warnings/notes: male anal, dildo/strap, stiles takes it in the ass like a good boy, reader and stiles are dating, sub stiles, nervous stiles, stiles doesn't eat food in preparation for anal, spanking, not proofread
Stiles Stilinski did not expect that a piece of silicone shoved in his asshole would make him cum so hard. He had only stuck a finger up there out of curiosity once or twice. If he said that he didn’t enjoy the way it felt to be dicked down by his girlfriend, he’d be lying.
It started as a joke. Some dirty suggestion during a sleepover. The sheriff wasn’t home and Stiles had some extra cash to burn. You two sat on his bed, scrolling through his laptop on an adult-toy website. As a couple, you two owned a few ‘naughty’ things. Handcuffs (that he stole from the station), ropes and chains (for Scott, but hey, they’re multipurpose!), a blindfold and gag (two pieces of cloth that was once a part of his old pillowcase, and a vibrator (you owned that before you guys even started dating).
He thought those things were considered to be mild and wanted to explore further possibilities with you, and as the good girlfriend you were, you agreed. It wasn’t like you weren’t excited to browse through an endless variety of sex toys with your boyfriend.
Browsing through the website, you made him pass countless toys that he wanted to try out. Maybe another time.
"Cock ring?"
"No."
"Vibrator?"
"We already have one."
"Tingling cream?"
"What the hell is that?"
Stiles sighed, scrolling a bit more and landing in the dildo section. He stared at the colorful models on the digital screen, swallowing thickly.
"Dildo?" He murmured.
You casted him a sideways glance. A smirk, then a nod. "For you?"
"Uh what? No, for you," he chuckled awkwardly.
"Awh. I was thinking maybe you could bounce on it while I-"
Stiles cut you off. "I'm not taking it in the ass."
"Then where else would you take it?" You replied smugly.
He rolled his eyes, clicking on the first product he saw. It was shaped like a tentacle with ridges. "Do people actually... like this stuff?" Stiles laughed. He exited out and scrolled until he clicked on a new link. As soon as you saw what it was, your eyes lit up.
A pink cock with a strap. Stiles noticed your expression and his heart sped up.
"What? This one?" He stammered, free hand twitching in his lap.
"Please? We should try it. I heard guys really enjoy that kind of stuff one they're introduced to it," you giggled. Stiles had a nervous expression on his face, but your insisting made him cave in.
"Well I- uh... okay uhm..."
You hopped off the bed and dug through his pile of clothes in the corner of the room, grabbing a worn pair of jeans and pulling his leather wallet out of the back pocket. With a bounce in your step, you walked back over to the bed and handed him his debit card eagerly. Stiles clicked on the shipping options and slowly entered his information, holding his breath with each passing second. He had to admit, part of him was excited too.
After the two of you finished your little 'shopping session', Stiles suggested that you two watch a movie. The rest of the sleepover went by quickly like they always did, and before he knew it, it was already the next day.
He drove you in Roscoe to school, forgetting about his wise purchase. The day went on with him zoning out in class and going to the bathroom to splash cold water onto his face. He was nervous, but for what? Stiles couldn't answer that question no matter how hard he thought. Why was he all jittery today?
Scott could tell he was acting strange during lacrosse practice. He played worse than usual if that was even possible. His phone kept ringing with notifications that he didn't bother to check, and his stomach growled with hunger.
Stiles remembered. He was nervous about the... toy that would be arriving soon. Later today. He made sure not to eat in preparation, though it was embarrassing to think about. His insides twisted with excitement and fear. Scott had to get him to stop staring at his closed locker door while he zoned out.
After school ended, Stiles began to drive you home, but you stopped him.
"Did it arrive?" You asked, thigh bouncing up and down in anticipation. He gulped and checked his phone. All those notifications were about the package's arrival.
"Yeah," he whispered, hands shaking.
The drive home is only silent because it is rushed. You two ran out, grabbing the package off the front porch and hurrying upstairs to his room. It's ripped open and inside is a pretty silicone cock with a belt strap attached. His eyes widened.
"Why is it so big?" Stiles blurted, eyes furrowing in shock.
"I thought you read the measurements?" You chuckled. He rubbed the back of his neck, huffing.
The toy was cleaned and disinfected in the bathroom. Stiles double-checked outside to make sure his dad wasn't home yet and he mentally cheered when he observed that his father's car was not in the driveway. He was too excited to check when you two first got home.
He decided to take his shirt off to get started. You came back with the cleaned strap and sat next to him on the bed, placing a hand on his chest.
"We don't have to do this if you don't want to. I can see how nervous you are," you said, fingers playing with the little hairs on his chest. Stiles shook his head almost immediately.
"No! I mean- no... I wanna try this," he sputtered, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans.
That's how he ended up bent over your knee with two of your fingers stuck inside his asshole. Stiles was squirming and whining every time your fingers brushed against his tight walls. Lube coated your fingers, wet slick running down his thighs. His fat cock was dangling between his legs, twitching and dripping with his arousal. You spanked his ass cheeks gently, pulling them apart and fingering him even more.
He was fucking loving it. He loved it when you pinched and slapped his fat ass, loved it when his back would arch and his dick would bead with pre-cum, loved it when the pads of your fingers would hit his prostate. If two mere fingers could make him feel this good, he wondered what a dick would feel like. Drool dribbled down his chin as his mouth hung open loosely. Stiles groaned when you made him get on all fours, his hands and knees digging into the mattress. His hair was sticky with sweat and messy, loose strands obscuring his vision. It wasn't like he could see anyway with the way you were making his eyes roll back.
You fastened the strap around your waist, enjoying the sight of your usually witty and sarcastic boyfriend reduced to a whining bitch. Another slap came down on his ass, making the pale skin blossom with redness. He whimpered softly, dick twitching.
"I'm gonna go in now, okay?" You whispered, rubbing over the spot you had struck. Stiles only grunted in response, taking a deep breath.
Your hands found his hips, and you guided him back onto your silicone length. He hissed as the tip of the strap-on dildo intruded his tight walls. The fake cock was lathered in so much lube it was hard not to just slip inside. Stiles bit his lip, the veins in his arms bulging as he gripped the sheets. As you slowly pushed into him, you brought a hand down between the two of you and fondled his balls, squeezing ever so slightly and making him buck back into you.
Stiles cried out at his own actions, the strap hitting a spot that made him dizzy. He let out a high-pitched moan, back arching as your cock slid all the way in. It felt like you were scrambling his insides. Tears of pleasure pricked at the corner of his eyes as his tongue lolled out of his mouth. When you pulled out and thrusted back in, he nearly screamed at the sensation.
He didn't even notice himself cumming. A fat load shot out of his dick in streams as you jerked him off to help him. Fresh tears rolled down his cheeks, his entire body flushed with pleasure. The sight made your heart thud faster, slowly pulling out to let him relax. Though he had only lasted a few thrusts, those few thrusts made him cum the hardest he ever had.
Stiles collapsed on the bed, panting heavily. You left the room momentarily to grab a bottle of water and a warm washcloth. When you came back, Stiles was drooling all over the sheets, clearly spent with his orgasm.
It was safe to say that Stiles Stilinski wasn't afraid to try new things, and maybe, just maybe, he enjoyed being on the bottom more than he enjoyed being on the top.
stiles wanting to fuck his girlfriend on her period…?🙏🙏
Yeah, that sounds about right for him. Thank you!
"Please? Come on, you can't seriously expect me to wait days to touch you. Wait, what? A WEEK? No. Absolutely not. Get over here right now. You can't do this to me, you don't understand. I'll go feral and start foaming at the mouth. Or is that rabies...? I don't know, but there will be foaming! Lots and lots of foaming! In fact, I'm foaming right now, you just can't see it because it's down th-"
"Desperation" would be an understatement. He needs this like a fire needs oxygen. Her flushed cheeks get to him, though, so he softens his approach.
"Just a little, that's all I want. I promise I don't care about the mess, ok? I promise. No one even has to know... It'll be our little secret. And it'll feel so, so good, won't it? Don't you want me to massage all those achy muscles up there? You know I can reach... Come on. We can stop whenever you want. Just give it a try. For me?"
He's quite convincing, especially with those needy, pathetic eyes, showing her exactly how much he needs her pussy to survive.
What dating Stiles Stilinski would be like- Headcanons
+ This boy would constantly be tracing circles and shapes across your skin. Dragging his fingers across your knee and thighs on movie night, on your shoulder cuddling in bed, on the back of your hands with his thumb while your walking because he insists on holding your hand at all times.
+ Oblivious!Stiles the first time you try to get him up to your room-
“Stiles I’m going upstairs now.”
“Ok cool, bring me down a blanket?”
“Stiles, I’m going to be up here for a while.”
“Oh, do you want me to leave then?”
“Stiles- come upstairs.”
“Oh.” He scrambles off your couch to join you in your room. Tripping over air to catch up to you.
+ Literally obsessed with you, Scott jokes to that it’s almost to an unhealthy level.
+ Checks on you like 50 times a day just to make sure you’re still alive.
+ Double dates with Scott and Allison.
+ Having deep heartfelt discussions in the jeep followed by messy make out sessions.
+ Speaking of the jeep, he will drive by your house late at night trying to convince you to sneak out your window for late night Taco Bell runs.
+ You say something that gives him an idea while he’s at his board covered in red string and he just aggressively kissed you on the mouth, his hands on either side of your face squishing your cheeks.
+ You trip in the woods and twist your ankle, and the poor boy gets so distraught because me 1. He can’t make it better and 2. He can’t physically carry you back to the car. I feel like he would start working out with that in mind. Not to get buff or anything but strong, lifting weights so that the next time you’re hurt he can carry you away to safety.
+ Wearing his Jersey number on your shirt and painted on your face as you cheer him on at lacrosse games.
+ Kissing his nose, forehead, lips, and overall face
+ Cuddling after his lacrosse practices because while him being wet and sticky is gross you can’t resist the sweet musky smell of him after he’s been working out.
+ He stares into your eyes with awe and reverence. Like he somehow managed to capture the attention of a literal god.
+ Punching him in the shoulder when he gets sarcastic with you.
+ Not being allowed to sit next to each other in class anymore because he gets too distracted by you.
+You rarely fight and when you do they don’t last long cause he can’t handle the thought of you being hurt by something he did.
+ Definitely a friends to lovers situation.
+ You help him through the grief of loosing him mom.
+ Memorizes your favorite food order from every restaurant you visit.
Summary: Despite being in a relationship with Steve, you've never been able to let go off your insecurities when it comes to the brave, smart, gorgeous woman who had his heart before you ever did. And Steve's actions only seem to confirm your fears. (Scenes from Stranger Things, Season 4)
Warnings: Angst, angst and more angst, insecurities, suspected infidelity in established relationship, no use of y/n
"Woah woah woah- Nance- Nance! Where're you going?"
Before you realize what's happening, Steve lets go off your hand, the comforting familiar warmth of his touch suddenly gone. You turn, just as he bounds after.... Nancy.
You pause, your mouth opening in a question, before you think better of it and abruptly press your lips back together.
"Oh there's just... something I wanted to check out first," Nancy shrugs nonchalantly.
"Something you maybe want to share with the rest of us?" Dustin's quick to ask, his tone rightfully suspicious as your own eyes narrow.
The girl chooses secrecy now of all times?
"I don't want to want to waste your time. It's a real shot in the dark."
"I think we're at a stage where we're still exploring every possible route, Nancy," you mutter, a humourless chuckle escaping your lips. "Anything you're thinking, you can share with us. I promise we won't laugh." You add, your eyes flicking to the ground as you shake your head.
You know your tone's unnecessarily cold- anyone with a working ear and a brain could make it out- but you can't help it. There's just something about Nancy Wheeler that brings out the worst in you.
Actually, you do know what it is.
You can't not know, as you see your boyfriend's eyes soften when Nancy hesitates, clearly unwilling to voice her thoughts- concerns, whatever they are.
"It's too dangerous to go off on your own right now, Nance, you know that," Steve says slowly, the automatic tenderness in his voice as he addresses her twisting something inside you. "Flying solo with that Vecna creep on the loose?It's too dangerous, you- you need someone to..."
You see the gears turning in his head as he trails off, staring at Nancy like he knows exactly what he wants to do, but just needs that little push, that little motivation to actually go through with it.
You know what he's going to suggest before he even says it.
"Steve-" you start, but he's already turning to you, a determined look in his eyes as he flicks his keys over to you.
You fumble to catch them. "Here you go babe, I'll stick with Nance. You guys take the car and go check out the shrink." His mouth turns up at the corner in what you think is supposed to be a reassuring smile, but you're having none of it.
"Wha- Steve, you can't just-"
"That isn't necessary, Steve, I can go on my own," Nancy supplies, her eyes flicking between the two of you. She's clearly trying to be helpful, but you can't help the bitter resentment that burns in your chest as you look at her.
"Of course it is! You can't be alone right now, none of us should be alone. Who knows what can happen?" Steve shoots at Nancy.
"So what- you're just leaving me alone here-"
"You're not alone, babe you've got Robin and Dustin and Max."
You scoff. "Are you kidding me, Steve? You know what I mean... I-," you make a split second decision. "I'm coming with you, then."
Steve's eyebrows raise. But before he can say anything else, Robin interrupts.
"Sorry to... butt in, but I don't think any of you'd want me driving Steve's car."
"Why?" You spit out.
"I don't have my license!"
You gawk. "Why don't you have your license?"
"Because I'm.... poor."
"Oh for the love of-" you bring a hand to your eyes, your patience ebbing, the fight draining out of you rapidly. Leaving behind nothing but that same cold, hard, ugly insecurity that you've never truly gotten over ever since you started dating Steve Harrington.
And at this rate? You don't think you ever will.
"Just fucking go then, Steve." You finally murmur.
You hear him sigh. "Babe.." He takes a step toward you.
"Alright, okay this is stupid," Robin exclaims, grabbing Dustin's walkie from his back and marching over to where Nancy stands.
"I will go with Nancy, you know us... ladies," she says with a pointed look in your direction, the message in her eyes evident. "You stay with your girl and the kids, dingus."
'Your girl'... oh please, you think bitterly. Some girl of his you were. You fight the urge to roll your eyes at Robin's words as she gives you all an awkward little salute, turning around to set off down the opposite path, Nancy following a second later.
"Be careful!" Dustin calls out after them, although you can barely hear him through the cloud of heaviness descending over your head. Heaviness that feels an awful lot like a burning pit of disappointment.
"Baby-" Steve finally starts, but you don't give him an opportunity to finish. You throw his keys back at him, not bothering to look up at him as you promptly turn around and walk back to his car.
You hear him sigh as he follows you, and the sound only serves to fuel your anger. He's letting out a sigh?
"Sweetheart, it's not-"
"Just get in the godamned car, Steve!" You snap at him. "And you two," you suddenly say, turning your attention to Max and Dustin. "Are you just going to stand there and gawk? Get in the car!"
Max looks like she wants to say something, her mouth opening, but Dustin gives her a look, and whatever it is she sees in it, her mouth falls shut once more. Barely though, it seems.
You don't have the strength to decipher the look. Or do anything else other than walk over to Steve's car, brushing off his hand as he reaches out to touch your shoulder. You yank open the car door and slide into to the passenger's side, slamming the door shut hard enough to make Steve wince.
Good, you think pettily. Let him suffer.
"Sooo, are we going to talk about it... then?"
"I'm sorry? Talk about what?"
"About your temporary insanity this morning, when you practically threw yourself at Nance?"
Your ears perk up, Dustin's words slicing through the haze of sleep still clouding you mind as you lie curled up in the backseat of Steve's car, though your eyes remain firmly closed.
"I- wha- that is not what happened," Steve says immediately, indignant defensiveness flooding his tone.
"It kinda is, buddy, there were a... lot of witnesses..." There's a pause, and you realize they're probably looking at you. You only hope your features mimic those of a sleeping person's, trying to school your breathing slow and even.
"I- I have a girlfriend, man, are you- are you implying that I still have a thing for Nance?"
Any person who doesn't know Steve inside out would probably think he sounds genuine enough as he says that, the disbelief in his voice at Dustin's implication convincing enough on the surface.
But not for you. You can tell there's something else he's thinking, something he's not brave enough to voice, or even acknowledge, perhaps. The thought makes you feel sick.
Dustin seems to realize the same thing.
"You know I'm only saying this because I know you have a girlfriend, Steve..." he says slowly. "She doesn't deserve this-"
"I- Henderson... I love her! I- You know that. You know I wouldn't do that to her, right? You know I wouldn't do anything to hurt her."
The hint of desperation in Steve's voice as he wills Dustin to believe him, to believe that he loves you, makes your heart clench. Your chest constricts in sorrow, squeezing your lungs till you feel you can't breathe normally anymore.
Because not only is he trying to make Dustin believe him, it sounds like he's trying to convince himself too.
And the worst part?
You love him too. Achingly, disgustingly much. And you're not sure you could stop even if you wanted to.
Dustin stays quiet after that. And you think to yourself how this is probably the first time you've ever seen the kid have nothing to say.
A/N: Let me know if you'd like a Part 2, and a gentle reminder that likes, reblogs and comments make me realllllly reallly happy
If you're reading this on 12th December, WISH ME, IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!
Pairing: Firefighter! Portgas D. Ace x Librarian!Reader
Summary: After a grueling twenty-four-hour shift, Ace expected nothing more than another typical community outreach event at the local library. He certainly didn't expect to walk through the doors anticipating a sweet old lady, only to find you instead - and suddenly forget why he'd been dreading it in the first place. Maybe some stories are worth staying awake for.
Tags: pure fluff, first date, first kiss, ace is sooo smitten with you
Wordcount: 3.6k
A/N: i know some of y'all are probably so confused to see this get an update, especially because i said i wouldn't continue this lol but you guys have to understand, i got so many requests to make a part 2 that i now just caved and here we are!! it's now a very small mini series with a part 3 to come and then it's done again. just a disclaimer: i do not like this, but my beta basically beat me when i said it😭 (they're gonna beat me again if they read this rip 💔) so i'm very sorry if this may be too boring lol, but i still hope y'all like it! as always, pls like, reblog and comment! divider credits go to @cursed-carmine <33
"I've genuinely never seen him like this," Marco murmured, leaning against the doorframe of the locker room with his arms crossed over his chest.
Beside him, Thatch was practically vibrating with glee, a mischievous glint in his eyes that signaled nothing but absolute chaos. Jozu and Vista were also present, having been drawn in by the spectacle unfolding before them. They were all watching Ace, who was currently in the midst of what could only be described as a wardrobe crisis.
Ace had changed his shirt four times in the last twenty minutes. The first had been a plain black tee - too casual, he'd decided. The second was a button-down that looked like something he'd wear to a funeral - too stiff. The third was a bright red shirt that made him look like a giant cherry - too vibrant. And also kind of ugly. Currently, he was wrestling with a dark navy blue polo, staring at himself in the mirror with an expression of sheer panic.
"Does this make me look like I'm trying too hard?" Ace asked, spinning around to face them. His hair, usually a chaotic nest of black curls, had been somewhat tamed, though a few stubborn strands still defied gravity. "Be honest. Do I look like a try-hard? Because I can't look like a try-hard. But I can't look like I don't care, either. There's gotta be a balance, right? There's gotta be a middle ground between 'I just rolled out of bed' and 'I'm attending a gala'!"
Thatch barked out a loud laugh, clutching his stomach. "Ace, buddy, you usually wear a t-shirt with a hole in the armpit and call it dressing up. The fact that you're using a mirror is a miracle in itself. I think we should call the local news."
"Shut up, Thatch!" Ace snapped, though there was no real heat in it. He was too preoccupied with the collar of his shirt, tugging at it as if it were suddenly choking him.
"You look fine, Ace," Vista added with a polished smile, adjusting his own cravat. "A bit of effort goes a long way when you're trying to impress a lady. Especially a librarian. They appreciate attention to detail."
Ace groaned, dropping his head into his hands. Poor guy was only seconds away from a total breakdown. "I don't know what I'm doing. I'm a firefighter! I know how to carry a hose and break down doors. I don't know how to… date."
Marco sighed, though his expression was softened by a rare, fond smile. "Just be yourself, Ace. The version of yourself that didn't fall asleep mid-sentence in front of a group of toddlers, preferably. But now that I think about it… that's probably the version she fell for. See? You're all good, yoi. She already likes you."
Ace looked up at the older man with wide, hopeful eyes. "You think so?"
"From the way you described your first meeting a billion times, yes, yoi," Marco replied. "Now get going before you change your clothes a fifth time and she decides to cancel."
With one last frantic look in the mirror and a hasty spray of cologne that probably could have been smelled from three blocks away, Ace grabbed his keys and a specific, weathered slim volume from the bench. Then, he practically bolted out of the station, leaving the rest of the crew in a fit of laughter.
You were waiting by the front door of your apartment, checking your reflection in the hallway mirror for the tenth time. You had opted for something comfortable yet cute, a flowy skirt and soft cardigan in a beautiful red tone. You weren't nearly as nervous as Ace was, but there was a flutter in your chest that hadn't subsided since the moment he'd asked you out.
When the rumble of his engine sounded from the street, your heart did a little skip. You stepped outside just as Ace was climbing out of his truck.
He stopped dead in his tracks the moment he saw you. For a second, the confident, charming firefighter from the library vanished, replaced by a man who looked like he'd entirely forgotten how to breathe. He was wearing a navy polo that hugged his shoulders and chest in all the right ways, and he smelled faintly of smoke and something crisp.
"Hi," he breathed, his voice cracking slightly from how nervous he was.
"Hi yourself," you replied with a beautiful smile on your face. "You look great, Ace."
A deep flush immediately climbed up his neck until it eventually settled in his cheeks. He rubbed the back of his neck, that familiar nervous habit returning. "Yeah? I mean- thanks. You… you look… wow. You look amazing. Like, really amazing."
He sounded so genuine, so completely floored by your presence, that you couldn't help but giggle. As he stepped closer, you noticed he was clutching something tightly against his side.
"Is that the book?" you asked, gesturing to the volume.
Ace jumped slightly, as if he'd been caught stealing. He quickly adjusted his grip, trying to slide the book behind his leg, but it was too late. "Uh, yeah! Yeah, I read it. Like I said I would. I just… I wanted to have it on me in case we had a lull in conversation and I could… you know, bring up a specific passage. Not that I expect a lull! I'm great at talking! I mean, I'm okay at talking."
You laughed, the sound light and melodic in the evening air. Ace found himself staring at you before blushing and quickly looking away. "You're doing just fine, Ace. Let's go. I can't wait to see what you've planned."
He beamed at you, his confidence returning as he opened the passenger door for you with a flourish that was slightly too dramatic, but incredibly sweet. As you climbed in, you caught a glimpse of the book now resting on the seat. The cover was just as worn as you remembered it, but the paged looked somehow… thicker? It looked as though the book had been stuffed with slips of paper.
You didn't mention it, though. You wanted to see where the night took you.
Ace didn't take you to a fancy restaurant. Neither did he take you to a movie or a quiet gallery. Instead, he drove you to the heart of the city's night market - a sprawling, neon-lit labyrinth of food stalls, carnival games, and loud music. It was chaotic, vibrant, and smelled of various grilled meats, cinnamon sugar, and lots of perfumes mixed together.
"I figured," Ace explained as you stepped out into the throng of people, "that a quiet dinner is kind of boring. And honestly? I'm starving. I think the cookie crash from the library finally hit me a few days ago and I've been trying to make up for it ever since."
It was the most Ace date possible, so you didn't mind it. At all.
He led you by the hand with a firm and warm grip through the crowds, navigating the market with a level of energy that was infectious. He treated the food stalls like the most important mission imaginable, insisting that you try everything.
"Okay, you have to try the spicy octopus," he declared, eagerly handing you a skewer. "It's the best in the city. If you don't like it, I'll buy you a giant cotton candy. Deal?"
Slowly, you took a small bite, the heat hitting your tongue instantly. Your eyes watered, and you coughed, blindly reaching for your drink. Ace burst out laughing, a loud, boisterous sound that drew looks from the people around you, but he didn't care. He quickly handed you his water, his eyes crinkling with amusement.
"Told you it was spicy!" he teased, though he started looking concerned after you wouldn't stop coughing.
"You… You're a menace," you gasped, but you couldn't help the smile spreading on your face.
As the night progressed, you realized that Ace's version of a date was essentially a series of challenges where he could prove himself in front of you. He found a strength-tester machine - the kind where you hit a lever with a mallet to ring a bell - and insisted on competing, which didn't surprise you in the slightest.
"Ten bucks says I can hit the bell on the first try," he challenged. You noticed the mischievous spark in his eyes immediately.
"You're on," you replied.
Ace stepped up to the machine, and you watched with a slight blush as his muscles rippled under the fabric of his polo as he hoisted the mallet high up in the air. With a guttural shout and a swing that looked like it could have demolished a small building - okay, you were exaggerating, but only a little - he slammed the mallet down. The bell rang so loudly you jumped, the sound echoing across the market.
He turned to you, chest heaving and with a proud, toothy grin on his face. "Pay up, Librarian!"
You laughed and handed him the ten dollars, but before he could pocket it, he turned to a nearby prize booth. He spent the money on a game of ring-toss, focusing on it with an intensity that was almost comical, because he acted like this was the most important thing in the world right now. After three failed attempts and a loud groan of frustration, he finally landed a ring on a small and very adorable plush cat.
He walked back to you and pressed the stuffed animal into your arms. "Here. For the victory. Since you're so bad at the strength-tester."
"I didn't even get a turn!" you protested, hugging the plush cat to your chest.
"Exactly. You were too scared," he teased, winking at you.
By the time the crowds began to thin, you were both exhausted and incredibly full. Your feet also hurt, and so Ace found a quiet spot at the edge of the market where a small wooden pier overlooked the river. The city lights shimmered on the water surface, and the air had turned crisp by now, sending a slight chill through your cardigan.
