love, i think it is.

lev ⟡ 20s ⟡ she/her ⟡ masterlist ⟡ ao3

[levanswrites]

welcome!

lev ⟡ 20s ⟡ she/her ⟡ writer ⟡ ao3 ⟡ 18+ only

𓎢𓎠𓎠𓎠𓎡

MCU | steve rogers, bucky barnes

Stranger Things | steve harrington, eddie munson

Fargo FX | gator tillman

DC | clark kent

Misc. | ransom drysdale, frank adler, andy barber, headcanons

𓎢𓎠𓎠𓎠𓎡

ongoing projects ⟢ field notes on love (s.h.) | troubled cure (e.m.)

upcoming projects ⟢ my habit (c.k.) | midnight blue (s.h.)

currently on loop ♬.ᐟ living together by bee gees

𓎢𓎠𓎠𓎠𓎡

requests are open. feel free to use these prompts or your own!

[stevenose]

contents: protective/obsessed/slightly toxic!bf!steve x reader; no pronouns/gendered language used for reader; bitchy reader <3; intense steve <3; much sexual tension… they’re kinda freak4freak

i just wanted to wax poetic about steve making you drink water.

You know when Steve hounds you, he’s really just showing you that he cares. But when he does it while you’re exhausted after a long day of work, trying to do dishes that you’d rather throw out the window than scrape clean, you’d like to scream.

“Did you eat yet?”

“No,” you answer curtly, trying to move around him. He’s leaning against the counter, looking so handsome, which is just pissing you off even more.

“Did you have water?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“Here,” he says under his breath, pushing off the counter before opening a cabinet to fetch a glass.

“I’m fine,” you snap, grabbing his arm as if he’s not stronger than you.

His eyes widen at your audacity, yet they’re still soft. Then his brows shoot upwards. A challenge.

Steve still reaches for a glass. Grabs it in his hand and pushes it under the tap. He fills it to the brim, flicks the faucet off, and hands it to you, crossing his arms expectantly.

You take it, and, just to be a bitch, you pour it right down the drain.

Steve’s jaw sets. Then his big hands find your waist, and he hoists you onto the counter, trapping you between the cabinets behind you and his body before you. He keeps a hand firmly on your hip, an unsaid don’t move evident with the extra squeeze he gives as he leans towards the sink again, filling the glass.

His hand moves from your hip to your jaw. He cups it sweetly, then grips tight, his fingertips feeling your teeth through your cheek.

“Open.”

His voice is soft and warm and stern. No room for arguments, no time for whining as he brings the glass to your mouth.

Steve’s eyes watch as the water trickles past your lips, a drop or two cascading downwards from the inner corners of your mouth to your neck. He tsks at you, shaking his head slightly, as if he seriously thought you were wasting it on purpose.

You don’t want him to tut at you. You want to make him happy.

So you swallow. And swallow. And swallow. And just as your shaking hand reaches out for his wrist, desperate for a break, he pulls back. You pant, and Steve brings his thumb to your chin, rubbing the excess water into your skin.

“I know what’s best for you,” he says softly, his thumb catching on your bottom lip, hooking into it.

He’s leaning forward, eyes flickering between your lips and your eyes, which are all wide and full of wander and love and just a little bit of fear.

A warm hand cups your cheek. “Let me take care of you. Yeah?”

With a deep, uneven breath, you nod.

Steve’s lips brush against yours and you already feel dizzy, your irritation dulling out and being replaced with a ditzy sort of devotion that he pulls from you.

“Just let me love you,” he murmurs, his hands moving back to your hips. “I’m going to take such good care of you.”

As always, you give in.

[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 !

[levanswrites]

THANK YOU, jess. hehe. get it?

this was.... genuinely everything i could have hoped for and somehow so much more. i've been trying to figure out why this hit me so hard beyond "the smut was hot" (which, yes. jesus christ), and i think what makes this piece so special is that it doesn't separate the kink from the romance.

you took one of my favorite hcs about keys—that above all else, he is an observant partner, that paying attention is how he loves people—and built the entire dynamic around it.

he isn't good at this because he's secretly an experienced dom or anything. he becomes good at it because he's watching her.

i loved that you constructed a whole universe around these two, with lexy and all their mutual friends in the discord server.

I loved that you invested so much time into making us believe in them as a couple. the relationship feels so sweet and grounded because you show us all the tiny, mundane ways they fit together. the shared interests, the teasing, the way they already know each other's habits, the little domestic details. the details about fuschia and cross stitched pokemon were so special and endearing to me :))

I loved that you weren't afraid to completely lean into the gamer terminology and culture. these two are nerds at heart, and I love that you let them be unapologetically dorky about it. the way they talk about gameplay, the discord dynamics, all of it made them feel like real people who actually exist in that space. even their safeword is a word i've never heard of before. I came away having learned so many new pieces of gamer vocabulary!!

i loved that you included so many biblically accurate details about keys' life, like having spider-man sheets and an entire drawer full of takeout menus.

i loved that you had him buy the fucking hitachi FOR HER and consulted reddit for sex advice (as every chronically online engineer/gamer nerd would do)

which brings me to.....

The Thank Yous.

GOOD GOD.

jess.

seriously?

i could write an essay on the thank yous alone.

they are only two words.

