I don’t know if you still want any ideas or requests for the Steve Harrington Spider-Man series, but what if Steve goes out as Spider-Man and he gets hurt and he goes back to his apartment because the reader told him that she was going out with friends or something of the lake so instead of going to her apartment, he goes back to his and we could say maybe Dustin and Robin are there and they’re trying to help him but they don’t know how also maybe Robin is just terrified of blood. But the reader never actually goes out. Steve hears her because he’s got super hearing text her asking her to come up when Dustin or Robin opens the door. She just kind of barrels in and just charges straight at Steve to help heal him up and Dustin and Robin are just standing there with her mouth is open like “What is going on?!?” 
your super-hero neighbor needs your help
spider-man!steve harrington x fem!reader au – w.c. 1k
a/n: im so sorry it’s been so long i’ve had literally 0 motivation and lowkey went through like 6 depressive episodes but i thought this was a cute prompt so i thought i’d give it a try
warnings: none really, just some mentions of blood, and a very brief sexual reference, just short and sweet ig. no use of y/n.
series masterlist !!
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as steve swings back to his apartment building he has one hand pressed to his torso, blood leaking from a rip in his suit where scorpion’s tail had ripped through the fabric and into his skin, leaving a deep cut.
he hadn’t even been out on patrol that night, he was going to spend the night in with dustin and robin, but then the call came in and he had to go.
the issue was, however, that steve had a horribly deep cut on his tummy that had probably reopened at least one old scar, and you weren’t home to help him. you had told him the night before at his apartment that you were going out with some friends tonight, which means he’s on his own. kind of.
“hey, dustin?” steve asks through a groan, swinging between two skyscrapers with just one hand. “is robin still there?”
“uh, yeah, why, are you almost home?” dustin’s voice comes in crackles, like something inside of steve’s suit had been damaged. or maybe his ears are just ringing.
“uh, yeah. yeah, i am, but… i think one of you two is gonna have to give me stitches.” steve states casually as his apartment building comes into view, still a distance away.
“stitches!?” robin’s panicked voice comes through a moment later. “steve, i can’t do stitches, i have very shaky hands, you know this! i mean, last time you even had me look at one of your injuries i made it worse!”
“just be ready, please?” steve groans, and not even a full minute later he’s crashing into the fire escape beside his living room window and forcing the glass up.
robin is by his side the moment he gets one leg through the window, and she helps him inside the apartment while very clearly panicking.
steve feels woozy, still keeping one of his gloved hands pressed to the wound on his torso as robin helps him stumble to the couch.
dustin’s scrambling around and gathering steve’s medical supplies; a bowl of water and the first aid kit you had given him. robin’s talking his ear off in what steve thinks is an attempt to comfort or distract him, but it’s not exactly working.
“shit, dude, how do you usually do this on your own?” dustin asks, setting the supplies down on the coffee table before he and robin help steve out of his suit.
“i don’t,” steve groans, throwing his head back against the sofa with a groan before he pauses. then he hears it, a clatter of dishes, a mumbled curse, and the sound of footsteps all coming from the apartment beneath him.
robin and dustin are arguing now, voices overlapping as they debate which way to treat steve would be best, meanwhile steve is focused entirely on you. you’re at home.
with a groan, a large amount of blood flowing from his wound as he does so, steve sits up.
“woah, woah, steve!” dustin is immediately grabbing his shoulders and trying to lie him back down on the couch.
“i need my phone, henderson.” steve groans, but lets dustin push him back because he’s in pain.
“why?” dustin questions him as robin hands the device over, and steve pulls his now blood-soaked hand away from his wound to type. “dude! don’t do that, you’ll bleed out!”
robin is immediately pressing her hands down on steve’s wound while shooting him a terrified look. “seriously, harrington? this is disgusting! you know i don’t like blood, and you look like you’re dying!”
steve is too busy texting you to notice.
r u busy?
need help
am bleeding pls
then he drops his phone onto the couch and listens while dustin replaces robin’s hands with a tea towel to try and soak up some more of the blood.
there’s fast, almost panicked, knocking at his apartment door within a minute, and steve just smiles while dustin and robin’s heads swivel toward the door with wide eyes like they’ve been caught doing something wrong.
“steve, are you in there?” your voice comes through and then steve’s friends are looking at him instead.
“don’t just stare at me, let her in!” he gestures to the door and robin jumps to her feet with shaky, bloody hands.
you barrel inside, brushing past robin and letting your eyes lock onto steve’s immediately. at the sight of him conscious and grinning, you seem relieved, but you still roll your eyes at him.
“you scared me, idiot, i thought you were up here bleeding and alone.” you shake your head, immediately kneeling down beside dustin and reaching for the first aid kit like it’s second nature.
dustin steps back, his eyes flitting between you and steve as you begin cleaning his wound with ease, and steve keeps this lazy smirk on his face the entire time.
dustin recognizes you, you’re the neighbor who brought steve him cookies, but dustin had no idea that you’re basically spider-man’s nurse.
robin, on the other hand, has no idea who you are, or where you came from, and has been staring at you with her mouth gaping open for the last few minutes as she watches you stitch up the cut on steve’s skin.
then she and dustin share a look when steve reaches for your hand and you let him take it, intertwining your fingers and squeezing, while leaving your other hand free to clean him up.
once steve is all cleaned up, the bloody gauze in the trash while the tea towel and steve’s suit are in a pile in the corner of the room, and he’s changed back into some more comfortable clothes, dustin and robin practically corner you in the kitchen as you wash your hands.
“so are you and steve, like, together?” dustin asks, pushing his hands together and interlocking his fingers, and you pause.
“no, not really,” you reply, and then glance over at steve as he holds a hand to his head and winces. robin and dustin watch as you carry a glass of water and some painkillers over to their friend like it’s nothing.
“they’re definitely sleeping together, right?” dustin asks and robin chuckles.
“oh, most definitely.”
–
likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated <3
Chapter Summary: eighteen months after the start of quarantine, things change, for better or worse.
Fic Summary: You and Steve can't stand to be around one another... but you have to learn to coexist and raise your goddaughter together in the face of the apocalypse.
You would never admit it to Steve, but you had begun to wonder if the crawls had ever been worth it. It had been nearly eighteen months, and there hadn't been a peep. No demogorgons, no demodogs, no demobats, and, most importantly, no Vecna.
Quarantine was beginning to feel like a tightening noose. People pretended things were normal so that they could stomach it, like holding your nose to eat something repulsive. But there were cracks, just as deep as the fissures in Hawkins.
Luxury goods were few and far between. It had been months since you'd gotten your hands on a sleeve of Oreos, and even if they were delivered, someone always managed to get there first. Potato chips, candy, cosmetics, condoms… catching a restock was like winning the lottery.
Lately, it felt like your luck had run out in more ways than one.
"Steve," you whined, looking up at him with sheer exasperation as you placed an antenna headband into Samantha's hair. She grappled with your hands, smacking yours away and tugging at the springs that made the felt balls on the end wobble around. "It's Halloween, can't you tell Jonathan to drive the van?"
Steve sighed and knelt beside Sammie so he could push the headband back while her attention was split. He clipped it down with barrettes and kissed her forehead.
"I really wish I could, but Jonathan and Nancy are working on maps, or something."
You huffed, annoyed, because that was a bullshit reason and everyone else would know that too. "Well, Lucas and Mike both have their drivers licenses," you pressed. "And Dustin should technically have his, but he keeps skipping his stupid drivers ed classes. They're all very capable teenagers."
Steve made a face as he looked up at you, brows drawn together. "Okay, one, Mike and Lucas are on lookout as usual. And two, what if I don't go, something goes wrong, and they're out there alone?" He pushes, an argument you'd heard a million times over, each time a crawl interfered with your plans.
Date night, dinner with your parents, holidays. All of it could so easily get foiled by Nancy Wheeler ringing the house to say the military was doing a burn.
What did the burns do? What did the crawls accomplish? Lately, it seemed like absolutely nothing except stealing Steve away when you needed him.
"What if it's totally fine, nothing happens, and it's another huge waste of time?" You argued, lifting Sam onto your hip so you could carry her into the living room. Steve trudged behind, following you downstairs and into the living room.
You'd had this argument before, and you both knew that it pissed you off to no end. Because you knew that Steve wanted to stay with you and Sam, and you knew that he could ask, but he wouldn't. You had told him before that he was surprisingly selfless, but this was just needless.
Steve stood behind you with his arms crossed, watching you pose Sammie in front of the Halloween decorations on the fireplace for pictures. In between making silly noises so she'd look at the camera, he would huff and watch you through narrowed eyes. "This sucks for me too, baby," he insisted, and when you didn't respond, his jaw ticked and he pressed on. "You're acting like I want to miss tonight. It's totally unfair. I helped you make her outfit, I helped make our matching costumes, and you actually think I'm bailing because I don't care, or something?"
He ran a hand through his hair as you picked up Sam, who was getting uncomfortably heavy in your arms as she neared her second birthday. With a tiny whine, she snuggled against your shoulder, clearly feeling the tension between the two of you.
"I'm not fighting you about this," you said finally, which was your best way of communicating that you were pissed, but didn't want to drag it out in front of Sam. "Go on the crawl, and when you all come up dry again, don't tell me that you wished that you had stayed with us."
Steve left at five, with a quick peck on Sam's cheek and your forehead. He tried to rub his thumb between your brows and smooth out the crinkles there, but you narrowed your eyes at him and pulled back. "Don't be cute," you warned, and then his expression fell and you felt your heart thawing out. "Just be safe tonight, okay? It's a holiday, so the MPs are probably out in droves."
He nodded and slipped out to the driveway. Already, kids were beginning to roam the streets, seeking out the bigger houses with hopes that they might have managed to get their hands on some candy.
Your parents' porch light was off, so you figured that they hadn't had any luck either. Whatever candy there was, if any at all, had been snatched up before you'd even caught wind of it hitting the shelves. The likelihood of Sam getting any candy was abysmal, and, frankly, even if she did get any, it wouldn't even be for her, it would be for you.
Claudia joined you for the neighborhood walk, but the number of dark houses was a total mood killer. Most kids were ambling around like the living dead, trying to find a house that still had stock of whatever treat they'd prepared. You would wait in line at those rare doors with Claudia, only to be told they were saving their treats for bigger kids this year who could actually eat it.
"Well, this is no fun," Claudia said as you looked into Sam's bucket at the end of your fourth street. She had accumulated two oatmeal raisin cookies (from Claudia), a pair of crayons tied with a ribbon, a bookmark, a bag of trail mix, and a popcorn ball. "If Halloween is this bad, I can't even imagine Thanksgiving in these conditions."
You grimaced, not even wanting to think about it. Last year had already been rough, but with restocks at the store getting worse and worse, you couldn't even be sure you'd be able to throw together a decent meal at all. How long did you have until Hawkins was on rations?
"Maybe it'll all be over by then," you said, giving a half-smile. You wished you believed what you were saying, but you were just kidding yourself. You figured the military was in the same grim situation as your friends— searching futilely for something that wasn't there.
You gave up on Halloween after walking down a block of dark houses. Sam was asleep in her stroller anyway. The felt spots that Steve had glued on her little red crewneck were peeling off, fluttering in the breeze.
By the time Steve got home, you were dozing on the couch, lit by the broadcast of The Birds on a local station. You stirred a bit when you felt the blanket being pulled up around your shoulders, squinting up at the blurry shape of your boyfriend.
"What time is it?" You murmured, blinking until the sight of him became clear.
"I didn't mean to wake you up," he said, then glanced down at his watch. "10:15. Not too late."
You sat up, pulling the blanket up around your shoulders. It was already so cold in Hawkins, and you were longing for the heat of summer that you'd spent months complaining about. "Trick or treating was a total bust," you admitted with a sigh. "How was the crawl?"
Steve sat down beside you on the couch, picking at a loose thread on the blanket. "Well… Vecna is definitely not in sector H2," he said with a sidelong glance at you. "But… Murray smuggled something in for us."
You sat up, eyes wide as he pulled out a plastic pumpkin bucket filled with candy. You exhaled slowly at the sight and swallowed. "Is that all he brought?"
Steve's brows furrowed and he nodded. "Uh, yeah," he said with a teasing grin. "This is a ton of candy, baby. Don't be ungrateful."
You brought a smile to your lips and took a Krackel from the bag. "I'm not ungrateful," you insisted, trying to play off your disappointment. "I just asked him for a bag of Doritos two weeks ago and I'm still waiting."
Steve shrugged and grabbed a Mr. Goodbar. "Yeah, well, you know how he is," he said. "He likes to make you wait so you forget what you asked for and he can play hero. Here, put your feet in my lap."
You obliged, leaning back against the throw pillows as Steve moved your socked feet into his lap and began to rub them carefully. You sighed, peering over at him as you melted into the cushions. You couldn't even stay mad at him for going on the crawl, because your own plans had proved equally futile. Besides, he was so eager to get back on your good side.
It made you feel a little worse about lying. Well, not lying, exactly. Withholding the truth… actually, withholding a few truths. But that was fine, really. No one is ever totally, completely honest in a relationship.
"How's that feel?" He asked, and you hummed softly as his thumbs pressed into the arch of your foot. They were kind of sore from walking all the way to Dustin's street, then all the way around that branch of the suburbs.
"Really good," you sighed, melting into the cushions. "Next year, you're taking Sam and I'm handing out candy." He laughed and shook his head, but didn't argue. You just hoped that everything would be wrapped up by then.
"Next year," Steve mused, the corner of his mouth twitching down for a moment as he stared at the screen. You wanted to pull at that thread— just unravel his brain before you so you could know everything that he was thinking. His breath caught like he might have wanted to say something, but he held back.
It didn't matter what either of you wanted— your reality was completely out of your hands. A freaky monster could burst through your wall and rip you to pieces at any time, and you couldn't even stop it. No amount of crawls seemed to be able to stop it, but the party was convinced that if they stopped pushing that rock up the hill, it'd roll back and crush them all.
"I'm really sorry I missed tonight," he said, and you shivered as his hands moved up your calves, thumbs gliding along the muscle. You sighed softly, visibly deflating. "I don't like when you're mad at me. Things have just felt off for the past few weeks."
"I'm not mad, baby," you murmured, guilt itching under your skin. "I'm just tired, and stir crazy, and I hate my job, and I'm really fucking jealous that you get to, like, fuck around at the station all day."
Steve made a face. "I told you that if you wanted, I could get a job." Which was technically true, but practically out of the question. The party would blow a fuse if Steve ditched his responsibilities at the Squawk, even though Jonathan was plenty capable of running sound effects.
And it was the way he worded it too. If you wanted, like he had to pin it all on you. Of course you wanted him to get a job, so there wasn't so much pressure on your back to schmooze for tips so you could buy food and clothes for Sam. And you were lucky. Steve still got an allowance, and you lived in a fancy house rent free.
You'd just been feeling so angry lately. At the circumstances, at your finances, at the constant stream of people pulling Steve away and away and away. And maybe that was putting a strain on the two of you, a coldness.
Steve stood behind you in the mirror, watching as you brushed your teeth and got ready for bed. You could feel his gaze as much as you could see it, like a shock of electricity every time your gaze met his in the glass.
"Steve," you said firmly, but with the toothbrush in your mouth it came out more like shteef.
When you leaned down to spit the foam out, he leaned over you, kissing between your shoulder blades. You sighed softly, eyes fluttering shut as he pressed his forehead to the top of your spine.
"My beautiful girl," he murmured. His hands came down on either side of you on the counter, caging you in beneath him. He was so warm where he pressed against you, a living furnace. "Let me make it up to you."
"Not tonight, baby," you said softly, turning to kiss the side of his face. "I'm exhausted."
And, to Steve's credit, he never pushed, never demanded. He kissed your shoulder tenderly, then kissed your temple as he stood. "I love you," he said, and you shivered as he combed his fingers through your hair. "I promise this'll all be over soon."
A sad smile twitched on your lips. You'd been wanting the quarantine to end for over a year, so why did the idea of things changing soon feel like a dagger in your gut? This was you and Steve in a fancy house that you knew you'd never have been able to afford on your own. You and Steve and your little peanut, who was only ever going to get bigger and bigger. It was the strange circumstances that made you feel like you were living your life in a snow globe— this little family disturbed by an invisible creature shaking things up.
You wanted things to change, you wanted them to stay the same. And, above all, you felt uncomfortably confused about how you felt about anything at all.
On Tuesday, you stared at the ceiling for a while before you had to finally get up and grab Sam. You watched the ceiling fan whirling lazily, always on even in the winter since Steve ran so hot. When he left, he had jostled the bed a bit and woken you up, and you hadn't managed to fall back asleep, which was a total bummer.
Your thoughts weren't very Vecna-safe lately, which you were trying to find ways to remedy. You'd grabbed some sort of grief-counseling, depression cure book from the secondhand store a month back, but there wasn't anything of use inside. Until you found one that covered losing your best friends in a tragic, inter-dimensional disaster, getting custody of their baby, and being trapped inside of your town while holding the secret of said inter-dimensional disaster, you'd be on your own.
It was just something about the distance. The night before their date, with all the crazy shit going on in town, you'd hunkered down in their living room and spent the night on their couch. You watched stupid slashers that Tommy had picked and ate some weird casserole that Carol had made.
You couldn't even remember what it was anymore, even though you'd made fun of her failed attempt at being Julia Child for that entire night. You couldn't remember the story Tommy was telling you about work, or why he'd been mad at his Dad that weekend.
The picture of Carol in your mind was getting fuzzy. Sometimes she was your Carol— the one who'd grinned at you in the doorway and told you not to wait up as she climbed into the passenger's seat. And sometimes she was different. She was Carol from Sophomore year, or summer camp. Blurred around the edges, overexposed like she was shot on bad film.
Steve had found you crying in the closet in March, flipping through your photo albums like memorizing her face again was an act of penance. He sat next to you on the floor and pointed to his favorite pictures, asking you about certain days until you were laughing more than you were crying.
He was good about that, but there were some things he just couldn't fix. Not for you, not for Dustin, not for anyone. Not yet, at least.
Sam stirred over the monitor— you could hear the creak of her standing up and leaning on the crib bars over the shitty speakers, and you were paranoid that she'd fall through one day and hurt herself. With a sigh, you stood and trudged upstairs.
She was waiting for you when you opened the door, her hair messy from sleep and sticking to her chubby face. The gloominess of the morning melted away as you took her into your arms and planted a kiss on her forehead.
"Can you say, good morning?" You encouraged as you carried her over to the changing table. "Good morning, mama." She babbled something close enough, which you took as a win.
Mornings were always good. You made breakfast and watched Sesame Street together. Even though it was a bit chilly outside, you both went for a walk and pet Ms. Phillips' golden retriever when it poked its head through the fence.
As the afternoon rolled around, you got her fed, changed, and loaded into the car so that you could drive her to the station and drop her off with Steve.
Work continued to be a sore spot. It was far from glamorous— a waitressing gig at a little diner just outside of the military containment zone. But it was free lunch, a meager wage, and tips. You'd gotten good at guilting people into leaving you a few bills on the tabletop.
Nancy and Robin were already standing outside of the station when you arrived— arms crossed, gaze fixed skyward. You unloaded Sam and joined them, trying to follow their gaze. "What's going on, why's the station dead?" You asked. Sam reached over for Nancy, tugging on her hair for attention until she finally relented and moved her into her arms.
"Something with the remote radio head," Robin said, shielding the sun with her hand as she looked up at the tower. Before you could ask, hey, what's a remote radio head, you craned your neck and saw Steve and Jonathan racing up the ladders to the top.
Jesus Christ. "I'm gonna be late for my shift, and Mr. Matthews already hates me," you groaned, crossing your arms as you watched Steve rush up the ladder.
The height alone made you feel queasy, and you had to turn away from the sight before you sympathetically puked. In the distance, a large truck kicked up dust on the road. You shielded your eyes and squinted, brows furrowing.
"He's back early," you noted with a quick glance back at Nancy.
A shadow crossed her face as her expression went steely. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. "Yeah, he is."
While Nancy and Robin hurried over to greet Murray, you took Sam back into your arms and watched anxiously as Steve pressed a button, or something, then raced Jonathan back down. He smiled at the sight of you waiting and jogged over even though he was already out of breath.
"Murray's back," you said as he took Sam into his arms. He greeted you with a quick peck on the lips, and only then seemed to process what you said.
"That's really soon," he said with a small frown. With Sam on his hip, he hurried over, and you could do little more than follow along to where Murray was already handing out his presents.
Boppers for Steve, Telemetry tags for the next crawl, a cassette for Jonathan and— "Doritos for the lady." You accepted the bag, already opened and chip-clipped back together, with a tight lipped smile. "I hope you'll forgive me, they really tested my self control."
A frown turned at your lips at his crushing lack of subtlety. With an exaggerated wink in your direction, he moved onto Nancy, with smuggled in details of the military's premature venture into the Upside Down. Steve, if puzzled by the fact that Murray had seemingly eaten your gift, said nothing. The group's focus was now on a surprise military burn, which meant you had the chance to slip away unquestioned.
Hastily, you kissed Steve's cheek and nodded towards the car. "Steve, I've gotta go," you said, your grip death-tight on the bag of chips. "I can't be late again, and I'm already…" you glanced at your watch and swore colorfully. With an exasperated sigh, Steve covered Sam's ears. "Fuck, I'm really late. You'll call the diner if something comes up, yeah?"
Before he could even respond, you had kissed Samantha's forehead and jogged to the car. "Great, perfect, I'll see you tonight!"
The only reason you'd been able to get a job at the diner was because Tina's family owned the place and her mom had always had a soft spot for you. It didn't, however, protect you from ire whenever you darted in fifteen minutes after your shift was supposed to start.
"This is the third time you've been late this month," Mr. Matthews lectured as you darted in the back door and grabbed your server book as you clocked in. "We have people waiting, get out there."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," you murmured, giving your best pleading look as you hit the floor. "Samantha had a rough morning, I promise I got here as quickly as I could."
Working was a great way to turn your brain off and slip back into the easy charm you'd carried yourself with in high school. The charisma and saccharine sweetness you'd used to get out of any trouble that Carol got you in… most of the time.
At least you weren't being fake to the sweet old people at the tables. They gushed over the (strategically placed) Polaroid of Sam you kept clipped to your book, right in their sight line as you took their order. Everyone was a regular, especially in quarantine where options were limited, so you milked their familiarity and empathy over your plight for your monetary benefit.
By the time the lunch rush ended, your feet hurt and your body ached as you sat at the corner booth and picked at a turkey club. The tinny speakers of your Walkman played a new mix that Steve had made. Songs for you, Fall '87.
None of the songs were actually from Fall of '87, lots of them weren't even from the eighties at all. So you listened to Mrs. Robinson and wondering if lying by omission was just as bad as bold faced lying.
The restaurant was pretty dead, which meant you could run out to the car, grab the test, and lock yourself in the employees bathroom for the next thirty minutes. If you wanted to, that was. Which you absolutely didn't.
That left taking it at home and finding thirty minutes alone that Steve wouldn't question you about, or burst in for. You loved Steve a lot, but he could be clingy when he wanted to be, which was often.
"Hey, your loverboy is on the phone, says it's a babysitting emergency?"
You sighed and stood, offering a quick apology to Mr. Matthews as you shut yourself into the back office and put the receiver to your ear. "Babysitting emergency, huh?" You asked. "A bad one?"
Babysitting emergency was the easiest cover for Steve to call with any upside down related news, because he'd never call watching Sam babysitting, and he was competent enough to figure things out without having to ask.
Steve sighed, and you could just picture him leaning against the grimy fridge in the station's kitchen and running his hands through his hair. "Mhmm, seems like it," he said. "I mean, I didn't think so, 'cause it's just the sector that has the Circuit City and Bradley's, but Nancy and the kids think it's pretty important. Y'know, they think every crawl is the one."
You chewed your lip and exhaled slowly. "Alright, just radio me tonight if you need me. I'll come and get Sam after my shift, and I can bring you over something to eat while you're driving around if you want."
"My usual?" When you hummed in affirmation he gave a dramatic sigh. "I wish you could come with me tonight. We can have Claudia watch Sam, get some alone time. I could make up for bailing on Halloween."
You snorted and rolled your eyes. "I'm not allowed to go on crawls with you anymore, remember?" You said. "I mean, god forbid we try to pass the time."
Steve laughed, and you felt an easy smile splitting your features. There was something about just hearing his voice that made your life feel a little more pleasant, despite every single complication that seemed to stack up against you.
"Ugh, I should get back," you sighed, even though you made no move to end the call. "I love you, baby."
"Yeah, I love you too. I'll see you after your shift."
Working as a waitress had never been your dream. Carol had done a stint of food service at Benny's before he'd died, and you always relished in the discounts and freebies she'd given while you loitered at the counter during her shifts, but you didn't respect it very much.
Summer between Sophomore and Junior year, she pulled strings with Benny to get you a job, but you'd resisted with a wrinkled nose and an insistence that you didn't want to smell like deep fryers all day. It went over about as well as it deserved to.
Both of you fought constantly over stupid, petty bullshit. When she spilled beer on your favorite suede jacket, or when you knocked over a bottle of red nail polish on her carpet. Anything could blow up between you two, but it didn't usually have the staying power.
But that fight hadn't been stupid. You sat on her bed and ate the food she brought back from her job and talked down on it like it was beneath you. She thought you were a spoiled brat who didn't know anything about what it was like to have to work for a living… and you got defensive because she was right.
You weren't like Steve, whose parents gave love in tithes. A couple of hundred dollar bills on the counter when they left town, an automatic deposit in the bank account. But you had been raised to see yourself as better than being a waitress or a shopgirl.
Why would you have to work when they could provide anything you needed? Actually, didn't it make them look bad if their little girl was waiting tables or folding clothes? Unbecoming.
You walked to your car after your shift with mustard staining your crewneck and the stench of deep fryer clinging to your hair. You reached into the Doritos bag and felt your stomach drop as you felt the cardboard of the box against your fingers. With a hard swallow, you skirted it and grabbed a chip instead.
It was late, so you figured you'd get a couple of hours with Sam awake, then a couple of hours of privacy while Steve was on the crawl. That was good. That gave you time, and it gave you a delay.
The squawk was buzzing with activity when you pulled up. Your nose wrinkled at the boxes of ammunition on the floor, the schematics on tables and drawn out on white boards. Sam was partitioned off away from it, closed into the manager's office with Steve, playing with My Little Ponies across the desk.
