summary: you're stuck in an elevator. clark is there too.
warnings: stuck in an elevator, mentions of panic attacks, anxiety, claustrophobia, (nothing explicit, reader is just scared) clark being gentle and safe. fluff. hurt/comfort?? except not really any hurt just comfort, no use of y/n
word count: 1047
note: this is my first fic! i've seen superman four times and finally have been bitten by the fanfic writing bug. no idea why this was the first thing that came into my head. pls be kind. if it's terrible don't tell me! <3 hope u enjoy soft clark.
he's staring at you.
has been, for awhile. even with your head on your knees, folded into your chest, you can feel the weight of his gaze on you.
"it shouldn't take much longer for them to-"
"don't." your voice cracks, head lifting as you look at him, eyes watery. you can't catch your breath. you've lost track of time, having no idea how long you've been stuck in here. (you stopped checking your phone an hour ago).
the walls of the elevator have finally stopped closing in on you. once you were able to fold in on yourself as much as you could, head buried in your knees, fingers tapping on your sternum in a rhythmic pattern to distract yourself, you were able to keep the panic at bay.
but it sits there. heavy on your chest. waiting.
(not so different from the way clark's stare feels, either.)
you finally get a good look at him. sitting on the floor in the corner diagonal from you, long legs crossed in front of him. the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, exposing his forearms, crossed on his chest. he took his glasses off awhile ago, folding them in his front pocket.
his head is leaning against the wall, hair messy from running his hands through it, face peaceful and calm, except for the way he's looking at you: calculating, knowing. worried.
he sees right through you. whatever panic you've tried to push down in favor of seeming put together, he's sniffed it out. you're not sure if it's the super senses that help him do that, if he can hear your heart pounding or smell the stress that's wafting off of you, but he knows.
something about it bothers you. the relaxed silhouette of him, not an ounce of stress in his body, while yours feels like it's tilted off its axis. it finally makes you ask, agitated,
"why are you just sitting there? isn't this something superman could fix?"
"you know the answer to that already."
you scoff, cheeks heating with embarrassment. yes, logically, you know clark can't rescue you from the elevator in the daily planet when you're the only two people in it. his identity would be revealed immediately.
it doesn't help, though. knowing that he has the power to get you out of this suffocating box and he's not doing it.
you rest your chin back on your knees, staring straight ahead and trying to distract yourself from the panic that's starting to surface again. you're aware of him in your periphery, but seeing him look at you with concern and worry makes your chest ache.
a foot nudges against yours.
"hey," his voice is gentle, low and soothing, like he knows you're likely to spook at any sudden movements. "come over here."
something about the soft way he's approaching you has your eyes burning, so you sniff and shake your head, turning it away from him. trying to make yourself as small as possible. every muscle in your body buzzing with tension as you try and hold the pieces of yourself together.
it's quiet for a few minutes, and you're almost able to convince yourself that you aren't stuck in this nightmare when he asks, "did you know that the longest time someone has been stuck in an elevator was for six days?"
you laugh, but it comes out wet and choked. "is that your way of reassuring me, or reminding me of my fate?" you turn your head back to him, cheek rested on your knees.
"maybe both."
"how long have we been in here?"
he checks his watch, calculating for a moment before answering, "three hours."
you nod, chewing on your lip to stop your chin from wobbling. it feels longer. he could've said it's been two days and you would've believed him.
like he knows your thoughts, he murmurs, "there's an outage on the entire block. they're working on trying to get it fixed, but it's taking longer than it should."
what he doesn't say hangs in the air. if i hadn't been in here when it happened, it wouldn't have taken this long to get it fixed.
"honey," he starts, his head resting on his shoulder as he looks at you, frown on his lips and brows furrowed in concern. (like your panic is hurting him. like he wishes he could fix it.) "come here."
you finally relent, scooting over to sit next to him. his arm sits around your shoulder as you move your head to rest on his. your knees are still pulled into your chest, hands fidgeting against your stomach as you try to distract yourself, but you're fully leaning into him, almost as a shield.
"i got you," he murmurs, pressing a kiss into your hair.
it's quiet for awhile, your head is close enough to his chest that you can hear his heart beat: steady, calm. his breathing is even, and if you hadn't felt his hand running up and down your arm, you would've thought he was asleep.
there's a comfort here that you haven't allowed yourself to have until now. you rarely let yourself think too much about it, but his presence calms you. he's warm, and he smells like pine and clean laundry, and he feels solid enough to protect you from anything.
you've finally calmed down, the tremors in your body easing to a shake in your hands. something about being near him quiets your head. (safety, it whispers. he will keep you safe.)
suddenly, after more time has passed and you're feeling more exhausted than anything, the lights turn on. the elevator gives a jerk as it comes back to life, humming with electricity as it descends back to the lobby.
clark doesn't say anything as he guides you to stand on your feet, like he knows you don't want to talk about it.
(you want to forget it ever happened.)
(he's bringing dinner to your apartment tonight to check on you.)
as the doors open and you steel yourself to face whatever chaos lays before you in the lobby, he presses one more gentle kiss to your forehead, and holds your hand firmly, not letting go.
𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: steve harrington x reader
𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: your boyfriend loves you with his whole heart. and sometimes, you’re not sure what to do with something that big.
𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 18+, established relationship, touch/love-starved reader, emotional hurt/comfort, angst, brief smut, implied past trauma/abuse but nothing explicitly mentioned, heart-aching fluff, character analysis
𝐚/𝐧: flipping my favorite trope onto reader. this one's for all my peeps who have a tough time with physical touch and emotional intimacy
♡ · · · ♡ · · · ♡
Your boyfriend loves easily.
Affection stitched directly into the lining of him, inseparable from the rest of his body.
Touch, to Steve, is instinct before intention.
Automatic and unthinking, his hands find you the way roots find water.
Waiting in line at the fall fair, he hooks two fingers through your belt loop and sways you gently side to side while the Ferris wheel spins overhead in smeared red and gold light.
The air smells like fried dough and cinnamon sugar, cold autumn wind carrying bursts of laughter through the crowds. Steve stands behind you with his chin resting on your shoulder, warm chest pressed loosely to your back while he argues passionately about kettle corn versus popcorn.
Once in a while, he'll slide his thumb beneath the cuff of your sleeve mid-sentence, stroking the pulse point at your wrist, completely unaware that your heart is beating itself raw under his fingertips.
It’s impossible to explain it.
How overwhelming it feels to be loved by someone so thoroughly.
Because Steve never hesitates.
Never acts like affection is something shameful.
Love pours out of him, as naturally as body heat.
If your hands are cold, he interrupts himself halfway through a story just to catch your fingers and tuck them into his jacket pockets alongside his own, rubbing warmth back into your knuckles while continuing his sentence without missing a beat.
If you yawn during movie night, his arm is around your shoulders before the sound can finish leaving your mouth. “C’mere, sleepy girl,” he murmurs automatically, pulling you sideways against his chest.
If your shoelaces come untied in the middle of the sidewalk, he drops immediately to one knee with a distracted, “hang on, baby.”
Rainwater hisses along the curb while he reties the bow tighter this time, fingers quick and practiced, one hand steadying lightly against your ankle. His knuckles brush your skin through your sock and you have to stand there, holding your breath until your lungs ache with it, staring down at the concentration pulling his brows together.
Wondering what it must be like to love someone with your whole heart and not feel like it’s going to break you open.
He’s warm everywhere, your Steve. Warm hands, warm mouth. Warm stomach pressed against your back beneath blankets. He smells like laundry detergent and faint cedar cologne rubbed into the collar of his jackets. Sometimes vanilla chapstick, sometimes mint gum. Always Steve.
And the kisses are constant too.
Quick, thoughtless ones, born entirely from fondness.
The corner of your mouth while waiting for the microwave to beep. Your forehead when he passes behind you in the kitchen. Your shoulder while you lean over the sink brushing your teeth side by side. The back of your neck when he reaches around you for orange juice in the fridge, mumbling a sleepy, “morning, honey,” against your skin before kissing beneath your hairline.
Sometimes he just looks at you for a second. Expression softening imperceptibly, like some private thought crossed his mind, and then he leans over and kisses your cheek with this quiet little hum in his throat.
Like loving you tastes good.
And god, the neck kissing.
It’s terrible.
And right now, in the middle of a museum gallery so quiet you can hear shoes squeak against polished floors, he’s doing it again.
You’re trying to read the plaque beneath some enormous renaissance painting—something about divinity and grief, oil on canvas—but Steve is behind you, arms folded around your waist while he scans the museum brochure one-handed.
One of his hands has slipped beneath your cardigan, warm palm spread low across your stomach.
“Okay, so,” he murmurs near your ear, voice low enough that the sound vibrates through you, “there’s the Greek sculpture thing upstairs, or... there’s apparently a room with these like, tiny dollhouses?”
You wrinkle your nose. “That sounds horrifying.”
“Right?” His lips brush the shell of your ear as he speaks. “Like what if one of them’s haunted?”
Then his mouth finds the hinge of your jaw.
One lazy, distracted kiss.
His lips are soft, slightly chapped from the cold outside. Warm breath spills across your skin afterward, making your pulse jump beneath his mouth. He lingers there, nose nudging lightly against your neck while he keeps mumbling off different sections of the museum.
You feel the shape of his smile against your skin when he finds another ridiculous exhibit.
“Apparently there’s a room that’s just chairs.”
“That can’t be true.”
“No, I swear to god.”
Then his mouth drifts lower.
Open-mouthed kisses this time.
Slow enough that warmth blooms beneath every press of his lips. You feel the faint scrape of his teeth catch your skin playfully before he smooths over it with another softer kiss, his thumb stroking across your stomach.
Your entire body tightens around the feeling.
The worst part is knowing that he isn’t trying to fluster you.
Steve isn’t performing intimacy.
He just never second-guesses affection.
Unlike you.
For you, every touch feels catastrophic.
The second Steve touches you, awareness crashes through your body all at once—your pulse, your breathing, the weight of his hand, whether your hair smells okay, whether your stomach feels too soft beneath his palm, whether someone across the gallery can see this.
Whether you deserve to be loved this openly at all.
“....and Robin said there’s some painting of a guy eating his own son which honestly seems kinda—”
He stops, hand stilling against your stomach.
“Babe?”
You blink hard, staring at the plaque without reading a single word.
Steve leans back, concern creasing immediately between his brows.
“Hey,” his hand slides higher, rubbing gently over your ribs. “You okay?”
“Hm? Mhm.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Another lie.
Your skin still burns where he kissed you.
And underneath all the panic is something worse.
Fear and hunger, knotted so tightly you can’t separate them anymore.
Wanting him closer, wanting him to keep touching you forever. Wanting to crawl inside every warm, gentle thing he gives you and stay there.
Not knowing what you’d do if he ever stopped.
Because as terrifying as it is to be loved this softly, you think losing it might actually destroy you.
“You wanna sit down for a sec?” Steve asks quietly. “I think I still have that granola bar in my bag if you’re hungry.”
You almost laugh, because of course that’s where his mind goes.
Care.
Always care.
“No, I’m okay,” you say quickly, forcing a smile. “We can keep going. The uh, Greek sculpture thing sounds good.”
He watches you for a beat longer than comfortable, thumb rubbing against your hipbone through your jeans.
“Okay,” he says finally.
His hand slides up your arm, gently fixing the cardigan slipping off your shoulder. His fingers brush your neck in the process, absentmindedly smoothing your hair back into place too.
And then, because he’s Steve—because affection lives inside him so naturally he doesn’t know how to love except with his whole body—
He reaches down and interlaces your fingers with his.
Warmth immediately fills the spaces between your knuckles, his callused fingers curling around yours with steady, secure pressure.
He keeps holding your hand the entire walk toward the staircase, thumb stroking across your skin while he talks about haunted dollhouses and ugly marble babies and whether you think ancient Greek people had chest hair.
And isn’t it terrifying, how quickly your body has learned what safety feels like in someone else’s hands?
...
It isn’t just the touching.
You almost wish it was.
Because that would be easier to understand.
A touch can be explained away:
Steve’s just naturally affectionate. Steve likes physical contact.
But it’s not just that.
It’s the way he loves you without condition. Without making you earn it first.
A few weeks into dating, he showed up at your apartment carrying a bouquet so enormous it nearly blocked his entire face.
When you opened the door, all you could see were flowers.
Soft cream roses crowded against pale pink delphiniums, petals curling delicately at the edges like silk ribbon. Deep burgundy dahlias bloomed low in the arrangement, velvety and dark as spilled wine, white baby’s breath drifting between everything like tiny bursts of snowfall.
And hidden right in the middle were your favorites.
Blue hydrangeas.
Dusty-blue petals clustered together like storm clouds at dusk, edges fading lavender where the light caught them.
You had pointed them out exactly once while passing a florist downtown.
Three seconds, maybe.
You remembered slowing briefly in front of the shop window because they looked beautiful beneath the warm yellow display lights. Rain had just started misting softly against the sidewalk and Steve had been halfway through ranting about some middle schooler trying to rent an R-rated horror movie with a fake ID. You’d smiled at his story before murmuring, almost absentmindedly, “Those are so pretty.”
That was it.
You hadn’t even thought he heard you.
But Steve Harrington has a habit of holding onto the tiniest details about you like they're something precious.
“Baby, I swear to god,” Steve was saying now as he stepped inside your apartment, nudging the door shut with his foot, “I had the craziest day today. This guy at work tried to return a tape completely melted.”
The bouquet landed in your arms before he shrugged off his jacket.
“Melted,” he repeated, horrified, running a hand through his hair. “Like, fully warped. Looked like somebody cooked that thing in a microwave.”
You stared down at the flowers.
The bouquet was heavy enough that you had to support it with both arms. Thick stems pressed cool and damp against your palms beneath layers of cream florist paper, the wrapping folded slightly unevenly around the flowers and tied together with rough twine that looked suspiciously hand-done.
Not florist-perfect, but Steve-perfect.
The flowers smelled dizzyingly alive: sweet rose perfume softened by rainwater and the cool, earthy scent of freshly cut stems.
“…um, Steve?”
“—and Keith asked me if I did that,” he huffed, toeing off his shoes. “I mean, can you believe that shit? What does he think I do at work all day, destroy tapes for fun?”
“Steve.”
“Yeah?”
You blinked at him slowly.
“What’s…” Your throat tightened strangely around the words. “What’s this for?”
He looked down at the bouquet like he’d genuinely forgotten he walked in carrying it.
“Uh…” His brows lifted slightly. “Flowers?”
He laughed softly after saying it, confused.
But you didn’t laugh.
Because your brain was already doing what it always did: rummaging frantically for conditions. For expectations and hidden meanings tucked beneath kindness.
Your heartbeat started creeping unpleasantly high in your throat.
Was it an anniversary?
Oh god.
Had you forgotten something?
Your stomach dropped, dates scrambling uselessly through your head too fast to follow. One month? Six weeks? Was there something couples were supposed to celebrate this early? Had Steve done something thoughtful and now you were standing there empty-handed like the worst girlfriend alive?
The cellophane crackled beneath your tightening grip.
“Did I…” You cleared your throat quietly. “Did I forget something?”
Steve’s forehead wrinkled.
“Huh?”
“The flowers.”
“What about ‘em?”
Your voice came out impossibly small. “Why’d you get these?”
“Uh, ‘cause I…” He huffed a tiny laugh through his nose, head tilting. “’Cause I wanted to?”
His confusion only made your chest tighten more.
“Is it our anniversary or something?”
His frown deepened. “What? No.”
“Then… why?”
Steve stared at you for a second, slightly open-mouthed now, the soft amusement on his face fading into gentle concern.
“Baby, they’re just flowers.”
You stared back helplessly.
“But why?” you asked again, quieter this time.
“Well, I…” He shrugged one shoulder slightly. “I saw them. And I thought about you.”
The apartment suddenly felt very quiet.
You looked back down at the bouquet in your arms.
The hydrangeas were even prettier up close, petals shifting between pale blue and soft lavender depending on how the light hit them. Tiny sprays of baby’s breath caught between larger blooms like stars scattered through clouds.
A single sunflower tucked near the back, drooping sideways because Steve probably had the bouquet strapped into the passenger's seat on the drive over.
Your throat burned.
“That’s it?” you asked quietly.
Steve let out a soft breath through his nose.
His socked feet whispered against the floor as he stepped closer, one hand rising to cup your cheek.
Big enough to hold the entire side of your face, his palm enveloped you in warmth. Your lashes fluttered at the feeling of his thumb sweeping beneath your eye, brushing over the apple of your cheek, soothing something there without even knowing what hurt.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “That’s it. I saw ’em and thought you’d like them.” His mouth tugged into a small smile. “You stared at those flowers for like, ten minutes.”
You huffed weakly. “It was not ten minutes.”
Steve’s smile widened, encouraged by the sound of your laugh.
“There was this whole wrapping station thing too,” he added, gesturing proudly toward the bouquet still overflowing from your arms. The cream paper rustled softly as he touched it, uneven folds bunching around the stems where the twine had already started slipping loose on one side. “The lady kept trying to help me but I told her I could handle it.”
He tipped his head, inspecting his own work. “Pretty good, right?”
You looked down again.
The wrapping really was crooked. One corner folded inward strangely while another flared too wide, baby’s breath poking free through gaps in the paper.
It couldn’t have been more beautiful.
Steve’s grin turned sheepish, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Honestly, I think she stopped helping 'cause I was stressing her out.”
A quiet bubble of laughter escaped you, and the second it did, you noticed the way his face changed. Grin softening, eyes gone warm at the realization that he’d made you smile.
That was the other unbearable thing about him.
How carefully he watches for your joy, waiting for the next chance to do it again.
He really had done all this just because he wanted to.
No special occasions—he just saw something beautiful and immediately thought of you.
You blinked quickly, staring down at the velvety rose petals before he could notice the dangerous sting gathering behind your eyes.
Nobody had ever remembered little things about you before.
Not enough to act on them later.
Certainly not enough to drive across town carrying an absurdly oversized bouquet because of one passing comment you barely remembered making yourself.
But Steve noticed everything.
The tea you always reach for when you’re sick. The songs you hum in the car without realizing. Which side of the bed you like to sleep on. Which sweatshirt you wear when you’re sad. The way you peel pepperoni slices off pizza before eating.
The flowers you paused to admire for three seconds on a rainy sidewalk weeks ago.
Your fingers tightened carefully around the bouquet.
“Thank you,” you managed quietly.
Steve smiled, stepping closer until the bouquet crushed lightly between your bodies, cellophane crinkling in the quiet of the apartment.
“Yeah. Anytime, baby,” he hummed, bending down to press his smile into the curve of your mouth, as natural as breathing.
...
You don’t know why you get like this.
Why your body reacts like it’s bracing for impact when all he’s doing is being gentle. Why his affection makes your chest ache the way it does.
Why your first instinct is always to freeze.
Body going stiff whenever Steve wraps himself around your back in grocery store checkout lines, chin hooked over your shoulder while he complains about magazine prices and rubs his thumb beneath the hem of your shirt.
Sometimes he brushes your hair behind your ear mid-conversation and keeps talking without even realizing he did it. Sometimes he reaches for your hand in his sleep, eyes still closed, finding you beneath the blankets when his body notices your absence before he does.
And you wonder why, in all those sweet, wonderful moments—when he kisses your forehead while waiting for the microwave to beep, when he pulls you against his chest during movies, when he drops to his knees on dirty pavement because he doesn't want you to trip over your laces, when he holds your face in both hands like it’s something precious—you feel this horrible urge to apologize afterward.
Sorry I’m difficult.
Sorry you picked me.
Sorry you don’t realize yet there are easier people to love.
Love had always arrived transactional before him.
Conditional.
Dependent on being easy enough, pretty enough, quiet enough, useful enough.
But Steve loves you without condition.
And being seen that intimately by someone so good—someone as warm and earnest and sincere as Steve Harrington—feels unbearable sometimes.
Maybe that’s why nights like this overwhelm you so badly.
A fancy dinner downtown stretches long past sunset, candlelight flickering gold across Steve’s face while he steals bites from your plate despite insisting twenty minutes ago he was “seriously so stuffed.”
Wine leaves his cheeks faintly pink by the time you leave the restaurant. His tie hangs loose, crooked around his throat, top buttons undone and sleeves rolled to his elbows. Summer heat still clings to the sidewalks even this late at night, thick with blooming jasmine spilling from flower boxes outside storefronts. Somewhere farther downtown, music drifts through open bar doors, muffled bass and laughter carried through the warm air.
Steve's hand never leaves your lower back, fingers flexing gently against you whenever the crowd thickens, pulling you instinctively closer to his chest.
By the time you drift into the park, your heels are dangling from one hand and your body feels pleasantly heavy from the wine.
The grass is cool beneath your bare feet. Damp earth presses between your toes as you wander deeper along the meadow paths, fireflies blinking through the dark around you like floating embers.
Steve is halfway through retelling some ridiculous story his students had told him earlier that day, pausing every other sentence because he keeps getting distracted trying to kiss you.
Grass stains smear across the knees of his expensive slacks when he finally pulls you down beside him into the field.
“Steve,” you protest weakly, glancing at his pants.
“What?” he asks innocently, tightening his hands around your waist.
“Those are gonna stain.”
“Mm.” He kisses the corner of your mouth, grin lazy. “Worth it.”
You lose track of time there.
Talking between kisses, lying shoulder-to-shoulder in the grass while Steve points out constellations he names wrong on purpose just to make you argue with him. His fingers comb slowly through your hair while your head rests against his shoulder, skin sticking together in the humid night air.
And by the time he gets you home, you’re half-floating.
Steve crowds you against the apartment door before the lock has even clicked shut.
Both hands on your waist, lips sealing over yours. The force of it nudges you softly into the door, his body fitting against yours as he grunts low into your mouth like he’s been holding himself back all night.
Sweet burgundy wine still lingers on his tongue when his lips part against yours.
He’s warm everywhere.
Warm hands sliding beneath your dress, warm mouth against your throat. Warm breath ghosting over newly exposed skin every time he pauses to look at you.
And he does pause, constantly.
Heavy-lidded hazel eyes drag across your face, your throat, the curve of your body beneath his hands, lips gone slack from that third glass of Merlot though his smile tells you he’s drunk on more than just the wine.
His palms skim along the back of your thighs while he kisses down your neck, the soft scrape of his stubble pulling a shaky breath in the shape of his name.
He smiles against your skin, feeling your fingers clutch tighter at his shoulders.
“C’mere,” he murmurs softly.
The bedroom lights stay low when he walks you backward toward the bed.
Blue comforter wrinkling beneath you when he eases you onto your back, following you down, kissing over every inch of exposed skin while your heartbeat stutters harder with each press of his mouth.
Broad palms smooth upward beneath your dress while his lips trail lower, the slow descent of it dizzying; his mouth dragging across your collarbone, the center of your chest, down your stomach, your ribs, each kiss separated by warm breaths and playful nips that make your muscles jump.
And when he kneels at the foot of the bed—nudging your legs apart carefully, lovingly, thumbs stroking slow circles into the soft skin inside your thighs as he settles himself in between—he lets out this quiet little sigh.
Like nowhere else on earth could possibly compare to this.
“Pretty girl,” he murmurs against you, pressing the words directly into your skin. “You’re so beautiful.”
His fingers hook beneath the waistband of your underwear while he glances up at you through heavy lashes, tongue darting briefly to wet his lower lip.
You reach for his hair quickly, panic flaring.
“Steve,” you whisper. “Wait.”
His hands still immediately where they rest on your hips. “What’s wrong?”
You swallow hard. “Nothing, I just...”
Your head spins pleasantly and horribly all at once from the wine and the heat and the sweet boy kneeling between your thighs looking at you like you hung the moon.
“I should shower first.”
His brows pull together. “Why?”
“Because,” you laugh weakly. “I’m sweaty.”
Steve smiles at that, like it’s the sweetest thing he’s heard all day.
He leans in even closer, nose brushing over your clothed mound before he presses a slow kiss there.
“Baby,” he murmurs against you, “I don’t care.”
“Steve...”
“I mean it.”
His hands glide upward along your waist, warm and heavy as velvet, fingertips grazing your ribs on the way up.
“I like you like this,” he says softly.
Then he takes in a breath.
A deep, deliberate pull through his nose, the warm drag of air against the damp fabric making your thighs twitch around him.
“You smell good,” he murmurs, kissing you there again. “Like summer.”
Your face burns, but Steve only smiles wider, already halfway gone.
“Just stay,” he whispers. “Let me take care of you. We can take a bath after, promise.”
He turns his head to the side, nose nudging affectionately along your inner thigh before he closes his lips around the sensitive skin there. The suction is soft at first, teasing warmth into you before the pressure deepens just enough to sting pleasantly.
A new love bite starts to bloom, petal-soft and tender, like a flower kissed awake by rain. His mouth traces over it, soothing the flush of it back into softer color with gentle, unhurried pecks.
“So pretty,” he murmurs, pressing another kiss over the bruise-tinted skin. “My perfect girl.”
To be loved this intensely feels like it could swallow you whole.
Like the warmth of it could burn straight through you.
You don’t even realize you’ve started crying until your breath catches sharply in your chest, a raw, jagged gasp tearing from your lungs.
Steve’s head snaps up instantly.
You jerk your face away in horror, both hands flying to cover your eyes before he can see.
God.
Oh god.
Not now.
Why now?
“Baby, are you—”
His voice cuts off the second your breath stutters again, louder this time.
The mattress jolts beneath you as he pushes upright, fast enough that the bed frame gives a small protesting creak.
“Hey, hey—what’s wrong?”
You can feel him at your side immediately, his quick, uneven breaths brushing against your hands where they're pressed tight to your face.
“Baby, what happened?”
His fingers curl around your wrists, firm but impossibly gentle.
Always gentle.
“Did I hurt you? Did I do something?”
“N-no,” you choke out immediately.
“Then what?” His voice starts to break slightly, turning sharp with worry. “What is it? Honey, what’s wrong?”
You shake your head helplessly, unable to form the words, unable to explain.
The lamp clicks on beside you. Warm amber light spills across everything at once: rumpled sheets and discarded clothes, Steve kneeling beside you, shirt open at the collar, belt buckle undone and tie hanging loose around his neck.
The flowers from dinner are on the dresser.
Slightly uneven in their vase, waterline crooked, the hydrangeas beginning to open wider in the warmth of your apartment.
Embarrassment crashes over you like a wave.
Perfect.
A night he’d planned so carefully—reservations at the candlelit Italian place downtown, your favorite wine already waiting at your table, flowers arranged before you’d even walked through the door—
And now you’re crying halfway through sex because your brain can’t handle something as simple as being loved.
You turn your face away again instinctively, shoulders curling inward, but the tears don’t stop. They come harder, messy and humiliating, gasps of air ripping through your chest no matter how hard you try to swallow them down.
You feel Steve’s hand slide up your spine.
Slow, slow passes between your shoulder blades, fingertips pressing gently.
“Hey,” he whispers. “Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to hide, okay? You don’t have to hide from me.”
“I’m sorry,” you choke out, wiping at your face uselessly. “I-I don’t know w-why I’m—I’m sorry, fuck, I’m sorry—”
“No, hey, don’t apologize, baby. Don’t say sorry.”
You resist him weakly when he tries to gather you in his arms.
You can’t look at him.
Can’t stand the thought of seeing the concern on his face after ruining this.
“I just—” You let out a shaky breath, voice cracking completely. “Fuck, I-I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Steve stills at that.
Then slowly, carefully, he takes your wrists fully in both hands.
You let him this time. Arms trembling the entire way down as he lowers your hands into his lap. You still refuse to meet his eyes, staring instead at the heavy rise and fall of his chest. His crisp white shirt is wrinkled, open at the collar, a faint pink bite mark just above his collarbone where you kissed him during the taxi ride home.
His gaze presses into you, heavy and intent, trying to read what you can’t say.
“I need you to look at me,” he says quietly.
“I can’t.”
“Yeah,” he answers immediately. “You can.”
Another tear slips down your cheek. He catches it without hesitation, wiping it away with the pad of his thumb.
“Please,” he whispers, softer now. “Look at me.”
You finally do.
Steve’s hair is a mess, chestnut strands falling across his forehead where your fingers had been tangled moments ago.
His eyes—warm honey and green and amber all blurred together beneath the low light—are pained, tight with worry and unbearably expressive.
“There's nothing wrong with you,” he says, unshakably certain. “Nothing.”
His lips are swollen from kissing you, parted slightly with how hard he’s breathing.
It’s so painfully clear, how panicked he is.
Steve’s face never hides anything
It doesn’t know how to.
When he’s happy, it shows in the soft wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.
When he’s worried, it gathers in his brows, in the tight set of his mouth.
And when he loves, it radiates from him so naturally it feels endless. Like sunlight.
You wonder what that must feel like.
To love someone without fear.
To offer tenderness without expectation, without the quiet dread that grows the more there is to lose.
He reaches up slowly, clearing tear-sticky strands away from your temples, thumb brushing beneath your eye. Still trying to read what hurts, the furrow in his brows asking without words.
You want to tell him.
For him, you’d try.
But the truth feels monstrous once it reaches your throat.
How do you explain that being loved by him feels unbearable sometimes?
That every touch lands somewhere deep inside you that still expects pain?
That he gives and gives and gives, asking for nothing in return, and yet some terrified part of you waits for the bill to come due?
How do you explain that it makes you feel broken, not knowing how to take something he gives so easily?
You part your lips, throat dry and aching.
Steve waits, thumb rubbing soothing circles into your wrists.
Patient.
Always so fucking patient with you.
“I just...” Your voice shakes. You stare at his mouth instead of his eyes, because it’s easier than being seen.
“...I just really love you.”
It rushes out so quickly.
And in a horrifyingly beautiful moment of clarity, you realize it’s the first time you’ve ever said it to anyone.
Ever.
Steve goes still. His brows soften, eyes drooping at the corners. His lips part soundlessly for a second.
“Oh,” he breathes.
You feel his hands twitch against yours, squeezing your fingers unconsciously.
“I love you too,” he says, immediate and certain. “I... I love you so much it’s kind of insane.”
He watches you for a moment, thumb rubbing slow over your knuckles.
“Is that... is that why you're crying? 'Cause you love me a lot?”
A small, startled laugh breaks through your tears; it sounds so simple when he says it like that.
It isn’t simple.
But maybe it also is.
So you nod, watching him visibly come back to himself, drawing out a shaky breath, shoulders dropping heavily like he’d been bracing too, just in a different way.
“Okay,” he murmurs. “Okay. C’mere.”
This time you don’t hesitate.
You fold into him, feeling his arm wrap securely around your back, the other cradling the back of your head.
And what you always used to brace against—tonight, you sink into willingly.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs into your hair.
You let your eyes slip shut, burying your face in the crook of his neck, fingers crinkling his shirt as you hold on tight.
“I love you,” you whisper again, the words pressed softly against his skin.
Thank you, you mean.
Thank you for being gentle with me.
Thank you for waiting.
Thank you for loving me like it’s easy.
∘₊✧ Summary: You help Lars regulate after getting caught in the sensory hellscape of a rain storm. What he thinks will push you away actually helps him explore the physical side of your relationship for the first time.
∘₊✧ Author’s notes: Written for part of @heresthestorymorningglory’s caught in the rain series idea, so it wouldn’t exist without her. Or her unwavering support and friendship in the face of my ongoing Lars insanity. Love you K. I may be projecting a little bit about the rain related sensory issues but you write what you know, y’know? Title once again inspired by Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby by Cigarettes After Sex.
∘₊✧ Warnings/content: nsfw, nudity, kissing, suggestive thoughts, arousal, showing together, sensory overload and trouble regulating, fluff, kind of hurt/comfort
∘₊✧─────────────────────✧₊∘
A single, startling crack of thunder crashes overhead and Lars’s hand darts out to grab onto yours, tight.
He doesn’t notice the burning sensation (or lack of it), on his skin, and equally doesn’t pay any mind to the way your hands slide into place as though they were made to fit together. As far as Lars is concerned, there is no time to consider anything other than getting you both to safety.
Lars had been wondering if the thick clouds in the distance would amount to anything and head your way, but kept kidding himself that the air wasn’t changing because he didn’t want your time together to come to an end; he daydreams about a future with you more often than he would ever admit, and about not having to drop you off home, and how it might feel to share a kiss, or have you sitting in his lap or playing with his hair…
He’s getting ahead of himself though, and he knows it, so for now, he just wants as much time with you as a date night will allow without coming off needy. Mostly he just wants tonight, as with any night he spends with you, to last.
One moment, you’d been standing by the edge of the lake, silently admiring the calm of the gentle ripples dancing over the surface. Nervously, you’d edged closer to one another every few minutes while talking and laughing and enjoying each other’s company just as you always had; both of you knowing the closeness would only go so far, but eager to explore it nevertheless.
The next moment, a downpour of thick raindrops was smacking onto the leaves, disturbing the gentle laps of the lake into chaos, streaming down your faces and soaking through the fabric of your clothes.
You’d never seen Lars quite so skittish. Not even the first time you’d plucked up the courage to speak to him, when his face had turned from pasty pale to beet red in under a second.
You shudder at the uncomfortably damp sensation of cool liquid trickling over your scalp and running through your hair. It’s unpleasant. Not a light shower you could dance outside in on the spur of the moment – it feels more like an attack. And where this could have been fun, getting caught in the excitement of an unexpected storm, you begin to realise why Lars is not enjoying it in the least.
The freezing rain has soaked right through his coat, penetrating the fabric and sticking his four other layers together tight against his skin. He can feel each individual raindrop stinging against his skin, dripping from his hair, blurring his vision. It’s dirty, it’s clingy, it’s itchy. It’s a sensory nightmare, deadening his senses while simultaneously lighting them all up, his whole body bubbling over from mild discomfort to simmering agony. So much so that he’s actually touching you, skin to skin, for the first time without so much as a gasp or a tight blink of his eyes. You’re his anchor.
Thunder roars overhead again until your heavy footsteps on the wet ground become the only sounds you can hear over the pattering rain.
Lars’s car is in sight, and he lets go of your hand only to speed to the passenger side door and open it for you. He makes sure you’re inside and safe and comfortable before slamming the door shut and running around to his side, jumping out of his skin when another, heavier crash of thunder sounds from above.
You wait for him to settle into the driver’s seat, watching the way his head hangs, rainwater dripping from messy, loose strands of hair, fingertips grasping at the fabric of his sodden trousers, bunching it in his fists, licking his lips and squeezing his eyes shut tight as his breath settles back to a more even, slow rhythm. It’s hard, but he does it. He works through it just like Dagmar taught him to, imagining her soothing palm rubbing circles into his back as she talks him down.
You’re left wondering what he needs and whether you should ask him, or if your voice might be the last thing he needs, so you wait, breathing slowly in the hopes that he will pick up something steady and calm from your presence.
Lars straightens up then, pushes his hair back before his fingers, white with cold, grip the wheel, and he turns to you, shifting in his seat to face you with his body, finally opening up.
‘Are you ok?’ he asks. There’s a deep line between his eyebrows, and his eyes are glazed from fighting off tears of frustration.
‘I’m ok,’ you say slowly, giving him time to take in your words. Asking if he’s ok seems fruitless, he’s so obviously distressed that you worry the question might tip him over the edge, so instead you offer, ‘Do you want me to drive?’
‘No,’ he answered quickly, firmly, as though he’s trying to convince even himself. ‘No, it’s alright. But I can’t drive you home in this state. Let me get you a towel at least? A hot drink to warm you up?’
‘That sounds wonderful,’ you agree with a gentle smile, and you see that heat creep into his cheeks again, the one you saw the first time you approached him. It makes your stomach swell with butterflies. You thought it always would, that even after years spent with him he would still make your knees weak just by being himself.
‘Ok,’ he smiles back, tight-lipped, with a neat little nod, and then he switches on the car to clear the fogged up windscreen and you’re on your way.
Lars drives fast. He shifts in his seat a lot during the journey, fingers loosening and tightening on the wheel, occasionally shaking his head to flip loose strands of wet hair out of the way and then visibly cringing at the skin-crawling sensation of cool water trickling down his neck and the itchiness of his wet trousers against his legs.
He’s silent for the short journey, radio off, hyper-focussed on the road. The windscreen wipers work overtime to give him a clear view. You don’t pass a single other vehicle, and barely have time to admire the fields you drive past before you’re home. Well, his home.
His hands creak against the wheel as he grips it just a little tighter, closing his eyes and sucking in a deep breath. The storm rages on, and he parks as close to his front door as he can manage, knowing he will have to go back out into it, even for a brief time. That he will again have to feel the sharp sting of dirty water slapping against his flesh and making him want to tear off his clothes.
When he unfastens his seatbelt, he unzips his coat, too, fighting to remove the sleeves in the confined space of the driver’s seat, the lining sticking to his sweater and his exposed hands on the way off his arms, and you can hear quiet little whimpers of discomfort emanating from somewhere within his chest.
He holds the heavy article over his head to walk around to your side of the car, but you don’t wait – you’re already stepping out, so he rushes to hold the coat over your head instead, screwing his face up at the feeling of the rain again. You push his arms back to cover him more than you and notice his sad little smile at your kindness as you guide him to his own front door and wait for him to unlock it.
‘They’re in my pocket,’ he despairs, finally accepting, with a heavy sigh, that you know he’s struggling.
He can’t put the coat down to get the keys himself because he’s practically at boiling point already and if one more raindrop touches his skin he might combust. He’s starting to worry how he will get through making you a drink or offering you a towel, or even the basic courtesy of a seat, when what he actually needs to do is rip every layer off his body and wash the feeling away in a hot, clean shower and then get himself dry by a warm fire.
He wants you here with him, though, and he’s thankful you are. He’s just beginning to regret asking you back here when he knows he will be a lousy, off-putting date. And before he can even get to that part of the evening, he has to worry about the location of the keys in his pocket and how he’s going to even open the door for you to come inside in the first place. Pathetic.
‘Do you want me to get them?’
Your voice is so soft, so soothing, and you’re offering a perfectly reasonable solution, but he can feel where his keys are against his thigh and-
‘I’ll be careful,’ you go on, recognising the turmoil in his eyes. ‘We need to go inside and get dried off, don’t we?’
He nods, blinking his gaze away from you, reluctant but necessary as you gently slip your fingers into his pants pocket and feel for the key, trying hard not to inadvertently touch his thigh through the thin lining fabric,or graze him somewhere else that would make even you blush – god only knows what it would do to Lars.
You fight to keep your breath even and steady, finally relaxing when your fingers delve low enough to hook around the loop of the key ring.
You each let out a simultaneous breath of relief, but where the sound makes you giggle, Lars wants the ground to swallow him whole for daring to let it out.
You click the lock open with his key, swinging the door to let him in first. Along the way, it’s become clear that he needs you to take charge of this situation. He’s reached the end of what he can manage. You can either leave him to deal with it or help him through it — and you’re not about to walk away from him.
‘I’ll make the drinks,’ you say, fighting to sound light and unbothered as you strip your own jacket away and place it over one of the two lonely chairs at his little table. ‘Let’s dry off first, ok?’
Lars stands defeated by the door, limbs hung loosely, head dropped, a puddle of rainwater pooling around his feet.
He’s distraught that you’ve seen him like this, that you’ve experienced his issues first hand, on what was supposed to be a romantic walk by the lake. It had meant a lot to him, this date. It was the date he’d imagined would be the one where he finally holds your hand — only, not in the way he had ended up holding it, out of panic and fear. He also dared to imagine that if it felt ok to hold your hand, he might kiss you, too. If you wanted to, of course.
He realises then that it had felt ok to touch you, despite the many other discomforts he was experiencing at the time, and a small spark of hope ignites in his stomach before he realises his chances of kissing you now must be slim to none. Who would want to kiss a sopping wet, trembling man with sensory issues taking over every fibre of his being? He’s destroyed your date and he doesn’t know how to win it back.
While Lars wallows, you pull the drapes closed and flip the heater on.
‘May I?’ you ask, gesturing to his coat, and taking it as he nods, to place it on the opposite little chair. ‘I’m guessing what you need right now is to get these wet clothes off?’
Another nod from Lars.
‘Do you want me to go, or do you want me to help?’
He looks up at you, the first time he’s really looked at you since before the storm began. ‘I… I don’t want to be alone right now. I don’t know how to… I don’t-’
‘So I’ll help,’ you say easily, noticing him wince. ‘I’ll be careful, alright? I won’t touch your skin.’
You whip off your own sweater first, revealing a thin t-shirt beneath, also soaked and clinging to your body, and you see Lars’s eyes wander curiously down over it before snapping back to his feet.
‘I needed to get that sweater off,’ you singsong, hoping that if you strip a couple of layers, he might feel better about needing to do the same. ‘You ready?’
‘Okay,’ he agrees under his breath.
You know he can’t move without discomfort by now, and as he vaguely stretches out his arms, you reach down to curl your fingers around the hem of his sweater, pulling it up and over his head, freeing him of the damp, heavy wool.
There’s a dress shirt beneath — he’d dressed up smart for you — once crisp and white, now stuck to the underlayers beneath and needing unbuttoning.
Lars flexes his fingers by his sides, nervous energy coursing through his veins as the damp cold of his skin prickles uncomfortably, the repetitive movement of his fingers keeping him present.
‘You’re sure you want me to do this?’
‘Yeah,’ he agrees, voice quietly cracking. ‘It’s okay.’
It was a paltry way of saying I need you to do it or I’ll never recover from this feeling, but he didn’t know how to say that without it sounding needy.
You take a step closer and Lars flinches, but his shoulders drop when you don’t immediately reach out and touch him. He’s endlessly thankful that you’re receptive to him.
You bring your hands up slowly so he can process your movements in his own time. By the time your fingers reach the top button, he’s ready. He nods and you set to work unfastening each button, one my one, slow and careful.
The sides of your hands trail tenderly down over his clothed chest, and you feel his breath catch.
He feels his heart slamming in his chest, breath so heavy the sound fills the small space between you and the rain hammering at the windows fades to nothing.
Is it normal to want you to carry on until he’s stripped bare? To touch him like this everywhere, precise and tender and… caring? Is it normal to want to tear your t-shirt clean off your body and pull you flush to his chest, your skin on his? To taste you. Feel you.
You’re slipping the shirt off his arms now and the air has turned so thick you could cut it with a knife. He knows he wants you, and you know you want him, but neither of you dare to speak of it. Not like this, not right now. It’s too soon. Isn’t it?
You break the heavy silence with a voice much shakier than you’d intended. ‘Better?’
He’s so lost in you now that he isn’t entirely sure what you said. His hands move seemingly by their own volition, teasing at the hem of your t-shirt, your last remaining layer, as his eyes dip lower to take you all in.
Your fingers move to his hem too, bunching the bottoms of his white Henley and pink undershirt together inside your grip, grazing his skin. It’s never felt like that before. Not painful, not comfortable. Exciting?
In the blink of an eye you’re pulling your remaining clothes from one another in a hurried frenzy, until you’re both topless, bare from the waist up, damp skin prickling with goosebumps, breathless and dizzy.
‘Lars…’ you breathe, realising you’re caught between him and the wall now, and you don’t want him to move away.
He dips his head, lips grazing yours with a gentle brush of mustache, the cool skin of his belly pressing to yours until he breaks the kiss, panting against your mouth.
Coming to his senses, he takes a step back, pushing his fingers through his hair, mind in overdrive as he wonders how to apologise for whatever possessed him.
But it possessed you, too. And you don’t want to lose him, not now, when he’s finally opening up. You want to help him, just as you were before. Take a breath and let him recalibrate.
‘How about we get warmed up first?’ you ask softly, the notion that you might return to kissing later sends a small thrill through Lars’s gut.
Without looking up at you, he mutters, ‘Sure.’
You straighten up and take his hand again. ‘This still ok?’
‘Yeah,’ he smiles, fighting tears. They’re happy ones; joy at how good it feels to touch and be touched and to find pleasure in it.
‘How about a shower? We’re already shirtless, after all,’ you chuckle, and his cheeks are hot again, but he nods, and you let him lead the way.
The bathroom fills with steam when you find the faucet and turn it up, the air turning thick and hot and way more comfortable than the moisture that clung to you outside. Lars faces away to unfasten his trousers, pushing them down with his underwear and socks, and leaving them in a wet pile with your remaining clothes by the door. He can deal with those later, when it’s all a bit less overwhelming.
Meanwhile you step into the shower, water warming you instantly. ‘It’s lovely, Lars, come in with me?’ Your hand appears from the steam, and he takes it, a brand new bar of pink soap he’d unwrapped in his other hand.
He joins you under the water and you take the soap from him, your hands carefully spreading to glide down the expanse of his back, slicking it with the suds.
It’s exactly what he needs to remedy the dirty water soaking into his skin. This is heavenly, like being wrapped in a freshly laundered, warm blanket and held in your arms. He’s never actually considered being held by you before, but he wants it now and wonders whether, if he figures out how to ask, you would indulge him after all this.
Lars sighs. He’s never consciously craved touch so much in his life – you’re touching him right now and still he’s aching for more. He wants your hands all over him, everywhere, all at once, just like this, but tenfold.
He turns to you, face to face, and you drag your hands down from his shoulders and over his chest, breathless at how good he feels under your palms, soft and strong.
As the clean water streams through his hair and over his skin, cleansing his discomfort and grounding him in the present with you, he simply melts, bracing himself against the tiles with a hand either side of your body, caging you in as you slowly massage his body clean of irritation.
And it doesn’t burn. Your touch is no hotter than the steaming water.
You let the water rinse away the soap, watching the colour return to Lars’s face, trying to keep your focus as best you can with him completely bare and practically pinning you in place.
He opens his eyes and pushes his hair back to shut off the tap. You both begin to feel quite a bit more exposed without the cover of water and steam. You push the shower curtain aside to grab a fluffy towel, throw it around yourself and step out, offering a hand to Lars.
You pat him dry, soaking up the droplets from his pink, flushed skin. You’re glad to be standing behind him when he gasps at the way you drag the towel down his back.
He doesn’t dare to glance at your body as you make your way around his. But he imagines it. Imagines your bodies becoming one, how you’d feel wrapped around him…
It’s a dangerous thought when he’s bared before you, he knows, but the nerves he feels at being so exposed keep his arousal at bay for now. This isn’t about sex, anyway, and he feels dirty for thinking that way while you’re being so kind to him.
He knows if he’d come back here alone, he would still be frozen to the spot in the doorway, too uncomfortable to move, skin crawling, breath ragged, unable to conjure a single idea of how to help himself regulate.
But you? You’ve made him feel better so quickly that being bared to you, being touched by you, feels easy, like you’ve been here, showering together in his little bathroom, a thousand times before.
Even so, it’s new. It’s exciting and thrilling, and more than anything else, safe. Lars feels safe with you.
And he wants to kiss you again, of course he does. He wants more. But right now he just wants this and he’s sorry that you’ve finished drying him off because he could have stood here forever with you dabbing a fresh, soft towel over every inch of his clean skin.
You reach up to dry off his hair and as you raise your arms, your own towel slips. The fold you’d tucked securely into place pulls loose, and the whole thing is about to fall from your body to pool on the floor by your feet, and you worry in that split second that it’s all it’ll take to startle him away. You flinch, but Lars catches it effortlessly and holds it against you. Holds you, in fact, as though you’re small inside his big hands, preserving your modesty and making you feel safe with him, too.
The steam has cleared completely now. Only the mirror, and your minds, remain misted.
You drop your hands down to rest on his shoulders, biting your lip at the look of his freshly ruffled hair, and you just stand together, breathing each other in, holding onto one other while time stands still.
All discomfort has left his body now. Naked, having kissed you heatedly once already, craving it desperately again, and with a feeling simmering in his gut that he would usually burn off by the woodpile. It doesn’t make sense for him to feel so at peace under these conditions and yet here you both are. Perhaps it’s all a dream and he’ll wake up with a start, damp and breathless.
With eyes burning into his, you trail your hands down his arms to where he rests at your ribs, taking the towel he’s holding up to body into your own grip, opening it up and wrapping it around both of you.
Lars feels his jaw go slack as your bodies press together again and he knows from the way his skin tingles pleasantly that it’s definitely not a dream. This is real. And it’s so easy that he isn’t even worried about the reaction stirring back up in his core — one you might notice now your bodies are practically flush.
‘Better?’ you whisper, gently breaking the tension. ‘How about those drinks?’ you smile up at him, pushing his damp hair back into its usual slicked back style with your fingers, and he leans his head into your touch.
You feel his arousal beginning to press against your stomach but he’s ignoring it, and so for now, you do too, tucking the towel back around your chest and crossing back to his bedroom. He follows and you leave him by the bed to find some dry clothes while you busy yourself in his kitchen. It’s small and mostly bare, so you have the kettle boiling in no time. When you emerge with two steaming mugs, Lars is fully dressed again, sitting proudly on his bed with a big grin, an extra outfit laid out beside him.
‘Couldn’t decide?’ you ask, setting the mugs on his bedside table.
‘Oh, no, these are for you – if you want to borrow them.’
His voice is quiet and small, like he was trying to put things right, but they hadn’t ever gone wrong.
‘Thank you.’
‘That’s ok. I figure if I lend you my clothes, you’ll have a reason to come back.’ He’s joking, Kind of. He wants to gauge your reaction at the thought of seeing him again.
‘I don’t need a reason, do I?’
Lars doesn’t know what to say to that. He shifts a bit, trying to think of how to respond.
You bend to kiss him on the cheek as you pick up the sweater and trousers he’s left out for you and disappear into the bathroom to dress. When you return, Lars hasn’t touched his drink. He’s waiting for you, sitting with his fingers interlaced on his lap, a little grin beneath his mustache, exactly as you’d left him.
You see him eye you up and down, taking in the way his clothes fit you, and you pause there, letting him look.
‘May I sit?’
Lars shuffles up and you pick up your drink and settle cross-legged on the bed beside him.
‘Thank you for today,’ you say, a throwaway line into the mug in front of your mouth, trying to keep him at ease. ‘I had a great time.’
Lars’s brow furrows. ‘You did?’
‘Yeah.’
There’s silence then, as you sit side by side, sipping your hot chocolate. Lars is processing everything, thinking through all the things he thought he’d done wrong. All the parts about the date that had embarrassed him. But you’d had a good time anyway, and you were still here.
He turns to face you properly, taking your empty mug away before shakily seeking out your hand, holding it tight and letting out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.
The pattering of rain against the windows has slowed considerably now, and you’re about to get up and open the drapes to let some light in — after all, you’re decent now.
But Lars must sense your plan because he says firmly, ‘Leave them,’ and brings a hand up to your jaw, holding you in place as he shuffles closer, leans in and hovers for a moment, licking his lips before crushing them to yours.
It isn’t quite as heated as before; there’s thought behind this one. It’s needy, though, and he sucks at your bottom lip hungrily for a moment, heart soaring when you part your lips and let him deepen this kiss. His fingers press hard into your arms as he pulls away and presses his forehead to yours. ‘I had a good time, too.’
He’s dizzy, unsure how he will sleep tonight with all of the afternoon’s events replaying in his head, but he doesn’t care. It’s the most alive he’s felt in months.
‘Do you want me to drive you home?’ he offers, and you nod against him, breathless. He stands, leaving you lightheaded, offering you the same hand you held a few moments ago. ‘Don’t worry about the clothes, I’ll take care of that.’
On the way out of the door, you peck him on the cheek and catch a curtain twitching in the house. Lars doesn’t notice, so you don’t mention it, but you smirk to yourself, knowing Karin will be dying to ask you why the drapes were closed and how on earth Lars managed to let you kiss his face.
He makes sure you’re comfortable before taking the driver’s seat but then he’s pensive on the car journey, so you stop yourself from resting a hand on his thigh. Maybe next time you’ll take that step.
When he pulls up outside your place, he turns to you, clearly very pleased with himself. Giddy even.
‘You see the rainbow?’ he smiles, eyes focussing out of the window, and then, sheepish, he adds, ‘Thank you.’
‘Wanna do it again soon?’
‘We’re gonna have to, you’re wearing my clothes remember,’ he smiles, all innocent, thinking about how maybe they’ll smell like you when you return them, and if you’ll think they smell like him.
‘Oh no I didn’t mean a date,’ you smirk, leaning in to whisper in his ear. ‘I meant stripping you bare… but maybe paying a little more attention to your… needs next time.’
Lars almost chokes, a small groan escaping his throat instead, and his trousers are suddenly very tight. He grips the fabric at his thigh in a tight fist, eyes clamping shut.
‘Uhm- yeah- yeah I’d uh… I’d like that,’ he stutters out, frozen as you kiss his cheek again and sweep out of his car with a wink and a wave, leaving him reeling.
Lars heads straight for the woodpile when he returns home, and Karin watches on from the kitchen, curious as ever.
you and Steve finally finish courting. beyond the sea au. [9k]
cw: reader is a mermaid shapeshifter! and a virgin, is very inexperienced, praise, guidance, mild talking you through it, soft sex, heat cycle, vanilla, language barrier, mature content for 18+ readers
⋆𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔:⋆
To be fair to Dariyay, she told you this was going to happen. If you stay out of your natural form for long enough and spend that time around a suitable mate, your body will go into heat. Mermaids change for a reason. The heat was to be expected.
You weren’t expecting it to feel as it sounds. It’s a warmth from your stomach, spreading everywhere that Steve touches while you’re sitting in his lap. His hands on your hips are burning you, and Steve looks unlike himself. His head thrown back, pretty moles dotting his face to be kissed, as though he’s become as uncomfortably hot as you have.
You slide as close to his chest as you can, nosing at his throat, thinking. “Dariyay and Robin, not stay,” you say. Robin’s taken to riding to Steve’s house on her bike so that she can take it to Nancy’s after work. She’ll need a ride.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think so, honey,” Steve murmurs, sounding distinctly distracted.
“Can ask?”
“Mm-hm. Are you okay, though?” Steve peers at you through a slit of his eyelids. Pink blush climbs his neck. “Can you head upstairs by yourself while I ask? Just, you… you’re kinda looking at me like you’re about to eat me.”
You feel like you’ll die if you aren’t near him, but you don’t want Dariyay to see you like this. Not having a heat before doesn’t mean you aren’t aware of what they are, and what they do. You don’t want your sister to see you this tightly and obviously wound: the sex-talk she gave you was bad enough.
You shuffle against his hips. He hisses, and he laughs. “Honey, enough. Two minutes, let me make sure Dariyay’s gonna be alright with Robin.”
“It– it is hot–”
“I know, I can feel it. Feel you,” he says quietly.
“Please, just– upstairs with me, now, and– Robin and Dariyay go.”
“I gotta tell Robin first, she’s gonna be pissed that I’m not giving her a ride–”
“Dariyay can drive her.”
Steve tilts his head to the side. “Shit, yeah. She can take her. You’re a smart girl, you know?”
Your hips rock more insistently at the praise, even if he’s teasing. “Now, fast, kiss me and kiss more.”
Steve holds you tight by the hips to ease you back. “We’ll get caught,” he says with a big laugh. “This heat, I actually have some questions–”
“What question?” you ask, allowing the space he desires while the heat in your stomach melts like lava, slow and blistering.
“Well, you’re fucking boiling in your skin, babe, so I guess I’m wondering if it’s hurting?”
You press your hand to your tummy. “Small hurt. Lots want, lots sensitive?”
“Huh.” He’s so pink you’d think he was the one cooking in his skin.
You take his hand on your hip and begin dragging it over your tummy, but you don’t get far, interrupted by a quiet creak of the door.
“Sister?” Dariyay asks.
You both flinch. Dariyay is standing in the kitchen doorway with her empty plate, and she’s frowning, but it’s friendly for her. If she were mad, she’d be scowling.
“Oh,” she says, hesitating when she notices your position atop him, “sorry.” Then, in Mer, “I thought I heard my name. Are you okay?”
“I think it’s the heat,” you say. “It feels awful.”
She bites her lip. “Oh, okay. Do you– will you be okay, with him? You don’t have to choose a courting partner now if you’re not sure.”
Steve has a great talent for turning hot and heavy into gentle, steady. He shifts you downward and holds you close like you’re sick, not horny. It’s funny as it is assuring.
“I love him. He’s not the awful part,” you say.
Dariyay shoves her plates onto the nearest countertop. “Then it’ll be fun. Just be careful, okay?”
“He wouldn’t hurt me,” you say.
She offers a real smile. “That’s so gross. I will go, then, and play at being a human at the ray-dee-oh. Maybe I can get Eddie to come and be my entertainment.”
“He can be your courting partner.”
“I think he is destined to be my best friend,” she says, which is not a rejection. She says it like it could be a joke, or equally like Eddie might end up her husband. You’re wondering how okay with that Eddie’d be as the rattle of a bike being shoved against the front of the house echoes from the foyer.
“That’s Robin,” Steve says.
You let your embarrassment overtake the heat for a little while, forehead to Steve’s chest, listening to Dariyay scamper down the hall. She and Robin have a stilted conversation that ends with both girls laughing, and Robin shouting, “Happy for you, dingus!” down the hall.
