warnings: honestly a lot of miscommunication and the classic "i thought you hated me" trope, CLEAR tensions, more of a friends-lovers thingy, placed in s5 like after ish the venca thingy, SLOW BURNNN multi parts!
summary: Mike Wheeler has a huge crush on reader but thinks reader hates him, because every time he tries to talk to you, you always act so different - awkward, stand-offish, a BIG starer, and just so quiet (bc reader is practically in love with) compared to how reader act around everyone else - sweet, funny, caring, and talkative (who would've knew!). The whole party knows about mike's and reader's mutual and pathetic feelings of each other and are fed up about it because none of you guys would make a move! Until well reader is literally complaining about her strong feelings about mike and she can't even talk to him! well mike absolutely hears this and confronts reader about her feelings in a conflicting way and they both confess their undying love for each other.(yeah okay guys bare with me i havent had sleep in 16+ hours)
mari's note: wow okay another mike fic which im not complaining i love mike fics but also are you guys ready for finn's new album??? ill see which song i like and wow gonna have a time on tumblr😈 but yea i love olivia rodrigo and this song like ugh top yearning song so expect lryics from the song in the dialogueeee. heh.
The world had never really gone back to normal after everything that happened.
People liked to pretend it had.
The boarded-up storefronts in downtown Hawkins had been rebuilt. The news trucks had long since disappeared. Fresh coats of paint covered cracks in buildings that no amount of plaster could erase. Parents stopped checking over their shoulders every five minutes. Kids rode their bikes after sunset again. Life, somehow, kept moving.
But everyone who had lived through it knew better.
The Party knew better.
The nightmares had become less frequent. The scars had faded into thin silver lines. They laughed more than they cried now, and Friday nights had slowly become movie nights again instead of emergency meetings around Mike Wheeler's basement table. For the first time in what felt like forever, they were allowed to just... be teenagers. Which was exactly why everyone had become invested in your love life. Or, more specifically your complete inability to function around Mike Wheeler.
"...She's looking again."
Dustin didn't even bother lowering his voice. Lucas glanced over the rim of his soda can, following Dustin's line of sight toward the opposite side of Steve Harrington's living room.
There you were.
Talking animatedly with Robin about some movie she'd insisted everyone watch next weekend. Your hands moved when you talked. You laughed easily, throwing your head back at something Robin said before nudging her shoulder with yours.
"You sure?" Lucas asked.
"I'm always sure."
"She could just be looking around."
Dustin stared at him.
"Lucas."
"What?"
"She has been looking at Mike for the last five minutes."
Lucas watched for another few seconds.
"...Yeah."
You weren't obvious about it. At least, you didn't think you were. Every few moments your eyes wandered away from Robin and landed, almost unconsciously, on Mike. He was sitting on the carpet with Will, trying and failing to teach Eleven a card game Dustin insisted she'd love. Mike laughed when Eleven accidentally revealed her entire hand. Your stomach did that stupid little flip it always did whenever you heard him laugh.
God.
Even his laugh was unfair.
𑣲⋆"I want you more than any stupid song could ever say" 𑣲⋆
Almost as if sensing it, Mike looked up. Your eyes met. For exactly one second. Then you immediately looked away so quickly that Robin physically stopped talking mid-sentence.
"...Seriously?"
"What?"
"You almost gave yourself whiplash."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You've done that four times."
"I have not."
"You absolutely have."
Heat rushed into your cheeks.
"I just..."
Robin crossed her arms.
"You just what?"
"I don't know."
"You know exactly."
"I don't."
"You've had a crush on him for almost a year."
You nearly choked on your drink.
"Robin!"
"What?"
"Keep your voice down!"
Robin glanced around dramatically before leaning closer.
"He still doesn't know?"
"No."
"You still haven't told him?"
"No."
"You still can't make eye contact?"
"...Not voluntarily."
Robin sighed the deep, exhausted sigh of someone who had watched this disaster unfold for months.
"You know what the saddest part is?"
"What?"
"He likes you."
You laughed, not because it was funny because the idea felt completely impossible.
"No, he doesn't."
Robin blinked.
"...You cannot actually believe that."
"He barely talks to me."
"You run away every time he tries."
"I do not run."
Robin gave you a look.
"You speed-walk."
"That's different."
"It's really not."
You groaned, dropping your face into your hands.
"I don't mean to."
"I know."
"I swear every time he comes over to talk to me, it's like my brain just..." You snapped your fingers helplessly. "...disconnects."
Robin laughed.
"You know how I talk to literally everyone else?"
"Uh-huh."
"I can't do that with him."
"Why?"
"Because he's Mike."
"...That's your explanation?"
"Yes."
Robin waited.
"...That's all I've got."
Across the room, Mike had stopped paying attention to the game entirely not because he'd heard your conversation. He hadn't. He was too busy watching you laugh.
Again.
With everyone except him. He'd noticed it months ago. You were warm with everyone.
Comfortable.
You teased Steve. You and Max had your own sarcastic language. You could ramble to Jonathan for twenty minutes about music. You somehow convinced Nancy to smile more than once.
Hell, even Hopper liked you.
But Mike?
Mike got polite smiles. Short answers. Awkward silences. If he asked how your day was, you'd answer with one word before suddenly finding somewhere else to be. He'd spent weeks replaying every conversation he'd ever had with you, trying to figure out where he'd messed up. Had he said something insensitive?
Forgotten your birthday?
Interrupted you one too many times?
He honestly didn't know.
He only knew that somewhere along the way, you'd started looking at him like there was something you wanted to say...and then immediately leaving before you ever did. It drove him insane. Because despite everything despite the awkward conversations, despite the confusing stares, and despite the fact that he was almost positive you couldn't stand him
He couldn't stop liking you.
Maybe "liking" wasn't even the right word anymore.
He noticed the little things now.
The way you tucked your hair behind your ear when you were concentrating. How your laugh got louder when Dustin said something particularly ridiculous. The fact that you always stole the blue blanket during movie nights because everyone else preferred the thicker one. The way you'd instinctively reach for someone else's hand whenever a scary scene came on, even though you insisted horror movies didn't scare you anymore.
Mike noticed all of it.
And every time he caught himself smiling because of something you'd done, he immediately remembered the way you'd practically fled the last time he'd tried to ask you how school was going.
He sighed.
Will looked over.
"There it is again."
Mike frowned.
"What?"
"The sigh."
"I didn't sigh."
"You definitely sighed," Eleven said matter-of-factly.
Dustin appeared behind the couch as if summoned by the conversation.
"He's thinking about her again."
Mike nearly jumped.
"Dustin! What is wrong with you?"
"A lot of things."
Steve looked up from the kitchen.
"Who are we talking about?"
"The girl Mike's in love with."
Mike's face immediately flushed crimson.
"I am not—"
"You literally are," Max interrupted.
"I've never seen someone fail this hard at talking to one person."
"I don't fail."
"You asked her if she needed help carrying one notebook."
"It looked heavy!"
"It was a spiral notebook."
Mike buried his face in his hands.
Steve laughed.
"Oh, buddy."
"I don't need this from you."
"You kind of do."
"I don't even think she likes me."
The room went quiet.
Lucas blinked.
"...You don't?"
Mike looked around at all of them like they'd lost their minds.
"Have you guys met her?"
There was a beat of silence.
Then everyone spoke at once.
"Yes!"
"Obviously!"
"Every week!"
Mike looked genuinely confused.
"She hates talking to me."
Robin, who had wandered over just in time to hear that sentence, froze in place.
"...What did you just say?"
Mike looked at her.
"I said she hates talking to me."
Robin stared.
Then looked across the room toward you.
Then back at Mike.
"Oh my God."
"What?"
"You actually think she hates you."
"...Doesn't she?"
Robin covered her mouth to stop herself from laughing.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was so unbelievably, painfully ridiculous.
"No, Mike."
"Then why does she act like that?"
Robin looked toward Steve.
Steve looked toward Dustin.
Dustin looked toward Lucas.
Every single one of them wore the same expression.
They were so unbelievably tired of the two of you.
Max pinched the bridge of her nose.
"I am giving them one more week."
"One week?" Dustin asked.
"If neither of them confesses by then..."
She smiled slowly.
"...I'm taking matters into my own hands."
Steve pointed toward her.
"I like that plan."
None of you noticed.
Neither you nor Mike had any idea that every single person in the room had silently agreed on the same thing.
cw: mentions of suicide, depressed!reader, not proofread
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4
you thought being back with everyone would make things easier. you were wrong.
yes, steve accompanied you to your appointments in which the doctors kept trying to reassure you you were fine and that all of this was just the cause of too many missed periods followed by extremely heavy ones.
all of this.
to hear a grown man that went through years of med school reduce the dizziness, the sudden weakness, the black splotches you see all the time, to just ‘all of this’? as if it wasn’t worth naming? and to blame it on your period?
steve hadn’t known any better. he believed the doctors, because why wouldn’t he? why wouldn’t he trust in a 50 year old man with supposed experience?
and to make matters worse, everyone was treating you like glass broken and shattered. they were looking for pieces of you that had strayed not knowing you stood before them complete.
you were you, just tired, but they were acting like you were already dead.
you couldn’t bear it. you had told them for the sake of normalcy, and this was far from it. at least when they were in the dark they still treated you like a human.
you were tired of being a corpse before you were even declared dead.
you woke up in the middle of the night and turned to look at steve. the makeshift shrine he made of you on his bedside table caught your eye.
there was literally a white rose under two framed photos of you.
most would think it was a touching sentiment. you? you would’ve appreciated it if you were dead.
but again, what is the difference between you and a dead woman?
i mean, steve doesn’t even hold you the same anymore. as if you’re too fragile to be held. like if he held you the way he used to, you would crumple underneath his hold.
his fingertips were grazing the skin of your hip that had been exposed. you slid out of bed without him even realizing.
you were always cold, so you were wearing fleece lined sweatpants and a long sleeved shirt.
your feet began moving before your mind could catch up. you were outside now. you eyed steve’s beamer.
you could get in and drive away. go somewhere where nobody knows of the weight your already fragile bones carry.
it would make too much noise, you concluded. you didn’t want to wake steve up. so you walked. and walked. and walked. until you got to the quarry.
you sat on the cliff, your legs dangling.
one push and it’ll all be over. you could disguise it as a slip. you could end your suffering and no one would know of the internal battles you were facing.
you could finally meet the death that has been decided for you.
back at the house, steve freaked out when you weren’t by his side.
he searched every single room frantically, and his heart dropped when he saw your shoes no longer in their place by the door.
he drove and drove with tears clouding his vision.
every place he thought you’d be, you weren’t.
he went to places he wouldn’t expect you to be. wouldn’t want you to be.
he went to the hospital and grabbed the nurse that always took your vitals.
“hey-” he caught her wrist, hands shaky.
“steve? is everything okay? is y/n okay?” she frowned at his tight hold.
he let go only to run a nervous hand through his hair. “she’s not-she’s not here?”
“no, hun, last she came was with you two days ago. she’s been doing well, i hope? i’ve seen her blood tests, her hemoglobin’s going back up-”
“fuck.” he cursed, pressing his palms to the back of his eyes.
he got in the car and rested his head on the steering wheel.
“think, think, think.” he breathed, eyes shut.
the sound of pattering forced him to lift his head up.
his heart clenched as he saw the droplets of water scatter across the windshield.
it was raining and he had no idea where you were.
“the quarry.” his eyes widened. hawkins was relatively small and that was the one place he has yet to check.
when the rain had soaked your hair, you allowed your tears to stream freely, because only then could you convince yourself that you weren’t really crying.
that you didn’t succumb to the weakness and helplessness everyone had expected of you.
you stared at the lake below you. if you fell you would for sure shatter your bones. guaranteed death. an end to your suffering.
you inched closer to the edge. thinking. contemplating. getting ready.
when you heard gravel crunching and a relieved sigh you recomposed. you took a deep, regulating breath. you exhaled shakily.
were you actually about to do it?
“oh, thank god! baby, what are you doing out here?” steve ran towards you.
you shifted backwards to get up and steve’s heart dropped. “it’s not good for you to be out here. let me help you-”
“steve.” you said quietly, not taking his outstretched hand.
a warning.
“you’re gonna get sick-”
you fully pushed his hand away and got up on your own.
you could hear your breathing in your head despite the sound of the growing rain and steve’s badgering.
you felt all the blood rush up to your head and you swayed slightly, those familiar black splotches present once more.
he instantly grabbed your waist to move you away from the edge of the cliff. “what’s gotten into you? you could’ve hurt yourself, or-or you could’ve fell and died-”
“fuck off, steve.” you spat venomously. “like you don’t already treat me like i’m dead. you all already decided i’m dead.”
the rain made his voluminous swoop stick right to his forehead, hair covering his eyes.
your hand twitched as you physically stopped yourself from getting it out of his face.
his own hand came up and pushed his hair back. “what?”
