I’m totally in love the Steve Harrington x fem Henderson reader fics… So if you have any recommendations please them comment down below!! I feel like I’ve read all of them already😩.
Misplaced Lens Cap
we're not kids anymore.

Andulka
occasionally subtle
almost home

Origami Around
TVSTRANGERTHINGS

izzy's playlists!
Claire Keane
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Show & Tell
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Xuebing Du
$LAYYYTER
Keni
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda

ellievsbear
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Cosmic Funnies
Jules of Nature

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@starrlovee
I’m totally in love the Steve Harrington x fem Henderson reader fics… So if you have any recommendations please them comment down below!! I feel like I’ve read all of them already😩.
Finals are so rough rn im genuinely contemplating life. It’s 4am someone please help me!!!
surprise!
joe keery x reader
desc - you and joe find out about a very special new member to your family
influencer / youtuber au
val speaks - yayyy they back ! i think i might've gone over some things i've already said in previous fics bc i haven't written a chapter for them in a while so this was like a refresh for me
if i didnt ignore that
word count: 5.6k
Steve Harrington
tolerate it by @colouredbyd
knock on wood by @calmcal
Date night(s). by @bluetimeombre
𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧 by @cosmictheo
- 𝙉𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡 by @bluetimeombre
project parenthood? by @maximoff-pan
A Chance At A Future by @canyon-saturn
we can play house, we can bed down by @thebestandworstdayofjune
Filthy Whispers by @fettuccin-e
Her Body Is Bible: by @superblysubpar
Strawberries & Cream by @taintedcigs
You're Perfect by @geekfanficwriter
big dick Harrington helping you take his full length for the first time 😈 by @usedtobecooler
busy right now by @vader-anakin
by @lovebugism ↓
oldest!byers ☄. *. ⋆ ┄ Feel Good
by @formallery ↓
mike realized his parents didn't love each other ted wheeler has never put his kids to bed
by @moonstoneandmoonlight
Guilty as Sin → part 2
ahhh thank you so much for the mention 🥺💗
the wrong side of the tracks
steve harrington x fem!reader {18.8k} you and steve had never seen eye to eye, to put it lightly. but when you have to work together at family video, you start to realise you might not hate him as much as you once thought. enemies to lovers, no use of y/n. 18+ mdni
You could pinpoint the exact moment that your personal vendetta against Steve Harrington had started. Not that it was hard to remember. You’d just moved to Hawkins, back to your parents home town and away from the warm air of the West Coast, forced to face Hawkins middle school before you’d even got your bearings of the trailer park you’d shacked up in.
It was your second day there, maybe your third. (Maybe your memory wasn’t that great, but the specific day didn’t matter). You were sat alone in the cafeteria picking at the sad meal in front of you, your head down in an attempt to ignore the lunchtime chaos around you.
“You’re new here, right?” A voice pulled your head up away from your tray as a group of kids joined you at your lonely table. You didn’t really know people’s names yet, you definitely recognised them though. Seen them around the yard, an air of importance around them that was only ever found in schools.
You’d kept your lips pressed shut, a small nod the only response you were willing to give. You could tell where this was going by the grins and the giggles and already had no interest in entertaining it.
𝐃𝐎 𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐇𝐈𝐌? 𝐃𝐎 𝐈 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐇𝐈𝐌? 𝐈 𝐆𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐈𝐓'𝐒 𝐔𝐏 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐈𝐅 𝐈 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐒𝐄, 𝐈 𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐒𝐀𝐘 𝐈𝐓 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐍𝐎𝐖...
GET HIM BACK !
PAIRING steve harrington x fem! reader
SUMMARY in which your now ex boyfriend cheats on you with his so called 'work wife.' your solution? getting back at him with his new girlfriend's newly dumped ex, steve harrington. you'll get your revenge for sure.
WARNINGS 18+ MDNI cheating, teamed up revenge dating, fake dating, toxic exes, rom com, rightfully petty reader w/ attitude, angst, fluff, smut every chapter you’re warned lol, steve and reader are both idiots who eventually fall in love, adult language, smoking/drinking, inspired by olivia rodrigo’s “get him back”
WORD COUNT ?
CHAPTER ONE 18+
CHAPTER TWO 18+
CHAPTER THREE 18+
AUTHORS NOTE: hello! this will be a small mini series, i am still very much focusing on 'i'm your man.' it's just good for me to have several projects to go back and forth on whether it's series or one shots, so that way i'm not forcing myself to write something i'm not in the mood for.
⟢ 3k fic masterlist ⟢ fanfic masterlist ⟢ songfic masterlist ⟢ headcanons & blurbs masterlist ⟢ request masterlist ⟢ active wip and requests wip
due to the amount of requests i received for the 3k special, i am splitting them between the ones i’m making into fics (1.5k words+) and blurbs (<1.5k words).
below are the 3k special blurbs!! fics are linked above.
💗 fluff 💔 angst ❤️🔥 smut
۶ৎ steve harrington
💗 where they can't find us ➜ 1.2k words | fantasy au | stable hand!steve x princess!reader | steve has a plan for you to be together
💔💗 can you keep a secret? (coming soon) ➜ blurb | henderson!reader | you and steve harrington have been trying to keep your relationship secret | @/softstaticclub
💗 a sweet treat ➜ blurb | firefighter!steve x baker!reader | steve decides to pay his favourite baker a visit | @/violatedvibrators
💔💗 hard not to fall ➜ blurb | henderson!reader | steve found it hard to keep things casual, especially when he was so in love with you | request by @/scoopstroops0704
🔞❤️🔥 a dirty secret ➜ blurb | roommates au | curvy!reader | trying to keep yours and steve's relationship secret was difficult when the walls were so thin
۶ৎ gator tillman
🔞❤️🔥 first time for everything (coming soon) ➜ blurb | the first time you're intimate with gator is also the first time he ever opens up to you
🔞❤️🔥not like the others (coming soon) ➜ blurb | you meet gator tillman at your job and you quickly learn that he's not like the other guys
۶ৎ travis 'teacake' meacham
coming soon
۶ৎ kurt kunkle
coming soon
۶ৎ walter 'keys' mckey
coming soon
۶ৎ bucky barnes
coming soon
🍒 to be added to my fanfic taglist | 18+ taglist
dividers by @dividers-are-us
SMILE FOR THE CAMERA! | s.h.
coming summer 2026
Steve Harrington was perhaps the worst person you had ever met. But unfortunately for you—Hollywood's golden girl—he was also your fake boyfriend.
pairing: rockstar!steve harrington x actress!reader contains: (18+ smut!! minors dni) enemies to lovers, fake dating, smut, brat!steve harrington, elements of king!steve, female reader, no use of y/n, she/her pronouns for reader. more warnings to be added.
mooney rambles: this idea was sent in by the amazing @djocufics and i couldn't just leave it as a blurb!
CHAPTER ONE: a rockin' rebound
more chapters + titles to be announced!
🎬 to be added to my 18+ taglist | masterlist | requests page
dividers by @mouseygraphics
.✦ ݁˖ rec account: @moonstone-recommends .✦ ݁˖
robbers masterlist
summary: when you join the FBI, everybody on your team is so welcoming except for steve harrington. when your team is placed on an undercover case, you're partnered with the one person you can't stand. your ability to work together will be detrimental to the case to save as many lives as possible.
current word count: 11k
pairing: agent!steveharrington x femagent!reader
notes: i miss criminal minds and steve harrington so i put them together </3
warnings: no use of y/n, enemies to lovers, eventual smut, fake dating, forced proximity, some violence + graphic cases will be mentioned, core four <3, everybody is here, slowish burn, SO angsty, kind of mayfield!reader (she's adopted), will add more as i think of them
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
This is so good and there’s literally only two chapters
always ready to be left out in the cold
Paring: Steve Harrington x Reader
Summary: Getting stuck with Steve in the van on crawl nights fucking sucks. Getting stranded in a snowstorm, forced to cuddle up next to the one person you cannot stand, all to share warmth and hopefully survive the night? You’re almost certain you’d rather freeze to death. Almost.
