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twenty-one gap-toothed and proud

[imfromthediningtable]

⸻𝐢𝐦𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞'𝐬 navigation! ⭑

made of outer space. tinker fairy. silver girl. ariana’s daughter. go for it. driving with the windows down. aquarius. miss psychology. 1950 forever. change. to mourn the wicked.

⭑ keep up with my reading list @ #star reads!

[keer-y]

TILTED

[til-tid] / tɪl tɪd / 1: when a player becomes frustrated, resulting in risky play due to the influence of emotion &&

pairing: keys mckey/f!reader wc: 22k prompt from @levanswrites: here to request a blurb w keys: mean gamer persona vs loverboy bf. over vc he's super intense, competitive, maybe a little degrading... but the second he’s with you, it’s like a switch flips and he turns into the softest sweetie pie ever. and you can't stop thinking abt what the other keys is like in bed... tags: slice of life, fluff and smut, first time (together), soft keys, mean ish keys, toxic gamer attitude, softdom!keys, degradation/praise kink, vaginal fingering, oral sex (f + m receiving), handjobs, sex toys, rimming, vaginal sex, multiple orgasms a/n: hi i have no chill &&

You met Keys through a mutual friend's Discord server. Lexy. She told you he was a little intense in the games they play together, but she really thought you guys would vibe because he was fucking fantastic at Minecraft—like, his builds were next level—and he had over 500 hours in Stardew. And those kinds of games, the cozy ones, were way more your speed. So when you made a joint farm or visited his island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you couldn't really wrap your head around this “intense” persona that Lexy swore up and down Keys had.

They knew each other through work, and you knew her through school, so it wasn't a long-distance relationship. Or, well, it didn't have to be. You'd both admitted that you were vibing, but you were almost too shy to meet up until Lexy suggested making it a group thing. A handful people from their office, and you. Like that wasn't intimidating as all hell.

But you showed up. It was a group of 6, including you, Lexy, and Keys, and all you were doing was seeing a matinee movie before grabbing some coffee afterward to hang out and talk.

You'd seen Keys on video, of course, both of you on camera when you were playing from time to time, but you weren't quite prepared for his actual, physical presence. He was tall, but hunched over, probably from hours being bent in front of a keyboard and monitor. He smelled nice—which, for gamer boys, was not always the norm. And, even better, he actually treated you like a real gamer, even though you self-deprecatingly said with alarming regularity that you only played “cozy games” and those didn't count.

“They absolutely count,” Keys said. “Who tells you they don't? Don't listen to them. Do you feel like a gamer?”

You paused, waiting for him to go on, until you realized he was actually asking. “Oh. Uh, yeah.”

“Then you're a gamer! Come on, it's so fucking lame to gatekeep shit like that. So, I know you don't love FPS games, but you're a huge Squirrel Girl fan, right?” He talked a lot. But, you were impressed that he remembered you saying you liked Miss Squirrel Girl herself, Doreen Green, in passing once a few months ago. “Have you ever heard of Marvel Rivals?”

&&

You didn't think that counted as your first date, even though Keys really pushed for it to be. You'd been at a table with four other people and yet, for the whole hour and a half you whiled away at the cafe, you two primarily only talked to each other.

Your next excursion—still not something you'd consider your first real date—had you both heading out to Newbury Comics, lamenting how they used to have much cooler shit and now only had t-shirts and Pop Vinyls.

“I bought a plushie TARDIS here once,” you said. “Years ago.”

“Well, now you buy socks that have curse words on them,” Keys said, grabbing a pair from a rack nearby.

“I feel like they should have more comics for a store with 'Comics' in the name.”

“Want to hit a real comic shop?” he asked, and you looked over at him, beaming.

“Yeah!” you enthused, and he took your hand—he took your hand—and led you back onto the street, dragging you uptown to a store that had new releases and back issues upon back issues.

He bought you a trade paperback of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, despite your protestations, and when you stopped at the subway entrance to head back to your apartment, he took your hand again.

For a moment you thought he was going to kiss you—he didn't, which is why it was not a date—and asked if he could see you again soon.

You agreed, and he grinned, adjusting his glasses on his nose before he pulled out his phone.

“I know you can just message me on Discord,” he said, “but maybe—you could text me when you get home instead?”

You gave Keys your phone number and promised you'd respond to his text the second you were back at your place.

&&

—home

K: Good! Hi.

—what's your real name?

K: That's dangerous to just tell people willy nilly

—lexy won't tell me —what do you think i'm gonna do? —dox you?

K: That, or fae bullshit. K: My government name is a well-guarded secret. K: Not for the faint of heart.

—lexy said keys is short for your last name

K: Dude K: Seriously? K: Traitor

—i've known her a long time. if she trusts me you should too

K: That is just what someone would say if I c a n ' t trust them.

—i gave you my phone number outside of the subway. the least you could do is tell me your first name

K: But Keys is so much better!

—because you write code?

K: Yes!

—i'll tell you one of my secrets

K: … K: You first.

—i think you're really cute —and i wish you hadn't just taken my phone number today and said bye

K: … K: What should I have done instead?

—💋

K: Walter McKey. When were we hanging out again?

—LOL —walter. that's cute.

K: Now you see why I go by Keys.

—i do see why you go by keys but walter isn't that bad —i promise

K: So what should we do next time we hang out, given we now know each other's deepest, darkest secrets?

—game night?

K: Pretty AND smart. I owe Lexy big time.

—i'll bring my switch :)

K: And maybe we can try Rivals. You can play on my pc and I'll play on the Playstation.

—no promises

K: Just think about it.

&&

You did think about it, which is to say you decided on “Not doing that” and didn't mention it again to Keys. You packed up your Switch and caught the subway to the stop nearest him, then walked the couple blocks down to his building. He met you at the door and let you in, leading you to his apartment.

It was cleaner than you expected—like, nothing out of place, vacuum lines over the area rug in the living room, and even a brand new candle burning on the small dining table. It looked as though he'd just lit it before he came downstairs to meet you.

“Cute place,” you said. “I thought for sure it would be way nerdier than this.”

“Oh. No, it is, this is just—I don't really hang out out here that much.” He gestured down the hall, and once you looked, you could see the room he meant. It was dark inside, but you saw the ambient glow of lights rotating through a variety of colors and the very edge of a computer tower, the fans also glowing different colors.

“Ok, that makes more sense,” you said, not bothering to wait to be invited in, but instead kicking off your shoes and heading straight to the game room.

It was small, but still impressive. He had his PC on his desk, the fans pulsing from red to blue and then back, and the LED lights on the wall cycling through the rainbow.

“Do you stream?” you asked, once he was in the room with you, and you turned to your left, where a futon was angled toward the back wall, a TV with a PS5 and a Switch hooked up to it rested.

“Um... sometimes,” he said. “I'll do more like, Let's Plays rather than livestreaming. Or sometimes I'll post a timelapse of something I built in Minecraft.”

“Oh, speaking of—are we playing Animal Crossing? Or Minecraft? I got it on Switch just for today.”

Keys smiled at you as he settled into his desk chair, gesturing for you to take your seat on the futon. You did. “I was thinking we could start with Minecraft, grind a little, then maybe try Rivals...? And then if you hate that, Animal Crossing. I finally got Fuschia to want to leave my island, weren't you looking for her?”

“You'd give Fuschia to me?” you asked, flabbergasted. She was your favorite villager—had been for ages—and now Keys was going to give her to you just like that?

“I'm still holding out hope that I'll find Ketchup someday,” Keys replied.

“Yes. Please. Oh my god. I'll give you Nook Miles tickets so you can try to find her.”

“Not necessary,” Keys said, laughing and turning back to his computer, jostling the mouse to wake it and then opening Steam to fire up Minecraft. “But I won't say no if you just... drop them on my island somewhere random for me to find in a week when I'm digging for fossils...”

“Deal,” you said, pulling your Switch out of its case. “Thank you so much.” He wasn't looking, so you spoke louder, more emphatically. “Keys. Seriously—thank you.”

He glanced back at you, grinning. “Hey, anything for you.”

You were only a little taken aback, but tried not to read too much into the statement—Lexy had told you how sweet he was, so that tracked. You tried not to take it personally, anyway.

Minecraft was incredible but cut a little short when you dug too far down and accidentally fell into a huge cave, groaning aloud once you hit the ground, all of your items scattering around your character's body.

“Did you just die?” Keys asked, smirking a little over his shoulder at you. “Fell from a great height, maybe?”

“Shut up,” you grumbled, dropping your Switch to your lap. “Let's try Rivals. I couldn't possibly feel worse than I feel right now.”

“Don't sweat it,” Keys said, closing Minecraft and opening Rivals. “I'll carry you.”

“I hate that you think I'll need to be carried but I also hate that you're right.”

As the game loaded, Keys stood up from his chair and gestured for you to sit there instead of him. “I'll get you set up in the training range while I get the Playstation going. Here.”

You'd already sat down in his chair, but he leaned over you, his hand covering yours on the mouse, as he clicked around the screen, choosing Squirrel Girl for you, but also showing you how to change characters if you wanted to.

“If you don't feel like DPS, you might like Cloak and Dagger or Luna Snow,” he suggested.

“Wow, so girls can only play support characters?” you asked, turning to him, very conscious of his hand still atop yours.

His eyes glinted a little. “Do you want to tank?”

“...No,” you admitted.

“Then stick to Squirrel Girl,” he said, finally pulling away. The back of your hand radiated warmth where he had been touching you.

While you messed around as Squirrel Girl in the training range, shooting explosive acorns and sending out Squirrel Stampedes, Keys puttered around behind you getting himself situated on the futon. After a moment, an invitation to join his group popped up on the screen, and you accepted. He queued you into a match, against real people, and you turned to look at him as the map loaded.

“Shouldn't we try versus the computer first?”

“Nah,” Keys said, his back to you as he selected Magneto. “We'll be fine.”

You sighed, moused over to Squirrel Girl, and selected her, loading into the match.

It went... fine, actually. Keys played eerily well and your other DPS definitely carried you, but the supports on your team were great at keeping you up, and so while you heard Keys behind you getting a little worked up every time he died or you missed a pick, it seemed pretty standard gamer stuff. You also got pissed off whenever Lexy forced you to play Dead by Daylight and you found that you actually could not run killers or hit skill checks despite her telling you it was easy.

By the time you loaded into your second match, two other players had already locked tanks, so Keys chose a DPS (Spider-Man), and you chose a support, one of the ones he mentioned: Luna Snow. She seemed less complicated to learn on the fly, plus her hair was pretty cute, so, you figured why not?

You weren't doing great, and while Keys wouldn't blame you, you could tell he was getting frustrated.

“Fuck,” he'd muttered at one point, but still—that was par for the course.

All was quiet for about a minute. Then—

“Fuck off!” he'd half-shouted, after the enemy Iron Fist managed to corner him and kill him. “Oh my fucking god.”

You looked back over your shoulder at Keys, gripping the controller with each hand like a vice, and—since you were both waiting to respawn, because he'd died, you'd died trying to get to him to heal him, and once you were both down the whole team got rolled—spoke.

“You ok?” you asked, voice high and quiet.

Keys turned to look at you, the smile betraying his previous tone, and just quirked his head to the side. “Yeah, 'course. You good? Wanna stop?”

“Oh,” you said, “no. It's... I kind of like Luna.”

Keys grinned, then turned back to the TV once he saw on your screen that you were both back in the spawn room. “Cool, you're doing really good with her.”

That felt like news to you, but you just twirled his desk chair back around and focused on the game. You always kept one eye on Keys, sometimes to the detriment of your team, but he was your friend—ish—so you felt an obligation to keep him alive if you could.

At one point, he managed to get the jump on the Iron Fist, even going so far as to solo ult him, laughing darkly and following it up with a “Get fucked, you piece of shit,” which felt so out of left field that you just... didn't acknowledge it.

What he was saying wasn't ideal, but... the tone his voice took on, the dark edge, the rough anger—you wouldn't admit it to him but maybe it was doing something for you. Which was new. Because you'd have sworn up and down that Keys wasn't the toxic kind of gamer, and yet there he was, swearing and being sweaty and ok, why was this getting you a little wet in his fucking gaming chair? You had to lock in and not get distracted by this guy who hadn't even kissed you yet.

“Get fucking owned,” Keys yelled, and you noticed in the kill feed that he’d killed Iron Fist again. “Gonna focus this clown until he switches,” he added absently; you weren't sure if he was talking to you, or to himself.

“Good idea,” you said in agreement, voice low, and sure enough, two more shouting matches with himself later, Iron Fist had switched to Scarlet Witch and turned the tide of the game even more. Your team won, and Keys immediately turned over to you.

“Hey, sorry,” he said. “Sometimes I get kinda into the game.”

You just looked back at him, nodding, then shaking your head. “Yeah, no worries.” You gave him a weak smile, because intense was the word Lexy had used to describe him and although it wasn’t that far off, you also weren’t sure that it was the correct word to use. You weren’t sure arousing was right either, but holy shit that was how it felt.

But maybe it was a fluke. You weren’t sure, really.

You loaded into a third match, choosing Luna again, while Keys opted for Magneto once more. This time, he didn’t have to bring out his alternate personality, and you won the match 2-1.

It wasn’t your kind of game, you didn’t think, but it was fun with Keys, especially when his alter ego came out to play (you’d have to think up a nickname for it, a la Darkiplier or Antisepticeye), and when you finally logged off of Rivals for the evening, he turned to you on the futon and grinned, back to his normal demeanor.

“Hungry?”

Almost like you’d timed it, your stomach gave a huge growl, and you laughed. “I guess that’s a yes.”

Keys stood up and motioned for you to follow him, leading you back out to the kitchen and opening the junk drawer. Or—what you assumed would be the junk drawer but was in fact actually just full of takeout menus. Indian; Chinese; at least five different pizza places all marked up with certain items crossed out or circled which you took to mean he’d sampled the menus enough that he knew that Tony’s had shitty garlic knots but fantastic bolognese, while Nonna’s Pizzeria was the only place to get a decent grandma pie but under no circumstances should you even think about the pasta from there.

“What d’ya feel like?” Keys asked, fanning out the menus toward you. There were five, and you chose one at random because you weren’t picky and he’d already narrowed it down to what he wanted.

“Falafel,” Keys said, approvingly. “Hell yeah.” He gave you a smile so sweet that you almost couldn’t conflate it with how he’d acted when you were playing Rivals.

He insisted on paying too—”They have my info on file,” he’d said, “it’s just easier”—and let you choose the movie to put on while you waited for the delivery and while you ate. You picked one of your favorites (The Princess Bride), laughing when Keys screwed up his face and said “But that’s a kissing movie.”

“Well, that’s what I want to watch,” you replied, stepping away from him and going back to the game room to flop yourself down onto the couch.

You heard Keys open his fridge, a little bit of rattling, and then he followed you in, plunked two cans of Cherry Coke onto the little folding table that you figured must be a fixture in this room. One was open, so you grabbed the other one, fiddling with the pop tab because you didn’t want to open it too soon and risk it being flat by the time your dinner arrived. While you rolled the can between your hands, Keys snatched the controller to awaken his Playstation again. 

“You’ll never guess,” he said, and when the homescreen loaded, he navigated over to the disc icon floating there.

“No way,” you said, laughing, because The Princess Bride was already in the disc drive.

“I had it on the other day while I was working,” Keys explained, reaching up to card a hand through his hair. 

“But it’s a kissing movie,” you said, mocking him, and he smirked.

“Yeah, well,” Keys said, leaning over to you, face to face, far too close but somehow, not close enough. “Sometimes kissing isn’t so bad.” His lips brushed yours, and then stayed there, pushing himself closer. Your tongue flitted against his mouth, tasting the cherry soda he’d sipped, and once you’d done that, he parted his lips further, kissing you properly, tongues barely meeting before he pulled away. He looked shy even though he’d initiated the whole thing.

“Sweet,” you said absently, reaching up to touch your lips with cold fingers, then his. Then, mortified, you lowered your hand and looked away.

“I have my moments,” Keys replied, starting the movie and settling back against the cushion of the futon. He made no movement to indicate he wanted you to move closer, seemed perfectly content to just watch the movie, but you weren’t. Not at all. In fact, after the man had just kissed you, you actually felt a little put out that he didn’t want to keep kissing you, and so you leaned forward, reaching across him to put your can of soda down beside his, and once you were basically stretched across him, you turned to him, settled half on his lap, took his face in your hands, and kissed him again, the residual desire from the first, admittedly somewhat chaste kiss, still lingering. And then there was the whole matter of everything you’d felt when he was angry during Rivals, still weighing down your stomach with want, tainted need because of how sick you felt being attracted to the meaner side of him.

Not to say you didn’t like the normal, nice guy too.

But… just something about the other version of him, right?

“Oh, hey,” Keys said against your lips, one arm moving around you, the other settling on your leg to move up your thigh. “We just put the movie on.”

“We’ve both seen it,” you said, taking his lips in another kiss. He let you in, his hands remaining in the respectful places on your body: Thigh, far away from your crotch, and mid-back, not daring to dip too low. 

What had started out as eager, heated kissing on your part slowly mellowed into languid, easy making out, you taking your time and Keys savoring every single liplock until his phone chimed from where he’d left it on the kitchen counter, and his hands finally moved to your hips, but only to move you off of him.

“That’s dinner,” he said, “wait here.” You fell back beside him on the futon as he leaned in one last time, giving you another cherry soda-tinged kiss, and then stood up, his long legs carrying him out of the room in far fewer steps than it would take you. You heard his front door open and close, and then there were a few minutes of silence wherein you opened your own can of soda and took a sip, nursing it as you watched the movie in Keys’ absence.

But your thoughts wandered. You’d always hated toxic gamer guys—it was part of the reason that you didn’t fuck with FPS games or even battle royales, and the entire reason you never went on voice comms. You had to wonder if you hadn’t been on something akin to a date with Keys (was it a date, now that you’d kissed?) would he have also been trash talking your performance in the game? He didn’t seem like the type to lie to get into your pants—he could have done it twice over by now, when he’d first kissed you and then when you were sat on his lap. But he didn’t, which led you to the conclusion (at least for now) that he was just a nice guy with a little bit of a hot head when he was in the thick of a game. Nothing wrong with that. For every F-bomb he’d dropped during Rivals, you’d surely said twice as many and even worse while playing DBD with Lexy.

And ultimately, it turned you on and you weren’t going to forget about it because you deserved to be horny too, ok?

The front door opened again and you heard Keys’ gait as he closed the door behind him, kicked his shoes off, and made a pitstop in the kitchen. The sound of a crinkling paper bag reached you followed by a heavy sigh, the opening of one drawer, a pause, the opening of another drawer, the metallic tinkling of cutlery, and then both drawers being rolled closed before the paper bag crumpled up again.

“They sometimes forget to give me forks or whatever,” he said, re-entering the room. “This is the third time. Had to note the menu.”

You smiled a little as he placed the bag on the folding table, rummaging in it before handing you your order first, then taking his. He proffered a fork in case you wanted one despite ordering yours in a pita; you took it, tucking your knees up against your chest and holding the tin with your food in one hand, poking at the falafel with the fork. You both ate without talking, the silence in the room broken only by the movie, and by the time your bellies were full and your Coke cans were empty, you were back cuddling up to Keys, his hand cradled in both of yours, on your lap as you rubbed your thumbs over his. 

“It’s getting late,” Keys said, and it wasn’t suggestive, it was actually tinged with concern. “You want me to get you an Uber instead of taking the subway?”

“I can get my own Uber,” you replied, smirking. “If you wanted to come see my game room, you could just ask, you know.”

“Can I come see your game room?” Keys asked, leaning in to you, the tip of his nose brushing yours as he kissed you again. You smiled against his lips, parting your own for him to allow him entrance, taking him in as he turned more toward you, but he pulled away, his forehead against yours. “It is actually getting late though. Do—if you need to get home, that’s ok.”

Despite the close proximity, you looked into his eyes, then leaned your forehead a little more against his, angling your head down to look at his lips. They were softer than any man’s lips had any right to be, the freckles on his cheek just barely visible in your periphery, and no. You didn’t need to get home, much less did you even want to.

“No one’s waiting up for me, if that’s what you think,” you said, turning your face just slightly to let your lips brush over his cheek, those little moles dotting his skin, and he exhaled shakily, then squeezed your hand, still in both of yours.

“I don’t—usually…” he said, trailing off. “I just mean—it’s never been really so easy with anyone else.” He made a small noise in his throat, like he didn’t like that statement either, and then tried to kiss you again, ducking his head a little to do so. You let him. “I know this is just—our first, you know, date, if you wanted to call it that”—you smiled to yourself because yes, you did want to call it that—“but what I mean is… You’re… I’m just getting…”

“Good vibes?” you asked, half-joking, but he nodded.

“Yeah, just—” he smirked, like he’d just remembered he could make jokes and references that you would understand. “You’re, um, matching my freak.”

You did laugh at that—it was a phrase Lexy used all the time on the Discord server and purposely never in the right context, just like now. Not that he was wrong—you had a lot in common.

“I also like how things are going,” you said, trying to be as clear as possible, because in your experience, guys were morons on a good day, and guys who gamed a lot were even worse. “I like you. I… would like this to be our first date,” you confirmed, “and if you were inviting me to stay over… I would like that too.”

To his credit, Keys managed to look extremely normal about the prospect. “Ok, cool,” he said (typical guy), but then leaned in to kiss you, tugging his hand out from yours and wrapping it around your waist. He didn’t pull you closer, just held you, until you were kissing him even deeper, your hands on his chest and your tongue in his mouth, and his hands settled on your back, lower than before, but not low enough to trigger thoughts that he was trying to hook up with you on his futon.

“Hey,” you said, breaking the kiss and letting your tongue flit over your upper lip. “Can we, um… maybe—go somewhere else?”

Keys looked up at you, like he didn’t realize he was going to get lucky on your first date that had only recently been christened as such, but nodded, vehemently. “Yeah. Um, yes, yeah, we can—my room,” he said, waiting for you to climb off of him before he got up himself, then stood there alongside you for an awkward moment only to reach down and take your hand again, tugging you along behind him as he left the game room and angled left into a door across the hall, a dimly-lit room that you could now tell was not supposed to be the master bedroom. No, Keys had utilized the larger bedroom for his gaming equipment, leaving just a full-size bed shoved into the smaller space obviously meant to be a child’s room or home office.

The bed was against the far wall, tucked into the corner, and there was a chest of drawers right up against the foot of the matress—rendering the bottom two drawers useless, as they could not be opened—with a television on top of it. Beside the TV was a Switch dock, a PS3, and a GameBoy Color with a little Tupperware container full of old game cartridges. The room, despite the lack of space and furniture shoved into it, was clean, orderly. His bed was even made—he had you beaten in that aspect.

You looked around, squeezing his hand as you spoke to show him you were kidding, “If you tell me you usually sleep on that futon…”

Keys made a small noise, halfway between a laugh and a scoff. “Care to… finish that sentence, so I know how deep in I may be about to dig myself?”

You laughed, pulling him forward this time, leading him over to his own bed. “Honestly? I can’t say I’d blame you. I bet it’s nice to fall asleep to the lights changing colors like that,” you said, referring to the rotating LEDs he had in the game room.

“It kind of fucks,” he said, standing over you as you sat down on the edge of his bed, finally letting go of his hand as you reached over to pull the covers down. You expected white sheets—Keys was an adult man, ergo, adult sheets—but even in the dimness of the room you could tell they were blue with—

“Spider-Man?” you asked, biting your lip.

“Ok, first of all—”

“You have Spider-Man sheets?”

“It’s just the topsheet! And it was only because it was all I had clean. I didn’t have the quarters to do laundry so I just—used what I had.”

“And it was Spider-Man?” you looked closer at the sheets. “Miles Morales Spider-Man? Hey, ok. You get points for taste.”

“I’m taking it off,” Keys said, pulling at the sheet even though you were sitting on both it and the comforter (thankfully plain light and dark brown squares patterned together). 

“No, leave it,” you said, laughing as you pushed yourself back onto the bed. “It’s fun and whimsical and proves you’re not self-conscious.”

“How?” Keys asked, still trying to displace you by attempting to roll you side to side as he pulled at the bedding.

“It just does,” you replied, then grabbed at his wrists to stop him from trying to unmake the bed, and ushered him onto it with you instead. He flopped down beside you, and the two of you moved toward each other with no hesitation, atop the rumpled comforter. “I have Powerpuff Girls sheets at home,” you divulged. “I mean—I don’t use them, but I have them.”

“If you’re trying to tilt me in bed,” Keys said, chuckling a little—just edging on the dark tone he’d laughed with earlier during Rivals, “it’s almost working.”

The thought struck you—because you hadn’t been trying to piss him off, but now it almost seemed like the best idea you’d ever heard.

But—your lack of response only had Keys laughing a little lighter, his hand on your side a little softer.

“Kidding,” he said, lifting his mouth to yours and kissing you, nudging your knees with his own to try and get his leg in between yours.

You kissed him back, letting him press his thigh up against your clothed pussy, and you gasped a little, quietly. He used your parted lips as an opportunity to deepen the kiss, letting you rut down against his thigh until your hands were grasping at the back of his shirt, pulling him closer, half on top of you, your arm trapped beneath him and his weight heavy on top of you in the best way.

“What do you—want?” Keys asked, but didn’t even give you a chance to respond as he kissed you again, and again, gently pushing his thigh into your crotch as you sighed softly against his lips, your legs spread as wide as you could get them. He eased himself half on top of you, the heavy press of his leg against you still giving you a little friction, but you craved more.

“Keys, I—” you said, gasping as he rolled his hips down against your front; even slightly misaligned, it still felt good, still left you wanting and eager for more.

“Tell me,” he said, moving one hand down to your hip, tugging your shirt up and letting his fingertips slip just beneath the waistband of your jeans.

“Touch—me?” you asked, sighing, head rolling back against his pillows, because he could touch you or eat you or fuck you and you’d be happy.

“Touch you,” he repeated, almost like he needed to give himself the assurance, the guidance, the instruction. He rolled half off of you, and together you both removed your jeans, letting them fall to a pile off the side of his bed, his mouth back on yours as he covered your mound through your panties, rubbing you through them with his whole palm, but pressing against your lips with two fingers a little more firmly than the others. 

“Keys,” you sighed, and he swallowed his name as it came from your lips, only to reply himself.

“You’re already so wet,” he mumbled, and you whined a little at the way he pointed it out, but had no time to linger on it because he’d slid his hand up to your stomach, and then back down between your legs, but this time, he was inside your underwear, no thin, soaked cotton between you.

His fingers parted your folds easily, rubbing at you with a deft hand that already had you lifting up into his touch, and you reached for him, one hand grasping at his arm, feeling it flex as he rubbed you, and the other curling around the nape of his neck, guiding his mouth down to yours again to kiss him as he found your clit.

Your chest gave a little kick, your body jumping at the instant gratification, the sudden pleasure of the pad of his finger circling the sensitive bead, and he let you use his mouth as he lowered his hand, bending his wrist and curling just one finger into your slit, easily, slowly, testing that you were ready for it before committing.

“Oh, f—K-Keys,” you half-moaned, holding back a little because it felt silly to call him that but you weren’t sure if you were fully on, well, a first-name basis yet.

And you hadn’t thought it was all that obvious, but he pulled away from you, leaned down to kiss your neck a few times as he fingered you, still working just one in and out of you even as he teased entrance with a second—and then you felt his breath on your cheek, his nose tickling at your temple as he whispered, “You can call me Walter if you like that better.”

It wasn’t what he had said. It wasn’t the permission to use his real name. It was the way his voice had skimmed over you like thick, rich velvet, pleasant for now but rough if you crossed it.

“I,” you stammered, because you didn’t know what you liked better, all you knew was that his practiced hand was working at you in ways that you’d never expected anyone other than yourself to understand. But Keys—Walter?—was reading every subtle cue you gave him, taking in the miniscule shivers of your legs and tremors of your cunt, the way your walls would tighten up on his fingers as he eased two back into you, the way your clit would jump against his thumb if he caught it at just the right angle.

“Wa-Walt—hnn,” you panted, and you felt his cheek round up against yours, his lips curling into a smile that you could only intuit was there but not see from the way his face rested on yours.

“You’re so…” Keys mumbled, pausing to turn just enough to kiss you. You took his mouth with yours desperately, your ass lifting up off the bed into his hand of its own volition, your body wanting more from him, needing more, and Keys—without a damn word from you—understood exactly what your body was asking for. He pushed his fingers into you deeper, curling them upward, making a come-hither gesture deep within your cunt, massaging your walls from the inside even as he doubled down on your clit, his thumb streaking over it side to side, then up and down, circles, ovals, until you were kicking up against him, and he stuck to the pattern you liked, making you mewl out his name again, and again.

“Wa—fuck,” you cried, your body feeling like it might snap in two from the force of your orgasm, your legs curling up, bent at the knee, your body recoiling from itself, your hips jerking up against Keys’ hand as he worked you through it, his thumb on your clit slowing but still rubbing at you, his fingers unmoving inside you as you clamped down on him, your mouth attached to his, sucking his lip, or his tongue, you weren’t sure and didn’t care as your teeth nipped down on him, hearing his sharp intake of breath but your eyes were closed, shut tight.

Your breath stuttered out of your lungs as you felt a soft kiss on your closed eyelid, his lips just barely brushing over your eyebrow too as he pulled away, his hand sliding out of your underwear only once you’d relaxed back down to the bed. You rolled onto your side, your thighs squeezing together as your pussy just kept going, aftershocks rippling through you as you caught your breath, and when you opened your eyes again, Keys was on his side too, and his hand was on your hip, rubbing you through your shirt.

Your lips curled into a smile when you met his eyes, and then you firmly planted your hand on his shoulder, pushing him onto his back and propping yourself up onto your elbow. With your free hand, you started to remove your shirt, with Keys assisting you as best he could until you were finally able to wriggle out of the garment and it joined your jeans on the floor of his bedroom, and even though you’d just positioned him how you wanted him, he sat up to remove his own shirt, lanky body now on view, the slight tummy he had folding over his belt. It was cute, but it disappeared when he laid back down.

Together, you worked his jeans down, his boxers too, his cock flagging down over his thigh even though he was half-chubbed up. 

You didn’t say anything, but your gaze lingered a beat too long, because Keys shifted himself on the bed, and when you looked over at his face, his expression was mixed between smug and embarrassed, like his mouth couldn’t help but curl into a little bit of a smirk—you were staring—while his eyebrows were knitted just a touch together, like maybe you were disappointed or suddenly uninterested since you didn’t actually make any moves closer.

“You, um—” he started to say, but you leaned in, eclipsing his body with yours as you wrapped your fingers gingerly around his prick, making him inhale sharply, and whatever he’d been about to vocalize was gone, your lips on his, scattering all words away.

You kissed him, mouth open, tongue sliding over his, a little more intense, a little dirtier now that you had a hand on him, and stroked up and down over his length, purposely not letting your grip brush the head until he was bucking his hips up into your hand, and then you slid your hand down to the base of his cock, not pushing him but leading him to rest against the bed. Leaning up and over him, you searched his face for any sign that he was going to maybe get a little mean, a little attitude, bossy and annoyed like when you’d been playing Rivals—but no. He just looked up at you.

He just… looked up at you. With soft, wide, desperate eyes, and kiss-bitten lips, and his throat bobbing, and one eyebrow screwed up on one side, like he didn’t know why you were doing this to him but also didn’t know how to get you to do more.

Your lips teased his—he tried to kiss you, you pulled back just enough that he couldn’t—and then you curled your hand over the tip of his dick, rubbing your curved palm over the tip of his cock, marveling in the way he reacted with his entire body. His chest arched up first, and then once his shoulders were back on the bed, his hips lifted up against your hand, and you easily took him back into the circle of your fingers, stroking him off again, eased by the slick you’d collected from his weeping slit.

Keys sighed out your name, one hand lifting up to curl into your hair, moving your mouth back to his as he kissed you, whimpering quietly into your mouth as you jerked his cock, pausing at the head every few passes to tease the slit, letting the pad of your middle finger just play with it, spreading each hot, sticky bead of precome over him until he was pulling away from you, turning his head away to break the kiss, only to turn back to look at you again.

“Please?” he asked—begged. You’d taken his shaft in your hand again, just below the ridge of the head, and you felt a hot dribble of precome as his cock drooled all over your hand. “God, please,” he asked, and you smiled, kissing him again, this time moving your hand in earnest to get him off, the heel of your hand and your wrist smacking into the front of his hip with how quickly you moved now, your intent to watch him come undone just as you had, and it worked—

Keys sucked your tongue as you kept your hand working at his cock, twisting it side to side every now and then just to hear him react to it, the whines heavy and loaded with lust. It didn’t take much longer for him to come—you felt his cock twitch in your hold, and then his whole body stilled with tension for a long moment, poised to snap—and then he did, moaning your name loudly, really fucking loudly actually, as ropes of his come streaked over the pair of you, landing on your arm, his stomach, even one on your hip, staining your underwear just because you’d lowered your hand enough that his cock angled to the side.

You pressed one final kiss to Keys’ lips, and as you pulled away, he covered his face with both hands, rubbing at his cheeks and his eyes before lowering them and looking down his body at you, still above him, your hand on his stomach now, absently rubbing his spunk into his skin, playing a little with the line of hair leading down below his bellybutton.

“Glad I asked you to stay,” he mused, and you laughed, leaning in to kiss him again before you pushed yourself to sit up next to him.

“Oh, is that what you did?” you asked, still playing with some of the short, curly hair at the base of his softening dick.

“Definitely,” he said, lifting a hand to touch yours. Not to stop you, but to gently rest his fingers on the back of your hand, your wrist.

“Then I’m glad you did too,” you said, glancing at the door to the hall. “Um… bathroom?”

“Door next to the game room,” Keys said, and you clambered over him, stopping once he grabbed your wrist. “Wait—do you want something to sleep in? Like—sweats. Or whatever.”

Your cheeks warmed—you hadn’t expected that. You’d figured he’d expect you to sleep naked—if you even slept at all. “Oh, ok. If you have.”

“Yeah,” Keys said standing up, pulling up his boxers and pushing down his jeans, then crossed to his closet doors, pulling them open. On the floor of the closet were the remaining two dresser drawers, and you snorted with laughter as Keys started digging through the one stacked on top of the other, coming up with a pair of black sweatpants, the ends of the legs frayed, with a big hole in the knee. “I know,” he said, poking his finger through one of the other, smaller holes near the waist that you hadn’t noticed upon first glance. “But they’re my most comfortable pair, I promise.”

You bent down to retrieve your shirt, then took the sweatpants from him and made your way to the bathroom, readying yourself for bed. He was right—they were unfairly comfortable. You’d had some pajama pants for years that weren’t nearly as soft as these were. You… might liberate them someday, if things ended up going well.

While you were attempting to brush your teeth with Keys’ toothpaste and your finger, you heard the floor outside the bathroom door creak first one way, and then a few minutes later, the other way, back into the bedroom. 

You emerged to a dark apartment, the only light a bluish glow emanating from Keys’ bedroom, and then as you approached, you heard the telltale menu music of Animal Crossing: New Horizons emanating from Keys’ TV.

You crossed the threshold, your panties and bra balled up in your hand, ready to tuck them away into your jeans, but when you entered the room, Keys only smiled at you, patting the bed beside him where, you noticed, your Switch case was resting.

“I figured we could get you Fuschia before it gets too late and she goes to bed,” Keys said, tapping the button on his Joycons to speed through Isabel’s welcome speech. “I’ll open my airport while you load in.”

You stood there, admittedly a little dumbstruck. Because you’d been worried about Keys not letting you sleep.

Truth was, you were pretty sure there was nothing you wouldn’t do to this man, if he’d let you.

&&

And he did. You’d gotten Fushia to agree to move, sold some of your native fruit at Nook’s Cranny for double the usual price, (thankfully before it closed), then did a few Mystery Tours in search of a tarantula island. Then, you sucked his soul out through his dick and the pair of you fell asleep.

In the morning, Keys insisted on accompanying you back to your apartment, which he claimed was because he wanted to see your game room, but really he just wanted to buy you breakfast on the way. He took you to a deli a few doors down from his apartment building, got you a bacon, egg, and cheese with an iced tea, then promptly told you he didn’t eat breakfast while also snagging a Code Red Mountain Dew.

“You need to eat something,” you insisted. “Most important meal of the day.”

“That’s debatable,” Keys said, but grabbed a plastic-wrapped packaged cinnamon bun, just making you laugh as you bit into your sandwich.

“Whatever,” you said, stepping out of his way at the register because you’d lost the argument about paying yet again.

“I can buy my own food,” you said, “you didn’t have to get me breakfast after you already got me dinner.”

Keys slipped his wallet back into his pocket. “You know what, you’re right. After I let you take Fuschia from my island and everything, wow.”

You chewed angrily toward him. “So let me pay you back for your sugar rush.”

Keys glanced down at the cinnamon bun, then shoved it into his hoodie pocket. “Nah.”

“You’re so annoying!” you half-shouted as you pushed the door open to the street, but you were laughing so it wasn’t exactly convincing. Keys only smiled to himself as he followed you out and down to the subway entrance. The car wasn’t too busy on a lazy Sunday morning, so you were able to sit together—closer than was really necessary, thighs touching, his fingers brushing your lips as he fed you the heart of his cinnamon bun—and by the time you were off the train and heading to your walk-up apartment, your hand was in his, sugar-sticky fingers and all.

“It’s not as… robust as yours,” you said, pushing the heavy front door open and leading Keys inside, bypassing everything else in your place and taking him straight to the game room. Contrary to what he’d done, yours was in the smaller spare room, because you actually liked to have room to do things like get dressed and put your laundry away.

Even though your game room was smaller, and you only had a PC, Switch dock, and your PS2 set up for nostalgia reasons, Keys still walked in like he was in awe. His decor was mostly functional aside from the LED lights, but you had a ton of fanart of various fandoms, all pastels and soft colors; it must have taken forever to curate the pieces that you were displaying, and as you crossed the room to replace your Switch, he stepped closer to a small collection of framed cross stitch pieces.

“Did you make these?” he asked, pointing.

“Um… yeah,” you said, joining him. He was leaning in, inspecting them—they were all Pokemon, your favorites, and even a cross stitch of what was ostensibly your trainer’s avatar from in-game.

“Would you make me one?” he asked.

“I—ok, sure. What’s your favorite Pokemon?”

“Magneton?” he said, sounding unsure even though he couldn’t be. “Or maybe Deoxys.”

“Not Klefki?” you asked, teasing. “I mean…”

He turned to look at your mischievous grin. “You know what, if you wanna be like that, sure, I’ll take Klefki.” He hesitated, then reached out to let his hand brush over your wrist, down to your pinky.

“I’ll surprise you,” you said, taking the half-step needed to close the distance, and lifting your face up to his. You’d barely managed to kiss him before both of your phones vibrated at the same time. You’d both been getting pings and texts here and there all through the previous evening and all morning, but never at the exact same moment.

You grabbed your phone first, and looked up at Keys as he fished his out of his pocket.

“Discord?” you asked.

He glanced down at his phone. “Discord. Lexy wants to play R.E.P.O.” He turned his wrist to show you the notification like you didn’t have the same “@ everyone” ping.

“I’m just glad it’s not Dead by Daylight,” you said, glancing at your computer, and Keys shifted his weight a little, taking the hint.

“You wanna play?” he asked.

“I… mean, yeah, but you can join when you get home!” you said, reaching out with your free hand to tug at one of his hoodie strings. 

“Not a friendslop guy,” he said, grimacing and making you laugh.

“Right, sorry, you only play the most revered, serious games around, like Marvel Rivals and COD—” 

He cut you off with a kiss, making you draw up a little straighter as his hands landed on your hips.

“Speaking of Rivals,” he said, “message me if you want to play again?”

“Is you asking me to be your girlfriend contingent on me playing Rivals?” you asked, and then snapped your jaw shut, because you hadn’t meant to say that out loud. You hadn’t really been planning on saying it ever. It was a half-formed thought that you weren’t anywhere near pathetic enough to ask, and yet, you’d just asked it. “Sorry, I know this is—still new, that wasn’t—you know, it’s, we can just—” You felt like Keys must have felt when he was trying to explain how much he liked spending time with you.

Thankfully, his face only softened, like he remembered how he’d fumbled over his words too. “I mean, if I say yes, then I’m the asshole, right?” he said, laughing. “No, of course not. You don’t have to be a Celestial Rivals player to date me.” He winked and added, “But it helps!” You scoffed out a laugh. “I’m kidding.” You scowled at him. “Kidding,” he said, and then almost like he was worried he’d blown his shot, he pulled you a little closer by your waist, leaning down to kiss you again. “I could see things going… really well. Between us. I would love to take you out sometime. Like—actually out. Maybe to dinner.”

“Can I pay this time?” you asked, a little smirk playing at the corner of your lips, because he’d made you feel a little better about your gaffe.

Keys pursed his lips, then leaned down to kiss you again. “I’ll think about it.”

“Then I’ll think about saying yes,” you joked. Keys kissed you one more time, and then let you walk him to the door of your apartment. “Think about R.E.P.O. too.”

“I just might,” Keys said, stepping out into the hall. He lifted his hand to give you a two-fingered salute, and as you laughed you saw him make a face at himself, clearly wondering why the fuck he’d done that. “Sorry. Bye.”

“Bye,” you said, smiling as you shut the door, your right hand easing it shut while your left hand slid the chain and then moved down to turn the deadbolt. You let your palm rest flat on the door while your left moved down to the knob, just to have something to hold on to, as you placed your forehead against the back of your hand, lips still curved, a secret for just you to know. You’d said much more awkward things to guys before, and Keys still liked you. 

Even fifteen minutes later, when you’d broken the Chunky Vase and had Lexy screaming at you about it (it was entirely your fault and you knew it), you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

&&

Your job didn’t afford the same luxury of working from home that Keys’ and Lexy’s did, so you weren’t able to meet him for dinner for another week, and your commute left you unable to game for longer than an hour and a half max after work, since you had to be awake so early to make your trains (and bus). That left you with the only option you really had to hang out with Keys, even virtually: Animal Crossing. 

Which was fine—you’d check turnip prices and sell fruit, go fishing while he ran around trying to find the last bug he needed for his museum (stick bug. He always missed the thin line of pixels and scared them away before he could catch one), and then end up seated on the hidden beach on the back of your island, camera angled up as high as you could get it to look at the sunset, since you couldn’t very well see it all that well in a city full of high rises. You’d just sit in quiet conversation in a Discord voice call, listening to the sound of the waves from your game, until you’d inevitably say “I have to go,” and Keys would say, “Tomorrow?”

Until Friday night, when “Tomorrow” no longer meant playing Animal Crossing together and actually meant “Dinner date.” Keys had finally relented and agreed to let you pay, so you’d gotten to choose where you wanted to go, which was an outrageously gaudy family-style Italian restaurant that was going to serve you way too much food for just two people, but would also furnish you both with enough leftovers for several days.

And sure enough, after you had dinner, you’d invited Keys back to your place to start a new run of Kingdom Hearts 2. You walked back to your apartment—“Good for digestion,” you’d said—laden down with doggy bags of food that you stuck in your refrigerator before settling in in your game room. 

You chose to try the game on Proud Mode, swapping off with Keys every now and then (you were better, you noticed), and after the fourth time you’d let the controller change hands, Keys stood up and left the room. Figuring he was going to the bathroom, you didn’t think anything of it until he returned in barely a minute, an aluminum tin of pasta in one hand and a fork in the other. You paused the game and looked over at him.

“How can you be hungry?” you asked, and he shrugged.

“Just am,” he said, twirling some of the fettuccine around the fork.

“That’s mine,” you said, indignant. “We agreed that you’d take home the manicotti and I’d get the fettuccine alfredo.”

“Ok, fine,” Keys said, lifting the huge mouthful of pasta he’d just picked up and holding it out to you. “Here.”

“That’s—” you started to say, but before you could finish the thought, he had nudged your lips with the fork.

“Open,” he said, and you were so surprised that you could only do what he’d asked, letting him feed you the bite. “Very good, thank you.”

You blinked, chewing slowly, until you just picked up the controller and unpaused the game. Because what the fuck was what and why was it the hottest thing ever? Thanking you for obeying him?

Swallowing the bite he’d given you, you looked over at him from the corner of your eyes, but Keys was just sitting there happily chowing down on your leftovers, and when he noticed you looking and decidedly not playing, he turned to you and grinned, a little bit of sauce clinging to his upper lip.

He was too fucking cute to ask to be mean, rough, stern with you. At least—not tonight. Tonight could be for other things.

Kingdom Hearts 2 sat on pause again, the fettuccine and fork on the couch, as you pulled Keys to your bedroom, climbing on top of him and letting your hips roll down into his as you kissed him silly.

&&

A couple more dates in a couple more weeks, and finally, you confirmed what the entire server had been speculating and suspecting since you and Keys had changed your profile pictures to matching ones of Professor Layton’s hat and Luke’s hat. Just weird enough to catch attention, just innocuous enough to potentially mean nothing. (It did mean nothing—it was just a joke because you both liked those games. Seriously.)

But you’d had to tell the truth, because a few of your other friends had been trying to plan a D&D oneshot for months. So when Hakeem had announced that they’d found a DM for you, and asked was everyone free tonight even though it was short notice? Well, you had to let them down easy.

cant, i have a date was all you’d said before your post got no less than six different replies, and perpetual thorn in your side (Lexy) was calling you while simultaneously sending you text after text.

“—th WHO?” Lexy shouted, the moment you picked up, already speaking before you’d even answered.

“Lexy,” you said, but she was not to be deterred.

“Is it Keys? It’s Keys, isn’t it? I knew he would never change his profile picture from Ichigo without a good reason. And you’re the best reason, obviously.”

Since she already knew, and you didn’t want to straight up lie, you just told her everything. The date, the hookup, the inside jokes and the game nights, the way he’d given you Fuschia and even bought you a bootleg Amiibo card for her in case you ever wanted to restart your island (you didn’t, but the gesture was so sweet you were almost tempted).

“Oh my god, I just knew he’d be the best fucking boyfriend,” Lexy said, sighing. “And he’s so sweet.”

You hummed in agreement, because he sure was. Not that you’d forgotten that other side of him that you’d yet to draw out since the first night.

“Hey—so, do you think I could play Rivals with you guys again sometime?”

“Wait—really?”

“Really,” you said. “It’s not so bad with Keys.”

“It’s not so bad with Keys?!” Lexy repeated. “Girl. What? He’s so toxic in shooters.”

“I mean… I get like that when we play DBD,” you said.

“Yeah, but it’s not like you’re shit-talking me, you’re complaining about the killer. Keys will lay into anyone on Rivals. Enemy team, our team, even us.” He hadn’t said a goddamn word about you, actually, so that part was kind of news to you.

“Well, can I anyway?”

You practically heard Lexy roll her eyes. “Sure. Don’t say I didn’t want you.”

“I’ve already played with him,” you said.

“Whatever floats your boat,” Lexy said. “Hey—have fun tonight, ok?”

“I will,” you said. “Thanks.”

She let you off the phone and you looked at the screen, notifications still pouring in from Discord. While you were looking, Keys texted you, sending a screenshot of his own app icon, bursting with 14 notifications. You were at 35, and all of them were your friends and Lexy’s coworkers still replying to your post, first asking who it was, then slowly devolving into everyone asking if it was Keys, before they all started posting screenshots of interactions you’d had and of course, the matching icons.

you guys are taking this way too far you said.

It’s our job to give you a hard time! 🍭 said Veronica, your first ever best friend and partner in crime, before you’d even met Lexy.

You muted the server for the next 24 hours and then navigated to your texts with keys.

K: [screenshot attached]

—i’m so sorry —i didn’t want to lie to hakeem because they’ve been wanting to play dnd for months and have been SCOURING reddit for a dm and finally found one —and i just couldn’t lie to them because it’s so so important to them!

K: Haha it’s ok

—you’re not mad?

K: Why would I be mad?

Worth a shot.

—no reason —just wasn’t sure if we were not telling people

K: We were not NOT telling people. K: I kinda told my brother I was seeing someone. K: So.

—you told your family about me?

K: I told my brother. Very different.

—how? —that’s family

K: My brother is a little shit who always says I make such a cute couple with [insert Video Game or Anime Girl here]. So now that I have a real girl who likes me, I had to brag.

—so who else are you dating?

K: Oh, well. K: Ada Wong, Yuffie, Faith from Mirror’s Edge, Luna Snow, Ryuko from Kill la Kill, and one time Tanjiro.

—??? —from demonslayer?

K: The very same.

—i’m sort of sensing you have a type

K: He thinks I have a type. You hang up one poster of Ada Wong one time when you’re 16 and any time he sees anyone who vaguely resembles her…

—tanjiro?????

K: I did say he’s a little shit.

—that’s true. so anyway. i guess we could have had this conversation in like an hour.

K: Want anything for the movie? I’m stopping to get candy on the way.

—snocaps!!!

K: ?

—the candy

K: I know the candy. It’s just chocolate chips with sprinkles on it.

—yeah!!!

K: That’s what you want?

—yes walter that’s what i want

K: I don’t understand you.

And yet, when he took you home that night, he seemed to understand you and your body language just fine, soft touches and insistent licks wherever you needed them, feeding his cock between your lips and then between your legs as you begged him to fuck you, facedown, ass in the air as he rode you from behind, body folded over yours, hands soothing you, exploring you, pressing chaste kisses to your fingertips as he lifted them to his mouth, contrasting the way his hips slapped into yours with his tender mouth.

It was good—it was really fucking good—but you still hadn’t gotten up the courage to ask for a little more just yet.

&&

“You know,” Keys said, batting the side of your face with a Twizzler as you opened your mouth, biting at it and missing, half because he was teasing you and pulling it away, and half because you weren’t really trying, “you’ve had girlfriend status for a month now and we still haven’t played Rivals again.”

You pouted, though it devolved into extreme giggles as he kept poking your lips with the licorice.

“That’s not my fault,” you said, “the timing just keeps not working out.”

“The real BBEG: Scheduling.”

“Hold on,” you said, pausing the Let’s Play you were watching of one of your favorite PS2 games (Haunting Ground) and grabbing your phone. You opened Discord, navigated to the gaming channel, and tapped out a message:

@ everyone tomorrow keys and i will be playing marvel rivals at 7PM so be there or be square

You felt Keys’ phone vibrate in his pocket against your lower back, where you were leaning against him, and then watched as people started reacting to your post. You got a few ✅s but also several ⬛️ which you took to mean those gamers would not be joining you. The checkmarks ticked up to 8 total, which was more than enough for a full group.

“Easy,” you said.

“I mean, flawless, really. You make it look effortless.”

You arched your back, leaning up toward him even though at the angle, you were upside down. He kissed you anyway, because you just knew it reminded him of Spider-Man and Mary Jane, and when you finally pulled away, he fed you your Twizzler properly, and you returned to the video, Fiona calling out to Hewey every two seconds, something you could tell you and Keys both would be imitating for days to come.

The next day, you’d settled down to your computer at 6:30 to try and get some practice matches in before everyone joined you, but as soon as you loaded into the game, you received an invite from Keys to join his group. You did, then tabbed over to Discord to join the voice chat that he was already in.

“I didn’t want you to see me being bad,” you said, as Keys queued you for a Quick Match, which instantly pulled you into a game.

“You’re not bad,” he said, locking Magneto as you chose Mantis. “That’s new,” he commented.

“I wanted to try something else,” you said. “Thus logging on early.”

“Mantis is good,” he said, “just watch your cooldowns.”

You knew, logically, what he meant—but Mantis’ kit was so different from Luna Snow’s that you did have some trouble balancing her heals. You could hear Keys getting frustrated whenever he died before you got your Healing Flower back, but he always blamed it on the other healer, even though they were doing twice your healing output with half the deaths.

By the time Lexy, Hakeem, Serena, and Torbjorn (one of Lexy’s friends from Overwatch who refused to tell anyone his real name) joined, Keys was barely speaking and you could tell everyone else were all going to have one hell of a night because of it. And then there was you, imagining his tongue in his cheek, poking at the inside like it did when he was hyperfocused or annoyed, and getting yourself all turned on from just the thought alone.

“How’ve the games been?” Lexy asked, and Keys didn’t respond so you took it upon yourself.

“Not great,” you answered.

“Well, you’re still learning,” she said, and there was a general murmur of assent as Keys invited everyone to the group, and then you queued. Having a six stack in a voice chat would help in terms of coordination and comms, but you also had the feeling that the matchmaker in the game would put you against other large groups, which meant you’d be going against people who had the same advantages. Except they were all probably better than you. Even if it was just by virtue having more time in the game.

You locked Luna almost exclusively, even though Hakeem suggested Rocket Racoon or Cloak & Dagger because they were a little easier, but you explained that you felt most comfortable on the ice-themed K-pop star.

The first game didn’t go too badly, and Keys even sounded like he was smiling as he made calls, joining in on praising whoever got a good pick or saved him when he was cornered—especially you, but no one commented on it.

It was after an hours’ worth of pretty decent games in a row that you got matched against six other players who were absolutely fucking cracked. Their Black Widow got a headshot on you as soon as you walked out of spawn. Their Jeff swallowed four of you several minutes into the game, when you’d finally gotten a couple picks to start to push the objective. And when you saw him get a quad kill on the feed, you heard Keys pipe up.

“Fucking bullshit, man,” he said. “Can someone please kill the fucking Jeff?”

It was hard not to take that personally, and also as an order—you were playing strategist, your job was to help keep the team up, not go for kills.

“Actually,” Keys said, “if anyone could kill anything, that would be spec-fucking-tacular.”

You fell silent, while Lexy and Torbjorn told Keys to relax, and Hakeem changed off of Captain America to go Moon Knight to try and haunt the other team with la luna herself.

“Hulk’s two,” Serena said, flanking as Star-Lord, and just as she was about to finish him off, her name popped up in the killfeed and she half-shouted, “Fuck!”

“This fucking guy,” Keys said, his voice dark and flat. “If he fucking—can somebody kill the Jeff?” He asked the question just as Jeff ulted beneath the team again, managing to swallow three of you this time, spitting you off the edge of the map. Again.

“You could kill the Jeff,” Lexy suggested.

“Are you kidding?” Keys countered, as the team fell back to regroup. “I’m too busy trying to shield you guys from all this fucking damage.”

“We can’t keep you up,” Lexy said, who was your fellow healer in this match. “I’m trying to shield you but it’s tough on an escort map.” As she said it, she placed Invisible Woman’s shield in front of Magneto, but Keys moved right through it, needing to advance the cart toward the end of the map.

“We just need picks,” Keys replied.

“I have ult,” Serena said. “If I can get to their backline you guys should be able to wipe the rest of them.”

“Might as well,” Keys said, but his tone was far from placated. If anything, he sounded incredulous, like that wouldn’t work at all. His follow up grumble proved that thought: “We’re getting fucking rolled either way.”

“They don’t know I’m back here,” Serena said. “Keep them distracted up there.”

Hakeem and Torbjorn were playing a little up from the cart, behind Keys, while you and Lexy stayed toward the back, providing heals when you had to and shooting at the enemy team when you could. It was when the other team’s Star-Lord moved a little too forward, aggressive because thus far, he had been without getting punished for it, that Serena made her move and ulted behind the other team, Star-Lord’s laugh followed by “All right!” rang out, and the killfeed pinged. She’d taken out both healers and even the other team’s Scarlet Witch.

“Let’s fucking go,” Keys said, and sure enough, once the other healers were down, you were able to wipe the other team, staggering their Hulk so he would respawn after and maybe even give you the chance to actually push the cart to the last point.

“Great job, Serena,” you said, earning yourself a “Thanks!” in return, but the friendly exchange was overshadowed by Keys.

“Picks, picks, picks,” he was saying, like your team needed the reminder.

The countdown at the top of the screen was nearing 0:00, and you weren’t even at the halfway point of the map yet—it had been a fucking struggle.

“Can we please”—Keys said, drawing out the word angrily, as the enemy Jeff swallowed him, only him, and spit him off the edge of the map—“kill the JEFF?”

It didn’t matter—the clock at the top of the screen ran down, and DEFEAT appeared on your screen.

“Hey, that was my last one,” Torbjorn said, leaving the group before anyone could even say anything.

“Yeah, me too,” Serena said, leaving. Hakeem said nothing, just dropping out of the call, and that just left you, Lexy, and Keys.

“One more?” Keys asked.

“Um,” you said, because everything that had just happened had been a lot, and even though he was mean, he wasn’t mean to you, and you really needed to figure out why you liked it so much. At least—when your pussy wasn’t currently pulsing in your fucking seat. Because you wanted to talk to him alone, wanted to get to the bottom of this, wanted to—

“I’m gonna go too, actually,” Lexy said, and you saw a DM from her pop up in the bottom of your screen.

You ok?

yeah you said back. you?

I’m used to him she said. If he’s getting too tilted you can just dip

“I’m gonna log off too,” you said, in the voice chat.

To Lexy, you replied i’ll talk to him.

“I had fun,” Keys said, his voice back to normal, and you heard Lexy laugh before she replied.

“Always a pleasure, Walter,” she said, then left.

“Um,” you said. “Can I—can we talk not in here? I don’t want anyone else to come in.”

A valid excuse—you’d gotten 8 checkmarks on your invitation asking people to play, so theoretically, Maxine, Franky, Dom, or Natalia could pop in at any moment if they saw you still on Rivals.

“Oh,” Keys said. “Yeah—call… call whenever.”

You left the voice chat and then navigated over to your DMs, finding the one with Keys only and then calling him through Discord. He answered immediately.

“Hey,” he said, before you even could, “I’m sorry.”

“Keys,” you tried, but he kept going.

“I just get—so into it, it’s really lame, I know.”

“Keys—”

“I just get so competitive—”

“Walter,” you said, using his real name and emphasizing it enough that he stopped speaking.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll—try to rein it in. Maybe we shouldn’t play Rivals anymore. I don’t want you to have to hear me like that.”