Ace noticed immediately. Without a word, he shed his navy polo, revealing a fitted white undershirt that left very little to the imagination regarding his physique. He draped the shirt over your shoulders. The shirt was still warm from his skin and smelled strongly of him, which you liked more than you probably should have considering that this was only your first date.
"Thanks," you whispered shyly, pulling the shirt tighter around you.
Ace sat down beside you, leaning back on his elbows. The silence that settled between you was comfortable, a stark contrast to the noise of the market. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the book, holding it tentatively.
"So," he started, his voice dropping to a softer, more intimate register. "I read it. The book, I mean."
"You did?" you asked, tilting your head and shuffling closer to him. "I'm impressed. I didn't think you'd actually finish it if I'm being honest."
"Hey! I told you I would!" he protested, though he was still smiling. He held the book out to you, but as he did, several slips of paper fluttered out from between the pages, landing on the wooden planks of the pier.
You reached down and picked one up. It was a small piece of notebook paper, written in a messy, clearly hurried scrawl.
'Melancholy' = had to look this up, ugh, I can never let Y/N know. The dictionary says it means sad. Why is this character always so sad? Just eat a burger and get over it.
You blinked, then picked up another.
'The epiphany of the soul'… what does that even mean? Is he having a stroke?
And another, slightly different one:
This part reminds me of the way Y/N looks when she's explaining things. She gets this little frown between her eyebrows. It's really cute.
Your heart skipped a beat. You looked up at Ace, who had realized what you were reading. He lunged for the papers, his face turning a shade of red that rivaled a fire engine.
"Give those back!" he stammered, and you realized he looked both severely embarrassed and absolutely mortified. "Those aren't- I was just… I was taking notes! It's called active reading! I think…"
You held out the papers just out of his reach and laughed. "Active reading? Ace, you wrote that the main character should just eat a burger in the margins of a literary short story!"
"I was hungry! And it's a valid critique!" he shouted, though he was grinning despite himself.
You softened, looking at the notes again. You read a few more and realized just how much effort had gone into this. For someone who clearly struggled with the medium, someone who found the language alien and the pacing slow, he had pushed through it all. Just for you…
"Ace," you said quietly, your voice full of affection. "Did you… did you have a hard time reading it?"
Ace stopped struggling for the papers. He sat back, rubbing the back of his neck while his gaze drifted toward the river. He sighed, his expression turning uncharacteristically vulnerable.
"Yeah," he admitted after a while. "I mean, I'm not the smartest guy. I know that. Marco or even Sabo… they're the ones who get the books. I'm the one who breaks things. Words always felt like they were slipping through my fingers, you know? I'd read a page and realize I had no idea what happened because my brain just… stopped. Books just aren't for me. They never have been."
He looked at you, his dark eyes searching yours. "But I wanted to. I wanted to understand the thing you loved. And I wanted to have something to talk to you about. So I just… kept going. Even when I had to look up every third word in the dictionary."
A warm flush climbed up your neck and colored your cheeks as a sudden gloss of tears shone in your wide eyes. You swallowed the lump in your throat, refusing to let them fall, and simply looked up at him with a bright, if not slightly overwhelmed smile. You reached out and carefully took his hand in yours. His palm was calloused and large, dwarfing your own, but his grip was gentle.
"I… wow. That is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me," you whispered. "Thank you, Ace. Truly."
Ace quickly looked away, but you saw his cheeks flushing again. Regardless, he didn't pull his hand away. "Whatever. It wasn't a big deal. Besides, the part about the travel was actually kind of cool. I like the idea of just… leaving everything behind and seeing where the road goes."
"That's the reason I chose this book. I think that suits you," you said, leaning your head against his shoulder. "The adventurer spirit, I mean."
"Heh. You guessed correctly," he murmured, shifting so he could wrap an arm around you, pulling you closer into his side.
For a long time, the two of you stayed like that, watching the reflection of the city in the water. The conversation flowed easily, moving from the book to his childhood, to the stories of his brothers and the chaotic family he'd found in the firehouse. He told you about the first time he'd ever held a hose, the terror and the adrenaline in that moment, and the way he felt when he finally realized he was good at it.
You, in turn, told him about your love for the library, the way you felt when a child finally found the book that sparked their imagination, and the quiet peace you found among the stacks.
Talking to Ace was as easy as breathing, you realized. You could do this for hours and still never get enough of the man beside you.
Eventually, it was time for the date to end. As the night wound down, Ace walked you back to your apartment. The walk was slow because neither of you wanted the evening to end, but knowing this was definitely going somewhere made it at least feel better. The air got even colder, but luckily, you were still wearing his shirt, which felt like a protective cocoon.
When you reached your front door, you turned to face him. The streetlamp above cast a golden glow over his features, highlighting the freckles on his cheeks and the devoted look in his eyes.
Both of you seemed to forget everything else around you. The tension that had been building all night suddenly reached a breaking point.
Ace stopped just a few inches away from you. He was so tall that you had to tilt your head back significantly to look at him. He looked down at you, his expression full of longing, but you could also see the hesitation inside of him.
Slowly, tentatively, he started to lean in. You could feel the warmth radiating off him, the scent that was so uniquely him and the night air swirling around you. His eyes flickered down to your lips and then back up to your eyes, asking a silent question you were happy to answer by closing your eyes and eagerly holding your breath.
But just as he was inches away, he stopped. He froze, and his breath hitched. You opened your eyes and looked at him confused.
Ace pulled back slightly, and just as you wanted to ask him what's wrong, you saw a look of internal conflict crossing his face. He cleared his throat, his voice sounding a bit strained.
"I… uh… I shouldn't," he mumbled, his brows furrowing. "It's the first date. I don't want to… I don't want to rush things. I want to do this right, you know? I don't want to be the guy who just jumps in without thinking. I do that enough with other things in my life…"
You stared at him for a moment, completely stunned. Was this… was this real? Was the man who had just demolished a strength-tester machine and eaten half a night market really terrified of a first kiss?
A small, amused smile spread across your face. You would be lying if you said you didn't find this incredibly endearing. He tried so hard to be a gentleman, all while his internal compass must be spinning wildly. You would kill to hear his thoughts right now.
"Ace," you whispered.
"Yeah?"
Without another word, you reached up, grabbing the collar of his white undershirt and pulling him down to your level.
Ace let out a muffled sound of surprise, but he didn't resist. When your lips finally met his, it was like a spark hitting a trail of gasoline.
The initial shock vanished instantly, swallowed by a sudden, all-consuming heat. Ace’s hands, which had been resting tensely at his sides, flew up. One hand gripped your waist, his fingers digging into the fabric of your shirt, while the other tangled deeply into your hair, tilting your head back to deepen the angle.
The restraint he had maintained crumbled into nothing. He parted his lips with a ragged breath, pressing into you until there was no air left between your chests. The taste of him was intoxicating, and your heart hammered violently against your ribs, matching the frantic rhythm of his. He pulled you closer, shifting his weight until you were pressed firmly against the wall behind you. The solid impact only fueled the fire. His lips moved against yours with an intense, bruising hunger, nipping softly at your bottom lip before soothing the sting with a breathless kiss that made your knees go weak.
When he finally pulled back a fraction of an inch, he rested his forehead against yours. His breath came in sharp, ragged gasps, hot against your skin. In the dim light, his eyes were dark, blown out with a fierce intensity, looking at you as if he couldn't quite believe what had just happened. He got so red it extended all the way to the tip of his ears.
"Wow," he breathed, his voice sounding completely wrecked. "Wow. Okay. I… I really liked that."
You laughed, leaning back to look at him. "You're a lot braver when you're not thinking, aren't you?"
Ace let out a shaky laugh, his grip on your waist tightening as if he were afraid you might disappear. "Shut up. I was being strategic!"
"Sure you were," you teased, reaching up to brush a stray curl away from his forehead.
Ace looked at you, his expression softening into something so full of affection it made your heart ache. He leaned down and kissed your forehead, then your cheek, then your nose, as if he couldn't get enough of you.
"I'm definitely reading the next book you recommend if this is what I get for it," he murmured against your skin, and you could feel him grinning.
"I'll hold you to that," you replied, smiling up at him.
As he finally stepped back to let you go inside, he looked like he was walking on air. He gave you one last, lingering look before turning to head back to his truck.
"Goodnight, Y/N!" he called out, his voice booming through the quiet street. "I'll call you tomorrow! Or tonight! Or just… whatever, I'll call you very soon!"
You watched him walk away. As you stepped inside and closed the door, you leaned back against the wood, your heart hammering wildly against your ribs. You couldn't help the big smile that spread on your lips.
You looked down at the navy polo still draped over your shoulders and smiled.
Portgas D. Ace who knows when you’re overwhelmed and he comes up and rests his chin on top of your head and wraps his arms around you.
Portgas D. Ace who holds you close and lets you bury your face against his chest and doesn’t say anything when he feels your shoulders shake.
Portgas D. Ace who knows what it’s like to be strong for everyone and knows what it’s like to have someone to break down on because that person for him is you.
Portgas D. Ace who is that person for you and he doesn’t say one word about it. He simply holds you and tells you that he’s there.
Portgas D. Ace who smiles against your hair when he feels you hug him back and hums. “I’m right here, babe. Promise.”
Portgas D. Ace who spent so much of his life not being comforted until he met you and now he knows, how to comfort you better than anyone.
Portgas D. Ace who can and will fight anything or anyone who upsets you.
Portgas D. Ace who kisses your head softly and holds you just a bit tighter because he knows you need him and he isn’t going anywhere.
Portgas D. Ace who loves you more than anything in this world (besides Luffy).
steve harrington who loves getting praised ( 18 + )
it was clear as day that none another then steve harrington had a huge praise kink.
he always tries to impress people, fish for compliments that heightened his ego just a bit more each day.
it was so obvious, even though he wouldn’t admit it.
it started off small once you found out, telling him how big he was as you rode his cock, earning whimpers and slightly high whines from him as he held onto your hips for dear life, trying not to burst right then.
but as your relationship progressed, he then started to make it more known.
you would tug onto his hair as his thick fingers plunged in and out of you, babbling about how good he was making you feel, how his fingers felt so right in you. that would make him want to go faster, try to get more praises out of you.
“am i doing good, baby?” he asked, almost mockingly, looking up from your thighs and stopping the swift motion of his fingers.
“uh huh, so good.. just don’t stop, doing so, so good..” you would reassure, seeing a sloppy smile go onto his lips before pushing his head back down where his tongue would meet your clit.
you didn’t know why he would be so into it, one simple ‘you’re doing so good’ and he would have you bent over against him, his cock already stiffing against your ass.
“mmm, c’mon baby.. you know what those words do to me..” steve would whine, sending soft slaps to your ass as you try to grip onto anything for dear life. his fat tip brushing and bruising repeatedly against your cervix.
it didn’t matter where the two of you were, if the praise was accidental or dirty. anything would get him turned on — especially coming from you.
“can you feel me stuffing you? how good i’m making you feel?” steve would ask, the filthy words slipping right out of his mouth as he thrusted up into you, bed shaking and sheets a mess.
“y-yeah..” you would whimper, bounces getting sloppy as your nails raked at his chest, sending red scratches throughout him. “making me feel so good, cock — fuck — filling me up so well, treating m-me so well..” the praises spilling out so naturally.
and with that, he would make himself spurt his cum right into you immediately, a long whiny moan leaving his lips just from the sweet praises that left your swollen mouth.
a/n; praying he survives the finale, but if he does go i will still continue to write for him idc <\3
no one knows you and your best friend steve are a thing. in fact, everyone is very much under the impression that steve is still in love with nancy. when nancy calls while steve is in your bed, you have to keep your secret - and steve isn’t making it easy.
warnings:
smut (18+), unprotected p in v, oral (f receiving), exhibitionism?, minor s5ep1 spoilers
word count: 4.9k
a/n:
wow it feels SO GOOD to be back! i am so happy to have finally finished something and for it to be s5 steve is just 😮💨 i hope you enjoy! thank you @punkrockmlchael for my beautiful banner and @feral4youu for reading and always hyping me up! and i guess thank you syd for the idea but you don’t need a bigger ego smh (i love you)
The tapping on your bedroom window came at 10pm, like clockwork.
You could see Steve’s goofy smile through the glass, waving to you from where he was crouched in the bushes outside. You couldn’t help but laugh as you climbed off your bed, making your way over and lifting the window.
Steve climbed inside with a little less grace than he had when he was 16 sneaking into girls’ rooms after their parents had gone to bed. His ass hit the ground with a low thud before he lifted himself, brushing off his jeans and pushing up the sleeves of his pullover.
“Kind of crazy I still have to climb through your window like we’re a couple of teenagers,” Steve said quietly, resting his hands on your hips and pulling you close.
“Yeah, well,” you said, plucking a twig from his hair before brushing your fingers through it. His eyes fell closed at the feeling, smiling contentedly. “My parents still think I’m a child.”
And no one even knew you and Steve were together yet.
After years of being best friends - strictly platonic - no one thought twice about how close you and Steve were. Everyone knew Steve had harbored feelings for Nancy for years, and thought he still did. It got to the point where Steve and Jonathan argued constantly because he thought Steve was trying to win Nancy back.
Truthfully, that was just Steve. He was a bit of a show-off.
When things between you and Steve had turned into more a few months ago, it hadn’t exactly been your intention to keep it a secret. But with the end of the world scenario Hawkins was currently living, no one was paying that much attention to what the two of you were doing.
And it was kind of nice. Like your own little world.
Steve pulled you closer until your body was pressed against his, his large hands sliding around to grip your ass over the tiny shorts you were wearing. He bent down, his breath fanning across your cheek, making you shiver. He pressed his lips to your neck, and without even thinking about it you tilted your head to the side, giving him more access.
“It’s kind of exciting, though,” he mumbled against the skin of your neck. Your breaths came a little harder, your eyes closing. “Sneaking around…” His fingertips danced up the backs of your thighs, pushing up the hem of your shorts until they grazed the curve of your ass, the edge of your panties. “Having to stay quiet when I fuck you.”
“Steve…” you breathed, hands coming up to rest on his chest. You still weren’t used to the way he made you feel now. The way he made your head spin, your lungs ache, the throbbing between your thighs when he spoke to you like this. There was nothing friendly about the things he did to you.
He murmured your name back in return, and it sent a shiver up your spine. His teeth grazed the skin of your neck, and you drew in a gasp, hands tightening into fists in his shirt.
Steve moved, walking you back towards your bed. When your legs hit the edge of the mattress, you fell down onto it, bouncing softly on the plush material. Your room hadn’t changed much since you were younger, despite your 20th birthday having just passed. You still had the same white frilly pillowcases and fluffy pink duvet. You had been embarrassed about it the first time Steve came over, but there was something he liked about taking you apart piece by piece on that stupid bed.
You moved back to lay on the pillows while Steve kicked his sneakers off. He didn’t take his eyes off you, crawling onto the edge of the bed, running his hand slowly from your ankle up to your thigh. He squeezed the plush of your thigh, pushing your legs apart and crawling between them.
The rough denim of his jeans rubbed against the backs of your thighs as he settled there. He leaned over your body, hand moving up to your hip, then beneath your t-shirt, tracing over the skin of your stomach with an unexpected reverence. His calloused fingertips brushed against the sensitive skin of your sides next, and you exhaled a shaky breath, the sensation like ice through your veins.
“You’re so pretty,” Steve murmured, and you weren’t sure if he was telling you or just noting it to himself. He pushed your t-shirt up just to the bottom of your breasts, pressing featherlight kisses against your stomach. His lips trailed higher, smirking as he felt how hard you were breathing. He pulled back, looking down at you - how did you look so wrecked already?
Disappointed by the loss of his touch, you opened your eyes. “Why’d you stop?” you asked, the pout on your pretty lips making Steve’s own pull into that cocky smirk you knew all too well.
“You’re needy tonight,” he observed, thumb tracing circles over your hip. You could tell it was boosting his ego, which he really didn’t need. “I’ve barely even touched you yet.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” you said, although even Steve could see how weak the protest was. Even though Steve was your boyfriend now - you were still getting used to that - you often fell into that playful bickering from years of friendship. “You’re not that good.”
Steve planted a hand by your shoulder, leaning back over your body. Any teasing died on your lips the second his body pressed into yours, and you couldn’t help the moan that escaped when you felt his hot tongue against your neck, right over your pulse point. Your hand shot up to grasp at his bicep, clinging to him tightly.
You could feel the smirk against your skin. “I bet you’re already so wet,” he murmured. He pressed his lips to your neck, nuzzling his nose against the curve between your neck and shoulder. “I bet if I touch you right now, I’ll see just how good I am at getting you worked up.”
“Christ, Steve,” you breathed. As much as you wanted to tease him, to make him work for it, you couldn’t hide what he was doing to you. Your body was reacting to every touch, every word, to an almost embarrassing level.
His free hand slid back down your side until he reached the waistband of your shorts. He relished in the little gasp you let out when he slipped his hand beneath, into the lace panties you had put on specifically for him, his thick fingers gently tracing through your folds.
“Oh,” he groaned, feeling the proof of everything you’d tried to deny. “God, baby, you’re soaked.” He pulled back to look down at you, his hazel eyes burning into yours with an intensity that hadn’t been there minutes before. “Just for me, huh?”
He pressed his fingers against your clit, already swollen and throbbing with need, and there was no way you could have denied it even if you wanted to.
“Uh huh,” you moaned, looking up at him with every ounce of desire written clear across your face. It nearly took Steve’s breath away, how perfect you looked. He was straining against his jeans so hard it was starting to hurt, desperate to free himself and fuck you already.
“You make me so hard,” he muttered, his hand moving down until his index finger was pressed against your entrance. Your body thrummed with anticipation, craving to be filled by him in some way, any way, and you could see on his face that he was going to give you exactly what you wanted—
The phone rang, shrill and startling in the charged atmosphere of your bedroom.
“Shit,” you cursed, letting out a deep sigh. Steve pulled his hand from your shorts, sitting back on his knees with a huff and the disappointed look of someone who had just dropped his whole ice cream cone on the ground.
You leaned over the bed to your nightstand, lifting the phone from the receiver. You and Steve exchanged a look before you pressed the phone to your ear. “Hello?”
Your name came through the other end of the line in an exasperated breath. “God, it’s been a day.”
You sat up a little, leaning back against the pillows. “Hey, Nance,” you said, meeting Steve’s eyes. He raised his eyebrows, staying silent. “What’s up?”
“I am just so tired of guys, to be honest with you,” Nancy said, letting out what she’d clearly been holding in for a while. “I swear Jonathan just turns into this…this caveman when Steve is around! It’s like the smart, sensitive guy I fell for is just gone, and all he cares about is winning me, like I’m some…object.”
The speaker on the phone was loud, letting Steve hear every word she said. He chuckled quietly, and you rolled your eyes, kicking his thigh lightly. You didn’t understand the rivalry Steve had with Jonathan. It seemed like Steve just thought it was funny to piss him off.
“Yeah, it’s stupid,” you agreed, trying to give Nancy your attention even while Steve was being as annoying as possible, tickling your feet. You kicked at him again, and he laughed, dodging out of the way. He moved in to kiss your cheek, flopping down on the pillows next to you. “Um…” You tried to tune Steve out, because he was being incredibly distracting. “Have you talked to him about it?”
A sigh. “Of course. But you know he won’t admit anything. He won’t admit he’s jealous of Steve.”
Steve looked way too smug for his own good. You ignored him, holding a hand up to block out his face. He snatched your hand, placing a kiss against your palm. “Of course he won’t. He’s a man.” You glanced over at Steve, who looked mock offended at that.
“And don’t even get me started on Steve.”
You froze at that. Steve raised his eyebrows at you, looking even more amused by the turn the conversation was taking.
“Oh, yeah,” you said weakly, because you weren’t really sure what else to say.
“I know he’s your best friend,” Nancy said, as if she hadn’t talked to you about Steve countless times before. “But I wish he would just move on. We dated years ago, and it didn’t work out. I just wish he would…I don’t know…get over me.”
You and Steve exchanged amused smiles at that - because she had no idea how much Steve had already moved on. “Maybe he just needs to meet someone,” you said, fighting back the giggle as Steve’s lips began brushing over your neck again, down to your collarbone. You swatted at his arm half-heartedly, although you didn’t really want him to stop.
“I’m starting to worry he never will,” Nancy said. “And I care about Steve, I hate to break his heart, but it’s just not going to happen.”
Your breath hitched as Steve’s lips trailed down your body again. As he reached your stomach, pushing your shirt up again and kissing above the waistband of your shorts, you looked down at him with furrowed brows. The mischief gleaming in those hazel eyes was familiar, but rarely a good thing.
“Yeah,” you said, your voice more breathy than you intended when Steve spread your legs, his lips pressing against your inner thigh. Your jaw dropped when his teeth scraped against the sensitive skin, your head falling back on the pillows. Was he fucking insane?
If Nancy noticed how distracted you were, she didn’t say anything. “I mean, he’s a great guy and all,” she went on, “You know that. I’m sure he’s gonna make some girl very happy one day.”
You looked down, making eye contact with Steve as he smirked up at you, slipping his fingers beneath the top of your shorts and sliding them down your legs. A flush crept onto your skin, the room all of a sudden feeling much hotter. Steve placed another kiss on your thigh before he leaned forward, pressing his lips against your clit through the lace of your panties. Your free hand tightened in the sheets. “Y-Yeah, for sure.”
“He’s handsome, funny, sweet, romantic. He loves his grand gestures.”
Steve looked far too smug as he listened to her praises, but he was focused on his mission. He stuck out his tongue, licking your folds through the already soaked material of your panties. You drew in a sharp breath, fighting back the urge to groan. “Yeah, he’s…he’s great.”
“But he can also just be a total…meathead!”
You looked down at Steve then, holding back a laugh. “Oh, yeah, for sure.” It was his turn to roll his eyes at you, but all thoughts of teasing vanished from your brain as he slipped the lace off your body, leaving you bare for him. The cool air against your wet pussy had you clenching your thighs together, but Steve spread them again, looking down at you like he was starving and ready to absolutely devour you.
“I mean, honestly,” she went on as Steve nuzzled against your core, his nose brushing against your clit in a way that made your whole body jolt. “Everything has to be a competition for my attention. It was so stupid, him and Jonathan racing each other up the radio tower. They could have gotten hurt, but all they cared about was showing off for me, like I’m going to pick the ‘strongest man’, or whatever they think women want.”
Listening to Nancy talk about Steve trying to impress her almost made you giggle. Steve loved to show off, that was for sure, but Nancy was definitely getting the wrong idea. You bit back a grin at the memory of how Steve had fucked you from behind in the WSQK supply closet after, hard and fast with the adrenaline still pumping through his veins.
“So stupid,” you agreed. You had to slap your hand over your mouth when you felt Steve’s tongue finally delving between your folds, greedily tasting every inch of you, how sweet and wet you were. His fingers dug tightly into your thighs, fighting back his own groan of pleasure.
“Like a couple of neanderthals,” Nancy sighed. “And it’s making Jonathan into a total pain. He’s just moody all the time now, and it’s because Steve keeps provoking him. I mean, I know you’re close, but don’t you think Steve can be such a…a total ass?”
“Oh yeah, a total ass,” you said. Steve quickly wiped the playful grin off your face when he wrapped his lips around your clit, sucking, his fingers sliding between your folds again. The whimper escaped your lips before you could stop it, and you bit down on your hand hard enough to leave a mark when he pressed a long finger inside of you.
Your hips lifted off the bed, grinding against his face and hand like you were desperate for more of whatever he’d give you. He groaned so quietly you could barely hear it, but the vibrations against your aching clit had your thighs trembling. He slowly grinded his hips against the bed while he lapped at your cunt, a second finger sliding into you and curling deep inside.
Your hand with the phone dropped out to your side, Nancy’s voice still somehow audible as she continued on with her rant. You grabbed one of your pillows, holding it over your face and burying your moan in the stupid frilly pillowcase, heat coiling low in your belly. God, he was going to make you cum so hard with that stupid mouth of his.
Steve flicked his tongue over your clit again, fucking his fingers in deep until he was hitting that spot over and over again with a level of precision that only came with experience. It almost pissed you off, how quickly and perfectly Steve could make you fall apart.
Your orgasm was building fast. Your back was arching, body writhing on the bed, breaths coming in hot and heavy. Your thighs trembled around his head, and you let go of the phone to tangle your fingers in his messy hair, giving a sharp tug that made him groan even louder this time.
The vibrations from his moaning, his tongue working over your sensitive clit, and his thick fingers fucking you hard and deep were bringing you to the edge faster than you cared to admit, but it was the whimper he let out as he grinded his cock down hard against the bed that was your undoing.
You let go of his hair, both hands gripping the pillow and holding it tight over your face as you let out the most desperate, needy moans, loud enough that the whole house would have heard you. Steve worked you through it, making sure he drew out every last bit of pleasure, every tremor from your body, tongue working slowly now as he brought you back to earth.
The phone call had gone completely forgotten, until you heard Nancy calling your name over the line.
You pushed the pillow away, grabbing the handset and bringing it back to your ear. “Sorry, my mom needed something,” you said quickly, praying Nancy hadn’t heard any of the noises you had just made.
“Oh, it’s fine, I have to get going anyways. But I’ll see you tomorrow!”
You tried to catch your breath as relief flooded your body. “Yeah, of course. Goodnight, Nance.”
“Night!”
The line went dead, and your body visibly relaxed. Thank god she hadn’t noticed anything weird. Steve was still kissing your thighs, his hazel eyes looking up at you from between your legs with an intensity that made your heart thud hard against the wall of your chest.
The second the phone was back on the receiver, Steve crashed his lips to yours like he couldn’t take it for another second. You could taste yourself on his tongue when he licked into your mouth, kissing you in the most filthy, needy way. He bit at your bottom lip and you moaned, fingers digging into his biceps. He rutted his hips against your thigh as he kissed you, and you could feel every inch of him through the tight denim.