“What say?” you ask his chest.
Steve tips your head back by the nape.
Your eyes go owlish. You’re unbelievably warm—Steve feels cold in contrast when he slips his arms under your thighs to lift you, but it’s not want or need you feel as he carries you upstairs, it’s adoring. He carries you without complaint, doesn’t huff about how heavy you are, nor the mess you leave in the kitchen. He may love to bitch but Steve’s never complained about looking after you, and doesn’t sound anything but eager as he elbows open the bedroom door, laying you out on the bottom of the bed. He’s laughing to himself. You’re inclined to feel it.
“Kiss?” you ask. “Please. Please? Please.”
Steve takes too long to lean down, but when he does the kiss is slow, his tongue working into your mouth while his hand curls behind your neck, leaning his weight into you carefully.
“Kiss,” you insist.
“This is kissing.”
You don’t know the human word for what you want, but there’s a thrumming in your chest and you know where you need his hands, his entire body. You wriggle up the bed with his shirt screwed in your gasp, forcing him to climb and follow. The kiss you take then is searching, your nose pushing against his nose until he returns the kiss.
He’s too gentle.
“Kiss,” you murmur into his mouth.
“Baby.”
“Please, kiss me.”
Steve frames your face in his paw of a hand, his eyes dark, his lashes kissing in their corners as he squints. “You remember what ow means?” he asks, which is patronising. You pinch him. He laughs. “Yeah, ow. I hurt you, you tell me no. Is that okay? Can you do that for me?”
“Yes,” you say under your breath, so hot now that it’s uncomfortable. The only place even mildly cool is the apex of your thighs, your panties moving slick against the crease of your cunt as you search for traction. “Please. Kiss me.”
You take his hand where it’s resting at your hip and pull it to your tummy, wanting to force him lower and scared to at the same time.
Steve looks between your bodies. His thumb draws a circle into your navel, flicking your shirt over your belly button to expose the heaving plane of skin there. It’s not low enough.
“Touch you?” he says, so quietly it’s almost a whisper.
“Please.”
“Yeah?” He rests his hand over the bump of your cunt. “Here?”
You squirm.
Steve laughs nicely, shaking his head, and fits another kiss against your mouth, his hand drifting up to tease the hot skin of your stomach, a frustrating diversion.
You’re mildly annoyed and overly excited, your eyes squeezing closed as Steve kisses you so fiercely you can’t breathe. It takes long seconds, maybe a whole minute of kissing before you’re wondering how much air a human boy can go without, another minute to get him panting over your mouth. You make a noise into his kissing, a pleading, beggy sigh, your hips rolling up to find him hard above you.
There’ve been many mornings where you’ve woken to find him already hard behind you without so much as a kiss, but more recently you’ve started teasing it out of him, just to hear the hitch in his breath when you touch him, all pained longing.
You feel cruel, now. This is the pained longing.
You scrabble for his hand and guide it down again. “Please,” you whisper, practically choked with wanting, “need you, I need touch.”
“Sorry,” he whispers back, resting the tip of his nose on your cheek, like he’s collecting himself, “‘m I making it worse? Is it still hurting?”
“No, feels like… like it can hurt later, not now.”
“Like it could hurt, if you don’t– if we don’t fix it?” he asks.
“Mm,” you hum.
“Well, we can’t have that,” he says, the hint of his smile on your cheek as he pulls up.
His eyes are blown, cheeks full of red and the beginnings of dampness in the hair by his ears. It’s getting warmer in here, but you don’t want to ask him to open the window or turn on the fan. You can't picture the absence of him.
“You know what this is?” he asks.
“Mm?”
“This, baby,” he says, his hand turning, fingers laying over the softness of your cunt. “You know what this is, yeah?”
You know what you have, if that’s what he’s worried about, but you’re thinking he’s asking about sex, instead. “Dariyay tell me,” you say, “told me. The heat, and the– the fit?”
“Yeah. How we go together? She explained it to you?”
“Yes. Know it.” You knew of sex before, but Dariyay had given you specifics, because she’d seen the way you looked at Steve. Coupling is not much more complicated than you’d imagined.
“And that’s what you want?” he asks, tilting your head to the side with the flat of his palm, before dragging his pinky finger along your cheek.
“Yeah, that’s what I want,” you say, softly and quietly, happy to be touched however he wants to do it.
“Yeah? We can go slow.” That pinky finger drags down your neck, where he lays his hand at the base of your throat so gently it’s a wonder you can feel his touch at all. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Do you hurt me?” you ask him.
“No, never.”
You want him to realise that this is you knowing everything you want, despite the heat, the tug inside you begging to be taken. You wanted all of him before your insides began to melt. “You don’t hurt me,” you say.
He turns his head to the side, gathering your cheek again in his big hand to hold you. “You remember what love is?” he asks.
“Inside of love. Me and you.”
“Yeah, me and you. So this is something I need your help with.”
You settle back into soft sheets. He’s so pretty. You aren’t sure what to do now beyond let him have you. “Not know how to help.”
“Just talk to me, baby. That’s all I need. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, I can talk you.”
He smiles at you strangely. Strange for Steve, so somber and measured. “I love your voice. Love your voice.” He kisses your cheek, your jaw, and your throat. “Here, your voice. It makes everything you say… It’s beautiful.”
You like this game. Exactly how it went when he kissed you that first time, the trail of kisses and praises down your wrist to your shoulder. He kisses you now, at the base of your throat and your chest despite the clothes, over your heart, his hair already a brown mess from your eagerness. You stroke it out of his eyes.
“Talk to me,” he says gently.
“Love your voice.”
“Yeah?”
“Warm, and… smooth.” You rub his back, demonstrating in the same way he had when he introduced the word. “In mornings, voice is– is not smooth. Like most.”
Steve’s hands are shaking.
You catch them, one on your tummy, one by your heart, and you hold them tightly. Can practically feel both your pulses beating in the press of your palms. “You are okay?” you ask him.
Steve breathes out suddenly. “No. I mean, yes. I mean–” He laughs. “I just want you and I’m scared I’m gonna– I’m scared you won’t know what you need, that I’m gonna hurt you, and I want you. Fuck, I want you.”
You laugh. “I am not scared,” you say.
“No?” he asks.
“No. So you– you kiss me, now? Please. And me and you, not scared. Not scary.” You squeeze his hands. “Sorry I not know how say.”
“You’re sorry? Don’t be sorry, are you kidding? You’re amazing. You’re so much– you’re more than I–” Steve giggles and tips down to rest his head on your chest. He squeezes your hands back, “I’m sorry I’m such a loser, I used to be so fucking cool and I knew how to do this, but you are really important to me, and I’m fucking so nervous.”
“Nervous word?”
“Like little scared.”
“Me?” you ask, lifting your chin, shoving at him until he’ll look at you. “Scared me?”
“Scared of me,” he says.
You laugh. “You are not scary, I say that. Listen me. You tell me talk, I talk, you do not listen.”
“Alright!” he says, laughing again, bringing your hand to his mouth to kiss. “I’m listening now. Nobody’s scared.”
“Little scared,” you say softly.
“Yeah?”
“Little.”
“Do you want me to talk you through it?”
Your lips part of their own accord. “Talk through?”
“Do you want me to tell you how we do it, before it happens? I don’t mind, baby.”
“Tell me,” you say.
Steve rubs your stomach slowly. “Sex is easy. It should be easy.” His hand sinks lower. “It’s mostly touch, yeah? And your–” He swallows around nothing, squares his expression, and lets his voice drop and droop into honey. “I can make you feel good with my hands, or my mouth, or I can fuck you. It doesn’t have to be fast, or rough, we’ll start slow. It’s just me and you in here.”
That’s the togetherness. You nod surely. “I know.”
“You do?” He licks his lips. “I figure first I’d warm you up, you can figure out what feels good and I can learn how to do it to you.” Steve laughs like it bubbles up. “Shit, I’m so fucking hard, I think you’re killing me.”
“Hard?”
Steve takes your hand and presses it to his stomach.
You laugh, but it’s all air, all breath as you feel down the solidness of his front. You’re not brave enough to touch him.
He shakes himself in front of you like he’s trying to dry off. “Alright, I’m gonna make a mess in my pants if I don’t take them off, so– so– I’m gonna take my shirt off.”
He begins pulling off his shirt and the damn breaks—you get your elbow in your shirt to yank it off, lift your hips and kick out of your skirt, searching behind yourself for the catch on your stupid bra until Steve’s taking you by the wrists. “I can do it.”
“Off?”
“Right now, let me get it.”
He lifts you up toward him, his forearms either side of you as his fingers slip under the line of your bra. It brings his face into reach again, any hesitation forgotten while you kiss his jaw, your lips parting, bottom teeth scratching upward as you bite him gently.
“Fucking thing,” he mumbles, letting the catch of your bra fall open.
“Fucking thing?”
“You. You’re such a fucking thing, you’re a nuisance, you…” Steve takes a very deep breath as he sits up and looks down at your naked chest, your bra having fallen into your lap. “You’re everything.”
Steve ducks down to kiss your chest, and you startle so hard you burst out laughing. The laughter doesn’t last, wobbling into weariness as he places half-moon kisses over your sternum, his hand just above it forcing you into the sheets. It wanders after that.
You flinch from his touch, right over your heart, then lower, and lower.
Steve doesn’t worry, but he does rest his face on your tummy and look up at you to ask, “Okay?”
“Sensitive.”
“Yeah, really sensitive. Feel good?”
“Do again?”
Steve runs his fingertips over your nipple, brushes his thumb into it roughly, smiling as you shudder. He kisses under your breast again then downward, hands swiftly following. He kisses your belly and your hip, kisses the band on your panties and rubs his nose into the fabric. You seize up, worried he’ll feel the wetness there and laugh, wanting him to be faster, wanting him to strip it away from you.
“Touch?” you ask.
He kisses your stomach with the same tenacity he’d have kissed your mouth, hand skirting around all fluttery and warm. You want him to go lower, but he doesn’t. He kisses and kisses and scratches at you with his teeth. He even eases the panties down to kiss along the line, anywhere but where you need him. You’re aching. Your heart is starting to go again, that neediness you felt at the kitchen table returned triple fold right there at the apex of your thighs.
“Gonna take these off, yeah? Give your cunt some attention,” he says quietly.
Cunt. That’s the word Dariyay had said, seceretive-like under her breath. Steve says it without shame, like it’s nothing to be ashamed of, so you don’t think as you ask, “Please, kiss?”
“Kiss you here?” he asks, hand on your thigh now, fingers slipping into the leg of your panties and hand coming up, forcing the fabric down.
You can’t help giving another giddy laugh. “Kiss me all place.”
Steve brings your underwear down to your knees and goes silent above you.
You press your legs together automatically, unsure, but Steve braces his hand on the softness of your inner thigh and eases the mere millimetres apart. Your heart lurches, but you aren’t as shy as you’d imagined. Maybe it’s Steve’s clear, rabid adoration, maybe it’s because he’s seen it before in simpler moments, maybe it’s the rampant tugging in your tummy and your cunt. It feels like you’ve needed this for hours.
“Jesus,” he murmurs, hitting at your thigh with the back of his hand, like a pat, worse when you shift your leg to the side to oblige him and feel the slickness that’s wetting you spreading over your thighs, “aw, Jesus, fuck. Fuck.”
“Fuck ow?” you murmur back. Or fuck now?
“Fuck like beautiful,” he says, his thumb ghosting up the softness of your cunt. You jump, tickled, and his eyes flash to your face. When he sees your bitten lip, he brings his thumb flat to your cunt and feels at you all over again. “You’re so wet.”
“Wet, I know,” you worry.
“No, it’s good. It’s pretty.”
“Kiss?”
“Can I?”
“Ask and ask and ask.”
Steve rolls your panties the rest of the way down your legs with some manoeuvring, kisses the inside of your knee, and suddenly pulls one leg over his shoulder, his face seeking into your cunt unabashedly.
“Ah!” you say, startled by the hot, wide press of his tongue, not sure what you were expecting as you’d begged to be kissed, but surely not this. “Steve.”
A nose pressed hard into the petal folds of you, his tongue against wetness, plushness, kisses up to the apex and then–
“Fuck!” you say, your heel digging into his naked shoulder. “Oh, no!”
“Oh no?” he asks, pulling away fast, wetness shining on his chin and cheek. “Hurt you?”
“No stop,” you say, taking his face into your hand and yanking. Don’t stop, you mean, but the words aren’t clear right now.
“Felt good?”
“Yes!”
“Don’t say oh no, you scared me.”
“What– hah–” You shiver, a burst of pleasure as he kitten licks your cunt, right against the sweet spot at the very top. “What say, honey boy?”
“You can say Steve?” He laughs, and you sigh, wondering if the pulse of wetness from you is visible to him where he’s ducked eye-level to your cunt. “Say anything. Say you like it.”
“I like it.”
“You like it?” he asks, brushing over your clit with his thumb.
You dissolve into some squirmy version of yes and discover it can feel even better than it does. Steve lays down, the entire lower half of his face to your cunt and kissing, working up to your clit to suckle until you squeal. Then he pulls away and licks at the wetness he’s spread around with his face, around your thighs and everywhere except where you need him. It’s ten times more sense than whenever you’ve touched yourself. (Not often, and never as expertly as Steve touches now, never constant, occasionally curious after he’s kissed you and disappeared to the bathroom.)
There is an exceptional Mer word for this sort of pleasure, and it slips from you in a whiny moan. He laughs into your cunt, kisses you again, the tip of his thumb at your opening now and feeling through wetness like he’s playing. It’s– it’s hotter than you’d thought. Fuck, your knee kicks in toward your chest as the pleasure gets burning and– and cresting, like it’ll hurt. You seize up and Steve pushes your leg into your tummy, murmurs, “Relax,” as the very tip of his thumb presses into you and his lips close around your clit and he sucks. He’s barely pushed into you when you’re crying out, startled, reaching for his hair to hold as the climax he’d been working you toward tenses your tummy and has your cunt pulsing over and over, weirdly tight.
It goes on for ages, has you half-crying beneath him, “Steve, oh no, oh–”
“Baby–”
“–Steve, Steve.” You cover your eyes, then immediately peek at him through your fingers, panting for air as the pleasure eases but doesn’t wane, not too fast.
He pulls away from you, his lips and chin and nose a shocking red, his thumb pulling out of your cunt with aching care. “Sorry,” he says, his eyebrows yanked together in fear, “did it hurt? I was just trying to–”
“In again,” you say, scratching at his scalp. You’re so in love with this stupid human you could shake him. “Is perfect. You are perfect.”
His lips flatten into a smug smile. “You’re perfect. Prettiest cunt I’ve ever seen. I knew… I mean, I know what you look like, but this is different.” He kisses your thigh, your tummy, then sits up and over you to bend down and kiss you on the mouth gently. “How was that? Are you feeling better? Less hot?”
“No.”
He kisses you again. “That was fast, so I guess it is about, you know, being ready for, you know...”
“I know?”
“Mating?” he asks reluctantly.
“Oh. Yes. Ready now, can you kiss me?”
“Can I kiss you? Or do you need another word? I’m starting to think you don’t mean kiss.”
You think about it for a second, chest still heaving under his hand. “Kiss me, angel,” you say.
Steve leans in and kisses you, tasting of you, smiling.
—
Steve is gonna cum in his pants like a fucking loser if he doesn’t get a hand on himself.
He unbuttons his jeans as he kisses you and shoves his hand into his boxers, squeezing around the base of his cock in a desperate bid to stop the worst thing that could ever happen from happening.
There is no word in the English language to describe how it felt to have your cunt pulsing down on his thumb. It’s not as though he could’ve entered you too deep like that, felt like a safe bet, and it sank into your heat without a problem. It felt like heaven. Steve’s pretty sure he’ll cum the second his cock even touches your cunt, but that’s a problem for Steve in five minutes or so.
That is, if you still want him to fuck you. He’s kinda shit scared he’s gonna hurt you. He hasn’t had sex with someone inexperienced in years and never with somebody so… oceanic.
You wrap your arms around his back and sigh, your face slinking down into his neck, kiss broken. Steve’s wondering if the foreplay was enough for you, if this painful heat is over, but you giggle and mumble into his chest, his ears piqued like a bloodhound at the sound.
“Together,” you say. “What word say before? Fuck like not ow… fuck me.” You’re voice is quiet and raw enough to force a bead of precum over his fingers.
“Jesus Christ,” he says.
“Please, Stevie?”
Oh my god. Steve whites out. You whine something in Mer and Steve grabs you under the arms to get your head on a pillow, you poor girl laid out in the middle of the bed this entire time. He not so expertly kicks off his jeans, and his boxers slip down his hips, his cock hard and aching as it bends up toward his stomach. Steve doesn’t wanna, like, shove it into your hand, but it might be nice for you to see it. He widens the gap between your bodies just enough to show you.
“This is how I’m gonna fuck you, honey,” he says, “I’m gonna work you open with my hand, and then I’m gonna ease into you, okay? ‘Cos you’ve never done it before, it’ll be so slow, yeah? So careful. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Take it now.”
“No, you can’t. You can’t, listen to me.”
You pout, but Steve laughs, kissing your sweaty forehead with a smack.
“Fuck me now and now, and slow, ready now,” you promise.
Steve grins at you with all the adoring he possesses, cannot express to you how much he wishes he could spread you open now and have you, but Steve’s not about to hurt you for the sake of five minutes. Maybe ten. Maybe fifteen. He entices you in for a pulling kiss, the distracting kind, head turning this way and that as he licks into your mouth and runs his hand over your hip, to your cunt, to all the slickness there.
The first finger pushes in easy. He does it slow, waits for pain. You huff a little but kiss him the same, so Steve gives a careful pump and drives in with a second finger.
That’s when you shudder.
“How’s that?” he asks, pausing.
“Fine.”
“Fine?” Steve slows the rock of his hand. “Hurting?”
“Good, just–”
“Just different, huh?” He twists his hand a little to press his thumb to your clit. “You tell me if it hurts you, honey girl,” —you melt like sugar at the name, as saccharine as it is— “I don’t wanna hurt you. You gotta talk to me, you know?”
“Not– not much talk, much, hah–”
That little hah sound has gotta be his favourite noise you’ve ever made. Like a shiver through a smile, not half as sweet as your urgent moaning with a thigh clamped around his head, it reminds him of your stupid laugh whenever you’re pleased. Totally self-indulgent.
He doesn’t try another finger for a while, isn’t sure how long, just kisses you and works into you until his wrist is aching from the upward thrust. Right toward the front, where he knows you’ll–
“Oh.” You turn into Steve, weight on your hip and torso moving into his touch to take it quicker. “Ah, Steve, touch please, touch there.”
He circles his thumb against your clit.
You flinch. Cry out a little at the pleasure and press your face into his shoulder as Steve eases that third finger into your cunt. He’s in ecstasy, his cock throbbing erratically against his stomach, head weeping and red as you whimper into his skin, his name on your tongue, your cunt dripping slick between the cleft of your ass.
“Wanna cum again?” he asks. “Say? Can you take it again?”
His thumb is dedicated now to your clit, rubbing in tight, wet circles as your thighs twitch, and twitch. You cum before Steve can hear your answer. It’s honestly faster than he meant. This heat in you is like a dial set to eleven.
This time, you’re annoyed. Laughing and angry, you shove at his chest and Steve wishes he had a camera to get your smile for keeps. “Said was ready! Tummy jump, now, you did.”
Steve kisses your nose. “Will you shut up? You liked it, didn’t you? You’re such a complainer.”
“Not complain! Ecstatic! Want Steve ecstatic, together, fix my ow.”
“You said it doesn’t hurt.”
“Need you, Steve. Please.”
How many times can a girl say please before Steve cums in his hand? Apparently, he’s got one more please left before he shoots. He has to squeeze himself especially hard to make that happen. Doesn’t have a chance in fucking hell to last, but (and he feels like a bitch even thinking it), it’s not like you’ll know he’s cumming fast. You haven’t exactly held out, here.
“Can you stay still?” he asks.
“No.”
“Okay, awesome,” he says, pinching your chin in his hand, forcing your eyes to his. “You don’t let me hurt you.”
“I love you,” you say.
Steve feels his eyes get hot and his nose burn right at the back. “Yeah?”
“Most,” you confide, wrapping yourself around him.
Steve gets his arm behind your neck, pulling you in for a kiss. It’s unbelievable, he thinks, that the crook of his elbow fits your head perfectly. That the girl he’s been searching for was waiting at the bottom of the ocean. With his free hand, he reaches down to squeeze his aching cock again, and you must know enough to lift your leg over his hip and close the gap.
“Ready?” he asks softly.
“Yeah, ready.”
Steve strokes your cheek. “I love you,” he says, “a lot.”
Your smile is especially bemused. “I know, tell me much and lots, tell me all time, do lots tell, always inside of love with me.”
“It’s true all the time,” he says with a pout.
“Steve!”
“I know, I know, I’m just making sure I tell you back.”
You nuzzle your nose into the side of his. “Tell again,” you say quietly.
“I love you,” he says, taking a wonky kiss from the corner of your lips.
Steve lines up and presses in.
You’re wet enough and relaxed enough that he could sink to the hilt, but he knows he can’t, and he won’t. He lets your chests touch but keeps your hips apart and rocks into you slowly, lets the pleasure in his stomach lick up his spine and take over every bit of sense he has left. He’s surprised it took this long to tell you he loved you plainly. It comes to the surface and lingers now, love you love you love you as you choke on a moan and hide under his jaw. Steve can’t let you stay there too long, drawing you up with murmured pleading, come back, let me see you, miss your face too much when you’re hiding, like an angel, real pretty sweetheart, tries to gauge your feelings as you take it. As he gives it, really. He feels like you’re not taking anything so much as you’re just there with him, his girl. It’s sex, messy and simple, but it’s your first time, and this is more new to you than it would be to most. All Steve wants is to make it gentle. You take it sweetly, breathing out right in his ear, your voice colouring each breath with an addictive pull. It makes it hard to last. Makes going slow the only way he’s gonna get through this.
“Okay?” he asks, when you’ve been quiet far too long, and he’s slowed to a pause inside you.
“Love,” you say, aiming for a big kiss.
Steve matches the kiss for every thrust and feels his thigh muscles go tight as violin strings as he sinks straight past any resistance to the hilt. He should not have done that, did not mean to, you’d rocked your hips down and he’s already pulling out, murmuring, “Sorry, angel, I’m sorry–” as you whisper a fervent, “Again, please.”
He checks your face.
“Again,” you say, eyebrows drawing together in pleasure.
So Steve sinks in and he fucks you slow, like a drag, a rut into heat and wet and plushness that makes him groan. Hits into resistance and feels how much you like it. Steve groans.
“Sound good,” you whisper.
“Can’t help it.”
“Beautiful.” You draw a hand over his abdomen. “What word?”
“Handsome?” he teases.
You reach down to his quads and pull at him, prompting another heavy thrust. Another. Steve takes a couple of kisses while he’s still breathing, but then he’s so close to heaven he has to stop.
“Okay?”
“Gonna cum,” he squeezes out.
“Cum,” you say, like you know what it means, and it doesn’t matter. Steve was too chicken shit to explain it, but he did ask you first, didn’t he? You pick up everything quickly.
“Can’t yet. Can’t. Didn’t fuck you like you wanted.”
“This what I wanted,” you say, abandoning his hip to take his face into your hand. You’re clammy and cool, now, not burning like you were. Your thumb rubs into his cheek slowly, like he’s made of glass. Like one of those Venus flower sponges from the ocean, thin and delicate as drops of ice. “Me and you. This is all what I wanted, okay? You fixed me.”
You smile at him with stars in your eyes as your hips shift and Steve has to pull out, cumming in his hand a second later, panting like his life depends on it as strings of cum line his fingers.
You stare in surprise. “Oh. Not happen to me.”
“It’s a boy thing,” he rasps out, dropping his forehead against your shoulder.
You reach between your legs to touch yourself, laughing as you do, like you’re drunk or high or something, giggly-soft as Steve tries to catch his breath.
You give up on whatever light exploring you’d desired and offer your arms for a real cuddle, hips flat together and sticky. “Hold me?” you ask.
Steve wipes his hand in the sheets with a sigh and gathers you into his arms. “Yeah.”
—
Did you know when a boy who loves you fucks you, it kind of feels like you’re the most beautiful girl who ever existed?
Steve fucked you and held you and kissed your cheeks and cuddled you to him and he never stopped asking how it felt, and if you were okay, and his hand had drifted down to your chest to touch you, to make you feel good, and all of it felt like a honeypot coil in your tummy getting tighter. ‘Mating’ or getting ‘fucked’ by someone who’s in love with you is better than all your best firsts. It’s like finding a new way to swim, like feeling the sun on your skin through the depths with a hand in your hair, raking it back. It’s like being kissed all over, all the time.
If merpeople developed the ability to change just to do this with one another, you totally get it.
Steve hugs you for a good ten minutes while you doze, tired, sated after a big meal, and then he gets up on his knees and puts his nose to your forehead without kissing you. “I’m gonna get you some water, and check that I set the alarm on the door. Do you want something to eat?”
“Do not go.”
“I’ll be fast.”
“Stay. Hold me more.”
So Steve lays down and holds you until you fall asleep.
You wake up again an indeterminable amount of time later to many different things. There’s a glass of water on the nightstand opposite you, a bowl of rice with cut slices of bright, fresh fish beside it. Steve is rolling deodorant onto his armpits in a pair of boxers sitting by your legs. You need to pee, a pain like a knife between your legs.
“Hurt,” you say softly.
Steve turns to you, his mouth puckered in worry. “Yeah, what hurts?”
“Pee.”
“Oh. That’s normal. Want me to carry you?”
“No,” you say with a laugh. “Not broken.”
“I can see that.”
You realise that he’s wiped you clean as you stand, which is oh so nice, and not at all a surprise from your kind boy, earning him a kiss behind his ear as you rush to the en-suite bathroom. You close the door but don’t lock it and do your business quick.
You’re delighted to find the extremely sensitive feeling and all your slickness is over. You wash your hands and face before opening the door some to peer at Steve through the gap. “Stevie?” you ask softly.
“What’s up, beautiful?”
You aren’t sure.
He scratches a hand through damp hair. “Come here,” he prompts when you fail to return, “come on, you can sit in my lap and eat something. You didn’t eat anything at breakfast.”
“You not eat anything. I had pancake.”
“You had a bite of pancake, that’s not enough.”
You head back to him and sit in his lap as he’s asked you, not worried about falling considering the speed with which he pulls you close. “Best bite of pancake ever. Ever. You feed me, best pancake.”
“Theyre not as good as the pancakes you made,” he says.
You shake your head, tracing along his beauty marks with a pearlescent fingernail. Thinking very hard about each word before it comes out, taking time to sew the sentence tightly, you say, “When you feed me pancakes from plate, your plate, it is important. Understand? Word, I think, like love. Mermaid feed you, mean…”
“Like a kiss?” he asks. “You kiss sometimes to share food, right?”
“Sort of like kiss, like, swear you care for me.”
“Hey, speaking of kisses, I got to thinking while you were sleeping. How come your spit doesn’t magically glue my mouth closed whenever we kiss? Isn’t it like, super strong?”
“What?” you ask.
“Your spit! You fixed your tummy with it, and my foot, but when we kiss we don’t get stuck together.”
“Only fix when hurt, duh.” You roll your eyes. “Whatever. Silly boy, not want talk to you.”
“Rude.”
You can’t fake a huff. You’re currently too heavily imbued with happy hormones to do anything besides sit here and wish he’d tell you he loved you again.
He taps at your nose with the tip of his until you lift your lips, kissing you briefly, then slotting his head over your shoulder, his hand spread and waving against your back. “So this sharing from the same plate thing, that’s important to you?”
You smile. Glad he can’t see it. He’d know you’re totally gone for him if he could. “Important for mermaid, inside of love, yeah? Many important.”
“Is that what made you… you know, excited?”
“Heat not s’posed happen but is wait happen, also? Make me, when share.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not be sorry. Not ever, please.”
“I’m not sorry about this,” he says, patting your shoulder, “just sorry I made you uncomfortable doing something I should’ve done before. We never shared before?”
“Has to be with want. Not like, uh, share foals and flounder.”
“You’re confusing me.”
“Has to be… go of love?”
“I have to do it because I love you?”
“Yes. Have to do because you love me, care me, give me.”
“Well, I’ve cared about you for a really long time, and I’ve been feeding you since we met, baby.”
You shake your head, picking gently at a mole behind his shoulder blade. Not to hurt him, only to feel it. “Plate. Feed me your plate.”
Steve leans into you with a loving sigh, smelling your neck. “I think I understand. It’s symbolic, like a tradition.”
“Tradition?”
“A tradition is something you do that has rules. You do it because it’s important, and because people have done it before you? Or, like, humans get married. You remember that from Watership Down? They say promises and exchange rings because it’s important to them. I understand it now.” His voice warms your skin. “You could’ve told me. I would’ve shared with you off of the same fork months ago.”
“Months!” You’re scandalised. You and Steve have not known each other for more than four months, you’d say.
Four months, and he is already so special to you. Just four months.
You figure you’ll explain the intention of the courting process some other time and encourage his head back instead, meeting his brown eyes, their almond shape gone soft from his long eyelashes. There are too many places on his face you’ve failed to kiss. You know you’ve never kissed above his eyebrows before, leaning up to rectify the issue quickly. “All Steve need kiss,” you say decidedly.
He offers his hand.
You kiss every finger, knuckle to tip, then his palm.
He holds your face in it when you’re done, giving your chin a little wobble.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Okay.”
“And you slept okay? Not tired?”
“Slept nice. Want you sleep and me next time.”
“Sleep with you, next time.”
“I know,” you say quietly. “Can tell something?”
“You can tell me anything. Not kidding.”
You hold your hands together against his tummy. “Feel… sad, now and before and before, when I can not… give word, right word. Feel like me and Steve, very important, and can not give words important.”
Steve draws along your face with a single fingertip. “Not give words important,” he repeats.
“All wrong word. I am sorry.”
“You don’t ever have to be sorry. Not for anything, and not for how you tell me what you need.”
“You have…” Steve deserves to hear how loved he is in perfect sentences, but you’re just not there. You understand almost every single word he offers up now, but it is so hard to recollect what joiner word to say and what order to say them in when you aren’t hearing them. “I learn more word, swear.”
“Are you kidding?” he says, shifting your legs over his lap to hold the small of your back. “I don’t know a single word in Mer that isn’t your name and you’re apologising to me? Do you hear that? You learned how to speak a new language so you could talk to me. You stay with me, you want to be here, and you think you need to be sorry about how you talk?” He tilts his head to better meet your gaze, ducking a touch, forcing your full attention. “You told me you loved me, earlier. You think that’s not good enough? That’s fucking everything. I don’t need you to say the right words, I only want you to tell me how you feel. As long as I know what you need, and you can complain, we’re fine. We don’t need anything else.”
Really? you want to say. Irony is you can’t think of the word. “You are okay?”
“Yes, beautiful, I promise you. I promise. Yes and yes and yes, you’re perfect.”
“Perfect most beautiful.”
“Most,” he says, raising his eyebrows at you.
It gets tiring, always learning. Some days Dariyay or Dustin try to teach you knew words and you cannot be bothered to ingest them, but it was worth it, in the end, to let Steve teach you. There are times like now where you’re trying hard to make sense and forgetting words you knew, and messing up the simple stuff in an attempt to use the more complicated.
You wonder why it bothers you. Steve knows every part of you, now. This is it. He has everything, and he wants you just the same.
“Need you,” you mumble, pressing your lips to his muscled shoulder. He is made up of such amazing shapes.
“Have me,” he says, rubbing a path down your spine, up again, slow as honey. “I promise, you’re everything I need like this.”
You glance at him sideways. He’s nosing down your arm, his eyes fluttered closed as though he’s forgotten where he is.
“You want share rice me?” you ask.
He smiles into your arm. “Yes. It’s important, right? From now on, me and you, we eat from the same plate. Good?”
He could lay you out right now and have you, that’s how good it is.
You wonder if he’d like that.
—
It’s a few hours later when Steve gets you into the bath.
All fucking remained gentle, yet you look like you’ve been through the ringer by the time you’re done. Steve wanted to see if he could get you to cum six times, and he achieved his arbitrary goal all too quickly.
You, while pleased, have the air of a woman who needs electrolytes. Steve gives you a glass of apple juice and you sip it in the tub, submerged to the waist in bubbles and blinking beautifully slow blinks.
Whatever it was that was making you want to be fucked so badly has certainly dissipated. You’d gone sore and achy in the middle of a second tryst so Steve had pulled out, kissing at the hurt he caused until you cried, real, big-drop tears that fourth time, and then the fifth. Steve sniffled his way through that fifth one with you, murmuring love into your skin, enchanted by the sight of you with your hands running over yourself.
The sixth was mostly accidental. Lazy, lazy kisses turned to a hickey which you’ve apparently never had, turned to you hot against his leg, your hips rolling. He didn’t have to touch you much to draw out a last climax, but the sound you made was borderline pained, so he didn’t try again.
“Are you okay?” he asks, kneeling beside the bath with his hand braces at your hairline, stroking.
“Yes.”
“Can you use a couple more words?”
“Feel full.”
Steve laughs, stroking down your cheek with the back of his hand. “Sated?”
“What mean?”
“Means you feel satisfied, like, everything is fixed. Like full, but without the feeling of, like…” Steve pets your cheek, then lets his hand fall further down. “Pressure.”
“Pressure?”
Steve squeezes your shoulder. “Like this?”
“Squeeze me.”
“Yeah, I’m applying pressure.”
“Oh.”
You take another mouthful of apple juice, but your question is loaded up before you’re done, and he can hear you swallowing as you ask, “Are you okay, angel? Did I hurt you?”
“Did you hurt me? Never, why would you think that?”
“You ask me lots times. Think if sex maybe hurt,” you say.
“It doesn’t usually hurt. Only sometimes, and most of the time by accident.”
“Oh.”
“Want me to wash your hair now?” he asks.
“Yes, please. Thank you. Best boyfriend.”
You’re not kidding, is the worst part. You close your eyes and offer your glass to him blindly with a content smile on your face, waiting for him to pour water over you and wet your hair.
He’s pretty sure you’re the first girlfriend he’s ever had to think this highly of him. He wants to earn it.
Steve taps your chin and kisses the slight bruise of a hickey, gentle, lest he hurt you twice. “You are really perfect,” he says.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He washes your hair carefully but quickly, wanting to get you out of the bath fast. He showered after your first fuck but needs to wash off again now, so he wraps you in a towel once you’re done and tells you to climb into bed, that he’ll sort everything out for you when he’s done.
He showers and dries off, returning to the bedroom with a towel around his waist and a smile. You’re cross-legged on the bed with one of your encyclopedias in the dip of your legs, the towel falling down your chest some, your written list of phonetics poking out behind the cover, but you aren’t studying. You’re tracing pictures with your finger, eyebrows lightly pinched.
“Wet hair,” you say.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Fix.”
“‘Bout to.”
“About,” you correct.
Steve chuckles to himself. “Yeah.”
“About means… same, means close, means like new word.”
“Kind of. It’s a hard word to explain.”
“About to go to bed,” you say. “Have in Mer, kind of.”
“You do?”
“Not so different.”
Steve dries your hair and does his best to fix it. Dariyay fixed it for you this morning and he wouldn’t have gotten it wet, only the sex seemed to have knocked it out of place and frizzed it to high heaven. He gives it his best shot and you trace shapes into his stomach where it stays near your hand. Steve won’t ask to fuck again, but your touch and the fresh memory of what it felt like to do that to you has his cock stirring. He wills it down. Wonders if he’s a sex pest now, or if you’re just that beautiful.
It’s funny. You’ve been pretty this whole time, but Steve can’t believe how much worse it’s gotten over time. He didn’t think you could get any prettier.
“Ecstatic,” you murmur.
He tips your head back. “You are in love with me.”
“Yes?”
“No, like. You’re a loser. You’re gone for me.”
“What is loser, gone, shush. Say mean thing, think I not know, I know.” You scowl at him. “You are loser.”
He wrinkle his nose. “Am not.”
“Yes. Much loser.”
“Wanna get dressed? I have the softest pajamas ever with your name written all over them.”
“Name all over?”
“It’s a saying. Like… if I say I’m jumping for joy, I’m not really jumping, but I could be.”
“Joy happy?”
“Yeah.”
“We jump for joy, mermaid. Swim up to surface, jump, swim down. Fun.”
“It sounds awesome.”
“My name written all over, not real, but mine, mine a lot, so. Saying.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“More saying human? Mer not have much saying. Mer more–” You pause. “Yes and yes.”
Steve takes the time to sort it through. “You guys say what you mean. Humans are funny. We have lots of sayings. We have one that goes, ‘he drinks like a fish’, which means he likes a lot of beer.”
“Fish not drink beer?” you say, laughing.
“No, they don’t. It’s stupid, it’s because people think fish drink a ton of water. Hey, should we go swimming later?” he asks, digging through the top dresser drawer until he finds the sweet blue pajamas he has hiding away. They’re for your hard days, of which you don’t have many, but the softness never fails to draw your awe. He thinks they’ll be nice for the occasion, extra comfort after a big first experience. “It’s been a while.”
“Not swim. Dariyay tell, after heat, water and me make tail.”
Steve snorts at the joke, even as he falters. “You’ll get your tail back, huh?”
“Have… what call? Foal.”
“Baby. You’d have a baby.”
“Right. Oh, forgot. Two means.”
His stomach jolts uncomfortably at the idea of you changing back. “Yeah, it’s one of those words… Shit, you’ll really get your tail again? I don’t want you to leave, yet. Dariyay said you have to go home soon, didn’t she? But there’s so much you haven’t done, I wanted to take you on a real date, and on a rollercoaster, and to the movies, take you rollerblading. There’s so much stuff. I don’t want you trapped in my pool again, but maybe I can go with you?” He can’t think of a way to stay with you. “Don’t go yet. Please.”
You give him your own rare brand of puppy dog eyes. “Not want go, Steve. Tell you. You and me tomorrow and tomorrow, and love you, and– not want. Miss tail, but miss you more,” you say, shrugging. “Get dressed now? I am cold.”
Steve gives you your pajamas and diverts the conversation from changing. He has the feeling that he is being very, very selfish, but he cannot bring himself to let you go.
The second he sits down, you get on your knees and shuffle around, pausing, shy for potentially the first time in your whole life. “Can I hold you?” you ask.
Steve lays down and you follow, interlocking on your sides like commas. You wrap your arms around him very specifically; the bottommost one looped around his matching arm, and the upper over his neck, your hand on his cheek, holding him like you’d asked.
“Best thing,” you say, turning your hand to stroke his cheek. It is such a light touch that, for a second, he wants to squirm away. He relaxes the longer you do it, coaxed into total stillness, his eyes growing heavier and heavier. “My boy.”
Your fingers tumble down to the thin line of a scar that spans across his neck.
“Hurting?” you murmur.
He closes his eyes. Lets himself melt into your chest. “Nah. Not for a long time.”
⋆𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔:⋆
thank you for reading!!! I hope you enjoyed it! I would love to know what you thought, but no pressure 🩵
summary: after stratt hires you on as a documentation specialist for project hail mary, you find yourself being more and more drawn to one dr. ryland grace.
pairing: ryland grace x reader
word count: 4.5k
tags: (set on stratt's vat, pre-tau ceti) meet-cute, strangers-to-lovers, forced proximity, workplace relationship, idiots in love, fluff, will they/won't they, documentation specialist!reader,
cross-posted to ao3
What would you do if the apocalypse started?
It’s a stupid hypothetical that you make up when you’re trying to get to know somebody. Something you say at two in the morning at a sleepover, or at work in the break room with absolutely nothing to do. It isn’t serious—never that—until the Petrova line. Until the pending death of the Sun. Until Eva Stratt comes knocking on the door of your high-rise apartment, asking you—really, telling you—to abandon your day job and leave for overseas.
She has you document everything. You take notes on all the major classified meetings. You transcribe conversations between officials, especially the particularly tense ones. When you’re not writing, she has you in front of a printer-scanner, making copies for the bi-weekly organizational debriefings. You went to school for technical writing, and now, it appears that you’ve been placed into the absolute life-or-death version of a dream job. It could be worse. You could be at home, knowing that the next thirty years will spiral into world crises and war over rations. At least you’re doing something.
Her latest project for you—and, allegedly, the most important—is technical writing regarding astrophage. For the past few weeks, you’ve done nothing but compile information from Stratt’s several global microbiologists. It isn’t until the big breakthrough—the “great American scientist” who figured out how to breed the little things—that the ball starts rolling. You’ve been hearing all about him, no matter how unwillingly. There’s plenty of reserved comments from Stratt about how reclusive he seems to make himself. From the scientists, who praise his findings. From the agents, too—a schoolteacher, he’s a schoolteacher, and he dresses like one, too.
The first time you meet him truly is ultimately… gratifying. Dr. Grace lives up to expectations. You’re at the other end of the table when Stratt leads him in: a mousy, blonde-haired thirty-year-old man. Glasses askew, and dark-blue eyes blown wide. It takes a lot of will for you not to tilt your head at the sight of him—the way his eyes dart around the room, his unsuccessful attempt to back himself out of it. It’s… amusing–like watching a baby bird get coaxed out of the nest. What comes next is rather productive. You type fast on your laptop: astrophage, single-celled, Venus, high-CO2, breeding, replication by mitosis. You aren’t able to focus much on him, per say. It’s more his words, his cadence when he talks about the discovery—and the following queries that come with debriefing him on Project Hail Mary. He’s cute. And there isn’t enough time in the world for you to think that.
—
The next time you see him is in the mess hall a couple days after. Clearly, Stratt has him settled in—probably placed him in a nice bunk with another one of the old scientists. He sits mulling over a bowl of cereal, looking almost identical to the way that he did in the meeting room. The greatest change, clearly, is his choice in clothing. He’s got a knit cardigan on, over some punny science t-shirt that you can only vaguely read. Dr. Ryland Grace sits alone. And, he’s in your spot.
Your imagination runs its course. Maybe, he likes solitude. Maybe, he’s still facing the fact that this ship is filled with some kind of Sisyphean effort to try and save the planet. You’re very sure, looking at him stirring his spoon pointlessly in the bowl, that this situation is too big for him. He wants to go home. You’ve got your own tray of breakfast—oats and bottled juice. Clearly, you’re not used to the barrack-like quality of the ship quite yet, or else you’d be able to sit down with just about anyone else. The only downside of your job is that you don’t have very much time to talk—buried in screens and stacks of files. You sit alone, too, most of the time, in this very spot that Grace has decided to occupy for himself.
You approach him slowly, waiting for him to notice your presence on the other end of the table. It’s regrettable that he doesn’t, so caught up on the swirling quality of his cereal. You have to knock your knuckle on the edge of the tabletop. “Dr. Grace,” you hum. He retracts his hand from his spoon like it’s red-hot and stands up to greet you.
“Hi,” he says, pulling his own tray back to make room for yours. “Please, please sit down.” You wonder if he’s going to try and reach out to shake your hand—but he’s back down as soon as you swing your leg over the bench. You follow suit, giving him a polite, tight-lipped smile. Grace hums, eyes squinting as he taps his fingers across the tabletop. “I recognize you,” he says, “You had the, uh, fast hands.” The observation comes out of his mouth disjointed and awkward—but, straight to the point.
“Stratt hired me on as a documentation specialist. Fancy title for making sure that everything gets dated and down on paper,” you tell him. You almost want to light up at the thought of him picking you out in that stuff-full room—but you’ve got to keep your cool. “I’ve been assigned to record all research regarding the astrophage.” Which means you’re going to spend a lot more time together.
“Important work. Historians will love you if everything turns out how it’s supposed to,” Grace nods. In truth, you’d never considered your job in that light. In your head, Stratt had simply wanted documentation as a contingency. If all Hell broke loose, there’d still be the logs that you maintained of all the work of the scientists, the engineers, the researchers… You hadn’t been able, in the rush of it all, to consider what it meant long-term.
“Right,” you chuckle, “And molecular biology’ll make a pretty shrine for you, too.” It’s a silly thought—Father of the Astrophage, on a platinum plaque. The flattery makes him shift in his seat, index finger coming up to push up his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose. You have to soak it in a little bit, his nervousness up-close. It’s charming.
The two of you sit in silence for a moment, making ample use of your food by using it to keep quiet. Grace has his cereal, and you your oats. It’s easy. You feel like a little kid again, trying to make a friend in the cafeteria; you’re sure that’s what it looks like, too. You take a moment to crack open the lid of your juice, and Grace takes the opening. “Is this where you would’ve wanted it to end up?” he asks, “When… everything, you know—”
“Went to shit? No, not at all,” you huff. It comes up again. What would you do if the apocalypse started? Except, this time, it’s very clear that neither of you have much of a choice. Yes, it’s definitive now. Grace doesn’t know how he got here, still, despite the briefings. He’s in the middle of the ocean, and so are you; he wants advice. “I think most people hope for a conservationist sort of end. Like, in the middle of the redwoods, in a tiny cabin with a stone chimney, or something.”
He lets out a dry chuckle and stifles it quickly with the back of his hand. “Is that what you wanted?”
“No. I mean, I think I’m where I’m supposed to be now. It’s this or slow, slow death.” For an unquantifiable amount of people, you could add. You find it better not to.
“And, your family—?”
“—knows I’m here, if you can believe it. Stratt’s act of kindness. They think I’m doing administrative work for the U.N., which isn’t a complete lie,” you murmur under your breath. He can only nod solemnly. Carefully, you recall: “She told me that you didn’t… have anyone to contact.”
He doesn’t seem phased at all by the inquiry. “No, no. My parents passed away before I finished doing my doctorate. They were older. I moved to the Bay for my tenure track after that. It was the easiest decision I could’ve made, considering—” He doesn’t have to spell it out for you: he bombed his own career with a single dissertation—it was teaching or nothing at all. And, all things considered, Grace really loved to teach. “I lived alone in the end. No dog, one ex.”
Ex. You think it’s probably too soon—and, too much pressure—to tell him that you don’t have anyone else waiting for you at home, either. In some twisted way, you might want him to be curious about it. To wonder if there’s someone waiting for you at the shore, or if you’re hooking up with one of the pilots on-deck. It’s all a bit of harmless fun. Vaguely, you explain, “I had an apartment, too. Nice place. Took forever to hunt for it, lock down the lease, decorate—and then, nothing. Had to surrender the keys after Stratt made it clear she wanted me on-board.”
—
It’s all been a little bit less lonely since Grace’s boarded the ship. You practically have to be glued together on account of Stratt’s orders. “He should rarely leave your sight,” she tells you over dinner one night, in a cleared navigational deck, “It’s imperative that you have his calculations recorded down to the decimal and uploaded to the database.” Really, it isn’t the hardest task. After that first breakfast, he seems generally comfortable in your company. He floats towards you, seemingly, more than you do him. The greatest tell is his punctuality. Grace makes it early enough to morning meetings so that he can position himself right beside you.
When there’s much more dull conversation being held about different nations providing staff or material, you notice that he has the tendency to get more… distractable. Beneath the table, you can feel his knee brush against yours as he bounces his leg—sole of his sneaker scuffing against the floor. Of course, he doesn’t have nearly as much reason to listen when the conversations turn more diplomatic and less scientific. And, while you’re supposed to pay attention heartily and take your extensive notes, Grace is on the less helpful end of the spectrum.
He likes to pass notes. They vary in topic and seriousness. There’s one particular morning when he chooses to be heavy-handed with them. It starts as soon as the representatives begin to argue. With nimble fingers, Grace slips the note right next to the trackpad of your laptop. Britain is a tool. Britain being the politician from Britain, an older man with too-tight trousers who dissented to almost everything Stratt had to offer. You take the card and slip it between the front cover and the first page of your notebook.
More chatter, and you can already see him scribbling out the next one behind his walled-up hand. You peek over, and he slides it determinedly towards you. Hope they do something other than eggs today at caf. Yes, they’d served it five days in a row. You decided to keep your complaints about it in for the first three days, and broke on the fourth. Grace had heard the bulk of your argument—the grittiness of powdered eggs, and how you’d kill for a stack of pancakes. This note, you slide back over to him. It’s not nearly as taboo as the first, which means he can have it back.
The last one Grace has for you comes a whopping ten minutes later, after he gets pulled into a conversation about laser tech for the breeding tanks. Once that devolves into yet another disagreement, he turns his attention back over to you. This new note, he makes sure to fold in half before lodging it beneath the keyboard of your computer. It takes you another five minutes of conversation lulling for you to open it. You pry the two edges open to read it: What do you do with sick chemists? Helium. What do you do if they die? Barium.
This one makes you snort to yourself too loud for your liking. You brush the index card into your lap with your nose scrunched in realization of how much of a slacker you must look like. This routine of yours is beginning to set itself in most morning meetings, and you’re beginning to wonder if you should start giving him the silent treatment. Grace appears rather proud to have made you laugh, chest puffed out; he tries to hide his smirk by looking down at his lap. If Stratt has an opinion about it, she doesn’t say anything.
—
You’re staring, and you really can’t help it. Grace has his cardigan shedded and strewn across the nearest lab chair. He’s doing an awful lot of calculations, something on astrophage power output that you’ll have to ask him to spell out for you later. The graphic, of course, is no better than the rest of the shirts he’s worn all week. But, the real kicker is the way that the fabric of his short-sleeves are hugging around his biceps. You couldn't have guessed that Grace would be so… fit.
You can’t take your eyes off him now, as he takes a black Expo marker to the surface of the whiteboard. The shirt’s tight. You’re checking him out. It isn’t until he peeks over his shoulder at you that you become all the more conscious of it. It’s a fleeting moment; unwillingly, you peel your eyes off of his and onto your laptop on the desk in front of you. You’re supposed to be compiling a folder to send out to the Payload Systems team. Not… this.
“Sorry,” you shoot out mindlessly. You make an exerted effort to examine the inventory list on your screen and cross-check it with another spreadsheet on the tab over. Busywork. It’s better to look like you’re doing literally anything else.
Grace doesn’t take his eyes off the board as he continues scribbling across it. He lifts the marker off the board a moment: “What for?”
You suck in a deep breath. An apology implies that you’ve got something to be sorry about. You want to leave now—but there’s really no good excuse to. Stratt is off-site, which means that you’re only doing busywork ‘till she’s back with new news. So, you elaborate with an empty “…Nothing.”
“O-kay,” he enunciates. You can’t do anything but return back to your screen with an attempt at dutifulness. Grace stays at the board, head tilted to write some undecipherable combination of greek-letters at the upper-right corner, and you can go back to your previously abandoned work. It’s almost machine-like, the way in which he scrawls the information from left to right, without any hesitation. You write several lines down on the notepad to your left: Hermle centrifuge machine needs replacement. Polypropylene for containment units — CNPC bulk load. And, messily, at the corner of your page, In love with Grace?
It’s difficult to tell. You’re together ninety-percent of the time. You’re clearly attracted to him and his square frames and his dad clothes. He makes you laugh, lets you use his old iPod to listen to Oasis. And maybe it’s the close proximity speaking, but you feel deeply about Grace in a way that you aren’t sure how to describe. Like now, as he caps the white board marker and slides it into his back pocket, before coming over to check on you with quick steps.
“On a scale of one to ten, how illegible is that?” he asks you. You try not to cave as he rests both of his hands on the edge of your desk, toned arms straining right beside you. You squint as you stare at the board, trying to make sense of the numbers.
“I think I can get everything down except for that bottom-half. It’s not your handwriting, just the formulas,” you admit. You’d never been one for complex mathematics, and you need to make sure you can get the equations recorded exactly as they are.
He hums, “That isn’t bad at all. For now, just note the biomass—circled and labeled it wet weight, in tons. If you need to, you can send the number out to DuBois, see if I got the match right, and I…” Grace trails off, picking up the mug that he has set on the desk next to you. He makes an additional effort to peer into your own empty mug, before picking it up with his other free hand. “Will be right back.” He carries them out of the room without another word. Another plus: he fetches you drinks without any asking.
It’s more quiet when he’s out of the room, presumably at the espresso machine just down the hall. In Grace’s absence, you can actually think more clearly about the situation. You know that Shapiro and DuBois have their own version of a relationship—albeit, more or less casual. At the end of the world, nobody really bats an eye about it. All things considered, it’s actually better for morale. You have to wonder if that’s in the cards for the two of you.
It isn’t long before he comes back with the two mugs. First, he places his a safe couple of inches away from your computer. Then, he makes a slow gesture for you to take your mug out of his hands. “Careful. It’s hot,” he tells you softly, running his hand beneath the bottom of the cup to swipe off the possibility of a wet ring. As he gingerly passes the handle into your hands, your fingers brush against one another comfortably. You note, eyes glancing up from the steaming cup, that there’s a faint blush littering his cheeks. But, he’s too intent on the handoff to take his eyes off the coffee to look up at you. Yes, you think, In love with Grace.
—
Once you figure out that fundamental fact, you start to think it over too much. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with your finding. It’s natural, and probably inevitable, for you to have fallen for him. What’s more anxiety-inducing is what you’re supposed to do about it. Under any other circumstances, you’d be okay keeping your mouth shut and letting the opportunity pass you up. But, considering the timeline of the Earth at present, it seems like there’s no time to waste. At the end of the world, it isn’t the sort of thing you should keep to yourself. You should tell him. And still, you’ve been sitting on the idea of it for weeks.
You really hope that Grace hasn’t figured it out, as observant as he is—but it’s really very clear to everyone else on Project Hail Mary. You can tell by the way they watch you both, like it's morning television. Grace rambles on about astrophysics, and you listen. He goes off on tangents about old and wrong college professors, and you laugh. You talk about your life before the project, and he listens with his chin resting on his hand. He asks you questions about what you used to do, where you used to go—like you’re another thing to learn. And everyone fawns.
It’s a good night when you hole yourself in your bunk room. All the engineers and specialists and to-be cosmonauts are all gathered together for drinks and a movie. The simple act of slipping away, letting people assume that you’ve got a migraine or an extra load of paperwork, is easy. It’s in the comfort of your tiny twin bed that you get to listen to the ocean and wailing ship creaks, window propped open to let in the fresh air. It’s strange to think that this room has been yours for so many months; the gunmetal ceiling of it is familiar now.
You get to enjoy this for upwards of an hour, until footsteps come clunking down the hall. You’re sure you know who they belong to. There’s a couple of soft, metal knocks on your door. “Hey, buddy. You sleeping?” It’s Grace’s muddled voice on the other side of the door. “Dinner’s up and everybody’s wondering where you’re at.”
You raise your head off of your pillow, “Door's unlocked. Just come in.” It’s a quick scramble for you to sit up and toss your legs over the side of the bed. As soon as Grace makes it through the doorway, you give him a sheepish smile and a wave.
“Jeez, it’s freezing in here.” Grace’s cardigan is hanging on his right hand. Another tight tee tonight, vintage tour shirt for The Beach Boys. You have to look away as he tosses it on the desk chair adjacent to your bed and as he comes up to sit right beside you. “You know,” he starts, lowering onto the hard mattress, “If you’ve been feeling overworked, I already told you I’d tell Stratt I could handle my own documentation for a week. It’s lab standard, anyway—”
He’s not making it any easier for you. “No, it’s fine,” you insist. It isn’t very easy to tell him that you’re not overworked, that you just have stupid feelings for him. Your refusal only makes him work harder.
Dismissively, he continues, “You can just sit there and watch me work. Read a book or something. A little bit of downtime isn’t going to be the end of the world. And, yes, I know how it sounds given the current circumstanes—but I think you definitely deserve it with the amount of running around that you do.” He’s getting rather impassioned about you resting, so much so that when you mumble out his name—a soft-spoken “Grace”—he doesn’t even pick up on it. He only marches on, “When you think about it, it’d help my research, too. Because if you’re stressed, I’m stressed. And that’s just no good.”
“Ryland,” you blurt. He halts, lips parting and closing. You never call him that, and now he seems very, very dazed. You explain, “I’m not overworked. I just needed a bit of time to think. Alone.”
“Right,” he cedes. “I’m sorry.” You can see his shoulders slump in the slightest, all guilt-ridden about having disturbed you. Grace leans weight onto his sneakers, clearly in an attempt to get off your bed and dismiss himself. Too easily, you reach for his arm to hold him in place.
“No, I want you,” you retract it just as quickly with a blurted, “Here. I want you here.” Grace looks more puzzled than before, but sits himself more comfortably on the end of your bed. Open to listen. You clasp your hands together, “Okay. I’m going to give you a hypothetical… Say, you have a decent life, nothing crazy. Good job at a library. It’s modest, and you’re happy with it. Go You have a good place, good friends. No… partner.” Maybe, the two of you are more similar than you realize. “And that’s okay,” you add, paying no mind to the way Grace’s eyes soften behind the lens of his glasses.
