im still thinking about that post you reblogged with the companion neighbour wifi usernames so if you're ever bored, a steve/mechanic drabble would water crops & feed families 😂🥺🙏
⊹ ࣪ ˖ pairing: steve harrington x f!reader
⊹ ࣪ ˖ wc: 2.0k
⊹ ࣪ ˖ contains: strangers to lovers trope, ...and they were neighbours, modern day!au, flirty and full of banter, snarky!r but steve's into it
⊹ ࣪ ˖ notes: thank you for the little drabble request! I always struggle with writing Steve but today I actually really wanted to, so this was vomited out in one sitting. here's a little treat for all you Steve girlies out there <3 Based on this post.
series masterlist.
The first thing you buy for the new apartment is earplugs.
Not a kettle. Not curtains like most sane people. Earplugs.
Because the guy in 203 has apparently decided his sole purpose on this earth is to single-handedly keep Spotify’s 2010s Party Bangers playlist alive. The walls are annoyingly thin here. Like, paper-thin. Like, you-can-hear-the-Spotify-ad-about-premium-thin. Somewhere through the drywall, a crowd whoops as the bass drops for the third time in under twenty minutes, and you stare at the half-unpacked boxes in your living room and grind your teeth.
You moved here for the cheap rent, not the nightly club experience.
Your laptop pings as it finally connects to the building’s spaghetti-wiring of routers. You open the Wi-Fi list and squint at them for a moment.
xfinity-83J4
PATEL_2G
FBI-SURVEILLANCE-VAN (sure)
HARRINGTON-5G
You click HARRINGTON-5G because the signal is obnoxiously strong, then remember you don’t have the password and click your own instead. The old router the landlord left gives a half-hearted wheeze and flashes its lights at you. You hover over the SSID settings, considering your options as the music thrums at an obnoxiously loud volume.
The bass thuds through the wall again, and someone yells, “CHUG, HARRINGTON, CHUG!”
Through clenched teeth, you rename your network: APT203ULoudAsFuck.
You hit save with a nasty little smile, imagining Party Boy Harrington, your new neighbour, opening his laptop tomorrow, looking for Wi-Fi, and seeing that.
Petty? Yes. Satisfying? Also yes.
. . .
You meet him the next morning in the hallway.
You’re locking up, coveralls rolled to your calves, grease under your nails because you were up at six fixing the misfiring cylinder in your truck. He is… the opposite of you.
Grey sweatpants, old college hoodie hanging off broad shoulders, hair fluffed up in that artfully messy way that has to be deliberate. He’s juggling two trash bags and an empty pizza box, and there are faint purple shadows under his eyes that say he did, in fact, CHUG, HARRINGTON, CHUG last night. He stops when he sees you. Gives you the once-over—boots, coveralls, the wrench sticking out of your back pocket—then glances past you at your door number.
“Morning,” he calls out, voice still rough with sleep. “You, uh… new?”
“Wow,” you deadpan. “How’d you guess?”
He blinks. A quick huff of a laugh escapes, like you caught him off-guard. “Well, I don’t recognise you, and I’m a very observant guy.”
“Yeah,” you hum. “I noticed. I can recognise your entire playlist through the wall.”
His mouth does an awkward little twist. “That bad, huh?”
“Let’s just say if I never hear Pitbull say ‘Dale’ again, it’ll be too soon.”
He winces. “Okay, in my defence, I did not make the playlist. But, uh.” He shifts the trash bags to one hand and offers the other. “Steve. 203.”
Of course he’s Steve from 203.
You look at his hand, then at his face. He’s unfairly pretty in a boy-next-door, toothpaste-commercial way—warm brown eyes, lashes better than yours, a jaw you could probably cut sheet metal on. The kind of guy high school you would’ve avoided on principle. You wipe your palm on your coveralls, purely to be annoying, then shake his hand firmly. “Mechanic. 204.”
His brows jump. “Wait. Mechanic as in…?”
You tap the name patch stitched over your chest. The garage logo is fraying at the edges. “As in my actual job. It’s not a kink thing.”
Colour rises in his cheeks; you don’t know if it’s from embarrassment or because his brain very briefly went there. “Didn’t say it was.”
“You thought it,” you shoot back knowingly. “I could hear it rattling around in your skull.”
His mouth drops open, outrage mixing with that reluctant interest you’ve seen on guys’ faces your whole life when they realise the girl they’re talking to is both competent and deeply unimpressed by them.
“You’re kinda rude for this early,” he notes, brows still high.
“You’re kinda loud for this early,” you shoot back, stepping around him toward the stairs. “Thin walls. Maybe keep that in mind next time you decide to host the World Cup in your living room.”
Behind you, Steve calls, “It was just a few friends!”
“You have bad friends,” you yell back.
You hear him laugh behind you. You hate to admit it, but it’s a rather nice sound.
. . .
That night, the Wi-Fi list looks different. You open your laptop, intent on drowning in emails and invoices, and see it immediately.
