PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
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Love Begins
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@spr0utkeery
Welcome to my blog ⭑.ᐟ
Annabel ⋆ twenty! (mdni) ⋆ enfp ⋆ irish ⋆ autistic!
my master list! ᯓ★ | rules | my strawpage ⋆.˚
requests are closed for now!
on going series!
Vow of Silence | Steve Harrington x reader, marriage of convenience, friends to enemies to lovers, mean!Steve
Cross the Divide | Steve Harrington x reader, college au, social media au, slight fratboy!Steve
hi! I'm Annabel!
I'm a film student with too much time on her hands (aka i should be doing college work but i write Steve Harrington fanfic instead...)
Please check out my rules before requesting anything! as i will delete any asks i get that go against them!
bbbyyy i’m currently reading your, starkstorms, potionrry, starrys_garden, and gutsnhugs ‘s smaus on twitter (as you can tell i’ve been on a smau kick) but are there any others that you recommend 🫶🫶
oh my GODDDD those r my oomfs i love them all sm and i’m also reading their smaus lolll
i actually don’t think i’ve been reading any others/know any others at the moment, but i do know some of my oomfs have been talking about making some so i’ll keep an eye out for sure!
tysm for reading 🫶
@gutsnhugs @spr0utkeery both deserve the recognition for theirs 🩷🩷
Izzy my love 🫂🫂
Cross the Divide- 8 ᯓ★
series masterlist | main masterlist
pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader ⋆｡°✩. tags: social media au, college au, modern au (will update this as I write the fic) ⋆˚꩜｡. Use of yn for display/ usernames (1.3k+)
Not proofread!
In your first year of college, Steve Harrington had existed tangentially to your life. You heard bits and pieces about him through Robin. They worked together in the campus coffee shop. He was in a frat. He was single. It was all noise to you, he seemed like an asshole anyways, why waste your time? But as you enter your sophomore year, he starts to play a much larger role in your life.
Or,
you meet Steve at a frat party, he falls madly in love with you. ⊹ ࣪ ˖
The next day you were practically vibrating with nerves in your seat. Your class moved both too quickly, and too slowly for your liking. Before you knew it, the professor was wrapping up the lecture, calling out suggested readings over the sounds of students packing away their things. You barely listened, too focused on the fact that Steve Harrington was probably waiting outside the building for you. Taking a deep breath, you slung your bag over your shoulder and headed for the door
You don’t see him right away, too busy trying to weave through the sea of students that had suddenly poured out of your lecture hall. But as the crowd cleared, you see him. Leaning against the brick of the old building, scrolling through his phone. He doesn't spot you until you're right next to him, jumping slightly at your seemingly sudden appearance at his side.
“Sorry–” you apologise quickly
“You’re okay” he chuckles, tucking his phone away in his back pocket “I should have been paying more attention”
You laugh awkwardly, picking at the skin of your thumbs so you have something to do with your hands.
“Ready?” he asks, pushing off of the wall and standing in front of you.
“Yeah– yeah im ready” you stammer
You follow him as he moves away from the building, casual slipping between people who crowd the footpath. He turns back and slows down his steps, giving you time to catch up.
“How was class?” he glances at you, throwing his car keys in the air and catching them again.
“Class? Oh- it was good–” you shrug “--a little boring but that’s expected”
“One of those?”
You’re about to answer when you see him heading for the parking lot. Steve stops in his tracks, turning around to see that you’re no longer beside him.
“Everything ok?”
“We’re driving?”
“Yeah, did robin not tell you where we were going?”
You shake your head, making him huff out an amused laugh.
“It’s across town, we can walk if you want but it might take a while.” he says it like he’s kidding, but the soft sheen of his eyes makes it feel like he really would walk miles if you didn’t want to get into his car.
“What?-- no, no i have no problem with driving” you step closer to the passenger door “-- i just thought we were going to the dining hall, is all”
He snorts another laugh, shooting you an amused grin before ducking into the driver's seat.
You scramble forward less gracefully than you would have liked, fumbling with the door handle before you manage to get it open.
-
The drive to lunch is surprisingly easy. You and Steve slip into the same rhythm you had over text, not a single moment between you feeling tense or uncomfortable. It was strange, but you felt like you’d known him for far longer than you actually had.
“Wait- they made you clean the toilets when you first joined?” You ask, completely flabbergasted
“Yep-“ he nods with a laugh “-it’s just what they do to pledges”
“And people join frats willingly?”
“They’re good for connections” he shrugs
“I don’t think scrubbing vomit for nine months straight is worth a few connections”
That gets another laugh at him, making him shoot you an amused glare
“Believe me, I thought so too”
“So why'd you join?”
He clears his throat almost uncomfortably “my dad, he was a big deal in the pike back when he went here”
“Oh… so did you not have a choice?” You regret the words the second they’re out of your mouth, realising at the last minute you’ve gone too far. “Shit- I mean- you don’t have to answer that…
“It’s fine” he chuckles awkwardly “I had a choice, kind of”
“Like your dad would get angry if you didn’t?”
“Exactly”
“I’m sorry…”
“It’s fine, I like being in a frat anyways”
“Yeah?”
“It’s, yknow, cool having people there”
“I get that”
When the silence falls between you, it’s full of understanding instead of tension.
-
Robin and Nancy are already at a table when you and Steve arrive, both of them giving you knowing looks. You sit down next to Robin, leaving Steve to sit across from you and next to Nancy.
“Have you guys already ordered?” He asks
“No, we were waiting for you” Nancy smiles softly at him, making something in your stomach twist. That is until you see the way she looks at Robin, and are promptly reminded of the fact that she was a lesbian.
You are, however, forced to confront the fact that someone else smiling at Steve made something in your stomach burn. It was ridiculous, you barely knew the guy. So why were you suddenly feeling jealous over his ex girlfriend? You’re (thankfully) pulled out of your thoughts by the waiter who’s come by to take you order.
You can feel Steve’s eyes on you as you ask for the house sandwich and a coffee, smiling pointedly at the waiter before handing him back the menu. Steve’s eyes snap away from you when you glance at him, probably just caught in a day dream or something equally as innocent.
-
The meal goes by annoyingly well. You and Steve get caught up in such an engrossed conversation about Star Wars, that you forget Nancy and Robin are even there, only being reminded by a firm elbow to your ribs.
“What?” You grumble, rubbing the now stinging skin of your side
“Do you and Harrington realise we’re here too?”
Stew huffs, clearly upset that his rant about Han Solo was interrupted.
“Have you seen Star Wars?”
Robin blinks at him
“Obviously I’ve seen Star Wars, dingus. Everyone has”
Nancy clears her throat “I haven’t…”
“What!?” Robins head whips towards her “how have you not seen Star Wars?”
“I don’t know… I guess Mike was more int that stuff?”
“Mike?”
“My younger brother, he’s a total geek”
“He’s friends with Dustin” Steve cuts in, making Robin nod her head like that makes perfect sense.
“We’re totally watching Star Wars” she says to Nancy, leaving no room for argument.
“Yeah?”
“Yup” Robin nods her head, this weekend
“Hey-“ you cut in “-I have to study this weekend, you can’t kick me out”
“You can go to the library”
“No-“ you shake your head adamantly “-no way, I embarrassed myself in front of the librarian I can’t go back”
Robin huffs, sitting back in her seat. Her eyes flicker across the table before landing on Steve.
“Go to Harrington’s place”
“What?”
“Yeah- what?” Steve adds “how do you know I’m not busy?”
“I’m not studying in a frat house”
“It’s not that ba—“ he cuts himself off when he sees the look you shoot him.
“Robin-“
“Me and nance are gonna watch Star Wars” she grins, letting you know she won’t back down or change her plans “go to Harrington’s or go to the library, it’s up to you”
You sigh, chewing on your bottom lip before glancing at Steve, who’s already looking at you.
“Do you mind?” You ask timidly
“Me?- no- not at all-“
“You’re sure the other… frat guys won’t care?”
“No- they bring girls over all the time- not that they’ll think—“ he pauses, pressing his eyes shut before trying again “they won’t care”
“Ok— cool yeah if you’re sure, I mean… I just need somewhere quiet"
“My room should be pretty quiet? I would say the kitchen but some of the guys might be down there”
“Cool- yeah-“ you swallow “so tomorrow then”
-
You try not to freak out when he hugs you goodbye. Convincing yourself he did it to be polite, since Robin and Nancy got the same treatment. What doesn’t help, is when he says “I’ll see you tomorrow” softly by your ear.
“Tomorrow” you say back, pulling away.
Holy shit. You were gonna have to study in Steve Harrington’s bedroom.
(a/n) hey so I wrote this at 12:30 at night so it might be complete dogshit, let’s all ignore if it is!
hi guys!!!
i just wanted to let you all know that i’ve started a little spider-man steve x reader socmed au on twitter!!
it’s separate to the spidey!steve au i’ve got going on here, but i thought it would be fun for you guys to check out if anyone’s interested!
you can find it here !!
The way I’m already eating this up
Cross the Divide ᯓ★
series master list | main masterlist
pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader ⋆｡°✩ tags: social media au, college au, modern au (will update this as I write the fic) ⋆˚꩜｡ Use of yn for display/ usernames
In your first year of college, Steve Harrington had existed tangentially to your life. You heard bits and pieces about him through Robin. They worked together in the campus coffee shop. He was in a frat. He was single. It was all noise to you, he seemed like an asshole anyways, why waste your time? But as you enter your sophomore year, he starts to play a much larger role in your life.
Or,
you meet Steve at a frat party, he falls madly in love with you. ⊹ ࣪ ˖
intro
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter seven
chapter eight
𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧
pairing: steve harrington x reader word count: 12k summary: five-year-old steve harrington hates the hamptons—until he meets a barefoot girl with a bucketful of shells and becomes stevie. a coming-of-age story about first friendships, pinky promises, and falling in love, one summer at a time. warnings: 18+ mdni, piv sex, oral (f!receiving), childhood best friends to lovers, oldmoney!steve, coming-of-age, vignette storytelling, first kiss, loverboy baby steeb!, heavy angst, slow burn, canon divergence, his parents are godawful in this one, character study as always, happy ending | playlist | moodboard
Steve Harrington is 5 years old when he decides that the Hamptons are the worst place in the entire world.
He knows this because he’s been here for one whole hour and he already wants to go home.
At least, he thinks it’s been an hour. The numbers on his new watch are shiny and hard to read, and the leather strap feels too heavy on his arm. It keeps sliding down like it’s trying to escape.
Steve kind of hopes it does.
If it slides off completely, down through the cracks in the porch and into the sandy dirt below, then maybe the ocean will take it. The ocean takes lots of things. Shells, seaweed, shiny bits of glass, baby turtles.
Maybe it could take him, too.
Maybe he could float on the blue waves all the way back home.
Not Hawkins—Hawkins is full of grown-ups who bend down too close, their eyelashes like moving spiders as they pinch his cheeks and say, Oh, Catherine, he looks just like Daniel already, doesn’t he?
No. Steve wants to go home to his room. Where all his dinosaurs live. Where his blue night-light makes everything soft and underwater-colored. Where no one tells him Smile, Stephen, or Be polite, Stephen, or For heaven’s sake, Stephen, stop fidgeting.
His new sandals hurt. Bad. The buckle is sharp and keeps poking the soft part of his ankle every time he moves. His shirt itches him everywhere—his neck, his sides, his armpits—and no amount of wriggling seems to help.
He tugs at the collar, trying to make it stop.
His mom’s hand lands on his shoulder.
“Stephen, sweetheart, keep still.”
He tries. He really, really does.
But all around him, the grown-ups are being very loud. They stand in little circles, laughing these big, sharp HA-HA-HA laughs that poke straight into his ears. Every time his dad says something, it’s like someone presses a button and they all explode at once.
Someone tells his mom how tall Steve’s getting. Someone else winks at his dad and keeps saying the word “Princeton,” which Steve thinks might be a kind of car, but it makes his dad laugh loudly and look at Steve with a funny smile.
Another woman bends down and tells him he’s going to “break so many hearts one day.”
Steve frowns.
Why would he do that?
He likes hearts.
Hearts are for loving, not hurting.
He looks past the grown-ups—past the chairs and tables and the flowers that smell too strong—toward the tiny slice of ocean peeking between the dunes. Blue and shiny and very, very far away.
He wants it.
Wants to touch the sand with his bare feet. Wants water he’s allowed to splash in.
Wants a summer that belongs to him instead of everyone else.
His mom squeezes his shoulder again. “Posture, Stephen. Stand up straight.”
He thinks maybe that’s his name now: Posture Stephen.
“I am standing straight,” he mutters.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
He wants to run.
Run until the HA-HA-HA sounds disappear. Run until nobody’s watching him. Run until he hits the water.
So when his mom gets called over by someone waving a fancy glass, and his dad tells another joke that makes everyone explode-laugh again—
Steve sneaks away.
He’s fast and light, like a ninja.
He slips between chairs, tiptoes down the wooden steps, and as soon as the dunes come into view, he runs.
The sand squishes under his feet, and Steve sighs so big his whole chest feels lighter. He breathes in deep, holding as much salty air as his lungs can fit.
The beach is huge. Bigger than his school playground. Bigger than Hawkins, even. Tall grasses wave on the dunes like they’re saying hello, and beyond them is nothing but water—blue and green and silver, stretching all the way to forever.
The ocean roars, but it’s a good sound. A soft whoosh-whoosh-whoosh that fills his ears without hurting them.
On his way toward the water, he finds a stick.
A really good stick. Long and a little pointy on one end.
It could be a cool pirate sword. He’s gonna use it to make the biggest hole in the world.
He plops down, criss-cross-applesauce, and starts digging. Sand sticks to his shorts, but that’s okay. He can say he tripped later.
He stabs the stick into the ground and drags it out.
The sand slides back in.
He digs again.
Slides back in again.
He huffs and tosses the stick away.
“This is dumb,” he mutters. “You’re dumb.” He means the hole. And the stick. And the sandals. And maybe the whole world.
He’s just about to flop onto his back and stare at the sky, because that usually gets someone to notice him—
When a shadow falls over his hole.
“What’re you doing?”
Steve looks up.
It’s a girl. About his age.
You stand there, barefoot, hair wild like you ran through ten windstorms. Sand is smudged on your cheek like face paint. He stares at your toes curling happily in the sand and feels a sharp pinch of jealousy.
You drop a bright plastic bucket beside him. It’s full of shells and rocks and something that moves.
A crab lifts its tiny claws and clicks at him.
Steve jerks back. You don’t.
Instead, you plant your hands on your hips and squint down at him like you’ve known him forever.
“You’re not diggin’ right.” you announce.
He blinks. “…I’m not?”
“Nope.” You point at the hole with your whole arm. “Sand’s too dry. It just falls in. You gotta use wet sand.”
“Oh.” He feels silly for not knowing that. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do.” You plop down beside him. Your knees are dirty, covered in scratches and tiny dots from the sand, but you don’t seem to care. “Wanna see how?”
Nobody ever asks him that.
Nobody ever asks him if he wants to see something.
He nods fast. “Yeah.”
You grin and grab his hand, yanking him up so quickly he stumbles.
“I-I’m Steve,” he blurts as he gets dragged toward the ocean, because he knows he’s supposed to introduce himself to new people.
You tell him your name proudly. Then you tilt your head, thinking.
“Can I call you Stevie?”
“Stevie?”
“Yeah! My mom’s favorite singer’s named Stevie.”
Steve thinks about it.
Nobody’s ever given him a nickname before.
It feels special. Like a secret.
“Okay,” he nods, smiling.
You beam and tug him toward the water. “C’mon, Stevie!”
