Bro chris redflied tags are filled with a whole bunch of nothing not chris related hell half of them aint even Resident Evil related WHERE THE HELL IS THE CHRIS REDFIELD FANFICS AT😭😭😭😭
I WANNA SEE TOE GRIPPING SMUT ABT THAT MAN
HEART WRENCHING ANGST ABT THAT MAN
TOOTH ROOTING FLUFF ABT THAT MAN
NOT PPL YAPPING GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT
....if yall see me in those tags no u didnt one of them was an accident i was too lazy to take it off😭😭😭
it feels like more than a punch to the gut to see the man who's lived in your memories for almost a decade stand in front of you, looking like he never left. good luck navigating the new situation on your hands!
cheating. angst. mature. see notes at end for playlist & additional tags on ao3
You and Sam had only ever been just friends. That was the way you put it when recounting the memories you shared, of course. At this point in time, you’d probably be closer to strangers than friends.
It had been about seven years since you last saw him, or even heard from him. A little bit before you both graduated, you lost contact with him because his mom wanted to move to the base that his father was stationed at. Sam had tucked his own life into a cardboard box and traded it for his little brother’s stability, playing the role of the good son while you became just another ghost to him.
There were no grand goodbyes, just an intimate going away party where you huddled with your friends, frantically whispering about how to exist in a world that didn’t include him anymore. How dramatic at seventeen years old.
You always figured that you were friends that probably met too young, that oddly liked the same things instinctively and never really learned how to cross a line without fear of washing it away forever. Even at seventeen, you were never that delusional; if he had truly looked at you with nothing but friendship in his eyes, you would have felt the coldness of it.
It was always such small things at first. The way you always seemed to know exactly where the other was standing without having to look. Lingering and silly glances when a song came on that you both loved at the same party. Late night conversations that felt like you were saving each other from your own minds; the kind of anger and sadness that only teenagers felt while the rest of the world was asleep, you were there for each other through it. It would always leave you wondering before you drifted off to slumber: is this normal?
After he left, you would occasionally catch up in the hollow way that old friends do; you knew that it was unfair to create a future through distance and thousands of miles away, he was coming to the same conclusion, unbeknownst to you.
Now and then you’d think about him, about how if he still held the same sorrow that he felt back then. About if he ever was able to showcase the love he had for playing guitar, or if the callouses on his fingers just faded away throughout the years. How if you both had the courage, maybe where you’d be at now. But you usually try to wave the thought away before it gets the chance to stick for the rest of the week.
Neither of you ever made a move, and he remained on the other side of the glass of your memory’s museum.
And then of course, life does what it does best; time passes, and the distance between the two of you begins to feel like it's been stretched too far to ever possibly come back together again. All that he is now is a faceless social media account, never posting but as you would later find out, always lurking. Sometimes you’d randomly catch his name at the very top of your viewers list, sometimes leaving a like, sometimes not. It was incredibly embarrassing to admit, even to yourself, to say that you were always looking for it. You still felt a small skip in your chest when you realized that he’d seen something that you put out into the world, his proof of life. Proof of overlap.
You never interacted with it, and it stayed like that for years, suspended in a quiet that unfortunately felt intentional on both sides. It was almost easier to stand in it than to ever break the pact of silence you had unknowingly agreed upon.
So when you hear his laugh, before you even see him, a strong pit builds in your stomach within the matter of seconds.
You feel frozen mid-step through the door, one hand still wrapped loosely around the strap of your bag, your body lagging behind your mind. You can almost convince yourself that you had imagined it as you break the threshold into the party. Someone’s birthday? The reason is amiss to you right now.
Seven years compress themselves into a single moment as you scan the room to find the source, your heart doing something similar to a backflip in your chest. You navigate a sea of familiar faces and half-remembered acquaintances from years ago, but your eyes hunt for one specific frequency.
There he is, leaning against the far wall, a drink held loosely in his hand and head tilted back as he finishes the laugh that pulled you through the door. The sight of him alone hits you like a physical blow to the sternum.
His gaze lifts from the noise, scanning the crowd of people with a casual, bored grace before landing on you. It skims past at first.
