from elle

with love

[fromellewithlove]

a love letter to some of the fics that live rent free in my head

this is a side blog, main blog: @ellecdc

how to navigate: I've added links to my rec lists by fandom! if you're looking for a specific character, search my blog for "[insert character] x reader"

my all time favourite fics can be found here

elle's marauders recs elle's stranger things recs elle's hunger games recs elle's tasm recs elle's criminal minds recs elle's acotar recs elle's miscellaneous recs

[ddejavvu]

After a grueling mission az comes to the river house and finds reader sitting waiting for him (I imagine it being pre established relationship)

And az says fuck it and lays his head on her lap

Reader short circuits lol

You're not waiting up for Azriel. Because if you were, that'd be silly- you're not together. You're not courting, or friends with benefits, or in any sort of situation that would warrant worrying over the Shadowsinger until his return. So you're not waiting up for him, you're just... reading. In the common room. By the large french doors leading to the balcony that Azriel lands on each time he returns from a mission.

There's a fire crackling to your left, and a blanket draped over your lap, a wine glass atop the coffee table with a single sip left, forgotten. Everyone else's glasses are in the sink because they'd turned in hours ago, but you're nearing the end of your book and contemplating whether you could finish and come back down with another one without embarrassing yourself.

There's a soft pop as a book appears on the cushion to your left, a gift from the house that warms your cheeks. Even the house can tell that you've got inconvenient feelings for Azriel? You'd never admit it to a single soul, but the Shadowsinger has you wrapped around his scarred finger. He's kind, effortlessly so, even if he doesn't seem that way due to his constant state of eerie silence. But you've spent enough time with him that you know he's merely listening, not judging or wishing he were someplace else, and now you take comfort in being silent beside him. It's why the room feels stiflingly quiet, it's lonely instead of shared.

You sigh and power through the remaining 20 pages of your novel, but before you can turn the acknowledgements page of your next read, a resounding thump comes from the darkness beyond the glass doors.

The starlight of Velaris illuminates just enough of the night that you can see Azriel's silhouette. His wings, gracefully deadly, begin tucking themselves towards his spine from where they'd been flared in use. Even without them, he's formidable, broad shoulders lethally toned and feet spread apart to their width. it's a fighting stance, he's solid and strong, and you feel an involuntary shiver run down your spine at how impressive he manages to be just standing there.

When he steps through the doors, he becomes softer.

The darkness vanishes as the light from above hits his face, and you revel in his tanned features, weary and relieved to finally be home. You're certain he never fully lets his guard down; that even asleep he makes his shadows keep watch, but it's clear that he feels some degree of safety within these walls as his shoulders slump a fraction, no longer held proudly below his ears. His eyes catch you before his shadows do, but the latter greet you warmly, swarming over en masse to turn you blanket gray and wispy. You laugh, nothing more than an exhale as they crawl up your hands, twining between your fingers and tickling your cheeks. You squirm, eyes scrunching shut as they explore the planes of your face.

"You're up late." Comes Azriel's voice, low and smooth and comforting. It falls over the silence like a blanket- not shattering it, but preserving it, warming it, chasing away the cold loneliness that had begun seeping into your bones.

"Well, so are you." You raise a hand to coax his shadows off of your face, letting them dance around your arm instead. They swirl up towards your biceps, covering your arm in patterns eerily similar to Azriel's Illyrian tattoos, giving you a matching sleeve to their singer.

You inspect it with a soft giggle, and you miss the way Azriel's pink lips turn vaguely up at the corners.

"I had business to attend to on the border of dawn and day," Azriel reveals, which isn't much information, but it's more than he'd have offered to anyone outside of the Inner Circle, so your chest glows with pride. Your chest glows a lot around Azriel, and you try very hard not to think about why that might be.

"I hope it went well?" You ask, and his shadows suddenly dart towards your discarded book on the couch cushions, swallowing it up and spitting it out on the coffee table so that the rest of the couch is free.

"It was business," Azriel hums resignedly, taking the spot that his shadows had cleared for him and traipsing over to rest his weary bones on the cushion beside you. You become very aware that, while all of the furniture in the house is made to accommodate Illyrian wings, a loveseat is a loveseat, and it's made only for two. You steady your breathing as Azriel's scent makes itself known between you, something distinctly manly and lush that nearly makes your eyes drift shut in ecstasy.

It weaves its way into every breath you take, and you shut your book with the hopes of not needing to open it again for the rest of the night.

"Are you tired?" You ask, because you know the warriors have been rigorously trained. They simply need less sleep to operate, though you're sure more would be beneficial. Azriel nods, though, melting into the couch cushions in a way that sags his shoulder into your own.

"Very." He sighs, eyes drifting shut, "Are you?"

Your eyelids are heavy.

"A bit," You hum, "Do you- want to go to bed?"

He cracks one eye open, glancing over at your books on the coffee table.

"Not particularly." He speaks, and you can hear the tension in his voice even though you're not needling him for the information, "I'm in no hurry to get back to my bedroom."

"Is your bed uncomfortable?" You guess, but his teeth briefly gleam in a grin.

"No," He muses, "It's just lonely there. And cold. And I could use some companionship after these last few days of glaring at everyone."

A joke! Or humor, at least, something you're meant to laugh at. And you do, soaking in the rare sight of Azriel poking fun at his terrifying persona.

"You know, you're the one that chooses to glare at everyone all day. You could try greeting people with a smile and a handshake, but I think they're so used to your legendary brooding that they'd die of shock." You can't keep the smile off of your face, and Azriel's face turns sharply to meet your eyes, hazel eyes gleaming with amusement as his handsome features try stifling a grin. He's holding back a breathy laugh, but it comes through his nose despite his best efforts, his forehead tipping closer to brace against your arm.

Your skin burns at the contact- in a good way, but burning nonetheless. You wait with bated breath for him to speak again, and he groans against your skin, his lips- his lips! - brushing your bicep.

"This is ridiculous. I come home, dead tired, stomach empty, feet aching, for the first time in three days, and you're making fun of me?"

"You started it," You jostle your shoulder, making him worm his face further into your skin to keep it steady, "And if you're so tired and hungry, go eat and sleep!"

"No." He says simply, the weight of his grueling work finally dragging him down so heavily that his entire body tips towards yours, head landing in your lap while his claw-tipped wings carefully avoid nicking your skin.

"Azriel," His name escapes your lips in a gasp without thought, without warning, and he doesn't fully settle into your lap until you finish speaking, "Wouldn't you be more comfortable in bed?"

He turns his head further into your lap with a smile, his eyes closed and his face nearly pressed into your stomach as half of it disappears against your blanket, "It's plenty comfortable here. And like I said before- I'd be lonelier there. If you're going to keep reading, I'll stay here for a bit."

There's a thousand things running through your mind. Azriel's body is laid across yours, warm and comfortingly heavy and divinely close. His breath is seeping through your blanket and warming your lap, chasing away more of that cold that had frozen over the room before he'd returned. It's a stifling closeness that you're experiencing with him now, more than you've ever felt before, and that persistent glow in your chest returns, practically shooting beams of light straight through your wildly beating heart.

You don't pick up your book for a solid twenty seconds. You merely freeze, letting Azriel's breathing even out against your body as your eyes gaze hazily down at him. You're frozen- not tense, but incapable of thinking of a next step to take. His shadows help, though, and they reach for your novel, encasing it like a dust jacket and holding it open on the right page for you to peruse. When you try taking it, though, they pull it back, separating in halves so that one bunch can wrap themselves around your hands and tug them towards your lap.

Your fingers land in Azriel's hair, and before you can pull them back, mortified, the man releases a heady groan into your thighs, one that thrums in all the right places and sends your head spinning. Tentatively, you twitch your fingers, then begin raking your fingernails through his scalp, between strands of inky black hair that part for your hands, impossibly soft despite his exposure to the elements for days on end.

"Thank you," Azriel breathes into your lap, reverent. The tone warms your face, his voice just as intoxicating as the wine you'd sipped hours ago, and you wonder if you're somehow drunk again as the words in the book before you blur together and seem to swim on their pages.

You understand now- his shadows will hold your book, even turn your pages for you, so long as you keep combing through their master's hair. You're not sure if they're serving Azriel or yourself at he moment, but you send a silent, thankful prayer to the Mother for them as they sidle the book up above Azriel's head to present you with the story.

You run your fingers through Azriel's hair until they buzz with the memory of it even without the contact. They tingle when you break away to itch your nose, the phantom strands still tickling at your skin before you plunge your hands back into his locks to keep soothing him into sleep. You can't tell if he's out or not, but he's at least relaxed, his limbs devoid of all tension as they melt into the couch, his breath still seeping through the blanket and keeping your thighs impossibly warm.

You've never been less interested in a novel before- It's a romance, something off of Nesta's shelf that features a tall, dark, and handsome man a head taller than the leading lady. But there's a notable lack of wings on his back, and you have to remind yourself each time a certain face pops into your head that the character is meant to have brown eyes and a much lighter complexion than the man in your lap. His shadows do seem to appreciate some of the story, though, darting across the page to underline words like 'glowering', 'dark-haired', and 'muscular'.

I'm aware, you internally scold them, shooing one off of the page before twisting your fingers back through Azriel's black locks, please don't make this any harder to handle.

[fromellewithlove]

Azriel’s shadows as a plot device supremacy <3333

[pellucid-constellations]

i just reread your drabble about azriel stopping his mate from eating chocolate (that she's allergic too) and it was so cute and made me chuckle and then i wondered about the first time she eats chocolate in front of him (if she knew or not about the allergy) and his reaction to her literally unable to breathe 😭

Pairing: Azriel x Reader

Word count: 522

Warnings: Allergic reaction, a bit angsty

a/n: Drabble masterlist can be found here. Heheh this is the ask that inspired me to write some drabbles because I loved the og fic!! I hope you enjoyy <3 I also think a fae having an allergy is funny for some reason lol

Link to the fic the ask references

____________________________________________

A glass had shattered somewhere between you and the window. You registered the sound, how it echoed against the tightening confusion in your mind, but the strange feeling in your throat rose above all else. You heard your name, a hand on your shoulder, but you honed in on the buzzing itch instead.

"Did you not like it?" Mor asked, a flash of concern dimming her smile. "I suppose it did have a few odd ingredients, but they make everything so differently the nearer it is to the human lands."

You wet your lips to respond, but it felt as if the words were lodged in your lungs, cementing to the lining there. The hand on your shoulder shook you slightly, and your fingers twitched.

"Y/n?" Azriel said again, this time with a touch more urgency. "Are you alright?"

You looked up to meet his searching eyes, and the change in position made it hit you—you couldn't breathe. You shot your hand up to pull at your throat, but found no reprieve. You thought you might have wheezed out a sound. Azriel guided your face up to his, and you shook your head instead, answering his question the best you could.

Instead of the panic clearly rushing through each of your joints, an eerie calm washed over Azriel's face. He kept you in his hands and didn't look away as he directed, "Get Feyre."

Mor was gone in an instant.

Sickening adrenaline made your knees wobble, and Azriel followed you to the floor. As you clutched at his sleeves and your face began to turn an unnatural shade, Azriel furrowed his brows and nodded, placing a hand at the base of your jaw to open the airway as much as he could.

"I know," he hushed, tilting his chin up to model a small breath. "Try to calm. It will feel worse this way. A tiny bit of air is better than nothing. I know—I know, my love."

You really were trying to listen to him, but he looked so stoic and your body was failing you. It felt impossible to even keep his face in focus as your vision began to swim and your ears rang.

"No—No, hey. Look at me." A tinge of panic finally seeped into his tone as he righted your toppling head. "Feyre's almost here. She can fix it. But stay awake. I know it's hard. I—"

"What happened?"

You weren't sure anyone answered the High Lady, but a few seconds later, a warmth pressed against your chest, and tears sprang to your eyes as air finally filled your lungs. You took in ragged inhales that hurt and exhaled in ugly pants that shifted Feyre's hand. Eventually, she sat back on her heels and made way for the bone-crushing grip Azriel brought you into.

He was shaking more than you were, your head taken into his large hand, your face pressed into his shoulder. He had been calm before—he was not calm now.

"Azriel," you gasped out.

"Don't—" he gritted, tightening his hold. His next words were not meant for you. "Whatever that was... burn it."

[fromellewithlove]

this hurt my feelingss (and I loved every second of it) though tbh kathie really can do no wrong

[kymawrites]

bound by fear - masterlist

pairing: Azriel x reader

content warnings: physical and emotional abuse by a parental figure (alluded to and described), anxiety, violence, misogyny, language, descriptions of injuries, descriptions of menstrual cycle/menstrual blood, nudity, smut (18+)

~ ~ ~

bound by fear

You spent three decades suffering under the cruel thumb of your father. When you finally escaped, finally started to build your own life, the last thing you ever wanted was to find a mate.

bound by love

You were falling in love with the mate you never wanted, and he was waiting patiently to catch you.

explorations in intimacy

Maybe it was time you learned how to satiate the need that coursed through you every time you looked at your mate.

endeavors in love

You loved your mate. You loved him with your whole heart, and it was time you told him.

happy solstice (bonus)

It was Winter Solstice. You were in love with your mate, and you finally had a family to celebrate with—and that was terrifying.

~ ~ ~

complete

[fromellewithlove]

rereading this instead of dealing with reality </3

[kymawrites]

hold me tonight

pairing: Azriel x human!Reader

content warnings: vomiting, fear of death/mortality (?), loneliness, brief mention of past attempted sexual assault, reader needs a hug

word count: 4.0k

synopsis: As if life as the only human in Velaris was not terrible enough, you also had to endure the consequences of your mortal immune system. Azriel refuses to let you suffer alone.

my masterlist

~ ~ ~

There were many things you hated about being human.

Every day that passed in this entirely foreign and ethereal world seemed to chip away another brittle piece of your exterior, revealing another mundane flaw hiding beneath your skin. Another weakness.

You wished you had been tossed into that Cauldron.

It was a selfish thought, perhaps. One that used to claw at you with guilt every time it flit through your mind—every time you watched your sisters crawl deeper inside themselves as they grappled with all they had lost. As they mourned what the Cauldron stole from them.

Feyre was decidedly not a shell of herself, though, and she was fae. She was beautiful, strong, more sure of herself than you had ever seen her. She had a mate.

Mate.

They all had mates now.

They all had friends.

A purpose.

Bile rushed up your throat as you lurched for the toilet, the porcelain icy against your feverish skin. Your body heaved, violently expelling whatever illness had weasled through your measly defense system. 

When the overwhelming wave of nausea finally abated, you slumped against the hard porcelain, only slightly cringing at where you had rested your head. At least it was your own bathing chamber.

In a magic house.

You huffed a half-delirious laugh, your ribs aching and throat burning as you slowly pushed away from the toilet. Your movements were sluggish, your limbs heavy and trembling as you fully lowered yourself onto the cold floor. Your cheek pressed against the chilled tile, eyes fluttering shut at the momentary relief. You curled in on yourself, exhaustion curling around you like smoke, and you begged it to take you away.

~ ~ ~

A gentle brush against your cheek made you twitch, your face twisting as you turned away from whatever had broken through your momentary reprieve. The touch still lingered, a featherlight caress that followed along your jaw up to your forehead, pressing gently against your sweat-damp skin. Their touch was cold and soothing—a harsh contrast to the bitter chill running up and down your spine.

You tilted your head up, chasing the touch you had turned away from seconds ago. Everything felt heavy. Hot. It was so hot.

“Y/N,” a deep voice murmured. Their tone was cool like their touch, a soothing balm over your inflamed mind cascading into hazy delirium.

You sucked in a breath, your face turning toward the voice. “Y/N,” they said again, this time a little louder, firmer.

You forced your eyes open, your lashes fluttering as light from the window made you wince. It took a moment for your vision to focus, for shapes and blurs to regain their sharp lines and definition—for you to recognize the massive figure kneeling beside you.

“Azriel?” you rasped. You swallowed hard, wincing at the burn in your throat and the acidic taste clinging to your mouth. “What are you doing here?”

There was a little crease between his brows as he looked at you, his gaze otherwise eerily still. “You’re burning up.”

You huffed a pitiful laugh that sounded more like a cough, your ribs flaring with pain. “I didn’t notice.” His palm was still pressed to your forehead, and you were still lying on the floor of your bathroom. Next to your toilet. The mortification that flooded you was almost hot enough to dull the chill nestled deep in your bones. “Did one of my sisters send you?”

Azriel scowled, the crease between his brows morphing into a deep furrow, his lips forming a flat line as his eyes flared with indignation. He pulled his hand away, leaving your flushed face entirely exposed to the stale air around you. You shivered, as if your body wanted to physically remind you that it was currently at war with itself. As if you had forgotten.

Azriel’s scowl disappeared as quickly as it had formed, even the crease between his brows smoothing out as he slipped a hand behind your back. “Come on,” he coaxed. “Let's get up.”

You let him guide you up, not that you really had to let him do anything. He was so large. Even kneeling on the floor with his wings pulled tight behind his back, he still dwarfed you. Everyone here looked like they could crush you with the toe of their shoe. 

The change in position sent a rush through your head, your blood pulsing in your ears as your vision danced with spots. You grabbed the edge of the toilet as another violent wave of nausea roiled through you, heaving your body over the bowl just in time to expel whatever little remains lingered in your stomach.

Azriel didn’t leave. As much as you wished he did, as much as you wished you could fall through the floor and weather this alone, he stayed. He stayed with a steady hand on your back that rubbed up and down your spine, the thin fabric of your nightgown a weak barrier between your skin and his.

It was ugly, and disgusting, and you felt like a frail shell of yourself when the heaving finally ended and you sucked in shaky desperate breaths. Azriel brushed the errant strands of hair plastered to your skin away from your face, the tie you had sloppily pulled it back in failing at its job.

“How long have you been like this?” he asked, voice quiet and restrained, as if worried about breaking the fragile stillness that had fallen over you.

You opened your eyes, still sucking in breaths with more effort than you would have liked. You glanced at the window, the sun streaming through with bright beams. You shrugged, sort of, and answered weakly, “It was dark.”

Azriel murmured under his breath, his ministrations on your back faltering. “Why didn’t you call for someone?”

Your mouth was dry. Your throat hurt. Your head ached. You really weren’t in the mood to be chastised. “Who?” you bit out. “How? No one is here. Cassian is away. Nesta is away. You—”

“I would have come. I did come as soon as—” his words cut off, Azriel seeming to think better of whatever he was about to say. You slowly moved your head toward him, lifting your head from where it was cradled in your arm still resting on the toilet. He met your gaze, his eyes wild with emotions you didn’t have the energy to tease apart. “I gave you that pen and paper. Told you my shadows would deliver any message.”

You remembered. Remembered the pitiful safeguard your sisters had likely forced upon Azriel to give to you as a sad Solstice gift. “That’s for emergencies.”

“It’s for anything,” he argued, his voice rising a bit. He sighed, shaking his head as his hand came up to cup the nape of your neck, the touch sending goosebumps across your skin. “Are you done?” he asked, voice much softer.

You blinked at him, your mind swimming from the fever and pain and his touches and his voice and the way you just noticed his shadows licking softly at your bare feet. You grimaced as you glanced at the toilet, reaching to flush the contents away as you pushed yourself up. “For now,” you murmured.

Azriel didn’t move, barely gave you space to sit back on your heels. You felt a bit detached from your body, your limbs shaky and heart racing as you struggled to keep your mind tethered to your arms and legs that were meant to carry you through this wretched illness. 

“Good,” Azriel said, his voice incredibly close to your ear. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

You shook your head, immediately protesting at the thought of walking to your bed just to inevitably have to hurdle yourself back in here soon. “Can’t.”

“I will get you a bowl,” he said, like a man that was used to plucking solutions out of thin air without being challenged. 

Your bed would be nice. You were suddenly freezing after suffering through the wave of heat you had awoken to, and your ostentatious but undoubtedly soft mattress would inarguably be more comfortable than this hard bathroom floor. Your blankets, your sheets—

Your sheets. Embarrassment curled in the center of your chest, almost mistakable for another bout of nausea if you didn’t know better. Your sheets were uninhabitable after you had awoken from your sleep so suddenly, so violently, you didn’t have a chance to do more than throw the covers off your body before the nausea won over you. “My sheets are—”

“Clean.”

Your eyes snapped toward Azriel. “What?”

His lips curved slightly, into what might have been a smile if he was not kneeling beside you on your bathroom floor after watching you throw up in your toilet. You shivered again, a mixture of your self-disgust and the fever sending another chill through you.

His hands squeezed your arms. “Come on.”

You really didn’t want to stand up, but you did want your bed, and something told you Azriel wouldn’t leave until you got up off your bathroom floor. You nodded, head lolling a little too far forward as your vision swam and your ears buzzed.

“Okay?” Azriel asked softly.

You took a slow breath, willing the dizziness and fatigue away for just a few seconds. “Fine.”

Azriel had moved onto his feet at some point, but he was still crouched beside you as he watched you pitifully push yourself up using the toilet as leverage. Whatever blood and tension that had pooled in your head, making it feel heavy only moments ago, vanished once you stood.

You stumbled, reaching blindly for something to stabilize yourself with before two arms curled around you. “Okay,” Azriel huffed, then lifted you with startling ease. “That’s enough of that.”

He was still in his leathers, you realized, only once your cheek was pressed against the dark fabric across his chest. Where did he come from? How did he even know to look for you? Why did he care?

Your chest prickled with indignation as he carried you into your room, an undercurrent of anxiety running through your veins as you thought about just how vulnerable you were. Anyone could have found you in that bathroom. Sure, you were safe here, in this mountain you could never leave unless you asked someone. They said you were safe.

But you were still a human in the fae lands. You were a human in an enchanted house that was your only company for sometimes days on end, and you were weak and alone. You could never defend yourself if it came down to it. Let alone when you were sick and unconscious on your bathroom floor.

Azriel could have done anything he wanted. He could have—he could have touched you. He could have taken whatever he wanted from you, like the males in your village had once tried—had almost succeeded—and they were mere humans. Azriel was not only fae, he was a warrior, a spy, and he served alongside the most powerful high lord. He could—

He sat you gently on the bed, crouching in front of you as his hand came up to cradle your face with so much gentleness, his thumb hovering before wiping away a tear you didn’t know had fallen. “Hey,” he said, voice a gentle hum. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?” His eyes ran over you, a little frantic. “Did I hurt you?”

Azriel would never. You knew that. 

You knew that.

A sob forced its way through your lips. Azriel’s eyes went wide, and before you knew what you were doing, you were falling into him. Your forehead pressed against his leathers, your nose inhaling the faint cedar scent that lingered around him. His arms immediately wrapped around you, one of his hands cradling the back of your head as you cried into his chest.

“Sweetheart,” he murmured.

The name weaved in between your ribs and coiled around your heart, squeezing tight as another ugly sob broke free. You wanted this. You wanted him. You wanted a life with your sisters. You wanted a mate, a love, like they had—and you never would.

“Hey,” Azriel murmured, holding you tight against him as he came up to join you on the bed. He pulled you into his lap, holding you in a way no one ever had before. Even as a child, you couldn’t remember a time someone just held you. “Breathe, Y/N,” he soothed, the words soft and gentle. “Take a breath. You’re okay. It’s okay.”

“I’m scared,” you admitted through broken and shaky sobs. “I’m so scared.”

Azriel held you tighter. “You’re going to be fine,” he murmured. “Madja is coming. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

You shook your head, sniffing as exhaustion made your sobs die out, but tears continued rolling down your cheeks. “One day I won’t be,” you whispered, the soul crushing words burning your throat. 

“What?” Azriel asked softly.

“I’m human, Azriel.” You sniffed, turning your face into his chest. “One day, I won’t be here, whether because of illness, or age, or a stupid accident, because I’m human. I’m weak, and I’m alone,” you choked on the word, trembling as anxiety and exhaustion and lingering nausea scraped their claws through your chest. “I don’t want to die,” you whimpered, shoulders shaking. “I don’t want to die while everyone I love gets to keep living. I don’t want to grow old without my sisters. I don’t—I can’t—”

“Okay,” Azriel murmured, rubbing his hand over your head. “Okay,” he said again, the word sounding fragile. “You’re not alone,” he finally said, the words a soft rasp against the top of your head.

You scoffed, starting to protest, but he cut you off. “You’re not.” He squeezed you tighter. “You’re not alone, Y/N.”

“They have mates,” you argued brokenly, “I will never have that.”

“That’s not true,” Azriel assured, the words sounding a little strangled—like they might mean as much to him as they would to you. “I promise, that’s not true.”

You wanted to argue. You wanted to get mad, to yell, to tell him he couldn’t possibly know that. You wanted to push him away, you wanted to hide from whatever feelings you felt toward the man—male—who currently held you in his lap. You wanted to protect yourself from another inevitable heartbreak.

But like you said, you were alone, and you so desperately wanted not to be. You were sick, and shaking, and the fever was still clouding your mind in a dense fog, even as your volatile emotions started to evaporate under the pressure of exhaustion.

“I’m tired,” you murmured weakly, head lolling against his chest.

“I know.” His hand rubbed up and down your arm, and you might have been falling into delirium when you thought he pressed his lips to the crown of your head. “Do you want to change?” he asked, softly.

You nodded, hating the thought of climbing into bed wearing the same gown you had spent hours lying in on the bathroom floor. It was also thin, and short sleeved, and you were freezing.

“Okay,” Azriel said, shifting you gently off his lap. You might have whined, or whimpered, your body aching from the movement and your heart throbbing at the loss of him. He ran a hand over your head as he left you leaning against the many pillows along your headboard. “You’re okay,” he soothed. “I’ll be right—” His breath caught, his eyes snapping toward the foot of your bed. He blinked, his shadows pulsing once, twice, and you thought his ears might have turned pink—it was hard to tell in the dim light of your room thanks to your closed drapes.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said instead, the words releasing some of the tension that had held your shoulders up to your ears. He reached toward the end of the bed, a navy sweater folded neatly at your feet. “Put this on,” he told you. “It will be warmer.”

You glanced at the sweater he had lain on your lap, the fabric absurdly soft and plush against the exposed skin of your thighs. It wasn’t yours.

And as much as you wanted to engulf yourself in Azriel’s sweater, to swaddle yourself in the lush fabric that would feel worlds better than the scratchy nightgown that was beginning to suffocate your skin—you didn’t want to move. You didn’t want him to see how your arms would undoubtedly shake, and you didn’t want to use every last ounce of your strength just to change out of a single article of clothing.

“I can help you?” Azriel asked, a gentle offer with only a hint of hesitation, his hazel irises dripping with sincerity and concern that made you flush all over despite the chills still crawling under your skin. 

This was—it was too much. You couldn’t ask him to do this. He should leave. He had done more than enough for you already, more than enough just by caring enough to check on you, for whatever reason that had been. You weren’t his to take care of, and he wasn’t yours to want him to—even if you did, with every fiber of your being.

You were human.

And he—

He was—

He sat down on the bed, his wings draping gently behind him, one covering your lower leg. He didn’t seem to notice.

You dragged your gaze away from the sight of his wing against your skin, forcing your eyes to meet his. He smiled softly, his lips turning up so gently at the corners. “Let me help you,” he nearly begged. Your eyes started burning again, and he reached up to wipe away the moisture that quickly escaped from your waterline. “No more tears,” he murmured. “Not tonight.”

You nodded, taking in a shaky breath as you stared at the sweater still on your lap. Tan and scarred fingers picked it up, setting it beside you on the bed. “It will take seconds if I help,” he said.

“You shouldn’t have to,” you whispered.

His hand cupped your face, your eyes immediately meeting his again. “I want to,” he murmured. A shadow crawled up his wrist to stroke your cheek alongside his thumb. “If you let me.”

“Okay,” you whispered.

Azriel’s hands immediately went to the hem of your gown that was already rucked up embarrassingly close to your waist. Then he paused, his eyes meeting yours, waiting for one last confirmation.

Something in your chest fractured. A fissure branching out from your heart and all the way down to your soul, another hit with the startling reality that this could be your life. If things were different, you could have had this. Him.

You could pretend to have him tonight.

You nodded, and Azriel’s lips pulled into another tiny smile as his eyes stayed on yours, and he pulled the gown up and over your head with gentle ease.

The soft sweater went over your head in quick succession, Azriel guiding your arms through the sleeves as the fabric fell down your torso and pooled around you on the bed. Only then did he let his gaze wander below your shoulders. “Oh,” he murmured, “here.” Then he gently coaxed you forward, and the pads of his fingers brushed the skin of your back as he did up one of the slats in the back of the sweater. 

Because it was his sweater. Meant for large, magnificent wings.

“There,” he said, satisfied, and then guided you to lie back into the pillows before standing up. He pulled the covers back, gently tugging them out from underneath your legs just to pull them back up to your chin as you scooted further down.

It had been a very long time since someone tucked you into bed.

Azriel brushed some stray hairs away from your face, and you didn’t even have the energy to care how you must look. He leaned down, his lips pressing to your forehead, and you were fairly certain you were not hallucinating this time—not when his kiss lingered, and he pulled away just to press a second quick peck a little closer to your hairline.

You watched him closely as he pulled away, watched how his shadows seemed to pour from his body and seep toward your bed, watched the way his wings twitched before he refolded them behind him. Watched the way his throat bobbed and his cheeks tinted the same shade of pink you thought his ears had earlier.

“You’re still pretty warm,” he murmured, the back of his knuckles tracing gently over your cheekbone, as if he couldn’t quite pull himself away.

When his touch finally fell away, and he took a half step back, panic squeezed the air from your lungs. “Azriel,” you rushed out, your panic poorly hidden in the rough and breathy words. “Please,” you said, swallowing once. “Please don’t leave.”

His face turned softer than you knew was possible, and you wanted to keep this version of Azriel to yourself for an eternity—even if your chest hurt at the reminder that his eternity would span centuries beyond yours. Tonight then. Tonight, maybe you could keep him, just until you were well enough to stand without crumbling to the floor.

“I’m not leaving,” he assured.

He kicked his boots off, soft thuds on your floor as they fell over. Then he started unbuckling sheaths and straps that held…who even knew what close to his body. “I’m not leaving,” he said again, before disappearing into your bathing chamber.

Your heart was racing. You glanced at the large bowl that had magically appeared on your nightstand, and you desperately hoped you wouldn’t need it. For the first time, you wondered if anyone else knew you were sick.

Probably not, unless Azriel told them somehow. You still didn’t understand how exactly they all communicated with each other.

You hoped no else knew, and that Azriel would stay.

He came out in a new set of clothes, his leathers traded for soft lounge pants and a plain t-shirt, his sock-covered feet carrying him back to you. You didn’t know where he got the clothes, just like you weren’t sure where his sweater you were wrapped in now came from, but you had learned to stop questioning every little thing since living here.

This time, he crawled onto the other side of the bed, his back leaning against the headboard as his wings flared out on either side of him. One of them grazed your cheek as he tried to extend it, then bumped the top of your head as he moved around. “I’m sorry,” Azriel murmured, almost embarrassed. “Do you want me to move?”

“No,” you answered a little too quickly. You shuffled closer to him, closing the distance between your bodies and making more room for him to rest his wing. “You’re warm.”

You had not meant to say that, not really, but Azriel seemed to preen from the possible half-compliment, if you could even call it that. Then his wing draped completely over you, a second cover that offered immediate warmth you were craving. The edge of his wing rested gently against your cheek, the membrane silken and smooth against your skin, and you wanted to touch it with the tips of your fingers—but you were not entirely lost to your illness, and still had some decorum, so you kept your hands tucked beneath the covers, and let yourself finally drift off into sleep as you breathed in the soothing scent of soap and cedar.

~ ~ ~

Later, when your room was darker and the sun no longer creeped out behind the edges of your curtains, you awoke with your head in Azriel’s lap, and his fingers gently drawing figures along your collarbone. His wing still covered you, an extra layer of protection from the outside world that you never wanted to leave.

Your head was spinning as you shifted around, sleep still clinging to the edges of your mind. Azriel’s fingers came up to lightly trace your jaw, the motion gentle and soothing in a way that had you melting back into him, allowing sleep to slowly creep back in.

Exhaustion reclaimed you, and you were dreaming again.

You must have been, when you murmured, “In another life, maybe you were mine.”

And he said back softly, “I am in this one.”

[fromellewithlove]

Crying, actually. So soft, so comforting, so raw. I cry about not spending centuries with him too 😭😭😭

[lis-likes-fics]

Late Bloomer

Pairing: Spencer Reid x omega!Reader Word Count: 3.8k words Warnings: Canon typical blood and violence, references to sex/heat/knots, omegaverse typical themes, beta-passing Spencer, fluff... A/N: The feminine urge to make Jemily canon in this series is so so so strong I'm dying. But anyway yeh um me got a bit carried away. Haha, this um was yeah. Enjoy! (if you have other ideas for these losers, PLEASE let me know i'm so abo brainrotted right now)

Being the only beta on the team isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's also nothing to be giddy about. He isn't necessarily over the moon about the fact that there are eight members of this team consisting of four alphas, three omegas, and he's a lonely number one—“It's really not that strange once you realize that there are a wider variety of beta-dominated fields than there are alpha and omega combined. Furthermore, law enforcement sectors like ours are typically flooded with alphas as—even despite the ERA—there's still a favorability for them. We've come a long way but reform might still be necessary even in today’s society.”

Did Spencer have a burning desire to be a big, strong, handsome alpha that everyone looks up to and respects? Well…it'd be nice but he knows there are plenty of other ways to be strong without being drenched in nauseating pheromones that make all the omegas swoon over you. Right?

And anyway, there are worse fates than being a beta. He could be a beta and not get to have his precious omega all to himself. How he managed to successfully court you is beyond him. He's just happy to be able to hold you, to take you home and cuddle, to get to share your nest and secrets. (Not to mention getting to help you through your heats as best as he can without the obvious alpha advantages.) (He may not have a remedy, but he knows enough about a lot and his sheer earnestness to be of any use to you goes a long way compared to just suffering on your own.)

Spencer thinks you deserve better. He doesn't voice these opinions too often—he knows you love him, no matter what he is, and he doesn't want you to feel bad about what he feels bad about. He thinks you deserve someone who can actually smell the real scent of you and know what your mind or body might be going through. You deserve someone who can actually claim you if you both ever decide to officially mate. You deserve someone who can actually knot you when your heat is ripping its way through your system so violently that it hurts, (as much as the mere idea makes his teeth hurt from how hard he's clenching his jaw) someone who can do more than provide a bandage to a sweltering fever.

The list goes on, but he has to remind himself of the simple fact that he adores you with everything he has and will protect you like an alpha until he's in the ground or (god forbid) you decide you no longer want his protection. (He'd probably still have Garcia monitor you and make sure you're safe, as he would not be able to stand the thought of not knowing if you're happy and secure.)

“What do I smell like?”

Spencer's arms are warm where they wrap around your shoulders, leaning over the back of the couch just so he can hold you as he guides his nose into the crook of your neck. As though he can smell you, too. The real scent of you.

“Hm?” You look up, raising a hand to his forearm and squeezing gently. The smile you give him always knocks him off balance.

“What's my scent?” he asks, quieter this time. “What do I smell like to you?”

The kettle on the stove sputters. The faint whisper of its whistling is drowned out by the gentle hum of your voice. “Honest?”

He smiles, nods a little. “Yeah.”

You chew on your bottom lip, a chuckle stuck in your throat that presses your lips tight in a poorly contained grin. “Books.” You press your lips to his skin.

He looks down at you, his eyes suddenly unimpressed, even if his mouth can't fight the smile you always manage to pull out of him. “Books.”

You nod, burying your smile deeper into his arm and taking a long, deep breath. Your eyes fall close, and you hold your breath in your chest to let the soft smell of him linger within you. You want it stuck to your senses, layers of smell built up until it's a strong, permanent scent in your nose.

“It's faint, but it's like printing paper and…” another whiff, “a hint of…something metal, maybe.”

He shakes his head. He's not sure what he was expecting, but it makes sense for very obvious readings. “Hm, I'm still not very creative then, huh?”

Your smile worsens, turns into something evil at the ends. “You call that thing you do with your fingers uncreative?”

He flushes immediately, looking away to hide his sudden color-changing feature and the way his smile has molded to his face. He stands to his full height, but his hands stay on your shoulders in their refusal to let you go. “Hush, you.” You giggle happily, nuzzling your nose into his wrist (where you take another sniff of him).

“You're making tea?” You shift to perch on the couch, watching him retreat to the kitchen where the kettle is shrieking.

He nods, grabbing the kettle to fill two mugs already placed out for you and him. “Mhm.”

“Chamomile?”

He grins, back still turned as he pours. “You know me.” You make a pleased sound, settling back into the couch like you're smug about something. What would you have to be smug about? Who knows? He simply takes your silence to confirm your choice of tea as his favorite.

He glances over his shoulder at you. His precious omega. He hopes he gets to keep you forever.

~

Spencer is hyperaware of your presence behind him, and it offers him some comfort in the echoey halls of the campus’ science building. His nerves are spiked, but his hands and his eyes are steady as he walks silently with you, guns brandished.

The rest of the team is split up into pairs, scattered all over the building in search of the unsub. You're getting close—you keep smelling the scent of burning rubber, coming and going as remnants of it leak past his (fairly good) attempt at concealing it.

Spencer's swift as he draws his gun down one hall, just as you're backing him up on the other. You lift your nose just enough to take a quick breath, shaking your head at Spencer when you can't trace your culprit. Glancing down the hall, you make a quick gesture his way.

You go there, I'll go here. Circle back that way.

Spencer catches your wrist as you take a step away. You turn, your eyes imploring but calm. You can see the apprehension in his eyes. His reluctance to split up is clear, and you have to shoot him a warm smile and a nod just assure him that it's fine. If something happens, he'll still be close enough to reach you and vice versa. It should take no more than a minute to regroup.

You take a quick step toward him, kissing his cheek before shooting him another smile as you go. He has to force himself to look the other way, to go before he changes his mind and follows after you, efficiency be damned.

The moment Spencer is alone, his anxiety nearly skyrockets. It's not that he doesn't trust you to be able to take care of yourself—of course you can take care of yourself…he just feels better taking care of you, too. If anything horrible were to happen to you because he wasn't there? He would never forgive himself.

He's fast as he sweeps through each room, clearing them one by one until he's come back around to where he's supposed to rejoin you. Only you haven't arrived yet. He gets antsy immediately upon not seeing you, glancing all around him for any trace of your presence.

It's been too long. Did you get held up? Maybe you found him, and you're just busy cuffing him? Or maybe you had more area on your side to clear than he did. He turns the layout over in his head again and again as he inches down the hall where you have to be.

He's suddenly hit with a wave of unease accompanied by the scent of mud and clay, something sour twisting ends. He doesn't have time to be confused by the smell in the absence of earth and nature. He's kicked into overdrive before the gunshot even fires as tunnel vision sends him bolting down the hall in pursuit of the growing scent.

He bursts through a door, already panting and unsure why. The scent is strong enough to be in his brain, has him gripping his gun like it's already locked on target. The scent pouring through every space of air has his jaw locked and his heart thundering in his chest. It smells like danger, it smells like fear.

When he whips around and sees you on the ground, dazed and dripping blood from your nose, his vision jolts. On top of you is the unsub with his gun to your skull and a sneer on his lips. You let out a tiny, pained whine, and something in Spencer snaps.

He doesn't really know what happened. His gun is no longer in his hands, and the unsub is no longer on you. His breath is too heavy, and every inch of his skin is burning with a heat he's unfamiliar with as he feels more energy being exerted from his body.

When his mind seems to click back into place, his hands are bloody and there's a dull throbbing in his knuckles. He doesn't totally know how it got there, just hears another whine slip past your lips and lets his body pull him toward you like a magnet.