WC: 18k+
Includes: bitchy idiots to lovers. one bed & forced proximity tropes. hurt/comfort. angst w/ some fluff to balance it out. language. steve’s trauma. reader’s trust issues. smut- heavy petting, humping, oral (f receiving), PiV sex, dirty talk. reader has no descriptions beyond breasts & vagina, and she/her pronouns. fic takes place in the winter, pre s5. prob some inaccuracies re: treating hypothermia; everything I researched was conflicting with other info, so for the sake of the fic, pretend any errors work lmao. lmk if I forgot any tags. // MDNI 18+ as always with my fics, please respect that.
A/N: Said I wasn’t gonna even try to write a van fic, the fandom has enough, and then this idea slapped itself permanently into my brain after vol. 1, and unfortunately took me months to finish. So... sorry if you’re sick of the van fics, but here’s one more 😅 title is a lyric from hard - hayley williams, and the fic is loosely (very loosely lol) inspired by the song itself. dividers by @/cursed-carmine.
♪ always ready for the piano to fall / always ready to be left out in the cold / armor’s heavy, never suited me at all / but it’s the devil I know ♬
This has to be the worst night for a crawl yet.
Much to your dismay, you're stuck with Steve in the van tonight.
Dustin's sick with the flu, Will is still restricted from ever leaving Joyce's sight at this point, and you were more knowledgeable on telemetry tracking than Jonathan.
Leaving you- alone- with your least favorite person, for the rest of the night.
Yeah, lucky you.
℘1⋆˚࿔ m.list⋆˚࿔ steveharrington x henderson!reader
Steve spends the rest of the drive pretending he’s listening while Dustin talks, but every thought in his head keeps circling back to you in ways that are becoming genuinely impossible to control. It’s pathetic, honestly. He knows it is. He’s twenty years old and acting like a lovesick idiot over a girl who still has absolutely no idea she’s slowly destroying him from the inside out.
The worst part is that you’d probably laugh if you knew.
Not cruelly. Never cruelly.
You’d just blink at him with that surprised little expression you get sometimes and go, “Steve Harrington is in love with me?” like the concept itself sounds unrealistic.
And maybe that’s his fault.
Because Steve has spent so long making everything feel easy around you that you never noticed when it stopped being casual for him.
You still think his constant touching means nothing because Steve touches everybody.
You still think the flirting is harmless because Steve flirts with everyone.
You still think the long looks and soft voices and late night window visits are just part of who he is instead of what he’s become around you specifically.
Meanwhile Steve feels like he’s standing chest deep in something he can’t survive anymore.
By the time he drops Dustin off at school, his mood has somehow gotten worse instead of better.
“Are you coming over later?” Dustin asks before getting out of the car.
Steve opens his mouth automatically to say yes before stopping himself.
Because you’ll probably be there.
Which is exactly the problem.
“Maybe,” he mutters instead.
Dustin narrows his eyes immediately. “You literally always come over.”
“Yeah, well.” Steve shrugs tightly. “Maybe I have a life.”
“That’s definitely not true.”
Normally Steve would argue back. Today he just flips Dustin off tiredly while the kid laughs and slams the door shut behind him.
Then Steve sits there in the school parking lot for another full minute staring blankly ahead because the idea of seeing you right now feels dangerously overwhelming.
Which is ridiculous.
You’re still just you.
Still the same girl who steals fries off his plate and falls asleep against his shoulder and calls him pretty boy sarcastically whenever he’s annoying you.
Nothing has actually changed.
Except now Steve knows he’s in love with you, and suddenly every interaction feels loaded with terrifying new meaning.
He tries avoiding you for exactly one day.
It goes horribly.
By noon he’s already wondering what you’re doing.
By three he catches himself driving toward your street out of pure instinct before swearing under his breath and turning around again.
By evening he’s sitting beside Robin at Family Video looking so miserable that she eventually tosses a pack of Twizzlers at his head without even glancing up from rewinding tapes.
“You’re being weird,” she says flatly.
Steve catches the candy automatically. “Thanks.”
“You’ve sighed seventeen times in the last ten minutes.”
“You counted?”
“I was trying to figure out if you were dying.”
Steve groans softly and drops his head back against the counter while Robin finally looks over at him properly.
And immediately pauses.
Because Robin knows Steve better than almost anybody now.
Knows the difference between his normal dramatic behavior and something real.
Her expression shifts slightly.
“Oh my God,” she says slowly.
Steve closes his eyes immediately.
“No.”
“Oh my God,” Robin repeats louder this time, sounding delighted. “You’re in love with her.”
Steve nearly chokes.
“I am not—”
“You are absolutely in love with her.”
“I’m literally not.”
“You look one inconvenience away from throwing yourself into traffic.”
Steve presses both hands over his face while Robin stares at him with growing disbelief and amusement.
“This is insane,” she says. “Steve Harrington finally falls in love and suddenly acts like a Victorian widow.”
“I hate you.”
“No you don’t.” Robin grins. “Wait—does she know?”
Steve laughs once.
A genuinely miserable sound.
“No.”
Robin’s smile fades slightly at that.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
For a second neither of them speaks.
The fluorescent lights buzz softly overhead while customers wander through aisles nearby, completely oblivious to the emotional crisis currently happening behind the counter.
Then Robin squints at him.
“Why not?”
Steve lowers his hands slowly.
And there it is.
The real problem.
Because how is he supposed to explain this without sounding insane?
How is he supposed to admit that somewhere between late night conversations and stupid movie marathons and hearing you laugh from another room, he accidentally built an entire future around you inside his head without permission?
How is he supposed to explain that losing your friendship feels terrifying enough already, let alone risking something bigger?
“She doesn’t look at me like that,” he says quietly after a long moment.
Robin blinks.
“What?”
Steve swallows hard before looking away.
“You know how some people…” He struggles briefly for the words. “You can tell when they want somebody back?”
Robin stays quiet.
Steve laughs softly again, though there’s no humor in it this time.
“She doesn’t.”
And maybe that’s the part hurting him most.
Because you love him. Steve knows you do.
Just not in the way he wants.
You trust him.
Need him.
Lean into him without hesitation.
Call him whenever something goes wrong.
Look for him first in crowded rooms the same way he looks for you.
But Steve has spent months convincing himself those things meant more than they actually do, and now he doesn’t know how to untangle friendship from hope anymore.
Robin studies him carefully for a second before asking, “Did something happen?”
Immediately Steve thinks about your neck.
About bruises beneath soft yellow bedroom light.
About another guy touching you while Steve sat there pretending his chest wasn’t actively splitting open.
His jaw tightens slightly.
Robin notices that too because of course she does.
“Oh,” she says again, quieter this time. “That serious, huh?”
Steve rubs tiredly at his face.
“I think I’m actually losing my mind.”
Robin softens a little then.
Not teasing anymore.
“You know,” she says carefully, “for someone supposedly good with girls, you are catastrophically bad at communicating.”
Steve scoffs weakly. “Thanks.”
“I’m serious.” She leans against the counter beside him. “You’ve been acting like her boyfriend without ever actually telling her how you feel. That’s confusing.”
Steve frowns slightly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Robin gives him a look.
“You drive her everywhere. You stare at her like she invented oxygen. You literally climb through her bedroom window at night.”
“When you say it out loud it sounds—”
“Insane? Yeah.”
Steve drops his head onto the counter with a groan.
The worst part is she isn’t wrong.
Because somewhere along the line he got comfortable living in the almost of this.
Comfortable with your head on his shoulder.
Comfortable with your fingers absentmindedly hooking through the sleeve of his jacket.
Comfortable being the person you call first.
And now the idea of wanting more feels selfish somehow.
Dangerous.
“What if I ruin it?” he asks quietly.
Robin’s expression softens immediately because Steve almost never sounds genuinely afraid like this.
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” she admits. “But I know you. And honestly? I think you’ve been ruining yourself over this girl for months already.”
Steve laughs weakly into the counter.
“Cool. Awesome.”
Robin nudges his shoulder lightly.
“Just talk to her.”
Steve lifts his head enough to look at her.
“That sounds terrible.”
“It probably will be,” Robin agrees. “But you can’t keep silently yearning yourself into an early grave either.”
Steve snorts despite himself.
Then immediately stills because the bell above the store door jingles softly.
And there you are.