Stevie.
He likes it.
Loves it.
It feels like the sun just turned on inside his chest.
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 6 years old when summers suddenly mean everything.
The Hamptons stop being itchy shirts and sharp laughs that hurt his ears.
They become you.
Summer means you. It means your laugh, your bucket full of strange treasures, your hair decorated with seashells “because it looks cool.” It means your brave, bossy voice telling him what to do, but always in a fun way.
Every month of the school year, Steve waits.
And every night before bed, he lines his stuffed dinosaurs up by his pillow and tells them stories about the beach. About the girl with the crab bucket and the sand-matted hair the wind couldn’t catch. About how you call him Stevie because it’s the name of your mom’s favorite singer. About how you don’t care when he wiggles, or gets dirty, or says some words wrong.
When his mom asks if he’s excited for the Hamptons, he just shrugs. “I guess.”
But inside, his chest feels all tight and fizzy, like a soda can he’s not supposed to open yet: Coca-Cola, his favorite.
The whole flight to New York, Steve squints at the numbers on his watch, trying to decide if the big hand is halfway or not. He’s still not very good at telling the time, but he knows enough to know the flight feels like forever.
He ends up staring out the little oval window instead, at clouds that look like giant dinosaur eggs. He wonders if you’d think so, too. He’ll ask you when he sees you.
If he sees you.
What if you aren’t there this year? What if you forgot him?
The thought makes his stomach feel all wiggly and twisty. He doesn’t like it.
He hopes you’re there. He hopes you didn’t forget him.
The moment the car turns onto the long, winding road toward the summer house, Steve scoots forward as far as the belt lets him, pressing his face to the window. When he sees the ocean shining in the distance like a giant blue secret, his chest gets so tight he can hardly breathe.
He can’t wait. He can’t.
He barely waits for the car to stop.
“Stephen! Shoes! Your shoes are going to—oh, for heaven’s sake…”
He doesn’t listen. He takes the steps two at a time, sandals smacking hard against the wood.
He’s taller now. A whole two inches and a half, thank you very much.
He’s faster, too. Knows he is. He’s been practicing during recess, racing Tommy H. behind the swings.
He leaps off the last step and skids into the sand—
“STEVIE!”
He spins around so fast the world blurs.
You’re barreling toward him at top speed. Sand spraying behind you, hair flying everywhere. Your bucket bangs against your knee as you run, rattling and clanking and sounding even fuller than last year.
Steve’s face splits into the biggest grin he’s ever had.
You crash into him, arms wrapping tight around his middle, and the force of it nearly knocks him onto his back.
“HI! Stevie, Stevie—you gotta see this shell I found! Wait, hang on—”
You pull back just far enough to dig frantically through your bucket, dumping half of it into the sand. Rocks tumble out. Then a string of green, slimy seaweed. You grab something big and lumpy and shove it up toward his face.
“See?”
Steve blinks.
The shell is huge, bigger than his whole hand. Pale pink and creamy white, spiraled tight at one end and opening wide at the other. The outside is dotted with rounded little spikes that feel rough when he traces his fingers over them, but the inside is smooth and shiny.
“That’s really cool,” he says, because everything you do is cool. “It kind of looks like…” He squints hard, turns it sideways. “…a horn?”
Your eyes light up. “Yeah! Like a unicorn.”
He smiles. “Or a dinosaur.”
“That’s better,” you nod seriously. “Okay now listen!”
Before he can ask what you mean, you press the wide end right against his ear. It’s cold and sandy against his cheek.
“…What’s it do?”
“Just listen.”
He holds very still, not sure what he’s supposed to be listening for.
And then—
Whoosh. Whoosh-whoosh.
His eyes go huge.
“Whoa,” he breathes.
“Cool, right?”
“It’s loud.”
“That’s the ocean.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s stuck in there.”
You drop the shell into his hands and curl his fingers around it. “Keep it.”
He frowns. “But… you found it.”
“It’s okay.” You shrug like it’s obvious. “I’ll find another one. The beach has, like, a million.”
He looks down at the shell again, then back at you. His chest feels funny, all warm and full. It feels good. Really good.
“Hey,” you say suddenly, squinting out toward the water. “Wanna see something even cooler?”
Of course he does.
⚓︎
You drag him everywhere.
To tide pools where little fish zip and hide under wet rocks and the seaweed shimmers in the water. Look, look, a crab!
To a secret hideout between the dunes where the grass grows taller than your heads. This way, Stevie!
To the treasure spot, because every beach has one if you know how to look. You draw an X in the sand with a stick and make a crooked map with squiggly lines and arrows. Quick, Stevie, dig! We have to find the gold before the sea monsters come!
You show him your jar full of hopping sand bugs. One brushes his thumb and he squeaks.
You laugh. He stands up straighter and pretends he wasn’t scared.
You even show him your Very Important rock collection. which is a big deal because you don’t show anyone your rocks—not even your cousins, who are “mean poop-heads who don’t appreciate cool stuff.”
Later, you’re sitting in the sand, sorting shells by color—white pile, pink pile, stripey pile—when you tell him you’re flying back to California when the summer’s over.
“Cal-ee-for-nee-yah,” you say proudly.
Steve blinks. “Why?”
“That’s where my house is.” You shrug. “I stay here with my aunt in the summer.”
“Oh.” He digs his toe into the sand. “So… you’re goin’ away?”
“Just for school.” You glance at him. “I’ll come back. I’ll always come back.”
He looks at you fast, careful, like maybe it’s a trick. “Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
“When?”
“Next summer.”
He thinks about that. A whole year sounds really long, but summers always come back. They have to.
“You promise?”
“Promise,” you nod, sticking out your pinky.
He hooks his around yours immediately, serious as anything. Pinky promises are the strongest kind. Everybody knows that.
“Okay,” he says, finally breathing again. Then his forehead scrunches.
“Where’s… um…” He sticks his tongue out, trying to remember how you said it. “Cal… Cal-uh-for-nee… Cal-uh-for-na?” He shakes his head, mad that he can’t say it right.
You smile. “Yeah! It’s super, super far. You gotta take two planes.”
“Oh.” He nods slowly. Two planes sounds like forever.
You tell him it’s hotter there. That the trees are huge and tall, with giant leaves like green fireworks stuck in the sky.
You tell him the beaches there are bigger. Way bigger.
Steve looks out at the miles of Hamptons shoreline and frowns. “How?”
“They just are,” you insist, tossing a shell onto the striped pile. “And people surf there.”
“What’s that?”
You squint up at the sky. “It’s like… flying. But on water. They stand on boards and go really, really fast.”
Steve blinks, tries to imagine it.
Flying… but on water.
He knows you can’t fly. Birds can. Planes can. People can’t.
And you definitely can’t stand on water. He tried once in the bathtub. You just sink.
His mouth twists.
“That’s not real,” he says, sure of it.
You scrunch your nose, lip jutting out. “It is too!”
You shove him—not hard, just enough that he flops backward into the sand with a surprised oof.
For half a second, his stomach drops. Maybe he did something wrong.
He stares up at you, eyes wide, waiting for your face to go tight like grown-ups’ faces when he messes up.
But you’re laughing.
Bright and easy, like nothing’s wrong at all.
Sand sprays as you jump up and spin away, yelling over your shoulder, “Race you to that big rock!”
And you’re gone before he can say wait up.
The tight feeling in his chest disappears.
He scrambles up, laughing too, chasing after you with everything he’s got. Legs burning, sandals slipping, but he doesn’t care.
It’s perfect.
It’s the best day of his whole life.
Until you fall.
It happens so fast.
One second you’re running ahead of him, laughing, hair flying everywhere.
The next, you stumble over a hard patch in the sand and go down hard.
“Ow!”
Steve skids to a stop so fast he almost falls too. His heart leaps into his throat.
He drops beside you right away. “Are you okay? Are you okay? Oh no, oh no—” His eyes dart all over you, scared and frantic. There’s a smear of red mixed with the sand on your knee. His breath catches.
“Your... your knee,” he whispers.
You sniffle, lip wobbling. “H-hurts.”
It’s the worst word he’s ever heard.
“It’s okay,” he says fast, even though his hands are shaking. He reaches for your arm, then stops, afraid he’ll make it worse if he touches you wrong. “It’s okay. I can fix it. I know how.”
You look up at him, eyes shiny. “…You do?”
He nods hard. “Yeah.”
He doesn’t really know. But his mom fixed his knee once after he fell off his bike. He remembers the cold wipe. The sting. The band-aid after.
“I’m gonna get the band-aid box,” he blurts, pointing up at the house. “I’ll be super fast. I promise.”
“O-okay.”
Before he runs, he leans in and gives you a quick, careful hug around your shoulders, making sure not to touch your knee. It always makes him feel better when you hug him.
“I’ll be fast,” he promises again. “Really fast.”
And then he sprints.
He sprints like he’s never sprinted in his life.
Across the beach, up the steps, through the house, ignoring the sharp call of “Stephen! Shoes!” as he dives into the bathroom.
He drops to his knees and yanks open the cabinet under the sink. He grabs the entire first aid kit, almost the size of his head, and runs back with it rattling in his arms.
You’re still there when he gets back, sitting exactly where he left you.
“I got it!” he pants.
He flips the kit open, hands clumsy, trying to remember how his mom did it. He finds a wipe, tears it open, and gently presses it to your knee—
You hiss and pull back.
“Sorry!” His eyes go wide. “Sorry, sorry! I’ll do it softer.”
He leans down and blows carefully on your knee.
“Better?”
“…Yeah,” you sniff. “A little.”
He nods, relieved. He wipes as fast and gentle as he can, tongue poking out while he concentrates. Then he grabs a band-aid, peeling it open with his teeth because his fingers won’t work right. He sticks it on crooked, pressing the edges down with both thumbs.
“There,” he breathes, nodding to himself. “All done.”
When he looks up, your eyes are huge and your mouth is open like you just saw a unicorn.
“Hey, are you oka—oof!”
All the air is knocked out of him when you lunge forward, both arms wrapping tight around his neck.
A warm, squishy, full-body hug.
“You’re the nicest boy ever,” you mumble into his shoulder.
Steve freezes.
His ears go hot. His whole chest feels too full, like it might pop.
No one’s ever said that to him before.
“Oh... okay,” he whispers, because he can’t think of any other words.
He hugs you back, being careful and gentle.
And inside him, something huge and glowing starts to form.
Something he doesn’t have a name for yet, but he knows he will carry it with him forever.
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 10 years old when he realizes he’ll never forget you.
It’s the end-of-the-summer fireworks festival.
He sprints down the familiar sandy path, sneakers thudding, two glass bottles of Coca-Cola clinking together in his hand. A crinkly bag of potato chips is tucked tight under his arm—salt and vinegar, your favorite, even though they make your mouth pucker and your nose wrinkle.
His heart thumps in that way it always does during the very last week of summer, when everything fun is happening all at once—and also ending.
He knows you’re there, waiting for him.
You always are.
Your spot is exactly where it’s been for five summers now: a small dip between two grassy dunes, hidden from the rest of the beach. The sand curves around it like arms, blocking the wind and the noise from the crowd.
You’re sitting on your blanket, legs crossed, tongue poking out as you carefully tie pieces of sea grass together into a bracelet.
When you see him, your whole face lights up.
“Stevie! You got it!”
“’Course I did,” he grins, holding up the chips. “My mom wouldn’t stop talking to Mrs. Aldridge about… I dunno. Hair stuff? It took forever.”
“That’s ’cause grown-ups love being boring,” you say, scooting over. “Sit, sit! The first one’s gonna happen any second.”
He flops down beside you, and you shuffle closer until your shoulder presses against his.
Closer than last year, he thinks.
Your hand brushes his knee when you reach for the snacks. Steve pretends he doesn’t notice, but he notices like crazy.
The first firework explodes with a loud crack, red sparks bursting across the sky.
You gasp, sharp and happy, and grab his hand without thinking.
Your fingers slide between his.
Steve looks down, startled.
Your palm is warm, a little sweaty. His own hand is rough in spots, scraped from climbing the rope at recess back home and picking at scabs he shouldn’t. Your thumb rests right against it.
You don’t let go.
He definitely does not let go.
“Whoa,” you whisper as the sparks fade. “Did you see that? It looked like a flower.”
“Yeah,” Steve says.
But he’s not looking at the sky at all.
The fireworks flash over your face, turning your eyes all sorts of bright, pretty colors: blue, then gold, then pink. Your nose scrunches when one pops extra bright. Every time a big one crackles, you squeeze his hand tighter.
So he squeezes back.
Carefully at first. Then a little braver.
Green fireworks shoot out like tree branches, spiraling high into the dark, but he only really notices because they shine in your eyes.
You’re brighter.
You’re always brighter.
When the sky goes dark for a second and everything is quiet, you turn to him.
“Hey, Stevie?” you whisper.
“Ye-ah?” His voice cracks halfway through. That’s been happening a lot lately. He clears his throat fast and hopes you didn’t hear it.
You smile at him.
“You’re my best friend.”
His stomach flips, like that time he went on the biggest roller coaster at Indiana Beach and thought he might fly right out of his seat.
He sits up a little straighter, squeezing your hand.
“You’re mine too,” he blurts. “Like—like the most. Outta everyone. In the whole world.”
Your face breaks into the biggest smile yet, and before he can think about it, you lean in and wrap your arms around his neck.
A hug.
It feels familiar. But also different.
Bigger. Like it means more than it used to, even if he doesn’t know why.
He hugs you back right away, pressing his nose into your hair. You smell like sunscreen and grape popsicles and the ocean.
“You’re the best, Stevie,” you whisper into his shoulder. “The best ever.”
That fluttery feeling in his stomach comes back, stronger this time. He swallows, nods even though you can’t see it.
“You too,” he says quietly, squeezing you just a little tighter.
Then, just as you pull back, you press a quick kiss to his cheek.
Barely there.
But it feels like something exploding inside his chest.
His face goes burning hot. He’s really glad it’s dark, because he’s pretty sure his cheeks are as red as the fireworks.
Up above, the finale roars to life: fountains of silver streaking upward, bursting into brilliant gold that lights up the entire beach.
You turn back to watch like nothing happened, scooting closer until your head tips and rests against his shoulder.
Steve freezes.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe.
When he finally has to, he does it slowly, careful not to move an inch. Your fingers curl into his shirt. Your breath is warm against his neck when you let out a small, sleepy sigh.
The fireworks crash and boom overhead, sparkling like giant flowers.
Steve stares at the sky, heart pounding, feeling something change inside him.
Something big.
It’s the first time he understands something he’s never felt before.
Steve Harrington is ten years old when he falls in love with his best friend in the whole world.
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 12 years old when everything gets... weird.
He’s a lot taller now, second tallest out of the boys his class. He’s faster, stronger. His shoulders are broader, his arms a little longer than he expects when he stretches them out. His hair brushes the tops of his ears, and he kind of likes it that way, even though his mom keeps telling him it’s time for a trim.
And his voice... his voice keeps doing that awful, traitorous squeak. Especially when he’s around you.
But none of that really matters.
Because you’re here.
You’re back.
And you’re different, too.
Not in a big, obvious way. You still run like you’ve got rocket boosters strapped to your ankles. You still crouch by tide pools and whisper to crabs like they’re old friends. You still call him Stevie in the exact same way.
But now...
Now you lean on him sometimes when you sit together. You don’t move away when your knees touch. Now your eyes flick to his mouth when he’s talking, and Steve doesn’t really know what that means, but he knows it means something.
The wind is steady and warm today, bending the dune grass in lazy waves. The two of you sit cross-legged in your secret spot, the same hidden hollow you’ve shared since you were five. Piles of shells and weird rocks you swear might be fossils are scattered between you.