He scoops you into his arms, and you look up at him with droopy eyes. His hand goes to cradle your shoulder and finds that his hand is warmer and wetter than it was even a second ago when he first registered his busted knuckles. He notices the wound soon after—a little more than a graze but nothing lethal. Still, the scent of souring clay is making his head spin. It's sharp in the same way that sniffing a permanent marker is sharp. He's dizzy with it, staring down at you in his lap and trying to match your breathing to his (and vice versa, as he's realized he's breathing really fast).

“Honey, hey,” he murmurs, taking in your injuries and counting himself calmed enough over the fact that nothing looks bad. You must have fought a bit and suffered a blow or two that scrambled your head.

You look up at him, eyes bleery. You look exhausted more than you look pained—which likely has more to do with the discombobulation than your injuries.

“You're okay,” he says, rocking you gently as he cups your cheek. “Just need you to stay awake, or you could—you could slip into a coma. Yeah? I want you to stay awake for me, angel.”

You nod gently. You're not fully aware of what he's saying to you, but he's here and that's all you care about. He'll get you somewhere safe, and then you won't have to worry about any of this anymore. You can just focus on the smell of parchment paper thick in the air, musky like an old book that's gotten soaked in water. It's quite nice, overwhelming in its urgent intensity but somehow comforting. It makes your brain fuzzy and soft, safe enough to lay your head back on his lap.

Spencer shifts you in his arms to sit you up some more. “Nuh-uh, omega, you can't fall asleep yet. Soon, I promise.”

You grumble, and it's so normal in its sound—the same sound you make when it's time to get out of bed in the morning, but you're too tired to drag yourself. “We have to get ready for work, pretty.” “Mmm, no. Leave me alone.” “Only if you brush your teeth with me.”

“M’kay,” you agree begrudgingly. You turn your nose into his wrist, keeping your eyes open just enough for him to see you're still awake. You trust him to know what he's doing, and he's saying it so sweetly. Your brain stops asking you questions and just does as Spencer says. It's as easy said as done.

Spencer hears the steps coming down the hall and tenses—he's not entirely sure why, as there's no current danger other than your concussion.

When two people enter the room, his first instinct is to curl his body around yours, impulsively shielding you from them in a protective posture. He glances up to see Hotch and Prentiss rushing in, stopping at the door with their guns raised as they quickly assess the situation.

He's never realized how strong their scents are before. The adrenaline has made it stronger, and there's a weird bristling in Spencer that only makes him pull you closer, cradling your neck in his hand as his thumb strokes your skin in slow circles. You hum gently, like you're being cooed at and you're melting under the attention.

Prentiss moves to cuff the unsub, unconscious on the floor. Hotch holsters his gun and turns to you and Spencer, takes a small step forward and stops short when a faint growl raises from Spencer's throat in a very uncharacteristic attempt at a warning.

Hotch holds out a hand, his palm down and his tone pacifying but firm. “Reid,” he says. “It's over.”

Prentiss looks over her shoulder at the two of you, her brow furrowed as she tries to figure out why Spencer is growling. “What's go–?” She pauses, tilts her head back, and sniffs. Oh.

Spencer watches Hotch, letting himself calm down as he recognizes that he's right. They're friends. It's over. You're alive.

He huffs under his breath, finally looking over at where Prentiss has her knee perched cautiously on the unsub’s back. Her eyes are careful, but there's no hostility. There's no threat he can sense anywhere. When he catches his face, he's surprised to see blood smeared over swollen skin.

“Oh,” Spencer says under his breath.

Hotch looks down at where you're laying in his lap, your quiet humming barely audible over your breaths now. Spencer's thumb traces your scent gland. “Is she alright?”

His hold tightens a bit on you, but he doesn't growl this time. Spencer nods slowly. Hotch nods back. “Take her back. Paramedics are on their way.”

Spencer nods again, already scooping you up in his arms and carrying you bridal-style through the halls. Police pass by him as he walks, some passing too close and earning warning growls from him that he hardly even picks up on.

He doesn't leave your side once. Not when the paramedics arrive, not when they try to take you from Spencer to transfer you onto a gurney (he lays you down himself and tries not to snap at the medic taking your vitals. Hotch is grateful Spencer listened to his order to stay back when they took you away to properly deal with your wounds. They let him into the room the moment you were out, and then you didn't leave his sight for a single second after that.

You recover very well, very quickly. And it's not a moment earlier that you're well when Spencer stops to think about what actually happened back on campus. He'd been so angry, so terrified at the thought of losing you. The way his heart stopped at the sight of you, bleeding, gun to head, is a sensation he never wants to relive ever again.

He still doesn't really remember beating up the unsub. He remembers feeling resistance against his fists (probably from colliding with a human skull) and being strangely out of breath (probably from his fists colliding with a human skull), but what he remembers most is the smell of sour clay.

He doesn't smell that anymore. The scent, mixed with disinfectant and nylon gloves, is a much cleaner, much more pleasant smell—one that's almost sweet. His head rests on your lap and lets you run your fingers through his hair, scratching dully at his scalp while he holds your hand close and buries his nose in the crook of your wrist.

He thinks about what Hotch said—a memory clouded by concern. He remembers the words, but not the way he said them, or the look on Hotch’s face when he said them (he thinks he was too busy looking at you sleeping off your exhaustion).

“We could smell you from the stairwell—found you with her. She was hurt, the unsub was…incapacitated. You wouldn't let anyone near her.”

“Dude,” Morgan had said, “you, like…growled at me. Like actually growled at me. I was kind’ve impressed.”

Spencer remembers hiding his face from Derek to keep him from seeing how flustered the thought made him (though not nearly as he would have been if he wasn't still worrying over you).

“Didn't even know that was possible.” Emily nodded at JJ’s comment back at the hotel, swinging her keyring around her finger.

Hotch, though not one to gossip, hums. “To be fair…Reid never did fully present.” He shrugs in that way that makes him seem like he never moved at all. “Some never do. They just get assigned as betas once they reach a certain age.”

Rossi smiles. “You know what they say. Where there is love, there is a beta waiting to become an alpha.”

Emily furrows an amused brow. Derek nods like it's true artistry. “Oh, yeah? Pretty sure I've never heard that one.”

“One of Ghandi’s best.”

“Is it?” Emily laughs. “I'll write it down somewhere.”

~

The ride home from the hospital is silent. The space of the console between the both of you is far too vast for your liking, but you'll survive (probably), choosing instead to bask in the new, stronger scent of your boyfriend next to you. Parchment paper, warm and leathery with a freshness that gives you room to breathe, and something akin to pencil shavings.

His hand is resting on yours, even though driving stresses him out sometimes and he gets nervous when he doesn't use both hands. He needs to feel you. Needs to know you're still okay.

As soon as the door is open, Spencer is surrounded by warmth and a scent that nearly knocks him off his feet. He drops your bags by the door, closes it behind him with his foot.

He wraps his arms around you with a desperation that speaks to his fear before, when he'd found out. He's so, so careful not to hurt you where your arm is still wrapped up, and you take the liberty of holding him closer despite the pain.

He buries his face in your neck, holds you and smells you and kisses where he can reach without letting go. “Thought I lost you for a moment there.”

You hold him tighter. “Couldn't if you tried.”

You both stand there for a very long moment. It feels too nice to be here, alone and together and surrounded in the other, to pull away or speak. You sway gently in your spot, letting your eyes close and your breath sync. After another very long moment of nothing else, he dips down just enough to hoist you into his arms. You wrap your legs tight around his body as he carries you to the couch, suddenly lifting you like you weigh nothing at all.

You stay straddling his lap, too comfortable to move. You feel perfectly at home, right here with him, wrapped in his comfort and him yours. You pull away just a bit, and he seems to sigh like it pains him, just for you to grasp his face and pull him in for a kiss that doesn't need to be toned down for the comfort of others.

Your eyes close and your ears tingle and your mind goes a little numb where it matters the longer he kisses you like it's the last time he'll ever have the chance. When you pull back, your breaths are staggered and your lips are kiss-swollen.

It's strange really. So much has changed in the time following that night. He can smell you more, worries more, feels more fiercely protective to the point of possessiveness (almost dangerously so, but he's still a little too raw to think about the limits he'd break for you). But this? Kissing you, touching you, feeling you here with him while he loves on you as much as he pleases? The only thing different in that is the intensity that has managed to be surpassed by this…different yet somehow still exactly the same self.

(And perhaps this dull pulsing in his jaw—and, perhaps, potentially, somewhere else too—every time his eyes find your neck too long or his touch lingers on your skin too much or when your smell just gets a bit too strong for him to think straight through. But he didn't say that.)

His large hand, splayed on your back, rubs soothing circles against your skin and tries not to be too upset when you give him space to breathe.

You stroke his cheeks with your thumbs, smiling at the rosy tint dusting over the surface. Your fingers comb slowly through his hair, and he hums like yours are the kindest, softest hands in the world.

You give him a quick peck. “So...”

His eyes are lidded, barely managing to keep from fluttering shut under the feeling of your loving hands. “So…”

Your teeth tease the skin of your bottom lip. “I have a question.”

He watches you, voice quiet. His nod is nearly imperceptible. “Okay.”

You trace the hand of your good arm over his chest, pressing gently against him to feel the gentle thrum of his heart beneath your palm. It seems to beat in time with yours.

“What do I smell like to you?”

He laughs. It's a chuckle, really, but it comes out so quickly and so unexpectedly that it deserves the former name. His thumbs rub circles into your side absentmindedly. You lean into him like you're being compelled, smiling too big for your face as you admire just how pretty your love is. Here in his laugh, you can hear (and see (and smell)) the last remnants of tension leaving his body. He goes soft under you, holding you like something reverent.

“Honest?” he whispers, bumping his nose with yours.

You nod, smiling still. “Yeah.”

His fingers trace over your temple, slow and light and sacred. His hand comes down to your chin, hooks his finger gently at the underside of it. You're effectively charmed into something pliant in his lap (you're so much more pliant than you were before, like you have a harder time keeping yourself together) (which you do because his scent is driving you mad).

“Like petrichor,” he lilts, “and a hint of chamomile tea.”

Criminal Minds taglist: @queermaxwooo @mdanon027 @lilianhallee @hpstuff244444 @thegr8estpuff @niktwazny303 @bubbles2300 @hiireadstuff @chloelmao67 @feyresqueen @hbwrelic @princess76179 @hc-geralt-23 @hits-different-cause-its-you @liza-beth03 @carolina-angel @mournfuldeer @pinkpantheris @jackierose902109 Dr. Reid taglist: @swwanlake @imgonnaslurpu @i-live-in-spite @stevendenkiswhore @deltamoon666 @linda-park-arrow Tag yourself here...

[fromellewithlove]

When the brain babies run away from you and become full fledged fics >>>>>>>>>

[moonstruckme]

hii queen i was just reading all your poly!steddie stuff and omg cuties☹️☹️ i was wondering if you could write something about the couple on a nice day out (or literally whatever) and reader seeing eddie and steve having a cute moment together and getting emotional because reader is super sentimental/in love with them? i literally adore your writing!!

Thanks for your request, I adore you more!!

poly!Steddie x fem!reader ♡ 641 words

“How do you get it like this?” 

“It has a mind of its own, Harrington.” 

“Well, it just—” You step into Steve’s backyard, pitcher of lemonade in hand, to find Steve trying clumsily to untangle the knots in Eddie’s hair. He seems mostly to be getting his own fingers tangled in it in the process. “It seems like if you’re going to have it this long you should know how to take care of it.” 

Eddie tilts his head back in Steve’s lap, raising his eyebrows. “You want me to cut it off?” 

Steve makes a low tsking noise. “I didn’t say that.” 

They’re splayed out on the warm concrete, Steve’s head bent over his work and Eddie’s bare feet dangling in the pool. They haven’t heard you come outside. The sun warms Steve’s hair to a golden brown as Eddie reaches up to take one of the longer strands between his fingers. 

“We can’t all have perfect, boy next door hair,” he teases. 

Steve hums. “I guess that’s true.” 

“Dick.” Eddie grins, giving Steve’s hair a yank. Steve pulls Eddie’s hair in turn. “Ow. Hey, you know I’m usually into that, but that was kinda rough.” 

“Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it,” Steve taunts, bending to console your boyfriend with a kiss. 

Eddie palms Steve’s face from upside down and accepts the offer eagerly. His feet stop kicking around in the pool, both boys softening in the span of seconds before their lips part. Your chest aches with soul-splitting affection. 

Eddie leans up to claim another kiss before Steve can get away. “Hi,” he says. 

Steve’s voice is warm. “Hi, idiot.” 

“What’s this?” Eddie strokes his thumb over Steve’s jaw, painfully gentle. 

“Huh?” 

You grin along with Eddie. Your boyfriend is so hopeless when he gets caught up in you. “You have a cut here, baby.”

“Oh.” Steve feels it, his fingers covering Eddie’s. “Must’ve been from shaving.” 

“Ouch.” 

“I didn’t even know it was there.” 

Eddie frowns, running his thumb over it again. “Fine. Just be a little more careful with my boyfriend next time, okay? I like his face the way it is.” 

Steve’s cheeks pink, but his smile is cocky. “Oh, yeah?” 

“Yeah. You’re not gonna fucking embarass me, Harrington. I’m not ashamed of it.” 

“Wanna say that on camera, then?” 

“I plead the fifth.” Eddie turns his face away, catching sight of you. “Hey, beautiful. That for us?” 

You remember the lemonade, stepping the rest of the way outside and shutting Steve’s back door behind you. “Yup,” you say. 

Eddie sits up, forcing Steve to abandon his task with Eddie’s hair, and he helps you unstack the cups you brought from inside. You can’t stop smiling. 

Steve’s eyeing you, one part suspicion and two parts fondness. “What?” 

“What?” You play dumb. 

He pokes a finger into your cheek. “What’s up with this?” 

You laugh, making Steve smile despite himself. “Nothing.” 

“Definitely something,” Eddie muses. He takes the cup you offer him, studying you as he drinks. “What, are you feeling left out, pretty girl?” 

Though it’s nowhere near the truth, your cheeks flame at the suggestion in his tone. “No.” You roll your eyes. “Just thinking about how pruney your toes must be.” 

Eddie takes his feet out of the pool without missing a beat. A stream of water trails after them as he swivels around, setting his cold feet next to your warm ones. “Wanna feel?” He waggles his eyebrows. 

“Mm, nope.” 

“Come on, I know you’re obsessed with my feet. You basically just admitted it.” 

“Jesus.” Steve’s nose has wrinkled. “Get those away from her, you freak.” 

Eddie doesn’t break your gaze. “You’re disgusting,” you tell him. 

“Aw. You love me.” 

You grimace, letting Steve pull you to his side, away from the threat of Eddie’s pruney toes. “I guess so.”

[fromellewithlove]

This fic comes with a story. So Mae asked me to vibe check a fic for her so I went into her docs to find it and, well, I’m not gonna NOT read a steddie fic when I stumble upon it, yk? And so then a few days later I’m like “hey I’m gonna go back in your docs and reread that steddie fic, k?” And now this is my 3rd time reading it and I STILL love it so much 🥰

[moonstruckme]

hi there lovely!! i don’t know if you’re currently taking requests but if you do, please consider:

i have not been able to stop thinking about that one tiktok trend where you kiss your significant other to see if they melt into the kiss and ughhh that with steve???? screaming. that man would melt like butter in the sun. and i just knOWWWWW that i can trust you to run with my vision and bring it to life, whether i’d be modern! steve or smth with an 80s twist 😼

anyhow i hope you are doing great, much love 🫶🏻🫶🏻

Thanks for requesting angel <3

Steve Harrington x fem!reader ♡ 569 words

You came across it in a Cosmopolitan. 15 Ways to Tell if He’s Really Into You. Most of them were the usual—he makes plans, he mirrors your body language, he tries to make you laugh—but at the end, tucked in at the bottom of the glossy page like a treasure, was one that caught your attention. 

When you kiss him, he melts. 

You don’t know if Steve melts. He’s not a very melt-y guy, though you don’t think that necessarily has anything to do with how much he likes kissing you. He’ll snag one whenever he can—to greet you, to say goodbye, for good luck. Whenever you come to watch one of his baseball games, he insists on having you come kiss him through the fence. So you don’t think it’s that Steve doesn’t like kissing you. Maybe just not enough to melt. 

“Wait, wait,” you laugh as Steve tugs you by the hand. “We can’t just go into this without a plan.” 

“C’mon.” He yanks the curtain of the photobooth open. “Be spontaneous.” 

“I’m not spontaneous! I’m not going to know what to do.” 

“It’s actually, like, the simplest thing ever.” Steve’s eye-rollingly fond as he pulls you down into his lap. “You just smile for the camera. You’re already pretty, it should be easy for you.” 

You try not to shy at his flirting. “But there are four. Are we going to do the same thing for every one?” 

“Obviously not.” 

“So what are we going to do?” 

“Spontaneous.” He kisses your cheek, slipping a coin into the slot of the machine. “Look, we’ll make the first one easy. Just smile.” 

There’s no time left for protest, the counter already ticking down. You cozy up to Steve and cheese just before the flash. 

“Now what?” you ask, laughing. 

“Now—uhh—”

“See, you’re panicking.” 

“I’m not!” Steve gives you a light squeeze. “Now funny.” 

He says it just before the counter gets to one. You’re not inventive enough to come up with anything on short notice, crossing your eyes, hopelessly awkward. You know instantly that you’ll hate it, and Steve will probably tack it up above his desk. 

The third photo is of both of you laughing. You because you’re humiliated with yourself, Steve seemingly just because you’re laughing. You look at each other in giggly delirium just before the flash goes off. 

On a whim, you take his face in your hands and angle your mouth to his. Steve slips his other hand behind your back, instinct and habit, as you kiss him. You graze your thumb over his stubble. You melt, you think you always do, soft as putty and with a funny feeling in your gut, you hardly notice as Steve’s hand slips down, down the length of your back. Wouldn’t think anything of it if you hadn’t read that last item on the list. 

When you kiss him, he melts.

Steve isn’t copping a feel, trying to get his hand under your shirt or anything so scandalous. He’s loosening, going liquidy and half boneless against you. 

When the flash goes off, you think it captures you smiling into his mouth. 

“Damn it.” Steve frowns, picking up the single photo strip the machine spits out when you leave the booth. “It must be out.” 

You take the strip from his hand, quelling your boyfriend’s objection with a smile you know he can’t resist. “That one’s mine.”

[fromellewithlove]

Steve “melty guy” Harrington, ladies and gents

[mischievousmoony]

peaking in high school steve harrington x english teacher!reader

summary: there's only one thing that could possibly be going better for steve harrington—you finally realizing he's been flirting with you for months ⊹ 2.7k warnings: st finale spoilers, epilogue!steve, fem!reader, cigarettes

note: big thank you to @sunnliqht for reading my draft and swapping ideas, you are always such a big help idk what i’d do without you <3

· ─ ⋆⋅✶⋅⋆ ─ ·

Only Steve Harrington—having just demonstrated how to put a condom on a banana to nearly twenty immature fifteen-year-olds—would stride through the halls of his old high school with the air of a man who’s on top of the world. Squared shoulder, a wide, toothy grin, and shooting finger guns at the familiar faces of students late for lunch and scurrying on by.​‌‍‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‍‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‍‌‌‍​

Everyone thought Steve would peak in high school. And now maybe he has, just not in the way anyone expected.​‌‍‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‍‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‍‌‌‍​

For some folks, settling down in the same town he grew up in, working as a sex ed teacher by day and a Little League coach by early evening, all while his dearest friends took off to follow dreams bigger than he’d ever even imagined, would be rock bottom. But again, that’s some folks.

Not Steve. Steve will loudly and proudly say this is his peak. Steve loves this town—fought tooth and nail to save it. After that, he can’t imagine why he’s the only one who still seems to appreciate it. To Steve, there’s nothing in the world quite like good old Hawkins, Indiana. Nothing like a sunny evenings at the quarry, perched on the hood of his car with a beer in hand. Or a Saturday night screening at the Hawk, when it feels like the whole town is there.

And his job! Steve really does love his job. He’ll say so to anyone who dares broach the topic. Dares, because the proclamation will almost certainly be followed by Steve pulling out his wallet to show off the 2x3 of his team tucked safely within the folds, and then he’ll point to just about every one of his boys and tell you exactly how well they played at last weekend's game or how much progress they’ve made since their first practice.

“See Derek? Right here next to me? Good kid. He hit his first home run last Saturday.”

Steve has dipped his toe in quite a few industries over the years—the ice cream gig got a little problematic, although sometimes he does miss the frenzy that was prime time radio. But this. This is where he was meant to be all along. No matter the increasingly creative ways Robin has found to poke fun at the sexual education of it all, he’s happy. More than happy.

Not to mention, the kids on his team and in his classes all adore him. And, yes, he loves to brag about it. Don’t even get him started on the reaction students have when he occasionally subs in for a sick or otherwise indisposed teacher. Whoops are heard around the room!

He’s a hit with most of the other faculty members too. Many of them taught him as a teen, and although he wasn’t exactly the teacher’s pet type (not even close), no one seems to hold that against him.

But not everyone who teaches here these days was around when he was enrolled. There’s now you. Hawkins High School’s new freshman English teacher. It’s your very first year teaching, just like Steve. Although, as a semi-recent alum, he knows this place prettyyy well. Naturally, he’s taken it upon himself to show you the ropes.

Which… you found rather condescending at first.

Who is he to appoint himself your mentor? For God’s sake, you have four years of college under your belt and a bachelor’s degree in education to show for it. And—you don’t want to be the condescending one, but facts are facts—he’s a Little League coach filling in for a few classes a week because Hawkins couldn’t manage to keep a real health teacher.

It became an obvious point of tension between the two of you for the first couple of months. Obvious in the sense that anyone could tell there was tension. But for the life of him, Steve couldn’t figure out why.

As annoyed as you were, you quickly found out that not everything can be taught in a classroom.

After all, it wasn’t your professors who taught you that the office secretary is a lot kinder if you present her with those little oatmeal cookies from the vending machine in the teacher’s lounge. Nothing in your college’s course catalogue could’ve prepared you for Mrs. Click and the long-winded stories she’d fill your planning period with if she had it her way. But thanks to a tip from Steve, you now know to feign a cough or a sniffle to send her on her way (thank goodness for her fear of germs!). And who else but Steve would take the time to inform you of every finicky little quirk this old building has? Like the backwards light switches, or the door handles that only open if you jiggle them just so.

So, of course, he won you over eventually. He’s sure it’s his famous Harrington charm that wore you down. You really just appreciate his kindness. Realizing his blunder and eventually apologizing for overstepping helped too.

Soon enough, you began to think of Steve as a friend. Your very first one in this little town. If you knew him better, or longer, you might’ve picked up on the fact that friendship isn’t exactly his end goal.

He’s lucky, really. Because he’s not as smooth as he thinks he is. But each time his jokes fall flat, or he botches a clearly rehearsed line, you chalk it up to awkwardness. And when he offers to fetch you staples from the supply room, or goes through the trouble of photocopying your handouts and delivering them still warm to your classroom, you assume he’s being his ever-helpful self. You never notice he doesn’t do such favors for anyone else.

Or…

Maybe you’re simply choosing not to see what’s right in front of you. Hawkins wasn’t your first choice for several reasons (a mysterious and only recently lifted quarantine, to name one). Accepting the job was only a means of gaining some experience. This is all supposed to be temporary.

Which is why you’ve been ignoring how much you like it here. How much this weird little town has charmed you. And, perhaps, how much a certain someone has charmed you too.

If not for your denial, you surely would have noticed his advances by now. Everyone else has. Everyone.

“Coach Harrington totally has the hots for our English teacher.”

“Remind me why we call him Coach?” the other girl, Valerie, says in a bored tone, occasionally glancing at Alan, the third they share this dingy bathroom stall with.

“He coaches my little brother's baseball team,” Alan provides helpfully, his face pressed into the small gap in the beige, metal partition. Keeping watch.

“Yeah, so why do we have to call him Coach?” Valerie asks.

“I dunno, because he wants us to. Anyway, did you hear what I said?”

“No offense, Wendy. But literally everyone already knows that. Besides, who cares about teacher gossip?” Valerie drawls, picking at her cuticles.

Wendy bristles, quickly changing the topic as her cheeks heat up. “Alan, where the hell is your friend? The boys’ bathroom is disgusting, and I don’t know how much longer I can stand it.”

As if on cue, the bathroom door swings open, bouncing against the rubber stopper as someone rushes inside. Alan steps back to open the stall door when he sees his friend, beckoning him inside.

Valerie perks up. “Hi, Shane,” she says cooly.

“Do you have it?” Alan asks promptly after. Valerie deflates when Shane’s attention turns from her to him.

A wicked smirk spreads across Shane’s face as he digs in the pocket of his denim jacket for the half-empty pack of Marlboro Reds, presenting it to the group like some kind of prize as Alan claps him on the shoulder.

The teens don’t get very far with their stolen cigarettes. Because by the time Valerie has one hanging from her lips, and Shane is failing to catch a spark with his lighter, a hard knock rattles the stall door.

“Party’s over, guys. Come on out,” a familiar voice says as the four pairs of eyes dart down to the beaten-up Nikes peeking out under the partition.

“Fuck,” Alan curses, opening the stall door before any of his friends can protest. They all have no choice but to shuffle out, refusing to meet Steve’s eye as he stands there with a look of disappointment on his face, his hands on his hips.

“How did you—”

“C’mon, Shane, you spotted me in the hall and darted in here like I caught you with your hand in the cookie jar. Now hand it over, seriously,” Steve says, sticking his hand out.

Shane groans, but he places the pack of cigarettes in Steve’s palm without protest. Steve turns the box over in his hand a few times.

“Alright, get out of here,” Steve mutters, nodding his head towards the door.

“You mean you’re not gonna send us to Principal Higgins’s office?” Wendy asks hopefully.

Steve shrugs, ever so lenient. “You know me. We’ll call it a warning this time. But don’t do it again, alright?”

They all say some form of “thanks, Coach!” before filing out of the bathroom, one by one, with Steve bringing up the rear.

The students would’ve got off scot-free, and they would’ve been real lucky for it too. If only the exact moment they left the bathroom, you hadn’t happened to be walking through this very hall, catching the four of them in the act.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What’s going on here?” you ask, crossing your arms.

“Fuck,” Alan mutters again, because he knows they’re really in for it now.

“What was that?” you ask, eyebrow raised.

Luckily for Alan, he doesn’t have to respond because Steve pops out of the bathroom next, stepping between you and the kids. “Hey, no worries, Miss. y/l/n,” Steve says, making a point to use your last name (“You have to keep things professional in front of the kids, Coach,” he recalls you saying).

“I’ve got it handled,” Steve assures you with an air of confidence.

“Have you?” you ask, eyes darting between the students and the pack of cigarettes in Steve’s hand that you know for a fact doesn’t belong to Steve. “Then where are their write-ups?”

Steve blinks. Then looks suspiciously up at the ceiling like an excuse might fall from the sky. “I was… uhh… getting to that,” he mumbles, patting his pockets.

You roll your eyes, but there’s something playful about it. You conveniently produce your own pad of infraction slips and a pencil.

“Ah! Thanks! Must’ve left that… somewhere. Heh,” Steve continues to trip up over his words, spinning around to face his students as he scribbles on the slip.

“Aw, come on, Coach!” Alan complains, earning him Wendy’s elbow in his side.

“Hey, you know me,” Steve winks as he finishes up doodling nonsense on the infraction slip. He tears it off at the perforation, handing it to Alan. “Now, all of you, off to Principal Higgins’s office,” Steve says, putting on a voice of authority. He doesn’t see you rolling your eyes behind him, but Wendy snickers in amusement.

Alan earns another elbow in his side, this time from Shane, when a smile threatens to break out on his face as he stares at the fake slip. The students promptly speed walk down the hall and out of sight.

Steve spins on his heels, a big smile on his face, and holds out the pad of paper to you. You accept it, and the pages flutter under your touch as your thumb skims the pad’s edge.

“You go too easy on them,” you say thoughtfully.

“Think so?” Steve prompts, all self confidence and a clear doubt in your words. He leans against the metal lockers to his right. “Maybe you don’t give them enough chances.”

“Steve, really?” you say skeptically, looking up from the pad of paper. Your chin is still tilted down, so you gaze at Steve through your eyelashes. It causes a lump to form in his throat, and he almost does’t hear what you say next.

“For something like that, there are no chances,” you continue, your voice so stern you almost don’t recognize it. Sometimes you wonder when you became such a stick in the mud, but at the end of the day, you’d rather earn your students’ respect than their favor. “You know they’re only gonna do it again if you don’t actually give them any consequences.” You tap the face of the pad of paper with your thumb.

Steve clears his throat, straightening out his stance as he realizes he’s not as slick as he thinks he is. “Think so?” he asks, his usual self-assured cockiness void from his tone this time.

“I’d bet money on it,” you say with such certainty that anyone would think it unwise to bet against you.

But Steve just can’t resist.

“How does five bucks sound?” he grins, and you laugh, and Steve loves the sound of it.

“You’re on, Harrington.”

Steve grins impossibly wider.

“And Steve?” you continue.

He hums, waiting for you to go on.

“You know… you’re supposed to give them the yellow one?” You hold up the pad of paper, revealing a copy of Steve’s lopsided smiley face scratched onto a yellow page. “The white one is supposed to go in records.”

“Ah…” Steve’s eyes dart back and forth between your face and the yellow sheet, the tips of his ears turning pink. “Is that how that works?”

“Yup,” you say, failing to hide an amused smile.

“Noted,” he says plainly, scratching the back of his neck.

You give him a soft shake of your head. “Come on, Harrington. We’re missing our lunch break,” you say, starting toward the teacher’s lounge. Steve is hot on your heels, of course.

“Wouldn’t want that. When else would you tell me how it went at the BMV?” he asks, his arm brushing your shoulder.

You smile because you wouldn’t have expected him to remember your offhanded comment about needing to pay a visit to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles—you really had put off amending the address on your license for far too long.

“Oh, I got a new license and everything. New picture too. I’m sure you’re just dying to see it,” you say sarcastically.

But Steve means it when he says, “You know what? I really am.”

⋆⋅✶⋅⋆

The very next day, Steve is walking through the same orange and green striped halls, a book of short stories in hand, on his way to photocopy pages 48-50 on your behalf, when he sees Shane again.

This time, he’s cutting class instead of lunch. And he just dipped into the nearest bathroom with that same deer-in-headlights look as yesterday.

Steve sighs. As much as he’s taught you about Hawkins High, he could certainly stand to learn a thing or two from you too. As he approaches the bathroom, this time, he pulls out his own pad of infraction slips from his back pocket.

Thirty minutes later, after a lecture and a serving of detention from Higgins, Shane marches into your classroom.

You’re writing something on the board in chalk when Shane thrusts his hall pass from the principal your way, a sour look on his face.

“Coach H is completely whipped for you, y’know? Thanks a lot,” he grumbles, before stalking off towards the back of the classroom.

“Yeah, yeah, Shane. Take your seat,” you sigh, deciding to let that comment slide because your student is clearly having a rough enough time as it is. Leniency. Taking a page from Steve’s book, you think.

For just a moment, you privately celebrate your win. Not that you’re happy that Shane got himself into trouble again, of course, but you are eager to tease Steve about the five dollars he now owes you.

Then, you finally process Shane’s words, and nearly drop the chalk you’re writing with.

Steve is what?​‌‍‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‍‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‍‌‌‍​

· ─ ⋆⋅✶⋅⋆ ─ ·

[fromellewithlove]

hahahaah poor Shane. Also poor Steve. also! poor reader. this was super cute!! <333

[moonstruckme]

hmm jealous steve perhaps?? maybe meeting robin for the first time and you guys immediately click and steve’s like hey… that’s my gf 🤨

Thank you for the request angel <3

Steve Harrington x fem!reader ♡ 699 words

“No, really.” 

“He didn’t.” Robin turns to Steve, aghast. “You didn’t.” 

Steve rolls his eyes. “I don’t see what the big deal is.” 

“He seriously had no idea who I was talking about,” you lament to Robin. 

“Okay, so I don’t know some guy—” 

“He’s a very prominent guy!” you laugh, bumping your shoulder into Steve’s playfully. “I promise you, you’ve seen him in stuff.” 

Robin shakes her head, sipping her milkshake with a judgmental look. Your cheeks are beginning to ache from smiling. You’d been nervous about meeting her—Steve’s best friend, a girl, an incongruity which seemed impossible for a guy like Steve—but according to him Robin has been eager for it. You were worried that might mean she was jealous, staking out the competition or some other icky thing you didn’t want to get mixed up in. You let Steve take you both out for food anyway, and as it turns out Robin’s not at all what you expected her to be. 

You like her, really like her, and you can tell from the way she and Steve talk that they don’t like each other in the way you’d feared, either. This first meeting is going well. For you, at least. Not so much for Steve. 

“You know what this is?” Robin decides. “This is the consequence of your lack of film education.”

Steve scoffs. “I am not—” 

“You know, he refuses to watch The Princess Bride,” she tells you, leaning across the table with a conspiratorial air. You mirror her, ecstatic to be conspiring. “We used to work in a video store together. It was embarrassing what a philistine he is.” 

“I am not a philis—whatever, I’ve seen movies,” Steve insists. “All the good ones, anyway.” 

“Fast Times is not the only good movie, dingus.” 

“That’s not what I’m talking about, dingus.” 

“Have you really not seen The Princess Bride?” you ask Steve, whispery. 

Steve turns to you, and your heart zings at how his exasperation softens just slightly. He’s disconcertingly handsome even when he’s coming to terms with the fact that he may not have wanted to introduce you to his best friend after all. “I can’t watch every movie,” he says. 

“We should watch that one together,” you coax, weaving your fingers through his underneath the table. “It’s really good. I think you’ll like it.” 

Steve’s expression softens further. 

“He says it’s too girly,” Robin says with disdain. 

You make a face, looking between them. “Too girly—seriously? Just because it has some romance in it?” 

“That’s exactly why.” 

“It’s an adventure comedy!” 

“I know!” She gestures emphatically. “There are so many movies he won’t even try to watch.” 

“That’s insane.” 

“Maybe you can make some headway with him, because I—” 

“Okay, okay.” You don’t even realize you’ve dropped Steve’s hand until he takes yours back, pulling it moodily into his lap. “I’ll watch the stupid movie, okay?” 

You frown. “It’s not stupid, Steve.”

“Do you see what I’ve been putting up with?” Robin sends you an incredulous look. 

“I’ll watch it, I’ll watch it,” Steve says over you both. An unhappy furrow has dug in between his brows. “Jesus.” 

“Don’t act like we’re being crazy,” says Robin, bringing the straw of her milkshake back to her mouth. “You’re the one who hasn’t seen The Princess Bride.” 

You hum affirmatively. 

Steve sucks his teeth. He raises a finger, pointing between you and Robin. “I don’t like this.” 

Robin shrugs. “Too bad.” 

“She’s my girlfriend. You can’t just start watching your romance movies together behind my back.”

“We probably won’t stop at romances.” She meets your eyes again, shutting Steve out of the conversation. “He thinks half of everything is a chick flick. Basically the entire world of film is our oyster.” 

You bite down on a smile. But Steve catches you, and you give him a sheepish look.

“I won’t have to watch anything without you if you just watch them with me,” you say. 

He sighs, tipping his head back against the top of your booth. You try not to admire him too overtly with Robin watching. 

“You can’t un-introduce us,” she says, clearly delighting in Steve’s torture. 

You can only grin in response. 

[fromellewithlove]

HAHA Steve's never winning an argument ever again.

[underoospeterparker]

ok steve harrington x shy!reader request, m’lady. I know this might be so typical, but I’m a SUCKER for reader being horribly nervous about meeting the party/even just the kids. She’s so convinced everyone’s gonna find her weird or even if she’s just horrified at the thought of being perceived at all; she’s a mess and he’s enamoured 😩

Enemy Territory

Steve harrington x shy!fem!reader, 1.7k words, I'd say set in season 3ish

a/n: Ty for the request Elle !! I lowkey feel like this is a bit more centred around the kids than reader's relationship w/ Steve than I imagined, but hopefully you still like it!!!

Steve Harrington is trying very, very hard not to laugh.

Because you are vibrating. A little, nervous tremor he can feel through your hand, which is currently clamped around his like a vice. But he knows that if he does laugh, there's a very high probability that you'll let go of his hand and run in the opposite direction, which he cannot have.

He's been pushing you to meet the party for weeks, and you'd finally agreed, but right now, you look like you're about to enter enemy territory.

“You know,” he says, his voice carefully casual as he rings the bell of the Wheelers' front door, “they’re just kids. Short, loud, kind of gross."

You make a small, choked sound that is absolutely not a laugh. Your eyes are wide, fixed on the white door like it’s the gate to Mordor. “What if they think I’m weird?”

The sheer, genuine terror in your whisper makes his chest ache. He turns to face you fully, using his free hand to gently tilt your chin up until your panicked gaze meets his. “Sweetheart, look at me. They’re weird. You’re just… you. And you’re perfect.”

The door swings open before you can protest, and Dustin's standing there, grinning. His eyes immediately drop to your joined hands, and his smile widens.

"Well, well, well. The elusive plus-one materialises for the first time. I was starting to worry Steve had an imaginary girlfriend."

Your boyfriend rolls his eyes. "Ha, ha, Henderson. Hilarious. Got your laugh for the day? Can we come in now?" He steers you past Dustin without waiting for a response. "You should be a stand-up comedian."

Dustin's grin doesn't falter. "That I should," he replies, shutting the door and following you both into the living room. "So, you have good taste in movies, apparently. Steve says you like Back To The Future."

You manage a tiny nod. You and Steve had bonded over a worn-out VHS tape while he told you about the secret Russian base under Starcourt Mall. It had made for a pretty interesting date night.

"Cool. It's a great film," Dustin continues, leaning in as if to share a secret. "Shame about your taste in boyfriends, though."

The delivery is so deadpan that it startles a laugh out of you and cuts through the nervous static in your head. The sound seems to surprise you as much as it does them.

"Hey!" Steve protests, but he's fighting his own grin, eyes fixed to your face, where your nervousness had momentarily dissipated. "Don't listen to him, he's just jealous 'cos Suzie hasn't radioed him back in three days."

Dustin's jaw drops in mock outrage. "Low blow, Steve, low blow."

Steve grins, tucking you into his side with an arm around your shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah, save the theatrics, Henderson. Where are the other gremlins?"

"They're all down there," Dustin says, jerking his thumb towards the stairs. "Mike's trying to convince everyone that his new D&D campaign isn't just a rip-off of The Hobbit. It's not going well."

Steve tucks you more securely under his arm. "C'mon, sweetheart. Stick by me, 'kay?"

You vaguely hear Mike yelling, "okay, Max, you seriously cannot be talking. You got El to spy on us! That's freakish!"

Dustin winces. "Don't worry. They're all bark. Mostly." He tilts his head at you, offers you a reassuring smile. "I'll head down first."

"Last chance to bail," Steve murmurs once Dustin leaves, eyes searching yours. "We can say we forgot to feed your... very hungry cat. Goldfish. Whatever."

You shake your head. "I said I would."

"I know you did," he says, his voice impossibly soft. "But remember the signal, okay? Two squeezes, if you wanna leave. Any time."

You nod; he gives you a small, proud smile.

The basement is a whirlwind of chaos, but you weren't expecting anything else. Mike, Lucas and Will were sitting around the table, joined by Dustin, a sprawling map covered in little painted figurines between them. Max is braiding a section of El's hair with intense focus on the couch.

