summary: you like to have things in your mouth. steve hates it.
tags: reader has a bit of an oral fixation(?), steve has a fixation on reader, kissing, suggestive themes but no smut, brief mentions of steve's childhood, f!reader, touch starved steve, etc. etc. etc.
wc: 1222
note: i saw djo live IN THE FLESH on sunday and the worms are back in my brain....i need him bad. i started writing this before i fell asleep last night and finished it today so idk what it is. first steve fic tho <3 mayb i'll do another eventually. this probably sucks. enjoy!
He can't stop looking at your mouth.
It's something you started doing with it. This instinctual need to have something in it; a sucker, a straw to chew on, a bobby pin.
it drives him up a wall.
Especially now, sitting across from you on the couch as you attentively watch whatever he put on the TV, completely still except for the pen cap rolling around between your teeth.
He's noticed it over time, your inability to sit still. Usually it's your fingers twisting a hair tie back and forth, your foot tapping against the floor, your hair twirled between your fingers.
Nothing ever this distracting.
He's not even sure if you realize you're doing it. Or worse, the torment it's causing him.
"Do you-" he clears his throat, his voice thick with something he doesn't want to name. "Are you hungry? Do you need something to eat?"
Your gaze slides from the tv to him, brows furrowing in confusion. That pen cap falling still between your lips.
God, your mouth. He can't stop thinking about it.
"What?" The word is slightly mumbled, still not having taken the cap out of your mouth.
There's a sheen on your lips, a mix of whatever gloss you put on earlier and spit sticking to them. He feels like he's going to die.
"Steve."
He must have lost a second (or a minute), because when he makes eye contact with you, your eyes are a mix of confusion and concern.
And a bit of smugness too, he thinks. A small tilt to your smile, like you saw him, like you wanted him to watch.
He runs a hand through his hair, tries again. "Are you hungry? I can make something if you want."
"We just ate dinner, though."
"Yeah but," he gets stuck there, on the corner of your mouth. You've taken the cap out, now biting the inside of your lips. "You keep chewing on shit. I don't know if that was a silent message to me if you wanted something else or not."
He looks back up and knows. Caught. Your eyes are clear now, the smugness from your smile spreading to them. Like you know what it's doing to him.
"Are you okay? You look-" you reach a hand out to his forehead, pressing the back of your palm to it, "flustered." The simple contact of your skin on his feels electric and he has to fight to not lean his whole weight into it.
"Fine." He feels like he's gonna pass out.
"You sure?" You lean in, your hand shifting as your fingers start playing with his hair. He shudders, his eyes falling closed as you twist the strands through your fingers.
He can feel your breath on his mouth. Not sure when you leaned even closer, but he swallows as he sits there. Waits.
"I saw you watching," you murmur, "you looked pissed off at the pen."
"I am." He opens his eyes to see you searching his face, for what, he's not sure. "Was wondering why you always have something in your mouth." His gaze drifts back to it.
You hum, your face shifting to the side, your lips pressing to his jaw as your hand in his hair shifts to cup the nape of his neck. "Dunno. Just feels nice."
A bite under his ear. Tasting his skin, rolling it between your teeth before soothing it with your tongue. Feels nice to have his skin on your lips.
Steve's chest heaves, shifting his hips a little to ease the pressure off. "You're messing with me."
He can feel your smile, then. Like you know he's caught you. Like this was your plan all along, to ease yourself closer to him. Your head moves up, back in front of him and he opens his eyes to look at you. Hadn't even realized they'd fallen shut again.
He wonders what you see. Flushed cheeks, dilated pupils, breath falling heavy out of his mouth. A mess.
"Honey," you start. Your gaze falls to his mouth, then. "Do you want me to kiss you?"
The words are quiet, gentle. Like you know that's what he needs. A soft touch, a gentle approach.
Sometimes Steve gets stuck. Caught in a long lost pattern where he wants something but doesn't know how to ask for it. Feels his skin get clammy and his heart rate kick up as that voice in the back of his head becomes louder. Too much. Too needy.
Feels it in his throat, then. Pressure in the back of it, every muscle in his body telling him not to. Too risky. She wants you to say no.
"Please," he rasps out.
You smile. A gentle, knowing one. Like you can hear those voices too. Like you know him well enough to realize when it's hard for him to ask.
Your other hand comes up to cup his cheek as you lean in, lips pressing to his. You're cautious, not out of nerves, but knowing that he might need a second to settle.
Your tongue swipes across his bottom lip and he melts. Reaches across to your hips to pull you closer to him. Needs that touch. Nothing has ever grounded him as much as you do.
You raise up onto your knees so you're above him and you hum warmly when he pushes closer to you in any way he can. Hands tightening, pinkies slipping under your shirt, rubbing small circles against your ribs.
He's warm all over. Your mouth is hot and wet against his, letting out little breaths that go straight through him like a live wire. You kiss like that for a few minutes, the time lost to him as he gets lost in you.
"Steve," you start, pulling back just slightly. It's a reflex for him to lean back in, to get more from you. You let him before reaching into his hair and tugging just enough to get his attention.
He whimpers at it, leaning back and opening his eyes to see you smiling at him again, eyebrows raised in surprise. "You know you can kiss me whenever you want, right?"
His throat is dry as he swallows. He feels dazed, back to staring at your mouth again. Pink, a little swollen. He's obsessed with it a little, he thinks.
Tells you that too. "You drive me insane sometimes," his thumb reaches up to run across your bottom lip, sinking in a bit until he feels your teeth. "Always playing with stuff in your mouth. Can't think about anything else when you're doing it." You close your lips around his thumb and suck a little. Steve feels like he's going to die.
"Well," you lean closer, lifting one of your legs over his hips and resting your weight on him. He exhales sharply, knowing you can feel how hard he is. "Lucky for you, there's an easily solution to that."
He's grinning when you lean back down, pressing your mouth to his in a way that shows him how badly you want it.
And later when Steve starts stealing little items from you, rolling them around in his hands and twisting them between his long fingers, you may have to cross your legs and turn your attention elsewhere, (but he doesn't need to know that).
summary: You only meant to write an article about the fall of King Steve Harrington. Somewhere between the interviews, the experiments, and the late-night drives, you forgot he was supposed to be your story — not the boy you fell for. ⟡ LOOSELY INSPIRED BY "HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN TEN DAYS (2003)"
pairing: steve harrington x reader
w/c: 13k (I lost the plot)
a/n: i literally fever dreamed this so im hoping it comes across good because i totally blanked out writing this haha 😭 this is all brain and vibes. thank u for reading, and reblogs are appreciated!! enjoy <3
— amazing support banner used is from @moonstoneandmoonlight!
content warnings: angst, slow burn-ish tension, emotional hurt/comfort, bittersweet longing, (one bed trope kind of), observant/highly sensitive reader, mentions of nancy wheeler, miscommunication, interrupted kisses, public confessions, steve harrington being sad and soft (yay!), reader being a stubborn high school journalist, hopeful ending, etc
▪︎ my masterlist
By the time the final bell rang, the newsroom already smelled of hot dust, old paper, and somebody’s disgusting coffee of choice.
It was not really a newsroom, not in the way you truly wanted it to be. It was a converted classroom at the end of the English hall with two long tables shoved together, a crooked bulletin board covered in deadlines, and a mimeograph machine that coughed ink onto everyone’s fingers. The overhead lights hummed with a flat, yellow patience.
Outside the narrow windows, Hawkins High School settled into its usual afternoon disorder; lockers slamming, sneakers squeaking, and boys yelling too loudly because silence made them feel small. Typical behaviors.
You had spent three nights on your article.
Three nights with your notes spread across your desk, your pencil worn down to a nub, and your mother calling from downstairs that dinner was getting cold. Three nights reading through library clippings about school funding, college acceptance rates, and the way girls in Hawkins were politely encouraged toward “practical” futures while boys with half of your grades were told they had potential. You had interviewed four seniors, two teachers, one guidance counselor who had smiled at you with the concerned tenderness adults reserved for girls they planned to ignore.
It was practically perfect.
You had written it carefully. Not angrily, though you had to admit that anger had lived under every line you wrote, warming the words from dpwn below. You had made it clean, sharp, and correctly sourced. You had imagined your byline on the front page. You had victoriously imagined holding the paper in your hands and seeing proof that all the hours you spent noticing things nobody asked you to notice had finally become something real.
The reaction to it, unfortunately, had left much to be desired.
Mr. Walsh held the pages in one hand and adjusted his glasses with the other. His voice was polite enough, but it held that familiar detachment.
“It’s very thorough,” he noted with a faint nod of his head towards the article.
You knew you were absolutely dead, or rather, any hopes of seeing a cover page was.
Across the table, Mark Ellison leaned back in his chair, tapping his pencil against his front teeth. His article was a soft little thing about “school spirit making a comeback,” built around three quotes from basketball players and one sweeping paragraph about how Hawkins High had ‘survived difficult years by pulling together’. He had written it during study hall. You had watched him do it while eating chips from a vending machine. You had also watched him pay more attention to his stupid Walkman than his article.
Mr. Walsh then gave Mark’s pages a fond pat from beside you. You had to physically stop yourself from letting the steam errupt from your expression, and curled your fingers into your palm. You didn't, however, hide the scoff when the teacher told the boy his next words.
“I think this is what we need above the fold this week. Something upbeat. The town’s had enough heaviness, don’t you think?”
The room moved on. You couldn't even get another word in before everything decided it was time to start up again. That only served further in building up your irritation.
Someone asked about the sports column, someone else complained that the typewriter ribbon was fading again, and most annoyingly, Mark grinned without trying to look too pleased, which made him only look worse. You sat very still with your hands folded over your notebook, your nails continuing to press little moons into your palms.
“Maybe we can run yours inside,” Mr. Walsh added, almost kindly. You hated how he made it seem like it was somehow charitable of him to do so. After all, his excuses were always relatively the same. “It’s strong work. Just a bit… intense for the front page.”
Intense.
You looked down at your notes until the letters blurred into a block of black.
That was what they always called girls who didn't make unfairness easier to swallow for others. Intense. Difficult. Ambitious in a tone that meant unattractive. Boys were driven. Boys were promising. Boys were leaders, even when they had to borrow a pencil to write a paragraph about pep rallies. Even when half of them couldn't even write clean enough for legitimacy on papers of loose leaf.
You smiled promptly then because you knew how to make adults comfortable. You weren't so sure your face was able to hide your growing annoyance, though. It was practically humiliating in its steady routine, but you'd learned over the years Mr. Walsh was as stubborn as the donkey he was named after.
“Sure,” you gave a small exhale alongside your smile, your tone was too light to be breezy and far too sweet to be real. “Inside is fine.”
Inside was not fine.
At lunch, you stabbed your fork into a pile of cafeteria mashed potatoes until they lost their shape entirely. With a cheek resting in hand, the sight of the sullen plate reflected your own inner turmoil. Conversational chatter flattered about around you.
“He said it was intense?” One friend asked, sitting across from you with a carton of milk she had not opened. “Everything's intense to that guy. Mr. Walsh wears the same brown sweater every day and once called Pat Benatar ‘too confrontational.’”
“He didn’t say Mark’s article was intense,” you muttered with poorly disguised disgust. Your brows twitched together and your eyes flicked up in a roll. The moment replayed in your head, Mark getting far too much praise for something he spent the better half of an hour listening to Olivia John-Newton, though he'd refuse the accusation vehemently if questioned.
“That’s because Mark’s article has the emotional range of a gym sock,” your friend Stacey said from beside you. She had bright blue eyeliner, a talent for gossip, and the terrifying confidence of someone who had never once doubted she deserved to take up space. You admired her for that. “You need something undeniable.”
“I had something undeniable.” the response came almost petulant, and if you were still holding onto the leverage that you had a shoe-in for an article, you'd have refrained from saying it.
“No,” Stacey clicked her tongue, pointing her plastic spoon at you. “You had something true. That’s different. Truth makes people sleepy unless there’s blood on it.”
Leah made a face, looking down at the strawberry jam on her cake slice, and promptly pushed it forward. “Please never go into medicine.”
You tried not to laugh and failed halfway, the sound catching in your throat before it could become anything that felt good. For a moment, there was something besides that sense of annoyed displacement.
The cafeteria around you churned with noise. Trays clattered, and somebody at the far end started chanting for reasons that probably involved a dare and milk coming out of someone’s nose. You let the spark of clear judgement light through your expression as you looked over to the basketball table occupied its usual territory near the windows.