APT203ULoudAsFuck
Underneath it, new:
Apt???SayItToMyFace#203
You stare. Then you start to laugh, helpless and startled, dropping your forehead to the edge of the table.
“Unbelievable,” you mutter, but you’re still smiling when you connect to your own network.
He must’ve seen it. Must’ve put two and two together—new neighbour, mechanic, attitude problem—and changed his SSID just to spit back.
Say it to my face.
You absolutely will.
You just have to catch him when he’s not surrounded by half the city.
. . .
You don’t have to wait long.
Two days later, you’re in the building’s sad excuse for a laundry room, wedged between humming machines that look older than both of you combined. You’ve got a socket wrench in one hand and the guts of your washing machine in the other; the landlord said, “It’s been making a weird noise”, like you haven't spend your entire life coaxing broken machinery back from the dead.
The door creaks behind you. You glance up absently, still half focused on your task.
Steve freezes in the doorway, laundry basket crooked on his hip. “Wow,” he says. “You really can’t turn it off, huh?”
You raise an eyebrow. “What, basic problem-solving skills?”
He steps in, letting the door swing shut behind him. Boxes of detergent and fabric softener shake on their shelf as the machines thud through a spin cycle. The air smells like synthetic lavender and damp concrete, humidity clinging to the walls whenever you inhale.
“And the attitude,” he mutters. “Don’t forget the attitude.”
You go back to checking the belt tension. “Trust me, if you were less annoying, I’d be a delight.”
He laughs softly, sets the basket down on the nearest machine. He’s in jeans and a worn white t-shirt this time, hair damp like he just showered. There’s a fading bruise at his collarbone, the kind that looks suspiciously like teeth.
You ignore it.
Mostly.
“So,” he hedges, a terrible attempt at sounding casual. “You, uh, see any good Wi-Fi names lately?”
You don’t look up. “Can’t imagine what you mean.”
“Oh, c’mon.” You can hear the grin. “APT203ULoudAsFuck? I respect the commitment.”
“That wasn’t about you,” you drawl, still not looking up. “Maybe there’s another 203 in the building, did you think of that?”
Steve’s hand appears in your peripheral vision, offering a small, silver screw you hadn’t realised you’d dropped. “Yeah? ‘Cause my router sure thought it was about me.”
You take it, fingers brushing his. His skin is warm, calloused at the pads in a way that surprises you; he doesn’t look like the type to use his hands for anything other than using a comb. There’s a faint grease smudge on the side of his thumb; you’re ninety percent sure it’s yours.
“Maybe my network just has strong opinions,” you tell him. “You can’t censor her. She’s a free spirit.”
He leans against the machine opposite you, arms folding over his chest, watching you work. “She?”
“My router’s called Judith,” you explain, tightening the last bolt. “She’s temperamental and occasionally bursts into flames.”
“I’m starting to understand your friendship circle,” he jokes.
You sit back on your heels, flick the machine’s side panel closed, and hit the start button. The washer whirs, then roars back to life, no more grinding. Satisfied, you wipe your hands on a rag and finally look at him. He’s already looking at you. Not the polite oh cool you fixed it look you get from customers, either. It’s more assessing. Intrigued. Like he’s trying to figure out which box to put you in and realising none of the usual ones fit.
“You’re good at that,” he states, but doesn’t sound patronising or surprised about it, just mildly thoughtful. “The… fixing things.”
“Yeah, well,” you say. “Someone has to keep this place standing when the landlord’s solution is slapping duct tape on structural problems.”
His mouth quirks. “You talk about everything like it’s a busted machine.”
“Maybe because most things are,” you shoot back. “People, too.”
“Wow.” Steve whistles. “That’s bleak.”
You shrug.
He tilts his head. “So what am I? Cracked spark plug? Blown head gasket?”
“Overheated engine,” you say without missing a beat. “All noise, very little actual power. Needs constant cooling so it doesn’t explode.”
He blinks, then laughs, bright and disbelieving, a raspy sound you hate to admit is very pleasant. “You’ve known me, like, three days.”
“That’s all it takes,” you inform him gravely, matching the slight smile he wears on his face. “You’re loud. You throw parties on a Tuesday. Your Wi-Fi name is a cry for help.”
“Hey.” He presses a hand to his chest, mock-wounded. “Apt???SayItToMyFace#203 is an iconic clapback.”
“It’s a crime,” you inform him bluntly. “There are too many question marks. It’s all desperation.”
He grins, and there’s something a little sharper at the edges now, something that says he’s enjoying this more than he’d admit. “Maybe I wanted to make sure you saw it.”
“Congratulations,” you say dryly. “Consider me deeply, profoundly, spiritually seen.”
Steve’s eyes skip briefly to your mouth, then away, like he didn’t mean to let them. “You ever do anything without a joke attached?”
“You ever do anything without an audience?” you fire back. “Every time I walk past your door, there’s at least three people in there.”
“Maybe I like people.”