You hand him a perfectly round one with swirls. “This one looks like Neptune,” you declare.
Steve nods, even though the only thing he knows about Neptune is that it's blue.
He’s not looking at the rock, anyway.
You’re telling him a story about a crab you swear was as big as a dog. You stretch your arms out to demonstrate the size, ridiculously wide.
“Stevie, I swear,” you insist. “Its claws were this big. Could’ve snipped your big toe off.”
Steve nods along, trying to focus on the part where he should laugh.
But he can’t stop staring.
At the color of your eyes in the sunlight. At the way the breeze lifts strands of your hair and drops them back against your cheek. At the curve of your mouth when you get excited.
He feels weird all the time now. Fluttery and unsteady, like the moment at the top of a roller coaster right before it drops. It happens every time he looks at you, or thinks about you, which is basically always.
He’s thinking about how pretty the sun looks reflecting off your skin, how it catches the little beads of water on your cheek and makes them glint like tiny stars, when suddenly—
You go quiet.
Really quiet.
Steve’s stomach tightens instantly.
You’re never quiet unless you’re asleep or thinking about pulling a prank on him. He stiffens, glancing around for whatever bug or crab you might’ve hidden.
There’s nothing.
You’re just… looking at him.
“Hey, Stevie?” you say softly.
His throat makes a weird clicking noise. “Yeah?”
You scoot closer. Your knee presses against his leg and doesn’t move away.
Your voice drops to a whisper. “I’m gonna do something. Don’t freak out.”
He’s already freaking out. He doesn’t think he’s ever freaked out this much in his entire life.
“O-okay,” he manages.
You nod once, take a tiny breath, lean forward—
And you kiss him.
Right on the mouth.
His first kiss.
Your lips are soft and warm. They press against his for just a second, shorter than a blink, gone before he can react.
You pull back, eyes still closed. Steve is frozen, eyes wide open, mouth puckered.
Your nose crinkles when you open your eyes and see him.
“Stevie,” you giggle. “Close your mouth!”
He snaps it shut so fast his teeth click together.
You completely lose it, laughing as you fall sideways into the sand.
“Oh my god,” you wheeze. “You looked like a fish!”
He groans, mortified, covering his face with both hands as he flops down next to you. “Don’t laugh!”
“I’m sorry!” you say, laughing harder. “I’m not—it’s just—”
He peeks through his fingers, smiling despite himself. He loves the sound of your laugh, even when it’s at his expense.
When your giggles finally soften, you scoot closer on your back until you’re nose to nose, lined up from shoulder to ankle.
Steve turns his head to look at you.
Up close, he can see the little grains of sand stuck to your forehead, the way your lashes cast shadows on your cheeks. His face burns.
“Is…” His voice cracks again, and he swallows. “Is it okay if we… do that again?
Your smile is huge and immediate. “Yeah. I wanna.”
This time, he leans in first.
And this time, he’s ready.
He closes his eyes. Keeps his lips together. Moves slow and careful. His nose bumps your cheek, squishing awkwardly from the angle, and you break into giggles again, turning the kiss wobbly and messy.
When you pull back, you’re both smiling the exact same way.
“Oh my god, your face is so red.”
“It’s—it’s because it’s hot out,” he stammers.
“Nope. It’s you.”
You reach up and ruffle his hair, messing it up completely.
“Hey!” he sputters, batting at your hand.
You climb halfway on top of him, not really tackling, just laughing, squirming, wrestling in that loose, joyful way where nobody’s trying to win, and he'd let you anyway.
You’re both out of breath by the time you flop back onto the sand, laughing so hard it hurts.
Steve throws an arm over his face, smiling wide, everything dizzy and bright.
The wind brushes over him. The sun hums overhead.
After a while, you stretch your pinky toward him.
He feels it tap against his hand and hooks it without even looking.
“Promise we’ll hang out every summer,” you say.
“That’s easy,” he answers immediately. “Promise.”
Then he props himself up on one elbow and looks down at you, suddenly serious.
“Actually, next time, I’m gonna bring something.”
Your eyes go bright. “Like what?”
“It’s a secret.”
You shove him lightly. “What? Tell me!”
“Nope.” He flops back onto the sand, grinning. “You gotta wait.”
You groan dramatically at the sky, pinky still tangled in his.
“I hate you.”
He closes his eyes, smiles at the sun.
“No you don’t.”
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 13 years old when his world stops for the first time.
It happens on a warm June morning, with sunlight slanting through tall windows and the smell of pancakes drifting through the house.
He starts the day happy.
He hums as he packs, can’t help it. He doesn’t even care that his room’s a disaster: swimsuits tossed over the chair, T-shirts half-folded, socks everywhere.
On his desk sits a small shoe box.
He pauses in front of it.
Inside are the things you’ve given him over the years. Precious, timeless treasures.
The spiral shell shaped like a dinosaur horn. The seaweed bracelet, brittle now, faded pale from time. The smooth blue stone you said looked like Neptune.
He picks up each thing carefully, touches it, turns it over in his hand. Then he puts them back exactly how they were and closes the lid.
The box goes into the bottom drawer, where it’s safe.
Then he picks up his gift.
It’s clumsy. Strung together with twine, wrapped messily in torn comic-book pages because he couldn’t find real wrapping paper. The corners are taped crooked, the edges uneven. He’s worked on it for years, adding to it bit by bit every summer, telling himself next year every time.
But this year feels different.
This year, he thinks he can give them to you.
He’s even written his address on the top one—carefully, in his neatest handwriting—so maybe you could write to him in California. You’re smart. You’d know how.
He smooths the edges with nervous fingers.
He’s practiced what he’ll say all week.
Hey, these are for you. Too boring.
You can have these, or whatever. Too nothing.
You mean everything to me. Too much. Way too much.
He settles on a smile instead.
You always say he has a nice one, that he smiles with his whole face, that his eyes squish up “like a happy chipmunk.”
No one else ever says things like that to him. Not the way you do.
He’s halfway through folding a beach towel when his mom’s voice floats up the stairs.
“Stephen? Breakfast.”
“Coming!” he calls, already jogging down barefoot, taking the steps two at a time, giddy.
His mom is in the kitchen, stirring her coffee neatly. His dad sits at the table with the newspaper spread wide.
“Hey, Mom,” Steve says, breathless. “Have you seen my hat? The one with the red stripe? I can’t find it.”
She doesn’t look up.
“Stephen,” she says evenly, “we aren’t going to the Hamptons this summer.”
The world stops.
“...Huh?”
She sets her spoon down. “We’ve decided to do Europe instead.”
For one second, he thinks it’s a joke. He lets out a short, confused laugh and looks at his dad.
His throat goes tight when nobody smiles.
“What?” Steve croaks.
“You’re thirteen now, Stephen,” his dad says, turning the page. “It’s time you saw culture. Real culture.”
“But...” Steve shakes his head, hair falling into his eyes. “But we always go to the Hamptons.”
“This will be good for you,” his mom says, smiling lightly. “Europe will be lovely.”
Lovely.
Like the sound of your laugh.
Like the colors of fireworks in your eyes.
Like the warmth of your hug when you called him the nicest boy ever.
“N-no, but—” His voice cracks. “But I have a friend.”
“You’ll make new ones.”
“You don’t understand,” he says, words tripping over each other, panic rising fast. “I have to—I promised—I told her I’d—”
His dad sighs, newspaper crinkling. “Stop whining.”
Steve flinches.
“I’m not whining,” he whispers.
His mom steps closer and smooths his hair back like he’s still little. “You’ll love Europe, darling. Now eat your breakfast. You can finish packing after.”
Something hot and awful swells in his chest.
He wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to throw the coffee pot at the wall and watch it shatter.
Instead, he tries again.
“Please,” he begs, voice breaking completely now. “Please, Mom. We have to go. She’ll be waiting. I told her I’d come back. Just this year. Please.”
He promises to be good. That he won’t run off to the beach without permission. That he won’t complain during parties. He swears he’ll do more chores, stop arguing, get better grades. He’ll be perfect. He’ll be anything.
Anything.
“Stephen,” his father snaps, voice like a slammed door. “Drop it.”
Something inside Steve drops with it.
Falls.
Cracks.
Shatters.
⚓︎
He runs upstairs, slams his door and locks it. Drags his dresser in front of it with shaking arms. Slides down onto the carpet, breaths coming in sharp, broken pieces.
He doesn’t come out the rest of the day.
That night, he sleeps with your shell clutched in his hand, pressed tight against his ear. The ocean hums inside it. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend he’s there—pretend you’re tugging his hand, pulling him toward the water.
Stevie, look!
He cries until his pillow is soaked.
⚓︎
The Hamptons house stays closed all summer; curtains drawn, doors locked, a whole season going on without him.
On the way to the airport, Steve presses his cheek to the car window and watches the world blur past.
He doesn’t know how to send a letter. He doesn’t know where in California you live.
He can’t call. Can’t write. Can’t find you.
There is no treasure map back.
Just sandcastles washed away by tides and a pinky promise he couldn’t keep.
He pictures you standing in the dunes, bucket in hand, looking over your shoulder.
Waiting.
Maybe you’re mad.
Maybe you’re worried.
Maybe you’re thinking he forgot you.
That thought hurts so badly he has to bite down on his knuckle to keep quiet.
⚓︎
In hotel rooms across Europe, Steve lies awake at night, staring at unfamiliar ceilings.
He tries not to cry.
Some nights, he fails.
But he does it silently, face shoved into a pillow, because boys his age aren’t supposed to do that anymore.
In Florence, he stares at the Arno River and thinks of the ocean. Wonders if you’re there right now, toes buried in the sand, waiting for him to complain that the water’s cold just so you can grab his wrist and drag him in, laughing.
In Paris, he watches fireworks bloom over the Eiffel Tower and feels sick.
Red, gold, and blue explodes across the sky, but all he can see is your eyes. Your hand laced through his, your head heavy and warm on his shoulder.
You’re my best friend.
He cries himself to sleep on expensive hotel sheets, muffling his sobs into Egyptian cotton until it’s dark with salt.
In dreams, he is flying.
The wide blue waters of California stretching endlessly below him, carrying him closer to you.
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 15 years old when he learns how to disappear.
The hallways are packed tight with shouting and shrill laughter. Boys slam into each other on purpose. Everyone pretends they’re bigger, tougher, cooler than they were three months ago.
So Steve pretends, too.
He discovers the power of hairspray, learns how to make his hair work for him.
By October, everybody has an opinion about him. Mostly girls.
“Oh my god, Steve Harrington is so cute.” “Right? He looks taller than last year.” “Did you see his hair? Total dream.”
He smiles. He flirts. He jokes. He learns to be charming the way his father is at dinner parties—making people laugh, making them lean in close.
It works.
High school is a costume. And Steve Harrington wears it well.
⚓︎
One afternoon in P.E., Tommy Hagan decides Steve is “my best bud, actually.”
It happens after the 100-meter sprint. Steve wins without really trying, legs strong and fast from years of racing barefoot across sand dunes.
Tommy slaps him on the back hard enough to knock the air out of him.
“Harrington! Jesus, dude, you move.”
Steve grins, even though his shoulder stings.
Harrington. Not Stevie.
Tommy hooks an arm around his neck like they’ve been friends for years. Carol Perkins tells him she likes his hair.
And for the first time since losing you, Steve feels something close to relief.
He’s not alone.
⚓︎
Sophomore year, someone calls him King Steve for the first time.
He laughs, because it sounds stupid.
But the name sticks, like gum on a shoe.
He’s captain of the swim team now. Sixteen years old and he’s already broken the state record for the 200-yard freestyle. His body does what he tells it to, and he likes that. Likes the rush of being good at something, the roar of the crowd every time he touches the wall first.
His parents are almost never home anymore. No more summer trips to Europe, or anywhere. They leave him with a credit card and a spotless house.
Steve makes it his personal mission to ruin that.
He throws the loudest, wildest parties he can, every chance he gets. Music shaking the walls. People jumping on furniture, spilling drinks, diving into the pool with all their clothes on.
Everyone loves the parties.
Everyone loves King Steve.
⚓︎
Steve has a drawer that no one opens.
Not his parents. Not the housekeeper. Not even him, most days.
The wood sticks when it’s pulled, swollen from years of humidity and neglect.
Inside it is a shoe box.
Shells. Rocks. A bracelet that doesn’t fit anymore.
Remains of summers he pretends not to remember.
Most nights, he leaves it alone.
But sometimes—when the house feels too big, when everyone’s gone home and the silence presses in—he opens the drawer.
Lifts the lid.
He doesn’t touch anything.
Just looks.
He wonders if you remember him.
If you still call him Stevie in your head.
If you ever think of those summers: the dunes, the fireworks, the scrape on your knee.
Then he closes the box. Slides it back into the dark.
In the morning, he is Harrington once again.
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 18 years old when the letter finally arrives.
It sits on his desk for three days, unopened.
The envelope is thick, cream-colored and heavy. He knows what it says. He’s known since the phone call, since his coach clapped him on the shoulder and grinned, since the guidance counselor told him he should be so proud of himself.
He isn’t sure if he is.
On the fourth day, he carries it downstairs.
His father takes the packet without ceremony, skims the first page, and scoffs.
“California,” he says flatly.
Steve nods, throat tight. “They’ve got a really strong swim program.”
His father exhales through his nose and sets the packet down like it might stain the table.
“A public university. On the other side of the country.”
“It’s—” Steve clears his throat. “They offered me a scholarship.”
The look he gets says more than words ever could.
“Stephen,” his father says, tone perfectly level, “state schools are for kids who don’t have better options. California is lazy, full of idlers. It’s not the kind of place where you get serious about your future.”
Steve feels a familiar pressure building up in his chest, hand around his ribs, that same old relentless squeeze.
“Real academics are here, on the East Coast," his father continues. “Institutions with standards. History. You don’t see men running this country who went to beach schools.”
“Dad,” Steve says quietly. “I worked for this. I earned it.”
His father doesn’t even look up. “You were recruited. Because you can swim.”
Steve’s fingers curl around the edge of the chair, knuckles whitening beneath the table.
“I’m not paying for you to run off to California,” his father says, voice precise, final. “Just so you can throw parties and chase girls and waste your life on nonsense.”
The room shrinks.
For a moment, Steve is thirteen again.
Bare feet on cold tile, begging for one last summer.
Promising he’ll behave. Promising he’ll try harder. Promising he’ll be whatever they want him to be.
He really thought this time would be different. Thought being older meant they’d finally listen.
Something quiet settles inside him.
“Fine,” he says, pushing his chair back. “I’ll pay for it myself.”
His father lets out a short laugh. “With what money?”
Steve picks up the envelope. Feels its weight.
Possibility, distance, risk.
Hope.
“I’ll figure it out.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer.
He goes upstairs and starts packing that night.
⚓︎
Numbers race furiously through his mind as he clears his room.
The scholarship covers some of the tuition, but not housing. Not books. Not fees.
He’ll start lifeguarding again in the summers. Take early morning shifts during the year, work weekends. Take out loans under his own name.
It won’t be easy.
But it will be his.
⚓︎
He loads his entire world into the BMW.
It doesn’t take long.
For someone who’s grown up with so much, there isn’t much that’s actually his.
Clothes. Swim trophies. His alarm clock. A framed photo from a family vacation he’s too young to remember: his parents smiling, arms around each other. He hesitates, then slides it into a box face-down.
The last thing he opens is the drawer.
It sticks, like it always does.
Inside is the shoe box.
And beneath it, the gift he never got to give you. Built slowly, carefully, over summers that feel like they happened to someone else now.
