Closer
Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader
Summary: Steve can't go more than a few feet without touching you
A/N: Based on THIS request, really enjoyed writing this tysm for sending it in lovely! Hope you all enjoy your day 🤍
Steve had never been subtle about it, not once, not since the very beginning.
It started small. A hand on your knee at Family Video when Robin wasn't looking. His fingers finding the hem of your sleeve while you both stood in line at the store, tugging you half a step closer like the eight inches between your shoulders was an insult he couldn't let stand. You used to tease him about it, call him a golden retriever in a person's body, ask him if he'd been starved for affection as a child, whether his mother had held him enough. He'd always laugh it off, shrug one shoulder, say something like "can't help it, you're warm" as if that explained anything at all.
But three months into actually dating him, you'd stopped being surprised by it. You'd started building your whole life around the fact that Steve Harrington did not know how to exist more than two feet away from you, and somewhere along the way, without really deciding to, you'd stopped minding.
Tonight was a perfect example.
You were sitting on the couch in his living room, feet tucked under you, a bowl of popcorn balanced on the cushion beside you, and a rerun of some sitcom playing low on the TV. Steve had disappeared into the kitchen fifteen minutes ago to grab drinks, and you'd made the mistake of thinking that meant you'd have the couch to yourself for a minute. You should have known better.
He came back with two cans of soda, set them down on the coffee table without a word, and then instead of sitting beside you like a normal person with a normal amount of respect for personal space, he hooked an arm behind your knees and pulled.
"Steve-"
"Shh, m'watching the show," he said, entirely too pleased with himself, as he settled back into the corner of the couch and arranged you across his lap like you were something he'd been missing all day. Your legs draped over his thighs, his arm slung loose and heavy around your waist, his thumb already tracing slow circles against your hip through your shirt.
"You have your own cushion," you pointed out, even as you let your head tip against his shoulder, even as your body melted into him without your permission. "An entire couch, actually. Three cushions' worth of couch."
"Don't want the couch." He said it like it was obvious. Like you were the one being unreasonable, and he pressed a kiss to the crown of your head to punctuate it, like that settled the matter completely. "Want you."
"You're ridiculous."
"You like it."
You did. That was the annoying part. You liked it so much that you'd stopped fighting him on it weeks ago, had started just automatically curling into whatever space he made for you the second you sat down anywhere near him. It had become instinct. His hand found your knee, and your body leaned. His arm opened, and you filled it.
"Popcorn," you said, nodding toward the bowl now stranded on the empty cushion where you used to be sitting.
Steve reached for it without letting go of you, stretching his whole torso sideways in a way that had to be uncomfortable, just so he wouldn't have to loosen his grip on your waist even for a second. He grabbed the bowl, resettled, and held it out for you like a peace offering.
"See? Problem solved. Didn't even have to move you."
"You could've just let me get it."
"Could've," he agreed, popping a piece of popcorn into his mouth, entirely unbothered. "Didn't want to."
You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling, and he caught it, he always caught it, always noticed the exact second your sarcastic annoyance cracked into fondness, like he had a radar built specifically for your tells. He grinned back at you, all dimples and self-satisfaction, and dropped another kiss against your temple before turning his attention back to the TV like nothing had happened at all.
This was just how it was. How it had always been, really, since the very first week you started dating, when he'd shown up at your house to pick you up for a movie and ended up sitting so close to you on your own porch steps that his whole side was pressed to yours, his knee bouncing against your knee, his hand finding yours before you'd even said hello. You remembered thinking, even then, oh, he's going to be like this. You just hadn't understood the full scope of what "like this" meant.
It meant that grocery shopping took twice as long because Steve refused to push the cart from a normal distance, he'd walk close enough that his hip bumped yours every few steps, one hand permanently resting somewhere on you, your shoulder, the small of your back, the curve of your waist, like he needed the physical confirmation that you were still there even in the cereal aisle.
It meant that when you sat at the kitchen table to do anything, bills, homework, just existing with a cup of coffee,Steve would materialize behind your chair within minutes, arms draped over your shoulders, chin propped on the top of your head, breathing you in like he'd been deprived of your presence for hours instead of minutes.
It meant car rides where his hand never left your thigh, movie nights where you functionally became a Steve-shaped blanket, mornings where he'd wake up before his alarm just to pull you tighter against his chest before he had to actually get up.
You loved it. You loved it more than you probably should admit out loud, because admitting it just made him worse, made him bolder, made him lean into it even harder, like your affection was fuel and he intended to run on it forever.
The popcorn bowl went empty eventually, and the sitcom rolled into another episode, and you felt yourself getting sleepy against his chest, lulled by the steady thump of his heartbeat under your ear and the absent way he kept stroking his thumb along your arm.
"Bed?" he murmured against your hair, feeling you go soft and heavy against him.
"Mm. In a minute."
"You said that ten minutes ago."
"I meant it then too."