And then snaps right back with sudden recognition, like his head was punched in your direction.
For a split second, something raw washes over his features. Stun first. Then a softer, unguarded surprise. It makes your stomach twist.
He smiles.
He smiles and he doesn’t look away because he can’t and you find it incredibly difficult to maintain composure with what feels like hundreds of people shouting your name to mark your arrival. You answer them on autopilot, nodding, laughing where it feels appropriate but it all feels like your tunnel visioned onto one person.
‘Wow’, you think distantly. He hasn’t changed at all. Time has done him a favor and it feels like you should ask for permission to look at him right now. His hair is a bit shorter than before, but his face has filled out; sharp, more masculine. His frame is broader, muscular in a way that makes it difficult to reconcile with the lanky boy he used to be.
You wonder, briefly and stupidly, how many people have been awarded the pleasure of noticing this before you.
You decide to let the moment fly away like always, decide to try to lose yourself in a conversation with a closer friend. ‘I’ll let him come up to me’, you think to yourself. Like you aren’t already bracing for it. After chatting with some of your friends, you catch yourself checking the place he’d been standing, not there anymore. You look away quickly like you weren’t meant to notice his absence.
A hand lands over your shoulder from behind you. Warm.
“No fucking way,” he says, turning to face you a little too close as his hand pulls away. “Is that really you?”
Your hands shoot up to cover your mouth in shy shock, a laugh spilling out as you sheepishly grin beneath them, your heart hammering in your chest like it wants to answer for you.
“Oh my god,” you manage, dropping your hands just enough so he can see you. “Hi.”
Hi. Like you didn’t rehearse this moment in your head a million times without realizing it. Sam laughs at you, shaking his head, eyes fixed on the way your pretty face has matured.
“I thought I was losing my mind, I heard people shouting your name and I thought, ‘no way’. But—!”
He exclaims with his hand motioning towards you as if he’s trying to convince himself you’re not an apparition. Before you can even find the voice in your tightened throat, his arms reach farther in front of you, pulling you into a sudden and firm embrace.
“It’s been way too long! How are you?” You try to keep it cool and normal and totally not desperate but your organs are quite literally buzzing inside of you when you feel his skin touch yours. He pulls back just enough to look at you, but the loss of his warmth is literally detrimental to you, skin humming hotly where he held you.
“Good… good!” He laughs through what feels like a first meeting, “I missed it out here like you have no clue. It’s where I grew up, y'know? I thought it was time to move back.”
You blink, processing the weight of his words. “You’re moving here?”
“I literally just got into town a few days ago,” he says, his voice dropping as he moves closer to you so you can hear him clearly. Invading your personal space in a way that feels desperately familiar, something you’ve seen in your dreams. ”I didn’t think I’d run into everyone so fast— especially not you!”
“That’s amazing,” you manage, trying to swallow the lump in your throat. “I’m really glad to see you.”
The music swells for a perfect second in between the two of you, a song that you had shared between playlists in high school plays and the silence between you suddenly feels dangerously loud. Sam’s eyes drop to your mouth for a fraction of a millisecond, so fast you almost miss it, before he quickly brings a hand up to rake through his hair, clearing his throat.
“You look…” he trails off then laughs softly, rubbing the back of his neck. “You look really good.”
“So do you,” you reply almost automatically, then wince at your desperation. “You look… different.”
“I hope in a good way?”
“In a very good way,” you smile.
Before either of you can say anything that might tip the moment too far, his attention flickers past you, just briefly.
“Oh,” Sam says, like he’s remembering something. “Uh—, I’m actually here with my girlfriend, Penny.”
You honestly feel like you just got shot in the stomach.
He gestures over your shoulder, pointing casually to where he was standing at the other side of the room. You follow his gaze and spot her, you almost can’t believe that you didn’t spot her bright ginger hair amongst all the other heads. She’s standing with a small group, posture easy but watchful. Her eyes are already drifting toward the two of you like she knows she’s being referenced, a soft smile washes over her lips.
“We’ve been together a few years now,” he adds, as if it was an afterthought.
A few years. You nod, swallowing. “Yeah, I remember Penny! We shared a couple classes in school together.”