He pulled back from your body, lips and chin still wet with your release and his eyes glazed over with lust. He took in the sight of you, so wrecked and beautiful, laying there in nothing but the loose t-shirt you had stolen from his closet at some point.
“God, look at you,” he muttered. His fingertips traced over your skin with the kind of reverence reserved for something holy. “Jesus. You’re unreal.”
You wanted to scold him for the stunt he’d pulled while you were on the phone, wanted to tell him that was risky and stupid and would have been so embarrassing if Nancy had figured it out, but those thoughts quickly disappeared when he grabbed the bottom of his shirt, pulling it over his head and tossing it to your bedroom floor. You almost moaned as your eyes shamelessly raked over his chest, all lean muscle covered by that thick, dark hair you were way more into than you ever expected to be.
“See something you like?” he teased, calloused palm pushing your t-shirt up your body until your tits were exposed. Your nipples hardened in the air and he brushed his fingers over the stiff peaks of them, making you shudder.
“Steve…” you said, breathing his name like a plea.
“Yeah, baby?” he asked, eyes never leaving your chest. He gripped your breast in his left hand, squeezing it - fit so perfectly in his hand, he thought - his thumb rubbing over your nipple.
“I need you,” you admitted in a whine. You hated letting him see how badly he affected you, because it always went straight to his big head, but you couldn’t help it. You pushed your hips down, grinding against his thigh, desperate for his touch even though he’d just made you cum on his tongue and fingers minutes ago.
“Fuck,” he hissed, pulling back from you as if he’d been burned. His hands moved to his jeans at lightning speed, the clink of his belt buckle loud in the quiet of the bedroom as he undid it as fast as he could. “I can’t- shit, I need to fuck you right now.”
He shoved his jeans and boxers down in one go, groaning as his thick, aching cock was finally freed. He kicked his pants off to the floor, wrapping a hand around himself and giving his cock a few quick strokes as he stared down at your body. He was so worked up from what you’d done, his tip flushed red and a drop of precum beading at his slit that made your mouth water.
Steve leaned over your body, leaning his weight on one strong arm planted above your shoulder while his other dragged the head of his cock through your folds. “I bet you liked that, didn’t you?” he said, his voice a low growl in your ear.
It took you a minute to realize he’d asked you a question, too busy focusing on the feeling of his cock pressing against your entrance, wishing he would just take you already. When he didn’t give you what you wanted, you opened your eyes, looking up at him. “What?”
“I said, I bet you liked that,” Steve murmured, pushing his cock inside just barely, not even a full inch, making you whimper as he pulled back out, “I bet you liked having to stay quiet so Nancy wouldn’t know what I was doing to you.” He dragged himself back up through your wetness, pressing against your clit. You drew in a gasp, grabbing onto his shoulders.
“Steve—“ you said, as firmly as you could manage when every nerve ending in your body felt like it was on fire. “You shouldn’t have done that, it was risky—“
“Your body doesn’t lie,” he hummed, leaning down to kiss along your collarbone, his tongue teasing your skin before sucking a mark onto the delicate flesh. “You were soaking my fingers, baby. I could feel you clenching around me every time you had to stay quiet.”
You shuddered beneath him, like his words sent a chill through you. All you could do was let out a quick exhale as you felt him at your tight hole again, and he gently rubbed his nose against your jawline, breathing in the scent of your body wash combined with the smell of sex.
“No one knows how fuckin’ filthy you are,” he groaned, his low voice rumbling against your skin. “No one knows how much you love getting fucked. No one but me.”
He moved his hips forward in a slow roll, his cock sinking into you inch by agonizing inch. You keened at the feeling, his cock stretching you out — more like splitting you open — and Steve groaned low in his throat, your tight heat enveloping his length like fucking heaven.
“Oh, fuck,” you rasped once he was fully seated inside you. Your thighs were shaking, and Steve gripped the plush skin, hiking your leg around his waist. His forehead dropped against yours, both breathing heavily as he rolled his hips against you, setting a pace that was slow but deep, punching the air from your lungs with each press.
Steve kissed you, only sweet for a moment before it turned hungry, bruising, massaging his tongue against yours and sucking your lower lip into his mouth. You whimpered, and Steve’s hips bucked forward, grunting against your lips as he lost his rhythm already.
“Fuck,” he hissed, pulling back to admire your body as he fucked into you. He couldn’t hold back anymore, hips rutting hard and fast against yours, watching your tits bounce with every thrust. Your bed creaked beneath the movements, joining the sound of the breathy moans you exchanged, his skin meeting yours. “You’re so fucking tight and hot — the best pussy I’ve ever had, baby, I swear to god—“
Your head dropped back, crying out as you felt that delicious drag of Steve’s thick cock in your velvety walls. Every ridge and vein of him, the way he was so big and curved just right, and he always knew the angle to fuck you at to hit that spot every single time.
“Yeah,” he gasped. “Oh, shit. Fuck, that turned you on, didn’t it baby?” His voice was a low rasp, and he grabbed your wrists with his free hand, pinning them above your head. The way it stretched your body pushed your tits out, and Steve groaned at the sight, momentarily distracted. “I think you like the idea of getting caught with me. I’ve never felt you so fuckin’ wet, Christ.”
As much as you wanted to deny his words, your body reacted on its own, pussy throbbing around his cock, making his pace falter and a choked moan break from his lungs.
“You don’t even have to tell me,” he grunted, wearing his best cocky smirk, although the flush on his cheeks and the way his features kept twisting into pleasure gave away how weak he was for you, too. “You’re— oh, shit—“
He let go of your wrists to grab your thigh and hold you open wider, sinking somehow deeper. You bit down on your lip so hard you tasted blood, trying not to be loud enough for your parents to come knocking. Steve’s tongue darted out to lick his lips as he looked down at you, the sweat shining on your skin, your furrowed brows and parted lips, the tiny little moans he was pulling from you with every movement.
“You are so fucking hot,” he groaned, almost to himself. “So beautiful. Fucking perfect. Made for me.”
“Yours,” you agreed, and the word had barely left your mouth before he was crashing his lips back onto yours, both moaning into the kiss, breathing each other’s air until your head spun.
You raked your nails down his back, long red scratches blooming against his freckled skin. Steve moaned raggedly, hips stuttering as he cursed out a breathy “Fuck,” against your lips.
Steve leaned back on his knees, his hands sliding down your sides before reaching your hips, holding onto you with a bruising grip. He pulled your hips down against his thrusts, using your body to chase his own pleasure, the muscles in his neck and chest tightening as he felt that familiar electricity crackling up his spine.
“Say my name, baby,” He rasped. He was so close. “I wanna know who’s making you feel this good.”
“Steve,” you moaned, reaching up and grabbing onto your pillows, desperate for some kind of leverage as you felt yourself about to fall over the edge. “Oh, god— fuck— Steve!”
Your eyes nearly rolled back in your head as it hit you like a wave, pleasure washing over your body like you’d never felt before. You buried your face in the pillow, muffling the scream you let out as your body tightened around him, squeezing his cock tight within your walls.
“Oh, sh- fuck!”
Steve’s body pitched forward with the intensity of his orgasm, catching himself on his right arm, his left hand gripping so tightly onto your thigh you knew there would be bruises. His hips stuttered against you, his cock pulsing inside your tight walls, filling you with every drop of his cum until he had nothing left.
He stayed buried in you, relishing in the feeling, before he finally pulled out, laying on the bed next to you. He was breathing hard as he wrapped an arm around you, pulling you against his sweaty chest.
You looked up at him, carding your hand through his messy hair. He hummed, leaning into your touch. He grabbed your wrist as you went to pull away, pulling you closer and kissing you with a surprising amount of tenderness after what you’d just done.
He pulled back enough to look you in the eyes with that grin that just screamed Steve and emotion clear as day in his hazel eyes. “I love you.”
Your heart raced, the way he was looking at you sending heat through your veins in a whole different way from before. “I love you too, Steve.”
His hand rested on your hip, tracing slow circles on your skin. “Maybe we should tell people. About us.”
“Yeah?” you asked, hand trailing through the hair on his chest. “You want that?”
“I do,” he said, leaning forward to place a kiss against your forehead. “We probably shouldn’t let Nancy keep thinking I’m obsessed with her when I’m doing this with you.”
You laughed, the memory of the phone call with Nancy making your cheeks heat with embarrassment. “Okay,” you agreed. “We’ll tell people.”
The idea of going public with Steve, everyone knowing you were much more than friends after years of insisting and proving otherwise, was a little scary. But more than that, you were excited. You wanted to be able to be affectionate with Steve in front of your friends. To kiss him, to hold his hand, to let everyone know how much you loved him.
“Does that mean you’re finally gonna leave Jonathan alone now that he knows you’re not after Nancy?” you asked with a teasing smile.
He looked down at you, his brows furrowed with the level of sass only Steve Harrington could achieve. “Now, I never said that.”
as always, comments and reblogs are so so appreciated!
summary: According to Cosmo, two years together meant you and Steve Harrington were officially getting "too comfortable." Armed with a magazine checklist and absolutely zero mercy for your boyfriend, you spend the evening running Steve through every flirty test on the page just to watch him utterly lose his cool !
pairing: steve harrington x reader
content warnings: playful teasing, flirting, kissing, light relationship anxiety, unserious magazine advice (unserious everything really), talks about the future cs we all love that surely, mentions of canon events for plot sakes, taking superficial advice with a microscopic grain of salt (good, yes!), MDNI! 18+, smut, dry humping, groping, nipple play, fingering, oral sex (fem!receiving), unprotected p in v (do NOT do as you see pls), riding, edging, praise, teasing, dirty talk, creampie, cockwarming(?? not really, I just got tired at the end sry), always assume not betaread because I just can't read my own writing after a while I cringe myself out (</3), lmk if I missed anything!
w/c: 16.5k (way more plot than smut trust)
— amazing support banners used are from @moonstoneandmoonlight !
a/n: kinda based on a true story of me tormenting my boyfriend with a 2012 buzzfeed quiz while he fought for his life trying to understand it 😭 (strictly for comedy sakes) anyways, steve harrington taking a relationship quiz was a NEED, so watching him panic inspired this whole thing because I just know steve would treat a magazine relationship quiz like a life-or-death mission 🙂↕️ I hope this makes you giggle!! <3
By the time you pushed through the front door of Family Video, Hawkins had gone melty with heat.
It clung to the backs of your knees, made your lips feel tackier than they should have, and turned the parking lot outside into a flat, bright stretch of wavering air. The glass doors had been smudged by fingerprints and sunblock and whatever candy residue children carried around on summer afternoons.
Family Video always had its own weather.
Cold at the front, stale near the horror aisle, warm and dusty by the back room where the employees pretended not to nap on slow days. You'd learned it well. The carpet had been vacuumed badly enough that one popcorn kernel still sat near the base of the New Releases shelf, and the whole place smelled of plastic cases, old cardboard, butter flavoring, and Steve’s cologne whenever he passed close enough.
You had bought the Cosmopolitan at Bradley’s Big Buy ten minutes earlier because Steve’s shift still had twenty minutes left and you had already spent enough of your life pretending to be fascinated by the same movie boxes. The magazine was glossy and ridiculous and slightly bent from being shoved into the paper bag with your gum and cherry ChapStick. Its cover promised impossible hair, dangerous romance, and a quiz that claimed it could tell you whether your boyfriend was “summer fling material or forever trouble.”
You had bought it mostly because the cashier had taken one look at the cover, looked at you, and smirked. You felt the need to spite whatever assumption they'd made.
Now, standing in Family Video with the magazine tucked under your arm, you could hear Robin before you saw her.
“No, sir,” she was saying from behind the counter, her voice flat with the kind of patience that had already been used up twice that day. “Late fees do not disappear just because you personally disagree with the passage of time.”
A man in a tucked-in polo stood on the other side of the counter, holding a tape case in both hands. “I’m saying I returned it.”
“And I’m saying I was here when you did not.”
Steve was beside her, rewinding a tape with the solemn concentration of someone performing surgery. He had one elbow propped on the counter, his Family Video vest hanging open over a striped polo, name tag slightly crooked. His hair looked good in the unfair way it always did, even after a full shift under fluorescent lights. A pencil was tucked behind his ear. You'd learned that he only did that when he was pretending to be busier than he was.
He noticed you almost immediately.
He always did, even when he tried to play it cool. His eyes lifted from the rewinder, found you near the candy display, and softened before the rest of his face caught up. For a second, his posture changed. Not much. One shoulder dropped. His mouth tilted. The pencil behind his ear slipped slightly.
“Hey, babe,” he smiled gently in his usual greeting. His gaze flicked over you quickly, not dismissive, just practiced. “You look nice.”
Then the rewinder clicked, and he looked back down.
Nice.
You stopped with one hand on the edge of the counter.
It was not the worst thing he could have said. It was not bad at all, technically. Nice was safe. Nice was warm enough to count. Nice was the kind of thing you said to someone you loved when you were also trying to remember whether The Man with One Red Shoe belonged under comedy or suspense.
But you’d spent longer than usual getting ready today.
You had changed twice before leaving, had stood in front of your mirror with one earring in and one earring out, and tried to decide whether the pink skirt was too much for a Friday night at Family Video. You had redone the front of your hair because the first attempt had gone strange in the humidity. You had put on the good perfume, the one you used sparingly because the bottle was small and because Steve always noticed when you wore it.
Or he used to.
Nice sat there now, plain and harmless, while Steve returned to his tape and Robin told the polo-shirted man she could absolutely call Keith if he wanted to experience the same answer with less eye contact.
You slid yourself onto the stool at the end of the counter and sat the magazine down.
The cover girl smiled up at you in all her glossy confidence, her lips bright, her shoulders bare, and her hair reaching heights that probably required a prayer. You flipped through pages of perfume ads, diet soda blurbs, lipstick spreads, and letters from readers who apparently, lived lives full of beach parties and emotional ultimatums.
Then, you found the article.
The “Too-Perfect” Romance: 7 Flirty Signs He’s Getting a Little Too Comfortable!
You read the title once. Then again.
A laugh pressed against your throat, but you held it in.
Steve looked up quickly anyway. “What?”
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed at your quick response. “That wasn’t a nothing sound.”
You smiled with a shake of your head. “I didn’t make a sound.”
“You made a face.”
Robin’s customer finally huffed his way out of the store, muttering about principles. The bell above the door jingled after him. Robin watched him go with a dead-eyed expression, then turned toward you.
“What did you find?”
Your eyes flitted across the words of the page. “An article.”
“That’s never good.” Steve leaned over the counter, trying to see. You tilted the page away from him just as he came near.
His voice came low with curiosity. “Why can’t I read it?”
You hummed lightly, “because you’re the subject.”
He blinked down at you, his eyes turning owl-ish at the vagueness of your words. “The subject of what?”
Robin’s mouth opened into a grin. “Oh, this is promising.”
You smoothed the magazine page with your palm and began reading silently.
You’ve made it past the two-year mark without a single major blowout, and your Friday nights are a perfectly oiled machine of movie rentals and shared pizza toppings.
You glanced up.
Steve was watching you now, tape forgotten, eyebrows drawn together. He had the expression he got when Dustin explained something too quickly and Steve was trying to decide whether he had missed an insult.
You looked back down.
Don’t get too cozy just yet! In our fast-paced eighties, there is a very fine line between a secure romance and a total relationship snooze-fest! Sometimes, when a guy knows he’s finally "won" your heart, he quietly hits the cruise control button. He might love you to pieces, but is he still trying to wow you?
Grab that gloss, lounge back on your bed, and take this quick checklist to see if your dream boy is secretly sliding into the "Comfort Trap"—and exactly how to tease him right out of it!
It was stupid. Completely stupid. Written in the breathless, bossy voice of someone who had never met Steve Harrington after midnight in a hospital waiting room, or seen him go quiet when one of the kids flinched at a loud noise, or watched him check the rearview mirror three times on the way home because caution had become part of him.
Still.
You had twenty minutes to kill.
Steve had said nice without really looking. And the article had numbered instructions. You folded the magazine back just enough to hide the page title and smiled to yourself.
Robin, who had the instincts of a person raised on chaos, took one step away from Steve.
He noticed and immediately frowned in questioning. “Why are you moving?”
Robin shrugged, her shoulders reaching the ends of her hair in doing so. “No reason.”
“That is also not a no-reason face.”
You tapped the first numbered section with your fingernail.
Steve looked between you and Robin, suddenly alert. “What’s happening?”
You kept smiling.
“Education,” you had to bite the i side of your cheek to stop from laughing outright.
───
The “Automatic” Compliment
When you spend forty-five minutes crimping your hair or putting on your absolute best pleated miniskirt, does he give you a real, jaw-dropping reaction? Or does he just look up from his car radio, smile, and say, "You look nice, babe," out of total reflex? If his praise feels like an automated recording, his eyes might be getting a little lazy.
The Solution: Next time he says it without looking, step right into his line of sight, block his view, and playfully demand he give you three specific reasons why!
The article accused him of having lazy eyes.
You found that unfair, mostly because Steve’s eyes were not lazy. They were restless if anything. Always tracking movement. Always catching on exits and windows and whoever had just walked into a room. Even when he seemed relaxed, some part of him stayed awake, cataloging changes, and always listening for small changes.
But the article was not interested in nuance, the article clearly wanted drama. The article wanted you to step right into his line of sight and demand three specific reasons.
So, you did.
Steve had just gone back to sorting returns into piles with the kind of vague competence that would probably make Keith complain later. He held Teen Wolf in one hand and Out of Africa in the other, staring at them with open uncertainty.
“Comedy?” he muttered, his lips were pulled into a small frown as he wracked his brain for the possible answer.
“Drama,” Robin said without looking.
Steve wasn't entirely convinced, his voice turning questioning. “There’s a wolf.”
“It has feelings.”
He scoffed that, “all movies have feelings.”
Robin quickly shot back her response. “Not the ones you recommend.”
You took that moment to slip off the stool and come around the counter besides your boyfriend.
Steve saw you move, but he didn't seem to understand the danger quickly enough. He looked at you, then at the magazine on the counter, then back at you right as you stepped in front of him and blocked the shelf.
He stopped, not with suspicion, but with clear unsureness.
“Hi,” he said with a softness that made you grin on instinct.
Steve mirrored your expression by impact and pure reflex. “Hi.”
His eyes dropped to your mouth for the briefest second. “Do you need something?”
You nodded with severe certainty “Yes.”
“Okay,” Steve looked up into your eyes and his head tilted, he seemed to wait for the further set of instructions he was clearly waiting for.
You specified soon after that, each word clearly enunciated, and your fingers held up in pairing. “Three specific reasons.”
He waited for more clarification with a gentle handed posture. His soft smile hadn't disappeared, but it became mixed in with something else now. “For…?”
“Why I look nice.”
The silence after that was truly beautiful.
Robin slowly lowered the inventory sheet she had been pretending to read and you swore her hard blinks could be heard across the air.
Steve stared at you with the VHS tapes still in his hands, and his mouth parted slightly. He looked, for one unguarded moment, completely removed from every version of himself he had ever practiced in a mirror or labeled to be. Instead, he just was your boyfriend in a dumb vest, ambushed by a request he should probably have been prepared for.
“Three,” you repeated with the underlying giddy feeling in your body simmering.
He stammered a bit at the blunt reminder. “Right now?”
“You already had time when I came in.”
“I was working.”
Your eyes narrowed slightly in clear disbelief. “You were rewinding Short Circuit?”
“It requires attention.”
Robin made a small noise from where she watched, mirroring your disbelieving look. “Does it?”
Steve shot her a look, then returned his attention to you. His gaze moved over your face properly this time, slower than before, and the amusement in you shifted into something quieter. You had meant to tease him, you hadn't expected the teasing to make him actually look.
He noticed your earrings first. You could tell because his eyes caught on the little flash near your jaw when you turned your head.
“Your earrings,” he cleared his throat with a particularly strong bobble of his head. Your brows quirked up on instinct.
“That’s one?”
Steve shook his head quickly, then continued. “No, that’s the category. I’m building.”
Robin whispered to you with a clearly mocking tone that had you biting back a wider smile, “He’s building.”
Steve ignored her with effort, you could tell by the lack of bite back. “They’re the ones you wore to the Fourth of July thing, right? Before—” He stopped, jaw shifting around the rest of the sentence. You could tell he was trying to reference a memory that didn't come clearly to him, so you let him go on without issue. “Anyway. They look good. They do that little shiny thing when you move.”
You felt yourself soften, then immediately fought it because you were supposed to be conducting an experiment. A terribly stupid experiment, but an experiment you decided was going to be fun entertainment nonetheless.
“One,” you allowed with your index finger tilting to the side in counting.
He adjusted the tapes in his hands, more comfortable now that he had survived the first answer. “Your skirt. The buttons on the side.”
The sentence wasn't what you were expecting it to be, your voice turned questioning before it evened back out. “You noticed the buttons?”
He gave you a look that was clear betrayal, his hand went up to stretch across the back of his neck. “I’m trying to be respectful in front of Buckley.”
Robin lifted both hands as if offended by being compared to something akin to an obstacle, “Im not even here. I am basically a chair.”
“You’re a very loud chair,” Steve huffed back to her. Then, to you, “Yes, I noticed the buttons. I noticed the whole skirt. It’s pink and it makes your legs look—” He stopped again and your eyebrows lifted along with your smile.
His ears went red, he gave a weak cough as his eyes looked at the ceiling than back to you. “Long.”
“Two,” you then counted with another finger, deeply pleased now.
Steve looked relieved to be nearing the end, then immediately concerned because the third reason required more care. He looked at your hair, your lips, the way you were standing there with one hip angled against the counter, pretending you had not started this solely just to watch him squirm.
“Your hair,” he said with finality. “You did something different.”
You touched it without meaning to. “Different bad?”
“No—Different good. It’s softer here.” He gestured near his own temple, not quite touching you like you'd have preferred. “And it keeps falling forward, so you keep pushing it back, and you only do that when you’re trying not to mess with it because you spent time on it.”
You went still at the explanation.
Steve seemed to realize he had said something too observant for the tone of the game. He looked down at the tapes, then back up, shrugging one shoulder with a forced casualness that didn't suit him.
“So,” he licked his lips as his eyes lifted to meet yours with a hopeful expression. “Three.”
Robin broke the silence first, which you'd been grateful for because you were all too aware of the warmth seeping into your chest. “I hate to say it, but that was kind of good.”
Steve pointed Teen Wolf at her, “don’t sound so surprised.”
You took the tapes from his hands and set them on the counter, and you looked at him through a slight tilt of your head. “Better.”
His words came back questioning again. “Better than what?”
“The automated recording,” that was all you said with a light breeze in your tone.
“The what?” He asked but you had already gone back to the stool, pulling the magazine into your lap.
Steve watched you sit down. He felt a strange mixture of pride and suspicion, which was not an emotion he enjoyed. Pride, because you were smiling at the page now in a way that meant he had done something right. Suspicion, because he had no idea what the page had made you do in the first place.
Robin leaned close to him and murmured, “If she asks you to describe her personality next, fake your death.”
Steve whispered back, “What magazine is that?”
Robin looked at the glossy cover and grinned at Steve’s distress. “The kind that destroys men who say nice.”
Steve looked at you again.
You only turned the page.
He swallowed more visibly distressed now as you remained quiet.
───
He Swaps the Leather Jacket for the Lounge Sweatshirt
Remember those first six months when he wouldn't dare meet you without a splash of premium cologne and a perfectly pressed jacket? If he now regularly shows up to your dates wearing his old high school gym fleece with a mystery stain on the sleeve, the mystery is officially fading.
The Solution: Snatch his favorite oversized sweatshirt right off his back and wear it yourself with nothing but your favorite perfume. Remind him who really looks best in his clothes!
Steve’s shift ended late because nothing in Hawkins could ever end at the time printed on a schedule.
A kid knocked over half the horror display and immediately blamed the “wind,” despite the fact that the air inside Family Video had not moved with any conviction since June. Keith called from the back office to complain that someone had stacked the returned tapes “emotionally wrong,” which made Robin press both palms flat on the counter and whisper, “I am not going to jail for him.” Then, a mother came in looking for a cartoon whose title she didn't know, only that it involved “a little man, maybe a duck, and possibly space.”
By the time Steve was finally allowed to clock out, his patience had frayed around the edges.
You could see it in the way he pulled off his vest, too fast, and missed the hook when he tried to hang it in the back. You could hear him mutter something at the locker that sounded less like English and more like a private feud. When he came out again, he had changed into the old Hawkins High gym sweatshirt he kept there for cold nights, rainy closings, and days when he claimed the uniform made him feel “itchy in a spiritual way.”
The sweatshirt was gray in theory. In practice, it had been washed into a soft, faded color that belonged to old socks and cloudy dishwater. The cuffs were stretched. The collar sat loose at the base of his throat. One sleeve had a faint stain near the elbow that neither of you had ever successfully identified, though Steve had once insisted it was “probably nacho cheese” with a confidence that made you less comfortable.
He looked tired in it.
He also, looked painfully familiar.
Your eyes dropped to the open magazine in your lap.
He Swaps the Leather Jacket for the Lounge Sweatshirt.
The article spoke of fading mystery and premium cologne with the urgency of a national crisis. You read the solution once and felt your grin arrive before you could stop it.
The words repeated in your brain: snatch his favorite oversized sweatshirt right off his back.
Steve came around the counter while digging in his pocket for his keys. “You ready?”
You stood and he glanced up, saw your expression, and stopped walking with clear intent.
“No,” he said with an immediate shake of his head
You hadn't even moved yet, your hands came up to your sides on instinct. “No what?”
Steve groaned in a way that didn't quite feel frustrated, but was knowing. “No whatever that face is.”
“I don’t have a face.” You did.
“You have the face you had before the whole three reasons thing.”
Robin, clocked out but still lingering because apparently this was better than whatever she had waiting at home, grabbed her bag from behind the counter. “For the record, I support her.”
“You don’t even know what she’s doing,” Steve immediately sighed in defeat.
Robin didn't seem bothered by the lack of information. “I know enough.”
