paring: andrew pope cody/stripper!reader
tags: 18+, starts in s1, erectile dysfunction, lap-dances, second-hand embarrassment, slow burn, implied age gap, no use of y/n. reader has fake names, a large family, and a past (that is catching up). medical inaccuracies. mental health issues. canon-typical violence. eventual smut.
summary: Who says you can’t meet the love of your life in a strip club dressing room after his brother paid another girl a thousand bucks to wish him a happy birthday?
Okay, so he’s a bit strange and he might be stalking you and his mother is terrifying and you’re really just trying to make enough money for rent and tuition without getting into any kind of trouble, but on the bright side, at least he’s not a cop.
been into Yellowjackets lately and honestly Lottielee is my favorite ship and I don't understand why there isn't more content of it, it's literally genius. The codependency, the religious imagery, the symbolism, how fucking doomed it is, this is yurigem
Summary: An accident turned into a failed attempt at a son. Once heard and never forgotten you had long been regarded as the spare Wheel(er). For all intents and purposes, Nancy's shadow. So what happens when, across four years, you and her ex-boyfriend become the surrogate parents to six kids and... something to one another?
Warnings: tension, angst, insecurities, the whole shebang. Able-bodied reader + she/her pronouns + hair (described as curly*). Some curse words sprinkled in. Switching perspectives because I can't be tamed. Oh… and a kiss 😝
a/n: I am completely, utterly and irrevocably obsessed with Charli xcx's (& John Cale's) new song House for Wuthering Heights. This is essentially a lil journey over the seasons. I highly recommend listening to Janie by Ethel Cain, Homecoming by Ethel Cain, Dust Bowl by Ethel Cain and Tempest by (guess who) Ethel Cain for seasons 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. Disclaimer, I do not own any part of this franchise or its characters!
Take a shot every-time I say “for all intents and purposes”
w/c: 5.7k
[graphics by @saradika-graphics]
An accident turned into a failed attempt at a son.
Words you should have never heard but, had made a lasting impression on you nonetheless. Accidently stumbling upon a private conversation of your parents. Your father, two nightcaps in, reasoning to your mother how he could have forgotten that your birthday was next week. Rationalizing his neglect.
“Ted!”
“What? It’s true. She was the result of the long awaited 6th week mark. I at least hoped it would be a boy if we were going to have two under two.”
You didn’t stick around to hear your mother’s admonishing. You knew she loved you, but you also knew that you took a toll on her. Your very existence sent her right back to 9 months of gagging at the smell of poultry all the while her first baby screamed and threw cheerios from her high chair.
Postpartum depression wasn’t particularly recognized back then. Still isn’t.
But you were 9 when you heard this.
Young enough for it to become a core memory but not yet old enough to truly understand what she’d been through.
Even if your parents struggled to enjoy you in your early years, Nancy always did. Being so close in age, only separated by a grade, you did everything together. The first to hear her investigative theories and the one to accompany her on her juvenile stakeouts. Hiding in the bushes outside the McKinney’s house because she was convinced their son Lyle was the one letting their schnauzer ‘make’ on the Wheeler’s lawn. And low and behold, she was right.
Even as you had both grown into different people with their own interests, found your own friends outside of one another, you always made time for each other. Always understood each other better than anyone. Told each other everything.
That was until he came into the picture. The king of Hawkins High, the captain of the basketball team and Nancy’s new priority.
Being a year younger than Nancy, you had just entered high school when she had begun dating Steve. Things shifted immediately. Promises between sisters took the back burner. Like swearing to look out for you, to show you the ropes, hell, to just sit with you at lunch.
But still, you never held this against Nancy. She wasn’t the first to bend to Steve Harrington’s charm, and she wouldn’t be the last (you hoped).
Maybe it was juvenile, but you held it against him. Steve Harrington. Though you can’t say you ever hated him, you didn’t know him enough for that. You resented him. For selfishly taking away Nancy and all of her time.
The worst part of it all was that you knew that he did truly care about her. That, for all intents and purposes, she was his girl. But, she was your sister first.
You once even tried to ask him to cancel a date with her. In your defense, Nancy had cancelled on you first.
