowing he's probably right, “You're annoying when you're smart.”
The swirling blackness behind your closed eyes slows, your breathing following suit as you relax against the counter.
“C'mon, sit up, sweetheart.”
The sound of his voice startles you and the quiet clink of a ceramic plate being set down on the counter beside your head has you deducing that you might have fallen asleep for a few moments. You make a small noise of surprise as your gaze moves to the food on the plate, plain dry toast. Steve has sliced it into cute, neat little triangles for you and your heart melts a little at the gesture.
Hands on your arms guide you gently into an upright position as Steve crowds up against your side, letting you rest your weight into the wall of his chest when your head swims a little from the movement. You grab a slice of lightly toasted bread from the plate in front of you and bring it to your lips, nibbling slow at the corner with your eyes closed, trying to focus on the way you rise and fall with Steve's breaths where you're resting against him — the expansion of his lungs beneath his ribs rocking you in a slow, steady movement while you attempt to force down comically tiny bites.
Steve drags his palm along the length of your spine, drawing a smooth path up and down as you eat.
“Doin' good, babe,” He praises softly, his free hand falling to rest lightly on your stomach where he begins to trace tiny circles over your shirt, “You don't have to eat it all. Just need to get a little something in your stomach.”
You hum around your sliver of toast, crumbs raining down on both of your chests and clinging to the fabric of your shirts as you chew. It takes a stupidly long time, but you manage to finish a single triangle of bread, and Steve continues with his soothing touches all the while.
He feels you grip the hem of his shirt in your fist, your sweaty face turning into his chest with an unintelligible murmur, and he brings his hand on your back up to rest between your shoulder blades.
“You done for now?” Steve asks gently, fingers rubbing softly into the tense muscles beneath your neck as you nod, “Probably haven't had anything to drink either, huh?”
You shake your head and a frown pulls at your lips when he takes a small step away from you, “Wha'-?”
“Gonna grab you a glass of water, alright? Then we can take a bath. Get you all clean and relaxed.”
He's already stepping away before you can protest, though the phantom sensation of the water that had re-emerged from your mouth an hour or so earlier has you frowning anxiously.
Unaware of your silent distress, Steve grabs a glass and turns on the tap, the loud rush of the water hitting the sink basin filling the room while he sticks his hand under the flow. He stands like that for a few moments, fiddling with the temperature a couple of times before he fills the cup. He returns to you only moments later, settling the glass into your palms with more gentleness than you think you've ever experienced.
As both of your trembling hands lift the water to your lips, you take a small sip, frowning and lowering the glass only a moment later.
“It's warm.” You complain weakly, face scrunching up in disgust as you meet his eyes.
Steve nods and his hand urges your own to bring the glass back to your lips, “Cold water will shock your stomach,” He tells you softly, “Gotta be warm if you don't wanna get sick. My strong girl just ate half a piece of toast, you don't want to immediately throw it back up, do ya?”
“No.” You murmur around the lip of the glass, taking another careful sip.
“No,” Steve agrees, wide palm coming up to brush a few loose wisps of hair back from your forehead, “Doing good, honey, real good. Just a few more sips and we'll get you in the bath.”
You frown at the reminder, clutching your cup to your chest with both hands, “Oh god,” You whisper in horror, “I smell.. I smell really bad, don't I?”
“You don't smell,” Steve promises with a soft smile, though it's not entirely convincing, “A bath'll help your head, though. You said you were dizzy, yeah?”
“Yeah,” You agree quietly, “Feels, like, swollen. Like my head's gonna explode.. But also 's spinny.”
“The steam will help,” He promises, “And you'll feel better when you're fresh and clean, y'know?”
You sigh around another sip of the warm water, a reluctant nod against the hand resting over your forehead. He urges you to drink a little more before he's dragging you back toward your bathroom.
You're forced to sit on the closed lid of the toilet, watching with tired eyes as Steve flits in and out of the room — adjusting the flow of the water in the bathtub and digging through your basket of bath salts and filling a bowl from the sink tap for reasons you can't imagine but don't bother to question aloud.
Instead, you wait. The loud rush of water filling the tub lulls you into a sort of trance until your eyes are slipping shut, head swaying heavily on your shoulders. The steam filling the room smells nice, lavender salts and oils having been added to the bath at some point, and the smell has you beginning to relax.
“Not fallin' asleep on me already, are you?”
You blink slow, heavy eyelids fluttering as you open your eyes to find Steve standing in front of you, already stripped down to his boxers. He steps between your legs to pull your shirt up over your head and you're down to only your underwear with just that one quick move. When he pulls you up, gentle hands cupping your elbows in case you sway on your feet, you lean into his bare chest with a contented sigh.
“This is nice.” You murmur, rubbing your cheek against the soft hairs littering his chest.
“This isn't even the relaxing part, honey,” Steve chuckles softly, his hands falling to your hips to rid you of your final article of clothing, “Come on. In you go.”
He helps you step over the lip of the tub, one hand in yours and the other on your waist to steady you. The water is hot and silky against your skin, a gasp on your lips when it first licks at your calves. It sends blissful shivers down your spine as you settle down into it, your eyes falling shut with a contented groan as you curl your arms around your knees and bow your head to rest over them.
You're only alone for a moment before Steve is settling in behind you, his long legs caging you in as they stretch the length of the tub. The water flowing from the tap cuts off and the room is thrust into startling silence, the thundering sound of the bathtub filling being replaced with the quiet sloshing of the water as Steve adjusts himself beside you.
You gasp in surprise when a warm stream of water falls over your shoulder and you crack your eyes open to watch as Steve cups his hands again, bringing the water to the back of your neck and releasing it in a warm rush down your spine. You hum in approval and he repeats the action a few times, dropping handfuls of water over your back as the steam works to lessen the pressure in your head.
A few minutes pass before Steve's maneuvering you around with big hands at your ribs, your thighs splaying wide over either side of his knees as he settles back against the end of the tub. Water sloshes around you with all the movement, licking high on your skin until you rest chest to chest, your face tucking into the damp curve of his neck.
“You alright like this?” Steve checks, his voice unbearably soft as the words fan out over cheek, “You comfortable?”
You hum happily, eyes closed, “So comfy, Stevie.”
He brings a big, bath-warmed palm up to rest on your shoulder, wet fingers trailing along your skin and leaving tiny oil-sheened drops of water behind that bead down the length of your arm and back as they fall.
Just as your mind starts to slip into that space between wakefulness and sleep, a startlingly cold cloth is pressed to your forehead. The chill has you reeling back slightly, a betrayed sort of frown on your face as you peer at your boyfriend who's holding a damp washcloth in his hand.
“To help bring down your fever,” Steve supplies in response to your silent question, “Sorry. I should've warned you.”
You settle back against his chest with a small huff, hand curling around his wrist as a way of telling him it was okay to try again. The cold doesn't shock you nearly as much the second time around, taking only a moment to warm into a comfortable coolness against your skin.
A deep breath fills your lungs with the sweet smell of lavender combined with the lingering musk of Steve's cologne. Your fingers trail over damp skin until you can settle your palm against his pec, blunt nails tracing slow patterns on his skin through the short damp hairs.
“Thank you,” You whisper over his chest, your breath causing his nipple to pebble up against the steam-thickened air, “So good to me, Steve. 'm so glad I have you.”
The wet cloth against your forehead disappears only to return a moment later, cool again from having been dipped back into the bowl of cold water Steve had placed beside the tub. Your breath stutters a bit at the chill, body tensing and relaxing back against him only a second later.
“How many times have you been the one taking care of me, huh?” Steve asks, fingers dragging up and down along the skin at the outside of your thigh in a soothing touch, “And I'd say you're in much better condition now than I was at least a few of those times.”
“'s different,” You argue quietly, “You were hurt. You're always getting hurt.”
“And you're always there to take care of me,” Steve agrees, “So I'm gonna take care of you. 'cause we got each other's backs, don't we, honey?”
His voice is smooth like silk to your ears, his big hand still trailing softly along your skin. His fingers find their way to your shoulder, the gentle drag of his knuckles skating along your jaw, the apple of your cheek, the length your brow bone, tiny streaks of moisture left behind in his wake.
“Yeah,” You murmur against his skin, tipping your head to place a small kiss to the corner of your boyfriend's jaw, “We do.”
DIRTY DANCING
steve harrington x fem!reader – w.c. 3.3k
summary: steve harrington has a massive crush on you, but he's also your best friend, so of course he lets you drag him to the cinema to watch some romance movie. he can't help it if he feels a little jealous by how enamored you are by johnny castle.
warnings: best friends to lovers, steve is oblivious, set in aug 1987 so ig this is a no upside down au?, fluffffff, making out, spoilers for dirty dancing but lets bffr it's been almost 40 years.
–
it’s late august, which means summer is slowly fading away, the weather is cooling and the leaves are falling to make way for autumn, and steve harrington is driving you to the movies.
but, why wouldn’t he be? he would do anything for you, he knew that. which is exactly what had made him agree to go see ‘dirty dancing’, though he did find the title questionable, and he had said so, telling you he wasn’t ‘gonna go see a movie called dirty dancing’. but you had just seemed so excited when you asked him, then you flashed him those eyes and that almost-begging pout.
steve harrington was a weak, weak, pathetic man. he folded immediately. which is what led him to now.
his eyes keep flicking away from the road, away from the mirrors, away from the things he should be paying attention to, and he keeps looking right at you.
you haven’t noticed; you’re leaning against the passenger side window with a wide grin, excited to see the movie. to steve, it doesn’t look like you’ve even had a second thought about the fact the two of you were about to go see a romance movie together.
steve, on the other hand, has been spiraling. it’s gonna look like the two of you are on a date. he’s driving you there, and he knows already that he’s gonna rush ahead to open the doors for you, and he’ll jump at the offer to pay for your ticket, your popcorn and literally anything else you’ll want because steve harrington is also absolutely, insanely, obsessively in love with you. he wishes with every goddamn fibre of his being that you really were going on a date, but he’ll take what he can get.
when he parks his car in front of the library so the two of you can cross the road to the cinema, you reach for the handle of your car door the moment your seatbelt is off, and steve notices immediately.
“uh-uh,” he warns you, pointing and shooting you a look, and you roll your eyes with a playful smile, but sit back and watch as he scrambles from the car, almost tripping over his feet as he rushes around the hood of his beamer, running a hand through his well-styled hair before opening the car door for you. “here you go.”
“thank you, steve,” you roll your eyes at him as you step out, and steve takes it seriously. did he really just annoy you doing that? idiot. but then you shoot him that toothy grin that makes him weak in the knees and you loop your arm with his, dragging him across the street and towards the hawk. “come on, before we miss the showing ‘cause you were busy being a gentleman.”
“hey!” he chuckles, his brows furrowing, not quite sure if he should take your comment as a compliment or an insult. he’s still thinking it over as he pays for both of the tickets, despite your protests, and he’s still thinking it over as he reaches for the door handle to the hawk theater, and lets you enter the building first, feeling the cool air-conditioned breeze escaping as he does so.
while the two of you wait in line for the concession stand, you begin talking to steve about the film. he doesn’t really listen. it’s not that he doesn’t want to, he actually really tries his best to listen, but as he stares at you explaining god-knows what, he gets a little lost and almost every word goes in one ear, just to fall right out the other a second later.
you’re just so beautiful. and funny. and your eyes are so pretty. and so is your voice, the one you’re talking to him with right now. and the outfit you’re wearing just to see a movie with your best friend is making steve’s mouth go dry. he’s so screwed.
“...set in the 60s, i think…teaches her to dance…grey, from ferris bueller, and…you know, patrick swayze, right, steve?”
steve has to blink a few times after you say his name–it’s like music to his ears–and his eyes snap away from where they had been locked onto your lips to meet your eyes before you look up at him.
“huh?” he asks, and you scoff, rolling your eyes again, but your lip curls into a small smile.
“you’re so annoying, steve, you’re not even listening!” steve gets so hung up on your words, that he doesn’t notice the fondness in your tone, or the soft giggle that follows. annoying? goddammit, harrington, get your shit together.
“sorry,” he says a little bashfully, looking down at his nike’s and scuffing one foot against the carpet. “what were you saying? patrick who?”
“patrick swayze,” you repeat the name, and steve notices the fondness in your tone when you say that guy’s name, but not when you say his own, because of course he doesn’t.
“what’s he from?” steve queries, ignoring the way his heart hurts at just the implication of you possibly liking someone else, even if it is some celebrity. but what can he expect? he doesn’t own you, and he certainly had never made a move on you, despite the fact he’s been head-over-heels in love with you for the better half of a decade.
“um…” you bite your lip, like you’re putting thought into it, trying to think of a film steve had seen, but steve just takes it as you having a crush on this swayze guy (which you do, to be fair). “oh! he was in that one… the outsiders! remember that one?”
“that the one with the guys with weird names and lame hair?” steve questions, and you snicker, patting his arm. the way your fingertips brush against his jacket sends jolts up steve’s arm and right into his heart.
“sure, if that’s how you wanna describe it,” you say as you reach the front of the line, and you turn your attention to the tired-looking teenage girl in front of you, whose eyes keep flickering between steve and you. “and of course you only notice their hair.”
“what do you wanna get?” steve asks, already pulling out his wallet from the back pocket of his levi’s, and you scoff.
“steve, you don’t have to pay for me every time we go out, you know?” you point out, reaching for your purse, but he brushes you off, waving his hand at you and shaking his head, the smallest smirk itching to slip onto his face.
“i know,” he just shrugs. “what do you want?”
–
about two hours later, steve’s leaving the cinema with you by his side, and you are positively beaming, but somehow still dabbing at tears in the corners of your eyes.
steve didn’t totally hate the movie, he had actually kind of enjoyed it, but there’s no way he’s admitting that to you. however, he doesn’t quite get why you’re crying. the movie wasn’t really sad or anything, it was just dancing.
“you okay? it’s just a movie,” he asks, almost teasingly, and you shoot him a sharp look, painfully similar to a glare, as you wipe the tears from your eyes. steve’s taken aback. “what did i do?”
“‘just a movie,’” you repeat with a scoff. “god, steve.”
“what?” he asks, his forehead creasing as his brows drew inwards, a frown settling on his lips. idiot, idiot, idiot!! steve, you better shut up before you say something else stup– “i mean, it was? they’re just dancing.”
you roll your eyes at him, and steve is cursing at himself in his head. if robin could see him now, she’d be adding another 50 lines to the ‘you suck’ side of the old whiteboard she used to keep in the back of scoops ahoy.
“it was sweet, steve,” you put emphasis on the word, though your tears have dried now. “‘nobody puts baby in a corner’–” you let out a groan, and steve’s adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed carefully at the sound. “and the lift? the way he looked at her… the kiss… it was all so… so beautiful.” you let out another groan and wipe your eyes, erasing any evidence that you had even been crying before shooting steve a look. “whatever, i forgot boys don’t have emotions.”
steve let out a guffaw, shaking his head at you with a scoff and you raise your brows at him. he points towards himself, giving you an incredulous look like you’re acting crazy. “i have emotions.”
“okay, so how did you feel about the movie, then?” you ask as the two of you cross the road towards his beamer again. steve shrugs, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his brown jacket.
“it was… good,” steve says first, then he notices the look you’re giving him. he’s quick to correct himself. “nice. it was nice.”
“it was nice.” you repeat, and with the way your eyes stare him down, steve feels like he messed up his answer.
“uh, yeah,” he chuckles, reaching for his car keys as he clears his throat, scrunching one of his hands into a fist and holding it in front of his mouth to cover the cough. “i mean, like, it was good.”
“you’re just proving my point, steve,” you giggle, and steve’s heart flips in his chest at the sound. he was midway through unlocking the car, but now he’s distracted, watching you. you’re still beautiful even when you’re complaining about him. “you’re telling me nothing in that movie–nothing at all–made you feel anything?”
he just shrugs again and goes back to unlocking the car. “i mean, the sex scenes really got me going…”
“gross!” you make a face and steve hides the way it almost upsets him. he misses the way you cover an amused smile with your hand. “you’re an idiot.”
“i know,” he sighs as he slides into the driver’s seat, watching you take your usual spot in his passenger seat.
close to halfway into the drive to your house, steve’s mind is almost spiraling. he’s recounting (and overthinking) every single interaction the two of you had today. you called him annoying, you called him an idiot, you glared at him, said he didn’t have feelings… do you actually just hate him?
but then he thinks about how inside the cinema, when baby and johnny kissed for the first time, his eyes had flicked over to you. he could’ve sworn that, even in the darkness, you had met his eyes before looking away. he thinks about how your hands brushed against each other when you were both reaching for popcorn at the same time. he thinks about how when you had started to cry, you had actually held his hand, just for a moment.
your voice interrupts his thoughts, forcing its way into his head where it lives permanently.
“you know, i think jennifer grey and patrick swayze had some really good chemistry in that movie, don’t you?” you say, and steve is brought back into reality, where you’re sitting in the passenger side of his car, talking to him, and he’s just staring into space.
“who?” he asks, confusion overtaking his features.
“baby and johnny,” you clarify for him, not sounding too bothered that you had to, and steve nods. “i thought they were really good.”
steve sees the opportunity, and he takes it. “just good?”
you crack a smile, and steve’s heart soars in his chest. he adjusts his grip on the steering wheel as you shake your head. “fine. you got me. happy?”
“very,” he tells you, proud smile on his face. but that would soon disappear as you continue talking. your voice is usually his favorite sound, but not when you talk about guys you like.
you don’t do it often. in fact, steve had only actually heard you talking about a guy you had a crush on once a couple months back, and that was only because he had overheard you saying something to robin through the wall while he was in the back room of family video. he had no idea who the guy was.
the memory makes steve frown, his stomach twisting uncomfortably in jealousy as he listens to you talk.
“patrick swayze was really good,” you were saying, biting your bottom lip to hold back a smile. steve tries his best to drown out the rest of your words, jealousy still bubbling in his gut, but the end of your sentence catches his attention. “–and he had nice hair. i really like guys with nice hair, you know?”
“huh,” is all steve says aloud. it sounds like you like guys with nice hair, except for when it comes for your best friend who’s hopelessly pining for you. he feels like his throat is closing up, but he’s not gonna cry. his grip on the steering wheel tightens until his knuckles start to go white.
you hum in response. if steve would just turn his head a little to the right he’d see that you were staring at him, hoping he understood what you were implying. your shoulders sag a little while his eyes stay on the road, his brows knitted together.
“so, you have a crush on this patrick guy?” steve attempts to say it light-hearted and teasingly, but the words taste bitter on his tongue, and he’s worried it comes out that way too.
“i mean, yeah, i guess,” you reply and steve nods slowly, doing an awful job at looking unbothered. “but he’s just an actor, steve. i like–” you clear your throat quickly. “i like someone else more.”
someone else. right.
“right,” steve’s still nodding, staring ahead, trying to ignore the way his heart had practically just snapped in half inside his chest. “right, of course.”
you send steve a puzzled look, but he’s not paying any attention anymore. the car is silent for another couple of minutes before you speak again, almost out of nowhere.
“your hair looks nice today, steve,” you compliment, your words coming out shaky, nervous, and steve’s head snaps in your direction immediately, tearing his eyes from the empty road so they land on you.
he swallows and his tongue darts out to wet his lips. he’s facing the road again before he trusts himself to speak. “really?”
steve looks over at you again as you nod. you’re smiling at him, and you have this look in your eyes he’s never noticed before. do you look at him like that all of the time?
“yeah,” you say, twisting your body in your seat so you’re facing him, leaning to the side against the headrest. “it looks really nice. you look cute.”
steve’s practically short circuiting now. he’s struggling to grasp his thoughts, or to string words together, so he just repeats you. “uh, you… you look cute, too.”
he used to be so confident in flirting, so why the hell is he practically melting into a puddle when you called him cute? you grin widely, looking like you’ve just won something.
“you think so?” you ask and steve nods, and then he notices the way your grin fades into a shy smile. that’s when steve realizes that he really had been an idiot.
he had been reading into things the wrong way for god knows how long.
“yeah,” he says with a matching smile as he pulls into your driveway. once his car is parked, steve’s facing you again. “so…”
“so?” you ask, not quite meeting his eyes. steve begins to grin.
“call me crazy if i’m wrong,” he starts, taking off his seatbelt and shifting his entire body so he’s facing you. “but are you flirting with me?”
your eyebrows shoot up and you tease playfully, “you’re crazy.”
“you’re driving me crazy,” he says, pointing at you. “i mean, you’re saying stuff about liking guys with nice hair, then you say i have nice hair. then you’re calling me cute? you’ve got to give a guy a warning before you say that stuff.”
“why?” you ask innocently, and steve wonders if this had been your plan all along when you invited him out today. do you know he’s in love with you?
“‘why?’” he shakes his head and exhales deeply. “jesus. uh, clearly because i’ve been totally in love with you for years.”
if you didn’t know before, steve’s made it perfectly clear now. the confession comes out confidently, unlike how steve had been acting just minutes before, and he watches as you look down at your hands.
“really?” you question softly and he nods.
“well, yeah, what’s not to love?” he asks you and you shrug, that wide smile having returned to your face. steve reaches forward to brush some hair behind your ear, then lets his hand cup your cheek.
“well, i’m sorry, steve, but my heart belongs to someone else,” you tell him, and for just a second steve thinks you’re serious, until you add, “it’s patrick swayze.”
“you’re ridiculous,” he chuckles, then leans across the centre console to kiss you.
the moment your lips connect, your arms are wrapping around his neck to pull him closer, one hand disappearing into his nice hair, threading through the strands and tugging gently.
you pull back for just a second to meet steve’s eyes as he presses his forehead against yours. your hand that wasn’t in his hair drifts down from his neck to sit on his shoulder.
“i love you too, steve,” you whisper, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips before going on. “robin said i was being really obvious with it.”
“did she, now?” he chuckles, kissing you once more.
“mm-hmm,” you pull back to keep talking. “she also told me that you’re in love with me, but i would have to make the first move because you ‘suck at talking to girls now’ and you’re ‘too oblivious to realize when i flirt with you’.”
steve groans and squeezes his eyes shut, letting his hand drop from your cheek to instead grab your hip. “she’s such a traitor.”
“really? ‘cause it seems like she’s done you a favor,” you point out, your lips grazing his once more. “if it weren’t for her, i doubt this would be happening.”
“don’t give her too much credit, baby, you apparently planned all of this like some criminal mastermind,” steve scoffs, then notices the way your eyes light up.
“what did you just call me?” you ask, and steve looks at you confused.
“a criminal mastermind?” he frowns and you chuckle.
“no, before that, silly.” you say, still dragging your hands through his hair.
“baby?” he says and you grin as you lean in to kiss him again.
“just like in the movie,” you murmur before your lips connect, and steve laughs into the kiss, pulling you in closer.
“yeah, just like in the movie,” he agrees, affectionately, before going in for another kiss, this one deeper, hungrier, messier. his tongue enters your mouth, clashing against your own as you moan into it, gripping him tighter. a confident smirk slips onto steve’s face before you’re pulling back again.
“steve, you should take dance lessons–” you start, but he cuts you off with a peck, then presses one finger against your lips.
“shh. less talking, baby, more kissing,” he says and you roll your eyes as he leans in again. you lift your hand to push his face back gently.
“and you wanna keep kissing in your car? or do you wanna make out on my couch until my parents get home?” you suggest and steve’s entire face lights up like an overjoyed puppy as he reaches for the door handle, but not before he leans in to cup your cheek and kiss you once more.
–
a/n: i was planning this one for a while and now that i've gotten a look at it... this mf kinda ugly... sorry if this is disappointing lol, i kinda just felt like i should post something on here. thank you if you've gotten this far, more spidey!steve soon, likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated <3
Always Ruin the Friendship - Walter "Keys" McKey x Reader
unbeknownst to you, your best friend Keys has being yearning after you for well over two decades. will he keep his feelings inside, or decide to ruin the friendship?
a/n - yearning idiots they are so dear to me ok
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The familiar click of your key in the lock echoed down the hallway. It was a sound that had been as constant in Walter McKey’s life as the hum of his computer towers. You didn't even bother turning on the living room light as you kicked off your shoes, leaving them in their usual pile by the door - next to Key’s meticulously organized shoe rack.
You found him exactly where you expected him to be, hunched over his dual monitors in the dim glow of his setup. Keys didn't turn around immediately, but you saw his shoulders relax, the tight set of his jaw softening as he recognized the rhythm of your footsteps.
"That bad?"
"Worse," you groaned, bypassing his desk and heading straight for his bed. It was a sprawling, king-sized mess of high-thread-count sheets a tangle of blankets and pillows. It smelled faintly of that specific, expensive detergent he liked with a hint of cologne. You flopped face down onto the mattress with a thud, letting out a long, muffled scream into his pillow.
Keys finally swiveled his chair around, leaning back to rest his arms on the armrests. He watched you with that intense, focused gaze he usually reserved for debugging a critical server failure, his expression unreadable in the blue light of the screens.
"Was dinner at least good before he turned out to be an asshole?" Keys asked, though there was a dryness to his tone that suggested he already knew the answer.
You rolled onto your back, staring up at the ceiling fan that spun lazily above you. "He spent twenty minutes explaining the stock market to me like I was a toddler - he knew I work in finance, Keys, it’s literally on my profile - and then when the waitress came over, he told her I'd have a salad because 'ladies gotta watch their figures, right?'"
Keys let out a sharp, incredulous scoff, his hand clenching unconsciously around the armrest of his chair. "Please tell me you ordered a steak."
"Biggest one on the menu," you replied, a small smirk tugging at your lips despite your annoyance. "And then I told him I needed to use the bathroom. Left him and the check. And here I am.”
Keys huffed a laugh, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. There was a lingering tension there, a darkening of his gaze that he tried to hide by turning back to his monitors.
"I don't know why you keep giving these guys the time of day, honestly. You could ... You could do so much better."
"Yeah, maybe I should find someone who looks at his computer monitors all day & ignores me," you teased, throwing a pillow at his back. It hit him squarely between the shoulders, and he spun around again, catching the pillow on the rebound.
"You know what I mean," Keys said, his voice dropping an octave. He tossed the pillow back to you, and you caught it, burying your face in it again to hide the flush that was creeping up your neck. "I just hate seeing you waste your Friday nights on guys who think the height of romance is talking over you."
"It's not a total waste if I get a good story out of it," you mumbled into the fabric, though the words felt hollow. You could feel Keys's eyes on you, heavy and scrutinizing, and it made your skin prickle.
"That’s it" he said, pushing himself up from his chair. "You need comfort food. I'm ordering from that Thai place you like.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Sorry? Can’t hear you. Your face is buried in my sheets.”
"You're the best, Keys," you sighed, burrowing deeper into his blankets as he grabbed his phone.
Keys disappeared into the kitchen to place the order, the smile faded from your face. You curled onto your side, breathing in the scent of him that clung to the pillows, and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in your gut that maybe, just maybe, you were starting to wish that the person you were coming home to wasn't just your best friend.
Meanwhile, Keys stood in the kitchen, phone pressed to his ear, but he wasn't listening to the woman on the other end of the line reciting the specials. His gaze was fixed through the open doorway, locked on the sight of you burrowed into his bed. You looked small there, swallowed by the dark grey duvet, your hair fanned out across his pillow. Even though you joked about the shitty date, he knew it bothered you. Each bad date seemed to chip away at you slowly.
"Sir? The order?" the voice crackled.
"Uh, yeah," Keys blinked, tearing his eyes away with a physical effort. He rambled your order from memory, then his own, and hung up quickly,
He leaned back against the counter, gripping the cool granite edge until his knuckles turned white. This was the routine, and it broke his heart. You came over, broken and angry, and he was your supportive best friend. The safe harbor. He fixed you food, let you vent, and made you laugh until you forgot about the assholes who didn't deserve the air you breathed.
And then you left. Or worse, you fell asleep next to him, completely unaware that he spent half the night staring at the ceiling, fighting the urge to reach out and pull you close against him.
It wasn’t as if you owed him anything at all, he knew that. But it wasn’t fair to you that guys treated you like garbage. Even if you never ultimately ended up with Keys, he still wanted nothing but happiness for you.
Keys pushed off the counter and walked back into the bedroom, hovering in the doorway. You were scrolling through your phone, your brow furrowed as you presumably swiped through your dating apps or re-read the insulting text messages from the night’s disaster.
"He hasn't texted yet," you muttered, sounding almost disappointed. "Usually by now they're calling me a tease or something."
Keys felt a muscle in his jaw jump. "Give it time," he said, his voice clipped. "He’s probably just drafting a manifesto on why you’re too intimidating for him."
You laughed, dropping the phone onto the mattress and looking up at him. The sight of your smiling face - eyes bright, trusting, completely at home in his space - hit him like a punch to the chest.
God, he loved you.
This wasn't a new realization, but sometimes it overtook him with the force of a tidal wave, washing away all the logical arguments he’d constructed about why friendship was safer. He knew exactly how you took your coffee, that you slept with one foot sticking out from under the covers when it was hot, and the specific furrow of your brow when you were trying to guess the plot of a movie. He knew what your hugs felt like. The different types of laughter he could pull from you. The rhythm of your breathing when you were falling asleep.
He knew everything. And above all, he knew he couldn't have you.
Keys strolled over to the edge of the bed, but instead of sitting in his chair, he sat on the mattress itself. The springs groaned under his weight, shifting the equilibrium of the bed. He kept a careful distance, a respectful foot of space between them, but he could feel the warmth radiating off your body.
"You know," he started, staring down at his own hands where they rested on his knees. "It drives me crazy."
"What does?" you asked, turning onto your side to face him, propping your head up on your hand.
Keys looked up, his eyes searching yours with an intensity that made your breath hitch. "Watching you go out there and give these guys... these complete morons... the best parts of you. And they just treat it like it's nothing. Like you're nothing."
“I’m used to it, Keys. It’s fine.”
“Don’t say that.” He stopped himself, realizing he was veering too close to the edge. He took a shaky breath and looked away, the yearning so thick in his throat he could barely speak. "It’s just... They don't deserve you," he finished softly. "None of them do."
The silence that followed was heavy, filled with the things he wasn't saying. Keys wanted to reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. Hold your hand He wanted to tell you that he had spent well over two decades memorizing the map of your face, that he would happily spend the next twenty learning the terrain of your heart. He selfishly wanted to ask why you couldn't see what was right in front of you. Why you kept looking for love in the wreckage of bad dates when he had been building a sanctuary for you since the third grade.
Instead, he forced a lopsided smile, one that didn't quite reach his sad eyes. "You need to raise your standards, kid. Way higher."
You were looking at him now, really looking at him, and for a second, Keys panicked that he had given too much away. But then you just sighed, a wistful sound that twisted the knife deeper.
"Easier said than done, Keys," you whispered, your gaze drifting over his face as if you were seeing something new.
Keys nodded, the movement stiff. "Yeah. I know."
The buzzer rang fifteen minutes later, a sharp, electronic trill that cut through the heavy atmosphere in the room. Keys stood up abruptly, grateful for the distraction. If he stayed on that bed any longer, looking at the way you fit so perfectly into his space, he was going to say something he couldn't take back.
"Come on," he said, nudging your foot with his knee. "Living room. I'm not risking Pad Thai on the five-hundred-thread-count."
You groaned but dragged yourself up, padding after him into the living area. You collapsed onto the couch, tucking your feet beneath you, while Keys set up the food on the coffee table. He moved with practiced efficiency, handing you your favorite soda before settling into his usual spot - the corner of the sofa, close enough that his arm rested along the back just inches from your shoulders.
He put on an old favorite, something you had seen a dozen times, letting the familiar dialogue wash over the room. It was a safe buffer, a way to fill the silence that always threatened to turn heavy whenever you came over heartbroken. Keys watched you eat out of the corner of his eye, relieved to see some color returning to your cheeks.
But as the movie rolled on, the mood shifted. You stopped laughing at the jokes. Your fork toyed with the noodles, pushing them around the box without eating.
"You okay?" Keys asked softly, pausing the movie.
You let out a hollow laugh, setting the container down on the table. "Just thinking. About... patterns. You know I love patterns. In games and stuff."
Keys tensed, sensing the direction of your thoughts. "Yeah? What’s -"
You hugged your knees to your chest, shrinking into yourself. "It’s all these dates. I look at them, and I see the flaws in them, right? And I try to make the issues all about them. But..."
You trailed off, staring blankly at the paused TV screen.
"But what?" Keys prompted, though he already dreaded the answer.
"But I'm the common denominator," you replied quietly. "They're all different. They're from different walks of life, jobs, personalities. The only thing all my shitty dates have in common is me."
"That's not how that works," Keys interjected, his tone firm. He shifted on the couch, turning his body toward you. "That's a logical fallacy and you know it. You're looking for a correlation where there isn't one."
"Isn't there?" You looked at him, and your eyes were swimming with unshed tears. "I know I'm too loud, Keys. I'm… I have hard opinions on things. I bury myself in work and I forget to text back for days at a time. I'm messy. I'm... I'm a lot."
"You're passionate," Keys argued, his voice rising. "You're brilliant. You're the most interesting person I know."
"I'm exhausting," you countered, talking right over him. "And maybe that's fine for friends. Like you can handle it because you have to, because we have history. But in a relationship? In a partner?" You shook your head, a single tear finally spilling over and tracking down your cheek. "People want peace, Keys. They want easy. They want someone who doesn't bug them every second of the day. And I look at myself and I just -“
“Don’t -“
“- I just wonder if I'm broken. Like maybe I'm just inherently unlovable. I'm clearly not worthy of being someone's first choice, and maybe I need to learn to be okay with that. Because it just keeps happening.”
The words hung in the air, devastating in their quiet finality.
Keys felt like he’d been punched in the gut. The air left his lungs in a sharp rush, leaving him gasping. Unlovable? The idea was so absurd, so contrary to the fundamental laws of the universe as he understood them, that for a moment he couldn't speak. He looked at you - his best friend, his favorite person, the sun around which his entire life orbited - and saw the cracks in your armor where your own insecurities were bleeding out.
In that moment, he didn't think. He just moved.
Keys reached out, closing the distance between you in a second, and pulled you into him. It wasn't a casual side-hug; it was a full-bodied, desperate embrace. He wrapped his arms around your shoulders, pulling you flush against his chest, one hand coming up to cradle the back of your head.
"Stop," he commanded, his voice ragged and thick with emotion. "Don't you ever say that. Don't even think it."
You stiffened for a fraction of a second, surprised by the intensity of his reaction, but then you melted. You collapsed against him, your face burying in the fabric of his hoodie. The familiar and comforting scent of him overwhelmed you, and the dam broke.
"I j-just want to be loved," you sobbed, the sound muffled against his chest. You knew you sounded pitiful, but you were too emotionally wrung-out to care. "I just wanna be enough for s-someone."
"You are," Keys whispered into your hair, his eyes squeezing shut as he held you tighter.
He wanted to scream that he loved you. That he had loved you through when you both had braces and bad haircuts and college breakdowns and career changes. He wanted to tell you that you were the only thing he had ever wanted, that he would do just about anything short of a major felony if it meant making you smile.
But the words stuck in his throat, trapped behind the deep fear of ruining everything.
So instead, he just held you. He rubbed slow, soothing circles against your back, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against your ear. He let you cry until your tears soaked through his shirt, letting the silence of the apartment wrap around you both.
Eventually, the sobs tapered off into hiccuping breaths. Your exhaustion, compounded by the emotional release, caught up with you all at once. You didn't pull away. You couldn't. You felt safe, anchored by the steady beat of his heart and the strength of his arms.
"K-Keys?" You murmured, eyes already drifting shut.
"I've got you," he whispered back, not shifting an inch. "I've got you."
You mumbled something incoherent, your body going limp against him. Within minutes, you were asleep, your breathing deep and even. Keys adjusted his position slightly to accommodate you, angling his body so you could rest more fully against him.
He looked down at you, fast asleep in his arms, and felt a profound sense of agony mixed with a fierce, terrifying tenderness. He pressed a lingering kiss to the top of your head, a gesture you were already far too asleep to notice.
"You are so loved," he whispered into the dark, the words a secret offering to the void. "More than you know."
Sunlight was seeping through the slats of the blinds, cutting bright lines across the duvet. You woke up slowly, confused for a moment by the scent of somewhere that wasn’t your own bedroom, and the undeniable warmth of a body beneath your cheek. You blinked your eyes open, face pressed against the soft fabric of a grey t-shirt that smelled distinctly of Keys.
It took a second for the hazy memories of the night before to filter back through the fog of sleep - the crying, the humiliation, the utter devastation of feeling broken. And then, the memory of Keys’s arms around you, tight enough to bruise, holding you together even though you felt like you were falling apart.
You lifted your head slightly, wincing at the stiffness in your neck. You were in his bed with zero memory of moving from the couch to the bedroom, which meant Keys must’ve carried you. Your face burned with a mixture of mortification and a fluttering, traitorous warmth.
Looking down, you saw that one of your arms was thrown haphazardly across his chest, your fingers clutching the fabric of his shirt like a lifeline. Keys was lying on his back, one arm tucked under his head, the other resting carefully on top of the covers near his hip. He was awake. You could tell by the rhythm of his breathing and the tension in the line of his jaw. He was staring resolutely at the ceiling, visibly straining to keep his body rigid and still, maintaining a sliver of space between your lower halves despite the entanglement of your upper bodies.
You froze, breath catching in your throat.
“G’morning.”He didn't look down at you, keeping his eyes fixed on the ceiling fan as if it held the secrets to the universe.
"Oh my god," you whispered, snatching your hand back as if you’d been burned. You scrambled backward, nearly tumbling off the edge of the mattress in your haste to put distance between you. It wasn’t as if you hadn’t fallen asleep next to him before, but you’d never encroached upon his personal space so much. “Keys, I am so sorry. I didn't mean to, like, maul you in my sleep."
He finally turned his head, his expression one of controlled neutrality, though his eyes were soft. "It's fine. You were exhausted. And..." He paused, a faint, crooked smile touching his lips. "It wasn't like it was a hardship carrying you in here."
"You carried me?" You groaned, burying your face in your hands. “I’m a disaster. I cry all over your shirt, I unload my neuroses on you, and then I force you to lug me around like a sack of potatoes."
"I'd hardly call it forcing," he said, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He stretched, his t-shirt riding up slightly to reveal a slice of pale skin and the jut of his hipbone. You forced your gaze away. "You fell asleep. I wasn't gonna leave you on the couch."
You smiled slightly. The twinge of shame of the night before was still there, a lingering heaviness in your chest, but it felt manageable in the bright light of day. With Keys, it always felt manageable.
He stood up, ruffling a hand through his messy hair. “Okay. Coffee. I need approximately a gallon of it to function, and I know you do too."
“Bless. I could kiss you," you sighed dramatically, flopping back onto the pillows.
Keys paused in the doorway, his back to you. You saw his shoulders stiffen again, just for a fraction of a second, before he relaxed. "Don't threaten me with a good time," he threw over his shoulder, his tone light. But there was an undercurrent of something else there. Something strained that made your heart skip a beat.
Twenty minutes later, you were sitting at his kitchen island, wrapped in one of his old hoodies , clutching a mug of doctored coffee. Keys was leaning against the counter opposite you, nursing his own cup, watching you with that quiet, attentive focus he reserved only for you. The apartment was quiet, the hum of the refrigerator the only sound. You took a sip of the hot liquid, letting it ground you.
As Keys got distracted checking his phone, you snuck in the opportunity to look at him. Really look at him. He was handsome, maybe in a way that was easy for you to overlook because, to you, he was just Keys. Your constant. The one who picked up the pieces when you shattered. The one who knew your order without asking. And apparently the one who carried you to bed when you were too tired to walk. You were all those things for him too (aside from maybe the carrying one), even though he didn’t fall apart nearly as often as you.
I'm not lovable, you had said last night. The memory made your chest ache.
But sitting here, watching him try to hide a yawn behind his mug because he’d given you the comfortable spot on the bed, you felt a sudden, sharp clarity. Maybe the problem wasn't that you weren't lovable. Maybe the problem was that you were looking for love in people who didn't know the first thing about it.
You set the mug down with a decisive clink.
"I'm done," you announced.
Keys raised an eyebrow. "With the coffee? I can make more if you -“
"No," you said, shaking your head. "With dating. With the apps. All of it."
Keys lowered his mug slowly, his eyes narrowing. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," you confirmed, feeling a sense of peace settle over you. "Last night... It wasn't just about him. It was about all of them. And about me. I realized that I keep jumping into these things hoping someone else will fix whatever is wrong with me. But that's not how it works. I need to fix me."
“You don’t need fixing.” He ventured cautiously, seemingly choosing his words with care.
You looked up at him, your gaze steady. “Maybe fixing it the wrong word. I need… I need to figure myself out. I wanna look in the mirror and actually like the person staring back at me. So I'm taking a break from men ‘till that happens.”
Keys watched you for a long moment, his expression nearly unreadable. Then, a slow, genuine smile spread across his face. It reached his eyes, crinkling the corners, and lit up his entire face. "That," he said quietly, “is a very smart idea.”
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," he nodded. He took a sip of his coffee, looking at you over the rim of the mug with a warmth that made your toes curl. "You deserve to be happy, you know. Not just content or distracted. Happy. And if taking a break is what helps you get there, then I'm all for it."
Keys set his cup down and walked over to where you sat, leaning his hip against the counter right next to you. He was close enough that you could smell the coffee on his breath and the scent of his skin.
"Besides," he added, his voice dropping to that low, intimate register that surprised you, "it's not like you're going to be alone. You've got me, and I’m not going anywhere."
You looked up at him, struck by how much you meant it. "I know," you whispered. "Thank God for that."
Keys smiled, reaching out to tap your nose with his index finger. "Exactly. Now, eat your bagel. I'm not letting you start down the path of self love on an empty stomach."
The transformation wasn't sudden, but it was undeniable. Like the slow brightening of the sky just before sunrise, or a flower you were anxiously hoping would bloom, if you just gave it enough love. Over the next few months, Keys watched you rebuild yourself from the ground up, and it was the most beautiful thing he had ever witnessed.
You learned to stop apologizing for taking up space. You threw yourself into both your work and life with a renewed vigor - even landing a promotion that had you walking into his apartment one night, glowing with a pride that made his chest ache happily. You started wearing a leather jacket you’d gotten on a whim at a thrift store (and he’d always really liked on you) but you’d felt it was too cool for you to wear. You filled your weekends with pottery classes and rock climbing and solo trips to the museum, coming back to him with stories about your time, eyes bright and animated.
He saw you turn down a date with a guy who practically looked like a Greek god, simply because you didn't want to sacrifice your Sunday morning reading/coffee time.
"I'm good, I think,” you’d told Keys over the phone, sounding breezy and light. "I like my life right now. I don't need to complicate it."
It was truly all he had ever wanted for you - watching you embrace the person he had always known you were - brilliant, independent, and happy. And his heart swelled with a fierce, protective joy every time he looked at you. If it meant he had to keep his feelings buried under six feet of concrete to watch you shine like this, he would do it. Gladly.
Six months after your dating hiatus began, you had him come over for movie night at your place. You were curled up on the end of the sofa, a glass of Cabernet in one hand, animatedly dissecting the plot holes of the thriller you’d just finished. Keys was stretched out on the other end, nursing his second glass of the same wine, watching the way your hands moved when you talked, the flush on your cheeks from the alcohol.
"You're wrong," Keys argued, grinning even though his speech was beginning to slur. He’d always been a lightweight. "The time dilation makes perfect sense if you account for the relativistic effects of the black hole's accretion disk."
"You're such a nerd," you laughed, throwing a piece of popcorn at him. "No one cares about the disk, Keys. They care about the robot!"
You ended up watching two more movies, the bottle of wine steadily emptying as the night wore on. By the time the credits rolled on the third film, your eyes were drooping, your head lolling against the back of the sofa.
"Bed," you mumbled, struggling to sit up. "Now."
"Come on," Keys said, standing up and pulling you to your feet. You swayed slightly, wrapping an arm around his waist for support.
"You're staying," you stated firmly, though it came out more like a sleepy order.
“My place is literally across the street,” Keys pointed out, steering you toward the bedroom.
"Don't care," you grumbled, collapsing face-first onto your bed. "Stay."
Keys sighed, but there was no real resistance in it. He knew better than to argue with you when you were drunk and tired. He kicked off his shoes and lay down on the other side of your bed, careful to leave a respectful valley of sheets between you.
"Goodnight, Keys," you whispered, already drifting off.
"Night," he whispered back, watching the rise and fall of your back in the dim light filtering in from the hallway. He closed his eyes, intending to stay awake just long enough to make sure you were fully asleep before he slipped out to the couch.
But the wine was heavy, and the warmth of your apartment was soothing, and the rhythmic sound of your breathing was the most effective lullaby he’d ever known. Within minutes, Keys was out cold.
Keys woke up slowly, dragged from the depths of a dreamless sleep by the insistent pressure of sunlight against his eyelids. He was warm - achingly, comfortably warm. He shifted slightly, and his brain registered the sensation of soft hair tickling his nose and the steady drum of a heartbeat against his chest.
His eyes snapped open.
The room was bathed in the soft, golden light of early morning. He was lying on his side. And you were curled into him, your back pressed flush against his front, tangled in the sheets like a contented cat.
Panic, sharp and electric, spiked through his system. He hadn't meant for this to happen. He knew he got cuddly when he drank red wine - a side effect he would’ve tried to mitigate by sleeping on the couch - but here he was, wrapped around you like you were the most precious thing in the universe. Which, frankly - at least to him - you were.
For a moment, just one selfish, reckless moment, he allowed himself to sink into it. He breathed in the scent of your shampoo and pressed his face gently against the back of your neck. He felt the softness of your skin under his cheek, the curve of your hip fitting perfectly against his hand. It felt right. Like coming home after a lifetime of being lost.
He could stay here. God, he could wake up like this every day for the rest of his life.
But then he felt you stir, a soft sigh escaping your lips as you began to shift toward consciousness. The fantasy shattered. If you woke up like this, you’d surely feel awkward, or guilty, or maybe even like Keys had taken advantage of the situation. You were on a journey of self-discovery, and he was your best friend. He wasn't supposed to be the one complicating things.
With a silent groan of regret, Keys began the slow, agonizing process of extricating himself. He moved with the precision of a bomb disposal technician, tugging his arm out from under you inch by inch, trying not to disturb the weight of your head on the pillow. When he finally managed to slide his arm out the blood rushed back into his fingers with a painful tingling sensation.
He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, watching you sleep. You looked peaceful, your face relaxed and unburdened. He reached out, his hand hovering over your hair, but he pulled it back before he could touch you. You are not going to ruin this for her.
Keys padded quietly out of the room, closing the door softly behind him. He headed straight for the kitchen, needing something to do with his hands to burn off the restless energy humming beneath his skin. He found your coffee and then started pulling ingredients from the fridge, moving around your kitchen with easy familiarity, his mind replaying the sensation of waking up with you in his arms. It was a memory he knew he would treasure. A secret he would keep locked away in the vault of his heart.
By the time the smell of brewing coffee and frying eggs began to fill the apartment, Keys had composed himself. He was just your best friend, making you breakfast after a drunken movie night. It was what he did. It was who he was.
Even if he - perhaps greedily - wanted to be so much more.
The fluorescent lights of the grocery store hummed overhead, casting a sterile glow over the aisles. You were pushing the cart with lazy enthusiasm, occasionally tossing items in while Keys walked beside you, methodically checking the list on his phone.
It was a Monday evening routine that had solidified over the past few months: dinner at your place or his, preceded by a joint trip to the grocery store. It was domestic, comfortable, and usually devoid of any drama.
Until you reached the cereal aisle.
You were debating the merits of Cinnamon Toast Crunch versus Cocoa Pebbles when you noticed Keys stop. He was standing near the end cap, staring absently at a display of protein bars, but his attention was clearly elsewhere. You followed his gaze and saw a woman standing a few feet away. She was pretty and stylish with dark hair and a sharp, intelligent gaze.
She caught Keys looking and didn't look away. Instead, she smiled, a slow, confident curve of her lips, and walked over.
"Hey," she said, her voice bright. “Hate to be a bother, but I was wondering if you could help me reach that box on the top shelf? I think the store is trying to hide it from short people."
Keys blinked, clearly startled that she’d spoken to him at all. You elbowed him slightly, mouthing stop leering, and that seemed to wake him up.
“Uh, yeah. Sure." He crossed to her, reaching up effortlessly, his t-shirt riding up slightly to reveal a strip of pale skin as he grabbed the box and handed it to her, offering a polite, close-lipped smile. "Here you go."
"Thanks," she said, lingering just a little too long. She looked him up and down, her appreciation obvious. "I'm Victoria, by the way."
“Uh, Walter," he replied, his tone curt but not unkind. He took a half-step back, his body subtly angling away from her and back towards you. He didn't try to keep the conversation going, or ask her a single follow-up question. He just nodded once and turned back to you.
"Cereal decision made?" Keys asked, as if the interaction had never happened.
You stared at him, mouth slightly open. You watched Victoria walk away, looking back over her shoulder one last time with a mildly hurt shrug before disappearing around the corner.
"Keys," you hissed, swatting his arm with the back of your hand. "What is wrong with you?"
"What?" He asked, feigning ignorance as he grabbed a box of Fruit Loops and tossed it into the cart.
"She was flirting with you!” You lowered your voice, glancing around to make sure no one was listening. "She was cute. And she probably totally loved your Star Wars t-shirt., I could tell."
Keys shrugged, keeping his eyes fixed anywhere but you. "She wasn't my type."
"You don't have a type," you argued, pushing the cart forward and forcing him to walk beside you. "You have a blacklist of people you refuse to date, but you don't have a type. Why didn't you try and get her number?"
"I just didn't feel a spark," he mumbled, picking up speed as if he could outrun the conversation.
You let it drop until you were back in the car, the engine humming as you pulled out of the parking lot. The streetlights blurred past, casting shifting shadows across the interior of the cab. Keys was staring out the passenger window, his jaw set in a stubborn line, his hands resting on his knees.
"Okay, seriously," you said, breaking the silence. "Why didn't you get her number? Or the girl at the coffee shop last week? Or the one at the gym last month? Just because I’m on a dating sabbatical doesn’t mean you have to be.”
Keys let out a long, weary sigh. "Can we just listen to that podcast? We only have the last ten minutes left.”
"No," you said, glancing over at him. "We are not listening to a podcast. We are talking about this. You're a great guy, Keys. You're smart, funny, you're loyal... And, let's be honest.” You cleared your throat.” “You're what the kids call painfully handsome. You could probably have anyone you wanted. So why don’t you?”
The air in the car seemed to thicken, heavy and suffocating. Keys didn't answer. He just kept staring out the window, his face purposefully turned away from you.
"Is it because of me?" You asked, the thought suddenly occurring to you. “I know we’re really close, obviously, but I want you to be happy, Keys. You deserve to be happy."
“I am happy.”
“Are you?”
Keys flinched as if you’d struck him, finally turning to look at you. The red glow from the stoplight caught his eyes, and the look in them made your breath catch in your throat. It wasn't annoyance, or even the usual gentle amusement. It was devastation. A raw, heartbroken anguish so evident it made your chest hurt.
Anyone would be lucky to have you." Your voice faltered.
"I'm not looking for just anyone," he said, his voice low and rough, scraping against the words. "I don't want anyone."
"Then what do you want?" you asked, genuinely confused. Why was he looking at you like you were breaking his heart? You were trying to build him up, to tell him how amazing he was. Based on his expression, you may as well have smacked him across the face.
Keys looked at you for a long, agonizing moment, his eyes traced the features of your face as if he was trying to memorize them. He opened his mouth, his lips parting slightly, and for a second, you thought he was actually going to answer. You saw the struggle on his face, the war warring behind his eyes.
But then he closed his mouth, his jaw tightening until a muscle jumped in his cheek. He looked away, turning his gaze back to the dark road outside.
"It doesn't matter," he said, voice hollow. "I'm fine. Really. I'm just... Focused on a lot of other things right now."
You stared at his profile, confused and unsettled. You had meant to compliment him, boost his ego a little. But instead, it felt like you’d accidentally stepped on a landmine. You didn't understand why the idea of him being with someone else seemed to cause him so much pain.
"Okay," you said slowly, turning your eyes back to the road. "But if you change your mind... You know, if you ever want to talk about it..."
"I know," he whispered. "Thanks."
