freckles
Steve Harrington x reader
Summary: Every summer, Steve's freckles come back. And every summer, his girlfriend falls a little bit more in love with them.
Warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, minors DNI, no use of y/n, established relationship, fluff, kissing, physical touch as a love language, praise, steve being adored (lmk if i missed anything)
W/C: 4.1k
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The afternoon is one of those rare summer days where neither of you has anywhere particular to be.
The back garden is quiet save for the steady drone of bees drifting lazily between the flower beds and the occasional rustle of leaves overhead whenever a warm breeze wanders through the trees. Somewhere nearby, a neighbour is mowing their lawn, and every so often the faint laughter of children carries over the fence before disappearing again beneath the gentle hum of the afternoon.
Steve is stretched out across one of the old sun loungers with a paperback balanced open across his stomach, sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose, one ankle hooked loosely over the other. Every few minutes he turns another page with the sort of concentration that suggests he's become completely absorbed in whatever mystery novel Robin had insisted he borrow.
You, meanwhile, are supposed to be reading your own book.
Supposed to being the important part.
Instead, your attention keeps drifting back to him.
At first, it's subconscious. A glance over the top of your page. Then another a minute later. Then another.
Eventually, you realise you've read the same paragraph four times without taking in a single word.
Steve doesn't look up immediately, but the corner of his mouth twitches all the same. "...What?"
"Hm?"
"You keep staring at me."
"I am not."
"You absolutely are."
He finally lowers the book just enough to peer over the top of it, an amused smile already beginning to tug at the corners of his mouth. "What's going on in that head of yours?"
You pretend to think about it. "I'm conducting research."
"...Research."
"Mhm."
He closes the book completely now, folding one arm behind his head as he looks at you with quiet curiosity. "And what's the subject?"
"You."
A soft laugh escapes him. "I don't remember signing the consent forms."
"You'll manage."
He rolls his eyes in that fond, long-suffering way he always does whenever you say something utterly ridiculous, before settling back into the sun. "Carry on then."
You do.
For another minute or so, you simply look at him. Not because you're trying to make him squirm. Just because you've noticed something.
Slowly, you reach across the space between your loungers and tap the bridge of his nose with the tip of one finger.
He blinks. "What?"
"You've got more freckles."
"...I do?"
"Mhm."
You lean a little closer, squinting with exaggerated concentration. "Definitely more."
Steve instinctively goes cross-eyed trying to look at his own nose. "I can't exactly see them."
You laugh. "I know."
He reaches up to push his sunglasses onto the top of his head instead, humouring you completely. "Go on then."
"What?"
"The research."
You smile to yourself before tracing your fingertip lightly across the bridge of his nose, careful enough that it almost tickles.
"There's one here." Another tiny tap. "And one here." Your finger moves to his cheek. "Oh..." You lean in another inch. "I don't think that one was there last week."
Steve watches you with an expression that hovers somewhere between bewilderment and affection.
"They move?"
"They don't move."
"They're multiplying?"
"They're appearing."
He frowns thoughtfully. "...Should I be worried?"
"No." You smile so softly it almost catches him off guard. "I think summer's back."
For a moment, he simply looks at you.
Then he gives the smallest shrug. "Huh."
"That's all you've got?"
"What else am I supposed to say?"
"I don't know."
You brush your thumb gently across the top of his cheekbone. "I just thought you'd want to know."
"I've honestly never noticed."
That, for reasons you can't quite explain, makes your chest ache a little. "You've never noticed?"
Steve shakes his head. "They just kind of... happen."
He says it so casually. As though it isn't remarkable at all. As though the tiny constellation scattered across his nose and cheeks isn't one of the loveliest things you've ever seen.
Without really thinking about it, your gaze drifts lower. Another cluster dusts the tops of his shoulders where the collar of his T-shirt has slipped sideways. One or two have appeared along the outside of his upper arm too, so faint you probably wouldn't have spotted them if the afternoon sun hadn't caught them just right.
"There are more."
He follows your eyes. "Where?"
"Everywhere." You reach out again, this time brushing your fingertips lightly across the freckles scattered over his shoulder.
"So that's why you've been staring at me?"
You nod. "I was trying to work out why you looked different."
"And?"
"And then I realised."
"What?"
Your smile grows almost impossibly fond. "...I think you're even prettier in the summer."