Young and naive, you expected your interaction with Steve and his goons to go well.
But to ask a boy, let alone the most popular boy in school, to cancel a date with his doe-eyed, inexperienced girlfriend was just, unfathomable.
Steve didn’t even know how to respond to you. Opening and closing his mouth a few items as he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.
Tommy Hagan however, found it especially comedic.
“Aw, the spare Wheeler’s gettin lonely huh?
And so, your new nickname was born. The proclaimed ‘third wheel’ of the family, and most ardently to your peers, to the golden couple. To everyone else you were just another freshman. Eating lunch in the bathroom stalls, looking longingly at the club you had been barred from ever joining.
The noise never bothered you, your sister’s reluctance to defend you however, did.
From then on you were reduced to your last name.
Fall 1984:
You don’t think anyone had been as happy to see you as Dustin Henderson was that fall of 1984. Immediately releasing a dramatic exhale at the sight of a Wheeler child, an almost-adult one even, he didn’t bother to explain himself as he yanked you out your front door. Stumbling down your lawn, apparently being kidnapped by Dustin Henderson, is when you both saw Steve. Mumbling incoherently to himself as he appeared to head toward Nancy’s window.
Even in broad daylight he couldn’t use the damn door.
Somehow, now in the passenger seat of Steve Harrington’s car of all places, Dustin begrudgingly passed you the roses you could only assume were for your sister.
“Uh?” Looking to Steve for confirmation that they were okay to hold, let alone take.
“What the hell, sure.” Sighing and starting the car.
Steve obeyed Dustin’s orders… surprisingly easily.
Minutes passed in silence as you made your way to the Henderson homestead. The tension albeit worsened by Steve’s attempt at conversation.
“Has she uh… said anything about me?”
Leaning your head back against the headrest and sighing, you did the only logical thing in that moment. You tossed the roses out the window.
What followed next was the collective sound of Dustin snorting and Steve loudly proclaiming his discontent with what you’d just done.
“Hey! Do you know how much those cost?!”
“Oh, please, you're driving a BMW and wearing hundred dollar sneakers. And by how Dustin ripped me out of my house and accosted me into your car we clearly have bigger things to deal with than your love life right now.”
“Thank you!” proclaimed Dustin.
And with that, you were off.
-
The miniscule faith you had in Billy Hargrove disappeared the moment he had begun to hit Steve.
The fight further escalated to you catching the wrong end of Hargove’s elbow and now sporting a stream of blood down the side of your face. Billy’s momentary pause of, what you can only hope was, guilt was taken advantage of by Steve. Seemingly getting the better of Billy in his moment of pause however, only lasted another two blows.
Now Steve was laying limp in the back of Billy’s Camaro slowly coming back to consciousness as you hung your, probably concussed, head out the window. Biting back bile at every sharp turn the red head in the driver’s seat made.
Apparently brought further into reality by the sound of your heaving, Steve turned and exclaimed one word that had, really, only made your situation worse.
“Nancy?”
-
Then came the Snow Ball. The first speck of normalcy since you and the kids had, quite literally, crawled your way out of hell. So, when Mike came home with the flyer that said ‘chaperones wanted’ it was a no brainer.
Hell, maybe this could be a school dance you’d finally enjoy.
So, there you were, draped in taffeta with your curls ever so slightly teased and pinned atop your head.
Your mom had immediately pointed out the similarities between your and Nancy’s appearances before you left. Spoken with a sense of fondness that only a nostalgic mother could have.
You had hated everything shared between you by the end of the evening. Clawing at the skin of your arms by midnight just wishing to be different. To be set apart from your once ‘twin flame’ nonetheless. The girl you had craved to be closer to all your life.
You hated to think it, but ever since Nancy and Steve had broken up, you were overjoyed. Finally getting back the year you’d lost with her to Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington because now, whatever had started between her and Johnathan had begun quickly but continued at a steady pace. Nancy was in no rush to prove anything in her relationship this time around and that gave you and her time to find common ground again. You were happy. Happy that the world had seemingly been saved, that you had gotten your best friend/sister back and maybe just a little happy that you won out over the golden boy.