It wasn't anything you could point to specifically - no grand gestures or confessional speeches - but the air between the two of you had shifted.
Over the weeks following the car ride, Keys had become... Sticky? Clingy? Not in an annoying way, but in the way a shadow clings to a wall on a sunny day. He sat just a bit closer to you on the couch, his thigh pressing against yours in a way that felt deliberate. When you walked down the street together, his hand would brush against the small of your back, lingering just a second longer than necessary to guide you through a crowd. He texted you more, called if you were late at the office, and used his key for your apartment almost as much as you used his.
If anyone else had done it, it might have felt suffocating. But from Keys, it just felt warm. You found yourself leaning into it, subconsciously mirroring his movements, craving the contact in a way you hadn't allowed yourself to before.
One evening, you let yourself into his apartment with your usual lack of ceremony. You’d had a long day at work, and your brain felt totally fried.
"Keys?" You called out, kicking off your shoes. “You weren’t picking up your phone, but I brought pizza. Please tell me you haven't eaten."
"In here!" Came the slightly slurred response from the bedroom.
You set the pizza box on the counter and walked in to find him lying on his bed, arm thrown over his eyes, one leg dangling off the edge. There was an empty bottle of beer on the nightstand - ust the one, but he’d always been an intense lightweight.
“Geez, it’s barely six, Keys. Rough day?" You asked, flopping onto the bed beside him. The mattress dipped under your weight, and his leg shifted, knee bumping against yours.
"Rough week," he grumbled, moving his arm to look at you. His eyes were glassy, rimmed with red, and his hair was a disheveled mess. "But the beer is helping. The beer is my friend."
You laughed, turning onto your side to face him. "The beer is a crutch, Walter. But I'll allow it this once.”
He groaned at the use of his full name, rolling onto his side to face you as well. Now you were mirror images, curled up on his mattress, faces inches apart.
"Don't start with me," he warned, but there was no bite in it. He reached out, his hand landing in the space between you, his fingers twitching as if he wanted to close the distance but was stopping himself. "I'm a super delicate flower right now."
"You're a lightweight,” you teased, poking his arm.
Keys caught your hand, his grip firm and warm. He didn't let go. Instead, he tugged gently, pulling you slightly closer, only to flip you on your back. Your breath hitching in your throat as he hovered over you, propping himself up on one elbow to loom above you. It was half a cage, but a soft one. His body created a barrier that blocked out the rest of the world, leaving just you, him, and the sound of his breathing.
“Maybe,” he murmured, looking down at you with a dopey, affectionate grin. "But you're still here. You gonna take care of me since I’m so drunk?”
"I'm always here," you whispered.
Keys leaned down, his forehead resting against yours. It was an intimate gesture, but in the hazy warmth of his room, it felt… Right. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, you know that?"
Your eyes fluttered closed, overwhelmed by the proximity. “A lot of great things have happened to you, Keys."
"No," he said, his voice dropping an octave and warm breath fanning across your skin. "You're... you're it. Like, the metric I judge everyone else by. And everyone else comes up short. So damn short."
He pulled back slightly to look you in the eye, and the expression on his face was so open, so raw, that it made your chest ache.
"I hate it," he confessed, his slurred words tripping over themselves in their rush to get out. "I hate thinking about you... Out there. With those guys ." His face twisted in a grimace of genuine disgust. "It makes me physically ill. It makes me want to puke. Because they don't know how great you are.”
"Keys..." you breathed, your hand coming up to rest on his arm. You could feel the tension thrumming through his muscles.
"I'm serious," he insisted, his big, dark eyes boring into yours. "They don't deserve you. Never did. TNever will."
You searched his face, looking for the joke, the deflection, a sarcastic remark that would diffuse the tension. But there was nothing. Just Keys, looking at you like you were the only star in his sky.
"You're drunk," you said softly, voice trembling.
"Yeah," he breathed, his gaze dropping to your lips. "I am. But I'm not wrong."
His gaze dropped to your lips, and for a heart-stopping second, you thought he was going to do it. The air between you was electric. His breath hitched as he in, gravity pulling him toward you like a tide he couldn't fight. You found yourself leaning up to meet him.
But then, he stopped.
Keys squeezed his eyes shut, a pained expression flashing across his face. He let out a ragged breath and pulled back, rolling onto his back to put a deliberate, agonizing foot of distance between you. He threw an arm over his face, hiding his eyes.
"I can't," he muttered, the words muffled by his elbow. “Fuck. I’m drunk. You're... You. I can't."
“Y-yeah,” your voice came out shaky and uncertain. You felt cold without his warmth, the sudden loss of contact leaving you adrift. "You don't know what you're saying."
“Oh, I know exactly what I'm saying," he argued, though he didn't move his arm. "That's the problem. I always know exactly what I'm saying when I'm around you.”
The silence that followed was thick, heavy with things that hovered on the tip of your tongue but refused to fall. Eventually, Keys’s breathing evened out, the alcohol dragging him down into sleep. You lay there next to him for a long time, staring up at the ceiling, your mind racing a mile a minute. You listened to the rhythm of his breathing, feeling the phantom warmth of his body where he had been caging you in, and realized with a jolt that the ground beneath you had just shifted. Irrevocably.
The warmth beside you when you woke up the next day was deeply comforting. Keys was sprawled on his stomach, one arm thrown carelessly over your waist. You stared at his profile - the messy hair, the long eyelashes, the relaxed line of his jaw - and the events of the night before came rushing back.
You're the best thing that's ever happened to me.
He stirred, groaning as the light hit his face, but he froze when he realized where his arm was. He snatched it back as if he’d been burned, his eyes flying to yours.
"Morning," you said, your voice raspy.
"Morning," he croaked, sitting up and scrubbing a hand over his face. He looked terrified.
The sheets pooled around your waist as you sat up. You watched him fidget and avoid your gaze, then you decided you weren't in the mood for dancing around it anymore. "Keys?"
"Yeah?" He kept his eyes fixed on a loose thread on the duvet.
"Last night," you started. "When you said I was the best thing that's ever happened to you... Did you mean it?"
Keys stilled, but you saw the muscle in his jaw jump. He took a long, shaky breath and let it out slowly.
"Yeah," he admitted, the word barely a whisper. "I meant it."
He finally risked a glance at you, his expression sheepish and vulnerable. "I know I was drunk. I probably sounded like a mess. But... Yeah. Wouldn’tve said it if I didn’t mean it.”
You nodded slowly, digesting this. It wasn't a confession of love, not exactly, but it was close. It was a crack in the foundation of the fortress he’d built around his feelings.
"Okay," you said. You took a deep breath, steeling yourself. "Okay. So, hypothetically..."
Keys’s eyes widened slightly. He recognized that tone. It was the tone you used when you were about to propose a change to the server architecture that would require twelve hours of downtime.
"Hypothetically," he repeated cautiously.
"Have you ever..." You paused, your tongue feeling heavy in your mouth. Just ask it. This situation is already weird. “Have you ever thought about us? Together? Like… A real us"
Keys went pale. Then, a furious flush of red crept up his neck, staining his cheeks. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again.
"I..." He stopped, a hand coming up to rake through his hair. "That's... That's a... A hell of a hypothetical."
"I'm serious," you pressed, though your voice was quiet. You held his gaze, refusing to let him look away. "Have you?"
He looked like he was physically in pain. His eyes were darting around the room, looking for an escape, but there was nowhere to go. Finally, he slumped, his shoulders dropping in defeat.
"Yes," he breathed, the word dragged out of him. "Okay? Yes. I have. I have thought about it."
"A lot?" you asked, needing to know and spurred on by his admission.
Keys let out a dry, humorless laugh. He looked down at his hands, clasped tightly in his lap. "A lot," he whispered. "More than I should, probably.”
Your heart was hammering so hard you thought he might be able to hear it. You looked at this man - your best friend, constant, the person who knew you better than anyone else in the world - and you felt the last of your reservations crumble.
"Me too," you admitted.
Keys’s head snapped up. He stared at you, eyes wide. "What?"
You smiled, a small, tremulous thing. "I've thought about it too," you said. "I think about it a lot. Especially lately."
The silence that followed wasn't heavy or suffocating. It was expectant. It was the breath held before a plunge.
"You do?" Keys asked, his voice cracking.
"I do," you confirmed. You reached out, your hand covering his where it rested on the mattress. His fingers were cold, but they warmed under your touch. "So, hypothetically... What do we do about that?"
Keys stared at your hand on his, his throat bobbing as he swallowed hard. "I don't know," he said honestly. "But I'm done with hypotheticals."
He turned his hand over beneath yours, his palm warm and slightly rough, and laced his fingers through yours. The grip was tight, almost desperate, grounding you both in the sudden, terrifying reality of the moment. Keys shifted closer, the mattress dipping under his weight. The careful distance he had maintained for years - the invisible line he had drawn in the sand to keep you safe, to keep the friendship intact - was gone. He looked at you with an intensity that made your breath catch, his dark eyes searching yours as if memorizing the map of your face for the first time as something other than a friend.
"I've wanted this for so long," he confessed, his voice cracking under the weight of it. "I’ve wanted you for so long. It feels like I’ve been standing on the edge of a cliff, just... Terrified to jump."
"Then jump," you breathed, squeezing his hand. "I promise I’ll catch you."
Keys let out a shaky breath. "You already have," he murmured. "You caught me years ago. I just didn't know how to tell you."
Slowly, giving you every chance to pull back, he leaned in. The world narrowed down to the space between your faces. To the scent of his bed, the warmth of his breath, and the hope in his eyes. When he finally kissed you, it was with a deliberate, reverent tenderness that nearly shattered you.
It was slow and sweet, a question and an answer all at once. His free hand came up to cup your jaw, his thumb brushing against your cheekbone with a touch so light it made you shiver. You leaned into him, your hand moving to rest against his chest, feeling the frantic rhythm of his heart beating in time with yours. It felt like coming home, and part of you wondered how on earth you hadn’t seen him - truly seen him - before.
When he pulled back, his forehead resting against yours, neither of you spoke. The air in the room felt different. Lighter. Happier. Charged with the electricity of a brand new beginning. Keys opened his eyes, and the look in them - unfiltered, adoring, terrified, and hopeful all at once - made your chest ache.
You didn’t know what else to do, so you laughed, and he joined you. Then you surged forward to kiss him again. This time, there was no hesitation or slowness. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him flush against you, and felt him groan low in his throat as he deepened the kiss. He wrapped his arms around your waist, hauling you into his lap and burying his face in the crook of your neck.
"I can't believe this is happening," he mumbled against your skin, pressing kisses along your jaw. "I keep waiting for myself to wake up. Or for you to realize you can do better."
You pulled back to look him in the eye, framing his face with your hands. "Hey," you said firmly. "There is no 'better.' There is just you. It’s always been you, Keys. I was just too stupid - and maybe too scared - to see it."
"I was scared too," he admitted, leaning into your touch. "Terrified. I thought if I said anything and you didn't feel the same, I’d lose you. And I'd rather have you as my best friend than not have you at all."
"Well," you smiled, brushing a stray lock of hair away from his forehead. "You don't have to worry about that anymore. You're stuck with me now."
Keys smiled. A genuine, radiant smile that reached all the way to his eyes before he leaned in and kissed you again, long and slow. As you lost yourself in the sensation of his arms around you and the taste of his lips, you knew with a sudden, blinding clarity that the search was over. You weren't looking for love in the wreckage of bad dates anymore. You had found it right here. In the quiet moments between late night chats, grocery store runs, and movie marathons.
"Good," he finally answered, tightening his hold on you. "Because I have no intention of letting you go."
steve harrington x reader fanfiction | fratboy!steve | platonic!stobin (i promise) | mentions of cheating (but it's not real cheating) | mean!steve, playboy!steve | sort of friends to enemies to fwb to lovers | slowish burn | angst | hurt ... eventual comfort
warnings: angst. sammy jumpscare... hate that guy. knew what he was all along. n e way....... yearning. COMING OUT SCENE! hopeful future
words: 21k (now. u guys know why it took forever)
summary: When you find out your college roommate/friend robin buckley's boyfriend, steve harrington— who you thought beat all stereotypical frat boy odds— is cheating on her, you find it hard to understand why she still wants to be with him. But there is more than meets the eye. You aren't sure if you want to be roped into it.
a/n: okay first off hello. hi. there might be a bit of errors because its so hefty and i couldn't catch everything!!!!! also, i hope the coming out scene is done okay. this is why it took forever too. i just obviously don't know how thats like and i don't want anyone thinking robin came out for other people. this chapter means a lot to me now.
masterlist | Rules/Playlist
Chapter 17
You're not shocked or surprised when you open the door to your hotel room and see Robin standing out on the balcony, silhouetted against the night sky.
Polly must be somewhere else. With Eddie, probably, now that you know the truth about who's been making those sounds through the wall.
Robin is smoking a cigarette.
Robin doesn't smoke cigarettes. She'll drink until she's sick, will smoke weed until her eyes are red and glassy, but she's always drawn a hard line at cigarettes. "They're disgusting," she'd say whenever someone offered her one at a party. "I don't understand how anyone can stand them."
You close the door gently behind you, catching sight of yourself in the mirror mounted on the wall. Your face is splotchy and swollen, eyes puffy from crying, mascara smudged beneath your lashes like bruises. Your jaw sets, muscles tensing, because you know the night isn't ending yet. Know there's one more confrontation to survive before you can collapse.
You walk closer to the balcony, and Robin hears you over the sound of waves crashing below. She looks over her shoulder at you, her long straight chestnut hair whipping in the wind, catching the light from the room behind you and the moon above. Robin's face hardens when she sees you, jaw clenching, and she watches as you step out onto the balcony but keep your distance—standing close enough to talk but far enough that you won't accidentally touch.
Robin snaps her focus back to the ocean, and you see her grimacing at the cigarette in her hand like it betrayed her somehow, like she can't believe she's actually smoking it.
There's a beat of silence. Just the waves and the distant sound of music from a party somewhere down the beach and the wind rustling through the palm trees below.
And in the emptiness, you realize how long you've been angry at Robin. How long you've pushed it aside, buried it deep, ignored it for the sake of your friendship because losing her felt unthinkable. But it's been there all along, festering beneath the surface.
Robin takes another drag, exhaling smoke that gets caught by the wind and dispersed immediately. "Nancy broke up with me." Her voice is flat, dead. "Jonathan is taking her to the airport right now."
Your heart drops, stomach plummeting like you've just fallen off a cliff. You look out at the ocean again, listening to people laughing somewhere in the distance. Probably drunk college students having the time of their lives while yours falls apart.
But you don't say anything. You wish you could've seen Nancy before she left. Wish you could've hugged her, told her you understood, told her you were sorry.
Robin continues, shaking her head, and you realize she must have been crying before she came back to the room. Her eyes are red-rimmed, puffy, nose running slightly. "We went looking for you, you know? After you left the restaurant. And I asked her if you were telling the truth. If she was actually miserable." Robin's voice breaks, cracking down the middle. "She told me she loves me. But she can't lie anymore."
Robin finally looks at you, tears streaming down her face, catching the moonlight. "Are you happy now?"
You scoff, the sound harsh and bitter. You take a moment to close your eyes and breathe—in through your nose, out through your mouth, trying to steady yourself. "Why would that make me happy, Robin?"
"Because isn't this what you wanted?" Robin's voice rises, sharp with accusation. "Since you can't be with Steve, you have to break me and Nancy up?"
You twist your body to face her fully, nose flaring with anger. "Cut that shit out, Robin." Your voice is hard, uncompromising. "I have been there for you and Nancy from the beginning, and you know it. I have always been there for you two."
You take a breath, trying to contain the fury building in your chest. "Seeing you be your full self around her when you can—god, Robin, you have no idea how much it kills me that it's not enough. That neither of you can be happy hiding like this." Your voice softens slightly, but the anger is still there underneath. "Of course I didn't want you to break up. But what else is there to do when you won't admit the arrangement isn't working?"
You pause, gathering courage for the question you've wanted to ask for months. "Does Nancy really want it to be you, her, and Steve for the rest of your lives? Do you?"
Robin's face transforms immediately at the last part—sadness replacing anger, lips twisting as she tries not to sob. Tears run faster down her cheeks, dripping off her jaw. She doesn't answer the question. Instead, she deflects.
"Nancy told me I was pretending not to see that you and Steve like each other." Robin pauses, swallowing hard. "I wasn't pretending. I knew Steve liked you. He told me."
Your face drops. Your heart skips a beat, then starts racing, pounding so hard you can feel it in your throat.
Robin swallows thickly, her throat working. "But I shut it down."
Your eyes flare wide, heat flooding through you—part anger, part devastation. "How?"
Robin's jaw ticks, muscle jumping under skin. She rubs her free hand over her face, takes another drag of the cigarette that's now barely more than a filter. "I told him what you told me. That you didn't like him like that and never would."
Your eyes dance over Robin's face. You’re searching, trying to understand, trying to process. Your mouth falls open, eyes going wider. "This happened on Friday, didn't it?" The pieces are clicking into place now, sharp and painful. "That's why you were so angry? That's why he—"
You trail off, unable to finish the sentence. You grip the balcony railing, knuckles going white from the pressure, trying to steady yourself as the world tilts sideways. Your breathing comes fast and shallow.
"What?" Robin's voice is defensive, aggressive. "I was telling him the truth that I knew. It's not my fault you kept lying to me about how you felt."
"And how the fuck was I supposed to, Robin?" Your voice raises, loud enough that someone in a nearby room might hear. You don't care. "When you told me not to? When you said he doesn't do relationships? Maybe he doesn't do relationships because of you. Because he thinks you're all he has."
Robin is taken aback, face crumbling like you've struck her. She looks young suddenly, vulnerable, scared and small.
But you can't stop now. The words are pouring out, months of frustration and hurt and swallowed feelings finally breaking free. "This isn't about me and him. This is about you." Your voice drops, going quieter but no less intense. "I have been nothing but understanding. But I don't understand why you still feel like you have to hide behind him. I'm not saying you need to come out to the world, but... maybe you should come out to yourself."
Robin lets out a choked sob, her whole body shaking with it. "I think you should leave."
You curl your lips inward, biting down hard enough to taste copper. You sniffle, wiping at your face. "Yeah. I was planning on it."
Robin stubs out the cigarette in the ashtray the hotel has set out on the balcony, grinding it down with more force than necessary. She gives you one more look—angry and hurt and betrayed all at once—before storming past you into the hotel room. The door slams behind her with enough force to rattle the frame.
You stand on the balcony alone, the ocean stretching out before you dark and endless. You let out a shaky breath and cry into your hands, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
You finally collect yourself enough to go back inside. You pack your things, though you realize you hadn't really unpacked much from the first night anyway—like some part of you always knew this would happen, was always prepared to run.
You don't see anyone else you know as you slip through the hotel halls. They're all hiding in their respective rooms probably, licking their wounds, trying to figure out what happens next.
You wonder if Steve is safe. Wonder if he made it back to his room okay, if Jonathan or Eddie are with him, if he's still crying on that empty beach.
You almost—almost—go to the room you suspect he's sharing with Jonathan. Room 408, you think, or was it 412? You could knock, could make sure he's okay, could tell him you lied when you said you don't love him.
But no. You can't. You can't see him again, can't risk changing your mind, can't let yourself hope for something that will never work.
You hail a cab to the airport instead, throwing your duffel bag in the trunk and climbing into the backseat. The driver asks where you're going and you tell him Miami International, and then you sit in silence for the forty-minute drive, watching the city lights blur past the window.
At the airport, your eyes scan the departure board, tracking over different destinations. New York. Los Angeles. Chicago. Atlanta. Dallas. Boston.
You have no idea where to go. You don't want to go back to college, back to that dorm room, back to staring at Robin's empty bed and being reminded of everything you've lost.
You sigh and walk up to the ticket counter, telling the worker where you want to go. Home. Back to your parents' house, back to your childhood bedroom, back to a place where things made sense before Steve Harrington and breaking your own heart.
Later, standing at a payphone with coins clutched in your sweaty palm, you dial your parents' number. It rings three times before your mom picks up.
"Hello?"
"Mom?" Your voice cracks on the word, and you bite back another sob.
"Honey? Are you okay? I thought you were in Miami—"
"I'm coming home." The tears are falling again, and you can't stop them. "Can you pick me up from the airport? Tomorrow morning?"
There's a pause, and you can hear the concern in your mother's voice when she speaks. "Of course. Of course, sweetheart. What happened?"
"I'll tell you when I get there," you lie, knowing you won't, knowing you'll smile and say spring break was fine and your friends were busy and you just missed home.
But your mom doesn't push. She never does. She asks what time your flight lands, tells you she'll be there, tells you she loves you.
You hang up the phone and stand there in the fluorescent lighting of the airport terminal, surrounded by strangers going to places you'll never see, and you feel more alone than you've ever felt in your life.
.-.-.-.
Sunday of spring break week, your parents drop you back off at school.
Your mom didn't ask questions during the week, thankfully. You'd spent most of it in your childhood bedroom, sleeping too much, eating too little, pretending everything was fine when you came down for meals. But you think maybe this time, if she had asked, you would've told her. Would've broken down and explained everything—Steve, Robin, the lies, the love, the loss of it all.
But she didn't ask, and you didn't tell, and now here you are.
Your parents smother you in hugs and kisses before you get out of the car. Your dad points at you, his usual joke ready. "Don't get pregnant." His way of saying I love you, I'll miss you.
Normally you laugh and roll your eyes and say, "I love you, Dad. I'll see you soon."
But this time your stomach twists violently, and you feel like you could vomit at the thought. At the memory of Steve in the tent saying he'd imagined having kids for the first time, of him looking at that family at the campsite with longing in his eyes. And even though it took forever for you to see you like him, you knew with aching clarity that’s when your heart unzipped itself, letting him in.
You manage a weak smile and a wave instead, then grab your bag and head inside.
Your dorm room is cold when you walk in, the heating apparently turned down over break. You throw your duffel bag on your bed, and the smell hits you immediately—yours and Robin's detergents mixed together, her perfume and your body spray, everything that used to mean home and safety and best friends.
Everything that reminds you that you used to be friends. Best friends.
You break down again, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor, knees pulled to your chest, sobbing into your hands.
Dinner is lonely. The dining hall is mostly empty—most students haven't returned yet, won't be back until late Sunday night or early Monday morning. You sit by yourself at a table near the window, pushing food around your plate without eating much.
The library is lonely. You try to study, to get ahead on reading for your classes, but the words blur together and you can't focus.
Everything is lonely.
That night, when you eventually crawl into bed, you toss and turn. The smell of Miami still clings to your clothes—salt and sunscreen and heartbreak burning in your nostrils. You know it's late, maybe midnight, and you can't stop thinking about two weeks ago when Steve Harrington was standing outside your window, grinning up at you like an idiot, asking you to come downstairs.
You shut your eyes tighter, trying to burn the memory away, to erase it completely.
Then you hear it. The door opening, closing softly. The lock clicking into place.
You don't look over. You keep your eyes closed, your breathing even, pretending to sleep.
You hear slight shuffling. Movement across the room. The sound of Robin changing—fabric rustling, the soft thud of shoes being kicked off, a zipper being pulled.
Then she's getting into her own bed, springs creaking under her weight.
But not before you hear her pause. A sharp intake of breath, like she's been punched.
You'd left Robin's lamp on for her. The small desk lamp she always uses to read before bed, the one with the green glass shade that casts everything in a soft glow.
You swear you hear Robin sniffle—once, then again, trying to muffle the sound.
Then the light clicks off, plunging the room into darkness.
And you both lie there in your separate beds, in the dark, pretending you don't hear each other crying.
.-.-.-.
It's Wednesday morning, and you've managed to shut everyone out completely.
Monday, Robin didn't go to class—still asleep when you left for your morning lecture because she's always had a problem sleeping through her alarm. The shrill beeping goes off at seven, and she slaps at it without opening her eyes, rolls over, and falls back into unconsciousness within seconds.
Normally, you'd shake her awake. Poke her shoulder until she groaned and swatted at you, mumbling something about five more minutes. You'd turn on her desk lamp, pull her blanket off, do whatever it took to get her vertical and moving.
But you don't wake her up this time. You grab your books and leave while she's still snoring softly, one arm thrown over her face to block out the morning light filtering through the blinds.
Tuesday, you saw Sammy in the hallway outside the lecture hall. He was standing by the door with his satchel slung across his chest, clearly waiting for you, and when your eyes met, his face lit up with cautious hope.
But you bolted. Turned on your heel and pushed through the crowd in the opposite direction, even when you heard him call your name softly—tentative, questioning, hurt.
The weeks of school are thinning, winding down toward finals and summer break. A reminder of that comes in the form of a knock on your door Wednesday morning, just as you're pulling on jeans and trying to decide if you have enough clean shirts to make it through the week without doing laundry.
Robin answers it, still in her pajamas—an oversized Blondie t-shirt and shorts that are barely visible beneath the hem. Tessa stands in the hallway, holding out a piece of paper with an apologetic smile.
"Hey, guys. Housing forms for next year. Need them back by next Friday."
Robin takes the paper without looking at it, barely mumbling a thanks before closing the door. She immediately sets it down on her desk like it's contaminated, like touching it too long might burn her. She doesn't even glance at it before turning back to rummaging through her closet for clean clothes.
But you look at it.
You walk over to your desk and pick up the paper, scanning the options printed in neat administrative font:
REQUEST TO MOVE OFF CAMPUS
REQUEST TO MOVE TO A DIFFERENT DORM
REQUEST TO STAY IN CURRENT DORM
And underneath, the section that makes your stomach drop:
REQUEST TO KEEP SAME ROOMMATE — BOTH PARTIES' SIGNATURES REQUIRED
REQUEST FOR A DIFFERENT ROOMMATE
You set the paper on your desk carefully, like it might shatter. Your mouth is dry, tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth.
Another knock comes at the door, sharper this time. Robin groans from somewhere inside her closet, still searching for her other shoe. "Can you get that?"
You open the door. Tessa is still there, looking sheepish. "Hey, sorry again! Hot Shot, you have a call."
You furrow your brows, looking at your watch. It's barely eight in the morning. Who would be calling this early?
Robin emerges from the closet, one shoe on, and gives you an equally curious look as you slip past her into the hallway.
You make your way to the pay phone on your floor, the receiver hanging off the hook where Tessa must have left it to hold the call. You pick it up, the plastic warm against your ear.
"Hello?"
"Oh, thank god." The voice on the other end is frantic, breathless.
"Max?"
"Look, I'm going to cut to the chase." Max doesn't wait for you to respond, words tumbling out rapid-fire. "Last night I called Steve for our weekly call, and he didn't answer. I mean, I wasn't too worried at first because I know he's studying and he's busy with that big test coming up, but yeah... okay..." She takes a breath, and you hear rustling like she's pacing, the phone cord probably stretched to its limit. "Last night I get a call from Dustin. Steve's here. In Hawkins."
You try to process this, to catch every word, but Max is talking fast and your brain feels sluggish, still not fully awake.
"I don't know what you want me to do," you say slowly, carefully.
You pinch the bridge of your nose, feeling a headache building behind your eyes. Out of the corner of your vision, you see Robin walking down the hall—looking anywhere but at you, studying the bulletin board with fake intensity—until you wave at her frantically.
Robin's confused, brows furrowed, but she walks over anyway.
You cover the mouthpiece of the receiver with your palm. "Steve is in Hawkins. Right now."
Robin's eyes widen, going almost comically large. "What?"
You pull the phone between you, both of your heads tilted in, temples touching, the receiver pressed between your ears. You can smell Robin's shampoo and it's so familiar it makes your chest ache.
"He won't say anything," Max continues, and you can hear the worry bleeding through her usually steady voice. "He's pretending to be fine, but god, he looks miserable. Dustin and I played hooky today to hang out with him. I asked what about his big test Thursday—you know? And he says there's no point. That he's going to fail it anyway."
Max sighs heavily, and you hear what sounds like her sitting down, springs creaking.
Robin's eyes are frantic now, darting around like she's searching for answers in the peeling paint of the hallway walls.
"Did you tell him it's probably nerves?" you suggest, grasping for something helpful to say. "That he's been studying so hard he's psyching himself out?"
Max hesitates. When she speaks again, her voice is quieter, broken. "Hot Shot... he says he's going to drop out."
The words hang in the air, heavy and terrible.
Robin snatches the phone from you, nearly yanking it out of your hand. "Max, this is Robin. I'm on my way." She pauses, listening. "Mhm. Mhm. Okay. Yeah, I'll be there as soon as I can."
She hangs up without saying goodbye, then immediately starts rushing down the stairs, taking them two at a time.
"Robin," you call after her, following.
But she doesn't stop, doesn't even slow down. Her bare feet slap against the linoleum as she moves.
Robin rushes through the lobby, weaving between students checking their mailboxes and the RA manning the desk. You hurdle past people, mumbling apologies, trying to keep up with her longer stride.
When Robin bursts through the front doors into the cool morning air, she's still walking fast, arms pumping with purpose.
"Robin, please," you jog up beside her and catch her wrist.
Robin stops, huffing with exertion, and turns to look at you. Her expression is almost annoyed—eyebrows raised, mouth tight—like she's asking what? without saying it out loud.
You're both breathing hard now, catching your breath. "Where are you going?"
"Hawkins," Robin answers simply, like it's obvious.
"Okay, but how?"
"Eddie will take me." Robin says it with complete certainty, no doubt in her voice. "It's not a far drive—only a few hours. If we leave now, I can get Steve and we'd be back by dinner. Plenty of time for him to study and get some rest before the test tomorrow." She's talking faster now, planning out loud. "He needs to take that test. He has to. His dad will kill him if—"
"Let me come with you," you interrupt.
Robin's face turns solemn, all the frantic energy draining out of her in an instant. "Do you think that's a good idea?" Her voice is quiet, careful. "You don't think it would make it worse?"
The question stings, sharp and sudden.
"I don't know," you shoot back, anger flaring hot in your chest. "I could ask the same for you."
Whatever moment of unity you'd shared. Your heads pressed together listening to Max, both worried about Steve, snaps clean in half. You're reminded with brutal clarity that you're not best friends anymore. You're two people who used to be close, standing in front of each other like strangers.
Robin shuts her jaw with an audible click, teeth grinding together. "This is my fault," she says, and her voice cracks slightly. "I need to fix it." She says your name, eyes pleading, desperate. "He can't drop out because of me. Because of—" She cuts herself off, looking up at the sky like the clouds might have answers. When she speaks again, her voice is raspy, raw. "He's my best friend, and I screwed up."
God. After everything that's happened, Robin is still acting possessive over Steve. Still claiming him as hers and hers alone. Nothing is going to change that.
"Right," you snap, unable to keep the bitterness out of your voice. "Because my friendship with him never counted. Or yours with me, I guess."
Robin's face breaks for a second. Her eyes softening, mouth parting like she wants to argue, wants to tell you that's not what she meant. But she doesn't say anything. Can't, maybe.
You dig into your pocket and pull out your keys. You unhook the dorm key from the ring and hold out the car keys, looking Robin directly in the eyes with determination you don't entirely feel.
"It's quicker if you leave now. Take my car."
Robin doesn't take them. She's staring at the keys like they're a snake that might bite her. "I don't have my license."
"Wait, what about that night you drove Eddie and Steve— you know never mind. Just don't get pulled over. " You motion for her to take them again, shaking the keys slightly so they jingle. "I'll let Eddie know what's going on. And I'll take notes for you in class."
For a brief second, Robin smiles. It's small and sad and achingly familiar. It’s the smile of a friend, the smile of someone who wants to pull you into a hug and say thank you and I'm sorry and I miss you all at once. The smile that used to mean everything is going to be okay because you have each other.
But it falls away as quickly as it appeared, replaced by something more guarded.
She gives you a curt nod, takes the keys from your outstretched hand—careful not to let your fingers touch—and runs toward the parking lot where your car is parked.
You watch her go, standing alone on the front steps of your dorm, and you wonder if this is what it feels like to lose someone piece by piece instead of all at once.
Later that night, you're at your desk pretending to do homework.
You've been avoiding all public spaces—the dining hall, the library, the student center—eating granola bars from the stash under your bed and telling yourself you'll go get real food tomorrow. Your American Lit textbook is open in front of you, reading the same paragraph four times without retaining a single word.
Your eyes wander to the housing form sitting to the side of your desk, partially buried under a notebook but still visible. The deadline looms: next Friday. One week to decide where you'll live next year, who you'll live with, whether you'll stay or go.
You turn in your chair to look at Robin's side of the room.
It's a mess. Clothes strewn everywhere—jeans hanging off her desk chair, a sweater crumpled on the floor, her denim jacket draped over her closet door. Books stacked haphazardly on every available surface. Empty coffee mugs forming a small collection on her nightstand.
You've never cared about the mess. You're pretty messy yourself—your own clothes tend to migrate from the hamper to the floor and back again, and you're not above wearing the same jeans three days in a row if they pass the smell test.
But looking at Robin's side of the room now, you're hit with a wave of memory so strong it almost knocks the air from your lungs.
You had a horrible first roommate freshman year. Melissa, who passive-aggressively left notes about your "excessive" overnight guests (you'd had exactly two) and complained to the RA whenever you stayed up past ten studying. Who listened to terrible pop music at full volume when you were trying to study. Who made you feel like an intruder in your own room.
Robin came up to you after class second semester, Intro to Literary Analysis, a pre-req you both suffered through, and asked if you wanted to room together next year. You barely knew her. You'd seen her at a few parties, and one other class. You knew she was funny and hyper and incredibly intelligent.
"I can't stand my roommate," Robin had said bluntly. “We should room together. And you always look like you know how to have fun."
And somehow, it had worked. You'd never found someone you could coexist with so easily—someone who understood that sometimes you needed silence and sometimes you needed to blast music and dance badly at two in the morning. Someone who would let you borrow her clothes and would steal your shampoo and would wake you up when you'd overslept but also knew when to leave you alone.
You don't know if you'll ever find someone like Robin again.
The thought makes your hand shake as you reach for a pen, pulling the housing form closer. You start to circle REQUEST FOR A DIFFERENT ROOMMATE, the pen hovering over the paper.
But you're stopped by the sound of the door unlocking.
Robin walks in, and she looks exhausted. Dark circles under her eyes, shoulders slumped, hair tangled like she's been running her hands through it. She freezes when she sees you sitting at your desk, clearly not expecting you to be there.
You quickly shove the housing form away, burying it under your textbook, and look up at her. You search her face for any telling details—did she get him back? Is he okay? Did it work?
Robin clears her throat, breaking the silence first. "I'm coming to grab my stuff. Me and Eddie are going to help him study." Her voice is rough, tired. "I think I might stay the night at Pike. I..." She holds up your car keys, and there's an awkward smile on her face that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "I only ran through one stop sign. But she's in perfect condition, and I filled up the tank."
You swallow hard, nodding. "You can put them on my bed. Thanks."
Robin does as you asked, setting the keys down gently on your comforter. The room fills with tense silence, the kind that's heavy with all the things you're not saying to each other.
You can feel her looking at you when you turn back to your textbook. And when you glance up from the corner of your eye, you catch her quickly looking away, pretending to search for something in her closet.
This happens three more times—both of you stealing glances when the other isn't looking, like teenagers with crushes instead of ex-best friends who can barely speak to each other.
Robin finally gathers her things—textbooks, notebooks, a change of clothes shoved into her backpack. She goes to open the door, then stops. "Hey."
She clears her throat when you don't respond immediately.
You look up at her. "Yeah?"
Robin takes a deep breath, her chest rising and falling visibly. "Uh... thank you. For lending me your car."
"No problem," you say, and your voice comes out more casual than you feel.
Robin stands there awkwardly, door half-open, letting the hallway noise filter in. Someone's TV playing too loud, a group of girls laughing as they pass. "Right. Okay."
She goes to leave, and then you hear yourself say, "Oh! Hey, Rob…in."
You catch yourself before you can finish the nickname, the syllables sticking in your throat. It comes out wrong, forced, like you're trying too hard or not trying hard enough.
"Yeah?" Robin turns back, and there's something hopeful in her expression that makes your chest hurt.
"I left your notes from class on your desk." You motion toward her side of the room, where the papers are stacked neatly. "From today."
Robin's whole face shifts. It’s something like relief, or gratitude, or maybe just surprise that you thought of her. She perks up and walks over to her desk, picking up the papers and awkwardly waving them. "Cool. Uh... thanks. This is—thanks."
"Yep."
"Right." Robin adjusts her backpack on her shoulder, the papers clutched in her other hand. "Bye."
"Bye."
The door closes with a soft click, and you're alone again.
You sit there for a long moment, staring at the space where Robin was standing, then pull out the housing form from under your textbook. Your pen hovers over REQUEST FOR A DIFFERENT ROOMMATE, the circle you started to draw still incomplete.
But you don't finish it. Instead, you set the pen down and push the form aside again, telling yourself you'll deal with it tomorrow.
.-.-.-.
The loneliness is creeping in again, settling over you like fog rolling in from the ocean—thick and suffocating and impossible to see through.
You're on your bed staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster. There are seven that you can see from this angle, spiderwebbing out from the corner where the water damage bloomed last semester. It's Friday evening, the sun already setting, the room growing darker by the minute.
You only saw Robin briefly in class today. She didn't sit next to you—took a seat three rows ahead instead, on the opposite side of the lecture hall. But you could see her from where you were sitting. Could see her leg bouncing incessantly, the rapid tap-tap-tap of her pencil against her notebook, the frantic scraping as she took notes even though the professor wasn't saying anything worth writing down. She left quickly when class ended, gathering her things and disappearing through the door before you'd even closed your notebook.
Yesterday, Art History was cancelled. A note on the door said the Professor was out sick, class would resume Monday. You were grateful, relief flooding through you so intensely your knees went weak. You don't know if you could handle sitting in a room with Sammy, still with no answer for him about being his girlfriend, still not knowing what you really want for yourself.
You do know you want to stop being so lonely.
You let out a big huff, the sound loud in the quiet room, and swing your legs off the bed. You need to move, need to get out of this room that smells like Robin's perfume and your own sadness. You grab a jacket and head out, not really knowing where your legs might take you, just needing to walk.
There's a lot on your mind as you wander campus. Your anger at Robin, at Steve, at yourself. The sadness that sits heavy in your chest like a stone you swallowed and can't cough up. You wonder how Robin is really doing, not knowing how she's dealing with the breakup with Nancy beyond the bouncing leg and frantic note-taking. If Eddie and Polly are going strong, if anything changed when they came back to school after Miami, if they're actually together now or still dancing around it.
What the rest of the trip was like for everyone after you left. If Steve's test went well yesterday. If he actually wanted to drop out or if that was the alcohol and despair talking.
And of course—pathetically, predictably—you find yourself outside the Pike house.
You're still far enough away that no one would see you. Standing across the street, partially hidden behind a tree, feeling like a stalker or a ghost haunting the places you used to belong. You're looking at the window to Steve's room. It's dark, the curtains closed, no light bleeding through the edges.
And you know then that it doesn't matter what you're thinking or feeling or wanting. Now that Steve knows you don't love him—that you lied and told him you don't feel that way—he's probably moved on already. Out with Robin and Eddie somewhere, maybe with another girl, some new conquest to ruin with his lies and rules and that fake relationship he's trapped in.
Forcing her to play along too.
And that's when you realize it.
You're done being the secret. Done being the exception that isn't really an exception. Done waiting for something that will never happen.
It doesn't take long to walk to Alpha Tau. The house is quieter than Pike usually is—no party tonight, just the regular sounds of college guys living together. Video games from somewhere upstairs, someone's stereo playing too loud, the smell of microwaved popcorn and cheap cologne.
Sammy answers when you knock, and his face goes through several emotions in rapid succession—surprise, hope, caution, guardedness.
"Hey," he says carefully.
"Can we talk?"
He lets you in, leading you upstairs to his room. It's neater than you remember, like he's been cleaning to cope with stress. His bed is made with crisp corners, textbooks stacked in precise piles on his desk.
You both sit on his bed, and you smile at him shyly, gathering courage. "I've, uh... thought a lot about what we talked about. Before break."
"Yeah?" His smile is cautious, hopeful but trying not to be.
You nod, looking at the ground because you can't look at his face while you say this. You take a breath to steady yourself, pulling air deep into your lungs. "I don't think casual stuff works for me either. I never really thought I wouldn't want it, you know? And I..." You pause, choosing your words carefully. "I always blamed others for not wanting anything serious. But maybe it was me who didn't. Like maybe, I was too scared." You take his hand in yours, feeling his palm, the lines etched there by genetics and time. "I'd like to give it a shot. Us. For real."
His hands just feel like skin. Warm and dry and completely unremarkable.
Sammy grins, looking away and chuckling like he can't quite believe what he's hearing. "I thought about you a lot over break, you know?"
"Really?" you ask, looking into his green eyes.
For a split second, you manage to take that green and imagine it like the green that swims around in hazel pools—Steve's eyes in certain light, when the sun hits them just right. Your heart thrums painfully.
Sammy nods, reaching up to brush a strand of hair back from your face. But it falls immediately back into place, so he tries again. Finally you laugh—forced, brittle—and help him, tucking it behind your ear yourself and looking up at him.
And in the second before he leans in, you close your eyes and pray that it will be him you see. That this will be enough.
"Can I kiss you?" He says your name softly, tenderly.
You smile through the pain blooming in your chest. Nod.
Sammy's lips meet yours—soft but chapped, tentative at first then firmer. You kiss back, closing your eyes, letting your lashes flutter against your cheeks. And suddenly you're hearing waves, smelling salt on skin that isn't his.
He's laying you down on the bed gently, his knee slotting between your legs, and your eyes are still shut tight. The waves are getting louder in your head, crashing and receding and crashing again.
You feel him creep his hand up your shirt. Feel him touch your bare skin—stomach, ribs, the underside of your breast. And you're still back on that beach in Miami, hating that you never got a chance to go in the water. You can still feel sand under your clothes except that's Sammy's hands, not sand. His rough calluses, not the ocean floor.
Sammy is kissing your neck now, and you're letting him because you want this to work, need it to work. You can't open your eyes because if you do, you'll see it's not Steve and the illusion will shatter.
You feel his mouth trail up—jaw, ear—and his breath is hot when he speaks, voice rough with want. "Say you're mine."
You're breathing heavy, chest heaving, and you're being swallowed by the waves, pulled under, water filling your lungs. "I'm yours," you whisper.
Your face is wet. You're crying, tears streaming down your temples into your hair. Your breath is shaky, your voice cracked and broken when you say it again: "I'm yours, Steve."
Sammy stills immediately. His lips slowly leave your collarbone, pulling back like you've burned him.
When did your shirt come off? You slowly open your eyes, and Sammy is sliding off you, sitting up, putting distance between your bodies. His jaw is set tight, muscle jumping, and you're crying harder now, hands coming up to cover your face.
"I'm sorry," you sob, voice muffled by your palms. "I'm so sorry."
You're shaking, and in your head you're submerging back under the water, lungs screaming for air that won't come. "I'm so, so sorry."
Sammy doesn't say anything. He sits next to you on the bed as you cry, not touching you, not comforting you, waiting.
When you finally collect yourself enough to breathe without sobbing, you sit up. You see your shirt on the floor and pick it up, pulling it back on with trembling hands. You wipe your face with the back of your hand, leaving mascara streaks.
You duck your head, unable to meet his eyes. "Can you please drive me home?"
Sammy laughs, it’s loud and sharp and bitter. "You think I'm going to take you home now? After you embarrassed me like that?"
You twist around to look at him, anger sparking through the shame. "You're embarrassed?"
"You know what? You're right." Sammy's voice is cold now, cutting. "I’d be embarrassed wasting my time on a guy who won't give you the time of day— but I guess I have been wasting my time, huh? Steve Harrington is a complete douchebag who cheats on his girlfriend and has nothing else going for him. He's pathetic. And if you can't see that, then you're right there with him."
You stare at Sammy for a long moment, really seeing him for the first time. The bitterness twisting his features, the cruelty in his eyes, the way he's lashing out because his pride is hurt. Everything twisting ugly.
"You don't know him," you say quietly, firmly. "And you don't know me."
You scoff in disbelief, pushing yourself off the bed and jerking his door open. But you stop in the doorway, turning back to look at him one more time.
"And you know what else?" Your voice is steady now, powered by anger. "You suck at kissing."
Not your best moment, but you're pissed off again, and it feels good to say. You slam the door shut behind you hard enough that it rattles in the frame.
When you get back to your dorm, you think you'll finally be able to relax, to collapse and process everything that just happened.
But Robin is there.
She's sitting at her desk, music playing from her radio—Madonna, you think. You’re unsure, it’s too loud for the small space. The window is open despite the cool spring air, letting in the sounds of campus at night and the smell of someone's cigarette smoke from outside.
Robin looks so normal. Acting like she hasn't ruined your life. Like she didn't tell Steve you don't have feelings for him, didn't sabotage any chance you had at happiness.
She should have never told you Steve wanted to sleep with you. Should have never mentioned that he begged for it. Then maybe you can erase any memory of when he looked at you like you were it for him.
You should have never become her roommate in the first place, never let yourself get close enough to be destroyed like this.
You walk into the room, toeing off your shoes and lining them up by the door. You feel the overwhelmingness engulf you again—emotion rising like a tide, threatening to pull you under. Your head is pounding, temples throbbing with each beat of your heart.
You say politely, voice tight, "Can you turn the music down?"
Robin doesn't hear you. She's focused on whatever she's writing, head bent over her notebook, pencil scratching across paper.
You count to ten in your head, trying to maintain composure, then turn around to look at her. "Hey. Can you turn the music down?"
Robin still doesn't respond. Doesn't even look up. She's not listening, not being considerate, and something inside you snaps.
You storm over to the radio, pick it up. The plastic warm under your fingers, vibrating slightly with the bass. Before you can think about it, you walk to the open window and throw it out.
You watch it fall, tumbling through the air, before it crashes against the sidewalk below with a satisfying crunch of breaking plastic and shattering components.
"What the hell, dude?" Robin yells, jumping up from her chair. "What—"
You turn slowly from the window, gripping the sill so hard your knuckles go white. You lick your lips, steadying yourself. "I went to see Sammy tonight."
Robin's face softens immediately, anger draining away and replaced with something like concern. "Okay?"
You put your hand to your head, fingers pressing against your temple where the headache is worst. "I tried to make it work. I really tried." Your voice cracks. "And then I realized I was only doing it so maybe you would stop being mad at me. So we could forget about everything and go back to normal."
You drop your hand, looking at Robin directly now. "Then I thought... I don't care if you're mad at me anymore. Because I'm mad at you."
Robin looks at the ground, jaw working like she's trying to swallow something bitter.
Your face contorts with anger and hurt and months of swallowed feelings finally breaking free. "But I don't want to forget what happened. You and Steve fucking hurt me, Robin. And I hate that I still care about you despite everything."
You look away from her, tears streaming down your face again, voice breaking completely. "I'm in love with him,” your voice shakes. You saying it out loud still didn’t feel real. “I love Steve, and I had to lie to him because of you."
You're crying harder now, face buried in your hands, and you've never felt more embarrassed—breaking down like this in front of Robin, exposing yourself completely.
And then you feel arms wrap around you.
Robin is crying too, holding you tight, and you're both sinking to the ground. She guides you down gently, and then you're sitting on the floor together, Robin's back against your bed, you tucked into her side. She's petting your hair the way she used to when you were sad about exams or life in general.
"It's okay," Robin whispers, voice thick with tears. "It's okay. I'm so sorry." She says your name like it hurts. "I'm so sorry I hurt you."
She takes a shaky breath, still holding you. "You're right. I've been selfish. And fuck, I'm so sorry. I never wanted it to become like this."
You lean back to look at her, both of your faces wet with tears, lips quivering. Robin wipes her nose with the back of her hand, leaving a streak.
"You were also right about..." Robin's breath catches, shaky and uneven. "About me being scared." She looks away, unable to meet your eyes. "I told you Steve was the first person I came out to, yeah? And I've told a few others since then. And I know—" She taps her temple. "—in my head, I know I like girls. When I look at Nancy, I definitely know."
She pauses, gathering courage, and when she speaks again her voice is barely above a whisper. "But sometimes I look at Steve and I hate myself. Because I think, why can't things be easy? Why can't I just like him that way and have it all be simple?"
Robin's hands are shaking now, and she clasps them together to still them. "I don't think I've been able to look in the mirror and say it out loud to myself. That this is who I am." She laughs bitterly, tears still falling. "So I clutch onto any bit of what could make me normal. Because I don't want people to look at me and say 'oh, there's Robin Buckley the lesbian.' I just want to be Robin, you know? Just... me."
She looks at you now, really looks at you, eyes red and pleading. "And I know I take it too far. Like telling Steve you didn't feel the same way about him." Her voice breaks. "I should have never told him that. When part of me did know the truth."
Robin wipes her face with her sleeve. "I saw you two kiss. At the lake during the camping trip. I was coming to see if you two were ready to go… and yeah. Then I saw how you looked at each other afterward… but I never brought it up because I didn’t want it to be a big deal. And then I saw Sammy in the library… and I pushed for you to consider him because then maybe you’d forget about Steve." She closes her eyes, fresh tears squeezing out. "I knew. I knew exactly how you both felt, and I still—"
She puts a hand on her chest, over her heart. "I'm so sorry for what I said at dinner in Miami. For all of it." Her voice drops to barely audible. "I love you. You're my best friend, and friends don't treat each other like that. Ever."
You pull Robin in for another hug, and this time you're not sobbing. You're holding each other the way you used to. Before everything got complicated, before secrets and lies carved canyons between you.
"I love you too," you whisper into her hair, breathing in the familiar scent of her coconut shampoo. "I missed you so much."
Robin holds you tighter, arms squeezing around your ribs. "I missed you too. So fucking much. I haven't been able to look at the housing form because it makes me feel sick."
You laugh. It’s wet and a little broken but genuine. "I tried to circle 'different roommate,' but it felt so wrong."
You sit there together as the room grows darker, the only light coming from Robin's desk lamp casting long shadows across the walls and the moon filtering through the open window, silver and cool. Outside, you can hear crickets starting their nightly chorus, someone's car door slamming, the distant thump of music from a party several blocks away.
Robin is the first to speak, breaking the comfortable silence. "I don't know what to do."
"About what?" you ask, pulling back slightly to look at her face.
"About it all." Robin admits, gesturing vaguely at the universe. "Steve and our whole thing." She puts her face in her hands and groans, the sound muffled. Then she flops backward dramatically onto the floor, arms spread wide like she's making a snow angel. "And Nancy. God, I really fucked things up."
She stares up at the ceiling, and you watch her throat work as she swallows. "Why is my life all… kaplooey." She grabs her thumb and makes a raspberry sound with her tongue, twisting her hand to demonstrate something being bent or broken. "All because I can't just say I like..." She pauses, gathering courage. "Boobies."
She laughs at herself, high and slightly hysterical, and you can't help but laugh too.
Robin shoots up suddenly, her limbs moving awkwardly like a newborn giraffe learning to walk. You watch as she scrambles to her closet, nearly tripping over her own feet.
There's rustling and curses muttered under her breath, the sound of plastic hangers clinking together like wind chimes. Suddenly clothes start flying behind her—left and right, an explosion of fabric. All her dresses and blouses, the ones she's worn to family dinners and church and formal events. The ones that made her look like the perfect daughter, the perfect girlfriend, the perfect girl.
She even goes to her dresser, yanking open drawers with enough force that they nearly come completely out. She pulls out a bra and holds it up like evidence at a trial.
"I've always hated this bra!" she announces to the room, laughing chaotically. "It literally makes my boobs itch and feel weird."
After thirty minutes, there's a mountain of clothes on the floor. It’s pretty much Robin's entire closet reduced to a heap of fabric and false identities. She's breathing hard like she's been running a marathon, chest heaving, face flushed with exertion and exhilaration.
Then she scoops them up in her arms—as much as she can carry, which is most of it—and walks over to the still-open window. She tosses them out without hesitation.
You watch the clothes tumble through the air, catching moonlight, before landing in a pile on the grass below.
Robin looks almost pleased with herself, hands on her hips, when suddenly her eyes widen like she's remembered something crucial. She runs back to her closet and grabs an armful of high heels—the ones that pinch her toes, the ones she can barely walk in, the ones her mother bought her for special occasions.
She does the same thing, hurling them out the window one by one. They land with satisfying thuds.
When she's done, she stands at the window with her hands on her hips, grinning ear to ear, breathing hard and looking more alive than you've seen her in months.