“you all treat me like i’m one second away from death all the time. jesus, steve, we don’t even know if i’m really actually dying.” tears pricked your eyes.
“we’re careful!” he defended. “we don’t wanna risk anything.”
“this isn’t careful, steve. no, this is all of you already accepting my fate for me.” your voice shook with anger and tears. “for fucks sake, you already have a fucking monument on your fucking nightstand.” you shoved his chest with each curse. “you’re not gonna lose me to death, you’re gonna lose me by acting like i already am.”
you grabbed his hand and held his index and middle finger. you held it to your wrist, right above your pulse. “do you feel that?”
his eyes went wide, stunned.
“do you feel that?” you repeated, moving his fingers to your neck.
he nodded.
“i can’t be dead if i have a pulse. i’m still alive. stop acting like i’m not before i favor death, because honestly, steve, it’s so draining. it’s so draining to live when everyone treats you like you’re one sneeze away from dying. i was so close-” you choked up.
you brought his fingers down and held his hand with both of yours. “i almost did.”
“no,” steve shook his head lightly, bringing another hand to encompass yours. “you weren’t-”
“i was.” you cut him off. “i’m done with it all. i can’t keep doing this. i can’t live another day if it means it’s another day where everyone treats me like i’m already dead. i’m right here. i’m alive.”
he pressed his palm to the back of your head and pulled you in, your face smushed against his chest. “i’m sorry, fuck, i’m so sorry.” he repeated over and over, his hot tears streaming down and falling onto your head.
“steve?” you whispered against his chest after some time.
“yeah, baby?”
“can i ask you to do something?”
“anything.”
“take down that memorial you have of me before i actually jump.”
“i-” he paused. he swallowed. “don’t joke like that. i’ll get rid of the rose, but don’t joke like that.”
“yeah, okay.” you sighed. you shivered and dug yourself deeper into his embrace.
“shit, you must be freezing.” he pulled away to take off the hoodie he had thrown on before leaving.
“steve.”
“what?” his voice cracked slightly. “i’m still your boyfriend. this isn’t me hovering it’s me being your boyfriend.” he tugged the hoodie over your head. when your head popped up from the hood you spoke. “are you telling me or are you convincing yourself?”
“shut up.” he scoffed, a grin on his face. he brushed back a wet strand of hair behind your ear. “dork.” he wrapped his arm around your shoulder and tugged you towards his car.
you smiled.
not because he gave you his hoodie when you were cold, or drove around the entirety of hawkins just to find you. you smiled because he was finally starting to treat less like a hospice patient and more like a friend. just like before.
part 3 to this love max’s version? maybe the reader talks to max about her struggles but at the end of the day it’s really hard for her and it lowkey triggers her and she doesn’t want steve to worry since they’ve made good progress but she’s really struggling?
u do angst/hurt/comfort so well :’)
THANK U BABYYYY :)))))))) hope u enjoy
જ⁀➴ flushed faces and disappointment
steve harrington x fem!reader hurt/comfort
a part of my this love au!
cw: self harm, reader thinks about relapsing, max and reader talk about their struggles, etc, not proofread
part 1 | part 2 | part 3
steve was amazing at being there for max. he listened very well and comforted her even better. but steve didn’t understand. at least not in the way you do.
he doesn’t understand the urges, or the relief that comes by giving in. he doesn’t understand how sometimes the only thing you want is the pain that follows that line of trickling blood. he doesn’t understand how that pain is the only thing that can bring you comfort even though it should logically do the opposite.
that’s the thing—none of it is logical. he can’t understand because it isn’t something you break down and analyze. it’s a chemical imbalance in your brain. your brain function is disrupted.
it’s not something he can understand by being empathetic.
you know that and max knows that.
so while max spent some time confiding in steve, she’d hit a wall at some point in the conversation.
a wall that separates understanding and knowing.
a wall he simply can’t jump.
a wall where you’re waiting on the other side.
steve was out with the dustin, mike, and lucas. max was obviously invited but she turned the invitation down. not in the mood, she claimed when lucas asked her.
he took them out to watch some star wars rerun as a gift for doing well in high school.
they were only a couple months in—they haven’t even seen the real thing yet. steve insisted they shall be rewarded for adapting to a change this big.
so when the door knocked, you were confused.
had steve forgotten something?
you opened the door to be met with a teary eyed max.
“max?” you sounded confused. “hey- are you okay? come in.” you stepped to the side.
she followed you to the living room and sat next to you on the couch.
“i’m sorry for not calling before-” she sniffled, rubbing her nose with her sleeve. “i just-” her bottom lip trembled.
“c’mere.” you scooted closer to her, pulling her in. she hid her face in your shoulder and the sobs eventually began ripping through.
they started of quiet—restrained. when you began offering comforting words alongside a warm rub on her spine, they transformed into heavier ones. ones that carried a weight you knew all too well.
when her sobs turned to shuddery breaths only then did she pull away. you reached over to the coffee table and grabbed the tissue box.
“i’m sorry—god, i demolished your shirt.” she stared at your tear and snot drenched shoulder.
“this old thing?” you said lightly, hoping to lighten up the mood. she hadn’t even reacted. you knew then it had to be bad. you placed your hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eye. “talk to me.”
i can take it.
i want to be there for you.
“sometimes i feel like it’s impossible.” max admitted. “living. or surviving, or whatever the hell i’m doing. i thought that if i acted unbothered it wouldn’t… bother me this much. it sounds stupid, i know-”
“it’s not.” you said immediately. “it’s not stupid. it’s how you feel. it’s valid.”
she stayed silent for a moment then whispered a confession. “i genuinely don’t think i can do this anymore. there’s no point. in anything. i’ve lost everyone. what’s there to live for?”
“you have me. i know you don’t think it, but you have the entire party. i know how it feels to think you’re so alone and to think nothing matters, and sometimes that is how it is. but that’s not it with you. you’re surrounded by people who love you, max. you just have to see it.” your own eyes teared up.
“how’d you do it?” she asked quietly. so quiet, you could just pretend you didn’t hear her. you knew her tone was intentional. you knew she was aware of how much of a sensitive topic this was for you. but she asked nonetheless. she must need this more than you thought.
“i thought i didn’t have anything going for me. i thought i was all alone, and to an extent, i was. all my friends stopped talking to me and i just- i pushed steve away. i was so sure he was better off without me. that i was just gonna be extra weight—a burden. especially since, y’know, i was hurting myself.” you wiped a tear before it could fully fall.
“he eventually saw.” you swallowed. “my wrists. he didn’t tell me i was insane or-or stupid or irrational. he stayed. he showed up. he proved to me that no matter how alone i feel, i’ll always have him. he cleaned me up after and he told me nice things that would make me forget about everything wrong for just a moment.”
“and it gets hard, sometimes, still.” you continued. “and i get so tempted. but he’s always there. one step ahead. he drags me out of whatever spiral i threw myself head first into.”
“what if i don’t have that? a steve?”
“you do.” you said firmly. “you have lucas. he’d force the earth to switch its orbit if it meant he saw you smile again. he’d do anything for you. you have me. i get you, max. i understand. our minds work the same. you have steve. he’s been here before, he knows what to do. besides, he has the biggest soft spot for you. you have dustin and mike, who honestly would be kinda lost, but would fight tooth and nail to see you happy again. you have el and will even though they’re continents away. they have a way with words.”
“sometimes i think i don’t want it, though.” she said. “to be saved. i feel like i deserve this. i deserve to feel pain, i deserve the hurt. and when i’ve gotten used to it, i just go deeper-”
she was cut off by the door opening abruptly. steve was home. he wasn’t accompanied by the sound of arguments, meaning he didn’t bring the boys back with him.
you felt bad for feeling relieved that max got interrupted. she was just getting so… graphic. it was tempting.
she stood up abruptly. “i think i’m gonna go home now. i’m sorry.”
“hey- no, it’s just steve. you can stay-”
“thank you for this.” she walked out, shoulder brushing against steve’s with not even a greeting.
once the door slammed shut behind her you rested your elbows on your knees and covered your face with your hand.
“woah.” steve’s eyebrows flew. “what was that about?”
when he saw you hunched over, very clearly trying to force back unwanted tears, everything clicked. “oh.”
you brought your hands down and your frown was visible to him. you stood up. you circled your left wrist, trying to rid yourself of the tingling you felt on your left forearm.
steve’s eyebrows furrowed. that was a combination you had long abandoned.
“i’m gonna go shower.”
steve’s heart dropped. that’s three out of three “baby-”
“i’m fine.” you said quickly. too quickly. “i promise. just need a cleanse. physical and spiritual. i’ll tell you all about it after.”
he didn’t fully buy it. you were too… okay. steve had conversations with max. he knew what she brought up and how, and he knew it would’ve driven you into a never ending spiral. so, yeah, he didn’t buy it at all when you were acting normal after a conversation that heavy.
your vision was too blurry and clouded by tears to see his disbelieving expression.
you scratched away at your forearm providing momentary relief until you reached the bathroom. when you did, you locked the door. not something you really do.
your hands were shaky as you opened the top drawer. they shook even more when you lifted up a packet of disposable dermaplaning razors.
you turned on the shower and waited for the water to warm up.
you stared at the packet, knee bouncing. your brain was working overtime to weigh the pros and cons.
you wanted to so bad. you couldn’t think of a reason not to. it would make you happy. you needed it. do it now quick before you sit on it and actually hurt yourself. just one tiny one nobody would even notice-
“y/n?” the door rattled. steve choked on his words once he saw the door was locked. “baby? can you open the door for me?”
you froze, eyes wide.
steve would notice. steve already noticed.
at your silence, he grew even more worried. “hello? baby, can you hear me?”
you put your hands over your ears. you didn’t want to hear him. your back was to the wall as you slid down, head shaking softly as tears flooded your vision.
how could you do this to steve? how could you even think about it when he spent so long trying to fix you? were you really about to throw away his hard work? you were ashamed and embarrassed and disgusted.
the only thing to snap you of your trance was steve kicking the door in. “baby? what are you doing on the floor?” he ran to you. he saw the unopened pack of disposable razors and he let out a relieved little sigh.
he crouched down to face you. he held your face in his hands, forcing your eyes to meet his. “what’s going on, baby? talk to me.”
your eyes were still wide, still shocked. you opened your mouth to speak but you found you couldn’t form a coherent sentence. “m’fine-” you finally gasped out.
he brushed your hair out of your face and gave you a knowing look. “come on, baby. what’s going on?”
you screwed your eyes shut, hands moving to cover your face. you shook your head, ashamed. were you really just about to ruin months and months of progress? all because you had a talk with max? were you really that weak?
“hey.” he snapped you out of your thoughts, hand gently tugging your wrists down. “what’s going on in that pretty little mind of yours, hm?”
at first, it was a sniffle. you trying your very best to keep it together—at least in front of steve. he started rubbing your wrist softly with his thumb and whispered things that were so kind you were sure you didn’t deserve.
he was making sure you’d come back down to him. grounding you.
he slid next to and wrapped an arm around your shoulder. you buried your face in his shoulder, mumbling things he couldn’t decipher.
those sniffles shifted into shoulder shaking sobs. a sound that pierced his heart and made his knees weak.
he drew patterns on your arm, the skin on skin drag reminding you that he’s here.
he craned his neck to place a kiss on the top of your head. “you’re okay, baby, you’re okay.”
he didn’t rush you. didn’t tell you to get up or force you to talk. he waited until you were ready. he didn’t care how long it took, he was perfectly content with sitting on cold linoleum until you were ready.
when your sobs subsided and you finally met his eyes, your face flushed. not because you’ve spent the last hour bawling your eyes out, or because the bathroom was growing humid from the hot water still running, or because your extremely beautiful boyfriend’s face was mere inches away from yours.
you were embarrassed and he knew it.
“none of that, okay?” he mumbled, wiping your tears away with the sleeve of his shirt.
“i’m sorry, steve.” you spoke quietly. “i was doing so well, i-i don’t know-” you stopped, swallowed, and continued. “max- she was- i wanted to help her but she was so- i couldn’t!”
“it’s okay, i know.” he held your face in his hands. “it’s okay. it’s okay to be tempted, but you didn’t give in. and i’m so so proud of you. so fucking proud.”
“but i wanted to, steve. i really wanted to. if you didn’t come—if i didn’t hear your voice—i probably would’ve.”
“but you didn’t. and even if you did, i would’ve still showed up. i would clean you up and hold you until you were ready to talk. i’m always gonna be here for you, okay? no matter what. clean or not.”
you nodded, your breathing a bit more even.
“you wanna go to bed? cuddle?”