“Yeah?” he says, a little surprised. “She’s great.” He doesn’t elaborate.
You believe him, you hate that you do.
“Well,” you start, forcing a smile that feels as if it might crack your face, already stepping back, “I’m gonna keep making my rounds and get a drink—”
“—Oh yeah,” Sam nods quickly, “yeah, of course.” He doesn’t argue, his eyes just follow you a little longer than necessary. You can feel them burn into your back as you walk away.
The walk to the kitchen is like navigating a minefield in your state of mind, your smile feels hollow and practiced, but you just can’t shake the phantom weight of the last five minutes. You just reconvened with the boy, now a man, you spent the four years of high school pining for. He didn’t look at you like an old friend, he looked at you like he had been lying in wait too.
For the next hour, you are the master of “rounds”, charming as always and the life of every other five minute conversation you fall into. You play the part of the girl who is doing just great, immaculately. But your internal compass is broken, no matter who you speak to, you’re hyperaware of the coordinates of the blond, broad-shouldered man. You feel like a fucking teenager again!
You catch glimpses of him and the girlfriend through the gaps in the crowd. Sam leans down to whisper something in her ear, a private moment that feels like fate moved your head in that direction so you could specifically feel this pain. You see him pull her in closer when a group of guys walk past them, a domestic gesture so established that it makes you sick.
‘A few years,’ you think, taking the rest of your drink down in one stinging swallow. ‘He was building a life while I was watching a screen.’
You try to dive back into a story one of your closer friends is telling about your senior year, but you don’t think you can take another hour of this without a significantly higher blood alcohol content than you entered with. You feel a strange sense of relief when you look back to the spot and see that Sam is gone.
You tell yourself not to look for him.
“Be right back, need a refill,” you mutter, slipping away. Your eyes lock onto the bottle of tequila abandoned on the edge of the counter, and fill your cup in a flash.
You slip out onto the backyard patio, desperate for a lungful of fresh air that hasn’t already been inhaled and exhaled thousands of times. The night is crisp and temporarily relieves you of the choked-up feeling you’ve had all night. You look into your cup, swirling the clear liquid around, as if it was a Magic 8-Ball, searching for an answer inside of it. The stars burn aggressively bright tonight, icy points of light flickering back at you through the reflection in your drink. You don’t hear the sliding door open.
“Did you end up getting that drink?” Sam’s familiar voice pulls you out of your rumination.
“Yeah,” you say, waving your liquor-filled cup. “Second one, I needed it.”
“Same.”
He steps out from the view of the glass sliding door and next to you, leaving just enough space between the two of you to allow the ghost of time to breathe. He doesn’t look at the sparkling waves of the pool with you, he looks at you, his eyes trace the line of your profile.
“It’s kind of a lot,” Sam starts. “Coming back and realizing everything is the same but different at the same time.”
“I think the ‘different’ part is what’s tripping me up,” you sigh out.
Sam finally turns his head, his gaze heavy and unblinking. “You mean me.”
You crack a pained smile. “Seven years is a long time, Sam. I didn’t expect you to be… frozen in time.”
“I halfway expected to walk out here and see you sitting on the hood of my car,” he admits, voice dropping to a low register that makes your skin tingle. “So if that gives you any insight into how I’m feeling.” Without the crowd to buffer the tension, the air feels thicker than inside, with all the things you never said to him.
Sam lets out a dry, humorless laugh. “I’ve been giving the same speech about moving back here for like, two hours. It’s kind of exhausting. After the tenth time it’s feeling like a script more than my own life.” He pauses, his drink forgotten in his hand, expression sours just enough for you to catch the cracks in his facade. “Penny likes it, though. The homecoming of it all. She thinks it’s romantic.”
Hearing him say her name, in the space you’ve created out here feels like a violation of privacy.
“She seems… stable,” you say, choosing a word that feels far from ‘right’ or ‘nice’ or ‘pretty’. “Like she fits.”
Sam’s grip tightens around his cup, you notice the plastic crinkling under the pressure. He turns his body towards you, his shoulder blocking out the light from the house and trapping you in the shadows with him.
