;w;

Skipper(Skip)/RDR2/Marvel/TLoU 1&2/BG3/Stranger Things

[firelilyfox]

hospital lights

Pairing: Steve Harrington x female wheeler!reader

Summary: You wake up at the hospital after being attacked by a Demogorgon. Panic claims your mind but Steve is there to comfort you, even if he is a mess himself.

Warnings: injuries. angst. hurt/comfort. crying. friends to lovers. confessions. no use of y/n.

_________________

The first thing you noticed was the beeping. Slow and steady. Then came the smell. Antiseptic, the unmistakable sting of disinfectant.

Your eyelids felt impossibly heavy. When you finally managed to open them everything was blurry.

A dim lamp glowed in the corner of the room. Outside the window the sky was black.

Where… am I? Your heart began to pound.

The last thing you remembered ... Holly. The hallway ...the creature... so much blood. Steve.

Your hand flew to your side. You could feel bandages and the pain that woke up the rest of your sleepy braincells.

Panic surged through your chest. "No…"

The monitor beside you immediately sped up. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Your breathing caught. "I…" The room suddenly felt much too small. Much too quiet and your lungs refused to cooperate. "I can't…"

Every breath came shorter than the last. The monitor screamed faster. Beepbeepbeepbeep.

A chair scraped sharply across the floor. "Hey." A familiar voice.

Steve. You turned your head so quickly it hurt.

He had been asleep. Curled awkwardly in the chair beside your bed. Still wearing the same jacket. Only now it was wrinkled and coloured with old blood.

There were dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked… exhausted.

He was beside you before you could even think. "Look at me."

Your chest tightened painfully. "I…"

"I know." His voice was calm and so gentle. "You don't know where you are."

You shook your head desperately. "I can't…"

"You can." His hand found yours instantly. "I'm here."

You stared at him. Tears already blurring your vision. "Steve…"

He swallowed hard. "I've got you."

"I can't breathe."

"Yes, you can." His thumb brushed softly across your knuckles. "Not with your chest." He placed your joined hands gently against your stomach. "Try it from right here. Breathe with me."

You tried and failed. Tried again.

Steve never looked away. "In." He inhaled slowly. You copied him. "Good. And out."

Another breath. The panic didn't disappear all at once but it slowly loosened its grip. Until finally…you could breathe again.

The tears came instead. "What…" Your voice trembled. "…what happened?"

Steve looked at you. His own eyes immediately began to shine with tears too. "You…" He laughed softly, the sound cracked halfway through. "You woke up."

Another laugh and then suddenly ... he was crying. Actual tears rolling down his face. His shoulders shook once. "Oh my God."

He covered his mouth for a second. "I thought…" Another broken laugh. "For a second I thought I'd imagined this."

Your heart ached. "Steve…"

"You've been asleep." His voice barely worked. "For eight days."

The world stopped. "…Eight?"

He nodded. "You scared all of us."

Your eyes widened. "My family? Nancy and Holly? Where is Mike and ..."

"They are all alright. It`s over now so there is nothing to worry about. I promise all of them are alive."

One name still lingered. You whispered it anyway. "…You?"

Steve smiled. "I'm okay."

Relief hit so hard it made you cry all over again. You hadn't even realized how terrified you'd been until that moment.

Steve watched your face carefully. "You've got questions am I right?"

You laughed shakily. "I think…" You looked around the room. "…I have hundreds."

"I know."

"So…" You looked back at him. "…start talking."

He took a long breath. Then, very quietly…he told you everything.

About the Upside Down. About Eleven. About Demogorgons. About Vecna. About all the years you'd lived beside a war without ever knowing it existed.

You listened. Occasionally blinking and shaking your head in disbelieve.

"So…" You rubbed your forehead carefully. "My baby sister…"

"…has helped save the world." Steve smiled. "More than once."

"Nancy has been fighting these monsters?"

"Mhm."

You nodded carefully. "Mike?"

Steve chuckled. "He'd be offended you even asked."

You stared at him. Then your smile disappeared. "…You. You've been doing this…" Your voice grew quieter. "…for years."

He nodded with a crooked smile. "That`s why my hair already has some grey in it."

"You almost died."

"A few times."

"You never told me."

Steve shook his head. "We couldn't."

"You were hurt."

He looked away. But he didn`t had to confirm, because you remembered the bruises, the cuts and the excuses. Falling off bikes. Car accidents. Bad luck.

All lies. All to protect you.

Your eyes filled again. "I was worried about you."

"So was I."

"No." You shook your head. "You don't understand."

Your fingers tightened around his. "I almost lost you without even knowing it..." The sentence refused to finish itself.

Steve swallowed. "I know."

"You've been risking your life while I thought…" A tear slid down your cheek. "…I thought you were just fooling around."

He smiled sadly. "I was."

"No. You were protecting everybody. Including me." The realization settled heavily between you. "You are a hero, Steve."

He huffed a laugh. "Don`t say that. I was just trying not to die. There is nothing heroic about this."

You took his hand in yours and squeezed it tightly. "I was not there with you, but if there is one thing I know ... its that you would do everything in your power to protect the people you love. That sounds pretty heroic to me."

He sat on the edge of your hospital bed, you could feel his warmth through the thin blanket. "Still ... you got hurt. I wasn`t there to ..."

"Hey." Your eyes found his. "I'm here."

"You could've…" He choked on his own words, unable to swallow down the lump in his throat.

"But I didn't. Because you were there"

"I don't know what I would've done." The confession slipped out quietly.

"So don't."

Steve frowned. "What?"

"Don't make me imagine it."

His heart broke. "You know…" He smiled faintly. "When you were asleep…I talked to you."

"You did?"

"Every day."

"What did you say?"

He laughed. "A little bit of everything. I told you Robin kept stealing my fries."

You smiled through your tears.

"I complained about hospital coffee and I told you Dustin thinks he knows more than doctors."

You giggled. "He probably told them what to do."

"He absolutely did."

You both laughed and suddenly the room finally felt warm again. Then Steve looked down at your joined hands.

"There was one thing…" His voice softened. "…I kept saying every night."

"What was it?"

He looked up, straight into your eyes. "I told you…" His thumb stroked gently across yours. "…that if you woke up…I wasn't wasting another second."

Your breath caught. "Steve…"

"I love you." The words came out without hesitation, calm and steady. "I've loved you since before I knew what love even was."

His eyes shimmered. "I just…" He smiled sadly. "…picked a really bad time to tell you."

You laughed through your tears. "I think…" You reached up, your fingers rested gently against his cheek. "…it's perfect."

He leaned into your touch instinctively.

"I love you too."

His eyes closed, just for a second, as though he'd been waiting to hear those words for years. When he looked at you again he was smiling. The kind of smile that reached all the way to his eyes.

"You know…" You shifted carefully until you were sitting cross-legged despite the nurse absolutely disapproving somewhere in the hallways.

Steve laughed. "What?"

"I've wanted to kiss you…" You smiled shyly. "…for a very long time."

"Yeah?"

You nodded once. "Mhm."

"You've got terrible timing." He said, but instinctively moved even closer. You could feel his hand resting at the side of you hips and his breath on your lips.

"So do you."

He laughed again. "I guess we deserve each other."

"I think so, too."

Very slowly he leaned toward you. Giving you every chance to stop him, but you didn't move away. You leaned closer too. Until your foreheads touched. Both of you still smiling and crying a little.

Steve nudged the tip of your nose with his own. "I can't believe you're awake."

"I can't believe monsters are real."

"I know."

"You really fought all of that?"

Steve shrugged. "You would've done the same and you already did. You are braver than you think"

You looked at him with so much love it almost made him forget how to breathe.

"Steve..."

That was enough. He closed the last little bit of distance. His lips met yours in the gentlest kiss either of you had ever known.

No urgency or desperation, just relief. Years of unsaid feelings finally finding their way home.

When the kiss ended neither of you pulled very far away. Steve rested his forehead against yours, his hand cupping your cheek.

Outside the hospital window, dawn was just beginning to paint the sky. After everything Hawkins had survived…after everything the two of you had survived…

Morning had never looked so beautiful.

__________________

Thank you so much for reading! All interactions are highly appreciated 💙

STEVE HARRINGTON MASTERLIST

if you wanna know what happened before this ... click here

[lemonlover1110]

can you pls write Leon from Sweet finding out he's finally having a daughter🥹 tysm

Pairing: Leon Kennedy x f!Reader

Summary: Leon gets the best news of his life

Warnings: Fluff

Sweet

Leon knows he should’ve gotten the vasectomy sooner. He’s got four boys at home, and he’s about to find out he’s expecting his fifth. The funny thing about life is that it’s unexpected, and the more you want something, the less likely you are to get it. Leon’s doomed to be a boy dad– It’s not that he doesn’t love the four little gremlins, he’d just… Prefer to have a daughter.

“This is always nerve-racking.” A nervous laugh leaves your lips as you wait for the technician. He gives you his hand for support, laughing along with you. It’s the anatomy scan, where he’ll find out he’s having his fifth and final boy.

“I’m here,” he reassures you before pressing a kiss on your forehead. “I hope this one’s calm, we already have enough with the other four at home.”

“I’m sure he’ll be an angel,” you answer, and Leon nearly sighs. Five boys. He sure struck gold.

The technician walks into the room, and begins the proper procedure. You nearly shriek at the cold gel as it’s poured on your abdomen, a feeling you think you’d be used to at this point. Leon chuckles at your reaction, attempting to mask it with a cough when you glare at him.

Luckily, he’s saved from a scolding when your eyes fall on the screen. Leon shares the sentiment, engrossed at the sonogram of the baby. His final son. He’s nearly holding his breath as he hears the tiny little heart that’s growing inside of you.

Then he hears the dreadful question, “Do we want to know the sex?”

“No.”

“Yes.” Your voice is much louder and resounding than his own, and he almost rolls his eyes. To him there’s no point, he knows his fate. He’ll be ninety and he’ll be telling his seventy grandchildren about how he tried so hard to have a daughter, yet failed each time. You stick your tongue out at him before smiling at the technician. “We have four boys at home so he doesn’t have much hope.”

She laughs, and it throws Leon off. He guesses his misery is funny to other people. Nice to know. He ultimately sighs, “Just break the news.”

Time’s still for a moment, and the longest minute of his life passes. You gently squeeze his hand, waiting for the inevitable news. 

“Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, you’re expecting a girl,” she announces, and Leon freezes. His heart stops for a moment and tears well up in his eyes before he looks at you shocked, sharing the same expression as you.

He doesn’t care if he’s causing a scene, he fills your face with kisses and thanks you over and over again. After all, he’s finally getting his little girl.

[moonstoneandmoonlight]

jasmine, my queen: what if gas reader takes steve to a family event as her boyfriend for the first time? obviously her parents know him already as roommate steve, but she’s out here at the family bbq or christmas party with a Certified Hottie™️ on her arm and all the relatives wanna meet him and they’re totally enamored of the new boyfriend. i’m talking cousins, grandma, nieces and nephews all in love with this guy…wouldn’t it be fluffy and delicious?

ok thanks! have a good day 💖

𑣲 guilty as sin drabbles

“Baby, please don’t stress—I swear on my life that I’ll be on my best behaviour,” Steve reassures you gently, squeezing your thigh gently as he pulls into your parent’s driveway.

You nod but honestly, you were a little apprehensive since it would be the very first time that Steve would meet your entire family. Of course, Steve already knew your parents, in fact he and your dad had just been to a baseball game together last weekend. But it wouldn’t just be your parents at your family’s annual 4th July BBQ but also your grandparents, aunties, uncles, your cousins, your sister, your niece and your nephew who was only eleven months old.

But what quickly became apparent was that you had no reason to be nervous. Because the moment you walked into your parents’ backyard with Steve’s arm around you—your extended family had very quickly decided that they adored him. Even your grumpy uncle had greeted him. It took barely any time at all for Steve to be whisked away and fawned over by your grandmother and your auntie.

“That was your roommate?” Your sister Mel asks, bouncing your little nephew Noah on her hip as you watch Steve talk animatedly to your auntie and grandmother about his coaching job at Hawkins Middle. “I would have folded a lot sooner than you did if my roommate looked like that.”

You roll your eyes but you feel your face turning hot and not at all because of the hot weather.

“Mel, you’re literally holding your baby.”

“So? I have eyes,” Mel asks with a smile, leaning down to kiss a squealing Noah on the cheek. “Speaking of—can you take him for a minute? Need to go and help dad with the salad. He’s having some sort of lettuce crisis.”

“But I—”

You don’t get to finish your sentence, because Noah was suddenly placed into your arms because you could even thinking of doing so.

“Thank you!”

Mel could have not have ran back into the house any quicker, her maxi dress swishing behind her as she did. You would have been annoyed if your nephew wasn’t so damn adorable—all chubby cheeks and toothless smiles.

You look down at your nephew, his big eyes staring up at you quizzically and you can’t help but smile.

“Hey, Noah Bear,” you coo gently, your smile widening when your nephew beams up at you like you had hung the stars.

“You look real good with a baby, sweetheart.”

Heat spreads through your body at your boyfriend’s words. You turn, Noah now squawking in your arms to see Steve standing a few feet away from you, apparently pulled from the conversation with your family at the sight of you with a baby.

Typical.

“Don’t get any ideas,” you tell him with a wry smile as he approaches you and Noah, his hand finding home on your waist and causing a fluttery feeling deep within your gut.

“Oh, honey,” Steve murmurs in a low voice, one that only intensifies the feeling in your gut. “I’m getting so many ideas.”

And just like that, your afternoon was completely derailed but Steve Harrington just smiles at you like nothing was out of the ordinary.

“Oh! Look at you three!”

Your mom’s timing could not have been any worse. Your face felt as though it was burning and Steve was just smiling as though he wasn’t the cause of it.

“I need to take a picture, let me just—”

“—mom!”

But your mom was already grabbing her camera and Steve was already pulling you against him, grinning down at Noah as he did so. Noah—who already seemed to be Steve’s biggest fan—squealed and wriggled about in your arms.

“I got him,” Steve says, taking Noah from your arms and holding him with such a quiet confidence that you feel your heart do something traitorous in your chest. Because Steve Harrington with a baby—

The sound of your mom calling your name pulls you from your thoughts and you have barely a second in which to smile at the camera.

You don’t hear your mom’s compliments, you aren’t able to focus on anything but the way Steve squeezes your waist gently before leaning down to whisper in your ear: “in a few years time, we’ll be at these barbecues with our baby.”

You roll your eyes like he was being ridiculous but deep down? You prayed that he was right.

But if how much your family already liked Steve was any indicator of your relationship? Steve Harrington was probably going to be sticking around for a long, long time.

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[impalasgarden]

He’s dramatic, and he knows it! (sort of)

steve harrington x fem!reader

summary: steve can be dramatic over the smallest of things, claiming it ruins his whole day. but after what he considers a long day, he finally gets to sit with you, soon realising it might’ve not been that big a deal, but instead he just missed you.

wc: 852

cw: light swearing (ass, crappy), pet names (baby, honey, sweetheart), slight suggestive content, season 4 steve because we can all agree it’s his best look.

m.list

───── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ─────

“Baby, you wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.” Steve groans dramatically as the front door to your newly shared apartment slams behind him. He’s quick to kick his shoes off by the entrance (something you’re definitely going to shout to him about later) and slip off his Family Video jacket, immediately making his way to the living room where you usually hibernated when you had a day off.

His face softened and his shoulders relaxed when he saw you curled on the side of the couch, hand propping up your head as you dig into a bowl of chocolate and sweets that seemed to still be full. The TV was paused at the very start of one of his favourite movies, Apocalypse Now, which you’d recently rented again.

He had a weird obsession with war movies. That confused you since you became incredibly anxious watching that particular genre of movie after everything that’d happened in The Upside Down. Though, you loved him enough that you’d watch it, under the circumstances that he was by your side during the entirety of it.

“Hey, Honey.” You glance back towards the doorway of the living room, looking at him with a gentle smile that he could never get enough of. He tiredly waddles towards the couch, arms already out to capture you in a big, sappy hug.

“Hi.” He grumbles against your neck as he traps you between the couch and his warm, bear like body.

“You know, I’m not complaining, but why’s Apocalypse Now on the TV? Some special occasion?” He lifts his head up from your chest, his hair already disheveled from the hard days work he put his hairspray through.

“Unless you call the special occasion Robin calling me, telling me you were being annoyingly dramatic today at work. Then yes.” Your hand rakes through his hair, his head gravitating to wherever your hand is.

“Snitch.” He mutters childishly. “First of all, I wasn’t being dramatic. I was being reasonably frustrated. You should try working with Robin for a day. She’s a pain in my ass, and so is Henderson. He thinks he can walk in and ask me to leave my job to help him with some crappy science thing.” He expresses exasperatedly, “He forgets I never went to college.” He adds bashfully.

“You love them, really.” Your hand tenderly makes its way to his chin, your thumb lightly grazing his cheekbone. “Come on, tell me about your day.”

He huffs. “Well, Robin wouldn’t stop teasing me about dropping the pencil jar. Pencils went everywhere on the floor, and I had to pick them up while Robin watched me.” He fiddles with your hair. “And then Dustin came in with this—“ He juggles his hands around, trying to explain how confusing this item that Dustin had was. “Thing? I don’t know, this metal thing with wires coming out of it and cardboard wrapped around the bottom. Anyways, he brings it to me and tells me he needs help fixing it.” He scoffs. “I didn’t even know what this futuristic device that was in front of me was, let alone did I know how to fix it! The kid made the thing, surely he’s the one that knows the ins and outs of it.” He sighs, like holding all of that in weighed his entire body down by ten pounds.

You tut, your bottom lip copying his pout. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“Yeah.” He rests his head against your chest again, listening to the quiet thumping of your heart.

“Sorry that you’re so dramatic.” You add.

He quickly lifts his head back up, frowning at you. “Oh come on!”

Your giggle turns into a full blown laugh attack. Tears begin to prick at your eyes, your head thrown back against the cushions. Honestly, right now, you couldn’t think of anything funnier.

“Sorry, it’s just that—“ You wipe a tear from the corner of your eye. “Just that, you’re so dramatic.”

“I’m not that dramatic.”

“You really are.”

“I might be.”

“You definitely are.”

“Fine, I am.” He rests his chin on your chest, looking at you with a defeated squint. “But it was reasonable!” he defends himself. “Robin could’ve helped me, and Dustin could’ve found one of his science-y friends to help. And what made everything worse is that I missed you.” His face digs into your neck, giving you ticklish kisses all the way up to your jaw.

“Yeah?” You look into his eyes. His gorgeous honey-brown eyes.

“Yeah.” His lips easily find their way to yours. He drinks up the softness of your lips and the way you taste. Something he’s been dreaming about ever since he left the apartment this morning.

“Well, I suppose you weren’t being that dramatic.” You pull away slightly, your lips still grazing his due to the proximity.

“I know.” He dives back in, his hands making their way up your waist towards your boobs, giving them a squeeze, to which you giggle softly.

“Steve.” You mutter against his lips. “Don’t forget about the movie.”

“After, sweetheart.” He hushes. “Just wanna show you how much I missed you.”

[classygumi]

this was stupid.

you stared at yourself in the mirror—body painted in delicate lace—arms bunched against your chest as you gnawed on the skin around your nails. soft stockings covered your legs, the lacy band digging into the plush of your thighs. the panties were comfy, covering just enough to make you feel secure but leaving enough to be desired.

the top was fitted to your chest, the fabric beneath the cups flowy and see-through. vines of lace swirled throughout the fabric, and tiny bows concealed where the straps met the cups. a matching bow rested on the center of the waistband of the panties, along with one on each stocking at the top of your thighs.

the garment itself wasn’t uncomfortable, in fact, it was remarkably wearable. you weren’t itchy, it wasn’t tight in places and loose in others, it was perfect.

the issue was your confidence.

you were still relatively new to relationships, not having much experience but knowing enough to get by. you and leon had been together for about a year now, and he constantly assured you that sex or anything of the sort was never a priority.

and you believed him.

he told you that he would be happy to abide by your wishes until you were ready, and that he would never do anything you didn’t want.

you, shy as could be, were horrible at simply cuddling up to him when you wanted to feel his warmth. you had been trying to send him hints, to quietly display what you were ready for—but leon, bless his heart, would smile warmly and kiss you for being so cute before moving right along.

now, here you stood.

clad in an ethereal lingerie set you’d bought on a trip weeks ago with claire, nerves on fire and your hands shaking. you felt so stupid, so desperate, so vulnerable.

“it’s just leon,” you murmured to yourself, feeling the way your heart constricted at the words. you stared a moment longer.

i’m taking it off.

you slid your fingers beneath the hem of the top, fully prepared to put on your usual pajamas. a low sound made you freeze, and you slowly turned. leon stood in the doorway, holsters still strapped to his thighs and his jacket hung loosely over his arm.

“um…” you trailed off, warming instantly at the way his eyes shamelessly skimmed your figure.

“when did you get that?” he asked, voice curious and deep, “and why does it look like you’re taking it off?”

“a while ago,” you admitted, arms lowering cautiously. leon tossed his jacket to the side, nearing you in an instant. he caught your trembling hands, eyes lifting to meet yours, “you are shaking all over, baby.”

“i’m nervous,” you shifted your gaze away, and he allowed you to hide to recollect yourself. he stepped impossibly closer, peering at you with an intensity that made your heart race. you were standing in front of him—smelling like sugar, summer rain, and a barely noticeable hint of his cologne—wearing lingerie that suited you so well it made his chest ache.

“leon…” you muttered embarrassed, hands trying to push him away. “hm?” he lazily smirked at your glare, tracing a finger along the edge of the panties. he could see his hand beneath the sheer layer of the top, and he could feel his patient restraint very swiftly crumbling.

you were so soft.

plush where he was sculpted, gentle where he was calloused. “what’s wrong?” leon then whispered, “don’t like it?” you shook your head, and he waited. “i do, but it’s just…not what i’m used to,” you leaned against him, and his hands slid beneath the sheer lace to caress your waist. his index finger trailed along your spine, sending slight shivers through your body.

“can i ask you something without you shutting down on me? or shying away?”

you didn’t like the sound of that.

you grumbled in his arms, and his chest rumbled with a laugh, “is this your way of telling me you want me?” leon squeezed you tighter when his words pulled a sad, flustered little sound out of you.

“mm,” he hummed, lips pressing fondly to your hair, “you’re cute.”

“i’m taking it off, and you’re never talking to me about this again—“

“sorry, sweetheart,” leon cut you off, leaning back with a dangerous glint in his eyes, “who said you were taking it off?” your face heated, and he held you when you deflated in his arms. leon was your first serious relationship, and quite frankly, he loved to take advantage of the fact that you were so reactive to things like this.

you gasped when his arm swept under your knees, standing up with you perfectly settled in his arms. he carried you to the bed, one hand still free and undoing the binds of his holsters. he set one of his guns on the dresser, the leather holsters dropping to the ground as he simply stepped away from them.

he laid you down gently, smiling at the way your hair fell around you and the fabric of the lingerie top draped over your skin. your knee bent as a means of hiding, and he watched as your hands covered your face in sheer embarrassment.

“you look perfect,” he murmured, hand sliding down your thigh to shift your bent leg to the side. he made himself comfortable between your legs, and you peeked between your fingers when he moved your legs to frame his hips, “my beautiful girl. all dressed up for me.”

leon lowered his face, pressing his lips against yours. he felt your hands cradle his jaw, legs tightening around him. one of his hands pawed at your thigh, the other slipping beneath your head and embedding itself in your hair.

“new lip balm?” he teased softly, pulling away with a thin strand of spit breaking, “i wonder if all of you tastes as good as you look.”

“it’s new,” your eyes were shiny, lips swollen already and he had barely started, “and you, you can if you—“

“no, baby,” leon corrected gently, hand leaving your hair to grip your chin, “this isn’t about me. it’s what you want.” he kissed your cheek, “what you want my mouth to do,” he kissed your throat, “what you want my hands to do,” he kissed you slowly, “you make the calls. not me, yeah?”

“okay,” you leaned up to kiss his cheek, and his heart melted. “now,” leon sat up, tugging you closer where you were practically sat on his lap, “the fun part is listening to you trying to tell me what you want.”

your eyes widened, realization flooding your expression. warmth pooled in your stomach, and you could already feel the inevitable shame and desperation that you would elicit.

“i—i have to tell you?”

“mhm,” he grinned wickedly, “just gotta tell me what you want, sweetheart. i’ll do it, you know i will, but i gotta know what you want your man to do for you.”

you pursed your lips, eyes averting from his for a split second before he redirected your attention back to him. his warm blue eyes, pupils dilated beyond belief, the gentle tug at the corners of his lips. his palms grounded you, and you nodded, accepting his wishes.

“thank you, baby,” he kissed your forehead, “now, what do you want first?” he trailed off, hands greedily sliding back to paw at you.

“if you need suggestions…i got plenty.”

[mcybank]

Late Bloomers (1) — Steve Harrington

pairings — steve harrington x farmer’s daughter!reader summary — there are inter-dimensional monsters left to kill, and it’s too bad for the party that steve’s focus has been dwindling because of the girl that lives on the farm. warnings — 16.7k words. not proofread Even slightly!!!! reader owns a shotgun and holds it up against steve but it’s not fired and nobody is shot. mentions of deaths caused by the upside down, reader’s grief (her mother passed) but discussed briefly and without any graphic detail, effects of the earthquake, steve’s canonical self-sacrificing tendencies / not valuing his safety, earthquake destroyed reader’s flowers, reader gets anxious and worries for steve a Lot, kissing and making out, reader’s implied to have longer hair, reader has a brother (miles) and a father briefly mentioned on-page. lmk if i missed anything!!! notes — surpriseeeeee!!! it’s been so long since i wrote something new for steve and i’ve genuinely been writing this for almost six months so i thought it was time to finally post it! i’ve got plans for this pairing i’d lovr to write little oneshots about their lives so feel free to send in thoughts or anything about them!!!

God, Dustin Henderson was getting on Steve’s nerves. The van’s AC had given up only two minutes in, and the heat had started working through the floorboard into the soles of his sneakers, needling at the raw spot behind his eyes that thirty-some hours of no sleep had carved out.

Steve had never been good at consoling people. Most of his talent resided in springing out all the hot-headedness he’d compartmentalized into his fist or a baseball bat, and that meant there was very little he could do for his unexpected best friend, especially when said best friend was hounding him with his checklist.

Dustin had commandeered over the passenger seat, clipboard on one knee, pen already uncapped and hovering. Outside, Hawkins was dark and empty, streetlights buzzing a sodium-orange. “Rope?”

“Check,” Steve drawled, throwing his head back against the headrest. His eyelids felt like they’d been scraped raw. Somewhere under the hood, the engine continued ticking with Dustin’s voice.

The clipboard in Dustin’s hand had been through hell. Coffee-stained, corner-bent, covered in Hopper’s aggressive handwriting and what looked like jelly from someone’s sandwich. The kid held it like it was the fucking Declaration of Independence.

“Flares?”

“Check.” Steve’s voice came out flat and bored. He’d been awake for something that felt like thirty-six hours and the exhaustion was crawling over him like a second skin.

“Duct tape?”

Steve let the silence stretch just because he could. Just because Dustin’s need to control every microscopic detail of this supply run was grating against his skull like sandpaper, and maybe if he waited long enough, the kid would remember that Steve wasn’t actually his employee.

“You didn’t get duct tape?” Dustin’s voice climbed half an octave.

“No shit, I got duct tape, Henderson.” Steve didn’t bother opening his eyes and just jerked his thumb toward the passenger side floor where their haul sat in a milk crate he’d swiped from behind Melvad’s. “It’s right there with everything else. So—can we just, not? I’m fuckin’ starving here.”

Dustin’s pen scratched against the paper. Check. That was both satisfying and infuriating. “Generator?”

Generator. Fuck. Fuck, this was bad. Steve’s fingers went still on the steering wheel.

“Steve?”

“Yeah, so—” Steve dragged his palms down on his face, felt the stubble he hadn’t bothered shaving this morning catch against his skin. When he finally opened his eyes, he couldn’t quite look at Dustin. Instead, he twisted in his seat, peering in the back like the generator would materialize if he looked hard enough. “That’s on me.”

For a second, Dustin just blinked, then stared. His mouth opened, closed, then opened again.

“Are you serious right now?”

“Look I know—”

“Steve.” The clipboard hit Dustin’s thigh. “Hopper specifically asked us to get the generator this time. That was—literally—the one thing he stressed on us getting. Did you seriously forget how long—”

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Steve’s voice came out higher than he meant it to, loud enough that it echoed in the enclosed space. He caught himself and tried to reel it back. “I get it, okay? What do you want me to do about it now?”

“I want you to not forget the one thing—”

“Well, too fucking bad, Henderson—”

“Stop being such an ass—”

“Stop being so fucking annoying.”

Dustin let out a sharp breath, and Steve took that as him realizing this situation was bigger than their bickering and back-and-forth. His expression was replaced by that calculating look he got when he was working through a problem. Steve hated that look. It usually meant he was about to be dragged into something he didn’t want.

“Okay.” Dustin’s tense shoulders dropped. “Okay, what now?”

Steve stared through the windshield at the empty parking lot. There were some lights in the houses across the street that were on, while some had just turned off. Hawkins looked so unbelievably normal sometimes, it was scary what was actually going on while people went about their days.

“Well, nothing’s open.” Dustin was speaking slower now, like he was thinking out loud. When Steve didn’t respond, he added, “There’s a farm like three miles out. They probably have, like, three.”

Steve’s hand was already moving to the ignition. If that was it, then he was doing it. If not for completing the list, it was for getting Dustin to shut up.

“Hey, that was a joke.” Dustin’s eyes went wide. “Don’t go to the farm. It’s literally midnight—”

The engine turned over, rumbling to life beneath them.

“Well, you said they’ve got three.” Steve checked the rearview mirror out of habit, even though the area around them was completely empty. “What’s the problem if one goes missing?”

Dustin stared at the side of Steve’s face like Steve was about to rob a bank. “Uh, I don’t know, Steve. Maybe the part where farms actually use their generators? Cows don’t get milked, fences stop working, and suddenly we’ve got the Upside Down and horses to take care of?”

“Quit being dramatic,” Steve muttered, already backing out with one arm draped over the back of the passenger seat. “It’s a farm, not a zoo.”

In all honesty, Steve had no idea what stealing from the farm entailed. But he was sure it wouldn’t be as bad as Henderson implied it would be.

The farm materialized soon enough out of the darkness like something from a postcard; all white fence posts catching the van’s headlights, a barn that looked older than Steve’s grandparents (and they were pretty damn old), fields stretching out into nothing. Steve killed the lights before they got too close, letting the van roll to a stop near a cluster of outbuildings.

“Okay, so.” Dustin was gripping his seatbelt like it was the only thing tethering him to the world. “You go in there. I’ll stay here as a lookout.”

“Jesus—lookout?” Steve turned to stare at him. “This is a farm, not Fort Knox.”

“Exactly. Which means they probably have dogs. Big dogs that eat kids when they trespass at—” He checked the watch on his wrist. “Twelve forty-seven in the morning.”

“You’re coming with me.”

Dustin laughed, but it was devoid of any humor. “I’m really not.”

“You’re the one who suggested this—”

“As a joke. A hypothetical. I didn’t think you’d actually—” Dustin gestured wildly at their surroundings. “This is breaking and entering. This is a felony.”

“I’m borrowing.”

“That’s theft.”

Steve was already opening the driver's side door, letting in the cool night air that smelled like grass and something else, flowers, maybe. Sweet and overwhelming. "Just—keep the engine running. If I'm not back in ten minutes, I don't know, honk or something."

"That's your plan? Honk?"

Steve was out, shutting the van door as quietly as he could, which still sounded loud enough to wake the dead. He stood there for a second, letting his eyes adjust, tracking the layout. The barn was the biggest structure, paint peeling and sturdy-looking, the kind of building that weathered through decades and refused to quit. There was a smaller building that might’ve been a garage, and beyond that was rows of something. Maybe plants? They caught the moonlight in a way that made them look almost silver, organized in careful lines that spoke to hours of work.

A dog barked in the distance. Steve’s heart picked up. But it was far away, probably near the house, and after a second it went quiet again.

The barn door wasn’t locked. Of course, it wasn’t locked because why would anyone think someone would want to steal from here? He slipped inside and was immediately hit with the smell of hay and motor oil and animals, a warm, living smell that was somehow comforting despite the circumstances. Though he couldn’t see any livestock because it was too dark. He pulled out the flashlight he’d grabbed from the van, clicked it on, and kept the beam low.

The barn was bigger inside than it looked from outside, cluttered with chaos that probably meant it was organized in a way only a few people would know their way around. The tools hung on pegboards, their shapes casting strange shadows. Hay bales stacked in one corner neatly. A workbench was covered in half-finished projects; a birdhouse, a broken fence post, a coffee can full of nails sorted by size. There was a jacket hanging on a hook that looked soft and worn. The whole place had this feeling of being used, and being important.

The generator was exactly where a generator would be, against the far wall, industrial and humming, plugged into what looked like a small electrical panel. Steve made his way over, careful not to trip over the collection of tools and equipment scattered across the floor. A chicken made a disgruntled noise from somewhere above him, nestled in the rafters. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Okay,” he muttered to himself, crouching down to examine the setup. “Okay, this is fine. Just unplug it, carry it out, we're golden.”

The generator was bigger than he’d anticipated. It was probably heavier, too. And there were multiple cords snaking out of it, disappearing into walls, running to… Shit, he had no idea what they were running into. Steve reached for the main power chord and wrapped his fingers around it.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Steve’s heart actually stopped. It flatlined for a solid second before kicking back into overdrive. He whipped around so fast he nearly knocked the flashlight out of his own hand.

You were standing in the doorway. For a second, Steve couldn’t process what he was seeing.

You had a shotgun—that registered first, survival instinct kicking in as he widened his eyes and raised one hand to the side—but you were also holding a plate. A plate with what looked like chocolate cake. You were backlit by the moonlight, wearing cutoff sleep shorts and an absolutely massive flannel shirt that hung off one shoulder, hanging open over a faded tank top that said something he couldn’t read in the dark. Your hair was falling out of a braid.

Steve’s brain couldn’t process you holding a shotgun at him.

“Holy shit,” he managed to say.