They were loud enough to own the room without having to ask, a result of years of indulged arrogance, you could only assume. Tommy H. was telling a story with both hands, his laugh sharp and performative. A few juniors watched him the way freshmen used to watch Steve Harrington.
Steve did not sit with them anymore, that was something practically everyone noticed since last year.
He sat two tables away from the old crowd, alone with a slice of pizza gone stiff at the edges. His hair was still perfect in the way that seemed less accidental the longer you looked at it, all careful lift and feathered brown shine.
His shoulders filled out his yellow polo, but they were rounded inward today, one hand pressed against his temple while he stared at a textbook he did not seem to be reading. There was a bruise near his jaw, faded yellow at the edges. His eyes kept moving toward the basketball table and then away before anyone caught him looking.
King Steve, deposed but still dressed for court.
Stacey followed your gaze. Her mouth curved before you could shove it away off of her.
“If you want the front page,” she brightened up with a revived vigor, “you have to write about the biggest tragedy in Hawkins.”
Leah, unfortunately, looked too.
“Oh Stace’, I don't think that's a good—” she was swiftly cut off by your mutual friends voice dipped in delight
“The fall of King Steve,” Stacey finished and you gasped at her.
You snorted without ceremony promptly, her words did less to entice you and more to amuse you. If there was anything you couldn't find yourself caring less to write about, it would be about anything involving Steve Harrington. “That’s not an article.”
“It is absolutely an article! It’s got everything. Popularity. Masculine fragility. Hair products.”
Leah leaned forward then, lowering her voice. She looked besides you two with a more hesitant approach, her eyes flicked to the table a few feet away from you. “Also maybe just leave him alone? He looks one spilled pudding cup away from a complete collapse.”
“That’s the point,” Stacey had taken to promptly ignoring the two of you. “What happens when a guy builds his whole identity on being wanted, and then people stop wanting him?”
The words landed before the joke did.
You looked at Steve again. He dragged a hand through his hair, then immediately seemed to regret it, patting the front back into place with a reflex so automatic it made your chest pinch in spite of yourself. If you were to compare it to anything, it would be akin to a kid being filmed for a birthday party. It held the familiar awareness of being all too stiff, even in the singular companionship of just himself.
A whole identity built on being wanted.
The cafeteria lights flashed across the windows as usual. Outside, October had pulled Hawkins into a cold, colorless stretch of afternoon. The trees beyond the parking lot shivered with half-bare branches, leaves gathered wetly along the curb. It was a domestic background that you've memorized in routine these past four years.
You pulled your notebook from your bag suddenly. Stacy's words had flicked on a small lightbulb in your brain.
Leah's brown eyes blinked wearily on you as the next few minutes were received in silence from your side, only the sound of pen to paper filling your ears. “Oh, God. Stacey, you broke her.”
You rolled your eyes at that.
“I inspired her.” Stacey gave a self assured correction, her fingers going up as if it would further solidify her point.
There was no real attention paid to your friends for the next whirlwind of time, and you clicked your pen every so often in an attempt to soften the strokes of ink.
At the top of a previous blank page, you had written:
The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king.
Stacey leaned over your shoulder and let out a delighted gasp.
“That is disgusting,” Leah immediately. Her eyes widened and she threw you a look that your promptly avoided.
“It’s not, it's anonymous… and a work in progress,” you murmured in weak retaliation, already thinking faster than you could write. “Stacy's right, it'd be a good article. How we make gods out of boys and then act shocked when they don’t know how to be human.”
Leah’s expression softened in a way you did not want to look at too closely. Realistically, you realized this might be a bit too cruel. But you were already on your verge, and no matter how absurd the idea had seemed before – you could admit held strong potential.
“And Harrington?”
You watched him push his tray away untouched, and your gaze was less detached than you had been before.
“Steve is the case study.”
You told yourself that made it cleaner, and you also told yourself a lot of things that week. Things that in hindsight, might’ve been necessary to proceed with caution.
—
You approached him after basketball practice on a Wednesday, when the hallway outside the gym smelled most strongly of rubber, sweat, and floor wax. Most of the team members had already spilled toward the locker room, their voices echoing against the cinderblock walls. Steve came out last, a gym bag slung over one shoulder, and damp hair falling looser than usual around his forehead.
He looked tired enough that the sight of him made your plan wobble. It was one thing to think this out carefully and assume control, and it was another to actually act it out.
Then, finally, he glanced up and saw you waiting by his locker.
You pushed off the wall before you could think better of it. Any further delay would only serve in faltering you more.
“Harrington,” you called out firmly, letting your voice carry the boldness you had practiced in your mirror. Though, you weren't entirely sure you properly hid the wince that came with addressing him like that. “I’ve been looking for you.”
His eyebrows lifted then, that was what you'd noticed first. His face seemed to twitch in a complicated way, his face didn't hold a smirk, not right away at least. Surprise was there first. Real surprise, open and unguarded enough to make you feel briefly cruel. Your tried not to ponder on him for too long.
“For me?” his voice held a sincere curiosity that had you irritated at repeating yourself.
“No, the other guy with gravity-defying hair and a tragic aura.”
That got him.
A breath left him, almost a laugh, you saw the movement happen in real time. He leaned his shoulder against the locker, trying to recover his balance by looking casual. His thumb hooked into his belt loop. His shining eyes flicked over your face, landed on your mouth for half a second too long, then jumped back up.
You really had to refrain from the scoff that wished to escape you.
“Tragic aura,” he repeated, his eyes twisted in a regained stability. His voice was more awkward than you remembered it being, strangely that'd been your first true thought of him. “Wow. That’s, uh… that’s new.”
You gave a low hum in response. “I’m a journalist. We notice things.”
“Is that why you’re here? To notice me?”
The line should have been smooth. You could actively hear him reaching for an older version of himself, the one who would have tilted his head and let girls do the work of melting. But his voice caught on the last word. Not much, but it was just slightly enough that you felt something in you feel successful.
You smiled, the formation stretched across your face as you cleared your throat softly. “I need help.”
Now, he seemed a bit confused, his head tilted slightly in a way that reminded you of the neighborhood poodle. You let a smile turn slightly genuine at the semblance found between the two.
“With?”
You stepped closer finally, and you stepped close enough to see the faint line where his tan had started to fade at his throat, and certainly close enough to catch the smell of clean soap beneath sweat and cologne.
“Understanding someone.” the words came out a bit hesitant, not at all like the suaveness you had practiced by standing in front of your bathroom mirror.
His gaze sharpened a little. Instinct took over him well. “Someone?”
“A boy,” you said quickly. Whatever it was that appeared in your face seemed to have gotten to him.
You saw the ghost of King Steve ever so slightly stir in movement in him. His mouth curved, one corner first, then another. It was almost unfair how quickly he could change expressions, and even worse so, that each expression of his seemed to cause your nerves to fray.
“Well, lucky for you, I happen to be an expert.”
Your eyes flickered to his, though not before you let your gaze find the small details of his face that were only exposed up close. “You do?”
“Former expert,” he amended, and something dry entered his voice. “My credentials are under review.”
You laughed before you meant to. You couldn't help it at the moment. It came out too genuine and his face changed with it. Not entirely dramatic, though. He just went still, the way people did when a sound touched some starved part of them. His own pools of hazel seemed to be too flittery for someone you were sure had done this plenty of time before. Still, against your better judgment, you kept staring into his eyeline.
You should have written that down later, a faint voice echoed through your head. Not the eyes part, you quickly denied and even got upset at yourself for supplying the image. You really should have been memorizing any small part he'd exposed, even more of the behavior you were out to conquer.
Instead, you remembered the exact angle of his shoulder against the locker, the wet curl slipping toward his eyebrow, the way he looked at you with confusion and cautious interest and a kind of bruised hope that had no place in your article.
You tilted your chin, chewing on the bottom of your lip by pure instinct. By now, you were close enough to have to tilt your head up to meet his gaze. You blinked, breaking whatever power he seemed to have had momentarily to have you swept up and cleared your throat.
Your voice was back to being confident again, since practice made perfect. “Pick me up Friday?”
His mouth caught in a faint sputter, you could tell you had caught him completely off guard. Faintly, as if it were a bodily response, you softened your smile into something smaller, tilting up at him for the silent moment.
“Friday,” he said after a beat. Steve’s voice seemed to have taken a breathless edge now. It did something all weird and wonky to you. “Yeah. I can do Friday.”
“Seven.”
“Seven,” he repeated, and appearing to remember he wasn't an apparition, Steve's body seemed to lean toward yours as he continued. “Where are we going?”
You hadn't thought that far. Instead of deciding on the spot, you bit the inside flesh of your cheek as an amused exhale escaped your lips.
“You’re the expert, Harrington. Impress me.”
You walked away before your nerve gave out. You could feel him watching you down the hall, could feel the whole plan beginning to take shape behind your ribs. You had even taken to looking through your sosters old magazines for inspiration. Hot and cold. Interest and withdrawal. Private sincerity, public disruption. All those where supposed to be tactics to reuse interest in relationships, but you figured that the same could also be said for an indirect character study.
Observe the subject under changing social conditions. Note responses. Analyze, that had been your plan split up into groups.
You were very good at making terrible ideas sound academic.
—
On Friday, his Beamer waited by the curb under a sky the color of sad, wet cement.
He got out when he saw you, which you hated because it was exactly the kind of performative gentleman routine you had expected, and also because he did it without checking if anyone was watching. That complicated your observations, causing a flutter to go through you. He wore a brown leather jacket over a striped shirt, jeans that fit him too well, and that expensive cologne that seemed built into the mythology of him.
Ralph Lauren, Stacey had said with the authority of a girl who knew these things and lived vicariously through others. It mixed with the leather and the faint sweet smell of cherry chapstick when he opened the passenger door.
"Aren't you going to get in,” Steve gave you a wounded look. His head was tilted down slightly towards you and it seemed like he was more offended you had even made an attempt to reach for the door.
You looked at the open door in his hand, feeling less like a mastermind and more like a nervous girl. “Do you do that for all your dates?”
Steve's hand went up to run the back of his neck as he let out a weak exhale, the ghost of a smile on his face. “Only the intimidating ones.”
You slid into the car after that, tucking your notebook deep inside your bag where he would not see it. The seats were cold through your skirt. The dashboard glowed amber when he turned the key, washing his face in soft light as the engine rumbled awake.
He didn't take you to Enzo’s, where everyone went to be seen. He drove past the diner, past the arcade, past the bright places where Hawkins pretended it had a pulse. The town fell away into dark stretches of road bordered by skeletal trees and damp fields. Eventually he pulled into a small overlook above the park, where the swings moved gently in the wind below and the streetlamps made small gold circles on the path.
“This is your idea of impressive?” you couldn't help the baffled tone that took over as you asked, but your voice had taken a softer lift.
He shrugged, fingers resting on the steering wheel. “You said you wanted to understand someone. Hard to do that while watching someone like Tommy try to fit an entire breadstick in his mouth.”
“You’re not friends with him anymore?” you didn't really need the answer, everyone practically knew the answer by now. But still, it's different to have someone tell you something by choice than admit knowledge by association.
His thumb moved along the stitching of the wheel. Back and forth. Back and forth.
“Not really.”
“Why?”
He gave you a sideways look. “Wow. Straight to it.”
“I told you. Inquisitive.”
“Right.” He exhaled through his nose, not quite laughing. The smile on his face was soft in its hesitancy. “I don’t know. Stuff happened. I got tired. He got meaner. Or maybe he was like that, and I just stopped thinking it was funny.”
The words fell between the two of you in a hush.
You watched him in the dashboard light. Away from school, he seemed younger and older at once. Without the noise around him, without the audience, the space he occupied seemed to changed shape. He rubbed a hand over his face, then caught himself before he ruined his hair and dropped it to his lap. He did that a lot.
“You okay?” he asked suddenly, breaking you out of your trance. You quickly gave a few hard blinks to refocus, you seriously had to stop doing that around him.
“What?”
“You’re shivering.”
Were you? You hadn't noticed much besides him. “I’m fine.”
“You’re obviously not fine.”
Before you could answer, he shrugged out of his leather jacket and draped it over your shoulders. The weight of it settled around you, warm from his body, lined with the smell of him so completely that your next breath came slower than the last.
“You’ll get cold,” you said, a frown finding its way on to your face. It was a cold evening in Hawkins, the chill more prominent than usual. Your worry was quickly shoved down by him.