He tucks them both into his duffel bag, wedged between folded clothes so they won’t shift.
His father doesn’t come outside.
His mother stands at the edge of the driveway, watching him pack the car in silence. When he’s finished, she steps forward and smooths his collar the way she used to when he was little.
Then she presses a folded envelope into his hand.
It’s heavy.
He doesn’t open it. Just nods, gives her the best smile he can manage.
Closes the trunk.
Gets behind the wheel.
Looks west.
⚓︎
Steve Harrington is 20 years old when his world stops for a second time.
He likes California.
The weather, the people, the food. He likes the way the air always smells like the ocean here, the way winter barely exists. He never liked the cold anyway.
College is different in ways he didn’t know to expect. He’s found classes that actually interest him, professors who ask questions and wait for real answers.
He has friends now who say they’ll see him tomorrow and mean it. Who sit on the floor with him at two in the morning talking about nothing and everything: music, stupid theories, what they want to do after graduation, whether anyone really knows who they are yet.
He still gets tired sometimes.
Tired of himself. Tired of that old, hollow echo that never fully went away. But that weight isn’t constant anymore. It shifts. Recedes. It loosens its grip when he’s laughing with his roommates, tossing a beach ball across the sand, swimming lap after lap until his muscles burn and his mind goes quiet.
The house is packed tonight.
Last party of the school year. Spilled soda, cheap perfume, summer sweat and warm beer. Music thunders through the walls. Bodies press together, shouting and laughing over the noise.
An older teammate claps him on the back. “Harrington! Hell of a party, man.”
Steve smiles, nods, laughs along.
Can’t shake off that feeling, still. That faint sense of displacement that hums under everything.
He drifts through the crowd, eyes unfocused, letting motion and color wash over him. Someone nearly spills a drink on his shoes. Someone dances too close. It all registers. None of it sticks.
Then, he hears it.
A laugh.
Clear. Bright. A recognition that tightens his chest before his brain can catch up.
Steve turns slowly, frowning, not sure why his body is moving toward the sound.
Near the doorway, head tipped back in laughter, hair catching the light—
There’s a girl.
Not quite a stranger. Not quite someone he knows.
Familiar in the way a dream is: sharp in feeling, slippery in detail. Memories flicker past him, too fast to grab—the curve of a smile, the tilt of a head—dissolving like sand through his fingers.
He stares without meaning to.
You turn.
Your eyes find his.
Your drink freezes halfway to your lips. Confusion flickers across your face, soft and fleeting.
Then recognition.
Disbelief.
“...Stevie?”
Something in his chest detonates.
The hollow feeling he’s been carrying shatters into a thousand fragments of warmth and longing he didn’t know he’d been saving.
You step closer, eyes wide, face lit with a smile he hasn’t seen in years but never truly forgot.
“Oh my god,” you breathe, half-laughing. “It’s you.”
Steve can’t speak.
His throat closes. The world narrows.
He’s thirteen again, standing barefoot on cold tile, begging for a summer that never came.
He’s ten, sunburned and breathless, watching fireworks bloom in your eyes.
He’s six, running barefoot toward the sound of your laughter, sand sticking to his ankles.
He’s five, staring up at a girl with a bucketful of stolen seashells, telling him he’s digging wrong.
He’s a lonely kid on the beach, carving crooked shapes into the sand, waiting for someone to come find him.
And you did.
You always did.
The cup slips from his hand. Beer splashes across the floor, unnoticed.
He whispers your name.
A decade of wanting, released in one sound.
⚓︎
“...Hi.”
“...Hi.”
“How—”
“What—”
He laughs, scrubs a hand through his hair, suddenly nervous in a way he hasn’t felt in years. His palms are damp, heart stumbling over itself.
“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “I just—I can’t believe you’re actually—”
You surge forward and wrap your arms around his neck, tight enough to knock the air from his lungs.
“Oh my god,” you whisper against his ear, voice breaking. “I missed you.”
For a second, Steve just stands there.
Stricken. Breathless. His brain lagging behind what his heart already knows.
Then his arms come up—slowly, instinctively, carefully folding around you. He lowers his head, presses his nose into your shoulder, breathing you in like proof.
He doesn’t say I missed you too.
It wouldn’t be enough. Wouldn’t come close. Wouldn’t touch the years, the distance, everything he’s lost and carried and never learned how to put down. How your memory has lived inside him like a second spine, holding him upright when nothing else did.
Instead, he tightens his grip and whispers:
“I’m sorry.”
You don’t say it’s okay.
But you let out a soft breath and pull him closer, arms firm around his shoulders.
And that, more than words, feels like forgiveness.
⚓︎
The place is called Scoops Ahoy.
Steve hasn’t been inside it in years, but the second he steps through the door, it all comes rushing back.
The headache-bright fluorescents. The aggressively nautical theme: ropes and anchors, boat-shaped displays that never quite made sense. The faint, permanent stickiness of the floor, no matter how often it gets mopped.
He worked here his freshman year, back when he was desperate for cash and all the good jobs were taken by upperclassmen with better timing. It had been fine. Mind-numbing, but fine. The ice cream was decent if you ignored the décor and the way the lighting made everyone look a little sickly.
At this hour, it’s dead.
Completely empty except for the girl working the register—short, sandy-brown hair, half-slouched over the counter as she flips through a comic, clearly counting down the seconds until closing.
But Steve can't bring himself to focus on any of it.
Because you’re here.
You’re actually here, leaning over the glass case, eyes flicking back and forth between flavors like this is the most important decision you’ve made all day. You bite your lip and his eyes follow the movement, unbidden.
He can’t stop staring.
The whole thing feels surreal, like a fever dream his brain stitched together out of old memories and wishful thinking.
Like he might blink and you’ll disappear.
But the details are all the same.
The way you tilt your head when you’re thinking. The faint crease between your eyebrows when you’re overanalyzing something that really shouldn’t matter this much. The way your mouth presses into that familiar line when you can’t decide.
And when you glance back at him, eyes warm and expectant, that exact same light glows there.
You smile. “What’re you getting?”
Steve blinks, realizing he’s been staring for way too long. He clears his throat and forces himself to look down at the ice cream like he hasn’t seen this exact lineup a hundred times before.
“Uh,” he says, squinting thoughtfully. “The salted caramel’s usually pretty good.”
“Ooh.” You nod, completely serious. “Yeah, that does sound good.”
He smiles before he can stop himself.
His eyes flick up to the menu on the wall, scanning for something he half-hopes they got rid of. But no—there it is, in all its over-the-top glory.
The Triple Decker Extravaganza.
“Why don’t we just get the sundae?” he offers. “That way you can pick whatever you want.”
You turn to him, eyes lighting up. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he grins. “Go nuts.”
Your face brightens instantly, and something in his chest goes warm as he watches you lean forward again, picking out flavors, debating them out loud.
Steve just stands there, smiling like an idiot.
When he pulls out his wallet without thinking, you don’t stop him.
“Thanks,” you say softly, glancing at him.
“Don’t mention it.”
He shoots the girl behind the register an apologetic look as he pays, knows this order’s a nightmare. Hot fudge, caramel, whipped cream, cherries. Those stupid little sail-shaped cone pieces that always break in half. He slips an extra ten into the tip jar, and her expression improves instantly.
The sundae arrives in a ridiculous plastic boat, wobbling under the weight of it all.
You laugh, delighted, as Steve carefully carries it over to the counter by the window. You hop up onto a stool, legs swinging as you settle in.
Outside, the street is calm, washed in neon and soft sodium light. The glass reflects both of you faintly, past and present overlapping in double exposure.
Steve sits beside you, close enough that your shoulders almost brush.
You start asking questions the same way you always did, listening like every answer matters.
“What’s your major?”
“Business,” he shrugs, digging his spoon into the ice cream. “But… I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about switching. I like my psych classes way more than econ.”
“Really? What kind of psych?”
“Developmental stuff, mostly. Kids, families. That kind of thing.”
You nod, thoughtful, spoon hovering midair. “You’d be really great with kids.”
He lets out a surprised laugh. “Yeah? I mean... I don’t know.”
“No, I’m serious,” you insist, turning on your stool to face him. “You’ve always been patient. You’re a great listener. You care.”
He blinks, goes quiet. Looks at you for a beat too long before remembering to glance away.
“Thanks… uh, what about you?”
You tell him about your classes, your roommates. The professor who assigns too much reading. The weird smell in your dorm hallway no one can identify. How the ocean never really gets old, even when you see it every day.
“So,” you ask eventually, tilting your head. “How’d you end up picking a school all the way out here?”
Steve stirs the melted ice cream with his spoon, not meeting your eyes.
“I don’t know. I mean, the scholarship helped, but I guess I just wanted somewhere warmer. Closer to the water.”
He doesn’t say how much of it was quiet, impossible hope.
Doesn’t say how a tiny part of him thought maybe, just maybe, he’d find you here.
“You know,” he says after a moment, voice lower, “I should’ve asked for your phone number back then. Or your address. Or... something.” He huffs out a breath. “I don’t know why I didn’t.”
“Hey,” you slide your hand over his, squeezing once. “We’re here now. Right?”
He nods, throat tight. “Yeah.”
You smile and return to the ice cream. He does too.
A new song crackles over the speakers, and you start humming along absentmindedly. It takes him a second to realize what it is.
Edge of Seventeen.
Stevie Nicks.
He meets your eyes.
Feels something click, then.
He’s never really believed in fate.
But if there were ever a reason to try, a reason to hope in a world that so often disappoints, he thinks that reason would be you.
⚓︎
When the ice cream’s gone and the girl behind the counter starts wiping things down a little too pointedly, you hop off the stool.
June nights in Santa Barbara are warm, carrying faint traces of salt from the ocean. You stop beneath the neon glow of the marquee outside, the lights painting your silhouette in soft blues and pinks.
Steve’s heart stutters.
What happens now?
He's dreading the ending; there are years stretched between you now, whole versions of you he’s never met. So much left to ask, to know. To say.
He rubs the back of his neck.
“It’s late,” he says. “I should probably let you go. Maybe I could get your dorm’s phone number? Or we could grab lunch someti—”
You’re smiling when you kiss him.
Up on your toes, fingers clutching the front of his shirt as you pull him down. Your lips taste sweet: strawberry and chocolate, cherry and vanilla. Every flavor, because you couldn’t decide. Because he wanted to share.
The neon hums above you. The world narrows again.
This kiss lasts longer than the last one he shared with you. Long enough for him to cup your cheek, to brush his thumb along your jaw, to realize, distantly, how much better he is at this now.
He knows how to angle his head just right, slant his lips to deepen the press, to pull you closer by the small of your back and have you flush against him.
When you pull back, he chases your lips all the way until you've dropped back onto your heels.
You blink your eyes open, tongue darting over your lip like you’re tasting him, too.
He has to force himself to step back, fight the urge to lean in again.
You both speak at once.
“So—"
“Would you—”
He laughs. “Sorry. You first.”
You laugh too, shaking your head. “I was just gonna ask if you wanted to come back to mine. My roommates are gone for the weekend.”
He stares at you, stunned. Hopes the neon glow is bright enough to wash out the red rushing to his cheeks.
“Yeah,” he manages. “Sure. Yeah. Okay.”
You smile and reach for his hand, threading your fingers through his.
You don’t let go.
He definitely does not let go.
⚓︎
You’re kissing him the moment the door clicks shut.
There’s no pause, no awkward second-guessing—just the soft thud of the door and then you’re there, hands fisted in his shirt, lips warm and insistent against his. It’s messy and eager, teeth knocking, breath tangling, soft laughter trapped between two mouths as he murmurs, We should—we should probably slow down, even as he’s nudging his sneakers off with his heel.
Your apartment is small in the best way, quiet and lived-in. Soft amber lamplight, a throw blanket folded over the couch, lingering scents of citrus and cinnamon. Steve takes it in only in flashes, details flickering at the edges of his vision before your fingers slide back into his hair and the rest of the world drops away.
Clothes come off in a scattered trail to your bedroom.
Your jeans get kicked aside in the hallway. His shirt gets stuck halfway over his head and he has to pull back, laughing breathlessly while you help tug it free, your hands warm against his sides. He keeps his lips pressed to yours as he guides you backward, hands around your waist, bumping his shoulder in the doorframe and grinning like an idiot.
It’s not until you’re straddling him that he really stops.
Until he’s sitting on your bed, your sheets rumpled under his hands, your pillow pressed against his back.
You’re in his lap in nothing but your underwear, knees snug around his hips, solid and warm and real.
Steve looks down.
Feels it hit him all at once.
He hasn’t done this in a while. Hasn’t had a real girlfriend in college, too busy chasing grades, covering rent, picking up shifts whenever he could. A few dates here and there—awkward dinners, polite kisses—nothing that ever stayed.
Nothing that felt like this.
Your hand comes up, soft and sure, brushing along his cheek.
“Hey,” you murmur. “You okay?”
He swallows.
Steve doesn’t know if there is a word for what he’s feeling. Okay feels laughably small for what’s sitting in his chest right now, this swelling mix of affection and disbelief and something like gratitude.
“Yeah,” he starts, instinctively reaching for easy words. Fine. Good. All good.
Then he stops, shakes his head. Why hold back? Why say anything less than the truth?
“God, I just—” He exhales, voice thick, heart full, "I can’t believe I found you.”
Your expression softens, eyes shining as you lean down to kiss him again.
And that, more than words, feels like being found right back.
⚓︎
What happens next is a slow unlearning of loneliness.
A careful dismantling of habits built around absence, years of swallowed affection and muted instincts.
Steve Harrington has learned to hush the restless stirrings of his heart, to press down the parts that ache too loudly, that reach too far, that insist on wanting. He’s gotten good at filling his days with noise, instead. Convinced himself that wanting too much is the same as wanting wrong. That loneliness is a failing, something you earn by expecting more than you’re allowed to have.
He's blamed himself for it for as long as he can remember.
But being with you is like a light dropped straight into the darkest hollow of him, the deepest pit in the sand, a sudden clarity that leaves nowhere to hide. He realizes, with quiet devastation, just how far down the emptiness goes. How much he’s learned to live without.
And now, here, with you, he has to unlearn it.
It happens slowly. In inches. In pauses.
A quiet rediscovery of loving you in this new, intimate way.
He wants to know everything.
He wants to know what makes your breath hitch. What makes your fingers curl into the sheets. What makes you go quiet in that way that tells him he’s doing something right.
He kisses you constantly. Your mouth, your jaw, the soft place beneath your ear, the hollow at your throat—familiar paths he remembers tracing once upon a time, and new ones he maps with reverent patience.
He slides down over your stomach, kissing his way lower, gaze fixed on the heavy flutter of your lashes, the swell of your ribs when you let out a pleasured sigh. He takes your hand and fists it into his hair, hoping you’ll guide him—let him learn you, let him get this right.
And when he buries his face between your thighs for the first time—nose pressing into your mound, breathing you in, tasting you—it feels like coming home.
He’s missed this, being on his knees, giving. It used to be his favorite thing, always loved the way it quieted his mind, narrowed the world down to a single purpose. It made him feel useful, wanted.
But with you, this ritual turns into something else entirely.
He tracks your reactions with obsessive devotion: the furrow of your brow, the slow roll of your hips. The way your mouth falls open when he does something just right, when you want him to stay still, right there, exactly where you need him.
When he kisses his way back up your body, when he lines himself up with shaking hands and presses inside you, it’s face to face.
There’s no other way he could do it. Mouth to mouth. Forehead to forehead. Kissing, kissing, never not kissing; he needs the contact, the anchor, the constant reassurance that this is real.
That you’re here.
