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dottydoesstuff · 3 months ago

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You said you were gonna grow up (then you were gonna come find me) ⭐︎ S.H.

⭐︎ Warnings: slight angst, mutual pining, idiots in love, childhood best friends to lovers, allusions to cheating (but not really), mentions of sex, mentions of unrequited love, hurt/comfort

⭐︎ Summary: You and Steve used to be inseparable, best friends since childhood, you shared something special, something rare. You promised each other forever but... promises are never to keep... right?

⭐︎ Pairings: Steve Harrington x fem!reader

⭐︎ Word count: 10k

⭐︎ Author's note: To my Steve girlies who have read (and still mourn) I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss -- in the middle of writing this little oneshot, I noticed that Steve and reader reminded me of someone, and then I realized that it's basically Steve and Cheer in a different universe (if Steve hadn't fucked up as badly as he did). This is... what they should have been.

Also shoutout to @hellfire--cult for inspiring me to finish this oneshot (finally) and @ghost-proofbaby thank you for picking a title for me, and for your sweet words about this little piece, you're both the bestest

⭐︎ my library

divider by @saradika (I screamed when I saw the folklore dividers)

♡

The smell of weed and smoke lingers in the air, music blares through the house and bounces off the walls, laughter and giggles come from every corner, conversations he couldn’t care less about yet listens in on because what else is there to do at a party?

Steve once found himself at home in such gatherings, now he feels nothing but bored as he watches the people instead of interacting with them like he once used to do.

He used to be on the dancefloor, at the keg stand, pressing some girl against the wall and kissing her neck before taking her upstairs into one of the empty bedrooms – but those days are long over and they are not to be missed, not in the slightest.

Now he is sitting out in the backyard of some stranger’s house, sipping on a lukewarm soda and waiting for Robin to get sick of this party so he can take her home before going to his empty house and crashing out on his new bed. Seeing as she’s jumping around on the dancefloor with Vickie, it doesn’t seem like she'll want to leave anytime soon.

A sigh falls from his lips and he slumps his shoulders in boredom.

He could be socializing, talking to girls, flirting with them, with the ones who keep waving at him and sending him suggestive, overly sweet looks – he isn’t interested. The past few months were wasted ones, disastrous dates, one or two meaningless hookups, girls who weren’t interested in him but only in sex – that was his reality and he didn’t want that anymore, he doesn’t want that anymore, he wants something real, he wants to feel something, he wants someone to want him for more than just that one thing, he wants a connection, a bond, he wants… you.

Steve’s lips part, his eyes lighten up, glowing just like the stars in the night sky, he sits up straighter and cranes his neck to see you better, his heart skipping in a way it hasn’t in a long time, he forgot what it feels like… but of course you are the one to remind him of the way his heart can skip and flutter when he feels something, you have always been the one, the only one.

Not even Nancy could make him feel half of the things you could make him feel.

But he blew his chances with you – the only chances that ever mattered.

He hears your laughter, your beautiful giggles that he missed every day since you left, even from all the way here, he can hear the voice that accompanied him throughout most of his life… until it didn’t.

You were his best friend, the only friend that mattered until he found Robin. You were with him from the moment your mothers introduced you both to each other, joined at the hip, you went through it all together, different hobbies, different friend groups, first crushes and rough school days, arguments with so called friends, first parties, first drunken nights, you went through so much and you did it all together, you experienced everything together.

Steve would sneak into your room, late at night, he would use the vines on the wall as a ladder, no matter how many times you scolded him, he still climbed up because he wanted to see you so desperately, even when he spent the whole day with you, it just wasn’t enough, you’d spent the nights whispering and talking about the newest gossips, sometimes he would paint your nails or braid your hair, sometimes you would just lie next to each other and listen to some new album and sometimes you would cuddle and fall asleep in each other’s arms, it was a regular thing, it was something constant.

But then something changed, you both got curious, you both started acting upon feelings that have been there for a long time already, feelings that were no longer innocent and childish turned into something more.

You were each other’s first kiss, it was nothing more than a peck at first… and then it was a second and a third before you kissed for real. And then, it was just another regular thing, you started cuddling and kissing every night, smiling and giggling through it all, holding hands and pulling each other closer and closer.

Those innocent kisses turned into makeout sessions and those turned into your first time.

It was his first time and yours, you shared it with each other, like you shared everything else together.

It was filled with nervous giggles, blushing cheeks and shaky touches, you were both scared to do something wrong but you assured one another and you both did your best, he took care of you and you of him. It was slow, it was soft, it was perfect. A night he will never forget.

Nothing ever came close to this moment, nothing came ever close to how you made him feel.

Steve should have asked you out after that night, he should’ve, but he didn’t, he chickened out, he got scared and he left the next morning without saying goodbye. That was his biggest mistake.

To this day, he doesn’t know how you felt about it all, you never spoke of this night again, you never mentioned it again, you both acted like nothing happened, you continued your friendship like you didn’t ruin it.

He kept coming over, everything stayed the same… but it didn’t.

You started slipping away from him and he was too busy to notice, he became captain of the basketball team, girls started noticing him, he started going on dates even though you were all he could think about, it felt wrong to hold their hands, to kiss them, to touch them, he felt as though he was betraying you but his new friend Tommy encouraged him, spoke lies into his ear about how you went on dates on the nights you canceled on him.

He was hurt, he was angry, and it only was a matter of time before he invited a girl who wasn’t you into his sheets.

He hated how he felt afterwards, but he didn’t stop, he kept going and before he could even blink, he was the most popular boy in school, he was King Steve, the guy who could have anyone but still only had eyes for one.

Though your shared nights became less frequent, you still spent time with him, even when you weren’t fond of Tommy and Carol, his big parties or the way he treated girls, you were still there and it bothered him that he couldn’t have you.

It was clear that you didn’t feel the same, despite the many signs that he had missed at that time. He was your best friend, just your best friend, just Steve. He could’ve made a move, he could've asked you out on a date, he could’ve finally confronted you about your night together and how you felt about it, how you felt about him, but he was scared and it was ironic really, because he was good with girls, very charming and cocky, smug and arrogant but not with you, no, not with you. You made him nervous, you made his chest feel weird, his stomach too, you made his heart race and flutter, you made his skin feel hot and his mind all crazy.

You got him bad.

You made him fall in love.

But he was a coward when it came to his feelings for you, he really was, he didn’t even want to admit them to himself, so he watched you slip through his fingers instead of taking action and making you his. His feelings got stronger despite the distance that slowly grew between you.

You were still there, physically, but your mind was somewhere else and you seemed so far away.

He left notes in your locker, just like he did when he was a kid.

And you did the same to him.

You waved at each other from afar and shared smiles, you still drove around town and sang along to your favorite songs after an occasional trip to that one diner out of town, you sometimes slept over and left your sweet scent on his pillows, driving him crazy with it. You were still each other’s best friends.

But then Nancy stepped into his life and that was it, at that point, it was already crumbling, your friendship was hanging by a thread and it earned its final blow when you moved away for college.

Occasional calls and letters were all that existed between you at that point, it drove him crazy, it made him sad. He suffered heartbreak when you were gone and you weren’t there to mend it, you weren’t there to hold him, to wipe his tears and tell him that he would be alright – how could you? You were the reason for that heartbreak and Nancy was the one who gave him the final push to open his eyes to the feelings he kept pushing away and feeling so scared of.

When he realized what a mistake he had made, it was far too late to fix it and he never stopped regretting the actions he took and didn’t take.

But now you are here, you are back.

He hasn’t heard your voice in so long, he hasn’t seen your beauty in forever, he missed your presence so dearly.

One year, one whole year without you.

Are you here to stay for the summer or are you back for good? He hopes it’s the latter, this town felt anything but home without you here.

Steve stares at you, he stares and stares without shame. His lips are curled into a soft smile, his cheeks already blushing as he takes you in.

You are so gorgeous.

A confident smile is lingering on your lips, your makeup is a little bolder than it used to be, back then, but it suits you, your skirt is short, your top is tight, your cleavage is showing and your skin is glowing, your hair is much longer than he remembers it to be, a few highlights added to your pretty hair color and styled into waves.

You have always been a sight for sore eyes, he was aware of your beauty from a young age, he called you his princess, his sweet, cute and beautiful princess. But you are more than just beautiful now, you are stunning, bewitching, you are heavenly.

His heart jumps at the sound of your giggle, his skin heating up so rapidly that it catches him off guard.

Steve watches you, he watches for what feels like forever, you’re here with friends, girls you used to hang out with back in high school.

The smile never leaves his lips as he keeps his eyes on you, his heart fluttering more and more each passing second, eyes continuing to light up at every sound of your giggle.

When you step away from your friends and walk back into the house, he wastes no time to follow, grabbing the chance that he once missed, he goes after you and leaves his drink abandoned on the floor.

He brushes past a group of guys playing beer pong, dodging the dancing people on the dancefloor, keeping his eyes on your body as he follows. Your skirt is swaying, your waves are bouncing, your hips are shaking slightly, your sweet scent lingers in the air and he can’t help but inhale it deeply, it’s still the same scent that he missed on his pillows and the hoodies you used to steal.

With your back turned to him, you stop in front of the snack table and pour yourself a cup of the overly alcoholised punch.

Steve doesn’t approach you right away, standing by the doorway, he decides to watch you for a second longer, feeling giddy and nervous now that he is so close to you again.

You nearly choke on the punch, the bitter taste of alcohol overpowering the fruity taste, you scrunch your brows together and swallow it down in disgust, unimpressed by this drink after all the different kind of cocktails you have tried in the past months on your night outs to bars with your girlfriends from college.

A sigh falls from your lips and you take a second, much needed sip.

It feels weird to be back home in Hawkins, the town is much quieter than the big city you called home for the past year and you feel that weird tingly shudder on the back of your neck, knowing that he is so close somewhere.

Steve.

You miss him so much, you miss him everyday, but it’s been so long, you can’t even remember the last time you have talked to him. You know that he still works at Family Video and his friend Robin moved into his house with him after his parents moved away from Hawkins, for good.

But that’s all, you don’t know if he is single or if he is dating – you fear your heart wouldn’t take the information very well, which is ironic really, you haven’t seen him in so long, all you have are your memories, some of which you kept in a shoebox under your bed, pictures, notes, letters and little presents from him. Steve was nothing but a ghost these past months and yet it didn’t stop your heart from falling deeper in love… even with just the boy in your memory, the one that will haunt you for the rest of your life.

A sigh falls from your lips as you look down at the red beverage in your cup, you close your eyes and take another sip and swallow it but this time in delight, you welcome the burning in your throat.

“You still make that cute face when you don’t like something.”

The voice you have just been thinking about sounds deeper than it did when you left.

Those shudders at the back of your neck, run down your spine and transform into heat across your whole body, your heart skips a few beats.

You turn to face him, sloshing the drink around in your cup, you nearly spill it on the white tiles beneath you. Your breath hitches in your throat and your chest tightens when you look at him for the first time again, those hazel eyes that you have missed so much staring back at you with excitement yet nervousness and you have no doubt that your own eyes match the look in his.

Your lips curl into a shy smile, your cheeks heat up so quickly and you nearly crush the plastic cup in your hand when you let your eyes roam his body. He somehow got even taller, his arms look stronger and his shoulders wider, his hair got longer too, a spitcurl hanging over his forehead, his cheeks are rosy, a stubble covering his jaw and chin, your eyes move down his arm, stopping at the black hair tie around his wrist that momentarily steals your breath away and fills your chest with hope. You lick your lips and swallow as you stare at the veins in his hands.