You carry on: “You’ve been okay with that for a decent amount of time. Then… apocalypse starts. You find somebody by chance, who you’d probably never cross paths with otherwise, and you realize that you like being with them. And, suddenly, because the apocalypse has started, you probably won’t have another opportunity to like another person like you do this one. And you really like the one.” You can feel your palms clam up at the confrontation of it all, the vulnerability.
He blinks slowly once. Then, twice. Grace raises a slow index finger up towards himself, eyes peering just over the frame of his glasses, “That’s me.” He states it out like an educated guess, cut-and-dry.
“No, it’s Yao,” you shoot back. “Yes, it’s you, obviously. Who else would it be?”
“Okay,” he says, hand reaching up to take his glasses off. Grace stands up with a deep breath, hand ruffling through his spiky-blonde hair as he walks further away from your bunk. Again, he mutters out a soft, “Yeah, okay,” not far off from how he looks trying to expand out a calculation. Grace taps his foot on the floor, paces left, then right, rubs his palm over the scruff on his face. A torturous lack of response. Then, finally, he turns around. “So, the whole time you weren’t just really into microbiology?”
You have to gawk at him. “Are you being serious?” He looks completely serious, glasses hanging off of his chin, blue eyes inspecting the irked look on your face with doe-like curiosity.
“Well, can you blame me? You’re gorgeous, and you’re also impossible to read.” Gorgeous? He thinks you’re gorgeous. That’s nice. You can feel the warmth bloom in your chest at the implication—but you can’t help but scoff out of pure offense. He puts his hands up in a haphazard shrug. “I mean, now that I know, it makes a lot more sense why you look at me like… that. I wasn’t totally sure.” Now, it seems that he’s making a bit of a game out of it. You don’t care to ask him to elaborate on what “that” looks like.
Stubbornly, you tut, “I’m taking it back. I’m taking it back, and it was completely hypothetical!” You stand up from your spot on the bunk, walking narrowly past Grace to your desk. Briskly, you pick up his cardigan—disposed of on your desk chair—before bunching it up and shoving it towards him.
“No, no, no—you can’t take it back. Cat’s out the bag,” Grace insists teasingly, hands clinging to the cardigan. Before you can completely let go of the woollen fabric, he makes sure, next, to grasp his hands over yours. They’re significantly larger and warm, too warm; with your hands plastered to his chest, there isn’t really anywhere for you to go. You think he must feel the nervousness practically radiating out of you, because he seems to slow down: “Okay, I’m being difficult. I can grovel if you want me to.” Grace’s voice lowers down into a rasp.
There’s a cockiness about it that you haven’t exactly seen from him before. You can’t tell if it’s making you flustered or annoyed—both, likely—and in some bout of courage, you get on your tiptoes to press your lips against his. The cold, metal frame of his glasses nudges against your face as the two of you kiss. Grace takes one hand up to cradle your jaw, and you can hear a quiet, satisfied hum come out of him. It does live up to hypothetical expectation, the way his body melds against yours clumsily around the barrier of the cardigan. It’s very him, and it’s very you.
Grace can barely be convinced, with your hands pushing back against his chest, to let you take a breath of air. Once the two of you split, Grace has a sideways smirk. “I really like you, too. Not sure if I made that clear,” he murmurs. “So, would you come grab dinner with me?”
summary: a minor system failure causes a temporary drop in oxygen levels in one section of the ship. You and Ryland have to seal yourselves into a smaller compartment to conserve breathable air.
warnings: fluff, reader is a biologist, but she is not very useful with the leak since it's not her department. one use of y/n.
word count: 3.6k
a/n: this is purely written out of my love for project hail mary. written on an impulse! farewell <3
MASTERLIST
The alarm doesn’t sound urgent enough.
That’s what unsettles you first. It isn’t loud or sharp or demanding in the way something life-threatening should be. It doesn’t rip you out of sleep or flood your body with adrenaline. It just… exists. A steady, repeating tone threaded quietly through the ship, almost polite, almost easy to ignore if you didn’t know better.
But you do know better.
You lie there for a few seconds, staring up at the curved gray ceiling of your compartment, trying to place it. The ship has a rhythm, almost like a heartbeat – the faint clicks of temperature shifts, the soft whisper of air moving through vents. This doesn’t belong to that.
This is new.
This is wrong.
You inhale slowly, testing it without thinking. At first, nothing feels different. The air is the same recycled dryness, the same faint metallic taste that never quite leaves. But when you exhale, there’s a subtle resistance, something just slightly off, like your lungs had to work a fraction harder than usual.
Not enough to panic.
Not yet.
The alarm pulses again.
You sit up too fast, grabbing the strap beside you when your head spins for a second. The lights are dimmed to the ship’s night cycle, casting everything in a muted amber glow that makes the space feel smaller, more enclosed. Shadows stretch along the curved walls, softening edges and making distances feel strange.
You blink, trying to focus.
And then you realize-
You haven’t heard him.
Normally, by now, there would be something. His voice drifting faintly through the ship, talking to himself, or muttering through a problem out loud. The quiet clatter of something he dropped. The soft rhythm of movement that always tells you he’s awake before you see him.
But now there is nothing.
Just the alarm.
“Ryland?” you call, your voice rough from sleep.
No answer.
Your chest tightens, just slightly. You unclip your restrains and push toward the doorway, your movements a little clumsy, like your body hasn’t fully caught up yet. You don’t like that. You don’t like how aware you suddenly are of your breathing, of the way it feels just a little too noticeable.
The corridor outside is dim, the low amber lighting stretching shadows along the narrow, curved walls. You push forward, catching handholds automatically, your body moving on training even as your thoughts sharpen into something more focused.
“Ryland,” you call again, louder this time.
“I hear it,” he answers from further down the ship, and relief hits you instantly – quick, sharp, almost overwhelming.
But is doesn’t last.
Because of the way he sounds.
Alert. Tense. Fully awake in the way people only are when something is wrong.
You round the corner and find him halfway into the central systems module, one hand braced against frame, the other moving quickly over a panel. His posture is tight, movements precise. His hair is a mess, like he’s already run his hands through it too many times.
He doesn’t look at you right away.
That’s how you know it’s bad.
“What is it?” you ask, your voice steadier than you feel.
“Pressure drop,” he says, eyes fixed on the display. “Section three. Possibly bleeding into four. I’m still checking, but yeah-. Not great.”
“Not great,” you repeat, because that doesn’t mean anything. Not in a situation like this.
He exhales sharply, forcing himself to stay calm. “Oxygen levels are dipping,” he says, finally glancing at you. “Not critical, but we don’t have time to just watch it.”
Your throat feels dry. “Do you know why?”
“No,” he admits, already pulling up another display. “Could be a leak, could be a system fault, could be something else entirely. I don’t have enough data.”
The alarm pulses again, louder now – or maybe it just feels louder because now you understand it.
“Okay,” you say, forcing your voice into something steady. “What do we do?”
He looks at you then. Like he’s weighting something, deciding how much to say.
“We isolate,” he says. “Seal off the affected sections before the pressure drops further.”
Your stomach drops. “And us?”
“There’s a safe compartment two corridors down,” he says quickly. “Smaller space, independent reserve, It’ll hold longer while I figure this out.”
“While you figure it out,” you echo.
“Yeah.”
You hesitate. “How long will it hold?”
There’s that pause.
That tiny hesitation that shouldn’t mean anything – but does.
“Long enough,” he says.
It’s not an answer.
You both know it.
The air feels thinner now. Not dramatically, not dangerously - but enough that you notice. Enough that every breath feels a little more deliberate, like something you have to think about instead of something your body just does.
“Ryland-“
“Hey,”. His voice softens as he steps closer. “We’re okay. Alright? We caught it early. We just need to move.”
You nod, because he’s right, because you trust him.
“Okay,” you say.
And then you move.
The ship feels different now.
Not physically smaller – but it feels that way. Your awareness narrows, focusing only on what matters: where you’re going, how fast you’re getting there, how your body feels with every movement. The dim lighting stretches shadows along the walls, distorting edges and making the corridors feel longer than they are.
You pass the observation dome without meaning to look.
But you do anyway.
The glass stretches wide and curved, revealing the endless black beyond. Stars burn sharp and still, scattered across space in a way that feels almost deliberate. They don’t flicker. They don’t move. They don’t care.
For a second, your reflection overlays them.
Pale. Tense. Eyes just a little too wide.
You look away.
“Almost there,” Ryland says over his shoulder.
You realize your breathing is faster than it should be.
“Yeah,” you manage.
The compartment comes into view - small, reinforced, built for exactly this kind of situation. You’ve trained for it. Practiced it. Run through scenarios where you would need it.
But none of that feels like this.
He reaches it first, grabbing the handle and pulling the hatch open. Then he turns back to you.
“Ready?”
You nod.
He gestures you inside, and you don’t hesitate. You push forward, crossing the threshold, feeling the shift as you enter a space designed to hold, to contain, to survive.
He follows immediately after.
The hatch seals behind you with a heavy, final sound.
It echoes. Lingers. And suddenly - Everything feels smaller. The air feels closer.
Every sound - the hum of the systems, the quiet shift of movement, your own breathing - feels louder in the confined space.
You inhale.
It feels thinner. Not enough to be dangerous. Not yet. But enough that you notice. Enough that your body notices.
You glance at him, but he’s already looking at you.
And for the first time since the alarm started, the reality settles fully into place.
It’s just the two of you in here.
For a second, neither of you says anything.
The silence isn’t empty - it’s full of small, too-loud things. The low hum of the compartment’s independent systems. The faint shift of metal as the ship adjusts somewhere beyond the walls. Your breathing.
Too fast.
You notice it immediately now.
Each inhale feels sharper, more deliberate. Each exhale a little too quick, like your body is trying to get ahead of something it doesn’t fully understand yet.
“Okay,” Ryland says finally, and his voice is steady, but quieter than before, like the smaller space demands it. “Okay. We’re good. This section’s sealed. We’ve got time.”
You nod, even though your chest doesn’t quite agree.
“How much time?” you ask.
He hesitates.
“Enough,” he says.
It’s the same non-answer as before.
Your lungs tighten.
“Ryland-”
“Hey.” He steps closer, not abrupt, not rushed - just… deliberate. “Hey. Look at me.”
You do.
You don’t want to look at anything else anyway.
His expression is focused, but softer now. Less sharp edges, more something grounding, something meant for you rather than the situation.
“Your breathing’s off,” he says gently.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” There’s no judgment in it. Just fact. “You’re going too fast.”
You swallow, but it doesn’t help. If anything, it makes you more aware of it - of the air, of your lungs, of the way everything suddenly feels like effort.
“I just-” you start, and then stop, because your breath stutters, catching halfway in like your body forgot what it was doing.
Panic spikes.
Sharp. Immediate.
“Okay,” he says quickly, closing the rest of the distance between you. “Nope. We’re not doing that. You’re okay. Just - stay with me, alright?”
You nod, even though it’s small, even though it feels like your control is slipping somewhere just out of reach.
“Breathe with me,” he says.
“I am breathing-”
“Not like that.” Softer now. Closer. “With me.”
He inhales slowly.
Deep.
Controlled.
You try to match him.
It comes out shaky.
“Good,” he murmurs anyway, like you didn’t just fail at something as basic as breathing.
“That’s good. Again.”
You follow.
In.
Your chest protests, tight and uneven.
Out.
Your shoulders drop a fraction.
“Again.”
In.
Out.
The world narrows.
Not to the ship. Not to the problem.
To this.
To him.
To the rhythm he’s setting, steady and patient, like he has all the time in the world even though you both know that’s not true.
You focus on it because it’s easier than focusing on anything else.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Your breathing starts to even out. Not perfect, not normal - but closer. Enough that the sharp edge of panic dulls into something quieter, something manageable.
“Better?” he asks.
You nod.
“Yeah.”
Your voice comes out softer than you expect.
So does his.
“Good.”
Neither of you moves.
You’re aware of it now in a way you weren’t before. How close he is. How there’s barely any space between you in the already small compartment. How if you shift even slightly, you’ll touch him.
You don’t move.
Neither does he.
Your breathing is still synced.
You notice that too.
Every inhale he takes, you follow. Every exhale, you match without thinking, like your body has decided this is safer, this is right.
It should feel strange, but it doesn’t. It feels grounding.
“Hey,” he says quietly.
“Yeah?”
“If we weren’t in the middle of a mildly concerning oxygen situation,” he starts, and there’s a faint, almost nervous edge to it now, something you don’t hear from him often, “I think I would’ve said something about this sooner.”
Your heart stutters.
“About what?”
His gaze flicks, just briefly, to your mouth.
Back to your eyes.
“You know what.”
You do.
You’ve known for a while, you think. Just… never let yourself look at it directly. Never let it become something real, something you’d have to deal with on top of everything else.
“Ryland-”
“Y/N-“
He uses your name. Not the one he uses in briefings, not the professional distance you’ve both kept out of habit. Your actual name, quiet and careful like it means something different now.
It hits you harder than anything else has so far.
Your breath catches again-but not from panic this time.
Something warmer and deeper.
His expression shifts instantly, concern flickering back. “Hey- did I-”
“No,” you interrupt softly. “No, it’s just…”
You don’t finish. You don’t need to. You move a bit, just enough so your forehead can brush his. The contact is light. Barely there. But it feels like something snapping into place, like a connection you didn’t fully understand until now suddenly becoming impossible to ignore.
His breath hitches and steadies.
You follow.
Of course you do.
In.
Out.
Closer now.
So close you can feel the warmth of him, the quiet presence of him in a way that makes the rest of the room fade just slightly at the edges.
“Your heart’s racing again,” he murmurs.
“So is yours,” you whisper back.
A soft, breathless almost-laugh escapes him. “Yeah. Okay. Fair.”
Neither of you pulls away, but his hand moves slowly, like he’s giving you time to stop if you want to, but you don’t.
His fingers settle lightly against your side, not gripping, not holding - just there, steadying, grounding.
“Is this okay?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper.
You nod.
Then, because that doesn’t feel like enough-
You lean in. Not all the way. Not yet.
Just enough that the space between you disappears completely, that your breath mingles with his, that the line between where you end and he begins blurs into something softer, something harder to define.
He doesn’t move away.
“Say something,” he murmurs, like he needs to hear it, like he needs the confirmation in words even if everything else is already saying yes.
“I’m okay,” you whisper. “I’m here.”
It’s not exactly what he asked, but it’s enough.
His thumb shifts slightly against your side, a small, absent movement that sends a sharp awareness through you anyway.
“Okay,” he breathes.
And then-
Nothing.
You stay like that. Forehead to forehead. Breathing the same air. Sharing the same rhythm. The tension doesn’t break. It builds.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Until it feels like the air between you is heavier than anything else in the room.
“We should-” you start, but the words don’t quite make it out.
“Yeah,” he says.
Neither of you moves.
Your hand lifts without you fully deciding to do it, fingers brushing lightly against his arm, then settling there, like you’re anchoring yourself, like you’re testing the reality of him.
He inhales sharply.
Still doesn’t pull away.
“Say we’re being rational right now,” he murmurs.
“We’re not,” you whisper.
“Okay. Good. Just checking.”
You almost laugh. It comes out softer than that.
Your foreheads are still pressed together. Your noses brush when either of you shifts even slightly. Your breathing is still synced, still steady, still shared.
A sharp beep cuts through the moment.
Both of you freeze.
The system panel behind him flickers, pulling his attention instantly, the shift so quick it almost feels like being dropped back into reality too fast.
“Right,” he exhales, pulling back just enough to glance over his shoulder. “Problem. Still have that.”
You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.
“Yeah,” you say, quieter now.
He hesitates for half a second longer but he finally moves.
Just enough to put space back between you.
“Stay here,” he says, already turning toward the panel. “I’m going to reroute what I can from inside this section. If it’s a leak, we’ll see a continued drop. If it’s a system fault…”
He trails off, already working, fingers moving quickly, mind shifting back into problem-solving mode.
You try to focus on something else.
On the numbers flickering across the panel behind him, on the quiet mechanical rhythm of the ship adjusting to whatever is happening beyond this sealed room, on the way the emergency lighting casts everything in that same soft amber that makes edges blur and shadows stretch - but it’s useless, completely useless, because your body hasn’t caught up with the fact that the moment is over.
Because it doesn’t feel over.
It lingers, heavy in the air, like it’s still happening somewhere just under the surface, like if you moved wrong - if you breathed wrong - you’d fall right back into it.
You shift slightly, catching the handhold beside you more out of habit than necessity, and your fingers tighten around it a second too long.
He notices.
“You okay?” he asks without turning, voice quieter again, softer in that way it only gets when he’s trying not to push.
“Yeah,” you say, but it comes out a little too quick, a little too thin.
He hums, not convinced.
The panel beeps again, sharper this time, and his attention snaps fully back to it, fingers moving faster now, more precise, like he’s narrowing in on something.
“Okay,” he mutters under his breath. “Okay, that’s… not ideal, but not catastrophic either, so that’s something.”
You push off gently, drifting closer before you even realize you’ve decided to move.
“What is it?” you ask.
He glances at you briefly, and there’s something different in his expression now - not just focus, not just concern. Something layered under it, something that wasn’t there before and definitely wasn’t supposed to be there now.
“Microfracture,” he says. “Probably along one of the external seams in section three. Slow leak. Very slow. But in a closed system, slow still matters.”
Your stomach drops.
“Can you fix it?”
“Not from here,” he says. “I’d have to go outside, patch it manually, and I don’t exactly love the idea of leaving you in a sealed compartment with limited oxygen while I do that.”
“Ryland-“
“I know,” he cuts in quickly, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I know. I’m thinking.”
You hover there for a second, close enough now that you can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw tightens just slightly when he’s running through too many variables at once.
“You don’t have to do it right now,” you say.
“We don’t have a ton of ‘not right now’ to work with.”
“Then we use what we have,” you push, softer. “You said it’s slow.”
He exhales.
“Yeah.”
“So we buy time.”
He glances at you again.
And for a second, the tension shifts - just slightly - away from the problem and back to you, to this space, to everything that almost happened a minute ago.
“You’re very calm about this,” he says.
“I’m not,” you admit. “I’m just trying not to make it worse.”
A faint smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah. That tracks.”
You’re close.
Closer than you were earlier.
Close enough that if either of you leaned even slightly, you’d be right back where you were - foreheads brushing, breath shared, that fragile line between something unspoken and something real.
You don’t move away.
Neither does he.
“We should probably…” he starts.
“Yeah.”
Neither of you finishes the sentence.
His hand lifts again - like it did before - hesitant this time, like he’s not sure if he should, like he’s giving himself time to stop.
His fingers brush your wrist first, like he is trying to test the waters, but you don’t pull back.
And suddenly your pulse feels very, very obvious.
“Still racing,” he murmurs, almost to himself.
“You’re still holding my wrist,” you point out quietly.
“Yeah,” he says.
But he doesn’t move away.
Instead, he steps closer.
You feel it. That same quiet, building tension, but deeper now, heavier, threaded with something you both already crossed once and can’t quite pretend didn’t happen.
“Say something,” he murmurs again, like before, but this time it’s different - less careful, more… raw.
“I don’t think I can,” you whisper.
“Yeah,” he breathes. “Okay.”
Your free hand finds his shirt without you really deciding to do it, fingers curling lightly into the fabric like you need something to hold onto, like you need to anchor yourself to something real before this slips away again.
He exhales sharply at that.
His forehead finds yours again.
Familiar already in a way that feels impossible.
“You’re-” he starts, then stops, like he doesn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“Yeah,” you whisper.
Your noses brush.
Closer.
Your breathing syncs again without effort, without thought, like your bodies remember it before your minds can catch up.
“Tell me to stop,” he says quietly.
You don’t.
You can’t.
Instead, your grip tightens slightly in his shirt. That’s all the answer he needs.
The kiss isn’t sudden.It isn’t rushed. It happens slowly, like everything else between you has - like a decision unfolding in real time, like something you both reach at the exact same moment without saying it out loud.
His lips brush yours first. Barely there.
You inhale softly against him.
Don’t pull away.
So he does it again.
A little firmer this time, still careful, but still giving you space to stop.
Your hand shifts from his shirt to his jaw, fingers warm against his skin, and that’s when something in him gives - just slightly, just enough that the restraint softens and the kiss deepens, not aggressively, not overwhelming, but certain now.
Your chest tightens, but not from lack of oxygen, not from panic - something else entirely, something warmer and sharper all at once.
He exhales against your mouth, and it’s shaky in a way you’ve never heard from him before.
The awareness that this is happening in the worst possible moment - and the inability to stop anyway.
Your fingers slide slightly along his jaw, and he leans into it without thinking, like he’s been wanting to do that for a while now.
The kiss lingers.
Just… consuming in a quiet, contained way that fits the space you’re in, that fits the fact that there’s nowhere else to go, nowhere to escape to.
When you finally pull back, it’s only a fraction.
Just enough to breathe.
“Okay,” he whispers, like he’s trying to process it in real time. “Okay, that-”
“Yeah,” you murmur.
Outside the compartment, the problem still exists. The slow leak. The thinning air. The reality waiting for you the second this moment ends.
His thumb brushes lightly against your wrist again, absent, grounding.
“We still have to fix the ship,” he says softly.
“I know.”
“We should probably focus on that.”
“Probably.”
Neither of you moves.
You both stay exactly where you are, breathing the same air, sharing the same space, knowing that whatever happens next-
You ran out on Steve almost three years ago in the middle of a sweet fling, but now you’re back in Hawkins, and there’s a little girl on your hip that looks just like him. fem, 14k
afab reader, second-chance romance, girl!dad steve, slow burn idiots, no upside down au
⋆ ˚｡⋆୨♡୧⋆ ˚｡⋆
You realise how fucked you are pretty quickly.
It’s something in the way the kid is looking at you. He’s staring at you, not unfriendly but piercing, and his gaze keeps flicking to Leah like he’s trying to make sense of her, and his mouth is stuck obnoxiously with his tongue flat and pulled into that cruel letter ‘S’.
You freeze up like you’ve been caught, which doesn’t help.
And the kid spins in his Nike’s and races for the entrance, ditching a basket full of veggies and a pack of gum in the middle of the aisle.
“Okay, Lee,” you say, sweating despite the November chill. “Let’s get going.”
Leah grins in her seat in the shopping cart. “Meemaw’s?” she asks.
“Yeah. Let’s go make sure your meemaw had her dinner.”
Your ears ring all the way home. They don’t stop ringing. You spend the night waiting for a phone call you don’t get, awkward and clammy. There’s a certain way that rich families work in Indiana. You can see the coming hush money or the threat to leave town almost as clearly as you could see the loveless marriage years ago. You and Leah need to get out of dodge before you’re stuck having conversations you never wanted to have.
I mean, who could’ve predicted that? One of Steve’s teenagers recognises you in the grocery store three years after your fling, how’d they even remember?
The phone doesn’t ring, that night.
Or the next.
Maybe Steve didn’t believe the kid. Maybe the kid had an emergency completely unrelated to Leah. Maybe Steve believed it and didn’t care. You deem yourselves safe from harm in a venture to the grocery store when your mom asks for chicken noodle soup.
It’s there you recognise your mistake. Steve Harrington’s shiny BMW sits parked in the bay by the sign for the laundromat and the man himself sits inside with a paperback bent open on his thigh. He’s glaring at it like it killed his whole family.
You move bodily away from him with Leah clasped to your chest, wondering if you can beat him in, but then a chirp sounds near the door and you watch in slow motion as a young teenager brings a radio to his mouth and says, “Code milkshake!”
You hear a curse and can’t help looking back, right at the bimmer, where Steve is looking up through the windshield with a look of frozen trepidation on his face.
—
So.
How did you end up where you are?
You aren’t one for thinking about the past. Don’t like doing it. In fact, you try your very hardest not to think of the past when you can help it. Once Leah was born, that was easy to do. Babies are demanding, they take over your entire life, and your new life in Portland was already busy to begin with. You find thinking of the past incessant and unnecessary, but. Things are happening oh so fast —you had genuinely figured you could get through your homecoming without being spotted. You figured you could leave Leah at home with your mom while you shopped, but meemaw’s stroke has affected more than her body, and you couldn’t leave Leah there in good conscience in case an accident happened.
It’s not like you had many friends, before you left. Any, in fact. Steve was the first guy to ever show any interest in you, and as nice as he’d been in the quiet moments after, he hadn’t exactly brought you roses or promised you anything. You’re the dummy who got pregnant by the ‘washed out’ king of Hawkins High. It was probably going to be one of his peers, and it was never going to be Nancy Wheeler.
Things were obviously more detailed at the time, but you and Steve had come together in a fling. It’s not a relationship that you’d pictured for yourself, but it’s not as though you set your sights on him and thought, yeah, I’m going to fuck him. It was more that he was friendly, and you were both at the same bar at the same time sitting by yourselves, and with a little gin and a ton of mutual loneliness, it’d felt natural to let him kiss you against the hood of his car. When he drove you home, worried you’d get stuck in the rain, you’d offered him into an empty house. Things snowballed from there.
The sex was good. Steve was kind. He was a bit awkward from time to time and he didn’t know what to say without putting his foot in his mouth, but you liked it. Liked him.
Then the test. Then the memory of his Harrington name, how his mom wanted him to marry a socialite and his dad was priming him to get into the family business, whatever that may be. That silly conversation about kids. “I’d never put them through it,” he’d said, naked and tracing a star into your shoulder blades through the sheets, his hair damp at the nape of his neck with sweat, “are you joking? They’d be the loneliest kid ever.”
You remember laughing softly. You’d wanted him to say something different, but you aren’t sure what it is he could’ve said to make it right enough to stay.
In the end, you figured Leah could be part of a brand new start. You applied for a job in the classifieds and uprooted the rest of your life to go to it, and when you finally had your baby, you didn’t let yourself call Steve. What use would that have been, letting him smash the lingering, aching bit of your heart that wanted him to love you? You were smart enough then to recognise that your dream for the future was about as childish as getting knocked up at nineteen.
It hurts now, though, as he gets out of the car, how badly you want him to want you, and how stupid you’ve always been.
Steve shuts the door to the BMW and makes his way in a jog across the parking lot. He breathes your name. You’re nervous, not stupid. You don’t try to hide the baby.
She grumbles on your hip.
Steve stands in front of you. He’s remarkably not shouting at you, but he’s not smiling, either. He looks different than the last time you’d seen him for sure, fuller and broader, lip dark with stubble and his hair shorter (but not short). There’s a funny scar stretching unkindly against his throat, startlingly new to you but clearly healed.
He stands there in quiet.
Leah makes a fawning sound, like she’s tired and excited to see a new person.
“Hi, Steve,” you say, to get sound out in the air.
His eyes fall on Leah. She’s a good mix of you both. Got her dad’s eyes and her mom’s nose and a handful of his beauty marks, small dark freckles that sprouted all over her body a few weeks after she was born.
“Is she mine?” he asks, cutting straight to the fat.
You shift her closer to your chest. He’s impossible to read for once, not a lick of anything on his face as he waits for you to answer. The cold chaps your lips and the late-fall sunshine threatens to blind you where it’s rising from behind him.
“You didn’t want to have a baby,” you say carefully. Each word said with less enthusiasm than the previous.
He doesn’t speak. Leah whines at the pause, her hand spreading against your collarbone in protest.
“I know you didn’t. You said it’d be miserable, and you’d get stuck with a woman you didn’t love to save face, and I knew that. I didn’t see any good in… in making you go through that.”
To your complete and utter surprise, his face softens. His mouth puckers in sympathy and his arm twitches like he’s going to reach for you. His hair curls into his eyes in the cold breeze. He squints against it, gaze falling once again on Leah, who he can’t get enough of. He’s full-blown gawking at her, watching her sigh and sniffle and press her hand into your neck.
“Is she mine?” Steve asks again.
You clear your throat to answer, but you can’t summon the words. Your nod is jerky and embarrassed and annoyed, all at once. Of course she’s his baby. She looks so much like him, and you never let anybody else touch you.
Steve opens his mouth to finally speak and you cut him off. “Well, she’s mine,” you say tightly.
He nods like he understands. He doesn’t even look mad at the insinuation.
“Her name is Leah.” If he’d been angry with you, cruel, even agitated, which maybe he deserves to be, you’re not sure you could offer this to him now. “She… she looks a lot like you, huh?” you ask.
Steve manages a laugh, strained as it may be. “Yeah. Yeah, she does.” He swallows harshly. “I thought if I came by the house you’d turn me away. Uh. Because I thought there must’ve been a reason you didn’t want me to know, but now we’re… here.”
You glance around the parking lot. His tattle of a child has made himself scarce.
“Do you wanna come home with me?” you ask. Mostly for want of something to say.
“Yeah.”
You go to leave, but Steve makes a sound and brings you right back. Without comment, he curls an arm around your shoulder and pulls you into a half-hug, slotting his nose against your temple like he used to, even as you tense up in his embrace.
“I thought you’d be more angry at me than this,” you say under your breath.
“Yeah, that’s not really how I work.” He parts from you awkwardly and points to the car. “I’ll follow you?” he asks.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” He turns very suddenly and makes his way to his car.
You meander to your own car and pop open Leah’s door. “Sorry, Lee,” you murmur, tucking her into her carseat.
“Why?” she murmurs.
“We’re gonna go to meemaw’s, okay?” If your mom could hear you calling her meemaw before her stroke she’d have knocked you up the side of the head, but it’s all Leah’s ever known her as, and meemaw doesn’t have much choice in the matter now. You’d laugh if you didn’t feel sick.
“Okay.”
You kiss her cheek, getting stuck there with your nose in her hair, all manner of panic and awkwardness and I’d-rather-nots thrumming through you. I should’ve stayed in Portland, you think.
Leah kisses your cheek while you’re stooped there. Your misery takes a backseat as you gather your bearings.
You climb into your own seat, close the door, lock it, and shove the keys in the ignition. Steve’s car idles a few spaces behind, waiting for you to go. You cannot put this off much longer, but you’d pictured the moment so differently, there’s a sense of unreality now. Is this happening? Did you really spill the truth to him the very first time he asked?
Where’s your backbone?
Where’s your common sense?
With a groan, you pull the car out of the space and begin the drive to your mom’s house. You were never close with her, as strange as it seems. She was a woman with interests and her kid happened incidentally. It doesn't bother you anymore. You came to Hawkins to take care of her. Nobody else was going to do it for you, but so far she’s been an easy patient. She needs help making dinner and she can’t walk more than the length of the hall without finding herself breathless, but she’s recovering slowly, so long as her mental faculties recoup with her body, she’ll be alright.
You, however, have screwed the entire pooch. You look at Leah in the rearview mirror and worry you’ve ruined her entire life.
“Chill,” you say to yourself quietly, almost missing the road to your mom’s house. Worst comes to worst and we go home to Portland, you tell yourself. Nothing has to change.
“Mommy?”
“Mm?” you ask.
Leah leans forward in her car seat, huffing with annoyance when the belts keep her in place. The jacket she’s wearing has bunched into a lump under her chin. “Off?” she asks.
“Two minutes.”
“Off.”
“Let me park the car, Lee. I’ll take it off of you as soon as we get home.”
She whines long and loud.
“Sorry, sweet girl. Two minutes and we’re there.”
Leah sulks the entire way there. You park in the space in front of the house and hurry out of the car, quick enough to see Steve in the bimmer pulling onto the sidewalk. You open Leah’s door and offer her a huge smile, hoping to cull a tantrum with bubbly affection. “Hi, off?”
“Yes!”
You laugh to yourself and bring her out, even as your heartbeat climbs up your throat. You can hear Steve getting out of his car as you unbuckle Leah from the car seat and drag her out. You sit her in the slight dip of the window and use your stomach to keep her up as your fingers search for the zipper of her coat. You pull it tight down and unzipper her, freeing her of the thing that had been irking her so bad and restoring her good mood.
She exhales dramatically in relief, which has you laughing again. “Is that better?” you ask through it.
“Better,” she echoes.
Leah sits up at the sound of shoes on gravel. Steve’s crossing the drive, hands shoved in his pockets.
“Who?” she asks.
Uhhhh.
“He’s gonna come in and have dinner with us, okay?”
“Y’okay.”
“Yeah?”
Leah nods enthusiastically. You can see Steve grinning in your peripheral vision, and it’s so much like Leah’s smile you find your heart going haywire.
“Okay,” you say, your full attention to Steve. “Is that cool?”
“Can we talk, first?”
You don’t blame him for asking.
“Yeah, we’ll talk first. But… my mom, she’s not doing the best right now, so. Maybe we should talk outside?”
“I’m not going to yell.”
“No, but. If you’re angry, I get it, but she can’t cope with that right now.”
“Are you angry?” he asks.
“No.”
“Then we don’t have anything to worry about,” he says, the sound of his smile palpable as Leah gives one back. “I’m not gonna yell. I promise.”
You show him into the house. It feels like walking yourself to the gallows.
The room is narrow. The sides of your vision start to dissolve as you drop your car keys in the bowl by the door, then walk Leah to the kitchen. You hold her one handed as you palm off her shoes, dropping them and then her on the floor by the kitchen table. “Okay?” you ask her.
She wanders off toward the living room and the sound of TV.
Steve Harrington’s standing in your mom’s rinky dink kitchen waiting for you to talk. You’re standing there useless, taking sips of air that sting, waiting for him to cut the crap and berate you. It would make sense. If he’s upset that you didn’t tell him you were pregnant, or that you were stupid enough to keep her, to get pregnant in the first place, it wouldn’t surprise you. Men are cruel, and Steve had a reputation for popularity. It would make sense for him to be mean to you now.
“How old is she?” he asks finally.
“She’s turning two soon.”
Steve seems to be holding his tongue.
“Just– ask.” You try to look sorry. “Ask me whatever you want.”
“Can I–” He throws a hand out, the first sign that he’s not as genial as he appears. “Can I be her dad?”
You flinch. “What?”
“Like, I want to be her dad. A real dad. I want to be in her life, I want her to know me. Did you think I wouldn’t want that?”
“I didn’t think you wanted kids at all.”
“I want kids.” Steve crosses his arms over his chest. “I always wanted a whole team of them.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“When? When you told me you were having my baby?”
This is more what you’d been expecting. There’s a cruel pleasure in being vindicated. “When you told me you didn’t want kids, Steve. You said you didn’t want a miserable kid in a miserable marriage, what was I supposed to glean from that?”
“Exactly, I didn’t want a miserable kid, which is exactly what I was, and I didn’t want it in an arranged marriage that my mom thought would be good for me.” His anger drains a little. “I never meant– I mean, even if I didn’t, you should’ve told me.”
“She’s my baby.”
“That’s not fair.”
“That’s totally fair, she’s literally mine.”
“It’s not fair to act like I wouldn’t have cared,” he clarifies, frowning at you. It’s so disappointed-looking it pisses you off worse, but you're trying to keep a level head. Nobody here deserves for you to blow up and say words you don’t mean.
You bite your lip. “I’m sorry, Steve, but I wasn’t convinced that you would. I wanted what was best for me and her.”
“I can be best for you both.”
You wait for him to hold it up. To prove what he means.
“If she’s mine, I want to be her dad,” he says.
“If?”
He waves a hand, like he could roll his eyes. He should thank his lucky stars he didn’t. “Not like that, I’m not saying she’s not, I just want to look after her.”
“She’s looked after.”
“I’m not saying she’s not,” he says, uneasy now, shifting to hide a hand in his pocket. He wasn’t expecting you to be difficult, you think. “I’m not saying that. I’m not saying anything about you, I’m asking you if I can do right by you.”
“You might not actually want her, Steve.”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about her since the kids told me. I didn’t get a good look at her, but the idea? Just the idea of her? I wanted it.”
You sigh, frustrated, and set your sights on the fridge. “Can’t believe you had kids posted up at Bradley’s to stalk me,” you murmur.
“I needed to see her for myself.”
“Steve... You’re twenty three. We aren’t married. You don’t have to be anything to her, you don’t have to do right by me, we don’t have to play house until you’re miserable. In a couple of months we’ll go home to Portland and you don’t have to do anything. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but you don’t have to worry. You can tell everyone you tried and I said no and you’ll still look good.”
“Why are you being like this?” he asks, leaving little air between your sentence and his. “What are you talking about? I’m asking you if I can keep you guys and you’re trying to run me out?”
“Keep us?” you ask indignantly.
“Yes!” He clears his throat. “I don’t get why you left without telling me and I am angry, but I also don’t understand what it’s like to have to make that decision, and I’m sorry you made it by yourself, and I don’t blame you for running away. Okay? Is that okay?”
He’s so loud, then, so tightly wound and upset, his voice a shade of pleading, that the protests you’d been making die on your lips.
“Yeah,” you say quietly.
“You didn’t think I wanted a baby, and I guess I didn’t give you a reason to think that, but I do want one. I would’ve— if you’d told me, I would’ve lost my mind. I’m still losing it.”
You pull out a chair at the kitchen table to take a wobbly seat. Your heart is racing, that stupid kiddie feeling of being in trouble for hurting him clouded by a lingering sense of mistrust. You’d thought… all these years, that Steve didn’t want kids, or marriage, or anything, and– and– maybe you didn’t run away because of him, maybe it was all you, maybe—
“Hey,” he says, a hand landing between your shoulders, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” you ask, sharper than you mean to.
“I don’t know. I wanted you to stop freaking out.”
“Well,” you say, licking your lips, your breath coming short and shallow, “it didn’t work.”
Steve Harrington rubs your back. You try desperately to chill out, Leah in the other room, your mom sleeping or listening, probably already wound up from all the ruckus, and Steve, who you haven’t seen in years, who used to kiss all over your face before he’d hug you in the dark of his bedroom, waiting for you to calm down so he can say what he needs to.
A chair pulls out next to yours after a while. Steve sits beside you, resting his hand on your knee.
After a few minutes, you cover his hand with yours.
“She’s beautiful,” he says.
“Looks like her mom,” you mumble.
“Yeah, she does. More like me though.”
You huff a weak laugh.
“Are you gonna throw me out?” Steve asks.
“You want to be her dad?”
For a few seconds, you worry he hasn’t heard you. But he rubs a small back and forth on your leg and says, “Please.”
“Okay. Okay, then. I’m not letting you meet her if you’re not serious, Steve. You have to mean it.” You raise your eyes to his and all his perfect lashes. “Promise?”
He offers his pinky, which is so dumb. This whole scenario is so stupid. Too bad it’s mostly (almost entirely) your own fault.
You shake his pinky. He keeps them tied for a long time.
In a rush, you sniffle yourself dry and usher Leah into the room with a hand on her shoulder. She is so, so small. At least your mom missed the commotion, sleeping sat up in the armchair.
“You promise?” you ask Steve, pausing at the table.
Steve nods emphatically. By the looks of things, he’s all in.
You pull your chair out opposite Steve and scoop Leah into your lap. You hold her wrist in your hand gently and lean down to talk in her ear. “Okay, Lee. I gotta tell you something, okay?”
“Y’okay.”
“This is daddy.”
You can tell he’s not expecting such a straightforward introduction, but after a moment, he cannot hide his smile. Leah looks at him with his almond shaped eyes, all smiles in return.
“Okay? This is daddy, and he’s gonna spend some time with us.”
“Huh?”
You point at Steve, smiling even as your hand trembles between you both. “This is your daddy. He missed you very much and wanted to see you. Can you say hi?”
“Hi,” Leah says, her voice raspy and high.
“Hi, Leah,” he says, ever so slightly choked up. Just barely.
“He was my best friend,” you say, “and he wants to be your best friend, too. Do you want to play a game with daddy?”
“Wam’ play game?” Leah asks Steve.
“Please, I would love to play a game. What game do you like?” he asks.
“Um…” Leah places her hand in his and you could probably weep, but he’s smiling at her with so much love as he waves it up and down you never get there. She shakes her fist up and down in his, giggling when he over exaggerates her strength.
“Woah, strong girl!” he says. “Don’t break my arm!”
Leah gives him a good shake.
—
“I do not understand why you’re so calm. How you’re so calm. This is not how I’ve seen you react to things.”
Steve pushes the shopping cart into Robin’s hip. She squawks and thrusts it at him, the crate of kiddie water bottles he’d balanced on the bottom rung hitting him clean in the ankle.
“How am I supposed to react?” he asks, wincing as he brings his leg up to rub at the new wound.
“Uh, to blow the fuck up?” She tucks her hair behind her ears, staring at him. “I was expecting more whining, if I’m totally honest.”
Steve gets back to the task at hand. The aisle they’re in is pink no matter where you look, full of Barbie dolls and ballerina tutus and teddy bears with hearts in their palms. “What would you want if you were two?” he asks.
Robin offers one of her kinder smiles. “I guess I’d want everything.”
“Well, Y/N’s not gonna like that.”
He wants to take care of you both. He doesn’t want to make you feel like you weren’t doing that already. So. The cart is full of stuff for him mostly, things he’ll need to look after Leah should he ever be allowed to take her by himself, which he assumes he will. He’s got diapers, sippy cups, wet wipes, rash creams, a mountain of clothes he has to remember to keep the receipt for, baby snacks, a changing pad, bath toys. He has a towel like a poncho with a ladybug hood and a great big bottle of bathroom cleaner to shape things up for his baby.
He also got you pajamas. He’s not sure why. He remembers that old pair you used to wear whenever he’d make it to your place with the pink and purple plaid, and he’d been wondering if you kept them, and a desire to see you in them again had come over him and now they’re in the cart. He’s hoping he can sort of slip them in between diapers.
Steve doesn’t want to show you up, but he does want to prove he’s being serious, emotionally and physically —financially. Leah is his baby. Kids are expensive, and she must’ve already cost you a small fortune, and you didn’t want his help but you can bet you’ll be getting it, not singularly because he cared for you (he has to gloss it into that one word, care, things being complicated enough as it stands without remembered notions of falling and love) but because Leah is literally his baby.
He pauses on the spot.
Leah is his girl. He’s allowed to buy her things. It will not be an insult.
He grabs a Barbie with a puppy dog on a leash, a box of stickle bricks, a teddy bear with a big cutesy grin, and purple bunny rabbit to be his best friend.
Robin watches him put it all in the cart in silence.
“Is that enough?” he asks, despite previous internal decisions. She’s his best friend. Everyone needs one.
Robin turns on the spot to look at the shelves behind them, grabbing a box set of storybooks bound with ribbon down the spines. “These ones are from me,” she says, dumping them next to the second jumbo box of diapers.
“I’m not, like, super angry,” he says, getting behind the cart to push for the checkout. “I want kids. I want Leah. This isn’t a bad thing.”
“You kind of missed out on a lot,” Robin says. Carefully, not to be cruel, but to present it to him in case he hasn’t thought about it. Obviously he’s thought about it, but.
“I mean, yeah. But do you remember being a baby?”
“It’s, like, a deep down thing.”
He swallows. “Sure, I don’t like that I didn’t get to be there when Leah was a baby, but… I’m finding it hard to be mad when she was protecting all of us from things we didn’t want, or, that’s what she thought.” Steve gives a jerky shrug. “I’m sure she got enough love from her without me, but I’m gonna make up for whatever she missed out on.”
“Okay. Well, when you explode, I’m literally right here.”
Steve is overcome with the urge to snuggle her in the middle of the store, but he hits her with the shopping cart again and feels the thanks get stuck in his throat. “I’m not gonna explode. I’m happy.”
Steve is thrilled. He has a baby. He has a child. Maybe it’s not the wife and six kids he thought he wanted, but Leah is his baby.
“She’s mine,” he says.
“I know, dingus. You’ve said it a hundred times.”
He parks his cart at the belt behind a grandma buying cat food. “I can’t wait for you to meet her, Rob, she’s–”
“She’s beautiful,” Robin says, rolling her eyes. “We’re way too young for kids, Steven. You were supposed to go to college.”
“I’m still gonna go!”
“With what money?”
Steve will save again. It’s community college.
Robin holds his eye. He avoids it, starts putting things on the checkout belt. “You’re doing the only thing you can do,” she says, “I don’t wanna be friends with a deadbeat, but I wanted you to go. I’m too young to be an Aunt.”
“I’ll going, Rob.”
“Fine. I believe you.”
“Can you help?”
She pulls stuff out of the cart reluctantly.
Together, they pack what can be bagged and take it all to the car. Steve drops Robin off at home without much of a goodbye —either she’ll call him tonight or he’ll call her, ‘cos one way or another, they’re gonna talk. Then he takes the side road to your mom’s house and parks the bimmer behind your old blue Pontiac.
He grabs the toys and the bag of groceries. He’ll have to make another trip for the diapers, but he figures it’s best to see your reaction before he lugs it all up the driveway.
You answer the door. Parenting has been going better than expected considering you kept the baby a secret for two whole years, and you’re already smiling when you see him. Things were awkward that first week, but he’s been coming by every single day after work if he works, bright and early if he doesn’t. He can tell you’re growing more confident in his promises. He’s not gonna realise how big this whole thing is and run. He’s well aware of how world-changing his decision was to stay, but it wasn’t a decision at all.
“Hi, is she awake yet?” he asks. Leah naps every day at noon.
“Mm-hm. She was asking me for daddy all morning,” you say. Secrets you may have kept, but you’re glad for both of them whenever Steve and Leah get along. “I promised you’d be here after dinner.”
“Is it cool that I’m early?”
You eye the bags in his hands. “Sure. I already told you, I’m not gonna dictate anything. You can see her when you want to… What’s that?”
“I was thinking I’d make dinner?” He shakes the lighter bag. “And this is for Leah.”
“Right. Okay.”
You let Steve in. He, despite all things in his body that remember this song and dance and demand he kiss your cheek hello, powers through to the kitchen without making a fool of himself.
“Brought your favourite. Thought Leah would probably like it, since you liked it so much,” he says. “And those pastries you loved.”
“You want me to go grab her?”
“Where is she?”
“She’s sitting with my mom. Don’t think she heard the door, she would’ve come out running by now. She’s a little sleepy.”
“That’s okay. I can put all this away and I’ll go see if she’s awake.”
You cross your arms over your stomach, leaning against the counter. “You didn’t have to get stuff for me.”
“I wanted to.”
“You don’t have to, though. Leah’s your baby, but I’m…”
He feels achy in his jaw. He abandons the bag full of groceries to look at you fully. “If you’d turned up here without Leah, after two years of full radio silence, no letters and no clue where you went, if you came back, I’d want to see you. You know that, right?”
“I…”
“I asked your mom where you went, did you know that?”
“No.”
“Well, she wouldn’t tell me.”
“I don’t think she knew.”
Steve hates how much that annoys him, hates the way he relates to it. He dries his hands on his pants, not sure if he wants to hug you or tip your head with his thumb at chin, forcing you to look at him, to say the things he’s said in his head before bed a couple nights a week for years.
Steve Harrington does not love by halves.
“You’d tell me if you were gonna leave again, right?” he asks.
“We are leaving.”
“I know, I know, but. You’re not gonna disappear in the middle of the night.”
“No, Steve. I’ll tell you before we go home. I promise.”
His shoulders relax. “Okay, then, I’ll keep bringing stuff you like, too. Trade deal.”
“Mutually beneficial. I won't kidnap your baby again and you bring me raspberry turnovers.”
“Exactly.”
You surprise him with a laugh. “Okay.”
“Okay, good,” he says, grinning, wondering if he’s finally paving a path into your lap again.
From the doorway of the kitchen comes a pleased gasp. “Daddy?” Leah asks, her eyes widening in delight, feet stomping on the spot, “Hi, daddy!”
He was supposed to give this up for community college? Steve squats down in a half-second and holds out his hands, ready for an armful of sleepy toddler. Her hair is all puffy and her pajamas big at the neck like she’d wriggled for hours, but she’s soft, smells clean as he wraps his arms around her and she burrows into his neck.
“Hi, Leah,” he says softly.
Leah hums her content.
“Good nap?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah? Did you have a good dream?”
She laughs as he strokes her back. He must’ve tickled her. “Da-ddy,” she says, a long, pulling word.
She’s so small Steve can’t hug her properly like this, so he hooks her in one arm and stands up to his full height, catching your unreadable expression from over her shoulder. Whatever you’d been thinking fades away, your smile strengthening as Leah pulls out of his neck to wave at you.
“Mommy,” she says, poking at Steve’s neck. “Look. Daddy’s for dinner.”
Steve laughs loudly. “I’m for dinner? You’re gonna eat me? I thought you liked me!” His head falls in a dramatic agony. “Leah wants to cook me up for dinner, I can’t believe it.”
“No!” Leah says, giggling as she grabs his face. She pulls at his cheeks, forcing his head up. “Not eating,” she says, like he’s silly.
Steve shifts her so she’s sitting braced on his lower belly, looking down at her. God, she’s so pretty. She’s perfect. She’s tiny, slim for her age according to you, but she isn’t weak. She holds herself up, her hands confident as they spread over his chest. Steve has to confess that this feeling is the strongest he’s ever experienced. Nothing compares to looking at this little kid who already treats him like he’s the best person she’s ever met, knowing that she’s his. He has to look after her. He gets to be loved by her without hesitation. Leah has no reason to love him, and yet here she is giggling in his arms from the excitement of seeing him. It’s like every day she likes him more, and every day, Steve gets to love her more. It’s so weird, but it's nice.
“I brought you something,” he says, shifting her again so he can cover her back with one arm, using the other to brush a stray bit of lint off of her face. “But– mommy, can she have it now?” he asks.
You flush. Steve recognises this look on you, pleased and startled. He’s seen it on you a hundred different times. You were always that girl who didn’t expect kindness, or to be considered. He remembers how endearing it was to surprise you with a kiss to say thank-you, or picking up the bill no matter how casual dinner felt, or something as small as helping you into your pajamas after you’d both showered. It was heartbreaking, but he’s never been unfamiliar with the bare minimum.
“Yeah, of course she can.”
“Alright,” Steve says, grinning. “Your Aunt Robin sent me with a gift for you, but daddy’s is better, so you can have mine first.” He twists for the bag it’s in and yanks it out, Barbie to him so she can’t see. “It’s only small, but I saw it and I thought you’d like it.”
“Can have?” she asks.
“Depends. Can I have a hug first?” he asks, checking your face to make sure he’s not being weird.
Leah nods erratically and throws herself forward. Steve gets a big kiss right on his smooth-shaven cheek, and he can’t stop himself from beaming, his punched out sigh poorly suppressed as he turns her to give her a much gentler kiss at the very top of her cheek. “Thanks, Lee.”
Her eyes squint with a smile. “Can I have, please?”
Steve brings the box up and tosses it to flip it, brandishing it right way round to her glee.
“Barbie!” she cries.
“With a puppy!”
“Oh gosh.”
Steve bursts out laughing. “Gosh! Should we get the box open? Then you can gosh at the accessories. She has two pairs of shoes, Leah. Two!”
Leah squirms to be put down, hands clenched tightly on each side of the box. You’re already grabbing scissors to get it open.
“Thank you.” You lean over Leah to start the dissection.
“Don’t,” he says, quiet but less shame-faced. “You don’t have to say thanks.”
You shake your head to yourself. “Yeah, well.”
“She deserves it, and it’s not up to you to say thanks. I’m serious.”
“It’s nice of you.”
He doesn’t know how to prove how certain he is about staying. He decides to keep his mouth shut for now, which is hard. Almost slips up that whole evening. You don’t look happy when he doubles back before he leaves that night with the bag of snacks and the huge box of diapers, but he catches you as you and Leah stand on the stoop waving at the bimmer. You’re smiling. A real one, teeth on display for the first time since you came home.
—
“Okay,” you say quietly, “up, baby. And another one. Good job.”
Leah demonstrates a unique level of concentration as she climbs up the stairs with you. You’d have carried her if she didn’t insist she could do it herself with a displeased squeal. Her eyes are nearly closed, her tongue slipping between her lips and a hand thrown out for balance, the other held in your own as she manages two, then three, the few shallow steps that lead into the WSQK building.
“Hi,” you greet a quiet man sitting at the door. “Is Steve in?”
“Think so. Why?”
“I wanted to talk to him, if that’s okay.”
The man gives you a suspicious look that eventually metes. “Sure. Gotta knock the booth before you go in, though, they might be on the air.”
“Sure. Thank you.”
Leah stumbles with you inside. There’s a wide wooden panelled room and smaller glass one within. You knock on it and wait for movement, too scared to look through the panels. You’ve learned that Robin has her very own radio show on the 94.5 called The Morning Squawk, and Steve, through best-friend nepotism, gets to be her sound guy. He has this WSQK van they drive around to do on the road interviews, and they’re both a hundred times happier here than they were rewinding tapes at Family Video.
It’s a pretty firm knot of roots to lay.
The door opens a good fifteen seconds after you’d knocked. You’re immediately greeted by a blondified Robin Buckley, her freckled cheeks slack with surprise. “Uh…”
“Hi, Robin.”
“Hi,” she says.
The last time you saw Robin, you’d been laying on Steve’s couch in his socks and what might’ve been Robin’s own sweatshirt, the three of you arguing on what movie to watch and what candy you were gonna tip into your popcorn. You’d laid your head in Steve’s lap.
“Leah,” you say, clearing your throat as subtly as possible, “say hi, bubby.”
“Hi, bubby,” Leah says.
Robin snorts.
“This is your daddy’s best friend ever, Aunt Robin,” you say, shooting Robin a sorry look as you mouth, “Is that cool?”
Robin culls your misery and manages a real smile. “That’s me, babe.” She bends at the waist. “Oh, you really do look like Steve. Shit, this is so cool.” Her awkwardness has melded to full-bodied delight. “You’re like his twin! Well, you do look like your mommy, duh, but this is trippy! Hey, did you get your books?”
Leah looks up at her with huge eyes.
“Did you like your storybooks?” you ask Leah, kneeling down behind her to hold her shoulder. “Aunt Robin gave you those ones, remember, daddy read one to you about the ugly duckling?”
“The duckies,” Leah says factually.
“Awesome,” Robin says. “I’m so happy you liked them, sweetie. And I’m so happy to meet you.”
You don’t question for a second that she means it.
You pat Leah on the shoulder. “Aunt Robin is your daddy’s best friend in the whole world.”
“Daddy’s here?” she asks Robin.
“Uh, not right now, he had to go get lunch.”
“Oh.”
“But you can totally come in!” she says, opening the door to the booth wide. “I can show you how the radio works! And then Steve– then dad can come back. I bet he’ll be here any second.”
“You’re not busy?” you ask.
“I mean?” Robin laughs, nervously incredulous, “if I ever have kids they’d be her cousins. That’s pretty important. And, like, she’s Steve’s, so? I’d die for her?” Robin scratches a hand through her hair. “Come on, baby Stevie, I’ll show you the keyboard. It’s your dad’s favourite gimmick.”
You hover in the middle of the small room as Robin slides a chair over to the desk with a keyboard and a mic balanced on top of it. She glances at you before she holds her hands out to Leah, and Leah goes into them willingly. Robin pulls her up and settles her in the chair. She can barely see the keys, but she’s already reaching for them as Robin starts to explain which ones do what, toggling a switch that you assume makes sure whatever sounds Leah plays are off air.
You sit yourself down on a loveseat by the door.
“We can play all of this stuff on the radio in the car,” Robin says, “do you listen to the radio?”
“The music, bubby,” you say.
Leah gives a neck-breaking nod.
“Well, me and dad choose what songs to play. Do you have a favourite song?”
“She loves ‘Save it For Later’ by The Beat. She gets super into it,” you say.
“Oh, we have that one! Let’s queue it up, Leah.”
Leah mashes the keyboard in a cacophony of introductions and funny sounds, then a long run of the Rockin’ Robin intro. She finds a sound bite of applause loaded up on the tape deck, hitting it over and over as she giggles.
“Be careful, Lee, don’t break it.”
Her hitting doesn’t slow.
“Lee,” you say more firmly, “baby, stop. You have to be nice. Don’t slap the buttons.”
Leah throws you a glare. “Mommy,” she whines.
“What? You have to be nice to other people’s things. Aunt Robin is letting you play with her keyboard, but it’s important. It’s okay to try all the buttons! But with nice hands. Yeah?”
The ajar door opens fully. “Is my Leah not being nice?” Steve asks, already beaming with all his teeth as he sees her behind the keyboard. “I don’t believe that for a second!”
Leah wiggles her excitement in the depths of the chair. Doesn’t bother calling out for him, there’s no need. Steve laughs, saying hi with a quick hand dropped on your shoulder, the gentlest squeeze anyone’s ever given with his thumb rubbing a half circle before he bends down by Leah’s chair. “Hi,” he says, your heart beating so loudly in your ears that you hardly hear him. “You’re at the radiohouse! Did Rockin’ Robin show you how to play a song? Do you wanna talk on the microphone?”
“Hi,” Leah says.
“Hi.”
“Hug me now?”
Steve’s like butter in the sun. He melts into nothing. “Yeah, babe, right now.”
She slinks forward and he picks her up, standing with a baby on his hip like he’s been doing it all his life.
“I’m gonna play her a song,” Robin says. “My queues almost empty.”
“Okay, thanks,” he says, to which Robin wrinkles her nose.