“yes, please.” you nodded, already getting him. he shut off the water held your hand, and walked you to bed.
he slid in only after you were tucked in. you nuzzled your face into his chest, hand gripping his shirt like your life depended on it.
he ran his fingers through your hair, and knew you fell asleep when your fingers went limp against his chest.
only then did he allow himself to cry. silent, hot tears streamed down his face. he knew that a loving you meant loving all of you. the good and the bad. he wouldn’t change a thing about you even if he could. but that doesn’t change the fact that he’d do anything just to make sure you don’t feel that way again.
he fell asleep gripping the back of your shirt like his life depended on it.
synopsis: sneaking around with your brother’s best friend isn’t ideal, but it’s hard to stop when steve keeps showing up.
- or alternatively; the (4) times you successfully hide your relationship from your brother and the (1) time dustin catches you with steve.
word count: 6.5k
warnings: secret relationship, almost getting caught, kissing, suggestive language, implied sex, angst, mention of blood injury, nightmares, slight ptsd, jealousy, hurt/comfort, protective steve harrington, long emotional talks, steve is whipped for reader, background byler, happy ending.
1.
Steve was not a good liar. He tried. He really, really tried. But for all the effort he put into hiding things, he still failed miserably at it.
His face gave him away every single time. Feelings lived on him like fingerprints, obvious and unavoidable, especially when romance was involved. Every girl he had ever dated became public knowledge within a week, sometimes even less.
Hawkins was small like that, and Steve was pretty much bad at keeping his love life private.
So yes, Steve sucked at keeping secrets. Making the fact that he was hiding something, something big, from Dustin Henderson of all people felt like a sick joke. Like the universe was daring him to fuck it up.
Because this wasn’t a fling. This wasn’t some temporary, easy thing he could shrug off when it got complicated. It was you.
Yet Steve couldn’t find it in himself to end whatever had started between you both, bcause dating you was somehow the easiest thing he had ever done and the hardest thing he had ever survived.
Easy, because being with you made everything lighter. You slipped into his life without force, without noise, and suddenly he wasn’t so tense all the time. He laughed without thinking. He breathed without bracing for impact. The constant knot in his chest loosened, replaced by something warm that stayed with him long after you walked away.
Yet, it was so hard because it had to stay hidden.
Steve did not entirely hate the secrecy, and that fact made him feel like a bit of an asshole. There was something selfishly intoxicating about it, about having you all to himself, about the way your smiles and touches belonged only to him in stolen moments and half-lit rooms. Still, the logistics were a nightmare.
Timing everything down to the minute, picking places that were quiet enough to be safe but not suspicious, constantly looking over his shoulder like he was doing something criminal instead of just falling in love.
All of that made it hard, yet the worst part of it all was Dustin.
Dustin was the one person Steve hadn’t lied to yet. Which was impressive, considering he was your brother and more than capable of beating the living shit out of him if he found out about your relationship.
So yes, in short, Steve hated lying about your relationship.
Though unlike Steve, you were an exceptional liar.
It was a talent you wielded effortlessly and oh so smoothly, never hesitating and never overexplaining. You could look someone dead in the eye and spin a perfectly believable story without your pulse so much as fluttering.
Steve did not value dishonesty as a character trait. He really didn’t. But you were devastatingly good at it, and watching you lie with that calm, confident ease was — if he was being honest with himself— a huge turn-on. Which probably said more about him than it did about you.
Which was how he ended up now knocking quietly on your bedroom window at 8:30 in the evening.
You opened the window almost immediately, already grinning like you had been waiting there the whole time. Steve barely had time to step inside before your hands were on him, fingers curling into his jacket as you kissed him.
He was about to say I missed you, baby, but it came out muffled and stupid as your mouth moved against his, sounding more like “I miffed you” than anything intelligible.
You pulled back just long enough to smile at him. “Missed you too, Stevie.”
He laughed under his breath, hands finding your waist automatically as he nudged you backward until the backs of your knees hit the bed. He pushed you down with gentle insistence. “You called me over like it was an emergency,” he said, brushing his nose against yours. “What’s going on?”
You pouted dramatically. “What, I can’t wanna spend time with my boyfriend?”
Steve rolled his eyes fondly. “You can, but you were very ominous about it.”
“It’s boring here,” you complained, propping yourself up on your elbows. “All Dustin does is run around with his friends doing weird shit. I swear, if I hear about another goddamn radio one more time—”
“Yeah,” Steve cut in, grinning, “exactly. Which is precisely why I should not be here right now.”
You waved him off, completely unbothered. “Relaaax. He’s across the hall and deeply invested in something grossly scientific. We’re fine.” you said, dragging out the words.
Steve glanced toward the door anyway, nerves prickling despite your confidence. “You say that, but I am one unexpected door opening away from ruining my entire relationship with your brother.”
“You’re dramatic,” you said, reaching out to tug him closer by the collar. “Sit.”
Steve leaned back against the headboard while you talked, filling him in on your day in a rambling, animated stream. He listened the way he always did, half-lidded and indulgent, kissing your neck like he had all the time in the world as you complained about something Stacey–or whatever her name was— from gym class did.
“She actually said it was my fault,” you scoffed, waving a hand. “Like I tripped her.”
“Mhm,” Steve hummed, lips brushing your skin again.
You snorted. “You’re not even listening.”
“I am,” He finally looked at you then, eyes hazed and heavy-lidded, that familiar warmth darkened into something lazier, hungrier. His hand slid from your waist to your hip, fingers curling just enough to pull you back against him.
Then, softer, almost amused against your skin, “You know… I don’t think you realize how unfair you’re being right now.”
You hummed, a quiet sound that made him smile into your neck. “Unfair how?”
“These shorts…” he said, kissing just beneath your ear, lingering there. “You look really good in them. Like distractingly good.”
You laughed softly, fingers curling into the collar of his jacket. “They’re literally just pajamas, Steve.”
“Yeah,” he said, pulling back just enough to look at you, eyes warm and amused, “and yet somehow they’re ruining my ability to think straight.”
You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling, cheeks warm as you leaned forward to kiss him properly this time. He kissed you back without hesitation, familiar and easy as his hands slowly started to trail lower until they slipped past the waistband of your shorts.
The room was quiet except for the soft rustle of sheets and the faint sounds of the house settling around you.
Then there was a loud thud from across the hall.
Steve stiffened instantly, hand pulling away from you as you pushed him away. You froze too, heart jumping straight into your throat.
Footsteps followed, quick and careless, moving closer.
“Oh shit, shit, shit!” Steve whispered, pulling back completely.
“Window,” you hissed.
He scrambled off the bed, movements suddenly frantic as he headed straight for it, fumbling with the latch. He had just shoved it open when the door flew inward.
“Hey, I was just gonna ask if you—”
Dustin cut himself off.
He stood there, a bunch of wires in his hand, staring like his brain had completely short-circuited.
“…Steve?” he said slowly. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Steve turned around, caught mid-motion, hair messy, nerves written all over his face. For half a second, he genuinely looked like he might faint. His mouth opened yet nothing came out.
You stepped in immediately.
“Oh,” you said easily, swinging your legs off the bed and standing up like this was the most normal thing in the world. “Steve’s fixing my window.”
Dustin blinked. “Your window?”
“Yup,” you said, nodding toward it. “It’s been rattling for days. You just don’t notice because you’re always blasting that weird static crap in your room.”
“It’s not static,” Dustin said automatically, then frowned. “Wait. Since when does Steve fix windows?”
You didn’t hesitate for a second, the lie slipping smoothly. “Since he fixed his car window last week. Remember? When it got stuck halfway down and he couldn’t roll it back up?”
Dustin glanced at Steve. “You fixed that yourself?”
Steve nodded quickly. “Yeah. I mean—car windows, house windows… glass goes up, glass goes down. It’s all the same at the end of the day..” he laughed nervously.
That seemed to satisfy him. Dustin stepped further into the room, peering at the window inspecting the damage. “Huh. That’s actually kinda cool. You should’ve told me you knew how to do this. We could use that at Cerebro. The latch keeps sticking.”
“Yeah,” Steve said, forcing a smile. “Totally. I can look at it sometime.”
“Does it really rattle?” Dustin asked you.
“All the time,” you dragged out the words. “Especially when it’s windy. It’s annoying as hell.”
Dustin nodded thoughtfully. “Weird. I’ve never noticed.”
“That’s because you’re never in here,” you shot back.
He shrugged. “Fair.”
You grabbed your hoodie from the chair and headed for the door. “I’m gonna get the screws from the garage. I think they’re in the toolbox by the washer.”
As you passed Steve, he glanced down briefly, then back up at you, eyes wide and desperate. His expression screamed that this situation had become deeply inconvenient in more ways than one—mostly thanks to the very obvious bulge in his pants from your previous activities.
Steve desperately hoped he could pray this boner away (fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, amen).
“So how long is this gonna take? Mom said dinner’s in like twenty minutes and—”
“Uh,” he said, voice strained as he tried to angle himself away, hiding his little (but apparently not-so-little) friend, “not long. Just gotta… make sure it’s secure.”
Thankfully, Dustin seemed convinced and retreated back to his room, not even slightly suspicious. Steve let out a huge sigh of relief, knowing he would have been absolutely fucked if Dustin had noticed he had a boner while fixing his sister’s window.
2.
“Honey, you want butter or salt on that popcorn?” Steve called from the counter, holding a bucket that looked way too big for what you asked for.
“Is there caramel?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course, I’ll get that,” he said, and you heard the familiar shuffle of his shoes on the tiles as he walked toward the popcorn dispenser.
You followed behind, pretending to look around but really just watching him—Steve, who somehow looked like the absolute model of a gentleman right now, carrying your purse and filling up two massive buckets of popcorn. You’d asked for a medium, but of course he insisted on spoiling you, like he hadn’t just ripped your dress off a few hours ago in his car. God, you really had it bad for that man.
“Two tickets for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ,” he said, grinning at the cashier. He added, just for good measure, “The best seats, please.”
After getting the tickets and ordering, yet again, two large slushies, Steve turned, and started walking toward you. He leaned in, presumably for a kiss until you both were interrupted by a round of laughter.
A very familiar, very annoying, very fucking loud laughter.
You both froze. Slowly, you turned.
Dustin, Lucas, Will, Mike, Eleven, and Max were all marching into the theater like they owned the place. Max’s eyes locked on you two first as she saw you both standing right at the ticket counter.
“Steve… and Y/N??” she asked, voice rising in shock.
Steve sighed, a long defeated sigh. “Oh, for fuck’s sake…” he murmured, more to himself than anyone else, as he tried to figure out how the hell you’d all just become the center of attention without even knowing.
Dustin’s mouth hung open for a second, then he leaned forward, pointing a finger at Steve. “Why are you two…here?”
“Oh, hello everyone!” you laughed nervously and very much annoyed at the aspect of your date being ruined.
Steve gestured vaguely around the lobby. “Uh. We are here to watch E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”
Dustin blinked. “Together?”
Steve laughed. “What, no. No, man. Jesus. We just came here because—”
Before Steve could finish his horrible half-assed excuse, Mike suddenly stepped forward, voice cracking just slightly as he blurted, “I invited them!”
Every head snapped toward him.
“You did?” Dustin asked.
Lucas frowned. “You did?”
Max raised an eyebrow. “Why didn't you tell us?”
Mike nodded nervously. “Ehm–yeah! Thought you guys would enjoy the movie. Y’know, fun group outing. No big deal.”
You shot Mike a look, half confused, half relieved.
Dustin let out a long, dramatic “Ooooh,” instantly forgetting his suspicions. “Well. I mean. If Mike invited you...”
“Then you’re welcome to join us! We are also watching E.T!” Will exclaimed after Dustin.
“Yeah,” El added. “You’re welcome!”
Steve exhaled through his nose as the tension eased and the kids started drifting toward the ticket counter, already arguing about seats. He leaned closer to you, lowering his voice. “Well, our date is ruined.”
You snorted, slurping your slushie. “Be thankful it’s only ruined. If Mike hadn’t jumped in, you’d be six feet under once Dustin put the pieces together.”
Steve grimaced. “Fair point.” He watched Mike for a second, still baffled. “But I don’t understand…why the hell did he do that?”
You took another slow sip as the sound of the slushie left a grrrrr sound, eyes following the group. “Let’s just say I caught him a few days ago in a… similar predicament to ours.”
Steve frowned. “With who?” He paused, then frowned harder. “El?”
You shook your head, nodding toward the counter instead.
Steve followed your gaze. Mike and Will were standing too close, shoulders brushing, heads bent together like the rest of the world didn’t exist. Something clicked behind Steve’s eyes.
“Oh my god,” he whispered. “He’s screwing Byers?”
You laughed, nearly choking on your slushie. “Lower your voice, Jesus.”