Warm evening sunlight spills through the glass behind you while you step into the store wearing one of those oversized sweaters Steve likes too much and an expression that brightens instantly the second your eyes find him behind the counter.
There’s no hesitation in it.
No uncertainty.
Just immediate softness.
“Hi,” you say.
And Steve’s entire heart betrays him on the spot.
Because God.
Robin sees it happen too.
Sees the way his face changes the second you walk in.
Sees the way his posture straightens automatically.
Sees the helpless warmth that floods his expression before he can stop it.
Her eyes widen slightly like even she didn’t realize it was this bad.
You glance between them curiously.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Robin says immediately, looking way too entertained now.
Steve wants to kill her.
You walk toward the counter slowly, setting a videotape down in front of him.
“You disappeared today,” you say casually.
Steve’s chest tightens embarrassingly fast at the fact that you noticed.
“Uh.” He clears his throat. “Busy.”
“You?” You narrow your eyes suspiciously. “Busy?”
Robin physically turns away to hide her smile.
Steve glares at the side of her head before looking back at you.
“Can I help you with something?”
“Wow,” you say flatly. “Rude.”
But you’re smiling slightly.
Always smiling slightly around him.
It’s killing him.
You lean your elbows onto the counter comfortably while Steve tries not to focus on how close you are standing.
“You missed dinner,” you tell him.
Steve blinks.
“What?”
“My mom made lasagna.” You shrug lightly. “Dustin complained about you abandoning him emotionally.”
Despite himself, Steve laughs softly.
Then your expression shifts just a little as you study him more carefully.
And suddenly your smile fades.
“Wait,” you say slowly. “Are you okay?”
The concern in your voice hits him harder than it should.
Steve opens his mouth.
Nothing comes out.
Because you’re looking at him with genuine worry now, brows pulling together slightly while the entire video store seems to blur softly around the edges.
Robin goes very still beside him.
Steve can practically feel her realizing in real time that this conversation is about to become catastrophic.
“Steve?” you ask again, quieter this time.
And God, that’s it.
That’s the thing that finally breaks him a little.
Because every time you say his name with that soft worried look on your face, Steve feels something inside him cave in a little.
Steve opens his mouth again, but before he can force out an answer, you straighten slightly like you suddenly regret asking in the first place.
It’s subtle.
Most people probably wouldn’t notice it.
But Steve notices everything about you now.
The tiny retreat in your posture. The way your expression smooths itself back into something lighter before he can look too closely at it. Like concern is dangerous if it lasts too long.
You do that a lot lately.
Feel something too deeply, then immediately bury it under humor before anyone can touch it.
“I mean,” you say casually, glancing away, “you just look tired.”
Robin looks between both of you like she’s watching a hostage situation unfold in real time.
Steve swallows hard.
“Yeah,” he says finally. “Didn’t sleep much.”
Your eyes flick back toward him for half a second too long.
Something unreadable passes through your expression before disappearing completely.
“That makes two of us.”
And there it is again.
That strange ache sitting quietly beneath everything between you lately.
Steve feels it constantly now. Like there’s another conversation happening underneath every normal one the two of you have. Something unspoken and heavy and terrifying sitting just below the surface where neither of you are brave enough to touch it directly.
Robin suddenly claps her hands together loudly.
“Well,” she says with painful fake enthusiasm, “I’m gonna go reorganize the horror section before I throw myself into traffic.”
Steve glares at her immediately.
You blink in confusion while Robin walks away muttering something about emotional incompetence under her breath.
Then it’s just you and Steve again.
Which somehow feels worse.
You lean against the counter quietly for a second while Steve pretends to focus on rewinding tapes behind the register even though he’s very aware of your eyes still lingering on him.
“You sure you’re okay?” you ask eventually.
Steve exhales softly.
“Yeah.”
You tilt your head slightly.
“Liar.”
The word lands gently between you.
Not teasing.
Not accusing.
Just honest.
And for one dangerous second Steve almost tells you everything.
Almost says I’m in love with you and it’s becoming unbearable.
Instead he just shakes his head once.
“You’re dramatic,” he mutters weakly.
A small smile finally pulls at your mouth again, but it doesn’t fully reach your eyes this time.
Because the truth is you know something’s changed too.
You’ve known for weeks now, maybe longer.
You just haven’t let yourself think about it too hard because thinking about Steve Harrington for too long has become genuinely dangerous for your emotional stability.
It started slowly.
Too slowly to notice at first.
One day he was just Dustin’s annoying older friend constantly invading your house, and the next you were measuring your evenings around whether his car would pull into the driveway.
You started listening for him without realizing it.
Started feeling strangely disappointed on days he didn’t show up.
And then somewhere along the line it became worse.
You started noticing things you shouldn’t.
The way his voice gets quieter when he’s tired.
The way he automatically reaches for your wrist when guiding you through crowds so you don’t get separated.
The way he looks at you when he thinks you aren’t paying attention.
God.
That’s the part that really ruined you.
Because Steve looks at you too much.
Like he’s trying to memorize things without permission.
And sometimes—sometimes—you catch expressions on his face that make your entire chest tighten painfully before he smooths them away again.
Which should mean something.
Except Steve is still Steve.
Beautiful and affectionate and naturally magnetic without even trying.
You’ve seen girls flirt with him your entire life. Seen the way people melt under his attention. Half the time he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it.
So eventually you convinced yourself that whatever was happening between you only felt significant because you wanted it to.
And wanting Steve feels humiliating sometimes.
Not because of him.
Because of you.
Because he’s become this soft vulnerable thing hidden right in the center of your chest, and you don’t know what to do with feelings that deep except hide them before they can embarrass you.
So you date other people instead.
You tell yourself it’s normal.
Healthy, even.
Maybe if you force yourself forward enough, eventually your feelings for Steve will fade into something manageable again.
Except every date keeps ending the same way.
You compare them to him without meaning to.
The way Steve laughs harder at your jokes.
The way conversations with Steve feel effortless while everyone else sounds rehearsed somehow.
The way Steve pays attention to tiny things nobody else notices.
Nobody touches you like it matters the way he does.
Nobody looks at you long enough to make your heart start acting stupid.
And worst of all, no matter who drops you off at home at the end of the night, somehow you still end up wanting Steve afterward anyway.
Which feels deeply unfair.
The hickeys last night were almost accidental.
Not the date itself.
Not the guy.
Just the decision to let someone kiss you while part of your brain kept wondering whether Steve would care.
You hated yourself for that immediately afterward.
Because what kind of person does that?
What kind of person sits through a perfectly decent date secretly thinking about somebody else the entire time?
The answer apparently is you.
And judging by the expression Steve wore in your bedroom last night, part of you thinks maybe he did care.
Which is terrifying.
Because if you let yourself believe that for even a second, you might actually say something reckless.
You might finally ask why Steve touches you like you already belong to him.
You might ask why he stares at you like he’s trying not to.
You might ask why every room feels different after he walks into it.
So instead you hide it.
Better than he does, apparently.
You joke. You flirt back lightly. You pretend your pulse doesn’t jump whenever he leans too close.
And Steve—poor Steve—still somehow thinks he’s the only one drowning here.
“You’re staring again,” you tell him quietly.
Steve blinks immediately like he got caught doing something illegal.
“I’m literally working.”
“You haven’t moved for like thirty seconds.”
His ears turn slightly pink.
It almost makes you smile for real this time.
God, he’s pretty when he gets flustered.
The thought hits hard enough that you immediately look away before your face can betray you.
Dangerous.
This whole thing feels dangerous lately.
Steve clears his throat awkwardly behind the counter.
“So,” he says carefully. “You uh… got plans tonight?”
The question sounds casual.
Too casual.
Like he practiced making it sound casual.
Your stomach twists a little.
“Maybe.”
Steve’s jaw tightens almost invisibly.
“With that guy again?”
There’s the smallest pause.
Too small for most people to notice.
But you notice because suddenly your heartbeat is too loud.
“Maybe,” you repeat softer this time.
Something flickers across his face then.
Gone almost immediately.
But it looks suspiciously like disappointment.
Your chest aches unexpectedly.
Because suddenly you don’t want him imagining you with someone else anymore.
You don’t want anyone else.
You just don’t know what to do about that yet.
Steve forces a small nod like the answer doesn’t bother him at all.