He wants to swallow the sounds you’re making, the way you gasp his name, and lock it inside himself. Let it sink deep, press it into bone and marrow. Carry it into that hollow place in his chest and let it bloom, fill him up until there’s no room left for doubt.
He knows he’s not going to last very long. You’re so soft, so wet, so impossibly beautiful, he can already feel the tension gathering low in his gut.
He only fights it long enough to get the words out.
Words that have been there for years. Pressed down, swallowed, buried under caution and embarrassment and the certainty that he always feels too much, too fast. Nobody ever wanted that kind of intensity for very long.
But he’s tired of pretending.
And with you, he doesn’t have to.
He holds your hand against the bed, brings his forehead to yours.
The words cling to his throat, years of longing coiled tight—but this time, he doesn’t force them down.
With his lips brushing yours, he finally lets them go.
“I love you.”
The fear is instinctive. Familiar. A split-second flinch where he waits for the recoil, the moment someone decides it’s too much after all.
But it melts clean away when you answer him without hesitation, arms tightening around his neck as you kiss him back.
“I love you, too.”
And the hollow place in his chest turns into the sun once more.
⚓︎
The rest of the night is spent talking.
Kissing, touching, holding, kissing some more, just because he can.
He starts with the easy things. The dumb things. Stories about bad roommates, the worst job he ever worked, the time he locked himself out of his car in the rain and had to wait two hours for a tow.
Eventually, the jokes thin out. The pauses stretch.
He shifts, breathes in, and starts talking about the things he doesn’t like to think about. The quiet fears he keeps folded away. The weight of expectations, some inherited, some entirely his own. How surreal it feels to wake up as someone his younger self could never have pictured. To realize that the future he imagined so clearly once—simple, linear, inevitable—never actually existed.
He admits, quietly, that sometimes he worries there’s something wrong with him.
That everyone else seems to know how to be casual about life in a way he never has. Like they can want things lightly, hold them loosely, walk away without it costing them anything.
He’s never been built that way.
He feels things fast and deep. And for a long time, he resented it. Resented how much it hurt, how impossible it felt to turn it off.
You don’t interrupt. You just listen, fingers laced through his, thumb brushing slow circles over his knuckles. Every so often, you squeeze his hand, and he squeezes back.
Once the hardest parts are out, his thoughts drift forward.
He talks about wanting a job that matters to people. That helps. Something that lets him look at himself at the end of the day and feel like he showed up right, even if he hasn’t figured out what that’s supposed to look like yet. He wants to believe there’s a place for him in this world where caring isn’t a weakness.
When the conversation lulls into silence, you tilt your head back to look up at him.
“Did you ever learn how to surf?” you ask.
“Hm?”
“Surf. I remember you always wanted to see what that was like. When we were kids.”
He lets out a small smile. “No. I mean, I thought about it, but... just never had the time. Or the balance.”
You hum and settle comfortably against his chest. “Tomorrow.”
He blinks. “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” you repeat. “There’s a part of the beach I want to show you. You have to squeeze between some rocks to get there, but it opens up into this hidden alcove. Could be like our new secret spot.”
Steve smiles into your hair, already imaging it. Doing what he’s always done: throwing himself into the picture, letting it fill him up.
Tomorrow, you’ll take him to the beach.
Down between the rocks, your favorite spot.
You’ll show him where to step and where not to. You’ll rent two surfboards from that tiny shack down the road. You’ll laugh when he wipes out the second he hits the water, sputtering and embarrassed.
You’ll teach him how to stand. How to trust the water.
How to fly, just a little.
Tomorrow, he’ll show you the shoebox.
The one tucked into the bottom drawer of his dresser. The one that followed him through moving days and borrowed apartments. Filled with pieces of you he never let himself leave behind.
Tomorrow, he’ll give you what he couldn’t at the age of thirteen.
A stack of letters, one for every year since the summer he met you. ’72 all the way through ’79.
He always wrote them the night before he left for the Hamptons, lying awake with his heart pounding, thinking about the long stretch of coast waiting for him—and the best friend he’d get to share it with.
He never found the courage to bring them with him when he was younger. But he kept writing anyway. Promising himself that, one day, he’d be brave enough to give them all to you.
He imagines sitting beside you while you read each one out loud. Smiling, shaking your head.
Maybe you’ll tease him, call him cheesy, a hopeless romantic.
He doesn’t think you will, though. He thinks you’ll be gentle. He thinks you’ll love him more for it.
And once that thought takes hold, the future comes rushing in—faster, fuller, harder to stop.
He starts imagining days that stretch far beyond tomorrow, days where he wakes before you and watches the sunlight move across your face. Burnt toast and cheap coffee. Walking you home after class, fingers laced, listening to you talk about your day.
A shared place down by the water. Small, probably. Close enough to the beach that the sand never really leaves. Grocery lists on the fridge. Music playing while you cook together, bumping hips, stealing kisses.
He catches himself, shakes the thoughts loose with a soft, embarrassed breath.
Eight years is a long time to be apart. He knows there’s still so much about you he doesn’t know. True to form, he’s moving too fast, chasing desire before reason can catch up.
But eight years is also nothing.
Nothing measured against a lifetime. Nothing but a detour that still carried him back toward the main path. It only ever led to one place.
You stir softly in half-sleep, nestled beneath his arm, and Steve presses a little closer.
Sleep pulls at him too, heavy and kind.
He surrenders to it, lets it take him, because for now, it’s enough.
For now, he has tomorrow.
⚓︎
In dreams, he is thirteen again.
He is twelve, he is ten, he is six, and he is five.
He is walking down a wide, endless expanse of blue, waves whispering at his feet, the sky stretching forever overhead.
And beside him, hand in hand, is his best friend in the whole world.
June 24th, 1979
Hi!
I know I’m going to see you tomorow but I wanted to write this anyway. Sometimes when I try to say stuff out loud it doesn’t come out right. I know what I meen in my head but it gets all messed up or I forget what I was going to say. Writing it down makes it better.
I wrote you a letter every summer. One for every year. So you won’t forget me and all the fun things we did and the stuff we talked about. I keep all of them in a box, kind of like how you keep all your rocks and shells. Some of the older ones are really bad and there’s a lot of drawings and speling mistakes but maybe you’ll still like them.
I think about you a lot when we’re not together. Like when something funny happens or when I see something you like. Last week I saw a picture of a crab in my science book and I thought about what name you would give it.
I really really like you. You’re funny and nice and you understand me better than anyone else. You listen to me even when I talk too much or can’t say some words right. You make me feel special. I don’t have to pretend to be different or cooler or anything when I’m with you.
Sometimes I wish I lived in Californiya so we could see each other every day. I think about that a lot. Like we could just hang out whenever we wanted. Go to the beach and do surfing and stuff. Maybe one day I could come visit you or you could come visit me.
I’m really excited to see you tomorow. I hope you like this and I hope you don't think it’s dumb. I just want you to know how much you mean to me.
P.S. This is my adress so you can write me back if you want. 1590 willow creek lane, loch nora, hawkins, indiana 46001
P.P.S. I listened to that band you told me about. I really like the song You Make Loving Fun. It makes me think about you. Maybe we can listen to it together when I see you tomorrow?
Your best friend, Stevie
Vow of Silence
my masterlist | series masterlist | series paylist 𝜗ৎ
pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader ⭑.ᐟ
warnings: financial insecurity, health problems, mean!Steve (eventually) (like lowkey evil Steve), pining, poor self image, reader! is described as having getting period 5.2k
tags: best friends to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, mean!Steve Harrington, marriage of convenience, fake marriage, friends to enemies to lovers, slow burn, very, very slow burn
Living with Steve was easy. Sure you bickered sometimes, but all best friends did. Chores were always done, bills were negotiated, movie nights were always agreed on. Everything was perfect, existing around him was as easy as breathing. That is until he finds out that you don’t have health insurance. Mixed with the growing concerns around your health, Steve comes to the only solution he can think of. Getting married for the benefits. But somewhere in the madness, something starts to shift in Steve. something so rotten and cruel you can barely recognise him anymore, and you don't know if you ever will again.
chapter one →
Out of every day of the week, Wednesday mornings were your favourite. Not having work meant not having an alarm, which meant actually getting a good night's sleep for once. The first beams of sunlight were only beginning to filter through the mesh of your curtains, when you were awoken by the sounds outside your door. You knew without having to get up, that Steve was floundering through the house in his haste to get ready. Despite his claiming that he always tried to be quiet, his heavy footfalls and cursing under his breath told a different story. You roll over, eyes still half closed as you attempt to read the numbers glowing softly on your alarm clock. 7:30am. Not bad, considering you usually got up at 5am for work.
Deciding that you probably wouldn't get back to sleep, you stretch your arms over your head, groaning in satisfaction at the soft pop of your joints. Steve’s footsteps falter where he walks down the hallway. Realising from your groan that he woke you up once again. Even when he was trying his hardest to be sneaky– like a ninja, he had said once. It doesn't take long before a tentative knock sounds against your door, opening to reveal the sheepish face of Steve Harrington.
“Again?” is all he asks, silently hoping that he had nothing to do with why you were awake.
You brace yourself against your elbows, smiling amusedly at his guilty expression.
“Again” you confirm.
He curses under his breath, the corners of his mouth tugging down into a frustrated pout.
“But I was so quiet this time” he grumbles
“I’m a light sleeper”
He huffs out of his noise, a disgruntled little stream of air punctuating his indignation.
“Steve- it's fine, really” you let the smile drop from your face, not wanting him to feel any worse than he already does for waking you up on your day off. His arms cross over his chest as he leans against your door frame, concerned eyes flickering over your form. He seems to be contemplating if he should drop it, believe you, and go about his day. But the stubborn part of him wins over in the end. It always does.
“You always do that” he sighs
“Do what?” you ask, furrowing your eyebrows and pushing yourself into a seating potion “wake up early?”
“No-” he drags a hand down his face, trying not to let his frustration show “--You know… Forgive me too quickly”
“You woke me up, Steve. That’s hardly a punishable offence”
He sighs again, accepting that it’s too early to argue, and pushes off of your doorframe.
“Whatever” he grumbles “I’ll see you later”
You’re glad his back is to you, making it so he can’t see the amused twinkle in your eye. It didn’t matter how grumpy he acted, you knew better than to take his temper at face value.
Steve had never been taught how to show love– to ask if someone is okay, to offer his support openly, not through twisted back alleys and side streets. At first, it was hard to decipher what his exasperated sighs and sarcastic comments really meant. To see the are you ok? buried beneath aggravation for getting yourself hurt. But, once you knew what to look for, under the grumbling and the eyerolling, you'd see that Steve Harrington had more love to give than he knew what to do with. He was the first to show up when someone needed help, offering himself up as a chauffeur for the kids so they didn't have to walk home at night, cooking you dinner when he could tell you had a long day, or simply being a listening ear whenever someone needed to talk. Steve Harrington loved in gestures. Sometimes, you thought being helpful was the only way he knew how to be needed.
-
You lay in bed for a few more minutes, letting yourself exist in that hazy between state where the whole world is soft and fuzzy around the edges. You think you hear the sound of keys jingling and the front door closing, before you finally decide to drag yourself out of the comfort of your bed, and onto sleep heavy legs. Looking around the floor, you find a discarded hoodie to tug on as you make your way to the kitchen.
The first thing you register when you walk in, is the pot of coffee. The rich smell filling your lungs, dusting away the remaining cobwebs of sleep that still cling to your consciousness. The steam rising in swirling patterns lets you know that Steve had made it just before he left, wanting you to wake up to something nice. The thought makes something warm and familiar bloom in your chest, your ribs aching with fondness.
If you were still 17 years old, you might have mistaken that feeling for a crush. But at 21, you had learnt to tell the difference between romantic and platonic love. You thought you might have loved him once, a long time ago. He had been the first boy to ever treat you like a human being and not just some… thing. And for a while, there was a period when you thought he might love you back. His soft smiles and caring eyes got so muddled up in your head, you hadn't bothered to realize that he looked at everyone like that. Slowly, over time, you came to understand that it wasn’t you that made his face soften, it was everyone he cared about. He didn’t know how not to be the protector, to care about his friends more than he cared about himself. Realising this had set off a chain reaction in your head. You could finally step back from your crush on your best friend, and accept the one absolute truth of the universe. You and Steve Harrington would never work out.
The feeling after coming to this conclusion was strange. You had expected to feel the world crumbling around you, all the plans of your future being pulled out from beneath your feet. Instead, you felt relief. You could exist around him without the worries of impressing him constantly at the back of your mind. You stopped comparing yourself to the girls he went for, stopped trying to be more like them and less like you. It was ridiculous to ever think you could be his type in the first place, the girls Steve liked were so fundamentally different to you, that you might as well exist on a different planet. Steve went for girls who looked like models from bridal magazines, girls who were gentle, girls who were brilliant in that quiet, understated way that would take you by surprise.
You were none of those things. In fact, you were so notoriously you, that Steve had given you the nickname Moxie way back in ‘84. Right after you pulled a gun on him in the woods thinking he was a demogorgon. At the time it felt like being branded– your skin searing with the sting of a redhot poker saying you were too much. But overtime, you grew into it, you realised that no matter how hard you tired, you couldn't make yourself smaller. It wasn't in your nature to be quiet, or agreeable or meek. So what if you were opinionated, or if you got excited too easily or acted before you thought.
You’re pulled out of your thoughts by a soft thunk on the front door. You abandon your coffee on the counter, moving towards the sound to investigate. The cold licks at your ankles, sending goose pimples pricking across your skin. This morning’s newspaper sits on the welcome mat, its pages gently fluttering in the wind. You grab it quickly, eager to get backside to the warmth of your home. Steve had added your house to the paper route when you first moved in together, apparently remembering the time you said you liked crosswords in passing.
There’s still a pen on the table from where you had sat yesterday. It had become a routine of sorts. A routine that mostly consisted of nagging Steve when you couldn’t work out a clue, and getting annoyed when he didn’t know it either. The blind leading the blind was how Robin described you. You didn’t think it was fair, you weren’t nearly as clueless as Steve.
-
The sun has reached its peak in the sky when you feel it. The undeniable, dull ache that starts in your pelvis, spreading outward into the tips of your fingers. A frustrated whimper leaves your mouth before you can stop it. You had been so careful in tracking your cycle, convinced you had gotten it down to the exact day your period would arrive every month. But apparently, your body loves to blindsight you, so now it was here early, and you were severely under prepared.
If you were anyone else, this would be an easy fix. Take some painkillers, replace your tampon every few hours, and you're done. You however, were not so lucky. For the past six months, your periods had been getting increasingly worse, now to the point where you couldn't move for days. Your pelvis feeling like it’s splitting open inside your body, shocks of pain racking through every muscle until you are curled in a ball. Most days you couldn't even keep food down, your stomach hurting just as badly as your uterus did.
Steve had noticed, of course he did. He never asked if you needed anything, instead he would make you a hot water bottle, or grab the good painkillers from the medicine cabinet, mumbling that you might need these, before slinking away to give you space. It was nice, being cared for, even with Steve’s weird, gruff sort of way. With him away at work, you had no choice but to look after yourself.
-
The pills slide easily down your throat, the cool water soothing the bile that had already begun to rise up from your stomach. The hot water bottle is in the cupboard under the sink where Steve left it, still wrapped in its plush, fleece cover he insisted you use, convinced you would get third degree burns without it. You heat water over the stove, watching the rolling bubbles as it boils over, before making sure not to splash any on your skin as you pour it into the bottle.