There he stands with his stupid, still perfectly styled hair and his Levi’s that are always way too tight around his crotch, looking down at you and reminding you of how much taller he is and always was.

“Hey,” he breathes, nervously, happily.

“Steve,” you say with a smile on your lips, “hi.”

Truthfully, Steve doesn’t know what to say, your heart is beating so hard, he can feel it in his throat, he feels so nervous, you make him nervous. His charm, his flirtatious side still fades into nothing when he is around you and the world around him still disappears when he is with you, some things truly never change.

He wants to take a step closer and wrap his arms around you, he wants to hug you and never let go again but he doesn’t want to overstep so he forces himself to stay in place.

“Y-You’re back,” he smiles, trying to hide his excitement.

You nod, probably a little too quickly.

“Yeah, I’m back,” you nod again, feeling awkward and tense standing here before him after all the countless nights you spent thinking, dreaming about him.

He breathes heavily and fidgets with the hair tie around his wrist, “for the summer or…?”

You shake your head, unable to look away from his beautiful eyes.

“No, I-I transferred to uh the community college here…” You scrunch your face up when you see the surprised look on his face. “I know, lame right? Moving away from Chicago and back to your hometown is uh not the.. move.”

Not the move? He repeats in his head.

This might be the best day of his life – the day he had been waiting for, for your return.

Steve’s eyes widen, he purses his lips as he starts shaking his head, raising his hand a little, he steps closer to you.

“No! No, I’m just surprised, that’s all, I didn’t think you’d ever come back… honestly,” he chuckles nervously and brings his hand up to scratch the side of his neck. “But I’m happy to see you back here again.”

Happy is an understatement, the feelings in him can’t be put into words, they do not exist.

Your eyes soften at his words, your smile transforming into a soft one, hope swirling inside of you.

Did he miss you like you missed him?

“I’m happy to see you,” he adds, his cheeks heating up at his admission and your beauty doesn’t help his case, his eyes roam your body, your pretty features, your soft skin, the chain around your neck that looks oh so familiar, his heart starts beating faster, his hands shaking from the giddiness lingering in him. “Y-You look…” Stunning, mesmerizing, gorgeous, sexy, adorable, like an angel or a goddess. “Amazing.” He breathes, blushing red.

Your eyebrows pull together as your wide eyes fill with emotion.

You see the way he looks at you, you see the redness in his cheeks, the shyness in his eyes that surprises you the most.

You take a shaky breath, cursing at the way your cheeks heat up and glow so hotly.

“Thank you,” you say without stutter, to your own surprise. “You don’t look bad yourself, Harrington,” you smirk at him, smugness taking over your blushing features when you see him looking down in nervousness.

Did you just make Steve blush?

You open your mouth again, feeling the urge to compliment him again when a whistle interrupts you and wipes the smirk off your face, instead a look of disgust takes over your features when you turn your head to see Tommy Hagan looking you up and down with a perverted smile on his face.

He pushes his way between you, earning a glare from Steve, whose face turned stone cold and angry. Tommy grabs a red solo cup and pours himself some of the punch while he continues to give you nasty looks, chuckling when looks at your cleavage, “shit, now I get why Harrington always kept his favorite toy to himself,” he smirks and takes a sip of his drink before he steps back to wink at Steve, wiping his chin and looking back to you, “you really grew up.”

Your lips curl downwards, your brows pull together in a frown.

“Dude, what the fuck,” Steve frowns at him, giving him a disapproving look.

Tommy always made you feel uncomfortable with his comments and his weird looks, but it was something else back then. This is new, this is disgusting.

“If I knew back then that you were hiding these behind your sweaters, I would’ve definitely hit it,” he chuckles darkly as he stares at your boobs.

Bile rises in your throat and your grip tightens on your cup, the urge to throw your punch into his face growing strong.

Steve rolls his eyes, a frustrated sigh falls from his lips and he steps towards his former friend, he places his hand on his chest and pushes him back as he takes a protective stance in front of you, protecting you from Tommy’s prying eyes.

“Alright, that’s enough, asshole,” Steve mumbles angrily. “Leave her alone or I swear to–”

“You swear to what, man? You and I both know you can’t do shit,” Tommy laughs at Steve, his eyes crinkle in amusement, irritating Steve further.

Steve might’ve lost most of his fights, but he wouldn’t lose one if it came to you.

He clenches his jaw and glares down at him, feeling rage burn within him.

“Seriously dude, get lost, alright?” He demands, his voice sounding deeper, more serious than before.

You look over Steve’s shoulder, feeling safe and protected by him, the way you always did, just even more now. Your stomach flutters with warmth, your heart swelling in your chest.

To your surprise, Tommy steps away without another word, continuing to chuckle at Steve and the glare on his face. He gives you another look.

“Call me if you–”

“Fuck off, Tommy,” Steve says through gritted teeth, feeling hot rage flushing through him.

Tommy takes another sip as he walks backwards, winking at you before he finally turns around and leaves the kitchen, allowing you to finally breathe.

Steve runs his fingers through his hair and huffs, turning back to you, his features instantly soften.

“I’m sorry about him.”

You shake your head, your smile reappearing again, “it’s not your fault,” you shrug, “some people just never change.”

“Yeah…” He mumbles, wondering if you changed at all, “did you?”

Did you change? You ask yourself. Maybe, surely college has shaped you in some way, being away from home, being independent and all alone, meeting new people and being pushed into situations you would have never allowed as a teenager, did change something in you.

You got more confident, a little bolder too, you tried new things and did them without shame, something that was once impossible when you were still here and an insecure teen.

You tilt your head to the side and give him a sly smirk, “why don’t you find out?”

The anger Tommy left him with fades away, the flirtatious tone in your voice catching him by surprise and you take it even further when you take a step closer to him after placing your drink on the counter, you look up at him with your big eyes that still drive him crazy.

He doesn’t remember you to be this flirty… this bold but he can’t complain, it makes the fluttering in his stomach feel so much more intense.

Steve’s lips curl back into a smile, he blinks at you, looking into your eyes intensely, with want and need – nothing changed, if anything, the magnetic force between you has intensified, even when there was mostly only radio silence between you both in these past months.

Steve licks his lips, a sliver of his confidence slipping back in when he sees the way you look at him, eyes roaming his face and his body. Though his cheeks are still burning and his heart is still racing, no matter how much confidence he can find within himself, you are still you, you are still the girl that holds his heart in the palm of her hand, the one who has him captivated in every way possible, the one who has had him wrapped around her finger, from a very young age. You aren’t just a girl to woo and impress for a single date, you aren’t someone he would forget if a conversation or a date went wrong, you are the one he always wanted to grow old with, to experience everything with, to spend a life with the one who is his everything – one wrong move and he loses it all… again.

He doesn’t bother to ask if you are with someone, if you are dating and taken, the thought is disturbing to his heart.

“Do you want to get out of here?” He asks as he slowly reaches for your hand and you allow him to take it when you slip your palm against his and give his hand a squeeze.

He nearly crumbles to his knees when he feels your soft touch again, it’s been too long. Your hand always fit into his so perfectly, like it was made to be held by him.

You nod, whispering a sweet ‘yes, please’. That’s all he needs to hear before he pulls you closer to his body, pushing you in front of him slightly, keeping a protective stance right behind you as he never lets go of your hand, basking in the feeling of having you so close again, of being able to smell your perfume again and the sweet scent of your body wash.

He rubs circles on the top of your hand, pressing his other hand on the small of your back as he pushes through the crowds of people. He leads you to Robin first, needing to make sure that she will get home safe without him. He finds her playing beer pong with Vickie and a few of their former bandmates from high school. He taps on her shoulder and when she turns around, Steve grows more nervous than before, because her eyes grow wide when she sees you next to him, excitement flashing in them and a big grin appearing on her face after a long moment of staring at you.

She knows all about you.

She knows all about his feelings and his regrets.

She knows how much he missed you.

She was there when he cried and never stopped talking about you.

So after greeting you, probably a little too enthusiastically, she moves closer to Steve, raising her eyebrows at him and giving him a teasing, yet pointed look.

“Go and don’t worry about me, Vickie can drive, she’s not drinking tonight.”

“You sure?”

She nods, her waves bouncing as she moves her head a little too quickly.

“Steve I’m fine, go and get your girl,” she winks at him, squeezing his shoulder before she moves back, giving him another look that says nothing but ‘i mean it, don’t fuck it up this time, this is your chance.’

Steve nods at her, smiling and feeling reassured by her. He holds your hand tighter and pulls you away before you can properly say goodbye to his friend that you only know from your days in high school. You look back at her to find her staring at the two of you, grinning from ear to ear, she raises her eyebrows at you, eyes glowing as she gives you a smirk and a small wave of her hand.

You feel a little confused by the teasing look on her face but smile and wave back at her nonetheless before Steve whisks you away and out of the room.

It isn’t weird to hold each other’s hand, to be back together in his car like nothing ever happened, like you never stopped doing this, like things are still normal between you. He makes small talk, it’s not awkward or weird, it’s… nice, anything is as long as you’re with him, even the silly jokes makes or how he tries to quote Shakespeare but fails miserably, he makes you laugh and you… you make him smile.

You stop by the gas station to grab a six pack and some snacks to share before you drive to the lookout, to the place you always went to when you wanted to be alone together.

You get comfortable on the hood of his car, as comfortable as you can get on the rough surface. It’s a little chillier out here in the woods, the wind that blows through the trees makes goosebumps arise on your skin. Steve, of course, has to use the opportunity to throw his jacket around your shoulders, rubbing your arms to warm you up as he moves close enough for you to feel his breath on your skin.

You feel something stir within you, something only ever he could make you feel.

You grab the denim and pull it tighter around you, glancing at him through your lashes, you feel your cheeks heat up when you find him staring at you already, a soft smile playing on his lips that you can see, even in this darkness.

“Thanks Stevie.” A grin tugs at your lips when his smile moves into a flustered one.

Steve licks his lips, he removes his hands from your body and busies himself with opening the beer bottles for you and him, “you’re welcome, honey,” he whispers, winking at you.

You look away from him with blushing cheeks, hiding the smile on your face as you tilt your head down but nothing goes unnoticed by him, he sees the flustered expression in your features, the cute smile you’re trying to hold back.

He scoots closer to you until his shoulder is pressed against yours, he offers you the opened bottle. You glance at his hand, taking in the size of it, how big it is, how his veins pop, how long his fingers are – it makes you squirm and clench your thighs together and he notices it, he looks down and he almost regrets it, almost. Your skirt has ridden up, it nearly covers nothing, at this point. Your skin looks so smooth, thighs so soft, he wants to touch them, kiss them, feel them wrapped around his head.

His skin heats up, his lower stomach tingles, he craves you, in every way possible, he just wants to… feel you, he wants to feel you close, he wants your skin on his, he needs to know that you are truly back.

Your touch sends shivers down his spine, it makes his stomach flip.

He blinks, looking down at the bottle he is still holding, watching the way your hand curls around it, fingers grazing his own. Your hand is so much smaller than his, the urge to compare the size of his own to yours growing strong.

“Steve?”

Your soft voice pulls him out of his thoughts, he blushes, cheeks burning maroon. He shakes his head a little, squeezing his eyes shut as he furrows his eyebrows, he removes his hand from your bottle, already missing the touch of your hand.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs as he runs his fingers through his hair, “I got a little uh… distracted.”