You stayed silent.

“Are you—are you on mute?” Keys asked. “I can’t hear you if you’re talking.”

“I’m not on mute,” you said. “I was waiting for you to finish so I could talk.”

“...Sorry.”

But now that you had the floor, you worried that what you were about to say was actually insane.

“No. Um,” you said. “I just…” You sighed. “I definitely want to keep playing Rivals.”

Keys snickered. “Even though I’m salty?”

You bit your lip. “Kind of… because of that?”

You could practically hear his head tilt through your headset. “What?”

“I… kind of like it,” you said, voice quiet. The only reason you could tell that it was even audible was the little green ring showing up around your icon in Discord.

“You like—what?”

“When you… I don’t know, get all angry and bossy and frustrated.”

“Are—seriously?”

“Yeah,” you said, breathy. Your throat felt tight and you swallowed nervously. Your stomach felt full of butterflies—and between your legs was still all hot and ready. You’d be willing to bet that if you checked, you’d be wet.

“So you like me like this?” Keys asked, voice clipped, and the tone with which he spoke made your cunt clench down on nothing.

“Kinda, yeah,” you said.

“Well which is it?” he asked—demanded, maybe. “Kinda? Or yes?”

“Yes,” you answered.

“This turns you on?” Keys asked, derisively, and the judgement—real or perceived, you couldn’t tell—made you actually moan a little as you squeezed your thighs together. For a moment, the real Keys reappeared. “Holy…shit, you’re—you’re actually into this?”

“Uh huh,” you intoned. “Yes, yeah, I am.”

A pause. And then—“Well, why don’t you stop wasting my time and tell me just how much?”

You swallowed again, thickly, your lips smacking a little as you parted them, and you moused over to turn off the mic setting for noise reduction to filter out background noise, because you wanted him to hear every single thing he possibly could. 

“I’m really wet,” you said, because you could feel it now, as you pressed your thighs closed: the slick slide of your pussy lips.

“Touching yourself?” he asked.

“N-not yet,” you said.

Keys loosed a short laugh. It hit you in your core. “What are you waiting for?”

“Nothing,” you said, standing up and unbuttoning your jeans, pushing them down and just stepping out of them. For the first time, you wished you had a standalone mic so you could hold it down by your pussy so Keys could hear everything, but he’d just have to settle for your words.

“Tell me what you’re doing,” Keys said, and while his voice had the edge to it, you could still hear the kind undertones of your regular boyfriend.

“Getting undressed,” you said, and just pushed your boyshorts down too, stepping out of them and then glancing at the crotch. It was a slightly darker blue than the rest of the fabric, the wet spot entirely visible and not even a little bit subtle. 

“Finger yourself for me,” Keys said, and you sat back down in your chair, slumping down so your pussy hung off the edge of the seat, one of your legs thrown over the arm to keep yourself open.

“How many?” you asked, and by the way he groaned, you could tell he didn’t expect the question.

“Two,” he replied. “Tell me how it feels.”

“Are you—touching yourself too?” you asked.

Keys chuckled darkly. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” you squeaked, curling two fingers into your slit. Fuck, you really were just as soaked as you’d told him. “Walter, I’m—really wet, fuck.”

“Yeah?” he asked. “Easy to fuck yourself, huh?”

“Yeah,” you echoed. “Feels really good.”

You heard what sounded like him spitting over the call, and just as you were about to ask, he groaned loudly again.

“Trying to get my—myself as wet as you,” he said, faltering only for a moment, and you wondered if this was his first time fucking around over a voice call, because it wasn’t always easy to say shit like that out loud.

“I’m dripping,” you said, because sometimes, it was.

“Yeah?” Keys asked. “Let me hear it.”

You hesitated, then fumbled with your headset with your clean hand, pulling it off your ears and holding the microphone down between your legs. You pulled your fingers out and rubbed them over your folds, watching as the green ring around your icon lit up with each squelch of your fingers, each wet, slippery sound that came as you started spreading your arousal over your clit, rubbing it. You saw the same green ring light up around Keys’ icon, meaning he was talking to you but you couldn’t hear him.

Slowly, with a shaky hand, you lifted your headset back up and put it on as well as you could with just one hand, and you heard him talking, just barely, the sound of his wrist hitting into—his front? his hip, his thigh?—just as clearly as he must have heard you.

“Gonna come for me?” you asked, and Keys barked a laugh, the question clearly unexpected.

“‘Course,” he said. “Guess you proved you deserve it, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” you replied, still working your fingers over your clit, dipping down every few strokes to rub at your slit, curling your fingers inside just enough to feel the stretch, then returning to your swollen, sensitive bead.

“You first,” Keys said. “Wanna hear you, ‘k? Once I hear you—I’ll—I’ll—”

“Ok,” you replied, then bit your lip and took off your headset again. This time, you held it halfway between your face and your pussy, so you could hear him a bit better but also, hopefully, he could hear you. You fingered yourself, spreading your legs a bit wider, the slick sounds of your folds almost covering the rhythm of his hand moving over his dick, but you could still just hear it, hear his moans and his encouragements, telling you how much he liked hearing you, how much he liked knowing you were like this for him. 

You focused on your clit, and replaced your headphones where they belonged again, letting him just hear your whimpers and mewls as you got even closer, his own heavy breathing and sighs of your name shoving all thoughts other than your own impending orgasm away.

“Wal—Walt,” you whined, loud, and then as you rubbed two fingers over your clit, up and down, faster, faster, faster, you came with a loud cry, half a sob and half a scream, the sound ripped from your throat as you choked on it on its way out, the moan broken and unending.

Keys followed after you, your name coming repeatedly from his lips, again and again, drawing it out longer and lower as he came too, you could tell—his hand had stopped moving and he was panting a little. And then, his voice in your ears.

“Was that good?” Keys. Back to normal.

And the switch was flipped.

&&

Things didn’t change much after that fated Discord call, even though you thought that they might. But to the contrary—you and Keys went out on dates, more frequently got together for game nights, finally joined Hakeem for their D&D oneshot, and even found time to fool around, learning more about each other’s likes and dislikes, what was compatible between you and what wasn’t. And even as you grew closer, as you found that you were absolutely, definitely compatible both personality-wise and physically, you still never brought up the other side of Keys, and he never seemed to realize that you wanted him to let it loose.

Even when you purposely were a little bratty to him in bed, even when you antagonized him just enough to try to get him to snap at you, he just smirked at your petulance and kissed you right on the end of the nose, and then fucked you six ways to Sunday and kind of made you forget about how enticing you found Mean Keys in that moment, though the thought always crept back up on you later, after he’d fallen asleep next to you or as you rode the subway home the next morning.

It was on another Rivals night that the universe decided to make your move for you, because by pure luck and happenstance, you were at Keys’ apartment when Lexy pinged in the Discord, asking for all Marvel fans to report for duty (actually, what she’d said was AVENGERS ASSEMBLEEEEEEEE, so). You’d met Keys’ eyes across the game room, where you were sitting playing through Gone Home on your Switch, curled up on his futon, while he was working on some project for work, trying to get ahead of a deadline.

“I could go for some Rivals,” you said, shrugging one shoulder.

“You sure?” he asked, glancing at his computer, saving his work, and then looking back over his shoulder at you. “I know how it gets you.”

That was the first time either of you had mentioned your… proclivity toward his alter ego, and you slowly lowered your Switch, unsure if you should feel embarrassed, called out, or excited.

“You mean how it gets you,” you said. 

Keys only smirked, maybe a little self-deprecating, but just a little, and half-shrugged one shoulder, partially nodding his head to concede the point.

“Well,” you started to say, but Keys continued.

“And I just want to be clear, if you want to, I’ll take you across the hall and let you have as much of me as you want.”

He wasn’t even nasty yet, the way you wanted, but you just nodded, because the prospect was too much to waste.

“I’ll take everything,” you said, voice hushed, and then cringed after a moment as he laughed.

“All right, Rogue,” he said, because you’d just inadvertently quoted the character’s ultimate voice line, then winked at you. “Gambit never folds.” Of course he would hit you back with Rogue’s husband’s voice line. God, you almost wanted to skip the games—but no, you wanted him in the right mood more. Wanted him to show you who was boss, and most importantly, wanted him to spit the attitude at you in just the right way to get you soaked, fucking dripping wet for him.

And after five matches, he was right there.

“How the fuck did we fuck that up, guys?” Keys asked. You’d been about to win—the enemy team’s cart was right at the end of the map, and you’d been picking them off one by one. They kept resetting the overtime counter by trickling in, and unfortunately all it took was one perfectly timed Scarlet Witch ult to get enough of you off the objective to allow them to roll it to the final point.

“My freeze was on cooldown,” you said, having gone back to Luna Snow after realizing that Mantis just wasn’t for you the last time.

“You could have put your shield up,” Maxine suggested to Keys.

“I have cooldowns too,” Keys said.

“Oh, you mean you weren’t managing them correctly, just like the rest of us?” Lexy said, because Keys had been shitting on everyone for exactly that, and he knew it.

“One mistake in five games,” Keys said. Lexy scoffed, but Keys asked anyway, “More?”

“I’m down,” Hakeem said, and you heard them take a drag on their vape, meaning they were exponentially more level-headed dealing with Keys tonight than they had been last time.

“Sure,” Lexy said, at the same time Maxine hummed her assent.

“Actually,” you said, looking over at Keys, who was on the futon, playing on his console while you were seated in his desk chair, pressing your thighs together. “I think I’m kinda done with Rivals for tonight.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Lexy said. “Hey, Keem, can you let Bryan know we have open spots now? He wanted to play but we were full.”

“Got it,” Hakeem said, and you watched the bottom corner of Keys’ center monitor flash with a Discord message from the server.

“Later,” you said, leaving the voice chat at the same moment that Keys did.

You turned to him, reaching down to cup yourself through your jeans, but Keys only shook his head.

“Do you think you played well enough for me to let you touch yourself?” he asked.

You immediately withdrew your hand and placed it on your knee.

“Thank you,” Keys said, and you felt your clit throb a little as you squeezed your pussy down around nothing. You hadn’t even done anything but listen to him. “So… what is it you’re looking for? When you have me like this.”

“I just—like when you’re… kind of mean, you know? When you talk down to me.”

You saw a look of uncertainty cross his face, because you had the distinct impression that this was new to him, that this was never something someone had asked him to do before.

“All right,” he said. “Why don’t you show me how bad you want it?”

You weren’t sure if even Keys knew how that question sounded, but your response was to stand from his desk chair, tug up the hem of the hoodie you’d borrowed from him when you’d arrived, and then push down the leggings you had on. Keys stayed perfectly still on the futon, watching, because you stepped out of the leggings and then hooked your thumbs into your panties, and you realized that as affected as you were by Keys being more stern with you than normal, so too was he affected by your obedience, your lack of inhibition.

His eyes rose from your hips to your face, then dipped back down as the waistband of your underwear rolled down around your hips, just a hint of your pubic hair peeking out, the wet spot you were sure was there visible to Keys, at least. You watched as he swallowed, his hoodie falling back down around you as you pushed your underwear down far enough that you were able to let them fall to the floor where you stood in front of his desk. And then you were standing there, half dressed, wearing your boyfriend’s hoodie with the promise of exactly what he’d wanted to see beneath it, and Keys finally stood up.

“I said show me,” he said.

Biting your lip, you reached down with both hands to curl them into the hoodie, lifting it up as Keys approached you, getting close enough to reach out and touch you but decidedly not doing it. You heard the heavy breath he took as he looked down at you—this was the most tension you’d ever had between you, you thought, and god, it was only going to get even better.

The soft fabric of the hoodie tickled you a little as you pulled it up, exposing your bare lower half to Keys, whose eyes settled on the spot between your thighs as he stared. You squirmed a little under his gaze, keeping your face turned up to his as you he finally reached out for you, letting his hands come to rest on your bare hips before he trailed the fingertips of one down over your front, then the back of his hand was brushing the inside of your thigh, and then his fingers were pressing up against you, parting your puffy lips. His breath caught when he felt how wet you were, and even you could tell by how easily his fingers slipped in between your folds. He withdrew his hand and lifted it between you, the grip of his other hand on your hip tighter now than it had been just moments ago. He showed you his glistening fingertips, and then moved his hand to his mouth, stopping just before he reached it.

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” he said. “Letting this kind of thing get you this wet?” You swallowed, lips parted, because the derision was exactly what you wanted. “What’s wrong with you?”

Even as he asked it, he continued moving his hand toward his mouth, and as soon as you stammered out an “I—I don’t know,” he took his fingers between his lips, sucking your fluids off of them before, humming quietly before taking them back out of his mouth, now shiny with saliva.

“You don’t know?” Keys repeated.

You shook your head. Keys smirked, leaning down closer to your level, and looked straight into your eyes. 

“I don’t know either,” he said. “But I think I’m starting to like it.”

—

There was no reason for Keys to keep you standing in his game room, in front of his desk, his fingers curled into your cunt as you arched yourself up against him to kiss him, and when you pulled away to look at him through half-lidded eyes, breathing out a “Can we—please—?” he just ushered you to his bedroom, laying you down on his bed, pushing your legs apart and nosing in between your thighs, letting his face press into the fold of skin where your leg met your mound, but he didn’t lick you where you wanted him to—no, he sucked a long, wet kiss to one of your lips, then looked up at you, hands fisted in the front of his sweatshirt, the hood up and over your head. It made you look cute.

It made him—this side of him, the one that you liked, the one that you’d given permission for him to try on—want to ruin you.

“Walter,” you whimpered, as he laved his tongue over the side of your cunt, not delving into you, just teasing you, not giving you what you wanted.

He ignored you, even as you curled a hand into his hair, tugging at him, trying to angle his mouth slightly to the side, trying to get him where you needed him.

Before you even realized he’d moved one of his hands from the expanse of your thigh, it was wrapped around your wrist, taking your hand from his hair and moving it to the same spot his hand had just vacated.

“Enough,” he said, his voice low, steady. You felt your thighs twitch a little, partly from how open he was holding you, and partly from the commanding tone. “Behave. Ok?”

“Ok,” you mewled in response, and felt cunt squeeze down around nothing when his lips curved upward on one side, a half-smile.

“Thank you,” he said, and you took in a shaky breath. 

Then, he gave in to you.

With just a small tilt of the head, his mouth was exactly where you needed him most. His lips dragged over your clit before moving further down, and his nose pressed against your supple skin as he sucked at your folds, mouthing at your slit before burying his face into you, his chin already wet with you, his hands on your thighs, one still holding your own hand against you too.

This was nice—this was really good, like he always was to you. But it wasn’t what you actually wanted.

“Mmn,” you whined, trying to make it sound as though you weren’t enjoying yourself. Which you absolutely were, so where was your Oscar?

Because the moment the displeased-sounding mewl fell from your lips, Keys pulled away to look up at you.

Concerned. Normal Keys.

You let the barest hint of a smirk touch your lips, and his brow furrowed.

“Something the matter?” he asked.

You squirmed a little beneath him, spread open and willing, yet still wanting. “No…”

“You sure?” he asked.

“Uh huh,” you whispered, nodding.

Keys lowered his face to you again, resuming eating you out, and again, you shifted your hips.

And again, Keys removed his mouth from you. This time, he didn’t speak, just looked at you expectantly.

That was better. That was… closer.

“Problem?” he said, because this time, it wasn’t a question. It was a demand for an explanation. He was figuring, pushing, testing the limits; yours and his. 

Your breath caught, but only for a moment.

“No,” you said again, and this time, he rose to it.

“Try again.”

And it had all the weight you wanted, the rigidity, the glint of harshness that you heard in his tone when he got frustrated with a game, transferred onto you. Because you’d told him you would behave, and you weren’t.

You tucked your head back into the hood more, and when you spoke, it was a soft little murmur. A flash of honesty—because if you didn’t tell him what you wanted, how could he know? This was push and pull, give and take, a tug of war that you’d both win in the end.

“It was too easy,” you said, speaking from the heart. “I want to work for it.”

Keys blinked. The normal version of him shined through, and he gave you a half grin and a nod, and then let the stoic expression reappear.

“Work for it,” he said, and you could tell that he was working through getting used to this but also enjoying it, playing the role you wanted him to fill for you. “You mean you want to earn it.”

“Yeah,” you said.

“Done.”

Your breath caught as he pushed himself away from you, moved to stand up over you with his legs between yours, still slung over the side of the bed. You hesitated, then pushed yourself up onto your elbows, still looking up at him.

“Get up,” Keys said, almost like an invitation rather than a command.

You pushed yourself up to your elbows, unable to press your thighs together since he was still standing between your legs, his knees pressed against the side of his mattress. The sweatshirt fell down over your abdomen, the hem coming to rest atop your thighs with the hood half dropping over your face.

“Turn over, please,” Keys said, and even with the polite phrasing his voice was still exactly where you wanted it to be, the lower register with the detached, aloof tone.

Sliding back over the bedspread, you opted not to try and stand while he was basically on top of you, and instead just rolled onto all fours, the hoodie riding up over your waist again, exposing your ass and your lower back to him. You didn’t hear any movement, didn’t hear him speak, didn’t even hear him breathing, but what you did hear was the sound of his closet door opening behind you.

You chanced a look and saw him kneeling in front of the closet, the same way he had been when he’d given you a pair of sweats to wear to sleep in, but this time, he had moved the drawer on top to the side and was looking through the bottom drawer.

“You know,” Keys said, glancing over at you like he’d known you would look. “I’m usually more of a… mouth guy.” You were very aware—oral was his favorite thing to do, and to ask you to do. “But… a techy guy like me, I’d be kind of remiss if I didn’t at least plan to have some fun with this kind of stuff, right?”

You couldn’t see what he was talking about—it was too dim in the room, plus the drawer was fully in his closet on the floor, and he was blocking it from your view. You had an inkling, though. And as you strained your neck to just try and see him out of the corner of your eye, you were absolutely proven right when he pulled out—

“You have a fucking Hitachi?” you asked, and even Keys broke a little too.

“Well—I bought it because, you know, people on Reddit said—”

“Reddit?” you asked, laughing a little even though moments ago you’d been legitimately quivering in anticipation. “You get sex advice from Reddit?”

“Well, I’m not about to ask Lexy what you like—”

“You bought it for me?”

Keys opened his mouth, then closed it, took a breath—that one you heard—and then was right back to it. “I bought it for you,” he said, but the simple words were colored by the way he said them. He stood up, crossing to the bed; your eyes were unable to leave the vibrator he held in his hands. It had a cable for fuck’s sake. You’d used toys before, but never one that would probably leave you spent before Keys even had a hand on you.

“I figure this might be a way to… prove yourself, hm?” Keys asked, climbing onto the bed behind you. But instead of touching you, he just leaned over to the side, letting his hand slip between the side of his mattress and the wall, and plugged the toy in. Making sure you were looking back at him, he turned it onto the lower setting and it still buzzed, loudly. “Can you do that?” He turned it off again.

“I—can try,” you uttered, and he smirked at you.

“Thank you,” he said, and you felt yourself clench up again. Every time he thanked you it made you want to scream in the best fucking way.

He offered you the toy, his arm moving up around your side, and you reached to take it. Once you had it in hand, he finally touched you again, letting his fingers skim up your back as he eased your chest down to the bed, your ass in the air, hips flexed. His touch beneath the hoodie tickled you—you were surprised you were still wearing it, but, admittedly, you liked having his clothes on while you were doing this. It made it feel all the more intimate somehow, even though your body was hidden; it was still wrapped in something that belonged to him.

“I want you to hold it right here,” Keys said, taking your wrist and guiding your hand up between your legs, letting the bulb of the toy rest against your mound. “However you want. You can take it away if you need to. Ok?”

“Ok,” you breathed. He was in control, but he was still letting you have some agency—you liked that. A lot. “When—” you started to ask, but stopped. “How…”

“Hm?” Keys asked, and you shuddered as you felt his lips move over your lower back.

“How do I earn it?”

You felt more than heard his smirk. “I’ll let you know when you have.”

Flicking the toy on and off a few times, you couldn’t quite help but to talk back just a little. “Or don’t.”

He paused, sighed. “Yeah, I—I’m sorry, I’m still—getting used to this. M…meaner?”

“Kinda,” you said, turning to look back at him, and he nodded.

“I’m tryin’ here,” he said.

“I know,” you said. “Just—don’t overthink it? I’ll stop you if it’s too much. I—” You swallowed. “I want you to be mean to me. So be mean to me.”

“Mean,” Keys echoed. “Mean…” He leaned over you, tucking his face right beside yours, cheek to cheek as he reached below you, taking your wrist in hand again. “If you need me to stop, say…” he trailed off, ostensibly trying to think of a word to use.

“Tilted,” you said, and he laughed.

Then, just as quickly, he stopped. The mood shifted. He pressed his face into yours, and you were suddenly aware of the way his body was on top of yours, his hand still wrapped around your wrist, the weight of his cock pressing against your ass cheek, even though his jeans. His nose at your temple, his lips on your earlobe, closing around it.

“Tilted,” Keys repeated. “That’s perfect.”

He backed away from you, his hands moving to your ass, spreading you apart, and you felt even more exposed than you had minutes ago when he was going down on you. A sharp little clicking noise sounded behind you, and it took you a moment to realize he’d just snapped his fingers at you.

“The toy,” he said, just this side of commanding. “You said you wanted to earn it. So earn it.”

You gasped a little as his fingers dug into your ass cheeks, and then his tongue was moving over your lower back, trailing down, between your cheeks, and you felt him stop just shy of actually licking you anywhere interesting. He waited, so you didn’t. 

The wand started buzzing as you hit the switch, and as you touched it to your mound—not even your clit, the vibrations plenty strong to stimulate yourself—you heard him again, behind you.

“Thank you,” he said, and you turned your face into the mattress as you pushed the toy a little more firmly against yourself, thighs shuddering already even without direct contact to your clit.

And then, he started in again. He licked between your folds, tongue slipping into your slit as he licked at you from the inside, moving against you as you adjusted the toy, still not making direct contact because you could tell it would be too much, especially with him eating you out. 

You could barely hear him over the hum of the toy, the wet sounds of his mouth on your pussy, the moans that emanated from his chest as he sucked at your lips and even tongued at your clit, his chin bumping into the bulb as you moved it back and forth over yourself, giving yourself a little massage with it, and it was working even though the only thing touching your clit was Keys’ tongue.

“Mm,” you intoned, but Keys didn’t react to it, didn’t respond other than to lave his tongue over you, licking a long, thick stripe from your clit to your slit, gathering up your arousal onto his tongue—and then continuing on right up your crack, spreading your fluids and arousal up and over your asshole, his tongue flicking against the puckered rim as you gasped, then whimpered as he focused his attention on it.

“Yeah?” Keys asked, his lips against your ass. “Tilted?”

“No,” you said vehemently, and he felt your body give a kick as you pushed the wand further down between your legs, this time actually touching your clit with it. You jumped again and again at the intense vibration, but it didn’t deter him—on the contrary. He fully intended to give you as many orgasms as you wanted, as you could take, and even though he hadn’t expressed that to you, he was certain you could assess the situation and figure it out all on your own.

“Didn’t think so,” he said. “You really want to show me, huh?” he said. He placed a kiss, a soft, gentle press of his lips, directly on your asshole, and your pussy quivered. You were close—he could tell. It didn’t deter him.

“Walter,” you whined as he opened his mouth, licked at your hole. You could feel how much spit he’d spread over you, the wet feeling of his mouth as he prodded your rim gently with the tip of his tongue, not quite trying to ease it inside just yet, but trying to relax you enough to. You pulled the wand away from your clit, wanting to stave it off, and resumed just rubbing it over your mound, feeling the buzzing but just a pinch more muted.

Keys sucked at your asshole, tongue lapping over you, before he ducked down again, his mouth back on your pussy. You gasped, the sound punched out of your chest as he fucked you with his tongue. His hands were still on you, but as you arched your back, you turned your head as much as you could and saw him behind you, his hips pressed against his bed, still clothed, grinding his front against the mattress, giving himself some friction as he rolled himself down, not quite humping the bed but close. 

“Fuck,” you muttered, angling your wrist again, the Hitachi passing over your clit, and as soon as the vinyl head skimmed over your clit, swollen and ready, smearing across it—your body practically convulsed, your orgasm crashing into you, turning your head to hide your face in the bedspread beneath you, chest kicking as you feel your clit pulse, your pussy spasm, clench down on his tongue that was apparently still inside of you—you hadn’t even realized Keys was still in the damn room, such was the force at which the magic wand (aptly fucking named, holy shit) made you come.

Your wrist dipped, the toy falling away from you, but no it didn’t—because Keys’ hand was there, supporting your wrist, even as he licked at your asshole again.

“Walt…” you moaned, because your brain still felt a little fuzzy but your body was revving up again.

“You did so good. Such good work for me,” Keys said. “I almost believe you’ll earn it.”

“Please,” you said, but he let go of your wrist, let you move the toy off of your clit and down, down further, now letting the bulb press against your slit as he trailed his tongue around your asshole, teasing your rim.

The moan that fell from your lips was muffled by the comforter beneath you as you hid your face again. The head of the toy was nestled between your folds, feeling like it was making your entire lower half shake with the intensity of the vibrations. And maybe you were—you couldn’t be certain. Your thighs were trembling at least, of that you were sure, and as you twisted your wrist, pressing the wand tighter up against your cunt, Keys’ tongue just barely slipped inside of your asshole, and you groaned at the intrusion, the half-sob you loosed making your hand tighten around the vibrator, your other hand curl into a fist around nothing just clenching up.

Until you felt fingers coaxing you to relax yours, and Keys’ hand slid into yours, letting you hold onto him as you felt your pussy tightening up again, squeezing down on nothing but itself, your wetness drooling out of your cunt as Keys fed his tongue into your ass, stretching you around the pliant muscle as it flitted in and out of you, teasing and eager.

“K-Keys,” you said, losing your composure, forgetting his real name just for a moment, forgetting your own goddamn name. Who were you? You didn’t fucking know—all you knew was the singularity between your thighs, your entire being forced down into one tight, explosive mote of being.

“What’s my name?” he asked you, pulling away, spitting on his thumb and letting it rub over your hole. “Try again.”

“Ke—Walter,” you managed, your heart thrumming in your chest. You felt his lips return to your lower back, wet but gentle.

“Very good,” he praised you, and you whined, flexing your hips back against the toy as you held it against yourself, so close now, but needing just a little more. You wanted to wait until his mouth was back on you before giving it to yourself; and like he anticipated what you hoped for, he ducked down to lap at your asshole again, tongue dipping inside you every few passes. Once he was back on you, his mouth servicing you, his hands on your ass, holding you open for him, you slid the wand further forward, focusing on your clit, and just like the first time, your orgasm was there almost instantly, your body kicking forward enough that you detached yourself from Keys’ mouth, hips bucking forward away from him. You half-screamed as your orgasm tore through you, grinding your pussy down against the toy as you came, tears pricking the corner of your eyes as you felt one roll down your face and settle into the hollow beside your nose.

“Fuck, fuck, Walt—Walt, I’m so—”

“You’re so close,” Keys said, reaching down beneath you, taking your wrist again, his arm reaching down and around you. He leaned fully over you, his front against yours, and let you feel his weight atop you, his mouth littering kisses at the back of your ear, the sensitive spot there, before he continued. “Do you know that?” He rolled his hips against you, his erection much more noticeable now, the thick press of his cock commanding all of your attention, if not for the vibrator still down between your legs, numbing your thigh as it buzzed away at the innocuous plane of skin.

“To—what?” you asked, because thinking wasn’t your strong suit at the moment.

“To proving you earned it,” Keys said. “I think… one more oughtta do it.” He tucked his face in between your neck and shoulder, the fabric of his hoodie almost in the way, but not quite. His voice was quiet as he checked in on you, pulling your wrist down so the vibrator kept on working, but touched nothing, letting you almost clear your head. “Tilted?”

“No,” you said, turning to try and look at him. “Please I—want you to—not stop.”

His eyes met yours, icy. “And you think I should listen to you?” he asked. “You like being treated like this. Not sure I should trust your judgement.”

“Please,” you whimpered. “One more and I—I earned it. You said.”

Keys chuckled, and even with the darkness, you heard his real, genuine Keys amusement, the lightness that made you want to fly every time you joked and earned yourself a laugh. “I did, you’re right.” He leaned further into you, his cock against your ass through the denim, and kissed the corner of your mouth, pulling away even as you tried for more. “You’re so close,” he said again. “Let’s fucking go.”

It would have made you laugh in any other circumstances, because god, how often did the two of you say that when you were gaming and something good happened? Well now you were fucking and something good was about to happen, so—warranted.

He didn’t move off of you, letting his body rest on yours as he tightened his grip on your wrist, not just holding it anymore but taking control, guiding the head of the wand against your clit, and even when your hips kicked, flexed, overstimulation driving you into madness, he held it there, feeling your body writhe below his, your legs try to move, flatten, stretch, wanting your body laid out instead of bent at the waist, wanting room to feel as much pleasure as you could rather than confined to a smaller space.

“Almost,” Keys said, his voice low, making you close your eyes to take it in, the deep, richness of it sweet and heavy, covering over you like honey. “Almost, right?”

“Almost,” you echoed him, reveling in his body draped over yours, the way he kissed your jaw and rubbed your wrist with his thumb, soothing you as the vibrator worked at you, your body half-spent but only just getting started.

Keys moved the toy back and forth over you, gently, easily, but even so, after barely another few moments, you broke beneath him, a stuttered groan leaving you as you came, spreading your knees, the two of you sinking low until you were flat on the bed, the Hitachi still rumbling away beneath you, your pussy spasming on top of it as you rode out your orgasm with Keys still on top of you, his breath hot on your neck as he—oh, fuck, fuck—started grinding down against you, humping your ass just the same as he’d been doing to his bed itself earlier.

“Walter—” you whimpered, and he slid an arm beneath you, feeling along the shaft of the toy to turn it off, the two of you feeling the lack of the vibration like it was still there, your cunt tingling, his hips still working into you, but slowing.

“So, so good, you were,” Keys whispered to you, the arm beneath you hugging you from below, squeezing you tight against him even though he was already fully on top of you. “Thank you.”

“Fuck—” you moaned, the gratitude making your pussy clamp up again, and you felt a little rush of your fluids trickle out of your slit.

“You like that, huh?” Keys asked, halfway between normal and derisive. He moved his free hand to stroke back over your hair, feeling the slight beading of sweat at your hairline. “When I thank you for being so good?”

“Yeah,” you sighed, agreeing even though you had no explanation as for why.

“Yeah,” Keys repeated, pushing himself up and off of you, but letting his front linger against your ass as long as he could, before he had to roll back onto his knees and climb off of you. “You want even more? Or would that be too good to you?”

“No, it’s—”

“It’s what?” Keys asked, cutting you off as he moved off of the bed to stand beside it, looking down at your prone form, still in his hoodie, the hem just above your ass, the hood all bunched up at the nape of your neck. “Not too good?” He leaned down, his face right beside yours. “I think maybe it’s about time you start thanking me, don’t you? Show me how grateful you are for how… generous I’m being.”

You stared up at him, fucked out and dumbstruck.

Keeping his eyes locked on yours, Keys undid his button and fly, pushing down his jeans and boxers, letting his cock spring out once it was clear of his waistband. Even in the dark of the room you could see the flushed head, the way the tip was a little darker than the rest of him, and he wrapped a hand around himself, right at the base. “Well?”

“I earned it?” you asked, and for a moment, affection—nay, adoration—flashed over his face. Then it was gone.

“You did. So what do you say.”

“Thank you,” you said, and before you could even close your lips after speaking, Keys had one knee on the bed, holding his cock down, angled toward your mouth, and you shifted closer as best you could while your limbs still felt like jelly, unable to really support yourself for now.

Smirking down at you, Keys waited for you to part your lips, your cheek still flat on the bedspread, and let the tip of his cock rest shallowly in your open mouth. You loosened your jaw, propping yourself up a little on your elbow, and he slid his knee forward, his cock entering your mouth, stretching your lips around him as you exhaled out your nose and let your eyes slip closed.

He didn’t fuck your face. He didn’t try to spur you to action. He didn’t really even move until you did, trying to keep his cock between your lips as you first balanced on your elbows, and then shifted onto your knees, curled up before him, your head still kind of sideways, the two of you managing to move together and finagle yourselves into a position where you could let his cock rest in your mouth, saliva mixing with the precome he’d been leaking, both dripping down your throat so you barely tasted him, just taste what was already coating him on the underside from where his slit had leaked while pleasuring you.

You tried to keep your eyes on his, still wet and shiny with the unshed tears from the force of your orgasm, and as you started to feel less wobbly, you reached for his hips, coming to hold them as you faced him properly, bobbing your head on his cock a little, his length sliding out from your lips almost the whole way before you moved right back on, burying your nose into the short, curled hair at the base of his cock, your chin nudging his balls as you let the head slip into your throat.

“Shit,” Keys swore, and covered one of your hands with his, the other moving to cup your face. It was a crack in his facade, and as you started to pull off, you saw the mask slip back onto him, the half-scowl on his lips as you let his cock fall, dripping spit, from your lips.

“Thank you,” you said, soft but clear, and it was a reminder to him, what you were doing, what you wanted. His mouth hardened into a thin line again, even as he rubbed his hand over yours on his hip, and lifted his free hand from your cheek to take his cock in hand again. He tapped the tip onto your lower lip, and you opened your mouth, taking him in again, and this time he did fuck into your mouth. Not hard, not harsh, but enough that you gagged a little at the quick motion, how fast he filled you, and you swallowed around the head as he leaned his thigh against the edge of the mattress, his other knee still bent and digging a point into the bedspread. 

One of your hands, the one not covered by Keys’ own, slid down to his thigh, bracing yourself as you sucked him off, your jaw slack and your eyes fluttering, wanting to watch his cock move in and out of your mouth, but the blissed out feeling of him stretching you, brushing the back of your throat, almost choking you had you unable to keep them open. You felt his cock twitch against the back of your mouth, deep in you, and you swallowed around the head, your throat tightening up around him as he sighed above you.

“If this is too much,” Keys said, turning your hand in his so your fingers locked together, “squeeze twice.” He demonstrated on your hand, gripping you tight two times in quick succession. “Ok?”

You squeezed his hand once and hummed to communicate that you understood, and then he was bending over you, climbing onto the bed, both knees on it as he moved his hands to your shoulders and then—no warning other than him holding you still and pulling back—snapped his hips forward into your face, his cock rushing into your mouth, your throat, your gag reflex triggering, your throat spasming around him, but you took him in anyway. Your hand slid upward, palm-flat against him, to disappear beneath his shirt, feeling over his stomach, his chest, and then, barely as soon as you were able to relax around his length, as your throat closed around the head, you felt him really dig into you, his front grinding against you, your nose buried in his happy trail—a groan was punched out of his chest, a small, barely audible whimper following as he came, the first two shots of his come sliding right down your throat. But as he kept going, thick spurts of come shooting from the slit in the head, he pulled out, letting them land instead on your tongue, then against your palate as he left your lips, cock swinging down, ropes of his release landing on the front of his hoodie, his bedspread, his heavy length staining his bedspread with the last few dribbles of spunk as his orgasm receded, a bead of pearly come collecting at the head.

Keys slicked his hand over his cock, still slippery with your spit, smearing it over himself, before he looked into your eyes, breath coming a little harder than he’d anticipated, his orgasm washing over him much sooner than he’d expected.

And before he could say anything—praise you, degrade you, get out literally one goddamn word, you spoke instead.

“Thank you,” you said, voice soft and quiet, and Key’s cock twitched, right in front of you, the dynamic doing wonders for both of you, so unexpected but still welcome.

“Take—this off,” Keys said, tangling a shaky hand into the hoodie, trying to tug it over your head.

“I got it—” you mumbled, and he stumbled backward off the bed, tearing his clothes off, his shirt landing somewhere near the door and his jeans and boxers ending up in a tangled pile as you shrugged off the come-stained hoodie, undoing your bra and dropping them both beside you on the bed. That was really as far as you could get them, because as soon as you were both naked, Keys was on top of you again, this time turning you over so you were facing him, letting his mouth meet yours in a fervid kiss, heated and desperate, both on your part and his.

For the moment, the attitude was forgotten, the desire for him to be mean to you, the praise and the degradation—everything was at the back of your mind besides your boyfriend, kissing you, tasting himself on you—and your hands, touching him everywhere; his hands, on your waist and your back and holding you closer, pulling you to him, until he rolled you onto your back, following, settling atop you and kissing your upper lip, drawing your tongue into his mouth, moving his against yours and then your legs were on either side of him and he was stretching up and to the side, yanking open his nightstand drawer, fumbling for a condom in the box, his cock hard against your stomach, smearing your saliva and his residual come over your front.

Your lips didn’t leave his, even as he just grabbed the stupid box and threw it down onto the bed above your head. A little giggle escaped you against Keys’ mouth, and he finally broke the kiss, looking down at you, a sheepish little smirk on his lips as he finally managed to pull a rubber from the box. He kissed you again before he pushed himself up, his long legs bent on either side of your hips. You let your hands stray to his thighs, rubbing over them as he opened the condom and then rolled it on, shuffling back a little so he could press the head of his cock to your slit, still slick with spit and your own come. He pushed in, your folds parting to take him, your body sucking him in just as much as he was moving into you on his own.

“So—so,” Keys said, gasping just a little as he tried to get the words out, bottoming out inside you as his front came to rest against yours, “do—you think you earned this?”

“I—” you tried, but your body superceded your mouth, your brain. You squeezed down on him, bringing a moan to the surface for both of you, your legs moving to wrap around him, trying to pull him down flush against you, and so he moved with you, lowering his front to yours, your bare skin heated on his, your chest arching up into him as he kissed your neck, finally moving his hips, fucking into you.

“Did you earn it?” Keys asked, and you whined, open-mouthed, needy, his mouth finding yours as he licked into it, tongue licking over yours before he spoke again. “Say it.”

“I—” you tried again, but his hips were slapping into yours, his cock was fucking you open, splitting you apart beneath him and so all you could do was take it, mouth open in a silent moan, back arching, neck craned, and then—he stopped.

“I told you to say it,” Keys said, and before you could do as he asked, before you could get your wits back about you, he kept going. “Beg me to give it to you like this, tell me how much you like it, tell me you want me mean. And I do all of it for you and you can’t even do one thing for me? Brat.”

You stared up at him, because—it seemed he finally found his groove, he found the space you wanted him to occupy, and you were just nodding along, still not speaking.

“Oh, you agree?” he asked. You, still, silently nodded. “Brat.” He fucked into you harshly, one final movement, stilling deep within you. “You better learn to use your words,” Keys said. “Say it.” He kissed you, harsh, just as wanting as you felt—which let you still feel tethered to the real Keys, the one who was soft and sweet and doing all of this for you, because you asked him to. “Say you earned this cock.”

Your moan was wanton, breathy, and he didn’t move, hips stalled on yours, and you swallowed thickly, lips smacking as you opened them. “I earned it.”

“Earned what?”

Another loud breath. “Your cock.”

“How?” Keys asked, one hand slipping down between your bodies, readying itself, but not touching you yet. His lips were against yours now, and when you spoke, you felt him shudder.

“By—being good?” you said, half a question, half a certainty.

“By being good,” he repeated. “Still a brat, though.”

“No,” you whined. 

“No what?” he asked. His eyes scanned your face. “Ti—” he started to ask, but you cut him off, because no—you weren’t tilted.

“‘M not a brat,” you said, trying to entice him to move again by lifting your hips against his. “Just—want you.”

Keys studied you for a moment, taking you in, examining you—making sure you were being truthful, making sure you were still good to continue. You tipped your chin up to his, kissing him, conveying everything unsaid in a different way with your mouth, and then he broke the kiss, just enough to answer you.

“Then what do you say?”

“Walter…” you mewled, because you weren’t about to th—

“Say it,” he said again, and it struck you that maybe you weren’t the only one wrapped up in it now. Maybe you weren’t the only one who wanted it, was affected by it. So you lifted your hips into Keys’, bullied your pussy even further onto his cock, taking him fully to the hilt, pulling him even closer by your thighs, and did as he’d asked.

“Thank you,” you nearly purred up at him, and you felt his front dip down against yours in interest, in desperation, chasing his orgasm the same way he wanted to give you yours—you could tell because his fingers moved down between your folds, slicking over your swollen, sensitive bead, and you bucked your cunt up onto his cock as he found it, because you were so worn out, so overly played with, that you were right there already, just from having him inside you, from a little bit of rubbing at your clit.

“Yeah?” Keys asked, sounding like he was willing to let go of his usual decorum, his usual collectedness, only for you, like this. “Yeah?” he prompted you, again.

“Yes,” you sighed. “Thank you, th-thank you, Walter, I—ahn, please—”

He’d started moving again, his knees buried in the bedspread as he fucked you, hard enough that he nudged you up the bed in increments, chasing you as he did, not wanting to let you away from him, not wanting to slip out of your hot, wet channel.

“So fucking hot,” he mumbled, “so beautiful, so—so good, aren’t—you?” 

His stammering words fluttered over you, and you nodded, your arms moving up to wrap around him as he kissed you again, his fingers rubbing your clit, full of intention, purpose, wanting to feel you finish around him, wet his cock and your thighs with your release, and you could tell he was about to go first because his rhythm stuttered, his hips ground into you a little more intensely, a little harsher.

“Walter,” you sighed against his lips, and he nearly collapsed on top of you, smothering your body with his, needing absolutely no space between you, wanting every inch of you touching every inch of him. You clung to him as he pistoned his hips against yours, his cock seeming to fill you more and more with each thrust, every instroke reaching the most tender places in you, the ridge of his length dragging over every spot you needed it to, and then he was gasping against your tongue and you were sighing on his cheek, his cock rigid and tense inside you, your thighs locked around his back as he filled the condom within you, and your walls rippled on him, milking his dick as you practically gushed around his cock, your whole body so fucking fulfilled you felt that you’d be satisfied for hours to come, if not days.

His bedroom was filled with heavy breathing, the soft smacking of lips as you kissed, and then he rolled onto his side next to you, his hand wandering over your side as he leaned his forehead to yours.

“Was it ok?” he asked. Regular Keys, back to normal.

“More than ok,” you replied, smiling, looking into his eyes, shining even in the darkness of his bedroom.

Then, at the same moment, you both spoke the words “Thank you”—you dissolved into giggles, and he just held you closer.

&& taglist: @sunriseinhawkins @ghostlyriddles @souperbloom @sheisjoeschateau @cheugy-djobe @cpnsteverogers @nowandajenn @configurre @cecesblogg @britt-mf @harringtondarling @valentine-night @charismatickeery @charlston-chews @bearwithegg @starkleila @sommie08 @xoxocelestial @kristywidget97 @calelundaa @mistyblueinks @projections-mortal @cupofdjoplease

comment to be added to the taglist !

[imfromthediningtable]

OH! ok

[levanswrites]

𝐤𝐧𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐭

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: steve harrington x reader 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 9.4k 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: your boyfriend throws himself off a 200-foot tower to save you. and you've finally had enough. 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: established relationship, heavy angst, character analysis, switch!steve, hurt/comfort, pain kink, breeding kink, minor blood kink, choking (m!receiving), bondage (?), hate-sex adjacent, sex as coping, descriptions of blood/injury, fantasies about marriage/children, scars, ptsd, aftercare, fluff, bathing together, palm reading, happy ending 𝐚/𝐧: out of everything I love about steve harrington, this is the thing that breaks my heart the most.

✦ · · · ✦ · · · ✦

“You’re such a fucking—idiot—asshole—”

How do you love a man who would die for you, but won’t live for you?

“—selfish dick!”  

You slam back into him before the sentence can finish breathing. Words shredded by teeth and tongue, by kisses hard enough to bruise. Bite hard enough, and maybe you can tear the martyrdom out from under his skin. Rip the halo off and snap it between your teeth.

You sink your cuspids into his bottom lip, right over a split that had barely scabbed over on the drive home.

You feel it tear back open. Feel the plush give of it, the hot burst of copper that blooms across your tongue. Metallic and thick, his life slides down your chin in a slow ribbon of red. It smears between your mouths when you grind closer, staining your skin, marking you both.

He makes a sound.

And it’s not anything born out of pain—you’d know. 

Deep and guttural, dragged up from somewhere starved. His hands clamp around your waist, fingers digging into your ass as he hauls you flush against him. Denim rasps against the inside of your thighs when he rolls his hips up, grinding into you.

That thick, heavy bulge makes itself known, humiliatingly honest.

Blood in his mouth. Dirt under his nails and the sour, rotten tang of that other place still caked in his hair. 

And he’s hard.

Something in him is broken that way.

Years of surviving by the skin of his teeth—beaten and concussed and tortured and choked and drowned and devoured—it’s fucked up the wiring in Steve Harrington’s brain.

Pain tolerance shot to hell. Fear braided with dopamine until his nervous system can’t tell the difference anymore.

Getting hurt no longer scares him.

Now, agony comes hardwired with clarity. That split second before impact, when adrenaline screams through his veins and he’s teetering on that razor-sharp edge of death, that’s when he feels most alive.

Your thumb presses into the fresh cut on his lip, smearing his blood back into it. His lashes flutter. His hips jerk up, rutting against you like you’re fucking him.

You grab his jaw, fingers digging into the sharp hinge to force his gaze down to yours. His pupils are blown impossibly wide; barely any color left, drowned beneath an endless wash of black.

“Yeah?” you whisper, venom-sweet. You drag your thumb down his throat, feel the jut of his Adam’s apple jump under your touch. “Does that feel good?”

He nods.

Doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. Whatever scrap of self-preservation he’d once possessed hollowed out by hunger—by that sick, reckless void inside him that only ever seems to ignite after he’s survived something that should have killed him.

A cruel cosmic coin toss that keeps landing in his favor—and instead of gratitude, it leaves him burning for more.

You lift your knee and press your thigh into the seam of his pants. He sucks in a sharp breath through blood-slick lips, head tipping back, throat bared.

You despise it.

You despise that this is the language his body understands. That he can shove you out of the way without a second thought—dangle over two hundred feet of empty air because he decided your life was worth more than his—and still get hard when you hurt him for it.

You drag your bloody thumb to your mouth and suck it clean, eyes never leaving his.

He watches you do it, watches your lips wrap around the pad of your finger to taste, to swallow—swallow his blood like it’s yours, like he’s yours, like the world could never take him from you.  

Like he hasn’t already tried to give himself away.

Only this time... it was for you, wasn’t it?

Hurled himself into the abyss without hesitation, fingers scraping at metal while the yawning darkness waited below.

One second slower. One fraction of a heartbeat, and—

Your palms slam into his shoulders.

Just like his had slammed into yours.

Bile surges up your throat as you claw at muscle and bone, shoving and shoving until his balance falters.

He stumbles back, heel catching on the edge of the bed. Momentum betrays him for a second time and he falls back onto the mattress with a startled grunt.  

Your stomach falls with him. Phantom vertigo clawing up your spine, even now.

And the moment you close your eyes—

You’re standing on top of that tower.

You remember the look on his face.

That awful, quiet resolve of someone who had already made peace with his fate.

You remember his hands on your shoulders. The firm press of his fingers, the way he held on just long enough to make sure you were steady, to make sure you were far enough away.

Far enough that you couldn’t reach him.

Far enough that you would live.

And then he let go.

You remember the force of it careening you backward, your boots scraping against the metal platform as you fought for balance. You remember the cold bite of the railing against your back. You remember watching him move in the opposite direction, his own momentum carrying him toward the open edge.

You remember his hand shooting out on instinct, searching for anything that would keep him there. His palm scraping against rusted steel, leaving streaks of red behind as his fingers curled desperately around the railing.

The same hands that had pushed you away.

The same hands that had held yours on the way up, guiding you over every rung of that ladder when the height made your stomach twist.

You remember his mouth opening like he might say something—your name, maybe—a goodbye, something he needed you to know—but all that came out was a broken, ragged breath.

You remember the color draining from his face as he looked down, the terrible understanding settling in his eyes.

You remember lunging for him without thought.

You remember Robin’s arms locking around your waist, holding you back so tightly it bruised, her grip the only thing keeping you from following him over the edge.

And then his fingers slipped.

You stalk toward him now, trying to outrun the memory, fists clenched so tight your nails carve crescents into your palms.

He’s sprawled across the sheets, chest heaving, arms flung wide in surrender.

“Why?” you demand, climbing over him, straddling him with an anger so raw it shakes your whole body. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

He lets out a quick breath through his nose, incredulous. Raises his brows like you’re the insane one.

“Seriously? You’re seriously asking me that.”

He’s smiling.

A crooked, boyish thing, manic brightness behind the eyes, adrenaline still lighting him up from the inside out.  

It detonates something in you.

You slam your weight down on him, knees digging hard into his sides. The mattress groans, the air punching out of his lungs in a sharp grunt.

You fist the hem of his shirt and yank it up.

The sight underneath steals your air right back.

It never gets easier to see.

Bruises bloom fresh and vicious across his ribs, inky purples bleeding into sick reds. New hurt swallowed by old hurt, skin that never gets the chance to heal clean before something tears it open again.

Jagged crescents from teeth, ropes of pale, warped ridges that split the tan of his skin like fault lines, ready to crack him open. That chunk of puckered flesh on his right side that never healed right—and it never will.  

Your fingers drag down the center of his chest, shaking.

“What was the plan this time, hm?” you spit, nails scraping over the soft plane of his stomach, catching on one of the scars. “What was the fucking plan, Steve?”

You hook your fingers into his belt buckle and rip it loose, hard enough that the metal clangs against itself.

“Answer me. What would you have done if—if Jonathan didn’t catch you? If you slipped?”

His head falls back, exposing the flushed column of his throat, pulse hammering wild and alive under skin you’ve kissed a hundred times.

“What the hell was I supposed to do?” he pants. “Let you fall?”

“You didn’t know I was gonna fall!”

“Well I wasn’t gonna fucking wait to find out, alright?”  

The mattress groans when he pushes himself upright too fast, pain flashing across his face before he buries it immediately, one hand flying to his ribs on instinct.

“I can’t... I’m not gonna just stand there and wait for something to happen to you.”

Your body goes still.  

The bright sting behind your eyes arrives right on cue, the fury choking off in your throat until all that’s left is grief.

“You know,” you whisper, quieter now. “You know I’m not just talking about the tower.”

There’s a moment of recognition in his eyes as the words sink in, a flash of something that might be guilt if he ever let it sit long enough.

He knows exactly what you mean.

Then, just as fast, he shutters himself. Lets the feeling die before it can root.

His gaze slides away toward the ceiling.

“No, don’t... don’t do that,” he mutters. “Don’t make this into some... suicidal thing. It wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No.”

“You could’ve died tonight.”

“But I didn’t.”

“That’s not the fucking point!”

“Well what do you want me to say?” he fires back suddenly, frustration cracking his voice. “That I’m sorry I stopped you from falling?”

“I want you to stop acting like your life means less than mine!”

He clamps his mouth shut, an audible click of his molars as he frowns, incredulity settling behind his wide eyes. His brows pulling together as he stares at you like he can’t understand why you could possibly be saying this.

Steve doesn’t consciously believe his life matters less.

He would never say that.

But somewhere deep down—in the ugly marrow of him, in the abandoned, lonely places built inside him when he was a kid—he believes it instinctively.

You’ve known that for a long time now.

Steve grew up starving.

Not for food.

For affection.   

A reason to believe he mattered even when there was nothing he could offer except himself.

Love, in the Harrington house, was conditional.

And at Hawkins High, he traded one kind of emptiness for another.

Built himself a throne out of borrowed attention and hollow praise.

Then the world ended, and suddenly everybody needed him.

Needed his fists, his strength. Needed the frightening way he could take hit after hit after hit and still stand back up bleeding.

Steve latched onto that feeling with both hands.

And his body became a type of offering.

A thing to spend.

You’ve lost count of how many nights ended exactly like this.

Both of you stumbling back home, adrenaline clawing through your veins, slick with sweat and blood—yours or his, it doesn’t matter anymore. Shaking so hard your teeth chatter while you scream at him, fists slamming into his chest.

Screaming and shoving and crying and kissing and begging—begging him to please, please stop being so fucking careless with your life. What’s the point of any of this shit if you’re dead, Steve?      

It always ends the same way. Your anger dissolving into something wetter as Steve reaches for your waist with bruised hands, dragging you against him, mouthing apologies into your throat he’ll never say aloud. Fucking you on top of bloodstained sheets while the smell of iron hangs thick in the room, face buried in your neck, every thrust a word he won't say.

Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

You stare at him now, chest heaving, lungs scraping for air that won’t come.

Then you reach down and pull his wrists together.

The leather creaks when you thread his belt around them.

Loop, thread, pull, cinch.

Survival knots perfected in the dead of night, in basements and back rooms, hands slick with sweat while you practiced until it stuck. So when the time came, you could hold down something thrashing and dangerous.

Because hesitation is what gets people killed.

It makes sickness crawl up your throat, how naturally your body remembers.

How this world has taught you to restrain someone you love—and taught you well.

You yank his arms above his head, the strap biting into his skin, pulling tight until the leather creaks and his skin pales underneath.

Steve doesn’t fight it, doesn’t even try. Just lets his head fall back against the pillows, wrists falling limp over dark linens.

Has the fucking audacity to smile.

“What,” he breathes, wrecked in an entirely different way now. “You gonna punish me?”

You yank the belt tighter.

He hisses softly through his teeth, brows creasing in a fake show of pain, hips stirring in anticipation.

“Okay, easy, easy,” he mutters breathlessly, grin crooked. “Jesus—easy, honey.”

“Oh, so now I’m honey?”

You shove his wrists harder into the pillow, then drop your hands to his pants, fingers rough and impatient. The button fights you before snapping loose, his zipper dragged down with a harsh metallic rasp. He sucks in a breath, back arching as the pressure eases off his swollen cock.

“Baby...” he tries, a soft laugh in his voice. “C’mon, you don’t have to, just—”

“Shut up.”

You shove him back into the mattress, gaze burning furiously through him.

He just stares back, that reckless, adrenaline-drunk smile still clinging to him like he hasn’t learned a single fucking thing.

So you wrap your hand around his throat.

Four fingers digging into warm, sweat-slick skin. Your thumb presses into the hollow beside his windpipe until you can feel it.

The frantic thump-thump-thump of life.

Life he throws around like loose change.

“S-shit, babe...” he chokes softly, lashes fluttering, eyes rolling back, the fucked-up wires in his brain firing off all at once. He uses what little leverage he has to lift his hips, grinding against your ass until you tighten your grip, a crease of real strain forming between his brows as his breath snags under your palm.

But even then, he doesn’t push you away. His bound hands strain downward, fingers grasping uselessly at your wrist, tugging you forward so he can get you closer, grind up harder.

You hate him.

You love him so much it makes you violent.

And he’s still fucking bleeding.

Face covered all over in fresh cuts and bruises, illuminated by the soft blue glow of the dinosaur nightlight in the corner—same one he’s had since he was five.

This bed once held your first kiss.

Your first time.

Steve laughing breathlessly into your mouth at sixteen years old because he kept fumbling the condom wrapper with nervous hands.

Whispered promises under blankets about senior year and college.

A hundred different somedays and maybes.

About a future that didn’t look like this—didn’t include gates or monsters or watching the boy you love come within inches of disappearing, over and over again.

Now you’re choking him in it.  

Straddling him with your hand around his throat because you don’t know how else to make him understand that you cannot survive loving somebody who keeps choosing death.

It won’t leave you alone, the image of his face on top of that tower.

Not an inch of hesitation.

Like it wouldn’t have mattered, either way.

Your other hand comes up, circling his throat fully now, pressing in. 

Your eyes sting as you narrow them, forcing yourself to hold his gaze.

Barely a whisper, the words cut you on their way out.

“Fuck you.”

Some days you think about killing him yourself.

Ending it before the world gets to.

Precipitate the inevitable doom that is loving a man who would bleed for you, break for you, die for you—

But won’t live for you.    

At least it would be quick, then.

At least you wouldn’t spend the rest of your life waiting for the inevitable moment where his luck finally runs out.

It’s unbearable.

Loving someone who would move mountains to keep you alive, but cannot understand why you’d want the same for him.

Calm in the face of oblivion, martyrdom fits him like a second skin. 

That’s what terrifies you most.

Because somewhere deep down, you know he doesn’t fear death the way he should. The way a normal person would.

Sometimes, you think a part of him finds peace in the idea of going out useful.

And it’s all so completely, irreparably fucked, because you don’t love him despite it.

You love him because of it.

Loving Steve Harrington feels like standing on a fault line, waiting for the ground to split wide and swallow you whole.

It’s a special, exquisite kind of torture, to be so in love with a man who throws himself at death like it’s a dare.  

And it is love, undeniably and irrevocably so.

You love him.

By god, you love him.  

Because his martyr complex is just a twisted language for devotion. When he throws himself into danger, you know it isn’t bravado—it’s instinct. A reflex burned into his bones, older than logic, older than fear.

Love is the only language Steve Harrington has ever been fluent in, and he speaks it with his whole body.  

It turns his skin into armor, his heart into a blade. Sharp enough to carve permanent lines inside you—wounds that might close, someday, but never fade.

And he really does believe it.

That this is what it looks like, loving somebody.

But what good is devotion if it buries you?

What good is love from someone six feet under?

Your hand loosens around his throat, just enough for him to drag in a ragged breath. His chest heaves under you, pulse still racing against your palm.

His Adam’s apple bobs, sending ripples of light over the pale rings circling his neck, thin and white against his flushed skin. Scars that still have him jerking awake some nights, clawing at his own throat, gasping like he’s still back there.

Nightmares that leave him staring at the ceiling until four in the morning because every time he closes his eyes, he sees vines threading around broken bodies. Migraines that get so bad after trips to the Upside Down he has to sit alone in dark bathrooms, forehead pressed against cool tile, breathing through the nausea until the room stops tilting.