“Sure,” she says, sending you a look as she heads to her desk. Like, get a load of this idiot.
Steve presses his nose to Leah’s hair and smells her. Then he smiles, patting the small of her back.
Leah looks straight at you and says, “Daddy’s here,” in case you weren’t aware.
Steve blinks away a pained flutter, his brow pulling like he’d been in pain, quickly wiped away and hidden by the time Leah glances at him again.
You think maybe, for a second, he’d wanted to cry.
“Steve?” you ask quietly. “You okay?”
“Yeah. No, yeah.”
“You sure?”
He tugs Leah higher on his hip. “I’m okay,” he tells you, holding your gaze, his left sclera bloodshot but his nearly-tears blinked away. “I’m great, ‘cos Leah’s here,” he adds, pressing his mouth to Leah’s cheek, “at work! She’s a working girl now, we gotta get you on the payroll.”
It’s a little while later, sitting on the couch and waiting for Steve to ask you what it is you’re doing here, when the door opens. Leah perks up in his lap, the headphones she’d been wearing falling down around her neck in a heap that makes her cringe, giving a warbly cry as Steve offers assurances to her.
You’re focused on the teenager standing in the door. It’s the kid.
His eyes widen at the sight of you.
“Lucas Sinclair,” you greet, giving him a stony look. “You ratted me out.”
“Uh– did I?”
“I know it was you.”
Lucas grimaces. “Are we sure it was me?”
“I saw you.”
“Steve could’ve got the information from anyone.”
You glare for a few more seconds, then relax. “I’m messing with you, Lucas. I’m not mad. Even if you are a narc.”
“I am not! I told Dustin and it was Dustin that radioed Steve. He’s the narc. I said we had to wait for proof.”
“Well, thanks for trying.”
Lucas hesitates with you, though he comes further into the room and lets the door shut behind him. “I am sorry. Kind of.”
“We’re working things out.”
Leah tugs the headphones off of her head and out of the outlet in a great show of toddler rage, Steve laughing where he holds her. He grabs the headphones before Leah can throw them at the floor. “Hey!” he admonishes through laughter, “Those aren’t mine, babe. Should we put them on the desk?”
Steve takes them from her and sets them high. He moves the chair, bumping Leah on his knee, forcing her eyes to the new figure in the room. “Look, Lee, it’s your Uncle Lucas.”
Lucas gives an awkward, endearing smile. “Hi.”
“Hi!” Leah says.
“What’s up?” Steve asks.
“Can I get a ride, tonight? I asked my dad but he’s going to that miniature car thing.”
“Where to?”
“Max’s.”
“Why are you being cagey?” Steve asks, lifting an eyebrow.
“I’m not!”
“You so are, dude. What’s happening at Max’s?”
“Nothing! She doesn’t, like, know I’m going, that’s all.”
Steve leans in his chair in what would be a total act of casual derision if he weren’t also holding Leah to his front, his fingers waving patterns into her tummy affectionately. “So I’m gonna be on her shit list for whatever it is you have planned? No deal, dude.”
“I’m not in trouble. She’s not mad at me,” Lucas says.
“For once.”
“She’s not. I have a surprise planned? And it’s gonna get ruined on my bike, so.”
Steve’s suspicion wavers. “What sort of surprise?” he asks.
His smile is nice. Doesn’t it suit him? He’s calm where he sits despite the rumble of noise coming from Robin’s booth and Leah talking to herself in his lap. The red glow of the ON AIR light makes his brown hair nearly purple at the tops but leaves his face untouched, tan fading pale in the fall, his beauty marks the darkest bit of colour to him when you aren’t looking into the well of his eyes. His irises are like wet tree bark. His lashes look long from across the room.
And his biceps don’t look half bad when they’re wrapped around your baby. Her tiny stature emphasises the bulk he’s put on while you were in Portland. You’ve been noticing more of him lately—his weight gain, the change in his muscle, the cut of his hair, those reading glasses he keeps in the console of his car. But there are things about him that didn’t change. He’s pretty happy, as things go. He likes doing things for other people.
Their conversation drifts into focus. “…not too much, right?”
“Nah, I think that’s appropriate. Four years of dating is a long time.”
“Even if you’re broken up for half a year in the middle?”
Steve chuckles. Leah looks up at the sound. “I wouldn’t mention that part,” he says. “Look, I’ll come get you after I’m done here–”
“You’re not coming tonight?” you ask, entirely sincere in asking. Not a lick of judgement in it, but surprise, and a second emotion you aren’t eager to name.
“I was– I was gonna come,” Steve says. “If that’s cool.”
“Oh, sure. Sorry. I thought you were– Yeah, it’s fine,” you say.
Steve looks at you for a long second. “I can’t miss out on dinner,” he says, dipping down to speak in Leah’s ear, “can I? What am I making tonight, Lee, do you remember?”
“S’getti,” she says, with a vindication bordering evil.
Steve presses his lips together. Shrugs at Lucas smugly. “S’getti,” he says. “I’ll be there at six, okay?”
Lucas shoots an “Awesome, thank you, sorry,” over his shoulder as he leaves.
“Thank you sorry,” Leah repeats.
Steve has to lock into work and he doesn’t ask you to leave, moving Leah around in his arms and plugs the headphones in. She enjoys the novelty enough to sit there without complaining, bathed in attention. It’s weird to have Leah with you without having to look after her. Like, she gets uncomfortable and Steve moves her. She whines in his arm and he opens a drawer to uncover a bag of chips. He does ask if it’s alright for her to eat them, but you say yes and he doesn’t need guidance after that. He wipes her dirty face in his sleeve and twists a knob on the keyboard.
He is startlingly capable.
You are startlingly hot.
You pull at your neckline, wishing you’d brought a book to read or a zip tie to garrote yourself with for thinking such stupid shitty thoughts.
—
Steve packs his shit up at five with Leah on his hip, happy to stay with him. You’ve been quiet bordering silent and he hasn’t summoned up the bravery to ask why. He didn’t wanna look a gift horse in the mouth, ‘cos you’re here, and you brought Lee without any begging on his part. He shows her off to everyone they pass on the way out, less subtly to the smiley cleaner Cindy who loves to call him handsome in the morning. Who’s this? she asks.
This is my baby, Leah.
The problem arises when he’s trying to pass Leah to you to part ways in the parking lot.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard something that loud,” Robin laments, blinking fast. Because, despite years and time to learn, he’s her ride home.
Leah screams another ear-splitter. “No!” she’s shouting. “No, no!”
She sobs.
You try to disentangle her from Steve’s chest. He can feel your individual fingers pressing into his pecs. “Lee, come on!” you say, laughing nervously. “Daddy has stuff to do, we’ll see him for dinner!”
She sobs louder.
Robin shakes her head as though dislodging water from her ears.
“Baby, please,” you say, apparently possessing the patience of a god, “it’s okay, I promise, it’s not long. We’ll be okay for a bit.”
Leah sews her hands in his hair tightly, yanking until it stings. Steve flinches and you immediately stop trying to make Leah disengage.
“Sorry, honey,” you say, and Steve realises with a full body start you’ve spoken to him, your hand resting open on his upper shoulder. It’s an obvious slip of the tongue. You lean forward with a slight stammer, “I– Leah, don’t pull, you’re hurting.”
“Not going,” Leah says.
“Just for now!”
“No!”
You give Steve a wide-eyed frown. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s going on. She doesn’t do this… usually.”
“That’s okay, it’s fine, maybe you could come with me?”
You nibble your lip. “I gotta go check on my mom, I haven’t been home all day, I don’t know if she’s eaten yet.”
Steve tries to pass Leah into your arms with renewed purpose. The snap of hair behind his ear gives him pause. “Uh, can she come with me?” Steve asks, loud now, his head angled against her hand. “Ow, Lee!”
Leah stops pulling his hair with a sob.
“I’ll take her with me and I’ll drop Robin off, pick Lucas up early, and we’ll come straight to the house.”
You falter.
The thought of you not trusting him hurts his stomach, but you say, “Steve, can you deal with that? She might not get any happier for a while.”
“Sure I can, you’ve had to do it a hundred times. I’m mostly patient. If she doesn’t calm down, I won’t yell–”
“I didn’t think you would.” You pout, wrinkling your nose. “You’d have to move the car seat–”
“Yeah, I got one.”
“You got a car seat?”
“Installed it last week. Jesus Christ, Leah, not the hair!” He reaches up to force her hand as gently as he can away from his scalp. “Baby, owwww. Not the hair.”
Leah shudders away to check he’s not angry. He can see it on her tiny face, the worry. He brings his hand to her cheek, finds his hand is too big, and has to rub her cheek with his thumb alone. “You wanna come with daddy to drop off your Aunt Robin?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Come with you,” she says, a crocodile tear rolling down her cheek.
“But mommy has to go home, is that okay?”
Leah shudders again. “Y’okay.”
“Okay. Give mommy a big kiss,” he says, repeating one of your favourite lines when it’s time for Steve to leave.
You get a kiss. You’re startled, he thinks, almost expressionless in how slack you’ve gone, but Steve smiles at you and you smile in turn. “You know how to do the car seat?” you ask.
“Sure. It’s got the two mechanisms, right? Her arm goes through each of the triangle strap thingys?”
“Yeah. Okay. Are you sure you can manage?”
“Are you okay with me taking her?”
You shrug. He can see why Leah does it as much as she does. “I guess I am. I mean, when we go home… like, you’ll have to have her for summers, I guess?” you ask, and you’re as beautiful as you usually are, the awkward twist of you and your tired eyes don’t touch it. You were beautiful when he walked into the sound room and found you in the loveseat, beautiful when you told him you’d stay for now without saying goodbye, beautiful when he spotted you across the parking lot with his surprise on your hip. You’ve always been beautiful. He knows you don’t feel strongly about your looks, but he does, and now you made his girl? And she looks so much like the two of you?
Steve stares at you, not even in hopes of any realisation, but he stares at you and thinks I cannot let this girl go back to Portland without me.
He doesn’t expect you to stay. All he needs is to beg a ride.
Because yes, Steve will become your awkward cling-on. He’ll find a shitty apartment close to you and he’ll build his life around Leah if that’s all he can have.
But it’s not everything he wants.
“You go take care of your mom, and we’ll meet you for dinner at 6? 6:15 at the latest?”
“Okie dokie.”
Steve rolls his eyes to stop from kissing your cheek. “Say see you later, mommy,” he tells Leah.
“See you later, mommy,” Leah says.
You use his shoulder as an anchor to kiss her cheek. He swears you rub his arm as you pull away, but Robin would call that delusional thinking. “See you soon, bug.”
He watches you walk away. Every step is perfect. “Your mom’s such a bombshell,” he murmurs, “holy sugar, she’s everything.” You turn over the top of the car and give him a wave, blowing Leah a kiss. He wants to catch it. He finger waves back.
Then he spins and finds Robin judging him hard.
It takes them twenty whole human minutes to figure out how to get Leah safely secured in her car seat. Then he spends four minutes framing her face in his hands and kissing her cheeks, enamoured beyond anything to see her in the bimmer. Robin laughs at how lame he is and he strokes a hair off of Leah’s forehead rather than feed into her ridicule. His baby laughs up a storm as he chucks her under the chin.
“Steve, I’m gonna starve!” Robin warns.
“Right, right!”
He kisses Leah’s small forehead and clambers out.
Robin talks a big talk, but she bends around in the passenger seat to chatter to Leah the whole way to her neighbourhood. “And then dad got us stuck on the side of the road! It was crazy! I told him we were in trouble and he kept laughing! But nothing is that funny, Leah, nothing. I think it’s ’cos your dad has a bunch of screws loose from that time he slipped on melted ice cream at work.”
“Don’t listen to her, Lee!” Steve protests, laughing at her rolling giggles.
“He busted his head! Luckily I saved him, because I am very very smart and I went to camp–”
“You went to Girl Scout’s sleep away camp, that’s not real camp! You were there for a week.”
“But they taught me what to do when your dingus gets a concussion,” Robin says, in her silky radio voice that Leah’s magnetised to. “And that’s why dad only looks a bit wonky, as opposed to a lot.”
“I’m not wonky, am I, Lee?” Steve asks, checking the rearview for her.
“Wonky?” she asks.
“Does daddy look wonky?”
“Mm,” she says.
“What! That is so mean! Baby, I thought you liked dad?”
She giggles and goes all shy. Robin, bless her clumsy, alternative, mixed-up huge heart, goes soft as taffy against the seat. “We don’t like him at all, do we?” she asks, reaching out to rub Leah’s arm. Steve nearly hits a curb trying to watch. “Stinky dad. You can be my girl instead, if mom wants to share. I don’t mind your Harrington blood.”
He drops Robin off, but her mom comes out and wants to meet Leah and that’s a whole thing. She’s squarely heartbroken when she first sees her, going, “Aw,” and “Oh,” as her eyes fill with tears.
“Mom!” Robin says.
“Sorry, but she’s beautiful. Well done, Stevie.”
He murmurs a Thank you, Mrs. Buckley and gets the usual It’s Melissa, Steve.
It takes another ten minutes to get Leah in the car after her quick trip. He heads straight for Lucas’ and finds him freaking out about the bouquet he got Max —Erica told him to put salt in the water to keep them fresh. Steve drives him to the florists ten minutes before they close and they end up with two smaller bunches combined into a vibrant hodgepodge.
Steve buys a handful of daisies for Leah, tucking one behind her ear.
Max likes her flowers, but she’s far more interested in the baby. Lucas stands behind her rubbing his mouth.
“She does look like you,” Max says thoughtfully.
“Right? She has my eyes.”
“Yeah.” Max leans into the car. “Hi, Steve’s baby,” she says quietly.
“This is your Aunt Max,” Steve says.
Leah, who has taken all these new aunts and uncles in her stride (or is too young to get what the hell is going on), offers Max a huge smile with her tiny baby teeth. “Hi Am’ Max,” she says.
Max grins despite herself. “Hi. Are you having a good day?”
“Yessss.”
“Yeah?” She glares at Steve momentarily before standing in front of him, like she’s annoyed he’s seen her being normal, like he doesn’t catch her in a good mood all the time. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to lie. Did you have dinner?”
“Max, I am perfectly capable of looking after her.”
“I’m just checking!” She shakes Leah’s hand nicely. “This party had enough boys,” she says.
Steve ruffles Max’s hair, unbound and bouncing behind her. He’s lucky he makes it to the car with his hand.
Steve sighs when they’re on the road to your place. “Okie dokie,” he says, clenching the steering wheel to listen to the leather creak, “let’s go see your mom. It’s only–” He checks his watch. Blinks big and wide. It’s 6:37PM already, and it’s a five minute drive to your side of Hawkins. “Oh, my god. You’re mom is gonna kill me dead.”
“Kill?”
“Kiss!” he says, cringing. “Yep, she’s gonna kiss me! No other words.”
“Y’okay.”
“Who taught you to say that so cutely?” he asks, fully stressed now, the tightness in his voice surprising a giggle out of Leah. “Stop laughing!”
She giggles worse.
He can’t be more anxious as he pulls up to the house. He climbs out of the car, grabs Leah from her car seat, and in his rush to get her home before you murder him, slams his head so hard into the roof of the car he sees stars.
“Oh, fuck,” he says, holding Leah to his chest as his vision fades out.
Your laugh sounds out from behind him. “Every parent has to do it, Steve, I’m sorry to say,” you call, jogging down the path to the car. “I was wondering where you guys went. It’s… Steve?”
He blinks hard as he stands up, his arms around Leah shaky as his head pounds and pounds and pounds. “Sorry,” he says.
“Steve, what’s wrong?” You rest your arm behind his shoulders to hold him. “Hey, are you okay? Do you need to sit down?”
He urges you to take Leah.
The pain is radiating from the centre of his skull outward, into each eye and down the nape of his neck. It’s such a sudden sharpness he loses his breath, spotty vision fading in and out as he curls into himself.
“Lee, can you go inside, baby?” he hears you ask. There are a few steps, your dark shadows on the ground drifting further away before one returns, all alone. “Steve, what happened? How hard did you hit your head?” you ask softly.
“It’s– I got that–” Every word pulls at the nausea brewing in his stomach. “I’m gonna–”
Steve gags. He aims for the grass. Everything goes white.
—
Steve does a valiant job of keeping himself upright long enough for you to sit him down inside, but after that, he’s useless.
“Okay, it’s okay,” you’re saying, a ringing in your ears you can’t cope with, “it’s alright, Steve, you’re okay. Come forward, honey, let me see–”
You aren’t sure he’s conscious, but he slumps forward regardless to expose the back of his head. You feel through his hair and pull your hand out quick to check for blood on your fingertips, but they come away clean.
“Daddy?” Leah asks, wandering into the living room with her little smile and a daisy drooping behind her ear.
“How was meemaw, bub?” you ask.
“Sleeping.”
“Why don’t you go snuggle with her for a minute? I’ll bring you a buppy?”
Leah hugs your leg from behind. “Buppy?”
“Yeah, do you want one?”
Leah shoots for the bedroom. You take her absence as an opportunity to pull Steve’s head up, meeting his droopy gaze. “Steve, baby,” you say, so softly it’d be a wonder if he could hear you, “are you okay?”
He groans. “Just a migraine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Feels like one.”
“You get them a lot?”
“More since you left.”
You swallow roughly. “I’m gonna call an ambulance.”
“No.” At that, he sits up, holds his own head up to plead, “You don’t have to. I’m fine, this just happens sometimes. After I hit my head at the mall, I get these killer migraines.”
“You hit your head, though. I think you have a concussion.”
“Not my first one.”
You hold his cheek in your hand. Your thumb brushes over his beauty marks. “No?” you ask.
“Had three.”
“You never told me.”
“I know. Didn’t want you to think I was– some loser? I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know why it was hard to be honest with you, guess I thought– it’s not like it’s ever done any good before. I always say the wrong thing.”
You get on your knees in front of him. To cope with the strain of looking up at him, but more to see him face to face. “Steve, you nearly yacked in my yard. I think we’re past appearances.”
Steve covers his mouth with a big hand.
You tuck as much of his hair behind his ears as you can. “Can you look at me? I want to check your pupils.”
He opens his eyes properly, pouring his gaze into yours without hesitation. You check the size of each pupil and find them normal, though the longer he looks, the bigger they become. “I think there’s something wrong, Steve. Your eyes are blown.”
“It’s fine. It’s not ‘cos I hit my head. It’s a headache.”
“You almost knocked yourself out. You’re throwing up. What if I don’t call the ambulance and Leah’s dad dies on my couch?”
“I don’t need an ambulance. I barely puked, it was all spit.”
“Steve.”
“I’m serious. I didn’t even go for the first two concussions, and the third one, they said this could happen. Turns out that taking a couple of bad knocks to the head makes you fragile, I’m fine.” He cups your cheek. “Jesus, don’t feel sorry for me–”
“I do feel sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Seconds of stringy silence follow. He squints at you through the pain. “It’s okay,” he says, his own thumb rubbing at your veins. “I’m sorry, too.”
You pull his hand off your face. Not without care.
“…Can I please call an ambulance?” you ask, uneasy.
“I don’t need one.”
“How do you know?” you whisper.
He turns his hand in your grip to hold yours. His eyes are brown and teary with pain, but they’re so familiar. “I just do. Can you trust me, please?”
You try to stand. Steve squeezes your hand in his and makes you sit on the couch beside him as his eyes shutter closed and his head tips back, the column of his throat there and pale and working as he swallows his pain. You stare at the length of it with your hand too hot in his grip, wondering when it’s acceptable to pull your hand away, and if you’d even want to when the time came.
You told me you didn’t want this, you think, your two joined hands rising and falling where he’s pulled them to his chest. You swear you can see his heart in his chest. The gentle bump-bump of it against skin. A miserable wife.
“Can I get you anything?”
He croaks a hum. “Mm, no.”
“Are you sure? I have aspirin.”
His fingers flex. “It’ll go away.”
“When?”
“It depends. It can take a few hours, sometimes, but I don’t get the worst of the pain for long.” His voice is hoarse with its quiet.
“The other times?”
“They can last for days.”
You’d seen the physical change in Steve. He went weak and sweaty in seconds. His nausea was obviously extreme. You can feel the tremor in his hand as he talks like every word spurs pain.
“It won’t, though,” he says. “Don’t worry. I need five minutes and I can make dinner.”
“Uh, no you can’t. You can sit right here until you feel better, thanks.”
He sinks impossibly further into your mom’s old couch. “Okay. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” You lower your tone. “I don’t mind. I’m sorry if you thought I would.”
“I didn’t mean to–”
“To what? Give yourself a concussion on the roof of the car? I gathered that.”
“Didn’t mean for it to become your problem,” he says.
“You’re not a problem, Steve. I promise.”
You fight for better judgement and lose, letting yourself caress a piece of hair away from his pale neck.
“I think I really screwed up,” he says. “Think I made out all the wrong things. You didn’t think you could tell me about the baby–”
“We don’t have to do this again–”
“Yeah, we do. We do. Because I made you think I wouldn’t want you. I lied to protect my ego and I could’ve had everything I wanted,” —his brow pulls tight and glared, his jaw rigid— “and I hurt you.”
“I hurt myself. You didn’t make me run away, Steve. I did it all alone. I’m good at that.”
“I don’t want you to be alone.”
“I don’t want you to live a life that you hate.”
“I don’t. I won’t. How could I ever hate anything about her?”
You have to give him that. But. “I didn’t tell you for a bunch of reasons, Steve,” you confess, hardly wanting to let it out. “I was scared of everything, you and your parents, making you into the reluctant husband, or– or at the least the reluctant father. I didn’t want to deal with it. And I didn’t wanna be that stupid girl who got knocked up by the prom king. I ran away and nobody had to know.”
“It wouldn’t have been like that.”
“I realise that now.”
His head lolls to see you. He pulls his lashes apart enough to peek through them, that dark hedging a line you’d like to count. You tip your head toward his and face him across the couch cushions, hands joined and hot as a hearth.
“It was never messing around, to me,” he says quietly. Sweat wets the hair at his temples.
“You don’t have to–”
“I got my heart stomped on pretty hard over and over and I stopped trying. I put all my cards on the table every time. But with you, I couldn’t do it again. I thought I couldn’t, so I acted less into you than I was.”
You remember all his kisses and tight armed hugs, his affectionate nudges, his nose lined to your temple as he bore down. It hadn’t felt like less. But you’d never thought it was more, either.
“I pretended we were this summer fling, told you I didn’t want kids, that I wanted to live in the city and get a full time job at a firm with a company car, like that stuff mattered.” He frowns at you deeply. “I’m sorry. I wish I could change it.”
His throat bobs.
“S’it still hurting?” you murmur.
“So much,” he murmurs too, holding your hand against his heart. “I can’t get it to stop.”
“I can’t do this with you.”
He shakes his head minutely. “M’not asking you for anything you can’t give me. I’m just sorry.”
You want him to lean in and align his mouth to yours. You imagine it vividly, the press and taste of him, the scratch of the stubble on his upper lip and his hand slipping behind your neck, squeezing your nape gently, his thumb at the hinge of your jaw trying to open your mouth. You want him so badly it’s a palpable ache in your teeth, like he’s already kissed you harsh and quick, that clack of a collision and the subsequent metallic on your tongue.
But you aren’t lying. You can’t do this.
A thudding noise echoes from your mom’s room, compelling you up and away from his warm touch. Your hand sings with pins and needles as it falls out of his.
“Lee?” you call. “Sorry. I have to go make sure she’s okay.”
He frowns again as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “That’s fine. I’ll be here.”
—
The bedroom throw blankets haven’t changed since you were here last. Your mom didn’t waste much time turning it into a guest room, but the sheets and blankets are the same, soft with wear in your hands as you lay them out. Leah waits for you to finish before climbing into bed, her bottle teat bitten between her teeth. It slips out of her hand with a rush of air as she slips into the pillows. You pick it up and offer it to her again, your shoulders aflame with the weight of an uncommon gaze.
“What side do you sleep on?”
Steve, at half-mast but less obviously pained, takes his time answering.
“Left.”
“Left side’s all yours.”
He shuffles forward in a polo and a pair of his old sweatpants. You, in a horrible stroke of great luck, had them in the bottom of the chest of drawers.
“Make room for me?” he asks Leah.
She grins around her bottle.
You’re pretty sure that if Steve can’t open his eyes for more than ten seconds at a time, he can’t drive, and you don’t want him to fall asleep at home and never wake up. Hence your impromptu sleepover. The bed is a queen and you have a shared child as a buffer, but you’re already annoyed with yourself. Your arms keep remembering what it felt like to stretch out over him whenever he ended up on his front. It is not helpful.
You put the big light out and the nightlight on, a ladybug on a mushroom that glows a warm orange on Steve’s side of the room. In your own sweatpants and a vest, you climb into the right side of the bed and nearly fall straight back out at the lack of space.
Steve curls an arm around Leah tentatively, encouraging her into his side to make room for you.
“You okay?” he asks Leah quietly.
“You okay, daddy?” she asks.
“I’m fine, beautiful. I’m good.”
“Sleep?” she asks.
“With you, if that’s cool?”
“Cool,” she says decidedly.
When you lie down, Leah immediately rolls out of Steve’s grip and makes herself comfortable in the curves of you, her nose digging hard in your arm, the bottle warm on your chest.
“I’ll move her when she falls asleep,” you whisper, nodding to the foldout cot next to the bed with its padded interior.
Sleeping in the same bed as Steve Harrington is a long gone artefact of the past. It’s odd to be face to face with him, to smell him so close, the toothpaste on his breath and the salty, earthy sting of sweat mixed with allspice. You don’t strictly mind it, but you didn’t think you’d ever be this close again. It hurries the heart. You miss him like a slap.
Refusing to think on it is the best way forward.
“You sure you’re okay?” you ask him under your breath.
Leah suckles at her bottle, breaking the quiet, though it’s a monotone sort of sound. Steve doesn’t answer. You glance at him and find him dozing already, not a blanket over him nor a sheet untucked.
“Steve.”
He blinks to attention. “Huh?”
“Pull the blanket up over yourself.”
He must like your tone. You’d gone soft by accident, too used to lulling Leah to sleep via sweetness and dulcet murmuring. He kicks it down and then pulls it up to his ribs, a tight white parcel with the pink throw laid over his feet.
“It’ll be cold tonight. Does that make the migraines worse?” you ask.
“No. I’ll be okay.”
You let him fall asleep. Leah snuggles under your chin. This isn’t the daydream. You aren’t being cuddled and coddled by warm kisses along the side of your face, his big arm around you, your baby between you. Steve keeps a good distance and he’s exhausted.
Leah takes a lot longer to fall, but when she does it’s for keeps. You give her ten minutes tucked up on your chest but decide to move her when you feel your own eyes drifting shut. A rush of unnecessary shushing and a soft kiss later, you creep toward the bed and lay down on your side. Steve sleeps as your mirror, one cheek and eye hidden by the pillow, the sheets pulled haphazard over his hip. You yank them from under you and pull them up to cover him to the shoulder, tempted to tuck his hair behind his ear again. It’s long enough.
“Can feel you staring,” he whispers.
Your heart leaps in shock, though thankfully you don’t jump. “Hm?”
“Staring at me.”
“Trying to gauge whether you died in your sleep.”
“Still ‘live.”
You do reach for him, then, stricken by how badly you want to take care of him. “I can see that.”
He peeks down at your hand on his cheek and grins dopily. “Missed you,” he says.
“Missed you, too.”
You wouldn’t tell him if it weren’t dark, if he weren’t in pain.
“You did?” he asks.
“I always miss you,” you say. You pull your hand away like it’s him that’s said the wrong thing, annoyed at your own boldness, moving onto your back to stare at the ceiling.
He feels at your wrist, up your arm. Steve slides his palm over your stomach and holds it there. When you’re starting to think he might’ve fallen asleep again, your breath aching in your throat to be expelled, he presses down carefully and sighs. “I wish I got to see it. Don’t know why you were alone.”
“I wasn't.”
“Would’ve looked after you, though.”
“Steve…”
“I would’ve.”
“I know.” You know now. You could’ve stayed here and had him look after you, but it’s not what you wanted. “I wanted… more, than that.”
He stares at you across the pillows. Your breath catches as he brings his hand up to your cheek and encourages your head toward him, as he lifts himself up off the pillows to bear down over you.
“Do you still want that?” he asks.
You laugh, weak and weary. “Not when you’re concussed.”
He laughs in your face. It’s quiet to leave Leah sleeping, and to stop from hurting himself again, but it’s a genuine laugh of joy leaning over you. His hair falls in his face and he’s beautiful. All freckled and gold in the dim amber light sunning in from behind him.
“I am not concussed,” he says, leaning down.
You don’t kiss. Won’t lift your lips to his where he waits, though waiting might not be the right word. It’s like he’s alright with anything you’re about to do, or not do, sharing your breath.
“I don’t believe you,” you tease lightly.
He’s moved so much to be over you. It is unquestionably the position of a man who’s going to kiss you.
You press your forehead to his chin.
“We should sleep,” you say, because you shouldn’t kiss.
Portland feels very, very far away as he trails his fingers down the front of you and takes a handful of your hip.
“I’m not concussed,” he says, though it’s not asking for anything; Steve’s already pulling away. He sits up and slightly away from you, rubbing a wave into your abdomen lovingly, like you never went to Portland at all. Like it’s the sleepover after a night spent kissing slow and watching shit TV. “Get some sleep, angel,” he adds, so quietly you’d doubt he spoke if you hadn’t watched his mouth shape the words.
—
In the morning, you wake to find Leah chest to chest with Steve, his hair like water on your pillows.
“An’ my hand an’ my nose as my mouth,” she says factually.
“And your ears,” he says back to her quietly, stroking a path from her shoulders to her lower back and up again. “Your eyebrows, and your hair, and your neck.”
“Yeah.”
“Your tummy, and your legs, and your little toes.”
“Am’ my toes,” she says.
“Even your toes are pretty,” Steve agrees. “‘Cos duh. Leah’s the prettiest girl I ever met, right?” His voice drops low enough to rattle hoarsely. “Just as pretty as mommy. I didn’t know that was possible.”
You hide your face in the pillows, pretending to sleep.
This is not going to go how you’d first thought.
—
thank you for reading!! so excited I love steve and I know he could be bitchier and angrier here but I’ve decided to make him whipped instead cos he’s cute when he’s in love and if it’s not implied enough he’s still whipped for the reader lol. hope you enjoyed it thank you very much for reading and taking the time
𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: steve harrington x reader
𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: your baby’s in love with her boyish, ridiculously charming swim instructor. and apparently, so are you. (2.6k)
𝐚/𝐧: hi :) ive been thinking a lot abt baby swim instructor steve lately.
. * ✦ . ˚ ✦ .
There’s this dumb little joke that's making the rounds in your “Mommy and Me” baby swim group.
That the most dangerous part about Saturday beginner classes isn’t the water.
It’s the instructor.
You used to roll your eyes at it—bouncing your nervous, clingy toddler on your hip while listening to the other moms whisper and gossip with each other. Oh my god, have you seen him with the little ones? It's amazing.
You don’t roll your eyes anymore.
Because the instructor in question—Steve Harrington, as you’ve learned from the sign-in sheet and the way the front desk girl said his name with a dreamy little sigh—has somehow earned your daughter’s undying loyalty in record time.
And that feels like a betrayal.
Especially when he’s just some twenty-something-year-old guy in red swim trunks, with lean, tanned arms that flex every time he hoists a giggling baby into the air.
It's ridiculous, honestly.
Your daughter went from clinging to you—fingers fisted in your swimsuit strap, wailing the second her toes skimmed the surface of the pool—to vibrating with excitement the moment she catches a whiff of chlorine.
It took, what, three classes?
Now, she spots him before you do.
You’re barely through the gates when she starts squirming in your arms, legs kicking wildly against your hip. She babbles at full volume, squealing, clapping her hands together in a desperate attempt to get his attention.
“Okay, okay,” you murmur, shifting her higher. “We see him. I know.”
He’s finishing a lap when you look up.
He cuts cleanly through the last stretch of water, arms slicing forward, shoulders rolling smooth and strong beneath the surface. When he reaches the wall, he plants his palms on the edge and hauls himself up enough to hook both forearms over the edge.
Water streams down his shoulders, along the swell of his biceps, dripping from his chin in steady rivulets. The sun turns every drop of water on his skin into a shimmering prism of light.
He wipes his face with both hands, dragging them down over his eyes to clear the chlorine, and slicks his hair back.
Then he looks up.
And it’s unfair, how his whole face changes.
Recognition lights him up instantly, his mouth curving into that easy, unguarded smile you’ve seen a dozen times now—one that pulls gentle crow’s feet around those ridiculously kind eyes.
At first glance, they're just brown.
Until the sun hits.
Then a deep shade of hazel starts to blossom at the edges, that slow spill of green feathering inward. Honey-warm at the center, almost amber where the light pools. A kind of kaleidoscope you only notice if you stare for too long.
Which you don’t.
He grins wide as you approach the pool deck, squinting slightly against the glare off the water.
There’s always this split second where he looks so openly happy to see you.
Or, more accurately—to see your daughter.
You lower yourself carefully to sit at the edge, adjusting your grip because your daughter is now folding herself in half trying to reach him.
“Hey," he smiles, glancing toward the clock mounted near the lifeguard chair. "You guys are early today,”
“Yeah, I know, she—” Your daughter lets out a determined grunt and lunges forward, feet thumping against your thigh as she tries to swan-dive straight into the water. “—Okay, okay! Hold on!”
Steve laughs, water sloshing around his waist when he lifts himself up with one hand.
“Whoa,” he says gently, catching your daughter by the ankle before she can kick you in the ribs. “Here, let me see those.”
He wiggles her foot up and down, thumb brushing over the soft arch of her sole to make her squirm. She giggles, kicking against his palm the way he’s been teaching her to do in the water.
His eyes grow wide. “Hey! Those are some serious kicks. You been practicing without me?”
You laugh, tightening your grip before she can try to launch herself again. “Sorry, she’s just... really happy to see you."
He smiles at that, still holding her tiny foot in his hand. He gives it another gentle wiggle, brushing over her little toes.
“Yeah?” he murmurs to her, playful. “You're happy to see me?”
Then he glances up at you.
And it’s very deliberate, the way he looks at you when he says it.
Something soft in his smile when he tells you,
“I'm happy to see her, too.”
𓇼
It really was just curiosity at first.
You’d sit on the shallow steps with the other parents, water lapping at your calves, your daughter balanced against your chest while you adjusted her rash guard for the tenth time.
And you’d watch him.
He’d kneel in waist-deep water, a half-circle of bobbing babies surrounding him like ducklings. Wisps of hair pasted to tiny foreheads, fat cheeks glistening with water. Tiny palms slapping the surface while he explained very seriously that, “Pools are for swimming, not drinking. Ah, ah, Ben—I saw that, bud.”
Gentle water acclimation and back floats came first.
Then came assisted front floats.
Your stomach tightened the moment he announced it.
Your daughter had only just begun to stop crying when her ears dipped into the pool. Turning her over to face the water felt like betrayal.
You shifted her in your arms, hesitating.
Then you felt a pair of warm hands brush gently against yours.
“Here, you mind if I show you? No, no, you're fine, you're doing great. You just want to support her like… this.”
You watched his hand slide over yours, cupping under her stomach to demonstrate proper placement. The span of his palm was wider than your daughter’s entire torso, fingers splayed across her round little belly, thumb braced lightly against her ribs. His other hand hovered near her shoulder, ready to catch her if she tipped even slightly.
Your chest tightened as you let go.
“Don’t worry,” he reassured you, glancing up with an easy smile. “I’ve got her, promise.”
He knelt in the pool so he was eye-level with her, bringing his face close enough that she could focus on him instead of the water beneath her.
“You’re okay, I’ve got you,” he murmured, voice dropping into that calm, even register he uses with all the kids. “See? Just floating. That's not scary, right?”
And though his eyes were on her, you had the distinct feeling the reassurance was meant just as much for you.
He eased her forward across the water, keeping her chin well above the surface, adjusting instinctively when her body went stiff.
“Can you kick for me?” he coaxed, lifting one of her chubby legs and moving it through the water. “Kick? Like this?”
For a second, she just blinked at him. Then both legs started flailing at once—wild, enthusiastic splashes that sent arcs of water straight into his face.
He sputtered, wiping at his eyes with his shoulder. “Hey! Okay! There we go!”
He turned to you, grin wide, blinking away droplets from his lashes.
“You might wanna start saving up for Olympic training.”
It was the first time he made you smile like that.
It wouldn’t be the last.
𓇼
“Uppies” are his favorite part of class.
At the end of every session, when the babies are pruny and a little glassy-eyed with exhaustion, he rounds everyone up for one last game.
He holds each baby under the arms, gently lowering them until the water reaches their shoulders. Leans in close, dropping his voice to a dramatic whisper—ready?—then hoists them high overhead with a loud whoooosh!
The pool always fills with shrieks of laughter, your daughter’s being the loudest.
She’s fearless now. The same baby who used to cling to your shoulders now squeals in joy whenever he dips her in. Wraps her arms around his neck, fingers tangling in the ends of his damp hair. One time, out of pure excitement, she smacked him square on the cheek. He’d only laughed, lifting her back up for another round.
“You like that, huh?” he grinned, a little breathless from doing twenty sets of baby shoulder-presses. “Okay, okay—one more. But that’s it. Last one.”
It’s never the last one.
He always does it again. Then again. Down, up, down, up—biceps flexing with effort, cords of muscle rippling under sun-warmed skin.
It has to burn after a while, lifting water-logged, wriggling toddlers out of the water like that.
He never lets it show.
𓇼
After a few weeks, your daughter doesn’t hesitate anymore.
The moment he’s close, she starts reaching.
Abandons your shoulders, ignores the bright foam rings floating nearby. Both arms stretched out toward him, fists clenching and unclenching impatiently.
You think it’s because she's come to associate him with safety. With warm, steady hands and that reassuring laugh that always comes right after something scary.
Like independent swims.
He backs slowly through the water while she paddles toward him, barely supporting her—just two fingers under her hands at first, then nothing.
“It’s okay, you got it,” he encourages when she lets out a frustrated whine. “C’mon, show me those strong legs. Kick-kick-kick!”
Her face scrunches in fierce concentration. She paddles forward in determined bursts, swallowing a little water but pushing through.
“That’s it. Big kicks. Yeah, there you go!”
And the second her tiny hands smack against his chest, he steadies her instantly, sliding his hands under her arms.
“Yes! Look at you go!”
Up she goes, lifted higher and higher until her legs dangle, round belly catching the sunlight.
Droplets fall from his jaw, tracing down his throat as he tilts his head back to grin at her. His brows shoot up, eyes going wide in exaggerated disbelief.
“Woah!” he gasps. “That was all you! I didn’t even help!”
Your daughter squeals, loud and piercing, toes knocking clumsily against his chest. You watch as he lowers her back down, pressing his nose briefly to her cheek before settling her against his shoulder.
He turns to you, grinning so wide it creases his whole face.
Did you see that?! he mouths, eyes shining with pride, excitement radiating off him.
You can’t do much except smile and nod.
𓇼
The day you realize you’re well and truly gone is the day the class moves to the deeper end of the pool.
The water reaches all the way up to Steve's chest there. The babies have got snug little float belts on, just enough to add buoyancy while they practice longer kicks and back floats.
Steve's hand rests under your daughter’s back, fingers spread between her shoulder blades, the other steadying her hip. You cling to the divider rope, peering anxiously at the deeper water where they float.
When he catches you watching, he bends down close, lowering his voice in an exaggerated whisper.
“Who's that?” he gasps, pointing at you. “Is that your mommy?”
Your daughter follows his finger. Sees you.
She squeals, slapping both hands into the water so hard it splashes up into his face.
“Yeah,” he laughs. “That’s your mom, huh? Say hi! Hi, mommy!”
He lifts one of her chubby arms out of the water and wiggles it in a wave. “Look at us! We’re in the deep end!”
She babbles wildly, smacking the surface some more.
He adjusts his hold on her so she’s secure against his side and calls out, “You wanna come join us, mom?”
You blink, heat rushing to your face. “Oh—uhh, no, that’s... I’m okay!”
He studies you for a moment, something curious flickering in his gaze, but doesn’t push.
“Alright, we’ll just show off from here then,” he calls back easily, shifting his attention back to your daughter. “You wanna show mommy your starfish? Yeah? C’mon, show me your starfish. That’s it!”
𓇼
He finds you at the end of class.
You’re sitting at the edge of the pool, feet dangling just above the water. Your daughter is bunded up like a burrito in your lap, sucking from her sippy cup with half-lidded eyes, fighting sleep.
You see him walking toward you, still dripping from the pool.
Water traces slow paths down his calves, leaving faint wet footprints on the concrete. Without thinking, you reach into your bag and hold out your spare towel.
“Oh, thanks,” he breathes, a little winded still, taking it with a small smile.
He drops down beside you, close enough that your thighs brush. Drapes the towel over his shoulders and scrubs it briskly through his hair, roughing it up until it sticks out in uneven, damp spikes. A few strands fall back over his eyes.
You try very hard not to stare.
There are beads of water still clinging to his bare skin, catching in the dark tuft of hair at the center of his chest. One rolls down the soft line of his stomach before disappearing into the waistband of his swim trunks.
You clear your throat, suddenly very absorbed in fluffing up your daughter’s towel.
“Hey,” he says casually, nudging your shoulder lightly with his. “Were you okay earlier?”
You glance at him. “Earlier?”
“When we moved to the deep end.” He tips his head slightly, studying your face. “You just... seemed kinda freaked out.”
You huff a small, embarrassed laugh. “Was it that obvious?”
“A little,” he shrugs, smiling.
You shift your daughter higher on your lap and press a kiss into her damp hair, mostly so you don’t have to hold his gaze.
“I just, um…” you clear your throat. “I can’t really swim. Not very well, anyway.”
There’s a brief pause.
“Oh,” he says quietly.
When you glance up, you don't find any judgement on his face. Not really surprise, either. If anything, he looks thoughtful. Maybe a little relieved, like he’d worried it was something worse.
He adjusts the towel around his shoulders, rubbing at the back of his neck as he considers.
“Well,” he starts carefully, “would you want to learn how?”
You blink at him.
“It’s just—it's kind of an important skill to have, you know?" He supplies quickly. Then his gaze falters, drifting down to your lap, settling on your daughter who’s now blinking up at him with sleepy curiosity.
“I mean, I could uh... I could show you sometime. If you want.”
Oh.
“Oh—no, I—” you rush out, flustered. “I wouldn’t want to like, take up your time. You already have to deal with so many of us.”
He shakes his head, a small, easy smile pulling at his lips. “It’s fine, I don't mind. I'd be happy to do it.”
He turns to face you fully, smile turning playful when he adds, “Seriously, I won't even charge you."
That pulls a small laugh out of you.
“You won’t, huh?”
“Nope,” he says, eyes twinkling as he gestures to the small, bundled-up head peeking up at him. "Call it a... bonus. For having the cutest little swimmer around.”
You glance down at your daughter, smiling.
“I don’t know,” you say lightly, bouncing her on your leg. “This little swimmer has the tendency to get super jealous.”
He lets out a soft laugh, reaching out to gently nudge her pudgy cheek with his knuckle.
“What do you think?” he murmurs to her. “Should we teach mommy how to swim?”
Your daughter makes a soft, pleased noise, leaning into his hand.
Steve grins, then looks back up at you, gently brushing his thumb across your knee.
“So?” he asks, voice gone quieter.
His eyes hold yours—dark brown edged with hazel, warm honey pooling at the center.
hi!! i love ur steve and especially him and mer so much 🩷🩷 i think it would be cute for her to get the wrong idea about steve and nancy, and maybe think that that’s why he’s been hesitant or careful? and she gets quiet and he figures out why and has to explain they’re just friends hahaha xx
beyond the sea au | fem, 2.4k
Jonathan Byers is willowy and sweet.
“These are for you,” he says, apropos of nothing, not even a ‘hello’. “Mom’s old job in California was as a phone saleswoman selling encyclopaedias, and she came home with like, one of every type they sold.”
“Mom in California?” you echo, confused.
“Shit,” he says. “Yeah, you don’t know what I’m saying. These are for you.” He dumps a box on the table in front of you.
“Me?” you ask, standing up from your seat at the kitchen table, cereal largely forgotten. It’s too hard to eat with the stupid spoon, and it’s not as nice as the croquettes Steve made yesterday.
Jonathan glances at Steve. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter unconcerned.
“Yeah, for you,” he says, his hand held over a mouthful of peanut butter toast.
“What?” you ask Jonathan.
Jonathan, who already seemed sweet, something about his mouth, softens his voice, “They’re books. I know you can’t read yet, but there are pictures. And you’re learning, right?”
“Practicing English,” Steve says through another mouthful.
“I practice talk,” you agree.
“Right. And you can ask Steve– or me, or, you know, anyone, what the pictures are and we can tell you.”
“Photos in the book, so you can learn,” Steve says, peanut butter on his chin.
You take Jonathan’s hand where it rests on his box and hold it. “Thank you.”
Jonathan takes his hand back weirdly quickly, but he pats your elbow. “Yeah, you’re welcome. It wasn’t all me, they’re mom’s books. It was just my idea for you to take them.”
“Mom?” you ask.
“Joyce,” Steve says. “New person, haven’t met yet. Are you not hungry? Or you don’t like the cereal?”
“Cereal wet?” You step toward Steve unsurely. “Make… soft?”
“Mushy,” Steve says, eyebrows raised, but tone lilting like he gets what you’re saying. He steers you by the small of your back out of the way of the refrigerator. “That’s okay. If you don’t like cereal, no big deal. Jonathan, you want a bagel while I’m making them?”
Jonathan gives Steve a weird look. Suspicion, you’d say, but maybe not? It’s there and then hidden. “Uh, no, I had toast.”
“Awesome.”
Nancy announces herself without any more fanfare than Jonathan had. “Sorry, my mom drove me,” she says, “why was the door open?”
“We’re airing it out in here,” Steve says, a bag of bagels and your cream cheese and salmon slices on the counter in front of him. He cuts a bagel open with his knife. “She’s sensitive to the floor cleaner.”
“Made sneeze,” you say solemnly, reaching over Steve to pinch a bit of salmon off of the unwrapped plate.
Steve knocks your hip with his, but you’re busy following your new acquaintances for clues when Jonathan looks to Nancy, who nods vehemently.
“Right?” she says.
“Right what?” Steve says, and he’s so immediately mad that you laugh in a sputter. “Right what?”
“Nothing!”
“Not nothing,” Steve says, “don’t leave me out, I hate when you guys do that shit. I thought your ‘amicable breakup’ would mean I get shit-talked less often.”
“We didn’t talk shit about you, Steve,” Nancy says.
You offer Steve a little bit of salmon off of your fingers, uninterested in their conversation where their words mean nothing and their tones don’t match their expressions.
He shakes his head. “No thank you, I just had toast.”
“Toast,” you say, “and salmon.”
Steve meets your eyes briefly with a smile so warm it melts your belly. But he glances at Nancy, and then he shakes his head again. “I’m okay. Do you want pepper?”
Pepper is a human spice you’ve tried before. Spices aren’t common in the Great Lake, more commonplace are flavoured brines or herb-wraps, because being underwater gives the spice no gravity to adhere to. Pepper here falls straight down onto the food.
“Little pepper, please, Steve. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
You can’t help noticing how sorely absent one of his pet names is from that sentence. It felt like he was going to use one. He usually does after you’ve said thanks.
Nancy opens the box on the table and smiles. She has a pretty mouth, thin, soft lips that curve more than pleasantly. It’s a smile like she’s keeping a secret, but it’s more like a private pleasure sort of thing than a means to hurt anyone. She knows something you don’t, maybe. “Oh, wow, look at all of these…”
“I thought they’d help. You know. With English class,” Jonathan says.
“Yeah, I think these are great. When she’s familiarised herself more with the alphabet, reading words out like this with an example’ll help them stick.” Nancy pulls a great fat book from the box and places it on the table. She looks back at you, faltering for a second when she sees you’re already watching, her eyes flickering to Steve and then you again. Why? “Do you know what books are?” she asks gently.
“Book word. Steve me, photographs.”
The knife makes a crunching noise against the countertop as Steve cuts your bagel in half. “Yeah, I showed you a book with words and photos before. Here, picky. Next time, tell me you don’t like your food, okay? Tell me good or bad.”
“Good,” you say, pleased as punch as he hands you half of your bagel, now topped with cream cheese, salmon, and a pinch of cracked black pepper. “Thank you, thank you, baby.”
You figure if Steve’s not going to use any nice words today, you will.
Steve starts to blush almost immediately, his cheeks gone pink at the sides as Jonathan coughs out a laugh and Nancy turns her head to the side, looking out of the window. You frown at her, frown at Steve, confused when he doesn’t rub your arm or tell you that you’re welcome. He’s being so weird today. Is it… because of Nancy? She won’t look at you either now you’ve called Steve the pet name, her cheeks pinking, a grimace stuck to her nice mouth.
You look down at your feet, taking a bite of bagel that’s too soft. Mushy. Gummy in your mouth like you’d chewed it up already. Any of the flavours you’d been looking forward to hurt your stomach quick, and you turn fully to the counter where Steve’s left the other half of your bagel before any of the humans can see your lost look.
“Baby?” Nancy asks, nearly too quiet for you to hear.
“What’s wrong with that?” Steve asks.
“Nothing’s wrong with that, I’m just asking.”
They trade quibbles, your head filling with miserable fluff the longer you think about things.
She sounds annoyed. Not much, but enough to make you put down your bagel and leave the room. Steve’s halfway through an answer as you go, and he says, “Wha– Y/N, wait a sec, where are you going?”
You head into the hallway, then the big room by the door and around, into the living room where your nemesis TV sits in darkness.
“What are we looking for?” Steve asks. “This can wait, you haven’t eaten anything yet and it’s almost eleven.”
You walk behind the loveseat and sit down. On the floor, hidden by its back, out of view of the doorway and the most secluded place you could find on short notice.
Steve follows you slowly. “Hey– hey, what is it? What’s going on, do you not feel good?”
“Not feel good,” you agree under your breath.
“Well, you can sit on the couch? You don’t have to sit here on the floor, come sit up here, I’m sure it’s just nausea.”
“Nausea?” you ask.
“Churning. Like your tummy’s doing this,” he says, clenching and unclenching his fist. “Is that what it feels like?”
You nod, just once, and when you don’t try to stand up, Steve kneels down on the floor beside you with a sigh. His hand covers the round of your knee. “Baby, you don’t have to hide, if you’re feeling sick. You can tell me you feel nauseous, I can make you some tea or–”
“No,” you say, laying down on your side. You pull your knees as high up as they can reach, curled like a pill bug away from his hand. “Nausea. Alone.”
“I can’t leave you alone.”
“Alone.”
“No, I’m not gonna do that.”
“Okay,” you say, closing your eyes.
You’d been hit with the realisation that you don’t know Steve’s relationships to the people in his life. What you know is that Steve wants you, cares about you deeply and has protected you as best as he could since the moment he found you, but you don’t know what Steve has already. You don’t know how he knows Nancy and you haven’t asked him if the reason he seems to be so tentative while courting you could be because he’s already entangled with somebody else. This seems like a very obvious thing to have missed beforehand, but Nancy hasn’t been around, you haven’t seen the way she looks at him before. You feel like a fool. And the thing your kind likes to do when they’re hurt is to hide while they're injured and wait to heal.
This feels like it could take a while to be fixed. He’s rejected your food sharing before, and you try not to take it seriously when he does because Steve doesn’t know what these customs mean to you, in the same way you weren’t aware of something as innate to humans as a formal handshake when meeting someone important for the first time, but to reject your sharing in front of someone he could’ve been courting before you were here? It’s an agony.
Like, fuck. There are photographs of them together in the box under his bed. You hadn’t thought twice about them tucked in with photos of Dustin and Robin and people you haven’t met to name, but now?
Steve holds your ankle. “Are you gonna get your tail back?” he asks worriedly. Too worriedly, his breath hitching as he moves in closer. “Baby, are you hurting?”
You don’t want to talk, a sad huff bubbling past your lips.
“I only just got you,” he says.
You peek at him from the floor, your cheek cold, eyes embarrassingly hot.
Steve’s gazing down at you in part panic, part agony. So at least you’re feeling similarly. But if he cares so much about you, why…
“Why not honey me?” you murmur.
“What?”
“You not talk honey me, not baby. Not honey baby. Why?”
“I just called you baby ten seconds ago,” he says, glaring in his confusion.
“Not Nancy.”
“What?” he asks, his tone gentling considerably.
“Not talk me honey and Nancy.”
Steve leans down, his eyes brown brown brown as he cups your cheek and turns your face away from the shadow of your arm. “I didn’t call you honey when we were with Nancy,” he says.
“No.”
“And that made you feel… sad?”
You shrug, refusing to answer, tears feeling ever closer.
“I didn’t call you honey when we were with Nancy and Jonathan because this is– because we’re– I don't know what you want people to know about you, or us. Or what I want. I like that this is just for us because it feels… it feels like nobody can take it away from me if nobody knows.”
“What word?” you ask.
“What does that mean?”
You nod.
He feels along your cheek and under your jaw with his thumb. “I don’t know how to explain it to you, honey. It’s something for us, for now. Just for now. Not always.”
“Tomorrow?”
Steve leans down until you can feel his breath kissing your Cupid’s bow. “Do you want me to call you honey when Nancy and Jonathan are around? When they’re here in the house?”
“Yes,” you say. Obviously.
“Okay. Okay, then I will. I’m sorry if I made your tummy hurt. It wasn’t what I was trying to do. And I’m sorry if I embarrassed you when you called me baby, just… you’ve never done that. Not called me baby,” —his voice goes to a whisper, that same red blush kissing his cheeks and chin as he confesses— “why did you call me baby today?”
“You not call me honey baby. Practice.”
“You’re teaching me how to do it?” he asks with a chuckle.
You turn your face into his hand. Steve’s laugh fades, the tip of his thumb resting over your lips. He draws along the seam of them, shaking ever so slightly.
“It’s not because of Nancy,” he says. “I didn’t stop calling you baby because of Nancy. Okay? Do you understand?”
“Understand. Okay.”
“Is that– do you feel less nauseous now? Tummy not hurting?”
Your stomach hurts for different reasons now. Residual fear, embarrassment, a little bit of shame.
“It’s not about Nancy, baby,” he says, his tone quiet as his eyes trace your mouth. You can’t help licking your lips under the attention. His lashes flutter and he stops his gazing, an apologetic twist to his mouth as he brushes his hand up the side of your face and holds the back of your hand still. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. Okay? I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, and,” you say.
“Yeah? That’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
After a few moments, you hedge, “Nancy sound– sound–” You wring your fist.
“Nancy’s not mad you called me baby, baby,” he says, his laugh so soft it helps to calm the lingering pounding in your head. “She’s making fun of me. She’s laughing at me, because I went pink.”
You giggle as Steve slips his arms beneath you and begins to drag you in for a hug. “Steve lot pink,” you say agreeably.
He rests his chin against your forehead, the tension in his back unspooling under the tripping brush of your hands, up and down. Blushing and shuddery, Steve laughs through words over your head, “I’m gone on you, dork, it’s not exactly my choice.”
“Dork?”
Steve hums. “I don’t know if you’ll like that one,” he says, but he tries to explain it to you anyway.
pairing: steve harrington x reader
summary: touch-starved doesn’t even begin to cover it. steve harrington is affection-starved. love-starved. he’s been handing out pieces of his heart for years, getting nothing but scraps back. now, he clings like glue—always leaning, always touching, like his body craves closeness and he never learned how to pull back. and it would’ve all been fine… if this wasn't supposed to be just a casual thing. if he hadn’t said I love you, with his whole heart, mid-fuck.
warnings: 18+ mdni, fwb to lovers, piv sex, oral (f!receiving), touchstarved!steve, i'd call him subby in this but he's rlly just pathetically in love, unexpected L-bomb, domestic fluff, light angst, happy ending
a/n: everyone’s moved on from that s1 scene where steve asks nancy ‘you don’t love me?’ but I’m still there. anyway. here’s 5k words of painfully touch-starved steve.
So, like.
This isn’t a real thing.
That’s the important part. The crux. The root of it all.
The problem.
It’s the reason you haven’t slept in your own bed in over a week. The reason there’s a stupid little bruise on your neck (seriously, who even gives hickeys anymore?) and the reason you know exactly how Steve Harrington takes his coffee (three sugars, no cream, no shame).
It’s not real.
Because if it were real, then… that would be something.
And you don’t do “something.” You don’t like “something.”
Because “something” has weight. Teeth. Expectations.
And Steve? Well.
Steve is—
He’s lonely.
That’s what this is.
No, seriously. That’s the whole thing.
You didn’t clock it at first. Thought maybe he was just hot and bored. Smooth in that lazy, practiced way that makes everything feel like a dare. He flirts like he’s handing out candy. Smiles like it’s a reflex.