"Hey," she says, turning to you with that wild grin still plastered across her face. "How about we go get our hair done tomorrow?"
.-.-.-.
You don't know why you agreed to this.
You're standing in the cramped entryway of Bellini's—the Italian restaurant in your college town, the one Sammy had brought you to a couple of times.
It wouldn’t be so daunting, but you knew inside was Eddie, Robin and her parents and… Steve and his own parents.
It's been two weeks since you and Robin made up, but that doesn't mean everything is fixed. It's still fragile, still distrust, like walking on ice that might crack at any moment.
Robin hasn't been hanging out with Steve as much. She’s claimings it's because of end-of-semester stress, all the final papers and exams piling up. But really, you know it's to be mindful of you. To give you space from him. Or maybe Robin knows she needs distance from him too, needs to figure out who she is without Steve Harrington as her defining characteristic.
You've started hanging out with Eddie again. Smoking joints with him and Polly in the back of his van, Eddie's arm draped lazily over Polly's shoulders, her fingers playing with the rings on his hand. He never talks about Steve around you, except for that first time when he'd said, "Am I allowed to say I knew you two had been smooching all along?"
Polly had smacked him hard on the arm, leaving a red mark. "Edward!"
Later that night, when you'd climbed out of the van to head back to your dorm, Eddie had stopped you. He'd had remorse written all over his face, brows drawn together, mouth turned down.
"Hey, look, I feel awful, man." He'd run his hand through his hair, making it stand up even more. "Steve told me you thought it was him and Polly in the next room. In Miami. And I really wasn't thinking about what it could've looked like." He'd spoken fast, words tumbling over each other. "Steve was nearly passed out drunk that first night on the beach, so everyone took him back to the hotel. But then he started begging—said he couldn't trust himself being in his room alone. We didn't know what that meant, so we left him with Jonathan. And then Polly and I started talking, and she didn't want to wake you up because you weren't feeling well, and she needed to shower..." Eddie had looked genuinely distressed. "I'm sorry, Hot Shot. I should've thought about how it would sound."
Maybe you were really high and feeling generous. Maybe you were tired of being angry all the time. But you'd forgiven him.
And maybe a little bit of that forgiveness was for Steve too.
There was one night though—about a week ago—when Robin was getting ready for bed and someone knocked on your door to say she had a call. She’d come back to the dorm already tired and stressed, grabbed her shoes.
"Steve passed out at Murphy's," she'd said quietly, not meeting your eyes. "Have to go help get him home."
You'd almost offered to go with her. Almost. But you were afraid of what you'd feel if you saw him, afraid you'd break whatever fragile progress you'd made in trying to move on.
And you were correct to assume you would feel... sick is the easiest way to put it.
When you open the restaurant doors and walk to the table where everyone is gathered, Steve is the first pair of eyes you catch. You realize you haven't seen him in weeks. All that distance you'd put between you hasn't helped at all. None of it, because seeing him now makes you miss him more, not less.
It's reconfirmed by the way your heart swells painfully in your chest, beating too fast, reminding you that you still feel it. Love. A love he has no idea you carry, that you told him doesn't exist.
Robin had invited you a few days ago. Pike was having a family weekend event, and it had turned into Robin's parents coming to visit, which somehow evolved into a planned dinner. Robin had asked if you'd come because her parents specifically requested it, but she'd understood if you couldn't.
"Now or never, I guess," you'd said with a shrug, not looking up from the book you were reading on your bed.
And now you regret it. You thought you could be strong. Thought seeing him would feel like closure, like proof you were moving on.
You were wrong.
There isn't any closure yet between you two. Mostly because of you, because you're still hurt by what he said, but also because you know you hurt him too. Lied to him in the worst possible way.
His hair has grown out again. It’s longer at the nape of his neck, pushed back and fully chestnut. If it weren't for the dark circles under his eyes, he'd look completely fine and normal. He's wearing a navy polo tucked into Levi's, hands folded in his lap, sitting next to Robin.
On his other side is his mom, and next to her is clearly his father. You'd only heard Mr. Harrington's voice on the phone that one time, but seeing him now, you realize the Harrington genes are strong in Steve. Besides the graying hair on Mr. Harrington's temples, they have almost exactly the same features—the same jawline, the same straight nose, the same way of holding themselves with careful control.
His mom is on the plumper side with a kind face that's beyond beautiful. You can see where Steve gets his hazel eyes—the same mixture of green and gold and brown that shifts in different light.
"Sorry I'm so late," you say breathlessly, clutching your purse. "Lost track of time."
It's not entirely a lie. You had been in the parking lot for thirty minutes, sitting in your car trying to convince yourself to go inside even though you'd arrived early.
Robin's mom stands up immediately and engulfs you in a hug. She smells like floral perfume and hairspray, and her embrace is warm and maternal in a way that makes your throat tight.
"It's okay! I'm so glad you could make it. It’s so good to see you." She pulls back but keeps her hands on your shoulders, smiling warmly. Then she leans in and whispers conspiratorially, "We haven't even ordered yet. They're kind of slow here."
And of course, the only open seat is directly across from Steve. Robin shoots you an apologetic look. Her eyes wide, mouth twisted in a grimace that says I'm sorry, I didn't think about the seating arrangement.
You force yourself to look at Steve fully. He's already looking at you, and when your eyes meet, something passes between you. It’s recognition, longing, hurt, love, all of it compressed into a single moment. His lips part slightly like he wants to say something, and you can see his hand twitch on the table like he's fighting the urge to reach for you.
Your heart clenches so hard it physically hurts.
You sit down, and immediately Steve's mom leans across the table, saying your name with warmth and familiarity. "Right? I'm remembering correctly?"
"Oh, yes." You stand awkwardly, half-bent over the table, and shake her hand. It's soft with perfectly manicured nails painted a subtle pink. You shake it firmly but carefully. "It's lovely to meet you, Mrs. Harrington."
You glance at Steve, and he's staring at the table like watching this exchange physically pains him. But then his eyes go wide when you turn to his father, plastering on your most polite smile.
Mr. Harrington holds out his hand with a thin-lipped smile that doesn't reach his eyes, only nodding in greeting. His handshake is brief and perfunctory.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Harrington," you say, and then because you can't help yourself, you add, "Steve talks about you a lot."
Mr. Harrington's smile shifts slightly. It becomes more arrogant, more satisfied. It looks exactly like the upturned lips on Steve that you fell in love with, except colder, more calculated. "All good things, I hope?" He glances at his son, who quickly averts his eyes elsewhere, suddenly very interested in the breadsticks.
You hum, pretending to think about it, smile playing at your lips. "Still up for interpretation."
You think maybe he'll get upset at that, maybe call you rude or disrespectful. But he blinks at you, surprised, and then cracks a smile that actually looks genuine—amused, even.
Steve's mom chuckles, her laugh bright and musical. "We've heard a lot about you from Steve," she says, eyes twinkling. "He said you're funny." She gives you a dazzling straight-toothed smile that lights up her whole face. "You're so pretty."
She says it like she's cooing at a baby or a puppy, and you feel your cheeks flush hot.
Your brain supplies unhelpfully that his parents only know you as Steve's friend. If you're even that anymore—you're not sure what you are to each other now. But there's a moment where you pretend this is meeting his parents for the first time as his girlfriend, and you could walk away happy that you left a good impression.
You look up to catch Steve's eyes softening as he looks at you, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. Maybe he's pretending too.
But then Robin's mother speaks, sighing heavily. "I still don't know why you decided to do that to your hair."
She's speaking to Robin, and there's clear disapproval in her tone.
For as long as you've known Robin, she's had long chestnut hair. Always silky smooth, brushed until it shone, falling past her shoulders in perfect waves. Always with neat makeup carefully applied—eyeliner precise, lipstick never smudged. Perfectly manicured nails. Everything about her appearance carefully controlled and maintained.
But when you went to the hair salon last week—after the great closet purge—Robin had told the stylist to cut it off. All of it. Her hair now sits above her shoulders in a choppy, almost boyish cut that somehow makes her look more herself than she ever has.
Her eyeliner is smudged purposefully under her eyes now, giving her an edgy look. Her fingers are painted different colors on each nail, already chipped from a week of wear. And after feeling guilty about throwing her clothes out the window—both of you bringing everything back up to pack away for donations instead—she'd gone shopping for a whole new wardrobe.
She's wearing a striped green sweater tucked into her jeans tonight. But it's not the clothes that are different. It's like she cut off the strings of whatever puppeteer was controlling her. She slouches now, lets her limbs drape over furniture not in the careful, practiced way she used to, but naturally, comfortably. She's not pretending anymore.
She's finally relaxed. Finally herself.
Robin looks nervous at her mother's comment, but she still rolls her eyes. "Mom—"
"I like it," Steve offers quietly.
Mrs. Buckley waves her hand dismissively. "Oh, Steve, you're always such a sweetheart. But you don't have to like it because you're her boyfriend."
"I'm not."
Everyone's heads snap toward Steve. Eyebrows furrow. Even your eyes go wide, and you can feel your face betray you—hopeful, desperately hopeful that this means what you think it means. You look at Robin, wondering if they finally ended their fake relationship.
Steve clears his throat, seeming to realize how that sounded. He straightens in his chair. "I meant that I'm not saying that because I'm her boyfriend." He reaches over and squeezes Robin's hand on the table, the gesture practiced and familiar. "I like it because it's her."
Robin and Steve share a look, something passing between them that speaks of years of friendship, of secrets shared, of unconditional support. Robin smiles at him, and it's genuine and grateful.
Both of their mothers look at each other with matching expressions—bottom lips puckered, hands coming up to rest over their hearts in some universal salute of mothers who think they're witnessing true love. Their fathers maintain neutral, stony faces, both distantly clinking their whiskey glasses together in masculine solidarity.
You know you're looking at them with a mixture of sadness and fondness, unable to hide it from your face. They're so good at this—at playing the perfect couple, at making everyone believe it's real.
Eddie, who is normally loud and constantly talking, squeezes your hand under the table. His palm is rough from guitar strings and calluses, familiar and grounding. You look up at him and see his eyes are glassy and red-rimmed.
You want to laugh. He's mentioned before that parents make him nervous, that authority figures in general stress him out. No wonder he's been silent this entire time, he’s high off his ass from weed and anxiety.
Finally, the food arrives—steaming plates of pasta and chicken parmesan and breadsticks that smell like garlic and butter. The waiter sets everything down with practiced efficiency.
It's mostly the adults talking after that. Mr. Harrington discussing work, Mrs. Buckley sharing updates about people from Hawkins you don't know. Eddie hums beside you, a tuneless sound that you recognize as his anxious tic. Robin eats her food in a hurry like it might disappear if she doesn't consume it fast enough.
You catch Steve slipping his hand under the table, probably settling it on Robin's restless leg. You know she's bouncing her knee because occasionally the table shakes slightly when her knee comes up too high, jostling the water glasses.
Steve is picking at his food, barely eating. You try your best not to watch him, but you fail repeatedly. And he's doing the same thing, both of you stealing glances, eyes meeting briefly before darting back to your plates.
Robin's dad speaks, breaking the cycle. "Steve, Robin tells me you passed your College of Education entrance exam."
You can't stop the words before they burst out. "Wait, really?" You're smiling, genuine and wide and pleased for him.
Steve looks at you, and his cheeks dust pink. He's smiling too, eyes twinkling in a way you haven't seen in weeks. He nods, ducking his head slightly. "Uh, yeah." It comes out shy, and he glances back at Robin's dad. "I'll be officially majoring in kinesiology with education studies."
You notice Mr. Harrington taking another long drink of his whiskey, jaw tight.
But Mrs. Harrington beams, her whole face lighting up with maternal pride. "We're so proud of him." She leans over and smacks a big kiss on Steve's cheek, leaving a lipstick mark.
Steve laughs awkwardly, squirming away. "Ma," he complains, but there's a huge smile on his face. He takes his napkin and wipes the lipstick off his cheek, but his eyes catch yours again across the table.
You share another smile, and it feels like something precious and fragile, a moment of connection in the midst of all this pretending.
Mr. Harrington grumbles into his glass, "Well, Harold, I guess you'll need to start supporting those bills on giving teachers higher pay."
It's meant to be a joke, but the tone is bitter, cutting. The table becomes tense, conversation dying mid-word.
Steve looks deflated, shoulders slouching inward, jaw ticking with tension. All the joy from a moment ago drains from his face.
Mr. Buckley chuckles, oblivious to or ignoring the tension. "I guess I can catch up with the times—women making more money than their husbands and all that." He points his fork at Mr. Harrington. "But don't go telling the men at the club I've gone soft and switched over to the Democrats."
They laugh loudly, too loud, the sound forced and uncomfortable.
Robin, Steve, you, and Eddie all cringe simultaneously, sharing a look of mutual mortification.
Eddie speaks up, and Steve already looks like he's regretting every decision that led to this moment. "You know," Eddie says, eyes glassy and red, words coming out slower than usual, "teachers are like... the foundation of society, man. They're like..." He pauses, trying to find the words. "They're like the roots of a tree. And we're all the branches. Or maybe they're the branches and we're the leaves? I forget how trees work." He takes a bite of his pasta. "But they're important. Very important. Essential, even."
There's a moment of silence.
"Thank you, Eddie," Steve says flatly, rubbing his face with both hands.
The waiter comes by with a water pitcher, moving around the table to fill glasses. Mrs. Buckley clears her throat. "So, have you two discussed the timeline of when you're going to propose? Since Robin is considering law school?"
"Uh..." Robin and Steve say in unison.
"Are you thinking about eventually moving back to Hawkins?" Mrs. Buckley continues, not noticing their discomfort.
"Yes," Steve says surely, at the exact same moment Robin says, "No."
They look at each other, and the tension ratchets up another notch.
"We're still talking things through," Steve says slowly, carefully, like he's defusing a bomb.
Robin looks at her plate, sliding her fork through the remnants of spaghetti sauce, creating patterns in the red.
Mr. Harrington blows air through his nose in obvious disapproval. He wipes his mouth with his napkin, nodding at the waiter after his glass is filled. "This is why I told you decisions like that needed to be discussed thoroughly before making them." His voice is hard, disappointed. "It'd be different if you'd just met the girl. But you two have been together for years and have always planned on getting married. Is this really the first time you're talking about it?"
You make awkward eye contact with the waiter, who looks like he wishes he could disappear. You mouth sorry at him.
Eddie takes a huge bite of his food and announces to himself, but loudly enough that everyone hears. "I never thought I'd like zucchini."
You elbow him hard in the ribs.
"Ow! Hot Shot," he whines, rubbing his side.
Everyone ignores it. Mrs. Buckley speaks, her voice soothing and placating. "Oh, they're still young, Danny. They'll figure it out. Harold and I didn't have it all planned out when we got married either." She smiles at Robin and Steve. "Besides, Robin loves Steve and knows that at the end of the day, he'll know what's best for them."
Suddenly, Eddie, still parading his fork with a piece of zucchini speared on it, accidentally knocks into the waiter's hand as he's filling Eddie's glass. The glass tips, falls, hits your glass, and water pours all over your lap.
You make an "oomph" sound as cold water soaks through your jeans, but you can't concentrate on the discomfort because you see Steve immediately scoot his chair back, eyes full of concern like you've been seriously hurt and he's about to climb over the table to get to you.
"You okay?" he asks, voice urgent.
You look at him, and the concern on his face makes your chest tight. Then you glance at Robin, who looks defeated and guilty, staring at her plate like she wishes she could disappear into it. Then you see the adults all looking at you, and the waiter is next to you apologizing profusely, his face red with embarrassment as he rushes off to get napkins.
"Yeah, I'm fine." You manage a smile, trying to be reassuring. "It's water."
He doesn't move at first, still half-standing, scanning you like he's checking for injuries. Only when you nod again does he sit back down, but his hands remain on the edge of the table, ready to jump up again if needed.
You and Steve can't stop looking at each other now. Your eyes feel like they're about to burn with tears, from embarrassment, from longing for the boy across from you who you can't have, from the sheer weight of everything unsaid between you.
You sniffle, thanking the waiter when he returns with a stack of napkins, dabbing at your lap even though it's mostly futile. Your face is heated with embarrassment and something deeper.
You notice Robin looking between the two of you, her jaw twitching like she's grinding her teeth. She closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, they're glassy and serious. Determined.
She says in a hushed whisper, but loud enough that you can hear across the table: "Now or never."
"What, dear?" Mrs. Buckley asks, leaning toward her daughter.
You look at Robin, searching her face, trying to understand what she means. Tilting your head, Robin catches your eyes and holds them. You can see it there—resolution, fear, courage, love. She's telling you without words that she's about to do something big, something that can't be taken back.
And somehow, through that look, she's also telling you that it's going to be okay.
"Mom," Robin says, turning to face her parents. "Steve and I are not like you and Dad."
Mrs. Buckley laughs lightly. "Yes, I know you two are more modern and—"
"No." Robin cuts her off, voice firm. "I love Steve differently than you two love each other."
Steve's eyes go wide, lips parting. "Robin," he whispers, voice tight with warning or fear or both.
Robin looks at him, and tears are already forming in her eyes. But she smiles. It’s soft and grateful and apologetic all at once. She squeezes his hand on the table, turning it over so their fingers can intertwine properly.
"Steve was the best boyfriend a girl could ask for," she says, and her voice only wavers slightly. "He did everything I asked him to. Even when it cost him everything." Her eyes glance at you, holding your gaze for a moment before returning to Steve.
Steve turns to look at you too, something desperate and hopeful in his expression, before looking back at Robin.
"Was?" Mrs. Harrington asks, confusion clear in her voice. "Did you two break up?"
Robin sighs, and you can see her leg bouncing frantically under the table. She bites her bottom lip, takes a breath, and then says the words that change everything:
"We were never together."
"What?" You're not sure which adult asks—maybe all of them in unison, a chorus of shock.
Eddie leans over to you, whispering, "Is she really...?"
Your eyes cut to him sharply, silencing him immediately. He looks completely sober now, his usual grin gone, focused entirely on Robin.
Robin turns to her parents, and there's a sad but determined expression on her face. "Mom, Dad, I don't love Steve the way you two love each other."
"You said that already, dear," her mom says, voice tight with confusion and growing concern.
Robin tilts her head back, looking up at the ceiling like she's asking for divine intervention. Then she looks back at her parents, and you can see her searching their faces—hopeful, terrified, needing that approval, needing them to understand that she's still their daughter, still the same Robin they've always loved.
"Mom," Robin's voice cracks slightly, "I will never love Steve the way you love Dad. I will never..." She takes another breath, and you can see her hands shaking where they're clasped with Steve's. "I will never love a boy like that."
Robin is crying now, tears streaming down her face, sniffling. But she's also smiling. It’s small and fragile but real.
Her parents furrow their brows, confused. Then slowly, you watch understanding dawn on their faces. The creases in their foreheads smooth out, eyes widening with realization.
"Oh," is all Mrs. Buckley says. Just "oh," but the word carries the weight of revelation.
Mr. Harrington speaks, and his voice is sharp, cutting. "Are you saying my son has been your..." He can't even finish the sentence, disgust coloring his features. "What? Are you going to tell me he doesn't like girls either?" His eyes cut to Eddie accusingly. "Are you his boyfriend?"
Eddie chokes on nothing, nearly knocking over another glass. "No, sir! No! Absolutely not! Not that he isn’t my type—" He catches himself. “I meant that as—”
“Eddie, shut up.” Steve cuts in, running his hands down his face.
“Yep.” Eddie agrees, shoving a mouthful of zucchini, chewing, with wide deer caught in headlight eyes.
Mrs. Harrington isn't looking at Robin anymore. She's looking at Steve, who's staring at the table with his shoulders caved in, hunched over like he's trying to make himself smaller. She can see him rubbing his knees nervously under the table.
His eyes dart to yours across the table, and his expression softens when he sees you looking back. There's something there—apology, hope, love, all of it written plainly across his face for anyone to see.
Mrs. Harrington watches this exchange, and her face transforms. The confusion melts away, replaced by understanding and something that looks like sympathy. She smiles gently, reaching over to squeeze her son's shoulder.
Then she turns to her husband, voice calm and measured. "Daniel, I think you should pay the bill. And I think we all need to go back to the hotel and have a conversation. A real one."
Mr. Harrington looks more appalled at the idea of having to pay the bill than he did at the revelation that his son has been lying to him for over a year. He sputters, "Now? We haven't even had dessert—"
"Now, Daniel," Mrs. Harrington says, and there's steel in her voice that brooks no argument.
Mr. Harrington signals for the check with a tight expression, pulling out his wallet with sharp, angry movements.
Everyone leaves quickly, practically fleeing the restaurant while Mr. Harrington handles the bill. Eddie looks genuinely sad about abandoning his half-finished plate of pasta, reaching for it one last time before you grab his arm and pull him away.
Outside, the night air is cool and crisp, smelling like car exhaust and the Italian restaurant's kitchen vents pumping out garlic and tomato sauce. The parking lot is lit by yellow streetlamps that cast everything in a sickly glow.
Robin comes up to you and Eddie, and she looks completely frazzled. Her eyes wide, breathing fast, one hand clutching at her chest like she's checking to make sure her heart is still beating.
"Did I—did I do that?" She's looking between you and Eddie like she needs confirmation that what just happened was real. "Holy shit. I think I did that. I think I just came out to my parents at an Italian restaurant." She laughs, high and slightly hysterical. "In front of Steve's parents. And you guys. Oh god."
"I was honored to witness it," Eddie says solemnly, putting a hand over his heart.
You smile at Robin, chuckling softly at her spiral, then pull her into a tight hug. You never knew you liked hugs until you met Robin. It was a good discovery, finding out that physical affection didn't have to be uncomfortable or performative, that it could be warm and grounding and exactly what you needed without having to ask for it.
Your body feels warm and relaxed as you tighten your grip, holding her up while she processes what she's done, what can't be undone.
Eddie must feel left out because suddenly he's crushing you both with his arms, trying to pick you both up off the ground. You and Robin squeal in unison, half-laughing, half-protesting.
"Group hug!" Eddie announces, lifting you both an inch off the pavement before setting you back down.
"Eddie!" Robin shrieks. "You're going to break us!"
You're all laughing—breathless and giddy and riding the adrenaline of what just happened—when you see past Robin's shoulder to where Steve is standing with his mom.
They're by her car—a champagne-colored Cadillac that looks expensive and well-maintained. Steve opens the passenger door for her, but she's not getting in yet. She's looking at Steve with such gentleness it makes your chest ache. Her hand comes up to cup his face, thumb stroking his cheek, and you can see her saying something. Then her hand moves to his shoulder, squeezing.
Steve is nodding, listening intently. His shoulders are still hunched, defensive, but his face is open and vulnerable in a way you rarely see.
He hasn't caught you watching yet, and you don't try to hide the fondness in your eyes. Don't try to school your expression into something neutral and safe.
Robin catches on to where you're looking. She follows your gaze and sees Steve with his mother, and she smiles, small and knowing. She shrugs, leaning into you conspiratorially. "You know, I think our relationship is kind of kaput now." She tries for lightness, joking. "He's fresh on the market."
You look at Robin, but you don't laugh. Can't find it in yourself to match her tone. You pinch your lips together, look down at the pavement where oil stains create rainbow patterns, and shake your head.
"Robin!" Steve's voice carries across the parking lot, breaking the moment.
Robin looks at you with that knowing expression again—the one that says she sees right through you, knows exactly what you're feeling even when you won't say it out loud.
"Go," you tell her, forcing your voice to sound normal. "I'll take Eddie home. I'll wait up for you, okay?"
Robin still doesn't look happy. That guilt-ridden expression is back on her face—the one that says something that was meant to be simple and easy turned everything sideways, turned it into chaos and hurt and complications none of you were prepared for.
But she nods anyway, then jogs over to Steve.
You watch as Steve gives you and Eddie distance, respecting the fresh wounds that are still raw and bleeding in all your lives. His hands are shoved deep in his pockets, and he looks at you one more time, just a glance, brief but loaded with meaning, before wrapping his arm around Robin's shoulder and walking her to his car.
She leans her head against him, and they look like what everyone always thought they were. They are two people who love each other completely, who understand each other in ways no one else can.
The fact that it's not romantic doesn't make it any less real.
In the car, Eddie immediately reaches for the radio dial, turning it until he finds a station playing metal. The guitar riffs fill the small space, too loud, but you don't ask him to turn it down. He sits there pretending to play an air guitar, strumming along.
You can't help but think about what just happened. Does it change anything for you? Does it change things for Steve? Robin and Steve are broken up—except they were never really together. So what does that mean?
Your mind spins in circles, chasing thoughts that lead nowhere.
You chew on your bottom lip, worrying the skin until it stings.
"Sooo," Eddie drawls out, turning down the music slightly. "That was pretty intense back there." He pauses, drumming his fingers on his knee. "Whatcha thinking about?"
"I'm not sure." And it's the honest-to-god truth. Your thoughts are too jumbled, too complicated to articulate. "What about you?"
Eddie shrugs, looking out the window at the passing streetlights. "Finally," is all he says.
You nod, understanding what he means.
Finally. Though, you’re not entirely sure how it ties into the future.
A beat goes by in comfortable silence, just the music and the sound of your tires on asphalt.
"Have you forgiven him yet?" Eddie asks suddenly, voice careful. "I'd understand if not. Was wondering with all your staring tonight."
"I was not staring," you say defensively, heat rising to your cheeks.
"You were absolutely staring."
"Was not."
"Hot Shot.”
You huff, gripping the steering wheel tighter. "I don't know, okay? I don't know if I've forgiven him."
And that really is the truth. You think to yourself… is there such a thing as loving someone but not forgiving them? Can those two things exist simultaneously, or does one cancel out the other?
When you pull up outside the Pike house, Eddie gets out but then immediately turns around, motioning for you to roll down the window. You do, cranking the handle, and Eddie bends down, arms crossed on the window frame, smiling cheekily at you.
"What?" you ask, already exasperated.
He hangs his arms inside the car, tongue darting out to lick his lips. "What'd I tell you, Hot Shot?"
"Tell me what?"
"That you had Harrington all twisted up inside." He taps his forehead with one finger, grinning. Then he leans his cheek on his hand, sighing wistfully like a lovesick teenager. "I saw it coming from a mile away. Both of you. Just didn't think you'd fall this soon."
Your face burns hot, and you look away, trying not to smile. "Shut up."
"What did it for you, Hot Shot? What made you fall?" Eddie's eyes are twinkling with mischief. "Was it the glasses? I told him to be careful with those. Chicks can't resist a guy in glasses."
"Eddie, please go. Now. Before I drive over your foot." You're trying not to laugh, fighting to keep your expression stern.
"Or was it the hair? The tragic backstory? His encyclopedic knowledge of star facts courtesy of Dustin Henderson? He told me about your little date, by the way," Eddie starts laughing as you begin winding the lever to roll the window back up. He steps back just in time, head thrown back with laughter that echoes across the parking lot.
You flip him off before driving away, but you're smiling despite yourself.
And you think… maybe it was the glasses. Or maybe it was everything.
Maybe it was just him.
Steve Harrington, in all his complicated, messy, beautiful totality.
.-.-.-.
It's ten p.m. when Robin storms through the dorm room.
She doesn't say anything at first. Just rushes to her closet and pulls out her duffel bag. She starts shoving clothes inside with no apparent organization, just grabbing things and cramming them in. She's frantic, moving back and forth across the room, stopping randomly like she's forgotten what she was doing, then snapping back to attention and continuing her packing.
"Robin?" You sit up in bed, book falling closed in your lap. "Hey, what's wrong?"
Robin keeps shoving clothes in the bag. After a few minutes, it's like she's heard you. She perks her head up, face flushed, eyes wild and bright. "I'm going to Boston. To win back Nancy."
Your mouth falls open in disbelief. "What? What are you talking about?"
Robin runs her fingers through her short hair and starts pacing back and forth as she talks. The words come out rapid-fire, barely pausing for breath.
"Steve is driving me to Boston right now—well, not right now, he's waiting in his car downstairs—so I can go see Nancy. I never even got to tell her I love her, you know? I was such a mess back in Miami," She's gesturing wildly with her hands. "And tonight I told my parents about her. Everything. Including how much I love her. And they want to meet her. They asked when they could meet her."
"Wait." You hold up a hand, trying to slow her down. "So the conversation with your parents went okay?"
Robin stops pacing abruptly, chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath. She smiles—soft and disbelieving, like she still can't quite process it. "Yeah. It went... really well. Like, too good to be true well." She laughs, the sound slightly manic. "They were mad at first, but only because I lied to them about Steve all this time. But then they said..." Her voice breaks slightly. "They said nothing is different. I'm still their daughter and they love me."
She swipes at her eyes, and you realize she's crying. They’re happy tears mixed with overwhelmed tears, all of it spilling over at once.
"My dad said he'll be okay. That he'll be there to support me and will deal with whatever the public says." Robin laughs again, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "And during all of this, all I could think about was running to call Nancy. But then I remembered—wait, Nancy broke up with me, you dingus." She smacks herself lightly on the forehead. "So I'm going to her instead. I'm going to show up and tell her I love her and that I want to be with her for real. No more hiding."
She zips up the duffel bag with a decisive motion. "I'm not sure when I'll be back. Maybe Monday morning if things go well. Or maybe never if they go really badly and I die of embarrassment."
"Robin, wait." You stop her, catching her arm as she reaches for the door. You smile at her. It’s genuine and warm and so proud you could burst. "I’m happy for you."
Robin stops, hand on the doorknob. She takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, then turns to look at you. "You should come, you know."
The invitation hangs in the air between you.
You would say yes. You really would. Part of you wants nothing more than to pile into Steve's car and road trip to Boston, to be there when Robin tells Nancy she loves her, to witness what comes next.
But a larger part of you doesn’t want to. You can’t stomach facing Steve in the confined space of a car for hours, to sit in that tension with nothing left to say except what happens now? Where do we go from here? How do we move forward?
You shake your head, and for the first time in weeks, you don't lie. Don't make up an excuse about homework or projects or needing to study. You say simply, honestly, "I'm not ready."
Robin nods, understanding flooding her features. She doesn't push, doesn't try to convince you. She walks over and kisses you on the cheek. It’s soft and quick and full of affection—then grabs her bag and heads for the door.
"Wish me luck," she says one more time.
"You don't need it," you tell her. "But good luck anyway."
And then she's gone, the door closing behind her with a soft click, and you're alone again.
You walk to the window and look down at the parking lot. You can see Steve's BMW, the engine running, exhaust visible in the cool night air. Robin appears a moment later, tossing her bag in the backseat and climbing in the passenger side.
Steve looks up at your window, and even from this distance, you can feel his gaze. You step back into the shadows before he can see you watching.
The car pulls away, taillights disappearing into the night, carrying Robin toward her future and Steve toward... what? You don't know. Can't know until you're ready to find out.
.-.-.-.
News of Steve and Robin's breakup spreads like wildfire across campus.
It starts Monday morning. The whispers in the dining hall over scrambled eggs and burnt toast, hushed conversations in the library stacks, pointed looks and not-so-subtle stares whenever you're with Robin. Walking to class together, you can feel eyes on you both, hear the buzz of speculation following in your wake like a swarm of insects.
When you're in the dining hall, conversations pause as you pass tables. In the library, people crane their necks to get a better look at Robin, like she's suddenly become a celebrity or a curiosity. Even in your own dorm, girls stop by on flimsy pretenses—borrowing a pen, asking about summer plans— but really just trying to get a glimpse of Robin post-breakup, searching for signs of devastation.
Robin tells you that Steve didn't explain much to his fraternity brothers. Apparently, they all sat around the common room one night, and Steve had simply said, "Robin and I aren't dating anymore."
All the Pike brothers asked if he was okay, concern written across their faces because Steve and Robin had been together forever.
And Steve had shrugged, said, "Never better."
His brothers took that as his asshole frat boy answer—that finally he wasn't tied down anymore, that he could do whatever and whoever he wanted now that he was single. You can imagine them clapping him on the back, making jokes about all the girls who'd been waiting for their chance, planning to take him out to celebrate his newfound freedom.
But you know what he really meant by those words.
Because yes, he can do whatever and whoever he wants now. But more importantly, he's free. Liberated from chains that had been binding him for over a year. It's like Robin and Steve had been handcuffed together this whole time, unable to find the key to unlock themselves. Maybe they never wanted to find it, never thought they could, never believed freedom was actually possible.
Until it was.
Most people are relatively normal about the breakup. There are the usual rumors circulating through Greek life. The whispers that Robin finally had enough of Steve's cheating, that she caught him with someone else, that the relationship had been dead for months. That he had enough of her not putting out. You hear fragments of these stories in bathroom stalls, in line at the dining hall, passed between sorority girls like currency.
When you see Sammy in Art History he gives you a soured look. His jaw is tight, eyes cold, and he deliberately chooses to avoid you at all costs. He probably thinks the breakup is your fault, that you're the reason Steve's relationship imploded.
Maybe, in a way, it is.
And that's something you struggle with. The guilt sits heavy in your stomach, a constant weight you can't shake. Did you ruin Robin's life by falling for Steve? Did your feelings set all of this in motion?
Robin must sense it because one day while you're both studying in your dorm—you at your desk, her sprawled on her bed with a textbook—she randomly says, "You know I came out to my family because I was really ready, right? It had nothing to do with anyone else. Not you, not Steve, not Nancy. Just me."
You look up at her, startled by the unprompted statement. But there's a small smile on your lips, and you nod in acknowledgment. "I know."
"Do you?" Robin asks, sitting up slightly to look at you properly. "Because sometimes I see you looking guilty, and I need you to know that this—" she gestures around the room, at herself, at everything that's changed "—this is the best thing that's ever happened to me."
You nod again, throat tight. "I know."
After a week of Robin and Steve being officially single, the vultures start circling.
Girls approach Robin everywhere— in the library, out on the quad, sometimes even in class. They always start the same way, with false concern and sweet smiles.
"Hi, Robin. How are you holding up?"
And then, inevitably: "So, I was wondering if it would be okay if I made a pass at Steve?"
The first few times, Robin just scoffs, collects her things, and leaves without dignifying the question with a response.
But now she has a new favorite tactic.
Like now, in the library. Amanda—the same girl who'd flirted with Steve at that party in the fall, who'd touched his chest and batted her eyelashes—is standing at the edge of your study table. She's smiling sweetly at Robin, completely ignoring your existence.
"Hey, I wanted to ask if you didn't care if I reached out to Steve—"
Robin's face immediately scrunches up, features contorting like she's in physical pain. She covers her face with her hands and starts shaking her head, fake sobs croaking out of her mouth. Her shoulders shake convincingly.
You have to bite the inside of your cheek hard to fight back your laugh, forcing your eyes elsewhere to maintain the illusion.
"It's still all so new," Robin chokes out, voice breaking. "I'm sorry, I can't—I can't talk about this yet."
Amanda's eyes go wide, guilt flooding her features. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Robin. I didn't mean to—I shouldn't have asked. If you need anything, I'm here for you, okay?"
Before she leaves, she glances at you. Her eyes are sharp, assessing, jaw ticking with what might be suspicion or jealousy or both. Then she hurries away, probably feeling terrible about herself.
Robin watches through her fingers until Amanda is completely out of sight. Then she drops her hands and laughs, eyes flicking to you.
But you only manage a half-hearted smile that doesn't reach your eyes, the humor not quite landing.
Robin's face falters immediately. "You okay?"
You furrow your brows, breaking from your thoughts. "Yeah. I know he's probably happy to have all this shameless attention now. I'm sure he's been having fun these past couple weeks." You brush it off, returning your gaze to your textbook even though the words blur together.
Robin sighs heavily. "Hot Shot, you know he isn't."
And you know Robin well enough now to recognize that wasn't a question. It was a statement. She's telling you something—something you already know deep down but are pretending not to know.
You're pretending Steve doesn't want to see you, doesn't want to talk to you. Pretending he doesn't love you.
When really, he's waiting.
The Saturday before finals, the fraternities come together to host one last end-of-semester bonfire at the dive spot.
Robin eventually convinces you to go, promising it'll be just the two of you and you can leave anytime you want. You don't hesitate to say yes. You need a break from studying, from the walls of your dorm room closing in, from the constant tension of avoiding Steve on campus.
So once Robin gets off the phone with Nancy—her girlfriend again, officially and happier than ever.
The bonfire is already raging when you arrive, flames reaching ten feet high and casting dancing shadows across the cliff face. The air smells like burning wood and spilled beer and the lake water below, that particular scent of algae and fish and summer approaching. Music blares from someone's boom box—Journey or REO Speedwagon, something with a big chorus that people are singing along to badly.
You can hear the roar of conversation, the crack and pop of the fire consuming wood, glass bottles clinking together, someone's laughter cutting sharp and bright through the general noise. There must be fifty people here at least, maybe more, spreading out across the clearing and down toward the water's edge.
The last time you were here, everything changed. Nancy had kissed Robin. You saw Steve in a new light under the stars. You'd felt something shift that night, tectonic plates moving beneath your feet, and you hadn't even realized it was the beginning of everything.
Once Robin gets her drink, some mixture of vodka and fruit punch that looks radioactive, and you get your water since you're driving, you both start dancing.
It's free and uninhibited, jumping around to the music without caring how you look. Robin throws her head back laughing, short hair flying, and grabs your hands to spin you around. You're both breathless and grinning, moving without thought, without the weight of everything that's happened pressing down on you.
For the first time in a while, it feels like it used to. And you realize it's because there are no secrets anymore. No manipulation, no hidden agendas. Just you and Robin, best friends again.
The other night, you'd admitted to Robin that you miss Steve. You were lying on your bed, staring at the ceiling, and the words had slipped out before you could stop them. Robin had climbed into bed next to you without a word, let you lay your head on her shoulder, and hadn't tried to pry or push you into being ready to see him.
She'd just held you while you cried.
You know you'll see Steve eventually tonight. You didn't expect it to happen so soon.
He spots you first, like he's been searching for you in the crowd. You feel his gaze before you see him, that prickle of awareness that makes you turn your head.
For the first time since their breakup, Robin doesn't leave to go hug him. He doesn't come over to kiss her cheek or wrap an arm around her shoulders. They only give each other a small wave of acknowledgment, friendly but distant, establishing new boundaries.
But then his eyes flick to you.
The firelight catches his jaw, illuminating the sharp line of it, the way his throat works when he swallows. He's wearing a backwards brown baseball cap, an old Hawkins High one you've seen before, and a plain white t-shirt that fits him perfectly, jeans that hang low on his hips. He looks so handsome it makes your chest ache. It’s that same feeling you get when you see something beautiful you can't have.
Your heart thrums in your chest, beating so hard you can feel it in your throat. You know by the look on his face, eyes soft and yearning and full of everything he's not saying, that he's thinking the same thing about you.
Steve rubs the back of his neck, a nervous gesture, and looks at the ground. Then he turns and walks over to where Eddie is standing.
You and Robin watch as Steve points his thumb behind him toward the parking area. Eddie, who's standing a few feet away from Polly, who's talking animatedly to a tall dark-haired boy, immediately searches the crowd until he finds you and Robin. He looks back at Steve and gives him a small nod, squeezing Steve's shoulder in comfort.
Steve turns around, shoving his hands deep in his pockets, ducking his head, and starts walking toward the parking lot.
He's leaving.
You watch him go, taking a deep breath, your stomach twisting painfully. He's leaving because you're here, because being in the same space as you is too hard when you're not ready to talk to him yet.
Robin looks between you and Steve's retreating figure, chewing on her bottom lip. Without a word, she laces her fingers through yours and starts dragging you across the dirt.
"Robin, what are you—"
But she's not listening. She pulls you past the fire, and you feel the overwhelming sweltering heat hit you like a physical wall, making sweat immediately prick your forehead. Robin has long strides, moving so fast her short bob sways with each quick step. You have no time to ask what she's doing because she's already caught up to Steve, reaching out to grab his wrist.
He turns around, startled, and you catch the way his eyes are red-rimmed. Has he been crying?
His pink lips part in shock. "What—"
Robin brings both of you over to an area that's darker, away from the main crowd but not completely private. There are still people around—couples making out against trees, groups passing joints, someone throwing up behind a bush—but it's quieter here, more removed from the chaos.
She lets go of both your wrists, stepping back to look at you both with her arms crossed.
Then she looks at Steve and says firmly, "Ask her to dance, Harrington."
She turns to you. "And you're going to say yes."
You and Steve look at each other, then back at Robin. She crosses her arms, widens her eyes, and motions impatiently for you to get on with it.
Steve lets out a shaky breath, looking away like he can't quite believe this is happening.
You feel yourself starting to roll your eyes, ready to walk away because this is too much, too fast, too—
Steve grabs your hand.
It feels like your whole body sparks with electricity—head to toe, every nerve ending coming alive, tingling. He tugs you toward him gently, and that's his way of asking. Your way of saying yes is not hesitating to look in his eyes and place your free hand on his shoulder.
You search each other's eyes, not even moving yet. Robin is saying something—you can see her mouth moving, probably making some joke to cut the tension—but you can't hear it. Your ears are buzzing and your heart feels like it's been shocked back to life after weeks of barely beating. Blood rushes everywhere as you drown in his hazel eyes, those pools of green and gold and brown that shift like seasons.
Steve moves your hand from his, lifting it to place it on his other shoulder so both your arms are around his neck. Then his hands settle on your sides, just above your waist, like he's too scared to go lower, too afraid you'll pull away if he gets too familiar too fast.
And then you start to sway.
Unlike the couples next to you—grinding against each other, making out aggressively, hands wandering—and unlike the music, which is definitely not a slow song, you move together slowly. Carefully. Like you're both made of glass and one wrong move will shatter everything.
No words pass between you.
Robin is gone now, and you're not sure when she left. Probably slipped away as soon as you started dancing, giving you this moment.
Steve still makes no move to speak. His fingers flex against your sides when you step closer, closing the remaining distance until you're properly pressed against him. You feel the warmth of his soft stomach against your. You can see his chest rising and falling rapidly, breathing faster than the gentle swaying warrants. If you were really brave, you'd press your palm to his chest to feel how fast his heart is beating.
Steve lifts one hand from your waist, fingers gentle as they brush your hair from your face so he can see you better. He tucks the strand behind your ear, and his thumb traces your jaw—barely touching, ghosting across your skin in a way that makes you shiver despite the warmth of the night.
Then he tilts your chin up with his finger so you have to look at him, can't hide behind lowered lashes or averted eyes.
His eyes are soft, vulnerable, laid completely bare. You see his throat working as he swallows hard, Adam's apple bobbing.
He says your name softly, reverently. "I'm so sorry."
You breathe in and then out, hating how easy it is for you to relax under his gaze, how quickly your body responds to his touch like it's been waiting for this. "I know," you say quietly.
He's still staring at you, and you wonder if all he can think about is the beach in Miami. The way you told him you don't love him, the way you walked away and left him there alone in the dark. Probably.
You know he's sorry. You can see it in every line of his face, feel it in the tremor of his hands on your waist. You know things can be different now—Robin and Steve are free, the chains are broken, the future is no longer predetermined.
You step even closer, hesitating only a moment before laying your head on his chest, looping your arms fully around his neck.
Steve goes completely still.
Then slowly, carefully, like he's afraid you'll change your mind, he slides his hands to your hips. His grip is firm but gentle, holding you like you're precious. You feel his nose press into your hair, breathing you in, and his fingers tighten on your hips in response to whatever he smells there—your shampoo, your perfume, you.
The music continues around you—louder now, something with a driving beat—but you're moving to a rhythm only the two of you can hear. Swaying slowly, barely moving, just holding each other.
You can feel it when his heart rate picks up, the thump-thump-thump against your cheek getting faster. It happens when you tilt your head to look up at him, and you find him already looking down at you.
His expression is so full of hope it breaks your heart. His eyes are searching yours like he's looking for answers, for permission, for any sign that this means what he thinks it means.
Your eyes sting with tears that threaten to spill over. You sigh—long and shaky—and even though you don't want to, even though you could stay like this forever, you slowly break away.
His hands drop from your hips immediately, respecting the boundary, giving you space.
"Can we talk?" you ask, voice barely audible over the music and the fire and the noise of the party.
Steve nods, not trusting his voice. He gestures toward the path that leads away from the bonfire, away from prying eyes and listening ears.
And you follow him into the darkness, heart pounding, finally ready for whatever comes next.
You end up at the swings.
The playground is abandoned this late at night, equipment casting strange shadows in the moonlight. The swings creak slightly as you both sit down, chains groaning with your weight. You plant your feet apart and sway gently, the motion familiar and soothing from childhood.
You can see smoke rising above the trees from the bonfire, hear the distant laughter and music and chaos you left behind. Out here, it's quieter—just the sound of the wind in the leaves, the rhythmic squeak of the swing chains, your own breathing.
Steve is staring at you. You can feel his gaze like a physical weight, but you keep your eyes trained on the sky, trying to figure out what to say, where to start, how to explain everything tangled up inside you.
You want to be honest with him about everything. You don't know where to start, so you start with the simplest truth.
"I've missed you, Steve."
Steve's eyes gleam in the darkness, catching what little light filters through the trees. "I..." His voice comes out rough, and he clears his throat. "I've missed you too."
You look over at him, smiling softly. He's just out of reach, so you lean over and put your hand on his cheek. He immediately melts into the touch, eyes closing briefly, like he's been starving for this and finally getting to eat.
"Steve," you say quietly, firmly. "I love you."
You nearly hear his entire being freeze and restart—his breath catching, his eyes flying open, the smile on his lips growing wider and more genuine than anything you've seen in weeks. He chuckles, and it sounds like relief, like joy, like he's been waiting for this since Miami. Or maybe his whole life. For someone to love him back the way he loves them.
He twists in his swing, chains tangling slightly, then reaches out to grab the chains on both sides of your swing. He pulls you closer, turning you to face him so you're looking at each other directly.
He looks nervous. So nervous his hands are trembling slightly where they grip the chains. He opens his mouth, then looks away, a blush dusting his cheeks that you can see even in the dim light. He takes a breath, looks at you again.
"Would you go on a date with me?" The words come out in a rush. "Like a proper one? Maybe before you leave for break? I could take you out to dinner or the movies. I don't know, I haven't—I've never actually—"
His face falls when you look down, pressing your lips together. Your breath comes out shaky.
"Steve." You force yourself to look at him, to not be a coward about this. "I love you, and I needed you to know that. But I'm having a hard time forgiving you right now." Your voice cracks. "And I don't know when I'll be ready."
Steve bites his bottom lip hard enough you worry he'll draw blood, but he makes no effort to move away or let go of your swing. His knuckles go white on the chains, tendons standing out on the backs of his hands. He takes a deep breath, holds it, lets it out slowly.
"I'll do anything," he says, and his voice is steady despite the pain written across his face. "I know I can't make you forgive me, but maybe—" He trails off, looking at you with hopeful eyes, searching for any opening, any possibility. Then he sees your expression and understands. He nods, swallowing hard. "Okay."
That's all he says. Just "okay." But it's not the angry, bitter okay from before. It's disappointment and acceptance and resignation all wrapped up in two syllables.
You put your hand on his knee, feeling the muscle tense under your palm. "We can start by being friends again," you suggest. Maybe it's selfish, maybe it's a contradiction, but even though you don't know if you can be with him the way you want to, you don't want a life without him in it. Even if it means he's only a friend.
Steve thinks for a moment, jaw working, before offering a sad smile. His eyebrows twitch with the effort of holding his expression together. "I can do..." He pauses, and you can see him forcing the word out. "That."
The hesitation tells you it probably tastes wrong on his tongue, that part of him doesn't mean it. But just like you, if this is how you can be in each other's lives, he'll take it.
"Okay then." You hold out your hand formally, like you're sealing a business deal. "Friends."
Steve lets go of one side of your swing, making you sway slightly, then grabs your hand. He shakes it slowly, deliberately, and his thumb brushes across your knuckles in a way that feels anything but friendly.
Neither of you pulls away immediately.
"Yeah," Steve says quietly. "Friends."
After a moment, Steve lets go of your swing entirely and you both turn to face forward, staring out at the darkness. The silence stretches between you—not uncomfortable exactly, but heavy with everything you're not saying.
Another beat goes by, and you start to move, ready to stand. "I think I'm going to go find Robin now."
"Wait," Steve says quickly.
You stop, turning to look at him.
His eyes widen when he realizes he actually needs to say something now, needs a reason for stopping you. He awkwardly clears his throat. "I, uh..." He sighs, adjusting the cap on his head, running a hand through his hair, putting it back in place. His curls shoot back out. "Do you mind if we sit here for a bit longer?"
You look at him—really look at him. At the vulnerability in his expression, the way he's asking for just a few more minutes of your time like it's a precious gift he doesn't deserve.
You settle back into your swing. "Yeah. Okay."
So you sit there together in the darkness, not speaking. Just the creak of the swings and the distant sounds of the party and your own breathing. The moon filters through the leaves above, casting shifting patterns of light and shadow across both of you.
It's not everything. It's not what either of you wants. But for now, sitting on swings in the dark with someone you love who loves you back, it's enough.
.-.-.-.
Robin and you are hugging in your dorm room, arms wrapped tight around each other.
It's move-out day. Finals are done—finished yesterday with your Art History exam that you're pretty sure you aced despite everything. Summer break officially starts tomorrow, and you're driving back home as soon as you take the last box down and hand in your key.
There's not much sentiment or tears about the departure. You've already made plans to see each other over the summer—in a few weeks, you're going to Boston together to visit Nancy, and Robin might come see you at home after that. Or maybe you'll go to Hawkins, though that particular plan is still uncertain, still carries too much weight.
And then there's the promise of phone calls at least once a week. And the promise—made official when you both signed the housing form—of being roommates again next semester.
You break apart, and you grab your last cardboard box of things. The rest of your belongings are already loaded in your car, packed with the careful efficiency of someone who's done this before.
"Call me when you get home?" Robin asks, adjusting the box in your arms so it won't slip.
"Obviously." You smile.
You leave the dorm, Robin waiting for Steve and Eddie to come help her load her things into Eddie's van. You're planning to leave as soon as possible, wanting to get on the road before traffic gets bad.
And definitely wanting to leave before running into Steve, even though part of you regrets telling him you want to be friends. But you know it's right. You know you need time.
Of course, as always, your luck runs thin.
You're going down the stairwell carefully, tongue sticking out in concentration as you navigate the narrow stairs with the box blocking your view, when you hear the door below clatter open. Quick footsteps pad up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
And immediately, his hazel eyes meet yours over the top of your box.
You have no time to protest before he's grabbing the box from your arms. "Here, let me help."
Then he's turning around and heading back down the stairs, leaving you standing there watching him go.
You take in his appearance as you follow—blue polo tucked into jeans with a white undershirt visible at the collar, his hair freshly washed and pushed back, and your eyes betray you by dropping lower to appreciate the fit of his jeans.
You follow him down the stairs, and you think he'll stop at the bottom, hand the box back, say goodbye. But he keeps walking. He only pauses for you to catch up, and then you're walking side by side through the lobby, outside into the bright morning sun, across the parking lot to where your car is waiting.
Steve opens your trunk and slides the box in with the others, having to lean on the trunk lid with his full weight to get it to click shut because it's packed so full. He chuckles to himself when it finally latches, grinning, biting his bottom lip, hands going to his hips like he's won a prize.
Then he looks at you, and you're smiling too because you can't help yourself when he's like this—boyish and pleased with such a small accomplishment.
You share a laugh, the sound bright and easy in the morning air.
"Thanks," you say.
"Yeah, no problem, Hot—uh—" He catches himself, stops.
You smile, tilting your head. "You can still call me that. I mean, it doesn't feel right when you don't."
What you don't say is that the nickname never really belonged to you in the first place. It was always his, and you want it to stay that way—only his nickname for you, something that belongs just to the two of you.
He grins, a little shy, ducking his head. "Right. Uh, well..." He clears his throat. "You excited for break? I mean, I know it's kind of already break, but you know. I guess, are you ready to go home? I bet you probably are."
You almost want to kiss the nervousness off his lips, smooth away the rambling with your mouth. But then your mind filters in the events of this year—all the hurt, all the lies, all the reasons you can't.
"Yeah," you say instead. "You?"
Steve shrugs, hands going back in his pockets. "Yeah, I guess. Probably working most of it. Not sure if Robin and I still have our jobs at Family Video. The manager there, Keith—total jackass, kind of hates me."