His hands still reach for a nail bat when the house creaks at night, before he's even fully awake.

Fear has never made him run. It only ever taught him to step forward.

And the tear you've been holding back all night finally slips free, landing on his bare stomach with a soft, awful plop.

Steve flinches like it’s acid, muscles clenching underneath you.

“Baby...”

You let go of his neck fully as you sink back onto his thighs, fingers gone numb, teeth digging into your lip until copper floods your mouth.

“You didn’t even hesitate.”

You watch as his expression immediately sobers, brows drawing together, eyes flicking between yours.

“Y-you never do. You never fucking hesitate,” your breath starts coming in tight hitches, catching in your chest. “And it’s like—it’s like—”

The rest of the words slip free, torn loose now that everything’s exposed, out there in the open, your handprint around his throat and his wrists bound in leather.    

“...It’s like you don’t even care if you leave me here.”

Steve goes silent for a moment, shoulders slumping with a quiet breath.    

You watch—eyes burning, body trembling—as he slowly reaches for you. The leather belt creaks as his wrists slide down until his fingers brush yours.  

You feel the metal burns on his palms against the back of your hand—his skin split from gripping the railing so hard he tore himself open just to keep from falling.   

He whispers your name on a soft breath.

“Baby, if I ever lost you?” He shakes his head faintly. “That’d be it for me.”

You sniff hard, refusing to blink.

“I mean it.” Light pools in his eyes, trembling along the lower lashes until they glimmer like wet glass. “I’d never… I’d never leave you behind. How could I?”

He closes his fingers gently around your wrist, thumb brushing over your pulse.

“I love you. More than... more than anything. You know that.”

You lift your gaze slowly to meet his.

“Do I?”

Two words, but it’s the ugliest thing you’ve said all night.

It's suffocating, the silence that follows.

“Do you ever think about us? About me?”

Because that’s what this is really about, isn’t it?

For all the names you’ve thrown at him in your worst moments—reckless, stubborn, idiot, a selfish asshole with a death wish—

It’s you who feel selfish.

For wanting him to stay.

For wanting to keep him in a world that seems determined to take him first.

For wanting him to choose you over the next disaster that crawls out of the dark.

Because you’re terrified that when the moment comes, when it’s you or the world, he won’t have to think about it. That the world will always reach for him first—and that one day, it’ll win.

Or worse, that he’ll choose you instead.

That he’ll stop running toward danger because of you. That loving you will make him hesitate.

And you’ll be the reason he changes.  

The reason the world breaks.

Steve’s expression changes in a flash.

The belt creaks as he tries to sit up, a real wince cutting across his brow when his bruised ribs take the pressure. He sucks in a breath through clenched teeth, dragging himself upright.

“Look at me.”

You turn your head instinctively, but he follows.

“Hey. C’mon. Look at me.”

Hazel burns molten in the dim light, the shine in them trembling.

“Of course I think about you,” he whispers, breathless. “You don’t think I think about you? Hey, hey, look at me—you’re all I think about. You’re in my head, all the time. Every fucking second.”

Your tears spill harder, falling freely now, dripping from your chin onto the dark brown fabric of his cargo pants, leaving small damp spots that bloom between you.

“Every time something goes wrong, or—or I’m thinking about doing something stupid, you’re there. First thing. Your face, your voice. Telling me to stop being an idiot, telling me to think—"

You shake your head, a broken sound catching in your throat.

“And if I just stood there tonight,” he presses on, eyes locked on yours, brimming with tears but never flinching, “If there was even a chance you could fall, and I didn’t do anything?”

He swallows.

“I couldn’t live with that. I mean it, honey. I couldn’t.”    

A tear slips loose and slides down his own cheek. He doesn’t wipe it away.

“Baby, I... I wasn’t trying to die. I was trying to end this. All of it. So we don’t have to keep doing this forever.”

His mouth twitches faintly.

“You remember what we talked about? About college? That stupid road trip idea I had with the camper van?” He shakes his head, letting out a quiet laugh. “Six kids, right? Or... whatever insane number I said.”

His hands come up as much as the belt allows, clumsy from the strain in his shoulders, and cradle your face. His thumbs drag across the wet heat beneath your eyes, catching tears as fast as they fall, rubbing salt into flushed skin. 

“That’s the goal. That’s always been the goal.”

He leans forward until his forehead presses against yours.

For a long moment, he says nothing. His hands stay on your face, thumbs brushing softly over your skin, his breathing uneven in the small space between you.

Then, almost too quietly to hear:

“I would’ve jumped with you.”

You recoil immediately, shaking your head hard, eyes squeezing shut.

“Don’t. Don’t fucking say that.”

Steve pushes on, voice low and terrifyingly calm.

“If you’d fallen off that tower tonight, I would’ve followed you.”

His thumb brushes under your eye again, catching another tear before it reaches your jaw.

“Wouldn’t even think about it. I’d just go.”

“Steve—”

“I’d go.”

Your eyes snap open.

Those big, stupid hazel eyes bore into yours.

That stupid nose. Those stupid thick lashes and those stupid moles and those stupid lips.

And underneath all of it, that huge, catastrophic, stupid heart crammed inside a body that keeps throwing itself into danger like it doesn’t belong to him.

Your chest aches just looking at him.

You’ve spent countless nights staring at Steve Harrington while he slept beside you, wondering if loving him would always feel like standing barefoot on train tracks.

Waiting.

Feeling the vibrations underneath your feet before the impact ever comes. Knowing that something massive and merciless will come racing toward you and there won’t be a damn thing you can do to stop it. 

Sometimes you’d trace the slope of his nose with the back of your finger. Follow the shape of his eyebrows. The tiny scar under his chin from a T-ball game when he was six.

You’d study the dip of his cupid’s bow, the soft curve of his lips as he breathed into his pillow, completely unaware of how thoroughly he’d ruined your life for anyone else.

And you’d torture yourself with the same impossible question.

If someone had stopped you before all of this, taken your face in both hands and said:

Here, this boy is going to become the center of your entire world.

He's going to make you laugh so hard your ribs hurt.

He’s going to kiss you like you’re the last person on earth, and he's going to love you so completely you'll forget there was ever a version of yourself that existed before him.

He's going to look at you like you're the only thing worth finding at the end of the world.

Then one day, he’ll start throwing himself in front of monsters and nightmares beyond comprehension. 

He's going to throw himself off a tower without hesitating if it means you get to live.

Would you still choose him?

Would you still let him in, knowing one day he might not make it back?

Would you willingly hand your heart to someone who would protect it with his life—

But never his own?

And even in the quiet space of that hypothetical, the answer had never changed.

You would.

Every fucking time. 

“I love you,” the boy in front of you whispers.

The words slice straight through you, scraping against everything frayed raw inside your chest.

“Shut up,” you breathe, eyes squeezing shut.

Because if he loved you, wouldn’t he try?

Wouldn’t he try?

“I love you.”

“Steve, s-stop.”

“I love you. There’s nothing—nothing—that matters to me more than you.”

“Steve, I swear to god—”

“You’re it for me. And if it came down to it again—”

“Please, stop—”

“—I’d choose to jump. Every time.”

It feels like a seam is splitting inside your chest.

Your breath caves first—a sharp, stuttering inhale that catches in your lungs hard enough to hurt—before your body moves on instinct.

You surge forward, the mattress groaning beneath the force of it as you crash into him, fists tangling in the front of his shirt.

“Fuck you,” you sob.

Steve sucks in a breath as you pound weakly at his chest, his restrained hands jerking uselessly between your bodies.

He can’t hold you properly. Can’t wrap his arms around you the way he wants to.

Still, he tries.  

He shifts forward on the mattress, pulling you between his thighs. The leather around his wrists creaks when he strains to hook his arms around your waist.

You bury your face against his neck.

His entire body folds around yours, chest pressed flush against you so tightly you can feel the frantic hammer of his heartbeat through his sternum, the uneven rise and fall of his lungs where your bodies are crushed together. He presses his cheek against your temple, breathing hard through his nose.

“I know,” he murmurs hoarsely into your hair. “I know, baby. I know.”

“N-no, y-you don’t,” you choke out.

Your hands claw at his shoulders hard enough to bunch the fabric beneath your fists. You need him closer. Closer than skin, closer than bone. If you could unzip his ribs and crawl inside his chest just to keep his heart beating yourself, you would.

“You don’t know,” you sob against his throat. “You d-don’t know what it f-feels like—”

“Hey,” Steve whispers shakily. “Hey, c’mon. Breathe for me, baby. Please.”

You curl tighter against him, fists twisting in the soft cotton of his shirt until your knuckles throb from the effort. The tears don't stop. They soak into the warm skin at the base of his neck, your breath catching against him in broken, uneven pulls until your throat burns and your ribs ache with every desperate inhale.

Steve gathers you as close as his battered body will allow. Every so often, he presses another lingering kiss into your hairline, your temple, the crown of your head, each one quiet enough to say what words can't.

“I’ve got you, baby,” he murmurs into your hair. “M'right here, I got you. Not going anywhere.”  

You let his words settle over you, one shaky breath at a time. The sobs begin to lose their violence, splintering into uneven hiccups that leave your chest sore and hollow.

When you finally pull back, it's only far enough to see him. 

Your hand trembles when you lift it to his face.

Steve goes still as your fingertips ghost over the scrape on his cheek, tracing down the line of his jaw. He doesn’t so much as flinch when your thumb brushes over the split in his lip, featherlight over the broken skin there.

The first kiss is soft.

Nothing like the frantic, bruising collision from earlier.  

But it’s worse like this, somehow.

Wet with tears, with blood, salt and iron passed between soft, shaking kisses. Steve sighs into it, a trembling sound that vibrates against your lips as he tilts his head and follows you deeper. His nose nudges against your cheek, his kisses careful, almost hesitant in how tender he’s being with you.

And it’s funny, really.

How grief can change shape in the span of a heartbeat.

One moment it's lodged beneath your ribs like broken glass, your body still trapped on that radio tower, watching Steve disappear over the edge.

The next, it's here.

In the careful way he kisses you, the warmth of his breath against your mouth.

In the slow, wet drag of his tongue against yours, your fingers hooking into the open button of his pants. The zipper presses cold against the side of your hand before you push deeper, slipping beneath the elastic of his briefs.

He’s already half-hard. Heavy and thick and burning hot against your palm, velvety-soft skin twitching when you wrap your fingers around him. The soft curl of hair at his base brushes against your knuckles when you adjust your grip.

He pants openly into your mouth as you slide your other hand into his hair, gripping tight, yanking his head back at the angle you want it.  

Nose to nose, lips brushing even as you’re not kissing—only sharing air and spit, slick between swollen mouths.

And your eyes stay open, watching him.

Darkened hazels and helplessly fluttering lashes, his is a face that will haunt every version of your future. The one you almost lost, the one you’re still begging the universe to let you keep.

“Show me.”

He blinks at your words, lips parted in soft pants.

“Show me how much you love me.”

He swears under his breath, eyes clenching shut.  

“Fuck…” he groans, shaking his head slowly, side to side, grunting when you drag your thumb across the sensitive tip. “Baby, please... just untie me,” he pleads, straining against his binds again. “Please—fuck—let me touch you—”

“No.”

“Please, baby—”

“No,” you repeat, wrist rolling as you start to stroke him harder, feeling him swell fully in your grip.

He grunts, brows creased in pleasure as you continue to squeeze and glide your palm up and down his length, lips parted to keep kissing you in this obscene way, tongues sliding together in slow, wet strokes.

“God, you’re so... so pretty when you’re mad, you know that?” He huffs against your mouth, almost a laugh, throat gone hoarse and dry from how hard he’s been panting.

“You get this look like you’re—ah, fuck—like you might actually kill me.”

You squeeze your grip around his cock, dangerously tight.

“Maybe I should.”

Something catches in those soft hazel eyes, then.

Pinning you in place with nothing but their unblinking stare, almost unnervingly steady.

You watch, helpless, as he lifts his own hands up toward his mouth. He spits lewdly into the hollow of his right palm, shoving his waistband down just enough to free his cock, replacing your hand with his own.  

Wrists still bound, he slicks himself in slow, wet strokes, eyes never leaving yours.

"Yeah?" he asks quietly. "You gonna punish me?"

He tips his chin up toward you, lashes nearly brushing your skin when he blinks.

“You gonna use this cock, baby? Take it out on me?”

He uses what little range of motion he has to rub his tip up and down your glistening slit, obscene schlicks that fill the space between your breaths, spurred by the impatient grinds of your hips.

And the moment he pushes inside you, he breathes the words against your skin.

“I love you.”

His mouth swallowing your whimpers at the stretch of taking him this way—no prep, no lube, just spit—yours, his, it doesn’t matter anymore.

“I love you. I love you. We’re... we’re gonna be okay, baby, I promise. We’re gonna be okay.”

Your hands shake as you reach for the belt around his wrists, the buckle catching under your fingertips before releasing with a muted clink. He cups your cheeks as soon as it does, cradling your face, pressing his lips against yours. 

“I love you,” he repeats against your mouth, over and over. “I love you. I love you.”

Grief really is a funny thing.   

It burns until there's nothing left to consume

And the anger that had kept you upright for hours—the frantic, desperate need to make him understand how terrified you'd been—begins to crumble beneath the weight of what you almost lost.

Your strength gives out in increments. Your fingers slowly uncurl from his biceps, the crescents your nails pressed into his skin easing away. Your forehead finds the warm slope of his shoulder instead, eyes slipping shut as the last of the fight drains from your body.

You sag forward, soft whimpers and low groans exchanged between your lips as you rock back and forth on his cock, letting it fill up the hollowed-out places inside you.

And when you get too tired to do even that—when your strength gives out, thighs trembling with the effort of lifting yourself up and sinking back down—he’s there to catch you.

One arm sliding securely around you as he eases you onto your back, the muscles in his shoulders rippling under your fingertips as you wind your arms around his neck. You cling to him as he kisses you hard and deep, exchanging punched-out breaths as he starts up his thrusts with newfound fervor.

"Gonna marry you," he pants suddenly, stealing what little breath you have left.

You gasp against his mouth, caught between a disbelieving laugh and another sob. “Steve—”

“I mean it,” he insists, hips snapping into the mattress, barely pulling out before burying himself back in. “I-I want all of it. That house with the... the porch. That trip we keep talking about, in the camper van, and—”

His face screws up and he has to stop moving for a second, drawing in a shuddering breath.

“I’m gonna marry you and—fuck—gonna give you a baby.”   

You choke on the words, a helpless sound catching in your throat as you cling to him, bruisingly tight.

“Yeah?” He strokes your hair back, cupping the crown of your head with his palm. Smoothing the sweat-slick strands away from your face, thumb lingering at your temple as his eyes search yours. “You want me to give you a baby?”  

You nod into him, unable to find the words.

“How many?”

His pace is unrelenting—thrusts hard enough that the bedframe is thudding repeatedly against the wall, hard enough that you know the wallpaper’s going to show it tomorrow.  

“Tell me,” he grunts, voice rough with emotion, like he needs to hear you say it out loud. “How many?”

Sweat shining along his skin, hair a damp mess across his forehead, but he never once looks away.

“F-fuck, I don’t...” you break on another sob, eyes clenching shut. “Two. Maybe... maybe three.”

“Three,” he repeats to himself, and his hips snap a little sharper. “What about... what about four? Make it a—mm, fuck—make it an even number.”

And it’s hardly new—the kind of bullshit he spouts when you’re both this far gone, when adrenaline has burned through every last nerve and neither of you are thinking straight anymore. He’s always been prone to making wild promises in the heat of the moment—spinning out impossible futures and reckless dreams, building an entire lifetime in the space of a few breathless minutes—just to get you both off.     

But tonight, they don’t feel like a fantasy at all. 

“You’d look so... so fucking pretty,” he pants, voice breaking. “Pregnant with my kid. Jesus.”

“Mm, close...” you whisper weakly, face scrunched at the unbearably mounting pressure in your lower stomach.  

“Yeah? You’re close? You gonna come for me?”

You nod, burying yourself closer, clinging to him harder. “T-tell me again.”

“Tell you what, baby?”

“That you... that you love me.”

“Fuck,” he groans, thrusts turning sloppy as he buries a loud groan against your lips. “I love you. Love you so fucking much. I don’t even know what I’d do without you. I—shit, a-are you coming? Oh, fuck, that’s—that’s it. That’s my girl.”

Your orgasm hits hard and blinding. A broken groan ripping out of you as you clamp your thighs around his waist, mewling into his skin. You blink your eyes open just in time to see his gaze fixed on you—expression reverent, chest heaving as he watches you shake underneath him.

And as you go to kiss him, feeling the labored grunts of his mounting pleasure against your lips, the weight of his breaths and the slick drag of his cock against your heat—

When you press your lips to his and whisper for him to come inside you, make me yours Steve, get me pregnant, keep me, love me, stay with me, stay, stay, please fucking stay—

When he presses inside all the way to the hilt and lets his own pleasure overtake him—

You finally whisper the words back.

Three syllables against the enormity of what lives inside your chest.

Three syllables trying to hold every sleepless night and every quiet morning, every time you pressed your lips to the places on his body that hurt and wished that love alone could take his pain away.

They cannot carry it all.

They never could.

But when he closes his eyes and tips his forehead to yours—his weight melting against you as he presses an exhausted, dazed smile against your lips—you realize maybe the words don’t have to hold it all.

Maybe he can feel the rest.

· · ·

The seal breaks with a sharp snap, the plastic ring splitting loose and skittering across the bathroom floor.

You turn the bottle over in your hand, staring at it for a moment.

It’s the good kind—the expensive kind stored in heavy glass, the label still clean. You haven’t touched it since the day Steve brought it home months ago, back when you could still ask for things like Epsom salt and a box of chocolates at the general store without anyone looking at you like you’d lost your mind.

He’d shown up at your door that afternoon grinning like an idiot, grocery store roses tucked under one arm and a paper bag in his other hand that clinked when he lifted it.

“Thought we deserved something nice,” he’d said, holding up the bag with that stupid, proud little grin. “We haven’t done a proper date night in a while, right?”

But you hadn't used the bottle then.

You'd saved it.

For a night that felt right.

For a night where you weren’t just surviving long enough to see morning.

Your hands shake a little as you tip the bottle now.

Pouring more than you should, watching the pale liquid ribbon into the rushing stream of water, swallowed by the force of it before slowly blooming back to the surface in soft, frothy bubbles.

The smell hits a second later. Sweet, heavy lavender that clings to the back of your throat, swirling with the clean heat of the water.

For a moment, you let yourself go back.

Back to the day Steve bought this because he wanted to take care of you. Because he wanted one normal night where you could both pretend the world hadn’t changed.

A night where the biggest problem was what movie to put on.

Then, the sink creaks behind you.

You turn immediately, heart jumping.  

Steve’s reflection is blurred in the mirror—shoulders slumped, chin dipping toward his chest. He’s got one hand braced against the counter, knuckles pale from how tightly he’s holding on. The other fumbles with an orange pill bottle.

“You okay? You need help?”

He shakes his head. “Nah, I got it.”

The words are automatic. Steve’s favorite answer to anything that worries you.

He tips a couple pills into his palm, fills the glass beside the sink, and swallows them down.

You watch his face tighten afterward, eyes squeezing shut as he waits for it to pass. His throat works hard, his whole body briefly tensing, muscles bracing against something that should have been painless.

You step closer, hands settling carefully on his arms as you turn him toward you. 

He doesn’t argue when you crouch in front of him.

You start with his shoes.

Fingers working at the laces, easing them loose before pulling them off one at a time. They hit the tile with a quiet thud. His socks peel off next. Then his pants, the buttons still undone. His briefs.

He stays silent through all of it, one hand resting lightly on your shoulder.

It’s not much pressure, but you feel the way his weight leans into you, the slight sway when you shift back, like he’s having to constantly correct himself just to stay upright.

Helping him into the tub takes time. You stay close while he steps over the edge, one hand gripping your arm, the other braced against the wall.

Slowly, carefully, he lowers himself into the water.

The second it reaches his ribs, he hisses.

“Shit—”

His head falls back against the tile, eyes squeezing shut as a sharp breath slips between his teeth. His hand tightens reflexively around your wrist.

Foamy water laps against his chest, darkening the hair across his sternum, rising and falling with each careful breath.

“Too hot?” you ask quickly, already reaching for the faucet.

He cracks his eyes open, shaking his head.

“’S perfect.”

You keep watching him, searching his face for the slightest sign that he's only saying it to spare you.

Then, little by little, the strain begins to loosen its grip.

The hard line of his jaw softens first, his fingers easing around your wrist. His shoulders sink another inch beneath the warm water, the tension slowly melting out of them as the heat works its way into his muscles.

His next breath comes easier. Then another.

After a long moment, his eyes drift open again.

They're hazy with fatigue, heavy-lidded and unfocused, but they find you where you're perched beside the tub, knees tucked against your chest.

He squints, mouth twisting into a petulant frown.

“What?” he murmurs. “You’re not getting in?” 

A smile tugs at your lips. “You want me to?”

He gives you a slow, incredulous look—the classic Steve Harrington stare.

“Uh, yeah,” he mumbles, like it’s obvious. “How else am I supposed to feel better?”

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling as you stand.

Your hands aren’t as steady as you’d like; you notice it more now, with nothing else to focus on.

You pull your shirt over your head, and immediately hear the quiet shift of water beside you, a soft slosh.

By the time you glance up, he’s already looking at you.

Sitting a little straighter than he was a moment ago, chin lifted despite the exhaustion pulling at him. Steam curls between you, softening the edges of his face, but his eyes never leave yours. They follow every movement with boyish concentration, fixed on you in a way that’s not even pretending to be subtle.

You huff a quiet breath through your nose, fighting a smile as you tug the rest of your clothes off.  

“Seriously?”

The corner of his mouth quirks, all innocence.

“What? Sue me.”  

He shifts deeper into the tub, water rolling around him as he eases back, making room between his legs before patting the space in front of him.

You step in carefully, goosebumps prickling as the heat climbs slowly over your ankles, your calves, your thighs. The water embraces you inch by inch until you're lowering yourself fully beneath the surface, warmth wrapping around you like a heavy blanket scented with lavender.

The moment your back brushes his chest, his arms find you.

They slide around your waist with familiar certainty, one settling securely across your middle to draw you closer.  Your hand rises on instinct, covering his forearm where it rests across your stomach. His skin is warm and damp beneath your fingertips, the fine hairs catching against your palm as your thumb strokes absent circles over his wrist.

His chin grazes your shoulder as he nestles closer, his next breath warming the side of your neck.

“This is nice,” he hums, body growing heavier where it rests against yours.

You let out a slow breath. “Yeah.”

You let your weight settle back into him completely. He answers by tightening his arm around your waist, one hand gliding up to squeeze your side as he draws you a fraction closer.

You take the other one for you to keep.

Turning it over slowly, relearning it by touch. The familiar roughness of his skin, the broad span of his palm, completely swallowing yours whenever he laces your fingers together. Your thumb glides over the callus at the base of his index finger, the thickened patch of skin from years of gripping weapons he never should have had to hold.

You rub over it absentmindedly, once, twice, then again.

“How do you know?”

The words come so quietly you're not even sure you've said them aloud.

“Hm? Know what?”

“How do you know...” You swallow, unable to lift your eyes from where the water laps gently over your joined hands, pale violet opalescence that ripples around you both. “How do you know this is real?”  

He goes still at that, the only sound between you the soft ripple of water and the rush of your own thoughts filling the space.

“We could still be down there,” you whisper, the words gathering speed the longer you speak.

“Maybe... maybe we never got out. Maybe Vecna just made us think we won by giving us...” You gesture around the room. “...this.”

The lavender.

The warm water.

Him.

“What if none of it's real? What if he just—what if he made us think we were safe because it'd hurt more when he took it away? I mean, how would we even know?”    

Your chest feels tighter with every word.

“What if we're still—"

“Hey.”

Steve's voice is so soft that you almost miss it.

“Hey. Look at me.”

His face is drawn with exhaustion, pain lingering in the tightness around his eyes, in the careful way he holds himself, like every breath reminds him of another bruise.

But they’re still his.

Still that same warm hazel you've spent so many nights memorizing, never daring to believe you'd get a lifetime of looking into them.

“You know how I know?”

Your throat goes tight. “How?”

“Because you’re scared.”

Your brows pull together, fingers tightening around his. He squeezes your hand back, gentle but certain.

“That’s how I know. Because you’re sitting here trying to figure out if this is real instead of just being happy that we’re okay.”

Steve watches you for a moment before looking down between you, at the lavender bubbles drifting around your joined hands.

A bead of water clings to his lashes before he blinks it away.

“I mean…” He draws out a slow breath. “I don’t know if I can prove it. How could anyone, right? After everything that happened? I don’t think any of us are supposed to just wake up the next day and be like, ‘Cool. Guess that’s over.’”

He pauses, a small smile pulling at his mouth.

“But then I look at you and… and I just see you doing that thing.”

You blink. “What thing?”

He lifts your joined hands from the water, droplets sliding down your wrists as the surface ripples around you.

“This.”

He gives your hand a little squeeze, lacing your fingers together more securely. 

“You always start messing with my hand when you’re freaking out.”

Your brows pull together. “What?”

He lets out a soft laugh, reaching up with his free hand to gently tuck a damp strand of hair away from your face.

“Yeah, you grab my hand and then you start doing this weird little... I don’t know. Thing. Like you’re inspecting it or something.”

Only then do you realize your thumb has been moving back and forth over the same callus on his palm, tracing the same small patch of rough skin.

“...Oh.”

“Yeah.”

There’s something teasing about his voice now, his smile.

The same Steve who’d make an absolute idiot of himself just to get you to roll your eyes. Who could make you laugh in the middle of the worst days of your life.

His smile softens as he looks down at the water, where your fingers are still tangled together.

His thumb brushes slowly over the back of your hand.

“I guess… I guess that’s how I know.”

The steam curls around you both, blurring the edges of the room until there’s nothing left but this.

His hand in yours.

His heartbeat steady against your back and his voice low and certain beside your ear.

“Because I know you.”

He tightens his fingers around yours.

“I know you.”

· · ·

Eventually, the warmth of the bath starts to fade.

The water isn’t quite as hot as it was when you first climbed in, the lavender bubbles breaking apart into a faint, delicate layer.

You’re still holding his hand.

Neither of you has let go.

“Hey,” he murmurs after a while, giving your fingers a small tug.

“Hm?”

He lifts your joined hands out of the water, turning his palm toward himself.

Then he starts tracing something, slow and awkward, brow furrowed as he studies the lines crossing his palm.

You can tell he’s searching for something—squinting at the grooves in his hand, trying to remember a detail you’ve explained to him once or twice before, maybe more.

You watch him for a second, then mumble:

“You’re doing it wrong.”

“I’m doing it wrong?”

“Yes.”

He turns to look at you, eyebrows raised, genuinely offended in that exaggerated way he does when he knows he’s being teased.

“How can I be doing it wrong? It’s my hand.”

You give him a look.

“Because you don’t know what you’re looking for.”

He glances back down at his palm, then back at you.

“Okay, fine, genius,” he huffs, holding his hand out toward you. “What’s this one mean?”

You smile faintly.

“You don’t remember?”  

“No, I do. Just... tell me again? I remember you said mine was good.”

You did. Sitting cross-legged on the couch years ago, his hand stretched across your lap while you traced the lines in his palm. You’d laughed the whole time because you didn’t actually believe in any of it. But Steve had listened like it mattered, eyes serious, hanging onto every word.

You adjust your grip now, turning his hand so you can see it properly. Then you take his index finger between yours and guide it slowly along the deepest line on his palm.

“Here,” you murmur.

His finger follows where you lead it, brushing over the groove that starts just beneath his pinky and curves upward across his hand.

“This is your heart line.”

Steve doesn’t look at his hand.

He looks at you.

“It’s deep, and it doesn’t break. That means you feel things deeply. You lead with your heart.”

He hums softly, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to the top of your shoulder.

You keep tracing, guiding his finger toward the end of the line where it curves upward.

“And here, it turns up.”

You press lightly into the space beneath his index finger.

“See that spot?”

“Mm.”

“That’s called the Mount of Jupiter. And when your heart line curves up like that, it kinda means you’re... a hopeless romantic.”

You don’t even have to see his face to know he’s smiling. You feel it in the small twitch of his fingers around yours, in the quiet huff of amusement against your shoulder.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

You follow the line with your own thumb, pretending to study the grooves of his skin like they might reveal something you don’t already know.

But the truth is, you're not really reading his hand.

“It also says you don’t know how to love halfway.” Your thumb follows the line one last time. “When you care about someone… you give them every part of yourself.”

When you glance back over your shoulder, he's already watching you.

Something achingly fragile settled over his expression, a quiet wonder in his eyes as though he's seeing himself the way you always have.

“Yeah?” he whispers.

You nod.

“Yeah.”

You lean in to close the small space between you, brushing your lips against the uninjured corner of his mouth.

It’s a delicate thing, more of a press than a kiss.  

His fingers tighten around yours beneath the water.

“Tell me what else.”

You smile, looking back down at his palm.

“You want me to read everything?”

“Yeah. Obviously.”

You turn his hand back toward you, guiding his finger to another line.

“Okay. This one is your head line.”

Steve settles back against the tub, his arm tightening around you as you continue tracing the little grooves and curves in his palm, explaining what they’re supposed to mean.

The truth is, none of this is anything you don’t already know.

You don’t need the lines in his hand to tell you who he is. 

You’ve known for a long time.

So you tell him what you've been carrying in your heart for longer than you can remember.

That he’s stubborn.

That he’s brave.

That he loves harder than he knows what to do with.

That he’s always seen himself as ordinary when he’s anything but.

And Steve listens.

· · ·

You stay there together until the water goes cold around you.

And though the lavender fades from the bath, the scent still clings to your skin, lingering long after the warmth has left.

Outside this room, there will still be reminders.

Things neither of you can outrun.

Memories that return without warning, scars that ache long after the wounds have closed.

Maybe some things never fully leave.

Maybe they don’t have to.

Because the bad things are not the only things that get to stay.

And when the first light of dawn slips through the bedroom window the next morning, washing everything in soft gold, Steve is still there.

Beside you.

His hand wrapped around yours.

✦ · · · ✦ · · · ✦

[imfromthediningtable]

wow. i have no words.

[barnesonfilm]

pushing it down, and praying 

★ summary: you and steve were tangled in each other’s lives from birth, sharing scraped knees, midnight secrets, and every promise two kids could make without understanding the weight of them. as years passed, the two of you shifted with every change the years threw at you, and time kept moving the way it always does. fast and unrelenting. you could only push down the inevitable for so long before you realized all you've ever wanted has been right in front of you, all along. 

★ pairing: steve harrington x reader, slight omc x reader 

★ warnings: 18+ mdni, smut, cursing, canon character death, slow burn, childhood friends to lovers, angst, emotional cheating, p in v, oral f recieving

★ word count: 16.2k 

★ notes: this is an au where nothing supernatural happens in hawkins btw!!! i've spent soo long on this that i kinda hate it but i really hope you all enjoy! i appreciate the feedback so much <3

You had never known a life without Steve Harrington in it. From the moment you were walking, he was standing there right beside you. Your mothers were friends, often leaving you two with the same sitters. With matching sticky hands and loud babbles of nothing, you found a friend in the messy-haired boy.

 Steve was there through all of life’s biggest moments. The first time you rode your bike without training wheels, losing your first baby tooth, and your first heartbreak in the fourth grade, when Adam Kelly put gum in your hair. Steve pushed him off the slide, splitting his lip open. He thought the punishment was worth it to see the smile on your face. 

Similarly, you were there through his horrible prepubescent hormones, his growth spurt hitting later in life. You tripped Christy Morris after she called him short, embarrassing him in front of the class. Her accident overshadowed his embarrassment when she went crying to the office, chocolate milk staining the front of her white dress. Steve’s eyes met yours across the lunchroom, and you sent him a simple shrug. It was mindless, the urge to protect him. It went both ways. It was soon clear to everyone in Hawkins that the two of you would do anything for the other.

Steve held your hand when your dog died, letting you sob into his shoulders. He came to your house the next day, a bundle of picked dandelions in his hand. It was the first time a boy brought you flowers; he told you that you deserved them every day since it made you smile. And you believed him. When his parents got a new job, leaving him at your house or with strange relatives, he’d hide his face in your pillow, pretending tears weren’t racking his body. You’d run your tiny hands through his hair, and once he was done, you’d force him to watch movies with you. Making him laugh so hard that he no longer felt the absence of his parents. He would never be abandoned, because you’d never leave him. 

The summer before high school, the two of you made a pact. Bound in the blood of scraped knees and years of friendship. 

“We’re gonna be friends forever, you know that, right?” Steve asked, both of your backs pressed against the hot fabric of the trampoline. His hair was getting longer, his voice already deeper. 

You had changed, too, your body developing in ways that made boys in school look at you longer. You started caring more about your appearance, making Steve call you gross every time you’d put on lip gloss. In the same way, you’d smack him with the hairspray can he stole from you. 

“Of course I know that,” You said, “Why?” 

He huffed, throwing his arm over his forehead in an attempt to quell the Indiana heat. “High school is just scary. What if we make new friends?” 

You shrugged, not really thinking too much about it. “We both have other friends already.” 

“But none of them are like you.” He said the meaning of his words wouldn’t come to him until much later. 

“I know.” You smirked, kicking his shin with your foot. “Even when the world changes, our friends, school, and even when we change as people. It won’t matter because our friendship never will. We’re unchangeable.” 

He laughed at your word choices, pushing your foot away from his playfully. “Growing up is scary.” He admitted after a brief moment of silence. 

You hummed in agreement, reaching your hand down to grab his. Lacing your fingers together as if you’ve done it a thousand times, because you have. 

“You make it not so scary.” You smiled, the two of you staring at the clouds. 

“Pinky promise?” Steve asked, his voice betraying him. You just smiled, bringing up your other hand that wasn’t in his, holding out your pinky. He did the same, lacing your two pinkies together in an unspoken vow. 

Time is a fickle thing. Nothing ever happens as you plan it; it’s the only consistency in the world. When the two of you stepped foot into Hawkin’s High, it was inevitable that things would change. He made the basketball team, coming over to your house with his jersey in hand. Jumping up and down, swearing you needed to join the Cheerleading team. You smacked him upside the head for even entertaining the idea. He made fun of you for joining the library club, a realization coming over you two that your High School experiences were heading into different directions. You promised to go to each of his games, and he said he would read one book a year for you. A compromise of sorts. 

At his first basketball game, Trina Robbins kissed him courtside, her pom poms shaking wildly at her sides. It was the first time you saw him as a man, not just the little boy who’d help you catch fireflies in the backyard. You ran to him after the game, arms slinging around his shoulders in congratulations. He spun you around, his joyful laugh ringing in your ears. 

“I’m so proud of you!” You gawked, his arms still wrapped around you. It wasn’t until you heard a loud cough from behind you. Trina and her friends were standing behind you, evil smirks on their faces. 

“Y/n! This is my girlfriend Trina.” He smiled widely, his arm leaving your body quickly. He walked over to her, his arm slinging across her shoulders. “Babe, this is my friend I grew up with.” 

Her perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched, “Oh? Steve didn’t mention you.” 

You hoped the sound of the rowdy gymnasium covered the sound of your heart shattering. He didn’t even tell you he had a crush, let alone a girlfriend. Then he didn’t mention you at all. You knew Steve, your Stevie, would never do this. You brushed it off, a hopeless, dumb teenage boy in love. It was fine. 

You braved it with a smile, ignoring their judgmental glares that Steve seemed oblivious to. “Well, nice to meet you, Trina. You did great.” 

“I know.” She smirked, pulling Steve away. “Come on, I want ice cream.” And he was dragging her out the door. 

He turned back, waving at you. “I’ll see you around!” 

You sent him a wave back, riding your bike home in pitiful silence. Absent was the sound of his bike pedaling next to yours, his incessant complaining about assignments and practice. 

It was just a simple interaction, one you tried not to dwell on. But little did you know it would be the first crack in the glass. Your interaction with Steve at school was becoming little to none as the weeks passed. Trina was glued to his hip, and when she wasn’t, his mean older teammates were. You still saw him some weekends, helping him study for his English tests. Inevitably, doing the assignments for him. He was still the same Steve you knew and loved, but something was different. 

He no longer reached for your hand as much as he used to, and there were no more hugs goodbye. You knew this would happen when the two of you started dating, but soon the phone calls stopped. The weekend hangouts in his parents' basement were replaced with him going to parties. He no longer rode with you to school, biking halfway across town to let Trina ride on his pegs. You passed each other in the hallways, soft smiles and waves were all you got for the majority of the year. 

It was the week before Summer break, and you were excited. You and your friends had planned a slumber party, painting nails, hair rollers in, and the stereo in your room blaring your newest cassettes. Preparing your future Summer plans. Celebrating the end of finals, gossiping about going into your sophomore year. You were flipping through a magazine, ready to point out a pair of shoes, when there was a loud tapping at your window. 

The girls jumped, eyes wide at the sight of none other than Steve. His arms were clinging to the ledge, tapping on the glass. It feels like it has been ages since you’ve spoken to him, let alone seeing him, ready to climb into your room. 

“What the hell?” Imogen yelled, her hand cradling her chest. 

You rolled your eyes, ripping open the window. “What are you doing?” 

“I just wanted to-oh oh, hi ladies.” He paused, looking past you to wave flirtatiously at your friends. 

Your fingers flicked his forehead, “Out with it.” 

“Mom wants you over Sunday night for dinner. Said it’s been too long. Still thinks she loves you more than me. Also, just wanted to see you.” He cheesed, to which you pretended it didn’t make your heart pound. 

“Okay. You could've called.” 

“Can’t see your annoyed face through the phone.” 

You glared at him, making him cower. “Okay, okay. See you Sunday!” Then he was off, his feet hitting the ground with a thud. You lay back down on the floor, content to skim through he magazine once again. Trying to calm the thud of your heart. But your friends were not letting it go. 

“You have the Steve Harrington sneaking through your window?” Jessica gawked, running and watching where he ran back to his bike. 

“He’s my best friend.” You laughed nervously, watching her and Imogen stare at each other. An all-knowing look in their eyes. “He could’ve used the front door; he probably just wanted to show off.” 

“Does that happen often?” Jessica asked, her line of questioning not done. 

“Not as much as it used it. Sometimes I’ll go to his, but I’ll use the front door like a normal person. “ You shrugged mindlessly, “His bed is comfier anyway.” 

What you thought was an innocent moment turned out to be anything but. When you walked into school the last day, you were met with too many eyes on you. From the moment you walked to your locker, the whispers were evident. Your palms were sweaty as you stumbled, unlocking the combination lock. 

“Y/n.” Imogen rushed towards you, out of breath from seemingly running to you. “I’m so sorry. I told Jessica not to say anything, but she really wants to be on the cheer squad next year-” 

“What?” You sputtered, “Say what?” 

Before Imogen could spit it out, the school doors slammed open. Everyone’s eyes are on you. There stood Trina, complete with her group of friends. Her face was red, anger evident. You had zero idea what was happening, assuming Steve broke her heart and she was coming to take it out on you. 

“Hey, you whore.” Trina spat, getting in your face within seconds. Your back pressed against your lock, eyebrows raised. Imogen had run off, muttering something about being back. You were left alone, nothing but a pissed off squad of cheerleaders at your neck, with half the school watching. You felt like you were in a bad 70s movie, living out your worst nightmare. 

“What’s your fucking problem?” You asked, fingers clutching your stack of books like your life depended on it. 

“I knew from the moment Steve introduced us that you’d be a problem. With your pathetic “poor me” face. You just couldn’t accept that he wanted me, huh?” She spoke, your mind still reeling. 

“I literally have no clue what you’re talking about.” You tried to push past her, her friends pushing you back roughly into the lockers. Your books going flying from your hands. 

“We’re talking about you fucking my boyfriend.” She spoke slowly, “I heard that you guys crawl into each other's windows and you spread your legs for him.” 

Jessica. That fucking bitch Jessica. Your heart ached; you thought she was your friend. She knew nothing was happening between you two. 

“I never fucked Steve.” A blush crept up your neck at your words, “He’s just my best friend. I’ve known him since I was in diapers.” 

“Bullshit. You can lie to me, but she saw him literally hanging from your window.” 

You didn’t know where the bravery came from, clinging to your pride as much as you could. “You know, Trina, I know no one ever wants to be around you unless you’re putting out, but there’s this thing called friends-” 

Her hand backhanded your cheek before you could finish, the sting making your eyes water. On instinct, you raised your hand back, unable to get anything in before one of her friends kicked you in the shin. The other’s joining in. Pain bloomed through your body as you fought back, getting outnumbered within seconds. It was a blur; in seconds, they were on you, only stopping when they heard a yell down the hallway. 

Imogen was running back, Steve in tow. He was in his gym clothes, his eyes wild. 

“Get the hell off her.” He barked, his arm coming up to pull Trina’s shoulder back. “What the hell is your problem?” 

Her other friends scattered, leaving you slumped on your feet. Arm cradling your stomach, which was bound to be covered in bruises. You couldn’t meet his eyes, but you felt his worried gaze on you. 

“What’s my problem? My problem is you. Cheating on me with this loser?” She screamed, getting the attention of teachers who slowly poured into the hall. 

“Y/n? Nothing happened. God, she’s like my sister.” It wasn’t the first time the comparison had been made, but it was the first time Steve had said it. He didn’t like the way the words shaped in his mouth, his throat going dry before he spoke back up again. “Y/n is my best friend. I told you that.” 

He pushed her aside, dropping to his knees to look over you. He cupped your chin, forcing you to look up at him. Unshed tears were heavy in your eyes, blinking them away when he checked you over for injuries. 

“Are you okay?” He whispered, helping you stand upright. You didn’t answer, keeping your gaze on the floor. Willing yourself to wake up from this nightmare. 

“Steve, I’m sorry.” Trina whimpered, watching her social status flash before her eyes. Steve pushed you behind his back, his eyes wild with fury, while looking at her. 

“You know what, Trina. I don’t think you have the right to call anyone a whore, considering you put out on our first date.” Steve’s words were cruel, an ice to them you’ve never heard before. “You can go to hell. If you ever come near her again, you or your bitchy friends. I will ruin your life. Understood?” 

He was met with silence, tears falling down her cheeks. Little did Hawkins know this was the start of the infamous King Steve. 

“Matter of fact, if anyone has issues with her, they come to me.” He yelled, right before the teachers swarmed in, grabbing Trina by the arm. 

Steve held your hand in silence to the nurse’s office, his eyes squeezing shut when you showed the nurse your reddened skin. 

“It’ll probably bruise, nothing bad enough to go to the hospital for.” She said, snapping her gloves off. “I’m gonna have the office call your parents up here.” 

All you could do was nod, picking at the skin around your nails harshly. 

“Y/n…” Steve whispered, his hand finding yours. You let him lace your fingers together tightly. It had been so long since you held his hand, but it still fit perfectly in yours. “I’m so sorry.” 

You shook your head, “S’my fault. I made a joke to Jessica about how your bed is comfier than mine. I didn’t think she’d take it wrong, definitely didn’t think she’d tell half the school about it.” 

“No, no. It’s not your fault. I haven’t been the best of a friend lately.” He admitted, letting his thumb rub over the top of your hand. “Can’t believe I let a stupid girl get in between us.” 

His pained laugh made you roll your eyes, “Don’t care if you get a girlfriend, Stevie. Just want you to still talk to me.”

“I promise. God, I promise it’ll never happen again.” He laughed shakily, pressing soft kisses to your hand. 

Things had still changed, changed so much sometimes it seemed like you were lifetimes apart from the two kids that sat hand in hand on that trampoline. But you’d accept any change, as long as he was still in your life. Without him, there was a hole in the shape of him, lodged in the middle of your chest. You felt the hole close, each moment Steve grinned at you. Promising to take you out for ice cream as soon as your parents show up. 

Sophomore year rolled by so quickly, you wished you could have grabbed time, and begged her to slow down. Steve had grown a new reputation in school. King Steve, they called him, claiming him the royalty of Hawkins High. Little did they know the king of Hawkins made you blow-dry and hairspray his hair every morning. His girlfriends, or trysts as you liked to call them, all knew you. Whispers of the Trina incident followed every relationship of his; he just smiled and told them you’d always be more important than them. They either accepted it or they didn’t. 

Dating for you didn’t come nearly as easily; most of the boys at school were so scared of Steve they steered clear of you with a ten-foot pole. It only got worse when he began hanging out with Carol and Tommy G. You hated them, despised how they fed into Steve’s ever-growing ego. They were kind to you, most of the time. It was clear they tolerated you only. 

Every time Steve would grab you by the shoulders, pulling you into a hug in the hall, they’d groan. 

“Gotta hug my girl.” He’d shrug, kissing your forehead goodbye before going off to class. Imogen would just roll her eyes, swearing up and down that the two of you just needed to start dating. You’d cringe, shaking her off. He was just your best friend you’d tell her. When she’d swear her and her best friend didn’t act like that, all you could do was shrug. “That’s just me and Steve.” 

You didn’t have your first official boyfriend until the summer before Junior year, and Steve hated him. Hated him for reasons you were still unclear about. He was on the debate team, the most innocent, nerdiest of boys who had captured your heart. So when he broke your heart three weeks into the year, Steve had held you in his arms as you sobbed, brushing your hair down, swearing he’d kill him. 

“I really will, I promise. I’ll use the beamer. Catch him on a foggy night and just boom,” Steve spoke, making your chest rattle with laughter. “Blood and guts everywhere.” 

“It would ruin your nice and shiny car.” You pouted through your tears. For his 16th birthday, Steve’s dad had presented him with the infamous burgundy BMW. He’d almost spun the tires out pulling into your driveway. That night, the two of you went through a whole tank of gas, driving everywhere around town. You couldn’t imagine your ex-boyfriend's murder ruining that car. 

“Would be worth it to see you smile.” He said, watching your puffy cheeks as you sat up. 

“He was such a dickhead.” You frowned, rubbing your tired eyes. “I really thought what we had over the summer was good. Then he sees Rebecca in chemistry and thinks she’d be a better lay than me.” 

Steve’s brows furrowed, “Did he say that?” 

“It was implied.” You grumbled, fumbling with a loose thread from his shirt. “Can’t believe I lost my virginity to someone who asked if he was going to put it in the wrong hole.” 

A loud laugh tore from his chest, “Wait, what?” 

“He wanted to make sure, and I quote: “Is it in your vagina or your pee hole?” You burst out laughing, rubbing your face. 

The two of you laughed until your chests hurt, Steve going on and on. “Dude, poor fucking Rebecca,” 

“Poor Rebecca.” You wheezed, taking a deep breath in. It was good to laugh. It was good to be in Steve’s arms, the two of you lazily lounging in his bed. 

“Hey,” Steve spoke up, “Do you wanna order pizza and disgrace his yearbook picture?” 

You scoffed, “I’m offended you’d even ask Stevie.” 

The two of you did just that, you ended up falling asleep on his bed. The two of you waking up in a tangled mess of arms. His body pressed against yours. In an awkward shuffle, you pulled away, and he nearly flung off the bed. Stuttering that he had to go to the bathroom, the door slammed shut. All you could do was laugh. 

He drove you to school that morning, and you walked alongside. When you passed by Nancy Wheeler and her friend, Barb, Steve paused, sending a flirty wave her way. Your eyes squinted, waiting to speak until you got to his locker. 

“Nancy Wheeler, huh?” You asked, ignoring the blush creeping up on his face. 

“We’ve just been talking a little.” He admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. You hadn’t seen him this flustered before. Not over a girl. You ignored the weird sinking feeling in your stomach, smiling teasingly at him. 

“Oh, so someone has a crush.” You sang, making him shush you. Looking around, like everyone would hear. 

“Just because my love life failed this year doesn't mean yours has to; ask her out.” You encouraged him, closing his locker for him. 

He gave you a sympathetic look, patting your cheek gently. “Just because that loser broke your heart doesn't mean you can’t try again. Now I don’t think any men in this town deserve you, but I do want you happy.” 

You nodded against his hand, mourning the loss of warmth when he pulled away. 

“Go get him, tiger.” You smirked, watching him run down the hallway. 

It was no surprise you were once again regretting your words a few weeks later, doing your best to avoid where Steve had his tongue shoved down Nancy’s throat in the middle of the hallway. 

“They’re disgusting.” Barb had spoken; you didn’t know the girl well, but as Nancy joined your orbit, she had followed. 

“Sometimes I wonder if she ever gets tired of him slobbering all over her face.” You said, causing Barb to giggle. 

“Hey, you and Sam aren’t much better. Staring longingly at each other in homeroom.” She teased, making you roll your eyes. Sam was your friend, just a friend. There had been a few moments you thought something more could bloom between the two of you, but you shrugged it off. Unsure if you wanted to deal with another inescapable heartbreak. 

“Y/n! Barb.” Nancy stuttered, just now realising the two of you were standing next to her. Her face was flustered, and Steve stood there unbothered as usual. “What are you talking about?” 

“How Y/n needs to woman up and ask Sam out,” Barb said. 

“No, don’t ever ask a man out. That’s the man's job.” Steve shook his head, pulling Nancy to his chest. 

“I think if she wants to ask him out, that’s fine. Cute even. I have art with Sam, he’s really sweet.” Nancy smiled, staring nervously at you. You were friendly with Nancy, but the two of you didn’t have much in common, it felt like sometimes. Steve went on and on about how Nancy thought you hated her. 

“I’m not asking anyone out, but thank you, Nancy.” You sighed, your head hitting the locker. “I’m just gonna die alone.” 

“Little Y/n not able to get laid?” Tommy’s shrill voice ruined the moment the four of you were having. 

“That’s not what your dad said last night.” You squinted your eyes at him, Carol responding with a sarcastic laugh. 

“You kiss Steve’s ass with that mouth?” He asked, making Nancy tense. You didn’t miss it, Steve did. 

“He has this running joke that I feed Steve’s ego blindly, that’s why we’re friends. Tommy finds friendship as this impossible-to-grasp concept. One could only wonder why.” You told her with a smile, “He also thinks he’s much funnier than he actually is.” 

“Hey, cut it out. God, you two fight like animals.” Steve sighed, “While we’re all here. My house. Tonight. Parents are gone.” 

“It’s Tuesday.” You deadpanned, not ready to get roped into another one of the Harringtons' infamous get-togethers. 

“It’s Tuesday.” Tommy mocked, grunting when Steve elbowed him in the stomach. 

“A party?” Nancy asked, her innocent face looking up at Steve. 

“Ding, ding!” Carol laughed, making you roll your eyes. 

While they broke into conversation about the party, your eyes followed Nancy’s. Watching Jonathan Byers tacking up missing posters for his brother. 

“Oh, God, that’s depressing.” Carol snickered, and Barb walked away before the conversation got worse. You didn’t blame her; every time the couple spoke, it made your skin crawl. 

“Should we say something?” Nancy asked, eyes full of empathy. You knew her little brother was friends with his. 

“I don’t think he speaks.”

“How much you want to bet he killed him?” Tommy laughed, your head turning to meet Steve's. 

You scoffed, “Your friends are fucking assholes. You know that?” And with that, you stormed off, determined to find Sam. You were going to ask him out; you deserved your own happiness. Your own life outside of Steve’s little bubble. 

-

Your fingers twirled in the phone cord, “Y/n, please. Tommy said he’s sorry. Please just come.” Steve begged through the phone. You could hear them snickering in the background. He wanted you at this stupid party; he cleaned his pool out and everything. Even got your favorite wine coolers. 

“I’m with Sam.” You blurted out, The man you spoke of caught your eye. He was sitting on your bed cross-legged, shirt askew. Maybe you did decide to ask him out and sneak him in through your window. 

“So bring him,” Steve said after a brief pause. “Barb is here. If she’s here, there’s no reason you can’t be. Please.” The begging in his voice made your resolve crumble. Sucking you right back in. 

About an hour later, you were stalking into Steve’s backyard, hand in hand with Sam. Sam was beautiful. Taller with shaggy hair, you couldn’t help but immediately notice how different he looked from Steve. Wondering why your brain forced you to compare the two. There was no time to dwell on that. 

You introduced him to everyone, making sure to flip Tommy the bird while doing so. 

“Steve. I  heard a lot about you, man.” Sam spoke, holding his hand out for Steve to shake. It took Steve a moment to shake his hand. Probably gripping harder than he needed to. 

Once that was out of the way, you all found a good rhythm, chatting and drinking cheap beers. You're sipping on your strawberry wine coolers, Carol cringing with each sip of beer. 

“No fair, why did she get nice drinks?” She whined. 

“Because she doesn’t drink beer. They’re her favorite.” Steve laughed, a billow of cigarette smoke falling out of his mouth. 

You couldn’t help the smirk that graced your lips, leaning back into Sam’s chest. As much as they loved King Steve, none of them knew him the way you did. He knew you like it was the easiest thing in the world, while Tommy and Carol barely scratched the surface. They knew it too. Nancy was different; you knew she really cared for Steve. You just worried he’d break her heart; you warned him if he did, he’d never hear the end of it. She was different from the other girls. 

“It’s different this time, Y/n.” He swore, flicking his pencil on the library table. 

“What, like you love her?” You asked. 

He paused, thinking for a moment. “I think so. Not as much as I love you, and not in the same way. “ He hummed. 

“Aww, wait, so you’re really falling in love with her?” You cooed, “What happened to King Steve?” 

“Oh shut up.” He grumbled, right before the two of you were shushed by library goers. 

When your brain came back into focus, they were shotgunning beers, your eyes rolling at the dick measuring contest Steve and Tommy were perpetually in. You looked back at Barb, forcing her to join you and Sam’s little group. 

“When they’re around women, they turn into animals. Everything is a contest.” You said, making the first smile appear on her face this night. 

“Sam, you don’t wanna join?” She asked, making his chest rumble in laughter. 

“I don’t think I need to chug a beer to impress Y/n. She’d probably call me a meathead.” 

“You know me so well.” You smiled, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. 

A large splash made you gasp, watching Carol come up from the pool. Tommy was standing there with a smirk on his face. 

“What the hell, Tommy?” She shrieked, him jumping in beside her. It was then Steve’s turn to copy him, throwing Nancy and himself in the deep end. 

“I broke my arm in this pool when I was 6. Don’t get any ideas.” You told Sam. 

“So you’ve known Steve a while, huh?” He asked, watching the couples play about in the water. 

“Since we were babies. We grew up together.” 

“You guys couldn’t be more different.” He said it was an innocent comment. But it made you feel weird, frowning slightly. 

“I guess I’m a little boring. A lot nicer to look at, though.” 

“Disagree with the first part, but agree to the last.” He said, nuzzling his head in your neck. 

“Hey, lovebirds,” Steve yelled, ruining the moment by splashing water at you two, “Get in.” 

You shook your head, “I’m not ruining my shirt.” 

“So take it off.” Tommy whistled. Carol smacking him upside the head. 

“Didn’t know you wanted to see me shirtless that bad.” You teased back, Sam’s arm draping across your chest. 

“I think everyone would enjoy the show, some more than others.” He whistled, Steve’s eyes shooting daggers into his skull. 

“At least get in with us, Y/n,” Nancy spoke up, a smile on her face. 

You turned to look at Sam, “I’ll get undressed if you do.” He teased. 

“Fuck you all.” You grumbled, sitting up. You let Sam’s hands travel to the hem of your shirt, pulling it up over your head. 

“Fold it, it’s cashmere.” You muttered to him, watching him place it gently in one of the chairs. Leaving out the part where it was a Christmas present from Steve’s parents. 

Sam tugged his own shirt over his head, ignoring the hollers of the boys. You ignored the gazes, keeping your shorts on. Clad in those and a plain black bra. Thankful it at least wasn’t white today. 

“Okay on-” You started, readying yourself for a countdown before you saw Sam running at you full force. 

“Wait-no.” You squealed, being pushed into the pool. The cold water shocked your body, coming up with a shriek. “Fuck that’s cold.” 

Sam’s hair was dripping all over his face, swimming over to hold you in his arms. You wrapped your legs around his waist, holding onto his shoulders for dear life. 

“We should play a game,” Carol spoke up, a devilish grin on her face. 

The group of you didn’t stay in the pool much longer after that, a few games of chicken before you were all shivering. There were only so many times you could push Carol into the water aggressively before someone got mad. 

“I’m so cold.” Carol’s teeth were chattering while you wrapped the towel around yourself. 

“I heard his mom’s room has a fireplace.” Tommy’s eyebrows waved suggestively at her. 

“Gross, Steve, you’re gonna let them fuck in your parents' bed?” You groaned. Steve turned back, his eyes locking onto yours for what felt like the first time that night. This was while Nancy and Barb had a heated exchange, Barb storming off. You felt bad, making a mental note to bring her a muffin tomorrow morning in homeroom to apologize. 

“Unless you and Sam want it first.” He said, making you cringe. 

“We’re probably gonna head out.” You sighed, bidding them a goodnight. 

“Hey man, thanks for inviting me,” Sam said to Steve, Steve responding with a tight-lipped smile. All you could do was squint at the man, watching him walk into the house. 

“I guess we should head back.” You mumbled as soon as the two of you were alone, his hands resting on your hips. 

“I guess,” He sighed playfully. “Or we could take advantage of his empty backyard.” 

You gasped, “I’m not fucking you in my friend's yard.” 

He shook his head, “I didn’t say all that.” He pulled you to one of the beach chairs, laying you down against the cold plastic. 

Your heart was beating out of your chest, his lips pressed against yours hungrily. You kissed him back with fever, letting his tongue enter your open mouth. You gasped against him, feeling his hands cup your chest. Squeezing them before his hand trailed south, popping open the buttons of your soaked shorts. 

“This okay?” He grumbled against your lips. You weren’t sure if it was the wine coolers or the warmth of his body against yours, but you nodded. 

His hand slipped into your underwear easily, fingers finding the spot that had your back arching against the chair. Your eyes fluttered open when he hit that sweet spot inside you. 

