everyone in the notes we are all holding hands. everyone who hasnt worked on a wip in weeks or months or years, its okay. we are going slow but we are going
You are going to laugh until your stomach hurts again. You're going to be in awe of a sunset. Watch your favorite show while you eat your favorite food. Find money on the street. Discover a great band you haven't heard of before. You will find your way back.
After the gala, you and Steve have a lot to discuss. A series of new threats emerge to throw wrenches in your plans.
Pairing: bodyguard!Steve Harrington x photographer!Reader, rockstar!Eddie x Reader
Wordcount: 7,629
Warnings: unrequited love, slowburn, jealousy, angst, hurt/comfort, violence, gore, weapons, fighting, death threats, stalker *This chapter also contains sex (oral, f receiving), break-up, kidnapping, overdose, relapse, drugs, character death, religious elements
This blog is 18+ only. I do not give permission for any of my fics to be duplicated, reposted, or put into AI. Thank you!
Navigation • Masterlist
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Moodboard • Fic Masterlist • Part Two
The ball of static tension between you and Steve had grown exponentially over the night, a swirling mass of what-ifs and kiss-me-Steves floating just between the tips of your fingers, your forearms, your shoulders, coming to a head in a cramped mirror-coated elevator from the lobby of Eddie’s to his penthouse.
He could almost see it between you, sizzling and crackling against the supple skin of your chest. His face felt flush, tux jacket draped over his shoulder. Your arms were crossed, and you leaned against the railing with sour features.
The bell chimed and you stepped out first, shoes clacking against marble.
Steve followed, typing the code to Eddie’s penthouse and holding the door to let you through.
“Thank God you’re alive!” Robin’s exclamation from the front room was enough to pop the bubble, sending a shiver through your body that twitched Steve’s fingertips toward you.
He balled his fist and ignored the slip of his soles a step behind yours.
“What the hell happened to you two? It looks like slumming with Chicago’s elite kicked your asses.” His best friend greeted, surprise etched over tired features. She was already draped in silk pajamas, something stolen from Eddie’s closet that didn’t suit her freckled skin.
“Thanks, Rob,” Steve grimaced, sidestepping you to pour two glasses of water from the tap.
“How’d it go? What did your piece bid for?” She ignored him, bouncing on the balls of her feet toward you.
“Oh um…” You rubbed at the wrinkle in your forehead, glancing past her to catch Steve’s gaze.
He flushed, shrugged. He hadn’t even thought to look, his priority to get you out of there safe and in one piece.
“I don’t actually know,” you offered Robin a weak smile, leaning against a marble pillar to remove the dainty straps of your heels.
“I’m pretty sure Cyndi Lauper was there,” Steve pulled her focus from you, taking a long gulp of his water.
Robin shot him daggers. “You’re ’pretty sure’? Steven, Cyndi Lauper has a very specific vibe. I think you would know.”
Steve shrugged and crossed to slip the other glass into your hand. Your fingertips brushed his in the exchange, ice cold. He tried to shake the desperation to warm them and tune back in to Robin’s distraction.
“You don’t think I know Cyndi Lauper’s vibe?”
“No, I don’t. You once saw a man you were positive was Willem Dafoe and it ended up just being some homeless guy.” Robin said.
“Willem Dafoe has a homeless vibe,” Steve shrugged.
“Describe Cyndi Lauper to me.” She counter-argued.
“Old lady, purple hair.”
Robin shot him a dubious look before rounding on you, who had just managed to slip to the edge of the kitchen. “Was Cyndi Lauper there?”
Your face contorted in some semblance of an apologetic smile, and you shrugged. “I don’t remember. Long night, sorry, Robin. I’m actually going to bed. You guys don’t mind, do you?”
Robin shifted her gaze to Steve, wide-eyed, as if to say ‘what happened!?’.
He took careful steps toward you, stopping a few feet too shy to comfort with an extended hand. “Do you need anything?”
Your eyes darkened, tongue darted to lick your lips, but you squared your shoulders and shook your head. “I don’t think I do.”
The words punched him in the gut.
You didn’t need him. You didn’t need him to chase you, to hold you, to comfort you. You didn’t need his protection, his comfort, his care, his kiss, his touch. “Night, Robin.”
“Night, sweetie. Tell me everything in the morning?”
“Promise,” you picked the straps of your shoes off the ground, dress catching the light. “Goodnight, Steve.” The nail hit the coffin.
“Goodnight,” his throat felt as tight as the fist gripping his glass on the counter.
You turned and the room was silent until the soft pad of your feet were followed by the click and lock of Eddie’s bedroom door.
“What the hell did you do!?” Robin hissed, stumbling over the oblong sofa back to meet him.
Steve rubbed at tired eyes and tossed his jacket on the countertop. “Robin, please, it was a really long night…”
“Huh uh. No way. You’re not getting off that easy, Harrington. I could feel it the second you two walked in that door. It’s humid in here now. My armpits are sweating.” Robin rose her arms in the air for emphasis, trying to air out her silken pajama top.
Steve ventured one more glance to the hallway, images from the night surging through his mind at light speed. The soft skin of your back against his fingertips, the way you looked up at him through long eyelashes, the expanse of your throat in mood lighting, the soft opening of your lips as you asked him to kiss you, the chills that wracked through him as Jason Carver approached.
“Jason was there.”
Robin’s gasp sent another course of chills down his spine. She glanced down the hallway too and tiptoed forward. “What happened? Is she okay?”
Steve slumped over the counter, marble cooling the palms of his hands.
Carver’s lips had caressed your knuckles, and it took everything in Steve’s power not to roundhouse kick him back to that Heaven he loved to preach about.
He might’ve done it already if you hadn’t pushed him aside with a gentle nudge, a fierceness in your eyes he’d only seen a handful of times before.
“I’m a huge fan of your work,” Carver said, tongue split, eyes trailing your frame. “It’s shame I didn’t hear about you until now, I would’ve gladly been a patron at your gallery opening.”
Your bare shoulders were squared, somehow composed despite the tick of your jaw, the clench of your fist at your side.
Steve waited in the wings, cracking his knuckles.
“I’d love to commission you for some work in my church. You’ve got a great eye.”
You smirked. “Terrible taste in men though, right?”
Carver glanced to the bodyguard at your side, who stiffened in defense until the preacher seemed to remember who you were actually attached to. “Ah, yes, the long haired freak. Well, I’m not going to fault you for that, beautiful. Maybe you just haven’t been approached by the right man.”
Steve frowned. What the hell was he playing at?
At this, you ventured a matched glance Steve’s direction. “Maybe you’re right.”
Steve glanced back up at his best friend and shook off the memory, unbuttoning his shirt to expose the tank top underneath. “He hit on her, gave her his card, wanted to commission a piece for his Mega Church.”
Robin shuddered. “Fucking creep. Did you… comfort her?” His friend’s eyebrows raised until they disappeared behind heavy fringe.
His mouth felt dry. He poured himself another glass of water.
He thought of the soft pillow of your burgundy lips, wondered if your lipstick tasted of vanilla, or perhaps honey lavender, even hours after your latte. He wondered if your skin was as silky smooth as the fabric that hugged your frame. “She yelled at me.”
Robin frowned. “For what?”
“For not… making a move.” Steve chugged his water.
“On Jason?”
“What? No.” Steve tangled his fingers into his hair. He hadn’t realized he’d been sweating that much. He ventured a glance down the hall and lowered his voice. “She asked me to kiss her. Tonight.”
“Did you?” Robin’s mouth hung open with a little too much excitement.
Steve clenched his jaw and shook his head. His knuckles had gone white with their grip on the counter. He released and stretched.
Robin didn’t say anything. She just turned and left the room, heading across the living room toward the stairs of the loft. They creaked under her weight.
Steve followed, warm kitchen light reflecting back at him from the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city sparkled just beyond. “Robin?”
“Don’t come up here, I’m naked.” She warned, though it was nothing he hadn’t seen before. The girl spent a Halloween night over the toilet topless because her Dwight Schrute costume was too hot.
He frowned and waited at the base of the spiral staircase, watching her shadows splash across a concrete wall. “Robin?”
She returned to the top of the staircase with jeans on and a backpack thrown over one shoulder. She took the stairs two at a time.
Steve’s stomach lurched. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve got a hot date,” she shrugged, shoving past him to get to the jacket he’d left on the countertop.
He caught her wrist, and she wriggled out of his grasp. “Robin.”
She fished in his pocket until she retrieved his house keys.
“Robin,” he warned. “It’s not safe.”
“Hopper’ll keep an eye on me.”
Steve thought he might be sick. He swallowed and glanced once more down the hall.
Robin retrieved his phone and typed in the passcode, her birthday. He barely heard the tapping of her fingers and the sending of a text or two through the thundering of his pulse in his skull.
Then, she slapped the heavy metal to his chest. A knowing smile played across childlike features, blue eyes sparkling. “I’m going to leave now,” she spoke to him like a parent leaving their kid without a babysitter for the first time. “My location is turned on.”
Panic seized his chest.
Robin wrapped her arms around him. “I will see you tomorrow, idiot.”
He patted her back and frowned when she pushed away to see him.
“If you don’t get in there and fuck that beautiful girl’s brains out, I’m disowning you.”
Before he could say another word, before he could utter her name, she was out the door, leaving the two of you alone in the cold expanse of Eddie Munson’s penthouse.
—-
1 Voicemail
Harrington, it’s Hop. Carver made it home. We’ve got a car keeping watch just outside the gates. Joyce says Robin made it safe. I’ve got eyes on her, and I’ve added more security to your current location. Just in case anyone got ideas at the gala. Let me know if you need anything else from me.
Robin: Made it. I know you aren’t inside her yet, so get your ass in there, Harrington.
Steve hadn’t left the living room, hadn’t managed to look anywhere but the sprawling view before him. His hands shook. His stomach crawled with guilt. Guilt that he hadn’t tried harder, guilt that he had made a promise to his friend, guilt that he hadn’t made promises you to.
His knee bounced. He checked his phone again, Robin’s voice echoing in his head alongside yours.
With a deep breath, he launched himself off the couch and took generous strides down the hall to your bedroom door, Eddie’s bedroom door.
His heart sank again, a bottomless pit of grief within him. He trailed his fingertips along the grooves in the wood grain, closed his eyes, pressed his forehead to the door. Maybe if you could read his energy, know what he wanted, you’d open the door and he wouldn’t need to step over the threshold, he wouldn’t need to betray his friend.
His phone rang in his pocket, clear and loud, echoing down the entry hall.
He cursed, loudly, and fished it from the loose pants of his tux, begging for any reprieve in embarrassment.
“Hello?” He hissed, stepping back into the irritatingly echoey kitchen.
“What the fuck happened at the gala tonight?” Eddie snarled.
Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “We ran into Carver. Did she talk to you?”