TWO.

and somehow you've turned them into one of the hottest pieces of dialogue i've ever read.

and i STILL can't fully articulate why they work so well.

because they're not quite praise, and they're not quite degradation either. they're somewhere in this fascinating liminal space between the two.

it's almost like... his politeness weaponized as power?

it's driving me insane bc i'm still trying to figure out why it's so hot but it just! so!!! literally a new kink i've discovered for myself i'm not even joking

i also loved that you introduced it in a non-sexual context the first time:

“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.”

and the progression from there is honestly masterful. from curiosity to experimentation to observation to mutual discovery.... there's something so special and hot about a couple authentically discovering kink through experimentation! ugh i just love it so much.

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

I LOVE the little breaks we see in his 'character.' he wants notes!! he wants constructive criticism!! he wants to get better!!! that is the most walter thing imaginable. and it's so incredibly hot because it's so earnest.

and the degradation......

it is just SO carefully calibrated.

that's such a difficult balance to strike because degradation can so easily tip into sounding like Generic Dom Dialogue™

but i could still hear keys' voice underneath every line and i never once doubted i was reading him.

oh also? please know I had to put my phone down for a second after this:

“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?”

i sometimes find it hard to immerse in phone sex scenes but that whole sequence was genuinely one of the hottest things i've ever read in fic. you just hit the exact sweet spot where he's being mean enough to satisfy her fantasy while still sounding unmistakably like the same deeply observant, very nerdy, slightly awkward, hopelessly devoted man you've spent the entire fic teaching us to love!!!!

[cinematicnomad]

STRANGER THINGS ▸ 2.01 chapter one: MADMAX

[molabuddy]

really specific trope i like that i feel like can only be explained in a diagram

[keeryspullman]

[theeungodlyhour]

1.04 | 5.04 NANCY & STEVE in STRANGER THINGS parallels [ 1 / ? ]

[levanswrites]

fighting the monday blues with steve x single mom!reader thoughts...

i'm just thinking about reader who hasn't slept with anyone in... god, you can't even remember how long. life became work and daycare pickups and doctor's appointments and making sure you had dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets stocked in the freezer.

somewhere along the way, you stopped thinking about yourself as someone who could be wanted.

and then steve harrington happens.

this ridiculously handsome, ridiculously thoughtful guy who's technically a whole five years younger than you.

"what?" he'd laughed when you brought up the age difference. "c'mon, we're basically the same age."

easy for him to say when he looks like that.

you keep trying to convince yourself it would never work anyway. he's gorgeous, charming, effortlessly good with people. women probably throw themselves at him.

meanwhile, your life comes with baggage: a kid who isn't his and a calendar built around school drop-offs and bedtime routines.

you assume that, eventually, he'll realize this isn't the kind of life he pictured for himself.

except steve doesn't see a list of reasons why it won't work.

he sees you.

and then, somehow, before you can even process it, he's gone and won over your daughter too.

you find him sitting cross-legged on your living room floor, letting her attempt to braid his floppy hair while she giggles herself silly. she tugs a little too hard and he throws his head back dramatically.

“owww, you're so mean to me.”

she erupts into laughter, immediately asking if she can try again.

“i guess,” he sighs dramatically, “if i have to.”

those stupid, warm brown eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles at your daughter, looking at her like she’s the most important person in the room.

which, to him, she is.

and so is her mom.

you keep waiting for the catch. for steve to realize there's a whole world beyond yours—a world where he gets to be young and carefree and unburdened, instead of choosing a life that already comes with so many responsibilities.

and every time he looks at you with that soft, awestruck expression, you have to look away because surely this isn’t real. no one has ever looked at you like that before.

yet despite your best efforts to push him away before things can get any more serious...

he gets you into bed.

it's terrifying.

you're more nervous than you've ever been with anyone—even more than your first time—because this isn't just about being physically vulnerable anymore.

it's the way he looks at you.

at the scars and stretch marks. the body that carried your daughter, that carried you through the hardest years of your life. the body you've spent the last decade treating like something practical, something that only mattered because it kept you moving.

never something to be cherished or wanted.

except steve doesn't look at you like that.

his gaze is nothing short of overwhelming.

there's an intensity to it that makes your heart stumble, something instinctive and undeniably hungry, but it's softened by so much warmth and affection that you can't bear to meet his eyes.

you glance away, folding your arms across your stomach and trying to make yourself a little smaller.

except steve won't let you disappear.  

he waits.

gently tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear, kisses your cheek while he’s got two fingers lazily fingering your pussy, stroking deep and knowing and good because “I’ve gotta make sure you’re ready for me, hm?”  

and oh, did you mention he was hung, too?  

stretches you to the limit every time. he can fuck you for hours, though he makes you come at least three times before he even thinks about pulling his dick out.

and when he tells you you're beautiful in bed with a completely straight face, you believe he means it.

it's not a line. he says it the way someone says the sky is blue.

like it's simply, undeniably true.

and he's just... too much.

because the men you've been with before never paid even a fraction of the attention he does. no one slowed down long enough to notice when you got tense, or checked in just because they wanted to know how you were feeling.

but steve does. constantly.

he notices every tiny shift in your expression, every shaky breath and every little gasp.   

he's endlessly patient with you, spending hours on his knees at the foot of your bed, blinking up at you with his nose buried in your pussy. cheeks tinged pink, glistening with your slick, hair a complete mess because he'd wanted you to stop worrying about being so careful with him. because he'd wanted you to grip onto him and show him what felt good.

and the whole time, he's looking at you with this expression that's almost impossible to describe.

wonder and gratitude. a kind of open, wholehearted adoration that feels too big to hold.

like he's trying to memorize the details of this moment because he still can't believe he gets to love you.

and all you can think is...

how?

how could someone so kind, so heartbreakingly good, look at you like you're the greatest thing that's ever happened to him?

what you don't realize is that he looks at you and wonders the exact same thing.