Steve seemed to just fidget by habit now. The muscle in his forearms tensed and gained your attention as his arms crossed against his chest. He gave a slight shove and his smile was all teeth and unintentional charm.“I’m tough.”
Now, you didn’t even bother to hide your scoff. A challenging twist of your brow appeared and you pointed out the faults in his words. “You just complained about the heater not working.”
“I’m selectively tough,” his grin stayed and was backed up by a small chuckle.
You looked at him, and he looked back, and something quiet opened in the car.
The conversation shift quickly after that. You asked questions you had meant to use later. What did he want after graduation? He did not know. Where did he want to go? Away, maybe. Or nowhere. What was he afraid of? He made a joke at first, something about being left unsupervised with fireworks, and then he went quiet long enough for the windows to begin fogging at the edges.
“I don’t think I’m good at anything,” Steve told you after that. He said it plainly, almost casually, which made it worse. It was easier to dissect him clinically when he didn't wear that expression that caused you faltering to gain back control.
You shifted toward him, eyes dragging over him. They seemed darker with the setting say, but somehow they had something stored away that made you want to push back on his words. “That’s not true.”
He gave you a look that unnerved you. “You don’t know that.”
You didn't let it get to you. You pushed through because for some reason, you felt like you couldn't stay silent. “I know you noticed I was cold before I did.”
The words had you faltering from the truth it held.
Steve gave a wry exhale, his head tilted back against his seat with his eyes on you. “That’s not a skill.”
Your voice felt firmer now. “It is, actually.”
He stared out through the windshield. Below, the park sat empty and silvered by frost. You couldn't really focus on that, not when Steve sat besides you looking less like the king you knew and more like a boy you wanted to know. You couldn't even process the words before Steve continued in. “Nancy used to say I had good instincts when I got out of my own way.”
Nancy.
There it was. The bruise beneath the bruise. It wasn't one you were exactly shocked to hear, the whole sum of Hawkins new about the romance between the Wheeler daughter and him. Still, you weren't going deny the tinge of discomfort you felt at the mention.
What? Why were you uncomfortable? You immediately shut down the thought. A hard clearing of your throat helped stabilize yourself. You had to remind yourself that you weren't here for whatever reason that your body seemed to mistake. Instead, you focused on the task at hand, or at least tried to. You should have leaned in then when his head bowed slightly. You should have gathered the quote, traced the wound back to its social function, and built your thesis brick by brick.
You settled on something else, because strangely, anything else seemed harsh. “She sounds smart.”
“She is.”
The words carried no bitterness. That threw you off. You'd have known guys to turn completely hostile after break-ups, and you couldn't even remember a time where someone from Steve’s circle stayed genuine for the moment. You'd completely expected him to talk badly about her, about the situation, and frankly just about anything and everything that came up. To place blame in everything that never warranted it.
You'd have felt more comfortable if he reacted like that. He didn't notice your turmoil.
“She’s also right,” he added, turning back to you. His hazel eyes mesmerizing in its softness. “I get in my own way a lot.”
You wanted to ask how. You wanted to ask why. What came out was a stupid joke about how his hair probably counted as a separate obstacle. “How, by looking in the mirror and not finding your face under all that hair?”
His laugh wasn’t loud, it certainly was not the cafeteria laugh you'd have known, not the old one that announced him from across the room. It was small and startled and breathless, given to you without polish. It didn't help you when he leaned back against the seat, smiling at the roof of the car, and your pulse betrayed you completely.
What happened next made you feel less like you were playing him and more like he was playing you. When he reached over to tuck a loose piece of hair behind your ear, he did it slowly enough that you could have stopped him.
You didn't. You didn't stop him.
You told yourself it was because you were playing an act.
His knuckles brushed your cheekbone, working in breaking you out of your mind. Steve’s hand lingered there, his thumb moving once over your skin, it barely had any pressure. He watched the place he touched instead of your eyes, and the careful uncertainty of it burned through you harder than confidence would have.
For one long second, you wanted him to kiss you so badly that you forgot why you were there.
Then a car passed on the road behind you, headlights cutting through the windows, and both of you shifted apart.
Steve cleared his throat, his head turning to look out the driver's side. He seemed to have looked aware of just how vulnerable the moment was, and didn't know how to navigate it. “So. Did I help?”
You looked down at his jacket wrapped around you. It made feel warm in ways you almost wished it didn't.
“Yes,” your voice came out all wrong, small and breathless. “You did.”
You wrote three pages that night and hated all of them. It was as frustrating as it was complicated. The problem was not that Steve failed your test. You found that out quickly.
The true problem was that he kept passing in the wrong direction.
—
In public, you performed coldness with the sharp dread of a person setting a match to her own sleeve. Or at least, you truly hoped it looked like that.
Monday morning, Steve found you near your locker with a bright, almost boyish smile that made you glance away before it could hit directly.
“Hey,” he leaned besides you near the locker. “I was thinking maybe after school we could—”
You shut your locker too hard.
“Can we not do this right now?”
His hand, halfway extended toward yours, stopped in the air. He dropped it quickly, trying to make the movement look natural.
“Do what?” his voice had you wanting to falter. God, since when were you this weak?
“This.” You gestured between you, impatient and vague. “The whole thing.”
People moved around you in the hallway, a current of denim jackets and textbooks and perfume. Someone bumped your shoulder. Before you could stumble, Steve stepped closer, placing himself between you and the rush of bodies. It was an unconscious movement. Protective without announcement.
Your stomach turned. You bowed your head to ignore looking into his enrapturing eyes. A warmth came instinctive in your stomach standing in such close proximity with the boy in front of you. You tried to push it down.
Keyword, tried.
His voice dropped, his head leaning down to yours in an attempt to meet your gaze. “Hey. What did I do?”
His voice had you feeling weak already. “Nothing.”
“Okay, well, I’m getting a pretty strong not-nothing feeling here.”
You looked past him toward Stacey at the end of the hall. She watched with wide eyes, silently mouthing something that might have been commitment or abort. Her hands moved in front of her in a weaving gesture. You weren't sure what she'd been trying to convey, so you only assume she wanted to to keep going.
You crossed your arms, forcing your tone to turn cold and far away. No words really landed cleanly in your head for inspiration, so you took the first ones that would stick. “Maybe you don’t have to be so… much.”
Steve blinked.
His jaw tensed with movement, your eyes drew to the action by unfortunate reflex now. He glanced down, then back up, searching your face with a focus that made your skin feel too thin and your act feel too hesitant.
“I’ll fix it,” the words came quietly. You were sure your expression was dumbfounded, sure you had been acting like this on purpose – but what did he gain from doing that? You were so rapidly expecting a textbook fit. Instead, you got patient murmurings. That was worse than any possible anger.
“I don’t need you to fix it.”
“Then tell me what you need.”
His breath warmed your forehead. His hazel eyes showed no sign of any true hostility. They were worried and confused, and there was something heartbreakingly earnest in the way he tried to solve the version of the problem you had invented. You liked that. You liked that he seemed to act like that by instinct.
And so, because of that, you almost reached for him.
You willed yourself to iron quickly. Wetting your bottom lip, you finally looked up at him. eyes. The action had you remembering just why you were so hesitant to meet his gaze, having a look that could melt anything in them. Instead, you stepped around him and walked to class with your throat tight enough to hurt.
At lunch later, you made notes that took up new space in your writing notebook.
He responded to social rejection not with aggression but accommodation. Attempts repair. Shows confusion when expected script fails. Public status seems less motivating than personal connection.
You underlined personal connection so hard the paper tore.
Even detached on paper didn't feel right.
—
The next test, as the girls had dubbed it, was supposed to be funny. You were sure it was meant to be, but it still held an underlying issue. It was Stacey’s idea, though you were the one foolish enough to do it.
The party was at some fellow senior’s house on Maple Street, loud enough to rattle the windows from the street. Steve picked you up with his hair arranged into what could only be called architecture. He seemed nervous about the party in a way he tried to bury under commentary about the radio, the road, and the fact that you were late even though you had been ready for ten minutes and had simply stood in your room wondering when exactly you had become the villain in your own story.
It was a rough start to say the least.
When you got there, he came around to open your door.
You stood and tried not to let the deep inhale of breathe be heard. The last thing you needed was to look as nervous as you felt. And quickly after that, you took one look at his carefully styled hair, and before you could lose courage, reached up and ran both hands through it. A smile found its way on your face, practiced and teasing, mirroring the girl in the catalogue of your People magazine.
The brush through his hair wasn't gentle, although his hair certainly was. Seriously, you had to ask later on what his secret was.
The structure of its volume collapsed instantly, and Steve froze. His head still remained in its bowed position from where he leaned down from the passenger seat door of his car. His brows twitched together as your hands ran along his temple. You froze too, fingers still threaded into his hair.
For one second, you waited for the familiar snap. For the old King Steve to step forward with wounded pride and a cruel mouth. The porch light hummed above you. Inside, someone shrieked with laughter. His friends, or former friends, or whatever they were now, could see you from the living room window.
Steve looked at his reflection in the dark glass of the car. He let out a small sigh, and the familiar heart fluttering charming grin appeared on his face. Steve's eyes shut for a moment but his expression didn't falter, even as a series of laughter escaped him. The sound felt warm to you, and your body responded in turn.
“Better?” Steve then fluttered his pretty eyes back open, his head tilting with curiosity. “It was exhausting keeping that up anyway.”
Your hands fell quickly, your finger tips missing the way his hair felt against your skin instantly. The joke died so completely that you could almost hear it hit the pavement.
He glanced at you, the ruined hair falling soft around his face only enhancing him. “Does it look terrible?”
“No,” you denied, and it came out too quickly. You winced at that, a small noise escaped Steve.
His mouth twitched. “That was very convincing.”
“I mean it.” you did.
He looked younger again. Not smaller, exactly. Just less fully arranged. Another strand fell over his forehead, and you had the sudden, awful urge to smooth it back with care instead of strategy.
The party behind you roared alive, and Steve heard. His shoulders tightened, but he didn't turn toward them like you thought. He looked at you instead, waiting for your reaction, which somehow made you responsible for the whole fragile moment.
You reached up and fixed one piece of hair near his temple. Something in you liked doing that.
“There,” your voice was stronger now, and your smile had turned real moments ago. “Better.”
The smile he gave you was crooked and private. It really was nothing in comparison to the rest of the party, but it lingered. You spent the next few hours trying to get him to smile like that again.
You didn't take notes that night, or any of the other future nights.
You just remembered things instead.
You remembered the blue flicker of a movie screen across his face two nights later, when he sat beside you in the theater and kept his arm over your shoulders for the first half hour because that was what Steve Harrington knew how to do. Smooth. Easy. Practiced. Then, sometime after the second reel started rolling, his fingers stopped drumming against your sleeve and settled there with a hesitant weight, not claiming, only asking.
You remembered the way he drove with one hand when he was showing off, then switched to both hands when he told you about the time he forgot about his gym clothes and his coach made him wear an extra one two sizes too small. You remembered that he kept cherry chapstick in his glove box beside a flashlight, two old cassette tapes, and a receipt from a gas station outside Indianapolis. You remembered him stealing fries from your plate at the nearby diner and pretending to be wounded when you kicked his shin under the booth.
And in the next important memory, you remembered rain.
It came hard one random Thursday night, turning Hawkins into a blur of headlights and slick black roads. Steve’s house was empty in the way large houses could be empty even before you stepped inside. It was too clean, and far too quiet. The kind of place where expensive furniture sat untouched, waiting for adults who came home late and left early.
You ended up in his bedroom because the living room felt too much like a showroom for you.
His room was warmer than you expected, messier in an unapologetically human way. A baseball glove rested comfortably on the nearby dresser. Records stacked crookedly near the stereo. A half-open drawer with socks spilling out. Hair products lined along the bathroom counter with an intensity that might have been funny if it did not now seem faintly sad. Still, you had gotten a few quips out in hopes of cracking a smile from him.
The storm rattled the windows deeper into that even when conversations died down. You sat on the floor with your backs against the thick wooden frame of his bed, sharing a blanket that smelled faintly of detergent and his cologne. It was a familiar scent to your mind now. His knee pressed against yours beneath the fabric.
Neither of you moved away.
“I used to think this place was cool,” Steve had mentioned offhandedly after a moment, looking around the space of his room.