Everyone goes dead silent as soon as you and Steve reach the bottom of the stairs. Six pairs of eyes lock onto you.

Steve clears his throat. "Hey, dipshits. This is my girlfriend. She's shy, so don't be jerks."

"Hey," Mike says, his gaze flicking from Steve’s face to yours. His eyebrows raise. “So. You’re real.”

"Unfortunately for her, yeah," Steve deadpans.

Mike just shrugs, already turning back to the map. "Cool. Don't touch the dice."

Steve exhales exasperatedly next to you. “It’s like walking into a zoo,” he mutters, steering you toward the couch. Max throws you a lazy wave without looking up from El’s hair.

“Hey,” she says. “There’s soda in the fridge. Don’t drink the grape one. Lucas poured vinegar into it.”

Lucas looks up, offended. “Experimental mixology is a skill, Max.”

“It was gross,” she fires back.

"They broke up again," Steve murmurs in your ear.

You glance over. Max is attacking El’s braid with the focus of a surgeon. Lucas keeps sneaking glances at her as if stealth will make it less obvious. "Yeah," you murmur back, biting down a smile. "That much is clear."

Steve huffs a quiet laugh. "Right? It's like—"

Mike suddenly slams his notebook shut. "Okay, ground rules," he announces, pointing a pencil at you and Steve. "Rule one: no touching the dice. Rule two: if you must talk, keep it relevant to the narrative. Rule three—"

"No one cares, Wheeler," Steve interrupts. You stifle a laugh.

"You're such a control freak, Mike," Max says.

El pipes up, "Yeah. Control freak."

Max grins, looking impossibly smug. "See, Mike? Your girlfriend agrees with me, too."

Mike whirls around in disbelief. "There you go again, Max! You're influencing her again." His hands fly up like he's making a courtroom argument. “You can’t just coach her into agreeing with you every time you want backup!”

Max rolls her eyes. “Oh, I'm sorry, I didn’t realise having common sense counted as coaching."

Lucas snorts. “She’s got you there, man.”

“Lucas!” Mike snaps, betrayal clear in his voice. “You’re supposed to be my friend!”

“I am your friend! I’m also not blind.”

Steve’s hand slides down his face as he groans quietly beside you. “Sweetheart,” he mutters, “see what I mean? Zoo."

You hide a small smile. “You love it.”

He shoots you a look that’s equal parts defensive and fond. “No, I tolerate it. Big difference.”

“Sure,” you say softly. “Keep telling yourself that.”

Before Steve can reply, Will clears his throat from the table, the quiet sound somehow cutting through the noise. “Um,” he starts, fingers fidgeting with a die he hasn’t rolled yet, “if everyone’s done... arguing or whatever, maybe we can play again?”

Dustin claps dramatically. "Thank you, Will the Wise. Always the voice of reason."

Mike grumbles under his breath as he reopens his notebook, “Would be nice if people followed the ground rules,” but he’s already leaning back over the map, all in.

Steve leans toward you, voice low. “That’s Mike’s way of saying he’s not mad anymore.”

You huff a quiet laugh. “Good to know. I was really worried.”

“Okay!” Dustin announces, snapping back into character mode. “You’re in a dark corridor, the air is damp, and something smells like feet.”

“That’s just you,” Lucas says.

They’re off again—voices tumbling over each other, dice clattering, the occasional shout of, “You can’t do that, that’s against the rules!” echoing off the walls.

At some point, Max abandons El’s braid, satisfied with her work, and wanders over to grab a soda. She pauses near you, cracks the can open with a hiss. “So,” she says, eyeing you over the rim, “how long have you been dating the loser over here?"

"Loser?" Steve repeats, scandalised.

Max ignores him entirely, waiting for your answer.

"A few months," you murmur.

Max nods, like she’s filing that away. “And you’re still here. Impressive."

“That’s what I’m saying,” Dustin calls without looking up. “Statistically, she could’ve done better.”

“Hey!” Steve protests. “What is this, roast-the-babysitter day?”

“It’s always roast-the-babysitter day,” Lucas says.

El comes to stand beside Max, eyes flicking from you to Steve, like she’s studying something only she can see. “You like him,” she says simply.

Your cheeks warm, but you manage a smile. "I do."

El smiles, small and satisfied, like that settles something only she’d been wondering about. “Good,” she says. “He is... less sad now.”

Steve makes a strangled sound. “Okay, wow, we are just saying our inside thoughts out loud today, huh?”

Max snorts. “Relax, Steve. It’s a miracle someone likes you. We’re just checking she’s not, like, concussed.”

Dustin twists around in his chair. “Hey, concussed or not, she laughed at my joke upstairs, which means she’s clearly the most intelligent person in this room.”

“Debatable,” Mike mutters.

“Undebatable,” Dustin shoots back. “You’re the one running Hobbit Fanfiction: The Campaign.”

“Inspired by, not—” Mike starts, then cuts himself off, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You know what? Forget it. Can we just roll initiative?”

They slide back into their game. You settle a little deeper into the couch, shoulders slowly unknotting. Steve’s arm drapes along the backrest behind you, fingers close enough to brush your shoulder every now and then.

After a while, during a lull where Mike is frantically flipping through his notes, Max glances over her shoulder at you again. “You should come back tomorrow,” she says, like she’s commenting on the weather.

“Tomorrow?” you repeat.

“Yeah,” Lucas jumps in immediately. “We’re doing the big boss fight. It’s gonna be legendary. You can watch me obliterate Mike."

“You’re going to wipe,” Mike says flatly. “You’re all going to wipe.”

Will smiles, a little shy, but he looks at you this time instead of the table. “It’d be nice if you were here again.”

El nods once, decisive. “Come back. We can watch a movie after.”

Something in your chest does a funny flip at their insistence. “Yeah?” you ask El, even though you already know the answer.

She nods, serious. “You can pick. Any movie.”

El's watching you with those big, earnest eyes, waiting like this is actually important to her. “Okay,” you say, trying not to sound as soft as you suddenly feel. “I’ll come back. We’ll watch something good.”

El’s face brightens in a way that melts you a little further. “Tomorrow,” she decides.

“Tomorrow,” you echo.

You do come back tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, until the Wheelers' basement stops feeling like enemy territory and more like home.

[fromellewithlove]

LITERALLY everything i wanted and more. it's so sweet, and there's a reason this is one of my fave tropes but you knocked this out of the park!!!

[thebestandworstdayofjune]

we can play house, we can bed down

summary: Steve crashes girl's night, but now you're wondering why this wasn't the plan all along wc: 1.4k warnings: fem!reader, talks of having kids, clingy lovesick Steve, Max and El being meddlers, sugary sweet fluff all the way through a/n: I am so beyond obsessed with these two, I want to write them forever. This is part of a larger series, but this can be read as a stand alone! I am so fearful about the finale, this is 100% how I am coping <3 previous part here! | materialist here! | ask box here!

“What are you doing here?” Your boyfriend, your lovely, sweet and incredibly clingy boyfriend, was standing on your front porch, loaded down with shopping bags and a hopeful expression on his face. 

“What do you mean ‘what are you doing here’?” Steve’s head cocked to the side in the way that made your heart twirl. “You needed ice cream.” He held up the bags emphatically. “So I brought ice cream.” 

Those little liars. 

“Just call him!” 

“Please, come on!” Your girls were not patient creatures. 

“I want ice cream too, but Steve is busy.” you sighed, hoping that they would drop it soon. You were ecstatic to have them both there for the sleepover you’d been promising for weeks, but they were on a tear tonight.

“Who would he be busy with? You’re here.” Max snarked, not looking up from El’s nails, which were being painted a lovely shade of neon green. 

“He has a job, my angel.” Steve wasn’t at work, and you knew that he was planning on spending the night at home. But you hoped he was sleeping or doing something he actually enjoyed. He’d been so busy with work and wrangling your adopted children lately, you didn’t want to disturb him. “And other friends.” 

“If you call him, he will come.” El says it so bluntly, it makes your heart stutter. She’s so sure of it.

“And it’s crazy you think he’d rather do anything else.” Max rolled her eyes. “He’s obsessed with you.” 

You could feel the heat rushing to your face. You grabbed the phone, pulling the cord tight over the back of the couch. “Wanna order pizza?” 

“They called you when they were supposed to be ordering the pizza, didn’t they?” 

“Yep,” Steve said, popping the ‘p’ and not even bothering to hide his grin. He slipped past you, pausing only to push a firm kiss to your cheek. 

“I told them to leave you alone!” your swirled around, eyebrows raised and hands firmly planted on your hips. El and Max at least had the decency to look somewhat chastised. “You’re supposed to be relaxing!” 

“Spending time with my girls is relaxing.” 

Okay, there was no way you could complain after that. El and Max scampered off the couch, following Steve into your kitchen where he had dumped the bags.

“Okay, strawberry for El,” he said, mostly to himself. “And vanilla for Max.” He pulled out one more pint, in your favorite flavor. 

You shouldn’t be surprised that he had gone overboard. Three pints of ice cream, and all the toppings that you could dream of were already littered across the counter. And there were several bags to go. 

“Stevie, this is too much.” You insisted, crossing your arms. God, was he pouting? 

“You never let me spoil you!” 

“The number one rule of having a boyfriend is that you have to let him spoil you.” Max said, the words muddled around the half bar of chocolate that she had managed in one bite. El nodded emphatically, rifling through one of the bags and pulling out a box of Eggos. 

Steve’s eyes were wide as he gestured in agreement. “See? They get it.” Steve rummaged through your drawers, finding an ice cream scoop easily, like he’d done it a million times. 

You reached for the cabinet with the bowls, but Steve’s hand snatched yours out of the air. “Baby, go sit down. We’ll make you a sundae, right girls?” Steve’s eyes were wide and pleading, and he knew he’d already won. 

You nodded, reveling in the kiss he placed on the back of your hand, squeezing a few times before letting it drop. You stumbled back into the living room, plopping on the couch and letting the sounds of Steve arguing good naturedly with the girls wash over you. 

A few hours later, and you’d all eaten through half of the ice cream, cried through the ending of E.T. and someone avoided getting reprimanded for the way that you and Steve were tangled on the couch together. He had one of your hands between both of his on his chest, gently playing with your hand and lightly kissing your fingerprints at irregular intervals. 

You hadn’t planned on the girls staying over, but they’d fallen asleep before the trailers had finished on the second VHS. You’d cleared it with Hop and Mrs. Mayfield before Steve had carefully carted them both into your parent’s guest room. 

The two of you were snuggled on the couch together, a movie playing softly in the background, though neither of you were paying it all that much attention. Steve was warm and the blanket he’d pulled off the back of the couch was soft against your skin. His chin was tucked on top of your head while he pulled you tight against his chest. 

“Think you could get used to this, honey?” 

“Used to what?” 

“All of it.” You caught his gaze wandering around the room, taking in the aftermath of a successful night with your girls. Used cotton rounds scattered across the coffee table, a half finished bowl of popcorn and seemingly every blanket in a five mile radius piled up on the rug. 

Your heart twisted, because you knew exactly what he meant. You reached for one of his hands, carefully testing to make sure the bright pink polish had dried before threading your fingers together. You weren’t surprised at how easily he’d gone along with their request to paint his nails, and you weren’t surprised at the butterflies it’d set off in your stomach. 

Steve didn’t wait for an answer before continuing. “Wanna come home to this every day.” 

“Didn’t think you were in the market for more roommates.” you laughed, softly. 

Steve rolled his eyes, but the hearts in them were more obvious than ever. “Kind of rude to call our future kids roommates, if you ask me. I imagined them looking a lot more like you than those two do, anyways.” 

“Stevie,” you grumbled, hiding your face in his chest. You felt him smile against the top of your head. Flustering you was one of his favorite pastimes. 

“I’m serious, baby. Know you’d be the best mom,” he sighed, “Too sweet not to be.” 

You chanced a peek up at him, and the sight took your breath away. His eyes were shut, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his lips and a little blush dusting over his cheekbones, tinting his freckles pink. 

It wasn’t the first time the two of you had talked about this. It was always like this, hushed wishes and warm words. You’d get lost thinking about Steve cuddling a tiny baby, probably born with a full head of hair if his genes had anything to say about it. You couldn’t help but think he’d thrive as a dad. How easily he’d fall into the rhythm of school pick up and soccer practice. And you wanted him to have all of it. 

You sat up, forcing him to open his eyes at the loss of contact. He leaned forward, instinctively chasing you. “Are you sure it’s gotta be six, Stevie?” You asked meekly. 

“I’ll take as many as you want to give me, honey. One? twenty? Doesn’t matter. Whatever makes you happy.” His eyes went soft.

“Stevie, you give in too easily!” you laughed, swatting at his chest. He caught your hand, placing exaggerated kisses up the length of your arm. 

He’d reached your face, settling kisses easily across your cheeks and the tip of your nose. “Wrong.” he mumbled, too focused on his new mission. 

“Wrong?!” you hissed, careful not to yell and wake up the girls. 

“Mmhmm,” he hummed, the vibration tickling your neck. “It’s not giving in if I want my girl happy and healthy.” 

“Thought you wanted enough Harringtons to stock a basketball team?” 

“Priorities changed.” 

You grinned, leaning your forehead against his. “Don’t deserve you.” 

You felt Steve sigh, pulling you tight against him. “Good news. You don’t have to earn me.” You were sure he could feel your heart stutter through your pajama top. “Besides, you're dead wrong about that. I’m way out of my league, here angel.” You were readying your rebuff, when his thumb found your cheek. “Just let me have this one, baby. You’re out of nail polish remover and Robin isn’t gonna let me hear the end of it when I show up with my manicure tomorrow.”

“Fine, we’ll have however many hypothetical children I want.” 

“Perfect.” he whispered, in a tone that you know he meant more than just letting you win the argument. 

Yeah, perfect.

[fromellewithlove]

LITERALLY so good. characterizations were honestly perfect and steve is so Lover Boy. 20/10, i said what i said

[plus-size-reader]

Mystery Girl

Steve Harrington x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 3705 words

Warnings: Brief ED mentioned, read with caution lovelies 

Summary: Steve’s ex chaperones the snowball, and dances with Dustin when none of the other girls will, which Steve finds out about later.

(Takes place during season 2, partially in a mall that precedes the starcourt mall)

—————————————————————————————————

Keep reading

[fromellewithlove]

yeah, i'm back with another plus-sized reader rec. no, i'm not sorry

this one hurt my feelings a little bit [in the good way], and was very real about a v common experience. also, i like making steve as uncomfortable as possible regarding his past assholery, so, well done!

[buckyarchives]

To the boy I loved before / Steve Harrington

pairings: Steve Harrington x f!reader

summary: Dustin’s disappointed by his sister recent decline into loneliness, and after a new discovery that gives him an opportunity to unite his two favorite people—a certain light comes back into you life:

W.c: 6.3k

Tags: set RIGHT before season3! friends to strangers to lovers, Steve is an asshole and he knows, barb mention, Dustin is evil and scheming, mostly angst and freaking out in this one, all the fluff and love and smut will be in the next part

A/n: this is a two parter in the name of not rushing the ending due to word count :) I might have rushed through the editing

Some tunes to listen to while you read!

Masterlist | AO3 | part two

-

Hawkins, Indiana. Beginning of Spring Break, 1985.

“Knock, knock.” The prepubescent voice of your younger brother rings through your room, interrupting the scribble of your pencil on your notepad.

Dustin stood in your doorway, wearing a cartoonish tactical vest and socks pulled up high, a closed fist hovering on the wooden frame from where he’d just startled you back to reality.

“Hey,” you gently whispered, a croak in your voice from not using your vocal cords for a few hours. Dustin smiled at you while you went to sit up. “What's up, hon?”

“I'm going out with some friends. Mom's asleep, so I thought I'd let you know .” his curly head tuts down the hall to your mother's room.

You sit up straighter, quicker. Eyebrows furrowed suddenly, “What? I thought we were going to watch Golden Girls tonight?”

“Well…” Dustin's voice rises at least 7 octaves, stepping a foot into your room. “We were, buuuuuut– that new cafe opened across town and everyone wants to go, and Steve offered to drive and–”

The utter betrayal of your younger brother washed over you in waves, “Are you ditching me for milkshakes, Dustin Henderson?”

“What! NO!”

You shoot a glare towards him. Dustin's head drops to the carpet below his feet.

“Yes…”

“I'll remember this, dusty. The great golden girl betrayal of spring break 85.” You huff, rising to your feet to put your notepad and pens on your desk.

Dustin sighs, he flops down, grabbing a throw pillow placed haphazardly on your bed and pulling it close to him. He looks over as you arrange stuff on your desk, obviously working on your next art project.

Dustin Henderson has looked up to his sister from the moment he was conscious, literally and physically. He had always seen you as the epitome of cool. You always gave the best advice to get him through the social confines of elementary, middle, and soon-to-be high school. You taught him to be kind and to care. To have good taste in movies. To be stubborn enough to get his way when it mattered, to never back down. You were everything he had ever wanted to be.

Maybe until this very moment.

Dustin sighs dramatically. “You know,” he picks at the tassels on your pillow, “it’s the first night of spring break, and it's your senior year… you don't have any plans or like senior-stuff to be doing?”

“Senior stuff?”

“I don't know,” Dustin stutters. “I'm not a senior, but I'm pretty sure there's senior stuff to do.”

“Right.. Right…” you sarcastically mock, turning to see Dustin sprawled across your newly washed bedding. At least his shoes were off to the side and not mucking up your white duvet. You squint at him, suspicious to your bones, "What are you getting at here?”

Dustin's eyes travel towards the ceiling, avoiding eye contact as he speaks slowly. “Well, you know, it's a Friday night and like– the weather is perfect, and a lot's going on in town and… you’re in your bedroom.. Drawing and wanting to hang out with your 14-year-old brother…”

“Whoa! Okay, and what's wrong with that, mister suddenly popular?” you say, hand to your chest, slightly offended at whatever Dustin was trying to insinuate.

“Nothing!” Dustin defends, sitting up against your headboard, crushing multiple stuffed animals behind his back. You want to protest, but are currently too blinded by the complete attack coming from your once-loser brother. “Don’t you just want to go out and hang out with your… friends.”

You face drops, “Why’d you say friends like that, Dustin?”

His tone goes stone cold, along with his horrible poker face. Slightly shaking his head, "I didn't. I actually said it very normally.”

“I have friends, Dustin!”

“I never said you didn't! I actually just insinuated that you do!”

“Well, if I wanted to hang out with my friends, which I do in fact have, I would! But I don't want to tonight.” You rush over your words.

Suddenly, Dustin snaps his fingers. You notice the look on his face, and you can practically see the light bulb above his head, “You know what? You can just go with me tonight!”

You roll your eyes, settling on the bed beside Dustin, your voice a little calmer now—less defensive. “I don't know how fun hanging out with a bunch of 14-year-olds will be for me.”

“You like hanging out with me,” Dustin frowns.

You cock your head at him, “You know that's different."

“Steve Harrington will be there…” Dustin mentions.

“Ok?” you say, a little too much attitude in your voice than intended.

“He’s in your class.”

You nod, “yes, but that does not mean we are friends–” scoffing, “he probably doesn't know I exist.”

“Yes, he does,” Dustin responds too quickly, almost interrupting you. You sneer at him suspiciously, almost as if to ask him what he meant by that. “You know, because of me. I mention you sometimes.”

On cue, you hear the honk of who you can assume was Harrington outside your house waiting to pick up Dustin and his friends for milkshakes.

You pat his back, ushering him up. “Be safe, bro.”

Dustin starts to walk out of your room feeling positively defeated by what he thought would be a constructive conversation with his big sister, but you just follow him out happily.

“Offer still stands,” Dustin grabs his stuff and heads for the door.

You smile at him, oh-so tooth-rottingly sweet Dustin. You pat his shoulder off of invisible dust or dirt, “thank you, but I think I'm better off than hanging out with Steve-the Hair-Harrington and your gang.”

“He’s not that bad.” Dustin throws out, and your face is already scrunched up in hesitancy. “He knows he was a dick during high school, and he's a lot… kinder now.”

“Kinder?” you ask. Dustin opens the door, and you see the faint outline of Steve's face behind his car's windshield in the slowly darkening afternoon light. “That thing?”

Dustin giggles, “he's fun.”

“Right..” you laugh, “have fun, be safe. And I'm going to watch Golden Girls and spoil all of it when you get back.”

Dustin starts to descend the creaky wooden porch stairs, looking back to yell, “You can’t spoil shit, it's a sitcom!”

“Watch the language!” you shout, despite the smile on your face.

Dustin's hand wraps around the handle of Steve's car, waving goodbye to his sister before placing himself in the front seat. His head whipped over to Steve, waiting for a greeting—but no dice. Steve's eyes stared forward at Dustin's front porch, more specifically, where you stood.

It wasn't a new idea in his brain to get you and Steve to hang out. After the past few years of having Steve in his life, he has grown more and more into an elderly brother figure. Dustin has thought about it on multiple occasions. Before, it was rare to be with Steve if it didn't involve alien monsters or conspiring against evil dimensions, so not many chances to try and get his slowly social-declining yet awesome sister to chop it up with fastly social-declining yet newly awesome Steve Harrington.

“Steve.”

“Hm?” he had finally snapped out of it, now noticing you had gone inside the house, and now they were just wasting gas and time in his driveway. “Are we going to go, or are you going to keep longingly staring at my sister?”

“Whoa, I am not doing that.” Steve defends, putting the car in gear and reversing out of the driveway, “just making sure she gets inside all right.”

“Yeah, all those 3 feet. A lot could happen.” Dustin mocks, “She's into all those dramatic romance novels; she might like the yearning gaze you just tried to give her from our driveway.”

“Whatever, man. I barely know her now.” Steve waves off, eyes focused on the road.

“I tried to convince her to tag alone tonight,” Dustin mentions for no real reason…

Then Steve responds pretty quickly, and Dustin smiles to himself knowingly. Staring out at the Hawkins streets.

“Yeah? What did she say?” Steve said. Curious as he can be without distracting himself from the road.

“She said she's too good to hang out with Steve-the Hair-Harrington.”

Steve almost swerves a little, “No, she didn't."

“It was close enough.”

Steve scoffs at him before turning into Lucas' driveway.

Dustin then spent the remainder of the night thinking up a plan, weighing out the odds, mysteriously glaring at Steve as Dustin's brain went haywire, and enjoying his chocolate milkshake.

It puzzles Dustin why you were so put off by Steve now. He knew for a fact you used to run around with him and some of his old crusades in at least late middle school, maybe as a freshman. Dustin saw it in the old photos you still had littered around your room, noticing at least one or two with the familiar head of hair. Dustin would notice Nancy too in some.

Dustin also knew you’d grown to be a recluse after junior year, specifically, brushed it off as school getting too busy–extracurriculars. Whatever. And he wasn't going to lie to himself and say it wasn't depressing watching his admirably social sister seemingly cave in on her own isolation.

He had to do something.

So when Dustin came home that night, careful not to wake his worrisome mother. He saw the couch empty except for some messily thrown blankets draped around. Noticing a small note taped to the table.

Ran out of ice cream

went to the 24 hour store

Be back soon incase you get back before me :)

Scribbled out in your cursive handwriting. Right. Dustin thinks to himself. Your car was gone from the driveway when Steve dropped him off.

This was the time, the only time. As he suspects you’ll be a house rat for the entirety of spring break, if Dustin has anything to do with it.

Slipping off his shoes, Dustin tiptoed down the hallway and passed your creaky door, eyes watchful of your window, expecting to see the headlights of your car at any moment. Dustin looked around curiously, not like he hadn't been in here more than a million times. With or without you. Yet, some places still were not all that familiar to him.

Dustin turned the knob of your closet door, pulling the metal string to illuminate the small area. Looking around, a plethora of muted-toned clothes. A lot of it covered the floor, almost completely covering the carpet. Shoes sat on the floor, badly organized. Next to a box of old Barbies, multiple canvases of art, finished and unfinished. Next to a few stacked boxes with your younger handwriting scribbled onto the labels.

Dustin's eyes darted to the one labeled ‘middle school.’

His head whipped back to look out the window again, before falling to his knees to rummage through the box. He found old photos, report cards, arcade tickets, and doodles. Dustin's eyes almost popped out of his head when he found multiple letters addressed to boys in your class. Dustin didn't recognize a lot of them until.

Steve.

Steve Harrington.

Wrote sloppily, and addressed but not stamped, and–even better–with a corny heart doodled next to it.

You were a boldface liar, and Dustin Henderson struck a jackpot.

—

Steve Harrington was a fucking pathetic idiot.

Whichever and whatever vulgar term you wanted to use towards the man was probably it. It fit better than his broken-in and worn-out Nikes that paced pavement below a hill to the Henderson house, a letter addressed to him weighing heavy in his back pocket.

Full honesty, he wasn't sure what he was reading when his eyes paced through the page. I mean, hell—it was dated from around middle school, and well, you two hadn't spoken much since then. To Steve's full fault, as he's realizing now. Even more so, Steve wasn't sure why he was even here, pacing back and forth with his hair tussled from running his fingers across his temple thrice per minute.

Why would you send this? It was from so long ago, and yeah, Steve was lonely enough that even a naive middle school love confession made his heart lurch from his chest. It was still nothing but that. A silly love confession from middle school, before anyone even had a grasp on what love actually felt like.

(yet, it felt like you hit the mark pretty close for being 13)

Steve Harrington slapped himself on the cheek to bring himself back down to reality, or maybe as punishment.

Because, of course, Steve-The Hair-Harrington, previously self-centered playboy turned lonely fallen angel babysitter, would only bring himself to speak to you when it meant to reconfirm that anyone could actually care for him.

One leg after another with high knees, Steve waltzes up your driveway and straight to the door, following a frantic knock. His leg bounced with anxiety. God, what the hell was he fucking doing? He can save himself, pretend he never received it, turn around, and spare the–

Steve heard the heavy footsteps towards the front door, and he knew that wouldn't work. Fuck.

Pleasebeyoupleasebyoupleasebeyou

The door swung open, and Steve hadn't realized how much his chest had been heaving. Yet, once Steve had to drop his chin to greet a curly-haired and gummy-smiled kid, he finally felt like he could catch his breath.

“Hey, Henderson!” Steve greeted, trying to sound as cheery as he possibly could. And not second to a panic attack. He may have sold it too far.

“Sup, looking for my sister?”

Steve smiled, brain in autopilot, “Yeah—wait, how do you know that?”

Dustin shrugged his shoulders, playing innocent, but he always had such a bad poker face. Steve thought about prying, but decided to take it as a gift to hopefully not get questioned back by a 15-year-old on why exactly he was looking for you.

“Do ya—do you know where she might be? She home?” Steve asked, looking over Dustin's tiny shoulder into the living room.

“I think she left for the diner across town. The new one. She just left, you can probably catch up to her.” Dustin said.

“Across town!–"Steve cut himself off, lowering his voice. “Thank you, Dustin. Thank you.”

Steve gave Dustin a friendly pat on his shoulder before turning heel and barreling down your driveway and straight to his car, keys fumbling in hand.

—

“Thank you, Pat,” you say warmly, grabbing the glass of pink goodness from her aging hands. A golden wedding band adorned her ring finger.

“How have you been, sweets? Any new news in my favorite Henderson's life? Any boys?” she asked you, propping her elbows up to speak to you.

You laugh, “Did Dustin cause that much trouble a few nights ago?”

“I'm teasing!” she waves off, a sweet smile still decorating her face.

“Right,” you giggled, "graduating soon, so that's pretty much it.”

“No boys?”

“No boys.” you grimace.

Pat leaves you be, off to help another customer in need of dairy goodness. You slurp your drink up with ease, kicking your feet as they dangle off the red stool.

No boys. Sigh. When did you get so pathetic? You lived and breathed getting into college and hanging out with your brother now. You were a social plague. Even hanging out with Steve–who arguably had fallen off harder than you had—felt like an impossible task. No boys. No friends. No life.

It's not like you were unhappy; you'd call it content. It didn't matter, though, you'd be off to college soon enough.

You heard the bells wrapped around the front entrance jingle behind you, sipping at your straw some more. Your hips swivel with the stool, body bored and searching for some stimulus. Yeah, you might as well head home soon. You got your sweet release, and time was up.

Except you make the mistake of turning around to check the door first, eyes accidentally landing on a certain someone. Stood in the doorway, eyes wild like he was already looking for you. The way his eyes are locked on you makes you think he definitely was. You wince. At both the idea and the strong, determined stare down coming from one Steve Harrington.

And Steve swears the world stops. After everything he knows now, or he's just searching for something that is realistically probably long gone by now. Grasping at straws like usual. He sees you and thinks of the kiss from 7th grade, a drum in his head while the diner mutes around him

Before he can even take his leap of faith towards you, another voice calls him. And the image of you fades away and is replaced by the feeling of a jerk on his shoulder.

Steve sees the lettermen first, then Steve’s last name, which leaves the kids' mouths with a heavy layer of teasing. It makes Steve want to fold himself small, find a hole, and die in it. His eyes were wide and weary, forcing out the best smile he could to not further damage his image. Wow, was he always this shallow?

“Hey, buddy!” Steve says, dragging out a nervous laugh along with his words. “Haven’t seen you in a while?”

Steve didn't actually recognize who he was talking to. He’s a kid, blonde hair, names Chad or Jason, who stayed on the bench for the Hawkins basketball team.

(Steve scoffs like he wasn’t kicked off the team for lack of the right priorities. What his coach said, at least.)

“Could say the same for you, Harrington, it's like seeing a ghost,” the boy laughs as if the statement doesn't hit him heavily in his gut. Right. A ghost.

Steve's too busy to care, though, trying to search for your gaze again without seeming like a total dickhead. No assholery–New Year's resolution. Or something.

“Right, right, you know how finals are.” Steve lies, he hadn't given finals more than a thought until realizing he was gonna flunk them anyway.

Meanwhile, you bite your lip. Trying to keep your head down so that the man with the gravity-defying hair doesn't gravitate towards you. You almost laugh at yourself. Why would he? Just because you're in the same social class, suddenly? He was still King Steve, at least just in his head, no way he'd want to talk to you on a random Monday.

Right?

You look back once more, just to double-check.

A large breath of relief leads you when you notice his back is facing you. Tussled brown hair, that same bomber coat that hugs his waist, tight light wash jeans, papers sticking out of his pockets, and worn down Nikes.

Wait.

What the hell?

You lean forward. Squinting your eyes. From anyone else's perspective, it looks like you're breaking your neck to check out Steve Harrington's ass. No. No, you absolutely recognize that floral envelope peaking out of his pocket. You had picked it up at a gift shop in Minnesota, a family trip, the first one the family took when Dustin had grown conscious enough to be able to remember it.

Leaning farther, almost falling face-first into the tile as you peer closer. Slowly, your brain recognizes the handwriting. The puppy-dog stickers on it. The doodled hearts in glitter pen.

No fucking way.

“Honey?”

You have to grab the sides of the stool in hopes of not toppling over, cold hands grasping onto rusty metal to hold yourself steady. Meanwhile, your mind was spinning, spinning faster than how you felt on the school's roundabout in elementary. Along with the overwhelming feeling of puke stinging your lungs and settling heavily in your stomach.

“Honey? Are you alright?” Pat asks you, eyes wide with concern. Her hand, the ring shining, grasping around your now-empty glass.

“Yes,” you stutter. “Um–”

Your head whips back again, towards him. You feel dizzy. Steve's staring right at you, waving off the kid—quite rudely, might you add—and ending the high school meetup. Turning away, hoping it would make him disappear, or at least remove the memory of whatever information he got from that letter out of his deformed brain. You rustle around in your pocket, pull out a few dollars, and place them on the counter in front of a growingly concerned pat.

“Thank you, see you soon. Uh, keep the change or just put it on my tab.” Your words rush out of your mouth, almost slurring together as you grab your bag and stumble out of your seat.

The very edge of your foot gets caught on the stool's metal footrest, resulting in you positively falling back like a goddamn domino.

Instead of cold diner tile, your back meets a strong forearm. Your eyes dare follow it up and see the mess of hair you were trying to run from. You were going to hurl, and Steve Harrington was going to be your puke victim.

He gazes at you, as if to say hello. No actual words leave his mouth. Steve's eyes are teddy bear brown. You think about the roundabout again. You feel even dizzier, thinking about how Steve was the one usually on the other side of spinning you. Innocent wide smile, high-pitched laughter. When you thought the freckles and moles on his skin looked like constellations, and that was enough reason in your 8-year-old brain to become friends with him.

Huh, must have blocked that out until now.

Goddamn your Adidas shoes, half a size too big that you spent an entire semester saving up for. Stupid. Stupid.

You shoot up before he can speak, not realizing how warm his touch was when it feels like you've gone dead cold the moment your back disconnects. You try not to focus on that thought too long, eyes locked in on the door. Your escape. From shame. Embarrassment. Death, even.

You're already trying to slide past him while you speak, “Sorry, thanks for catching me, I can be such a clutz,” you laugh, to seem like a normal and totally functioning human, but it dies halfway out of your mouth. “I'm late picking up Dustin, see ya!”

Your voice fades out as you walk farther away from Steve and towards the door. Steve was frozen and utterly stunned in place, soles of his feet practically glued to the floor. Like a lost and confused child in the middle of a store, adorably clueless.

“But Dustin's at the house though–” Steve attempted to yell out, but the words faded to nothing when your figure was already gone from his sight and the door's bell ringing in his ear.

Steve got pretty comfortable with things hitting him so far in the chest that he doesn't know how to think anymore. But that was always with beatings or information that led him to believe the world was ending.

Not girls and love letters.

So why in the hell would you send a middle school artifact to him and then almost faceplant trying to avoid talking about it? Was this some sick joke?

Steve drove home, mind dazed and somehow more confused than before his attempt at speaking to you.

—

Dustin sat in a living room chair, petting the family cat like a fucking evil scientist. And you could probably read through the context clues, knowing your brother, if you could think through your oncoming panic attack when you got home.

You missed it when he asked you if anything happened while you were out, because of course, he knew.

And you missed his concerned tone when he asked what was wrong as your heavy breathing grew more evident, followed by a slam of your bedroom door.

But Dustin was your brother; he knew when you'd be okay, and he knew when not to pry.

Yet, Dustin swears that if this is a result of Steve, then he was going to resurrect Dart and sic him on Harrington.

—

Your hands and fingers move quicker than your brain, maybe even quicker than the way your chest rose and fell in anxiety. Throwing countless pieces of clothes and miscellaneous garments over your shoulder, further dirtying your closet that was 4 months overdue for a cleaning. Searching through old boxes of things that had collected dust from better and younger days. Until it landed on one of the many memory boxes.

Being a sentimental bastard has its perks and downs; you could look back on the good times. Not ever being able to let go of it, even if the very same memories and moments plagued you at night, made you yearn, made you cry. It was all the same, and you'd never be able to stomach throwing anything away.

You think you could stomach it now, after seeing it somehow materialize in Steve's grasp. Knowing he read something he was never meant to see, even you knew that the second you signed it in middle school. Everyone journals differently, for fuck sakes—it wasn’t even stamped!

Finding every love-sick letter besides his, feeling utterly defeated and beyond confused. Your hands still find some old photos. It's a photo of Nancy's 14th birthday party. You, Nance, Barbara, and Carol. All lined up with toothy grins over a sparkling birthday cake. Before the plague of high school took them, and death.

Another Polaroid from when you were 9. The Harrington household had an inground pool, and Steve convinced his parents to have a party for your birthday at his house, since it was summer and all you wanted to do was swim. Steve had his arm slung around your shoulder and long, brown, and soaking wet hair stuck to his forehead. You were both adorably innocent back then, still best friends. You remember your mom taking that photo; you were oh-so reluctant, but Steve had to pull you in with a camera-ready smile before you could even think.

You hadn't even realized your breathing had fallen back into a steady, normal pace.

It was just you in your closet, surrounded by memories now, and the world suddenly didn't exist outside of it.

Until a knock at the door.

You waited a few moments, hoping that Dustin or your mom would grab it. Too sentimental to function at the moment. No footsteps yet. You think, It's Monday. Right. Moms at work. Still, Dustin can get it.

A beat. More knocking.

No footsteps.

“God damnit,” you lazily put the photos and old memorabilia down, vowing to tidy up later. Pulling yourself to your feet and brushing your pants off of any dust, socks sliding across the carpet to the front door.

You unhook the latch with no thought, pulling the door open. Immediately almost met with a knock to the face, the suddenly all too familiar face mid-attempt at a third knock.

Steve smiles, like he didn't drive you to an anxiety fit moments before this.

(and had also unintentionally calmed you down from it as well.)

And he barely gets a “hey” past those pretty lips before you could slam the door in his face.

Steve Harrington had been nothing but a complete asshole the last few years; you had enough reason to be the same towards him now and hope he could at least commit to how he started high school and finish it by completely forgetting you exist in his world.

—

Steve reread your letter 4 more times that night.

Although you might not have even meant for him to see this, Steve's entire world was being held together within those lines.

He just needed to know if it was real.

—

You made tea under the dim light of the kitchen stove; it was close to 1 am now. Mesmerized by the liquid swirling in your cup. Hot metal held between your fingertips as the teabag bobbed up and down.

You heard footsteps behind you, cursing to yourself if it was mom. She worries too much, and if she knew you were up this late, you know she'd have a million and one questions ready to throw at you.

Except it was just your brother with tussled curls and old pjs on.

“Why are you still up?” you nod at him, sipping at your cup. The liquid was hot, burning your tongue. You let it hurt. It goes down smoothly after that.

“Working on a new campaign,” he responds.

“You should get to bed soon, it's getting late, bubs.” You motion to the ticking clock.

12:51

“It's spring break,” Dustin says plainly.

You scoff, offering him a piece of your elderly sibling's advice. “Trust me, wait till summer. Your sleep schedule will be all messed up right when it's time to go back.”

Dustin snorts at your response, padding over to the fridge to grab a midnight snack. A beat of comfortable silence between you two. Not noticing Dustin's eyes glancing over to you, scanning, reading.

“So….” he drags out, “I saw Steve's car here earlier, did he need me?”

You freeze, knuckling white around your mug. If you spend any time in the school gym, it might have cracked under your grasp.

Pursing your lips, shaking your head. Almost to convince yourself of some lie. “No, no, just um, I dropped my wallet at the diner today, and Steve came across it so he was just dropping it off.”

Dustin didn't like this new trend of his sister lying to him. Which, to be fair, Dustin's calling the kettle black here. Not like he's said it out loud yet, or like you've asked.

“Oh, okay,” he says, pretending to be convinced. “Like I told you, kinder.”

You just hum, “right,” and take another go at sipping your tea.

“I'm gonna head to bed, you too,” you finish.

“Hey, do you think you can pick me up from Mike's house tomorrow?” Dustin asks you, just above a whisper.

You fake thinking about it for a moment, “maybe.”

Dustin shoots you his best ‘puppy dog in the rain’ look.

You crack. A smile tugging at your lip, “Sure thing, as long as you go to bed. Like, now.”

“Aye, aye.” Dustin salutes and marches down the hall to his bedroom before you.

—

You’d only made it halfway through your Golden Girls episode before the ring of your house's landline interrupted you, one custody call from the Wheeler household.

You prided yourself on being a good older sister, a cool and calm older sister. You have and always will do anything for Dustin, especially if it means keeping your mom's stress levels down enough so she doesn’t suffer from a stroke.

But for fuck sake, you’re missing your girls right now.

Tapping your foot on the front porch of the Wheelers’ household, checking your watch over once more. Has it only been 8 minutes? Felt closer to 20 since Karen told you that Dustin would be up in a moment.