Steve stared, stunned, then let out a breathy laugh. “Holy shit. That explains everything.”
“Exactly,” you said, smirking. “He owes me one for keeping his secret.”
Steve shook his head slowly, a grin creeping onto his face despite himself. “This town is insane.”
“Tell me about it.”
3.
Dustin knew Steve was hiding something.
It was obvious, painfully so, even to someone like him. Dustin liked to think of himself as reasonably perceptive, and even if he wasn’t some kind of psychic genius, his best friend was not subtle.
Although Steve had many talents. Secrecy was surely not one of them. The signs were everywhere. The constant disappearances, the excuses that made no sense if you thought about them for longer than five seconds, the sudden inability to hang out because he was “busy”. Everything was pointing at one obvious conclusion.
And then there was the glow.
Dustin usually didn’t buy into that whole love makes you glow bullshit. It sounded fake, like something Shakespeare would’ve thrown into a sonnet just to sound deep. But Steve had been walking around lately with this stupid look on his face, like his brain had short-circuited and decided to replace all higher functions with glitter and rainbows.
Which was really pathetic, if one asked Dustin.
He was smiling at nothing, laughing under his breath like an idiot, and generally acting like someone had slipped something into his morning coffee that Dustin was starting to reconsider his stance about the whole glow thing.
Dustin was currently slouched in the passenger seat of Steve’s car, watching through the windshield as Steve stood at the counter of the gas station’s grocery shop loading up on sodas.
The cashier rang everything up at a painfully slow pace, and Steve just stood there tapping his fingers against the counter, completely zoned out, grinning at absolutely nothing in particular.
“Jesus,” Dustin muttered under his breath. “Get a room with your own thoughts, man.”
Steve didn’t hear him, obviously, too busy living in whatever fantasy world had apparently taken up permanent residence in his head.
Yeah. No question about it. Steve was in love, and therefore, almost definitely dating someone.
The realization did not make Dustin mad. If anything, it made him weirdly relieved. Steve deserved good things, deserved someone who made him smile like that instead of wearing that tight, exhausted look Dustin had gotten used to over the year.
Still, there was a dull, uncomfortable tug in his chest that he could not quite ignore. Because Steve had not told him.
And Steve told Dustin everything. That had always been their thing, right? So why the hell was he suddenly holding something back now, of all times?
Steve was still inside, taking his time, so Dustin shifted in his seat. eyes drifting around the car. The car was a mess, as usual. Empty wrappers, crumpled receipts, a couple of cassette tapes shoved haphazardly into the compartment between the seats.
Dustin leaned forward, absently opening the little storage drawer built into the dash. He wasn’t snooping, not really. He was just bored, and that was a perfectly reasonable explanation to look around.
His fingers brushed against something small and solid in the drawer. He frowned, then pulled it out.
It was a box; red, neatly packaged, tied with a thin ribbon that had clearly been adjusted more than once. Dustin stared at it for a second, his curiosity getting the better of him. Slowly, he undid the ribbon and lifted the lid.
Inside was a golden, delicate necklace with a small heart pendant resting against the velvet lining. Definitely did not look cheap in any means.
“Ohhh” he murmured quietly.
That settled Dustin’s suspicions; Steve was definitely dating someone, and the idiot was clearly head over heels.
He closed the box immediately and retied the red ribbon, and slid it back into the drawer exactly where he’d found it.
Steve climbed in seconds later, arms full of junk food, that stupid, soft smile still firmly glued to his face. He dumped everything in the space between the seats and tossed a soda toward Dustin without looking, who caught it out of instinct.
“Got your favorite,” Steve said easily.
Dustin cracked the soda open but kept his eyes on Steve as he leaned back in the driver’s seat, humming quietly while he sorted through the bags. “You’re in a good mood,” he said, keeping his tone casual.
Steve glanced over. “Am I?”
“Yeah, man,” Dustin said flatly. “You’re glowing. It’s gross.”
Steve scoffed. “Must be the new face wash I’ve been using then. Glad to know it works ‘cause that shit cost me 20 bucks.”
Not that kind of glow, Dustin thought.
“You spent a good three minutes smiling at a bag of chips back there,” Dustin shot back. “So either you’re in love or you’ve finally snapped.”
Steve froze for half a second, his panic showing through. It was subtle, but Dustin caught it anyway.
Interesting.
“In love? Nah man. Where the hell did that come from.” he laughed nervously.
Dustin said slowly, eyes widening. “You have a girlfriend or somethin’?”
“What?” Steve laughed, and far too quickly. “No, I don’t.”
Dustin tilted his head, unimpressed. “Steve.”
“I don’t,” Steve insisted, shaking his head as he started the car. “I’m just, y’know, in a good mood.” he shrugged.
“Gosh,” Dustin said, rolling his eyes. “You suck at this. You’re actually terrible at lying.”
Steve opened his mouth, then closed it again. He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Okay. Fine. Yes!”
Dustin grinned. “Yes, you have a girlfriend?”
“Yes,” Steve admitted. “I have a girlfriend.”
Dustin let out a loud, undignified noise, twisting in his seat so fast he nearly smacked his knee against the glove compartment. “Holy shit,” he said, grinning like he’d just been handed front-row tickets to something incredible. “That’s amazing. Seriously. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
Steve hesitated, his hands tightening on the steering wheel like it might give him guidance if he squeezed hard enough. “I just… I’m keepin’ it on the low right now, okay? It’s not a big deal.”
Dustin snorted. “You? Steve Harrington? The guy who once announced he had a crush to the entire video store after one date? You’re doin’ ‘low’ now?”
“Okay, shut up,” Steve shot back, but the words were undercut by the way his mouth curved into a smile anyway. “I mean it. I’m just… takin’ my time with this one.”
Dustin’s eyes lit up immediately. “Oh, this is serious then.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice like he was about to be let in on a state secret. “So who is she? Do I know her?”
Steve shook his head without missing a beat. “I’m not sayin’.”
“Oh, come on,” Dustin groaned, dropping back against the seat. “You can’t drop that on me and then clam up. I’m happy for you, Harrington. This is huge!”
“I know,” Steve said, quieter now, eyes fixed on the road. “I just need a little time, alright? That’s all I’m askin’ for.”
Dustin studied him for a moment, and whatever he saw there seemed to soften his hurt. He nodded once. “Alright. Fine.” Then his grin came back. “But for the record, I fully expect details eventually. Also, congrats on finally having consistent sex.”
Steve nearly swerved into the next lane. “Jesus Christ, Dustin!”
“What?” Dustin asked, it wasn’t like the topic of sex was taboo between them.
“You’re clearly happy. And besides, it’s kinda comforting to know you’re finally screwing someone on a regular basis. So honestly, you might as well spill some details.”
“Fuck no,” Steve said immediately, horrified. “Absolutely not. I would rather drive this car into a ditch than talk about that with you. And I’m pretty sure you don’t wanna hear it either.”
“Oh please,” Dustin shot back. “I have heard all the details about your hookups. Tammy Thompson, Carol Perkins, Emilia from—”
Steve winced. “Okay, first of all, you were not supposed to hear about half of those, and second of all,” he added quickly, “you really wouldn’t wanna know about this one.”
“Whatever, I’m just happy for you.” Dustin shrugged.
4.
There’s a saying that goes: even when life takes so much from you, it also gives a lot back. Time heals all wounds, but that was hard to believe when your nights were haunted by the things you’d seen in the Upside Down.
Even though it had been over a year since the painful experience, the monsters, the screams, there were nights—far too many nights—where the images came back, vivid and cruel.
Which is exactly how you found yourself lying on the cold kitchen floor at one in the morning, phone pressed to your ear, body curled slightly as though curling into yourself might make the world feel safer. That old wired phone—the one that belonged to your parents—was pressed just so, and your nose was red from quietly sniffing.
“No, Steve, it’s fine,” you whispered, voice tight. “You really don’t need to come over. I… I’ll be okay.”
There was a pause on the other end before Steve’s voice came, tight with worry. “Are you sure? You’re sure you’re okay? I don’t care about the time. It’s a ten minute drive, maybe less, and I can be there before you even blink.”
You sniffled again, blinking against the tears you didn’t want to admit were falling. “I… I just want to hear your voice,” you admitted softly. “That’s enough.”
“No, that’s not enough,” he said, frustration and concern threading through his words. “Y/N, you woke up from a horrible nightmare all shaken up and you’re telling me you’re fine? I don’t think so. I’m coming over. I can’t not.”
You let out a soft laugh, barely audible. “Steve…please. I don’t need you to drive over. Just—just talk to me for a minute. I’m too tired to deal with…everything else right now.”
There was a long pause, then the faint sound of him running a hand through his hair. “Okay, okay, fine. I’ll stay on the phone. But if you change your mind, I’m out the door in ten seconds.”
You shivered slightly, clutching the phone closer. “I’m… trying. I’m tired, Steve. I just… the nightmares won’t let me sleep.”
“I know, baby,” he murmured softly. “I know. And I’m sorry you have to deal with that. It’s not fair. You didn’t ask for any of this. You didn’t ask to see all that shit, to go through all of it. But I’m here. I’m right here. And you’re not alone, alright?”
You sniffled again. “Mhm. I just… sometimes it feels like it’s back, y’know? Like it’s all around me, and I can’t… breathe.”
Steve’s voice came soft, almost a whisper, like he was leaning over you even through the phone. “Hey… shhh, hey, it’s okay, baby. I know it feels heavy right now, I know it does. But you’re still here. You’re safe and I won’t let anything harm you. I’ve got you, alright? I’ll stay right here on the line as long as you need me.”
A quiet tear escaped, and you pressed the phone harder to your ear. “You really mean that?”
“Every word,” he said.
“I… I’m really tired,” you whispered, eyelids heavy. “But… thank you. For staying on the phone.”
“I’ll stay as long as you need,” he said. “You hear me? And tomorrow, if you want, we can hang out, eat some junk food, and watch some dumb movies, how’s that sound?”
A soft laugh broke past your exhaustion. “Okay,” you murmured. “Tomorrow sounds… good.”
“Good,” he said, smiling through the phone. “Now close your eyes. Try to rest and I’ll be right here. I promise.”
You yawned, the sound muffled against the phone, and whispered, “I’ll try.”
You were too drowsy to notice the quiet shift on the staircase. Dustin had stopped midway, listening to the faint conversation after he woke up from the sound of rustling downstairs only to find you on the phone.
His heart twisted hearing your soft, shaky voice. He couldn’t hear Steve's side of the conversation—only your side. But from the way you spoke, he could tell Steve was there comforting you and keeping you safe.
The alarm bells went off in his head, but he shoved them aside. If Steve was the one who could help you through the nightmares, then Dustin didn’t need to dig any deeper for answers or suspicions tonight.
With a quiet sigh, Dustin crept back upstairs, leaving you to your whispered reassurances and the fragile sense of peace settling over the kitchen floor.
He was, after all, too sleepy and exhausted to think too much of it.
+1
If there was one thing you hated more than anything, it was fighting with Steve.
And somehow, against all odds, he was currently sitting in the living room of your house with Dustin, like this was totally normal and not driving you completely insane.
Worse, there was nothing you could do about it. You couldn’t exactly kick your secret boyfriend out in front of your brother. You also couldn’t scream at him, or throw something at his head, or do any of the other deeply satisfying things you’d been imagining for the past two days.
Steve hadn’t even been subtle about it. He’d shown up under the excuse of “hanging out with Dustin,” which was bullshit, because Dustin was busy ranting about some new gadget and Steve hadn’t been listening to a word of it.
He kept glancing toward the kitchen like he was waiting for you to look back at him, like that would somehow fix everything.
It wouldn’t.
You were in the kitchen, cutting watermelon into uneven slices, jaw clenched so tight it ached. You told yourself you were being efficient, but really, you were being petty. Every slice you set aside for Steve had as many seeds as you could stuff in there—a small, vindictive way to get back at him for the kind of shit he’d pulled.
You didn’t even feel bad about it. He deserved to suffer a little after pulling the kind of shit he had.
You dragged the knife through the rind harder than necessary. And then it slipped.
“Shit,” you hissed as pain flared across your palm, sharp and immediate. The knife clattered onto the counter before you could even process what happened.
Before you could grab a towel, the knife was gone.
You looked up, heart jumping, and there was Steve, standing way too close behind you in the kitchen.
“What the hell are you doing,” you snapped, instinctively pulling your hand back. “Why are you following me in here? Isn’t it enough that I have to pretend we’re fine in front of Dustin?”
He didn’t argue or even joke. He just sighed, long and tired, like this had been weighing on him for days too.
“Let me see your hand,” he said quietly.
“No.”
“Don’t do that,” he replied, gentle but firm, already reaching for you. “You’re bleeding.”