You didn't quite follow why his tone seemed far away, to you, his words were still holding up. “It is cool.”
“It’s big.”
Your head turned to face him, a hum on your lips. “That’s usually part of cool.”
He shook his head, the slight shake of his hair reminded you of how you missed touching it. You shook your head and focused once more when he spoke again. “No, I mean… it’s just big.”
You understood what he meant.
Near his large bedroom window, thunder rolled low over the town. The room flashed pale for a second, then settled back into the lamplight.
You rested your cheek against the edge of the mattress, warm eyes pouring into yours as he mimicked your actions. “Are your parents gone a lot?”
“Yeah.” Steve then picked at a loose thread in the blanket. His next words came out short and detached, so unlike the guy you've known. “Dad travels. Mom goes with him when she’s tired of pretending she likes Hawkins.”
You didn't like how his eyes dimmed. “And you?”
“I stay.”
The word sat between you.
He laughed once, it was without humor, and rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand. His voice held that rasped edge that sent tingles down your spine. “God, that sounded pathetic.”
“It didn’t.” The reassurance came so quick it shocked you. You attempted to play it cool, repeating the words slower.
“It did.” He looked down at his hands, the same ones you found yourself wanting to hold without the premise of a lie. “I just… I don’t know what happens when this is over. School. All of it. Everybody keeps acting like we’re supposed to know.” You didn't know what to say, it was the first time you've seen him so visibly wrecked. “College, jobs, whatever. And I’m sitting there thinking—what if this was it? What if being King Steve was the only thing I was ever good at, and I wasn’t even good enough to keep it?”
Your chest tightened, it seemed like the world was laughing at you. Her he was, sitting on his bedroom floor besides talking about his insecurities all while you were actively trying to back on them.
The article was in your bag downstairs. A draft. A title. A guillotine made of clever sentences.
“Steve,” the name came of gentle from your lips.
He would not look at you, he kept staring at a spot on the floor.
“Nancy figured it out before I did,” he went on, his voice lower now. His shoulders carried his tension clear as day. “That all the stuff people liked about me was just… noise. Parties, basketball, the car, the hair. The Harrington house. I thought that meant something. Then it didn’t, and it was—”
He stopped and didn't continue any further. You knew the signs before it came, and the room quieted down.
His throat moved, a small, forcefully restrained noise finding its way out. The rain that thudded against his window filled the silence for him. And for you.
You reached for his hand quickly.
He looked at your fingers covering his, then turned his palm upward and held on. You opened your mouth to speak, but not much came out. His grip was still foreign to you, but it was different right now. It wasn't smooth, and it didn't feel like it held any kind of plan. His grip tightened once, almost too much to be soft, but then he quickly loosened it.
You shifted closer.
That was all it took.
He pulled you into his lap with a suddenness that stole your breath, then seemed to realize what he had done a second after doing it. His hands hovered at your waist.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
You settled there instead of moving away. Your own eyes were blown wide and mirroring his. You tried to speak but it came out all airy. “It’s okay.”
His breathing changed when yours did. Steve's eyes seemed to track your face, and the air seemed to turn into something deeper.
For a moment, neither of you spoke up again. He lowered his forehead to your shoulder,then to the curve of your neck, his breath warm against your skin. The response that you gave was instantaneous, a rapid rising and falling of your chest went through the warmth of your body. His hands gripped your waist through the blanket, not possessive necessarily, you thought it felt more like clinging. Tethering. The storm made the windows tremble. His hair brushed your jaw.
You lifted a hand and threaded your fingers into the back of his hair. The return of the welcome feeling was pleasant in your grasp.
He went still under your touch, and for a moment. Then he exhaled, deep and unsteady, and held you closer. Your faces were breaths away now, the bridge of his nose softly touched yours.
“Hey,” your voice came out weak. It was too soft to be teasing like you'd hoped.
Steve’s eyes softened instantly. You saw it happen. You saw the moment the small, genuine grin stretched across his face. His voice came back whispered, as if scared to break the moment. “Hi there.”
When he finally pulled back, his eyes searched your face with an openness that made lying feel entirely impossible. You knew he was about to kiss you. You knew that you really should stop him. You knew the truth should come out before his mouth touches yours, before this became another thing you had stolen under false pretenses.
But you'd been stupid, and so you didn't stop him.
The kiss began softly, almost carefully. His lips were brushing yours once before returning with more certainty. He tasted faintly sweet from the chapstick he pretended not to use. The kiss felt like it was bewitching your body whole. His hand rose to your hair, fingers sinking in with a restraint that kept breaking and returning. You gave a slight laugh against his lips before calming down. You felt him trying not to rush, trying not to take more than you gave, and the effort undid you more thoroughly than any practiced confidence could have. Because it was just so him.
You kissed him back.
Not for the article. Not for the headline. Not because Stacey would demand details or because Mr. Walsh would have to admit you knew how to find a story
You wanted to, you truly wanted to..
You kissed him because his hand was warm against your back and his breath caught when you touched his face. Because the room smelled of rain and leather and laundry soap. Because his mouth moved against yours with need and care tangled together, and your whole body answered before your conscience could organize a defense.
When you pulled away, his forehead rested against yours. The faint flush from his skin felt nice against yours
He smiled, small and dazed. You added that of the list of expressions you liked to see on him.
“Does this mean I’m helping with your boy problem?”
A laugh broke out of you, shaky and real. You pressed your face into his shoulder to hide it. With a lightness in you chest you lifted your head up as you rolled your eyes. Your hand moved on its own account now. It slid up to grasp the side of his face, your fingers sliding against the shape of his jaw.
“Shut up, Steve.”
His arms tightened around you, and his lips found yours once again. His own lightness expressed through the laughter that filled the echoing bedroom. "Ouch, you wound me."
For a few minutes, the world narrowed to the storm, his heartbeat beneath your palm, and the terrible knowledge that you had done something you could not write your way out of.
—
The article sat unfinished for two days.
You told yourself you would kill it. You also told yourself that you had time. Then you told yourself you would revise it.
So you sat in the newsroom after school, staring at the draft title until the faniliar letters turned cruel.
The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king.
It sounded brilliant in the cafeteria. You distinctly remember thinking that. But now? Now it sounded mean.
No, mean was too light of a word. It felt cruel.
You pulled the pages from the typewriter, folded them once, and shoved them into your folder. You would tell Mr. Walsh you had changed direction. You would write something else. Anything else. A review of the cafeteria pizza. A profile on the marching band. A blank page with sorry written in the center.
The front page spot didn't seem so enticing anymore when the cost came so harsh.
You were reaching for your bag when Mark appeared in the doorway, looking over at you. You didn't bother to hide the deep exhale you gave, you whole body tensing on on instinct.
“Working late?”
You stiffened and corrected him. “Leaving, actually.”
His eyes dropped to the folder in your hand. You immediately shut the folder, not liking the look in his gaze. “Is that the mystery column everyone’s whispering about?”
“No.”
“So yes.”
You tucked it against your chest. You had truly no paitence for the boy. You had been feeling horrible all last night yesterday, well, even more so last night than usual. “Move, Mark.”
He held up both hands, smiling. You didn't like his smile. It was nothing like the comforting presence of Steve's. The thought only made your mood worsened. “Relax. I just wanted to see what was so important that Walsh was considering bumping my school spirit piece.”
“He wasn’t.” You wished you sounded as steady as you needed to, but the flicker in your voice betrayed you.
Mark noticed. Boys like Mark always noticed weakness when it benefited them. And Mark himself no doubt would revel in any chance of taking an empty shot at you.
“Come on,” he clicked his tongue in a way that made your blood boil from its condescension. “We’re all on the same staff.”
“No, we’re not.” You pushed past him quickly.
You did not know, however, that then one folded carbon copy had slipped from your folder and landed beneath the table, half-hidden by the trash can. You did not know Mark found it ten minutes later. You did not know he read it standing under the buzzing lights with his mouth slowly opening into the delighted shape of opportunity.
If you knew, you certainly wouldn't have lived through the reoccurring nightmare you've been having for the past few weeks.
You found out the next morning when Hawkins High came alive with your words.
Not the final version of your words, for it surely would've had a different result. It wasn't even the whole draft.
It was the worst version, the sharpest version.
The version written before you knew the way Steve looked when he gave away his jacket and pretended not to be cold.
Copies appeared on lockers before first period. Someone had run them fast and dirty, the ink uneven, the margins crooked. The title screamed from the top in bold type.
By second period, everyone had read it. By lunch, they were reading it aloud. You pushed through the hallway with your heart hammering so hard your vision pulsed at the edges.
A boy near the trophy case laughed. “Listen to this part—”
You snatched the page from his hand and you were sure the rhythm of your heart could be heard from miles away.
There it was.
Your article.
Your voice, sharpened into a blade that you couldn't even begin to imagine dulling.
The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king
Every high school builds a throne, though no one admits to carrying the wood to make it. We vote with our eyes, our invitations, and our laughter at jokes that are not funny enough to deserve it. We create a boy and call him a king because it is easier than admitting we are the kingdom that is faulty.
The high school god is rarely born exceptional. He is assembled meticulously. A good car. A good face. The right jacket. The right table. Enough people saying his name in the right tone until even he begins to believe there is something sacred in being wanted. These continue to enforce how sincerity rarely makes the cut.
But worship is not love. Anyone will tell you that, and those who disagree would be dumb enough to face the consequences. Popularity feeds on performance, and performance rots whatever is underneath the layer given. A boy taught to survive by being admired will eventually mistake attention for affection, control for confidence, and loneliness for proof that everyone else has failed him
When a crown falls, what remains is often not a villain, but something more ordinary and more frightening: a boy with no language for himself beyond what other people once applauded and now isolate.
Hawkins High should ask why we keep making kings out of boys who do not know how to be human — and why we act surprised when the weight of a crown crushes them to dust.
You had written every word. It would have been easier to say that Mark embellished over your words, and exaggerated for journalist effect. But he didn't, you were the one to do that. It was the worst part of the draft he could have chosen, simply because of the fact that you had left out everything you saw after.
You had also left out every human thing that would have saved him.
You found Steve in the print room a few hours later. And before you could assume any sort of hope of a clean explanation, it was shot and dead in front of you. You almost wished he hadn't gone there.
But of course he would have gone there, and of course the place where your betrayal had been made public still smelled of ink and metal and hot paper. It was proof of the now posted article that you didn't even want out. Faintly, you could hear something loud with the clacking press that someone had forgotten to turn off. Steve stood near the long table, one of the copies in his hand, the page trembling slightly between his fingers.
He looked up when you entered and you almost wished he hadn't.
His eyes were red.
Not crying, not exactly. Worse. It made your heart drop and panic spike up into you. It seemed he intended to hold back so hard that the effort had hollowed out his face.
“Steve–” you didn't recognize your voice. It was so desperate and and pleading. You opened your mouth and tried to stammer out any explanation that came into your head, but there was nothing you found coming to mind.
“Steve, please! Just listen, I–” He interrupted you and laughed, but it shook you. It wasn't like the laughter you had come to live, this one had no warmth in it. It was so unlike him and you hated it. You hated causing that.
“Was any of it real?”
You stopped short, any explanation does quickly in the tip of your tongue.
He held up the article for you to see. As if you needed to be reminded of what you'd have done, a small breath part of you mouthed off bitterly.
“When you looked at me like that. When you stayed with me. When you—” His voice caught, and he looked away, jaw tight. You immediately took to shaking your head, the implication of his words just. Because they were true. And because they weren't. “Was that just material for your front page?”
“No!”
“No?”
“It started—” You hated yourself before the words finished forming. “It started as an article, but—”
His face changed and your heart seemed perpetually lodged into your ribcage. There were some truths that did not deserve the dignity of a full explanation. Steve just exhaled out sharply, his head finally facing you. The reaction wasn't what you wanted, you wanted–no, needed to explain yourself.
He nodded slowly, eyes dropping to the floor. Steve didn't give the you the chance to continue. “Right.”
“Steve, I was going to stop it. I didn't even turn it in! I swear, I wasn't going to hand it over. Mark found an old draft, and he—”
“Don’t.” He looked at you then, and the quiet in his voice hurt more than shouting would have. The word held so much that you froze on instinct. Your eyes stung viciously as you opened your mouth but nothing came out. “Don’t make this about him.”
Your mouth closed then. You felt utterly helpless, which might have been deserved. You desperately wanted to tell him everything, wanting him to understand that it was real – is real. But your eyes, wide and frantic, just froze. He stepped closer, the paper crumpling in his fist.