Your gaze accidentally landed on Steve’s window, the curtains open and wide. The warmth in your stomach grew as, watched his bare back ripple on the bed. There was no doubt what he and Nancy were doing. You looked away quickly, pressing your lips to Sam’s again. Pretending you didn’t just come around his fingers, looking at your best friend. You prayed he didn’t see it, the guilt radiating off of you. You shoved it down, focusing on his body against yours. 

Little did any of you know that Johnathan Byers was in the woods just feet away, snapping photos of all of you. 

-

Barb was absent from homeroom, and Sam swore to you that there was no reason to be worried. The roads were hard to navigate on Steve’s road, especially at night. It was more likely that she was too embarrassed or tired to come in. It still made a weird, nagging feeling bloom in your chest. 

At lunch, you reluctantly joined the band of misfits again. Sam’s arm was lying against the back of your chair, Steve sitting across from you. Tommy was convinced he got frostbite from the pool, putting his disgusting foot on the lunch table, making you gag. 

“Hey, Y/n.” You turned around, watching Nancy walk up to the table on a mission. “When you left, did you see Barb?” 

You shook your head, Tommy cutting you off. “What?” 

“Barbara. She’s not here today.” Nancy spoke, her patience running thin. 

“I seriously have no idea who you’re talking about.” He shrugged. 

“Come on, don’t be an ass, man. Did you...Did you see her leave last night or not?” 

“No, she was gone when we left,” Tommy answered, Carol leaning over the table. 

“Probably couldn’t stand listening to all that moaning.” She moaned, beginning to moan Steve’s name loudly. Tommy joined in mocking Nancy loudly. 

Steve kicked him under the table, telling them to cut it out. You rolled your eyes, “I was worried this morning, but I think maybe she’s just skipping. We were out late last night.” 

“Yeah,” Sam perked up, “She’s not usually a party goer, you know? Not used to running on a few hours of sleep.” 

“Yeah, sure,” Nancy said with a tight lip. 

After lunch, you were excited to finally go home, kissing Sam goodbye when he left for his art club. It was then that you saw Steve walking towards you in the hall, grabbing your arm harshly. 

“Steve, what the fuck?” You asked, letting him angrily drag you into the parking lot with him. “What’s going on?” Carol, Tommy, and one of Carol’s friends, Nicole, followed along. Steve’s sights were on Jonathan Byers as he walked to his car. 

“Steve, if you’re going to be an asshole to him, I’m not-” You were cut off by Carol, looking at you for the first time with genuine sympathy in her eyes. 

“Y/n. Apparently, he was taking pictures of us last night.” She said, your eyes widening. Nicole simply nodded. You turned your head back to the disaster that was waiting to unfold. 

“Hey, man,” Steve shouted, his voice wavering in anger. You don’t think he was this angry when Trina had you pinned against the lockers freshman year. 

“What’s going on?” Jonathan stuttered, looking at all of you with wide eyes. 

“Nicole here was, uh, telling us about your work.” He said Carol and Tommy agreed. Swearing, it sounded like the coolest art in the world. 

“And we’d just love to take a look. You know, as... connoisseurs of art.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He lied, Tommy snatching his backpack off of him, tossing it over to Steve. 

“Please, give me my bag.” He pleaded, Steve, ignoring him. Rifling through it to pull out a stack of photos. You leaned against his shoulder, watching him shuffle through the photos. Your heart fell into your stomach, seeing photos of you all getting out of the pool. Then Nancy upstairs, undressing in the window. Then his focus was on you, Sam’s hands down your pants. Your head tilted back in pleasure. Tears stung in your eyes, ripping the photos out of his hand. 

“Let me see,” Tommy said, snatching a few from Steve’s hand. He and Carol taking turns looking through them. “Yeah, this isn’t creepy at all.

“I was looking for my brother.” He tried to defend himself, unable to look any of you in the eyes. 

“No. No, this is called stalking.” Steve spoke, “Not only did you trespass, but you took perv photos of my best friend and my girlfriend. On my property. During private moments.” 

Nancy took the perfect moment to walk up, her face concerned, watching the tears in your eyes. “What’s going on?” 

“Here’s the starring lady.” Carol smirked, “One of them, anyway. I have to say Y/n, looks like he was rocking your world.” 

You crushed the photos in your hand, shoving them frantically into your bag. Steve shot Carol a look that could kill, “Shut the fuck up for once, Carol.” 

“This creep was spying on us last night,” She said, ignoring Steve’s outburst,  handing Nancy a photo. “He was probably gonna save this one for later.” 

Her expression matched yours, one of embarrassment and disgust. 

“See, you can tell that he knows it was wrong, but…” Steve reached out to wipe Jonathan's sleeve, the boy flinching. “Man, that’s the thing about perverts... It’s hardwired into ’em. You know, they just can’t help themselves.” 

You couldn’t watch this; the whole situation made your stomach turn. 

“So…We’ll just have to take away his toy,” Steve said, grabbing the camera. 

“Steve…” Nancy warned. 

“No, please, not the camera,” he begged, watching Steve pretend to give it back. Your whole body cringed when Steve dropped the camera, the lenses shattering on the asphalt. 

He stepped into Jonathan’s face again, pulling him by his collar. “If I find out you have pictures of her anywhere on that thing, it’ll be the last thing you see.” He spat, pushing him back roughly. Steve didn’t have to specify who he was referring to by the way he looked at you, before storming away. 

You and Nancy were frozen, watching the ripped-up photos crumple to the ground. 

“He shouldn’t have done that,” Nancy spoke quietly, eyes on the broken camera. 

“Please don’t make me verbally agree with Carol and Tommy.” You begged, “He wasn’t just creeping on you. There are pictures of me on there, too.” 

“Yeah, almost seems like Steve’s more upset about those than mine.” She mumbled under her breath. 

“What do you mean by that?” You stopped her, grabbing her arm. 

She jerked it away, snatching up the rest of the pictures. “Nothing. Just nothing, Y/n.” 

You were left standing there, dumbfounded. You looked back between Jonathan and the remains of his camera. 

“I hope you find your brother.” You managed out, walking back towards the group. Steve’s arm wraps around your wrist, pulling you to him. 

“You still going to the game?” He asked, his skin still warm from frustration. You shook your head no, pulling away from his grasp. 

“I’m just gonna head home.” 

He looked down at you, concern lacing his features. “Call you later?” 

All you could do was give him a weak smile. He paused, holding out his pinky. You stared at his finger; you hadn’t done a pinky promise with him in years. You laced yours with his, “Promise.” 

You avoided Nancy’s stares when you walked away, holding your hand close to your chest. 

-

They found Barbara’s car in a ditch a mile from Steve’s house, 3 days later. In a ditch you passed on the way home that night, unknowing that her body was pinned inside the vehicle for days. 

A week later, they found Will Byers alive in the woods, malnourished and traumatized, but alive. You were thankful there was at least one positive to the recent events in Hawkins. Nancy was in hysterics at Barb’s funeral, and Sam held you through the guilt. The two of you eventually made it official. Dating him was easier than it had been before, almost too easy. Sometimes it felt like you were putting on a show, living your life as you were taught you were supposed to. 

Time passed, as it often did. Senior year was full of jobs and college applications, and getting swept up in talk of the future. Despite your insistence on Steve studying and you doing half of his English assignments, his grades weren’t good. You held his hand, swore to him it would all be fine. But you knew his dad, and you knew the type of son his dad wanted him to be. Somehow, Halloween had crept up on you; flyers to Tina’s party floated around the halls. 

Despite Steve’s incessant begging to get you to join the pair, Sam was out of town visiting family, and you weren’t interested in third wheeling. Nancy had already been distant with you ever since the Jonathan incident; the last thing you wanted to do was make it worse. Late that night, you stayed in bed, only being roused by your phone ringing. You tried to ignore it, but the caller was only calling again. You rolled over, angrily gripping the phone off the hook.

“Hello?” You barked.

“Y/n..” Steve’s faraway voice came in through the phone. 

“Steve?” You questioned, confused as to what number he was calling you from. 

“Y/n. I need a ride. Nancy left me.” He mumbled. 

Your eyes nearly bugged out of your head at his words, jumping up to slip on some clothes. 

“You at Tina’s?” He responded with a mumbled yes. 

“I’ll be there in 15. Please do not go anywhere.” You made him promise, not holding drunk Steve to anything. You sped there, parting drunken bodies to find Steve. Sunglasses still perched on top of his head, his eyes hazy. 

“Guys, it’s my best friend.” He laughed, flinging his body onto yours. You pushed him off with a grunt, grabbing him by the arm. Dragging him out into the yard. Using all your strength as he kept going, deadweight on his feet.

This wasn’t the first time you had to pick a drunk Steve up from somewhere, but this was the worst. 

“Bullshit.” Steve slurred, his body slumping more in your hold. 

“What?” You were exasperated at this point, just barely able to toss his body into your passenger seat. 

“Bullshit. Nancy said it was all Bullshit. Didn’t love me.” He whined, his face pained with each word. 

Your brows furrowed, “Nancy loves you.” That was all you could manage to say, reaching over him to buckle him in. 

“No, no, she doesn’t.” He whined by the time you started the car, driving him slowly to his house. You only had to pull over once for him to throw up, thankful he didn’t ruin your floorboards. 

Getting him up into his room was easy, seeing as he threw up a portion of the alcohol in his system. 

“Come on, Joel Goodson, let’s get you to bed.” You sighed, taking the sunglasses off of him despite his protests. He took his own shirt off, not bothering with his pants, as he curled up in the bed. You watched his eyes flutter closed, his chest rising and falling. He looked peaceful, the frown lines he had earlier melting away. You moved the blanket over him, ready to leave before he stopped you. 

“Please don’t leave me.” He whimpered, not even opening his eyes. 

Your heart splintered open in your chest, crawling into bed with him. He nuzzled into your side, probably going to drool all over your sweater. That was fine, as long as he got some sleep. 

“Thank you,” He mumbled, “M’loving me. Wish it was you.” 

“What?” You asked, your heart falling into your stomach. The only response you got was his gentle snores. You didn’t get any sleep that night, content to lie on your back. Brushing your hands through his hair, staring at the ceiling, wondering what he meant. Or if he’d even remember. 

That wasn’t something you had the time for, deciding to push it into the back of your mind. 

Safe to say he didn’t when you woke up to him throwing up in his side table trash can, making you cringe. You did what you did best, taking care of him. He told you the story of what happened between him and Nancy, not liking your response. 

“I don’t think she deserves you, Stevie.” 

“Come on-” 

“I mean it, I know she’s going through a lot, but you didn’t kill Barb. It was an accident.”

He was quiet for a moment, hesitant to say the rest of the story. “She also thinks I’m in love with you.” 

The mood in the room shifted, the tension thick. “W-what? Why would she think that?” You stuttered out. 

He shrugged, not meeting your eyes. “I didn’t defend her honor enough with Jonathan, which is funny considering she forgave him.”

“She forgave him?” You scowled, trying to do your best to forget that night ever happened. The pictures were burnt in your fireplace, alongside photos of you and your ex. 

“Told her she wasn’t allowed to do that since he took pictures of you, too. She didn’t like that.” 

“What a bitch.” You mumbled, grabbing his hand in yours. 

“Dating is hard.” He gave you a sad smile, to which you nodded. “How are you and Sam?” 

You shrugged, “Fine. I think it's a little too fine. Sometimes I feel bad that he’s too sweet, too forgiving, too- I don’t know, is it mean to say boring?” 

“He does seem a little lame,” He teased, you hitting his chest playfully. He winced, holding his head, “I might throw up, don’t do that.” 

“He’s not lame. I just think something is wrong with me. Sometimes it feels like I can’t love him like I’m supposed to. Like I'm broken.” You admitted, watching his eyes soften at your admission. 

“I think you love me just right.” His words were quiet, heavier than before. “You’re not broken, Y/n.” 

“You don’t make it easy.” You joked, unraveling your hands. Maybe one day you’d explain to him that loving him was the easiest thing in the world, because you never had to think twice. From the moment you were born, there was an invisible thread tying you to him. Instead, you pushed it down, slapping his chest playfully. 

“Especially when you smell like an expired liquor store.” 

“Hey!” He whined. 

It was all fine, everything was fine. He went to shower, and you went home. He was going to buy Nancy flowers, and you were going to wait by the phone, waiting for Sam to call. So why did it feel so wrong? 

-

You got a call from Steve the next afternoon, asking if you’d come over. You obliged, only to be godsmacked by his bruised and bloodied face. 

“Oh my god? What the fuck?” You asked, rushing inside the door. 

“Am I an asshole?” He asked, ignoring your concerns. 

“What?” You muttered, dragging him into the bathroom. You immediately grabbed the first aid kit, ready to wipe his face with an alcohol pad. He stopped you, grabbing your wrist loosely. 

“Am I an asshole?” He repeated, his dark brown eyes heavy with sadness. 

“I mean, sure sometimes,” You’d never lie to him, “But you aren’t an asshole, you can just act like one.” 

“I did something really stupid.” He admitted. 

“Oh, really? I can’t tell.” You snarked, pressing the pad to his face. Making him wince in pain while you cleaned off the dried blood. “Let me guess, Nancy.” Her name tasted bitter on your tongue. 

He cocked his head to the side, “You don’t like her?” 

“I’m starting not to Stevie.” You admitted, bandaging the cut under his eyes closed. 

“Went to apologize to her with flowers for the other night, Jonathan Byers was in her bed. Tommy and Carol convinced me to spraypaint some bullshit at the theatre about her being a slut, he kicked my ass.” You took a moment to soak in his story, finishing with one last pink bandage. 

“Well, I guess you deserved a small ass kicking, but not this bad.” You winced. “Am I allowed to beat her ass?” 

“Y/n..” 

You threw your hands up, “Sorry, sorry!” 

In the silence, you cleaned up the bloodied paper, washing your hands in the sink. He stayed still, his brows furrowed in thought. A frown line forming into the crease of his forehead, you wanted nothing more than to rub your thumb over it. Releasing all the tension from him. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” You asked, placing your hand next to his on the counter. Propping yourself up next to him, your arms brushing.

“Do you ever think about it?” 

“Bout what?” You asked, oblivious to what thoughts were rolling around in that head of his. 

“How much easier it would be if we were in love.” 

Who would have thought 11 words would tilt your world on its axis? You must have been silent for longer than you thought. Steve speaking up again, “I mean, imagine how easy it would be. We’re already basically a couple anyway. Imagine if we were in love.” There was a subtle hopefulness in his voice; you told yourself you were reading into things. 

“Yeah. Imagine.” Your voice felt foreign to you. 

The silence was thick again, Steve’s eyes heavy on you. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” He copied you, his arm rubbing against yours, intentionally this time. Like he needed your touch to ground himself with each word he spoke. The sensation makes chills go up your spine. 

“I think,” You cleared your throat, “That you just got hit in the head a lot. You need ice.” 

If Steve was going to speak, you didn’t hear, too busy gliding out of the bathroom into the kitchen. Your hands shaking with adrenaline as you get him an ice pack ready. 

“Y-yeah.” He laughed, “Probably have brain damage or something.” 

With your doctoring, you gave Steve a clean bill of health, leaving him with instructions to ice and call you if his head hurt any worse. The entire drive home, all you could think about was Sam. 

Sam made you feel steady, like you were safe on the shore. Feet planted in the sand, a war, breeze flowing through the air. Why wasn’t it enough? Why didn’t it make you feel alive? 

-

Adulthood snuck up on you, graduation coming and going. You were ashamed to admit you were relieved he and Nancy were finally done. He seemed sad, but lighter. You had Dustin to thank for that, the kid he semi-adopted, despite him claiming he didn’t. The kid adored him. When he went off to summer camp, Steve nearly shed a tear, swearing you to secrecy that you’d never tell him that. He’d never live it down. 

When the mall opened up, it was the perfect opportunity for ‘real world experience’ as Steve’s father called it. Scoops Ahoy had hired him on the spot, complete with the cutest little outfit to go with it. You found a simpler, less embarrassing job at a bookstore at the end of the hall. The two of you were still able to spend too much time with each other. 

His co-worker Robin became your best friend, much to Steve’s chagrin. If he thought you were picking on him, each time the two of you were together, it was Steve’s own personal level of hell. 

Today’s topic of discussion was his horrible flirting skills. Being back on the market had made him rusty, fumbling around every single girl that walked in. Robin’s ‘You Suck’ board had made you cry out of laughter when she showed you. 

“Ladies, 3 o’clock,” Robin whispered, pulling your head down behind the window. The two of you are ready to spy on him. 

“Ahoy, ladies! Didn't see you there. Would you guys like to set sail on this ocean of flavor with me? I'll be your captain. I'm Steve Harrington.” He spoke, too high a volume for the quiet store. The girls cringed with each word. 

“Oh my god, he’s hopeless.” Robin sighed. 

You couldn’t help but agree, “It’s like a car crash. I can’t stop watching.” 

He stumbled his way through offering ice cream samples, the girls taking their scoops awkwardly and leaving in a fit of giggles. Steve closed his eyes, “I don’t wanna hear it.” 

“Oh, you’re gonna hear it.” 

-

Steve’s freckled shoulders were underneath your hands, your fingers digging into his muscle. 

“God, you feel so good.” His voice was raspy, the moan coming deep from his chest. He was deep inside you, his hips rutting frantically against your own. The sound of skin slapping against skin echoed in the room. The headboard slapping the wall. 

“Steve, Steve.” You moaned his name like a broken record, his lips nipping at your neck. His name fit perfectly on your tongue. 

“There you go, honey, you gonna cum around me?” He asked, looking down at you. Your eyes meet his as you.. 

You woke up in a hot sweat, fingers twisting in the sheets. There was a thin layer of sweat covering your body, chest rising and falling. Sam lay next to you, as still as a board. You let out a shaky breath, the throbbing between your legs reminding you of what you just experienced. Slipping out of bed silently was easy, grabbing a glass of water with shaky hands. The fantasies your mind conjured up played like a highlight reel as you stared into the dark room. 

“What the fuck.” You breathed, laying your head down on the cool counter. Hoping the granite would quell the fire blooming through your body. 

Steve’s words from last fall echoed in your mind. 

“Have you ever thought about us?” 

You felt queasy, content to head back upstairs. Crawling into bed with Sam as if nothing had happened. It was fine; you can’t control your dreams. There’s no such thing as bad thoughts, only actions. And nothing had happened, nothing will happen. 

-

The dream was haunting your every move, every time Sam tried to initiate anything, his face blurred with Steve’s. It’s like you were cursed. You began to see Steve in everything. Every place around Hawkins you frequented, memories lingered on all of your clothes. You couldn’t escape him, and a sick, cruel part of you didn’t want to. 

“You okay?” Sam asked, his hand still steady on your hips. Sam. He was kissing you; he wanted you. You blinked away the faraway look in your eyes, nodding weakly. 

“Just got distracted.” 

You refused to be haunted by make-believe, bringing Sam down to your level. Kissing him hard. Fingers pressed into his shoulders. Your brain continued terrorizing you, flashing you images of your dream. Before you realised it, you were mirroring the exact position. You moaned and twisted your body every which way, fighting for that feeling. When he slipped inside, all you could think about was Steve. Would he touch you like this? 

“Is that good?” Sam interrupted your thinking, noticing how quiet you had been. His hips slowing down. Catching onto your wood behavior. 

“Y-yeah.” You lied, smiling up at him. “Maybe just a little harder?” 

He obliged, the headboard creaking against the wall. Your eyes fluttered shut again, letting yourself indulge. Just for a moment. You told yourself it was to test your theory, but you knew what it was. It was the carnal urge to let yourself crave him. Just once, to let your mind wander into the feelings you’ve pushed so far back in your mind. 

You thought about his plump lips, the way his hair falls on his forehead after basketball practice, the swell of his biceps, and the happy trail you see when he stretches. Steve. All you could think about was Steve, every neuron in your body lighting up at the mere thought of him. 

“You like that?” Sam asked, watching your back arch. 

All you could do was nod, watching a highlight reel behind your eyelids. You imagined what his body would feel like against yours, heavy and slick with sweat. How he’d feel pressed inside you. How attentive he would be. You couldn’t take it, your legs shaking around his hips. 

“Stev-Sam.” You stuttered, covering it up with an obnoxious moan. Pushing it down, pushing down every single thought of him that made you feel alive. Your eyes stayed shut when he came, scared your eyes would tell him everything. 

“God baby, you really liked that, huh?” He yawned, pressing a kiss to your forehead. 

That night, you cried in the shower, scrubbing every inch of your body raw. Doing everything you could to feel clean, the sin and disgust clinging to your skin like a bad perfume. 

-

The next day at work, your hands were shaky. You were spacy, constantly zoning in and out. The mall patrons only occupied you when they had questions. Working at a bookstore was the ideal place for peace and quiet, but now it felt like your own personal hell. Trapped in these walls. 

When the clock hit noon, you were running through the mall, nearly knocking down entire families in your path. 

The familiar Scoops Ahoy sign made you sigh. Steve would be on break right now. At least you didn’t have to face him. Your body collided with another, his cologne alerting you to his presence before he did. 

“Where’s the fire?” Steve laughed, his hands falling to your hips. That was normal, that was something that happened. But now it felt like the fire was inside of you, burning you from the inside out. 

“Uh, I just need to see Robin. I’m out of girl things. Pads, tampons, you know.” You stuttered out a lie, trying not to watch the way his lips parted when he spoke. 

“I have some in my car for you, you know.” He started, you cutting him off. 

“Yes! Thank you. Can you go get them?” Your eyes were wide, your voice too loud, and he just squinted at you. 

“Okay..I don’t remember your period making you this weird.” He grumbled, letting go of you. “I’ll be back. I can get you some chocolate from Bon Bon?” 

“I’d love that.” Your face softened, feeling horrible for lying to him. As soon as his back disappeared amongst the crowd of people, you jumped over the counter, Robin’s scooper flying out of her hand. 

“What the hell?” She asked, eyeing your disheveled appearance. 

“Hey Robin.” 

“Hey, Y/n.” She mocked your cadence.

“Can I tell you something, if you swear on your life to never mention it to another living soul?” Her face got serious, noticing your expression.  

“Yes, of course.” 

You took a deep breath, saying the next sentence so quickly that only someone like Robin would have been able to understand it. “I had a sex dream about Steve last night, and that’s never happened before, ever. I’ve never thought of him that way, maybe once or twice in passing as a curious teen, but never seriously, and now I can’t stop thinking about it.” 

Her eyes were wide, your chest heaving from the speed at which you word vomited at her. 

“A sex dream?” Her jaw was on the floor, “Steve? Your best friend since birth, Steve?” 

You shushed her, spinning around the empty Scoops Ahoy like a woman on a mission. 

“Yes.”

“I mean, I’ve had a sex dream about Smurfette once, so I wouldn’t think too much about it.” She offered, watching your still panicked face. 

“Wait,” She paused, “What do you mean you can’t stop thinking about it?” 

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” You grumbled, knowing Robin wasn’t going to let it go. 

“Nope, you can’t drop a bombshell on me and not elaborate.” 

You grabbed her arm, pulling her into the backroom. Watching through the window anxiously as if he was going to materialize at any moment. 

“I just keep thinking about it. Like earlier, he was speaking, and all I could think about was that my dream lips had touched his dream lips. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to kiss him.” You rambled, “Then I look at him and feel guilty. Like I’m dirty and sinful because I can’t stop thinking about, dreaming about him naked. And inside of me-” 

“Whoa! Too much information-” Robin cut you off. 

You ignored her, “And he’s my best friend. My Stevie. So what do I do? I can’t even look him in the eyes anymore.” 

“Do you like him?” She spoke slowly, like she was poking a frightened bear. 

You stopped your anxious pacing, tears welling up in your eyes. You were so overwhelmed you could barely think, and you shook your head. “N-no?” 

“Babes, you didn’t sound too confident there.” 

“Can I tell you something else awful?” You whispered, there was never a filter between you and Robin. There probably never would be. 

She nodded softly at you to speak. 

“When Sam and I had sex the first time, I almost called him Steve. A-and I thought maybe I just you know? Two S names and all,” You laughed manically. “Then the dream, so I’m wondering if it’s always been subconscious. So when Sam and I had sex last night, I closed my eyes and imagined Steve. And I did it again.” 

When it was off your chest, you felt lighter, albeit dizzy. 

“And?” She added, her eyes wide. 

“I was really sad to open my eyes and see Sam.” You cried, tears pouring down your cheeks now. “And Sam was like Wow, you’ve never been so into it before and I’m so awful. I’m such a bad person.” 

Robin was the only person in the world you could trust to tell. You liked Sam, you really did. But you couldn’t feel a fraction of what you felt just thinking about Steve with him. You felt broken, stringing the man along because you couldn’t face the music. 

“Honey.” Robin frowned, pulling your shaking frame into her arms. “I don’t think you’re a bad person. I just think you’re in love with Steve.” 

You shook your head frantically, “I can’t be. Can’t. It’ll ruin everything.” 

Robin’s lips tightened in a straight line, choosing her words carefully. The entire Summer Robin has had to endure similar conversations with Steve. How they still didn’t see it was beyond Robin. The entirety of Hawkins thought they had been dating for years. 

“But there’s that chance he could feel the same way. You won’t know unless you try.” 

You were saved by the door busting open. Steve’s arms are full of various bags. Pads, tampons, and various snacks. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted, just got one of everything. Robin, I got you some gummies-” He rambled, looking up to see the two of you embracing, tears pouring down your face. 

He held out the bags to you nervously, “I’m sorry your vagina is bleeding.” 

The moment the words left his mouth, you and Robin fell into each other laughing, Steve’s face going red.

 “Women.” He muttered, tossing the bags onto the table with a thud. 

-

Robin’s words sat heavily on your mind, but instead of listening to her sound advice, you ignored it. Ignored the horrible feeling in your gut and prayed it would go away after some time. Now you were walking up to Steve’s front door, Sam’s hand in yours. 

The kids had conned him into hosting a movie night, complete with all the junk food you all could gather. You, Sam, Robin, and Steve were the designated chaperones. Although it’s not like they actually listened to anything any of you said. You were bombarded when you walked through the door, getting tugged in different directions by various kids. The girls wanted your advice on something, Dustin needed you to convince Steve to let them swim after dinner, and the rest of the boys were screeching about some game. 

“Go ahead,” Sam had chuckled, “Love you.” 

That was another new development. Sam had told you he loved you multiple times now. Each time you sent him a tight-lipped smile, no words escaped your mouth.  It broke your heart that you couldn’t love him. You loved being loved by him, and you were selfish enough to drag him along. 

“That was awkward,” Max muttered. You ignored it. Letting them drag you into the house. 

After the kids had run you ragged, you found Steve in the kitchen setting up the multiple boxes of pizza. 

“Remind me again why I signed up for this?” Steve sighed, gesturing to the gaggle of children currently destroying his living room. 

“Because they were getting sick of the mall. It’s summer break.” You laughed, “And you are the one who designated yourself as the babysitter.” 

He sighed, “Still..” 

“And you love me?” You giggled, grabbing a stack of plates from the cabinet. 

“That I do.” He said, his eyes meeting yours before they caught Sam’s hovering behind you. 

“I love you. Love you enough to tell you that I’m not helping you clean this up tomorrow.” 

Sam cleared his throat, and you whipped around. Startled by his presence. 

“Hi-” 

“Can we talk?” He cut you off, shooting Steve daggers behind your back. 

“Okay?” You stuttered, taken off guard. Steve excused himself, patting your arm gently before he slid past you two. Leaving you both alone in his kitchen, Sam’s eyes dark on yours. 

“What’s wrong?” You asked. 

“Why do you let him do that?” 

Your brows furrowed, “Let who do what?” 

“Steve. You let him give you those pathetic puppy dog eyes.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Oh come on,” He laughed, the tension growing thick, “He glares at me like I’m going to attack him at any second, then he looks at you like a kicked dog. He touches you whenever he gets the chance. And you just let him.” 

“Sam, it’s-” You stuttered, “It’s how we’ve always been.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s getting sort of ridiculous, Y/n.” He scoffed, spinning around to head for the door. 

You followed, ripping the door open behind him. “What is?” 

“You!” He yelled, his hands waving in front of you. With all the commotion, you gave it a few minutes before Steve and Robin followed you outside. No doubt the kids had their ears pressed to the door. What an embarrassing disaster this night has turned into

“Sam-” 

“Have you just been playing in my face for over a year?” He asked, his voice thick with emotion. 

You shook your head quickly, tears welling in your eyes. “No, no Sam no. I would never.” 

“So you love me?” 

You went silent, your bottom lip wobbling. 

“You can’t even fucking say it.” He spat. “That’s all I wanted from you, but you can’t even give me that.” 

“Is this because I told Steve I love him?” You whimpered, willing the tears not to fall. “We’ve been telling each other we love each other since we could speak.” 

He shook his head, “No. Something changed. Either you’re too blind to see it or-” He cut himself off, letting out a heartbroken laugh. The front door opens behind you. You knew who it was, without turning around. Steve would always come for you; he always has. What you’ve truly wanted has been right in front of you, and you never realized it until now. 

“There’s your knight and shining armor.” Sam scoffed, rubbing his mouth with his hand. 

“Y/n, are you okay?” Steve ignored Sam’s words, his soft voice speaking to you only. The voice he used before kissing your bandaids over scraped knees. The voice that got you through the darkest times. The same one that asked you that night, he asked if you’d ever thought about it. 

“She’s fine. We’re talking, can we please have a moment?” Sam spoke when you didn’t, tears falling freely down your cheeks now. 

“I wasn’t speaking to you,” Steve responded, his hands on his hips now. 

Sam laughed, a cruel one. “I know you can’t fight Harrington, so don’t bother.” 

“Stop.” You spoke weakly, turning around. “Steve, just give us a second.” 

His eyes met yours, the two of you having a silent conversation with your eyes. He was ready to turn inside, but this only angered Sam further. 

“Actually, no, Steve, you should stay.” Sam’s voice chilled you to your bones, your eyes snapping to his. Despite your protests, he continued. “We were just talking about how Y/n doesn’t love me. Apparently, you’re all she can think about.” 

“Bullshit-”

“You’re dreaming about him, Y/n! You have repressed your feelings so far down that you don’t even realize how pathetic it is. God, it’s so fucking embarrassing being with you, watching the two of you dance around each other.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You cried, confused as to how he would even know about your dreams, your feelings. 

“You say his name in your sleep. You say his name during sex.” He let out in a heartbreaking laugh, “You think I didn’t hear you? You think I don’t see that faraway look in your eyes? When you look disappointed to see me there?” 

It was as if you could feel your world falling apart all around you; you wanted nothing more than the world to swallow you whole. Steve’s eyes were burning into the back of your head; you couldn’t face him. Not when Sam was laying it all out in the open, flaying your heart open right here for Steve to see. 

“That doesn’t mean I never cared for you.” You sniffled, “Sam, I could love you, I could.” 

“I wish I could believe that. I really do.” He sighed, shuffling his feet. 

Steve stayed quiet, unsure of what to do. He was stuck against the door, his heart aching for you. Even for Sam. 

“You know what the worst part of all of this was?” He laughed, tears filling his eyes, “I always knew this would be how it ended. You, running into his arms. Everyone warned me, but I loved you too much to listen.” 

“I’m so sorry.” You blubbered, your arms wrapped around yourself. This was it; you couldn’t go back from this. 

He shook his head, “No. Not really, you’re not..” Were his last words as he turned around, speeding off down the road in his truck 

Everything you had ever known was dissipating in front of your eyes. All the plans you had made. That metaphorical box of feelings you had been cramming to the brim finally crumbled underneath its own weight. You were scared you were going to drown. The unknown picking up your body and dragging you to sea. 

“Y/n..” There was that voice again, your forever anchor. You shook your head, wiping away your tears. You couldn’t face him, you couldn't do this. 

“We gotta talk about it.” His voice was thick, “We gotta get it out.” 

“I can’t.” You whimpered, hiding your face in your hands. 

He stepped forward anyway, grabbing your wrists in his hands. Pulling them away to expose your tear-stained cheeks. 

“It’s just me. It’s just me.” He reassured you, holding your face in his hands. He held you as if his whole world was resting upon his palms, because it was. 

“That’s the problem.” You cried, eyes still squeezed shut. If you opened your eyes and saw him, it would all be real; the weight of this would crash on your shoulders. But you knew he’d be there to catch you. 

He let you steady yourself, pressing his forehead to yours. Waiting for your frantic breaths to match his, your shaking hands gripped his jacket. Searching for a lifeline. 

“All this time….” He cleared his throat. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Your eyes shot open at his words, his eyes glossy, full of a thousand unsaid words. 

“I've spent so many years dancing around it. Pushing it down and just praying it would go away. If I thought about it too hard, if I let the idea cross my mind, it would never go away. So I couldn’t. Couldn’t lose you.” You cried. 

“You’d never lose me. Look at me, Y/n Y/l/n.” He promised, forcing you to keep your eyes on him. He wasn't going to let you look away, not now. 

 “The love I have for you,” his voice cracking, “The love I have for you transcends every possible doubt you have in your mind. I look for you in every room, every time I need you, you are right there, you’ve always been right there. Through it all. If I could go back, I'd kick myself for letting you get away from me for so long, but it doesn’t matter. Because we’re right here. And I'm not going anywhere. However long it takes, whatever it takes. You’ve always been my girl.” 

You nodded, “Pinky promise?” It came out as a pathetic whimper, tears slipping down Steve’s cheeks, matching your own. 

“Yes,” He gave you a teary laugh, “Pinky promise.” His hand came up, his pinky finding yours. He leaned down, kissing your knuckles. Suddenly, you were both 13 again, the same Indiana sun beaming down on you two. 

“I choose you and me, religiously. Through everything, everyone in my life. Not because I felt like I needed to, but because I wanted to. There was no one else, god, there was never anyone else I’ve loved as much as I love you.” He cried, his forehead pressing harshly into yours, “It’s always been us. You hear me?”

“Steve..” 

“I love you, Y/n, you’re my best friend, and I am helplessly, unequivocally in love with you.” 

“That’s a real big word for you.” You laughed through the tears, making him beam. 

“It is a huge word for me, only I even know it because of you.” He sighed, “There are no words to explain just how much I love you. 

“I think I’ve loved you my whole life.” You whispered, your noses brushing. “It’s the only thing that’s ever come easy to me.” 

Steve’s smile could rival that of a thousand suns, his lips brushing yours. “Can I?” His voice was meek, unsure. 

You didn’t even have a chance to nod, closing the gap between you. Your lips pressing softly to his. He kissed you like he was coming home, and you kissed him back as you needed him to survive. The two of you are drowning in the kiss, hands clenching each other tightly as if both of you would wake up from a dream. 

When you pulled apart for air, his cheeks were flushed, his eyes dark. What a mess the two of you looked, tear-stained and blushing in the middle of his driveway. 

“I love you.” You said, just to say it. Just because you could. 

“And I love you.” He pressed a longing kiss to your forehead, pulling back to look at you. 

“This has been so embarrassing. Can’t believe I ruined movie night.” You sniffled.

“Those kids are fine. Robins probably distracted them by now with some ridiculous scheme.” Steve said, kissing away the tears running down your face. You both had a lot to talk about, you needed time to think, and grieve. But the crushing weight of your feelings was finally off your shoulders, and Steve didn’t run away. He ran towards you, holding your hand just like he always had. 

You were thankful for the kids who acted oblivious, throwing popcorn at you the moment you walked back in the door. Making you pay for having to listen to Robin monologue about Gremlins, before even pressing play on the tape. 

Steve simply shrugged, pulling you down against him on the couch. His arms are around your chest. It wasn’t anything different from how he’d held you before, but it was also so different. New intentions, a new feeling sparking every time you two touched. 

That night, neither of you was able to sleep, content to tiptoe over the sleeping children. Steve nearly slips on Mike’s blanket, making you have to cover your mouth to stop the laugh from slipping out. The sliding glass door creaked as you two descended into the night. Steve practically pulling you into his backyard like a man on a mission. 

“What are you doing?” You giggled, watching the old trampoline come into view. Your heart ached; it must have been in his garage collecting dust. 

“Made the kids pull it out.” He answered you before you even asked, his hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “Robin asked if we wanted candles and rose petals, but I told her this was perfect.” 

“It is.” You whispered, your hands running over the rusted springs. 

Steve helped hoist you up, the two of you plopping down on the worn-out plastic. Both of you bouncing into each other. 

In a rushed fit of giggles, you pulled him down next to you, your head nuzzling into his chest. With his arm around your waist, he held you close. The stars were bright tonight, a rare, clear night this time of year. 

“I never thought this would happen,” He admitted, “Always thought you were too good for me. That I’d never deserve you. I still don’t think I do.” 

“I didn’t think you’d ever choose me. I mean, out of all the girls in Hawkin’s you’ve been with, and there’s been a lot,” You teased, “I didn’t think I had a shot in the dark.” 

“Honey, you are my girl. Everyone knew.” He smiled, thinking back to all the times everyone said you two were practically dating anyway. Looking back, it was painfully obvious; the only oblivious ones were you two. 

“Guess I just thought you were fulfilling some pinky promise we made as kids. Like out of some weird obligation to the weird girl who started following you around one day and never stopped.” You admitted sheepishly. 

“That’s ridiculous, honey.” That was all he could say, humor lacing his words. 

“I mean, looking back, it was kinda obvious,s huh?” You laughed, your mind giving you a highlight reel of the past few years. All the girlfriends of his you hated, the boyfriends of yours he wouldn’t even give a chance. Everyone’s whispers, both of your parents, calling it from a young age. It was always inevitably going to end here, no matter how bumpy the ride. 

“Dude, our moms are gonna flip.” 

“Ugh, they’ve probably already planned the tackiest wedding imaginable.” You groaned. 

“You wanna marry me, honey?” He teased, poking your side. 

“Shut up.” You grumbled, your cheeks warming. 

“I think,” He said, eyes going back up to the stars, “I think I'd marry you right now if you said yes.” 

“I’d say yes.” You admitted, “I’ve never been so sure about something my whole life.” 

Suddenly, he was jolting up from the trampoline, leaving you bouncing in his absence. 

“What are you doing?” You laughed, watching him stumble around in the dark, hands brushing through the grass. If you knew any better, you’d have thought he finally lost his mind.  

“Wait, wait. No! Yes, fuck yes okay.” He muttered, ripping something out of the ground, running back up the trampoline. He was illuminated by the moonlight, his eyes sparkling as he looked up at you. He was on one knee, holding up a dandelion he’d folded into a ring. 

“Are you proposing?” You laughed, unable to keep a straight face. 

“Yes, not for real, but also kinda?” He chuckled nervously, “Will you, Y/n Y/l/n, take me, Steve Harrington’s hand in marriage? In probably about a year or so from now??” 

“You are ridiculous.” 

He tsked, “That’s not an answer.” 

“What are my options?” 

“Yes, and uh.. Oh yeah, yes.” 

“God, lots of decisions to think over.” 

You smiled down at him, holding out your left hand. “Steve Harrington, yes, I will marry you.” 

“Fuck yeah.” He cheered, slipping the weed onto your finger. With the yellow flower against your skin, all you could think about was his bouquet of dandelions he brought you when you were a kid. 

“Come here.” You whispered, dragging him back up with you. Your lips meet his. This kiss was different than the first; this was hot and heavy. Your mouth opened, letting his tongue explore. You straddled his hips, pinning him down as best you could while the two of you bounced with every movement. 

“Baby.” He groaned, your lips trailing down the side of his neck. 

“Hmm?” You hummed, your hand crawling under his shirt. Finally touching the rough patch of hair you dreamed about. His soft stomach underneath your palm. 

“Don’t think there’s anyone in the woods with a camera, do you?” He asked, making you fall off of him in a fit of giggles. 

“Oh, that’s fucked up.” 

“Sorry, I had to.” He threw his hands up, “I mean, weirdly, he’s a cool guy. He and Nancy make a good couple.” 

“I think we make a better couple.” You cheesed, pressing another kiss to his lips. Then another, and another. You’d never get sick of it. 

“I agree.” He laughed in between kisses. “I also think we should take this upstairs.” 

You met his hungry eyes, taking his hand in yours, letting him lead the way. This was one of those times you were thankful for Steve’s rich parents. His room was upstairs on the other end of the house from everyone else. 

You had been in Steve’s rooms countless times, even slept in his bed more times than your own. But suddenly it was real; none of this was some dream you found yourself lost in. He was right here in front of you, his hands leading you to his bed. 

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” He spoke calmly, nerves radiating off of you. You looked up at him, the hunger in his eyes matching your own. 

“I want this,” You whispered, “I want you.” With every fiber of being, this was all you wanted. 

The rest was a blur, messy kisses, hushed moans, and trembling hands as clothes floated to the floor. He hesitated against your bra strap, staring deep into your eyes when the clasp came undone. Pulling it off your body as he was unwrapping a delicate vase. 

“You,” His mouth went dry, his eyes still on yours. “Are the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.” 

You were burning alive for him. His hands touched you gently, his thumbs rubbing over your peaked buds. With each gasp that left your lips, Steve watched, memorizing every single touch that left you reeling. 

“This okay?” He whispered, his face leaning down into your ribcage. 

“Yes, Please.” 

This was all he needed, his lips trailing wet kisses down your sternum. His tongue flicked over the sensitive bud, flattening before he took it into his mouth, Sucking ever so softly, while his other hand gripped your other tit, massaging the flesh. 

“Oh my god.” 

You could barely breathe, the pressure between your legs growing with each wet trail of his tongue. He pulled off with a lewd pop, his lips glossy. He didn’t stop there, his kisses trailing down your stomach, until he was perfectly settled between your hips. Arms caging your body in. 

“How are you feeling?” Ever the worrier, Steve was going to stop every few seconds, asking if you were okay. Your body was trembling underneath his, in anticipation and nerves. 

“Good. I love you.” You panted, his fingers curling in the sides of your underwear. 

“Gonna take these off now, that okay?” 

You frantically nodded, lifting your hips for him. When he threw them alongside the pile of your other clothes, your legs fell shut on impulse. 

He looked up at you, a silent question in his eyes. 

“C-can you take your shirt off?” You asked, feeling underdressed. He flung the shirt off quicker than you’ve ever seen before, smiling wildly at you. His bare skin was warm against your legs as he settled himself back in position, hands gripping your thighs. 

“Open up for me, honey.” 

You let out an embarrassed squeal, “Wait.” 

Steve paused, watching your face scrunch with nerves. “S’what wrong?” 

“I’ve never…” You trailed off, choking on your embarrassment. 

“What?” He asked, taking a minute to put two and two together. He looked down at your clamped legs, and back up to you like he’d seen a ghost. 

“Are you serious?” His voice had lowered an octave, hands clenching. “No one’s ever gone down on you.” 

“They all said it was g-gross. So I didn’t bother you, know?” You flushed, “You don’t have to.” 

He stopped you, unclenching his jaw. “Gross? Baby, I have every right mind to go track them down and beat their ass.” 

A squeak escaped your lips, “You’re hot when you’re mad.” 

“I am mad, mad because there’s no reason any of those men deserved you. I’ve been wanting to get my mouth on you for years, and they just-” He cut himself off, hand rubbing small circles on your calf. “Baby, do you want me to go down on you?” 

You nodded sheepishly, “Just nervous.” 

“Don’t be. You just talk to me, okay? If there’s anything you don’t like, anything you want. Need you to promise you’ll tell me.” 

“Okay, yeah. Promise.” You leaned back, bracing yourself on his pillows. 

“Good.” He grabbed your tights gently, “Open up for me, pretty girl.” 

You obliged, letting your legs fall open for him. A shock went through you at the sensation of your wet cunt hitting the cold air. Steve’s eyes were locked on you. Practically drooling at the sight of you. 

“Gorgeous.” He babbled, pressing kisses up and down your inner thighs. “You’re so fucking gorgeous. Gonna put my mouth on you, okay?” 

You nodded, your body jerking the moment his wet mouth came down on your clit. He took it slow, letting his tongue draw circles over you. You were over the moon, letting out choked moans of his name. You didn’t know it would feel this good. 

His tongue flattened, teasing your entrance before suckling your clit into his mouth. He ate you out like a man starved, moaning against you. The sensations had your legs shaking, overwhelmed by new feelings that licked up your spine. 

“Steve..” 

“How’s it feel, baby?” He panted, your wetness covering the bottom half of his mouth when he came up for air. His hand curled around to your entrance.  

“S’good. Bab,y it feels so good.” You basically sobbed, your cunt welcoming in his thick fingers. Stretching you out with each curl of his fingertips. His mouth wrapped around you, and that was all it took; your back arched off the bed. Grinding into his mouth messily as you came. He held your hips still, stroking out each morsel of your orgasm. Sweat clung to your forehead, your chest rising and falling quickly. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever come that hard.” You sighed dreamily. Steve had a shit-eating grin on his face, wiping his face on his discarded shirt before crawling back up your body. His lips met yours, kissing you deeply. You could taste yourself on his tongue, moaning weakly when he pulled apart. 

“I will do that all day, every single day.” He swore between kisses. His hips pressed against yours; the only thing separating you two was the thin fabric of his boxers. You could feel his hard length pressed against you. 

“Can I return the favor?” Your teeth came down to bite your bottom lip, wanting nothing more than to run your tongue down his happy trail straight to his cock. 

“Another time?” He smiled, speaking before you frowned, “I need to feel you.” 

“Just for a second?” You pleased, giving him your best doe eyes. He knew he could never say no to you. His boxers were pulled off, his cock slapping against his stomach. He was huge; your mouth salivated at the idea of wrapping your mouth around his pulsating tip. He fumbled around in his drawer, holding up a condom in his hand like it was a winning lottery ticket. He lay next to you on the bed, letting you switch positions. 

Your hand wrapped around him slowly, barely fitting. He gritted his teeth before you could fully pump him. The length twitching in your hand. 

“O-okay, baby-” He winced, his head hitting the headboard when your lips wrapped around him. Licking the precum off of him, savoring the salty taste of him. His hips jerked up, his cock sliding into your mouth deeper. 

“Fuck, okay, nope. Nope.” He hissed, gently pulling you off of him. This time, it was your turn to have a shit-eating grin on your face. 

“What? Can’t handle it?” You teased, squealing when he gripped your hips. Flipping you back onto your back with a thump. 

“Nope, my girl has a perfect fucking mouth,” He smirked, “But I wanna feel this pretty pussy more.” 

Your core throbbed at his words, hips rutting against the air for relief. He sat up between your legs, sliding the condom over his length. 

“Ready?” He asked, to which you nodded frantically. 

“Yeah, baby.” 

His tip circled your entrance a few times, spreading your wetness around for him. Before he braced himself, sliding himself in slowly. Your hands found his shoulders, fingers creating half-moon indentations as you welcomed the stretch. 

“Doing so well.” He praised, pressing kisses up and down your neck and chest. “Taking me so well. So fucking tight for me.” 

When his hips bottomed out against yours, tears sprang in your eyes. You were so full, emotions overwhelming you.

He noticed your eyes fluttering shut, his hand moving to cradle your cheek. “Eyes on me. Eyes on me.” He cooed. 

You were scared, so scared you’d open them, and it was just another dream. “I’m real. I’m here.” He reassured, pressing soft kisses to your cheeks. They fluttered open again, and you stared at your brown-eyed lover. Drinking him in, every freckle, every imperfection. You wanted to count his eyelashes and memorize the patterns in his irises. 

“I love you.” Your voice was raw, the words spilling out heavier than ever before. Despite the countless times the two of you said those three words to each other over the years, this was the one that meant the most. That held the most weight. It carried every emotion you’ve pushed down over the past decade. Now it poured out of you, oozing from your very being. 

His smile was infectious: “I love you so much.” Another kiss on your lips. Something you’d never get sick of, his plump lips against yours. Moving with a passion that can only be built from years of secret glances and repressed feelings. 

You both moved as if the other was going to slip through your hands like water. Hands frantic, but focused. Memorizing every bit of each other’s bodies as your body welcomed him in. 

“You can move.” You sighed, the discomfort turning into pleasure. He did an experimental rock of his hips, hitting a spot deep inside you that had you mewling. 

“Oh, already, baby?” He cooed, using the hand that wasn’t propped up to rub circles on your cheek with his thumb. 

“S’deep.” You slurred, with each expert movement, your body was on fire. The wet sounds of him dragging in and out of your cunt only fueled the burning. The bed creaked when he sped his movements up. 

“I love you. I love you.” Steve grunted, his fair falling meassily on his forehead. His eyebrows scrunched up, staring down at you, watching you come apart underneath him. Committing every second to memory. 

Your legs wrapped around his hips, pulling him even closer if that was possible. His thick patch of hair sits above his cock, rubbing deliciously against your clit, his tip hitting your cervix as he fucked into you. 

“I’m gonna cum. Baby gonna cum.” You whined, feeling the tension coil deep in your gut. Steve nodded with a grunt, grabbing your legs and spreading them wide. The new angle had you screaming his name, his fingers rubbed your clit messily while you spasmed around him. Coming so hard your ears began to ring, legs shaking in his hold. 

He fucked you through it, keeping you spread wide for him. “That’s it. Take this cock, baby. Feels good? Feels so good.” He muttered, his hips stuttering. 

“Come inside me,” You babbled mindlessly, paying no mind to the condom between you two. 

“Oh fuck.” Steve gasped, emptying his load into the condom with a gasp. Falling slack against your body with each twitch of his cock inside you. 

Your hands curled in his hair, his panting breaths hitting your chest as the two of you came down. Relishing in the sounds of each other’s breathing, and his skin on yours. 

After a while, he pulled out of you with a hiss, disposing of the condom and cleaning the two of you up. He crawled back into bed, beckoning you to lie on his chest. 

You didn’t hesitate, curling yourself up against him. Letting his hands find your scalp, massaging your head. You cooed into him.

“Penny for your thoughts?” You sighed dreamily, Steve’s fingers expertly combing through your hair. 

“My thoughts are worth more than a penny.” He teased, making you roll your eyes at him. 

“I have a kiss, take it or leave it.” 

“Oh, I’m taking it alright.” He leaned down, pecking your lips gently. 

“Okay, pay up.” You ordered, letting his hands go back to caressing your scalp. 

“Just thinking about you. Our future.” He hummed, like it was the simplest thing in the world. 

You sat up a little, “Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah, big house. You’ll have a garden out back. We’ll have a pool. So I can watch you lounge outside while I grill. A couple of dogs running around, maybe ten kids?” 

“You’re out of your mind, Stevie.” You gasped. 

“Okay, what about six?” He compromised, pulling his face down to yours once again. 

“Maybe let’s slow down, become real adults first. Then… yeah, maybe I’ll give you a couple kids.” 

He smirked. “I knew it.” 

Your mind conjured up images of little versions of you and Steve running around. Growing up alongside the battalion of aunts and uncles downstairs. 

“You’re gonna have to buy a minivan if you want that many kids. Can you imagine us taking home a baby in the beamer?” 

“Our first two babies are definitely coming home in the beamer, babe. It’s when we get to 3, then we need to start looking into minivan territory.” 

“If you’re doing the heavy lifting...” You shrugged, imagining Steve in dad jeans. Pulling carseats out of his car. Your children running around the two of you. Family dinners, vacations, and the stable parents that neither of you were afforded growing up. 

“Of course.” He scoffed, not believing you’d think otherwise. 

“Guess we gotta find better jobs to support this million-dollar idea, huh?” You laughed, Steve pausing for a minute. 

“God, I guess you’re right.” He slumped, trying not to think too hard about the stress of that lingering on top of his shoulders. 

“Hey,” You whispered, “It’s all gonna work out, we have each other. That’s all that really matters.” 

“Yeah.” He smiled wistfully, “You haven’t been able to get rid of me this long, don’t even try now, babe.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

“Speaking of dreams….”

“Oh. No… no no.” 

[imfromthediningtable]

oh yes

OHHHH YES. EXCELLENCE!!!

[blackbvry]

𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐭 ✵ 𝐬. 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: boyfriend!steve harrington x fem!reader

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: When your lover's spat with Steve leads to a cold war in the WSQK booth, Robin decides she's had enough and leaves you two alone to work it out. You refuse to say a word to him even when she's gone, but Steve has his ways of getting you to talk.

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒/𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: 18+, smut (mdni), porn no plot, no use of y/n, established relationship, make-up sex, fingering, thigh riding, unprotected piv, cre*mpie, praise, soft dom!steve, semi-public sex, accidental exhibitionism (?)

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 3k

𝐀/𝐍: hello! i have two other wips i should be working on but this idea wouldn't leave me alone. hope u like it xoxo

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

You and Steve have been at it all morning.

It started with something stupid. An empty Coke can left on the counter that spiraled into an argument way bigger than it should've been. Names were called. Doors were slammed. It didn't help that your AC unit crapped out right in the middle of a heatwave either, leaving you both sweltering before you'd even stepped out of your shared apartment.

By the time you two make it to the station, you're already giving each other the silent treatment.

You storm inside first, leaving him in the dust as you bolt for the coffeemaker. He lumbers in after, scowl on his face, hair wrecked by the humidity.

It's easy enough to avoid each other before the broadcast, but once you're forced into the booth together, you drop into the swivel chair without a word. Your body angled away from him toward the console.

Robin lasts until lunch before she finally says something.

"Okay! So I'm gonna go." She stands, shooting a look between the two of you. "Whatever this is, please fix it. Or at least… try not to stare each other to death while I'm gone."

When neither of you respond, she just backs out slowly, nearly tripping over her own feet before the door creaks shut behind her.

The booth is deathly quiet when she leaves. Which is ironic, because you're pretty sure you've been in actual morgues with more noise than this vacuum that's formed between the two of you. But you don't look up. Not when you hear him let out a dramatic sigh, or when he snaps a cassette case louder than necessary.

No. You let him pout, giving him nothing while keeping your eyes glued to the playlist sheet on the desk. Crossing your legs and bobbing your ankle up and down. Letting your pleated skirt hike just a little bit higher up your thigh.

You aren't the least bit surprised when you hear the tapes stop clattering.

There's another beat of quiet before his foot nudges the leg of your chair. You don't move. So he does it again.

Finally, you turn—slow—and give him a look.

His mouth quirks. "You gonna ignore me all day?"

You frown, ignoring him while you flip a page.

"Wow," he scoffs. "You know, I was gonna apologize, but with this attitude—"

"Apologize, then," you interrupt. Calling his bluff.

He sits back and crosses his arms. "Well, look at that. She speaks."

"Look at that," you echo, turning back to the console. "He listens. For once."

You hear movement, then his hand is on the back of your chair before you even realize he's gotten up. The room blurs as he spins you back, planting both hands on the armrests once you're facing him again.

You stare stubbornly at the wall over his shoulder. Arms folded over your chest. Steve sighs and takes a seat in front of you, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

"I was saving it for the recycling, okay?"

You huff. "Then why was it in the middle of the counter?"

"I told you, I didn't want to forget!"

You shake your head, still refusing to meet his gaze.

"…Fine," he mumbles. "I'm sorry… alright?"

You arch a brow. "For?"

"For being a dick," he mutters, sliding a hand over his neck. "And…"

He leaves the sentence hanging half-finished. You tilt your head, waiting, but Steve doesn't look up. His gaze is stuck below your waist, where the hem of your skirt has ridden up even higher, fanning in a pretty arc across your legs. He swallows audibly and leans in closer.

It happens slow, his hand wedging between your thighs to grip the base of your seat. Your breath stutters as he tugs you forward, the stool skidding across the floor.

You finally look at him. No other choice really, with your faces inches apart like this. But where you expect to find him smiling or smug at having flustered you, instead his gaze is just… dark. His eyes heavy and locked with yours. Beneath the light, you catch the faintest sheen of sweat across his cheeks, fresh and dewy on his skin.

Warmth pulses between your legs in a way that's practically Pavlovian at this point. Because you know what it means when he gets this look. Where it always leads. You swallow a little as the woodsy scent of his aftershave reaches your nose, your fury fading fast into a different kind of heat that sits warm and low in your stomach.

Steve shifts then, your knees bumping together. He slides one of his forward between your thighs, slotting you two together and pulling you close.

"You wore this on purpose," he breathes low into your ear. You shiver as he brushes your hair back over your shoulder, his knuckles grazing the soft skin just beneath the hem of your skirt.

You exhale slowly. You did wear it on purpose. Something takes over him every time you wear this fucking thing, which is why you'd put it on in the first place this morning, a flirty little tilt to your hips. Five hours ago, you figured you two could sneak into the closet, or out to his car on your lunch break, maybe tease him with it until you had a chance to be properly alone.

But then you'd gotten into that fight, and you kept it on out of spite. You knew it would drive him crazy, having to see you in it and be forced to keep his hands to himself.

Only his hands were already disappearing beneath it.

"Steve," you breathe against his neck, barely pretending. "We're at work."

He noses the soft spot beneath your ear. "No one's here."

"The walls are glass."

"We'll be quick," he promises.

You're about to argue, but the gentle, warm press of his tongue over your pulse rips the protest from your lips. You melt, your eyes closing with a quiet sigh of surrender, and he groans into your skin at the salty taste of you, one hand snaking up into your hair to hold you in place while the other coaxes your knees apart.

"What if Rob comes back?" you whisper, already short of breath.

"She won't. She literally just left." His lips graze your forehead. "Now c'mere… let me apologize."

He curls a hand under your knee, tugging you toward him those last few inches. You let him guide you to the edge of the seat, until your chin's hooked over his shoulder and you lose sight of what his other hand's doing. You sigh into his hair when you feel his palm finally disappear between your legs.

He gives a testing little press against you, smiling to himself at the quiet noise you make for him.

"Yeah, baby. That's it," he whispers, his breath hot against your temple while he cups you more firmly. You gasp and clutch onto his sleeve, the contact making the damp spot on your panties bloom out even further at the edges.

"Oh, honey," he soothes, his free hand still cupping the back of your head. "Look at you. All worked up already."