That was until his bruised and battered hands, credit to Billy Hargrove, reached for you of all people at possibly the worst moment of both of your lives.
For the umpteenth time that week you had found yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time with him, and maybe that's why he himself began to feel right.
Right in the way he tugged you toward him without a second thought when the screeches grew imminent and you didn't know if you were going to make it above ground again.
He had held you. You, touch starved and 6-feet under in more ways than one. And whether or not he was just that selfless at his core, extending a courtesy he would have to any one of the kids who had already made it up, your heart took it ran.
-
Steve wasn’t planning on going into the dance. He was more than straying from the ‘norm’ he set for himself by driving his newfound protege to the middle school dance as is. But after Dustin had rolled his R’s for the… fifth?... time that night as he pulled open the double doors to the gym, Steve got a glimpse of what he was missing.
First, a dolled up Nancy Wheeler manning the punch bowl toward the back of the gymnasium, lateral to the one and only Johnathan Byers. Making eyes at one another over the tripod set in front of him.
Next, and what would turn out, most importantly, you. Manned at the entry way between the concrete and linoleum floors, ushering in the students as they arrived. Spine curved inward like you felt like you didn’t belong.
And all he could think of was the past week. Not the carnage, nor the prospect of his realest emotions to date being ‘bullshit’, but the moments in between the bloodshed where he began to see you as a person. Where you had given him shit for all of the “third wheeler” jokes (which “didn’t even make sense because you were the second born”). Not another seat filler in the Wheeler’s station wagon.
“An accident turned into a failed attempt at a son” you had told him. Something that he honestly could relate to, in the metaphorical sense at least.
Screw it.
Making sure Dustin got in okay he peeled away from the doors and put his BMW into park. Checking his hair one more time in the visor’s mirror (he was still him after all) he stepped out of his car and made toward the entrance to the gym. Breath fanning out in front of him, hands shoved into the front pockets of his denim jeans. Steve wished he had brought a jacket in that moment, it was December for christ’s sake, the ripped up converse adorning his feet not doing much to keep the snow out of his shoes.
Now, you are here. Having been asked to dance by the boy the moment he crossed the threshold. Neither of you let it mean much at that moment. Both of you telling yourselves that he had only found his way inside as a result of Nancy. Just to torture himself further. But you were the first to admit to yourself that it meant more. There was no other explanation for the shaking that ensued. Somehow feeling seen while tucked to his chest under a mirrorball.
“You’re shaking? Are you oka-”
“I’m fine.”
A pause.
“Normally I’d have a flask at these sort of things -”
“You regularly go to middle school dances?”
He snorted at that. Leaned his head back and shook it subtly, all with a smile on his face.
“Funny.”
Seconds stretched, feeling him building up to ask you again if you were okay, you beat him to the punch.
“Is it just me, or do you somehow feel even more judged than normal being surrounded by middle-schoolers?”
“Right!” His voice cuts through the melodic voice of Cyndi Lauper, immediately getting shushed by the surrounding sea of 5’2 devils.
And you laughed. The first real spark of joy you had since narrowly escaping death.
But your shaking still didn’t relent, and neither did he.
“Are you cold?”
He didn't even think twice. Beginning to glide his hand up from its respectable place on your waist. Delicately reaching the exposed skin by the back of your garment, smoothing it up and down your body for friction. Somehow the higher his hand went the more provocative it all felt. Because he was no longer warming you through the fabric of your waist, no, this was skin on skin.
Ignoring the wink he got from Henderson across the floor, dancing with his ex-girlfriend of all people, he put his focus back to you. You and your shaky exhale let out the moment his fingers trailed up your spine.
“Better?”
Timidly placing your chin on his shoulder, you closed your eyes and let yourself feel it all. The breath at your neck, the warmth spreading from not just his hand but through your own chest.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it Wheeler.”
That opened your eyes.
Summer 1985:
Something shifted during the summer of ‘85.
You knew it since Steve had clutched your hand in the pouring rain, hiding from Starcourt Russian gunslingers.