Steve actually laughs. "Oh, come on."
"I'm serious."
"You call me pretty at least three times a week."
"Probably not enough."
Colour creeps slowly into his cheeks. "You are unbelievable."
"So I've been told."
He shakes his head, but there's no conviction behind it anymore. If anything, he shifts a fraction closer, tilting his shoulder almost imperceptibly towards your hand as though inviting you to carry on tracing those tiny sunlit freckles for as long as you like.
You don't need asking twice.
The following morning arrives bright, warm and already promising another cloudless day.
By the time the two of you have finished breakfast, the garden is bathed in sunshine, the air carrying that familiar scent of freshly cut grass and warm earth that always seems to belong exclusively to July. Steve has already changed into an old pair of shorts and a faded Hawkins High T-shirt that's seen enough summers to be almost impossibly soft, and the two of you are lingering by the back door gathering everything you'll need before heading out for the afternoon.
He catches sight of the bottle of sunscreen on the kitchen counter before you do.
"Oh, right."
He reaches for it, gives it a vigorous shake, then immediately squeezes what can only be described as an alarming amount into his palm.
You stare. "...Steve."
"What?"
"You use way too much."
Without looking remotely concerned, he rubs his hands together. "You burn."
"I tan."
He pauses just long enough to glance over his shoulder. "You absolutely do not."
"I become..." You pretend to consider it very seriously. "...lightly toasted."
He laughs under his breath. "That's just another way of saying you burn."
"It isn't."
"It definitely is."
"It sounds much cuter."
"I don't care if your sunburn has good branding."
You snort, shaking your head while he dutifully rubs sunscreen over his arms with all the enthusiasm of somebody who has accepted this as an unavoidable part of summer.
"Your turn."
You hold your hands out, expecting him to pass you the bottle. Instead, he simply steps in front of you.
"You missed a spot yesterday," he says.
"I did not."
"You did."
"I would've noticed."
"You didn't."
He tips a little more sunscreen into his hands before gently smoothing it over your shoulders, every movement slow and careful despite the fact that the two of you have repeated this exact routine countless times before. His thumbs linger briefly where your neck meets your shoulders, rubbing the lotion in with absent-minded circles that have nothing to do with practicality and everything to do with the fact that he likes touching you whenever he gets the chance.
"There." He smiles, quietly pleased with himself. "Protected."
You lean up to kiss the corner of his mouth. "My hero."
"I know."
Eventually, you retrieve the bottle from his hands and gesture for him to turn around.
"Your back."
He obeys without question, lifting the back of his T-shirt over his head and dropping it onto the nearest chair before presenting you with his shoulders.
For a moment, you simply stand there.
"What?" he asks, still facing away from you.
You don't answer immediately.
A generous stripe of sunscreen lands across the tops of his shoulders, but instead of rubbing it in straight away, your hand stills.
The freckles are back. Not just across his nose and cheeks like yesterday. They're scattered everywhere. Tiny warm-brown flecks dust the tops of his shoulders, trail lazily down the back of his arms and disappear beneath the line of his shoulder blades, so faint in places they only appear when the sunlight catches them just right. They look less like marks on skin and more like somebody has sprinkled handfuls of tiny stars across him.
"What?" he asks again, glancing back over one shoulder.
"You've got freckles here too."
He twists a little further. "...Where?"
You smile almost to yourself. "Everywhere."
Instead of immediately rubbing the sunscreen into his skin, you lift one finger and begin absent-mindedly tracing between them, joining one tiny freckle to the next in slow, wandering lines that don't really create any recognisable pattern.
It's entirely pointless. You love doing it anyway.
Steve waits for a few seconds before looking back again. "...Whatcha doing?"
"They're pretty."
He laughs softly. "They're freckles."
"I know."
"They're not exactly exciting."
You actually stop.
Slowly, he turns just enough to see the expression on your face. It is one of genuine offence.
"Steve."
"What?"
"You're beautiful."
The words leave your mouth with such effortless certainty that they don't even sound like a compliment. Just a fact.
Colour blooms almost instantly across his cheeks. "...Stop."
"I will not."
"You say stuff like that on purpose."
"What, because it's true?"
He ducks his head, laughing in that slightly bashful way he always does whenever you catch him off guard, and rubs a hand across the back of his neck. "You make me blush."