You stepped closer and caught the hem of his sweatshirt. Steve’s hands immediately closed around your wrists, not tight, just startled. His expressive eyes instantly fell to your with faint concern and mostly curiosity. “Whoa. Hi. What are we doing?”
You shrugged your shoulders, lips finding the familiar grin that had him faltering. “Testing a theory.”
Steve pouted in a way that you knew he'd deny if questioned later on. “Why do your theories involve grabbing me at work?”
“Because you just happen to be here.”
“That can't possibly be a complete answer.”
“It’s a location, though.”
Robin leaned on the counter, delighted as she sang over to you. “He’s panicking.”
“I am not panicking,” Steve scoffed with dismissal, but regardless of his claim, his voice was panicking enough.
You tugged the sweatshirt upward, with a plea on your lips and a look in your eyes. “Arms up.”
He sputtered at your request, his brows shooting upwards in clear refusal. “Absolutely not.”
“Steve…”
“No, this is a public establishment.”
You gave him a sidelong glance, looking over at his stance. “Keith is in the back alphabetizing gum wrappers or something.”
“Buckley is right there.”
Robin waved over at herself with the familiar grin you loved, humming a tune. “Chair.”
Steve looked at you, then at Robin, then toward the front windows where the parking lot sat mostly empty except for his car. His resistance lasted three more seconds. You could see the exact moment he gave up, because his jaw worked to hide a smile and his eyes dropped to the floor.
“Fine,” he muttered, but he didn't make a show of sighing this time. “But if you stretch the collar, I’m suing.”
There was no containing the laugh that left you. “You don’t even know how to sue.”
“I’ll learn.”
He ducked his head and lifted his arms, letting you pull the sweatshirt up over his torso. His white T-shirt rode up for half a second, revealing a narrow strip of skin above his jeans before he yanked it down with one hand before you could reach for it. He promptly ignored your dramatized look of resignation at being denied. His hair emerged from the collar in static-disrupted disarray, several pieces standing up at angles he would have considered unforgivable under normal circumstances.
You put the sweatshirt on before he could take it back. Although, you doubted he would ever actually do that. For all his whining, your boyfriend rarely said anything beyond a few complaints.
It swallowed you in the familiar fabric.
The sleeves fell past your hands, the hem dropped low over your skirt, and the collar slipped a little too wide on one side. Warmth held inside the fabric from his body. So did the smell of him: laundry detergent on the old cotton, the faded spice of his cologne, and something skin-warm and harder to name. The perfume you had put on earlier rose beneath it, mixing with him until the whole thing felt private despite the fluorescent lights and Robin’s shameless staring.
Steve went quiet in the moments still. You pushed your hair free from the collar and lifted your chin. Your hands were now taking residence upon the sides of your hips. “Well?”
He had seen you in his clothes before. A borrowed jacket during a rainstorm. A T-shirt after a late night when you spilled soda on yourself at his house. Socks frequently, because your feet had gone cold and he had acted annoyed while digging through a drawer with unnecessary urgency.
But there was a difference between necessity and choice.
This, was choice. This was you standing in the middle of Family Video wearing his old sweatshirt over your skirt, perfume clinging to the collar, and looking at him with bright, ridiculous expectation.
Steve’s brain provided several responses and rejected all of them for being either too honest or too stupid.
“That’s mine,” he managed with a breathlessness that immediately made him wince when heard.
You corrected him, clearly pleased. “Was.”
“You’re swimming in it.”
“I'm aware.”
“You look—” He stopped because your eyes sharpened in a way that told him his next adjective needed to mean something.
Robin clapped once from where she was, and you refrained from sighing at the girl's clear joy at her friend's inner struggle. “Careful, Harrington.”
Steve dragged a hand over his mouth, buying time. He had just been trained, apparently. Nice was no longer safe. Nice had been retired from service.
“You look good,” he decided to settle for, then saw your mouth twitch and hurried on. “You look really good. In my sweatshirt. Which is confusing because it looks better on you, but it is still, legally mine.”
“‘Legally’?”
Steve quickly corrected himself again. “Emotionally.”
You stepped closer and lifted one sleeve-covered hand to poke his chest. The movement had him squirming a bit because you knew where to poke to get a reaction. As such were the benefits of being with someone for so long. “I think I’ll keep it.”
Steve looked down at your covered hand, then at the place where the collar had slipped, then back to your face. He tried for annoyance and missed by several miles. He was never good at that.
His words didn't match his tone nor face. “You’re lucky I’m generous.”
“You’re lucky I look better in your clothes.”
Robin made a noise of approval that had you slightly leaning on the heels of your shoes. “She does.”
“Why are you still here?” Steve asked with such restraint that you let one palm rub against his forearm. He welcomed the familiar touch by leaning into it.
“I live here now.”
Keith appeared in the back doorway at exactly the wrong time, holding a clipboard and a soda. He took in the scene: Steve in his T-shirt, you in Steve’s sweatshirt, Robin grinning beside the register. His expression flattened.
“Is this happening on the clock?”
Steve grabbed his keys and reached up for your palm to pull you besides him. “Nope. Leaving. Bye.”
Outside, the evening heat pressed immediately. The air smelled of asphalt, cut grass from somewhere beyond the plaza, and the warm metallic scent of Steve’s car after a day in the sun. He unlocked the passenger side first out of habit, then paused when you walked past it.
His head shot up. “Where are you going?”
You looked over your shoulder with a smile that had him already weary. “You’ll see.”
Steve felt the first prickle of fresh suspicion. You still had the magazine tucked under your arm. He knew then that he really should have hidden it when he had the chance.
───
The Dreaded “I Don’t Care, What Do You Want to Do?”
Flexibility is cute, but romantic laziness is not! If every single date night starts with him shrugging his shoulders and leaving the heavy lifting of choosing the restaurant or the movie up to you, he’s retired from being the captain of the ship.
The Solution: Take total control. Steal his car keys out of his pocket, slide into the driver's seat yourself, and drive him to a secret destination without telling him where you’re going!
The BMW had been baking all afternoon, and climbing into it felt briefly like entering a punishment designed by someone who hated vinyl. You pushed through either ways.
Steve opened both doors first to let the heat roll out. He complained under his breath when you leaned against the driver’s side, because he was already beginning to understand what you wanted and did not know how to prevent it without sounding insane.
His words sounded strained in their attempt not to seem sure. “You’re not driving.”
“I haven’t exactly asked.”
Steve's hands came out to gesture wildly at you. “You’re standing by the driver’s door wearing my sweatshirt and holding an evil magazine.”
Your frowned, lips pulled to the side as you argued against the idea. “Evil is strong, don't you think?”
“I think it's accurate.” You huffed out a sigh and merely held out your hand to him He stared at it blankly, big hazel eyes flicking to your face then your outstretched palm.
“Keys,” you all but sang in glee.
Steve laughed once, not because it was funny, but because his body needed somewhere to put the clear alarm. “No way.”
“The article says I’m supposed to take total control.”
Steve's voice now was a delightful mix of clear distress and restrained panic. “Babe, articles have never seen you parallel park.”
“I don't even parallel park.”
“Exactly.” You only wiggled your fingers in response, paired along with a particularly determined look up at him.
Steve looked toward the empty storefront beside Family Video, then back at you. His keys sat in his palm, heavy with all the trust and terror he attached to that car. He loved the Beamer in a way he would not have admitted under oath. Actually, scratch that—Steve would gladly declare his love for his car anytime, but now? It felt oddly like a trap. It had been freedom when his house felt too quiet. It had been status when he had been shallow enough to need it. And later one, it had gone on to become transportation for the kids with their walkie-talkies, frantic errands, and the late-night drives where neither of you said much but the silence was nice anyways.
Letting someone else drive it was not nothing to Steve.
Letting you drive it while grinning like you had a plan was something else entirely.
“You know,” he said carefully, his muscles pulled at where they crossed against his chest, “a healthy relationship includes respecting boundaries.”
Your question came instantly. “Is your boundary the driver’s seat?”
“My boundary is not dying.”
“I’m a good driver!”
“You once hit a curb and blamed the curb!”
“It came out of nowhere.” The Defense felt weak now on your lips, and you barely held in the wince that tried to escape you.
But Steve only closed his eyes and you waited.
The thing was, you knew he would give them to you. Not because he was helpless, he certainly wasn't. Not because you could push him anywhere you wanted, both him and you weren't like that. Steve could be stubborn when something mattered. He could dig his heels in so hard it made everyone around him want to throw things. But this was not about the car, not really. It was about you asking him to let go of control for twenty minutes, and Steve had been trying, in small uneven ways, to learn how to do that.
He dropped the keys into your hand with such anguish you saved the date so you could make fun of him later on. But for now, the keys in your palm were a big enough win.
“If you grind the gears,” Steve exhaled with more defeat than irritation, “I’m breaking up with you until Monday.”
The threat was as fake as his excitement. “It’s Friday though?”
“I'll need the recovery time.” You slid into the driver’s seat before he could change his mind at your delighted grin.
Steve walked around the front of the car slowly, one hand trailing over the hood in a gesture so mournful you laughed before he even got in. He lowered himself into the passenger seat with stiff dignity and immediately reached for the dashboard by pure instinct.
You looked at his hand and he quickly moved it to his knee with a faint twitch of his fingers.
Your voice came passive in its gratitude. “Thank you for bracing, real show of trust.”
His defense came hot and rapid. “I wasn’t bracing!”
Yours came cooler and breezily. “You were absolutely bracing.”
Steve decided then to correct his stance into something more softly shaped. “I was settling…”
“You were preparing for impact—”
Steve pointed at the windshield with a regained passion that had you rolling your eyes. “Eyes on the road.”
“We’re parked?”
“Consider it practice.”
You adjusted the seat, which made him wince because you moved it forward. He quickly turned silent when you glared at him through your side profile. Then, you adjusted the mirror, the hanging air freshener swayed gently at the movement. Steve watched every change with increasing distress, mouth pressed into a line, fingers tapping once against his thigh before he made them stop.
You started the car a moment after leaning in to give him what you'd call, and you were sure he'd also deny, a much needed kiss near the corner of his mouth for his tension.
The engine rumbled to life beneath you, familiar but different from this side. Steve’s car always sounded more dramatic than necessary, and now that sound moved up through the soles of your shoes, into your knees, into the base of your ribs. You pulled out of the parking space carefully.
Too carefully, apparently, because Steve inhaled and did not exhale until you straightened.
“See?” you made a point to extend your hand in a show of gesturing.
He finally exhaled, his head whirling around the perimeter. “Great. We’ve traveled twelve feet.”
“Progress.”
You drove past the pizza place first.
Steve twisted in his seat, his face losing some of that tension when confusion took its place. “Wait. I thought we were eating.”
“We are.”
“Pizza is back there.”
You adjusted your grip on the wheel, and inhaled sharply when Steve seemed like he wanted to comment on that too. Thankfully, he refrained. “Maybe we’re not getting pizza.”
He looked genuinely unsettled now, looking something akin to a puppy set free in a foreign meadow. “But it’s Friday.”
“Exactly.” Your words did little to ease him in the slightest.
“What does exactly mean?”
Your right hand came up to emphasize your next words. “It means you say ‘I don’t care, what do you want to do?’ too much.”
His expression shifted, defensive at first, then confused. “I say that because I don’t want to make you do stuff you don’t want to do.”
You nodded to his words because they were true, and because you loved him more for it. “I know.”
Steve was sure he was feeling unrecorded levels of distress currently. “So why is that bad?”
You glanced at him, then back at the road. The light had gone soft and low, catching in the dust along the windshield. “It’s not bad! It’s just sometimes I want you to want something out loud.”
Steve leaned back, the argument leaving him in stages.
He had not thought of it that way. To him, letting you pick felt considerate. It felt safe because if he chose wrong, if you got quiet, if the night bent into disappointment, then it would be his fault in a way he could not fix by rewinding a tape or buying another soda. It seemed better to let you choose. Better to be the guy who went along with what you wanted and did not become another person demanding things from you. Steve was many things, considerate high on that list.
But you were looking at the road with both hands on his steering wheel, wearing his sweatshirt, saying you wanted him to want things.
That sat somewhere tender.
“Okay,” he spoke softner after a minute had passed in the lull.
You felt the agreement settle without the usual push and pull. “Okay?”
Steve let one roughened palm drag over his eyes as he cleared his throat. “Okay. I can want things out loud.”
You smiled, but kept your eyes on the road. Your nails tapped against the wheel again now. “Good.”
“Right now, I want to know where we’re going.”
The attempt had you smiling and not bothering to hide the exasperation on your face. “Nope, not that kind of want.”
He groaned against his hand, “that’s cruel.”
“It’s mysterious.” you preferred the term over his.
“It’s kidnapping with lip gloss.” You laughed at his response, and Steve’s shoulders eased by pure bodily instinct.
You drove beyond the familiar restaurants, beyond the streets where the houses sat close together with bikes in driveways and porch lights beginning to flick on. The town thinned into trees and long grass. The car moved through pockets of cooling air, windows down, and the radio catching half of one station and then another until Steve gave up and turned the volume low.
When you finally turned onto the road near an old quarry, he sat up.
“Oh,” his brows twisted as he took in the dim, but no less deliberate view..
You parked near the overlook where the trees opened just enough to show the water below, darkening under the evening sky. Nobody else was there. The place had an abandoned feeling now, less romantic than it probably used to be, because Hawkins had taught everyone to distrust woods after sunset. Still, the view was good. Ot was pretty in an intimate way. The water held the last orange light in broken pieces. Cicadas screamed from the trees, and somewhere far off, a dog barked and stopped.
You turned the engine off then, the keys rustling softly against the opening. For a few seconds, the car ticked quietly as it cooled.
Steve looked at the overlook, then at you. His voice came out different when he spoke, less teasing. You liked the shift. “You planned this?”
You nodded with an unnecessary addition of solemnity. “I had a magazine and a lot of confidence.”
“That’s a dangerous combination.”
“Apparently.”
He smiled, but his eyes moved back to the view. You could tell he liked it because he didn't immediately make another attempt at a joke. He just sat there with his elbow near the open window, hair slightly ruffled by the drive, looking out over the quarry while the last of his workday drained out of him.
Steve had spent a lot of time in cars with people he loved and feared losing. He had driven toward danger, away from danger, around town at three in the morning because somebody needed a ride or a distraction or a place to talk where no parents could hear. Sitting still in the passenger seat while you turned off the engine was strangely difficult. It left his hands empty. It left the evening open.
Then you held out his keys, the abrupt movement had him looking down at them quickly.
“You survived,” your voice came out lighter than intended.
He took them and let his fingers brush yours deliberately. Steve's posture wasn't as tense as it had been prior, and you took it as a tactical win. “Barely.”
You didn't let him off so easily. “You liked it.”
“I liked the destination.” His words had truth to them, but certainly not the full truth.
“You didn’t like my driving?” He hesitated one second too long.
You gasped and Steve immediately turned to you, one hand reaching out to rub your forearm. “No, no, your driving was fine.”
“Fine?”
He quickly corrected himself. “Good. Great. Beautifully legal even.”
You rolled your eyes and got out before he could continue and somehow dig himself deeper.
Steve followed, still smiling. That was your favorite part. He went to the trunk and pulled out the old blanket he kept there. You caught sight of a flashlight, jumper cables, an empty fast-food cup, and the stupid nail-studded bat partially hidden beneath a towel. He noticed your exasperated gaze land on it and shut the trunk a little too fast.
“Emergency stuff,” he cleared his throat too fast.
You looked at him and he suddenly found the grass beneath him interesting. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Steve murmured into the open air. “Not a nothing face.”
The decision to ignore the words came easy. You reached for the blanket instead of asking. He handed it over with a small nod, grateful and embarrassed at once.
The two of you spread the blanket over the hood of the car after he made you promise not to scratch the paint. It was still warm from the engine beneath, and when you climbed up beside him, the metal gave a faint settling sound. Steve passed you a bag of pretzels from the trunk, opened badly down the side, and you ate them while the sky turned deeper and the heat softened around you.
For a while, there was nothing else.
There was just Steve telling you about a customer who asked whether Pretty in Pink was part of a series because “there had to be other colors,” and you telling him about the woman at Bradley’s who squeezed every peach in the bin with the intensity of a medical exam. He laughed with his head tilted back, throat exposed to the evening, and you felt the ordinary pleasure of having made him laugh settle into you.
Then the windshield caught his reflection.
Steve glanced at it and you saw the words actively flash in front of your eyes.
───
His Mirror Time Outpaces Your Eye-Contact Time
An eighties boy who spends an hour fixing his legendary hair or splashing on his favorite cologne is great to look at — but if he spends more time checking his reflection in the diner window than he does looking deeply into your eyes across the table, his vanity might be serving his own ego rather than trying to impress you!
The Solution: Mess up his hair! Messing up a vain boy's hair is a high-risk, high-reward move that instantly forces his full attention away from the mirror and entirely onto you.
The first time, you let it pass.
Steve had always had an intimate relationship with reflective surfaces. Car windows, store glass, dark television screens, spoons if he was desperate. It would have been annoying if it were not so earnest. He checked his hair with the focus of a man maintaining an ecosystem. He denied it every time, but the evidence was constant.
The second time, he turned his head slightly, pretending to watch a bird move through the trees while his eyes flicked toward the windshield.
You lowered your half bitten pretzel into your lap, waiting for the moment to prove itself.
The third time, he smoothed one hand near his temple.
You reached for the magazine, which sat on the hood beside your thigh, and tapped the fourth section.
Steve noticed the movement.
“What number are we on?” he asked with the faint resignment of a man knowing he's in too deep to argue anymore.
You held your fingers up at his face. “Four.”
His face fell and his exhale came steady. “Oh, God.”
“You don’t even know what four is!”
“I know I won’t like it.”
You smiled at the truth of the statement and even more at his expression.
He put both hands up in a time out position, his grin was weak in its pleading. “Can I opt out?”
Your answer came sharply ennunciated. “Nope.”
“Is this democracy?”
“Why would I possibly have this be a democracy?”
He looked toward the empty road, and his exaggerated sigh didn't fool you enough to ignore his bitten back smile. “Is there a witness?”
“Nope.”
“This can't possibly be just—”
You moved before he could get any farther and he immediately tried to escape. But he was too late, because your hands went straight into his hair by then.
Steve made a sound of pure betrayal. The sound erupted a warmth in your chest as you grinned hearing his own struggle with maintaining betrayl. “Hey! No—no, watch the hair!”
You laughed so hard your first attempt barely did any damage, which gave him hope for half a second. Then you got both hands properly into it, pushing the front back, raking your fingers through the carefully maintained height, mussing the sides until his entire head looked softer, younger, more touchable and less arranged.
He caught your wrists and his eyes twinkled near yours. Small pieves of now unkempt hair fell over his brows and he had to blow them away. “We have rules.”
“We do not have rules,” you argued, struggling against his grip.
His hands were still wrapped around your wrists, they weren't restraining as much as they were holding in pleading hope. His grip was gentle, pulling you into him. “My hair has rules!”
The correction came quick on your tongue.“Your hair is vain.”
Steve gasped in blatant pffense which only served to make you laugh harder. “I'll have you know, my hair is a public service.”
You couldn't be comvinced. “You looked at yourself in the windshield three times.”
“I was checking for danger.” he tried to firmly combat your argument with his own.
“Was the danger split ends?”
Steve stared at you, scandalized. There was no hiding the wide smile that crawled its way onto your face now at his whine. “Sweetheart, that was really mean.”
“It was accurate.”
“It was both.”
You tried to continue ruining him, but he held your wrists away now, laughing despite himself. The sound exhoed against your ear drums. His grip was warm. His thumbs landed near your pulse points. The evening had cooled enough that the warmth of him felt more noticeable, especially with the blanket beneath your legs and his sweatshirt still hanging loose over your body.
His hair had slowly become a disaster.
Not terrible, it could never be terrible. Steve Harrington’s hair seemed incapable of true failure, which was deeply unfair to you. Or anyone else, really. But the shape was gone from it. One piece fell over his forehead, another stuck up near the back, and the sides had lost their polished swoop. He looked less like the version of himself he presented to the world and more like the one who woke up late and padded barefoot into the kitchen, squinting at the coffee maker.
Your laughter thinned into a smaller version of a smile. Steve saw the change and stopped pulling your hands away.
“What?” he mirrored your expression, as if your joy could be naturally echoed into his just as easily.
“Nothing.”
He narrowed his eyes at the softness of your voice. “You don’t get to use my line.”
You just shook your head at him, eyes softening gently. “You look different.”
“Worse?” The question left him in natural humor.
“No.”
He looked at you, and beneath the joking offense there was something cautious. Steve was used to being looked at. He had been looked at for years by people who wanted something from the surface. He knew how to stand under that kind of attention. He knew what to do with it.
But with you, it was always different.
You were looking at him with his hair messed up and his guard lowered, your sleeves falling over your hands, your knee pressed against his thigh on the warm hood of his car. You were not laughing at him now, not exactly. You were seeing him in a way that made him want to joke and stay quiet at the same time.
He released one of your wrists, and you used your free hand to push the fallen piece of hair back more gently than before.
“There,” you breathed softer into the chilling air. “Improved.”
He huffed with a glint in his eye as he tilted his head looking to you. “Ruined.”
You remained steadfast in your description. “Improved.”
“Sabotaged.” a sigh escaped you before you decided to settle on the middle ground.
“Humanized.”
“That’s worse.”
You laughed again, and he grabbed you around the waist before you could dodge. It was not a dramatic move. It was entirely clumsy, half seated on the hood, one knee sliding on the blanket, and had pretzels nearly tipping over. You yelped, caught his shoulder, and he pulled you closer with a grin he wouldn't ever bother hiding.
“Retaliation,” he hummed against you.
Your eyes narrowed to glare up against him. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Steve.”
“You attacked a national treasure.”
The laugh left you all sputtered and incredulous. “You are not a national treasure.”
“My hair is.”
He tried to tickle your side through the sweatshirt, but the fabric was too thick and his angle was bad. You squirmed anyway because the attempt was enough, laughing into his shoulder while he complained about unfair defenses and oversized sleeves. The blanket bunched beneath you. Your knee knocked the pretzel bag. Steve caught it with one hand at the last second and looked so proud of himself that you shoved his shoulder.
“My hero,” you sighed dreamily as you exaggerated fanning yourself.
“Always.”
It was a joke, but it landed in the quiet between you with more weight than either of you meant. His smile flickered for half a second. Not gone, just altered instead.
You knew better than to poke directly at that. There were words that made Steve stiffen because they came with too many memories: hero, brave, fine. Compliments could hurt when they touched old bruises.
So you stole a pretzel from the bag he had saved and held it up against his lips. “Your reward.”
He accepted it solemnly, head tilting down to nibble against your fingers rather than the pretzel. That had you shoving at him all the same. “I deserve more.”
“You deserve a comb.”
“That too.”
The transition back into ease happened slowly but naturally, without announcement. Steve leaned back on his hands, letting his ruined hair stay ruined. You sat beside him, head against his shoulder, watching the quarry disappear into blue shadow. The air cooled enough that you finally felt grateful for his sweatshirt. He did not ask for it back again.
Later, when he drove you home, he checked his reflection in the rearview mirror only once. That once was entirely enough for you anyway.
You reached over and tilted the mirror away.
He groaned your name and you smiled all the way to your driveway.
───
He Treats Your Presence Like a Given
Does he toss you his car keys, expect you to carry the snacks, and assume you’ll just automatically follow him wherever his friends are hanging out? When a guy stops asking you out on real, proper dates and just expects you to "be around," he’s treating you less like a girlfriend and more like his favorite security blanket.
The Solution: Create a little mystery. Next time he assumes you're free, tell him you have "secret plans" for the afternoon. A tiny bit of healthy distance will make him realize just how much he misses his favorite view!
The next morning, Steve called before noon.
You were still sitting on your bedroom floor with your back against the bed, legs stretched out, the Cosmopolitan magazine open beside a half-eaten bowl of cereal. The window was cracked, but the air coming through was already warm. Somewhere outside, a lawn mower started, stopped, then started again with the stubborn cough of old machinery from your neighbors.
Your room smelled faintly of hairspray, clean laundry, and the perfume still clinging to Steve’s sweatshirt, which you had absolutely not returned.
The phone rang twice before you picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” Steve greeted immediately. His voice had that slightly distracted quality that meant he was at work and probably doing three things badly. You could hear the store behind him: Robin talking too loudly, the dull clack of tape cases, the faint buzz of fluorescent lights even through the line. “Movie tonight?”
No lead-in. No question about your morning. No attempt at charm.
Just movie tonight, offered with the easy assumption that of course you would be there, because usually you were. Usually you liked being there. Usually Steve called and you fit yourself into the shape of his evening without minding much at all.
You looked down.
Number five sat open on the magazine page.
He Treats Your Presence Like a Given.
The article accused him of turning you into his favorite security blanket.
That was unfair too, but not entirely untrue in the way the most irritating things sometimes were. Steve did not take you for granted, and certainly not on purpose. He was too careful for that in the places where it counted. He noticed when you were cold. He remembered which pizza toppings you hated. He opened doors because he had been raised with manners and then kept doing it because he liked the brief second where his hand landed near your back.
But he did assume you would be around.
Sometimes, because he wanted you there.
Sometimes, because he needed you there and had not learned how to say need without dressing it up as a casual plan.
You let the silence stretch as your fingers came up to your lips in pondering.
On the other end, Steve paused. “Hello?”
“I have secret plans.”
The line went quiet after your words.
You could picture his face too clearly: eyebrows lifting, mouth tightening a little, free hand landing on his hip. Steve did not like mysteries unless he was solving them, and even then he preferred them to arrive with flashlights, maps, and Dustin explaining too much.
“Secret plans,” he repeated, and you could practically see the way his face had been scrunching up.
“Yup.”
“With who?” The question came out too quickly.
You smiled into the receiver and you were sure he could practically hear it.
Steve regretted it immediately. You could hear it in the way he inhaled and then exhaled through his nose, probably turning away from Robin so she could not see his face.