[levanswrites]

elaborating on prev tags @tinfoileddd: #is now a good time to mention that i lowkey think steve has a thing for stretch marks#like i think he finds them really beautiful. ESP if theyre the result of you having kids#but he truly would just like to kiss them all day if he could

and maybe loving you teaches him to be a little gentler with himself, too.

because he knows what it's like to carry reminders on your body.

the scars that violence has left behind, ones that still catch his eye in the mirror some mornings before he has a chance to look away. they aren't exactly his favorite part of himself. sometimes all they do is remind him of the people he almost lost, of the nights they barely made it through and the boy he used to be before everything changed.

but then he watches you do the exact same thing.

you look at your body and see only the things you wish were different.

he looks at your body and sees a woman who loved her daughter so fiercely that her body still carries the memory of bringing her into this world.

he sees love written into your skin.

and somewhere along the way, it makes him wonder if maybe his own scars deserve the same kindness.

because neither of your bodies tells a story of something broken.

they tell stories of love.

yours are the marks left behind by bringing your little girl into the world—their little girl now—and his are the marks left behind by protecting the people he loves, no matter the cost.

different stories, same kind of devotion.

and how could either of them be anything but beautiful?

[levanswrites]

fighting the monday blues with steve x single mom!reader thoughts...

i'm just thinking about reader who hasn't slept with anyone in... god, you can't even remember how long. life became work and daycare pickups and doctor's appointments and making sure you had dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets stocked in the freezer.

somewhere along the way, you stopped thinking about yourself as someone who could be wanted.

and then steve harrington happens.

this ridiculously handsome, ridiculously thoughtful guy who's technically a whole five years younger than you.

"what?" he'd laughed when you brought up the age difference. "c'mon, we're basically the same age."

easy for him to say when he looks like that.

you keep trying to convince yourself it would never work anyway. he's gorgeous, charming, effortlessly good with people. women probably throw themselves at him.

meanwhile, your life comes with baggage: a kid who isn't his and a calendar built around school drop-offs and bedtime routines.

you assume that, eventually, he'll realize this isn't the kind of life he pictured for himself.

except steve doesn't see a list of reasons why it won't work.

he sees you.

and then, somehow, before you can even process it, he's gone and won over your daughter too.

you find him sitting cross-legged on your living room floor, letting her attempt to braid his floppy hair while she giggles herself silly. she tugs a little too hard and he throws his head back dramatically.

“owww, you're so mean to me.”

she erupts into laughter, immediately asking if she can try again.

“i guess,” he sighs dramatically, “if i have to.”

those stupid, warm brown eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles at your daughter, looking at her like she’s the most important person in the room.

which, to him, she is.

and so is her mom.

you keep waiting for the catch. for steve to realize there's a whole world beyond yours—a world where he gets to be young and carefree and unburdened, instead of choosing a life that already comes with so many responsibilities.

and every time he looks at you with that soft, awestruck expression, you have to look away because surely this isn’t real. no one has ever looked at you like that before.

yet despite your best efforts to push him away before things can get any more serious...

he gets you into bed.

it's terrifying.

you're more nervous than you've ever been with anyone—even more than your first time—because this isn't just about being physically vulnerable anymore.

it's the way he looks at you.

at the scars and stretch marks. the body that carried your daughter, that carried you through the hardest years of your life. the body you've spent the last decade treating like something practical, something that only mattered because it kept you moving.

never something to be cherished or wanted.

except steve doesn't look at you like that.

his gaze is nothing short of overwhelming.

there's an intensity to it that makes your heart stumble, something instinctive and undeniably hungry, but it's softened by so much warmth and affection that you can't bear to meet his eyes.

you glance away, folding your arms across your stomach and trying to make yourself a little smaller.

except steve won't let you disappear.  

he waits.

gently tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear, kisses your cheek while he’s got two fingers lazily fingering your pussy, stroking deep and knowing and good because “I’ve gotta make sure you’re ready for me, hm?”  

and oh, did you mention he was hung, too?  

stretches you to the limit every time. he can fuck you for hours, though he makes you come at least three times before he even thinks about pulling his dick out.

and when he tells you you're beautiful in bed with a completely straight face, you believe he means it.

it's not a line. he says it the way someone says the sky is blue.

like it's simply, undeniably true.

and he's just... too much.

because the men you've been with before never paid even a fraction of the attention he does. no one slowed down long enough to notice when you got tense, or checked in just because they wanted to know how you were feeling.

but steve does. constantly.

he notices every tiny shift in your expression, every shaky breath and every little gasp.   

he's endlessly patient with you, spending hours on his knees at the foot of your bed, blinking up at you with his nose buried in your pussy. cheeks tinged pink, glistening with your slick, hair a complete mess because he'd wanted you to stop worrying about being so careful with him. because he'd wanted you to grip onto him and show him what felt good.

and the whole time, he's looking at you with this expression that's almost impossible to describe.

wonder and gratitude. a kind of open, wholehearted adoration that feels too big to hold.

like he's trying to memorize the details of this moment because he still can't believe he gets to love you.

and all you can think is...

how?

how could someone so kind, so heartbreakingly good, look at you like you're the greatest thing that's ever happened to him?

what you don't realize is that he looks at you and wonders the exact same thing.