Honestly, you contemplated sitting in your car. Your legs were starting to sway from just standing here. Waiting. That little shit, maybe you should just leave. He can walk home.

The screech of tires makes you turn around to catch sight of a familiar Beamer.

Was your life a joke? Honestly? Had god not gotten enough laughs from you yet?

Dustin could walk.

You almost tripped over yourself racing down the steps of the Wheeler entryway, b-lining to your car.

Steve called out your name, you ignored it, hoping that would make it go away. Disappear from your line of sight the same way that the letter did from your closet. Then you heard your name again. Damn.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” He asked, fastly approaching you.

“Picking up Dustin. What are you doing besides stalking me?” You respond, not looking at him. You don’t think you could even if you wanted to.

“What?” Steve asks, “Dustin just called me to pick him up.”

Your hands that previously stayed busy fumbling with your car keys froze still. Eyebrows furrowed tight, your mind raced. Slowly, you turned to look at Steve, and he looked dead serious. You swallowed hard, “Dustin called you?”

“Uh, yeah.” He responds like it’s obvious. And you don’t appreciate the attitude.

Steve's eyes watch you; they flicker up and down. “And uh, hey, can we talk?”

You fake a smile, praying Dustin walks out those doors soon. “What would we ever need to talk about?”

“What you sent me.”

“I don’t know what you're talking about, Harrington.” You replied, crossing your arms and pressing your back against your car door.

That’s it. Play innocent until he thinks he’s crazy. Easy enough.

Then Steve’s hands slip behind him, tugging an envelope out of his back pocket and showing it off to you like you hadn’t been panicking about it the past few days.

Play it cool, Henderson. Dustin didn’t get his horrible poker face from you.

“You didn’t send me this?” Steve squints at you. He flipped the paper over with just his pointer and index finger.

“No.”

“You sure?”

You scoff, “Yes, I'm sure, Harrington. Why on earth would I send you a love letter?”

A beat.

“I didn’t say it was a love letter.”

Steve stares you down for too many seconds.

“You know what? You can take Dustin home, thank you.” You say, a way of bidding Steve goodbye. An end to this conversation before it even really started. You hope he gets the memo when you open your car door.

But Steve Harrington has always been a little dense. Maybe it was all the beatings he’s gone through.

“I just want to know if it’s real.”

You laugh. You let out a real, god-honest laugh. Looking at Steve, up and down, and once more again. His shoulders are more tense these days, hair longer and more unruly. No self-absorbed swagger. His crown fell, and Steve showed it on his face. Yet, you can’t help but laugh.

“Was it real?” You echo, “Steve, it was from middle school, I don’t know you anymore.”

“No, no, no.” Steve starts, “You did. If you meant anything in this, you knew me. You still do.”

This was too amusing; you couldn’t contain the laughter. This was ridiculous. Steve Harrington had gone downright insane. You point at him square in the chest, “You are a stranger. You come to my house to pick my brother up for whatever you two do, which I’m thankful you’ve been so nice to him, but I do not know you anymore, Steve Harrington.”

Stranger and his full name, laced with venom, in the same sentence—coming from you felt worse than any punch he’s received. And that’s saying something. He blinks once, twice. In a daze, in disbelief. He wasn’t even sure anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Steve starts with his plea of apology.

“Oh my god.” You groan, ready to make another attempt to get in your driver's seat.

“No, I’m serious. I’m sorry. I’m really, really, fucking sorry.” Steve lightly hits your car with every apology to emphasize his point. If he dents your car, you swear to god you’d be sending him a bill. “I’ve been an asshole. I am an asshole. I’m sorry, I’m trying.”

“Asshole? Woooow.” You mock, eye rolling.

“I know! I know, okay? It’s bad, I know.”

You scoff, “bad? Do you even know what bad is? Really? Bad is pretending I don’t exist for the past 3 years and then stalking me around town after you found some old letter I wrote when I had a silly crush on you. And for what? To reconfirm this insecurity in your black hole of a heart that someone actually could like you? That bad? Has the loneliness gotten to you so much that all you can do is hang out with middle schoolers and pathetically reconnect with your childhood best friend you left behind for the soulless popular club?”

Yep. Much worse than any punch.

Steve swallowed down any pride he had left in him. Nodding, “yeah, you still know me.”

“Pretty on the mark?”

Steve just nods, his eyes don’t falter from your face despite it all. And you hadn't noticed how close he’d gotten, hand planted on the roof of your car, inches from your body. His face is only a few more inches from your face.

(a few meters away from behind a window, that’s in front of a curtain, barely drawn to catch your interaction with Steve. Mike says, “Do you think they’re gonna kiss?”

“No, I’ve never seen her look angrier.” Will corrects.

And the four pairs of eyes were still focused on the interaction.)

“I honestly thought I was sparing you, but I see that I’m just an asshole,” Steve says, pushing off your car and away from you. The air around you felt different, your brain too frazzled to put a word to it.

“Sparing me?” You quip, “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Steve stood a few feet away, looking defeated, the letter still in his grasp. “You care. You do the right thing. You see the beauty in everyone, you— you,” Steve laughs. Mostly at himself. “You are the beauty that you see in people.”

“I couldn’t swallow the idea that—“ Steve had given up, he’s shooting himself in the foot right now. “The fact that all that would get washed away if you started to follow me down the social path I chose. It just wasn’t you.”

By the end of the sentence, you were left stunned, mouth agape and speechless. By then, Steve had walked himself backwards to his car by then. “I’m sorry.”

The same way he showed up, he was gone. In only a moment.

You want to think that it’s not that deep. It’s just the high school social scene, the real world was a lot scarier. You avoided it, and it sucked, but you knew it wasn’t the end of the world. You could comfortably swallow all the hurt that came your way and live on.

But Steve. Something shook him up badly. High School had lifted him up and then knocked him down as quickly as a freight train. It’s done some damage that you couldn’t even perceive yet.

You didn’t realize your lip quiver slightly. Did Steve Harrington really care back then? Did he still actually see you? Did it all just get covered up by disposable girls, basketball, nights out, and bad grades? Was the boy who made you understand the very concept of caring and seeing beauty in people not completely lost to the facade?

The slightest movement in the corner of your eye made you whip your head over and back to reality.

For a split second, you saw a few teenage boys head dunk behind a window.

Your jaw clenched, “DUSTIN, GET IN THE CAR!”

The swing of the front door couldn’t have come quicker.

—

On the drive home, Dustin’s eyes bounced from yours to the road every millisecond. Your foot seemed planted on the gas and unrelenting, and for the fact he’s never seen you this worked up.

With one leg bouncing in anxiety. He was ready to tuck and roll at and any moment

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[fromellewithlove]

this concept is SO good for Steve!!! literally the perfect au/trope, and this was done so well!!

[levanswrites]

only the lightest blues

pairing: steve harrington x reader summary: it’s the age-old fall from grace: high school royalty faceplants into reality, and the burger king crown starts hanging heavy. (sailor hat, in his case.) heir to the hawkins high hierarchy, ruler of keggers and hallways alike, steve harrington used to be untouchable. now? he's shaking under your hands, bleeding from battles no trophy could ever commemorate. you've stitched together plenty of broken people before—but never one that left a scar in you, too. warnings: 18+ mdni, piv sex, oral (m!receiving), touch/praise-starved!steve, hurt/comfort, blood, injury, mutual friends/enemies-ish to lovers, hair washing, massaging, praise kink, body worship, sexual tension, forced proximity of sorts, reader isn’t fond of steve at first, mostly S4 canon but fix-it, angst, domestic fluff, found family, happy ending a/n: another steve harrington character study dressed as a fic, what the hell else is new? | playlist ♬.ᐟ

They don’t take him to the hospital. They bring him to you.

Which is, objectively, stupid.   

But apparently, hospitals ask questions. And you—part-time party medic, occasional dispenser of prescription-only painkillers (for legitimate anxiety and migraines, thank you very much)—you don’t.

You’re halfway through a rerun of M.A.S.H., sucking the soul out of a cherry popsicle. You’re braless. The house is quiet. Peaceful, if a little tragic. Exactly the way Fridays are meant to be.

Until the knocking starts.

Correction: pounding.

Panicked, frenzied, FBI-doesn’t-need-a-warrant kind of pounding.

You groan and peel yourself off the couch, popsicle stick still dangling from your lips. You are not emotionally equipped to accept salvation or Thin Mints right now.

But when you open the door, it’s not a solicitor.

It’s Robin.

Robin Buckley, looking like she just got shot out of a chimney. Her cheek’s streaked with soot and something red that is very much not Kool-Aid.  

You blink. Yank the popsicle out of your mouth with a wet plop.

“Don’t freak out,” she blurts, before you even ask.

Which is Robin Buckley-speak for: Start freaking out immediately. Shit is on fire, metaphorically or otherwise.

The last time she said that, you ended up faking an asthma attack so you could ditch pep band and hit up Denny’s for the $1.99 Grand Slam. The time before that, you drove through three counties to rescue her cousin’s “emotional support ferret” from a petting zoo in Muncie.

This time? She’s brought a car with her.

A sleek maroon BMW, purring at the curb, passenger door flung wide open.

Inside: Limbs. Denim. Blood.

A boy.

Slumped sideways in the front seat, head tilted back at an angle that screams whiplash or maybe already dead. 

You squint.

“Who the fuck is that?” … Steve Harrington.

Steve Harrington is bleeding out in your driveway.

You don’t know him. Not really.

Knew of him, sure. Back in high school, he was all Farrah Fawcett volume and varsity swagger. Heir to the Hawkins High hierarchy, ruling keggers and hallways alike. He had rich parents and a bimmer he didn’t pay for. Threw parties like they were some kind of divine rite.

But then? Senior year hit him like a metaphorical truck. Or maybe a literal one. Hard to say.

Because somewhere between the scorched-earth gossip of graduation and the literal scorched-earth of the mall burning down, Steve Harrington dropped off the map.

Poof. King Steve: dethroned.

Burned out, like the very mall he used to work in.

You missed that whole implosion. Spent that summer in Chicago drowning in vending machine coffee and disaster drills, chasing your EMT cert while trying not to puke during ride-alongs.

You came home to find that Hawkins had gained a mall, lost a mall, and started blaming everything weird on “gas leaks” again.

And Robin Buckley had Steve.     

Her little sidekick from the ice cream wars. Who, allegedly, once confronted a creeper in the food court for harassing her. Ruined his pretty face doing it, too. Walked around with a purple shiner for weeks after that summer ended.

He now stocks tapes with her at Family Video, where helping customers ranks somewhere between abusing the label maker and arguing over who gets to abuse the label maker. 

You ran into him once, alone, in the cereal aisle of Melvald’s.

Dark rings under his eyes. Hair still doing that gravity-defying thing.

He smiled. You didn’t smile back.

You didn’t care.  

It’s the age-old fall from grace: high school royalty faceplants into reality, and the Burger King crown starts hanging heavy. (Well, sailor hat, in his case.)

But now, he’s here.

Dying on your lawn.

Ruining your Friday. … Up close, he looks worse.

Biblically bad.

Like, plague-of-locusts, hail-from-the-heavens, Lamb-of-God-who? kind of bad.

His jeans are shredded, shirt gone entirely. Bright red ligature marks around his throat like someone tried to strangle him with a piano wire. There’s ash in his hair, and something black smeared across his jaw that you’re really, really hoping is just dirt.

His eyes flutter.

Then, absurdly, he smiles.

“H-hey. Heard you know first aid?”

You stare at him for a beat. Then toss your popsicle stick into the grass.

“Yeah. Try not to bleed out on my porch, Harrington.”

He snorts. Gives you a weak thumbs-up.

Then promptly goes limp. … “It’s called compensated shock,” you grunt, dragging six-feet-too-much of unconscious prom royalty into your living room. “He looked okay ‘cause his body was pumping him full of adrenaline. Now it’s wearing off.”

Robin’s on the other end, doing her best to help, which mostly means not helping.

“Oh my god, yeah,” she babbles, smacking his sneakers into the doorframe. “—shit. He got all woozy at Skull Rock earlier.”

You pause mid-haul. “Skull Rock? Like, the makeout spot?”

Robin makes a face. “Yeah, but not for us, gross. That’d be like making out with my brother. Anyway, Steve invented Skull Rock! Took Heather C. there in tenth grade. Remember her? The girl with, like, thirty scrunchies and that creepy obsession with Mr. Connor’s—”

“Robin.”

“Right! Sorry! Panic talking!”

Steve groans from where you’ve deposited him on the couch, more pained by Robin’s volume than the probable internal bleeding.

You ignore him. “Why were you actually at Skull Rock?”

“Uhh walking? You know... trees. Friendship.”

You level her with a look.

She claps her hands. “Anyway! You can fix him, right? You’re, like, certified!”

You glance down at Steve.

His lips are blue at the corners, breath hitching in those tight, silent gulps that mean pain and refusal to show it.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “Maybe.” … You do fix him.

Because you’re a sucker. Because you trained for this. Because your hands know what to do even when your brain is screaming. 

And maybe, just maybe, because Steve Harrington keeps making these soft, miserable, apologetic noises every time he flinches.

Like he’s sorry.

Sorry for bleeding. For being in pain. For existing.

You hate that.

You also kind of hate how he looks like this—hot, in that tragic, beaten, dog-left-out-in-the-rain kind of way that hits your brain like a chemical imbalance.

You strip off his vest first (Dio patch on the back, which, huh, maybe he has changed) and find a makeshift bandage beneath it, half-dried and crusted with old blood. You peel it off. It comes away with a wet schlorp like opening a bottle of dollar store wine.

And something inside you goes still. 

These are... bite marks.

Not scrapes. Not scratches.

Bites.

His flesh looks shredded, like a rottweiler got bored of chew toys and decided to sample teenage boy instead.

Except: you’ve treated dog bites. This is not a dog bite.

“Jesus christ,” you whisper.

You look up at the boy collapsed on your couch: sweaty, shirtless, and—oh, now he’s got a belt in his mouth.

Robin jams it there. “For the pain,” she says, helpful as ever.

Steve groans around the leather, eyes fluttering. Looks like he wants to die. 

You’re still staring at the worst bite, wondering if it’s actually moving, when you ask, voice low:

“Someone want to tell me what the fuck did this?”

Robin freezes. Eyes the belt like she’d rather choke on it herself than answer.

“Uh… bats?” She offers weakly.  

You blink. “Bats.”

“Like. Big ones? Really big?”

You stare at her. Then at Steve.  

You don’t believe her.

But also… you kind of do.    

Because whatever this thing was, it didn’t just attack.

It fed. … “Okay, but like—” Robin’s pacing like she’s trying to wear a hole in your rug. “He was fine earlier. Like, maybe not fine fine, but, you know, Steve-fine. And then we got out of the Up—uh—the woods, and I was driving him back and he just…”

She makes a dramatic fainting motion. Nearly brains herself on the coffee table.

“So, it could be rabies? Or tetanus? Or maybe one of those parasite things that lay eggs in your stomach? Or—”

“Robin?” you cut in, sharp as the pair of shears in your hand. “There’s towels and vodka in the kitchen. Go.”

“Right. On it.”

She skitters away like a gremlin set on fire, the thud of cabinet doors punctuating her panic.

You turn back to Steve.

His pulse is thin, fluttering weakly under your fingertips, but it’s there.

“Harrington. You with me?”

His hand twitches once, thumb up. … He doesn’t scream.

You wish he would.

Because you know this hurts. You know that when you pour antiseptic into wounds this deep, it’s supposed to rip sound out of a person. A yell. A curse. A sob. Something.

But Steve just… takes it.

His jaw’s locked tight enough to bend steel—no belt, miracle he doesn’t shatter a molar—and his throat works once, twice, swallowing back whatever wants out. His whole body trembles, shoulders twitching, knuckles bone-white, yet his voice stays sealed inside him like it’s chained there.

You kind of hate him for it.

Because you know this type.

Boys who bleed quiet. The beautiful, tragic kind who carry pain like it’s a penance.

You’ve seen them before, at crash sites, in the backs of ambulances.

It’s not bravery. It’s habit.

A mask. 

And Steve Harrington? He’s been wearing his so long, it’s practically fused to the bone.

Still, Robin squeezes his hand like she’s coaching him through labor. Eyes locked on the ceiling, because she’s still pretending she’s never seen boobs or blood or the inside of a human person.

You press gauze to the worst of the bites, just under his ribs, angry and wet and oozing something thick. You have to lean your weight into it.

Steve jolts—full-body, every muscle locking under your palms. His hand lashes out, fast and blind, gripping the leg of your jeans until his knuckles go pale.  

Then, just as quickly, he lets go. Eyes squeezed shut. Shame radiating off him like heat.

“Shit. S-sorry.”

You don’t answer.

You can’t. … It takes two hours.

Three full rolls of gauze. One regrettable vodka break, just to keep your hands from shaking.

It's not pretty. Not even close. But it's enough to keep him breathing, which, all things considered, feels like a decent win for a Friday night.

Now, he’s bandaged. Shirtless under your ex’s old hoodie, the one with the weird bleach stain and the hole in the sleeve, but Steve fills it out like it was made for him.

Of course he does.

In the kitchen, Robin’s hunched over your tiny sink, scrubbing dried blood and whatever else is staining her forearms that awful color.  

As soon as she’s done, you grab her by the sleeve and tug her into the hallway.

“Talk.”

Robin sighs, long and loud. Tries to stall by running a hand through her hair, only to grimace when it sticks up with dried sweat.

“…Demobats.” She mutters.

 “I’m sorry?”

“Demobats,” she repeats, like that’s a word people just know. “From this place called the… Upside Down.”

You wait. There’s no punchline.

“…You’re serious.”

She nods.

And then it all spills out.

Demobats. Some guy named Vecna. Russians. Underground government labs. Scoops Ahoy, for christ’s sake.

You lose the thread somewhere around “telepathic hive mind overlord.”

But you don’t interrupt. Because Robin may be a lot of things—loud, chaotic, deathly allergic to social cues—but she’s not a liar.

And there’s a half-dead boy on your couch with holes the size of teacups to prove it.

“So,” you say slowly, “that job at the mall…”

“Yeah. Secret Russian lab.”

“And you were tortured?”

 “I mean, mostly Steve?” She winces. “But, uh. Yeah.”

“Jesus christ, Robin.”

“I know,” she groans, dragging both hands down her face. “I know it sounds crazy. I didn’t want to drag you into this, okay? But I thought—he looked bad. Worse than before. And I couldn’t exactly walk into the ER and say ‘Hi, my best friend got eaten by mutant bats from another dimension, please ignore the blood trail.’”

She huffs, blowing hair from her eyes, and squints at you. “You don’t believe me.”

You snort. “No. I do. And I think you should’ve called me sooner.”

“Well, I thought he was fine. He was fine. Until we got in the car and he started slurring his words and, like… blinking wrong. Then I panicked.”

You glance back toward the living room. At the boy who didn’t scream. Curled on your couch, twitching in his sleep like he’s stuck in a loop he can’t wake from.

Robin follows your gaze, voice softening. “Look, I know he’s not exactly your favorite person, but… thank you. Really.”

You roll your eyes. “He was bleeding out, Robs.”

She gives you a look. The kind that says she knows you better than you want her to.

You scowl.

“Go. Shower. You smell like a burnt tire.” A beat. “…You want something to eat?”

Robin doesn’t answer. Just throws her arms around you in the tightest, sweatiest, most Robin hug imaginable. All elbows and bones and bloodstained sleeves.

You stiffen. Then sigh.

“Love you,” she mumbles into your shoulder.

You hold her tight for a second. Then let go.

“You owe me, Buckley. Big time.” …   Robin crashes in your bed, dead to the world in ten seconds flat.

You stay on the couch next to Steve.

Not close. Just close enough. So if he does something stupid like stop breathing, you’ll notice.

You keep a cool cloth on his forehead. Check his pulse every half hour. Whisper a soft “motherfucker” every time he twitches, because if he wakes up and asks if you were worried, you want to be able to say no with a straight face.

You stay up.

Because someone has to. … It’s almost 3 a.m. when he stirs.

Your head snaps up, heart launching into your throat like a flare. Your hand goes automatically to the bucket, the cloth, the mental checklist of emergency procedures you’ve memorized so well they’re practically sewn into your DNA.

But then his lips part.

Just a cracked breath through the dryness, small and quiet and impossibly fragile.

“Don’t… don’t let ‘em go back.”

It’s barely a whisper. It slams into you like a freight train.

You don’t know who ‘they’ are, but you know exactly what he means.

You’ve seen this kind of thing before, too. In the shaking hands of people who left something behind where no one could follow. This is what happens when the body survives, but the rest doesn’t.

And goddammit.

Goddammit, you didn’t want this.

Didn’t want some pretty, broken boy bleeding all over your couch. Didn’t want this guilt. This terrifying protectiveness. The quiet, suffocating weight of whatever this is clamping around your ribs like a trap you walked into willingly. 

Didn’t want Steve fucking Harrington, of all people, to break your heart without saying a single word.

But he looks so young like this. Pale cheeks, sweat-damp hair sticking to his forehead. He’s curled in on himself like he’s bracing for another hit, one hand fisted in your throw pillow.  

Without thinking, you lean forward.

Brush his hair back. Cool his skin with your fingers.

“Steve,” you whisper.

No answer. Just a tiny, broken noise. Almost a whimper, almost nothing.

Your throat tightens.

You reach down, and carefully, gently, pry his fingers free from the cushion. Thread yours through the empty spaces.

His grip grows impossibly tight, fingertips paling where they press between your knuckles.

“You’re okay. You’re safe.”

And slowly—like thawing ice, like a held breath finally let go—he stops shaking.

You stay like that, hand in his, until the sun starts bleeding through the curtains. … Robin once told you that you get off on fixing people. She meant hearts. You meant bones. You’re starting to think maybe she was right. … You wake to yelling.

Not normal yelling—whisper-yelling. The kind of frantic, hushed bickering that’s somehow louder than regular voices.

“…can’t just walk out, Steve!”

“It’s not that bad, just—give me a second—”

There’s the unmistakable rustle of struggling. A pained grunt. The telltale shuffle of someone stumbling sideways, seconds away from faceplanting.

“Oh my god, what is wrong with you?!”

“I’m fine,” Steve grits out, in the exact tone people use right before they pass out on you.

“And where exactly are you gonna go, huh? Enlighten me.”

“Just—I’ll go back and change, and then we’ll—”

“Nope. Absolutely not. You can’t even see straight, Harrington.”

“Yes, I can.”

“Really? Okay. How many fingers?”

“Why do you always do that?”

“Because it works!”

You groan loudly, dragging an arm over your face.

“Do I need to put you two in a time-out? Because I swear to god, I will.”

Instant silence.

When you peel your arm back, Steve’s frozen mid‑escape, one shoe on, looking like a kid caught stealing from the cookie jar. He glances your way, sheepish.

“Hey,” he says, like he didn’t just almost eat your tile. “You’re up.”

“Unfortunately.”

Robin flaps a dramatic hand at him. “Please, please talk some sense into this idiot before I duct tape him to the wall.”

You sit up, and immediately regret every decision you’ve ever made. Your spine crackles like bubble wrap. Your skull is pounding. The entire living room looks like a crime scene: blood-crusted towels, empty gauze packets, that one lonely vodka bottle rolling under the coffee table like a sad tumbleweed.

You squint at Steve. “Sit down.”

“I’m good.”

“You’re not.”

“I just need to—”

“Now, Harrington.”

You don’t raise your voice. You don’t have to. It’s the tone you’ve used on half-conscious college boys insisting they can “totally drive, man.”

Steve blinks. Then sighs, slowly lowering himself onto a kitchen chair.

Robin hovers like a human seatbelt, and he bats her away with a feeble flap of his wrist. Still, he grips the edge of the counter like it’s the only thing keeping him vertical.

You scrub a hand over your face. “Coffee? Or are we all just committing to bad decisions today?” … The coffee is yesterday’s.

Bitter, burnt, practically an oil slick in a mug.

You pour three cups anyway.

Steve drinks it black, which tracks. You clock the way his hands tremble as he brings it to his lips and file it away without comment.

Robin’s already rattling off the story again, filling in details she left out the night before. You get more names now. Places. Dates. Vines that slither like snakes. The gate under Lover’s Lake. You get the part where Steve dove in, headfirst, no hesitation.

Well, you already got that part last night, but Robin’s repeating it, and you’re starting to think maybe it’s not for you this time.

Steve just listens, quiet. Winces at certain beats—jaw tic here, hard blink there—but doesn’t interrupt.

You lean against the counter, sip your bitter sludge, and ask, casual as you can:

“So, you just jumped in. No plan? No backup?”

He shrugs, eyes on his mug. “Didn’t really have time to think about it.”

“Clearly.”     

He looks up at you then. Runs a hand through his still-matted hair, blood-sticky at the roots, and releases a quiet breath.

“Thank you. For last night.”

You raise a brow. “Didn’t really have a choice, Harrington. It was either that or explain to the cops why there’s a dead body on my couch.” 

He huffs a weak laugh.

“By the way,” you add, sipping again, “do your parents know about all this monster-hunting extracurricular bullshit?”

Robin makes a sound like a choked squirrel.

“Oh fuck! My parents! Shitshitshit.”

She’s already halfway out of her chair, tripping over her shoes while she scrambles for her jacket.

“Can you—?” she gasps, eyes wide.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll cover.”

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” She barrels over, grabbing your face and planting a comically loud kiss on your forehead. Then she turns and grabs Steve in the same breath.

Gives his face a little shake.

“If I come back and find out you even thought about sneaking out, I will tell everyone you still sleep with a nightlight. Got it?”

You snort into your mug. Steve glares at her. “Robin—"

“Got it?”

He scrubs a hand through his hair, rolling his eyes. “Whatever.”

She releases him, then points at you. “You’re in charge. Don’t let him do anything heroic.”

“Oh no,” you deadpan. “However shall I bear the weight of such responsibility?”

Robin snorts, slaps your shoulder, then bolts, keys jingling like cowbells as she shoots out the door.

“Wait—” Steve squints after her. “Are you—Robin! You can’t just take my car! You’re not even—”

Slam!

“—licensed.”

You both sit in the silence she leaves behind. Steve stares out the window, listening to the screech of his precious bimmer as it peels down the street.

Then he turns back, eyes flicking to the trauma floor that used to be your living room.  

He clears his throat. “Sorry about your, uh… couch. And the carpet.”

You follow his gaze. The stains are bad, probably permanent. It stings a little, looking at them.

It hurts worse looking at him.

Steve Harrington, bruised and bandaged and slouched in your chair like he’s trying to disappear into the seams. His stupidly wide, puppy-dog eyes look like they’re about to apologizing for breathing your air.

You blink.

Then slowly, slowly, lean forward across the island.

“Harrington.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop apologizing for almost dying. It’s weird.”  

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Lands on a sheepish smile instead.

You hate how it softens his face, how it creases the corners of his eyes.

“And for the record,” you mutter, lips concealed behind the rim of your cup, “you’re not the worst thing to stain that couch, so. You’re fine.”  

He blinks, brow furrowing. “What’s… that supposed to mean?”

You shrug. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

It takes him a second to process it. Then he snorts quietly, eyes flicking to the side.

You take another sip, watching the pink rise in his cheeks as the sun filters in through the window.

And if you’re smiling too—well, he doesn’t have to know. … You try to make pancakes.

Try being the operative word.

There’s flour in your hair, batter on the counter. Somewhere, the smoke alarm is just giggling with anticipation.

Steve’s still in his spot behind the island, watching you glare down a lumpy pile of batter.

It’s distracting.

It’s fucking annoying, is what it is.

Pancakes aren’t hard. Whisking is not rocket science. And yet, it feels impossible with him sitting there, doing that thing with his eyes. All soft and brown and bruised, like you saved his life and now he doesn’t know how to deal with it.   

“How’s it going?” he asks, voice pitched deliberately neutral.

You don’t turn around. “Fine.”

A beat.

“You sure?”

You slam the next pancake into the pan. It looks like something you'd peel off a sidewalk after a hot summer day. You stare at it, furious.

Behind you, there’s the scrape of a chair.

“I said I’m fine,” you warn.

He ignores that.

Limps over to you instead, his gaze finding you like a physical thing. Warm. Curious. You catch him in your periphery as he stops beside you, close enough that the heat from the stove mixes with the heat of his skin. Suddenly, the kitchen feels about fifteen degrees hotter.

“Here,” he murmurs.

Before you can object, his fingers wrap around yours, gentle and coaxing as he eases the spatula from your grip.

Then: flip.

One smooth flick of his wrist. The pancake lands perfect. All golden and fluffy.

You blink at it, betrayed.

“I was handling it.”

“Sure,” he says, lips twitching. “Looked like it.”

He flips another. Doesn’t even look this time.

You narrow your eyes. “Okay. How are you doing that?” 

He shrugs, adjusting the burner dial like he’s lived here his whole life. “Cook for myself a lot.”

You pause. There’s something in the way he says it—off-hand, casual, but quiet enough to leave an echo.

You file that away, too.

“Of course you’re good at pancakes,” you mutter. “Probably make soufflés and like, caviar waffles or some shit.”

“Caviar waffles? That’s a thing?”

“I don’t know. You tell me, rich boy.”

He just snorts quietly at that, eyeing you sideways. “Well, my French toast is pretty solid. Could show you next time, if you want.”

You glance over, arching a brow. “Wow. Is that line always so subtle?”

He meets your gaze, smirk tugging at his split lip.

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

And fuck, it lands.

It lands hard, right in the soft space under your ribs. That warm, twisting feeling that makes your breath hitch and your stomach go stupid.

You turn away before your face can betray you, yanking open a drawer for a fork.

And then, as if the universe decided to throw you a bone, the kitchen landline starts to shriek like it’s being murdered.

You lunge for it like a lifeline.

It’s probably Mrs. Buckley, confirming her daughter crashed at your place, again.

“Hello? …You WHAT?”

Robin groans on the other end. “Yeah. Possibly until college.”

“Robin, you can’t—” You lower your voice, turning away from Steve and cupping the receiver like he’s not standing two feet away. “—you can’t be fucking grounded right now.”

“I know! But my mom saw the blood on my jeans and I totally panicked. I told her it was ketchup. Ketchup, dude. Now she’s got Toby posted outside my room. He’s just sitting there with his Legos, but he will scream if I so much as leave to go to the bathroom. So... yeah. It’s gonna be a while before I can sneak out. Are you… are you okay to stay with him for a bit? He’s trying to pretend he’s fine, but he’s definitely not.”   

You glance back.

Steve’s standing at the stove, peering at his stomach while waiting for the next pancake to bubble. His hand drifts down and starts poking at one of the bandages under his hoodie. Slow and gentle, like it won’t count as touching if he’s polite about it.    

You stretch the phone cord and smack his hand away.

He startles. Blinks at you like, Seriously?

You raise your brows like, Try me.

You sigh into the receiver: “Yeah. I got him.”

“Ugh, you’re the best. Just don’t let him—ohh, crap, I gotta g—"

Click.

Steve doesn’t turn when you pad back into the kitchen.

“She grounded?”

“Yep. Possibly until retirement.” You pause. “You don’t need to call your folks?”

He hesitates, just for a second. Then shakes his head. “They’re out of town.”

Then, with a one-handed spin of the spatula, he flips the pancake onto a plate.

You glance at the growing stack. They look obscene. You’d punch someone for a bite.

In your head, you run through the math.

Ten days. Minimum.

Ten days before the stitches can come out. Before he can walk out of here without ripping something open. Longer if he keeps poking at his bandages like that.

God help you. It’s gonna be a long week. … Breakfast is awkward.

No other word for it.

Steve eats like he’s on a timer. You eat like you’re trying not to notice.

Trying not to notice the way he keeps sneaking glances at you. Little flicks of his eyes over his plate, always quick, always subtle, never quite fast enough.

Trying not to notice the way he winces. Quiet flashes of pain, there and gone, just long enough for that crease to cut across his brow before he smooths it away.

When both your plates are emptied, he clears his throat.

“Hey, do you… you mind if I use your bathroom?” He gestures vaguely to his face. “Just need to clean up a bit.”  

His hair is still matted. There’s soot smeared along his jaw, a faint line of red where the blood’s dried and half-wiped away.

You nod, mid-sip. “Sure. First door on the left. Just don’t get the bandages wet.”

“Got it,” he nods, starts to rise—then stops halfway, jaw flexing tight.

“Actually, uh…” His hand slides to the back of his neck. His eyes shut briefly. “Can you give me a hand with this? I can’t really…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t need to.

The white-knuckle grip on the hem of his hoodie tells you enough.

You blink, setting your mug down, and push your chair back without a word.   

He doesn’t meet your eyes as you reach for the bottom of the hoodie.

The fabric peels up inch by inch, sticking to where the gauze bled through, catching where raw skin clings to cotton. He winces, raising his arms awkwardly, the stitches along his sides clearly pulling. So you move gently, painstakingly slow.

Your knuckles graze his stomach, and—

Jesus.

He’s warm. Muscle corded tight under skin that flushes easily, even with all the bruises blooming across his ribs like bad watercolors.

You get the hoodie off.

His chest is bare.

And now you’re standing close. Way, way too close.

His breath brushes your cheek when he exhales. You glance up, just on pure instinct, and find his eyes already on you.

You both freeze.

There’s a beat where everything narrows. Where sound drops out.  

Your hands hover midair, still clutching the fabric, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin.

Close enough to trace the moles scattered across his chest.   

You don’t.

You look away so fast it nearly gives you whiplash.

“Towels are under the sink," you mumble. "I’ll get you some new clothes.”

Then you take a quick step back. Like distance will save you from whatever the hell that was.

Steve blinks. Once. Twice. Then nods, eyes flicking away. “Thanks.”

He disappears down the hall, barefoot and bruised.

You stand in the silence with his hoodie clenched in your fists, your pulse trying to beat its way out of your throat. … There’s an old joke your friends like to make.

That you’re a sadist.

That you chose the EMT life because you enjoy it. The blood, the pain. The broken bones and the chaos. Things normal people flinch away from.

But in truth, they’ve got it backwards.

You’re not a sadist.

No. What you are is a fucking masochist.

Because there’s no other explanation for why you keep doing this to yourself. Why you let yourself get this close to people you shouldn’t. Why you torture yourself, again and again, with things you know better than to want.

Why you’re standing outside your bathroom door right now, ears tilted, listening to someone who shouldn’t mean anything to you rinse the blood off his skin.

You told yourself you were just finishing the dishes. That the stovetop needed wiping down. That there were chores to do, reasons to move around.

But your feet kept wandering. Back to the hallway. Back to him.

Back to this spot in the hallway, where you can feel the warmth bleeding under the door. Where you can hear the faucet running in short, irregular bursts—on, off, on again.

You picture him hunched over the basin. One hand braced against the counter, the other shaking under the strain of movement. Jaw clenched. Shoulders bowed.

Something twists low in your stomach.

You roll your eyes at yourself—because god, you’re pathetic—and raise a fist.

A light knock.

“You good?”

A pause, then:

“Uh, yeah. Just… hang on.”

There’s a clatter, a quiet shit. Then the door creaks open.

And Steve—

Well.

He’s wet.

And shirtless. And pink.

Flushed from the steam, maybe from embarrassment. Because his hair—The Hair—is half-lathered and sticking up in foamy tufts, like a soggy cat caught mid-bath. A single drop of water slides slow down the hollow of his throat.

Your gaze follows it.

The sweatpants you gave him ride low. Damp at the waistband, pulled snug across his hips in a way you’re absolutely not thinking about.

He gestures toward the sink, sheepish.

“I, uh… can’t really bend right now. Tried to rinse it out, but—” He winces, fingers grazing his sides. “The stitches are kind of a hard no.” 

Your eyes drop, unbidden, to the bruises blooming purple-black across his ribs. The way his chest lifts a little faster when you step closer.

You should walk away. Turn around. Go wipe down the goddamn stove like you told yourself you would.

Instead, you say:

“Sit.” 

He blinks. “…What?”

“On the floor. Back against the tub.”

There’s a pause. His brows draw together like he’s trying to figure out the punchline.  

You don’t blink.

He exhales sharply, jaw flexing. “No, it’s okay, I can—”

“Steve.”

It lands heavy. The weight of it surprises even you.

His first name, in your voice. 

You’ve only said it once before, when he was unconscious, twitching under bloodstained gauze, fists clenched against a nightmare you couldn’t reach.

But now, he hears it. And something inside him goes quiet.

He studies you for a second longer, then sighs, shoulders dropping.

Wordlessly, he lowers himself to the tile.

One hand braced on the edge of the tub, the other on the floor, every movement stiff. His back hits the porcelain with a soft thud.  

You kneel beside him and roll up your sleeves.

“Lean your head back.”

He shifts, uneasy. “Seriously, you don’t have to—”

“I know.” You pick up the cup beside the sink and check the tap, waiting for the water to warm. “Just tilt."

There’s a long pause.

Then he does.

His head tips back against the curve of the tub. With his throat exposed, the worst of the bruising shines a mottled red-black beneath his jaw. His lashes flutter, lips parting just slightly.

The first pass runs slow and gentle down his scalp. He flinches.

“Too hot?”

He blinks, breath shallow. “No. S’fine.”

So you pour again. And again. Slow rivulets trickling through his hair, carrying blood and soap and grime down the drain. His hair start to fall naturally again, dark strands slicking to his forehead. 

It’s just the water at first. Rinsing out grit, loosening stiff knots and matted roots.

Then you lather the shampoo between your palms, and sink your fingers into his hair.

And that’s when it happens.

The shift.

Steve Harrington—king of easy charm, Mr. Everything’s Fine—goes completely still.

Not in a relaxed way. Not in a sleepy way.

No, he goes rigid.

His breath falters. His jaw locks. You can see the muscles in his neck ripple with tension.

And when you sweep a thumb absently behind his ear, chasing a line of foam, he jolts.

A full-body shiver, running shoulder to spine.

You clear your throat, voice catching before you force it steady. “Been a while, huh? Since someone did this for you?”

His response is delayed, a low rasp. “Uh huh. Long time.”

Then, after a beat:

“Used to be my mom’s thing. When I was a kid.”

Your hands still in his hair. He goes stiff the second he says it—jaw clenched, lips pressed tight, hands curling in his lap.

You blink, then resume drawing slow circles over his crown.

“That must’ve been nice,” you say quietly.

He doesn’t answer. Just breathes through his nose and keeps still.

So you keep going.

Rinse. Lather. Repeat.    

And with each pass of your hands, his breathing changes.

His head rests heavier against the porcelain. His lips part around soft, even breaths. His eyes flutter shut.

Then, he leans.

Barely enough to notice. But you feel it, the subtle tilt of his head toward your hands.

Like a plant bending toward light.

You wonder, not for the first time, how long it’s been since someone touched him like this. How long he’s gone without care, without softness.

And maybe that’s why this hurts so much.

Because you’d had him pegged, hadn’t you?

The hair. The charm. Pretty boy, ladies’ man, heartbreaker.

King Steve.

But this? This isn’t him.

This is the After.                                                                                       

The aftermath of Russians and monsters and lakes with no bottoms. The man who throws himself between danger and kids that aren’t his, time and time again. Like he’s got something to prove. Or maybe something to atone for.

The one who apologized for bleeding on your floor.

This is someone who’s forgotten how to be held.

And right now, he’s under your hands. Throat bared. Hair dripping. Leaning into your touch like he’s starved for it.

And that slow, sinking weight in your stomach settles for good. That gut-churn of realization that you barely know anything about the man who nearly bled out on your couch last night.  

You try to swallow the feeling down. Try to keep your focus on softer things: dripping water, steam-soaked light, the silky-smooth slip of his hair between your fingers.