He laughed, quiet and warm, and you felt it rumble through his chest more than you heard it. "C'mon," he said, shifting beneath you like he meant to get up, which meant you had to get up too, which you protested with a groan that made him laugh harder.
"Carry me," you mumbled, only half joking.
You expected him to laugh that off too. Instead, he just said, "okay," like it was the easiest request in the world, and scooped you up before you could argue, one arm under your knees and the other around your back, hauling you against his chest like you weighed nothing at all.
"Steve, I was kidding-"
"I wasn't."
You looped your arms around his neck, giving up the fight before it even started, because honestly, this was exactly the kind of thing you'd stopped being able to resist. He carried you down the hall and into his bedroom like it was nothing, like your weight in his arms was just another way to be close to you rather than a burden, and set you down gently on the edge of the bed only so he could immediately climb in after you.
"You know," you said, as he tugged the blankets up and pulled you flush against his side, tucking you into the curve of his body like you were made to fit there, "sometimes I forget what it's like to sleep without a limb wrapped around me."
"Good," Steve said, unbothered, pressing his face into your hair. "Don't want you remembering."
"That's a little concerning."
"It's romantic."
"It's clingy."
"It's romantic clinginess," he corrected, and you could practically feel the grin against your scalp. "There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"Yeah. Clingy is bad. This is-" he paused, like he was actually thinking about it, actually trying to find the right word for something that, to him, probably didn't need explaining at all. "This is just wanting to be near you. All the time. Every time. That's not clingy, that's just-" another pause, softer this time, and you felt him press a kiss to your shoulder. "That's just how I feel about you."
You went quiet at that, because it was hard to argue with something so plainly, unguardedly sweet, and Steve, for all his bluster, for all his teasing and easy grins, had never been shy about telling you exactly how he felt once he'd found the words for it.
"Okay," you said softly, tangling your fingers with his where his hand rested against your stomach. "Romantic clinginess it is."
"Knew you'd come around."
"I didn't fight it that hard."
"You never do." He sounded pleased about that, smug in the quiet, satisfied way that meant he already knew he'd won before the conversation had even started.
You drifted off like that, wrapped up in him, and somewhere in the haze before sleep actually took you, you thought, not for the first time, that you didn't think you'd ever get tired of it. Of him needing to be close. Of the constant, steady press of his hand somewhere on you, like a promise he kept renewing every few minutes without ever having to say it out loud.
The next morning, you learned there was apparently no boundary Steve considered too far when it came to being near you, because you woke up to the sound of the shower running and an empty space beside you in bed.
You blinked against the morning light, stretched, and padded into the bathroom half-asleep, only planning to brush your teeth before he was done. Except when you pushed open the door, you found him already in the shower, steam curling up over the top of the curtain, and, apparently, talking. To no one. Or, well, to you, except you weren't in there yet.
"and then Robin says, completely deadpan, that the guy's been trying to return the same broken VCR for like a month, and I'm just standing there like, sir, we've explained this four times-"
"Steve?"
The water shut off mid-sentence. "Oh! Hey. You're up." He poked his head around the shower curtain, hair plastered to his forehead, grinning like he hadn't just been narrating his workday to an empty bathroom. "Get in, I was just telling you about the VCR guy."
"I wasn't in here."
"I know. I was gonna tell you the second you woke up anyway, figured I'd get a head start." He said this with the total confidence of a man who saw absolutely nothing strange about rehearsing a story for an audience that hadn't arrived yet. "C'mon, water's still warm."
You laughed, actually laughed, leaning against the doorframe. "You could've just waited five minutes."
"Could've," he agreed, echoing his own line from the night before without any apparent irony. "Didn't want to."
"You're unbelievable."
"You love it."
You did, again, unfortunately, hopelessly. You stepped out of your sleep shirt and climbed in after him, and he made a small, satisfied sound low in his throat, the kind that meant there, that's better, as he pulled you under the spray with him, hands settling at your waist like they belonged there. Which, at this point, you supposed they did.
"So the VCR guy," you prompted, tipping your head back to wet your hair.
"Right, so-Robin's dealing with him, and this whole time I'm restocking shelves, and I hear her say-" and he was off again, recounting the story with the same enthusiastic, overly detailed energy he brought to literally everything, hands moving as he talked even though one of them never actually left your body, tracing absent patterns against your hip while he gestured with the other.
You listened, half paying attention to the story and half just watching him, the way his eyes lit up telling even the most mundane story like it was the funniest thing that had ever happened to him, the way steam curled around his stupid, perfect hair, the way he kept touching you like it was as automatic as breathing, like he genuinely could not tell a story, could not exist in a room with you, without some part of his body in contact with some part of yours.
"You're not even listening," he accused, catching you staring.
"I am. VCR guy. Robin. Deadpan."
"Uh-huh." He didn't sound convinced, but he also didn't seem to mind, tugging you a half-step closer under the water like your attention span wasn't really the point anyway. "You just like watching me talk."
"Maybe."
"That's fair. I'd watch me talk too. I'm very charming."