"I wonder why," you giggle.
He laughs, and the sound is genuine and warm.
Then there's another beat of silence as you look at each other, neither quite ready to say goodbye.
"Uh, Robin mentioned you're going to Boston together in a couple weeks," Steve says.
"Yeah." You nod. "I'm excited. Never been. And Nancy says she might introduce me to some people in publishing for an internship next year."
His face lights up. "Yeah? That's so cool." Then he pauses, and when he speaks again his voice is softer, more careful. "Robin also said you might visit Hawkins too. If things work out."
"Yeah," you say, biting your lip nervously. You don't elaborate.
Steve seems to catch on to your hesitation, what you're not saying—that visiting Hawkins means potentially seeing him, and you're not sure you're ready for that yet.
"Right. Yeah." He nods, trying to keep his expression neutral. "Well, I guess I'll see you then? Unless you have anything else upstairs you need help with?"
"Nope, this is it. I have to turn in my key, and then I'm all set."
God, now you wish you hadn't been so efficient loading your car if it meant you could talk to him like this a bit longer.
He nods. "Right. Okay." He repeats it like he's trying to convince himself. His face drops slightly, like he's thinking something over. Then, "Hey, I, uh... was thinking. Could I possibly get your number? Maybe I could call sometime over break?"
Your breath hitches, your brain scrambling, trying to remember which box has your notebooks and pens so you could write it down. But then you stop. You frown, looking at the ground sadly.
"I don't think..." You force yourself to look at him when you say it. "I don't want either of us to get the wrong idea."
You see Steve's face drop—another rejection, another door closing. But he doesn't push, doesn't try to convince you. He nods, swallowing hard. "Yeah. That's cool. No problem." He takes a breath. "Well, I better go start helping Robin so we can get on the road soon."
"Yeah. Okay." You're gripping your car keys so hard they're digging into your palm. "I'll see you."
Steve's mouth twitches into something that's trying to be a smile. "Yeah. See you later, Hot Shot."
You watch him walk away, hands in his pockets, shoulders slightly hunched, and you have to physically stop yourself from calling him back.
.-.-.-.
It's been two weeks of summer break, and you could not be more ready for Boston next week.
You've been out all day at your summer job—working retail at a clothing store in the mall, standing on your feet for eight hours, dealing with difficult customers and your manager who loves to micromanage. Your feet are killing you, and all you want to do is crash on the couch and turn on the TV.
Probably shamelessly turn on ALF, because Steve was right. It is a funny show, and it makes you laugh. And sometimes you pretend you're back in his room, holding his hand while you watch it together.
When you pass through the kitchen, you call out a greeting to your mom, who's making dinner.
She looks up from the pot she's stirring. "Oh, honey, you have mail. On the table."
You walk over, internally panicking when you see the official seal of your school on one envelope—probably final grades. You get ready to rip it open, prepping yourself for whatever's inside.
But then you see another envelope underneath. Green, not white. Your name sprawled across the front in handwriting you recognize, and your address beneath it.
You didn't think you were expecting any mail, but then your heart skips a beat when you look at the sender information in the corner.
Steve Harrington
You grab the letter quickly, nearly knocking over a glass in your haste, and run to your room. You shut the door like opening it in front of your mom would somehow make it more real, more dangerous.
You sit on your bed, holding the envelope carefully, running your finger over the ink. His ink. His handwriting—the same slightly messy scrawl you've seen on notes passed in class, on study guides, on the birthday card he gave Robin.
You open it slowly, carefully, not wanting to tear anything.
Inside are several pieces of notebook paper, folded neatly, and a photograph.
You look at the photo first, and immediately your heart beams, glowing warm in your chest.
It's the photo Jonathan took at the camping trip. Everyone standing together—Robin and Nancy with their cheeks smushed together, wrapped in each other's arms and grinning. Jonathan and Eddie with arms slung around each other, both making goofy faces. And you on Steve's back, both of you smiling so wide it looks like it hurt.
You hadn't realized in the moment, but in the photo you can see Steve trying to look back at you, his face turned slightly, and you can still see his smile. It’s bright and genuine and full of joy. Your eyes are closed from how big your own smile was.
You set the photo carefully on your bed, touching it gently like it might disappear, then unfold the letter.
Dear Hot Shot,
I was thinking about it. You never said I couldn't write to you. So here I am. If you don't want me to, you can write back and tell me to beat it. If you want to write back, then hey, I won't complain. However, if you don't mind, and I don't receive anything telling me to stop, I'm going to take that as the OK.
Jonathan came into town a few days ago and gave me this photo. He made copies for all of us but didn't have your address. Robin said she'd give it to you when she saw you in Boston, but I took the jurisdiction to do it myself. I hope that's okay. I can’t stop looking at it. I remember feeling nothing but happiness.
Not a lot has happened here. I'm ever so lucky and back at Family Video with Robin. Keith still hates me—today he made me reorganize the entire Horror section because he said I put "Friday the 13th Part III" in the wrong spot. I hadn't. He's just a dick. He also thinks it’s punishment putting me on shifts with my “ex-girlfriend.” So who has the last laugh now?
Max is good. She told me you called her the other day, which was cool of you. Then she made fun of me for asking if you'd asked about me. So I guess now you know I asked about you. Smooth, right?
I hope you're doing well. I hope work isn't terrible and that you're getting some rest. I hope you know that even though I'm disappointed about how we left things, I understand why. I get it. And I'll wait as long as you need.
You should know—I think you might be my favorite friend.
Yours truly,Steve
P.S. I got new glasses. Thought you might want to know.
This chapter was everything! I loved, i felt hurt, I laughed and almost cried. You can tell Steve really tries. Which makes me see it as a sign that he really grew up from this whole experience.
And I think I might join the Eddie-fan club. I mean he really is a loyal friend to all of them. And his way to try and brighten up a situation… big love. I hope him and polly get their happy ever after.
summary: reader and steve go on a series of not not dates and a conversation with beth sends her spiraling
wc: 2.2k
cross posted on ao3!
Chapter 12
Somehow, the not-date you and Steve went on has opened the floodgates to you two doing an activity almost every week.
It starts small enough. A couple of days after Valentine’s, he texts you asking if you’d be interested in going to a Murder in the Orient Express themed dinner. You assume it’s just a costume party of sorts, just a reason to dress up and eat fancy food with on-the-nose names.
You end up being very wrong.
“Wait,” you say as the host hands you a character card and a little envelope of clues, “is this dinner interactive?”
Steve looks far too pleased that it took you this long to figure it out. “Well, I thought you knew that already, but I guess someone didn’t actually read the link I sent, now did they?”
You narrow your eyes at him, clutching the little envelope like it might explode. “Steven. You told me we were going to dinner.”
“We are going to dinner,” he says easily. “It also just happens to be an interactive murder mystery. Hey look, I’m an antique dealer with suspicious finances! It’s as if they combined both of us into one person.”
“You set me up,” you accuse. “This is a ploy to send me to my early grave.”
He shrugs, completely unrepentant. “You like Agatha Christie and Broadway. You’ll enjoy this too.”
Before you can come up with a response sharp enough, the host claps her hands to gather everyone’s attention and launches into an elaborate explanation of the “crime” that’s taken place aboard the Orient Express. Within minutes, the room is filled with loud accusations and dramatic gasps.
You glance sideways at Steve, who is already leaning into the role of detective, eyebrows furrowed as he reads through his cards again.
“Oh my god,” you mutter. “You’re going to take this way too seriously, aren’t you?”
He looks up at you with a glint in his eye. “Someone here is a murderer,” he says gravely. “We have a civic duty to find them.”
An hour later, Steve is pointing across the table at a woman in a feathered headband and declaring, with alarming conviction, that her alibi doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, while you’re laughing so hard you nearly spill your wine.
Neither of you correctly identifies the killer by the end of the night, but Steve insists the whole thing was clearly rigged anyway and buys chips and a cup of curry sauce from the takeaway right around the corner from your flat for you to split as a consolation prize.
After that, it becomes a bit of a habit.
One time, you go to Hackney City Farm, where Steve spends an inordinate amount of time crouched by a fence petting the goats and cooing at them in the softest voice you’ve ever heard him use.
You wander off for a while to admire all the different types of chickens the farm keeps, but eventually make your back toward the fence Steve’s still hunched over. His long legs are folded awkwardly beneath him as he croons lovingly at two baby goats shoving at each other for his attention.
“Hey, hey, play nice,” he murmurs, trying to scratch both little heads at the same time while they jostle each out of the way.
You stop a few feet away and cross your arms, watching the scene with poorly concealed amusement.
Steve seems to realize you’re there almost instantly, glancing over his shoulder like he can somehow feel your gaze on him. The moment he spots you, his whole face lights up.
“There you are!” he says, as if you’ve been gone for hours instead of five minutes. “C’mere, you gotta meet Cheese and Pickle.”
“I met them earlier, but I think they like you more,” you tell him dryly, not moving an inch.
One of the goats bleats loudly and wedges its head under Steve’s hand in a bid for more pets.
“Hold on, hold on,” he cackles delightedly, scratching behind its ears before looking back at you with a helpless grin. “This one tried to squeeze through the fence earlier to get closer to me.”
“Tragic,” you say. “A love that can never be.”
Steve snorts indelicately. “Don’t be jealous.”
“I’m not jealous of a goat, Steve.”
“Sure you’re not.” He glances between you and the two goats like he’s carefully considering his next words. “Although if it makes you feel better, I think you’re still my favorite.”
“That’s a total lie,” you inform him primly.
The other goat, probably annoyed it isn’t also getting ear scritches, bleats even louder and headbutts Steve’s wrist. He laughs and reaches another hand into the enclosure to pat its head with exaggerated affection.
“See?” he says to it softly. “She’s jealous.”
You roll your eyes so hard it hurts, but step closer to the fence anyway and prop your elbows on the wooden bar as the goats continue their relentless campaign for Steve’s attention.
“Five more minutes,” you tell him. “Then we’re leaving before you try to bribe a farmhand into letting you take one home.”
Steve looks genuinely tempted at the thought.
“Hypothetically,” he says, glancing back at you, “how hard do you think it would be to raise a goat in my flat?”
You groan and bury your face in your hands.
Another time, Steve takes you to NQ64, where you absolutely destroy him at Mortal Kombat II.
“Rematch,” he says immediately after your eighth flawless victory, already shoving another coin into the machine. “Use a different character this time.”
“Steve,” you giggle, leaning back against the cabinet, “I have beaten you fifteen times, with six different characters. I don’t think it’s the character I’m picking at this point.”
“Sixteen times,” he corrects grimly. “But statistically speaking, I think I’m overdue for a win.”
You arch an eyebrow at him. “Is that how statistics work?”
“It is today.”
The match starts again and ends, predictably, the same way as the others. Your character lands the final blow and the screen flashes FINISH HIM.
You finish him with great enthusiasm.
Steve drops his head forward against the arcade cabinet with a soft thunk. “This is humiliating,” he mutters.
“You insisted on another rematch,” you remind him sweetly.
“I didn’t realize you were secretly the reigning world champion of Mortal Kombat,” he whines, pouting like a kid who’s been denied a sweet treat.
You shrug, supremely pleased with yourself. “What can I say? I contain multitudes.”
Steve pushes himself upright and squints at you with great suspicion. “You’ve been holding out on me,” he says, jabbing an accusing finger in your direction. “All this time we’ve been friends and you never once mentioned how good you are at fighting games.”
“Well, it never came up,” you say. “Plus, Robin gets all squeamish about blood so we only play Mario Kart at Orchard House.”
Steve’s eyes narrow. “And here I thought you were nice and harmless. Turns out you’ve been hiding the fact you’re a cold-blooded killer.”
You smirk. “What can I say? I love keeping people on their toes.”
He laughs, warm and full, and grabs your hand to tug you back towards the bar. “Fine. You win. But I’m buying you a drink and we’re playing something else.”
“Running away already?” you ask, even though you’re letting him pull you along. You’re easy like that sometimes.
He glances over at you through long lashes. “From you? Never.”
Each time you go out with Steve, you wonder if it’ll be the last time. Each time, it most certainly isn’t.
You go to trivia night at the pub right across the street from your flat and lose miserably to a group of old men who’ve been playing there for years. You visit God’s Own Junkyard and take pictures of each other posing dramatically with the neon signs. You go to a jewelry making workshop and make new rings for your jewelry stack.
It’s fun in a way that makes everything else- work, your thesis, even your guilt over Fred- feel irrelevant. With Steve, the world shrinks to the two of you and the ridiculous, silly, wonderful things you do together. Every outing is unpredictable, full of laughter and tiny surprises, and somehow, it always ends with both of you smiling like idiots as he walks you back to your flat.
Of course, it doesn’t last forever. One evening, your phone buzzes with Beth’s name lighting up the screen. You smile automatically and pick up without a second thought; she’s been calling a lot more recently, mostly about logistics for Meg and John’s vow renewal, so you already have an idea about how this is gonna go.
“Hi hi,” you say cheerfully.
“Okay, so,” Beth launches straight in without greeting you back, “Is it okay if I put you and Steve at the young couples table instead of the family table? I figure you guys don’t want Cousin Rodney to interrogate you about your relationship just yet.”
You blink, first caught off guard by the rapid-fire delivery and then even more so by what your sister’s saying to you. “Hold on. Young couples table? Our relationship? Beth, what are you talking about?”
Beth huffs, sounding mildly exasperated. “Please. You two are basically joined at the hip these days. All those little outings? The way you laugh at his stupid jokes? Come on. I’m not blind.”
Your stomach twists a little, because… okay, she’s not wrong. You have been spending an inordinate amount of time with Steve. And it’s possible that some of it could be interpreted as dating.
“Beth, we’re just friends. Really good friends. There’s nothing beyond that between us,” you say, trying very hard to sound calm.
There’s a pause on the line, and when she speaks again, her voice is softer, almost cautious. “Are you sure though? Because it seems like he’s been taking you on a lot of outings that resemble dates recently. I see your close friends story, you know.”
Your mind immediately goes into overdrive. Dates? No, that’s ridiculous. He’s just being Steve. And you… okay, maybe it does feel like a date when you go out with him sometimes, but nothing’s happening. Nothing’s supposed to happen.
“I- I mean…” you mutter, grasping at words, “he’s my closest friend here, so we’ve been hanging out a lot to keep me sane while I finish my thesis. That’s all. We’re just friends, I swear. I’m not even looking for a relationship right now anyways! It’s too soon after Fred for me to be dating anyone.”
Another pause, this time longer. “Mm-hmm,” Beth says finally, with a faint, knowing chuckle that makes your chest constrict even further. “Right. Just friends. Well, I’m still putting you at the young couples table, so you should probably talk to Steve about that.”
Before you can figure out how to respond, you hear what sounds like one of the twins about to throw a tantrum in the background, and Beth sighs. “Okay, I gotta go help Meg calm down Monster over there. Let me know how talking to Steve goes!” She blows you a kiss before hanging up abruptly, leaving you staring blankly at your phone screen.
You mentally parse through every not-date you’ve been on with Steve since Valentine’s Day. Every time Steve’s taken you somewhere you’d never go by yourself, every adventure that’s made your days brighter, every laugh you’ve shared that’s left your cheeks aching and your stomach warm with happiness.
You’ve been indulging in something you can’t ever truly have.
Because Steve was Robin’s first. Not romantically, that was squashed ages ago, but in all the ways that really matter. Your sister and Steve have the kind of friendship that most people spend their whole lives chasing. They’ve built a platonic bond that runs deeper than most romantic relationships would, and they understand each other in ways you’ll never fully grasp.
Who are you to threaten that by trying to start a relationship with Steve? How could you even think of risking unraveling a connection so strong just because your heart can’t listen to reason?
You’re not stupid. You’ve noticed the way Steve looks at you sometimes, the way he finds excuses to touch you and all the flirtatious little remarks he’s been making lately.
But you can’t date him. You won’t cross that line. Because if it doesn’t work out, if you two ever broke up, Robin would be caught in the middle, forced to pick sides between her blood sister and her best friend. And Steve… he’d lose the only thing resembling a real family he’s ever had. When he befriended Robin, he became an unofficial member of the Buckley family and found the stability he needed but couldn’t have in a big empty house with just his grandfather for company.
You can’t risk being the cause of that, not for anything, not even for the selfish part of you that’s longed for him for nearly half your life. So you decide right then and there to do your best to tuck those feelings away and hope for both your sake that if you don’t entertain Steve for long enough, he’ll get bored and move on to someone else.
Just read all 12 chapters in one go and I loved them. Little women always has a soft spot in me and them combined with Steve Harrington?! A combo I did not know I needed. Big love!
𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: coach!steve harrington x teacher!reader
𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: living inside Mrs. Harrington’s stomach is Eli Parker's newest—and most important—friend.
𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: elementary school au, pregnant!reader, girldad!steve, tooth-rotting fluff, you thought steve was smitten just wait 'til he's expecting a baby with you, eli being a cutie patootie as usual (4.7k)
𝐚/𝐧: part of my p.e. teacher!steve series, but this can be read as a standalone fic
. * ✦ . ˚ ✦ .
There’s an unspoken rule here at Hawkins Elementary:
Try not to look too married at work.
You’re professional educators. Responsible adults entrusted with the sacred, time-honored task of shaping young minds. You are not, under any circumstances, supposed to be making heart eyes at your spouse across the monkey bars.
Unfortunately, your husband has never been particularly good at subtle.
Recess is in full swing, the blacktop swarming with a small army of sticky-fingered, grass-stained kids burning off the last of their pre-lunch energy.
You’re stationed beneath the big maple tree at the edge of the playground, planner balanced on your knee. Sunlight spills through the leaves in soft patches of gold, warming your lap and the backs of your hands.
The weather is beautiful. You’d be enjoying it a lot more if your lower back didn’t feel like it was being slowly pulled apart.
You wince, bending forward to finish scribbling the rest of your reminders—copy math worksheets, call Toby’s mom—when a shadow falls across the page.
You close your planner slowly, letting the suspense sit there for a second before you tilt your head up.
The first thing you see is the whistle.
Silver gleaming against his sternum, hanging from the faded blue lanyard you gifted him during his first week teaching here. The edges are frayed now, worn soft with years of use, but Steve refuses to replace it.
Below that is his gray P.E. shirt, darkened slightly with sweat from a morning of dodgeball and relay races. His basketball shorts sit low on his hips, revealing strong, sun-bronzed thighs sculpted from years of sprinting across this very playground.
You raise a brow. “Mr. Harrington.”
Steve squints down at you, one hand lifted to shield his eyes from the sun. The other rests casually on his hip, fingers splayed over the waistband of his shorts.
“Mrs. Harrington,” he replies, lips curving into an easy, knowing smirk. He nods toward the empty space beside you. “Is that seat taken?”
You tap your pen thoughtfully against your planner. “Hmm, I don’t know. Depends who’s asking.”
His grin widens as he steps closer.
“Well. There’s this insanely smart, ridiculously pretty fifth-grade teacher who happens to be married to me. She says I’m kinda great. Might vouch for me.”
You roll your eyes, though your lips betray you with a smile.
He drops onto the bench beside you, knees bumping yours.
The teasing spark in his eyes softens almost immediately once his gaze lands on you—quietly roaming over your face, a silent ritual to catalogue the smallest of details.
“Hi, baby,” he murmurs.
You laugh under your breath, reaching out to untwist the lanyard where it’s gotten caught on his collar. “Hi.”
You haven’t seen him all morning.
Tuesdays are brutal—back-to-back classes with no shared planning period, no painfully long faculty meeting where he sits beside you, slouched halfway out of his chair, nudging your ankle under the table until you kick him in the shin.
You didn’t even get your usual five minutes with him in the hallway. The ones where he leans against the lockers outside your classroom, brushing a loose strand of hair from your face while dramatically recounting how his third graders attempted to unionize against the mile run.
Now, finally, you get a second to really look at him.
And Steve Harrington in sunlight is frankly a dangerous thing.
His skin glows warm from all the hours he spends outside, chasing rogue kickballs and letting kids climb on him like he’s a human jungle gym. His eyes always hover somewhere between honey and deep chestnut depending on the light—right now, in the afternoon sun, the centers are a rich amber, little flecks of green scattered around the edges.
You like that his hair’s grown out a little lately. Thick, luscious strands catching the light, the tips kissed gold by the sun.
Just a little halo of sunshine clinging to your golden boy.
“Free block?” you ask.
“Mhm.” His thumb starts tracing absentminded circles over your knee. “Had to come check on my girls.”
You huff a quiet laugh. “You’re so dramatic.”
He bristles. “What? I haven’t seen you all day.”
His gaze drops for a moment, mock indignance softening when it passes over the gentle curve of your stomach. He tips his head, brows knitting faintly.
“You feeling okay?”
“Uh-huh,” you nod as you sit up, trying to stretch out the tight pull in your back. “Just a little achy.”
It's like a switch gets flipped inside of him.
He immediately slides closer on the bench, turning so you’re both facing the playground—two coworkers supervising recess, nothing suspicious about it.
Except now, his entire side is pressed against yours.
Shoulder to shoulder, flush from knee to hip, the solid heat of him seeping through cotton and denim until you’re practically fused together.
Steve has always run warm—your golden boy, always carrying a pocketful of sunshine with him wherever he goes—and right now, it’s radiating straight into your aching hip.
His arm starts to creep behind your back.
“Steven,” you warn under your breath, eyes flicking toward the kickball field where Mrs. Patterson is very much within viewing distance.
He hums like he didn’t hear a word.
You feel the warmth of him first, then the broad span of his palm settling at the small of your back, just below your waist. His fingers spread gently, steadying you as his thumb traces along the line of your spine.
Then he presses in. Deep.
The sound that escapes your throat is completely involuntary.
“Yeah?” he murmurs, leaning a little closer. “Right there?”
You swear your husband has some kind of supernatural gift—he finds this exact spot every time without even trying, that stubborn knot of tension right above your sacrum that’s been throbbing all morning.
“Lean into me a little,” he says softly.
You do it without thinking.
Your shoulder tips against his chest, your weight settling against him as his arm tightens around your back. His thumb resumes its slow, steady circles, pressing and easing and pressing again.
The kids shriek across the playground. A whistle blows somewhere near the jungle gym.
But right here, tucked against Steve’s side, the world goes pleasantly quiet.
“Better?” he asks, breath warming the side of your neck.
You nod, eyes drifting closed for a moment. “Mhm.”
His hand slides a little higher along your spine, thumb digging in just a touch more firmly this time.
You groan, a little louder than you probably should.
Steve huffs a laugh under his breath.
“Careful,” he murmurs, faintly smug.
You’d elbow him if you could remember how to move your arms.
For a while, you sit there in silence. Letting him work out the knot in your back, leaning into his chest like a cat nuzzling into a spot of sun-warmed carpet.
“How’s she doing today?” he asks after a long while, lips brushing your temple.
You sigh dramatically.
“Other than using my bladder as a trampoline and wrecking my back?” you mumble. “She’s fine.”
Steve’s chest lifts with a quiet laugh. He leans down and presses a kiss to your shoulder, soft and lingering.
You smile, melting into his touch. Forgetting, briefly, that you’re at work.
Then you very much remember.
“Okay, okay,” you laugh, reaching back to catch his wrist. “That’s enough, Mr. Harrington. I’m supposed to be supervising.”
“What?” he huffs, hand lingering at your waist. “I’m just... being a good husband. Nothing wrong with a little massage.”
You tilt your head subtly toward the playground. “Tell that to Mrs. Patterson.”
Steve glances over.
Sure enough, Mrs. Patterson stands near the kickball bases with her hands on her hips, scanning the playground like a hawk who has spent thirty years policing recess etiquette.
He sighs dramatically. Mutters something about how he can’t even take care of his own wife in peace.
Still, he behaves.
Reluctantly shifts a few inches away, withdrawing his arm from behind you. His hand returns to rest casually over your knee.
You sit up properly and reach for your planner.
Before you can even touch the pen, Steve asks casually:
“You eat this morning?”
You hesitate.
It’s tiny, barely a pause.
But Steve Harrington notices everything when it comes to you.
His brows raise slowly.
There’s a daisy-printed lunchbox sitting untouched on your desk.
Steve insisted on buying it after going through an entire color-coded stack of OB pamphlets—one he hoarded from your doctor’s office “just in case.”
You’ve walked into the kitchen on more than one occasion to find him hunched over the table, elbows planted, brow furrowed, lips moving faintly as he works through a paragraph about fetal development like he’s cramming for finals.
Apparently, pregnant women can get lightheaded if they don’t eat often enough. Something about blood sugar. Or iron. Or both.
You don’t remember exactly, but Steve does.
“You’re not supposed to go more than two hours without eating,” he told you last week, moving around your kitchen with the focus of a man preparing for battle. “You could get nauseous. Or like, pass out. Which we’re not doing. So,” he’d set the lunchbox on the counter with finality, tapping the lid. “You eat this one before lunch. And I’ll pack something extra for after. Okay?”
Every day since, you open it during quiet reading time to find: two pre-peeled cuties clementines, string cheese, homemade trail mix portioned into a little reusable container, and a granola bar he spent five full minutes analyzing in the cereal aisle because he didn’t “trust half those ingredients.” There’s always an ice pack inside, too, because you mentioned one time that fruits taste better cold now that you’re pregnant.
Unfortunately, that lunchbox is currently buried under a stack of ungraded spelling tests and construction paper solar systems.
You hadn’t meant to forget. You really hadn’t.
“Stevie…” you try gently, knowing the nickname will soften the blow. “This morning was so busy.”
He holds your gaze with an unimpressed stare for exactly two seconds.
“Baby, I thought you were supposed to be the responsible one,” he sighs, shaking his head, fondness softening every word.
“I am the responsible one.”
“Uh-huh.” His hand slips off your knee as he leans down, rummaging through the gym bag at his feet. “Sure you are.”
“I am!”
Steve straightens a second later.
And when he does, he’s holding a bright, round fruit in his hand.
Glossy in the sunlight, skin dimpled and taut, a deep sunset color that's almost too perfect to be real. It looks plump, like it might burst if you so much as look at it too hard.
Your mouth waters instantly.
Your second trimester cravings have been all over the place—salt and vinegar chips one week, strawberry milk the next—but lately, all you can think about are oranges. Cold ones. Sweet, juicy, dripping-down-your-wrist ones. You’ve gone through three bags in five days.
Steve watches your posture straighten, eyes locked onto your target.
His mouth curves slowly.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, smug. “Thought so.”
He leans forward, elbows braced on his knees, and presses his thumb into the top of the peel. It splits with a soft tear, citrus scent blooming instantly between you. You lick your lips in anticipation.
Steve peels with the careful precision of someone who has done this many, many times.
His thumb slides under the rind and lifts it away in long, clean strips instead of shredding it. When stubborn white threads cling to the fruit, he scrapes them away gently with the pad of his thumb, collecting the little curls of pith in his palm so they don’t fall onto your dress.
He always peels them for you now.
Says you’ll complain when the smell sticks under your nails. Says he’s better at it than you—no mangled fruit on his watch.
But really, it’s because he wants to.
Only a few months in and he’s already the kind of dad who reads ahead in pregnancy books like there’s going to be a quiz. Who keeps a page in his class planner filled with bedtime story ideas, with little notes about hairstyles and braids he wants to practice before the baby gets here.
Last week you’d tried peeling an orange yourself while standing at the kitchen counter.
Steve lasted about three seconds watching you struggle with the rind.
“Just—give it to me,” he’d said, gently prying it out of your hands. “Your fingers are gonna smell all day.”
Lately, he doesn’t let you do much of anything alone.
He ties your shoes before you can bend down, picks things up the second you drop them. Slides chairs out before you even reach the table.
He’s started appearing at your classroom door halfway through the morning with a giant cup of ice water, because that’s been another one of your cravings lately.
There was one afternoon he walked in and found you standing on a chair, arms stretched high, trying to staple construction paper planets to your bulletin board.
Two seconds later, you felt a pair of hands wrap around your hips, easing you down.
“Absolutely not.”
“Steve—”
“Nope. I’ll do it.”
And he did.
Spent his entire free period stapling crooked Saturn rings to a crayon-dotted galaxy, asking you three times to confirm whether Uranus came before Neptune.
At home, it’s even worse.
If you so much as shift in the middle of the night trying to get comfortable, Steve wakes instantly.
“Mmph… baby?” he mumbles, pushing himself upright. “You okay? What do you need?”
“Nothing,” you whisper. “Go back to sleep.”
But he’s already swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
Next thing you know he’s in the kitchen at two in the morning—barefoot, hair sticking up in cowlicks, wearing an old t-shirt and boxers while he spreads peanut butter thick across a slice of toast or scoops vanilla ice cream into a bowl.
Most nights it’s both.
Then he sits cross-legged at your feet while you eat on the couch, eyelids heavy with sleep. Warm hands wrapped around your arches, thumbs kneading all the tender spots until your whole body melts into the cushions.
You used to tease him about it.
“Steve,” you laughed once, nudging his shoulder with your foot. “I’m pregnant. Not dying.”
He’d only shrugged, stubborn as ever. “Yeah, I know. Just like doing this stuff.”
Stuff like this.
He finishes peeling the first half of the orange and starts separating the slices. Eases his thumb into the center seam, gently pulling a segment free without bursting the delicate juice pockets. His finger runs along the curve, checking carefully for seeds. When he finds one, he digs it out with his nail and flicks it into his palm.
Only when he’s satisfied does he lift the slice up to your mouth.
“Open.”
You roll your eyes, but you do.
The fruit presses cool against your tongue—he must’ve kept it cold all morning somehow— and the second you bite down, sweet juice floods your mouth.
You practically melt, eyes slipping closed.
“Good?” he asks quietly.
“So good.”
He laughs under his breath. You feel a small bead of juice slip toward your chin, but Steve’s thumb is already there, brushing lightly along your bottom lip to catch it before it falls.
When you open your eyes again, he’s still looking at you.
Really looking, gaze warm and intent, tiny creases gathering at his temples from how wide he’s smiling.
So painfully affectionate, your husband.
Like this—feeding you orange slices on a splintered playground bench—is somehow the highlight of his entire day.
You swallow and reach for the next slice.
He pulls it back just out of reach.
“Ah ah—say thank you, Mr. Harrington.”
You narrow your eyes.
“...Thank you, Mr. Harrington.”
He grins, victorious, and slides the wedge past your lips with exaggerated care. “You’re welcome, Mrs. Harrington.”
A loud shout from across the playground makes you both jump.
“What?! Coach Steve! Coach Steeeeve!”
You and Steve share a look.
It’s a voice you both know all too well.
“Uh oh,” he sighs, slowly lowering his hand. “Here we go.”
Eli Parker comes sprinting across the grass like a tiny tornado, curls bouncing wildly with every step. His velcro sneakers slap against the pavement—one strap has come undone, as usual, flapping behind him.
“Coach Steve!” he pants, skidding to a stop in front of the bench, cheeks flushed pink and shiny with sweat. “Why are you here at recess? You don’t have recess! You have P.E. time!”
Steve lifts the half-peeled orange solemnly. “I’m on snack duty.”
Eli squints. “That’s not a real job.”
“It is now. Mrs. Harrington’s eating for two, remember?”
Eli blinks.
His gaze drifts slowly toward your stomach.
“Oh.”
And just like that, his favorite teacher becomes background scenery—more important matters await.
Eli sidesteps your husband like he’s a piece of playground equipment, edging closer to you instead. He tucks his hands behind his back and rocks forward onto his toes, suddenly shy.
“Um... Missus Harrington?”
Your heart melts a little every time.
“Yes, Eli?”
He glances up at your face, then at your belly. “Um... is the baby ready?”
Steve pauses mid-peel. He glances up at you, brows furrowed.
Ready for what? he mouths.
You bite back a smile and lean back slightly, patting your stomach. “Yep. She’s all yours.”
Eli steps closer and bends at the waist, hands planted on his knees.
Slowly, he lowers his face toward the curve of your bump.
“Hi, baby,” he whispers. “It’s me again, Eli.”
Steve’s fingers slow over the orange.
“Today we had apple slices at snack. But they were kinda mushy, so you didn’t miss nothin’. And Jacob falled in P.E. but he only cried for like… this much.” He pinches his fingers together to demonstrate. “I helped him up ‘cause I’m strong now. I eat all my carrots.”
You smooth your hand over your stomach, smiling.
“And we’re playin’ tag but I didn’t get catched even one time. I was too fast! You gotta run zig-zag, like this,” he demonstrates with his arms, nearly elbowing Steve in the chin. “When you come out, I’ll teach you. You gotta go like—whoosh whoosh!—so nobody can tag you. Not even Coach Steve. He’s... kinda slow.”
“Uh—hey," Steve protests.
Eli ignores him. “Just don’t run by the slide. There’s a crack there. Timmy tripped there once and there was blood everywhere. He had to get stitches! But he’s fine now. He got a Spider-Man bandaid. Oh, and...”
“He does this every day,” you murmur quietly to Steve while Eli continues his extremely detailed recess debrief.
“Seriously?” Steve whispers.
You nod. “Comes over to give her updates.”
Steve blinks, staring down at the top of Eli’s curls, expression gone soft. “Huh.”
“…and you always haveta pick chocolate milk first at lunch,” Eli explains firmly. “’Cause if you wait, it’s all gone and then you haveta drink regular milk and regular milk tastes weird.”
You’re still listening to Eli’s spiel on cafeteria survival rules when you feel a gentle nudge against the back of your hand.
Steve is holding another orange slice out to you, attention split between feeding you and listening to this tiny seven-year-old explain why pizza day is the most important day of the week.
You bring the slice up to your mouth.
As soon as the juice bursts across your tongue, you feel it.
“Oh! Hey, Eli?”
“…and then Jacob pushed—huh?” Eli looks up.
“Wanna feel something cool?”
“What kinda cool?”
You grin.
“The best kind.”
You take his warm, sticky hand in yours, and guide it carefully to the curve of your stomach.
“Right here. Just wait.”
Eli waits.
Nothing happens at first.
He squints down at your belly, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth.
And then—
“WOAH!” Eli yanks his hand back with a gasp, eyes round as saucers. “What was that?!”
You laugh softly. “That was the baby.”
“The baby?” he repeats, voice dropping to a loud whisper.
“Yep. That was her kicking.”
Eli’s jaw falls open, eyes fixed on your stomach.
“Um, Missus Harrington?” he says, voice growing a little urgent. “Can I feel again?"
You nod, guiding his hand back. His palm rests there, quivering ever so slightly with excitement.
Another small thump.
Eli gasps, but doesn’t pull away this time. A small giggle spills out of him.
“Wow,” he breathes. “She did it again. Does that mean she knows me?”
“Yeah, honey. She knows you’re there.”
Eli beams down at your stomach, rubbing his palm side to side like he’s waving through a window.
“Hi, baby,” he whispers. “It’s okay. It’s just me. I’m your recess buddy, remember?”
Steve has gone very, very quiet.
You glance up to find him completely frozen.
The orange sits half peeled and forgotten in his palm as he stares. Gaze locked on Eli’s hand, on the soft stretch of your dress over the life the two of you made.
When he catches you looking, he blinks quickly, that stunned expression flickering away.
In its place comes an exaggerated pout—eyes drooping, lower lip jutting out.
“Uh oh,” you murmur, smiling. “Somebody’s jealous.”
You grab his orange-sticky hand and guide it to the other side of your stomach.
Steve doesn’t move a muscle.
It’s like this, every time; he holds his breath, barely rests his palm on your stomach. Like he fears pressing too hard might disturb her.
He never says a word—just waits.
Eli, meanwhile, is vibrating with curiosity.
“So, so if she can kick, why can’t she talk? Does she have a mouth?”
“She does. She’s just still growing.”
“Can she hear me?”
“Yeah, but it’s probably a little muffled. Like when you’re underwater in a swimming pool.”
Eli thinks about that.
“Do I haveta be louder, then?”
“Well...”
“Nope,” Steve cuts in quickly. “Definitely not louder. She can hear you just fine, buddy.”
Your husband shoots you a quick look—eyebrows raised, lips quirked into an amused smile—before slowly pulling his hand back, clearly reluctant to lose contact.
A moment later he hands you another slice of the orange.
Then he fits one into Eli’s palm, too.
The slice looks enormous in Eli’s tiny grip. He clamps all five fingers around it, taking a massive, full-force bite. Juice immediately dribbles down his wrist.
Steve leans forward like he’d been expecting it, using the hem of his own shirt to wipe Eli’s arm before the stickiness spreads everywhere.
Eli barely notices, too busy chewing with wide-eyed focus.
“Are you gonna teach her stuff? ’Cause you’re a teacher?” He asks around a mouthful, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. “Like, y’know… ABCs and stuff.”
You smile. “Yep. Eventually.”
He frowns a little. “Eventually?”
“Yeah. We’re gonna have to teach her how to talk, first.”
Eli freezes mid-chew.
“She can’t talk?” he says, scandalized.
“Not when she’s first born,” you confirm gently. “She has to learn everything. How to move, how to talk… it’s all brand new for her.”
Eli turns his head slowly, staring at your stomach like this is deeply upsetting information.
“What about... what about running?”
“Mm, she'll have to learn that too. Maybe by the time you’re in fourth grade.”
He gasps, betrayal written all over his little face.
“She won’t even know how to run?” he whispers.
You laugh softly. “Not right away, honey. Babies can’t do very much when they’re first born.”
He stands there for a second, eyes squinted, lips pursed. You can practically see the gears turning in his head.
Then suddenly his whole face lights up.
“Wait!” He bounces up onto his toes. “But that means I can show her stuff! I can teach her how to count to a hundred,” he says, chest puffing up with pride. “And I can do the monkey bars all the way across without help now. And—and I can show her how to tie her shoes! I learned that last week.”
He lifts one foot to prove it—the sneaker he's got on has three velcro straps, and one of them is hanging open.
“That’s very impressive,” you say seriously.
Eli nods like he already knew that.
Then he reaches out with his free hand, tiny fingers carefully brushing against the curve of your belly.
His voice drops into a soft whisper.
“I can’t wait ’til you’re out, baby.” He pats your stomach gently. “I’ll teach you everything.”
He thinks about it for a second. Then adds:
“I’ll be like… the best big brother ever.”
Your throat closes up a little. You glance over at Steve to find him already looking at you—this warm, stunned sort of wonder in his eyes, like the moment landed in his chest the same way it did in yours.
He reaches for you quietly, thumb brushing along the back of your hand.
You lace your fingers with his and give them a squeeze. He squeezes back.
Then the bell rings.
A long, miserable groan ripples across the playground.
“What?” Eli exclaims, shoulders collapsing dramatically. “But—but I wasn’t done!”
“You can talk to her again tomorrow,” you promise.
Eli turns back toward your stomach, lips puckering in serious thought.
“Okay,” he sighs. He leans closer one last time.
“Bye-bye, baby. Don’t forget me.”
“She won’t, honey,” you smile, smoothing his curls back from his forehead.
You brace your hands on the bench, ready to stand.
Steve is already on his feet. One hand wrapped around your forearm, the other settling at your lower back. You don’t actually need the support, but he always acts like you might topple over without him.
“Easy, easy.”
You roll your eyes affectionately. “Steve, I’m fine.”
You call your class over, watching them shuffle toward you in a crooked, noisy line.
“Alright, fifth graders! You ready?”
“Wait, wait,” Steve says suddenly, hurrying forward. “One more.”
Before you can react, an orange slice gets slipped past your lips.
You laugh around it, juice bursting sweet across your tongue.
You reach up on impulse, resting a hand on his shoulder to press a quick, soft kiss to his lips.
It’s not something you do often at school, and you can tell it catches him off guard.
You pull back to watch him blink, tongue darting out as he instinctively licks away the glossy residue on his mouth. Hazel eyes gone round, breath caught like you haven’t been kissing him for years.
You kind of hope he’ll always look like that, no matter how chaste the gesture.
Behind you, your class erupts into varying degrees of horror and fascination: “Ewwww!” “No way!” “Coach Steeeve, can I have a bite of the orange?"
“Alright, alright!” you laugh, waving them down. “Enough.”
You turn back to Steve, lowering your voice. “See you after last period?”
“Uh huh,” he nods, still a touch dazed. He blinks, shakes his head. “Yeah. I’ll—yeah.”
You smile at him and turn back to your students, ushering the rowdy line toward the school doors.
Halfway across the blacktop, you glance back.
Your husband is still standing by the bench, one hand lifted in a loose wave as he watches you go.
You mouth the words silently.
Love you.
He smiles, mirrors the words right back.
Love you too.
And right then, a small flutter rolls through your stomach.
A tiny voice responding in kind, a little heartbeat of its own saying:
Love you three.
✿
Once you disappear through the school doors, Steve exhales slowly.
Then he looks down.
Eli is still there.
Hovering by his leg, nibbling thoughtfully on what’s left of his orange slice. At this point it’s mostly membrane, barely any juice left, but he’s got more important thoughts on his mind.
He sucks at it with intense focus, eyes narrowed in deep, seven-year-old contemplation.
“Coach Steve?” Eli says finally.
Steve rests his hands on his hips, orange peels crumpled loosely in one fist. “What’s up, buddy?”
Eli glances toward the doors where you disappeared, then back up at Steve.
steve harrington x reader fanfiction | fratboy!steve | platonic!stobin (i promise) | mentions of cheating (but it's not real cheating) | mean!steve, playboy!steve | sort of friends to enemies to fwb to lovers | slowish burn | angst | hurt ... eventual comfort
warnings: angst... lack of communication. misunderstandings.... sex. drinking. weed. mean! steve, smut. breeding kink. creampie. sub! steve if u squint... very brief... saying everything under the sun BUT "i like you"
words: 25k
summary:When you find out your college roommate/friend robin buckley's boyfriend, steve harrington— who you thought beat all stereotypical frat boy odds— is cheating on her, you find it hard to understand why she still wants to be with him. But there is more than meets the eye. You aren't sure if you want to be roped into it.
a/n: okay, here is the long awaited chapter... it's a monster. and there's a bit of relationship building... i hope it's not boring...
masterlist | Rules/Playlist
chapter 13
You can't shake the feeling from yesterday—sitting on Steve’s bedroom floor, shoulder to shoulder, waiting for those tests to tell you whether your life was about to change forever.
You can't shake how normal it felt. How right.
Last night, while Robin had sprawled on her bed talking excitedly about the camping trip for her birthday—who was bringing what, where you'd all set up tents, how Eddie promised to bring his guitar—you'd decided not to tell her about the scare. The guilt is already gnawing at you, sharp teeth in your stomach, because you could've been the cause for all their carefully constructed plans to fracture and collapse. Their future—Steve and Robin's marriage, Nancy living with them as a "roommate," the whole delicate fiction they're building—could've come crashing down because you couldn't keep your legs closed.
This morning you woke before Robin did. That alone is unusual—normally you're both up at the same time, talking while getting ready for class, sharing coffee from the pot on Robin's desk, complaining about professors or assignments or whatever drama is currently unfolding. But this semester you only have one class together, and that's Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Today is Tuesday.
You'd slipped out while she was still asleep, leaving before you had to lie to her face.
It's later in the evening now, the sun already setting, casting long shadows across campus. You've skipped all your classes today because—well, to be honest, you're still shaken. You wouldn't be able to concentrate. Especially if you saw Sammy, another person in the equation who has no idea how close he came to being part of something catastrophic.
You find Steve in the library, tucked into a corner on the third floor where hardly anyone goes. He's alone, actually has a book open in front of him, brows furrowed in concentration as he reads. There's a highlighter in his hand, uncapped, and you watch him mark something on the page with careful precision.
You wouldn't say you're stalking Steve, per se. You just happen to know where he is and end up being in the same spot— all day. Normally hiding behind a wall or a cluster of people, watching him from a distance like some kind of pathetic shadow.
It's such a mundane sight—Steve Harrington studying—and yet it makes your chest ache for reasons you don't want to examine.
You're standing between the stacks, peeking through the gap where you've pulled out a random book, when you hear your name.
You jump, nearly dropping the book, quickly shoving it back into the empty space on the shelf.
You turn around to find yourself face-to-face with Sammy.
"Oh. Hey." Your eyes dance to the side—toward where Steve is sitting, unaware—then back to Sammy's face.
He smiles awkwardly, shifting his weight from foot to foot, like he's unsure what to say. "Hey." He pauses, running a hand through his hair. "You... weren't in class today."
You swallow hard. "Yeah. I just wasn't feeling good. So, yeah."
The lie is terrible. You can see that he notices—the way his eyes narrow slightly, the way his smile becomes more forced.
"Right." He clears his throat. "Well... listen, I wanted to tell you that I was sorry for being kind of weird last week. I'm really stressed about midterms, especially the one we have on Thursday." He's rambling now, words coming faster, nervousness bleeding through. "And I was hoping I'd see you today, and I was actually going to come by your dorm to drop off the review sheet for class. And maybe even see if I could take you out this weekend?"
You used to find this cute and endearing—the shy rambling, the nervous energy, the genuine sweetness of him. But now it's kind of annoying, and you can't help the irritation that prickles under your skin.
"Yeah, maybe we can talk about it on Thursday after class."
Sammy smiles hopefully, looking around the library before leaning in to kiss your cheek. The touch is soft, brief, and makes you want to pull away. "Sounds good."
Before he walks off, he halts. "Oh shoot, wait." He fumbles in his satchel, pulling out a folded piece of paper. "The review sheet. Study hard."
He hands it to you and walks away, disappearing down the stairs.
You lean back against the bookshelf, releasing a breath you didn't know you were holding. Relief floods through you—relief that he's gone, that you don't have to keep pretending, that you can go back to watching Steve.
You pull the book out again, creating your spy-hole, and peek through the gap.
Steve is gone.
Your heart sinks, frustration flaring hot in your chest. You scan the area where he'd been sitting, but his books are gone too, his backpack, everything. Like he was never there at all.
The next day is better. Except with Robin.
Robin, who notices immediately that you're off about something. She suggests getting lunch together before your shared class, but you shake your head, telling her you need to go to a professor's office hours first. Which is a lie. You don't have any questions for any professors.
Robin looks disappointed, her face falling slightly before she covers it with a smile. "Okay. Rain check?"
"Yeah. Definitely."
After class, Robin catches you at the door. "Dinner tonight? We haven't eaten together in days."
"I can't," you say, already moving, nearly bolting out the classroom doors. "I have to—I promised I'd help someone study. Sorry!"
You don't look back to see her reaction.
Instead, you camp out in a small corner of the library, tucked behind the periodicals section where no one ever goes, watching the achingly slow clock on the wall. Each minute feels like an hour, each hour like a day, until finally it's 8:10 p.m.
You pack up your things and head to the parking lot, positioning yourself near the edge where you can see Steve's BMW.
At exactly 8:15, your smile is ear to ear when you see him there, leaning against his car, smoking a cigarette. The ember glows orange in the darkness, and you can see the smoke curling up into the night air.
He's been waiting for you.
The realization makes something warm bloom in your chest, spreading through your ribs like sunlight.
You're about to call his name, already opening your mouth to say "Steve," when his head turns. He lifts his hand, waving at someone.
Not just anyone.
Polly.
Her red hair sways as she walks toward him, wearing a tight bright green yoga outfit that shows off every curve. Steve and Polly start walking together, away from his car, talking about something you can't hear from this distance.
Steve stops for a second, looking in your direction. Your breath catches.
You do the very adult thing and duck behind a car, crouching low, pressing your back against the cold metal.
You hear their footsteps getting closer, then stopping. You peek around the edge of the car and see them talking, Steve's hands in his pockets, Polly gesturing animatedly about something. She's smiling, laughing, reaching out to touch his arm.
Then she hugs him.
Your throat burns like you've swallowed acid. Your hands ball into fists, nails digging crescents into your palms.
You don't know why you're fueled with such jealousy. You knew what Steve was. You knew the rules. You knew there were other girls.
And you think you might even like Polly. She was kind and you have no reason not to. Except now, you were trying to find every reason to hate her.
Robin was right. Steve wouldn't change. Not even for you.
You storm into your dorm, don't even bother changing out of your clothes, just climb into bed and pull the covers over your head. When Robin comes back an hour later, you pretend to be asleep, evening out your breathing, keeping perfectly still even when you hear her sigh sadly before getting ready for bed.
The next day, you're grateful you studied despite your inner turmoil. You're a pretty natural test taker, always have been, and you breeze through the exam with time to spare. You turn it in with forty-five minutes left in the period and wait outside the building, leaning against the brick wall.
When you see Sammy emerge, you grab his hand and drag him behind your designated bush—the one you've used before, hidden from the main walkways.
You kiss him hard, desperately, trying to get his lips to burn away the memory of Steve's. Trying to replace the taste of Steve's mouth with Sammy's, trying to convince yourself that this is enough, that this is what you want.
After a few minutes of making out, breath coming hard, you pull back. "There's a party tomorrow night. At the Pike house. Eddie's band is playing. Want to go?"
Sammy's eyes light up. "Yeah. Definitely." He pauses, fingers playing with the hem of your shirt. "You want to hang out before?"
"Yeah. That sounds good."
That night, again, you go to bed before Robin gets home. You hear her come in, hear her sigh—sad and resigned—and listen to her get ready for bed in the dark.
That next day, you show up to the Alpha Tau house around seven. Most of Sammy's brothers are home, along with a handful of girls you vaguely recognize from classes or other parties. The house smells like beer and pizza, music playing from somewhere upstairs.
About an hour in, you're sitting in Sammy's lap, nursing a drink that's stronger than it should be, when you lean in close to whisper in his ear. "You should take me upstairs."
Because whatever, your period stopped yesterday and Steve was out fucking other girls. You deserve to feel good.
His eyes widen, pupils dilating with want, and he doesn't need to be told twice.
In his room, door locked, you're drunk enough to be brave. Drunk enough to say what you've been thinking about. "I want you to be rougher with me. Dirtier."
Sammy looks surprised but nods eagerly. "Yeah. Okay. I can do that."
And he does try. He kisses you harder, teeth catching your bottom lip. He digs his nails into your flesh—your hips, your thighs—leaving red marks. When he enters you, he's more forceful than usual, hips snapping harder.
Then he leans close, breath hot against your ear. "Do I fuck you better than the other one?"
The other one?
You furrow your brows, the words jarring you out of the moment. "That doesn't turn me on."
He stops, just for a second, processing. "Okay." Then he keeps going. The two of you only make dirty sounds, not speaking to each other. Not telling the other they feel good or what to do.
When he turns you over, positioning you with your hands against the wall, you close your eyes. You imagine it's Steve behind you. Steve's hands on your hips. Steve's lips on your back, trailing kisses down your spine. Steve's lips...
You think about the kiss at Mardi Tau. The taste of him—cigarettes and want and something underneath that was purely Steve. The way his tongue had moved against yours, desperate and hungry.
Then you remember something he'd told you months ago, his voice rough and commanding: "You don't need me to touch you to come."
You let out a moan as your orgasm crashes through you, clenching around Sammy, your whole body shuddering.
After, Sammy doesn't say anything. Just helps you clean up with a damp towel, gentle and thorough. Another thing he checks off the list of good sex partner, you suppose. Considerate. Caring. Everything you should want.
He drives you to the Pike party, and two of his other brothers—Gary and Ryan—pile into the back seat, already drunk off their asses. They're loud, talking over each other about girls in other sororities, rating them on a scale of one to ten, laughing at jokes that aren't funny.
You lean toward Sammy. "Why won't you say anything?"
He shrugs, eyes on the road. "They're just being dumb."
You cross your arms across your chest, annoyed at his dismissiveness.
When you finally arrive at the Pike house, it's already packed. You can hear Corroded Coffin from the backyard—Eddie's voice cutting through the night, guitar wailing. The bass vibrates through the ground beneath your feet.
Sammy puts his hand on your lower back as you walk toward the front gate, and you shift uncomfortably. His hand feels wrong—too light, too uncertain, nothing like the way Steve touches you with possession and purpose.
The pledge at the entrance—PJ, you think his name is—smiles when he sees you. "Hot Shot! Welcome!"
"Hey, PJ." You smile back, moving to walk inside.
But PJ steps in front of Sammy, blocking his path. "Oh... wow. Mr. Samuel." His smile becomes apologetic. "I'm sorry, but I've been informed you aren't allowed at Pike parties until further notice."
Sammy looks confused, then laughs like it's a joke. "What?"
You think it's a joke too. "Very funny. Come on, Sammy." You hold out your hand for him to take.