He instantly regrets it when his eyes fall back on your lap again, your giggle makes him blush even deeper, he eyes you from the side, watching the way you press your lips against the bottle, you take a sip, trying to hide the smirk on your lips.

He feels a sudden sense of nervousness rushing through him – here he is, in the presence of the girl of his dreams, the girl that slipped through his fingers, the girl that should be his and he is messing up. He begins to stutter, trying to distract himself once again, this time from your legs, from your soft skin, from how much he wants to touch and kiss you, from how beautiful you are but you make him stutter, you make it difficult for him to talk, you make it impossible for him to be smooth, to flirt with you the way he always did with other girls and suddenly, he is reminded of why he was always so scared of revealings his feelings to you, there was too much at stake, he didn’t want to lose you.

He always felt so pathetic around you, like a stupid kid in love, one that can’t talk to his crush without blushing, without stuttering.

And this is exactly what you always adored about him.

But he doesn't know it, he doesn’t even realize it, he doesn’t even see the way your eyes always light up, the way they soften as you look at him, the way you admire him.

Before he even takes a sip of his beer, he already feels like he is drunk, his skin is hot, his mind hazy, he feels happy, at ease, like he is floating, all because of you, you make him feel so… light.

He is drunk on you, without having touched you properly, your presence is enough.

He wonders how you are holding up, what emotions linger inside of you — you look so calm, relaxed.

You fall into a comfortable conversation, catching up on the things you have missed in each other's lives, since being separated. And while your eyes stay glued on the night sky, only glancing at him every once in a while, he watches you, with a fluttering feeling in his chest and a smile on his lips.

You laugh with each other, getting lost in the memories that you both start bringing up, joking and slapping each other’s shoulders softly as you start to tease one another about the stupid things that you both have done in the past.

You have changed, not only physically did you get even more beautiful, you got something that you didn’t have before, a boldness that you always admired others for. You used to be so shy, anxious to ask the simplest questions, too nervous to hold eye contact for longer than two seconds, even with him, sometimes. But now, despite you choosing to look at the sky instead of him, he can tell that you are not that shy girl anymore, who was afraid to look into his eyes. You are confident, comfortable in your own skin, not afraid to be you, not afraid to gaze into his eyes when you tilt your head to look at him.

He wonders what or… who caused it, the change in you.

Was it just the circumstances? The big city that pushed you out of your comfort zone?

New friends? Being on your own? Or… was it the experiences you have made in these past few months that have shaped you from an innocent, shy teenager into a confident, young woman?

His stomach churns at the thought of the things you have done while being away from home, or better yet, who you have done them with. He has no right to be upset about it, he knows it, yet he can’t stop the sinking feeling inside of him as he thinks of the hands that have touched your body or the lips that kissed yours, if you had dated someone, if you are someone else’s right now.

The question tumbles from his lips before he can even stop himself.

“Do you have anyone?”

The storm that was just raging in his mind, the string of questions that followed now silenced as he stares at you, waiting for your answer with a racing heart and clammy hands.

The sound of crickets and the rustling of the trees are the only sounds now filling the space around you.

“You mean… a boyfriend?”

He nods and you shake your head at that. You bring the bottle up to your lips, taking a much needed sip.

“No, I don’t,” you murmur as your eyes roam his face, “why?”

You notice the frown on his face, the way his lips are curled down and his eyebrows are tightly scrunched together.

“Just wondering… someone like you still single?”

“What do you mean…?” You ask slowly.

Steve huffs, shaking his head with a smile on his face.

“I mean… Come on, honey. You’re funny, you’re smart and you’re just… you’re amazing,” he sighs adoringly, hazel eyes running up down and your face and your body. “You’re beautiful, a fucking catch.”

You almost want to scoff at his words, you want to roll your eyes and look the other way. A catch, right. A catch he never wanted. Your heart betrays you when it flutters and prompts a girlish giggle to fall from your lips.

“Stop.”

He nudges his shoulder against yours, grinning at your flustered face, “it’s the truth.”

Steve feels relieved to know that you don’t have anyone waiting on you, that there isn’t some guy out there that got the girl he always wanted.

“You have to say that,” you shake your head and drink the last drop of your beer before you throw the bottle down on the grass, making a mental note to pick it up later.

Because he is your best friend, because he was always your best friend, no matter what – so of course, he has to say these words to you.

He rolls his eyes at you, huffing, “I’m not just saying that.”

You try to ignore the butterflies in your stomach, the way his words can make you feel like that shy teenage girl again, you try to steer the attention away from you.

You press your palm against the cold, almost icy hood, leaning back, you tilt your head to the side and gaze at him, loving how long his hair grew, how his features are more… manly now, though the boyish grin still lingers.

“What about you?” You whisper, swallowing the bitterness on your tongue. “Got anybody, Stevie?”

He shakes his head quickly, almost frowning at your question.

“Me? No… no one really… felt right.” He says with a look of longing in his eyes, the one that is only reserved for you.

The tension in your chest disappears, almost instantly, you have an idea of what you would feel like had the answer been a different one.

“I was seeing a girl… for a while but uh… like I said, it… she didn’t feel right,” he admits with a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach.

You nod, swallowing harshly.

“Why didn’t she feel right?” You’re aware of how small, how shaky your voice sounds.

You wait, wait and wait for him to answer your question, the answer he tries to find in your eyes as it seems because he won’t stop looking at you, it’s like he is searching for something, like he is trying to figure you out, like he is trying to make sense of the question you just asked.

He doesn’t give you what you want, as always, Steve Harrington pretends like nothing happened, like nothing had been asked.

But you know what he means, you know exactly what he means, you had someone too, back in Chicago.

He was nice, he was good to you, in more ways than just one but no matter how much you tried not to think of him, you always failed. He was always there, always in the back of your mind, always ready to haunt you and remind you that he is and will always be the only one that your heart will belong to.

Your relationship was only short lived, and you left him the moment you realized how unfair it was to stay with him when your heart was somewhere else, when you couldn’t stop thinking about Steve.

Something rustles in the bushes, something echoes loudly through the woods, something that would have normally made you flinch, doesn’t even faze you now because he is here. You feel safe in his presence, you always did, not even the darkest night or the loudest storm could make you feel afraid as long as he was by your side.

And yet, you scoot closer to him, not even noticing that you do until his fingers brush against yours and sparks shoot through your entire body.

And through his.

You clear your throat and take a deep breath, “yeah… I had someone… but he didn’t feel right either.” You say softly, vulnerably as you meet his eyes again.

A soft ‘oh’ leaves his mouth and he nods, looking down at the bottle in his hand, he brings it up to his lips and downs the rest of it. He feels his stomach churning, his insides crawling at the mere thought of you with someone who isn’t him and it makes him feel awful, it makes him feel ridiculous because wasn’t that his own fault? He blew his chances with you. He let you go, hell, he didn’t even fight for you.

He puts the bottle down, wipes his mouth and runs his fingers through his hair before he turns back to you to find you staring at him just the way you always did, with your big doe eyes, those pleading and begging looks you never stopped throwing at him.

He’d have to be blind to not see it – he always did, he just never allowed himself to admit it, not even to himself, not even when you were all he ever wanted.

“Why didn’t he feel right?”

Steve watches the way your lips curl downwards, the way you squint your eyes at him, the softness fleeing as you glare at him instead.

And suddenly, the air around you feels different, tense for another reason, heavy and filled with something neither of you ever addressed before.

While you take deep breaths, trying to calm yourself – Steve tries to mend the aching in his chest, the hammering that feels just too strong.

“Why didn’t she feel right, huh?” You ask, scooting away from him and getting off the hood, placing your feet back on the ground, you don’t even bother to smooth down your skirt. You cross your arms over your chest and stand in front of him, demanding the answer you tried to ask softly before.

Steve sighs, growing fearful and anxious, feeling like he is messing up yet again, like he is about to lose again.

But you are close, so goddamn close, even through the anger in your eyes, you still stand in reach, your knees now brush against his. He straightens his back, fighting the urge to reach for your hands and just pull you into him, showing you why no one ever felt right.

He promised Robin, he promised her that if you ever came back, he would go and get you, he would come clean about it all, he would make it all right again.

“This goes both ways, Steve. You can’t just ask me and then–”

“Because no one is you.”

He won’t fail this again, no matter how scared he is, he just can’t.

Your lips part in surprise, a painful look crosses your eyes, though the anger doesn’t fade away just yet. You uncross your arms, and shake your head at him.

His words should bring you joy, shouldn’t they?

But as you stand here before him, his knees brushing your own, his golden brown eyes staring at you with nothing but love, you can’t help but feel your heart aching because why now? Why not then?

“So… it took me to leave town… go to college… for you to say this?” You whisper, holding back a choke as your eyes well up with unwanted tears.

His own eyes panic when he sees just how much pain there is inside of you, how much you hid it. He reaches forward, taking your hand in his, he sighs in relief when you don’t push him away like he thought you would.

“It was always there. Before our first kiss, before our first time, and then it never stopped. But you were… you were scary. Feeling love that strong at such a young age– it wasn’t in my plans. I was scared… I was scared of loving you and losing you. It happened before.”

His parents.

He loved them unconditionally, he loved them no matter what they did and didn’t do, he loved them and he lost them – they abandoned him and then they forgot about him.

Your eyes show nothing but pain, your heart breaks, all over again, for him.

And you’re stunned, so goddamn shocked because that word fell from his lips. Love. He loved you.

You curl your hand around his, squeezing them tightly as he gets off his car, standing tall before you again.

“You… still could have–”

“Risked it?” Steve interrupts you, furrowing his brows as he looks down at you. “No… I wasn’t going to risk it. Risk losing you…” He scoffs, shaking his head at himself, “now I see how stupid that was because I lost you anyways.”

His eyes well up with tears, his voice almost cracks and you finally… finally get to see a glimpse into his heart, how much pain he was always hiding.

“No… I don’t think you lost me.”

“Honey, we haven’t talked in–”

“What you felt for me… Is it… Is it past tense?”

Steve should see the hope in your eyes, he should hear it in your voice too, but he is so scared, so nervous at this moment.

Everything he had always been afraid of was losing you because of his feelings and he can’t help but wonder, what if he confesses his love to you now and his saddest fear creeps in and he will lose you for good, forever?

“Why do you want to know?” He asks, shakily.

You hold his hands tighter, taking another step closer until you are chest to chest. You close your eyes for a moment and take a deep breath, you look up at him, begging with your eyes, yet again. “Because I deserve to know, Steve, do you still have feelings for me?”

He takes a long pause, feeling like his heart might explode, feeling like the ground might disappear beneath him if he doesn’t finally give you the whole truth.

His eyes flicker down to your lips, the ones he craved to feel on his own for years, his body aches for you just the way his heart does, desire running deep but love taking full control, driving both his heart and his mind insane over you. He feels the pounding from his chest to his throat, his eyes glossy with tears he shed so many times over you, over his regrets.

“Yes,” he whispers, already feeling his chest deflating as the pressure slowly sinks away, “like I said, they never stopped.”

Tears spill down yours and his cheeks, his shoulders slump in relief and you, you finally breathe. You sniffle and a giggle falls from your lips, one that makes him furrow his brows but smile because now he can see the happiness in your eyes, the joy from hearing this from him.

“Oh, thank god,” you whisper and throw your arms around his waist, pressing your cheek against his chest, you hug him tightly, catching him off guard.

It takes him a moment, it takes him a very long moment.