“I didn’t mean that in a weird way,” he added. You knew that, of course. But would that stop you from poking fun at your boyfriend? Absolutely not.
You forced a flat hum to even your voice. “And what way did you mean it?”
Steve’s defense came strong, but no less real. “A normal boyfriend curiosity way.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Not jealousy. I’m not jealous.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“I’m clarifying.”
Your fingers looped around the phone cord as your eyes flickered down to the magazine sprawled in your lap. “Sounds suspicious.”
At Family Video, Steve leaned against the wall near the phone and closed his eyes. Robin, sitting on the floor with a stack of returns around her, looked up with predatory interest.
“Are you being dumped?” she whispered, her blue eyes wide at his bodily reaction.
Steve covered the receiver and promptly ignored her, though not before throwing Robin a glare. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
He turned his back to her. And into the phone, he cleared his throat and said, “Are your secret plans dangerous?”
You only hummed in response. “Maybe.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“They’re secret.”
The faint spund of rustling hit your ear, and you could picture the scene everytime you blinked. With Steve running his hand through his hair because he'd become fidgety all of a sudden. “You keep saying that like it explains anything.”
You tried not to feel cruel at how the mental image made you grin and feel warmth crawl up your body. “It does.”
“It explains nothing.”
You pulled the sweatshirt sleeve over your hand and toyed with the phone cord wrapped around your ankle. “You can survive one afternoon without me.”
“I know that.”
Judging by his voice now, you weren't entirely convinced. “Do you?”
He stopped.
That was the trouble with joking. Sometimes it opened a door you had not meant to touch.
Steve knew he could survive without you for an afternoon. He had survived worse things than an empty passenger seat. He had survived silence in his parents’ house, survived losing versions of himself he had once thought were permanent, survived monsters with too many teeth and nights where sleep arrived late and left early.
But his day had begun to arrange itself around you without asking permission. He knew when you usually came by. He knew which stool you liked. He knew the face you made when Robin got into a fight with a customer and the face you made when Steve pretended he was above gossip and then leaned in anyway. He knew the small relief of looking up and finding you there.
He knew familiarity for certainty.
The realization made him pick at the peeling edge of a sticker on the phone.
“You’re really busy?” he asked, quieter.
You softened, because you hadn't really meant to hurt him. “For a little while.”
“Okay.”
Your tried not to falter, but your voice didn't heed your wishes. “You sound disappointed.”
Steve denied it quickly. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m handsome and disappointed.” That got you. You laughed, and the line loosened again.
Your secret plans were not glamorous. They involved going to the mall with a friend, buying a lemonade too sour to fully finish, and letting yourself try on clothes you couldn't afford in a department store dressing room with bad lighting. You walked past the arcade and heard machines chiming through the open entrance. You lingered in the music store longer than necessary, flipping through records with one hand while the other kept finding the soft cuff of one of Steve’s other jackets you held onto and never gave back.
You did miss him.
That was the annoying part. Or, rather, not.
The magazine had intended mystery to make him miss you, but nobody had warned you that absence worked both ways. By mid-afternoon, you caught yourself wondering whether he had eaten lunch or just stolen Red Vines from the candy display. You wondered whether Robin had teased him into a worse mood or a better one. You wondered if he had fidgeted with his hair because he'd become restless.
At four, you found a pay phone near the arcade.
The metal was hot against your fingers. A kid with sticky blue lips waited nearby, bouncing on his heels, probably impatient to call his mother for another ride he had already missed. You fed coins into the slot and dialed Family Video from memory.
Steve picked up on the second ring.
“Family Video, where late fees are real and the employees have no mercy.”
You snorted at the welcome. “Nice greeting.”
There was a pause, and then his voice changed. “Hey.”
One word, and it was warmer than it had any right to be.
You leaned against the phone, voice softening after hearing his. “My secret plans are over.”
“Oh, thank God.” You tried to not laugh at the sincerity of his wreckage.
“You survived?”
“Barely. A woman asked for a movie with ‘the guy from that thing,’ and Robin threatened to eat the return log.”
You clicked your tongue in sympathy. “Sounds traumatic.”
“I’ve seen war.” His tone had you picturing the bobble of his head clearly.
You leaned your shoulder against the side of the pay phone. “Did you miss me?”
Steve looked toward the front of the store, where Robin was helping a teenager pick between two horror movies and making both sound morally inferior. He turned slightly toward the wall.
“Yeah, always,” he said.
No joke.
No handsome and disappointed.
Just yeah, always
Your fingers tightened around the phone cord.
The mall noise continued around you: sneakers squeaking, teenagers laughing too loudly, and the arcade machines spilling synthetic music into the corridor. But the line between you and Steve felt briefly separate from all of it, thin and private and warm.
“I’ll come by,” you hummed into the receiver.
“I’ll act surprised.”
“You better.”
When you walked into Family Video an hour later, Steve looked up from the counter and caught himself before saying the first easy thing.
You saw the effort.
His gaze moved over you properly, taking in the mall bag at your side, his jacket on your body, your hair slightly wind-tangled from the drive.
Then he smiled.
“There you are,” he greeted. It was not a compliment, exactly.
It worked better than one, though.
Robin glanced between you both and rolled her eyes so hard it was nearly athletic.
“Disgusting,” she scoffed at Steve, before smiling secretly when she saw the affect it had on you. “Do it again.”
Steve threw a wadded receipt at her and missed. And you sat on your stool, pretending you were not pleased.
He noticed anyway.
───
The Future is a Forbidden Zone
Pay close attention to how he acts when you bring up anything happening more than two weeks from now. If he cracks a defensive joke, blushes, or immediately changes the subject to sports or cars, he might be totally terrified of growing up. He might love you today, but is he brave enough to dream about tomorrow?
The Solution: Don't nag him! Instead, paint a fun, wildly dramatic picture of what you two will look like in the upcoming decade. Turning the future into a playful joke takes the pressure off and lets him see that growing up doesn't have to be boring.
Closing dragged that night.
Not in a bad way. Just in the way ordinary time dragged when nothing terrible happened and everyone was tired enough to notice the minute hand moving. A storm threatened for an hour without arriving. The air outside thickened, pressing against the windows, and the neon sign gave the front glass a red-blue glow that made the aisles look emptier than they were.
Keith left early because of “stomach problems,” which Robin translated as “he found something better to do.” She stayed until her ride came, drumming her fingers against the counter and telling Steve that if he forgot to lock the back door again, she would personally spread rumors about his favorite movie being The Care Bears Movie.
“It was one time,” Steve had defended himself vehemently.
You sat cross-legged on the counter while Steve counted the register. He had let you stay because he always let you stay, even though he complained that Keith would blame him if you scuffed the laminate. The Cosmopolitan lay open beside you, pages softened from a day of folding and handling. A half-empty soda sweated onto a napkin near your thigh.
Steve counted bills under his breath.
You watched his hands.
He had nice hands, though he would have made a face if you said it too seriously. They were steady with money, restless when he talked, amd gentle when he touched you in public because he was more careful now than he used to be. There was a faint scar near one knuckle. Another near his wrist. Small reminders that did not announce themselves unless you already knew where to look.
You glanced down at the sixth section.
The Future is a Forbidden Zone.
The article described boys who blushed, joked, or changed the subject when anything more than two weeks away came up. It sounded exaggerated. It also sounded enough like Steve to make you bite the inside of your cheek.
Steve could talk about tomorrow. He could talk about next Friday, the next shift, the next movie, the next time Dustin needed a ride and pretended it was not a favor. But farther out than that, his voice shifted. He did not shut down exactly. He just moved sideways. A joke, a complaint, a sudden question about whether you wanted fries.
The future made him slippery.
You understood why.
The future had not been a reliable place for anyone in Hawkins. Plans got interrupted here. People disappeared. Malls burned. Girls moved away. Boys woke up different than they used to be and had to keep living in the same houses, driving the same roads, and pretending the town had not opened its mouth beneath them.
Still, the magazine said not to nag.
It said to paint a fun, wildly dramatic picture.
So you leaned back on your hands and said, “What do you think we’ll be doing in the nineties?”
Steve lost count instantly.
You knew because his lips stopped moving and his thumb froze on a five-dollar bill.
He looked up, expressive eyes on yours. “The nineties?”
You nodded. “Mhm.”
“The decade?”
The scoff left you before you could help it, and so did the sarcasm. “No, Steve. The sandwich.”
He stared at you with his scrunched up face, and you only smiled innocently.
He looked back down at the money, too focused now. “I don’t know. Hopefully not this.”
You tilted your head down at him, one leg dangled of the edge of the counter now, swinging casually. “You don’t see yourself managing Family Video for the rest of your life?”
Steve’s sigh came almost endearing in how displeased it was. “Please don’t say something that depressing while I’m holding cash.”
You continued brighter now that his face seemed determined to keep its sour state. “You could have a little office.”
“No.”
“A nameplate?”
“No.”
“Keith could work under you.”
Steve looked up at you horrified now. “Why would you say that?”
You laughed, then swung one foot lightly against the cabinet beneath the counter again. “Fine. Not Family Video. Something else. Something with ties.”
“Ties?”
The words came assured. “You’ll own at least three.”
“I already own ties.”
“Not funeral or wedding ties. Work ties.”
He made that familiar face that had you wanting to kiss it back to normal. “I don’t trust jobs where your neck has to be trapped.”
You continued on, you weren't quite sure he was a engaged as you, but you went on anyways. “You’ll complain every morning and wear them anyway.”
“Sounds right.”
“And you’ll drive something practical.”
Steve's refusal came instantaneously. “No way.”
You only have a hum in response. “Uh-huh.”
“No.”
The words continued to flow. “A station wagon.”
Steve put the money down, hands resting on the area above where your thighs rested. “We’re breaking up.”
You didn't bother rolling your eyes at his words; instead, you let your smile stick and your tongue continue. “With wood paneling.”
“We’re broken up and I want my closet back.”
You crossed your arms in his jacket and continued to ignore him. “You’ll have little sunglasses in the glove compartment.”
“I already have sunglasses in the glove compartment. That part is cool.”
“And tissues.”
Steve nodded alongside you at that. “For allergies.”
“And snacks.”
“For emergencies.”
You leaned into him then, the smile still easily in place. “And you’ll yell at kids for putting their feet on the seats.”
“They should not put their feet on the seats.”
You pointed at him for proving your point. “See? Dad car.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. The word dad seemed to have landed differently than the rest.
You saw it happen. He tried to keep the joke moving, but his fingers shifted against the counter, pressing lightly into the laminate. His gaze dropped to the register. Not scared, exactly. Just weary at it being verbalized.
Steve had a complicated relationship with the idea of becoming anything permanent. He wanted it more than he trusted it. You knew that. You had learned it in pieces. In the way he got quiet around families at diners, watching fathers who remembered their kids’ orders. In the way he talked about his own parents with a shrug too practiced to be casual. In the way he could handle six teenagers in danger better than one sincere conversation about what he might want when danger was not the center of the room.
So, you kept the tone light.
“You’ll be the kind of dad who says he’s not mad, just disappointed, and then immediately gets mad.”
Steve rubbed the back of his neck, almost embarrassed at the accuracy. “I don’t say that.”
“You would.”
He tried to disagree stronger. “I’d be cool!”
You nodded at that. “You’d try.”
“I would succeed.”
Your grin came unabashed as your imagined ymthe picture you were painting. “You’d wear tube socks with sneakers.”
“That, is a personal attack.”
“You’d stand at the grill holding tongs and click them twice before using them.” Everyone clicked tongs twice. You were fairly certain it was law. But Steve looked down, smiling despite himself.
“Okay,” he sighed at final, with an amount of pleased resignation that you hadn't fully been ready to receive. “What about you?”
You blinked before you could help it. “What about me?”
Steve smiled at you, and your brain did a weird stutter. “In our tragic station wagon future.”
You had not expected him to ask it so seriously.
You had been building the future out of jokes so it would not collapse under its own weight. Suddenly, he was looking at you through the fluorescent quiet of Family Video, his hair still a little imperfect from running through it before, and his tired eyes steady on your face.
You swallowed quickly after realizing you fell quiet.
“I’ll be there,” you settled for, then made yourself smile before it became too much. “Obviously. Someone has to pick the radio station.”
Steve held your gaze.
His face did not do anything dramatic. There was no sudden confession. No grand realization. He just breathed in, small and careful, then nodded once.
“Obviously,” he repeated.
He looked back down at the register after that, but he had lost count beyond saving.
You didn't tease him immediately like you'd normally do.
You let him start over with the bills while you reached for the soda and took a sip that had gone mostly watery. The silence between you stayed easy enough, though changed at the edges. Steve counted more slowly this time. Every so often, his eyes flicked up to you, then away.
He was thinking.
Not running, not joking his way fully out of it.
Thinking.
When he finally finished the register and locked it, he leaned both hands on the counter and looked at the magazine.
“So,” he exhaled deeply into the open air, “is there a number about girlfriends who use journalism for psychological warfare?”
You closed the magazine with a strange lightness. “Probably in next month’s issue.”
He nodded. “Great. Can’t wait.”
You slipped off the counter, landing close enough that he had to look down at you. The store was dim except for the front lights and the glow from the sign. Steve smelled faintly of work and cologne and the peppermint gum he had chewed earlier.
“You’re doing okay,” you said at last because you couldn't help yourself.
He lifted an eyebrow at that. “Am I being graded?”
“Constantly.”
“What’s my grade?”
“it's pending.”
Steve snorted. “That’s worse than failing.”
“You can improve with extra credit.”
His expression warmed and he let his hands fall to your waist. “Oh, yeah?”
You took one step back and pointed toward the door. The smile on your face mirrored his before it fell. “Lock up.”
He groaned, but still went.
You watched him move through the store, checking the back, flipping switches, rattling the front door after locking it because Robin had trained him with fear. He looked young in the empty store and not young at all. He looked tired and solid and a little ridiculous with his key ring in his mouth while he adjusted the alarm panel.
When he came back to you, he held out his hand without making a production of it.
You took it.
Neither of you said anything about the nineties again that night, but Steve held your hand all the way to the car and didn't let go until he had to open your door.
───
The Spark Has Moved from the Bedroom to the Sofa
If your primary shared activity has slowly shifted from breathless, passionate sessions to falling asleep halfway through a rented thriller tape on the couch, your chemistry is taking a backseat to comfort. Snuggling is wonderful, but it should never entirely replace the fire!
The Solution: Turn off the TV right in the middle of the movie's climax. When he complains, look him dead in the eye and tell him you have a much better way to keep both of you entertained!
Steve’s house was too clean when his parents were gone.
It always unsettled you a little, though you had learned not to say that. The Harrington house had the polished stillness of a place maintained for people who were rarely there long enough to leave evidence behind. The lamps worked. The counters shone. The couch pillows were arranged with decorative precision until Steve got home and ruined them by existing.
You liked it better after he ruined them.
You liked the shoes near the door, the jacket over the banister, and the half-empty glass of water beside the sink. You liked when he left a tape on the coffee table and a blanket half-folded over the arm of the couch. Those small messes made the house less showroom and more shelter.
After closing, he drove you there with the windows down and the radio low. The storm still had not arrived, but the air had changed. It smelled damp now, heavy with the promise of rain. Steve kept one hand on the wheel and the other near your knee, not quite touching until the roads emptied and his fingers finally settled there.
At his house, he insisted he was making popcorn because “date night requires snacks.” You followed him into the kitchen, still wearing his jacket because it was warmed than any blanket he could give, and watched him tear open the plastic wrapper with more confidence than the task required.
“You burned it last time,” you frowned at his work.
He was quick to correct you. “I did not burn it. I gave it character.”
“You set off the smoke detector.”
He paused before murmuring. “Briefly.”
“You waved a dish towel at it and yelled, ‘Don’t start.’”
Steve only shrugged. “That was a negotiation.”
You leaned against the counter while he put the bag in the microwave. He pressed the buttons, then turned around and caught you looking at him.
“What?”
The words came naturally. “Nothing.”
They also did little to please Steve. “Nope. We retired nothing. Be specific.”
You smiled and simply just shook your head. “You look nice, babe. ‘That's all.”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s my trauma now.”
Your voice came light and teasing now. “Three reasons?”
“I’m not falling for that.”
“You sure?”
The microwave started popping. Steve tried not to smile and failed by inches. “One, I’m making popcorn. Two, I drove. Three, my hair recovered from your previous assault.”
You didn't bother to hide the roll of your eyes. “You call those reasons?”
He simply shrugged with his grin. “I call them evidence.”
The popcorn began popping faster. Steve glanced back, then leaned beside you against the counter. His shoulder brushed yours. For a few moments, neither of you moved. The kitchen light was warmer than at his job, softer on his face, catching the tiredness under his eyes without making him look worn down. He had taken off his work polo and changed into a plain T-shirt, and the simplicity of it made you aware of how long the day had been.
He looked at you then, properly.
Not because a magazine told him to. Not because you demanded reasons. Just because you were there in his kitchen, sleeves over your hands, perfume faded, and hair imperfect from heat and wind and the day’s nonsense.
His hand found the hem of the jacket. “Still mine.”
“Still not.”
He pulled you into him by the grip he had on the hem of the fabric. “I’m going to start charging rent.”
You tilted your head up at him because the angle needed you to. “I’ll pay in compliments.”
“Specific ones?”
You huffed and leaned up to plant a chaste kiss on his lower jawline. “Don’t get greedy.”
The microwave beeped before he could answer.
The first bag came out mostly edible, only slightly scorched at one corner, which Steve declared a triumph. He poured it into a large bowl, added too much salt, then carried it into the living room with the dignity of a man presenting a feast.
The movie was a thriller neither of you had strong feelings about. Steve had picked it because the cover looked “medium scary,” which apparently meant scary enough to justify sitting close but not scary enough to ruin the evening. You took your usual side of the couch. He took his. Within five minutes, your legs were over his lap and his hand rested on your shin, his thumb moving absently over the ribbed cuff of your sock.
The television threw blue-white light across the room.
A woman on screen walked through a dark hallway with a candle despite every instinct and all available electricity. Steve, who had survived things that made movie monsters look lazy, immediately became furious.
“Don’t go in there,” he groaned at the television with his hands gesturing wildly.
Your reminder came gentle and blank. “She can’t hear you.”
“She should!”
“She’s fictional, babe.”
“She’s stupid.”
You took a handful of popcorn and shrugged. “Maybe she’s brave.”
“Brave people can turn on lamps.”
You laughed, and his hand tightened briefly around your ankle, pleased with himself for the achievement.
This, apparently, was the comfort the article had warned you about.
The couch. The shared popcorn. The old rhythm of your legs across him, his fingers warm through your sock, the easy commentary over a bad movie. The way you both knew without discussing it who would get up for drinks, who would complain about the blanket being too far away, who would pretend not to be sleepy first.
It did not feel like the absence of romance.
It felt lived in.
You thought about the word comfortable and how the magazine had treated it like something dangerous, a warning sign in glossy print. Maybe sometimes it was. Maybe people did stop trying. Maybe affection could become furniture if no one touched it on purpose. But you had seen Steve try in ways that did not look glamorous enough for an article. He tried by checking your tires when he noticed one looked low. He tried by buying the cereal you liked and pretending it was for him even when he hated it. He tried by standing between you and things he had every right to run from.
Still, the final instruction was sitting there in your head, bright and absurd.
Turn off the TV right in the middle of the movie’s climax.
So, you waited.
The movie dragged itself toward chaos. Rain lashed the windows on screen. Someone found a bloody key. The heroine finally realized the killer was in the house roughly forty minutes after Steve had announced it.
He leaned forward despite himself.
“Okay, now run,” he instructed, his voice antsy now. “No, not upstairs. Why is it always upstairs? There’s nowhere to go upstairs!”
You reached for the remote, and you had to bite back a grin at how ridiculous this all seemed in reality.
He did not seem to notice, he was too entranced by the stupidity of the characters through the screen.
The music rose. The heroine hid behind a door. A shadow moved across the wall.
And you clicked the television off.
The room fell silent so abruptly that the house seemed to inhale.
Steve froze promptly.
His face, lit now only by the lamp, stayed aimed at the blank screen. His mouth was slightly open. One hand hovered above the popcorn bowl.
For three seconds, he did nothing. Then he turned to you, mouth agaped.
“You did not.”
You set the remote on the coffee table and nodded with a premium amount of sympathy. “I did.”
“That was the climax!”
You hummed, “I’m aware.”
Steve’s face was shoved into his hands now, his whine xould practically be heard for miles. “We watched the whole movie to get there.”
“Technically, you yelled at the whole movie to get there.”
“The killer was behind her!”
“I’m sure he’ll wait.”
Steve stared at you with deep, personal betrayal. “You’re sick.”
You tried to look serious and failed when you broke into a smile.
His eyes moved from you to the magazine lying on the coffee table, where you had dropped it earlier without thinking. The cover caught the lamp light. The headline peeked up from beneath the fold.
You watched understanding hit him.
Slowly, then all at once.
“Oh my God,” he said.
You pressed your lips together, which did nothing to hide the small giggles that left you as his voice turned blatantly aggrieved.
“This whole time!”
Yoy played dumb. “What whole time?”
“This whole time was that—that thing.” He pointed at the magazine with such venom in his voice it was even barder to take him seriously now. “You’ve been Cosmo-ing me!”
You shook your head but couldn't stop your amusement. “I have not been Cosmo-ing you.”
Steve started to list his recount of the events. “You stole my sweatshirt.”
You shot back quickly. “You gave it up willingly.”
“You hijacked my car.” His voice became more breathless with each passing second with every realization.
“You handed me the keys!”
This time, his tone of betrayal made you roll your eyes. “You attacked my hair.”
“It was deserved—”
“You had secret plans.”
You grinned at his expression. “They were secret.”
“You made me talk about the nineties!”
You shrugged and picked at the invisible lint of your bottoms. “The article made a few points.”
Steve sat back against the couch, processing betrayal with one hand over his mouth. He was quiet long enough that you wondered if the joke had gone too far. Then his shoulders started shaking.
He laughed.
Not loudly at first, just a helpless, disbelieving sound behind his hand. Then he dropped his hand and looked at you with his hair slightly messy again from the couch, eyes bright, mouth pulling open into the kind of laugh that made him look younger than he let himself be most days.
“You are unbelievable,” he breathed out, almost disbelieving.
Your voice came out just as quiet as it was incredulous. “You’re not mad?”
“I don’t know. I might be. I can’t tell because it’s stupid.”
You tried for your favor. “It was educational.”
“It was psychological warfare with perfume.”
You smiled before you could control it. “You passed some of it.”
“Some?”
The words came instinctively. “You need room to grow.”
He pointed at you with a new sense of knowledge. “That is exactly what a magazine cult leader would say.”
You laughed, then reached for the popcorn bowl before it tipped. The room had changed without the TV. Not into something staged, but something quieter. More aware of itself. You could hear the refrigerator hum in his kitchen, the faint rush of air through the vents, and the distant roll of thunder finally approaching after hours of threats.
Steve’s laughter softened.
He looked at you, and this time there was no audience, no fluorescent light, no Robin waiting to make things worse. Just the couch, the cooling bowl of popcorn, the blank television, the old sweatshirt, and the magazine that had started as a joke and somehow exposed all these small places where comfort and effort touched.
“So,” he tilted his head upwards to the ceiling, “what’s the final diagnosis?”
You picked up the magazine and flipped it closed. The cover girl disappeared under your hand.
“You’re comfortable,” you decided to say at last.
Steve watched you carefully.
You could feel how much hung on the word now, though neither of you had meant for the night to become serious. His hand still rested near your ankle, but his thumb had stopped moving. He was waiting with the particular stillness he got when he was trying not to brace for bad news.
You nudged his thigh gently with your foot.
“But not lazy.”
His shoulders loosened and you wanted to melt into them. “You sure?”
You nodded against the cushion beneath your head. “Yeah.”
He looked down, smiling faintly. And you appreciated the sight on reflex. “Because I said nice?”
There was a faint silence before you took a deep breath and exhaled with a smile yourself. “You recovered from that mishap.”
Steve nodded to himself at your words. “I gave three reasons.”
“You did.”
“Good ones.”
“Mostly good ones.”
He made an offended sound, but it did not land. His hand resumed its slow movement over your sock. “For the record, I’m not trying to stop trying.”
You looked at him, because you weren't sure where else to look at.
He didn't look away, but he did look a little uncomfortable with his own sincerity. His jaw shifted, and his free hand picked at a loose thread on the couch cushion.
“I know sometimes I do the easy thing,” he said before you could jump in to stop him. “The restaurant thing. Or the movie thing. Or I just assume you’re coming over because you usually do, and I like when you do, so I don’t. . . think about how it sounds.” He paused, eyes flicking briefly toward the blank TV. “And future stuff is… I don’t know. Weird.”
You let him find the words without helping too much. You knew it was important to him.
Steve was not always graceful with this. If you rushed him, he might joke his way out. If you stared too hard, he might shut the sentence down and pretend it had never started. So you kept your body relaxed against the couch and waited.
You would wait for him forever if need be, Steve was worth that and more.
He exhaled, “I want things. I just don’t always say them because saying them makes them real, and real things can get messed up.”
The words sat between you.
You looked down at the sweatshirt sleeves over your hands, then back at him. “I don’t need you to be perfect.”
“I know.”
You made a face. “Do you?”
He gave you the small, crooked smile that you loved. “I’m learning.”
There it was again: the same answer from the night before, but quieter now. Less joke, more promise.
Rain finally began against the windows, soft at first, then steadier. It tapped along the glass and filled the room with a low, gentle sound. Steve glanced toward it, then back to you.
“You also don’t have to use a magazine to tell me stuff,” he cleared his throat.
“I know.” And you did, that was something you were entirely sure of when it came to Steve.
“Do you?”
You smiled because you deserved that. “Maybe I’m learning too.”
He nodded, satisfied. “Good. Because if next month’s issue tells you to fake your own disappearance to test my devotion, I’m calling Hopper.”