“Cool.”
The lie sits awkwardly between both of you.
After that conversation at Family Video, something between you and Steve changes so quietly at first that neither of you can pinpoint exactly when it started hurting.
Nothing dramatic happens.
No fight.
No line crossed badly enough to destroy things outright.
It’s worse than that somehow.
Because everything still looks normal from the outside.
Steve still comes over to your house after work sometimes, still lets Dustin drag him into arguments about movies and comic books and whatever new obsession the kids picked up that week. He still sits at your kitchen counter while your mom talks to him like he belongs there already, still steals sodas from your fridge without asking, still throws lazy sarcastic comments in your direction whenever you walk into a room.
But now there’s hesitation inside every interaction.
Tiny pauses where there never used to be pauses before.
Like both of you suddenly became too aware of each other.
You notice it immediately because noticing Steve has become second nature to you at this point.
You notice he doesn’t sprawl across your bed during movie nights anymore. Before, he used to make himself comfortable instantly, all long limbs and lazy confidence while he stole space beside you without thinking twice about it. Half the time his head ended up in your lap eventually anyway while he complained dramatically about whatever terrible movie Dustin rented.
Now he sits at the edge of your desk chair instead.
Like he’s afraid of getting too comfortable.
Like he’s physically stopping himself from drifting toward you out of habit.
And somehow that hurts more than if he’d stopped showing up entirely.
You notice he doesn’t touch you casually anymore either.
No more absentminded hands brushing your waist when squeezing past you in the kitchen.
No more fingers hooking around your wrist while crossing streets.
No more knees pressed against yours in the car for entire drives without either of you acknowledging it.
The absence of it becomes unbearable almost immediately because you hadn’t realized how much of Steve existed in physical closeness until he suddenly took it away.
And God.
You miss him.
Not just Steve himself.
You miss the easy version of him.
The version that gravitated toward you naturally without overthinking every movement first.
Now every interaction feels painfully deliberate instead.
Like he’s constantly catching himself right before doing something instinctive.
Like he wants to reach for you and is actively deciding not to.
Which unfortunately only makes you think about it more.
One night he comes over while Dustin’s upstairs showering, leaving just the two of you alone in the living room with the television humming quietly in the background. Steve sits on the opposite end of the couch for the first time in literal months, one arm stretched along the cushions while he pretends to focus on the movie.
You hate it instantly.
The distance between you feels enormous and wrong.
You glance at him twice before finally saying, “You know this couch is big enough to survive you sitting normally, right?”
Steve looks over.
“What?”
“You’re like…” You gesture vaguely between him and the empty space separating you. “All the way over there.”
A slow smile pulls at his mouth, but it looks tired somehow.
“Sorry.”
And that’s it.
No teasing comment afterward.
No smug grin.
Just sorry.
The quietness of it makes your chest ache unexpectedly.
Because Steve Harrington has never been careful with you before.
He used to lean into your space like he belonged there.
Now he acts like touching you accidentally might ruin something.
You start noticing other things too after that.
Steve looks away faster whenever you catch him staring now, even though he still does it constantly.
Sometimes you’ll glance up from a book or from painting your nails or from talking mid sentence and find his eyes already on you with an expression so soft it physically steals the air from your lungs for half a second.
Then he catches himself.
Every single time.
His face closes immediately afterward like he accidentally showed too much.
It drives you insane.
Because now you know something is there.
You just don’t know what.
And Steve still refuses to say it.
Which means your brain starts filling in the blanks on its own in the worst ways possible.
Maybe he realized you liked him and got uncomfortable.
Maybe he noticed things were getting too intense and started pulling away before it became a problem.
Maybe Robin said something.
Maybe you imagined the whole thing from the beginning.
That last possibility crawls under your skin most often late at night when you’re alone with your thoughts and missing him in ways that feel genuinely embarrassing.
Because maybe Steve was always just affectionate naturally.
Maybe you built meaning out of ordinary things because you wanted him too much.
Maybe all those moments that replay constantly in your head never mattered the way they mattered to you.
The thought makes your stomach hurt every single time.
Then two weeks later, you make a terrible decision.
Not intentionally terrible.
Just emotionally immature terrible.
Because Steve has spent fourteen straight days acting like he wants something from you before immediately retreating the second you get too close to figuring it out, and honestly? You’re exhausted.
You’re tired of feeling insane around him.
Tired of overanalyzing every glance and every touch and every weird moment that never becomes anything.
So when a guy from work asks you out again, you say yes mostly because you want one night where you don’t spend the entire evening emotionally orbiting Steve.
Which is exactly why bringing him into Family Video turns out to be such a catastrophically bad idea.
You don’t even realize Steve’s working at first.
The bell above the door jingles softly as you step inside laughing at something your date says while warm evening air follows you into the store.
And then your eyes land on Steve behind the counter.
Immediately, your smile falters.
Not visibly enough for your date to notice.
But Steve notices.
Of course he does.
He’s halfway through shelving tapes when he freezes completely.
His stomach drops so fast it almost makes him dizzy.
Because you’re standing there beside another guy again.
Close enough that your shoulders brush when you walk.
Close enough that Steve instantly hates him for breathing near you.
And the worst part—the truly unbearable part—is that you look beautiful tonight.
Not overly dressed up.
Just soft.
Comfortable.
Your hair slightly messy from summer humidity, oversized sweater slipping off one shoulder a little while you laugh quietly at something the guy beside you says.
Steve feels sick immediately.
Robin looks up from behind the register, sees the expression on Steve’s face, and physically winces.
“Oh no,” she mutters under her breath.
Your date wanders toward the horror section while you linger awkwardly near the counter.
Steve still hasn’t moved.
The atmosphere between you feels strange instantly.
Tight.
“You work tonight?” you ask softly.
Steve laughs once.
Short and humorless.
“Apparently.”
Your eyebrows pull together slightly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
But it very obviously isn’t nothing.
You glance at him more carefully then.
His jaw looks tense.
Eyes darker somehow.
And suddenly you realize he’s staring at the guy currently browsing movies three aisles away.
Your chest tightens unexpectedly.
“Steve.”
“What?”
“You’re being weird again.”
That snaps something.
Steve sets the tapes in his hands down too hard against the counter before finally looking directly at you.
“Weird?” he repeats.
You blink slightly at the sharpness in his voice.
“Yeah.”
He stares at you for another second like he’s trying very hard not to say something dangerous.
Then quietly:
“Do you even like these guys?”
The question catches you so off guard that you actually laugh once in confusion.
“What?”
“I’m serious.”
You stare at him.
“I barely know what that means.”
Steve runs a hand through his hair harshly, visibly frustrated now in a way you’ve genuinely never seen directed at you before.
“You go out with these random idiots constantly and half the time you don’t even seem interested.”
Your confusion immediately shifts toward irritation.
“Okay, first of all—rude.”
Steve ignores that entirely.
“Do you actually even want to be here right now?”
“What is your problem?”
The words come out sharper than you intended.
Steve’s expression flickers.
Like he’s surprised you snapped back.
But then he looks toward your date again and something ugly flashes briefly across his face before he looks back at you.
“I just don’t get it.”
Your heartbeat starts speeding up now for reasons you don’t fully understand.
“Get what?”
“This.” Steve gestures vaguely between you and the rest of the store. “You keep going out with these guys and then acting miserable afterward.”
Your eyes narrow instantly.
“You’re seriously doing this right now?”
“Doing what?”
“You don’t get to interrogate my dating life, Steve.”
“I’m not interrogating you.”
“You literally are.”
The tension between you feels thick enough to choke on now.
Across the store, Robin very slowly disappears into the back room because she wants absolutely no part in whatever emotional disaster is currently unfolding.
Steve lowers his voice slightly.
“I just think maybe you deserve better than random assholes who don’t even know you.”
“And you do?” you shoot back immediately.
The second the words leave your mouth, Steve goes completely still.
So do you.
Because suddenly the conversation feels dangerously close to something neither of you are ready for.
Your pulse pounds hard in your throat.
Steve stares at you for a long second before speaking carefully.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
His jaw tightens.
You can practically see him fighting with himself.
And suddenly anger starts rising hot in your chest because none of this feels fair.
He doesn’t get to act jealous.