“Everyone else wanted to see me for my status,” Steve began with a sharp inhale. You felt the stinging turn more prominent in your eyes, you tried to take a step forward but that was rejected when he almost flinched back two steps himself.. “The car, the parties, the game. Whatever. I got that. I was stupid, but I got it.” His breath shook. Steve’s voice cracked nearing the end, and that was the last thing you heard before your vision blurred into spots. “I thought you were the only one who didn’t care about it.”
“I did! No, I mean–I do, you have to believe me, Steve.” Your voice was surely pathetically small. Everything else seemed to turn into static silence in the empty printing room and you desperately needed to fix it. You wanted to, but you felt so utterly unsure of your next steps. You reached for him on instinct.
Steve flinched back.
The movement was small. Instinctive. As if his body no longer registered you as a comfort, and that split something open in you. You felt the first few tears fall from your lashes, each blink dropping tiny little pearls. Steve made a noise you couldn't properly translate, his eyes were on yours but they held a thousand words and emotions in a single look. His own hand twitched open and shut before being brought up to bury itself in his hair, Steve then forced his eyes shut and his head turned to the side. He couldn't decide what hurt more, being hurt by you, or seeing you hurt.
He was the one that came back sharp and strained.
“Turns out,” Steve’s voice was so rough, it could have been unrecognizable. You opened your mouth immediately to shut down whatever he would say, but he beat you to it. “you just used me for a headline.”
The press clattered behind him. A sheet slid loose and fluttered to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered, your voice cracking and stinging from feeling utterly defeated. Because he was right, you did. You did get to know him for a chance at a headline, so that was why you could only apologize. But you wanted nothing to do with that stupid article, and regret washed over you at the thought of him thinking none of it was real. Because yes, it was messy, but it was real for you. “But–fuck, Steve... please you have to understand that–” you were cut off before you could even continue.
He stared at you for a long moment, and you could see the part of him that wanted to believe you fighting with the part that had learned too many times what wanting cost.
Then he turned and walked out.
The room didn't become empty when he left, there was no relief that came with him leaving. And the room didn't become calmer in his disappearance; instead, it filled with him.
The absence of his cologne. The missing warmth of his jacket. The ghost of his hand at your cheek, careful and uncertain, before you had earned any of it. All of the little things that were so present just a moment ago were gone and let the physical trail of what happened.
You were left alone with the faint clacking of the room's machinery. And for a moment, you were so ready to run out to try and plead. To explain, to tell him every complete thing he was missing in hopes of him understanding. But you couldn't do that, not when you were already reason enough that he was hurting all over again.
With a loud curse, you found yourself feeling completely lost in a room that you've only ever compared with a haven.
—
For two days, Steve Harrington became visible to you in a way he had never been as king.
You saw him at his locker the next Friday morning, hollow-eyed and quiet, pretending not to hear the whispers. You saw him in the cafeteria, sitting with a younger boy you didn't know for exactly six minutes before the younger boy said something animated enough to make Steve almost smile. Then Steve caught sight of you across the room and the almost vanished.
That hurt like a stab to the heart.
Then came the other little things that made you feel significantly worse. He stopped coming to the parking lot after school until the buses had left. He stopped looking down your hallway. He stopped being available to your guilt.
You tried to corner Mark. He denied leaking it with the loose, oily confidence of someone who knew proof mattered more than truth. Mr. Walsh gave a speech to the staff about journalistic ethics while refusing to meet your eyes. Stacey apologized three times, then stopped because the apologies had nowhere to land when she held you while your sobs filled your bedroom. Leah sat beside you at lunch without talking much. That was the kindest thing anyone did.
By Friday afternoon, the newsroom felt smaller than it ever had for you. More suffocating.
The printing press sat under the window, still and waiting. Dust turned in the late sun. Your original ambition lay around you in stacks of paper and headline sketches and discarded layouts.
You looked at the front page proof with Mark’s article on school spirit and felt nothing.
Not disappointment. Not anger.
Nothing.
That truly scared you more than pain did.
You had thought giving up the article would be enough. You had thought killing the story would count as a moral act. But the story was already alive, crawling through Hawkins High with your fingerprints around its throat. You didn't know what to do, the words were already there for everyone that listened.
You sat at the typewriter.
For a long moment, you did not move. Shortly after a fit of tense silence, you finally rolled in a clean sheet. The keys struck hard enough to ache in your fingers.
This time, you did not write anonymously because you were clever. Or because you were trying to be witty or cruel. You wrote anonymously because the confession was not meant to redeem your name. It was meant to give him back his.
By the final bell, the flyer was everywhere, curtesy of your desperate and frantic efforts.
It wasn't approved, it certainly also wasn't polished. Id didn't become formatted with Mr. Walsh’s careful little rules. It was just a single page copied until the machine jammed twice and your hands were black with ink that you couldn't scrub off
Students grabbed them from the tables, from the lockers, from the floor where they skidded under shoes. After all, no one loved potential hidden stories more than Hawkins High
You didn't wait to watch them read. That had been the least of your priorities. There was more important things that you cared about than who read a piece of your work now, and he had been gone from your sight long enough.
So, you ran.
The hallways exploded around you with the annual end-of-week chaos of Hawkins High School. Lockers slammed open, someone yelled about a shared ride, and a freshman dropped an entire stack of books and cursed with such feeling that a teacher shouted his name from twenty feet away. The sun poured through the front doors in a white-gold sheet, way too bright after the fluorescent dimness of the hall.
Steve was not at his locker. He was not outside the gym. He wasn't by the trophy case or the pay phones or even the side entrance near the band room. Your lungs burned by the time you shoved through the heavy double doors and stumbled into the afternoon.
The parking lot sprawled ahead of you, shining under the cold sun. Cars backed out in crooked lines. Girls shouted through open windows. The air smelled of gasoline, damp leaves, and somebody’s cigarette. It was all nothing that you cared about. The one thing you did seemed to be missing from the scene. Your eyes squinted in the light as it traveled across the parking spaces of the lot, failing to find what your heart desperately wanted to see.
At the far end, the BMW’s engine roared to life.
“No,” you breathed with pure adrenaline rushing through your veins. Steve sat behind the wheel, one hand on the gearshift, his profile hard through the windshield.
Before you even knew it, you started running.
It was stupid, rushed, and entirely filled with desperation. Your shoes slapped the asphalt. You heard Leah faintly calling your name, but you didn't turn back. The wind tore at your hair. Your bag bounced painfully against your hip but you paid it no mind. You cut between two parked cars and nearly slipped on loose gravel.
“Steve!”
He did not hear you, or pretended not to. You gave a groan of loud annoyance, but it still did little to deter you.
You reached the car just as the reverse lights flashed.
Without thinking, without dignity, and definitely without any plan beyond the awful certainty that if he drove away now something inside you would never forgive you, you threw yourself in front of the driver’s side door.
The car jerked to a stop and Steve froze behind the wheel.
Through the glass, his beautifully bright eyes widened. Hurt, shock, and stubborn pride moved across his face so quickly you could barely separate them. Then his mouth tightened. You could tell he wasn't expecting your actions, and you couldn't exactly say you were the most sane person now.
The window rolled down slowly, the crank turning under his hand with mechanical, agonizing patience.
“What are you doing?” his words came loud and filled with unresolved frustration. Steve’s voice was rough. Thick in its tension. He wouldn't look straight at you. You refused to settle for that, the days spent with the familiar feeling practically left you numb and empty.
“Go back inside,” Steve’s eyes and words seemed to contradict each other. He shifted back into looking into his dashboard instead of you. “Go celebrate your front page.”
You shoved the crumpled paper through the open window. It landed in his lap.
“I don’t care about the stupid article, ” you said, breathless enough that the words broke apart. “I don’t care about the front page. Just–read it. Please.”
His jaw flexed. For a second, you thought he would throw it back at you. Then Steve looked down at the copy of printed words.
You watched his eyes move over the page.
Correcting mistakes:
There was an article circulating this week about a king. It was clever in the cruel way people mistake for intelligence when they are too afraid to admit they have been wrong.
The girl who wrote it thought she was exposing a system. She thought it clever and brilliant. She told herself the boy at the center of it was an idea, a symbol, a lesson with good hair. She thought distance made her fair and judicial. She thought observation made her honest.
Then the boy gave her his jacket when she was cold.
Then he admitted he was afraid of being forgotten, and the girl realized she had been so busy studying the crown of his that she had ignored the weight of it on his own head.
The first article was right about one thing: Hawkins High School makes kings out of boys and then punishes them for not knowing how to be anything else. That wasn't the mistake here. But it was wrong to confuse a boy’s damage with his character. It was wrong to turn trust into evidence. And it was wrong to take the softest things he offered and sharpen them for public consumption.
This is not an apology meant to earn forgiveness. This is meant, instead to fix the record.
The boy was never a god.
He was kinder than any story allowed him to be, and he was kinder than she deserved.
Steve stared at the paper.
His chest rose and fell under his yellow polo. His rings glinted where his fingers gripped the page. Around you, students slowed. A few openly stared. You could feel the parking lot turning toward you with the appetite of a place that loved spectacle.
For once, you really, truly, couldn't care.
Steve’s eyes lifted to yours, and you could weep just from that alone. “Why should I believe you?” he asked.
The question was quiet enough that no one else could hear. You stepped closer, hands gripping the edge of the open window. Your own voice want any better, it was loud and messy, and undeniably real. A breathless bount of laughter escaped you “Because I was playing a game and I lost, Steve.”
“I lost.”
His throat moved but you hadn't seen it.
“And I lost you,” you sighed with your head hanging low in shame near the open window, voice shaking now, “and I regret it. I was supposed to push you away, but every time you held my hand, every time you looked at me like I actually mattered, I—”
Your breath caught, and you forced it down in order to continue.
“I don’t care about King Steve. I don’t care about the crown or the table or the stupid front page. I want the guy who gets cold in his own car because he gave me his jacket. I want the guy who pretends he doesn’t use cherry chapstick. I want the guy who worries too much and fixes his hair when he’s nervous and acts tough until somebody he cares about needs him to be gentle.”
The words were embarrassing in their vulnerability, and it didn't help that Steve just stared at you. But even small battle wins were tremendous to those who were cautious. The defensive hardness in his face trembled.
You leaned closer, not touching him. Though God knew you wanted too. But you wouldn't take what he had not offered.
“I just want you,” you said and the words hung there in the bright afternoon.
For a second, nothing happened. That scared you. Because if even though all of this, he didn't believe you, you were sure that would break you entirely. You didn't understand how looking at him now, with his beautifully enrupturing genuine gaze and constellations of freckles so faint kissing his skin with blessings, you could have been so stupid.
Your panicking monologue was cut off when Steve let out a breath that broke halfway into a laugh.
It made you falter momentarily. You wouldn't exactly describe it as fully happy or clean. Instead, it was more ragged. Disbelieving. Full of relief that came so sudden it seemed to knock the strength out of him. He looked down at the crumpled printed again, then back at you. You saw the exact moment when whatever he had been holding together for two days came apart in his hands.
“You’re insane,” Steve held his head in his hands. The heels of his palms dragged to his eyes, and that when you noticed the concealed redness there. Your panic was a quick guest arrival as your hand hesitantly went over the threshold of the open window and found its spot tangling through his hair at his temple.
Your voice came out soft. “I know.”
“You ran in front of my car.” Steve's was returned in a disbelieving laugh. The sound on instinct made you smile.
“I know.”
“I could’ve hit you.”
You weren't quite so sure you believed that. And it seemed like neither did he fully either. The both of you stared through the air between you “You're not exactly driving donuts with your Beamer in a school parking lot, Harrington. You were going four miles an hour, max.”
His mouth twitched and your heart found its comfort. There he was. That was the boy you wanted to see, the one who was sincere and silly and all of the words in between.
The moment didn't truly feel fixed all the way, and it didn't feel so easily forgiven so neatly that the hurt could be vanished beneath a kiss. But there, beneath the bruised pride and the red eyes and the stubborn set of his jaw, was the boy from the park. The boy from the rainstorm. The boy who had laughed quietly when nobody asked him to perform.
He shoved the car door open.
You barely had time to step back before he was out, hands catching your waist. Steve lifted you clean off the pavement, and a startled sound escaped you as your hands grabbed his shoulders.