But every time your hands leave him, even for a second, you feel it. The tension in his frame. The hesitation in his breath. Like he’s bracing for it to end.

And each time you return—thumb grazing his temple, palm cradling the back of his neck—he breathes in. Relief, sharp and silent, tucked between the ribs.

You reach for the conditioner next, fingers trembling a little as you work it through. When you tip his head back, he goes easy. Pliant. Trusting.

And then a quiet thought hits you.   

A hunch, really.

You let your fingers drift lower. Past the crown. Down to the nape of his neck. The hair there is softer, damp strands clinging to skin gone tight with tension and bruising.

You trace gently around the worst of it. Avoid the dark, angry lines where something had closed around his throat. 

Strangled. That’s what Robin said.  

You press into the muscle just beneath it, right where the pain likes to live.

Steve shudders. His head lifts from the tub with a breath, caught on something sharp.

But you don’t let up.

You continue pressing in slow, deep circles, growing firmer.

There’s a sound, then. Sharp. Brief. A strangled thing, torn between a groan and a gasp.

He tries to stifle it a second later, clearing his throat.

“Too hard?” you ask quietly.

His voice comes cracked. “N-no. Just—it’s fine. You don’t have to…”

The rest trails off when you move to his shoulders next, thumb kneading into the dense muscle. You’re not a massage therapist, but you know anatomy. You know where pain settles when it’s been left too long. How it tucks itself into the tender parts: the base of the neck, the hollow beneath the collarbone.  

And god, he’s full of it. All the signs. All the tells.

He lets out another shaky breath, lips sealed around a sound he doesn’t let out.

And there, just for a moment, you let yourself look.

At the bruises. The thin cuts just beginning to scab. The water gliding over his collarbone, beading into the curve of his chest.

That thick, molten part of your brain—the masochist, the idiot, the one who says yes when she should absolutely say no—flares hot.

It wants to lean in.

Wants to touch your mouth to his skin, right there, at the slope of his throat.

Just to see if he tastes like lavender and heat. Just to see if he lets you.

To kiss him slow enough to wash the ache from his mouth. Replace every sharp thing he’s swallowed with something soft.

God, you’re losing it.

You drag your thumb again along the base of his neck. His lashes flutter.

Then, from the corner of your eye, you see it—his hands shifting in his lap.

Cross. Adjust.

You glance down without thinking.

And oh.

Oh.

The sweatpants don’t hide much. Not like this. Not with how he’s sitting, loose-limbed and open, the fabric soaked and clinging in ways it wasn’t meant to. They’re pulled taut across the breadth of his thighs, darkened in patches where the water’s seeped through.

And beneath that?

Yeah.

Your breath stutters. Heat rockets up your neck.

You yank your gaze away, fumbling for the faucet and filling another cup. Your hand trembles as you lift it, rinsing out the conditioner.

His hair sticks to his forehead. Without thinking, you smooth it back.

His eyes flutter open.

And the look he gives you…

It’s quiet. Devastating. Tucked somewhere tender and deep, pressed hard against bone.

Softer than longing. Sharper than want.

It's something that aches.

You don’t know what to do with it.

So you just keep your hands in his hair.

And you rinse.   … You rinse long after the conditioner’s gone.

After his breath has evened out and the water’s cooled to a gentle trickle, steam curling around your ankles like fog.

The bathroom smells like lavender and heat and skin that isn’t yours.

When you reach for the towel and bring it up to his head, he leans.

Blot, pat, smooth. The towel’s too soft, your hands too careful. You graze the shell of his ear, the edge of his jaw, feeling the quick flutter of his pulse beneath your thumb.

His eyes are still on you.

“Thanks,” he says, quiet.  

You nod, not trusting your voice.

The steam’s thinning now, but the air still clings.

Too warm. Too full of something unsaid.

His breath brushes your cheek.

You’re too close.

It’s too much.

You could kiss him. 

God help you, you could.

Just one lean forward. That’s all it would take. His mouth is right there—slightly parted, pink and swollen in the middle where he’s been biting down.

And the look on his face isn’t just gratitude. Not just relief.

That’s want.

And worse? It’s yours too. It’s in the pit of your stomach, burning upward. It’s in your hands, your chest, your throat, curling behind your teeth like smoke with nowhere to go.

You pull back abruptly. The towel slips from your hands and lands in his lap with a soft thud.

“Okay,” you say, voice tight. “You’re good.”

Steve blinks, like you just dragged him up from underwater.

His throat bobs. “Cool. Yeah. Thanks.”

You stand too fast. Your knees pop. You don’t look at him when you speak next. “You should lie down for a bit. Keep pressure off the stitches.”

He nods, a little too slow.

You grab the towel again and press it against his chest. Not hard, but firm enough to make a point. Whatever it is.

Then you turn.

And you walk out.

You don’t need to look back to know he’s still watching you go. ... It starts the way summer storms do. 

Not with thunder. Not with rain.

With pressure.

The kind that presses close to the skin, wrapping around like a second layer. That hair-raising, skin-prickling tingle. Right as the birds go quiet and the trees hold still and the sky forgets how to move.

Stillness so absolute your skin buzzes with it.

The moment before it tips. 

It’s here now. In this room.

In the narrow inches of couch cushion between you. In the weight of the blanket tangled over your legs. In the single, unspoken brush of his thigh against yours.

The TV plays to no one. A dull flicker of static and synth beats, some late-afternoon rerun neither of you are really watching. The glow of it pulses dim blue across his skin, the shadows deepening where his jaw tightens every time you move.

The room smells like clean skin and new sweat. Yours. His. Both.

His voice breaks the quiet.

“Hey, how long ‘til the stitches come out again?”

“Ten days.”

“Hm. I like this show.”

“Knight Rider?”

“Yeah. It’s cool.”

“No. It’s dumb.”

“What? C’mon, the car talks.”

“Exactly.” A beat. “How do the stitches feel?”

“Uh, good. Yeah. They’re fine.”

“You hungry?”

“No, you?”

“No.”

And it builds, again. That low, rolling kind of stillness.

Storm pressure.   

It crawls up your spine. Pools hot behind your ears. You fidget with the hem of the blanket, rolling your shoulder back into the cushion like you can shake it loose.

You can’t.

The blanket’s too warm.

He’s too close.

And he’s watching you. You don’t have to look to know.  

“…You’re doing it again.”

“Hm?”

You turn your head. Meet his gaze full-on. “Looking at me like that.”

His lips part. “Like what?”

Your eyes drop to his mouth.

His pinky brushes yours.

And just like that, the storm breaks. … Steve leans in first.

The same way he had in the bathroom, instinctive and unthinking. Like something inside him keeps tipping forward and you’re the only place left to fall.

Only this time, you don’t let him do it alone.

You meet him halfway.

His nose nudges yours. His breath fans hot across your cheek.

And then your lips meet.

A question and an answer, exchanged wordlessly.

There’s no clean edge between want and need, no way to separate gentle from hungry. One second, it’s the cautious warmth of shared breath, the next—

It’s the pull of his hands. The low, wrecked sound he makes in his throat when your fingers slide up his neck, threading into the damp hair at his nape.  

Heat. Ozone. The bright-white zing of electricity rocketing down your spine.

You move forward without thinking. He shifts to catch you, hands spanning your hips, guiding you into his lap. You straddle him, careful to avoid the bruises across his stomach.

His breath is hot. His lips are plush, a little chapped from the way he’s been chewing on them all night.

Wordlessly, you reach for the hem of your shirt, tugging it over your head and letting it fall behind you. Cool air rushes over your skin.

Steve goes still. “God, you’re…” He breathes, throat working around the rest of the words when you take his hand and guide it upwards. Across your stomach, up your ribs. His thumb grazes over your nipple, soft and reverent, and your breath hitches.

You tug him back into a kiss, hips starting to drag across his lap. The hard press of him burns heat through the cotton of your sleep shorts.

“Good?” you breathe against his mouth.  

“Yeah,” he rasps. “Fuck. Yeah. You?”

You nod, catching your breath.

But he doesn’t stop looking at you

And there’s something about the way his gaze lingers—soft, searching—like he’s waiting for more than just an answer to a question. Something he doesn’t know how to say out loud.

But you know.

You just… know.

The same way you knew when your hands were in his hair earlier. That quiet ache. That silent pull in him, desperate and soft.

So you give him what he doesn’t know how to ask for.

Your hand slides up to his chest, pressing over his heart. It’s pounding. So is yours.

“You feel so good, Steve,” you whisper, close enough for him to taste the words off your lips. “You’re so good. So fucking good.”

He shudders, pulling you in tighter, groaning with his lips buried against your neck like he needs to hide the sound somewhere safe.

Still, you don’t stop. 

You reach for his hand and slide it lower, under the waistband of your shorts. His fingers slip through your slick heat and go still.

“Jesus,” he breathes. 

You kiss his temple, then his cheek. Frame his jaw with both hands and lift his gaze to yours.

“Feel that?” you murmur. “That’s for you. All for you.”

He lets out a strangled sound, nearly pained, and surges up to kiss you again. His fingers start to stroke through your heat, finding the rhythm, learning you. When his thumb grazes your clit and starts to circle, you gasp, hips jerking into his touch.

“Shit, baby…” he breathes.   

And that word—

It’s soft. Unconscious. Slipped out before he knew it was there.

You don’t think he even realizes he said it. His eyes are blown wide, focused only on you: the way your hips grind, the way you cling to him when his fingers push deeper.

Still, there’s that tremble in his voice.

Like that word came from somewhere deeper than he meant to reach. Like it cracked off the part of him that’s always waiting to be turned away but still dares to offer softness first.

You roll your hips again, chasing friction, but your focus has shifted now. You’re watching him instead—flushed and open beneath you, mouth parted, eyes locked to your face like you’re something he’s trying to memorize.

And it guts you. The honesty of it.

How easy it is to see now.     

That this is someone who aches for closeness. Reaches for it before he even realizes he’s doing it. Who says baby like it’s the only word he knows for want. 

Your chest grows tight. The heat in your stomach twists into something unbearably tender.

You roll your hips one last time, savoring the drag of him against you, then shift off his lap. His hand slips from your shorts, reluctant, trailing warmth up your stomach.

His eyes follow you as you slide to the floor. Your knees sinking into the carpet, fingers hooking in the waistband of his pants. He lifts his hips and—

You blink. Your mouth goes dry.

Because he’s—

Wow. Okay.

Noted.

It’s not just the size—though, yeah, that’s definitely part of it. It’s the weight of him. The flushed color, the dusky warmth. Velvety skin stretched tight over thick veins. The way he sits heavy against his thigh, curved just slightly, leaking at the tip and twitching under your gaze.

You swallow hard.

“What?” He stirs, uncertain. “Is something…?”

You look up at him, eyes wide.   

“Jesus, Steve…” you breathe. “Just. Holy shit.”

His brows pinch together, concern flickering across his face—until he sees your expression.

And there it is.

That grin. That stupid, boyish, shit-eating grin.

“Oh,” he says, trying to play it off. “Yeah?”

You narrow your eyes, desperately trying to hide your smile. “Don’t get cocky.”

He raises a brow.  

You realize your mistake immediately. Your cheeks flare hot.

He laughs, breathless. Looks down at you all soft and pleased and fond. It makes you want to bite him until he forgets how to smirk entirely. Kiss him stupid and never let him go.

“Shut up,” you mutter.

“Didn’t say anything,” he says, still smiling.

You roll your eyes and yank his pants the rest of the way down.

He quiets instantly.

Because your hands are on him now.

You stroke his thighs first, warming up the sensitive skin there. Pressing soft kisses along the inside, inching higher and higher until he’s twitching under your mouth.

“You’re so pretty like this,” you whisper. “You don’t even know, do you?”

He makes a strangled sound, part laugh, part disbelieving groan. His hands flex where they rest against his thighs.

You reach up and guide one to your hair, eyes still on his.

“You can touch me,” you murmur.      

His fingers curl, tentative. “You sure?”

You nod. “I want you to. Want you to feel this.”

Then, without looking away, you lower your mouth to him.

Slow. Wet. Base to tip, dragging your tongue along the underside. He jerks, whole body going taut.  

“Jesus,” he hisses. “Okay. Okay.”

You take your time. Because no one ever has, it seems. Not like this.  

Your fingers wrap around the base, tongue gliding along the ridge, licking the salt beading at the tip. Every twitch, every shudder, every wrecked baby whispered from above becomes something you file away silently, cataloguing the way he unravels.

And Steve unravels beautifully.

You glance up through your lashes, watching the way his stomach trembles, how his throat works. All the control he’s trying so hard to hold on to.

Then finally, you wrap your lips around him.

Just the head at first, sucking slow and sweet. You circle your tongue around the crown and let out a soft hum.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “Baby, your mouth—shit—”

His voice keeps catching like he doesn’t quite believe it. You get the sense he hasn’t been cherished in this way, either. Adored. Worshipped.

So you double down.

You ease off for a breath, kissing the flushed tip, thumb gliding over the sensitive skin there. Then you sink deeper, lips sliding lower, jaw loosening, tongue tracing the underside as you stretch around the thickest part of him.  

You keep going until he’s pressed up against your palate, brushing the back of your throat. You breathe into it. Let the weight of him sit there, hot and thick and yours.

“Shit, shit—” he pants. “I’m not—not gonna last if you keep—"

You pull off with a soft pop, lips slick and swollen. A line of spit follows you from the flushed head of his cock.

“It’s okay,” you smile, breath warm against his skin. “Don’t have to. Just want you to feel good.”

He stares down at you, cheeks flushed, eyes glassy.

Then, suddenly, breathless and earnest:

“Wait, can I—can I get you off first?” 

You pause, stunned.  

You blink up at him, hand still wrapped around the base of his cock. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” he says, quick and pleading. He cups your jaw, stroking your cheek. “Please. Let me?”

You hold his gaze a moment longer, drowning in that quiet, unspoken vulnerability he carries, one you’re learning to name without words.

Then, finally, you nod.

“Okay.”

You crawl back into his lap, shorts discarded somewhere behind you, it doesn’t matter where.

What matters is the way his hands settle on you again, calloused palms sliding around your hips, drawing you closer. You feel the thick heat of him pressed between your thighs, sticky and flushed and aching.

You roll your hips teasingly, gliding against him before reaching down to line him up. The head of his cock nudges, presses, catches. Then slowly, inch by inch, you sink down.

The stretch is immediate. Hot and all-consuming. You clutch at his shoulders, mouth falling open as you let your weight sink deeper, not pausing until he’s fully seated.

Your thighs tremble where you straddle him.

Steve groans low, one arm tight around your waist, the other gripping your hip.

“Shit, are you—?”

“I’m okay,” you breathe, laughing softly into his skin. “Just… gimme a sec. You’re kind of a lot, Harrington.”  

He kisses you, rubbing circles into your back while you adjust. The burn softens. The fullness remains.

And when you start to move—lifting your hips, rolling them back down—you feel him everywhere.

“God,” you pant, “you feel so good.”

You kiss his jaw, his throat, burying whispers between breaths.

“Can feel you so deep—fuck—”  

The rhythm builds slowly. Wide circles, deep grinds, savoring the way his cock hits just right.

And the more you give him—You feel so good, Fucking me so well, Low how you feel inside me—he melts a little more beneath you.

“Shit, right there—” you gasp, hips stuttering when his hand slides between your bodies, pressing into your clit.

“Come for me,” he whispers, voice rough. “Please. Want to feel you.”

His fingers circle faster.  

And your body breaks.

You cry out, nails digging into his shoulders, every muscle clenched and trembling as the orgasm crashes through you. You collapse against his chest, shaking, gasping his name, everything hot and white and so much.     

He holds you through it, breathing hard against your temple.

“That’s it,” he pants. “That’s it, baby, I’ve got you—fuck—”

You’re still trembling in his lap when you feel him thrust up into you once, twice. He pulls out with a sudden gasp, groaning your name, spilling hot and thick across your stomach, shuddering with the force of it.

You kiss him through the haze of your own come-down, legs still trembling, fingers tangled in the sweat-damp hair at his nape.

“Just like that,” you whisper. “You’re perfect like this, Steve. So good.”

His breath stutters against your cheek. His body, still pulsing with aftershocks, presses into yours like he can’t stand the space between.

And even after the world goes still, after the stuttered breaths give way to silence and the hum of the TV creeps back in, you keep touching him. Stroking his hair, brushing sweat from his brow, pressing soft, open-mouthed kisses anywhere your mouth can reach.

And in the hush that follows, you murmur things you’ve never said aloud. Not to anyone.

Things too raw for daylight.

Things meant only for him. … You never ask him to stay.

Not when he wakes beside you the next morning, bare-chested, sleep-warm, hair sticking up in a dozen directions. Not when he wanders into your kitchen wearing nothing but rumpled boxers, whisking eggs for French toast like it’s an inside joke you’ve shared forever.

Not when you start leaving the sugar bowl out because that’s how he takes his coffee: one teaspoon, no milk. Not when you slip a second toothbrush into the cup by the sink, bristles leaning together like they’ve been kissing too.  

He never asks. You never offer. … You learn the little things first.

That he hums when he cooks, usually something dumb from the radio, sometimes dumber jingles from the worst commercials. That he wipes down your counters when he thinks you’re not looking. That he folds your laundry better than you do, big hands careful with worn-out cotton and delicate lace. It gets to you, the way he touches your things like they matter.

And sometimes, you catch him staring again.

Only now, you don’t look away.  

You’ll be across the room, pretending to read, eyes dragging over the same sentence for the fifth time because you can feel his gaze on you. He’ll be leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed, wearing that stupid smug expression he pulls when he knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Seriously, Harrington,” you mutter, eyes on the page. “Take a picture.”

He doesn’t blink. “I’m good. Like this view better."

You roll your eyes and throw a sock at his face. He catches it one-handed, smug.

Then he moves.

Three steps. That’s all it takes.

Three steps until your back’s against the mattress, his weight pressing you down, mouth dragging hot across your collarbone. His hands sneak under your shirt, warm palms sliding up your ribs. His lips chase yours like it’s a promise he’s been dying to keep.

“You’re annoying,” you whisper, breath hitching as he nips at your neck.

He grins into your skin. “Yeah? You gonna kick me out, then?”

You don’t.

You kind of never do. … The days bleed together after that.  

A quick stop at his house to grab spare clothes turns into a silent pause in front of his dresser. His fingers hover over a framed photo: faces you don’t know, smiles frozen mid-laugh.

He doesn’t explain. You don’t ask. You just wait by the door until he turns and threads his fingers through yours.

He doesn’t let go the whole ride back.

A grocery run on day three turns into a dumb argument in the pasta aisle. You’re ranting about canned tomatoes; he’s trailing behind you like a sulking toddler, forearms slung across the cart handle, sneaking cookies into the basket when you’re not looking.

You scowl at checkout. He grins.

“You’re gonna thank me later,” he says.

You do.

First with a mouthful of chocolate and a grudging laugh.

Then again, ten minutes later, when your 'thank-you's come in the shape of his name and a fistful of his hair between your thighs. … Eventually, the domestic stops feeling borrowed.

It starts to feel owned.  

You vacuum, he sweeps. You cook, he washes up. He steals bites of dinner while it’s still sizzling and you smack him with a spatula, pretending to be mad.

He says, “Ow,” even when it doesn’t hurt. You say, “Asshole,” even when it’s not true.

On the fourth night, you both sit cross-legged on the living room floor, scrubbing blood out of the couch cushions with baking soda and half-assed prayers.

He’s watching you. Again.   

You glance up. "What?"

He shrugs, smiling a little. “Nothing.”

“Steve.”

“I just…” He hesitates. Looks down. “I like this.”

You raise a brow. “Cleaning your blood out of my furniture?”

He shuffles forward, bringing his cushion closer to yours.

“Yeah,” he says.

But it’s not what he means.

You both know that. … The sex changes, too.

In the mornings, it’s quiet. Slow. All languid stretches and sleep-warm skin, coaxing sighs from your lips as the sun peeks through the blinds.

But at night? He’s something else entirely.

He fucks you like he needs it to survive. Like you’re his last breath. Gripping your thighs, your hips—holding you open, holding you still, driving into you like he’s trying to memorize the shape of you forever.

And as the bruises fade, so does his hesitation. 

He knows you now.

Knows what makes you beg, what makes you break. Where to bite, where to suck, where to press until your voice is raw and your nails leave crescent moons down his spine.

One night, he pins your wrists above your head, breath ragged.

“Say it,” he murmurs, grinding deep. “Tell me who makes you feel like this.”

You break on his name.

He swallows the sound with his mouth and doesn’t stop until your thighs are shaking.

And afterward, he stays.

Inside you. Around you.

He never pulls away first. … Not all nights are easy.

Some nights, you wake alone.

You find him in the kitchen, framed by the glow of the open fridge. The light catches the tired slope of his shoulders, the untouched glass of water going warm in his hand.    

You don’t ask. Just step in behind him, press your cheek between his shoulder blades, and wrap your arms tight around his waist.

He breathes out. Sets the glass down. Closes the fridge.

When he turns, he doesn’t speak. Just lets you hold him.

Lets you guide him back to bed. … Your mornings are different now.  

You wake in shirts that smell like him. Brush your teeth while he showers, fog curling across the mirror. He laughs at something stupid from behind the curtain, and you laugh back, still half-asleep.

It all happens so slowly you almost miss it.

The toothbrush that isn’t yours. The second pillow with its permanent dent. The pair of shoes you stop tripping over by the door because you’ve learned to walk around them.

He’s etched himself into your life in the smallest of ways. Fit through the cracks with warm hands and boyish grins and quiet looks in the daylight.

Like maybe he was meant to be here all along. … Somewhere between day seven and eight, you stop keeping count. 

Because every morning, you tell yourself he’ll probably leave soon.

And every night, he gives you another reason to believe he won’t. … Like tonight.

You’re wrapped around each other, skin still damp with heat, covers shoved somewhere near the foot of the bed. His hand rests on your back, fingers splayed. Yours curls against his chest, cheek pressed to the slow, steady rhythm behind his ribs.

It would be so easy to stay here.

To let the quiet stretch. To pretend the heaviness in your chest is just exhaustion, not the weight you've been carrying since the night you dragged his bleeding body across your living room. Since you sat awake beside him, watching every shallow breath, waiting for the next one to come.

But the question’s been sitting on your chest for days now. And with the weight of him beside you, it presses too hard to ignore.

“Why’d you do it?”

He doesn’t answer right away, and you wonder if he’s already fallen asleep. But then his chest rises under your cheek—a careful, deliberate breath.

“…Do what?”  

“The lake,” you murmur. “You jumped in first. Why?”

He’s quiet for a beat too long. You glance up to find the tight underside of his jaw, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“I don’t know,” he sighs, dragging a hand through his hair. “Someone had to go. And I was the best swimmer, so. Didn’t really have to think about it.”

And you believe him. It’s the part that hurts the most.

That he didn’t have to think. That throwing himself in came as naturally as breathing.

Because somewhere along the way, Steve Harrington decided that his pain was worth less than everyone else's.

You shift closer, hooking your chin on his shoulder. His thumb draws slow, thoughtful circles against your spine.

“Steve,” you say quietly. “You know it’s not about being a hero, right? You don’t have to keep throwing yourself in front of everything just to prove yourself.”

His hand stills.

“I’m not.”  

“Not what?”

“A hero. I’m not.” He lets out a bitter huff, eyes looking at something past the ceiling. “I was… just kind of a selfish asshole for a long time. Didn’t care about much. Or anyone. And even after I tried to fix it, it just—it never felt like enough. Still doesn’t.”

You watch him, the weight of his words like pressing down on a bruise.

“So what, you jump into lakes now to make up for it?”

He almost smiles. “Kinda. Yeah.”

Then, quieter:

“I don’t know, it’s like, if I’m not the one stepping up, then… what’s the point, you know? What the hell am I even good for?”

Your heart aches. Because god, how long has he carried that? How many times has he thrown himself in just to keep from drowning?

You see it then, the fracture that runs through him. Spiderwebbed across everything he is, everything he was. A wound so old it’s fused to him. Clotted over, never cleaned.  

The weight he carries isn’t something he puts on; it’s something that grew with him.

Years of being told he wasn’t enough. Not smart enough. Not serious enough. Just the boy with the car, the smile, the house too big for how small it made him feel. 

That kind of doubt doesn’t heal. It burrows deep.

Sinks its teeth in. Festers.   

Until guilt turns into remorse,

Remorse turns into habit,

And habit drags on as penance.

So he made himself useful.

Built his worth out of protection. Of stepping up, stepping in, taking the hit before anyone else could.

Diving first. Bleeding first.

Hurt first. Hurt worst. Hurt instead.

That’s where his value lives. Not in being loved, but in being needed.

You lift yourself up until you're eye to eye, cupping his face, thumbs brushing the tops of his cheeks.  

“You’re for you, Steve.” 

He blinks, brows knitting.

“You don’t have to earn it. Being loved. Being cared for. That’s not something you have to prove.”

His eyes search yours, like he’s trying to make sense of the words.

Then, slowly, his shoulders ease. He cups the back of your neck, drawing you in. His exhale against your lips sounds like a weight being untethered.

You stay like that for a while, breathing together, fingers laced at his chest.

Eventually, he sleeps.

You don’t.

You stay awake, tracing the lines of his face in the dark. The peace that sleep gives him. The stillness that never lasts.   

You watch as his brow smooths. As his lips part. As his lashes flutter once, then settle into stillness.

You stay up.  

Because someone has to. … You get used to the quiet.

Used to Steve padding around the house in socks, humming half a tune under his breath.

To the way he opens every cupboard before finding the cereal that’s been in the same spot for days.

To the way he claims half your couch, half your bed, half your toothpaste.

You get used to someone else’s heartbeat in your space.

So when the knocking starts—three sharp raps that rattle the wood—it takes you both by surprise.

Steve’s already halfway to the door when you follow, tugging your sweatshirt over your head.

You’ve barely turned the knob before the door bursts open.

“Guess who’s officially un-grounded and here to collect her idiot boy? Oh, and look—I brought backup!”

Robin barrels in first, followed by two figures: a curly-haired kid drowning in a bright yellow baseball cap, and behind him, a taller shape in black denim and leather. Eddie Munson, wearing that same smug grin you remember vaguely from high school.

You’ve heard about them, of course—Steve’s strange little apocalypse crew—but hearing about it is one thing, seeing it is another.

“He’s alive!” Robin crows, flinging her arms around Steve.

“Took you long enough,” he mutters into her shoulder.

“Uh, excuse me. Your fault,” she shoots back, jabbing a finger in his chest. “Grounded, remember?” Then she turns to you, eyes sharp with curiosity. “So? How much trouble was he?”   

You glance over at Steve. He’s already looking back, mouth tugging at the corner like he’s daring you to say something first. There’s a kaleidoscope of memory that flashes between you in the space of a blink.

You look back at Robin and shrug, casual as ever. “Not much. He folds my laundry now.”

Robin gasps. Eddie lets out a low whistle.

“Well, shit,” he drawls. “Steve Harrington, domesticated. Didn’t think I’d live to see the day.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You guys are hilarious.”

But his ears are pink by the time you close the door. …

After a round of burnt grilled cheeses, the kitchen’s a mess of crumbs and chatter.

Robin perches on a stool, slurping tomato soup straight from the pot. Eddie’s straddling a chair backwards, drumming on the counter. Dustin paces, orchestrating what sounds like a full-scale military operation using a butter knife and a salt shaker. 

“—I’m saying if we shift the rendezvous point closer to the treeline, we can cut our response time in half. Minimum.”

Steve leans against the fridge, nodding like he’s catching every third word.

You’re at the sink, rinsing dishes, the voices behind you fading into a comfortable hum—until Dustin steps in beside you, tone low and careful.

“So… he’s okay to come back now, right?

You glance over your shoulder.

Steve’s got his shirt hiked up for Robin and Eddie to see, scars catching the kitchen light—pale and raised, still tender from where you pulled out the last stitch two days ago. Robin wrinkles her nose, groaning about how she's lost her appetite.

You turn back to Dustin. “I mean, no fever, no infection. Doesn’t seem to be actively dying. So yeah, I’d say he’s good.”

Dustin beams. “Awesome.”

You hesitate. Then, before you can stop yourself:

“Actually… I was thinking I could come with you guys this time.”

The room goes still.

Robin lowers her spoon. Eddie looks up. Even the sink seems to hush.

Steve’s voice breaks the quiet.

“No.”

You turn, incredulous. “Excuse me?”

“No way,” he says, pushing off the fridge, crossing the kitchen with that particular brand of determined worry you’ve come to recognize. “You’re not going.”

You blink at him like, Seriously?

He raises his brows like, Try me. 

You sigh, turning off the water. “I wouldn’t be going in. Just close enough to help. You know, in case someone ends up bleeding to death again?” You shoot him a pointed look.

He ignores it, jaw working like he’s gearing up to argue again. But Dustin cuts in.

“Wait, that’s actually kind of genius,” he mutters thoughtfully. “You could be our medic. Like—Eddie, dude, she could be like our cleric!”

You frown. “Our what now?”

“D&D thing,” Eddie smirks. “Healing spells. Keeps the rest of us idiots alive.”

You laugh softly. “Sure. Okay. Cleric.”

But Steve isn’t laughing.

“Wait, just—hang on,” he steps forward, catching your wrist. “Can I talk to you for a second?” … The hallway is narrow and dim, lit only by the slant of light spilling in from the kitchen.

You lean against the wall, arms crossed, watching him pace three slow steps before stopping, running both hands through his hair.      

He doesn’t look at you. Doesn’t speak.

You wait.

Finally, quietly: “You can’t come with us.”

You narrow your eyes. “You’re not the boss of me.”

“I mean it.” His voice is low. Firm. But it’s not angry. Not that sharp, flinty tone you remember from high school, when he used to wield confidence like armor. No, this is something else.

Fear.

You tilt your head, voice softening. “Steve…”

He exhales through his nose, more of a tremor than a breath. “You heard what it’s like down there. You saw what happened last time.”

“I did. That’s why I’ve decided to go.”

His eyes snap to yours, incredulous. “And you didn’t think to talk to me about it before?”

“Why? So you could freak out and tell me no?”

“I’m not—” He cuts himself off, jaw flexing. “I just can’t ask you to risk that. It’s not fair.”

“You’re not asking,” you say quietly. “I’m offering.” 

For a moment, neither of you moves. He stares at you like he’s searching for something—some argument, some loophole that’ll make you stay here while he walks back into hell. Like if he keep fighting back, maybe he won’t have to admit what this really is.

But when he speaks, his voice isn’t tense anymore. It just trembles.  

“I can’t—I can’t lose you in there. You get that? I can’t. I just…” His eyes flicker away, toward the shadowed doorway behind you. He swallows hard.

“...I just got you.”

The quiet stretches. You gaze at him, heart heavy.

His shoulders are tense when you reach for his hand. His fingers twitch in yours, like he’s ready to pull away—but he doesn’t. He never does.

“Steve,” you start gently. “I know you’re scared. I am too. But I can’t just sit here and wait while you...” you take a breath, squeezing his hand. “If there’s a chance I can help, I’m taking it.”   

He looks down at your joined hands, your fingers laced tight. His thumb drags slow, absent circles against your skin—once, twice, like he’s trying to memorize the feel of it. The fight drains out of him with a sigh that sounds too big for his chest.

He steps forward wordlessly, and pulls you into his arms. His chin drops to the top of your head. You press your cheek to his chest, feeling the wild rhythm of his heart start to slow.

“Fine,” he murmurs. “But you’re staying up here. Radio only. And you’re not going anywhere near the gate, you hear me?”

You smile into his shirt. “Deal.” … It’s almost 3 p.m. when he stirs.

The sunlight’s lazy this time of day, all thick and golden, caught in the slow spin of dust motes above the coffee table. The air smells like coffee and the lavender candle you lit this morning. You’re curled sideways on the couch, a book open but long forgotten on your chest.

“Jesus,” comes a voice beside you, rough with sleep. “How long was I out?”

You smile, already watching. “Couple hours.”  

He squints at the light. “You let me nap that long?”

“You needed it.”

Steve rolls up from where he was buried in the couch, a soft pillow line stamped across his cheek. His hair’s flattened on one side and sticking up in the back. You reach out and comb your fingers through the mess. It fluffs up worse for it, but he sighs and leans into your hand anyway.

He trades the throw pillow for your stomach, draping a heavy arm across your waist. You rest your palm on his shoulder, thumb tracing the ridge of his collarbone.

The house hums around you: the low buzz of the fridge, the steady tick of the clock, the soft creak of settling wood. It’s a silence that no longer feels hollow.

You let it breathe.  

It’s been three weeks.

Three weeks since you stood on the other side of a collapsing gate, heart in your throat, waiting for their silhouettes to break through the mist. 

Three weeks since the air finally stilled, the ground stopped shaking, and the last portal sealed itself shut behind Eddie, behind Robin, behind all of them.

Three weeks since you checked every pulse, cleaned every wound, counted every head, and realized, miraculously, that no one was missing.

That everyone made it out. Alive. Together.

Three weeks since Steve stumbled out of the wreckage and into your arms and didn’t let go.

The bruises have faded since then. The stitches dissolved. The nightmares are fewer now, further between.   

And Steve hasn’t left. Not once.

You're not sure when it stopped being temporary. When duffel bags became dresser drawers, when his shaving cream started living on your bathroom counter, next to the ceramic dish that holds your rings. When the dent in your couch, the dip in your pillow, stopped feeling like borrowed space and started feeling like home.

He still has his edges, the instinct to fix, to shield, to throw himself in front of the next disaster before it happens. But you’ve learned how to slow him down. To be the hand that pulls him back before he burns himself out.

And he’s learning to let you.

You’re halfway lost in that thought when he pokes your side.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “You okay?”

You hum. “Just thinking.”

“Uh oh,” he teases, voice still scratchy with sleep.

You smile, ruffling his hair. He groans and nips playfully at your stomach. When your laughter settles, you say it, quietly:

“I was just… thinking about what you said.”

He stills, blinking up at you. “Yeah? What’d I say now?”

“At the gate.”

That’s all you have to say. You both remember.

The roar, the smoke, the sting of blood and dirt. The ground giving out beneath you when he finally made it out—only to tell you he had to go back. One last time. To help the others out. To step into the jaws of a place that wanted to claim him for good.

I know! I know! Just—I need to tell you something. No, I know, just listen—

You remember the chaos closing in, the sky fractured by fire and screaming metal, and his hands—steady, impossibly steady—as he caught your face. His voice cracking on the words:

I love you. I need you to know that, okay? I love you.

You stare at the book laying on your chest, swallowing hard. “I never said it back.”

Steve looks at you for a long moment.

Then, softly: “Yeah, you did.”

“When?”

He smiles, tracing a quiet pattern along your waist.

“Not out loud. But you did.”

You think back.

To the tremor in your hands as you let his fingers slip away. The hitch in your breath when the walkie crackled with his voice. To how tightly you held on when he staggered out with the others, bruised and shaking and breathing, and realized you could finally breathe too.

Every heartbeat since has felt like a promise.

Maybe words would’ve failed then. Maybe he heard it in all the ways you refused to let go.

Your fingers find his jaw.

“Still,” you whisper. “I want to say it now.”

He tilts his head, waiting.

And you do.

Softly, firmly, the words falling easy like they’d been waiting inside you all along.

And when he says it back, you feel it in your chest long before you hear it. … The house is still too small. The front door still sticks when it rains. The couch still carries the faint stain from that first night.

But it’s home.

More than it ever was. More than it ever could’ve been without him.

The proof is everywhere: his Ray-Bans next to your keys, a battered boombox on your plant windowsill, the Polaroid Robin took where he’s smiling at you instead of the camera.

Some nights still weigh heavy on him. When even rest won’t stay kind.

But on those nights, he finds you. He always will.

And somewhere between the grocery runs and movie marathons, between loud songs in the kitchen and quiet kisses before bed, it stopped feeling like borrowed time.

It’s just time, now.

Yours.

Together. … Robin once told you that you get off on fixing people.

She meant hearts. You meant bones.

Maybe she was right.  

But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

You've named it something else now, anyway. …

epilogue

You stretch, set the book aside, and head for the kitchen.

You’ve got prep to do for night.

Steve moves in behind you, hair still rumpled, sleeves pushed to his elbows. He leans his hip against the counter, flipping through the Player’s Handbook Dustin left last week, brow furrowed like he’s cramming for a test.

“I swear,” he mutters, squinting, “you need a math degree to play this game.”

You laugh, laying a neat row of apple slices beside a bowl of pretzel sticks and M&Ms—fuel for the chaos to come. “You’ll live.”

“Not if Eddie's dragon eats me.”

“Well, maybe you should listen to your cleric tonight, then.”

He grins, stealing a slice from the tray, then slides closer until he’s flush against you. His hips trap you against the counter, chest warm against your back. He leans into the crook of your neck, lips grazing your ear.

“You know it's kinda hot when you boss me around, right?”

Before you can roll your eyes, he catches you by the hips and spins you around, grin breaking wide and easy. You love how it softens his face, how it creases the corners of his eyes.

Soon, the party will be here—arms full of sodas, dice clattering in boxes, voices overlapping in familiar chaos. The house will fill with laughter, with the easy rhythm of shared lives.

But for now, it’s just him.

Rumpled hair. Soft smile. Apple-sweet kisses and the honey-gold hush of afternoon light. And the sun keeps pouring in.   

[fromellewithlove]

OH! ooooh! I get it; you hate me and wanted me to cry? cool. cool cool cool. (/j) this is so good i wanna lick it

[honeyoru]

resonance (steve harrington x superpower! reader) masterlist

There wasn't much going for you in life.

School. Training at the lab. Top-secret, nausea-inducing missions. Homework. Typical teenager shit.

A wayward visit from an inter-dimensional stalker shakes things up and changes everything. He catapults you back in time to the 1980s and you, the top pupil of Hawkins Lab, find yourself out of your element in a town you don't recognize anymore.

ongoing!

☆masterlist☆

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[fromellewithlove]

i'm not usually a time-travel type girlie but, i've gotta say, i've thoroughly enjoyed this!!

[tearsof-scarlet]

 For Your Own Good

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader

Synopsis: Tutoring Steve Harrington was supposed to be simple. It wasn’t supposed to involve late nights, soft confessions, or his protectiveness turning sharp when Billy Hargrove starts paying you the wrong kind of attention. Tags: angst with a happy ending, Steve Harrington character study, protective Steve Harrington, Billy Hargrove unwanted attention, tutoring AU, hurt/comfort, mutual pining, emotional intimacy, jealousy, self-sacrifice,

Warnings: canon-typical violence, harassment, physical assault, blood/injury, emotional distress

Words: ~24k

Detention smelled like old pencil shavings, floor polish, and the faint, tragic sweetness of someone’s contraband bubblegum.

You sat near the front because you always sat near the front. It wasn’t some noble commitment to education so much as it was a commitment to being left alone. The back of the classroom was loud, chairs scraping, whispers turning into laughs, the occasional thwack of a paper football. The front was quieter, safer. Predictable.

Mr. Hargreaves, History teacher, moustache like a warning sign, stood at the chalkboard with the kind of posture that said he’d seen every brand of teenage nonsense and had decided, years ago, to hate it all equally.

Behind you, the back row was a full-time circus.

Steve Harrington’s voice was the easiest to pick out. It wasn’t the loudest, exactly, but it carried like he was used to rooms tilting toward him. He had that effortless, lazy confidence that made people listen even when he wasn’t saying anything worth listening to.

“Dude,” Tommy H. whispered, too loud to qualify as whispering, “you think Hargreaves can smell fear?”

Steve snorted. “Yeah, and your fear smells like Aqua Net and regret.”