“He’d be very annoyed, I'm sure.”
“He’d arrest the magazine.”
“You think he has that authority?”
“For you? Probably.”
The seriousness eased. Not vanished, exactly, but folded into the warmth already there. Steve reached over and took the magazine from your lap, holding it up between two fingers.
“This,” Steve declared with a fevered passion, “is going in a drawer.”
Your words came out song-like and taunting. “You’re scared.”
“I prefer the term cautious.”
“You literally fight monsters.”
Steve gave you a pointed look. “Monsters don’t give you numbered relationship advice.”
You grabbed for the magazine, and he lifted it out of reach, which made you lean across him. The popcorn bowl wobbled dangerously. He caught it again with one hand and laughed under his breath.
“Careful.”
“You started it.”
“You started it at approximately five-ten yesterday after noon.”
“You kept failing tests.”
Steve defended himself fiercely. “I didn’t know there were tests!”
“That’s how tests work.”
“No, that’s how traps work.”
You got the magazine back only because he let you, though he pretended otherwise. When you tossed it onto the far end of the coffee table, he looked at you with narrowed, wide eyes.
“You’re done?”
“With the article?”
“Yes.”
You nodded solemnly, but your eyes gave you away to joy. “Done.”
“No more solutions?”
“No more solutions.” you promised.
“Good.”
A beat passed.
Then you looked him dead in the eye, deciding to follow the last stupid line of advice you were given. “I do have a much better way to keep us entertained, though.”
Steve’s eyebrows lifted.
The line was ridiculous. You knew it. It belonged to the glossy page and the bossy article and the version of romance that thought every moment needed a dramatic instruction. But in the quiet living room, with rain beginning properly outside and the movie forgotten, it made Steve’s mouth curve.
“Oh, yeah?” he hummed with a tilt of of head.
“Maybe.”
His hand slid from your ankle to your calf, still slow, still asking. “Does this better way involve stealing any more of my clothes?”
“You’re not wearing a sweatshirt anymore.”
“Thank God for that,” his words came out dry and low, sending goosebumps against where his fingers touched.
“Could steal your shirt though.”
His laugh came out all startled. “Okay, trouble.”
You grinned, but when he leaned closer, he didn't rush. That was one of the things you trusted about him. For all his teasing, for all the old reputation that still followed him around town in pieces, Steve had become careful with closeness. His hand came to your jaw, thumb resting near the corner of your mouth. His eyes searched your face with enough patience to make your chest ache.
“You sure the movie can stay off?” he asked against you.
Your brow quirked up. “You were yelling at it.”
“I was invested!”
“You’ll survive.”
“Barely,” he murmured and before you could argue, Steve kissed you.
The first kiss was smiling and badly aimed because you laughed right before it landed. His nose bumped yours. Your hand went into his hair by instinct, and he made a muffled sound of protest against your mouth.
“Hair,” he murmured with his lips putting against yours, the reaction only spurring you on more.
“National treasure,” you whispered back.
“Exactly.”
You kissed him again, better this time.
The rain thickened against the windows. The lamp beside the couch hummed softly. Steve’s hand moved to your waist, fingers pressing into the thick fabric of his sweatshirt, and you shifted closer until your knees fit awkwardly against his thigh and the popcorn bowl had to be relocated to the coffee table for everyone’s comfort.
It was certainly not graceful. Your elbow hit the cushion, and he laughed into your mouth. You told him to stop laughing, which made him laugh more. He called you bossy. You called him dramatic. He tried to defend himself and lost the thread of the argument when you kissed the corner of his mouth.
This, too, felt comfortable.
But it was not dull.
It was the kind of comfort that knew where to put its hands and still paid attention. The kind that could laugh without breaking the mood. The kind that did not need to perform mystery to feel wanted, but could still play at it for fun. Steve touched you with familiarity, yes, but not carelessness. You could feel the difference in every pause, every small adjustment, and every time he pulled back just enough to look at you before leaning in again.
Your fingers fisted in the cotton of his shirt as the second kiss deepened, slower at first, then messier. Steve’s mouth opened wider under yours, his tongue slid hot and slick against your own, with spit gathering at the corners of your lips. Every breath you took was shared; the air between you grew thick and humid. He tasted of some sort of your faint chapstick taste, and tilted your head so your nose brushed and your teeth clicked again.
One of his hands then slide up your back, his palm broad and warm, until it cuped the nape of your neck and held you exactly where he wanted you. The other hand stayed low, fingers splayed across the curve of your lower back, squeezing once, then again, guiding the subtle roll of your hips that neither of you planned.
“Thought you weren't a fan of this,” you murmured against his lips when given the chance to break free for a moment. The moment didn't last long because his hand on your head pulled you in once again, a pout on his lips at your escape.
“Correction, I'm not a fan of the magazine,” you huffed a laugh at the intensity of his correction, and he used the opening to pull you in for another kiss. Though, this one was softer in a way that had your breath hitching on contact. “I'd like the record to show—I'm pretty encouraging of this.
Against his lips, you scoffed because he didn't let you break apart again. You could feel his smile against yours as you shoved at him for his distinction as his hands fell to your hips once more.
Pressing closer to him, you felt him hardening beneath you, thick and insistent through the soft cotton of his sweats. The friction was barely there; just the slow, unconscious grind of you against the ridge of him, but it’s enough to make your breath hitch every time the head of him caught against you through your bottoms more insistantly now. You rock forward again, slower this time, as if trying to test something.
Apparently, it's successful since Steve groans into your mouth, and the sound vibrates against your tongue, and his hips lift in a tiny, helpless thrust that drags another wet slide of fabric on fabric.
“Okay, so that's really not fair.” He breaks the kiss with a wet sound, lips parting from yours by inches. A thin strand of spit stretches, then snaps. His warm eyes are now turned glassy, his pupils blown wide, and his mouth red and shiny. “You know, you're the one that was excited for this movie for like—I don't know, a week?” he managed finally through pants, with his voice hoarse, and chest heaving under your palm.
“Ever think I was just trying to seduce you?” The ridiculous words did little to wipe away your smile, or his, for that matter.
Steve quirked his eyebrow up at you, “with begging and whining?”
The look you shot at him must've been a good one, because he grinned down at you and pulled you in closer. “I'm kidding.”
“Mhm.” You weren't convinced, but it did little to deter him. Steve pressed his lips against the column of your neck in a makeshift trying apology.
Instead of replying, your mouth found his again; slower this time, deeper, and your mouth curling together in a hazy slide. Steve’s hand at your neck tightened on reflex and the action had you pulled in closer, his thumb stroking the soft skin behind your ear. The other hand sliped lower now, taking up residence on your upper thigh. His fingers dug in just enough to guide another slow, deliberate grind of your hips.
The ridge of his length dragged alongside you through two layers of cotton. The pressure was entirely maddening, it wasn't enough and too much at once. You felt yourself getting tenser, the crotch of your leggings clinging and every tiny movement he took made the fabric pull and drag.
Steve’s breathing grew more ragged against you. He sucked your bottom lip between his teeth then nibbled, then soothing with his tongue after you made a winced noise before diving back in for another open-mouthed kiss that left the both of you gasping.
His hand that was placed below your ear roamed now. Up your side and over your ribs, with the heel of his palm brushing the underside of your breast through your top. He doesn’t cup or squeeze like you'd prefer, he just let the weight of his hand rest there, thumb stroking slow circles that makes your body push up towards the friction.
His hips lift again, meeting your slow grind with a shallow thrust that presses him harder against you, leaving you to curse against his lips. The friction sparked through you, sharp and sweet, and you moan into his mouth, though the sound swallowed by another kiss.
“You're such a weirdo.” The exhale that the words left you from was more breathless than you'd intended. His hand on your breast finally moved when you spoke, a rough palm covering the soft swell, thumb flicking once over a stiff peak more incessantly this time. The touch is still half-hidden under your shirt and still restrained, but the heat of it burns through the fabric all the same.
Steve would've sputtered at your words if he didn't know you better. And fortunately for him, he did. “Just say you missed me, honey. It'll make it easier for the both of us.”
“Can't say it if I don't mean it.” Your response had him strained against your throat, and the vibrations of his laughter sent shivers up your spine. You arch into his grip, pressing down against him harder with every slow roll of your hips. Steve’s abdomen flexed beneath you, the spasms eased through shaky exhales, and the tiny, helpless thrust of his hips tells you he’s just as affected.
“Come on, just say it.” His words were pressed into you now. You could hear the room becoming actively smaller between the two of you. Steve’s fingertips slid underneath the rising hem of your top, gripping at your sides directly now, leaving you to feel the warmth of his skin more clearly.
You could feel your head distantly shaking side to side, more so with just the need to push at him further than any real argument against his statement. His groan was propelled into your skin at that, his head tilting into you as if it was bodily necessity.
Steve’s laugh rumbled low in his chest, the sound vibrating straight into you again. “You’re so damn stubborn,” he muttered, and his lips dragged higher over your pulse. His fingers slipped higher beneath your top until the fabric bunched under your arms, baring your stomach and the lower curve of your breasts. He didn’t bother pulling your top or bra off, he just shoved it up and out of the way so his palm could close over one bare breast, hus thumb circling the stiff nipple before he pinched it between his fingers.
You gasped instantly, hips jerking forward on instinct. The bulge of his cock dragged harder against you, the head catching right where you needed it. Steve groaned at the sudden pressure alongside you, his free hand sliding down to grip your ass and pull you inhumanly closer.
“Fuck, you’re already so wet,” he breathed, his voice turning rough. “I can feel it even through your clothes.” His hips rolled up to meet your grind in another slow and deliberate movement, letting you feel every inch of him. The cotton of his sweats was damp where you’d been rubbing against him, clinging to the shape of him.
You rocked harder, chasing the friction he slowly gave you. Steve’s thumb flicked over your nipple again, then he ducked his head and sucked it into his mouth through the bunched fabric of your top, his teeth scraping lightly before his tongue soothed the sting. The wet heat of his mouth made your back arch, pushing your breast deeper against his lips.
“Steve,” His name came out shaky. Your fingers threaded into his hair by the pure need to hold onto something, then holding him there as he sucked harder, the pull sending sparks straight between your legs. He switched to the other nipple, giving it the same treatment while his hand worked the first, rolling and tugging until both peaks were tight and aching.
His other hand stayed on your ass then the flesh of your thigh, his fingers digging into your skin as he guided your hips in a slower, filthier grind. Each roll dragged your swollen clit against the head of his cock through the layers of fabric, the pressure building until your thighs started to shake. Steve’s breathing grew ragged against your chest, hot puffs of air cooling the wet and reddening spots he’d left on your top.
“Still not gonna say it?” he asked, though his voice was muffled against your breast. He looked up at you through his long lashes, eyes dark and glassy, and his lips were pink as they coated themselves in saliva everytime his tongue poked out to wet them. His hips lifted again, thrusting up to meet your familiar movements, the motion making his cock catch and drag right over your clit in a way that had you moaning.
"I'm good, thanks." You shook your head, but the motion was weak and entirely distracted by the way his hand was sliding lower, how his fingers were slipping between your thighs to your front. He pressed two fingers against the soaked fabric covering you, rubbing slow circles that made your hips stutter.
“God, you’re dripping,” he breathed out, almost wonderingly. His fingers pressed harder, pushing the fabric against your entrance, the pressure just shy of pushing inside. You shot him a glare at his teasing. “I can feel how hot you are. How bad you want it.”
You rocked back against his hand, chasing more. He wouldn't fully give it to you, though. Steve’s mouth found yours again, the kiss messy and filled with wanting, it had your tongues sliding together in tandem as his fingers kept working between your legs. The heel of his palm ground against your clit while his fingers continued to tease your entrance through the thin fabric, the material growing wetter with every pass.
His cock twitched beneath you, thick and insistent, and you had to bite back the noises that wanted to leave you. Steve’s free hand slid up your back, having his fingers splaying wide between your shoulder blades as he held you close, chest to chest, with the heat of his skin burning through both your shirts.
“Say it,” he pleaded against your lips, the words barely audible over the wet sounds of your mouths moving together. His fingers pressed harder, the tips just barely pushing the fabric inside you, the stretch barely there but enough to make you clench around nothing but the want of him. “Just say you missed me and I’ll give you what you want.”
Steve’s fingers kept working between your legs. His mouth stayed on yours, swallowing every shaky breath you let out while his other hand stayed busy under your top, thumb and forefinger rolling your nipple in slow, deliberate tugs whenever his hand moved.
“Still so stubborn,” he chuckled against your lips, voice low and warm with the click of his tongue. “You’re twitching in my lap and you still won’t say it?”
“Stop being smug,” was the only response you could get out. You rocked down harder then, chasing that pressure, and Steve groaned into your mouth. You had to bite back your smile against his lips at the reaction. His hand slipped out from between your legs only to grip the waistband of your bottoms, his fingers hooking under the elastic at your hips. He tugged once, slow, testing, then looked up at you with that half-smile that always made your stomach flip.
“Lift up for me?” he murmured the leading question softly. You braced your hands on his shoulders and raised your hips just enough for him to peel the pants down your thighs, dragging your panties halfway with them. The cool air hit your skin and you shivered on contact, but Steve’s hands were already back in their place, and his warm palms slid up the backs of your thighs until his thumbs hooked into the waistband of your panties too.
He paused there, looking up at you with his painfully mesmerizing big and soft eyes. “Still not gonna say it?” His voice stayed gentle, almost coaxing. He only grinned wide when you glared back up at him.
“That’s alright. I’ll get it out of you eventually.” He pulled your panties down the rest of the way, leaving them tangled around one ankle as he settled you back down on his lap. The cotton of his sweats was entirely damp where you’d been grinding, and now there was nothing between you and that thick, prominent feeling of him except the thin fabric of his bottoms.
Steve’s hands settled on your hips again, guiding you into another slow roll. This time the friction was hotter, wetter, the head of his cock dragging right through your folds and catching on your clit with every pass. You gasped, fingers tightening on his shoulders, and he made a low approving sound in his throat.
“There you go,” he cooed, his voice soft and a little condescending, like he was praising a pet that finally learned the trick. You didn't have it in you to bite back at the moment. “That’s better, isn’t it? All that attitude and you’re still soaking my sweats.” His hands squeezed your hips, encouraging another grind. “Look at you, dripping all over me and still pretending you didn’t miss me.”
“Shut up, Steve.” The words weren't fruitful or honest. You rocked harder quickly after that, chasing the feeling even though your legs shook at the movement, and Steve’s breath hitched. That noise made the slight sting all the more worth it. One hand slid between your bodies again, fingers spreading your folds so the head of his cock could press more directly against your clit. The pressure was perfect, just enough to make your hips stutter and he held you there, letting you grind against his fingers and the thick length trapped in his pants.
“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he repeated again in that same breathless way. “I can feel how swollen you are. How bad you need it.” His thumb found your clit and rubbed slow circles while his fingers teased your entrance, not pushing inside yet, just pressing and circling until your thighs started to shake. The taunting had your head bowed low and a whiny plea in your throat. “You're killing me here.”
He shifted you higher on his lap, one hand sliding down to grip the back of your thigh and lay you on your back as he spread you open. Then he leaned in, his mouth finding the soft skin just above your hip, kissing and nipping his way lower until his breath ghosted over your bare skin. His eyes flicked up to meet yours, dark and warm, and that same soft, iritatingly condescending tone crept back into his voice that made your stomach flex.
“Poor thing,” he murmured, having his lips brushing your inner thigh now in soft kisses. “So worked up and still being so mean to me.” His tongue dragged a slow stripe up your slit, tasting you, and he hummed like he’d just found something sweet. “Sweetheart, you taste so fucking good when you’re not being mean.”
“I wasn't—fuck, I wasn't mean.” Your words fell on deaf ears when his hands held your thighs apart as he licked again, slower this time, with his tongue flat and broad as he dragged it from your entrance up to your clit. He circled the swollen bud once, twice, then sucked it gently between his lips, the wet heat of his mouth making your back arch against where you were laid out. One hand stayed on your thigh, thumb stroking soothing circles, while the other slid up to press two fingers against your entrance, rubbing but not pushing even though your hips lifted up to meet them.
“Say it,” he whispered against your clit, the words vibrating through you. “Just say you missed me and I’ll give you my fingers. I’ll give you my tongue. I’ll give you whatever you could want.” His tongue flicked over your clit again, faster now, while his fingers pressed harder, the tips just barely stretching you. His words seemed to leave you as if they were a carousel, only reaching you when your head stopped spinning. “Or you can keep being stubborn. Either way, I’m not stopping until you’re shaking and begging.”
“Fuck. Please, Steve—don't, don’t tease.” Your words came desperate in their pleas as you rocked against his mouth, chasing more. Steve groaned into you at that, the sound muffled but hungry. His fingers finally pushed inside then, slow and deliberate, curling just right as his tongue kept working your clit. The wet sounds of his mouth and your slick filled the space between you, mixing with the low, coaxing praise he kept murmuring against your skin.
“That’s it,” he cooed, voice soft and warm even as his fingers thrust deeper. Your forearm came up to your face now, sprawled across your face to muffle your sounds. “Good girl. Just like that. Keep grinding on my tongue. I’ve got you.” His free hand slid up your body again, finding your breast and rolling your nipple between his fingers while his mouth stayed busy between your legs. The action had you gasping out his name and biting the sleeve of the jacket underneath you. “You’re so fucking pretty like this, honey. All spread out and dripping for me.”
Your hips rolled in tiny, shaky circles over Steve’s mouth, thighs trembling around his head as his tongue kept flicking quick and firm over your clit. Every pass made your stomach clench and your breath hitch, and the fingers he’d finally pushed inside you curled just right, dragging over that spot that made your walls flutter around him.
“F-fuck—Steve—oh god,” you gasped, voice cracking. Your hands clutched at his shoulders, nails digging in as your whole body twitched. “Please—please, fuck, I missed you, won’t ignore you again, I missed—ah!”
He hummed against you, clearly pleased, the vibration shooting straight through your clit, and you felt him smile against you. His fingers thrust deeper now, more slow and steady, while his tongue circled and sucked, never letting up. Your hips jerked on pure reflex now, chasing every bit of pressure, and you could feel how soaked you were, seeing through half-lidded eyes the slick dripping down his fingers, and coating his chin, making every wet sound louder.
“That’s it,” he murmured with his voice low and warm against you. “Good girl. Say it again, tell me how much you missed me again?”
“I missed you,” you sighed, and the words tumbled out broken and breathless. “Missed your mouth, missed your stupid attitude, missed—fuck, Steve, please don’t stop—”
He didn’t. His tongue pressed flat and hard, licking languidly from your entrance up to clit, then sucking the swollen bud between his lips again after forcing your hips flat with his other hand wrapped against your waist. His fingers kept working inside you, curling and thrusting, and stretching you open while his thumb rubbed tight circles. Your thighs shook harder, your breath coming in short, desperate pants.
“Close,” you whimpered with a voice thin and shaky, you were borderline wordless now. “Steve, fuck—I’m gonna—please, I’m so close—”
He pulled back just enough to speak, lips brushing your slick folds. “Not yet,” he breathed heavy and his voice rasped. “You’re not coming until I say so. You can hold it for me, can’t you?”
You whined with your hips stuttering, trying to chase his mouth again, but he held you steady with a hand on your thigh. His fingers slowed inside you, just barely moving now, forcefully keeping you right on the edge without letting you tip over. Your walls clenched around him, desperate, and you felt yourself dripping even more, the wet sounds filthy and loud in the quiet room.
“Steve, please—fuck, I need it, I need to come, please let me just—” He licked you again, his movements slow and deliberate, and his tongue continuously dragging over your clit until your whole body jerked.
“Not yet,” he repeated with a gentle voice but still firmly, his grasp on you turning slightly tighter in a soft warning. “You’re so pretty like this. You can wait a little longer, yeah?”
Your head fell forward, forehead pressing against his as your breath came in shaky gasps. Every nerve in your body felt on the frustrating edge without being allowed to be tipped over completely. Your head lifted weakly as your proped yourself on your elbows to look at him. “Please—come on, please? I’ll do anything. Fuck, Steve, I’m so close right now—”
He kissed your inner thigh in what felt like an apology, then your clit, soft and teasing. The action had your breath shake and your groan turn entirely frustrated. “I know, baby. I know. Just a little more.” His fingers curled inside you, pressing right against that spot, and you felt your orgasm building again, hotter and tighter, but he pulled back just before you could tip over once more.
Your words came out a mixed sobbed with your thighs shaking, and hips twitching against nothing anymore. “Fuck—fuck, Steve, don't do that! Come on—”
He shifted you down his body, hands guiding your hips until your legs were straddling his lap again and you're no longer lying down. His cock was rock hard under his sweats, the fabric soaked where you’d been grinding. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband and shoved them down just enough to free himself, the thick length springing up between you, all flushed and leaking.
“Ride me,” he murmured this time and his voice low and coaxing. “Take what you need. You’ve earned it, honey.”
You didn’t hesitate, the restlessness in your body didn't let you. You reached down and wrapped your hand around his cock, not before and lined him up, the head pressing against your entrance. You sank down slow, feeling every inch stretch you open, your walls fluttering and clenching around him as he filled you. The stretch was perfect, deep and thick, and you moaned loud and broken as you bottomed out, hips flush against his.
Steve groaned alongside you with his head tipping back, and hands gripping your hips harder now. “Fuck—there you go. So fucking tight. So wet for me.”
You started to move, slow at first, rolling your hips in languid circles, feeling him drag against every sensitive spot inside you. Your hands braced on his chest, nails digging in as you rode him, each roll of your hips sending sparks through your whole body. Steve's broken gasps sounds filled the room, mixing with your broken moans and his low, practically mindless praise.
“That’s it,” he breathed, and you could clearly hear how his voice shook. His head tipped back with every movement. “Good girl. Fuck, you feel so good. Missed this so much. Missed how you squeeze me, how you drip all over me.”
You couldn’t form words anymore. Your head lolled forward, forehead pressed to his, breath coming in short, desperate pants. Your hips moved on their own with his strained help, chasing every bit of friction he gave while inside you. The pleasure built fast, hot and tight, and you felt yourself tipping over the edge again, walls clenching hard around him.
Your hand came up to smack agakn his bicep helplessly. “Steve, fuck—”
He thrust up to meet you messily now, rough palms guiding your hips with his voice low and urgent. “Close? Let me feel it, yeah?”
You shattered with a broken cry, your whole body shaking as your orgasm continued to build and crashed through you. Your walls pulsed around him, and you kept moving through it, riding out every wave with shaky and unstable footing. Steve groaned loud against his mindless bubbles against your shoulder, his hips jerking up in a stutter and you felt him throb inside you as he came down with you.
You stayed there for what seemed like a lifetime, bodies pressed limblessly together, breathing hard, and your hips still twitching with the remaining aftershocks. Steve’s hands stroked your back, then your hips, soothing and warm, while you melted against him, forehead pressed to his shoulder, breath coming in shaky wordless sounds.
“Fuck,” he whispered, and he almost sounded reverent. Steve's knuckles went to drag against the line of your spine, the touch barely registering with how light it was. “You’re so fucking perfect.”
You just hummed, too far gone to speak with your body still twitching and clenching around him as the pleasure slowly ebbed, leaving you warm and languid and utterly spent.
Steve’s hair was a mess now. Yours couldn't have been much better now either. The collar of your shirt had slipped off one shoulder, and he kept tugging it back up absently, not because he was concerned about modesty so much as because taking care of you in small ways was one of his habits. Your breath was still easing down when you felt the pressure of a kiss just below your eye, then one followed up to your temple.
You were ready to let all the leftover tension in your body release when he spoke.
“Tomorrow,” Steve started quietly, and he took the moment for him to hook his chin over your head, pulling you into him even more.“I’m picking the date.”
You opened one eye to scan him when your vision returned to you. “Are you?”
“Mhm.”
“What are we doing?”
Steve used your words against you with a clear hum of delight. “Secret plans.”
You smiled against his chest, your own knuckles across him, mirroring his own actions on you. “With who?”
He pinched your side gently through the shirt that covered you once more, the action pulled a squirm from you. “Funny.”
“You walked into that!”
“I did and I regret it.”
The rain tapped steadily and the the microwave clock glowed green. Steve’s arm rested around your shoulders, heavy and warm.
“I’ll pick something,” he said. “A real thing. Not just pizza because it’s Friday.”
“I like pizza because it’s Friday.”
“I know. But I’ll pick.”
You lifted your head enough to look at him. He was staring at the blank television, but not really seeing it. His face had gone thoughtful in the dim light, mouth relaxed, and his eyes were tired but not drained.
“And,” Steve added, “I’ll ask first. If you want to come.”
Your throat tightened unexpectedly.
You kept your voice light because otherwise the moment might become too delicate to touch. “That sounds very advanced.”
“I’m an advanced boyfriend.” You weren't entirely convinced.
“You’re a boyfriend with homework.”
“I did great on the first quiz!”
“You got a B-minus.”
His head snapped toward you. “B-minus?”
You conceded. “Maybe B.”
“I gave three reasons and let you drive my car?”
“B-plus.”
“And discussed the nineties.”
You considered that, “A-minus.”
He relaxed back into the couch. “Thank you.”
“Don’t get too comfortable just yet.”
Steve looked down at you with his mouth tilting. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
You settled against him again, listening to the rain and the steady beat of his heart. The house around you felt less empty than it had when you arrived. The couch pillows were crushed. The popcorn bowl sat abandoned on the table. The magazine lay face down near the remote, defeated for now. Steve’s shoes were kicked halfway beneath the coffee table, and your mall bag had tipped over near the armchair, one receipt peeking out.
It was ordinary evidence, proof of a night spent badly and well.
After a while, Steve kissed the top of your head. He probably thought you were too sleepy to call him on it when he murmured, “You looked really pretty today.”
You smiled without opening your eyes quickly. “Three reasons?”
His sigh moved beneath your cheek when he pressed another kiss there. “I created a monster.”