“Steve—”
“Shut up,” he rasped, but his voice broke around the smile. Then kiss that came next didn't surprise you. But it certainly didn't prepare you for it either.
It was not exactly graceful, but it was completely and utterly impassioned.
Someone in the parking lot whooped. Someone else yelled something that sounded suspiciously like “Harrington!” A horn blared because a car was stuck behind his open door. The reminder of just how crazy this whole situation was roared in your ears.
Steve didn't seem to hear any of it. You had a feeling that he did, but just pretended he didn't. That made you smile on reflex against him.
His hands held your waist with desperate certainty, then slid up your back, pulling you close enough that the cold afternoon disappeared between you. Your fingers tangled in his hair, ruining it again, and he made a sound against your mouth that was half laugh, half relief. He tasted the same sweet cherry chapstick you started buying for yourself and breathless warmth. The kiss carried every unsaid thing neither of you knew how to organize yet. Anger. Want. Hurt. Forgiveness beginning somewhere far off and walking slowly toward you.
When your feet touched the ground again, you were dizzy. It was a good dizzy, and the pounding in your side was a welcome pleasure now.
Steve rested his forehead against yours, breathing hard. His hands stayed anchored at your hips, refusing to let you drift away. Up close, you could see the faint details scattered along his neck, the tiredness under his eyes, and the careful hope he was trying not to show too quickly.
“You really printed that?” The question broke you out of your stupor. You were still so dazed from his touch that you distantly found yourself nodding. Your hands refused to leave their spot in reaching for him now that there wasn't a lie justifying it.
“Over Mark’s stupid school spirit thing?”
Your words came mechanical, as if offended he'd even question it. “Technically under it. Around it. On top of some of it.”
“I made a stupid amount of copies.” The confession came paired with you momentarily dropping your hands where they were wrapped around him to hold up the black ink stains on your fingers.
His smile spread, crooked and real enough to hurt. And you swore that it was the most beautiful sight in the world.
“Good.”
You laughed weakly, your hands finding their way back into sliding to the back of his nape. “That’s what you took from the public confession?”
“I’m processing.” His thumb moved along your jaw, slow and familiar. “Also, I liked the cherry chapstick line.”
“I hoped you would,” you felt like a cat relishing in caresses. The smile that mirrored his came quick and teasing on your mouth. His eyes stayed on yours, and his smile softened at the edges.
“You’re a terrible writer.”
Your brows lifted in instinctive defensiveness of your craft. “Excuse me?”
He brushed his thumb beneath your chin, eyes bright with that old Harrington charm, gentler now, and clearly worn in rather than performed.
“You didn’t even come close to losing me.”
The ache in your chest loosened all at once.
It would not be so easy for you to say it was gone, you would still have to apologize without speeches. He would still have to decide what trust looked like after being turned into copy.
But Steve was standing in front of you with his hair wrecked by your hands and your confession folded against his car seat. He was looking at you, really looking, not the way a king looked over a crowd, but the way a boy looked at the girl he was still willing to let close enough to hurt him.
You rose onto your toes with a soft shake of your head and grin. “Just shut up and kiss me, Harrington.”
His grin flashed.
“Yes, ma’am.”
This time, when he kissed you, the whole parking lot blurred into sun and noise and the smell of gasoline warming on asphalt. His hands were still careful. Yours were not. You held onto him with ink-stained fingerspads and a heart that learned how to be true.
summary: after spending years fighting demogorgons, steve suffers from severe post-concussion migraines. he struggles being soft with himself, but isn't that why he has you?
content/warnings: steve getting a migraine, gn!reader being a caring partner, robin being worried, hurt comfort!
word count: ~.7
it starts with his body language.
it's always something subtle, but always something you take notice of — a grimace or a locked jaw, usually followed by half-baked attempts at rubbing away the tension in his temples or at the bottom of his neck. you watch as he squints from the bright lights in the radio station, wrinkles at the edges of his eyes from puffed up cheeks, trying to shield his view.
when steve starts to get grumpy about the volume of robin's music, which hasn't increased in volume in the past hour, you glide over to where he's sitting, sliding a hand between his shoulder blades. you wait as he finishes the task he's doing. steve likes to think of himself as a hero, not because he's cocky, but because he tries his best never to show weakness. he wants to be good, overwhelmingly so, for robin, for the kids, for you.
he doesn't have to be, though.
when he finally sets the cassette labeled laughter down, you hum softly, catching his ear in a low tone that only he can hear.
"do you want me to go get your medicine and some water?"
you watch as his throat bobs around a swallow. steve used to resist taking the medication prescribed to him by the doctor you'd found in the indiana phonebook, but one day, the pain had gotten too much for him to bare. it had crawled up the tendons in his body, wrapping its claws around his neck, up to the top of his cranium, behind his eyes and into his sinuses.
he nods curtly before looking around the room with nervous eyes, making sure no one notices the short exchange between you two. you don't respond, just walk over to the small closet where he keeps his jansport backpack, and unzip it. the contents of steve's bag don't surprise you — a slinky, a rubick's cube, a few tapes to listen to in his car, and a crumbled granola bar that's surely been there for weeks. finally, you locate the small pouch you're looking for, and gently dip your hands inside to open the pill bottle labeled harrington, steve.
two tablets sit safely in your palm as you reach in the mini fridge for an unopened water bottle. you deliver the contents to steve — inconspicuously, of course — and nibble on your bottom lip, watching him wash down the medication with a healthy swig of water.
"you should lay down," you murmur softly, placing a hand on his denim-clad thigh. "get ahead of it before it gets too bad."
steve wants to respond, but the ringing behind his eyes has already begun. he shoves his headphones off and you swallow, taking them from his grasp and gently placing them on the desk in front of him. while his eyes are squeezed shut, you glance at robin, who watches on anxiously.
"c'mon, honey," you whisper, winding an arm around steve's waist. you give robin a reassuring look, but her worry-filled eyes remain just that: concerned at the state of steve's migraines.
steve moves easily, allowing you to shuffle him to the couch in the back lounge. a month or so ago, you had helped him bring in some cozy essentials from home for emergencies like this — a pillow, a throw blanket, and of course, one of your tee-shirts, which he frequently had you switch out to make sure it always smelled like you.
gently, you help him down, moving quickly to get him comfortable. you can tell the lights are bothering him so you shut some of the blinds, then cover his form with the soft navy blanket he usually kept at the foot of his bed.
steve welcomes the comfort and you nibble on your bottom lip, getting down on your knees so you're level with his face. you reach out to tenderly push your fingertips over his forehead, sweeping away a few fallen tendrils of hair.
"do you need anything else?"
"no," he whispers through closed eyes. "i'll drive us home when i wake up... just lemme rest for a little."
you smile forgivingly and shake your head, even if steve can't see it.
"'s alright, honey," you whisper quietly. "just sleep for now."
pairing: single dad!steve harrington x female!neighbor!reader
summary: The single dad next door is running late and in desperate need of a knight in shining armor. Preferably one who knows about ballet buns.
tags: [fluff] [neighbors] [single dad steve] [you're a girl, right?] [a helping hand] [ballerina bun knowledge] [flirty] [language] [kissing] [desperate] [touch-deprived steve] [of course there's a little makeout scene, do you even know me] 3k words.
You’re putting the finishing touches on your makeup in the hallway mirror when a knock sounds at your door.
Your reflection blinks back at you. Your date isn’t supposed to pick you up. He’s supposed to meet you at Carmine’s at seven…
There’s another knock. And it’s louder, more urgent this time.
You fumble for your heels and slide them on, making sure your dress is in place, and you have both earrings in before you wrench open the door.
There, standing on your porch steps, is your next-door neighbor, Steve Harrington.
He moved in a couple of months ago with his five-year-old daughter. And according to the rumors passed around during your neighborhood’s poolside chats—filled with one too many moms holding tumblers of hidden booze for an HOA—he’s unmarried, and currently unattached.
You’ve seen him around town, of course. A couple of times at the supermarket, holding his daughter' s hand. You know he coaches baseball at the local middle school. You wave whenever you pull into your driveway and he’s outside mowing the lawn.
Shirtless.
He’s always had an easy smile for you, or a friendly word.
But right now, his smile is gone, replaced with a helpless sort of expression. The top buttons of his coaching polo are undone, and his hair looks mussed, like he’s been raking his hands through it.
“Hi,” he says, a little sheepish. “Sorry to just show up like this, I—”
Something in his gaze shifts, and his lips part as he takes in your outfit. His eyes rake over you. From your stylish updo, to your sultry eye makeup, to your tight dress, and finally settling on your high heels.
“Oh—wow. You look…really good. I mean—” He huffs an unbelieving breath. Like he’s just remembering where he is. “I’m interrupting. I can go. I’m going. Sorry!”
You rush to stop him.
“Hi, Mr. Harrington! No, it’s okay. Do you want to come in?” You step aside, motioning inside.
“God. Steve. Please. Uh, no, I—” He glances back towards his house. “It’s just…well, you’re a girl, right?”
You chuckle. “Last I checked. Is everything okay?”
He groans, running a hand over his face. Your eyes catch on his long, tapered fingers, tanned by the summer sun.
“God, this is embarrassing. That came out bad. Yeah everything’s fine, it’s just my daughter, Lily, has a ballet recital tonight. And she’s supposed to wear her hair up in this…scrunchy donut thing? And I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, and anyway, I’m sorry. You clearly have a date.” He sighs, then his eyes widen. “Or—plans. I didn’t mean to assume—shit, I used to be better at this.”
“What? Asking for help.”
“Talking to pretty girls.” He chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. “But yeah, that too.”
You know you should feel bad for him. Stressed, overworked single dad, trying to make it to his daughter’s recital on time. But really, with every rake of his hands through his hair, and every shift of his feet, you can’t help but be amused.
It’s actually, really cute.
“Relax, Steve,” you say with a smirk, closing your door and stepping down onto the steps with him. “I’m happy to help.”
Relief floods his face. “Oh my God, really? Are you sure? I mean—”
“Really, I don’t mind,” you assure him with a gentle hand on his arm, already pulling up your phone to message the guy on Tinder. “My date seemed boring over text anyway.”
Steve turns away, but as your hand falls from his warm skin, you catch a small, crooked smile starting on the corner of his mouth. “Hmm. Shit texter? Huge red flag."
You smile. “Right. So, where is this ballerina?”
“Oh, she’s inside. Finishing up her dinner. But I have all the supplies…if you wanna come over and save me from completely ruining her life.”
You smile. “I’d love to.”
Ten grassy steps later, Steve opens his front door for you.
When you step into his home, heels clicking on his polished wood floor entryway, your heart does a little flip.
There are girl toys everywhere.
Pinks, and purples, and glitter, and…is that a play castle?
“Daddy?” a little voice calls from somewhere deeper in.
“Yeah sweetheart, I’m back,” Steve replies, motioning for you to follow him. "Sorry for the mess, we just got back from practice."
The first thing you see when you round the corner into the kitchen, is a tutu—pink frills stuffed up on a barstool, little legs swinging. But where you expect to find ballet slippers dangling, instead, you find dirty baseball cleats.
Steve’s daughter, Lily, looks over her shoulder as you both enter the open doorway. She looks sweet.
Very sweet—given the jam smeared around her lips, a messy PB&J in her hand.
She smiles at you, her brown curls a little mussed, just like her dad’s. And on top of her head, rests a princess hat. It’s one of those long cone ones with a ribbon train hanging down her back.
Upon seeing her state, Steve surges forward and swipes a paper towel. “Honey, you’ve got jelly all over your face—hey, c’mon.” His voice softens as he leans over to wipe her cheek. “Okay, listen, this is our neighbor—” He pauses and looks up at you. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name, actually.”
You tell it to Lily, because for some reason, when you meet Steve’s eyes, you can hardly get a word out.
“She’s going to help you with your hair for the recital, okay?” Steve adds, a little more upbeat, cleaning the last of the sticky sweetness from his daughter’s face and standing up straight again.
Lily’s eyes light up. “Can I knight her, Dad? Please?”
He looks over at you and rubs the back of his neck. “We’re in a bit of a medieval phase, lately. Lots of fairytale books from the library, and now it’s…a whole thing.”
“I love fairytales,” you say. Then you turn to Lily and curtsy as well as you can in your little black dress. “I’d be honored, Your Majesty.”
Lily lets out a delighted squeal and slips off the stool, vanishing into the next room. She’s back seconds later, clutching a glittery wand topped with a star.