-
Once you're settled in bed, curtains drawn and blankets pulled up, you somehow manage to fall into restless slumber. You sleep until 4pm when Steve gets home. The sound of his keys in the door rousing you back to the real world. You knew you had been dreaming, but the remnants of whatever world you had been living in were slipping through your fingers like sand. All that stayed was the strange, happy feeling you had woken up with, wishing you could remember the images that had just been flashing in your mind moments before. Steve calls your name, trying to locate you in the house. You can hear him mumbling to himself as he goes from room to room, something about your car being outside.
Eventually, he knocks on your door, not waiting for you to answer before he’s pushing it open.
“Mox?”
You blink sleepily at him from your spot on the bed, watching his face soften as he takes in the scene in front of him.
“Hey” his voice is careful now “you ok?”
You nod, trying to sit up, but wincing at the sudden cramp in your side.
“Woah- okay” he steps forwards, clearly trying to stop you from moving “you should, y'know, not sit up right now?”
“Wow Einstein-” you huff, flopping back against your pillow “-How’d you work that one out?”
He smiles sarcastically at you, unamused by your teasing.
“Have you taken any painkillers?” you can tell by his tone that he’s gone into full mother-hen mode, preparing to hover for however many days your period lasts for.
“Yes” you sigh in exasperation “that’s like, the first thing I did”
“Can you blame me for asking? You always do that martyr shit”
You shoot him a glare, making him hold up his hands in defence
“But- do you like… need anything?”
“I’m fine” you tug the blankets more securely around you
“Hot water bottle?”
“I have one”
He huffs a laugh “yeah? When was the last time you refilled it?”
He knows the answer when you don't respond, silently holding out his hand with an expectant, albeit frustrated expression.
You grumble, handing over the now barely warm rubber bottle.
“You’re the worst” you complain, burrowing back into your covers.
“Yeah because taking care of you makes me a real asshole” . As much as he tries to hide it, he can’t keep the fondness out of his voice. “Don’t move”
“I’ll try not to”
You think you hear him mumble smartass as he leaves your room.
-
You call out of work the next day. The strongest painkillers you can get without a prescription doing nothing to dampen the cramps tearing through your lower half. Steve is always nearby, worried but never pressing, not wanting to be on the receiving end of your hormonal rage. By the third day, he can't take it anymore. Constantly seeing you immobilized and in pain makes a pit of dread settle in his stomach.
“Moxie?” His voice comes out tentative from where he stands in the doorway.
You look up from the couch, eyes landing on his nervous face.
“What?”
“Can I talk to you?”
Your eyebrows furrow in confusion, he’s never this anxious to talk to you about anything.
“Sure”
He sighs in relief, taking a step towards where you're sitting.
“It’s about… this” he gestures to you, not knowing what to call your current condition.
“Steve, I already told you I’m—“
“—but you’re not.” He cuts you off, his expression hardening “you’re not fine. You’re not even close to being fine”
“Steve—“ you sigh
“I’m worried about you.”
That makes something in your chest twist, the sheer concern in his voice sending a wave of guilt through your body until your fingers hurt.
“I know, I know I’m sorry”
“Don’t do that, don’t apologise”
“I’m- shit”
You’re almost apology gets a small laugh out of him, before he apparently remembers what he wanted to ask you.
“It’s just… I don’t know why you won’t go to the doctor?”
You immediately turn to him with a blank stare, expecting him to burst into laughter and admit that was a joke. When he doesn't, you realise he’s being completely serious.
“The doctor?”
“Yeah, the doctor?” His voice takes on a defensive edge “maybe they could, I don’t know, find out what’s wrong? Give you something for it?”
You laugh, making a scowl break out across his face.
“What? What's so funny?”
“It’s just—“ you snort “—how would I go to the doctor?”
“Um… you call them and make an appointment? Like everyone else?”
“Right, because I have three hundred dollars to spend” you chuckle, not realising how his eyes had widened in horror.
“Three hundred dollars?— Mox- I- what are you talking about?”
You blink at him, confused as to how he’s gone his whole life unaware how much a doctor’s appointment costs.
“That’s how much an appointment is? How do you not know this?”
“But— how? Doctors appointments are like thirty dollars?”
Realisation dawns on his face, his eyes taking on their familiar, concerned edge.
“You don’t have insurance?” His voice is softer now “why don’t you have insurance?”
“Because my job doesn’t have benefits”
“Neither does mine but- you don’t just like… have it?”
“Who just has insurance Steve? It’s five hundred dollars a month?”
“You’re not on your parents plan?”
“My parents don’t have insurance either”
He’s staring at you now, trying to wrap his head around how different your lives really were.
“So… you just don't go to the doctor?”
“Not if i can help it, no”
He's completely dumbfounded, his mouth opening and closing uselessly, unable to find the words he needs.
“I–” he stammers “I– I’m sorry”
“It’s fine, really. You didn’t know”
“No, I'm sorry you can’t go to the doctor”
“I’ll be ok”
“But you’re in so much pain?”
“It’ll be over in a few days”
“And then next month? What then?”
Your retort dies on your tongue when you see the hurt etched into every inch of his face.
“I don't know what you want me to do, Steve" you shift uncomfortably “I don’t have the money”
When you glance back at him, he’s worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, his eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration.
“What if I paid for it?”
“What? Steve– no way”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s hundreds of dollars?”
“But–”
“Please just– let me deal with this on my own?”
He wants to argue, he wants to shake you by your shoulders and demand you get some much needed medical attention. But the look in your eyes gives him pause, realizing this isn't an argument he’s going to be winning anytime soon.
“Fine.” His hands scrub down his face. “But if this gets any worse? I’m helping”
-
Steve seems to have dropped the topic by the time your period is over. Your being able to stand for more than five minutes and keep actual meals down seems to soothe him enough that he doesn't bring the topic up again for a few days.
That is until you get home from work one day, being greeted with the muffled sound of what you think is Steve on the phone. You don’t think anything of it, assuming it’s Robin from the way he hangs up as you pass.
“Hey” you greet on your way to the kitchen, not expecting Steve to follow, and being a little thrown off when he does.
“You’re home early” he leans in the doorway while you busy yourself with the coffee machine.
“It was a super slow day, I was doing nothing for the last hour.”
“At least they let you go”
“Eventually” you grumble, still annoyed at being made wait around for an unnecessary hour ‘just incase’
“Youre home now–” he shifts on his feet “--thats all that matters”
You turn to him with a suspicious look in your eye.
“Youre being weird…”
“What? Me? I’m not being weird you're being weird” his nervous stammering gives him away instantly
“Ok now you're definitely being weird”
“It’s nothing” he waves a dismissive hand
“Steve–”
“Fine” he huffs, crossing his arms across his chest like a shield “just promise you wont get mad?”
“I promise, now what?”
“I called my insurance company…”
“Steve!--” you exclaim in annoyance
“You said you wouldn't get mad”
“Steve, I'm serious!”
“Hear me out?”
“I–”
“Please?”
Your face twitches, fighting every instinct to argue with him. He takes your silence as an okay, and continues with his explanation.
“I called them to see how I could add you to my plan–”
“--Your parent’s plan”
“Whatever” he sighs “can I speak or not?”
“Fine.”
“So I called them to see what my options would be…”
“And?”
“Well, it would cost an extra couple hundred to add you, and I know you wouldn't want me to spend that much money on you”
“And your dad would kill you”
“Yeah, and my dad would kill me”
“So, what? Were you just telling me I can't be added to your health insurance?”
He fidgets uncomfortably with the string of his hoodie, refusing to look at you.
“Steve?”
“There is something else they said…”
“Ok? Are you gonna tell me or just stand there awkwardly?
“Its–” he trails off, hands dragging down his face as he searches for the words. “It’s kind of crazy”
“Crazy how?”
“Crazy like they said spouses get automatically added to their partners health plan”
You stare blankly at him, your brain suddenly deciding to move at two miles an hour, unable to understand what the hell he’s trying to say.
“Why are you telling me this? You don’t—” You stop, finally realising what he’s implying. Spouse, as in you. As in getting married. To him
“What the fuck, Steve? You're not serious”
“Just- think about it, ok?” he starts towards you, hands gesturing wildly
“I am thinking about it, and it’s insane!”
“We could go to the courthouse, sign a few papers and boom!” he snaps his fingers, as if that will magically make this feel like a totally normal thing for him to suggest.
“And get married!?”
“You’re making this into a big deal”
“It is a big deal, Steve!” you round on him “You’re seriously suggesting we get married for health insurance?"
“You’re making me sound crazy!” “Because you're being crazy!” your hands rake through your hair, desperately looking for any sort of normalcy.
“Just… think about it”
“I’ve thought about it, the answer is no”
“Mox-” he sighs “-I’m serious”
“What would we tell people? Huh?”
“We wouldn't have to tell people”
“You don’t think Dustin- or- or Robin or someone would work it out pretty quick?”
“Not if we didn't tell them, no”
You press the heels of your hands into your eyes, hoping that the world might stop spinning for just a moment.
“Youre serious? About this?” your voice has softened, still reeling from his ridiculous idea.
“Yeah–” he nods earnestly. “I’m serious, I've been really worried about you.”
“I told you not to worry about me”
I know you did, but I can't help it. Your periods have been getting worse and worse for months. I know you act like they’re not but I can see it in your face.”
You look down at your hands, guilt suddenly prickling across your skin when you realize how worried you’ve made him.
“Marriage though” Doesn't that seem a bit intense to you?” you ask, attempting to move the conversation away from your health problems.
“Not a real one, just on paper”
“Just on paper” you respond, testing out how the words feel “and what happens when one of us meets someone?”
“I–” he falters “--I guess we worry about that if it happens”
You study his expression, focusing on the way he’s worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, clearly scared shitless by this conversation, but wanting to have it anyway. You want to agree just so his face goes back to normal, the nerves and fear you so desperately want gone still written there plain as day. But you know you can’t, so you try to let him down easy.
“Steve–” your voice is softer now, tentative “--I don’t want to marry someone I’m not in love with…”
“We wouldn't be married, not in real life.”
“You say that but you know it’s not true, there would be a piece of paper out there saying I'm your wife.”
“You wouldn't have to think about it”
“But I would. I would think about it all the time”
“Will you please just think about it? For me?” he pleads.
You know you should shut this down. Put your foot down and demand he never brings this up again. But you also know that you need help. You couldn't keep pretending you were ok while your insides were quite literally tearing themselves apart. Still, the idea of a marriage devoid of the intimacy and realness that you so desperately craved, made something rotten– something you thought you had gotten rid of years ago– rear its ugly head inside your chest. You knew why it was easier for Steve to brush the idea of a fake marriage off as nothing more than a piece of paper. There had never been doubts in either of your minds that he would settle down one day. One of his dates would finally stick, he’d move into a three bedroom house and start his nuclear family. In the beginning, he’d visit you once every few months, until eventually, you’d learn about his life through Christmas cards and Robin.
What he didn't know was that deep down you'd always carried the fear that you were fundamentally unloveable. It started back in eighth grade when you had started to notice that all of your friends were getting attention from boys. You tried not to let it bother you, pretended you didn't care, said boys were dumb and a waste of time. But after school you would go home, stand in front of the mirror and wonder what was wrong with you. What about you made you different from the other girls? Why weren't you good enough? It settled like a dead weight behind your ribs, one that only got heavier with time. You thought you’d gotten a grip on it, tamed the beast back into its cage so you’d never have to think about it again.
But Steve suggesting marriage like it was nothing, like it was something easy, and normal, something you could just get rid of with some paper work and a few signatures, made you feel sick. He didn't know about how you felt, about the fears that plagued your nightmares, how you once thought you loved him and that he loved you. How ever since you saw the type of girls he went for, it only cemented in your head how undesirable you were. You hated him in that moment. You hated how small his world was, how little he tried to break out of it, hated how he had everything handed to him, his future promised to him on a silver spoon.
“I’ll think about it” is all you say before you’re brushing past him. The pot of coffee you made being forgotten by the machine.
-
You do the only thing you can think of, and drive to Robin’s place. It wasn't unusual for you to show up unannounced. What was unusual, however, was for you to nearly break down her door with how frantically you’re knocking.
The smile she had on when she opened the door dropped the second she saw your face.
“What's wrong?” she sounds worried “Did something happen? Is someone dead? What’s–”
You’ve known Robin long enough to understand that if you don’t cut her off, she’ll just keep talking forever.
“Robin.”
“Sorry- word vomit”
She steps back to let you in, closing the door behind you.
“So…?” she draws the word out into a question “you gonna tell me what's going on?” when you look at her, she’s rocking nervously back and forth on her heels.
“Steve wants to get married” you say in a rush, not knowing how else to explain it.
“I– What!?”
“Not– I mean–” you stammer, pressing your fingers against your eyes as you search for the right words “that came out wrong”
“What’s the right way?” she’s staring at you, wide eyed and utterly thrown.
“Well, you know how my periods have been getting bad?”
“Yes?” Her voice is suspicious, confused as to how this relates to Steve apparently proposing to you out of nowhere.
“Well, Steve thinks I'm practically dying”
“So, is that…?”
“No– not that’s not why.” you huff, frustrated at yourself for how poorly you're explaining this “he couldn't understand why I wouldn't just go to the doctor, so I explained that it's because of how expensive it is”
She nods, following along but still suspicious as to where this story is going.
“So today, after I got home, he said he called his health insurance company. We both know his dad would go crazy of Steve tried to add me to it, but–”
“--If you got married” Robin finishes
“Yeah…”
Silence hangs between you, thick and poignant while both of you process Steve's idea. Your eyes flicker across Robin's face, trying to make any sense of what she might be thinking. All you can decipher is intense concentration, her brows kitting together so firmly you'd be shocked if she didn't get a headache.
“I mean,” she breaks the silence, pulling you from your thoughts “It’s not the worst idea he’s ever had”
“I’m sorry– What?”
“Think about it, Mox. It’s not like you’d have to act married, all that would change is a piece of paper saying you're legally bound”
“Does it not see, a bit… intense to you?”
She chuckles, an amused puff of air blowing from her nose “it definitely intense”
“But?”
“But you seriously need health insurance”
“I’ve told you and Steve, I’m fine”
“You don't know that for a fact!”
“Robin” you whine, wanting her to agree with you
She points an accusatory finger at you “do not ‘Robin’ me”
“You’re supposed to be on my side! Not telling me to marry Steve Harrington”
“I am not telling you marry him–”
“You literally are!”
“I’m telling you to game the system, it’s like when people get married for greencards” she shrugs
You pause, not realizing that’s how you could think of it. Not as Steve treating marriage like some careless, meaningless thing, but as a big fuck you to the system that wouldn’t let you afford health care in the first place.
You let out a resigned sigh, knowing she's won
“You really think I should?”
“Why not? All you do is sign some paper and you get free health insurance"
“Yeah but, marry Steve?”
“On paper!”
“Jesus christ you two sound like the same person sometimes”
She laughs, before asking “so, you gonna do it?”
“Im going to think about it”
-
You hadn't lied about what you said to Robin. You do think about it. A lot. You think about it while you're eating dinner, while you’re brushing your teeth, when you’re getting ready for bed, and when you lie on your back, staring at the dark ceiling of your room. What you can’t understand is how normal everyone else was being about this. Was suggesting you get married to your best friend not a completely insane thing to do? It didn’t matter how sound Steve’s reasoning was, his suggesting it still made your head spin.
You don’t get much sleep that night, plagued by thoughts of Steve as his stupid, perfect face, and his stupid, sweet concern for you. You go over every possible scenario of what could happen if you say yes. Would you go to the courthouse, sign some papers and never talk about it again? What would you do with the marriage certificate? Surely one of you would have to keep for when you finally get an annulment– but whose bed would it live under? It must have been three am when your eyes finally start droop shut, unable to fight off the restless sleep that’s pulling you under.