Maybe it started because you’d finally learned to tame your family-famous curls. Or maybe it was because Steve had fallen so far from grace that you were the only girl who still looked at him like he was worth a damn. But it was safe to say something changed for him and only intensified for you. Because now he was no longer looking in your direction, but at you.
Walking into Scoops Ahoy roughly three steps behind the newly returned Dustin Henderson.
Since shielding him with your body from demadogs a year prior, not to mention participating in his and your brother’s campaigns up until two years ago (wearing elf ears for them up until four years ago) you had become a sort of father figure to Dustin. The equal, but more fun, dad to Steve’s motherly role.
- (Stev
Steve hated when Dustin was right. And it's not because he hated being wrong. No, Steve Harrington was all too familiar with getting things wrong. His graduating grades were represented by the latter letters of the alphabet. Hence why he was slinging frozen milk to the girls who once fawned over him and the boys who once wanted to be him. But no, he didn’t necessarily have a problem with being wrong. He never once considered himself to be the smartest in the classroom, let alone any other room. He hated when Dustin was right because he made sure everyone in a 30 mile radius knew it. He still bragged about his triumph over Lily Becker in the 5th grade. How, low and behold, he was right in that she had used the wrong ‘your’ in her book report. “Even the teacher missed it!” were words that had circled him since he let that little shit into the back of his Beemer.
However, Steve knew that nothing would compare to the shit eating grin Dustin would sport when he discovered that yeah, Steve did like you. Or at the very least recognized that he should have.
Apparently, fighting monsters was damn good for the skin because when you sauntered in with Mike and the kids for the first ice cream outing of the season, Steve couldn’t even finish his sentence once he had come eye to eye with you at the counter. Slowly tugging his hat off in an attempt to smooth his hair, he didn’t realize he had placed the sailor’s cap in a melted puddle of USS Butterscotch.
“Ahoy - …Lady?”
Yeah. That had earned him two strikes with Robin and her whiteboard of shame.
And now, with Soviet sponsored chemical courage Steve Harrington was rambling through a bathroom stall to tell you that Dustin was right. He should have seen you sooner. Should have considered you as a person, much less an option.
And, after a summer of stumbling his way through rejections, he really didn’t think it could get any worse so, he went for it.
He was wrong.
“...I’m not Nancy, Steve.”
“That’s exactly why I like you, Wheeler.”
Exhaling a shaky breath out of your nose before calmly speaking.
Your name.
That’s all you said in response..
“What?”
“That’s my name, Steve. Not Wheeler. Not Wheeler 2.0. Not ‘the third wheel’ which doesn’t even make sense by the way because there's four of us and I'm not even the third born.”
He stared blankly.
Heat rising to his already blood stained cheeks, stammering out a response. Feeling like he was clawing at the air to try and just get back the comfortable silence there oh-so recently was lingering between the stalls.
“Well, yeah, obviously I know that I just -”
“You know you have never once called me by my first name.”
If you didn’t know any better Steve, would have looked embarrassed simply because he got something wrong. However, you did know better, because you did know Steve. And under the crimson-crusted blood and blush dusting his cheeks you knew it wasn’t embarrassment he felt. But something more akin to shame. Ashamed that you were right. Disappointed in himself.
He may have wanted you. But it was never for the right reasons. You could see it, Steve could see it and even Robin pretending to be asleep two stalls down could just hear it in the silence.
“I don’t want you to like me because of who I’m not. I want you to like me because of who I am.
Steve, for as long as we’ve circled each other, I don’t think you have ever once tried to figure out who I am. Outside of this supernatural shit show.
But I know you tell people that your favourite colour is blue when it’s really yellow. I know you’re afraid of the weather. Have been since you were a kid. The thunder, wind, rain, all of it. It got worse ever since that night. The night you got caught up in -”
Gesturing to the vomit-soaked air around you.
“This. Or, as I more fondly recall it as, the night Nancy pulled a gun on you.”
You both subtly smiled at that.
“...How’d you know?”
“My room’s next to Nancy’s. I would always hear when you’d shuffle your way up to her window. Most of the nights you came by, it was raining. And you’d always stay till the sky cleared. Even if it meant staying past when my parents woke up.”