“She’s… yeah.” He trails off quietly, moving his gaze down to the concrete slabs beneath you.
“Happy?” You direct the question to him.
He hesitates.
“Serious,” it sounds like a confession. “It was the plan I came up with.”
“But?”
“Plans aren’t the same as wants,” he rasps, eyes dark with a desperate, terrifying honesty.
He’s looking at you with a hunger and yearning that hasn’t faded in almost a decade; only fermented, turning into something sharp and more intoxicating. You don’t say anything, you can’t. You haven’t even done anything but it still feels like you’re going to get him in trouble. Your eyes meet, gaze dropping to his mouth for a moment before they flicker back to his eyes.
Sam notices, he swallows hard enough for you to see his Adam’s apple bob through the shadows of the backyard. He takes a half step closer, his hand twitching and mind silently going through the battle of reaching out to you vs staying still. But, then the sliding door creaks, someone inside laughs as they walk out to the porch, lighting a cigarette. The man motions toward Sam with a salute, you don’t meet his eyes, you guess they didn’t know each other.
Sam sighs out the tension, jaw setting.
“Do you wanna,” he starts, then stops. Laughs quietly. “Do you wanna go somewhere a little less public?”
“We shouldn’t—”
“I know,” he interrupts. His eyes are pleading. “I just- walk with me?”
You hesitate, ‘no’ sits on the tip of your tongue but your legs are already moving. The guilt is a dense, physical weight in your chest as you follow through the sliding door and back into the party and leave your cups on some random counter. The sudden blast of heat and bass-heavy music engulfs you like a blanket against the chill of outside. Lights are turned down lower than they were before, the party is a blurred kaleidoscope of faces that you know but can’t make out.
Sam doesn’t look back, but he moves through the crowd of people with a focused and quiet urgency. Every time a shoulder brushes yours or someone shouts a greeting in your direction, you flinch, certain that Penny has turned around and is watching how you trail behind her boyfriend like his shadow. Your pulse is a frantic beat in your ears, bouncing off time with the muffled music.
Turning to catch a glimpse of the party you’re leaving behind, you reflexively scan the room for the girl. You find her near the drinks, ginger hair glowing orange under the dimmed lights, her back is towards you as she laughs at something a friend is saying. She looks comfortable and you look like you’re stealing something.
He doesn’t head for the front door or toward the center of the living room. Instead, he guides you toward the narrow hallway that leads to the back of the house, where the bedrooms live. Once you turn the left corner, Sam leads the way walking next to you, his hand not quite touching the small of your back but close enough that you can feel the heat radiating from his large palm.
You both reach the end of the hall, you can tell by the look on his face that he doesn’t know where he’s going, best guess is that the door in front of you is a coat closet. He looks over your shoulder, eyes darting back towards the noise of the party and checking the coast. Without a word, he takes your wrist in his hand, your fingers brush for the first time in God knows how long.
The contact is electric, a jolt that sends shivers straight to your core. He turns the handle and pushes the door open, pulling you in after him. The click of the latch catching feels like the loudest sound you’ve ever heard.
The world is suddenly reduced to six square feet, pitch black with the only light reflecting from the cracks of the doorframe onto his eyes. This space is designed for objects, not people, and certainly not for the two of you, every shift of your bodies causes the metal hangers to clink together like a warning. Not to mention, all the liquor is starting to hit you at once.
You can smell him all around you, it’s a gut punch to realize that your body hasn’t forgotten a single note of him. God, how the fuck do I remember what he smells like?
You hear his breathing, ragged and uneven, matching the frantic rhythm of your own heart beating against your ribs.
“You’re single,” he says and it almost sounds like a whisper, like he needs to hear it out loud. His fingers rub the pulse point of your wrist, a worry stone he’s been using to steady his own racing heart.
“I don’t really love the fact that you’re not,” you reply, voice trembling.
“Neither do I,” he finally admits with no hesitation in his voice, words dropping between you like an anvil.
You let out a shaky breath, your heart warring with your conscience. “Sam, she’s right out there.”
“I’ve known where she’s been every second of the last four years. I can’t remember why that’s supposed to matter right now.”
“Sam,” you breathe out, his name feels like a plea on your tongue. A surrender.