"Good."
You resume tracing the little constellations scattered across his shoulders, finally working the sunscreen gently into his skin as your fingertips drift from one freckle to the next. "I don't think you realise how pretty you are."
He gives a quiet, disbelieving huff. "I think you're in a very exclusive club."
"No."
"No?"
"I think I'm just paying more attention than everybody else."
Something in his expression softens.
For a moment, he doesn't answer.
You finish rubbing the sunscreen carefully across his shoulders before reaching for another little blob, smoothing it over the backs of his arms with the same quiet concentration.
Steve watches your hands from the corner of his eye. "...You really like them, don't you?"
You look up, almost surprised by the question. "Your freckles?"
"Mhm."
You smile immediately. "I love them."
Not they're nice. Not they're cute.
I love them.
The words hang comfortably between you. Steve looks away for a second, the faint pink across his cheeks deepening despite himself.
"Nobody's ever looked at them the way you do."
"Well." You press one impossibly soft kiss against the top of his shoulder before smoothing the last of the sunscreen into his skin. "That's their loss."
He lets out a quiet laugh, shaking his head to himself as though he still can't quite believe you're serious.
The ridiculous thing is... You are. Completely.
You screw the lid back onto the sunscreen, setting the bottle down on the garden table before reaching automatically for his hand.
Steve intertwines your fingers with yours without hesitation, still smiling to himself in that shy, almost disbelieving way that always appears whenever you manage to compliment him enough that he genuinely runs out of ways to argue.
He never quite knows what to say.
You're beginning to suspect he likes hearing it anyway.
Over the next few days, it quietly becomes part of your relationship.
Not a conversation. Not even something either of you consciously decides to do. Just... another small habit that somehow slips into the spaces between all the others.
You're watching television one evening when your fingers wander absent-mindedly to the bridge of his nose, tracing lightly over the freckles scattered there. At the same time, your attention remains fixed on whatever film Jonathan had insisted the two of you borrow. Steve doesn't comment. If anything, he shifts a fraction closer until his shoulder is pressed comfortably against yours, eyes never leaving the screen.
The following morning, you're waiting in line for coffee when he finds himself standing in front of you instead of beside you, and before you've even realised what you're doing, one fingertip is lazily following the tiny constellation across the back of his arm where the sleeves of his T-shirt stop.
Later that afternoon, the two of you are reading together on the sofa in complete silence, Steve stretched out with his head resting in your lap while you absent-mindedly card one hand through his hair. Every so often your fingers drift lower, tracing softly across the freckles scattered over his cheekbone before disappearing back into his curls again.
It becomes so instinctive that neither of you notices it happening anymore.
If you're sitting together, your hand somehow ends up on him. His shoulder. His forearm. The back of his neck. The bridge of his nose. Anywhere the summer sun has left its tiny marks behind.
And Steve starts unconsciously gravitating towards it.
He'll be halfway through telling you a story before his shoulder brushes against yours, offering itself up without either of you thinking about it. He'll wander into the kitchen while you're making tea and somehow end up leaning against the counter beside you instead of across the room, close enough that your fingertips automatically find the freckles scattered along the outside of his arm while you wait for the kettle to boil.
Sometimes he doesn't even realise he's done it until he's already there. It isn't something he asks for. His body simply seems to decide, long before his brain catches up, that wherever your hands are is probably where he'd quite like to be.
One rainy afternoon, the two of you are curled up on the sofa while Steve attempts to read aloud from the mystery novel he'd been insisting was "about to get really good" for the better part of three chapters.
He's halfway through a sentence when your finger begins slowly tracing little circles across the freckles on his shoulder.
His voice falters.
"...And then the detective..." He pauses.
Silence. You glance up from where you've been staring rather intently at his shoulder.
"What?"
He blinks. "I forgot where I was."
"You were reading."
"...Right."
He tries again. Makes it another sentence before your thumb drifts absent-mindedly across the top of his shoulder.
He stops for a second time.
You smile. "Am I distracting you?"
"A little."
"You want me to stop?"
Steve considers the question with all the seriousness of a man making a life-changing decision. "...No."
You laugh quietly and carry on exactly as you were.
It isn't until Dustin drops by later that week that either of you becomes aware of quite how obvious the whole thing has become.