[levanswrites]

holy shitttt lev i cannot get over knuckle velvet!!!! truly your writing is a gift thank you for sharing it with us

ahh thank you so much love! it's one of my new favs i think

𝐤𝐧𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐭

[stevenose]

contents: dubcon!!!!!; toxic!boyfriend!steve x fem!reader; reader with a vagina and breasts; jealous!steve; possessive/obsessive!steve; light bondage; slight stalking; piv; steve is pushy and overprotective but he really genuinely thinks it’s what’s best for you :( <\3… something something it’s very hot when a man loves you so much that he won’t let you go…

thinking of boyfie steve being protective of you to the point where it’s borderline toxic. or maybe even outright toxic. like, he was always looking out for you as friends, but some sort of switch flips the literal moment you say “yes” to being his girl, sitting in his car at lover’s lake one summer evening.

all of your problems are suddenly his to fix. flat tire? he insists on you sitting in the car while he fixes it up, even though you know what you’re doing. it’s chilly out and you’re not wearing a jacket? he’ll buy one for you so that you don’t catch a cold. not drinking enough water? he notices, and he won’t let you out of his sight until you’ve finished at least one glass in his presence.

it’s nice at first, being taken care of like this — but soon it feels a little condescending and sometimes even chauvinistic. there are boundaries you try to set with him, stressing that you’re not stupid. and steve does know that! you’re the smartest prettiest angel he’s ever seen! but a little thing like you shouldn’t have to carry the world on your shoulders. he sweet talks you, calms you down, telling you that he simply loves spoiling you and could very happily do so for the rest of his life.

but it doesn’t really feel like he’s spoiling you when he’s sizing up a guy who you were making small talk with while waiting for your drink at the bar. you watch your sweet steve turn from a puppy into a watch dog, his fingers digging into your waist and ushering you away from the presence of whatever “sleaze” was just “trying to fuck you.” that’s how steve sees the interaction, at least. as a threat. someone who wants to take you away from him.

you blow up at him when the cool outside air hits you. breaking out of his grip to shove your pointer finger into his chest and scolding him, words vicious, things you don’t really mean but you’re just so sick of him acting like you’re incapable of existing without him.

“i’m a big girl, steve, i can fucking handle myself!”

this is where steve disagrees with you. but he lets you rant at him until your throat hurts, and he lets you poke at his chest until it turns red. he lets you seethe in the car on the way home. most shocking of all, he doesn’t argue with you when you tell him you need a little space, a few days to just breathe without him watching you as if you might choke on air at any given moment.

he gives you a few days. it’s agonizing torture for him, and he sort of hopes it’s the same for you, too. though you do actually seem a lot happier when he watches you from the parking lot of the hawkins public pool, dressed in a goddamn bikini, one that he bought you, one that you’re only supposed to wear at his place. surrounded by friends with your tits barely concealed, where the lowliest trash in town can have an eyeful of your body.

he has half the mind to get out of his car and drag you away, but he knows better than to blow his cover now. so he waits until you’re tucked in bed that night to knock on your window and sweetly ask if you’d let him in. just to talk. nothing else. promise!

but would steve really be a loving boyfriend if he let you get away with that shit? no! he’s gotta fight for you, doesn’t he? even if that means tying you to your headboard haphazardly with a silk scarf when you get all combative again. even if that means slapping his hand over your mouth so that you’d just listen to him instead of arguing. until he finally shoves your underwear into your mouth with a regrettable sigh because you’re acting like someone you’re not.

“where’d my good girl go?” he asks softly, hands tracing down your body, cloaked in one of his oversized hawkins basketball shirts and nothing more. “what happened, baby? hm?”

you try to argue with him, but nothing quite makes sense past the cotton in your mouth.

a hand lingers at the base of your neck, steve’s finger gently tracing over the golden s that hangs on an expensive chain he got you. he’s at least pleased that you haven’t removed it, but it seems that, perhaps, it’s not doing such a good job at reminding you of who you belong to.

“i know you’re mad at me,” he says, sounding absentminded as his fingers continue to stroke his initial. it looks so pretty on you. “let me make it up to you, okay?”

you let him push your legs apart. you let him push his old t-shirt up over your breasts. you let him kiss down your neck while your chest rapidly rises and falls, clearly worked up — pissed at him and so wildly turned on that your sheets are darkening under you, wet with your arousal.

he fucks the look right out of you. spreads your legs wide and hitches them up on his shoulders, bending you in half. pushes in with one brutal thrust, a perverse sense of pride overtaking him while he watches your eyes widen and your fists clench above you.

“said you were a big girl,” he groans. “now you’re lookin’ at me like you can’t take it. need me to help you, huh?”

you clench hard around him, hips bucking, trying to get away from the stretch.

steve laughs. “yeah. just like i fuckin’ thought.”

every thrust is rough, but there’s intention behind it. each push of his hips is slow and deep, tilted just right, the tip of him sweeping over your g-spot over and over. you couldn’t even find it with your dumb little fingers before him. each press is a kiss to the deepest part of you — i love you. i love you. i love you. let me.