“You know I do though… like you Wheel-...” He stopped himself before he could further prove your point.
“Don’t think I would have survived working with Buckley over there.“
“I know. But as it looks to me right now, I’m just the safest distance you can stand from Nance without risking getting hurt again.”
Laughing uncomfortably “Shit. Bullshit, as your sister would say.”
“Furthest thing from it actually…”
“For what it's worth. I like you too, Harrington.”
Never more had Steve hated hearing his last name. How informal it sounded coming out of your mouth. How invalidating it felt to hear after spending 48 hours in hell together. Only just then did Steve begin to realize how you’d been feeling the last two years.
His face simultaneously falling and lighting up at your admission.
Here now, falling from his high, he couldn’t promise what he felt wasn’t riddled with the reminders of Nancy. But he knew it was there. That it was real. For the both of you.
March 1986:
Not much changed between the summer of ‘85 and now.
That is except for the viciously mangled bodies of minors piling up across Hawkins. And, the newcomer of the party, Eddie Munson.
Not his biggest fan at first, jealous of the Munson boy’s influence over his buddy Gumby/Gumbo.
However, after seeing him follow him into the unknown, he decided that the green eyed monster needed to be vanquished once and for all.
“Hey, Eddie. I just wanted to say, you know, thanks. You kinda saved my ass back there.”
“You saved your own ass back there. Pretty metal shit. But you are an idiot, you know that right.”
“I knew the risks when I was jumping in-”
“N-no, not that. I mean, yes that but no. I’m talking about whatever the hell’s brewing between you and Wheeler 2.0 over there.”
Eddie waved his pale, ring clad hand in your direction. Walking side by side with Robin as Nancy led the charge. Assuring her that no, Steve did not have rabies and that if he did she would personally see to his end before he could make even a step in the brunette’s direction.
Steve didn’t hear that however. All he heard was ‘Wheeler 2.0’ uttered, let alone in your presence and he pressed his palm straight into the red devil adorning the front of Eddie’s shirt.
“Watch it man.”
“Shit! What is it? Where -”
“N-no dumb ass! Wheeler 2.0. Don’t call her that. It’s her name or nothing man. And trust me, she’s not nothing.”
Anyone with eyes could see the yearning in Steve’s eyes. Hell, even Chrissy, Fred and Patrick would be able to sense the scene in front of them.
“What? You making your way through the family now? Should I warn Mike?”
By the look on Steve’s face, Eddie almost favoured his odds with the witch back in the land of the living.
“Ha. Just, don't call her that.”
“Oookayyy. But, for what it’s worth, no one would blame you. Hell least of all me after what I saw up there after. You know when you -” Apparently miming how that thing back there yanked Steve to the other side. He however didn’t find it very funny though. He honestly may not have even registered it as he, once again, stopped Eddie in his tracks.
“What do you mean?”
Now Eddie was just getting annoyed. Frustrated at the fact that after watching Steve get everything he had ever desired all four years of high school the retired King still couldn’t see the obvious. He was hot. But worst of all, he was decent. Outrageously cared for by the likes of the Wheelers and Henderson alike he still couldn't get it through his well-padded skull that he had worth. People who cared. Who would jump into pitch black, ice-cold waters with the outright goal of chasing after him to hell and back.
“Look Harrington, I'm going to put it into words you can understand. Boy like girl. Girl like boy, so girl jump in after boy in the face of mortal peril. Now, shape up or ship out Harrington. Cause I heard that the second born Wheeler doesn’t just play D&D, she roleplays it.”
And with a slap to Steve’s back Munson made leeway in the woods. Doing something of a hop scotch-like trot over vines up to you and Robin. Ending with him throwing his arms over the two of you’s shoulders and making way between the two of you for himself.