But it’s not boredom.
Steve Harrington is lonely.
The kind of lonely that clings to skin like summer sweat.
The kind that seeps in slow—after years of being everybody’s something and then, suddenly, nobody’s anything.
The kind that turns touch into a transaction. That turns you into a distraction.
He speaks in half-jokes and full smiles. Loose shoulders, quick grins. Charm so polished it starts to sound like an echo—hollow, if you know what to listen for.
But when he touches you—god, when he touches you—
It’s like he’s trying to memorize it. Like he’s scared he won’t get another chance.
And somehow, that’s what keeps bringing you back.
Not the sex. Though—yeah, okay. The sex is good. Annoyingly good.
The kind that makes you forget your name. That has you laughing one second and gasping the next. The kind where he holds your hand through it and whispers ridiculous, tender shit into your neck. Nonsense, really. Things no one should find hot, and yet… you do.
But that’s not why you stay.
It’s not the sex.
It’s what happens after.
It’s the way he presses a hand to your lower back when you shift beneath the covers, like he’s making sure you’re still there. It’s the way he gets up first, hair a mess, pulling on flannel pajama pants that hang low on his hips while he makes you scrambled eggs.
Burnt edges. Drenched in pepper.
You wrinkle your nose and grumble about having breakfast at 2 PM.
He slides the plate toward you with a smug little, “You’ll eat what I give you and you'll like it.”
You always grin.
“You’re lucky I’m easy,” you tell him, mouth full.
He shrugs, sips his coffee (three sugars, no shame), and says, “Yeah. I am.”
You think that’s a joke. Maybe. Hopefully.
You don’t ask.
You don’t ask a lot of things.
Like why he waits to kiss you until your hands are under his shirt. Or why he pulls you in like he wants to keep you there, and then lets you go as soon as the sun comes up. Why his eyes go distant when he thinks you’re not looking.
You tell yourself he just needs the connection. That you’re just a body. A placeholder. A habit.
But he gets so quiet sometimes. After.
That strange, suspended kind of quiet, when the sweat’s dried and the room’s gone still. When his arm is still slung over your waist and his gaze is locked on the ceiling like it's got answers he doesn’t.
Not asleep. Never asleep.
Just still.
Like he’s bracing for impact.
Once—just once—you asked, “You good?”
And he said, “Yeah.”
But he said it in that voice. The soft one. The one he uses when he’s lying.
You could’ve pressed. But you didn’t.
Because this isn’t a real thing.
It’s just comfort.
Borrowed heat. Mutual use. Skin and breath and the occasional earth-shattering orgasm.
That’s it.
Until one night, he says something.
And it changes everything.
…
Steve Harrington is a leaner.
You noticed that before anything ever happened between you.
Before the late nights. Before toothbrushes and t-shirts that weren’t yours. Back when he was just a name, a familiar face at parties with warm drinks and bad music. The guy with the hair and the reputation.
One night, you ended up on the same couch.
By accident. Well, mostly.
You’d had one too many drinks and slumped into the cushions like your bones had melted. Someone handed you a bottle of water and asked, “You okay?”
That someone was Steve.
He didn’t say much else. Just sat next to you, a respectful distance away, not even close enough for your knees to brush.
You said something dumb. He laughed. Asked a follow-up question.
And that’s when you noticed it.
The lean.
Steve Harrington leans like it’s instinct. Like gravity doesn’t pull him down, it pulls him toward. Like his body craves closeness and he never learned how to resist it.
But then when your hand brushed his thigh while reaching for a bowl of chips—
He froze.
Just for a second. A flicker. A sharp inhale. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of thing.
But you didn’t miss it.
You noticed.
…
It started stupid. You tell yourself that a lot.
Especially when you’re staring at yourself in his bathroom, brushing your teeth with the toothbrush he bought you, trying to figure out what the hell you’re doing.
It was stupid. An accident, really.
He called one night. Said, "I can’t sleep."
You said, "That sucks."
Then: "Can I come over?"
And: "Sure."
Just sex. That was the deal. No strings, no expectations.
There were rules, in the beginning.
No cuddling. No staying over.
No kissing unless clothes were already off.
That one lasted exactly one round.
Because on the second night, he kissed you first. Before either of you had taken off a single layer. Like kissing was the point, not the sex.
And afterward? He held you. Just an arm across your waist, skin warm, breath steady. Like you were his favorite teddy bear. Or a security blanket that talks back.
And he didn’t ask you to stay, but when you fell asleep there, he was already awake by the time you opened your eyes. Lying there. Watching you.
Like he hadn’t slept at all.
It was fine. Totally fine.
“Just friends,” you’d said.
And he nodded. “Yeah. Totally.”
But his fingers were laced through yours when he said it.
…
Sometimes he says things you don’t know how to hear.
Like that weekend after finals. Both of you a little drunk. Loose-limbed and grinning for no reason. Buzzed on cheap beer and end-of-term freedom, on the promise of summer stretching out like a dare. You were parked outside your place, engine off, windows fogging in the humidity. Music low, the kind of old-school ballad Steve pretends to hate but knows every word to.
You kissed him over the console of his Beemer. Messy, open-mouthed, like the world was ending and tongues were currency—a last-ditch effort to spend everything before it was too late. He laughed into your mouth, and you felt it everywhere.
Then, soft and slurred:
“Missed you this week.”
You smiled. Didn’t answer.
He kissed your neck like he could hide into it.
You didn’t ask what he meant. Didn’t ask if he meant your mouth or your body or just the convenience of you.
You just climbed into his lap.
Straddled him.
Ground down on him like you were trying to forget how soft he’d sounded. How scared.
And he let you.
Because Steve Harrington always lets you.
…
Tonight, it’s raining.
You show up at his door soaked to the bone, hoodie dripping, pajama pants clinging to your legs. There’s water in your eyelashes, in your socks, probably in your dignity.
Steve opens the door like he’s been waiting. Like he knew.
“Jesus, get in here,” he mutters, tugging you inside by the wrist. “You’re soaked.”
He peels off your jacket, pushes your hood down. His knuckles brush your cheek.
His hands feel warm. Or maybe cold. You can’t tell anymore with him.
…
He makes soup.
Chicken noodle, way too much pepper.
You sit on the counter in dry clothes that smell like him while he stirs in silence; barefoot, bedhead, wearing sleep pants and an old Hawkins basketball tee with a hole in the collar.
He hands you the bowl and watches you blow on the steam.
Then he puts on a movie neither of you ends up watching.
He sits close, arms touching from shoulder to elbow.
It’s nothing.
Except, with Steve, nothing always feels like everything.
Because he doesn’t move away.
He leans.
…
Touch-starved doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Steve Harrington is affection-starved. Love-starved. He’s been handing his heart out to people for years and getting scraps in return.
He was the king of a kingdom that left him stranded in his own tower.
Now, he wields proximity like armor. Like glue. Stick close, so maybe they won’t leave.
You sit next to him, he leans. You stand near him, his fingers brush yours. You yawn, and suddenly he’s cradling your head, smoothing your hair like you’re going through something traumatic.
You’re not.
You’re yawning.
And it would be funny, if it wasn’t all so completely, irreparably fucked.
…
The rain's louder now.
Not quite a storm, but loud enough that it fills the room with its own kind of hush. Soft and constant, like white noise between thoughts.
Steve leans back against the couch, head tilted, throat exposed. The light from the TV paints him in soft blues and grays.
You look at him too long. Then say, quietly:
“You don’t let people touch you much.”
He blinks. “What?”
“I mean, you do,” you say, glancing at his hands. “But not really.”
He lets out a breath, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “Okay, detective. What’s that mean?”
You shift, pulling your knees up.
“It means…” you pause. “That you act like it’s natural. Like touching’s easy for you. But it’s not.”
His eyes drift away. His throat bobs.
Then, a low chuckle. Pained and impressed in the same breath. “Jesus. You should be a therapist or something.”
“So I’m right?”
He goes quiet for a bit. Just tugs the blanket higher over your knees.
“People think I’m good at it,” he says eventually. “Being… I don’t know, flirty.”
“You are,” you say, like it's a fact. And it is.
He laughs, soft and empty. “Yeah. Well. I’ve had a lot of practice.”
He starts picking at a loose thread. Doesn’t look at you.
“But that’s all it is. Practice. I think… I think I just got good at pretending.”
A pause.
“My parents weren’t really... around. You know? And when they were, it was all rules. Appearances. Be polite. Be perfect. Don’t embarrass the family.”
You stare at your lap. “That sucks.”
He stiffens a little. “I’m not saying it for pity.”
“I know,” you bump your knee against his. “And don’t worry, you’re not getting any.”
He snorts, soft and real.
But then his hand stirs in his lap, tightening around the blanket, white-knuckled. It’s subtle. A detail most people wouldn’t notice.
But you do.
You always notice.
So you reach out. Slip your fingers between his like you’ve done it a hundred times before. Laced together, palm to palm, thumb brushing over the tense tendons in his wrist.
He freezes. Just for a second.
Then his hand twitches. Loosens. Curls back around yours.
He holds on.
…
Steve Harrington has always been golden.
Golden boy. Golden skin. Golden smile. The kind of person who walks into a room and soaks up all the oxygen without even trying. The kind people fall for in flashes, bright and fast and dizzying.
They love parts of him. The hair, the grin, the effortless charm. The storybook confidence that makes everyone else fade to grayscale. But if they looked closer—and most don’t—they might notice a flicker of something else. Something dimmer. Something tired.
You notice.
You always notice.
You see the way his smile stutters, the half-second where it slips before he wrestles it back into place. The way he shrugs off compliments like they sting. Laughs off praise like it doesn't fester in his chest long after it’s said. Like he doesn’t believe a word of it, even when it’s true.
He’s used to it, you think. Being loved for the surface. Wanted for being golden.
Never seen for what’s underneath.
But that’s not the Steve you want.
You want this Steve—sleepy-eyed, soft-voiced, weirdly-good-at-playing-with-your-hair Steve.
The one in faded sweatpants and mismatched socks, slurping soup too loudly and pretending your knee against his isn’t the most intimate thing that’s happened to him all week.
The one who sings along to bad radio ballads in the car and gets quiet when you ask him about childhood birthdays. The one who never learned how to ask for love—only how to give too much of it away.
You want the mess. The ache. The scared little boy behind the golden grin.
You want to know what song he hums when he’s doing his laundry. What memory makes him smile when no one’s watching.
The parts of him that aren’t polished, the cracks that run through the gold. The ones he tucks away because he's convinced no one could ever love them.
You want the parts he hides.
…
You don’t remember how your shirt came off.
One minute you were doubled over laughing—some dumb line from the movie, something even dumber from Steve—and then he’s just there.
Mouth hot on your neck. Hands everywhere. Greedy and reverent in the same stroke, in the way only Steve Harrington can be.
He kisses down your throat, mumbling something against your skin. Something that sounds like, “You’re so beautiful,” voice so full it cracks a little.
Your fingers sink into his hair.
“Steve,” you breathe. “You’re shaking.”
He lifts his head. Eyes wide and round and glassy.
“I just…” He swallows. “Wanna make you feel good. Let me?”
You nod, throat tight.
You’d let him do anything.
…
He eats you out like he missed you.
Like this is the only way he knows how to say it.
You’re sprawled across his couch, thighs over his shoulders, his arms hooked under your hips. Holding you open as he devours you. Sloppy, desperate, like he missed this, missed you, even though you were here just two nights ago. He groans into you like this is worship, and maybe it is. Maybe it always has been.
“Fuck,” he moans, voice wrecked. “You taste so good. So wet for me.”
Your fingers twist harder in his hair. He moans at that too; loves it when you tug him closer.
"Steve—"
“Yeah, baby,” he mumbles, mouth full. “I got you.”
You arch into him, thighs clamped tight around his head.
“I—fuck, I’m gonna—"
He groans like he’s the one coming. Eats you through it, grinding his hips into the carpet, riding it out with you. Stays through the twitching and the aftershocks, still licking, like he can’t bear to stop, can’t bear to let you go.
And even when you’re spent, legs trembling, chest heaving, he doesn’t move away.
Kisses your thighs. Your stomach. Your breasts.
Soft, wet little marks. Greedy, but not in the way that takes. In the way that keeps.
You breathe through the haze, arm flung over your eyes because it stings too much sometimes, looking at him.
“You wanna fuck me now?”
…
He fucks you like a confession.
Slow. Deep. Forehead to forehead. Breathing into your mouth. Nose bumping with each stroke, his breath hitching every time you moan.
Like he’s making love, even though that’s not what this is.
The room is quiet except for the slick sounds of skin on skin, and the soft hush of your name as he passes it from his lips over to yours.
“So good,” he breathes. “So fucking perfect.”
You curl your fingers around the back of his neck, pull him closer.
“I think about you all the time,” he whispers, hips rolling into you. “All the time. Can't—can’t stop.”
You tense, just slightly. Barely a hitch in your breath.
He doesn’t notice. Or maybe he does, and just barrels forward anyway, words spilling faster than he can catch them. He’s shaking again.
“Can’t get you out of my head. Fuck, you’re all I think about, I—”
And then—
He says it.
The thing.
The one thing you can’t undo.
“I love you.”
…
Everything stills.
Steve stills. You still.
He pulls back, blinking fast. Searching your face, fingers twitching against your waist.
You can’t breathe.
“Steve…”
You say it like it hurts. Like it’s an apology. Like you didn’t mean to hear it, and he didn’t mean to say it.
He sees it, whatever’s written on your face. Sees it and folds in on himself.
His mouth twists, words souring on his tongue.
“Sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean—”
You kiss him before he can finish.
Messy. Desperate. Mouth open, teeth clashing. Like you’re trying to shove the words back down his throat. Like if you just kiss him hard enough, they’ll sink back into him and never make it out.
He kisses you back, fast and clumsy. Picks up his pace again, thrusts turning erratic, rhythm gone. He comes like that—hands gripping too tight, teeth in your shoulder, breathing like he’s drowning.
He doesn’t say it again.
Not out loud.
…
You told him once, weeks ago—maybe during the eighth or ninth time, when things were still light enough to float. You were lying in his bed, naked on blue linen, post-coital and quiet. You were staring at the ceiling. He was tracing circles on your arm.
“I’ve never said it,” you murmured.
He turned, frowning. “What do you mean, never?”
“Like… out loud. To anyone.”
“Not even to, like, a boyfriend?”
You snorted. Gave him a look. He just frowned deeper.
“I mean, it’s just words, right?” you shrugged. “Doesn’t really mean shit. Not unless you show it.”
He was quiet for a long time. Then he nodded, like he was filing it away.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I guess.”
…
The scariest part isn’t that he said it.
It’s how little changes after.
He pulls out. Kisses your forehead. Disappears for a towel, water, wipes, the whole post-sex routine. He wraps you in a blanket, like always.
He sits on the edge of the couch, shirtless and quiet. Still catching his breath.
But he won’t look at you.
You’re staring at the ceiling now. Body still buzzing, your mind a blur. Your chest feels raw, like you’ve swallowed glass and it’s still cutting on the way down.
Finally, you speak.
“You’re an idiot.”
His head turns, brows knit. “What?”
You sit up a little. “You’re an idiot. You can’t just say that mid-fuck and expect me not to spiral.”
He laughs, caught off guard. It’s soft. A little broken.
“I didn’t mean to,” he murmurs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Just… came out.”
“Yeah. I noticed.”
He starts fidgeting with the blanket again.
“I can take it back, if you want.”
You pause.
A long, slow beat.
Then you shake your head.
“No. Don’t.”
…
He’s sitting on the bed when you come out of the shower.
Hair damp, skin flushed from the heat, a line of steam following you out the bathroom. You’re toweling off the ends of your hair, not really expecting conversation. He’s quiet—bent forward, elbows on his knees, bare foot tapping a slow rhythm into the floorboards.
Then, without looking up, he says:
“Do you want to stay over?”
You almost drop the towel. Frozen mid-motion, terrycloth bunched in your hands.
It’s not the first time he’s asked that. Not really.
There was one night, early on, when you came over to his place, still a little nervous about the whole thing. He’d made you come three times, then followed you out of bed, shirtless and flushed, and said:
“You could, uh… stay. If you want. It’s late. I don’t—sleep great. And I just…” He’d swallowed it. “Forget it. Never mind.”
You’d made it exactly two steps before turning around.
But that was then.
Now, five months in, you’ve never needed the words. Your toothbrush is in his medicine cabinet. Your hoodie is slung over the back of his desk chair. You spend most nights here anyway—falling asleep during half-watched movies and waking up tangled in limbs you no longer bother to count.
So the fact that he asks—now, of all nights—makes you pause.
“Sure,” You say quietly, then walk past him to grab the lotion off his nightstand like it's nothing.
He doesn’t smile, not really. But his shoulders soften. His eyes go from holding tension to holding you.
He looks tired. Relieved in a way that makes your chest ache.
You slip under the covers, the way you always do. He follows. And for a beat, everything feels normal. Familiar. Easy.
He’s warm. He always is.
Your body knows the choreography—roll away, let him pull you in, slot your legs together until he’s all but spooning you. But tonight, for reasons you can’t name, you end up facing him instead. On your side. Eyes open. Nose to nose.
Close enough to feel the soft rise of his chest. To smell his shampoo. The expensive one you always make fun of, the one you pretend not to use.
Close enough to catch the exhale when he speaks.
“Can I—?” he stops.
You wait.
He licks his lips, gaze darting down to the space between you.
“Can I hold your hand?”
Your stomach drops, fluttering like a trapped bird.
Because what kind of person asks to hold your hand after they’ve had their hands everywhere else?
And why does that make you feel more vulnerable than anything he’s ever done?
You say, “Sure,” because you don’t know what else to say.
And then you do it. You reach out, he meets you halfway—fingers slotting between yours like they were made to be there.
His thumb skates slowly over your knuckles. His hand is warm, a little rough in places. Callused in a way that reminds you he’s probably fought for things—for people—before. Real things. Hard things. Love-shaped things.
Eventually, he shifts closer. Not pulling you into him. Just… aligning. Until your knees touch. Until your breaths sync.
He’s so close you can count the gold flecks in his eyes.
Then, quietly:
“I meant it. What I said.”
You don’t answer right away.
Because something in your chest lurches and twists and stretches like it’s never been moved before. Like it’s being made into something new.
“I know,” you say eventually, voice soft as worn cotton.
He swallows. Starts again, then stops. There’s a crack in his voice when he says:
“You don’t have to say it back. I know it’s not fair. That I said it like that. I just—” He looks down. Shrinks in on himself a little. “I couldn’t not.”
You reach out before he can spiral. Fingers to his jaw, steady and slow.
He flinches instinctively, then stills beneath your touch.
And god, he looks so young like this. Eyes glassy. Lips bitten raw. Desperate crease between his brows like he’s bracing for impact.
“Steve,” you whisper, thumb brushing the corner of his mouth. “I’m not mad.”
He searches your face like it might change mid-sentence.
“I just… I need time. That’s all.”
He nods. Once. Then again.
“Okay,” he says, and it sounds like breathing for the first time in days. “Okay.”
He squeezes your hand, like a question.
You squeeze back, like an answer.
…
You don’t plan it.
There’s no perfect moment. No grand confession. No string quartet swelling in the background, or a slow-motion kiss in the rain.
There’s just a Tuesday.
Or maybe a Wednesday.
One of those in-between days that doesn’t really exist. Gray sky. Light drizzle. Everything muted and quiet, just a little smudged around the edges.
When you open your door, Steve’s already there.
Curled into the corner of your couch in fuzzy socks, eating dry cereal out of the box and watching a rerun of something he’s already seen three times. His hair’s damp. Probably showered at your place again because its closer to the gym, or maybe he just likes your shampoo better than his.
You don’t even ask anymore.
He grins when he sees you. Tosses a Cheerio in his mouth and says, “How was hell?”
You toe off your shoes and shrug. “Corporate’s an absolute dream. Only cried twice in the break room today.”
He opens his arms without a word. “C’mere.”
You go.
He pulls you in without pretense, folding you into his chest like he’s been waiting all day just to do it. You melt into it, cheek pressed to his collarbone. He smells like your body wash. It does something to your ribs. Cracks them open. Lets the light in.
You sit like that for a while. Not talking. Not needing to.
Eventually, he gently nudges you off him.
“I’m making tea,” he says. “Don’t move.”
You do, of course. You follow him.
He's humming something tuneless, drumming his fingers on the counter while the kettle boils. And when it whistles, he moves automatically, like he’s done it a hundred times. Two mugs. Two tea bags. Your chipped dinosaur mug and his plain blue one. He insists it’s “just a mug” even though he always reaches for it first.
He doesn’t have to ask. He knows. Honey in both. Lemon in yours. He moves with the kind of ease that only comes from repetition. From caring.
He hands it to you without looking. You take it with both hands, the warmth of the ceramic bleeding into your palms.
And for some reason, that’s what does it.
Not the cuddling. Not the hand-holding. Not the sex, or the sleepovers, or the toothbrush he bought without asking
Just—this.
This moment. This man. This stupid kitchen and this cup of tea made exactly how you like it.
It hits you like a low tide: gentle, inevitable, impossible to ignore.
You’re still holding the mug when you say it. Still standing in the half-lit kitchen in your sad little apartment with the flickering stove light and the perpetually leaking faucet and the love of your life stirring a teabag like it’s the most serious task in the universe.
Soft. Barely above the whistle of the kettle.
“I love you.”
His spoon stops mid-stir.
He doesn’t move for a second. Doesn’t look up.
You think maybe he didn’t hear you. Maybe you should repeat it. Louder. Clearer.
But then—he smiles.
Not the charming one. Not the grin he uses when for baristas or strangers or people who don’t know any better.
This one’s smaller. Like it snuck up on him.
He sets the spoon down carefully.
“Yeah?” he asks, still not turning around.
You nod.
Then, braver: “Yeah.”
He lets out a breath like he’s been holding it in his lungs since February.
And without looking at you—like looking might make it collapse—he just says:
“Okay.”
Then, a beat later, with a kind of awe:
“I love you too.”
You step closer. Lean your head against his back, arms circling his waist just to feel him. He goes still under your touch, the way he does when something matters a little too much.
Then he relaxes. Covers your hands with his. Holds you there.
And the thing is, nothing else changes.
You still drink your tea. Still argue over who gets the remote. Still end up half-asleep on the couch with pretzel crumbs all over the upholstery and Steve mumbling nonsense into your shoulder.
But later, when he takes you to bed, he says it again.
Not in the heat of it. Not as a plea. Just a soft, quiet:
“I love you.”
You don’t panic.
You don’t question it.
You just say it back. Steadier, this time.
“I love you.”
He grins against your mouth. “About time.”
You roll your eyes.
He kisses your nose.
…
“I just—I’m sorry, but I really think this one tastes the same as the other one.”
Steve’s in an argument with the beekeeper lady at the farmer’s market. About honey.
She gasps like he’s insulted her bloodline, then launches into a spiel about how wildflower honey tastes completely different from clover honey—something about the blossoms and the weather and the bees' mood.
You, standing ten feet away with an armful of Honeycrisps, don’t even try to save him. You just lean against a crate of pumpkins and watch the disaster unfold.
This is your Saturday now.
Groceries and small-town drama. Coffee stops and joint laundry loads and dumb little errands that somehow feel like sacred rituals because he’s there.
He jogs back to you a minute later, holding a jar of orange blossom honey.
He's grinning like an idiot. “She loved me.”
“She called you ‘boy.’”
“Exactly. Affectionate.”
You bump his hip. “You’re a menace.”
“And you love that about me.”
You glance at him, lips twitching.
You do.
You really do.
…
It’s been eight months.
Eight months of toothbrushes side-by-side. Of his socks in your drawer and your hair ties in his bathroom.
Of grocery lists that say things like “Steve’s weird granola” and “that cinnamon roll candle" you've been dying to try.
Of falling asleep on the couch and waking up in bed because he carried you. Of him saying “morning, baby" in that morning-after voice then smirking when yours is too hoarse to respond.
Of fights that don’t break things, just bend them. Of learning how to disagree without flinching. How to apologize without pride.
Of knowing it’s safe now. Not perfect, not painless, but safe.
…
One night, he’s reading beside you in bed.
Trying to, at least.
The book’s open in his lap, but he’s clearly dozing off mid-paragraph. Lips parted, breath steady.
You’re on your side, just watching him.
You don’t let yourself stare too often, but he’s so soft like this. Soft in a way he only is at home. With you.
There’s a scar on his collarbone you’ve never asked about.
You probably could. He’d tell you.
You think you will, someday.
But right now, you're happy just tracing it with your fingertip. He stirs, nuzzling your shoulder like he’s chasing warmth in his sleep.
And then, half-conscious, he murmurs:
“You’re it for me.”
You go still. Heart in your throat.
And then—just as simply, just as truthfully—you say:
“You are too.”
He hums at that. Smiles against your skin.
Wraps an arm around your waist and lets the world fade out.
…
In the morning, you’ll make him coffee the way he likes it: three sugars, no cream, no shame.
He’ll kiss your shoulder while you pour it, thank you with a sleepy voice and wandering hands.
You’ll sit on the couch, eat burnt toast, and laugh at some dumb segment on the morning news.
He’ll offer to fix your car. Again.
You’ll roll your eyes and say no. Again.
He’ll grin.
He'll drive you to work.
And just like that, the day will begin.
Like it did today.
Like it will tomorrow.
Like it will every day after.
a/n: when I tell you I took a super long nap yesterday and then stayed awake the whole night... this is what came crawling out of my brain at 4 am... wrote this in like 3 hrs so i'm sorry if this is all over the place 🥲
i always love hearing your thoughts abt my silly little stories! feel free to reblog/comment/come find me in my inbox :)
update: this fic sort of has a sequel now! from steve's pov this time :)))
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.”
You ran out on Steve almost three years ago in the middle of a sweet fling, but now you’re back in Hawkins, and there’s a little girl on your hip that looks just like him. fem, 14k
afab reader, second-chance romance, girl!dad steve, slow burn idiots, no upside down au
⋆ ˚｡⋆୨♡୧⋆ ˚｡⋆
You realise how fucked you are pretty quickly.
It’s something in the way the kid is looking at you. He’s staring at you, not unfriendly but piercing, and his gaze keeps flicking to Leah like he’s trying to make sense of her, and his mouth is stuck obnoxiously with his tongue flat and pulled into that cruel letter ‘S’.
You freeze up like you’ve been caught, which doesn’t help.
And the kid spins in his Nike’s and races for the entrance, ditching a basket full of veggies and a pack of gum in the middle of the aisle.
“Okay, Lee,” you say, sweating despite the November chill. “Let’s get going.”
Leah grins in her seat in the shopping cart. “Meemaw’s?” she asks.
“Yeah. Let’s go make sure your meemaw had her dinner.”
Your ears ring all the way home. They don’t stop ringing. You spend the night waiting for a phone call you don’t get, awkward and clammy. There’s a certain way that rich families work in Indiana. You can see the coming hush money or the threat to leave town almost as clearly as you could see the loveless marriage years ago. You and Leah need to get out of dodge before you’re stuck having conversations you never wanted to have.
I mean, who could’ve predicted that? One of Steve’s teenagers recognises you in the grocery store three years after your fling, how’d they even remember?
The phone doesn’t ring, that night.
Or the next.
Maybe Steve didn’t believe the kid. Maybe the kid had an emergency completely unrelated to Leah. Maybe Steve believed it and didn’t care. You deem yourselves safe from harm in a venture to the grocery store when your mom asks for chicken noodle soup.
It’s there you recognise your mistake. Steve Harrington’s shiny BMW sits parked in the bay by the sign for the laundromat and the man himself sits inside with a paperback bent open on his thigh. He’s glaring at it like it killed his whole family.
You move bodily away from him with Leah clasped to your chest, wondering if you can beat him in, but then a chirp sounds near the door and you watch in slow motion as a young teenager brings a radio to his mouth and says, “Code milkshake!”
You hear a curse and can’t help looking back, right at the bimmer, where Steve is looking up through the windshield with a look of frozen trepidation on his face.
—
So.
How did you end up where you are?
You aren’t one for thinking about the past. Don’t like doing it. In fact, you try your very hardest not to think of the past when you can help it. Once Leah was born, that was easy to do. Babies are demanding, they take over your entire life, and your new life in Portland was already busy to begin with. You find thinking of the past incessant and unnecessary, but. Things are happening oh so fast —you had genuinely figured you could get through your homecoming without being spotted. You figured you could leave Leah at home with your mom while you shopped, but meemaw’s stroke has affected more than her body, and you couldn’t leave Leah there in good conscience in case an accident happened.
It’s not like you had many friends, before you left. Any, in fact. Steve was the first guy to ever show any interest in you, and as nice as he’d been in the quiet moments after, he hadn’t exactly brought you roses or promised you anything. You’re the dummy who got pregnant by the ‘washed out’ king of Hawkins High. It was probably going to be one of his peers, and it was never going to be Nancy Wheeler.
Things were obviously more detailed at the time, but you and Steve had come together in a fling. It’s not a relationship that you’d pictured for yourself, but it’s not as though you set your sights on him and thought, yeah, I’m going to fuck him. It was more that he was friendly, and you were both at the same bar at the same time sitting by yourselves, and with a little gin and a ton of mutual loneliness, it’d felt natural to let him kiss you against the hood of his car. When he drove you home, worried you’d get stuck in the rain, you’d offered him into an empty house. Things snowballed from there.
The sex was good. Steve was kind. He was a bit awkward from time to time and he didn’t know what to say without putting his foot in his mouth, but you liked it. Liked him.
Then the test. Then the memory of his Harrington name, how his mom wanted him to marry a socialite and his dad was priming him to get into the family business, whatever that may be. That silly conversation about kids. “I’d never put them through it,” he’d said, naked and tracing a star into your shoulder blades through the sheets, his hair damp at the nape of his neck with sweat, “are you joking? They’d be the loneliest kid ever.”
You remember laughing softly. You’d wanted him to say something different, but you aren’t sure what it is he could’ve said to make it right enough to stay.
In the end, you figured Leah could be part of a brand new start. You applied for a job in the classifieds and uprooted the rest of your life to go to it, and when you finally had your baby, you didn’t let yourself call Steve. What use would that have been, letting him smash the lingering, aching bit of your heart that wanted him to love you? You were smart enough then to recognise that your dream for the future was about as childish as getting knocked up at nineteen.
It hurts now, though, as he gets out of the car, how badly you want him to want you, and how stupid you’ve always been.
Steve shuts the door to the BMW and makes his way in a jog across the parking lot. He breathes your name. You’re nervous, not stupid. You don’t try to hide the baby.
She grumbles on your hip.
Steve stands in front of you. He’s remarkably not shouting at you, but he’s not smiling, either. He looks different than the last time you’d seen him for sure, fuller and broader, lip dark with stubble and his hair shorter (but not short). There’s a funny scar stretching unkindly against his throat, startlingly new to you but clearly healed.
He stands there in quiet.
Leah makes a fawning sound, like she’s tired and excited to see a new person.
“Hi, Steve,” you say, to get sound out in the air.
His eyes fall on Leah. She’s a good mix of you both. Got her dad’s eyes and her mom’s nose and a handful of his beauty marks, small dark freckles that sprouted all over her body a few weeks after she was born.
“Is she mine?” he asks, cutting straight to the fat.
You shift her closer to your chest. He’s impossible to read for once, not a lick of anything on his face as he waits for you to answer. The cold chaps your lips and the late-fall sunshine threatens to blind you where it’s rising from behind him.
“You didn’t want to have a baby,” you say carefully. Each word said with less enthusiasm than the previous.
He doesn’t speak. Leah whines at the pause, her hand spreading against your collarbone in protest.
“I know you didn’t. You said it’d be miserable, and you’d get stuck with a woman you didn’t love to save face, and I knew that. I didn’t see any good in… in making you go through that.”
To your complete and utter surprise, his face softens. His mouth puckers in sympathy and his arm twitches like he’s going to reach for you. His hair curls into his eyes in the cold breeze. He squints against it, gaze falling once again on Leah, who he can’t get enough of. He’s full-blown gawking at her, watching her sigh and sniffle and press her hand into your neck.
“Is she mine?” Steve asks again.
You clear your throat to answer, but you can’t summon the words. Your nod is jerky and embarrassed and annoyed, all at once. Of course she’s his baby. She looks so much like him, and you never let anybody else touch you.
Steve opens his mouth to finally speak and you cut him off. “Well, she’s mine,” you say tightly.
He nods like he understands. He doesn’t even look mad at the insinuation.
“Her name is Leah.” If he’d been angry with you, cruel, even agitated, which maybe he deserves to be, you’re not sure you could offer this to him now. “She… she looks a lot like you, huh?” you ask.
Steve manages a laugh, strained as it may be. “Yeah. Yeah, she does.” He swallows harshly. “I thought if I came by the house you’d turn me away. Uh. Because I thought there must’ve been a reason you didn’t want me to know, but now we’re… here.”
You glance around the parking lot. His tattle of a child has made himself scarce.
“Do you wanna come home with me?” you ask. Mostly for want of something to say.
“Yeah.”
You go to leave, but Steve makes a sound and brings you right back. Without comment, he curls an arm around your shoulder and pulls you into a half-hug, slotting his nose against your temple like he used to, even as you tense up in his embrace.
“I thought you’d be more angry at me than this,” you say under your breath.
“Yeah, that’s not really how I work.” He parts from you awkwardly and points to the car. “I’ll follow you?” he asks.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” He turns very suddenly and makes his way to his car.
You meander to your own car and pop open Leah’s door. “Sorry, Lee,” you murmur, tucking her into her carseat.
“Why?” she murmurs.
“We’re gonna go to meemaw’s, okay?” If your mom could hear you calling her meemaw before her stroke she’d have knocked you up the side of the head, but it’s all Leah’s ever known her as, and meemaw doesn’t have much choice in the matter now. You’d laugh if you didn’t feel sick.
“Okay.”
You kiss her cheek, getting stuck there with your nose in her hair, all manner of panic and awkwardness and I’d-rather-nots thrumming through you. I should’ve stayed in Portland, you think.
Leah kisses your cheek while you’re stooped there. Your misery takes a backseat as you gather your bearings.
You climb into your own seat, close the door, lock it, and shove the keys in the ignition. Steve’s car idles a few spaces behind, waiting for you to go. You cannot put this off much longer, but you’d pictured the moment so differently, there’s a sense of unreality now. Is this happening? Did you really spill the truth to him the very first time he asked?
Where’s your backbone?
Where’s your common sense?
With a groan, you pull the car out of the space and begin the drive to your mom’s house. You were never close with her, as strange as it seems. She was a woman with interests and her kid happened incidentally. It doesn't bother you anymore. You came to Hawkins to take care of her. Nobody else was going to do it for you, but so far she’s been an easy patient. She needs help making dinner and she can’t walk more than the length of the hall without finding herself breathless, but she’s recovering slowly, so long as her mental faculties recoup with her body, she’ll be alright.
You, however, have screwed the entire pooch. You look at Leah in the rearview mirror and worry you’ve ruined her entire life.
“Chill,” you say to yourself quietly, almost missing the road to your mom’s house. Worst comes to worst and we go home to Portland, you tell yourself. Nothing has to change.
“Mommy?”
“Mm?” you ask.
Leah leans forward in her car seat, huffing with annoyance when the belts keep her in place. The jacket she’s wearing has bunched into a lump under her chin. “Off?” she asks.
“Two minutes.”
“Off.”
“Let me park the car, Lee. I’ll take it off of you as soon as we get home.”
She whines long and loud.
“Sorry, sweet girl. Two minutes and we’re there.”
Leah sulks the entire way there. You park in the space in front of the house and hurry out of the car, quick enough to see Steve in the bimmer pulling onto the sidewalk. You open Leah’s door and offer her a huge smile, hoping to cull a tantrum with bubbly affection. “Hi, off?”
“Yes!”
You laugh to yourself and bring her out, even as your heartbeat climbs up your throat. You can hear Steve getting out of his car as you unbuckle Leah from the car seat and drag her out. You sit her in the slight dip of the window and use your stomach to keep her up as your fingers search for the zipper of her coat. You pull it tight down and unzipper her, freeing her of the thing that had been irking her so bad and restoring her good mood.
She exhales dramatically in relief, which has you laughing again. “Is that better?” you ask through it.
“Better,” she echoes.
Leah sits up at the sound of shoes on gravel. Steve’s crossing the drive, hands shoved in his pockets.
“Who?” she asks.
Uhhhh.
“He’s gonna come in and have dinner with us, okay?”
“Y’okay.”
“Yeah?”
Leah nods enthusiastically. You can see Steve grinning in your peripheral vision, and it’s so much like Leah’s smile you find your heart going haywire.
“Okay,” you say, your full attention to Steve. “Is that cool?”
“Can we talk, first?”
You don’t blame him for asking.
“Yeah, we’ll talk first. But… my mom, she’s not doing the best right now, so. Maybe we should talk outside?”
“I’m not going to yell.”
“No, but. If you’re angry, I get it, but she can’t cope with that right now.”
“Are you angry?” he asks.
“No.”
“Then we don’t have anything to worry about,” he says, the sound of his smile palpable as Leah gives one back. “I’m not gonna yell. I promise.”
You show him into the house. It feels like walking yourself to the gallows.
The room is narrow. The sides of your vision start to dissolve as you drop your car keys in the bowl by the door, then walk Leah to the kitchen. You hold her one handed as you palm off her shoes, dropping them and then her on the floor by the kitchen table. “Okay?” you ask her.
She wanders off toward the living room and the sound of TV.
Steve Harrington’s standing in your mom’s rinky dink kitchen waiting for you to talk. You’re standing there useless, taking sips of air that sting, waiting for him to cut the crap and berate you. It would make sense. If he’s upset that you didn’t tell him you were pregnant, or that you were stupid enough to keep her, to get pregnant in the first place, it wouldn’t surprise you. Men are cruel, and Steve had a reputation for popularity. It would make sense for him to be mean to you now.
“How old is she?” he asks finally.
“She’s turning two soon.”
Steve seems to be holding his tongue.
“Just– ask.” You try to look sorry. “Ask me whatever you want.”
“Can I–” He throws a hand out, the first sign that he’s not as genial as he appears. “Can I be her dad?”
You flinch. “What?”
“Like, I want to be her dad. A real dad. I want to be in her life, I want her to know me. Did you think I wouldn’t want that?”
“I didn’t think you wanted kids at all.”
“I want kids.” Steve crosses his arms over his chest. “I always wanted a whole team of them.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“When? When you told me you were having my baby?”
This is more what you’d been expecting. There’s a cruel pleasure in being vindicated. “When you told me you didn’t want kids, Steve. You said you didn’t want a miserable kid in a miserable marriage, what was I supposed to glean from that?”
“Exactly, I didn’t want a miserable kid, which is exactly what I was, and I didn’t want it in an arranged marriage that my mom thought would be good for me.” His anger drains a little. “I never meant– I mean, even if I didn’t, you should’ve told me.”
“She’s my baby.”
“That’s not fair.”
“That’s totally fair, she’s literally mine.”
“It’s not fair to act like I wouldn’t have cared,” he clarifies, frowning at you. It’s so disappointed-looking it pisses you off worse, but you're trying to keep a level head. Nobody here deserves for you to blow up and say words you don’t mean.
You bite your lip. “I’m sorry, Steve, but I wasn’t convinced that you would. I wanted what was best for me and her.”
“I can be best for you both.”
You wait for him to hold it up. To prove what he means.
“If she’s mine, I want to be her dad,” he says.
“If?”
He waves a hand, like he could roll his eyes. He should thank his lucky stars he didn’t. “Not like that, I’m not saying she’s not, I just want to look after her.”
“She’s looked after.”
“I’m not saying she’s not,” he says, uneasy now, shifting to hide a hand in his pocket. He wasn’t expecting you to be difficult, you think. “I’m not saying that. I’m not saying anything about you, I’m asking you if I can do right by you.”
“You might not actually want her, Steve.”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about her since the kids told me. I didn’t get a good look at her, but the idea? Just the idea of her? I wanted it.”
You sigh, frustrated, and set your sights on the fridge. “Can’t believe you had kids posted up at Bradley’s to stalk me,” you murmur.
“I needed to see her for myself.”
“Steve... You’re twenty three. We aren’t married. You don’t have to be anything to her, you don’t have to do right by me, we don’t have to play house until you’re miserable. In a couple of months we’ll go home to Portland and you don’t have to do anything. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but you don’t have to worry. You can tell everyone you tried and I said no and you’ll still look good.”
“Why are you being like this?” he asks, leaving little air between your sentence and his. “What are you talking about? I’m asking you if I can keep you guys and you’re trying to run me out?”
“Keep us?” you ask indignantly.
“Yes!” He clears his throat. “I don’t get why you left without telling me and I am angry, but I also don’t understand what it’s like to have to make that decision, and I’m sorry you made it by yourself, and I don’t blame you for running away. Okay? Is that okay?”
He’s so loud, then, so tightly wound and upset, his voice a shade of pleading, that the protests you’d been making die on your lips.
“Yeah,” you say quietly.
“You didn’t think I wanted a baby, and I guess I didn’t give you a reason to think that, but I do want one. I would’ve— if you’d told me, I would’ve lost my mind. I’m still losing it.”
You pull out a chair at the kitchen table to take a wobbly seat. Your heart is racing, that stupid kiddie feeling of being in trouble for hurting him clouded by a lingering sense of mistrust. You’d thought… all these years, that Steve didn’t want kids, or marriage, or anything, and– and– maybe you didn’t run away because of him, maybe it was all you, maybe—
“Hey,” he says, a hand landing between your shoulders, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” you ask, sharper than you mean to.
“I don’t know. I wanted you to stop freaking out.”
“Well,” you say, licking your lips, your breath coming short and shallow, “it didn’t work.”
Steve Harrington rubs your back. You try desperately to chill out, Leah in the other room, your mom sleeping or listening, probably already wound up from all the ruckus, and Steve, who you haven’t seen in years, who used to kiss all over your face before he’d hug you in the dark of his bedroom, waiting for you to calm down so he can say what he needs to.
A chair pulls out next to yours after a while. Steve sits beside you, resting his hand on your knee.
After a few minutes, you cover his hand with yours.
“She’s beautiful,” he says.
“Looks like her mom,” you mumble.
“Yeah, she does. More like me though.”
You huff a weak laugh.
“Are you gonna throw me out?” Steve asks.
“You want to be her dad?”
For a few seconds, you worry he hasn’t heard you. But he rubs a small back and forth on your leg and says, “Please.”
“Okay. Okay, then. I’m not letting you meet her if you’re not serious, Steve. You have to mean it.” You raise your eyes to his and all his perfect lashes. “Promise?”
He offers his pinky, which is so dumb. This whole scenario is so stupid. Too bad it’s mostly (almost entirely) your own fault.
You shake his pinky. He keeps them tied for a long time.
In a rush, you sniffle yourself dry and usher Leah into the room with a hand on her shoulder. She is so, so small. At least your mom missed the commotion, sleeping sat up in the armchair.
“You promise?” you ask Steve, pausing at the table.
Steve nods emphatically. By the looks of things, he’s all in.
You pull your chair out opposite Steve and scoop Leah into your lap. You hold her wrist in your hand gently and lean down to talk in her ear. “Okay, Lee. I gotta tell you something, okay?”
“Y’okay.”
“This is daddy.”
You can tell he’s not expecting such a straightforward introduction, but after a moment, he cannot hide his smile. Leah looks at him with his almond shaped eyes, all smiles in return.
“Okay? This is daddy, and he’s gonna spend some time with us.”
“Huh?”
You point at Steve, smiling even as your hand trembles between you both. “This is your daddy. He missed you very much and wanted to see you. Can you say hi?”
“Hi,” Leah says, her voice raspy and high.
“Hi, Leah,” he says, ever so slightly choked up. Just barely.
“He was my best friend,” you say, “and he wants to be your best friend, too. Do you want to play a game with daddy?”
“Wam’ play game?” Leah asks Steve.
“Please, I would love to play a game. What game do you like?” he asks.
“Um…” Leah places her hand in his and you could probably weep, but he’s smiling at her with so much love as he waves it up and down you never get there. She shakes her fist up and down in his, giggling when he over exaggerates her strength.
“Woah, strong girl!” he says. “Don’t break my arm!”
Leah gives him a good shake.
—
“I do not understand why you’re so calm. How you’re so calm. This is not how I’ve seen you react to things.”
Steve pushes the shopping cart into Robin’s hip. She squawks and thrusts it at him, the crate of kiddie water bottles he’d balanced on the bottom rung hitting him clean in the ankle.
“How am I supposed to react?” he asks, wincing as he brings his leg up to rub at the new wound.
“Uh, to blow the fuck up?” She tucks her hair behind her ears, staring at him. “I was expecting more whining, if I’m totally honest.”
Steve gets back to the task at hand. The aisle they’re in is pink no matter where you look, full of Barbie dolls and ballerina tutus and teddy bears with hearts in their palms. “What would you want if you were two?” he asks.
Robin offers one of her kinder smiles. “I guess I’d want everything.”
“Well, Y/N’s not gonna like that.”
He wants to take care of you both. He doesn’t want to make you feel like you weren’t doing that already. So. The cart is full of stuff for him mostly, things he’ll need to look after Leah should he ever be allowed to take her by himself, which he assumes he will. He’s got diapers, sippy cups, wet wipes, rash creams, a mountain of clothes he has to remember to keep the receipt for, baby snacks, a changing pad, bath toys. He has a towel like a poncho with a ladybug hood and a great big bottle of bathroom cleaner to shape things up for his baby.
He also got you pajamas. He’s not sure why. He remembers that old pair you used to wear whenever he’d make it to your place with the pink and purple plaid, and he’d been wondering if you kept them, and a desire to see you in them again had come over him and now they’re in the cart. He’s hoping he can sort of slip them in between diapers.
Steve doesn’t want to show you up, but he does want to prove he’s being serious, emotionally and physically —financially. Leah is his baby. Kids are expensive, and she must’ve already cost you a small fortune, and you didn’t want his help but you can bet you’ll be getting it, not singularly because he cared for you (he has to gloss it into that one word, care, things being complicated enough as it stands without remembered notions of falling and love) but because Leah is literally his baby.
He pauses on the spot.
Leah is his girl. He’s allowed to buy her things. It will not be an insult.
He grabs a Barbie with a puppy dog on a leash, a box of stickle bricks, a teddy bear with a big cutesy grin, and purple bunny rabbit to be his best friend.
Robin watches him put it all in the cart in silence.
“Is that enough?” he asks, despite previous internal decisions. She’s his best friend. Everyone needs one.
Robin turns on the spot to look at the shelves behind them, grabbing a box set of storybooks bound with ribbon down the spines. “These ones are from me,” she says, dumping them next to the second jumbo box of diapers.
“I’m not, like, super angry,” he says, getting behind the cart to push for the checkout. “I want kids. I want Leah. This isn’t a bad thing.”
“You kind of missed out on a lot,” Robin says. Carefully, not to be cruel, but to present it to him in case he hasn’t thought about it. Obviously he’s thought about it, but.
“I mean, yeah. But do you remember being a baby?”
“It’s, like, a deep down thing.”
He swallows. “Sure, I don’t like that I didn’t get to be there when Leah was a baby, but… I’m finding it hard to be mad when she was protecting all of us from things we didn’t want, or, that’s what she thought.” Steve gives a jerky shrug. “I’m sure she got enough love from her without me, but I’m gonna make up for whatever she missed out on.”
“Okay. Well, when you explode, I’m literally right here.”
Steve is overcome with the urge to snuggle her in the middle of the store, but he hits her with the shopping cart again and feels the thanks get stuck in his throat. “I’m not gonna explode. I’m happy.”
Steve is thrilled. He has a baby. He has a child. Maybe it’s not the wife and six kids he thought he wanted, but Leah is his baby.
“She’s mine,” he says.
“I know, dingus. You’ve said it a hundred times.”
He parks his cart at the belt behind a grandma buying cat food. “I can’t wait for you to meet her, Rob, she’s–”
“She’s beautiful,” Robin says, rolling her eyes. “We’re way too young for kids, Steven. You were supposed to go to college.”
“I’m still gonna go!”
“With what money?”
Steve will save again. It’s community college.
Robin holds his eye. He avoids it, starts putting things on the checkout belt. “You’re doing the only thing you can do,” she says, “I don’t wanna be friends with a deadbeat, but I wanted you to go. I’m too young to be an Aunt.”
“I’ll going, Rob.”
“Fine. I believe you.”
“Can you help?”
She pulls stuff out of the cart reluctantly.
Together, they pack what can be bagged and take it all to the car. Steve drops Robin off at home without much of a goodbye —either she’ll call him tonight or he’ll call her, ‘cos one way or another, they’re gonna talk. Then he takes the side road to your mom’s house and parks the bimmer behind your old blue Pontiac.
He grabs the toys and the bag of groceries. He’ll have to make another trip for the diapers, but he figures it’s best to see your reaction before he lugs it all up the driveway.
You answer the door. Parenting has been going better than expected considering you kept the baby a secret for two whole years, and you’re already smiling when you see him. Things were awkward that first week, but he’s been coming by every single day after work if he works, bright and early if he doesn’t. He can tell you’re growing more confident in his promises. He’s not gonna realise how big this whole thing is and run. He’s well aware of how world-changing his decision was to stay, but it wasn’t a decision at all.
“Hi, is she awake yet?” he asks. Leah naps every day at noon.
“Mm-hm. She was asking me for daddy all morning,” you say. Secrets you may have kept, but you’re glad for both of them whenever Steve and Leah get along. “I promised you’d be here after dinner.”
“Is it cool that I’m early?”
You eye the bags in his hands. “Sure. I already told you, I’m not gonna dictate anything. You can see her when you want to… What’s that?”
“I was thinking I’d make dinner?” He shakes the lighter bag. “And this is for Leah.”
“Right. Okay.”
You let Steve in. He, despite all things in his body that remember this song and dance and demand he kiss your cheek hello, powers through to the kitchen without making a fool of himself.
“Brought your favourite. Thought Leah would probably like it, since you liked it so much,” he says. “And those pastries you loved.”
“You want me to go grab her?”
“Where is she?”
“She’s sitting with my mom. Don’t think she heard the door, she would’ve come out running by now. She’s a little sleepy.”
“That’s okay. I can put all this away and I’ll go see if she’s awake.”
You cross your arms over your stomach, leaning against the counter. “You didn’t have to get stuff for me.”
“I wanted to.”
“You don’t have to, though. Leah’s your baby, but I’m…”
He feels achy in his jaw. He abandons the bag full of groceries to look at you fully. “If you’d turned up here without Leah, after two years of full radio silence, no letters and no clue where you went, if you came back, I’d want to see you. You know that, right?”
“I…”
“I asked your mom where you went, did you know that?”
“No.”
“Well, she wouldn’t tell me.”
“I don’t think she knew.”
Steve hates how much that annoys him, hates the way he relates to it. He dries his hands on his pants, not sure if he wants to hug you or tip your head with his thumb at chin, forcing you to look at him, to say the things he’s said in his head before bed a couple nights a week for years.
Steve Harrington does not love by halves.
“You’d tell me if you were gonna leave again, right?” he asks.
“We are leaving.”
“I know, I know, but. You’re not gonna disappear in the middle of the night.”
“No, Steve. I’ll tell you before we go home. I promise.”
His shoulders relax. “Okay, then, I’ll keep bringing stuff you like, too. Trade deal.”
“Mutually beneficial. I won't kidnap your baby again and you bring me raspberry turnovers.”
“Exactly.”
You surprise him with a laugh. “Okay.”
“Okay, good,” he says, grinning, wondering if he’s finally paving a path into your lap again.
From the doorway of the kitchen comes a pleased gasp. “Daddy?” Leah asks, her eyes widening in delight, feet stomping on the spot, “Hi, daddy!”
He was supposed to give this up for community college? Steve squats down in a half-second and holds out his hands, ready for an armful of sleepy toddler. Her hair is all puffy and her pajamas big at the neck like she’d wriggled for hours, but she’s soft, smells clean as he wraps his arms around her and she burrows into his neck.
“Hi, Leah,” he says softly.
Leah hums her content.
“Good nap?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah? Did you have a good dream?”
She laughs as he strokes her back. He must’ve tickled her. “Da-ddy,” she says, a long, pulling word.
She’s so small Steve can’t hug her properly like this, so he hooks her in one arm and stands up to his full height, catching your unreadable expression from over her shoulder. Whatever you’d been thinking fades away, your smile strengthening as Leah pulls out of his neck to wave at you.
“Mommy,” she says, poking at Steve’s neck. “Look. Daddy’s for dinner.”
Steve laughs loudly. “I’m for dinner? You’re gonna eat me? I thought you liked me!” His head falls in a dramatic agony. “Leah wants to cook me up for dinner, I can’t believe it.”
“No!” Leah says, giggling as she grabs his face. She pulls at his cheeks, forcing his head up. “Not eating,” she says, like he’s silly.
Steve shifts her so she’s sitting braced on his lower belly, looking down at her. God, she’s so pretty. She’s perfect. She’s tiny, slim for her age according to you, but she isn’t weak. She holds herself up, her hands confident as they spread over his chest. Steve has to confess that this feeling is the strongest he’s ever experienced. Nothing compares to looking at this little kid who already treats him like he’s the best person she’s ever met, knowing that she’s his. He has to look after her. He gets to be loved by her without hesitation. Leah has no reason to love him, and yet here she is giggling in his arms from the excitement of seeing him. It’s like every day she likes him more, and every day, Steve gets to love her more. It’s so weird, but it's nice.
“I brought you something,” he says, shifting her again so he can cover her back with one arm, using the other to brush a stray bit of lint off of her face. “But– mommy, can she have it now?” he asks.
You flush. Steve recognises this look on you, pleased and startled. He’s seen it on you a hundred different times. You were always that girl who didn’t expect kindness, or to be considered. He remembers how endearing it was to surprise you with a kiss to say thank-you, or picking up the bill no matter how casual dinner felt, or something as small as helping you into your pajamas after you’d both showered. It was heartbreaking, but he’s never been unfamiliar with the bare minimum.
“Yeah, of course she can.”
“Alright,” Steve says, grinning. “Your Aunt Robin sent me with a gift for you, but daddy’s is better, so you can have mine first.” He twists for the bag it’s in and yanks it out, Barbie to him so she can’t see. “It’s only small, but I saw it and I thought you’d like it.”
“Can have?” she asks.
“Depends. Can I have a hug first?” he asks, checking your face to make sure he’s not being weird.
Leah nods erratically and throws herself forward. Steve gets a big kiss right on his smooth-shaven cheek, and he can’t stop himself from beaming, his punched out sigh poorly suppressed as he turns her to give her a much gentler kiss at the very top of her cheek. “Thanks, Lee.”
Her eyes squint with a smile. “Can I have, please?”
Steve brings the box up and tosses it to flip it, brandishing it right way round to her glee.
“Barbie!” she cries.
“With a puppy!”
“Oh gosh.”
Steve bursts out laughing. “Gosh! Should we get the box open? Then you can gosh at the accessories. She has two pairs of shoes, Leah. Two!”
Leah squirms to be put down, hands clenched tightly on each side of the box. You’re already grabbing scissors to get it open.
“Thank you.” You lean over Leah to start the dissection.
“Don’t,” he says, quiet but less shame-faced. “You don’t have to say thanks.”
You shake your head to yourself. “Yeah, well.”
“She deserves it, and it’s not up to you to say thanks. I’m serious.”
“It’s nice of you.”
He doesn’t know how to prove how certain he is about staying. He decides to keep his mouth shut for now, which is hard. Almost slips up that whole evening. You don’t look happy when he doubles back before he leaves that night with the bag of snacks and the huge box of diapers, but he catches you as you and Leah stand on the stoop waving at the bimmer. You’re smiling. A real one, teeth on display for the first time since you came home.
—
“Okay,” you say quietly, “up, baby. And another one. Good job.”
Leah demonstrates a unique level of concentration as she climbs up the stairs with you. You’d have carried her if she didn’t insist she could do it herself with a displeased squeal. Her eyes are nearly closed, her tongue slipping between her lips and a hand thrown out for balance, the other held in your own as she manages two, then three, the few shallow steps that lead into the WSQK building.
“Hi,” you greet a quiet man sitting at the door. “Is Steve in?”
“Think so. Why?”
“I wanted to talk to him, if that’s okay.”
The man gives you a suspicious look that eventually metes. “Sure. Gotta knock the booth before you go in, though, they might be on the air.”
“Sure. Thank you.”
Leah stumbles with you inside. There’s a wide wooden panelled room and smaller glass one within. You knock on it and wait for movement, too scared to look through the panels. You’ve learned that Robin has her very own radio show on the 94.5 called The Morning Squawk, and Steve, through best-friend nepotism, gets to be her sound guy. He has this WSQK van they drive around to do on the road interviews, and they’re both a hundred times happier here than they were rewinding tapes at Family Video.
It’s a pretty firm knot of roots to lay.