“She fucking broke up with me.”
Now Steve really was going to throw up.
“It’s eight AM, and I get a call from my girl saying that she’s gotta be honest with me, she’s in love with someone else, and we need to break up. Here I am writing songs about her.” To punctuate his point, something heavy was thrown on his end. A guitar twanged.
Steve winced.
“Do you know who it is?” Eddie’s voice was so soft, Steve thought his heart might explode.
All he could see was his friend lying on the ground, face down, the flash of blue and red behind him.
“Harrington, don’t lie to me, man. We’ve been friends for this long. Man the fuck up and tell me what’s going on.”
Steve swallowed, ran his hand through his hair, tried not to imagine himself swan diving from a broken window. “Nothing happened, I swear.”
“What do you mean nothing happened?” And then a long pause. “Holy Fuck, it’s you, isn’t it?”
Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, where emotion began to swell, guilt pooling in his chest and crawling up his esophagus.
“What the fuck, Harrington? How long has this been going on? Have you fucked her? Holy shit, I’m so stupid.”
“No, no, I haven’t touched her.”
“Are you in love with her?”
Steve’s answer weighed like lead on his tongue. He tried to swallow it down, tried to conjure a lie, but none would surface.
“For how long?” Eddie hissed, too cold.
“Since I met her.”
Eddie stayed quiet on the other end for too long, so long Steve almost said his name to rouse him, but then he spoke. “Stay there as long as she needs. Keep me posted. I’ll tell PR to put out a statement about our breakup. Maybe that’ll get the guy off her back.”
“Eddie,” he sighed.
“Harrington, please. You think I don’t understand? Just wish you’d been honest with me.”
“I know.” Steve chewed the inside of his cheek raw, desperate to push images of their friendship from his mind.
“Just… take care of her. I gotta go.”
Before Steve could say goodbye, the call was dropped.
He cursed under his breath and chucked his phone into the velvet couch.
He fucked this up so bad. How did he do this? How could he ruin years of a friendship, a tight relationship, a career, over a girl with a camera? He’d saved Eddie’s life for what? For this?
Anger surged through him, and he stormed toward the bedroom door, wrapping his fist against it.
You opened it instantly, like you’d been waiting on the other side, face freshly washed in an oversized velour sweatsuit.
“Are you insane?”
What could have been misconstrued as hope on your face quickly turned cold. “What?”
“Don’t you realize you have it made? A multi-award winning millionaire rockstar is madly in love with you. He’d probably leave the business if you asked him to, buy you a cottage in the countryside. He’s writing songs about you. Your photography is reaching so many people. He can give you the life you deserve.” It poured from his mouth before he could stop himself, hands gesturing wildly around the big beautiful penthouse.
He stopped when you planted two palms to his chest in a powerful shove. He stumbled backward three paces. You followed.
“Did you ever think maybe I don’t want any of that? I want to live in Chicago. I want to eat pizza. I want to go to that cemetery and watch the roses grow, and I want,” you shoved him again, “to spend my nights curled up with you. I want to argue about what movie we’re going to watch and whether or not you’re holding me on too tight a leash, which, you are, by the way.”
“Because if I don’t take care of you, you’re going to get yourself hurt!” Steve argued.
“That’s another thing! I’m an adult woman, Steve. I can make my own God damn decisions in life. I’ve survived thus far without you being there to protect me.” Your fists were clenched so tight, Steve had to prepare himself for a swing. Your jaw was clenched, nostrils flared.
“Did you ever think that maybe I want to protect you because it gives me purpose?” He shouted. “That all I’ve ever wanted is to be there for you?”
“Did you ever think that maybe you are so much more than a guard dog?” You yelled back. “You’re kind and you’re funny. You’re sexy. You make everyone around you feel seen and heard, and I’m in love with you, you fucking asshole!”
Steve’s breath was labored in his chest, a wheeze that stung in his throat from the volume of his voice.
You were inches from him now, fists balled into his unbuttoned dress shirt. There was a fire in your eyes that terrified and excited him all at once, the prickle of a threat, the thrill of a fist fight that he hadn’t felt in years. “If I have to ask you one more time…”
You didn’t. Steve gripped your hip and pulled you flush into him, other hand finding and tugging at the hair at the nape of your neck.
A moan slipped from your sweet lips, and he thought he’d come apart at the sound of it.
He pressed his nose to yours and breathed you in for a moment, wriggling under your hot fingertips snaking under his tank top.
“Steve, I want you,” you whispered, eyes closed, lips ghosting his.
Something slid into his periphery, bright red.
He turned his head from yours to find an envelope. It looked like it’d been stuffed under the front door.
In a daze, he pulled your hands from his body and took a few steps forward, a primal fear clawing itself into his chest. He swallowed and picked it up.
HELL HOUND was scratched into the envelope in red ink, barely visible. He peeled it open and a trembling hand removed a plain white card.
Inside was an image from the gala. You were walking with purpose, a smile on your face, hand outstretched to meet someone. Steve was right on your tail, a look of lost puppy love in his eyes. Someone had poked a hole through the center of his forehead and one through your chest.
“Steve?”
He looked up just as the knocking started. No, not knocking, pounding. Thick, heavy banging like something heavier than a fist was being thrown into the door.
You yelped.
“Get in the room,” he pointed. “Lock it. Do not open the door until I tell you to.” The banging got louder, as if some structural damage was taken on the outside.
“Steve,” your eyes were saucers, staring down the door in front of you, frozen in place.
He let out a yell, unable to find his phone in his pockets, and gripped you around the waist, hauling you into the room.
You stumbled, your footing bringing you back to reality. You shook your head. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Yes you are,” he planted a kiss to your forehead. “Lock the door.”
He pulled the door shut and held it until he felt the lock slip into place. “Good girl,” he muttered under his breath and rushed back to the living room to where he’d left his phone.
The crackle of fizzling electronics startled him, and he leapt over the couch for cover. The banging didn’t cease, but he smelled the distinct acrid smoke of a blown fuse.
Steve grabbed his phone and dialed.
It rang twice before Hopper answered. “Yeah, I’ve got a guy on the roses right now.”
“Roses? What roses? There’s a guy here now beating the door down. Get your ass up here. Shit!”
With a blast, the door handle shot across the hallway and clattered to the marble floors.
Steve watched the door swing wide, too wide, slamming into the wall nearest Eddie’s bedroom door. Behind it was a tall man, broad shouldered, something about his curled hair and baseball hat prickled at the back of Steve’s mind, familiarity.
“Where’s the little lady?” The man grinned, slipping his fingers into brass knuckles.
Steve cursed under his breath and squared up.
“I said,” the guy stepped out of the way of the swinging door. “Give her to me.”
He swung, a little wide, good enough for Steve to duck and launch himself into the man’s chest, knocking him off his feet. This guy was sturdy though, harder to clear than you had been.
He took the opportunity to crack Steve’s rib, a solid punch from behind that stole the wind from him.
Steve staggered backward enough to steel himself for another throw, going instead of the guy’s nose. It snapped under his knuckles.
The intruder swung back, blindly.
Steve dodged and rounded for a right hook to the ear.
He dodged too and just managed to clock him once to the mouth with the brass knuckles.
Blood filled Steve’s mouth, metallic and warm. He spat a splatter of red and chipped molars across the marble.
The guy went for a second strike, but Steve backed up.
He slipped, floor slick, head aching.
Fog pooled in from the door, a thin haze of smoke that blurred his vision and stung his eyes.
“Hey,” you called from the entrance to the bedroom.
Steve cursed and spat again.
The man turned to face you with a devilish grin, and Steve took the opportunity to clock him square to the jaw, so hard he felt his knuckles split. His wrist ached from the blow.
Out cold, the man’s heavy body slumped to the floor, blood pouring from his nose and mingling with Steve’s on the marble tiles.
Steve just licked blood from aching teeth and watched you until the police charged, shoving the man into handcuffs.
—-
It’s Hop. Guy’s name is Andrew Burns. He’s had a few priors including arson. Remember that fire up in Milwaukee a few years ago? That guy was involved. Carver’s already lawyered up. Think we got your guy, kid. You two rest easy. We’ll call you in tomorrow for more paperwork.
The steady stream of water soothed his aching muscles. His head throbbed. His knuckles seared under the flow. Blood spilled to the porcelain tub beneath his feet and circled the drain. He tilted his head back and scrubbed at his face.
He’d walked you, hand-in-hand, out of Eddie’s apartment and down the winding staircase, 29 floors, until you saw the flashing red and blue lights cast across the petals of a thousand red roses.
A thousand of them had been delivered to the steps of the building. Every single delivery person was under arrest and awaiting interrogation.
Burns had been taken away in the back of a squad car.
You trembled, wrapped in Hopper’s coat, barefoot, while Steve was checked out by paramedics and given the go-ahead to go home.
Steve swished and spit blood once more into the drain, back stiffening when he heard the distinct click of his bathroom door opening.
“I don’t want to be alone.” You explained, voice muffled by the rush of water, the curtains that separated you.
Steve nodded, swallowed, iron and heat. “Okay.” His voice was hoarse.
He just listened for a minute, wondering where you’d settled yourself and the logistics of tugging his towel from its hanger behind the door.
After a long moment, the shower curtain rings rattled against the rail.
Steve froze, dipping his face under the water because waterboarding himself might be more manageable than the thought of you stepping into the shower behind him.
Gentle fingertips found the bruise on his back, shooting a flash of pain through them, and he grit his teeth, scrubbing at the stubble on his cheeks.
Then, your hands found his ribs, and slowly, you settled yourself against him in a hug.
He felt every curve of you, your bare skin tacky against his back, warm and soft and fuzzy, and he relaxed into your hold, tilting his head back to catch a breath.
You pressed ginger kisses to his shoulder, his back, the base of his neck, just behind his ear.
Your hands found the middle of his chest, circling the patch of hair there before following it downward over his abdomen and between his thighs.
Steve muffled his groan under the water as you touched him, a dream he prayed he wouldn’t wake up from.
Panic squeezed at his insides with your grip, panic that he was imagining this, and he clawed at your wrist to let go.
Then he spun, dangerously quick in a slippery old bathtub, and before you could respond, he had you pinned to the opposite wall, frigid tiles to your back and steam filling up the room.
Your eyes were dark, puffy but self-assured, and your mouth was tilted toward his. “Let me take care of you,” you begged.
He shook his head.
Your chest heaved, breasts perfect in the soft, mid-morning light that poured in from the tiny frosted window. He traced the dip of you hips with his thumbs, delighting in the softness of your skin.
“Please?”
Oh, you were trying to kill him.
Groaning, Steve dropped to his knees in front of you, lifting a leg over his shoulder.
You squawked at being manhandled, but your fingers found his hair, and you steadied yourself.