His glassy eyes are wide, his heart is threatening to break free from his chest. He wanted this, he wanted you for so long, he feels like this is too good to be true but when he feels your tears seeping through his shirt and how you cling to his body, like you are afraid that he might disappear if you let go, he finally relaxes. His eyes close gently, tears spilling down his cheeks, he melts into your touch and curls his arms around you, cupping the back of your head, he holds you closely, tightly.

“I missed you so much,” he whispers into your hair, pressing his lips to the top of your head, he gives a first kiss again.

“I missed you, Stevie,” you murmur into his chest, holding onto his shirt.

He moves even closer, burying his face in the crook of your neck as you rise to your tippy toes, wanting to feel more of him, as though he isn’t close enough already, not even when your chest to chest.

Steve breathes in your scent, the one he used to sink his face into when it still lingered on his pillows, when he longed to feel you in his arms, when he craved you so badly but felt too cowardly to make the move he just made now.

You cling to one another, like you never have before, not even when he held you during nights you needed him the most, when you were both so convinced that you were nothing more than friends… when just friendship was never something possible between you.

Steve’s eyes are shut tightly, he is so lost in the feeling of you, feeling so warm, so safe, so loved in your embrace.

How can his heart race so fast yet feel so… calm?

You don’t know how much time passes as you stand there in each other’s arms, you are so lost in the moment, you couldn’t care less about anything around you, about the time, about your surroundings, about the world – only you and him matter, nothing more.

He cups the side of your face when you begin to pull away to look at one another, glossy eyes gazing into each other, lips begging to be connected. His fingers brush through your hair, he tucks your front pieces behind your ears and caresses your cheeks. His hazel eyes flash with adoration. You are so beautiful. It makes his heart clench in his chest.

You slide your hands up his chest, moving up to his neck and cupping his cheeks, your stomach growing with anticipation the closer you both move to each other.

No words are spoken, there is no need for them, your eyes tell everything, just like your touch when your lips finally connect.

Your hearts stop beating, time stops ticking, the world stops moving.

Everything around you stops.

Just absolutely everything.

Your eyes flutter shut, just like his.

A kiss you both never stopped craving finally happening, not only in your minds, but in reality.

Steve sighs in contentment, a whimper following close behind, your lips move slowly, softly with each other, you savor each and every second, even when you know that this is only the beginning of it all.

Nothing and no one could ever compare to this, no one could ever come between you, you are two puzzle pieces, ones that were made for only each other, no one else to match you both. It’s only you and him. Your hearts know, you know, he knows.

The way he kisses you so gently, so sensually, makes your stomach flip in ways it never did before, not even back then when you shared first and second kisses.

And Steve, he feels like he is in a dream that he never wants to wake from again, he is too scared to open his eyes and find himself in his lonely bed, surrounded by the scent of you that he only imagines, that forever lingers like a kiss upon his skin.

But your whimper is real, your lips are real, you are real, your lips taste just like they did before, sweet and peachy, like home.

You only pull away to catch your breath, smiling when Steve chases your lips with his own, nuzzling his nose against yours as a soft giggle falls from his puffy lips, “god… I missed you, princess.” He murmurs against your lips, knowing that he will keep repeating these words, over and over again, he feels like he has been blessed by the universe.

Your best friend’s eyes shine so brightly, the love in them that you always craved to see, is so evident, it’s all out in the open now, all in reach, all there for the taking – when not even a few hours ago, you didn’t even know where he was, if he still thought of you, if he still cared for you…

Tears escape your eyes and he wastes not second to catch them, to wipe them away and kiss your wet cheek.

“Please don’t cry,” he whispers, feeling like his heart might break, knowing that you have suffered just the way he did, when he thought that you moved on, that you had forgotten all about him just like everyone else did when that was never even the case, when all you did was long for him, love him, even from afar.

“I love you,” he whispers in relief, feeling like the weight of the world is off his shoulders, “I love you so fucking much, you’re my–”

You cup his cheeks and pull him down once again, kissing him deeply. “You.” Kiss. “Don’t.” Kiss. “Know.” Kiss. “How.” Kiss. “Much.” Kiss. “I.” Kiss. “Dreamed.” Kiss. “Of.” Kiss. “This.” Kiss. “Moment.”

Steve's heart flutters the way it never did before, butterflies go wild in his stomach, his eyes crinkle and he smiles so brightly, his cheeks hurt.

“I love you,” you whisper against his lips, “I love you so much, Steve Harrington, you have no idea how much–”

His lips are on yours, pressed against them so strongly as he pulls you into another deep, passionate kiss before you can even finish your sentence. He kisses you in a way no one ever did before.

His thumbs linger on your cheekbones, his tongue parts your lips so effortlessly, your own clashing against his as the softness of your feelings disappears and transforms into something needy, hungry. This kiss is much faster, much rougher, much more passionate than the first, you get lost in it so quickly.

When he takes a step back and he sits back down on the hood of his car, he moves his hands down to your waist, pulling you in between his legs.

Your arms move around his shoulders, your hands get lost in his hair, fingers gripping it tightly as moans escape you. The kiss makes you feel so hot, your stomach burns, your skin feels like it’s on fire as his hands move up and down your back, slipping underneath his jacket that is still around your shoulders, under your shirt and then, he touches your soft skin with his cold hand, something that makes you shiver yet lean closer against him.

He moans against your lips, he is so intoxicated by you, needing more and more, like you’re his own personal drug. He could keep doing this, he could take you right here, right now. He could taste you, unravel you with his tongue, with his fingers, he could hold your hands and make love to you like he always wanted to, like he hoped he’d get to tonight – because he thought that this might be all he would get, a night with you, only that and no more, because how could you ever want anything more than this with him after all the times he messed up with you? After he let you slip through his fingers like it was nothing?

But this won’t stay a single night, this won’t be one that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

This will turn into more, so much more.

He doesn’t want to mess it up again, he wants to take it slow, he wants to give you everything you deserve, everything he craved to give you, all these years, everything he dreamed about, during the day and the night.

So as much as he wants this, you, your bare skin on his and your whimpers blessing his ears, you deserve more, you deserve to be taken on a date first.

“Hang on,” he whispers against your lips, cupping your cheeks again, his lips curl into an amused smile when he opens his eyes to see your smudged lipstick that is no doubt on his face now too, your hair a mess just like his own, “I want to… fuck… I want you so bad, I couldn’t stop thinking about this, about you. But I want to take it slow, I-I want to do it right this time, I want to take you on a date and–”

You cut him off with a kiss, once more. Pressing your lips against his plush ones, over and over again until it makes you both giggle. He grabs your waist and pulls you down on his lap, grabbing your cheeks, he presses his forehead to yours.

“Slow is good,” you whisper, caressing his cheek as his fingers run up and down your spine underneath the denim jacket. “I like slow.”

“Yeah?” He smiles.

You nod, though an almost sad smile makes its way on your lips, “you know, I kinda thought you forgot about me until all of this.” You wave your hand around, wiping at your wet cheek as a soft laugh tumbles from your lips.

You weren’t the only one who stopped calling, who stopped sending letters, he did too, but not for the reasons you thought, clearly.

A deep frown appears on his face, he tightens his hold on you, raising his hand up towards your face, he cups your cheek. Despite everything he just said, despite the kiss, you still don’t understand just how deep his feelings for you are, how his heart isn’t even his own because it is completely, devotedly yours.

“I could never forget you,” he whispers with a sad smile on his face, “you’re all I ever think about, now and then, even when we were kids, even when I was… King Steve,” he rolls his eyes at the nickname he used to be so proud of. “You never once left my mind, not once.”

The smile that makes his way to your lips makes his heart skip a beat, he kisses your cheek, letting his lips linger for a moment.

“So please, let me make it right, let me fix everything… go on a date with me?” He asks with nothing but hope in giddiness in his voice.

You squint your eyes and tilt your head, giving him a teasing smile as you pretend to think but his soft eyes make your teasing an impossible task at this moment, you wipe the lipstick off his mouth and nuzzle your nose back against his.

“I would love to go on a date with you, Stevie,” you whisper, feeling your heart burst from joy and love.

The one thing you always wanted, you always craved now finally happening, at a moment when you least expected it.

Coming back home made you so nervous, knowing that you would see him again after all this time of being apart, knowing that your feelings will only continue to grow, no matter the tie between you, filled you with a sense of… dread, because you couldn’t help but wonder – does he even want to see you?

But, to find out that he had spent every passing moment, thinking about you, about your past, wanting you back and willing you to come running back into his arms lights up everything inside you again – flames you have tried to put out, burning stronger than ever.

Steve’s eyes well up with tears of joy again, he cups the back of your neck, his lips brush against yours, he can’t even describe his feelings with words, so he doesn’t even try, but he shows you the happiness you brought back into his life, the happiness that was just gone when you were… gone. He kisses you, once, twice… He keeps kissing you, over and over again, unable to stop himself from going back in for more, consumed by love, by gratitude and happiness to know that you came back.

To know that you won’t haunt his what if’s.

He won’t chase your shadows wherever he will go.

Your scent won’t linger from just his memory alone.

He waited and waited, and he let the lamp burn and now… now you are here, you came back, you came back to him.

Here, at the lookout where you used to sit on your saddest days, you find your way back to one another again.

As you embrace the future written for you, you know that the rings on your fingers won't only be imaginary ones like the ones from your childhood.

#dottyrecsfics #an actual masterpiece

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dottydoesstuff · 4 months ago

Text

fall right into me

pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader

summary: when something happens to your apartment and you need a place to stay, steve, your best friend, is quick to provide it for you. your prolonged proximity forces you both to realize some things.

word count: 13.6k

warnings: childhood bffs to lovers, absolute idiots in love, mentions of a negative relationship with parents, probably inaccurate descriptions of some things but it’s (say it with me) for the plot!!!

a/n: i know it’s been a LONG time since i’ve posted a long fic so thank u guys for ur patience <3 i had so much fun getting back to it and writing these two, and i hope it’s at least a little bit worth the wait!!! ily :,)

𝜗𝜚

Your shoes are still wet as you dial the first number that comes to mind: Steve’s.

He picks up on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Hey, Steve.”

“Hi,” you can imagine him on the other side of the phone, leaning casually against the wall, an easy smile on his face, “what’s going on?”

You’re not quite sure where to start.

Coming home from work earlier, you’d been excited to shower and change and lay around for the rest of the evening, your book hanging open in your lap and some mindless TV filling the silence.

The day seemed to have other plans for you, though, because as you walked down the stairs to your apartment—one in the basement of a sweet, older couple’s house who just never used the space and converted it—the carpet had made an ugly squelch as soon as you stepped on it.

You looked down at your shoe against the carpet, at the way its color was darker than usual from whatever water had gotten into it. Looking up, you found a complete mess. A piece of the ceiling hanging open right above your bed, water still dripping in steady drops from the gap, your bedding ruined among many other things.

You don’t know how long you stood there, hand over your mouth, eyes flickering over the damage like you were hoping it would vanish, like it was only something you imagined.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

The couple who owns the house came down when they heard you shout for them, unsure of what else to do. They’d both gasped when they came down, and began apologizing for something that really wasn’t their fault before one ran up to call whoever it was they needed to call to fix this and the other comforted you with a gentle “we’ll take care of it, sweetie.”

You nodded, eyes still roaming your space that was now uninhabitable.

It’s an old house, something was bound to happen at some point, you only wished it wasn’t so inconvenient for you. A small leak, you could have handled, but the ceiling practically caving in?

Yeah, it was a complete fucking mess.

Hours later, with the damage assessed and set to take a few weeks to fix up, you’re on the phone with the one person you’d known would pick up.