You hesitated, then let him take your hand. His grip was careful, thumb brushing lightly against your skin. He grabbed gauze from the drawer without even thinking, muscle memory kicking in, and turned the faucet on low.
“This is exactly what I mean,” you muttered. “You act like this and then expect me not to be mad.”
Steve cleaned the cut slowly, eyes fixed on your palm. “I know. And I fucked up. I know I did.”
You stayed quiet, letting him talk. The kitchen felt smaller than usual, the sound of running water filling the space between you.
“I wasn’t trying to make you feel hidden,” he continued, voice low. “I just… every time I thought about telling him, I pictured his face. And the questions. And the way he never shuts up. And I panicked. That’s on me. Not you.”
He wrapped the gauze around your hand, careful not to pull too tight. “You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve to feel like I’m ashamed of you, because I’m not at all. I’m just an idiot.”
You swallowed, throat tight, still not looking at him.
“I should’ve done better, but I—”
“What’s going on in here?”
Both of you froze up. You turned just in time to see Dustin standing in the doorway, eyes locked on your hand in Steve’s, on the gauze, on how close he was standing.
You both turned around quickly, trying to act casual. You held your hand up like nothing happened. “It’s fine,” you said, forcing a shrug. “I’m not, like… we’re not holding hands or anything. Steve was just helping me because I cut myself.”
Dustin raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical. “Uh-huh. Sure.”
You rolled your eyes. “I mean it, Dustin. It’s not what it looks like.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about that,” he said with a shrug. Then, without warning, he held up a necklace in his hand. A delicate gold chain with a heart-shaped locket dangling from it.
Your stomach dropped. “Oh. Where—where did you find that?”
Dustin turned toward you, raising the locket so you could see it better. “I went to your room to look for that Indiana Jones DVD you mentioned,” he said casually, “and well… this was just sitting on your dresser.”
Your jaw went slack. “You went in my room?”
He ignored the mini-panic in your voice and glanced at Steve with a sigh that could’ve crushed the both of you. “And you, Harrington…”
Steve straightened, trying to look casual, and opened his mouth. “Listen, it’s not—”
“—so, this is not the same necklace I saw in your car a few weeks ago that was meant for your secret girlfriend?”
Steve froze for a second, hands halfway raising in defense. “Woah, okay. Uh, I don’t think we should be talking about this like that.” he said, voice cautious.
You jumped in, waving your hands. “Dustin, wait—you need to calm down, okay?”
“Calm down?” Dustin repeated, narrowing his eyes at Steve. “You mean the part where he's been screwing my sister and I find out by a fucking necklace?”
Steve threw his hands up. “Okay, okay, I get it! Look, I wasn’t trying to hide it, not exactly. I just… didn’t know how to tell you. I thought you’d get mad. And I didn’t wanna risk our friendship, man. I swear, I was gonna tell you soon, like really soon. It just… happened. And, things kinda happened.”
Dustin tilted his head, holding the necklace up again like it was evidence in a murder trial. “ Steve, you’ve been sneaky and going around hiding stuff, and I get it—you’re happy—but come on!”
The room felt too small all of a sudden. Steve opened his mouth again, clearly ready to keep apologizing and explaining himself, but Dustin didn’t even look at him this time.
His eyes flicked to you instead, sharp and searching in a way that made your chest tighten.
“Can we talk alone?” Dustin said, already turning toward the hallway. It wasn’t really a question.
Steve hesitated, glancing at you with eyes full of worry. You squeezed his fingers once before letting go, a quiet reassurance, and nodded. He stepped back, lingering near the counter.
Dustin led you out into the porch where you sat on your mom’s fluffed up garden couches. For a moment, neither of you spoke. He stared at the floor, the necklace looped around his fingers now instead of held up like a weapon.
“I’m not mad,” he said finally, voice lower than usual. “Okay, maybe a little mad. But that’s not what this is about.”
You waited. You knew better than to rush him.
He glanced at you then. “I just wanna know if you’re… happy. Like, actually happy.”
You leaned back into the couch, shoulders brushing his. “I am,” you said honestly. “Steve makes me happy. He makes me feel safe. He listens to me, even when I’m being stubborn or when we argue. And yeah, we fight sometimes—but I am happy.”
Dustin was quiet, picking at the chain in his hands. “He better,” he muttered. “Because I swear to God, if he ever—”
“I know,” you said softly, bumping your knee against his. “And I wouldn’t be with him if I thought he’d hurt me. I promise.”
That seemed to ease something in him. He let out a slow breath and leaned back, eyes on the ceiling. “So why hide it? I mean… I’m annoying, yeah, but I’m not, like gonna sabotage your relationship if you’re both happy.”
You huffed a small laugh. “I know. It wasn’t about not trusting you. It was just… complicated. You’re my younger brother. He’s your friend. And I didn’t know how to tell you without making it weird or feeling like I was crossing some invisible line. Plus, we wanted to keep it private for a while. Just… us.”
“I know,” you replied softly, voice a little tight. “And I’m sorry I didn’t. I didn’t want the first time you found out to be like this.”
He glanced at you, lips twitching despite himself, a reluctant little smile tugging at the corner. “Yeah… well. Finding out via incriminating jewelry isn’t exactly ideal,” he muttered, shaking his head.
You let out a small, rueful laugh, leaning your head against his shoulder for a moment. He didn’t pull away, and you let yourself stay there for a beat longer than you should have. “I’m really sorry, Dustin,” you whispered, tone earnest. “You’re my baby brother. I shouldn’t have kept this from you, especially since I know how much Steve means to you. I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
Dustin’s fingers flexed around the necklace in his hand, and he let out a long, slow sigh, finally pushing himself to his feet. “It’s okay, Y/N,” he said quietly, voice calmer now. “I get it. I just… I wanted to make sure you’re actually happy. Not just saying it because I asked. I needed to know that he… that you’re good with him.”
You smiled, warm and a little tender, and stepped forward, wrapping your arms around him in a tight hug.
He froze for half a second, then awkwardly hugged you back just as tightly.
“Awwww,” you teased softly, pulling back just enough to peek up at him. “My little baby brother, all protective and worried about me.”
Dustin groaned, rolling his eyes but smiling despite himself. “Shut up, Y/N,” he said. “I’m not your baby.”
“Sure you’re not,” you said, still smirking, giving him a playful squeeze before letting go. “Now go. Go tell Steve what’s what before he freaks out even more.”
Dustin muttered something under his breath, tugging the necklace off his fingers, then straightened and strode toward the door.
You couldn’t help laughing quietly to yourself, watching him go, knowing that underneath the eye-rolling and teasing, he really did care—and that you were lucky to have him in your corner.
Dustin slipped back inside. He found Steve standing near the couch, eyes unfocused, staring at nothing in particular. When Steve finally noticed him, his gaze sharpened, and it was full of regret and worry.
“Uh… hey,” Dustin said slowly, shifting from foot to foot. He swallowed, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. “Can I… can I ask you something?”
“Yeah,” Steve replied immediately. “Anything.”
Dustin swallowed. “Were you ever friends with me just because you wanted her?”
Steve’s stomach dropped at the question.
He straightened, brow furrowing. “What? No. Dustin—”
“Because if that’s the case,” Dustin rushed on, voice tightening despite himself, “I just wanna know. I can deal with it, I just— I don’t wanna be the idiot who thought this meant something if it didn’t.”
Steve took a step closer without thinking. “Hey. No. That’s not—” He scrubbed a hand over his face, searching for the right words. “Man, I didn’t even know she liked me when you and I started hanging out. You were just… you. And you mattered to me before anything else did, you were—are my best friend before anything else.”
“I just—” he hesitated. “I keep thinking maybe I was stupid. Like maybe you were always here for her and I just didn’t see it.”
Steve stepped closer, shaking his head. “You weren’t stupid. And I wasn’t using you. I swear.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “What happened with her wasn’t planned. It wasn’t a thing I decided to do.”
“Then what was it?” Dustin asked.
Steve exhaled. “You know how people say you fall in love?”
Dustin nodded slowly.
“Sometimes it’s not like that,” Steve said, voice low, almost careful, like he was trying to measure every word. “Sometimes it’s not this lightning strike or a moment that hits you and knocks you off your feet. Sometimes…it’s more like…you walk into it.”
Dustin seemed stunned at Steve’s words, not expecting this amount of vulnerability.
“You walk into it slowly, one step at a time. And at first, you don’t even notice. You think it’s just…life. Just…routine. You don’t realize it until you’re already in the middle of it, completely surrounded, and there’s no going back without losing something you didn’t even know you had.”
Dustin’s voice dropped, small and uncertain. “You couldn’t…help it?”
Steve shook his head, a short, humorless laugh escaping. “No. I couldn’t. Not at all. I thought I could, you know? I tried. I tried to keep it at a distance. I told myself it was a really bad idea.” He stopped, his jaw tightening.
“But it wasn’t. It was everything. Little things. The way she laughed at the stupidest jokes, even when I was barely funny. The way she listened when I rambled about shit that didn’t matter. The way she could look at me and make me feel like I was enough, even when I wasn’t sure I deserved to feel that way. It’s all those moments, one after another, stacking up quietly until suddenly…it was overwhelming.”
He paused, and his hands flexed against the counter, knuckles white. “And I kept telling myself I was imagining it. That it would pass. That I could step back before it got too…real. And then one morning I woke up and looked at her, really looked at her, and I realized I had it so bad, Dustin. So completely, hopelessly bad. And by that point, it wasn’t a choice anymore. I didn’t even know how to stop. I didn’t want to stop. And I was terrified—terrified that if I stepped away, I’d lose both of you. I’d lose my best friend…your sister…everything.”
He swallowed, eyes glimmering. “And that’s when I understood that I couldn’t help it, Dustin. I didn’t want to.”
Dustin’s shoulders sagged a little. “You were scared.”
“Yeah, terrified.” Steve admitted. “I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t want you thinking I crossed some line on purpose. I was just… trying to figure out how to be honest without blowing everything up.”
For a long second, Dustin didn’t say anything. Then he stepped forward suddenly and wrapped his arms around Steve’s middle, hugging him hard.
Steve froze, then hugged him back just as tight.
“I don’t like it,” Dustin muttered into his shirt. “But I get it.”
Steve let out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” Dustin said, pulling back and wiping his face with his sleeve. “Just—don’t screw it up.”
“I won’t,” Steve promised. “I swear.”
Dustin dug into his pocket and pulled the necklace back out, the gold chain glinting under the kitchen light. He held it out to Steve, not like evidence this time, but like an offering.
“For the record,” he said, tone almost shy now, “it’s a really nice necklace.”
Steve blinked, then let out a breathy laugh as he took it. “Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thanks.”
There was a pause as Dustin leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, eyes flicking toward the front door.
“So,” he said casually. “Why were you guys arguing before I caught you?”
Steve’s stomach dropped.
“Oh. Shit.” He looked at the necklace in his hand as he realized he forgot about the argument you both had.
“Oh shit, I—fuck.” He ran a hand through his hair, panic setting in fast and unfiltered. “I gotta go. I really screwed it up. Fuck, man, fuck.”
And before Dustin could even respond, Steve was already moving, shoving the door open as he hurried outside.
Dustin watched him go, lips twitching. “I’d say get a pair of earrings this time!” he called after him, laughing when Steve shot him a frantic look over his shoulder and kept going.
He stayed where he was, drifting toward the window without really meaning to. Outside, Steve was already rambling, hands flying as he talked, apologizing in that messy, earnest way of his, clearly trying to fix whatever dumb thing he had managed to screw up.
You stood there with your arms crossed, weight shifted to one hip, expression unimpressed in a way Dustin knew very well. The bratty attitude of yours was all there.
Not even halfway through Steve’s frantic explanation, you stepped forward and wrapped your arms around him. Steve froze for half a second before melting into it, relief written all over him as he broke the hug to clasp the necklace around your neck, murmuring something Dustin couldn’t hear.
Then he leaned down and kissed you.
Dustin immediately turned away. “Gross,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face.
Still, he smiled.
Because even if he wasn’t ready to watch it, even if it was weird as hell seeing his best friend kiss his older sister, he knew it was right. He knew you were happy.
And he knew, deep down, that Steve had somehow managed to stumble into exactly the person he was meant to love.
steve harrington masterlist
a/n: for some reason this fic took me a whole 40 days to write, but nonetheless it was a very fun and cute experience <3 i enjoyed exploring more of steve and dustin's dynamic, so hopefully i did it all justice!!
reblogs, comments, and likes are so veryyy highly appreciated <3 <3
when I just want a one shot, angst, deep, emotional, hurt/comfort, character x reader fic and I get hit with sun 20 chapter smut fic bullshit (no shade, I love my smut fics)
summary: you have a bad dream. steve has a good one. you starts keeping secrets, he starts chasing approval, and neither of you understands yet why the dreams feel like the only place either is being fully seen.