He placed a kiss to the softest part of your thigh, where the muscle spasmed to hold you aloft.
You whimpered for him, grip on his scalp tightening as he traced your flesh with the tip of his nose, up up up, to place another kiss to your hip bone.
“Can I taste you?” He asked, trailing soft lines across your leg with his fingertips.
You nodded fervently.
“Gonna need you to say it.”
“Taste me,” you demanded, pulling him closer with your leg.
You looked so beautiful like this, staring down at him with your mouth open, every insatiable curve a hill on the landscape.
He dove in to nuzzle you where you needed him most.
Your eyes fluttered closed, head back, back arched. Your grip tightened in his hair, and he moaned into your cunt, sticky sweet.
You gasped, thighs tightening around him, calves flexed.
“Relax,” he muttered into your velvety skin. “I’ve got you.”
You did as he asked, releasing a shaky breath.
He saw the emotion prickle in your eyes, and he reached to take your hand in his. “You’re safe.”
“I love you,” your voice rasped, tangling your fingers with his.
“I love you too,” he muttered into the dip of your knee, your hip, the soft hair at the apex. “You’re beautiful.”
You moaned, making a concerted effort to remain lax in his hold. Breath in, breath out, squeezing his hand as he licked a stripe through your folds.
“Doing so good for me,” he reassured, steadying your hips with a firm grip.
In, out. Your breath shallowed, quickened. You released his hand to balance on the wall behind you.
He spread you open with his thumbs and worked you into a tremble, the rubber band inside himself pulled taut and ready to snap.
You came undone for him as the water turned cold at his back, mewling affirmations. He licked you clean and slipped two fingers from you before standing to embrace you, to kiss salty tears from your cheeks and lips.
“You’re okay,” he said, brushing your hair from your eyes. “I’ve always got you. You’re safe. I love you.”
—-
Hundreds of thousands of long stemmed red roses covered the chapel, lining and fillings the pews on either side of a scarlet carpet.
Steve stood, knees bouncing, beside Robin, Hopper, Lucas. The buttons of his collar were too tight, tie askew.
The music changed, and his stomach filled with nerves as the entire congregation stood at attention, turning toward the open doors.
A flood of sunlight poured in from stained glass windows, casting you and your white dress in technicolor. You were smiling, that same, shy smile like you’d caught him watching you, like you knew this was the happiest he’d ever felt.
You took cautious steps toward him, step after deliberate step, around the roses, still too far. He wanted to leap from the alter to meet you, to say screw all the wedding guests and throw you over his shoulder and run away. He knew that’d make you laugh.
Roses grew in brambles at your feet, curving outward and upward, along the pews. They covered the windows, light pooling in blood red through veined petals.
You picked up your pace, lifting your white satin skirt to run for him, but the room widened between you. You called out for him, reached out a hand.
He looked to his left for help to find Eddie, red-skinned, horned, grinning.
Beside Eddie, a man in a stark white suit lit a match and cried, “Be gone, Devil!”
Steve watched in slow motion as the flames engulfed dried brambles, dead and crinkled petals cast aside became floating embers. The chapel around them filled with smoke and ash.
The aisle split, a seam of molten lava.
You screamed for him, the edge of your dress catching on a candle.
Steve tried to get to you, made to leap over the river of fire, but was held back, vines and thorned tendrils piercing his skin as they pulled him up onto the alter, a Christ of his own making.
He called out your name, watched in honor as the flames engulfed you.
Wreathed in fire, you were suddenly there, in front of him, eyes burning. You grinned with malice. “You couldn’t save me.”
Steve woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat. Afternoon sun poured in through his bedroom window.
You roused beside him, skin just as tacky with his sweat. “S’matter?”
He rubbed at exhausted eyes and blinked himself back to reality, letting the floaters fade to a dirty clothes pile and your SD card on his dresser. “Nothing, go back to sleep.”
You hummed in protest, threading your fingers into the hair at the back of his head. “Talk to me.”
He turned to sweep your hair from your face, planting a kiss to your extended palm. “Just a bad dream.”
“You get those a lot?”
He frowned. “Lately, yeah.”
He didn’t like the understanding in your gaze, the fear that had settled there and hadn’t left for days.
He crawled on top of you, sweeping you into his arm to plant gentle kisses across the bridge of your nose until it crinkled into a smile.
“You’re crushing me,” you laughed.
He nodded, burying his face in your throat to breathe you in.
A vibration startled you both. Steve’s phone went off on the bedside table. With a sigh, he lifted himself from you to answer. “Hello?”
“Steve? Man, It’s Eddie, he… shit, man, I don’t know what to do.” Lucas seemed breathless, frantic.
Steve sat up, and you followed, clutching plaid bedsheets for modesty. “Whoa, Lucas, buddy, slow down. Just tell me what’s going on. Where’s Eddie? Can you put him on the line?”
“No, man. We’re in the emergency room. I… shit, I lost track of him, and he got into some trouble. Big trouble, Steve. Had to have his stomach pumped.”
Steve’s blood ran cold. He stepped out of bed and over to his dresser for clothes, putting it on speaker to step into a pair of shorts. “Is he going to be alright?”
“Yeah. They’re worried about liver failure. Said he’ll never be able to drink alcohol again. Steve, I’m so sorry, man. He just slipped out. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, Lucas. This isn’t your fault,” Steve tried to bat down the nausea of his own guilt. “He’s got a lot of connections out there. I should have warned you.”
“What do I do?”
Steve watched you gingerly searching the floor for your own undergarments. He pulled open a drawer to hand you a t-shirt and sweatpants.
You thanked him wordlessly, terror behind those eyes.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying not to think about what you’d done, what both of you had done to drive Eddie into a bender. He pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “Make sure word doesn’t get out. Not a single paparazzi allowed. I’m going to start calling people. I’ll arrange for a flight back. There’s a rehab facility here he’s been to before.”
“Is he going to want to go back?”
“He doesn’t have a choice.” Steve snapped. “You do not leave his side, you understand me? I’m going to meet you on the tarmac and switch hands so you can fly back to England for the other guys. Text me frequent updates.”
“Copy that, and Steve?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really sorry.”
Steve sighed and looked back at you, trembling in his clothes, glassy eyed, painted in afternoon glow. “I know you are, man. He’s going to be okay.”
—-
TWO DAYS LATER
Lucas: ETA 12:45 PM
Robin: Give Eds a kiss from me. Joyce wants to make sure you guys are still coming for dinner tonight.
Hopper: Be here at 11:30
Steve’s hands sweat, holding open the precinct door to let you in.
You entered, wordlessly, clutching a lavender latte in one hand and the strap of your camera in the other.
The past few days had been tense: stolen glances, bumped hips, no real words exchanged, no meaningful questions asked. You sunk into his couch into clothes that smelled like him, and he sat at the counter, leg bouncing, letting Robin paint your nails or cackle or share her glass of wine with you. After you went to bed, she’d give him pep talk after pep talk and send him into the bedroom.
Steve fell asleep sitting up both nights, arms crossed over his chest, watching the steady rise and fall of your own breath beside him, back to him.
“Hey, kid, how you holding up?” Hopper greeted, more of a grimace than a smile on his mustachioed face.
You smiled back. It didn’t meet your eyes. You glanced at Steve. “Somewhere I can set up my laptop? I have stills to edit.”
Hopper frowned and glanced around the bullpen. “Uh, yeah. Callahan! Get up. Lady needs your desk.”
Callahan rolled his eyes, but dropped his feet from the desktop, tossing an apple core into the waste bin beside it.
You sighed and slumped to the table to pull out your things.
“Trouble in paradise?” Hopper asked, once you were out of earshot.
Steve tongued at his molars, biting back any sarcastic retort that bubbled. “Keep an eye on her.”
“Treating her like a fugitive. How romantic.”
Steve shot him a look. “You arrest Carver yet?”
“Working on it, but this guy knows a trick or two about covering his tracks. Can’t directly tie him to Burns.”
“Need me to beat the shit out of him?”
“Burns? Seems like you already did that.” Hopper grinned, delight behind his blue eyes at the swollen state of Andrew Burns’ face.
“I was thinking Carver.” Steve said.
Hopper poked his chest with a meaty finger. “Don’t even think about it.”
The amount of times Steve had thought about peeling out of bed, driving his car to the suburbs, and taking a tire iron to Carver’s face was unimaginable. But he knew that’s not how the system works.
Steve glanced over Hopper’s broad shoulder. You rested your chin in your palm, expression bored. You didn’t look up. “I’ll be back in an hour, maybe two.”
“What do babysitters run for nowadays?” Hopper harrumphed, arms crossed over his chest.
Steve rolled his eyes. “Keep her safe.”
“Yeah, yeah. You good getting Munson alone or do you want backup? Callahan’s not busy.”
Steve waved him off. “I’m good. I’d rather have as many eyes on her as possible.”
Hopper nodded. “Get out of here. We’ve got this.”
Something sat in the pit of Steve’s stomach, uncertainty, guilt, the sting of knowing he’d failed you, failed Eddie. He took one more glance your direction, stomach churning when he met your gaze.
Sad eyes scanned his face, and you offered the tiniest up-quirk of your lips to settle his stomach.
He nodded goodbye and turned back to the Chief.
“Go.”
With another nod, Steve backed slowly out of the precinct and onto the concrete sidewalks of his city.
—-
Unknown: Your ride share is a black Escalade - license: UFC833
5 New Messages
The car pulled onto the tarmac. The stairwell had been deployed. Lucas waited at the base, phone in hand, long legs bouncing in anticipation.
Steve sighed and thanked the driver, stepping out into the midday sun.
“Hey, man.”
“Hey.” They exchanged a hug, too much history to maintain professionalism.
Steve glanced over Lucas’s shoulder at the open door. “How is he? Do I need to prepare myself?”
“Nah, man, he’s good,” Lucas shrugged. “Just a little paler than usual.” He grinned.
Steve snorted.
“That was really scary, Steve.”
Steve nodded, clapped his friend on the shoulder. “You did great. He’s alive because of you.” The same thing Hopper had told him.
Lucas swallowed, nodded, squared his shoulders. “Shall I get him?”
Steve twirled a finger in the air to get the show on the road.
He waited patiently at the base of the stairs for Lucas to return, holding the rockstar by the under arm while the other man slowly, shakily made his way down the rickety staircase.
“Harrington,” Eddie’s lips pulled back into a toothy grin. The final step was taller than he’d anticipated, and he went plummeting directly into Steve’s arms. “I missed you.”
Steve slapped the man’s back and hoisted him back to his feet. “Missed you too, bud. Shall we take a little car ride?”
Eddie’s smile faltered, watching Steve for any indication that he was disappointed, but Steve had been practicing his poker face for years.
He opened the car door and helped Lucas lift the man inside. The three of them said their goodbyes, and Steve closed the door behind himself, signaling to the driver that it was time to start driving. The man had already signed an NDA.