A couple of boys laughed. One of the girls, one of the ones who always had a fresh lip gloss and a fresh opinion, giggled like Steve had handed her something personally.

You kept your eyes on your notebook. Not that you were taking notes. It was detention, not class. But giving your hands something to do was easier than giving them away to nerves.

Your only real interaction with Steve Harrington to date had been… well.

Not interaction, exactly. More like… accidents.

Like the time you’d looked up from your locker and caught him watching you from across the hallway, leaning against the trophy case with a basketball under his arm like he’d been born glued to it. His eyes had met yours, hazel and bright and a little too sharp, and you’d broken the contact immediately, heat rising up your neck like you’d been caught doing something wrong.

Or the time in class when you’d turned a page and found him looking at you over his shoulder, chin propped on his palm like he was bored by the entire concept of the world. You’d blinked, and he’d smirked, as if the eye contact was a joke you didn’t understand. You’d stared resolutely at the textbook until your eyes went dry.

It wasn’t that you were shy, exactly. You could speak up when you needed to. You could tell off a boy who thought “quiet” meant “weak.” You could stand between a kid and a bully without your knees giving out.

But Steve Harrington was… Steve Harrington.

He wasn't just popular; he was a gravitational anomaly. His presence didn’t just draw attention—it warped the very social fabric of a room, bending conversations, glances, and intentions toward him like light around a star. People like you didn't orbit celestial bodies like that. You stayed in your own quiet, predictable lane, on your own sensible path, where the gravity was weaker but the footing was sure.

Mr. Hargreaves, a man whose patience had been weathered thin by decades of adolescent indifference, slapped a dog-eared attendance sheet onto his desk with a sound like a gunshot. “All right,” he announced, his voice a dry monotone that cut through the low buzz of whispered conversations. “Since some of you have mistaken detention for a social hour, we’re going to be productive. Shockingly.”

A synchronized groan of protest rolled through the back row, a chorus of discontent.

“Mr. Harrington,” Hargreaves said, not even bothering to look up from his paperwork.

The legs of Steve’s chair gave a protesting squeak as he shifted. “Yeah?” His tone was all easygoing recognition, as if he’d been called upon to settle a bet, not reprimanded.

“You can start,” the teacher continued, finally lifting his gaze, “by not speaking unless spoken to.”

A ripple of muted snickers traveled through the room. Steve’s own laugh was a low, warm rumble, utterly unbothered, as if he’d just been paid a charming compliment. “Sorry,” he said, the word dripping with a performative remorse that suggested he was anything but. “I’ll try. It’s a medical condition, honestly. Terminal charisma. The doctors are baffled.”

Mr. Hargreaves finally looked up fully. His eyes, magnified behind thick glasses, landed on Steve with the dull, heavy pressure of a thumb pressing down on an insect. “Your medical condition can write me a two-page reflection on the importance of respecting classroom environments. Single-spaced.”

Steve leaned back in his chair, the picture of relaxed insolence, stretching his arms behind his head as if detention were a beachside lounge chair. “Two pages? Wow. You’re really worried about my emotional development, huh. That’s… touching.”

“Three pages,” Mr. Hargreaves corrected instantly, his voice devoid of all humor.

The class erupted in a collective, drawn-out ‘Ooooh’ of vicarious schadenfreude.

Steve placed a hand over his heart, his expression one of wounded nobility. “Cruel and unusual punishment. You know, I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. I might have to call my lawyer.”

“And yet,” Hargreaves said, turning back to his desk, “here we are.”

He picked up a precarious stack of worksheets and tapped them sharply against the wood, aligning them into a punishingly neat pile. “Now. Since we’re already in the business of consequences, I’m going to address another pressing issue.” His gaze, flat and assessing, swept the room. It lingered for a discomfiting second on various faces, and your stomach tightened involuntarily. You hated being looked at in groups, it felt like being drafted into a team you never tried out for, suddenly responsible for the collective reputation of ‘students.’

“Midterms are in three weeks,” Mr. Hargreaves declared, as if announcing a plague. “Some of you are doing fine. Some of you are… decidedly not.” His eyes flicked like a whip toward the back row once more. “And because I would like to avoid the soul-crushing monotony of summer school paperwork, I’m implementing a peer tutoring system.”

The groans this time were louder, a symphony of despair.

“Tutoring?” someone muttered, the word soaked in disgust.

Steve’s voice, smooth and carrying, floated forward like a perfectly folded paper airplane. “This feels like communism, sir. Sharing the wealth of knowledge and all that. Very collectivist.”

“Sit up, Harrington.”

Steve made an exaggerated, slow-motion show of straightening his spine, his movements fluid with mocking precision. “Yes, sir. Posture is the foundation of learning, sir.”

Mr. Hargreaves ignored him, plowing onward. “I have a list. High-performing students will be paired with those who are struggling. This is not optional. This is not a debate. This is me choosing peace for myself in June. You are welcome.”

You held your breath, though you weren't sure why. You were, unfortunately and undeniably, a high-performing student. It wasn't a badge you wore with pride; it was a quiet, persistent fact of your existence, like your eye color or your heartbeat. Work diligently, get good grades, go home. It was a system designed to keep your life manageable, your future predictable. You could already feel the subtle ripple in the room, the collective shift of eyes darting toward the known academic achievers, as if they had just been declared communal property.

Mr. Hargreaves lifted a sheet of paper and began reading names in his dry, administrative drone.

“Karen Richards, you’re with Mark Ellison.”

A boy near the middle of the room slumped dramatically in his seat, as if sentenced to hard labor.

“Diane Cooper, Jeff Williams.”

Somebody in the back muttered, “Good luck, Jeff,” and was instantly shushed by a neighbor.

He read a few more pairs. The reactions were a spectrum of human resignation: some looked vaguely smug, some utterly defeated, some simply wished for the floor to open up and end their misery.

You kept your face a careful, neutral mask, but your fingers tightened around your pen, leaving slight indents in your skin.

Then—

“__________…”

Your heart performed a clumsy, sideways stutter in your chest.

The teacher paused, adjusting his glasses as he found the matching name. “…Steve Harrington.”

For one full, suspended second, the room went utterly quiet. It was the kind of silence that is thick with stunned potential, the silence that precedes an eruption, when something is so perfectly, ironically funny that everyone is collectively deciding if they’re allowed to laugh.

Then the dam broke.

Laughter burst out, sharp and uncontained, bouncing off the cinderblock walls. It wasn't malicious, necessarily; it was the sound of cosmic irony being acknowledged at top volume.

Steve turned in his seat immediately, the motion fluid and attention-commanding. He craned his neck, his eyes scanning the rows until they landed squarely on you. You felt the weight of his gaze like a physical spotlight, hot and inescapable, even before you reluctantly looked up from the safe harbor of your notebook.

You forced yourself to meet his eyes. It was a tactical error.

Steve Harrington’s expression was a masterclass in controlled reaction. Amusement and genuine surprise blended seamlessly, lifting his brows and curving his mouth. It was the look of a king who has just been handed an intriguing, unexpected puzzle, a gift he hadn’t known to ask for, but was immediately pleased to receive. His lips tilted into a slow, spreading grin that seemed to hold a private joke meant just for the two of you.

You stared back, your own face deliberately flat, a fortress of neutrality. You refused, absolutely refused, to give him the satisfaction of seeing you flustered. You would not blush, you would not smile nervously, you would not look away.

His grin only widened, the spark in his eyes intensifying. Your silent defiance wasn't a rebuff; it was entertainment. A challenge. It made the whole situation more interesting.

Mr. Hargreaves slammed a meaty hand on his desk. “Enough! If you have something to say, say it quietly or write it down. In your three-page reflection, Harrington.”

Steve’s grin didn’t falter. He turned back around with a leisurely, unhurried confidence that spoke of a lifetime never spent worrying about whether he was liked. He simply was, and the world adjusted accordingly.

You looked back down at the clean, blue lines of your notebook, your vision momentarily swimming. You concentrated on the steady, silent mantra in your mind, pretending with every fiber of your being that your pulse wasn't hammering a wild, dramatic rhythm against your ribs.

Great. The word echoed in your skull, bleak and flat. Just… phenomenally, spectacularly great.

The rest of detention limped by, a slow, excruciating punishment measured not in minutes but in the agonizing, audible ticks of the wall clock above Mr. Hargreaves’ desk. Each tick was a tiny hammer on the silence, each tock a confirmation of your sentence. The room hummed with low, whispered commentary, a current of gossip you couldn't quite tune out. You heard your name, now permanently twinned with his, passed between classmates like a piece of contraband candy, sweet, scandalous, and meant to be savored. A voice, sharp and acidic, cut through the haze behind you: “Harrington’s gonna flirt his way to a B, easy.” Another, laced with a grudging admiration, answered, “Man can flirt his way to whatever he wants. That’s his whole thing.”

You didn’t turn. You didn’t flinch. You kept your eyes fixed on a random chip in the laminate of your desk, your posture rigid. Your job wasn’t to react. Your job was to be invisible until the clock ran out.

When the bell finally, mercifully, released its shrill cry and Mr. Hargreaves dismissed everyone with a weary, defeated wave, you moved with a speed born of pure self-preservation. You gathered your notebooks and pens in a frantic, silent flurry, shoving them into your bag, hoping to dissolve into the hallway’s chaotic stream before the inevitable could happen.

“Hey.”

His voice. Not from across the room, but close. Beside you. It was a low, warm sound that seemed to bypass your ears and vibrate directly in your chest.

You froze, your fingers stalling on the zipper of your bag. Slowly, as if moving through syrup, you turned.

Steve Harrington had somehow transformed the mundane act of loitering in a classroom doorway into a deliberate, effortless composition. He leaned one shoulder against the frame, his body a study in casual angles. His hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his faded jeans, and his letterman jacket hung open, the rich red leather a stark contrast to the drab beige of the walls. He looked like he’d been placed there by a director, a perfect, living snapshot of charismatic nonchalance. There was a faint, bruise-colored shadow beneath his left eye, not dramatic, but enough to sand away a layer of his polished perfection, making him look less like an icon and more like a person who might walk into a door or take an errant elbow during gym. It made him real, and that was somehow more disarming.

He smiled at you, a slow, knowing curve of his lips that suggested you were both participants in a delightful, shared secret.

You did not smile back. Not out of intentional rudeness, but out of a profound mistrust of your own facial expressions. Your face had a history of betraying you, of flushing at inopportune moments, of eyes widening with unguarded surprise. You kept it carefully, painfully neutral.

“What?” you asked, aiming for a tone of detached curiosity and landing somewhere near flat annoyance.

Steve’s brows lifted a fraction, a flicker of genuine surprise, or perhaps appreciation, that you hadn’t immediately softened under his gaze. “We’re, uh…” He gestured lazily with his chin toward the crumpled paper still clutched in Mr. Hargreaves’ hand. “Apparently a team now. Academically speaking.”

“I heard,” you said, the words clipped and final.

He laughed, a soft, breathy sound. “Okay. Ouch.”

You blinked. “What?”

“That was cold,” he clarified, his grin tilting into something crooked, almost self-deprecating. “I’m Steve, by the way. In case you’ve been living under a very quiet, studious rock.”

You knew his name. The entire ecosystem of Hawkins High knew his name. It was a fundamental fact, like the location of the gym or the taste of cafeteria pizza. But you refused to grant him the satisfaction of the acknowledgment.

“I know who you are,” you stated, turning back to your bag to give your hands a purpose. “We’re in the same class. Have been for two years.”

He made a dramatic, wounded face, pressing a hand to his chest. “Wow. So you have noticed me. I’m flattered. Truly.”

You stared at him, your gaze level and unimpressed. “Is this… how you talk to everyone?”

Steve’s eyes, a warm, intelligent brown, crinkled at the corners. “Depends,” he said, as if considering a complex equation.

“On what?”

“On whether they look like they’re about to throw a textbook at my head.”

“I’m not about to throw a textbook,” you said, finally swinging your bag onto your shoulder. The weight was a comfort. “I’m just trying to leave.”

“Right.” He pushed off the doorframe with a graceful, unhurried motion, stepping aside and sweeping a hand out in a mock-gallant gesture, as if opening a stage curtain for the leading lady. “After you.”

You hesitated for a fraction of a second, a silent war between pride and prudence, before walking past him. The air in the doorway seemed charged, buzzing with his proximity. To your mild horror, he fell into step beside you as you entered the hallway, matching your pace with an easy, infuriating familiarity. It felt less like an invitation and more like an annexation, as if he’d decided your personal space was now communal property.

He was too good at this. At taking up space without asking.

“That pairing,” Steve announced, as if continuing a conversation you’d been having, “is a mistake. Just so we’re clear.”

You glanced at him from the corner of your eye. “Why? Because you’re above needing help?”

“No,” he said quickly, then seemed to catch himself, his expression shifting into one of careless amusement. He shrugged, the movement emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders under the leather jacket. “I mean—yeah, sure. Because I’m perfect and brilliant and definitely not failing Mr. Hargreaves’ history class. Obviously.”

The sheer, bald-faced audacity of his lie, delivered with such cheerful conviction, was almost impressive. Against your will, the corner of your mouth twitched. It was a tiny, treacherous movement, a mere ghost of a smile, but you fought it down, clenching your jaw.

Steve noticed. Of course he did. His eyes brightened instantly, like a hunter spotting movement in the brush. A spark of pure, triumphant delight flashed within them.

“I’m serious,” you said, clearing your throat to erase any trace of amusement. The sound was too loud in the emptying hall. “If you don’t show up to our sessions, I’m going to tell Mr. Hargreaves. Immediately.”

Steve placed a hand over his heart again, his expression one of profound betrayal. “You’d narc on me? To Hargreaves? That’s cold-blooded.”

“It’s not ‘narcing,’” you corrected, your voice firm. “It’s reporting a failure to participate in a mandatory academic program. It’s consequences.”

“God,” he sighed, the sound long-suffering and theatrical. “You say that like a grown-up. With a briefcase and everything.”

“I am a grown-up,” you retorted, then instantly wished you could snatch the words back from the air. They sounded childish even to your own ears.

Steve’s grin widened, a predator sensing weakness. “You’re a grown-up?” he repeated, his voice dripping with mock awe. “In high school? Wow. That’s… a rare specimen. Should I be calling you ‘ma’am’?”

You stopped at your locker, a sanctuary of cold, painted metal. He stopped too, leaning his shoulder against the locker next to yours as if he had a standing reservation there. The hallway around you was draining of life, the sounds of slamming lockers and retreating footsteps growing fainter, leaving you in a bubble of unsettling quiet.

You spun your combination lock with practiced, furious speed, a code you could do in your sleep.

Steve watched your hands.

Not in a way that felt intrusive or creepy, but with a focused, open curiosity. It was as if he’d never seen someone open a locker before and found the mundane ritual fascinating. As if by observing the small, ordinary mechanics of your life, the twist of your wrist, the click of the lock, the way you neatly arranged your books, he could decipher the larger, more complicated puzzle of you.

It made your skin feel hyper-sensitive, as if every nerve ending was standing at attention.

“So,” Steve said, breaking the silence you were desperately trying to cultivate, “when do we embark on this… noble academic journey?”

You opened your locker door, using it as a shield between you. “When are you free?”

Steve blinked, as if the question itself was a novelty. “Me? I’m always free.” He said it like it was a point of pride, a testament to his desirable social flexibility.

You turned your head slowly to look at him over the edge of the locker door. “That’s not something to brag about, Harrington. It suggests a profound lack of commitment.”

He barked a laugh, sharp and surprised. “Okay. Fair. That’s… a solid point.”

You grabbed the strap of your bag and slammed your locker shut with more force than necessary. The metallic bang was satisfyingly final. “I’m free after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In the library.”

Steve’s expression flickered. For a split second, the mask of easygoing charm slipped. His eyes darted away, his brow furrowing just slightly. It was a look of rapid, internal calculation, not about his schedule, but about what it meant to have this obligation, this structure, imposed upon a life that was famously unstructured. It was the brief, vulnerable glimpse of a boy realizing he might have to show up, physically and mentally, for something he couldn’t charm his way through.

Then, as quickly as it appeared, the crack was sealed over. He smoothed his features back into an approximation of his usual grin.

“Tuesdays and Thursdays,” he repeated, nodding as if confirming a business meeting. “Cool. Cool, cool. I can do that. I can be… scholarly. I have the posture for it.” He straightened up, affecting a comically rigid, intellectual pose.

“Great,” you said, already starting to walk away. “Library. Four o’clock. Bring your textbook. And a pen. That can write.”

Steve made a face like you’d just asked him to bring a live, venomous snake. “Textbook. Right. Totally. The big green one with the… depressing pictures.”

You were walking, and he was following again, his longer strides easily keeping pace with your determined, faster ones.

“Do I have to bring anything else?” he asked, his tone light, teasing. “Like… an apple? For you? Teachers love apples. It’s a known thing.”

“I’m not your teacher,” you said, not breaking stride.

“Yeah,” he agreed, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur beside you, “but you’re gonna be telling me what to do, right? That’s kind of the same thing.”

You stopped so abruptly your bag swung forward on your shoulder. Turning to face him, you crossed your arms over your chest. “I’m going to help you understand the material. You are going to do the work. There’s a difference.”

Steve held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, but his eyes were still laughing. “Okay, okay. Relax. I’m just saying, this is kind of a power dynamic. You have the knowledge. I have the… charming personality. It’s a partnership.”

You stared at him, your face a masterpiece of deadpan delivery.

Steve stared back, his grin still firmly in place, but his eyes had changed. They were no longer just amused; they were searching, scanning your face for a crack, a clue, a way in.

And it struck you then, sharp and sudden as a paper cut: he was performing. Not just for you, but for himself. The jokes, the charm, the exaggerated nonchalance, it was a deflector shield. If he kept everything light, kept everything a game, he wouldn’t have to admit, even to himself, that he might be nervous. That he might be in over his head. You’d seen that behavior before, in people who were scared of being seen as vulnerable. You’d just never seen it crafted so skillfully, worn so comfortably, by Steve Harrington.

“You don’t have to make jokes,” you said, your voice quieter now, losing its defensive edge.

His grin faltered, just a millimeter. A flicker of uncertainty in the brown depths of his eyes. “I’m not making jokes.”

“Yes,” you said softly, holding his gaze. “You are.”

He recovered with a shrug, but the motion was stiffer now, less fluid. The performance was becoming work. “It’s what I do,” he said, a simple statement of fact that felt, for the first time, like a confession.

“And why do you do it?” you asked. The question was out before you could censor it, born of a curiosity that had now sharpened into something more pointed.

Steve’s eyes sharpened, the playful light in them hardening into something more alert, more guarded. It was the look of someone who’d just felt another person step onto a private, well-trodden path. His mouth opened, undoubtedly to fire back another quip, another deflection, and then he hesitated.

There it was again. That tiny, revealing crack in the foundation.

You knew you shouldn’t have pushed. You didn’t know him. This wasn’t your business. But something about the dissonance, the arrogant posture clashing with that fleeting glimpse of the boy working the levers behind the curtain, had hooked you. It made him… curiously human.

Steve exhaled a long, controlled breath through his nose, then leaned back against the lockers again, crossing his arms loosely over his chest. It was a pose meant to reclaim territory, to re-establish cool. “You always interrogate your tutoring clients?” he asked, his tone aiming for lightness but landing somewhere closer to wary.

“Only when they’re being deliberately distracting,” you said.

Steve’s eyebrows lifted. “Distracting,” he repeated, as if tasting the word.

“Mm-hmm.”

He smiled again, but this one was different. It was slower. More thoughtful. Less an automatic reflex and more a conscious choice.

He tilted his head, the movement considering, and studied you with an open, unabashed curiosity that had entirely replaced the lazy confidence he’d been wearing all afternoon. It was as if he’d decided the charming barrage hadn’t worked, and now he was switching tactics to simple, direct observation.

“So,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, almost intimate rumble in the quiet hallway. A small, challenging smile played on his lips. “Is this the part where you tell me I’m doing everything wrong?”

The question carried just enough challenge to make your spine straighten. His voice was smooth, casual—but his eyes weren’t joking. They stayed on you, steady, like he was bracing for something.

Then you met his eyes.

“No,” you said evenly. “This is the part where you decide whether you’re actually going to try.”

For a heartbeat, Steve looked caught off guard.

The grin that followed was slower, brighter, like you’d just nudged him into a game he hadn’t realised he wanted to play.

“Wow,” he said. “Direct. I respect that.”

He spread his hands, easy and open, the picture of confidence. “I try plenty. I just… prefer to do it my own way.”

“Your own way isn’t working,” you said, not unkindly.

Something flickered across his face—too quick to be a full expression. Not anger. Not offence. More like recognition.

You shifted your bag higher on your shoulder. “Tuesday. Four o’clock. Library.”

Steve nodded, but his attention lingered like he hadn’t quite moved on yet.

“Tuesday,” he echoed.

You took a step away.

“Hey.”

You stopped, not turning around right away. “Yeah?”

The hallway had emptied almost completely. When you finally looked back, Steve’s posture had changed. He still looked like Steve Harrington, confident, charming, infuriatingly put-together, but there was something more careful in his eyes now, like he was choosing his words instead of tossing them out.

“Don’t,” he said, then paused, exhaling softly. “Don’t go easy on me.”

It wasn’t delivered with a grin. There was no joke hiding behind it. Just honesty, bare and a little exposed.

You studied him for a second, then nodded once. “I won’t.”

The relief that crossed his face was subtle, but it was there. He watched you like your answer mattered more than he wanted it to.

You turned and walked away before the moment could stretch into something fragile.

And when you glanced back, just once, you saw him still leaning against the lockers, gaze fixed on the space you’d left behind, brow faintly furrowed.

By the third tutoring session, Steve Harrington stopped pretending he didn’t care.

He still acted like he didn’t—leaning back in his chair, tapping his pencil against the table, sighing dramatically whenever you asked him to actually read something—but the effort underneath it all was unmistakable.

You noticed because you noticed things.

The library became your first routine. Tuesdays and Thursdays, four o’clock sharp. You always arrived early, spreading your notes out neatly, lining up your pens by colour because it helped you think. Steve arrived late the first time—five minutes, then ten—but by the second week, he started showing up on time. Not early. Never early. But on time, hair still damp from a rushed shower, jacket half-zipped like he’d thrown it on mid-stride.

“Wow,” he said one afternoon, dropping into the chair across from you. “You always this organised, or are you trying to intimidate me?”

You didn’t look up from your notes. “If my handwriting intimidates you, we have bigger problems.”

He laughed, a warm, easy sound that carried a little too far in the quiet library. The librarian shot him a warning look over her glasses.

Steve leaned closer to you, lowering his voice theatrically. “See? You’re already getting me in trouble.”

You slid his textbook toward him. “Page eighty-six.”

He stared at it like it might bite. “You know, I’ve been thinking.”

That alone made you glance up.

“Dangerous, I know,” he added quickly. “But I think my brain just… doesn’t like history.”

“That’s not how brains work,” you said.

“Mine does.” He tapped his temple. “Selective listening.”

You raised an eyebrow. He grinned, unbothered.

“Read,” you said.

He groaned, but he did it. Slowly. Haltingly. He stumbled over dates and names, but when you corrected him, he repeated them back, careful this time. You caught the way his shoulders tensed whenever he got something wrong, and the way he relaxed when you nodded instead of sighing.

He pretended not to notice your reactions.

You pretended not to notice his effort.

After the library came empty classrooms. When the weather turned colder and the library started closing earlier, you commandeered a spare room down the hall from the science wing. It smelled faintly of chalk dust and disinfectant, and the windows rattled when the wind picked up.

Steve liked it better there.

“No judgemental librarians,” he said, spinning a chair backward and straddling it like he belonged in the space. “Feels more… authentic.”

“You mean louder,” you said.

“Exactly.”

He still joked constantly. Still found ways to lean too close when he asked questions, to stretch his legs into your space like he was testing boundaries. You didn’t clock it as flirting—just Steve being Steve. You chalked it up to his inability to sit still, to the way he filled rooms without trying.

But you noticed other things.

Like how he started bringing the right notebook without being reminded. How he underlined things you’d mentioned before. How he stopped rolling his eyes when you corrected him—and started nodding instead, jaw set in concentration.

One day the suggestion came out of Steve’s mouth like it hadn’t been rehearsed.

“Okay, hear me out.”

You glanced up from your notes, pen hovering mid-word. “That sentence never leads anywhere good.”

Steve leaned back in his chair, balancing on two legs like he trusted the floor more than he should’ve. “I’m just saying. The library closes early today. And that classroom smells like someone’s been microwaving regret in there.”

“That’s science wing,” you said. “It’s supposed to smell like that.”

He grimaced. “Yeah, well. My brain doesn’t work under chemical warfare.”

You rolled your eyes, but you were already packing up your notebook. “Then we’ll meet earlier tomorrow.”

“Or,” Steve said quickly, dropping the chair legs back to the floor with a soft thud, “we could just… go somewhere else.”

You paused. “Where?”

He shrugged, too casual. “My place is a disaster. Like, medically concerning. So that’s out.”

You waited.

Steve shifted in his seat, eyes darting briefly to the window, then back to you. “What about yours?”

The question hung there, light but deliberate.

You frowned slightly. “My parents are out late.”

“That’s… fine,” he said quickly, then added, “I mean, if that’s fine. Totally fine if it’s not. I’m not trying to, you know, invade your personal sanctuary or whatever.”

You studied him for a second. He looked oddly earnest, like he was trying very hard not to mess something up.

“It’s quiet,” you said slowly. “And small.”

Steve brightened. “Perfect. I thrive in small, quiet environments.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Okay,” he admitted. “But I want to thrive.”

You sighed, already resigned. “Fine. But we’re actually studying.”

“Absolutely.” He held up two fingers. “Scout’s honour.”

You didn’t believe him. But you grabbed your bag anyway.

Your house was dark when you unlocked the door, the kind of quiet that settled in once everyone else had left for the evening. You flicked on the hall light and kicked your shoes off by the mat.

“Whoa,” Steve said softly, stepping inside like the place might echo. “This is… nice.”

“It’s just a house,” you said, locking the door behind him.

“Yeah, but.” He shrugged, lowering his voice instinctively. “It feels… calm.”

You led him toward the kitchen, the warm overhead light spilling across the worn wooden table. You set your bag down in its usual place, books following, pen placed neatly on top like a marker.

Steve didn’t follow right away.

You glanced back to find him hovering in the hallway, suddenly very aware of himself. His eyes drifted over the closed doors, the framed photos on the walls, the quiet hum of a lived-in home. Family photos on the fridge. A mug drying by the sink. The faint, comforting smell of dinner lingering in the air.

“Hey,” you said. “You coming?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said quickly, tearing his gaze away. Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he tilted his head, lips twitching. “So, uh… do I get the full tour, or is that a second-date privilege?”

You paused. “There is no date.”

“Right, right,” he said easily. “Strictly academic.” He gestured vaguely down the hall. “Still. Just curious. Like, purely hypothetical, are we talking secret rock band poster phase? Or aggressively neat bedroom?”

You stared at him.

His grin widened. “Because if there’s embarrassing childhood decor, I feel like that’s important information.”

“No,” you said flatly. “You are not peeking into my room.”

Steve immediately raised his hands. “Whoa. Okay. Boundary respected. I wasn’t gonna peek peek.”

“That sounded exactly like peeking.”

“I was thinking more like… accidental glimpse,” he said. “I trip, door’s open—boom. Knowledge.”

You didn’t move. Didn’t smile.

He laughed under his breath and shook his head. “Kidding. I’m kidding. Mostly.”

“Kitchen,” you said, turning away. “Now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, mock-serious as he finally followed you. “Wow. Invite a guy into your home and immediately start bossing him around.”

You pulled out a chair. “Sit.”

He did, still smiling, but quieter now, like the joke had served its purpose and could be put away.

The kitchen felt smaller with him in it. More personal. Steve took it all in without comment, like he was suddenly aware he’d crossed into something private.

“This is… really you,” he said after a moment.

You glanced at him. “It’s a kitchen.”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “But still.”

You slid his textbook across the table. “Same chapter.”

He eyed it. “You’re ruthless.”

“I warned you.”

He flipped the book open, then looked up again. “Your parents really cool with this?”

“With studying?” you asked.

“With me,” he said, gesturing vaguely at himself. “I have a reputation.”

You met his gaze evenly. “So do I.”

That caught him off guard.

For a second, the grin faded, not completely, but enough to reveal something real underneath. Then it returned, gentler.

“Okay,” he said. “Fair.”

For a while, it was just pages turning and pencil scratching. Steve fidgeted, tapping his foot against the table leg, humming under his breath until you shot him a look and he zipped his lips theatrically.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Habit.”

“You don’t have to whisper,” you said.

“Feels like I should.”

At one point, he leaned closer to look at your notes, his arm brushing yours. You stiffened instinctively, not from fear, just awareness.

“Sorry,” he said immediately, pulling back. “Too close?”

“It’s fine,” you said, even though your heartbeat had kicked up a notch.

He nodded, like he was filing that information away.

After a while, he pushed his book aside and stretched, arms lifting over his head. “Okay. I officially hate the Founding Fathers.”

“They hate you too,” you said.

He laughed, loud and unguarded, then winced and glanced toward the hallway. “Right. Quiet house.”

You smiled despite yourself.

“Hey,” Steve said suddenly, more serious. “Thanks. For this. I know you didn’t have to.”

You looked at him sitting at your kitchen table, elbows resting where your family ate dinner every night, hair falling into his eyes like he hadn’t bothered to fix it this time.

“It’s just studying,” you said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “But still.”

The house hummed softly around you, refrigerator clicking on and off, the clock ticking above the sink.

“You know,” he said, clearing his throat, “I thought this was gonna be weird.”

“And?” you asked.

“And it’s not,” he said. “It’s just… nice.”

You nodded. You’d been thinking the same thing.

“Okay,” you said, tapping the table lightly. “Back to work.”

He groaned but picked up his pencil. “You’re really not going easy on me.”

You met his eyes. “I told you I wouldn’t.”

He smiled, small, genuine, and bent back over the page.

And if he stayed a little longer than necessary that night, if he lingered in the doorway when it was time to leave, neither of you said anything about it.

The house didn’t seem to mind.

And neither did he.

He was different here, less performative. Still funny, still charming, but quieter. More present. He joked under his breath instead of projecting to an audience. When he laughed, it was softer, like he wasn’t expecting anyone else to hear.

And then there were the moments you weren’t supposed to see.

The first time was in the hallway outside the classroom. You’d forgotten your notebook and gone back to grab it, only to find Steve crouched down in front of a freshman whose locker had jammed.

“Okay, no, don’t yank it,” Steve said, calm but firm. “You’re just gonna make it mad.”

The kid looked on the verge of tears. “I’m gonna be late.”

“You’re fine.” Steve twisted the handle gently, then gave it a sharp tap with his palm. The locker popped open. “See? Easy.”

The kid stared at him like he’d just witnessed magic. “Thanks.”

Steve ruffled his hair without thinking. “Yeah, yeah. Go.”

When Steve straightened and saw you watching, he froze for half a second.

Then he smirked. “What? Community service hours.”

You didn’t say anything. You just smiled, small and genuine.

The smirk faltered.

Another time, one of his friends—Tommy, you thought—made a crude comment about a girl passing by. You were close enough to hear it, close enough to see Steve’s reaction.

He didn’t laugh.

Instead, he said, “Dude. Knock it off.”

Tommy scoffed. “Relax.”

“I’m serious,” Steve said, voice sharper now. “It’s not funny.”

Tommy rolled his eyes and walked off.

Steve noticed you again then, standing a few feet away with your books clutched to your chest. He shrugged like it hadn’t mattered.

“Guy’s an idiot,” he said lightly.

You nodded. You remembered.

Steve covered these moments with humour like it was instinct. Like kindness embarrassed him more than cruelty ever had. Whenever you looked at him too long, like you might be piecing something together, he cracked a joke. Whenever you thanked him, he waved it off.

“You’re gonna make me sound like a saint,” he said once, when you thanked him for walking you to your car after a late session.

“I said thank you,” you replied. “Not ‘I worship you.’”

“Slippery slope,” he said. “First it’s gratitude, next thing you know, I’m babysitting the entire town.”

You frowned. “Babysitting?”

He grimaced like he’d said something accidentally. “Just—forget it. Long story.”

You didn’t push. You just stored it away.

Because that was how you cared. Quietly. By noticing. By remembering.

And Steve, whether he realised it or not, started watching you the same way.

Not openly. Not boldly. But in the pauses. In the way his eyes flicked to you when he got something right, like he was checking your reaction. In the way he straightened when you praised him, like your approval weighed more than his friends’ laughter.

One afternoon, you corrected a date he’d written down wrong.

“Actually,” you said gently, tapping the page, “it’s 1776, not 1786.”

Steve stared at the paper. Then at you.

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah. That makes more sense.”

He erased it carefully and rewrote the number, slower this time.

When he looked up, you were still watching, not judging, just attentive.

Something in his expression shifted. Not big. Not dramatic. Just… thoughtful.

“Hey,” he said, quieter than usual.

“Yes?”

“Do you—” He stopped, then shook his head with a laugh. “Never mind.”

You waited anyway.

He glanced at you again, then away. “You’re really good at this.”

“Tutoring?”

“No,” he said. “Not making people feel stupid.”

The words landed heavier than he’d intended. You could tell by the way he swallowed after.

You softened your voice without thinking. “You’re not stupid.”

He scoffed. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” you said. “You just learn differently.”

Steve studied you like he was trying to decide whether to believe that.

Then he smiled, small, unguarded, gone too quickly.

“Yeah,” he said. “Guess I do.”

When you packed up that day, he lingered, pretending to fiddle with his notebook while you slid your pens back into place.

“Hey,” he said casually. “Same time Thursday?”

“Yes,” you said.

“Cool. Cool.” He slung his bag over his shoulder, then paused. “Thanks. For, uh. Not giving up on me.”

You looked at him, really looked at him, and realised something quietly important.

Steve Harrington was trying.

And he didn’t even know how much that mattered to you yet.

You watched him walk away down the hallway, joking loudly with a passing friend, the mask sliding back into place like muscle memory.

The first thing you noticed was the car.

It cut into the student parking lot like a challenge, engine loud, music spilling out with the confidence of someone who expected to be watched. Heads turned automatically. Conversations dipped, then picked back up in whispers as the Camaro rolled to a stop.

You slowed only long enough to register the driver’s door opening.

Billy Hargrove stepped out like the world was already his.

Tall. Broad shoulders. A faded denim jacket thrown over a sleeveless shirt despite the chill, collar tugged up like the weather was something that happened to other people. Dark hair perfectly messy in a way that felt practiced rather than accidental. He paused by the car, scanning the lot slowly, deliberately, like he was deciding what belonged to him and what didn’t.

A group of girls near the curb started whispering immediately. A couple of guys straightened, suddenly aware of their posture. Someone behind you muttered, “Who the hell is that?”

You didn’t stop. New kids showed up all the time. Loud ones, quiet ones, kids who lasted a week before Hawkins swallowed them whole and moved on.

Billy didn’t look like someone who got swallowed.

You pushed through the school doors and let the noise of the hallway take over. Lockers slammed. Shoes squeaked. The smell of cheap cologne and cafeteria food hung heavy in the air. You found your locker, spun the combination, and focused on the familiar click-click-click, grounding, reliable.

Then the hallway shifted.

Not dramatically. Subtly. Like a current passing through a crowd.

People stepped aside without being asked.

You glanced up just in time to see Billy walking down the hall like he’d been there for years. His gaze flicked from face to face with lazy interest. A couple of teachers watched him with immediate suspicion. He didn’t care.

He stopped near the trophy case, said something to a group of guys, Tommy, among them, that made them laugh a little too eagerly.

You turned back to your locker. Not your circus. Not your—

“Hey.”

The voice was closer than it should’ve been.

You shut your locker harder than necessary.

The metal clang echoed down the hallway, sharp and final. You kept your eyes forward, expression carefully neutral, refusing to give him the satisfaction of catching you off guard.

It worked.

Billy noticed anyway.

He stepped into your space like he’d already decided this conversation was happening. Not rushed. Not hesitant. Just one smooth, confident movement.

“Afternoon,” he said, voice low and lazy.

You turned only enough to acknowledge him, nothing more. “I’m busy.”

Billy smiled like that was exactly the answer he’d hoped for. He took one step closer, just one, but it was enough to make the air feel smaller, heavier. The scent of cigarettes clung to him, sharp and stale beneath whatever cologne he’d layered on top.

“Maybe I do,” he said.

Your jaw tightened.

“Then you should find someone else,” you replied evenly.

Billy’s eyes dragged over you again, slower this time, like he was waiting for you to flinch. You didn’t. You met his gaze just long enough to make it clear you weren’t impressed, then shifted your bag strap higher on your shoulder.

That seemed to amuse him more than anything else.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

You hesitated, not out of fear, but because you didn’t owe him anything. The hallway had gone quieter around you, people pretending not to listen while absolutely listening.

You gave him only your first name.

Billy repeated it like he was tasting it. “Pretty.”

You didn’t respond.

The silence stretched. Uncomfortable. Intentional.

Billy chuckled under his breath. “I like that,” he said. “Most people don’t make me work this hard.”

“That’s not my problem,” you said.

His smile sharpened. “We’ll see.”

You stepped around him before he could block you, brushing past with deliberate confidence. He didn’t stop you. He didn’t need to.

You could feel his attention cling anyway, heavy, lingering, like a hand at your wrist even after you’d pulled away.

And as you walked down the hall, spine straight and expression calm, you had the unsettling sense that Billy Hargrove didn’t see resistance as a warning.

He saw it as an invitation.

You ducked into the girls’ bathroom two minutes later, more irritated than rattled. The door swung shut behind you with a hollow thud, muffling the noise of the hallway. You exhaled, leaning briefly against the counter as you ran cold water over your hands.

Stupid. You hadn’t done anything wrong.

“__________.”

You startled, spinning toward the door.

Steve Harrington stood just inside the bathroom, one hand braced against the doorframe like he’d followed you in without thinking and only realised where he was once he’d already crossed the line. His hair was a mess like he’d dragged a hand through it too many times. His expression was tight—jaw clenched, eyes sharp with something dangerously close to panic.

“What were you doing with him?” he demanded.

Your irritation flared instantly.

“What?” you snapped. “Excuse me?”

Steve took a step closer, lowering his voice. “Billy. What was that?”

“I was existing,” you said flatly. “He came up to me.”

Steve scoffed, running a hand through his hair. “He doesn’t just come up to people.”

“And yet,” you said, gesturing between you, “here we are.”

Steve stopped short, chest rising as he tried to rein himself in. “You shouldn’t talk to him.”

The words hit wrong. Too sharp. Too familiar.

“And you don’t get to tell me that,” you shot back.

“I’m serious,” he said, stepping closer again. “There’s something—he’s not—he’s bad news.”

You crossed your arms. “Then say that. Don’t corner me in a bathroom and act like I did something wrong.”

Steve’s mouth opened, then shut again. You could see it, the conflict, the frustration, the words he wasn’t saying stacking up behind his eyes.

“I’m trying to keep you safe,” he said finally.

Your chest tightened. Not with gratitude. With anger.

“By deciding for me?” you asked quietly. “By not trusting me enough to explain?”

Steve’s shoulders sagged just a fraction, like the fight drained out of him all at once. “You don’t understand.”

“Then help me understand,” you said. “Because right now it feels like you’re mad at me instead of him.”

Silence settled between you, heavy and unresolved.

Steve looked away first.

“Just… stay away from him,” he muttered. “Please.”

The please almost softened you. Almost.