You knocked on the window and he looked up with a smile, giving an easy wave before he scooped up Sam, her toys, and joined you in the fray.
"This is crazy," you said with a nervous laugh. "Has it been like this all day?"
"Yeah, and Henderson's a no-show," he said with an eye roll. "Y'know, that kid is really on my last nerve. The attitude, the snark. And now he's bailing on a crawl?"
You eased Sam into your arms and shook your head. "Well, that's not really like him," you said with a frown. "Is he okay? Did you call Cl—"
"Claudia thinks that he's with Mike. You drove by the cemetery on the way here, did you…?" You shook your head and he sighed. "Well, he'd better show up. I don't want to be stuck in the car with Byers. You sure you can't find a sitter and ride around with me?"
You laughed and shook your head. "Keep it in your pants," you teased. "And can you not be a dickhead to Jonathan, please?"
He had the audacity to look abashed. "Hey, he's the one who has the problem with me," he said, his pitch raising with defensiveness. "I'd like to see you drive around with Mr. doom and gloom all night. 'Steve, change the tape, this song sucks. Steve, I don't want to listen to The Bulls. Steve stop chewing so loud.'"
A scoff escaped your lips. "Oh, boohoo, poor baby." He rolled his eyes and kissed your forehead. "Your dinner's on the couch, hot and greasy."
"Love you, keep the walkie on in case I get bored." He slapped your ass about as subtly as he could in a room full of people. You pecked his lips once, twice, and grabbed Sam's diaper bag by the door on your way out.
One thing that you hated about winter was the darkness. As you unloaded Sam from the car in the driveway, you felt hyper-aware of the night around you— encroaching, suffocating. The strangest feeling that something was out there watching you.
You didn't know why, but your heart thrummed in your chest, the strangest tugging feeling behind your ribs. Instinct, pure and primal, that made you hurry inside and lock the door.
It's just because of the crawl, you told yourself. Because Steve is occupied, and everyone seemed so serious, and it's so soon after the last, and you're all going stir crazy and hoping that it's the one.
But you didn't hope that it was the last, because that would mean they found Vecna, which would put them all in danger. But at the same time, you wanted it all to be over. It was a dizzying contradiction that made your brain lock up. Steve had walked out of each brush with the Upside Down with new scars, you didn't want to see what would happen this time.
Crawl 36, fifteen months since the first. Eleven months of dating Steve, officially. Eighteen months of Sam.
It was crazy how much older she felt than this time last year. There she was, walking freely, talking semi-coherently, able to play pretend with a toy kitchen and keep herself occupied. Last year, she'd been mostly-wordless, ate mush, and could hardly stand without wobbling.
She liked to play by herself, sometimes. She'd be pretending with spare pots and pans and wooden foods, and when you'd try to join you she'd give you this incredulous look, like you were in the way. But other times she'd be so clingy and affectionate— curling at your side on the couch, pleading for another story… and another one… and another one… and just one more.
She was as spoiled as a little girl growing up in Quarantine could be. You and Steve wouldn't have it any other way.
By nine, she was dozing at your side on the couch, long eyelashes fluttering as she fought sleep. Her face was awash in pastels as you both watched the Care Bears movie for what had to have been the hundredth time. She had her favorites, even if you and Steve had tried to get her to love the Muppet Movie as much as you did.
"Ready to go to bed, Peanut?" You asked, rubbing her back gently. She shook her head, but couldn't fight the yawn that escaped at the mention of sleep. "Yeah, I think you are. Should we go get our jammies?"
After a moment's hesitation, she nodded and looped her arms around your neck so that you could carry her upstairs. Steve hated the staircase, and had considered moving Sam's room into his dad's old room multiple times to keep from hauling her up and down.
Those stairs were the reason that Steve had installed a permanent baby gate in her doorway, so in case she did get out of her crib, she wouldn't get far enough to hurt herself. As soon as you put her down, she ran to her dresser and pulled out a pair of pajamas.
"These," she said, her words coming out more like deese on lips that were still learning how to say what she wanted. As a second thought, she hurried to her bookshelf to get her favorite bedtime story… then another. "These."
Bossy. You smiled and knelt down to help get her ready for bed. She was a fun age, where she was starting to have a big personality and the words to express it. All of her expressions were purely Steve, and she'd started copying his hands-on-hips stance when she was feeling particularly grumpy.
When she was all settled, you pulled her into your lap and opened the first book. With each glance down at her, you watched her eyes grow heavier and heavier, until she was fighting the heavy lids closing over her eyes.
Halfway through Baby Fozzie is Afraid of the Dark, Sam was dozing against your chest. Over the past few months, you'd become an expert at getting her into the crib without waking her up. With a soft shush as she stirred in your arms, you laid her down and pulled her quilt over her to keep her warm. Around her, muppet babies and care bears stood sentry.
The crawl was going to go well, no one would get hurt, and you and Sam were perfectly safe. But… maybe you'd sleep in her room tonight.
Steve called you on the walkie while you made a late-night cup of tea. As his voice rang over the speakers, you jumped onto the counter and sat cross-legged. "Mhmm?"
"Dustin was a no-show," he said in lieu of greeting. "I mean, what a little asshole."
You shrugged, nails tapping on the plastic casing of the radio. "He probably has a good reason, Steve. Like, what if he's dead in a ditch somewhere? You'd feel awful."
Steve scoffed. "Well, he'd better be, otherwise I'll make sure he is before the night's over." You rolled your eyes at his dramatics and swirled your spoon around the hot tea, watching the sugar granules inside dance around. "How'd Sam do?"
"Good," you replied. "She's always good, you know that. She just went down for the night, and I'm about to break out the Atari and beat your score on Ms. Pac-Man. How's Jonathan?"
"Jonathan can hear you," Steve replied. "And he's fine. We're parked and waiting for the go-ahead."
You nodded. You knew he was bored just sitting there waiting. Usually Dustin provided a bit of entertainment, or at least a verbal spar that passed the time. With Jonathan in the back, it must've felt like a cold war in there.
So you drank your tea and spilled about your day at the diner— the weird flirty old man that had given you a fifteen dollar tip, the nice little grandma who needed someone to mow her lawn for extra money, which you volunteered him for. Stacey Cooper came in to get lunch for the disgraced former-mayor Kline, and Danny came in for dinner and avoided eye contact.
He knew you didn't love your job, and that making yourself leave the house every day to go clean tables and take orders was like torture. And he also knew that you tried to pretend like it wasn't mind numbingly awful so he didn't feel too guilty.
But what other choice did you have? Beg your parents for money? Beg his for more?
"Ugh, this tea went right through me, I'm gonna go," you said. "Call me if you need me." You both said your goodbyes and you steadied yourself with a deep breath.
Empty house, hours of freedom, a Doritos bag staring at you from across the kitchen. With a huff, you stood and wrenched it open so you could grab the seasoning-dusted box from within. It felt so heavy in your hands despite weighing next to nothing at all.
Your stomach roiled with implacable emotion as you locked yourself in the bathroom and laid out the contents of the box on the counter. In your heart, you knew that you should have told Steve by then— when your period was late, when you asked Murray to smuggle you in the test, when you snuck it away from him in a fucking Doritos bag.
You thought maybe you should have called him then, but Jonathan was in the van, and a crawl was going on, and there were a million things you didn't want to interrupt.
Maybe it was because you respected the sanctity of what they were doing. Or maybe it was because you were scared that no matter the result, you'd both be disappointed. You'd prefer to save him from that, if you could. What good would knowing do?
You opened the instructions and felt the pit of anxiety in your stomach threaten to swallow you entirely. It was easy enough. Carol told you that one time Debbie thought she was pregnant and got this insane glass tube laboratory setup she had to mail off for results because she was scared their family doctor would narc to their parents.
At least it wasn't that hard anymore. Small blessings.
It would take thirty minutes total. Pee on the sampler, put it in the first well, then wait. Move it to the second, wait. And finally the third. Wait. And that's where you were— waiting.
You sat on the edge of the bathtub and twisted your ring around your finger, just watching the kitchen timer on the counter ticking closer and closer to zero. Any other day, you might have craved a cigarette.
Well, you did, but given the circumstances it felt a little inappropriate to sneak one, even if you were eyeing the pack that you'd hidden behind a collection of decorative candles on the countertop.
You weren't sure if you were pregnant, or if stress had finally taken its toll on your body and made you all irregular and off. What you did know was that you were never particularly strict about safe sex with Steve, you weren't on the pill, and you were scared that trying meant an easy opportunity for a new doctor to narc to your parents for brownie points.
And, really, you knew it was a stupid excuse. You'd been pushing your luck for months out of sheer irresponsibility. Every missed restock at the store of condoms, or time when you told Steve he should pull out, but wrapped your legs around him even tighter as you got both close. It felt like it was finally time to pay the piper.
As you sat there picking at your nails, the lights began to flicker, then flash. The radio on the countertop powered on, flipped through stations in a staticky screech, then it all went dead entirely.
You went to the wall and flicked the light switch, until suddenly the lights turned back on as normal. Across the house, you could hear Sam starting to cry. If the power had gone wonky downstairs, it had likely gone haywire in her room too.
The egg timer ticked down five minutes, but you couldn't even bear to look at the sampler where it precariously balanced in the well in case it had already shifted colors. On instinct, you grabbed the walkie as you crossed the house to the stairs, hurrying up to comfort the crying baby.
Upon entry, the air smelled singed. It didn't take long to notice the black char on the inside of her ceramic nightlight where the bulb had blown out. The speakers on the shelf played soft classical music from the naptime cassette Steve had made during a slow day at the station, apparently having remained on after the power surge.
As you swept Sam into your arms, you shushed her gently and swayed. Sam was easy most of the time, but when her sleep was interrupted she could be an absolute terror. The next few minutes were crucial if either of you were going to sleep at all.
The radio crackled to life in your grasp. "You there?" Steve's voice rang through, more fraught than it was with the usual crawl hiccup.
"Yeah, I'm here," you said. "There was a weird power surge here, did you—"
"Yeah, it fried the van's battery so we're sitting ducks out here. Can you give us a boost?" There was something else beneath his request, an urgency that made a chill run down your spine. "Please?"
Something in your gut told you that Nancy was right, that this was the big crawl. The lights had never done that before, and Steve had never seemed so scared, not even when Sam got a bug a few months back and you had to take her to the hospital for a high fever.
"Yeah, just give me time to bundle Sam up and get her in the car. Where are you?"
The line went quiet as he presumably looked for some sort of landmark. "We're on Cornwallis about… five minutes down the road from the old Shell station where we used to buy beer."
Sam was grumpy and squirmy as you changed her into something a little cozier, but what choice did you really have? With her in one arm, you grabbed a care bear absently as you hurried out the door and down the stairs.
Just as you were about to grab your keys, you heard the shrill sound of the kitchen timer going off across the house and dropped them back onto the table with a dull thump. "Sorry, baby, I'll get you in the seat in a second, I promise," you apologized to your fussy daughter as you crossed the house towards the bedroom and bath.
After Carol got pregnant, in the brief stretch of Summer before you ran out of Hawkins without looking back, you'd asked her what it was like to have a baby growing inside of her. Just the thought of it had deeply disturbed you— a little parasite draining your nutrients to grow itself.
"Well, when you say it like that, it's really weird," she said, her expression wrinkling with distaste. "Actually, don't talk about that medical shit anymore, you'll give me nightmares."
You turned onto your stomach,relishing in the heat of the summer sun on your back while she hid her fair skin beneath an umbrella. "I can't help it," you said. "It's just… medically freaky. Like, there's something living inside of you right now, suspended in amniotic fluid, and it looks like a little alien."
She rolled her eyes. "Okay, now it sounds like you're watching too many scary movies," she said with a dismissive scoff. She pulled her sunglasses down her nose and leveled you with her gaze. "I don't even feel it inside of me yet, so I don't think about it like that. It's just… something that's happening to me. And I'm not upset that it is."
It didn't make sense to you. Your mother complained about her pregnancy with you every year on your birthday. The long labor, the sickness, the bed rest, the aching feet and headaches. You couldn't imagine giving up so much of yourself thanklessly to a little creature that might grow up to wish you never had.
But Carol was happy, and you didn't have to understand.
When you came back from fall break, her skin was radiant, her hair was full, and she looked perfectly blissful. She showed you everything they ordered for the nursery, and you didn't critique the color choices once even though you really wanted to. She left to pee when she was in the middle of pointing out everything she'd gotten from the shower, and you were left standing in this baby's room with indescribable feelings of sadness.
It felt like, once again, you had been left behind. Your best friends were moving on without you, into this new phase of life that you weren't sure you belonged in. Staring at the crib, decorated with an ugly peach and teal quilted liner, you wanted to just go back to that tiny bed in her parents house and read Teen Beat until you fell asleep.
On the couch, while you curled up beside her and watched a rented tape of A Chorus Line, she moved your hand to her stomach and you grimaced at the feel of a kick. "Oh, that's so weird," you said with a shake of your head.
"Yeah, you were right all along. It is pretty freaky. This baby is fucking killing me."
You didn't look at it as you turned off the timer with unsteady hands. Your nail polish was chipping— that was something to fixate on. Red cracking off in messy flakes to reveal bare nail beneath.
You took the sampler out of the well and dropped it onto the counter without fixing your gaze downward. You didn't have to look yet. You could have a minute more. Maybe a few.
But Sam was squirming and irritable and Steve and Jonathan needed a jump start and maybe the crawl was going wrong and every second you wasted because you were scared was another opportunity for something bad to happen.
You glanced down at the test stick and exhaled shakily, feeling a strange pang of grief and relief all at once. You wanted a moment to sit with it, to really process it, but you didn't have the luxury. So you shifted Sammie higher on your hip and left to rescue your boyfriend.
She cried in the backseat as you drove through the night. No radio to listen to, no sound of Steve's voice to fill the car. It was just you and the thoughts racing through your mind as you drove across the city.
You were going to tell Steve about the test. You had to tell Steve— it wasn't something that could just wait for better circumstances. Lying by omission was still lying, and you knew that.
Your thumbs drummed against the steering wheel as you drove, enveloped on all sides by bumpy road and stretches of forest. Before long, your headlights caught the blue paint of the van, so you pulled over in front of it.
As soon as you got out of the car, Steve squeezed you tight in his arms, crushing you in his grip. You gave a weak laugh, brows furrowed as you wrapped your arms around him and hugged back. It lasted longer than usual, until you wanted to wriggle out, but decided that maybe he needed it more than you needed to breathe fresh air.
When he pulled back, you gave a weak frown. "Things are going bad, huh?" He swallowed and nodded. "Jump the car, you can catch me up."
You rocked Sam back and forth in your arms, hugging her tight to ward off the cold, while Steve and Jonathan worked on getting the van jump started. And while Jon hooked up the jumper cables to your clunker, Steve told you everything.
Hopper was missing in the Upside Down, a Demogorgon had attacked the military convoy, then the Wheeler's. And they knew that because Will had seen it, which was weird enough. And it took Holly after all of that. It looked bad for the Wheeler's. Things were bad.
"It's not safe at home anymore," he said, his lips twitching into a frown. "I don't know why it wanted to take Holly, or who it might take next, but I want you and Sam with me."
"Is that safe?" You asked feebly, swallowing hard. "I mean… the track record for people who get close with all this stuff isn't reassuring." Barbara, Bob, Billy, Eddie, Max.
Then again, the track record for people who stayed away wasn't the best either. Benny, Heather, Chrissy, Carol and Tommy. People stayed clueless and detached and bad shit happened regardless.
You stay home and you're monster food, you get too close and you're collateral damage. There was no safe path, there was only a coin flip and a desperate hope that you'd chosen correctly.
"You're safer with me, I promise," he insisted. "I wouldn't let anything happen to either of you, you know that."
And you did know that. You knew Steve, and you knew he'd do whatever it took to make sure you and Sam made it out without a single scratch, even if he killed himself in the process. That's how much he loved you both, and you hated that you were so cowardly in comparison that you couldn't start a scary conversation.
Steve could be brave. You could be brave. You wanted to be brave.
"Steve, there's something we should probably talk about, but I don't know if this is a really good time or a really bad time, so…" But his gaze was behind you, staring at the side street feeding into Cornwallis.
Because there was Dustin Henderson, bloodied and battered, wheeling his bike towards the van. Steve sighed, shoulders slumping as Dustin lifted his hand in a lazy wave. "Put a pin in that?" You nodded feebly and brought a strained smile to your lips. "And do you have your—"
"The first aid kit? Yeah, it's in the trunk. It's always in the trunk." Sidebar— you were playing nurse again because Dustin Henderson ran his mouth and got his ass beaten. You didn't need to hear the lie he'd tell this time, you just knew.
Dustin didn't want to talk about it, and you tried not to needle him about it. You ran into the Shell up the street to fill up a styrofoam cup full of fresh water… then grabbed a cold can of soda from the fridge for good measure. Dustin held the icy can to his cheekbone while you gingerly cleaned the cuts on his face.
"I told Steve not to be mad that you didn't show," you told him, sitting in the back of the van while Steve and Jonathan fussed with the battery and passed Sam between themselves. Dustin winced as you wiped at the bridge of his nose, and you frowned sympathetically. "Bike crash?"
Dustin shrugged. "I wasn't watching where I was going." You hummed softly and held your tongue. Bike crashes didn't do this. It went quiet between the two of you as you worked, but Dustin spoke up finally. "What were you like in high school? I know what Steve used to be like, but…"
A tiny smile played on your lips. "I was just another popular asshole," you said with an eye roll. "And look where it got me. I'm not exactly going to, like, end world hunger or cure cancer because I was Miss Hawkins '85."
His eyes widened, and you could tell that the expression of surprise physically pained him to make, as involuntary as it was. "You were Miss Hawkins? How did I not know this? Do you still have the crown?"
You rolled your eyes. Of course you still had the crown, but you'd never let him know that. "I was a very gracious leader. People loved me, which was weird because no one really thought much about me until Junior year." You cleared your throat and tried to ignore that soft spot that refused to fortify itself. "I also knew your friend Eddie."
Your gaze flicked down to his torn Hellfire Club shirt and you knew exactly how he wound up sitting in the van and being patched back up. "Well… I guess I didn't know him that well. First we had Homeroom my Junior year. And then in '85 I had two months of lunch detention and Eddie couldn't find a scene partner, so Mr. Hirsch told me if I did the scene and performed it for Senior Showcase with gusto he'd call it even."
Eddie wanted to do The Taming of the Shrew, which you were ideologically opposed to. But he promised it would be fun and subversive, whatever the hell that meant, and you thought you looked pretty in the musty old costumes you'd pulled from the full racks in the theater's basement. So, whatever.
He was over the top and loud, and you got the feeling he didn't think very highly of you. He'd make these little digs about you being a princess, or about how rich you were, which irked you. But Mr. Hirsch wanted gusto, so you performed with gusto.
You didn't ever talk to him again, even when you passed him at school, but he didn't make an effort to say hi either. You were never meant to be friends, and neither of you were inclined to change that. It made you a little sad, considering how great everyone who actually knew him said he was.
"How'd it go?" Dustin asked as you put the bloodied cloth down and surveyed your work. Battered, bruised, and definitely scar-worthy… but he wasn't going to get an infection.
A coy smile played on your lips. "Eddie got an A, I got out of detention, and Mr. Hirsch told me it was a real shame that I hadn't considered theatre before." Dustin laughed, just a bit, and you tossed him a bottle of Advil. "Did you at least get a good punch in?"
Dustin swallowed and nodded, and you could read the, don't tell Steve, look in his eyes as plain as day. You tossed him the WSQK crewneck and gave him a small smile. "Attaboy."
By the time Steve finally got the car cranked, you had done your best to fill Dustin in on the events of the night. It probably wasn't the most effective summary, given you'd heard it all secondhand from Steve, but he seemed to understand well enough.
"We're going to go try to find Hopper's signal," Steve said, giving you a peck on the cheek. "Why don't you and Sam head up to the station?"
You frowned, crossing your arms. "It's not exactly the best place for a toddler to sleep," you said. "How long are we going to be away from home?"
Steve sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I dunno… we'll figure it out as we go. All I know is that there was a rift in the forest, a tunnel under the backyard, and a rift at the bottom of the pool. I don't like thinking that a demo can crawl back through while you're home alone."
Spending the night at the Squawk wasn't your ideal night, especially with Sam in tow, but what choice did you have? Maybe home was unsafe, and maybe being at the station was the best place for Sam.
So you kissed him, told him to please drive safe, and made your way to the radio station, with the strangest feeling that it might have been the beginning of the end.
In the morning, you heard the van pull up to the Squawk and rubbed at your eyes. Sam had slept peacefully on the couch for most of the night, only waking a few times because her blanket had fallen off of she was missing one of her stuffed animals, but she was adaptable.
You, on the other hand, were notably not adaptable. You couldn't sleep on the springy, smoky couch, and you really couldn't let yourself sleep while worrying about Sam rolling off the couch and onto the tile floor. And worrying about Steve circling Hawkins all night in the unreliable Squawk van. And thinking that every tiny bump and squeak was a demogorgon just waiting to carve you up.
But at least Sam got good sleep. That was something.
"You're both good?" Steve asked when he made it inside, leaving the kids and Nancy outside. "Sleep okay?"
"She did," you told him, and leaned into his chest lazily. He wrapped you up in a hug and rested his chin on the crown of your head. "Watch her so I can grab something to eat? And coffee?"
He nodded and you trudged into the makeshift kitchen, a space which had been overtaken by stacks of studio junk you didn't understand. You rooted through the messily stocked cabinets and fridge until you found a half-empty, very stale box of Golden Grahams. The milk was nearly empty in the fridge, and the coffee machine gurgled in protest as you set a pot on to brew.
You grabbed one of the Boppers that Steve had gotten yesterday and took a bite, grateful to have something filling your empty stomach. With an exhausted huff, you leaned against the ancient refrigerator and watched Steve brushing Sam's hair from her face as she slowly woke up.
"Hey, morning Peanut," he greeted, and his voice was so soft that it made your heart ache. She sat up and looped her arms around his neck in a hug, and he didn't even wince at her terrible morning breath when she pulled back to say good morning.
Steve was a really, really good dad. He lifted her into his arms and carried her into the kitchen. "Anything we can get to tide her over?" He asked, peering at the cabinets. "I usually hide a container of oatmeal somewhere, I can make some in the microwave. And there should be a passable banana somewhere to mix in."
You kissed his cheek and shook your head. "Why don't you go take a quick power nap and let me handle it?" You asked with a tiny smile. "What good are you to anyone if you're a total zombie?"
He kissed your forehead, eased Sam into the booster seat at the janky dinette, and left you to make breakfast out of the random assortment of stuff from the cabinets. Oatmeal was hidden behind a stale box of Cheez-Its and a can of field peas. The passable banana was beneath a grapefruit that you would claim for yourself.
Steve had crashed by the time the rest of the party walked into the station. Samantha lit up at the sight of Dustin, and reached for him across the room, squirming in her seat. "Dusty! Dusty!" He came over and knelt by her chair, wincing as she poked at his bruised cheek. "Ouch."
He gave a wry laugh. "Yeah, ouch. Don't touch."
"Sit with her for a second?" You asked. When he nodded, you crossed the room to wrap Nancy in a tight hug. She stiffened for a second, then relaxed in your arms. You could smell the metallic, coppery smell of blood, maybe in her hair, even if there was no visible trace on her hands and her clothes. "How are you doing, Nance?"
She pulled back and gave an attempt at a smile. "About as well as I can be, I guess," she said. She shifted herself out of your hug and put a little bit of distance between you, and looked like she was going to turn and leave before adding, "Um, do you know Dr. Richards? He's the doctor in charge of the ICU, I guess. I guess I'm just wondering if he's good."
Your expression softened and you shrugged. "Yeah. I mean, he's a total chauvinist dickhead, but he's a pretty good doctor," you replied. "Hawkins Memorial is, like, the best place for your parents to be. And if it got really bad, they'd bring in the super good military doctors to patch them up. "
Nancy nodded and headed for the dinette, pausing just before she could cross the threshold. "How are you doing?" She asked, narrowing her brows.
You glanced at a sleeping Steve and back at her, narrowing your eyes right back. "Fine."
She cocked her head. "Yeah? No update about what we talked about last week?"
You brought an easy smile to your lips and shook your head. "I'm fine, Nance," you insisted. "I've got this handled."
Maybe Nancy Wheeler wasn't the best choice of a person to go to when you were in a crisis. Nancy wanted answers. Nancy needed solutions. So when you called her, panicked, two and a half weeks prior about a very late period and never followed up, she couldn't let it lie.
In all fairness, could anyone? But no one else had Nancy's perception and uncanny ability to read people, like she could see the truth in your eyes. And in that moment, you were about as challenging to read as a picture book.
Steve got a thirty minute nap before the rest of the group shook him awake. You stayed in the managers office and entertained Sam with copy paper and toddler-sized crayons. While the rest of the group planned… whatever beyond the doors, Sam drew what looked like a multicolored sea urchin… and you drew a remarkably uncanny cartoon of Steve holding the rubber chicken.
You finally crashed on the couch, cuddled up with a napping Sam. You felt drowsiness like a wave, pulling you under until it washed over you entirely. A couch that smelled like smoke, the scratchy cushions, the soft cadence of your daughter's breathing. It didn't matter that the sun was out, you slept better than you had in days.
You dreamed of Carol and Tommy, of hanging out in Tommy's bedroom and smoking cigarettes out of the window. It slipped away when Steve gently nudged you awake, but there was an impression of them behind your eyes. Equal parts comfort and longing.
With a few slow blinks, you brought yourself back to life, groaning at the sunshine. You glanced down and frowned at the sight of Sam missing beside you, but Steve didn't seem worried. "How long was I out? Where's Sam?"
"Robin's letting her play with the control deck in the studio," he said, with a casual glance through the glass over your head. "You looked like you could use some sleep while we got everything ready for tonight. Murray's bringing supplies, and shit. I didn't want to wake you up to ask, so I just told him to grab you a candy bar from a gas station if he stops."
You yawned and scrunched your face as you sat up. It was getting closer to midday, which meant you had been asleep for longer than you liked. It felt a little embarrassing to think about you totally passed out asleep on the couch while everyone did official business. "What's there to get ready?" You asked.