“That asshole give you this?” Eddie reached a trembling fingertip to poke at the purpled bruise on Steve’s cheekbone.
Steve slapped him away. “Ow, fucker. Yes.”
Eddie snickered. “I’m sorry, did that hurt you?”
“I’ll hit you. I don’t care that your liver’s failing.” Steve threatened.
Eddie’s grin widened. “You know I love it when you play nasty, Stevie.”
Although it felt good to fall back into old routines, banter and sparring matches of the past, that gnawing sensation sunk its way back beneath Steve’s broken ribs. He rubbed at his jaw and glanced sideways at his long-time friend.
“Why’d you do it?”
Eddie’s face fell, like a scolded child, and he slumped further into his seat, leaning his face against the window. “Grow up, Harrington. It’s not always about you.”
Steve grit his teeth and stared out his own window for a moment. “Come on, man. A relapse? Don’t bullshit me. What’s this about?”
Eddie’s legs were fully spread now, and he picked at a rogue string on a hole at his knee. He shrugged. “You remember Chrissy Cunningham?”
How could Steve forget? The girl had introduced them at a party, convinced Steve to knock the guy’s lights out. She’s gotten him his job.
He frowned, trying to figure out the connection. “She gave you the drugs?”
“No, Christ,” Eddie rubbed bloodshot eyes. “I mean, yeah, she did like ages ago. But the other night, I was thinking about her. We fought over her, too, didn’t we?”
Steve scoffed. He would hardly call it fighting over her. He’d never had any real invested interest in Chrissy. He didn’t hate the girl, but he’d never taken her up on her offer to sit on his face for the camera. Eddie’d gotten her seven million views or something outrageous like that.
“I thought she might’ve been the one,” he continued, “before sobriety, at least. She was a firecracker.”
Steve nodded. “She was… something else.” He remembered carrying her from a party once, half-naked, thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He’d left her in the privacy of a loft apartment, not dissimilar to Eddie’s.
“Well, I thought maybe I’d look her up, see if the world had been as good to her as it’s been to me.”
Steve still didn’t understand the connection. He frowned to his best friend, wondering what the odds were Chrissy Cunningham had been in London at the exact same time.
“She’s dead, Steve.”
Steve blinked back at the other man, watching the emotion well. “What?”
“She’s fucking dead. Here, I’ve been looking at this for the past two days.”
Eddie handed Steve his phone and, sure enough, an obituary for the tragic loss of a beautiful young woman smiled back up at him. The photo of Chrissy was taken long before they knew her, hair curled into perfect ringlets, a sundress Steve was positive she’d worn on screen.
A memorial service for her was hosted at…
Steve blinked back up at the photo. The background of which held an industrial, stained-glass Mega Church.
“Did Chrissy ever mention Carver?” He asked Eddie, his frown mirrored in his friend.
“What?” Eddie rubbed at exhausted eyes.
Steve handed him his phone back, gesturing to the clues at hand. “Jason Carver, did Chrissy ever mention him? Did she ever mention an ex-boyfriend? Did she ever ask you to go to church?”
“How the hell would I know? I was high as a fucking kite every time we interacted? Hell, I probably introduced the girl to Special K.” Eddie crossed his arms over his chest. “Holy Fuck. I’m the Devil,” he said as the pieces fit into place.
“Yeah, no shit, numb nuts.” Steve needed to quit hanging out with Robin. “Did you know Chrissy before her cam girl days, before drugs?”
Eddie shook his head. “I don’t know, man. Not in any way I could prove, at least.”
“It’s okay,” Steve said.
“I did this to her,” Eddie nodded. “To both of them.”
“No,” Steve ran his hand through his hair. “You didn’t do anything. These are adult women that can make their own decisions. It’s not your fault Carver is a manipulative psychopath. He probably drove her to you.”
Eddie shook his head, the fear evident in his eyes. It reminded Steve all too well of that night, red and blue flashing lights, the panic coating them both in sweat.
Steve reached across the car to take Eddie’s bony shoulder in his hand. “Hey. None of this is your fault, and I need to hear you say it.”
Eddie swallowed, licked chapped lips. He nodded. “None of this is my fault.”
Steve nodded. “That’s right.”
He looked at his best friend, the man he’d followed for years, the man he’d protected, and said, “I’m so so sorry, Eddie. I should have told you the truth from the start.”
“Moment you met her?” Eddie asked, glassy eyed.
Steve thought of you in your worn leather jacket, sly smile on your face, and nodded.
Eddie sighed. “Dibs on Best Man.”
Steve narrowed his eyes. “Robin?”
“Didn’t try to kill herself to get your attention,” Eddie shot him finger guns and a wink.
Steve punched him in the arm.
“Ow, fuck. I’m fragile!”
—-
Harrington, it’s Hopper. We have eyes all over the city. I dispatched all of the dipshits I work with, and I’m out there too. We will find her. Don’t panic. She went to the bathroom and slipped out when we weren’t looking.
Steve was stepping out of the rehab facility with a heavy-heart and relearned adoration for his friend when he listened to his voicemail.
The car waited, but Steve’s mind was processing a million miles a minute, heart racing.
Hopper would have sent someone to your apartment, to the gallery. He knew you wouldn’t be at either place. You wouldn’t have gone to Eddie’s or back to Steve’s, not when his keys jangled in his pocket.
Steve looked up, triangulating his location, and then he started to run.
Down side streets and back alleys, around fire escapes. He sprinted through this city, the one he called home, the one he’d seen so magically through your lens. He ran until his lungs burned, broken rib causing him to wheeze.
He slowed two blocks from that little cemetery, the mausoleum with the roses. He caught his breath, waited at a light, knowing he needed to calm himself before he got to you, knowing he’d approach to find a frown on your face.
He crossed his arms over his head to stretch his diaphragm. He took a deep breath, two. He crossed the road.
That’s when he saw you. You wore that worn leather jacket, and your camera was pressed to your face. You were cloaked in shadow, sun hiding behind heavy, grey clouds.
He released a sigh of relief, feeling his own smile stretch across his face.
You rested the camera at your side and looked up, across the street, made eye contact with him, frowned, then smiled.
Then, a man approached you. He was tall, lean, wearing a hood. He asked you something. You pointed directions.
Steve took a few strides forward.
A car honked.
He jumped, apologized with a wave, backed back onto the curb.
The car kept rolling.
You were gone.
Steve blinked, heart thundering in his chest, and darted out in front of another car, hip bouncing off the hood.
That car honked too.
He didn’t care. He disrupted traffic, narrowing avoiding cars to cross to the little park where you’d been moments before.
You were gone. The man in the hood was gone.
Steve screamed your name, looking frantically behind wrought iron fence posts and concrete statues.
Then, he saw you. Two hands to the glass of a stark white car, pounding on the windows. A gun was pressed to the back of your head.
Steve ran at a full sprint and reached the car as it peeled away.
---
[A/N: Oops. You got got, y'all. You can all thank Taylor for me being able to write this again. We spent too many nights until 3am discussing our writing. You can also thank Joe. Because girl you know he got some magic shit going on at those shows. Love you all so much! Thanks for sticking around. Hopefully part 4 will be up sooner than 6 months from now. Finger's crossed. Thanks for reading xo -Amanda]
I missed them soooo much!!! And I missed reading in Steve's hopelessly lovesick POV and the way you describe things and what a treat that I got to help you get unstuck and then read what you came up with 💛 Also just, youre sooooo talented in the way you describe things without describing things and I'll never shut up about it as we've established. But also, in this chapter especially, I am stunned speechless at your ability to make me scared, laugh, aroused all in like the same scene. A few sentences and the scope of my emotions felt is insane. Like, you're a wizard.
BUT ALSO GIRL, EVEN THOUGH I KNEW THE ENDING I STILL GASPED AND YELPED AND YOU NEED TO FIX THIS.
“Thank God you’re alive!” Robin’s exclamation from the front room was enough to pop the bubble, sending a shiver through your body that twitched Steve’s fingertips toward you.
One, I love Robin sooooo much and I love the way you write her. But two, I love love love LOVE this description.
“You don’t think I know Cyndi Lauper’s vibe?”
“No, I don’t. You once saw a man you were positive was Willem Dafoe and it ended up just being some homeless guy.” Robin said.
“Willem Dafoe has a homeless vibe,” Steve shrugged.
“Describe Cyndi Lauper to me.” She counter-argued.
“Old lady, purple hair.”
Idiots. I love them.
You didn’t need him. You didn’t need him to chase you, to hold you, to comfort you. You didn’t need his protection, his comfort, his care, his kiss, his touch.
BUT I DO. I DO STEVE.
“What the hell did you do!?” Robin hissed, stumbling over the oblong sofa back to meet him.
“Huh uh. No way. You’re not getting off that easy, Harrington. I could feel it the second you two walked in that door. It’s humid in here now. My armpits are sweating.” Robin rose her arms in the air for emphasis, trying to air out her silken pajama top.
One, I love that she climbs over the back of the couch to interrogate him. Two, have I mentioned I love Robin and the way you write her?!
Carver’s lips had caressed your knuckles, and it took everything in Steve’s power not to roundhouse kick him back to that Heaven he loved to preach about.
KICK HIS ASS STEVE!!!!
(Also I cackled)
"...Maybe you just haven’t been approached by the right man.”
Steve frowned. What the hell was he playing at?
At this, you ventured a matched glance Steve’s direction. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Don’t come up here, I’m naked.” She warned, though it was nothing he hadn’t seen before. The girl spent a Halloween night over the toilet topless because her Dwight Schrute costume was too hot.
Hahahahaha HAVE I MENTIONED I LOVE ROBIN AND THE WAY YOU WRITE HER SPECIFICALLY?! I KNOW YOURE JUST A DUFFER WEARING A SCOOBY DOO AMANDA MASK IT'S FINE YOU CAN TELL ME
Robin retrieved his phone and typed in the passcode, her birthday.
*insert me texting you about crying*
“What do you mean nothing happened?” And then a long pause. “Holy Fuck, it’s you, isn’t it?”
Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, where emotion began to swell, guilt pooling in his chest and crawling up his esophagus.
“Are you in love with her?”
Steve’s answer weighed like lead on his tongue. He tried to swallow it down, tried to conjure a lie, but none would surface.
“For how long?” Eddie hissed, too cold.
“Since I met her.”
WHEN HE CAN HEAR IT OVER THE FUCKING PHONE IN THE SILENCE AND STEVE DOESNT EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT YESSSSSSSS
He stopped when you planted two palms to his chest in a powerful shove. He stumbled backward three paces. You followed.
“Did you ever think maybe I don’t want any of that? I want to live in Chicago. I want to eat pizza. I want to go to that cemetery and watch the roses grow, and I want,” you shoved him again, “to spend my nights curled up with you. I want to argue about what movie we’re going to watch and whether or not you’re holding me on too tight a leash, which, you are, by the way.”
