Steve Harrington x reader
Summary: A hot day at Lovers Lake turns into exactly what the rest of the gang feared: Steve Harrington being completely incapable of keeping his hands off you for seven straight hours.
Warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, minors DNI, no use of y/n, established relationship, fluff, mild suggestiveness (lmk if i missed anything)
A/N: The weather has been so awful recently where I am so I'm choosing to live vicariously through sunny hot weather fanfics :D
Steve is instantly in trouble the second you step out of the car.
Like his brain physically stalls for a second while you push the passenger door shut with your hip and pull your sunglasses down slightly to squint against the sunlight reflecting off Lovers Lake.
It’s July-hot already. The kind of heat that sticks to your skin immediately, heavy and golden and lazy. Cicadas drone somewhere in the trees while Max and Lucas immediately start arguing over who forgot the portable speaker before either of them have fully closed the boot.
You, meanwhile, are standing there in little denim shorts and a bikini top beneath one of Steve’s old button-ups hanging open over your shoulders.
Steve is absolutely fucking doomed.
“Oh, you are NOT surviving today,” Robin says immediately beside him.
Steve blinks slowly. “What?”
Robin snorts and shoulders past him toward the picnic bags. “Your face.”
“You looked at her like a Victorian man seeing a woman’s ankle.”
Steve looks offended. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”
Across the car park, you glance over at them, pushing sunglasses up into your hair.
Your whole expression softens when you see him.
Warm and easy and automatic in a way that still kind of wrecks him.
Steve feels himself visibly melt.
Robin watches it happen in real time.
“Oh my god,” she mutters. “Painful.”
By the time everyone’s dragged coolers and towels down toward the lake, the entire place already feels alive with summer.
Music drifts from somewhere further down the shoreline. Water glitters beautifully under the afternoon sun. The wooden dock creaks beneath Dustin and Mike, immediately trying to shove each other into the lake while Nancy yells half-heartedly at them to stop being idiots before they break something.
Jonathan’s already taking photos.
Mostly candid ones. Max laughing with her feet dangling off the dock. Robin dramatically collapsing onto a towel like she’s survived a war. Lucas trying and failing to throw a frisbee one-handed.
And, increasingly, Steve looking at you when he thinks nobody notices.
Unfortunately for him, everybody notices.
You’re digging through one of the coolers when Steve appears behind you seemingly out of nowhere, sliding both hands around your waist.
“Hi,” he says directly against your shoulder.
You laugh softly without even looking surprised anymore. “Hi.”
“I walked like ten feet away.”
You grin while leaning back into his chest automatically.
God. Steve could live inside moments like this.
Warm skin beneath his hands. The smell of lake water and sunscreen and shampoo drifting from your hair. Your body relaxing into his without hesitation, like being close to him is muscle memory now.
It still gets him every single time.
“You gonna help me carry stuff?” you ask.
Steve nods immediately. “Absolutely.”
You laugh properly then, bright enough that Steve feels it somewhere directly in his ribs.
Dustin gags loudly from the dock.
“Oh my god, you two are unbearable.”
Steve doesn’t even look away from you when he flips him off.
Just cold enough that everyone spends five straight minutes pretending they’re absolutely about to die while climbing in.
Robin shrieks loud enough to scare birds out of nearby trees.
“You literally suggested swimming,” Nancy points out.
Steve’s standing knee-deep in the water beside the dock when you finally wade in after everybody else, hands instinctively lifting toward you the second you stumble slightly over a submerged rock.
“Careful,” he says immediately.
You snort softly. “I’m okay.”
His hand settles automatically against your waist anyway.
The lake reaches just above his hips now, sunlight catching gold-brown through damp hair curling around his forehead. His stupid little sleeveless shirt lasted maybe fifteen minutes before he peeled it off complaining about the heat, leaving him unfairly pretty standing there all sun-warmed and broad-shouldered in the middle of Lovers Lake.
You’re not exactly unaffected yourself.
Unfortunately, Robin notices that too.
“Oh my GOD,” she yells from nearby. “Now she’s doing it too!”
You blink innocently. “Doing what?”
Steve looks delighted immediately.
“Don’t encourage him,” Robin groans.
Steve’s grin turns positively unbearable.
You shove lake water directly into his face.
The sunscreen incident starts because Steve cannot behave normally for even thirty consecutive minutes.
You’re sitting between his legs on a towel near the waterline while he helps rub sunscreen onto your shoulders.
At least, that’s what’s supposed to be happening.
Instead, his hands have been resting suspiciously still against your waist for the last twenty seconds while he kisses slowly along the curve of your shoulder.
“You stopped applying sunscreen.”
Steve presses another distracted kiss beneath your ear.
You laugh softly. “That is not sunscreen.”
“It’s literally coconut shampoo.”
Behind you, Robin makes the loudest suffering noise imaginable.
“I’m going into the lake and never coming back.”
“Can you drown quietly?” Steve asks absentmindedly, still focused entirely on you.
Robin throws a packet of crisps at the back of his head.
You’re laughing too hard to stay upright properly now, leaning back against Steve’s chest while he finally resumes rubbing sunscreen over your shoulders.
Mostly because he keeps getting distracted touching you.