You don't miss the way Steve glances at his watch and grimaces.
You slip off your heels and kneel on the cool kitchen tile just as Lily marches up to you, bowing your head solemnly.
“My lady,” you say, voice hushed for the ceremony, “as my first act as knight, it would be my greatest honor to do your hair.”
Lily lifts her chin, wand raised.
“Granted,” she declares.
From across the room, Steve sends you an appreciative look. It turns your stomach all warm and melty.
You stay perfectly still as she taps the plastic star first to your left shoulder, then your right. “I dub thee…Knight Neighbor.”
You lift your head slowly, like you’ve been entrusted with something of great importance. Lily giggles. Then, you stand and gesture to the kitchen table.
“Amazing work, Your Majesty,” Steve plays along, nudging Lily towards the chair. “Alright, sit tight, and here, look, I have a mirror you can hold." He turns to you, holding up a handful of supplies.“Here, I’ve got a hair tie and the—uh—donut thing. Do you need anything else?”
You nod. “I’ll need a hairbrush. A fine-tooth comb would be best. And some hair gel if you have any.”
Steve disappears down the hallway, and you turn your attention to the little girl sitting in front of you.
“Lily, I’ll have to take this off to do your hair. Is that okay?” you ask, tapping her cardboard hat.
“Oh. Yes.” She spins around in her chair to face you. “But I forgot to tell you, you have to call me Princess Lily.”
“Oh, okay. Sorry.”
She turns back around and picks up the mirror. You gently remove her hat and set it aside, careful to place it somewhere it won’t accidentally get stepped on.
“So, Princess Lily, how old are you?” you ask.
“Five.”
“Wow. So, you run a kingdom, do ballet, and you play baseball?”
She shrugs. “Yeah. Dad says girls can do both.”
You smile behind her, catching her eyes in the reflection of the mirror. “He's right. Girls can do everything.”
Steve’s footsteps thump against the wood as he returns to the kitchen.
“Okay, I found the comb, but I don’t have gel. Will hairspray work?” he asks, handing you the supplies.
You shrug. “Probably.”
You take a second a second to lay out your supplies, but once everything’s arranged on the kitchen table and you’re expected to start on her hair, you find yourself hesitating.
The only sounds are the distant hum of a lawnmower somewhere in your neighborhood, and the whisper of tulle from Lily’s tutu as she shifts in her seat. There's nothing wrong, it's just...
Here you are, in your tight date-night dress, barefoot in a kitchen that smells like peanut butter and jelly.
But it’s not that you feel like you don’t belong here.
It’s that you feel like you do.
It’s ridiculous, and completely unreasonable, but you feel it all the same.
Suddenly, you seem to remember they’re on a time crunch, so you take a steadying breath and quickly smooth back Lily’s hair.
It’s soft and warm between your fingers as you brush it through. When you spray the hairspray, you guard Lily’s eyes with your hand. She giggles and pretends she’s gone blind. The spray creates a little haze that gathers in the sun beam streaming through the window.
“This is nice hairspray,” you say dumbly. Partly because it is, but mostly because you don’t know what else to say to fill the silence. You hope Steve can’t hear the rapid staccato of your heartbeat.
“It’s Daddy’s,” Lily says,
You look up. Steve’s sending her an incredulous look in the mirror. “I don’t use it that much.”
“You did today,” Lily points out, tilting her face up to look at him. “And you buy girls’ hairspray for yourself!"
She laughs and covers her mouth, like she's just spilled a giant secret.
“Stay still, kid.” Steve scolds, but his hands are gentle as he places a palm on each cheek, turning her to face the mirror again.
You chuckle softly and look over at him. “You do have nice hair.”
But as the words leave your lips, a blush steals across your cheeks, and you return your gaze to your work. It’s silent for a long moment, and you can feel Steve’s eyes on you like a physical, tangible touch.
“Thanks,” he says softly.
The hair tie snaps into place, breaking the tension as you secure Lily’s slicked back ponytail.
“There,” you breathe. “That’s the hard part. Now, let me show you how to use the scrunchy donut.”
Steve watches intently as you instruct him in the wild ways of a ballet bun. He nods along, hands on his hips, his breath ghosting your bare shoulder. You show him how to pull the ponytail through and gather her silky strands around the edge, explaining how it makes her hair look fuller. You even show him how to smooth back fly-aways around the edges. But when you finish wrapping her hair, the stubborn ends don’t tuck underneath quite right.
You struggle with it for a minute, then ask, “Do you have any bobby pins?”
Steve exhales, thinking. “Somewhere. I could look around for some—”
“That’s okay. Here—”
Without thinking, you reach up into your updo and pull the pins free. Your hair tumbles down around your shoulders, and Steve makes a sound behind you, but you’re too busy perfecting Lily’s hair to pay close attention to him.
You sigh, content, as you step back and review your work.
“It looks perfect,” Steve says, awe in his voice. “Seriously. Thank you. What do you think, Lil?”
But she’s already slipping off the chair, mirror forgotten.
“Hey, easy—careful,” he says as she jumps down, half-laughing.
“Your Majesty, if I may…” you say, stopping her in her tracks. You glance down at her footwear and her eyes follow yours. “Listen, I’m not knocking the shoe choice. But as your knight, its my duty to inform you, that it might be difficult to pirouette in cleats.”
Lily seems to consider this for a long moment. Her little brows furrow together and when her lips twist to the side to think, she looks exactly like her Dad. Something in your chest tightens.
Steve hurries over and hands her some mini pink ballet flats. “These might work a little better, huh?” He crouches slightly. “You good, or you need backup?”
She shakes her head with a determined tilt of her chin. “No. I can do it.”
“Okay, but hustle, alright? I’m going to walk our knight out. Can you tell her thank you?”
Lily wobbles on one foot as she yanks her cleats off, but it doesn’t stop her from beaming up at you. “Thanks. Bye. And next time you come over, you’ll have a place in the castle!”
You chuckle. “Promoted already, huh? Wow. Knighthood is amazing.”
“Yeah, my dad’s the king, and I’m the princess, so all we’re missing is a queen!”
You freeze. Your eyes find Steve’s for one charged second before you look away at the same time.
Lily nods along to her plan, completely oblivious to the tension in the room as she plops right down on the kitchen floor to slide her flats on. “Sides, your dress is too fancy to be a knight anyhow.”
Steve’s throat bobs on a swallow, and his gaze holds yours for just a second too long.
“I agree,” he says, finally. “Queen it is.”
“So, King Steve, huh?” you tease him as you slip your heels back on.
Steve tips his head and chuckles, like there’s more to the story and you don’t know the half of it. You wish you could ask him, talk more with him—but he’s already late as it is.
So, you let him walk you to the door. Outside, the sun is starting to set, casting that perfect golden glow over everything.
Steve leans on his doorframe and crosses his arms. You can’t help but notice the way his brown eyes turn to molten honey in this light.
A heat gathers low in your stomach. Like butterflies, but heavier, and softer. Something you haven’t felt for a long time.
He sighs, then looks at the ground. “Listen, I’m really sorry I made you miss your date.”
You shake your head. “Trust me, it’s really okay. Dry texter. Remember?”
“Right. Well, I still feel bad. I know how…difficult the whole dating thing is.”
“Me? I’m sure it’s difficult for you.” Your eyes widen. “Not that Lily makes difficult or anything, just that—”
He holds up a hand to stop you, smiling gently. “No, it’s okay. I know what you meant.” He tilts his head and looks out at the sunset. “It’s…different, I guess. But honestly, I think it just makes you a little more careful. Wait for the right person instead of just…going through the motions. You know?”
As he turns back to you and your eyes connect, you know exactly what he means.
Ignoring the fluttering in your stomach, you turn towards the steps. “Well, have fun tonight. She looks perfect, and I’m sure—”
“Please,” Steve interrupts, reaching for you but stopping himself just in time. “There’s got to be some way for me to repay you for this. You know, according to medieval rules, you’re not supposed to let a knight leave without a token—”
You wave him off. “No token needed.”
“No, I’m serious,” he says, leaning a little closer, playful but intent. “Pretty sure it’s bad luck. Like, for a really long time.”
He holds your gaze. A mourning dove coos, hidden in the branches of a tree in his yard, and suddenly, you realize arguing with him about this is fruitless. You aren't leaving his front porch without something.
And if you somehow manage to, it’s not like he doesn’t know where you live. If he’s as insistent as you think he is, he’ll leave flowers at your door, or you’ll pull up and find him mowing your lawn…better just to get it over with now.
“Alright, fine,” you concede with a laugh and a gentle roll of your eyes. “What’s the traditional token for knights, huh? A handkerchief? A free beer—”
“A kiss.”
Your eyes snap to his. Your stomach flips as he tilts his head in an unspoken challenge.
“What do you say?” he murmurs. “Will you accept?”
You can’t stop the way your eyes drop to his lips. Even if you tried.
“I will.”
He casts one hurried glance over his shoulder into the house, but the coast must be clear because when he turns back to you, his eyes simmer with heat.
Your breath hitches as his arm shoots out, wrapping around your waist and pulling you in like he’s been waiting all night to do it. You’re close enough to smell the grass on him from the baseball field, the hairspray in his hair.
His breath caresses your lips, and you feel your eyes slip shut as he leans in. Your noses bump, and you both laugh softly. You’re still smiling when his lips brush yours.
It’s a hesitant, soft thing. A thank you but in kiss form—genuine and warm.
But when your fingers find his shirt, and you tilt your chin, inviting a firmer touch, he sighs into your mouth.
It’s a relieved, desperate sound, as if he hasn’t been touched in ages. Something twinges deep in your chest, and your hand reaches up, threading into his hair and pulling him closer.
That earns you a deep groan, and when his tongue brushes yours, your ankle buckles in your high heel.
God, the man can kiss.
Slow and steady, but hot and needy all at once. It’s so good it makes your head spin.
“Daddy?” Lilly calls from inside. “I’m ready!”
This kiss breaks, both of you pulling back at the same second..
But he doesn’t let you go immediately. His hand finds the back of your neck, slipping under your hair, and you swallow hard. You linger there, nose brushing again. Like you’re both barely holding yourselves back from falling into each other again.
“Thank you,” Steve whispers, his voice raspy now. And somehow, you know he means for more than just Lily’s hair.
“You’re welcome.”
The soft pitter patter of ballet slippers coming closer finally has you taking a step back.
His hands slip from you reluctantly as you step down the stairs.
“And if you ever need anything else…” you wink over your shoulder, just to make sure he catches your drift. “Your knight is right next door.”
a/n: listen, my friend was telling me her husband didn't know how to do a ballet bun for their daughter's dance recital, and she hadn't even finished speaking before my fingers were FLYING typing this up in my notes app.
divider by @cursed-carmine | steve masterlist | come yell at me
CHAPTER TWO (A MODERN AU. SLOW BURN, ENEMIES TO LOVERS FT. LINECOOK!STEVE X FEM!READER. 3.1K)
THE MENU
Steve Harrington woke up in a bedroom that he didn’t really recognise in the light of day. Well, early morning. He squinted against the weak blue light that came in through the gaps in the curtains and the space beside him in bed was empty and cool.
There was the sound of a shower running and Steve tried to remember how he wound up in a room that was very much not his. It was soft and pretty, feminine and a little messy with framed photos on the wall, artwork above a desk that was littered with make up and stray earrings. There was a lacy bra on the back of a chair, underwear - his and someone else’s - on the floor. He covered his face and let out a soft groan, the last dregs of the alcohol he’d drunk seeping its way out of his system via a headache that started between his eyes.
He’d only went out for a drink or two, to celebrate the new job, the one he was supposed to start in - he rolled on the mattress, reached a wandering hand down until he found his cell in his jeans and he checked the time - fuck, a little over two hours.
The shower was still running and the owner of the bed he was in was nowhere to be seen despite the early hour. He took it as a sign. Clearly, his late night companion hadn’t wanted to wake him. There’d been no touching, no noise, no switched on lights or coffee made. That was fine by him, he was more than happy to skip the awkward morning after, he was totally okay with that.
He gathered his clothes from around the room, stumbling on unsteady feet as he yanked on his jeans and searched for his shirt. If he was entirely truthful, he was a little disappointed. He couldn’t remember a lot from the night before but he did remember how fucking attractive he’d found you. Too pretty to ignore, because he’d wasted no time in approaching you. He’d even danced with you, something usually only reserved for his Nanna at family gatherings. Although, the way he’d moved against you had been far from appropriate.