“i can be better,” he groans in your ear. “fuck, honey, let me show you.”

that doesn’t mean he’ll take a step back — instead, he means that he’ll help you get used to him. to his hand on the small of your back, to his overwhelming need to take care of you, to the rest of your lives together where you don’t lift a fucking finger except for him to put a ring on it and for you to take care of his kids.

and, considering how dumb you get when he has you like this, all spread open and at his mercy, it may actually be an easy lesson for you. and if it isn’t, that’s okay. he’ll keep you here as long as necessary. and you’ll thank him for it.

[radicallymaxton]

"What's so bad about being with me?"

[pigfartsviatardis]

Ooohh yesyesyes cause they kept showing wish!nikki in shadow over and over, like she herself was an actual shadow, nothing more than a Nikki-shaped silhouette, empty of an actual person, just a vessel for bear to pour his rotten love into, a black mirror for it to reflect back at him.

And to me this is his lowest, darkest point in the film. This is the moment when it’s confirmed for him that not only is his girlfriend not the real Nikki - which tbh might have felt like a bizarre relief - but that the real Nikki is in there and suffering horribly, which is probably his worst fear realised. And this moment is when he gives in to the darkest and worst version of himself and asks Nikki, the real Nikki, ‘would it be so bad?’. He knows it IS so bad, but I think he’s so scared and broken in that moment that he is at his weakest and most cowardly, and we know he was already pretty weak and cowardly.

So it’s interesting for me that this moment, when he gives in to the situation for a second and considers accepting the magic and allowing Nikki to keep suffering (which, now he knows he wasn’t imagining things, would make him actively her abuser), he takes on this shadowed appearance that the wish-induced spectre wearing Nikki’s skin so often has. He takes on the evil; for a moment, he is no longer a passive co-victim of his wish, but in control and in collusion with that power. I don’t think he would actually be able to do that to Nikki, and we saw that he was ultimately willing to die to save her from his actions, but still. For a moment.

Plus, this foreshadows that he would become like her, before the end. When wish!nikki makes her wish, she makes him a shadow of himself too. Two shadows in love, two empty vessels reflecting each other. Part of me still thinks the film should have ended like that, but that’s just me loving a dark twisted ending.

[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.

✦ · · · ✦ · · · ✦

[thecreelhouse]

Lev. My jaw is on the floor. You are without a doubt one of the best Steve writers ever with the way you get him so deeply!!!

From start to finish this entire fic is gold, but these three parts were absolute gut punches. Oh my godddddd.

Lev idk how you do it; you can write about Steve so deeply that it never ever gets old. It’s always so consistent but never feels like a loop of the same points over and over, and I just think that alone makes you one of the best writers in this fandom fr. (Honestly, any fandom would be lucky to have your writing)

The ending def made me cry lmao I’m not surprised. Ugh. Your work is seriously everything. Thank you for writing and sharing this with us bb!!!! 🥹🖤

[greelin]

“why did you write this man as a service top” because i have eyes. and common sense. And also god spoke to me

[snoopyharrington]

tied

au: 90s hockey!steve x college student!reader content warnings: angst/hurt comfort, hopeful ending, a bit of fluff, talks of casual hookups/sleeping together, alcohol, reader has self-esteem issues, not proofread (sorry), this is a little sadder than my usual stuff </3 word count: 1.7k a/n: can you guys actually believe i wrote something

based on this original hockey!steve blurb! (this will definitely make more sense if you read it first)

You're not quite sure what time it is, but based on the dwindling sounds of the party going on inside the expansive hockey house, you guess it's nearing some obscene early morning hour.

Lately, you've been unsure of a lot of things. More than usual, you suppose. Why Steve Harrington is trying to sleep with you, for one, though you guess your reputation precedes you, and not in a way that feels particularly flattering.

A pang of self-hatred rattles through your chest and you swallow harshly, squeezing your eyes shut, as if the actions will physically remove the feeling from your body.

You wish it were that easy.

Currently, you're most unsure of why you're still at the hockey house. They won their game tonight. Another easy accomplishment for the university's team, unsurprisingly led by Steve, their superstar player and shoo-in for captain next year. You've heard that he's already getting scouted by NHL teams, but his golden boy repute means that he'll finish his degree before heading off to a fruitful career as a professional hockey player.

You scoff at the thought. You try not to let the jealousy build in your body, but you can't help it — Steve's gotten everything he's wanted since the beginning of time. You don't need to know him to prove your point; he just radiates that very fact.

So, again. Why are you laying on a lounge chair in the backyard of the hockey house, fully knowing the party is dead and there's nothing left for you to do but go home?

You know you could go inside, make eye contact, and flirt with any one of the remaining players who are sober enough to make a conscious decision, and find enough warmth for the night to get by.

But you don't want to do that.

For some stupid, pathetic reason, you're holding out for him, and you have no idea why.

You sigh and pull the cigarette from behind your ear, then grab the lighter from your bra. You feel like you've made an idiot of yourself over the past few weeks. Ever since Steve initially propositioned you, you've slept with three of his teammates, for no reason other than wanting him to know what it feels like to want something. But each time you fucked them, it was boring, wearisome, and you thought about Steve the entire time.

You hate it.

You think you hate Steve, too, but you know that's not true, either.

You're taking a drag and staring at your shoes when the man who's been haunting your thoughts finally makes an appearance in the dark backyard. There's still a string of lights up, a pitiful attempt at college students making their outdoor space look presentable, not to mention the litter of empty, crushed beer cans and solo cups.