“Yeah.” Your voice was softer than he’d expected. It sounded more tired than angry, like this wasn’t the weirdest position you’d been put in, and maybe was the weirdest thing that had happened today. “You wanna tell me what you’re doing in my barn, Harrington?”

“Uh—” He short-circuited for a moment, eyes zeroing in on the gun. “Can you—” When you didn’t move, he walked slightly closer, raising his hand and hovering over your arm. “Please put that down.”

Even though he wasn’t close enough to catalog the details of you, he could see a smudge of chocolate cake at the corner of your mouth and your eyes that shined bright against the angle of his torch. The flannel had small flowers embroidered on the pocket. Daisies. Definitely daisies. He knew you. Not knew you-knew you, but he’d seen you before. Definitely. Hawkins was small; you’d been a year or two behind him in school, maybe? He had this vague memory of you in the hallway, always surrounded by a small group of girls who seemed to actually like each other. Benny on the team had said something about you once, the farm girl who wouldn’t go out with him, and Steve had tuned it out because guys on his team were always running their mouths about something.

You looked at him, but you were still holding the shotgun. Your posture had relaxed slightly, like you were slowly figuring out the guy with big hair and huge ego wasn’t the biggest threat to your life. Your grip was competent—you clearly knew how to handle it—but there was something tentative in it, too, like you’d rather be holding anything else.

“Please,” he repeated, eyes flicking down to your hand as his hand hovered uselessly over it.

You sighed, tilting your head back slightly like this was the last place you wanted to be. “Not until you tell me why you’re trying to shut down half of our work.”

Steve pressed his lips into a straight line as he scrambled his brain for some words. “Can’t really talk much while I have a girl about to shoot me, can I?”

He straightened up slowly, giving you what he hoped was a disarming smile (literally, in this case). The same one that would work on girls at parties, before his life became a nightmare of interdimensional monsters and constant exhaustion. He was pretty sure he’d lost whatever charm he used to have somewhere between a Demogorgon and the Russian elevator.

You scanned his face for a moment, and Steve caught the slight roll of your eyes. Your face shined half-gold from his flashlight beam, half-silvered by the slice of moon coming through the door. Steve was distracted enough by it that he almost missed the eye-roll entirely.

“Thought these things were meant to get people to talk.” You waved the gun loosely in your palm—barrel dipping enough that his stomach dropped with it—and Steve widened his eyes.

In Steve’s experience, there weren’t a lot of life-threatening props that could get people talking if they didn’t want to. “Please. Don’t—do that,” he said carefully, tracking the movement of your hand holding the weapon. “Just set it down, okay?”

He kept his palms half-up, an instinct trained into him, he was sure, from cop films he’d watched as a kid.

“Mm, okay.” You set the gun down with the plate on a hay bale carefully. The fork clinked against the ceramic. You looked almost relieved about not having to wield a weapon anymore. “I’m listening.”

“We need it,” he said, which was possibly the weakest opening he’d ever delivered. “It’s—there’s a situation. Kind of an emergency.”

“An emergency?” Your voice was soft, and there was something in it that might’ve been concern. “What kind of emergency needs a generator?”

“The kind I can’t really explain.”

“Try.”

Steve’s jaw worked around the air in his mouth for a second, chewing on an answer that didn’t exist yet.

“I—” Steve ran a hand through his hair, a nervous habit he’d never managed to break. Though tonight his hair was damp enough at the roots that his fingers just dragged flat against it, no bounce left in the strands at all. You watched the movement, your eyes following his hand and returning to his face. There was something unnerving about being looked at that directly. “I know how this sounds, but it’s important. Life-or-death important. And I swear—I swear—I was gonna bring it back.”

“When?”

“Huh?”

“When were you gonna bring it back?” You took a step closer, tilting your head, and Steve could see your eyes better now, they caught the moonlight streaming through the barn doors, reflecting it back. “Tomorrow? Next week? Or were you just hoping nobody would notice that half our farm stopped running?” You sounded a little curious, and maybe a little sad.

Steve tried to rack his brain for an answer. “Henderson said you had three,” he offered weakly.

“Henderson? Who’s that?” Your eyebrows went up, disappearing behind the hairs falling on your face. “Dustin Henderson? He’s involved in this?”

“Life or death?” he repeated, quirking a brow like that explanation may fare better.

You studied him again, crossing your arms over your chest. “Why were you unplugging the main one when there are five of them that aren’t being used?”

His brows furrowed. “There are—?” You turned your neck to the left, and Steve followed your movement and he was met with—as you said—five unused generators sitting on top of a platform closer to the ceiling than the ground. “Oh.”

The tips of his ears went hot. He met your eyes again, then said, “Can I—”

“No,” you said, and now you sounded almost exasperated. “You said life or death?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it drugs?”

“No,” Steve said immediately, because that, at least, was the truth.

“Whose life?”

Steve hesitated. He couldn’t tell you the truth about El, the monsters living under this town, or the crawls that amounted to nothing new 99.9% of the time. But he also got the feeling you’d know if he lied. There was something in the way you were looking at him, patient and expectant, that made him not want to lie, either. Shit.

“My friends’,” he said quietly. “Maybe the town’s—I don’t know. I know this sounds insane.”

“It does.” You were quiet for a minute, then shrugged. “But you sound like you mean it.”

Steve watched you move to the hay bale where you'd set your plate, picking it up again. You took another bite of cake, thoughtful, and gestured with the fork.

The smell of chocolate finally cut through the barn’s thicker smell of hay and motor oil, and Steve’s stomach gave an audible, humiliating growl in the quiet.

“My dad taught me how to shoot when I was twelve,” you said, conversational, like you were sharing a story over coffee. “Said I needed to protect myself. But I’ve never actually pointed it at anyone before tonight.” You licked the icing off your thumb absentmindedly. “I don’t think I could actually shoot someone. Especially over a generator.”

“That’s—” Steve tracked your thumb for a moment. “That’s probably good. Not shooting people. Good policy.”

You smiled at that, just a little. “So, you’ll return the generator?”

Steve’s shoulders pulled back as he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. I promise.”

Steve caught the resignation as it crossed over your features, and you slumped back to lean against the wooden wall. “Okay. If you can get it down from the shelf and carry it out without my dad or brother noticing, you’re good.”

Something in his chest loosened as he nodded slowly. He’d won the generator. Then, he realized—glumly—that this conversation was ending, which meant that he’d have to go back to the van where Henderson was doing ‘lookout,’ and deal with trying to console the uncalled for anger towards him without snapping, because that would only make Henderson’s situation worse.

He should have been halfway back to the van by now. Instead his feet had planted themselves between the hay bales and he was scrambling for something—anything—to keep this conversation from ending. He vaguely gestured with the tip of his chin at the plate. “Cake looks good.”

Something in your eyes lit up. “Yeah—yeah. It’s really good. Fresh, too. Baked it just tonight.”

“Yeah?” Steve leaned against the hay loosely, crossing his arms as he looked at you, and he found he actually wanted to know the answer when he asked, “You bake?”

You paused, fork hovering mid-air. “Yeah. Sometimes. We’ve got all the stuff for it. Makes it easier.”

“I don’t think I’ve baked anything. Like, ever,” Steve said, musing.

There was a beat of suspended silence where the barn creaked around you, wood settling and something rustling in the rafters. Steve used the pause to tilt his head slightly and look at you properly for the first time since the gun had come down—past the adrenaline and flashlight glare—and found you softer for it, sleep-mussed and unbothered by any of it.

“You want some?” you asked, holding the plate out toward him. “If you promise not to unplug anything in this place without permission.”

Steve blinked. “Cake?”

You tilted your head, nose scrunching slightly. “Unless you thought I was offering the fork.”

“Yeah.” Steve found himself moving closer without deciding to, drawn in by the casual offer and the way you held the plate out like sharing cake with a would-be thief was the most normal thing in the world.

“Yeah,” he said again, because his vocabulary had apparently shrunk into single syllables. “I’m—yeah. Hungry.”

You pulled the fork back, studied it for a second like you were just realizing you’d been eating off it, then glanced around the barn. “Hold on.” You set the plate back down on the hay bale and disappeared into the shadows near the workbench.

Steve stood there, hands shoved in his pockets, listening to you rummage through drawers. There was the sound of metal on metal, a quiet “aha,” and then you emerged back into the moonlight holding a second fork. It caught the light as you held it up, triumphant.

“Emergency fork,” you explained, completely serious. “My dad’s always losing them out here when he eats in the barn.”

“Right.” Steve couldn't help the smile tugging at his mouth. “That’s good planning.”

You returned to the hay bale, picked up the plate again, and this time you held it out, your hands holding the clean fork, too. Steve took it, fingers brushing yours for half a second. Your hands were cold, he noticed, and he had this insane urge to do something about it, like wrap them in his, maybe, or do some gesture he had no business making to someone he hardly knew.

Before he could impulsively act on anything, you were angling the plate between you both.

“Go ahead,” you said, nodding toward the cake.

Steve cut off a piece with the edge of his fork, and the second it hit his tongue he almost groaned. The rich, dark chocolate, perfectly spongy, with thick fudge frosting that tasted homemade in a way that made his chest ache a little. When was the last time he'd had something that wasn't frozen pizza or day-old donuts from the station? When was the last time he ate something that hadn’t gone through factory-like processing of stages?

“Holy fuck,” he said through a mouthful, forgetting his manners entirely. “This is—so good.”

The features across your face lit up, a smile spread slow across your lips. “Yeah?”

“Seriously. Best cake I’ve ever had, probably.” He wasn’t even exaggerating. He took another bite to prove his point. “What do you even put in these?”

You laughed slightly. “Don’t oversell it, Harrington.”

“I’m not.” He swallowed.

You ducked your head a little, and even he could feel your cheeks getting warmer. “It’s just chocolate cake. Nothing too crazy.”

“Yeah, but it’s—” Steve struggled to find the words. “It’s good. You made it good.”

The barn felt smaller somehow, warmer, like the walls had drawn in to hold just this moment. You took another bite of cake, thoughtful, and Steve watched the way you savored it, unhurried. Granted, the cake may have tasted so good because he hadn’t eaten in a few hours, but he was sure it’d be just as good after a full meal.

“You know,” you said, voice soft, “when I heard someone in the barn, I thought maybe it was a raccoon. Or maybe Clover slipped out of the house.” You glanced up at him through your lashes, that small smile still playing on your mouth. “Steve Harrington wasn’t really on my list of possibilities.”

“Yeah, well.” Steve rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “Lately my life’s been full of things that weren’t on anyone’s list of possibilities.”

Curiosity and concern flickered across your face. You opened your mouth like you were gonna ask about that, and Steve tensed up because he knew he couldn’t explain any of it, and outright lying to you just felt wrong. But before you could speak, a horn blared from outside, sharp, loud, and completely unmistakable.

“Shit.” Steve’s eyes went wide.

The horn honked again, longer this time, and you jumped, the plate wobbling in your hands. “What—”

“That’s—” Steve was already moving toward the door, then stopping, then turning back because he couldn’t just leave you there. “That’s Dustin. I told him to honk if—I told him ten minutes and it’s been—” He looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes. Time had gotten completely away from him, dissolved in the warm safety of this barn.

You were staring toward the barn door, fork still in hand, confusion written across your features. “Is he okay? Does he think something’s wrong?”

“No—I mean, yeah, he’s fine. I told him to honk if I took too long.” Steve ran a hand through his hair, agitated. “He probably thought I got caught or—” Dustin honked again, shorter this time. “Jesus, Henderson.”

You set the plate down carefully, that same deliberate gentleness you'd shown with the shotgun. “You should go check on him.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I should.” But Steve couldn’t move immediately. He looked at you, standing there in your sleep clothes with chocolate on your fingers and concern on your face for a kid you didn’t know. “Thank you. For the—not shooting me. And for the cake. And for the generator.”

You smiled at that, amused. “Pretty low bar there, not shooting you.”

“Still.” He meant it more than he could really articulate standing in this barn at one in the morning with his brain fuzzy from exhaustion and sugar and something else.

You studied him for a long moment, then seemed to come to some kind of decision. “You guys want some cake for the road?”

“For the road?” Steve repeated quizzically, still processing the offer through the haze of interrupted eating and Dustin’s increasingly frantic honking.

“Yeah.” You were already moving, picking up the plate. “I mean, I made way too much. And you said you were hungry.” You glanced back at him over your shoulder, and there was something so shy in your gesture as you shrugged loosely. “Seems like you and your friend could use it more than me.”

Another honk split the night air, and Steve winced. “He’s really—he’s not usually this impatient.”

You shrugged again. “He’s worried about you,” you said, like it was the most natural thing ever. “That’s sweet.”

Steve hadn't really thought about it like that. He'd been annoyed, mostly, at Dustin's inability to just sit tight for twenty minutes without spiraling. But you were right, underneath all the anxiety and the need to control every variable, Dustin had been scared something happened to him. But Steve really didn’t want to leave to talk about the Upside Down and everything horrible that goes with it.

“Yeah,” he said, softer now. “I guess.”

You disappeared through a door he hadn't noticed before—the one that probably led into the house—and Steve was left standing there, listening to Dustin honk again. He stuck his head out of the barn.

“I’m coming!” he called toward the van, probably too loud. “Two minutes!”

He could see Dustin's silhouette jerk in surprise, then the kid was rolling down the window, his voice carrying across the distance. “You said ten minutes, Steve! It’s been seventeen.”

“I know! I’m getting—just hold on.”

Steve ducked back inside, running his hand through his hair, and found you returning with a wicker basket that looked handwoven. It was lined with a kitchen towel printed with strawberries, and you were carefully settling the remainder of the chocolate cake inside, wrapped in plastic wrap that caught the light.

“Here.” You pulled two glass bottles from where you’d tucked them under your arm, setting them in the basket. “Lemonade. Made it this morning—well, yesterday morning, technically.” You paused, studying the contents. “You think that’s enough?”

“No—this is—” Steve moved closer, staring at the basket like it might disappear if he looked too hard. “This is more than enough. This is—you don’t have to do this.”

You looked up at him, and your expression was so earnest it made his chest tight. “Hey, it’s no big deal. There’s genuinely too much of everything here.”

There was something fragile in the space between you, in the way you were looking at him like he was someone worth taking care of. Steve couldn't remember the last time someone had done something like this for him, not because he'd charmed them or convinced them or because they wanted something in return. Just because they wanted to. Just because they were kind.

“Thank you,” he said, and it came out rougher than he meant it to.

You smiled, ducking your head again in that way that made him want to see you do it over and over. “It’s just cake, Harrington.”

It wasn’t, but he didn’t know how to explain what he meant. That in the world he’d become so accustomed to, the world with monsters and too much death, there was someone who he hardly knew offering him things just because they could tell he needed it.

Another honk, more tentative this time, and you laughed softly. The sound was like wind chimes, delicate and warm.

“You really should go,” you said, holding out the basket. “Go calm your friend down and I’ll have the generator down by the time you get back.”

“You don’t have to do that—”

“Steve.” You were halfway up the ladder now, looking down at him, and hearing his name in your mouth made his pulse stutter because you said it without the edge people often used with his name. “I’ve got this. Go.”

The walk back to the van felt surreal, the basket swinging in his hand, its weight solid and real. The night air was cool against his face, carrying that flower smell again, stronger now, or maybe he was just more aware of it. The fields stretched out on either side of him, rows and rows of what he couldn't identify in the dark, organized and cared for.

Dustin had the passenger window rolled down, his face pale in the moonlight. “Finally! Steve, I thought—” His eyes landed on the basket. “That’s not a generator.”

Steve pulled open the driver's side door, setting the basket carefully on the seat between them before sliding in. “Cake.”

“You were gone so long getting cake?” Dustin’s voice rose slightly. “I thought you were caught. I thought they were processing you through some machine—I was literally about to go in there and—” He stopped, staring at the basket. “You did get the generator, didn’t you?”

Steve pulled back the strawberry-printed towel, revealing the plastic-wrapped chocolate cake and the bottles of lemonade nestled beside it. “Yeah, yeah” he muttered absentmindedly. “Gonna get it now.”

Dustin eyed the cake. He climbed out of the van, and headed back toward the barn. You had the generator on the ground now, had somehow managed to haul it down by yourself. You were crouching next to it, coiling the cord into a neat loop, your flannel falling off one shoulder to reveal the strap of your tank top. You looked up when you heard his footsteps, and smiled.

“That was fast,” you said, standing. There was a smudge of dust on your cheek now, and your braid was even messier than before.

“He’s fine.” Steve moved to the other side of the generator, testing the weight. It was heavy, but manageable. “You got this down by yourself?”

“I live on a farm,” you said teasingly. “I’m stronger than I look.”

Steve believed it. “Still. That’s—thanks. For all of this.”

You walked with him toward the barn door, your footsteps quiet beside his heavier ones, and Steve was hyper-aware of your presence beside him. The way you moved, unhurried and graceful even in bare feet. The way you smelled like vanilla and chocolate and that flower sweetness that seemed to cling to everything in this place.

When they reached the entrance, you stopped, hanging back in the shadows where the moonlight didn't quite reach. Your arms wrapped around yourself, and Steve noticed you shivering slightly. The flannel was big but thin, and the night had gotten colder.

“Hey, be careful,” you said, soft enough he almost missed it. “With whatever you’re doing. Be safe.”

The words hit Steve sideways. Be safe, like you actually cared about what happened to him after he drove away.

“I will,” he said, and it came out like a promise.

Your smile was small and sweet, catching just enough light for him to see it. “And don’t forget to bring the generator back. My dad’ll notice in a few days.”

“I will,” Steve said again, and he meant it more than he’d meant anything in a while.

You raised your hand in a small wave, and Steve had to force himself to turn around, to walk back toward the van where Dustin was probably having seventeen different theories about mission parameters and social dynamics.

When he reached the van and loaded the generator into the back—careful not to jostle it too much, aware that you'd gone to the trouble of unplugging everything and coiling the cords—he couldn't help but glance back at the barn one more time.

You were still there, silhouetted in the doorway, watching to make sure he made it safe. When you saw him looking, you waved again, smaller this time, more intimate somehow. Then you were turning back inside, and the barn door swung shut behind you with a soft creak of old hinges.

Steve stood there for a second longer than necessary, the night settling around him, before placing the generator in the back and climbing into the driver's seat.

Dustin was already tearing into the cake with one of the forks, his eyes rolling back in his head.

“Oh my god,” Dustin said through a mouthful. “Steve, this is incredible.”

“I know,” Steve said, and let the words sit there smugly. It truly was rare that Steve got to be the one who’d actually delivered something instead of just almost screwing it up.

“Who gave this to you? And why?” The questions tumbled out rapid-fire between bites. Dustin looked almost suspicious.

He said your name, and watched a vague recognition fall across Dustin’s face. Steve started the engine, checked the mirrors, tried to ignore the way his heart was still racing. “And—I don’t know. She’s just, she’s nice.”

“She’s more than nice. I think she likes—”

Leave it to Dustin to spin this into a whole conspiracy. In the same breath he thought it, he also thought that maybe it’d been a long time since he or Dustin have been afforded kindness by a stranger, simply for the sake of it.

Still, Steve rolled his eyes, arm stretching out to cover Dustin’s mouth. “Shut up and eat your cake, idiot.”

Dustin slumped back in his seat as he continued eating the cake. Steve thought the interrogation was probably over, but after a minute, Dustin said, “She cute?”

Vey, Steve thought to himself. “Henderson—”

“I’m just asking. It’s a valid question!”

Steve rolled his eyes and didn’t answer, but there was an easiness to Dustin’s chatter he had missed. He hadn’t mentioned the Russian gates or the Upside Down, and was now simply a kid needling him about a girl, the same way a regular kid might needle his babysitter. He supposed he had you to thank for that, too.

“Do you like her?”

“I don’t—I just met her. Like literally just met her.”

“Yeah, and you got cake.”

“She also held a gun at me, so I don’t know.”

Dustin’s brows furrowed, and he acted as if that was the most normal thing ever. In the grand scheme of their predicament, that probably was. “Before or after giving you the cake?”

“Use that smart head of yours and figure it out.”

“Are you gonna return the generator?”

“Mhm.”

“And maybe ask her out?”

Steve’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as he felt his ears grow hot at the idea. “Don’t have time for stuff like that right now.” And that much was true. In between the crawls and the planning for crawls and the downtime he needed after the crawls, there was no way he could pencil in dating. All of his spare moments were spent at the WSQK—actually doing the job—or checking on the kids or helping with surveillance or just trying to stay awake long enough to function. His life wasn’t exactly conducive to dinner and a movie.

But even as he said it, Steve was thinking about the possibility of doing one thing that seemed normal. He would return the generator and the basket to you, though, because he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to see you again.

After one whole week of crawls that lead to only more nightmares and explaining to Hopper that, yes, while the generator does work just fine, but they still need a new one, Steve was able to make it back to the farm. With the generator in tow. He’d managed to squeeze this in between the two hour long gap he received between the closing shift at the WSQK and the meeting in the Wheelers’s basement.

Steve had been planning this for a week. Well, planning was generous. He’d been thinking about it all week while simultaneously trying to be safe during the crawls, dealing with everyone’s increasingly creative forms of expressing anxiety, and fielding approximately seven hundred questions from Dustin about when he was going to return everything.

The answer was now. Finally. It had to be now because if he didn't do it today, he'd lose his nerve entirely.

It was 6:03, and Steve was driving down the same dark road he’d taken a week ago, except this time everything looked different in the early evening light. The fields were gold and green instead of silver and shadow. He could actually see the farm properly now; the white fence posts he’d only just glimpsed, the sprawling fields sectioned into neat squares, the barn that looked even older and more solid in the daylight.

And the flowers. Jesus, so many flowers.

Steve had noticed them at night, had smelt them, but seeing them now was something else entirely. Rows and rows of them stretched out behind the barn, organized by color like it was a rainbow someone had planted in the earth. Even from the road he could see how carefully tended everything was, how much work had gone into making something like this exist.

He pulled up near the barn—the same spot he'd parked a week ago when he'd been trying to steal from you, god, he was an idiot—and killed the engine. His hands were sweating. When was the last time his hands had sweat over a girl? Not since Nancy, probably, and that was a long time ago in Upside-Down-years where time moved so much slower with an active threat looming over everyone.

The basket sat in the passenger seat, and Steve had agonized over it more than he wanted to admit. He couldn’t return it empty, that felt wrong, like he hadn’t appreciated the gesture. He’d spent twenty minutes in the grocery store staring at the grocery section before admitting defeat and moving to the flowers. That felt stupid now, bringing flowers to someone who grew them, and he could see clearly to what extent now. Still, the woman working the floral section convinced him that “everyone likes getting flowers, honey, even people who grow them.”

So now there was a small bouquet of daisies in the basket wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. He’d also written a thank you note, and he wasn’t sure if people did that anymore. He knew for a fact he had never done that.

Steve grabbed the basket, took a breath that didn't settle his nerves at all, and climbed out of the van.

The farm smelled the same as it had that night—like grass and earth and that overwhelming flower sweetness—but warmer now, baked by the sun all day. He could hear chickens somewhere, their soft clucking, and the distant sound of a dog barking. Closer, there was faint music, like someone had a radio on, something folksy with a woman's voice he didn't recognize.

You were in the flower fields about thirty yards out, kneeling between rows of tulips with a pair of garden shears in one hand and a basket—bigger than the one you’d given him, half-full of cut stems—beside you. You were wearing denim overalls, the kind that were slightly too big that they slouched at the shoulders, worn soft and faded from years of washing. Underneath was a white t-shirt, and you had on cream colored work boots that were clearly meant for someone with bigger feet, laces double-knotted, caked with mud at the soles. Your hair was up in a loose ponytail, strands escaping to stick to your neck and frame your face, and even from here, Steve could see the dirt on your knees, your hands, smudged on your cheek where you’d probably pushed your hair back without thinking.

You were humming along to the music, completely absorbed in what you were doing, and Steve felt something in his chest crack open.

A dog noticed him first, a border collie he'd heard barking, black and white with bright eyes, came bounding over with its tail wagging. It was curious and friendly, thank god. It sniffed at Steve's legs, decided he was acceptable, and barked once.

You looked up then.

For a second you just stared, like you couldn't quite process what you were seeing. Then your whole face transformed. Your surprise melted into something that looked like happiness or relief, and you were standing, brushing dirt off your knees and shading your eyes against the sun.

“Harrington?” you called, and even across the distance Steve could hear the smile in your voice.

He’d rehearsed something casual on the drive over—something about the farm, something breezy—and every drafted version evaporated the second your dog barked and you looked up.

“Hey,” he called back as you started walking toward him, the dog trotting at your heels.

As you got closer, Steve could see more details of you. There was a piece of straw caught in the strands of your hair. There was a smudge of something green on your jaw, chlorophyll maybe. Your hands were definitely dirty, palms caked with soil. The overalls had a slight tear in them by the waist. You looked tired but happy, worked-hard but satisfied, and Steve thought he’d never seen someone look so much in their element before that it made him happy for you.

“You came back,” you said, voice filled with a slight surprise, like you thought he genuinely may not come back.

“Yeah. Sorry it took so long.” Steve held up the basket like evidence. “Work’s been crazy.”

“That’s okay.” You stopped a few feet away, and Steve noticed you were a little out of breath from the walk over. “I figured you were busy.” You paused, and something shifted in your expression as you looked at him, eyes flickering down to the basket. “Hey, thanks for bringing it back,” you smiled warmly.

Steve shrugged. “Promised I would,” he said, returning your smile. He held it out to you, hands careful. “There’s—I put something in there. It’s not much. I just—”

You pulled back the strawberry-printed towel and found the daisies wrapped in brown paper. Your breath caught, small and off-guard, like you hadn’t been prepared for it. “Steve.”

“I know. It’s stupid, bringing flowers when you’ve got—” He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing at the fields behind you.

“Mm, it’s not stupid.” You peeled the paper back carefully, the twine still looped loose around your fingers, and brought the daisies up to check them the way he imagined you checked every petal that came into your hands. Then, you cradled them to your chest like they were precious. “These are perfect. I love daisies.”

“Yeah?” Steve felt something in his chest loosen. “Lady at the store says everyone likes getting flowers, but I wasn’t sure—”

“Lady was right.” You brought them to your nose, breathed in, eyes falling shut for just a second. When you looked back at him, the last of the sun was low enough to catch the side of your face, and your smile was so sweet it made his throat lodge “Thank you. Really.”

The dog nudged Steve's hand with her nose, insistent, and he crouched down to scratch behind her ears. She leaned into the touch, tail wagging, and Steve found himself smiling despite the exhaustion pulling at his bones.

“That’s Clover. She likes you,” you observed, voice quiet like he’d passed a test he had no clue about. “She doesn’t usually warm up to people fast.”

“I’m good with dogs, I think,” Steve said. Clover was nosing at his pockets now, snuffling with genuine conviction, like she thought he might have treats hidden somewhere.

“Sorry, girl,” Steve told her. “Fresh out.”

You were still holding the daisies, and Steve noticed you hadn't moved closer or farther away, just stood there at a careful distance like you were trying to figure something out. “Did you bring the generator back too?”

“Yeah. It’s in the van. I can plug it back in where it was, if you want.”

“That’d be great, thank you.” You glanced back toward the flower fields, then at Steve, and something shifted in your expression. “But, do you have time? I don’t want to keep you if you’re needed somewhere.”

Steve checked his watch, the numbers barely visible in the dying light. 6:14. He had until eight.. “I've got time. Almost two hours, actually.”

“Oh.” The relief in your voice was obvious, and Steve had to bite down a smile at that. “Good. That’s good.” You shifted the basket to one hip and seemed to come to some sort of decision. “Have you eaten? Dinner, I mean.”

“I—” Steve tried to remember. He’d had coffee at the station. A bag pretzels from the vending machine at around 4, stale enough to catch in his throat. “Not really.”

“Okay,” you said decisively, like you’d made up your mind about something. “You wanna stay for dinner, then?” Your shoulders pulled into your body slightly, like you were scared to ask the question.

“I’d like that—but I don’t wanna intrude—”

“You can and you will.” You were already walking toward the house, Clover trotting beside you, and Steve found himself following. “We made too much pot roast anyway, and it’s better shared. Plus—” You glanced back over your shoulder, some hair slipping loose with the motion. “You’ve looked tired both times I’ve seen you.”

Steve wanted to argue, but the truth was he was starving, and whatever you were cooking smelled incredible now that he was closer to the house, and the thought of sitting down somewhere that wasn't the station or the bench outside for a quick snack or his empty house felt almost painfully appealing.

“Okay,” he heard himself say. “Okay.”

Your smile widened like you were pleased. “Okay. But first—” You stopped at an outdoor spigot near the back porch, set your basket down, and started washing your hands under the cold water. Dirt and green streaked off your skin, and you scrubbed methodically and thoroughly. “Can’t cook with field hands. My mom would have a fit.”

Steve watched you wash, watched the water run clear over your wrists and between your fingers, and felt something settle in his chest. This was real. This was normal. Standing in someone's backyard on a Wednesday evening, watching them wash dirt off their hands before dinner. No monsters, no conspiracies, no life-or-death missions. Just a girl and a farm and the promise of pot roast. It felt almost unreal and also exactly like what he’d imagined his life to look like before Barb went missing in the woods.

“Here.” You turned off the spigot and patted your hands dry using one of the five clothes in the basket on the ground, water droplets catching the light. “You probably got dust on them from the generator. Want to wash up?”

Steve looked down at his hands and found you were right; there was some grime under his nails, grease smudged on his palm from checking the van's oil that morning. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Steve stopped needing excuses somewhere around the second week. He’d gone to the crawl right after helping you with making dinner and eating it on two small stools outside feeling giddy, despite the fact that he was on his way to the Upside Down. It was a strange feeling, and he’d tried—truly had—to get it through his thick skull that he had no reason to create another responsibility for himself, at least not when the tunnels kept swallowing more of him each time and returning less of him back. How could he, when you felt so little like a responsibility, and so much like the few unbroken hours in a week built entirely out of triage?

His van had started going for the turnoff, giving way to the softer hush of the farm’s drive-up. He’d stopped rehearsing reasons to come, and simply came. He’d started noticing how you hummed off-key on purpose, he was almost certain, testing whether he’d bother to notice. You’d never leave a row half-cut, not for food, not for thunder, not, he suspected, for much short of anything short of the actual apocalypse. Given his life lately, the latter felt less like hyperbole and more like a real caveat. Your father called you ‘sweet pea’ and Steve noticed how the man always said it so quietly, like affection embarrased him more than it embarrased you, and you would always pretend not to catch it.

Steve had become content with sitting the few hours in his week pretending he wasn’t putting his life on the line all the time he wasn’t in those few hours. He’d arrive some evenings straight off a crawl, knuckles split, a smell clinging to the back of his throat that he could only describe as wrong, and something about the promise of you would work on him like a torniquet works on a wound.

Some evenings, the light would come in low and buttered through the kitchen window while you stood at the counter doing something with your hands and for one entire second Steve had started to think you looked more like something a much older painting would’ve made an altarpiece of. He never said any of this out loud. He knew that whatever was beneath the ground only illuminated you further above ground, but he was fairly certain that if he’d met you in some other version of his life, he would’ve looked at you twice just the same. The tunnels had only handed him eyes that were able to notice.

He’d come even when he shouldn’t have come. Tonight, the sky was the color of a healing bruise all afternoon—sick yellow-gray bleeding into a deeper, angrier purple on the edges—and by the time he’d pulled in, the first fat raindrops were already smacking the windshield. He’d told himself that he should’ve turned around two miles back, for this was far from the night he should’ve been visiting a farm.

You met him at the door already laughing, hair scraped back, sleeves shoved to the elbow like you’d been in the middle of something. You were always in the middle of something. You hauled him in by the sleeve, and water sheeted off his jacket onto your floorboards. Your father made a discontended hum from the couch in the living room, watching him drip like a retriever.

“Evening, sir,” Steve said, which came out considerably more dignified than what he looked.

Your father grunted; it could’ve been an indictment or a greeting. Steve learned it was hard to tell with him. “Storm’s meant to get worse before it gets better,” he said, flipping a page. “Hope you brought a change of clothes, kid.”

“I—no, sir. Didn’t think that far ahead.”

“Clearly.” Steve could’ve sworn he’d faintly smiled before he vanished back to his newsprint. “Her brother’s got shirts in the room behind the kitchen. Take one before you catch your death.”

You were already pulling Steve in as he tried to figure out whether that had been permission or a threat, laughing under your breath.

You dragged Steve up to a little room behind the kitchen. It was a little bigger than a closet, low-ceilinged, and lined with shelves that had been through what he could only assume was water damage. Zinc buckets sat stacked along one side of the wall, a few still half-full of stems soaking, and a single bare bulb hung overhead.

You flipped the light on properly and started rifling through a shelf of folded fabric before tossing him a flannel. He caught it at his chest.

“I told you not to bother with coming when it’s so bad out,” you said, already focusing on something else as you turned to give him the illusion of privacy.

He peeled off his soaked shirt. “You told me not to bother with bringing flowers every time I come,” he murmured, using the towel to wipe down his arms and torso. “I can still bother with you.” He finished putting on the flannel in the silence you gave him. “Alright. I’m decent now.”

When you’d told Steve about the farmer’s market over a dinner, Steve had wanted badly to go see you there. It felt like the closest way to get a piece of the version of you that existed outside his orbit. He wanted to see how you were like outside the farm and then, greedily, wanted to be let in anyway.

He made the mistake of mentioning it to Robin.

“Alright, when are we going?”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Steve said dumbly. “I’m going by myself.”

“Excuse me?” Robin set down the reel of tape she’d been threading, and Steve watched as something wounded flickered behind her affronted tone. “There is an entire girl, apparently. And that’s where you’ve been disappearing to for—how long’s it been?”

Steve didn’t bother dignifying that with a response, so she added, “I had to hear about her secondhand from Henderson. I’m your best friend, Steve.”

Steve’s eyes widened as he shook his head at her. That much was true. Dustin was a blabbermouth if not anything else. That, paired with his deduction skills—Steve’s not going home, Steve looks happier, Steve met a girl that night—had him piecing it faster than Steve had pieced his own feelings on the matter, which, admittedly, wasn’t saying much these days.

“You’re crazy. You’re guilting me into this.” But he didn’t bother arguing any further. If he was honest—if he let himself sit in it for a second, past the nerves—he wanted Robin there, so he could have proof that the two halves of his life could exist in the same space without collapsing.