The door opens a good fifteen seconds after you’d knocked. You’re immediately greeted by a blondified Robin Buckley, her freckled cheeks slack with surprise. “Uh…”
“Hi, Robin.”
“Hi,” she says.
The last time you saw Robin, you’d been laying on Steve’s couch in his socks and what might’ve been Robin’s own sweatshirt, the three of you arguing on what movie to watch and what candy you were gonna tip into your popcorn. You’d laid your head in Steve’s lap.
“Leah,” you say, clearing your throat as subtly as possible, “say hi, bubby.”
“Hi, bubby,” Leah says.
Robin snorts.
“This is your daddy’s best friend ever, Aunt Robin,” you say, shooting Robin a sorry look as you mouth, “Is that cool?”
Robin culls your misery and manages a real smile. “That’s me, babe.” She bends at the waist. “Oh, you really do look like Steve. Shit, this is so cool.” Her awkwardness has melded to full-bodied delight. “You’re like his twin! Well, you do look like your mommy, duh, but this is trippy! Hey, did you get your books?”
Leah looks up at her with huge eyes.
“Did you like your storybooks?” you ask Leah, kneeling down behind her to hold her shoulder. “Aunt Robin gave you those ones, remember, daddy read one to you about the ugly duckling?”
“The duckies,” Leah says factually.
“Awesome,” Robin says. “I’m so happy you liked them, sweetie. And I’m so happy to meet you.”
You don’t question for a second that she means it.
You pat Leah on the shoulder. “Aunt Robin is your daddy’s best friend in the whole world.”
“Daddy’s here?” she asks Robin.
“Uh, not right now, he had to go get lunch.”
“Oh.”
“But you can totally come in!” she says, opening the door to the booth wide. “I can show you how the radio works! And then Steve– then dad can come back. I bet he’ll be here any second.”
“You’re not busy?” you ask.
“I mean?” Robin laughs, nervously incredulous, “if I ever have kids they’d be her cousins. That’s pretty important. And, like, she’s Steve’s, so? I’d die for her?” Robin scratches a hand through her hair. “Come on, baby Stevie, I’ll show you the keyboard. It’s your dad’s favourite gimmick.”
You hover in the middle of the small room as Robin slides a chair over to the desk with a keyboard and a mic balanced on top of it. She glances at you before she holds her hands out to Leah, and Leah goes into them willingly. Robin pulls her up and settles her in the chair. She can barely see the keys, but she’s already reaching for them as Robin starts to explain which ones do what, toggling a switch that you assume makes sure whatever sounds Leah plays are off air.
You sit yourself down on a loveseat by the door.
“We can play all of this stuff on the radio in the car,” Robin says, “do you listen to the radio?”
“The music, bubby,” you say.
Leah gives a neck-breaking nod.
“Well, me and dad choose what songs to play. Do you have a favourite song?”
“She loves ‘Save it For Later’ by The Beat. She gets super into it,” you say.
“Oh, we have that one! Let’s queue it up, Leah.”
Leah mashes the keyboard in a cacophony of introductions and funny sounds, then a long run of the Rockin’ Robin intro. She finds a sound bite of applause loaded up on the tape deck, hitting it over and over as she giggles.
“Be careful, Lee, don’t break it.”
Her hitting doesn’t slow.
“Lee,” you say more firmly, “baby, stop. You have to be nice. Don’t slap the buttons.”
Leah throws you a glare. “Mommy,” she whines.
“What? You have to be nice to other people’s things. Aunt Robin is letting you play with her keyboard, but it’s important. It’s okay to try all the buttons! But with nice hands. Yeah?”
The ajar door opens fully. “Is my Leah not being nice?” Steve asks, already beaming with all his teeth as he sees her behind the keyboard. “I don’t believe that for a second!”
Leah wiggles her excitement in the depths of the chair. Doesn’t bother calling out for him, there’s no need. Steve laughs, saying hi with a quick hand dropped on your shoulder, the gentlest squeeze anyone’s ever given with his thumb rubbing a half circle before he bends down by Leah’s chair. “Hi,” he says, your heart beating so loudly in your ears that you hardly hear him. “You’re at the radiohouse! Did Rockin’ Robin show you how to play a song? Do you wanna talk on the microphone?”
“Hi,” Leah says.
“Hi.”
“Hug me now?”
Steve’s like butter in the sun. He melts into nothing. “Yeah, babe, right now.”
She slinks forward and he picks her up, standing with a baby on his hip like he’s been doing it all his life.
“I’m gonna play her a song,” Robin says. “My queues almost empty.”
“Okay, thanks,” he says, to which Robin wrinkles her nose.
“Sure,” she says, sending you a look as she heads to her desk. Like, get a load of this idiot.
Steve presses his nose to Leah’s hair and smells her. Then he smiles, patting the small of her back.
Leah looks straight at you and says, “Daddy’s here,” in case you weren’t aware.
Steve blinks away a pained flutter, his brow pulling like he’d been in pain, quickly wiped away and hidden by the time Leah glances at him again.
You think maybe, for a second, he’d wanted to cry.
“Steve?” you ask quietly. “You okay?”
“Yeah. No, yeah.”
“You sure?”
He tugs Leah higher on his hip. “I’m okay,” he tells you, holding your gaze, his left sclera bloodshot but his nearly-tears blinked away. “I’m great, ‘cos Leah’s here,” he adds, pressing his mouth to Leah’s cheek, “at work! She’s a working girl now, we gotta get you on the payroll.”
It’s a little while later, sitting on the couch and waiting for Steve to ask you what it is you’re doing here, when the door opens. Leah perks up in his lap, the headphones she’d been wearing falling down around her neck in a heap that makes her cringe, giving a warbly cry as Steve offers assurances to her.
You’re focused on the teenager standing in the door. It’s the kid.
His eyes widen at the sight of you.
“Lucas Sinclair,” you greet, giving him a stony look. “You ratted me out.”
“Uh– did I?”
“I know it was you.”
Lucas grimaces. “Are we sure it was me?”
“I saw you.”
“Steve could’ve got the information from anyone.”
You glare for a few more seconds, then relax. “I’m messing with you, Lucas. I’m not mad. Even if you are a narc.”
“I am not! I told Dustin and it was Dustin that radioed Steve. He’s the narc. I said we had to wait for proof.”
“Well, thanks for trying.”
Lucas hesitates with you, though he comes further into the room and lets the door shut behind him. “I am sorry. Kind of.”
“We’re working things out.”
Leah tugs the headphones off of her head and out of the outlet in a great show of toddler rage, Steve laughing where he holds her. He grabs the headphones before Leah can throw them at the floor. “Hey!” he admonishes through laughter, “Those aren’t mine, babe. Should we put them on the desk?”
Steve takes them from her and sets them high. He moves the chair, bumping Leah on his knee, forcing her eyes to the new figure in the room. “Look, Lee, it’s your Uncle Lucas.”
Lucas gives an awkward, endearing smile. “Hi.”
“Hi!” Leah says.
“What’s up?” Steve asks.
“Can I get a ride, tonight? I asked my dad but he’s going to that miniature car thing.”
“Where to?”
“Max’s.”
“Why are you being cagey?” Steve asks, lifting an eyebrow.
“I’m not!”
“You so are, dude. What’s happening at Max’s?”
“Nothing! She doesn’t, like, know I’m going, that’s all.”
Steve leans in his chair in what would be a total act of casual derision if he weren’t also holding Leah to his front, his fingers waving patterns into her tummy affectionately. “So I’m gonna be on her shit list for whatever it is you have planned? No deal, dude.”
“I’m not in trouble. She’s not mad at me,” Lucas says.
“For once.”
“She’s not. I have a surprise planned? And it’s gonna get ruined on my bike, so.”
Steve’s suspicion wavers. “What sort of surprise?” he asks.
His smile is nice. Doesn’t it suit him? He’s calm where he sits despite the rumble of noise coming from Robin’s booth and Leah talking to herself in his lap. The red glow of the ON AIR light makes his brown hair nearly purple at the tops but leaves his face untouched, tan fading pale in the fall, his beauty marks the darkest bit of colour to him when you aren’t looking into the well of his eyes. His irises are like wet tree bark. His lashes look long from across the room.
And his biceps don’t look half bad when they’re wrapped around your baby. Her tiny stature emphasises the bulk he’s put on while you were in Portland. You’ve been noticing more of him lately—his weight gain, the change in his muscle, the cut of his hair, those reading glasses he keeps in the console of his car. But there are things about him that didn’t change. He’s pretty happy, as things go. He likes doing things for other people.
Their conversation drifts into focus. “…not too much, right?”
“Nah, I think that’s appropriate. Four years of dating is a long time.”
“Even if you’re broken up for half a year in the middle?”
Steve chuckles. Leah looks up at the sound. “I wouldn’t mention that part,” he says. “Look, I’ll come get you after I’m done here–”
“You’re not coming tonight?” you ask, entirely sincere in asking. Not a lick of judgement in it, but surprise, and a second emotion you aren’t eager to name.
“I was– I was gonna come,” Steve says. “If that’s cool.”
“Oh, sure. Sorry. I thought you were– Yeah, it’s fine,” you say.
Steve looks at you for a long second. “I can’t miss out on dinner,” he says, dipping down to speak in Leah’s ear, “can I? What am I making tonight, Lee, do you remember?”
“S’getti,” she says, with a vindication bordering evil.
Steve presses his lips together. Shrugs at Lucas smugly. “S’getti,” he says. “I’ll be there at six, okay?”
Lucas shoots an “Awesome, thank you, sorry,” over his shoulder as he leaves.
“Thank you sorry,” Leah repeats.
Steve has to lock into work and he doesn’t ask you to leave, moving Leah around in his arms and plugs the headphones in. She enjoys the novelty enough to sit there without complaining, bathed in attention. It’s weird to have Leah with you without having to look after her. Like, she gets uncomfortable and Steve moves her. She whines in his arm and he opens a drawer to uncover a bag of chips. He does ask if it’s alright for her to eat them, but you say yes and he doesn’t need guidance after that. He wipes her dirty face in his sleeve and twists a knob on the keyboard.
He is startlingly capable.
You are startlingly hot.
You pull at your neckline, wishing you’d brought a book to read or a zip tie to garrote yourself with for thinking such stupid shitty thoughts.
—
Steve packs his shit up at five with Leah on his hip, happy to stay with him. You’ve been quiet bordering silent and he hasn’t summoned up the bravery to ask why. He didn’t wanna look a gift horse in the mouth, ‘cos you’re here, and you brought Lee without any begging on his part. He shows her off to everyone they pass on the way out, less subtly to the smiley cleaner Cindy who loves to call him handsome in the morning. Who’s this? she asks.
This is my baby, Leah.
The problem arises when he’s trying to pass Leah to you to part ways in the parking lot.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard something that loud,” Robin laments, blinking fast. Because, despite years and time to learn, he’s her ride home.
Leah screams another ear-splitter. “No!” she’s shouting. “No, no!”
She sobs.
You try to disentangle her from Steve’s chest. He can feel your individual fingers pressing into his pecs. “Lee, come on!” you say, laughing nervously. “Daddy has stuff to do, we’ll see him for dinner!”
She sobs louder.
Robin shakes her head as though dislodging water from her ears.
“Baby, please,” you say, apparently possessing the patience of a god, “it’s okay, I promise, it’s not long. We’ll be okay for a bit.”
Leah sews her hands in his hair tightly, yanking until it stings. Steve flinches and you immediately stop trying to make Leah disengage.
“Sorry, honey,” you say, and Steve realises with a full body start you’ve spoken to him, your hand resting open on his upper shoulder. It’s an obvious slip of the tongue. You lean forward with a slight stammer, “I– Leah, don’t pull, you’re hurting.”
“Not going,” Leah says.
“Just for now!”
“No!”
You give Steve a wide-eyed frown. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s going on. She doesn’t do this… usually.”
“That’s okay, it’s fine, maybe you could come with me?”
You nibble your lip. “I gotta go check on my mom, I haven’t been home all day, I don’t know if she’s eaten yet.”
Steve tries to pass Leah into your arms with renewed purpose. The snap of hair behind his ear gives him pause. “Uh, can she come with me?” Steve asks, loud now, his head angled against her hand. “Ow, Lee!”
Leah stops pulling his hair with a sob.
“I’ll take her with me and I’ll drop Robin off, pick Lucas up early, and we’ll come straight to the house.”
You falter.
The thought of you not trusting him hurts his stomach, but you say, “Steve, can you deal with that? She might not get any happier for a while.”
“Sure I can, you’ve had to do it a hundred times. I’m mostly patient. If she doesn’t calm down, I won’t yell–”
“I didn’t think you would.” You pout, wrinkling your nose. “You’d have to move the car seat–”
“Yeah, I got one.”
“You got a car seat?”
“Installed it last week. Jesus Christ, Leah, not the hair!” He reaches up to force her hand as gently as he can away from his scalp. “Baby, owwww. Not the hair.”
Leah shudders away to check he’s not angry. He can see it on her tiny face, the worry. He brings his hand to her cheek, finds his hand is too big, and has to rub her cheek with his thumb alone. “You wanna come with daddy to drop off your Aunt Robin?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Come with you,” she says, a crocodile tear rolling down her cheek.
“But mommy has to go home, is that okay?”
Leah shudders again. “Y’okay.”
“Okay. Give mommy a big kiss,” he says, repeating one of your favourite lines when it’s time for Steve to leave.
You get a kiss. You’re startled, he thinks, almost expressionless in how slack you’ve gone, but Steve smiles at you and you smile in turn. “You know how to do the car seat?” you ask.
“Sure. It’s got the two mechanisms, right? Her arm goes through each of the triangle strap thingys?”
“Yeah. Okay. Are you sure you can manage?”
“Are you okay with me taking her?”
You shrug. He can see why Leah does it as much as she does. “I guess I am. I mean, when we go home… like, you’ll have to have her for summers, I guess?” you ask, and you’re as beautiful as you usually are, the awkward twist of you and your tired eyes don’t touch it. You were beautiful when he walked into the sound room and found you in the loveseat, beautiful when you told him you’d stay for now without saying goodbye, beautiful when he spotted you across the parking lot with his surprise on your hip. You’ve always been beautiful. He knows you don’t feel strongly about your looks, but he does, and now you made his girl? And she looks so much like the two of you?
Steve stares at you, not even in hopes of any realisation, but he stares at you and thinks I cannot let this girl go back to Portland without me.
He doesn’t expect you to stay. All he needs is to beg a ride.
Because yes, Steve will become your awkward cling-on. He’ll find a shitty apartment close to you and he’ll build his life around Leah if that’s all he can have.
But it’s not everything he wants.
“You go take care of your mom, and we’ll meet you for dinner at 6? 6:15 at the latest?”
“Okie dokie.”
Steve rolls his eyes to stop from kissing your cheek. “Say see you later, mommy,” he tells Leah.
“See you later, mommy,” Leah says.
You use his shoulder as an anchor to kiss her cheek. He swears you rub his arm as you pull away, but Robin would call that delusional thinking. “See you soon, bug.”
He watches you walk away. Every step is perfect. “Your mom’s such a bombshell,” he murmurs, “holy sugar, she’s everything.” You turn over the top of the car and give him a wave, blowing Leah a kiss. He wants to catch it. He finger waves back.
Then he spins and finds Robin judging him hard.
It takes them twenty whole human minutes to figure out how to get Leah safely secured in her car seat. Then he spends four minutes framing her face in his hands and kissing her cheeks, enamoured beyond anything to see her in the bimmer. Robin laughs at how lame he is and he strokes a hair off of Leah’s forehead rather than feed into her ridicule. His baby laughs up a storm as he chucks her under the chin.
“Steve, I’m gonna starve!” Robin warns.
“Right, right!”
He kisses Leah’s small forehead and clambers out.
Robin talks a big talk, but she bends around in the passenger seat to chatter to Leah the whole way to her neighbourhood. “And then dad got us stuck on the side of the road! It was crazy! I told him we were in trouble and he kept laughing! But nothing is that funny, Leah, nothing. I think it’s ’cos your dad has a bunch of screws loose from that time he slipped on melted ice cream at work.”
“Don’t listen to her, Lee!” Steve protests, laughing at her rolling giggles.
“He busted his head! Luckily I saved him, because I am very very smart and I went to camp–”
“You went to Girl Scout’s sleep away camp, that’s not real camp! You were there for a week.”
“But they taught me what to do when your dingus gets a concussion,” Robin says, in her silky radio voice that Leah’s magnetised to. “And that’s why dad only looks a bit wonky, as opposed to a lot.”
“I’m not wonky, am I, Lee?” Steve asks, checking the rearview for her.
“Wonky?” she asks.
“Does daddy look wonky?”
“Mm,” she says.
“What! That is so mean! Baby, I thought you liked dad?”
She giggles and goes all shy. Robin, bless her clumsy, alternative, mixed-up huge heart, goes soft as taffy against the seat. “We don’t like him at all, do we?” she asks, reaching out to rub Leah’s arm. Steve nearly hits a curb trying to watch. “Stinky dad. You can be my girl instead, if mom wants to share. I don’t mind your Harrington blood.”
He drops Robin off, but her mom comes out and wants to meet Leah and that’s a whole thing. She’s squarely heartbroken when she first sees her, going, “Aw,” and “Oh,” as her eyes fill with tears.
“Mom!” Robin says.
“Sorry, but she’s beautiful. Well done, Stevie.”
He murmurs a Thank you, Mrs. Buckley and gets the usual It’s Melissa, Steve.
It takes another ten minutes to get Leah in the car after her quick trip. He heads straight for Lucas’ and finds him freaking out about the bouquet he got Max —Erica told him to put salt in the water to keep them fresh. Steve drives him to the florists ten minutes before they close and they end up with two smaller bunches combined into a vibrant hodgepodge.
Steve buys a handful of daisies for Leah, tucking one behind her ear.
Max likes her flowers, but she’s far more interested in the baby. Lucas stands behind her rubbing his mouth.
“She does look like you,” Max says thoughtfully.
“Right? She has my eyes.”
“Yeah.” Max leans into the car. “Hi, Steve’s baby,” she says quietly.
“This is your Aunt Max,” Steve says.
Leah, who has taken all these new aunts and uncles in her stride (or is too young to get what the hell is going on), offers Max a huge smile with her tiny baby teeth. “Hi Am’ Max,” she says.
Max grins despite herself. “Hi. Are you having a good day?”
“Yessss.”
“Yeah?” She glares at Steve momentarily before standing in front of him, like she’s annoyed he’s seen her being normal, like he doesn’t catch her in a good mood all the time. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to lie. Did you have dinner?”
“Max, I am perfectly capable of looking after her.”
“I’m just checking!” She shakes Leah’s hand nicely. “This party had enough boys,” she says.
Steve ruffles Max’s hair, unbound and bouncing behind her. He’s lucky he makes it to the car with his hand.
Steve sighs when they’re on the road to your place. “Okie dokie,” he says, clenching the steering wheel to listen to the leather creak, “let’s go see your mom. It’s only–” He checks his watch. Blinks big and wide. It’s 6:37PM already, and it’s a five minute drive to your side of Hawkins. “Oh, my god. You’re mom is gonna kill me dead.”
“Kill?”
“Kiss!” he says, cringing. “Yep, she’s gonna kiss me! No other words.”
“Y’okay.”
“Who taught you to say that so cutely?” he asks, fully stressed now, the tightness in his voice surprising a giggle out of Leah. “Stop laughing!”
She giggles worse.
He can’t be more anxious as he pulls up to the house. He climbs out of the car, grabs Leah from her car seat, and in his rush to get her home before you murder him, slams his head so hard into the roof of the car he sees stars.
“Oh, fuck,” he says, holding Leah to his chest as his vision fades out.
Your laugh sounds out from behind him. “Every parent has to do it, Steve, I’m sorry to say,” you call, jogging down the path to the car. “I was wondering where you guys went. It’s… Steve?”
He blinks hard as he stands up, his arms around Leah shaky as his head pounds and pounds and pounds. “Sorry,” he says.
“Steve, what’s wrong?” You rest your arm behind his shoulders to hold him. “Hey, are you okay? Do you need to sit down?”
He urges you to take Leah.
The pain is radiating from the centre of his skull outward, into each eye and down the nape of his neck. It’s such a sudden sharpness he loses his breath, spotty vision fading in and out as he curls into himself.
“Lee, can you go inside, baby?” he hears you ask. There are a few steps, your dark shadows on the ground drifting further away before one returns, all alone. “Steve, what happened? How hard did you hit your head?” you ask softly.
“It’s– I got that–” Every word pulls at the nausea brewing in his stomach. “I’m gonna–”
Steve gags. He aims for the grass. Everything goes white.
—
Steve does a valiant job of keeping himself upright long enough for you to sit him down inside, but after that, he’s useless.
“Okay, it’s okay,” you’re saying, a ringing in your ears you can’t cope with, “it’s alright, Steve, you’re okay. Come forward, honey, let me see–”
You aren’t sure he’s conscious, but he slumps forward regardless to expose the back of his head. You feel through his hair and pull your hand out quick to check for blood on your fingertips, but they come away clean.
“Daddy?” Leah asks, wandering into the living room with her little smile and a daisy drooping behind her ear.
“How was meemaw, bub?” you ask.
“Sleeping.”
“Why don’t you go snuggle with her for a minute? I’ll bring you a buppy?”
Leah hugs your leg from behind. “Buppy?”
“Yeah, do you want one?”
Leah shoots for the bedroom. You take her absence as an opportunity to pull Steve’s head up, meeting his droopy gaze. “Steve, baby,” you say, so softly it’d be a wonder if he could hear you, “are you okay?”
He groans. “Just a migraine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Feels like one.”
“You get them a lot?”
“More since you left.”
You swallow roughly. “I’m gonna call an ambulance.”
“No.” At that, he sits up, holds his own head up to plead, “You don’t have to. I’m fine, this just happens sometimes. After I hit my head at the mall, I get these killer migraines.”
“You hit your head, though. I think you have a concussion.”
“Not my first one.”
You hold his cheek in your hand. Your thumb brushes over his beauty marks. “No?” you ask.
“Had three.”
“You never told me.”
“I know. Didn’t want you to think I was– some loser? I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know why it was hard to be honest with you, guess I thought– it’s not like it’s ever done any good before. I always say the wrong thing.”
You get on your knees in front of him. To cope with the strain of looking up at him, but more to see him face to face. “Steve, you nearly yacked in my yard. I think we’re past appearances.”
Steve covers his mouth with a big hand.
You tuck as much of his hair behind his ears as you can. “Can you look at me? I want to check your pupils.”
He opens his eyes properly, pouring his gaze into yours without hesitation. You check the size of each pupil and find them normal, though the longer he looks, the bigger they become. “I think there’s something wrong, Steve. Your eyes are blown.”
“It’s fine. It’s not ‘cos I hit my head. It’s a headache.”
“You almost knocked yourself out. You’re throwing up. What if I don’t call the ambulance and Leah’s dad dies on my couch?”
“I don’t need an ambulance. I barely puked, it was all spit.”
“Steve.”
“I’m serious. I didn’t even go for the first two concussions, and the third one, they said this could happen. Turns out that taking a couple of bad knocks to the head makes you fragile, I’m fine.” He cups your cheek. “Jesus, don’t feel sorry for me–”
“I do feel sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Seconds of stringy silence follow. He squints at you through the pain. “It’s okay,” he says, his own thumb rubbing at your veins. “I’m sorry, too.”
You pull his hand off your face. Not without care.
“…Can I please call an ambulance?” you ask, uneasy.
“I don’t need one.”
“How do you know?” you whisper.
He turns his hand in your grip to hold yours. His eyes are brown and teary with pain, but they’re so familiar. “I just do. Can you trust me, please?”
You try to stand. Steve squeezes your hand in his and makes you sit on the couch beside him as his eyes shutter closed and his head tips back, the column of his throat there and pale and working as he swallows his pain. You stare at the length of it with your hand too hot in his grip, wondering when it’s acceptable to pull your hand away, and if you’d even want to when the time came.
You told me you didn’t want this, you think, your two joined hands rising and falling where he’s pulled them to his chest. You swear you can see his heart in his chest. The gentle bump-bump of it against skin. A miserable wife.
“Can I get you anything?”
He croaks a hum. “Mm, no.”
“Are you sure? I have aspirin.”
His fingers flex. “It’ll go away.”
“When?”
“It depends. It can take a few hours, sometimes, but I don’t get the worst of the pain for long.” His voice is hoarse with its quiet.
“The other times?”
“They can last for days.”
You’d seen the physical change in Steve. He went weak and sweaty in seconds. His nausea was obviously extreme. You can feel the tremor in his hand as he talks like every word spurs pain.
“It won’t, though,” he says. “Don’t worry. I need five minutes and I can make dinner.”
“Uh, no you can’t. You can sit right here until you feel better, thanks.”
He sinks impossibly further into your mom’s old couch. “Okay. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” You lower your tone. “I don’t mind. I’m sorry if you thought I would.”
“I didn’t mean to–”
“To what? Give yourself a concussion on the roof of the car? I gathered that.”
“Didn’t mean for it to become your problem,” he says.
“You’re not a problem, Steve. I promise.”
You fight for better judgement and lose, letting yourself caress a piece of hair away from his pale neck.
“I think I really screwed up,” he says. “Think I made out all the wrong things. You didn’t think you could tell me about the baby–”
“We don’t have to do this again–”
“Yeah, we do. We do. Because I made you think I wouldn’t want you. I lied to protect my ego and I could’ve had everything I wanted,” —his brow pulls tight and glared, his jaw rigid— “and I hurt you.”
“I hurt myself. You didn’t make me run away, Steve. I did it all alone. I’m good at that.”
“I don’t want you to be alone.”
“I don’t want you to live a life that you hate.”
“I don’t. I won’t. How could I ever hate anything about her?”
You have to give him that. But. “I didn’t tell you for a bunch of reasons, Steve,” you confess, hardly wanting to let it out. “I was scared of everything, you and your parents, making you into the reluctant husband, or– or at the least the reluctant father. I didn’t want to deal with it. And I didn’t wanna be that stupid girl who got knocked up by the prom king. I ran away and nobody had to know.”
“It wouldn’t have been like that.”
“I realise that now.”
His head lolls to see you. He pulls his lashes apart enough to peek through them, that dark hedging a line you’d like to count. You tip your head toward his and face him across the couch cushions, hands joined and hot as a hearth.
“It was never messing around, to me,” he says quietly. Sweat wets the hair at his temples.
“You don’t have to–”
“I got my heart stomped on pretty hard over and over and I stopped trying. I put all my cards on the table every time. But with you, I couldn’t do it again. I thought I couldn’t, so I acted less into you than I was.”
You remember all his kisses and tight armed hugs, his affectionate nudges, his nose lined to your temple as he bore down. It hadn’t felt like less. But you’d never thought it was more, either.
“I pretended we were this summer fling, told you I didn’t want kids, that I wanted to live in the city and get a full time job at a firm with a company car, like that stuff mattered.” He frowns at you deeply. “I’m sorry. I wish I could change it.”
His throat bobs.
“S’it still hurting?” you murmur.
“So much,” he murmurs too, holding your hand against his heart. “I can’t get it to stop.”
“I can’t do this with you.”
He shakes his head minutely. “M’not asking you for anything you can’t give me. I’m just sorry.”
You want him to lean in and align his mouth to yours. You imagine it vividly, the press and taste of him, the scratch of the stubble on his upper lip and his hand slipping behind your neck, squeezing your nape gently, his thumb at the hinge of your jaw trying to open your mouth. You want him so badly it’s a palpable ache in your teeth, like he’s already kissed you harsh and quick, that clack of a collision and the subsequent metallic on your tongue.
But you aren’t lying. You can’t do this.
A thudding noise echoes from your mom’s room, compelling you up and away from his warm touch. Your hand sings with pins and needles as it falls out of his.
“Lee?” you call. “Sorry. I have to go make sure she’s okay.”
He frowns again as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “That’s fine. I’ll be here.”
—
The bedroom throw blankets haven’t changed since you were here last. Your mom didn’t waste much time turning it into a guest room, but the sheets and blankets are the same, soft with wear in your hands as you lay them out. Leah waits for you to finish before climbing into bed, her bottle teat bitten between her teeth. It slips out of her hand with a rush of air as she slips into the pillows. You pick it up and offer it to her again, your shoulders aflame with the weight of an uncommon gaze.
“What side do you sleep on?”
Steve, at half-mast but less obviously pained, takes his time answering.
“Left.”
“Left side’s all yours.”
He shuffles forward in a polo and a pair of his old sweatpants. You, in a horrible stroke of great luck, had them in the bottom of the chest of drawers.
“Make room for me?” he asks Leah.
She grins around her bottle.
You’re pretty sure that if Steve can’t open his eyes for more than ten seconds at a time, he can’t drive, and you don’t want him to fall asleep at home and never wake up. Hence your impromptu sleepover. The bed is a queen and you have a shared child as a buffer, but you’re already annoyed with yourself. Your arms keep remembering what it felt like to stretch out over him whenever he ended up on his front. It is not helpful.
You put the big light out and the nightlight on, a ladybug on a mushroom that glows a warm orange on Steve’s side of the room. In your own sweatpants and a vest, you climb into the right side of the bed and nearly fall straight back out at the lack of space.
Steve curls an arm around Leah tentatively, encouraging her into his side to make room for you.
“You okay?” he asks Leah quietly.
“You okay, daddy?” she asks.
“I’m fine, beautiful. I’m good.”
“Sleep?” she asks.
“With you, if that’s cool?”
“Cool,” she says decidedly.
When you lie down, Leah immediately rolls out of Steve’s grip and makes herself comfortable in the curves of you, her nose digging hard in your arm, the bottle warm on your chest.
“I’ll move her when she falls asleep,” you whisper, nodding to the foldout cot next to the bed with its padded interior.
Sleeping in the same bed as Steve Harrington is a long gone artefact of the past. It’s odd to be face to face with him, to smell him so close, the toothpaste on his breath and the salty, earthy sting of sweat mixed with allspice. You don’t strictly mind it, but you didn’t think you’d ever be this close again. It hurries the heart. You miss him like a slap.
Refusing to think on it is the best way forward.
“You sure you’re okay?” you ask him under your breath.
Leah suckles at her bottle, breaking the quiet, though it’s a monotone sort of sound. Steve doesn’t answer. You glance at him and find him dozing already, not a blanket over him nor a sheet untucked.
“Steve.”
He blinks to attention. “Huh?”
“Pull the blanket up over yourself.”
He must like your tone. You’d gone soft by accident, too used to lulling Leah to sleep via sweetness and dulcet murmuring. He kicks it down and then pulls it up to his ribs, a tight white parcel with the pink throw laid over his feet.
“It’ll be cold tonight. Does that make the migraines worse?” you ask.
“No. I’ll be okay.”
You let him fall asleep. Leah snuggles under your chin. This isn’t the daydream. You aren’t being cuddled and coddled by warm kisses along the side of your face, his big arm around you, your baby between you. Steve keeps a good distance and he’s exhausted.
Leah takes a lot longer to fall, but when she does it’s for keeps. You give her ten minutes tucked up on your chest but decide to move her when you feel your own eyes drifting shut. A rush of unnecessary shushing and a soft kiss later, you creep toward the bed and lay down on your side. Steve sleeps as your mirror, one cheek and eye hidden by the pillow, the sheets pulled haphazard over his hip. You yank them from under you and pull them up to cover him to the shoulder, tempted to tuck his hair behind his ear again. It’s long enough.
“Can feel you staring,” he whispers.
Your heart leaps in shock, though thankfully you don’t jump. “Hm?”
“Staring at me.”
“Trying to gauge whether you died in your sleep.”
“Still ‘live.”
You do reach for him, then, stricken by how badly you want to take care of him. “I can see that.”
He peeks down at your hand on his cheek and grins dopily. “Missed you,” he says.
“Missed you, too.”
You wouldn’t tell him if it weren’t dark, if he weren’t in pain.
“You did?” he asks.
“I always miss you,” you say. You pull your hand away like it’s him that’s said the wrong thing, annoyed at your own boldness, moving onto your back to stare at the ceiling.
He feels at your wrist, up your arm. Steve slides his palm over your stomach and holds it there. When you’re starting to think he might’ve fallen asleep again, your breath aching in your throat to be expelled, he presses down carefully and sighs. “I wish I got to see it. Don’t know why you were alone.”
“I wasn't.”
“Would’ve looked after you, though.”
“Steve…”
“I would’ve.”
“I know.” You know now. You could’ve stayed here and had him look after you, but it’s not what you wanted. “I wanted… more, than that.”
He stares at you across the pillows. Your breath catches as he brings his hand up to your cheek and encourages your head toward him, as he lifts himself up off the pillows to bear down over you.
“Do you still want that?” he asks.
You laugh, weak and weary. “Not when you’re concussed.”
He laughs in your face. It’s quiet to leave Leah sleeping, and to stop from hurting himself again, but it’s a genuine laugh of joy leaning over you. His hair falls in his face and he’s beautiful. All freckled and gold in the dim amber light sunning in from behind him.
“I am not concussed,” he says, leaning down.
You don’t kiss. Won’t lift your lips to his where he waits, though waiting might not be the right word. It’s like he’s alright with anything you’re about to do, or not do, sharing your breath.
“I don’t believe you,” you tease lightly.
He’s moved so much to be over you. It is unquestionably the position of a man who’s going to kiss you.
You press your forehead to his chin.
“We should sleep,” you say, because you shouldn’t kiss.
Portland feels very, very far away as he trails his fingers down the front of you and takes a handful of your hip.
“I’m not concussed,” he says, though it’s not asking for anything; Steve’s already pulling away. He sits up and slightly away from you, rubbing a wave into your abdomen lovingly, like you never went to Portland at all. Like it’s the sleepover after a night spent kissing slow and watching shit TV. “Get some sleep, angel,” he adds, so quietly you’d doubt he spoke if you hadn’t watched his mouth shape the words.
—
In the morning, you wake to find Leah chest to chest with Steve, his hair like water on your pillows.
“An’ my hand an’ my nose as my mouth,” she says factually.
“And your ears,” he says back to her quietly, stroking a path from her shoulders to her lower back and up again. “Your eyebrows, and your hair, and your neck.”
“Yeah.”
“Your tummy, and your legs, and your little toes.”
“Am’ my toes,” she says.
“Even your toes are pretty,” Steve agrees. “‘Cos duh. Leah’s the prettiest girl I ever met, right?” His voice drops low enough to rattle hoarsely. “Just as pretty as mommy. I didn’t know that was possible.”
You hide your face in the pillows, pretending to sleep.
This is not going to go how you’d first thought.
—
thank you for reading!! so excited I love steve and I know he could be bitchier and angrier here but I’ve decided to make him whipped instead cos he’s cute when he’s in love and if it’s not implied enough he’s still whipped for the reader lol. hope you enjoyed it thank you very much for reading and taking the time
Summary: You were never meant to matter.
Not to Lex Luthor, who weaponized your past and turned you into his most invisible asset. Not to Metropolis, who doesn’t know your name. Not even to yourself, not really—not after everything you’ve done to survive behind LuthorCorp’s glass doors and closed fists.
But then Superman shows up. And Clark Kent won’t stop asking questions.
You were supposed to bait him. Break him. Deliver his downfall. Instead, you hesitated. And now you’re spiraling. Because Superman wasn’t supposed to look at you like that. And Clark—Clark wasn’t supposed to matter. You didn’t mean to fall for both of them.
Now Lex knows you’ve slipped the leash. He wants you dead. Clark wants you safe. And all you want is to make it out alive long enough to choose who you are—before someone else chooses for you.
When everything burns, who do you save?
And who do you become?
Word count: 39k+ words
Tags / Content Warnings: 18+, mdni, Enemies to lovers, secret identity reveal, redemption arc, slow burn, emotional angst & intimacy, protective Superman, dual identity tension, LuthorCorp infiltration, betrayal, comfort after trauma, hurt/comfort, mutual yearning, smut, soft but dangerous Clark Kent, canon divergence, heavy makeouts, forgiveness, psychological abuse, childhood trauma, physical violence (non-sexual), coercion, manipulation, threat of death, emotional fallout, soft smut, kissing while injured, trauma recovery, who did this? scene, cathartic ending
Part 1: The Leash
“There’s always a cost to survival. You just never expect it to be your soul.”
Summary: You belong to Lex Luthor—by blood, by record, by threat. You’ve stayed alive by staying useful. Unseen. Controlled. But when Superman becomes your latest assignment and Clark Kent won’t stop looking at you like he sees something worth saving, you start to slip.
A mission meant to destroy the Man of Steel ends in chaos, and the noose around your neck tightens. Lex suspects betrayal. Clark starts putting pieces together. And for the first time in years, you speak the truth out loud.
Only… you don’t realize who’s been listening.
Who’s been there all along.
Part 2: The Lie Between Us
“I was falling in love with both of them. And grieving the same man twice.”
Summary: You didn’t mean to fall for either of them—Clark with his gentle stubbornness, or Superman with his impossible mercy. But you did. And now you’re drowning in it.
When secrets detonate and names are said in the dark, you discover what you should have seen all along: Clark and Superman are the same man. The man you bared your soul to. The man you betrayed.
But instead of leaving—he stays.
Together, you hatch a plan to end this for good. One last mission. One last lie. If you’re lucky, it won’t kill you both.
Part 3: The Risk
“He bled for me. Fought for me. Burned for me. And for once—I let myself believe I was worth it.”
Summary: The end is in motion. The final lie has been planted. You return to the place that broke you, carrying proof of your loyalty and a plan that could undo everything. But the closer you get to freedom, the more dangerous the cost becomes.
Trust is tested. Old ghosts rise. And the man who once saw through you now stands at your side, ready to fight for the future you never thought you’d get to want.
This time, you don’t run.
This time, you choose.
Coming soon! I have the draft complete. It’s getting edits done now :-)
Summary: You’ve spent months falling for two men: Clark Kent and Superman. One soft but distant, the other larger-than-life and burning. But when a rooftop secret finally breaks, the truth hits harder than any fall—because they’re the same man, and he’s been in love with you from the start.
Word count: 16k
T/w: 18+, mdni, Friends to Lovers, Filthy Sweet Smut, Praise Kink, Oral Sex (f. receiving), Cowgirl Position, Clark getting jealous of himself, Clark Kent is So in Love It’s Embarrassing
The rooftop is cold this late, even in spring. The kind of cold that wraps around your ankles like smoke and settles in your bones, unnoticed until it’s already made a home there. The wind comes off the river with a low, lonely howl, threading its way between the buildings, tugging at your sleeves, chilling the tips of your ears.
The glow from the Daily Planet’s rotating globe above casts a soft gold halo over the rooftop, broken in places by rusted beams and pigeon-shadowed ledges. It makes everything look softer than it is. You sit near the edge with your knees pulled up, mug cupped between your palms, fingers curled tight around the chipped ceramic. The coffee is reheated, burnt, far too bitter. It sticks to your tongue like ash, but the warmth helps.
Your legs dangle over the ledge like a dare. The city hums below, alive and indifferent. Sirens scream in the distance. A car honks and doesn’t stop. Neon flickers against the glass of neighboring buildings. A billboard across the avenue cycles through three rotating ads, each brighter and more ridiculous than the last.
You close your eyes. Let your head tilt back. Let the noise blur. It’s been another long day, endless edits, typo corrections that weren’t yours, layout arguments you weren’t invited to fix but were expected to solve. And then, of course, there was him.
Clark Kent passed you in the hallway again this afternoon. Shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, tie slightly loosened. He smiled that sweet, bashful smile that always makes your chest feel too small and kept walking. Like nothing flickered. Like you didn’t want to stop him. Like he didn’t carry the weight of your attention in every step.
You sigh.
You stay late a lot these days. At first it was about deadlines. Then it became about space. Solitude. Stillness. Avoiding the sound of your neighbor’s latest “guy,” or the way your apartment echoes too much when you’re alone in it.
And then, somewhere along the way… he started showing up.
You don’t hear him land. It’s more like you feel it. The air shifts. The rooftop pressure dips like a storm rolling in, only calmer, warmer, like a held breath finally let go. Then the sound: a barely-there thud of boots on concrete, subtle enough to mistake for imagination if you weren’t already listening for him.
You open your eyes just as the wind stills and there he is.
He stands against the backdrop of the sky like he belongs to it. Silhouetted in starlight. Backlit by the city’s glow. Red cape stirring in the wind behind him, long and silent and soft like a sigh. The blue of his suit catches flecks of gold from the globe above, glinting like embers trapped under fabric.
He’s not smiling yet. Just watching you. That steady, unreadable expression he wears when he’s reading the wind. Reading you.
By all logic, you should be awestruck. He’s a myth made flesh, a force of nature walking on two legs, a god who could turn the Earth if he wanted to.
But he doesn’t look like a god. Not tonight.
He looks like a man who’s tired. Gentle. Steady. Someone who knows how to carry things without making you feel their weight.
“Long shift?” he asks, voice quiet. It’s always quiet with him. Low and smooth, with something careful threaded through it. Like he doesn’t want to break the stillness you’ve built.
You exhale, your breath curling visibly in the air between you. “The longest. The Planet rewrote the front page layout for the third time today. I think I’m legally married to my keyboard now.”
That makes him smile. Not the heroic, picture-perfect smile the world’s seen on the front page. This one’s smaller. Warmer. The kind that doesn’t ask for attention, just gives it.
He laughs under his breath, a sound so rare it always feels like it was meant for you.
You shift over on the ledge without thinking, and he moves just as naturally. Sits beside you with one knee bent up, the other hanging over the edge. The cape pools behind him like a banner at rest.
You don’t dare look too long, but you feel the heat of him beside you, unnatural in the cold. Like he carries the sun in his chest and lets you borrow some of it when you forget what warmth feels like.
“You always show up when I need someone to talk to,” you murmur, sipping your coffee.
He hums. “Just lucky timing.”
But when you glance over, you catch the way he’s looking at you, soft, focused, and unblinking. Like maybe he knew you’d be here. Like maybe he was already halfway across the sky and turned around when he heard your footsteps.
Like maybe he’s been listening for your heartbeat all night.
You pretend not to notice. Pretend not to care that his shoulder is inches from yours. That if you leaned just a little closer, you could rest your head against the emblem on his chest and hear the steady beat beneath it.
He looks back out over the city. You do too. The quiet settles between you, not empty, not awkward, just full. Full of all the things you don’t need to say out loud. All the truths you haven’t worked up the courage to voice yet.
It’s been a few months now. Of this. Of him. Of late nights turning into quiet rituals. He never stays too long. Never explains why he comes. But he listens. Always listens.
You’ve told him things you haven’t told anyone. About your childhood bedroom wallpaper. About the first article you ever published. About the funeral you didn’t cry at, and the birthday you still can’t bring yourself to celebrate.
He never interrupts. Never offers false wisdom. He just… stays. Present. Real. And that matters more than you can admit.
“I think I’m getting too used to this,” you whisper, barely above the wind.
He glances at you. One brow lifted. “Used to what?”
You smile, soft into the rim of your cup. “You. Dropping in like this. Talking to me like I’m not just some reporter who yells at politicians and gets coffee orders wrong.”
His head tilts. That unreadable look again. “You’re not just anything,” he says. “Especially not to me.”
The words fall heavy. Solid. You don’t know what to do with them. So you look at him. The sharp line of his jaw. The softness of his mouth. The way his eyes, those unearthly, unforgettable blue eyes, don’t look through you. They look at you like you’re real. Like you matter. Like you’re something he’s memorized from the inside out.
Your heart trips over itself.
You look away. You don’t know why he comes here. Or why he stays. But you’ve stopped questioning it. Because somewhere between deadline nights and rooftop coffees, between quiet smiles and colder hands brushing too close, you’ve found something here that you didn’t know you needed.
Something that feels like peace.
And for now…
That’s enough.
-
You don’t know what pulls the words from you tonight. Maybe it’s the stillness, how the rooftop seems to hold its breath when he arrives. Maybe it’s the way the wind dulls, the chaos of Metropolis softening at the edges, as if even the city knows to hush when Superman lands.
Or maybe it’s just him.
The way he listens. Not with the kind of vacant patience people use when they’re waiting for their turn to speak, but the real kind, the kind that makes you feel like your voice is the only sound left in the world worth hearing. Like what you say matters.
Your fingers tighten around your coffee cup, ceramic warm against your chilled palms. The bitter scent of burnt roast curls into your nose, the taste still lingering on your tongue like old pennies and late nights. You focus on the swirl of it, watching steam rise into the cold air, hoping it might offer you grace. Or courage.
“There’s this guy at work,” you say at last, voice soft, hesitant. Barely audible over the distant rush of traffic. “Someone I probably shouldn’t be thinking about this much.”
The words feel like they’ve been trapped in your chest for weeks. Maybe longer. You half expect them to get stuck in your throat, but they fall out too easily. Too real.
Superman’s head turns slightly toward you, just enough to catch the shift in his attention. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. He just waits, still as marble, quiet as snowfall. Only the flick of his cape in the breeze betrays that he’s anything more than stone.
“He’s sweet,” you murmur, tucking a knee beneath you, curling inward. “Kind of dorky. Like… charming in a way that shouldn’t work, but does. Nervous ordering lunch if there’s a line behind him. Stammers sometimes when he talks too fast.”
“Sounds charming,” he says with a soft huff beside you. More breath than laughter, but it’s there.
You let out a low groan and lift your coffee to hide behind it. “He’s impossible.”
“Oh?” he says, amusement warm in the single word.
“I flirt, and he just gives me this wide-eyed look like I’ve offered him a kidney. I complimented his tie once and he turned red all the way to his ears. Like I’d said something indecent.”
You shake your head, laughing into the rim of your mug. It’s easier to talk now, the thread pulled loose and unraveling.
“I brought him coffee every day for a week,” you say, voice quieter. “Put smiley faces on the lid. He said thank you. But not like, ‘thank you beautiful I love you so much’ thank you. It was more like I handed him his dry cleaning and he was thanking me.”
Superman’s lips twitch. Barely. But you catch it. The faintest hint of something, humor, maybe. Or fondness. Or something heavier under the surface.
“He blushes if I so much as stand too close,” you add, half into your cup. “I told him he looked handsome once and he looked like I’d just told him his fly was down in front of the White House press corps.”
“And what’s this mystery man’s name?” Superman asked you.
You pause. The steam from your cup rises, fogging the bottom of your lashes. You can feel the heat blooming in your cheeks before you even say it. Shame coils around your ribs, sharp and a little humiliating, but there’s no point holding it in now.
“…Clark Kent.” The name slips out like a secret. And maybe it is.
The rooftop shifts. Not the wind. Not the world. Him.
He stills beside you. Not visibly. Not obviously. But something settles in his spine. Like the air around him goes denser. Like gravity tugs harder on his frame. Like the whole night narrows.
“Ah,” he says.
Just that.
You glance at him, but his gaze is fixed out on the skyline, jaw set, expression unreadable. The light from the city paints his profile in gold and shadow, and you can’t quite make sense of the tension in it.
You start to regret saying anything. You forgot that Superman and Clark… they know each other. Clark’s the only guy in all of Metropolis to get an interview with Superman, afterall.
“And… he hasn’t made a move?” he asks, but his voice is different now. Quieter. Tighter. Like he’s holding back something sharp in his throat.
You give a small shake of your head. It’s meant to be light, casual, but it doesn’t land that way. Not with the ache behind your words.
“Nope. He probably doesn’t see me that way.” You force a laugh. “I’m background noise. The coworker who won’t shut up about punctuation and calls him out when he leaves his press badge in the copier.”
He doesn’t say anything. The silence stretches. Not uncomfortable, but heavy. Like the weight of something unspoken is pressing against both of your ribs.
You shift again. Tuck your hands tighter around your mug. Try not to look at him.
When he finally speaks, his voice is different. Lower. Rougher. “I think you’d be surprised.”
You blink. “What?”
His gaze hasn’t moved. His face still turned toward the skyline. But the edge of his voice has changed. It’s softer, yes, but more certain now. Like every word is deliberate. Measured. Carved from truth he’s not supposed to say aloud. “I think… he notices more than you realize.”
The wind brushes past your cheek. Your pulse kicks behind your collarbone.
You stare at him, searching his profile for something you can’t name. “I’ve worked beside him for two years,” you whisper. “He’s never looked at me like…” Like you do, is what you almost say. But you don’t. You can’t.
His throat moves as he swallows. His jaw clenches, subtle. Barely a flicker of tension in a face the world trusts. And you realize, suddenly, that he’s still not looking at you. Like if he does, something will give.
So you don’t push. Just sit beside him. The city below, alive and uncaring. The mug cooling in your hands. The scent of ozone and air and something warmer than either hanging between you.
And Superman, quiet and still beside you, breathes slow. Deep. Like he’s anchoring himself to the edge of something that might, if he isn’t careful, unravel him completely.
-
The next morning, Clark drops his coffee. It’s not the first time, but something about this one feels more tragic than usual. The lid pops clean off on impact, and a swirl of tan foam splashes in a perfect arc across the bullpen floor, darkening the tile and sending up a scent that’s almost comically specific: oat milk, cinnamon, and the quiet grief of wasted caffeine.
“Shoot,” he mutters, already kneeling to mop it up with a stack of napkins he must’ve grabbed on reflex from the breakroom.
You move without thinking, half-awake and still carrying your own coffee, already reaching into the mess beside him, crouched close enough to feel the residual heat coming off his skin.
Your hands brush and it’s like touching live wire. Just a flicker, skin on skin, the edge of your pinky against the side of his thumb, and he jolts, hands jerking back like you’ve burned him. The napkins flutter to the ground.
You blink at him.
He clears his throat, face already flooding with color, not just his cheeks, but his ears, the back of his neck, the hollow beneath his jaw. All glowing red, like the heat of your touch raced through him and caught fire on its way out.
“I-I’ve got it,” he stammers, not meeting your eyes. “Wouldn’t want you to ruin your shoes.”
You glance down at your boots. Scuffed, cracked, streaked with old ink from a long-forgotten protest assignment. You’d had to sprint through a barricade once in those boots. You’ve poured coffee into storm drains in them. You’ve climbed scaffolding. Sat cross-legged in back alleys. Run from gas canisters.
“Clark,” you say dryly, “they’re already ruined.”
But he doesn’t seem to hear you. Or he’s pretending not to. His attention is fully locked on the floor, hands sweeping in wide, erratic strokes like his whole sense of balance depends on fixing this one, dumb mistake.
You step back slowly. Your coffee cools in your hands as you watch him move. Something in your chest pulls. Tightens. Because he’s been like this all week. Not just awkward. Not just shy. This is different.
This is haunted. Quieter than usual. Smiling too long, like he forgets to stop. Laughing a beat too late, like he’s processing everything on a delay. Tripping over words he used to wield like second nature, like the language itself has turned to static in his mouth.
He’s dropped pens when you brushed past him. You called his name yesterday, just “Clark,” just a greeting, and his voice cracked so hard it drew a stare from Perry across the room. And twice now you’ve looked up to catch him watching you from across the bullpen. Not admiring. Not casual. Not distracted. Just watching. Pinned. Focused. Quietly wrecked. Like you were a flame he couldn’t afford to get closer to and couldn’t look away from.
And yet… he’s everywhere. Holding elevator doors. Pulling out your chair. Leaving an extra muffin, your favorite kind, on the edge of your desk with a Post-It that says “just in case.” Walking you to your car with that sweet, bashful smile, his hands shoved too deep into his pockets like he’s physically stopping himself from reaching for you.
It doesn’t make sense. You’d think he was avoiding you. You would think that if he weren’t in your orbit every day like he doesn’t know how to leave it. And you don’t understand it.
Not after last week. Not after the rooftop. Not after you told Superman, told him that Clark Kent barely knew you were alive. That he didn’t see you, not really. That your crush was doomed from the start.
But now? Now Clark looks like a man undone. Like he’s holding something in his chest so tight it’s splitting him open from the inside, and all he knows how to do is mop coffee and run away.
Maybe you should’ve kept your mouth shut. Maybe Superman said something to Clark. Because now, everything’s shifting.
You feel it in the way he lingers at the corner of your desk. In the way he fumbles over simple questions. In the way his gaze drops to your mouth mid-sentence before he curses himself for it and looks away.
Something’s unraveling.
Some invisible line between you, tugging tighter every time he glances at you like he’s terrified you’ll see what he’s hiding, and even more terrified that you won’t.
-
“Somebody’s flustered,” Jimmy singsongs, materializing behind your desk like the chaos goblin he is, grinning around two fingers full of instant photos and an open packet of jelly beans.
You blink up from your laptop, still trying to blink sleep out of your eyes from the late night. “What?”
He jerks his chin toward Clark’s desk, where the man in question is currently hunched over a spreadsheet like it personally insulted his intelligence. He’s squinting with such intensity, you’d think the cells were written in code.
“He nearly walked into the copier when you complimented his blazer,” Jimmy says, plunking the photos on your desk and popping a red jelly bean into his mouth. “That’s new, right? The blazer?”
You glance across the bullpen. Navy wool. Soft plaid. A perfect shoulder line and slightly-too-long sleeves that he keeps rolling up mid-morning. You’d said something innocent when he passed your desk earlier, Looks good on you, Kent. Real sharp. Just a kindness. Familiar, warm. Like always. And he’d flushed to the roots. Mumbled something that might’ve been thank you, dropped his papers, and nearly backed into the copier trying to get away.
You cringe a little. “Maybe I’m making him uncomfortable.”
Jimmy snorts so hard he nearly chokes on a jelly bean. “Oh yeah. Uncomfortable people always look like they’re one compliment away from asking for your hand in marriage.”
You shoot him a look.
He shrugs, utterly unbothered. “I’m just saying. If that boy looked at you any longer earlier, we’d have to slap a warning label on it. Caution: prolonged eye contact may lead to heart palpitations and poor balance.”
You roll your eyes and push his photos back toward him, but his words stick like burrs. Because it’s not just Jimmy.
Lois has been watching you. Watching him. Watching the space between you like it’s saying more than either of you are brave enough to.
She hasn’t said anything directly, Lois rarely does when it comes to other peoples business, but she’s started clearing her throat very pointedly whenever the two of you are in the same room. She’s also taken to referring to you as “Kent’s emotional support columnist,” which you’re not convinced HR would approve of.
And Clark… Clark’s unraveling. His smiles linger too long. His hands fumble around you. He hovers at your desk like he’s building up to something and then chickens out at the last second. Like he’s balancing on the edge of a confession he can’t let go of.
And meanwhile… the nights haven’t stopped. You still find yourself pulled to the rooftop. Coffee in hand. Laptop bag abandoned in a corner. Hair tangled by the wind. Shoulders stiff with the weight of another day trying not to stare at a man who looks at you like he doesn’t know how to stop. And he’s still there.
Superman. He doesn’t come every night but you always hope he will. He lands in silence, always behind you, always just far enough that you hear the wind shift before his boots touch down. The air changes when he arrives. It gets warmer. Quieter. Fuller.
He doesn’t speak at first. Never does. He waits until you do. Until your shoulders drop and your hands stop trembling from typing too much, caring too much, feeling too much. And then he folds into place beside you, a god rendered down into something human, into something yours. Not rehearsed. Not formal. Just… present. Like a ritual neither of you want to name.
You’ve started wondering if he looks forward to it the way you do. The stillness. The city stretched beneath you like a breathing thing. The wind tugging at his cape, the occasional flicker of sirens far below. Sometimes you wonder if you’d even know how to fall asleep without these nights. Lately, though… he’s been asking about Clark.
Not directly. Not enough to raise alarm. But there’s a shift. His silences are longer. His questions softer. Slipped in between sips of coffee and quiet laughter, between stories about Metropolis weirdos and the latest editorial disaster.
“Rough day?”
“Is he treating you well?”
“Has that punk said anything to you?”
You answer honestly. You always do.
Tonight, your mug is balanced precariously on the edge of the ledge beside you, both hands clasped around your knees. The wind threads through your hair. The chill touches the inside of your sleeves and curls behind your ears, but you barely notice it anymore.
“I don’t think he even sees me,” you say. Your voice is barely above a whisper, like if you say it too loud it’ll finally be true. “He looks at me like… like I’m glass. Like I’m going to break if he touches me. Or maybe like he’ll break if he does.”
Superman says nothing at first. Just watches the skyline with those quiet, unreadable eyes. The light from the globe behind you paints him in shifting golds and blues. His cape flutters. The night breathes around him like it belongs to him.
Below, the city pulses. You can hear the muted beat of club bass echoing through the alleys. A woman’s laugh rising somewhere in the distance. A radio playing soft from a cracked window a few floors down, some tired, romantic song about wanting someone who never looks your way.
He turns toward you slowly. “He’s never been good at letting people close,” he says, finally. His voice is low. Strained around the edges. “Sometimes he worries that if he opens the door… the whole house will fall down.”
You frown, studying him. “That sounds… oddly specific. You two must actually be friends, after all.”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just watches you. Eyes so blue they look painted. Like rain and lightning and old sky. There’s something burning in them tonight, something bright and breaking beneath the surface.