You stepped past him, opening the bathroom door. “I don’t like being talked to like I’m stupid,” you said over your shoulder. “Especially not by you.”

The door swung shut between you.

Steve stayed where he was, staring at it like he’d just lost something important, and hadn’t realised how easily that could happen.

By lunchtime, the rumours had already started.

You were halfway through eating when a folded flyer slid onto the table in front of you.

You looked up to find Carol standing there, perfectly lip-glossed and already bored. She dropped another flyer onto the table beside you, then another onto the table behind you.

“House party,” she said, like it explained everything. “Harrington’s place. Friday.”

You glanced down at the paper. Someone had taken the time to draw flames around the words HARRINGTON HOUSE in aggressive marker.

“No parents,” Carol added. “Obviously.”

She drifted away before you could answer.

You stared at the flyer for a moment longer than necessary, then folded it in half and slid it into your bag. You didn’t go to house parties. You never had. Too loud. Too many people. Too many expectations.

“Please tell me you’re not throwing that away.”

Steve dropped into the seat across from you like gravity had personally invited him. He looked… distracted. Less polished than usual. Like his mind was somewhere else and his body had followed out of habit.

“I wasn’t,” you said. “I was ignoring it.”

Steve winced. “Worse.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Because,” he said, leaning forward, lowering his voice like this was confidential, “this party is kind of… important.”

“Important how?” you asked.

“Well.” He gestured vaguely around the cafeteria. “King Steve has an image to maintain.”

You snorted despite yourself.

“There it is,” he said, brightening. “That sound. That’s why you should come.”

You shook your head. “I don’t do house parties.”

Steve’s smile softened, turning almost sheepish. “You don’t do them yet.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“Okay, look,” he said, dropping the theatrics. “I’ll make it better. You can stick with me. I’ll keep people from bothering you. You can leave whenever you want. I’ll even—” he grimaced “—turn the music down if it gets too bad.”

“You would never,” you said.

“I would,” he insisted. “Once. For you.”

You studied him. He was watching your face closely, like this mattered more than he wanted to admit.

“I don’t belong there,” you said quietly.

Steve frowned. “That’s not true.”

“It is,” you replied. “Those parties aren’t for people like me.”

Steve leaned back in his chair, jaw tightening. Then he leaned forward again, elbows on the table, eyes steady on yours.

“They are if I want you there.”

The words slipped out before he could dress them up as a joke.

He blinked. Cleared his throat. “I mean—uh. It’d be less boring.”

You tilted your head. “You don’t look bored lately.”

Steve’s mouth twitched. “Yeah. Funny how that works.”

There was a beat. Just long enough to feel something settle between you.

“Please,” he added, softer now. “Just… come for a bit. For me.”

You exhaled slowly, fingers brushing the strap of your bag where the invitation waited.

“I’ll think about it,” you said.

Steve grinned like he’d just won something anyway. “That’s all I ask.”

As he stood to leave, he paused, glancing back over his shoulder.

“And, uh,” he added casually, “if anyone gives you trouble? You tell me.”

You smiled faintly. “You always like playing hero?”

Steve hesitated.

“Only when it matters,” he said.

The promise of the party hits you long before the door even swings open, a deep, subcutaneous thrum of bass that leaks through the solid wood and the old Harrington siding. It rattles the porch planks beneath your feet, traveling up through the soles of your shoes to vibrate in the hollow of your chest, a second heartbeat that’s too loud, too eager. You freeze on the threshold, fingers instinctively plucking at the hem of your top—a nervous, futile gesture, as if you could rearrange your very decision to come. For one last, fleeting second, the fantasy of retreat flickers: you could turn around, walk back to the quiet of your car, and pretend this reckless yes was never uttered.

But it’s too late now. The decision has been made, and the house is waiting.

You push inside, and the wall of sound doesn’t just greet you, it swallows you. It’s a physical, smothering thing. The roar of a hundred overlapping conversations, shrieks of laughter sharp enough to cut, the thudding backbeat of a song swallowed by the crowd. Bodies are packed in a hot, shifting mosaic of denim and bright fabric, leaving you to navigate through a labyrinth of elbows and shoulders. The air is thick and hazy, carrying the sour-sweet tang of spilled beer, the chemical bite of cheap vodka, and beneath it all, the warm, damp smell of too many people in a closed space. Someone jostles your shoulder hard, moving past without a glance or an apology. From across the room, a voice you barely recognize shouts a variation of your name, the syllables wrong, turning you into someone else entirely.

You swallow, the motion dry and difficult, and adjust the collar of your jacket for the third time since entering. A sudden, piercing self-consciousness descends. You are a map of vulnerabilities: your hands feel awkward and oversized, your posture a confessed sin, the very rhythm of your breath seems out of sync with the room. Everyone else melts into the chaos with a practiced ease, a belonging that looks as natural as breathing. You feel transparent, a sketch among finished paintings.

Then—

Steve sees you.

He’s a fixed point in the swirling chaos, across the crowded living room, a red cup held loosely in his hand. He’s mid-laugh, a bright, easy smile directed at a guy clapping him on the back. And then his gaze, sweeping the room, snags. On you. The smile doesn’t vanish, but it falters, softens, reshapes itself into something quieter and infinitely more focused. It’s not a dramatic, movie-style double-take. It’s a subtle shift, a gentle zoom lens effect. The noise around him seems to mute, the people blur into vague, colorful shapes. For a second, pure, unguarded relief flashes in his eyes, a quick, bright spark he doesn’t manage to bank in time.

He moves without hesitation. Excusing himself with a nod, he begins weaving through the press of bodies, his path urgent and direct. He doesn’t saunter; he aims for you. When he finally reaches you, slightly breathless as if he’d sprinted the last few feet, his grin is wide and a little winded.

“You came,” he says, his voice pitched low, a secret meant only for your ear. The words aren’t a tease or a casual greeting. They are a statement of genuine, gratified surprise.

You manage a nod, your own voice fighting its way through the lump in your throat. “I said I’d think about it.”

Steve huffs a laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Yeah, well. I was hoping thinking would work in my favour.”

The connection feels fragile, a bubble of calm in the storm. But the party is a living thing, and it asserts its claim. A heavy hand claps down on Steve’s shoulder, making him wince.

“Harrington! Stop hogging the new recruit. Beer pong throne’s waiting, and we need a king.”

Steve rolls his eyes toward the ceiling, the party king weariness settling on his features. “Of course it is.” His attention snaps back to you, swift and serious. “Don’t move. I’ll be back before you can blink.”

“That’s optimistic,” you murmur, already feeling the crowd pressing in.

He points a finger at you, the gesture playful but his eyes earnest. “Stay. Right. There.”

And then he is absorbed again, his back disappearing into the vibrant, swallowing mass.

You let out a slow, controlled exhale, the brief anchor gone. Almost immediately, the vacuum is filled. A red cup is thrust into your free hand.

“Drink!” commands a girl with smudged eyeliner and a brilliant smile, her words a shout against the music.

You stare down at the cloudy, suspicious liquid. Hesitation is a luxury here, and it’s spotted instantly.

From beside her, another girl with crossed arms snorts, her voice dripping with derisive amusement. “She’s probably too much of a pussy to drink it.”

The words land like a lit match on dry tinder. Your jaw tightens, a hot flush of defiance rising in your chest. Without another thought—without thinking at all—you lift the cup to your lips and throw the contents back in a few swift, burning gulps.

Fire races down your throat, exploding in your stomach, harsh and medicinal. You cough, eyes swimming with involuntary tears. The girls around you erupt in a chorus of approving shouts.

“Holy shit! Okay then!” “Damn, she went for it!”

You hand the empty cup back, your pulse hammering not just from the alcohol’s immediate, scorching shock, but from the sudden, chemical unraveling of your coiled nerves. A dangerous looseness seeps into your limbs. A simulated boldness.

The music shifts, a faster song with a driving, insistent rhythm taking over. Hands reach for you, pulling you toward the makeshift dance floor in the center of the room. You give in, letting the beat move you, operating on instinct rather than confidence. The strobe light fractures the scene into snapshots, laughing faces, thrown-back heads, glinting cans. For a few minutes, the self-consciousness dissolves. You are just a body in motion, anonymous in the dark.

Almost.

You feel it before you see it, a pressure, a pinpoint of cold awareness on the back of your neck. A stare that doesn’t flicker or wander. Too steady. Too intent.

Your dancing slows. You glance, almost against your will, toward the shadowy margins of the room.

And your stomach plummets.

Billy Hargrove is propped against the archway to the kitchen like a lion at rest, owning the shade. His denim jacket hangs open, his muscular arms are crossed over his chest, and a cigarette dangles, forgotten, from his fingers, a long curl of smoke rising toward the ceiling. His eyes are not just on you; they are locked on you. Blue, intense, and utterly unapologetic.

He doesn’t look away when your eyes meet. Doesn’t offer a smirk or a nod of acknowledgment. Just holds the gaze, cool and assessing, as if dissecting every hesitant step you took onto the dance floor.

A cold ripple, antithetical to the room’s heat, cascades over your skin. You try to turn back to the music, to shake off the chill, but the feeling metastasizes. It’s a primal signal, a deep-seated knowledge that the predator has sighted the herd, and you are the one who has strayed. The air in the room turns gluey and suffocating. The laughter sounds suddenly shrill, the bodies too close, pressing in.

You have to get out.

Abandoning the dance floor, you push through the thicket of people, a new and frantic urgency in your movements. The back door, fresh air, solitude, just five minutes to let your heart settle back into its proper rhythm.

You stumble onto the relative quiet of the back porch, the cool night air a shock against your flushed skin. You drag in a deep, trembling breath, gripping the wooden railing.

The creak of the door behind you is soft, but it echoes like a gunshot in the sudden quiet. Slow, deliberate footsteps follow you out onto the porch.

The voice that cuts through the cool night air is a low, smooth drawl, designed to crawl under your skin. It carries no urgency, only a taunting, predatory amusement.

“Running away already?”

You don’t turn. Your fingers tighten on the rough wood of the porch railing, the splinters biting into your palms. “I needed air,” you say, the words clipped, aiming for a neutrality you don’t feel.

“Uh-huh.” The soft scuff of his boots on the weathered boards tells you he’s moved closer. The scent hits you anew, not just the ghost of tobacco, but the fresh, acrid bite of a recently lit cigarette, mixed with leather, cheap beer, and something purely, unsettlingly male. “Didn’t peg you for the party type,” he continues, his voice a rumble just over your shoulder.

A brittle, humorless laugh escapes you, fueled by the liquid courage still simmering in your blood. It makes your tongue reckless. “Didn’t think you were a mind reader, Hargrove.”

You can hear the shift in his silence, a pleased, intrigued pause. When you finally steel yourself to glance his way, Billy is grinning. It’s a slow, deliberate unfurling of expression, all white teeth and calculated charm. His head tilts, eyes raking over you with renewed interest.

“There it is,” he murmurs, as if he’s uncovered a secret. “You’re more fun like this.”

“Like what?” you challenge, turning fully to face him now, crossing your arms against the chill and his gaze. “Not ignoring you?”

He gives a loose, one-shouldered shrug, the denim of his jacket pulling taut. “Not pretending you don’t want the attention.” His eyes hold yours, blue and unblinking, issuing a challenge of their own.

Your pulse, already unsteady, kicks into a frantic drum against your ribs. “You don’t get to decide what I want,” you fire back, the words hotter than you intended.

Billy’s grin doesn’t falter. He closes the remaining distance between you in one fluid, invasive step. The night seems to shrink around him. Before you can react, his fingers brush against your forearm, a touch that is deceptively light, yet it brands your skin through your sleeve. It lingers, a hairsbreadth too long, a silent test of boundaries.

You freeze, a half-second of stunned inaction that feels like a lifetime. It’s all the opening he needs to read as consent.

And suddenly,

“Hey.”

Steve’s voice slices through the tension, sharp and clear as shattered glass. It isn’t loud, but it carries a command that instantly redraws the lines on the porch.

He’s there, framed in the golden light spilling from the kitchen door, his body a tense line. His jaw is clenched, a muscle ticking in his cheek, and his eyes, usually so warm and easy, are laser-focused, zeroing in instantly on the point where Billy’s fingers still ghost your skin. The distant thump of the bass becomes irrelevant. The world narrows to this triangle of charged silence.

“Back off,” Steve says. The words are simple, flat, and utterly devoid of their usual friendly cadence.

Billy doesn’t flinch, doesn’t remove his hand. He merely turns his head, the smirk on his face deepening into something smug and victorious. “Relax, Harrington. We’re just talking. No laws against that.”

Steve moves then. He doesn’t ask permission; he doesn’t even look at you to gauge your reaction. He simply steps forward, inserting his body squarely between you and Billy, a human shield made of simmering anger and frayed loyalty. “You don’t touch people who don’t want it,” he grinds out, his shoulders squaring.

Billy’s smile turns razor-edged. “She didn’t say that.” He lets the implication hang, his gaze sliding past Steve to pin you again. “Did you?”

Heat, shameful and fierce, floods up your spine, burning the tips of your ears. The objectification, the presumption, the sheer audacity of being spoken for, it combusts inside you.

“I can handle myself,” you snap, the words exploding into the space between them.

The effect is immediate. Both heads swivel toward you. Steve’s expression fractures, the protective anger melting into pure, wounded surprise, then into something that looks painfully like hurt. It’s as if you’ve shoved him away after he took a blow meant for you.

Billy’s eyes, in stark contrast, gleam with dark, appreciative delight. He’s found the spark he was looking for.

“I don’t need you jumping in,” you continue, your voice finding a steadiness that your trembling hands betray. You look at Steve, then at Billy, refusing to cede ground to either. “Either of you.”

Steve’s throat works as he swallows. “I was just—” he starts, his voice softer, confused.

“I know,” you cut him off, not unkindly but firmly. The hurt in his eyes makes your chest ache, but the principle is a fire you can’t snuff out. “But I didn’t ask.”

A thick, uncomfortable silence descends, broken only by the ragged sigh of the wind in the trees. You have dismantled their confrontation and made it about something else entirely.

Billy is the first to break it. A low, appreciative chuckle escapes him. “Damn,” he breathes, shaking his head slowly. “I like you even more now.”

Steve shoots him a look of pure, unadulterated venom, a promise of violence held in check by sheer will.

It’s your cue to exit. You take a deliberate step back, then another, reclaiming the territory of your own personal space. “I’m going back inside,” you announce, your tone leaving no room for debate.

Billy lifts his hands, palms out, in a gesture of mocking surrender. “Your call, sweetheart.”

You don’t wait for Steve. You don’t offer him a conciliatory glance. You turn on your heel and push through the door, letting the wall of sound and heat wash over you once more.

But as you disappear into the throbbing heart of the party, you can feel it, the weight of a gaze anchored to your back. It’s Steve’s. Heavy with confusion, with a fear he hasn’t yet named, and with that stubborn, protective instinct that is already, irrevocably, tipping into something deeper, more complicated, and far more dangerous.

And for the first time that chaotic night, a crystal-clear thought pierces through the alcohol and the noise: coming to the Harrington house wasn't the risky choice. The real danger was never the party itself, but the unpredictable currents of want and defiance it would unleash, currents that have already begun to pull you all toward a reckoning.

Either way, the night is far from over. You move through the crowd, a new, brittle energy crackling under your skin, and without breaking stride, you pluck a freshly filled red cup from a passing tray. The first sip is less a taste and more a decision, to feel everything, or to feel nothing at all. You drain it, and let the burn chart a new course through the chaos.

You don't slow down after that second cup, but you don't rush either. You move through the crowd with a new, liquid rhythm, a current pulling you deeper into the warm, noisy heart of the party. You take another cup from a passing tray, vodka, you think, something clear and vicious, and you drink it not as a challenge, but as a choice. The burn is an old acquaintance now, traveling a familiar path to settle like a low, persistent flame in your chest. It melts the last icy shards of adrenaline, turning the nervous hum under your skin into a gentle, manageable buzz.

The music transforms. It’s no longer an assault; it’s a current you can ride. The bass lines feel like they’re moving through you, not just around you. Your limbs are lighter, your thoughts less carefully corralled. They drift closer to the surface, shimmering and less afraid.

You talk more. To a guy wearing a faded band tee about a song you only half-know. To a girl who compliments your shoes. The words come easier, your laughter rings out louder at a joke that’s only mildly funny. You dance again, not with abandon, not yet, but with a reclaiming of your own physical space. You are present in your body, moving through the strobe-lit dark, feeling less like a specimen under observation and more like a participant in the night's strange, collective dream.

And then you feel it. A shift in the atmospheric pressure of the room.

Not Billy’s predatory, pinprick focus. This is different.

Steve.

You don’t have to scan the room to know he’s there. There’s a gravity to his attention now, a pull you’ve only just begun to calibrate. It’s steadier than the thumping bass, a fixed point in the swirling chaos. When you finally turn your head, he’s leaning against the doorframe that leads toward the darkened stairs, a half-full cup dangling forgotten from his fingertips.

He isn’t smiling his easy, party-host smile. He isn’t scowling with protective anger either. He’s just… watching. His gaze is so intensely focused on you that it makes your stomach perform a slow, dizzying flip. It isn’t jealousy, not precisely. It’s a concern held in such taut check that it vibrates with its own energy. He’s standing monumentally still, as if any movement might startle you, or might betray the depth of his own unease.

When your eyes finally meet across the humid air, something visible unlocks in him. A tension you hadn’t fully registered releases from his shoulders. He pushes off the wall, not with his usual confident swagger, but with a deliberate purpose. He meets you halfway, carving a path through the dancers until he’s close enough that he doesn’t have to shout, but not so close as to crowd you.

“You okay?” he asks.

Two words, simple and unadorned. They are quiet, careful, and they land with more weight than any dramatic interrogation could.

You blink, your head tilting slightly as the world tilts with it. The vodka lets you see him from a new, unfiltered angle—the genuine worry etched in the faint lines around his eyes, the way he’s holding his own body with a stiffness that speaks of withheld action.

“I’m fine,” you say automatically. Then you pause, actually considering the question. The buzz in your veins is warm, the knot in your chest is gone. “Actually… yeah. I am.”

Steve’s brows knit together. His eyes perform a quick, professional scan of your face, checking your pupils, the looseness of your smile, the way you’re gripping your cup a little too tightly. It’s the look of someone who has seen one too many bad nights unfold.

“You’ve had a bit,” he observes, his voice gentle, devoid of accusation but full of implication.

You snort, a short, sharp sound. “Is that Harrington math or actual concern?”

He winces, just a flicker. Not because you’re wrong, but because the two are so entangled in him he can’t separate them. “I’m not judging,” he says quickly, taking a half-step back as if to prove it. “I just—”

“You just worry,” you cut in. The words aren’t unkind, but they aren’t soft either. They are an observation laid bare. “A lot.”

Steve exhales a long breath through his nose, his hand coming up to rub the tense muscles at the back of his neck. “Someone has to,” he says, and it sounds like a mantra he’s worn thin.

You laugh again, but this time it’s hollow, a dry sound in your throat. “Do they?”

His eyes snap up to yours, sharp and startled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

You take a small, deliberate sip, letting the silence stretch for a beat. The alcohol grants you a perilous, clarifying honesty. “It means,” you say, choosing each word as if placing a stone on a scale, “that you keep acting like things happen to me instead of around me. Like I’m not in the room making my own choices, even the stupid ones.”

Steve’s mouth opens, then closes on a rebuttal that doesn’t come.

“That’s not fair,” he finally manages, but it lacks conviction.

“Isn’t it?” you press, the warmth in your chest fueling your resolve. “You stepped in back there like I was scenery. Like the conversation was between you and him, and I was just the subject.”

“He touched you,” Steve snaps, the words cracking like a whip. He immediately lowers his voice, a flush of frustration coloring his cheeks. “He crossed a line.”

“I know he did,” you say, holding his gaze steadily. “And I was handling it.”

Steve’s jaw tightens, a muscle feathering. “After,” he says, the single word heavy with meaning. After you froze. After he’d already made his point.

It lands. The truth of it settles in your chest, a cold, uncomfortable weight beneath the warmth of the vodka. The party noise, the laughter, the shrieks, the pounding music, swells around you like a turbulent sea, but in the eye of the storm between you and Steve, there is a profound, insulated silence.

“I didn’t ask you to,” you say, your voice dropping to match the quiet.

Steve looks at you then, and the defensiveness, the anger, it all drains away, leaving something raw and exposed. Just… hurt. “I wasn’t trying to be the hero,” he says, the words soft and earnest. “I just didn’t want you dealing with that alone.”

Your voice softens despite the armor you’re trying to hold onto. “I wasn’t alone.”

He flinches.

It’s not a dramatic motion. Just a slight recoil, as if the words were a physical tap on a fresh bruise. Enough to tell you everything.

“That’s not what it felt like,” he whispers, and the admission seems to cost him.

You study him in the fractured light. The deep crease between his brows, the way his hand flexes nervously around his cup, the uncharacteristic uncertainty in his posture. The "King of Hawkins High" is nowhere to be seen.

“You don’t get to decide when I need help,” you say finally. The statement comes out clear and steady, sharper than you intended, a line drawn in the sand.

Steve’s eyes flicker with a vulnerable, wounded light. “I wasn’t deciding,” he insists, but the certainty is crumbling. “I was just… trying to keep you safe.”

You shake your head slowly, sadly. “You don’t keep people safe by stepping over them, Steve. You keep them safe by standing with them.”

The sentence hangs in the air between you, dangerous and irrevocably true.

Steve swallows hard. “You think I was stepping over you.”

“I think,” you say, measuring the words with deliberate care, “that you didn’t trust me to handle it. And that feels worse than whatever Billy was doing.”

“That’s not—” he begins, but you lift a hand, stopping him.

“And before you say it,” you continue, a little breathless now from the emotion, “I know you meant well. I do. I see it. But intent doesn’t erase how it feels.”

Steve goes utterly quiet.

For a long, suspended moment, he just looks at you. It’s not the look of someone formulating a counter-argument. It’s the look of someone genuinely listening, of pieces being rearranged behind his eyes. He’s recalibrating. He’s seeing the delicate, often invisible line between protection and control, and realizing, with dawning horror, that his instincts have been leading him to toe it without his conscious consent.

“You’re different,” he says softly, almost to himself.

You huff a small, tired laugh. “I’ve always been like this. You’re just actually paying attention now.”

That earns you a faint, wry smile, but it doesn’t reach the concern still clouding his eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks again, the question even quieter now, stripped bare.

“Yes,” you affirm. “And if I’m not… I’ll tell you. You have to trust that I will.”

Steve nods, slow and deliberate, as if he’s agreeing to a much larger, more important treaty. “Okay.”

Neither of you moves. The charged silence stretches, filled with unspoken apologies and new understandings.

“KING! We need you back on the throne, man! Game’s falling apart without you!” a voice booms from across the room, followed by a chorus of agreeing shouts.

Steve doesn’t even glance in their direction. His eyes stay locked on yours.

“I’m busy,” he calls back, his voice flat, firm, and utterly unmistakable.

A beat of surprised silence rolls through his immediate crowd, followed by a few confused laughs and muttered questions. The party, for a second, recalibrates around his absence.

You just blink at him, surprised. Steve shifts his weight, suddenly looking less sure of himself now that he’s commanded the room’s attention only to dismiss it. Up close, in this fragile pocket of privacy you’ve carved out, he looks younger. Less polished, more real. The veneer is gone.

“I, uh—” He clears his throat, his eyes darting past you for a half-second before returning, full of a nervous resolve. “I was gonna head out soon anyway.”

It’s a lie. A generous, face-saving revision of the night’s script. You both know the party is his domain, and leaving it early is an abdication.

He rubs the back of his neck again, the gesture familiar and endearing in its anxiety. “I just wanted to check if you… if you wanted a ride home. Later. Whenever.”

You study him, the warm buzz in your veins making his earnestness feel profound, softening the hard edges of the night. “You’re leaving your own party?”

He huffs a quiet, self-deprecating laugh. “I’ve thrown enough of these to know the exact moment they stop being fun and start just being… loud.”

There’s something new in the way he looks at you now. It’s not the protective, possessive gaze from the porch. It’s careful. Concerned. Deeply present.

“And,” he adds, his voice lowering into a space meant only for you, “I don’t really love the idea of you walking home alone like this.”

“Like what?” you tease gently, a small smile touching your lips.

He mirrors it, a small, fond quirk at the corner of his mouth. “Like someone who just confidently out-drank half the varsity basketball team.”

You laugh, and the sound is genuine, lighter than anything you’ve felt all night. It feels like a release.

“I’m fine,” you assure him. “But… yeah. I’d like that. A ride.”

Relief, pure and unguarded, flickers across his face before he can compose his features. “Yeah?” he asks, as if he needs the confirmation to believe it.

“Yeah.”

Steve nods, a little too quickly, then immediately backpedals, the old uncertainty resurfacing. “No pressure,” he stammers. “I mean, if you want to stay longer, or if someone else is giving you a lift, or—”

“Steve,” you interrupt, your voice soft but firm.

He stops, his ramble cut short.

“I said yes.”

That, finally, seems to settle him. The tension fully leaves his shoulders, replaced by a simple, hopeful resolve. “Okay,” he says, and this time his smile reaches his eyes, real and unguarded. “Okay. Let me just grab my keys and my jacket.”

He takes a step away, then pauses, turning back. His expression is solemn, sincere. “Thanks for coming tonight. Seriously.”

You tilt your head, a playful glint in your eye. “You literally begged.”

He laughs, a warm, rich sound. “Still. It meant something.”

The drive home is quieter than you’d anticipated, not with the weight of unsaid things, but with a soft, shared exhaustion. It’s a comfortable silence, the kind that doesn’t demand filling. Steve pulls the BMW away from the chaotic curb, the thumping bass of the Harrington house shrinking into a distant, rhythmic pulse, then dissolving entirely into the still Hawkins night. After a moment, his hand reaches out, not toward you, but toward the radio. He twists the dial with practiced familiarity, bypassing the stations playing party hits until he finds one crackling with static at the edges, bleeding a slow, melancholy guitar riff into the car’s interior. It’s a song from another decade, meant for open windows and long, contemplative roads.

Neither of you comments on it. The choice hangs in the air, understood.

Streetlights become a metronome, sliding past the windows in golden intervals. Each one illuminates Steve’s profile in a fleeting, cinematic flash: the strong line of his nose, the curve of his lower lip, his hands resting steady and capable on the wheel. The tightness has left his jaw; the party-host mask is gone, shed somewhere on the Harrington driveway. What’s left is just Steve, a little tired, a little sobered, beautifully real in the dashboard’s glow. The hum of the engine, the whisper of tires on asphalt, the faint radio melody, they blend into a lullaby for the overstimulated soul.

Your head lolls back against the plush headrest, eyelids heavy. The alcohol has completed its transformation from a sharp stimulant into a warm, woolly haze. It cradles your bones, makes your limbs feel deliciously detached and weightless. In the periphery, you sense Steve’s glance, a quick, sidelong sweep to check on you. You catch him in the act and offer a faint, sleepy smile. He looks away instantly, feigning deep interest in the empty road ahead, but you see the way the corner of his mouth lifts in a reluctant, pleased echo.

When the car finally glides to a stop outside your dark house, he cuts the engine but leaves the radio playing, a thin, gentle thread of sound connecting you. It feels like an acknowledgment that stepping out of this capsule, back into the real world, requires a moment of preparation.

“Home,” Steve says, his voice soft, almost reverent in the new quiet.

You nod, the movement slow. Your hand finds the door handle, the chrome cool under your palm. The second your feet meet the solid earth of your front walk, the world executes a slow, graceful tilt. The ground seems to swell gently toward you.

“Oh—”

The sound is out before you can stop it, a soft, surprised exhale. You haven’t even begun to stumble when you hear the decisive thunk of his car door. Steve is already there, having moved with a quiet urgency, rounding the front of the BMW. His hands come up, hovering near your elbows, a portrait of restrained readiness.

“Hey—hey,” he says, his voice low and calm. “You good?”

“I’m fine, Steve,” you insist, laughing a breathless, embarrassed laugh as you force your spine straight. You make a shooing motion with your hand. “Promise. Go back to the car.”

He hesitates, his brow furrowed in clear disbelief, but he takes a measured step back, granting you the space to prove it.

You manage five steps. The walkway is familiar, but tonight the pavement has developed a subtle, malicious camber. Your foot catches on the raised edge of a flagstone. With a small, helpless gasp, you pitch forward, the world tipping past the point of no return.

“Nope.”

The word is uttered with flat, undeniable finality. In two long, sure strides, Steve is at your side. His arm slides around your waist—not tentatively, but with a firm, confident warmth that stops your fall mid-arc. You let out a soft oof, your hands coming up to brace against the solid wall of his chest. You can feel the soft cotton of his shirt, the steady beat of his heart beneath.

“Okay, okay,” you concede, laughing into his shoulder, your cheeks burning with a mix of intoxication and chagrin. “That one didn’t count.”

Steve exhales a laugh that is mostly relief, shaking his head as he adjusts his hold. “Yeah, no way. I’m invoking best-friend—or, okay, driver—privileges.”

His movement is seamless. He guides your arm up and over his shoulders, his own arm locking securely around your waist, taking your weight without a hint of strain. It feels instinctive, practiced in the way only true caretaking can be. It feels, impossibly, like you belong right there.

You lean into him, letting your head rest against his shoulder more than you strictly need to. The scent of his cologne, faint beneath the smell of night air and party, is calming.

“_______,” he murmurs, his voice dropping to a hushed, conspiratorial tone as he steers you toward the front door. “We have to be quiet. Your parents are definitely sleeping.”

You nod, suddenly and immensely serious. “Yes, sir,” you whisper back, the words overly precise. Then the absurdity of it hits you, and a giggle escapes, muffled against his shirt.

Steve bites his lip, trying to stern his expression, but the smile breaks through, lighting up his eyes in the dark.

The old porch wood groans a quiet protest under your combined weight. He stops, holding you steady as you fumble in your pocket for your keys. His hand at your waist gives a gentle, reassuring squeeze. When the lock finally clicks and the door swings inward, the profound silence of the sleeping house envelops you, cool and still.

You step across the threshold carefully, Steve’s support unwavering until you are firmly planted on the entryway rug.

“There,” you announce softly, giving his arm a pat. “See? Made it. Told you.”

He doesn’t release you immediately. He watches you for a beat longer, his eyes tracing your face in the dim light from the street. They are warm, fond, and still etched with a trace of that stubborn, endearing worry. Finally, he nods.

“Text me when you’re in bed,” he instructs quietly, his voice a soft rumble in the hall.

You tilt your head, your own eyes heavy-lidded but sparkling with mischief. “You gonna tuck me in, too, Harrington?”

Steve lets out a short, choked laugh, shaking his head as he follows you into the hallway, his steps silent on the carpet. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“Mm,” you hum, swaying gently toward the wall. “I’ve heard that before.”

“Yeah,” he says, his hand shooting out to steady you by the elbow, guiding you back to center. “Shockingly, I’m a believer now.”

He ushers you gently into your room, the door clicking shut behind him with a sound so soft it seems to absorb into the walls. Steve pauses just inside, his gaze doing a slow, involuntary sweep of the space.

Your room is… a map of you.

The soft, buttery light from a small ceramic lamp on the nightstand. Band posters and art prints tacked up with careful precision, but not obsessively aligned. A worn, beloved stuffed rabbit peeking out from under a pile of pillows, as if hiding from judgment. Your desk is a curated chaos, a mosaic of ticket stubs tucked into the frame of a mirror, a chipped mug bursting with colorful pens, a precarious stack of well-loved paperback novels, their corners dog-eared to mark your progress. It’s a space that is neither aggressively girly nor austerely minimalist. It’s warm. It’s layered. It’s you.

Steve swallows, a sudden, strange tightness in his throat.

You, meanwhile, are blissfully unaware of his quiet audit. You’ve beelined for the bed, executing a move that is part graceful collapse, part tactical maneuver. You kick off your shoes and fall face-first onto the comforter with a deep, soul-satisfying sigh, immediately wrapping your arms around a pillow and nuzzling into it.

“Wow,” Steve murmurs, amusement thick in his voice. “Out like a light.”

“M’not asleep,” you mumble, the words smothered by cotton and down. “Just… resting my eyes. Strategically.”

He smiles, a private, tender thing, and sits carefully on the very edge of the mattress. It dips slightly under his weight, a gentle valley forming between you. You feel the shift in the universe, a slight, sleepy roll toward the new gravitational center he creates.

“Hey,” you murmur after a moment, your voice slurred and soft as worn velvet. “Thanks for tonight.”

Steve glances down at the crown of your head. “For driving you home? That’s a pretty low bar for gratitude.”

You turn your face just enough to peer at him with one heavy-lidded eye. “No. For the fun. And for not… staying mad at me.”

“I wasn’t mad,” he corrects gently, his hand resting on the comforter near your shoulder. “I was worried. There’s a difference.”

“Still,” you sigh, already drifting back toward the pull of sleep. “Thank you.”

He’s quiet, letting the silence breathe. Then, lightly, he adds, “Anytime. Though, for the record, maybe we pace the drinks next time? Just a thought.”

You make a vague, dismissive noise that vibrates through the pillow. “You’re such a mom, Steve.”

He snorts. “Yeah. I know.”

Then, softer, the bravado gone: “Seriously, though. I’m glad you came.”

The words land differently this time. They bypass the haze, shimmering with a sincerity that makes your sleepy heart give a sluggish, thick thump.

Before he can say anything else, you move. It’s a slow, dreamlike reach—your hand rising, fingers seeking. They find his hair, the strands soft and slightly mussed. You hum, a contented sound deep in your throat, and run your fingers through it once, twice, in a slow, rhythmic, utterly intimate caress. It’s an action of pure, unthinking affection, as natural as breathing.

Steve freezes.

Your touch is a brand of warmth. It’s gentle. It’s trusting. It unravels something tightly wound inside him.

With a final, sighing breath, you let your hand fall back to the bed, palm upturned. Your breathing deepens, evens out, sleep claiming you utterly and without preamble.

Steve doesn’t move for a long minute. He just sits there, anchored to the spot by the weight of the moment, watching you.

Watching the slow, steady rise and fall of your shoulders. The way all the guardedness, all the sharp wit and defiant pride, melts from your face, leaving only a peaceful, unlined openness. How devastatingly beautiful you are like this, not put together, not performing, but simply existing. Real and vulnerable and his to protect, if only for this silent moment.

He feels it then, an irrevocable shift deep within his chest. A locking into place. A settling of dust he didn’t even know was unsettled.

With movements as careful as if he were handling something infinitely precious, he stands. He pulls the blanket up from where it’s tangled at your feet, draping it over you with a tenderness that aches. He smooths it down, tucking the edges loosely around your shoulders. He hesitates, his hand hovering near your cheek. Then, with the backs of his fingers, he brushes a stray strand of hair from your forehead, his touch so feather-light it’s almost a prayer.

“Goodnight,” he whispers, the word barely a breath.

You don’t hear him. You are far away in dreams.

But he lingers in the doorway, silhouetted by the hall light, for much longer than is reasonable. He watches the gentle rhythm of your sleep, memorizing the scene, letting the terrifying, wonderful truth wash over him completely, without dilution or denial.

Somewhere between the deafening noise of the party and the profound quiet of this room, between a challenge issued on a porch and a touch granted in trust, Steve Harrington has fallen.

He’s fallen hard, and he’s fallen for you.

Monday arrives not with an alarm, but with the slow, throbbing ache of a consequence you’d briefly managed to forget. It settles behind your eyes, a dull pound that syncs with your heartbeat. Your mouth tastes like stale cotton and regret, and your head is filled with a fuzzy, static-filled fog. But cutting through the haze are crystalline shards of memory, replaying on a loop: the solid, steadying pressure of Steve’s arm around your waist, the conspiratorial hush of his voice in your dark hallway, the way the mattress dipped under his weight as he sat on the edge of your bed, an intrusion that felt like a belonging. The space between you had been rewritten that night, the rules erased and redrawn in something far softer, and infinitely more dangerous.

By the time you push through the heavy front doors of Hawkins High, you’ve crafted a plan. You will be a ghost of normalcy. You will move through the halls as if the party was a collective dream, a shared hallucination no one will be gauche enough to mention. You will be bland, uninteresting, and above all, untouchable.

It is an excellent, foolproof plan.

It lasts approximately seven minutes.

The first sign isn’t a shout or a pointed finger. It’s a low-grade hum, a change in the social atmosphere. It’s in the way conversations seem to stutter and dip as you pass, not into silence, but into a lower, more intentional register. It’s the flicker of eyes—not staring, but tilting, tracking your progress with a newfound, speculative interest. A junior from your chemistry class, a girl you’ve never spoken to, catches your eye in the crowded hall and offers a slow, approving nod. “Hey,” she says, her tone implying a shared secret. You’ve been voted into a club without your consent.

You ignore it. You perfect the art of looking straight ahead, of seeing nothing. You make it to your locker, a metal sanctuary in the chaos.

And then you see the second sign.

A folded square of notebook paper, neon yellow and obnoxious, is shoved into the air vent slits of your locker door. It isn’t tucked discreetly; it’s jammed in there, a flag planted on stolen land.

Your hand freezes on the combination lock. It’s just paper. It’s stupid. But a cold, intuitive dread pools in your stomach. You pull it free, the paper rough against your fingertips. Unfolding it feels like disarming a bomb.

The message is short, written in a slashing, aggressive script that digs into the paper, each letter leaning forward as if trying to escape the page:

Nice party. You clean up well.

No name. No signature needed.

The handwriting is a violence in itself, jagged, impatient, all hard angles and implied threat. It doesn’t feel like a note; it feels like a trespass.

A hot, sharp irritation, clean and bright, slices through your morning fog. You don’t blush; you burn with a quiet, furious indignity. How dare he. How dare Billy Hargrove infiltrate your Monday, your locker, your peace? He doesn’t get to litter the edges of your life with his presence. Without a second thought, you crumple the note into a tight, angry ball and shove it deep into your bag, as if burying evidence.

“Morning.”

The voice, so close, makes you jump. You slam your locker shut with a metallic clang that echoes too loudly in the hall.

Steve stands a few feet away, leaning casually against the neighboring lockers. His hair is still damp from a shower, dark waves falling across his forehead, and his leather jacket hangs open over a faded tee. He looks like he sprinted to make the bell, but his eyes are clear, alert, and already fixed on you. They perform that same familiar, worrying scan, over your face, your posture, searching for cracks. When he finds none, a visible relief softens his features.

Then his gaze drops, snagging on your hand, still clenched in a white-knuckled fist around the strap of your bag.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, the casual greeting vanishing. His voice is immediate, intense.

You blink, forcing neutrality. “Nothing.”

He doesn’t even entertain the lie. His head tilts, a familiar, stubborn concern etching lines between his brows. “Something’s wrong,” he states, taking a step closer. The hallway noise seems to fade around him. “Did he—”

“Did who?” you cut in, though you both know.

Steve’s jaw hardens, a clean, tight line. A muscle feathers along the ridge of it, a tiny tremor of restrained energy. “Billy,” he says, and the name is a stone dropped into the still water between you. Spoken in that low, graveled register he reserves for warnings and middle-of-the-night truths, it sends a cold, unwelcome current straight through your system.

“No,” you say, the word coming too quickly, too defensively. “Nothing happened.”

His shoulders drop a fraction, a minor release of immediate tension, but the sharpness doesn’t leave his eyes. They remain fixed on you, bright and unblinking, the eyes of a goalkeeper in a permanent state of anticipation, braced for a shot he is convinced, in his bones, is coming. “Are you sure?” he presses, the question not one of doubt in you, but of deep, ingrained suspicion of the world’s inherent threat.