Selfishly, in the same feeling, he’d wanted to keep you away from anything else that was involved with the Upside Down. He thought he was already an unwelcome addition into your life, something that had shown up with a guilty conscience and never left. He didn’t want you anywhere near the rest of it.

Still, the boyish part of him wanted to have that normalcy of letting his best friend meet the girl he’s been growing sweet on, the way anyone else his age got to do it.

He figured he could have that much at least.

Saturday arrived and it was a late-summer sort of morning where he wasn’t sure if it was going to rain. The gravel lot behind the church was already filling with the hum of people completing their errands early in the morning. Steve caught the smell of your stall before he caught sight of it; it was easy after spending so much time around your work. It was sweeter and more concentrated here than it ever got out on the fields, like you’d specifically put the whole month and distilled it down to your stall.

Robin walked beside him, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, scanning the stalls. “Do you think she’ll like me?”

“God, I hope not,” Steve muttered, eyes finally landing on you.

You were mid-conversation with an older woman, wrapping something purple and spiky in brown paper, laughing at whatever the woman had said. Your hair was pulled back, a canvas apron dusted with dirt-colored smudges worked into the fabric like a permanant second pattern, and there was a chalkboard sign propped against the table in your looping, almost-cursive handwriting that said ‘DAHLIAS - $4/BUNCH, ASK ABOUT WEDDING ORDERS.’

Steve stopped walking and Robin ran into his shoulder.

“Oh.” Robin’s voice went soft, almost reverant, taking in the whole scene of the buckets of flowers sorted by color, the chalkboard sign, you. “Okay. Yup.”

He didn’t get to ask what she meant by that because right then, you looked up and found him across two rows of tomato stands. Your whole face shifted, surprised that got immediately elbowed out of the way by something warmer, something that had stopped being surprising weeks ago but clearly hadn’t stopped being nice.

“Hey.” You came around the table, wiping your hands on your apron, a little breathless. “You came.”

“Said I would.”

“You say a lot of things,” you said, a little fondly, he noted. Your eyes slid past him to Robin, who’d tucked herself behind Steve and was choosing to look at you over his shoulder. “Hi.”

“Hi!” Robin came around and stuck her hand out, entirely too bright. “Robin. I already know a lot about you, and you know nothing about me. So, we’re starting this friendship at a real power imbalance.”

You laughed and shook her hand. “Nice to meet you too, I think.”

Steve embarrasingly jutted a thumb in Robin’s direction as he looked at you. “She’s exaggerating.”

“I’m gonna go look at the—” Robin started backing away, eyes catching on something a few stalls down. Or maybe she was pretending. Steve really had no idea anymore. “—that. I’m gonna look at it.” She turned away, weaving through the crowd after her tactless way of showing she wanted to leave Steve with you for some unsupervised minutes.

You watched her go, slightly amused. “What’s she heard about me?”

“Not much,” he said, distracted as he reached out to pluck a stray leaf caught in your hair, a habit he’d built without noticing. “You’ve got—there we go.”

“Thank you.” You tipped your head slightly into the motion of his hands, an unconscious lean. “Big Saturday. We sold out of peonies before nine.”

“Yeah? None left for me?” Steve leaned his hip against the edge of the table, in no hurry now that he’d gotten here, watching you refold a stack of brown paper.

“For you, I could probably find something.” You set the paper down and crouched behind the table, rummaging through a bucket tucked in the shade where the good stems went to survive the heat, and came back up with a single peony, slightly bruised at the edge of one petal, clearly a reject you’d pulled aside rather than sold. “This one didn’t make the cut.”

“I’ll take the reject.” Steve turned it over in his hand, admiring the sheer size of it and the way the petals crowded in on each other. “It’s on-brand for me.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” you said, smiling, and you reached over to swipe a thumb along his jaw before he could ask why. Your fingers lingered at the corner of a fading bruise near his temple, one he’d forgotten was still visible. “Steve.”

“That’s from last week,” he said before you could ask.

“It’s still healing weird. You should ice it.”

“I did.”

“For, like, five minutes probably.” You crossed your arms over your chest, a knowing look on your face. “Gonna tell me what happened, or should I guess?”

“Ran into a door.”

“Good one.”

He caught your hand before you could drop it away to hold it against his jaw for a second longer than the moment strictly called for, feeling the roughness of your palm against his skin, the small calluses from shears and soil that had become as familiar to him as anything about you. “M’fine. Promise.”

He could see the want to push further sitting right behind your eyes, the same quiet worry you’d been giving him since the first time you met him—only intensified now—whenever something reminded you that his life held pieces you weren’t allowed to see. You just exhaled, letting it go.

“Just—be more careful around doors.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, tongue coming out just an inch to run over his bottom lip, and watched your eyes focus on everything behind him rather than him, satisfaction curling warm in him at how easy it had become to fluster you. Then, he clicked his tongue, digging for his wallet to bring out a few dollar bills. “Here.” He held out a couple bills, and you started at him like he’d offered you something offensive. “For the peony?” he clarified.

“It’s a reject, Steve, it’s basically garbage. I’m not taking your money for garbage.” You pushed his hand back toward him firmly, and he let you, mostly because he didn’t really like the idea of arguing with you, especially not over two dollars. “Put your money away before I start charging you for the ones you cut, too. Might as well, considering how many you destroyed over the summer.”

“You should,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, then slipped the bills under a basket anyway when your attention snagged away.

Robin appeared again, holding a cone of kettle corn the size of her head. “Okay, I bought kettle corn, looked at gourds, and made eye contact with a goat.”

“How’s the kettle corn?” you asked, shifting your attention toward her, resting your palms on the table.

“Life-changing.” She held out the cone to you as an offer, and you plucked a few pieces with a small, grateful sound, popping them into your mouth without breaking stride from tidying the buckets in front of you.

“This is good. They usually run out by ten,” you agreed, and gestured vaguely toward the stand. “Get in line early next time or it’s slim pickings.”

“That’s useful to know. We’ll come earlier next time.” Robin nodded, chewing along with you, and for a second the two of you simply stood there in silence, sharing the food like you’d known each other longer than five minutes, while Steve leaned against the table with a flurry of uninvited, completely optimistic thoughts swarming his mind.

“This is an interesting sight.”

Steve almost dropped the garden scissors to the ground and jumped up at the voice.

A guy was standing at the edge of the flower field, hands shoved in the pockets of a faded hoodie, work boots caked with mud that looked newer than the rest of him. He was tall—taller than Steve, maybe six-two—and Steve recognized him almost immediately, even after years. Miles, your older brother, Steve assumed, who’d been a senior when Steve was a sophomore, offensive lineman who’d protected the quarterback without much Hawkins fanfare or glory.

He wasn’t someone Steve had really known, just someone he’d existed alongside in his previous ecosystem of Hawkins High social hierarchies.

“Harrington,” Miles said, blowing out a breath as he confirmed what he was trying to figure out.

“Hey.” Steve stood up slowly, brushing dirt off his jeans. The shears felt stupid in his hand now, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. “I was—she asked me to—”

“To cut her flowers?” Miles’s expression was unreadable aside from the quirk of his left brow, like he was amused. “That’s real charitable.”

“It’s not—” Steve stopped, unsure how to explain what this was, how he’d started showing up at the farm once, then twice, then somehow it had become a regular thing over the past few weeks. You’d mentioned off-hand that you were running behind on cutting because something in the air had made the dahlias and sunflowers bloom all at once, and Steve had continued to offer to help after his shifts. “She’s got a lot to do, and I had some time.”

Miles nodded slowly, studying Steve in a way that made it clear he was catching up on him in every way possible.

“You work at the radio station?” Miles asked, gesturing down to the WSQK shirt Steve was wearing.

“Yeah. Production stuff, mainly. Editing, running board.” Steve set the shears down carefully in the basket, suddenly very aware. “Been there for a while.”

“You played basketball, right? Point guard?”

“Yeah.” Steve was surprised he remembered. They’d barely overlapped, and Miles had been football through and through. “You were—offensive line?”

“Left tackle.” Miles pulled one hand out of his pocket to gesture vaguely at his own frame. He stepped into the row then, careful of the flowers in a way that surprised Steve; he’d either been taught to be or had been yelled at enough times that it stuck. “Didn’t take you for the type to stick around Hawkins. Everyone figured you’d be somewhere with a real team.”

There was no accusation in the words, but Steve felt himself gulp nervously.

“Things changed,” he said.

“Yeah.” Miles crouched a few feet away, picked up a fallen dahlia head that had snapped off its stem and turned it over his fingers.

There was a silence that felt almost uneasy. Steve went back to cutting, mostly to have something to do with his hands. He’d gotten better at it over the past few weeks; you’d been showing him where to cut, how the angle mattered, and how to leave enough stem that the plant kept on giving. His first few attempts had been something close to butchery; now his pile looked almost neat.

Miles watched him for a moment. “She teach you that?”

“Yeah. Took her a couple tries.” Steve clipped another stem. “I killed a whole row the first time. Cut too low.”

Something close to a laugh moved through Miles’s nose. “She cried when I mowed over her marigolds when she was nine. I was thirteen, didn’t know they were hers, thought it was just the edge of the lawn.” He set the broken dahlia down gently, almost without thinking about it. “Cried for a week straight. My mom made me replant the whole bed by hand to make it up to her.”

Miles let out a short sigh then. “She’s better about it now.” He tilted his head toward the far end of the field where the rows looked thinner, newer, and the soil darker like it’d been turned recently. “She’s been rebuilding those back beds since spring. The quake took the whole back third. Split the ground right down the middle of her best stuff. Bulbs she’d been growing for years, just—gone.”

Most people talked about the earthquake that way. Bad luck. An act of god. A thing that happened to you, like hail or transmission. The earth opened up and that was that.

Steve’s hands went still on the shears. He knew what had opened up the ground, down to his bones. He knew the smell of it, the cold wrong air that came up through the gates, the way the maps Hopper kept tacking to the cabin wall had a red line running right out toward the edge of town, toward the farms, toward here. He’d seen photographs of the fissures, he just hadn’t thought about whose land sat over the worst of it, whose years of work got swallowed when the thing he was supposed to be stopping reached up out of the dark and took it.

Steve had been crawling through tunnels for months chasing the source of it, and the whole time, you’d been putting back what was stolen, calling it an earthquake because that’s what they’d made you believe.

You came around the side of the barn before Steve could respond to Miles, and the timing was almost a mercy.

You had a watering can in one hand and a dish towel thrown over your shoulder; you’d changed at some point since the morning—out of overalls, into a sundress with a cardigan that definitely belonged to someone older, sleeves pushed up to your elbows. You spotted the two of them and your brows knitted together as your whole face moved into a complicated thing; pleased to see Steve and suspicious of your brother.

“What are you doing out here?” you said, eyes narrowed in Miles’s direction.

“Talkin’ to your boyfriend,” Miles said mildly, pushing himself to stand up.

“He’s not—” You went a little flustered, and Steve felt his own ears go hot, and neither of you finished the sentence. “Don’t you have a tractor to work on?”

“Tractor’s good.”

“Dad said it’s been making a weird sound.”

“Dad thinks you talking is a weird sound.” But Miles was already moving, brushing past you. He paused just long enough to pluck the dish towel off your shoulder and drop it onto your head. You swatted him without any real heat, and he ducked out of range.

For a second, Steve watched the two of you with this unnameable dull ache of standing on the outside of something that came easy to other people.

“Harrington.” Miles glanced back over his shoulder at Steve this time. “Fix your grip on those shears. You’re embarrassing her.”

“He is not,” you called after your brother, but he was gone around the barn. You pulled the towel off your head and rolled “Ignore him. He thinks he’s hilarious.”

Steve shrugged. “He’s a little funny.”

You crouched into the row beside him, setting the watering can down in the dirt. Your knee knocked his where there wasn't quite room for the both of you between the dahlias. You didn't move it. Neither did he. “He didn’t say anything stupid, did he?”

Steve thought about the marigolds. The shoebox of receipts nobody would honor. The thin dark rows at the back of the field where you'd been putting the world back together by hand since spring.

“Nah,” he said. “Just brother stuff.”

You hummed, clearly far from convinced, as you pulled your bottom lip between your teeth. But you let it go. You picked up the shears he’d abandoned, crouching down beside him, and turned them over. You held it out to him handle-first.

He took them and made a cut, and you leaned in close enough that he could smell the sun on you, watching his hands the way he’d watched yours the first afternoon. Steve found that his fingers weren’t quite as steady as they’d been a minute ago.

“Wait,” you murmured. You reached over and slid his hand down the handle, your fingers warm against his knuckles. It was so mechanical, so pragmatic, that Steve felt almost silly for the way his pulse had picked up. “There. Now you’ve got some leverage.”

You smiled at him, turning your neck slightly as you did so, and it started at one corner and took a second getting to the other. Steve had the even more unhelpful thought that he could probably map out the exact movement of it by now, knew it would pull a small crease into your left cheek before it touched your right.

He made himself look at the dahlias and tried the cut again, your hand still loosely bracketing his. You were guiding him now more than gripping. The stem gave clean this time, no ragged tear, no crushed pith. You made a small, delightedly pleased sound in your throat like you would when you’d taught a dog to sit.

“See,” you said. “Not so hard.”

He felt his own lips pick up at that. “Got a great teacher.”

“Well.” You sat back on your heels. “We'll make a farmer out of you yet, Harrington.”

“God, I hope not.”

Steve wasn’t sure if you knew that he kept washing up here more than any reasonable excuse required. He wasn’t going to be the one to tell you. Though, he was sure you already knew. From what he’d learned of you in the hours doing handiwork and talking that somehow stacked up, you were smart. You just chose, with what he considered to be very thought-out grace, what to let alone.

A bee had gotten drunk on one of the heads a few feet down, weaving in slow, dumb loops. He watched you pause to watch it with the same patient attention you seemed to give most things. He had the unglamorous vertigo of noticing that he could probably spend a very long time watching you just watch things. And another that he’d very much like to.

The sun had dropped low enough to hit the row sideways instead of from overhead, and it turned the whole bed molten at the edges. He checked his watch before he could stop himself, then blew out a short breath as he read the time.

Your head turned slightly. “You have to go?”

“No,” Steve said, lied. Sucking in a sharp breath through his nose, he added, slower, because he didn’t want to lie to you and didn’t want to leave either, “Not yet. I’ve got a—I have to run for something for a friend in a bit. Pick something up.” He turned the shears over in his hand. “But not yet.”

You pressed your lips together, and he could see you try to bite down a smile. “Always so cryptic,” you murmured.

“You want to come?”

Your brows furrowed as you blinked. “Come where?”

“On the errand. It’s—” He shrugged, going for casual and missing it completely. “It’s nothing. It’s like a twenty-minute drive but I figured—don’t know. You’ve been out here for so long. Might be nice for us to go someplace else.”

You looked at him for a long moment, long enough that he felt his own breath pick up at the sudden, ridiculous fear that he may have overstepped, that he’d misread the past month of baked goods and farm-work completely. But then, you glanced down at yourself, turning over your hand to inspect your fingernails, and said, “Let me just wash my hands quickly.”

You’d folded yourself up into the passenger seat with your knees up, the cardigan pulled over your hands, watching the farm mirror shrink in the side mirror until the road swallowed it. Steve drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the gearshift.

“You can change it,” he said, nodding at the radio, which was murmuring something classic-rock at a low volume. “I won’t be offended.”

“I like hearing what you listen to,” you said simply, and Steve saw you shrug from the corner of his eye. “Tells me about you.”

“Oh, yeah?” He let out a short chuckle. “Then I guess I’ve gotta listen to what you listen to someday. Learn more about you.”

“It’s mostly my mom’s records,” you admitted. “Patsy Cline. Some Fleetwood Mac.” You tucked your knees up higher, resting your chin on them. “Nothing you’d probably play at your radio station.”

“I’d play it.” Steve meant it more than the offhand way he said it. “We get, like, four requests a week. Two of them are some divorced guy dedicating something bitter to his ex. I’d take what you like over that any day.”

You laughed—a surprised lilt woven in it—and Steve felt the sound in his chest. The road unspooled ahead, flat and endless yet somehow still beautiful, cornfields giving way to soybean giving way to more corn, everything gone the color of scorched match. Steve had driven this stretch a hundred times without seeing it, had spent years driving it with his eyes locked on something past the windshield. It felt different with you beside him. Slower, somehow, even though the speedometer said otherwise.

“Can I ask you something?” you said.

“That’s never a good start.”

You ignored that. “Did you always want to stay? In Hawkins?”

He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “No. My dad had this big plan for where I was supposed to end up.” He shrugged stiffly. “I was supposed to get out. Everyone kind of figured I would.”

“What happened?”

The world cracked open, essentially, but he couldn’t tell you that. He hated how much of it he couldn’t tell you. He knew he wouldn’t have wanted to tell you, anyway, but hated there was no option to do so. “Stuff happened,” he said instead, vaguely. “Ended up here. Doin’ pretty decently.”

“Do you wish you’d left?”

“What’s with the interrogation?” He huffed out a short breath, something close to a laugh as his eyes flickered to you. And because it felt wrong to leave your question unanswered, he said, “I used to.” His fingers tapped once on the gearshift. “Lately, not so much.”

He could feel you go still beside him.

“What about you?” he asked, mostly to give the moment somewhere to go. “You ever want out?”

You were quiet for a second, watching the fields slide by, and Steve found himself looking at the reflection of you in the window glass instead of the window itself, the ghost-version of your face laid faint over the outside, translucent and doubled.

“Sometimes. I wanted to go somewhere with mountains.” You tucked a strand of your hair back that the window crack kept working loose. “Then my mom got sick, and we wanted to be here. And then it was just—easier to stay. And then I started working on the tulips, and you know when you build something for long enough you can’t really picture leaving it? Feels like walking out on a kid.”

Steve nodded slowly. He wondered if you were aware of what you’d done with the fields, raising it back from the dead and the rupture that had broken apart the town.

He also thought he would have liked to take you to the mountains when this was all said and done, if he made it out. He’d probably forget to check the oil. He imagined you’d want to stop at every single roadside stand between here and wherever the land stopped being flat, looking at what grew where, comparing a stranger’s dahlias to your own with the little competitive squint you got whenever another stall’s stuff looked a little too good.

He thought about whether Clover would do good in a van for that long. Would Steve have to stop every hour so she could piss on somebody’s fence post? Would you let her ride up front with her head out the window the whole way?

“Like two peas in a pod,” he murmured. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you stayed.”

It was a whole lot of wanting with a girl who probably had no idea she was already lodged somewhere permanent in him. He hadn’t told you any of it because he found nothing about the way he thought, translated into words, would come out like anything but unhinged.

“Yeah?”

“Obviously.” His hand came off the gearshift to press a light touch to your shoulder. “Turns out I’m partial to farms now.”

“Just farms in general?”

“Nah. A very specific one.” He pulled his hand back to the gearshift before it could linger somewhere it had no business lingering, though the warmth of your palm seemed to stay printed on his palm a second longer than physics probably allowed. “Don’t get used to me being sappy, though.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” you said, mouth curving. “Though I might start expecting this.”

“Only if you keep letting me bother you. I’ve gotta stay motivated somehow.”

“That’s what you are,” you said teasingly, fond.

The radio continued to hum. He wondered whether the mountains you’d wanted as a kid looked anything like the ones he’d overheard El describe to Mike once, blue and folded and endless. He was thinking about that when the walkie went off in the cupholder and his whole body stiffened up.

It cracked to life mid-static, and Robin’s voice punched out, “Steve. Harringtoooon.” He looked over at you for a second, eyeing the walkie. “You there? Pick up.”

His hand was already moving to it, his knuckles going pale on the wheel with the other. “Yup. Here.”

“Jonathan had to do something. Can you come earlier—?”

“No—” he started saying immediately, shaking his head. “I’m not supposed to be doing—” He stopped himself. He knew he’d say too much in front of you trying to argue his way out.

“We gotta be out there before—”

“Yeah. Okay,” he bit out, because he could already figure out the rest of it. Context clues and such. It had also happened too many times that he didn’t need the entire schpiel—Steve was the one that was meant to be available. “I’m finishing something. Twenty minutes.”

“We don’t have twenty—”

“Yes, we do.” The words came out harsher than he’d intended, harsher than he’d wanted to be in front of you. He’d have to apologize to Robin first thing. “I’ll be there. In twenty minutes.”

“Fine. Twenty.”

“Yeah.” Steve set the walkie back down, face-first, the little plastic click of it landing in the cup holder, a sound that sounded enormous in the silence that followed.

He didn’t turn to face you right away, doing the entire calculation of the minutes in his head. Steve—frankly—did not want to go. He wanted to keep driving toward the errand that barely existed anymore, some ten minutes to keep you in the passenger seat a little longer. He wanted the twenty minutes the Party had eaten alive to belong to him instead. He wanted, absurdly, to turn the van around and go back to your little dahlias and just keep cutting them until there was nothing left to cut, until the whole field was empty and there was no reason to leave.

You’d turned to the window, like you were making space for his conversation and his thoughts. The little courtesy made Steve’s chest tighten.

The strand of hair had come loose again, right on cue, the window crack tugging it free. This time, before he could stop himself, Steve reached over and tucked it behind your ear. You went still, and he let his fingers stay there a second too long, grazing the shell of your ear and the warm skin beneath. He felt the whole touch-and-retreat instinct he’d been running all day just stop. He let himself have it, the one soft thing he could actually give you, wordless, instead of the thirty apologies stacked up between his teeth he didn’t even have the minutes to fucking spill.

“I’m sorry,” he tried anyway, voice dipping lower. His hand finally dropped to his lap, running out of plausible reasons to stay. “I’ll drop you home. I didn’t expect—”

“Don’t apologize,” you said, voice gentle. Somehow, that made him feel it more, not less. “I know you get busy.”

“I know. I just—” He exhaled, hands finding the wheel again, gripping it a little too hard as he turned to go back. “I wanted today to just be—today. Not interrupted by anything.”

You were quiet a second, and then you said, “Why?”

He knew it was coming. He hadn’t very well expected that you’d let his unreasonable pull go unnoticed.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Guess I don’t like it when this—whatever it is—gets cut short.” His jaw worked. “Don’t like sharing the good parts of my week with—with the other stuff.”

Because you’re the only thing that asks nothing of me except to be there with you and do mundane little things; because everyone else needs me to survive something and you just need me to show up.

He glanced over quickly to check your face, trying to read if his answer had told you what he needed it to tell you. You were smiling softly, and it seemed like you’d put on that expression just for him, just so he wouldn’t get so worked up. It almost worked.

“Well, we did have today,” you said. “Mostly.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” he said, and meant it so much his voice went rough as he said it. “All of it.”

“Okay,” you said, and Steve felt the tightness in his chest loosen just a fraction. “I’ll hold you to it.”

He needed you to hold him to it. God, he needed you to hold him to it because he had no idea how many more of these he could get, and he wanted every single good one to be yours.

Steve knew you probably hadn’t expected this when he said he’d make up for it, but after the crawl, after the tunnel had gone on twice as long as it should’ve, after Nancy’s flashlight had died and they’d had to feel their way back along the wall, after Hopper’s face when they finally surfaced, furious with relief, after all of it, Steve had found himself driving toward the farm instead of home. His hands had done it for him, muscle memory laying out the route before his brain could think to check the time, the same way they’d turned him onto your road for a month running now without him having to think about it.

It was well past midnight now. There was no moon worth mentioning, just the van’s headlights carving a narrow tunnel through all that darkness until he cut a quarter mile out.

He had no idea what he looked like. He could guess. He knew his knuckles were split from something he couldn’t fully remember hitting, knew there was a long smear of dirt and worse down one side of his jaw. He knew his shirt had a tear at the shoulder seam. He didn’t care enough to stop and turn around and go home and clean up like any person with half a working braincell would. Some raw, unedited part of him just needed to see that you were real and unhurt and still exactly where he’d left you, and every mile he didn’t drive felt like a mile spent like lying.

Your window was on the second floor, the one with the gauzy curtain that he’d learned never closed all the way, and Steve stood beneath it in the wet grass feeling monumentally stupid—a grown man about to lob pebbles at glass like this was ‘62—until he spotted the trellis instead, sturdy-looking, laced with something climbing and thorny that he knew he was going to regret grabbing.

He regretted it immediately, and then again on the second rung, splinters biting into his palm on top of everything else the night had already taken out of his hands. But he got high enough to knock, three soft raps against the pane, low enough that it wouldn’t wake your brother or father. He just waited, heart going childishly stupid and fast in his chest.

The curtain moved almost immediately, and he wondered if you hadn’t been asleep at all.

Your face appeared in the gap, your confused face slipping sharper the second the porch light down below caught the state of him. Steve watched you register his entire person before the window slid up.

“Steve—”

“I know it’s late,” he said, voice gruff. “I know I probably look—I just wanted to see you. That’s it—”

“Get in here before you fall and break your neck,” you said through a harsh whisper, already reaching for him.

You hooked a hand under his arm, and Steve let himself, embarrasingly, gracelessly, be hauled over the sill, knee banging into the frame. He landed half on the floor and half against your dresser.

“Hi,” he breathed out, trying to force out a smile.

You pressed your lips together, eyeing him now in the new light. He watched a crease form between your brows, and he could practically hear the gears of your brain turning at his state. “Were you playing in the dirt or something?” you muttered, and there was worry laced under the dryness of your words.

“Or something.” Steve laughed breathily. “Long night.”

“Looks like it.” You crossed to your nightstand, and Steve’s eyes shamelessly tracked you in the low gold wash of the lamp you clicked on. Your hair was loose from whatever you’d twisted it in, an old t-shirt that swallowed you down past the middle of your thighs.

You disappeared behind the door, and the second you did, Steve said, “Come back.” He hated how much it sounded like begging, how little he cared.

“Getting a washcloth, not moving to another state, Steve.” You sounded warm and amused. Steve heard the water run, a cabinet creak open and shut.

He sat there on the floor, half-slumped against your dresser, listening to the tiny sounds of you moving around for his sake.

You reappared a moment later, a chipped bowl of water balanced against your hip, a washcloth draped over your shoulder like you kept one permanantly stocked for idiots like him. You nudged him with your foot until he got the hint and hauled himself onto the edge of the bed, and stood in front of him, between his knees, without being asked, setting the bowl on the nightstand.

“Hey,” he said again, rearing his head back slightly and tilting his neck to look up at you.

He saw you bite back a smile, the one that started on one side and took its sweet time getting to the other.

“You’re ridiculous.” You reached for the washcloth at your shoulder, wrung it once over the bowl, and the water made a small sound. “Head up.”

He tipped his chin obediently, and you leaned in to start at his jaw, the cloth cool and startling against a graze he hadn’t felt until it stung. He hissed through his teeth and you murmured a soft apology without slowing down, your other hand coming up to brace against his shoulder for balance.

There were sleep-worn creases at the corner of your eyes. His nose filled with the faint clove-and-vanilla smell of whatever you washed your hair with, warmer now, like the nighttime had made it easier for it to settle into your strands. The old t-shirt slid loose at your collarbone everytime you shifted your weight, giving him glimpses he was trying, with limited success, not to notice too hard.

“You don’t have to do this,” he murmured.

“I do.” You let out a short laugh and pressed the rag lightly against his face, almost affectionately. “Why else would you have come here?”

His lips pushed out at the words, because that wasn’t true. He needed proof that you were here more than he needed sleep or food or being patched up. “Figured you’d miss me if I didn’t show.”

You tugged your bottom lip between your teeth again, and Steve let his fingers absentmindedly go up to catch your chin, tugging it back down. He let it linger there, and you said, with his fingertip against your chin, “I think you’re the one who missed me.”

“Yeah,” he admitted, no fight left in him to deny it. Through an exhale, he added, “I did.”

The rag went paused against his jaw, forgotten between your fingers. You smiled, the corners of your eyes creased. “That’s a big admission for you, Steve Harrington.”

“Uh-huh, I know,” he said, ducking his head underneath to meet your eyes properly. “Your turn now.”

You thought about it, lips going from one side to the other, deliberating. “I was hoping you’d come by tomorrow.”

“Yeah?” Steve smiled, even though his lip stung. “Were you looking forward to it?”

“If I was?”

“Then I’d say we’re pretty even.” Steve’s thumb found the edge of your jaw, tracing the same path you’d left on him with the rag, no purpose to it beyond wanting to just touch you. “Both of us just standin’ around missing each other.”

“I think it’s productive,” you said, voice softening into something dimmer at the edges, matching his. You tipped into his touch just slightly.

He cleared his throat, pinching his eyes shut for a second before opening them back up to meet you again.

“Since we’re doing big admissions,” he murmured, “I wanna kiss you.”

Your eyes dropped to his mouth—to the split at his lip, the dried smear of blood—and you reached for the rag again.

“Hold still,” you said, voice barely even a whisper.

He hummed in confusion, slightly caught off-guard, but he held still. You brought the cloth up slowly, and this time there was none of that quickness from a few minutes ago. Your thumb braced at his jaw as you moved the damp fabric precisely over him, clearing the residue of the night off him.

His eyes were trained on you as you did it. He watched the small furrow of your brows, the way your eyes tracked your own hand instead of his, focused entirely on the task.

“There,” you said quietly, setting the rag down. Your thumb lingered at the corner of his mouth, smoothing over where the cloth had just been. “Okay.”

“Yeah?” he breathed out.

“Mhm.” You met his eyes, and whatever nerves had been sitting in your voice a second ago settled into something steadier. “You can kiss me now.”

Steve really didn’t need to be told twice, for he leaned in, careful, mindful of the tenderness you’d just tended to, and closed the distance between your lips slowly.

You made a small sound against his mouth, surprised more than anything even though you knew exactly what was happening, and his hand came up to curl around your waist, fingers finding the cotton of your t-shirt and, underneath it, the real warmth of you, true in a way nothing tonight—or in the past few months—had managed to be.

You shifted closer, the bowl of water wobbled dangerously on the nightstand and neither of you cared. For a second, the whole night—the coldness of the Upside Down—just fell away, replaced entirely by the fact of your mouth against his and your hands fisting loose in the front of his ruined shirt.

He kissed you slower than he’d ever kissed anyone. He kissed you slower than his own want was telling him to, because he understood that this was the last thing he should be rushing, especially not after a night that had tried, in its vicious way, to take him somewhere he might not have come back from.

Steve wanted to feel all of it, and he did; the slight catch of your breath, the way your fingers eventually uncurled from his shirt to slide up into his hair instead, nails grazing against his scalp causing a low noise to slip out of his own throat.

You pulled back only far enough to breathe, foreheads resting together, and Steve kept his eyes closed for a second as he realized he couldn’t fight the dumb smile off his face. Your uneven breath billowed softly against his temple.

He fluttered his eyes open, eyeing you. “Now you look like you went and played in the dirt, too.”

You laughed, a little breathless, and said, “It’s all your fault.”

“Completely my fault,” Steve agreed. “I take full responsibility.”

He tugged at your waist to pull you down, breaking your awkward stance of leaning your neck down. You came easily, knees hitting the mattress on either side of him before you settled properly in his lap, some careful shifting that ended with your hands braced on his shoulders and his own arms banded loose around your middle.

For a while, you two simply moved in the newfound rhythm. His mouth found the hinge of your jaw, and you tipped your head to give him more access to it. When his lips grazed the soft skin just beneath your ear, your breath audibly snagged. You tried to cover it up by a huff of laughter, embarrased by your own reaction, and Steve let his stubble drag against your jaw on the next pass.

Your hand migrated to the back of his neck and started tracing slow, absent-minded figures against his skin, your fingers restlessly wandering while the rest of you sat still and let him work. Every few seconds the movement would stop entirely, your whole hand pressing flat against his skin, like you’d forgotten it existed until his mouth did something that reminded you of it.

You curved into him slowly, knees shifting closer on the mattress, your spine losing its uprightness, and the whole of you tilted toward him like a plant did to an open window. Steve’s arm tightened again around your waist, giving you his solidness to lean into.

Steve hummed when your fingernails raked against the nape of his neck. “So nice,” he muttered, voice going loose.

“Yeah?” You pulled back just far enough to look at him, a smug thing tugging at the corner of your mouth.

“Don’t let it get to that pretty little head.”

His palm pointedly reached up from your waist to cup the back of your skull, pushing it down slightly so you could meet his mouth again.

You melted into it, your whole body exhaling into the kiss. When you broke away again, it was to press your lips against the corner of his jaw, then along the column of his throat with the barest scrape of teeth. Against his skin, he heard you murmur, “Are you safe, Steve?”

Steve went still and cracked one eye open. He tugged at your waist again, now letting his spine lay out on the mattress, taking you down with him. He knew it was a delay, you also probably knew it was a delay.

You settled half over him, your palm flat against his chest. He knew you weren’t going to let the question go. He could tell that much just from the way you’d propped your chin on your hand, watching him with an expression that had lost all its softness and was now replaced with something a little more frightened.

Steve was stupid, is what he realized then. He was stupid for getting you involved in his mess, for climbing your house instead of going home and licking his wounds alone like he’d been doing this entire time. He was stupid for letting himself want something this soft when his life had turned into a building of things that it could take away without warning.

“I’m here,” was all that came out of his mouth, and he felt like he’d been splashed with a bucket of ice cold water when he saw your crestfallen expression.

It was the truest thing he could have said. He’d learned to hand himself over cheap—Steve was the guy who took things to his face so a kid half his size wouldn’t have to—and somewhere along the way, he’d stopped keeping track of what he was worth on his own, apart from what he could absorb for someone else.

He thought about how wanting a dinner meant wanting, badly, to still be here and to still look forward to something good. He so very badly wanted to spend as long as he could looking forward to you.

He brought his knuckles up to graze your cheek, and let them rest there as he watched you lean into them. “I’m gonna keep coming here long as you’ll let me.”

Your eyes closed, and your face worked through his words. You looked far from satisfied, but almost willing to take what he could give.

“That’s not an answer,” you murmured, no accusation in it, your lips pulling down into a frown.

He let his thumb wander down to the corner of the frown. He swiped at the skin there once. “It’s the truth, though.”

You hummed, eyelashes dipping, crescents against your skin, and Steve watched you settle to let the question go without actually letting it go.

“Wanna do lots of things with you,” he added, voice going into a whisper now.