You fill Steve in on what happened, and his first response is a sigh of, “Shit.”

“Yeah, shit,” you agree. “And now I’m gonna have to live with my parents for a while and I don’t know how I’m gonna go back into that house, Steve.”

If you’re being honest, the couple you live with now was kinder to you than your parents were. You suppose that’s one of the many things that you and Steve have bonded over.

“Just come live with me, instead,” he offers without hesitation.

Steve says it like it’s obvious, a no-brainer, and you guess it should be, since you’ve slept over at the Harrington’s house countless times before. Only, this is different because you’d be staying for a while, because you’d be needing his help, which makes you feel all awkward and guilty.

He’s been your absolute best friend for as long as you can remember, and you’re one hundred percent sure you’d offer the same thing if the roles were reversed, but that doesn’t make it any easier for you to accept, not when you’re already frazzled from the events of the day.

“No, Steve, I’m sorry I’m just being dramatic,” you say, twisting the phone’s cord around your finger. “I’ll be fine, really. It’s just a month, or so, and I don’t wanna be in your way or-”

“When have you ever cared about being in my way, angel?” The pet name he’s called you ever since your ninth grade Halloween party slips out naturally, the way it always does. “Besides, this house is too fucking big for me as it is, and you know my parents won’t be around to care, either.”

“I can’t ask you to let me move in, Steve.”

“Well then, it’s a good thing you’re not asking. I’m offering. It’ll be like that one week when we were twelve and you stayed over for spring break, only longer. It’s perfect!”

There’s a small smile ghosting across your face as you recall the memory he’s talking about. A blanket fort in their spacious living room, sleeping bags and pillows piled inside it along with two flashlights.

You can picture the way he looks on the other end of the phone, his hair a bit messy from running his hands through it during the day, one strand rogue against his forehead, his shoulder leaned carelessly against the wall the way it usually is when he stands. Like he can’t be bothered to hold himself up, like there’s constantly a weight on him.

“Are you sure about this, Steve? It’s really okay if you’re not. I swear I’ll be fine.”

“As if I’m letting you spend multiple weeks back in your parent’s house. You’re staying with me, alright?” His voice is insistent, yet kind, letting you know that he’s being honest, that he means it. “We’ll order pizzas and watch shitty romcoms, ‘kay?”

“You can call romcoms shitty all you want, but we both know you get teary at every single one.”

“Don't change the subject, angel. Also, fuck off,” he says, though you can hear the smile in his voice. “So, you’re living with me, yeah?”

You don’t think you could say no to him even if you wanted to.

“Yeah, alright, Steve. Thank you so much.”

“None of that. I know you’d do the same.”

There’s something beautiful about the kind of trust and ease that comes with a friendship as long as yours. One where you’ve watched each other grow up, awkward phases and all, and stuck together the entire way. There’s no questioning whether or not you’d be there for each other if you were in need.

It’s known, felt. Like a fact.

“Now,” he continues, “I’ll pick you up, okay? Ten minutes, tops.”

“Okay.”

“You need me to bring boxes for your stuff?”

“I’m not sure how much is worth keeping. It’s pretty ugly in there.”

Your voice goes small at the end, because the gravity of it all is really sinking in. You’ll have to replace a lot of stuff. Stuff you don’t have money for right now.

But, you haven’t let yourself cry just yet, so you swallow it down.

“I’ll bring some anyway, then. We’ll figure it out, angel, don’t worry.”

“Thanks again, Steve. See you soon.”

“Ten minutes,” he assures you, then the line clicks.

True to his word, Steve arrives in under ten minutes, which isn’t surprising considering the size of Hawkins, but feels reassuring all the same.

You’re sitting on the curb in front of the house when Steve’s BMW pulls over on the other side of the road, and you stand just as he climbs out and shuts his door, rounding the car and jogging over to you.

His keys jingle as he tucks them into the pocket of his faded jeans, his opposite hand coming up to squeeze your shoulder, “You okay?”

The warmth of his palm seeps through your work shirt that you’ve yet to change out of, and you let your eyes fall shut just for a second before looking at his face, “Guess so,” you nod. “Maybe ask me again after all of this?”

Steve’s arm winds itself over your shoulders, tugging you into his side and dropping a kiss to the top of your head, simple as an instinct. “I’ve got you. We’ll get through this, angel.”

We’ll, he says. A team.

You reach up and squeeze his hand and nod, guiding him to the side-entrance leading to your basement apartment.

“I hope you didn’t wear your good shoes for this,” you say.

Steve looks down at his feet and shrugs, “Shoes can be replaced.”

He lets you lead the way down the stairs, his footsteps close behind yours. You wince when you look at the damage again, even though you’d seen it minutes ago. You can't bring yourself to look at Steve, to see the reaction on his face, because you think it’ll just make it all more real.

He mouths the word ‘fuck’ while you aren’t looking, then claps his hands once. “Okay, let’s figure out what we can save, yeah? Where do you want me?”

You’re grateful for his gentle guidance at what to do. “Maybe the bathroom? Everything in there should be fine, so it just needs to be packed.”

“‘Kay. I’ll just go grab some boxes from my car,” Steve says. He squeezes your hand once before heading up the stairs. “I’ll be right back.”

You decide to tackle the worst spot first. Though the place is more like a studio, the side that houses your bed and your closet is the most affected, so you head over there and try to tune out the squish of the carpet beneath your feet.

You’re opening the sliding doors to your closet when Steve comes back, dropping a stack of boxes by your feet and running his hand down your arm softly before heading over to the bathroom to pack for you.

Even his presence seems to be making things a little bit easier for you, and each time he finds a small way to touch you or speak to you, to remind you that he’s there, you’re glad for it.

Half of your closet is a gross, wet mess, but some things are salvageable, which you take as a win. Things might be damp, but at least it’s only water, you suppose. A cycle in the dryer and most things will be wearable again.

Your dresses that are hung get the worst of it, soaked and smelly, and you decide that it’d be easier to get a couple new ones than to try and save what’s there.

Steve checks in every now and then, poking his head out of the bathroom’s doorway to look at you and make sure you’re doing alright, giving you a thumbs up when you look over to him.

You’re not sure how you’d be managing this if you were alone, and you’re thankful that you don’t have to.

The next time he checks on you, you’re by your nightstand.

Sitting atop of it is a framed picture of you and Steve from summer camp when you were around ten years old, maybe younger. Only now, the picture’s stained with water and the frame you’d decorated all those years ago at camp is a splotchy mess.

Where yours and Steve’s handwriting used to be, is now a blur from the water seeping into the wooden frame, the marker’s colors muddy. You frown, picking it up and running your thumb over the edge.

Before you can stop yourself, you’re tearing up, frustrated and sad and tired. Memories like this one are the most special to you, the ones that have kept you going for so long, and just like that, the picture that’s sat on your nightstand since being taken is gone, and it fucking sucks.

“Hey, angel?” Steve calls.

When all you do is sniffle and mumble an “mhm?” in response, he sets the box he’d been packing on the bathroom counter and walks over to you.

He comes up behind you, resting his hands on your upper-arms and peering over your shoulder at the ruined picture.

“It was my favorite one,” you say, voice breaking a little. You wipe your tear away as it trails down your cheek, your own fingertips too harsh against your skin.

Although it’s soaked and splotchy now, Steve knows which picture it is. The one where you’ve both got your neon summer camp t-shirts on, the one where his cheeks and nose are completely sunburnt and you’re both grinning up at the camera from your seats on the ground.

Steve’s clutching a stick in his hand for some reason, and you’ve got your fist tangled in the sleeve of his shirt.

It feels like no time and forever has passed since then.

Steve grabs the picture and pries it gently from your hands, setting it back onto the table and turning you around in his grip to face him.

“We can fix it,” he tells you, his brown eyes all soft as his hands come up to cup your face, thumbs swiping your tears away.

“But the frame-”

“We’ll fix it, angel. I’ll find a way, okay? We can pack it in one of the boxes and figure it out.”

“Steve-”

“Look at me,” he urges you when your gaze flickers to the ground. You listen. “This fucking sucks, I know it does, but you’re strong and I’m here, and we can handle this.”

His voice is quiet, but sure. You search his face for any trace of a lie and find none. He really believes what he’s saying, and he really believes in you.

“Thank you for being here.” You take a deep breath and drop your forehead against the collar of his shirt. “I’m sorry for crying. I know it’s kinda stupid. Most of this is replaceable, it’s just-”

“It’s not stupid,” he says, letting his chin rest atop your head. “You’re allowed to cry. Hell, I’d probably be kicking and screaming on the floor like I'm back in the terrible twos.”

You laugh wetly into his shirt.

“Now,” he says, pulling back and putting his hands on his hips, “the quicker we pack, the quicker we go home. I’ll even let you wear a pair of my good fuzzy socks.”

A smile tugs at your mouth. “Deal.”

Steve wouldn’t let you do much of the work after that.

Instead, he simply held up items for you to assess from where you’d been leaning against the wall and packed it into a box if it was a ‘yes,’ or tossing it aside dramatically just to try and get you to laugh if it was a ‘no.’

Once things were sorted through and packed, you loaded everything into Steve’s car—which wasn’t a whole bunch, considering how much you had to leave behind.

You’d refused to let Steve carry the boxes all on his own, though he tried, but he still managed to open the doors for you whenever you made it to his car, even when his own hands were full, too.

By the time you were finished, you were drained. It felt like you’d lived multiple days in the one. An eight hour shift opening at the store, then coming home to a wrecked apartment. All you wanted to do was shower and lay down and not get back up.

Steve knows you well enough to be able to tell when it’s time to fill the silence and when it isn’t, and on the drive back to his place, while your head was leaned against his window, he knew to stay quiet and give you a bit of space.

He turned the radio on, but not too loud, letting the songs hum through the speakers. At every stop sign, he reached over and gave your thigh a light squeeze. Reassuring, kind, somehow exactly what you needed at the moment. Nothing more, nothing less.

You were no stranger to the Harrington’s house, having been there countless times since you were little, but it feels more intimidating now, knowing you’ll be staying. You feel silly for being worried, but you are. Asking for help makes you feel like a burden.

Steve, however, doesn’t let you entertain that thought for long, parking in his driveway and jogging around to open the passenger door for you. “Honey, we’re home!”

“Dork,” you say, though you accept his hand and let him tug you up out of the car.

Grabbing the first couple of boxes, Steve leads you inside and upstairs, right to the guest room across the hall from his own bedroom. The closest one to him.

The house has at least two guest rooms, though you suppose with how little Steve's parents are around, you could consider there to be three. Three spare rooms and Steve puts you up in the nearest one possible. It makes your heart squish in your chest, how caring he is. He doesn’t even have to try, really, the goodness in him shows even when he tries to keep it hidden.

It only takes a few trips down to his car and back before all of your boxes are stacked against the wall. You decide you’ll deal with them later.

Steve runs over to his room and grabs a set of pajamas that you’d left there, and hands them to you. “I figured you’d wanna wash up.”

“You calling me smelly, Harrington?”

“Shut up, I think you smell nice. Usually.”

“Hey!”

“I’m teasing, angel.” He ruffles your hair. You swat his hand away. “You know where the bathroom is, and there should be soap and stuff in the shower already. Just yell if you need something, okay?”

You do know where the bathroom is. You have your own toothbrush in a cup by the sink, a set of travel-sized skin care products in the cupboard behind the mirror for whenever you end up staying over.

It’s funny, you’ve always felt more at home here than at your own parents house, and though he hasn’t said it to you, Steve much prefers this house when you’re in it. There’s a warmth that comes with your presence that makes him ache when it’s not around.