He lets himself into the house without knocking, calling out that he'd brought takeaway, only to find the two of you exactly where he'd expected: tangled together on the sofa beneath an old blanket despite it being far too warm for one.
Steve is in the middle of explaining something about work.
You're only half listening. Your entire attention is fixed on the tiny freckles scattered across the top of his forearm, your fingertip wandering lazily between them in little invisible patterns that don't resemble anything at all.
Dustin watches in silence for a full thirty seconds.
Then he clears his throat. "...Steve."
"Hm?"
"You know she's been drawing on you with her finger for, like, five minutes?"
Steve looks down at his arm for what appears to be the first time. "...Has she?"
"You didn't notice?"
He thinks about it. "...No."
Dustin stares at him.
"So you just... sat there?"
Another thoughtful pause. "...Yeah."
He gestures helplessly towards the two of you. "You are literally being used as a colouring book."
Steve glances at you, where you've already resumed tracing little invisible lines across his skin, entirely unbothered by the interruption.
He looks back at Dustin. You pause your movements.
A beat passes. "...Don't stop."
You dissolve into laughter.
Dustin gags theatrically. "Oh, you two make me sick."
Steve smiles to himself, leaning just a fraction closer until your shoulder bumps his.
Neither of you says anything.
Your hand never leaves his arm.
A few evenings later, the two of you find yourselves back on the porch almost by accident.
Dinner has long since been cleared away, the washing up abandoned until tomorrow because neither of you can quite bring yourselves to go back inside while the evening is still so warm. The air has finally begun to cool after another hot day, carrying the scent of jasmine from somewhere further down the street, and the neighbourhood has settled into that quiet lull that always seems to arrive just before sunset. Somewhere nearby, a sprinkler ticks rhythmically across somebody's lawn, while the distant sound of children playing gradually gives way to birdsong as they’re called in for the night.
Steve is sitting beside you on the old wooden steps, one knee drawn up towards his chest, absent-mindedly turning a bottle of beer between his hands while the two of you talk about nothing in particular.
Or rather, he talks. You stopped listening a few minutes ago.
Not intentionally.
The sun is low enough now that everything has taken on that soft golden glow photographers are forever trying to recreate, and it catches Steve's face in a way that almost steals the breath from your lungs.
His freckles have always been there.
But in this light, they seem to glow.
The tiny scattering across the bridge of his nose. The handful dusted over the tops of his cheeks. Even the faint little cluster near his left temple that you'd only noticed a few days ago catches the light as he turns to say something, illuminating his skin as though summer itself has decided to leave little reminders of where it found him.
You don't realise you've been staring until he catches you.
He smiles without looking away. "...What?"
"Hm?"
"That's the same face you made the other day."
"What face?"
"The one where you're looking at me like you've discovered a new species."
You laugh quietly. "I don't think that's it."
"No?"
You shake your head. "No."
He waits.
Eventually, you say it so softly you're not entirely sure you meant to say it aloud. "You're so pretty."
Steve's smile widens immediately. "You've said that."
"I know."
"You tell me I'm pretty at least once a day."
"I know."
He chuckles, taking another sip of his beer. "I think you're biased."
"I'm definitely biased."
"There you go."
"But I'm also right."
That makes him glance across at you properly, and something about your expression gives him pause. The smile remains, but softens around the edges.
"What?"
You hesitate, searching for words that somehow never feel quite big enough. "I just..."
Slowly, you lift one hand to his face. Your thumb brushes gently across his cheek before your lips follow, pressing one impossibly soft kiss against a tiny freckle beside the bridge of his nose.
Steve goes completely still.
When you pull back, you're still smiling. "I don't think you know how beautiful you are."
For a second, he simply stares at you. Then he laughs, though it comes out quieter than either of you expected. "Baby-"
"I'm serious."
"You've definitely got heatstroke."
"I don't."
"I think the sun's finally cooked your brain."
You shake your head with quiet certainty. "I just really love your face."
He lets out another little laugh, but this one is almost embarrassed, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards as a slow flush begins creeping across his cheeks. "You say stuff like that like it's normal."
"It is normal."
"It isn't."
"It is when it's true."
Steve looks away towards the garden for a moment, rubbing absent-mindedly at the back of his neck in that familiar gesture he always falls back on whenever he doesn't quite know what to do with himself.
"You know..."