Steve shrugged and reached over to play with your fingers, twisting your ring around and around. "Well, we think Vecna's coming for this kid, Derek, I guess," his mouth twitched a little, anxiously. "So, long story short, we're drugging and kidnapping him and his family so we can set a trap for the demogorgon, tag it, and track it."
The last part of the plan came out in a sudden rush, and you could do little more than just scoff in surprise. "Steve, what the fuck."
"I know, but I can explain everything in the car," he insisted. "It's totally foolproof."
It was, remarkably, not foolproof. Robin was stealing drugs from the hospital your parents worked at, Nancy was going to have to shoot a stupid, scary monster, Lucas was in harms way throwing water balloons at the thing, and Erica had to drug an entire family.
Your fingers drummed on your thigh as Steve drove back to the house. Outside the windows, it was just another nice day out. Chilly, but sunny. Kids played at the park, old men walked their fluffy little dogs.
You wondered where you'd go when things were over. Carol and Tommy's place had been foreclosed on after sitting on the market for so long without payments, and you weren't really sure if that affected your credit or not, since it was technically two dead people's house.
Maybe Daniel and Sylvia would let you stay in the house. Maybe you could find a nice rental by your school and Steve could get a job nearby and Sam could stay at the campus daycare. You did want to go back to school, for sure, but the question of finances made your stomach turn.
Or maybe you were just hungry again. Steve pulled into the driveway and leaned over to kiss your cheek. You closed your eyes and exhaled slowly, relishing in the proximity. If things were perfect, you could just stay there. Lean over, wrap yourself up in him, and let the rest of the world melt away.
"What are you thinking about, huh?" He asked, mumbling against your skin. "Don't worry about anything, honey. Things are going to turn out just fine."
You rushed ahead of him in the house with the excuse that you really had to pee and take a shower, definitely before he did. He didn't question it. You tossed all of the evidence of the test you took, and turned the shower to the hottest it could go.
The guilt gnawed at you, making your stomach turn, but what choice did you have? Holly was missing, El was lost with Hopper somewhere in the Upside down… it wasn't the time for distractions. Maybe if you told him he'd get in his head about it and he'd get distracted and then things would go wrong and the plan would fail or they'd all get arrested. It'd all be your fault. You'd ruin everything. They'd hate you.
So you wouldn't say anything. You could wait a few more days, easy.
The wind whipped around you as you walked up the steps to the Perkins' house. Sam's cheeks were pink from the cold, even just from the short walk. The weather had turned as the sun got low, and you tugged your trench coat around yourself as you knocked on the door and waited.
Mrs. Perkins smiled as soon as she caught sight of her grandbaby, and you gave an extremely grateful smile. "Thanks so much, Mrs. Perkins, you're a lifesaver," you insisted. "It's just that Steve's come down with the flu, and you know she just had that stomach bug two months ago and it was so hard on her."
Mrs. Perkins eased her into her arms and gave you a smile. "Don't mention it. We always love having our sweet Samantha over," she insisted. You followed her into the house, lugging her diaper bag and overnight bag with you.
Their house was just as you remembered it. You followed Mrs. Perkins as she walked you deeper into the house and pushed open the door where Carol's bedroom used to be. Your heart ached, twinging as you looked up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and the crochet quilt at the foot of the bed that Mimi Perkins had made. Where Carol's vanity used to be, there was a clearly secondhand crib with a green quilt that clashed terribly with the yellow paint on the walls.
You swallowed down a lump in your throat and blinked away the persistent sting in your eyes. "Um… I packed her favorite stuffed animals. She always sleeps with her Bedtime Bear and the gorilla. She calls it scary dog, I don't know why. And I packed her favorite books, she loves the Muppet Babies. And I have a cassette Steve made her for bedtime that always knocks her right out."
Mrs. Perkins put two hands on your shoulders and gave you a reassuring smile. "It's just a couple of days, honey," she said gently. "She'll be alright."
You nodded and sniffled a little as you leaned forward to kiss Sam's forehead. "Mama loves you so much, okay?" You said gently. She nodded and knocked her forehead to yours. "Be an angel for Nana Perkins."
You knew she would, and you knew she'd be fine, but leaving her behind felt like a betrayal. She'd already lost two parents, and there you were, following Steve into danger. But you wanted to see things through with your own eyes— you wanted no question that your girl was going to grow up safe.
You drove to McCorkle farm and wiped your eyes before you got out of the car. Being emotional wouldn't serve anyone, least of all yourself. You sniffled and leaned your forehead against the steering wheel as you tried to collect yourself. This was right, you were doing the right thing.
When you finally gathered your wits enough to join everyone else, you found Steve leaning against the Beamer, arms crossed, with a frown etching his features.
"Still pouting about your car?" You asked, flicking the metal satellite. Steve scoffed, scuffing his feet on the ground. He was well and truly pouting, and it struck you how young both of you still were, even if you felt like you'd aged decades in the past eighteen months. "Hey, it's fun, maybe we can start a ghost hunting task force after all of this."
Steve glared over at Dustin, but broke his stare to look at you. His gaze softened almost imperceptibly, and you felt his gaze tracking over your watery, red eyes. "You've been crying," he noted, and his words were soft where his tone was still sharp. "Did she not want to go?"
You sighed and shook your head. "No, it's not that. It's just always hard to leave her alone, especially with all of this—" You gave a vague wave of your hand where the kids loaded up in the Squawk van and stocked up with axes and tools. "I just want to make sure both of us come home to her."
Steve swallowed and closed his eyes for a second. His chest rose and fell with a deep, slow breath. Maybe he felt dumb for being so upset about his car when there was a lot more at stake. You knew the feeling.
"Hey, we're just driving around," he insisted. "Worst that'll happen is we get a ticket."
That wasn't the worst. In your brain, you traced the millions of ways that this could go wrong and wind up with the two of you rotting in a military prison, dead, or worse. And you tried to stay optimistic anyway— so far, Steve had survived a fight with a demogorgon, being swarmed by demodogs, Russian torture, a giant gooey flesh monster, being swarmed by bats, and attacking Vecna in person… that was a pretty good track record.
Maybe a drive around Hawkins wouldn't be too terrible.
Steve nudged your shoulder with his arm and you reluctantly cracked a smile. "I really love you," He said, tucking your hair behind your ear. "Things have just been so off between us lately, y'know? And I know it's because of the job, and money, and a million other things, and I should be there for you more, but I promise it'll get better."
Your lips twitched into a frown. "Steve, you're just fine," you insisted. "I swear, it's not any of that, it's…" The words died on your tongue as Steve looked at you expectantly. You could taste the words on your tongue, so close to just spilling out, but you just couldn't. "It's not as important as this. Like… Property damage, breaking and entering, drugging, kidnapping… That's a lot for a rap sheet."
Steve chuckled under his breath. Across the farm, Lucas whistled and slapped the side of the van. Dustin, Nancy, and Jonathan headed for the Beamer. "We'll be fine. Take shotgun? I'm still mad at Henderson."
When you finally parked across the street, you watched in awe and terror as Erica cried fake tears and lied her way into the house with the drugged pie. She was a thoroughly terrifying little girl, and equally impressive.
"Y'know…" you said in the quiet of the car. "I should feel bad about being a part of all of this, but when I was going door to door for Mondale, they were such assholes. Major fucking republicans, by the way. Like… mouths surgically attached to Reagan's ass—"
"Okay, ew," Steve groaned. "We get the picture, and it's disgusting."
You sighed and knocked your head against the door. "Do you think the old lady that Robin took the meds from is going to be okay?" You asked again, to be met with silence. "'Cause, like, imagine she's in serious pain and that's the only way she can sleep, and the nurse on duty just thinks that she's a junkie and took it all and can't have anymore."
Dustin put a hand on your arm. "Yeah, we don't usually talk this much." You gave a sheepish smile and held your tongue as you watched the silhouettes of the Turbow's and Erica eating the pie through the drawn curtains. Your nails drummed on the window, and when that felt too loud, you drummed them on your knee.
Finally, the garage opened and the group jumped into action. You scrambled to follow behind, tossing your purse into the car so you could hurry across the street. The Squawk van was in the drive… it wasn't exactly subtle. You looked at your surroundings, praying that no neighbors chose that time to look out their windows, and frowned as you slipped into the garage.
They had their marching orders, and you did your best not to get in the way. Moving furniture, helping set traps. When Dustin handed you an axe, you looked at him incredulously.
"I can't use this," you said with a weak laugh, nudging it back towards him..
Dustin pushed it back into your grip. "Figure it out, Miss Hawkins."
You huffed and looked at Steve, who shrugged. Figure it out. You swallowed and carried the axe into the living room, feeling like a bunny in a lions den.
You were spoiled, and coddled, and babied. You were so out of your depth that you felt embarrassed just standing there among them. You raised the axe and slammed it down onto the white chalk mark on the ground. The wood splintered around the impact point, and you wrenched the blade free with shocking ease.
Turns out, lifting and carrying a toddler around for hours every day did wonders for your upper body strength. There was something cathartic about it too— seeing this perfect, beautiful wood floor that the asshole boot-licking losers paid thousands for destroyed at your hand. To see anything destroyed, like a manifestation of everything you'd been holding in for months.
You lost yourself in that catharsis until everyone else stopped and you looked up. Steve Harrington. Your boyfriend, the total show off. He was a showman, revving the chainsaw like he was in a horror movie before he took the tool to the hardwoods that you'd all barely put a dent in.
Afterward, when the floor caved in, you watched him panting across the room. He dropped the chainsaw, pulled back the goggles, and tugged at his sweater. He was annoyingly handsome, and you knew from the smile he sent you across the room that he knew it. The total asshole.
You two got to the car first, while Dustin did a quick pass at the traps to ensure everything was in order. "That shit with the chainsaw was super phallic," you said with a grin, nudging him across the center console. "You totally ruined my flow with the axe too. I was actually good with it."
He rolled his eyes. "If it looked like a dick it's because you wanted it to, perv." You shook your head and fought a grin. Maybe he was a little right. Whatever. "How did Dustin find out about you being Miss Hawkins?"
You felt your cheeks going a little warm with sudden humility. "I… was trying to bond with the kid," you said. "He asked what I was like in high school."
Steve nodded, lips twitching. "And you started bragging?"
You rolled your eyes. "I was not bragging. I was actually being kind of self-deprecating, so…"
You reached into the glove box and grabbed a Bopper. You hadn't eaten since you'd stopped at home, and your stomach was starting to growl. Steve leaned over and took a bite from your hand. It was weird, being included— the rush and the fear and the excitement.
"You said you wanted to talk to me about something last night," he said, wiping crumbs from his mouth. "I didn't forget, y'know. Things have just been so… but yeah, did you want to talk about it now, or…?"
You thought about it, really. But one glance over his shoulder, and you saw Dustin jogging back to the car. "It's not bad," you said quickly. "Just maybe not a conversation to have around Henderson, y'know?"
He nodded and gave your hand a squeeze. "Yeah. Duh."
Dustin slid into the backseat, eyes immediately narrowing at the sight of you two making eyes at each other. "Can you detach, please?"
With a grin, you glanced back at him. "Dustin, we're literally just sitting together."
"Doesn't matter, I'm nauseated, and we need to focus." He glanced out the window, watching the streetlights disappearing up the hill in the distance. You swallowed your defensiveness and turned your gaze out the window too.
The three of you sat in silence, watching lights that didn't flicker, didn't pulse. You leaned your head onto Steve's shoulder, almost lulled by the sound of Robin rambling on the other end of the radio. Something about the hospital and stealing the meds, and fingerprints, and sentencing, and Steve's uncle.
You watched a streetlamp flicker and held your breath. And they were moving, tracing a sparkling path to the Turnbow house. You sat up in your street, watching the lights in the house dance as the demogorgon made its way through the upside down.
Through the window, you saw something. An imposing height, gray, muscular flesh. Michael Jordan tall. Face like a flower with teeth. Sure, Will had drawn you a picture, but seeing it made it real. It wasn't pencil on paper or exaggerated words. It was alive, and it was in the house with people you cared about.
"Buckle up, honey," Steve said, but your gaze was glued to the window, where you watched the figure stalking towards Lucas. You flinched when he reached over you to buckle you in himself. "Hey, can you do this?"
Do what? Ride in a car near danger? If you couldn't say yes you'd be totally humiliated… and left on the side of the road in Loch Nora next to an active B&E case. So, even though you were unsure, you nodded quickly.
You screamed when Nancy and Jonathan banged on the car windows to get in, which definitely didn't help your, totally handling it, case. While Steve drove through backyards to chase down a creature that didn't care about traffic laws, you white knuckled the door handle and kept your eyes squeezed shut.
If the monster didn't kill you, the Beamer careening off the road and into a tree would. Then who would raise Sam? Debbie? Your parents? Worse… his parents? He hit a bump and you jostled, eyes peeking open to see woods passing by so fast that it looked like you were at hyperspeed.
You were going to puke. You were going to puke and probably die in this stupid fucking car.
McCorkle farm came into view and your stomach turned. The demogorgon had found Derek. It was going to capture him, which meant the plan had failed. You watched the demogorgon flip— tearing out of an oak tree on the side of the road and leaving glowing red sinew in its wake.
Steve shifted gears, trying to catch up to the impossibly fast monster. He turned fast and your head knocked into the glass of the window with a dull thud, making your head go a little fuzzy.
The demogorgon clawed at the barn doors, and you could sense Steve hesitating. Idling as he watched.
"Steve, floor it!"
"Drive, Steve!"
"C'mon, man, that's my family in there, hit it!"
It was all distant in your ears. You weren't built for this. You had wanted in because you didn't want to be left out, but you were so far out of your depth that you were choking on your fear.
Steve hit the gas, the monster slammed into the front of the car and you flinched as you heard it rolling over the roof. They were all alive with adrenaline, laughing and cheering, but your veins were ice as it stood to its full height in front of the car— bloody and visceral. Its face opened as it shrieked, and you squeezed Steve's arm so hard that you thought you might leave a bruise.
It was fast, so fast it could have easily reached through the window and killed you all for sport. But it just went still, and that was the scariest part of all, like it was thinking. You made a soft, wounded sound akin to a whimper and turned away from it, just as it turned and ran towards the silo and ripped a rift into the sheet metal like it was tissue paper.
Steve's hesitation was like a sixth presence in the car, fingers twitching on the gear shift, heart thrumming— you could feel it just like you could feel your own terror. His eyes flicked between the gravel path to the glowing silo. As he turned to Dustin, his eyes met yours, wide like a prey animal.
And you just knew that Steve, this man that you loved so much that it felt like an ache, was going to get you killed. Get all of you killed. Their conversation was muffled behind the pounding of your heart, because Steve wanted to go through that, to follow it on its turf.
"We can't," you muttered, at the same time that Jonathan argued against the suicide mission. "Steve, we can't. We can't, we'll die."
"It's fine," he insisted. "We've done it before, we'll be fine. Nothing's going to happen to us." The signal was getting weaker, and Nancy just wanted to get to her sister. Maybe you couldn't blame her for giving Steve the permission he was waiting for, you just wished you would have gotten out of the car first.
While Dustin and Jonathan panicked and begged Steve to stop the car, you squeezed your eyes shut and held onto the door handle, unable to watch the rift drawing closer and closer. The tires ground against the gravel road, spitting it out as it sped forward.
It wasn't until you heard Steve sigh in relief that you opened your eyes to see Hawkins leached of all color and light. Your brows furrowed as you peered out, watching that same weird snow that fell after the quake floating by as you drove through.
You looked in the side mirror, brows furrowing as you watched the gate closing entirely. A claustrophobic feeling settled over you, like the time you'd been shut into your trunk as a prank at camp.
The "door" had closed firmly behind you, and the only other one you knew of was in the middle of the Mac-Z. The five of you were stuck in the Upside Down with no way out that didn't lead to immediate detainment and jail time.
Your forehead thumped against the window as you looked outside, watching red lightning flash and illuminate the sky, listening to the roar of thunder that sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once.
The demo had a head start, so that was a relief, at least. You didn't have to watch its gray skin stretching and moving around corded muscles as it ran. Steve's nightmares made sense to you now— how could you close your eyes when you might dream that you're here, in this place, with those things?
"You're quiet," Steve said, glancing over at you. "I thought you'd have more to say about all of this. Are you catatonic over there?"
You scoffed and rolled your eyes, still staring out the window outside as you passed the Hagan's. Tommy's stupid dirt bike was outside, parked crooked in the driveway, covered in the same freaky, slimy vines that everything else was. Just as fast as you saw it, it disappeared into the shadowy darkness behind the car.
He squeezed your hand. "Hey." It snapped you from your thoughts and into a very upsetting present. "Are you with me?"
You pulled your hand from his and stared out the window. He didn't push, for the moment, which was a relief. His hand moved back across the center console, and twitched against the gear shift.
"Going left, towards Lancaster." Dustin's voice became background noise as he navigated Steve through the upside down after the demo.
All the while, you watched the bad version of Hawkins outside, frozen in 1983, and wondered what you'd find if you went back to your room on that day. One of Steve's Queen casettes thrown at the wall, still in plastic chunks on the carpet and surrounded by flecks of chipped paint. Your diary and every shameful, hurt thing you'd scrawled in pen.
Carol had stayed over the same night that Will went missing— you'd driven her and Tommy to school in the morning. Would her pendant be on the nightstand? The same one that she'd been wearing the night that she died?
Were they in here? Your jaw worked as you finally let yourself think about what had happened to them last March. Did the rift burn through them like Lucas saw happen to that Jason guy? Did they die from the fall through? Could that even kill a person? Did they starve? Did they get hunted by something like the monster you were chasing? Were they alone and rotting somewhere while you were living their lives?
Had Steve ever looked for their bodies so he could bring them home? Didn't they deserve a resting place better than this?
You hadn't realized you were picking your cuticles until Steve pulled at your hands again. It was a bad habit, one of Steve's that you had unconsciously mirrored. When you glanced down at your hands, your thumbnail was outlined in blood.
"Talk to me," Steve said again. "This is serious stuff, I can't have you freaking out on us."
"You drove through a fucking gate into this place," you accused, finally whirling around to face him. "We're stuck in here because you're impulsive and selfish."
"I'm selfish?" He scoffed, glancing between the road ahead and your fiery expression. "I'm doing this because Holly's alone in here."
"Yes, you are selfish, Steve," you argued, your voice raising more than what was comfortable in the cramped car. "We had a plan, and you disregarded it and threw yourself— no— all of us into danger because you think you're a Hawkins loser who has to prove himself by being a hero. But you're not a hero, Steve, you're just an idiot."
Steve's grip went white on the steering wheel, and you knew you'd said a terrible thing just to sink your claws in. The car went quiet, interrupted only by Dustin throwing out directions for Steve to follow with a noticeably feeble tone.
"You know what?" He finally said, when he decided he couldn't just bite his tongue and let you wound him anymore. "I asked you if you could handle this. You could've gone home and stayed with Sam, but you didn't. You begged to know everything, because you're so goddamn scared of being left out all of the time. And maybe, just maybe, you were always left out because you can be a really miserable person."
You felt your eyes go watery, and your lip start to wobble, but you couldn't just take it lying down. "I'm miserable? For being the one to point out that you didn't think this through and now we're stuck with no way out?" He huffed, gripping the wheel tighter. "If I'm so miserable and off base, I want to know your plan. How are we going to get back to Sam? Our daughter, in case you forgot."
Steve scoffed and looked over at you. The muscles in his jaw went tight, and his gaze went hard. "You don't trust me to handle it? You don't think I would do whatever it takes to get us home? Do you think I'd just let you die in here? Is that it?"
"Turn right!" Dustin piped up from the back, and Steve turned sharply onto the side street with barely a glance at the road. The sign for the Roane Cemetery whipped past the window, not that either of you were paying attention.
"I think you can't admit when you're wrong. Which you are."
"I think you need to be right all of the time. But what do I know? I'm just a Hawkins loser."
A laugh escaped you and you exhaled sharply through your nose. Nancy and Jonathan were mumbling something to each other, or maybe your blood was pounding so hard in your ears that it was muffling them. You couldn't tell, and you really didn't want to hear their input on your relationship anyway. Glass houses and stones and what not. "Okay, fine."
"Fine?"
"Yeah, fine. I'm a miserable bitch and you're a Hawkins loser and none of it is going to matter when we die in here."
"Stop the car, Steve!" Nancy yelled from the backseat.
The two of you turned towards the windshield at once, and you froze at the sight of a giant hulking wall taking up your entire field of vision. Steve reacted fast, shifting gears, slamming on the breaks, but you continued to careen towards it, fishtailing as the car struggled to stop.
You felt the initial impact like a rattle in your bones— the sudden pressure of a speeding car flying towards an immoveable object dispelling through you. The windshield shattered into jagged crystals that spilled across the dashboard and your lap.
When car slammed to a stop, your head smashed into the dash with a dull, stinging thud. You felt something slick and hot, going from your forehead to your hair, but mostly you just felt exhausted, like you'd run a marathon. You thought you heard the horn going off, distant and far away, but then there was nothing at all.
A/N: Yayyyy so as you can tell, tcogb6 was getting WAY too long to post in one part, so I decided to split it up into two! Part 7 is underway now :) Please message me any thoughts, feelings, or theories that you have... i'm very very curious to know your thoughts after this one >:)
summary: You only meant to write an article about the fall of King Steve Harrington. Somewhere between the interviews, the experiments, and the late-night drives, you forgot he was supposed to be your story — not the boy you fell for. ⟡ LOOSELY INSPIRED BY "HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN TEN DAYS (2003)"
pairing: steve harrington x reader
w/c: 13k (I lost the plot)
a/n: i literally fever dreamed this so im hoping it comes across good because i totally blanked out writing this haha 😭. this is all brain and vibes. thank u for reading, and reblogs are appreciated!! enjoy <3
content warnings: angst, slow burn-ish tension, emotional hurt/comfort, bittersweet longing, (one bed trope kind of), observant/highly sensitive reader, mentions of nancy wheeler, miscommunication, interrupted kisses, public confessions, steve harrington being sad and soft (yay!), reader being a stubborn high school journalist, hopeful ending, etc
By the time the final bell rang, the newsroom already smelled of hot dust, old paper, and somebody’s disgusting coffee of choice.
It was not really a newsroom, not in the way you truly wanted it to be. It was a converted classroom at the end of the English hall with two long tables shoved together, a crooked bulletin board covered in deadlines, and a mimeograph machine that coughed ink onto everyone’s fingers. The overhead lights hummed with a flat, yellow patience.
Outside the narrow windows, Hawkins High School settled into its usual afternoon disorder; lockers slamming, sneakers squeaking, and boys yelling too loudly because silence made them feel small. Typical behaviors.
You had spent three nights on your article.
Three nights with your notes spread across your desk, your pencil worn down to a nub, and your mother calling from downstairs that dinner was getting cold. Three nights reading through library clippings about school funding, college acceptance rates, and the way girls in Hawkins were politely encouraged toward “practical” futures while boys with half of your grades were told they had potential. You had interviewed four seniors, two teachers, one guidance counselor who had smiled at you with the concerned tenderness adults reserved for girls they planned to ignore.
It was practically perfect.
You had written it carefully. Not angrily, though you had to admit that anger had lived under every line you wrote, warming the words from dpwn below. You had made it clean, sharp, and correctly sourced. You had imagined your byline on the front page. You had victoriously imagined holding the paper in your hands and seeing proof that all the hours you spent noticing things nobody asked you to notice had finally become something real.
The reaction to it, unfortunately, had left much to be desired.
Mr. Walsh held the pages in one hand and adjusted his glasses with the other. His voice was polite enough, but it held that familiar detachment.
“It’s very thorough,” he noted with a faint nod of his head towards the article.
You knew you were absolutely dead, or rather, any hopes of seeing a cover page was.
Across the table, Mark Ellison leaned back in his chair, tapping his pencil against his front teeth. His article was a soft little thing about “school spirit making a comeback,” built around three quotes from basketball players and one sweeping paragraph about how Hawkins High had ‘survived difficult years by pulling together’. He had written it during study hall. You had watched him do it while eating chips from a vending machine. You had also watched him pay more attention to his stupid Walkman than his article.
Mr. Walsh then gave Mark’s pages a fond pat from beside you. You had to physically stop yourself from letting the steam errupt from your expression, and curled your fingers into your palm. You didn't, however, hide the scoff when the teacher told the boy his next words.
“I think this is what we need above the fold this week. Something upbeat. The town’s had enough heaviness, don’t you think?”
The room moved on. You couldn't even get another word in before everything decided it was time to start up again. That only served further in building up your irritation.
Someone asked about the sports column, someone else complained that the typewriter ribbon was fading again, and most annoyingly, Mark grinned without trying to look too pleased, which made him only look worse. You sat very still with your hands folded over your notebook, your nails continuing to press little moons into your palms.
“Maybe we can run yours inside,” Mr. Walsh added, almost kindly. You hated how he made it seem like it was somehow charitable of him to do so. After all, his excuses were always relatively the same. “It’s strong work. Just a bit… intense for the front page.”
Intense.
You looked down at your notes until the letters blurred into a block of black.
That was what they always called girls who didn't make unfairness easier to swallow for others. Intense. Difficult. Ambitious in a tone that meant unattractive. Boys were driven. Boys were promising. Boys were leaders, even when they had to borrow a pencil to write a paragraph about pep rallies. Even when half of them couldn't even write clean enough for legitimacy on papers of loose leaf.
You smiled promptly then because you knew how to make adults comfortable. You weren't so sure your face was able to hide your growing annoyance, though. It was practically humiliating in its steady routine, but you'd learned over the years Mr. Walsh was as stubborn as the donkey he was named after.
“Sure,” you gave a small exhale alongside your smile, your tone was too light to be breezy and far too sweet to be real. “Inside is fine.”
Inside was not fine.
At lunch, you stabbed your fork into a pile of cafeteria mashed potatoes until they lost their shape entirely. With a cheek resting in hand, the sight of the sullen plate reflected your own inner turmoil. Conversational chatter flattered about around you.
“He said it was intense?” One friend asked, sitting across from you with a carton of milk she had not opened. “Everything's intense to that guy. Mr. Walsh wears the same brown sweater every day and once called Pat Benatar ‘too confrontational.’”
“He didn’t say Mark’s article was intense,” you muttered with poorly disguised disgust. Your brows twitched together and your eyes flicked up in a roll. The moment replayed in your head, Mark getting far too much praise for something he spent the better half of an hour listening to Olivia John-Newton, though he'd refuse the accusation vehemently if questioned.