His fingers drag warm circles against your skin while sunlight flashes across the water ahead of you. Somewhere down the shoreline Lucas trying to convince Mike to attempt a running backflip off the dock while Max loudly explains why that’s the stupidest thing she’s ever heard.
Everything feels loud and happy and bright around the edges.
Steve kisses the top of your shoulder again.
“…you’re getting freckles.”
You glance back slightly. “What?”
“Right here.” His thumb brushes lightly across your shoulder blade. “Tiny little freckles.”
Something about the softness in his voice makes your chest ache.
You’re so gone for him it’s embarrassing.
“You’re staring again,” you murmur.
Steve doesn’t even deny it this time.
Dustin makes another fake vomiting sound somewhere behind you.
Neither of you acknowledge it.
By late afternoon, everybody’s slightly sun-drunk.
The kind of tiredness that only comes from hours of swimming and heat and too much laughing.
Lucas and Max are sprawled across towels sharing crisps. Nancy’s finally managed to start reading uninterrupted while Jonathan lies beside her taking absentminded photographs of tree branches overhead.
Nobody knows how he has this much energy left.
Steve’s sitting with his back against the dock while you lie half across his lap, damp from the lake and warm from the sun. His fingers move lazily up and down your bare thigh while he talks quietly with Robin about something you’re not really listening to anymore.
Mostly because you’re sleepy.
And because Steve keeps absentmindedly touching you like he physically can’t help himself.
Every few seconds, his thumb brushes your skin, his hand squeezes your knee, his fingers slide through your hair, his lips press automatically against your temple whenever you tilt closer.
Like loving you lives somewhere beneath conscious effort now.
“…you’re doing it again,” Robin says eventually.
Steve looks up. “Doing what?”
“You just kissed her mid-sentence.”
Steve blinks once. “Okay?”
“You didn’t even pause your conversation.”
You lift your head slightly. “Honestly, that’s kinda impressive.”
“Thank you,” Steve says immediately.
Robin looks exhausted. “I need both of you to know this is psychological warfare.”
Dustin points accusingly from nearby. “Seriously. Every time I look over, one of you is grabbing the other one’s face.”
Steve shrugs lazily. “Skill issue.”
You laugh into Steve’s shoulder while he looks deeply pleased with himself.
Then, because he’s apparently incapable of restraint today, he tips your chin upward and kisses you again properly.
Dustin groans so dramatically that Nancy finally lowers her book.
“Oh my god,” she says flatly. “Let them kiss in peace.”
“You’re enabling them!” Robin cries.
Jonathan glances up from his camera. “Honestly? I stopped noticing like two hours ago.”
“You’re all traitors,” Robin mutters.
Steve looks unbearably smug afterwards.
“You know,” you murmur quietly against his shoulder, “they’re kinda right.”
“You’ve been attached to me literally all day.”
Steve thinks about that for exactly half a second.
“I’m in love with you. What do you want from me?”
Your entire chest goes warm.
Robin immediately pretends to choke on lake water.
“NO. Absolutely not. I reject this conversation.”
Steve just grins against your hair.
The best part of the day comes later.
Not even Steve nearly dislocating his shoulder trying to show off diving off the dock after you laughed at him once.
It’s evening. When everything finally starts slowing down.
The heat softens into something golden and sleepy while the sky melts orange above the lake. Everybody’s quieter now, exhausted from hours in the sun.
Someone’s music still plays softly from the speaker near the towels. The dock creaks gently beneath shifting weight. Water laps lazily against wood while fireflies start blinking faintly through the trees surrounding the lake.
You’re sitting beside Steve at the very end of the dock with your legs dangling over the edge.
His arm’s wrapped around your waist automatically.
Behind you, the others are still talking softly amongst themselves, but nobody’s paying much attention anymore. Robin’s lying across three towels dramatically claiming she’s dying of heatstroke while Will argues with Lucas about music.
For once, nobody’s yelling at you and Steve to stop being disgustingly in love.
Probably because everyone’s too tired.
You lean your head against Steve’s shoulder while warm evening air brushes across sun-warmed skin.
And quietly, without really meaning to, Steve says, “I think this might be my favourite day we’ve ever had.”
Your chest tightens instantly.
You tilt your head slightly to look at him.
His hair’s still damp around the edges. There’s sunscreen smudged faintly along one shoulder. His cheeks are pink from sun exposure despite the amount of sunscreen you forced onto him earlier.
You smile gently. “Yeah?”
Then quieter, “Everybody’s here.”
You glance back toward the others automatically.
Nancy laughing softly at something Jonathan says.
Max lying with her head in Lucas’ lap.
Robin still being dramatic.
Dustin somehow still talking.
Warm light stretching gold across the lake while cicadas hum steadily in the trees.
The whole weird little thing you’ve all built together somehow surviving everything thrown at it.
Steve’s fingers tighten slightly against your waist.
Then he leans over and kisses your temple absentmindedly.
You smile against his shoulder.
“You know,” you murmur softly, “everyone’s gonna start bullying us again if you keep doing that.”
Then kisses you again anyway.
From somewhere behind you, “Oh my god, BOOOOO.”
You burst out laughing immediately while Steve grins smugly against your skin.
“Worth it,” he says quietly.
dividers: saradika-graphics