You dream about Steve. His face in the mornings. The way he seems to soak in the sun when he's outside. The moles that scatter his skin, creating a galaxy across the soft expanse of his back. You dream about the girls he's loved before. The girls so unlike you, about how they could never be you. About Steve leaving to start his real life, the one that doesn’t involve you.
The next morning you wake up crying. Something you haven't done since you were 17.
a/n Thank you so much for 300 followers!! he's a gift for all of you!! future chapters will be coming out on Wednesday's, but I wanted to give you all this one a little early as a treat. But I also lowkey hate this and know I would delete if I didn't post it now... whoops! if you don't hate this, maybe consider leaving a like, reblog or comment 😋 ok bye thank you.
taglist ⭑.ᐟ (open) @offbrandhandymanny @emngray @discofairysworld @maevebloom @greyfiveninearmy @littlemisskavities @reidsjuno @loveslexi @pinkunicornhedwig @strangegirl26sff @swirledyouintoallmypoems
if i hit 300 followers tomorrow i may have a little surprise for you all 👀👀
300 followers has been reached so you may or may not be getting chapter one of vow of silence tomorrow 🤫🤫
if i hit 300 followers tomorrow i may have a little surprise for you all 👀👀
Soft Days ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁
masterlist ᯓ★
pairing: Dad!Steve Harrington x fem!Reader
tags: domestic fluff, Steve and Reader have two kids, Soft Steve Harrington, Mom reader, Married couple, established relationship
2.3k+ words
Steve Harrington is an amazing father, even if he is a pushover.
a/n I couldn't sleep last night so I wrote this at 2am. not proof read so proceed with caution
You were convinced Steve Harrington was the best father that had ever existed. Sure, you might be biased— you did marry him after all— but anyone who saw how he was with your kids was completely entranced by him. Whether it was playing with Lyra, your oldest, or reading a story to your youngest Theo, he threw himself into the activity completely.
He loved so openly and honestly that looking at him made your chest hurt sometimes. It felt like looking at the sun, burning so brightly that you couldn’t look at it too directly. You had known since you were teenagers how badly he wanted to be a dad, especially after giving his big ‘six little nugget speech’ back in ‘86. Currently, you had him talked down to three, making him very eager to get started on that third baby.
“Cmon” he’d whine, giving you those pathetic puppy eyes “it’s the perfect time! Lyra's four and Theo’s almost two!”
“After Theo’s two” you’d tell him every time, making him pout. And every time you’d kiss the frown off his face, offering that you ‘practice’ in the meantime.
It was still dark out, the first whispers of dawn being greeted by birdsong. You were asleep against Steve’s chest, his chin resting on your head as he slept. It didn’t matter how deep your sleep was, you had learnt pretty quickly after having children that any noise at all could wake you. Tonight, it was a soft, nervous knock on the wood of your bedroom door. You shifted against Steve, eyes blinking against the cobwebs of sleep that still blanketed your mind. For a moment you think you must have imagined it, but before you can go back to sleep, the sound comes again.
“Mama?” A soft voice follows. Lyra must have had another nightmare, the thought made your stomach twist in concern.
“Yes honey?” You respond just as quietly, not wanting to wake Steve.
The door cracks open, Lyra's messy hair and sleepy eyes appearing behind it.
“Did you have a nightmare, baby?”
She nods, still seemingly upset from whatever monsters had terrorised her dreams.
“You wanna sleep in mama and dada’s bed?”
“Yes please” she mumbles, shuffling sleepily over to your side of the bed.
Once she reaches the edge, she starts to clamber onto the mattress. Her little four year limbs, still not completely used to coordination, have a hard time working in tandem. You lean forward, giving her the last boost she needs to settle against the soft material. Steve stirs beside you when he feels the mattress dip slightly under Lyra's weight.
“Everything ok?” He mumbles, rubbing his eyes before they land on the small form at the foot of the bed. “Hey sweetheart” his voice is softer now, ready to comfort her however she needs.
“Dada, I had a nightmare” her voice wobbles, crawling up the bed to slot herself between you.
“I’m sorry honey” he wraps his arms around her, pulling her against his chest to shield her from the imaginary monsters.
You settle back beside Steve, reaching up to brush Lyra's hair out of her face.
“You wanna talk about it?” You ask her gently.
She shakes her head, burrowing against Steve in a search for safety.
“Was it monsters?” Steve whispers to her.
She nods, not removing her face from his chest.
“I’m sorry baby” you rub her back soothingly “me and dada will protect you, ok? You can go back to sleep”
She sniffles, the small sound making your heart crack open painfully.
“Do you promise?”
“Yeah sweetheart” Steve kisses her head “we promise”
After a little more comforting and soothing, Lyra manages to fall back asleep, still buried against her fathers chest.
“You think she’s ok?” You whisper nervously
“Yeah,” Steve nods “it’s just a nightmare, she’ll be fine”
You study his face, his sure expression making you feel better
“Yeah, ok” you sigh “she’s ok”
Steve reaches over to push the hair off of your forehead “you should get some sleep too, you have to be up early tomorrow, hon”
You groan softly, not wanting to wake lyra
“Don’t remind me”
Steve chuckles, blowing a soft stream of air from his nose “sleep, I'll deal with the kids in the morning”
“Fine” you grumble, before turning over and settling back down.
Steve’s arm reaches over and drapes across your waist, pulling you close enough that he can cuddle you and Lyra simultaneously.
-
Steve had been on dad duty all day. Thankfully Lyra was at preschool so he didn't have his hands too full. He managed to fit some work in while Theo was down for his nap, but the second he was awake, Steve was back into the swing of it. Theo was a super clingy kid, and the fact that he looked like a carbon copy of his father made it virtually impossible to say no to him. That’s how Steve ended up prepping dinner with a toddler on his hip. He knew that you would offer to do it when you got home, but he not so secretly relished being a domestic house husband.
“Dada?” came Theo’s small voice from where his head rested on Steve's shoulder
“Yeah buddy?” he asked, not looking up from the stove “What’s up?”
“Where mama?”
“Mama will be home soon, ok?”
Theo nods before asking another question “Where Lala?” The sound of the little boy's nickname for his older sister made Steve's heart melt.
“Lyra’s at school remember? Where is she goes to learn?”
Theo’s little face scrunches up in thought, the furrow of his eyebrows achingly similar to Steve’s when he concentrates.
“I go?” his voice is hopeful
“Soon, buddy, when you’re older”
Theo pouts, his lips tugging downward in a frustrated frown
“I go now. I go with Lala?”
“If you go now you won't get to hang out with dada”
That makes him pause, realising that preschool meant not getting to cling to his father all day, Theo’s worst nightmare.
“Dada no come?” he sounds upset by the idea, his little voice wobbling
“No buddy, dada can’t go to preschool”
“I stay. I no leave dada” Theo’s on the verge of tears now, scared of the hypothetical scenario where he’d have to leave Steve’s arms.
“Hey- hey-” Steve soothes, shifting his grip on Theo so he can look at him more directly “ You can stay right here, I won't go anywhere, ok?”
Theo nods before pressing his face against Steve’s neck, borderline trying to crawl inside his skin. Steve’s hand comes up to rub his back in comforting circles, rocking back and forth on his feet.
“You’re ok buddy, i've got you”
“Love dada”
“I love you two little man” Steve murmurs against his sons hair, pressing a soft kiss to the crown of his head
-
A commotion from the doorway lets Steve know that you’re home with Lyra, having picked her up on your way back from work.
“Dada!” comes his daughters shriek from down the hall, her tiny footsteps stampeding towards the kitchen.
“Woah- hey there chicken” he laughs, turning to see just as she skids to a stop in the doorway.
“Hi dada! Hi Theo!” she beams up at the pair of them
“Hi lala” Theo mumbles back, refusing to move his face from Steve’s neck.
You appear behind Lyra, eyes tired but soft when they land on your little family.
“Hey” Steve's voice is achingly fond when he directs it at you, taking you in like it's his first time seeing you.
“Hi” you shuffle over to him, pressing a kiss to his cheek as you pass “you’re making dinner?”
"Theo's helping me, aren't you buddy?”
“You're helping dada cook?” you grin, petting Theo’s head in an attempt to make him come out of hiding. He eventually raises his little head, blinking up at you.
“Help dada cook”
“You like cooking?”
He nods.
You're about to ask him another question when you feel a tug on your sleeve. You look down to see Lyra glaring up at you.
“Hi chicken” you grin, amused by her angry face “you ok?”
She raises her arms with a determined flourish “Up mama”
“That’s not a very nice way to ask, Ly”
She whines, sticking out her bottom lip and trying again “Please mama? Up please?”
“There’s those manners”
She squeals happily when you scoop her, up balancing her against your hip so she can see what Steve has been cooking.
-
Once dinner is ready, you and Steve wrangle the kids into their respective seats at the table. It’s gotten to that point of the evening where Steve’s contacts come out and his glasses come on, the little wire framed pair perched at the end of his nose. They always make him look so soft and husband like that it makes you want to kiss him stupid. Unfortunately, there are two small pairs of eyes watching you, so you file away your plan for later.
As per most nights, Lyra’s face is absolutely covered in tomato sauce by the time she’s done eating. It’s become routine for Steve to get up from the table to grab some tissue, trying to make his daughter sit still as he cleans up her face.
-
After you’re all done eating, the time between doing the dishes and getting the kids ready for bed flies by far too quickly. One minute Lyra is helping you put plates in the dishwasher, and the next Steve is trying to talk her into a bath.
“But I’m not dirty dada”
Steve and lyra are a mirror of each other. Both of them have their hands set firmly on their hips, staring each other down like they're in an old western standoff.
“You have to have a bath every night Ly, you know the rules”
“The rules are silly”
“They won't be silly when you’re smelly tomorrow”
“I won't be smelly!”
“Honey!” he calls out to you, needing reinforcements. Luckily Theo was distracted enough by his wooden blocks, that you felt comfortable leaving him alone for a minute.
“You’re still in negotiations?” you ask, trying to keep the amusement out of your voice “I thought Lyra liked bathtime now?”
“I don't." she huffs, crossing her arms across her chest “I hate bathtime!”
“Even the bubbles?”
You see her expression falter, realising she hadn't fractured in the bubbles she would get to play with. But of course, being her father’s daughter, she refused to stand down.
“No bathtime.”
Steve sighs, hands scrubbing down his face in frustration “Fine. No bathtime” Lyra grins proudly, thinking she’s won the argument. However, she’s not ready for what comes out of her father’s mouth next.
“So i guess it’s bedtime then”
“What? Dada no! It’s not bedtime!”
“If you don’t want to have a bath you have to go to bed early” he shrugs nonchalantly, knowing he’s got her cornered.
You catch his eye, shaking your head fondly at how well he knows your kids. As you head back down the hall to where Theo is still playing, Lyra’s voice drifts after you.
“I’ll have a bath dada! I’ll have one it’s not bed time”
“That’s what I thought”
-
There’s only a few more arguments before both of the kids go down for the night. Lyra had tried to negotiate one more cartoon before bed, insisting that she would fall asleep right after (she wouldn't) while Theo tried to sneak into your room when you turned your back.
Finally, you and Steve are side by side, his arm pulled firm around your middle making sure you don’t move an inch. His face is buried against your shoulder, reminding you of what you had been determined to do earlier.
“Steve-” you nudge him gently.
He responds with a noncommittal hum, half way to dream land already.
“Honey–” you try again, more firmly this time
“What?” he doesn't move a muscle, his body completely boneless against yours
“Can you look at me for a second?”
He grumbles in annoyance but raises his head anyways, his sleepy eyes meeting your awake ones
“Hi” , you smile softly.
The pout immediately slides of his face, quickly being replaced by an equally as soft smile
“Hey pretty girl”
“How was your day?”
“Good” he hums “Theo didn’t cause any trouble”
“Yeah?” you ask, tracing the line of his shoulder with your fingers"
"Yeah” he whispers, eyes dropping to your lips. “Y’know, I don't think I've kissed you all day”
“You kissed me this morning" you tease
“That’s not nearly enough, honey” his hand cradles the back of your head, gently angling you so he can press his lips to yours.
You melt into him instantly, not even pretending like you haven't been thinking about this very thing since dinner.
“Missed you so much” he mumbles against your mouth, nipping your lower lip when he feels you smile. You gasp, and he takes the opportunity to slip his tongue against yours.
“My beautiful wife” he whispers in between kisses “how’d i get so lucky, hm?”
He kisses you slowly and lazily, taking his time to soak in the way you taste.
“Love you so much” he mumbles
“I love you too” you whisper back “the most ever”
As you lie in bed, Steve's mouth on yours, and your children safely asleep in their beds, you realise you might be the single luckiest person alive.
a/n I was feeling nice so you my have some soft Steve before he becomes evil in my next series
Vow of Silence 𝜗ৎ Playlist
series master list | sproutkeery's masterlist ⁀➴
Missing Out- Maya Hawke
Liability- Lorde
I'm Not In Love- 10cc
Vienna (In Memoriam)- The Army, The Navy
Don't Delete the Kisses- Wolf Alice
Waiting Room- Phoebe Bridgers
Somebody Else- The 1975
Dear Friend- Wings
I Want Someone Badly- Jeff Buckley
David- Lorde
ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?- Tyler, The Creator
I Want You To Love Me- Fiona Apple
Night Shift- Lucy Dacus
Graceland Too- Phoebe Bridgers
14 songs, 1 hour, 3 minutes
chasing cars — part two ★ steve harrington
After escaping from Hawkins Laboratory, you fall asleep in Steve Harrington's lap in Hopper's cabin. When you wake up, you see Eleven — who ran away from the Lab three years ago, who you've been protecting your whole life.
notes — experiment!reader (reader is 009), mentions of Hawkins Lab, past torture/abuse, medical trauma, referenced experimentation, mentions of blood/injuries, emotional distress, protective!Steve, hurt/comfort, angst, implied sexual assault
Steve harrington x fem!reader, 2.8k words
read part one
You wake to warmth.
You're lying on your side, your head resting on something soft and solid. It takes you a long moment to realise it's a lap. Someone's lap. And there's a hand in your hair, gentle and still, like it's been there for hours.
You tilt your head back carefully, and there he is. Steve.
He's asleep, his head tilted back against the couch cushions, his mouth slightly open, his hair a ridiculous mess. One of his hands is in your hair, fingers loosely tangled in the strands. The other rests on your shoulder, warm and heavy.
You stare at him for a long time.
You don't really know him, yet. You don't know why he found you in the woods, why he took you home, why he put his jacket on you, why he held your hand, why he stayed all night.
You don't know what he wants.
But his hand is in your hair, and it's gentle. So gentle. No one has ever touched your hair gently before. No one has ever touched you gently at all.
You don't move. You barely breathe. You just lie there, in his lap, and let yourself feel what it's like to be held without being hurt.
Last night comes back in fragments.
After the shower, after the clothes, after you told him your name and he said it back like it was something precious — you'd sat on this couch together, and he'd talked to you. Softly, slowly, teaching you things.
"Couch," he'd said, pointing to where you were sitting.
"Couch," you'd repeated.
"Good." He'd smiled, and something warm had flickered in your chest. "Blanket." He'd touched the blanket covering your legs.
"Bla... ket," you'd tried.
"Yeah. Close. Blanket." He'd said it slower, letting you see his mouth. "Blank-et."
"Blanket," you'd tried again, proud when it came out better.
His smile had grown. "Perfect, sweetheart. You're so smart."