“That’s because Mark’s article has the emotional range of a gym sock,” your friend Stacey said from beside you. She had bright blue eyeliner, a talent for gossip, and the terrifying confidence of someone who had never once doubted she deserved to take up space. You admired her for that. “You need something undeniable.”
“I had something undeniable.” the response came almost petulant, and if you were still holding onto the leverage that you had a shoe-in for an article, you'd have refrained from saying it.
“No,” Stacey clicked her tongue, pointing her plastic spoon at you. “You had something true. That’s different. Truth makes people sleepy unless there’s blood on it.”
Leah made a face, looking down at the strawberry jam on her cake slice, and promptly pushed it forward. “Please never go into medicine.”
You tried not to laugh and failed halfway, the sound catching in your throat before it could become anything that felt good. For a moment, there was something besides that sense of annoyed displacement.
The cafeteria around you churned with noise. Trays clattered, and somebody at the far end started chanting for reasons that probably involved a dare and milk coming out of someone’s nose. You let the spark of clear judgement light through your expression as you looked over to the basketball table occupied its usual territory near the windows.
They were loud enough to own the room without having to ask, a result of years of indulged arrogance, you could only assume. Tommy H. was telling a story with both hands, his laugh sharp and performative. A few juniors watched him the way freshmen used to watch Steve Harrington.
Steve did not sit with them anymore, that was something practically everyone noticed since last year.
He sat two tables away from the old crowd, alone with a slice of pizza gone stiff at the edges. His hair was still perfect in the way that seemed less accidental the longer you looked at it, all careful lift and feathered brown shine.
His shoulders filled out his yellow polo, but they were rounded inward today, one hand pressed against his temple while he stared at a textbook he did not seem to be reading. There was a bruise near his jaw, faded yellow at the edges. His eyes kept moving toward the basketball table and then away before anyone caught him looking.
King Steve, deposed but still dressed for court.
Stacey followed your gaze. Her mouth curved before you could shove it away off of her.
“If you want the front page,” she brightened up with a revived vigor, “you have to write about the biggest tragedy in Hawkins.”
Leah, unfortunately, looked too.
“Oh Stace’, I don't think that's a good—” she was swiftly cut off by your mutual friends voice dipped in delight
“The fall of King Steve,” Stacey finished and you gasped at her.
You snorted without ceremony promptly, her words did less to entice you and more to amuse you. If there was anything you couldn't find yourself caring less to write about, it would be about anything involving Steve Harrington. “That’s not an article.”
“It is absolutely an article! It’s got everything. Popularity. Masculine fragility. Hair products.”
Leah leaned forward then, lowering her voice. She looked besides you two with a more hesitant approach, her eyes flicked to the table a few feet away from you. “Also maybe just leave him alone? He looks one spilled pudding cup away from a complete collapse.”
“That’s the point,” Stacey had taken to promptly ignoring the two of you. “What happens when a guy builds his whole identity on being wanted, and then people stop wanting him?”
The words landed before the joke did.
You looked at Steve again. He dragged a hand through his hair, then immediately seemed to regret it, patting the front back into place with a reflex so automatic it made your chest pinch in spite of yourself. If you were to compare it to anything, it would be akin to a kid being filmed for a birthday party. It held the familiar awareness of being all too stiff, even in the singular companionship of just himself.
A whole identity built on being wanted.
The cafeteria lights flashed across the windows as usual. Outside, October had pulled Hawkins into a cold, colorless stretch of afternoon. The trees beyond the parking lot shivered with half-bare branches, leaves gathered wetly along the curb. It was a domestic background that you've memorized in routine these past four years.
You pulled your notebook from your bag suddenly. Stacy's words had flicked on a small lightbulb in your brain.
Leah's brown eyes blinked wearily on you as the next few minutes were received in silence from your side, only the sound of pen to paper filling your ears. “Oh, God. Stacey, you broke her.”
You rolled your eyes at that.
“I inspired her.” Stacey gave a self assured correction, her fingers going up as if it would further solidify her point.
There was no real attention paid to your friends for the next whirlwind of time, and you clicked your pen every so often in an attempt to soften the strokes of ink.
At the top of a previous blank page, you had written:
The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king.
Stacey leaned over your shoulder and let out a delighted gasp.
“That is disgusting,” Leah immediately. Her eyes widened and she threw you a look that your promptly avoided.
“It’s not, it's anonymous… and a work in progress,” you murmured in weak retaliation, already thinking faster than you could write. “Stacy's right, it'd be a good article. How we make gods out of boys and then act shocked when they don’t know how to be human.”
Leah’s expression softened in a way you did not want to look at too closely. Realistically, you realized this might be a bit too cruel. But you were already on your verge, and no matter how absurd the idea had seemed before – you could admit held strong potential.
“And Harrington?”
You watched him push his tray away untouched, and your gaze was less detached than you had been before.
“Steve is the case study.”
You told yourself that made it cleaner, and you also told yourself a lot of things that week. Things that in hindsight, might’ve been necessary to proceed with caution.
—
You approached him after basketball practice on a Wednesday, when the hallway outside the gym smelled most strongly of rubber, sweat, and floor wax. Most of the team members had already spilled toward the locker room, their voices echoing against the cinderblock walls. Steve came out last, a gym bag slung over one shoulder, and damp hair falling looser than usual around his forehead.
He looked tired enough that the sight of him made your plan wobble. It was one thing to think this out carefully and assume control, and it was another to actually act it out.
Then, finally, he glanced up and saw you waiting by his locker.
You pushed off the wall before you could think better of it. Any further delay would only serve in faltering you more.
“Harrington,” you called out firmly, letting your voice carry the boldness you had practiced in your mirror. Though, you weren't entirely sure you properly hid the wince that came with addressing him like that. “I’ve been looking for you.”
His eyebrows lifted then, that was what you'd noticed first. His face seemed to twitch in a complicated way, his face didn't hold a smirk, not right away at least. Surprise was there first. Real surprise, open and unguarded enough to make you feel briefly cruel. Your tried not to ponder on him for too long.
“For me?” his voice held a sincere curiosity that had you irritated at repeating yourself.
“No, the other guy with gravity-defying hair and a tragic aura.”
That got him.
A breath left him, almost a laugh, you saw the movement happen in real time. He leaned his shoulder against the locker, trying to recover his balance by looking casual. His thumb hooked into his belt loop. His shining eyes flicked over your face, landed on your mouth for half a second too long, then jumped back up.
You really had to refrain from the scoff that wished to escape you.
“Tragic aura,” he repeated, his eyes twisted in a regained stability. His voice was more awkward than you remembered it being, strangely that'd been your first true thought of him. “Wow. That’s, uh… that’s new.”
You gave a low hum in response. “I’m a journalist. We notice things.”
“Is that why you’re here? To notice me?”
The line should have been smooth. You could actively hear him reaching for an older version of himself, the one who would have tilted his head and let girls do the work of melting. But his voice caught on the last word. Not much, but it was just slightly enough that you felt something in you feel successful.
You smiled, the formation stretched across your face as you cleared your throat softly. “I need help.”
Now, he seemed a bit confused, his head tilted slightly in a way that reminded you of the neighborhood poodle. You let a smile turn slightly genuine at the semblance found between the two.
“With?”
You stepped closer finally, and you stepped close enough to see the faint line where his tan had started to fade at his throat, and certainly close enough to catch the smell of clean soap beneath sweat and cologne.
“Understanding someone.” the words came out a bit hesitant, not at all like the suaveness you had practiced by standing in front of your bathroom mirror.
His gaze sharpened a little. Instinct took over him well. “Someone?”
“A boy,” you said quickly. Whatever it was that appeared in your face seemed to have gotten to him.
You saw the ghost of King Steve ever so slightly stir in movement in him. His mouth curved, one corner first, then another. It was almost unfair how quickly he could change expressions, and even worse so, that each expression of his seemed to cause your nerves to fray.
“Well, lucky for you, I happen to be an expert.”
Your eyes flickered to his, though not before you let your gaze find the small details of his face that were only exposed up close. “You do?”
“Former expert,” he amended, and something dry entered his voice. “My credentials are under review.”
You laughed before you meant to. You couldn't help it at the moment. It came out too genuine and his face changed with it. Not entirely dramatic, though. He just went still, the way people did when a sound touched some starved part of them. His own pools of hazel seemed to be too flittery for someone you were sure had done this plenty of time before. Still, against your better judgment, you kept staring into his eyeline.
You should have written that down later, a faint voice echoed through your head. Not the eyes part, you quickly denied and even got upset at yourself for supplying the image. You really should have been memorizing any small part he'd exposed, even more of the behavior you were out to conquer.
Instead, you remembered the exact angle of his shoulder against the locker, the wet curl slipping toward his eyebrow, the way he looked at you with confusion and cautious interest and a kind of bruised hope that had no place in your article.
You tilted your chin, chewing on the bottom of your lip by pure instinct. By now, you were close enough to have to tilt your head up to meet his gaze. You blinked, breaking whatever power he seemed to have had momentarily to have you swept up and cleared your throat.
Your voice was back to being confident again, since practice made perfect. “Pick me up Friday?”
His mouth caught in a faint sputter, you could tell you had caught him completely off guard. Faintly, as if it were a bodily response, you softened your smile into something smaller, tilting up at him for the silent moment.
“Friday,” he said after a beat. Steve’s voice seemed to have taken a breathless edge now. It did something all weird and wonky to you. “Yeah. I can do Friday.”
“Seven.”
“Seven,” he repeated, and appearing to remember he wasn't an apparition, Steve's body seemed to lean toward yours as he continued. “Where are we going?”
You hadn't thought that far. Instead of deciding on the spot, you bit the inside flesh of your cheek as an amused exhale escaped your lips.
“You’re the expert, Harrington. Impress me.”
You walked away before your nerve gave out. You could feel him watching you down the hall, could feel the whole plan beginning to take shape behind your ribs. You had even taken to looking through your sosters old magazines for inspiration. Hot and cold. Interest and withdrawal. Private sincerity, public disruption. All those where supposed to be tactics to reuse interest in relationships, but you figured that the same could also be said for an indirect character study.
Observe the subject under changing social conditions. Note responses. Analyze, that had been your plan split up into groups.
You were very good at making terrible ideas sound academic.
—
On Friday, his Beamer waited by the curb under a sky the color of sad, wet cement.
He got out when he saw you, which you hated because it was exactly the kind of performative gentleman routine you had expected, and also because he did it without checking if anyone was watching. That complicated your observations, causing a flutter to go through you. He wore a brown leather jacket over a striped shirt, jeans that fit him too well, and that expensive cologne that seemed built into the mythology of him.
Ralph Lauren, Stacey had said with the authority of a girl who knew these things and lived vicariously through others. It mixed with the leather and the faint sweet smell of cherry chapstick when he opened the passenger door.
"Aren't you going to get in,” Steve gave you a wounded look. His head was tilted down slightly towards you and it seemed like he was more offended you had even made an attempt to reach for the door.
You looked at the open door in his hand, feeling less like a mastermind and more like a nervous girl. “Do you do that for all your dates?”
Steve's hand went up to run the back of his neck as he let out a weak exhale, the ghost of a smile on his face. “Only the intimidating ones.”
You slid into the car after that, tucking your notebook deep inside your bag where he would not see it. The seats were cold through your skirt. The dashboard glowed amber when he turned the key, washing his face in soft light as the engine rumbled awake.
He didn't take you to Enzo’s, where everyone went to be seen. He drove past the diner, past the arcade, past the bright places where Hawkins pretended it had a pulse. The town fell away into dark stretches of road bordered by skeletal trees and damp fields. Eventually he pulled into a small overlook above the park, where the swings moved gently in the wind below and the streetlamps made small gold circles on the path.
“This is your idea of impressive?” you couldn't help the baffled tone that took over as you asked, but your voice had taken a softer lift.
He shrugged, fingers resting on the steering wheel. “You said you wanted to understand someone. Hard to do that while watching someone like Tommy try to fit an entire breadstick in his mouth.”
“You’re not friends with him anymore?” you didn't really need the answer, everyone practically knew the answer by now. But still, it's different to have someone tell you something by choice than admit knowledge by association.
His thumb moved along the stitching of the wheel. Back and forth. Back and forth.
“Not really.”
“Why?”
He gave you a sideways look. “Wow. Straight to it.”
“I told you. Inquisitive.”
“Right.” He exhaled through his nose, not quite laughing. The smile on his face was soft in its hesitancy. “I don’t know. Stuff happened. I got tired. He got meaner. Or maybe he was like that, and I just stopped thinking it was funny.”
The words fell between the two of you in a hush.
You watched him in the dashboard light. Away from school, he seemed younger and older at once. Without the noise around him, without the audience, the space he occupied seemed to changed shape. He rubbed a hand over his face, then caught himself before he ruined his hair and dropped it to his lap. He did that a lot.
“You okay?” he asked suddenly, breaking you out of your trance. You quickly gave a few hard blinks to refocus, you seriously had to stop doing that around him.
“What?”
“You’re shivering.”
Were you? You hadn't noticed much besides him. “I’m fine.”
“You’re obviously not fine.”
Before you could answer, he shrugged out of his leather jacket and draped it over your shoulders. The weight of it settled around you, warm from his body, lined with the smell of him so completely that your next breath came slower than the last.
“You’ll get cold,” you said, a frown finding its way on to your face. It was a cold evening in Hawkins, the chill more prominent than usual. Your worry was quickly shoved down by him.
Steve seemed to just fidget by habit now. The muscle in his forearms tensed and gained your attention as his arms crossed against his chest. He gave a slight shove and his smile was all teeth and unintentional charm.“I’m tough.”
Now, you didn’t even bother to hide your scoff. A challenging twist of your brow appeared and you pointed out the faults in his words. “You just complained about the heater not working.”
“I’m selectively tough,” his grin stayed and was backed up by a small chuckle.
You looked at him, and he looked back, and something quiet opened in the car.
The conversation shift quickly after that. You asked questions you had meant to use later. What did he want after graduation? He did not know. Where did he want to go? Away, maybe. Or nowhere. What was he afraid of? He made a joke at first, something about being left unsupervised with fireworks, and then he went quiet long enough for the windows to begin fogging at the edges.
“I don’t think I’m good at anything,” Steve told you after that. He said it plainly, almost casually, which made it worse. It was easier to dissect him clinically when he didn't wear that expression that caused you faltering to gain back control.
You shifted toward him, eyes dragging over him. They seemed darker with the setting say, but somehow they had something stored away that made you want to push back on his words. “That’s not true.”
He gave you a look that unnerved you. “You don’t know that.”
You didn't let it get to you. You pushed through because for some reason, you felt like you couldn't stay silent. “I know you noticed I was cold before I did.”
The words had you faltering from the truth it held.
Steve gave a wry exhale, his head tilted back against his seat with his eyes on you. “That’s not a skill.”
Your voice felt firmer now. “It is, actually.”
He stared out through the windshield. Below, the park sat empty and silvered by frost. You couldn't really focus on that, not when Steve sat besides you looking less like the king you knew and more like a boy you wanted to know. You couldn't even process the words before Steve continued in. “Nancy used to say I had good instincts when I got out of my own way.”
Nancy.
There it was. The bruise beneath the bruise. It wasn't one you were exactly shocked to hear, the whole sum of Hawkins new about the romance between the Wheeler daughter and him. Still, you weren't going deny the tinge of discomfort you felt at the mention.
What? Why were you uncomfortable? You immediately shut down the thought. A hard clearing of your throat helped stabilize yourself. You had to remind yourself that you weren't here for whatever reason that your body seemed to mistake. Instead, you focused on the task at hand, or at least tried to. You should have leaned in then when his head bowed slightly. You should have gathered the quote, traced the wound back to its social function, and built your thesis brick by brick.
You settled on something else, because strangely, anything else seemed harsh. “She sounds smart.”
“She is.”
The words carried no bitterness. That threw you off. You'd have known guys to turn completely hostile after break-ups, and you couldn't even remember a time where someone from Steve’s circle stayed genuine for the moment. You'd completely expected him to talk badly about her, about the situation, and frankly just about anything and everything that came up. To place blame in everything that never warranted it.
You'd have felt more comfortable if he reacted like that. He didn't notice your turmoil.
“She’s also right,” he added, turning back to you. His hazel eyes mesmerizing in its softness. “I get in my own way a lot.”
You wanted to ask how. You wanted to ask why. What came out was a stupid joke about how his hair probably counted as a separate obstacle. “How, by looking in the mirror and not finding your face under all that hair?”
His laugh wasn’t loud, it certainly was not the cafeteria laugh you'd have known, not the old one that announced him from across the room. It was small and startled and breathless, given to you without polish. It didn't help you when he leaned back against the seat, smiling at the roof of the car, and your pulse betrayed you completely.
What happened next made you feel less like you were playing him and more like he was playing you. When he reached over to tuck a loose piece of hair behind your ear, he did it slowly enough that you could have stopped him.
You didn't. You didn't stop him.
You told yourself it was because you were playing an act.
His knuckles brushed your cheekbone, working in breaking you out of your mind. Steve’s hand lingered there, his thumb moving once over your skin, it barely had any pressure. He watched the place he touched instead of your eyes, and the careful uncertainty of it burned through you harder than confidence would have.
For one long second, you wanted him to kiss you so badly that you forgot why you were there.
Then a car passed on the road behind you, headlights cutting through the windows, and both of you shifted apart.
Steve cleared his throat, his head turning to look out the driver's side. He seemed to have looked aware of just how vulnerable the moment was, and didn't know how to navigate it. “So. Did I help?”
You looked down at his jacket wrapped around you. It made feel warm in ways you almost wished it didn't.
“Yes,” your voice came out all wrong, small and breathless. “You did.”
You wrote three pages that night and hated all of them. It was as frustrating as it was complicated. The problem was not that Steve failed your test. You found that out quickly.
The true problem was that he kept passing in the wrong direction.
—
In public, you performed coldness with the sharp dread of a person setting a match to her own sleeve. Or at least, you truly hoped it looked like that.
Monday morning, Steve found you near your locker with a bright, almost boyish smile that made you glance away before it could hit directly.
“Hey,” he leaned besides you near the locker. “I was thinking maybe after school we could—”
You shut your locker too hard.
“Can we not do this right now?”
His hand, halfway extended toward yours, stopped in the air. He dropped it quickly, trying to make the movement look natural.
“Do what?” his voice had you wanting to falter. God, since when were you this weak?
“This.” You gestured between you, impatient and vague. “The whole thing.”
People moved around you in the hallway, a current of denim jackets and textbooks and perfume. Someone bumped your shoulder. Before you could stumble, Steve stepped closer, placing himself between you and the rush of bodies. It was an unconscious movement. Protective without announcement.
Your stomach turned. You bowed your head to ignore looking into his enrapturing eyes. A warmth came instinctive in your stomach standing in such close proximity with the boy in front of you. You tried to push it down.
Keyword, tried.
His voice dropped, his head leaning down to yours in an attempt to meet your gaze. “Hey. What did I do?”
His voice had you feeling weak already. “Nothing.”
“Okay, well, I’m getting a pretty strong not-nothing feeling here.”
You looked past him toward Stacey at the end of the hall. She watched with wide eyes, silently mouthing something that might have been commitment or abort. Her hands moved in front of her in a weaving gesture. You weren't sure what she'd been trying to convey, so you only assume she wanted to to keep going.
You crossed your arms, forcing your tone to turn cold and far away. No words really landed cleanly in your head for inspiration, so you took the first ones that would stick. “Maybe you don’t have to be so… much.”
Steve blinked.
His jaw tensed with movement, your eyes drew to the action by unfortunate reflex now. He glanced down, then back up, searching your face with a focus that made your skin feel too thin and your act feel too hesitant.
“I’ll fix it,” the words came quietly. You were sure your expression was dumbfounded, sure you had been acting like this on purpose – but what did he gain from doing that? You were so rapidly expecting a textbook fit. Instead, you got patient murmurings. That was worse than any possible anger.
“I don’t need you to fix it.”
“Then tell me what you need.”
His breath warmed your forehead. His hazel eyes showed no sign of any true hostility. They were worried and confused, and there was something heartbreakingly earnest in the way he tried to solve the version of the problem you had invented. You liked that. You liked that he seemed to act like that by instinct.
And so, because of that, you almost reached for him.
You willed yourself to iron quickly. Wetting your bottom lip, you finally looked up at him. eyes. The action had you remembering just why you were so hesitant to meet his gaze, having a look that could melt anything in them. Instead, you stepped around him and walked to class with your throat tight enough to hurt.
At lunch later, you made notes that took up new space in your writing notebook.
He responded to social rejection not with aggression but accommodation. Attempts repair. Shows confusion when expected script fails. Public status seems less motivating than personal connection.
You underlined personal connection so hard the paper tore.
Even detached on paper didn't feel right.
—
The next test, as the girls had dubbed it, was supposed to be funny. You were sure it was meant to be, but it still held an underlying issue. It was Stacey’s idea, though you were the one foolish enough to do it.
The party was at some fellow senior’s house on Maple Street, loud enough to rattle the windows from the street. Steve picked you up with his hair arranged into what could only be called architecture. He seemed nervous about the party in a way he tried to bury under commentary about the radio, the road, and the fact that you were late even though you had been ready for ten minutes and had simply stood in your room wondering when exactly you had become the villain in your own story.
It was a rough start to say the least.
When you got there, he came around to open your door.
You stood and tried not to let the deep inhale of breathe be heard. The last thing you needed was to look as nervous as you felt. And quickly after that, you took one look at his carefully styled hair, and before you could lose courage, reached up and ran both hands through it. A smile found its way on your face, practiced and teasing, mirroring the girl in the catalogue of your People magazine.
The brush through his hair wasn't gentle, although his hair certainly was. Seriously, you had to ask later on what his secret was.
The structure of its volume collapsed instantly, and Steve froze. His head still remained in its bowed position from where he leaned down from the passenger seat door of his car. His brows twitched together as your hands ran along his temple. You froze too, fingers still threaded into his hair.
For one second, you waited for the familiar snap. For the old King Steve to step forward with wounded pride and a cruel mouth. The porch light hummed above you. Inside, someone shrieked with laughter. His friends, or former friends, or whatever they were now, could see you from the living room window.
Steve looked at his reflection in the dark glass of the car. He let out a small sigh, and the familiar heart fluttering charming grin appeared on his face. Steve's eyes shut for a moment but his expression didn't falter, even as a series of laughter escaped him. The sound felt warm to you, and your body responded in turn.
“Better?” Steve then fluttered his pretty eyes back open, his head tilting with curiosity. “It was exhausting keeping that up anyway.”
Your hands fell quickly, your finger tips missing the way his hair felt against your skin instantly. The joke died so completely that you could almost hear it hit the pavement.
He glanced at you, the ruined hair falling soft around his face only enhancing him. “Does it look terrible?”
“No,” you denied, and it came out too quickly. You winced at that, a small noise escaped Steve.
His mouth twitched. “That was very convincing.”
“I mean it.” you did.
He looked younger again. Not smaller, exactly. Just less fully arranged. Another strand fell over his forehead, and you had the sudden, awful urge to smooth it back with care instead of strategy.
The party behind you roared alive, and Steve heard. His shoulders tightened, but he didn't turn toward them like you thought. He looked at you instead, waiting for your reaction, which somehow made you responsible for the whole fragile moment.
You reached up and fixed one piece of hair near his temple. Something in you liked doing that.
“There,” your voice was stronger now, and your smile had turned real moments ago. “Better.”
The smile he gave you was crooked and private. It really was nothing in comparison to the rest of the party, but it lingered. You spent the next few hours trying to get him to smile like that again.
You didn't take notes that night, or any of the other future nights.
You just remembered things instead.
You remembered the blue flicker of a movie screen across his face two nights later, when he sat beside you in the theater and kept his arm over your shoulders for the first half hour because that was what Steve Harrington knew how to do. Smooth. Easy. Practiced. Then, sometime after the second reel started rolling, his fingers stopped drumming against your sleeve and settled there with a hesitant weight, not claiming, only asking.
You remembered the way he drove with one hand when he was showing off, then switched to both hands when he told you about the time he forgot about his gym clothes and his coach made him wear an extra one two sizes too small. You remembered that he kept cherry chapstick in his glove box beside a flashlight, two old cassette tapes, and a receipt from a gas station outside Indianapolis. You remembered him stealing fries from your plate at the nearby diner and pretending to be wounded when you kicked his shin under the booth.
And in the next important memory, you remembered rain.
It came hard one random Thursday night, turning Hawkins into a blur of headlights and slick black roads. Steve’s house was empty in the way large houses could be empty even before you stepped inside. It was too clean, and far too quiet. The kind of place where expensive furniture sat untouched, waiting for adults who came home late and left early.
You ended up in his bedroom because the living room felt too much like a showroom for you.
His room was warmer than you expected, messier in an unapologetically human way. A baseball glove rested comfortably on the nearby dresser. Records stacked crookedly near the stereo. A half-open drawer with socks spilling out. Hair products lined along the bathroom counter with an intensity that might have been funny if it did not now seem faintly sad. Still, you had gotten a few quips out in hopes of cracking a smile from him.
The storm rattled the windows deeper into that even when conversations died down. You sat on the floor with your backs against the thick wooden frame of his bed, sharing a blanket that smelled faintly of detergent and his cologne. It was a familiar scent to your mind now. His knee pressed against yours beneath the fabric.
Neither of you moved away.
“I used to think this place was cool,” Steve had mentioned offhandedly after a moment, looking around the space of his room.
You didn't quite follow why his tone seemed far away, to you, his words were still holding up. “It is cool.”
“It’s big.”
Your head turned to face him, a hum on your lips. “That’s usually part of cool.”
He shook his head, the slight shake of his hair reminded you of how you missed touching it. You shook your head and focused once more when he spoke again. “No, I mean… it’s just big.”
You understood what he meant.
Near his large bedroom window, thunder rolled low over the town. The room flashed pale for a second, then settled back into the lamplight.
You rested your cheek against the edge of the mattress, warm eyes pouring into yours as he mimicked your actions. “Are your parents gone a lot?”
“Yeah.” Steve then picked at a loose thread in the blanket. His next words came out short and detached, so unlike the guy you've known. “Dad travels. Mom goes with him when she’s tired of pretending she likes Hawkins.”
You didn't like how his eyes dimmed. “And you?”
“I stay.”
The word sat between you.