But PJ stops him again, hand coming up. "Sorry. I'm being serious."
Sammy's confusion morphs into anger, jaw tightening. "And why the fuck not? I didn't do shit."
PJ just shrugs, genuinely apologetic. "I just work here, man. Those are the rules."
"This is bullshit." Sammy pivots, turning to his friends who are watching from a few feet away. "Come on, guys. We're leaving."
"Sammy, wait!" You run after him. "Hey! Let me go in and find Steve—"
Sammy snaps around, and there's something in his eyes you haven't seen before. Hurt mixed with anger mixed with resignation. "Harrington won't do shit." He turns to his friends. "You two, go wait in the car."
Gary and Ryan exchange glances but do as they're told, stumbling toward Sammy's car.
Once they're out of earshot, Sammy crosses his arms. "Well?"
You stutter, trying to find words. "I'm sure it was a misunderstanding. It won't take more than a few minutes. I'll just—"
Sammy laughs, but there's no humor in it. He says your name, flat and tired. "Harrington is the one who blacklisted me. Don't you see? He doesn't like me."
"I'm sure that's not—"
"Look, I know you've been sleeping with him too, alright? I know you're one of his girls." His voice drops lower, something bitter creeping in. "I saw you two disappear together at Mardi Tau."
The other one.
You don't try to deny it. The words stick in your throat, useless and heavy. Now you know why you couldn't find Sammy after Steve had left the bathroom. Though, if you're being honest, you hadn't tried that hard to look for him in the first place.
What's more unsettling is how Sammy knows about Steve's multiple girls. "How do you know about that?"
Sammy rolls his eyes, scoffing. "It's Greek life. We know everyone's skeletons in the closet, even if we don’t talk about it. And everyone knows since Buckley is waiting for marriage, she lets Harrington do whatever.”
Oh, so he doesn’t know the entire truth. You found it startling that he didn’t look down on you either. Because from the outside, it looks like you’re a homewrecker.
He pauses, licks his lips. "Look, this casual thing might be working for you, but it's not working for me."
You can see the hurt in his eyes—genuine pain mixed with embarrassment, with the realization that he was never going to be enough for you. Shit, did you even really give him the chance?
"I'm sorry," you whisper, because what else can you say?
Sammy doesn't answer. Just looks at you for a long moment, like he's memorizing your face, then turns and walks to his car.
You watch him peel out of the driveway, tires squealing, gravel spitting up behind him.
And you're left standing there in front of the Pike house, alone, while Corroded Coffin plays and people laugh and drink inside like your world hasn't just tilted sideways again.
You still go into the party, pushing through the crowd gathered near the front door, following the sound of Corroded Coffin bleeding through from the backyard. The house is packed—more people than you've seen at a Pike party in weeks now that Steve got rid of the bullshit invite only rule—and you have to shoulder past bodies to make your way through.
You find Robin and Steve in the backyard, standing near the makeshift stage Eddie's band has set up. They're wrapped around each other, Steve's arms holding Robin upright while she sways to the music. She's clearly high or drunk or both—eyes red-rimmed and glassy, face loose and unguarded in a way that only comes from being completely gone. Steve is holding most of her weight, keeping her steady.
When Robin sees you, she squeals loud enough to be heard over the guitar. "Hot Shot!" She turns to Steve, grinning wide. "You know, I see why you like calling her that."
Steve catches your eyes but doesn't say anything. Just looks away, back toward Eddie's band, jaw working.
Robin tilts her head, swaying slightly. "Where's Sammy?"
You narrow your eyes at Steve, anger flaring hot in your chest. You don't say anything about his potential blacklist—not here, not now—but you reach over and take the red solo cup from his hand. You shoot the entire contents in one go, liquid burning down your throat, gasoline and bad decisions. You wipe the back of your hand across your mouth.
You turn your attention to Robin. "We're not going to see each other anymore."
Robin's face crumples, arms immediately coming around you. "Aw, babe. Here, let's get you another drink to get your mind off it."
Steve looks at you—really looks, his eyes searching your face for something—and then away, jaw clenched so tight you can see the muscle jumping.
For the first time in weeks, you're alone with Robin. Loose and carefree, four cups in, dancing with each other to Corroded Coffin's cover of some metal song you don't recognize but can feel in your bones. It feels easy and simple, like last semester. Right before you chose to let Steve fuck you in his room during Thanksgiving break.
You should've said no.
It was only meant to be fun. You were okay with the rules. You were okay with the other girls.
And you have no idea what changed.
You don't like him. Not like that. Not in any way that matters. It's just... you don't know. You feel so lost, unmoored, like you're floating in open water with no land in sight.
"Hey, what's wrong, babe?" Robin asks, having to lean close to be heard over the music.
You realize you're crying. Tears streaming down your face, hot and shameful, and you hadn't even noticed. "Oh." You wipe at your face with clumsy fingers, smiling half-heartedly. "I'm just... happy to see you."
Robin smiles, pulling you into a tight hug that smells like weed and the strawberry shampoo she uses. "Me too! I've been missing our time together. We should go have a girls' day tomorrow."
You nod against her shoulder, squeezing her tighter.
You pull apart and start dancing again, Robin spinning you under her arm in a move that's more enthusiasm than coordination, both of you laughing when you stumble.
When suddenly you feel another presence. To your side is a boy you've never seen before—tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a backwards baseball cap—looking at Robin and you with a wicked smile, reeking of beer so strongly you can smell it from two feet away.
"Can we help you?" you ask, grabbing Robin's wrist protectively. Robin stops dancing, her loose, carefree expression fading.
"Just wondering how much it'd be to see you two make out," he slurs, leaning in closer.
Robin frowns, rolling her eyes. "Leave us alone."
"Oh, come on. Bet it'd be hot." He turns to you, grin widening. "Isn't that what they call you? Hot Shot?"
"In your dreams, asshole," you mutter, tugging on Robin's arm. "Come on, Rob."
But the man grabs Robin's wrist, fingers digging in hard enough to make her wince. "Come on, pretty girl."
You push the guy off Robin, shoving his chest hard enough to make him stumble back a step. "Don't fucking touch her."
"Yeah, get him!" Robin drunkenly rambles, pumping her fist in the air.
The guy grabs your wrist in retaliation, his grip painful, fingers like vices, and he's opening his mouth to say something when—
He falls to the ground.
A figure has appeared beside you, fist connecting with the guy's jaw with a sickening crack. The figure is Steve.
There are a few yelps around you, people nearest backing up, creating a circle, but not enough to make the entire party freeze. Eddie is still going at it on his guitar, oblivious.
Steve walks over to the guy who's trying to scramble backward on the grass, grabs a fistful of his collar, and hauls him half-upright. "Don't you dare touch my fucking girl again."
Your breath catches. Is he talking about you?
You can't ask before Robin steps closer, putting a hand on Steve's shoulder. "Uh... babe." You notice how she grimaces, and then she’s… laughing? "It's okay. Really."
Steve is panting, chest heaving, and he looks at Robin, then back at the guy, tightening his grip on the collar. "Tell them you're sorry. Now."
Of course it's not you. He would never say that about you.
"I—I'm sorry," the guy stammers.
Steve lifts him slightly and then shoves him back down to the ground. "If you know what's best for you, get out of here."
The guy nods frantically, scrambling to his feet, and scurries away, swaying dangerously from how drunk he is.
Steve stands there panting, eyes dark and wild, knuckles already starting to bruise. He looks at you.
"Steve—"
He cuts you off, voice loud enough to carry. "Alright, party's over. Everyone go home."
No one hears him over the music. He grumbles something under his breath, stomping toward the amps that belong to the band. He unplugs them with one violent yank.
The music dies instantly.
Eddie stops mid-solo, lowering his guitar. "What the hell, man?" he mouths.
Steve repeats, louder this time. "Everyone. Leave. Now!"
Protests and groans ripple through the crowd, but they listen. People start drifting out the backyard gate or back through the house. You hear complaints—"It’s not even that late," "What's his problem?"—but the yard is clearing.
You step closer to Steve, noticing his bruised hand, the knuckles already swelling. "Hey, are you—"
"Everyone includes you, Hot Shot." He snaps, stepping away from you like you've burned him.
"Steve, what's your deal?" Robin asks, stumbling slightly.
He glares at Robin—actually glares, something cold and furious in his expression. "Munson, take them home."
Then he storms away, slamming the back door hard enough to rattle the frame.
"Geez," Robin complains, waving her hand dismissively. "He has one bad phone call with his dad and he takes it out on all of us."
She approaches Eddie, who's packing up equipment with his band members—Gareth and Jeff, you think their names are. "Looks like you're our ride."
Eddie grins, pulling a joint from behind his ear. "Oh, ladies. The night has just started. What do you mean?"
"I love you, Eddie Munson," Robin says wistfully.
"Yeah, yeah." Eddie waves them off fondly. "Why don't you guys go wait in the van while we finish packing up, 'kay?"
He tosses Robin the keys, and she catches them with surprising coordination given her state. She hooks her arm through yours, grinning goofily. "Come on."
You walk the long way—out the backyard gate and around to the front driveway—not wanting to risk going through the Pike house and running into Steve again.
Once you're in Eddie's van—both of you claiming the front seats, Robin in the passenger side—you chew on your lip before speaking. "What was the phone call about?" You clear your throat, trying to sound casual. "I mean, with Steve's dad?"
Robin sighs, digging around in the console and finding a package of crackers. She tears into them, munching loudly. "Well, turns out the dingus finally figured out what he's gonna do for the rest of his life. Declared his major for teaching. He still has to apply to the College of Education, take some test after spring break and all that jazz.”
Robin crunches on another cracker, crumbs falling in her lap.
She continues, “But anyway, he didn't tell his dad until today. Thought maybe his dad being on vacation would ease the news, but nope. His dad totally went berserk. Said teaching was a waste of time, blah blah bullshit." She shoves another cracker in her mouth. "Feel bad for him, but he's been a total grump all week anyway."
Your heart sinks, heavy and uncomfortable in your chest. Why are you sad that Steve hadn't told you about declaring his major? You'd been the one who suggested teaching in the first place, but whatever. You shouldn't care.
"When did he do all of this?" you ask, keeping your voice level.
Robin thinks for a moment, fumbling with Eddie's keys even though the van is already unlocked. "I think first thing Tuesday morning."
Tuesday. When you'd definitely not been following him.
He hadn't said anything Monday that he was going to do that. But then again, did he really have a chance?
Robin finds a package of tissues in the glove compartment and blows her nose loudly. "Also, he's pissy with me because I told him he needs to be more careful with sex."
"What?" Your head snaps toward her, a humorous smile painted on your face. "Why?"
Robin shrugs, unwrapping another cracker. "Went over yesterday evening to study, and I found a pregnancy test in the bin."
She freezes, cracker halfway to her mouth. "Shit. Shouldn't have told you that since you're hooking up with him and all."
Your blood goes cold. Static fills your ears. "I... uh... what?"
Had you not gotten them all when you left?
"God, sorry. I just—" Robin shakes her head. "It pisses me off, you know? Sometimes he thinks more with his dick than what our plans are. I mean, can you imagine what I'd have to tell my parents if Steve got some babe pregnant? 'Oh no, guys, don't worry. I'm okay with my boyfriend who's not really my boyfriend having a kid with a girl I allow him to be with.'" She laughs bitterly. "Anyway, I found it and he wouldn't tell me who it was. Gosh, there I go again. I'm sure you don't want to hear it."
She turns to look at you, and something in her expression shifts. Softens. "I mean, at least I know it's not you." She laughs, but it sounds hollow. "I mean, you would've told me—"
"Robin, please stop." Your voice cracks, looking away. You run a hand through your hair, fingers trembling.
"Babe..." Robin's voice goes cold. Realization dawning. "Tell me it wasn't you."
Your eyes are glassy when you look at her, and the pain written on your face is answer enough.
"Holy shit."
"I know. I—"
"Why didn't you tell me?" Robin asks, voice flat and cold in a way you've never heard from her before.
Your mouth opens and closes. "I—I don't know. I—"
Robin's eyes widen, pieces clicking into place. "Monday. When you weren't feeling good and I came back to check on you, and you were gone all day. I knew you were lying." Her voice rises. "Am I right? Is this why you've been avoiding me all week?"
"Yes, but listen, Rob—" You reach for her, but she pulls away. "I didn't say anything because I didn't want it to be a big deal. I didn't want you to think that I'd do anything to jeopardize you and Steve and—"
Robin scoffs, shaking her head. She opens the van door and gets out, stumbling slightly on the curb.
"Robin, wait!" You scramble out after her. "Please, you have to understand where I'm coming from."
Robin snaps around, hair flying in her face, eyes red and furious. "You don't know how I would've reacted. You didn't give me a chance."
Your own defense boils over, spilling out before you can stop it. "Well, maybe it's because your head is so far up Nancy's ass and I never see you anymore. I would have given you one if you were ever around."
Robin looks like you've slapped her. "God, you don't get it." Her voice cracks. "Do you know how lucky you have it? You get to be with boys like Sammy, get to dance with him, and no one bats an eye. Make out at parties, be near them in public. But if I ever did that with Nancy..."
She swallows hard. "Even if people were cool with it, it'll just be like tonight, where dipshits want to make it into a sick fantasy. When Nancy comes here, I don't actually get to be with her. When I go visit her, we can't do shit like hold hands until we get in her apartment. All I have where it feels normal is talking on the phone." Her eyes are shining with tears now.
"God forbid you don't get any attention, 'cause clearly you enjoy it, Hot Shot." Your nickname is thick with venom, turned into an insult, a weapon.
"You know what? Screw you, Robin."
"Whatever." She turns away. "Tell Eddie I'm walking home. Forget about tomorrow.”
You immediately want to protest. Robin shouldn't walk home alone like this—drunk and upset and it's dark. But you're so mad at her, fury burning hot in your chest, that you just stand there.
You watch her disappear down the street, her silhouette getting smaller and smaller until she turns a corner and vanishes completely.
.-.-.-.
You wake up with your head pounding, each pulse of your heartbeat sending a spike of pain through your skull. Your stomach hurts—a deep, nauseous ache that makes you want to curl into a ball. You feel a creak in your neck as you slowly lift your head, vision blurry and unfocused.
You blink once, twice, trying to make sense of your surroundings.
You’re in the back of Eddie’s van. You recognize the faded band stickers on the interior walls, the ratty mattress beneath you that he keeps back here for—well, you’re not entirely sure what for, but it’s surprisingly comfortable. You’re laying back, body sprawled at an awkward angle that explains the neck pain.
You feel a breeze on your legs. You look down.
You’re wearing a shirt—not your shirt, you realize with dawning horror. It’s too big, hangs off one shoulder, smells like cigarettes and cheap cologne and someone else.
But your jeans are gone.
You’re only in your underwear.
Oh fuck.
Right when panic starts to claw up your throat, making your breath come faster, the back door to the van swings open with a metallic groan. Blinding light pours in, white and searing like a spotlight. Your eyes scrunch shut immediately, a groan escaping your throat as you throw your arm up to shield your face.
"Morning, sunshine!" Eddie's voice booms, way too loud, way too cheerful.
You peek through your fingers and see him standing there, backlit by what must be morning sun. He's grinning—that wide, toothy smile that takes up half his face—and he has a slice of pizza in his mouth. Cold pizza, judging by the way the cheese has congealed into a solid, waxy mass and the grease has turned opaque. Of course he eats cold pizza for breakfast. If it even is breakfast—you have no idea what time it is.
"Jesus Christ, Eddie," you mutter, covering your ears with both hands. "Inside voice."
He just chuckles, the sound rumbling in his chest, and takes the pizza out of his mouth long enough to say, "This is my inside voice. You're just sensitive."
He doesn't climb into the van yet. Instead, he reaches to the side—probably the front seat—and grabs something, then tosses a greasy paper bag onto the floor near your feet. It lands with a soft thud. "Gotcha breakfast."
You sit up slowly, every movement making your head swim and your stomach lurch. You grab the bag with shaking hands, opening it with fumbling fingers. The smell hits you first—heavy, greasy, overwhelming. You grimace immediately. It's a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit, the bread already soggy with grease, the cheese looks plastic, the sausage a questionable grayish-brown.
Why does every boy think this is appetizing?
You set the bag aside quickly, swallowing hard against the nausea, and Eddie finally crawls into the van. He moves with the ease of someone who's done this a thousand times, ducking his head to avoid hitting the roof, settling cross-legged near the door. He tosses you a water bottle—which you catch clumsily—and then a small orange bottle that rattles with pills.
You don't argue. You rake your fingers through your hair—tangled and probably a disaster—rubbing your temple with your free hand. Your mouth tastes like something died in it. You desperately twist the cap off the water bottle, the plastic crunching under your grip, and drink half of it in one go. The cool liquid soothes your raw throat, washes away some of the terrible taste.
You fumble with the pill bottle, fingers clumsy and uncoordinated, finally getting it open and shaking two pills into your palm. You swallow them dry, then chase them with more water.
Only then do you look at Eddie—really look at him. Then down at yourself. The too-big shirt that definitely isn't yours. Your bare legs reflecting in the morning light. The absence of your jeans.
"I... uh..." You swallow hard, your throat clicking. "Did we...?"
Eddie laughs—loud and sudden and completely without shame—making you wince and press your fingers to your temples. "You don't remember?"
"I'm... oh god, I'm so sorry—" The words tumble out in a rush, panic making your voice go high and thin.
He laughs again, shaking his head so his curls bounce. "Sweetheart, if we ever did anything like that, I would make damn sure you remembered." He waves his pizza slice at you, toppings threatening to slide off. "But no. We didn't do anything. Scout's honor."
He holds up three fingers in what might be a Boy Scout salute, though you're pretty sure Eddie was never a Boy Scout.
"Okay." You take a breath, trying to calm your racing heart. "So why am I in your van?" You look around again, taking in the cramped space with new eyes. "Did you sleep in here too?"
"You were passed out," Eddie explains, taking another massive bite. He talks around the food, which should be disgusting but somehow just seems very Eddie. "And you begged—like, actually begged—me not to take you to your dorm." He swallows, then continues. "And no, I didn't sleep here. I moved into the Pike basement a few weeks ago."
You blink at him. "What?"
"I mean, not like officially," he amends, gesturing with the pizza slice. "But Steve put a pullout couch down there for me, and I even got myself a bookshelf." His eyes light up with genuine enthusiasm. "With all my little knickknacks. It's pretty sweet, actually. I was like, 'Aw, Steve-o, you love me?' And he was like—" Eddie drops his voice into a gruff impression of Steve—"'Shut up, Munson.'"
He grins at the memory, then pauses to chew and swallow. "Anyway, before you ask why you're half-naked in my van—" He holds up a hand to stop your incoming question. "You got absolutely shitfaced last night. Like, I've seen you drunk before, but this was something else."
You groan, dropping your face into your hands. "Oh god."
"Yeah. You threw up all over yourself after Gareth gave you your stick and poke." He gestures vaguely at your lower half with the pizza crust. "So that's why you're not wearing your clothes. They were... unsalvageable. I had to throw them in a dumpster."
"My jeans?" you ask weakly.
"Sorry." He doesn't sound particularly sorry. "I would've carried you inside the Pike house—would've been easier, honestly—but you said something about being too mad at Steve to be around him." He shrugs. "So I gave you the shirt off my back—literally, that's my favorite Dio shirt you're wearing—and gave you a kiss goodnight."
Your eyes widen.
"Not really," he adds quickly, grinning. "But I did pray I wouldn't find you dead this morning. That would've been a real downer."
You stare at him, blinking slowly, your brain trying to process all of that information at once. It comes in fragments—throwing up, begging not to see Steve. Then your brows furrow, catching on something he said.
"What do you mean stick and poke?"
Eddie chuckles again, that shit-eating grin spreading wider across his face. "Oh man. I tried to talk you out of it. I really did. But you were very insistent." He takes another bite of pizza. "And you already had your pants off at that point, so..."
Your eyes grow wide, heart dropping into your stomach. "No."
"Oh yes."
You move immediately, hands scrambling for the hem of the shirt you're wearing. You lift it up, twisting to look at your hip, and sure enough—right there, just above the waistline of your underwear—is dark ink. Fresh and slightly raised. The skin around it is pink and irritated, swollen like a fresh wound.
The words Hot Shot are etched into your skin in slightly wobbly, imperfect letters. Permanent. Forever.
You bite your bottom lip hard enough to hurt, staring at it. "Great. This is just... great."
You let the shirt fall back down and flop backward onto the mattress with a loud sigh, the springs creaking beneath you. Your arm comes up to cover your eyes, blocking out the too-bright light from the open van door.
"Your van isn't all that bad, you know," you mumble after a moment.
You can hear his pleased smile even without looking at him—hear it in the way he shifts, the slight huff of amusement. "High praise. I’ll let the next person I bring in here know."
"I'm serious. It's kind of cozy."
"Okay, well, cozy time is over." Eddie claps his hands together, making you flinch. "Get these clothes on so I can take you home."
He tosses a pair of sweatpants and a new top— a silent way of telling you to give back his Dio shirt.
You don't move. "I think I'm okay hiding in here the rest of the day. Maybe the rest of the semester."
"Nope." Eddie shifts forward, and you hear him moving around. "Not happening."
"Why not?" You peek out from under your arm. "You said it yourself—it's cozy."
Eddie rolls his eyes—you can see it now, the exaggerated way his whole head moves. "Look, the van is kind of a drama-free zone, and I don't want you ruining the vibe."
You move your arm fully now, propping yourself up on your elbows to give him a proper death glare. "You're literally best friends with drama queen one and drama queen two. You're pretty much their love child."
"And that's why you fit in so well," Eddie snides, finishing off his pizza and wiping his hands on his jeans.
You stare at one another for a long moment—him with that infuriating smirk, you with your best attempt at intimidation despite your pounding headache and disheveled state.
You break first. A smile tugs at your lips despite yourself, small and reluctant but real.
Then it falls.
"Last night..." You sit up fully now, pulling your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around them. "Did I... tell you anything?"
Eddie leans back against the side of the van, arms crossed. "Nah, not really. Just said Robin is mad at you. You're mad at Steve. Steve is mad at Robin, blah blah..." He starts circling his fingers in the air by his head, letting his eyes roll back dramatically. He flops backward onto the mattress beside you with an exaggerated sigh. "Or wait, was Robin mad at Steve? Honestly, I can't keep up anymore. You three are like a soap opera."
You're quiet for a moment, then reach down to touch the tattoo again, lifting the shirt slightly. The letters are uneven—definitely done by someone drunk. But they're there. Irreversibly Hot Shot.
"Eddie..." You bite your bottom lip, not looking at him. "Do you think I'm an attention seeker?"
The van goes quiet. You can hear traffic in the distance, birds chirping, the rustle of Eddie shifting beside you.
When you finally look at him, his face is completely serious for once—no smirk, no jokes, no deflection. His dark eyes are steady on yours.
"Sweetheart," he says in the most genuine tone you've ever heard from him. "Aren't we all?"
.-.-.-.
Robin doesn't say anything the morning they throw their belongings into Eddie's van to drive to the camping trip. She hasn't talked to you all week, and you haven't tried to force it. The only reason you even know you're still invited is because three days ago, Robin walked into your dorm—you were lying on your bed, pretending to read but mostly staring at the same page for twenty minutes—and said, "Eddie is picking us up at 4PM. sharp on Friday."
The air in the room had felt thick, suffocating. You'd looked up from your book, mouth opening to say something—anything—but she was already turning away.
She stopped at the door, hand on the knob. Didn't turn around. "Nancy's excited to see you."
Then she was gone, the door clicking shut with a finality like a period.
You think maybe Nancy is your only saving grace for still going. Or maybe not really, because thinking about it—being in such close proximity to Robin who is clearly still furious with you, and to Steve who you're pissed at because you know he's pissed at you—makes your stomach churn with anxiety that tastes like battery acid.
Could you blame him, though?
Eddie had mentioned in passing that Steve and Robin aren't really speaking to each other either, except for some public appearances together for Greek life stuff. Things you weren't invited to this time. Things you wonder if Steve's other girls attended. If Polly was there in some tight dress, standing close to him, laughing at his jokes, touching his arm.
Maybe that's why you're pissed at Steve. Sammy ended things with you—and you still have to see him twice a week in Art Appreciation, where he now doesn't even blink in your direction, just stares straight ahead at the professor like you're made of glass or air or nothing at all—and Steve still gets to fuck whoever he wants. While you're not getting any. Not even from Steve.
At least you're not stuck in a car with him for the two-hour drive to the state park. Apparently he only had morning classes on Friday and left early to set up what he could.
But that doesn't mean the two-hour ride isn't one of the longest of your life.
Eddie does most of the talking—rambling about Corroded Coffin's upcoming gigs then about how he's pretty sure one of the Pike pledges is dealing weed and cutting into his business. His voice fills the van like smoke, impossible to escape.
You're in the back seat, watching the landscape blur past the window. Trees give way to fields give way to small towns with faded storefronts and gas stations. The vinyl seat is cracked beneath you, sticking to your bare legs where your shorts ride up. The van smells like stale cigarettes and the pine air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror that does absolutely nothing to mask it.
Robin is in the front, arms crossed over her chest, staring out her own window the entire time like if she looks hard enough she can transport herself somewhere else. Anywhere else. Her hair catches the sunlight streaming through the windshield, turning auburn strands to copper and gold.
Occasionally though, when Eddie says something particularly ridiculous—comparing his guitar skills to Eddie Van Halen with zero irony, claiming he's "basically a guitar god in the making"—you and Robin make eye contact in the rearview mirror. The corners of your lips twitch, almost smiling, something familiar and warm flickering between you before you both erase it and look away quickly, back to your respective windows.
Eddie drives down a dirt road that kicks up dust in thick clouds behind the van, coating everything in a fine layer of grit that you can taste in the back of your throat. The state park spreads out around you—tall pines and oak trees creating a dense canopy overhead, dappled sunlight filtering through in golden shafts that look almost solid. The air smells different here—clean and sharp with pine resin, mixed with the earthy scent of decomposing leaves and moss.
Campers and tents are spread out at different sites along the winding road, some with families already grilling—the smell of charcoal and cooking meat drifting on the breeze. Others with groups of college kids drinking beer from coolers, their laughter carrying through the trees.
Eddie finally backs into a spot next to Steve's BMW, which looks absurdly out of place here—all sleek lines and polished paint next to the dusty, beat-up van. On the other side of Steve's car is a light blue sedan you don't recognize—a Ford, maybe, with Indiana plates and a small dent in the rear bumper.
The three of you climb out of the van. Your legs are stiff from sitting for two hours, muscles protesting as you stretch. The ground beneath your feet is uneven—packed dirt and pine needles that crunch softly with each step. The air is cooler here in the shade of the trees, and you can hear water somewhere nearby, a stream or creek bubbling over rocks.
You follow Eddie and Robin toward the campsite, taking in the setup.
There are already two tents pitched—one larger, the fabric a dark green that blends with the surroundings. The other is smaller, a bright blue that stands out like a beacon. There's a fire pit ringed with large stones blackened from previous fires, and someone—probably Steve—has already laid kindling in the center. A wooden picnic table sits nearby, the kind that's permanently installed at campsites, its surface weathered gray and carved with decades of initials and crude drawings.
Lawn chairs—the collapsible kind with cup holders in the arms—are folded on the ground next to a substantial pile of firewood. The logs are fresh-cut, pale wood still showing where the bark was stripped away, and they smell sweet and sharp like sap. You can see a cooler partially hidden in the shade of a massive oak tree, condensation already beading on its blue plastic surface.
"Hey!"
The voice is warm and familiar, carrying easily through the clearing. Your attention snaps toward the tree line as Nancy emerges from between two pines, carrying an armful of sticks and small branches—probably meant for kindling. Her cheeks are flushed from exertion, a few leaves caught in her short bob.
Next to her is a boy you've never met in person but have seen once before. In the picture on Steve's bathroom mirror, the one with Eddie, Nancy, Robin, and him all squeezed together and grinning like idiots. The last time you saw that picture, you'd been sitting on Steve's closed toilet seat, peeing on a pregnancy test with shaking hands, and you'd noticed Steve had added a new photo to the collection—Eddie, Robin, him, and you, taken at some party you barely remember but where everyone looks happy.
Robin's face transforms instantly. Whatever moodiness she's been carrying for the past week—that heavy, dark cloud—evaporates like morning fog burned away by sun. "Nance!" She beams, already moving forward with quick steps that kick up dust.
Nancy barely has time to hand the pile of sticks to the boy beside her before Robin reaches her, pulling her into a tight hug. They hold each other for a beat longer than necessary, Nancy's face buried in Robin's shoulder, Robin's hand cradling the back of Nancy's head with such tenderness it makes your chest ache. You can hear Nancy's small sound of relief, muffled against Robin's shirt.
The brown-haired boy—tall and lanky with shaggy hair that falls across his forehead, partially obscuring his eyes—trudges through the campsite with the kindling balanced precariously in his arms. He's wearing a worn flannel over a faded Talking Heads t-shirt despite the warmth, jeans that are torn at one knee, and beat-up Converse that have seen better days. His face is gentle, features soft and unassuming—brown eyes that look kind, a slight bump on the bridge of his nose like it's been broken before.
Eddie's face lights up when he sees him, practically glowing. "Jon-boy!" He proclaims, voice booming across the campsite as he approaches with open arms. He slings one around the boy's shoulders, nearly toppling the kindling. "My favorite future Spielberg!"
"Hey, Ed." The boy—Jon, apparently—smiles, the expression soft and a little shy, crinkling the corners of his eyes. His voice is quiet, gentle. "How was the drive?"
"Exhausting!" Eddie shoots a look at Robin, then at you, eyebrows raised so high they nearly disappear into his bangs. "The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Actually, forget a knife. You'd need a chainsaw. Maybe dynamite." He releases Jon and digs into his denim jacket pocket, pulling out a small tin that's definitely full of pre-rolled joints. The metal catches the sunlight, glinting. "How about we get started on the fun part?"
Jon laughs, a quiet sound that barely carries, shaking his head. But he also doesn't say no. His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, and you can see familiarity, but no idea where.
Eddie turns to you, grinning so wide it looks almost painful. "Hot Shot, what about you? Wanna join?"
You sigh, shifting your backpack on your shoulder. The strap is digging into your skin, and you can already feel the beginning of a bruise forming. "Can't. Need to build my tent first before it gets dark." You gesture at Eddie pointedly. "You should do the same, you know. Unless you want to be fumbling with tent poles in the pitch black."
Eddie waves a dismissive hand, clicking his tongue. "I'm all set. I'm sleeping in a hammock. The only right way to camp. You get to sway with the breeze, sleep under the stars—it's transcendent." His eyes go wide, and he smacks his forehead dramatically. "Wait, how rude of me. Hot Shot, let me introduce you to the one and only Jonathan Byers."
The name sounds familiar—you realize with sudden clarity that this must be Will's older brother. You'd heard stories about him, mostly about how he and Steve had a complicated history.
You step forward, and notice how similar his features are to Will's—the same gentle brown eyes, the same soft jawline, though Jonathan's face is more angular, more grown into itself. His hands are stained with something dark—maybe developing chemicals if the photography stories are true—and there's a small scar on his chin.
You hold out your hand. "Hi."
Jonathan takes it, his grip gentle and a bit uncertain, like he's afraid of hurting you. His palm is callused, warm. He doesn't quite meet your eyes, gaze sliding to the side to focus on something past your shoulder. "Hi. Nice to meet you. I've heard... well, I've heard a lot."
You smile despite the awkwardness thrumming under your skin. "All good things, I hope?"
"Mostly." He cracks a small smile, and you see a dimple appear in his left cheek.
And because the world apparently hates you, footsteps crunch on leaves and gravel behind you. You turn and Steve is walking back from wherever he disappeared to—probably gathering more firewood or checking something, his arms empty now.
He stops when he sees you. His eyes—that golden hazel color that shifts in the light—land on where your hand is still clasped with Jonathan's. Something flickers across his face—too quick to read, gone before you can name it. His jaw tightens, muscle jumping beneath skin.
Then he looks away and slips into one of the tents like you don't exist, like you're part of the landscape he can ignore.
You drop Jonathan's hand quickly, heat rising to your cheeks that has nothing to do with the warm afternoon sun.
You look over at Nancy and Robin. They've separated slightly but Nancy's hand is still resting on Robin's lower back, a touch that looks casual but you know is anything but. Robin is glaring at the tent Steve disappeared into, jaw tight, eyes narrowed with an intensity that could burn holes through the fabric. Then her gaze catches yours for a split second—something complicated passing between you, hurt and anger and maybe a tiny bit of understanding—before she deliberately turns away, looping her arm through Nancy's more firmly.
"Come on, babe. Help me figure out where we're setting up our tent."
Eddie leads you back to the van, the metal hot under your hand when you grab the door handle. Nancy and Robin trail behind, still joined at the hip, and you can hear them talking quietly, Nancy's voice soothing whatever's churning in Robin's head.
The back of the van is cluttered—sleeping bags, a cooler, Eddie's guitar case covered in more stickers, some camping equipment that looks like it hasn't been used in years.
Robin grabs her duffel bag, then her backpack. Eddie hands you yours.
But he makes no motion to hand you anything else.
You peek into the van, scanning the remaining contents, then look at your single duffel bag. A sick feeling starts in your stomach. "Uh, Eds. Is my other bag in there still?"
"I just handed it to you." Eddie points at the duffel, confused.
"Yeah, my other bag." You say slowly, enunciating each word like you're talking to a child.
"What other bag?" He blinks at you innocently, and you can see the exact moment realization dawns. His face goes from confused to oh shit. "Uh..."
"What's wrong?"
For the first time in a week, you hear Steve's voice directed at your general vicinity. You give him a sideways look, refusing to fully turn, your spine stiffening.
He's standing a few feet away now, and up close you can see more details—the way his hair has grown out, brown roots overtaking the blonde highlights so it looks honey-colored in the dappled sunlight. It's longer, curling slightly at the ends where it brushes his neck. He's wearing dark jeans that sit low on his hips, and that blue t-shirt that's slightly too short. You can see a sliver of his stomach when he shifts his weight, a line of tanned skin and the trail of dark hair leading down. The sleeves hug his biceps, fabric stretched across muscle, and more hair peeks out from the collar, dark against his chest.
His arms are crossed over his chest, defensive, and there are smudges of dirt on his forearms like he's been working.
Nancy—still standing with Robin, their fingers now loosely intertwined—speaks for you. "She forgot her tent and sleeping bag."
You swivel to face her, defensive heat rising in your chest. "Correction; Munson here forgot my tent and sleeping bag. I put them right by the van because he told me to." You do air quotes, pitching your voice lower in a poor imitation of Eddie's gravel-rough tone. "'Have it all under control, sweetheart.'"
Eddie scratches the back of his neck, climbing out of the van with all the grace of a newborn giraffe learning to walk. His boots thud against the ground, disturbing the layer of pine needles. "Okay, yeah. Might have gotten... distracted. You see, I needed to take a smoke break while you and Robin went upstairs to double-check you had everything." He's rambling now, hands gesturing wildly in the air, nearly hitting the side of the van. "And then I saw this really cool beetle—or was it a moth? It had these incredible wings, all iridescent—doesn't matter. Point is, I, uh..." He grimaces. "Shit. Sorry, Hot Shot." He brightens slightly, like he's just had a brilliant idea. "You're welcome to share the hammock with me! It'll be cozy."
You sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose where a headache is starting to form. "I'll just sleep in your van again."
Nancy giggles, eyebrows raising with curiosity and amusement. "You slept in his van?"
You shrug, not elaborating, the memory of waking up in Eddie's shirt with a fresh tattoo on your hip making your face heat. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Steve's jaw tick, his posture going rigid, shoulders pulling back.
Eddie looks back into the van, assessing the cramped space. "I mean, you're welcome to it, but I took the mattress out after our wild night together." He winks obnoxiously, making smooching noises. "Made quite the mess, sweetheart."
"Shut up. Please." Your eyes drift to Steve despite yourself, despite knowing you shouldn't care what he thinks.
He doesn't seem bothered. His face is carefully blank, neutral, giving absolutely nothing away. Does he know the real story—that you'd gotten shitfaced and thrown up on yourself? Or does he not care anymore? Has he written you off completely, moved on to other girls who don't come with complications?
Steve sighs heavily, like this entire situation is a massive inconvenience he didn't sign up for. "Okay. She can take my tent and I'll just crash with Jonathan." He doesn't look at you. Doesn't address you directly. His gaze stays fixed somewhere over your left shoulder, like you're a problem to be solved rather than a person standing right there. "It's fine."
"It's fine, really—" you start, but your voice sounds weak even to your own ears.
But Steve has already moved. He's walking toward you, and before you can step back or protest, he's taking your duffel bag out of your hand. His fingers brush yours for a split second—warm and callused, familiar in a way that makes your breath catch—and then he's moving past you. The scent of him washes over you: pine needles and campfire smoke and that cologne he wears, the one that makes you think of clean laundry and something warmer, spicier underneath.
He sets your bag inside one of the tents—the smaller blue one—then walks to the larger green tent and grabs his own stuff. He tosses it into what must be Jonathan's tent with more force than necessary, the duffel landing with a heavy thud. He walks over to Jonathan, says something low that you can't hear over the rustle of wind through the trees, probably explaining the new arrangement.
Jonathan nods, glancing at you with something that might be sympathy or pity or just general confusion about what the hell is going on.
"Good thing they're friends now," you hear Nancy tell Robin quietly, though not quite quietly enough.
Robin snorts, loud enough that you know she meant for you to hear. "I'm gonna go build our tent, babe. Which means I'm going to pretend I don't know what I'm doing until Harrington inevitably helps me." There's affection in her voice when she says his name.
"Sounds good!" Nancy's arm is suddenly looping through yours, and she's standing right next to you, practically vibrating with excitement. Her skin is warm against yours, and she smells like the lavender shampoo she uses and something like vanilla. "That means we get to stand around, look pretty, and catch up!"
Robin's face falls slightly when she catches your eye. Something passes between you—not quite forgiveness, but maybe an acknowledgment that you're both here, both trying. Then she turns toward the campsite, already calling for Steve in that bossy tone she uses when she wants him to do something.
Once Robin is out of earshot—already gesticulating wildly at Steve while pointing at a tent bag—and Eddie is wandering off toward the tree line with his hammock under one arm, Nancy spins to face you fully. "Okay, fill me in on everything. I know something is going on between you and Robin."
Nancy shakes her head, curls bouncing with the movement. A few leaves are still caught in her hair from gathering kindling. "She won't talk about it. Clams up every time I try to ask. I tried to ask Steve when Jonathan and I got here, but he keeps running off." She searches your face with those sharp blue eyes that miss nothing. "What happened?"
You should tell her it's nothing. Should brush it off and change the subject to something safer, easier. But the more you think about it, the lonelier you feel. The weight of the secret pressing down on your chest like a physical thing. "Wanna go on a walk?"
Nancy beams, relief evident on her face. She swivels to look at the group scattered around the campsite—Robin and Steve already bickering over tent poles, Eddie climbing a tree to test its hammock-worthiness, Jonathan crouched by the fire pit arranging kindling—and shouts, "We'll be right back!"
You hike for a while, following a narrow trail that winds through the trees. The path is uneven, full of exposed roots and rocks that you have to watch out for. The air smells incredible here—pine resin sharp and clean, mixed with the earthy scent of decomposing leaves and moss growing on the north side of tree trunks. You can hear birds calling to each other overhead, and somewhere in the distance, that stream you heard earlier, water moving over rocks in a constant murmur.
The conversation is easy at first—Nancy tells you about one of her professors at Emerson being a total tightwad and misogynist but pretending not to be. "He talks over me in class," she says, voice tight with frustration. "Dismisses my ideas, calls them 'interesting' in that condescending tone. But then a guy says literally the exact same thing five minutes later and suddenly it's brilliant. Suddenly it's worth discussing."
"Sounds like an asshole," you offer, kicking at a pinecone on the trail. It rolls ahead of you, bouncing over roots.
"The biggest." Nancy's hands are clenched into fists at her sides. "But I've got an internship lined up for the summer at a newspaper in Boston. The Globe, actually."
You stop walking, turning to face her. "Nancy, that's amazing!"
She smiles, but it's tempered with realism, with an understanding of how the world works. "I'll probably be getting coffee the whole time and making copies. Maybe some light fact-checking if I'm lucky. But it's good for networking. And maybe, if I'm really lucky, I'll get to write something. Even if it's just an obituary." She laughs, but there's an edge to it.
You walk in comfortable silence for a bit, the only sounds your footsteps on the packed dirt trail and the birds and the rustling of leaves in the breeze. The sunlight filters through the canopy in golden shafts, illuminating dust motes floating in the air. It smells like spring and growing things and the promise of evening to come.
Then, finally, you tell her. Not everything—not that Steve kissed you like you were the only person in the world, not that you're confused about what the rules even are anymore or if they ever meant anything in the first place. But you tell her about Sammy.
How you feel guilty for using him when he clearly wanted more, even if he said he was okay with casual. How you'd liked him well enough but never thought about him when he wasn't right in front of you. How you'd used him to try to stop thinking about someone else, and how spectacularly that had failed.
You tell her about the pregnancy scare. About the way your stomach had dropped when you realized you were late, about the panic that had clawed up your throat, about how the first person you'd thought to go to was Steve. Only Steve. Not Robin, not Sammy, not even your mom. Just Steve.
You tell her about Robin finding the test in Steve's trash, about putting the pieces together, about the fight in Eddie's van where Robin had said things that cut like glass.
You stop walking. Nancy's chewing on her bottom lip, her short bob framing her face, moving slightly in the breeze that smells like pine and approaching evening. She's wearing a simple white t-shirt and denim shorts, practical and unfussy, but somehow she still looks put-together in a way you never manage. Her heart-shaped face glows in the golden late-afternoon light filtering through the trees, making her skin look warm and soft. There's dirt on her knees from kneeling to gather kindling, and a small scratch on her forearm from a branch.
Then she smiles—soft and a little sad and knowing in a way that makes your chest ache. "Can I tell you something?"
"Yeah, of course."
Nancy swallows hard, looking away toward the trees where birds are settling for the evening. She hugs herself, arms wrapped around her middle like she's cold even though it's still warm, even though sweat is beading at your hairline from the walk. The air smells like earth and green growing things and something darker, richer underneath—decay and new life all mixed together.
"I love Steve and Robin," she says quietly, each word careful and deliberate. "But I don't think they'll both be truly happy in this arrangement. And I don’t think the people around them will be either."
There's a tear rolling down her cheek, catching the light as it falls. She wipes it quickly with the back of her hand, laughing breathlessly. The sound is hollow, painful. "God, I've never said that out loud before. I've never let myself even think it completely through."
Your chest aches watching her. You step closer and link your arm through Nancy's, pulling her against your side. "It's safe with me."
She leans her head on your shoulder for a long moment, and you stand there together on the trail surrounded by pine trees and the smell of approaching evening. Two people holding secrets that are too heavy to carry alone, that cut into your hands with their weight.
The light is starting to change, going from golden to something softer, more amber. You can hear the campsite in the distance—Eddie's laugh carrying through the trees.
Then you squeeze Nancy's arm and smile. "Okay, enough heavy stuff. Tell me—have you been reading any new books lately?"
Nancy lights up immediately, the sadness lifting from her face like clouds parting. She launches into a detailed explanation of the mystery novel she just finished—something about a detective and a murder in a locked room and a twist ending she didn't see coming. Her voice picks up speed as she gets more animated, using her hands to gesture, and you let her words wash over you as you walk back toward the campsite.
.-.-.-.
Everyone is sitting around the campfire as the sky deepens from orange to purple to deep blue. The fire crackles and pops, sending sparks spiraling up into the darkening sky. The smell of burning wood is thick and pleasant, mixing with the pine scent of the forest and the faint smell of bug spray someone—probably Robin—sprayed liberally.
Beers are in hands, all of you in lawn chairs arranged in a loose circle around the fire pit. The flames cast flickering shadows on everyone's faces, making expressions hard to read. Eddie brought his guitar and he's strumming absentmindedly—not playing anything specific, just chords that blend with the crackling of the fire and the evening sounds of the woods. Crickets chirping, owls starting to call, the distant sound of other campers laughing.
Jonathan, Nancy, and Robin are talking about something—you catch fragments about a movie Jonathan saw at some art house theater in LA and about Nancy's classes and her internship.
You're sitting next to Steve. There's a gap between your chairs—not huge, maybe a foot, but deliberate. Intentional. His chair is an old-fashioned folding one with green and white striped fabric, and yours is blue with a rip in one arm where the fabric has worn through.
He hasn't taken a sip of his beer. The bottle sits in the cup holder of his chair, condensation running down the glass, forming a small puddle on the plastic. He's just staring into the fire, the flames reflected in his eyes, turning them more gold than hazel, face expressionless. You can see the flicker of orange light playing across his features—the sharp line of his jaw, the slope of his nose, those long lashes that aren't fair for any guy to have.
When you and Nancy had gotten back to the campsite earlier—the sun starting to sink toward the horizon, the light going soft and golden—you'd found Steve standing apart from the group. He was facing the neighboring campsite, perfectly still, just watching.
There was a family there. A camper trailer painted white with blue racing stripes down the side, a striped awning pulled out to create shade. A picnic table covered with a red-and-white checkered cloth that billowed slightly in the breeze. Paper plates and plastic cups, a cooler open showing ice and beer and juice boxes.
A little boy—maybe five or six with a gap-toothed grin—ran in and out of the camper, shrieking with laughter that was pure and unselfconscious. His parents stood together by a small charcoal grill, the dad flipping burgers with a metal spatula, wearing a t-shirt that said "World's Okayest Dad." The mom had her arms wrapped around his waist from behind, her chin resting on his shoulder, both of them laughing at something. Their faces were bright with genuine joy in the purple dusk, easy affection written in every line of their bodies.
The little boy was chasing fireflies with a mason jar, his small hands cupped around each one before gently placing them inside. You could hear him counting—"One, two, free, four"—his voice high and excited.
When Steve had noticed you and Nancy approaching, he'd immediately looked away, turning his attention to one of the tent stakes like it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. He'd crouched down, pretending to check that it was secure, but you'd seen his hand trembling slightly.
You wonder if he was imagining his own childhood. Did he ever go camping with his parents? Did they ever act like that—easy affection, casual touches, genuine happiness in each other's presence? Did his dad ever wear a goofy t-shirt and flip burgers while his mom laughed? Did they ever chase fireflies together as a family?
From the stories you've heard, from the brief glimpse of his mother's carefully maintained distance and his father's cutting voice you heard at New Year’s, you're pretty sure the answer is no. Steve had none of that. His childhood was probably country clubs and stiff family dinners and being told to be quiet, to be perfect, to not embarrass the Harrington name.
Jonathan gets up from his chair, the metal creaking slightly. He stretches, his back popping audibly, and you see him grimace. "Hey, you want something?" He's looking at you, friendly and open, voice quiet and kind.
"Coke would be great, thanks." You smile politely, grateful for his easy presence.
He nods and heads toward the cooler tucked in the shadows. You turn your head slightly and catch Steve staring at you. The firelight makes his features look sharper, all angles and shadows, the flames dancing in his eyes. His jaw is tight, muscle jumping beneath skin. He finally takes a long drink of his beer—Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows—then turns away again, back to staring at the fire like it holds answers to questions he won't ask out loud.
Nancy had told you more about Jonathan during your walk, filling in gaps and backstory. He's sweet but shy, just like his brother Will. Always observing, always thinking, taking mental photographs of moments before they disappear. She'd dated him right after breaking up with Steve—it had been messy, feelings still raw on all sides like an open wound.
They'd even gotten in a physical fight, Steve and Jonathan, though Nancy hadn't gone into details. Something about words said in anger, about Nancy caught in the middle, about two boys who were both hurting and didn't know how else to express it. Now they don't act like it in front of people, but either one would kill for the other if it came down to it. Secret best friends, bonded through shared trauma and Nancy's– unrequited– love, through parallel experiences of feeling inadequate and out of place.
You'd asked Jonathan earlier—while helping him arrange firewood, building the structure for the fire—why he wasn't in Hawkins for the holidays. He'd looked surprised by the question, like most people don't ask about his life, before explaining that he works in California now, in film production. He's an assistant on some indie film, "basically the coffee boy with delusions of grandeur," he'd said self-deprecatingly while building a careful teepee of kindling.
But you'd seen the way his eyes lit up when he talked about it. About being on set, about watching the director work, about the way light and shadow create mood, about the script he's working on in his spare time.
He'd tried telling the group earlier about the plot of that script—something called "The Consumer" about capitalism and body horror and the ways we literally consume each other in American society. Everyone had worn knowing smiles, nodding along with varying degrees of genuine interest. Eddie had looked fascinated, asking questions. Robin had made jokes about it being "very Jonathan" which apparently meant pretentious but in an endearing way. Nancy had watched him with such open fondness it made your chest ache.
Even Steve had smiled a little—small and fond and resigned, the expression of someone who's heard this pitch before and knows it'll probably never get made but hopes anyway.
Eventually, as the fire burns down to glowing coals and someone adds another log that sends up a shower of sparks, Eddie produces a joint and a lighter with the flourish of a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. The joint is perfectly rolled, neat and tight.
"Alright, birthday girl," Eddie announces, standing and doing a little bow. "Your chariot awaits."
Everyone sings "Happy Birthday" to Robin—slightly off-key, the harmonies all wrong, Steve's voice a low rumble you can feel in your chest more than hear. Nancy's soprano climbs too high on the final note, and Eddie adds unnecessary vocal runs that make Robin laugh so hard she almost falls out of her chair.
She's smiling when they finish, genuinely happy, and she even looks at you during the last line—her eyes finding yours across the fire, her face saying I'm glad you're here, and you return it with your own expression saying I'm glad I'm here too, and something unknots slightly in your chest.
Robin lights the joint, taking the first ceremonial drag as the birthday girl. The cherry glows bright orange in the darkness, and smoke curls up into the night sky where stars are starting to appear. She passes it to Nancy, who takes a delicate hit and immediately coughs, her face scrunching up in a way that makes Robin laugh and rub her back.
Nancy passes it to Jonathan, who inhales deeply with the practiced ease of someone who's done this many times, probably in parking lots after his shifts at developing photos, probably alone in his apartment in California while working on his script. The smoke doesn't even seem to affect him.
Jonathan passes it to you.
You take a hit, the smoke harsh and burning in your lungs despite Eddie's claims that this is "the smooth stuff," and you look at Steve.
You make a thoughtless decision fueled by weed and firelight and the desperate want to fix something between you. You stick the joint between your lips, turn to Steve, and lean in. It's like that time months ago in the Pike basement when he'd done it to you— close enough to feel the heat of his lips when you slipped it in his mouth.
You hope he remembers. Hope he understands it's a peace offering. That you're still friends, despite everything that's happened, despite all the rules broken and boundaries crossed and words left unsaid.
The corner of Steve's mouth betrays him, twitching like he wants to smile, like he's remembering the same moment you are. You see his hand start to reach toward you—fingers extending, moving through the smoke-hazy air—and then his eyes flicker from yours to your lips. You're certain he's not looking at the joint. He's looking at your mouth, at the way your lips are parted, at the space between you that's measured in inches but feels like miles.
Then something shutters in his expression. Something closes off, locks down. His hand drops back to the arm of his chair. He takes another sip of his beer—a long pull that drains half the bottle—stands abruptly, his chair scraping against the dirt and rocks, the metal legs leaving gouges in the ground.
"Happy birthday, Rob. Love you." His voice is soft, genuine, the tone he reserves for the people he actually cares about. He walks over to where Robin is sitting, bends down to press a kiss to the top of her head, ruffling her hair. She reaches up to squeeze his hand, their fingers tangling together briefly before he pulls away.
He pours out the remaining beer from his bottle—the liquid splashing on the ground, soaking into the dirt and pine needles—and tosses the empty into the trash bag Eddie had set out earlier for their hot dog wrappers and paper plates. The glass clinks against other bottles.
Then he walks to the tent he's sharing with Jonathan and disappears inside, the zipper loud in the relative quiet of the campfire. The fabric glows slightly from his flashlight inside before it clicks off, plunging the tent into darkness.
The group falls into awkward silence. Eddie chuckles—forced and uncomfortable, trying to salvage the mood—and stands up, taking the joint from your lips where it's still burning between them. He gives you a sympathetic smile that makes you want to punch him, that makes you want to scream, that makes you want to rewind time and not do something so stupid.