“Yeah?” Your eyes opened at that. “Like what?”

“Like ask you out on a date like a real gentleman, for starters,” he said, eyes flicking down to your tangle of limbs, how you were straddling him.

“If you ask, I might say yes.”

Steve felt every nerve in his body jump.

“Alright, then. I’m askin’.” His hands found your waist properly now, thumbs fitting over your ribs. “Would you let me take you out? To a nice dinner.”

You pretended to consider it, chin tilting. “I don’t know. The guy asking has a pretty questionable track record. Tried to steal from me the first time I met him.”

A grin crawled onto his lips. “Give him a chance. He cleans up nice.” He squeezed your waist gently, a silent urge. “So? Yes or no? My ego’s riding on this.”

His ego was also pretty fragile now, if he was being honest.

You leaned down slowly, the mattress dipping under the new angle of your weight, your hair falling to curtain both your faces. You pressed your lips to the corner of his mouth—not quite where he wanted it, deliberately drawn out and so maddening—and held it there long enough Steve felt heat climb the back of his neck.

“Yes,” you said finally.

Steve couldn’t help but feel the guilt gnaw at him even as the rest of him went giddy and lighter than he’d felt in months. The thought of you saying yes to him, all of him, while he was still handing you maybe a third of that on any given day felt like breaking your trust.

You deserved a guy who could hand over all of it. But Steve had experienced too much loss in the past few years to not want to latch onto the hope of a future with you, greedy and undeserving as it made him feel to want it anyway.

“You mean it?” he said, voice going rough.

“Don’t make me regret it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear, and let his thumbs stay there this time.

[spacejjunk]

Can i have a slice of Chicago deep dish with with a lotttttt bacon and some chicken with breadsticks ('Hey, who's that? They were looking at you.' '...just someone I used to know.')

you are a broken heart tattoo

pairing: steve harrington x reader

w/c: 5.1k

warnings/tags: angst, happy ending, comfort, steve is kind of dick in the past, heartbreak

masterlist // pizza party

You sit across from him in the corner booth of the little café on the corner of Wicker Park, the one with the mismatched chairs and the constant low hum of indie music that never quite covers the hiss of the espresso machine. His name is Mark. He’s nice. Really nice. He has kind eyes and a steady job and he always waits for you to order first. He reaches across the table now, brushing his fingers over the back of your hand like he’s still getting used to the right to do it.

“You okay?” he asks, tilting his head. “You’ve been quiet.”

You force a smile and nod, curling your fingers around the ceramic mug just to have something to hold. “Yeah. Just tired. Long week.”

It’s not a lie. It’s just not the whole truth.

Three years. That’s how long it’s been since Hawkins stopped being a place and started being a scar. Three years since the sky tore open and the ground tried to swallow everything you loved. Three years since Steve Harrington looked at you like you were already gone and said the cruelest things he could think of just so you’d leave.

You still hear his voice sometimes when the city gets too quiet.

“You’re not strong enough for this. You’re a distraction. I need people who can fight, not someone I have to babysit.”

He hadn’t meant it. You knew that even while the words were still leaving his mouth. You saw it in the way his hands shook when he shoved your bag into your arms, in the way his eyes went glassy when your mom pulled you toward the evacuation bus. He had kissed you the night before like he was trying to memorize the shape of your mouth. He had whispered I love you against your throat like a prayer. And then the next morning he had burned it all down on purpose so you’d get on that bus and live.

You had gotten on the bus.

You had left.

And you had never stopped loving him.

Mark is still talking. Something about a client presentation and how his boss is an asshole. You nod in the right places. Your coffee has gone lukewarm. Outside the big front windows, Chicago moves the way it always does—gray and fast and indifferent. You’ve lived here for almost two years now. It still doesn’t feel like home. Nothing does.

You met Mark at a mutual friend’s birthday six months ago. He was easy. Safe. He didn’t ask about the scars you still carried under your clothes or the way you sometimes woke up gasping like the air had been stolen from the room. He just held you and waited for the shaking to stop. You told yourself that was enough. That wanting more was greedy. That some people only got one great love and you’d already had yours and lost it on purpose.

The bell above the café door chimes.

You don’t look up at first. People come and go all the time. But something in the air shifts, the way it used to when he walked into a room back home. That old magnetic pull. The one that made the hair on your arms stand up even when you were already in his arms.

You lift your eyes.

Steve Harrington is standing three feet from the counter, one hand already in his jacket pocket like he’s reaching for his wallet. He’s taller than you remembered. Or maybe you just made him smaller in your mind so it wouldn’t hurt as much. His hair is still ridiculous, a little longer now, curling at the ends. He’s wearing a navy work shirt with some company logo you don’t recognize, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and he looks tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep.

He orders without looking at the menu. Black coffee. Large. To go.

Then he turns.

And the world stops.

His eyes find yours the way they always did—like they never learned how to do anything else. For one suspended second there is nothing else in the café. No Mark. No soft indie music. No hiss of steam. Just the two of you and the three years between you and every memory that still lives under your skin.

You remember the night he taught you how to drive his car down the back roads outside Hawkins, windows down, summer air thick and sweet. You remember the way he laughed when you stalled at the stop sign and then leaned over the console to kiss the corner of your mouth. You remember the first time he told you he loved you—sitting on the hood of that same car after a late movie, knees touching, voice so quiet you almost missed it. You remember the way he used to press his face into the curve of your neck when the nightmares got bad, breathing you in like you were the only solid thing left.

You remember the morning he ended it.

The way his voice cracked on the word distraction. The way he wouldn’t let you touch him. The way he stood there and watched the bus pull away like it was killing him and he was choosing it anyway.

Steve’s throat works. His lips part like he might say your name. Like the years never happened. Like he could walk the three steps to your table and everything would just… restart.

He doesn’t.

He just stands there, coffee forgotten in his hand, staring at you the way people stare at ghosts.

Mark’s voice cuts through the silence, low and careful.

“Who’s that?”

You don’t look away from Steve. You can’t. Your heart is beating so hard you can feel it in your teeth. Your new boyfriend’s fingers tighten slightly around yours on the table, a quiet claim.

“They were looking at you,” Mark says again, softer this time. “Like… really looking.”

Steve’s eyes flicker to the place where Mark’s hand rests over yours. Something dark and wounded moves across his face—recognition, understanding, the slow, brutal math of realizing you didn’t wait forever. He swallows once. His free hand curls into a fist at his side. Then he turns back to the counter, takes the coffee the barista holds out, and walks out of the café without another glance.

The bell chimes again. The door swings shut.

You sit very still.

Mark is watching you now, concerned and a little uncertain. “Babe?”

You force your gaze back to him. Your voice comes out quieter than you mean it to, almost lost under the café noise.

“Just somebody that I used to know…”

The words taste like blood and old summer air and every promise that never got to finish. You look down at your cold coffee so Mark won’t see the way your eyes have gone bright and dangerous. Outside, somewhere on the sidewalk, Steve Harrington is walking away from you for the second time in your life.

And just like the first time, you let him go.

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

Steve’s hand is shaking so hard the coffee nearly spills when he pushes out of the café and onto the sidewalk. The Chicago wind hits him like a slap, cold and sharp, but it doesn’t clear his head. Nothing could. Not after that.

You.

You, sitting three feet away from him like some cruel joke the universe decided to play on a Thursday afternoon. You, looking at him the way you used to look at him in the dark of his bedroom when the whole world felt like it was ending. You, with some other guy’s hand covering yours on the table.

He makes it as far as the alley beside the building before his knees give out. He braces one palm against the brick wall and bends over, breathing like he’s been punched in the gut. The black coffee is still clenched in his other hand, untouched. He doesn’t remember ordering it. He doesn’t remember walking out. All he can see is the soft way that guy looked at you. The easy claim of it. The quiet mine in the way his fingers rested over yours.

Steve had no idea you were in Chicago.

You used to talk about it all the time. Late nights in his car, windows cracked, your bare feet up on the dash. When this is over we’ll go somewhere bigger. Somewhere that doesn’t know what we lost. Chicago, maybe. We could get a shitty apartment and figure the rest out. He used to kiss the side of your knee and promise yeah, baby, anywhere you want. He had meant it. God, he had meant every word.

He never expected you to actually go. Not without him. Not after everything.

His phone is already in his hand before he realizes he’s moving. Robin’s name is the first one that comes up. He hits call and presses the device to his ear so hard it hurts.

She picks up on the second ring. “If this is about the inventory list again I swear to god—”

“I saw her.”

Silence. Then, carefully, “Steve?”

“She’s here. In Chicago. I just— Robin, I walked into a coffee shop on my lunch break and she was there. Sitting with some guy. Holding his hand.” His voice cracks on the last word and he hates himself for it. “She looked at me like… fuck. Like no time had passed at all.”

Robin’s quiet for a long moment. He can hear the soft background noise of whatever bookstore or record shop she’s working at these days. “Okay. Okay, breathe. Are you somewhere safe?”

“I’m in an alley like a fucking cliché.” He laughs once, sharp and broken. “I didn’t know she moved here. I thought… I thought she stayed with her family. Or went somewhere else. Anywhere else. We used to talk about coming here together. Remember? I used to tell her we’d get out and start over and I—” His throat closes. “I said those things so she would leave. So she would live. And she did. She actually did it. Without me.”

“Steve—”

“I tried to move on.” The words come out raw. “You know I did. I went on dates. I let people set me up. I even slept with a couple of them just to see if it would stick. It never did. I’d close my eyes and it was always her. Always the way she used to smile when I carried her up the stairs even though she could walk fine. Always the way she used to fall asleep with her hand on my chest like she was checking that I was still breathing. I can’t get her out of my head. Three years and I still can’t.”

He slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the dirty concrete, coffee abandoned beside him. A memory hits so hard it knocks the air out of his lungs: the night before the evacuation. You in his bed, sheets twisted around both of you, your face pressed to his throat while the house shook from something far worse than a storm. He had held you so tight his arms ached. He had whispered every soft thing he could think of against your hair—I love you, I’ve got you, we’re going to be okay—and then the next morning he had looked you in the eye and told you that you were a liability. That he needed fighters, not someone he had to protect. That he didn’t love you the way you thought he did.

He had watched the bus pull away with tears streaming down his face and a hole in his chest that never closed.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he tells Robin now, voice barely above a whisper. “I thought if I made her hate me she’d be safer. I didn’t know it would feel like this forever.”

Robin is quiet for a long time. When she speaks again her voice is gentle in the way that means she’s worried. “Do you need me to come to Chicago?”

“No— no. I've got this. I just need to finish my shift.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I barely made it through the morning as is. If I leave now my boss will kill me.”

“Then call me later. Promise me.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

He hangs up before she can say anything else. The rest of the day is a blur of automatic motion. He goes back to the office. His coworkers give him a wide berth after the first hour— something in his face must look dangerous. He keeps seeing the way that guy’s hand had rested over yours. Keeps replaying the exact second your eyes met his across the café. Keeps remembering the soft, shattered look that crossed your face before you looked away.

He makes it to six o’clock by sheer force of will. Drives home in silence. Walks into the empty apartment that was never supposed to be empty. The place still smells like paint and new furniture. He had signed the lease six months ago telling himself it was a fresh start. It had never felt like one.

Night settles over the city. He sits on the edge of his bed in the dark, phone in both hands, staring at the screen like it might bite him.

Your number is still in his contacts. He never deleted it. He told himself a hundred times that he should. That it was pathetic to keep it. That you had probably changed it years ago. He never could make himself hit the button.

His thumbs move before he can stop them.

The message app opens. Your name sits at the top of the thread like a ghost. The last texts are from three years ago—half-finished plans and soft goodnights and one final message from him that he never sent: I’m so sorry. I love you. Please don’t hate me.

He starts typing.

His hands are shaking again. The cursor blinks. He writes your name. Deletes it. Writes I saw you today. Deletes that too. Writes I never stopped—

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

You get there twenty minutes early because if you don’t keep moving your hands will start shaking again.

The park is quiet for a Friday evening—mostly dog walkers and a couple of joggers looping the path under the streetlights that have just flickered on. You choose a bench half-hidden by a low hedge, far enough from the main path that no one will overhear whatever is about to happen, close enough that you can still see him coming. Your pulse is a frantic, uneven thing in your throat. You keep wiping your palms on your jeans like that might somehow make them stop sweating.

You still can’t believe you answered the text.

They came in last night after you'd saw him at the café. You had stared at the screen until your eyes burned. Mark was asleep beside you, one arm thrown across your waist like he belonged there. You had typed and deleted a dozen replies before asking to meet to speak in person.

Now it’s 6:52 and you’re sitting on this cold metal bench watching strangers live ordinary lives while your own feels like it’s about to crack open again.

You try to people-watch the way you used to when the two of you would sneak out to the quarry and sit on the hood of his car for hours. An older couple walks past hand-in-hand. A woman jogs by with a golden retriever that keeps stopping to sniff every tree. A guy on a skateboard nearly wipes out and laughs at himself. Normal. None of them know what it feels like to look up in a random coffee shop and have three years of carefully built distance collapse in a single second of eye contact.

Your knee starts bouncing. You press your hand down on it hard.

You don’t know what you’re going to say. You don’t know if you’re allowed to be angry. You don’t know if the soft, ruined look on his face yesterday means he still feels the same way you do—or if he just feels guilty. You only know that the second you saw his name light up your phone something inside you that had been asleep for years sat straight up and refused to lie back down.

Footsteps on the gravel path. You don’t look up right away. You already know the sound of him.

Steve stops a few feet from the bench like he’s waiting for permission. When you finally lift your eyes he’s standing there in a dark jacket, hands shoved deep in the pockets, looking like he hasn’t slept. His hair is a mess. There’s a tension in his shoulders that makes him look younger and older at the same time. The streetlight catches the side of his face and for a second you’re right back in Hawkins, watching him stand in the doorway of his bedroom the morning he ended everything.

He clears his throat.

“Hey.”

The single word is rough.

You nod once, not trusting your voice yet. He takes that as enough and sits down—not close enough to touch, but close enough that you can feel the heat of him through the cool evening air. The bench shifts under his weight. For a long moment neither of you speaks. A bike goes past. Somewhere farther away a dog barks and then stops.

You keep your eyes on the path.

“I didn’t know you were here,” you say eventually. Your voice comes out quieter than you meant it to. “In Chicago. I didn’t know.”

Steve lets out a breath that sounds like it hurts. “Yeah. Me neither. About you, I mean.” He rubs the back of his neck, a nervous habit you used to tease him for. “I thought… I don’t know what I thought. That you’d gone somewhere else. That you’d moved on completely. That I’d never have to see you look at me like that again.”

You turn your head just enough to see his profile. He’s staring straight ahead like the path might give him answers.

“You texted me,” you say. It’s not quite a question.

“I know.” His hands flex on his thighs. “I almost didn’t. I sat there for an hour typing and deleting. I kept thinking if I just left it alone you’d stay safe. That you’d keep living your life with… him. And I wouldn’t mess it up again.” He swallows hard. “Then I remembered the way you looked at me and I couldn’t— I couldn’t not.”

The honesty of it lands somewhere under your ribs. You curl your fingers into the edge of the bench until the metal bites your skin.

“You said you're still...” The words are barely above a whisper. “In the text. You said you'll always...”

Steve finally looks at you. Really looks. The streetlight turns his eyes almost gold and you see everything he tried to hide three years ago—guilt, longing, the same bone-deep ache you’ve been carrying this whole time.

“I am,” he says simply. “I tried to get over you. Us. God, I tried so hard. But every time I closed my eyes it was still you. Every time someone new smiled at me I compared it to the way you used to smile when I said something stupid just to make you laugh. I never got over you. Not even a little.”

Your throat tightens. The night air suddenly feels too thin.

You open your mouth to answer—to tell him you never got over him either, that the guy waiting at home doesn’t know the version of you that still dreams about Steve Harrington’s hands and voice and the way he used to say your name like it was the only word that mattered—but the words catch somewhere behind your teeth.

Steve waits, patient in the way he always was when it counted, one hand resting on the bench between you like an unspoken offer.

The park keeps moving around the two of you. People keep walking past. None of them know that the world just narrowed down to a single metal bench and the three years of silence sitting between two people who never stopped belonging to each other.

You draw a shaky breath and start to talk.

“Why?”

The single word hangs between you for a second before the rest tumble out, quiet but sharp. “Why did you do it like that? Why did you say those things? And after—after everything was over, after the town was gone and people started trying to rebuild—why didn’t you ever try to find me? Not one call. Not one message. Nothing. How could you just… let me go like I never mattered?”

Steve flinches like you hit him. His hands curl into fists on his thighs, knuckles whitening. For a long moment the only sound is the distant traffic and the soft rustle of leaves overhead. When he finally speaks his voice is low and rough, scraped raw.

“I didn’t let you go easily,” he says. “I never let you go at all. I just… forced you to leave me.” He swallows hard, eyes fixed on the path like looking at you might break whatever is left of his composure. “That morning—God, I can still see your face. I said the worst shit I could think of because I knew if I was soft for even a second you’d stay. And if you stayed…” His voice cracks. “Hawkins was gone, the upside down was still bleeding into everything, and I was still in the middle of it. I couldn’t protect you the way I needed to. I kept thinking if something happened to you because of me I wouldn’t survive it. So I made myself the villain. I made you hate me enough to get on that bus.”

He drags a hand down his face. “Afterward I told myself every day that I should reach out. That I should at least make sure you were okay. But every time I picked up the phone I pictured you somewhere safe, somewhere clean, maybe already starting to forget me. And I thought… if I contacted you I’d just drag you back into all of it. Into me. Into the nightmares and the guilt and the way I still woke up swinging at shadows. I thought the kindest thing I could do was stay gone. Even when it felt like it was killing me.”

He finally turns to look at you. His eyes are wet and exhausted and so full of you it hurts to hold his gaze.

“I never stopped loving you,” he says, quieter now. “Not for a single day. I just convinced myself that loving you meant staying the hell away.”

The confession lands in your chest like a stone dropped into deep water. You feel the ripples of it everywhere—behind your ribs, in the back of your throat, in the places that have been hollow for three years. Your own voice comes out thinner than you expected.

“I never stopped either.”

Steve’s breath stutters.

You keep going before the courage can leave you. “I tried. I let people take me out and hold my hand and kiss me goodnight. I even moved in with Mark because it felt easier than being alone with the ghost of you. But it’s not serious. It never was. He doesn’t know the version of me that flinches at thunderstorms. He doesn’t know the way I used to fall asleep listening to your heartbeat like it was the only steady thing in the world. He isn’t…” Your voice drops. “He isn’t you. And every time he smiles at me or reaches for me I feel like I’m lying. Because the only person I’ve ever really belonged to is the one who looked me in the eye three years ago and told me I was a distraction just so I’d live.”

The park feels smaller somehow. The air between you is charged, fragile, like one wrong word could shatter it. Steve’s hand shifts on the bench, fingers brushing the edge of your jacket sleeve so lightly it might have been an accident. Neither of you pulls away.

He lets out a shaky breath that sounds almost like a laugh and almost like a sob.

“Jesus,” he whispers. “We’re a mess.”

You nod, eyes stinging. “Yeah. We are.”

For a moment you just sit there, two people who never stopped being each other’s and somehow still ended up on opposite sides of a cold metal bench in a city that was never supposed to hold both of you at the same time. The streetlights hum. Somewhere behind you a pair of runners pad past without noticing that the entire shape of two lives just shifted on a quiet park bench.

Steve’s voice is barely audible when he speaks again.

“I don’t know how to do this without hurting you again.”

You look at him—really look—and for the first time in three years the distance between you feels surmountable.

“Then don’t,” you say softly. “Don’t hurt me. Just… stay. For a little while. And we’ll figure out the rest.”

୨୧ ⏔⏔⏔⏔♡⏔⏔⏔⏔ ୨୧

You break up with Mark on a rainy, gray afternoon two weeks after the park.

He’s making coffee in the kitchen of the apartment you share when you finally find the words. He listens without interrupting, eyes steady, and when you finish he sets the mug down carefully like it might shatter if he moves too fast.

“Is there someone else?” he asks.

You could lie. It would be kinder in the short term. But the truth has been living under your skin since the moment Steve sat down on that bench, and you are so tired of carrying it alone.

“There always was,” you say quietly. “Even when I didn’t want there to be.”

Mark nods once. Something resigned and soft crosses his face. He doesn’t ask for a name. He doesn’t make you explain. He just helps you pack the things that are yours and drives you across the city in silence, stopping outside the brick walk-up Steve gave you the address to three days earlier. Before you get out of the car he touches your wrist one last time.

“I hope he’s worth it,” he says.

You don’t answer. You already know he is.

Steve meets you at the door with quiet hands and quieter eyes. The second bedroom is already made up—clean sheets, a lamp on the nightstand, space in the closet. He doesn’t push. He simply helps carry boxes and then leaves you alone to unpack while he makes dinner in the small kitchen that smells like garlic and the same detergent he used to use in Hawkins.

The first weeks are careful.

You learn the new rhythms of each other slowly. Shared coffee in the mornings before he leaves for work. Quiet evenings on opposite ends of the couch while some movie neither of you is really watching plays in the background. Conversations that start about nothing—weather, grocery lists, a funny customer at his job—and sometimes drift into heavier things without warning. He tells you about the months after the fall, how he stayed behind longer than he should have, how Robin eventually dragged him out. You tell him about the first year in Chicago, the way every loud noise still made your heart race, the way you kept looking for his car in every parking lot even when you knew it couldn’t be there.

You don’t touch much. Not yet. But the space between you begins to shrink in other ways—lingering looks across the kitchen, the soft brush of fingers when he hands you a plate, the way he always seems to know when the silence has gone on too long and fills it with something gentle.

March arrives gray and wet.

The anniversary sits on both of you like a low pressure system. Neither of you says the date out loud, but it’s there in the way Steve’s shoulders tighten when the news mentions storms, in the way you find yourself checking the locks twice before bed. On the night itself the wind picks up against the windows and the old fear crawls back under your skin like it never left.

You wake sometime after two with your heart slamming against your ribs and the taste of dirt and smoke in your mouth. The nightmare is the same one it has always been—Hawkins tearing open, the sky wrong, Steve’s voice somewhere you can’t reach. You’re already out of bed and moving before you fully decide to. The hallway is dark. His door is cracked the way he always leaves it now, just in case.

You push it open.

Steve is awake. You can tell by the way his breathing changes the second you step inside. He doesn’t ask questions. He simply lifts the edge of the blanket in silent invitation.

You cross the room on bare feet and climb in.

The mattress dips under your weight. His arm comes around you without hesitation, pulling you in until your back is flush against his chest, his breath warm against the crown of your head. You can feel the steady thump of his heart through the thin fabric of his shirt. One of his hands finds yours under the covers and laces your fingers together like he’s afraid you might still disappear if he doesn’t hold on.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against your hair, voice rough with sleep and something deeper. “I’m right here. You’re safe.”

The words settle into the raw places the nightmare left behind. You close your eyes and let yourself believe them. His thumb strokes slow circles over your knuckles. Your breathing gradually matches his. The wind keeps moving against the windows, but it no longer sounds like the end of the world.

You fall asleep like that—wrapped around each other in the dark, the separate rooms suddenly meaningless, the careful distance dissolving into something warmer and more dangerous and infinitely more real.

When morning comes the light through the curtains is soft and dreary. Neither of you has moved. Steve’s arm is still heavy across your waist. Your hand is still tangled with his. Something quiet and fragile and long-dormant has begun to bloom in the space between your bodies—something that feels like the first green things pushing up through burned ground, tentative and stubborn and alive.

Steve presses a slow kiss to the back of your shoulder, barely there, and neither of you pretends it didn’t happen.

taglist: @jinxispunk @shecleansup

[theweepingangelofcas]

Hello! How are you doing?

I’ve been reading your stories and one-shots, and I am completely speechless. Your writing is so beautiful, and it touches my soul every single time.I wanted to ask you a request, but please, if you don’t feel like writing it, don’t worry at all! I’d just really appreciate it if you could let me know. 😅This request comes from a very deep, vulnerable place in my heart.

I’ve been teaching myself to play the keyboard for a few years now. I'm not a professional, but I put all my heart into it. However, it’s always been bittersweet for me, because no one has ever told me, "You're doing great." I started when I was 14, and my parents never really noticed or said anything. It deeply hurt, because I just wanted a simple "wow" to feel like they were proud of me. Now that I’m 19, I’ve realized how much I still crave that validation, but I’m learning that I have to be the one to cherish my own progress, because maybe no one else will. I’ve never even told anyone that I play, because I always feel like I’m not good enough.

My request is born from this exact feeling:Imagine the reader plays the piano but has kept it a secret from Leon. One day, Leon comes home exhausted from work and hears this beautiful, mesmerizing music echoing through the house. When he finds her, she breaks down and finally opens up about all her insecurities and the lack of support she felt growing up. Leon completely comforts her, wipes away her tears, and tells her how deeply moved he is by her music. He promises her that he wants to listen to her play, and it becomes their special, comforting routine—where her music becomes the only thing that can truly relax him after a hard day.

Please feel free to change, add, or tweak anything you like in this prompt to fit your style or ideas better!I really hope you like this idea. I’m so sorry if this was too long or too emotional! Let me know what you think.

Bye! ❤️

K, so, first off: I'm sure you're amazing! That you're doing a great job! That you're appreciated more than you think! Also, I always find it funny when someone says their age and they're younger than me. Like, 19??? OMG ur just a baby ur so cute!! Idk I'm 23 so it's kinda amusing how I feel so old lol Summary: You play the piano, but have always hidden it. That is, until, Leon comes home early from a job.

Melancholy Melody - Leon Kennedy x Reader

Leon is exhausted.

Exhausted is an understatement. He feels dead. Like his corpse has been fished out of some infected ridden hellscape, brought back to life, and pushed back through his front door. His body hurts in ways that he can’t even describe. Two weeks in some random hellhole had left him tired and sore in every way imaginable.

His key fumbles in the lock, pushing open the door with little to no grace. The apartment is dark when he steps inside, kicking off his shoes and stretching his arms high above his head. Deeper inside, he can see a warm glow of light. It must be the living room lamp, left on like it always is whenever one of you is waiting for the other to come home. He lets out a tired breath, letting his duffel bag slump unceremoniously onto the floor.

"Hey, honey? I’m back."

No answer. He frowns. Normally, you'd answer immediately. Even if you were asleep, he'd usually hear some sleepy ‘I'm in here’ drifting down the hallway. For a second, the lack of response makes his heart drop. Makes his palms go clammy as he starts to move faster, expecting a scream, a shout, a cry-

A single piano note cuts through the silence. Another follows. Then another.

His first thought is that you'd left the radio on. Except… No. That’s not right. There's hesitation between the notes. Tiny pauses. The subtle sound of fingers lifting from ivory keys before settling back down again. Whoever is playing is alive, sitting only a few rooms away. His brow furrows.

"...What the…?"

He could have sworn the old upright piano tucked away in the spare room hadn't been touched in years. Hell, he'd almost forgotten it existed. It had come with the apartment, according to the landlord. You'd insisted on keeping it because it was "pretty," even if neither of you supposedly knew how to play. Apparently, that wasn't true.

Another phrase drifts through the apartment. It's soft. Melancholy. Fuck, it’s beautiful. He doesn't know the first thing about music. Couldn't tell you the key. Couldn't explain the technique. He'd fail every music theory class ever invented. But he knows how it makes him feel. Somewhere between the first few measures, he realizes his shoulders have dropped. His jaw has unclenched.  For the first time since the mission started, he isn't thinking about it anymore. All he can focus on is the beautiful chords echoing from the other room. Almost without realizing it, he follows the music. Each step down the hallway is slow, careful against the hardwood floor. Somehow, it feels wrong to make noise. He reaches the half-open door, and stops.

The sight in front of him makes his jaw almost drop.

Sunlight from the late afternoon spills across the room, turning dust motes into drifting gold. You're sitting at one of your old kitchen chairs with your back to him, completely unaware of his presence. Your shoulders rise and fall with every breath. One foot rests lightly against the pedals, pressing them with practiced ease. Your fingers move across the keys like they belong there. Every movement is smooth, wrists relaxed as the melody rises and falls beneath your hands like breathing.  You play like you've known this instrument your entire life.

His eyes drift to the side. Beside the piano rests a neat stack of music books, their spines cracked with age. Several loose sheets are covered in neat pencil markings, little notes scribbled into the margins. Practice notes. Corrections. Years of them, at least.

"... Wow."

The word slips out before he can stop it.

Your hands freeze. The final chord hangs in the air for a long moment before slowly fading into silence. Your entire body goes rigid, head snapping in his direction. Your eyes are wide and alarmed, like a deer caught by a hunter. 

“... Leon?”

Distantly, he realizes that you sound almost horrified. "Sorry." His own voice comes out quieter than he'd intended. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Your body finally turns fully towards him, but it’s slow.  Whatever expression had been on your face while you were playing vanishes so quickly that he almost wonders if he imagined it.

"...You're home early."

He smiles tiredly. "Mission wrapped up."

"...Oh." Your hands draw to your chest, clasping them together in front of your heart. You won't meet his eyes. Instead, your gaze fixes somewhere near the floor.

He speaks again, slower this time. Like anything too sudden will scare you away. "...That was you."

It isn't really a question. You nod once. "...Yeah."

"I..." He laughs softly, shaking his head. "Honey, I didn't even know you could play."

Your head shakes a little, and this time, your legs draw up to your chest, feet resting on the very edge of the seat of the chair. “... It’s not good, really. I don’t play well.”

“Don’t play well?” He scoffs, and dares to take a step closer. “That was beautiful. If I tried to do that, I’d sound like a dying cat.”

Your eyes squeeze shut. Instead of making you smile, the compliment seems to hurt. It makes something in his eyes soften, hand reaching out in your direction. “... You don’t have to stop.”

For a moment, it looks like you’re considering it. Your eyes dart to the piano keys, to your hands. To the sheet music, marked over and over with colored ink and pencil lead. But, in a way that makes his heart break a little, your head shakes.

“... Can we just pretend that you didn’t see this?”

His brows furrow in confusion. “Why in the hell would I do that?”

“I…” Your head dips down a little. “People didn’t really… support me with this, growing up. They didn’t really care. People always had something else they'd rather listen to. ”

He finally closes the distance between you two, his hand coming up to rest on your cheek. Instinctively, your head tilts into it, eyes closing. 

"Honey..." His thumb brushes beneath your eye. "Do you know what that sounded like to me?" 

Your head shakes. He can’t help but lean down, pressing a kiss to your hair.

“It sounded like peace.” He lowers himself down to the floor, kneeling. “I came home today expecting to spend the next three days trying to forget all the shit I’ve seen. But for the first time in weeks,” He smiles, almost to himself. “I wasn’t thinking about any of it anymore. Just that music.”

A tear has fallen from one of your eyes, and he’s quick to kiss it away. Your head is shaking, but he stops it with his hands, both resting on your cheeks and keeping you still.

“Next time I come home from a mission, here’s what I want you to do, okay?” 

You nod tearfully, and he continues.

“I don’t want you to meet me at the door. I want you to come into this room, sit on this chair, and play for me. Please?”

Finally, a smile. A bit disbelieving, but it’s a start. 

Another kiss, this time directly on your lips. It feels like home. 

“Now, Honey, could you keep playing for me? Please?”

[aqtdeco]

bad case (of loving you) pt III | S.H

part I, part II

— Steve takes you, Piper and Whiskey on an east coast road trip, and has an important question he wants to ask. As always, life has other plans.

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

Piper is not an early riser. You know this, and you’ve told this to Steve a million times.

“It’s not even that early, bug!” Steve placates, crouching down to Piper’s bed, giving her his best puppy eyes that he knows works on both his girls. “I will carry you all the way to the car, you won’t even notice.”

Piper dramatically whimpers, rubbing her eyes and clinging to her duvet. She loves living here, so parting from her bed is always her worst nightmare.

You prepare the last of the bags and pack some food for Whiskey, making sure to over pack on the dog poo bags (just in case). Miraculously, Steve has managed to get Piper to agree to getting up, clearly at the terms that he carries her.

“We have enough of those bags, baby.” Steve smiles as he walks into the foyer, Piper glued sleepily to his shoulder. You shake your head and shove a few more in Whiskey’s dog bag. Whiskey sits by the door, already raring for the outside.

“Better safe than sorry,” you remind Steve, and he hums fondly before leaning in to kiss your temple as he picks up the dog bag, the final bag to add to the mobile home for the next two weeks. Steve finally manages to snag time off from the hospital, so he obviously planned a big east coast road trip for you all.

“Baby—, don’t make that face,” Steve whispers into Piper’s ear as he walks her to the front of the Winnebago. You smile fondly as she only nuzzles into his neck sleepily. “It’s gonna be so fun, I’m gonna let you have all the pancakes from all the diners..”

You don’t hear the rest as you get into your seat, hearing muffled raspberry blows as he secures her into her car seat behind you. Whiskey hops next to you, setting into the secured dog bed beside Piper’s seat. Piper manages to settle, sat in her seat almost already closing her eyes.

“I say we head to Charleston first,” Steve announces as he twists the key, starting up the vehicle. “See all those movie sets you like.”

Your stomach flutters and you nod, head back against the seat.

“Sounds amazing,” you tell him and he smiles back, hand patting your thigh pulling away from his driveway.

The drive there is the longest, with you periodically falling asleep, Piper perking up by midday and singing to the radio. Whiskey is well behaved as he always is, happy to receives babbles from Piper as she pats his furry head.

Charleston is beautiful in its own way. Piper’s a fan of walking over the cobbled streets, hand tightly held in yours as Steve takes photos on his camera. The port has a beautiful seafood restaurant you all eat at, and Piper is mysteriously okay with the fish despite how much of a picky eater she is.

“Did you pack swim stuff for you and Piper?” Steve asks as he finishes off his food, “I was thinking we could hit Myrtle Beach tomorrow.”

You nod, wiping Piper’s cheeks.

“When my mom would take us to this— country club every summer,” it doesn’t surprise you hearing this from Steve, you’ve been privy to his upbringing for a while. He’s very open about it all, and you were pleasantly surprised he had no hint of attitude that usually comes with guys who grew up wealthy. “I would leave at night, go to Myrtle and watch the sun set.”

You smile as you absentmindedly fix Piper’s bib.