He laughed once, it was without humor, and rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand. His voice held that rasped edge that sent tingles down your spine. “God, that sounded pathetic.”
“It didn’t.” The reassurance came so quick it shocked you. You attempted to play it cool, repeating the words slower.
“It did.” He looked down at his hands, the same ones you found yourself wanting to hold without the premise of a lie. “I just… I don’t know what happens when this is over. School. All of it. Everybody keeps acting like we’re supposed to know.” You didn't know what to say, it was the first time you've seen him so visibly wrecked. “College, jobs, whatever. And I’m sitting there thinking—what if this was it? What if being King Steve was the only thing I was ever good at, and I wasn’t even good enough to keep it?”
Your chest tightened, it seemed like the world was laughing at you. Her he was, sitting on his bedroom floor besides talking about his insecurities all while you were actively trying to back on them.
The article was in your bag downstairs. A draft. A title. A guillotine made of clever sentences.
“Steve,” the name came of gentle from your lips.
He would not look at you, he kept staring at a spot on the floor.
“Nancy figured it out before I did,” he went on, his voice lower now. His shoulders carried his tension clear as day. “That all the stuff people liked about me was just… noise. Parties, basketball, the car, the hair. The Harrington house. I thought that meant something. Then it didn’t, and it was—”
He stopped and didn't continue any further. You knew the signs before it came, and the room quieted down.
His throat moved, a small, forcefully restrained noise finding its way out. The rain that thudded against his window filled the silence for him. And for you.
You reached for his hand quickly.
He looked at your fingers covering his, then turned his palm upward and held on. You opened your mouth to speak, but not much came out. His grip was still foreign to you, but it was different right now. It wasn't smooth, and it didn't feel like it held any kind of plan. His grip tightened once, almost too much to be soft, but then he quickly loosened it.
You shifted closer.
That was all it took.
He pulled you into his lap with a suddenness that stole your breath, then seemed to realize what he had done a second after doing it. His hands hovered at your waist.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
You settled there instead of moving away. Your own eyes were blown wide and mirroring his. You tried to speak but it came out all airy. “It’s okay.”
His breathing changed when yours did. Steve's eyes seemed to track your face, and the air seemed to turn into something deeper.
For a moment, neither of you spoke up again. He lowered his forehead to your shoulder,then to the curve of your neck, his breath warm against your skin. The response that you gave was instantaneous, a rapid rising and falling of your chest went through the warmth of your body. His hands gripped your waist through the blanket, not possessive necessarily, you thought it felt more like clinging. Tethering. The storm made the windows tremble. His hair brushed your jaw.
You lifted a hand and threaded your fingers into the back of his hair. The return of the welcome feeling was pleasant in your grasp.
He went still under your touch, and for a moment. Then he exhaled, deep and unsteady, and held you closer. Your faces were breaths away now, the bridge of his nose softly touched yours.
“Hey,” your voice came out weak. It was too soft to be teasing like you'd hoped.
Steve’s eyes softened instantly. You saw it happen. You saw the moment the small, genuine grin stretched across his face. His voice came back whispered, as if scared to break the moment. “Hi there.”
When he finally pulled back, his eyes searched your face with an openness that made lying feel entirely impossible. You knew he was about to kiss you. You knew that you really should stop him. You knew the truth should come out before his mouth touches yours, before this became another thing you had stolen under false pretenses.
But you'd been stupid, and so you didn't stop him.
The kiss began softly, almost carefully. His lips were brushing yours once before returning with more certainty. He tasted faintly sweet from the chapstick he pretended not to use. The kiss felt like it was bewitching your body whole. His hand rose to your hair, fingers sinking in with a restraint that kept breaking and returning. You gave a slight laugh against his lips before calming down. You felt him trying not to rush, trying not to take more than you gave, and the effort undid you more thoroughly than any practiced confidence could have. Because it was just so him.
You kissed him back.
Not for the article. Not for the headline. Not because Stacey would demand details or because Mr. Walsh would have to admit you knew how to find a story
You wanted to, you truly wanted to..
You kissed him because his hand was warm against your back and his breath caught when you touched his face. Because the room smelled of rain and leather and laundry soap. Because his mouth moved against yours with need and care tangled together, and your whole body answered before your conscience could organize a defense.
When you pulled away, his forehead rested against yours. The faint flush from his skin felt nice against yours
He smiled, small and dazed. You added that of the list of expressions you liked to see on him.
“Does this mean I’m helping with your boy problem?”
A laugh broke out of you, shaky and real. You pressed your face into his shoulder to hide it. With a lightness in you chest you lifted your head up as you rolled your eyes. Your hand moved on its own account now. It slid up to grasp the side of his face, your fingers sliding against the shape of his jaw.
“Shut up, Steve.”
His arms tightened around you, and his lips found yours once again. His own lightness expressed through the laughter that filled the echoing bedroom. "Ouch, you wound me."
For a few minutes, the world narrowed to the storm, his heartbeat beneath your palm, and the terrible knowledge that you had done something you could not write your way out of.
—
The article sat unfinished for two days.
You told yourself you would kill it. You also told yourself that you had time. Then you told yourself you would revise it.
So you sat in the newsroom after school, staring at the draft title until the faniliar letters turned cruel.
The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king.
It sounded brilliant in the cafeteria. You distinctly remember thinking that. But now? Now it sounded mean.
No, mean was too light of a word. It felt cruel.
You pulled the pages from the typewriter, folded them once, and shoved them into your folder. You would tell Mr. Walsh you had changed direction. You would write something else. Anything else. A review of the cafeteria pizza. A profile on the marching band. A blank page with sorry written in the center.
The front page spot didn't seem so enticing anymore when the cost came so harsh.
You were reaching for your bag when Mark appeared in the doorway, looking over at you. You didn't bother to hide the deep exhale you gave, you whole body tensing on on instinct.
“Working late?”
You stiffened and corrected him. “Leaving, actually.”
His eyes dropped to the folder in your hand. You immediately shut the folder, not liking the look in his gaze. “Is that the mystery column everyone’s whispering about?”
“No.”
“So yes.”
You tucked it against your chest. You had truly no paitence for the boy. You had been feeling horrible all last night yesterday, well, even more so last night than usual. “Move, Mark.”
He held up both hands, smiling. You didn't like his smile. It was nothing like the comforting presence of Steve's. The thought only made your mood worsened. “Relax. I just wanted to see what was so important that Walsh was considering bumping my school spirit piece.”
“He wasn’t.” You wished you sounded as steady as you needed to, but the flicker in your voice betrayed you.
Mark noticed. Boys like Mark always noticed weakness when it benefited them. And Mark himself no doubt would revel in any chance of taking an empty shot at you.
“Come on,” he clicked his tongue in a way that made your blood boil from its condescension. “We’re all on the same staff.”
“No, we’re not.” You pushed past him quickly.
You did not know, however, that then one folded carbon copy had slipped from your folder and landed beneath the table, half-hidden by the trash can. You did not know Mark found it ten minutes later. You did not know he read it standing under the buzzing lights with his mouth slowly opening into the delighted shape of opportunity.
If you knew, you certainly wouldn't have lived through the reoccurring nightmare you've been having for the past few weeks.
You found out the next morning when Hawkins High came alive with your words.
Not the final version of your words, for it surely would've had a different result. It wasn't even the whole draft.
It was the worst version, the sharpest version.
The version written before you knew the way Steve looked when he gave away his jacket and pretended not to be cold.
Copies appeared on lockers before first period. Someone had run them fast and dirty, the ink uneven, the margins crooked. The title screamed from the top in bold type.
By second period, everyone had read it. By lunch, they were reading it aloud. You pushed through the hallway with your heart hammering so hard your vision pulsed at the edges.
A boy near the trophy case laughed. “Listen to this part—”
You snatched the page from his hand and you were sure the rhythm of your heart could be heard from miles away.
There it was.
Your article.
Your voice, sharpened into a blade that you couldn't even begin to imagine dulling.
The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king
Every high school builds a throne, though no one admits to carrying the wood to make it. We vote with our eyes, our invitations, and our laughter at jokes that are not funny enough to deserve it. We create a boy and call him a king because it is easier than admitting we are the kingdom that is faulty.
The high school god is rarely born exceptional. He is assembled meticulously. A good car. A good face. The right jacket. The right table. Enough people saying his name in the right tone until even he begins to believe there is something sacred in being wanted. These continue to enforce how sincerity rarely makes the cut.
But worship is not love. Anyone will tell you that, and those who disagree would be dumb enough to face the consequences. Popularity feeds on performance, and performance rots whatever is underneath the layer given. A boy taught to survive by being admired will eventually mistake attention for affection, control for confidence, and loneliness for proof that everyone else has failed him
When a crown falls, what remains is often not a villain, but something more ordinary and more frightening: a boy with no language for himself beyond what other people once applauded and now isolate.
Hawkins High should ask why we keep making kings out of boys who do not know how to be human — and why we act surprised when the weight of a crown crushes them to dust.
You had written every word. It would have been easier to say that Mark embellished over your words, and exaggerated for journalist effect. But he didn't, you were the one to do that. It was the worst part of the draft he could have chosen, simply because of the fact that you had left out everything you saw after.
You had also left out every human thing that would have saved him.
You found Steve in the print room a few hours later. And before you could assume any sort of hope of a clean explanation, it was shot and dead in front of you. You almost wished he hadn't gone there.
But of course he would have gone there, and of course the place where your betrayal had been made public still smelled of ink and metal and hot paper. It was proof of the now posted article that you didn't even want out. Faintly, you could hear something loud with the clacking press that someone had forgotten to turn off. Steve stood near the long table, one of the copies in his hand, the page trembling slightly between his fingers.
He looked up when you entered and you almost wished he hadn't.
His eyes were red.
Not crying, not exactly. Worse. It made your heart drop and panic spike up into you. It seemed he intended to hold back so hard that the effort had hollowed out his face.
“Steve–” you didn't recognize your voice. It was so desperate and and pleading. You opened your mouth and tried to stammer out any explanation that came into your head, but there was nothing you found coming to mind.
“Steve, please! Just listen, I–” He interrupted you and laughed, but it shook you. It wasn't like the laughter you had come to live, this one had no warmth in it. It was so unlike him and you hated it. You hated causing that.
“Was any of it real?”
You stopped short, any explanation does quickly in the tip of your tongue.
He held up the article for you to see. As if you needed to be reminded of what you'd have done, a small breath part of you mouthed off bitterly.
“When you looked at me like that. When you stayed with me. When you—” His voice caught, and he looked away, jaw tight. You immediately took to shaking your head, the implication of his words just. Because they were true. And because they weren't. “Was that just material for your front page?”
“No!”
“No?”
“It started—” You hated yourself before the words finished forming. “It started as an article, but—”
His face changed and your heart seemed perpetually lodged into your ribcage. There were some truths that did not deserve the dignity of a full explanation. Steve just exhaled out sharply, his head finally facing you. The reaction wasn't what you wanted, you wanted–no, needed to explain yourself.
He nodded slowly, eyes dropping to the floor. Steve didn't give the you the chance to continue. “Right.”
“Steve, I was going to stop it. I didn't even turn it in! I swear, I wasn't going to hand it over. Mark found an old draft, and he—”
“Don’t.” He looked at you then, and the quiet in his voice hurt more than shouting would have. The word held so much that you froze on instinct. Your eyes stung viciously as you opened your mouth but nothing came out. “Don’t make this about him.”
Your mouth closed then. You felt utterly helpless, which might have been deserved. You desperately wanted to tell him everything, wanting him to understand that it was real – is real. But your eyes, wide and frantic, just froze. He stepped closer, the paper crumpling in his fist.
“Everyone else wanted to see me for my status,” Steve began with a sharp inhale. You felt the stinging turn more prominent in your eyes, you tried to take a step forward but that was rejected when he almost flinched back two steps himself.. “The car, the parties, the game. Whatever. I got that. I was stupid, but I got it.” His breath shook. Steve’s voice cracked nearing the end, and that was the last thing you heard before your vision blurred into spots. “I thought you were the only one who didn’t care about it.”
“I did! No, I mean–I do, you have to believe me, Steve.” Your voice was surely pathetically small. Everything else seemed to turn into static silence in the empty printing room and you desperately needed to fix it. You wanted to, but you felt so utterly unsure of your next steps. You reached for him on instinct.
Steve flinched back.
The movement was small. Instinctive. As if his body no longer registered you as a comfort, and that split something open in you. You felt the first few tears fall from your lashes, each blink dropping tiny little pearls. Steve made a noise you couldn't properly translate, his eyes were on yours but they held a thousand words and emotions in a single look. His own hand twitched open and shut before being brought up to bury itself in his hair, Steve then forced his eyes shut and his head turned to the side. He couldn't decide what hurt more, being hurt by you, or seeing you hurt.
He was the one that came back sharp and strained.
“Turns out,” Steve’s voice was so rough, it could have been unrecognizable. You opened your mouth immediately to shut down whatever he would say, but he beat you to it. “you just used me for a headline.”
The press clattered behind him. A sheet slid loose and fluttered to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered, your voice cracking and stinging from feeling utterly defeated. Because he was right, you did. You did get to know him for a chance at a headline, so that was why you could only apologize. But you wanted nothing to do with that stupid article, and regret washed over you at the thought of him thinking none of it was real. Because yes, it was messy, but it was real for you. “But–fuck, Steve... please you have to understand that–” you were cut off before you could even continue.
He stared at you for a long moment, and you could see the part of him that wanted to believe you fighting with the part that had learned too many times what wanting cost.
Then he turned and walked out.
The room didn't become empty when he left, there was no relief that came with him leaving. And the room didn't become calmer in his disappearance; instead, it filled with him.
The absence of his cologne. The missing warmth of his jacket. The ghost of his hand at your cheek, careful and uncertain, before you had earned any of it. All of the little things that were so present just a moment ago were gone and let the physical trail of what happened.
You were left alone with the faint clacking of the room's machinery. And for a moment, you were so ready to run out to try and plead. To explain, to tell him every complete thing he was missing in hopes of him understanding. But you couldn't do that, not when you were already reason enough that he was hurting all over again.
With a loud curse, you found yourself feeling completely lost in a room that you've only ever compared with a haven.
—
For two days, Steve Harrington became visible to you in a way he had never been as king.
You saw him at his locker the next Friday morning, hollow-eyed and quiet, pretending not to hear the whispers. You saw him in the cafeteria, sitting with a younger boy you didn't know for exactly six minutes before the younger boy said something animated enough to make Steve almost smile. Then Steve caught sight of you across the room and the almost vanished.
That hurt like a stab to the heart.
Then came the other little things that made you feel significantly worse. He stopped coming to the parking lot after school until the buses had left. He stopped looking down your hallway. He stopped being available to your guilt.
You tried to corner Mark. He denied leaking it with the loose, oily confidence of someone who knew proof mattered more than truth. Mr. Walsh gave a speech to the staff about journalistic ethics while refusing to meet your eyes. Stacey apologized three times, then stopped because the apologies had nowhere to land when she held you while your sobs filled your bedroom. Leah sat beside you at lunch without talking much. That was the kindest thing anyone did.
By Friday afternoon, the newsroom felt smaller than it ever had for you. More suffocating.
The printing press sat under the window, still and waiting. Dust turned in the late sun. Your original ambition lay around you in stacks of paper and headline sketches and discarded layouts.
You looked at the front page proof with Mark’s article on school spirit and felt nothing.
Not disappointment. Not anger.
Nothing.
That truly scared you more than pain did.
You had thought giving up the article would be enough. You had thought killing the story would count as a moral act. But the story was already alive, crawling through Hawkins High with your fingerprints around its throat. You didn't know what to do, the words were already there for everyone that listened.
You sat at the typewriter.
For a long moment, you did not move. Shortly after a fit of tense silence, you finally rolled in a clean sheet. The keys struck hard enough to ache in your fingers.
This time, you did not write anonymously because you were clever. Or because you were trying to be witty or cruel. You wrote anonymously because the confession was not meant to redeem your name. It was meant to give him back his.
By the final bell, the flyer was everywhere, curtesy of your desperate and frantic efforts.
It wasn't approved, it certainly also wasn't polished. Id didn't become formatted with Mr. Walsh’s careful little rules. It was just a single page copied until the machine jammed twice and your hands were black with ink that you couldn't scrub off
Students grabbed them from the tables, from the lockers, from the floor where they skidded under shoes. After all, no one loved potential hidden stories more than Hawkins High
You didn't wait to watch them read. That had been the least of your priorities. There was more important things that you cared about than who read a piece of your work now, and he had been gone from your sight long enough.
So, you ran.
The hallways exploded around you with the annual end-of-week chaos of Hawkins High School. Lockers slammed open, someone yelled about a shared ride, and a freshman dropped an entire stack of books and cursed with such feeling that a teacher shouted his name from twenty feet away. The sun poured through the front doors in a white-gold sheet, way too bright after the fluorescent dimness of the hall.
Steve was not at his locker. He was not outside the gym. He wasn't by the trophy case or the pay phones or even the side entrance near the band room. Your lungs burned by the time you shoved through the heavy double doors and stumbled into the afternoon.
The parking lot sprawled ahead of you, shining under the cold sun. Cars backed out in crooked lines. Girls shouted through open windows. The air smelled of gasoline, damp leaves, and somebody’s cigarette. It was all nothing that you cared about. The one thing you did seemed to be missing from the scene. Your eyes squinted in the light as it traveled across the parking spaces of the lot, failing to find what your heart desperately wanted to see.
At the far end, the BMW’s engine roared to life.
“No,” you breathed with pure adrenaline rushing through your veins. Steve sat behind the wheel, one hand on the gearshift, his profile hard through the windshield.
Before you even knew it, you started running.
It was stupid, rushed, and entirely filled with desperation. Your shoes slapped the asphalt. You heard Leah faintly calling your name, but you didn't turn back. The wind tore at your hair. Your bag bounced painfully against your hip but you paid it no mind. You cut between two parked cars and nearly slipped on loose gravel.
“Steve!”
He did not hear you, or pretended not to. You gave a groan of loud annoyance, but it still did little to deter you.
You reached the car just as the reverse lights flashed.
Without thinking, without dignity, and definitely without any plan beyond the awful certainty that if he drove away now something inside you would never forgive you, you threw yourself in front of the driver’s side door.
The car jerked to a stop and Steve froze behind the wheel.
Through the glass, his beautifully bright eyes widened. Hurt, shock, and stubborn pride moved across his face so quickly you could barely separate them. Then his mouth tightened. You could tell he wasn't expecting your actions, and you couldn't exactly say you were the most sane person now.
The window rolled down slowly, the crank turning under his hand with mechanical, agonizing patience.
“What are you doing?” his words came loud and filled with unresolved frustration. Steve’s voice was rough. Thick in its tension. He wouldn't look straight at you. You refused to settle for that, the days spent with the familiar feeling practically left you numb and empty.
“Go back inside,” Steve’s eyes and words seemed to contradict each other. He shifted back into looking into his dashboard instead of you. “Go celebrate your front page.”
You shoved the crumpled paper through the open window. It landed in his lap.
“I don’t care about the stupid article, ” you said, breathless enough that the words broke apart. “I don’t care about the front page. Just–read it. Please.”
His jaw flexed. For a second, you thought he would throw it back at you. Then Steve looked down at the copy of printed words.
You watched his eyes move over the page.
Correcting mistakes:
There was an article circulating this week about a king. It was clever in the cruel way people mistake for intelligence when they are too afraid to admit they have been wrong.
The girl who wrote it thought she was exposing a system. She thought it clever and brilliant. She told herself the boy at the center of it was an idea, a symbol, a lesson with good hair. She thought distance made her fair and judicial. She thought observation made her honest.
Then the boy gave her his jacket when she was cold.
Then he admitted he was afraid of being forgotten, and the girl realized she had been so busy studying the crown of his that she had ignored the weight of it on his own head.
The first article was right about one thing: Hawkins High School makes kings out of boys and then punishes them for not knowing how to be anything else. That wasn't the mistake here. But it was wrong to confuse a boy’s damage with his character. It was wrong to turn trust into evidence. And it was wrong to take the softest things he offered and sharpen them for public consumption.
This is not an apology meant to earn forgiveness. This is meant, instead to fix the record.
The boy was never a god.
He was kinder than any story allowed him to be, and he was kinder than she deserved.
Steve stared at the paper.
His chest rose and fell under his yellow polo. His rings glinted where his fingers gripped the page. Around you, students slowed. A few openly stared. You could feel the parking lot turning toward you with the appetite of a place that loved spectacle.
For once, you really, truly, couldn't care.
Steve’s eyes lifted to yours, and you could weep just from that alone. “Why should I believe you?” he asked.
The question was quiet enough that no one else could hear. You stepped closer, hands gripping the edge of the open window. Your own voice want any better, it was loud and messy, and undeniably real. A breathless bount of laughter escaped you “Because I was playing a game and I lost, Steve.”
“I lost.”
His throat moved but you hadn't seen it.
“And I lost you,” you sighed with your head hanging low in shame near the open window, voice shaking now, “and I regret it. I was supposed to push you away, but every time you held my hand, every time you looked at me like I actually mattered, I—”
Your breath caught, and you forced it down in order to continue.
“I don’t care about King Steve. I don’t care about the crown or the table or the stupid front page. I want the guy who gets cold in his own car because he gave me his jacket. I want the guy who pretends he doesn’t use cherry chapstick. I want the guy who worries too much and fixes his hair when he’s nervous and acts tough until somebody he cares about needs him to be gentle.”
The words were embarrassing in their vulnerability, and it didn't help that Steve just stared at you. But even small battle wins were tremendous to those who were cautious. The defensive hardness in his face trembled.
You leaned closer, not touching him. Though God knew you wanted too. But you wouldn't take what he had not offered.
“I just want you,” you said and the words hung there in the bright afternoon.
For a second, nothing happened. That scared you. Because if even though all of this, he didn't believe you, you were sure that would break you entirely. You didn't understand how looking at him now, with his beautifully enrupturing genuine gaze and constellations of freckles so faint kissing his skin with blessings, you could have been so stupid.
Your panicking monologue was cut off when Steve let out a breath that broke halfway into a laugh.
It made you falter momentarily. You wouldn't exactly describe it as fully happy or clean. Instead, it was more ragged. Disbelieving. Full of relief that came so sudden it seemed to knock the strength out of him. He looked down at the crumpled printed again, then back at you. You saw the exact moment when whatever he had been holding together for two days came apart in his hands.
“You’re insane,” Steve held his head in his hands. The heels of his palms dragged to his eyes, and that when you noticed the concealed redness there. Your panic was a quick guest arrival as your hand hesitantly went over the threshold of the open window and found its spot tangling through his hair at his temple.
Your voice came out soft. “I know.”
“You ran in front of my car.” Steve's was returned in a disbelieving laugh. The sound on instinct made you smile.
“I know.”
“I could’ve hit you.”
You weren't quite so sure you believed that. And it seemed like neither did he fully either. The both of you stared through the air between you “You're not exactly driving donuts with your Beamer in a school parking lot, Harrington. You were going four miles an hour, max.”
His mouth twitched and your heart found its comfort. There he was. That was the boy you wanted to see, the one who was sincere and silly and all of the words in between.
The moment didn't truly feel fixed all the way, and it didn't feel so easily forgiven so neatly that the hurt could be vanished beneath a kiss. But there, beneath the bruised pride and the red eyes and the stubborn set of his jaw, was the boy from the park. The boy from the rainstorm. The boy who had laughed quietly when nobody asked him to perform.
He shoved the car door open.
You barely had time to step back before he was out, hands catching your waist. Steve lifted you clean off the pavement, and a startled sound escaped you as your hands grabbed his shoulders.
“Steve—”
“Shut up,” he rasped, but his voice broke around the smile. Then kiss that came next didn't surprise you. But it certainly didn't prepare you for it either.
It was not exactly graceful, but it was completely and utterly impassioned.
Someone in the parking lot whooped. Someone else yelled something that sounded suspiciously like “Harrington!” A horn blared because a car was stuck behind his open door. The reminder of just how crazy this whole situation was roared in your ears.
Steve didn't seem to hear any of it. You had a feeling that he did, but just pretended he didn't. That made you smile on reflex against him.
His hands held your waist with desperate certainty, then slid up your back, pulling you close enough that the cold afternoon disappeared between you. Your fingers tangled in his hair, ruining it again, and he made a sound against your mouth that was half laugh, half relief. He tasted the same sweet cherry chapstick you started buying for yourself and breathless warmth. The kiss carried every unsaid thing neither of you knew how to organize yet. Anger. Want. Hurt. Forgiveness beginning somewhere far off and walking slowly toward you.
When your feet touched the ground again, you were dizzy. It was a good dizzy, and the pounding in your side was a welcome pleasure now.
Steve rested his forehead against yours, breathing hard. His hands stayed anchored at your hips, refusing to let you drift away. Up close, you could see the faint details scattered along his neck, the tiredness under his eyes, and the careful hope he was trying not to show too quickly.
“You really printed that?” The question broke you out of your stupor. You were still so dazed from his touch that you distantly found yourself nodding. Your hands refused to leave their spot in reaching for him now that there wasn't a lie justifying it.
“Over Mark’s stupid school spirit thing?”
Your words came mechanical, as if offended he'd even question it. “Technically under it. Around it. On top of some of it.”
“I made a stupid amount of copies.” The confession came paired with you momentarily dropping your hands where they were wrapped around him to hold up the black ink stains on your fingers.
His smile spread, crooked and real enough to hurt. And you swore that it was the most beautiful sight in the world.
“Good.”
You laughed weakly, your hands finding their way back into sliding to the back of his nape. “That’s what you took from the public confession?”
“I’m processing.” His thumb moved along your jaw, slow and familiar. “Also, I liked the cherry chapstick line.”
“I hoped you would,” you felt like a cat relishing in caresses. The smile that mirrored his came quick and teasing on your mouth. His eyes stayed on yours, and his smile softened at the edges.
“You’re a terrible writer.”
Your brows lifted in instinctive defensiveness of your craft. “Excuse me?”
He brushed his thumb beneath your chin, eyes bright with that old Harrington charm, gentler now, and clearly worn in rather than performed.
“You didn’t even come close to losing me.”
The ache in your chest loosened all at once.
It would not be so easy for you to say it was gone, you would still have to apologize without speeches. He would still have to decide what trust looked like after being turned into copy.