You nod, “Thank you again for letting me stay, Steve. I won’t be in the way, promise.”

“I want you in the way. You know you’re always welcome. This is no different.” He shrugs, “Plus, it’ll be nice having you around. Place always feels so empty when it’s just me.”

“Maybe I’ll just stay forever, then,” you say, tone light and joking.

Steve, completely serious, says, “I’d let you.”

There’s a zip that goes through you when he says it, quick as lightning, something you’ve never felt—or noticed, rather—around him. It throws you off just a little.

“Anyways,” Steve cuts your thoughts short, “I’ll let you get settled. Pizza will be waiting for you when you’re done.”

He leaves the room before you can thank him again, his footsteps retreating and heading downstairs.

You’ve been to his house a million times, so you don’t really feel the need to ‘get settled’ but you desperately need a shower so that’s where you go.

You stay in for longer than you need to, letting the too-hot water run down your neck and back.

When you finally do step out of the bathroom, now clad in your pajamas, and head downstairs, Steve’s sitting on the couch in the living room, the romcoms he owns sitting out in front of the TV for you to choose from, your favorite blanket resting on your side of the couch, and pizza boxes on the coffee table just as promised.

It’s the best thing in the world, you think, to have a friend like Steve.

You’ve been staying at Steve’s for a couple of days already, and time seems to fly by a little quicker when you’re there, especially when you’re around him.

He’s taken it upon himself to have coffee ready in the pot for you every morning, one of your favorite mugs already next to it on the counter. You’ve cooked breakfasts together (pancakes one day, where you’d done most of the work, or something simple as toast when you both have to get to work), ordered dinners, and Steve comes home from his shifts with a new movie to watch almost every day.

It’s been so nice. Almost perfect, actually.

This morning, the first day where your shifts happen to be at the exact same time, he’d even insisted on driving you to work. It was an easy yes, considering it wasn’t out of his way at all.

After a short stint of working together at the grocery store in ninth grade, and your subsequent firing from the job after a month of constantly distracting each other on the clock, Tim, the grocery manager, took it upon himself to warn Hawkins not to hire the both of you together.

Eventually, you’d taken the closest you could get which resulted in you working at the arcade and Steve next door at Family Video.

You share a parking lot. Steve already drives you to work most days. You like to put up a bit of a fight just to annoy him.

Though you haven’t worked together in years, and he isn’t far away by any means, you miss having Steve around on days like this. Where the arcade is quiet save for the sounds of the games in the background, where you’re simply babysitting the desk and cleaning things multiple times to try and make the hours pass by.

If Steve were with you, he’d make stupid jokes that you don’t wanna laugh at but do, or coerce you into playing the games while on the clock with the change you find whenever you’re cleaning.

He’d probably trash talk you, and bump your hip with his while playing pinball, and be a sore loser, and for some reason you want him around so bad.

You chalk it up to getting used to spending hours and hours with him, every single day, these past couple of days. Staying with him has made you miss him more, you think.

That’s it.

Meanwhile, over at Family Video, Steve isn’t feeling too different from you.

He’s spent the morning stocking shelves, memories popping into his head whenever he’d come across a movie you loved or watched together, while Robin’s been manning the desk.

Then, when his cart was empty and put back into the back room, he sat on the chair behind the front desk, spinning around until Robin stopped him with her foot and asked what he was thinking so hard about.

Steve caught her up on what had happened with your apartment (you’d told him he could tell her, because she’s your friend too and would find out sooner or later) and how you’d ended up staying with him in his house.

She raised her eyebrows and hummed in a way that was automatically suspicious, because Robin isn’t very good at hiding things.

“What?” Steve asks.

“Nothing.” When Steve only gives her a pointed look, Robin continues, “Well… are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Now, Robin is one of Steve’s closest friends, and him one of hers, and she supports him in pretty much everything that he does even when she teases him relentlessly along the way, but she cares about both of you and doesn’t want to see anyone hurt.

She can read Steve better than he can read himself, probably, because to Robin, it’s clear that he feels more than friendly towards you. And he doesn’t even know it.

When they became closer, it was clear to Robin, even before meeting you, just from the way Steve spoke of you, that there was a spot reserved for you in his life that couldn’t be filled by anyone else.

He would say it’s that of ‘best friend’ but Robin would call it something even bigger than that. Still, even though she thinks he’s an absolute dingus, she’s trying to let Steve figure it out for himself.

Clearly, it’s taking fucking forever.

He looks confused at her question, “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea?”

Robin sighs and resists the urge to drop her forehead against the desk and decides on, “You know what they say: become friends with your roommates, don’t become roommates with your friends.”

“Whoever they are, they’re dumb as shit,” Steve says. “She’s been over, slept over, hundreds of times. It’s not any different, just longer.”

“I guess so,” she settles on. “The rules of the world never really seem to apply to you two.”

“That’s because the rules of the world are also dumb as shit.”

“How would you know? It’s not like you’ve ever tried following them.”

“‘Cause I’m a rule breaker, Robs.”

Steve wiggles his eyebrows. Robin shoves the rolling chair he’s sitting on with her foot, sending it into the other side of the desk with a thud.

“Don’t think that smoking weed in your backyard is enough to call yourself a rule breaker, dingus.”

That night, your routine was pretty much the same.

Steve was already waiting for you in his car when you left the arcade, a smile spreading onto his face when he saw you making your way across the parking lot to him, your skirt swishing a little with the breeze.

Rather than go straight home, you made a stop at your apartment to talk things over with the couple who owned the home. They’d met with a builder and plumber about getting everything fixed and wanted to walk you through it all.

Steve came with you and held your hand, and both of them cooed at him and pinched his cheeks and called him a cutie before getting to the important stuff.

After going over what had to be done (rip out the carpet, replace it, fix the pipes and make sure no others were at risk, replace the ceiling, and more you couldn’t even remember already), they’d assured you that they would be taking care of it all. Covering the entire cost.

You probably would’ve argued if not for how little money was in your bank account, and how stubborn you knew these people to be. Instead, you’d squeezed them both and thanked them while your eyes grew misty with tears.

Steve’s hand stayed in yours and squeezed when you sniffled.

He knew, because he knew pretty much everything about you, that these people were kinder to you than even your own parents. That, if this had happened at their house, they would’ve found a way to blame you for it.

You feel lucky to have found that kind of parental love elsewhere, sad that you didn’t know exactly what it felt like beforehand.

After giving the couple Steve’s phone number to call in case they needed you and giving them both another hug, you and Steve headed back home.

Home, you call it. Like it’s yours.

Sometimes it feels like it is.

Later, after you and Steve have both showered and had dinner and gotten comfy in your sweats, you’re back in the living room, Steve shows you the movie he’s brought back this time.

“Gremlins?” You ask, smiling and shaking your head.

“Hell yeah, angel. It’s a classic.”

Steve sets everything up, joining you on the couch after pressing ‘play’ on the movie and adjusting the volume with your guidance.

“So, how was work?” Steve asks during the opening credits. The two of you have a hard time being next to each other and not talking. It’s why you get dirty looks whenever you go to the movies.

“Weekdays are so boring, Steve,” you say, letting your head fall against the back of the couch. “You’re so lucky you have Robin to entertain you during the day. I think I dusted like, ten times at least.”

“Robin is a pain in my ass.” He says. He doesn’t really mean it, because even when she is, he’s glad to have her around. A different kind of gladness than he feels with you. “She kept pushing me every time I sat in the rolling chair. There’s probably a dent in the desk.”

“That’s because you were probably hogging the chair, Steve.”

“What the fuck!” Steve’s smiling when he says it, lacking any sort of anger. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

Your smile mirrors his, the way it always does. It’s contagious, you think, the way his eyes crinkle at the corner.

Shrugging, you say, “I don’t know, I’d wanna push you around on that chair too, I think.”

“You’d spin me too much. I’d get sick all over you and then nobody’s happy.”

“Don’t talk about barf while I’m eating, Harrington.”

You throw a piece of popcorn at him. It bounces off his cheek and lands on his lap, and he doesn’t even flinch. Steve just picks it up and pops it into his mouth.

When the bowl’s empty, you lean forward and set it on the coffee table before sinking back into the couch, Steve's shoulder brushing yours. You let the warmth seep through your clothes and shut your eyes.

It’s a little more than halfway through the movie when Steve realizes you’re asleep. You’d been quiet, sure, but Steve only thought that meant you were paying attention to the movie.

That was, until your head slipped and rested against his shoulder.

He looked down at you, at the hair falling across your forehead (he smoothed it away gently, so it wouldn’t be in your eyes or your mouth), your eyebrows relaxed and free of any worry, your chest rising and falling with steady breaths.

He thinks of how tired you must be, after everything. Your apartment and dealing with the aftermath both emotionally and physically, working long shifts most days to keep your bank account full.

Steve, though he doesn’t let himself look too deep into it, also thinks of how beautiful you are. Now and always.

Not wanting you to get a kink in your neck from the position, Steve decides to rouse you from sleep as gently as possible. He slips a hand under your head to keep it steady and maneuvers himself to kneel in front of you.

“Hey, angel,” he almost whispers, thumb dragging across your cheek. “C’mon, let’s get you to bed.”

Your nose scrunches and you grumble, but after some coaxing, you blink your eyes open and squint at Steve. You blame your half-asleep mind on the way you nuzzle into his palm. “Hmm?”

“You fell asleep.”

“Oh, sorry,” you mumble.

Steve laughs softly. “Don’t be sorry, I just didn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

The warmth of his hand leaves your cheek as he stands and holds his hands out for you to grab. He pulls you up off the couch and starts leading you towards the stairs.

You knuckle at your eyes on the way, a tiny smile gracing your face at how sweet Steve’s being. As if you haven’t fallen asleep on his couch plenty of times before.

Still sleepy, you stumble a little on the stairs, but Steve catches you easily with an arm around your waist and a small “Careful.”

He leaves his arm there the rest of the way to what’s become your bedroom, guiding you over to the bed and lifting the covers for you.

Tomorrow, you’ll regret not brushing your teeth or washing your face before climbing in bed. But today, you don’t feel like risking not being able to sleep again if you wake yourself up further.

You’re practically asleep again by the time you’re settled with your head on the pillow as Steve tugs the blankets over you.

You’re just awake enough to feel the light press of his lips on your forehead and a soft “Goodnight, angel” against your skin before he leaves the room and shuts the door behind him.

On a random Thursday that you and Steve both have off, he convinces you to let him take you to the mall.

“We should go shopping,” he says when you walk into the kitchen. It’s a little later in the morning, having slept in since it’s a day off, the sun slipping through the window in warm beams.

You raise your eyebrows at him. “Like, groceries?”

“No, like shopping shopping. You know, the mall?”

You lean against the kitchen island, the countertop cool on your back where it touches the sliver of skin between your tank top and sleep shorts. Steve has his shoulder against the fridge, his arms crossed over his chest, the sleeves of his t-shirt tight against his muscles. Not that you’re looking.

You squint at him, trying to find his motive on his face. “You literally buy whatever the mannequins are wearing to avoid shopping.”

“That’s what they’re there for!” The sass in his voice has you biting back a smile. “You need new clothes,” he continues, “and I need to get out of this house.”

“We can do something else, Steve,” you say. “I thought you hated shopping.”

“Well, I don’t hate you.” There’s a pause, Steve’s eyes lowering to that sliver of skin above your shorts. He flicks them back to your face quickly, hoping you didn’t notice, because even he’s not sure what compelled his eyes to wander. “Plus, Eddie called me a hermit the other day and I really can’t stand for that, can I?”