Not after months of confusing you into emotional ruin while never actually wanting anything.
Not after making you feel crazy for reading too deeply into things he probably never meant in the first place.
“You know what?” you say suddenly, voice quieter now but sharper somehow. “I genuinely don’t understand why you’re upset.”
Steve laughs once bitterly.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
His eyes flash.
“Because watching you with these guys sucks.”
The confession lands between you hard enough to steal the air from your lungs for a second.
But then immediately confusion crashes into it.
Because what?
“What does that even mean?” you ask.
Steve opens his mouth.
Stops.
And that hesitation hurts your feelings more than the actual argument.
Because there it is again.
Always almost something.
You take a small step backward.
“No, seriously, Steve.” Your voice shakes slightly now despite your best efforts to stop it. “You don’t get to act possessive over me when you’ve never actually wanted me.”
His expression changes instantly.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“That’s not—”
“Then what is it?” you interrupt, suddenly angry enough that you can’t stop now. “Because from my perspective, you flirt with everybody. You touch everybody. Half the time I can’t tell if you even realize you’re doing it.”
Steve looks genuinely stunned.
You laugh softly in disbelief.
“You think I’m supposed to magically know what you mean when you’ve never said anything?”
“I thought it was obvious,” he says before he can stop himself.
The words hit you like physical force.
For one horrible second both of you just stare at each other.
Because suddenly the entire foundation underneath your friendship feels unstable.
Obvious?
Your chest hurts.
“Obvious?” you repeat quietly. “Steve, I spent months convincing myself I imagined all of this because I genuinely thought there was no way you could actually feel that way about me.”
Something cracks visibly across his face then.
“Forget it,” you mutter quietly, though your voice sounds wrong even to yourself now. Too tight. Too fragile around the edges.
Steve’s expression shifts immediately after the words leave your mouth.
Like he wants to stop you.
Like there’s something sitting right there behind his teeth fighting to get out.
For one awful second, you genuinely think he’s going to say it.
That he’s finally going to grab your wrist or pull you aside or look at you the way he used to before everything between you became so confusing and terrifyingly careful.
Instead he just stands there.
Completely still.
Your chest aches painfully as you look away from him first because suddenly holding eye contact feels impossible. The entire store feels too bright now, too crowded, fluorescent lights buzzing faintly overhead while your heartbeat pounds hard enough to make you feel sick.
Your date says something beside you — asking which movie you wanted again maybe — but you barely hear him.
All you can feel is Steve standing a few feet away not stopping you.
Not fighting for you.
Not saying the thing you desperately needed him to say.
And, maybe that’s your answer right there.
Because if Steve really wanted you the way part of you has secretly hoped for months now, wouldn’t he do something?
Wouldn’t he finally say it?
Instead there’s just silence stretching painfully between you while his eyes stay fixed on your face with an expression you can’t even begin to untangle anymore.
Hurt.
Regret.
Fear.
You don’t know.
You’re suddenly too emotional to tell the difference.
So you force yourself to step backward even though every instinct in your body is screaming at you not to.
Steve’s jaw tightens immediately at the movement.
Still, he says nothing.
And that tiny hesitation completely shatters something inside you.
Because you’ve spent months convincing yourself not to want this boy too much. Months trying to ignore the way your entire body reacts whenever he walks into a room. Months pretending his touches didn’t linger afterward, pretending his attention didn’t feel different from everyone else’s.
And now here you are standing in the middle of Family Video realizing maybe you imagined all of it after all.
The humiliation burns hot behind your ribs.
You laugh softly under your breath, but there’s absolutely no humor in it.
“Yeah,” you whisper mostly to yourself. “Okay.”
Steve’s expression flickers with immediate panic.
“Wait—”
But now you’re angry too.
Not at him entirely.
At yourself.
For hoping.
For reading too deeply into every look and every almost moment until you built something beautiful out of scraps that maybe never meant what you thought they did.
You shake your head once before he can finish whatever he was about to say.
“No, it’s fine.”
The words come out sharp and shaky at the same time.
You hate that he can probably hear the hurt in your voice.
Your date glances awkwardly between both of you now, clearly realizing something uncomfortable is happening but not understanding enough to interrupt.
Steve notices him looking and immediately closes himself off again.
Like a door slamming shut.
And somehow that hurts worst of all.
Because there it is again.
Every single time things start becoming real between you, Steve retreats.
Your throat tightens painfully.
So before he can watch your composure completely fall apart, you turn toward the front door and force yourself to walk away.
The bell above the entrance jingles softly as you push outside into the humid summer night air, but even the warmth outside feels cold suddenly compared to how hard your chest hurts.
Behind you, Steve still doesn’t follow.
And that absolutely destroys him afterward.
⋆˚꩜。 part 3 will be out tomorrow! was gonna put it all in this part but was wayyyy too long, enjoy!!
𝓉𝒶𝑔𝓁𝒾𝓈𝓉 ⋆‧°𓏲ּ𝄢 @fingermonkey101 @twilight-sparkle67 @sillyandsaved @cciessuzi @ahead-fullofdreams @dreamerjj
Don’t Let This Be A Lost Romance | Steve Harrington x Fem!Reader | Part 1
SUMMARY: What was intended to be a summer fling with no strings attached results in Steve Harrington falling for the very girl he never in a million years thought he’d become head over heels in love with.
A/N: Sooo Ik this was supposed to be a one shot, but I’m breaking it up into 3-4 parts because this originally was supposed to only be around 10K words, but it’s definitely NOT. So now igs its a mini series lol
WARNINGS: Suggestive content but nothing explicit, the reader and Steve have a lot of pride, King Steve, reader is kind of an outcast but like not really, El is a menace but means well ofc, summer fling except they slowly fall in love trope (yay!), literally a set up for later angst, maybe bad writing idk I have writer’s block sue me
WC: 9.2K
Main masterlist!
Never did you expect to fall in love with Steve Harrington. The boy you despised in high school and thought was a total dud.
And never did Steve Harrington expect to fall in love with the chief’s daughter. The girl he thought was a complete weirdo in high school.
Yet, somehow, some way, the stars aligned and brought you two together in the form of a summer fling with no strings attached.
Except, every damn string had been tied into the tightest of knots.
Everyone's Watching Us
Pairing: Actor!Steve Harrington x Actress!Reader
Summary: Your relationship with Steve Harrington quickly becomes the public's new obsession. The thing is, you and Steve can't stand each other and the relationship between you is just another act.
Warnings: fake dating, enemies/frenemies with benefits, smut, character death, alcoholism, mentions of addiction, the ST characters were all on a teen show together, hatefucking, Daniel Harrington (he deserves his own warning), smoking, past Stancy, modern!AU, lots and lots of drama, no use of y/n for reader insert
A/N: I rediscovered an old novel idea and decided to rework it so I could finally write it. Steve and Sweetheart (aka actress!Reader) have been so fun to write and I'm excited to share their story with you!
Inbox
✮ Part 1: Unpredictable (coming soon)
✮ Part 2: Fantasize (coming soon)
✮ Part 3: Cataclysmic (coming soon)
Reply to this post to join the taglist!!
I want to start writing fanfics but I’m scared no one is going to read it, I’m not the best writer, and idek how to start.
I feel like I have a pretty good imagination considering the fact that I’m maladaptive dreaming any chance I get. Which is not good for me so I feel like writing my thoughts out would help me big time.
If you have any tips please feel free to share!!
m.list⋆˚࿔ summary ⁀➴ steveharrington x henderson!reader ➺ Steve Harrington never meant for it to become anything serious until she slowly became the center of every late night drive, lingering glance, and thought he couldn’t shut off. Meanwhile, she’s convinced he’s just naturally charming with everyone.
The first time Steve Harrington walks into your house, he’s bleeding from the forehead, arguing with Dustin, and carrying three grocery bags full of junk food like he’s been personally victimized by the existence of children.
“I’m serious,” Dustin complains, stomping into the kitchen ahead of him. “You cheated.”
“I did not cheat,” Steve argues immediately. “You just suck at arcade games.”
“You distracted me!”
“By existing?”
You look up from the counter where you’re cutting strawberries, already exhausted.
“Can one of you die quietly?”
Dustin gasps dramatically. “See? This is emotional abuse.”