CW: szn 1 violence (demogorgon stuff), mentions of gun, steve using his nail bat, a little angst , and fluff :), lmk if i missed anything
WC: 5.7k
A/N: okie i love this chapter a ton, we're learning more abt the reader with steve, getting more of their stories. i wanted to go ahead and get this out early bc im starting my masters orientation next week and will be super busy. i hope y'all like it as much as i do eeeek, lmk
series masterlist
previous chapter
By now, you know the other dream by heart.
It's come back to you more times than you could ever count in the three years since that first summer evening at the lake. Sometimes so often in a single season that it starts to feel less like dreaming and more like visiting somewhere. It doesn't always come the same way twice. Some nights you get every detail whole and unbroken: the exact warmth of the truck's hood, the precise, unhurried way he tucks your hair back, the sound of his warm laughter catching on the wind before it can reach you.
Other nights it arrives in pieces, worn soft at the edges, the way a memory gets when you've turned it over too many times; a flash of his profile against the sunset, a half-remembered joke you can't quite finish, the color of the truck door going fuzzy and uncertain no matter how hard you try to hold it steady. You used to tell your mother every detail the morning after. You don't anymore, not really, and not because it matters any less, but because by now you can recite it to yourself in the dark, quiet and private, like checking something is still where you left it.
This dream isn’t like that one, it doesn't start warm. That's the first thing that's wrong.
There's no lake this time, no truck, no gold light settling over the water like something poured. Instead there's cold, a bone-deep, static kind of cold that hums under your skin before you even understand you have skin, before you understand anything at all except that you are somewhere, and that somewhere is bad.
You're standing in a living room that isn't yours. Strings of colorful Christmas lights loop crookedly across the walls, half of them flickering, casting sick little pulses of red, yellow, and blue over a couch pushed at a strange angle, over a coffee table dragged sideways, over the mouth of a hallway that seems to breathe. The air smells like a battery left too long in your hand, sharp, metallic, and wrong.
You look down. The hands at the ends of your arms are not your hands. They're bigger, steadier, and yet shaking. There's a boy in the room whose face you don't recognize with your eyes but you know him anyway, somewhere lower down, somewhere past thought. He has soft dark hair, a jacket that doesn't fit him like it should, and he’s moving like someone holding himself together through sheer will.
Jonathan, something in you supplies, without being asked.
You are not yourself here. You know that the way you know everything in these dreams, quietly, completely, no explanation required. You are wearing someone else's fear like a coat two sizes too big. Somewhere very far beneath the pounding of this borrowed heart, a small, steady voice that is entirely your own says: you are not her. Watch. That's all you're here to do.
Something moves in the walls.
Not behind them, inside of them. A wet, shifting drag of a sound, like something enormous learning how to fit itself through a space too small for it. The Christmas lights flutter, once, twice, and in the space between flickers you can see it. Only for a second and only in pieces.
It doesn't have a face the way a face should work. It has a place where a face would go, and that place opens.
Nancy– you, not-you– stumbles back into the boy's chest, and his arm comes up hard across you, and somewhere behind both of you a third voice is shouting something you can't quite catch, words swallowed by the static-thick air. The lights die out completely. The dark that comes down after them is total, pressing, the kind of dark that has a weight to it.
Then, a light cuts through the darkness, a flashlight-white and shaking, and a shape crashing through the front door like it's been waiting outside gathering the nerve.
Steve.
You know him instantly, the way you always know him. He’s different here, younger, sharper around the eyes, breathing hard like he ran the whole way, both hands wrapped white-knuckled around a baseball bat studded through with long, crooked nails. He doesn't look like the boy from the lake. He looks like someone who has already decided something and isn't willing to be talked out of it.
"Get behind me," he says, and his voice cracks on it, just slightly, just enough that you– the real you, the one watching– feels it land somewhere soft.
Nancy's mouth moves, arguing, the way you already suspect she always does. Steve doesn't wait for the argument to finish. He plants his feet.
The thing comes out of the hallway all at once, faster than anything that size should be able to move, and the room fills with a sound like wet paper tearing, over and over, and Jonathan is shouting your name— her name— and the flashlight beam swings wild across the walls, throwing the creature's shape into strobing, broken pieces, and Steve is already swinging.
The bat connects with a crack that you feel in teeth that aren't yours.
It barely slows the thing down. It staggers, shrieking, that horrible flowering not-face wrenching sideways, and for one second it seems to forget all of you are even there.
That second is enough. Somewhere to your left, Jonathan is shouting a word that might be gun, might be your name, and your hands, Nancy's hands, are already moving before the rest of you catches up, closing around something heavy and cold that's been forgotten in your hands this whole time. The rifle kicks hard into your shoulder as it goes off, once, twice, the sound of it swallowing every other sound in the room, and you just watch, helpless, borrowed, watching, as the creature bucks backward with each hit, black-red spattering across the wallpaper, its shriek climbing into something that doesn't belong in any register a throat should make.
For one breathless moment you think it's over. It isn't.
The thing rights itself, faster than something that wounded should be able to, and whatever passed for reason in it before is gone now, replaced with something closer to fury. It doesn't come for Jonathan. It doesn't come for the gun. It comes at you, at Nancy.
Everything narrows to that half-second. The petaled darkness of its mouth. The cold static roar building underneath everything. Nancy's feet, your feet rooted to the floor, too slow, too late, the rifle useless and empty in hands that have started shaking, and somewhere far beneath the terror there's another feeling entirely, small and fierce and entirely your own: No. No, don't you dare.
Steve moves.
He gets there first, throwing himself into the space between the creature and Nancy like it costs him nothing to decide, like there was never going to be another version of this where he didn't, bat already swinging up and around in a wide, desperate arc, and he's shouting something, and Nancy's arms, your arms come up on instinct.
You wake up screaming.
Not crying. Not whimpering. Screaming, the kind that tears your throat raw before you're even fully back inside your own small body, tangled so tight in your sheets that for one horrible, breathless second you think something in the dark still has a hold on your ankle.
"Mom! Dad!"
Your door bangs open so hard it hits the wall. Your mother is there in her nightgown, hair mussed from sleep, already crossing the room before you've finished shouting. Your father is right behind her, flipping the hall light on so fast the whole room goes white and blinding and safe.
"I'm here baby, I'm here—" Your mother's arms are around you before you can finish gasping her name again, and you're shaking so hard your teeth click together, fists knotted into the back of her nightgown like she might be the only solid thing left in the world.
"There was— there was a monster—" The words come out in broken pieces, hiccupped between breaths. "It had— it didn't have a face—"
"Shh, shh. You're okay. You're safe, baby, I've got you." She rocks you slowly, one hand smoothing over your hair, over and over, like she can iron the fear out of you through repetition alone.
Your father sits on the edge of the bed, his weight dipping the mattress, his hand warm and heavy on your back. "Just a dream," he says, gentle. "It was just a dream. Nothing's here."
You want to believe him. Some frightened, four-years-younger part of you almost does.
But underneath the shaking, underneath your mother's heartbeat steady against your ear, one image won't let go of you, Steve, throwing himself into the dark without a single second of hesitation, bat raised, already moving to put himself between a monster and the girl that he loved.
You didn't get to see if he made it in time.
You lie awake, staring at the ceiling for a long while after your parents leave the hall light on and pull your door mostly shut. In the corner of your eye, you see the crack of yellow light on your bedroom floor, and all you can think, over and over, small and useless and true:
Please let him be okay. Please. Please let him be okay.
Sleep doesn't come back. You don't really expect it to, not with your heart still going too fast, not with Steve's voice still cracking in your ears, get behind me, not with the very last thing you saw before waking still suspended and unfinished: him throwing himself into the dark, and you never getting to see if he landed on the other side of it safely.
You give it a long while anyway, lying still, listening to the house settle back into quiet around you. But the fear starts to loosen its grip eventually, the way it always does once the crying's done and the shaking's stopped, and underneath it something else creeps in to take its place, smaller, steadier, more familiar by now than the fear itself.
You need to remember this. All of it. Before it starts slipping away the way dreams always do.
So you do what you've started doing instead of trying to fall back asleep.
The notebook lives under the loose floorboard by your closet, the one you found last spring when you were looking for a rolled-away marble and discovered, instead, that it lifted clean out if you dug your fingers under the right corner. It felt like a sign. You've never told anyone about the floorboard, and you've definitely never told anyone what's underneath it: a hard covered canvas notebook, with a stained red cover, half a pack of pencils, and a flashlight you're not supposed to have in your room because your mother worries you'll read too late and ruin your eyesight.
You worry about different things now than ruining your eyes.
You click on the flashlight underneath your blanket, notebook balanced on your knees, and you write it all down the way you've learned to, fast, before it can start slipping away the way that dreams always do, details first, feelings after.
Christmas lights on the walls, but it wasn't Christmas. Red, blue, and yellow flickering, going out right before it showed up.
I was someone else tonight. Bigger hands, older than mine. Steadier than mine, but shaking too.
A boy named Jonathan. Dark hair, jacket too big for him. I knew his name before anyone said it out loud, same as always.
The thing doesn't have a face. It has a place where a face should be, and that place opens.
Steve came through the front door with a bat. Nails hammered through it. He said "get behind me" and his voice cracked right in the middle of it.
There was a gun. I don't know how I knew how to hold it or where the safety was, but my hands remembered even though they weren't mine.
He jumped in front of her before it could get us. I didn't get to see if he was okay. I never get to see if he's okay.
You flip back a few pages while you're at it, the way you sometimes do, just to look at everything you've collected so far. Pages and pages of the lake by now, soft-edged and warm even by flashlight, his laugh, the tuck of hair behind your ear, the sunset bleeding pink and lavender over water. And older pages of the other kind too, from other nights like this one: the house again, different lights this time. I think I've been Nancy before. Or someone like her. Steve always gets there. He doesn't always get there in time.
Tonight's entry is just the newest addition to that second, harder stack. You add it to the pile without letting yourself reread it twice.
You've never shown the notebook to anyone. Not your parents, not your best friend Margaret, not even that one time, months ago, when your mother sat on the edge of your bed asking gently if you wanted to talk about the dreams and you almost, almost went and got it just to prove you weren't making any of it up.
You didn't show her, in the end. Something in you already understood, even at eight, that showing her would turn it into her problem to fix instead of yours to keep.
You close the notebook, slide it back under the floorboard, and press the board down until it clicks quietly into place. Then you lie back down and stare at the ceiling until the sky outside starts turning that thin, early morning grey, and somewhere in the stretch between wondering if Steve made it in time and wondering about nothing at all, you finally fall asleep.
School the next morning is a different world entirely, even running on almost no sleep, and you're grateful for it in a way you couldn't explain to an adult even if you tried.
Margaret is already waiting by the coat hooks when you get there, swinging her lunchbox by its handle, gap-toothed grin firmly in place, dark hair tied in two braids. She's been your best friend since September, ever since she sat next to you on the first day and declared, with total second-grade confidence, that you were going to be friends because you both liked the exact same kind of horse stickers. It hasn't been complicated since. You've never had to explain anything to Margaret that you didn't want to.
Before you’ve even hung up your coat, her mouth opens. "I got a new horse," she announces. "The purple one. My aunt sent it."
"The one with the rainbow mane?"
"The one with the rainbow mane," Margaret confirms, delighted, like you've passed some kind of test just by remembering. "You can hold it at recess if you want."
"Okay." You smile and it's easy, uncomplicated, the kind of smile that doesn't have anything underneath it. "I'll trade you my eraser collection."
"Deal."
Recess passes in a blur of hopscotch and horse trading and an argument with a boy named Brady about whether dinosaurs and dragons were the same thing, and for a whole hour and a half you don't think about Steve or the notebook or the thing with no face at all. That's the best part of Margaret, maybe– not that she'd understand, if you ever told her, but that around her you don't need anything to be understood. You just get to be a normal kid with a purple horse and an eraser collection, and it feels, for a little while, like the truest thing about you.
You weren’t meant to hear your parents talking that night. You're on your way to the bathroom, socked feet quiet on the hallway floor, when their voices drift up from the kitchen, pitched low in that particular register grown-ups use when they think a closed door is the same thing as a closed conversation.
"—third time this month," your mother is saying, and even muffled through the door you can hear the strain in it. "And last night, John, she was screaming. Really screaming, not just crying out. A monster with no face, that’s what she said. That's not normal, is it? A kid her age, dreaming the same thing over and over like that."
"Kids have violent imaginations." Your father responds, careful, the way he gets when he's trying to be the calm one even though he doesn't sound totally convinced of it himself. "You remember what James used to dream about. Those wolves."