“Ohhh,” you ignore the way your skin suddenly feels warm beneath his gaze, “so you need to make a public appearance to prove Eddie wrong?”

“Exactly. We’ll replace some of the things you lost and restore my reputation. Two birds, one stone, right angel?”

So that’s how you’d ended up at the mall. After Starcourt burnt down, the closest place was a couple towns over, and Steve (as always) offered to drive.

He lets you pick the music the entire way, sings along when you hold your water bottle by his mouth like a microphone, even attempts to harmonize with you which just ends in laughter because neither of you sounded that great.

You’re a couple of stores in, and Steve’s been complaint-free so far—which makes sense, since this was his idea, but you’ve caught him side-eyeing some things, so you know he’s got some remarks in his head he just hasn’t said out loud—and follows you around as you browse. You try not to take too long, because you can’t imagine that this is any fun for him.

“How about that one?” Steve asks, pointing at one of the dresses hanging along the store’s wall.

He’d seen your apartment, though that was a bit ago, and he remembered what you’d lost the most of, along with the type of stuff you like. He pays attention like that, in small, quiet ways that you think mean the most.

He knows you. He cares enough to know you.

“Yeah, that’s really pretty, actually,” you admit.

At your approval, Steve grabs one in your size (which he also just happens to know) and adds it to the couple of things he’d already been holding for you. Every time you picked something up, he was quick to snatch it from you, telling you it was ‘too hard to browse with your hands full.’

After making your way through the rest of the store, you decided to head back to try things on, holding out a hand for the stuff Steve’s holding. “You can wait out here, I’ll be quick.”

“Hold on,” he says, holding the hangers out of your reach. “Why do you think I’m here, angel? I wanna help you pick.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. Give me a fashion show, yeah?”

“Oh my God,” you mumble, letting him follow you to the fitting rooms.

They’re hidden behind the back wall of the store, a hallway painted bright blue with pink changeroom doors on one side, and white benches along the other.

“Hi there,” an employee with auburn hair greets you both, her smile wide and kind, though you know it’s a practiced one. Customer service smile. “How many you got there, darling?”

“Oh, um,” you turn back towards Steve, who’s counting the hangers in his hand. “Five.”

“Perfect!” The girl takes the key hanging around her neck and unlocks one of the rooms for you. She takes the clothes from Steve and hangs them up inside for you, then turns to the two of you and says, “Your man can have a seat right here. We call them the ‘boyfriend benches.’”

“He’s not my-”

“Thanks,” Steve says, cutting off your correction because for some reason he didn’t want you to correct her.

Did he… like the idea of being your boyfriend?

Fuck. No. He just didn’t want you to have to explain the whole situation in your rambly way. That’s all.

The redhead smiles again, “Holler if you need anything,” she says before walking off.

You stand there for a second, something like confusion on your face. Did it look like you were boyfriend and girlfriend?

“Come on,” Steve says, snapping the both of you out of whatever that was. “Show me what you’ve got.”

“I can't believe you’re making me do this,” you say, walking into the fitting room and shutting the door.

You try on a couple of sweaters first, and Steve feels the fabric both times, making sure that it’s not scratchy on your skin. Then, there’s just some basic t-shirts that aren’t all that exciting, but Steve says they look nice anyway.

Finally, you get to the dress he picked out.

It really was pretty. A midi-length with a ruffled hem and straps that tie into little bows on your shoulders. You don’t always feel good in your clothes. Sometimes you wish you could crawl out of your skin when you look into the mirror, but right now, you don’t hate what you see.

You actually like it.

“Well?” Steve calls softly from the bench.

In response, you open the door and step out so he can see you.

Steve’s seen you in plenty of dresses—hell, you went to prom together—but for some reason this one makes his heart beat just a little bit quicker. Maybe it’s simply the fact that it looks great on you, or the way you’re smiling shyly as he looks you over.

Or, maybe it’s because he’s the one who picked it.

He stands up, spinning his finger in the air in a gesture for you to twirl. You roll your eyes but do it anyway, and he can’t take his eyes off of you. The hallway of fitting rooms isn’t very big, so with both of you in it, you’re standing toe to toe, the gold flecks in the middle of Steve’s eyes and the faint freckles that dot his nose are visible from where you stand.

As if he can’t help it, Steve lifts a finger and dips it beneath the strap on your shoulder. Not moving it or undoing it, just gliding along your skin where it sits.

“You look beautiful,” he says. His voice goes all quiet and soft when he says it, and his eyes widen a tiny bit, like he hadn’t meant it to slip out that way. It sounded… more than friendly. He clears his throat and steps back as much as he can in the small space, his finger leaving your skin. “I have great taste. Clearly.”

You blink at him, then shake yourself out of it as much as you can. “Yeah. Don’t let it get to your head.” You lift the tag where it hangs by your armpit and look at the price. You gasp and swat Steve’s arm. “Steve! Why would you let me walk into a place so expensive?”

You probably should’ve looked at the tag beforehand, but here you are. Steve, shrugging exaggeratedly, says, “I didn’t know!”

“Okay, I’m gonna change before she comes back. We can make a run for it.”

“We’re not stealing.”

“I know, but they look at you all judgemental when you try stuff on and don’t buy something. Trust me.”

You turn and go back into the fitting room to put on your own clothes, taking a look at the dress in the mirror one last time before shaking your head at yourself.

Steve, however, takes the opportunity to leave you and head back out into the store. He finds the dress easily and grabs another one in your size from the rack and heads to the cashier.

He’s just finishing up, bag in hand, when you walk out and meet him at the front of the store.

“For you,” he says, holding out the bag for you to take.

“Steve…” You grab it and look inside. Your chest aches when you see the dress, your heart suddenly too full and your stomach fluttering stupidly. “You didn’t have to do that. I would’ve been fine with something from the Gap.”

“I know that,” he says, a hand lifting to scratch at the back of his neck. It’s a nervous tick of his, and the thought of him being nervous right now makes you melt even more. “I wanted to get it for you. You looked too pretty in it not to have it.”

Your eyes catch his, and again, something passes between you that you don’t think you’ve ever felt before. A fizzle, a spark.

You rock back on your feet, looking down at the ground before meeting his eyes again. They’re so fucking soft it makes you wonder how lucky you have to be to have him in your life. Being your best friend, driving you to work even when he doesn’t have a shift, offering you a place to stay, buying you a dress.

He’s the sweetest boy you’ve ever known.

“Well,” you twist the straps of the bag around your fingers just to keep them busy. “Thank you, Steve. This is really nice.”

His knuckle traces down your arm just once, featherlight. “You’re welcome, angel.”

You don’t buy anything else after that, instead stopping at the food court for fries, stealing from each other’s baskets, smiling and slapping hands away.

It’s the best day you’ve had in a while.

You don’t think anything you do will convey just how grateful you are that Steve has been so kind to you. Always, but especially now. Letting you stay with him and refusing to let you pay rent. (“I don’t even pay rent, and I live here all the time.”)

But, this morning, you’ve decided you’re gonna try.

Steve’s favorite meal of the day happens to be breakfast, which is funny, considering he usually eats something as simple as cereal. He’d told you once that it was because, as a kid, breakfast was the most peaceful of meals, his parents too busy getting ready for work or wherever they were going that he’d have the kitchen table to himself.

Lunch was usually spent at school, and Steve was never a fan of school to begin with. Then there was dinner, which his parents (when they were home) still wanted to have all together. They’d ask him questions and make backhanded comments about every single answer he gave. He never won at dinner.

So, breakfast was, and has remained, his favorite.

You made sure to get up early enough to give yourself time to get everything ready before he wakes up. Steve’s usually the one making the coffee in the morning, and you figured the least you could do was give him a break.

Yesterday, while Steve had been at work, you went over to the Wheeler’s and asked Nancy if you could borrow their waffle maker. She’d directed the question to her mother, who went and grabbed it for you and handed it over with a smile. You promised to take good care of it and have it back in a couple of days.

By the time Steve walks into the kitchen, you’ve already made the batter and set out the toppings—berries, maple syrup, whipped cream—like a buffet. However, he just so happens to come in as you’re swearing at the waffle maker.

“Stupid fucking thing,” you mutter, trying to open it.

Steve smiles to himself before saying, “Morning, angel.”

You jump at his voice, not having heard him walk in. When you turn around, your heart beats for a different reason.

Steve’s still only in his pajama pants, plaid and soft, hanging low on his hips. And he’s shirtless, his chest smattered with hair and his skin a little tanned from the sun. He’s got beauty marks all over, like a constellation you could chart, and his abs are just visible beneath the soft of his stomach. A trail of hair leading to the waistband of his pants and disappearing beneath them.

You’ve seen Steve shirtless plenty of times. Swimming and sleeping over in the summer, in high school when you used to go to his practices, but it hits you harder for some reason this time.

The way his hair is still a mess from sleep, his eyes a bit heavy. The way it feels to be greeting him in the kitchen, cooking breakfast. Intimate. Domestic.

You clear your throat and turn back around to pry the waffle maker open, revealing a slightly burnt but otherwise good-looking waffle. “I’m making breakfast. Coffee’s already in the pot, too.”

He walks over, his chest close to your back as he grabs a mug from the cabinet above you before heading over to pour himself a cup. He looks at the spread you’ve prepared, “Waffles, huh? What did I do to deserve all this?”

“Just wanted to do something nice for you,” you say as Steve walks over to lean against the counter next to you, his hip barely touching yours. “To thank you, in a way. For letting me stay and the dress and-”

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop thanking me?” He says, though his voice is soft and still a bit rough from sleep. “I like having you around.”

“So you don’t want the waffles then?”

“Oh, I want the waffles. I just don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything for me. It’s not some debt you’ll owe me, angel.”

“Want you to know I appreciate you is all,” you say, pouring a new scoop of batter into the waffle maker.

Steve, unsure of what exactly possesses him to do so, dips in and presses a kiss to the apple of your cheek, his lips a whisper away from your skin when he says, “I appreciate you, too.”

Then he pulls away and moves to set the table. Like it was natural.

And it was, in a way. How you moved around each other in the kitchen. You leaning out of the way when he needed to reach something you were blocking, him putting a hand on your lower back when he walked behind you so you knew he was there.

Your cheek still tingles from where he’d kissed it when you bring the plate of waffles to the table, your skin somehow even warmer under his gaze, like he’s still remembering exactly how it felt, too.

You sit in the chair beside Steve, not noticing the way he tugs it a bit closer to him with his foot before you sit down. Soon enough, both of you are digging in. Steve’s got more whipped cream on his plate than waffle (you tell him as much) and you’ve got your berries on the side the way you always do.

Neither of you work until later in the day, and it’s nice knowing that you can take your time. Steve tells you about the advice he gave Dustin about how to be ‘cooler’ in school (he’d told him that being cool is completely overrated, he knew from experience, and that being himself is the most important). You’d told him he was going soft with age.

You talk about anything at all. How Keith somehow manages both of your places of work, how he also somehow does both terribly. The way he says ‘if you have time to lean, you have time to clean’ while literally having Cheeto dust on his fingers. Laughing at each other’s impressions of him.

What the new highscores were at the arcade, what people were renting from Family Video.

You wonder what it’ll be like when you have to leave. When you’re living alone again.

Logically, you know you’ll still see Steve frequently, because he’s your favorite person and you can’t remember the last time you went longer than a few days without hanging out. Still, it’ll be different than right now, waking up in the same space and sharing breakfast and brushing your teeth side by side in the mirror.