"So humble."
"I contain multitudes."
You laughed again, and he kissed you then, unhurried, water running down both your faces, his hands sliding up from your waist to cup your jaw like he wanted to hold your whole face in his palms. When he pulled back, he was still smiling, still close enough that his forehead rested against yours, and you felt that same warm, sinking feeling you always felt when he looked at you like that, like proximity to you was some kind of relief he was constantly chasing and constantly, finally, getting to have.
"I like this," he admitted quietly, thumb brushing your cheekbone. "Mornings like this."
"Mornings where you barge into my showers?"
"Mornings where I get to be near you before either of us has to go be normal, functional people who have jobs and responsibilities and can't just-" he gestured vaguely between the two of you, "-do this. All day."
"You'd get bored of me eventually."
"No I wouldn't."
"Steve."
"I wouldn't," he said again, more firm this time, like the idea genuinely offended him. "I've had, what, four months of getting to be around you basically constantly, and every single day I just want more of it. That math doesn't really support your theory."
You didn't have a response to that, not really, not one that wouldn't come out sounding as soft and gone-for-him as you actually felt, so instead you just leaned up and kissed him again, slower this time, and felt him smile against your mouth like he'd won some argument you hadn't realized you were having.
Later, after the shower, after breakfast, after Steve had spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to talk you into calling in sick to work "as a joint activity, together, as a couple" you ended up back on the couch, this time with your laptop open, actually trying to get some work done. You'd made it three minutes before Steve flopped down beside you, then five before his head found its way into your lap, then approximately ninety seconds after that before he'd rearranged himself entirely so his whole body was stretched along the couch with his head pillowed on your thigh, watching you type with the unblinking focus of a man who had absolutely nothing better to do.
"You're staring," you said, without looking up.
"I like watching you concentrate. You get this little crease." He reached up and pressed his thumb lightly between your eyebrows. "Right here."
"That's not going to help me finish this email."
"I'm not trying to help you finish the email. I'm trying to be near you while you finish the email. Two different goals."
"They feel like competing goals."
"They're not. I'm very good at multitasking." As if to prove it, he tucked his face against your stomach and threw one arm over your legs, effectively pinning you to the couch, and went suspiciously quiet.
You managed another two sentences of your email before you gave up, setting the laptop aside on the cushion beside you, because there was truly no competing with a Steve Harrington determined to be held. You slid your fingers into his hair instead, and felt him practically melt beneath your hand, a low, contented sound escaping him that you felt more than heard.
"See," he mumbled, eyes already closing, "much better use of your time."
"You're going to get me fired."
"I'll support you. We'll live off my Family Video paycheck and your unemployment checks. Very romantic."
"Very stupid."
"Same thing, honestly."
You laughed, and scratched lightly at his scalp, and watched the tension bleed out of his shoulders, watched him go soft and pliant under your hands the way he only ever did with you, like all that constant, restless need to touch and be touched finally quieted the second he actually had what he wanted. It made something in your chest ache, a little, in the good way. The way that meant you understood, finally, fully, what he'd been trying to tell you the night before.
It wasn't about clinginess, not really. It was that Steve Harrington had spent a lot of his life feeling like an afterthought to somebody, to parents who were never around, to a version of himself he used to be, popular and hollow and desperately unseen underneath all of it, and now he had you, had someone who wanted to be near him just as much as he wanted to be near you, and he wasn't ever going to take that for granted. Wasn't ever going to let an available inch of space go unfilled if he could help it.
You could live with that. Honestly, you thought, running your fingers through his hair while he sighed contentedly into your lap, the sunlight from the window catching gold in the mess of his hair, the laptop forgotten beside you, the whole slow lazy stretch of the day ahead of you,
You could live with that forever.
"Hey," Steve said suddenly, cracking one eye open to look up at you.
"Hey."
"C'mere." He tugged at your legs, an unspoken request, and you slid down the couch until you were lying alongside him instead of above him, tangled together in the narrow space, his arms wrapping around you like there was nowhere else in the world either of you needed to be.
"This is not going to help my email situation," you murmured into his chest.
"Email situation," he repeated, already sounding half-asleep, one hand tracing slow, absent patterns along your spine. "Sounds fake. Never heard of it."
"Steve."
"Five more minutes." He pressed a kiss to your forehead, then your temple, then settled his chin against the crown of your head with a sigh so deeply satisfied it made you smile against his collarbone. "Just wanna hold you for five more minutes."
You knew, from experience, that five minutes with Steve Harrington had a way of turning into an hour, an afternoon, an entire day spent tangled together on the couch with nowhere in particular to be. You knew you'd let it happen anyway, every single time, because there was something almost embarrassingly easy about giving in to him, about letting yourself be held exactly as much as he needed to hold you, about matching his want for closeness with your own, quieter but no less real.
"Okay," you said softly, closing your eyes, feeling his heartbeat steady and warm beneath your ear. "Five more minutes."
You both knew it was a lie. Neither of you minded.