-
You had been carefully eyeing Steve from the moment you saw him again in the upside down. Even more so when you’d panned your eyes down his body to find blood. And lots of it. Through all of the makeshift first aid Nancy had performed in the upside down, you had stood to the back of the group, watching. Not in the same way Robin and Eddie were. You were watching his chest. From shying away from looking at his naked torso above ground, failing to notice his self-satisfied grin at that, you had come a long way. You just watched. Not because you ‘dug the jungle’ or whatever the hell he called his chest hair, not that you hated it either but that’s besides the point, no. You watched for his breath and nothing more. Seemingly more concerned for his own physical state than he was at the moment. Not caring that Nancy was the one to dress his wounds, or for the ‘is it’ or ‘is it not’ rabies debate. You just needed to convince yourself that after being dragged through hell and feasted on by its hounds, he was alive. Something he noticed as your sister, the girl he once loved, synched the trim of her sweater around his waist.
From then on you kept your physical distance, but your gaze never strayed far. Even walking in front of him in the woods, you would find your head breaching over your shoulder every other minute to confirm that yes, he was in fact still there. In the flesh, no matter if a pound of it was missing.
So it was no shock to anyone when you had called ‘shot gun’ in the RV.
Except maybe to Nancy.
“What? You actually get a shotgun. I might as well get the seat.”
Separated by only a foot of shag carpeting, here, you could watch Steve. Maybe even look out for any of those rabies symptoms Robin was telling you about back there.
But you failed to consider that he could also watch you. Lit by the sun streaking through the windshield the grime on your face was everpresent but he didn’t care. All he saw when he looked at you now was the girl who’d dove headfirst into hell after him. Even after he treated her like a plan B for all the time he had known her.
“You sure you don’t want me to drive?”
All the eavesdropping gremlins in the back shouted an abrupt “No!” to that but the only response you dignified it with was a swift middle finger.
Speaking lower, you continued.
“Seriously, if you're feeling woozy or anything. Let me know.” Eyes lingering on the crimson stretching across his neck.
“I’m alright. Seriously. Harrington guarantee.”
“Oh well then it must be true.”
“Oh yeah… Plus, as silly as it sounds, this isn’t all too far from what I imagined my life as anyways.”
Tilting your head in question, he continued.
Clearing his throat and averting from your gaze before he continued.
“I always had this dream that I'd have this really… really big family.
I’m talking, like, uh, a full brood of Harringtons. Like five, six kids.”
“Six?! Well clearly you’re not the one having to carry ‘em for nine months.”
“True true. My wife, if I ever manage to lock another woman down well, she can choose. Decide however many she’s in for. But, in my little fantasies, there’s six. Six nuggets. Three girls, three boys.”
“I mean… I guess some of ‘em could be twins.”
“Yeah! Yeah and… every summer I figured all of us Harrington’s, we would pack into something like this. And… just see the country. You know, the Rockies, Grand Canyon, maybe Yellowstone. End up in some beach side town in California. Spend a week parked in the sand. Learn how to surf or something.”
“T-That sounds nice.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I mean, we’ve got practice.” You spoke, gesturing to the packed mobile home of half your designated children.
With the smile on Steve’s face you never would have believed that he had been on the brink of death just a few hours ago. The guy was glowing. In part, thanks to the sun streaking in, but seriously. His grin took up half his face. And you could have sworn that his hair got just the littlest bit higher.
“We?”
Shit.
“I-I just mean, you know, we both-” Jazz hands in all gesturing to your little found family already onboard.
“You’re not a single parent to these kids here you know that Harrington. What was it Dustin said? You’re mom, I’m dad.”
“I still have a few qualms with that but for all intents and purposes sure…You’re… dad. I’m mom.”
-
But you couldn’t let it just end there. The part of you, the one stuck eavesdropping in on your parents crouched on the carpeted stairs of your home. The part of you that heard phantom callings of Tommy Hagan even in empty rooms could not let that go. Especially not when you saw Robin gesture to Nancy as she and Steve browsed what could only be described as the ‘quick kill’ section of the store you were in.
Stupid. Young and naive and completely and utterly ignorant on what it is you want and what it is you get in this life.
Charging out of the store with a violent shake to your head, pulling your hair back in strife at yet another short coming you set yourself up for.
However, if you were actually in ear shot, you would have heard Robin say, explicitly,
“You did it! Holy shit you really did it. You finally crawled your way out of the pit of despair you dug and stopped waiting for her *cue gesture* to pull you out of it. Well goddamn Harrington, congratulations."