“I know,” you can hear the strain in his throat, the sound of a man who's at the end of his rope. He closes the distance between you, his fingers snake into yours and up to softly hold both your hands. The silence that follows is deafening even against the muffled deep bass of the music outside. In the dark, the air between you feels more than electric, more than fire, more than spiritual, it feels primal and engrained into your being.
“Tell me to stop. Tell me to go back to her, right now. And I swear I’ll walk out the door and this will end tonight and forever.” ‘Oh, so he’s putting the gun in my hand’, you think.
Your faces are illuminated by the soft glow of the lights seeping in through the cracks of the door, you can make out the pain in his face. He can see the way your lips tighten, so as to not let any words out. Your hands slip from where he holds you and attach to the base of his neck, fingers raking into the hair at his nape. He doesn’t even let your hands land before his own latch onto your waist, his grip bruising as he pulls you in closer.
“We’re terrible people,” you whispered, though you didn’t move away. Your back was pressed up against the cold wood of the door, trapped in between the exit and the man who’s been the subject of your dreams for almost the last decade.
“It’s okay,” you’re taken aback by his response. “I’ve spent seven years being good, and I’ve never felt more like a liar than I do in the last hour.”
He searches in your eyes one last time for a reason to stay honorable, but he’s finding none in the way you’re looking back at him.
He doesn’t wait for the green light, he just closes the last inch of agonizing space. When his lips finally hit yours, it’s a collision. The heat of his mouth is overwhelming, his slide of his alcohol-soaked tongue tracing the seam of your lips with a demand that leaves a growing wet spot on your panties. His hands are everywhere at once, one moves to hold one side of your face and the other is splayed wide against the small of your back, his palm so hot through even the fabric of your clothes.
You let out a broken sound, half-sob, half-moan into his mouth and you can hear him moan in response, a sinister smirk plastered against his lips. The force is bruising. His satisfaction bleeds into you like ink on paper, the reckless heat of a man whose guilt couldn’t even be found if the girlfriend walked in right now.
Fingers tighten in his hair, hauling him even closer as if you could somehow merge your skin with his. Your conscience has gone quiet, there is only the friction of his stubble against your skin and the realization that some fires never go out; they only smolder until the abettor begs to come back.
The man wedges a thigh in between both of yours, a large pressure that hitches your breath, and forces you to find purchase against the solid muscle under you. The friction is sensory overload, a blunt reminder of everything you’ve been denied for so long. Meeting his desperation, you push into him hard, hands clawing at his neck as you force your tongue into his mouth.
Sam lets out a wrecked moan, and pushes back onto you just as hard, his body a solid wall of heat that slams you into the corner of the closet. The impact sends a row of heavy winter coats and sweaters cascading around you, the hangers clattering against each other as the wool and leather envelop you, muffling the sounds of the party into a distant buzz. You’re a mess of frantic limbs and open-mouthed starving kisses, in the blind rush to be even closer, Sam’s heel catches on a hanger.
He stumbles back and doesn’t even try to catch himself when his weight shifts, he brings you down with him. Sam hits the carpeted floor first, thud absorbed by the coats that fell, and you land heavily in his lap, straddling his thighs before he’s got the chance to catch his breath. Hands immediately latch onto your hips, his grip punishingly tight, knuckles white as he anchors you to him.
“For me,” he growls through the sloppy kisses,”-you were the one that got away. You were always the one.”
“Sam,” you choke out, head reeling.” We have to… we have to go back out there.”
He doesn’t pull away, instead he buries his face into the crook of your neck, lips attacking the skin and chest heaving against yours. The grip he has on your waist is a tether, refusing to let you fall back into the lie.
“Just… ten more seconds. Give me ten more fucking seconds of being real before I have to go back to lying.”
You know the door will have to open eventually, you know the “good people” you pretended to be are waiting for you out there, ready to be stepped back into like old, ill-fitting clothes. But here in the dark, he is yours.