“Oh, so you can show us around,” you hum and Steve preens slightly, then smiles down at Piper.

“Yummy?” He asks her, and Piper nods up at Steve.

“Yummy,” Piper agrees, and you want to cry because of how cute she is, you’ve been getting that feeling a lot recently. Steve has the same fond, look of pure love on his face.

The check is paid, and Steve suggests a walk along the coastline to help Piper get a little more sleepy. Whiskey trots sleepily beside you both, and you take out your camera to snap a photo of Piper asleep, head on Steve’s shoulder. Steve smiles, head leaning to hers as he sways her on his arm.

The Winnebago is quiet as you both prepare for bed. Piper was down a while ago, snoring softly in her bunk, curtain across with fairy lights hung. Whiskey sleeps on his dog bed by the closed door, and you stretch out on the double mattress over the front two seats. Steve pulls the curtain over, and crawls in beside you, letting out a quiet breath as he pulls you in immediately.

“First location was a success?” He murmurs into your hair, kissing it before looking down at you snug in his arm. You hum before looking up at him, nodding. He responds by squeezing you tighter, and all the worries you had about this trip unravel and disappear. “Piper stuffing her face with fish today, who would’ve thought.”

“Hm,” you agree and sleepily nuzzle into his armpit, breathing deep. “Thank you.”

“Why’re you thanking me, silly?” Steve asks a bit incredulous and you shake your head fond.

“I never thought Piper would ever call someone dad again,” you swallow, eyes on his chest for a moment. His curls that lie on his bronze chest always tickle your cheek, but you wouldn’t trade it for the world. “I’m just so happy Doctor Yates retired, I guess.”

Steve smiles and takes it upon himself to gently take you by the armpit, moving so you’re face to face. Steve’s eyes glaze over, probably from tiredness for driving long hours, but don’t move from yours for even a second. You can make out the soft startings of facial hair in the low light, his newly grown moustache that he thinks is ‘rad’.

“Nah,” Steve speak hoarsely, “I’d rather not thank that old fart for retiring,” you laugh, a little loud but it makes Steve grin even more. He kisses the side of your mouth gently, hand moving to rest on your waist. “I think we were always supposed to meet, and I—,” Steve stutters, a rare moment as he blinks. “I hope Piper calls me dad for a very, very long time.” His gaze seems to be calculating your reaction, and you think he’s silly, because why wouldn’t you want Piper to call him dad for the rest of time.

“What’s the matter?” You ask, shuffling impossibly closer.

“Nothing, nothing,” Steve assures, but you know him inside out. All his tells that he’s got a slight bit of unease in his gaze. “Just that… I’ve been waiting to get my hands on you all day—!”

Steve makes you giggle as he nuzzles into your neck, mixing blowing raspberries and pressing lovely kisses. Your jaw aches as you try to keep your laughing to a minimum, cautious not to wake Piper.

“Hm, gimme some sugar, honey,” Steve mumbles into your chest, “S’ what the doctor ordered—,”

You laugh even louder, and you let his warm hands wander despite you both having to wake up early tomorrow for the drive.

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

It’s hot in South Carolina.

Piper is already complaining as you dress her, a nice set from Steve’s parents. Floral pants and blouse, paired with some pink jelly sandals. Steve curses after he notices Whiskey attempting to pee on the side of the open door to the Winnebago, and he haphazardly picks up the large dog. Whiskey gruffs in response, and the commotion only makes it harder for you to put on Piper’s shoes.

“If you don’t put these on, you won’t be able to walk next to Whiskey,” you reason with the baby, and Piper just wiggles more.

“Too hot, mommy, is’ too hot,” Piper whines back to your face, her cheeks matching your reddened face and neck. Why are you so hot? I mean, it’s boiling here, but you never get overheated like this. Piper then kicks as you successfully tie up the shoe, accidentally smacking the jelly sandalled foot into your nose.

“Oh—,” you shout, not meaning to be loud but there’s a splitting pain in the middle of your nose now. Steve has come back from wrestling a playful Whiskey, alerted from the sound of your pain, as he always is. “Piper, why’d you do that?” You sigh out and wince, rubbing your eyes for a moment. Steve, though he is on holiday, never stops being a doctor, which sometimes infuriates you. Especially in moments like these.

“Sweetheart, let me take a look,” Steve starts and slips the other shoe onto Piper’s foot, annoying you even more. Parenting seemed to come so easy to him. “Here, sit—,”

“Jesus, I’m fine,” you snap, rubbing your nose and stepping out into the heat, needing air at least. Steve doesn’t accept that, because how can he not make sure nothing is broken?

“Honey, she just kicked you in the face. Let me get an ice pack, and some water.” Steve speaks, and sometimes when he gets like this, no one is allowed to argue. Steve moves to grab your wrist, and you shake your head, eyes wide as you notice Piper has gotten down and is heading away.

“Steve you—,” you don’t mean for it to come out harshly, “Stop it— why weren’t you watching her?”

Steve blanks for a moment, before looking over to see Piper a good few meters, not very far, but far enough. As you step to jog and catch her, he stops you, and is stepping over quickly to pick her up.

“Daddy, no, want to go there,” Piper shouts and points to a nearby ice cream truck near the car park. Steve secures her and walks back, “Daddy.”

“Sweet pea, you can’t just run off okay? You wait for us. Wait for your mom or me,” you don’t hear the end of it as you walk back into the Winnebago, wanting some peace. Your nose still throbs, but the mirror tells you there’s no bruise. You sit, sighing out and petting Whiskey who has opted to rest his head on your knee. “Hey— are we ready to head—,”

“No Steve, I’m not.” You manage, frowning. “Clearly.”

“Okay,” Steve swallows, clearly trying to hold something in, “I just, had a schedule for today? We need to hit this brunch spot now, I have a reservation.”

“My nose is burning, I’m not ready.” You repeat, eyes incredulous at him. Steve then blinks, adjusting Piper who has a tight frown on her face from your tone.

“You— told me you were fine, I can look at it now.” Steve starts to move, and you stop him.

“Steve, can you for a moment just stop? I need five minutes. By myself— I don’t need you to doctor me every moment of the day.” You regret the words, because his face falters.

“You’re hurt,” Steve then speaks curt, moving to slide his sunglasses to his hair, cheeks sweaty. “I can solve the problem,”

“I don’t need you to.”

Steve sighs out, before swaying Piper in his arms, noticing her worried expression. He kisses her red cheek and puts on a smile.

“Let’s go check out that ice cream truck,” Steve tells Piper who obviously smiles at that, “How’s that sound bub?”

“Ice cream,” she nods happily, hugging his neck, and he lets her, despite how hot it is. He doesn’t spare you a look before he leaves, and you know you’ve upset him. Whiskey whines pitifully at your knee.

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨

You don’t tell Steve you threw up before joining them. Steve has an uneasy smile as you approach, and you already want to curse yourself for overreacting so much. The diner he picked for lunch is lovely, a small but cosy one off the coast. As you wait to be seated, you lean forward behind him and mumble against his back.

“I’m sorry,” with a kiss on his flannel clad shoulder. Steve huff out a smile and leans his head back to shake his head.

“Okay mommy?” Piper wonders in his arms and to him smiling weakly.

“Mommy’s okay, she’s just a bit dramatic,” you reply, kissing her pudgy cheek, then Steve’s. Steve watches fondly as she giggles and copies you, placing a huge messy kiss on your nose. The waitress interrupts you both and directs you to a table by the window. Whiskey hops up on the booth seat, snug next to you.

“What we feeling Pip? Pancakes? Waffles— burger…” Steve trails off and shows Piper the menu. Piper can barely read it but she finds it all the worth looking at. You don’t really feel hungry at all after throwing up.

“Waffle,” Piper speaks up at Steve and he nods, noting it in his head. Piper focuses on the crayons and scribbling over the paper menu.

“What are you fancying, honey?” Steve asks you, looking up. You look over the menu, but nothing seems to look appealing. “I know you love diner food.”

“I don’t…” you trail off, mouth twisting, “Maybe I’ll just have some fries.”

Steve furrows his eyebrows, putting the menu down. His expression deepens.

“Honey, they have your favourite— Nutella pancakes, how about that?” Steve offers and you sip some table water.

“Just messy fries will do me.” You assure, and Steve’s eyes narrow. When he orders, he gets the Nutella pancakes. Probably because he knows you’ll want a bite anyway. Steve watches you as you pet Whiskey absentmindedly.

“Did you sleep okay?” Steve asks suddenly, eyes narrowed. “I didn’t feel you move around a lot.”

“I slept fine,” you nod, sighing fondly. “Im sorry for being such a downer— I know you’re excited for the beach.”

“I’m only excited to spend it with you guys.” Steve assures and reaches over, thumb drifting over your hand. “It’s special, but you’ll complete it.”

“You already have me, and the little princess,” you joke, but a flush still forms over your cheeks, “No need for the charm.”

“Oh, get ready for buckets of charm all trip,” Steve winks, blowing a kiss. Piper has gotten bored of colouring, and looking up at Steve.

“Kiss kiss,” Piper pouts, and Steve laughs, blowing one for her too. “Daddy,” she speaks giggling loudly, as if Steve’s the silliest man on the planet.

You forget about your sick feeling for a while. Absolutely stealing half of Steve’s pancakes.

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

Steve is antsy as you all walk to the beach. You’re a bit off his “special schedule” he’s insisted on. Only by 15 minutes due to the nose run in this morning.

“Can we stop here?” You ask, breath falling short, Piper whining in your arms, itching to get onto the sand.

“Honey I— there’s a much better spot up there,” Steve stresses, a bit erratic, looking around. You swallow, mouth all dry.

“The sand looks perfectly fine here—,” before you can speak more, your ears feel like they’re filled with cotton. You blink, letting Piper onto the sand next to Whiskey. Steve notices, and is there to catch you when you inevitably faint. It all goes black.

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

“Have to be quiet, Pip.” Steve chides, and you hear Piper’s muffed confused whimpers, along with periodic beeping. Eventually you come to, and wake up in a hospital bed.

Right.

Steve clocks you’re awake immediately.

“Honey,” he breathes out, reaching across to take your hand, smiling. “Hey.”

“What— what happened?” You ask, blinking drowsily. Piper gets on the bed, immediately wrapping herself around you laying her head flat on your stomach.

“You fainted on the beach,” Steve explains, “I should have known, I was going a mile a minute and didn’t even consider how hot it was.”

“Oh,” you speak, a bit distant. “I threw up this morning.”

“You—,” Steve sits up, eyes wide. “Baby, why didn’t you say anything?” Steve frowns, tight but his hand squeezes yours again.

“You’re my boyfriend, not my doctor.” You smile small, blinking sleepily. Steve bites his lip, looking to the ground then up again.

“The reason this whole— schedule thing—,”

The doctor knocks at this moment, and Steve sighs out, rubbing his forehead and sitting back. He keeps his hand in yours, and momentarily you wonder what he was going to say.

“Results came back,” the doctor smiles, “We took your blood while you were going in and out,” she explains, and pulls up a chair next to you.

Steve sits a bit rigid, almost wanting to jump in and speak.

“You’re okay,” the doctor nods, “Nothing to worry about, just regular fainting which happens in the heat.” She pointedly looks at Steve for a moment before smiling. “Just another thing.”

You sit up, confused. If it was all okay, what was the problem?

“Congratulations.” The doctor grins, and passes over a sheet of results. You blearily blink to look at the paper, a bit confused at all the medical jargon. Steve obviously understood and his eyes widen, sat in shock.

“Are you serious?” Steve then stands, abruptly. The doctor nods, amused at his stance.

“Can someone please clue me in on my own test results—,”

“— you’re pregnant.” The doctor finishes for you, “Only 3 weeks, explains that throwing up you told us.”

You can’t move. You look up to Steve who is frozen, eyes glazed over.

“I’ll leave you two to talk.”

As the doctor leaves, Piper sits up and looks between you two, very confused.

“Mommy, whats matter?”

You swallow, an incredulous laugh falling from your mouth as you hug her closer. Steve is finally back from the dead, and sits on the edge of the bed, moving to stroke your cheeks.

“How did I not know?” He murmurs, but a smile spreads across his cheeks. “God— I’m a terrible doctor—,”

“Doctor of children,” you remind him, eyes wet now as you let out a sniffy laugh. “And father of two now.”

“Three if you count Whiskey,” he adds, smiling wide and kissing all over your face. “Pips gonna be a big sister.” Piper perks up, arm now around Steve’s bicep comfortably.

“Mommy has a baby in her?” Piper asks and you nod, smiling messily. Piper looks down at where she’s sat, and widens her eyes before scrambling up to your chest. “Mustnt squish it—,”

Steve laughs heartedly, full of love for his girls.

“The little nugget had to ruin my plans huh,” he speaks as he adjusts Piper so she’s more in his lap, away from hurting you. You furrow your eyebrows, head tilting. Steve smiles at your confusion. “That annoying schedule that you hated? Eventually led us to under the pier, had it all decked out with fairy lights and everything.”

“Oh,” you frown, sad. “I ruined your plans.”

“S’fine,” he waves off, and reaches for his pocket. “I can do it here just fine.”

You watch as he brings out a small black box, and your heart stops again for the umpteenth time today. Piper watches as he opens it, a beautiful silver band with a tiny pearl nestled in the middle.

“I can’t believe I’m asking you this in a hospital,” Steve begins, but carries on despite his shaking hands. “I want that Winnebago trip every year, I want Piper and the little nugget calling me dad forever, and I want the privilege of seeing your face every day, for the rest of my life.”

You can’t speak, just mouth opening and closing, eyes positively wet now.

“Can we do forever?”

You nod, very quickly and sniff, trying to wipe the snot that had left your nose. Steve hums and takes out the ring to slide it on your finger, bringing it to kiss gently.

“Oh, you were going to ask me under the pier—,”

“Here is much quieter,” he corrects and you splutter a laugh, wiping your eyes and leaning up to kiss his lips messily. “And on brand.”

You can’t stop kissing his face, Piper joining in as she always does.

You wouldn’t mind spending every Summer in boiling hot South Carolina, knowing it’s going to be with Steve every time.

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

a/n: steve wanting to overly use his expertise to feel useful is my hc very him!

I apologise how late this is. Recently my grandfather passed, and so that definitely slowed my writing and motivation. Getting back into it now🤍

I would love some au ideas! Send some over in my requests.

Tags: @electra-hearttt @thatoneswifties @st4rg1rl88 @eller41 @stevelovr85 @artismytherapy05 @xoxocelestial @songkangslvr @ilovesharry @cuddlyeren @babyluxbeat @miahslt91 you are all so lovely 🤍

[ddejavvu]

For baby blurbs could you do something like steve and reader in a new ish relationship and she gets her period and he's learning how to take care of her like rubbing her back when it aches

Steve actually does remarkably well dealing with your period, considering it's the first one he's spent with you, and that you've only been dating for less than two months. Technically, you'd had one towards the beginning of your relationship, but he'd been on summer vacation with his parents and as much as you'd missed you new boyfriend you'd been glad to suffer alone.

This morning, though, after your sheepish cancellation of your poolside date over the phone, he shows up with flowers, chocolates, and the hoodie right off of his back.

"Uh, I got you chocolate! Here," He thrusts the plastic bag into your hands worriedly, three chocolate bars stacked together inside that are far too small for the giant bag they're in. He clutches at the flowers as you fish the candy out, peering at two milk chocolate bars and a dark- you think back and realize Steve's never heard your preference before, and you think it's sweet that he splurged and got both.

"Thanks, Steve," You grin warily at him, embarrassed on principle alone despite him being kind about everything so far, "I- I'm sorry we couldn't go to the pool."

"It's fine," He waves a hand dismissively, his brows furrowing as he scoffs, "We live right by it- we'll go some other time. Do you want- like, water or something? Here," He shucks his sweatshirt off, "You can wear this if you want."

You definitely do, and you try not to seem too eager as you slide it over your head and settle into the pre-warmed, cozy-smelling fabric.

"I've got water." A smile slowly but surely crests over your face as Steve wipes his palms nervously on the seat of his jeans, eyes darting around like he might find blood splattered against the walls.

"Shouldn't you be laying down? It's, like, painful, isn't it?"

"Well I had to answer the door," You giggle breathily, and his eyes widen despite your teasing tone, like he really thinks you'd endured torturous agony just to come downstairs and let him inside.

"It's not that bad though!" You catch him before he can apologize, "It'll probably start hurting later but I'm okay right now. Do you want to, um, watch a movie or something? I can do that, if you want."

You're still shy inviting Steve to spend time with you despite dating for several weeks now. He's just so boyishly handsome that you're sure it'll take years and probably some patchy facial hair to stop getting so flustered around your stunning boyfriend.

He grins, his lashes fluttering as he blinks, "We can do that. You want me to give you a massage or something? Does that help?"

"It might," You consider your frequent backaches, the twinges of one beginning now from the five minutes you've spent on your feet, "Warmth helps too, so if we're just- y'know," You stammer, "-if we could like, cuddle, or something, I think that'd be good."

You feel one of the chocolate bars between your fingers beginning to grow squishy under the heat of your clenched fingers. You hadn't realized your palms had grown this sweaty, and you shuffle them nervously between your hands to air them out.

Steve's grin deepens, a teasing edge taking over one corner of the expression until it morphs into a gentle smirk, "You can't say cuddle?"

"I can!" You feel your own grin spreading, bashful but inevitable, "I did, I said cuddling would probably help."

"Yeah, but you got all fidgety," Steve eyes your hands still fiddling with the chocolate bars, "Are you still nervous around me?"

You should be nice to the boy, even if he's antagonizing you. You should shyly nod your head, good-naturedly laugh at yourself, then tilt your gaze up at him so that he comes and murmurs something tragically attractive against your lips like, 'C'mon, sweetheart, I'm yours. What are you afraid of?'

Instead, you force your face into a grimace, "No, Steve, it's just- aah, I'm starting to get kind of crampy," You clutch at your abdomen, "Y'know, all the blood is actually the lining of my uterus, so when it sheds, it hurts really bad-"

Steve blanches, stumbling back a step like you're casting a menstrual hex on him. He tries valiantly to keep his expression neutral and sympathetic but you see the fear in his eyes, and he babbles, "Oh god- okay, that sounds really painful, maybe we should go lay down now."

He takes the chocolate from you, and wraps a tender arm around your waist to lead you into the den. You frequent this couch throughout your periods, often lazing around watching movies with glazed eyes that don't really see them. You settle comfortably into your usual spot and wait for Steve to join you, and he wisely lays himself out in a way that leaves a space for you against his chest. You abandon your trusty butt-print in the cushion to snuggle your face into the crook of Steve's neck, and just the scent of him that you breathe in is enough to make you forget about the stirrings of pain you can feel beneath your stomach.

"Like this?" He asks, his fingers beginning to knead into your belly. You push them gently towards your back, and his thumbs find the spots you need them to almost immediately, rubbing soothingly into the aching muscles. The ache is deep, not a knot that needs to be worked out but the sting of overexertion, but relaxing into his chest helps, and you nod shyly against his t-shirt as he continues grinding the pads of his fingers across the expanse of your back.

"What movie do you wanna watch?" He asks, and you remember with a sleepy frown that you'd offered to entertain him. It had taken you approximately three seconds to begin falling asleep on him, and now you're going to have to force yourself to stay awake for at least two hours to watch something with him. But he's beyond sweet for being here in the first place, so you blink away the painful fog over your brain and crane your neck up to look at him.

"I dunno, whatever you want." Your voice is slightly thick with exhaustion, and as Steve looks down at you you watch his honey brown eyes soften. He can't help it- one hand leaves your back to stroke over your forehead, smoothing an imaginary flyaway down.

"Y'know," He coos, impossibly soft, "I'm kind of tired. Are you?"

You nod, your eyes drooping.

"Let's just nap," He suggests, and you face-plant back into his chest with enough ferocity to bruise him with the tip of your nose, "I can make us food when you wake up, and then we can think about movies."

If you respond to him, you're liable to say that you love him. So instead you press your lips together, pecking an appreciative kiss against his chest and shutting your eyes as your fingers curl into the hem of his t-shirt, silent and giddy.

[spacejjunk]

Can i have a slice of Chicago deep dish with bacon pineapple and chicken with fries (“Hey, hey, don't apologize. You don't need to explain.”) on the side

id apologize for bleeding on your shirt

pairing: steve harrington x reader

w/c: 7.2k+

warnings/tags: angst, abusive parents, secret keeping, fluff, so much cuteness, girl dad! steve harrington

masterlist // pizza party

The highway signs blurred into one long smear of green and white as you drove east. Your old sedan hummed beneath you, the engine a steady drone that almost drowned out the thoughts screaming in your head. Almost.

In the backseat, Lila kicked her little sneakers against the base of her car seat and sang along to the low volume of some kids’ song on the radio. Four years old. Four years of secrets, of half-truths, of nights you’d cried so hard in the bathroom with the shower running that you’d made yourself sick. She had his hair—those soft, unruly brown waves that never stayed brushed for long—and when she smiled wide enough, the dimple in her left cheek was all Steve Harrington.

You swallowed hard and tightened your grip on the wheel until your knuckles ached.

Hawkins was only twenty minutes away now. The town that had raised you, broken you, and spit you out without a second thought. The town where you’d fallen stupidly, completely in love with a boy who kissed like he was trying to memorize you and held you like the world might end tomorrow.

Because back then, in Hawkins, it always felt like it might.

You remembered the night it happened like it was yesterday. The quarry. Steve’s BMW parked half-hidden behind the trees. His mouth on your neck, your fingers in his hair, both of you breathless and laughing and terrified and alive. You’d been careful—mostly—but the universe had other plans. Two pink lines on a drugstore test three weeks later, and everything changed.

Then your parents found the test.

The screaming still echoed in your bones some nights. Your mother’s face twisted with disgust. Your father’s cold, final tone: “You’re not throwing your life away on that Harrington boy. Pack your things. We’re leaving tonight.” No discussion. No goodbye. Just a suitcase, a one-way ticket to your aunt’s place three states away, and the quiet understanding that if you tried to contact Steve, they’d make sure you regretted it.

You never even got to tell him you were pregnant. Never got to explain why you vanished. One day you were his, and the next you were gone.

Four years later, they were the ones who vanished. A drunk driver on a rain-slicked road. The call had come on a Tuesday morning while Lila was eating cereal and watching cartoons. You’d stood in the kitchen, phone pressed to your ear, and felt… nothing at first. Then everything. Grief, rage, relief, guilt so thick it choked you.

The house in Hawkins was yours now. The money. The silence. And the truth you’d carried like a stone in your chest since the day Lila was born.

You were going back.

Not for them. For her. For the little girl who sometimes asked why she didn’t have a daddy like the kids on her shows. For the boy you’d loved so much it still hurt to say his name out loud.

You hoped he was still there.

The “Welcome to Hawkins” sign appeared like a punch to the gut. Everything looked smaller. The arcade where he’d taught you how to beat his high score on Dig Dug. The movie theater where you’d made out in the back row during a terrible slasher flick, his hand warm on your thigh. The quarry road you turned onto without thinking, just to feel the ghost of that night one more time.

Your chest felt too tight. Your eyes burned.

Lila stirred in the back. “Mommy? Are we there yet?”

“Almost, baby,” you said, voice rough. You caught her eye in the rearview mirror and forced a smile. “Almost home.”

But it didn’t feel like home. It felt like walking back into a burning building with your heart in your hands.

You drove through town on autopilot, past the old spots, until you found yourself slowing in front of Family Video. The neon sign still flickered. Through the big front window, you could see someone moving behind the counter—tall, broad shoulders, that familiar swoop of hair catching the light just right.

Steve.

Your breath left you in a shaky rush. He was still here. Still in Hawkins. Still working the same stupid job like the world hadn’t ended the day you disappeared.

He looked up for a second, like he felt someone watching, and your heart stopped. Even from a distance, even after four years, you knew that face. The one you’d traced with your fingers in the dark. The one you’d kissed until your lips were swollen and your chest ached with how much you loved him.

You pulled into a spot a half block away from Family Video and killed the engine with trembling hands. Lila was quiet now, sensing the shift in the air the way kids do.

This was it.

You had to tell him. About the pregnancy. About your parents. About the daughter in the backseat who had his smile and his stubborn streak and his entire heart without ever having met him.

You had no idea if he’d hate you. If he’d slam the door in your face. If he’d already moved on to someone who didn’t vanish in the middle of the night and take his child with her.

But you were here.

For Lila. For the truth. For the stupid, reckless, beautiful chance that maybe—maybe—some part of Steve Harrington still belonged to the girl who’d loved him enough to break her own heart to protect him.

You wiped your eyes with the back of your hand, took one last steadying breath, and reached for the door handle.

You couldn't do it.

Instead you let the engine roar back to life and told yourself you'd see him soon.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The house looked smaller than you remembered.

You stood on the front porch of the house that had once been your prison. The key felt heavy in your palm. Lila clung to your leg, wide-eyed and quiet for once, sensing the weight in the air.

“You ready, baby?” you asked softly.

She nodded, curls bouncing.

You unlocked the door and pushed it open.

The smell hit you first—stale air, old wood polish, and the faint ghost of your mother’s perfume. Dust motes floated in the late afternoon light slanting through the half-drawn curtains. Everything was exactly as you’d left it the night they dragged you out: the same floral couch, the same family photos on the mantel, the same heavy silence that had always pressed down on your chest like a hand.

Your feet carried you inside on autopilot.

And then the memory slammed into you like a car crash.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

“You’re not keeping it.”

Your mother’s voice had been ice and venom, slicing through the kitchen like a blade. You’d been standing there in your pajamas, the positive test still clutched in your shaking hand, when they cornered you. Your father blocked the doorway. Your mother advanced on you like you were something dirty she needed to scrub out of her house.

“I won’t have a Harrington bastard in this family. Do you understand me? That boy is trash. A disappointment to his family. You think he’s going to stay? You think he’s going to raise some knocked-up teenager’s mistake? You’re delusional.”

You’d cried. God, you’d sobbed so hard your throat felt shredded. “Mom, please—I love him. We can figure it out—”

“Love?” She’d laughed, ugly and sharp. “You’re seventeen years old and pregnant. There is no ‘figuring it out.’ You’re going to your aunt’s. Tonight. You’ll have the baby there and give it up for adoption like any sensible girl would. And if you try to contact that boy, if you even think about keeping it, you’re on your own. No money. No home. Nothing.”

You’d dropped to your knees right there on the linoleum, begging. Your father hadn’t said a word—just watched with that cold, disappointed stare that had always made you feel small. Your mother had grabbed your arm hard enough to bruise and hauled you toward the stairs.

“Pack. Now. We leave in an hour.”

You’d screamed. You’d fought. You’d called Steve’s name like he could hear you from across town. But they’d shoved clothes into a suitcase, taken your phone, and dragged you out the front door while you cried so violently you threw up in the driveway. The last thing you saw of Hawkins was Steve’s street sign disappearing in the rearview mirror as your father drove like the devil was chasing him.

You never got to say goodbye.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

You blinked hard, the present rushing back in a dizzying wave. Your chest heaved like you’d just run a mile. Lila was tugging on your hand, her small voice cutting through the roar in your ears.

“Mommy? You okay? You look sad.”

You crouched down fast, pulling her into a tight hug so she wouldn’t see the tears threatening to spill. “I’m okay, baby. Just… remembering some stuff. Grown-up stuff.”

She patted your back with her little hand like she was the one comforting you. “We can make new memories. Right?”

You pulled back, cupped her face, and forced a smile that felt like it might crack your ribs. “Yeah, Lila. That’s exactly what we’re gonna do.”

You stood up, looked around the living room with fresh eyes, and made the decision right then and there.

This house was going to be gutted.

Every ugly memory, every echo of screaming and control and shame—you were going to rip it out. New paint. New furniture. New everything. You were going to make it a home for you and your daughter. A place where she could run and laugh and never, ever feel like she had to disappear to be loved.

“Lila,” you said, voice steadier now. “Why don’t you go pick your room? Any room you want. We’re gonna make this our house. You can have the biggest one if you like.”

Her eyes lit up like Christmas. “Really?!”

“Really. Go explore. I’ll be right here bringing stuff in from the car.”

She squealed and took off running, little sneakers pounding up the stairs. You heard doors opening and closing, her excited chatter to herself as she claimed territory like a tiny queen. The sound filled the hollow spaces in a way that made your throat tight all over again—but this time it was something warmer. Something like hope.

You stepped back outside into the cooling evening air and popped the trunk. There wasn’t much. Two suitcases, a couple of boxes of Lila’s toys and books, a portable crib you’d barely used anymore, and the few framed photos you’d managed to keep hidden from your parents all those years. The rest—your whole life, what little of it existed—was coming tomorrow with the movers. A fresh start in more ways than one.

As you grabbed the first suitcase and hauled it toward the porch, your mind drifted.

You remembered sneaking Steve in through the back door on nights your parents were out of town. The way he’d pressed you against the hallway wall, laughing quietly against your mouth because the floorboards creaked too loud.

You remembered the way he’d held you the night before everything exploded—arms wrapped around you from behind while you stood at your bedroom window, both of you staring at the stars like you knew something awful was about to happen.

And then the memory of that last night crashed back in again—the screaming, the way your mother’s nails had dug into your arm, the way you’d fought and cried and still lost everything.

You set the suitcase down harder than you meant to in the foyer, the thud echoing through the empty house.

Lila’s laughter drifted down from upstairs. She’d found a room. Probably your old room with the big window that overlooked the backyard. You could already picture her in there—pink walls, fairy lights, her drawings taped everywhere. A space that had never known the weight of your parents’ disappointment.

You went back for another box, arms full, and let the memories keep coming while your body moved on autopilot.

Steve’s smile the first time he saw you in that stupid Scoops Ahoy uniform. The way his hands shook the night he told you he loved you for the first time, like he was terrified you wouldn’t say it back. The quiet mornings after, tangled in his sheets, when the world outside Hawkins felt far away and possible.

You were going to tell him. Soon.

But first… this. This house. This fresh start. This life you were building for the little girl who deserved every good thing you could give her.

You carried the last box inside just as the sun dipped low, painting the walls in gold. Lila came barreling down the stairs, cheeks flushed, pointing excitedly toward the room she’d chosen.

“Mommy! Come see! It’s perfect!”

You set the box down, wiped your hands on your jeans, and followed her up.

The house still felt heavy with ghosts.

But for the first time in four years, you weren’t running from them.

You were going to burn them out and build something new in the ashes.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The weeks blurred into a strange, quiet rhythm.

You and Lila stayed inside the house like it was a fortress while the outside world kept spinning. Contractors came and went—crews from Indianapolis and Chicago, people who didn’t know your name, didn’t know the Harrington boy you’d loved, didn’t know anything except that you were paying cash and wanted the place gutted fast. They ripped out the old carpet, the dated tile, the wallpaper your mother had picked when you were ten. The walls got fresh coats of soft sage and warm cream. New hardwood went down. The kitchen was torn apart and rebuilt with white cabinets and a big island where Lila could sit and color while you cooked.

Every morning you woke up to the sound of hammers and saws. Every evening you walked through rooms that no longer felt like they belonged to ghosts. Lila claimed your old room at the top of the stairs as hers—now painted a soft lavender with glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and a little reading nook by the window. She ran through the hallways like she owned them, laughing when her voice echoed off the new walls. You watched her and felt something tight in your chest loosen, just a little, every single day.

The money helped. A lot.

Your aunt had never told your parents the truth. She’d let them believe you’d given the baby up, let them keep you in the will out of some twisted sense of family obligation or guilt. When the lawyers called a week after your parents passing, you’d sat on your old couch in stunned silence while they explained that everything— the house, the accounts, the investments your parents had built over decades— was now yours.

Millions.

You hadn’t touched most of it yet. But it was there. A safety net you never expected. Enough to give Lila the life your parents had tried to steal from both of you.

Enough that there wasn't even a dent in it after finishing the house renovations in record time.

You had no excuse to hide in your house anymore— using contractors and painters to tether you in place.

You knew you had to tell him. Every night you lay in your new bed and stared at the ceiling, rehearsing the words in your head. I had our daughter. I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice. She has your smile. The longer you waited, the heavier it got. Summer had rolled in hot and loud—kids home from college, the old crew drifting back to Hawkins for a few months the way they always did.

You lived down the block from the Hendersons now. Close enough that on warm afternoons you could hear the distant sound of a basketball hitting pavement or kids shouting. Close enough that movement at your house wouldn’t stay secret for long.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

It happened on a Thursday.

Lila was upstairs in her room, singing to herself while she arranged her stuffed animals on the new bed. You were in the kitchen, barefoot, rinsing dishes in the sink when the doorbell rang.

You froze.

No one ever came to the door. You had no more work being done to the house.

You dried your hands on a dish towel, heart already climbing into your throat, and walked to the front door.

When you opened it, three familiar faces stared back at you like they’d seen a ghost.

Dustin Henderson’s mouth actually fell open. Lucas Sinclair’s eyes went wide, his hand halfway to knocking again. Max Mayfield stood a step behind them, red hair brighter than you remembered, her expression shifting from curiosity to pure shock in half a second.

“Holy shit,” Dustin breathed.

Lucas blinked hard, like he was trying to clear his vision. “You’re… you’re supposed to be gone. Like, gone gone. Your parents said—”

Max cut in, voice sharp but not unkind. “We thought you died or something. Or ran away for real. What the hell are you doing back here?”

Dustin was still staring, wheels turning so fast you could almost see them spinning behind his eyes. “Does Steve know? Oh my god, does Steve know you’re here? Because if he doesn’t—”

You stood there in the doorway of your brand-new house, heart hammering so loud you were sure they could hear it, and felt four years of carefully built walls start to crack.

They were older. Taller. But the way they looked at you—like you were a puzzle piece that had just slammed back into a picture they thought was finished—hit you harder than you expected.

Lila’s little voice drifted down from upstairs, sweet and oblivious. “Mommy? Who’s at the door?”

All three of them went completely still.

Dustin’s eyes flicked past you into the house, then back to your face. His voice came out quieter this time, almost careful.

“…Mommy?”

You didn’t even think. You just stepped back and held the door wider, voice low and urgent.

“Inside. All of you. Now. Before the whole neighborhood sees.”

They moved like they were in a trance—Dustin first, then Lucas, Max trailing behind. You shut the door behind them and the click of the lock sounded way too loud.