He swallows. Barely. “It’s not hard to recognize fear when you’ve lived in it,” he murmurs. “Even when it wears glasses.”
Your breath catches. But before you can say anything, before you can make sense of the words, or the look on his face, or the way your heart thunders suddenly in your ribs like a warning bell, he moves. Rises. One smooth motion. The wind catches his cape, lifting it like a banner. His silhouette darkens against the glow behind him.
“I’ll see you soon,” he says, voice soft. Warm. But weighted. And before you can respond, before your tongue can wrap around the questions you don’t yet know how to ask, he’s gone. Up. Away. Gone like he was never there at all.
You sit there long after the breeze settles. After the heat leaves the space he stood in. The sky blinks with planes and stars and satellites. The wind has teeth again. You feel small. And for the first time, you start to wonder if maybe Clark Kent has been looking at you this whole time.
You just didn’t know what you were looking at.
-
You’re colder than usual tonight. You hadn’t meant to stay this late. Just one last draft, one last paragraph, one last search for the perfect headline. You’d meant to go straight home, swing by the corner bodega, heat up leftovers, maybe fall asleep to something senseless on TV. Something that wouldn’t make you think of him.
But instead, your feet took you here. Just your bag slung over your shoulder, your thermos in hand, and that quiet, persistent tug in your chest that’s been pulling you to the roof more nights than not. You didn’t bring your coat. You never do when the air feels like this, biting, honest, but so alive. The wind is sharper than it was last week, slicing along your arms in cold ribbons, sneaking beneath the hem of your sleeves and lifting strands of your hair to whip across your cheeks.
You wrap your arms around yourself and lean against the edge of the rooftop wall. The city stretches out below silver and gold and humming. Neon reflections ripple in puddles on the street like melting stars. Cars honk. Voices blur. A siren cuts the night, two blocks over, and fades.
And then he’s there. The air stills. Pressure shifts. The rooftop tilts, not physically, but in your body. In your blood. You turn your head slightly, already knowing what you’ll find.
He’s landing behind you in silence, as he always does. The wind swirls at his heels. His cape flutters in a long, slow wave. The light from the Planet’s rotating globe skims across the high planes of his face, painting soft highlights in his hair and casting shadows down the hard set of his jaw.
He’s already walking toward you. His steps don’t make a sound. But your heart does.
His brows knit the moment he sees you properly, hair tousled, shoulders tense, arms crossed too tightly against your chest.
“You’re shivering,” he says, voice quiet and laced with concern.
You inhale through your nose. “I’m fine,” you lie, biting the inside of your cheek to stop your teeth from clicking. “Didn’t realize how cold it got.”
He doesn’t move at first. And then, his hands lift.
Your breath hitches as he reaches up to his collar with a slow, practiced ease, fingers sliding beneath the gold insignia at his shoulder to unclip the cape in a single, effortless motion. The weight of it drops all at once, a sweep of red that catches the wind like silk dipped in fire. The hem kisses the ground beside him as he steps closer.
You don’t move.
You’re not sure you can.
He takes one more step, and you can smell it before you feel it, the scent of him. Not cologne, not aftershave, just the strange, clean weight of sun-warmed metal and wind. Air after lightning. A kind of warmth that doesn’t belong to earthbound men.
Then, carefully, like you might startle, he drapes the cape around your shoulders. It’s heavy. So much heavier than it looks. Dense, heat-soaked fabric that settles against your back like gravity. Like memory. The inside is impossibly soft. Lined with something smooth and brushed, like worn-in velvet or sky-cured cotton. The warmth of it sinks straight through your skin, down to the aching hinge of your spine.
You look down at it, stunned. At him. He’s still close. Closer than usual. His boots barely a breath from yours. And that’s when his hand comes up, gentle, deliberate. Not rushed. Just his knuckles, brushing along your jaw.
A featherlight stroke, the back of his hand tucking the cape tighter beneath your chin, like he needs an excuse to linger. Like it matters to him that you feel protected. Covered. Kept.
Your breath catches in your throat and doesn’t come back because he’s never stood this close before. He’s taller than you remembered. Broader. The space between you contracts under the pressure of his presence. His chest nearly brushes yours with every breath, and each exhale from him is warm and steady, a living current wrapping around you like a second skin. Your pulse kicks hard against your ribs. You wonder if he can hear it even though you know he can.
Your chin tips up. Instinct or need, you’re not sure which. Maybe it’s both. And his eyes are already on you. Not politely. Not blankly. Burning.
And then his voice drops. “Does he know,” he asks, slow and low, “how lucky he is?”
Your lips part, breath escaping in a visible puff. “Who?”
His gaze doesn’t flicker. “The man you told me about.” There’s no game in his tone. No mask. Just that same deep gravity you’ve felt in him since the very first night he landed here, coatless and patient and endlessly kind.
“Clark?” you ask, your voice a thread of sound.
“Does he know what it means to have your attention?” He asks while nodding.
Your skin feels too tight. Too aware. The cape is clutched in your fingers now, bunched between your knuckles, and still it’s not enough to anchor you. You shake your head, barely. “He doesn’t seem to want it.”
And that truth, raw and quiet and far too vulnerable, lands between you with all the weight of gravity. A small confession. But sharp.
His throat works once. Then again. He swallows, visibly. His gaze travels from your eyes to your mouth, where it lingers a second too long before flickering back up to your eyes.
The air gets thick. Charged. Like a storm is about to break in the sky. Or inside him.
You think, for just one heartbeat, that he might kiss you. His lips part. But instead, his voice roughens, like the truth is scraping its way out.
“He wants it,” he says. “Believe me.”
You can barely breathe. He’s still watching you, like he can’t stop. Like your silence might fill in the answer he isn’t allowed to give. And you, wrapped in his cape, standing in his heat, breathing his air, don’t know what to do with your hands. Or your heart. So you say nothing. You just let the quiet stretch between you, trembling and hot and precarious, as if a single word would shatter it all.
And then he steps back. Not far. Just enough to release you from the grip of his proximity. Enough to leave the ache behind.
He doesn’t say goodbye. Just rises, slow and unhurried, into the sky. The wind tugs at his cape, lifting the edges from your shoulders, but you hold it tighter. And then he’s gone. Up. Away. Silent as ever.
And you stand there in the dark, wrapped in the scent of him, the warmth of him, the ache of him, wondering how long this can go on before the truth spills out of someone’s mouth and ruins everything. Or makes it real.
-
You realize it slowly. Not all at once. Not like a switch being flipped or a line being crossed. But in the spaces between sentences. In the hushed air between thoughts. In the moments where he doesn’t speak, just watches you with that carved-stone stillness, that impossibly patient calm that feels less like restraint and more like reverence.
You notice it in the way he lets silence breathe. Doesn’t fill it. Doesn’t try to solve it. Just lets it hang, heavy or light, whatever it needs to be.
And in the way he listens. Really listens. The kind of listening that feels like being held. Like your voice is something he doesn’t get anywhere else. Like your thoughts carry weight. Like your day matters. Like you do.
It doesn’t hit you all at once. It comes in waves. Realization blooming slowly under your skin like something long dormant waking up.
It sinks in one night when you’re talking about something stupid. Trivial. Work drama. An editorial you fought for, again. The way Perry’s notes clashed with the layout. The headline Lois rewrote over your shoulder with a red pen like a scalpel. You’re venting more than storytelling, sentences peppered with sarcasm, words tumbling loose because it’s late and you’re tired and he’s here.
You sit cross-legged on the rooftop ledge, shoulders hunched slightly from the wind, palms wrapped around a lukewarm thermos. Your legs have that faint ache from a long day, that tension that says you should’ve gone home hours ago. But he’s sitting beside you, and so you didn’t.
Superman is as still as ever. But not in a way that feels distant. It’s the stillness of someone utterly tuned in. Shoulders relaxed. Elbows resting loosely on his knees. Fingers curled near his thighs like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands unless they’re catching someone. Holding something.
His cape shifts when he breathes, deep, quiet, full-bodied breaths that move the air around you. The red fabric stirs in soft waves across the rooftop, occasionally brushing your ankle, like a heartbeat you’re not supposed to notice.
His mouth is curved into that private smile. The one you’ve never seen in photographs. The one he only wears with you.
He doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t offer advice. He just listens. Watches. Quiet and open and focused like you’re telling him the weather patterns of your heart and he doesn’t want to miss a single cloud.
And suddenly you’re hyper-aware of it. How much you’ve told him. Not just tonight. Not just recently. But over the weeks. The months. One late night at a time.
Your job. The daily grind. The politics. The moments you feel seen, and the ones you don’t. Your childhood. The wallpaper in your bedroom, the way your mom used to hum while folding laundry.
Your heartbreak. The one that gutted you quietly. The one you never tell anyone about because it wasn’t dramatic enough to justify the pain. Your favorite books. The one you reread every winter. The one you lied about liking just to impress someone. Your fears. Driving. Water. Getting close.
Your loves. Thunderstorms. Orange peels. Songs you’ll never admit make you cry. Clark. Sweet, dorky, utterly-unaware Clark.
You’ve told Superman everything.
And not once, not once, has he pulled back. Not once has he made you feel small. He doesn’t flinch when you speak. Doesn’t glance away. Doesn’t soften your edges to make you easier to digest.
Some nights, he says almost nothing at all. Just nods. Hums softly. Maybe says your name in that low, near-sacred way of his, like it’s a prayer he’s memorized. But he never leaves. He never looks bored. Or burdened.
He just stays.
And that matters more than you can explain. Because no one stays.
But he does. And now… you’re looking at him differently. Not like a symbol. Not like a god. Not like the man in the sky who breaks the sound barrier and holds tectonic plates steady with his hands.
But like a man who knows your laugh. Who remembers your favorite movie. Who lets you rant. Who makes space for your silences. Who carries your stories in his chest like they’re precious cargo. Who gave you his cape without thinking twice. Who touched your jaw like it meant something. Like you meant something.
And maybe that’s what unravels you. Not the fact that he’s Superman. But the fact that he feels more real to you than anyone else in your life. Not larger-than-life. Not untouchable. Just real. And right here. And that realization?
It’s starting to feel like falling.
-
The night is warm for early spring. The kind of warmth that clings not just to your skin, but to the air itself. Heavy and intimate, like a whispered secret. It seeps into your sleeves, wraps around your ankles, settles between your shoulder blades like a held breath. It makes your heart race without quite knowing why.
You’re sitting cross-legged on the ledge, the cape he gave you still draped over your lap. The fabric’s weight is familiar now, dense and soft and slightly creased where your fingers keep fisting in the hem. He hadn’t asked for it back. Just showed up with a different one. So, you haven’t offered to return it. It feels like something borrowed, yes, but more than that. Like something left.
Superman is beside you. Boots planted. Elbows resting on his thighs, back slightly hunched like he’s trying to make himself smaller. Like he doesn’t trust what might happen if he really let himself take up space next to you.
He’s closer than usual. Not touching, but not far. If you leaned the slightest bit to the left, your shoulder would brush his bicep. If you exhaled too sharply, your knee might nudge his. You keep your spine rigid.
You’re not looking at him. You can’t. Not when you know he’s watching you.
His gaze is a weight you’ve come to recognize. Not heavy. Not invasive. Just steady. Open. Unyielding. Like he’s trying to memorize you in case you vanish. Like you’re the only anchor he’s allowed to hold onto.
You take a breath. Your voice comes soft. Tucked between heartbeat and hesitation. “Sometimes I think,” you murmur, not looking at him, “if I met you first… things would be easier.”
The words come from somewhere low in your chest. Somewhere bruised and tender and aching with the question you don’t want answered. You don’t even know why you say them. You only know that they’re true. They hang there in the dark. Fragile. Bare. They make the space between you feel suddenly infinite.
You finally glance over. His eyes are already on you and he looks wrecked. Not in any way most people would notice. Not in any way he would ever allow. But you see it.
You know what it means when his jaw stills like that. When the cords in his neck draw tight. When his eyes dim like a stormcloud passing over the sun.
His breath catches. Just barely. Just enough. “You think,” he says, voice low and rough, “you didn’t?”
Your pulse stutters. You blink. Turn toward him fully, heart climbing into your throat. “What?”
His gaze drops for a second, to your mouth, then to your lap, where his cape is still clutched in your fists, and then rises again.
When his eyes meet yours, they are unshielded. Wide open. Pleading. Quiet. Raw. And suddenly, you realize how close he is.
His thigh presses against yours now, light but solid. His knee nudges the side of your folded legs, grounding you, like he’s trying to anchor you in place. And you can feel his warmth radiating outward in slow, low waves—the heat of him seeping into your skin, into your chest, into your pulse.
He burns.
And you’re burning too.
The rooftop goes still. The wind holds its breath. The world softens to nothing but sky and concrete and you and him.
You don’t know who leans in first. Maybe you both do. But suddenly, he’s closer. And so are you. Your noses nearly brushing. Your lips one breath apart.
You stop breathing. His eyes flick to your mouth. Your gaze falls to his. His exhale fans against your cheek, hot and steady. Everything stills.
“I—I should go,” you say, the words cracking in the back of your throat as you jerk back a fraction too fast. “I should… yeah. I’ve got work early.”
It’s a lie. You know it. He knows it. But you can’t stay here. Not when everything inside you is straining toward him like gravity. Not when you’re wrapped in his cape, bathed in his warmth, and trembling with the almost of it all.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t reach for you. Just sits there. Still. Burning. Quiet. He nods once. Slow. Like it costs him something. But his eyes don’t leave yours.And the look on his face? He looks like he wants to follow you. Like if he could just reach out and touch you again, the world might break open. Like he’s waiting, begging, for some rule to shatter so he can finally cross the distance he’s been holding back from all this time.
But he doesn’t speak.
So you stand. Your legs are shaky beneath you, but you manage. You hold his cape tighter around your shoulders like it’s armor, or a secret. And you walk away. Not because you want to. But because you do want to kiss him and you don’t know what it means yet.
Not when he’s Superman.
And not when the other man who you’ve wanted for months, the man who gives you bashful smiles and spills his coffee at work, sits across from you every day like he doesn’t already own your heart.
And then he says it. Quiet. Fractured. “I’m him,” he whispers. “I’m Clark.”
You stop breathing. You stumble. Not like a graceful backpedal. Not a clean retreat. You falter, feet catching on the uneven edge of the rooftop, where rough concrete meets rusted metal, and you reel. Your hand shoots out, catching yourself on the freezing ledge. Stone bites into your palm, rough and sharp. You barely feel it.
You’re too busy drowning. Because no—no, he can’t be. He can’t.
You look at him. At Superman. But it’s not just Superman anymore, is it?
It’s Clark.
The curve of his mouth. The way his shoulders hunch like he’s afraid he’s just ruined everything. The blue of his eyes, familiar, even now. Especially now. You know that look. You’ve seen it across desks, over cheap coffee, in elevators and quiet newsroom corners where his hands would twitch like he almost reached for you and then didn’t.
And now it’s him.
All along, it’s been him.
It’s like all the air’s been sucked from your lungs and replaced with something heavier. Something that won’t let go.
The night tilts around you. The city below blurs. Headlights streak like comets across streets that no longer feel tethered to the world. A horn honks in the distance. A siren wails. Somewhere, down there, life goes on. Unchanged. Unknowing.
But not here. Not in this moment. Not with him standing in front of you.
“No,” you whisper. It’s barely a sound. Barely a breath. The word scrapes up your throat like broken glass. Your fingers clutch the ledge behind you as if it might keep you from flying off the edge of everything you thought was true.
He’s still standing there. Not just Superman. Not just Clark.
Both.
The duality of it fractures something in you. His suit is still darkened from the flight, the blue and red dulled beneath smears of ash, streaks of soot, faint scuffs of battle left behind. His hair’s mussed from wind, curling slightly at his temple, a little out of place. Too human. Too familiar.
His chest rises and falls in slow, deliberate rhythm. Controlled. Heavy. Measured like he’s trying to keep the world steady by breathing for it.
But his face…his face is just him.
Clark.
Open. Quiet. Devastated.
“No,” you repeat, louder now, shakier. “No, you…Clark can’t. He wouldn’t lie like that.”
He flinches. It’s small, barely a twitch of the mouth, a pull at his brow, but you catch it. “I didn’t lie,” he says softly, the words fragile and frayed at the edges. “I just… couldn’t tell you.” His voice sounds like gravel and heartbreak. You can feel it sink into your chest.
Your heart’s thundering. Slamming against your ribs like it wants to escape. Your hands are trembling where they hang by your sides, fingers curling against your thighs as if you could hold yourself together if you just gripped hard enough. The cape he gave you what feels like forever ago rests over your shoulders. Too much now. Too heavy. Too warm. Too intimate. It feels like wearing the secret. Like being draped in all the things you didn’t see, couldn’t name, wouldn’t believe.
You don’t take it off. You don’t know how.
“I told you everything,” you say, and it tears out of your chest, raw and wounded. “I told you how I felt about him…about you. I trusted you.”
He doesn’t look away. His jaw tightens. His shoulders lock in place. But he doesn’t look away.
“I know.”
“I told you things I don’t even tell my friends,” you go on, voice rising. “I told you things I don’t admit to myself. And you just…” You shake your head, disbelief washing over your skin like a fever. “You sat there. You listened. And you let me think…”
His voice cuts in, low and sharp. Pained. “That you didn’t matter to me?” His eyes are bright with it now, wild with something barely restrained. “That I didn’t want you? I never wanted you to think that.”
“But you let me,” you whisper. The words fall out like grief. You don’t scream them. You don’t have to. Because the pain is in the quiet. In the way your voice breaks open around the edges like glass fracturing under heat. “Every time I told you how much I wanted him,” you say, softer now. “Every time I said he didn’t see me.”
His voice splinters. “I saw you,” he says. “Gosh, I saw everything.”
And you believe him. That’s the worst part. You believe him.
You take one step forward. Only one. The wind brushes against your back, cool where the cape has fallen open. Your voice is a knife now. Precise. Controlled. Made of something sharp and trembling. “How could you sit there every night and-,”
He doesn’t let you finish. “I just wanted to be yours,” he says. “As him, as me, I didn’t care! As long as I could be here with you.”
The silence after that is scorching. It wraps around your ankles like fire. It climbs your spine like a scream caught in your throat. It burns through every inch of space between you and doesn’t stop.
You can’t speak. You can’t move.
His hands hang at his sides, fingers twitching. Like he wants to reach for you. Like he wants to close the space, undo the damage, gather the broken pieces into something whole again. But he doesn’t. He just watches you, chest rising and falling, lips parted like he might still say more if you don’t run.
And you? You can’t run. But you can’t stay, either. Your whole body feels splintered. Rattling under the weight of everything you thought was real and everything that’s now changed.
He was there for every word. Every late night. Every secret. Every quiet ache you handed him under the guise of friendship. You thought you were speaking to someone else. Someone you trusted. But you were speaking to him. The other version. All of him, in some confusing way.
The wind picks up just as you turn your back on him. It lashes up from the edge of the building like a living thing, tearing across the rooftop with a howl that cuts straight through your sleeves and raises goosebumps along your skin. It grabs at the hem of the cape still wrapped around your shoulders. It smells like him. Like warmth and home and sunlit wind. Like the person you trusted with every soft part of yourself.
Clark.
Superman.
You can’t look at him. You can’t even breathe around the twist in your chest.
The rooftop blurs around the edges, gold light from the Planet’s globe warping against the swell of tears behind your eyes. The city spins beneath you, thousands of feet and faces and voices, but all you can feel is the pounding of your pulse. In your throat. In your ears. In your fingertips.
You don’t know where you’re going, only that you need to get away. That if you stay a second longer, you’ll either fall apart in front of him or worse, let him hold the pieces.
“Don’t,” he says. It isn’t loud. Isn’t commanding. But it slices through the wind like it’s cutting straight through bone.
Your steps falter.
“Please,” he says again, softer now, frayed at the edges like paper soaked through. “Don’t walk away.” There’s something in his voice, hoarse and unraveling, that hits a nerve you didn’t know was exposed.
Then his fingers brush your wrist. Not tightly. Not enough to stop you. Just a touch. A question.
Your breath hitches.
You freeze.
“You don’t get to ask me that,” you whisper, without turning around. Your voice shakes in your throat like glass. “Not after…”
“I know,” he says quietly. “I know.”
You spin, fury catching like a spark in dry grass, the cape snapping around you with the force of it. It wraps around your legs like it knows it doesn’t belong to you anymore. Or maybe it never did.
“You lied.”
“I didn’t,” he says immediately, his voice rising, not in anger, but desperation. “I never lied.”
“You let me talk to you,” you say, stepping forward, teeth clenched. “You let me sit next to you and tell you everything I felt, everything I wanted, and you just sat there and watched me.”
“I couldn’t-,”
“You could have.” You cut him off as the words rip out of you, jagged and breathless. “You chose not to.”
His shoulders hitch with the effort of his breathing. His fists curl, uncurl. The muscles in his jaw flex like he’s grinding the truth down between his molars.
“You think I didn’t want to tell you?” he snaps suddenly, sharp and exposed. “You think it didn’t kill me every time I saw the look in your eyes? Every time you hoped for something and I couldn’t give it to you?”
Your heart stutters. But the ache won’t let you relent. “Then why?” you demand. “Why wait? Why let me think Clark was this sweet, shy guy who would never want me, when the whole time, it was you? When Superman looked at me like he wanted me. When, fuck Clark, when you have wanted me as long as I’ve wanted you.”
His mouth opens, then closes. His chest heaves once, like the truth hurts too much to force out. “Because I was scared,” he says finally, shouting. “Because if you saw all of me, you’d leave. I thought if I kept that part hidden, just a little longer… I could keep you.”
You stare at him. You burn in anger. He thought you’d leave? After he always, always stayed for you?
The rooftop hums beneath your feet. The heat of him radiates in waves, too close and too far away all at once.
“I told you everything,” you whisper, stepping in close now, voice unsteady. “I told you what he…what you meant to me. And you didn’t say a word. You never left. Why would I leave you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” He repeats, chest heaving. “I just know that I kept every word,” he says, voice cracking at the edges. “Every single one. Because they meant everything. Because you do.”
The silence that follows is so thick it aches in your ears. Your chest rises. Falls. Rises again. Somewhere below, the city keeps pulsing, car horns, distant sirens, a train echoing under concrete, but up here, it’s just the two of you. Just a rooftop and a mistake that doesn’t feel like a mistake anymore.
Your hands curl around the edge of the cape. You can feel his eyes on you, heavy, raw, reverent.
You whisper, almost against your will, “So every night I told you about him…”
“I was listening,” he says, voice ragged. “As both versions of me… who loves you.”
Your knees nearly buckle. He steps closer, slow like he’s worried you’ll vanish. The wind dies down again, or maybe it just stops touching you. Everything narrows. Your vision. Your world.
He’s the only thing in it now.
“You’re all I see,” he breathes. “Since the day you walked into the bullpen. You were arguing with Perry about a comma splice, and I remember thinking—God, she’s a spitfire. And then you looked at me. Not at Superman. Not through me. At me. Like I mattered.”
Tears crest at your waterline. You don’t stop them.
“I didn’t know how to handle that,” he goes on. “Because I’ve saved cities. I’ve faced gods and aliens. But nothing’s ever undone me like you.”
You step in. You don’t remember doing it. But suddenly you’re toe to toe. Close enough that his breath brushes your cheek. Close enough to see the freckles across his nose, the vulnerability in his eyes. The man inside the myth.
“You already had me,” you whisper. “You didn’t have to pretend to be two people to earn that.” He looks like he might break apart. “I still am yours,” you say.
And that’s all it takes. The air between you detonates. He surges forward and you meet him halfway, lips crashing together like two storms colliding. It’s not neat. It’s not careful. It’s need.
His hands are on your face instantly, cradling, reverent, thumbs sweeping your cheekbones. You fist the front of his suit like it’s the only thing tethering you to gravity. You gasp into his mouth and he drinks it down like it’s sacred.
His body crowds yours without overwhelming you. His thigh brushes yours, his arm snakes around your waist. The cape wraps around both of you like it remembers who it’s meant to protect.
“I thought you’d never,” you gasp between kisses.
“I couldn’t,” he pants, forehead pressed to yours. “Not until I knew you wanted…”
“I want you, Clark,” you say cutting him off, and it tears him in half. He groans, wrecked and low, and kisses you again. Deeper, hungrier. You feel it everywhere, like heat under your skin, like sparks running down your spine.
This isn’t just a kiss. This is a confession. This is every night you sat beside him, aching. Every touch you didn’t ask for. Every word you swallowed. This is the answer to the question you were too afraid to ask.
And he gives it to you with everything he is. He kisses you like you’re the only thing worth saving. Like no other world matters. And you kiss him like you finally believe it.
Because you do. Because he’s not just Superman. And not just Clark. He’s yours. And for the first time since this whole tangled, aching, breathless thing began, you let yourself want all of him.
The next kiss isn’t as gentle. It slams into you like a second confession, hot and unrestrained, a shattering thing made of teeth and tongue and all the silence you’ve held between you. It doesn’t ask. It claims. The kind of kiss you give when there’s no going back. When the dam finally bursts and all that longing surges out at once, tidal and wild and so, so overdue.
His hands are on your face before you can even blink, big and steady, palms spanning your cheeks, thumbs sweeping the corners of your mouth like he’s trying to memorize the curve. He tilts your chin up, reverent and aching, and then he kisses you deeper this time, like he needs to taste every breath you’ve ever used to say his name.
You gasp into him, and he doesn’t hesitate. He drinks it down like it’s sacred. Like he’s starving for it. For you. Like he’s been holding this want back so long it’s turned molten. There’s nothing shy in the way he kisses you now. No restraint. No hesitation. Only need, blistering and bright and alive in every touch of his mouth.
Your hands fist in the collar of his suit, desperate, clumsy, and aching. You drag him closer, grounding yourself in the heat of his body, the muscle beneath the impossible fabric. You can feel the taut stretch of his chest against yours, the flutter of his heartbeat too fast for a human man. You dig your nails into his shoulders just to feel something solid.
He groans when you do it, low and wrecked and surprised, like the sound’s been punched out of him. It jolts through you like lightning, crackling through every nerve ending. You catch his bottom lip between your teeth, just for a second. The breath he exhales is shattered.
The wind rises again, as if it feels the shift, tugging at the cape still tangled around your shoulders, snapping it wide like a sail as it lifts behind you. But it doesn’t feel heavy anymore. It doesn’t feel like a reminder of what you didn’t know. It feels like being chosen.
And then, he lifts you. Not roughly. Not even consciously. Just a subtle shift, his hands sliding to your thighs, hoisting you into his arms like you weigh nothing at all. His fingers find the bend behind your knees, curl around your body with effortless strength, and you wrap yourself around him without a second thought.
You cling to him like instinct. Like gravity no longer applies. One of his arms supports your weight as the other pulls you impossibly closer, and your chest collides with his, heart to heart, soul to soul. You feel everything now. The heat of him. The tremble in his breath. The tension in his body barely held in check.
And God, he’s warm. He radiates heat like a furnace, like the sun. It bleeds through the fabric, through your clothes, into your skin, curling deep in your belly. Your breath catches, shallow and unsteady, and he leans in to steal it again.
His lips move with yours, soft, then hard, then soft again, tipping into a rhythm that feels like home. His mouth finds your jaw. Then your neck. Then lower, open-mouthed and reverent. He trails heat down the column of your throat, and you shiver, clinging to his shoulders like your knees might give out if he wasn’t holding you already.
When his nose brushes under your ear, the sound he makes could level buildings. It’s wrecked. Unsteady. A groan dragged from somewhere deep, like kissing you is both a relief and a ruin.
“I love you,” he breathes against your skin, words shaped like worship. Like surrender. “In every name. In every form.”
The rooftop drops away beneath you in slow, gentle increments. A moment suspended between earth and stars. The skyline unfolds like a painting in motion, glittering and vast. You’re cradled against him, the wind swirling around your ankles, the city a blur of golden light and dizzying height, but all you see is him. His face. His eyes. The heartbreakingly earnest look carved into every line of him.
You rest your forehead against his. Close your eyes. Feel the press of his breath against your lips. He groans again this time quieter. Broken in a different way.
“I never wanted to keep it from you,” he says, and each word is a bruise, tender and aching. “I just… I didn’t want you to fall in love with the symbol instead of the man.”
You pull back just enough to look at him. The man you knew before you knew. The man who carried your coffee and read your work and smiled too long when you complimented his tie. The man who gave you his cape. Who listened to your secrets. Who never stopped showing up.
He’s both. He’s always been both. And you love him. All of him. So you smile, soft and aching and sure.
“Too late,” you whisper, fingers sliding into his hair. “I fell for both.”
His breath hitches. Then his mouth is back on yours, harder this time, wrecked and desperate and so alive. It’s not polished. It’s not controlled. It’s wild and tangled and almost clumsy, because neither of you can stop now. Because this is the moment everything changes.
He kisses you like a man finally let off the leash. Like he’s been holding back for months. Like kissing you is both a promise and an apology, a confession and a vow. And you kiss him back like you’ll never let him forget what it means to be wanted like this. Fully. Completely. Every impossible part of him.
Because you do. You want every name. Every version. Every inch. Every impossible heartbeat.
And finally you know he’s yours.
-
The wind wraps around you like a secret. It rushes past your ears, a low, thrumming hush, and you can barely hear anything beyond the pounding of your heart. He’s carrying you, arms locked beneath your thighs, your body cradled to his chest like something precious, fragile, and known. His warmth surrounds you, shields you from the cool bite of the atmosphere, and even though you’re climbing through the clouds, you’ve never felt safer.
You don’t look down. You look at him. At the way his jaw tightens with focus. The furrow of his brow. The set of his mouth, determined and tense, like he’s still holding his breath even now, even after everything.
And then you’re descending. The city lights blur past, amber and blue and gold. A flash of neon. A billboard. A train. A million lives moving just beneath your feet.
Then it’s quiet again. His boots touch down with barely a sound, just the faintest thud of contact, the shift of air as he slows, and suddenly you’re home. Not yours.
His.
You don’t notice it at first. You’re still clinging to him, your face tucked into the crook of his neck. But then he steps forward, gently sets you down, and your feet meet solid ground. And you realize you're in his apartment.
The windows are open, letting in the scent of spring, cool earth, rain-soaked pavement, the metallic tinge of the skyline at night. The curtains ripple softly. There’s a shelf to your left, lined with worn books and framed photos. A navy-blue couch. A single coffee mug left on the desk beside folded glasses.
This is Clark. This is where he lives. Where he wakes. Where he dreams. You’re standing in the middle of it, barefoot and stunned, wrapped in the cape of a man who isn’t supposed to exist this way, tangible, warm, and so painfully real.
And then he turns and pushes you back against the glass. You gasp, startled, breath stolen, as your spine meets the windowpane. It’s cool, shocking against your overheated skin, and your hands scramble for something to hold. But he’s already there, already pressing in. One arm braces against the glass beside your head. The other finds your waist. His body is heat and muscle and reverence, crowding you in until all you can feel is him.
His mouth is on yours before you can speak and it’s not like before. It’s deeper now. Hotter. Less desperation, more claiming. His lips part over yours with fevered intent, his tongue sweeping into your mouth like he wants to taste every breath you’ve taken without him. Your fingers find the collar of his suit and pull, and he groans into you, low and helpless, like the sound’s been trapped in his chest for too long.
Your hands shake as you work the suit off his shoulders. The fabric is cool and slick, too perfect for this world. It gives way beneath your fingers, sliding down to reveal the impossible lines of his body, smooth skin, golden and flushed. He shudders when your palms find his chest, and he kisses you harder, faster, like he needs this. Needs you.
Your shirt joins his suit on the floor. Then your pants. Your bra. His boots thud somewhere behind him as he kicks them free, then the last of his suit slips down, crumpling in a heap like the man inside it finally let go of the performance.
And now you’re both bare.
You stand there for a moment, staring. His chest rises and falls in tight, uneven pulls. His skin glows in the warm lamplight, all soft curves over hard muscle. His shoulders are broad, his thighs thick, his arms trembling slightly like he’s fighting himself from reaching for you too soon.
And his hair. Still mostly slicked back from the flight, but now…now it’s human. Disheveled. One single curl has fallen out of place, slipping down over his brow, and your throat closes around the sight.
He’s beautiful. Not because he’s Superman.
But because he’s Clark. Because he’s standing in front of you with reverence in his eyes and nothing left to hide.
He moves first. His hands find your waist, firm and warm and grounding. Then your back. Then your thighs, hoisting you into his arms again like it’s instinct. Your legs wrap around his hips. Your arms drape over his shoulders. He pins you to the glass again, skin to skin now, mouth trailing from your lips to your throat.
Your breath stutters when he presses closer, hips slotted between your thighs, his skin hot and flush with yours. You can feel the tremble in him now, subtle, buried under muscle and strength, but there. Not from fear.
From restraint.
His mouth drags along your neck, slow and open and reverent. “I thought I could be patient,” he murmurs, voice frayed. “But I don’t want to wait anymore.”
The confession sends a shiver racing down your spine. Your fingers thread into his hair, tugging lightly, and that one loose curl falls again, curling over your knuckles as you tilt his face toward yours.
“Then don’t,” you whisper.
That’s all it takes. He shifts, effortless and practiced, and suddenly you’re weightless again, your back sliding higher up the window, glass cool and unyielding behind your shoulder blades. You cling to him instinctively, thighs tightening around his hips, heart thrashing against your ribs like it’s trying to reach him before you do.
He exhales like a man drowning finally given air. “You feel like gravity,” he breathes. “You’re the only thing that’s ever kept me still.”
“Then fall,” you say as you bite your lip.
His eyes darken into something that reflects heat and ache and something dangerous, and he kisses you again, deeper now, tongue sweeping into your mouth like he’s starved for it. For you.
When he pulls back, just far enough to look at you, his gaze is wrecked. “Tell me you want this,” he says.
“God, I do,” you pant. “I always have.”
And it’s true. You don’t want the distance anymore. You don’t want the waiting, the almosts, the ache of not knowing. You want him like this. Right here. Right now. Skin to skin. Name to name. All of him.
So when he presses his forehead to yours and murmurs, “Then I’m yours,” the words brand themselves across your skin. And you believe him because he says it like a vow. Like something he’s waited his whole life to give.
He kisses you like the world is still ending. Like if he stops, it’ll splinter apart. Like nothing outside this window matters. Not the blinking cursor on your half-finished article, not the skyline pulsing with sirens and starlight, not even the cape still pooled at your feet like a red ripple of everything you thought you knew. Just his mouth. Just your body. Just the soft, unraveling sounds you keep making into the heat of his lips.
You’re breathless already. Drunk on him. And then he adjusts you. Not in a rush. Not rough or frantic. Just slow. Steady. Like a ceremony. Like he’s afraid to jostle something sacred.
His hands are under your thighs, spreading warmth that seeps into your bones, fingertips curled just enough to make your breath stutter. Your arms lock around his neck tighter and without hesitation, fingers tangled in his hair, cheek pressed to the side of his head, heart thudding wild and open against his.
He rises off the floor like he doesn’t even notice gravity anymore. You don’t, either. You’re floating, suspended in the hold of a man who could catch planes midair and stop bullets with his chest but chooses to hold you like you’re the most delicate thing in the world. His chest is a furnace, pressed tight against yours, every heartbeat pounding in slow, powerful rhythm beneath his skin. You can feel it. You can feel him. All of him.
The apartment blurs around the edges as the wind stirs gently, coiling around your ankles, brushing through your hair, pushing open the bedroom door like it, too, has been waiting for this. And then he lands. Soft. Like a promise.
His knees touch the edge of the mattress first. Then he lays you down, slow, reverent, arms still wrapped around you like he doesn’t want to let go yet. Like he needs the grounding of your body beneath his, your breath fluttering across his collarbone, the softness of your thighs caging his hips.
The sheets are cool against your back. His body is fire against your front and everything in you aches.
You feel undone just from being looked at like this.
The weight of his gaze as he hovers above you is unbearable and electric and necessary all at once, like sunlight held in place, golden and scorching and all-consuming. His eyes roam over your face, your chest, your parted lips, drinking you in with the slow hunger of a man who’s been starving for years.
His palms glide over your ribs, your hips, your thighs, long, unhurried strokes that leave sparks in their wake. Every touch is mapped with intention. Every inch of skin he brushes feels claimed. Worshiped. Like he’s been waiting his whole life to lay his hands on you and can’t quite believe he’s finally allowed.
And then his mouth. It moves like it knows exactly where to go. He starts at your collarbone, soft and lingering, then down the center of your chest in a line of kisses that feel like punctuation marks to every word he can’t say fast enough.
“Gosh,” he whispers, voice shaking, breath hot against your sternum, “you’re so beautiful.”
You shiver as your hands find his hair, thicker than it looks, soft at the roots but mussed now, wild from your fingers. One curl falls forward again, brushing your temple, and your heart aches with how human he looks like this.
“You don’t have to say that,” you murmur, but even you don’t believe it.
“I do,” he says, instantly. Fervently. His thumb drags across your cheekbone, reverent. “I need you to know what you are. What you’ve always been.” His voice is low. Wrecked. Like it’s crawling up from somewhere deep and fragile.
“I’ve watched you walk into the newsroom a hundred times,” he says, “with your chin up and your hands full and that look on your face like you’re two seconds from telling someone off, but your eyes…” He lowers his head. “You smiled at me once,” he says, mouth brushing your jaw. “That first week. You don’t remember it. But I do. I’ve never stopped.”
You arch into him, neck exposed, breath trembling. His lips drag lower.
“I memorized you,” he says, kissing down your throat. “In daylight. In shadows. In every storm and silence. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to touch you like this.”
Your nails scrape down his back, over bare shoulder blades and taut muscle and the smooth dip of his spine. He gasps into your skin, voice stuttering like a skipped heartbeat.
“I used to come home and wonder how I’d survive another day pretending I didn’t want you.” He mouths at your shoulder, then lingers at the hollow between your collarbones.
“I used to dream about this,” he murmurs, each word hotter than the last, “but it never came close. You’re more than I ever let myself imagine.”
His hands slide lower, palms dragging along the underside of your thighs, up to your hips, splaying wide at your waist like he’s trying to memorize your shape by feel. You’re so aware of every inch of skin he touches, the press of his chest to yours, the strength in his arms braced on either side of your head.
And his voice breaks again, soft and desperate. “You don’t know what you do to me,” he says, breath falling into your mouth like a confession. “You undo me.”
And you do. You see it in every tremble. Every kiss. Every sound he makes. This isn’t just sex. It isn’t just release.
It’s ruin. And he wants it. He wants you.
All of you.
You don’t know how long you stay like that, spread out beneath him, bathed in the low golden hush of the bedside lamp, your fingers tangled in his hair and your breath rising in time with his.
He looks at you like he’s praying. Like he’s still not sure you’re real. Like every kiss is a test to see if you’ll disappear.
“Clark,” you whisper, brushing your fingers down the flushed slope of his cheek, across the trembling line of his jaw. His skin is fever-warm beneath your touch, soft in places, rough with stubble in others. Tangible. Human. Yours. “You’re allowed to want this.”
“I do,” he says, barely a breath. His lashes flutter, dark and damp, clinging together from sweat or tears or both. “I’ve wanted you for so long I don’t remember what it’s like not to.”
You wrap your legs around his waist, hips tilting up, subtle and slow, just enough for him to feel how wet you still are. His eyes flutter closed at the contact, a stuttered gasp catching in his throat. His arms shake slightly, trying to brace. Trying not to lose control.
“I used to touch myself,” you breathe, lips ghosting over his ear, “after you’d leave.”
His breath catches, sharp and wrecked.
Your teeth graze his earlobe. “After you flew off. After you walked me to my car, all shy and soft-spoken like you didn’t know exactly what you were doing to me.”
He makes a sound you’ve never heard before, half groan, half whimper, like the words are unraveling something deep in his chest. His hand tightens on your hip, and he lowers his head, pressing hot kisses down your collarbone to your breast.
“I imagined your hands,” you murmur, dragging your nails up the back of his neck, “your mouth. I thought about your voice while I came. Thought about how you’d sound if I let you hear me.”
“God,” he moans, mouth vibrating against your skin. His hand slips between your legs, slow and reverent, dragging through your slick. When two fingers push into you, you arch instantly, moaning loud enough to make the windows tremble.
“You’re soaked,” he says, voice thick with awe. “You’re so…baby, you’re perfect.”
“All for you,” you pant. “Only you.”
That breaks something in him. He kisses his way down your stomach, dragging his mouth over every inch of skin he can reach. His palms splay across your hips, holding you still, and then he’s burying himself between your thighs, tongue warm and slow, lapping through your folds with careful, aching need.
You cry out, high and shaking, fingers gripping his hair as your hips buck helplessly against his mouth. He groans in response, the sound vibrating against your clit, making your thighs tremble around his ears.
“You taste so good,” he breathes. “You sound so good.” He adds a third finger and you sob, eyes rolling back, body twisting. You grind against his mouth shamelessly, chasing the pressure, the heat, the rhythm. He’s moaning like it’s his own orgasm building, like your pleasure is unraveling him from the inside out.
“Clark, fuck. Baby, please.”
“Cum for me,” he murmurs. “Please. I need to feel you break.”
You splinter like glass in sunlight, clenching around his fingers, gasping his name again and again. He holds you through it, lips soft against your inner thigh, murmuring praise so low and full of want it sounds like worship.
When he finally climbs back up your body, you’re shaking, boneless, breathless, slick and ruined. You reach for him. Your hand wraps around his cock, hard and flushed and leaking against his stomach. He jolts at the touch, body going rigid above you.
“Wait. please.”
You stop. Look up. His cheeks are red. His lashes low. His hips twitch in your grip.
“I just,” he bites his lip. “I want you on top.” You blink. His hands slide to your waist, gentle. “I want to feel all of you,” he says softly. “I want to watch your face. I want,” his voice cracks “I want to be good for you.”
Something hot and tender curls in your stomach. You shift. Press a kiss to his jaw. Then his throat. And then, carefully, slowly, you roll him onto his back. He lets you. He exhales like it’s a blessing.
You straddle his hips, watching the way his chest rises, watching the way he looks at you like you’re everything he’s ever wanted. You reach down, guide him to your entrance. The head of his cock slides through your folds, wet and hot and aching.
“Is this what you dreamed about?” you whisper.
“Yes,” he breathes. “Yes, please.”
You sink down slowly. He groans, head thrown back, throat taut, hands flying to your hips like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.
You take him inch by inch, stretching around him, moaning at the fullness, at the way his eyes flutter and his chest arches and his lips part around a helpless sound.
“Oh, you feel,” he gasps. “You feel like…like home.”
You bottom out, sitting fully in his lap, your thighs bracketing his hips, his hands reverent on your skin. You haven’t even moved yet and already he looks wrecked. Because you’re everything he’s ever wanted, finally his, and there’s nothing left to hide.
You don’t move at first. You just sit there, straddling him, full, breathless, and trembling. Your thighs quiver where they press to his sides, your hands spread wide over the endless warmth of his chest. His heart pounds beneath your palms, thrumming like thunder, like a war drum in the silence between you. Too fast. Too strong. Too much for any man.
But not for him.
You know this heart. You’ve felt it before, soft against your shoulder during late-night walks, pulsing warm through the rooftop air when he stood too close. You’ve felt it through every brush of his hand, every quiet smile, every almost.
Now it’s yours.
And it’s racing.
Your lashes flutter as you look down at him—his eyes wide and glassy, flushed all the way to his ears, mouth parted like he’s still trying to breathe through the heat of being inside you.
You shift just slightly. Tighten around him. His body jolts, hips twitching up in pure reflex, a broken sound bursting from his lips like it was torn from his chest. His hands fly to your hips, fingers splaying wide, grounding himself in the feel of you.
“Baby,” he gasps, voice thick with awe, “please.”
You lean forward, chest brushing his, nose skimming along his cheek. “I could stay like this,” you whisper, lips grazing the corner of his mouth. “Just like this. Forever.”
He whimpers. A real, helpless, soft sound. It hits you low, makes your core throb where you hold him, pulsing around him like your body’s already begging for more. Your hands rise to cradle his jaw, and you kiss him slow. Deep. Languid. Your tongues slide together, hungry and slick, and you feel him tremble under you. His fingers grip tighter, possessive and sweet, reverent like he’s not sure he’s allowed to hold you like this, even now.
You start to move. Your hips roll slow, dragging over him with obscene friction, and his breath catches in a low, strangled moan. He’s thick inside you, stretching you open perfectly, his cock dragging along every nerve ending like it knows where you’re weakest. The base of him rubs right against your clit with every grind, his pubic bone nudging it just enough to make you shudder.
“Oh my god,” you whisper into his mouth, eyes fluttering closed.
His grip on you stutters. “You’re so warm,” he breathes, voice fraying at the edges. “So tight, so perfect.”
“You are,” you murmur, hips circling. “You feel so good, Clark. I’ve never…fuck, I’ve never felt anything like this.”
A groan cracks out of him, full-bodied and deep, like the sound was buried under years of restraint. He tilts his head back, jaw clenched, eyes glazed with disbelief.
“I can feel every inch of you,” you whisper, dragging your nails lightly down his chest. “You’re so deep… it’s like you’re under my skin.”
He cries out when you clench around him, and it’s not even intentional, it’s just how your body reacts to him. To his size. To the way he fills you completely, every stroke rubbing right up against the spot that makes your toes curl and your thighs tremble. His hands flex and slide up your back, down to your hips again, dragging you harder against him. The pressure builds with each deep grind, slow, dragging, and thick.
“You ride me so good,” he pants, wrecked. “Like you were made to do it. Like…like you knew.”
“I did,” you moan, nails sinking into his shoulders. “I knew. Every time you touched me. Every time you looked at me like I was something precious. I knew I could be so good for you if you’d just let me.”
He looks like he could cry. You keep rolling your hips, slow and deep and aching, chasing your high with the kind of devotion that feels holy. The friction against your clit is relentless now, dragging against the ridge of his body with every glide, heat blooming fast behind your ribs, down your spine, between your legs.
Your rhythm falters. You bite your lip and cry out his name.
His eyes fly open. “I’m here. I’m here, sweetheart. Let me feel it please.”
You break. Your whole body locks, back arching, nails clawing down his chest as your orgasm crashes through you. Your pussy clenches around him, soaking, pulsing, dragging another wrecked moan from his throat.
He grabs your hips, tight, trembling, and thrusts up into you. Hard. Again. And again.
He can’t stop. Won’t. Your thighs are still shaking, your body still fluttering around him, and he’s fucking up into you with open desperation now, hips snapping, cock pounding into you with each gasp of your name.
He’s not even trying to hold back. He’s completely undone. His head tips back, his neck straining, jaw slack.
“You feel so good,” he groans. “You’re perfect. You're everything. I can’t, oh gosh, I can’t.”
You lean down again, your chest pressed to his, lips at his ear. “Cum inside me,” you whisper, voice soaked in heat and need. “Fill me up, Clark. I want to feel you. Want all of it. Please.”
He shatters. His thrusts lose rhythm, stuttering, gasping, almost violent with how hard he jerks beneath you. He moans your name as he spills inside you, deep and hot, cock pulsing again and again as his arms crush you to his chest.
You cling to him, shaking, slick and overstimulated, every inch of you pulsing, his body buried inside you like it’s where he belongs.
His mouth finds your shoulder, your neck, your cheek, kissing, panting, whispering your name over and over like it’s a promise. And in that breathless silence after, nothing else matters. Because you’re still joined. Still trembling. Still his. And he’s yours. In every name. In every form.
You don’t move for a long, long time.
You just stay there, straddling him, body flushed and heavy, every inch of you slick with heat and sweat and the kind of intimacy that makes your chest ache. Your cheek rests against his chest, and beneath your ear, his heart is still racing, loud and erratic, faster than it should be, but steadying with every breath he takes.
The sheets are tangled beneath you. Warmth radiates off his skin. Your thighs still tremble from the way he touched you, how deeply he filled you, and his hands haven’t stopped moving. One spreads over the small of your back, thumb drawing slow, grounding circles. The other is cradled between your shoulder blades, fingers splayed wide, holding you like a precious, delicate thing he’s still scared to break.
His cock is still inside you. Not fully hard now, but not soft either, just there, nestled deep in the heat of your body, like he’s reluctant to let go. Like you both are. You’re sensitive. Wet. Tender and raw and sore in the best way. The way that says he’ll still be inside you long after you’ve pulled apart.
And God, you don’t want to move. Not yet. You hum softly against his chest, the sound barely audible over the soft rise and fall of his breathing. The golden light from the bedside lamp casts long shadows across the room, painting you both in honeyed warmth. The air smells like sweat and sex and skin. Familiar. Safe.
He shifts beneath you, just enough to press a kiss into your hairline. His lips linger. Stay.
“My girl,” he murmurs.
You smile sleepily, feeling more content than you have in years.
“I am yours,” you say softly, trailing your fingers over the broad line of his ribs, feeling the rise of each one beneath your palm. You press your hand flat over his heart and feel it jump beneath your touch. “You know that, right?”
“I know,” he says, his voice a whisper against your temple. “I think I’ve always known.”
You tip your chin slightly, kiss the underside of his jaw. “You’ve never said that before. My girl.”
He stills for a moment, then smiles, shy and crooked. “Felt right,” he admits. “Hearing you call me Clark while you were wrapped around me like that… I just,” he breaks off, breath catching. “You’re the only person outside my parents in this world who’s ever made me feel like I belong somewhere.”
Your heart clenches. You lift your head, look down at him. His face is flushed, hair mussed and curling, lips still kiss-swollen. The curl of his smile is dazed and boyish, eyes glassy with the remnants of pleasure. And beneath all that is hope. Fragile and shining.
“Clark Kent,” you murmur, brushing your nose against his. “You’re still inside me. You don’t have to sweet-talk me right now.”
He laughs, quiet and startled and disbelieving. “Can’t help it,” he says, wrapping his arms tighter around you, one hand sliding up to cradle the back of your head. “You’re here. You’re with me. I keep thinking I’m gonna wake up.”
“You won’t,” you promise. “I’m real. This is real.”
He swallows thickly. Nods. “I’m still not over it,” he says quietly.
“Over what?”
He hesitates. The hand on your spine pauses. “You’d come to me on the rooftop,” he says, his voice soft, “after everything. And you’d talk to me. About your day. About your coworkers. About how Jimmy kept stealing your snacks and Lois left you on read.”
You smile. “She always leaves me on read.”
“And I’d just sit there,” he continues, “listening to you, watching you, and all I could think was how jealous I was.”
You blink. Lift your head again. “Jealous?”
“Of me,” he says, sheepish. “Of Clark. I wanted to be the one you gave that smile to. The one you leaned against. The one who got to touch you without gloves.”
You stare at him Then burst out laughing.
He groans and hides his face in your neck. “Don’t laugh at me.”
“You were jealous of yourself?”
“I didn’t say it made sense,” he mutters, voice muffled against your skin.
“Oh my God,” you giggle, propping yourself up on your elbows so you can see his face. “Clark, that is-,”
“Don’t say it.”
“The most romantic and stupid thing I’ve ever heard.”
His cheeks are flushed. “I just…I wanted your attention like that. All of it. I wanted your mornings. Your evenings. Your jokes. Your voice. I wanted to be the one who made you laugh in the elevator and flushed when you got too close and…Golly, I wanted this.”
You study him. Let the smile fade into something softer, warmer. “You already had me,” you whisper. “I was already yours.”
His breath catches like it hurts.
You kiss him slow. Then start pressing long, melting kisses that leave him trembling beneath you. You press soft kisses to the corner of his mouth, then down his jaw, to the hollow beneath his ear, to the curve of his throat.
His breath stutters. His hands tighten on your waist. “What’re you doing?” he asks, voice rough.
“Leaving marks.” You suck gently at the side of his neck, slow and steady. His hips twitch beneath you and his cock stirs slightly inside you, still too soft for more, but warm and twitching with every brush of your mouth. “Since you were so jealous of yourself,” you murmur, “I figured I’d give you something else to be jealous of.”
He groans, low and wrecked. “You’re making fun of me.”
“No,” you whisper, kissing lower, “just making sure everyone knows who you belong to. Including you.”
You suck another mark onto the curve of his shoulder, deep and dark and possessive, and feel his breath hitch beneath you. His whole body is pliant now, muscles loose and ruined, chest rising in slow, shaky breaths.
His cock gives one last twitch inside you.
“You good down there?” you tease. “Or are you going to be jealous of your cock too?”
“Hush,” he groans into your shoulder, face bright red at your words.
“Or maybe the blanket because it’s on me, too?” You glance down. The cotton is bunched low around his hips, sticking to your thighs, damp and tangled.
“Sweetheart,” he warns. “You’re real cute when you try to give me guff.”
You laugh, quiet and smug, and settle against his chest again, your arms around his ribs, your head tucked beneath his chin. He holds you like he’ll never let go. And maybe he won’t. Because after a long pause, he exhales slow, and presses one last kiss to your temple.
“My girl,” he whispers. The words ripple through you like heat.
You press another kiss to the pulse at his throat and whisper what you’ve known for a long, long time.
“Yours.”
-
The breakroom smells like burnt toast and freshly ground coffee, too much char, not enough cream. The overhead fluorescents buzz faintly, cold and unforgiving, a little too bright for how wrecked you feel inside. There’s a smear of something sticky on the counter no one’s bothered to wipe up, and a half-eaten blueberry muffin sits abandoned near the sink.
You lean against the cabinets in your yesterday blouse, buttoned all the way up this time, tucked neatly into the waistband of your skirt, trying to fake normal with every careful inch of fabric. But your legs still ache faintly from being wrapped around him. Your throat’s a little sore from moaning his name. And your skin hums like it hasn’t fully come down from last night’s altitude.
Clark stands at the counter, frowning at the coffee machine like he’s trying to will it into compliance. His sleeves are rolled up, revealing strong forearms with the faintest bruising at the knuckles. His tie is crooked. His hair is damp from his morning shower, curling faintly at the nape of his neck, with one stubborn curl already starting to fall over his brow.
He’s still flushed. Still bashful. Still trying so hard not to look at you. And yet, he does. A lot.
You cross your arms loosely over your chest and watch him, your shoulder brushing the doorframe as you tilt your head.
“You’re really going to pretend everything’s normal?” you ask, lips tugging into the barest hint of a smile.
“I made coffee,” he says, quiet but hopeful, lifting the carafe like it’s some kind of peace offering. “I figured that’s… normal.”
“Clark.” You arch a brow and step forward, slow and teasing, until the hem of your skirt brushes his shin.
He stills. The air between you tightens. Sharpens. He turns to face you fully, mug still in one hand.
And there he is.
All of him.
Clark Kent. Superman. The man who pressed his mouth to your neck like it might save him. The man who made you come with his fingers buried deep, who whispered your name into your skin like he could make a home of it.
And somehow, impossibly, he still looks like the sweet, clumsy guy who brings extra muffins to the bullpen and blushes when you call him “Kent.”
You reach for the mug he’s holding, fingers brushing his. His hand is warm as always, but rougher than usual. You catch sight of the scrapes on his knuckles, red and fresh, a little dried blood along the cuticle. A mission. A fire. A fall. You’ll ask later. But for now, you just let your fingers linger a moment longer than necessary before taking the mug from his hand.
He watches you sip like he’s worried it’s too hot. Like the coffee might hurt you and he’ll never forgive himself if it does.
You lower the cup with a slow exhale. The taste is terrible, over-brewed, too bitter, but it makes your chest ache, anyway.
“How’d I miss it?” you murmur.
His brow furrows. “Miss what?”
You nudge him with your hip. Playful. Testing. “That you were Superman.”
He gives you a small, sheepish smile, the corners of his mouth twitching upward. “Guess I’m just a really good reporter.”
You shake your head and set the mug down beside the sink. “No,” you say, voice quiet but sure. “You’re a really good liar.”
Something flickers across his face. Guilt, regret, something heavier than either. His shoulders slope slightly. He looks down.
“I never wanted to lie,” he says softly. “I only ever wanted to keep you safe.”
Your heart catches. You step closer again, your hand rising to smooth his crooked tie. Your fingers brush the front of his shirt, warm from the heat of his chest beneath. He smells like soap and cedar and ozone.
“Clark,” you say gently, fingers settling at his collar. “I know.”
He finally looks at you, eyes wide and blue and full of something that hurts to hold.
You rise up on your toes and kiss his cheek, just beneath his eye, where the skin is soft and warm and still slightly flushed. The kiss lingers longer than it needs to. When you pull back, his eyes flutter closed for half a second like he’s anchoring the moment.
“You’re lucky I love you,” you whisper.
His throat works on a swallow. The flush deepens, rising high into his ears. He smiles small and wrecked and completely undone.
“I really am,” he says. Then, quieter still, he adds, “I’m so in love with you, it scares me.” The words hit somewhere deep. Behind your ribs. Beneath your skin.