“Because if I don’t take care of you, you’re going to get yourself hurt!” Steve argued.
KISS!!!!!
You were inches from him now, fists balled into his unbuttoned dress shirt. There was a fire in your eyes that terrified and excited him all at once, the prickle of a threat, the thrill of a fist fight that he hadn’t felt in years. “If I have to ask you one more time…”
You didn’t. Steve gripped your hip and pulled you flush into him, other hand finding and tugging at the hair at the nape of your neck.
A moan slipped from your sweet lips, and he thought he’d come apart at the sound of it.
He pressed his nose to yours and breathed you in for a moment, wriggling under your hot fingertips snaking under his tank top.
“Steve, I want you,” you whispered, eyes closed, lips ghosting his.
KIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!
He let out a yell, unable to find his phone in his pockets, and gripped you around the waist, hauling you into the room.
You stumbled, your footing bringing you back to reality. You shook your head. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Yes you are,” he planted a kiss to your forehead. “Lock the door.”
Okay 🫡
“Hey,” you called from the entrance to the bedroom.
Steve cursed and spat again.
Hahahahaha I love our stubborn ass.
Steve froze, dipping his face under the water because waterboarding himself might be more manageable than the thought of you stepping into the shower behind him.
You pressed ginger kisses to his shoulder, his back, the base of his neck, just behind his ear.
Your chest heaved, breasts perfect in the soft, mid-morning light that poured in from the tiny frosted window. He traced the dip of you hips with his thumbs, delighting in the softness of your skin.
“Please?”
Oh, you were trying to kill him.
“Relax,” he muttered into your velvety skin. “I’ve got you.”
“You’re okay,” he said, brushing your hair from your eyes. “I’ve always got you. You’re safe. I love you.”
HEY!!!! WHO ALLOWED YOU TO TAKE MY BREATH AWAY?! WHO GAVE YOU THE AUDACITY TO WRITE ABOUT US WANTING TO TAKE CARE OF STEVE BUT TURN IT AROUND SO HE TALKS *US* DOWN AND THROUGH A TENDER ORGASM?! IM SUING YOU FOR EMOTIONAL DAMAGES.
You hummed in protest, threading your fingers into the hair at the back of his head. “Talk to me.”
I really really REALLY love how tender of a moment this was and how we essentially said "liar" and he said "Yeah, okay" and told us what was wrong 💛
The past few days had been tense: stolen glances, bumped hips, no real words exchanged, no meaningful questions asked. You sunk into his couch into clothes that smelled like him, and he sat at the counter, leg bouncing, letting Robin paint your nails or cackle or share her glass of wine with you. After you went to bed, she’d give him pep talk after pep talk and send him into the bedroom.
Steve fell asleep sitting up both nights, arms crossed over his chest, watching the steady rise and fall of your own breath beside him, back to him.
When I tell you I'm OBSESSED.
“That asshole give you this?” Eddie reached a trembling fingertip to poke at the purpled bruise on Steve’s cheekbone.
Steve slapped him away. “Ow, fucker. Yes.”
Eddie snickered. “I’m sorry, did that hurt you?”
Down side streets and back alleys, around fire escapes. He sprinted through this city, the one he called home, the one he’d seen so magically through your lens.
"HEY," I try to yell through a wobbly voice and tears streaming down my face. "You...you...this...you..."
I gesture at your fic and sniffle.
SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP
That’s when he saw you. You wore that worn leather jacket, and your camera was pressed to your face. You were cloaked in shadow, sun hiding behind heavy, grey clouds.
He released a sigh of relief, feeling his own smile stretch across his face.
You rested the camera at your side and looked up, across the street, made eye contact with him, frowned, then smiled.
I KNEW YOU WERE DOING IT AND YET IM STILL PISSED. WE NEED ANSWERS AMANDA.
After the gala, you and Steve have a lot to discuss. A series of new threats emerge to throw wrenches in your plans.
Pairing: bodyguard!Steve Harrington x photographer!Reader, rockstar!Eddie x Reader
Wordcount: 7,629
Warnings: unrequited love, slowburn, jealousy, angst, hurt/comfort, violence, gore, weapons, fighting, death threats, stalker *This chapter also contains sex (oral, f receiving), break-up, kidnapping, overdose, relapse, drugs, character death, religious elements
This blog is 18+ only. I do not give permission for any of my fics to be duplicated, reposted, or put into AI. Thank you!
Navigation • Masterlist
---
Moodboard • Fic Masterlist • Part Two
The ball of static tension between you and Steve had grown exponentially over the night, a swirling mass of what-ifs and kiss-me-Steves floating just between the tips of your fingers, your forearms, your shoulders, coming to a head in a cramped mirror-coated elevator from the lobby of Eddie’s to his penthouse.
He could almost see it between you, sizzling and crackling against the supple skin of your chest. His face felt flush, tux jacket draped over his shoulder. Your arms were crossed, and you leaned against the railing with sour features.
The bell chimed and you stepped out first, shoes clacking against marble.
Steve followed, typing the code to Eddie’s penthouse and holding the door to let you through.
“Thank God you’re alive!” Robin’s exclamation from the front room was enough to pop the bubble, sending a shiver through your body that twitched Steve’s fingertips toward you.
He balled his fist and ignored the slip of his soles a step behind yours.
“What the hell happened to you two? It looks like slumming with Chicago’s elite kicked your asses.” His best friend greeted, surprise etched over tired features. She was already draped in silk pajamas, something stolen from Eddie’s closet that didn’t suit her freckled skin.
“Thanks, Rob,” Steve grimaced, sidestepping you to pour two glasses of water from the tap.
“How’d it go? What did your piece bid for?” She ignored him, bouncing on the balls of her feet toward you.
“Oh um…” You rubbed at the wrinkle in your forehead, glancing past her to catch Steve’s gaze.
He flushed, shrugged. He hadn’t even thought to look, his priority to get you out of there safe and in one piece.
“I don’t actually know,” you offered Robin a weak smile, leaning against a marble pillar to remove the dainty straps of your heels.
“I’m pretty sure Cyndi Lauper was there,” Steve pulled her focus from you, taking a long gulp of his water.
Robin shot him daggers. “You’re ’pretty sure’? Steven, Cyndi Lauper has a very specific vibe. I think you would know.”
Steve shrugged and crossed to slip the other glass into your hand. Your fingertips brushed his in the exchange, ice cold. He tried to shake the desperation to warm them and tune back in to Robin’s distraction.
“You don’t think I know Cyndi Lauper’s vibe?”
“No, I don’t. You once saw a man you were positive was Willem Dafoe and it ended up just being some homeless guy.” Robin said.
“Willem Dafoe has a homeless vibe,” Steve shrugged.
“Describe Cyndi Lauper to me.” She counter-argued.
“Old lady, purple hair.”
Robin shot him a dubious look before rounding on you, who had just managed to slip to the edge of the kitchen. “Was Cyndi Lauper there?”
Your face contorted in some semblance of an apologetic smile, and you shrugged. “I don’t remember. Long night, sorry, Robin. I’m actually going to bed. You guys don’t mind, do you?”
Robin shifted her gaze to Steve, wide-eyed, as if to say ‘what happened!?’.
He took careful steps toward you, stopping a few feet too shy to comfort with an extended hand. “Do you need anything?”
Your eyes darkened, tongue darted to lick your lips, but you squared your shoulders and shook your head. “I don’t think I do.”
The words punched him in the gut.
You didn’t need him. You didn’t need him to chase you, to hold you, to comfort you. You didn’t need his protection, his comfort, his care, his kiss, his touch. “Night, Robin.”
“Night, sweetie. Tell me everything in the morning?”
“Promise,” you picked the straps of your shoes off the ground, dress catching the light. “Goodnight, Steve.” The nail hit the coffin.
“Goodnight,” his throat felt as tight as the fist gripping his glass on the counter.
You turned and the room was silent until the soft pad of your feet were followed by the click and lock of Eddie’s bedroom door.
“What the hell did you do!?” Robin hissed, stumbling over the oblong sofa back to meet him.
Steve rubbed at tired eyes and tossed his jacket on the countertop. “Robin, please, it was a really long night…”
“Huh uh. No way. You’re not getting off that easy, Harrington. I could feel it the second you two walked in that door. It’s humid in here now. My armpits are sweating.” Robin rose her arms in the air for emphasis, trying to air out her silken pajama top.
Steve ventured one more glance to the hallway, images from the night surging through his mind at light speed. The soft skin of your back against his fingertips, the way you looked up at him through long eyelashes, the expanse of your throat in mood lighting, the soft opening of your lips as you asked him to kiss you, the chills that wracked through him as Jason Carver approached.
“Jason was there.”
Robin’s gasp sent another course of chills down his spine. She glanced down the hallway too and tiptoed forward. “What happened? Is she okay?”
Steve slumped over the counter, marble cooling the palms of his hands.
Carver’s lips had caressed your knuckles, and it took everything in Steve’s power not to roundhouse kick him back to that Heaven he loved to preach about.
He might’ve done it already if you hadn’t pushed him aside with a gentle nudge, a fierceness in your eyes he’d only seen a handful of times before.
“I’m a huge fan of your work,” Carver said, tongue split, eyes trailing your frame. “It’s shame I didn’t hear about you until now, I would’ve gladly been a patron at your gallery opening.”
Your bare shoulders were squared, somehow composed despite the tick of your jaw, the clench of your fist at your side.
Steve waited in the wings, cracking his knuckles.
“I’d love to commission you for some work in my church. You’ve got a great eye.”
You smirked. “Terrible taste in men though, right?”
Carver glanced to the bodyguard at your side, who stiffened in defense until the preacher seemed to remember who you were actually attached to. “Ah, yes, the long haired freak. Well, I’m not going to fault you for that, beautiful. Maybe you just haven’t been approached by the right man.”
Steve frowned. What the hell was he playing at?
At this, you ventured a matched glance Steve’s direction. “Maybe you’re right.”
Steve glanced back up at his best friend and shook off the memory, unbuttoning his shirt to expose the tank top underneath. “He hit on her, gave her his card, wanted to commission a piece for his Mega Church.”
Robin shuddered. “Fucking creep. Did you… comfort her?” His friend’s eyebrows raised until they disappeared behind heavy fringe.
His mouth felt dry. He poured himself another glass of water.
He thought of the soft pillow of your burgundy lips, wondered if your lipstick tasted of vanilla, or perhaps honey lavender, even hours after your latte. He wondered if your skin was as silky smooth as the fabric that hugged your frame. “She yelled at me.”
Robin frowned. “For what?”
“For not… making a move.” Steve chugged his water.
“On Jason?”