You hadn't known what to do with that. Smart. No one had ever called you that. They'd called you numbers, called you subjects, called you things. Never smart. Never sweetheart, either.
He'd kept going. "Lamp." Pointing. "Window." Pointing. "Door." Pointing.
You'd repeated each one, your voice getting stronger, and every time you got one right, he'd praise you. "Good girl," he'd say, and you'd wondered why your chest felt all warm on the inside.
Eventually, your eyes had gotten heavy. You'd fought it, because you didn't want to sleep, didn't want to close your eyes and risk waking up alone in the dark again. But Steve had noticed.
"Hey," he'd said softly. "It's okay. You can sleep. I'll be right here."
You'd shaken your head, small and frantic. "No go?"
His face had softened. "No go. I stay. Promise."
You'd looked at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, you'd pointed to his lap. He'd understood immediately. "Yeah, sweetheart. You wanna lay here? Go ahead."
"Close your eyes, angel," he'd murmured, when you'd laid down, your head in his lap. "I got you."
And you had.
Now it's morning, and his hand is still in your hair, and you've never felt anything like this. You don't want to move. You don't want this to end.
But eventually, he stirs above you. You feel his hand tighten slightly in your hair, feel him shift, hear him make a soft sound as he wakes. Then he stills, clearly realising where he is. Where you are.
"Morning," he whispers, his voice rough with sleep.
You tilt your head back to look at him. His eyes are soft, a small smile on his face.
"Hi," you manage.
His smile grows. "Hi yourself, sweetheart. You sleep okay?" He mimes the action of sleeping — putting two clasped hands next to his ear and tilting his head a little, closing his eyes. You like that he doesn't assume you know what he's saying, that he helps explain.
You nod in response to his question.
"Good." His hand moves in your hair, stroking gently. "That's good. You need more sleep? Or you hungry?" He rubs his stomach a little.
Your eyebrows furrow and then something clicks in realisation. "Food?" you try.
His face lights up like you've just done something miraculous. "Yeah," he breathes, smiling so wide. "Yeah, food. You want food? Breakfast?"
You nod, a tiny movement, but you don't move from his lap. Don't let go of his sweater. Because moving means leaving this warmth, leaving his hand in your hair, leaving the only safe you've ever known.
Steve seems to understand. He doesn't push you up, doesn't make you move. He just keeps stroking your hair, so gentle, and looks down at you with those soft eyes.
"We can stay here a minute," he murmurs. "No rush, angel. Food'll wait."
You don't know what angel means. But the way he says it — soft and warm, like you're something good — makes it seem like a good hing.
You lie there a little longer, your head in his lap, his fingers in your hair.
After a while, your stomach makes a sound. A loud one. You flinch, embarrassed, but Steve just laughs — a quiet, gentle laugh that doesn't make you feel bad.
"Okay, okay," he says softly. "I hear you, stomach. We'll get you fed."
He helps you sit up slowly, his hand on your back the whole time, and you immediately press yourself against his side, your hand finding his sweater and holding on. He doesn't seem to mind. He just puts his arm around you, warm and solid.
"Come on, sweetheart. Let's go see what Hopper's got."
Hopper's in the kitchen when you emerge from the living room. He's standing at the stove, and when he looks up and sees you, his eyes soften a little around the edges. "Morning," he says. "You two sleep alright?"
You press closer to Steve, your eyes on Hopper. He's big. Much bigger than Steve. But Steve said he was safe. Steve said he helped Eleven.
"She slept good," Steve answers for you, his voice warm. "Didn't move all night."
Hopper nods. "Good. That's good." He looks at you, and something in his face softens just a fraction. "You hungry? I'm making eggs."
You look at Steve. He nods encouragingly. "Eggs are good. You'll like them."
You look back at Hopper. "E...eggs?" you try.
Hopper grins down at you. "That's right," he says. "Eggs. Good job, kid."
You turn to Steve, beaming up at him at the praise, and Steve thinks his heart might actually explode.
Hopper puts a plate in front of you with eggs and toast and something called bacon that Steve calls "the best part." You eat slowly, carefully, still holding Steve's hand under the table. Every few bites, you look up at him to make sure he's still there. He always is. He always smiles at you.
"More?" you ask when your plate is empty, pointing at his bacon.
Steve's face lights up. "Yeah, angel. You want more?"
You nod, and he gets up to get you more bacon, and when he comes back, you're waiting for him, your hand reaching out automatically to take his again.
There's a sound at the front door, which makes you freeze. The noise of something being unlocked.
A girl comes in — red hair, freckles, sharp eyes. She's wearing a jacket and carrying a bag. She sees you and stops.
You've already moved. One second you're sitting next to Steve, and the next you're behind him, pressed against his back, your face buried between his shoulder blades, your hands gripping his sweater so tight your knuckles hurt. A sound comes out of you — small, scared, like an animal caught in a trap.
"Hey, hey, hey—" Steve's hands are on yours, gentle, not prying, just covering. "It's okay. It's okay, sweetheart. It's just Max. She's a friend. She's safe."
You don't move. You can't.
"She's Eleven's friend," Steve continues, his voice so soft, so patient. "She won't hurt you, angel. Promise. You trust me, yeah?"
You nod against his shoulder blades.
"Good girl," Steve murmurs. He pauses. "Do you wanna say hi? You don't have to. Only if you want."
You look at Max again. She's still not moving. Still not being scary.
"Hi," you whisper, so quiet it's barely a sound.
Max's face softens. "Hi. You know El?"
You're about to open your mouth to respond when she appears. Small. Pale. Short, dark, curly hair, dark eyes. She steps through the door, and her eyes find you immediately, and something happens to her face.
You step out from behind Steve without realising you're doing it. Your hand slips from his sweater. You take one step, then another, your eyes locked on hers.
"El?" you whisper.
"Nine?" Her voice breaks on the word.
And then you're moving, and she's moving, and you meet in the middle of the cabin, and you're holding each other so tight you can't breathe.
"El," you sob into her hair. "El, El, El."
"Nine," she cries back, her arms like iron around you. "Nine, I thought—they said you—" She hiccups. "I thought you were dead."
"I run," you gasp. "I run and run. And then—" You pull back, just enough to look at her face, to touch it, to make sure she's real. "Steve find me."
El pulls back, her hands cupping your face, her thumbs brushing away tears you didn't even realise were falling. She looks at you like she's trying to memorise every detail, like she's afraid you'll disappear if she blinks.
"You're here," she whispers. "You're really here. I missed you."
"I missed you too." You press your forehead to hers. "Every day. I think of you every day."
You're guided back to the couch. El refuses to let go of your hand, and you refuse to let go of Steve's, so there's a chain — El, you, Steve — stretched across the cushions. Max pulls up a chair close by, her sharp eyes soft and wet. Hopper stands by the fireplace, arms crossed, watching.
"Tell me," El says quietly. "Tell me what happened. After I left."
You look down at your hands. At the number on your wrist. At El's hand in yours.
"When you go," you start slowly, "they... angry. Papa angry. Guards angry." You pause, swallowing. "They want to know where you go. They hurt people. Try to find you."
El's grip tightens. "Did they hurt you?"
You're quiet for too long.
"Nine." El's voice is sharp, scared. "Did they hurt you?"
You look at her, and something in your face makes her go still. "They want to know where you go," you whisper. "I no tell. I never tell. So they—" You stop. Your throat closes. "They do things. Bad things. To make me tell. But I no tell. I never tell."
El's eyes are wet again. "What things?"
"I tell them," you continue, your voice barely a whisper, "to leave you alone. I say—don't touch El. Don't hurt El. She just little. She just baby." You pause, swallowing against the lump in your throat. "You can—" You stop. Swallow again. "You can do what you want to me. But not El. Never El."
A sound comes from somewhere. A sharp inhale. You look up, and it's Steve.
He's gone pale. His face is frozen, but his eyes are wet, and bright, and full of something that looks like fury and grief all tangled together.
"Sweetheart," he says, and his voice cracks. "Angel. What do you mean?"
You look at him, confused. You don't understand why he looks like that. Why his hand, still holding yours, is shaking.
"They want to hurt someone," you explain, because he asked, because you want him to understand. "They always want to hurt someone. And El is small. El is little. So I tell them — hurt me. I bigger. I can take." You pause, frowning. "Some guards — they want different things. Not just hit. Other things. Bad things. But is okay. Because El safe. El no get those things."
Steve makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a sob.
You look at him, alarmed. "Steve?"
He shakes his head, can't speak, but his hand squeezes yours tightly.
Beside you, El makes a small, broken sound. You look at her, and her face is crumpled, tears streaming down her cheeks. She's crying silently, the way she always did in the lab, when she learned that making noise only made things worse.
"El," you whisper, reaching for her. "El, it's okay—"
But Max is already there. She's off her chair and on the couch in a second, her arms wrapping around El, pulling her close. El goes willingly, burying her face in Max's shoulder, her small body shaking with sobs.
"I got her," Max says quietly, looking at you with wet eyes. "I got her. You talk. We're right here."
You nod, grateful, and turn back to Steve. He's still holding your hand, still looking at you with those devastated eyes, and you don't understand why he's so upset. You're the one who was supposed to protect El. You did your job. Why is he sad?
"Steve?" you try again, smaller this time. "You okay?"
He makes a sound — something between a laugh and a cry — and shakes his head. "No, angel. I'm not okay. But that's not—" He stops, swallows. "That's not your fault. I'm just..." His voice breaks. "I'm just so angry. And so sad. For you. For what they did to you."
You tilt your head, confused. "But I'm okay. I'm here. El safe. That good, yes?"
Steve's face crumples. He lifts his free hand, then pauses. Hovers in the air near your face.
"Sweetheart," he says, his voice so soft, so careful. "Can I touch you? Can I hold you?"
Your heart does something strange. He's asking. He's asking. No one has ever asked before. They just took. They just grabbed. They just did what they wanted.
But Steve is asking.
"Yes," you nod.
He moves slowly, so slowly, giving you time to change your mind. His hand cups your face first, gentle, his thumb brushing your cheek. Then his other arm comes around you, and he's pulling you carefully, carefully, into his lap.
Steve watches you curl into him, and something in his chest cracks open. Your face is pressed so tight against his neck he can feel your eyelashes flutter against his skin. Your hands — one fisted in his sweater, one flattened over his heart — are pulling, pressing, like you're trying to find a way inside.
Like you want to crawl into his chest and stay there.
The thought makes his eyes burn.
You make a small sound against his neck — frustrated, desperate — and shift again, trying to get closer. There's no space left. You're already plastered against him, your legs curled around his hips, your body tucked into every curve of his. But you're still trying. Still reaching for something you can't quite reach.
"Hey," he whispers, so soft. "Hey, angel. I got you. I'm right here."
But you keep pressing, keep searching, and Steve realises with a ache in his chest that you don't just want to be held. You want to be so close that nothing can ever get to you again. You want to live in a place where no one can hurt you.
And God, he wants that too.
He wants you where he can see you, always. He wants you curled against him every night, warm and safe. He wants to be the reason you sleep without nightmares, the reason you learn to smile, the reason you finally believe you're allowed to be happy.
He wants to wrap himself around you like armour and never let anything touch you again.
He thinks about what you said. About the guards. About the things they did. About how you traded yourself for El, over and over, because you thought that's what you were for. Because no one ever told you that you deserved to be protected too.
No one ever told you that you were precious.
Well. He's going to tell you. Every day. Until you believe it.
He presses his lips to your hair, then your temple, then the corner of your eye where a tear is slipping out.
"You're safe," he whispers against your skin. "You're so safe, angel. I've got you. And I'm not letting go. Not ever."
Across the room, Hopper catches his eye. The Chief's face is wet, and he doesn't bother to hide it. He just nods at Steve and Steve nods back.
He looks down at you, curled in his arms, finally still, finally peaceful. He's never wanted anything the way he wants this. Not popularity, not Nancy, not any of the stupid things he used to think mattered. Just this. Just you. Just the chance to be your safe place forever.
You look up at Steve, and for the first time, you feel something you don't have a word for. Something warm and full and terrifying and wonderful.
Later, Steve will tell you it's called hope.
I can’t find the link for chapter 11 of I’m with the band. Did you finish that fic?
Ermmmm…. No 🧍♂️… should I??
Vow of Silence
Teaser!!
pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader ⭑.ᐟ
warnings: financial insecurity, health problems, mean!Steve (eventually) (like lowkey evil Steve), pining, poor self image
tags: best friends to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, mean!Steve Harrington, marriage of convenience, fake marriage, friends to enemies to lovers, slow burn, very, very slow burn ᯓ★
series masterlist | masterlist 𝜗ৎ
ᯓ★
Living with Steve was easy. Sure you bickered sometimes, but all best friends did. Chores were always done, bills were negotiated, movie nights were always agreed on. Everything was perfect, existing around him was as easy as breathing. That is until he finds out that you don’t have health insurance. Mixed with the growing concerns around your health, Steve comes to the only solution he can think of-- Getting married for the benefits. But something happens that makes Steve's insides shift, something so rotten and cruel you're not sure you recognise him anymore, and you're not sure if you ever will again.
ᯓ★
taglist ⭑.ᐟ (open) @offbrandhandymanny @emngray @discofairysworld @maevebloom @greyfiveninearmy @littlemisskavities @reidsjuno @loveslexi
a/n Steve is so sweetiepie in the beginning its so sad that he's going to become evil </3 also fully a possibility that this might change by next week... im just impatient and want to post
Vow of Silence
series masterlist
pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader ⭑.ᐟ
warnings: financial insecurity, health problems, mean!Steve (eventually) (like lowkey evil Steve), pining, poor self image
tags: best friends to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, mean!Steve Harrington, marriage of convenience, fake marriage, friends to enemies to lovers, slow burn, very, very slow burn ᯓ★
masterlist | series playlist 𝜗ৎ
Living with Steve was easy. Sure you bickered sometimes, but all best friends did. Chores were always done, bills were negotiated, movie nights were always agreed on. Everything was perfect, existing around him was as easy as breathing. That is until he finds out that you don’t have health insurance. Mixed with the growing concerns around your health, Steve comes to the only solution he can think of. Getting married for the benefits. But something happens that makes Steve's insides shift, something so rotten and cruel you're not sure you recognise him anymore, and you're not sure if you ever will again.
chapter one published 15/03
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter seven
chapter eight
chapter nine
chapter ten
chapter eleven
chapter twelve
chapter thirteen
chapter fourteen
chapter fifteen
chapter sixteen
chapter seventeen
chapter eighteen
epilogue
Vow of Silence
pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader ⭑.ᐟ
warnings: financial insecurity, health problems, mean!Steve (eventually) (like lowkey evil Steve), pining, poor self image
tags: best friends to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, mean!Steve Harrington, marriage of convenience, fake marriage, friends to enemies to lovers. ᯓ★
Tag list is open!! Anyone and everyone is welcome to be added! Just let me know!!
series masterlist | my masterlist 𝜗ৎ
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
Living with Steve was easy. Sure you bickered sometimes, but all best friends did. Chores were always done, bills were negotiated, movie nights were always agreed on. Everything was perfect, existing around him was as easy as breathing. That is until he finds out that you don’t have health insurance. Mixed with the growing concerns around your health, Steve comes to the only solution he can think of. Getting married for the benefits.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
Hiii everyone! Here is the blurb for my new series that will be coming out once a week starting next Wednesday! It’s longer than anything I’ve written before, but I’m hoping to get out one chapter a week. The tag list is currently open, but I will warn that this Steve is going to get mean… he’s gonna trick you into thinking he’s a sweetie pie, but trust he’s gonna get evil.
types of pics you take of your boyfriend