You could only shrug. “You encouraged her.”
“I did.” His hand moved once over your shoulder. Steve’s fingers gently rubbed small circles into your shoulder blades, and you could only lean onto his touch. “Okay. The jeans. The ribbons. Your hair. The way you stole my clothes again and acted like I was lucky to witness it.”
“That’s four.” Your voice came pleased against him.
“I’m overachieving then. ”
“Good.”
“And,” Steve said quieter, “the way you came back.”
You opened your eyes and he was looking at the ceiling now, not at you, because that last one had slipped out seemed more vulnerable than he intended. His throat moved. His fingers kept tracing a small, absent path over your sleeve.
You didn't tease him for it this time, something told you that'd be too cruel; Instead, you reached for his hand and threaded your fingers through his as if it was always meant there
“I'm always going to come back,” you decided to settle for saying, your voice soft.
Steve looked down at you then.
For a second, the room held still and quiet around you: rain at the windows, lamp light on his tired face, qnd your hand in his. He didn't say anything grand, really. He didn't need to. Steve just squeezed your fingers once and rested his cheek against your hair.
“Good,” Steve murmured against the crown of your hair.
I heard somewhere that with the titans going extinct after the rumbling, the ackerman power went away with them and it affected Mikasa making her pretty clumsy after the rumbling. Makes me wonder if it affected Levi as well.
So can you make a post war comfort fic with Levi feeling a bit less of himself because now that not only is he basically a crippled with less fingers and scarring, but he also lost his so called power making his once fast reflexes noticeable not as quick anymore, clumsy, he gets tired easily, he's not as strong anymore and has very less stamina than he has before. Making him feel like a broken shell of a man he once was but reader is there to comfort him hugging, cuddling, kissing, loving, shutting him up whenever he tries to say something bad about himself and reassuring him that even if he not as strong as before anymore she'll still love him no matter what. No matter how weak or strong or how he looks she will still and always love him.
Hi, Jelly💜! Hope this request isn't too much for you and you can twick a few things in the request if you want and feel free to ignore if you want I will understand and no hard feelings💓 and much love❤️
The Weight of Being Human
Levi x fem reader
937
Canon world - post war - injuries - couple life - reassurance - supportive reader
Levi has a bad day which fuels his self-doubt and self-loathing. He gets hurt and it's the last straw. So, you reassure your man.
The quiet cottage countryside after the Rumbling was supposed to bring peace, but for Levi, learning to live in a normal, un-augmented human body was a daily, frustrating struggle. Without the titan-born Ackerman instinct bolstering his strength, his reflexes were slower, his stamina was a fraction of what it used to be, and his missing fingers made the simplest tasks feel like climbing a mountain.
It was a bad day from the moment he woke up.
The morning began in the kitchen. Levi had reached for his favourite teacup, but his scarred, compromised grip faltered.
Crack.
The porcelain shattered against the wooden floorboards, dark tea spilling across the wood. Levi froze, staring down at the mess with dark, hollow eyes.
"Useless," Levi muttered under his breath, his voice laced with bitter self-loathing. "Can't even hold a damn cup without my hands—"
"Shh," you interrupted softly, stepping into the kitchen before he could spiral. You placed two fingers gently over his lips, hushing him instantly. "Not another word."
You grabbed a damp rag, kneeling to sweep up the porcelain pieces and wipe away the tea. "It's just a cup, Levi. Everyone drops things in the morning."
Levi gritted his teeth, looking away, but let out a soft huff as you kissed his cheek before standing back up.
Later that afternoon, the frustrations continued. Levi attempted to move a heavy wooden crate of supplies in the shed. Automatically, he reached out with one hand to lift it like he used to, expecting his old strength to carry the weight. His muscles strained, his breath hitched, and the crate barely budged. A flash of irritation crossed his face before he grudgingly brought his second hand over, using his body to pull it across the floor.
The tipping point came an hour later in the garden.
He was trying to repair a rusty pair of gardening shears, attempting to pry open the jammed metal hinge. He gripped the lever, forcing his weakened hand to push through the resistance.
Snap—slip.
The metal slipped out of his grasp, jagged edge slicing right across the palm of his good hand. Levi let out a low, sharp curse, dropping the tool onto the grass as blood welled up from the cut.
"Levi!" you called out, hurrying over from the porch with a fresh basin of warm water and clean bandages.
You guided him over to the porch steps, sitting him down and taking his bleeding hand into yours. As you gently washed away the blood and applied antiseptic, Levi stared down at his bandaged palm, his shoulders slumping under a heavy, suffocating weight.
"Look at me," Levi rasped, his voice trembling slightly with a rare, painful vulnerability. "I'm a broken shell of a man. I can't lift a crate with one hand. I get exhausted just walking up the hill. I'm slow, I'm clumsy, and I can't even fix a pair of fucking shears without cutting myself." He swallowed hard, his eye glossy with unshed tears. "I'm not the man I was. I'm weak."
You set the bandages down, wrapped your arms securely around his neck, and pulled his head straight into your chest, cuddling him close.
Levi immediately buried his face into the crook of your neck, his fingers tangling weakly into the back of your shirt as he let out a long, shuddering breath.
"Listen to me, Levi Ackerman," you whispered softly into his hair, kissing the crown of his head, his temple, and then his cheek. "You are not weak. You carried the weight of the entire world on your shoulders for years, and now your body is finally allowed to rest."
You pulled back just enough to frame his face with your hands, forcing him to look into your eyes.
"I don't love you because you were humanity's strongest soldier," you said firmly, kissing his lips tenderly. "I love you. I love the man sitting right here in front of me. I will love you whether you're strong or tired, fast or slow, whole or scarred. No matter how you look or what you can do, you will always be my absolute favourite person in the world."
Levi blinked, his chest heaving as your sweet words washed over his wounded pride, melting the ice around his heart.
A soft, affectionate smile tugged at your lips as you leaned in, murmuring playfully against his ear. "And besides... you say your stamina is low, but your stamina in our bedroom is still pretty damn incredible, if you ask me. You're still my big, strong man where it counts."
A deep, dusty crimson flush instantly bloomed across Levi’s cheeks, his eyes widening slightly before he let out a quiet, breathless laugh against your neck.
"You're ridiculous," Levi muttered, though the tension completely drained from his shoulders.
"I'm serious!" you giggled, peppering sweet, affectionate kisses all over his face. "And as for being clumsy? Levi, you've always been a little clumsy in romantic situations anyway. It's nothing new, and it's always been adorable."
Levi huffed, but he couldn't hide the soft smile breaking across his lips. He wrapped his arms tightly around your waist, pulling you into his lap as you both sat on the sunny porch. He pressed his face deep into your chest, listening to the steady, comforting beat of your heart.
"Thank you, sweetheart," Levi whispered softly, his voice thick with love. "Thank you for holding onto me."
You wrapped your arms around his head, holding him close under the warm afternoon sun, reassuring him over and over that he was right where he belonged.
Content: Levi x Reader, modern AU, insecure reader, fluff
Word count: ~370
"Why do you do that?" Levi asks you that day.
"Do what?"
"Say sorry all the time."
You blink, teeth catching at your lower lip as you stare at your boyfriend.
The two of you are sitting side by side under an old oak, its emerald leaves rustling overhead. A handful of sparrows hop through the sunlit grass just beyond your feet, pecking at invisible things.
Why do you say sorry all the time?
"I, uh…"
Levi reaches over, removing a ladybug crawling up your shirt. The touch lingers just enough to make you go still. You look at him—really look—at the quiet way he waits for you to find your words, gray deep-set eyes never leaving you.
"Sorry, is it… annoying?" The apology slips out before you can bite it back. You grimace, heat rising to your neck. "I... I can stop."
Levi just looks at you for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
Then he pinches your cheek gently, calloused thumb smoothing over the spot after. "No."
"But—"
"Quit it." Levi's voice is firm but not unkind. "Stop overthinking every little gesture."
Your throat tightens. You can feel the bark of the tree through your shirt; it helps to distract from the discomfort rising in your body.
"Then… how do I know? How do I know I'm not just—" You swallow hard. "…annoying you by existing here?"
"We're in a relationship, dummy."
"So?"
Levi's gaze shifts to the grass, softening at the edges like worn denim. "Don't apologize. If you're unsure, ask."
"Okay…"
"Go on. Try it."
"What?"
"Ask me a question."
"You want me to practice and ask you a question? Isn't that… I don't know, weird?"
"Who gives a damn?"
Right. Ever direct, your boyfriend.
You manage a small smile at that, feeling the shaky release of something in your chest you didn't realize you were holding onto. "Levi… could, I, um…"
Levi arches a brow, waiting. A sparrow nearby screeches, but you ignore it.
"… Can I kiss you?" you mumble quickly.
A soft scoff escapes him. "Tch. Shot myself in the foot with that one, didn't I?"
But Levi's mouth is already on yours before you can answer—warm and self-assured in the way you need him most.
⎯Even after Ace's death, you keep seeing his face everywhere you go.
𝖶𝖺𝗋𝗇𝗂𝗇𝗀𝗌 : Distress following Ace's death; the reader and Ace had an established relationship; mentions to alcohol; a lot of angst; brief fluff moments; a small degree of acceptance on the reader's part; no use of S/N.
𝖭𝗈𝗍𝖾 : This is my first time writing in so many years, so my writing isn't that great for now. English isn't my first language! Let me know if you spot any mistakes. This text was inspired by the songs: "I Thought I Saw Your Face Today" by She & Him, and "Peito Vazio" by Cartola.
⠀⠀𝗐𝖼 : 2k
I thought I saw your face today, but I ended up looking away. It might be silly, but even after all these years, I still keep your clothes in my closet like they're my most precious treasures. I try to push the thoughts away, but the memories hit with such force that my heart does a thousand somersaults. I just… give up trying to forget you.
⎯
"Ace! Are you okay?!" — I remember shouting so loud that the birds around us flew off.
"I think I swallowed a twig." — You said, still on the ground after dozing off in the middle of our conversation and rolling down the hill, straight into the bushes.
The scene was so ridiculous that my worry faded fast, and I started laughing until my stomach hurt. Ace seemed made of iron — nothing ever hurt him — so whenever something like that happened, I'd burst out laughing. That carefree smile and those tender eyes watching me while he listened to my laughter were hands-down my favorite part of our days.
Of course I worried! What kind of girlfriend would I be if I just laughed in his face every time he got himself into some kind of trouble? But when it happened… it was pretty funny, I'll admit.
⎯
As I walk beneath the shade of the swaying trees, those silly, funny moments come flooding back, and little laughs slip out of me as I go. We used to walk through here all the time, always heading toward a small hill that was our refuge.
I don't remember exactly when I started hating this place, but my legs beg me to turn back, and my chest tightens. Still, even with my stomach in knots, I take small steps toward the spot where your grave lies, beside your captain's, hoping I'll be able to talk to you. The villagers, along with a few pirates who were friends of Whitebeard's crew, make a point of leaving offerings every month. Like the coward I am, I only manage to come here every three months (or longer…).
The last time I saw you, we were watching the ocean, sitting atop this same hill. Our little refuge. You held me in that way that made me melt and feel safe, as if that moment were eternal and would never end. Back then, I thought this place was a gift from heaven — now I just see it as a monument.
Those peaceful moments were always interrupted whenever you pinched my cheeks or did everything you could to annoy me and make me blush.
⎯
"Oh, come on! You're so cute! Why are you getting mad? It's only natural for a boyfriend to show his love for his girlfriend!" — He'd try to defend himself after waking me up by pinching my cheeks and covering my face in kisses. Ace always got a kick out of my frustrated reactions.
"Under any other circumstances, I'd gladly accept that. But I was sleeping! And you're not the least bit gentle! I thought I was going to suffocate when you threw yourself on top of me and started kissing my face!" — I'd say, laughing and pushing him off gently, since he was still on top of me.
"You won't accept my love?" — He'd press even closer, hugging me so tight I could barely breathe.
"I'll accept your love once you stop trying to suffocate me to death!" — I laughed while he planted tender kisses on my neck, still holding me tight and chuckling softly.
⎯
Sitting here in front of your grave, those little moments we had keep flooding back. Maybe that's why I don't come around this area much… everything I look at reminds me of you. But I can't help the small smile that forms on my face.
"I brought your favorite flowers, babe. And sake!" — I say softly, setting the offerings down in front of me with trembling hands. "I forgot to eat this morning, but I promise I'll try to when I get home." — I laugh quietly, a little embarrassed.
"How are things over there? Having fun?" — I ask quietly, just trying to make conversation.
I used to worry that our little adventures were boring, that they'd be forgotten quickly. It's not like we were fighting some Sea King or visiting grand islands the way you did with your crew. But honestly? It was those ridiculous moments that shone the brightest and brought us closest, and they're the ones that bloom like wild flowers in my head. Laughter that slipped out before we noticed, spontaneous fits of giggling, hugs and kisses wherever we happened to be, stealing food off each other's plates, running along the beach like two kids, conversations that stretched late into the night, the fights and arguments that always turned into happy, safe moments… By your side, I lived the dream of an unchanging love.
⎯
"Do you think I'm boring?" — I remember asking without thinking, vulnerable and insecure, after Ace brought me gifts from islands I could never visit.
"Where'd you get that from? Why would you think that? Of course you're not boring!" — Ace's eyebrows knit together and he leaned in, squeezing my cheeks and looking at me seriously.
"It's just… it feels like we're from such different worlds. You live legendary adventures. And I… I just stay here helping my mother and my aunt in this tiny village. I'm scared that… one day you'll get bored… that you'll leave and abandon me here." — I said quietly, trying to avoid his serious gaze.
Ace looked at me so intensely… as if it made no sense for me to think that way. So serious, almost offended by the thought. He just pulled me into a tight hug and said, "I love you," so quietly I could barely hear it.
⎯
"Did you know Aunt Shoko had a daughter? Yeah, so now I have a niece." — I say as I lay Ace's flowers on top of his grave. "It might be silly, but the first time I held the baby, I felt this overwhelming happiness. I found myself imagining what our own child would have been like. What do you think they'd have looked like? Probably as cute as the two of us." — I try to smile again, but it comes out forced. The weight of those words echoed in my head, and my body tensed up.
"You'd hate to see me like this… I know. I can't help it." — I murmur, embarrassed, shifting in my seat, talking to your grave as if you were sitting right in front of me. I wipe my sweaty hands on my shirt — one of yours, that I finally worked up the courage to wear.
I feel the wind gently brush my face, and for a small moment, the hat resting on your grave tips forward. I get up quickly to fix it. That's what finally makes me face your name carved into that stone — this whole time, my eyes had stayed low, focused on setting up the offerings.
"Ah… that's right… you're not here…" — My voice comes out as a small whisper.
I had never been able to look at your name on that stone. In the very spot where we used to lie beneath the grandeur of the moonlight that mirrored our love, talking about our exhausting day, laughing at the silliest jokes and the hard times we went through, your body now lies empty and cold. When Shanks and his crew buried you, I remember my legs giving out beneath me, falling to the ground. My eyes burned with tears that wouldn't fall, and the world blurred. My chest tightened so hard I couldn't breathe.
I think it took me a while to understand that Ace wasn't coming back.
I started taking the long way around just to avoid that grove and that hill. I used to wait at the pier every night, hoping that one day I'd see your little boat again. My mother kept trying to comfort me, to bring me back inside the house, but I couldn't make sense of a single word she said. I just remember staring at the sea, as if it had stolen the only happiness I'd ever had. I don't remember anything from those days. I just… shut down. My body only switched back on when the Red Hair pirates were leaving. Reality hit, and I screamed when I finally saw that Ace wasn't coming back. The tears finally came, like a restless ocean overflowing without end.
I take a deep breath, trying to set the sadness aside, wanting to enjoy a good moment by your side. I sit back down and pick up the sake bottle, opening it carefully and pouring it into a small paper cup. That smell brings back so many memories…
⎯
"Why don't you let me steal your food anymore?!" — Ace pointed at me like a spoiled, wounded, betrayed child.
"Because you ate all your food and didn't let me try what was on your plate!" — I pointed back, just as spoiled, pouting and crossing my arms.
"But I gave you all of my peperoncino noodles with Bhut Jolokia pepper!" — He whined, eyebrows furrowed, reaching across to grab a bit of food off my plate.
"That was three days ago! Today you didn't let me try even a tiny bite!" — I pulled my plate away, complaining as if he'd committed a war crime.
"You two are like children… just eat together and stop complaining!" — Aunt Shoko sighed and swatted our heads with her dish towel.
⎯
At a little bar by the beach that my family ran, Ace and I used to drink sake and eat our favorite foods together. Sometimes we'd get into these completely childish arguments over food and drink, always stealing from each other. And sometimes… it was Ace startling the whole bar when he dozed off face-first into his plate (which gave me the perfect chance to sneak some of his food). The first time I walked in alone after losing him, I saw his face everywhere, and I think that's why I started grabbing every bottle of sake I could find, trying to drown his memory in alcohol. It was foolish, I admit. I'd wake up wrecked, with an unbearable hangover, still hearing the sound of his laugh.
My mother and my aunt used to be serious, rigid women, almost expressionless. And yet, somehow, I remember those two blurry faces staring at me with pain and worry, saying words of comfort my brain refused to accept. It was weeks, maybe months, in a dull cycle — soul empty, always staring down that cup of sake I made myself swallow every time I heard your voice in my head. I don't remember why, or how it all happened. But I remember one specific moment in that bar: while I was drowning my grief in the drink, I felt your hand on my head for a brief moment. Maybe I was hallucinating, but I snapped my head up and broke into a cold sweat, stopped drinking, and noticed the two blurry faces I hadn't even registered were there, standing in front of me, trying to comfort me.
⎯
"Honey… I know it hurts… but please, you're hurting yourself in ways you can't take back. I don't know how to help you, I'm sorry. But please… listen to your mother. Please… look at me again." — I heard my mother's voice for the first time in so long, and my throat tightened into a knot. I looked away from her, and that's when I noticed the two plates I'd apparently ordered without realizing it: my favorite, and Ace's favorite.
"Take your time to heal, but don't sink into it. This won't ease that emptiness in your chest. Time will carry this pain away if you let it. Let us carry this pain too — don't suffer alone. Please, trust the two of us." — Aunt Shoko pleaded, and from the strain and exhaustion in her voice, I imagine they'd been trying to reach me for a long time.
I listened. But… it's hard to believe.
I was weak. I couldn't bring myself to lift my head and face them again. I don't remember how long I stayed there, or how I got home. All I remember is curling up in bed, holding one of your shirts, sobbing quietly. Ignoring the mess in that room. Ignoring our photos, now turned to face the wall.
I felt like a lost child again: small and alone.
"I think I'm losing my mind… talking to a rock…" — I try to make a small joke, but as expected, it turns bitter on my tongue. The wind kept brushing gently against my face, drifting over my head in a way that made me shiver. Without thinking, I raised my hand and rested it on my own head. "It's not quite the same as what you used to do." — I murmur softly, smiling faintly, without much humor.
⎯
"Don't you see this hurts me too?! Why did you do that?!" — I remember shouting in anger, through tears.
"I'm sorry, I… I shouldn't have reacted like that." — He said quietly, sadly. Ace was always the first to calm down during our fights.
"You can't be so reckless! What if something had happened to the villagers?! What if you'd gotten seriously hurt?! You can't just go around fighting bandits in the middle of the village!" — I shouted, furious and terrified. The fight had dragged on for a while, starting when Ace accidentally set a shop on fire. Even knowing he was trying to help the village, the sight of him bleeding and the village in flames hadn't been easy to stomach. And when I called him out on it, he shouted right back, and we ended up fighting.
"I'll be more careful. I'm sorry." — He always put his hand on my head in moments like that, always to calm me down and make me feel safe. It always worked.
"You… got hurt." — The words came out strained, through furious tears. Anger, worry, and affection all tangled together in confusion.
"And now I'm here. I'll always come back." — He'd hug me while giving me that reassuring smile, stroking my head. Ace's hugs were warm, gentle, and protective. They took every bit of pain out of me.
"Now stop being a crybaby and help me put these bandages on!" — Ace laughed as I chased after him, threatening to leave him even more bruised, angrier than ever.
I told you every moment of peace was interrupted by a thousand little provocations that lasted for years…
⎯
"I promise I'll come back here. I'm afraid of forgetting you. So… just give me some time, okay?" — I say quietly, vulnerable, my tender eyes fixed on the name carved into your headstone.
I get up slowly, straightening my clothes and wiping away tears I hadn't noticed falling. "I love you. It was good seeing you again — until next time." — I smile faintly, taking a deep breath, feeling my shoulders relax just a little. As I turned to leave, I felt a light push at my back. It made me spin around fast, startled.
"Am I really losing it?" — I sigh, holding back a small laugh that wants to escape.
I take one last look at the grave, smiling tenderly. My path continues, down the hill, and I catch your face among the trees in the grove.
I thought I saw your face today, but it was our beautiful memories, still alive, that make me fall in love with you again.
﹫ All rights reserved. Do not use my work to feed AI. I do not own One Piece or the characters mentioned in the text. Please do not copy my work.
Request: ”Helloooo, me again. Hope you’re doing awesome. Thank you for All-fire it was SUPERRRRR. I love Ace. I wonder if you do spicy though? 🧐. I Just like Ace a lil bit… PATHETIC. YOU CAN FORGET THIS REQUEST IF YOU DON’T WANT TO!!! K bye bye. Love you ❤️❤️❤️” - @mulliebeak
Summary: Three moments of Ace being absolutely, hopelessly, pathetically in love with you.
Notes: fluffy!! reader calls Ace “good boy,” last third is a little suggestive, mentions of reader wearing lingerie
A/N: hiii!! thank you so much for the request!! i don’t usually do spicy content, just not in my repertoire/interests, but i too enjoy a pathetic ace so i tried to incorporate this prompt into my own writing style. i went with a silly moment, a soft moment, and a suggestive moment of ace being absolutely whipped. i hope you enjoy!!
this is mostly proofread, but mistakes may persist! thanks so much for reading!! likes, reblogs, and comments are always welcome!
Ace was whipped. You could ask him to jump into the ocean, and he’d do so with a blush on his cheeks and a smile on his face, thanking you as he sank into the waves. But nothing, nothing made him turn into putty in your hands like when you called him a good boy…
“Love, can you pass me the herb?” you asked, not taking your attention away from the pot you stirred on the stove in front of you. You were no top chef, but you liked to dabble in a meal here or there, especially when you could share your creation with your insatiable boyfriend.
Speaking of, Ace pushed up from the spot at the counter where he had leaned while watching you cook, heading over to the spice rack. You had made this recipe a million times and had assumed Ace, who had helped you with at least ninety-five percent of those, might have remembered the recipe. You assumed wrong.
“Here ya go!” You turned your head to find Ace on your left, holding every seasoning possible while looking so proud.
“Dear… Love.. My Sweet baby boy.” His smile widened with each new pet name. “I just needed to parsley.”
“Ah, okay, ummmm,” he set down the ingredients and started searching for the one you requested. “Here!” He held out a bundle of parsley to you like a child showing his parent the art he made at school, a goofy grin dominating his face.
With a soft giggle, you took the herb and smirked, “Good boy, thank you.”
His legs nearly gave out as he physically felt himself weaken at the pet name. His mind emptied as his soft gaze watched you go back to the task at hand. To anyone else, you appeared to be a person cooking a meal with the love of your life. To Ace, you appeared as an angel among men, a moon among stars, his very reason for being.
Your praise had him feeling like he was floating for the rest of the day.
***
The celebration after the battle was certainly earned. The small crew Ace had brought with him for this mission had fought tooth and nail to get the job done. As the fight came to a close and the sun began to set, Ace cheerfully called for a party, and within minutes the booze was pouring and the bonfire lit.
But, as the night unfolded, you could tell Ace was tired. He had fought harder than anyone in order to protect his crew, to protect you.
“Hey,” you gently place your hand on his arm, pulling his attention from the group he had been bantering with. “Come with me,” you nodded your head to a spot a bit away from the party, along the tree line, where the two of you could find a moment of quiet reprieve. You barely tugged Ace along as he was already following in your footsteps before you had even finished speaking, looking like a lovesick pup.
You led him to a tree, sitting down and patting your lap, directing him to lay his head there and rest, at least for a moment. Ace easily followed your directions with a besotted smile and a tender sigh, placing his hat on your head as his body found relief in your presence.
As he got comfortable, he took a moment to look into your eyes. Just as he was about to speak, you threaded your fingers through his hair, softly scratching his scalp. The words immediately evaporated from his mind as you felt him melt under you, his eyes closing softly and his head turning into your touch.
“I’m so proud of you,” you spoke softly, leaning down to whisper into his ear. “My brave hero. My good boy.”
Your praise warmed his chest, a warmth which quickly spread to the apples of his cheeks and the tips of his ears. He turned his face to hide in your torso, but between the comforting movement of your fingers and the loving words you offered, Ace felt as though he had truly found heaven. Before he could even stop himself, a purr fell from his lips, a purr you no doubt felt, no doubt heard, but said nothing. Instead, you simply smiled and continued to bring him a moment of peace.
***
Ace was not the only insatiable one in your relationship, though our cravings were more cardio than carb-based. After a few days of Ace being away, let’s just say your appetite was ravenous.
So, as Ace went to debrief with Pops, you practically ran to your cabin, a mischievous smirk etched onto your face.
You spent the short period you had waiting for Ace to set the tone with candles, the fluffiest pillows, and your favorite set of lingerie: the red and orange pair that matched Ace’s fire.
As you heard footsteps approaching, you prepared yourself on the bed, lying on your side to highlight every curve of your body.
“Oof, sorry that took so long. Pops wanted—“ Ace, already yapping as he entered the room, froze at the sight before him. The wires in his brain crossed, rerouted, and fried all at the same time. “I— You— Oh— We are— Do you—“ He stuttered as warmth spread throughout his body.