And somewhere outside the closet, the girlfriend loves a version of him that just died in the dark.
i can't believe i bust this thing out in like, three days? i swear to you all that all that happened was that i had a dream and felt a DEEP need to write this... i love angst so much though im sorry, i'm thinking about doing a part two to this so if you really do enjoy it please let me know!
as always, playlist time! i've included some lyrics this time because it felt like it was needed
self control - frank ocean / (keep a place for me, i’ll sleep between y’all it’s nothing)
flashing lights - kanye west / (in my past, you on the other side of the glass of my memory’s museum, i’m just saying “hey mona lisa, come home you know you can’t roam with caesar”)
pushing it down and praying - lizzy mcalpine / (he is stable, you are deep, i know just how to get what i need)
somebody else - the 1975 / (so i heard you found somebody else, and at first, i thought it was a lie) / (c’mon baby, this ain’t the last time that i’ll see your face)
miffed it - way dynamic / (i risked you, some things seem to never end)
im literally jealous of people who watch tv casually. imagine seeing a dogshit finale and going “damn that blows” and then moving on. why must i be insane.
summary: 500. robin realizes the mistake she made after she did it.
cw: blurb, steve harrington has a big dick, hopper!reader, s5 volume 2 spoilers, established relationship, english is not my first language.
author’s note: here is a blurb of a scene that had me blushing lol @delarivasstuff it’s very much probable that i’ll make something of off this later :)
The room was already too quiet.
Not the comfortable kind — the kind that came after near-death experiences, bad coffee, and too many hours spent pretending everything was normal again.
Everyone was scattered around the WSQK basement: Steve slouched on the couch, Robin pacing with nervous energy, Hopper hovering near the counter like he didn’t trust furniture anymore.
And you —very stupidly— were sitting next to Steve.
His arm was around your shoulders, thumb tracing absentminded circles against your sleeve.
It was grounding. Familiar. Safe.
Until Robin Buckley opened her mouth.
“Steve hears that all the time and goes in anyway” she said suddenly, hands gesturing wildly as usual, “Don’t you?”
Steve groaned.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
She grinned.
Oh no. That grin meant destruction.
“I’m just saying,” she continued, turning to you two to emphasize, “I hear you both very frequently”
Silence.
Absolute. Deafening. End-of-the-world silence.
Your brain short-circuited.
Steve froze like someone had unplugged him. His ears went red first. Then his neck. Then his whole face, like embarrassment was spreading in real time.
Hopper blinked once.
Twice.
Then slowly turned his head toward you.
“…I don’t like this conversation,” he said flatly.
You felt your soul leave your body.
Dustin, sitting cross-legged, looked between Robin and Steve with pure, horrified curiosity. “Is that, like… something people just say now?”
Robin clapped her hands together. “Wow, okay, wow. I forgot there were parental figures present.”
Steve finally found his voice.
“Why would you say that?” he demanded, mortified. “Why would you say that in front of them?”
You covered your face with your hands, laughing despite yourself.
“I’m literally related to Hopper,” you mumbled through your fingers. “This is my worst nightmare.”
Hopper pointed at Steve without looking at him. “You. Harrington. I don’t want to know anything about you and my niece.”
Steve squeaked. “Trust me, sir, I don’t want you to know either.”
Dustin, still confused, squinted at Steve.
“…So is Robin right or—”
“DUSTIN!” three voices yelled at once.
Robin finally seemed to realize the chaos she’d caused. She winced. “Okay, in my defense, I forgot Steve had a girlfriend and authority figures.”
Steve dropped his face into his hands.
“I hate you,” he muttered.
You leaned into his side, whispering, “For what it’s worth… impressive confidence, Buckley.”
He shot you a betrayed look.
“You are not helping.”
Hopper cleared his throat loudly.
“Alright. New rule. Nobody talks about Steve’s—” he gestured vaguely, “—anything. Ever again.”
Robin raised her hands in surrender.
“Fair. Fair. Trauma bonding gone wrong.”
Steve exhaled, still bright red, and squeezed your shoulder gently.
“Please,” he murmured, “never let me forget this.”
You smiled up at him, eyes warm, teasing but affectionate. “Oh, I absolutely will.”