You inhale slowly, drawing the school’s recycled air deep into your lungs, using the count of four to steady the erratic tempo of your pulse. “Yes.”

He studies you in a silence that feels both intimate and agonizing. You can see the calculation behind his gaze, the silent war between what he wants to say and what he feels he must do. It’s a familiar conflict now, etched in the slight furrow of his brow. Then he delivers it, not as a suggestion between equals, not as a shared strategy, but as a verdict handed down from a bench you never agreed to. His voice drops into that firm, unmistakably protective register that leaves no room for debate.

“Stay away from him today.”

It’s the tone that does it. Not the sentiment, which might have been offered as concern, but the unyielding finality of it. The unspoken premise that his assessment of risk is absolute, and his authority to manage it, unquestionable.

“Steve.” Your voice is quiet, a single syllable woven with warning and disappointment.

He mistakes it for a request for emphasis. “I’m serious.”

“I heard you,” you say, each word measured and even, a calm surface over roiling water. “I’m asking why.”

He pauses.

The hesitation is brief, a stutter in the rhythm of the hallway’s chaos, but it yawns into a chasm between you. In that silent gap, you see everything: the ghost of past confrontations in his eyes, the weight of unspoken rules, the shadow of a game he’s been playing on a field you can’t even see. Explaining would mean drawing back a curtain on a stage where he has been both actor and stagehand, and he isn’t ready for you to see the machinery.

His mouth opens, forming the ghost of a word, then closes on nothing. His fingers flex at his sides, empty hands curling and uncurling as if grasping for an answer that keeps slipping away.

“You don’t need a reason,” he says finally, and the words sound hollow even to him, a defensive mantra that has worn thin.

You stare at him, the cold from the crumpled note in your bag seeming to seep into your very bones. “I do, actually.”

Steve exhales a tight, frustrated breath through his nose, the sound of a man trying to leash his own fear. “Look—he’s not—” He cuts himself off, his jaw tightening again, a visible wall going up. “He’s bad news, okay? The kind that leaves a mark. Just… trust me.”

There it is.

The refrain. The emotional shortcut he falls back on when the path of true communication seems too treacherous.

Trust me.

But trust is not a blindfold to be willingly worn. It is a bridge, and it is built, painstakingly, with the bricks of shared context and the mortar of mutual understanding. He is asking you to cross a chasm while refusing to show you the plans, to assure you the foundation is solid while hiding the cracks he sees from his side.

Your chest tightens into a familiar, aching knot. “You keep saying that.”

His brows knit together, frustration and a flicker of desperation darkening his features. “Because it’s true.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” you snap, the heat rising before you quell it, lowering your voice as a cluster of freshmen giggle past. “It just means you want me to listen without understanding. To follow your lead without knowing the destination or the danger. It’s not a reason; it’s a request for obedience.”

Steve’s expression fractures. First, a flash of genuine, wounded hurt, as if you’ve questioned not his judgment, but his very character. Then, almost instantly, something defensive and weary slams into place, the practiced mask of the protector locking down. “I’m trying to keep you safe,” he says, the words ground out like a worn prayer, a mantra that has become both his purpose and his prison.

“You said that already,” you reply, and your voice softens despite the sting, because you can see the cost. The exhaustion is a tangible presence in the shadows beneath his eyes, in the slight slump of his usually proud shoulders. This self-appointed role of guardian is a weight he carries alone, and it is bending him. “And I told you, you don’t get to decide what ‘safe’ looks like for me. You don’t get to build the cage, however well-intentioned, and call it shelter. A cage denies the sky, Steve. Even a gilded one.”

His jaw clenches so tightly you fear he might crack a tooth. He looks away, his breath hitching in a ragged, suppressed sound, visibly wrestling with a torrent of words—fear, anger, pleading—that he knows would only make things worse.

When he looks back, the rawness is gone, replaced by a strained, deliberate calm. His voice is lower, steadier, but it carries the distinct chill of controlled desperation.

“Fine,” he says, the word quiet and utterly resigned. “Then just… don’t engage with him. Please.”

It is not an order this time. It is a boundary drawn with a trembling hand. A plea, stripped of all authority, naked in its vulnerability.

You search his face, looking past the worry for the truth that must be fueling it. “That’s still not an explanation, Steve. It’s just a different phrasing of the same request.”

“I know,” he admits, the confession bursting out of him, too fast and full of self-directed anger. “And I hate that. I hate how it sounds. I hate standing here sounding like I’m telling you what to do.”

“Then tell me,” you urge, your voice dropping to a whisper, a final lifeline thrown across the growing divide.

Steve hesitates.

And in that suspended, breathless moment, everything becomes devastatingly clear. The truth is not absent. It is present, a living, breathing thing he is consciously, actively, holding back. There is a specific reason. A history. An incident. A knowledge he possesses and is choosing, with full awareness, to withhold.

His hands curl into loose fists at his sides, then release, a physical echo of his internal struggle. He opens his mouth—you see the shape of a confession, the first syllable almost forming—and then he consciously, decisively, shuts it down. The words are swallowed back, locked away.

“I can’t,” he finally says.

The raw, unvarnished honesty of it lands with a force that steals your breath. It is not a evasion. It is a surrender. An admission of a limit he cannot, or will not, cross.

You nod slowly, the movement stiff and formal, an acknowledgment of a door being firmly closed in your face. “So you don’t trust me,” you state, the words a bleak conclusion, not an accusation.

“That’s not—” He lurches forward a half-step, genuine panic flashing in his eyes, erasing the practiced calm. “That’s not what this is. It’s the opposite.”

“Then what is it?” you ask, your voice achingly quiet, giving him one last, clear chance.

Steve swallows, his gaze locking onto yours with an intensity that feels almost physical. He leans in slightly, his voice dropping to a hushed, urgent whisper meant for you alone in the echoing hallway. “It’s me… trying to keep one last, ugly thing from touching you. To be a buffer between you and something rotten. And if you knew—if you had the full, unfiltered picture—you might make a choice. A brave, stubborn, you kind of choice. And I wouldn’t be able to stop it. I wouldn’t be able to stop you.”

The words aren’t cruel. They are worse. They are fear and fierce, possessive care twisted into a single, suffocating knot. A confession that his need to protect has completely outpaced his ability to truly partner.

The ache in your chest sharpens into a precise, heartbreaking pain. “So you trust me with your past,” you say, your voice miraculously steady even as it threatens to fracture. “With your failures. With the quiet confessions at my kitchen table. With the vulnerability of being in my room when the world was shut out.” You list the intimacies like sacred, earned treasures. “But you don’t trust me with this reality. Not with the truth of what’s happening right now, right here, to us.”

He looks at you as if you’ve reached inside his chest and laid bare his most fragile, guarded secret. “_______—” Your name is a broken sound, a plea and an apology.

You shake your head once, a small, definitive motion that silences him. “I don’t need every classified file, Steve. I don’t need to dissect every shadow. I just need to know that you see me standing beside you, not behind you. That you’re not deciding for me what I am, or am not, strong enough to face.”

His eyes shine, glassy with unshed tears he would never let fall here. His jaw works, a muscle ticking furiously as he battles the torrent of emotion fighting for release.

He says nothing.

And in that profound, chosen silence, you receive the only answer that matters.

You take a deliberate step back, physically creating a foot of space where, just moments before, there had been the aching potential for closeness. The air between you turns cold and still.

“I can’t keep doing this,” you say, the words soft, final, and infinitely weary. “Feeling like I’m trusted with the curated pieces of you, the fun companion, the comforting presence, but not with the raw truth that affects us both. It makes everything else feel… conditional. Like a loan of your trust.”

“Please,” Steve breathes, the word stripped of all pride, raw and exposed. It hangs in the space between you, a single thread holding a great weight.

You pause, feeling the pull of that thread, the ache to simply turn back and accept the partial version of things because the alternative is this cold distance.

But you don’t.

“When you’re ready to be honest,” you say, your voice firm yet not unkind, carrying the echo of the care you still feel, “really, fully honest… I’ll be ready to listen.”

Then you turn, and you walk away.

You don’t run. You don’t storm off in a performance of righteous anger. You simply leave, because to stay any longer would be to silently ratify a version of love that demands ignorance as its price, a partnership where one person holds the map and the other is simply told to follow.

Behind you, Steve does not follow.

He doesn’t call your name. He doesn’t rush to close the gap. He remains rooted in the spot, a statue of conflicted intention.

And that absolute stillness, that resigned letting-go, hurts almost more than a heated pursuit ever could. 

Billy Hargrove is wrong all day.

Not loud-wrong. Not aggressive-wrong. Not the familiar, swaggering menace you’ve learned how to clock and avoid with practiced ease. This isn’t the Billy who takes up space on purpose, who makes noise because noise means control.

He’s quiet.

Too quiet.

In first period, he sits without slouching, spine unnaturally straight, shoulders squared like he’s bracing for impact that never comes. His hands are folded flat on the desk, fingers perfectly still, as if he’s been instructed to keep them that way and is terrified of breaking a rule he doesn’t fully understand.

It’s unsettling. Billy never sits like that.

When the teacher calls on him, there’s a delay, just long enough to make the room shift uncomfortably. He looks at her too long before answering, eyes fixed and unblinking, like he’s processing the concept of authority rather than responding to it. When he finally speaks, his voice is calm. Flat. Almost polite.

That might be the worst part.

A group of students laughs behind him at something stupid and inconsequential. Billy’s head turns toward the sound, slow and precise, like a radar dish swiveling to lock onto a signal. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t react. He just watches until the laughter fades, then turns back to face the front of the room.

You feel it in your spine.

Every time you shift in your seat, his gaze follows.

Not openly. Not obviously. It’s subtle enough that you almost convince yourself you’re imagining it, until you glance up and catch his eyes already on you. They don’t flick away when you notice. They don’t sharpen or soften.

They just… stay.

There’s no appraisal there. No hunger. No challenge.

Just attention.

Like you’re a variable in an equation he hasn’t solved yet.

By second period, the unease has sunk beneath your skin. You keep your head down, focus on your notes, tell yourself you’re being paranoid. Billy is many things, but quiet isn’t a crime.

Still, you can feel him.

Waiting.

Across the hallway between classes, Billy stands alone near the lockers, not leaning, not posturing. Students move around him without acknowledging his presence, like their instincts are telling them to give him space even if they don’t know why.

You don’t look at him.

You can feel the moment he notices you’ve passed.

Steve does too.

You catch him watching Billy from across the hall, his usual easy posture gone rigid. His jaw tightens in that familiar way, like he’s biting back something he doesn’t want to say out loud. His eyes track Billy’s movements with a sharpness that makes your stomach drop.

You leave school unsettled, nerves humming beneath your skin, but you tell yourself you’re overreacting. You’re tired. You’re still angry. You don’t want to give Steve the satisfaction of being right about something he won’t explain.

You stop at Starcourt on the way home because you need something ordinary.

Groceries. Toothpaste. A carton of milk you don’t technically need. Something small and practical to anchor yourself to the world you understand. The mall is busy without being crowded, families drifting between stores, teenagers loitering with sodas in hand, the low, constant hum of fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like the mall itself is breathing.

Normal. Safe. Predictable.

You let yourself believe it.

You move through the aisles on autopilot, fingers brushing familiar packaging, the cold air of the freezer section raising goosebumps on your arms. Muzak crackles faintly through the speakers. Somewhere, a child laughs. Somewhere else, a cashier argues about coupons.

The world is blissfully unaware of the tight knot lodged beneath your ribs.

By the time you exit the mall, the sky has begun to bruise. Purple bleeding into orange, dusk settling like a held breath. The parking lot stretches wide and open, asphalt still warm from the day, rows of cars catching the dying light in dull flashes.

You adjust the bags in your hands and head for your car.

You’re halfway there when the air changes.

It’s subtle. A pressure shift. The feeling you get when someone stands too close behind you—but sharper. Focused. Like a fingertip pressing between your shoulder blades.

From the long, navy-blue shadow between two parked trucks, Billy Hargrove steps into the last of the dusk’s glow.

He doesn’t emerge; he unfolds. He moves with a languid, terrifying certainty, as if he’s been a part of the landscape the entire time, a statue waiting for the light to hit him just right so he could step down from his plinth. As if he’d been waiting, perfectly still, for the exact moment the universe would deliver you into this empty pocket of the world, alone.

The performative costume is gone. No worn denim jacket, no cigarette prop. Just a simple, cheap white t-shirt, stretched drum-tight across the hard plane of his chest and shoulders. The fabric pulls taut over the coiled power of his arms, whispering of muscle held in a state of permanent, aggressive tension. He looks contained, but not calm. He looks like a spring compressed to its absolute limit, every line of his body straining against some unseen, internal leash. His eyes, reflecting the bruised sky, hold none of the mall’s indifference. They are fixed, intent, and utterly, terrifyingly present. He has not happened upon you. He has arrived.

“You really do like to play games, don’t you?”

The voice slides into the space behind you like a blade, cold, sharp, and intimately invasive. It doesn’t just reach your ears; it slithers down your spine.

You freeze.

Your heart doesn’t just beat faster; it slams against your ribcage once, a single, violent contraction so powerful it feels like it punches the air straight from your lungs. The plastic grocery bags grow impossibly heavy, their handles like biting wires in your clenched fists.

Your pulse spikes, a frantic drum against your throat. “Billy. I don’t want to talk to you.”

He smiles.

It’s a slow, careful peeling back of lips. Utterly empty. A mockery of warmth that dies long before it reaches his eyes, which remain flat, watchful, and chillingly intent.

“Why do you play so hard to get, ______?” he asks, his voice a low, almost gentle croon that somehow makes the words more vile.

Every instinct in your body screams a single, primal command: RUN. You take an involuntary step back, your shoes scuffing loudly against the gritty asphalt. “What—”

“Couldn’t you just submit,” he continues, stepping forward in perfect time with your retreat. His voice lowers, thickens, something wet and furious curling underneath the honeyed tone, “like all the others? Would make things so much easier for you.”

Your stomach twists violently, a wave of nausea rising with the bile of fear. “That’s not—” you stammer, backing away again, the plastic bags slipping in your sweaty grip.

Billy moves. It’s not a rush. Not a lunge. It’s a sudden, efficient annihilation of the space between you, too fast for your eyes to properly track. One moment he’s several feet away; the next, his hand snaps out with the speed of a striking snake.

His fingers clamp around your wrist.

The grip is crushing, absolute. It’s not the hold of a person; it’s the bite of a mechanical vice. A sharp, sickening pain radiates from the bones. The grocery bags tear from your other hand, hitting the pavement with a crash. A can of soup rolls away with a lonely, metallic clatter.

You gasp, the sound thin and desperate.

His skin is cold. Not just cool from the evening air. It is a deep, unnatural cold, as if he’s been standing in a shadow that leaches all warmth from the world.

“You don’t get to say no,” he hisses, the gentle pretense evaporating. His breath smells of stale smoke and something else, something metallic and wrong.

And then his face changes. Not dramatically. Not into some storybook monster.

It shifts in small, profoundly wrong ways. His pupils blow wide, swallowing the icy blue of his irises until his eyes are almost entirely black, depthless pools. His jaw jerks sideways in a quick, spastic twitch, once, twice, as if something inside the shell of him is yanking on the strings, struggling to fit behind the mask of skin and bone. The expression is one of intense, internal conflict, but the hand on your wrist only tightens further, until white-hot bolts of pain shoot in jagged lines up your arm.

You scream.

It’s a raw, unfiltered sound of pure terror. Adrenaline, sharp and clarifying, tears through the panic. You shove at the solid wall of his chest with both hands, twisting your body with all your strength, your foot kicking out blindly. For one miraculous second, you manage to wrench your wrist free from that icy, iron grip.

You duck on instinct. His fist swings through the space where your head had been.

It doesn’t whistle through air; it crushes it.

The blow connects with the driver’s side door of a parked sedan.

The sound is a sickening, catastrophic CRUNCH of buckling metal and shattering safety glass. The door panel caves inward, a grotesque dimple of ruined steel. The car’s alarm erupts in a frantic, whooping wail, strobe lights flashing across the asphalt.

You stare, blood freezing in your veins.

That should have shattered every bone in his hand. That should have been impossible.

Not human.

The thought detonates in your mind, and with it, a panic that is hot, dizzying, and total. It vaporizes all thought, leaving only the ancient, mammalian imperative to flee.

You run.

Your shoes slip on the pavement as you bolt, veering wildly between the rows of cars. Your lungs burn, clawing for air that doesn’t seem to reach them. Your heart hammers so violently it blurs your vision, turning the world into a shaky, impressionist painting of color and shadow.

Behind you, Billy laughs.

It’s not loud. Not gleeful. It’s a low, wet, broken sound—a chuckle that seems to come not from his throat, but from somewhere deeper, darker. It’s the sound of something that finds your terror amusing.

Fingers, cold and strong, snag the back of your jacket. They yank with violent, effortless force, pulling you completely off your feet. You are a doll in his grip. You hit the ground hard, the impact jolting through your teeth. The rough asphalt shreds the skin of your palms as you try to break your fall. The pain is bright, sharp, and grounding.

You roll, instinct taking over, your foot lashing out in a blind, frantic kick. Your heel connects solidly with his kneecap.

He barely stumbles. It’s like kicking a brick wall.

A ragged, sob-like gasp tears from your throat. You scramble backward on your elbows and heels, putting precious inches between you, just in time to see his open hand slam down, palm flat, where your head had been.

CRACK.

The sound is horribly final. A spiderweb of fractures erupts in the asphalt beneath his hand.

Your vision tunnels, darkness pressing in at the edges. The world shrinks to this patch of broken ground, the wailing car alarm, and him.

Your scrabbling hand finds purchase on something long, cold, and heavy—a tire iron, abandoned near a car’s flat tire. Your fingers close around the gritty metal. Without thought, without hope, you swing it with every ounce of desperate strength you have left.

It connects with his shoulder with a solid, sickening THWACK that vibrates up your arm, rattling your very bones.

Billy… barely reacts.

He turns toward you slowly, deliberately, his head tilting to one side at an angle that is just a few degrees past natural. His black, depthless eyes rake over you, your heaving chest, your bleeding hands, the useless weapon in your grip, with something akin to clinical curiosity. There is no anger, no pain. Just a chilling, fascinated assessment.

He looks like a scientist observing a trapped insect that has, against all odds, managed to sting him. He looks like he’s calculating, with detached interest, exactly how much force it will take to finally, definitively, end your resistance.

“GET AWAY FROM HER!”

The shout doesn’t just cut through the air, it splits the night open like an axe through rotted wood. It’s raw, ragged, and forged from pure, undiluted terror.

Steve Harrington crashes into Billy Hargrove not like a man, but like a force of nature. He comes from the side, a blur of motion and desperation, his shoulder driving into Billy’s chest with the full, reckless weight of his body. The impact is a visceral, punishing thud that echoes off the cars, knocking the air from both of them in a synchronized, choked gasp. Billy, caught off guard for the first time all evening, is driven backward, his boots scraping twin streaks of protest across the asphalt, surprise, real, human surprise, flashing across his distorted features.

Steve doesn’t pause. He doesn’t check his own injuries. The momentum of the collision is just a prelude. He uses it, stepping into the space he’s carved out, his body pivoting to plant itself as an immovable object between you and the threat. His arms fly out to the sides, not in a heroic pose, but in a primal, instinctive spread—a human shield making itself as wide as possible. His stance is wide, knees bent, every muscle corded. He is a wall. He is a barricade. He is the only thing that matters.

“Run!” The command is ripped from his throat, hurled over his shoulder at you. It’s not a suggestion. It’s a plea and an order fused together. “NOW!”

Your legs are stone. Rooted. Paralyzed.

Billy regains his footing, the surprise melting into something molten and vicious. A low, guttural snarl tears from his lips, his face contorting, lips peeling back from teeth that seem too white in the fading light.

“Wrong choice,” he growls, the words dripping with a promise of pain.

And then he moves.

He hits Steve.

It’s not a punch; it’s a demolition. Billy’s fist connects with Steve’s jaw with a sickening, wet crack of bone on bone. The sound is horribly intimate, echoing in the vast, empty lot. Steve’s head snaps sideways. A spray of saliva and blood catches the dull gleam of a distant security light. He doesn’t cry out; he just goes down, his body folding under the force, skidding across the rough asphalt with a sound like tearing cloth.

Something flies from his grip, clattering and spinning across the pavement.

The bat.

Your eyes track it dumbly as it rolls in a wobbly arc, coming to a stop near your feet, its familiar, nail-studded wood looking absurdly ordinary against the oil-stained ground.

Billy is on him instantly.

The speed is inhuman. He doesn’t pounce; he flows onto Steve, a tide of relentless violence. His fists rise and fall in brutal, piston-like arcs. Each impact lands with a dreadful, meaty finality. Thud. Thud. THUD. Steve, dazed but fighting, tries to roll, tries to curl into a protective ball, his arms coming up to guard his head. But Billy doesn’t tire. He doesn’t need to breathe. It’s as if some external, malignant force is lending strength to every blow, making gravity his ally.

You scream Steve’s name.

The sound is torn from a place deeper than your lungs, raw and guttural, shredding your throat. You scramble to your feet, your legs trembling violently. Your heart is a frantic, caged bird trying to beat its way out of your chest, the pulse thundering in your ears so loudly it drowns out the car alarm. Your vision tunnels, the edges blurring into a swimming darkness, the world collapsing to the horrifying diorama of violence on the ground.

Steve is losing. Badly.

He blocks what he can, his forearms taking brutal punishment, already darkening with welts and cuts. What he can’t block, he absorbs. A fist slips past his guard, connecting with a sickening crunch against his ribs. He arches off the ground, a pained groan escaping his bloodied lips. Another blow splits the skin above his eyebrow, and blood, shockingly bright and red, blooms instantly, streaming down into his eye, painting half his face in a grotesque mask.

Still, he fights back.

Every movement is wild, desperate, fueled by a stubborn, unkillable fire. He swings a weak, looping punch that glances off Billy’s arm. He tries to buck him off. It’s futile, but the message in every ragged breath, every pained gasp, every defiant snarl, is screaming the same thing, over and over:

Not her. Not her. Not her.

“STOP!” you scream again, your voice breaking into a sob, the word dissolving into the night air, useless as confetti against a hurricane.

Billy seems to grow larger, his muscles bunching under the white cotton with an unnatural, rippling tension. He rears back, his fist lifting high, cocking for a blow that has no purpose but annihilation. It’s a killing strike, aimed at the vulnerable curve of Steve’s temple.

Thought evaporates.

Instinct takes over—an instinct older than fear, fiercer than panic.

Your hands, scraped and bleeding, find the cold, rough wood of the bat on the ground. Your fingers close around the grip, sticky with Steve’s blood. It feels impossibly heavy, a log of deadweight. But also solid. Real. A tooth of the real world in this nightmare.

A terrifying, feral clarity descends. The dizzying fear sharpens into a single, white-hot point of purpose.

You lurch forward, your body moving without your mind’s permission.

You swing.

You put everything into it, the terror of the note, the chill of his grip, the sound of crushing metal, the sight of Steve’s blood. You put every ounce of your weight, every shred of your fury, every desperate atom of your love into the arc.

The bat cuts through the air with a terrible, whistling sound.

It connects.

The impact is not a thud, but a hollow, resonant CRACK, like splitting a dense, frozen log. The vibration judders up your arms, rattling your teeth.

Billy’s head jerks sideways with a violent, whip-like snap. His body goes rigid for a split, suspended second. His black, endless eyes, wide with a shock that isn’t pain, but profound, outraged interruption, find yours. In that fleeting moment, you see a bottomless fury, a universe of wrongness focused solely on you.

Then the connection between his will and his body seems to sever.

He collapses.

It isn’t a graceful fall. It’s a total, boneless slump. He hits the asphalt like a sack of wet cement, limbs splayed at awkward, unnatural angles, his face turned toward the bruised sky.

Silence.

It crashes down, heavier and more profound than any noise. The only sounds are your own ragged, sobbing breaths, the fading echo of the car alarm, and a low, pained groan from Steve.

The world rushes back in a dizzying, nauseating wave, the cold air, the smell of gasoline and blood, the distant hum of the mall. You stand there, the bat now a dead weight in your trembling hands, staring at the two bodies on the ground: one still, one struggling to move.

The silence is deafening. It rings in your ears, a high-pitched tone of pure, undiluted shock.

Your arms tremble violently, a post-storm quake that travels from your shoulders to your fingertips. The bat slips from your numb, blood-slicked grasp and hits the asphalt with a dull, hollow clang that seems to echo the finality of the moment.

“Steve—” you gasp, the sound tearing from a raw throat as you drop to your knees beside him, the rough pavement biting through your jeans.

He’s breathing. Shallow, wet, rattling breaths, but they are there. His eyes flutter beneath bruised lids, struggling to focus on your face through the mask of blood streaking from his temple down his cheek, a vivid red river against his pale skin.

“Hey,” he rasps, the word barely a whisper, a thread of sound spun from pain and sheer will. His gaze, clouded with concussion, finally finds yours. “You… okay?”

The question—absurd, selfless, utterly Steve shatters what little composure you have left. A choked sob escapes you, tears welling hot and immediate, blurring his broken form.

“You absolute idiot,” you weep, the words mangled by emotion. Your hands flutter uselessly over him, finally pressing against the solid, trembling plane of his shoulder. “You’re bleeding everywhere. You could’ve—he could’ve killed you.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, so faint you have to lean in to hear. A ghost of a smile, more a twitch of his split lip, touches his mouth despite the agony etched in every line of his face. “Worth it.”

Getting him to your car is an ordeal etched in fire and fear. You half-drag, half-carry his dead weight, every step sending white-hot pulses of agony through your screaming muscles and bruised spine. Steve sags into you, his arm a heavy, unsteady bar over your shoulders, his body shaking not just from injury, but from the sheer, draining effort of remaining conscious. Each shallow, ragged breath he takes ghosts warm and uneven against the side of your neck, a terrifying metronome counting the seconds he remains with you.

“You’re okay,” you whisper into his hair, the mantra as much for yourself as for him. Your voice is a thin, desperate thread in the vast, silent parking lot. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, just hold on.”

Your shoes, slick with a grimy mixture of spilled soda, oil, and his blood, slip on the pavement. You stumble, his weight almost pulling you both down. Your fingers clutch desperately at the bloodied leather of his jacket, bunching the material in your fists as you adjust your grip, your muscles shrieking in protest, your heart a wild, frantic drum against your ribs threatening to break free.

The memory hits you then, unbidden and cruel in its contrast.

The way he carried you once, just days ago, yet a lifetime away. So slow, so careful, as if you were made of the most delicate glass. One arm a firm, secure band around your back, the other cradling the bend of your knees, his voice a low, soothing rumble in the dark hallway telling you it was okay to lean on him, that he had you. You’d laughed then, hazy with drink and trust, letting your head loll against his shoulder, believing completely in his strength.

The irony of it burns now, acrid and sharp.

This time, it is you who holds him together. Your arms, now trembling with a different kind of weakness, are the only thing keeping him from crumbling to the ground.

You reach your car, fumbling for your keys with fingers that feel thick and foreign. They slip twice, clattering against the door handle, before you finally manage to fit the key into the lock. The click is deafeningly loud. Getting him into the passenger seat is a clumsy, frantic ballet of bracing and easing. You cradle his head, guiding it carefully against the headrest, murmuring his name over and over like a protective incantation.

"Steve. Steve. Almost there."

Blood smears across the pale upholstery in stark, Rorschach blooms. It coats your hands, drying sticky and dark under your nails. It is on everything, a brutal, undeniable testament.

He groans as you buckle the seatbelt across his chest, his eyes fluttering open. For a second, through the haze of pain, his gaze finds yours and holds, a startling, lucid connection.

“Hey,” he murmurs, his voice a hoarse scrape. A feeble attempt at a smile touches his ruined mouth. “You did good.”

Your throat closes completely, a solid wall of grief and love and terror. Fresh tears spill over, hot and silent.

“Don’t,” you beg, your voice breaking into pieces. “Just—don’t talk. Please.”

You slide into the driver’s seat on legs that feel like water. The leather is cold beneath your trembling palms. Your hands clamp around the steering wheel, knuckles bleaching white as you force yourself to take one deep breath, then another, fighting the dizzying tide of shock.

The only sound in the car is Steve’s breathing, shallow, uneven, a fragile rhythm in the dark.

And then it hits you.

Not like the fear, a lightning strike of adrenaline. Not like the panic, a cold flood.

This comes slower. Heavier. A deep, settling ache that displaces the shock.

He knew.

The realization unfolds with dreadful clarity. The way he found you, not by chance, not searching frantically, but with direct, horrifying purpose. As if he’d been anticipating this exact horror all along, a shadow he’d been trying to outrun or intercept. The way he didn’t hesitate for a single second, not when he saw Billy, not when he put his own body between you and those fists. He stepped into the violence as if it were a script he’d already read, a price he’d already agreed to pay.

Steve knew something was fundamentally, terribly wrong with Billy Hargrove.

And suddenly, the heated argument in the hallway plays back in your mind with a new, devastating soundtrack. His tight jaw, his clipped warnings, the raw desperation woven through every stay away from him, it wasn’t about control. It wasn’t about a lack of trust in you.

It was fear.

A bone-deep, history-informed terror he didn’t know how to articulate without unleashing the very monster he was trying to shield you from.

Your grip on the steering wheel loosens, just a fraction, as the fight drains out of you, replaced by a profound, sorrowful understanding.

He hadn’t been trying to build a cage around you.

He’d been trying, clumsily and imperfectly, with the only tools his battered heart knew how to use, to keep you out of reach of a darkness he recognized.

You survived.

Not just because you were brave enough to swing a bat.

But because Steve Harrington showed up anyway.

Because he’d been watching, waiting, a silent guardian orbiting your periphery, ready at a moment’s notice to throw himself into the grinding gears of that darkness if it meant you could walk away.

Your chest tightens, a complex knot of emotion burning behind your eyes as you glance at him slumped in the seat beside you. Blood is drying in a cruel corona at his temple. One hand lies curled weakly in his lap, already swelling. He looks young. Broken. Beautifully, terribly human.

The secret he kept didn’t almost get you killed.

The secret he kept is the precise, awful reason you are both still breathing.

And that realization doesn’t erase the hurt of his silence, it sharpens it, hones it into something quieter, more intimate, and infinitely more painful.

Because if Steve had found a way to trust you with the terrifying, ugly truth…

Maybe he wouldn’t be sitting beside you now, bleeding and broken, paying for that silence with his own flesh and blood.

You turn the key. The engine sputters to life, a mundane sound in the aftermath of chaos.

As you pull the car out of the Starcourt parking lot, leaving the scene of the violence swallowed by the night, one truth settles in your chest, heavy and undeniable as a stone:

You’re not angry that he tried to protect you.

You’re shattered that he ever felt he had to do it alone.

The hospital is quieter than you expect. Not silent, it’s a space that never truly sleeps, but subdued, a world muffled in soft noise and dimmed concern. Machines hum a low, continuous hymn from other rooms. Rubber-soled shoes squeak with purposeful gentleness somewhere down the polished linoleum hall. Behind a drawn floral curtain, a nurse murmurs steady, practiced reassurances in a voice meant to soothe. Even the fluorescent lights, usually so harsh and revealing, have been dialed down to a muted, almost apologetic glow, as if they, too, understand that this hour demands something softer than truth.

Steve lies in the narrow bed, a landscape of white sheets and bleached cotton. His left arm is a careful sculpture of gauze and tape, resting atop the blanket. A thin, stark bandage cuts across his temple, a white flag against the purple swelling beneath. His chest rises and falls in a steady, medicated rhythm now, thank God, thank everything, but the sight of him so still, so deliberately still, makes a quiet, persistent ache settle deep in your throat.

You perch on the stiff, unforgiving plastic chair beside his bed, the only anchor in the sterile sea of the room. You don’t leave.

You should be exhausted. A bone-deep, system-failure kind of tired. And you are. Your clothes carry the acrid scent of asphalt fear and sharp hospital antiseptic. Your hands, scrubbed raw at the sink until they tingled, still feel phantom-sticky, no matter how hard you’ve washed. But every time your heavy eyelids start to drift shut, every time you consider resting your head back against the cold wall, your gaze snaps back to him—to the steady pulse in his throat, to the faint twitch of his fingers, as if your vigil alone is the thread keeping him tethered here. So you sit.

You watch the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of his chest beneath the hospital gown. You listen to the metronomic beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor, a sound that has become both lifeline and lament. You replay the fractured day on a loop in your mind, the note, the argument, the parking lot, the crack of the bat, until the memories lose their sharp edges and blur into a single, prolonged smear of terror and adrenaline.

At some point deep in the night, a nurse with kind eyes and a quiet step enters to check his vitals. She smiles softly at you, her clipboard held like a shield against her chest.

“You can grab some coffee from the vending machine down the hall, sweetie,” she offers, her voice a gentle nudge. “He’s stable. Sleeping soundly. You don’t have to stay glued to that chair.”

“I’m okay,” you reply, the words coming a little too quickly, too tightly.

Her eyes, wise and weary, flick between your face and Steve’s still form, then back to you. Her smile deepens, becoming something knowing and warm. “Girlfriend?”

You blink, thrown. “Oh— no. I mean, we’re not—”

She chuckles softly, a sound like rustling pages. “Honey, you’ve been holding his hand for the last three hours. Pretty convincingly.”

You look down, startled.

You hadn’t even realized.

Somehow, while you were lost in the watchful silence, your fingers had woven themselves between his. Your palm rests against the back of his bandaged hand, your knuckles brushing the familiar, vulnerable curve of his palm. The contact feels as natural as breathing, as essential as the IV drip feeding into his other arm. Like your hand belongs exactly there.

A slow, warm flush climbs your cheeks. “I’m just… staying,” you murmur, lamely.

“Well,” she says, her tone softening into something approaching reverence, “he’s lucky to have you.”

She slips out as quietly as she came, the door clicking shut with a hushed finality.

You don’t let go.

Steve wakes just before dawn.

It’s not a dramatic awakening. No gasps, no jolting upright. It’s subtle, a slight hitch in his previously even breathing, a faint, pained furrow appearing between his brows. But you notice instantly. Your body jolts upright in the chair, the legs scraping a jarringly loud protest against the floor.

“Steve?” you whisper, your voice gravelly from disuse and emotion.

His eyelashes flutter, dark against his pale skin. His dry, cracked lips part. “Ow,” he croaks, the single syllable rough and genuine.

A wave of relief so potent it’s dizzying crashes through you. A sound escapes you—half a laugh, half a sob, entirely unguarded. “Hi,” you manage, your own voice trembling. “Welcome back.”

He squints at the speckled acoustic tiles of the ceiling, processing, then turns his head slowly, carefully, on the pillow. His eyes, clouded with pain and medication, drift, struggle to focus—and then land on your face.

And they soften. All the tension, all the guardedness he usually carries, melts away, leaving something open and unbearably tender.

“Oh,” he murmurs, the word filled with a quiet, wondrous realization. “You stayed.”

Your throat constricts painfully. “Of course I did.”

He swallows with visible effort, his jaw working. “Good,” he rasps, a ghost of his old smirk touching his mouth. “‘Cause I was gonna be real mad if you didn’t.”

You snort, the familiar, fond irritation bubbling up despite everything. “You got beaten half to death in a parking lot, and that’s your priority?”

“Hey,” he says weakly, but his eyes are shining. “Consistency matters.”

You shake your head, a real smile breaking through the fatigue and fear, even as fresh tears burn behind your eyes.

For a long moment, you just look at each other in the pre-dawn grey of the room. The unspoken things hang heavy in the air between you, weightier than any monitor or IV stand.

Then Steve exhales, a long, careful, deliberate breath, as if he’s gathering courage from the very bottom of his lungs.

“I’m sorry,” he says, quietly. So quietly.

The apology isn’t rushed. It isn’t defensive or wrapped in a joke. It is simple, stark, and utterly honest.

“I should’ve told you,” he continues, his gaze unwavering. “I knew something was wrong. I knew he wasn’t… himself. Not for a while. And I still didn’t tell you.” His voice cracks, just a hairline fracture of sound that speaks volumes. “I thought I could handle it alone. I thought if I just kept you far enough away, I could keep you safe without ever having to scare you with the… the realness of it.”

You hold his gaze, letting him speak, letting the truth he’d hoarded finally find air.

“And?” you prompt gently.

“And I was wrong,” he admits. No excuses. No deflection. Just the raw, humble admission. “I should’ve trusted you. I should’ve given you the choice. I was so afraid of you choosing to walk toward the danger that I didn’t realize I was already pushing you away.”

Your fingers, still laced with his, tighten gently. An anchor. A forgiveness.

“I don’t forgive you because you jumped in front of me,” you say, your voice soft but clear in the quiet room. “I forgive you because you’re sitting here right now, bleeding through your bandages, and you’re owning it. All of it.”

Steve lets out a shaky breath that sounds like the beginning of a release. “Yeah. Well. Growth. Apparently I’m doing that now. It’s… uncomfortable.”

You smile, a real one that reaches your eyes. “Terrifying.”

He huffs a pained laugh, then grows serious again, his thumb moving in a faint, unconscious stroke across your knuckle. “I didn’t tell you because… I didn’t want to be the guy who only matters when things get bad. The crisis guy. The fighter. I wanted you to like me when I was just… me. When I wasn’t bleeding or bruised or playing hero.”

Your chest aches with the sweetness and the sorrow of it.

“I liked you at my kitchen table,” you tell him, the memory vivid and warm. “With your stupid, nervous pencil tapping and your fake, overconfident grin.”

He groans faintly, a blush tinting the skin above his bandage. “God, I knew you clocked that.”

“You joke when you’re scared,” you continue, building the portrait of him you’ve been assembling in your heart. “You try to protect people when you don’t know how to just ask them to be careful. And you care so damn much it makes you reckless. It makes you walk into parking lots against things you don’t understand.”

Steve watches you, his eyes wide and soft, as if you’re reading from a book of his own secret history.

“I fell for you anyway,” you finish, the confession hanging softly in the space between you. “Maybe even because of it.”

Silence stretches, but it’s a comfortable, understanding quiet, filled with the hum of healing.

Then Steve smiles—not the dazzling, performative King of Hawkins grin, not the defensive jock’s smirk—but something smaller, softer, and completely unguarded. It transforms his battered face.

“You flirting with me right now,” he asks, his voice a gentle, hopeful rasp, “or are you?”

You laugh, the sound warm and real and free, and you lean closer, bridging the space the chair had created. “You finally noticed.”

He squeezes your hand, the grip weak but full of intention. “Guess I’m a slow learner.”

Outside the narrow hospital window, the world begins to lighten. Pale, tentative gold spills across the white sheets, gilding the edges of the blanket, washing over his tired face and your clasped hands. Steve watches the sunrise for a moment, a quiet peace settling over his features. Then he looks back at you, his eyes clear and certain.

“I’m still gonna want to protect you,” he says, the vow simple and true. “It’s in my wiring. But I’m gonna ask first. And I’m gonna listen. And I’m gonna trust you to stand next to me, not behind me. To be my partner in the weird, scary stuff. Not my… not my problem to solve.”

Your heart feels full, not with giddy lightness, but with a steady, chosen weight. Like you’ve both been looking for solid ground and have finally found it, together.

“Good,” you say, your own voice firm with promise. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”

Steve’s smile deepens, crinkling the corners of his eyes. It’s the smile of a boy who has finally put down a burden he was never meant to carry alone.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, his gaze holding yours with a promise as sure as the rising sun. “Me neither.”

[fromellewithlove]

i don't usually do long fics but DAMN if this wasn't worth it. what was that? no i didn't cry, what? who said that?