"This isn't wolves. It's the same monster, the same kind of house, near enough every time, however she tells it." A pause, a chair scraping. "I just — I keep wondering if we should have her talk to someone. A counselor, or—"
"And tell them what? That she has bad dreams?"
"That she has the same bad dreams. Over and over. That's not — that's not just her imagination, that's a pattern, and I don't like not being able to understand it."
You stand very still in the hallway, one hand pressed flat against the wall, and you feel something complicated twist in your chest, not guilt exactly, but close to it. You know you could fix this, a little. You could go downstairs right now and tell them it's fine, that you don't need a counselor, that the dreams don't feel like a sickness, they feel like something else entirely, something that has a shape and a reason even if you can't explain what it is.
You don't do that either. You go back to bed instead, quiet, and lie there listening to the low, worried hum of their voices through the floor until it finally goes quiet.
You think about the notebook, tucked safe under its floorboard. About the way Steve never once hesitated before he moved. About the fact that whatever this is, it doesn't feel like something broken in you.
It feels like something only you're supposed to be keeping.
You fall asleep eventually, one hand curled loosely near the edge of the mattress, close enough to the floorboard that some small, stubborn part of you feels like you're keeping watch over it even in your sleep.
Tonight’s dream starts differently than the other ones he’s had of you. Those ones were more distant, a track, a race, the roar of a crowd he was part of without ever being close enough to really see your face until the very end. This one drops him right into the middle of everything instead, no distance at all, theree’s laughter, too many voices layered on top of each other, someone's stereo playing too loud from an open window, the clatter of paper plates being stacked wrong and toppling off a folding table.
Steve stands at the edge of a backyard strung with streamers that have gone slightly lopsided in the warm breeze, and it takes him a second to understand what he's looking at. Then he sees you, and it clicks into place all at once.
You're sixteen tonight. He doesn't know how he knows that, the same way he never knows how he knows anything in these dreams, but it settles into him with total certainty, the way all the important facts do. Sixteen, and surrounded by people close enough to touch, there are no bleachers, no distance, none of the roaring blur he remembers from the other time he found you in a dream like this. This time there are friends piled onto a picnic blanket, your aunt fussing with a camera that won't wind properly, your dad wrestling a cooler up the porch steps, a cake crowded with far too many candles waiting at the end of the table.
He's never seen you like this. That's the thing that stops his thoughts in their tracks, standing there at the edge of it all, unnoticed the way he always is in dreams that aren't really about him. The one other time was the race, it was quick, and distant, over almost as soon as it started, more a glimpse of you than anything close to knowing you. He's never once seen you loud.
Someone starts singing, off-key and enthusiastic, and it catches like a spark, the whole yard dissolving into a ragged, overlapping chorus of happy birthday to you that doesn't match tempo for more than two lines running. You put your hands over your face, laughing, obviously delighted and clearly performing a little bit of embarrassment you don't really feel, and Steve realizes, watching it, that your laugh is exactly the sound it was that day at the race, it’s just louder now. Freer, like it's been let off a leash.
"Make a wish!" someone shouts, one of your friends, dark-haired, elbowing you hard enough that you stumble a step sideways, still laughing.
"I wish for everyone to stop staring at me while I blow out my candles," you announce, deadpan, to a chorus of groans, and then you take a breath dramatic enough to be its own punchline and blow out all sixteen in one go, and the yard erupts into cheering like you've done something genuinely impressive.
Steve laughs out loud before he can stop himself. Nobody turns, because nobody hears him. Nobody ever does.
He watches you work the crowd after that, and it's like watching a different language click into place. It’s you, teasing one friend mercilessly about a haircut, ducking a swat aimed at your shoulder without even looking, already halfway into a joke about someone's disastrous parallel parking before the first one's finished landing. You're funny. Witty in a fast, easy way that clearly comes from years of practice, the kind of charm that doesn't perform for a room so much as it just naturally fills one. Steve finds himself grinning like an idiot at things you're not even saying to him, just for the pleasure of watching you say them at all.
There you are, he thinks, and doesn't fully understand why it feels like relief.
Gifts come next, a haphazard pile on a card table that your friends clearly conspired over: a mixtape that gets immediate, gleeful mockery for its cover art, a joke gift that makes half the yard howl with laughter and the other half groan, something small and clearly sentimental from the dark-haired friend that makes you go quiet and hug her hard enough to lift her slightly off her feet. You open every single one like it's the best one yet. Steve's starting to suspect that's just how you are, generous with your own delight, handing it out freely instead of hoarding it.
Then your dad sets a small box in front of you, and something in the whole yard shifts.
It's wrapped simply, not much bigger than your palm, and your dad's got this look on his face, the specific, badly-suppressed look of someone who has been dying to give something away for weeks. You clock it instantly.
"Why are you smiling like that," you say, narrowing your eyes at him even as you reach for the box.
"Just open it."
You do. And for one full second, you just go still, completely, utterly still, staring down at what's sitting in your palm, and Steve leans forward without meaning to, desperate suddenly to see what could stop you mid-motion like that.
It’s keys. A small, ordinary set of car keys, with a gold heart charm dangling alongside them, catching in the warm porch light.
"You're joking," you say, voice gone strange and thin.
Your dad's grin cracks wide open. "Nope."
"No—" You look up at him, then back down at the keys like they might dissolve if you're not careful. "No you didn't."
"Go look out front," he says, before you can ask anything else, practically vibrating with the effort of holding yourself together.
You're moving before he finishes the sentence, bare feet slapping fast across the grass, the whole party surging up and after you in a loose wave of laughter. Steve moves with the crowd, weightless the way he always is here, carried along on the edge of something he doesn't get to touch.
And there it is at the curb, catching the porch light along every clean line of it, a 1984 Chevrolet Camaro, off-white and gleaming, a ridiculous pink bow tied crookedly around the driver's side handle like someone wrapped it in a hurry and didn't care that it showed.
"OH MY GOSH — " Your hands fly up to your mouth, and for a second you just stand there frozen on the lawn, staring at it like you're waiting for someone to tell you it's a joke after all. Nobody does. "Thank you," you finally manage, spinning around to hug your dad so hard he actually staggers half a step, laughing, "thank you, thank you, I can't– how– thank you—"
Your dad catches your hand for just a second before you can pull away, tugging you half a step aside from the noise, his voice dropping low enough that it almost gets lost under the celebration around you. "She planned all this, you know. Picked the color and everything, a long time ago." He doesn't say who, and he doesn't have to, not to you. Steve, watching from the edge of it all, only catches fragments of your dads words, and doesn't understand yet what it costs your father to say it so casually. "She would've loved to see your face right now."
You don't answer right away. Something moves behind your eyes, quick and complicated, gone again almost before it arrives, and then you're hugging him again instead, hard, and the moment folds back into the noise of the party like it was never there at all.
Your friends are already crowding around the car, someone whooping, someone else already trying the door handle just to peek inside, and you;re laughing again, that same bright, unguarded sound from the candles, bouncing on your toes like your body can't quite hold all of what you're feeling.
Steve stands at the edge of the driveway, hands in his pockets, watching you glow.
He doesn't need anything else from the dream after that. He just watches. The bow slipping half off the handle as one of your friends leans against the car, your aunt already tearing up behind her camera, you turning in a slow circle in the driveway just to take all of it in one more time, like you want to memorize the exact shape of this special kind of happy.
Good, he thinks, warm and simple and entirely without complication, for once. Good. I'm glad it's a good one for you.
When he wakes, the ceiling above him is the same as always, too low and too familiar, but for once that doesn't bother him at all. He lies there a long moment, grinning up at nothing in particular, still hearing the ragged, off-key chorus of happy birthday somewhere at the back of his mind, still seeing the exact, unfiltered joy on your face when you realized the keys were real.
He doesn't know your last name. Doesn't know your address, your friends' names, anything real enough to hold onto in daylight.
But he knows you got a cream colored Camaro on your sixteenth birthday, with a crooked pink bow and a yard full of people who love you, and that you laughed loud enough to fill the whole night with it.
For now, lying there in the grey, ordinary light of his own room, that feels like more than enough to know.
Steve's father has never once come to a full game or practice. Steve has started keeping an actual count, the way some kids count baseball cards or bottle caps, a private, running tally he doesn't tell a soul about, not even his mother, who he suspects already knows anyway.
This morning, though, there's a small window of hope, because his dad is actually home on a Saturday, actually drinking his coffee at the kitchen table instead of already gone behind the office door, and when Steve asks, carefully, like the question might scare him off, his dad says, "Yeah, maybe. If I can get away," in the particular tone that means probably not, but I don't want to be the one who has to actually break the news.
Steve decides to believe the maybe anyway. He's nine now. He's good at believing maybes.
He's good at baseball too, as it turns out, good in the specific, uncomplicated way that comes easily to a kid who's already a head taller than half his team and hasn't grown into how strong that makes him yet. His coach keeps batting him fourth, the cleanup. His swing has a kind of loose, natural confidence to it that the other kids don't have, still stiff and overcorrecting, still afraid of the ball in a way Steve stopped being afraid of it months ago.
He hits a double in the third inning, a clean, satisfying crack of contact that sends the ball skipping past the shortstop, and the sound the crowd makes– that quick, surprised burst of oh!-- does something warm and immediate to his chest that he doesn't have a name for yet, but chases anyway, instantly, without thinking twice.
He looks toward the bleachers before he even reaches second base. Old habit. Automatic, hopeful, and dumb.
His mother's there, clapping, sunglasses pushed up into her hair. The seat beside her is empty.
He doesn't let his face do anything about it. He's gotten good at that too.
By the end of the game— a win, comfortable, and mostly because of him, something has shifted that Steve doesn't fully understand yet but can feel anyway, the way you feel weather changing before it arrives.
Kids he barely talks to during the week are suddenly walking close beside him toward the parking lot, laughing a half-second too eagerly at things he says that aren't even that funny. Tommy Hagan, who ignored him completely at the start of the season, offers him half a candy bar like it's a peace treaty. A kid named Mark asks, with real hope in his voice, if Steve wants to come over sometime, like the invitation itself is a kind of gift he's not sure he's allowed to give.
"Sure," Steve says, easy, already used to saying yes to invitations he barely thinks about, and watches Mark’s whole face light up like Steve just handed him something rare.
Near the fence, two girls from the grade above him are watching, half-hidden and clearly not hiding well, whispering to each other behind cupped hands. When Steve glances over, one of them goes bright red and yanks the other one's sleeve, both of them dissolving into giggles and looking pointedly at anything except him. It's strange, not bad-strange, just new-strange, a kind of attention he doesn't yet know what to do with except feel vaguely, pleasantly bigger because of it.
He's noticing something else too, quieter, underneath all of it. It isn't really him they're all responding to, at least not the parts of him that feel most like himself, the quiet parts, the parts that get overlooked at his own kitchen table most nights. It's the double, the win, the height he didn't ask for and the swing he's still getting the hang of. It's the version of him that's good at something visible, something a crowd can clap for.
He files that away without fully understanding yet that he's filing it away. Nine-year-olds aren't supposed to be strategists. But some old, quiet, watchful part of Steve, the same part that always seems to know things in his dreams before anyone explains them, starts drawing a line anyway, faint but real, between being liked and being noticed, and an even fainter one between being noticed and being enough.
His dad isn't home yet when they pull into the driveway. Steve already knew he wouldn't be, even though somewhere underneath, there was a part of him that kept hoping anyway.
He finds him later that night, though, home for dinner at least, tie loosened, going through mail at the kitchen counter with the particular distracted energy of someone who's still half at the office even while standing in his own kitchen.
"We won," Steve says, hovering in the doorway. "I hit a double."
"Yeah?" His dad doesn't look up from the mail. "That's good, champ."
"Coach said it was the best hit of the game."
"Good stuff." A beat. Steve waits, some small, stubborn part of him still holding out for more, a question, a tell me about it, anything with actual weight behind it. His dad slits open an envelope instead, scanning it fast. "Did your mom get the dry cleaning?"
"I don't know."
"Go ask her, would you?"
Steve goes. He doesn't let his face do anything about that either.
Lying in bed that night, Steve replays the day in pieces, not the double, not really, though it flickers through once or twice. Mostly he replays the walk to the parking lot. Tommy Hagan’s candy bar, Mark’s hopeful, lit-up face, the two girls by the fence, red-cheeked and giggling, unable to stop looking at him even while pretending not to look at all.
He doesn't have the words yet for what he's starting to understand, not really, not at nine years old. But he can feel the shape of it forming anyway, patient and quiet, the way understanding sometimes arrives well before the vocabulary does: that a good hit gets you noticed faster than a good heart does. That people show up for the version of you that wins something. That his father might never come to a game, might never once say tell me everything, but a stadium full of near-strangers will lean in and cheer for exactly the same nine-year-old boy without needing to be asked twice.