And across the room, Robin Buckley grinned — proud, unapologetic, and fully aware she’d just created a memory Steve Harrington would never emotionally recover from.
summary: steve and his girlfriend pick up dustin to go to a christmas dinner, but they can’t stop arguing.
a/n: MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! i wrote this at 2:30am bc i couldn’t sleep, so it’s rushed, lazy and not proofread but i hope you all enjoy! i have to wait until the last after christmas to watch season 5.. pray for me all. love you!
“if you could stop being so bitchy for once just drive—”
“well y’know, an apology every once in a while is nice.”
dustin could scream.
it felt like the two of you never stopped arguing with each other,
dustin was close with you both, some people thought it was weird that he was such good friends with people that were four years older than them, but he definitely knew you two well enough to conclude that putting two incredibly sarcastic and stubborn people in a relationship, isn’t the best idea.
“i’m not going to apologize for doing nothing wrong!” you scoffed
“oh, but i do?” steve grumbled in return, “seriously, if you’d just me—”
“oh my god, if you’d keep trying to explain yourself i’m gonna rip my ears off.”
the argument had started before dustin even entered the car, he didn’t know what it was about, but he was so used to it by now that he knew it was insignificant.
“i’ll rip my own ears off if the two of you don’t shut up! for fuck sake!” dustin yelled over the both of you, shutting you up instantly.
“alright, alright, henderson. no need to raise your voice, we’re right here.” steve murmured, taking off the parking brake and pulling out of the driveway.
the car ride was silent aside from yours and steve’s mumbled complaints when the other one did anything;
you’d change the radio station and steve would scoff,
steve would go a little bit too fast, “easy on the gas there, princess.” you scowled, glaring at him,
dustin had enough of this, it was constant.
he knew you two loved each other, steve gushed about you for hours it was truly exhausting on dustin’s part.
anytime the two of them went anywhere steve would talk about you, tell him stories, say “she’d like this.”, as if dustin had never met you.
you were similar.
steve never failed to make you blush, that was when you weren’t bickering, you were always close to him, fixing his shirt or his hair, laughing at all of his awful jokes.
you said his name a lot when talking to him, as if he wasn’t aware of it himself. something about the way his name felt when leaving your lips made you giddy.
“so what happened this time?” dustin asks, breaking the silence.
you’d almost jumped at his voice, “what?”
steve was almost at the byers’ house.
“you guys gonna keep throwing subtle jabs at each other throughout supper?”
the three of you, along with everyone else, had been invited to the byers’ house for a little christmas dinner.
you looked almost embarrassed, steve stayed stoic.
“sorry, dustin.” you mumble, turning back to face him in the backseat.
“maybe apologize to each other so we can have a normal christmas.” dustin complains, folding his arms over his chest like a child who couldn’t get their way.
steve finally spoke up, “i didn’t even do anything—”
“that’s not the point though!” you argued,
the second steve spoke, it came back.
“stop getting mad, and just talk!” dustin scolded.
the two of you stayed silent once again.
eventually, you took a deep break before speaking, “you made me feel stupid and that’s what i was trying to tell you. you always get so bitchy and defensive. it’s—”
“i don’t get defensive, i just feel like you’re not—”
“steve!” you and dustin both spoke up to silence him.
his brows furrowed and his mouth opened to defend himself once again, but he realized he exactly what he’d just done and backs off.
“yes, i got annoyed with you. i’m not gonna lie, you piss me off quite a bit,”
steve scoffs.
“but that’s not to say i’m mad at you.”
steve pulls into the driveway, and dustin take scoff his seatbelt, “you two, talk about this. don’t come inside if you’re still mad, nobody likes a grinch.”
dustin slams his door and leaves you two alone again.
“i love you, steve. i really do.”
steve sighs and looks over at you, tugging at the neckline of his knitted christmas sweater, “yeah, yeah, i know.”
“but sometimes you’re a dick, and sometimes you’re dumb,”
“hey! what the—”
“for lack of a better word!” you rebuke, you take a second to try to word your feelings, “a lot of times you unintentionally ignore my feelings. i think it’s… just hard for you to understand that i feel things differently than.. you do?”
your words sound like an offering, like you’re giving him your interpretation of his perspective.
steve’s brows are furrowed and his shakes his head, “okay, but i don’t ignore you…”
“ignore was probably the wrong word.” you admit.
steve sighs and adjusts his body to face you, one arm resting on the steering wheel. “but.. yeah, i think i get what you’re saying.”
he sounded almost sheepish.