“Ace,” you spoke with a fiery glint in your eye and a sly smirk, “stop staring and get in this bed.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he nearly whimpered, practically running into your embrace.
He positioned himself over you, hands holding his body up on either side of your head. He took the advantage of the position to look down at you, laid out just for him. He couldn’t help but feel like the luckiest man on Earth.
“I don’t deserve you,” his breath fanned over you as he spoke gently, almost as if he was speaking to himself.
“You deserve the world,” as you spoke, you wrapped your arms around his neck and raked your fingers through his hair, “my good boy.”
The moans you pulled from him only furthered his belief that you were a gift sent by whatever god had chosen to show him mercy.
So… yeah, it was safe to say Ace was pretty whipped.
FORGET ABOUT SMUT. I LOVE IT BUT PLEASE I AM TIRED OF IT. I NEED ANGST. I NEED GUT WRENCHING EMOTIONAL TURMOIL THAT MAKES ME SICK TO MY STOMACH. I NEED TO BAWL JUST FROM THINKING ABOUT IT.
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.
Summary: Steve has loved you in a hundred different ways over the years, but he realises the greatest privilege of all is that the person he loves most is also his best friend.
Warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, minors DNI, no use of y/n, established relationship, tooth-rotting fluff, best friends in love, slice of life, no plot just vibes (lmk if i missed anything)
W/C: 5k
A/N: pls thank @holawdw for the inspo. i've been thinking about this dynamic ever since we talked about it because i honestly think it's one of the loveliest kinds of love to write. not just two people who are romantically obsessed with each other, but two people who genuinely choose each other for all the boring little bits of life too. the inside jokes, the stupid conversations, the errands, the car journeys… all of it. i really hope i did your idea justice. your mind works in wonderful ways <3
Read more of my writing here: [masterlist]
If you want to be added to my taglist, leave a comment to lmk!
The tapes have long since been rewound and shelved, the front sign switched to CLOSED, yet somehow everyone is still there.
It happened more often than not these days. What started as dropping by to return a film or borrow another inevitably became somebody ordering pizza, somebody else sprawling across the carpet with a deck of cards, and, before anyone really noticed, another evening disappearing inside Family Video beneath the familiar hum of fluorescent lights.
Conversation drifts lazily around the shop in overlapping layers. Dustin and Lucas are locked in another argument over whether The Thing is objectively better than Alien; Max is half-listening while leafing through the horror section for what must be the tenth time; and Robin is attempting - with increasingly theatrical frustration - to explain to Mike why organising the shelves alphabetically is objectively superior to arranging them by genre. Nobody is really listening to anybody else.
Without either of you consciously deciding to, Steve has found himself standing beside you near the new releases, your shoulders almost touching as you've fallen into a conversation entirely separate from everyone else's. He isn't entirely sure how it starts. One second you'd both been part of the room, the next you've somehow drifted into your own orbit, voices lowered instinctively, neither of you paying much attention to the chaos unfolding a few feet away.
"I'm telling you," you whisper, already fighting a smile, "it looked exactly like him."
"It did not."
"It absolutely did."
Steve shakes his head, biting the inside of his cheek in a doomed attempt to stay serious. "You're remembering it wrong."
"I'm remembering it perfectly."
"You are not."
"Oh, really? Then explain the hat."
His expression falters. You see it happen.
"Oh my God," you gasp, pointing at him before the words have even left your mouth. "You remember the hat."
That's it.
Steve lets out a sharp, involuntary snort before he can stop himself, the sound echoing embarrassingly loudly around the shop. The moment you hear it, you dissolve completely, laughter folding you in half as you reach for the nearest shelf to steady yourself. Whatever composure he'd been clinging to disappears with you. Within seconds, both of you are laughing so hard neither of you can breathe, the original joke now completely secondary to the fact that the other person found it just as funny.
The rest of the room falls gradually silent.
Robin watches the two of you for a full ten seconds, arms folded patiently across her chest, before finally sighing. "...Are you gonna tell us?"
Steve scrubs a hand across his face, trying unsuccessfully to catch his breath, tears gathering embarrassingly at the corners of his eyes. "No."
"Why not?"
"'Cause..." Another laugh escapes him as he glances at you, finding you already looking back with the exact same expression. "...it's only funny to us."
A chorus of groans answers him.
"You guys are so annoying," Dustin complains, throwing a balled-up receipt in Steve's direction.
Steve barely notices. He looks back at you instead, the remnants of his laughter still sitting warm in his chest.
"You remember?"
You don't even hesitate.
"1984."
He points at you immediately. "Exactly."
You don't elaborate, because there's no need. Steve is already laughing again.
Nobody else has the faintest idea what either of you mean.
That's the thing. There isn't really a story anymore. Not one he could tell, anyway. It's years of accumulated nonsense layered on top of itself until only the two of you know where it begins.
The squirrel outside that run-down motel during the road trip to Indianapolis. The afternoon Steve somehow manages to turn one white sock bright pink in the wash and spends three days pretending he hasn't noticed. The elderly woman in Hawkins who insists on calling him Kevin every Saturday for nearly six months despite repeated corrections.
Entire conversations can now be built from nothing more than a date, a look across the room, or one completely ordinary word spoken in exactly the right tone, and the other person immediately knows the rest.
Robin watches the two of you with the long-suffering expression of somebody who has witnessed this exact exchange far too many times.
"You know..." she says eventually, shaking her head with a fond sort of disbelief. "...you two are kind of weird."
Steve has heard that more times than he can count.
He feels your shoulder bump lightly against his as you finally stop laughing. He looks down at you for a second before meeting Robin's eye again, an unconscious smile settling across his face.
"I know."
He isn't even remotely apologetic about it. In fact, if he's honest, he can't imagine anything lonelier than loving somebody who doesn't know every ridiculous story you've ever collected together, every unfinished sentence, every joke that has somehow survived years after everyone else has forgotten it. Somewhere along the way, without either of you ever noticing it happening, the two of you have built an entire language that nobody else speaks, and Steve thinks that's what being best friends really is. Not grand gestures or dramatic declarations, just years of ordinary moments quietly piling on top of one another until, one day, they become something only the two of you understand.
The drive home is always loud.
Not because it has to be, but because nobody in the car seems capable of sitting in silence for more than thirty seconds. Dustin and Lucas inevitably restart whatever argument they'd been having back at Family Video, Robin has somehow found something new to complain about before you've even reached the first set of traffic lights, and Max occasionally throws in a comment from the back seat purely to make things worse. Steve spends most journeys acting as an unwilling referee, one hand on the steering wheel, the other reaching blindly behind him every so often to shove Dustin's shoulder whenever he starts getting too animated.
Somewhere between the edge of the town centre and the long stretch of road that leads back towards Hawkins, Queen comes crackling through the speakers.
Steve doesn't hesitate.
He reaches for the volume knob without taking his eyes off the road, turning it up until Robin immediately groans from the back seat.
"Oh, come on."
"It's tradition," Steve says simply.
"You made that tradition up."
"So?"
You don't say anything at all. You don't have to.
By the opening piano, both of you are already grinning.
This happens every single time.
Steve's fingers begin tapping absent-mindedly against the steering wheel, keeping time with the music, while you lean back in your seat with the exaggerated confidence of somebody entirely convinced they can sing. You absolutely cannot. Neither can Steve. Between the two of you, the harmonies are catastrophic, lyrics are missed or invented entirely, and every attempt to hit the higher notes ends in uncontrollable laughter rather than anything remotely musical.
By the time Freddie Mercury reaches the chorus, the choreography has become almost instinctive. Steve drums dramatically against the steering wheel before pointing across the centre console with complete conviction, meeting your eye at exactly the same moment you point back at him.
"Ooh, you make me live..."
Neither of you misses a beat.
"You're my best friend."
Robin makes a noise somewhere between a sigh and a gag. "You two are genuinely insufferable."
Steve barely hears her. He's laughing too hard, his hand slipping against the gear stick for a second before he catches it again, shaking his head as you double over beside him, still trying - and failing - to sing through your laughter.
It's ridiculous.
Objectively, completely ridiculous.
The car is battered and beaten, the speakers crackle every time the bass gets too loud, Dustin is loudly insisting that Queen are overrated just to annoy everyone, and Robin has started threatening to walk home despite the fact that you're already halfway across town.
Nothing about the moment should be memorable.
And yet, somewhere in the middle of the chorus, it catches Steve completely off guard.
The thought arrives so quietly he almost misses it.
If somebody asked him, years from now, what the happiest moment of his life had been, he doesn't think it would be surviving Vecna. It wouldn't be the first time you kissed him, or the day you finally admitted how you felt, or any of the grand, cinematic moments people always seem to remember when they talk about falling in love.
It would probably be something like this.
A well-loved car rumbling down familiar roads. Queen blaring far louder than necessary through worn-out speakers. His friends arguing in the back seat about absolutely nothing.
And you.
Laughing so hard beside him that you can barely finish the chorus, reaching over to grab his arm every time another fit of giggles threatens to steal your breath away.
Steve glances across at you for the briefest moment while you sing the final line with all the confidence of somebody who has never once worried about being off-key.
You catch him looking.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You smiled."
"I didn't."
"You absolutely did."
He rolls his eyes, looking back towards the road before you can catch the grin threatening to spread across his face again.
Maybe that's the thing nobody tells you about finding the love of your life.
It isn't that every moment suddenly becomes extraordinary.
It's that ordinary moments stop feeling ordinary at all. They become the ones you want to keep, tucked away somewhere safe without even realising you're doing it, until one day you look back and discover that the memories you treasure most aren't the dramatic ones.
They're the evenings that never seemed important at the time.
The drives home.
The terrible singing.
The laughter that makes your sides ache.
The person in the passenger seat, still pointing at you every single time Freddie Mercury sings, "You're my best friend."
Before you, Steve used to think food shopping was one of those chores you got through as quickly as possible. Endless aisles, squeaky trolley wheels that refused to cooperate, trying to remember whether he'd run out of washing powder or only thought he had.
Over time, you'd somehow turned it into a competitive sport.
"You know," he says, steering the trolley around a woman comparing jars of pasta sauce with the concentration of somebody defusing a bomb, "normal couples just... buy groceries."
You glance over your shoulder with exaggerated offence. "We are buying groceries."
"You've been in this shop for twenty-three minutes."
"And?"
"You've put three things in the trolley."
You look down thoughtfully at the loaf of bread, a carton of milk, a bag of sweets, and a packet of crisps already sitting inside. "...Four."
Steve snorts. "I stand corrected."
For a while, it actually looks as though you're going to behave yourselves. You debate which cereal is objectively superior with a level of seriousness neither of you can justify, spend far too long deciding whether you really need another packet of biscuits - which inevitably becomes yes - and wander aimlessly through the fruit and vegetable section despite having absolutely no intention of buying anything from it.
Then, somewhere between pasta and soup, you disappear.
Steve doesn't notice immediately. He reaches automatically for the trolley handle, says something over his shoulder about needing more tea bags, and is met with complete silence.
He turns.
You're gone.
He isn't worried. Experience has taught him that you have a remarkable ability to become distracted by almost anything. Interesting packaging. A badly translated label. A product neither of you has ever heard of. Once, you'd spent nearly ten minutes reading the ingredients on a bottle of shampoo because one of them sounded vaguely like the name of a dinosaur.
He eventually finds you exactly where he'd expected to.
Standing in the tinned food aisle.
Trying - and failing - not to laugh.
"What?" he asks, already smiling despite himself.
You don't answer. Instead, you pluck a tin from the shelf and hold it up between the two of you with an expression of absolute triumph.
The label reads: Peas & Carrots.
Steve stares at it for a long moment.
Then back at you.
"...Okay?"
"It's us."
He waits.
Surely there's more.
There isn't.
"It doesn't mean anything."
"It means everything."
"It literally doesn't."
"It literally does."
He shakes his head, still waiting for an explanation that never comes.
You simply continue smiling at him as though you've revealed the funniest joke ever conceived.
Against all logic, he starts laughing anyway. "I hate you."
"No, you don't."
"No," he admits, taking the tin from your hands and dropping it into the trolley. "I really don't."
By the time you've reached the checkout, the trolley has become the latest battleground in an argument that has somehow survived nearly eight months.
Neither of you can remember who started it.
Neither of you has any intention of ending it.
"You ready?" you ask, holding up a packet of digestives.
Steve rolls his shoulders dramatically. "Oh, you're on."
The rules are simple. Stand behind the line in the tiled floor. One throw. No stepping over. Closest to the middle of the trolley wins.
Steve goes first. The biscuits leave his hand with entirely too much confidence, sail beautifully through the air... and smack directly into the handle before bouncing unceremoniously onto the floor.
You stare at him for a beat.
Then burst into laughter.
"Not a word."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it."
"I was thinking lots of things."
He retrieves the packet with as much dignity as the situation allows before gesturing towards the line with exaggerated chivalry. "Be my guest."
You accept the challenge with infuriating confidence, giving the packet of pasta in your hand an experimental bounce before tossing it underarm.
It lands perfectly in the centre of the trolley.
You don't just celebrate. You throw both arms into the air like you've just won Olympic gold, spinning triumphantly on the spot while Steve pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Yes!" you shout, entirely too loudly. "Did you see that?"
"Unfortunately for me, yes."
An elderly woman loading shopping onto the neighbouring conveyor belt pauses just long enough to clap politely. "Well done, dear."
You beam. "Thank you!"
Steve closes his eyes for a brief moment. "I actually can't take you anywhere."
"You take me everywhere."
"...That's true."
He sighs with exaggerated resignation, reaching automatically for your hand as the two of you continue towards the checkout.
You squeeze his fingers once. He squeezes back.
Neither of you lets go for the rest of the shop.
The kids have been trying to work the two of you out for years.
Not your relationship. They understand that much. It's everything else that seems to confuse them.
You don't act like any couple they've ever seen.
There aren't endless pet names or dramatic declarations, no exaggerated displays of affection whenever everyone else is around. Half the time, the closest thing you do to flirting is arguing over whether tomatoes belong in the fridge or quietly trying to make the other one laugh in the middle of a serious conversation. Most days, it looks less like dating and more like two people who simply refuse to stop winding each other up.
Eventually, Lucas gives up trying to understand it.
"So..." he says one afternoon, looking between the two of you with genuine curiosity. "Do you guys ever actually flirt?"
You and Steve glance at each other.
"Constantly," you answer.
Steve nods with complete sincerity. "This is flirting."
Robin closes her eyes. "Oh, God."
Dustin frowns. "No, but... where?"
You blink. "What do you mean, 'where'?"
"I mean..." He gestures vaguely between the two of you. "Where's the flirting?"
Steve looks genuinely puzzled. "I called her a menace this morning."
"You also told me my taste in music was embarrassing," you add.
"I bought you crisps."
"You stole half of them."
"I was hungry."
"You always are."
Steve shrugs. "See?"
Dustin stares. "...That's flirting?"
Robin lets out the weary sigh of somebody who has been having this conversation for years longer than everyone else. "Unfortunately."
The discussion somehow continues for another ten minutes, becoming less productive with every passing second. Mike insists flirting is supposed to involve compliments. Max argues that making someone laugh is a compliment. Lucas is still unconvinced. Robin eventually abandons the conversation altogether, muttering something about needing "new friends with less emotional damage."
Steve doesn't think much more about it.
Not until later.
The others have drifted off in different directions by the time Dustin catches him outside, fiddling absent-mindedly with the keys to his car. "Can I ask you something?"
Steve shrugs. "You just did."
Dustin rolls his eyes. "You know what I mean."
"Go on."
He hesitates for a moment, suddenly looking much younger than he usually likes to pretend he is. "When did you know?"
Steve doesn't need to ask what he means.
For a second, he searches for the answer he thinks he's supposed to give.
The first kiss. The first date. The moment he realised he'd fallen in love.
But none of those feel quite right.
Instead, another answer slips out before he's had time to think about it. "I realised there wasn't anybody else I wanted to tell things to."
Dustin frowns. "What?"
Steve leans back against the side of the car, trying to explain something he'd never actually put into words before.
"You know when something funny happens?" Dustin nods. "Or something really awful. Or you hear something interesting, or embarrassing, or completely pointless."
"...Yeah?"
"The first person I want to tell is her."
The words settle quietly between them.
Steve looks down at his trainers for a moment before smiling to himself. "I think that's when I knew."
The drive home is quieter than usual.
The radio murmurs softly beneath the sound of the engine, neither of you paying much attention to whatever song happens to be playing. The roads are almost empty now, streetlights passing rhythmically across the windscreen as Hawkins gradually settles into the kind of silence that only exists well after dark.
You spend a few minutes simply watching the world slip by beyond the passenger window before speaking. "Can I tell you something?"
Steve doesn't hesitate. "Always."
It's immediate. Instinctive. As natural as breathing.
You smile faintly before looking back out of the window again, suddenly seeming a little less certain. "It's stupid."
"It won't be."
You tell him anyway.
Something that's been sitting in the back of your mind for weeks. An embarrassing thought you can't quite shake. A worry about the future that feels irrational every time you try to explain it aloud. The kind of thing you would probably keep to yourself around almost anybody else for fear of sounding ridiculous.
Steve never interrupts.
He doesn't rush to fix it. Doesn't laugh. Doesn't tell you you're overreacting.
He simply listens, one hand resting lightly against the steering wheel, the other drumming absent-mindedly against his thigh whenever the traffic lights turn red.
By the time you've finished, the knot in your chest already feels a little smaller.
"Thanks," you mumble.
"For what?"
"For listening."
He glances across at you, looking momentarily confused. "That's kind of my job."
"No," you say quietly. "You always listen."
Steve smiles to himself.
Then, almost without meaning to, he starts talking too.
About his parents. About growing up believing that love was something you had to earn by being impressive enough, successful enough, and easy enough to keep around. About how exhausting that had been.
"I used to think loving somebody meant constantly trying to make them like you," he says, eyes still fixed on the road ahead.
"And now?"
He thinks about it for a moment. "Now I think it's just..." He laughs softly, searching for words that somehow feel both obvious and impossible all at once. "Wanting one person beside you for everything."
You don't interrupt.
"The funny stuff. The awful stuff. The boring stuff. Literally anything."
The car falls quiet again.
After a while, Steve smiles. "You know the first thing I think whenever something happens?"
You turn towards him. "What?"
He glances at you for just a second before looking back to the road, the smile lingering despite himself. "Can't wait to tell her."
Neither of you says anything after that.
You don't need to.
Your hand simply finds his where it rests on the centre console, your fingers slipping easily between his as though they've done it a thousand times before.
Maybe that's what being best friends really means, Steve thinks.
Not that you never run out of things to say.
Just that, somehow, after all this time, you're still the first person either of you wants to say them to.
Rain has a way of making the house feel smaller.
Not in a claustrophobic way, but in the sort of comforting way that makes the rest of the world seem very far away. It drums steadily against the windows, blurring the view of the street outside until Hawkins dissolves into little more than hazy streetlights and softened shapes, the occasional pair of headlights gliding silently through the darkness before disappearing again.
Neither of you has made any real attempt to do anything productive all evening.
The television had been switched on for all of ten minutes before neither of you was paying attention anymore. A film had been suggested, immediately abandoned after twenty minutes of indecision, and now the two of you are exactly where Steve suspects you were always going to end up anyway.
Curled up at opposite ends of the sofa.
You have a book resting open across your lap, one socked foot tucked beneath the opposite leg as you absent-mindedly turn another page. Steve has a book too.
Or, at least, he has a book in his hands. He hasn't read the same paragraph successfully in the last fifteen minutes.
Not because he's distracted by anything in particular. Just because he isn't trying very hard.
The rain is nice. The room is warm. Your legs are stretched across the cushion between you until your feet bump absent-mindedly against his every now and then, neither of you acknowledging it because neither of you needs to. Somewhere in the kitchen, the kettle you'd forgotten to empty clicks quietly as the metal cools, and every so often one of you turns a page, the soft rustle of paper briefly joining the rhythm of the rain before the room settles back into silence again.
Twenty minutes pass. Maybe longer. Steve couldn't say. Time has a habit of becoming strangely unimportant around you.
Eventually, without looking up from the book he's still pretending to read, he says, "Think squirrels know they're squirrels?"
You don't even blink. You carefully finish the sentence you're reading before marking your page with a finger and looking over the top of your book. "What?"
"Squirrels."
"What about them?"
"Do they know they're squirrels?"
You consider it with a level of seriousness most people would reserve for discussing politics. "I don't know."
Steve nods thoughtfully. "'Cause dogs don't know they're dogs."
"They definitely know they're dogs."
"No, they know they're... them."
"They absolutely know they're dogs."
"They've never been told."
"They don't need to be told."
"They do."
"They don't."
"They might."
"They don't."
For reasons neither of you can quite explain, this develops into a forty-minute debate involving self-awareness, mirrors, pigeons, whether fish have thoughts, and a brief detour into whether worms have personalities.
At one point, Steve disappears into the kitchen to make tea and somehow returns with a notebook because, according to him, "we need to start writing evidence down."
At another, you both become so hopelessly stuck that you end up ringing Robin.
She answers on the third ring. "...Why are you calling me?"
"We need an impartial opinion," Steve says.
There's a pause. "...Should I be worried?"
"Do squirrels know they're squirrels?"
Silence.
Then, "I am hanging up."
She does exactly that. You laugh so hard you nearly spill your tea. Steve insists she's avoided the question because she doesn't have an answer. You insist she's hung up because the two of you are impossible. He's probably right. You're definitely right.
Eventually the conversation fizzles out as naturally as it began.
The notebook is abandoned on the coffee table. Your tea grows cold. The books remain exactly where you'd left them. The rain keeps falling.
Without really thinking about it, you shift further down the sofa until your legs are tangled comfortably with Steve's, your head eventually finding its familiar place against his shoulder. Neither of you says anything for a while.
There isn't anything left to say.
Steve has dated people before who treated silence like something that needed fixing. Every quiet moment had to be filled with conversation, with plans, with reassurance that nobody was bored or upset or regretting being there.
This has never been like that.
With you, silence has never felt awkward.
It has never needed rescuing.
Somehow, without either of you ever deciding that this was how your relationship would work, you'd reached a point where simply existing in the same room felt complete enough all by itself.
Steve glances down at the top of your head where you've already drifted back to your book, completely content to read beside him without expecting anything more.
He smiles.
Maybe this is what people mean when they talk about finding home.
Not a place. Not a house. Not even a person, exactly.
Just the quiet certainty that there is nowhere else you'd rather be than exactly where you already are.
And Steve thinks, not for the first time, that the greatest thing about loving his best friend is that they've never had to work at being together.
It's always just... happened.
Later that night, the house has settled into the kind of silence that only exists after midnight.
The rain has eased to little more than the occasional tap against the bedroom window, leaving the room washed in soft darkness, broken only by the faint amber glow of the alarm clock on the bedside table. Somewhere downstairs, the pipes creak as the heating clicks off for the night, and Hawkins itself feels impossibly still, as though the entire town has finally decided to sleep.
Neither of you has. Not really.
You're lying beside one another beneath the duvet, facing opposite walls, not because anything is wrong but because this, too, has become familiar over the years. Some nights one of you falls asleep almost immediately. Other nights, like tonight, you simply exist together in the quiet, trading the occasional thought whenever one happens to drift into your head.
Steve has always liked these conversations best.
They never have a beginning. Or an end. They simply... happen.
The word's already out of his mouth before he's entirely decided to say it. "Hey."
You hum sleepily beside him. "Hm?"
He smiles into the darkness. "I think you're my best friend."
For a second, there's nothing.
Then you laugh, soft enough that it barely disturbs the silence surrounding you. "I'd be a little worried if I wasn't."
Steve lets out a quiet breath through his nose. "No..." He rolls onto his side, propping himself up slightly on one elbow so he can just make out the outline of your face in the dark. "I mean..." The words feel strangely difficult now that they're here. "Before you're my girlfriend."
You turn your head towards him. "What do you mean?"
"I mean..." He pauses again, searching for something that feels bigger than love, even though he isn't sure such a thing exists. "If somebody asked me to describe you, I don't think the first thing I'd say is that you're my girlfriend."
Your expression softens.
"I think I'd say you're my favourite person."
The room falls quiet again. Not awkwardly. Never awkwardly. Just long enough for the words to settle somewhere between you.
When you finally speak, your voice is almost impossibly gentle. "I think you're mine too."
Steve reaches for your hand beneath the duvet, his fingers finding yours with the same unconscious certainty they've found them a thousand times before.
It's funny. For years, he'd thought love was supposed to announce itself.
He'd imagined fireworks. Grand gestures. Movie moments. The kind of stories people told years later because everybody agreed they were unforgettable.
Instead, the most important thing he'd ever realised about the person lying beside him arrived halfway through a conversation neither of you would probably remember tomorrow.
He has been in love before.
Or at least, he'd thought he had.
He's wanted people. Missed them. Spent sleepless nights imagining different versions of his life with them, wondering what might happen if they finally looked his way.
But this feels different.
Because wanting somebody is easy. Sometimes wanting somebody happens before you've even learnt who they really are.
Loving them is harder. It asks for patience. For honesty. For choosing each other on ordinary Tuesdays just as willingly as extraordinary Saturdays.
But building a life together... Steve thinks that's rarer than either.
It's learning every ridiculous story the other person has collected over the years until a single date or one ordinary word can make both of you laugh before anybody else even understands why. It's arguing over biscuits in supermarket aisles, singing Queen far too loudly in borrowed cars, debating whether squirrels know they're squirrels, and instinctively reaching for the same hand every time something funny, awful or completely insignificant happens.
It's discovering that the first person you want to tell is the same person you want to come home to.
Somewhere between becoming lovers and becoming partners, you'd become best friends.
Steve lies there for another few minutes, listening to your breathing gradually even out as sleep finally begins to find you. He squeezes your hand once, absent-mindedly, smiling to himself when your fingers tighten around his even in your half-asleep state, as instinctive as breathing.
Outside, the rain begins again.
Inside, nothing changes.
And Steve thinks that's probably the greatest love story of all.