But Steve was standing in front of you with his hair wrecked by your hands and your confession folded against his car seat. He was looking at you, really looking, not the way a king looked over a crowd, but the way a boy looked at the girl he was still willing to let close enough to hurt him.
You rose onto your toes with a soft shake of your head and grin. “Just shut up and kiss me, Harrington.”
His grin flashed.
“Yes, ma’am.”
This time, when he kissed you, the whole parking lot blurred into sun and noise and the smell of gasoline warming on asphalt. His hands were still careful. Yours were not. You held onto him with ink-stained fingerspads and a heart that learned how to be true.
steve would have you holding yourself open. he’d guide your hands down behind your knees and gently press your own fingers into your legs, moving your body with you as he let you spread your own legs for him.
he’d lean in close and you’d hold your breath, because his mouth is soclose to you, but he doesn’t do anything other than give a kiss to your thigh and then inhale your scent, mouth open like he wants to try and taste you too from inches away. you make a small noise in your throat and then he turns, shifts a little, sucks in his cheeks and then spits right onto your open core, the glob of saliva dripping down the seam of your lips, rolling over your slit down to your slit, where it settles, shiny, warm; you shudder.
and then he’s up on his knees, hovering above you, his hands exploring your body, caressing your tits and your sides and your stomach, settling in your waist as he leans in, the heavy weight of his cock settling on top of you, nestled against your thigh. he reaches one hand down, correcting the placement—he lets it lay across your quivering folds, and rolls his hips. you feel the pass of his cock lightly, because he’s just laying on you, no pressure, nothing holding him against you—and then he starts in.
he takes hold of his cock and strokes himself, thumb smoothing over the head, focusing on the slit like you do, and you watch transfixed until he slides his hand to the base and holds himself, erect, flushed at the tip, over you. then, with one quick, clean movement—he slaps the head against your clit.
you’re not worked up enough—yet—to have much of a reaction but that doesn’t deter him. he just does it again, every now and then smoothing his palm over your pussy, rubbing at your clit with the pads of his fingers, working you up to it gradually, and every time you get close he just uses his cock on you again, like it’s a toy, not part of him. like it’s only good for looking pretty and giving you something to suck on and bat away at your clit with the spongy head until you come from the play.
you’re so wet from him touching you that you can hear it when he taps the head repeatedly against you, his thumb stretched along the top so you really feel it when he pushes the head into your clit, circling it over you, and when he pulls away there’s an obscene wet, almost sucking sound like your fluids and his precome were keeping you stuck together, like your body and his didn’t want to part but for the force of him pulling away.
you sigh—the one he knows, where you like it but want more, and so he gives you one last flick of his wrist, the head popping against your clit again, before he lowers his mouth to you instead, broad shoulders against the backs of your hands as he licks at you, tonguing your clit and sucking it. and that’s about all it takes—a couple soft pulls with his lips, some long quick strokes with his tongue, and you come apart against his mouth, releasing your knees and curling your hands into his hair instead, holding on for dear life as you ride your orgasm out on his face.
&&
gator would definitely make use of his cuffs and have you laying there with your arms up above your head, not able to move while he has one of your legs up against his front, your calf resting on his shoulder. he’d just gently kiss your ankle which would be such a stark contrast to the way that he’s holding your other leg down flat, palm splayed out against your thigh so you’re spread open. he’d probably have you like that for what feels like hours, playing with your pussy almost idly, like he doesn’t care, like he’s not affected, like his cock isn’t rock hard and dripping precome.
he’d use his other hand to hold onto himself and just bat the head against you, nudging your clit with the tip, curling his hips forward so the underside rubs against your swollen, desperate clit, your lips puffy with all the attention he’s been giving them. he’d swap out and use his hand on you every couple passes of his dick, and you’d watch as he pulls away, not able to touch anything but keeping your fingers tangled together. the bottom of his cock is shiny with you, and he’d slap your pussy and dig his fingers into your cunt, scissoring them apart before pulling them out once you start squirming, enjoying it too much—and then he’d just smear your arousal over himself and take hold of his shaft again.
he’d sidle closer on his knees, looming over you and snap his wrist downward, his cock hitting against your clit and you’d twitch, because you’re so worked up and fucked out and the only part of him that’s been inside you is two of his fingers. you’d push your hips up, try to widen your legs, his fingertips pressing divots into your thigh, and he brings his cock down against you. your whole body jumps, and even he gasps as your pussy spasms. he meets your eyes and you nod, whining, so he does it again, and again, your whimpers turning to mewls turning to simpering moans and then he’s slotting his cock between your lips and fucking through them, between them, the slide slick and easy and the pressure and hard ridge of his cock dragging over your soaking folds, his hand rough on your leg, is what pushes you over.
your cunt clamps down on itself, empty, empty, emp—
gator bullies his cock into you as you come, your orgasm drawn out, lasting forever, and your whole body kicks again, your toes curling as he fucks into you, winding you up again, stomach tensing as you feel him inside you, deep, moving in and letting you milk his come from his cock. he fills you up, his arm tight around your leg, holding it to his chest, flooding you with his release, until you both relax and he pulls out and his spunk dribbles out after him
but he doesn’t relent, even as you tug at the cuffs—he just starts again, slapping the wet head against your clit, so sensitive it’s just on this side of too much. the grin that splits his face doesn’t soften his hard eyes, and you settle yourself down for another go-round.
mini series, in which you experience five different dates with Steve Harrington • online dating app AU •
date one: the wall
navigation • previous chapter • next chapter
summary: you never believed in the magic of dating apps, but what happens when the algorithm introduces you to a particularly attractive man, who also has a great personality...and other fine qualities?
content warnings: fem!reader, no y/n used. sexual themes (f!masturbation, erection, talking about sex in general). making out. we get to know our characters a little bit more (dialogue heavy). very anxious and slightly insecure reader. mentions of cheating and bad parenting. this one is fluffy with slight angst?...get prepared for the nasty shit next chapter
a/n: back from vacation and i finally have access to my computer, hallelujah! this one is mid but it hopefully gets better
In your twenty-seven years of life, you've been to a lot of dates.
Good ones, bad ones, the horrendous ones.
You always considered yourself decent at flirting, and never really stressed before any of your dates.
But the days leading up to your meeting with Steve? You acted insane.
"Or do you think I should like, go shopping?" you asked, the face of your best friend staring at you through the screen.
"For what?" she replied, adjusting her glasses at another one of your questions.
You shrugged, feigning your nonchalance. "New dress. Maybe new shoes."
"So..." she exhaled, tiredness slipping into her tone. "You're going on a date with a guy you really like, and what I'm gathering is that he likes you too, so you suddenly decide to change everything about yourself?"
You just blinked at her, unable to respond.
You were acting dumb, you knew you were.
"Let me summarize all of our conversation then." she continued, her finger pointing at you through the screen. "No, you don't need to get your hair done, you don't need new manicure or clothes. You don't have to...manufacture yourself just to meet this man. Sure, you can make yourself look good but I can obviously see what's happening here."
You pouted and hid your face in your hands, screaming internally.
Of course you didn't need to do any of that, you didn't even want it. You were perfectly fine with clothes that you already owned, and getting your hair done was just simply unnecessary. You could work with what you already had.
But fuck, you were so nervous and eager to impress him that you've lost yourself in all of this.
"You think he's freaking out like this too?" she added, a smile creeping onto her face. "Because I had dates with guys who barely even washed their asses before meeting up."
You laughed, a small amount of stress slipping from your mind.
"Hopefully he isn't. Freaking out, I mean. Not...the other part."
"Just be yourself, babe. He obviously already thinks you're great, otherwise he wouldn't ask you out."
She smiled softly, and you smiled back, her warm voice filling the space one more time.
"Don't think you're not enough, especially because of a man. I won't let that happen again."
And just like that, she made those voices in your head a little bit quieter.
Seeing him for the first time was almost like an out of body experience.
You knew that he was handsome from the pictures, but actually being close to him? It was almost unfair for a man to look this good.
Well, fuck. You were definitely nervous now.
When he saw you approaching, he stood up from his chair, all tall and handsome. His dress shirt was ironed to perfection, silver cuffs shining under the warm lights of the restaurant. You could see some of his chest hair peeking out from where he left the top unbuttoned, and fuck, it kinda made you dizzy.
"Hi, gorgeous." he started, carefully sizing you up and down too. "I didn't know it was possible for you to look even better than in those photos, but wow."
And it was genuine, the way his eyes couldn't seem to focus on one thing, jumping from your eyes to your lips, then your neck, the top of your breasts (that you didn't purposefully push up even more), your legs, and even hands.
He was actually stunned, and likewise.
"I could say the same thing about you." you admitted, feigning confidence, though your throat suddenly felt dry.
Before you could register it, he pulled your chair from the table, gesturing for you to sit. When you did, he swiftly pushed it forward, like you and the big wooden piece weighed nothing.
"That's a first." you murmured, getting comfortable as he went to his side, sitting opposite from you.
"What is?"
"Someone doing that for me. It's very...gentlemanly..."
His brows furrowed in worry. "I didn't mean it like– I know you're capable–" his cheeks reddened, trying to get the right words out. "Was that too old -fashioned?"
You giggled, shaking your head. "No, not at all. It was actually really nice. Don't worry too much."
He visibly relaxed, a small smile forming on his lips.
"So you can tell that I'm really fucking nervous?"
"I wouldn't say that. Maybe just...mildly anxious."
"Well..." he started, leaning towards you across the table as if to tell you a secret. "You still make me really fucking nervous."
It was hard to believe that a man like him could feel nervous about you, but you didn't get to investigate his worries further—a waiter appeared by your side, ready to help and take your orders.
As Steve recited them back to him, you let your eyes wander a little.
Steve had a few rings on his fingers, and for a moment, you genuinely got scared. Your first (dumb) instinct was to assume that he had a secret wife all along, until you inspected them carefully—none on his ring finger, none actually indicating that he was married.
"I just like wearing them." he said, pulling you away from your thoughts.
You looked at him, embarrassed, realizing that your waiter probably left some time ago.
"So much for my secret investigation." you sighed, covering your face with your hands.
"You looked at my rings like they personally offended you." he laughed, taking your hands into his own to make you stop hiding, warmth spreading onto you as you actually felt his touch. "Figured what you're thinking about."
"Sorry...that's kinda unfair of me to assume that."
"It's not unfair at all, dating can be a nightmare." he shrugged. "People hiding their marriages just to get with someone new is more common than you'd think."
"Yeah, I mean...it's like an even more messy way of cheating." you laughed, though there was no actual humor beneath your words.
"Well, pinky promise that I'm not married." he said, intertwining your fingers together. You didn't even realize that he was still holding you, your joined hands proudly displayed on the table.
You felt that weird feeling in your stomach, like your insides were doing cartwheels without any prior warning.
"So, Steve–" you decided to change the subject, thought made no effort to free yourself from his hold. "What got you into online dating?"
He smiled, fingers absentmindedly moving over your skin, like the motion soothed something in him.
"It helps with meeting people you normally wouldn't even get to know...Maybe it's naive, but I really want to fall in love. I want to find my person and do all the things that I didn't get to see my parents doing. I want to actually be happy in my marriage, to have someone who will be there for me, always and no matter what."
You met his glance, vulnerable and so impossibly soft, your thumb grazing his skin now.
"Are your parents divorced?"
"Worse, they're still together." he scoffed, as if the words burned him. "They lived their whole lives treating me like shit or acting like I didn't exist, all while pretending that they wanted to be near each other. I know they hate being in that marriage, and I'm a direct victim of that."
It was heartbreaking, hearing that Steve lived all his childhood without any care, without the warmth and support that parents are supposed to give.
"Thank you for telling me." you said, sending him a soft smile. "I can only imagine how hard it must've been."
"It's better now, I don't really talk to them anymore." he shrugged. "But what about you? What made you download the app?"
"Well...I want to fall in love too, though my reasons come from the opposite side."
Steve nodded, focusing on your words. He looked genuinely interested in what you were saying—something you haven't experienced in a while now.
"My parents are still married, and I could feel their love my whole life. I grew up surrounded by it, never once did I think otherwise." you continued, smiling softly at the memories. "They're disgustingly in love. Every single time I visit they're trying to be sneaky, stealing kisses and whispering sweet nothings to each other like some teenage couple, and I just pretend that I don't notice."
"They sound great." he said gently.
You nodded, playing with one of the rings on his finger. "They are. It's just that...They made me believe that it's possible, you know? Finding that one true love, someone just right for you. But I think I'm starting to lose hope for that."
"That's why you made that profile? It's like a last resort?"
"I always thought that love comes to you only in...real life, I guess." you said, laughing a little. "Not through an app, not because of an algorithm."
"I feel another "but" coming." he said, encouraging you to speak.
"But...real life love has been a bitch to me, so I gave that app a chance."
It went quiet for a moment. Steve gave you space to continue, but he quickly noticed that the rest of this conversation was not happening today.
But it was fine—you didn't have to bare yourself completely just yet.
"I'm glad you gave it a chance, then." he said, looking into your eyes with softness that you haven't seen before.
"And I'm glad that you've taken something positive from all that you went through. Finding love is a nice dream to have."
He smiled, that genuine smile where all of his teeth show and cheeks get full, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
"And I assume you're willing to help?"
Did the room get hotter? Or was it just him and his perfect fucking smile? Perhaps his smooth words and tone? Hard to pinpoint, but it was making you melt into that chair like a damn ice cube.
"I'm just kidding." he continued, seeing how speechless he made you. "Unless the answer is "yes", then I wasn't kidding at all."
You laughed, body relaxing from all the tension.
It wasn't like you didn't want that. Of course you wanted to fall in love, and especially with Steve if he continued to be so great to you.
But thinking of admitting that to him, especially on your first real date, was undoubtedly scary. It could wait until you were sure, until you knew that falling for him wouldn't be a risk.
"Guess we'll just have to wait and see."
"I can work with that."
The rest of your dinner was fucking amazing. Conversation was flowing, just like the champagne you ordered, and you found yourself laughing and smiling more than usual. Way more than usual.
Your chin rested on top of your hand as you listened to another one of Steve's stories, his shoulder brushing softly against yours. Sitting on opposite sides was forgotten about halfway through your date—Steve moved his chair next to yours under the pretense of "hearing you better".
You didn't mind though, you liked having him close like this, being able to count all the little moles on his stupidly pretty face.
"Sailor suits? Really?" you smiled, the image of younger Steve serving ice cream in a goofy uniform flooding your mind. "You probably looked like a dork."
He flashed you a grin, intertwining your hands together and resting them on his thigh. It felt good, and by this point it felt natural too.
"Actually, a lot of ladies thought I looked sexy. Desirable, even."
And you laughed even more, but somehow you knew that it was the truth. Steve just had that charisma, that magnetic beauty that made you weak in the knees.
"Shame I didn't get to see it then."
"I kinda...still have it in my closet."
You gasped, playfully slapping at his hand, pretending to be offended. "How dare you hide that gem from me? You'll show me, right?"
He smiled, granting a quick kiss to the back of your hand, your heart running laps at this endearing gesture.
"Guess we'll just have to wait and see."
Well, fuck.
When you left the restaurant, he insisted that he'd walk you home. You didn't protest, wouldn't even dream of it.
You walked through the streets of New York, hand in hand, laughing and joking like you knew each other for years now. It definitely felt like it.
When you reached your house you were happy to just say goodbye, but Steve had it all planned hours ago.
He came closer, the scent of his cologne filling the space, mixing with your own perfume. You inhaled deeply and he did just the same, almost basking in the feeling. Both of you combined—the real testimony of your closeness.
And finally, when his arms hugged your waist, he kissed you.
It was sweet, careful—your lips getting used to the new feeling, the feeling of each other. He tasted sweet, like the dessert you just shared, and you found yourself thinking that one taste is just not enough.
He broke the kiss, his eyes immediately searching for any doubt on your face.
"Was that okay? I hope–"
But he didn't get to finish, because this time, you kissed him instead.
It was harder, deeper—your tongue getting familiar with his, your hands running through his hair. He made a soft sound, clutching onto you even tighter.
You didn't know how much time had passed. You just knew that kissing him like this made everything else fade away. It was only him.
His mouth went lower, carefully kissing down your neck, the fast tempo of your pulse surely making an impact on his lips.
Then you felt it, his hips moving just slightly, his hard length evident through his pants.
He stepped away, his lips swollen and red, eyes hazy, almost in a trance.
"Let's call it a night before– It's our first date and I try not to move this quickly. I want to make it right...with you."
You nodded slowly, sending him an understanding smile. Because you understood, of course you did—you operated the same. Sex on the first date was usually a "no" for you too.
But damn if he didn't leave you high and dry. With him, you felt ready to fuck against the damn wall of your apartment block.
So he (apologetically) smiled, hugged you longer than it'd be considered a normal amount for a goodbye, and whispered into your ear:
"But I'd be lying if I said that taking you against that wall didn't cross my mind."
Why the fuck would he say that? Making you even more horny for absolutely nothing.
Well, at least you knew that he had the same idea. You weren't that perverted after all.
Or maybe you were, because that night, hand between your legs again, you thought about Steve—fucking you against that goddamn apartment wall.
au: 90s hockey!steve x college student!reader
content warnings: angst/hurt comfort, hopeful ending, a bit of fluff, talks of casual hookups/sleeping together, alcohol, reader has self-esteem issues, not proofread (sorry), this is a little sadder than my usual stuff </3
word count: 1.7k
a/n: can you guys actually believe i wrote something
based on this original hockey!steve blurb! (this will definitely make more sense if you read it first)
You're not quite sure what time it is, but based on the dwindling sounds of the party going on inside the expansive hockey house, you guess it's nearing some obscene early morning hour.
Lately, you've been unsure of a lot of things. More than usual, you suppose. Why Steve Harrington is trying to sleep with you, for one, though you guess your reputation precedes you, and not in a way that feels particularly flattering.
A pang of self-hatred rattles through your chest and you swallow harshly, squeezing your eyes shut, as if the actions will physically remove the feeling from your body.
You wish it were that easy.
Currently, you're most unsure of why you're still at the hockey house. They won their game tonight. Another easy accomplishment for the university's team, unsurprisingly led by Steve, their superstar player and shoo-in for captain next year. You've heard that he's already getting scouted by NHL teams, but his golden boy repute means that he'll finish his degree before heading off to a fruitful career as a professional hockey player.
You scoff at the thought. You try not to let the jealousy build in your body, but you can't help it — Steve's gotten everything he's wanted since the beginning of time. You don't need to know him to prove your point; he just radiates that very fact.
So, again. Why are you laying on a lounge chair in the backyard of the hockey house, fully knowing the party is dead and there's nothing left for you to do but go home?
You know you could go inside, make eye contact, and flirt with any one of the remaining players who are sober enough to make a conscious decision, and find enough warmth for the night to get by.
But you don't want to do that.
For some stupid, pathetic reason, you're holding out for him, and you have no idea why.
You sigh and pull the cigarette from behind your ear, then grab the lighter from your bra. You feel like you've made an idiot of yourself over the past few weeks. Ever since Steve initially propositioned you, you've slept with three of his teammates, for no reason other than wanting him to know what it feels like to want something. But each time you fucked them, it was boring, wearisome, and you thought about Steve the entire time.
You hate it.
You think you hate Steve, too, but you know that's not true, either.
You're taking a drag and staring at your shoes when the man who's been haunting your thoughts finally makes an appearance in the dark backyard. There's still a string of lights up, a pitiful attempt at college students making their outdoor space look presentable, not to mention the litter of empty, crushed beer cans and solo cups.
Steve furrows his eyebrows when he recognizes you, immediately worrying that you're passed out with a lit cigarette in your hand, or too drunk to get home. When he approaches you, you smirk lazily at him. He swallows.
"Harrington," you greet, your throat dry from its lack of use. You don't know how long ago you came out here, but you do know that at some point, you decided you'd had enough of the loud speakers and beer pong, and the guy on the basketball team who kept pawing at your short skirt was getting seriously old.
"Are you alright?" Steve asks, gesturing to your sluggish profile. You shrug your shoulders before taking another drag from your cigarette, then wordlessly offer it to Steve. He shakes his head.
"Fine," you murmur, sitting up so your back is against the length of the chair, "You?"
"Just doing a sweep before heading to bed. Making sure there's no one lingering from the party."
"Am I a lingerer?" you ask, tossing your cigarette in the grass and crushing it with your shoe.
Steve lifts a hand to run it through his messy hair. He's exhausted. You can see it in the bags beneath his eyes.
"You don't live here, so by definition, you're lingering, yeah."
You hum. You can take a hint. You know when you're not wanted somewhere.
"I'll get out of here, then." you say, preparing to stand. Steve reaches out and clasps a hand around your wrist — gently, like you could still pull yourself away if you wanted to.
"Why are you still here?"
Your tongue pokes out to lick your lips. Steve watches, unabashedly, and feels his pants tighten at the sight of it. You want to smirk, because he's one of the easier and more enjoyable men you've played with.
"Isn't this what you wanted?" you purr, leaning towards him, batting your eyelashes. "You were begging to fuck me just a few weeks ago."
Steve laughs, all breathy and without the humor. It's an immediate shot to your ego.
"Are you drunk?" he asks, and you shake your head too quickly. You're not; the shots you had when you got here had worn off hours ago. "Then why are you... I think I'm just a little... confused."
You snort. Try not to roll your eyes. Maybe the golden boy nickname isn't so far anyway.
"You're gonna turn down fucking me when you were all but ready to pay me for it, like, a month ago?"
"I'm not that desperate," Steve mumbles, scrubbing a hand over his face, "You were so uninterested then, I don't understand what changed."
You shrug. "Does it matter?"
"Yes," Steve says stubbornly, "It does. It matters a lot, actually."
You sigh loudly, then shake your head.
"This is stupid," you mutter, standing up. He doesn't stop you this time. "Don't come to me for that shit ever again."
When you start to walk away, Steve's right behind you, and you wish you're strong enough to push him.
"C'mon, don't do this," you hear him say as you're approaching the sliding glass door. "It's late. Just stay here for the night."
You stop, then turn to look at him with a quirked brow.
He shakes his head. "We're not doing anything though. Not tonight, anyway."
"I don't understand what your problem is, Harrington."
He laughs, tilting his head back to expose his neck. You want to lean forward and mouth at his skin, pressing messy kisses to the length of it all the way down to his chest.
"I don't have a problem."
"Most guys would never shut me down," you say, crossing your arms. "I could go in there and ask any one of your teammates to pound me into their mattress and—"
Suddenly, Steve's hand is on your mouth, a warning look in his eyes. You grin. Even if he can't see it, you know he can feel it from behind his palm.
"Lower your voice," he mumbles. "Will you please just stay? You can take my bed, I'll sleep on the floor, I'll send you off with some breakfast in the morning and everyone will think that we fucked, and it'll be fine and dandy. Yeah? That good enough for you?"
You dart your tongue out to lick his hand. He flinches and instantly retreats, making you laugh.
"God, you're such a baby. Afraid you're gonna get cooties?"
"No."
"Take me upstairs," you say, and Steve's eyes brighten. He must really have some kind of white knight complex and it makes you sigh. "But you're not sleeping on the floor, because we're not 12 years old, and just for the record, I'm not doing this for some kind of reputation maintenance thing."
Steve hums as his hand politely finds the small of your back, guiding you up the stairs and to his bedroom.
"We can sleep in the same bed as long as you promise not to make a move." he murmurs. You stop in front of a wooden door in the middle of the long hallway, waiting as Steve pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks it.
"I would never do that," you whisper. "Seriously, do you think I'm a monster?"
Steve doesn't say anything to that, and instead just leads you into his room. He locks the door behind you and you glance at him. He's already moved on to emptying his pockets onto his desk, getting rid of his wallet and keys. There's not much to Steve's bedroom, just a bed, a dresser, and a desk, but it's clean enough for a college athlete. Your eyes glaze over the small collection of pictures tacked up on the wall over his desk, then some of the hockey paraphernalia throughout the room.
"You want something to wear to bed?"
You look to Steve and nod, and he tosses you a large, worn tee-shirt. You bite your lip as you start to strip your clothes off and you hear Steve curse to himself, making you smirk.
"You could've gone to the bathroom for that, you know," he borderline whines. You grin at him in your bra. He groans and turns around.
When you've shed the rest of your clothing and slipped his shirt on, you tell him he's in the clear. He rolls his eyes and quickly puts his own sweats on, then joins you in the bed.
It's not quite awkward, but you're not exactly going straight for cuddling, not that you had anticipated Steve to be the type. He clicks the light off and lays down next to you, both of you silent as the late hour finally catches up to you.
A few minutes later, Steve breaks the silence.
"Are you ever gonna tell me why you wanted to sleep with me tonight?" he whispers.
You blink your eyes open and think for a moment.
You don't have the courage to be honest with yourself, which means you most definitely don't have the courage to be honest with Steve.
You roll onto your side to face him. He does the same, and you lick your lips.
"No," you murmur, hands resting between your cheek and the pillow. "Are you ever gonna tell me why you wanted to sleep with me the night of that party?"
Steve closes his eyes and scooches closer to you, wrapping an arm around your waist. You're a little surprised by the contact, but you tell yourself you let it happen because you're tired and it feels nice.
⋆.𐙚 ̊ cw — mdni, smut, p in v, unprotected sex, rough sex, spanking, degradation, dumbification, pet names, praise kink, steve’s verrrryyy cocky, belly bulge, big dick steve obviously
⋆.𐙚 ̊ summary — after a very terrible 48 hours and some mean comments, steve decides he needs to put you in your place.
⋆.𐙚 ̊ authors note — hi guys! this is kinda like head-cannon style but i literally wrote this in 30 minutes so it def kinda sucks but i lowk kinda like it??? anyways, working on the sex chocolates smut and sparks still!!! please send in any smutty or fluffy requests you have :p
⋆.𐙚 ̊ wc — 1.95k
⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊୨ᰔ୧₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹ please do not copy, rewrite, or repost my works on any other platforms or pages.
season 5 steve would definitely be such a brat tamer. he’s always slightly annoyed, ready to snap at the smallest of inconveniences because of the never ending crawls and his ongoing feud with dustin.
and he loves you soo much. you’ve never had to doubt that for the entirety of your long relationship. he treats you better than you could’ve ever imagined. he loves you loudly and unapologetically. he’s the literal epitome of your very own prince charming from those cheesy movies he used to always take you to see.
but with everything happening lately, he’s just always so on edge and so pent up. and you’d caught him on a particularly bad day.
the night before was an absolutely terrible crawl. dustin had been running late, steve had been forced into the van with jonathan, they’d gotten lost, then caught shit about it from dustin and hopper for hours after.
it was safe to say his fuse was extremely short the next morning at the station.
and so was yours.
robin had been on one all morning, clearly not having a great day either. she’d been hurling insults practically every five seconds out of pure frustration. usually a shift like this would be filled with lighthearted banter and giggles, not sideways glances and snappy comments.
and sitting in the muggy sound booth was like literal hell. the atmosphere was akin to a live wire waiting to be set off any seconds.
and robin had really pissed you off now. and unfortunately for steve, he was catching the brunt of it.
