pairing: steve harrington x reader
words: 1.6k
contains: mature themes, heavy angst, apocalypse au, friends to lovers, hurt/no comfort, major character deaths, brief mention of unaliving self but does not take place witin the story, brief description of corpses, female reader, no use of y/n, she/her pronouns for reader.
author's note: i'm so sorry for this one. please do not read if you are uncomfortable with the above warnings!
to be added to my taglist | masterlist | requests page
"Do you think th-that—it's going to take a while?" You ask Steve quietly, the lump in your throat like a stone as you look at him sitting on the floor beside you.
Steve glances back at you before his eyes shift down to the mark bite on your forearm—the one near identical to the one on his own. He shallows before he shakes his head.
"I reckon we have—half an hour at most. The infection's already spreading," he says, voice thick with emotion as he points to the dark veins that run up his arm, the skin that was blackening around the bite mark from the infected that lay only a few feet away with a bullet in its brain.
You look down at your own arm and see the darkness spreading through your veins too. Something heavy settles in your chest.
Thirty minutes. That was all you had left.
It was stupid really. Both you and Steve knew you shouldn't have left the safety of Hawkins. You knew that you shouldn't have left the small and tight knit community where there were people who loved you, running water and plenty of resources but Steve had wanted to get Dustin a new comic book for his birthday, for some semblance of normalcy for the kid and you hadn't wanted him to go alone. You had snuck out plenty of times before and you had both naively presumed that a walk to the town not even twenty minutes away wouldn’t be a problem.
But now—you'd never return home and the others would likely find your bodies when they would inevitably come looking for you in a few days' time. All because you had forgotten to check the basement. And now—you were both paying the ultimate price.
It was unspoken, what you both had to do in order to stop yourself from turning into an infected. The cyanide pills that were always tucked into your backpack just in case had been sitting on the floor in front of the both of you, taunting you.
“I’m—” you begin, your voice thick with tears.
“Don’t you dare,” Steve mutters, already anticipating what you were about to say. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. I’m the one who wanted to come here.”
“But I didn’t check the—”
“—I don’t want you dying blaming yourself,” Steve interrupts, his voice breaking slightly when he looks back at you.
Tears spill down your cheeks as you quietly accept it—the fact you and Steve Harrington were going to die on the floor of a comic book store. The fact you were going to die beside the man you loved.
There was no saving grace here. Just you, Steve and the inevitability of death. Inevitable because there was no cure. Nothing that could save either of you from the infection that was already spreading through your body.
"Least we're together," Steve murmurs, looking at you with a soft expression. You notice the tears in his eyes but you don't comment on them. "We're not alone."
You watch then as Steve holds out one of his large hands, palm up, for you to take. You swallow before you place your hand over his. His touch brings a warmth to you that not even the deadly infection could take away.
"That makes things a little better." You say, blinking away tears as you look back at him with a faint smile.
"You think so?" Steve asks, nudging his knee with yours as he manages a small smile. "Wouldn't you rather Robin be talking your ear off or talking to Nance about that book you both like?"
You shake your head before you wipe away some of your tears. "No. There's no one else I'd rather be with you than you. No one.”
It was the most honest yet terrifying thing you could have said. And yet—there was not a single part of you that was scared because the only thing more certain than the fact you were going to die was the fact that you loved him. Not even death would take that away.
Steve blinks, his hand in yours stills for a moment before he asks. “What—does that mean that you—”
“Yeah,” you whisper back quietly with a small squeeze of his hand. A shared understanding in that gentle squeeze, in the look in your eyes. “Not the best timing for…confessing my feelings but if we’re going to—you know—I just, I wanted you to know.”
Steve says your name and you’re quick to shake your head. Because you didn’t want pity or for him to be sorry that he didn’t feel the same—
“It’s fine, Steve. You don’t have to—”
“—no, look at me. Please.”
You do. Because it was Steve and you loved him and you would do almost anything he said.