Lila’s little footsteps pattered down the stairs before you could even turn around.

“Mommy? Who’s here?” She appeared at the bottom step in her purple shorts and a t-shirt with a glittery butterfly on it, curls messy from playing. She tilted her head, curious and completely unafraid, staring at the three strangers in her brand-new living room.

Dustin’s eyes went straight to her and stayed there. Lucas made a soft, stunned sound in the back of his throat. Max’s eyebrows shot up so high they almost disappeared into her hairline.

“Holy shit,” Dustin whispered again, but this time it was softer. Almost reverent. “She looks… she looks just like him. The hair. The eyes. The—” He swallowed hard. “She’s Steve’s, isn’t she?”

You froze.

Every muscle in your body locked up. Your hand found Lila’s shoulder on instinct, pulling her gently against your leg. She leaned into you without hesitation, still blinking up at the new people with open interest.

Max was the one who spoke next, voice flat but not unkind. “Dustin. Breathe. You’re gonna pass out.”

Dustin ignored her, eyes locked on you now. “Does he know? Steve. Does he know about her?”

Your throat felt like sandpaper. “No.” The word came out quieter than you meant. “Not yet.”

Lucas let out a disbelieving laugh that had no humor in it. “How the hell have you not seen him yet? It looks like you’ve been back for weeks. He’s literally down the street half the time. He still works at Family Video. He still drives that same stupid car. What, you’ve just been… hiding in here redecorating while he has no idea he has a kid?”

“Lucas,” Max muttered, but she didn’t disagree.

Lila tugged on your hand, completely oblivious to the tension cracking through the room. “Mommy, they’re new. Can they play? The girl one is pretty. I like her hair.”

Max’s mouth twitched despite everything. She crouched down a little so she was closer to Lila’s eye level. “Hey, kiddo. I’m Max. These two idiots are Dustin and Lucas. What’s your name?”

“Lila Harrington!” she said proudly, then looked back up at you. “Can they stay and play? Please?”

You exhaled shakily, one hand still on her shoulder, the other pressing against your sternum like you could physically hold your heart inside your chest. The new house suddenly felt too bright, too open. All the walls you’d torn down and rebuilt didn’t feel like enough protection anymore.

Dustin was still staring at you, eyes wide and frantic. “You have to tell him. Like… soon. Like, yesterday soon. He’s been—” He stopped himself, jaw working. “He’s been different since you left. Not broken exactly, but… not the same. And if he finds out from someone else—”

“I know,” you cut in, voice tight. Max gave you a look that said she was already calculating how long Dustin could keep his mouth shut. You caught it and almost smiled despite the panic. “I know he’s bad at secrets. I remember.”

Max snorted softly. “Understatement of the century.”

Lucas ran a hand over his face. “Jesus. This is insane. You just… disappeared. Your parents said you were gone for good. And now you’re here with a whole-ass kid who’s basically a tiny Steve Harrington and you haven’t told him?”

“I was going to,” you said. The words felt weak even to you. “I am going to. I just… needed to get us settled first. Make this place ours before I dropped a bomb on his entire life.”

Lila was still looking between all of you, picking up on the heavy energy even if she didn’t understand it. She reached up and patted your arm with her small hand. “It’s okay, Mommy. You tell Steve whatever you want! Mommy? Who is Steve?”

That almost broke you.

You crouched down so you were eye-level with her, brushing a curl out of her face. “Steve's the nice boy in the pictures that Mommy kept in her room back in the old house.”

When you stood back up, the three of them were watching you—Dustin with barely contained urgency, Lucas with something like sympathy under the shock, Max with that sharp, knowing look that said she understood more than she was saying.

You met their eyes one by one.

“I’ll tell him,” you said again, quieter but steady. “I promise. Just… give me a little more time. Please.”

Dustin opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, but Max elbowed him before he could. Lucas just nodded once, slow and serious.

The silence that followed was thick.

Lila, blissfully unaware, tugged on Max’s sleeve. “Do you wanna see my new room? It has stars on the ceiling.”

Max glanced at you, then back down at her. “Yeah, kid. I’d like that.”

You watched them head toward the stairs—Lila chattering happily, Max following with surprising gentleness—and felt the weight in your chest shift, just a little.

The secret was out to three more people.

And you had just promised, out loud, that you would finally face Steve.

The clock was officially ticking.

Another week slipped by in a haze of anxiety and anticipation.

The kids—Dustin, Lucas, and Max—came by a few more times. They never stayed long, but they came. Dustin brought over old comic books for Lila and spent half an hour on the floor explaining the plots in detail while she sat cross-legged in her new room, completely enraptured. Lucas helped you carry in a heavy bookshelf the contractors had left in the garage. Max mostly hovered near Lila, letting the four-year-old do her hair with colorful clips while they watched cartoons. None of them brought up Steve again after that first day, but you could feel the question hanging in the air every time they looked at you.

You still hadn’t left the house much. The place finally felt like it belonged to you and Lila instead of the ghosts of your parents. But the longer you stayed hidden, the heavier the secret grew.

Then one afternoon everything finally cracked.

Lila was sitting on the new couch in her pajamas, eating apple slices and watching TV while you folded laundry nearby. A commercial came on—bright, loud, the kind made for kids. A new family movie that had just hit VHS. Talking animals, a little girl hero, adventure, magic. The kind of thing that would’ve made your younger self lose her mind.

Lila went very still.

Then she turned to you with huge, watery eyes and her bottom lip already trembling.

“Mommy,” she said, voice small and desperate. “I need that movie. Please. I need it right now.”

You tried to reason with her. You told her maybe next week, maybe you could rent it soon. But she was four, and the meltdown hit like a summer storm—full volume, tears, little fists, the works. She wanted it today. She needed it today. The world would end if she didn’t have that movie in her hands before bedtime.

You stood there in the middle of your brand-new living room, watching your daughter cry like her heart was breaking, and something inside you finally snapped into place.

Enough hiding.

You put on your big girl pants.

You called Max. She showed up fifteen minutes later with a skateboard under one arm and a knowing look on her face. You didn’t have to explain much. She just nodded, took one look at Lila’s blotchy face, and said, “Go. I got her. We’ll watch cartoons until you get back.”

You kissed Lila’s forehead, promised you’d come home with the movie, and drove to Family Video for the first time in four years.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The bell above the door jingled the same way it always had. The smell of plastic cases and old carpet hit you like a memory. You kept your head down at first, scanning the new releases wall, heart pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat.

Then a familiar voice from behind the counter made you look up.

“Oh my god.”

Robin Buckley was staring at you like you’d just walked out of a grave. Her mouth opened and closed a few times. She dropped the tape she’d been holding. It clattered to the floor.

“You’re—holy shit. You’re here. You’re alive. What the—how—when did you—Steve doesn’t know, does he? Oh my god, Steve is going to freak—”

“Robin,” you said quietly, stepping closer to the counter. Your hands were shaking. “Breathe.”

She didn’t. She came around the counter instead, eyes wide and shining, and stopped just short of hugging you like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed.

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered. “Or in witness protection or something. Your parents said you were gone for good. Steve—he looked for you. For a while. Then he just… stopped talking about it. But he never stopped looking like he was waiting for you to walk through that door.”

Your chest ached so bad you had to grip the edge of the counter.

“Is he here?” you asked.

Robin shook her head. “Off today. He’s at his place doing… I don’t know, Steve things. Fixing something. He’s—” She stopped herself. “He’s not here.”

You nodded. Took a shaky breath.

“Can you give him a message for me?”

Robin’s eyebrows shot up. “Me? You want me to—”

“Please.” Your voice cracked a little. “Just… tell him to meet at the quarry tonight. Six o’clock. And don’t tell him it’s from me. Just say it’s important. Someone from the past who needs to talk.”

Robin stared at you for a long second. Then she exhaled, long and slow, and ran a hand through her hair.

“You’re really doing this,” she said, not a question.

“I have to.”

She nodded once, sharp. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll tell him. Six at the quarry. No name. Got it.”

You swallowed hard. “Thank you, Robin.”

She gave you a small, sad smile—the kind that said she understood more than she was saying. “Just… don’t break his heart again, okay? He’s been through enough.”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

Instead you grabbed the movie Lila wanted, paid, and walked back out into the summer heat with your pulse still racing.

Tonight.

The quarry at six.

You were finally going to tell him.

And you had no idea if he would ever forgive you.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The house felt too small. Too quiet. Too full of everything you still hadn’t said.

You couldn’t sit still another second.

By 4:45 you were in your room, hands shaking as you pulled on the nicest thing you owned that still felt like you—a soft black sundress that hit just above the knee, the one you’d bought on a whim last month and never worn. You did your hair the way you used to when you were seventeen and trying to impress him. A little mascara. The necklace he’d given you the summer before everything fell apart, the one you’d kept hidden in a drawer at your aunt’s house for four years like a secret prayer.

You left Lila with Max and Lucas. They’d shown up without being asked, like they already knew tonight was the night. Max had just nodded when you handed her the spare key. Lucas had given you a quiet, steady look and said, “Go. We got her.”

You kissed Lila’s curls, told her you loved her, and drove out to the quarry with your heart trying to climb out of your throat the entire way.

You got there at 5:30.

Too early. Way too early. But the thought of pacing the new floors of the house for another half hour had felt impossible. So you parked in the same spot you always used to, killed the engine, and climbed up onto the hood of your car to wait.

The quarry looked exactly the same. The water dark and still below, the cliffs rising up on either side, the sky starting to bleed orange and pink as the sun dipped lower. You could almost hear the ghost of your own laughter from years ago—Steve’s arms around you, his mouth on your neck, both of you pretending the world outside this place didn’t exist.

Your hands twisted in your lap. You checked the time on the dashboard clock every thirty seconds.

Then headlights cut across the dirt road.

Your stomach dropped.

A familiar BMW pulled up beside your car and parked. The engine cut off. For a second there was nothing but the sound of crickets and your own pulse roaring in your ears.

The driver’s door opened.

Steve Harrington stepped out.

He looked older. Broader in the shoulders, a little more tired around the eyes, but still him. The same hair, the same walk, the same way he held himself like he was ready to throw himself between the world and the people he loved. He was wearing a faded gray t-shirt and jeans, like he’d come straight from whatever he’d been doing at home.

He didn’t see you at first.

Then his eyes landed on the car. On you.

Sitting on the hood in your black dress, waiting for him like you’d never left.

He went completely still.

The color drained from his face so fast you thought he might actually pass out. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

Because in a way, he had.

“…You,” he breathed. The word cracked right down the middle. “You’re—fuck. You’re real.”

You slid off the hood on shaky legs. Your voice came out smaller than you wanted. “Hi, Steve.”

He took one step forward, then stopped like he wasn’t sure if you’d disappear if he got too close. His eyes were wide, shining with something between shock and fury and desperate, aching relief.

“I thought—” He swallowed hard. “Robin said someone from the past needed to talk. I thought maybe it was— I don’t know what I thought. But you’re here. You’re standing right in front of me and I—” His voice broke. “Where the hell have you been?”

The tears came before you could stop them. You didn’t wipe them away.

“I’m so sorry,” you whispered. “I’m so, so sorry, Steve.”

He let out a shaky laugh that wasn’t really a laugh at all. “Sorry? You disappeared. Your parents said you were gone for good. I looked for you. I—” He ran a hand through his hair, pacing a few steps before turning back to you. “I thought you were dead, for a while. Or that you just… didn’t want me anymore. And now you’re here and you look—” His eyes dragged over you, the dress, the way you were shaking. “You look beautiful. And I’m so fucking mad at you I can barely see straight, but I also want to—” He stopped himself, voice rough. “What the hell is going on?”

You took a breath that felt like it might shatter your ribs.

“I was pregnant,” you said.

The words hung in the warm evening air between you.

Steve went very, very still again.

You kept going before you lost your nerve.

“My parents found out. They made me leave that same night. Drove me across state lines, told me if I tried to contact you they’d cut me off completely. I had her at my aunt’s. I named her Lila. She’s four now. She has your hair. Your smile. Your everything.” Your voice cracked. “They never knew I kept her. My aunt never told them. When they died, the house and everything else came to me. I came back because… because she deserves to know where she came from. And because I couldn’t keep lying to myself anymore.”

You looked at him through blurry eyes.

“She’s yours, Steve. Lila is your daughter.”

For a long moment, the only sound was the wind moving through the trees and the distant call of a bird over the water.

Steve stared at you like the world had just tilted sideways.

And then, very quietly, he said your name like a prayer he’d been holding onto for four years.

The words hung between you like smoke.

Steve’s chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven breaths. His eyes were glassy, locked on yours like he was afraid you’d vanish again if he blinked.

“Where is she?” he asked, voice rough and low.

You wiped at your face with shaking hands, but the tears kept coming. “Back at the house. With Max and Lucas. They’re watching her.”

His jaw tightened for a second. You saw the flash of hurt there—sharp and quick.

“They knew?” he said quietly. “Before me?”

You nodded, fresh tears spilling over. “They showed up at the door last week. Ms.Henderson must have seen my car in the driveway and knew my parents died and maybe thought there were new neighbors moving in? I don't know. I didn’t plan it. They saw Lila and… they figured it out.”

Steve let out a short, bitter laugh and dragged a hand down his face. “Of course they did. Those little shits.” He shook his head, exhaling hard. “I’m pissed. But… I get it. They were protecting you. And her.” He looked at you again, softer this time. “How long have you been back?”

You swallowed. Your voice cracked when you answered.

“Almost a month. The house… my parents left it to me. I’ve been fixing it up. Trying to make it ours. I kept telling myself I’d come find you soon, but every time I tried I—” A sob tore out of you before you could stop it. “I was so scared you’d hate me. That you’d look at me the way my parents did. I couldn’t—”

You were crying in earnest now, shoulders shaking, the words tumbling out between gasps.

“I never stopped loving you,” you choked out. “Not for one single day. I thought about you every night. I kept every picture, every stupid little thing you gave me. And I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry that I still love you. I know I don’t have the right. I know I hurt you. I know I should’ve found a way to tell you sooner but I was a coward and I—”

“Hey.”

Steve’s voice cut through the spiral, gentle but firm.

He took one step closer, then another, until he was right in front of you. Close enough that you could see the tears clinging to his own lashes.

“Don’t apologize,” he said, eyes searching yours. “You don’t need to explain loving me. That part… that part I get.”

You shook your head hard, tears dripping off your chin. “But I do. I need you to understand why I left. Why I didn’t fight harder. Why I let them take me. I should’ve called. I should’ve written. I should’ve—”

He reached out and caught your face between his hands, thumbs brushing away the fresh tears even as more fell. His touch was warm and familiar and it broke something open in your chest all over again.

“Stop,” he whispered. His voice was shaking now too. “Just… stop for a second.”

You tried. You really tried. But the words kept coming, ragged and desperate.

“I’m so sorry, Steve. I’m so sorry I kept her from you. I’m so sorry I still love you like this. I know it’s selfish. I know I don’t deserve—”

He cut you off again, this time by pulling you into his chest.

One strong arm wrapped around your back, the other cradling the back of your head as you sobbed into his shirt. He smelled like laundry detergent and the faint trace of his old cologne and home.

“I never stopped loving you either,” he said against your hair, voice thick and cracking. “Not once. I tried. God, I tried so hard to move on. But every time I thought I was getting close, I’d see something that reminded me of you and it was like starting over. I hated you for leaving. I hated your parents. I hated myself for not finding you. And I’m still pissed. I’m so fucking pissed that you were here for a month and I had to get some cryptic message from Robin. But I never stopped loving you. Not for a second.”

His arms tightened around you like he was afraid you’d disappear again.

You clung to him, crying harder, the four years of silence and fear and guilt pouring out of you in shaking sobs against his chest.

Steve just held you there by the quarry as the sun dipped lower, one hand stroking your hair while the other stayed firm on your back.

“I’m still upset,” he murmured eventually, lips brushing your temple. “I’m not gonna lie about that. But you’re here. And we have a daughter. And I don’t know what the hell we do next, but… I’m not letting you disappear on me again. Okay?”

You nodded against him, unable to speak through the tears.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The drive back to the house was quiet, but not the heavy kind.

Steve followed behind your car the whole way, his headlights steady in your rearview mirror like he was afraid you’d vanish again if he looked away. You kept glancing back at him, wiping the last of your tears with the back of your hand. Your chest still ached, but something had shifted at the quarry. The truth was out. The worst part was over.

When you pulled into the driveway, the porch light was on. Max and Lucas were already standing in the open doorway like they’d been watching for you.

Steve parked beside you and got out slowly. He looked at the house—the new paint, the fresh flowers you’d planted by the steps, the warm glow coming from inside—and something soft and wondering crossed his face.

Max gave you a small nod as you walked up. Lucas clapped Steve on the shoulder once, quiet and solid.

“She’s upstairs,” Max said gently. “We told her you were coming home soon. She’s excited.”

Steve swallowed hard. “Thanks. For… everything.”

Lucas shrugged, but his smile was real. “Just don’t screw it up, Harrington. She's a cool kid. A lot cooler than you.”

Max elbowed him. “We’re gonna head out. Call us if you need anything.” She looked at you, then at Steve, and her voice softened. “Take care of each other.”

They left quietly, the sound of Lucas’s car fading down the block until it was just the two of you standing on the porch.

Steve looked at you. “Ready?”

You nodded, even though your heart was hammering again.

You pushed the door open.

Lila came running down the stairs the second she heard voices—barefoot, curls bouncing, still in her favorite pajamas. She stopped at the bottom step when she saw Steve, eyes wide and curious.

For a second, nobody moved.

Then she tilted her head, studying him with that serious little-kid intensity.

“Hey,” she said, voice bright and matter-of-fact. “You look like the guy in the pictures with Mommy.”

Steve’s breath caught.

Lila stepped closer, unafraid the way only four year olds can be. She reached up without hesitation and gently touched a strand of his hair, the same soft brown waves she had.

“You also look like me,” she announced, pleased. Her small fingers stayed in his hair for a moment, just feeling it. “Your hair’s the same.”

Steve didn’t move. He just let her touch him, his eyes shining as he slowly crouched down so he was closer to her level. His voice was thick when he finally spoke.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I think we do look alike, huh?”

Lila nodded, satisfied. Then she grinned, that crooked little smile that was pure Steve Harrington.

“I’m Lila Robin Harrington. Are you gonna stay for a while? Mommy made cookies earlier. They’re not burned this time.”

A wet laugh escaped Steve. He glanced up at you, eyes glassy, then back at your daughter—his daughter.

“I’d really like that,” he said. “If it’s okay with you.”

Lila grabbed his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world and started tugging him toward the kitchen.

“Come on. I’ll show you my room too. It has stars on the ceiling. Mommy let me pick the color and everything.”

Steve let her lead him, glancing back at you over his shoulder with a look so full of wonder and love and leftover hurt that it made your chest ache all over again.

You closed the front door behind you and leaned against it for a second, just breathing.

You didn’t know what came next.

You didn’t know if Steve would want to try again, or how you’d explain everything to Lila, or what the future looked like now that the secret was finally out. There was still so much to talk about. So much to heal.

But he was here.

In your house.

Holding your daughter’s hand like he’d been waiting his whole life to do it.

And for the first time in four years, the weight on your chest felt a little lighter.

He knew.

He knew everything.

And he was still here.

[luveline]

coming home to leon when he’s been away and no-contact for a month after Spain and turning to jelly in his lap

You know he’s home ‘cos he leaves his car parked in your spot closest to the house. You have to block him in, and you’re ravenous peering into his car window for any signs of life, but he must be inside. You almost forget your groceries, doubling back in a rush to grab them, and dumping them right at the front door, door still open, Leon waiting perched on the couch with a bouquet of wet-looking flowers on the pillow beside him. 

You don’t give him time to pick them up, or take off his dark jacket. Leon is assuredly, whole-heartedly, lovingly yours, his eyes lit with affection that took months to reveal itself in a second now as you climb onto the couch and wrap your arms around his neck. He’s gotta know how close you are to tears, but he just hefts you like you weigh nothing over his lap and digs his nose into your neck, breathing, squeezing you as tight as he knows you need, even if he’s reluctant to hurt you in a way that could linger. 

“Damn, I missed you,” he says on the tail end of a laugh, squeezing that little bit tighter, encouraging your face right up against his neck until there’s no room to breathe and less to miss him back. 

“I was starting to worry you’d died on me,” you mumble. 

“Not yet,” he promises. There’s a thread of hesitation to his hand where it tumbles down your back—he loves you, but affection is hard for him sometimes, like it might be to a collared dog. You had to earn his trust, and time apart always leaves him tentative. 

You melt like butter in the sun against his chest. Mumble missed yous and you okays already knowing he won’t tell you the truth. His hair is soft in your hand when you go searching, and his lips are smiling when he fits a kiss under the hollow of your eye. 

[spacejjunk]

Can i get Chicago deep dish with EXTRA bacon and chicken with breadsticks ('...It's not what it looks like, I swear.') with ginger ale as my drink

THANK YOU!!

broken knuckles, broken heart

pairing: steve harrington x reader

w/c: 3.7k+

warnings/tags: angst w comfort, husband steve, use of weed as a coping mechanism, lying to your husband </3, eddie lives bc i said so

masterlist // pizza party

The bell above the door of The Daily Grind had gone quiet hours ago. You flipped the sign to CLOSED, the neon from the streetlight outside cutting thin pink lines across the empty shop. The air still smelled like dark roast and vanilla, but it didn’t settle you the way it usually did.

Your hands shook a little as you counted out the register. A car had backfired on Main Street earlier and you’d dropped a whole pitcher of cold brew, the glass shattering across the floor like it was trying to drag you straight back into the woods. You’d laughed it off in front of the customers—clumsy me—but your heart hadn’t stopped racing for twenty minutes afterward. The nightmares had been bleeding into the days lately. You couldn’t keep pretending they weren’t.

You locked up and drove home on autopilot, the little tin in your purse heavier than it should’ve been.

Steve was already in the kitchen when you walked in, sleeves rolled up, stirring something that smelled like garlic and tomatoes. He turned at the sound of the door, that soft smile pulling across his face—the one that still hit you right in the chest even after everything.

“Hey, baby,” he said, crossing the room to kiss you slow and easy, like he had all the time in the world. His hands settled on your waist. “Long day?”

“Busy,” you said, and it wasn’t a lie. “But good. Ms. Henderson came in twice.”

He hummed, studying your face a second longer than usual. “You look wiped. Go change. I’ll finish up here.”

Dinner was nice. It always was with him. He told you about the freshman who’d asked wildly inappropriate questions during sex-ed today and you laughed in the right places. But you caught him watching you when he thought you weren’t looking—eyes lingering on the way your fingers tapped the table, the way you pushed your food around more than you ate it.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked eventually, voice low. “You’ve been… off. Quieter than usual. If the shop’s too much, or if something else is going on—”

“Peachy, Stevie,” you cut in, forcing a smile as you squeezed his hand across the table. “Just tired. Promise.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he let it go. For now.

Later, he spread his grading across the coffee table, red pen already in hand, brow furrowed in that focused way you loved. You waited until he was deep in it before you stood.

“Gonna take the trash out and check on the tomatoes real quick,” you said, leaning down to kiss the top of his head.

He caught your wrist gently. “You don’t have to do that tonight. Come sit with me.”

“I want the fresh air,” you said, and it came out a little too fast. “Be right back.”

You felt his eyes on you as you slipped out the back door.

The night was warm, crickets loud in the grass. You didn’t go near the trash cans. You went straight to the far side of the shed, where the porch light didn’t reach. Hands steady from practice now, you pulled the tin from your purse, rolled the joint between your fingers, and lit it.

The first inhale burned in the best way. The second one slower.

It hit like it always did lately—gradual, then all at once. The tight coil in your chest loosened. The low hum of anxiety that had been riding you all day went quiet. The memories didn’t vanish, but they stepped back, like someone had finally turned the volume down. Your shoulders dropped. Your hands stopped shaking. For the first time since that car backfired, you could actually breathe.

You stayed out there longer than you meant to, letting the high settle deep into your bones, warm and heavy and safe. No vines. No screams. Just the soft haze and the sound of crickets.

When you finally stubbed it out and tucked the tin away, you moved fast.

You slipped in through the side door instead of the back, hoping to avoid him, but Steve’s voice drifted from the living room anyway.

“You good out there?” he called, already half-standing from the couch. “Felt like you were gone a while.”

You didn’t give him the chance to come looking.

“Just needed a minute,” you said quickly, already heading down the hall. “Gonna shower real quick—wash the day off.”

You heard him start to say something else—“Baby, wait—”—but you were already in the bathroom, door shut, water running hot before he could reach you.

The shower felt like heaven.

You stood under the spray and let it pound against your shoulders, washing the smoke from your hair, your skin, the faint herbal scent from your clothes. The high made everything feel slow and good—the steam curling around you, the heat sinking into your muscles, the way your mind stayed quiet instead of spinning. You took your time, letting the water run until you were sure the smell was gone, until your body felt loose and heavy in the best way.

When you finally came out, wrapped in one of Steve’s old Hawkins High shirts that still smelled like him, he was waiting in the bedroom. He’d finished grading, lamp low, already in bed with the covers turned down for you.

He watched you cross the room, that same quiet concern in his eyes, but he didn’t push. Not tonight. But you knew he could only stay quiet for so long.

You crawled in beside him and he pulled you close immediately, one arm sliding around your waist, the other tucking your head under his chin. His fingers stroked slow lines down your back.

“Smell good,” he murmured against your hair. “Like my soap.”

You smiled into his chest, already feeling the high pulling you under. “Stole it.”

He huffed a soft laugh, pressed a kiss to your forehead. “Thief.”

You were asleep before he could say anything else.

And for the first time in weeks, there were no nightmares.

No waking up gasping. No clawing at the sheets like the vines were back. Just deep, heavy, dreamless sleep, your body curled warm against Steve’s, his heartbeat steady under your ear. The high kept the door to the Upside Down locked tight for one night, and you slept like the world had never tried to end.

Steve stayed awake a little longer.

He held you tighter than usual, listening to the even sound of your breathing, feeling the way you’d gone completely limp against him instead of twitching and murmuring like you had been lately. It should’ve made him happy. It did make him happy.

But it also made the worry in his chest twist tighter.

Because he knew you. Knew the way you deflected with that bright “peachy” smile when something was eating you alive. Knew the way you’d bolted to the shower tonight like you were running from a question you didn’t want to answer.

He pressed his lips to the top of your head and closed his eyes, breathing you in.

Tomorrow, he decided.

Tomorrow they were going to talk.

Whatever was going on with his wife—whatever had her sneaking around and hiding— he wasn’t going to let it keep winning.

Not when he had her right here in his arms.

Not when he loved her more than anything in this world or any other.

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

The next morning, the sun was already cutting through the blinds when you woke up. For once, you hadn’t jerked awake in the middle of the night clawing at nothing. No nightmares. Just heavy, dreamless sleep and Steve’s arm still draped over your waist like he’d been holding onto you all night.

He was already moving around the room, buttoning up a light blue shirt for school, hair still damp from the shower. When he noticed you watching him, he gave you that soft half-smile that always made your stomach flip.

“Morning, baby. You slept good last night.” It wasn’t a question. He sounded relieved.

You sat up slowly, the high from last night still lingering in your limbs like warm honey. “Yeah. Really good, actually.”

Steve crossed the room and kissed your forehead, then your mouth—gentle, lingering. “You should take the day off. Call in. Let the shop run without you for once. I’ve got baseball practice after last period, but I’ll be home for dinner. We can… talk. If you want.”

You nodded, even though talking was the last thing you wanted to do. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll take the day.”

He looked at you for a long second, that worry still sitting behind his eyes, but he didn’t push. Just kissed you again, told you he loved you, and headed out.

The second his car disappeared down the street, you picked up the phone.

Eddie answered on the third ring, voice still rough with sleep. “Munson residence. If this is about the campaign, I’m busy being a genius.”

“It’s me,” you said quietly. “Can you come over? I… need more. Of what you brought last time.”

There was a pause. Then Eddie’s voice dropped, softer. “Yeah. Gimme twenty.”

He showed up with a six-pack and a small paper bag like it was nothing, letting himself in the back door the way he always did when Steve wasn’t home. You’d known Eddie forever—through the Upside Down shit, through the aftermath, through every messy year after. He was safe. He didn’t ask questions you didn’t want to answer. He just handed over the bag, raised an eyebrow when you immediately rolled one, and flopped onto the couch beside you like he belonged there.

“Rough night?” he asked, watching you light up.

“Rough few months,” you admitted, taking a slow drag. The smoke hit your lungs and the tension in your shoulders started to melt again. “Steve almost caught me last night. I had to shower before he could smell it on me.”

Eddie whistled low. “Harrington’s gonna lose his shit when he finds out you’re self-medicating with my finest.”

“He’s not gonna find out,” you said, but even as you said it, the words felt thin.

You talked for a while—nothing heavy, just Eddie telling you about some band he was trying to get together now, the way his uncle was on his case about getting a “real job.” You passed the joint back and forth. The high settled in deep, making everything softer around the edges. Your head didn’t feel like it was full of static for the first time in days.

You didn’t hear Steve’s car pull into the driveway.

Didn’t hear the front door open.

The first thing you registered was the sudden shift in the air—then Steve’s voice, sharp and disbelieving from the doorway.

“What the fuck is this?”

You and Eddie both turned.

Steve stood there in his coaching windbreaker, hair damp from the rain that had apparently canceled practice. His eyes went straight to Eddie on the couch next to you, the joint still between your fingers, the easy way you were both sitting like this was normal.

His face went dark in a way you’d never seen before.

“Steve—” you started, already moving to stand.

He didn’t wait.

He crossed the room in three strides and swung.

The punch landed hard—right across Eddie’s jaw with a sickening crack. Eddie’s head snapped sideways, the joint flying out of your hand as you scrambled up.

“Jesus—Steve!” you shouted.

Eddie stumbled back against the couch, one hand flying up to his face, blood already blooming at the corner of his mouth. “What the *fuck*, man?!”

Steve was breathing hard, fist still clenched, shoulders heaving. His eyes were wild—hurt and furious and something else that made your stomach drop.

“It’s not what it looks like, I swear!” you said quickly, stepping between them before Steve could swing again. Your hands were up, heart hammering. “Eddie, just—stay there. Steve, please—”

Steve’s gaze snapped to you. The betrayal in it hit harder than any punch.

“What the hell is happening?” His voice was low, rough, like it was being dragged out of him. “You take the day off, I come home early, and I find him here? With you? Smoking? In our house?”

Eddie wiped blood from his lip, glaring but not fighting back. “Harrington, calm the fuck down—”

“Shut up,” Steve snapped at him, then looked back at you. His voice cracked on the next words. “Tell me. Right now. What the hell is going on with you?”

The high was still in your system, but it couldn’t touch the way your chest was caving in. You looked at Eddie—still sitting there, stunned, lip bleeding because of you—and then at Steve, your husband, the man who’d held you through every nightmare for years and never once made you feel like a burden.

Your voice came out small.

“I’ve been smoking behind your back,” you said. “The weed. It’s… it’s the only thing that’s been helping. The PTSD—it’s gotten bad again. The nightmares. The panic. I wake up thinking I’m back there and I can’t breathe and I didn’t want to tell you because your job, the shop, Hawkins… I didn’t want anyone to know I was falling apart. I didn’t want you to worry. Or think I was weak. Or ruin everything we built.”

You swallowed hard, eyes burning.

“Last night I snuck out after you were grading. Smoked behind the shed. That’s why I showered so fast—I didn’t want you to smell it. And it worked. I slept through the night for the first time in weeks. That’s why I took today off. I called Eddie because I needed more. I was going to hide it again. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Steve.”

The room went quiet except for the rain hitting the windows.

Steve’s shoulders were still tight, but the fury in his face had cracked open into something raw. Hurt. Fear. Love so big it looked like it was breaking him.

Eddie stayed quiet for once, just watching.

Steve’s eyes flicked to the blood on Eddie’s mouth, then back to you. His voice was quieter when he finally spoke, but it still shook.

“You should’ve told me,” he said. “You don’t get to decide what I can handle. Not after everything. Not when it’s you.”

He stepped closer, ignoring Eddie for a second, and reached for your face with both hands—gentle even though his knuckles were red.

“I thought you were cheating on me,” he admitted, voice breaking. “I came home and saw him here and I thought—fuck, I thought I was losing you. You've been so distant and...”

You leaned into his touch, tears finally spilling over. “Never. I’d never do that to you. I just… I didn’t know how to tell you I was drowning.”

Steve pulled you into his chest, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other still clenched like he didn’t know what to do with the leftover anger. He smelled like rain and sweat and home.

Behind you, Eddie cleared his throat softly. “I’ll… uh. I’ll go. Unless you want me to stay and explain the good shit I brought.”

Steve didn’t let you go. He just turned his head enough to look at Eddie, jaw tight.

“You’re not going anywhere yet,” he said. “Not until we figure out how to help her. Together.”

The words hung in the air—complicated, heavy, but real.

The rain was still coming down hard outside, drumming against the windows like it wanted in. Inside, the air was thick with everything that had just exploded—Steve’s punch, your confession, the joint that had gone flying when Steve swung.

Eddie sat on the edge of the couch, wiping blood from his split lip with the back of his hand. Steve still had you pulled tight against his chest, one arm locked around your waist like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go. His knuckles were already starting to swell.

For a long second, nobody spoke.

Then Steve exhaled, shaky and rough, and looked over at Eddie.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I… fuck, Munson. I saw you here with her and I lost it. Thought the worst. That she was—” His voice cracked. He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter what I thought. I shouldn’t have hit you. That was bullshit. I’m sorry.”

Eddie blinked, clearly surprised. He worked his jaw, testing the bruise already forming, then gave a small, crooked smile that didn’t quite hide the sting.

“Apology accepted, Harrington. Though next time maybe use your words before the fists, yeah?” He glanced at you, then back at Steve. “I get it. You were scared. I’d probably swing too if I walked in on my girl with someone like me.”

Steve didn’t laugh, but the tension in his shoulders eased a fraction. He nodded once, then did something that made your breath catch.

He reached for the tin you’d left on the coffee table.

To your surprise, Steve rolled his own joint—quick, practiced fingers like muscle memory from years ago. He lit it, took a slow drag, and held it out to you first before taking another for himself. The smoke curled between the three of you, familiar and strangely intimate.