You huff over his shoulder, even as your hips curl forward on their own, seeking the heel of his palm.

"I'm still mad at you," you mumble into his neck.

He hums, thumbing your panties to the side in a slow arc. "Yeah? You gonna let me fix it?"

Without waiting for your answer, he parts you gently down the middle. Your gasp is sharp against his shoulder, and he hushes you softly, groaning at the way you're already coating his fingers as he traces your slit.

"Fuck, baby," he breathes, his voice rough now.

He slides right through you, nice and easy. His thumb brushes through your curls before dipping down to circle you where you're softest. You muffle a whimper into his shirt and feel his grip tighten on the back of your neck.

"There?" he whispers, mouth pressed to your hair.

You nod breathlessly, panting now and barely able to hear him. He sucks softly beneath your ear and starts working that sweet spot, pulling more broken sounds out of you as you spiral quickly toward the edge.

Your hips shift forward again, thighs weak and shaking. You're nearly there, whining and clenching around nothing, when you thrust too far and start to slip off the edge of the seat.

"Shit—" you gasp.

Steve catches you before you can fall. His arm hooks around your waist, lifting you up like it's nothing. Your hands automatically find his shoulders as he hikes you up onto his thigh, your skirt settling even higher around your hips while you straddle him. He wets his lips when your bare skin presses against his jeans, the heat between your legs making his pants go tight around his hardening cock.

"Easy," he murmurs, sliding a hand up your back to steady you. "You okay?"

"Yeah," you breathe out, a little embarrassed. A pretty flush warms your cheeks as he brushes back a curtain of hair that's fallen in your face. He gives you a big, breathy smile that makes your heart burst wide open.

"Okay," he pants, glancing around to check that the station's still empty. With no sign of Robin, he plants a soft peck on your cheek and lets his hand drop to your hip. "Ready?"

You nod, your thighs squeezing around him as he rocks you forward, guiding you to grind against his leg. Your head tips back with a moan just from the friction of it.

"Steve—"

"I know," he mumbles, dipping down to suck at your collarbone as you writhe on him. "Use me, baby. It's okay."

You bite your lip, rolling your hips shamelessly now as you chase the pressure. The orgasm you lost starts building again. You feel it coiling deep in your belly, but it's not nearly enough to get you off just riding him like this.

He tries to help, tugging one of the buttons free on your shirt and mouthing gently at the swell of your breast. You moan, fingers sinking into his hair and keeping him there while your knee lifts high enough to brush at the bulge between his legs. Steve buries a groan between your tits, his hips bucking up before he can stop himself.

"Fuck," he grits out, forehead dropping to your chest. "That's not fair."

You smile into his hair and do it again, dragging your thigh slow and careful just beneath the heft of his balls. His head snaps back, tendons straining in his neck as a strangled moan rips from his throat.

"Babe, fuck—" he chokes out. "I'm serious. I'm gonna come in my fucking pants if you keep doing that."

Your hand drops between your bodies, finding his belt buckle by feel as you hold his gaze.

"Need you," you pant against his cheek, unlatching him. His head falls back against the chair as you work the button open next, then the zipper. He's rock hard by the time you're peeling the denim apart, a damp patch already darkening the fabric of his boxers.

Steve watches you with glazed eyes.

"Here?" he rasps, like he wasn't the one that started this.

Your answer is a hard kiss while your hand slips inside his boxers. He shudders out a moan into your mouth the second your fingers wrap around him. He's hot and thick in your palm, the head slick where he's already leaking. You hum softly against his lips while you give him a slow, gentle stroke.

"Jesus," he breathes, hips jerking up into your fist. You swallow the next filthy sound he makes, licking into his mouth while you twist your wrist on the upstroke.

"Wait, baby, wait—" He catches your hand. "Wanna be inside you."

You heave out a sigh of relief. Finally.

You release him and shift forward on his lap, lifting your hips while he shoves your panties to the side blind, your skirt covering both of you from the waist down. He grips himself at the base, dragging his tip through the dripping seam of you a few times to get himself nice and slick. Then your foreheads are pressing together, both panting as he eases toward your opening.

"Look at me," he whispers, his free hand reaching up to hold your face.

You look. His brown eyes are blown almost black, lashes dark and damp. Your hands find his face—a face you're wondering how you could've ever been mad at over a Coke can—and sweep your thumbs gently across his cheeks.

He pushes into you soft and slow.

Your mouth falls open, but nothing comes out. Only a thin, shaking breath that he swallows with a kiss as he fills you. His hand drops down to cradle the curve of your ass, guiding you as you sink down onto him.

The stretch pulls a broken sound from somewhere low in your chest. Steve catches that against his lips too, kissing you deep and filthy while your bodies slowly connect, the front of your skirt bunching up between you.

"There you go," he groans when you finally take all of him. He wraps his arms around your waist and sighs into your neck, low and rough. "Fuck, you feel good."

You whine into his hair, unable to speak as you adjust to him. No matter how many times you've done this, he always splits you open at first, as careful as he is. His hands rub over your back in wide soothing circles as he presses kisses to your shoulder, your jaw, your neck. All the little spots he knows makes you soft.

You sigh appreciatively, braving a slow, tentative roll of your hips when you're relaxed enough. The sensation drags a low groan out of you both. His fingers dig into the soft dough at your waist, guiding your rhythm until you find it on your own.

Your pace doesn't stay slow for long. The chair creaks beneath you as you ride him harder, his breath puffing soft and fast against your throat.

"Fuck, that's it," he growls. "Don't stop."

You don't stop. Not when you already feel the tension starting in your abs again. Your weight shifts as you try to deepen the angle to take more of him, and you gasp when you lean too far back.

His arm locks around you in an instant, hauling you flush against his chest without breaking the rhythm you've set.

"Here, baby," he pants, nose brushing yours. "Hold onto me. I got you."

Your arm loops around his shoulders and stays there, fingers twisting in his hair while he fucks up into you. Wet, slapping sounds fill the booth, but you can barely hear them while you're gasping his name. Your walls start to tighten around him, squeezing and clenching with each pump of his hips.

"Steve," you beg.

"I know, I know," he grits through his teeth. His hand snakes between you again. "Come on, honey. Give it to me."

He circles twice, and that's all it takes. Your spine locks, the orgasm tearing through you silently at first, mouth open with no sound, before you choke out a broken cry against his throat.

"Oh fuck—" His voice cracks as you clamp around his cock in helpless pulses. Steve locks his arms around you and pulls you down, burying himself deep before you feel the first hot spill of him inside you.

You gasp, still coming by the time he starts. Your chest heaves against his while he fills you up, stars swirling in your eyes with every twitch of his cock inside you. Steve crushes his face into your neck, muffling a low groan as he rides out the last waves, hips circling lazily while he empties himself into your soft, pretty pussy.

He holds you there as you both come down, your body limp and sated in his grasp. Slowly, your breathing evens out against his neck, his hand combing gently through the hair spilling down your back while he softens inside you.

You lift your head finally, just enough to look at him. His hair is even more of a wreck than it was before, half of it sticking out in every direction and the other half plastered to his forehead. You brush it back with a fond little laugh at how ruined he looks.

"You okay?" you murmur with a tilt of your head.

Steve blinks up at you, dazed. His lashes flutter like he's forgotten where he is for a second, and then a dopey grin spreads across his face.

"Mhm," he hums. "You?"

You nod, tucking a damp strand behind his ear. His eyes close at the touch, and you let your smile stretch a little wider.

"So," you say. "Are we done fighting?"

He cracks an eye open. "We were fighting?"

You flick his shoulder. He yelps and grabs your hand, pressing a kiss to your palm before you can do it again.

"Yes. Done fighting. I'll clean the whole apartment. Scrub the floors. Bleach the—"

"Just throw away your cans, Steve."

"I will throw away every can. Every single can. I'll throw away cans that aren't even mine."

Your eyes roll. "Steve."

"Neighbors' cans, too."

You snort, dropping your forehead against his. He catches your chin between his fingers and pulls you in for a lazy, salty kiss that sends a fresh lick of heat down your neck.

"Careful," you warn against his lips. "Or I might just—"

Down the hall, you both hear a door open.

"Is that—" he starts, eyes wide.

"Shit," you hiss, shifting in his lap and stopping when you feel the mess between your thighs. "How is she back already? We need… napkins. Or something."

Steve glances around the booth. His eyes land on Robin's stack of handwritten song request cards. He lifts one eyebrow.

You poke his chest. "No."

"She'd never know."

"Steve."

The doorknob rattles. You both freeze and look over slowly.

"Uh… guys?" Robin's looking at the floor, hand over her eyes as her voice carries through the glass. "The uh… the mic's been live this whole time."

[imfromthediningtable]

so apparently morningless deleted her account there is def some drama going on between that circle of authors that she seemed close with but no one is really saying anything about what happened

omg no… i hope she comes back i love her fics

>:( also if ever u guys have any updates plssss keep me in the know im not very present in the social sphere of djoverse tumblr

[imfromthediningtable]

guys where is @morninglesss i’m not playing i need modern leper

[djosnoopy]

on your mind | steve harrington part one: the unspoken rule of apartment 4b

pairing: steve harrington x reader word count: 5.9k warnings: 18+ mdni (male and female masturbation, vibrator use) includes: roommate!steve, freak4freak, a little mutual jealousy, a little bit of pervy!steve, but also pervy!reader tbh, tiny mention of bisexual!reader, steve gets hard over chicken parmesan summary: steve can't help but notice how quiet you are when you bring guys home and he finds himself fixated on your pleasure more than he should be. but when he comes home during lunch one day he's in for a surprise when he finds out just how loud you really can be. a/n: i actually don't know what to say about this other than enjoy and prepare yourself for part two. as always thank you to lid @tinfoileddd who lets me pick her brain and expand on the random ideas i send her. this wouldn't have came to life without her <3

masterlist

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Steve Harrington prided himself on being a considerate guy. 

Which meant his roommate telling him that they’re going on a date tomorrow night was all he needed to know. He was considerate enough to read between the lines and vacate the apartment for the evening with no questions asked. 

It was an unspoken agreement between the two of them and he was grateful his roommate extended the same courtesy when he mentioned going out with someone– especially when his said roommate is a woman. 

Steve had never imagined himself having to live with a roommate, especially a woman that wasn’t his significant other, but coaching and teaching sex-ed to a bunch of middle schoolers didn’t pay shit, and he couldn’t stand living with his parents anymore. So when one of the few people besides him out of the rag-tag group of people he called friends that had stayed in Hawkins mentions something about getting a place together he figures– why not? 

He’d known you for years, had experienced too many near death experiences with you, and he also knew you were looking for any excuse to get out of the damn near slum of an apartment you were living in then. So, on a bright sunny Saturday morning in April the two of you sign the lease for what has now been your home for a little over a year. 

Living with each other was a lot easier than either of you thought it was going to be. Shared chore lists, weekly movie nights, eating dinner together, learning each other’s little quirks– it was all very domestic.

So domestic that sometimes your lines of reality and fantasy blurred and sometimes you’d have to remind yourself that Steve was not your boyfriend and just your best friend. Which usually happened a couple times a month when he’d casually mention that he had a date and so you’d be the good roommate you are and let him have his alone time and then the following week you’d just so happen to have a date also. 

Which is how you’ve ended up with Eric breathing heavily into your ear as he pounds into you with such a hurry that you think maybe he wants this to be over with faster than you do. Your bedframe repeatedly hits the wall as you count the ceiling tiles above you and it’s not until you hear him groan something along the lines of i’m cumming that you let out a fake gasp and then he’s rolling off of you without as much as a second glance. 

He says he’ll call you tomorrow. 

You know he more than likely won’t and that’s more than fine with you. 

Steve strolls through the door near midnight, figuring thats plenty enough time for you two to do whatever, and for the guy to leave without there being any awkward introductions. Thankfully he’s right and he’s greeted with you sitting on the couch, freshly showered and in your pajamas, with what he can only assume is your leftovers from dinner in your lap. 

He plops down onto the couch beside you with a sigh and you immediately shove the styrofoam container of lasagna towards him. “Want some? It’s from Enzo’s.” 

“Enzo’s?” Steve questions, eyebrows raised in surprise. “He must have really wanted to impress you,” he states, grabbing the fork and shoving a piece in his mouth without a second thought. “Did it work?” 

“No,” you reply, taking the fork back from him and splitting what’s left down the middle for the two of you to share. “Should have ended the date after dinner was over.” 

Steve doesn’t say anything, but he knows what you’re alluding to, and he just nods understandingly at you as he takes his turn with the fork. The two of you didn’t necessarily talk about your sex lives, it was implied when either of you had mentioned going on a date and that you needed the apartment to yourself, but neither of you sat here and talked in detail about the latest orgasm you’d had, but if Steve had any inkling, he was pretty sure the guys you brought home weren’t giving you any. 

The thing about your unspoken agreement with Steve about dates and bringing people home was that it wasn’t fool proof. Sometimes the two of you would go out without any expectations of bringing someone home. Then one thing leads to another and suddenly there’s someone trailing in behind either of you and the sound of a bedroom door slamming. It didn’t happen often enough to where it would be an issue, but it happened enough that Steve, while he wasn’t trying to be a creep, was being observant and had seemed to notice the lack of noise from you. 

He’d quickly put on music when he’d hear the sound of your drunken giggles echoing down the hall and then a much deeper voice accompanying yours, but the times when you come home long after he’d gone to bed and you end up waking him up with your loud footsteps and hushes to the mystery man– those times he shamelessly listens.

It seems to be the same variation of sounds and actions every time– the guy trying to be all suave with you, your headboard hitting the wall in rapid succession for a short amount of time, some curses from the guy, and then the sound of the front door slamming shut. Not a single peep out of you the whole time and at first Steve thinks you’re just being considerate, that you’d made the decision to bring someone home while he was here so you’re just being extra quiet, but he also knows that sometimes no matter how hard you try, staying quiet during sex is sometimes impossible.

He figures you’re bound to slip up after a while and he’ll hear a moan or a little dirty talk bleed through the walls, but it never does, except for that one guy you brought home that would not stop with the dirty talk and kept asking you who’s pussy this was. Needless to say Steve ended up putting on music that night. 

And not to toot his own horn, but he knew what it sounded like when a woman was experiencing pleasure, and from what he could tell those guys weren’t getting you off. While he can’t account for the times he isn’t in the apartment, he can tell from your demeanor when he comes home that those times aren’t particularly stellar either. 

Your less than blissed out state as you sit next to him on the couch, sharing your leftover lasagna with him, it proves his point. 

But Steve doesn’t say anything about your lack of post sex glow and how these guys should make it their priority to make you feel good. He doesn’t want to overstep, doesn’t want to cross any lines and potentially make things weird between the two of you, even if he’s a little more concerned with how other guys are treating you in bed than he should be. 

Instead he takes the last bite of his portion of the lasagna and extends an olive branch, an out if you ever needed it, because again he cares about you more than he should. 

“You know if you’re on a date and he’s weird or making you uncomfortable or even if you just want to come home– you can call me. No questions asked, I'll come get you. I’m almost always at Eddie’s or at Slinky’s having a beer.” 

You give him a soft smile, trying to ignore the way his words make your heart do a traitorous thing, like the idea of him being willing to drive across town to come and take you home doesn’t make whatever you feel towards him that much more complicated. 

“Thanks Steve,” you reply, eyes focused on the little bit of lasagna left instead of him. 

“Of course,” he responds, slowly standing up from the couch. “Think I’m gonna go to bed,” his eyes traipse over you, waiting for you to look up at him, and when you finally do he smiles in that endearing way that makes your chest ache. “Goodnight.” 

“Night.” 

You hear his bedroom door close and you’re left sitting on the couch with the now empty takeout container in your lap wondering how much longer you can go on with this act. How much longer can you continue to bring home these guys that don’t know your clit from your nipple and act like the man you actually want isn’t thirty feet away. 

You always get in your head like this afterwards, especially when Steve comes home and you’re absolutely buzzing on the inside with want, but the one thing you want– you can’t have. 

The couch creaks under you as you get up and make the decision to leave the takeout container on the coffee table, claiming you’ll take care of it in the morning. As you pad down the hall and past Steve’s room you hear his muffled voice behind his door and you’re not meaning to eavesdrop, but the sickeningly sweet tone that bleeds out under the door has you frozen in place. 

“Yeah, yeah– I know it’s late and I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t get you out of my mind.” 

“Your number was burning a hole in my pocket from the moment you gave it to me tonight. I couldn't wait to hear your voice again.” 

“I had a really good time tonight and I’d like to see you again if you’re up for it?” 

“Yeah? Great. How about dinner next Friday?” 

“Can’t wait. I’ll call you later with the details.” 

That all too familiar sinking sensation settles deep in your gut and before Steve can figure out you were listening you dart across the hall and into your room. The door slams shut behind you with no regard for the pictures on your wall and before you know it you’re burying your face into your pillow. He’d met someone while he was out tonight and you know you have absolutely no room to talk, no leg to stand on when it came to however you were feeling, you’d been on a date tonight, brought a guy home and had sex, if you could call it that. 

Steve was allowed to do whatever he wanted to, and you knew that, it’s just that you don’t think you can handle another failed date on your end to fill that ache in your heart. 

The next morning you take the initiative to call Eric before he doesn’t and the second date is set for Saturday. 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

A couple weeks later you manage to score a day off during the week, which meant you had the apartment to yourself.

Steve had thought it was weird how eager you were to send him off to work this morning, in fact majority of the time when you manage to get a day off during the week you’re begging him to play hooky and spend the day with you, but this morning you were nearly pushing him out the door.

He tried not to think too much of it, maybe you just wanted some alone time, or maybe you were inviting Eric over. He had spent the night the last time you went out, which Steve thought was strange, considering you never let guys sleep over, but the mid breakfast meeting between the two men had been interesting to say the least. 

As you walked into the kitchen that morning you found Steve sitting at the little table eating his food with your plate across from him– eggs made just how you like, orange juice in your favorite cup, and toast still hot to the touch. It wasn’t an unusual sight by any means, but what was unusual was you having company in the morning. So he doesn’t even think to make sure you’re alone when he hears you enter the kitchen, eyes not even looking up from his plate, before he blurts out – was he any better this time?

Eric awkwardly clears his throat from behind you and Steve looks up wide-eyed and slightly embarrassed. Before Steve can even begin to spit out an apology Eric mumbles I should get going and it’s an awkward thirty seconds as he gathers his jacket from your room and walks out the front door, because you don’t even try to get him to stay and Steve continues eating his eggs, now content with the departure of the man from your shared apartment. 

Steve figured after that debacle there was no way Eric would be back around, but if he knew Steve wasn’t going to be there today, well there was a chance, and it bothers Steve more than he’d like to admit. Either way though, Steve was going to find out what was going on back at home, because by the time second period rolled around he realized he’d forgotten his change of clothes for baseball practice tonight. There was no way he was going to be out there on that field in slacks and tie, especially when in true Indiana fashion, summer had arrived early and it was sweltering already in May. He’d just run home on his lunch break and grab some clothes and be right back– no big deal. 

He’d even called you before he left to give you a heads up that he was coming home soon, but there was no answer, and so he thinks that maybe his little spiral over Eric potentially being there was for nothing and you probably were out shopping. 

When his pickup truck pulls into his unofficially assigned parking spot at home and your black sedan is in its usual spot next to his– his mind conjures up a million different reasons as to why you hadn’t answered the phone earlier. None of them are good and frankly majority of them involve Eric and he chooses to ignore the alarms going off in his head about how he shouldn’t care this much about you fucking another guy. 

His eyes do a quick sweep of the parking lot, he doesn’t know what Eric drives, so he really doesn’t even know what he’s looking for, but Steve feels like he has crazy intuition and he’s expecting the vehicle to glow like a fucking beacon the second his eyes land on it. 

The search is of course futile. 

His wristwatch lets him know he only has twenty minutes left until he needs to be back at the school and with the hope of not walking through the front door to find Eric balls deep in you– Steve reluctantly gets out of the truck and walks towards apartment 4B. 

For the first time ever in his life– Steve knocks on his own front door. Not because he’s forgotten his key, but because he’s afraid of what might be going down on the other side of this couple inches of wood.. He gives it a minute and when there’s no response or the sound of two people scrambling to get dressed, he shoves his key in the lock and slowly opens the door. 

The living room comes into view as the door fully swings open and to Steve’s surprise it’s exactly as he remembers it when he left this morning– your favorite blanket draped over the back of the couch, his glasses that he claims he doesn’t need on the coffee table, and some of the various VHS tapes that Steve had nabbed back from his Family Video days in a pile on the side table. 

The apartment is eerily quiet save for the hum of the refrigerator and Steve comes to the conclusion that one of your friends has come and picked you up, because when you’re home it’s obvious. There’s always music playing or the TV is loudly playing some show you aren’t even watching– your presence is always known and right now all that lingers is reminders of you. 

He doesn’t think much more of it as he wanders down the hall and towards his room, but the sound that bounces off your four walls and through your door has Steve stunned and his feet cemented to the floor. 

“Oh my god!” 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

From the moment you woke up this morning you’d been buzzing with anticipation, finally having the apartment to yourself in god knows how long, the new toy you’d picked up the other day burning a hole in your bedside drawer, and the fact that you haven’t had a good orgasm in ages– it had you wound tighter than a drum. 

It didn’t help that you’d slightly been edging yourself all morning, refusing to touch yourself, but constantly thinking about how good it was going to feel once you did. You could have jumped right into your bed and shoved your hand down your pants as soon as Steve left this morning, but this was more fun, and you knew the payoff for waiting would be worth it. 

It’s not until you find yourself squeezing your thighs together as you fold laundry that you finally cave. 

You grab your new vibrator from the drawer and get comfy on your bed as your heart nearly beats out of your chest from how worked up you are without even touching yourself yet. You’re still in your pajamas, a big t-shirt and shorts, but you keep them on to tease yourself just a little longer. The feeling of your fingertips tracing antagonizingly slow circles around your nipples through your thin t-shirt has a steady warmth spreading through your body and the ache between your plush thighs that much stronger. 

While your left hand still gives your nipples the attention they so desperately crave, your right travels down past your navel and in between your thighs. Your sleep shorts are thin and perhaps you hadn’t put any underwear on last night when you went to bed and maybe the ragged seam had been rubbing up against your clit all morning and maybe you did it on purpose so that when you finally caved just the slightest touch to yourself would have you gasping. 

Which is exactly what happens when your index and middle finger press down against your clothed core and the seam of your shorts rubs against that sensitive bundle of nerves. It feels so good and god you want nothing more than to just go crazy and bring yourself over the edge, but you’ve been so patient, and you’ve got all day to play with yourself. 

So why ruin the fun so prematurely? 

You start slow, the pads of your fingers rubbing small circles over the fabric while your other hand, that is now slipped under your shirt, pinches and gently tugs at your nipples, the both of them working in tandem. The warmth that radiates through you is intoxicating and it doesn’t shock you to feel the cotton of your shorts dampening in record time. You’d been working yourself up all morning and when your hand finally trails under the waistband of your shorts it’s a little obscene just how wet you are. 

Your shorts quickly get discarded, haphazardly thrown onto your floor, and then your shirt gets bunched up just enough to expose your tits to the cool air. The anticipation is burning through you like a wildfire and the only way to smother it is to make yourself come. 

Which is something you planned on doing– multiple times. 

Soft moans slip past your lips as your fingers rub tight little circles on your clit and as your eyes flutter closed your mind wanders to the one thing that you know will only amplify your pleasure.

Steve. 

You’d imagined one too many times, what it would be like to be the girl moaning underneath him, how it would feel to have his big warm hands caressing your body, to have him showering you in compliments and praises. 

Your fingers trail through your folds and down to your sopping wet cunt, circling the sensitive skin around your entrance with such a slow tortuous pace that it tears a whimper from you, hips bucking forward for something more. You know your fingers aren’t going to give you what you need, but you sink your index and middle finger in anyways, searching for that pleasure that you’ve never been able to give yourself. 

If only you had Steve’s long and thick fingers inside you right now, he’d surely have you grabbing at the sheets as he curled them just right, reaching that spot inside you that had you seeing stars. It wasn’t like you had much experience when it came to getting pleasure from your g-spot, considering the only person to ever find it was the girl you hooked up with last October, but you had confidence that Steve would have no issue. 

Just the idea of Steve pumping his fingers inside your tight cunt, stretching you out as he adds a third, it has you mewling. The squelching sounds of your own fingers pistoning into you fills the room and you could only imagine the dirty comment Steve would make about it. You knew he had a way with his words in the bedroom, you’d shamelessly listen through the walls on those nights when he’d bring home a girl on a whim, and you’d stored away those words for times like these. 

God, you’re so wet for me, aren’t you pretty girl?

You’re soaking my cock baby. 

Gonna make a mess all over my sheets aren’t you? 

But even with Steve’s dirty talk echoing around in your head, your fingers of course aren’t enough to bring you over the edge, and you’re hurriedly reaching for your vibrator, slick fingers fumbling with the button before it comes to life in your palm. 

The second you press it to your swollen clit it seems as if electricity shoots through you, pleasure coursing through every vein in your body, and you’ve never been more thankful to be home alone as you lose all composure. 

“Oh my god!” 

Your eyes are screwed shut, head thrown back against your pillow, and the prettiest sounds continue to slip past your lips as you increase the intensity level on the toy. 

It doesn’t take long at all for that all too familiar feeling to creep up on you, for the warmth that’s started low in your belly to spread throughout your body. When you take your vibrator off your clit and slowly trail it up your body all the way to your nipples and circle each of them with it you swear you lose all ability to breath for a second. 

Your chest heaves as you trail it back down your body and back to the sensitive pearl between your spread legs, increasing the intensity once again, which makes your chest heave even more. You’re teetering on the edge, the coil in your tummy on the verge of snapping, and all you can think about is Steve. 

How it sounded when he’d brought home Amanda a couple weeks ago– which is what had caused Eric to happen– how she’d moaned out his name laced with such pleasure that it made you squeeze your thighs together while you laid in bed. How she’d told him don’t stop and how she unapologetically let everyone know how good she was feeling. There was clearly no need for her to fake it. 

God you wanted to know what it was like to be pleased like that, to be taken care of in such a way by someone else that it had you practically incoherent. 

The bad thing was, you wanted that someone to be Steve, who was unfortunately your roommate and best friend. So, having unholy thoughts about him while you masturbated was just going to have to suffice. 

You click the intensity button once again and that is what finally brings you over the edge and turns you into a babbling mess, legs trembling, free hand clutching so tightly onto the sheets that your fingers cramp. 

“Oh my fucking god. Don’t stop, don’t stop,” you holler, pressing the toy harder against your clit as you ride out your orgasm, wishing it was Steve giving you it instead of this vibrator. “Please don’t stop, please, please.” 

Something mixed with greed and insanity takes over you and you press the intensity button again causing your leg to twitch and your hips to buck upwards, all while the vibrator is still glued to your clit. Your second orgasm crashes in fast, riding on the coattails of your first one, and it hits hard. 

“Oh fuck. Oh my god. Please Ste-”

You bite down on your fist, eyes rolling to the back of your head, all while muffled sobs fill your room. The vibrator gets tossed somewhere, on your bed or floor you aren’t sure, but your legs collapse out from under you and you lay flat on your bed, ears ringing with aftershocks coursing through you. 

On the other side of the door Steve is beside himself, his cheeks are flushed, and the semi he’s sporting is damn near a full erection at this point. He knew he should have swiftly turned around and left the second he realized what was happening, but he couldn’t, not when he’s imagined what you sounded like for some time now. What it sounded like when you were experiencing pleasure, what it sounded like when you came, and what it sounded like when you said his name. 

Alright so maybe he was getting ahead of himself, but Steve swears it sounded like you were about ready to moan his name, and you very well may have been getting ready to stay stop again, but he shamelessly hopes it was his name, because then he wouldn’t feel as dirty knowing you think about him when you touch yourself just like he does with you. 

God, you sounded so pretty though, and Steve can’t believe that those sounds came out of you. The girl who he wouldn’t even know was having sex unless he heard your headboard and the sound of the guy or you in a nonchalant way mentioning that the sex with whoever was shit. 

His heart is nearly beating out of his chest and his dick is achingly hard as he hears you coming down from what he could tell was two back to back orgasms. The way he can still hear little whimpers coming from you as you probably lay there spent, your inner thighs slick with your arousal, nipples still so sensitive and sore from you tugging on them. 

There were a million dirty thoughts swirling around in his head and he should feel ashamed, should feel like a creep for what he’s thinking, what he listened in on, but he doesn’t. He hasn’t for a long time when it came to you and he isn’t sure how he’s supposed to feel about that either. 

Steve’s startled out of his horny moral dilemma by the sound of your bed creaking and before he can get caught he’s swiftly darting into his room, grabbing what might be a dirty cut off t-shirt and shorts, and tip-toeing back down the hall and out the door. 

As soon as the driver’s side door of Steve’s truck slams shut (which is the only way to guarantee it’s actually shut after Dustin fucked around with it by swinging on it like he was five and now it’s never been the same since) he let’s out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in as his hands grip the steering wheel with such vigor that his knuckles are stark white. 

He quickly adjusts himself in his slacks, tucking his erection into the waistband of his boxers, and tries to think of anything other than the sound of your pretty little whimpers. His head smacks against the headrest as his cheeks puff up, blowing out yet another deep breath combined with an explicit of some sort. 

Steve takes one last look at the apartment, shoves the key in the ignition, and backs out of his parking space like his whole world hasn’t just flipped upside down. 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

It’s nearing seven-thirty by the time Steve trudges in through the front door in his cut off tee and shorts, sweaty and hot, and still thinking about what took place in this said apartment hours earlier. The remainder of the school day had been a slow type of torture he’d not wish upon his worst enemy and then he had to go coach baseball in the sweltering sun like his whole body wasn’t already on fire. 

You had occupied every square inch on his brain since he left the apartment earlier and at times it wasn’t even anything inherently sexual– it was just you. How he loved coming home everyday to you, how you knew what was wrong with him before he did sometimes, how you deserved to be with someone that could take care of you in a multitude of ways. 

And the sight that greets him as he enters your shared home does nothing to eradicate the overwhelming infiltration of you in his mind. You’re standing at the stove, comfy clothes already on, humming along to whatever Fleetwood Mac song is playing on the radio, and the unmistakable smell of his favorite meal wafts towards him. 

You turn around and the sight of Steve standing there startles you, causing you to jump slightly, then let out the prettiest laugh he thinks he’s ever heard, and it makes Steve’s heart do a traitorous thing.

He figured he’d make it all awkward seeing you for the first time after hearing and listening to what you were doing earlier, but it wasn’t the least bit awkward. It was like any other evening, except you were glowing more than usual, smiling at him like he’d personally given you those orgasms earlier and god as unhinged as it sounded he could only imagine what you looked like directly after sex. 

Which now has his dick doing a traitorous thing instead of his heart. 

“Hard practice?” you ask, eyeing how his biceps glisten with sweat and how he’s got his baseball cap on backwards to keep his hair out of his face. 

“Yeah, hot as hell out there today,” Steve replies, trying not to notice how you don’t have a bra on, how the window AC unit that you insist on running on full blast has your nipples poking through the thin cotton. 

“Well,” you start, before turning back to the stove to stir the boiling spaghetti noodles. “You’re in luck because dinner is almost ready and I’ve made your favorite. Should be done in a few, the chicken is broiling in the oven. I’m trying to get the cheese a little crispy just how you like.” 

“I’m gonna go take a shower real quick then.” 

You nod, not bothering to turn back to face him as you stir the sauce. “Alright, I’ll holler when it’s done.” 

Steve hurries down the hall towards the bathroom and quickly strips out of his sweaty practice clothes, making sure to put them in the hamper because he’s not a slob, and then gets in the shower before he loses his mind.

The cold water does nothing to smother the fire that’s ignited low in his gut and he can’t believe you making him god damn chicken parmesan has got his dick hard again. 

He really is a simple guy and the domesticality of it all does more for him than he’d like to admit. 

Steve knows he’s got to do something about his not so little problem and so he lets his mind focus solely on you as he wraps his hand around his aching cock. His fingers gently squeeze around his shaft and on the first upstroke his hips embarrassingly buck into his fist with no control as his head tips back against the shower wall. 

He fucks his fist with no abandon and when his thumb glides over his throbbing tip a broken moan slips out of him, bouncing off the tile and hopefully not out to the kitchen. His head is swarming with you and all he can think about is how pretty you sounded earlier, how he’d never expected you to be so loud, and it only makes him want to see how much louder you can get. 

He thinks about how he’d love nothing more than to thank you for making him his favorite dinner later by going down on you. To thank you for taking such good care of him, because you do without even realizing it, and as much as Steve is a provider, the kind of person that takes care of others because it’s who he is. Sometimes he needs to be taken care of too, and you do it so well that Steve doesn’t even realize he’s being taken care of, and to him that deserves a mind blowing orgasm or two. 

His chest heaves and he has to brace himself against the wall with his other hand as he continues to stroke himself, imagining it was your soft hands wrapped around him right now, and not his callused ones. 

You consume him entirely and he finds himself having to bite down on the bicep of his extended arm to muffle the moans and whimpers that want to come alive and live within the four walls of this tiny bathroom. 

He’s close, he can feel that sweet release sneaking up on him fast, and with one last stroke Steve comes so hard that he nearly draws blood from how hard he’s biting down on his arm, your name and profanities muffled against the tanned muscle. He paints the shower wall with his cum, stroking himself to damn near overstimulation, until he finally slumps against the wall behind him.

Exhaustion creeps in fast and he’s still trying to catch his breath when he hears a knock on the door. 

“Steve! Hurry up! Dinner is getting cold.” 

He swallows hard, heart nearly leaping out of his chest at the idea of you listening in on him like he had you, but he can’t let his mind go any further than that, can’t let you wait any longer. So, he rinses his cum off the tile wall and quickly finishes his shower. 

When he joins you a few minutes later at the tiny table in the kitchen, his hair still dripping wet onto the old Hawkins High Phys Ed shirt he threw on, and you immediately tease him about having to reheat his own food, but then grab the plate anyways and toss it into the microwave for thirty seconds. 

Steve knows he is utterly fucked. 

[steddiesprettiestgirl]

⋆˙⟡ my bad habits lead to you

ᯓ★ roommate!steve harrington x f!reader

⋆.𐙚 ̊ cw — mdni, smut, p in v, unprotected sex, cum eating, oral (f and m receiving), kinda subby!steve at the start, pet names, steve is also lowk a munch, praise kink, steve is hopelessly in love with reader, he’s also kinda cocky, slight body dysmorphia??, some body shaming, belly bulge

⋆.𐙚 ̊ summary — after a very terrible date and a big blow to your ego, steve helps you find clarity on whether you’re the issue in a very unconventional way.

⋆.𐙚 ̊ authors note — hi guys! i lowk feel like this kinda ate but please lmk if it sucked… it was a tiny but rushed at the end because i really wanted to get it out but its whatever. also currently writing sparks again yayyyy!!! please send in any smutty or fluffy requests you have :p

⋆.𐙚 ̊ wc — 6.16k

⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊୨ᰔ୧₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹ please do not copy, rewrite, or repost my works on any other platforms or pages.

bitter was the best and only way to describe how steve harrington was feeling as he sank into the couch in your shared living room. he was watching some rerun of a film he’d seen a thousand times over with an uncomfortable pit in his stomach as he thought about the date you were currently on.

you’d been talking on the phone to robin about it all day. and unfortunately for him, your bedroom walls were thin. he could hear everything. how he was a little older, richer, and extremely built. it made him want to rip his ears off for the rest of the conversation.

being roommates with you was easy. you made it so easy to be comfortable and happy in this little apartment. you were sweet, considerate, and fun to be around. and one of his favorite bonuses was that you loved cooking and baking. that meant he always had some sort of home-cooked meal waiting for him when he got home from work with a tasty desert to follow.

you always did the dishes at the end of the week (not that there were many because you always did them after you cooked), kept the house clean, kept your music down, and helped him whenever he needed advice or needed to rant. you were always there for him no matter what.

but being roommates with you was so hard. not because you were hard to live with, obviously, because he was falling so hard for you. hearing you tell him about your dates, watching you get all pretty for another man, seeing you come back all cheesy and excited. it made his heard squeeze in his chest every time. because surely, that should be him.

the longer he thought about it, the more he wanted to just curl up and die. he stuffed a miserable handful of popcorn into his mouth and lousily chewed it, throwing his head back and wishing you’d just come home and say it was the worst date ever known to mankind.

almost as if he’d manifested it, he heard a soft knock at the door before hearing the knob turn carefully. he quickly swallowed down the snack in his mouth and sat up to look towards the front door. it opened slowly, like you were afraid he’d be sleeping, before you appeared with tears streaked down your cheeks and a permanent frown on your lips.

his heart snapped in two right then and there. “woah. hey, you okay?” he asked, throwing an arm over the back of the couch so he could turn and face you to talk to you clearer. “what happened?”

you let your purse fall from your hand onto the ground before sulking your way over to sit beside him, letting out a loud huff as you plopped down. “it was mortifying, stevie. i’m so embarrassed,” you muttered shyly and brought your hands up to cover your face. “just kill me already.”

a soft chuckle left his lips as he shifted his body towards you a little bit. “i’m sure it’s not worth dying over,” his voice was sweet and comforting, trying to gently coax out any sort of details from you. “talk to me. tell me what happened.”

you let out another sigh and closed your eyes to try and protect yourself from the reaction. “i couldn’t make him hard,” you blurted out.

steve’s eyes just about bulged out from his head. “what?” he asked, brows furrowed in towards each other. never mind the jealous surge in his chest, all he was focused on now was caring for you. “what do you mean?”

your cheeks blushed a deep shade of red from the mortification. finally, you turned to look at him. “the date was fine, right? everything was good— great even! then he said he wanted to take me back to his place and then we started making out and— and he just couldn’t get hard!” you explained in a quick ramble. “god, this is so embarrassing. i’ve blown guys before and this has never happened.”

his face scrunched up before he could stop it. he could feel that uncomfortable heat in his chest. jealousy? bitterness? anger? he wasn’t really sure right now. “hey, it’s not embarrassing. there’s a lot of different reasons that could’ve happened,” he said reassuringly. “were you two drinking?”

your brows furrowed slightly at that. “i mean— i guess, yeah. just a little bit,” you replied, picking up what he was starting to hint at.

“maybe it was the alcohol? drinking can make it harder to, y’know, get it up sometimes,” he explained awkwardly. “or maybe he’s on steroids. heard somewhere that that can make you real limp down there.”

now it was your turn to scrunch your face up in disgust. “ew, steve. don’t say it like that,” you groaned and stood up. reliving this conversation would make you cry some more if you had any tears left. “i haven’t even told you the worst part yet.”

his eyes scanned over your figure before deciding to follow you to your bathroom like he often did when you’d get up mid-story and start to wander. “what’s the worst part?” he asked timidly, closing the lid to your toilet before taking a seat on top of it while you took your makeup off.

“promise you won’t make fun of me?” you asked softly, not daring to look at him. you just continued carefully washing your face over the sink.

he was looking at you with so much love and adoration that it would’ve solved all of your worries the moment you even glanced at him. “i promise,” he said firmly. “whatever it is, i’m sure i’ve told you some stories that are way worse. i’m probably the last person allowed to judge.”

you wiped your face down with your towel before turning to face him. you could’ve screamed out of embarrassment just from recalling it. “he told me my boobs were weird.”

steve choked. like genuinely choked. “what?!” he blurted out, a mix of confusion and shock. “just like that? he just— he told you your boobs were weird?”

a small squeal left your lips at the reiteration of the worst sentence ever. seriously, you felt like dying. regret bubbled into your throat. “god, this is so humiliating. like, seriously.” you set the towel down on the drying rack and looked at yourself in the mirror. “i can never show my face out in public again. like— ugh! i mean, what the fuck. have you ever told a girl her boobs were weird?”

steve had a soft furrow between his brows, looking genuinely concentrated and concerned all at once. you couldn’t help but think he looked so cute. “uhh, no? i don’t think i’ve ever even seen boobs that looked weird,” he reasoned honestly. “boobs are boobs, y’know? like— i don’t know. i think they’re hot no matter what. i wasn’t aware there was a rule book for how boobs should look.”

your hands were resting on your hips as you analyzed him, looking for any sign that he was lying. he wasn’t. not one bit. suddenly, a new thought flickered through your head.

steve was hot, of course he was. you’d always thought so since you’d first signed that lease. he had that pretty smile that made you go stupid, a certain twinkle in his chocolate eyes, and a softness that made you blush every time. “i have an idea. but you have to be open minded.”

you literally watched steve gulp. hard. “and that is?”

“can i try something with you?” you blurted out before you had time to overthink it. “on you, i guess? you can say no! i won’t get offended or— or get all weird on you. i promise. i just… i wanna see if maybe i’ve been doing something wrong or…” you trailed off nervously, an aggressive blush coating your cheeks.

a sweet smile spread over his lips. you couldn’t tell whether it was a cocky one or a comforting one. you really hoped it was the second option. “yeah, if you’re okay with that.”

that was it? all you had to do was ask? “yeah, totally. it would give me some peace of mind,” you replied gratefully, trying not to give away how excited you truly were. “thank you so much, stevie. seriously. you’re doing me the biggest favor.”

steve wished you knew how big of a favor you were doing him actually. he’d spent countless nights hoping for this. he silently thanked every star he’d ever wished upon. “the pleasure’s all mine,” he said smoothly, standing up from his spot on the toilet seat. his eyes stayed locked on yours the entire time.

you’d be lying if you said that alone didn’t turn you on. his eyes were just so captivating. you made your way through the doorway and towards your bed, sitting and waiting expectantly for him to join you.

he was quick to follow and sit up against the headboard like he owned the space. it felt surprisingly natural. you shuffled a little closer before pausing. “is it okay if i kiss you? i just— i feel like maybe—“

his hand found your cheek to pause your nervous rambling with that same subtle but sweet smile on his lips. “c’mere,” he whispered, like speaking too loudly would ruin the moment.

you let him gently guide you closer to him before his pillowy lips met yours in a soft kiss, slowly testing the waters. surely he could hear how your heart was practically beating out of your chest now.

the hand on your cheek moved to hold the back of your neck while the other moved to hook around the back of your thigh to pull you into his lap. the new seat in his lap helped save your back from the uncomfortable position and awkward posture.

your lips moved in tandem like it was second nature, his tongue sliding across yours with a quiet groan spilling from him. the sound alone made heat rush through your body. your hands made their way into his hair to gently tug at the roots, pulling the sweetest moan from him.

this was certainly boosting your ego more than you’d like to admit. never would you have guessed he’d be so vocal.

the burn in your thighs grew more as the intensity increased, prompting you to allow yourself to fully sit in his lap. that’s when you felt it. one of the main reasons for this.

steve was hard. painfully so.

you could’ve swore he whimpered from the pressure of you on top of him. one of his hands, the one resting on your thigh, moved to your waist to pull you further into him until you were chest to chest. his scent was overpowering and intoxicating all at once. surely this night would actually kill you.

once you were sure the awkwardness had fully dissipated, you moved your lips down his jaw slowly and towards his neck, licking and sucking softly at the skin there. the way his hands squeezed at your hips, so responsive and needy, was enough to make you want to drop everyone else and stay here with him forever.

your hands made quick work of his shirt and mindlessly threw it somewhere on your floor as you kissed down his chest and to his waistband. it was hard to stay focused when he looked this pretty beneath you. pupils blown wide, lips swollen and slick, cheeks tinged pink, hair tousled and messy, chest heaving faster than he’d like. he looked absolutely wrecked and you hadn’t even gotten to the good part.

within a few seconds, his belt was off and you were laying between his legs helping him get his pants off until he was just in his boxers. even with the thin fabric on, you could see just how big he was.

you pressed a few soft kisses over the bulge before looping your hands into his waistband and tugging them down. a small gasp left at the sight of him. “oh my god.”

“what?” he asked, shifting slightly like he was scared he’d done something wrong. worry was visibly flooding his body. “is everything okay?”

you placed a hand on his thigh just above his knee to calm him down. “you’re jus’ huge, stevie,” you replied, borderline in awe. he was big and thick with the prettiest pink tip.

he let out a nervous laugh and exhaled the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in. his body began to slowly relax against the sheets again as he stared down at you, his pretty brown eyes now glazed over completely.

you gently took his heavy length into your hand and began to press soft kisses up the underside of it. your palms and lips were so incredibly soft, it made a shiver run trough his body. he was solely focusing all of his energy on not blowing his load right now.

because at the end of the day, this wasn’t about him. it was about helping you figure out whatever it was that you needed clarity on. if you were to ask him, he’d say you already got your answer. but if you wanted to keep going, he’d say surely wouldn’t stop you.

not when it felt this good.

and definitely not when you looked this pretty between his legs. your eye were a little glassy as your lips stretched around his tip and sucked softly on it. one of his hands moved to your head, lightly tugging at the roots without pushing your head. he was letting you go at your own pace.

your thighs squeezed in a useless attempt to alleviate the growing ache between your legs as you took steve further into your mouth. you could see his stomach tense as he left out a quiet whimper. “oh—holy shit. feels s’good,” he slurred, completely drunk off of you already.

one of your hands pumped his length as you kissed down the shaft and gently took one of his balls into the warmth of your mouth, moaning as you sucked on the skin. the taste of him was something you were sure you wouldn’t get enough of.

“baby— mphm! slow down,” he moaned, throwing his head back against the headboard as his legs tensed. “your mouth— oh! feels like fuckin’ heaven. making me feel so good, honey.”

you pulled away for a second to show him a toothy grin, twisting your fist at the base of him. “yeah?” you teased, pressing sweet kisses to his tip before letting spit pool into your mouth and drip down his length to help provide some more slick.

steve nodded and scratched at your scalp, biting his lip so hard he could taste blood. “mhm,” he hummed in response. he smiled down at you and for a moment, you felt your heart stop. there were some strands of hair falling over his eyes, his cheeks pink, his lips red and swollen, and his chest heaving. you took him back into your mouth and bobbed your head up and down his length, massaging his balls at the same time. “so fuckin’ good.”

he was struggling to say the least. his stomach was tensing repeated, his fingers curling in your hair, moans spilling lewdly from his lips. and when you pushed yourself a little further and took almost all of him down your throat, he was squeezing everything in him to try and last just a little longer.

“oh my fuck. baby— you gotta stop,” he pleaded through his teeth with a whine, though his actions were working against him as his hips bucked up into the warmth of your mouth. “gonna come. oh! ‘m coming.”

and before you knew it, his hand was planted firmly on your head as he came down your throat, hips rocking lightly up into you. “ho—holy shit. fuck! i’m sorry. i’m so sorry,” he whimpered as more of his load poured down your throat while holding you in place.

you moaned at the taste, making his hips buck up even further at the vibration. you slowly pulled off of him when the ropes of cum came to a stop. you swallowed every last drop and kissed up his heaving chest and back to his lips.

his hands immediately found your hips and pulled you onto him to straddle him once again. “how was that?” you asked with a knowing grin, voice a little grainy from the strain on your throat moments earlier. your eyes held a new hunger that had him hardening between your thighs immediately.

he huffed out a laugh and tipped his head back. “fucking amazing,” he replied immediately with a dazed smile. “don’t think i’ve ever come that hard in my life. thought i was seeing stars for a minute there.”

you giggled as a bright blush creeped up your neck and onto your cheeks. “so you think i get an a plus then?”

he clicked his tongue and turned his head to look at you again, so much adoration and warmth behind his eyes. “an a plus doesn’t even do it justice,” he stated, pulling you a little closer to him. “that was fucking unreal.”

you let your head fall into the crook of his shoulder to try and hide your smile. he let you lean your weight against him, closing his eyes and taking in the familiar scent of your shampoo that he loved so much. the two of you stayed like that for a minute or so.

when you finally pulled back to look at him again, you swore you died right then and there. his eyes were half-lidded and he had this big toothy smile on his lips like a kid on christmas. you couldn’t help but lean closer and kiss him.

it was so sweet and tender and soft. not like the first one. neither of you were rushing or trying to prove a point. just present in the moment with each other. he moaned quietly when you licked into his mouth and allowed him to taste himself. he just couldn’t get enough of you.

his hands wandered down at tugged at your pretty shirt that hugged your figure in the best way. he could feel your hesitation, the comment from your date clearly affecting you more than you’d let on.

steve pressed sweet, loving kisses to your cheek, down to your jaw, down your neck, and to the skin of your shoulder as he helped unzip it blindly behind your back. your body tensed the slightest bit as he carefully pulled down the straps and tugged it off of you.

he was absolutely captivated by you and how gorgeous you were. he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen someone so beautiful in his life until now. you were crafted to absolute perfection. you could hear him swear under his breath as his gaze scanned over your bare chest. “these are what he called weird?” he asked, his hands sliding up your stomach to gently cup the soft mounds. “what a fuckin’ idiot.”

his lips pressed slow kisses into the skin of your sternum as he trailed his way down to one of your breasts, sucking on the skin lightly enough to pull a reaction from you without leaving marks. even though he so desperately wanted to. your hands moved to tangle in his hair, lightly tugging when he began working his tongue over your nipple. “oh! stevie— hmph, feels good.”

he paused momentarily to smile up at you, completely dazed and enamored by you. “yeah? tell me what you need, honey.”

“want you to keep going,” you almost begged, pushing at his head the slightest bit to get his lips back on you. and he was sucking at your breasts again in an instant, groaning against the skin like he was tasting something extravagant. “and— fuck— need you inside me.”

you’d been subconsciously rocking your hips against his length this entire time and you were almost positive he could feel your wetness through your underwear. “fuck,” he muttered under his breath, closing his eyes for a quick second to recollect himself. “need you to tell me if you wanna stop at any point, ok?”

you nodded quickly, biting at your lip and humming in agreement. you reached between your legs to pull your underwear aside and give his length a few strokes, spreading the precum that had beaded at the tip. you could hear a strangled noise in his throat when you lined him up with your core.

his hands quickly bunched your skirt up around your waist and planted then firmly on the bare skin there as you sank down so he could get the best view. his mouth dropped open immediately as he watched his tip disappear into your weeping hole, your cunt greedily attempting to suck in even more of him.

you allowed yourself to take him in a little further before you were mewling at the fullness you already felt. it was like you were being split open. “stevie— fuck. you’re so big,” your eyes squeezed shut when you hit a small point of resistance. “mhpm. can’t take it. ‘s too much.”

steve’s hand pressed into your lower back to hold you close against him just before he flipped the two of you over and used his other hand to keep himself from leaning his full body weight onto you. “oh, i know, honey. already takin’ me like such a good little slut,” he cooed against your chest, lapping his tongue over your nipple and softly biting the skin around it. “gonna make it fit inside this pretty cunt.”

his lips trailed up the side of your neck and back to yours, pulling you into a searing kiss while you adjusted. he was giving you these shallow, barely there thrusts and slowly pushing into you more each time. you could feel your eyes stinging at the pain.

the hand no holding him up snaked between your bodies and rubbed deliberate circles over your clit. “shit. so tight and warm. she’s jus’ fuckin’ crying for me, huh?” he mumbled against your mouth, biting at your lower lip.

you could feel the slow slide of hot tears run down your cheek as he bullied his cock further into you with each thrust. it wasn’t as painful now, but the slight pressure and burn was definitely still there. and you felt so incredibly fully. your arms moved to wrap around his neck and pull him further on top of you, his weight grounding you in a way. “holy fuck, stevie,” you whimpered through your cries. “you—you’re so deep.”

he peppered sweet kisses along the side of your face and neck. “i know, baby. i know,” he cooed, rubbing quicker circles so you’d open up for the last few inches of him. “this greedy little pussy’s jus’ suckin’ me back in. taking my cock like a good girl. fuck. y’look so pretty like this, honey. all needy and soft f’me.”

your heart skipped a beat at his words. you would’ve never guessed that steve could be so good with words during sex. after one more slow drag of his hips, you finally felt his skin press flush to yours, now fully seated inside of you. “oh, stevie,” you cried, pushing lightly at his stomach like you were trying to create some room to alleviate the pressure in your stomach. “so full. fuck— ‘s too big.”

“need to stop?” he asked, his eyes wide and cautious as he searched your teary ones. his hand that was planted by your head moved to gently wipe at the ones that escaped.

even though it felt like you were actually being split open, it felt fucking amazing. you shook your head and bit down on your bottom lip. “don’t— don’t wanna stop,” you whispered. “jus’ go slow. please?”

steve flashed you a sweet smile and pulled your lip from between your teeth to lay soft kisses over it. he sat back up on his heels and ran his hands down your torso, feeling the faint bump of skin there. he pressed down on it lightly only to hear a loud mewl from you. “shit, honey. can see my cock inside your fuckin’ stomach,” he cursed, completely focused on the imprint of him.

he grabbed your hand and let your fingers run over the bulge in your stomach, grinning as he watched something akin to pure desire wash over your face. “you’re fuckin’ perfect,” he muttered, picking up your legs and placing them over his shoulders as he leaned back down to kiss you. “my perfect girl.”

his lips were back on yours immediately as he swallowed down your moans. you were a complete wreck. the new angle pushed him even further in a way that felt like heaven without any aching. your nails dug into his firm biceps when he began to slowly pull out and roll his hips back into yours.

his tongue soothed over yours and gently sucked on the muscle like he had all the time in the world. to him, nothing else mattered except you right now. and he was going to do everything in his power to make sure you knew that.

one of your hands snaked up his shoulders as he and into his hair, lightly pulling at the strands to make him shudder. once he was sure you weren’t in any sort of pain anymore, his pace began to quicken slightly.

steve pulled back the slightest bit to look at you, smiling at your fucked out state. he thought you looked like an actual angel right now with you pink cheeks, puffy lips, hair falling around your face perfectly, and your lips parted as moans slipped out. he just wanted to keep you here like this forever. “so beautiful, baby. such a gorgeous girl,” he whispered softly, pecking your lips again like he couldn’t get enough of you.

you felt heat creep up your neck as you let your eyes fall shut. you were sure you’d never felt this good in your life. especially when one of his hands came down to rub at your clit. “holy shit— stevie! i’m so close. please. don’t stop. oh fuck. please don’t stop,” you babbled mindlessly, feeling completely dumb beneath him.

he smiled and laid a sweet kiss to your tense calf beside his head. “yeahh, that’s it. i’ve got you, honey,” he said softly. “let me have it. wanna feel you come around my cock.”

you swore you’d seen stars right then and there. your legs began to shake with one particular thrust against that sensitive spot inside and steve caught on almost instantly. his hips angled forward to keep drilling at that spot, making you cry out as the edges of your vision blurred. “o—oh! i’m coming. fuck— i’m coming, stevie!”

his head tipped back when he felt your cunt spasming around him, greedily sucking him back in with each thrust. “shit! such a good girl for me, baby. mphm. your cunt’s like fuckin’ heaven,” he slurred, completely drunk off of you. “pretty cunt’s squeezing me so tight. oh fuck. gonna milk me dry, honey.”

you could feel hit tears run down the sides of your face with overstimulation. he was hitting all of the right spots like he’d known your body for years. “please! want it so bad,” you cried out. “in—inside me. need to— ah!— need to feel you.”

his hips and rhythm faltered at your words, suddenly making his thrusts erratic and much sharper. your nails dug into his shoulder as he pounded you into the mattress. “ho—holy shit!” he groaned as he pressed his hips tight to yours and let go.

warm ropes of his release filled you up in the most delicious way. he sat up and back enough to let your legs down from his shoulders, the limbs feeling like jelly immediately. he didn’t pull out. instead, he rolled onto his side next to you, letting you do the same so you were facing him. he grabbed your thigh and pulled it over his hip, pressing his cock perfectly into your cervix.

your body immediately began to relax in the embrace of his arms around you. it was like your brain had completely shut off and allowed him to take over for you. his hands rubbed soft, slow laps up and down your back to soothe you as you two laid in silence for some time.

steve was the first to break it. “don’t see him again.”

his voice was quiet but the intensity in it was unmistakable. “what?” you whispered, voice a little more hoarse now as you tilted your head on the pillow and looked up at him.

“don’t go out with that guy again,” he doubled down, his eyes much softer when he looked down at you. he just wanted to kiss you again until you couldn’t breathe. “jus’ stay here with me instead.”

you let out a soft breath of humorless laughter to hide the way his words got your hopes up, assuming he was making some stupid joke. “steve, what are you talking about? you know i don’t like casual.”

his brows furrowed like he was genuinely confused by that. “who said anything about casual?”

now it was your turn to look at him like he was the crazy one. “you only ever do casual,” you replied as if it were obvious.

one of his hands moved to gently wipe a piece of hair from your forehead so he could see your face a little better. “this doesn’t have to be casual,” he said surely, looking between the two of you. “i wanna be with you. and— and not just because of this.” the air in the room shifted immediately. “i haven’t been able to stop thinkin’ about you since i moved in.”

the loud ringing of the phone on the bedside table broke the silence. and somehow, steve knew who it was immediately. it made his blood boil. “answer it.”

your face scrunched up in confusion. “what? why would i—“ but he was already pulling out of you and sitting up to reach for the phone. you whined at the loss but quickly quieted down when he picked up the phone. you could hear the familiar voice on the other end. steve handed you the receiver. “hello?”