Steve furrows his eyebrows when he recognizes you, immediately worrying that you're passed out with a lit cigarette in your hand, or too drunk to get home. When he approaches you, you smirk lazily at him. He swallows.

"Harrington," you greet, your throat dry from its lack of use. You don't know how long ago you came out here, but you do know that at some point, you decided you'd had enough of the loud speakers and beer pong, and the guy on the basketball team who kept pawing at your short skirt was getting seriously old.

"Are you alright?" Steve asks, gesturing to your sluggish profile. You shrug your shoulders before taking another drag from your cigarette, then wordlessly offer it to Steve. He shakes his head.

"Fine," you murmur, sitting up so your back is against the length of the chair, "You?"

"Just doing a sweep before heading to bed. Making sure there's no one lingering from the party."

"Am I a lingerer?" you ask, tossing your cigarette in the grass and crushing it with your shoe.

Steve lifts a hand to run it through his messy hair. He's exhausted. You can see it in the bags beneath his eyes.

"You don't live here, so by definition, you're lingering, yeah."

You hum. You can take a hint. You know when you're not wanted somewhere.

"I'll get out of here, then." you say, preparing to stand. Steve reaches out and clasps a hand around your wrist — gently, like you could still pull yourself away if you wanted to.

"Why are you still here?"

Your tongue pokes out to lick your lips. Steve watches, unabashedly, and feels his pants tighten at the sight of it. You want to smirk, because he's one of the easier and more enjoyable men you've played with.

"Isn't this what you wanted?" you purr, leaning towards him, batting your eyelashes. "You were begging to fuck me just a few weeks ago."

Steve laughs, all breathy and without the humor. It's an immediate shot to your ego.

"Are you drunk?" he asks, and you shake your head too quickly. You're not; the shots you had when you got here had worn off hours ago. "Then why are you... I think I'm just a little... confused."

You snort. Try not to roll your eyes. Maybe the golden boy nickname isn't so far anyway.

"You're gonna turn down fucking me when you were all but ready to pay me for it, like, a month ago?"

"I'm not that desperate," Steve mumbles, scrubbing a hand over his face, "You were so uninterested then, I don't understand what changed."

You shrug. "Does it matter?"

"Yes," Steve says stubbornly, "It does. It matters a lot, actually."

You sigh loudly, then shake your head.

"This is stupid," you mutter, standing up. He doesn't stop you this time. "Don't come to me for that shit ever again."

When you start to walk away, Steve's right behind you, and you wish you're strong enough to push him.

"C'mon, don't do this," you hear him say as you're approaching the sliding glass door. "It's late. Just stay here for the night."

You stop, then turn to look at him with a quirked brow.

He shakes his head. "We're not doing anything though. Not tonight, anyway."

"I don't understand what your problem is, Harrington."

He laughs, tilting his head back to expose his neck. You want to lean forward and mouth at his skin, pressing messy kisses to the length of it all the way down to his chest.

"I don't have a problem."

"Most guys would never shut me down," you say, crossing your arms. "I could go in there and ask any one of your teammates to pound me into their mattress and—"

Suddenly, Steve's hand is on your mouth, a warning look in his eyes. You grin. Even if he can't see it, you know he can feel it from behind his palm.

"Lower your voice," he mumbles. "Will you please just stay? You can take my bed, I'll sleep on the floor, I'll send you off with some breakfast in the morning and everyone will think that we fucked, and it'll be fine and dandy. Yeah? That good enough for you?"

You dart your tongue out to lick his hand. He flinches and instantly retreats, making you laugh.

"God, you're such a baby. Afraid you're gonna get cooties?"

"No."

"Take me upstairs," you say, and Steve's eyes brighten. He must really have some kind of white knight complex and it makes you sigh. "But you're not sleeping on the floor, because we're not 12 years old, and just for the record, I'm not doing this for some kind of reputation maintenance thing."

Steve hums as his hand politely finds the small of your back, guiding you up the stairs and to his bedroom.

"We can sleep in the same bed as long as you promise not to make a move." he murmurs. You stop in front of a wooden door in the middle of the long hallway, waiting as Steve pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks it.

"I would never do that," you whisper. "Seriously, do you think I'm a monster?"

Steve doesn't say anything to that, and instead just leads you into his room. He locks the door behind you and you glance at him. He's already moved on to emptying his pockets onto his desk, getting rid of his wallet and keys. There's not much to Steve's bedroom, just a bed, a dresser, and a desk, but it's clean enough for a college athlete. Your eyes glaze over the small collection of pictures tacked up on the wall over his desk, then some of the hockey paraphernalia throughout the room.

"You want something to wear to bed?"

You look to Steve and nod, and he tosses you a large, worn tee-shirt. You bite your lip as you start to strip your clothes off and you hear Steve curse to himself, making you smirk.

"You could've gone to the bathroom for that, you know," he borderline whines. You grin at him in your bra. He groans and turns around.

When you've shed the rest of your clothing and slipped his shirt on, you tell him he's in the clear. He rolls his eyes and quickly puts his own sweats on, then joins you in the bed.

It's not quite awkward, but you're not exactly going straight for cuddling, not that you had anticipated Steve to be the type. He clicks the light off and lays down next to you, both of you silent as the late hour finally catches up to you.

A few minutes later, Steve breaks the silence.

"Are you ever gonna tell me why you wanted to sleep with me tonight?" he whispers.

You blink your eyes open and think for a moment.