You see Nancy lean over to Robin, whispering something close to her ear. Robin's face goes through several expressions—surprise, resignation, frustration—before she sighs heavily and sets down her beer. She stands, brushing dirt and pine needles off the back of her jeans.
"Steve?" she calls softly, approaching the tent. The zipper opens and she slips inside, her silhouette visible through the thin fabric, backlit by the flashlight she must have turned back on.
You don't wait to see what happens. You grab your toiletry bag and a change of clothes from your—Steve's—tent, not making eye contact with anyone, and head toward the shower building without a word.
The path to the showers is marked with small solar lights that barely illuminate anything. You can hear other campers—laughter from a site nearby, someone playing acoustic guitar, the sound of children being called in for bed. The air has cooled significantly now that the sun is down, and you wish you'd brought a sweatshirt.
The shower building is cinder block painted an institutional beige, lit by fluorescent lights that buzz and flicker. It smells like chlorine and mildew and the industrial soap from the dispensers mounted on the walls. Your shower-shoed footsteps echo on the concrete floor.
The showers are communal but mercifully empty when you get there. You stand under hot water that never quite gets hot enough, washing away the day—the tension, the awkwardness, Steve's face when you'd tried to share the joint and he'd looked at you like you were offering him something poisonous. The water pressure is weak, more of a drizzle than a spray, but you stay under it until your skin turns pink and pruney, until the water starts to run cold.
You get dressed in your sleep clothes—an oversized t-shirt and flannel pajama pants covered in little stars. You brush your teeth at the sink, staring at your reflection in the spotted mirror. Your eyes are red-rimmed, whether from smoke or something else you're not ready to acknowledge. You look tired. You look like you need this weekend to be over already, like you need to go back to campus where you can avoid everyone more easily, where you're not trapped in close quarters with your mistakes.
When you come out of the building—toiletry bag clutched in one hand, your dirty clothes rolled up under your other arm—you nearly run directly into Robin.
You both stop. Look at each other. The light from the shower building casts long shadows across the ground, making Robin's face half-illuminated, half-hidden. She's wearing her sleep clothes too—boxers and an old Emerson College t-shirt that must be Nancy's. Her hair is messy, like she's been running her hands through it.
Robin nods at you. You do the same, a small dip of your chin.
You step to the side to walk around her, giving her space, not wanting to force proximity she doesn't want. But then you hear her say your name—quiet, almost tentative.
You turn. "Yeah?"
Robin shifts her weight from foot to foot, arms crossing over her chest then uncrossing, then crossing again. She won't quite meet your eyes, gaze sliding to the side to focus on something past your shoulder. "Are you good with kayaking tomorrow?"
You blink, thrown by the mundane question, by the normalcy of it. "Uh, yeah. Sounds fun."
"Cool. Okay." She crosses her arms again, defensive but less rigid than before. "We're going after lunch."
"Cool."
You both nod again—this weird, formal acknowledgment of each other's existence, of the fact that you're both here, both trying in your own broken ways.
You spin back around and start walking toward the campsite, following the little solar lights, listening to the sounds of the forest at night—things moving in the underbrush, owls calling, the distant sound of the stream. Then, on impulse, you stop. Turn back.
"Hey, Rob?"
Robin swivels around, eyes wide. Hopeful, maybe. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking on your part.
You smile—small and genuine and meaning it. "Happy birthday."
Something in Robin's expression softens entirely, all the hard edges melting away. She smiles back—real and warm and familiar, like the Robin you know, the Robin who's your best friend even when you're fighting. "Goodnight, Hot Shot."
The nickname doesn't sound like an insult this time. It sounds like an olive branch.
When you walk back to the campsite, the path lit only by those weak solar lights and the moon overhead, you catch Steve leaning against a tree near the edge of the clearing. He's smoking a cigarette, the ember glowing orange in the darkness, smoke curling up into the night air where it disappears among the stars. He's staring at the neighboring campsite again—that family with their perfect trailer and their perfect laughter and their perfect life.
He catches your eye as you approach, standing up a little straighter, shoulders pulling back. He looks at you like he's been caught doing something he shouldn't, eyes dancing with something between guilt and defiance and exhaustion.
In the moonlight—stars twinkling overhead like they're watching, judging, bearing witness—you have the sudden, overwhelming urge to walk up to him and kiss the corner of his mouth. To taste the smoke and ask him to come join you in your tent. Well, technically his tent. To forget about rules and complications and just be close to him in the darkness where no one can see.
Because no matter how pissed off you are at him, no matter what reason your brain conjures up to justify the anger, the truth is simpler and more dangerous: you're addicted to Steve Harrington the way people get addicted to things that are bad for them. One taste is never enough. And now that you've had his lips on yours, his tongue sliding against yours, his breath mingling with yours—you want more. You want it so badly it makes your teeth ache, makes your chest feel too small to contain your heart.
You realize why you're upset. Why you're mad. You have to be angry at him because he's angry at you for almost ruining his future. Robin and Steve might have made up, talked it out in that tent while everyone pretended not to listen, but you're certain Steve will never want to see you the same way again. The pregnancy scare wasn't just about you—it was about threatening everything he and Robin have built, every carefully constructed plan for their future.
So you walk away, head bowed, not trusting yourself to get any closer to him. You unzip the tent and slip inside, zipping it back up behind you like you can seal yourself away from temptation.
But inside is worse. So much worse. The sleeping bag is Steve's—navy blue and worn soft with use. The pillow smells like cedar and aftershave and something indefinably Steve, that scent that clings to his clothes and his skin and now fills your lungs with every breath. You lie there staring at the tent ceiling, unable to sleep, drowning in the ghost of him.
.-.-.-.
You manage to sleep eventually, though it's fitful and broken. You wake to the sound of birds and muffled voices, the tent still dim but starting to glow with approaching dawn. The sun hasn't exactly risen yet—the light is that pale blue-gray of pre-morning, soft and uncertain. Your body aches from sleeping on the ground despite the sleeping pad, your neck stiff, mouth tasting like you licked the inside of a shoe.
You trudge out of the tent, squinting against even the weak light, and find Eddie and Jonathan already awake. Eddie's hair is pulled up in a messy bun at the crown of his head, curls escaping everywhere, and he's crouched by a morning campfire he's somehow coaxed to life. There's a makeshift camping stove set up on a flat rock, a pan sizzling with eggs and bacon that makes your stomach growl despite the early hour.
"Mornin', Hot Shot," Eddie greets sleepily, his voice gravelly and rough. He hasn't fully woken up yet, moving on autopilot and muscle memory.
You scrunch your face, the smell of coffee hitting you like a physical thing—rich and dark and exactly what you need. You walk away from your tent, noticing Jonathan's tent is half open. Inside you can see the tanned expanse of Steve's back, moles scattered across his shoulders and spine like constellations you've traced with your fingers in darkness. His sleeping body is curled on his side, face smushed into a pillow, hair sticking up at the back in a way that's stupidly endearing.
You force yourself to look away and keep walking, smiling at the cup of coffee Jonathan pours and hands to you. The mug is enamel camping ware, chipped at the rim, warm in your hands.
"Morning, boys." You climb onto the wooden picnic table, sitting on the surface with your feet dangling, taking a sip of the coffee. It's strong enough to strip paint, exactly what you need. "Everyone else still asleep?"
Eddie yawns so wide his jaw cracks, stretching his arms overhead. "Nancy and Robin, I have no idea. Just Steve-o is still out." He grins, something mischievous in his expression. "We men had a late night."
You raise a brow, taking another sip. "That's ambiguous, Munson."
He picks up a piece of bacon from the pan, biting it with his teeth, grease running down his chin. He looks at Jonathan, who suddenly finds the ground very interesting. "We went boat fishing last night. On the lake."
"Okay..." You raise both brows now. "Wait, how'd you get a boat?"
Jonathan snorts—actually snorts—and Eddie is grinning ear to ear, eyes dancing with barely contained glee. "Well, you see, sweetheart. You ever wonder why I got into legal trouble back in Hawkins?" He laughs, taking another bite, bacon crunching between his teeth. "Took Principal Higgins' car for a joyride when I was sixteen. My old man taught me how to hotwire."
"Oh god." Your eyes widen. "You didn't..."
"Oh, don't worry, Hot Shot. We returned it safe and sound. Even topped off the gas tank." His teeth are shining, a few bacon pieces stuck between them. "We're gentlemen thieves."
You turn to Jonathan, who's been quietly sipping his coffee. "I thought you were the sensible one."
Jonathan chuckles, shrugging his shoulders up to his ears. "Sometimes you just gotta live a little."
And despite everything—despite the tension and the awkwardness and the horrible night's sleep—you laugh. Really laugh, the sound startling birds from nearby trees.
Suddenly the cup in your hand is taken.
You look up and Steve is there—shirtless, wearing only pajama pants that hang low on his hips, bed head making his hair stick up in every direction, eyes still heavy with sleep. He takes a drink of your coffee, grimacing at the taste—too strong, no sugar—but giving it back to you anyway. His fingers brush yours, warm and callused.
"Is there a reason we're being loud this early in the morning?" he asks, voice rough with sleep. He stands close to you—so close you can feel the warmth radiating off his bare skin, can see the goosebumps on his arms from the cool morning air. He looks at you, then Jonathan, then away quickly like the eye contact burned.
You poke his bare shoulder, definitely not staring at the constellation of moles trailing up his arm, across his collarbone, disappearing into his chest hair. "Eddie was telling me about the crime you committed last night. And now I'm an accomplice."
Steve looks down at where you poked him, a smirk tugging at his lips. The corner of his mouth lifts, showing a hint of teeth. "Is it bad to say it's not the worst thing we've done?"
"Please don't tell me." You cover your ears with both hands. "I do not look good in orange."
Steve turns to face you more fully, and you notice a new development. Had it been there yesterday? It's the beginning of a mustache on his upper lip—patchy and uneven with a small gap in the middle, like he's growing it out just to see if he can. He mutters under his breath, so quiet you almost miss it. "Handcuffs maybe..."
His eyes dart to yours when he realizes you might've heard, and heat floods your face.
But there's no time to react because Jonathan chuckles, oblivious to the tension. "Oh yeah, what did you guys tell me happened a few months ago? You broke into a pig farm?"
Eddie laughs wildly, slapping his knee. "Oh man, I wish you'd been there, Jonathan. You could've documented it. Steve, remember the look on—"
Steve's eyes snap to Eddie, burning with intensity, warning. Eddie's mouth forms an O shape, realization dawning. He looks at you, then back at Steve, scratching his neck awkwardly. "Actually, you know what? I don't remember. I was really high that night and it's all fuzzy and—"
Your brows furrow, looking between Steve and Eddie, both of them with guilt written all over their faces like billboards. Anger bubbles inside you, hot and acidic, as you connect the dots. Pigs. The reason Sammy was late to your first date was because pigs had gotten loose in his frat house. Pigs that someone had to have put there.
Jonathan is the one to sense the tension thickening in the air, suffocating everyone. "Uh... so, I'm thinking about going on a hike in a few minutes. There's a trail that leads to an overlook. Anyone want to join?"
You snap your attention away from Steve, the tentative truce from the past five minutes—from the time he took a sip of your coffee and you poked his shoulder—evaporating like morning dew. He moves away from you immediately, like you're cold, or like you're on fire and will engulf him in flames if he gets too close.
"Yes," you say, voice tight. "I would love that. Let me go see if the lovebirds want to join."
You narrow your eyes at Steve as you pass him, close enough that your shoulder almost brushes his bare chest, and walk toward Robin and Nancy's tent.
"Nancy—look, I'm sorry."
Robin's voice comes from inside the tent, muffled but clear enough. There's rustling, sharp movements like someone sitting up quickly.
"Robin, I told you it's fine. Don't really want to talk about it right now." Nancy's voice is clipped, careful, holding something back.
There's more muffled conversation you can't make out, and then the zipper unzips hastily. Nancy steps outside in clothes that tell you she's been awake for a while and ready to start the day—jeans and a flannel over a t-shirt, hiking boots already laced. She seems surprised to see you standing there but doesn't say anything. She sighs, the sound heavy, and walks past you toward where Jonathan is pouring more coffee.
Robin follows shortly after, her eyes dropping when she sees you, probably knowing you heard everything.
You clear your throat, suddenly feeling like an intruder. "I, uh... we're going to go on a hike. Wanna join?"
Robin looks past your shoulder, seeing that Nancy must have been asked the same thing by Jonathan. She reaches into the tent and starts collecting snacks and water bottles, shoving them in a small backpack. "No, I think I'll stick around here and read." She won't look at you. "Not much of a hiker."
You know this is a lie. Sure, Robin isn't much into physical activity usually, but her natural hyperactivity makes her need constant stimulation, constant movement. She can't sit still for more than twenty minutes without bouncing her leg or drumming her fingers or getting up to pace.
"Okay," you say, because what else can you say?
The hike ends up being you, Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve. Eddie had said something about trying to catch flying squirrels around the campsite—"They're fascinating creatures, nature's little gliders"—but really, as soon as you set off on the trail, you saw him crack open a beer and flop back into his hammock with a contented sigh.
The hike is pretty at least. The trail winds through dense forest, pine needles cushioning your footsteps, the morning air cool and fresh and smelling like earth and growing things. Birds call to each other overhead, and somewhere in the distance you can hear that stream again, water moving over rocks.
Nancy walks up ahead with Steve most of the time, their heads bent together, hushed whispers you can't quite make out. You catch fragments—"...she won't talk to me..." "...give her time..." "...don't know what to do..."—and realize they're talking about Robin.
Jonathan trails behind the group, stopping frequently to take photos with his camera—the way light filters through trees, a particularly interesting mushroom growing on a fallen log, a spider web strung between branches and covered in morning dew that catches the light like diamonds.
You're in the middle, enjoying the view, the rhythm of walking, the simple act of moving your body through space. Still cooling off from the reveal that Steve tried to sabotage your date with Sammy. I mean, it's not like you ever sabotaged any of his dates. Well, there was that one time you told him to cancel on a girl, but other than that, you respected his rules.
These goddamn rules.
The word makes you want to gouge your eyes out with a stick. What the fuck even are the rules anymore? And what kind of jeans is he wearing that make his ass look that good and—
Your attention is brought to the top of the hill you've been climbing. The trail opens up suddenly into a clearing, and the view steals your breath.
It's beautiful—genuinely, achingly beautiful. The overlook shows miles of forest stretching out below, pine trees swaying in the breeze like the strings of Eddie's guitar being plucked by invisible fingers. The sky is a perfect clear blue, and the sun has fully risen now, painting everything in warm golden light. You can see the lake in the distance, glittering like someone scattered diamonds across its surface.
You take a deep breath, feeling grounded for the first time since you arrived yesterday. The anger in your chest loosens slightly, makes room for something else—awe, maybe, or peace, or just the simple acknowledgment that the world is bigger than your problems.
You see Nancy and Steve doing the same thing—both of them breathing deeply, shoulders dropping from their ears. Steve's arm comes up to rub Nancy's back in small circles, clearly consoling her about whatever's happening with Robin. The gesture is tender, familiar, the kind of touch that speaks to years of friendship and history.
You feel your anger toward Steve evaporate, just a little. Just enough to remember that he's a person, not just an object of your frustration.
You turn to look at Jonathan, who's taking more photos of the view, his camera clicking steadily. You walk up to him, curious. "How long have you been behind a camera?"
Jonathan doesn't seem bothered by the conversation while he works, doesn't stop taking photos. "I don't know. Since I can remember, I guess." Click. "I've always been kind of quiet. Not great at talking." Click. "And, uh... as cliche as it is, a picture is worth a thousand words." He shrugs awkwardly, like he's embarrassed by the sentiment even though it's clearly true. Click.
"So why film then?" you ask. "Why not just stick with photography?"
He laughs—quiet and self-deprecating. "I... I don't know. I guess even though a picture can tell you something, can make you feel something..." He pauses, lowering the camera to look at you directly. "Movies can invoke deeper feelings that make you feel less alone, you know? Like you're part of something bigger than yourself."
You smile, understanding blooming warm in your chest. "That's how I feel about books. Like the author is speaking directly to me, like they understand something I couldn't put into words myself."
Jonathan smiles back, and you see that dimple in his cheek again. "Steve told me you like to read."
Your face falters, the smile freezing then melting. "He did?"
"Yeah. He talks about you all the time. Pretty much knew who you were before I met you." Jonathan shifts his camera bag on his shoulder, lifting the camera again. "Hey, uh... do you mind?" He motions the camera at you.
You look at him, a little surprised. "Oh... uh, sure. I don't mind. You want me to just...?"
"Yeah! Just stay right there and pretend I'm not here. Look at the view, think about something that makes you happy."
You do as you're told, turning back to face the overlook. You close your eyes, taking a deep breath, and somehow you can smell Steve's cologne even though he's several feet away. Cedar and something warmer, spicier. You smile despite yourself, your stomach flipping, chest tightening with something you're not ready to name.
You hear the click from Jonathan's camera. You turn to him, smile still in place.
Jonathan smiles back, lowering the camera. "Steve was right about you."
Your face flickers, confusion replacing contentment. "Right about what?"
"You two ready to go back?" Steve's voice cuts across the clearing, sharp and sudden. "It's almost lunchtime."
You turn to look at him. He's standing with his arms crossed, jaw tight, glaring at you and Jonathan with an intensity that feels disproportionate to the moment.
So you make your way back down the trail, the mood noticeably cooler than the hike up.
Lunch is awkward in a way that makes you want to crawl out of your skin. Nancy and Robin are barely speaking to each other, even though they're sitting next to each other at the picnic table. They only call each other by first names—no nicknames, no "babe," no soft touches. The absence of their usual affection is glaring, makes everyone else uncomfortable.
Steve is avoiding looking at you entirely, keeping his gaze fixed on his sandwich or the trees or literally anywhere else. Jonathan seems to like the quiet, eating steadily without feeling the need to fill silence. Eddie, on the other hand, absolutely does not like the quiet, and makes it very obvious there are multiple elephants in the room.
"So!" he says loudly, gesturing with his sandwich. "Anyone want to address the fact that there's more tension here than a fucking... I don't know, a tightrope? A rubber band about to snap?"
No one responds.
"Cool, cool. Love that for us." Eddie takes another bite.
After lunch, plans for kayaking are still on. You pile into Eddie's van, driving down dirt roads to the lake access point. The only sound is music playing from the tape deck while Eddie and Steve talk quietly in the front seat about something you can't hear over Metallica.
When you arrive at the lake, everyone decides to do pairs for kayaking. And because you are ever so lucky, even when Robin and Nancy are secretly fighting—Nancy choosing Jonathan as her partner and Robin immediately asking Eddie—you end up in a kayak with Steve.
Steve, who has changed since the hike into clothes that make you want to commit crimes. He's wearing a gray t-shirt with your university logo across the chest, but the real problem is the jean shorts. They're cut off at mid-thigh, frayed at the edges, and they show off his legs in a way that should be illegal. His thighs are thick, muscular, covered in dark hair that you know is soft to the touch. You can't help but look at them every chance you get, eyes tracing the line of muscle, the way they flex when he moves.
His hair is pushed back by a red baseball cap worn backwards, eyes hidden beneath aviator sunglasses that make him look like a lifeguard or a model or some unholy combination of both. His shirt hugs him everywhere—across his chest, his shoulders, his stomach—and when he bends down to adjust their kayak before pushing it into the water, the shirt rides up on his back, showing a strip of tanned skin and the dimples at the base of his spine.
You feel that anger bubbling again, mixing with want, creating something volatile and dangerous.
He seems just as annoyed to be paired with you, his lips pressed into a thin line when he hands you a paddle. His fingers brush yours for a split second—warm, familiar—before he pulls away.
Steve climbs into the back of the kayak and you get in the front, and then you're off. The water is calm, glittering in the afternoon sun, cool spray occasionally hitting your arms.
Nancy and Jonathan are slowly trailing in front of you, their paddling synchronized and efficient. Robin and Eddie are already way up the stream, even though they've flipped their kayak twice—you can hear Robin's shrieking laughter carrying across the water, can see Eddie's hair dripping as he rights the kayak again.
The tension between you and Steve is suffocating despite the open air, despite the beauty of the surroundings. You can smell the sunscreen he's wearing—coconut-scented. You can feel his eyes on you even though you can't see them behind those sunglasses, boring into your back like lasers.
Occasionally you peek over your shoulder, and you can't see his eyes but you can feel the intensity of his stare, can see the set of his jaw, the way his knuckles are white where he grips the paddle.
Soon it's just the two of you. Nancy and Jonathan have disappeared around a bend in the stream, their laughter fading. Eddie and Robin are long gone, probably halfway to the next lake by now.
You're surprised that for how competitive Steve usually is—always needing to win, to be the best, to prove himself—he makes no effort to speed up. Even when you want to, to get this over with as quickly as possible, to get out of this godforsaken kayak with Steve Harrington and never look back.
"Wanna take a break?" he asks suddenly, his voice startling in the silence.
You turn to look at him, seeing him point toward a small bank where the water is shallow and trees provide shade. You swallow. "Okay."
You both adjust your paddles to head that way, working in tandem without speaking. You reach the bank and Steve is quick to get out, practically leaping from the kayak and rushing into the woods without a word.
It makes you laugh despite everything—he probably needs to pee. You take your shoes off, setting them on the bank, and dip your toes in the cool water. It feels incredible after the heat of paddling in the sun. You wade out knee-deep, the clear spring water refreshing against your skin, small fish darting away from your feet.
"Hot Shot, what are you doing?"
You don't turn around, just giggle at the panic in his voice. "Taking a break, Steve." Your voice drips with sarcasm. "Come join me. It feels great."
But Steve's voice goes sharp, loud. "Where the fuck is the kayak?"
You spin around, hand already raising to point at the bank where you left it. But it's not there. Your eyes scan the area frantically, then look down the stream. Your stomach drops. You can see the bright green kayak floating away downstream, bobbing in the current, already twenty yards away and picking up speed.
"Oh shit..."
Steve's large hands come up to rub his face in frustration or maybe grief or maybe murderous rage. You can see him weighing his options, deciding whether it's worth trying to swim after it. His sunglasses slip down his nose and you can see his eyes roll dramatically, his hands coming to rest on his hips, tongue darting out to lick his lips as if he's trying to decide whether to kill you or figure out what to do next.
"I'm sorry," you offer weakly. "I thought I pulled it up far enough—"
"Just—" He holds up a hand. "Don't."
Luckily, Steve had grabbed his backpack when he got out of the kayak—some instinct or experience telling him not to leave it in the boat. The camp map is shoved in there along with water bottles and snacks, and now the two of you are trekking through the woods, trying to navigate back to the parking lot.
You don't know how long you've been hiking. The sun is lower now, late afternoon stretching shadows long across the forest floor. Steve keeps stopping abruptly, looking up at the sky like there's a huge compass up there that only he can read, like he's some kind of wilderness expert instead of a rich kid from Hawkins who probably went to summer camps with air conditioning.
By the third time he stops, you crash into his solid back, stumbling backward. He doesn't look at you when he turns and grabs your arm, steadying you before you can fall. "Do we need to stop for a bit?"
"No, Steve." You huff, pulling your arm free. "The quicker we find the parking lot, the better."
Steve straightens, jaw twitching. "Oh, I'm sorry. Was that an attitude while I'm trying to get us back?"
"Key word: trying, Harrington." You tap his chest, smiling sweetly in a way that's anything but sweet. "You're not really making much progress, are you?"
You start walking ahead, as if going by gut feeling is any better than his sky-reading method.
"Excuse me?" Steve's voice rises behind you. "Do we have a problem or something?"
"Nope." You pop the ‘p’, not looking back at him.
"Crazy, because it seems like you've been mad at me for no reason for over a week now." He walks ahead of you, eyes stuck on the map, holding it up like it'll reveal secrets. His voice sounds casual but there's bitterness underneath, sharp and cutting. "You didn't think I could tell you didn't want to be stuck with me today, but I could."
You stop walking, arms crossing over your chest. You scoff in disbelief. "Oh geez, you think because I didn't give you attention for a week means I'm mad at you?" You giggle, but it's full of venom. "Maybe you needed to wear those glasses, because maybe—just maybe—you're the one who was avoiding me."
Steve stops. He pivots to face you, and his lips turn upward in this infuriating smirk that makes you want to slap him and kiss him in equal measure. "Aw, look who's upset because I didn't whip out my dick for them."
"What the fuck does that mean?"
His lips purse, and he shrugs—one shoulder lifting in this exaggerated, sassy gesture that makes him look like a bitchy teenager. His head tilts, eyebrows raising above his sunglasses. "I dunno. You seemed just fine without me. With Sammy and all. Oh, I saw you two in the library, pretty much making out against the—"
"Oh please, Steve, he was giving me notes because I missed class—"
"—and since I didn't give you attention, you're trying to sleep with my friend—"
"—I didn't fucking sleep with Eddie! I don't want to sleep with Eddie!"
"Yeah, I'm not talking about Eddie." Steve's voice goes cold, sharp. "I'm talking about Jonathan, Hot Shot."
You stare at him, an incredulous sound escaping your mouth—half laugh, half scream. "Jesus Christ, Steve. I don't want to fuck any of your friends! It's not my fault you get jealous of any guy I speak to." Your voice rises, echoing through the trees. "You don't see me blacklisting your fuck buddies from parties or releasing pigs in their houses to sabotage dates. Really cool, Steve. Very mature."
Steve laughs, the sound bitter and harsh. "The Alpha Taus are douchebags, Hot Shot. That prank had nothing to do with you."
"Well, it doesn't make sense, because you weren't that upset about Sammy when you were off canoodling with Polly last Wednesday night." You cross your arms tighter. "Oh, don't give me that look. I saw you two in the parking lot."
He points at you, shaking his finger like he's just had an epiphany. "I knew that was you! You were spying on me!"
"I wasn't spying!" You throw your hands up. "God forbid I knew where you'd be and wanted an easy fuck."
Steve leans in close, invading your space, and you can smell him—sunscreen and sweat and anger. "I don't know why you think you're special. Is it because I kissed you, huh? Is that what this is all about?"
"Oh, give me a break, Steve." You push past him, following what you think might be a trail through the underbrush.
"Aha! See, there it is." He follows behind you, voice getting louder. "You think I'm going to break my rules just because I slipped up once. Even after I told you to forget it happened."
Your chest is heaving, face hot despite the shade of the trees. If you were a cartoon, steam would be rolling out of your ears. You spin around, storming up to him until you're chest to chest, and press your finger hard into his solid chest. "Oh, bullshit! Tell me, Steve—what does 'once a month' mean to you?"
"What?" His brows knit together in confusion.
You close your mouth, eyes going glassy. Tears threaten from how pissed off you are, from how much this hurts, from everything building inside you for weeks.
"I—" He swallows, face falling as realization dawns.
"Tell me," you demand, pushing his chest again. Harder this time.
He doesn't move from your force. Doesn't speak. His face has fallen completely, all the anger draining away into something that looks like guilt and sadness and fear.
You let out a breathy huff, scowling, turning back around to keep walking. To get away from him before you do something stupid like cry.
"Because I wanted you more than just a once-a-month fuck!" Steve's voice echoes through the trees, bouncing off trunks, scattering birds into flight.
You don't have time to reply. You turn around and he's already there—right behind you, close enough that you can see the flecks of gold in his hazel eyes, the freckles scattered across his nose from sun exposure, the way his chest is heaving with emotion. His eyes search yours, desperate and afraid and hopeful all at once. Those puppy dog eyes that make your knees weak, that make you forget why you're angry in the first place.
"Steve? Hot Shot?" Eddie's voice comes from somewhere nearby, cutting through the moment like a knife.
Steve looks at your mouth, his body visibly deflating, shoulders sagging. "Over here!" he calls, voice rough. He moves past you, jogging up what must actually be the trail to meet Eddie.
The others are behind Eddie—all of them looking concerned and slightly annoyed.
.-.-.-.
Later, everyone is around the campfire again as darkness falls. Most of the evening was wasted looking for you and Steve. You're sitting far away from Steve this time, deliberately choosing a chair next to Robin instead. Nancy and Robin seem to be sort of talking—their shoulders aren't touching but they're not completely ignoring each other either—but you can see it's still careful interaction.
Jonathan is the one to try reaching an olive branch, suggesting s'mores. Everyone lights up at that—even Robin and Nancy exchange small smiles.
They start collecting the supplies—graham crackers, chocolate bars, marshmallows—when Eddie suddenly sniffs the air dramatically.
"My dear friends..." He stands, looking at the sky with fake solemnity. "I'm afraid a storm is coming."
Everyone looks up. The sky is completely clear, stars twinkling peacefully overhead.
They ignore him, laughing, going back to setting up for s'mores. But a few minutes later, thunder claps—loud and close, rattling through the air.
"Well, shit," Robin says, exasperated. "Guess no s'mores."
Eddie sighs dramatically, looking at you. "Guess I'm bunking with you tonight, Hot Shot."
"Absolutely not," you say immediately, ignoring the way Steve's eyes snap to you, something lighting up in his expression. "Your snoring kept me up all last night."
Eddie frowns, wounded. "Well, I'm not sleeping in my hammock in a storm. I'll blow away." He turns to Jonathan and Steve, spreading his arms wide. "Boys? Which one of you loves me most?"
Steve shakes his head quickly. "You kick in your sleep."
Nancy speaks up, looking at you with eyes that are slightly desperate. "You could just bunk with Robin and me." Her expression is pleading: please, I don't want to be alone with Robin, please help me, please.
But Robin groans loudly, throwing her head back. "Can we stop pretending? Steve and Hot Shot obviously want to share a tent but don't want to say it out loud."
You and Steve immediately look at one another across the fire, then at the group. Eddie wraps his arm around Jonathan's shoulders, grinning wickedly. "Looks like you're stuck with me tonight, Jon-boy! Hope you like cuddling."
Jonathan just sighs, resigned to his fate.
Really, you don't want to be stuck in a tent with Steve. But you don't want to say it out loud and admit there's something different between you, something beyond just fucking, something that terrifies you.
There's no more arguing because small droplets start hitting everyone's skin—fat raindrops that promise a real storm. Everyone rushes to their tents, laughing and cursing and trying not to slip in the mud already forming.
You have time to change in the tent before Steve opens the zipper. He's already changed too—back in those pajama pants that hang low on his hips, and a t-shirt that's seen better days. You're both in the small space now, moving around each other awkwardly, trying not to touch, adjusting sleeping bags and pillows until finally you're both lying down.
The rain starts in earnest, drumming against the tent fabric. Thunder rumbles in the distance, getting closer.
You're both on your backs, staring at the tent ceiling, the space between you measured in inches but feeling like miles. Neither of you speaks. The only sounds are the rain, the thunder, and your breathing—his deeper, slower, yours quick and nervous.
And you wait.
.-.-.-.
You're lying on your side in the tent, facing the nylon wall that shifts slightly with the wind. Behind you, Steve faces the opposite direction, and you can feel the solid warmth of his back against yours through the layers of fabric separating you. He's wearing a t-shirt and pajama bottoms. You're wearing the same.
The tension is unbearable.
You've done everything—had him inside you more times than you can count, felt his hands on every part of your body, come apart beneath his touch in ways that should've stripped away any possibility of shyness. You've kissed him now, desperately, in a grimy bathroom while a party raged outside.
But you've never slept this close.
Somehow this feels more intimate than all of it. Fully clothed, not even touching except for the accidental press of your backs, and yet your skin is on fire. Every breath he takes, you feel. Every small shift of his body sends awareness crackling down your spine.
You think about what he'd said earlier, “I wanted you more than just a once-a-month fuck." The words have rooted inside you, burrowing deep, and you're not sure how to ignore them anymore. Don't think you want to.
The rain patters against the tent, gentle at first, then harder. The sound fills the small space, making everything feel closer, more isolated from the rest of the world.
You hear his breath stutter behind you, the rhythm breaking and catching. You wonder if he's still angry, if he's regretting agreeing to share the sleeping bag, if—
"Hey." He says your name, barely above a whisper.
Your breath catches. For a second you think you imagined it, that it was just the rain creating phantom sounds. "Yes?" you whisper back.
He hesitates, and you feel him shift slightly. "I need you to know... I didn't hook up with Polly when you saw us."
There's a beat of silence. Rain drums steadily above you.
"Okay," you say quietly, not sure where he's going with this.
He continues, words coming faster now like he's afraid he'll lose courage. "I was... ending things with her.”
You’re not sure how to react, but your lips part, and without thinking you say, “Oh.”
You wonder if he was finally bored of her. Or maybe she broke a rule and you didn’t know.
Steve speaks again, his voice so soft you barely hear it against the crack of thunder. “I ended things with all of them."
You imagine the look on his face when he'd told you about the accident—how his downturned eyes had drooped further, how that permanent cocky assured smile had dissolved into pure, raw, unfiltered honesty.
"Why?" The question slips out before you can stop it.
Steve doesn't speak for a moment. You hear the sound of his tongue pressing into his cheek, a nervous habit you've noticed. Then you feel movement—he's shifting in the sleeping bag, turning, and suddenly you can feel his eyes boring into the back of your head. But you can't look at him. Can't turn to face him.
His voice cracks when he says your name. And as much as you love it when he calls you Hot Shot, or moans your name in different degrees of pleasure and desperation, this feels so soft it prickles your skin, raises goosebumps along your arms.
"The night of the formal... when I came looking for you..." He drifts off, and you hear him swallow hard. "I didn't just look for you to hook up. I wanted to... I wanted to ask if we would only sleep with each other."
Your breath hitches, lungs forgetting how to expand. You think about that moment—seeing Steve in the hallway, the glasses on his face, and then going with Sammy to that hotel room. You'd told yourself you hadn't thought of Steve. Maybe you'd tried not to, but it had made it worse.
"There were never really any rules when it came to you," Steve says, voice low and rough.
Your heart pounds so hard you're certain he can hear it in the small space. You close your eyes, your lips burning at the memory of the kiss at Mardi Tau, the desperate way you'd clung to each other.
“I would’ve said yes,” you admit into the dark tent.
Finally, you slowly roll over. Lightning strikes outside, illuminating his face in fragments—the sharp line of his jaw, the worried crease between his brows, those eyes watching you. You're both lying on your sides, hands tucked under your heads, noses inches apart because of the size of the tent and the sleeping bag you're sharing.
“I’m sorry about this weekend. I’m sorry for avoiding you,” your voice comes out even softer than his. "I thought you were mad at me."
"What? Why?" He's quick, shifting closer, and you see the shadow of his hand reaching out before he pulls it back like he's not sure he's allowed to touch you.
"I thought..." Tears rim your eyes, hot and unwelcome. "Maybe you were mad because I thought I was pregnant... and Robin found out... and I almost ruined your life, Steve."
Lightning strikes again, closer this time, and you see his hazel eyes lit with something fierce—rage maybe, or panic—and just as quickly they droop in worry. "No. No, you didn't. Fuck." His hand finally makes contact, cradling your face, thumb wiping away a tear that's escaped. "I wasn't angry with you."
You're not sobbing, but your breathing is erratic, sniffling sounds escaping despite your best efforts. "But I feel so guilty. Robin and you are fighting and she won't talk to me because I didn't tell her, and I don't want you thinking—I thought I scared you."
Steve's thumb pauses mid-stroke on your cheek. "I was scared," he admits quietly. "But not in the way you think." He takes a shaky breath. "I was scared because I sat there on my bedroom floor and for the first time in my life, I imagined having kids. Really imagined it. Like… I think I do want them and it fucking terrifies me."
His voice drops lower. "I keep looking at that camper—the one you keep catching me staring at. I keep imagining it full of kids. My kids."
He lets out a shaky breath. “I can’t stop thinking you would hate that it could've been mine. If you were pregnant."
"Steve." Your voice breaks. "I would've prayed it was yours."
There would've been no hope otherwise. You would've wanted divine intervention, would've bargained with a god you're not sure you believe in, would've offered anything for it to be his.
You can see in the dark how his eyelashes fan against his cheek as he blinks, processing your words. He takes a deep breath, and you scoot closer, eliminating what little space remained between you. Your hand comes up to cup the side of his face now, fingers gentle against his skin.
"What happened the night of Mardi Tau?" you ask softly.
Steve looks at you with such sadness it makes your chest ache. "I was so confused. I didn't want to be jealous, but seeing you with Sammy... and hearing you talk about him with Eddie or Robin, knowing that he was touching you..." His jaw tightens. "Since your date with him, it got harder and harder to be with the others. I couldn't stop thinking about you. I couldn't fucking finish with anyone else, and finally I just couldn't even..." He closes his eyes, embarrassment coloring his cheeks. "It's so fucking embarrassing."
You rake your fingers through his hair, and he immediately relaxes into the touch. "It's not embarrassing, Steve. I wish... I wish it was less complicated."
"Me too," Steve whispers.
You lay in silence for a moment longer, the rain getting heavier outside, more lightning illuminating the tent in brief, brilliant flashes. Thunder rumbles, close enough to feel in your chest.
"I don't really want to forget the kiss happened," you admit. "In fact, I haven't. It's all I can think about."
Steve's hand moves from your face to your neck, trailing down to your shoulder, fingers tracing patterns on your skin through the thin fabric of your shirt. "I can't stop thinking about it either."
In the dark, you can see his eyes light up—crystal clear in another flash of lightning. His hand trails down your arm, pulling you closer, fingers wrapping around your wrist and gently pulling your hand from his hair. He brings your knuckles to his lips and kisses them slowly, deliberately. Then he kisses your palm, the touch soft and reverent. Your wrist next, then your forearm, working his way up to your shoulder until his face is inches from yours.
He runs the pad of his thumb over your bottom lip, his other fingers sliding under your jaw, tilting your face up toward his.
You see his eyes flicker to your lips and then back to your eyes.
"I'm going to kiss you," he says.
It's not a question. Not a can I? He's telling you. Maybe even telling himself. Giving you a heartbeat to object if you want to.
You don't want to.
You grip the fabric of his shirt and meet his lips in the middle.
This kiss is different from Mardi Tau. Slower. Softer. Still passionate—god, still so passionate it makes your toes curl—but measured. Intentional. His mouth moves against yours like he's savoring it, like he has all the time in the world and plans to use every second.
He tastes like mint toothpaste and something underneath that's purely Steve— sarcastic, fun, attentive. The kiss buzzes through you, electric and warm, spreading from your lips down through your chest and settling low in your belly. His lips are soft, the pressure perfect, and when his tongue traces the seam of your mouth, you open for him immediately.
The slide of his tongue against yours is slow, exploratory, like he's learning the shape of your mouth. You feel it everywhere—in your fingertips still gripping his shirt, in your chest where your heart is trying to beat out of your ribs, between your legs where heat is already pooling.
Steve shifts, moving slightly over you, one arm coming down to cage you in. The kiss deepens, tongues moving together with more purpose now, but still not fast. Never fast. Every movement is controlled, like he's determined to make this last.
Your hands slip under his shirt, palms splaying flat on his stomach. You feel the way he breathes—his round belly contracting and expanding beneath your touch. You feel the raised lines of his scars, the ones you've traced before but this time with new purpose.
Tenderly your fingers ghost each soft tissue. You’ve told him before, how brave he was. And maybe you were only trying to make him feel better, but now you really believe it. He was brave then. He was brave when he told his dad about becoming a teacher.
God, you want him.
You tangle your legs with his, bodies aligning, and Steve starts to suck on your top lip. You buck your hips involuntarily, feeling him twitch against your thigh.
Steve pulls back, panting slightly. Lightning flashes, illuminating his face—flushed, pupils blown, lips swollen from kissing. "Honey," he says softly, voice rough. "I want to... I really do, but I didn't bring anything."
You understand what he means. There's nowhere he could finish except on you, and then you'd be gross, sticky— you’re not going to walk in the rain to the showers— and it might get everywhere in the confined space of the sleeping bag, on the tent floor...
You look up at him, seeing the same disappointment in his eyes that you feel in your chest. "It's okay."
He nods and starts to pull away, but you stop him, hand fisting tighter in his shirt.
"No, I mean..." Your heart is thumping so fast you can hear it in your ears. Maybe this is totally insane given the circumstances of this week—the pregnancy scare, the fight with Robin, everything complicated and messy. Maybe you're thinking only with lust and desire, being reckless and stupid. But you need him. "I want you to come in me."
Despite the way you feel his cock harden immediately against your hip, despite the shaky breath he releases, his brows furrow. "Babygirl, are... are you sure? I don't—not if..."
This is insane. This is entirely the stupidest thing you could choose to do.
You answer by kissing him deeply, pouring every ounce of want and need and certainty into it. Then you sit up, putting your arms up in offering.
Steve takes the top of the sleeping bag off you both, pushing it aside. Lightning streaks across the sky outside, illuminating the tent in brilliant white light for a split second before plunging you back into shadow. Thunder follows immediately after, so close it rattles through your bones.
He reaches for the hem of your shirt, and his movements are so slow, so different from every other time. His fingers drag up your skin as he peels the fabric higher, making you shiver. The shirt comes off over your head, and Steve's eyes immediately catch sight of your bare chest.
He smiles. "I knew you weren't wearing a fucking bra. It's like you wanted this the whole time."
You giggle, leaning forward, both hands cupping his face, and kiss him again. You feel him smile against your lips, his hands coming up to gently squeeze your breasts, thumbs brushing over your nipples and making you gasp into his mouth. He pushes them together, massaging, his mouth kissing them, nipping, sucking.
"Your turn," you murmur, and start working his shirt up his torso. You take your time, kissing his belly, dragging flesh between your teeth. Kissing freckles as more skin is revealed, then his navel, one of his pecs, his throat. The shirt gets awkwardly stuck on his nose as you try to pull it over his head, and you both dissolve into quiet laughter—his a low chuckle in his chest that sounds sweet and boyish, yours breathy and slightly hysterical.
And you can’t help but kiss him, drinking the sweet sounds of laughter, teeth clanking from smiling. His laughter is sweet like caramel, thick and smooth against your tongue. It’s something you can see yourself getting drunk on more often if he lets you.
He finally gets the shirt unstuck and tosses it aside, and then you're finding each other's lips again, mouths meeting in the darkness with the kind of accuracy that only comes from want. One of his hands cradles your face, so large, palm covering your entire cheek. His other hand pushes your lower back, pressing your chest flush with his.
His skin is warm like sunshine, making you melt in his embrace. He smells like campfire and the river you two were lost in. Your fingers thread the hairs at the nape of his neck, twirling each strand, opening your mouth to capture his sigh.
Steve lays you back down slowly, your head finding the bunched-up jacket you've been using as a pillow. His hands find the waistband of your pajama bottoms, and he starts sliding them down your hips.
"Wait—" you start, but it's too late.
He sees it. The dark ink on your hip, just above your pelvic bone.
Steve pauses, squinting at it in the dim light, and then a crooked smile spreads across his face.
"Shut up," you laugh, covering your face with your hands, looking at him through your fingers.
"Wasn't gonna say a word," Steve says, sticking out his bottom lip in mock innocence, holding his hands up in surrender. Then he laughs—quiet and fond—and finishes pulling your pajama bottoms off completely.
He plants a chaste kiss on the tattoo—the words Hot Shot in thoughtless script.
"My Hot Shot," he whispers against your skin. "My girl."
Then he places a kiss over your underwear, right over your cunt, and the way his lips— now that they’ve touched your own, now that you know what he they taste like— plush against the fabric makes your breath catch.
He hooks his fingers in the waistband and slowly drags your panties down your legs. You tangle your fingers in his hair while he presses soft kisses to your bare skin—your hip bone, your inner thigh, higher until his breath ghosts over where you're already wet for him.
But then his eyes trail up, and his large hand splays on your ribs, trailing down past your belly button to rest on the soft flesh just above your womb. You feel a pool of warmth low in your belly at the tenderness in his touch.
He leans over, and you watch how his belly rolls, sticking over the waistband of his pajama pants. He kisses the spot on your belly softly. Once, twice, three times, his lips lingering on your skin. His thumb traces idle patterns there.
"You would've looked so hot pregnant with my baby," he whispers against your stomach, then looks up at you—checking, making sure what he said wasn't weird, wasn't too much, didn't turn you off.
But you smile, tilting your head, biting your bottom lip. "Yeah?"
Steve grins, placing another kiss there, his eyes dark with something that looks like reverence. "So fucking hot. Would've loved seeing you like that. All round with my baby."
Heat floods through you at his words, settling low and insistent between your legs. "Steve..."
"What?" He kisses lower, just above where you're aching for him. "You don't like thinking about it? About me filling you up? Getting you pregnant?"
You whimper, fingers tightening in his hair. "I—"
"Because I think about it," he admits, voice rough. "Think about it all the fucking time now."
Before you can respond, he's working to pull down his own pajama pants. He grunts, shifting around in the limited space—it's harder than it looks, all awkward angles and elbows bumping into things—until he finally peels them off.
You realize he's not wearing any underwear. His cock slaps against his stomach, already hard and flushed dark. There’s another flash of lightning— he’s pumping himself, biting his lip, looking at you splayed out on his sleeping bag,
"Now look who wanted this," you tease.
He crawls up your body, caging you in with his arms. "I always want you," he mutters against your lips before kissing you again.
The kiss is still slow but hungry now, need building between you. Steve positions himself between your legs, and you feel the thick head of his cock pressing against your entrance. He doesn't push in yet, just rocks slightly, sliding through your wetness, and you both make sounds that are barely human.
"Ready?" he asks against your mouth.
"Yes," you breathe. "Please."
He pushes in slowly—so slowly it's almost torture. You feel every inch as he enters you, the stretch and fullness, the way your body opens for him. He hadn’t prepared you with fingers. You feel the ache, making you wince. He kisses you again like it will help, and maybe it does.
“You okay?”
You nod. “Yeah, you’re just so big, Steve. But it feels so good.”
He bottoms out with a groan that reverberates through his chest into yours, and for a moment you both just stay like that, completely joined, breathing the same air. You both pant in each other’s mouths. Steve brushes hair from your face, jaw slack, searching for something in your eyes. Or maybe he likes looking at them as much as you like looking into his.
"You're perfect," you breathe, threading your fingers through his hair, blonde illuminating, refracting when lightning strikes. "Always so good to me."
A soft whimper escapes him at the praise, and he starts to move—slow, deep rolls of his hips that have you both groaning. His soft stomach presses into yours, the thick thatch of hairs rubbing, dragging against your skin.
It's nothing like before. Every other time has been fast, hard, desperate—chasing release with single-minded focus. But this is different. This is Steve pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in with agonizing slowness, his eyes locked on yours in the flashes of lightning, watching your every reaction.
"God, you feel so good," he breathes, hips rolling in a rhythm that's making you see stars despite the measured pace.
You wrap your legs around his waist, changing the angle slightly, and he hits something inside you that makes you gasp and arch up into him. He notices immediately, adjusting to hit that spot again and again with each slow thrust.
"So do you," you murmur, pulling him down for a kiss. "You always make me feel amazing."
He smiles against your lips, the movement becoming something tender before deepening the kiss. His tongue slides against yours in the same rhythm as his hips, slow and purposeful, building pleasure with every thrust.
His mouth finds your neck, kissing and sucking gently, and you tilt your head to give him better access. One of his hands slides up to palm your breast, thumb circling your nipple while his other hand braces beside your head, holding his weight off you.
"Steve," you whimper, nails dragging down his back.
"I know, babygirl. I know." His nose rubs against yours, your foreheads pressed together. "You're so beautiful."
He kisses you again.
You smile shyly, pulling your knees closer to your chest, your fingers pressing into his ass, pushing him deeper. The new angle makes you both moan, the sound swallowed by another crack of thunder outside.
"Fuck, you're so good for me," he pants. "Such a good girl. My good girl."
You preen at the praise, and he notices, grinning. "You like that? Like being my good girl?"
"Yes," you admit, voice breathy.
Lightning illuminates the tent again, and in that brief flash you see his face clearly—lips parted, eyes dark with desire but soft with something else. Something that looks dangerously close to lo— you let out a wanton moan.
Steve maintains that slow, torturous pace, and you realize with startling clarity that you like this. You like slow sex—with him. Only with him. Because with anyone else, going slow felt boring, felt like waiting for something to happen. But Steve going slow feels intentional, feels like worship, feels like he's trying to memorize every sound you make, every expression that crosses your face.
He reaches down between your bodies, and you think he's going to touch your clit, but instead he takes your hand. His fingers lace through yours, holding tight, and he brings your joined hands up beside your head, pressing them into the sleeping bag.
His hips continue their steady rhythm, in and out, in and out, your joined hands pressed into the fabric beside your head. His thumb rubs circles on the back of your hand, such a small gesture but somehow more intimate than anything else.
He angles his face, capturing your lips in another kiss.
"You feel perfect," you whisper against his mouth. "So perfect inside me."
Steve groans, his rhythm faltering slightly, cock pulsing inside you. "Don't—fuck—don't say things like that if you want this to last."
You giggle, the sound breathy. "Can't help it. You make me feel so good."
He smiles against your lips, kissing you again, soft and sweet. Then he angles his hips slightly, hitting that spot inside you with more purpose, and you gasp, your free hand flying to his shoulder.
"That's it," he encourages. "Let me hear you, honey. Love hearing all the pretty sounds you make."
Each slow thrust builds the pleasure higher, coiling tighter in your belly. You mewl breathily.
"Baby… Steve I—" your head lulls back.
"I know," he says, and his free hand finally slides between your bodies to find your clit. "I've got you."
His thumb circles your clit with the same measured pace as his thrusts, and the dual sensation has your eyes rolling back. Your hand squeezes his tighter, holding on like he's the only solid thing in a spinning world.
"Feels so good," you praise, one hand sliding down to rest on his lower back, feeling his muscles flex with each thrust. "You make me feel so good. Such a perfect boy."
Steve's rhythm falters, a broken moan escaping him. "I can't—you're gonna make me—"
"Not yet," you say gently but firmly, and watch him visibly struggle to obey. "Want to come with you. Can you do that for me? Be a good boy and wait for me?"
He nods frantically, teeth catching his bottom lip so hard you're afraid he'll draw blood. "I'll try. I'll be good. Promise I'll be good."
The rain pounds harder against the tent, matching the building tension coiling tighter and tighter in your belly. Lightning illuminates you both in brief snapshots—his face above you, eyes dark and reverent; your bodies moving together in perfect synchronization.
"Does Sammy make you cum like I do?" Steve asks, voice strained. His thumb circles your clit with the same measured pace as his thrusts.
You bite your lip in a wave of pleasure, your fingertips dragging against his shoulders, feeling his skin and muscles. “No, not once. No one fucks me like you do, Steve.”
He falters briefly, whimpering, head bowing before he comes back. "So beautiful," he gasps. "So fucking perfect. Can't believe—can't believe I get to see you like this."
You moan, pleasure building rapidly. "Keep going. You're doing so good. Just a little longer."
The pleasure builds like a wave, slow and inexorable, rising higher with each roll of his hips, each pass of his thumb. You're making those sounds you made like in the bathroom—high, breathy whimpers of his name mixed with nonsense syllables.
"That's it," he encourages, and finally—finally—his pace picks up. Not frantically, but with more purpose, more urgency. His hips snap against yours, the slap of skin on skin mixing with the rain and thunder.
"Want to—fuck—want to fill you up," he pants, and you can hear the desperation in his voice. "Please can I come? I've been good, haven't I? I've been good for you?"
“Yes, god yes. Please, Steve. I’m so close,” you cry. You kiss him sloppily, full of the filthy things you want to cry out but can’t form into coherent words. Your teeth graze his bottom lip, releasing it with a pop.
His eyes snap to yours, something fierce and tender burning there. "Come for me, babygirl. Come on my cock while I fill you up." His voice drops lower, rougher. "Want to get you pregnant so badly. Want everyone to know you're mine."
You know it's fantasy talking—the heat of the moment, bodies wound tight with need, words spilling out unchecked. It probably wouldn't happen, the odds are slim, but thinking about it, imagining Steve's baby growing inside you, imagining him telling everyone you're his—
Your orgasm hits like lightning—sudden and all-consuming. Your whole body arches up into him, clenching around his cock, and you cry out his name into the small space of the tent. White-hot pleasure races through your veins, makes your vision go black at the edges, leaves you gasping and shaking beneath him.