“What? No.” Steve tangled his fingers into his hair. He hadn’t realized he’d been sweating that much. He ventured a glance down the hall and lowered his voice. “She asked me to kiss her. Tonight.”
“Did you?” Robin’s mouth hung open with a little too much excitement.
Steve clenched his jaw and shook his head. His knuckles had gone white with their grip on the counter. He released and stretched.
Robin didn’t say anything. She just turned and left the room, heading across the living room toward the stairs of the loft. They creaked under her weight.
Steve followed, warm kitchen light reflecting back at him from the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city sparkled just beyond. “Robin?”
“Don’t come up here, I’m naked.” She warned, though it was nothing he hadn’t seen before. The girl spent a Halloween night over the toilet topless because her Dwight Schrute costume was too hot.
He frowned and waited at the base of the spiral staircase, watching her shadows splash across a concrete wall. “Robin?”
She returned to the top of the staircase with jeans on and a backpack thrown over one shoulder. She took the stairs two at a time.
Steve’s stomach lurched. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve got a hot date,” she shrugged, shoving past him to get to the jacket he’d left on the countertop.
He caught her wrist, and she wriggled out of his grasp. “Robin.”
She fished in his pocket until she retrieved his house keys.
“Robin,” he warned. “It’s not safe.”
“Hopper’ll keep an eye on me.”
Steve thought he might be sick. He swallowed and glanced once more down the hall.
Robin retrieved his phone and typed in the passcode, her birthday. He barely heard the tapping of her fingers and the sending of a text or two through the thundering of his pulse in his skull.
Then, she slapped the heavy metal to his chest. A knowing smile played across childlike features, blue eyes sparkling. “I’m going to leave now,” she spoke to him like a parent leaving their kid without a babysitter for the first time. “My location is turned on.”
Panic seized his chest.
Robin wrapped her arms around him. “I will see you tomorrow, idiot.”
He patted her back and frowned when she pushed away to see him.
“If you don’t get in there and fuck that beautiful girl’s brains out, I’m disowning you.”
Before he could say another word, before he could utter her name, she was out the door, leaving the two of you alone in the cold expanse of Eddie Munson’s penthouse.
—-
1 Voicemail
Harrington, it’s Hop. Carver made it home. We’ve got a car keeping watch just outside the gates. Joyce says Robin made it safe. I’ve got eyes on her, and I’ve added more security to your current location. Just in case anyone got ideas at the gala. Let me know if you need anything else from me.
Robin: Made it. I know you aren’t inside her yet, so get your ass in there, Harrington.
Steve hadn’t left the living room, hadn’t managed to look anywhere but the sprawling view before him. His hands shook. His stomach crawled with guilt. Guilt that he hadn’t tried harder, guilt that he had made a promise to his friend, guilt that he hadn’t made promises you to.
His knee bounced. He checked his phone again, Robin’s voice echoing in his head alongside yours.
With a deep breath, he launched himself off the couch and took generous strides down the hall to your bedroom door, Eddie’s bedroom door.
His heart sank again, a bottomless pit of grief within him. He trailed his fingertips along the grooves in the wood grain, closed his eyes, pressed his forehead to the door. Maybe if you could read his energy, know what he wanted, you’d open the door and he wouldn’t need to step over the threshold, he wouldn’t need to betray his friend.
His phone rang in his pocket, clear and loud, echoing down the entry hall.
He cursed, loudly, and fished it from the loose pants of his tux, begging for any reprieve in embarrassment.
“Hello?” He hissed, stepping back into the irritatingly echoey kitchen.
“What the fuck happened at the gala tonight?” Eddie snarled.
Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “We ran into Carver. Did she talk to you?”
“She fucking broke up with me.”
Now Steve really was going to throw up.
“It’s eight AM, and I get a call from my girl saying that she’s gotta be honest with me, she’s in love with someone else, and we need to break up. Here I am writing songs about her.” To punctuate his point, something heavy was thrown on his end. A guitar twanged.
Steve winced.
“Do you know who it is?” Eddie’s voice was so soft, Steve thought his heart might explode.
All he could see was his friend lying on the ground, face down, the flash of blue and red behind him.
“Harrington, don’t lie to me, man. We’ve been friends for this long. Man the fuck up and tell me what’s going on.”
Steve swallowed, ran his hand through his hair, tried not to imagine himself swan diving from a broken window. “Nothing happened, I swear.”
“What do you mean nothing happened?” And then a long pause. “Holy Fuck, it’s you, isn’t it?”
Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, where emotion began to swell, guilt pooling in his chest and crawling up his esophagus.
“What the fuck, Harrington? How long has this been going on? Have you fucked her? Holy shit, I’m so stupid.”
“No, no, I haven’t touched her.”
“Are you in love with her?”
Steve’s answer weighed like lead on his tongue. He tried to swallow it down, tried to conjure a lie, but none would surface.
“For how long?” Eddie hissed, too cold.
“Since I met her.”
Eddie stayed quiet on the other end for too long, so long Steve almost said his name to rouse him, but then he spoke. “Stay there as long as she needs. Keep me posted. I’ll tell PR to put out a statement about our breakup. Maybe that’ll get the guy off her back.”
“Eddie,” he sighed.
“Harrington, please. You think I don’t understand? Just wish you’d been honest with me.”
“I know.” Steve chewed the inside of his cheek raw, desperate to push images of their friendship from his mind.
“Just… take care of her. I gotta go.”
Before Steve could say goodbye, the call was dropped.
He cursed under his breath and chucked his phone into the velvet couch.
He fucked this up so bad. How did he do this? How could he ruin years of a friendship, a tight relationship, a career, over a girl with a camera? He’d saved Eddie’s life for what? For this?
Anger surged through him, and he stormed toward the bedroom door, wrapping his fist against it.
You opened it instantly, like you’d been waiting on the other side, face freshly washed in an oversized velour sweatsuit.
“Are you insane?”
What could have been misconstrued as hope on your face quickly turned cold. “What?”
“Don’t you realize you have it made? A multi-award winning millionaire rockstar is madly in love with you. He’d probably leave the business if you asked him to, buy you a cottage in the countryside. He’s writing songs about you. Your photography is reaching so many people. He can give you the life you deserve.” It poured from his mouth before he could stop himself, hands gesturing wildly around the big beautiful penthouse.
He stopped when you planted two palms to his chest in a powerful shove. He stumbled backward three paces. You followed.
“Did you ever think maybe I don’t want any of that? I want to live in Chicago. I want to eat pizza. I want to go to that cemetery and watch the roses grow, and I want,” you shoved him again, “to spend my nights curled up with you. I want to argue about what movie we’re going to watch and whether or not you’re holding me on too tight a leash, which, you are, by the way.”
“Because if I don’t take care of you, you’re going to get yourself hurt!” Steve argued.
“That’s another thing! I’m an adult woman, Steve. I can make my own God damn decisions in life. I’ve survived thus far without you being there to protect me.” Your fists were clenched so tight, Steve had to prepare himself for a swing. Your jaw was clenched, nostrils flared.
“Did you ever think that maybe I want to protect you because it gives me purpose?” He shouted. “That all I’ve ever wanted is to be there for you?”
“Did you ever think that maybe you are so much more than a guard dog?” You yelled back. “You’re kind and you’re funny. You’re sexy. You make everyone around you feel seen and heard, and I’m in love with you, you fucking asshole!”
Steve’s breath was labored in his chest, a wheeze that stung in his throat from the volume of his voice.
You were inches from him now, fists balled into his unbuttoned dress shirt. There was a fire in your eyes that terrified and excited him all at once, the prickle of a threat, the thrill of a fist fight that he hadn’t felt in years. “If I have to ask you one more time…”
You didn’t. Steve gripped your hip and pulled you flush into him, other hand finding and tugging at the hair at the nape of your neck.
A moan slipped from your sweet lips, and he thought he’d come apart at the sound of it.
He pressed his nose to yours and breathed you in for a moment, wriggling under your hot fingertips snaking under his tank top.
“Steve, I want you,” you whispered, eyes closed, lips ghosting his.
Something slid into his periphery, bright red.
He turned his head from yours to find an envelope. It looked like it’d been stuffed under the front door.
In a daze, he pulled your hands from his body and took a few steps forward, a primal fear clawing itself into his chest. He swallowed and picked it up.
HELL HOUND was scratched into the envelope in red ink, barely visible. He peeled it open and a trembling hand removed a plain white card.
Inside was an image from the gala. You were walking with purpose, a smile on your face, hand outstretched to meet someone. Steve was right on your tail, a look of lost puppy love in his eyes. Someone had poked a hole through the center of his forehead and one through your chest.
“Steve?”
He looked up just as the knocking started. No, not knocking, pounding. Thick, heavy banging like something heavier than a fist was being thrown into the door.
You yelped.
“Get in the room,” he pointed. “Lock it. Do not open the door until I tell you to.” The banging got louder, as if some structural damage was taken on the outside.
“Steve,” your eyes were saucers, staring down the door in front of you, frozen in place.
He let out a yell, unable to find his phone in his pockets, and gripped you around the waist, hauling you into the room.
You stumbled, your footing bringing you back to reality. You shook your head. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Yes you are,” he planted a kiss to your forehead. “Lock the door.”
He pulled the door shut and held it until he felt the lock slip into place. “Good girl,” he muttered under his breath and rushed back to the living room to where he’d left his phone.
The crackle of fizzling electronics startled him, and he leapt over the couch for cover. The banging didn’t cease, but he smelled the distinct acrid smoke of a blown fuse.
Steve grabbed his phone and dialed.
It rang twice before Hopper answered. “Yeah, I’ve got a guy on the roses right now.”
“Roses? What roses? There’s a guy here now beating the door down. Get your ass up here. Shit!”
With a blast, the door handle shot across the hallway and clattered to the marble floors.
Steve watched the door swing wide, too wide, slamming into the wall nearest Eddie’s bedroom door. Behind it was a tall man, broad shouldered, something about his curled hair and baseball hat prickled at the back of Steve’s mind, familiarity.
“Where’s the little lady?” The man grinned, slipping his fingers into brass knuckles.
Steve cursed under his breath and squared up.
“I said,” the guy stepped out of the way of the swinging door. “Give her to me.”
He swung, a little wide, good enough for Steve to duck and launch himself into the man’s chest, knocking him off his feet. This guy was sturdy though, harder to clear than you had been.
He took the opportunity to crack Steve’s rib, a solid punch from behind that stole the wind from him.
Steve staggered backward enough to steel himself for another throw, going instead of the guy’s nose. It snapped under his knuckles.
The intruder swung back, blindly.
Steve dodged and rounded for a right hook to the ear.
He dodged too and just managed to clock him once to the mouth with the brass knuckles.
Blood filled Steve’s mouth, metallic and warm. He spat a splatter of red and chipped molars across the marble.