Steve didn’t revel in her praise though because he saw you dejectedly shuffle yourself out of the store before Robin even finished her sentence. And he knew why.
“Shit- Wait!”
Following you out of the store towards the back parking lot, he cornered you like a wounded animal up against the RV.
“How long have you had that dream?”
“What?”
“The one about the nuggets. Let me guess, since about the 11th grade?”
Exasperately sighing and pulling back from you, you already missed the heat, he tugged at his own notorious locks.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?!”
“That! Discount what I feel, end something before it even begins.”
“It’s better than chasing after something long lost! You -”
“No!I don't think this is about me seeing you as a second choice anymore. This is about you not seeing yourself as capable of being wanted. Being first in somebody’s mind. A priority in any capacity.”
Grabbing your face between his palms to keep your eyes locked on him he continued.
“I see you. I want you.
You, who used to dress up for your brother’s D&D games. Elf ears and all because it made him and his friends laugh. You who missed your calc midterm to join the search party for Will four years ago. You who rewatches the same movies over and over again because the dialogue comforts you, especially when you know what they’re going to say. The person who once asked me to cancel a date because all she wanted was to see All The Right Moves with her sister. Who has sentimental attachments to your shoes. Refusing to get a new pair until the sole is worn through. Who names inanimate objects and apologizes to the walls she bumps into. You, who refuses to be seen as anything but yourself.
That is what I love about you. That is why I love you.
You! You hear that?! You!”
He hadn’t intended to start yelling but he was frantic for you to believe him. Because now, without a doubt, he could say who he wanted and that it was for the right reasons.
You didn’t realize you had begun to cry until he swiped a tear from beneath your eye with his thumb. Silent tears streamed down your face.
“I’ll prove it. As long as it takes. Let me prove it to you.”
And the following breath that followed wasn’t out of submission, but resolution.
Afraid to breathe, you slightly nodded your head. Only noticed by Steve because he could feel the shift of your face in his palms.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I believe you. I…” Swallowing back the new wave of tears cresting behind your eyelids.
“I want you too. I love you too.”
And it was the way you said it. Almost imperceptible to the ear. Not because you didn’t mean it, because god you really did. And he just knew. I knew you meant it. Knew that the six nuggets currently divided between Hawkins and California would not be your last, but your first.
Leaning in slowly, as to not spook you, dragging the top of his nose across the bridge of your own he released a shaky breath. Hooded eyes looking into your own, Steve tilted his head ever so slightly to do something you could have never imagined.
He kissed you. Slowly slotting his mouth over your own to completely encompass your bottom lip between his. One hand leaving your face to slide down your neck, to your arm, to follow the curve of your waist to rest on the small of your back beneath your jacket.
You couldn’t fight the noise that had crawled up your throat and Steve thanked god for that in that moment. It dragged out a deep groan buried beneath ribs that he could only assume had been held in for the last two some-odd years.
Steve could no longer control himself. Not when another sound, this one more akin to a moan traveled through his lips from your own. Pushing further into you and asking permission for his tongue to gain entrance into your mouth as his perfect hair brushed against your own forehead. You didn’t hesitate, parting your lips to allow him to explore an even more intimate part of you. Sliding the hand on your cheek down to the crook of your jaw to tilt your head back and push further in. Tongue licking at the backs of you teeth. You felt your knees go weak. And god help you, you didn't know how it could, but it got so much worse better when he moved the hand placed at your back into the back pocket of yours jeans. The shock had worn off and you snapped into action. Immediately sliding both your hands into his hair, tugging without a second though. Literally pulling a noise from him with every strand you tugged.
The desperate, years-long awaited battle for air ended with you both resting your foreheads against one another. Chests heaving. Something Steve seemed to enjoy as his eyes trailed down.
After another helping of oxygen, you were both about to fall back into each other. You heard a cheer. A literal cheer. Turning to face the noise, you found an overjoyed Robin Buckley punching the air with an amused, but visibly stressed, Dustin Henderson at her side. With the rest of the group trailing behind with steadfast expressions.
Dustin, poetically, was the one to put an end to the moment.
“We get it. You’re in love. Now can we please go save the world?!”
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