“Come here,” Steve murmured to you, tugging you down with him onto the couch. He settled back against the cushions and pulled you into his lap, your back to his chest, his arms wrapping around you like a shield. One hand rested over your heart, the other stroking slow, soothing lines down your arm. You melted into him instantly, the high from earlier mixing with the new warmth of his body and the steady beat of his heart against your spine.

“I hate that you’ve been dealing with this alone,” he said against your hair, voice low and rough with everything he was feeling. “The nightmares. The fact that you felt like you had to hide it from me… that you thought you couldn’t come to me. Baby, I’m your husband. I’m supposed to be the one you lean on when shit gets dark. I’ve been so worried about you lately and I didn’t know why. I thought maybe you were falling out of love with me or something stupid. But it was this. You carrying all that hell by yourself.”

He pressed a kiss to the side of your head, then another to your temple.

“You’re not weak for needing something to help you sleep. You’re not ruining anything. And I don’t give a shit about reputations or what Hawkins thinks. You come first. Always. If the weed helps, then we’ll figure it out together. I’ll go with you to talk to someone if you want real help. Therapy, whatever. I just… I need you to stop shutting me out. I can’t lose you to the Upside Down all over again. Not when you’re right here.”

You felt tears prick your eyes, but they were the good kind—the kind that came with finally being seen. You curled your fingers around his forearm, holding on.

Eddie watched the two of you for a moment, then spoke up, voice quieter than usual.

“I get the nightmares,” he said, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “Still get ‘em sometimes. That feeling like something’s about to grab you from under the bed or the vines are back in your throat. I almost died down there… the demobats… I thought that was it. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t scream. Just… fading out while everyone I cared about was fighting for their lives too. Weed helps me quiet it down when it gets bad. Makes the edges softer so I don’t wake up thinking I’m still there.” He looked at you, eyes soft but serious. “You’re not alone in this. Not with the trauma shit. And not with all of us idiots who’d burn the world down for you.”

You swallowed hard, the words loosening something tight in your chest. Snuggled deeper into Steve’s arms, you let it out.

“The nightmares… they’re always the same lately. I’m back in the Upside Down. Vines everywhere, choking everything. I can hear the demodogs but I can’t see them until it’s too late. Sometimes it’s the bats. Sometimes it’s just… that feeling of being hunted. Like something’s breathing down my neck and I know if I turn around it’ll be the end. I wake up gasping, heart pounding so hard it hurts, and I can’t tell if I’m really awake or still trapped. The weed makes it stop. Just for a night. Lets me breathe again.”

Steve’s arms tightened around you. He didn’t say anything right away—just held you, letting you feel every steady breath he took, grounding you in the present. His fingers traced slow circles over your stomach, warm and safe.

“You’re here,” he whispered eventually. “With me. With us. The Upside Down’s gone. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

Eddie nodded, standing up slowly. He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair, giving you both a look that was half fond, half knowing.

“I’ll head out. Give you two some space. But… call me. If you need more. Or if you just wanna talk. Or whatever.” His eyes flicked to Steve, then back to you, a small smirk tugging at his bruised mouth. “Door’s always open. For both of you.”

Steve gave him a short nod—peace offering accepted. “Thanks, Munson. For real.”

Eddie slipped out into the rain, the door clicking shut behind him.

The house went quiet except for the rain and the low crackle of the joint still burning in the ashtray.

Steve shifted you gently until you were facing him, still curled in his lap. He cupped your face with both hands, thumbs brushing away the tears you hadn’t realized were falling.

“I love you,” he said simply. “More than anything. We’re gonna get through this. You don’t have to hide anymore. Not from me.”

You leaned in and kissed him—slow, deep, tasting the faint smoke on his lips and the salt of your own tears. He kissed you back like he was pouring every ounce of worry and love and relief into it, one hand sliding into your hair, the other holding you close against his chest.

When you finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours.

“Stay right here with me tonight,” he murmured. “Let me hold you. Let me be the one who keeps the nightmares away for once.”

You nodded, already feeling the heavy, safe warmth of him wrapping around every jagged edge inside you.

You were safe.

You were loved.

[kindred-s0uls]

i've missed you

"Doctor Kennedy." Leon drawls in a low tone with a soft grin, getting up from the upholstered waiting room chair and striding towards you. You can already see it in the way he moves; how his posture is much more upright than it has been in the last three months. "Jesus christ. Could they at least leave the flirting and eyefucking until they leave the reception area?" The red haired receptionist sighs to the curly-haired receptionist once you and Leon are out of earshot. The curly-haired receptionist quirks a brow at the redhead. "Ah. You must be new here."

tags: 18+, smut, f!pov, oneshot, fingering, butterfly/mating press position, doctor!reader x leon, reader is married to leon, leon had a near-death experience and now all he wants to go is go back to his wife and fuck her brains out because he missed her so much, re9!leon/post requiem events, mention of an age gap but no real details on it, fucking on the medical exam table, inappropriate workplace conduct from mr and mrs kennedy tsk tsk | wc: 2.4k.

After a mission, nobody even tells Leon to "report to medical for clearance" anymore. Instead, they just simply say "go see your wife". Which is exactly what Leon is doing, right after walking away from Grace and putting his ring back on.

That same matching platinum band glints under the cool toned medical lighting, as you finish typing up a clearance report for a poor rookie who sustained a deep laceration to their arm, which is finally in the proliferation stage. You already received a text from Sherry two hours ago; that a cure was found and a sample has just been received by forensics, almost ready to be forwarded on to the lab. Your fingers hover over the membrane keyboard, and you let out a deep sigh that you've been holding in.

Ever since those black, almost mold-like marks appeared on Leon's hands and neck, you've been struggling to keep it together. It was one thing to be married to such a prolific DSO agent, but it was another thing for everyone and their damn dog knowing about Leon's infection and checking in on you about it. Of course your coworkers had good intentions, but every time somebody asked how you're doing, you would feel a crack in your porcelain armor widening. Replying with a neutral expression, you always say something along the lines of "well he's not showing any psychological symptoms and his vitals are otherwise in tact, so I'm staying hopeful" whenever somebody checks in on you. It was a perfect reply - objective and rational, and it made you appear level-headed.

But for the last three months, on the inside you were anything but level-headed. When the lights would go out in the medical wing of the DSO HQ, you would quietly lock your office door and sob. You didn't want to let Leon see you like this; you felt as if he had enough on his plate already, he didn't need to see you crumble too. You wordlessly took it upon yourself to be a steady force for him during this time - to be an anchor while he tries to navigate this storm. After several years of marriage, Leon knows you well enough to see right through you, but he didn't confront you about your unwillingness to cry or break down. He knew that a large part of this act was your own form of coping.

Before you can type another sentence, you hear a knock at your office door and one of the receptionists call out "Doctor? Your husband just entered the waiting room." You feel a giddiness - the same giddiness you've felt all these years since you first began dating Leon.

"Oh, yes. I'll bring him in." You call out, locking your work computer and shrugging your medical coat back on as your pumps echo through the hallway of the consultation wing, the soft 'click clack' in the pattern of your gait already making Leon's ears perk up. "Agent Kennedy." You call out to Leon, crossing your arms with a small smile on your face. It's an entirely unprofessional tone - one full of adoration and love.

"Doctor Kennedy." Leon drawls in a low tone with a soft grin, getting up from the upholstered waiting room chair and striding towards you. You can already see it in the way he moves; how his posture is much more upright than it has been in the last three months.

"Jesus christ. Could they at least leave the flirting and eyefucking until they leave the reception area?" The red haired receptionist sighs to the curly-haired receptionist once you and Leon are out of earshot. The curly-haired receptionist quirks a brow at the redhead.

"Ah. You must be new here."

You lock the door quietly as Leon takes a seat on the edge of the examination table, his muscular thighs splayed across as his hands clasp together loosely. Before doing anything else, you walk up to Leon, placing one hand on his jawline as you kiss him deeply. You've missed the feeling of his lips on yours, the way his stubble gently tickles your chin, and the way his tongue always tastes like spearmint gum. Reluctantly pulling away, you lean back a little on the edge of your desk with a loving grin, although it quickly turns into a look of genuine confusion. "Your… Your face." Is all you can manage to say. You and Leon have a difference in age; you didn't think much of it since at the time of your marriage it didn't appear so significant back then, but a little later down the track people began to confuse Leon for an uncle or father. But since coming back from that mission, you both look identical in age.

"Oh, yeah. That Elpis cure actually worked. I feel better than I have in well, at least a decade." Leon chuckles.

"…You can be honest with me babe. If this was all some kind of elaborate scheme to get a facelift and some lip filler, I won't judge you." You joke, but you're still in a bit of disbelief. Although that disbelief quickly wears off - you've seen and heard of stranger things happening in this field.

"Glad to know my wife still has her sense of humour intact. Didn't miss me too much, did you?" Leon asks with a grin as you approach him to close the space between you both. He stretches his big, muscular arms out to encase you in a hug as he buries his face in the crook of your neck.

"Haha. No actually, I was enjoying the peace and quiet in the home. I finally got a little vacation from those one-liners." You tease, but you are completely lying. Since Leon went on the mission to Rhodes Hill, you stayed in the DSO HQ for the entire duration, even poking your head into Sherry's office when she had some downtime. And Leon knows it.

"Really? Huh. Could've sworn I heard you mumbling in the background about how you were 'going to kill me if I didn't come back alive' in Sherry's headset at uh…" Leon checks his watch for a moment, "probably 2am today?" Leon teases you back. You groan in faux-annoyance, his keen observation skills being both a blessing and a curse.

"Fine… Yes. Of course I missed you." You admit, your lower lip trembling and tears welling up in your eyes. "I really missed you. I was so scared you weren't going to come back. And you were getting more and more sick by the day but they still insisted on putting you on such a dangerous mission." The dam finally broke as you explain how worried you truly were.

"I know. I could hear you crying in the bathroom before I left for Rhodes Hill. But you were putting on a real brave face for me just so we'd both keep it together, huh?" Leon murmurs as he kisses the side of your temple.

"Don't ever contract a life-threatening virus and worry me like that ever again." You chide him between snivels, but there's no anger in your voice. Just relief. Relief that Leon is finally back and safe.

"I can't make promises, but I'll do my best for you." Leon whispers, the low rumble of his voice soothing you as your tears subside.

Pulling away from his hug as your tears have now dried down to salty damp patches on your cheeks, you properly take his appearance in. You've always found your husband handsome, but seeing him like this… You can't stop staring.

"Something the matter, doc?" Leon tilts his head, aware of your ogling.

"Sorry, I just can't get over how good you look." You let out a short laugh, as his hands find their way to your hips, his thumb tracing little circles over the fabric of your black pencil skirt.

"Could say the same to you." Leon whispers, and you roll your eyes playfully.

"I wish." You retort, aware of your current slightly disheveled and sleep deprived state. Leon's lips brush against your neck. Your hands steady themselves against his thighs, gently but firmly gripping them as your knees wobble a little under the sensation of his touch.

"You don't believe me?" Leon whispers, his fingers playing with the hem of your blouse.

"Hmm. Possibly." Your lower lip catches between your teeth.

"Alright. Let me show my pretty wife how much I've missed her then." Leon gives you a lazy grin, guiding you by the small of your back as you hitch your skirt up a little to straddle him.

"O-one day we're gonna get caught doing this…" You moan softly in his ear, as Leon's hand disappears up your skirt, rubbing your pussy through your already-damp panties.

"Maybe. But they've got much bigger issues to worry about than their best agent fucking their best physician." He replies, the fingertips of his index and middle finger pressing against your clit, causing you to let out a small whimper.

"Insatiable." You breathe out, as Leon pulls your underwear to the side to stroke his fingers against your sopping wet folds.

"I'm the insatiable one? When you're already this wet for me? I'm the one who has to keep up with you, baby." He whispers, before capturing your mouth with his once more. Leon sinks his index and middle fingers inside of you, greedily swallowing the soft moans that escape your mouth as his thumb rubs at your clit.

"F-fuck… Oh god… I've missed you so much…" You whine, as his fingers pick up the pace.

"You did? You really missed me? How about you show me just how much you missed me." Leon's fingers curl upwards, hitting that perfect, sweet spot inside of you, making your breath hitch and your body tense.

"Right there, please, please, don't stop…!" You try to contain your pleads and whines of pleasure, your legs trembling, causing the examination table to shake a little.

"Aww, poor baby. You really needed this. Come on, you can let go now. I've got you." Leon coos in your ear, as you grip onto his shoulders tightly, quietly cumming all over his hand. You slump a little in his arms as you ride out your high, watching with heavy-lidded eyes as Leon licks his fingers clean.

"Leon Scott Kennedy. I swear you are going to be the death of me." You rasp out with a fake glare, but your fingers are already nimbly undoing his belt buckle. The wedding band on your finger gleaming momentarily as it catches the light.

"Hey now… Is that any way for a doctor to talk to her patient?" Leon mocks, the deep timbre of his voice causing you to shudder. You free his cock from his underwear; Leon is impossibly hard, his tip drooling with precum, taking on a reddish hue.

"Luckily my patient is also my husband, so he's not allowed to file any complaints." You chuckle, lowering yourself to your knees. Leon gently grasps your shoulder, shaking his head.

"I just wanna be inside of you right now." Leon says. You get up from your knees, and in one swift motion, Leon swaps spots by lifting you up effortlessly and laying you down on the examination table, while he is now standing between your legs. Your skirt is bunched up to your hips, and your underwear is completely drenched with your cum and pulled to the side.

"Please. I need you..." You plead, staring at Leon with blown-out pupils as his big, calloused hands grip the back of your calves to throw them over his shoulders, before his hands travel back to your hips.

"Anything for you, my love." He doesn't waste another second, his hips slowly pushing forward as you feel him stretch your walls, inch by inch, until he's bottomed out inside of you. Letting out a shaky exhale, your glossy lips quiver as the feeling of being totally filled up by his cock makes you squeeze your eyes shut in pure pleasure, your jaw dropping into a perfect little 'o' shape.

"O-oh fuck, more… Please…"

Leon leans down, deepening the angle and rocking his hips into you at a faster and harder pace. "Yes ma'am."

The obscene sound of skin slapping against skin and the squelch of your wetness with every thrust makes your cheeks burn red. You're certain if somebody walked past and paused for a moment, they'd hear such lewd sounds coming from your office, but at this point, you don't care one bit. You've missed your husband so much.

"You fuck me so so good… Oh god baby, I've missed you so much." You coo praise in Leon's ear, and you feel his hips pick up the pace even more. You always know exactly what buttons to push when it comes to him.

"S-shit, you're so fuckin' tight. You're squeezing me like fuckin' crazy. Fuck, such a tight, pretty little pussy." Leon rasps out, and his hips buck into you with a fervor that you're unsure of is even possible from a human standpoint. Every thrust Leon makes kisses that spot inside of your cunt so perfectly that your walls clench around his cock with a vice grip.

"Please, please, cum inside of me, please." You whimper, cheeks flushed and your hair plastered to the sides of your sweaty face.

"Yeah, you want my cum? Take it, princess. Take it. You know I'm all yours… Fuck-" Leon groans in pleasure as he feels your pussy tighten around his cock as you cum, your thighs shaking just as much as the examination table beneath you. Your knuckles turn white as you grip onto the edge of the table, eyelids fluttering shut as you reach that perfect peak. And that's all it takes for Leon's orgasm to follow suit, as he hisses in ecstasy, spilling hot, white ropes of his sticky cum inside of you.

"F-fuck… How much energy did that damn cure give you?" You rasp out, catching your breath as Leon's posture is already straightened out.

"Enough for another round. Or two. Or three." He shrugs with red cheeks and a grin as he helps you hop off the table, giving you a moment to fix yourself up and clean up your office space.

"Alright… Slow down there agent. We need to get home first." You chuckle, locking the office door behind you both as you walk through the reception area. Leon wordlessly extends his arm out to you, and you hand him your work bag as he slings it across his broad shoulder, before reaching out again and grabbing his hand in yours. You have a feeling you may end up in the backseat of his car before you make it home.

-k🐈

[theweepingangelofcas]

Verdugo - Leon Kennedy x Reader (Fever Saint Part 12)

Summary: Leon gets his bearings, to find that he's in some kind of cave. Then, a fight with the fearsome Verdugo. Authors Note: I know I generally post a chapter of Beneath the Rot in between Fever Saint chapters, but the writers block for that fic is BAD BAD rn so hopefully it won't take too much longer Masterlist | Playlist | AO3 Link

The water surrounding his legs is cold.

Leon really wishes that one day, he’ll have to trudge through nice, warm water. But today isn’t his lucky day. He hasn’t had a lucky day in years, and he’s sure as hell not getting one anytime soon. Around him, the cave stretches endlessly onwards, darkness enveloping his frame. If it wasn’t for his flashlight, he’d be blind.

Across his shoulders, you’re mostly still. Your breathing is harsh, accented by pained gasps and wispy cries, but you’re not struggling when he has to maneuver though a particularly tough spot. You don’t fight him when he briefly flips his hold on you, carrying you bridal style over some rough terrain before switching you back onto his shoulders. The lack of protest leaves him feeling uneasy and strained. Part of him wants you to try and kick him in the ribs, or argue with him over how he’s holding you. Instead, an anxious silence settles over both of you. 

He can feel the parasite now. It’s somewhere in his chest, limbs scratching over his ribs and establishing itself over his heart. It itches and burns within him. The kind of pain that he’s only ever imagined, never been able to feel. There’s a tightness in his lungs that won’t go away. It makes breathing hard. Painful, actually. When he looks down, he can see the veins on his arms turning a sickly dark green. He can only imagine what the rest of him looks like right now. Is his face covered in the same markings? His eyes? His organs?

A weak groan pierces his train of thoughts. It’s you, whimpering into his shoulder. When he angles his head to the side, he can just barely see your face. Your eyes are squeezed shut, worry lines carved into your forehead. 

“Rabies?” He tests, turning his head forward again. When he squints and angles the flashlight just right, he can see a door up ahead. With his luck, it won’t lead to anywhere good, but anything has to be better than this.

Another hiss of pain as you respond. “‘M here.”

Your answer does nothing to reassure him. If anything, it just raises his blood pressure further. You don’t sound good. Your words are tilted and wrong, like you’re barely even there anymore. Even as he keeps walking, cold water wading up to his knees, his brain is focusing on how you’re practically slack over his shoulders. He might as well be carrying around a corpse. Shit, maybe he will be carrying around a corpse, pretty soon. You might be the medic, a former nurse, but he doesn’t need to understand medicine to see how far gone you are. 

He wonders how Ashley is. How far her parasite has progressed. Does she have that same feeling in her chest right now? The same broiling, burning, stinging pain? God, what are those cultists doing to her? The poor thing is alone right now, probably terrified out of her mind. 

“... Keep- Keep them out…”

You’re mumbling, he realizes. Not to him, no. Mumbling to no one. Mumbling to whatever fever dream your heat addled brain is showing you.

You keep saying things, even as he gets to the door and opens it. Cold air hits him as he peers inside. It looks like some old kind of lab, all metal and rust and clinical tables. It doesn’t look safe, but it’s probably safer than the cave. 

Your head sways alongside his movements. “.... Don’t let them into peds… Lock the doors…”

Water drips off of him as he steps inside, echoing wetly against the floor. He shivers as another cold chill hits his body, only amplified by the water. 

“Room twelve… There’s still someone in room twelve.”

Peds. Room twelve. Keep them out.

Something clicks in his brain and it makes his heart ache, for more reasons than just the parasite.

Nobody does this line of work by choice. 

The word ‘outbreak’ nearly hits him over the head. He can only imagine it. You, years ago, clad in pastel scrubs covered in blood and bile. Some kind of monster chasing you down as you tried to help some faceless kid. Is that how it had gone? What outbreak had you even been part of? There’s been quite a few that he can think of. But then his brain interjects the words you said earlier, while comforting Ashley on that floral patterned couch. Back when you were still coherent.

“It must’ve been… 6 years ago- ish.”

6 years ago. He does the math.

1998.

Realization hits him so hard that he nearly drops you. Only one major outbreak happened in that year. He should know. He was there.

Raccoon City.

For a moment, he’s dizzy. The world tilts and spins around him, threatening to throw him to the ground. His brain is flashing back to that damn night. The screaming and gunfire. Faces contorted in pain. Bodies destroyed by the virus. Corpses walking towards him, teeth bared and ready to bite. 

You’re still muttering something over his shoulders, fingers twitching against his arm.

“Close that door… They’re getting in!”

His own hand finds yours. For a moment, he can’t tell if it’s you that’s shaking, or him. He’s not sure he’ll like the answer either way. His mind is still somewhere back in that damn city. The city that you must’ve been in too. His worst day and yours are intertwined. How far away from him had you been? The hospital wasn’t far from the police station. Had you been there while he was? Been fighting for your life at the same time as him?

“... He’s only six… Please, carry him… He can’t run fast enough…”

His grip on your hand tightens. What had you seen back then? Who did you try to protect? Just how horribly, horribly wrong had it gone?

He feels a drop of wetness land on his bicep. When he glances over, there’s fever sweat dripping down your forehead. Your body feels too hot against his. Part of him debates doubling back to the cave. Dipping you in the cold water to try and get you to cool down. But, he knows that would probably only make it worse.

Your lips move again, and he stops in his tracks.

“... Officer… Please…”

His breathing halts. His body freezes.  You keep going anyway. 

“Please save him… That thing bit him… Don’t-! Don’t shoot!”

Your words are going frantic, body jerking and arms twitching. Leon has to force himself to move again. Carefully, he lowers himself, letting you slide off of him. His arms stop you from hitting the floor, instead lowering you down carefully, setting your upper body against a low pair of cabinets. At the motion, your eyes fly open, but your pupils don’t land on him. They flit about the room, taking in everything but nothing all at once. He positions himself in front of you, so that his face is the only thing you can see.

“Rabies?”

Your head shakes a little, limbs weak beside you. When he lifts a hand to your forehead, he nearly has to pull it back. You feel burning hot against the rough skin of his palm. Slowly, like he’s afraid he’ll scare you, he moves his hands to your arms, grabbing you. His touch seems to jolt you a little, pupils finally finding him and staying there.

Weakly, shakily, your head raises a little.

“... Leon…?” You sound unsure, like you don’t know if it’s him or someone else.

He nods. For a second, he wonders if you’re seeing him, or another person. A different officer from the same city that doesn’t exist anymore. How close had you two been back then? Within a mile of each other? Less?

There’s a sweaty clump of hair stuck to the side of your face, and he pushes it behind your ear cautiously. He lets your eyes track his hand. Lets you try and remember where you are and what’s going on. 

“Rabies, you need to listen to me.”

A small noise in acknowledgement. It makes his chest ache.

“I’m going to get you and Ashley out of here, alright?”

You nod, but he’s not quite sure if you understand what he’s saying. Your head perks up just a little when he says Ashley’s name, but you’re quick to settle it back against the metal cabinets again. 

Leon grits his teeth, whipping his head around to take in his surroundings again. There’s an elevator, but it looks to be powered off. With any luck, the power control is a little deeper into the facility. But, is it safe? Is it too dangerous to drag you in there with him? Or would it be worse for him to leave you here while he restores the power? You’re closing your eyes again, face going slack with exhaustion. It sends adrenaline racing through his veins.

The shotgun is still strapped to your back. Carefully, gingerly, he leans you forward, taking it off of you and depositing it into your hands. 

“I’m going to be back, okay? I’m not leaving you here.” He pats the shotgun, pushing it further into your hands. When he checks, there’s still a handful of rounds left. “Use this if anything comes through that door.”

Your fingers curl weakly around the barrel of the shotgun, other hand going to the grip of it. Your eyes still don’t open. 

“... Okay.”

He nods, letting out a low breath. When he stands, he spares one last glance to you. Still on the floor, body propped up halfway while your hands hold the gun that almost looks too strong for you. Hours ago, he knows that you could have handled that weapon just fine. Now? He’s not sure how you’re even still conscious. 

He takes a step, and freezes. Somewhere, deeper into the facility, he can hear something. A scraping noise. Loud. Harsh. Metal on metal, it sounds like. The noise rings through his body, reverberating in his head. The sound isn’t coming from machinery or lab equipment, no. It’s coming from something alive.

One last glance back. Your head has gone slack, resting all of your weight on the cabinets. Then, he starts moving. 

.

.

.

The further into the lab he goes, the worse it feels. 

The noises aren’t stopping. They move around him slowly, like they’re following him through the walls. Sometimes, when he stops moving and tilts his head to hear it better, the noise seems to stop with him. Whatever it is, it’s tracking him. As he moves, the scraping noise goes from above him, to his side, and then somewhere impossibly far to the left.

He’s unnerved, yes, but part of him is almost relieved. If it’s tracking him, then it’s leaving you alone. At least this way, he knows where it is. He knows it can’t hurt you if it’s on him. 

When he finally reaches the power switch, it feels painfully easy to flip it back on. Across the lab, back where he left you, he can hear the elevator power on. He turns, ready to get back to you, ready to get the hell out of here-

The metal grate next to his head explodes, shards of metal and debris flying out towards him. He barely manages to dodge it in time, shards of steel coming within inches of his body. Something flies through the wall. Huge. Dark as night. He’s turning on his heels within an instant, trying to catch sight of whatever nightmare he’s about to face.

The creature in front of him is massive. It has a semi human face, though contorted and mixed with something insectoid. Its body is covered in some kind of chitin, stretched limbs covered in the armor. It’s staring right at him, a strange, high pitched chittering noise coming from the mandibles in front of its jaw. It stares at him, unblinking, limbs folding and unfolding like a praying mantis. 

Leon doesn’t think. He readies his pistol, turns, and runs.

It chases after him with reckless abandon, limbs creaking and snapping as it runs. He doesn’t look back. He has to get back to you. To grab you, throw you into that elevator, and get the hell out of here. With any luck, he can somehow slow it down enough so that it won’t follow. When he comes across a turn, he nearly skids off balance, somehow managing to stay on his feet and keep going. The monster slams into the wall as it tries to follow, a few bricks shaking loose. It stops for a moment, its body chittering and jerking, before sprinting at him again.

Just as he comes across another turn, he spins, pistol up and firing. Bullets hit the thing square in its forehead, flesh exploding and blood spitting out. But the thing keeps coming, even as chunks of its face are slipping off its body to the floor. When he shoots lower, trying to take out the creatures makeshift knees, the bullets just ricochet uselessly off of the chitin. 

He’s about to keep running, to keep trying to slow it down, when a noise interrupts him. 

Across the facility, he can hear a groan of pain. Breathy and feminine. Yours.

The creature stops in its tracks, turning its head inquisitively. A few more odd chirps spill from the creature’s mutated jaws.

Then, it turns away from him, towards a vent in the wall, and barrels through it. Out of sight in a flash. He can hear the scraping noise from before, this time farther away from him. Towards…

“Shit!” Leon moves so fast that it amplifies the pain in his heart, the burning in his lungs. He ignores the way it tries to steal his breath away. “Rabies!”

He’s taking off before he can think. His muscles ache, his lungs feel like they’re going to burst. The parasite in his chest feels like it’s clenching around his heart, constricting him. Stopping him. But he keeps moving. Even as pained spots bleed into his vision, white stars forming in front of his eyes.

The pain doesn’t matter. He has to get to you before that thing does. 

When he finally skids back to the room he left you in, body aching and head dizzy, he wants to scream in relief that the monster isn’t there. You’re still against the cabinet, head limp but body tense, hands clutching the shotgun. But, then he glances over to the elevator.

It isn’t there yet.

The dials above the doors show that the elevator itself is only about halfway to you both. The dial is moving lazily, the mechanisms slow. Fuck. It’s going to take at least a few more minutes for it to arrive. 

His heart drops, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it. The wall beside him explodes into shards of brick. In a flash of shiny black, the creature is barreling past him, going straight towards you.

He’s about to scream, to run, to shoot, anything. Anything to keep it away from you. He doesn’t get the chance.

A blast rings out.

You’re still sitting there, looking feverish and exhausted, Your face is still flushed, shoulder still bleeding. But, your arms are up, shotgun aimed perfectly at the thing's face. Your eyes are slits, your pupils struggle to focus, but the barrel stays trained squarely on its face. 

It stops for a moment, more red cascading down its features, head snapped at an unnatural angle. Then, it roars. A high pitched, awful noise. One that grates on his ears and makes his head hurt. Leon doesn’t waste the opportunity. He’s surging forward, past beast, past the blood and the spent shotgun shells. His hand grabs your good arm, forcing you upright even as your body fails. His arm moves to loop around your waist, tugging you deeper into the lab. If he can move fast enough, then maybe, just maybe, he can avoid the thing until the elevator arrives. 

“What’s- What’s happening?” Your head is tucked down, and though he isn’t looking, he can imagine your eyes are closed again. Your body is almost completely limp, legs not supporting any of your weight. It’s slowing him down, but he’s going to have to manage. 

His head shakes, hand gripping along your side. “Don’t worry about it. Just stay conscious.” 

Your boots scrape uselessly against the floor, as though you're still trying to walk under your own power. Behind him, he can hear the noise again. Metal on metal. Creaking limbs. The horrible scraping noise as the monster keeps hauling towards you both. The noise only spurs him on, his feet hitting the floor harder, legs moving to keep going faster. Still, it’s not fast enough. He can hear it rushing him, getting closer every second. The ground beneath him shakes as it gets closer. He can tell it’s within a few feet of him now, so close that he can feel air move as claws swipe in his direction.

He does the only thing he can to get you out of harms way. He drops you.

You fall to the floor, a sharp cry tearing from your throat. But, it works. Instead of you, the creature hits him full force. It sends his body flying sideways, hitting the wall with a sickening crunch. Pain blooms in his back. Sharp. Intense. Heavy. For a second, his vision whites out, the world disappearing away. Even his hearing dissolves into a high pitched ringing as fire shoots down his spine. He feels like he’s going to vomit. 

“Leon!” Your voice breaks him out of his trance. You’re on the floor, eyes trying to track him as the creature steps closer to his frame. “Move!”

Your hand is reaching up, towards a button that he hadn’t seen before. It’s glowing a dull green in the dimmed lights, so faint that he can barely see it himself. Before he can process what you’re doing, he’s up, throwing himself to the side. He has no idea what you’re reaching for, but he does it anyway. At the same time, your hand slaps the button, and you roll over best you can, shielding your face from whatever seems to be coming.

Freezing white mist billows up from the floor in an instant. 

Even from feet away, the cold chill sends a shiver down his spine. Leon watches in awe as the creature bellows in what seems to be agony, white enveloping its hulking form. It flails, claws reaching for him, but the movements are slowed and sloppy. Each motion makes its limbs creak hollowly, struggling to move as the freezing cold takes hold of its body.

By the time the white stops, the creature is frozen in place, limbs still reaching out emptily towards his body. His eyes flick from the frozen creature to you. You're still on the floor, breathing hard. The shotgun has slipped from your grasp, laying beside you on the floor.

“Holy shit.” The words leave him as a breath of overheated air. His pupils track how close the thing’s claws had gotten to his body. Its outstretched fingers are within inches of his chest. Up close, the claws are even sharper. Almost like daggers.

You’re shaking again, he realizes. It hits him like cold water.

You look up at him as he stands, head weakly moving to follow his steps.

“... Are you- You okay?”

Fuck. You still sound awful. He has to shake away his worry. With any luck, Luis and his medicines are close. He said he had something to help you. To help Ashley. Hell, to help him. He has to keep moving, and he has to do it now.

He does his best to put on a reassuring smile.

“I’m fine, Rabies. Let’s get to that elevator.”

Taglist: @shu-leepy , @sharkalina666 , @typexi , @sweetsassytaegi , @d4ihen , @m4ngo15 , @probably--possessed , @meowieees , @frost20026606 , @gojoswaterbottle , @midnighttreesgaming , @5er3n1ty , @gaylexulyte , @caroline-the-cat , @sugurussy , @burnoutpisces , @sh3sa1dwhat , @ghostieistiredd , @therandomofpink , @animegamerfox , @innocentcinnamonpun , @sleepilysworld , @patchs-curiosity-corner , @puuurfect , @leonniekennedy , @laidenbreecatchall , @ayamenimthiriel , @m4iilvy , @sammypotato , @nocturnalstar , @caffieneaddictt18 , @kaitieskidmore97 , @whoisthisdlva , @carriellie , @akiyodesu , @honeyhazelll , @mwonstruck7 , @kaylinfayezink , @tastelessforestdragon , @finns-drafts , @kashasenpai , @littlebitofrazzledazzle , @xxtwizztedxx , @p0w3rp01nt , @noodlestheexplorer , @badbishsblog , @leon-kennedy-pegger , @princesssugarplumm , @weluvmegumi

[key201303]

Always in Chat.

Pairing: Streamer re2r Leon x f!mod!reader ft. Ada Wong Words: 6246 words Warnings: none! Plot: Leon Kennedy is a rising Twitch streamer known for his chaotic gameplay and kind personality. Ever since his first stream, you’ve been by his side as his moderator, staying up late to help with events, fix technical issues, and keep chat under control. Somewhere between endless Discord calls and “goodnight” messages sent at three in the morning, the line between friendship and something more became impossible to ignore, except neither of you ever dared to cross it. When the mysterious and wildly popular streamer Ada starts collaborating with Leon, the internet is quick to ship them together, leaving you convinced you’ve already lost before you ever had a chance. But after noticing you slowly pulling away, Leon decides to stop hiding behind a screen and finally tell you the one thing he’s been too nervous to say all along. A/N: I’ve had this on my drafts for so long 😭 I’m so happy I finally got to write it 🥹 hope you guys enjoy it 🫶🏻🫶🏻 Taglist: let me know if you want to be added! Resident Evil's Masterlist.

"You'll do well, Leon." You reassured him. His mic crackled to life when he let out a quiet sigh. "You'll be in chat, right?" He muttered. You flashed a small smile as if he could see you. "Always." Judging by the soft sound of his laughter sneaking into the call, you guessed that was enough to make him relax. "You're the best." He said before hanging up the call and unmuting himself on the stream.