Steve laughs at that.
He really laughs.
Head tipping back slightly, shoulders relaxing, the sound rough and easy and completely unguarded.
And for some reason, that’s the first thing he notices about you.
Not that you’re pretty—though you are.
Not even that you’re Dustin’s older sister.
He notices that you look at him like he’s normal. Like he’s just some guy standing in your kitchen bleeding onto the tile floor instead of Steve Harrington, former king of Hawkins High, owner of a reputation half the town already thinks they understand.
“Your face is gross,” you tell him casually.
“Wow,” he says, pressing a hand to his chest. “You know, most people are nicer to me.”
You shrug without looking up. “Most people want something from you.”
Dustin makes a loud choking sound while Steve just stares for a second.
Not offended. Not angry.
Surprised.
Then slowly, something amused curls into his expression.
“Ouch,” he says softly.
You hand him a dish towel. “Try not to drip blood everywhere, pretty boy.”
And that should’ve been it.
Really.
It should’ve stayed simple.
You were Dustin’s sister. Steve drove Dustin places sometimes. The kids dragged him around constantly now, which somehow meant he spent more time at your house than his own lately.
It wasn’t unusual after that for him to show up halfway through the afternoon carrying takeout or knocking against your window because Dustin forgot his backpack or slumping dramatically across your couch complaining about his day.
You didn’t think much of it.
Steve Harrington was charming with everyone.
That was just who he was.
He flirted with waitresses and cashiers and moms buying groceries. He smiled too easily. Leaned too close. Talked like every conversation was private even when it wasn’t.
You assumed none of it meant anything.
So when he starts aiming that attention toward you specifically, you barely react at all.
And unfortunately for Steve, that’s exactly what gets him.
At first, he thinks you’re funny.
That’s all.
He thinks it’s entertaining that you don’t care about his reputation. Entertaining that you roll your eyes when he flirts with you instead of blushing. Entertaining that when he sprawls across your bed stealing fries off your plate, you smack his hand away without hesitation.
“You know,” he says one evening, grinning lazily up at you from where he’s lying across your carpet, “you’re kinda mean to me.”
“You’ll survive.”
“Debatable.”
“Steve.”
“y/n...”
You snort despite yourself. He notices that too.
Steve notices everything about you long before he realizes it matters.
He notices you hum under your breath when you’re reading.
He notices you always leave the crusts of sandwiches behind.
He notices you tap your fingers against cups when you’re anxious.
He notices you reread the final pages of books before you finish them because you hate endings.
He notices you tuck strands of hair behind your ear when you’re lying.
He notices way too much.
And slowly, without meaning to, he starts looking for you first.
When he walks into your house, his eyes find you automatically.
When he hears your voice from another room, he listens.
He starts showing up even when Dustin isn’t home once or twice, pretending he forgot something.
“You know Dustin’s at Mike’s, right?” you ask the third time it happens.
Steve leans against your bedroom doorway, completely unashamed.
“Yeah.”
You narrow your eyes slightly. “So why are you here?”
His smile turns crooked.
“Maybe I came to see you.”
You laugh immediately, not even looking up from your magazine.
“You use that line on everybody?”
And for some reason, that answer bothers him more than it should.
Because he doesn’t know how to explain that it’s different.
He doesn’t even understand why it’s different yet.
So instead, he shrugs and says lightly, “Only the pretty ones.”
You throw a pillow at his face.
He catches it easily, grinning.
That becomes your thing after that.
Banter. Constant banter.
Steve teasing you just to hear your reactions.
You insulting him without mercy while he acts deeply wounded by it.
He leans too close when he talks to you. You stop noticing how often your knees touch in the car. His hand starts finding the small of your back automatically when guiding you through crowds.
He grows comfortable around you in a way he hasn’t been with anyone in years.
It sneaks up on him slowly.
He starts measuring his days around whether he’ll see you.
He pretends he’s visiting for Dustin even though Dustin usually disappears upstairs within five minutes anyway, leaving the two of you alone in the kitchen while summer storms rumble outside and the radio plays softly in the background.
“You’re staring again,” you tell him one night.
Steve blinks. “What?”
You glance at him over the rim of your soda can. “You do that.”
“Do what?”
“Zone out and stare at me like I said something life changing.”
His ears go slightly pink.
“Maybe you do.”
You grin. “You’re ridiculous.”
But Steve feels strangely embarrassed after that because the worst part is—you’re right.
He does stare. He stares because you fascinate him.
You move through the world so differently than the people he’s used to. You never perform for attention. Never flirt just to flirt. You talk to him like he’s a person instead of a story people tell about him.
And somewhere along the line, Steve stops flirting casually and starts flirting because he genuinely wants your attention.
The problem is, you don’t realize there’s been a shift.
You still think this is just Steve being Steve.
So when you mention other guys, you do it carelessly.
“This guy at work asked me out today,” you say absentmindedly one evening while sitting beside him on the hood of his car.
The Hawkins night air is warm. The grocery store parking lot glows gold under flickering lights. Steve’s cigarette burns between his fingers.
“Oh yeah?” he asks lightly.
“Mm hm.”
“You gonna say yes?”
You shrug. “Maybe. He’s cute.”
Steve smiles.
He even laughs a little.
“Cool.”
Inside, something ugly twists sharply in his chest. But he ignores it.
Because he’s Steve Harrington. He doesn’t get jealous.
He definitely doesn’t get jealous over a girl who still thinks he flirts with everybody.
Then you actually start dating people and Steve discovers he hates it.
The first time another guy picks you up from your house, Steve is sitting on the Henderson porch steps beside Dustin pretending not to watch.
“He looks like a douchebag,” Dustin mutters immediately.
Steve squints at the car. “Yeah,” he says before he can stop himself.
You laugh from the doorway. “You guys don’t even know him.”
“I know his face,” Steve says. “That’s enough for me.”
You roll your eyes affectionately before heading toward the car.
Steve watches the guy touch your lower back while opening the passenger door and suddenly feels irrationally angry for reasons he absolutely refuses to unpack.
He acts normal about it afterward though.
That’s the worst part.
He still teases you. Still drives you around. Still lounges across your bed talking about nonsense while you paint your nails.
He never says a word about the jealousy eating him alive.
You honestly don’t notice.
Because Steve’s always touching you anyway.
Always close. Always looking at you too long.
You assume he’s like this with everyone.
But then the hickey thing happens.
And afterward, nothing feels casual anymore.
You got home late that night. The house is quiet in the way only late summer nights are quiet. The television downstairs hums faintly from where your mom must’ve fallen asleep on the couch, and somewhere outside cicadas drone lazily in the dark.
Your bedroom window is open just enough for warm air to drift through the curtains.
You kick your shoes off near the door with a tired sigh, already reaching to pull your earrings out when there’s a soft thud from outside your window.
You don’t even jump anymore.
At this point, steve climbing through your bedroom window has somehow become normal.
He stumbles inside gracelessly, one hand gripping the frame while the other holds a VHS tape above his head triumphantly.
“There’s actually something deeply wrong with your family,” he whispers dramatically.
You glance at him through the mirror while unclasping your necklace.
“You came here at midnight for a movie?”
“No,” Steve says immediately. “I came here because Dustin accused you of stealing from him, and apparently I’m the designated problem solver now.”
You snort softly.
Steve kicks the window shut behind him and looks up properly for the first time.
And then he sees them. The marks scattered along your neck. Faint purple bruises disappearing beneath the collar of your shirt. Another just below your jaw.
His entire body goes still.
It’s almost physical, the feeling that hits him.
Like missing a step in the dark.
You don’t notice right away.
You’re still talking casually, fingers moving through your hair while you stand in front of the vanity mirror.
“He actually wasn’t terrible,” you admit with a small laugh. “Which honestly surprised me.”
Steve stares.
Not at your face.
At your neck.
At the evidence that someone touched you there.
Someone kissed you there.
Someone leaned close enough to leave marks on your skin like they belonged there.
His stomach twists so sharply it almost makes him nauseous.
Because suddenly he can see it too clearly.
Some random guy making you laugh.
That same guy touching your waist.
Leaning down toward you.
Your hands against somebody else’s shoulders.
And Steve hates it.
God, he hates it.