Steve follows seconds later, his rhythm faltering as he comes. You feel it—the warmth flooding inside you, the pulse of his cock, the way he buries himself as deep as he can go and stays there, grinding against you through the aftershocks. His face drops to your neck, hot breath against your slick skin, and he lets out a sound that's half-moan, half-so. Your name follows, escaping his warm lips, leaving an entirely new tattoo on your skin.
Thunder crashes directly overhead, so loud and close it feels like the sky is splitting open.
Steve pulls out slowly, carefully, but doesn't move off you. Instead, his face burrows between your breasts, arms sliding underneath you to hold you close. You feel his come leaking out, warm and wet between your thighs, but you can't bring yourself to care.
Your fingers immediately find his hair, threading through the sweat-damp strands, scratching gently at his scalp the way you know he likes.
You smile, your other hand tracing patterns on his back, finally getting to know the moles there.
He lifts his head slightly, reaching down with one hand to touch where you're still leaking his come. His thumb brushes the sensitive skin, and you gasp. "So pretty like this," he murmurs. "All full of me."
"Steve," you breathe, not sure if you're protesting or encouraging.
He brings his thumb to his mouth, tasting, and groans. "We taste good together." Never in your life would you think he would be okay with tasting his own spend.
Steve then brushes his thumb where the tattoo is. "There’s no one like you, Hot Shot,"
You smile, kissing his head. “There’s no one like you, Steve Harrington.”
He presses a kiss to the space between your breasts, then another to your collarbone, working his way up to your jaw. When he reaches your mouth, the kiss is soft and sweet and nothing like the desperate ones from before. When his tongue catches yours, you taste the both of you, and it nearly sends you over the edge again.
When Steve eventually rolls off you, it's not like before where your limbs tear apart in haste, where you're both scrambling for clothes and space and distance. Instead, he reaches for his discarded shirt and uses it to gently clean between your legs.
The gesture is so tender it makes your breath catch. His touch is careful, reverent almost, wiping away the evidence of what you've done with a gentleness that feels more intimate than anything that came before it. You feel your tummy flip and your heart stutter, and you’re sure it’s the afterwaves of your undoing.
You're sure this would be a moment of weakness. Another slip in the rules where reality crashes back in and he realizes what you've both done, what he said. Maybe he'll freak out, remembering the things he told you during the heat of the moment—saying things that were empty promises because he could never actually get you pregnant, and he could never tell anyone you were his.
I mean, it’s not like you two really wanted that. You both were still in school. You both were still too young. And you both couldn’t really be together like that.
Maybe he'll put distance between you, go back to the carefully constructed boundaries you've been dancing around and breaking for months now.
But Steve makes no effort to run.
Another lightning strike illuminates the tent, and you see his goofy smile—dopey and satisfied and completely unguarded. He tosses the shirt aside and plops down next to you, immediately grabbing you and pulling you toward him. He kisses your forehead, his arms wrapping around you as your limbs tangle together naturally, fitting like puzzle pieces.
You motion to the sleeping bag. "You're going to have to throw this out now," you mumble against his chest, feeling his heartbeat steady and strong beneath your cheek.
"Mm, worth it," Steve chuckles, the sound rumbling through his chest into yours.
There's only the sound of rain now—steady and soothing—and the afterglow settling warm in your bones, and this moment suspended in your tent like a snow globe, separate from the rest of the world. Outside, there are rules and arrangements and complications. Outside, your friends are in their respective tents. Robin.
But in here, it's just you and Steve and the ghost of what you just did hanging in the air between you.
You don't want to ask what this means for you both. It's not like you like each other—not like that. It's all possessiveness because you're the only ones who know how each other's bodies work. That's the only thing. Has to be the only thing.
But it is different. The rules are bent beyond recognition now, twisted into shapes you don't recognize anymore— and apparently don’t apply to you according to Steve.
So you ask something else instead. "Why didn't you tell me you declared your major?"
Steve sighs, but he doesn't tense. His hand continues its path up and down your back, scratching gently, tracing patterns on your skin. "You were the first person I wanted to tell." His voice is quiet, almost hesitant. "I mean, shit, the moment you told me you thought you were pregnant, I had made a decision. Even if it's not in the cards for me—kids, a family, all of that—maybe I could have something that's just for me. Something I chose."
The words hit you like a physical blow. Your throat tightens, tears prickling hot behind your eyes. You don't cry, but you feel it building in the middle of your throat, threatening to spill over.
Maybe because everyone else in his life has made decisions for him—his father pushing business, his arrangement with Robin dictating his future, even the rules he set for himself born out of fear and self-preservation rather than genuine desire.
You're sure everyone has asked him all the questions by now. Why teaching? Why not something more prestigious, more lucrative? Why would the guy who hasn't shown any real interest in direction or ambition suddenly choose something so decidedly... honorable?
"Are you happy, Steve?" you ask quietly into the darkness.
You don't mean just about his major. You mean everything. Is he happy with his arrangement with Robin? Is it actually benefiting him, or is he sacrificing pieces of himself for her happiness? And Robin—is it even benefiting her, or is she just as trapped in this elaborate fiction they've constructed?
But Steve doesn't answer.
His breathing has already evened out into the soft, rhythmic pattern of sleep, a gentle snore escaping him.
You lie there in his arms, listening to the rain and his breathing, and wonder if the question scared him into unconsciousness or if he simply had no answer to give.
After the final Battle of Hawkins, Steve Harrington has been recruited to find all of Brenner's "experiments" that didn't perish under Henry Creel's hand. Undercover in Suburbia, with you under his arm playing the role of dutiful wife, Steve uncovers more truths about himself than he bargained for.
Pairing: Steve Harrington x female!Reader
Wordcount: 16,490
Warnings: fake marriage au, slowburn, angst, pining, canon typical violence, one tiny mention of infertility, but several mentions of trying to have babies
Navigation • Masterlist
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Suburbia succumbed to fall in a tattered mess of fallen leaves, run-through with bikes and station wagons. Floral arrangements on stoops were replaced with pumpkins and the smell of barbecue replaced with chimney smoke as everything bit crisp and bitter in the air. Fog crawled over roots and soil, chased rainwater into clogged gutters, clung to the insides of windows as children cackled and adults sipped wine around leaf-in dinner tables.
Steve’s polos had been replaced with cozy sweaters that pulled on the hair of his chest and warmed his cheeks. Or maybe that was the red wine he’d barely drank. He had to stay sharp, and the tart berry undertones reminded him too much of his mother. Or maybe it was you, sidled up beside him, chatting away as you sipped the wine in your own glass, one hand floating down his arm, resting on his thigh, your lips stained a deep plum.
“And what about you two, hm? You planning on joining the PTA with us anytime soon?” Marcie Jones waggled her eyebrows, cigarette smoke circling her harsh features. The chandelier shadowed her eyes, making her look even more of a tired skeleton than normal. You’d told him about Marcie’s fucked up childhood, her eating disorder, her husband Jimmy’s affair. Marcie and Jimmy’s five-year-old had to be held back in kindergarten for stabbing another kid.
“Oh, believe me, we’re trying.” You punctuated that fact by raising your glass high in the air, wine legs reflecting honeyed light.
The room whooped and hollered, but Steve’s entire body buzzed. “We are?” He choked out, heart stuttering in his chest. Not only was a pregnancy impossible to fake, as far as he was concerned, but the idea of you running around with a brood of Harringtons was something that crossed his mind on a nearly daily basis, along with the idea of making a brood of Harringtons with you. His sweater felt excessively tighter, like the tentacles of a bat wrapped around his throat.
A loud thud of a strong hand to his shoulder pulled him back into the room, raucous laughter. Chip Lafferty gave his shoulder a shake. “Looking a little green around the gills there, Steve-O.”
Steve managed a half-hearted smile and turned to look at you. You were giving him that big, bright, fake smile that screamed “play along, damnit”, and he licked his lips, pulling his glass to take a long gulp. The wine was too sweet and too tart and dried on his tongue. He winced and set the glass back down.
“God, men do not listen, do they? In one ear, out the other.” You rolled your eyes, but you leaned into him, patronizing tone turned lovey and sweet. You planted a wet kiss to the stubble growing on his jaw. “Guess the ‘why’ or ‘how’ isn’t that important as long as you’re enjoying it. Huh, baby?”
Steve swallowed, familiar hunger burning in his chest, tightening his jeans, and he was thankful for the second loud eruption at the table thanks to your words.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Chip and Jimmy high-fived.
Chip’s wife, Amie, tossed her napkin at you from her lap. “Girl, you are bad.”
You shushed her with a giggle that poured around your slender finger held to your lips. You hiccuped and tilted your head all-the-way back to finish your glass of wine, the last drop spilling onto your tongue blood red.
“Okay,” Steve muttered, wiping the corners of his mouth with his napkin one final time before resting it on the tablecloth. “I think it might be time to get the Missus home.”
“Yeah it is,” Chip waggled his eyebrows. Chip and Amie Lafferty were Suburbia’s sweethearts. Amie worked at the local high school in the administrators office and Chip’s dad owned all of the business parks on his side of the Mississippi. They were perfect in every way, and yet you’d managed to uncover everything about Amie’s dark past, abusive father, Chip’s affair. Jesus, these guys were assholes.
Steve snorted, managed to fake a smile, and pushed off from his chair. “Shall we, dear?” He placed a hand on your chair.
“If you insist,” you offered the girls a wink, and they cackled like they were in on the joke.
You wiped your lips, spotting the ivory napkin pink, and allowed Steve to pull you upright. You stumbled into him, masking your giggle behind a shy hand as Steve caught you around the waist. You were so warm, sticky sweet. Your hum buzzed through his chest. “M’a little tipsy, baby.” God, that pet name would haunt him until the day he died.
“That’s the best way to do it,” Amie crowed, pushing off from her own chair. “That’s how Christopher was conceived.” She winked at Steve, and he felt his stomach plummet to the floor.
“Oh fuck yeah, that was a great night.” Chip waggled his eyebrows, staring over at his wife with darkened eyes. “Niagara Falls.”
“Chicago,” she sat him a look of utter disdain, any romance falling dead on the table between them.
You started planting wet kisses along the column of Steve’s jaw, and he squeezed your arm so hard he hoped it hurt.
“Great dinner, Marcie. Thanks so much for having us.” He offered the woman a tight-lipped smile.
Marcie blew out her last smoke cloud and waved it out of her face as she stood from the table. “Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for the excuse to put the kids to bed early.”
“Our house next time,” you dangled your fingers for her to take.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow around 10.” Marcie nodded, tickling your fingertips with her own.
“What’s tomorrow?” Steve placed a hand on your back and walked you toward the coat rack in the entryway. You stumbled a little in your heels.
“Marce is taking me to her book club.” You explained, helping him pull your jacket over your arms. You pulled your hair out from the collar, and his jaw clenched at how that made him feel.
“You can read?” He smirked, tugging down the sleeves of his sweater to pull himself into his own woolen coat.
“Shush,” you swatted at him, but the smile that clung to the corners of your mouth was worth every tease, made his knees weak.
“It’s a brunch book club. My friend, Doris, hosts once a month.” Marcie explained. “Scrambled eggs, French toast, Mimosas.”
“Ah, there it is,” Steve sighed, and you nodded excitedly.
“Well, you two walk home safe now,” Marcie pressed dry lips to his cheek, reeking of cigarettes and sadness. She gave the same to you, claws gripping your dainty hands.
Steve shook hands with the men, both of which gave him dog-ish smirks and waggled brows, and Amie offered a shy smile and wave before he opened the door and led you out into the chill of autumn. Fog coated the streets like a night at the junk yard, and he tucked you tighter under his arm as your frame wracked with a shiver.
“Goodnight!” The party called as the two of you stepped onto the sidewalk. You turned and waved, and Steve led you a block down to your perfect little house. The hedges out front needed a trim, and the lawn was littered with leaves from the large oaks that lined the park just to the south of the little lot.
Bright white columns flanked the oversized door, and you rolled your ankles in a stumbled walk all the way up the brick walkway. You leaned into him while he fumbled with the keys, lock a little old, a little janky, but eventually the door popped open and he helped you inside. You crossed to the entry lamp and shrugged out of your coat, and he closed the door behind himself.
“What the fuck was that?” He rounded on you, his jacket caught on the shoulders of his sweater, and he tugged until something tore.
“Steve, come on,” you rolled your eyes, toeing off your heels and massaging the balls of your feet.
“So now we’re trying to have kids? What does that even mean? How are we going to fake something like that?”
You ignored him, breezed past him out of the foyer and into the kitchen, any stumble or stagger or feigned drunkenness removed from your walk. The light cast soft shadows against the staircase and through the hall.
He ran a tired hand over his face and kicked off his shoes. He set his keys on the entry table, just beside the photo of you both, arm in arm, madly in love. Like every other staged photo scattered around the house, taken over the span of a week, made to look like years of a happy marriage. He heard the water running and cursed under his breath, following you into the kitchen.
You were pressed against the counter, downing a glass of water, and then two. The soft light cast sunken shadows in your features, highlighted the column of your throat, the staggered up and down of your chest with each breath. You set your glass above the sink, catching him in the reflection of the kitchen window, and you turned to face him, arms crossed over your chest.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, crossing to pull a glass from the cabinet above your head, turning on the faucet beside you to fill himself a glass. He avoided your gaze. “I do trust you. I guess I’d just appreciate a little warning before you change our entire narrative.”
“I’m not changing the narrative. We’re a married couple in our twenties. We’re going to want to have kids.” You explained, walking to the pantry to look for something. He didn’t know how or where you had room for more food after that lasagna. “So, we’re trying. Doesn’t mean we’ll succeed. Maybe we’re having fertility issues. That’d be a believable bit of gossip to tell the girls. It’d probably make them like me more.”
Steve scoffed. “That’s so fucking twisted.”
You shrugged. “It’s that or you have an affair.”
He drank his water and considered your words. He knew you were right, you were always right, but it didn’t hurt any less. Christ, he could picture it now, you poking around in the pantry like you always did, returning with a half-eaten Ding Dong, belly swelled three feet in front of you, that mischievous grin on your face. He’d swoop you into a kiss, force you to sit down, press his face against you and murmur sweet nothings about how beautiful you are, how in love with you he is.
“I’m going to bed. Gotta be up early,” you waved off the pantry, coming up empty handed.
Steve pushed off from the counter, discarding his cup beside the sink. “Yeah, what’s this book club thing? You think she’ll be there.”
She. Number Fifteen. That’s what this was all for. He had to remind himself. You were just pretending, he was just pretending, a mission you’d been sent on together to find the missing patients of one Dr. Martin Brenner, all the ones that hadn’t died under Henry Creel’s hand.
You shrugged. “It’s possible. If not, it’ll give me a few more connections. Did Chip tell you anything when you guys were in the garage?”
Steve shook his head, flicked off the kitchen light. He followed you back into the foyer, climbed the stairs behind you, forced himself to look anywhere but the crux of your thighs beneath your dress. “No, he just bullshitted us about the business. Bunch of bullshit about more warehouses and the stock exchange? I don’t know. You know I zone out when that shit starts coming out of them.”
You flicked on the bedside lamp, bathing the little bedroom in more honeyed light. You shook your head, brushed your hair off your shoulders to one side and backed to him for assistance unzipping your dress.
He held his breath, closed his eyes. He’d done this a million and one times by now, but it never got better. He never got used to the soft skin of your spine against his fingertips, never got used to the slope of you beneath the dress, the soft waistband of your panties just at the base of the zipper, the dimples of your hips. He didn’t release his breath until you thanked him and stepped away, peeling the sleeves over your shoulders and exposing your back before you disappeared into the closet to change.
He squeezed his eyes together and tried to think of dead puppies, demogorgons, Max in a coma. With grit teeth, he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his socks.
“You really have to get him talking,” you chided from the closet, voice muffled by the clothes hung up around you.
“Yeah, I know,” he grumbled, gripping his sweater around the neck and pulling it off. He was relieved by the coolness of the room around him, and he pulled his white t-shirt back down around his torso. He tossed his sweater to the bed beside him and stood to remove his pants.
“Amie’s convinced he’s sleeping with someone new, and if it’s Her…” You entered the room for a split second before exiting into the en suite. You were slipping your night shirt over your head, and in the soft lamplight, Steve could just make out the swell of your breast before the gossamer fabric fell around your hips and thighs.
He heard the water running and swallowed, elected to keep his pants on a little longer. Dead puppies, Dustin’s mom, Dustin himself.
“I mean, maybe he could like introduce you?” You poked your head back out, toothbrush dangling from the corner of your mouth, foam removing the wine stains from your tongue, your teeth.
Steve nodded and crossed to you, reaching across the counter for his own toothbrush. He dolloped toothpaste and ran it under the water. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll figure something out. Maybe I’ll have an affair of my own, like you said. I’ll ask for advice.”
“Maybe you’re terrified of having kids.” You waggled your eyebrows in the mirrored reflection, bending over to spit foamy mint down the swirling drain.
Steve didn’t respond, just scrubbed as you rinsed. You turned the water from cold to hot and washed your face with a warm cloth, mascara running in black smudges along your cheekbones. He spit and rinsed with hot water, and you rinsed the suds and grime from your face. It was your routine, night-after-night side-by-side. You slunk to your side of the bed and he followed, like a lost pup. He finally kicked off his pants when you flicked off the light, and he slid beneath the duvet beside you like he did every night.
“What’re you doing tomorrow?” You hummed, back to him.
He sighed, watching the shape of your shoulders in the moonlight that poured in from old window fixtures. “Think I might trim the hedge.”
You yawned, snuggled further into your pillow. “Good. See if you can get Berta from across the street to offer you lemonade. That old broad knows more about the neighborhood than anyone else.”
Steve rolled onto his back, stared at the ghastly shadows cast along the high ceilings. He listened as your soft breath turned to soft snores, and he closed his eyes and fell asleep as he did every night, to thoughts of you with a kid on your hip, your lips to his throat, your fingers in his hair.
—
Steve woke late the next morning to the sun pouring in and the smell of your shampoo lingering in the air. He groaned and stretched and slipped into something comfortable before taking the stairs downward, two at a time, to the little kitchen. You were hunched over a book at the countertop, knees pulled onto your chair with you, face screwed up in adorable concentration.
“What’re you reading?” He asked, his voice raw from sleep.
You startled, pointed your spoon in self-defense, and clutched at your chest. “Jesus fucking Christ, don’t do that to me.”
He laughed and found his mug, bright blue with anchors, something you’d found at the mall and purchased for him because it made you laugh out loud to think of. He rolled his eyes and used it every day since. “This coffee fresh?” He pointed to the maker.
You nodded, unamused, and turned back to your book.
He poured himself coffee and found a bowl for cereal, and when his breakfast was prepared, he pulled up the seat beside you and tipped the edge to look at the front cover, The Shining. Top heavy, the book closed in front of you, effectively losing your place, and you rounded on him.
“What the hell, dude?”
He snorted. “It’s a horror brunch book club?”
“Yes, and I was just getting to the good part.” You groaned and leafed your way back through the novel to find your spot again.
“You know what happens. He chases his wife with the ax and then the kid does the footprint thing in the snow and then Jack Nicholson is in the picture.” Steve shrugged, taking in a mouthful of Honeycomb. It crunched, not soggy enough, and didn’t go down as easy as he wanted it too. He frowned and stirred the cereal to let it soak a little longer.
“Yeah, but the movie’s trash compared to the book.” You tutted, seemingly finding your spot.
Steve opened his mouth to protest, trying to procure all of the Kubrik-based trivia Robin had fed him over the years, when the front door swung open, startling you both. You were so surprised that you threw your hand out, rocketing his bowl of cereal across the countertop and onto the floor with a crash.
“Helloooo?” Came a call from the foyer. Marcie had let herself in.
“Does she fucking knock?” Steve grumbled, making to pick up the mess of cereal and milk you’d made of the small kitchen.
“Make out with me,” you hissed.
He blinked back at you, saw you’d climbed onto the countertop and spread your legs, gesturing wildly for him to join you. “What?”
There was that look again, Play Along Damnit. “Just get. Over. Here.” You hissed, and before he could reach you, you gripped at his shoulders and forced yourself on him, thighs wrapped around his waist, hands in his hair, tongue slipping between his teeth. He groaned and threw you back against the countertop for balance, gripping at the belt loops of your jeans for dear life, a life raft in a swell of emotions.
You moaned into his mouth, hands moved to fist the front of his t-shirt as your hips ground upwards to meet his.
And fucking Christ, he knew it was just for show, knew you were displaying your perfect marriage, full of passion and morning sex for snoopy ass Marcie, but he raked his fingers up your ribcage and prayed you could feel how bad he had it for you. He put that devotion into every kiss. Every front door peck goodbye before his morning commute, every not-so-secret make out in the hedges during a party where you’d both had to pretend to be drunk, every kiss to your temple, your knuckles, the crook of your elbow. He needed you to feel it, to know without knowing. Maybe it’ll seep in somewhere, this delusion of osmosis that he hoped would someday trick you into feeling the same way. He knew you didn’t.
“Hello? Oh holy FUCK,” Marcie exclaimed, entering the small kitchen.
Steve felt your hands pawing at his biceps for release, shoving him off of you, and he rolled back onto the countertop with heavy breaths, mouth swollen and tingling from the love bite you’d given him. He could hear your gasps, the ruffle of your clothes, just under the thundering of his pulse in his ears.
Marcie flashed you both a knowing smirk, before allowing her eyes to linger down Steve’s front to where his pants were tightest, and she flashed her gaze back to him, impressed.
He blushed, turned back around to you, gave you a warning look.
“I am so sorry, Marcie,” you flattened your hair, licked at cherry stained lips. “I didn’t hear you knock. Bit… busy.” You flashed your canines in a proud grin.
“I can see that,” she cooed. “Morning, Stevie.”
He gave her a two-fingered salute, adjusted his pants. Dead puppies, Hopper, the Upside Down.
“Baby,” Fuck. “I’ll be home in a few hours. There’s stuff to make sandwiches in the fridge. Please do not cut your finger off with the trimmers, okay? I’m going to need them all.” Oh Jesus Christ, you were trying to murder him.
Marcie whistled, and you flashed a grin as you hopped off the counter and scooped up your book.
“Ready, Marce?”
“As long as you are, sweet cheeks.” She waggled her eyebrows Steve’s direction one last time, and he offered a weak wave, light-headed.
“Love you, baby.” You squeezed his cheeks together in one hand, leaning forward for another kiss, long, languid, still putting on that show. He smacked your ass, squeezed the meat of it tight on one hand. Two could play that game. You pulled away with a warning glance, and he grinned.
“Love you, honey.”
—
He didn’t have try hard for Berta from across the street to wave a handkerchief his direction and demand he join her for lemonade. The leaves had been raked into a pile, and the hedge was trimmed. Steve tried focusing on the tasks at hand instead of the dizzying morning make out or the daydreams of children throwing themselves into the leaves. He waved at the old woman, set his trimmers and gloves down, wiped at the sweat beading his brow, and crossed into the old woman’s yard.
“Thank you, Mrs. Kennedy.” He smiled, accepting the small glass cup full of pale yellow lemonade. He took a sip, tarter than he hoped for, and swallowed back a wince to manage a soft smile, licking his lips.
“Your wife said you’d love it.” The old woman wagged a crooked finger and made about pulling things down from her cupboard. The kitchen mirrored yours, all these houses built by the same architect a hundred years ago, but hers had life to it, years of memories tacked to walls, staining the wallpaper. The photos displayed on Berta’s fridge weren’t posed: recipes, graduation announcements.
“It’s delicious,” he croaked around the sting in his throat.
“So tell me, young man, what’s new in the neighborhood?” You weren’t kidding. This old bird thrived on gossip. “Saw you two walking to the Jones’s the other night again. You seem to be getting on well.”
She placed a sleeve of fig cookies on the table, half-eaten, and he sighed, diving in for one to be polite. Hard as a rock.
“Yeah, Jim’s a good guy, and it’s nice for um…” He swallowed. “My wife to make friends around here. She’s glad to have Marcie and Amie.”
“Amie Lafferty?” Berta’s crone brows creased.
“Yeah, you know her?”
“Of course I do! Practically raised her. She’s the same age as my little Debbie.” Berta extended a finger to a photo of a homely looking girl with a baby on each hip, two more young ones crowded the front of the frame, missing most of their teeth.
Steve reached for the lemonade to quench the dryness in his throat.
“That Chip though…” Berta tutted her tongue against the back of yellowed teeth.
“What about him?” Steve leaned forward, trying not to cough up the sour drink.
“Well, I’m not one to gossip.” She waved him off.
He smiled at that, went for another cookie, further back in the sleeve in hopes of a thread of moisture. It was softer, sweeter against his molars.
“Oh alright,” she caved, pulling into the seat beside him and grabbing herself a treat. “They live just behind me, over that fence, you know,” she thumbed the direction of her back garden. He could just make out the fence line from her kitchen window, and the Lafferty’s brownstone mansion behind that.
Steve nodded, leaned in to indulge her.
“The other night, I heard giggling in the yard. So I peaked over, saw Chip showing someone the water feature. A woman. Not Amie.”
Steve’s heart picked up pace in his chest. “What did she look like?”
Berta shrugged, tore her cookie in two. “Oh you know, really pretty like. The kind of girl that would appreciate a guy like Chip for his money and not much else. The kind of girl you should watch out for.” She gave him a warning look, pressing her fingertips into his forearm.
Steve swallowed, shook his hair from his eyes. “What else did you see?”
The old woman shrugged, stuffed the rest of the cookie into her mouth, and then half of another. “Something’s off with their electrical. With all that money, you’d think they could pay to fix their damn lights.”
Steve felt his entire stomach sink into the wooden floor. “What do you mean?” He managed.
She shrugged, fluffy eyebrows creased in agitation. “Oh, a few nights this week, I look over and the whole house is going haywire, lights flickering from the bottom floor to the top. It’s only a few seconds before it stopped, but I damn near thought I was having a stroke.”
Jesus Christ. Steve downed the rest of his lemonade, thumping his chest with a fist to swallow it down, and he pushed off from his seat. “Mrs. Kennedy, thank you so much, but I better get that yard cleaned up before uh… before the Missus gets home.” God, why was it so hard to say it every time?
Berta stood and chased him to the front door, clapping her hands. “Come again anytime, my sweet boy, anytime.”
His mind raced over everything he said, and just before he left, he turned back to the old woman. “For the record, you don’t have to worry about me.”
She smiled, cocked a brow.
“I love her very, very much.”
Berta pressed a wrinkled hand to his cheek. “I know you do, and it’s lovely to see.”
—
You didn’t come home all day. Warm midday turned to pink afternoon turned to frigid evening, and the fog rolled in but you hadn’t. Steve sat at the living room window, a book open in his lap for appearances, but he spent an hour staring out the window not glancing at the book once. His leg bounced, pages flitting with every movement. Cars drove by, slow for kids at play, coming back from the grocery store or leaving for Saturday evening dates.
Anxiety clawed up his esophagus. Berta’s words echoed in his mind. He kept his eyes looking from the drive to the back of Chip’s house just in the distance. Where were you?
He stood abruptly, made for his coat in the hall and his keys on the entry table when the door burst open. His keys went clattering to the ground, and he heard the loud shuffle of bags and boxes as you, Marcie, and Amie all pushed past him with armfuls of shopping bags.
“Hey, baby,” you called, dumping your haul into the little parlor.
“Stevie, you’re going to want to work an extra shift this week,” Marcie cackled. “Your wife went a little ham.”
“Why didn’t you call?” He tried to relax, heart thundering.
“Sorry, baby,” you stood on tiptoe to press a chaste kiss to his lips, pulling his anxiety from them. He relaxed into you. You pulled away with wide eyes, play along. Your gaze flitted to his shoulder, and you picked at something there, tutted. “And now I wish I would have. I didn’t know you ripped your coat.”
He glanced to his shoulder where your dainty fingers attempted to mend the seam, and he sighed and shrugged out of it to replace on the coat rack. “It’s fine, honey. Did you girls have a good day?” He stepped beside you into the little living room where Marcie and Amie were organizing their purchases. The whole room was full of tissue paper and bright colors, like Christmas morning.
“We sure did,” Amie cooed, picking up the tiniest package of the bunch to shake your direction. “Show him.”
You swatted at her and hid the little bag behind yourself, flashing him a smile that had something behind it he didn’t recognize.
He swallowed, took a step toward you. “Show me what?”
“Okay, don’t be mad.” You held a hand to his chest, fingertips right over his heart, and he could never be mad at that. He watched the way your ring sparkled in the lamplight. “I was just really excited, alright? And the girls made me do it. And you know, maybe it… stuck.” You offered, and he was so confused he glanced over at the other girls who were positively beaming to see his reaction.
“Maybe what stuck?”
“This morning,” Marcie offered with a quirked brow.
“Last night,” you corrected, sucking your cheeks in to fight back a smile.
Oh. Steve felt his face heat at the charade. He’d been so worried about you, he’d forgotten the rendezvous in the kitchen, forgotten the conversation over the last moments of dinner.
“So… you wanna see what she got?” Amie prodded her forward.
He looked you over, tried to decipher that unfamiliar look in your eye, was it regret? Apology? Disdain? He nodded, and you pulled the bag between you, stared into the tissue for a moment too long, before your dainty hand went in and plucked out the sweetest, tiniest little baby onesie he’d ever seen in his entire life. It was soft gray, and he didn’t dare touch it, but the way you held it between your fingers made it look so soft. The tiniest of blue whales was embroidered in the very center.
“Do you…” He cleared his throat. “Do you really think this was the best idea?” He said it through his teeth, careful not to sound unkind, the heart of something that never was, never will be, wracked through him.
You shrugged, pain flashed in your eyes that mirrored how he felt. He pressed his fingertips into the soft skin of your forearm.
“Oh don’t be mad, Steve-o. We practically forced it on her.” Amie stood to your defense, tucking the little onesie back into its bag.
“Truly, we dragged her into the store. She didn’t want to go.”
You swallowed, nodded. “And like I said, maybe something stuck.” Your voice cracked at the end.
“And if it didn’t, we got this,” Marcie cackled. Steve turned to see her holding up a piece of lavender lingerie, barely any material with too many bells and whistles, and he heard ringing in his ears. Amie scolded the other girl, but you all laughed in tandem at some inside joke you’d come up with at the mall.
Steve felt sick, dizzy, too warm, this little house too crowded with all of the girls and the bags and the information he’d gleaned from the little old woman across the street. He ran a hand through his hair and winced at the headache forming in the lamplight.
“Baby, are you okay?” You slipped your fingers into the hair at the back of his neck, and a shiver shot down his spine at the tug of your fingernails.
He backed away from you, stepping out of your reach with outstretched hands, keeping you at a distance. “I’m fine. I just… had a long day. Think I’m gonna go to bed.” He grumbled. “Excuse me, ladies.” And he sidestepped out of the room. He took a deep breath to the tune of rustling tissue before climbing the stairs, hand clenched on the wooden railing.
“What’s his deal?” He heard whispered below.
“Yeah, sorry. I really didn’t think he’d be mad.”
“It’s fine, guys.” You comforted. “He’ll get over it.” His heart clenched and he closed the bedroom door with a groan.
—
He wasn’t sure how long he’d laid in bed, staring at the shadows of the ceiling while your chatter continued downstairs. It felt like hours. Finally, the rustle of bags and the air flow of the open door signaled your friends’ departures, and you called out to them a little too-loudly before closing the large door with a slam that rattled the light fixtures. You took the stairs quickly, lithe hurried footsteps before you swung open the bedroom door.
Steve sat upright, brow furrowed, ready to argue. He pushed off from the bed towards you. “What the hell was that ab-“ But before he could get his words out, you’d launched yourself at him, wrapped your arm around his shoulders and buried your face in his neck, your breath hot and shaky against his skin. He stumbled backwards a moment before relaxing into you, pulling you up by your waist, sinking his face closer to yours, cheek-to-cheek.
“She was there.” You whispered into his ear, and his blood ran cold. He froze. He could feel both of your heartbeats against his ribcage. “At brunch. I wasn’t sure, but we reached for the butter at the same time and she has a scar on her wrist.”
Steve swallowed, eyes darting around the room. “You think she’s spying on us?” Remote viewing. You had a protocol for this, training you underwent. Steve prayed every night you wouldn’t have to enforce it.
“I don’t know,” you whispered. He sagged under your weight and you pulled away, hands at the base of his neck, your beautiful eyes full of something, fear maybe. “I didn’t think so, but when Doris asked where we were from, I said Chicago, and Marcie piped in with a ‘isn’t Steve from Indiana?’ And that might have blown our cover.”
Steve cursed, ran a tired hand down his face. That was his own damn fault, accidentally spewed it in your first ever conversation with the Jones’s. All that training, and still managed to spill where he grew up.
“It’s okay,” you breathed, ducked your head to hold his gaze. “We know what to do.”
Fucking A. Remote Viewing protocol meant she could be watching in at all hours of the day. It meant never lifting the veil, never exposing their true selves, loving husband and doting wife at all hours of the day, at least until they took her down. They couldn’t risk Fifteen watching them talk-shop, couldn’t risk her finding out about their plans to take her in.
Steve tugged your hips back into him, took a deep breath, spoke a little louder. “Berta told me Chip’s electrical’s out of whack. Billion year old mansion like that? Doesn’t surprise me he has faulty wiring.”
Your eyes widened. “Amie didn’t mention any of that to me.”
He shrugged under your hands. “Maybe it’s not happening when she’s around.”
You nodded in understanding and let out a shaky breath, pressing your forehead to his chest. He brought up a hand to rub between your shoulder blades and breathed in the soft scent of your shampoo.
“Tell me about your day,” he offered, voice a little hoarse. He took a step back from you, giving you space, preparing himself to speak in code for the unforeseeable future, preparing to have his heart ripped into shreds with every brush of your hand or your lips.
Your smile was weak, and you ran a tired hand down your face, making for the bathroom to start brushing your teeth. He joined you, waited for you to spread the paste to your brush before he did his own. “It was fine. Long. Met a bunch of bitches who thought the movie was better than the book.” You rolled you eyes.
Steve smiled, foaming poking from the corner of his mouth. You elbowed his ribcage. Maybe this wouldn’t be so different.
You washed your face, changed from sweater and jeans in the closet, came out in that oversized nightshirt. You turned off the lamp, bathing the room in moonlight, and you climbed into bed beside him.
He wasn’t sure what to do next, if Fifteen would be watching even in the nighttime hours. He didn’t know if real married couples spooned or if that was just on television. Did you expect him to kiss you goodnight? He cleared his throat, kicked his legs around in the duvet until his ankle hit yours. You tapped the top of his foot with your toes.
“Goodnight, Steve.” You yawned, back still to him.
“Night.” He sighed, stayed still in his spot until your soft breaths became soft snores, and then he turned back to his back and fell asleep, thinking of that tiny onesie and the Honeycombs smattered on the kitchen floor.
—
He’d never forget the first time you kissed. It was in an oversized boardroom at Hawkins Lab, overlooking the parking lot and tree line just beyond. His wounds had barely begun to heal, stitches tugging at his left cheek, just beneath his eye. You wheezed when you talked, lungs healing from smoke inhalation, and you had that cut on your bottom lip.
Owens had left you alone to get comfortable, for hours, he’d lock you in the conference room, force you to talk. Steve was ninety percent sure he was watching you, red eye of the camera in the corner glaring your direction. You sat on the table sipping nasty black coffee, and Steve hunched just past arms’ reach, his own arms crossed over his chest like a shield. You talked interests and asked about his, mostly you commiserated over how fucking annoying Eddie Munson was now that he was alive again.
“Hey, Harrington,” you coughed, wincing at the strain of your voice.
“Yeah?” He cocked an eyebrow, wondered how he’d been conned into this gig, wondered what the hell made him the best candidate.
“I need you to kiss me.”
He swallowed, blinked back at you. “What?”
You leaned over to tug at the sleeve of his polo. “If it’s gonna be believable, you’re going to have to start kissing me now. It’s gotta be comfortable, like we’ve been doing it for years. I don’t want our cover blown because you’ve never kissed a girl.”
“Fuck off,” he said with a laugh, but when you gave him a pointed look, he glanced around the large room again. “What, now?”
“Now or never, dickhead. Chop chop.” You swung your legs and pat your thighs as if telling him to saddle up, and his throat went dry. But he didn’t want you to think he was a bad sport, so he slid himself between your legs and brushed a lock of your hair from your eyes. “How romantic.” You sucked your cheeks in to mask a laugh.
“Shut up.” He chuckled, nerves tingling all the way up his arm.
“Make me.” You challenged, and he did. You winced as your lip split, and he tasted warm iron against his teeth, but you didn’t pull away, coaxing your thighs higher up around his hips and your fingertips scratching at the hair at the base of his neck, sending fireworks through his entire body. Oh God, this was something he could get used to.
Only he never did get used to it, every kiss driving him deeper and deeper into this web of lies that sugarcoated his lungs. The demo-whatever may not have killed him, but you surely would.
“Baby,” you cooed from your perch atop the counter, shoveling cereal into your perfect mouth with little slurps.
He looked up at you from over his newspaper, the perfect portrait of a married couple.
“Do you wanna call the boys and see if they want to play poker one day this week?”
“Poker?” He winced, taking a sip of his coffee. God, you made it so good.
You shrugged. “Or something. I just think you should really talk to Chip. Amie’s getting really worried.”
All the subtext steeped into him, and he nodded, glancing back at the sports section. “Okay, hon. I’ll give him a call.”
“And I might go to Amie’s today.” You said it matter-of-factly, tossing the rest of your bowl into the sink with a clatter.
Steve closed the newspaper, sat up to look at you. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” He thought of the lights, of the potential of another Vecna situation.
You avoided his eye contact, shrugged, left the room. He followed quickly on your heels, called your name.
“She left a bag,” you held a shopping bag aloft as explanation. “And you know, if they’re having electrical issues, I’ll give her the name of a good electrician.”
“I’m coming with you.” He stated, searching for his keys on the side table, but they weren’t there. “Did you take my keys?”
“No, I didn’t take your keys and no, you don’t need to come with me, baby, it’s fine. I can handle it.” You shrugged off a shaky laugh. “It’s just Amie’s. I mean, Christopher’s a little shit, but I can handle a bunch of shit kids, right?” The look you gave him pulled him home a little, and he softened.
He took a cautious step closer, tucked two fingers into your hand. “Can you just… wait until I talk to Chip?”
You were staring down at your hands together, avoiding his eye contact.
He took another step closer, inches away, and he pulled your chin up until you looked at him, a bit of fire behind your eyes, indignation. “What if Amie found something out, huh? Don’t want you going over there and walking into World War III. Not without me there you save you. You know that’s what I’m here for.” You were the brains, he was the brawn. He understood the dynamics from day one.
You rolled your eyes and took two steps back, releasing his hand from yours. “Ugh, fine. But we do need to go grocery shopping for the week.”
He sighed, relief flooding through him knowing you weren’t going into that house alone, and he nodded. “Will you help me find my keys?”
—
Public spaces were complicated in this context. He hated pretending with you, hating the gnaw of guilt when your hand swung in his and made his throat tighten. But pretending at the house was harder, a switch that always flipped the moment that door closed was forever in the upright position. It was murky waters, hearing you call him baby but not knowing if it was okay to sweep you up into his arms. But in public? In public it was encouraged.
The grocery store, on a Sunday evening in Suburbia was hectic. You and Steve stuck out like sore thumbs, comfy clothes, shrugged sweaters and mussed hair, agnostics in sea of Christianity. You slumped lazily behind Steve, hiding your face in his back to avoid stares, and he tugged at your hand to pull you down another aisle, basket getting heavy in his hand.
“We should’ve gotten a cart,” he huffed when you rounded to the cereal aisle, staring at the assortment of bright colors as though you weren’t just going to pick Honeycombs again.
“I’ll carry it, big baby,” you teased, pulling a family sized box of Honeycombs into your arms. He hadn’t realized how small you looked until now, and he noticed you were wearing his sweater, the one from the other night.
His heart thud in his ears, short circuited. Shit. Dead puppies, Christmas lights, that sliver of skin when you…
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” You smiled, swatting at his chest.
He blinked, coughed, switched the basket into his other hand.
“What’s wrong?” You were so damn pretty, lips split as you looked both ways down the empty aisle.
“That’s my sweater.”
You looked down at yourself, and he saw the duck of embarrassment as you fiddled with the hem. “I thought it might…” Make you more believable.
He nodded. “It does. Nice touch.” He met you in the center of the aisle and tugged at your sleeve, loose from days of wear. “Could’ve washed it first.”
You looked up at him then, all alone in the cereal aisle, a backdrop of colors, and he leaned in to press his lips softly to yours. He felt the box settle into his chest between you, and you let out a soft noise of indignation that made him pull away. Your lashes fluttered open, and you gave him a look. Perhaps in warning.
Careful, sailor boy, you’re blurring the line. He swallowed and barked a wry laugh. “I’m getting a cart.” He mumbled and hurried off in search of a better vehicle for the groceries, and maybe a six pack.
—
Steve was tucked into the armchair nearest the front window, thumbing through the latest issue of Sports Illustrated, which you’d tossed into the grocery cart alongside a few girly pop culture magazines, an olive branch. Night had broken, slowly reflecting his own visage in the window by lamplight. A windstorm came in, blowing through the trees in the park and undoing his handiwork from the weekend, but he didn’t mind the task if it meant something to keep himself occupied.
You were partway through your next book, a thriller that hadn’t yet been adapted into film, and you slipped from the living room and into the kitchen for a glass of water. He glanced at the little space in the doorways, watched the way your hips swayed against the countertop while you hummed to yourself. He quickly looked back at his magazine as you returned.
“Steve,” you voice was soft, and he looked back to see you in the doorframe, fingers wrapping at the wood.
He raised his eyebrows in response, folding his magazine closed.
“The laundry’s done.” You explained, chewing at the inside of your cheek.
He smiled and pushed off from his chair, following you through the kitchen and down the rickety staircase into the basement below.
You’d been terrified of the basement from the beginning, which he absolutely understood. Unfinished, a mess of wires and support beams. The boiler, probably made of lead, made strange hissing noises depending on the time of day. And at this time of night, with the singular dangling bulb casting haunting shadows into the darkest corners, he couldn’t blame you for being scared.
Steve unloaded the dryer into a basket on top, everything warm and soft, his sweater right on top. He smiled and switched items from the washer to the dryer, and carried the basket back upstairs on his hip to meet you.
“You ready for bed?” You asked, hand on the kitchen light switch.
He nodded and waited at each doorway for you to check the lights and lock the doors, and then he climbed right behind you all the way to the little bedroom at the top. He dumped the clothes onto the bed and began to fold, while you busied yourself around the little room, picking up a stray sock here or t-shirt there and depositing them into the hamper in the closet. And then you joined him, hips bumping, bending deep to reach for a matching sock on your pillow.
“What do you do when I’m not here?” He asked, first as a tease and then with mild curiosity.
You smiled back at him, pink lips and shrugged shoulders. “I do things.”
“Like…?”
You sighed, folding one of his shirts against your chest. “Like… read. And clean and just… think.”
“What do you think about?”
You looked up at him then, soft and sweet, and said, “Home.”
He thought of home too, all the time. He thought of Dustin and Robin, both yelling at him to quit being an idiot. He thought of his mom, wine drunk and curled under a throw blanket. He thought of his dad and Eddie and Hopper, but mostly he thought of you. He tried to remember moments of you before battle, moments in the school hallways or at the video store or at Bradley’s, any sliver of time spent in your presence that he wished he could just rewind and replay over and over again, cling to.
“I think about you a lot,” you confessed, and he could have sworn he heard your voice catch just a little, folding a towel into thirds. “I wish you were here so I had someone to talk to.” You shrugged, but quickly snapped to look at him. “Don’t let that go to your head.”
He snorted, shook his head. “No, I know what you mean. I feel like we used to talk a lot, before…” During training, hours spent getting to know you, falling in love with you, like he was supposed to, like he wasn’t supposed to.
“Yeah, we really did.” You smiled. “Now we’re just so busy.” You expression turned rueful as you held up the two remaining socks, unmatched.
Steve snatched them and tossed them into a drawer before throwing himself down onto his side of the bed. The mattress bounced under the weight of him. “So, what do you want to talk about?”
“What?” You chuckled, prodding him off of your clean, folded laundry.
“Married couples talk, right? So talk to me. Tell me what things you want to talk to me about when I’m at work.”
“Okay, um…” You disappeared into the closet momentarily to put your things away, and when you returned, you slumped onto the mattress beside him. “On Friday morning, a bird flew into the house. I had to chase it out with a broom.”
Steve smiled at the idea of you frantic, ducking, broom handle raised. “What kind of bird?”
Your face screwed up in thought, and you shook your head. “I don’t know. A small one?”
“Fascinating.” He grinned, and caught your hand as you swatted his chest.
You stopped then, and he caught something in your gaze, squeezed your fingers between his own. “Steve?”
“Hm?”
“We are going to be okay, right? We’ll get her?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, resolute. “We will.”
—
The sun dipped real low to the west, casting honeyed amber across the vast field, fog rolling in from the trees just beyond, settling on the river just past that. The ground squished under Steve’s sneakers, a slog of damp soil and the slush of sun-soaked gourds. The whole place smelled Earthy and spiced, like too many hands had spilled too many vats of mulled cider onto the grounds. He didn’t mind the mud on his soles or the tickle in his nose though, when he felt the tug of your arm and watched the quirk of your brow.
You’d convinced him to take you pumpkin-patching over dinner, slurping homemade soup that made him sleepy, mind-blowingly better than anything Campbell’s had to offer. You explained that Halloween was only a week away (was it? How did that happen so fast?), and that your little home was the only one on the block that lacked decorations. And if he wanted Trick-or-Treaters, he better drive you on down to the patch before it closed for the night.
Neither of you finished your soups, exchanging spoons for jackets and car keys, windows rolled down clear to the farm. Steve dutifully paid for your warm styrofoam cup of cider, and held it for you as you traipsed through muddy remnants of smashed pumpkins looking for the perfect one.
You wore your hair in braids, which he’d teased you for, tugging on the curled ends until you offered him a warning glare, and you were all bundled up, scarf and coat and gloves. You put the honeyed taste of autumn back where it belonged, having been replaced by ashes and dust all these years. You were sweet and spiced and warm where he’d been empty and hollow and dry.
“You might have to toss out that cider,” you commented, reaching the far end of the field. The sky was starting to pinch purples and blues.
“What do you mean?” He asked, peering into the cup to watch the amber slosh, powdered with cinnamon.
“I mean,” you grinned, hands on your hips. “I just found the perfect ones, and they’re fucking massive. You’re going to need two hands.”
Steve cursed and chugged the rest of your drink. It was sticky sweet, and had gone lukewarm in his hands. He threw it back with a cough and deposited the empty, crumpled cup in the pocket of his jacket.
You had gone ass up, bent low to the ground to remove the stem from your ideal find, and Steve felt his pants tighten at the hug of your jacket to your waist and over the swell of your behind, and he squeezed his eyes tight against the thoughts that reared their ugly heads. Dead puppies, Hopper naked, the feel of your body pressed against his, the breeze tossing the thin sheet around you, pebbling your skin beneath his hand…
“Steve,” you groaned.
His eyes fluttered opened to see you stood before him, a round, orange pumpkin cradled just over your abdomen, the swell of which you were struggling to hold aloft. His ears rang, heat crawling up from the collar of his sweater.
“This is going to fall and break!” You cried as the sides slipped in your grasp.
“Shit,” he hurried to you, pulling the hefty thing from your hands. It was heavy, but hollow, and he hiked a knee up to hitch it higher in on his hip, like a toddler.
“I’ll grab the other one,” you grinned, and you turned again to procure the other gourd that made your face light up that way.
He’d seen you this happy a handful of times. A genuine grin, sparkling eyes, melodious laughter coursing through him like a freight train because you’d gotten what you wanted. The first time you’d convinced him to pick up Honeycombs, that was like that. And once, in Hawkins, the night before the mission, when you’d all shared beers at Hop’s cabin. You were talking to Eddie and to Robin, and Steve watched you from across the dilapidated room, knowing he was already too far gone to ever come back. Knowing he’d do anything to see you smile like that again and again forever.
“Isn’t she a beauty?” You asked, holding up your other find, this one much smaller and far less round, but still a vibrant orange. This one, you could manage, shifting it onto your own hip and wiping your gloved hand against your thigh. Somehow, you’d managed to coat your face in soil, a wash of freckled brown that reminded him of soot and ash, the aftermath of battle in Hawkins.
“Oh, you’ve got…” he gestured to your face.
You blew up your bangs in vain, face all screwed up, and he laughed, closing the distance to wipe the dirt from your soft cheek with the flat of his thumb. It wasn’t until you were mostly clean, streaks of brown on your forehead, and across your upper lip, that he noticed a boundary may have been crossed.
You looked up at him from under long lashes, eyes dark, something behind them he didn’t recognize. He brushed his knuckles against your cheekbone, licked his lips. The sounds of crows tearing into the flesh of pumpkins faded into the background, the white noise of his heart replacing them in his skull.
And then his imagination took over, or at least, he thought it was his imagination. You leaned up on your tip-toes, hand to his chest, leaving freckles of soil there on the lapels of his jacket. The pumpkin on your hip bumped his. Your breath, warm and spiced, fanned his lips.
“You kids want a wagon?” And all at once, the spell was broken. You stumbled backward, foot squishing down into ripe flesh, and Steve hoisted the pumpkin further on his hip. You cursed, and he turned to see the approaching farmer, all overalled and waved arms.
“Please,” Steve smiled, crossing a bit of field to meet the man and his little red wagon, the interior of which was wracked with hay and pumpkin seeds. Steve heaved his into the cart and waited for you to join to set yours down as well.
“Thank you, sir,” you smiled at the old man.
He shrugged. “Figured you didn’t want to carry these puppies back in the dark.” He slapped at the skin of the fat one. It made a hollow thud. “Any more for you or shall I haul ‘em back to check out? We’re about closed for the night.”
“We’re done here,” you confirmed, crushing dirt beneath your feet and Steve’s heart in your hands.
The air in the car had shifted, the smell of soil wafting from the trunk, and Steve felt as though something had been lost, like he’d forgotten his toothbrush for a long trip and have to get a new one. It was something intangible yet unsalvageable. Especially when you finally opened your mouth to remind him of tomorrow night’s poker game.
“I’d like to know more about Chip’s electricity.” You sat up straight, all business, all mission. “For Amie. Asked her about it over the phone, and she thinks she ought to go into the basement and look at the breaker. But I don’t want her going by herself.”
Steve gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. “I said I’d talk to him.”
“I’m just reminding you.” You sighed, pressed your forehead to the passenger’s side window.
After brushing the spices from your tongue and wiping the soot from your face, you climbed into bed together. You said goodnight, flicked off the lamp, and remained on the far edge of the bed. Steve sighed and stared at the shadows of the ceiling, trying to block out the sight of you with the giant round pumpkin for a belly.
—
You were competitive. He’d known it for months, saw the way you picked off demobats with a tennis racket, keeping count for every one you mashed, yelling for him to keep up. He saw it at target practice, the way you fired ceaselessly at the three circles until your trigger finger ached and you hit the very center. He saw it when you sat across from him in the boardroom, Dustin between you with flashcards, quizzing you on your backstories. Your face would split into a proud grin whenever you answered more correctly than him, which was every damn time. And apparently, you were competitive at poker.
When he arrived home from his car dealership job (his dad would have been so proud), to find you bent over the oven to remove the casserole, he expected explicit instructions on letting it cool and hopefully a kiss goodbye. But when he shrugged out of his blazer and counted the seats around the table, something didn’t add up. Further more, you’d cracked open two beers from the bottom drawer of the fridge, tapping the neck of his with the neck of your own before you prepared yourself for a night with the boys.
Steve made loud protests until the guys arrived, and then you’d cast your charm, asking to be taught how to play. “It’s PTA night, boys. Your wives are out having fun without me. Can’t I have a little fun with you?” You pouted, and Jesus Christ, the shirt you wore exposed the soft lavender of your bra as you leaned over to dish the casserole for everyone.
You’d won $725 with the swell of your breasts alone. Another $83 was taken when you’d passed out cigars and blatantly peaked at everyone’s hand, and yet none of the men around the table had a lick of disdain for you. No, instead it was all praise. Your dinner was delicious, dessert was delightful, and oh boy, Steve was sure they couldn’t get enough of the view.