“hey, baby. i just wanted to call and check in on you after tonight,” brad, the man you were out with earlier. “i know it went a little rough, huh?”

steve was shuffling over top of you, pressing quiet kisses to your neck and down towards your chest. your eyes widened at him, silently pleading with him. for what? you weren’t sure. he nodded to the phone, prompting you to reply. “oh, uhm, yea—yeah. it was, uh, it wasn’t the best.”

brad let out a nervous laugh. “yeah, you could say that,” he replied awkwardly. “look, i’m really sorry. i just— i’m not really used to being with women like you.” steve could hear the conversation loud and clear as he kissed over your stomach and laid down comfortably between your legs. he rolled his eyes at the comment and licked a long stripe up your dripping slit. “you’re just so young and… i don’t know. i guess i’m just used to being with women who have a little more— y’know.”

you knew what he meant. and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t hurt your feelings a little bit. but with steve lapping at his own cum dripping from your cunt, you couldn’t find it in yourself to dwell on it. “oh,” you replied breathily, grabbing onto his hair with your free hand. “right. makes sense.”

brad sighed on the other end, giving you enough time to pull the handset away from your face and cover the transmitter so he couldn’t hear you. “stevie, fuck, you— you have to stop,” you whined, moaning when he sucked on your clit. he looked up at you through his messy hair and shot you a wink when he heard the voice calling out to you again.

you brought it back to your ear and began twirling the coiled cord between your fingers to try and distract yourself. “you still there?” he asked.

“mhm,” you hummed, eyes fixated on steve. his were shut now as he devoured your cunt like a starved man. you’d never seen someone enjoy this as much as he was right now.

there was another awkward pause from brad. “well, i was thinking,” he began. “and y’know, with me being pretty busy and all, it wouldn’t be too much of a bother for me if you wanted to go out again.”

your face quickly contorted into one of disgust, as did steve’s. he looked genuinely pissed off now. a new fire ignited in him as he licked and sucked at your cunt with more pressure than you could handle at the moment. his hands hooked around your thighs to pull you even closer, moaning softly into your folds.

a squeal escaped you just before you could slap a hand over your mouth. “baby? you there?” he repeated again.

your hand moved down to shove at steve’s head in a useless attempt to get him to slow down. instead, his tongue pressed into your weeping hole. “yeah, mphm! i’m here. sorry, i just— i stubbed my toe.” you bit down on your lip hard to keep the scream bubbling in your throat at bay. “uhm, so about that— that date. i jus—“

“is everything okay?” he asked bluntly. you could hear him pacing back and forth on the other end.

you really hoped he couldn’t hear the obscene sounds of steve between your thighs. “yeah! yes, you kind of, um, caught me at a bad time,” you lied through clenched teeth, staring down at your roommate. “i was just… mphm— i was working out.”

he seemed to have accepted that answer enough to explain why you’re breathing was so erratic and why you could barely speak. “you home alone? i could come over and make it up to you—“

“no!” you answered a little too quickly, covering your mouth when steve slid two of his fingers inside of you and massaged your gummy walls. “my, uhm— my roommate is home. and about that date,” you trailed off and pulled the phone away for a second to let out a shaky breath as your stomach tensed. “i don’t think it’s— it’s not gonna happen.”

you could hear him scoff on the other line. “what? are you serious? it was just one bad night. i mean— i took you out to dinner, i paid, i took you back to my place. i did everything i was supposed to and—“

if steve wasn’t making you feel unreal right now, you were sure you’d go off on him for being so stupid and arrogant. you couldn’t find it in you to care enough about anything other than your roommate. “look i— hmph! it’s not gonna happen and i really, really need to go.”

you carelessly jammed the phone back into the cradle on your bedside table and ran your fingers through steve’s hair, tugging at his roots when his fingers hit that sensitive spot inside you. “stevie! i’m close— so fuckin’ close!”

he looked up at you at grinned, sucking on your clit and laving his tongue over it with a pressure that made you see stars. “tastes like’ heaven, honey. such a fuckin’ loser to let you go.”

your head tipped back into the pillow as your legs shook, locking around his head when the tight coil snapped in your stomach. his hands held your thighs spread open, fucking you through it so deliciously. “that’s it, sweet girl. soak my fuckin’ hand,” he cooed, kissing along the inside of your thighs to help you come down. “there you go. so goddamn perfect f’me.”

your body was completely destroyed now, laying limp and exhausted in your bed. he slowly pulled his fingers from you and sucked them clean, moaning at the taste of your juices. his chin was glistening with your release which he didn’t seem to mind at all.

steve’s lips ghosted a trail of kisses up your stomach, chest, neck, and back to your lips. his arms wrapped around your waist and pulled you in closer to him, throwing the blanket over you in the process. he couldn’t help but smile at your sleepy state. “sooo… no more dates?” he asked playfully, voice barely above a whisper.

you let out a giggle and shifted further into him, resting your head on his chest. “god, you’re such a fool, harrington.”

his lips pressed a tender kiss to the top of your head and held you a little tighter. “as long as i can be your fool.”

[littlepinkglitterbunny]

What we never said ˙⋆✮ SH

Steve Harrington x femreader

Word count: 12.3k!

°❀⋆ Coming home from college was supposed to be simple until you saw Steve Harrington again. A year after an almost-kiss neither of you forgot, old feelings, unresolved tension, and painful misunderstandings collide when you’re forced back into each other’s lives. The problem is that the more you try to stay away from him, the more impossible it becomes to ignore what was left unfinished.

ִ ࣪𖤐.ᐟ Explicit smut, angst, friends to enemies to lovers, fingering, dirty talk, p in v sex, creampie

݁ ˖Ი𐑼ֶָ֢hi angels I’m back! I’ve been so busy with work I haven’t been able to write a lot but I’ll try my best. I’m not done with watercolor bruises don’t worry ! This is my first smut work I hope it’s not cringe, enjoy<3

The summer air in Hawkins felt different than you remembered.

Maybe it was because you had been gone for almost a year. Maybe it was because college had changed you more than you realized. Or maybe it was because every street, every storefront, and every familiar corner of town seemed to hold a memory of someone you had spent months trying not to think about.Someone who had never really left your mind.

As your car rolled down the quiet neighborhood street, your fingers tightened around the steering wheel. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the pavement, painting everything in warm gold. The houses looked exactly the same as they had when you left last August, but somehow they felt smaller now.Home.After months of crowded lecture halls, noisy dormitories, and endless assignments, you were finally back.You should have felt relieved.Instead, your stomach twisted with nerves.Because coming home meant seeing him again.

Steve Harrington.

The thought alone made your chest tighten.The last time you had seen Steve was the night before you left for school.You remembered every detail no matter how hard you tried to forget.The memory had followed you through every exam, every football game on campus, every late-night study session. You had been standing in your driveway while Dustin loaded the last of your boxes into the car. The humid August air had wrapped around the two of you like a blanket. Everyone else had gone inside, leaving you and Steve alone for just a few minutes. Neither of you had known what to say.

You and Steve had spent the entire summer dancing around feelings neither of you were brave enough to admit. Lingering glances. Shoulders brushing. Conversations that lasted longer than they needed to. Every moment building toward something neither of you seemed willing to cross. Until that night. You could still remember the way Steve had looked at you beneath the porch light. The way his eyes had softened. The way his voice had gone quiet when he told you he was going to miss you. And then he had stepped closer. Close enough that your heart had started pounding. Close enough that you could feel the warmth radiating from him. For one suspended moment, neither of you moved. Neither of you breathed. His gaze had dropped briefly to your lips before finding your eyes again. You had thought he was going to kiss you. You had wanted him to. More than anything. But Dustin had burst through the front door yelling about forgetting something in the house, completely ruining the moment. The spell had shattered instantly. The next morning you had left for college. And nothing had happened. No kiss. No confession. No answers. Just an entire year of wondering what might have been.

You parked in front of the Henderson house and let out a slow breath.The familiar white siding came into view, followed by the porch swing your mother loved and the basketball hoop Dustin refused to admit was crooked.Home.You should have been thinking about unpacking. About seeing your family. About enjoying your summer. Instead, your mind was already racing ahead. Because if there was one thing you knew about Hawkins, it was that you couldn’t avoid Steve Harrington forever. Especially when he practically lived at your house.

You grabbed your bag from the passenger seat and stepped out into the warm afternoon air. The second your feet touched the driveway, the front door flew open.

“Dustin!” your mother shouted from somewhere inside.

A familiar voice immediately answered “I’m literally right here!”

You froze. Your heart stopped. Because that voice didn’t belong to Dustin. It belonged to Steve. Slowly, almost against your will, your eyes lifted toward the front porch. And there he was. Standing in your doorway like he had every right to be there.

Taller than you remembered His hair was slightly longer than it had been last summer, falling effortlessly into place despite the heat. He wore a faded Family Video shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of jeans that looked worn from use.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

Neither of you spoke.

His expression shifted from confusion to complete shock.

Like he hadn’t expected to see you either.

Then his eyes widened.And suddenly every unanswered feeling from that night a year ago came rushing back.

You had only been home for five seconds. And somehow, Steve Harrington was already making your summer infinitely more complicated. For several long seconds, neither of you said a word. The world seemed to narrow until all you could see was Steve standing on the porch.

A year.

You had gone an entire year without seeing him. Yet the second your eyes met, it felt as if no time had passed at all. Your pulse hammered against your ribs. Steve looked just as stunned. His hand was still resting on the screen door handle, frozen in place as he stared at you. The confident smile he usually wore was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was something vulnerable in his expression. Something that made your stomach flip. Before either of you could figure out what to say, a loud crash echoed from inside the house.

“Dustin!” your mother yelled.

“It wasn’t me!” came Dustin’s immediate response.A moment later, the front door burst open.Dustin practically launched himself onto the porch.He stopped dead the second he saw you.For a moment his eyes widened in disbelief.Then his face split into the biggest grin imaginable.

“Oh my God!”

Before you could react, he sprinted down the steps.

“Dustin—”You barely had time to drop your bag before he wrapped his arms around you.

The force of it nearly knocked you backward.You laughed despite yourself as you hugged him tightly.

“Hey, idiot.”

“I can’t believe you’re actually here!” he exclaimed. “Mom said you’d be home today, but I didn’t know when!”

You ruffled his curls. “It’s good to see you too.”

When Dustin finally stepped back, he immediately began talking a mile a minute.

“You missed literally everything. Mike got taller, Lucas got taller, I got taller—”

“You grew half an inch.”

“That still counts.”

You rolled your eyes.

Only then did Dustin glance over his shoulder.Directly at Steve.The excitement on his face slowly disappeared.His gaze moved from Steve. To you. Back to Steve. Then back to you again. A suspicious look settled across his features. You felt your face grow warm. Steve suddenly became very interested in the porch railing. The silence that followed was painfully awkward. Dustin narrowed his eyes.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” you asked immediately.

“That.”

You blinked “Dustin, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He pointed between you and Steve.“The weird staring thing.”

“There was no weird staring thing.”

“There absolutely was.”

“There wasn’t.”

“There was.”

Steve cleared his throat.“Lucky for me, this conversation sounds like it’s about to become incredibly annoying.”

Dustin ignored him.“You guys looked at each other for, like, ten seconds.”

“It was not ten seconds.”

“It was definitely ten seconds.”

You crossed your arms.“Dustin.”

His grin returned instantly.“Oh my God.”

Your stomach dropped.“Dustin.”

“Oh my God.”

“Dustin.”

He pointed at Steve “You still have a crush on my sister.”

The silence that followed was deafening. Steve looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.

“Dustin,” he said through clenched teeth.

“No way.”

“Dustin.”

“No way.”

“Dustin.”

“You totally do.”

Steve ran a hand down his face.You wanted to disappear.

“Dustin,” Steve said slowly, “I am begging you to stop talking.”

The younger boy looked entirely too pleased with himself.

Then he turned toward you “And you still—”

“Nope.”

“You literally turned red.”

“I just drove three hours.”

“That’s not how driving works.”

Steve abruptly stepped backward toward the driveway “You know what?” he said. “I just remembered I have somewhere else to be.”

Dustin stared.

“You don’t have your car.”

“I’ll walk.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere.”

You bit down on a laugh.Steve shot you a look.The sight only made it harder not to smile.For a brief second, his expression softened.A familiar warmth settled between the two of you. The same feeling that had existed on that summer night a year ago. The same unfinished feeling neither of you seemed able to escape. Then Dustin stepped directly between you.

“So,” he announced loudly, “this summer is already getting interesting.”

Steve groaned.You laughed.And just like that, you knew one thing for certain. This was going to be a very long summer.

Eventually, after Dustin spent another fifteen minutes interrogating you about college and making wildly inaccurate assumptions about your nonexistent love life, you escaped upstairs.

The second your bedroom door closed behind you, silence settled around you like a blanket.You let out a long breath you hadn’t realized you were holding.Home.Actually home.

The familiar scent of your room greeted you immediately. It smelled faintly like vanilla from the candle sitting on your dresser and the laundry detergent your mother always used on your sheets.

For a moment, you simply stood there.

Your suitcase rested beside your feet while late afternoon sunlight spilled through the window, bathing everything in a warm golden glow.

Nothing had changed.The same framed photographs sat on your bookshelf.The same collection of movie tickets, concert stubs, and random keepsakes remained pinned to your corkboard.It felt strange.A year ago, this room had felt too small.You had been desperate to leave Hawkins.Desperate for something bigger.Now, standing in the middle of it again, it felt comforting.

Safe.

Like stepping into an old photograph.You slowly crossed the room and ran your fingers along the edge of your desk A smile tugged at your lips when you noticed a small note still taped beside the lamp.

Good luck at college. Don’t become smarter than me.

— Dustin

You shook your head.

“Impossible,” you muttered.

A laugh escaped you.The sound felt unfamiliar.College had been good.Busy.Exciting.But it had also been lonely.There had been nights when you missed home so much it physically hurt.Nights when you would lie awake staring at the ceiling of your dorm room while wishing you could hear Dustin arguing with the television downstairs.Wishing you could hear your mother’s voice calling everyone to dinner.Wishing you could be here. You sat down on the edge of your bed. The mattress dipped beneath your weight. For the first time all day, you allowed yourself to relax. Unfortunately, that was when your thoughts drifted somewhere they absolutely should not have.

Steve.

Your stomach tightened instantly. You groaned and fell backward onto the bed. The ceiling stared back at you.

“This is ridiculous.”

One year. One entire year.

You had met dozens of new people.

Gone to parties. Made friends. Studied until your eyes hurt. Pulled all-nighters. Built an entirely new life.

And somehow Steve Harrington still had the ability to completely derail your thoughts. You squeezed your eyes shut. The memory of seeing him on the porch replayed immediately. The surprise on his face. The way he had looked at you. The awkward tension. The unfinished feeling lingering between you. You rolled onto your side and buried your face in a pillow. The last thing you needed was to spend your entire summer obsessing over a guy you almost kissed a year ago.

Almost.

The word alone made your chest ache. Because that was the problem. Nothing had actually happened. There had never been a relationship. Never been a first date. Never been a first kiss. Just stolen glances and lingering moments that never became anything more. Which somehow made it worse. Because there was no closure. No rejection. No answer. Just endless possibilities. A knock sounded against your bedroom door.

You sat up immediately. “Come in.”

The door opened. Dustin poked his head inside.

You narrowed your eyes. “What do you want?”

His grin was immediate. “Steve said hi.”

You threw a pillow at him. Dustin yelped before disappearing into the hallway. The sound of his laughter echoed down the stairs. Your bedroom door swung shut once more. Silence returned. You stared at the closed door. Then you flopped backward onto your bed again. A reluctant smile pulled at your lips despite yourself. The summer had been back for less than two hours. And already Steve Harrington was somehow making your life difficult.

Some things, apparently, never changed.

Movie nights had always been chaotic.That had never changed.

The living room was overflowing with people. Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Max, and Will were spread across the floor surrounded by blankets, empty soda cans, and enough snacks to feed an army. The television blasted previews loud enough to shake the walls while everyone argued over what movie they should watch.

“No one wants to watch that!”

“It’s a classic!”

“It’s boring!”

“You have terrible taste!”

You smiled despite yourself from your spot on the couch.Somehow, after all these years, nothing about this group had changed.Except maybe the fact that they were all getting taller.And louder.Definitely louder.The smell of freshly made popcorn drifted through the room.Your bowl was nearly empty.

You stood, stretching slightly. “I’m getting more popcorn.”

Nobody looked away from the television.

“Okay.”

“Bring me some.”

“Bring me soda.”

“Bring me—”

“No.”

A chorus of complaints followed you as you disappeared into the kitchen.The moment you stepped through the doorway, the noise from the living room became muffled.For the first time all evening, it was quiet.You grabbed the popcorn bowl from the counter and turned toward the microwave.Only to freeze.Steve was already there.Of course he was.

He stood in front of the counter with his back partially turned toward you, pouring himself a drink. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing his forearms, and the soft yellow kitchen light reflected off his hair.

The second he noticed movement, he looked up.Your eyes met.Immediately, both of you stopped moving.

“Oh.”

“Oh.”

Silence. Steve blinked. You blinked. Neither of you seemed to know what to do next.

Finally, Steve awkwardly stepped to the side “Sorry.”

“No, you’re fine.”

“You can use the microwave.”

“Thanks.”

Another silence. You walked toward the microwave.Steve took a step toward the refrigerator. Unfortunately, you both moved in exactly the same direction. You almost collided.

“Oh my God.”

“Sorry.”

“No, that’s my fault.”

“No, it was definitely mine.”

You both stepped away at the same time. Then accidentally stepped back into each other’s path again. A laugh escaped you before you could stop it.

Steve let out a groan. “This is going really well.”

You covered your smile. “It’s not that bad.”

“It is absolutely that bad.” The corners of your mouth lifted.

Steve stared at you for a moment.The sight of your smile seemed to catch him off guard.Something softened in his expression.For a second, neither of you looked away.The kitchen suddenly felt much smaller.Much quieter.You quickly turned toward the microwave.

“So…”Smooth.

Very smooth.

Steve cleared his throat.“So.”

Another pause.You pressed the popcorn button even though the popcorn didn’t actually need to be reheated.The machine immediately started humming.Thank God.At least now there was noise.

Steve leaned against the counter. “How’s college?”

You looked over at him.The question was simple enough, but something about hearing him ask it made your chest tighten.

“It’s good.”

“Yeah?”

You nodded. “Busy. A lot busier than I expected.”

“I figured.”

You smiled slightly. “There are way more papers than they tell you about.”

Steve laughed. “I don’t know. That sounds exactly like something they would tell you about.”

“Okay, fair.” The tension eased a little.

Not much.But enough.

Steve looked down at the floor briefly before meeting your eyes again. “You seem happy.”

Your heart skipped. The sincerity in his voice surprised you. “Yeah,” you admitted quietly. “I am.”

A small smile appeared on his face. “Good.”

The word settled somewhere deep inside your chest.Because he meant it. You could tell. Even after a year. Even after all the awkwardness. Steve still cared. The realization made your stomach flutter.

Before you could stop yourself, you asked, “How’s Family Video?”

Steve immediately groaned. You laughed.

“There it is.”

“I hate that store.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

“You practically live there.”

“Exactly.” You laughed again.

Steve’s smile widened. And suddenly it felt easier. Almost normal. Like no time had passed at all.

Then Steve said quietly, “I missed you.”

The words hit you like a freight train.Everything froze The microwave hummed. The television echoed faintly from the other room. But all you could hear was your heartbeat. Steve looked just as surprised as you were. Like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Like the words had simply escaped. His jaw tightened. You stared at him. For a moment, neither of you spoke. Neither of you breathed. Because there it was. The thing neither of you had addressed. The thing that had been hanging between you since last summer. The thing both of you had been avoiding. Your chest felt tight.

“I missed you too.”Your voice came out softer than intended.

Steve’s eyes met yours.And suddenly the air felt too warm.Too heavy.Too full of everything neither of you knew how to say.The microwave beeped loudly.Both of you jumped.Immediately looking away.You grabbed the bowl.

Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “Well.”

“Yep.”

“Movie night.”

“Movie night.”

Another awkward silence.

Then Dustin’s voice suddenly echoed from the living room. “WHY ARE YOU GUYS TAKING SO LONG?”

You squeezed your eyes shut.

Steve dropped his head against the refrigerator. “Dustin is going to be the death of me.”

A laugh burst from your lips.The sound made Steve smile despite himself. For a brief moment, everything felt lighter.

Then you picked up the popcorn bowl. “I should go.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of you moved. Another second passed. Then two. Finally, Steve stepped aside. You walked past him. Close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his shoulder. Close enough for your heart to start racing again. And as you disappeared back into the living room, one thought repeated itself over and over in your mind. This summer was becoming dangerous. Because Steve Harrington clearly hadn’t forgotten about that almost-kiss. And neither had you.

Three days after movie night, you found yourself pulling into the parking lot of Family Video.

The summer sun hung high in the sky, baking the asphalt beneath your feet as you climbed out of your car. A faint feeling of nostalgia settled over you as you looked up at the familiar building.

Before college, you had spent so much time here that it practically felt like a second home.You told yourself you were only stopping by because Dustin wanted you to pick up a movie he had reserved.You ignored the small voice in the back of your mind that pointed out there were probably a dozen other ways Dustin could have gotten that movie.The bell above the door chimed softly as you stepped inside.

Cool air immediately greeted you.The store looked exactly the same.The shelves were packed with VHS tapes and movie posters. The carpet still had that strange old-store smell that somehow never seemed to go away. Everything felt frozen in time.For a moment, nobody noticed you.Then a familiar voice carried from behind the counter.

“If Keith complains about the organization system one more time, I’m going to reorganize his entire desk just to spite him.”

You smiled before you even saw her.Robin looked up from a stack of returned tapes.

The second she recognized you, her entire face lit up. “Oh my God.”

The tapes nearly slipped from her hands.You barely had time to react before she hurried around the counter.

“There is absolutely no way that’s actually you.”

A laugh escaped your lips “It’s me.”

“No. I refuse to believe it.” Robin grabbed both of your shoulders and held you at arm’s length.

“You’ve been gone for an entire year.”

“It hasn’t been that long.”

“It has felt that long.” The sincerity in her voice made your smile soften.

Robin looked you over dramatically.“You look different.”

Your eyebrows rose. “Different good or different bad?”

“Different college.”

You laughed. “I have no idea what that means.”

“I don’t either, but it makes sense in my head.”

The two of you stood there smiling at each other for a moment before Robin pulled you into a tight hug The gesture caught you off guard.You immediately hugged her back.It felt nice.Comfortable. Familiar.

When she finally pulled away, she shook her head. “I missed you.”

The simple honesty in her voice made something warm settle in your chest.

“I missed you too.”

Robin immediately pointed toward the employee room. “Come with me.”

“What?”

“We have approximately eleven months of missed conversations to make up for.”

You laughed. “Eleven months?”

“I am accounting for holidays and phone calls.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“I know.”

A few minutes later, the two of you were sitting in the back room surrounded by boxes of tapes and movie posters waiting to be hung.Robin sat backwards on a chair while you leaned against a stack of inventory boxes.For nearly an hour, the conversation flowed effortlessly.

You told her about college.

About your professors.

About your roommates.

About accidentally getting lost during your first week on campus because every building looked identical.Robin laughed so hard at that story that she nearly fell out of her chair.

“You mean to tell me you wandered around for forty-five minutes and didn’t ask anyone for directions?”

You pointed accusingly.“I was trying to figure it out myself.”

“You were lost.”

“I was temporarily disoriented.”

“You were incredibly lost.”

You laughed despite yourself.

Robin grinned victoriously. “That’s what I thought.”

The conversation shifted naturally from one topic to another.Robin told you stories about work.About Keith.About customers.About the countless ridiculous situations she and Steve somehow found themselves trapped in.

By the time she finished describing a customer who had spent twenty minutes arguing that a horror movie belonged in the romance section, both of you were laughing.It felt easy.The way conversations with Robin always did.For the first time since returning home, you felt completely relaxed.Which was probably why you didn’t notice the trap until it was too late.Robin had been listening to you talk about school when a strange smile appeared on her face.You immediately narrowed your eyes.That smile never meant anything good.

“What?”

Robin tilted her head slightly. “You know, Steve talks about you a lot.”

Your stomach dropped.The reaction was immediate.

Robin’s smile widened. “Oh, there it is.”

You looked away. “There what is?”

“That exact reaction.”

You crossed your arms. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Robin let out a laugh. “You know, most people would at least attempt to sound convincing when they lie.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You absolutely are.”

You shook your head. “I’m really not.”

Robin rested her chin on the back of her chair. “Then why do you suddenly look like you’re preparing for a court trial?”

You groaned. “Robin.”

She ignored you completely. “The second I mentioned Steve, your entire body language changed.”

“It did not.”

“It absolutely did.”

“It absolutely did not.”

Robin pointed dramatically. “You just crossed your arms.”

“Because you’re annoying.”

“You also looked away.”

“Because you’re annoying.”

“You got defensive.”

“Because you’re annoying.”

Robin smiled. “Notice how none of those answers actually deny anything.”

You pressed your lips together.

Unfortunately, she noticed that too.

Her smile softened slightly. “Can I be honest?”

You sighed. “That has never stopped you before.”

“Fair.”Robin leaned back in her chair.

“The two of you have been ridiculous for years.”

You stared at her. “What does that even mean?”

“It means that everyone noticed except the two of you.”

Your heart skipped. “Robin—”

“No, seriously.” She sat forward.

“The amount of times I have watched Steve stare at you when he thought nobody was paying attention is honestly embarrassing.”

Heat immediately rushed to your face. “Robin.”

“I’m not even exaggerating.” She pointed toward the front of the store.

“The guy practically walked into a display once because you walked in wearing a new jacket.”

You buried your face in your hands. “Oh my God.”

“I’m serious.”

“This conversation is horrible.”

“This conversation is long overdue.”

You laughed despite yourself. Robin smiled.

Then her expression softened. “You know he missed you, right?”

The teasing disappeared from her voice completely. Now she sounded sincere. Your chest tightened. The employee room suddenly felt very quiet. You looked down at your hands.

Robin continued carefully. “When you left for school, he acted like he was happy for you. And he was. But every time something reminded him of you, everyone could tell.”

You swallowed.The memory of movie night flashed through your mind.I missed you. The words had been stuck in your head ever since.

“He talked about you all year,” Robin said quietly. “Not constantly. Not in some dramatic way. But enough that I noticed.”

You looked up. Robin was watching you carefully now. Not teasing. Not joking. Just telling the truth. For a moment, neither of you spoke.

Then she smiled gently. “You know what the funny part is?”

You raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“The funny part is that every time he mentioned you, I got the feeling he thought you’d forgotten about him.”

Your heart ached unexpectedly. Because the truth was, you had spent the entire year thinking the exact same thing. You had assumed college had moved you out of Steve’s life. You had assumed he had forgotten. Moved on. Found someone else.

Robin’s smile grew. “And judging by your face right now, I’m willing to bet neither of you forgot anything.”

The room fell quiet.You stared down at the floor.Because for the first time since coming home, someone had finally put words to the thing you had been trying not to think about.The feelings between you and Steve hadn’t disappeared while you were away. They had simply been left unfinished. And now that you were back in Hawkins, neither of you seemed capable of pretending they weren’t still there.

Robin’s words lingered in your mind for days. No matter how hard you tried to push them away, they always found their way back. Sometimes they appeared when you were lying awake in bed staring at the ceiling long after midnight. Sometimes they surfaced while you were helping your mother make dinner. Sometimes they slipped into your thoughts during conversations with Dustin when your attention drifted for just a second.

He talked about you all year.The sentence replayed endlessly.It should have made you happy.Instead, it left an ache in your chest.Because if Steve had really missed you…If he had spent an entire year thinking about you…Then why did everything still feel so unfinished? Why had neither of you called? Why had neither of you said anything?Why had you spent an entire year dancing around feelings that had never actually gone away?The questions followed you everywhere.And the more you thought about them, the heavier they became.Until eventually, they felt impossible to ignore.

A week later, the summer evening settled over Hawkins in shades of gold and blue. The sun had nearly disappeared beyond the trees, leaving streaks of fading orange stretched across the horizon.The air was thick with humidity.Crickets chirped in the grass.Somewhere down the street, a dog barked. The familiar sounds of summer wrapped around the neighborhood. Inside the Henderson house, laughter drifted through the walls. The younger kids were gathered in the basement. Dustin’s voice occasionally rose above everyone else’s, followed by the inevitable chorus of complaints from Mike and Lucas. The noise should have been comforting. Instead, you found yourself escaping outside. The back porch had always been your favorite place when you needed to think.

You sat alone on the old porch swing, your bare feet brushing against the wooden boards beneath you. The chains creaked softly every time the swing moved. A warm breeze stirred through the backyard, carrying the scent of freshly cut grass and distant rain. The fading sunlight cast long shadows across the yard. You hugged your knees to your chest and stared out into the darkness slowly swallowing the neighborhood.

Your thoughts drifted where they always seemed to drift lately. To Steve.

The memory of seeing him again after a year still felt vivid. The shock on his face. The awkwardness. The tension. The way your heart had immediately forgotten how to function.

You let out a frustrated sigh.“This is ridiculous.”

The words disappeared into the evening air. Almost immediately, the screen door behind you creaked open.

You froze.

A familiar voice spoke from the doorway. “I was wondering when you’d finally come out here.”

Your stomach dropped. Every single time. No matter how much you prepared yourself. No matter how many times you saw him. Your body still reacted before your brain could catch up.

You turned.

Steve stood in the doorway. The warm yellow light from the kitchen spilled around him, illuminating the edges of his figure against the growing darkness. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. One hand loosely held a can of soda. His hair was slightly messy, as though he had spent the last hour running his hands through it.

For a moment, neither of you moved. The familiar nervous tension immediately settled between you.

Not uncomfortable.

Not exactly.

Just overwhelming.

Because there were too many things left unsaid. Steve stepped onto the porch. The screen door closed quietly behind him. The sound seemed unusually loud.

“I wasn’t hiding,” you said.

Your voice came out softer than intended. A faint smile touched his lips.

“You always come out here when you’re thinking.”

Something tightened in your chest. The fact that he still remembered things like that somehow made everything worse. Because it reminded you how close the two of you had once been.

You looked away. “And you know that because?”

“I’ve known you for years.” The answer came immediately.

Effortlessly. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Your heart squeezed painfully.

Steve leaned against the porch railing. The fading sunlight caught the side of his face. For a few moments, neither of you spoke. The silence stretched.

Not empty.

Just full.

Full of everything both of you were trying not to say.

Finally Steve broke it. “Robin told me she saw you.”

You groaned immediately. Steve actually laughed. The sound was brief but genuine.

“Yeah, that’s about the reaction I expected.”

“Robin needs to learn boundaries.”

“Good luck with that.”

A reluctant smile tugged at your lips. For a moment, things felt almost normal.

Almost.

Then the silence returned. The comfortable feeling vanished. You found yourself staring out into the yard again. The darkness had deepened. The first stars were beginning to appear overhead. You could feel Steve standing nearby. Close enough to hear his breathing. Close enough that you were painfully aware of every inch separating you.

Before you could stop yourself, the question slipped out. “Did you really talk about me all year?”

The moment the words left your mouth, you regretted them. Steve immediately went still. The shift was subtle. But you noticed.

His shoulders stiffened.

His gaze dropped toward the porch floor.

His fingers tightened slightly around the soda can.

The easy atmosphere disappeared completely. Seconds passed. The silence stretched.

Finally he exhaled. “Robin talks too much.”

Your chest tightened. The answer wasn’t really an answer.

You turned toward him. “Steve.”

His eyes remained fixed on the yard. “She does.”

“Did you?”

For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he laughed quietly. The sound carried no amusement whatsoever.

It sounded tired. “I don’t know.”

You frowned. “What does that mean?”

Steve rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.The movement seemed nervous.

Almost frustrated. “It means sometimes.”

Your stomach twisted.Because despite how small the answer was, you could hear the truth underneath it. You studied him carefully. The shadows hid part of his expression. But not enough. Something was bothering him. Something bigger than this conversation.

“Steve.”

He looked up. “What?”

The single word wasn’t harsh. Just exhausted.

You swallowed. “What happened?”

For a moment, confusion crossed his face. Then understanding. His eyes dropped again.

“Nothing happened.”

“You know that’s not true.”

The silence that followed felt heavy. Steve looked away. Toward the dark yard. Toward anywhere except you.

The muscles in his jaw tightened. “You left.”

The words landed between you. Simple. Quiet. Yet somehow devastating.

You stared at him. “What?”

Steve laughed softly. The sound was hollow.

“You left.” His eyes finally met yours.

And the sadness there nearly stole your breath.

“You went away.” The vulnerability in his voice was impossible to miss now.

Every defense. Every joke. Every attempt to avoid the conversation. Gone. Leaving only honesty. Raw and painful.

“I know.”

“You got out.” His gaze drifted toward the neighborhood.

Toward Hawkins. Toward everything that had stayed exactly the same.

“You got to leave this place.” The bitterness wasn’t directed at you.

That somehow made it worse. Because it sounded directed at himself.

“I didn’t leave because of you.”

Steve nodded. But the movement looked empty. Like he didn’t believe you.

“Steve—”

“No, it’s fine.”

“It isn’t.”

His laugh came again. Short. Sharp. Painful.

“You know what the worst part is?”

Your chest tightened. “What?”

For a second, Steve just stared into the darkness. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

“I spent that entire last summer trying to work up the nerve to tell you how I felt.”

Your heart stopped. The confession hung in the air between you. Heavy. Unavoidable. Steve shook his head.

A bitter smile crossing his face. “And then you left.”

The words hurt more than they should have. Because you knew exactly what he meant. You remembered that night. The almost-kiss. The porch light. The look in his eyes. The feeling that everything was about to change. Only for nothing to happen.

You stepped closer. “Steve…”

“I thought maybe it was for the best.” His voice cracked slightly.

The sound shattered something inside your chest.

“I figured you’d go to college and meet people.”

His eyes finally lifted.

“And you did.”

You opened your mouth. Then closed it. Because technically he was right. You had met people. You had made friends. Built a life. The hesitation lasted less than a second. But Steve noticed. Of course he did. The momentary pause seemed to confirm every fear he’d carried for an entire year. Something in his expression changed. The vulnerability disappeared. The walls returned. You watched it happen in real time. And there was nothing you could do to stop it.

Steve looked away. His voice became distant. Guarded. Cold.

“Yeah.”

Your stomach dropped. “That’s not what I meant.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

“It really doesn’t.”

The words felt like a door slamming shut.

You stepped forward again. Frustration bubbling beneath your skin.

“Why are you acting like I chose someone else?”

Steve’s jaw tightened. His eyes flashed with hurt. Because that was exactly what he’d spent a year convincing himself had happened. Even if it wasn’t true.

For several long seconds, neither of you spoke.

Then Steve quietly said the thing that hurt most.

“Because you never gave me a reason to think otherwise.”

The words struck like a punch to the chest. Silence followed. Thick. Painful. You couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t find the right response. And the worst part was that Steve looked just as devastated as you felt. As if he regretted saying it the second it left his mouth. As if he wanted to take it back. But couldn’t. Because maybe part of him believed it. Maybe part of you understood why. The distance between you suddenly felt impossible to cross. Finally Steve looked away.

His voice was barely audible. “I should go.”

The sentence sounded defeated. Not angry. Not cruel. Just tired. Like he didn’t have the energy to keep hurting anymore. You watched him turn. Watched him reach for the screen door. Watched him disappear inside. The door closed softly behind him. Yet somehow the sound echoed through the entire porch. Leaving you standing alone beneath the fading summer sky. The crickets continued chirping. The wind continued moving through the trees. Life continued exactly as before. But the ache in your chest remained. Because after an entire year apart, you and Steve had finally spoken honestly. And somehow it had only made everything worse.

Three days passed after your conversation with Steve on the porch.Three long, miserable days.

You told yourself you were overthinking everything. You told yourself the conversation hadn’t been as bad as it felt. You told yourself that eventually the awkwardness would fade and things would go back to normal.The problem was that nothing felt normal anymore.

Ever since that night, Steve had practically disappeared. He hadn’t stopped by the house. He hadn’t joined movie night. He hadn’t shown up to annoy Dustin or raid your refrigerator the way he usually did. The absence was impossible to ignore. You hated how much you noticed it.

The realization irritated you more than anything else. You should have been enjoying your summer. Instead, you found yourself constantly glancing toward the driveway whenever a car passed the house.

You were lying across your bed one humid afternoon, pretending to read a book while your thoughts wandered somewhere entirely different, when your bedroom door suddenly burst open.

The door slammed against the wall hard enough to make you jump.

You lowered the book and immediately frowned.

“Dustin Henderson, if you break my door, I am personally telling Mom that you are the reason her kitchen scissors disappeared.”

Dustin froze in the doorway. For a brief moment, genuine panic crossed his face.

Then he narrowed his eyes. “You still don’t know about that.”

You sat upright. “Dustin.”

“You have no proof.”

You pointed toward the hallway. “Get out.”

Instead of leaving, he walked directly into your room and dropped onto the chair beside your desk. Immediately, you knew he wanted something. Dustin only acted this determined when he had an agenda.

“What do you want?” you asked suspiciously.

A grin appeared on his face. “You are coming to Steve’s pool party this weekend.”

You stared at him. The smile instantly disappeared from your face.

“No.”

Dustin blinked. Then he laughed. Not because he thought you were joking. Because apparently he found your answer ridiculous.

You crossed your arms. “I am serious.”

“So am I.”

“I am not going.”

Dustin leaned forward. “Why?”

You looked back down at your book. “Because I don’t want to.”

“That is not an actual reason.”

“It is absolutely an actual reason.”

Dustin rolled his eyes dramatically. “No, it isn’t. An actual reason would be something like you already have plans or you have work or you’re allergic to swimming pools.”

You stared at him. “Allergic to swimming pools?”

“The point still stands.”

You sighed heavily. “Dustin, I don’t want to go.”

The younger boy studied you carefully Far too carefully. You immediately became suspicious.

“What?”

His eyes narrowed. “You know what I think?”

“No, and I would very much like to keep it that way.”

“I think you’re avoiding Steve.”

Your stomach dropped. You looked away so quickly that it probably confirmed his accusation immediately.

Unfortunately, Dustin noticed everything. His grin widened.

“You are avoiding Steve.”

“I am not.”

“You absolutely are.”

“I am not avoiding him.”

Dustin pointed dramatically. “You just looked away.”

“Because you’re being annoying.”

“You always say that when you’re losing an argument.”

You groaned and threw your book onto the bed. “I am not losing an argument because there isn’t an argument.”

“There is definitely an argument.”

“Dustin.”

“There is.”

You pressed your palms against your eyes. “This conversation is exhausting.”

The chair squeaked as Dustin leaned forward. His expression shifted slightly. The teasing faded.

“I know something happened.”

Your stomach tightened. You slowly lowered your hands.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Dustin shrugged. “You and Steve are weird now.”

The statement was simple. Matter-of-fact. Like he was discussing the weather.

You stared at him. “We are not weird.”

Dustin looked completely unconvinced.

“You can tell yourself that if it makes you feel better.”

You groaned. “Dustin.”

“No, seriously.”

His voice softened slightly. “I’ve known Steve for years.”

You looked away.

Dustin continued. “I’ve never seen him act like this.”

The knot in your stomach tightened. You hated hearing that. You hated how quickly concern replaced your frustration.

“What do you mean?”

Dustin noticed your immediate interest and pointed triumphantly.

“Exactly.”

You glared at him. “Dustin.”

“He hasn’t been around.”

The grin disappeared from his face.

“He barely comes over anymore.”

Your chest tightened. Because now that he mentioned it, you had noticed too. Steve practically lived at the Henderson house. He always had. Movie nights. Dinner. Helping Dustin with projects. Watching television. Sometimes he would stop by for no reason at all. Now he was nowhere. The absence felt wrong.

Dustin leaned back in the chair. “He misses you, you know.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

You looked down at your hands. “Dustin…”

“I’m serious.” For once, there was no teasing in his voice.

No jokes. No smug grin. Just honesty.

“He was excited that you were coming home.”

Your throat tightened. You remembered the look on Steve’s face when he saw you in the driveway.

The surprise. The relief. The happiness. You remembered all of it.

Dustin continued quietly. “I think he spent most of the year waiting for summer.”

Your heart ached. You hated hearing that. Because part of you had done exactly the same thing. You had counted down the months. The weeks. The days. You had imagined coming home so many times. Imagined finally seeing Steve again. Imagined finally finding out whether the almost-kiss meant as much to him as it had meant to you.

Instead everything had fallen apart.

You swallowed hard. “Dustin, it isn’t that simple.”

He looked at you for a long moment.

Then he sighed. “I know.”

The response surprised you. You expected another joke. Another argument.Instead, Dustin seemed oddly understanding.

He stood from the chair and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know what happened.”

His voice was quieter now. “But whatever it is, you both look miserable.”

The room fell silent. The words lingered between you. You looked away first. Because the truth hurt.

Dustin headed toward the door. Just before leaving, he stopped and looked back.

“Do you know what the most annoying thing about both of you is?”

You narrowed your eyes. “I feel like I am about to be insulted.”

“You are.”

That earned the smallest smile from you. Dustin pointed toward your bedroom window.

“You spend all your time looking at each other like you have something important to say.”

Your smile disappeared. The younger boy shook his head.

“And then neither of you actually says it.”

The room felt suddenly smaller. Warmer. Harder to breathe in.

Dustin opened the door. “I think you’re both waiting for the other person to fix everything.”

He paused. Then added quietly,

“And I think you’re both too stubborn to do it first.”

The words settled heavily in your chest. Before you could respond, Dustin stepped into the hallway.

“Oh, and Mom already said you can go to the pool party.”

You blinked. “What?”

The grin immediately returned. “I asked her yesterday.”

“Dustin!”

“See you Saturday!”

The door slammed shut before you could throw anything at him. Silence filled the room once more. You stared at the closed door. Then you looked down at the book resting beside you. You had not read a single page. Your thoughts had already drifted somewhere else.

To Steve.

To the porch.

To the hurt in his eyes.

To all the things neither of you had managed to say. And despite everything that had happened between you, despite every reason you had for staying home, a small part of you already knew that when Saturday arrived…

You were probably going to that pool party.

Saturday arrived far faster than you wanted it to. The entire morning passed in a blur of nervous energy. You tried reading. That lasted five minutes. You tried watching television. You couldn’t focus. You even attempted helping your mother around the house, but after dropping a stack of towels and nearly putting cereal in the refrigerator, she finally pointed toward the stairs and told you to go get ready. Now you stood alone in your bedroom. Sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating the scattered mess covering nearly every surface. Your bed was buried beneath discarded clothes.

Shorts.

Tank tops.

Sundresses.

Three different cover-ups. The evidence of nearly an hour of indecision surrounded you. You stared at your closet. Then at the clock. Then back at your closet.

“This is ridiculous.”The words echoed through the empty room.

Because it was ridiculous. It was just a pool party. You were not getting ready for a date. You were not trying to impress anyone. You definitely were not spending forty-five minutes deciding what swimsuit to wear because Steve Harrington would be there.

Absolutely not.

Unfortunately, your reflection in the mirror looked unconvinced.

You sighed dramatically before walking toward your dresser. Several swimsuits were piled neatly inside one drawer. You pulled them out one by one. The first one was comfortable but plain. The second was cute but didn’t feel right. The third made you immediately shake your head.

“No.” You tossed it onto the bed.

A few moments later, your attention landed on another one. You paused. The swimsuit was one you had bought during your first year at college. Simple. Confident. Flattering without being over-the-top. The color stood out beautifully in the sunlight. You held it up. Studied it. Then glanced toward the mirror. A small smile tugged at your lips.

“Okay.”

Several minutes later, you changed and stepped in front of the mirror. For a moment, you simply looked at your reflection. The girl staring back at you looked different than the one who had left Hawkins almost a year ago. Not entirely. The same eyes. The same smile. The same person. But there was something else now. A confidence that hadn’t been there before. College had changed you. Not completely. Just enough. You no longer felt like the girl who had spent an entire summer wondering whether Steve Harrington liked her.

You knew your worth now. You knew who you were becoming. And yet somehow, the thought of seeing Steve still made your stomach twist into knots.

You laughed softly at yourself. Then reached for a loose button-down shirt to wear over your swimsuit. The lightweight fabric hung comfortably over your shoulders. Casual. Normal. Like you hadn’t spent the last week replaying every painful word from your porch conversation. You moved toward your vanity and sat down. The familiar scent of sunscreen drifted through the room.

Outside your window, you could hear neighborhood kids laughing somewhere down the street. Summer in Hawkins felt endless. Golden. Warm. Unchanging.

You brushed through your hair before leaving it loose. The sunlight caught the strands as you stood once more. Your gaze found the mirror again. Not because you were checking your appearance. At least that’s what you told yourself. Instead, you found yourself wondering what today would be like. Whether things would be awkward. Whether Steve would avoid you. Whether either of you would find the courage to address what happened. A knot formed in your stomach. The uncertainty was exhausting.

A loud knock suddenly rattled your bedroom door. Before you could answer, Dustin burst inside.

His eyes immediately widened. “There is absolutely no way you’ve been getting ready this whole time.”

You rolled your eyes. “I have.”

“You’ve been upstairs for over an hour.”

“That’s none of your business.”

Dustin pointed accusingly. “You are nervous.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“I’m really not.”

“You spent an hour picking out an outfit.”

You grabbed a nearby pillow. “Dustin.”

He raised both hands. “Okay, okay.”

A grin spread across his face. “But for the record, if Steve passes out when he sees you, I’m not carrying him.”

Your mouth fell open. “Dustin Henderson!”

He laughed and sprinted toward the hallway before you could throw the pillow.

The door slammed behind him. Silence returned. You stared at the closed door. Then slowly shook your head. A reluctant smile appeared despite yourself. A few moments later, you grabbed your bag and headed downstairs. The butterflies in your stomach immediately returned. Because no matter how much you tried convincing yourself otherwise, you knew the truth.

You weren’t nervous about the pool party. You were nervous about Steve.

And that was a much bigger problem.

The entire drive to Steve’s house felt far too short.

One minute you were standing in your bedroom convincing yourself that going to this pool party was no big deal.

The next, you were driving down a road that felt all to familiar while Dustin drummed his fingers against the dashboard and sang terribly to the radio.

The further you drove through Hawkins, the worse the knot in your stomach became. By the time Steve’s neighborhood came into view, your nerves were completely out of control. You hated it. You hated that one person could still affect you this much. You hated that after an entire year away at college, after meeting countless new people and building a life outside of Hawkins, Steve Harrington could still reduce you to this.

A nervous mess.

The worst part was that you weren’t even sure why. Maybe it was because things felt unfinished. Maybe it was because neither of you had gotten closure. Or maybe it was because deep down, you still cared far more than you wanted to admit.

The car slowed as you pulled into the driveway. Immediately, you could hear music. Laughter drifted through the warm summer air. Several cars were already parked along the street. Colorful pool floats drifted across the water.

The entire backyard looked alive. People filled nearly every corner. Some sat around the edge of the pool. Others occupied lounge chairs beneath umbrellas.

Robin was already there, laughing loudly at something Max had said. The younger kids were running around with enough energy to power the entire state of Indiana.

For a brief moment, you simply sat there. Staring. Trying to gather yourself.

Dustin noticed immediately. A grin spread across his face. “You look like you’re preparing for battle.”

You rolled your eyes. “I’m literally sitting in a car.”

“You’re emotionally preparing.”

“I am not.”

“You absolutely are.”

You grabbed your bag. “Dustin.”

He laughed. “You’ll be fine.”

The confidence in his voice annoyed you. Mostly because he sounded so sure. You climbed out of the car before he could say anything else. The summer heat immediately wrapped around you. The sun reflected brightly off the surface of the pool. The smell of sunscreen and chlorine filled the air.

You adjusted the strap of your bag and followed Dustin through the gate.

The moment you stepped into the backyard, your eyes found Steve. Of course they did. You weren’t even looking for him. Not consciously. Yet somehow you noticed him immediately. He stood near the grill talking to Robin. A faded t-shirt stretched across his shoulders. A pair of swim trunks hung low on his hips. His hair looked slightly damp, as though he had already been in the pool. For one brief second, your heart stopped. Because he looked up. And his eyes met yours. The world seemed to pause. The noise around you faded. The music disappeared. For one suspended moment, it was just you and him. You watched recognition flash across his face. You watched his expression tighten. And then— He looked away.

Just like that.

No smile.

No wave.

No greeting.

Nothing.

Your stomach dropped. The feeling was immediate.

Sharp.

Painful.

Like missing a step in the dark.

Steve turned back toward Robin as though nothing had happened. As though he hadn’t just spent an entire second staring directly at you. As though you hadn’t existed at all. You stood frozen near the gate. Confusion quickly gave way to hurt. Maybe you had imagined it. Maybe he hadn’t seen you properly. But then Robin looked up. Her eyes widened. She immediately waved. You forced a smile. Robin said something to Steve. You could tell because she nudged his shoulder. His gaze briefly flickered in your direction. Then he looked away again. The knot in your stomach tightened.

Hard.

“Oh.”

The realization settled heavily in your chest. This wasn’t an accident.

He was avoiding you.

You swallowed. Suddenly, coming here felt like a terrible idea.

A really terrible idea.

Dustin had already disappeared toward the pool. Robin was occupied. Everyone else seemed busy. For the first time all afternoon, you felt strangely alone. You slowly made your way toward an empty lounge chair. The sounds of the party continued around you.

People laughed.

Music played.

Water splashed.

Yet everything felt distant.

Muted.

Because your attention kept drifting back to Steve. Unfortunately, every time it did, you wished it hadn’t. Everywhere you looked, he seemed determined not to acknowledge you. When Lucas asked him a question, Steve focused entirely on Lucas. When Robin called his name, Steve immediately joined her conversation. When Max nearly pushed Dustin into the pool, Steve laughed and walked over to help.

But whenever you moved nearby…

Whenever your paths should have crossed…

He left.

At first you tried convincing yourself it wasn’t intentional. By the fourth time it happened, that excuse stopped working. The hurt settled deeper with every passing minute. You hated how much it bothered you. Because part of you wanted to be angry. After all, Steve had every right to be upset after the conversation on the porch. But another part of you couldn’t stop thinking about movie night. About the kitchen. About the way he’d admitted he missed you. About all the moments that had made you believe there was still something between you. Now it felt like he was erasing all of it. As if pretending none of it had happened would somehow make things easier.

You sat quietly on the edge of a lounge chair, staring down at the condensation sliding down the side of your drink. The cold water bottle rested against your palm. The sunlight sparkled across the surface of the pool. Laughter erupted somewhere nearby. Yet none of it reached you. Across the yard, Steve stood talking to a group of people. He laughed at something someone said. The sound carried through the warm air. And somehow that hurt too. Because he looked completely normal.

Meanwhile, you felt like your chest was slowly being crushed. You looked away quickly. Your eyes burned unexpectedly. Not enough to cry. Just enough to make you angry at yourself. You had spent an hour getting ready. Spent days debating whether to come. Spent the entire drive convincing yourself that maybe things could be fixed.

Instead, Steve was acting like you were a complete stranger. And somehow that hurt far worse than if the two of you had argued. At least an argument would have meant he cared. Ignoring you felt like something else entirely. The realization settled heavily in your chest. For the first time since arriving, you genuinely considered leaving. Because standing ten feet away from Steve Harrington while he pretended you didn’t exist was becoming harder to endure with every passing minute. And unfortunately, the party had only just begun.

By the time the sky turned dark, most of the party had disappeared.

The endless noise that had filled Steve’s backyard all afternoon had slowly faded away. The music was quieter now. Empty soda cans sat abandoned on tables. Pool floats drifted lazily across the water, illuminated by the soft glow of the backyard lights.

The air felt different.

Calmer.

But somehow heavier.

You had spent nearly the entire party avoiding looking at Steve. Mostly because every time you did, it hurt. The worst part wasn’t that he had been rude. It wasn’t that he had been angry. It was that he had acted completely indifferent. As though the two of you hadn’t spent an entire year thinking about each other.

As though the almost-kiss had never happened. As though the conversation on the porch had never happened. As though you were just another person at his party.

By the time evening arrived, your patience had worn dangerously thin. You slipped inside the house to escape the crowd for a few minutes. The cool air-conditioning washed over your skin as you stepped into the hallway.

You were already halfway down the hallway when you stopped abruptly. Steve stood at the opposite end.

The moment your eyes met, your stomach dropped. Of course. Of course it would be him.

For a second neither of you moved.

The moment your eyes met Steve’s at the end of the hallway, all the frustration you’d spent the entire afternoon trying to suppress came rushing back.

You were tired. Tired of being ignored. Tired of pretending it didn’t bother you. Tired of acting like the way he’d treated you all day hadn’t hurt.

Steve froze when he saw you. For a split second, something flashed across his face.

Then it disappeared. The same way it always did. Hidden behind that frustratingly guarded expression he’d been wearing ever since you came home.

You folded your arms across your chest. “Are you going to keep doing that?”

Steve frowned. “Doing what?”

You let out a sharp laugh.

The sound echoed down the empty hallway.

“Seriously?”

His jaw tightened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then maybe you’re even better at pretending than I thought.”

The air between you immediately became tense.

Steve’s shoulders stiffened. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you spent an entire day acting like I wasn’t even here.”

His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t act like you weren’t here.”

“Really?” Your voice rose.

“Because from where I was standing, it looked a lot like you couldn’t wait to get away from me.”

Steve looked away for a second. That tiny movement made your anger spike.

Because it felt like confirmation.

“You know what?” you continued. “Forget it.”

You started to move past him.

Steve immediately stepped forward. “No.”

The word stopped you.

You turned back around. “No?”

His frustration finally broke through.

“No, because every time something goes wrong, you decide what I’m thinking before I even get a chance to explain.”

Disbelief washed over you. “Explain what exactly, Steve?”

His chest rose sharply. “The fact that everything has been weird since you came back.”

“Weird because of you.” His head snapped up.

“Because of me?”

“Yes.”

You threw your hands into the air. “You are the one avoiding me.”

Steve laughed bitterly. The sound carried through the hallway.

“You really think that’s the whole story?”

“What else am I supposed to think?”

“You could try thinking about someone besides yourself for five minutes.”

The words hit hard.

Your eyes widened. “What did you just say?”

The second the sentence left his mouth, regret flickered across his face.

But it vanished almost immediately.

Replaced by anger. “You heard me.”

A heavy silence settled between you. Your heart pounded so hard it hurt.

“You don’t get to say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you have no idea what this year was like for me.”

Steve laughed again. A harsh, frustrated sound.

“No, apparently I’m the one who doesn’t know anything.”

Your stomach dropped. The hurt underneath his anger was becoming impossible to miss.

But you were too angry to stop. “Then tell me.”

Steve stared at you. For several seconds neither of you moved.

Then everything he’d been holding back finally exploded.

“I spent an entire year wondering if I was an idiot.”

The confession hit like a punch. Steve ran a hand through his hair. His breathing was uneven now. His composure finally cracking.

“I spent an entire year thinking about that night.”

Your chest tightened. The almost-kiss. Neither of you said it out loud. You didn’t have to.

“I kept wondering if I imagined the whole thing.” His voice echoed down the hallway.

“I kept wondering if maybe I cared more than you did.”

The words hurt because they mirrored your own fears. Your own thoughts. Your own insecurities.

But before you could respond, Steve kept going. “Then you left.”

“There it is again.” Your voice shook.

“You keep saying that like I abandoned you.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to!”

The argument echoed through the house now. Louder. Sharper. Years of feelings and misunderstandings spilling out all at once.

“You act like I chose school over you.”

Steve looked away. The movement alone made your chest ache.

“Maybe it felt that way.”

The honesty knocked the air from your lungs. For a second, neither of you spoke. The silence felt deafening. Then anger returned. Stronger this time. Because hurt often looked a lot like anger.

“You know what?” you said. “Maybe if you actually told me how you felt, things would’ve been different.”

Steve stared at you. His expression darkened.

“You think I didn’t try?”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I was terrified!” The words exploded out of him.

You froze. Steve looked shocked he’d admitted it. But he didn’t take it back. His voice remained rough. Raw.

“I was terrified because every person I’ve ever cared about leaves eventually.”

The confession hit harder than anything else.

His eyes locked onto yours. “And I thought if I told you how I felt and you didn’t feel the same way, I’d lose you completely.”

The anger inside you immediately weakened. Not disappearing.

Just changing.

Because suddenly you could see the hurt behind everything. Months of hurt. Months of fear. Months of missed chances. And somehow that made the entire situation even more painful. The two of you stood there staring at each other. Breathing hard. Exhausted. Neither willing to back down. Neither willing to walk away.

Because for the first time since you came home, all the things you’d both been hiding were finally out in the open.

And there was no pretending anymore.

You aren’t sure who moved first but you were pretty sure he did. before you could even register how close he had gotten his hands were already on you.

“tell me to stop”

“tell me to leave you alone and i will” he said looking down at you.

You couldn’t form any words. All you could do was look up at him. his eyes looked at you like they were trying to memorize every single detail of you.

“steve” was all you could manage

“please tell me to stop because if i don’t stop i’ll do something i might regret”

“ don’t stop”

His hand traveled from your forearms to one on your waist and the other on your cheek and without hesitation he dove right in to you.

The kiss was fast, deep, like a fight for power. Your hands snaked around his neck as he pulled you closer to him till you could feel his whole body against yours. you reached into the back of his hair running your fingers through the soft locks. his hands traveled lower and lower until he hooked they around the backs of your knees picking you up then devouring your mouth once more.

He slowly pulled away “ we shouldn’t be doing this” he said sucking marks into your neck as he moved you against the wall.

“Steve I said don’t stop” and that was all he needed before he was back on you like a man starved.

Steve walked the both of you to his bedroom for before throwing it open and bursting through it then kicking closed as he held you with one arm.

“You don’t understand what you do to me, you don’t understand how you messed with my head to the point you are all i think about” he said lowering you on to his bed looking at you with hunger in his eyes.

“ steve please” You said trying to reach out and grab him to pull him back to you and now your were laying on his bed as he stood over you.

“ No tell me, tell me i’m not the only one”

you pulled yourself up to rest on your elbows. “Steve you had me completely ruined all year”

“I couldn’t do anything without thinking about you, without missing you, without wanting you”

He slowly crawled on to the bed placing his forearms on each side of your head locking you in place.

He bent down slowly kissing up your neck as you pulled on his shirt attempting to get any possible contact.