You don't have the courage to be honest with yourself, which means you most definitely don't have the courage to be honest with Steve.

You roll onto your side to face him. He does the same, and you lick your lips.

"No," you murmur, hands resting between your cheek and the pillow. "Are you ever gonna tell me why you wanted to sleep with me the night of that party?"

Steve closes his eyes and scooches closer to you, wrapping an arm around your waist. You're a little surprised by the contact, but you tell yourself you let it happen because you're tired and it feels nice.

"Night, trouble."

[levanswrites]

oh.... this is such an interesting dynamic i'm hooked!

i love the way you separate sex from intimacy because, for these two, i think sex is fairly easy and routine. but neither of them is emotionally ready to be truly known, and i think that's what makes this interaction feel so charged

it just feels like they're both so fundamentally lonely in different ways, and both terrified of letting someone see past the personas they've built. he hides behind the star athlete golden boy image. she hides behind confidence and weaponizes sex because it's safer than admitting what she actually wants.

i also love that you flipped the script by making steve reject her advances. by her own admission she's someone "most guys would never shut down," so the fact that he does is so telling. maybe bc he recognizes the deeply self-destructive place she's coming from. maybe bc he sees through the performance; it's the same kind of mask he puts on, just in a different shape. he understands that she's using sex to punish herself just as much as she's trying to provoke him.

and the hand over her mouth when she starts talking about his teammates because he knows she's trying to hurt herself as much as she's trying to hurt him….

"Lower your voice," he mumbles. "Will you please just stay? You can take my bed, I'll sleep on the floor, I'll send you off with some breakfast in the morning and everyone will think that we fucked, and it'll be fine and dandy. Yeah? That good enough for you?"

i just… i love that he doesn't give in and only offers her a bed and somewhere to stay. he gives her everything except the one thing she's trying to use as a substitute for intimacy, and i think that's what makes this dynamic so compelling!!

[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.

✦ · · · ✦ · · · ✦

[nervoushottee]

words cannot express how truly beautiful this fic was. From the hot, fast paced angry sex that melted into this feeling of loving grief and fear. To the devotion that reader and Steve have for eachother. Steve’s hands are literally bound and he still finds away to touch you, to comfort you in his restraint. How intimately beautiful,raw and real the confessions/conversations are.

Steve has literally been hungry all his life for affection and the way you connected each parts of his life on how he fought to give or receive that affection was so spot on.

The intimate bath scene—UGHHH! It was so cute and domestically mundane despite the reason why they have to take a bath in the first place. And when reader is reading his palm and he’s only looking at you?!??? Swooning to the max.

This felt so raw and real. You never miss at all.

[oh-sweet-thing]

Sleepy second orgasm with Stevie <3

Contains: fluffy smut, post-sex intimacy, gentle touching (fem receiving), sappiness

Little blurb I've been working on. I just think it's sweet :)

WC: 1.5k

--------------------------------

“Steve.”

“What?” he smiled, innocently dragging his nose up the column of your neck. He was grinning like he wasn’t aware that his hand was sliding over your inner thigh, lazily teasing at the edge of your cotton nightgown.

Your skin was still dewy. You’d hardly caught your breath. His legs were still tangled with yours. That’s what. 

“You want one more?” he asked, lowering his tone into something warm and gravelly in your ear, “I’ll give you another one, baby.”

His voice was slightly slurred with the effort he’d already expended, almost like he was well and truly drunk on you tonight. His weight pressed against your side, lying exactly where he’d collapsed just minutes ago.

“You just gave me one,” you reminded him, lithly tracing your fingers over his freckled arm. You felt him shiver against you at the delicate swirls of your fingernails. 

It would be hard to forget the climax he’d just given you, actually. In case he needed his memory refreshed, you touched your fingertips to the aggravated, red marks you’d raked down the expanse of his back with your nails.

Steve paused, pressing his lips to the junction of your neck and your shoulder, letting his mouth linger there. You felt him inhale you deeply before humming, the sound rumbling low in his throat. 

“I mean, yeah… but that’s not what I asked you.”

You sighed, shaking your head softly before pressing a kiss to his hair, burying your nose into the tousled strands that were perfumed with product. Your bodies felt weighed down to the mattress, both of you too lazy to pull up the sheets that had been shoved to the foot of his bed in a heap.

“What? You tired?” he grinned, picking his head up to look at you with his hazy, shining eyes, “Don’t tell me I wore you out.”

Steve shifted his weight, pressing the tip of his nose to yours. You watched his eyes flicker over your face, struggling to fully focus when you were this close, but desperate to admire the flush of your cheeks. 

“A little,” you admitted, unable to help the smile that broke out on your face in return.

“Yeah?” he cooed, tilting his head at you playfully, “I can go nice and slow, just give me the word.”

“I dunno,” you murmured, now carding your hand through his tufts of chest hair.

“What’s the matter?” he asked gently, bringing his fingers to the side of your face to caress your cheek. 

He stared at you for the few moments you took to respond, his gaze unwavering as he watched you avoid his lidded eyes. You could feel his curiosity simmering, his urge to draw the unspoken words out of you bit by bit.

“You know it takes longer the second time,” you whispered, “And I don’t wanna make you work too hard for it.”

“Oh,” he breathed, letting out a soft laugh of adoration.

Steve gathered your hand in his, bringing it to his lips as his eyes danced between yours.

“That’s what you’re worried about? C’mon,” he teased fondly, kissing your knuckles, “Honestly, I’m a little offended that you don’t trust in my stamina.”