You pick the coffee back up, sip again just to steady yourself, and glance at him over the rim. “Good,” you say, voice light. “Now you know how I felt all this time.”
He huffs a laugh, almost disbelieving. His hand finds your hip. Light. Tentative. Like he’s not sure he’s allowed to touch you in this setting but can’t help needing to.
You lean into it. Into him. He presses a kiss to your hairline. His thumb strokes lazy circles at your waist.
There’s a sound outside the breakroom, someone laughing, printers firing up, but none of it touches you. Not here. Not in this quiet corner of morning. Not with his lips brushing yours, slow and reverent, like he’s thanking you for something he doesn’t have words for yet. The coffee. The newsroom. The bruise on his knuckle and the blush in his cheeks.
This is Clark. Yours. And for the first time since all of this began, he’s letting himself be.
pairing: clark kent (superman 2025) x journalist!reader
summary: he’s soft. earnest. 6’4 of midwestern guilt and golden retriever loyalty. and he looks at you like you invented the sun. you’re fine. everything’s fine. it’s just friends-with-benefits. you're not a thing. but clark? clark has always been there. warm, steady, maddeningly soft. indulging your commitment-phobic nonsense with quiet patience and those unfairly good dimples. until suddenly—he’s not. listen to the playlist here!
word count: 11.2k (jesus christ, i am so sorry)
content warnings: 18+ mdni, fem!reader, piv sex, they freak NASTY in this one, dom/sub undertones, soft dom!clark, sub!reader, brat/brat taming, oral (fem!receiving), marathon sex, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, shower sex, eye contact, mentions of bdsm and handcuffs, light marking kink, nipple play, protected sex (wrap it before you tap it!), then unprotected sex, rough sex, riding, mentions of sex toys, clark picks the reader up, mentions of reader's hair, commitment issues, situationship survivor!clark, ungodly amounts of yearning and denial, angst, happy ending
It doesn’t start with sex.
It starts with Clark.
Which is to say: it starts with Metropolis’s biggest, most overgrown corn-fed boy scout, who gets flustered every time you swear, who says things like “gosh” and “what the hay” without a trace of irony, and who you once watched spend ten full minutes trying to politely decline a street hotdog but the vendor just “looked so hopeful.”
You met him on your third and a half day at the Daily Planet.
He spilled coffee on you. A full cup. Right down the front of your blazer. Frothy iced caramel latte catastrophe. He panicked immediately—rushed through an apology so fast you barely caught the words—then offered, in complete earnestness, to dry-clean your coat. Not send it to the dry cleaner. Do it himself. Like it was the gentlemanly thing to do. You just stared at him, dripping, blinking. “Are you okay?” you asked, because someone had to.
He nodded—too fast—then proceeded to trip over the recycling bin just trying to get you napkins.
You’ve been friends ever since.
It’s not the cleanest origin story.
But over time, somehow, Clark became your person.
Not in the “call-at-3-a.m.-while-sobbing” kind of way (that’s Jimmy), or the “bring-wine-and-insult-your-evil-ex” kind of way (also Jimmy).
But in a steadier, quieter way. You write your little articles; he helps edit them. You fight with your sources on the sidewalk; he bakes them apology muffins the day after to make sure they don't contact Perry. You cover Metropolis politics like it’s trench warfare, and he smiles across the bullpen at you like you’re doing God’s work even when you're calling the mayor a “power-drunk thumb in a trench coat and a receding hairline you can see from space.”
He’s your constant. Steady and reliable and always five degrees too soft for this world.
Which is exactly why it doesn’t make sense.
Why, one night, it all… shifts.
.
You’re soaked.
Not in the steamy, sexy way. Not even in the Charli-XCX-Spring-Breakers kind of soaked.
Just: wet. Unpleasantly. In that half-drenched, trench-foot, what-is-my-life kind of way.
The weather app lied again (seriously, Metropolis Weather has one job), and your jacket is now suctioned to your body like a bad ex. Your boots have crossed the line from “water-resistant” to a really bad “Swamp Thing cosplay,” and your tote—home to your press pass and a sad little Tupperware of soggy couscous—is dripping like it’s auditioning for a plumbing ad.
So when Clark offers his place—soft-voiced, ever-accommodating, all that big dumb golden retriever energy—you say yes.
Not because you’re weak. Please.
Because he lives closer.
Logistically. Geographically.
(Okay, maybe emotionally, too, but you’ll unpack that when your socks aren’t squelching like a really bad porno.)
So now you’re in his apartment. Standing in the entryway. Leaving a trail of water on his hardwood floors while he gently, gently hands you a towel and fiddles with the thermostat and says things like, “You’re going to catch a cold if you don’t change out of those clothes.”
And you, being the self-possessed adult that you are, snort and say, “Thank you, Mom.”
Clark blushes.
Actually blushes. Like a cartoon character. Like a man who has never, in his life, imagined someone undressing in his home, which is hilarious, given that you’ve seen the size of his arms.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just meant… yeah. You’re soaked.”
His place smells like cinnamon and laundry detergent. There’s a candle burning on the kitchen counter—one of those $9.99 specials from Bath & Body Works. You imagine him in the store, earnestly reading the label on something called "Warm Vanilla Sugar" while the cashier tries to upsell him on a five-for-fifteen deal.
The image makes your lips curl. Your mascara's halfway down your cheekbones, your calves are cramping from the walk, and you should really, really, really just go take a hot shower and crash on his couch.
Instead, you look at him.
And he’s looking back.
Not like most men do—not the bar-stool inventory of what you are and aren’t. Not a scan. Not a question. More like a memory. Like he’s already filed you away in some quietly treasured part of his brain and he’s just taking the time to make sure the details are right. Like you are known.
You don’t think. You don’t make a plan. You just move.
Step forward. Grab the lapels of his flannel like it owes you money. Pull him down. Kiss him.
It’s not graceful. Not choreographed. You catch his chin at a weird angle, and your nose bumps into his, and the kiss lands too sharp, too fast. Like you’re trying to stun him. Like you’re trying to win a fight.
But then, he exhales.
And he melts. Not urgently. Not hungrily. Just… fully.
Like this is the thing he’s been waiting on for months, and now that it’s finally happening, he’s scared to spook it. His hands hover for a beat, like he’s making sure it’s real, and then one comes to rest lightly on your waist—tentative, patient. The other curls around your jaw with all the softness of a man who has no business being this gentle.
You break the kiss first, of course.
Because you always break things first.
When you look at him, he's staring at you like you invented language. Like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so they hover awkwardly at your sides, respectful, warm, and shaking just a little.
Which is when the panic crashes in.
He’s not supposed to look at you like that. Like you hung the stars. Like he knows you. Like he loves you.
Because if he does. If he really, truly does. Then eventually, he’ll stop.
They always stop.
People love you in the beginning. They love your bite, your snark, the way you know which part of a politician's background are most incriminating. They love the thrill of earning your attention. They love that you make them work for it. But eventually, the charm fades. The sharp edges cut a little too deep.
You forget to text back. You overshare. You undershare. You get tired. You get real.
And they get bored.
You’ve never wanted to risk that with Clark. He’s been yours—just yours, in the safe way—for too long.
You step back like the floor might collapse under you.
Put space. Just… anything between your body and the soft burn of his flannel. Try not to think about how fucking warm he was. “Shit—uh. You don’t have to say anything,” you blurt, voice too fast, too thin. “We can pretend it didn’t happen. Go back to normal. That’s fine.”
Clark’s brows knit, not in offense, just concern. He doesn’t look hurt. He looks… steady. Like he expected this part. “Are you sure?”
The way he asks it is soft. Unhurried. Like it’s not some ultimatum. Like it’s okay if you're not sure.
You open your mouth. Close it. Swallow.
“I just—” You press your fingers to your temple, like maybe that might just reorganize your entire internal filing system. “You know I don’t do relationships.”
“I know,” he says, without hesitation.
You study him—really study him—like you’re trying to find the catch. Some hint of disappointment or wounded ego. But it isn’t there.
He reaches up slowly and tucks a damp strand of hair behind your ear, his touch feather-light. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”
You blink. “Even if I’m the one who kissed you?”
Clark smiles, just barely. “Especially then.”
His hand lingers near your cheek, but he doesn’t push. He’s patient in that maddening, disarming way. Waiting, always, for you to meet him halfway.
“Whatever you want,” he says again, quiet. “I’m good with that.”
You stare at him. “You’re really not gonna argue?”
“Nope.”
“Not gonna psychoanalyze me? Tell me I’m avoidant or emotionally stunted or terrified of my own vulnerability?”
He huffs a small laugh. “Already did. Long time ago.”
Your lips twitch despite yourself. “And?”
He shrugs, like it’s the easiest truth in the world. “You’re complicated. But you care. A lot. More than you let people see.”
And damn it, you hate how much that lands. How much he lands. You hate that he’s always been able to see through you, gently, without ever demanding more than you could give. And you hate—more than anything, more than all of that—how badly you want to kiss him again.
So you do.
Maybe to prove a point. Maybe to blow it all up before it can settle. Maybe because you’re already in too deep and part of you is tired of pretending you’re not.
You didn’t plan for it to go further. You didn’t plan anything, really.
But your hands slide up into the open collar of his flannel, and he stumbles a little as you back him into the bookshelf. His glasses tilt when your fingers brush his temple, and you pull them off carefully, reverently, like they’re the only thing tethering you both to whatever was before.
His eyes are wide. His mouth already parted. And when he looks up at you like this—flushed, breathless, undone—you think, mine.
And it’s terrifying.
Because it means it’s real.
It happened.
God.
It happened.
.
You strip him out of that worn flannel with a kind of sick, obsessive care. Button by button, like you were unwrapping a gift, like you were unearthing something you’d been searching for in every bad date, every failed talking stage, every mediocre bar makeout that had ever left you cold.
His flannel hit the floor. He doesn't say a word.
Not until you settle into his lap, thighs on either side of his. Then—quietly, like he wasn’t sure if it was okay to want anything—he says, “You… you don’t have to be gentle. Just, just in case. So you know.”
But you are. Because he is.
Because even now, even with your mouth to his, your hands fisted in his curls, his hands stay light on your hips. Like he doesn't want to take more than you’d give. Like he's still giving you the option to leave.
He makes a sound when your hips tilted forward. Not a groan, not exactly. Something deeper. A noise from his chest, halfway between a gasp and a plea. You kiss more of it out of him, mouths clumsy and desperate, fingers scrabbling at the hem of his undershirt, and it feels like breathing.
His breath's caught between his teeth when you rip a condom wrapper in between yours, slotting it onto him with shaking, shaking hands and trying not think about how he's probably the biggest you've ever had.
Lord have mercy.
You ride him like your life depends on it.
You get a thigh cramp halfway through—let out an annoyed groan and tried to keep going—and he, sweet, precious idiot that he is, sits up and says your name like it hurt. Voice quivering like he wants to stop, wants to help, wants to make sure you're okay.
Absolutely no way in hell you wanted that to happen.
“Clark,” you hissed. “Chill. I'm okay, dude. I’m fine.”
“Okay,” he said, dazed, grinning. “Just—didn’t want you to get hurt. I mean. You’re, uh. You were very intense. Just now.”
“Yeah, well, you’re the one with the dick that's slowly rearranging my guts,” you mutter, and he laughs so hard his shoulders shook.
And worse—goddamn it, worse—he looks at you the whole time.
No games. No posing. Just Clark. Holding your hips with those hands—god, those hands, unfairly big and warm and steady—and looking up at you like he meant it.
You’d told him once, over shitty fries past midnight on the curb at McDonald's, that you didn’t trust men who made eye contact during sex. Called it performative. Manipulative.
“Like they’re trying to Jedi mind-trick you into thinking it’s love,” you’d scoffed, and he'd gone quiet in that way he does, not sulking, just thinking. But that he was filing it away.
So of course—of course—when you're bare above him, hair a mess, mascara still clinging to your cheekbones, all vulnerable and exposed and teetering over the edge because his dick was doing wonderful, amazing things to your insides and making you melt—
He looks up at you with that open, earnest face and asks, softly:
“Do you want me to close my eyes?”
You freeze. Like an absolute idiot. Like prey.
And you say no.
"No."
Never.
He nods. “Okay.”
Then he kissed the inside of your wrist—just because it was there—and you lost ten entire emotional minutes and your grip on reality, grinding down on him like your life depended on it.
You come so hard you forgot your name.
Forget what you were supposed to be protecting yourself from. Forget every lie you’ve ever told yourself about the depth of your feelings for him.
It was insane. Deranged.
(Perfect.)
Later, three orgasms later, you collapse over him in a ridiculous heap of limbs and half-dressed post-coital delirium, forehead pressed to his shoulder, chest still heaving.
And he whispered something into your hair—something low and steady and not quite the word love, but so close it that it scraped through your head.
Then he hums.
You don’t recognize it at first—just the vibration under your cheek, the low murmur of a tune, warm and unassuming. You’re half-asleep, boneless, and not fully aware he's still inside of you, pulsing, your fingers curled around his neck.
But you listen.
“You humming Dolly right now?” you murmur, voice hoarse.
Clark hums a little louder. “‘Here You Come Again.’” Then, almost shy, “She’s good. What?”
You groan into his chest. “You absolute dork.”
“I like her,” he says, defensive. “She’s smart. You know she gave away, like, a million books to—wait, are you laughing?”
You are. Full-on giggling into his shoulder now. Giddy and too full and sore in all the best ways.
.
And you really don't mean to keep it going in the morning, let alone in the shower.
Truly.
You're just trying to get clean.
Wash off the evidence of the night before—sweat and come and a whole life’s worth of repressed emotional distress—but then, Clark steps in right behind you, warm and quiet and too gentle.
And suddenly it was over for you. Just absolutely fucking over.
He offers to join, sheepish and bashful, eyes flicking away like he hadn’t just had his face between your thighs just a few hours ago. “Just to save water,” he says. “'Cause of the environment… and all that.”
And sure, Clark. You absolute liar. The environment.
Except the second he steps in behind you—naked, dripping wet, glasses still off so he looked all boyish and wreckable—your resolve crumples like wet newspaper.
He reaches around you for the body wash and that was your downfall. Arm flexing around your waist, that goddamn baritone rumble in your ear as he asks, “This one okay?”
Like you're supposed to just—what? function when his voice was doing that thing? That was supposed to be okay?
But then his hands are on your hips—steady, reverent, huge—and you tilt your head back just enough to graze his jaw. He flinches. Or maybe you do. And before either of you could process it, your palm's flat against the tile and Clark was slowly pressing himself against your back.
“Okay?” he asks, voice a little too hoarse, a little too human.
You nod. “Yeah. Just—don’t be sweet about it.”
“But I'm always sweet about it,” he mumbles, and then he was, dragging a hand up your stomach, brushing your wet hair off your neck, mouthing at the base of your spine like he was making a wish.
He moves inside you slow.
Like he means it. Like he thinks he’d scare you off if he went too fast. And it was disgusting, really, how good it felt. How intimate all of this was.
Your knees nearly buckle. You have to brace yourself with both palms on the glass, forehead pressed against fogged-up safety plastic, biting down on your own goddamn fist to keep from crying out his name like something from a romance novel.
(You still did, eventually. He made sure of that when he pressed one large hand up against your stomach so you can feel him, really feel him, and another down your front, rubbing at your clit like it was a lifeline until you saw stars.)
When it was over—when your legs were jelly and your throat was raw and your spine was doing that post-orgasm melt thing—you turn to rinse the shampoo out of your hair, and he just… helped. Without you even having to say anything.
He lathers it for you, gentle and thorough, massaging your scalp. His cheeks are pink. His mouth is pink. You think about biting him. Maybe.
But instead, you let yourself lean into his chest while the water poured down over both of you, and you didn’t speak, because if you spoke, it would become too real.
So, you just let him wash your back.
He didn’t ask you to stay.
You didn’t ask if he wanted you to.
But when you wander out of the bedroom ten minutes later—half-wet, flushed, wearing his old Central Kansas A&M hoodie like it hadn’t just been folded neatly in a drawer—you find him in the kitchen, humming again.
Making pancakes.
“You want blueberries in yours?” he asks, like he didn’t have his dick in you in the shower ten minutes ago.
And you—traumatized, horny, emotionally compromised—you say, “Sure."
Then, because your brain has finally rebooted just enough to return to its default defense mechanism:
“Also, we need to talk.”
Clark pauses mid-pour, then turns around, spatula still in hand. “Okay,” he says, unbothered. His voice is calm, casual. Like you didn’t almost combust from having maybe, four—no, five or six orgasms in his arms over the past twelve hours.
You cross your arms over your chest, over his sweatshirt. “Last night—and this morning was great. I mean, objectively. A solid eight out of ten. No complaints.”
He looks amused. “Only eight?”
“I’m leaving room for improvement,” you say, defensive. “But I just want to be clear again that this isn’t… this isn’t a thing.”
Clark nods slowly. “Okay.”
You squint at him. “You’re not going to ask what I mean by that?”
“Well,” he says, lips twitching, “I—uh, I figured I’d let you finish your prepared statement first.”
You gape at him. “I knew I was giving Perry's press conference energy.”
“You’re even holding your coffee like a mic.”
You glance down. You are. Damn it.
He walks over, sets your pancake on the table next to you, and then settles into the armchair across from the couch. His legs are way too long. He has to fold them a little awkwardly, which should be goofy, but somehow only makes him look more like someone who could carry you up a mountain and apologize for the inconvenience while doing it.
You sip your coffee. Clear your throat. “So. Ground rules.”
He raises his brows. “Rules?”
“Yes. Rules. Guidelines. Frameworks for how this… goes.”
Clark tilts his head. “You mean for… us?”
“No, for NATO,” you deadpan. “Yes, us.”
He tries to cover a laugh with a sip of his own mug, but you see the dimple twitch. Smug bastard.
You forge ahead. “Okay. Rule one: this is casual. Very casual. Like… like ‘you can sleep with other people’ casual.”
Clark nods, slow. Thoughtful. “Do you want to sleep with other people?”
“No,” you admit. Then scowl. “But I want to have the option.”
“Right,” he says, nodding. “The illusion of freedom.”
“Exactly. Wait—"
He’s smiling at you now. Soft and fond and dangerously amused.
You plow on. “Whatever. Rule two: no romantic stuff. No dates. No—like—Valentine’s Day cards or surprise cupcakes or, God forbid, foot rubs.”
“You’re really against foot rubs?”
“I just think they set a tone.”
Clark looks at his plate. “What if I just make you pancakes sometimes?”
You narrow your eyes. “Pancakes are a gray area. I'm only allowing it this time."
“Noted.”
You tuck your feet under you. “Rule three: no falling in love.”
He looks up.
There’s a pause. A beat of silence so thick it fills the whole room.
You add, quickly, “I know that sounds dramatic, but I’ve seen what love does to people, and it’s terrifying. They lose brain cells. They post Instagram captions like ‘my forever’ with sparkly emojis. They start making weird couple TikToks where they throw cheese slices at each other’s heads. I can’t be part of that kind of ecosystem. I'm lactose intolerant."
Clark’s smiling again. Not in the ha ha you’re sooooo funny way. In the I think you’re the best thing to ever happen to me way, which is very much against the rules.
“Are you even taking this seriously?” you demand.
“I am,” he says, clearly lying. “You’re very intimidating.”
You roll your eyes and gesture wildly. “I’m just saying! I don’t want this to become something that implodes because I—God, because I can’t remember your favorite pizza topping one day and suddenly we’re—we're not friends anymore and splitting custody of houseplants and fucking Cat is stuck writing a gossip column about it.”
Clark chuckles. A pause. “well, for the record? My favorite pizza topping is mushrooms.”
You wrinkle your nose. “That’s a red flag.”
“You’re the one writing up a treaty before brunch.”
“Exactly,” you say, triumphant. “See? We’re incompatible.”
Clark leans forward slightly.
The sunlight from the window cuts across his glasses, but you can still see his eyes, warm and impossibly blue, locked on yours like you’re the only person in Metropolis who matters. “I think you’re scared,” he says gently. “Which is okay. I just want you to know… I’m not going anywhere. Rules or not.”
And that—
God. That should not make your eyes burn the way it does.
You shake your head, fast. “Don’t say stuff like that. It’s dangerous. You’ll trick me into liking you more.”
“I’m just being honest.”
“Well, stop.”
He raises a brow. “What do I do if I want to kiss you?”
You freeze.
Your heart does a complicated backflip-kick into your ribs.
“...well, that's allowed,” you mutter.
He smiles again, dimple sinking deep.
And then, because he’s a menace with zero self-preservation, he leans in.
You meet him halfway.
And it’s soft this time. Sweeter. Slower. No rain, no adrenaline, just his hand cradling your jaw and your fingers twisted in the hem of his t-shirt like you’re trying to anchor yourself to something real.
.
It's been months now of your little arrangement. And you're already destroyed by the time he even speaks.
Not because he’s touched you yet. Not really. He’s just there, mouth warm against the inside of your thigh, hands stroking the back of your knees like you’re something delicate. Something precious.
Which is so fucked. You are not precious.
You told him that that, breathless and still shirtless and sitting on his kitchen counter at midnight while he gently fed you the leftover peach cobbler Martha left for the two of you straight from the fridge.
He just nodded. Wiped away the crumb left on the edge of your lip. Said, “Okay.”
And then he kissed the inside of your wrist again and said, “You’re still allowed to want things, you know.”
Which is—god, so not fair.
Now he’s between your legs, kissing a line up your thigh like he’s praying. He’s been taking his time. Like the goal isn’t to get you off, but to study you. Like he’s memorizing the exact way your breath catches and the little twitch of your fingers every time he licks just close enough to your center, but not quite.
You’re panting. Whimpering. Biting your lip so hard you’re pretty sure you taste blood.
And he’s grinning. Not cocky—just happy. Which is so much, so much worse.
“You’re staring at me again,” you breathe.
Clark hums, kissing just below your hip. “I just like looking at you.”
“That’s crazy,” you whisper. “You’re crazy.”
“Probably.” He kisses your navel. “Do you want me to stop?”
You whine. You actually whine. You feel like you've just set feminism back by centuries. “No.”
“Didn’t think so,” he murmurs, nuzzling into your skin. And then, because he’s the devil in a button-up: “You know, the way you objectify me is honestly very inappropriate. I’m not just a—just a piece of meat, you know.”
You bark out a laugh, head tipping back against the pillow. “So bad news, you're actually a mountain of meat, man.”
“See? Objectified.” He presses a kiss just below your ribs. “Reduced to my—”kiss“—ridiculous shoulders—”kiss“—and tragic dimples—”kiss“—and stupidly proportionate thighs—”
“I didn’t say anything about your thighs—”
“Oh, but I think you were thinking it.”
You giggle, delirious. Drunk on this man. “God, shut up and fuck me.”
Clark goes still.
Not awkwardly—this isn’t early-days Clark, the one who used to stammer when you wore red lipstick when you came over and knocked over his own coffee trying to offer you a napkin.
This Clark—the one under you now, hands broad and firm against your thighs, spine pressed into the worn couch like it’s the only thing keeping him from rising into the sky—this Clark is different.
He’s grown into himself. Into this. Into you.
Not cocky, not exactly. But assured in a way that makes your stomach clench and your mouth go dry. You’ve seen it happen slowly. Like the sunrise—you didn’t notice until the whole room was full of it.
This Clark doesn't flinch when you flirt, doesn’t panic when your mouth goes sharp or your eyes go guarded. He just… waits. He sees it all. Lets you burn yourself out. And then lays a hand on your cheek like you’re made of something precious.
Still, he doesn’t move.
And that’s what sets you off.
You squirm, shifting your weight in his lap, irritated now. “What?”
He looks up at you, his jaw tight, hands still splayed over your thighs like he doesn’t know whether to hold on or let go. There’s something in his eyes, sharp, patient, impossibly tender, and it makes your chest ache in a way you refuse to name.
“You really want that?” he asks, voice low.
You roll your eyes. “You think I climbed onto your face to do taxes?”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Your stomach flips. You hate when he does this. Gets all serious and calm and measured while you’re flailing, clearly two seconds away from combusting. You cross your arms over your chest—petulant, defensive. “Clark.”
“You say stuff like that,” he murmurs, one hand slowly dragging up the back of your thigh, “but then you pull back like I’ve asked for your soul.”
You glare at him. “I’m not pulling back.”
He lifts a brow. “You haven’t even kissed me yet.”
You scowl. “I was about to, but you’re being annoying.”
His smile is crooked, lazy, maddening. “Yeah? Gonna punish me for it?”
Your heart skips. You hate that you love it when he talks like that. You hate that he’s right—that you’re the one drawing lines in the sand and then pretending you don’t care when he steps over them.
You lean down, hover over his mouth. “I swear to god, if you don’t do something soon, I’m walking out that door.”
He catches your jaw in one hand, gentle but firm. “You won’t.”
“Watch me.”
His thumb drags over your bottom lip. Lets it pop out just a bit, so you can feel the way the wetness drips over your chin. “You always say that. You never do.”
Your breath stutters. Your spine goes stiff. You hate how much he knows you. You hate that he’s always so calm about it, so damn tender, even when he’s calling you out.
“I’m not just a warm body, you know,” he says after a beat, the faintest furrow between his brows. “If that’s what you wanted, you should’ve picked someone who doesn’t look at you like I do.”
You blink. “And how is that?”
Clark tilts his head, eyes never leaving yours. “Like I actually see you.”
You hate him for that. A little.
But you kiss him anyway.
Hard. Sharp. Like a warning.
And then he flips you—effortless, smooth, like it doesn’t take more than a breath. One of his hands pins your wrists above your head. The other trails slow up the curve of your thigh. His mouth finds your neck, and you gasp—not in surprise, but because it’s too much. He’s too much.
“You keep asking me to take you apart,” he murmurs against your skin, “but you never let me show you what it actually means.”
“Oh my god,” you groan, shivering under him. “You are so fucking—”
“What?” he interrupts, dragging his mouth back up to yours. “Soft? Serious? A buzzkill?”
You don’t respond. You’re too busy squirming, too busy arching into him, because he’s right. Again.
“Too bad,” he murmurs, smiling like a secret. “You don’t get to run the show tonight.”
And you're already clawing at his back by the time he finally pushes in. And god, fuck, it’s—
He’s so much. Too much. Even now, even after months of attempting to get used to him, after a minimum of one hour of foreplay every time, hours spent fingering you open and devouring you whole and it still makes your spine tingle in the best way possible. The push and pull of it every time, the struggle, the way he looks at you so, so proudly when he's bottomed out and your smiling from under him like you've just won the lottery.
You make a sound—something small, strangled, "Clark."—and he doesn’t shush you this time.
He smiles.
“There it is,” he murmurs. “Now we’re being honest.”
.
Then one day, Clark cancels a lunch.
That’s it. That’s all. Not the end of the world.
He texts you a sweet apology. Too many words, as always, classic Clark, something about a lead on some money laundering story and “I’ll bring dinner to make up for it, promise, anything you want, even that overpriced pasta from the place with the weird chairs.” He adds three emojis. Two are completely nonsensical (a chicken and a rain cloud?). One is a little heart. You stare at it longer than you should.
You text back something breezy. Casual. “You’re the one missing out on my lunchtime TedTalk about corrupt city councilmen and their tragic toupees.”
He doesn’t respond until hours later. Just a thumbs-up emoji.
You tell yourself it’s fine. You tell yourself you don’t care.
.
Then it happens again.
This time, you're already standing outside the Planet, coffee lukewarm, watching a construction crew down the block try to maneuver scaffolding around a new billboard. It’s another Superman PSA—third this month. Something about disaster preparedness and blood drives. His cape’s caught mid-whip, expression noble and inhumanly calm. You roll your eyes, but your stomach tugs a little. Something about the stillness in his posture—it looks almost familiar.
Your phone rings.
Clark.
You answer with a smirk, trying to make it light. “Should I be worried you’ve joined a pyramid scheme? Please tell me you’re not selling supplements.”
There’s a pause, then his voice, warm but ragged around the edges: “I’m so sorry. Something came up. Can I explain later?”
You make some offhand joke about mafia debt collectors and say, “No worries,” even as your stomach twists.
He sounds tired. Tired in a way Clark never really gets. You’re the one who burns out, who rants and paces and flirts with deadline-induced breakdowns. He’s the one who shows up with coffee and an extra pen. Always.
But now his voice has this roughness to it. Frayed edges. Like he’s trying not to breathe too hard into the receiver. Like he just ran here. Or ran away from somewhere.
“Are you okay?” you ask, before you can stop yourself.
Another pause. “Yeah,” he says, and he softens, like he always does when he hears your voice. “I will be.”
.
By week three, he’s dodging plans like it’s his new hobby. You’re not hurt, obviously. You’re busy too. You have other friends. You go to bars. You flirt with bartenders you’ll never text back. You have a whole life outside of this whole thing with Clark.
It’s not a relationship. It’s just a thing. A nice, dependable, sometimes pantsless thing.
That’s all.
But still, there’s this night.
You’re at your apartment. There’s an old movie playing, something black and white and miserable, and Clark was supposed to be here an hour ago.
You’d ordered his favorite takeout. You’d even found that dumb craft soda he likes, the one that tastes vaguely like melted gummy worms. You told yourself you just wanted someone to share the noodles with.
He doesn’t show.
No call. No text.
You sit through the entire movie. Alone.
And when your phone finally buzzes—close to midnight, just his name and a short, “I’m so sorry. Can we talk soon?”— you stare at it for a long moment.
Then you flip your phone over, face-down.
And in the dark, you think, Shit. This is how it starts. The distance. The shift. The slow pulling away.
You’ve done it to people before.
You just never thought you’d be on the receiving end.
Not from him.
Not from Clark.
.
Around 11:30, you open Twitter out of boredom. You don’t cry. That would imply something was wrong. That you were hurt. You’re not. Obviously.
You’re just a little annoyed.
And maybe, just mayb, you’re thinking about how Clark used to be your safest person. Your sure thing. Your just-text-me, just-call-me, just-walk-right-in-without-knocking guy.
And now he’s something else. Something slippery. Something you have to squint at sideways to understand.
Your thumb scrolls through the usual mess. Politicians being embarrassing, memes you’re already tired of, some half-hearted discourse about whether the Metropolis skyline is over-designed or “delightfully optimistic.”
Then: a video clip.
No sound. Just shaky phone footage.
A blur of red and blue moving fast—streaking through the air over Hobbs Bay, pulling someone from a collapsed scaffolding, leaving behind a wake of stunned bystanders and bent steel.
You pause. Watch it again. Retweets piling up.
BREAKING: Superman saves construction worker after scaffolding collapse.
You stare at it for a second longer than you mean to, then snort under your breath.
Must be nice, you think. Some people get rescued. Some other unlucky fuckers just get ghosted.
.
The message comes on a Thursday. One of those weirdly warm spring evenings when Metropolis smells like asphalt and deli grease and the last ten years of your bad decisions.
Hey. You free tonight?
You stare at it for a moment too long. Thumb hovering.
Then:
yeah. yours?
A pause.
If you want.
God, he’s infuriating. Polite even now. Careful with you, like you’re made of something breakable. Like you haven’t already cracked half a dozen times this month alone.
Still, you go.
.
It’s not tense at first. It’s easy. Familiar.
Clark opens the door wearing one of those threadbare t-shirts that should be illegal, sleeves barely containing his biceps, neckline just a little too stretched from use. His hair’s damp. There’s flour on his cheek.
“You baked?” you ask, stepping past him before he can do that thing where he tries to gauge your mood like a barometer.
He shrugs. “Felt like it.”
There’s banana bread cooling on the counter. Two plates. One knife. He’s already sliced yours and left the end piece—your favorite—on the left, like always.
You want to be mad. Or suspicious. Or anything that would make this easier to navigate. But it’s hard to keep your footing when he’s being like this. Soft. Normal. Like he didn’t flake three times last month. Like you hadn’t spent the last few nights half-dressed and overthinking on your bathroom floor
But them again, you could never really resist him for that long.
So maybe it’s no surprise that your dress ends up pooled around your ankles. The lamp’s still on. Your mouths are moving like they’ve done this a hundred times—because you have, but it's not enough, will never be enough—and you’re both pretending it’s still casual. Still nothing.
Except it doesn’t feel like nothing.
And then Clark pulls back.
Not sharply. Not like he’s been burned. More like he just remembered something, which, again, not unusual. You’ve seen that look before. That oh shit look.
But tonight, he doesn’t immediately jump up.
He doesn’t mutter something about needing to check in with Perry or help Lois edit her headline.
He just… stares at you.
And not in the usual way, not with those soft, soft eyes like you’re something he stumbled across in a field and decided to treasure. He looks—serious. Scared, even. His hand is still on your hip, but his other is twitching slightly at his side like it doesn’t know what to do with itself.
“We need to talk,” he says.
You still have one shoe on. You don’t even remember kicking the other off.
You blink at him. “I—what?”
He licks his lips. His glasses are smudged. He doesn’t take them off.
“Something’s been—there’s something that I need to tell you,” he says, slower now, like he’s rehearsing this in real time and trying not to panic.
And that—that is when your stomach drops.
Because you know this script. You’ve seen this scene. The music swells, the camera pans in, the guy who smells like safety and Sunday mornings says he “needs to talk,” and then boom. Heartbreak, cut to black, roll credits.
You hold up a hand before he can say anything else. “Wait. Just… don’t. Yet.”
Clark pauses. He blinks at you.
“Look,” you say, backing up a step, scanning the room like you’re looking for your dignity. “If this is about how I’ve been kind of, I don’t know, evasive or inconsistent or, like, deeply emotionally unavailable, I just want to say — I know. Okay? You don’t have to do this so gently.”
His face twists. “What?”
“You’re trying to break things off,” you continue, steamrolling him, your voice way too steady for the freefall happening inside your chest. “And I get it. I do. You’ve been pulling away for weeks, you disappear all the time, you don’t sleep anymore, you look like you’ve been hit by a truck most days, which I assumed was just bad reporting hours, but who knows, maybe it’s metaphorical.”
Clark tries again. “I’m not—”
“It’s fine,” you say, voice louder now. “It’s fine if you met someone. You don’t have to pretend it’s not happening.”
“I didn’t—”
“You’re allowed to outgrow this. Me. Whatever this is.”
Your dress is still on the floor, and you suddenly want it back on like it’s armor. You crouch to grab it, clumsy with urgency, your hands all wrong.
“I should’ve seen it coming. You were too good to last. Guys like you don’t stick around for girls like me.”
“Hey,” he says sharply, stepping forward, but you back away before he can reach you.
“Don’t,” you say, holding your dress to your chest like a shield. “Don’t be nice to me about it.”
Clark runs both hands through his hair. He looks like he’s short-circuiting. “You’re not even letting me—I’m not trying to end this with you.”
You stare at him, lips parted.
He’s breathing hard now. His glasses are askew. His shirt’s wrinkled, and his jaw is clenched like he’s holding something back with both hands.
“I was going to tell you something,” he says, voice raw. “Something real. Something I’ve never told anyone who didn’t already know.”
You freeze.
Because that doesn’t sound like cheating.
That sounds like confession.
“What,” you whisper, suddenly breathless. “Like a dark secret? You have a kid? You’re actually married? Are you part of a mafia? Are you—Oh my God. Are you a stripper?”
“What?” he blurts, completely thrown.
“I don’t know, Clark!” your voice spikes, hands flying up. “What the hell could you possibly say right now that starts with ‘we need to talk’ and isn’t a relationship guillotine?”
His eyes flick to the window. Just for a second. A glance, like instinct. And then right back to you.
And for the first time, you see it.
The quiet panic. The way his entire body is buzzing like a live wire under skin.
Like he’s not scared of you. He’s scared for you.
But it’s too late. You’ve already built the wall and bricked yourself in.
You grab your dress, yanking it on with the dignity of a raccoon being evicted from a trash can. Somewhere behind you, Clark says your name again, gentle, like a bruise he’s afraid to touch. You ignore it.
Instead, you just start collecting your things like a squirrel in crisis.
Because—and this is humiliating—you’ve essentially moved into his place over the last year in the slowest, most passive-aggressive way possible. Not officially. Not “hey, should we get you some keys?” But enough that the signs are there.
Enough that you now have to do this, which is to say the break-up equivalent of packing a go-bag in the middle of a fire drill.
You grab the mug with the faded “Central City Gazette Student Press 2013” logo you refuse to drink out of at home because it’s chipped, but which you do drink out of here, because Clark always makes tea the right way — hot, strong, too much honey. You grab the copy of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow you stole from his shelf three months ago and meant to pretend was yours all along. The sweatshirt he “forgot” you left here, that you “forgot” he noticed you wore to bed six times in a row.
You jam it all into your work tote like it’s a goddamn body bag.
Then there are the smaller things. The stupid things.
The half-used notepad from a city council meeting where someone tried to blame vigilante-induced infrastructure damage on solar panels. The disposable camera from that one weekend in Smallville — the one you never developed because the idea of seeing his parents smile at you felt too dangerous, too much like you might belong there.
And then you eye the drawer next to his bed. Your drawer, to get that clear, which was never explicitly claimed but which somehow holds one (1) pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs, two (2) half-empty bottles of lube, and three (3) protein bars, one of which is probably from last fiscal year. You shove it all into your bag, zipper groaning like a sad, sad accordion.
Clark’s still standing near the window, looking bewildered. Like he walked into the scene five minutes late and can’t tell who started the fire.
“Wait—are you leaving? You don’t have to—just—can we talk? Please?”
You don’t look at him.
Instead, you gesture vaguely at your bag. “This is just me doing a quick inventory of my terrible judgment. Don’t mind me.”
“Can you stop for two seconds and just let me—”
“Clark,” you say, and your voice comes out quieter than you meant it to. “It’s okay.”
It isn’t. But you’re trying to win the emotional Olympics in the “cool and detached” category, and you’re not about to blow it with something as devastating as eye contact.
You sling the bag over your shoulder and pause by the door.
You consider saying something devastating and poetic. Something from Hamlet, maybe. You’ve always liked the line about cutting love out with a knife and it still bleeding. But instead, you give him a big, fake smile and an inexplicable hand up, like a contestant leaving Rupaul's Drag Race in disgrace.
“No harm, no foul,” you say. “Tell whoever you're seeing that I say hi.”
And then you leave.
.
You are, in every measurable way, unwell.
You don’t call it a breakup.
That would imply there was something official to break. That you were ever really together. That there was something solid under your feet to begin with, instead of months of teasing the edge, hovering over the line like two people too chicken to admit they’d already crossed it.
So, no. Not a breakup.
Just—a recalibration. A pause. A hot minute.
You say this to Jimmy, who narrows his eyes and says, “You’re holding a spoon like a murder weapon right now, so I’m gonna circle back on the ‘hot’ part of that minute.”
You even say it to the woman at the corner bodega—the one who always gave Clark an extra packet of honey for his tea and once slipped you a protein bar when you looked particularly anemic on a deadline.
She glances up from restocking the gum and says, “He’s okay? The tall guy? With the glasses and the very... polite shoulders?”
You blink. “Sorry, what?”
“He always said thank you. For the bag. Like, sincerely.” She squints at you. “You were good together.”
You make a sound of vague agreement and exit before she asks if you want your usual. (You do. But the idea of holding a wrap in your hands right now makes your stomach lurch.)
You take your PTO. Two weeks. You don’t tell anyone where you’re going, mostly because you’re not going anywhere. You lie in bed. You eat cereal out of a mug. You watch a three-hour documentary about the collapse of a bridge in Gotham and cry when a random city engineer says, “We tried our best, but it wasn’t enough.”
You don't let yourself think about that… that stupid drawer by Clark’s bed.
Or the banana bread.
Because there is banana bread.
It shows up on your doorstep the morning of Day Three, wrapped in wax paper and still warm. No note. Just a faint imprint where a palm must’ve rested on the foil, like he wasn’t sure if he should knock. You don’t bring it inside right away.
You stare at it. Then the door. Then back at the bread like it might explode.
Eventually, you take it in. Set it on the counter. Eat half of it standing over the sink with your fingers, because you don’t trust yourself to not drop it.
He texts you the next day. Just your name. Then a minute later: Just wanted to check in. Hope you’re doing okay.
You stare at the dots blinking at the bottom of the screen until they disappear.
You don’t answer.
He calls a few times, a few days later. Your phone lights up with his name, and you let it ring out. Not because you’re angry—okay, maybe you are, a little—but because you know the sound of his voice will wreck you. Because if he says your name in that soft, patient, Clark way, you’ll crack like a fucking fault line.
He doesn't leave a voicemai any of the times l. Just hangs up.
(You spend the rest of the night clutching a throw pillow to your stomach like it’s a life raft.)
You tell yourself this is temporary. You’ll get it together tomorrow.
And then tomorrow happens.
And then the next day.
And then—on the seventh day, like Jesus, you rise.
Kind of.
You pull on the ugliest hoodie you own, some too-large sweatpants with a questionable stain, and a pair of knockoff Crocs. Your hair is doing something that technically defies gravity, and you haven’t worn deodorant since Tuesday. Your soul is gone. Your standards are lower. All that remains is one singular thought:
Hotdog.
.
Which is how you find yourself under the flickering fluorescent lights of a 7/11 at 1:42 a.m., perched on the curb out front like a feral raccoon, holding a lukewarm hotdog in one hand and a Red Bull in the other, actively disassociating while Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You plays through a tinny outdoor speaker with all the emotional resonance of a dying Roomba.
You stare off into the distance.
Which is, of course, exactly when Clark walks up.
You see him in your periphery first. Hear the crunch of gravel, the telltale weight of his sneakers.
“No,” you say, out loud. “No. No. Absolutely not.”
Clark stops short. “Hi,” he says, voice soft. A little nervous.
You hold up the hotdog like a loaded gun. “Turn around.”
“I—”
“I swear to god, Clark.” You don’t even look at him. “I am mentally and spiritually clinging to life by the barest thread, and if you say something kind to me right now, I will vomit on the pavement.”
He nods. Raises both hands. “Okay. Not saying anything.”
You stare at him. His flannel is wrinkled. His hair’s sticking up at the back. There’s a scuff on his glasses like he’s been rubbing at them all day.
Goddammit. He looks like home.
You turn your burning eyes back to the pavement and try to focus on your dinner. Try to remember how this whole dignity thing works.
“Why are you here,” you say finally, flat.
He swallows. “Because I needed to see you. Because I’ve been calling, and—”
“Right,” you cut in. “The calls. That I didn’t answer. On purpose.”
“I know.”
“And you took that as a challenge?”
Clark exhales slowly. He takes a tentative step closer.
“I’ve tried everything else,” he says.
You roll your eyes. “Maybe that’s because you’re not supposed to fix this. Maybe this is just what it is now.”
“That’s not what I want.”
You shrug. “And? Sometimes we don’t get what we want. That’s life. Welcome.”
He’s quiet. Long enough that you glance sideways and catch him staring at you with a look you can’t name. Doesn’t defend himself. Just stands there, quiet, while a beat-up minivan idles past the edge of the lot and the Whitney Houston outro fades into static. And you’re just about to tell him to cut it out—whatever this whole tortured-eyes, kicked-puppy thing is—when he steps forward.
One arm wraps around your waist.
And then—
You are no longer on the ground.
You shriek like a B-movie scream queen, clutching your 7/11 hotdog in its sad foil wrapper like it might save your life. “WHAT THE FUCK,” you yell. “WHAT—ARE YOU KIDDING ME—WHAT IS HAPPENING.”
“I’m sorry!” Clark yells over the wind.
“ARE YOU—IS THIS YOU?! ARE YOU—”
“Yeah!” he shouts. “Hi! Surprise!”
“SUPERMAN?!”
“…Yes!” he calls back, cringing midair.
“YOU’RE SUPERMAN?!”
Clark doesn’t answer that. Just… grimaces. Flying sideways. His arm tightening around your waist like he’s half-expecting you to elbow him in the ribs and wriggle free.
You might, honestly. As soon as your brain catches up. You’re only just vaguely aware of your Croc flying off somewhere over a used car dealership.
“My toothbrush is still at your apartment!” you shriek.
“I know!”
“I HAVE A TOOTHBRUSH AT SUPERMAN’S APARTMENT!”
“I know! That’s why I—listen, I panicked! You weren’t picking up! You blocked me on like, four platforms—”
“I BLOCKED YOU BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU WERE GHOSTING ME FOR ANOTHER GIRL, NOT MOONLIGHTING AS A NATIONAL TREASURE.”
The wind roars past your ears. Your teeth are chattering. You’re barely holding onto the last few shreds of coherence. And Clark—no, Superman, apparently—he’s not even breaking a sweat.
“You couldn’t have called?” you snap.
“I did!”
“WITH WHAT, MORSE CODE?”
“I showed up at your apartment!”
“With a cape, Kent?!”
“No! No, the cape’s new—look, I didn’t know what else to do. You wouldn’t talk to me. Jimmy said you took PTO and haven’t left your apartment in four days and I just—I needed you to see me. To listen.”
You make an inhuman noise, somewhere between a wail and a curse. “So your solution was to airlift me like a stolen asset out of a CIA bunker?!”
“I checked to make sure no one was looking!”
“YOU TOOK ME HOSTAGE.”
“I swept the parking lot, I swear! The cameras at 7/11 are fake, and there was one guy but he was busy dropping a Big Gulp.”
You blink at him. Wind in your eyes. A foot still bare. There’s an onion from your hotdog stuck to your shirt. Your heart does a slow, brutal somersault.
“…Okay,” you breathe. “Okay, so this is real.”
“It’s real,” he says.
“Like, capital-R Real.”
“Yeah.”
You shake your head once, sharp. “Jesus Christ.”
And then something in you quiets. Something that’s been vibrating with panic for days—for weeks—sputters out like the end of a bad engine. You’re too tired to scream again. You’re too wrung-out to cry.
So you just say, quietly: “I'm sorry. For not listening. Or giving you the time to explain. But, what the fuck, dude.”
Clark swallows. His eyes flick to your mouth, then away. He nods—once.
“I didn’t want to lie to you,” he says again, quieter now. “I hated it. Every second of it.”
His breath fogs slightly in the night air. He still won’t quite meet your eyes.
“I thought I could keep it separate. You and… that part of me. I thought if I just kept my head down and made you pancakes and let you call me out when I forgot to text back, it’d be enough.”
He runs a hand through his hair, still wind-tossed from flight. “But then it wasn’t. Because I started… I don’t know, noticing stuff. Like the way you always get a little mean when you’re scared. Or how you never remember to lock your front door but you’ll glare at me for refusing to jaywalk. And every time I had to run off and I saw the look on your face—I wanted to tell you. I almost told you, like, like, forty darn times.”
His voice cracks a little. He’s still not looking at you.
“I kept thinking, if I say it out loud, you’ll leave. Or worse—you’ll stay, but only because you think you owe me something. Because I have the suit. Because I can lift a building. But I don’t want you to be impressed by me. I just want you to look at me the way you used to. Like I’m just… Clark.”
He laughs, sudden and shaky. “God, I sound insane.”
You say nothing. You’re not breathing very well.
And then, softly, finally, like he’s pushing it out before he loses the nerve: “I love you. Not in a heroic, save-the-day kind of way. Just—I love you. I think I’ve been in love with you since you made me help you tail that councilman with the suspicious hair plugs. And you made fun of me the whole time, but you still brought snacks.”
He swallows. “I don’t need anything from you. I just wanted you to know.”
The wind whips gently around you both now, slower, softer. Like the world has dialed down to listen in.
Clark hovers easily in place, arms strong around you, careful and warm, like he’s afraid you’ll wriggle free again and drop straight through the clouds.
He’s flushed. Nervous. He looks like he’s trying to prepare for every possible version of the moment after this. Every soft or horrible thing you might say. Every joke you might make to dodge the weight of it. Every silence.
You lean back a little to look at him.
And then, honestly, you just kiss him.
Because it’s easier than saying the whole thing. Easier than listing every moment that’s led to this, every reason you tried not to fall for him and did anyway.
The time he walked (not flew) across the city in the rain because you forgot your keys.
The fact that he never interrupts when you’re spiraling, just waits it out, steady and warm and right there.
The way he let you drag him into that adult store and joked around and made him blush with the pink handcuffs, and then he bought them for you anyway.
The banana bread.
“I love you too, you idiot.”
His whole face crumples. And then he laughs, messy and relieved and a little helpless, like he wasn’t expecting you to say it back. Like he wasn’t hoping.
“You do?”
You nod, eyes stinging. “Yeah. In every kind of way.”
And Clark—not Superman, Clark Kent, the world’s most ridiculous man, the guy you’ve known and kissed and run from and found again—leans in and kisses you silly again.
.
You’re still smiling when he stumbles through your front door with you in his arms.
Not gracefully. Not like some poised, soap-opera seduction —more like the two of you crash through the threshold like a couple of drunk fucking idiots who forgot how to use their limbs. You reach back and slap the door shut, barely catching the knob, breathless from altitude and adrenaline and everything that’s been boiling under your skin for months.
Clark kicks over your shoe rack by accident. It topples over with a loud bang and suddenly, all your shoes are on the floor.
“Sorry,” he says, half-choking on a grin, already pressing you to the wall. “I’ll—clean that up—later—”
You cut him off with your mouth. Sloppy, desperate. Fingers tangling in his curls, tugging just to feel him gasp against you. You can feel the way he hardens close to you, and you're really, really liking where this is going.
It’s not like you didn’t know he was strong.
You’ve seen his biceps. You’ve felt the hand at your back steady you when a cab came too close. You’ve watched him shoulder his way through panicked crowds, through chaos, through life, always quietly making space for you.
But this is different.
This is him holding your entire body like you weigh nothing. Like physics doesn't apply to you anymore. Like his hands were made to carry you and his mouth was made to ruin you.
“Clark,” you gasp, because you don’t know what else to say. Your hoodie’s already halfway up your torso. His hands are under it, up your ribs, one squeezing your thigh like he’s staking a claim and the other splayed wide across your spine. “You’re—fuck—”
“I know,” he pants, nosing down your throat, licking into the hollow like he’s starving for it. “I know, baby. You’re—God, you’re actually killing me.”
He lifts you—actually lifts you—like you’re nothing, just sweeps you up with one arm under your ass and carries you toward the bedroom, leaving a trail of your jacket, your hotdog wrapper, and one of your slippers behind.
You claw at his shirt, frantic, trying to get it off. Buttons ping off somewhere near the kitchen island and you both flinch, then laugh again, dizzy with it.
He drops you on the bed and follows fast, crawling over you, shedding the remains of his flannel and undershirt like he’s being hunted for it.
"Fuck, fuck—take this off," and yank off your hoodie and he groans at the sight, like the skin of your chest is some sort of a revelation, like he hasn’t had it memorized since the first time he saw you in a tank top at work and forgot what day it was.
His mouth is everywhere. On your collarbone, your shoulder, between your breasts.
Hot and open and eager, tongue twisting ruthlessly around your nipples. He’s making sounds now, those broken, happy little gasps like he’s surprised every time you let him touch you again.
You’re squirming under him, soaked and breathless, tugging at the waistband of his pants like it might save your life.
“I am gonna ruin you,” you manage to say. "Baby, let me fucking ruin you."
Clark laughs again, the kind of laugh that goes straight to your core, deep and bright and boyish, and then he flips you effortlessly onto your stomach, pushing your thighs apart with his knee, dragging his mouth down your spine like he’s tracing poetry there.
“Oh yeah?” he murmurs, low and smug and reverent. “Get in line, pretty girl.”
He pushes into you with one smooth, slow thrust, so much of him, too much, your jaw goes slack, and he just stays there for a moment, his hand curled over yours, forehead pressed to the back of your shoulder.
“I love you.”
Your breath stutters.
He doesn’t give you time to recover, emotionally or physically. Doesn’t let you laugh it off or throw up your usual wall of flippant sarcasm. He kisses your shoulder again, hips moving deeper, slower.
You twist beneath him, trying to turn over because as much as you love doggy, you can't bear to not look at him right now.
But his hand presses gently between your shoulder blades, grounding you. “Wait,” he murmurs, and you freeze. You’re still so full of him you can barely think. “Just let me—can I just—”
He grinds forward, pushing all eight inches of him inside, and you choke on a moan. You’ve never heard him like this. Not just desperate, not just lost in it — but open.
“I love you when you’re mean,” he pants, voice fraying around the edges. “I love you when you roll your eyes at me in meetings and mutter under your breath during interviews. I love you, God, you're so tight," another thrust. "—when you wear those socks with the tiny dogs on them and try to pretend you’re not soft.”
You turn your head, mouth parted, eyes wide. “Clark—”
He leans down, kisses your cheek, your temple, the place behind your ear that makes your thighs shake.
“I love you when you’re being impossible. When you steal my flannels. When you pretend you don’t care. When you kissed me for the first time and then gave me a whole spiel about it.”
“Stop—”
“I love you,” he says again, brokenly this time, like it’s being torn out of him. “I love you even when I’m scared you’ll leave. Even if this is all I get.”
You turn fully this time, eyes glassy, fingers curling around the back of his neck to drag him in.
And you kiss him.
Hard.
Hungry.
Grateful.
“I love you,” you whisper against his mouth. “I love you, you wonderful, wonderful man.”
Clark lets out a sound that’s not quite a laugh and not quite a sob.
Then he flips you under him and fucks you like it’s a promise.
You say it again when you come the second time, breathless, high-pitched, hands clutching at his shoulders, and again when he follows with a low, shuddering groan, spilling into you like he’s got nowhere else he’d rather be.
.
The car smells like spearmint gum and way, way too much coffee. Clark’s got one hand on the wheel and the other laced through yours like it’s always been there. Which, lately, it has.
You’re about halfway to Smallville.
“So,” you say, tapping his knuckles with your thumb. “How many embarrassing baby photos am I being subjected to this time? Just give me a ballpark.”
Clark chuckles. His dimples show. “Oh, uh… probably all of them. Again."
You groan. “Even the corn maze one?”
“There are multiple corn maze ones,” he corrects gently. “There’s one where I’m dressed as a scarecrow.”
You stare at him.
He nods solemnly. “With face paint.”
“Oh my God,” you wheeze, turning toward the window. “I don’t know if I’m emotionally prepared for that.”
“Don’t worry,” he says, squeezing your hand. “Ma loves you. You could commit tax fraud in front of her and she’d ask if you wanted seconds.”
You snort. “That’s very comforting.”
He shrugs, smiling again. “It’s true. She already set up the guest room.”
You blink at him.
“…The guest room?”
A pause. Clark glances over. “Well, I didn’t want to assume we’d—uh—share a bed. With my parents in the house.”
You raise a brow. “Clark. We had sex in a supply closet at the Planet.”
“That was—okay, yes—but that was under different circumstances.”
“We are dating.”
“I know.”
You lean your head back against the seat, grinning. “You’re so weird.”
“You love it,” he mutters, cheeks pink.
You do.
God, you do. You love him.
It still sneaks up on you sometimes. The clarity of it. The quiet, persistent fact of Clark Kent: the man who once made you blueberry pancakes the morning after you nearly ran out on him, who kissed your wrist like it meant something, who never—not once—looked away. Who told you he was Superman in the middle of a 7/11 parking lot, like some fucking lunatic.
And now here you are. In his car. On the way to meet his parents.
Officially.
Not just as the girl who sleeps over sometimes. Not as the coworker who won’t stop pretending she doesn’t care. Not as the idiot who thought she could get away with loving him and not doing anything about it.
No. Now, you’re his girlfriend.
Which means this is real. Which means you’re going to their farmhouse in Smallville. And Martha is probably going to offer you pie. And Jonathan is probably going to show you Clark’s fifth grade spelling bee trophy like it’s the most precious thing in the world.
Which should terrify you.
(And maybe it does, a little.)
But mostly—mostly it feels like the best thing you’ve ever said yes to.
Clark clears his throat. “Hey.”
You turn.
He’s watching you with that expression again. That soft, unguarded, ruined look like he still can’t believe you’re real. It’s so sincere it nearly undoes you.
“I’m really glad you’re coming,” he says. Quietly.
You look at him. You squeeze his hand back.
“Me too, Michigan.”
His ears go a little red. “Don’t call me that.”
“Oh? I thought you liked when I objectify you by state.”
“I like it slightly less when it happens in front of a rest stop attendant while you’re holding beef jerky and winking at me. And when it's the wrong state."
You smirk. “Not my fault you were born with that jawline and a humiliation kink.”
Clark coughs through a laugh. “God help me.”
He reaches across the console, dragging his thumb lightly over the inside of your wrist. The same spot he kissed that night. The one you think might still hum a little under your skin.
You let your head fall against his shoulder, smile tucked into your cheek.
“Wake me when we’re ten minutes out?”
“You sure?” he murmurs, already lowering the volume on the radio.
“Mhm.” You close your eyes. “I gotta mentally prepare myself for the scarecrow photos.”
You feel the press of his lips against your knuckles. Gentle. Familiar.
“You’re gonna be fine,” he says. “They love you, you know that. I do too."