“ All i could think about was having you like this, under me, completely mine”

He dove in again kissing you softer this time as if he was trying to show you how bad he wanted you. his hand found the hem of your top and pulled back to look in your eyes. with a nod from you he pulled the shirt up slowly to reveal the pink bathing suit top that hugged your boobs so tightly.

Without breaking eye contact his hand moved over the soft skin of your breast softly needing it eating a low sigh from you.

“So fucking gorgeous” he said has he pulled the rest of the shirt of and reached behind your back to pull at the strings of the bathing suit.

Once you were fully top naked his eyes devoured your skin.

“All mine now, Don’t you ever try to run away from me again” was all he said before he took your niple into his mouth softly sucking and biting it.

A high pitched moan was all that came out of you as you tried to form and thought but he was clouding your brain.

“ I don’t want to run steve i want this, i need this”

you tugged his shirt over his head putting his chest hair on full display as you went to kiss his neck. He moved his hips down to connect with yours and apply pressure sending you into heaven.

His fingers dipped below your waistband and softly danced over your clothes slit.

“Steve please no more teasing please just take me” you said into his mouth practically begging him.

“are you sure”

“this will change everything”

“ I’m sure i’ve spent all year being sure, thinking about this, thinking about you” the words came out dripping with intent and raw emotions.

He dipped his fingers under the fabric of your panties and rubbed slow soft circles on to your sensitive nub. You could feel him everywhere it felt like he had his hands on every inch of you.

“How’s that baby”

he slowly entered his fingers into your dripping hole.

“is all this for me pretty girl” he said nipping your neck leaving marks your sure will show for days.

“steve please i need… oh my god”

“mmm what do you need” steve said as he continued to kiss you and pull your shorts clean off so your naked body is completely on display for him.

He pulled his head back to look at you as his fingers still worked you.

“ you are absolutely perfect baby, so perfectly mine now”

“ i’ve always been yours steve, i need more please” you said through moans.

As his one hand still dove into you he used his other to slowly un do his belt and pull down his pants and boxers in one go releasing his massive cock that was standing up hitting his soft tummy.

“don’t just stare at it” he said removing his fingers.

“it’s just…”

“What baby i need you to use your big girl words”

“your so big steve”

He moved closer lining him self up with your needy hole. Slowly rubbing himself over you to tease you.

“I’m not doing this just to do it, i’m doing this because i mean it , because i want you all of you” steve said starting to enter you. The feeling almost put you over the edge the pleasure exploded all through your body as he pushed deeper.

“Steve i-“ before you could finish he was fully inside ripping a scream from your throat as you pulled him closer.

“What baby talk to me” continuing to pick up his pace.

Both of you were moaning and breathing heavily forgetting that his house was full of your friends but neither of you cared.

he moved his hand to hold the side of your face and just stare at you with a look you knew ment something you weren’t ready to confess.

“god its so big”

“Yea baby… your taking it so good oh my fuck”

His hands of your body, his lips on your skin, his sent filling your nose. He had completely consumed all of you.

He moved faster and faster as you both chased your release. He moved harder his hips drilling into yours as your moaned his name like heaven. You looked down to see where your bodies connected and felt an overwhelming feeling, something you had been trying to deny all year. You loved steve harrington.

You felt yourself get closer and closer to sweet release and by his thrusts getting slightly sloppy you could tell he was to. The two of you were rambling and groaning.

“God steve i fucking love you”

That made him stop.

“you what”

“i-“

“I love you so much so fucking much baby i always have” he said starting trust again faster and harder.

And that was all it took you knew you were right about to cum.

“come on be a good girl and cum for me baby”

he went harder whispering dirty words into your ear.

“Steve i… fuck… gooood i love you” you said cumming all over him.

“me to too baby, this fucking pussy was made for me”

“i’m so close where do you want it” he said trying to hold back as he waited for an answer from you”

“inside i need it inside please please steve i need to feel it”

With one more hard trust you felt think ropes of his release in you. He continued to fuck you threw both of your highs.

Once you were done he didn’t pull out immediately he stayed and fucked his cum farther into you. You both layed there covered in sweat trying to come to your senses.

“Did you mean it” Steve said still inside you as your combined juices dripped down your legs.

“yeah i did i really did, did you mean it” you replied

“i’ve loved you for years, your it for me baby” he said pulling out as you winced at the loss.

He layed on his back and pulled you to his chest.

“ i want this i want all of this all of you i want you to me with me for real no more pretending no more hiding i don’t care what it take i just want you baby”

“ i want you to stevie i promise i do”

He bent his head down and kissed you again. This time the kiss was soft, sweet and loving.

“ i’ll move i’ll come to collage with you i’ll do anything to have you just please let me”

“im yours steve i always have been”

“good because after i got a taste of your i’m never leaving you” he said rubbing soft circles on your back.

“be my girlfriend be with me”

“ of course i will, i mean i have been waiting a year for this” you said giggling as he rolled you over on to your back placing kisses all over your face.

“god i love you pretty girl”

For a moment you had been in your own world just you in steve in love.

Until

“ Hey steve are you done strewing my sister we need help with the pool light” dustin’s voice caused you both to jump up in fear.

“go the fuck away you little germ” steve yelled back at the door.

“well when your done come help us please man”

“ And for what it’s worth i told you both this would happen it was my plan that whole time” dustin said running away.

“that little shit” you said laughing.

“ i mean he’s a bug in my side but he’s not wrong, i got my girl now” steve said kissing you.

“i guess we should go help him”

“ fuck no i’m not leaving this bed”

Steve hooked his arm around you and kissed your head as you both dozed off.

You knew that in this moment you have never been happier. But you wish you had come to your senses sooner. And you know you’d love this man for the rest of your life.

[morninglesss]

the modern leper

Series Masterlist

Mature/18+/MDNI

Gator Tillman x female reader

Part one: the alarmist Part two: the futurist Part three: the modern leper

Six years on from the events of the alarmist. Stillwater, Minnesota. A bus route learned by heart, a city mapped in footsteps and degrees of cold air, a life being rebuilt one unglamorous Tuesday at a time. Gator Tillman is thirty-three years old. He’s showing up. He’s not sure yet what that means, but he’s doing it anyway. Somewhere on the Pacific Northwest coast, a woman has stopped writing letters to an email address she assumed was abandoned. She wasn’t wrong. Until she was.

cw/tags: Post-prison life is hard. Therapy, self hatred, canon-appropriate language throughout. Minor injury. Bereavement. Allusions to panic attacks and some compulsive behaviours. Brief mentions of past violence. Past physical and sexual abuse alluded to. Tags to be updated as series progresses

Part One // Part Two // Part Three // Part Four // Part Five // Part Six // ongoing

[imfromthediningtable]

this entire series is my absolute favourite. the difference in the descriptions of their surroundings??! reader describing what she sees and gator only describing what he can hear or smell?? THE SLOWBURN?? read it now.

[prettyglad]

safe until sunset — steve harrington

summary — steve harrington is your bodyguard. he's your bodyguard you've become overly fond of. you spend too much time with him. then, you're on your way to spain for a press tour, and steve is acting weird. he's cold and distant, and mean. you find out why.

or "his is hand closes around your arm and moves you back in one immediate motion, behind him, and the last fraction of the professional surface lifts away from him all at once and what replaces it is something you didn't know was there, something that has been underneath everything for eight months, and you understand standing behind him that you have been shown a very small and very managed portion of what Steve Harrington actually is."

content 12.2k words, bodyguard!steveharrington x reader, no pronouns, slowburn, steve being an ass, violence, blood, steve being too protective to be honest.

note omg first part to my last bgs work!! he is so yum in this and idc he's my fav vers of steve to write. thanks guys!!!

⋆˚꩜｡

You find out about Spain the way you find out about most things.

Not from your father. Never from your father.

Amelia appears in the kitchen doorway at half past ten on a Tuesday, tablet pressed to her chest like a shield, and the particular set of her jaw tells you everything you need to know about the next five minutes before she opens her mouth. 

You've learned to read her the way you've learned to read most things in this house — by the things that aren't said, the micro-expressions that flicker through before professionalism irons them back out. Amelia has worked for your father for eleven years. She’s delivered bad news with the composure of someone defusing something, and she’s delivered it to you more times than either of you has ever counted.

You wrap both hands around your coffee and wait.

"Spain," she says.

Just the one word, dropped into the quiet kitchen like a coin into water.

"What about it?"

"The press tour got expanded." She's already pulling something up on the tablet, already moving, already three steps ahead of the conversation. "Madrid and Barcelona. One week. You leave Friday."

You put your mug down.

Outside, the grounds sit perfectly manicured in the late morning sun, the fountain near the back terrace doing its quiet, expensive thing. Inside, the kitchen smells of espresso and the flowers someone replaced yesterday, and the music drifting through the hidden speakers is something soft and orchestral that your father's housekeeper chose and nobody has ever bothered to change. It’s a beautiful house. It’s always a beautiful house. Some mornings, you can almost forget what it costs to live inside it.

"Friday," you repeat.

"Four days."

"Amelia."

"The confirmation came through this morning." She says. "The schedule is tight but manageable. Amelia has already—" She stops. Blinks. "I've already coordinated with the Barcelona team."

"Nobody told me there was a Barcelona team."

"There is now."

You sit with that for a moment. Two weeks in Spain — the words should feel like something. They do feel like something, actually, just not the thing that probably makes sense. Something restless and complicated, the feeling of a door being opened in a house you've stopped expecting doors in.

You've been to Spain once, years ago, before the security and the schedules and the strange half-life that comes with being your father's daughter in the particular way that you are. You remember the smell of it. Orange blossom and petrol and something underneath both that felt very old. You remember thinking you could disappear there, if disappearing were a thing available to you.

It isn't. But Spain still has the memory of the thought.

"Fine," you say.

Amelia's expression shifts almost imperceptibly — a micro-expression like she had prepared for significantly more resistance. "There's a briefing tonight."

"Of course, there is."

"Security coordination. International protocols." She pauses here, and the pause has something deliberate behind it. "Steve will run it."

You look at her. She looks at her tablet.

"He's been preparing since yesterday," she adds, which is a strange thing to add, and the fact that she adds it tells you something.

"How long has he known?"

"A few days."

"And I'm finding out now."

"The confirmation—"

"Amelia."

She meets your eyes. There's something apologetic in them, which is unusual enough to register. "It was a judgment call," she says carefully. "About timing."

His judgment call, she means. Not hers.

You nod once, slowly, and pick up your mug again. The coffee has gone cold while you were talking, which is a small and stupid thing to be annoyed about, but you're a little annoyed about it anyway.

"Send me the itinerary," you say.

"Already done."

"Of course it is."

She leaves the way she arrived — efficiently, without ceremony, the tap of her heels retreating back down the hallway before the kitchen has quite finished settling. The music keeps playing. Outside, a bird lands on the edge of the fountain and immediately leaves again.

You sit in the quiet and think about Spain.

Steve arrives twenty minutes later.

You hear him before you see him — the particular quality of the house when he enters it, a subtle shift in the atmosphere that you noticed embarrassingly early and have never quite been able to explain. 

He’s worked for you for eight months now. In that time, you’ve developed an involuntary awareness of him that you find both useful and inconvenient, like a second sense that didn't ask your permission before installing itself.

He appears in the kitchen doorway and does the thing he always does — reads the room in about two seconds, windows, to exits, to you, the sweep so habitual now it barely registers as a movement. Dark suit. Loosened tie. The small earpiece that means he's already been working for hours before you were awake. He looks, as he almost always looks, like someone who has already thought of everything and is now simply waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

Except.

There’s something different about him this morning, and you clock it before you can decide not to.

It lives in his jaw, mainly. The way it's set a fraction too tight, the muscle there doing the slow flex that means he's holding something in. His shoulders carry more tension than usual under the jacket. And his eyes, when they land on you after their automatic sweep of the room, stay a beat longer than they normally would — like he's checking something, confirming something, running some internal calculation you're not privy to.

You file this away and say nothing about it.

"You knew," you say instead.

"Yes."

"Before I did."

"Yes."

"And you didn't think to—"

"Timing," he says, the same word Amelia used, which means it’s coordinated, which means there was a conversation you weren't part of about how and when to tell you things about your own life. You know this is how it works. You have always known this is how it works. Some mornings it bothers you more than others.

This is one of the others.

He sets a folder on the kitchen island.

It is — and you want to be precise about this — a substantial folder. Black. Tabbed. The tabs are colour-coded. There is a moment where you simply look at it and then look at him and then look back at it.

"Steve."

"Travel briefing."

"That is not a travel briefing. That’s a document you’d hand to someone about to make a covert insertion into a hostile territory."

"It's thorough."

"It has a table of contents."

"The table of contents is helpful."

"For who?"

Something moves at the corner of his mouth — not quite amusement, just the suggestion of one, there and then not. He opens the folder and turns it toward you and begins, because he has clearly been waiting to begin since before you were awake.

He walks you through it with the efficiency of someone who has rehearsed this and would rather you not know that. Commercial flight under a restricted manifest. Private arrival terminal. Local security coordination in both cities, which apparently has a name and a hierarchy and several contact protocols you're expected to memorise. 

Movement windows. Hotel layouts. Exit routes. The annotated meal locations, which you stare at for a moment before looking up.

"Are these—"

"Estimated movement windows."

"For meals."

"It's easier to plan around."

"Steve. You’ve planned my trip to the bathroom."

"I've planned the window during which bathroom access is most logistically—"

"That's what I said."

He doesn't look embarrassed. Steve Harrington has never once looked embarrassed about anything he has professionally decided to be thorough about, which you have come to recognise as one of his more maddening qualities and also, privately, one of the ones you find least easy to argue with.

You flip through the pages and let him talk. He has a good voice for this — low, even, unhurried in the way of someone who knows the material well enough not to need the notes. You find yourself watching him more than the papers, which is something you do and something you're supposed to not do, and the monitoring of that habit is itself a habit at this point.

He's still doing it. The jaw thing. The weight in his shoulders. The way his gaze keeps drifting, just slightly, toward the windows while he speaks, and then back to you, and then to the windows again. Like he's checking something. Like he's been checking something for a while.

"You're doing the thing," you say, when he pauses.

He looks at you. "What thing?"

"Where you're somewhere else, and I can almost see it." You keep your voice even, curious rather than accusatory. "You've been doing it since you walked in."

A silence. Short enough that another person wouldn't notice. He is, among other things, very good at silences.

"International operations require more active risk assessment than domestic—"

"That's a sentence, not an answer."

His jaw does the thing again. One finger taps once against the edge of the folder and goes still.

"You'll need to stay closer to me than usual once we're there," he says instead. "I want you within arm's reach during all public-facing movement. When I redirect, you move. No delays, no questions."

The shift is deliberate. You notice it, and you let it go, because there’s an art to letting Steve Harrington decide when to tell you things, and the art involves knowing which battles are worth having in a kitchen at half past ten.

"Within arm's reach," you say.

"Yes."

"And if I decide I'd rather not be managed quite that closely?"

He looks at you like you’re stupid, and it's not the first time. You don’t care, to be honest.

"You won't," he says.

A quiet statement of fact from someone who has decided how something is going to go. You used to find it infuriating. You used to push back on it, because the alternative was admitting that his particular brand of quiet authority was doing something to your judgment that you hadn't signed up for.

These days, you mostly just look away first and pretend you were going to anyway.

"Send me the contact list," you say, pulling the folder back toward you.

"Already sent."

"Of course it is."

You look down at the pages. Hotel layouts. Movement windows. Colour-coded tabs. Spain in four days, and Steve Harrington watching the windows of your kitchen.

Outside, the fountain runs on. The music plays. The day moves around the house in its quiet, expensive way.

You close the folder.

"I'll read it tonight," you say.

"All of it," he says. It isn't a question.

"All of it," you agree.

Then he's gone, and the kitchen settles back into its orchestral music and its expensive quiet, and you sit with a colour-coded folder in your hands and the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that you are several steps behind a conversation that has been happening without you.

Spain in four days.

Steve, carrying something he hasn't told you.

You pick up your drink, and consider the window above the sink and think you've navigated worse than this.

You're just not entirely sure, yet, what this is.

—

Friday arrives the way bad things tend to — faster than it should.

You're awake before your alarm, which tells you something about the state of your nervous system, lying in the dark listening to the house come alive around you. The particular creak of the service corridor. Wheels against marble. Someone's radio crackling to life two floors below and then cutting off. By five-thirty, the whole building has a pulse to it, low and urgent, and by the time you get downstairs at half past six it has become something else entirely.

The foyer looks like a staging ground.

Two SUVs in the driveway, engines already running, exhaust curling in the cold grey air. Hard cases lined up beside the door in formation. Security moving between the vehicles and the house in the wordless, efficient way of people who have done this many times and are operating well within their own competence. 

You know most of their faces by now, eight months will do that, but this morning, there are others you don't recognise. Bigger. Quieter. The kind of men who stand differently from everyone else, weight distributed in a way that makes them look permanently ready for something.

You stop on the bottom stair and take it in.

Nobody tells you anything. Conversations don't stop when you appear, exactly, but they adjust — shift registers slightly, like a radio being turned down without being turned off. Amelia is somewhere behind you, talking rapidly into her phone about revised press windows in Madrid. Someone near the door is discussing flight clearance like someone who doesn't want to be overheard discussing flight clearance.

You're still standing on the bottom stair when Steve looks up from across the room.

He's been speaking to one of the agents near the door. Dark overcoat, suit underneath, earpiece already in. Black gloves folded in one hand. He looks, at first glance, the way he always looks — composed, calibrated, the kind of put-together that suggests he has never once in his adult life been caught underprepared for anything.

At second glance, the jaw, again. The set of his shoulders. The way the conversation he was having, ends the moment he sees you, the other agent simply stepping back and away without a word, like this was already the arrangement.

He crosses the foyer.

"You're late," he says.

You look at the grandfather clock. "Seven minutes."

"Still late."

Normally, there's something underneath a comment like that — the faint ghost of amusement he lets through when he thinks you won't notice. This morning, it's just the words, flat and functional, and the absence of everything usually tucked beneath them is its own kind of information.

You look at him properly. He looks tired in a way he never lets himself look tired — just something in the eyes that suggests the night behind them was shorter than it should have been and worked harder than most. The muscle in his eye ticks. Once, twice.

"You look terrible," you say.

"You look underprepared."

"I'm dressed. I have shoes."

His gaze drops to your feet for a half-second — actually checks, which is so specifically him that it loosens something in your chest despite everything — and then comes back up.

"We're moving in ten," he says, already turning toward the door.

Outside, the morning air is cold and wet, the driveway slick from overnight rain. You step out after him and watch what happens to his body the moment he clears the threshold — the almost imperceptible shift, every line of him reorganising into something sharper, more deliberate.

You've watched him do this hundreds of times. Today it makes the back of your neck prickle.

One of the agents opens the rear door of the nearest SUV. Steve pauses before you get in — just a second, just long enough to look at you in the particular way he has when he's deciding how much to say.

"Terminal to gate, you stay between Carter and me," he says. "Someone approaches, keep moving. Someone stops you, keep moving. You don't stop for anything unless I tell you."

"I know how airports work," you say.

"This isn't about airports."

He says it quietly, without inflection, and it lands somewhere below your sternum and stays there.

Before you can ask what it is about, his hand goes to his earpiece. He listens, says something clipped and low, and the moment closes. You get in the car.

The drive is twenty-eight minutes, and it feels like three hours.

Steve sits beside you rather than across from you. Close enough that when the car takes a corner, his shoulder presses briefly against yours, a contact so ordinary it shouldn't register, and does anyway. 

He doesn't look at his phone. He doesn't do anything you associate with a normal person spending twenty-eight minutes in a car. Doesn't fidget, doesn't make conversation, doesn't stare at anything at all.

He watches. Traffic, pavements, the cars alongside them, the junctions as they approach. Occasionally, his hand lifts to his earpiece and something passes through him, and his expression processes it without letting you see the result.

Copy. Understood. Negative.

You last about ten minutes with your book before putting it face down on your knee.

"Steve."

His eyes come to you immediately, which is the thing about Steve. He is always, somehow, already paying attention to you even when he appears to be paying attention to everything else.

"You're scaring me a little," you say. You keep your voice level and reasonable. "Not a lot. Just a little. And I think you should know that."

Something moves through his expression. Small and quickly managed, but there. "That's not the intention," he says.

"I know it's not. I'm telling you the effect."

He looks at you for a moment. Then, "You're safe."

"You say that," you say, "like it's an answer."

"It is an answer."

"It's the answer to a question I haven't asked yet." You hold his gaze. "I'm asking why. Why the extra team? Why you haven't relaxed once this morning? Why this feels different from every other departure we've done?"

He doesn't look away. He doesn't give you anything either.

"International operations require a higher—"

"Don't." You say it quietly, without heat. "Please don't give me the line. You've been running that line since Tuesday, and I'm getting on a plane with you in twenty minutes and I think I've earned something better than the line."

One hand, resting on his knee, closes briefly and opens again.

"There's nothing I can tell you right now," he says finally, and the right now is doing a great deal of work in that sentence, and you both know it.

"But there's something."

He says nothing, which is its own answer.

You turn back to the window. Outside, the city moves past in the flat grey of early morning, familiar streets emptied by the hour, everything ordinary and slightly unreal the way things look before the day has properly started. You think about what right now means. About the difference between there's nothing and there's nothing I can tell you and what lives in that gap.

Steve's hand lifts to his earpiece again.

You watch the city and say nothing and feel the distance between what you know and what's actually happening grow slowly wider, the way a sound does when the thing making it is moving away from you.

—

The private terminal is the kind of quiet that isn't peaceful.

You've been here before. The low-ceilinged calm of it, the way it always feels slightly outside of time, suspended between one place and another. Usually, it feels like a held breath before something good. Today, it feels like a held breath before something else.

The team moves around you in a formation you understand in theory and feel differently about this morning. Steve is always close — a step back, a step beside, one subtle shift forward whenever anyone unknown passes within a certain radius. You've clocked this pattern for months. Today, the radius feels smaller.

At the boarding desk, while the agent processes your passport, you keep your voice low.

"You've barely looked at me all morning."

"I'm looking at you now," he says.

He is. Directly, steadily, the full version. There's no warmth in it — not the particular warmth you've grown used to from him, the ones that live in the corner of his eyes. Just attention, clean and professional and entirely unrevealing.

Which is somehow worse.

"That's not what I mean," you say.

He doesn't answer. The agent hands your passport back, and you move toward the gate, Steve moving with you, that half-step behind, and you think about the last eight months.

The rhythm of him you've learned, the particular frequency he operates on that you've calibrated yourself to without meaning to — and you think about how entirely that frequency has changed this week, tightened into something you can't quite read, and you wonder what it means that the person who is supposed to make you feel safest is currently the primary source of your unease.

The plane is small and private and smells of leather and recycled air.

Steve does the thing he always does before sitting — reads the cabin the way he reads every room, exit to exit, aisle to windows, every passenger already seated assessed and apparently filed. Then he sits beside you, coat still on, and doesn’t relax.

You open your book. You read the same page four times.

Outside the small oval window, ground crew move through the mist in high-vis jackets, and the sky is the specific heavy white of a morning that hasn't decided what it's going to do yet, and the engines start their low preliminary rumble beneath the floor.

Beside you, Steve says something quietly into his earpiece. A pause. His hand — resting near his knee, close enough to yours that you're aware of it — tightens once against his leg.

Just that. Just the one small involuntary thing.

You close the book.

"Steve." You say it quietly, for him only. "You're making me nervous."

He looks at you. In his expression, for just a moment, is something more complicated, more tired, something that looks almost like it costs him to keep it contained. It's there for less than a second before it goes.

"I need you to stay aware today," he says. "That's all I can give you right now. I need you switched on."

"Switched on," you repeat.

"Yes."

"That is a genuinely terrible thing to say to a person you've just told to stay calm."

Something at the corner of his mouth. The ghost of the version of him you know better. "I'm trying to keep you safe," he says.

"I know you are." And you do. That's the thing, you do know, completely, with the bone-deep certainty that eight months of watching someone do their job with total commitment can produce. You know he's trying to keep you safe. What you don't know is what he's keeping you safe from, and the gap between those two things is where all your anxiety currently lives.

The plane begins to move.

Rain drags sideways across the glass. The terminal slides past the window and falls away, and then there's only the runway and the low sky and the gathering sound of the engines doing what engines do.

You look at Steve's hand near his knee. The slight tension still in it, the unconscious readiness. You think about right now again, about what gets added to that sentence once right now becomes later, once you've landed somewhere warm and loud and foreign, and whatever he's been carrying all week becomes the thing he finally tells you.

You don't ask again.

You turn to the window and watch home disappear beneath the clouds and carry the question with you instead, all the way to Spain.

—

You wake up somewhere over Spain.

For a few seconds, you don't know where you are. Then the seatbelt sign blinks on overhead, and a flight attendant moves quietly down the aisle, and the grey nothing outside the window resolves itself into cloud, and you remember.

Spain. You're going to Spain.

You turn your head.

Steve is awake. Of course, he's awake. As far as you can tell, Steve has not slept once during your four-hour nap, which means he has now been awake for something approaching twenty hours, and he looks it, in the specific way he only ever looks it when he's run out of resources to hide it. 

The shadows beneath his eyes have deepened. There's a faint line in his brow that hasn't smoothed out since leaving. His face carries a particular tension, like he's been tensing unconsciously for so long it's stopped registering as effort.

He's reading something on his phone. Or looking at it, anyway. You're not sure he's actually reading.

Then the cabin doors open.

Warm air moves through the plane like something waking up — thick and golden and entirely different from the grey damp you left behind. You hear Spanish immediately, overlapping and rapid and musical in a way that English somehow never manages, voices carrying through the terminal outside.

You sit up properly. Roll your neck. Feel four hours of cramped sleep settling into your shoulders.

"Good morning," you say.

Steve looks over. Something shifts briefly,  almost resembling relief that you're conscious and present and speaking, which tells you more about the last four hours than anything he might actually say.

"We've landed," he says.

"I can tell."

"You slept."

"Barely."

"More than I expected."

You look at him. "Did you sleep at all?"

The answer is in the way he doesn't answer, already moving, reaching above you for your bag from the overhead compartment.

"Steve."

"We're on the ground," he says. "That's what matters."

It isn't, but you let it go.

—

Barcelona arrives.

You step off the plane, and it hits you — the heat, the noise, the quality of the light, which is different from home in a way you feel before you can name. Sharper somehow. More insistent. The sky above the tarmac is a blue so dense it looks painted, and the air smells of warm concrete and aviation fuel and something beneath both of those things, something older, something that might be the city itself.

You stop at the top of the steps.

Just for a second. Just to stand in it.

Behind you, Steve says nothing. When you glance back, he's watching you with an expression you don't entirely know how to read, watchful in the particular quiet way he has sometimes that feels less like surveillance and more like attention.

"Sorry," you say.

"Don't be."

You start walking.

The private terminal is cool and hushed after the brightness outside, all polished floors and muted conversation. Steve coordinates with the local team in low urgent tones while your bags are sorted and a vehicle is confirmed, and you stand slightly to one side and watch him work and think about the conversation that is clearly waiting somewhere ahead of you.

The one where he tells you whatever it is he hasn't told you yet.

You watch him across the arrivals hall — the set of his shoulders, the way he listens more than he speaks, the way his attention keeps finding you between sentences the way a compass finds north. Like some part of him is running a continuous background check on your exact location without being fully aware it's happening.

He looks up. Finds you immediately, through the crowd, without having to search.

You look away first. You always look away first.

—

The hotel is the kind of beautiful that stops feeling real after a certain price point.

White marble and flowers and ceilings that have no practical reason to be that high. Staff who move like they've been choreographed. A lobby that smells of something expensive and faintly floral while light falls through tall windows in long warm columns across the floor.

You should feel something about it. You feel tired.

The suite is on the ninth floor, two rooms plus a sitting area, balcony doors open to an afternoon that has already turned golden. Beyond the glass, the coastline glitters. The ocean sits flat and brilliant beneath the heat haze, and from up here the beach looks like something from a film — all pale sand and coloured umbrellas and tiny figures moving in and out of the water.

You stand in the middle of the room and look at it.

"Stay back from the balcony edge," Steve says, not looking up from where he's checking the lock on the connecting door. "Until we've cleared sightlines."

"There are nine floors between me and the street."

"Stay back from the edge."

You stay back from the edge.

He moves through the suite — bedroom, bathroom, connecting doors, windows, balcony access, the view from each angle. He says something brief into his earpiece, listens to the response and says something else.

You drift toward the window anyway, stopping where the floor meets the open balcony threshold, close enough to feel the warm air coming in off the water without technically crossing the line.

The ocean from here is extraordinary.

"It's perfect beach weather," you say.

"No."

You turn around. "I haven't finished the sentence."

"You don’t need to."

He's looking at you now. The sunglasses are gone, and the exhaustion in his face is worse without them. He looks like a man who has been carrying something heavy for a long time and has gotten very good at not showing it, except that you’ve spent eight months learning to read him, and the showing is visible to you regardless.

"You cannot honestly expect me to fly to Spain and sit in a hotel room," you say.

"I expect you to follow security protocols."

"I'd like to go to the beach."

"No."

"Steve—"

"No."

Something about the flatness of it makes irritation flare properly through you for the first time all day. Not the low-grade frustration you've been managing since Tuesday. Something sharper.

"You've barely spoken to me since we left home," you say. "Unless it was an instruction. And now I'm in another country looking at the most beautiful coastline I've ever seen, and you're telling me no, like I've asked to do something dangerous."

"I'm telling you no because—"

"Because why?" You hold his gaze. "Give me an actual reason. Not a protocol. A reason."

His face shifts. Something moves behind his eyes that he pulls back before it reaches his mouth.

"Thirty minutes," he says flatly.

You blink. "What?"

"Public beach. Crowded. We leave before the light goes."

He says it like a concession that costs him, like each word is something being given up rather than offered. You stare at him for a moment, genuinely waiting for the reversal.

It doesn't come.

"Okay," you say carefully.

He's already reaching for his phone.

—

The beach in the early evening is the most beautiful thing you've seen in recent memory.

The sand is still warm underfoot when you take your shoes off. The water is the deep greenish-blue of late afternoon, the light coming in low and gold across it, turning everything amber at the edges. The city hums behind you, while ahead there's only ocean.

You walk into the shallows without thinking about it.

The water is cool around your ankles and the shock of it makes you laugh, quietly, just to yourself, and for the first time since getting on a plane this morning something in your chest releases.

When you look back, Steve is standing on the dry sand with his shoes on, watching the beach.

"You know," you call over the sound of the water, "most people enjoy this."

"I'm enjoying it," he says.

"You're scanning threat vectors."

"I can do both."

You walk out a little further. The foam curls around your feet and retreats. Behind you, Barcelona does its thing — noise and music and the particular alive quality of a city that doesn't really believe in evenings ending.

Eventually, you convince him to sit.

This takes longer than it should, and he does it with visible reluctance, but he does it, lowering himself onto the sand beside you with his arms across his knees and his attention still drifting across the beach at intervals that have a rhythm to them if you know how to watch.

You watch the horizon and let the quiet sit.

The sun is low enough now to turn the water silver at the edges. Somewhere down the beach, a group has started a fire, small and orange, voices drifting across the sand too distant to make out as words.

"Most people would say this is a good job," you say eventually.

Steve doesn't answer immediately.

"And what would you say?" he asks.

The question is quieter than you expect. You glance sideways. He's looking at the water, the last of the day's light moving across his profile, and he looks different out here. Softer somehow.

"I'd say the person doing it seems like they're carrying something they haven't put down in a while," you say.

He's quiet.

"You've been different this week," you say. "Since Tuesday. Since Spain became real. And I've been trying to figure out whether I've done something, or whether it's something else entirely."

"It's not you," he says immediately.

"Then what is it?"

The breeze moves off the water. Somewhere behind you, a scooter passes on the promenade, engine fading into the general noise of the city.

Steve looks at the horizon for a long moment.

"International operations carry different risk profiles," he says finally, and the line is so rehearsed you can hear the hours he's put into it, can hear all the times he's run it in his head.

"That's the version you prepared," you say. "I know. I've heard it four times this week." You look at him directly. "What's the version underneath it?"

He frowns.

"Steve."

"Later," he says, later, meaning not here, meaning I will, but not here, and something about that distinction makes you let it go.

"Okay," you say.

He looks at you briefly, surprised perhaps that you're not pushing.

"Okay," he says back, quieter.

You sit together while the beach empties around you, the sun dropping toward the water, the city starting to glow at the edges as the light changes. You stop three separate times to look at dogs on the walk back up the beach, which Steve notes like he's reassessing his life choices, and when you nearly lose your footing on the uneven ground near the pier, he catches your wrist before you've registered falling.

His hand is warm and immediate and gone again in the same second, the wall back in place before you've fully processed that it moved.

"Pay attention," he says.

"I was paying attention to a very good dog."

He exhales through his nose and keeps walking. You fall into step beside him and don't say anything, and the silence between you is easier than it's been all week.

The promenade at night is a different city.

The restaurant lights are all on now, and the tables outside are full, and the music has changed from afternoon to evening — slower, louder, more confident. Somewhere, a bad guitarist is playing something recognisable badly enough that a small crowd has stopped to listen.

"This is the most relaxed you've been since we arrived," you say.

Steve keeps his gaze forward. "That's concerning."

"You know what I mean."

"I usually do."

You're aware, walking beside him through the lit streets of Barcelona with the ocean somewhere behind you and the city ahead, that this is the thing that's been missing all week, and you hadn't fully realised how much it had been missing until you got it back.

Then his hand goes to his earpiece.

The change happens in real time beside you, and you watch it happen and can't stop it.

His posture shifts first — a half-degree adjustment in his shoulders, something tightening through him from the ground up. His gaze changes from relaxed-watchful to the other kind. His expression flattens, deliberately, efficiently, someone who has switched modes and left the previous one somewhere behind him on the street.

"Copy," he says quietly. Then, "Route change. Yes."

His hand drops. "We're cutting through the next block," he says.

"Why?"

"Congestion."

"The street looks fine."

"There's a better route."

You look at him. He's already moving, one hand coming to rest briefly at the small of your back as he steers you left off the promenade and into a narrower street, darker, the restaurant noise receding behind you.

"Steve," you say.

"Keep moving."

"That's not—"

"Please."

The please stops you more than anything else would have. There's something in it that isn't professional. Something underneath the control that's been there all week, and keeps almost surfacing and keeps getting pushed back down before it reaches the air.

You keep moving.

But the warm thing from the promenade has gone. The version of him that made the beach feel easy, that almost smiled at the dogs, that said later like he meant it — that version has folded back inside the other one so completely you can barely find the seam.

"You keep doing that," you say.

"Doing what?"

"Closing. Every time it starts to feel normal, you close."

He says nothing.

"I'm not imagining it."

"I know you're not."

"Then—"

"Not here," he says, and it's the same word as before — later, not here — but with more urgency underneath it now, something that makes the hair on your arms lift slightly without knowing why.

You walk. The street is narrower here, balconies overhead, the noise of the city muffled. Somewhere behind you, very far away, someone is still playing music.

"You're avoiding me," you say.

"I'm doing my job."

"You're using your job to avoid me."

He stops. You stop.

You're at a crossing, red light, people pressing past on both sides. He's looking at you, tired like he's been maintaining something at great cost for a long time.

"You think being around you isn't—" He stops himself. Looks at the crossing signal. Looks back at you. "You think this is simple for me."

"I think you're making it harder than it needs to be," you say. "I think you've been carrying something all week, and you won't put it down long enough to tell me what it is, and in the meantime you keep—" The words come out smaller than you want them to. "You keep disappearing. And I'm standing right here."

The light changes. He reaches for your arm.

And that's when you see it — his gaze snap to something over your shoulder, the shift happening so fast it's like watching a switch thrown, every line of him going from this conversation to something else in a single instant.

"We're crossing," he says.

"Steve—"

"Now." His hand closes around your arm, and he moves, steering you off the kerb into the crossing, and the urgency of it is different from the usual kind , something more afraid, and he's not hiding it as well as he was an hour ago.

By the time you reach the other side, you've had enough.

You pull your arm back. "Stop."

He turns.

And there it is — the thing he's been keeping below the surface all week, finally visible, finally closer to the surface than he has the resources left to suppress. Scared.

Real and immediate and almost immediately folded back under control, but not before you've seen it. Not before it's lodged somewhere in your chest like a splinter.

"Tell me," you say.

"We need to keep moving."

"Steve." Your voice shakes slightly. You hate that it shakes. "Tell me what's happening. Right now. Please."

He looks at you for a long moment.

Around you, the city continues its oblivious Friday night. Music. Laughter. Somewhere, someone drops a glass, and the sound gets a small cheer.

Then, "There's a man who has been trying to get to you," he says quietly, "for the last four months."

The words land in you strangely, like something you heard wrong and are waiting to hear again correctly.

"What?"

"Multiple attempts. Hotels, venues, your building." He's watching something over your shoulder while he talks, speaking low, barely moving his lips. "He's been tracking schedules. Getting close through staff. Through fan channels." A pause. "He followed the tour to Spain."

The city keeps moving.

You stand in the middle of it and feel the ground shift beneath you in a way that has nothing to do with the pavement.

"You knew," you say.

"Yes."

"Since when?"

"Before we left."

"And you—" The words come out thin. "You didn't tell me."

"We made a judgment call about how much information—"

"You let me walk around another country." Your voice is very quiet. Quieter than anger. Quieter than fear. It's gone past both of those things. "For a whole day. Without telling me."

"You were safe. You've been safe. That's what—"

"That is not the point."

He stops.

He knows it isn't. You can see him knowing it, the slight drop in his shoulders, the way the professional scaffolding takes a visible effort to maintain.

"I know," he says.

Just that. Just I know, and the weight of it, and his face in the streetlight looking more tired than you've ever seen it.

You stand there for a moment longer. The fear is still arriving, still settling into you in pieces you can't fully take in yet — four months, your building, Spain.

The extra team at the house. The way he never relaxed for a second on the plane. The constant scanning, the earpiece, the later, the way he kept putting distance between the two of you right up until the moment he couldn't.

Fear. Disguised as control.

"Steve," you say, and your voice has changed.

"We need to keep moving," he says, but he's looking at you now, not over your shoulder, and the look is different from any version of it you've seen today.

"I know," you say. "I will. Just—" You take a breath. Let it out. "You should've told me."

"I know," he says again.

"And we're going to talk about it properly."

A pause. "Yeah," he says quietly. "We are."

He takes one more look at whatever he's been watching over your shoulder. His hand settles at your back, light and careful and entirely different from the grip of ten minutes ago.

"There's a restaurant," he says. "Two streets over. I want you inside."

You glance at him sideways. "You want me to eat."

"I want you somewhere contained where I can see the door." A pause. "And I want you to eat."

"How long have you been planning the restaurant?"

He says nothing, which means since before you got on the plane, which means even while he was deciding not to tell you there was something to be frightened of, he was working out where he'd take you when you found out.

You walk. His hand stays at your back.

The city moves around you, warm and beautiful and entirely indifferent, and somewhere behind you in the crowd — though you won't know this until later, until Steve tells you — a man who has been watching you for four months watches you walk away.

—

The restaurant is small and warm and smells of garlic and wine and the particular amber comfort of a room that has been full of people eating good food for a long time.

Steve pauses inside the entrance.

You don't say anything while he reads the room. You watch him do it now with different eyes — exits, sightlines, the man at the bar who gets a second look before being apparently filed away. The corner table, half-shielded from the rest of the room, that he guides you toward with a hand at your back and a matter-of-factness that means he'd already decided on it before you got here.

He pulls your chair out. Sits opposite you, facing the door. Looks exhausted.

"How bad is it?" you ask, when the waiter has come and gone and the menus are sitting untouched between you.

He pours you both a glass of water from the carafe.

"Steve."

"He's been escalating," he says carefully. "The early attempts were opportunistic. More recently, they've been—" He pauses, choosing words. "More deliberate. Better planned."

"He followed us here."

"We believe so."

"You believe so."

"We're working to confirm."

You look at the candle between you. At the wax pooling around the wick. At the way the light catches the rim of the water glass and throws a small, bent circle of brightness onto the tablecloth.

"Why didn't you tell me?" you ask. It isn't a question exactly. More like thinking out loud.

"We determined that if you knew, your movements would change. The way you carry yourself in public, the decisions you make about where to go. Small tells. Enough to make the operation less—" He stops. "I wanted to keep your behaviour as natural as possible."

"My behaviour," you say.

"Yes."

"So I was the variable you were managing."

Something crosses his face. "That's not—"

"I know it's not." You look up at him. "I know that's not what you meant. I'm not—" You exhale slowly. "I understand the logic. I just also think that I had a right to know someone was following me into another country, and those two things can both be true at the same time."

He holds your gaze.

"Yes," he says. "They can."

You pick up your water glass. Put it down again.

"How long?" you ask. "Before you were going to tell me."

"I thought if I could get you through the trip—" He stops. "I hadn't planned past the trip."

"That's not like you."

"No," he agrees, and the word is very quiet. "It's not."

You look at him across the table. At the exhaustion sitting in the lines of his face, deeper now in the candlelight than in the city outside. At his hands resting near the table — stiller than they've been all day.

"You've been scared," you say.

He doesn't answer.

"Not of the job. You're not scared of the job." You keep your voice even. "You've been scared of something happening to me specifically."

The candle flickers. Somewhere in the restaurant, a table laughs at something.

Steve looks at the tablecloth for a moment. Then back up at you.

"I'm trained for threat management," he says carefully. "This is a high-value threat situation. The fear is—"

"Steve."

He stops.

"Is it just professional?" you ask.

A long pause. His finger taps once against the table and goes still.

"You're spiralling," he says, which is an avoidance, and you both know it, and he seems to know that you know it, because something shifts in his expression immediately afterward. Something like a person who is very tired of holding a very specific thing at a very careful distance.

"I thought you were pulling away from me," you say quietly. "All week. I thought I'd done something, or that I'd — read something wrong, between us. I thought you were trying to make me feel it."

"No," he says immediately.

"I know. I know that now." You hold his gaze. "But I want you to know what it looked like from where I was standing."

He's very still.

"I couldn't—" He keeps stopping. Starts again. "I needed to keep my head clear. And you—" Another stop. "It's harder to keep my head clear around you than it should be. And when I'm worried about you on top of that—"

He doesn't finish the sentence. He doesn't need to.

The candle keeps burning.

Across the table, Steve looks at you with an expression you are going to be sorting through for a very long time — tired, unguarded, careful in a way that isn't professional at all, that is in fact the opposite of professional, that is the look of someone who has been trying very hard not to look like this for quite a long time.

The restaurant moves around you, warm and indifferent, full of people having ordinary evenings. The food arrives eventually, and Steve orders for you without asking because he knows what you'll eat when you're not quite yourself, which is a thing you've never told him and a thing he knows anyway. The conversation becomes lighter, or tries to — he steers it gently toward tomorrow, toward practical things, away from the precipice you've both been standing at.

But before you leave, before the plates are cleared and the cheque is paid, he looks at you across the table and says:

"I should have told you."

"Yes," you say.

"I was trying to protect you."

"I know." You hold his gaze. "Next time, tell me anyway."

"Okay," he says.

The night air hits you when you step outside.

It's warmer than it should be for this hour — Barcelona holding onto the day's heat long past the point where it has any right to, the stone buildings releasing it slowly into the dark. The restaurant door swings shut behind you, and the noise inside cuts off, and the street opens up around you.

Steve steps out beside you.

His hand finds the small of your back before he's even fully through the door, warm and unhurried, the way it's been finding you all evening. And you let it be there, which is its own kind of answer to the things neither of you said properly over dinner.

You start walking.

The city is beautiful in the way it's been beautiful all evening — completely, effortlessly, the way places are when they don't know you're watching. Couples lean over balcony railings overhead. A table outside a bar erupts in laughter about something. 

You watch all of it and feel it at a slight remove.

Because underneath the warm night and the lights and the smell of the ocean still on your skin from the beach, you're walking through a city where someone has been watching you. Someone who knows your face well enough to have followed you here. Who has been in the background of your life for four months without your knowledge.

The knowing changes the texture of everything.

Every stranger who glances up as you pass. Every figure standing slightly still while the crowd moves around them. Every face you don't recognise, which is all of them, which is everyone on this street.

Steve's hand stays at your back, and you stay close, and neither of you mention it.

"How far?" you ask.

"Ten minutes. Twelve."

"Direct route?"

"Mostly."

Mostly means no. Mostly means he's already mapped an alternative and is running the calculation on which one is safer at this hour with this crowd density. You know that now. You know what all of it means now.

You nod and keep walking.

The main drag thins after a few minutes, the crowd dispersing into quieter streets that run back toward the hotel. Restaurants give way to apartment buildings with lit windows, small local bars below. The pavements narrow. The noise softens into something more ambient.

Steve hasn't spoken since you left the restaurant.

This isn't unusual. But this silence has a different quality to it — alert in a way that resting silences aren't, pointed, doing something.

You glance at him.

He's watching the street ahead with the precision you've seen him apply to terminals and arrivals and the open exposure of public venues. The scan moving constantly across doorways and side streets and the gaps between parked cars, so practised it barely registers as movement.

"Steve," you say quietly.

"I know," he says, before you've finished.

"You don't know what I was going to say."

"I know." He glances at you once. "Keep walking. We're close."

Something underneath his voice makes you close your mouth.

You keep walking.

You're two streets from the hotel when the man steps out of the crowd.

He comes from the right, stepping around one of the outdoor restaurant tables, slightly awkward, like he's been waiting for the right gap in the foot traffic. Dark jacket. Cap pulled low enough to shadow most of his face. Ordinary in every surface detail — height, build, the unremarkable quality of someone designed to blend.

Except that he doesn't pass. He slows. He looks at you.

And it isn't the usual recognition. You know the usual recognition by now — the shape it makes as it moves across a stranger's face, the double-take, the recalibration, the flutter of a person encountering someone they know from everywhere. It has a specific progression to it. Surprise, adjustment, the decision of whether to approach.

This man skips all of it.

He looks at you the way you look at something you've been trying to reach for a very long time. Not surprise. Not the recalibration.

Relief.

Something moves down the back of your neck before your brain has caught up enough to explain it. Beside you, Steve has already changed.

The hand at your back is different now, the pressure of it, and the quality of his presence beside you shifts in the same instant that the man slows. Like two things recognising each other across a pavement.

The man smiles.

"Oh, my god." His voice is warm, and it lands wrong, like he's been practising this. "It's actually you."

"She's not available tonight," Steve says. Pleasant. Professional. Carrying something very cold underneath it. "Enjoy your evening."

The man doesn't look at Steve.

This is what makes your pulse jump. He looks at you, and only you. You’ve been the only thing in this man's field of vision since he stepped out of the crowd, and everything else on the street, including Steve, who simply does not exist to him.

"I just wanted to say hello," he says, still to you. "I've been wanting to do that for such a long time."

"Thank you," you say, neutral, controlled, the voice you use when you need something to end. "Have a great night."

You move.

He moves with you.

No blocking or grabbing — nothing that looks like anything from the outside. Just walking beside you, keeping your pace, like this is a natural continuation of a conversation between two people who know each other.

"I've been following everything," he says, with the same conversational warmth. "Since the beginning. Since before anyone knew who you were." A small pause, loaded. "You never noticed me."

The grammar of it turns your stomach. Not I was watching you. Not I followed you. Just — you never noticed me, as if your not noticing is the aberration, as if his watching is the natural state of things, and your unawareness has been a kind of failing.

"Step back," Steve says.

The pleasant surface is completely gone from his voice.

What replaces it is something you've never heard from him and cannot fully name — flat and very quiet, stripped down entirely to its own meaning. 

Several people nearby glance over without knowing why.

The man looks at Steve for the first time.

You watch him assess. You watch him run the calculation — Steve's height, Steve's shoulders, the expression on Steve's face that you can see from here and that you have never seen on him before. And you watch him arrive at his answer. Steve is an obstacle. Obstacles can be dealt with. He files Steve accordingly and looks back at you.

"I just want to talk to her," he says. Still pleasant.

"Step back," Steve says again. Identical. No variation. 

The man's eyes come back to you and soften in a way that makes your skin feel wrong.

"You always talked about Spain," he says, and his voice has dropped now, intimate, like a secret being shared between two people in a room with no one else in it. "That interview. The one where you said you wanted to go somewhere and disappear." A pause that he lets sit. "I remembered."

Cold moves through you in a slow, complete wave.

You do remember it. Distantly. A press junket, years ago, a throwaway sentence said in a room full of lights and microphones, the kind of thing you say without thinking because you say dozens of things without thinking and they dissolve into the air the moment they leave your mouth.

Not for him.

He held it. He carried it here.

"I've been waiting," he says.

Steve says your name.

Your name, the way only a handful of people have ever said it, the version that means something has changed, and before you've consciously decided anything, you're already moving — your body responding to something in his voice that bypasses thought entirely.

His hand closes around your arm and moves you back in one immediate motion, behind him, and the last fraction of the professional surface lifts away from him all at once and what replaces it is something you didn't know was there, something that has been underneath everything for eight months, and you understand standing behind him that you have been shown a very small and very managed portion of what Steve Harrington actually is.

"Last chance," Steve says.

The man looks at you over Steve's shoulder.

"You don't have to let him speak for you," he says softly.

His hand moves inside his jacket.

There is no clean sequence to what happens next.

Your brain stops recording in order. What you'll have instead, in the weeks and months after, are pieces. Disconnected. Without reliable before or after, without cause and effect — just a series of images that exist in isolation, no thread between them.

The glint of it first. Light catching metal — the bar window behind him throwing a brief reflection off the blade before it fully clears his jacket — and your body knows what it is before your mind does, your body having apparently always known things your mind takes longer to catch.

Steve moving.

This is the image that stays longest. Steve moving in a way he has never moved in front of you. Something with no gap in it. He crosses the distance between himself and the man in what feels like no time at all, and the man barely gets his arm up before Steve is already inside it.

The sound of the first impact.

Nothing like how it sounds in films. Closer and flatter and more final than that.

Then pain.

Hot and immediate and shockingly personal, arriving along your left side beneath your ribs at a slight delay, like your body needed a second to process the information and report back.

You look down.

Your hand goes there automatically, pressing against the source of the heat, and when you lift your palm your fingers are dark in the light of the street.

You look at them.

You look at them for what is probably three seconds and feels like considerably longer, the world having narrowed down to the dark of your own hand, and then someone is shouting somewhere nearby, and the world expands again.

You don't fall.

Your back finds the wall of the building behind you — how you get there, you can't account for, whether you moved or someone moved you — and you stand against it with your hand pressed to your side and you watch what's happening in the narrow street in front of you.

Steve has the man against the opposite wall.

The man's jacket is bunched at the collar in Steve's grip, the knife on the pavement between them, and Steve is speaking directly into his face in a voice too low to carry. You can't hear the words. You're not sure they're words in any conventional sense.

Then Steve steps back and hits him.

The sound travels down the street, and the people nearby stop. A woman at a table outside a restaurant rises halfway from her chair. Someone's phone comes out. The sounds of a normal Friday night pause.

The man slides down the wall. He gets one hand beneath himself. Tries to rise.

Steve hits him again.

The pavement is rough-textured beneath the soles of your shoes, you notice this, you notice this specific detail with extraordinary clarity while the rest of the world feels muted and slowed. The pavement. The particular grittiness of it. The way your hand is shaking slightly against your side. The warm wet of it.

The man tries to cover his face.

Steve moves his arm aside.

And this — this — is the part your brain keeps returning to in the aftermath, the part that won't leave you alone. Not the knife. Not the blood on your hand. The specific quality of what Steve is doing, which is not the quality of rage. 

Rage has a disorganisation to it, a loss of structure, something coming apart at the seams. This is not that. This is something that knows exactly what it's doing and has made a decision to keep doing it, and the decision is not unconscious. Every movement is efficient. Precise. Chosen.

That's what frightens you most. 

The choosing.

The man on the pavement has stopped fighting back.

Steve has not stopped.

"Harrington."

Carter's voice, from somewhere to your right. Sharp and low, the voice of someone issuing an instruction to a specific person.

Steve doesn't stop.

"Harrington." Closer now. Carter is moving across the pavement toward him, and another figure is with him, and then a third, and it takes all three of them, it takes the physical weight of all three of them stepping in and getting between Steve and the man, and Carter's hand on his arm and another on his shoulder and the word again, twice, three times, before Steve finally steps back.

He breathes.

His chest moves with it, visible from here.

The man on the pavement makes a sound. Someone from the team steps over to him, says something into a radio. The street has rearranged itself around the event — the circle of onlookers at a careful distance, the phones raised, the low collective murmur of people trying to process what they just witnessed.

Steve looks at the man on the ground for a moment.

Then he turns.

His eyes find you the way they always find you. The same automatic thing, the same immediate locating, the compass-point of it that you've felt a hundred times without fully registering until now. And his face — for just a moment, before he gets anything back under control — shows you everything.

Not what he just did.

The fear of this. Of your face. Of what your face is doing right now and what it means.

He starts toward you. You press back against the wall like there’s any room.

It happens before you decide to. Your shoulders push back into the stone and your feet shift and the distance between you and him, which has been closing, opens again, and he stops.

He stops so completely, and so instantly, it looks involuntary.

Two feet between you. Maybe three.

He looks at you.

You look at him, and you look at his hands, and you look at the cut above his eyebrow that is bleeding freely now, a dark line running down into the hollow of his temple and along his jaw, a bright split in the skin that someone is going to have to close. 

His knuckles are split, the skin torn across two of them, blood welling and running between his fingers and dropping, very slowly, to the pavement. His jacket sits wrong at the shoulder where the seam has given. There is a bruise already rising through the skin below his cheekbone, dark and fast the way bruises are when something has hit with real force.

He looks like something happened to him, too.

He looks like a stranger.

He looks like Steve.

You don't know how both of those things can be true at the same time, but they are.

"Hey," he says.

Low and careful. The voice you know. The specific voice that has been talking you through things for eight months, the one that cuts the size of a room down to something manageable, the one that you have been relying on to locate yourself by.

It reaches you, and you feel it reach you, and you feel it fail to land.

You open your mouth. Nothing comes out.

He watches this happen. Watches you try and fail, and watches whatever follows that on your face.

"Okay," he says, very quietly. "Okay."

He takes one slow step toward you. Stops. Holds his hands out at his sides — low, palms open, not reaching for anything. The gesture is so deliberate that it must cost him something. 

You look at his hands.

You look at his open palms.

You look at the blood across his knuckles.

"I need to see your side," he says. "Can I do that?"

The asking costs him too. You can hear it. Steve doesn't ask permission for things — he moves, he acts, he makes decisions and executes them. The asking is what he has available to him right now, and he is using it because he has looked at your face and understood something and adjusted himself to it, and you know this, you know exactly what he's doing and why, and it doesn't help the way it's supposed to help.

You nod. Barely. Your chin drops a fraction of an inch.

He moves to you carefully, and he reaches out and moves your hand gently, just enough, and looks at what's underneath.

"It's not deep," he says, and his voice is controlled with visible effort now. "Caught you along the surface. You need stitches, you need it cleaned, but—" He looks up. Meets your eyes. "This is okay. You're going to be okay."

You look at his face.

You look at the blood on his face, the rise of the bruise below his cheekbone, the cut above his eye still running freely. You look at his mouth, which is forming words. You look at his eyes, which are doing the thing they do — the thing that has always made you feel located, anchored, like you exist in a specific place, and he’s confirmed it.

It doesn't anchor you right now.

Right now it just confirms the distance.

"Can you tell me your name?" he asks, and the question is so unexpected that something in you flinches. It's a grounding technique. You know it's a grounding technique. He's asking because you haven't spoken and your eyes have gone somewhere he can't follow, and he’s trying to bring you back with the simplest possible tool.

You know all of this.

You still can't answer.

He exhales through his nose, slow and controlled. "Okay," he says, for the second time, third time, like the word is the only one he has access to right now, like he's using it to hold the space while he figures out what comes next.

"Say something," he says quietly. "Anything."

Nothing.

You watch his face do something again. The flicker of it — something afraid, not of the man on the ground behind him, not of what just happened, but of this, of the silence you're giving him, of the step you took back against the wall — and he buries it quickly but not quickly enough. You see it and you can't speak and you don't know if you're ever going to be able to speak again in any way that matters.

"You're in shock," he says. "That's okay. That's—" He stops. His hand lifts toward your face, hovering for a moment near your jaw, not touching, giving you every possible chance to move away from it, and then his fingers brush very lightly against your cheek, checking for something, temperature maybe, responsiveness, the professional assessment underneath the personal need of it.

You don't move away.

But you don't move toward either.

His hand drops.

He takes the cloth from his inside jacket pocket — the folded cloth that he had ready, that he prepared, that he has been carrying since before you got on the plane because he plans for everything including this specific contingency — and he presses it carefully to your side and your hand comes up automatically to hold it there and for one second his hand stays over yours, warm and steady and entirely there.

Then it's gone.

He straightens.

"Talk to me," he says. Almost a request. Almost not. "Please."

You look at him.

You have nothing to give him. Not because you don't want to. Not because you've decided to withhold it. 

He sees this.

That is the entire foundation of every interaction you have ever had with him. He plans. He prepares. He acts. He has a folder with colour-coded tabs for every contingency, and he had a cloth in his inside pocket, and none of that has prepared him for the silence you are giving him right now. You can see it on his face.

"Okay," he says again, and you might kill him for it.

Carter arrives.

He comes in from your left and stops beside you, and he looks at your side, then your face. He looks at Steve, and something passes between them that you don't follow.

"Ambulance is ninety seconds," Carter says.

Steve nods.

"Can you walk?" Carter asks you. "Just to the end of the street."

You look at him and nod also.

"Good," he says, simply, and he puts a hand under your elbow, careful and neutral, and he begins to guide you gently away from the wall.

You go with him.