Not the guy specifically.
Not even the date.
Just the fact that somebody else got there first.
The fact that someone else touched you in places Steve has spent months carefully avoiding looking at for too long.
He swallows hard.
“Wow,” he says finally, though his voice sounds strange even to himself. “High praise.”
You laugh quietly.
“Right?”
Steve forces his eyes upward.
Your reflection catches his for half a second through the mirror, and he prays you can’t see whatever’s happening on his face right now.
Because he feels insane.
You aren’t his.
That thought keeps slamming into him over and over again.
You aren’t his.
He has absolutely no right to feel this sick over a few bruises on your neck.
But he does.
He really, really does.
You move past him toward your bed, still talking.
Steve barely hears any of it.
Something about the restaurant.
Something about the guy making a joke you actually liked.
Something about maybe seeing him again.
Steve sits down slowly on the edge of your bed because his legs suddenly feel unsteady.
The mattress dips beneath his weight.
You don’t notice how quiet he’s gotten yet.
Your room smells faintly like perfume and laundry detergent and summer air drifting through the window. There’s a lamp glowing softly beside your bed, casting warm gold across your skin.
And those marks.
Jesus Christ.
Every time you turn your head, Steve sees them again.
He tries not to stare.
Really.
But his eyes keep dragging back.
Like touching a bruise with your fingertips even though you know it hurts.
You sit cross legged beside him eventually, absentmindedly reaching for the tape in his hands.
“You okay?”
Steve blinks hard.
“Hm?”
“You’re weirdly quiet.”
“I’m always weirdly quiet.”
“That is objectively not true.”
Normally he’d tease you back instantly.
Normally he’d grin or flick your forehead or say something cocky just to hear you laugh.
Tonight he just watches you for a second too long.
Your eyebrows pull together slightly.
“What?”
His eyes flick downward before he can stop them.
Your expression shifts immediately in understanding.
And for one horrifying second, Steve thinks maybe you’re going to mention it directly.
Maybe you’re going to laugh awkwardly and say yeah, sorry about that.
Maybe you’re going to tell him details.
He thinks that might actually kill him.
Instead you just tilt your head slightly.
“Steve.”
He forces a smile so quickly it almost hurts.
“Nothing.”
You study him for another second, unconvinced.
Then finally you shrug it off.
And somehow that makes it worse too.
Because to you, this is nothing.
Just another date.
Just another guy.
Meanwhile Steve feels like somebody reached into his chest and wrapped a fist around his lungs.
You keep talking softly while flipping the VHS tape over in your hands, completely unaware of the war happening inside the boy sitting beside you.
Steve notices everything now.
The way your lip curves when you smile to yourself thinking about something.
The faint smudge of mascara beneath your eye.
The way you absentmindedly scratch at your wrist when you’re tired.
He notices too much.
And suddenly all he can think about is the fact that somebody else got this version of you tonight.
Someone else got your laugh.
Someone else got close enough to leave marks behind.
The jealousy crawling through him feels ugly.
Not angry.
Not possessive in the cruel way.
Just aching.
Deep and humiliating and impossible to ignore.
Because Steve doesn’t even know when this happened.
When you stopped being harmless.
When he stopped flirting for fun and started looking at you like you were something precious.
When seeing another person touch you started physically hurting him.
He looks away before you can catch whatever’s on his face.
You yawn softly beside him.
“Tired?” he asks automatically.
“Mm.”
His chest aches again at the sleepy sound.
You lean against his shoulder without thinking about it.
Just naturally and comfortably.
And Steve nearly loses his mind.
Because even now—even after another guy spent the night kissing your neck—you still lean toward Steve instinctively.
You still trust him with your softness.
He sits perfectly still beside you, terrified that if he moves too suddenly, he’ll ruin something.
Your head rests lightly against his shoulder while warm air drifts through the open window.
Neither of you speaks for a minute.
And Steve realizes with awful clarity that he is completely, catastrophically gone for you.
Not a crush.
Not flirting.
Not temporary.
Gone.
The realization settles heavily into his chest.
You mumble something sleepy against his shoulder.
“What?” he asks quietly.
“I said you smell like cigarettes.”
Steve laughs softly despite himself.
“Sorry.”
“You should quit.”
“You sound like Robin.”
“She’s smarter than you.”
“Debatable.”
A tired smile pulls softly at your mouth, and steve feels something inside him shift so suddenly it almost startles him. The expression barely lasts more than a few seconds before you tuck your face more comfortably against his shoulder again, but it lingers in his head immediately like something precious he’s terrified of forgetting later.
It isn’t a performative smile or a polite one or even the kind you usually give people during conversations without realizing it. This one is slower, softer around the edges, weighed down by sleep and comfort and trust in a way that makes his chest ache unexpectedly. Steve stares at it longer than he should, watching the way the warm yellow light from your bedside lamp catches against your skin while the rest of the room settles into quiet around the two of you, and eventually he has to force himself to look away because suddenly the feeling inside him is becoming too big to ignore anymore.
The terrifying part isn’t that he wants to kiss you because Steve has wanted to kiss you for months now and has done a decent job pretending otherwise. The terrifying part is that somewhere along the line his feelings stopped being physical at all, stopped being simple enough to explain away with attraction or flirting or temporary infatuation. Sitting here beside you now, with your weight resting naturally against him and your bedroom window letting in warm summer air that stirs softly through the curtains, Steve realizes with horrifying clarity that he wants things he’s never really wanted before.
He wants mornings where he wakes up beside you tangled in sunlight and blankets while you complain sleepily about him stealing the pillows.
He wants late night grocery store runs and arguments over music in the car and your shampoo bottles cluttering up his bathroom sink someday.
He wants this exact feeling stretched out endlessly in front of him, your head resting against his shoulder while you slowly drift toward sleep completely unaware that you’re quietly ruining him.
The realization settles heavily into his chest because Steve Harrington understands relationships that burn hot and disappear fast better than he understands anything else. He knows how to flirt effortlessly and keep things shallow enough that nobody gets hurt too badly when it ends, and for years that’s been enough because shallow relationships are easy to survive.
They don’t ask for vulnerability or permanence or honesty in the terrifying ways real love does. But this thing with you feels deep enough to split him open if it goes wrong, and that thought scares him more than he wants to admit even to himself. He’s never cared this carefully before, never noticed someone so constantly that their absence physically changes the atmosphere around him whenever they leave a room.
He glances down at you carefully after a minute, unable to stop himself even though he knows staring is becoming a problem lately. Your eyes are closed now, though not completely asleep yet, and your breathing has gone softer and slower against his shoulder while your fingers curl loosely against the sleeve of his jacket.
There’s something so painfully trusting about the way you lean into him that Steve’s chest tightens hard enough to almost hurt because you genuinely have no idea what you’re doing to him.
Another guy kissed you tonight. Another guy got close enough to leave marks on your skin and probably thought he had a chance of becoming important to you afterward, and somehow you still ended the evening here beside him like this was the safest place you could think to be.
The thought completely undoes him because it feels too intimate somehow, too vulnerable in ways he doesn’t think you even realize.
He notices every tiny thing now because apparently being in love has turned him into the kind of person who memorizes details without permission. He notices the faint crease between your eyebrows whenever you’re overtired and trying not to show it.
He notices the way your breathing changes slightly right before you fall asleep and the way your fingers twitch absentmindedly against him whenever you’re comfortable.
He notices that your hair smells faintly like shampoo and summer air and whatever perfume you sprayed on before your date earlier tonight, and God, even that thought twists painfully inside him because somebody else got to see you dressed up like that before Steve did.
Jealousy keeps crawling through him in ugly sharp waves that make him feel guilty immediately afterward because none of this belongs to him, not your attention or your softness or the quiet affection you hand him so naturally. But wanting you has become instinctive now, impossible to shut off no matter how hard he tries to remind himself that he doesn’t have any right to feel this possessive over things that were never his in the first place.
You shift suddenly beside him, your hand sliding briefly across his chest as you stretch slightly in your half asleep state, and Steve’s entire body goes rigid for one embarrassing second because even the smallest touches from you affect him too much these days. Your palm only brushes him for a moment before settling again, but his heart reacts violently anyway, beating hard enough that he’s convinced you’ll hear it if you stay pressed this close.