You rolled your eyes at him, relishing his pout when you gently flicked his shoulder.

“It’s late! You have work in the morning!” you defended, your tone much less convincing when a giggle burst through your attempt to be stern. 

“Is it?” he answered sarcastically, widening his bleary eyes at you. Without breaking eye contact, Steve reached over to his nightstand, turning his alarm clock face down. “‘Cause… I don’t even know what time it is. I can go allll night long, baby.”

Steve’s hand slipped down the side of your neck, sliding his fingers under the thin, cotton strap of your nightgown. Soothingly, he lowered it, letting the fabric cascade down your arm. You exhaled slowly as he leaned in, his breath warm against your bare shoulder.

“Tell me what you want,” he murmured, “And I don’t wanna hear anything about my poor fingers getting tired or some bullshit like that.”

You imagine that being resurrected feels something similar to this. A tingling sensation that suddenly spreads under the thin fabric of your pajamas, an instant spike in body temperature. You let your eyes flutter shut, focusing on the slow kisses he generously peppered across your skin, leaving no inch unbranded. Your head lolled to the side against the pillow, never more pleased to be left defenseless.

“Want you,” you whispered, unable to deny yourself for another second longer.

Steve groaned softly, giving your hip a slow squeeze that could only be understood as “thank god”.  With practiced ease, he lazily lifted your nightgown up and out of the way.

“I know,” he murmured, “I know. Gonna take care of it.”

He took his time, languidly reaching his hand down your stomach, then between your legs. His large hand urged you to inch your thighs apart, allowing him to spread his fingers out over your mound. You bit your lip, eyes cracking open to watch as he totally engulfed you with his palm. You could feel his boyish smile against your neck as your hips twitched lightly into his hand, undeniably just as enthralled as you.

Steve sighed heavily with satisfaction. You felt his nose nudge your temple as he settled in, shifting his body closer to yours. He moved slowly, rubbing his whole hand back and forth, the heel of his palm grinding over your clit. He knew better than to show off his usual dexterity when you’re still so sensitive to touch. You could tell he was paying close attention to your body, ready to adjust at the sign of a single flinch. It wasn't about making you see stars or waking up the neighbors this time around. It was a precious, stolen moment, moonlit and only for you.

“Feels good? Not too much?” he checked quietly.

You could feel his chest rise and fall deeply at your side, warm breaths fanning across your cheek. It was one of your favorite feelings, being completely surrounded by him, and only him.

“Mm. Not too much,” you murmured, your back arching lightly into his touch.

Steve nodded, gently pressing a delicate kiss to the column of your neck. 

“You can move, baby. Make yourself feel good, hon.”

Unhurriedly, you rocked yourself against his hand. You sighed softly at the soothing friction, the large surface of his palm causing a subtle current of pleasure deep inside of you. Despite the heaviness of your eyelids, you chased the warm sensation, listening to the low creaking of the bedframe in time with your hips. You were still slick from earlier, your silky arousal gathering at his upper palm and aiding the leisurely slide of Steve’s hand. 

“Steve,” you breathed, smiling hazily as you reached out for him.

“Right here, baby,” he murmured, catching your wandering hand. He threaded your fingers together, bringing your linked hands to rest on your stomach, anchoring you to him.

The minutes dragged on, gauzy and honey-like in sweetness and pace. It was mostly quiet besides your breathing, and Steve’s sugary whispers meant only for his girl. “Love taking my time with you,” he’d murmured, his voice husky with slight drowsiness as his hand worked between your legs.

Eventually, you felt the heat begin to bloom, simmering and tightening at your abdomen in a slow crescendo. You squeezed his hand as a silent signal, a little secret message in the quiet of your bedroom.

“More,” you whispered, turning your head until the bridge of your nose grazed his. Steve responded with a soft, husky hum, always ready to please.

“Little more?” 

“Mhm.”

He pressed a lingering kiss to your lips, massaging his hand against your pussy with a little more pressure this time, the muscles in his bicep flexing subtly with his ministrations. He echoed your pleasure, groaning quietly into your mouth as you began to pant. Your fingers knotted into his hair, keeping him so, so close, like you couldn’t bear him being even an inch further.

“Fuck, that’s it,” he muttered between dreamy kisses.

It felt like a gentle undoing. Subtle sparks of pleasure that washed over you as opposed to the usual commotion of firework-like bursts. You could almost feel Steve’s heart swell as you unraveled for him, letting you ride out the waves against his palm without overwhelming you. 

Breaking the kiss, you buried your face against his neck, breathing him in deeply while his arms encircled you. Lazy contentment practically radiated from you both as you nestled in the quiet, fuzzy afterglow.

“Good?” he muttered, his voice slightly muffled by your unruly hair.

“Mmm…” you mumbled back, your fingers curling around his shoulder. Steve chuckled, willing to accept that as an answer. No words were needed when he could feel your satisfaction right down to your bones. 

With a grunt, Steve hoisted the blankets up, the striped cotton settling around you in a cocoon. You knew it wouldn’t be long until you drifted off, so you took your final minutes to press your ear over his chest, the coily hairs tickling your cheek as you listened to the steady thump of his heartbeat. It was hard to be sure of much of anything. But, this? This sound? It was the surest thing you’d ever come to know. 

[epiphainie]

slow burn where they're already having sex. such a beautiful combination i cannot put it into words