"What?"
"I think you've ruined me."
"How?"
"I caught myself looking in the mirror this morning."
You smile stupidly up at him. "And?"
"I was uhh..." he trails off, almost embarrassed, "...Checking if there were any new ones."
You beam up at him, sheer elation behind your eyes, because he's finally beginning to see himself the way you do.
"You know," you lean in closer to him, like you're about to share a very important bit of information, "They're not just freckles. Not to me."
He looks back at you. "What are they to you?"
You don't even have to think about it. "They're my favourite thing about summer."
The words seem to knock every reply straight out of him.
For a long moment, Steve simply looks at you, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and something softer, something that almost resembles being overwhelmed.
Then, with the smallest, shyest smile you've ever seen on his face, he leans forward until his forehead rests gently against yours.
"You really mean all this, don't you?"
You smile. "Every word."
His eyes close for a moment.
When he speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper. "...Nobody's ever looked at me the way you do."
Your chest aches.
You reach up once more, kissing the bridge of his nose, then one cheek, then the other, as though every tiny freckle deserves to be greeted individually.
Steve laughs breathlessly somewhere between the second and third kiss, blushing so fiercely that you suspect you've probably added another splash of colour to the very face you've spent the last week admiring.
"You are," you murmur, smiling against his skin, "the prettiest person I've ever met."
He makes the sort of quiet, flustered noise that suggests you've finally complimented him past the point of speech.
For once, Steve Harrington has absolutely nothing to say.
You rather like him like that.
The years pass quietly.
Not in the dramatic, life-changing way people always seem to write about, but in the gentle accumulation of ordinary days that somehow become a life before either of you notices. Summers arrive. Summers leave. Winters give way to spring, spring to autumn, and then, almost without fail, another July morning appears on the calendar.
And every single year, the same thing happens.
The first properly hot day arrives after weeks of rain, Steve spends the morning complaining about the humidity before insisting it "isn't that bad," and somewhere around lunchtime, while the two of you are sitting in the garden or walking through the park or waiting in line for iced coffees, you stop mid-sentence.
"There they are."
Steve barely even has to ask anymore. "What?"
"Your freckles."
He still looks faintly puzzled every time, lifting a hand to his face as though he might somehow feel them beneath his fingertips. "...Again?"
You smile. "They always come back."
He glances at you, the corners of his mouth lifting into the same smile you fell in love with years ago. "So do you."
The first few times he said it, it caught you completely off guard. Now, it's simply part of the ritual. He reaches automatically for your hand. You squeeze his fingers.
"You know..." he trails off.
"What?"
"You were right."
"About?"
"There are more this year."
You look at him, stunned. "You noticed?"
"...I noticed them before you did."
"You did?" you ask excitedly.
Steve smiles. "Guess your research's rubbing off."
You step a little closer before lifting one hand to his face, your thumb brushing lightly across the bridge of his nose. "I'm glad they come back each year."
He looks at you with quiet curiosity. "Why?"
Instead of answering immediately, you lean in and press a feather-light kiss against the cluster of freckles you've loved for years.
"'Cause now," you murmur, smiling against his skin, "every time they come back..." Another kiss settles against one cheek. "...I get to fall in love with them all over again."
Steve doesn't say anything. He never really does when you catch him like this.
Instead, he closes the last few inches between you until your foreheads rest together, his eyes slipping shut as the familiar blush begins spreading slowly across his cheeks. Even now, after all these years, after hearing you call him beautiful more times than he could possibly count, he still wears that same soft, slightly overwhelmed expression every time you mean it.
Eventually, he lets out a quiet laugh. "...You're weird."
"I know."
"You've always been weird."
"I know."
A comfortable silence settles between you, broken only by birdsong somewhere overhead and the distant sound of somebody mowing their lawn a few streets away.
Then Steve tilts his head just enough to nudge his nose gently against yours. "...Keep tracing them."
You smile. "I wasn't planning on stopping."
He hums contentedly, already leaning into the touch before your fingertips have even found his cheek again.
Some people measured the passing of time in birthdays, anniversaries or photographs tucked away in old albums.
You measured it in freckles.
In the tiny golden constellations that returned to Steve's skin every summer, and in the quiet certainty that, somehow, each time they did, you found one more reason to fall hopelessly, helplessly in love with him all over again.
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