And then the taxi ride to yours— fuck, the taxi. He’d never been kissed like that. Whatever you’d done to him had made him feel like a teenager again. He’d been rock hard the entire journey, something that not even the eyes of the driver had quelled. He hadn’t been able to keep his hands or mouth off of you, both of you half stripped before you’d made it to the bed.
Steve bit his lip, remembering it. His gaze raked over the bed he’d just left, sheets twisted and sprawled near the foot of it, a pillow hanging off one side. Yeah, shit, it had been a good night. But still, he shoved his feet into his trainers once he’d found them, patted his jeans pockets to make sure he had his keys and slipped out the apartment door just as the shower switched off.
But of all the things that had happened in the last twenty four hours, seeing your face again was definitely the wildest.
He’d found out about the linecook position from an old friend. He’d been told that The Gate was a cool place to work. Fifty hours a week, overtime available and despite the fact the boss was too cheap to give health insurance, he was apparently never on site, which meant unlimited smoke breaks in the alleyway out back. He hadn’t even needed to apply, Eddie had told his boss that Steve was a solid choice and he knew him from working at a diner back home in Indiana.
Steve had got a text from Eddie the same day, telling him to turn up at seven thirty the next morning, bring his knives and that he’d take care of the rest.
But there you were. Staring at him through the glass door before you’d opened it and then stared at him even more, eyes wide as you took him in from head to toe. You were just as pretty as you had been the night before, even if the space under your eyes were smudged with tiredness. You looked cute in your work uniform, a little black skirt with an even smaller apron tied around your waist, a white polo shirt with The Gate’s logo on the chest tucked in neatly.
Fuck. Fuck.
He was standing like an idiot, finger pointed at his own chest and mouth hanging open because you very clearly recognised him. Which, Steve realised, was absolutely okay. And understandable. Because it had only been a little over four hours since he’d been buried to the hilt inside of you and he’d have probably felt a little stung if you hadn’t remembered his face.
But you definitely worked here and Steve had no idea if you were his shift supervisor or just someone he’d have to spend a lot of time with. He knew your face, the colour of your bedroom walls, the way your name sounded on his lips when it was coloured with a moan and how you liked to be kissed on the neck when you got fucked.
That was it. That wasn’t a lot of information and he didn’t have a lot of time to process much else. An added bonus was the leftover vodka that was still coating his insides and the sun was too bright, even with his sunglasses covering his tired eyes.
And, well, he was a man.
So he dropped his hand and smiled again, a little too fake and said, “hi, I’m here for the kitchen position. I’m Steve, nice to meet you.”
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
Was he fucking kidding?
You stared at Steve with an expression of complete disbelief, the audacity of his words taking over from your shock at seeing him there. You couldn’t really see his eyes behind his sunglasses but he was smiling, warm and polite and suddenly you realised that you hadn’t said anything else for a minute now.
It turned out you couldn’t say much, but you managed to close your open mouth and smile back, awkward and polite, much like every other interaction at work. You gestured to the open door as you held it open, hating that you recognised the aftershave as he walked by you, silently furious that he was wearing the same one he’d worn when he’d approached you the night before.
What did he mean, ‘nice to meet you?’
Did you look that different? Did he seriously not recognise you?
You wanted to ask, you wanted to confront him. Your hangover made you mean, it made you square up for an argument that could never happen here because Eddie was coming out of the kitchen with a wide, easy smile on his face just as Steve pulled his sunglasses from his face.
“Harrington! Long time no see man, how you doin’?” He clapped the new guy on the shoulder before bringing him into a full hug, laughing as they jostled each other in the way only guys did. “Welcome to the city, big boy, it’s good to have you.”
Steve replied with something you didn’t hear because you were too busy staring, completely unashamed, at the side of his face. It was definitely the same guy. He had the same moles and freckles dotted across his skin, the same messy hair that curled under his ears and at the nape of his neck. And there was a hickey in the shape of your lips just under his jaw, a mark you remembered gifting him in your tiny hallway, right when he’d backed you into the wall and slid one large hand into the front of your underwear.
Someone was calling your name. Repeatedly.
“What?” You blinked, finding Eddie and Steve both watching you as you felt the heat of being caught creep up the back of your neck. “Sorry, I— sorry. Hangover.” You said as a way of explanation.
“This is Steve Harrington,” Eddie took Steve by the shoulders, giving him a little excited shake. “An old friend from back in Hawkins. We worked together at Jim’s old diner, I taught him everything I know, didn’t I? Steve this is—”
You didn’t listen to Eddie's introduction to you, you just watched as Steve nodded and smiled, polite as ever, eyes skating over you as if he was seeing you for the first time. His gaze lingered on the open buttons of your polo shirt, staring at the skin that had been marked by someone’s else’s lips - his fucking lips.
He didn’t say anything. He just looked back at Eddie laughing at something he said before he was introduced to Robin and Argyle too.
You spend too much time standing in Hopper’s office after that, your sore head pressed against the cool wall of the big ass metal safe he insisted on keeping beside the computer that was from the nineties. You felt like you were going crazy, like you’d only dreamed of getting absolutely railed by the hot new guy who was now in the kitchen, being shown the freezer and the pantry.
But the thump of your head and the ache between your thighs told you otherwise, and Jesus Christ, you tugged at your neckline, hiding the hickey there. It was him, right? It was definitely him. He was holding the same sweater he’d been wearing the night before. You’d tugged it off of him, you had stepped over it on your way to shower just hours before. How was he just acting like he didn’t—
The door to the office opened and when Steve stepped inside with you, it became infinitely smaller. It closed with a click behind him, the low lamp on Hop’s table making the already grey-blue walls look darker and moodier. Steve leaned against the wood and for a second or two, you both only stared at each other, as if remembering what the other looked like naked. You could recall the mole on his left shoulder, right beside the space you’d sunk your teeth into when he’d called you a good girl, the scratches you’d left on his back when he’d told you to ride him harder.
“Eddie said you know where I can find some whites?”
His sunglasses were in his back pocket now, his face the same one you’d invited back yours. There was zero doubt about it. His gaze was fixed on your own, a game of chicken neither one of you was willing to lose until— Steve’s eyes dropped.
A glance that turned into more, a heated look that lingered from where it started on your bare legs, drifting upupup over your hips and chest. His eyes met yours once more, but still, he didn’t say a damn thing.
Fuck it.
“Do we know each other?” Your voice was a lot more blunt than you intended it to be, but working at seven am with a hangover did that to a person. Your face was blank, neutral, at least you hoped.
Steve took his time to ponder it, face just as expressionless as your own before he shrugged, lips turned down. “Nope. Don’t think so.”
You stared at him. He stared back.
“Uniform is down by the bar,” you finally conceded, voice sharper than a chef knife. Cutting, only dulled slightly by a chipped ego. You didn’t know what the fuck you were supposed to say, but your pride was finding that swallowing the words down harder than a dry pill.
But what were you supposed to say? We fucked last night? You were in my bed this morning? Loved it when you went down on me, by the way, welcome to the team?
You didn’t say any of that, of course you didn’t. You did, however, knock your shoulder into Steve’s when you made for the door. He didn’t say a thing, but he did follow you. Too closely, and you could smell his aftershave, the same one from the night before. He followed you back to the kitchen, new chef whites in hand after he’d grabbed them from the bar and the room was already too busy to talk quietly.
The grills were aggressively noisy, sparks of hot oil landing on the tiles behind it, Eddie’s speaker playing music too loudly. Argyle was hammering fillets of chicken breasts with a wooden mallet as he prepped for lunch and you decided to very much not look at Steve as you spoke.
“Pantry door sticks a little, freezer temp jumps sometimes so let Eddie know if things start melting. There’s a set of knives in that second drawer over there and no opened toed shoes in the kitchen - you’d think that would be common sense but nobody told Argyle, apparently.”
Steve suppressed a smile and nodded. “Got it.”
“Hopper’s barely here so ask Eddie for anything you need, wages go out the last Friday of every month, deliveries come at six on Monday mornings and you want any of the wait staff’s help, you ask nicely. No one yells at my girls.”
You turned then, waiting for another agreement, eyebrows raised.
Steve let his eyes roam over you, his lips curving. “Right,” he said.
You felt yourself boil over at the sight of his smile, at the way his hair flopped in his eyes and you hated that you suddenly remembered yourself brushing it out of the way when you were kissing him hours before, your knees hitched at his waist, pressed into your own bed. “If you need a first aid box, you’ll have to buy one and try not to sleep with any other staff members before lunch.”
The kitchen halted to a screeching stop at that. Eddie’s spatula stopped half way to the pan and Argyle’s mallet tumbled out of his hand. Both men stared at you, their eyes flitting to each other and then to Steve, whose cheeks were pink from more than just the warm air. If anyone was planning on saying anything to you in return, they were too late.
You were storming out, hands slamming onto the door so hard it hit the wall behind it. “Welcome to The Gate,” you yelled over your shoulder, just as Robin was unlocking the front door and the first of the regulars poured in for their morning coffee.
It was going to be a long fucking shift.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
Eddie let out a long, low whistle. “Dude. It’s been ten minutes. The fuck did you do?”
Steve was still staring at the swinging door, long after you’d disappeared from sight. He groaned, rubbing at the back of his neck that was prickling with an uncomfortable, embarrassed heat.
“Something bad, I think.”
Eddie appeared at his side, eyes glittering with amusement. “You know her, man?” He dug an elbow into Steve’s ribs, a gasp leaving his lips when Steve opened his mouth and didn’t respond. “Oh shit, you two totally banged.”
Steve still didn’t reply, instead, tugging on his chef’s jacket over his shirt, head bent and eyes avoiding Eddie and Argyle, who was back to filleting chicken and definitely listening in
“Dude, when?” Eddie was beside himself now, his grin too big and too happy at Steve’s miserable situation. “Did you not call her back or somethin’? I mean, you’d be crazy not to - I’ve been flirting with the girl for over a year now and she won’t crack—”
“Last night,” Steve was leaning over a butcher's block, his hands in his face as he regretted every single action he’d taken since he opened his eyes that morning. “Well, technically this morning. Like, five hours ago.”
Argyle dropped the premise of pretending to not listen. He snorted, looking over Steve with a mixture of awe and disbelief. “Oh you’re so screwed, Eddie’s friend. Why you out here actin’ like you don’t know the lady?”
Steve scrambled for words, his hands gesturing helplessly to the closed door, out to where he couldn’t see you. “I— I don’t know, okay? I panicked. I woke up this morning and she was gone! I didn’t know she worked here! I thought— I thought it might have been easier to just pretend it didn’t happen, that we didn’t know each other.”
Eddie was staring, his features set in an unimpressed mask. “Jesus, Harrington, that’s so fucking dumb, even for you.”
“I know, okay!” Steve snapped and then crumbled once more. “Fuck, I was standing at the door and I don’t know, I thought she might have been my fucking boss or something, I don’t know how to be professional when it’s been in the fucking morning, I’m probably not legal to drive yet and my dick is still half hard from how many times she ro—”
The door swung open and Robin appeared. “There’s four people wanting to know where their bagels are, why isn’t anyone taking tickets? Eddie, what the fuck?” She gestured to where there was a trail of receipts hanging on the rack by the kitchen window and sure enough there were tables filling up, groggy eyed customers all waiting for breakfast.
Steve spotted you through the open hatch, your back to him as you took another order from a table taken by a tired looking dad and his three kids. There was already spilled salt on the wooden surface, an iPad blaring on the bench seat and despite the way he could hear you speaking pleasantly, your foot had set an impatient beat on the tiled floor.
He didn’t take his eyes off of you when you turned and walked towards the kitchen, heading for the hatch with your order in hand - he couldn’t. Steve was staring - blatantly. And for a second, maybe two, you looked back with just the same intensity, like you were sharing the same memory, both of you remembering the way the other had moaned their name, the way the bed had creaked and groaned with every stroke of Steve’s hips. Like you were thinking of doing it again, like neither of you would’ve minded a repeat in the back office, crushing each other against the lockers or on top of Hopper’s empty desk.
But then you reached the hatch and your gaze hardened. You slammed the order down with a sharp hand and when you lifted it, your middle finger saluted Steve before you walked away once more.
No one said anything for a beat and then Eddie laughed, clapping Steve on the back. “Yeah, what she said, man. Welcome to The fucking Gate.”
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.”
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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
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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.”