Your feet move. One and then the other. 

You don't look back.

Carter keeps your pace, says something quietly into his earpiece, and at the end of the street the ambulance is pulling up, its lights running blue and white against the buildings, casting everything in alternating colour. 

Two paramedics come toward you, and there are hands and voices and questions in accented English, and you answer them, short and accurate, because you know how to do this, you have always known how to do this, the functioning of the exterior while the interior is somewhere inaccessible.

The ambulance doors are open.

There is a step into the inside. It's white and bright and smells of antiseptic, and the narrowness of it closes around you. Carter says something to the paramedics, and one of them is already cutting back the fabric at your side. You let them, you let all of it happen, because your job right now is to let things happen and not to think.

You don't think. Except that you do.

In the three seconds before the doors close, you look.

You don't decide to. You just do.

Steve is at the end of the short street.

He hasn't moved. He is standing exactly where Carter guided you away from him — torn jacket, blood drying dark on his jaw, the cut above his eye still running, hands at his sides — and he is looking at you through the open ambulance doors with an expression that you have no reference for in eight months of knowing him.

Just — him. Just his face. Just the fear in it that he's not doing anything to hide, not from this distance, not anymore. 

The doors close.

White light. The smell of it. The sound of equipment and the murmur of the paramedics working.

The ambulance moves.

You face forward, and you press the cloth to your side. You breathe, you feel Barcelona moving underneath you, and you feel the distance between you and that end of the street growing with every second.

You breathe.

The image stays with you.

It will stay with you for a long time — Steve at the end of the street, hands at his sides, not following, blood drying on his jaw, looking at you through the gap in the closing doors with everything showing on his face that he's spent eight months keeping very carefully off it.

You breathe through the ache in your side.

Barcelona carries you away from him.

For now.

Just for now.

[usedtobecooler]

it’s simple and it goes like this | steve harrington x reader

a/n: thank you in advance to anybody who reads this little labour of love, i’ve had such a great time writing this one and i’m so proud of the finished outcome. title from i’m in love with you by the 1975. 6.1k words.

tw: EXPLICIT CONTENT 18+ MINORS DNI, reader uses she/her pronouns and has female anatomy, piv sex, oral f receiving, creampie, soft sex, dirty talk. intoxicated characters, admission of feelings, angst and fluff. characters ages are around mid-late twenties.

summary: turning down a ride from your roommate and brotherly figure, eddie munson, in favor of staying behind at a christmas party ends in you finding an unexpected escape in steve harrington. a drive home and copious amounts of flirting later, the night unfolds in passion and letting out unspoken feelings, leaving you to grapple with the consequences of the choices made.

Staying behind at Jon and Nancy’s Christmas party had been a mistake, and only now, inhaling nicotine into your lungs without a clue on how to get back home, did you realize the weight of this mistake and how badly you wished you could rewind to an hour prior when you had a guaranteed ride.

Eddie offered you a ride home when he was heading out, which you declined immediately. His girl, Heather, really wasn’t overly keen on you, and would do anything to make the journey home as painfully awkward as possible.

You and Eddie had lived together for a few years now, the bond between you both knitting together so tightly, so much more than just shared rent and somebody to talk to at night. He became the first person you went to for everything, and you’re sure he felt the same, finding comfort in each other in a way that could only be described as a sibling bond. As much as you loved him, would do anything for him, he wasn’t for you, and you weren’t for him.

Eddie was just trying to look out for you tonight, be protective in that typical brotherly way, and make sure you got home in one piece.

You mentally kick yourself for being a moron and placing your discomfort at sharing a closed space with his girlfriend above your safety.

Standing outside as the rain starts to pelt down and seep into your skin, you’re regretting your decision. Heather was an ass, but dealing with her for a twenty minute car journey would’ve been favorable over standing outside in freezing temperatures, getting soaked to the bone.

You stub out what’s left of your barely lit cigarette, crushing it under the heavy weight of your Docs. You scan the deserted street for any sign of life, only for whatever forces that are in charge to offer you some form of rectitude — Steve Harrington’s car hums in the distance, lights illuminating the otherwise empty road.

The Beemer rolls up, Steve’s arm flexing as he rolls down the window, “Need a ride?”

Steve’s eyes are hazy, a flash of mischief shining in his dark honey hues — he’d spent the majority of the party with Eddie, the pair of them suddenly the best of friends after years of teenage hatred. He’s so high, you can smell it on his expensive jacket. 

Eddie’s disappointed face flashes through your mind, but the heavy material of your own jacket clings to your body, soaked through from the pelting rain. Fuck what Eddie would think, getting in Steve Harrington’s car beats whatever was going on out here.

“Yeah, thanks,” you mumble, a sharp little smile on your face as you round the car, sliding into the passenger seat. The door slams shut and you’re suddenly cocooned in familiar scents of leather and Steve’s cedarwood cologne. It’s painfully comforting.

The engine roars to life once more, and Steve makes off down the street without another thought. You pretend not to notice how his eyes hardly leave your soaked frame as you drive on.

The car purrs as you drive down the quiet streets, the unspoken tension between you both almost suffocating as Iron Maiden plays softly from the speakers. Eddie really made sure Steve saw all parts of him when they began hanging out, and Steve took to Eddie’s music tastes painfully quickly. 

“What’s the story then, princess?” Steve grins, finally breaking the silence, “Turning down a ride with Eddie for a nicotine break was a little silly. It’s freezing out there, you’d have caught your death if I hadn’t shown up.”

“My knight in shining armor,” you deadpan, sighing quietly and cringing when you catch yourself being a little rude, “sorry, uh. I didn’t wanna be a third wheel, Heather and I, we don’t get along at all.”

Steve chuckles quietly, “She’s a bitch.” 

“She’s such a bitch,” you agree with enthusiasm, finally turning slightly in your seat to face Steve properly, “I dunno what the hell Eddie sees in her.”

“Big boobs,” Steve shrugs, making a face when you hum in disappointment under your breath, “fair point, though. Can’t blame you for wanting to avoid that situation. Still, I can’t believe he left you there like that.”

There’s a beat of silence, your cheeks flushing hot. Was Steve being protective?

“I saw you dodging advances from a certain somebody tonight,” Steve wiggles his brows, cutting the tension quickly, “what’s the deal? He not doing it for you anymore?” 

You groan, rolling your eyes as you slump back into your seat, “I’m not in the mood for Brad’s games, y’know? He’s so hot and cold.” 

“Games, huh?” Steve grins, eyes landing on you for a moment, flirty and devastatingly attractive, “Maybe you’ve just not found somebody yet who plays the right ones.” 

You flush hot, heart practically beating out of your chest, because this is clearly the weed talking. Steve hadn’t flirted with you since that one time in sophomore year, when you’d come back from Summer break and had blossomed enough for the one and only The Hair to find you worthy of his time.

“Smooth, Harrington,” you choke out eventually, spluttering on your own saliva as you struggle to get the words out, “your list of admirers is endless, do you use that line on all the girls?” 

“Just the devastatingly pretty ones.” Steve passes a lingering glance over your body, only to look away and avert his eyes back to the road before you can say anything further.

Over the years you had known him, you and Steve had shared stolen glances and sly, flirty smiles. Gravitating towards each other in Eddie’s absence, but never pushing that boundary. Steve had a list of conquests, and it pained you to admit every last one hurt to watch – somehow it pained you more to admit how pleased you’d become when each of them left just as fast.

You both knew that these were dangerous waters to tread, how protective Eddie could be over you was enough to have Steve keeping you at arms length, his respect for Eddie was the determining factor. Yet here you were once again, sharing a confined space and feeling an aura of comfortability that couldn’t just be ignored until it went away.

The rest of the journey passes in silence, and all too soon Steve is pulling onto the dirt track towards the trailer you and Eddie share. The place is still in darkness, and you have to suppress an eye roll – Eddie was hardly ever home overnight now, too used to shacking up with Heather in her apartment in town.

Steve cuts the engine, slapping a hand down on his jean clad thigh, “I’ll walk you to your door, it’s creepy as hell out here in the dark.” 

He shudders for emphasis, and before you can protest and tell him you can manage on your own, he’s out of the car and rounding the trunk to open your door for you.

“Thanks, Steve, you really don’t have to.” You insist, stepping out of the car and internally cringing as your boots squelch in the thick mud where the tyres of Eddie’s van typically embed themselves.

“It’s okay, wouldn’t wanna risk something happening to you,” Steve says, a hand coming out to just barely touch the small of your back as you struggle like bambi on ice in the slippery mud, “here just – just take my hand.”

Steve extends his hand out and you take it with a slight hesitation, your need to make it to the front door without being soaked in rain and mud outweighing the heavy feelings sitting in your chest. 

It’s almost frightening how normal it feels, to have your hand clasped with Steve’s as you walk the short path to the trailer. You don’t want to know what that means, but it feels so nice, the way Steve’s large, warm hand encapsulates your own has your head spinning.

You have to, albeit sadly, let go of Steve to fish in your jacket pocket for a front door key. After a fight with the lock, the door swings open, the warm heat so inviting that you basically barge through the doorway, tugging Steve in with you without thinking.

Steve gawps a little, flounders from where he stands as you lean over his large frame to shut the door behind him, toeing off your shoes like you would any other night. When you finally take a moment to realize what you’ve just done, so casually, you’re suddenly aware of the slight crackle of tension, the rain-damp heat radiating from your bodies as you shuffle close together.

You guide him further into the house, flicking on a lamp that’s perched on a nearby table, illuminating the room with a soft, warm glow. Losing your jacket and throwing it haphazardly on a random surface. 

Neither of you pull away from each other, either, walking as tightly together as you can manage in the small space. 

“You want a drink or something?” You ask, trying to keep yourself as nonchalant as possible, schooling your voice as you cast a sidelong glance at him. 

Steve grins, a glint of mischief in his eyes, as he gently declines the offer with a shake of his head, "As tempting as that sounds, princess, I spotted a little note from Eddie saying he'd be back soon. Wouldn't want to overstay my welcome and have him play a game of twenty questions.”

Your confused gaze follows his where he nods over your shoulder, and sure enough there’s a scribbled out note on the pin board hung up the wall;

BE BACK SOON SWEETHEART, DONT LOCK ME OUT!! 

You really do roll your eyes this time around, mentally sticking the middle finger up at the fucking note. You walk back and lean on the dining table, crossing your arms over your chest. You can’t pretend that you don’t notice Steve’s gaze never leaving your body, watching your every move as you shuffle around. 

He looks disappointed, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. You dare to fix your own stare on him from where you’re perched, can’t ignore how he so naturally hovers towards you despite the rejection. Like he wants to do one thing but is saying another, trying to be the good guy.

Steve was a good guy.

In the closeness, this thing between you and Steve becomes devastating. The air is thick and whatever sort of invisible barrier you had between you both begins to fade as you float into each other's space. 

With a nod of his head towards the door, Steve finally breaks the silence. "Guess I should get going, huh?" 

The words hang in the air, a question that Steve silently demands a response from, leaving you to decide which it’s going to be.

A soft smile plays on your lips as you respond, "You could stay, you know? We could… hang out." 

You offer with some sort of nonchalance, despite how your heart hammers in your chest, leaving the choice in the hazy space between lingering and leaving.

Steve sucks in a slow breath, his eyes flickering between yours and the curve of your lips. You shiver visibly, and in that fleeting moment, Steve inches a fraction closer. It's a subtle movement, almost imperceptible, but it speaks volumes.

Up this close, you could really marvel at just how gorgeous Steve is, his tan skin flecked with beauty marks and moles, dotted like constellations. You wanted to connect them all with your tongue, kiss and bite him until he was branded.

“You want to, right?” You breathe, chest heaving slightly, and you forget all about how damp and uncomfortable your clothes are, how when he picked you up you wanted nothing more than to have a hot shower and go to sleep. Now, you want everything but that. You want to see how far Steve will go, you want to know if he wants you as much as you want him.

“Eddie’ll probably be back any minute,” Steve murmurs, those deep set eyes scanning over your entire face, lingering on your lips, and the tip of his tongue peaks out to swipe along his own bottom one, wetting it, “we… we shouldn’t.”

“Yeah, we shouldn’t,” you agree eventually, voice breathy and lacking conviction, entire body vibrating, leaning into Steve just as much as he was leaning into you. Your hands grasp for the edge of the table, grounding you when you need it most, anticipation enough to have your heart hammering in your chest.

“Yeah, we… definitely shouldn’t.” Steve mimics, leans in closer, his hot breath fanning your face. He’s beautiful like this, so close that you’re going cock eyed trying to keep your vision of him clear, but his guard was rarely ever let down around you, and you didn’t want to miss a moment. 

His lips brush against yours, a pained, strangled sound coming from the back of his throat, before he’s diving in for that first mind melting kiss. 

Time stops for a moment, this fiery spark finally igniting between you both as your mouths move against one another, painfully desperate like it’s going to be over too soon, like if you stop it’ll never happen again. 

All inhibition is lost, Steve’s fingertips squeezing into the doughy flesh of your waist, somehow pushing you together even tighter, gripping you with a fierceness as your lips move together. Like he’s staking a claim — mine, mine, mine.

His tongue swipes against your bottom lip, begging for entry silently, which you allow him willingly with a high pitched, contented moan. He’s experimental, swiping the tip of his tongue against your own lightly, lapping until he’s pulling these little noises from you, and it has your core aching. 

The light smacking sounds of moistened lips in an otherwise void room is an almost painful reminder that this was real.

Your shaking fingertips move from the table to grip at the front of Steve’s jacket, desperate hands trying to rip at the material, because a simple kiss was never going to be enough. Now that you had him and knew he wanted you back.

“We can’t,” Steve whines, pitiful against your lips as you struggle to stop, chasing his mouth with your own in a feverish passion as he barely tries to pull back from you, “you keep making these noises, m’not gonna be able to stop.” 

You bring your hands up to cup Steve’s jaw on instinct, without even thinking about it, holding him in place so he can’t fight with himself to get away, “Want it, Steve. I want you,” you breathe, sincere and pleading, guiding him back to kiss you again and he melts into you, “wanted it since the first time you stepped foot in here. Wanted you to want me too.”

“Always fuckin’ wanted you,” Steve mumbles, those soft, fucking perfect lips brushing yours as he speaks, so desperate it’s like he can’t bare to move back any further, “you’re so beautiful, shit. Need you, can I have you?”

You nod without hesitation as Steve's hands tighten on your waist, intensifying the urgency between your bodies. The kiss deepens, a mix of desperation and desire, creating a raw, feral, and unmistakably intimate connection.

Steve's lips become a drug, setting off sparks within you, Breaking away, his admission of always wanting you turns that spark into an all out wildfire, and his calloused fingertips trace over your flushed skin as he murmurs, "Wanna do that forever," he murmurs, taking a moment to lock eyes with you, before reconnecting your lips.

A desperate groan escapes Steve's chest, raw and needy, twisting your gut in knots. His fingers dig into your waist and jaw, revealing that internal battle he’s clearly still fighting – wanting you intensely but also grappling with the fear of the irreversible damage you’re about to do. 

You do nothing to hide your desperation for him, hands tightly clinging to his jacket, showing him just how much you want him.

Trying to get him to stay and stop overthinking everything.

Steve's silent plea transforms into a primal growl as he pulls you closer, pressing you up so tightly against the table that your ass mounts it properly — you willingly spread your legs for him, allowing him entry so that he can slot between your thighs.

Whatever boundaries you were trying to keep are long gone.

“You’re soaking, baby,” Steve notes, the tip of his tongue swiping along your bottom lip, “you need to get out of these clothes.”

“You think you’re so smooth,” you giggle, the delicate sound pitching into a moan when Steve dips down to mouth at your jaw, “think I’m soaked in more ways than one.” 

Steve grunts against your skin, his teeth grazing against the side of your throat. He rocks his hips into your own, and you have to suppress an embarrassing sound when you feel the half hard outline of his cock press against you. 

“You gonna be a gentleman and take me to my room?” You tease, fingers traveling from Steve’s jacket and up into his hair, nails tangling in the tresses and tugging him closer. You relish in how he finally bites down on your skin properly, determined to mark you as his own.

“What if I wanna do it right here, huh?” Steve mutters, kissing over the raised, abused skin on your neck, “You want that, princess?”

You nod, just once, a deep heat pooling in your gut, and that’s enough to have Steve pulling desperately at your dress. Calloused fingertips slide the spaghetti straps down your shoulders, and you help him take you out of the offending material, shimmying until it pools at your feet.

Steve groans, low in the back of his throat as he takes in your body, now barely covered by a skimpy black thong and a lacy bra. You burn hot under his intense gaze, squealing when his large hands snake under the backs of your thighs, kneading the fat between his fingers as he hoists you back onto the table.

“Can I use my mouth on you?” Steve mumbles, massaging your thighs that you willingly spread open for him once again, a silent invitation.

“Y-yeah,” you stutter, moaning when he drops to his knees in one fluid motion, wrapping your legs around his shoulders as he goes. 

One thing that is apparent, is Steve’s love of eye contact. Touching you everywhere his body can reach, and it drives you up the damn wall. His eyes are darkened with lust as he trails hot, wet kisses up the insides of your thighs, pushing your legs apart further so he can slot his broad shoulders in the space.

The anticipation bubbles deep in your gut, cunt fluttering as he dips two fingers into the material of your panties, pulling them to the side to expose you to the warm air. You feel him squeeze you tighter, gaze moving to take in the sight of your slick pussy, ready and waiting for him.

“Mmph, she’s so pretty,” Steve moans, leaning forward in an instant to bury his face into the wetness of your cunt, running his nose over the bump of your clit as his tongue snakes out to taste you, lapping messily. 

“Steve!” You gasp his name, fingers immediately finding home in his honey highlighted tresses, sinking in and tugging lightly, pushing him closer to you.

It spurs him on, those fucking hands squeezing and pulling at the flesh of your inner thighs hard enough to bruise, burying his face into you deeper and grunting like you’re the best thing he ever tasted. He’s messy, lapping up and down the expanse of your core, suckling on your clit with a perfect pressure. 

“Shit, shit,” you’re basically wailing, hips rolling into Steve’s face and he just takes it, lets you guide him with your hands, moving him where you want him to go. 

He never breaks eye contact, watches you with these hazy, pussy drunk eyes as he gives you everything you want and more. Moaning into the heat of your cunt like he’s getting off just as much as you are.

“Keep doing that, m’gonna cum, haa,” you’re babbling, incoherent as your tummy rolls with sheer pleasure, Steve never once letting up on his assault with his tongue.

If anything, your words have him doubling down, pressing in so far you’re not sure he’s even able to breathe. Your orgasm hits you suddenly, violently, has you pulling on Steve’s hair so hard you know his scalp has to be aching, and you finally squeeze your eyes shut tight as you ride it out.

You know you’re gushing for Steve, making a mess of his face with the slickness that spills from your cunt, thighs shaking and locking him in tight in the aftershocks. He doesn’t let up until you’re physically jerking away, fingers running through his hair softly as your hips shudder. 

You’re barely on the same planet, unable to comprehend it when Steve rises from between your legs and kisses you deeply, feeding the taste of yourself to you. You moan, hands coming up to squeeze Steve’s face as you deepen the kiss, swapping spit and rocking against each other. 

It’d be disgusting if it wasn’t so erotic.

“You’re so hot,” Steve moans, pushing into you until the curve of his clothed cock presses tight into the cavern of your soaked cunt, eliciting breathy whines from you both, “need you now, yeah?” 

You nod, and he’s pulling you from the table in an instant.

Clothes scatter along the floor as Steve takes you to the bedroom, practically carrying you like you’re nothing. Neither of you leave an inch of space between each other as you rip his shirt over his head, tugging at the offending leather belt that keeps his jeans in place.

“Off, need them off,” you gasp, finally popping the button and burying your hand into his underwear. Tackiness on your fingertips from where the head of his painfully hard cock has been pressed tightly in the confines of his clothes.

Steve chuckles, pushes his hips into your hand and you finally get to feel him. Hot, hard, heavy in your hand — big enough that your eyes widen, and he’s burying his face in your neck to hide his embarrassment, biting at your shoulder.

“Didn’t get called King Steve for nothing,” he mutters, a red flush on his cheeks that he buries in your skin. 

“The girls weren’t kidding.” you gasp, wrapping your hand around what you can reach and tugging slightly until he’s bucking into your grasp.

You’re pushed through your bedroom door, backs of your knees hitting the end of the bed unexpectedly. You bounce back onto it, pulling Steve with you, a tangle of limbs on an unmade bed that smells vaguely of the vanilla perfume you’d sprayed earlier. 

“Couldn’t let a guy get his pants off first?” Steve grins, pulling back and looking physically wounded as he does it, to shimmy out of the remainder of his clothing.

In the soft lighting, he looks ethereal. The moles and beauty marks are everywhere, branding perfectly tanned skin, a soft tummy that just barely conceals a set of abs. He’s perfect, like a wet dream, and here he is in your room, in your bed, crawling back between your spread thighs.

“You’re so perfect,” Steve sighs, leaning down once again to capture your lips in a searing kiss, his torso rolling into yours as he steals your breath from your lungs.

It’s everything. The way you move together like you know each other's bodies perfectly, touching each other with a familiarity despite this being the first time.

A hand crawls up your inner thigh, and two deft fingers sink into your cunt, crooking up and finding that spot, running against it until you’re arching under his touch.

Your own hand crawls between your dancing bodies, wrapping properly around the length of Steve’s cock, tugging half heartedly until he’s growling into your mouth, his hips punching forward into your touch.

Time passes like molasses, it could be two minutes or twenty, until you’re both gasping and desperate. Not even kissing anymore, just lightly panting with brushing lips. 

“Want it, want you to fuck me now.” You beg, clenching around Steve’s fingers for emphasis, cunt soaked and fluttering, needing more.

Steve nods, sliding his fingers from inside of you, understanding every word and desperate plea. He clasps your hand in his own, bringing them up to rest beside your head in the nest of pillows, “You ready, baby? I’ll take it slow, know I’m a stretch.” 

You nod, any witty remark dying in the back of your throat. The want and hunger for Steve overrides any other feeling, your brain fogged with nothing but him and his body tight against yours.

Steve grasps hold of his cock by the base, head bowing so he can watch as he presses the head snug against your cunt. 

You both inhale a shuddery breath at the same time, and suddenly he’s pushing in — inch by inch filling you out. You whimper, fingers digging into Steve’s, a mewl escaping you as you push up into his torso. 

Steve looks up at you, sincere and checking in, “You okay?” 

“Keep going,” you gasp, hips swiveling.

Steve’s mouth hangs open in a silent moan, watches as his cock slides into your wet pussy like it was made to be there, taking every last inch of him until he’s nestled up against you.

You jolt when the thick thatch of hair nestled at his pubic bone catches on your swollen, throbbing clit. A breathy, panting whine clawing up from your throat.

“Fuck, you’re so fucking wet, princess. Not gonna last long,” Steve admits pulling out a few inches only to slide right back in, making home, “god, like you were made to take me.” 

You flush at Steve’s words, “You can– you can move properly. Fuck me like you want.” 

“Don’t say that, princess.” Steve whines, fingers gripping your hips, “You let me have what I want and I’ll never let you leave.” 

Your heart beats faster, harder, whole body alight with all these different feelings, tugging at every part of you. 

Full on Steve’s cock and holding his fucking hand. It’s heavenly.

Steve pulls out properly this time, pushing back in and creating a punishing rhythm that has you mewling and spewing out these horribly loud moans and cries for him. The head of his cock nudges at your spot dead-on with each thrust, has you over-stimulated ridiculously fast, it teeters on the right side of painful.

Your fingers dig into Steve’s skin, other hand wrapping around his bicep. A moan escaping you as he dips down to kiss and nibble at your neck, “You’re so big, holy shit. Feels so good, so good.”

“Yeah?” Steve grins at you, cocky and sure of himself and you almost catch a glimpse of the old Steve in it, which somehow makes the entire thing even sexier. One thing Steve Harrington was so sure he was good at was fucking, and you feed into his ego with the way your body reacts to him. 

Sweaty skin slapping against skin, the creaking of your bed frame under the vigorous movements. The pants and cries that flow from your mouth with every hard thrust, the grunts that rattle from deep in Steve’s chest. It’s pure filth, everything you wanted and needed.

“Y-yeah, I— I—” You stutter as your orgasm crescendos, legs wrapping tightly around his waist, heels of your feet digging into the small of his back. Nails breaking skin on Steve’s arm as you shake and shudder through it, body practically vibrating with the sheer force of it. 

“You needed that huh, princess? Needed me to pull that from you?” Steve whispers, a moan leaving him as he fucks you even harder, chasing his own orgasm, “Fuckin’ gripping me, holy fuck.”

Your eyes roll into the back of your head, unable to stop how your cunt flutters sporadically for him, taking everything he gives you and then some.

“Holy shit, baby,” Steve breathes, fucked out and chest heaving, “m’gonna cum, gonna cum in your perfect little pussy.” 

“Please,” you beg, back arching and somehow pushing Steve in even deeper, eliciting matching moans of pleasure from you both, “please, please.”

“Shit – fuckin’ begging me to cum in you, you’re so perfect, shit.” He grunts, hips slamming into you as he nears the end, thrusts becoming short and snappy, rhythm faltering.

Your nails dig into Steve’s bicep, pushing your nose against his softly, ghosting a kiss over his lips, “Wanna feel you spilling in me, please? Mark me, I’m yours.” 

He moans loudly at your words, the noise so beautiful it’s like music in your ears. You’d almost be smug about being the person to pull it from him, if it weren’t for how fucked out he’d left you.

Steve squeezes his eyes shut, pushing his face into your neck as his body wracks with his orgasm. He grunts into your damp skin, cock pulsing rhythmically inside the fluttering walls of your pussy.

You can feel it so fucking strongly it’s almost hard to breathe.

It’s sticky and messy as Steve untangles his sweaty limbs from your own, landing a gentle kiss on your nose. You flush hot, burning up at how ridiculously domesticated the simple motion is.

He pulls out sloppily, flopping down next to you on the bed and hauling you into his warm embrace. It’s — it’s unexpected, so soft and sweet that you tense for a second only to loosen up and settle your head on his chest.

The air is heavy and warm in the afterglow. Steve's gaze lingers on yours, shared silence and panting breaths, acknowledging your mutual feelings without a single word. 

You’re leaning up to kiss him again, unable to contain it, when suddenly the bubble is shattered, the bedroom door swinging open abruptly. 

Eddie stands in the doorway, his features screwed up with a mixture of shock and anger.

"Steve, what the hell?" Eddie's scratchy voice cuts through the stillness, his eyes narrowing as they dart between you and Steve. Steve bolts upright, panicked and caught off guard, shifting uncomfortably under Eddie's intense gaze.

"Eddie, I can explain," you begin, panic rising in your chest as you sit up and pull the sheets closer around you. Your eyes lock on one another’s, and Eddie's expression tightens further.

"Explain? Explain what, exactly?! That my best friend is in bed with my-my – dammit dude, she’s like a sister to me! What the hell?!" Eddie's tone is sharp, a mix of disbelief and fury. Steve runs a hand through his disheveled hair, clearly searching for words that could help calm the escalating situation.

"Eddie, it just happened. We didn't plan—" Steve starts, but Eddie interrupts with a held up ringed hand.

Neither of you push it any further, words dying in both of your throats at such a simple movement. You’re so far apart by now that Steve is basically hanging off the edge of the bed, and you can’t help the way your heart feels fucking heavy with it.

"I don't care. This is not okay. I told you not to touch her, Steve. She’s not a girl to play with." Eddie's disappointment is palpable, the weight of his words hanging heavy over your head.

There’s a moment of devastating silence, broken only by echoes of Eddie's anger and the heavy weight of his boots shuffling along the hard floor as he walks away. The trailer door slams shut so hard that the entire shell ricochets with the force. 

It all becomes so painful once Steve hauls himself off of the bed, frantically throwing on every strewn article of clothing that he’d shed just hours earlier, his head bowed like he can’t even bear to look at you. Like he’s scared and doesn’t want to face up to everything that happened.

You can’t even blame him. 

“Steve, wait,” you start, vision blurring at the edges as panic starts to set in, grappling to come to terms with the fact this was all going to be over, “don’t listen to him. He’s wrong, I know you – you don’t. You don’t do that anymore, you wouldn’t do that to me.”

“No he – he’s right,” Steve’s eyes reflect with sadness, the weight of his words lying deep in the pit of your stomach, “I have a reputation. We all know that. He’s trying to protect you, his heart is in the right place.” 

“But Steve-” 

“Eddie’s right, princess. There’s something there, I know it. But,” Steve sighs, shaking his head, “if this doesn’t work out I lose you and him. I can’t risk not having you both.” 

“Steve, will you listen to me, please?” You plead, clambering in a moment of panic to get off of the bed, sheet still wrapped firmly around your naked frame. You shuffle over ungracefully, until you’re standing toe to toe with him, “I like you. You felt it like I felt it. I– I want this.” 

You can almost see Steve’s internal struggle, the way his face crumples once he catches your teary eyes with his own devastated hues. His hands itch at his sides, and then suddenly those strong arms are wrapping around you, pulling you into his orbit and lifting you onto your tiptoes.

You wrap your arms around his middle, fingers grasping at the stretched material of his shirt, clinging on for dear life, "Steve, I really fucking like you, and I can't stand by and watch you walk away from this because of some misplaced sense of loyalty.” 

Steve’s chin rests atop your head, and you feel every bit of the deep sigh he lets out, “You trust me too much, like you know I’m not going to fuck up. I wish I could trust myself even half as much.”

Your reaction is immediate, frustration bubbling up inside of you as you listen to Steve talk down on himself, “You’ll never hurt me. You’re not some ticking time bomb just waiting to ruin everything. Allow yourself the courtesy of taking what you want and letting yourself fuck up. I’m strong enough to handle it.”

“I’ve messed up so many times in the past that I’m scared I’ll hurt you without meaning to,” Steve winces, clinging to you even tighter, cocooning you in his embrace, “I couldn’t live with myself if I did that shit.” 

You pull away slightly, bringing a hand up to cup his jaw, forcing him to face you and really soak in every word you say, “You’re fucking human, Steve. I’m not asking you to be perfect.”

Steve’s face etches with vulnerability, those damned eyes filled with hurt, but his body relaxes slightly, acknowledging what you’re trying to say, “You’re perfect.” 

Your stomach lurches, heart hammering where it sits beneath your ribcage, this pathetic grin taking over, “I promise you, I’m not. Wait until you realize just how many flaws I have — like being so terrible at cooking that I burn toast.”

Steve lets out a snort, eyes crinkling in the corners, fondness washing over him, “I’ll teach you,” he mumbles, leaning in a little, “if you’ll teach me something in return.” 

“Anything.” You breathe, pushing up to bridge the gap. Your noses brush, Steve’s hands gripping onto the soft flesh of your waist a little firmer.

Steve grins, mischievous, “Teach me how to have patience. I’ve been told it’s a virtue I’m seriously lacking, Dustin rags on me all the time about it.”

You let out a soft laugh, the tension from earlier dissipating in an instant, "Patience it is, though I’m not sure how much of it I even have. And you better be ready for some burnt toast along the way."

Steve chuckles, a low, melodic sound that sends shivers down your spine, "I think I can handle that."

He bridges the gap between you, pressing his lips to yours and sealing the agreement.

[ceruleanheaven]

[looking at people younger than me] you have your whole life ahead of you [looking at people older than me] you have your whole life ahead of you [looking at myself] its over

[stvswrld69]

­ meetify algorithm

pairing: keys mckey x reader summary: keys creates an experimental dating app based on user compatibility to try to get a promotion at work. to make sure it works properly, he asks users to test it before its release. you download the beta out of curiosity, and the system matches you with the creator himself. wc: 3.3k warnings: +18 (minors do not interact), explicit nsfw, fem!reader, enemies (even if they don't know), mention of alcohol, explicit sexting, guided masturbation, m jerking off, fingering, penetration, use of sexual toys, dirty talk, cursing. author's note: thanks in this one to my girl nic for the help and also juls and juana for the motivation. also i'm starting with requests as soon as i finish my finals so pls be patient

keys sat over his desk on the floor of soonami studios. the blue glow of his multiple monitors reflected off his glasses and the office hummed with the usual boring energy; keyboards clacking, whispers and some laughs from the break room. but keys barely noticed any of it. 

his eyes were glued to the same block of code he’d been debugging for the last hour while his leg bounced anxiously under the desk.

he was tired. not just physically –though the dark circles under his eyes told that story clearly– but existentially tired.

keys had been working at soonami studios for some years now, and he was good at this job. really good. he could debug complex systems faster than most others developers and he actually cared about clean codes.

none of that seemed to matter. every time another developer position opened up, it went to someone better at office politics, someone who knew how to shake the right hands and smile in the right meetings.

keys was the guy who stayed late fixing other people’s mistakes. the guy who got praised in private but overlooked in promotions. the guy who was reliable.

he was sick of it.

that morning meeting was the final straw. the manager stood at the front of the room with his usually fake enthusiasm and talked.

‘’we’re looking for something original. something fresh. we want innovation. whoever brings me a truly unique project that actually works…. let’s just say there will be serious conversations about promotions.’’

key’s heart started racing the second he heard those words. this was it. his chance. 

he didn’t just want a promotion – he needed one.

so he made a decision, and for the next two and a half weeks, keys barely existed outside of work and his laptop. he woke up at 6 a.m., worked fully day at the office, then went home and coded until 3 or 4 in the morning. 

he ate microwave meals at his desk and drank enough coffee to make his hands shake. he told his friends he was ‘’busy with a side project.’’

he poured everything into meetify.

it wasn’t just another dating app. keys hated the shallow nature of modern dating apps: endless swiping, the focus on pictures and one-liners. he wanted something deeper. so he built a system that analyzed hundreds of data points: communication style, values, conflict resolutions patterns. 

the algorithm didn’t just match interests. it tried to predict long-term compatibility with uncanny accuracy.

he worked on the psychological questionnaire for days, making the questions strangely personal but not invasive. he fine-tuned the matching engine until the compatibility scores felt natural. 

he added privacy features that made the whole thing feel safe: no photos unless both users agreed later and end-to-end encryption on all chats.

when he finally finished the working beta version, he leaned back in his office chair and stared at the screen for a long time. 

‘’please… just work,’’ he whispered.

the next day during his lunch break, he created a reddit account under a throwaway name and posted in several beta testing subreddits.

r/betatesters • 1h ago

need 50 serious testers for an experimental dating app (100% anonymous) hey everyone,  i’ve built an experimental dating app named meetify. instead of swipes and pictures, it uses deep behavioral analysis and psychological profiling to match people based on real compatibility.  everything is completely anonymous. i need real users to test the matching algorithm and give feedback before i pitch it internally for a promotion. first 50 people get immediate access. if you’re tired of shallow dating apps and want to try something different, dm me. serious testers only.

he hit the post button with nervous fingers and then refreshed the page obsessively for the next hour. by the end of the day, he had 47 messages. 

on another hand, you had sworn off dating for almost a year. after a series of painful relationships, you decided you were done putting yourself out there. the idea of opening up to someone new felt exhausting and terrifying. 

but one night, while scrolling through reddit to see if someone could help you with work, a post caught your eye.

a post written by a user called walternetius. it promised to be something different, and curiosity got the better of you. after everything you had been through, maybe an algorithm could do better than your own terrible judgment.

you downloaded the app and created your account with the user y/nlocked.

the questionnaire was long and surprisingly personal. you answered honestly, even the uncomfortable questions about past relationships, trust issues and what you really wanted from a partner. 

when you finished, the app paired you almost instantly. 

wmckynotes. your eyebrows rose at the high number of compatibility. you opened the chat.

wmckynotes: hey wmckynotes: so we’re both beta testers for this thing? nice to meet you, y/nlocked

you smiled a little at the polite greeting and typed back.

y/nlocked: hi. yeah, looks like it. that compatibility is crazy. did u answer the questions honestly?

wmckynotes: haha… i was brutally honest. that’s why probably most of my other matches were below 20% :/ wmckynotes: u are the first person who makes sense according to the algorithm. wmckynotes: btw, how are u finding the app so far?

you leaned back against your pillows, thinking how to answer.

y/nlocked: i mean, it’s… different. the questionnaire was really long and some questions made me stop and actually think, but the interface is calm i guess. i really wanted to try something different

wmckynotes: most dating apps just feel so shallow. 

y/nlocked: yeah. this one feels more…. intentional. but wbu, why did you join the beta? are you also tired of normal dating apps?

wmckynotes: honestly? i’m the developer of this app. i’ve been working on it for months as a side project. my company is very corporate and i wanted to show them something original. wmckynotes: i needed real users to test it. i didn’t want people to feel pressured so i created everything anonymous.

y/nlocked: wait… you’re like the creator? that’s so cool lol. so u testing your own app?

wmckynotes: yeah… pretty much hahah i’m nervous as hell actually. i want it to work, to help people find something good. don’t tell anyone though. i’m trying to stay anonymous too. 

y/nlocked: your secret is safe with me

keys chuckled softly in his apartment, running a hand through his messy hair. you smiled at the phone feeling a warmth in your chest.

wmckynotes: so… be honest with me. what do u think so far? any feedback? wmckynotes: i’m glad the algorithm matched us. even if this is just a test, it’s nice talking to someone who gets it and works at coding too.

you thought for a moment before replying. the conversation flowed naturally. you two talked about movies, music. he was funny, a little nerdy, and surprisingly easy to talk to.

y/nlocked: yeah… it really is :) good night wmckynotes

a month has passed since you first downloaded that app, and what started as a random experiment born out of boredom quietly became the best part of you every day. 

you were at your desk on nexus dynamics. the open office was loud, with ringing phones and sighs. you were on the same customer support ticket for almost forty minutes while a man was yelling in all caps about a billing error.

you rubbed your temples, feeling the familiar headache building behind your eyes. your phone vibrated on the desk, you glanced around quickly to make sure your supervisor wasn’t watching, then opened the app.

wmckynotes: survived another meeting. how’s your day going? please tell me it’s better than mine.

you smiled despite yourself and typed back quickly under the desk.

y/nlocked: well i’m being yelled at a customer rn and i need a coffee

wmckynotes: i would def teleport with a coffee if i could. black with one sugar, right?

y/nlocked: you remember. i’m impressed 

wmckynotes: i remember a lot of things about u

you bit your lip, feeling warmth spread through your face. 

across town, keys was sitting in his chair. he checked the beta dashboard obsessively for weeks. the app was working better than he ever expected – at least for you two.

keys ran a hand through his messy brown hair and bit his lip when your message appeared. the conversation continued in short bursts or during breaks. 

after that, the conversations become more and more frequent between you two. 

even so, work was killing you. today was one of those days where you had to apologize because you were busy and you couldn't talk to him.

your company, nexus dynamics, was forced to attend the same exclusive networking event as soonami studios. the rivalry between the two companies was known throughout the world. it was serious: years of stolen talent, leaked projects and public shade in interviews. 

the tension in the rooftop was thick enough to cut with a knife, and the employees from both side-eyed each other with barely hostility.

you were there representing your company, dressed in a sleek black dress and holding a glass of champagne you had no intention of drinking. you stood near the bar, trying to stay out of the way of the obvious corporate warfare happening around you.

the founder of the company who prepared all this suddenly appeared beside you with a bright smile.

‘’ah! perfect. come with me for a moment.’’ before you could even protest, he gently guided you across the room toward a small group of the other company.

“so… this is our brilliant guy, keys. one of our sharpest young talents.”

keys turned to you. for a split second, something flickered in his eyes but he masked it with a polite professional smile and extended his hand. 

“nice to meet you,” he said with a measured voice.

you shook his hand firmly, keeping your expression natural.

“likewise,” you replied in a polite tone.

“you two are some of the youngest and most promising people from your companies. i thought it would be interesting for you to talk. healthy competition breeds innovation, right?”

with that, the walked away, leaving you and keys standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. the air between you two was immediately tense. 

keys slipped his hands into his pockets.

‘’so….’’ he said with a carefully neutral voice. ‘’heard your team has been pushing up some aggressive updates lately.’’

you lifted your chin slightly, matching his energy.

‘’and i’ve heard yours has been copying quite a few of those ideas,’’ you replied. ‘’imitation is the sincerest from flattery, i suppose.’’

keys let out a short dry laugh, but there was no real humor in it. you narrowed your eyes.

‘’bold claim. though i’m not surprised. y’all always loved throwing accusations around.’’

keys studied you for a moment, giving you an intense glaze. 

‘’you seem… familiar somehow,’’ he said quietly. ‘’have we met before?’’

you shook your hand, keeping your voice cool.

‘’i don’t think so. i would remember you.’’ 

he gave a bitter smile, and the conversation remained polite on the surface but with subtle jabs. the night was long and boring. you couldn't wait to get home, talk to that app user, and have some fun.

the network finally ended and you arrived home a little after midnight. your heels gave you wounds, and you swore you just wanted to rest. the entire ride way home, your mind kept replaying the conversation with that guy with glasses.

there was something about him that felt extremely familiar and even if you didn’t know his name –the way he looked at you, the dry humor– that felt strangely familiar. you shook the thought away. 

when you finally stepped into the apartment, you kicked off your heels with a sigh of relief. you changed into an oversized t-shirt and stayed in your panties, washed your face and collapsed onto your bed with your phone.

meanwhile, across town, keys entered his apartment, loosened his tie, and dropped onto the couch. keys didn’t even wait, he opened meetify on his phone and saw you were online.

he smiled and started typing.

wmckynotes: hey. u still awake?? wmckynotes: just arrived home. long night… i met someone w your name. funny coincidence right??

y/nlocked: it’s a pretty common name. they are probably like thousands of girls with it

wmckynotes: yeah… but anyways talking to u feels so much better. wmckynotes: i was thinking about u all night

y/nlocked: oh??? and what were u thinking about?

wmckynotes: being honest… was wondering u were laying in bed like i am now. if you were thinking about me too

the tone shifted. subtly. slowly.

y/nlocked: maybe i was and maybe i still am

wmckynotes: yeah? what are u thinking about?

the room was starting to feel hot, your chest was starting to pound faster. you closed your legs to try and cool down the heat between them. 

wmckynotes: yeah? what are u thinking about rn???

y/nlocked: about how nice ur voice probably sounds in general and about ur looks

wmckynotes: only that way?

y/nlocked: do u want me to say more?

you playfully bit your lip, waiting for his response. you had no idea how far the conversation could veer.

wmckynotes: maybe i do

y/nlocked: where are u rn?

wmckynotes: well wmckynotes: i’m in my couch… why?

y/nlocked: maybe i was thinking about me and u in your couch

his answer was fast. he never left the chat.

wmckynotes: great wmckynotes: me too

y/nlocked: what are u exactly thinking about y/nlocked: let’s see if we are thinking the same

wmckynotes: i was thinking about you in my couch… what are u wearing?

you smiled at the question, biting your lip, and then looked at your body as if it weren't obvious what you were wearing. as if you didn't know, or as if you were looking for confirmation before telling him.

y/nlocked: shirt and panties

wmckynotes: k. so i was thinking about u in my couch with that shirt and in only panties.  wmckynotes: then in my thoughts i kiss u first, i think your lips are probably really soft 

you let out a slow breath and slid your right hand down your body. you slipped it under the waistband of your panties, feeling the heat radiating from your pussy. 

you didn’t go straight for your clit. instead, you pressed your palm flat against your mound, feeling how warm and slick you already were. 

y/nlocked: yeah?? what more… tell me

wmckynotes: i’d kiss u deeper… slowly sucking on your upper lip while my hands slide under your shirt. 

you kept pressing and rubbing your palm against your panties, the friction making you wetter. your hips moved slightly against your hand. meanwhile, keys ran his hand down his stomach and began slowly palming his cock over his pajama pants, feeling it thicken and harder under his touch.

then the next message appeared.

wmckynotes: can u touch yourself for me?

y/nlocked: i was already doing it

wmckynotes: you so dirty wmckynotes: good

keys squeezed his growing bulge firmly, rubbing it up and down over the fabric, feeling it twitch under his palm.

y/nlocked: are you touching yourself? y/nlocked: touch yourself and tell me more

wmckynotes: i’d keep kissing and sucking on your neck while my hand slides between your legs.. imagine your hand is mine and please rub your clit over your panties for me, baby. slow circles

you moved your fingers up and started rubbing slow circles over your clit through the soaked fabric. soft whimpers left your lips.

y/nlocked: fuck…. it’s so sensitive. are you stroking yet?

wmckynotes: not yet. just rubbing and squeezing over my pajamas. keep going princess

he continued palming himself, occasionally squeezing the head of his cock through the fabric, feeling himself get fully hard. his breathing was getting heavier as he watched the chat.

y/nlocked: i’m so wet… panties are a mess

wmckynotes: then pull ur panties aside and touch your bare pussy for me. tell me how wet u are

you hooked your fingers on the side of your panties and pulled them aside. your fingers immediately glided over your slick bare folds.

y/nlocked: my fingers are sliding everywhere

wmckynotes: fuck that’s so hot wmckynotes: start rubbing your clit directly now. slow circles wmckynotes: i just pushed my pants down. gonna touch myself for u. i’m so hard

keys pushed his pajama pants and boxers down to his thighs, freeing his thick hard cock. it slapped against his stomach, already leaking. then he wrapped his fist around the base and gave it a slow stroke, spreading the pre-cum over the head with his thumb.

you moaned as your fingers made direct contact with your swollen clit, rubbing slow, tight circles.

y/nlocked: this feels so good

wmckynotes: i’m stroking slowly. base to tip… pls push two fingers inside yourself for me. fuck yourself 

you did it. you slid two fingers deep into yourself, moaning louder. keys tightened his grip imagining that as he started stroking with long firm movements and his fist slid easily. 

y/nlocked: i’m fingering myself y/nlocked: wish those were your fingers tho

you didn’t stop. you saw him typing.

wmckynotes: fuck wmckynotes: do u have any toys?

you bit your lip, hesitating for just a second before answering honestly. you had one, you bought it when you were dating that pathetic boy you had as your boyfriend. he never made you come, and that's exactly why you bought it.

y/nlocked: yeah. i got one in my drawer

you reached over the nightstand drawer and took the toy in your hands. then you positioned yourself comfortably with spread wide legs. 

wmckynotes: rub the tip against your clit. get it nice and wet. i’m strocking faster now

you rubbed it up and down your slit, coating it with your wetness. keys was now fully focused on his own pleasure. keys’ hand moved faster. his hips were starting to buck up into his fist as he got more into it.

wmckynotes: push it inside and imagine it’s me stretching u

you did it, pressing it against your entrance and slowly pushing it in, gasping as it stretched you open.

y/nlocked: fuck… it’s thick. i need u

keys' large hand wrapped around his entire cock. he moved his hand up and down painfully, feeling that it wasn't quite enough. it wasn’t enough for him because he needed you. 

wmckynotes: fuck w it baby. nice and deep… imagine is my cock filling u up

you started thrusting the toy in and out, moaning louder with every push. your legs were already starting to shake, and your stomach was starting to feel strange.

y/nlocked: fuck… it’s thick

wmckynotes: don’t stop. i’m so fucking close baby :) i want u to cum all over the toy while i cum all over my hand

your moans turned into cries as your orgasm built rapidly.

y/nlocked: fuck… gonna cum. gonna cum so hard

wmckynotes: cum for me. fuck, i’m cumming too

you came with a loud scream. your back arched off the bed, your thighs were shaking violently as your pussy clenched around the toy. 

at the same time, keys groaned deeply, his hips buckling as thick ropes of cum shot across his stomach.

wmckynotes: are u ok

y/nlocked: fuck yeah y/nlocked: gonna clean this mess

wmckynotes: right wmckynotes: same

you got up to go to the bathroom and freshen up a bit. washed your face and drank some water before sitting back down on the bed and checking your phone.

he wrote again since the last message.

wmckynotes: since this is getting like wmckynotes: a little bit more serious wmckynotes: do u have like… discord or something?

y/nlocked: yeah y/nlocked: i use it for work sometimes

wmckynotes: can i add u there

y/nlocked: yeah ofc

you sent him your username, waiting for him to add you and it didn't take long for him to do so. but when you saw his discord profile picture, you froze. 

it was his face. and he wasn't just anyone.

he was the guy you met that very night at the work event. 

it was him. keys.

© dividers by angeliicide and suupersonic

[imfromthediningtable]

WHERE TF DID ALL THIS KEYS CONTENT COME FROM WTF

[washoutmyhairdye]

the one with the rude neighbour

keys mckey x reader

summary: your neighbour gets tired of your constant loud noises and decides to take matters into his own hands.

warnings: smut +18 mdni, mention of alcohol, cursing, kissing, nipple play, p in v, unprotected sex, spit play & cum play.

wc: 2,1k

author's note: this is for juana whom i initially wrote this for as a joke... and for las nenas because they'd kill me if i didn't mention them. also, this is my first fic ever and english isn't my first language, so proceed at your own risk...

it was 11 p.m. on a saturday night, all keys could hear in his apartment was the frantic typing on his keyboard, the consequence of yet another project cutting too close to the deadline and being stuck rewriting his coworkers’ sloppy code.

well he could hear that... and also the bass thumping through the wall from the apartment next door; ever since a new neighbor had moved in, it had become a common occurrence to get almost no sleep on weekends thanks to their parties. 

he usually didn't mind the noise that much, he would put on his noise-cancelling headphones and tune it out, but tonight he couldn't afford distractions, he had to finish fixing those glitches on the game. he was already getting a headache and his mood was worsening increasingly as the music and laughs next door grew louder and louder.

two minutes before midnight he finally had enough. he didn't want to be the cranky next door neighbour but he wasn't taking any chances with this project; he had to get it done by the end of the weekend and that was not going to happen unless he got some actual peace and quiet to concentrate.

he let out a heavy, defeated sigh, got up from his desk, walked to the front door and paused for a few seconds, contemplating if he was really going to go through with this. deciding there was no other choice, he stepped out into the hallway, walked next door, and knocked three times. 

a minute passed and he knocked again, harder this time. no answer.

losing his patience on the third try, he simply turned the knob and walked straight in. the music was even louder in there, no wonder no one had answered, he squinted his eyes trying to see something between the low lighting and the mass of bodies grinding against each other. that’s when it hit him: he had no clue who he was looking for; he didn't even know what his new neighbor looked like. how could he, when he barely ever left his own apartment?

suddenly, he felt a tap on his shoulder and when turned around he was caught off guard by the pretty girl apparently talking to him.

"um, what?"  he cleared his throat confused.

"i said, who are you?!" you yelled over the loud music.

"well, i could ask you the same thing!" he yelled back, nervously adjusting his glasses.

"you're the one who just walked into my apartment..."

that's when he finally realized.

"oh... i’m keys... well, i’m actually walter but everyone calls me keys i mean, i'm your neighbour... apartment 3B?"

"nice to meet you... keys" you said with an extended hand.

he brushed it off. 

"look, we can do introductions later. i need you to turn down the music. it's making my head feel like it's about to split in half."

"why would i turn off the music at my own party where you showed up uninvited?"

"because some people are actually trying to work, and your music can be heard throughout the entire fucking building!"

"work? on saturday night?" you asked, confused and starting to get irritated by his tone. 

keys was growing more and more frustrated as the loud noise was numbing his senses and you were starting to get on his nerves. 

"i don't owe you any explanations," he said, crossing his arms tightly "you either turn the music down, or i call the cops and let them handle it."

you couldn't believe the audacity of this guy, showing up at your place, being rude as fuck, and demanding things. your vision was a little blurry from the drinks you’d had so far, but you couldn't help but notice that this angry neighbor named... keys?... was actually not bad looking at all.

his hair was messy, obviously from how many times he’d run his hands through it in the span of this 3 minute conversation, his glasses were a little smudged because he kept nervously fixing them and he was wearing some dorky star wars t-shirt. you weren't about to let him crash the party while everyone was having such a good time; maybe it was time to take a slightly different approach. 

you took a step closer.

"mmh, you know what? maybe you should just stick around..." you murmured casually, licking your lips and smirking when you caught his gaze dropping to follow the movement.

"what?" he asked, his brows furrowing in confusion.

you nodded.

"yeah.. working on a saturday night... maybe all you need after all is to loosen up a little, have a few drinks... maybe it'll stop you from being an obnoxious asshole." 

"what did you just call me?"

"oh, you heard me loud and cl-" 

you couldn't finish the sentence before he stepped into your space, backing you up against the wall and putting a hand over your mouth to shut you up.

"i dare you to finish that thought," he whispered, his voice suddenly dark and low.

your eyes widened and you looked at him with a strange mix of fear and lust, you knew you shouldn't be feeling this way about a literal stranger…  but the drinks you had so far and the heat of his body pressed against yours was making it impossible to think straight.

you gently pulled his hand down from your lips, batting your eyelashes. "or what? what exactly are you going to do about it?"

he suddenly looked around, conscious of how many people were surrounding the both of you; not like anyone was paying attention anyways. noticing his hesitation, you pushed him off softly, wrapped your fingers around his wrist, and led him straight toward the bathroom. 

once you were both inside, you clicked the lock into place. turning back to him, you smirked. "now, what were you saying...?"

keys didn't waste another second, he stepped forward, gripped your waist with both of his hands, and smashed his lips against yours, backing you up until your lower back hit the edge of the cold bathroom counter. the kiss was rushed and sloppy, your tongues mixing, driven by pure adrenaline as the heavy bass still vibrated through the bathroom walls.

he pulled away for a second, breathing heavily, knowing that he should stop this now. yeah, it had been a while since he had sex and maybe you were right about how he needed to loosen up, but fucking the neighbour that he has just met not even half an hour ago was not the right way to do so, no matter what the obvious bulge on his pants said.

keys didn't have much time to overthink before you gripped his shirt and pulled him back against you, hooking a leg over his to press him closer.

he got the hint and groaning against your mouth, he gripped your hips and lifted you effortlessly onto the counter, stepping between your legs and pressing his erection against your center. his mouth was back on yours again; he nipped at your bottom lip, sliding his tongue into your mouth in a slower and deeper rhythm that made your head spin.

his hand started to make his way up beneath your shirt, then he pulled back for a fraction of a second, his eyes searching for yours in a silent question. the moment you nodded he eagerly helped you take it off, exposing your skin to the cool bathroom air, and immediately got to work; cupping one of your breasts with his firm, warm hand while dropping his mouth to the other, swirling his tongue around your nipple before gently biting and sucking. you gasped, arching against him while you reached down for his belt, unbuckling it with trembling, impatient fingers. 

you pulled his zipper down, your knuckles brushing against the hot fabric of his underwear which made him let out a sharp breath. he spread your thighs wider, lifting your skirt up and brushing his long fingers over your already soaked panties. he smirked against you when he noticed how wet you were, then pressed his thumb firmly over your clit through the damp fabric, holding it there long enough to tease you and deliberately refusing to move it any further. grabbing him by his hair, you pulled his face back to yours and murmured against his lips, “please…” 

“do you have any condoms here?”

you sighed in frustration. “no… but i’m clean and on the pill. you can just pull out.” 

he nodded and he took his length out of his pants; you didn't even have time to register his impressive size before he brought his hand up to your mouth “spit,” he commanded with a dark voice. 

you complied.

he used your spit to stroke his dick a few times, letting out a low groan, then not even bothering to take your underwear off, he just pushed the fabric to the side, dragged his tip across your folds, circling on your clit before lining himself up and pushing his full length into you in one deep thrust. 

the sudden, burning stretch left you speechless, your eyes widening as your breath caught in your throat. he stayed still for a moment, burying his face in the crook of your neck, giving you the chance to adjust to his thickness, and feeling it pulse inside you. then, he began to move.

he started a merciless pace, his hips slamming with force against yours, the heat of his skin making an abrupt contrast with the cold marble beneath you; your moans were muffled by the party still going on outside so you didn't bother to hold them back. keys looked like a beautiful mess, lips parted, letting out ragged breaths, eyes barely open and his glasses completely fogged. you felt so full you couldn't even think straight.

 “keys… fuck, fuck…” 

“maybe this will teach you to do what i say next time,” he said, accentuating his words with an even deeper thrust. 

“i- mmgh…” you couldn’t even form a proper reply as he hit your sweet spot again and again. desperate for more you wrapped your legs against his waist pulling him as deep as he could possibly go.

he leaned down, lips brushing against your ear, "you like being loud, don't you? let's see if you can scream my name louder than that fucking music outside." he asked as he picked up the speed.

"keys- please” you gasped, your fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt.

listening to your pleas he guided his hand down between your bodies rubbing on your clit in perfect sync with his thrusts, driving you right over the edge; the double stimulation was too much, you arched your back, your walls clamping down around him tight as you came, crying out his name.

he gave a few more desperate thrusts while you rode your climax, cursing at the way your walls were squeezing him then pulled out, gripping his length and stroking himself 

as he came all over your stomach, letting out low grunts with every spurt. 

you both stayed completely still for a moment, trying to catch your breath, praying that no one had passed close enough to the bathroom to have heard any of that.

when you made a move to reach for the towel to clean yourself up, he pushed your hand away softly; leaned down, eyes locking onto yours as he licked the warm fluid pooling on your stomach. once he gathered most of it, he pulled back up to capture your mouth, and fed it back to you in a deep kiss. 

he finally broke the kiss and you both stayed completely still for a few seconds as the adrenaline slowly started to fade.

the contrast of the sudden quiet inside the bathroom hit you immediately; keys ran a hand through his completely ruined hair and adjusted his fogged glasses, swallowing hard as he fixed his pants and buckled his belt back on.

you slid off the counter, put your shirt back on and fixed your skirt and underwear making sure he was watching every move; you walked past him toward the door, hand resting on the knob before you paused.

"i'm turning the music down half a notch," you said, looking back over your shoulder for a second with a smug smirk "just because you asked so nicely."

then you opened the door and walked out, letting the loud music swallow you back in, leaving keys alone in the quiet bathroom to try and figure out what the hell had just happened.