The guy went for a second strike, but Steve backed up.
He slipped, floor slick, head aching.
Fog pooled in from the door, a thin haze of smoke that blurred his vision and stung his eyes.
“Hey,” you called from the entrance to the bedroom.
Steve cursed and spat again.
The man turned to face you with a devilish grin, and Steve took the opportunity to clock him square to the jaw, so hard he felt his knuckles split. His wrist ached from the blow.
Out cold, the man’s heavy body slumped to the floor, blood pouring from his nose and mingling with Steve’s on the marble tiles.
Steve just licked blood from aching teeth and watched you until the police charged, shoving the man into handcuffs.
—-
It’s Hop. Guy’s name is Andrew Burns. He’s had a few priors including arson. Remember that fire up in Milwaukee a few years ago? That guy was involved. Carver’s already lawyered up. Think we got your guy, kid. You two rest easy. We’ll call you in tomorrow for more paperwork.
The steady stream of water soothed his aching muscles. His head throbbed. His knuckles seared under the flow. Blood spilled to the porcelain tub beneath his feet and circled the drain. He tilted his head back and scrubbed at his face.
He’d walked you, hand-in-hand, out of Eddie’s apartment and down the winding staircase, 29 floors, until you saw the flashing red and blue lights cast across the petals of a thousand red roses.
A thousand of them had been delivered to the steps of the building. Every single delivery person was under arrest and awaiting interrogation.
Burns had been taken away in the back of a squad car.
You trembled, wrapped in Hopper’s coat, barefoot, while Steve was checked out by paramedics and given the go-ahead to go home.
Steve swished and spit blood once more into the drain, back stiffening when he heard the distinct click of his bathroom door opening.
“I don’t want to be alone.” You explained, voice muffled by the rush of water, the curtains that separated you.
Steve nodded, swallowed, iron and heat. “Okay.” His voice was hoarse.
He just listened for a minute, wondering where you’d settled yourself and the logistics of tugging his towel from its hanger behind the door.
After a long moment, the shower curtain rings rattled against the rail.
Steve froze, dipping his face under the water because waterboarding himself might be more manageable than the thought of you stepping into the shower behind him.
Gentle fingertips found the bruise on his back, shooting a flash of pain through them, and he grit his teeth, scrubbing at the stubble on his cheeks.
Then, your hands found his ribs, and slowly, you settled yourself against him in a hug.
He felt every curve of you, your bare skin tacky against his back, warm and soft and fuzzy, and he relaxed into your hold, tilting his head back to catch a breath.
You pressed ginger kisses to his shoulder, his back, the base of his neck, just behind his ear.
Your hands found the middle of his chest, circling the patch of hair there before following it downward over his abdomen and between his thighs.
Steve muffled his groan under the water as you touched him, a dream he prayed he wouldn’t wake up from.
Panic squeezed at his insides with your grip, panic that he was imagining this, and he clawed at your wrist to let go.
Then he spun, dangerously quick in a slippery old bathtub, and before you could respond, he had you pinned to the opposite wall, frigid tiles to your back and steam filling up the room.
Your eyes were dark, puffy but self-assured, and your mouth was tilted toward his. “Let me take care of you,” you begged.
He shook his head.
Your chest heaved, breasts perfect in the soft, mid-morning light that poured in from the tiny frosted window. He traced the dip of you hips with his thumbs, delighting in the softness of your skin.
“Please?”
Oh, you were trying to kill him.
Groaning, Steve dropped to his knees in front of you, lifting a leg over his shoulder.
You squawked at being manhandled, but your fingers found his hair, and you steadied yourself.
He placed a kiss to the softest part of your thigh, where the muscle spasmed to hold you aloft.
You whimpered for him, grip on his scalp tightening as he traced your flesh with the tip of his nose, up up up, to place another kiss to your hip bone.
“Can I taste you?” He asked, trailing soft lines across your leg with his fingertips.
You nodded fervently.
“Gonna need you to say it.”
“Taste me,” you demanded, pulling him closer with your leg.
You looked so beautiful like this, staring down at him with your mouth open, every insatiable curve a hill on the landscape.
He dove in to nuzzle you where you needed him most.
Your eyes fluttered closed, head back, back arched. Your grip tightened in his hair, and he moaned into your cunt, sticky sweet.
You gasped, thighs tightening around him, calves flexed.
“Relax,” he muttered into your velvety skin. “I’ve got you.”
You did as he asked, releasing a shaky breath.
He saw the emotion prickle in your eyes, and he reached to take your hand in his. “You’re safe.”
“I love you,” your voice rasped, tangling your fingers with his.
“I love you too,” he muttered into the dip of your knee, your hip, the soft hair at the apex. “You’re beautiful.”
You moaned, making a concerted effort to remain lax in his hold. Breath in, breath out, squeezing his hand as he licked a stripe through your folds.
“Doing so good for me,” he reassured, steadying your hips with a firm grip.
In, out. Your breath shallowed, quickened. You released his hand to balance on the wall behind you.
He spread you open with his thumbs and worked you into a tremble, the rubber band inside himself pulled taut and ready to snap.
You came undone for him as the water turned cold at his back, mewling affirmations. He licked you clean and slipped two fingers from you before standing to embrace you, to kiss salty tears from your cheeks and lips.
“You’re okay,” he said, brushing your hair from your eyes. “I’ve always got you. You’re safe. I love you.”
—-
Hundreds of thousands of long stemmed red roses covered the chapel, lining and fillings the pews on either side of a scarlet carpet.
Steve stood, knees bouncing, beside Robin, Hopper, Lucas. The buttons of his collar were too tight, tie askew.
The music changed, and his stomach filled with nerves as the entire congregation stood at attention, turning toward the open doors.
A flood of sunlight poured in from stained glass windows, casting you and your white dress in technicolor. You were smiling, that same, shy smile like you’d caught him watching you, like you knew this was the happiest he’d ever felt.
You took cautious steps toward him, step after deliberate step, around the roses, still too far. He wanted to leap from the alter to meet you, to say screw all the wedding guests and throw you over his shoulder and run away. He knew that’d make you laugh.
Roses grew in brambles at your feet, curving outward and upward, along the pews. They covered the windows, light pooling in blood red through veined petals.
You picked up your pace, lifting your white satin skirt to run for him, but the room widened between you. You called out for him, reached out a hand.
He looked to his left for help to find Eddie, red-skinned, horned, grinning.
Beside Eddie, a man in a stark white suit lit a match and cried, “Be gone, Devil!”
Steve watched in slow motion as the flames engulfed dried brambles, dead and crinkled petals cast aside became floating embers. The chapel around them filled with smoke and ash.
The aisle split, a seam of molten lava.
You screamed for him, the edge of your dress catching on a candle.
Steve tried to get to you, made to leap over the river of fire, but was held back, vines and thorned tendrils piercing his skin as they pulled him up onto the alter, a Christ of his own making.
He called out your name, watched in honor as the flames engulfed you.
Wreathed in fire, you were suddenly there, in front of him, eyes burning. You grinned with malice. “You couldn’t save me.”
Steve woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat. Afternoon sun poured in through his bedroom window.
You roused beside him, skin just as tacky with his sweat. “S’matter?”
He rubbed at exhausted eyes and blinked himself back to reality, letting the floaters fade to a dirty clothes pile and your SD card on his dresser. “Nothing, go back to sleep.”
You hummed in protest, threading your fingers into the hair at the back of his head. “Talk to me.”
He turned to sweep your hair from your face, planting a kiss to your extended palm. “Just a bad dream.”
“You get those a lot?”
He frowned. “Lately, yeah.”
He didn’t like the understanding in your gaze, the fear that had settled there and hadn’t left for days.
He crawled on top of you, sweeping you into his arm to plant gentle kisses across the bridge of your nose until it crinkled into a smile.
“You’re crushing me,” you laughed.
He nodded, burying his face in your throat to breathe you in.
A vibration startled you both. Steve’s phone went off on the bedside table. With a sigh, he lifted himself from you to answer. “Hello?”
“Steve? Man, It’s Eddie, he… shit, man, I don’t know what to do.” Lucas seemed breathless, frantic.
Steve sat up, and you followed, clutching plaid bedsheets for modesty. “Whoa, Lucas, buddy, slow down. Just tell me what’s going on. Where’s Eddie? Can you put him on the line?”
“No, man. We’re in the emergency room. I… shit, I lost track of him, and he got into some trouble. Big trouble, Steve. Had to have his stomach pumped.”
Steve’s blood ran cold. He stepped out of bed and over to his dresser for clothes, putting it on speaker to step into a pair of shorts. “Is he going to be alright?”
“Yeah. They’re worried about liver failure. Said he’ll never be able to drink alcohol again. Steve, I’m so sorry, man. He just slipped out. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, Lucas. This isn’t your fault,” Steve tried to bat down the nausea of his own guilt. “He’s got a lot of connections out there. I should have warned you.”
“What do I do?”
Steve watched you gingerly searching the floor for your own undergarments. He pulled open a drawer to hand you a t-shirt and sweatpants.
You thanked him wordlessly, terror behind those eyes.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying not to think about what you’d done, what both of you had done to drive Eddie into a bender. He pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “Make sure word doesn’t get out. Not a single paparazzi allowed. I’m going to start calling people. I’ll arrange for a flight back. There’s a rehab facility here he’s been to before.”
“Is he going to want to go back?”
“He doesn’t have a choice.” Steve snapped. “You do not leave his side, you understand me? I’m going to meet you on the tarmac and switch hands so you can fly back to England for the other guys. Text me frequent updates.”
“Copy that, and Steve?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really sorry.”
Steve sighed and looked back at you, trembling in his clothes, glassy eyed, painted in afternoon glow. “I know you are, man. He’s going to be okay.”
—-
TWO DAYS LATER
Lucas: ETA 12:45 PM
Robin: Give Eds a kiss from me. Joyce wants to make sure you guys are still coming for dinner tonight.
Hopper: Be here at 11:30
Steve’s hands sweat, holding open the precinct door to let you in.
You entered, wordlessly, clutching a lavender latte in one hand and the strap of your camera in the other.
The past few days had been tense: stolen glances, bumped hips, no real words exchanged, no meaningful questions asked. You sunk into his couch into clothes that smelled like him, and he sat at the counter, leg bouncing, letting Robin paint your nails or cackle or share her glass of wine with you. After you went to bed, she’d give him pep talk after pep talk and send him into the bedroom.
Steve fell asleep sitting up both nights, arms crossed over his chest, watching the steady rise and fall of your own breath beside him, back to him.
“Hey, kid, how you holding up?” Hopper greeted, more of a grimace than a smile on his mustachioed face.
You smiled back. It didn’t meet your eyes. You glanced at Steve. “Somewhere I can set up my laptop? I have stills to edit.”