He remembers every touch from you now whether he wants to or not because they replay constantly in his head afterward like scenes from a movie he’s incapable of shutting off.
Every lazy hug.
Every accidental brush of fingers while reaching for the same thing.
Every time your knees bumped together in the car and neither of you moved away afterward. Back then he thought those moments were harmless, but now each memory feels charged with meaning he was too oblivious to understand at the time.
You blink your eyes open slowly after a minute, clearly catching him staring again despite his best efforts to hide it, and your voice comes out rough with exhaustion when you mumble,
“What?”
Steve immediately looks away like he’s been caught doing something embarrassing, which unfortunately is exactly how this feels now every single time he gets too lost watching you.
He mutters a quick “Nothing” under his breath
but you narrow your eyes at him tiredly before accusing softly,
“You keep looking at me weird lately,”
and the casual observation nearly stops his heart entirely. Because if he tried explaining the truth right now, if he admitted that he’s staring because he thinks he might actually love you enough to ruin himself over it, he honestly believes he might combust on the spot from humiliation alone. You’d probably just look surprised more than anything because in your mind Steve is still Steve: beautiful and charming and effortless and incapable of falling apart over somebody this badly.
Meanwhile he feels like one genuine conversation away from a complete emotional collapse.
Because the awful truth is that he finally understands why he notices everything about you now, why your moods affect his entire day and why seeing someone else touch you felt like swallowing broken glass earlier tonight. It isn’t fascination anymore or even infatuation dressed up as obsession. Somewhere along the line it became love, real terrifying love, the kind that sneaks up slowly enough that by the time you recognize it, you’re already drowning too deep to save yourself. And as steve watches you settle comfortably back against him again without hesitation, trusting him completely while summer wind drifts softly through your curtains, all he can think helplessly is that he has absolutely no idea how he’s supposed to survive this if you never feel the same way back.
The next morning starts badly and somehow continues getting worse from there because Steve cannot stop thinking about you long enough to function like a normal person.
He burns his toast because he’s staring blankly out the kitchen window remembering the feeling of your hair brushing against his jaw, and then he spends ten straight minutes standing beside his car with his keys in his hand because he got distracted imagining another guy making you laugh during your date.
Every thought he has eventually bends back toward you no matter where it starts, which would probably be humiliating if he weren’t already too far gone to care anymore. By the time he picks Dustin up, Steve already feels exhausted in the way people do after spending an entire night fighting with themselves unsuccessfully. Dustin notices immediately because of course he does, and the second he climbs into the passenger seat he squints at Steve suspiciously before saying,
“You look like you got possessed by something,” with the kind of blunt honesty only fourteen year old boys are capable of.
Steve grips the steering wheel a little tighter than necessary while pulling away from the curb, mostly because he can already tell he doesn’t have the patience for Dustin’s energy today and also because he hasn’t stopped replaying the image of your neck in his head since midnight.
Normally Dustin talking nonstop barely registers anymore because Steve’s gotten weirdly used to the constant noise the kids bring into his life, but today every sentence feels like someone knocking repeatedly against a headache. Dustin keeps rambling about some campaign Mike ruined and a new comic book he wants and whether Steve would survive in a zombie apocalypse, while Steve responds automatically without actually hearing most of it because all his focus is tied up somewhere else entirely. At one point Dustin starts complaining about being hungry even though he’s holding an entire bag of donuts in his lap, and Steve snaps back so sharply that the inside of the car immediately goes quiet afterward.
The silence stretches awkwardly between them for several seconds before Dustin slowly lowers the donut he’d been reaching for and says, with genuine concern now instead of annoyance,
“Okay, seriously, what is wrong with you?”
Steve exhales harshly through his nose and runs one hand through his hair while stopping at a red light, but even that familiar motion doesn’t calm him down the way it usually does because he feels like every emotion inside him has been dialed up too high overnight. He wants to tell Dustin to drop it, wants to brush everything off with a joke like he normally would, but instead he just stares out through the windshield while morning sunlight spills across the dashboard and says nothing at all. The problem is that Steve himself doesn’t fully understand what’s happening to him yet because he’s never been in love slowly enough to watch it happen in real time before.
Usually feelings arrived fast and burned bright and disappeared just as quickly, but this thing with you crept up on him in tiny harmless pieces until suddenly it had rooted itself into every part of his life without permission. Somewhere between movie nights and late drives and sitting too close beside you on your bed, Steve had crossed a line he didn’t even realize existed, and now he had absolutely no clue how to go back to being normal around you again.
⋆˚꩜。 hi guys missed ya!!! ill post a p2 to this soon, hope everyone is doing well!! :)
I'M YOUR MAN
ɪ'ᴍ ʏᴏᴜʀ ꜱᴇᴄʀᴇᴛᴀʀʏ !
PAIRING steve harrington x fem! henderson! reader
SUMMARY in which you're fresh out of a couple year long mental breakdown & trying to gain control over your life again. after realizing life has not gotten better, you apply as a secretary for attorney steve harrington. he's demanding and quite frankly; a jerk. what starts as heated tension, shifts into feelings of choice & trust when walking into his office. it’s never felt so good to be perverse.
WARNINGS 18+ MDNI dom! steve, sub! reader, plot with porn, bdsm themes, unprofessional workplace dynamics, steve and reader are both freaked out, mean asshole steve but he's still a sweetheart deep down, shy! perverted! reader, reader with agoraphobia & social anxiety, steve with commitment issues, topics of mental health, hospitalization, past suicidal implications, adult language, angst, fluff, smut, readers appearance has nothing to do with dustin or their mothers you can imagine them as biological siblings or not it will never be specified, based on the movie secretary (2002)
t e a s e r
c h a p t e r o n e secretary wanted!
c h a p t e r t w o cruel intentions
c h a p t e r t h r e e after hours 18+
c h a p t e r f o u r here i stand 18+
c h a p t e r f i v e networking 18+
c h a p t e r s i x come to me 18+
c h a p t e r s e v e n kinky love 18+
c h a p t e r e i g h t surrender 18+
c h a p t e r n i n e this is disgusting. i’m sorry. i don’t know why i’m like this. 18+
c h a p t e r t e n #1 crush
c h a p t e r e l e v e n head in the wall 18+
c h a p t e r t w e l v e 24 hours a day, 7 times a week 18+
e p i l o g u e chariots rise
AUTHORS NOTE: was going to start this around two months ago, but have been super stressed with my classes, but finally i’m in place where i’ve been working on it ugh, along with several other oneshots that are nearly done. relieved to be out of awful writers block 😮💨
𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞 | 𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐕𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐓𝐎𝐍
After years of monsters, grief, and barely surviving adulthood, you and Steve Harrington are suddenly faced with something infinitely more terrifying: a future that actually looks happy.
tags: dad!steve, boyfriend!steve harrington, pregnant!reader, pregnancy reveal, established relationship, post season five, post vecna, hurt/comfort, domestic fluff, emotional hurt/comfort, steve wants a family so bad it hurts, steve being the softest man alive, accidental pregnancy, found family, reader is scared but loved, robin buckley mention, dustin henderson mention, six little nuggets mention, steve harrington deserves a future
warnings: pregnancy, unplanned pregnancy, nausea/morning sickness, vomiting, crying/panic, anxiety about pregnancy, brief mentions of hospitals/funerals/monsters/vecna/upside down trauma, references to past injuries/medical trauma, fear of things going wrong, strong language, very emotional steve harrington (as of chapter one)
from jules- i fear dad!steve has fully taken over my brain and i’m not even sorry. this is the first little chapter/part of my pregnancy series and it’s mostly just steve being painfully soft, painfully emotional, pregnancy with steve and he’s absolutely unable to be normal about starting a family with you. there’s some post-hawkins heaviness in here because obviously these two have been through it, but mostly this is fluffy, tender, and very much “steve harrington deserves every good thing actually.”
𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞
╰┈➤ˎˊ˗ 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐞 (𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝)
𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞
╰┈➤ˎˊ˗ 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐞?
𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐨
╰┈➤ˎˊ˗ 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠
𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞
╰┈➤ˎˊ˗ 𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐞
𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘:
╰┈➤ˎˊ˗ 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞, 𝐢 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮
6 NUGGETS