“Steve-O, your wife is a piece of work,” Chip flashed you a grin, picking at his teeth with a toothpick you procured from a kitchen drawer.
“Tell me about it,” Steve rolled his eyes, picking at the corner of his hand of cards with his thumbnail.
“You’re a lucky man,” Jimmy agreed, smoke swirling his dark hair. “My wife hasn’t cooked me anything that wasn’t out of the frozen section in years.”
You swatted at the man’s arm. “Oh shush, that is not true. Marcie’s a great cook.”
“I think James has a point,” Ron Hubbard coughed around the cigar under his bottlebrush mustache. Ron was a portly man, VP of operations for Chip’s dad’s company. “Our wives are too scattered these days, always running to PTA meetings or book clubs or knitting circles - stitch and bitch, I call them. God forbid they have jobs as secretaries and the like. It’s refreshing to see a woman where she belongs.”
Steve blinked back at him, reached under the table for your hands that he knew were clenched into tight fists, but you shrugged him off.
“Speaking of jobs,” you smiled through your teeth. “Chip, Amie tells me you’ve been having some electrical issues. Can’t you call someone in there to work on the wiring in that big ole house?”
Steve’s heart pounded in his chest, and you refused to make eye contact, instead shooting fluttered eyelashes across the table to Chip Lafferty. You had this look of pride he’d seen a thousand times before. You’d won.
Chip smiled back at you, tongue between his molars. He shrugged. “Big ole houses like that are bound to have buggy wiring sometimes, sweetheart.”
“You know, Steve’s uncle used to be an electrician. He apprenticed with him in high school, could probably give it a once over for you.” You offered the lie, slick, nonchalant. Steve squeezed at your thigh too hard, a warning. You squirmed away, pushing out of your chair to gather plates to take to the sink.
“Didn’t realize you were an electrician, Steve-O,” Chip made eyes at Steve, a threat for your curiosity, eyes dark.
“Oh, you’d be surprised. My husband’s always been good with his hands,” You sealed the deal, pressing your hand to his trap to lean over him for his plate. You halted in front of his face, offering a smile, and Steve watched the other man’s eyes slide from yours, to your lips, and down the front of your blouse.
“I fucking fold,” Steve tossed his cards to the tabletop.
To add insult to injury, you called for Chip to “be a dear” and help you with the dishes while Steve walked the other fellows out. Ed Blansett, from the dealership, looked pale, having lost his savings for a down payment, and Steve sighed and forked some of your winnings back into the man’s hand when the others weren’t looking. Ron left commending Steve on his excellent breeding skills, skeevie as Hell, and Jimmy left with a clap to Steve’s shoulder, a look of woe etched across his dark features.
“Steve-O, how you holding up?”
Steve ran a hand down his tired face, itching at the scruff of his jaw. “I’ve been better.”
“I feel you, man,” he nodded, lighting a cigarette on the front stoop. “Marriage is hard work. Somedays you just want to give up, somedays you just feel like a fraud.”
Steve bristled at his words, swallowed, the smoke-filled air thick on the brick path.
“But if you love her, really love her, the things you do that hurt each other won’t matter.”
Steve swallowed. He wasn’t sure where this was coming from, or what it meant, but he felt uneasy. The cigar smoke had gotten to him, made him dizzy, paranoid. Jimmy gave him a two-fingered salut and stumbled his block home.
Steve almost forgot the straggler until he stumbled, exhausted, back to the amber light of the kitchen, where he found you pressed against the countertop, clutching at Chip’s shoulders with sudsy fingers, while the man whispered something into your ear.
“What the fuck?” The words spilled out before he could take control, and he watched Chip slowly peel himself from you, turning to face Steve with a smirk across his smug face. Steve could punch him. He felt his jaw and fist tighten in tandem.
“We were just talking about what a creep Ron is,” you offered with another punctuated giggle.
“I told her she may belong in the kitchen, but I have a secretary position opening up if she’s interested.” Chip grinned.
“What happened to your last one?” Steve knew the answer before he asked, and nearly growled at the smirk that curled its way onto Chip’s thin lips. “Alright, Chip, maybe it’s time to go.”
“Steve,” you admonished, less about him being rude and more about not finishing the task.
“No, no,” Chip wiped his hands dry on a hand towel before raising them in surrender. “Steve-O’s just a bit sore I cleaned him out on that last round. No hard feelings.”
He pulled his blazer from his folded chair at the card table and pulled something from it, extending the small slip of paper across the counter toward you. “I’m serious about that position though. If you ever get tired of making casseroles.”
You giggled behind your hand.
“Can I walk you out, Chip?” Steve gestured toward the front door.
Chip flashed you a knowing smile and a wink, before taking the necessary steps down the hall to the foyer so Steve could let him out. It took every bit of restraint not to slam the door in his face.
“Thanks for the fun night, Steve-O,” instead, the man extended a hand. “Gained more than I expected.”
Steve gave him a firm handshake, teeth hurt from clenching his jaw so tightly.
“Listen,” Chip leaned in, cigar smoke and beer on his breath. “Your wife was right, my house has pretty shitty wiring. It’s over a hundred years old, and I can’t get Amie to shut the hell up about it. Would you care to come take a peak?”
This was exactly what you’d hoped for. Maybe you had won this competition after all. Steve offered the other man a curt nod.
“Meet me there tomorrow afternoon. Around 2? Might even pay you back what I snatched from you tonight.” His grin was malicious, too toothy.
Steve said nothing, and the other man seemed satisfied with that, whistling to himself while he twisted his keys around his pointer finger. He waved and turned on his heel to walk down the driveway toward his shiny Mercedes. Steve lingered on the porch until the man sped away, leaving a cloud of exhaust and the frigid October air.
—
Tomorrow it’d all change forever. The thought tickled at the base of Steve’s skull as he sloughed up the stairs, leaving you to turn off the lights. He couldn’t even look at you, couldn’t imagine the screaming match that he felt bubbling inside of him. He felt disgusting, like the grime and soot of the Upside Down clung to his shirt with the cigar smoke and the taste of Chip groping you on his tongue.
He couldn’t get the image out of his head. Even as he stripped of his t-shirt and closed the bathroom door: your fingers bubbled with soap, wetting the top half of Chip’s collared shirt, your wedding ring discarded atop the window sill for safe keeping. He hated seeing another man pulling those sounds from you, hated the way it made him nauseas.
He turned the shower on hot, let the steam fill the room as he stripped from his slacks and socks and boxers. He stood for a moment, glaring at his own reflection in the mirror as it fogged around the edges. He looked as pitiful as he felt, shoulders slumped, scars lining his lower abdomen like vicious pockmarks, memories of a pain he’d feel again and again if it meant never having to lose you. Pitiful.
He toed under the scalding flow, letting the heat satiate the tense muscles of his shoulders and back. He tried not to think of you climbing the staircase, of you stripping out of your low-cut blouse and jeans, of you slipping on that soft night shirt. He tried not to think of the countless nights this week he’d woken with his fist entangled in that shirt, your face pressed to his chest, your thigh high on his hip.
He cursed and turn to scrub his face, letting the flow sting at the soft skin of his cheeks, his chest. The shower threatened to drown him, and it honestly felt better than the idea of breaking the news to you that tomorrow’s the day. He’ll go to the mansion, and if your theory is right, she’ll be there. Fifteen. And once she’s taken in, this little game will be over. You can go back to Hawkins, back to your normal lives, not having to pretend anymore.
The air in the bathroom was cold once he’d turned off the faucet and dried his freshly shampooed hair. He brushed his teeth alone, allowing the steam of the mirror to dissipate. He felt fresh, but still not ready to face you. The hot water made him lethargic, and his head had begun to pound something fierce, just behind his eye sockets. He was used to the occasional migraine, enough concussions’ll do that to you.
Wrapping the towel around his waist and flicking the bathroom light off, he took a deep breath before opening the door to the adjoining room. You were sat up on your side of the bed, reading beneath the honeyed lamplight, knees high, nightshirt fallen away to expose the stretch of your thighs. You set the book down when you heard him come out.
“Steve,” you started in immediately, hopping off the mattress and crossing to him.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to contain the dull thud that just grew louder with your approach. He wasn’t ready to talk to you, wasn’t ready to have this conversation. He was still in a towel, for Christ’s sake.
“What’s wrong?” Your tone wasn’t half as combative as he expected, but worried. He felt a gentle hand to his bicep.
And then he heard it. Ear-piercing, the dull knocking in his brain turned to a ring in his ears, louder than he’d ever heard it. He’d experienced this before, the tingle at the back of his neck like he was being watched. He never knew what it was, was never sure, until this very moment. He was being watched. You were being watched.
Frantic, he opened his eyes to look at you, and your head was tilted in confusion, eyes soft, lips softer. And he panicked. He panicked because you were being watched, remotely viewed, and he was sure he’d done something to screw it up, and he didn’t know how to save you. So he thought back to your training, to your protocol, and he closed the distance between you and pressed into you with a passionate kiss.
You made a muffled noise of surprise, but sunk into his touch, fingertips scraping the hairs at the back of his neck, which stood on end. He felt your soft waist beneath the silky fabric of your shirt, pressed his fingertips into your hips and walked you backwards into the closet door for some sort of stability.
He poured everything he had into that kiss, those kisses, the material of your shirt slipping in his hand until he met bare skin. Your hands were frantic against his shoulders, the backs of his arms, holding him to you, impossibly close. You hiked your thigh up his leg, and the towel would have dropped had he not pressed his pelvis into yours, pulling another low groan from your lips.
He pulled away from you to catch his breath, headache made worse from the dizzy light-headed feeling of blood leaving his brain. You pressed your cheek to his, your own chest rising and falling to the rhythm of his as your fingers pinched at the flesh of his arms.
“Steve,” you breathed, a question maybe, needing an explanation.
He squeezed his eyes closed and he could feel Her, just there in the recesses of his mind. He nuzzled your ear with his nose, the soft skin of your neck smelling of your shampoo and cigar smoke and lavender. He took a deep breath before he whispered. “She’s watching.”
He pulled away and the look you gave him flashed pure terror, confusion, and then understanding. You swallowed, licked the plump, pink swell of your lips, and nodded. “Okay.”
“What?”
“It’s okay,” you nodded again. You were consenting. You were agreeing to take on the role of a married couple under the protocol. You were signing your body away to him under the guise of this faked marriage bullshit.
Steve thought he might throw up. With shaky hands, he released you, backed away slowly, watched the rise and fall of your chest as your tiny, bare foot found the wood panels of the flooring again. He scrubbed at tired eyes, the headache not subsiding, and his other hand kept the towel aloft.
“Steve?” You whispered. He heard the floor creak as you took a step toward him.
He shook his head, held a hand out to you. “I can’t. I’m sorry. This is too fucked.”
You didn’t say a word as he searched the walk-in for a t-shirt and shorts, the dull ache never leaving the base of his skull, or the spot where your nails had scratched into his skin. His hands shook, another product of his concussions, and his teeth chattered, and he didn’t know if he wanted to cry or punch a hole through the wall or relieve his stomach of the pit that continued to grow there.
You stood in the closet doorway, shoulders slumped, confusion in your eyes.
Steve sighed, rested a trembling hand to your side to gently nudge you out of his way. “I’m sleeping on the couch.” His voice was hoarse from the catch in his throat.
You didn’t argue. You didn’t follow him.
The stairs creaked beneath his feet, the entire home still and dark save for the lamplight coming in through the parlor windows. He curled himself onto the sofa, stuffing the cushion under the pounding between his temples, and he crossed his arms over his chest. He tried to regulate his breathing as he stared at the popcorned ceiling, these shadows vastly different than the ones upstairs. The house was quieter without your soft breaths, emptier with the heartbreak filling his lungs. He drifted to sleep with the image of your big, consenting eyes, and the grit of his teeth.
—
The morning autumn sun was hotter than he expected, pooling in through thick glass in the parlor like a magnifying glass, and Steve was the ant. His migraine had subsided to more of a hangover, and he rubbed the crusted sleep from his eyes and stretched his limbs. His neck was stiff from the sorry excuse for a pillow that had tumbled to the floor at some point in the night.
The sounds of meal prep from the kitchen pulled him upright, and his joints clicked through the entry way and down the hall. You were fully dressed, nylons and skirt, blouse hugging your curves, and when you turned and spotted him, you gave a tight-lipped nod. Tension hung thick in the air between you.
“Making leftovers,” you shoved a steaming plate of casserole his direction.
“Where are you off to today?” He asked, sidling himself up to the countertop.
“I have a job interview with Chip.” You stated, tone clipped, matter-of-fact.
“Jesus Christ,” he ran a hand through his hair. “No. Absolutely not.”
You rolled your eyes. “Yes, Steve. I’m going. We can’t keep letting this drag on. She knows who we are. You said yourself she was watching us last night. It’s go-time.” All the pleasantries of protocol had lifted, now that you knew he had an insight into being watched. The facade had left your shoulders, any soft, whispered sweet-nothings gone from your glossy lips.
Steve looked around the small house, this little home that was made of lies. The photo of the two of you on your fake honeymoon sat atop the window sill, right next to the sparkling diamond of your fake wedding ring. “I’m not letting you go alone.”
“You have to. You’re going to his house, remember?” You slid the business card across the counter to sit beside his lunch. The little black numbers stared back up at him.
“How did you…?”
“I was eavesdropping,” you waved him off flippantly. “Doesn’t matter. I’m going to distract him long enough for you to go into the house without him. I’m almost positive they’re running some sort of experiment. He’s being way too cagey.”
“How are you going to distract him?” Steve sneered, really unable to catch anything else you’d said.
You rolled your eyes, shoved a fork into his casserole, it folded sideways, clattering to the rim of the dish. “Like you care.” You mumbled under your breath, almost inaudible, but Steve heard every syllable.
“Of course I fucking care,” he snapped. “You’re going into the den of someone you think is holding experiments with fucking Fifteen. As in, same group of super powered freaks as Eleven and Henry fucking Creel and you don’t think I care about your safety? In case you forgot, I had to save your ass from that Demo-Whatever the night you set yourself on fire.”
“Okay, that,” you shoved a finger into his chest. “I had covered, thank you very much. And this, I have covered too! I can handle Chip fucking Lafferty. In case you forgot, I was peeling skid marks like that douchebag off of my miniskirt for years before you came around.”
Steve’s skin crawled at the thought. Back in the Hawkins Lab boardroom, late one night and a couple passes of tequila in, you’d manage to rattle off a few names of your past rendezvous, all assholes, all people Steve had wanted to punch in the face. A few of which, he had.
“I will handle Chip. You,” you shoved your finger into his chest again. “You take your nailed up bat, and go check out the house. You’re the brawn, I’m the brains, remember?”
And that fucking hurt. Steve knew he was dumb, knew he was a fucking idiot for every falling in love with you, for ever accepting this gig, for ever thinking this could turn out the way he wanted it to, for ever thinking he had a say in what happened and how it went down. You were the planner, the admiral, he was just a little sailor boy.
“Eat,” you shoved his food closer to him. “And get dressed. It’s almost noon. I need you to give me a ride.”
—
The nurses had cleaned most of the soot from your skin, but black smudges still caught in the wrinkles of your forehead and around your eyes and nose, the corners of your lips, turning the oxygen mask a little grey with each fogged breath.
Steve had roused from another cat nap, the beeping and busy calls from the nurses station in the hall keeping him from sleeping too deep. He had a crick in his neck from the chair, and the stitches on his left cheek were sore. He glanced around the room, leaned forward on his knees, mumbled your name softly.
He did it every so often, checked the various machines for any blip in your vitals each time he spoke, hoped for more than Max had given them months before. You had been conscious when you arrived, air lifted to a military hospital a few miles from Hawkins. Steve had ridden the helicopter with you, your hand clenched in his, tears streaking white lines down your soot-blackened face.
God, you were brave. That’s all he could think, as he threw an oxygen mask over his own face, hauled his ass into that burning building with firefighters to pull you out. You screamed his name when you saw him, clawing fingers, a rage tearing through you that had torn those motherfuckers apart. You were so God damn brave.
Eddie was there too, down the hall, Dustin and Mr. Munson keeping him company. Robin was off in Vickie’s room. Nancy and Jonathan sat bedside to Will. That one hurt, but Steve was just so grateful they were all alive, safe, mostly unharmed. Just a handful of stitches, broken bones, smoke inhalation seemed to be the worst of it.
But you had no one, no one but Steve Harrington who sat by your bedside for three days now, muttering your name under his breath every few minutes to ensure you were alive.
The coughs started first, a sputter of sounds that wracked through your frame. Steve pushed to his feet, saw your eyes blink open, hands frantically groping for the tubes on your face, attached to your arms.
“Whoa, whoa,” he placed a firm hand on your shoulder to hold you in place. “Don’t struggle. Just breathe. You’re okay. We’re at the hospital. Here…” He searched for the nurses button behind the bed and pushed.
Your eyes adjusted, pupils blown and irises deep red, and you squinted at him, seeming to relax under his gaze.
“Hey, killer,” he smiled, brushing sweat-stuck hair from your forehead.
“Steve?” You wheezed, starting another coughing fit.
A nurse strolled in, shoved him out of the way, and he waited against the far wall as the woman did a few tests, removed your mask, got you an oversized cup of water with a bent straw. She helped you sit up, slowly. Steve listened for your wheezes, for the strain in your throat. He bounced on the balls of his feet, ready to help if needed. He wasn’t sure how, but he was ready.
“You her boyfriend?” The nurse turned to him with a pointed finger.
“Me?” He felt the tips of his ears heat, and he glanced back at you with a sheepish smile. “No.” He coughed. “Just a good friend.”
The nurse seemed unimpressed. “Well, she seems to be doing much better. We might be able to let you out of here soon. I’m calling the Big Boss. If she starts to cough again, push that button.”
“Thank you,” Steve gave an awkward salute, and the woman rolled her eyes before leaving the room. The door clicked behind her, casting silence on stark white walls. It was just you and him, and the air between you.
You sipped water through your bent straw, lips parched and cracked, a large black split scarred the lower.
Steve took measured steps toward you. “Boyfriend, huh?” He smirked.
You sputtered, water trickling down your chin. “You fucking wish, Harrington.” You croaked and coughed. “Ow.”
“Kind of nice not having to hear you talk anymore.” He grinned, tossing himself back down into the uncomfortable chair.
You responded with a fresh middle finger, tonguing for the tip of the straw until it was back in your mouth.
He felt… warm. It was that feeling of hope, that feeling that finally, after years of chaos, everything was going to be okay. He was safe. Nancy was safe. You were safe, all curled up under stark white blankets, sipping water through a bendy straw, your chest rising and falling beneath your hospital gown in scattered breaths. He felt…
Steve swallowed, glanced out the west facing window at the sky-full of smoke from Hawkins, from the fire that you started, from the battle you ended. Had something sparked for you, more than admiration? He glanced your direction again.
You had followed his gaze out the window, greyed skies casting shadow against your soft features, sunken and tired, yet brave and… beautiful. He thought of your jests at him on the battle field, of the swing of your tennis racket, of the jabs to his ribs, your face split into a grin just before you hauled yourself into that building, fire blazing. An ember sparked within him.
“Knock knock,” Dr. Sam Owens knuckled the door as it sprung open, and he pulled himself into the small room. “How are Hawkins heroes doing today? Glad to see you’re up.”
You glanced from the man to Steve, eyebrows furrowed.
Steve offered Owens a soft smile, heart still racing with the thoughts of you in his mind.
“Have either of you considered a career with the US government?”
That was the worst moment of Steve’s life.
—
The small windows of the Lafferty’s basement reminded Steve of your own, little boxes at ground level that filtered light in through dusty cobwebs. The dryer rattled in a similar place, banging sheet metal against the washing machine so hard Steve could taste it. No, that was the iron of blood filling his mouth. He counted his teeth with his tongue, a molar in the back split. His ears rang, loud like they had the night before, that throbbing ache just behind his eye sockets, and grunted through the pain, eyes adjusting to the damp dark of the basement.
“Baby,” someone cooed beside him. “Baaaaaby.”
He rolled onto his back to view the shadowed face of the girl across from him. Blonde hair pulled back, tight, into a high ponytail. She had sharp features, intense, and she slumped forward on her metal lawn chair with bony limbs. It took him five seconds to clock the blood tracing her upper lip and the scar on the inside of her left wrist. Steve spat a mouthful of blood at her feet, red soaked the concrete floor and splattered black patent leather.
“That’s no way to treat a lady, baby,” she sneered.
“Shut up,” he groaned, out of breath, something stung in his ribcage, a familiar, tight pain. His own words echoed in his head, behind his eyes.
Upstairs, muffled by wooden floors and feet of dirt and dust, the doorbell rang. Steve stared past the dangling light fixture, watching dust sprinkle from the rafters with soft footfall. He heard a friendly exchange, and then the soft pitter-patter of children running. There were kids in this house.
Amie wasn’t here when he got here. He’d let himself in. That means she came home at some point while he was unconscious. And now, by the sound of high-pitched chatter, Marcie had brought her kids to play. Jesus Christ.
He lifted himself onto his elbows, peering at the woman holding him captive. She seemed alarmed by the noises, frightened even, knocked off her game. He reached one hand out to grab her wrist, hoping to pull her off her feet, but immediately he felt the sting of pins-and-needles as he lost control of his motor functions, instead being catapulted backward into a load-bearing beam. It quaked under his weight, the sturdiness knocking the wind from his lungs. A cascade of dust fell into his hair, onto his shoulders.
Fifteen was squared to him, hand outstretched, blood dripping from her left nostril. She looked weak, tired, like it took everything in her to lift Steve, and when she finally released, he felt himself slump to the floor again, sputtering coughs and sneezes and desperate to fill his lungs. The ache in his rib made it harder to take in a deep breath.
She collapsed back into her chair. “Down, boy.” She breathed.
“Why are you doing this?” Steve huffed, clutching at his side.
Fifteen leaned toward him, mopping at her nose with her thumb. “I could ask you the same thing. You and little wifey. Thought Brenner would have sent someone with a little more… sparkle.” She twirled her fingers his direction, and Steve flinched out of the way. Nothing happened.
He coughed, and fuck, it hurt. Another mouthful of blood trailed, sticky down his chin, sticking his t-shirt to his chest. “Brenner’s dead.” He groaned.
This got her attention. “Liar.”
Steve glared at the girl. “Why would I lie about that?”
She rolled her eyes, but hugged wiry arms into herself, contemplating his words.
Steve took the initiative to keep talking, maybe keep her distracted. He hoped she didn’t notice as he surveyed the room, hoping for an out. The dryer still had a half-hour’s worth of time. He wondered if Fifteen had started it to dull any noises from the basement. It racketed into the washer with the same, harsh rhythm. “Sam Owens sent us. We’re part of a mission to retrieve any living of Brenner’s projects.”
“There are others?” Fuck, shouldn’t have said that.
Steve swallowed, banged his head backwards against the pole, and groaned when the dull ache returned between his eyes. “We want to rehabilitate you, give you a better life.”
Fifteen barked a laugh. “I don’t need rehabilitation. I have a good life.” She looked down her nose at him, blood crusting dry at the frilly cuff of her blouse.
“Oh yeah?” Steve scoffed. “Chip hiding you in his basement, only bringing you out for special occasions. You know, when his wife’s out of town.” He gestured around to the rat poison on the wall, the hamper of dirty laundry, a cot in the corner, the breaker… Bingo.
“Chip loves me.” Fifteen snarled, but Steve felt the heartbreak through it. His eyes snapped back to the girls, and that’s really what she was, probably no older than him, big brown eyes, the twist of anguish behind them.
He shook his head. “This isn’t love.”
“Oh, and you would know?”
The ruckus got louder upstairs, running footsteps, cackled laughter. The beat of the dryer echoed his thunderous heartbeat in his ears. Steve licked the iron from his split lip, spat a patch of blood near his hand, and moved himself into a crouched position against the pole. He thought of her question, thought of his own knowledge on love, and it tasted just as bad on his tongue.
He squeezed his eyes closed past the pain, and shrugged. “I guess I would. Because the girl I love, I’d do anything for her. Absolutely anything. I’d buy her favorite cereal, even though it’s pure sugar. I’d go into scary ass basements, even though I’m guaranteed to get my shit kicked. I’d go to the hospital every day to make sure that the moment she woke up, she’d have someone there that cared. Hell, I’d let her have a fucking gaggle of kids if they were as pretty as she was, and I sure as hell wouldn’t lock her, alone, in a stupid basement, to hide from the world. Because I’m proud of her, I’m so damn proud of her. She’s brave, and she’s beautiful, and I love her. And I don’t see why you don’t deserve the same God damn courtesy.”
He didn’t know where it all came from, this violent word vomit, the dribble of blood onto his shirt, and the slow and steady motion upward, until he teetered on two feet, slumped against the beam that quaked under his weight.
“Touching,” Fifteen sneered, but her hand was raised, and the hanging light began to crackle again.
Steve took his chance, dove in the direction of the breaker, for some sort of distraction, but before his body made contact with the wall, the basement door flung open, and they were soon ambushed by a swat-team of agents. Jimmy Jones and his wife, Marcie, were wrapped in bullet proof vests. Jimmy had a large device that reminded Steve of Russians and underground labs and sent a shiver through him, and that device was quickly shoved through Fifteen’s neck. Her knees gave way, and Marcie caught her lithe body.
“What the…?” Steve started, but you were there, wrapping your thin hand around his wrist, asking if he was alright. His head pounded, muffling the sounds around him. You led him upstairs, a wash of too-bright lights and a swimming skull. Your hand was soft in his, and the sirens were too loud.
He could just make out the soft sounds of children from the kitchen, little Christopher’s voice coming through the mist, “Mommy, what’s going on? I’m scared.”
—
Hawkins succumbed to winter in a flurried mess of fallen snow, run-through with bikes and station wagons. Rotting pumpkins on stoops were replaced with conifers and the smell of spices replaced with peppermint as everything bit crisp and bitter in the air. Slush lay over roots and soil, chased into clogged gutters. Fog clung to the insides of car windows and heated the panes of Steve’s new prescription glasses as he paced the aisles of the grocery store, souring at gaggles of kids chasing one another through the frozen food section on a Friday evening.
Maybe Robin was right, maybe he’d grown crotchety in his old age, or maybe seeing other people happy just miffed him, or maybe seeing kids reminded him of that future that, one again, slipped right through his blood-stained fingers.
Steve lifted at the wire on the bridge of his nose to rub at tired eyes. His basket grew heavier, a fistful of TV dinners, some stovetop popcorn, marshmallows in a bag. He promised Robin a movie night, only because she’d bullied him out of the house, and he promised he’d pick up snacks on the way. He tossed boxed butter in, having memorized Robin’s favorite cereal-based dessert recipe years ago. All that was left were the Rice Krispies.
Four aisles down, he found the cereal aisle, a mess of technicolor boxes, athlete’s and mascots illuminated in florescent light, and three-quarters of the way down, he saw you. He stopped, rubber soles squeaking against the linoleum, heart thundering in his chest, roaring in his ears. He hadn’t seen you in months, not since Fifteen was captured, not since Owens awarded you both hearty pats on the back and promises of a call for another mission somewhere.
To be fair, Steve wasn’t sure he was really seeing you now. He’d imagined you all around town, every one of Eddie’s gigs at the Hideout, he saw you pass the window. Every morning chauffeuring Dustin to Hawkins High, he saw you walking side roads, winding through the woods. He imagined you on Halloween, passing out candy to trick-or-treaters, black hat ears looped through your hair. He imagined you at Thanksgiving, serving pumpkin pie and a massive dollop of whipped cream. Just yesterday, he imagined you staring into a toy storefront, a gaggle of kids around you, promising things that Santa would bring.
The squeak of his shoe must have alerted you, because you turned your head to caught his gaze, and it was you. Your face split into that soft smile, the one that warmed him from deep in his stomach to the apples of his cheeks. His feet moved of their own volition, like you were a powerful magnet, and he a paperclip, all crumpled on itself, cowering in shame.
“Hi,” you breathed as he approached. From this distance, you looked as tired as he felt, like months of pretending had drained the life from you both, aged you. Even tired, you were beautiful. His heart clenched.
“Hey,” he felt the smile tug at his cheeks.
“I like the glasses,” you smirked, and he shied a bit. He felt like a fucking dork in the glasses, but he could see, and Robin and Dustin were constantly reminding him how important that was. The headaches went away too. “You look like a dad.”
That one fucking hurt. He peeled his eyes from you then, focused back on the task at hand. Looking beside you, he found the familiar Honeycomb mascot smiling back at him, taunting him. He scoffed, rolled his eyes. “Just buy the fucking Honeycomb.”
“Excuse me?” You sputtered.
“Every God damn time, we’d come into this aisle and have this big debate about it, and I know it makes you sad because it was your brother’s favorite, but it’s your favorite too, and when you eat it, you get this big nostalgic smile across your face. And you can’t admit it, but it makes you happy because it gives you the sugar rush you need with your coffee in the morning, apparently. Makes you the fucking Energizer bunny.” Steve ran a hand through his hair, and he hadn’t realized he said too much until he felt the heaviness of his own breath, the way you stared back at him, wide-eyed.
“I… didn’t realize…”
Steve shrugged, dumping a heavy box of Rice Krispies into his own basket. “You didn’t realize a lot of things.” He grumbled.
“What?”
He turned to you, then, hugging your stupid box of Honeycombs, eyebrows twisted into a crease just above your nose, perfect in every stupid way, and the flood gates open. “I love you.” A weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He stood taller, squared to face you head-on. “I am in love with you. I think I have been since the moment you killed the demo bat with that tennis racket. And pretending to be in love with you? When I was actually in love with you? That sucked. That really sucked.”
“Steve,” you breathed.
“And I’m sure it was easy for you, I mean, it seemed easy. But then you’d kiss me, or you’d make these loving little comments, and Jesus Christ, don’t even get me started on the baby onesie. That still haunts my nightmares.”
“Steve.”
“But you didn’t even trust me enough to tell me that Jim and Marcie were in on it? And then I get my shit rocked by a freaking Number, and you just brush me off, leave me to dry? I’ve spent months pining over you, and I didn’t even hear a word?”
“Baby,” you chided.
Steve’s throat dried, warmth prickling the tops of his ears. You took a step toward him, reached up to pick at the tear in his jacket, the one he never bothered to fix because it reminded him of you. “Yeah?” He croaked.
“Will you shut up?” Your eyes sparkled.
“Make me,” he challenged. And you did, standing on tip-toe to press your sweet, soft lips to his. Your hands clutched his lapels, sparks tickling his spine. He dropped his basket at your feet to wrap his arms around your waist, and you laughed into him as your feet left the ground, that stomach fluttering sound. He kissed your soft cheeks, the curve of your jaw, the soft skin of your ear.
“Baby,” you laughed, swatted at his shoulders until he let you down. You pulled him to your level, and he felt the hum of your lips against his own before you said. “I want all of my babies to be as pretty as you.” And he knew he was a goner.
---
A/N: As promised, Stevie in glasses, pining helplessly for the woman he loves. I had a lot of fun with this story, and I hope you did too. Thanks, so much, for reading and for all of your support. Much much love. xo-Amanda
Summary: When a accident derails your holiday with your little brother, the last person you expect to see in your hospital room is his best friend, pale, breathless, and looking far more shaken than you are.
Words: 4,2k.
Warnings & Tags: fem!reader. temporarily located after the upside down. reader get seriously injured. mentions of drowning, death, trauma, mmm idk. dustin plays cupid. two IDIOTS in love. english isn't my first language (sorry for my mistakes, be kind please).
Note: Of course I had to use the classic Henderson!reader at some point, with many things happening for the sake of the plot:p
Vacations were supposed to be calm.
That was the deal.
After disappearances that still made your hair stand on end when you remembered them too clearly at night, after making plans to save the world instead of doing homework, after monsters that crawled through your dreams and funerals for people far too young to have ever needed black clothes and closed caskets, this was supposed to be normal. Ordinary. Boring, even. Just you and your little brother two towns over, splitting the cost of a cheap motel with floral bedspreads that smelled faintly like chlorine and old detergent, eating boardwalk fries out of paper trays that left grease stains on your fingers, sunscreen layered badly over old scars, and absolutely no world-ending threats before he packed up and left for university. The ocean air was thick with salt and sugar and the shrieking laughter of strangers who had never once had to fight for their lives. It felt almost unreal, how easy everyone else looked. How simple.
The pier had seemed harmless. Sun-bleached wood faded to a tired gray, bolts rusted at the edges, seagulls perched along the railings like bored spectators. The water below shimmered in fractured silver under the late afternoon sun, rolling in lazy waves that slapped gently against the support beams. You were leaning over the rental pier railing, elbows hooked loosely, hair tugged forward by the wind, laughing at Dustin because he had fumbled his sunglasses straight through the slats and into the ocean like the universe personally hated him. He was dramatically mourning them, insisting they were “limited edition” and “irreplaceable,” because his best friend in the world, Steve, had given him it, and you were teasing him about natural selection and poor grip strength.
And then it happened.
There wasn’t a dramatic warning. Or a monster. No cinematic groan of wood about to give way. Just a sharp, splintering crack that split through the air like a gunshot.
The railing shifted beneath your weight.
For half a second, your brain didn’t understand what your body already knew.
The world tilted.
Your stomach dropped before the rest of you did.
You remember the sensation of your hands grasping at nothing—air, splinters, sunlight—and the violent snap of wood tearing free. You remember the way your shoulder twisted at the wrong angle as you tried to catch yourself, a blinding crack of pain exploding down your arm so sudden and bright it stole the breath straight from your lungs. There was no elegant fall, no graceful dive. It was clumsy and brutal. Your ribs slammed against the edge of the pier before you tipped over completely, and the impact knocked the air out of you in a harsh, empty gasp that never quite turned into a scream.
You don’t remember screaming.
You remember the sound of your own body hitting the water wrong.
Not a clean plunge.
A slap. A jarring collision that rattled through bone.
The ocean swallowed you whole, salt burning into your nose and mouth, shock freezing your muscles mid-spasm. The pain in your arm flared again and your head struck something beneath the surface, or maybe it was just the force of the fall. Light fractured into white static behind your eyes. For a suspended second, everything went eerily quiet, muffled by water and distance, like the world had been wrapped in cotton.
And then you remember Dustin.
You remember him shouting your name like he was thirteen again and the sky was opening up above Hawkins. Not the older voice he’d been practicing since high school. Not the sarcastic, self-assured tone he wore like armor now. It was younger. Cracked at the edges. Terrified.
You remember the way your body felt heavy as if gravity had decided to double itself. You remember trying to move your arm and feeling nothing but blinding resistance, like your bones were no longer cooperating. The water dragged at you, pulled at your clothes, pressed into your ears until the world was just dull vibration and panic.
Then everything dissolves into fragments.
When you wake up properly, it isn’t all at once. It comes in pieces.
First the brightness, stabbing through your closed eyelids. Then the smell: antiseptic and something metallic underneath, layered over the faint hum of air conditioning. The mechanical beeping somewhere to your left. You try to breathe and your ribs protest immediately, a deep, bruised ache that spreads like ink beneath your skin. Your arm feels impossibly heavy, as if it’s been replaced with stone, pinned against your side by something tight and restrictive. There’s a pressure in your head, dull but constant, like someone has wrapped something thick and unyielding around your skull and pulled it just a little too tight.
You open your eyes slowly.
The hospital ceiling swims into view in blurred squares of white light.
You try to move.
Pain answers immediately.
Your fingers twitch against stiff hospital sheets. The fabric is scratchy and too clean. Your throat feels raw, like you swallowed sand. There’s an IV taped to the back of your hand. A sling holds your arm immobile against your chest, wrapped tight enough to remind you with every shallow breath that something inside you cracked.
You blink again, slower this time.
The room settles into shape around you, with pale green walls, a rolling tray table pushed aside, a heart monitor beside the bed emitting a steady, rhythmic beep that sounds deceptively calm.
And then you see him.
Dustin is slumped forward in a stiff hospital chair pulled too close to your bed, elbows braced on his knees like he hasn’t moved in hours. His eyes are red-rimmed and swollen, lashes clumped together from tears he probably wiped away angrily. There are faint salt tracks dried into his skin. His curls are completely destroyed, flattened on one side, sticking up wildly on the other, like he’s been running both hands through it over and over. His sweatshirt is wrinkled. There’s a smear of something dark near his cuff, maybe grease from the pier, maybe dried seawater.
He looks smaller like this.
When he notices your eyes open, something inside his expression cracks.
“Hey,” he says immediately, voice snapping thin with relief, like a rubber band stretched too tight. He leans forward so fast the chair legs scrape harshly against the tile. “Don’t move.”
You try to push yourself up anyway.
Your muscles engage automatically, because that’s what you do, you get up, you fix it, you handle it.
Instant regret.
“Oh my God, don’t do that,” Dustin says, half laughing in pure hysteria, half teetering on the edge of crying again. He reaches out but hesitates before touching you, like he’s afraid you’ll shatter. “You fractured your arm. And your collarbone. And you have a mild concussion. The doctor said mild like that makes it cute, but it’s not cute. You were out for almost a minute.”
Your brain latches onto the number.
“A minute?” you croak. Your voice barely sounds like yours.
He nods, hard. Too hard. His jaw tightens like he’s clenching against something. “Longest minute of my life.”
The words land heavier than the pain does.
Because you weren’t supposed to be the one who needed to be saved.
You were the older one. The responsible one. The one who checked railings before leaning on them. The one who made sure he stayed back from edges. The one who counted heads.
You weren’t supposed to be the body in the water.
“I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head quickly, curls bouncing with the force of it, like if he denies the apology hard enough it’ll undo the whole thing. “Not the point.”
You swallow, throat dry from hospital air and whatever fear is still clinging to you. “Did they call mom?”
He hesitates.
And it’s the exact same face he used to make when he was eight and had snapped the head off your favorite doll and tried to glue it back on before you noticed. Wide eyes, lips pressed together, guilt written all over him.
“…Not yet.”
Your brow furrows slowly.
“Dustin.”
“Okay, yes, I will call her if you want,” he rushes out, hands flying up defensively. “But first—”
The hospital door opens.
You expect a nurse in that moment. A clipboard. A soft voice explaining fractures, discharge instructions and liability forms.
Instead—
Steve Harrington walks in.
And he looks like someone punched the air out of him.
He’s still wearing jeans streaked faintly with red dust from the town never-ending cleanup sites, and a faded Hawkins High athletic department shirt that’s been washed so many times the logo is barely hanging on. There’s a whistle around his neck, the cheap plastic kind the school hands out to coaches, and it rests against his chest like he forgot it was there. Like he forgot everything except the drive here. His hair is windswept and slightly flattened on one side, as if he kept dragging his hand through it while speeding down the highway. His face is pale in a way that makes your stomach drop, not sickly, not tired. Shocked.
His eyes find you immediately.
They soften.
Because he sees it all.
The navy hospital sling cutting diagonally across your chest, holding your arm stiff and unnatural against your body. The too-bright white cast wrapping from your wrist to just below your elbow, thick and immovable and foreign against your skin. The bruising—Oh God, the bruising—blooming in violent shades of purple and yellow along your collarbone, creeping upward like watercolor spilled carelessly beneath your skin before disappearing under the thin hospital gown. The small square bandage taped carefully at your temple, covering what must have looked far worse before they cleaned it.
You watch the moment it registers.
The second he realizes this wasn’t dramatic exaggeration.
This was real.
Your heart skips in your chest but not from the injury, not from the medication humming faintly through your veins, from the way he looks at you like you’ve just stepped back from the edge of something terrible.
“What—” Your voice comes out scratchy, still thick with sleep and hospital air. You swallow and try again. “What are you doing here?”
Dustin stands so abruptly his chair legs screech against the tile.
“Oh. Right. So. Fun fact.”
You don’t look at him.
You can’t.
Your eyes stay locked on Steve, even though he’s not the one speaking now, not the one scrambling to explain. You’re still trying to process the way he looks.
“Remember that emergency contact thing I did in high school as a joke?” your brother finally says, and that pulls your attention just enough to flicker toward him. “When I put Steve on your form to make your ex-boyfriend upset?”
There’s a pause.
Long enough for the memories to unspool in your mind whether you want them to or not.
You remember that stupid argument. The jealous, insecure boyfriend who couldn’t stand that Steve still hovered at the edges of your life. You remember Dustin grinning like a menace as he filled out your school paperwork “for you” and deliberately writing Steve Harrington in the emergency contact line just to see the fallout.
You remember the fight that followed.
You remember the breakup.
You remember Steve pretending he didn’t know any of it happened, even though he absolutely did.
Your stomach drops.
“I never updated it,” Dustin confesses.
The room goes very still.
Not just quiet, still.
Even the steady beep of the heart monitor seems to sharpen.
“You what?” You frown.
Dustin shifts his weight from one foot to the other, rocking slightly on his heels. His hands shove deeper into the pockets of his hoodie like that thin layer of fabric might shield him from the consequences of what he’s admitting.
“I thought,” he begins quickly, the words tumbling out in a nervous rush, “that you had already removed Steve from your emergency contact list. I mean, years have passed. We’ve had near-death experiences. Literal alternate dimensions. Earthquakes. Government paperwork. Medical forms. I assumed at some point you’d change it.”
He gestures vaguely toward Steve without fully looking at him.
“But you never did,” he continues, voice gaining a strange kind of defensive momentum, like he’s building a case for himself. “And I noticed. And I chose to respect your administrative decisions by staying silent.”
You blink at him slowly.
“You did not.”
“I did.”
“Why?” Steve asks this time.
And that is what makes Dustin hesitate.
Because the question isn’t annoyed. It isn’t angry.
It’s careful.
For the first time since you woke up, your brother grins. Not sheepishly. Not apologetically.
Proudly.
Like he’s been waiting years for this exact reveal. Like he’s about to pull the sheet off a statue he’s been sculpting in secret.
He looks between you and Steve slowly, theatrically, savoring the moment. Steve is still standing there at the edge of your hospital bed, rigid in a way that doesn’t look comfortable. His hands hover uncertainly at his sides, fingers flexing once like he’s fighting the instinct to reach for you without permission. He looks like someone afraid to move too quickly in case the fragile proof of your being here, disappears.
Then Dustin looks back at you.
“Because,” he says dramatically, spreading his arms as if he’s presenting the cure to a global crisis, “I am sick of waiting for you two to figure your lives out.”
The words settle heavily in the room.
You just stare at him.
Your head pulses harder at the sudden spike of emotion, frustration, embarrassment, something warmer and more dangerous underneath. The ache radiates down your neck, but you ignore it. You’re too focused on the way the air seems to thin between the three of you.
Across from you, Steve freezes.
It’s subtle. So subtle most people wouldn’t catch it.
But you do.
The way his shoulders lock just a fraction tighter. The way his breath halts halfway through his chest like he forgot how to finish inhaling. The way his eyes flicker toward Dustin, then back to you, uncertain whether to laugh this off, deny it, or brace for impact.
He looks almost…exposed.
“I got a call,” Steve starts suddenly, the words pushing out of him before the silence can stretch any further. It’s like he can’t let Dustin control the narrative, can’t let this become some romanticized ambush without grounding it in what actually happened. His voice is tight. Too tight. Carefully wrapped around itself. “They said you fell. Head injury. Unconscious. They said you weren’t responding at first and then I talked to Henderson.”
Each phrase sounds clipped, precise, like he memorized it on the drive here. Like he replayed the nurse’s voice over and over again in his head until the words carved grooves into him.
Your heart skips.
Slowly, because even turning your head feels like negotiating with gravity, you shift your gaze toward your brother.
Dustin refuses eye contact.
He stares at the tile floor as if it’s suddenly fascinating. You can see the guilt creeping up his neck in visible color, spreading beneath his freckles until the tips of his ears burn red. His shoulders dip just slightly, though he’s still trying to hold onto that stubborn pride.
“I might have said ‘it was very bad,’” Dustin finally mutters. He scuffs his sneaker lightly against the tile, rubber squeaking in the sterile quiet. “And dramatically.”
The word dramatically lingers.
But Steve doesn’t look away from you.
Not even for a second.
“Was it that bad?” he asks quietly.
And it’s almost worse that he asks it gently.
There’s no accusation in it. No edge.
Just a raw need to know.
You swallow, and even that small movement feels deliberate, like your body has become something breakable you have to navigate slowly.
“It hurt.”
It’s the simplest truth you can offer.
His jaw tightens immediately.
You see it clearly now, the muscle ticking near his ear, the way his teeth press together just slightly, like he’s physically restraining a reaction. Not anger at you.
Anger at the image.
At the thought of you hitting water. At the idea of you floating still for even a second too long.
“You scared him,” you say softly to Dustin, trying to redirect the tension before it snaps entirely.
He scoffs, but it’s brittle.
“Yeah, well,” he says, lifting his head now, “I also scared him on purpose.”
Steve finally blinks. “What?”
Dustin stands abruptly again, like he needs movement to justify what he’s about to admit. The chair legs scrape loudly behind him. He points between you and Steve like he’s directing a stage production.
“You two have been dancing around each other for literal years. Years,” he repeats, incredulous. “I’ve had to watch this. I deserve compensation.”
“Dustin,” you warn, heat flickering through your exhaustion.
But he’s already rolling.
“Remember when she had the flu,” he barrels on, pointing at Steve with an accusing finger that trembles just slightly, “and you showed up with three different kinds of soup and chocolate because you ‘didn’t know which one she’d prefer’?”
“You told me she wasn’t eating,” he mutters, defensive but quiet. “And your mom wasn’t home.”
He doesn’t say that he’d driven across town in the rain. He doesn’t say that he’d stood awkwardly in the grocery aisle for ten full minutes debating brands like it was a life-or-death decision. He doesn’t say that he’d chosen the chocolate because you once mentioned it was your favorite after a bad day.
“And all the times you asked me how she was doing,” Dustin presses, relentless now, like if he stops he might lose his nerve. “If she was seeing someone. If she seemed ‘happy.’ Like it was totally normal talk.”
Steve doesn’t answer.
He just stands there in the harsh hospital lighting, shoulders tense beneath a jacket that’s still damp at the cuffs, like he came straight from wherever Dustin dragged him from. His jaw works once. Twice. But nothing comes out.
Because it wasn’t normal talk.
It was Steve cornering Dustin in the driveway after dropping him off, engine still running, headlights cutting through the dark.
“So…she good?” he’d ask, staring straight ahead, fingers drumming against the steering wheel.
Or leaning against the kitchen counter at your house, pretending to be interested in whatever sci-fi nonsense Dustin was rambling about while casually slipping in, “She, uh…she seeing anyone?”
It was never gossip.
It was reconnaissance.
“If near-death experiences won’t do it, I don’t know what more—” Dustin bursts out again, throwing his arms up so dramatically he nearly knocks into the IV pole beside your bed. The metal rattles. “We fought monsters. We survived the apocalypse. We rebuilt a town. What more do you people need?”
Steve drags a hand slowly down his face, palm pressing over his mouth, like he’s trying to physically contain everything threatening to spill out.
“It’s still bad what you did,” you cut in, your voice steadier than you feel. You use the same tone your mom once used when you’d come home flustered after your first real heartbreak, firm, controlled, layered with concern. “You can’t just go and worry someone because you have…ideas.”
Dustin throws his hands out again. “But I panicked!”
“You lied,” Steve says quietly.
“And also, yes,” Dustin barrels on without shame, “I may have slightly exaggerated the urgency to ensure immediate arrival.”
Steve turns his head slowly to look at him.
“You said she wasn’t responsive,” he says carefully.
“You were unconscious!” Dustin fires back.
“For like a minute!”
“That’s sixty seconds!” Dustin shouts. “Do you know how long sixty seconds feels when your sister is floating face-down in the water and not moving?”
The room goes quiet again.
Dustin’s chest is rising fast now. The bravado slipping.
“I thought I lost her,” he admits, voice cracking slightly. “And the first person I wanted there was you.”
That lands harder than anything else he’s said.
You see it hit Steve, see the shift in his posture. The anger drains out of him like someone pulled a plug. His shoulders drop. His hands loosen.
Dustin swallows, eyes glassy but stubborn.
“I’ve wanted you together since I was fifteen,” he says more quietly now. “Since the first time you showed up at our house at midnight because she was crying and I didn’t know what to do. You didn’t even knock. You just walked in like you belonged there.”
You remember that night with painful clarity.
The world had already been wrong for months. You were exhausted from pretending it wasn’t. One of your closest friends was gone—really gone—and you couldn’t even grieve properly because half the town thought it was an accident and the other half thought you were crazy. You’d locked yourself in your room, sitting on the floor with your back against the bed, trying to breathe through something that felt like it was crushing your ribs from the inside.
You thought Dustin hadn’t heard you crying.
But he had.
And he’d called Steve.
You didn’t hear the knock. You didn’t hear the front door open.
You just looked up and there he was, Steve Harrington, standing in your doorway like it was the most natural thing in the world. No grand entrance. No awkward greeting. Just quiet presence.
He’d crossed the room without a word and sat down in front of you, knees brushing yours. Close enough to ground you. Not close enough to overwhelm you.
“Henderson said you needed backup,” he’d murmured, voice low and careful.
You hadn’t been able to explain the weight in your chest. The guilt. The fear. The constant sense that the ground might split open again.
He hadn’t asked you to.
He’d just stayed.
“I kept your name on the form,” Dustin continues now, quieter but unwavering. “Because if something happened, you’re the one who’d come.”
“You didn’t have to exaggerate,” Steve says quietly, but he’s not looking at Dustin anymore. He’s looking at you. Really looking at you. “I would’ve come anyway.”
Your brother pauses mid-breath.
“…Oh.”
It’s almost comical, the way his entire posture shifts, like a lightbulb flicked on over his head and short-circuited at the same time.
Your heartbeat climbs into your throat.
“You would have?” you ask before you can stop yourself.
The question sounds smaller than you meant it to. Fragile. Like you’re bracing for the answer to break something open.
Steve’s brow furrows, genuinely confused by the doubt in it.
“Of course I would have.”
There’s no hesitation. No grand speech. No dramatic buildup.
Just certainty.
Like the sky being blue. Like gravity.
Dustin’s eyes go wide, like he just witnessed irrefutable scientific evidence after years of hypothesis testing. His gaze darts between you and Steve, watching something click into place that he’s apparently been waiting half a decade to see.
He slowly backs toward the door.
“Okay,” he says carefully, pointing between the two of you like a referee exiting the ring. “I’m going to get coffee. And not spy from the hallway. Probably.”
“Dustin—” you start.
But he’s already gone.
The door swings shut with a soft click.
And suddenly the room feels very small.
The hospital monitor beeps steadily beside you, rhythmic and indifferent. The fluorescent lights hum overhead. Somewhere down the hall, a cart rattles past.
Steve exhales slowly, like he’s been holding his breath for the last ten minutes. Then he drags a chair closer and sits down beside your bed.
“You look terrible,” you mumble after taking a long, careful look at him.
He huffs a breath that might be a laugh but doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah. Had to leave training with the kids halfway through to come here.”
Your lips twitch, the corners of a smile tugging upward despite the ache in your ribs. “I’m sorry for it,” you say softly. “But I’m okay.”
“I know.”
But he says it like he’s convincing himself.
You study him, like he was a rare thing.
“You were scared,” you say gently.
He doesn’t even deny.
“Yeah.”
No joke. No deflection. Just that.
Your chest aches in a way that has nothing to do with the ribs still tender from your fall.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” you whisper, voice rough. “I didn’t even know Dustin was still…into that idea.”
“I know,” he says again.
And this time, you hear it in the pause afterward, the memory of people he’s lost, the nights he spent replaying every near-miss, the guilt that sits heavy like a second skin. He rests his hand on the mattress near yours, careful not to touch. Just there. Hovering. Like he needs proof you’re real, that you’re alive, that you’re still here.
“I thought…” He trails off.
You wait.
“I thought maybe I’d used up all my luck already,” he admits quietly, almost a confession to the empty air around him. “With all of us.”
Oh.
The air shifts.
Your fingers reach out, trembling slightly, toward his. He hesitates for only a second before closing the small gap. His grip is warm, protective in a way that makes your chest ache and your heart stutter. You can feel his tension, the restrained panic underneath the calm exterior, the way he’s always ready for something to go wrong but is trying to keep it together.
“I’m still here,” you whisper softly.
His thumb brushes gently over your knuckles, light enough to almost be a question.
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