Hopper frowned and glanced around the bullpen. “Uh, yeah. Callahan! Get up. Lady needs your desk.”
Callahan rolled his eyes, but dropped his feet from the desktop, tossing an apple core into the waste bin beside it.
You sighed and slumped to the table to pull out your things.
“Trouble in paradise?” Hopper asked, once you were out of earshot.
Steve tongued at his molars, biting back any sarcastic retort that bubbled. “Keep an eye on her.”
“Treating her like a fugitive. How romantic.”
Steve shot him a look. “You arrest Carver yet?”
“Working on it, but this guy knows a trick or two about covering his tracks. Can’t directly tie him to Burns.”
“Need me to beat the shit out of him?”
“Burns? Seems like you already did that.” Hopper grinned, delight behind his blue eyes at the swollen state of Andrew Burns’ face.
“I was thinking Carver.” Steve said.
Hopper poked his chest with a meaty finger. “Don’t even think about it.”
The amount of times Steve had thought about peeling out of bed, driving his car to the suburbs, and taking a tire iron to Carver’s face was unimaginable. But he knew that’s not how the system works.
Steve glanced over Hopper’s broad shoulder. You rested your chin in your palm, expression bored. You didn’t look up. “I’ll be back in an hour, maybe two.”
“What do babysitters run for nowadays?” Hopper harrumphed, arms crossed over his chest.
Steve rolled his eyes. “Keep her safe.”
“Yeah, yeah. You good getting Munson alone or do you want backup? Callahan’s not busy.”
Steve waved him off. “I’m good. I’d rather have as many eyes on her as possible.”
Hopper nodded. “Get out of here. We’ve got this.”
Something sat in the pit of Steve’s stomach, uncertainty, guilt, the sting of knowing he’d failed you, failed Eddie. He took one more glance your direction, stomach churning when he met your gaze.
Sad eyes scanned his face, and you offered the tiniest up-quirk of your lips to settle his stomach.
He nodded goodbye and turned back to the Chief.
“Go.”
With another nod, Steve backed slowly out of the precinct and onto the concrete sidewalks of his city.
—-
Unknown: Your ride share is a black Escalade - license: UFC833
5 New Messages
The car pulled onto the tarmac. The stairwell had been deployed. Lucas waited at the base, phone in hand, long legs bouncing in anticipation.
Steve sighed and thanked the driver, stepping out into the midday sun.
“Hey, man.”
“Hey.” They exchanged a hug, too much history to maintain professionalism.
Steve glanced over Lucas’s shoulder at the open door. “How is he? Do I need to prepare myself?”
“Nah, man, he’s good,” Lucas shrugged. “Just a little paler than usual.” He grinned.
Steve snorted.
“That was really scary, Steve.”
Steve nodded, clapped his friend on the shoulder. “You did great. He’s alive because of you.” The same thing Hopper had told him.
Lucas swallowed, nodded, squared his shoulders. “Shall I get him?”
Steve twirled a finger in the air to get the show on the road.
He waited patiently at the base of the stairs for Lucas to return, holding the rockstar by the under arm while the other man slowly, shakily made his way down the rickety staircase.
“Harrington,” Eddie’s lips pulled back into a toothy grin. The final step was taller than he’d anticipated, and he went plummeting directly into Steve’s arms. “I missed you.”
Steve slapped the man’s back and hoisted him back to his feet. “Missed you too, bud. Shall we take a little car ride?”
Eddie’s smile faltered, watching Steve for any indication that he was disappointed, but Steve had been practicing his poker face for years.
He opened the car door and helped Lucas lift the man inside. The three of them said their goodbyes, and Steve closed the door behind himself, signaling to the driver that it was time to start driving. The man had already signed an NDA.
“That asshole give you this?” Eddie reached a trembling fingertip to poke at the purpled bruise on Steve’s cheekbone.
Steve slapped him away. “Ow, fucker. Yes.”
Eddie snickered. “I’m sorry, did that hurt you?”
“I’ll hit you. I don’t care that your liver’s failing.” Steve threatened.
Eddie’s grin widened. “You know I love it when you play nasty, Stevie.”
Although it felt good to fall back into old routines, banter and sparring matches of the past, that gnawing sensation sunk its way back beneath Steve’s broken ribs. He rubbed at his jaw and glanced sideways at his long-time friend.
“Why’d you do it?”
Eddie’s face fell, like a scolded child, and he slumped further into his seat, leaning his face against the window. “Grow up, Harrington. It’s not always about you.”
Steve grit his teeth and stared out his own window for a moment. “Come on, man. A relapse? Don’t bullshit me. What’s this about?”
Eddie’s legs were fully spread now, and he picked at a rogue string on a hole at his knee. He shrugged. “You remember Chrissy Cunningham?”
How could Steve forget? The girl had introduced them at a party, convinced Steve to knock the guy’s lights out. She’s gotten him his job.
He frowned, trying to figure out the connection. “She gave you the drugs?”
“No, Christ,” Eddie rubbed bloodshot eyes. “I mean, yeah, she did like ages ago. But the other night, I was thinking about her. We fought over her, too, didn’t we?”
Steve scoffed. He would hardly call it fighting over her. He’d never had any real invested interest in Chrissy. He didn’t hate the girl, but he’d never taken her up on her offer to sit on his face for the camera. Eddie’d gotten her seven million views or something outrageous like that.
“I thought she might’ve been the one,” he continued, “before sobriety, at least. She was a firecracker.”
Steve nodded. “She was… something else.” He remembered carrying her from a party once, half-naked, thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He’d left her in the privacy of a loft apartment, not dissimilar to Eddie’s.
“Well, I thought maybe I’d look her up, see if the world had been as good to her as it’s been to me.”
Steve still didn’t understand the connection. He frowned to his best friend, wondering what the odds were Chrissy Cunningham had been in London at the exact same time.
“She’s dead, Steve.”
Steve blinked back at the other man, watching the emotion well. “What?”
“She’s fucking dead. Here, I’ve been looking at this for the past two days.”
Eddie handed Steve his phone and, sure enough, an obituary for the tragic loss of a beautiful young woman smiled back up at him. The photo of Chrissy was taken long before they knew her, hair curled into perfect ringlets, a sundress Steve was positive she’d worn on screen.
A memorial service for her was hosted at…
Steve blinked back up at the photo. The background of which held an industrial, stained-glass Mega Church.
“Did Chrissy ever mention Carver?” He asked Eddie, his frown mirrored in his friend.
“What?” Eddie rubbed at exhausted eyes.
Steve handed him his phone back, gesturing to the clues at hand. “Jason Carver, did Chrissy ever mention him? Did she ever mention an ex-boyfriend? Did she ever ask you to go to church?”
“How the hell would I know? I was high as a fucking kite every time we interacted? Hell, I probably introduced the girl to Special K.” Eddie crossed his arms over his chest. “Holy Fuck. I’m the Devil,” he said as the pieces fit into place.
“Yeah, no shit, numb nuts.” Steve needed to quit hanging out with Robin. “Did you know Chrissy before her cam girl days, before drugs?”
Eddie shook his head. “I don’t know, man. Not in any way I could prove, at least.”
“It’s okay,” Steve said.
“I did this to her,” Eddie nodded. “To both of them.”
“No,” Steve ran his hand through his hair. “You didn’t do anything. These are adult women that can make their own decisions. It’s not your fault Carver is a manipulative psychopath. He probably drove her to you.”
Eddie shook his head, the fear evident in his eyes. It reminded Steve all too well of that night, red and blue flashing lights, the panic coating them both in sweat.
Steve reached across the car to take Eddie’s bony shoulder in his hand. “Hey. None of this is your fault, and I need to hear you say it.”
Eddie swallowed, licked chapped lips. He nodded. “None of this is my fault.”
Steve nodded. “That’s right.”
He looked at his best friend, the man he’d followed for years, the man he’d protected, and said, “I’m so so sorry, Eddie. I should have told you the truth from the start.”
“Moment you met her?” Eddie asked, glassy eyed.
Steve thought of you in your worn leather jacket, sly smile on your face, and nodded.
Eddie sighed. “Dibs on Best Man.”
Steve narrowed his eyes. “Robin?”
“Didn’t try to kill herself to get your attention,” Eddie shot him finger guns and a wink.
Steve punched him in the arm.
“Ow, fuck. I’m fragile!”
—-
Harrington, it’s Hopper. We have eyes all over the city. I dispatched all of the dipshits I work with, and I’m out there too. We will find her. Don’t panic. She went to the bathroom and slipped out when we weren’t looking.
Steve was stepping out of the rehab facility with a heavy-heart and relearned adoration for his friend when he listened to his voicemail.
The car waited, but Steve’s mind was processing a million miles a minute, heart racing.
Hopper would have sent someone to your apartment, to the gallery. He knew you wouldn’t be at either place. You wouldn’t have gone to Eddie’s or back to Steve’s, not when his keys jangled in his pocket.
Steve looked up, triangulating his location, and then he started to run.
Down side streets and back alleys, around fire escapes. He sprinted through this city, the one he called home, the one he’d seen so magically through your lens. He ran until his lungs burned, broken rib causing him to wheeze.
He slowed two blocks from that little cemetery, the mausoleum with the roses. He caught his breath, waited at a light, knowing he needed to calm himself before he got to you, knowing he’d approach to find a frown on your face.
He crossed his arms over his head to stretch his diaphragm. He took a deep breath, two. He crossed the road.
That’s when he saw you. You wore that worn leather jacket, and your camera was pressed to your face. You were cloaked in shadow, sun hiding behind heavy, grey clouds.
He released a sigh of relief, feeling his own smile stretch across his face.
You rested the camera at your side and looked up, across the street, made eye contact with him, frowned, then smiled.
Then, a man approached you. He was tall, lean, wearing a hood. He asked you something. You pointed directions.
Steve took a few strides forward.
A car honked.
He jumped, apologized with a wave, backed back onto the curb.
The car kept rolling.
You were gone.
Steve blinked, heart thundering in his chest, and darted out in front of another car, hip bouncing off the hood.
That car honked too.
He didn’t care. He disrupted traffic, narrowing avoiding cars to cross to the little park where you’d been moments before.
You were gone. The man in the hood was gone.
Steve screamed your name, looking frantically behind wrought iron fence posts and concrete statues.
Then, he saw you. Two hands to the glass of a stark white car, pounding on the windows. A gun was pressed to the back of your head.
Steve ran at a full sprint and reached the car as it peeled away.
---
[A/N: Oops. You got got, y'all. You can all thank Taylor for me being able to write this again. We spent too many nights until 3am discussing our writing. You can also thank Joe. Because girl you know he got some magic shit going on at those shows. Love you all so much! Thanks for sticking around. Hopefully part 4 will be up sooner than 6 months from now. Finger's crossed. Thanks for reading xo -Amanda]
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