“steve, wrong button!”
“dude, you missed your cue!”
“can you stop chewing so loud?!”
“are you even listening to her at all?!”
“god, do i have to do everything myself?!”
you should’ve known to just shut up when he’d gone eerily quiet. he didn’t snap back with some crude insult— he never did— but he usually had some sort of comment. whether it be a quick “sorry,” or “my bad.” he always had something to say nowadays.
he just leaned back in his chair, deathly silent and cold.
and the moment you got into your shared apartment and into your bedroom, he was sitting down and bending you over his lap. your soft, flowy skirt was bunched up around your hips and your bare skin was on perfect display for him.
“you think you can just yell at me like that? because what? you’ve had a bad day?” and his heavy, big hand would come down onto the supple skin with a loud smack, making you jerk against his thighs. “hm? think you can get all mean and expect things to go back to normal?”
there’d be zero sympathy in his voice because everyone has truly been pushing his buttons for the last 48 hours.
his calloused palm was sooth over the reddening skin slowly, giving you that false sense of relief that made you think it was over.
smack.
you’d cry out brokenly, your legs kicking up at the sharp sting. “stevie—“
he’d cut you off immediately because he knows where you’re going with this. he always knows. “not today, baby. can’t sweet talk your way out of this one.”
smack.
the tears prickling in your waterline would begin to finally trickle down your cheeks, leaving trails of dark mascara to smudge. your bottom is starting to burn now but you know it’s far from over.
“you done bein’ a little brat to me? or should i keep going?” he asked mockingly, squeezing at the fat of your ass. you couldn’t help but whine in pain. “you gonna apologize to me? tell me how sorry you are? how this won’t happen again?”
and when you try to start pleading your case and beg for it to be over, promising it won’t happen ever again and you’ll be so nice, he’d kinda chuckle to himself and be like, “hmm, it’s funny ‘cause i think that’s exactly what you promised me last time.”
and his heavy hand would come down on the untouched side of your ass with another loud smack, making you choke out a sob. he’d stop if he truly thought he was hurting you, but he knows you better than anyone. and he knows how much you fucking love it.
“count ‘em up, honey,” he’d command, his hands kneading the flesh as he geared up for another spanking. “you know the rules. miss one and i start over.”
and he’d make you count all the way to 14 including the previous 3, an even number on each cheek. by the time he was done, your skin would be red, irritated, and literally on fire so when you went in the station tomorrow and had to sit for the long hours, you’d be uncomfortable and restless. it’d be a long reminder of your behavior and it’s consequences.
you’d be all teary and blabbering out apologies, begging stevie to forgive you. you swear it’ll never happen again and you’ll make it up to him.
after smoothing over your burning skin, he’d have you face down on the bed with your ass perched up into the air, drilling all the of attitude out of you. he’d be sooo transfixed on your creamy little cunt just fucking sucking him right back in and leaving a milt ring around the base of him.
“this what you wanted, baby? just wanted to be punished like a little slut?” he’d coo, his hands holding your waist in a bruising grip, pulling you back to meet each thrust. “fuck. pretty pussy’s just fuckin’ cryin’ for it, huh?”
he’d be so mean and teasing, leaning over you so he was buried impossibly deep. his hand would be pressing the side of face down into the sheets as you cried, fingers bunching at the blankets uselessly to try and ground you.
his hips would be moving so much slower, rolling against yours and making a new home in your guts. you could practically feel him in your throat. and you’d be mumbling out absolute nonsense. begging for more? maybe begging for mercy? he could never decipher it.
“the fuck are you even saying right now?” it came out as a breathy laugh, that lazy, confident smile splaying across his face. the hand on the side of your face moves to your hair, tugging the the roots gently before sliding around to hold your neck. he’d pull you upright so your head was back against his shoulder and his arm was looping around to splay a big hand over your stomach, feeling the head of him bulging against your tummy. one particularly hard thrust would have you screaming and arching away from him. “c’mon. be a good girl and use your words. tell me what you want.”
a choked scream spilled past your swollen lips, biting down hard to stop yourself frim letting out another when you felt a deep punch of his fat tip against your cervix. “wanna cum! hmph! please, stevie. right— right there! yes, yes, yes!”
he’d reach around to rub at your puffy, neglected clit until your jerking against him and crying out in pleasure. even when he was pissed off at you, he’d always ensure that you came first.
“that’s it, pretty baby,” he mumbles against the shell of your ear, repeatedly abusing that sweet spot inside of your gummy walls. “taking my fat cock like a fuckin’ champ. you were made for this, weren’t you?”
your nails would be digging so brutally into the forearm around your throat that was almost keeping you in a headlock, but he’d be so lost in the tight warmth of your cunt that he wouldn’t even care. he’d fucking eat it up every time. in the same way that you loooved his firm bicep pressing against your neck. if you were a little more conscious, you’d surely be taking a big bite of them.
with your shaking, spent body, he’d finally lay you back down and slide a pillow under your hips before pressing his full weight on top of you from behind. he’d push himself so far up your guts that you’d be genuinely seeing stars. and his arm would be locking around your neck again, his lips neck to your ear as he moaned lewdly.
“shit. i fuckin’ love when you get all bratty with me,” he’d admit in a low purr. “love getting to have you all dumb and pretty on my cock. hearing you beg me to let you come— oh, fuck. and deep down, i know how much you love getting this little pussy punished. can feel how tight she squeezes me, how fuckin’ wet she gets the minute i get inside you.”
“oh— oh, stevie! please, feels so good,” you cried, jolting forward with the force each hard thrust. “i love it! mmph! love when you punish me!”
and he’d be sooo fucking cocky about it, biting and nipping at your ear as he chuckled. “yeah? tell me how much you love it, baby. tell me how good i make you feel.”
you’d be crying, shaking beneath him, barely able to form another comprehendable sentence when he begins rolling his hips into you, so deep and slow that you feel like you’re suffocating. and steve’s scent, the expensive cologne and his natural musk, is all around you. it’s so entirely him that you’re literally drunk off of it.
when he knows you’re close again, mostly because you can’t say a single intelligible word, he’s rubbing at your clit with his free hand and snapping his hips into yours a little quicker. you can’t even scream when the coil in your stomach snaps, you just have to lay there and take the immense pleasure running through your blood.
and he’d finally start to get all soft on you when he thrusts a few more times slowly before feeling his balls draw up, fully emptying himself inside your dripping cunt. “there you go, honey. yeahhh, just fucking’ take it,” he moaned sweetly into your ear, peppering the side of your sweaty face in loving kisses. “such a good girl for me. fuck, i love you. love you so much, pretty.”
and steve would certainly keep you stuffed full for a few minutes while you caught your breath, kissing all over every inch of your skin. he’d sit up and away from you just to gently paw at your ass, placing the most tender kisses along the bruised skin all while muttering about how much he loves you and how good you were for him.
he’d gently spread the skin apart so he could watch his fat cock pull out from your messy pussy, loving the way his thick cum slowly gushed out of your hole. just to tease you a little, he’d sometimes run the tip of him down your slit to collect his seed and shove it back inside of you, making you let out a choked gasp and grip the sheets beneath you.
his lips would find the space between your shoulder blades, kissing all over you and then pulling out for good.
and steve looooooves aftercare. so of course he’d be rolling you over, pecking your pretty lips and running a soft, warm towel along the stickiness between your legs. he’d be kissing all over you the entire time, praising you, mumbling “i love you, honey,” over and over and over.
and then when you’re all spent and docile, he’d hold you in his big strong arms, smoothing the hair from your face and smiling at you all lovesick and sweet, resulting in the both of you apologizing for being so grumpy all day and cuddling even closer in the comfort of your warm bed.
— steve harrington is only scared of two things: clowns and chief hopper’s gun. unfortunately he is also deeply, hopelessly in love with you, hopper’s daughter and convinced he isn’t good enough for you. when he turns you down to 'do the right thing,' you end up heartbroken but after one rainy confession later you both realize the obvious: you were idiots in love the whole time.
🚛 9.1k — steve harrington x fem!hopper!reader, so much narration it's crazy ( but also if you've been here for some time you'd know how much i love narrations ), fluff, erica and dustin being the ultimate life savers, mutual pining but they share one brain cell, yearning steve harrington, steve “i’m not good enough for her” harrington, hopper being overprotective, reader with a very obvious crush, awkward rejection at family video, rain confession trope, kissing fixes everything, friends to lovers, star wars references ( from someone who has never watched it ) because steve cannot help himself
author's note — the result of me being bored of studying economics and procastinating successfully. hope it still makes you cry when i fail the exam. enjoy <3
masterlist : navigation
gif by @acecroft | divider by @/lavendergalactic
Steve Harrington had only been scared of two things his whole life: clowns, and Chief Hopper’s gun.
The clown thing was ridiculous and he knew it. He had known it since he was eight years old and had cried at a birthday party because a man in a red polka-dot suit made a balloon dog and then smiled at him with too many teeth.
It was embarrassing, deeply uncool, and very much the kind of secret that could destroy what little remained of his reputation if it ever got out.
Still, that fear was manageable. Steve could work around clowns. He could avoid circuses, look away from creepy posters, and pretend those terrifying red noses were part of some joke he simply did not get.
Hopper’s gun, on the other hand, was not something he could avoid so easily. Mostly because it was real, loaded with bullete, and always, always being cleaned in Steve’s general direction whenever he came over to your house.
It did not help that Hopper made a whole performance out of it.
Every single time Steve came over, Hopper was suddenly sitting in the living room cleaning the gun. He would take it apart, put it back together, check it, wipe it down, and then look up just long enough to pin Steve with a stare that said, you know what this means.
Steve, for a fact, did not know what that meant, except if it meant him dying by it, then he was pretty sure he knew what it meant.
But you had reassured Steve at least a hundred times that your dad was not actually going to use it. Still, Steve had his concerns. Very valid ones, in his opinion. Because there was intimidating, and then there was Jim Hopper leaning back on the couch with a firearm in his lap while Steve sat on the opposite end trying to keep a respectable three inches between himself and you like that tiny gap was the only thing preserving his life.
The rule, oh god, the rule itself was torture. If Steve’s hand got too close to yours, Hopper cleared his throat. If Steve leaned in to hear you better, Hopper shifted in his seat. If your knee brushed Steve’s for half a second, Steve could actually feel Hopper’s glare hit the side of his face like heat from the sun.
It was not like you didn’t try to defend his honour. You did, every time. You would roll your eyes and tell your dad he was being overprotective, that Steve was nice, that Steve had literally helped save the world more than once, which should have earned him at least a little trust and maybe the right to sit next to his friend without being treated like a criminal.
But Hopper was persistent in the way only fathers of daughters could be, especially daughters they loved enough to terrify teenage boys over. He would grunt, mumble something about manners and boundaries, and continue staring Steve down like he was waiting for him to do one wrong thing.
Steve, for his part, tried very hard to never do the wrong thing. He was so polite at your house it was actually pathetic. He sat up straight, said sir more than he had ever said it in his life, and once thanked Hopper for passing the salt which very clearly was pepper. And the worst part was that none of it helped.
Still, Steve kept coming over.
Because of you.
Because you were, very simply, the most amazing person Steve had ever met. Ever seen, ever heard about, ever talked with, ever laughed with, ever cried with, ever fought monsters beside, ever bled beside, ever stumbled out of the end of the world beside.
You made Steve feel seen in a way that still startled him sometimes. Like you had looked past all the old versions of him, the ones he was embarrassed by and the ones he still did not fully know what to do with, and decided he was worth keeping anyway. It was a terrifying thing, being cared for by you. Not bad terrifying, not Hopper’s-gun terrifying, but the kind that made his chest ache because he wanted to be worthy of it all the time.
Steve, for his part, liked to think of what he felt for you as admiration. Friendly admiration.
The kind a person might feel for someone they happened to enjoy spending every possible second with, someone whose voice he could pick out in a crowded room without trying, someone whose bad moods he could sense before you even said a word.
It was probably just admiration that made him remember every little thing you told him, like how you hated orange candy but liked orange juice.
It was definitely just admiration that made his chest go warm and oddly tight whenever you smiled at him. And if he thought you were the bravest girl he had ever known, if he found himself wanting to make you laugh even when he was exhausted, if every near-death experience only seemed to increase the thought that being near you mattered more than he knew how to explain, well, that was probably still friendly.
Steve was pretty sure. At least, he was sure enough to keep telling himself that, because the alternative felt a little too big to look at directly.
A hand suddenly snapped in front of Steve’s face, dragging him clean out of the mess of his own thoughts.
“Steve. Hey, Steve. Earth to Steven.”
He blinked hard, like he had just been caught doing something illegal, and turned to find you standing there with your eyebrows raised and your mouth twitching like you were trying not to laugh. “Huh? Hey. What?”
You tilted your head at him, amused in that easy way that always made him feel both warm and deeply ridiculous. “I need to go somewhere. It will only take half an hour. Do you want to stay here, or are you going home?”
Steve glanced automatically toward the living room and narrowed his eyes a little. “If I say stay, is your dad going to kill me?”
You huffed out a laugh. “No, I don't think so. And besides, he is not here today.”
And just like that, the relief on Steve’s face was almost embarrassing. His shoulders dropped, his whole expression loosened, and a smile came over him. “Oh. Okay. Then yeah, I can wait here.”
Your eyes brightened at once, pleased in a way that made something in Steve’s chest do a stupid little flip. You grinned at him, quick and pretty and impossible not to stare at. “Okay. I promise I will come quick. Also, Jane may come in between from school, but I think she will leave for Max’s immediately after. Could you just make sure she has her lunch first?”
Steve nodded without hesitation. “All right.”
You smiled even wider. “Thanks. I will be back. Watch a tape in the meantime?”
He gave you a small nod, still looking at you with a loopy smile. “Yeah. Sure.”
Steve had been sitting there for a while, half-watching Star Wars and half-thinking about you (in a friendly way, of course), which was lately how most of his afternoons went.
Then he heard the clicking at the door.
He barely looked up at first, just assumed it was Jane coming in from school. So he kept watching the tape, eyes still on the screen, waiting for the door to open fully. But when it did, the light from outside was mostly blocked all at once, swallowed by a figure much bigger than Jane had any business being, and Steve knew immediately that it was definitely not her.
For one brief, insane second, he secretly hoped it was a demogorgon.
At least with a demogorgon, he knew where he stood.
But the universe was clearly not on his side, because when he turned, it was Hopper.
Steve swallowed so fast it almost hurt and lunged for the remote, pausing the tape just as Hopper stepped inside and shut the door behind him. Hopper’s eyes landed on Steve in that exact way they always did, like he had come home and found a raccoon in his kitchen trying to act natural. He stared for one long second before grunting, “Where are my daughters?”
Steve opened his mouth. “Out.”
The second the word left him, he knew it was the wrong answer. Too vague. Too much like something a guilty man would say right before being buried in a shallow grave. He corrected himself so quickly he almost tripped over the words. “I mean, Jane is at school. Or at Max’s. And, uh, Y/N is out for some work.”
Hopper narrowed his eyes. “What kind of work?”
“I did not ask,” Steve said, trying for honesty and landing somewhere closer to panic.
Hopper kept looking at him for another second, then walked farther into the room. Steve followed every movement.
Hopper came over and sat down on the seat adjacent to the couch, close enough that Steve could smell cigarettes and general parental disapproval.
Steve stood up on instinct almost immediately, because that seemed like the safest thing to do, maybe the smartest, maybe the thing most likely to save his life expectancy.
Hopper looked up at him. “Sit down.”
Steve froze. “What?”
“I said sit down. I want to talk.”
“Cool,” Steve said, nodding too much, as he sat down and looked around. “Cool, cool. Uh, so. Crime, huh? Terrible.”
Hopper did not blink. “I want to talk about my daughter.”
Steve nodded immediately. “Oh, yes. Jane is a lovely girl. Very. . .” He faltered for a second under Hopper’s stare. “Sweet?”
Hopper’s face did not change. “My other daughter.”
Steve’s stomach dropped. “Y/N?” he said, then attempted a smile that came out strained and weird. “Oh, yeah. Y/N is amazing too. Really smart.”
Hopper leaned back slightly, still watching him with that unreadable expression that made Steve feel like he was being measured for a coffin. “There’s the problem.”
Steve stared. “Her being smart?”
“You.”
Steve went quiet, which for him in a bad situation was saying something. Hopper rested his forearms on his knees and looked straight ahead for a moment before speaking again.
“I don’t like you,” he said.
Steve let out one awkward breath. “Yeah, no, I got that.”
“I don’t like you around her. I don’t like how much time you spend here. I don’t like the way she looks at you.”
Steve’s hands tightened together. He looked down at them, then back up, then down again, unsure where it was safest to look. “We are just hanging out. As friends.” He added the last part quickly although he didn't believe it enough himself.
Hopper let out a humorless little sound. “That supposed to make me feel better?”
Steve did not answer, mostly because he had the strong feeling there was not a single correct answer available to him.
For a moment Hopper said nothing. Then, he continued, “You know why I don’t like it?”
Steve swallowed. “Because you think I am a bad influence?”
“No.” Hopper’s eyes moved to him. “Because I think you and me are too similar.”
That, somehow, was not what Steve had expected, and the confusion must have shown on his face because Hopper kept going.
“You walk around like you are trying real hard to be useful,” he said. “Like if you keep helping, keep showing up, keep making yourself necessary, nobody will notice all the things wrong with you. You act like a kid who already decided what kind of man he is and does not think much of the answer.”
Steve opened his mouth and then shut it again.
Hopper looked away for a second, jaw working. “And I know that look because I know what it feels like. Thinking you care about somebody enough should be enough. Thinking maybe if you want to do better bad enough, that counts for something. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t.”
Steve’s throat felt dry. “I care about her. . .”
“I know,” Hopper said. “That’s not what worries me.”
Steve frowned a little. “Then what does?”
“Because I'm not good enough for my little girl,” he said. “And if you’re anything like me, then you’re not good enough for my little girl either.”
The words hit hard enough that Steve actually felt his chest go tight. Like he had reached down into the very worst place inside Steve and pulled out the thing Steve already feared most.
Steve laughed once under his breath, except there was nothing funny in it. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”
Hopper looked at him then, maybe expecting an argument, maybe expecting Steve to push back, to insist he was better than that.
Steve did not. Because the awful part was, he did not really know how to.
He thought about you laughing with him, trusting him, calling him when things went wrong, smiling like he belonged in your life, and all at once that felt less like something lucky and more like something temporary. Like maybe Hopper was just the first person cruel enough to say out loud what Steve should have figured out sooner.
“I am trying,” Steve said after a long moment. “I mean, I know I screw things up sometimes, but I am trying.”
Hopper shrugged. “Trying is a start.”
That was not comfort. That was barely even mercy.
Steve looked down at the paused television screen, at his own faint reflection in it, warped. “She should get somebody better than me,” he thought to himself.
The front door opened.
Both of them looked up at once just as Jane stepped inside, backpack slung over one shoulder.
“Hello,” she said.
By the time you got back, the first thing you noticed was Steve’s car was gone.
You slowed in the driveway, frowning as you looked at the empty spot where it had been parked earlier, a small, confused crease forming between your brows.
For a second you just stood there with your keys in hand, staring at nothing, like maybe if you looked long enough the car would magically reappear and Steve would climb out with one of his sheepish smiles and some rambling explanation that would somehow make perfect sense because it was him. But the driveway stayed empty, and that strange little disappointment settled heavier in your chest than it probably should have.
When you stepped inside, you could smell the dinner, and the sound of conversation from the kitchen.
You slipped your shoes off and headed in, only to stop slightly when you saw your dad already there with Jane.
You looked at Hopper. “Hey. Uh, Dad, you’re early.”
Hopper just nodded once. “Come sit for dinner.”
You glanced between him and Jane, still half-thinking Steve might somehow appear from another room, but when he did not, you pulled out a chair and sat down. “Right.”
For a minute, you tried to ignore the odd feeling curling in your stomach. Then you leaned a little toward Jane and lowered your voice. “Hey, where’s Steve?”
Jane looked at you, then flicked her eyes over your shoulder in a quick glance toward Hopper before answering. “He left ten minutes ago.”
Your face fell before you could stop it. “Oh.”
It came out smaller than you meant it to. You sat back in your chair after that, quieting down a little, your earlier ease gone fuzzy around the edges.
It was not like Steve had to wait around forever for you, obviously. He had his own life. You knew that. Still, he could have stayed. Or at least left a note. Or told Jane something more than that. The whole thing sat strangely with you, like a sentence missing its last word.
Later, shut inside your room with the door closed, you called him.
The phone rang just long enough for you to start thinking maybe he would not pick up, and then there was the familiar click of the line connecting. “Hey,” you said at once, tucking one leg under you on the bed. “You left.”
There was a pause.
Then Steve said, “Yeah. Uh, Henderson called me with code red.”
You furrowed your brows immediately. That made no sense. You had literally been with Dustin earlier because he had forgotten something at home and needed it at school, and he had seemed perfectly fine. Nothing about him had said emergency.
Still, all you said was, “Oh.”
The word sat there between you, uncertain.
You stared at the wall across from your bed, turning the phone cord around your finger. You wondered, not for the first time, why Steve was lying to you. Because he was. You knew he was.
But you pushed the thought aside, deciding for the moment not to make something out of what might be nothing. Maybe there was a reason. Maybe he had just had one of those weird Steve moments where his brain tripped over itself and produced nonsense.
You took a small breath, already getting ready to ask him about the movie, already knowing the answer was probably Star Wars because Steve’s devotion to those tapes bordered on religious, but before you could say anything else, he cut in.
“Can we talk later?” Steve said quickly. “I need to go somewhere.”
You blinked. “Oh. Uh.”
The disappointment hit sharper this time, quick and stupid and annoyingly difficult to hide, but you swallowed it down anyway. “Okay.”
And before you could say bye, or even soften it with a laugh or ask one more question or make sense of the strange distance in his voice, the line clicked dead.
Your bye stayed there, useless, hanging.
The next day, you told yourself Steve had probably just been tired.
That was the easiest explanation, and the one that annoyed you the least, so you held onto it all the way to Family Video.
By the time you pushed open the door and stepped inside, you had managed to convince yourself that everything was normal, that you were not thinking too hard about the awkward phone call, and that Steve would take one look at you and immediately go back to being his usual sweet, slightly frazzled self.
Robin looked up from behind the counter when the bell above the door jingled. “Hey.”
You smiled and wandered over. “Hey.”
She leaned her elbows on the counter and gave you a look that was far too knowing for ten seconds into a conversation. “You here to see Steve?”
You widened your eyes in fake innocence. “I could be here to see you too.”
Robin raised one brow.
You lasted about half a second. “Yeah, I’m here to see Steve.”
“Thought so,” she said, not even pretending to be surprised. Then she jerked her thumb toward the back. “He’s in the back. You could wait here for some time.”
You nodded. “Okay.”
So you stayed there at the counter, trying very hard to look casual and very obviously failing, because every few seconds your eyes drifted toward the back room like maybe Steve would appear if you stared hard enough.
Robin noticed, of course. Robin noticed everything, which was one of the many reasons she was so deeply annoying.
“You know,” she said after a moment, “you’re not really subtle with your whole crush thing.”
Your head snapped toward her so fast it was a miracle your neck survived. “What crush thing?”
Robin looked at you like you were the dumbest person she had met all week, and she worked with Steve, so that was saying something. “The whole you having a crush on dingus thing.”
You let out an offended laugh that was entirely too loud. “I do not have a crush on Steve. Pfft. You’re delirious, Robin.”
She said nothing and kept looking at you with that patient, unbearable expression of someone waiting for you to finish lying to yourself in public. You crossed your arms, then uncrossed them, then sighed.
“Fine,” you muttered. “Ugh. I have a crush on Steve. Is that what you want to hear?”
Robin’s face lit up in immediate satisfaction. “Totally.”
You groaned, but now that it was out there, the words just kept coming, all tripping over each other in one giant embarrassing rush.
“I mean, it’s not like I planned it, okay? It just happened. He’s just. . .” You exhaled and glanced away, suddenly very interested in the tapes behind the counter.
“He’s Steve. He’s sweet, and stupidly brave, and always there when it matters, and he does this thing where he acts like he’s joking even when he’s being really sincere, and I know people think he’s all hair and idiot energy, but he’s not. Well, he is, a little, but he’s also so good. Like actually good.” Your voice softened without your permission. “And he cares so much. About everyone. About the kids. About me.” A dreamy sigh escaped you before you could stop it. “He just makes everything feel easier.”
Robin stared at you for a long second. “And you see all that in Steve Harrington?”
You frowned at her. “Yeah.”
She made a face. “Disgusting.”
You rolled your eyes, but you were still smiling a little despite yourself.
Then Robin’s gaze shifted past you, toward the back, and her expression changed into one of immediate delight at the chance to make things weird. “Anyways,” she said, “looks like he’s free.”
You turned and there was Steve, stepping out from the back.
You did not even think about it before you started walking toward him.
“Hey, Steven.”
For a second, you thought you imagined it. Hoped you imagined it, really. Because the moment he heard your voice, Steve tensed. Just for a second. A tiny thing most people probably would not notice. But you noticed. Your steps faltered slightly, that strange feeling from yesterday creeping back up your spine.
Steve turned to you, and the tension smoothed out so quickly you almost convinced yourself it had never been there.
“You’re here,” he said.
You nodded, smiling the way you always did when you saw him. “Yes. I wanted to see you.”
Steve blinked once. “Why?”
The question landed strangely, like a step where the ground was not quite where you expected it to be. Your smile stayed in place, but you suddenly felt awkward, unsure what exactly had happened between yesterday and today.
“Do I need a reason?” you asked lightly.
“No,” Steve said quickly. “No, of course not.”