“i never try to… y’know, understand you.” he runs a hand through his hair.
he stays quiet, he has so much to say yet can’t form any words.
he’s embarrassed because he knows your right, he gets defensive because he doesn’t understand.
he feels like a fool.
“you know i love you, right?”
you sigh at his words. of course you knew that, he’d never been so open about something in his entire life. he’d talk about you to strangers if given the chance, he had.
a customer came into family video and asked for recommendations, steve had basically recited your list of favourite movies and rambled on and on about how much you liked them.
robin found it embarrassing yet sweet and told you about his deep devotion to you.
he showed you his love in many ways,
he told you. he was poetic without trying, a true lover at heart. that was something body could take away from him.
he showed you through the way he held you, the way he treated you. no matter what he did he was gentle with you, he showed you a certain softness that he’d never had with anyone else, it was something he didn’t even realize.
you were steve’s world, he’d sacrifice his life for you and you knew it.
truthfully it scared you that someday it may come to that.
but, steve knew you’d do the same.
“of course i know that. i never doubt it, ever.” you reassure.
steve let’s out a small breath and nods, “i’m sorry.”
he looked almost helpless, pleading as he said those two, simple words.
“it’s okay—”
“no, no, but it isn’t,” he interrupted, “i’ve been a lousy boyfriend and it’s always making us argue.”
you felt a bit bad, “it’s mostly just small arguments…”
“still, an argument is an argument and i don’t wanna have that with you. i’ll be better, baby. i promise,” he’s almost desperate, like he’s trying to convince himself.
“if i ever make you feel unheard again, just slap me, yell at me, something. i need you to know that i don’t wanna be a dumbass when it comes to you. i wanna know you and understand you, better than i already do. i’m sorry, im so sorry.”
you were truthfully shocked by steve, you’d never expected this kind of behaviour over a few small, not serious arguments. you were almost afraid to admit the huge impact it had.
“oh steve,” you sigh, “what did i do to deserve you?”
steve give you a small smile, eyes begging for the forgiveness he’d already been granted.
steve leans in slowly, asking for permission to kiss you, which you grant by closing the distance.
his kiss is filled with love, his lips gliding against yours perfectly, like a snowflake falling into sequence amongst a crisp, sheet of fresh fallen snow.
“i love you,” he says between his slow, passionate kisses. “so fucking much.”
“i love you more.” you smile against his lips.
he gives you one final kiss and pulls away, holding your hand and rubbing it gently. “i promise you, you don’t.”
the two of you sit in that comfortable silence for a few minutes before steve glances down at your hands, “we should probably go insi— hey, that’s the bracelet!”
steve lifts up your hands and examines the small bracelet he gave you earlier today as a christmas gift, “you like it?”
“steve, of course i like it. it’s from you.”
“you’re not just saying that?” he asks, looking down at you.
you laugh and shake your head, pulling him in for another kiss. “i really really like it, stevie.”
“good,” he smiles into the kiss, “cause robin helped me pick it out and she was being all weird about it and distracted me with something else and i worried i bought the wrong bracelet but—”
“you’re cute.”
steve grins at you and winks, opening the car door and stepping out.
you follow his action and do the same, walking over to his side where he pulls you in for a hug,
“man, we probably owe dustin our whole life savings for that. kid should be a relationship therapist when he grows up.” you tease,
steve laughs loudly and nudges you, “let’s just hope he won’t hold it against us next time he needs something.”
“he absolutely will, you know that.”
steve shrugs and smirks at you, toying with your hair, “yeah, yeah. it’ll have been worth it though.”
he winks at you, looking you up and down. you scoff and gently push him away, beginning your walk to the front door.
“i must’ve been on the top of santa’s nice list because i got exactly what i wanted for christmas.” steve hums, still standing in the driveway.
you turn to face him and hold back a laugh, you already knew this would be the corniest thing he’s ever said, “yeah? and what’s that?”
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