“Maybe you don't like being alone.”
You see the tiny tightening at the corners of his eyes, the way his fingers drum once against the washing machine, then stop. Those words, clearly, have hit a nerve. The room hums around you, all noise and rattling metal. The washer shakes beneath you, the boring, steady rhythm of it filling the silence.
“You really don’t pull punches, do you?” he says finally.
“You asked,” you point out. “You want compliments, talk to your groupies. I’m busy.”
“Busy fixing Judith,” he quips helpfully.
A tiny grin twitches your mouth. “Exactly.”
He watches you for a long moment, something new in his gaze. Less lazy amusement, more… focus. You can feel the weight of it along your skin, a slow slide like he’s cataloguing every sharp edge and deciding not to look away.
“You know,” he says, softer, “you’re kind of annoying.”
The funny part is, it doesn’t sound like an insult. Not really.
You smirk. “Good. Now you know how it feels.”
Steve shakes his head, that small, disbelieving laugh again. “If I turn the music down,” he poses curiously, “am I allowed to keep the Wi-Fi name?”
“You can keep it,” you reply. “But just so you know, Judith’s already working on her response.”
“Oh yeah?” He leans in, entirely too close for someone you met over trash bags and passive-aggressive SSIDs. “What’s she thinking?”
You consider him—the stupidly pretty face, the earnest eyes, the way he keeps stepping closer even as you keep giving him verbal paper cuts.
“Don’t worry about it,” you say, hopping off the machine and grabbing your tool bag. “You’ll see it next time you open your laptop.”
You brush past him, shoulder catching the warm line of his arm. It’s deliberate. So is the way you don’t look back.
Behind you, you hear him exhale, low and a little exasperated. “You’re gonna drive me crazy, you know that?”
“Get in line, Harrington,” you shout back, pushing the door open with your hip.
By the time you’re back in your apartment, Judith’s network is already renamed.
TurnItDownPrettyBoy_203
You grin at the screen, imagine him seeing it, imagine his hand flexing in his hair in that frustrated way.
On the other side of the wall, the bass clicks on, then drops to a much more reasonable volume.
🌊 a kink you would like to write but you think you’d be judged
oooo!! i honestly don't know. i feel like my "brand" as a whole isn't very smutty so i always lowkey feel kind of bashful when i do post smut LOL. i wouldn't necessarily classify it as a kink but maybe anal?
⭐️ what is one of your biggest accomplishments? Why is it so important to you?
tbh graduating college! for some it's the bare minimum and for others it's not even an option. i was the first in my family to do it in four years. i made the (kind of) crazy decision to move 5 hours away from home, went through a mental health crisis, had a sick parent, got my heart broken twice, went through many normal friendship breakups and growing pains etc etc. there was a lot of trauma that i didn't process at the time and i struggled a lot, so i'm still very proud of myself for making it to the end!!
sent from this-is-purgatory-silverstar btw, i guess i’m shooting my shot here to get to know you better and maaaybe start talking some more if you want <3
hi sweet friend!!! i would love nothing more <3 :)
🚗 can you drive?
yes! i got my license when i was 19
💜 describe yourself in five words or less!
hmmmMmmm... caring, passionate, creative, kind, and ....... idealistic :o
ooooo.... i'm gonna change this question slightly and make it "something no one online would guess about you" bc i truly can't come up with something people irl would guess about me😭😭 but maybe that i have like 22 tattoos?? i don't have any sleeves or anything, they're all individually done and sprinkled throughout my arms and legs. i've also lost count and i *think* it's 22 but it could be more than that lol
🌝 a show you would recommend to anyone
if you can handle gore and violence, yellowjackets!!!!! if you like sitcoms, new girl :)
besides djo of courseeee.... phoebe bridgers, lucy dacus, (boygenius is obviously included in that), peach pit, paramore/hayley williams, the 1975 (sorry), simon & garfunkel, fleetwood mac, modern baseball, the front bottoms :)
i already answered 🎧 here!!! it was let it happen by tame impala :D
i haven't traveled a ton so there are a lot of places i'd love to go!!! currently....... i'm thinking about making an appearance in the irish countryside with beautiful grassy hills and happy cows and lambs............. that seems like a wonderful place to be
omg.... i think maybe when i was 11/12? i remember i started reading it in 6th grade and i immediately wanted to start writing it because i was so in awe and inspired by the ones i read. i was an emo youth so everything was about paramore and all time low (yikes)
reading, crochet, cross stitch/needlepoint, film photography, gardening/plant stuff, going to shows <3 all very grandma things (besides concerts)
🌺 what is the best gift someone has ever given you and why is it so important
my grandma was a first generation immigrant and she gave me a pair of earrings she wore when she was younger maybe a year before she passed away. they're obviously super special to me :)
i had to look this up bc unfortunately i don't know it off the top of my head BUT my sun and moon are libra and my rising is aquarius <3 idk what this means about me other than my sun sign which is v true to my personality <3