When you look at him you can see the sorrow in his eyes. The devastation that his and your life would soon come to an end. But also the flicker of something softer, something you couldn’t quite decipher but made the weight in your chest feel a touch lighter.
“There’s no one else I’d rather spend my last moments with than you,” Steve tells you, his other hand cupping your cheek. His thumb gently strokes across your skin, touching you as though you were more precious than gold.
Your face feels warm and you try to stop the smile from spreading across your face as you look back at Steve, tears falling down your cheeks, everything beginning to feel a little hazy as the infection continues to spread but none of that seemed to matter as Steve Harrington smiled back at you.
“You mean that?” You ask quietly. “You really—”
“—’course I do,” Steve whispers. “It’s you. It’s only ever been you. It’ll always be you.”
You barely have time to breathe, to comprehend what he had just said before Steve’s lips are against yours. You let out a soft, startled sound of surprise before you melt into him. There was no gentleness, no hesitation, just years of build up and unspoken words that had been burning between the two of you for years. His mouth was almost desperate to taste every inch of yours before everything came to an end.
Your fingers found themselves carding through his hair as your lips molded against his and for a moment, you could almost convince yourself that you weren’t going to die. That you and Steve would make it out of this, that you’d have years together. Maybe you’d even have a family or you’d live long enough for there to be a cure for the damn infection that had swept across the globe.
But it was with a bone crushing realisation when Steve pulls away from you in order to catch his breath that you don’t have time. You don't have years, you don’t have days. You barely have an hour. You would not live to know what a lifetime would have looked like with Steve. All you had was half an hour before the infection took over your mind and you would have to take the pills before you lost yourselves completely.
You let out a sob before you could stop it.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get more time,” Steve whispers, pressing his forehead against yours so his warm breath kisses your skin. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“It’s okay,” you whisper back, something in your chest twisting when you see a tear slip down Steve’s cheek. “Half an hour will do.”
It was a lie, it was a damn lie because whether it was an hour you had, or a day, a year or even a lifetime, it wouldn’t have been enough. No matter what time you had with Steve, it would have never been enough. But in that moment, it was a lie you both chose to believe.
“I love you,” Steve tells you, the words building a warmth you couldn’t quite describe. “I love you and I need you to know that before we—”
Your eyes flickered back down to the small box on the floor in front of you before looking back at Steve.
“I love you too,” you breathe out. “So much.”
“We’ll see Eddie again,” Steve says hopefully, wiping away your tears gently as he sniffles. “And Chrissy. El. Bob.”
“Eddie’s gonna give you an earful when you tell him you broke his guitar,” you say with a wet laugh.
“What’s he gonna do?” Steve asks. “Kill me again?”
It wasn’t funny, not even a little bit but it makes you laugh anyway. And it doesn’t take long for Steve to laugh too.
“If the last thing I get to see is your smile then it’s a pretty good way to go out,” Steve smiles, eyes shining with tears. “All things considered.”
“Hope the last thing I hear is your laugh. Or one of your really bad jokes.”
“My jokes are great.”
“Debatable.”
Steve’s hands shake slightly before you pull you back in for another kiss. Then another and another and another until you weren’t sure where you ended and Steve began, until you were surely to run out of breath.
“I love you,” Steve murmurs against your lips. “I love you, I love you, I love—”
“I love you too,” you tell him before you shut him up by pulling him back in.
Tears were still falling down your cheeks and Steve was clinging to you like you were his only reason to keep breathing. You weren’t sure how long you had before you began to lose your mind but you knew that you weren’t going to be alone. That Steve would be right there with you as you journey from life to the new adventure of death.
And days later, when Hopper found both you and Steve on the floor of the comic book shop, he’d found the two of you still holding hands—finally at peace, together at last.
real talk: this is kinda a very pivotal moment in rafe’s storyline. let’s talk about it!
sorry in advance, i love psychology and the study of psychological disorders and mental illnesses so, yes, i will be discussing that! if that makes you uncomfortable, that’s ok! feel free to skip past this :)