It isn't the same thing as what he actually wants. He knows that, somewhere underneath it all, even now.
But it's something. It's warm, and it's loud, and it's there, offered freely and immediately in a way his father's approval has never once managed to be.
Steve decides, mostly without even deciding, that he'll take it.
Warnings: pure fluff, pining, oblivious to feelings, friends to lovers, love triangle,
Steve’s spent months trying to show his best friend he loves her, then Eddie enters the picture and turns it into a battle into who can win you over, all for the heart of one very oblivious girl
Steve didn’t bother knocking anymore, pushing the front door open just enough to call your name. He found you exactly where he’d expected, standing on a chair in front of the highest cabinet, reaching so far for a mixing bowl he was convinced you were about to topple over.
“Woah, alright.” He hovered his hands on either side of you, protecting you from falling.
You only sighed, keeping your eyes on the prize. “The chair gives me height.” Though before you could protest, Steve’s hands settled around your waist. “What are you—”
He lifted you off the chair like you weighed nothing, set you safely on the floor, and reached up himself. The bowl came down with ease that made you pout.
You accepted it begrudgingly from his hands. “You know, one day I'll be able to reach for things myself.”
“Not while I’m around,” he said without hesitation, before nudging your shoulders. “So…what are we making?”
“Cookies!” You grinned, already moving to pull the sugar and eggs.
Steve’s brows lifted. “Oh no, you’re going to bake again?” He said solemnly.
“What’s supposed to mean?” You pointed a wooden spoon at him threateningly.
“Only that the last time you attempted baking, you almost burnt the whole house down.”
“Well,” you ignored his words. “You can either help or leave.”
“I’m helping.” He quickly rushed out, pushing his sleeves up. “I can’t stand around and watch as you turn the kitchen into your own disaster zone.” That earned a laugh out of you, leaning against the counter to catch your breath.
And Steve couldn’t help but stare for just a second longer than he should have. God, there it was again—that laugh, like somehow the whole room got brighter because you smiled at him.
He busied himself before you could catch him staring, turning his gaze onto the items in front of you. You bumped your shoulder with his. “You’re such a good best friend.”
The words hit him like a brick, but he smiled anyway. If being your best friend meant spending every Saturday morning in your kitchen, stealing excuses to make you smile and hoping, just once, that you’d catch one of the countless hints he’d been dropping, he would gladly do it.
Steve wasn’t exactly subtle, he hadn’t been for a very long time. He didn’t just know the broad things about you that everyone should know, he remembered the tiny details most people missed. How you always forgot to bring a jacket with you so he’d make sure to wear one to slip around your shoulders. The books that held a special place in your heart, the name of your childhood dog, he even noticed when you trimmed your hair only an inch.
He did all the gentleman-y things without being yours, walking on the outside of the sidewalk to protect you without thinking, pulling your chair out before you sat down, door handles held open before you could reach them. Absentmindedly holding your hand to help you over puddles, only letting go once he knew you were steady.
Robin had called him out on it more than once. “You know you’re basically acting like her boyfriend, right?”
“What if she doesn’t see it that way?” Doubt crept into his voice.
Robin stared at him for a long moment before sighing. “Then she’s either blind…or choosing not to see it.”
Steve prayed the second one wasn’t true. He convinced himself at first that perhaps you didn’t feel the same. That you simply saw him as your best friend, nothing more, nothing less.
It stung more than he could admit aloud, but he had made peace with it. Though during fleeting moments, every now and then, he’d catch you staring at him. Not when he was talking, or when everyone else was laughing, just looking like you were studying him.
Your eyes would linger for a heartbeat too long before your gazes would lock, looking away with a sheepish smile. And every single time, a glimmer of hope unfurled in his chest. Maybe there was something there after all, maybe he wasn’t imagining the way your face softened whenever he gave you a small smile, maybe the lingering glances meant what he desperately wanted them to mean.
He just hadn’t figured out how to make you realize he wasn’t looking at you that way because you were his best friend. He was looking at you that way because he’d fallen hopelessly and irrevocably in love with you.
Eddie Munson entered your life the way most things did in Hawkins, completely by fate. When you had initially wandered into Family Video to visit Steve during his shift, you ended up arguing with the long haired metal head over The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
“I’ll telling you, it’s unnecessarily disgusting.” You scrunched your nose, horror movies having never been up your alley.
Eddie looked personally offended, slapping a hand over his chest dramatically. “It’s art.”
“It’s about a man chasing people with a chainsaw to murder them.” You crossed your arms, the back and forth was strangely endearing.
Steve had watched the entire exchange from behind the counter, staying silent. You walked out that evening with a movie tape tucked under your arm, and somehow, a new friend,
At first, Steve didn’t think much of it, you deserved more than one friend, and you had plenty of love to go around. Besides, Eddie was funny, you laughed around him the same way you laughed around everyone you cared about. It was fine, really.
Then the little things started, Eddie began showing up more often, swinging by your place “just because.” He’d offer to walk you home if Steve was working late, bring rock and roll cassette tapes he swore you’d love, though Steve told himself it wasn’t a competition, he was only doing the same things he did.
That was the problem he realized, he was acting exactly like Steve. “You remembered my favorite candy?” You smiled so brightly at Eddie that Steve nearly dropped the glass cup in his hands.
Eddie rubbed the back of his neck nonchalantly. “You mentioned it once.”
Steve had also said those same words a hundred times whenever you questioned how he always remembered your favorite everything, his stomach sank.
A few days later, Eddie held the library door open for you, Steve frowned at the sight, that was his thing. Then he gave you his leather jacket when the weather turned chilly, that was Steve’s job.
By the end of the week, Steve had watched Eddie insist on paying for your milkshake, and unconsciously position himself between you and a speeding bicycle, never known to be the careful one.
Steve sighed. “Oh.”
Robin glanced upwards from where she was supposed to be alphabetizing returns. “What now?”
“I think Munson likes her.” He really didn’t want to speak those words into existence.
The worst part was how Robin didn’t even hesitate. “Yeah, for like, two weeks.”
Steve groaned, slapping his forehead onto the counter underneath. “And what am I supposed to do?”
Robin tilted her head knowingly. “I don’t know, Steve. Maybe ask her out?” She deadpanned.
He looked horrified. “…Or,” she continued. “Keep staring at her like a lovesick puppy, while Eddie does the same exact thing. Whatever this weird mating ritual is, keep me out of it.”
Steve couldn’t help comparing himself, Eddie was everything he wasn’t. Eddie naturally attracted attention, he played the guitar—well at that, he may be a high school dropout but he was not shy of being himself. Steve? He worked at a video store and got nervous whenever you got a little too close.
‘Muson’s cooler than me.’ The thought lingered longer than he’d liked. Then another thought followed, convincing him to try harder, Steve might’ve fallen into second place, but he was still in the game.
If Eddie was bringing you music to fall asleep to, Steve was showing up in the morning with blueberry muffins straight out of the oven.
If Eddie complimented your outfit, saying it was, “very metal,” Steve was already telling you your smile looked pretty before he could even realize the words left his mouth.
Steve dropped by your house one night after work, you swung open the door at the first knock. “There you are!” You beamed. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
His heart immediately forgot how to function. “You—you have?”
“Mhm!” You quickly pulled him inside, excitement written all over your features. “Come here,” you dragged him all the way to the living room, where the thousand-piece puzzle you’d been working on all week sat proudly on the coffee table.
Only, there wasn’t missing a single piece, Steve blinked. “You finished it?” He asked.
You nodded triumphantly. “I finished it.” You confirmed. “And look, I finally figured out that impossible section.”
Steve leaned over, trying very hard not to smile too much, you meant the section Steve helped you with once you had given up. You looked so ridiculously proud of yourself that Steve’s eyes sparkled with pride. “You did good.” He praised.
Your face lit up. “Really?” When he nodded surely, without thinking you threw your arms around him, Steve hugged you back automatically.
Then, just as quickly, you angled your head and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. “Thanks for helping.” You said it like it was the most natural thing in the world, before turning back to admire your work.
Steve, on the other hand, stopped functioning. His hand drifted to the spot on his cheek, his throat closing up and skin flushed. As you left towards the kitchen to grab a drink, Steve remained rooted to his spot, busy replaying those last two seconds in his head.
Not even a day later, Steve spotted you in the trailer park, Eddie having just finished saying something that made you laugh.
You stepped forward and wrapped your arms loosely around his neck, burying your face against his shoulder for a second as you inhaled his strong masculine scent.
Steve stopped walking, the smile he’d been wearing since last night faltered. You hadn’t done anything wrong, you hugged everyone, but never after he had allowed himself to think the kiss on his cheek meant something.
Across the park, Eddie met Steve’s eyes over your shoulder, neither of them looked away. A slow infamous grin spread across his face while Steve’s brow twitched, message received. Things were far from over.
Meanwhile, you finally pulled away, completely oblivious to the silent rivalry unfolding right next to you. “So,” you looked between them brightly. “Who wants ice cream?” They both raced to pay for it at the register.
Steve had finally had enough, he was no longer going to stand around and wonder whether there could ever be a possibility of something between you.
After standing in front of the florist for an embarrassingly long time, he settled on a bouquet of pale pink carnations, and white lilies. He didn’t buy them because he thought they’d make you fall in love, it was just what he remembered seeing in movies where the boy attempted to be romantic.
The entire drive over, he rehearsed the words in his head like a mantra, he desperately didn’t want to mess up, but he needed to communicate all the thoughts he’s been holding in for the past months.
Once he approached your driveway, voices drifted through the air, coming from right in front of your house.
“…Can I tell you something?” It was Eddie’s voice, he realized. Steve froze in his tracks. “I think it’s kind of obvious by now,” he chuckled nervously.
Steve’s heart stopped, it seemed like he wasn’t the only one who thought today was the day.
“I like you.” The words made him go pale, looking down at the flowers in his hand. He was too late, you’d pick Eddie.
“I know.” You finally spoke gently. Steve squeezed his eyes shut, regretting he had come all this way for nothing. “But—”
You paused, he listened closely. “I don’t feel that way.” You lowered your tone. “ I think you’re incredible, Eddie. Really, anyone would be lucky to have you…that someone just isn’t me.”
You smiled sadly. “You’re my best friend, and—my heart’s already somewhere else.”
A laugh escaped Eddie, shaking his head amusingly. “I had a feeling.” You stepped closer, wrapping him a hug.
“I’m sorry.” You whispered. As he turned to the side, his eyes landed on Steve, holding flowers, and looking like someone who deserved you more than he ever could.
“Don’t be.” Eddie replied, smirking. Steve snapped back to reality as he walked over, clapping his hand shoulder on the way. “Your turn, Harrington.”
Steve stared at him for a moment, then toward where you were heading for your front steps, then back at the flowers. “Oh, screw it.”
He hurried around the side of the house just as you stepped onto the porch, your eyes widened. “Steve?” You exclaimed.
“Hi, uh,” he looked at you nervously, suddenly forgetting his whole speech. “I brought you flowers.” He pushed them into your chest unexpectedly.
You looked at them and smiled sweetly. “I can see that, thank you, Steve.”
“But…” he cleared his throat. “I didn’t bring them just because, I brought them because I wanted to tell you that—”
“That?” You raised your brows, waiting for him to finish.
“That I’m in love with you.” He pulled the trigger, immediately his breath afterwards.
Your mouth dropped, for a moment, all you could was stare. “You are…?”
Steve laughed nervously, running his hands through his hair. “Yeah.” He swallowed. “And I know that’s probably not what you were expecting, considering we’re friends and all—and if you don’t feel the same, I understand. I just—I really couldn’t keep pretending anymore.”
You blinked twice, then a strange look took over your features, weirdly affectionate. “Steve.” He braced himself. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that.”
His brows knitted together. “You’ve been waiting?” He repeated.
You laughed softly. “I mean, you showing up right now is quite the surprise. But,” your smile turned shy. “I’ve been waiting for this.”
Steve’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. “I don’t understand.” He said breathlessly.
“Steve,” you sighed. “You’re the only one who knows me better than I know myself. And, I’ve never wanted anyone else.”
“I just thought,” you shrugged, cheeks warming. “You were waiting until you were ready.”
Steve let out a disbelieving laugh, shaking his head. “I was trying to show you all this time.”
“I wanted to hear you say the words.” You suddenly stepped closer, until all that separated you were a few inches.
His eyes searched yours, comforting silence settled between you. “So, do you love me too?” He whispered.
“I’ve been waiting for you, remember?” Then you reached up, cupping his face in your hands, and instead of your kiss landing on his cheek, it aimed straight for his lips.
“I love you too, Steve.” You giggled against his lips. As it turns out, the race had been over long before he realized.
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