Leon has been streaming for about a year now. At first, he would stream just for fun, to show his friends a new game he discovered, or just to show them a new restaurant he tried out. That was it until you appeared on the chat as his first official viewer, whom he didn't personally know. It all started as an innocent streamer-viewer relationship, but as time went by and he started to get more and more viewers and less idea of how Twitch worked, you offered yourself to help him. Until today, making you his most trusted moderator. Before important events, you would spend hours planning things together on Discord calls, you wouldn't miss a single stream, and if you had to, he would even reschedule the stream so you could be there. Chat said it was because he was in love with you, and you both said it was because Leon felt more confident if you were around.

Then, the ship's comments on the chat became more and more common. It all started on a just chatting stream. Leon somehow managed to screw up the tags of the stream after he tried to fix a scene. "Chat, where's Y/N?" He asked, clearly panicking. Some viewers started tagging you immediately, some others... noticed things neither of you seemed to notice. "Oh, there she is," He said, relieved when he saw you joining the stream 5 minutes later. "Come to Discord, I need your help," he shyly added, rubbing the back of his neck.

"DISCORD???"

"HE ALWAYS LOOKS FOR HER EVEN IF THERE ARE OTHER MODS."

"*PEEPOLOVE*".

"I don't know what I touched," Leon said nervously. You couldn't hide the chuckle escaping your lips as you tried to find the problem and fix it. "Is it working now?" Leon asked, his eyes finally landing on the chat again. "What would you do without me?" You joked. "Probably retire." He replied. The moment those words left Leon's mouth, the chat exploded. At first, it was only a couple of teasing messages buried beneath the rest.

"That's not very cowoker of you."

"Just confess already."

"So... when are you making it official?"

Leon frowned ever so slightly, leaning a little closer to his monitor as if reading the messages again would somehow make them different. A nervous laugh escaped him before he quickly shook his head. "You guys are unbelievable," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck again. "We're not dating." The denial should have been enough, but instead it only encouraged them.

"Not dating yet."

"Bro answered too fast."

"Then why do you always wait for Y/N before starting?"

"You literally rescheduled a stream last week because Y/N couldn't be here."

"He's never beating the allegations."

You stared at your monitor in complete silence after leaving the Discord call with Leon, your hands frozen above your keyboard. Every new message made the warmth crawling up your neck spread a little further across your face. You couldn't understand why it embarrassed you so much. It wasn't like the chat knew anything. They were only joking, just like they've been doing for the past few months. Right?

Leon let out another awkward laugh, one that sounded far less convincing than the last one. "I would've done that for any of my mods," he insisted. Almost immediately, someone clipped the sentence.

"Liar."

"Claire couldn't be here 2 weeks ago and you didn't rescheduled."

"You literally looked for Y/N the second she was five minutes late."

"Bro folded in under thirty seconds."

"Guys I looked for Y/N because we had technical issues," Leon tried to defend himself, but it didn't wash.

"I was here all along." Claire typed, followed by a clown sticker. His lips parted, ready to defend himself again, but nothing came out. Because none of them were entirely wrong.

Whenever something broke, you were the first person he looked for. Whenever he had an idea for the channel, you were the first person he told. Whenever he doubted himself before the stream, you were always the one waiting for him in Discord, reminding him that everything would be fine. None of it had felt strange. Not until hundreds of strangers pointed it out all at once.

You looked away from your screen for a second, pressing the back of your hand against your burning cheek before typing the only thing you could think of.

"I'm literally just his moderator." The message stayed pinned on the screen for barely two seconds before it was drowned beneath dozens of replies.

"Sure Y/N."

"We believe you 💀."

POLL: Is Leon in love with Y/N?

YES

YES

Poll created by ClaireRedfield98.

You buried your face in your hands with a groan, wishing the floor would simply open beneath your chair. A Discord message from Claire popped up on your screen. "You're welcome ;)". Across the screen, Leon's ears had turned the faintest shade of pink as he put his headphones back, trying to hide them and open the game he was going to play to avert everyone's attention.

Before you could even notice, the special stream you had been planning for weeks was around the corner. It was nothing extraordinary, a twelve-hour charity stream to celebrate Leon reaching one hundred thousand followers, but the amount of preparation behind it was enough to make anyone's head spin. New overlays, alerts, donation goals, giveaways, a dozen backup scenes in case OBS decided to betray him again halfway through stream...

By the time the checklist was finally complete, the Discord call had already stretched well past midnight. "...I think that's everything," Leon said after a brief silence, the rhythmic clicking of his mouse coming to a stop. You glanced over the document one last time. "I think so too." Neither of you hung up. The comfortable silence that settled between you wasn't awkward; it was the kind that came naturally after months of spending almost every evening together, each of you quietly working on your own thing while the other happened to be there.

Somewhere in the background, you heard Leon yawn. "Tired?" You muttered. "A little." He answered just as quietly. "You should sleep then," He hummed in response, yet he didn't try to leave the call. "So..." he spoke again. "Did you end up watching that movie?" A small smile tugged at your lips.

And just like that, the checklist was forgotten. One movie somehow turned into five, five turned into childhood cartoons neither of you had thought about in years, Leon admitted he'd cried watching Hachi, and immediately tried to defend himself before you could tease him for it. "You cried too," he pointed out when you laughed. "I never said I didn't." He chuckled quietly at your answer. The sound reached you through your headphones, soft enough that it almost blended with the rain tapping against your bedroom window.

You talked about pets next. About how Leon had always wanted a golden retriever, but his apartment wasn't exactly dog-friendly, about the stray orange cat that occasionally wandered into your garden as if it owned the place.

Then came the childhood stories. The embarrassing ones. The ones you usually forget until someone accidentally unlocks the memory. Leon confessed he'd once gotten lost in a supermarket because he had followed someone else's jacket, convinced it was his dad. You laughed so hard your stomach hurt. He laughed as well, because hearing your laugh somehow made it funnier.

Hours slipped away unnoticed. By the time either of you glanced at the clock again, it was almost four in the morning. "We should probably sleep," you murmured, reluctant despite yourself. "Probably." Once again, neither of you moved. Leon broke the silence first. "What do you want to do... eventually?" You blinked, confused. "What do you mean?” "I don't know." His voice carried that familiar hesitation, as though he was afraid of asking something too personal. "Like... years from now." You leaned back in your chair, thinking. "I think I'd like somewhere quiet." He hummed. "A little house, a dog, or a cat." "A golden retriever and an orange cat?" You could practically hear the smile in his voice. "...Definitely." You chuckled. A small pause settled in the call. "What about you?" You asked. He took a moment to answer. "I don't really care where I end up." His words came out almost absentmindedly. "As long as I have someone to share my life with." Something in your chest tightened.

Neither of you acknowledged the silence that followed. It felt fragile, like speaking too loudly would somehow break it. Eventually, Leon cleared his throat. "I should let you sleep." He said quietly. "You should." You chuckled. "...Goodnight." "Goodnight, Leon." The call ended with the familiar Discord sound echoing through your room. For a long moment, you simply stared at your dark monitor. The stream had only taken an hour to prepare; the remaining three had been spent talking about everything and absolutely nothing. Your eyes drifted towards the clock before a quiet thought crossed your mind. It had felt suspiciously close to a date. You immediately shook your head. It couldn't have been; Leon was just comfortable around you. That was all.

On the other side of the city, Leon was lying in bed with one arm thrown over his eyes. He had spent the last ten minutes replaying the conversation in his head instead of sleeping. He couldn't remember the last time talking to someone had felt that effortless. The corner of his mouth lifted into a tired smile. It had felt suspiciously close to a date. His face warmed almost instantly. "...Get a grip," he muttered to himself before reaching over to switch off the bedside lamp.

The charity stream couldn't have gone better. Twelve hours somehow turned into thirteen after Leon insisted on finishing "just one more build" before ending the stream. The donation goal had been surpassed hours ago, chat had somehow convinced him to wear a ridiculous paper crown, and by the time he thanked everyone for staying until the end, his voice had grown noticeably hoarse. You were already typing out a final message in chat when a notification appeared.

Ada raided with 18.642 viewers.

For a second, nobody said anything. "...What?" Leon's eyes darted between the notification and the rapidly increasing viewer count. "What's going on?" You couldn't help laughing through your headset. "Leon." "I know!" You chuckled. "No, I don't think you do." His hands hovered awkwardly over his keyboard as though he had forgotten how to use it. "I... Uh..." He let out an embarrassed laugh before clearing his throat. "Hi." Chat immediately exploded. You watched the viewer count nearly double within minutes.

Ada stayed only long enough to wish him luck before disappearing again, but the damage had already been done. By the time Leon finally ended the stream, thousands of new followers had joined his community. He sat there staring at the dashboard for a full minute. "...There's no way." "There is," you replied, smiling to yourself. "...I think I'm going to throw up." You rolled your eyes. "You'll survive." He stayed quiet for a moment. "I don't know..." "You literally just did." He let out a familiar laugh, the one that always appeared whenever something good happened to him.

About half an hour later, your phone buzzed."Discord now." No greeting, no explanation. You couldn't help smiling as you clicked on his profile. He picked up before the first ring had even finished. "You'll never guess." He said excitedly. "Ada offered you a collab?" The call fell silent for a second. "How did you know???" He complained. "Magic." You joked, your laugh sneaking into the mic. He sounded disappointed that his surprise barely lasted ten seconds. Then the excitement won again. "She has this Minecraft Hardcore series with a bunch of creators." His words came out faster than usual. "She asked if I'd like to join for the next season." You couldn't stop smiling. "Leon." "What?" He answered immediately. "You have to say yes." You encouraged him. "You really think so?" "I know so." You corrected with a chuckle. "What if people only watch because it's Ada?" He hesitated. "Then they'll stay because it's you." Silence settled between you, long enough for Leon to quietly mumble a simple 'thanks'.

You leaned back in your chair. "You've worked for this for over a year." Leon hummed as he nodded thoughtfully. "I'm proud of you." Another pause, this one even longer. When he finally spoke again, his voice was softer. "...I'm glad you were here." For reasons you couldn't quite explain, your heart skipped once. "So am I."

The Hardcore series premiered the following Saturday. You had spent an hour before the stream helping Leon double-check every setting, even though he'd already checked them twice himself. "You've forgotten something." His voice immediately tensed. "What is it?" You burst into loud laughter. "I'm kidding." A groan echoed through your headset. "You're evil." He complained. "I learned from chat." You smiled to yourself. "Nervous?" You asked after a small silence. "...A little." He quietly admitted. "You'll do great." You reassured him, just like you always did. "...You'll be there, right?" The question was so familiar that neither of you seemed to think twice about it. "Always."

The server was already full by the time Leon joined. Several creators greeted him as their voice chat filled with overlapping instructions and laughter. Then Ada spoke. "So you're the rookie." Leon blinked. "...Rookie?" Leon asked nervously. "You've never played Hardcore with us," Ada said. "I guess not." The blond boy let out a quiet laugh. "Try not to die in the first ten minutes." A few creators laughed. "So... no pressure?" Leon joked. "None at all." You couldn't help smiling at your screen.

Leon sounded nervous, but little by little the conversation began flowing naturally. He accidentally punched another player instead of a tree, someone fell into a ravine, Ada silently handed Leon an iron pickaxe after he admitted he'd forgotten to craft one. "You came unprepared." Ada joked. "I was distracted." Leon defended immediately. "So I noticed." Every exchange was accompanied by laughter from the rest of the group. The atmosphere felt effortlessly comfortable. You found yourself relaxing alongside him. Then your eyes drifted towards the chat.

"THEY'RE CUTE."

"Ada bullying Leon is my new favorite thing."

"I ship it."

"#Aeon *peepolove*"

"The chemistry????"

You frowned. It was only a few messages, then dozens. Edits were already being mentioned before the stream had even ended.

"Aeon nation."

"Sorry, mod."

Your fingers hesitated above the keyboard. You deleted the timeout command before pressing Enter. There was no reason to moderate them; they weren't breaking any rules, they were only joking, just like they always had. Yet, for reasons you couldn't understand, every message left an uncomfortable knot somewhere beneath your ribs. You watched Leon laugh at something Ada had said. She nudged his character into the river, and he accidentally grabbed her in with him; the entire call dissolved into laughter. It looked... Natural. Maybe even better than you expected.

Your chest tightened. Of course, people would ship them. Ada was confident, quick-witted, and popular. Leon seemed far more relaxed around her than he'd been at the beginning of the stream. Your thoughts stopped abruptly. No, that wasn't fair. You closed the chat for a moment, rubbing your eyes. What exactly were you jealous of? Leon wasn't your boyfriend; he wasn't even flirting. He was simply making friends. You had no right to feel this way. So, why did it hurt?

Nearly four hours later, the stream finally came to an end. One by one, everyone disconnected from the voice call until only Leon and Ada remained. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Ada broke the silence. "So." Leon looked back at his monitor. "Huh?" He muttered. "You're not dating?" His eyebrows drew together. "...Who?" He hesitated to ask. "Your moderator." The question caught him so off guard that he nearly knocked over the glass sitting beside his keyboard. "What?" "Y/N, isn't it?" He stared at the Discord window as though it might suddenly explain what was happening. "No." Ada hummed thoughtfully. "I would've bet money on it." Leon's ears warmed. "We're just..." He hesitated again. "...Friends." "Right." The single word carried just enough amusement to make him feel suspicious. "You don't believe me?" He asked. "I believe that's what you tell yourself." Leon frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?" Ada let out a quiet laugh. "It means you've spent the entire evening asking whether she'd like this joke, whether she'd laugh at that story, whether she'd think your house looked ugly." Leon opened his mouth just to close it again. "You also looked for her in chat every five minutes." Ada pointed out. "Did I?" "You did." Silence settled between them.

Ada leaned back in her chair. "Talk to her." His eyes widened. "What?" He said immediately. "If she says no, you'll survive." Ada laughed. "...And if she doesn't?" A faint smile slipped into Ada's voice. "Then you'll wonder why you waited so long." She said before hanging up. Leon didn't move. Because for the first time in months, he wasn't wondering whether the chat had been reading too much into things. He was wondering if maybe, just maybe, they had noticed something long before he had.

Days went by, and you barely talked to him. At first, Leon convinced himself he was imagining it. People got busy; you had your own life outside of Twitch. It wasn't unusual for you to answer a message an hour later or skip a Discord call because you were tired. Those kinds of things happened; it was normal. Except... it kept happening.

The good morning messages became shorter, the conversations that usually drifted beyond stream schedules ended as soon as the planning was done. Whenever he suggested staying in the call a little longer, you suddenly had something else to do. Even during streams, you barely typed anymore. You still moderated the chat, greeted newcomers, and banned bots before anyone else noticed them. But the little comments that used to make him laugh had almost disappeared. Somehow, your presence had started feeling distant. He noticed it because he missed it, more than he wanted to admit.

"You've been staring at Discord for five minutes." Claire's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. Leon blinked. "I hav-." "You have." She didn't even sound doubtful. Claire knew you and Leon almost like the palm of her hand. She's been moderating Leon for as long as you have, but unlike you, she wasn't subtle. If something bothered her, everyone knew. She leaned back in her chair before looking at him through the call. "You've been weird all week." Leon sighed. "It's Y/N." He muttered. "I figured." Claire crossed her arms. "I think I did something." Claire raised an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?" She asked with curiosity. "She's..." He searched for the right word. "Different." Claire remained quiet. "She answers less, always has an excuse to leave..." Your friend hummed. "And I don't know why." Leon looked down, like a sad puppy who had just been scolded. "I've been trying to think if I said something stupid." He added. Claire couldn't help smiling to herself. "You really have no idea." Leon looked up with a frown. "...Should I?" She considered for a moment letting him figure it out alone. But she knew he would take forever.

"Leon, stop trying to solve this like it's a puzzle," Claire said finally. "What do you mean?" The girl let out a tired sigh. "Call her." Leon blinked. "Just... call her?" He repeated, as if he needed to do so to understand it. Claire simply nodded. "What if she doesn't want to talk to me?" Claire let out a laugh. "Then she'll tell you." Leon nodded thoughtfully. "But I seriously doubt that's the problem." She reassured the blond boy. "Oh, and Leon," he hummed in response. "Ask her what's wrong, not what you think is wrong. Ask her what is actually wrong," She added before hanging up.

Your phone buzzed barely fifteen minutes later. Leon is calling... You stared at the screen. For a brief moment, you considered pretending you hadn't seen it. Instead, you answered. "Hey." His voice sounded quieter than usual. There was no background music, no keyboard clicking, no stream... Everything felt so empty. For a few seconds, neither of you spoke. Then Leon inhaled softly. "...Did I do something?" The question caught you completely off guard. "What?" You asked immediately. "Did I upset you?" He asked again. "No." The crease between your eyebrows deepened. "You've been avoiding me." There wasn't a hint of accusation in his voice, only concern. "I just..." you started before hesitating. Leon waited patiently. "I thought maybe I'd said something." He said when he noticed how quiet you were. "You didn't." You said once again. "Then what happened?" You closed your eyes. You hadn't planned on having this conversation, especially not with him. "It doesn't matter." You shrugged off. "It matters if it's making you unhappy." His words came so naturally that your chest tightened.

Silence settled between you, long enough for Leon to quietly add, "I miss talking to you." Your heart sank, followed by a small, defeated laugh that didn't sound like you at all. "It's stupid." You sounded embarrassed. "I'll decide that." Another silence settled before you before you exhaled. "...I got jealous," you whispered, finally admitting what you've been avoiding since the Hardcore series stream. Leon frowned. "Jealous?" The word sounded almost foreign in his tongue. You immediately regretted saying it. "No, forget it." You tried to downplay it. "Jealous of what?" You covered your face with one hand. "This is exactly why I didn't want to say anything." You quietly admitted. "I don't understand." You let out a slow breath. "...Ada." You let a beat of silence before hurrying to continue before he could say something. "I know how ridiculous this sounds. You were just streaming and making friends." You continued. "And she's nice. She didn't do anything wrong." You clarified before he could misunderstand your words. "I just..." Your voice grew quieter with every sentence. "I had no right to feel jealous." You swallowed.

"I mean..." you forced a weak laugh after an endless silence. "I'm not your girlfriend." Leon didn't answer. All at once, every conversation from the past year came crashing back. "You'll be in chat, right?" "Always." The nights spent talking until sunrise, looking for you the second every stream started, rescheduling broadcasts because you couldn't make it, wondering whether you'd laugh before telling a joke, checking if you'd see every message, missing you after only a few quiet days. His grip tightened around his phone. It wasn't Ada, it wasn't even the chat. The only thing he couldn't understand was how it had taken him this long to realise why losing your attention had felt so terrifying. "...Y/N." His voice came out almost breathless. "I think..." He stopped. You laughed to yourself for a second. Leon Kennedy would never know how to finish a sentence.

The silence that stretched through the line was frightening, like both of you knew that whatever came next would change something neither of you could ever take back. Leon let out a slow breath. "I think I would've been jealous too." You frowned. "What?" "If..." He rubbed a hand over his face, already embarrassed by his own words. "If you had been streaming with someone else." Your heartbeat quickened. "I would've hated reading the chat shipping you with him." He laughed nervously. "I probably would've tried to convince myself it didn't bother me... But it would've." Your grip around your phone tightened. "Leon..." You muttered under your breath. "I don't think it was Ada." Your voice was barely above a whisper. "I think I was just scared." You finally admitted. "Scared about what?" Leon asked with confusion, covering his voice. "Losing you." The words came out before he had the chance to overthink them.

Neither of you dared to say anything else for the next few seconds. Somewhere outside your bedroom window, the rain had started again. Soft enough that it almost disappeared beneath the sound of your own heartbeat. Leon cleared his throat. "You know..." He immediately regretted trying to continue. "What?" You asked when you noticed his hesitation. "It's stupid." He chuckled. "I'll decide that." You said, a smile tugging at your lips. "...You're starting to sound like me." He huffed a laugh. "I wonder why." You giggled. This time, the laugh escaping his throat sounded warmer. The tension eased just enough for him to find the courage he'd been looking for. "...Would it be weird..." He stopped for a second, deciding whether it was a good idea or not to say what he was thinking. "...if I asked my moderator out on a date?" Your eyes widened immediately.

For a second, you genuinely forgot how to breathe. Leon, on the other side of the call, was already questioning every life decision that had led him to that sentence. "I mean... You don't have to answer... I just thought... You know... It sounded way better in my head." Another awkward laugh escaped him. "I'm making this worse, aren't I?" You bit the inside of your cheek to suppress a smile. "...A little." You murmured. "I knew it." Leon chuckled. "But..." You looked down at the floor, feeling the warmth creeping back onto your cheeks. "Yeah?" He blinked. "It would probably be a little weird... Yeah." His shoulders sank. "Oh." A tiny laugh slipped past your lips. "But..." Hope returned so quickly it almost made him dizzy. "If you did..." You smiled to yourself, grateful he couldn't see how red your face had become. "...I'd say yes."

The line went completely silent for a solid minute. "Really?" Leon asked so quietly that it almost broke your heart. "Really." Another few seconds passed, and Leon broke the silence, quietly laughing to himself. "I spent months thinking you couldn't possibly like me." He confessed. "Same." You chuckled as he groaned. "We're idiots." He admitted. "A little." You continued to laugh. "A lot." Leon corrected, laughing with you. Neither of you realised how much you'd both missed hearing that sound together.

Eventually, Leon spoke again. "So..." He paused. "Friday?" You fell into the temptation of teasing him a little. "What about Friday?" You asked innocently. "Our..." He hesitated. "...Date?" It felt so weird hearing him say that word meant only for you. A smile spread widely across your face. "I'd love that." Somewhere on the other end of the call, Leon smiled widely, too. You couldn't see it, he couldn't see yours, but somehow, neither of you needed a camera to know the other one was smiling.

Friday's date somehow turned into another, then another, then late-night walks after streams, coffee before planning meetings, messages that no longer needed an excuse to be sent. Somewhere along the way, the line between streamer and moderator quietly disappeared. Neither of you ever made an announcement. Your relationship had never been built in front of an audience. It had grown in Discord calls that lasted until four in the morning, in quiet moments between stream schedules, in countless 'good luck' messages sent moments before Leon went live. So when his next stream started, nothing looked different. The same overlay, the same music, the same nervous smile as he greeted the chat.

"Good evening, everyone." Thousands of familiar usernames rushed across the screen. You quietly settled into your usual routine. Greeting new viewers, removing spam, answering questions, just another stream. The only difference was the four walls that surrounded you. About twenty minutes in, you heard Leon's voice from the room next door. He frowned at something on his second monitor. "Has my favorite mod posted tonight's schedule yet?" He said without thinking. The chat went completely silent for a moment. "Did the stream lag?" He asked innocently when he noticed nobody was typing.

The messages arrived all at once.

"Favorite?"

"EXCUSE ME????"

"SINCE WHEN IS SHE YOUR FAVORITE????"

"HE SAID FAVORITE"

"CLIP THAT."

"WE WON."

You covered your mouth with one hand. There was absolutely no way he had just said that. Leon read a few more messages before the realization slowly reached him. "...Oh." The tips of his ears turned pink under his headphones. "I didn't mean..." He stopped. Because what he was about to say wasn't true anymore. He had meant it. He just hadn't meant to say it out loud. A sheepish smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "I mean..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "...She is." The chat moved so quickly that it became impossible to read.

"HE DID NOT JUST DOUBLE DOWN."

"I USED TO PRAY FOR TIMES LIKE THIS."

"THE MOD WON."

"SOMEONE CHECK ON ADA."

You bit your lip, trying and failing miserably not to smile. Without looking away from your monitor, you typed the only response you could think of.

"Focus on your game, rookie."

You smiled towards the closed door that separated Leon's setup from where you were. Leon looked back at the chat. Then, at your message with a soft smile. "Yes, ma'am." The teasing only grew worse after that. Every time Leon thanked you for fixing something, every time you reminded him to drink water, every time he glanced at chat looking for your messages before anyone else's. The audience had always noticed. Now they finally had solid proof. Neither of you denied anything, you didn't confirm it either. You simply carried on exactly as you always had. Only now, Leon smiled a little more often.

The stream ended nearly four hours later. Leon leaned back in his chair with a tired sigh, thanking everyone one last time before raiding Ada and ending the broadcast. The familiar Twitch dashboard replaced the stream. Silence settled over the room. "...Well." "Well," you echoed from the doorway. Leon looked up so quickly he almost spun his chair around. "There you are." You smiled, your laptop tucked under one arm after spending the entire stream moderating from the guest room. "I've been here the whole time." You said. "I know." His smile came so easily now. "So..." You walked over. "...Favorite moderator?" He buried his face in one hand. "I panicked." He hid his smile behind his hand. "You doubled down." You narrowed your eyes at him. "Yeah." He chuckled. "You made it worse." A laugh escaped both of you at the same time. Leon stood from his chair, crossing the room until he stopped in front of you. "I guess they're going to figure it out eventually." You shrugged. "Maybe."

He smiled before leaning down just enough to press a soft, lingering kiss to your lips. "So much for keeping it a secret." He whispered, his hand resting on your cheek. "I think we laster..." you looked down at the watch on your wrist. "About twenty minutes." You looked up at him once again. "New record." He was about to lean in to kiss you again when your phone vibrated. Then his. You frowned.

You unlocked your screen. Claire. A screenshot filled almost the entire display. It was the chat. Hundreds upon hundreds of messages were flying by after Leon had called you his favorite moderator.

"HE'S NEVER CALLED HER THAT BEFORE."

"THAT'S HIS GIRLFRIEND."

"WE WON."

"I WAITED A YEAR FOR THIS."

At the very bottom, Claire had circled Leon's flustered expression in bright red. Underneath the screenshot, there was only one message. "ABOUT DAMN TIME." You couldn't stop yourself from laughing. Across the room, Leon let out an equally defeated groan. "...She sent you one too?" You turned your phone around. "She did." Leon held up his own screen. The exact same screenshot, the exact same message. For a second, you simply looked at each other and burst into laughter. A laugh that came so easily whenever you were together. When the laughter finally died down, Leon reached for your hand without thinking. His fingers intertwined with yours as naturally as though they'd always belonged there.

His free hand cupped your cheek again, connecting your lips in a messy kiss after his nose bumped into yours and you burst into laughter. In the middle of the kiss, Leon's phone screen lit up with a new notification. A message from Ada read 'Congratulations, rookie.' was completely ignored as Leon continued to kiss you.

Somehow, it felt like the perfect ending to a story that had started with nothing more than a Twitch chat and one moderator who had always been there.

Always in chat.

[keer-y]

1995, four years later

pairing: steve harrington/f!reader wc: 1700 tags: fluff, a little angst, established relationship, accidental pregnancy a/n: for @cpnsteverogers. the direct follow-up to this fic which i've been kind of saying is 1995-adjacent and now am just officially adopting it into the series. i do recommend reading that before reading this, as it gives the background for what's going on here. &&

You straightened up suddenly, stark expression meeting you in the mirror’s reflection. You met your own eyes, narrowing them, brow furrowing as you thought. Thought back, thought hard. You tipped your chin to the side as water dripped down onto the old t-shirt you were wearing, face wet from rinsing it after you washed it before bed. 

Steve was in the bedroom just across the hall, reading before you both turned in for the night.

But you were thinking. Because by your count, something was off that very much should not be.

“Steve?” you called, and because he was reading and you knew it wrapped him up, it took him a minute to respond. You tapped the pads of your fingers on the vanity around the bathroom sink while you waited for him to finish the sentence (or, more likely, paragraph since it took longer than just a few moments).

“Yes, babe?” he asked. You heard the bedframe creak a little as he very obviously got up to come talk to you.

“What day is it?” you asked.

You heard his shuffling footsteps over the bedroom carpet, and then the quiet slaps as he crossed the wood laminate of the hall.

“Uh, Tuesday,” he said, peering around the doorjamb of the bathroom, one hand wrapped around it, just his arm and face visible as he popped his head in.

“No, I mean一the date.”

You kept your eyes on yourself even as Steve stepped fully into the bathroom, because you were clearly distressed about something, eyes darting all over your own face in the mirror.

“The 6th,” he said, moving behind you, studying you in the mirror as his hands moved to hold your shoulders. “Are you ok? What’s wrong? You’re dripping water everywhere.”

It was one of your pet peeves一the bathroom being sloppy and waterlogged一and he’d learned to wipe up after himself whenever he shaved. So you allowing the aftermath of your face-washing to spatter the sink with water was… well, not concerning but strange.

“I’m, um,” you said, almost wondering if you were just overreacting, if you shouldn’t say anything and make Steve worry too. But all you could think about was that night a handful of weeks ago when you’d acted out your brilliant idea to pretend not to know each other and pretend to meet each other and pretend to cheat on each other and you’d come out with the brilliant question “Does your wife let you fuck her without a condom?” and even though Steve had said no and you were Steve’s wife, you still let him fuck you without a condom.

You didn’t think it could happen this fast. Didn’t think it would一what?一take? Jesus Christ.

“Babe,” Steve said, rubbing at your shoulders now, his brow knitted together just like yours, and now he was concerned, because you were something, and you weren’t telling him what. “Babe, what is it?”

“I’m一I was supposed to get my period last week,” you said.

His hands stopped moving.

“Ok,” Steve said. “Ok, well一you’ve一been late before. Work’s been really stressing you out lately, right?”

“Not this much,” you said. “I’ve never been this late. Not a whole week. If it happens it’s just a couple days.” You looked up at him in the mirror.

And you could see there, somewhere behind the fear and the nerves, was a spark of joy. Steve had always wanted a family一a big one一but you weren’t sure that you had the finances or the organization to figure out the finances you weren’t sure you had. But the choice may have been made for you.

“Do you have a test?” he asked.

You grabbed the hand towel to dry your face, though it had mostly drip-dried by now. You covered your face with the towel, rubbing at your cheeks with both hands, your eyes especially. You weren’t crying, but you were emotional about this. You weren’t ready. Steve was. Were you? Was he, really? Were you (collectively) ready for this? You were. Maybe. What if you were but Steve wasn’t? What if Steve was but you weren’t? What if you both were but couldn’t swing it with money? Babies were expensive. Doctors, hospitals, time off work一that all cost you money.

“You’re going a mile a minute,” Steve said, spinning you around to face him, your backside against the sink now.

He always knew. He could read you without even seeing your face.

You lowered the towel. “No, I don’t have a test.” Why would you have a test? This wasn’t something you’d planned for.

“Ok,” Steve said, rubbing your arms again, lower, off your shoulders. “Well一we can’t do anything about it now. It’s late.”

You nodded. He was right. Everything was closed; it was almost 11PM.

“Let’s get some sleep,” Steve said, wrapping his arms around you, hugging you close. You let him, your hands still clinging to the towel pressed to his chest. He kissed your temple, lips tickling the shell of your ear as he kissed you there too. “I’ll go tomorrow morning to get one. Ok?”

You didn’t answer, you couldn’t. This was something you had wanted to discuss with him, to decide to do, to have doctor’s appointments together and figure out your fertile window and when you were ovulating and tell people you were trying and now all of that was taken away because you’d made a split-second decision to let him come inside of you and you just didn’t think it could happen that fast. You just didn’t think.

“Sweetheart,” Steve said, his voice soft and tender and calling you the name he only used when he knew you needed the gentleness. “This is good. Right? This is great.”

You looked up at him. “Yeah?”

Steve’s expression stayed mostly stoic, but you could tell he was holding himself back from smiling. He wasn’t worried about any of the things you were, probably hadn’t thought of any of them. He was just happy. He was letting himself be happy.

“Yes,” Steve said, lowering his mouth to yours, kissing you, lips lingering. Your fingers dug into his shirt around the towel you still held, and after a moment he stepped back, tossed the towel onto the countertop, turned the light off, and led you to bed.

&&

True to his word, Steve was out and back from the pharmacy before you even opened your eyes. You heard him puttering around in the kitchen, smelled the coffee he was brewing, and when you rolled out of bed and crossed the hall to step into the bathroom, you saw the box on the counter, where he’d thrown the towel the night before.

You stared it down as you brushed your teeth and swished mouthwash, but you were about to burst so you decided you’d put it off for as long as you could. You glanced at the door to make sure it was locked一something you had never worried about before, but right now wanted, because you needed to be alone for this.

You pulled the pregnancy test out of the box and read the instructions three times, standing in the middle of your bathroom, before you just bit the bullet. You reached under the sink for another little paper cup you used for mouthwash, sat on the toilet, and then perched the now filled cup on the edge of the sink with the test in it, angled to the side like a jaunty reminder of how your life might be about to change. You stared at it, then removed it after you’d estimated the time the instructions had told you passed.

You balanced the test on the empty box, washed your hands, and peeked at the test, but there were no results showing yet一it had been like, thirty seconds.

Suddenly, you realized一you didn’t want to be alone for this. You shouldn’t be. It was stupid to be.

“Steve,” you called, a note of panic in your voice because you didn’t want him to miss any part of this (except the peeing in a cup part, that was fine).

This time, he didn’t respond verbally; you just heard his footsteps treading down the hall as you unlocked the bathroom door and opened it just as he arrived.

His eyes landed on you, then flicked to the test, then back to you, but you shook your head一then realized that may not indicate what you wanted it to.

Speaking quickly, you said, “I just did it. We have to wait”一you checked the instructions一“a few minutes.”

“Ok,” Steve said, looking over your shoulder at the test again, before bringing his gaze back to your face. His eyes softened when he looked at you. “Whatever it says, it’s ok. Either way. It’s not good or bad, it just一is what it is.”

You swallowed. “Will you be upset if it’s not?”

“No,” Steve said. “No, absolutely I would not be upset. This一isn’t just about me. I want what you want.”

You nodded. “Ok.” You paused. “I don’t know what I want.”

Steve didn’t hesitate even a second一he pulled you to him, your cheek against his chest, and kissed the top of your head before resting his chin on it as he spoke. “We’ll figure it out together. Everything we do from here on out, we’ll figure out together. Like we always have. Right?”

“Right,” you said, and let him hold you as you counted the seconds and breathed in the scent of him, coffee and sleep and a little touch of the cigarette that he’d probably smoked on the way to the shop that you’d be scolding him to quit if the test turned out the way you hoped it did.

Oh. You hoped it did. That was… a development.

When you got to roughly 200, you pulled away from him and picked up the test, holding it between your chest and his. 

You looked down at the test, saw the lines there. You heard Steve take in a breath, then closed your eyes and tilted your head up, turning your face toward his like he was the sun and you were a flower. And when you opened your eyes, he was glowing just like a summer sky and the smile sneaking onto your lips matched his.

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