The awkwardness eased immediately hearing his normal response, and you felt your shoulders relax again. That was the Steve you knew. The one who would never make you feel weird for showing up.
Then he added, a little too quickly, “I was just busy today. Rush hour, you know.”
You glanced around the store.
There were maybe five customers total, and two of them were arguing near the Holiday movie section.
You looked back at him. “Five is a rush for you?”
Steve paused. “. . . Yes?”
You tilted your head, concerned now. “Steve, is something wrong? Did I do something?”
His face softened instantly. “No. Of course not. You are perfect.”
The words came out so fast they almost tripped over each other.
You felt heat rush to your face before you could stop it, and you looked away quickly, trying very hard not to blush like an idiot in the middle of Family Video.
Unfortunately, Steve noticed.
Which made him immediately start stammering. “I uh well, I just—” He grabbed a stack of tapes beside him like they had personally called for help. “I just need to organize these tapes.”
You pointed at them. “I could help.”
Steve blinked. “Uhhh. . . okay.”
So the two of you ended up in the back room, standing side by side with shelves of tapes between you and the rest of the store.
At first the conversation was normal. Mostly. You talked about school, about Dustin complaining about science homework, about how Steve had apparently rewatched Star Wars again the night before because he was physically incapable of not doing that at least once a week. For a few minutes it almost felt like everything was back to normal.
But the strange tension never really left.
It hovered there, uncomfortable, like a conversation waiting to happen.
Eventually you took a breath. “Hey, Steve?”
“Yeah?”
You kept your eyes on the tapes in your hands. “Do you maybe want to go out sometime?”
Steve stopped moving.
You continued quickly, words tumbling out before your courage could disappear. “Like a date. Nothing big. We could just get milkshakes or something, or watch a movie that is not Star Wars for once, which I know is a big ask—”
Steve did not say anything.
The silence stretched.
Your stomach twisted.
Suddenly you were not sure why you thought this was a good idea. Or why you thought the signs had meant what you thought they meant. Maybe you had just imagined it all. Maybe you had read too much into the way he smiled at you, the way he always showed up when you needed him, the way he said your name in that soft manner.
You let out a small, nervous laugh. “Or not. I mean, that’s fine too, I just thought—”
“No.”
You looked up.
Steve’s eyes were fixed on the shelf in front of him.
“No?” you repeated quietly.
He swallowed. “We can’t.”
Your fingers tightened around the tape case in your hand. “Why?”
Steve finally looked at you then, and something in his expression made your chest drop. “It’s just. . . a bad idea,” he said. “Us dating.”
“Oh.”
The word felt small leaving your mouth.
Steve looked miserable. “We shouldn’t be more than friends.”
The embarrassment came all at once. You laughed a little under your breath, even though you could already feel your eyes starting to sting.
“Right,” you said quickly. “Of course. That makes sense. Totally makes sense.”
You cleared your throat, trying to blink away the stupid tears that were threatening to show up at the worst possible time.
Steve shifted awkwardly. “We can still be friends?”
Even he grimaced a little when he said it.
You forced a smile. “Actually, I think I’m going to need some space,” you admitted.
Steve took a step toward you immediately. “Hey—”
“No, it’s alright,” you said quickly, waving him off before he could say anything comforting that might make you cry for real. “I just feel a bit silly, that’s all.” You attempted another small smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll get back to normal and we can go back to being. . . friends.”
The word caught slightly in your throat.
You looked down at the tape still in your hands before setting it on the shelf. “I just. . . I need to go.”
And before he could stop you, before he could say anything else that might make it harder to leave, you turned and walked out of the back room.
You rushed past the counter.
Robin looked up instantly. “What did you two finally—”
She stopped mid-sentence when you hurried past her, wiping quickly at the tears on your cheeks.
Robin’s expression immediately shifted to concern and she slowly turned her head toward the backroom.
Steve was standing there just inside the doorway, his head in his hands and Robin sighed at the sight.
“Oh, Harrington, what did you do?”
By the time Nancy came over, you had already cried enough to make your head feel heavy and your eyes sore, but the second you saw her standing in your doorway with two tubs of ice cream and that calm look on her face, it all came rushing back again like you had just opened the floodgates.
Now you were sitting cross-legged on your bed with the blanket tangled around your legs, clutching a spoon like it was the only thing keeping you tethered to reality while Nancy sat across from you with the other tub of ice cream resting in her lap.
“I just feel so stupid,” you said for what had to be the twentieth time, your voice thick as you scooped another bite you barely tasted. “Like actually stupid. It's not even the cute kind of stupid where I can laugh about it later. It's just. . . painfully, humiliatingly stupid.”
Nancy took another spoonful of ice cream, watching you.
“I mean,” you continued miserably, waving your spoon around, “who does that? Who just assumes someone likes them back without actually asking first? Me. Apparently. Because clearly I just decided to invent an entire romance in my head like some delusional idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot,” Nancy said.
“Yes, I am,” you sniffed immediately. “I asked him out. Out loud. With actual words. And he just said no.”
Nancy winced a little in sympathy but let you keep going.
“Like immediately. Just no. Like it was obvious that it was a terrible idea.”
Nancy leaned back against your headboard, passing you another napkin. “Boys are idiots.”
You nodded emphatically, your voice breaking. “Boys are idiots.”
You took another shaky breath and stared down into the melting ice cream. “But he was my idiot,” you said weakly.
That was apparently the breaking point because suddenly your face crumpled and you leaned sideways until your head dropped into Nancy’s lap, clutching the ice cream tub as you started crying again.
Nancy immediately set her spoon aside and started absentmindedly running her fingers through your hair in soothing motions.
“I just feel so embarrassed,” you groaned into her sweater. “Like what if he tells everyone? What if Dustin finds out? Oh my god, Dustin is absolutely going to find out. He’s going to tell Mike and then Lucas and then they’re all going to look at me like I’m some pathetic lovesick idiot who can’t take a hint.”
“He won’t tell them,” Nancy said.
“You don’t know that,” you mumbled miserably. “He might. He might accidentally say something to Robin and then she’ll accidentally say something to someone else and suddenly the entire town knows that I asked Steve Harrington out and he rejected me in the back room of Family Video next to the horror tapes.”
Nancy huffed a laugh despite herself. “It sounds excessive.”
“But it could happen,” you said.
You sniffed loudly and wiped at your face again before continuing.
“And the worst part is that I really thought he liked me,” you said, your voice softening into something more wounded now. “Like actually liked me. I mean he’s always there, you know? And he remembers things I say and he always sits close to me and he smiles at me like. . .” You trailed off, your throat tightening again. “Like I mattered.”
“You do matter,” Nancy said immediately.
“I know,” you said weakly. “But apparently not in the way I thought.”
Nancy sighed softly but kept smoothing your hair.
“And now I feel like every moment I thought meant something was probably just him being nice,” you continued miserably. “Like maybe he was just being friendly this whole time and I turned it into this huge thing in my head and now he probably thinks I’m insane,” you groaned.
Nancy paused. “You just asked him on a date.”
“And got rejected,” you muttered.
There was a quiet moment while you both abe more ice cream and then another thought hit you.
“And he lied to me,” you said suddenly, lifting your head slightly from Nancy’s lap.
Nancy looked down at you. “What?”
“He lied yesterday,” you said, frowning as the pieces rearranged themselves in your mind. “When I called him. He said Dustin called him with some code red emergency.”
Nancy raised an eyebrow.
“But I had literally been with Dustin earlier that day,” you continued, sitting up now, your frustration rising again. “He just forgot something at home and needed it for school. There was no emergency. Nothing was wrong.”
Nancy frowned thoughtfully.
“So he just made something up,” you said slowly, realization dawning in a way that made your chest hurt all over again. “Which means he probably didn’t actually want to stay. Which means he probably left my house on purpose.”
You swallowed hard.
“And I should’ve known,” you whispered miserably. “That should’ve been the sign.”
Nancy reached over and squeezed your hand.
“I mean think about it,” you said, your voice cracking again. “He left early, he lied about it, and then today he basically panicked the second I showed up. I just didn’t want to see it because I liked him too much.”
Nancy squeezed your hand again, her thumb brushing over your knuckles.
“You know,” she said, “we could go out tomorrow. Just the two of us. Get dinner somewhere. Somewhere far away from Family Video and idiotic boys.”
You let out a weak laugh, even though your eyes were still wet. “That’s really sweet, Nance.”
Your voice wobbled halfway through the sentence and suddenly the tears were threatening again, welling up despite your best efforts to keep them contained. You sniffed hard and pressed the heel of your hand against your eyes, shaking your head like you could physically shove the embarrassment away.
“I just can’t believe I asked him out,” you muttered miserably. “I feel like I should move to another country. Or at least another state.”
Nancy opened her mouth to say something else, but the door to your room creaked open slowly before she could.
You immediately buried your face back into her lap as Nancy looked up toward the door. “Hey.”
Jane’s head slowly poked into the room, her expression curious and slightly concerned as she looked between the two of you. “I heard crying.”
You groaned quietly into Nancy’s sweater.
“Why is she crying?” Jane asked.
Nancy glanced down at you before answering, but you spoke first.
“Steve rejected me,” you said miserably, your voice muffled.
Jane blinked. “Oh.”
There was a small pause as she processed that.
Then she turned to Nancy with complete seriousness. “What does that mean?”
You lifted your head just enough to glare weakly toward the doorway, your eyes still red and puffy. “It means he dumped my ass but we weren’t even dating.”
Jane stepped further into the room, clearly trying to piece together the logic of that statement and not having much success after the 'dumped my ass' part which she had learnt from Max.
Nancy gave a small shrug and then patted your shoulder. “She’ll be fine.”
You sniffed loudly.
Nancy turned back to Jane and lifted the ice cream tub slightly. “You want some ice cream?”
Jane’s face immediately brightened, and she opened her mouth to say yes but you suddenly peeked your head up from Nancy’s lap just enough to cut in. “She can’t,” you said hoarsely. “She’s having a cold.”
Jane narrowed her eyes at you instantly. “Buzzkill.”
Nancy blinked. “Did Dustin teach you that word?”
Jane smiled proudly and nodded.
You groaned and dropped your forehead back against Nancy’s leg. “He is a terrible influence on her.”
Nancy glanced between the two of you and smirked slightly. “I don’t know. They look cute.”
Jane’s smile widened at that.
You lifted your head again slowly, squinting at Nancy in disbelief through your tear-streaked face. “Oh my God.”
Nancy raised an eyebrow. “What?”
You stared at Jane like you had just noticed something deeply disturbing about the universe.
“Oh God,” you said weakly.
Nancy frowned. “What?”
You gestured vaguely between Jane and the doorway, your voice cracking again in fresh disbelief. “I just realized my little sister is in a relationship. And I’m not.”
Steve was not doing any better.
He was sitting at Dustin’s desk, elbows planted on either side of a half-finished science project involving wires, cardboard, and something that looked mildly capable of exploding if handled incorrectly.
Dustin had been talking for at least ten minutes straight about voltage and signal amplification and something about how if they adjusted the coil just right it could pick up radio chatter from three blocks over.
Steve had not heard a single word.
He was staring at the same screw on the table. Every few seconds he would pick it up, rotate it between his fingers, then put it back down again like his brain had temporarily lost the ability to perform any more complex function.
Dustin finally stopped mid-sentence and leaned back in his chair and squinted at Steve. “Okay,” he said slowly, dragging the word out. “You have not been listening to a thing I’ve said for the last ten minutes.”
Steve blinked like he had just returned from another dimension. “What?”
“Exactly,” Dustin said, throwing his hands in the air. “What is wrong with you?”
Steve rubbed a hand over his face. “Nothing.”
Dustin stared at him. “Steve.”
“I’m fine.”
Dustin stared harder.
“It’s Y/N,” Steve muttered.
Dustin immediately leaned forward. “Oh, what happened?”
Steve dropped his head back against the chair. “She asked me out.”
“Wait,” Dustin said slowly. “Wait, wait, wait. Y/N asked you out?”
“Yeah.”
“And you look like this because. . . ?”
Steve stared at him. “I said no.”
There was a long, stunned silence, then Dustin slapped both hands on the table. “You what?!”
Steve winced. “Keep your voice down.”
“Why would you say no?” Dustin demanded, his voice climbing an entire octave anyway. “That is literally the opposite of the correct answer!”
Steve rubbed his temples. “It’s complicated.”
“It is not complicated!” Dustin said incredulously. “She’s amazing, you like her, she likes you back, that is what we call a win!”
Steve shook his head, his expression tightening again as the memory of Hopper’s voice crept back into his head. “It’s not that simple.”
Dustin crossed his arms. “Explain.”
Steve hesitated for a long moment before speaking again. “Hopper talked to me.”
Dustin made a face immediately. “Oh great. The chief himself.”
Steve let out a quiet breath. “He told me he doesn’t like me around her.”
“Well that’s obvious,” Dustin said. “He doesn’t like anyone around her.”
Steve shook his head again. “That’s not what he meant.” He leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on his knees as he stared down at the floor. “He said we’re too similar,” Steve said quietly. “That he knows what kind of guy I am because he’s the same kind of guy.”
Dustin frowned.
Steve shrugged weakly, but there was no humor in it.
“He said he wasn’t good enough for his daughter,” Steve continued. “And that if I’m anything like him, then I’m not good enough for her either. And the worst part is I kind of get what he meant,” he said. “I mean. . . look at me, man.”
Dustin frowned immediately.
Steve leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together like he was trying to physically hold his thoughts in place before they ran off in ten different directions.
“I screw things up,” he said. “All the time. I mean, yeah, I try to help, I try to do the right thing now, but you remember how I used to be. Everyone remembers. Half the town probably still thinks I’m the same idiot who peaked in high school and can’t figure out what to do with the rest of his life.”
Dustin opened his mouth to protest, but Steve kept going. “And she’s. . . ” Steve exhaled. “She’s Y/N.”
He said your name like it meant something big, something impossible to explain in one sentence.
“She’s smart and brave and she actually knows where she’s going in life,” Steve said. “She walks into a room and people listen to her. She stands up to Hopper like it’s nothing. She makes everyone around her feel like things are going to be okay.”
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“And me?” he muttered. “I work at a video store and accidentally adopt children who get chased by monsters.”
Steve shook his head. “That’s not the point. The point is she deserves someone who doesn’t. . . mess things up.”
Dustin leaned forward, staring at him, frustrated. “So your solution,” he said, “was to break her heart before you had the chance to?”
Steve winced. “I didn’t break her heart,” he muttered weakly.
Dustin stared at him in disbelief. “Steve.”
Steve groaned, dropping his face into his hands. “Okay maybe a little.”
“A little?” Dustin said. “She literally asked you out and you rejected her.”
Steve peeked through his fingers. “I was trying to protect her.”
Dustin threw his arms up. “From what? Happiness?”
Steve rubbed his face again, looking completely exhausted now. “From me,” he said.
Dustin leaned forward again, squinting at Steve with the same expression he usually reserved for explaining extremely basic concepts to Lucas.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to explain something to you very slowly.”
Steve sighed. “Great.”
“You are being,” Dustin continued, pointing at him for emphasis, “an idiot.”
Steve didn’t even argue.
Dustin leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. “When Hopper tried to intimidate me,” he said, “I shrugged him off.”
Steve blinked. “You what?”
Dustin nodded proudly. “Yeah. He did the whole ‘I’m a scary dad with a gun’ thing and I just kept dating Jane.”
Steve stared at him. “You’re insane.”
“And guess what happened?” Dustin said.
Steve sighed. “What?”
“He gave up,” Dustin said simply. “Because that’s what Hopper does. He acts scary and protective and eventually realizes he can’t control everything.”
Steve frowned.
Dustin leaned forward again, lowering his voice slightly. “Also, you realize Y/N isn’t Hopper, right?” he said. “She gets to decide who she likes. And she likes you,” he contined. “You like her. The only person ruining this situation right now is you.”
Steve slumped back in his chair.
For a moment he just stared at the ceiling, letting Dustin’s words bounce around in his head along with Hopper’s and your tearful voice and the look on your face when he’d said no.
“I think I really screwed this up,” he muttered.
Dustin nodded. “Oh, absolutely.”
Steve dropped his head back down. “Great.”
“But,” Dustin added quickly, leaning forward with a spark of determination in his eyes, “that doesn’t mean it’s over.”
Steve looked at him warily.
Dustin grinned slowly. “We just need a plan.”
Steve frowned. “A plan?”
“Yeah,” Dustin said, already getting excited. “And I know just the someone who’s great at them.”
Steve should have been suspicious the moment Dustin said that sentence with that much confidence. There were only a handful of people Dustin trusted to solve complicated situations, and somehow every single one of them was either a genius, terrifying, or both.
Which was how Steve found himself half an hour later sitting stiffly on the Sinclair family couch while Erica Sinclair leaned back like a queen being forced to listen to the complaints of particularly stupid peasants.
The moment Steve finished explaining the situation, Erica slowly dragged a hand down her face and sighed the way someone did when their patience had been tested far beyond reasonable limits.
“Oh my God,” she said flatly. “You’re an idiot, you absolute dingbat.”
Steve turned toward Dustin who gave him a small nod that clearly translated to see, I told you.
Steve looked back at Erica. “That was unnecessarily aggressive.”
Erica crossed her arms and stared at him. “No,” she said. “Unnecessarily aggressive would be me throwing you out of my house for wasting oxygen with that story. What I said was a fact.”
Steve sank a little deeper into the couch.
Erica leaned forward slightly, her eyes narrowing. “The girl likes you. You like the girl. And when she asked you out, you said no because some grumpy middle-aged man scared you with his feelings.”
Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “I had other reasons.”
Erica leaned forward slightly. “Were those reasons stupid?”
Steve hesitated.
Dustin answered immediately. “Yes.”
“You made her cry?” she asked.
Steve winced. “Probably.”
Erica clicked her tongue in disappointment. “That’s bad.”
Steve blinked. “Bad?”
“Well yeah,” she said. “I actually like her.”
Steve and Dustin both looked at her.
Erica shrugged like it was obvious. “She’s cool. She brings snacks. And she doesn’t treat me like a child.”
“That’s because you are a child,” Steve muttered.
Erica pointed at him without even looking. “See? That attitude right there is why she deserves better.”
Steve slumped further into the couch.
“But,” Erica continued thoughtfully, tapping her finger against the armrest, “she also clearly has terrible taste in men.”
Dustin coughed to hide a laugh.
“So,” Erica said, straightening up slightly, “I will help you.”
“Okay,” he said cautiously. “What’s the plan?”
Erica leaned forward with a slow smile that immediately made Steve nervous. “The problem,” she began, “is that right now she thinks she imagined everything. She thinks you never actually liked her.”
Steve nodded slowly.
“So the solution,” Erica continued, “is not some big dramatic speech where you try to explain your feelings like a sad puppy because you will mess that up. So what you need,” she said, “is proof.”
Dustin leaned forward eagerly. “Proof?”
Erica nodded. “You’re going to show her that you pay attention to her.”
Steve frowned. “I already do that.”
“Good,” Erica said. “Then this won’t be hard.”
She began counting on her fingers.
“You’re going to bring things she’s mentioned liking before. Specific things. Maybe some flowers or something.”
Steve blinked. “You know a lot about this.”
Erica shrugged. “I read.”
Dustin coughed under his breath. “Nerd.”
“You’re going to apologize,” Erica continued, ignoring him. “And then you tell her the truth.”
Steve hesitated slightly.
Erica narrowed her eyes. “All of it.”
Steve sighed. “Yeah.”
“And if she still wants space,” Erica added, “you respect that.”
Dustin frowned slightly. “That doesn’t sound like a winning-her-back plan.”
Erica rolled her eyes. “That’s because the goal isn’t to trick her into dating him,” she said. “The goal is to prove he’s not the complete idiot he pretended to be.”
Steve looked at her for a moment. “. . . You really think that’ll work?”
Erica shrugged. “If she likes you as much as you claim,” she said, “then yes.”
Steve nodded, hope and nervousness mixing together in his chest in a way that made his stomach flip.
Dustin grinned. “See?” he said. “I told you she’d have a plan.”
Erica stood up and stretched slightly. “Well, that will be a month of free video tapes.”
It had been raining for hours by the time the tapping started at your window.
You almost ignored it at first, buried face-down in your pillow with the lights off, the room dim except for the occasional flash of lightning slipping through the curtains.
You had told yourself you were not crying anymore. Technically that was true. You had stopped. Mostly. But the dull ache sitting behind your ribs had not gone anywhere, and every time you thought about Steve’s miserable expression in that back room, your chest tightened all over again.
The tapping came again.
You frowned into the pillow, lifting your head slightly. For a second your brain, still fuzzy with disappointment and lack of sleep, tried to convince you it was just the rain hitting the glass.
Then it tapped again.
You sat up.
When you pushed the curtain aside and opened the window, you nearly jumped out of your skin.
Steve was halfway through climbing in and he was completely soaked.
Rain clung to his hair, dripping down the ends and onto his jacket, his shirt, the floor under the window. His sneakers made a soft wet sound when he stumbled inside, holding a slightly crushed bundle of flowers in one hand looking like they had barely survived the journey.
You stared at him and he stared back, breathing a little hard like he had run here. “Hi,” he said.
You blinked at him. “You climbed through my window.”
Steve nodded once, like that was a normal thing to do on a rainy night after rejecting someone earlier that day. “Yeah.”
“You’re soaking wet.”
“Also yes.”
You looked at the flowers. “Did you steal those?”
He glanced down at them like he had forgotten they existed. “Technically I paid for them.” He hesitated. “I think the cashier pitied me.”
You stared for another long second, trying very hard to make sense of the situation. “Steve.”
“Yeah?”
“What are you doing here?”
Steve swallowed, suddenly looking much less confident than he had climbing through the window in the rain like some kind of very soggy romantic idiot. He ran a hand through his wet hair, immediately messing it up further. “I messed up,” he said.
You crossed your arms, still sitting on the edge of the bed. “You did.”
“I know.”
He stepped a little closer, careful like you might disappear if he moved too fast. The flowers were still clutched awkwardly in his hand, slightly bent but determinedly bright against the dim room.
“I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this without sounding like a complete idiot,” he admitted. “But it turns out that’s kind of unavoidable.”
You watched him, your heart already starting to beat faster in a way you did not want to acknowledge yet.
Steve looked down at the floor for a second before continuing. “Yesterday. . . your dad and I talked.”
Your brows pulled together slightly.
“And he said some stuff,” Steve went on. “Stuff that kind of stuck in my head. About how I’m not good enough for you. And the stupid part is. . .” He let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh. “I already thought that.”
Something in your chest tightened.
Steve looked back up at you then, eyes honest and a little raw. “You’re amazing,” he said simply. “Like, ridiculously amazing. You’re brave and smart and kind and somehow still patient with people like me who forget basic things like how tapes work or how to act normal when someone pretty, someone just like you, walks into the room. You save the world and then go home and help your sister with lunch like it’s nothing. And you laugh at my dumb jokes like they’re actually funny.”
Your throat felt tight.
“And I’m just. . .” Steve gestured vaguely at himself. “This guy who spent most of high school being a jerk and now works at a video store.”
“You’re more than that,” you said.
Steve shook his head a little. “Maybe. But when you asked me out today, all I could hear in my head was Hopper saying you deserved someone better. And the worst part was I believed him.”
He stepped closer again, placing the flowers on your table like they were something fragile.
“I said no because I thought it was the right thing to do,” he continued. “Like if I stepped back first, maybe I wouldn’t screw things up for you later.”
Your voice came out softer than you meant it to. “Steve. . .”
“But then you left,” he said. “And you looked so hurt, and Robin spent the next hour telling me I was the dumbest human being alive, which, fair, but also I realized something.”
He took another small step toward you.
“I realized that trying to stay away from you hurts way worse than any mistake I could possibly make.”
Your heart stuttered.
Steve rubbed the back of his neck nervously, water still dripping from the ends of his hair onto the floor. “I like you,” he said, voice almost shy now. “Like. . . really like you. In a way that makes me forget how sentences work and stare at you like an idiot whenever you walk into a room. In a way that makes every near-death monster situation a little less terrifying because at least you’re there too.”
You felt a small, disbelieving smile pulling at your mouth.
“And yeah,” Steve continued, glancing at you again. “Maybe I’m not the guy who deserves you. But if there’s even a tiny chance you’d still want me anyway. . . I’d really like to try to be that guy for you.”
For a moment you just looked at him standing there, soaked through, nervous, holding onto hope with the kind of stubborn sincerity that was so unmistakably Steve.
“You climbed through my window,” you said again.
Steve nodded. “Romantic, right?”
You shook your head a little, smiling now despite everything. “You rejected me six hours ago.”
“I know.”
“In the middle of Family Video.”
“I am deeply ashamed.”
“And now you’re telling your feelings in the rain.”
Steve hesitated, then cleared his throat slightly. “Actually I had a quote prepared.”
You raised an eyebrow.
He shifted awkwardly. “It’s from Star Wars.”
“Of course it is.”
Steve took a small breath, then said, very seriously, “You’re the Obi-Wan for me but in a less mentor and more girlfriend boyfriend way.”
You stared at him. “That’s not even—”
“I panicked,” Steve admitted quickly. “The other one was Han Solo.” He glanced up at you, a little sheepish before adding, “You know. . . the ‘I love you.’ ‘I know.’ thing.” He huffed a small laugh. “But that felt way too confident for someone currently dripping rainwater all over your floor.”
You tried very hard not to laugh.
Steve looked at you with a hopeful little shrug. “What I meant was. . . I can’t imagine a life where you’re not in it.”
Your heart softened so fast it almost hurt.
You stood up slowly from the bed and walked over to him, stopping just close enough that you could see the nervous flicker in his eyes. “You’re an idiot,” you told him.
“Yeah,” Steve said immediately. “That checks out.”
“But you’re my idiot.”
His breath caught slightly.
You reached up and brushed a drop of rain from his cheek with your thumb. “And for the record,” you added, “I never asked you to be perfect. I just asked you to be you.”
Steve looked at you like you had just handed him the entire universe. “You still want that date?” he asked.
You pretended to think about it for a second. “Maybe,” you said.
Steve’s shoulders sagged in relief.
You smiled and leaned forward, closing the distance between you and Steve froze for half a second before kissing you back, one hand lifting uncertainly to rest against your waist like he was still not entirely convinced this was actually happening.
When you finally pulled back, he was smiling in an amazed way he sometimes did after surviving something impossible.