You’ll miss it, you think.

Trying not to dwell on something that’s still a few weeks away, you take another bite of your waffle. Steve catches your chin and wipes off a bit of whipped cream from the corner of your mouth, then pulling away and sucking it off his thumb.

He goes back to his own plate without a thought. Like touching you just now was an instinct.

Then, he teases you, “These are a little crispy, angel. Maybe you should stick to letting me make breakfast in this household.”

You kick his leg under the table. “That’s a funny way of saying ‘thank you,’ Harrington.”

He kicks you back, much gentler than you’d been. “Thank you.”

“That’s what I thought.”

When you look at him, there’s an easy, boyish smile on his face.

A similar one stretches across your own lips.

Steve has had the thought pop up into his head a couple of times, that maybe he should’ve just asked you to live with him before you ever bought that apartment. Because having you around feels the most right things have ever felt in his house.

And though the circumstances of your moving in with him (temporarily, he has to remind himself), were far from ideal, he can’t lie and say that he isn’t glad that you’ve ended up sharing his space.

The room across the hall will always be yours, even when you move back to your place.

He knows that you feel indebted to him for all of it, but if anyone owes the other something, he feels like it’s him. For everything you’ve ever done for him. Sticking around even when he was an asshole in highschool, defending him to his parents whenever you’d cross paths, simply being the kind of friend he needed.

Even when you’re not around, he can picture your face, the way your smile spreads slowly until you’re fucking beaming. Worse, the way you cried into his chest that day at your apartment.

He remembers the crack in your voice when you spoke about that picture frame from summer camp. Though he hasn’t seen you cry since, or even bring it up, he’s decided he wants to fix it. He’d told you he would.

Dustin wound up roped into his plan: find a similar frame, decorate it the exact same way, and scour the photo albums in Steve’s room for his copy of that same picture.

When he was younger, the photo albums pissed him off, because they were purely for show. Pictures of his family that were all fake smiles. Now, he’s glad for them, because at least he has some good memories to look back on. To know it wasn’t always all bad.

Steve probably should’ve thought that one through, because when they looked through his albums, he was on the receiving end of relentless teasing from Dustin. (“Dude, you have an insane boogie in this picture.” “I was four!”)

He hopes it’ll be worth it.

Dustin was the one who found the picture they’d been looking for, and he cheered and waved it in Steve’s face as if they’d been racing.

Now, after driving Dustin back home, decorating the frame the way the two of you did as kids, trying to make his handwriting look like it did back then (which wasn’t too difficult, ‘cause Steve’s writing still isn’t that neat), he’s waiting for you to come downstairs before giving it to you.

He’d picked you up after your shift at the arcade not too long ago, but he knows you like to shower and change as soon as you get home from work, so he’d taken the opportunity to wrap the frame and have it ready for you.

Steve can hear you singing in the shower, and he knows you’re done when it goes quiet. A few minutes later you’re walking down the stairs in a baggy t-shirt and silky sleep shorts.

His eyes, for some reason, linger on your legs for a second.

He stands up, frame in his hand, when you walk over. “I have something for you.”

“Steve! Stop buying me things. Seriously.”

“This thing was free, so you can’t even be mad,” he says, smiling almost sheepishly.

Your eyes search his face, flickering between his own and dipping down to his lips and his nose and back to his eyes. He looks… nervous.

Steve’s never nervous around you.

“Okay,” you say, shuffling on your feet. “What is it?”

“Here,” he hands you the poorly-wrapped frame. “Open it.”

You scrunch your brows at him once, because you have no idea what it could be. It isn’t your birthday, or any sort of holiday at all. With zero guesses, you look down at the light yellow wrapping paper in your hands and slowly tear it open.

What you find makes your eyes grow misty, tears pooling at your lash line but not quite falling.

It’s your favorite picture, the one of you and Steve in those stupid neon shirts with messy hair and dirt on your hands. Only now, it’s not water damaged, and the frame is new, but decorated just like the old one. You run your thumbs over the glass lightly, smiling down at little you and little Steve.

When you look back up at him, he’s already looking at you, his brown eyes all warm, his smile kind but also worried, waiting for your reaction.

Seeing his face springs you into motion, jumping forward and wrapping your arms around his neck tightly with the frame still in your hand. “Thank you,” you say into his skin.

Steve’s arms move to hold you around your waist without a thought. A reflex. They squeeze you close to him, his nose pressed into your damp hair, smelling your shampoo.

“It’s not perfect,” he says. “But I know how much you love that picture, and I wanted to fix it.”

“Steve. Shut up. It is perfect.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he says, his thumbs running back and forth against your back.

You hug for what could’ve been minutes, but neither of you moves to pull away first. You’re not sure if it’s still considered friendly to stand in each other's arms, breathing each other in, for so long, but you don’t care at the moment.

This is probably the nicest thing anyone’s done for you in a long, long time.

When you finally do pull away, you don’t go far. Your arms stay slung over his shoulders, Steve’s hands framing your hips. His thumbs still dragging those sweet patterns against you.

“I’m keeping it forever,” you tell him.

“You sure?” he asks.

“Certain. You’ll always be my best friend, Steve.”

“You’ll always be mine too, angel.”

Then, your eyes both move to each other’s lips, yours flick back up in a second, startled at their wandering.

Steve, however, is a bit transfixed. He looks at the slope of your cupid’s bow, the way your lips are shiny from your lip balm. He thinks it quickly, like a gust of wind that can’t be stopped: I really wanna kiss her right now.

Fuck. He wants to kiss his best friend.

He blinks a few times, clearing his throat and pulling back, letting his hands fall from your waist as yours slide off his shoulders. He misses the feel of your touch immediately, but he’s too freaked out and confused to do anything about it.

“What are you in the mood for tonight?” he asks, cutting off his own thoughts. “I brought back a horror and a comedy. Take your pick.”

“Mmm,” he picks up two tapes from the coffee table and holds them up for you to choose from. “Horror. Unless you’re too scared?”

“You’ll just have to hold my hand, then, won’t you?”

“I guess I will.”

You look back at the picture while Steve puts the movie into the player. You smile at it every time you see it, because you can still see parts of Steve in him now that were in him then.

His eyes, always kind, the way he smiles when he laughs, and about a half hour into the movie, the way he holds your hand and squeezes it when he’s scared.

You’re having one of those nights. The kind where sleep seems to be fighting you.

You worked a closing shift at the arcade, which usually lasts until late considering how long you’re open plus all of the cleaning you have to do afterwards. Today was no different, and despite how much later you finish than him at Family Video, Steve waited and drove you home. He hung out in the arcade with you until close, actually.

You’d think that after such a long day, the second your head hit the pillow you’d be out and breathing steadily. Today, that is not the case. You fell asleep for maybe an hour before a nightmare woke you up. You can’t quite remember what happened, only that you’d been yelling for Steve and he wasn’t there.

Groaning quietly, you rub your eyes and toss the blankets away. You stand up and head down to the kitchen in the dark, hand trailing along the walls to make sure you don’t bump into anything.

Just as you’re pouring yourself a glass of water, you hear the shuffle of sleepy footsteps coming into the kitchen.

“Holy shit,” he says, walking over to grab a glass, one hand on his bare chest. “I thought you were a ghost or something just now.”

You shift out of the way to let him get some water just like you did, taking the second that he’s distracted to look at him. His hair a mess, wearing nothing but his boxers. You take a big sip from your glass.

“I feel like I should be offended right now,” you say, “if you think I look like a ghost.”

“Shut up,” he says, dragging out the second word. His voice being rough from sleep makes his words sound much warmer than they are. “My eyes aren’t awake yet. Nothing to do with you, angel.”

You shake your head, though there’s a soft smile on your face the way there always seems to be when you try to be annoyed with Steve. You tilt your head at him, asking, “Couldn’t sleep?”

He shakes his head. “Been tossing and turning. Just can’t get comfortable, then I got pissed ‘cause I couldn’t get comfortable and only made it worse.”

“You would get pissed at that. Probably slapped your pillow like it was at fault.”

He folds his lips inwards and blinks at you. Because he did smack his pillow and call it a dipshit. “Why do you know everything? Spying on me?”

“Hate to say it, but you’re getting predictable, Harrington.” You shrug, then move to put your now empty glass in the dishwasher. “I know you too well.”

He looks at you, your hair falling across your shoulders, your pajama shorts riding up a little as you bend down. The moonlight slipping through the window seems to hit you perfectly. Like a halo.

Fitting, he thinks. You’re his angel, after all.

“Yeah, you do,” he agrees. Then, “What about you? Why’re you up?”

“Nightmare. Been forever since I had one.”

“You okay?” he asks, trailing a knuckle over your shoulder, pushing your hair behind it.

“Yeah,” you say, skin tingling where he’d touched you. “I can't even remember most of it, but now my brain won’t let me sleep.”

Steve wishes he could’ve protected you from whatever haunted you in your sleep. It’s silly, he knows, to think he might be able to ward away anything that hurts you, but he wants to, nonetheless.

He thinks about how comfortable he is whenever you cuddle during movie night. Your head on his shoulder or his chest, his hand on your back or waist.

So, he blurts, “Why don’t you sleep over?”

You furrow your brows at him, “Um, I’ve been sleeping over. A couple of weeks now, actually.”

“No, I mean, like in my room with me,” he says, suddenly shy at the idea. He’s grateful for the darkness, because he can feel his cheeks warming up. “A proper sleepover.”

You’ve done it before. Shared a bed a bunch of times, but for some reason your heart jumps when he says it. Your stomach swirls as you say, maybe a little too quickly, “Okay.”

Steve’s eyes widen like he’s surprised, just for a split second, before a soft smile takes over his face. He holds out a hand for you to take, “C’mon.”

Soon enough, Steve’s lifting his navy bedspread for you, letting you slip into bed next to him. He stays further away at first, letting you settle and lay on your side the way he knows you always do.

You blame sleepiness—or, maybe, the lack thereof—for the way you reach behind you for his arm and tug him closer, draping it over your own waist.

He obliges, of course, his arm securing itself across your stomach, palm spread out and warm against your sleep shirt. His chest is only a breath away from your back, though he keeps his lower half a little more distanced.

His thumb runs circles over your shirt, once, twice, three times before stilling, his forehead pressing to the back of your neck.

“Goodnight, angel,” he says into your hair.

Your hand splays itself on top of his. “Night, Steve.”

And suddenly your eyes grow heavier, and sleep doesn’t feel like much of a battle anymore.

You wake up the most rested you’ve felt in a while. There’s warmth surrounding you, but not the uncomfortable kind. The kind that feels safe.

Somehow, you and Steve are even closer than you’d been when you fell asleep. His arm is still around your waist, his other outstretched and tucked beneath your head like a pillow. His chest is flush to your back, and you can feel it expand with every breath he takes.

Most differently of all, however, is the way his hips are snug against the curve of your butt. And you can feel him hard against you.

Your skin feels even warmer than before when you notice.

Steve hasn’t woken up yet, you don’t think, because the faintest snores are getting puffed out against your shoulder where his face is tucked. His hand on your stomach has worked its way beneath your shirt, though, and his fingertips press against your skin, like he’s fighting to keep you close.

As if you’d go anywhere even in your sleep.

His knee is tucked between your legs, and you’re quickly realizing that it’d be pretty impossible to get out of bed without him noticing. You’re completely tangled together, a knot of limbs somehow fitting together just right. Like two puzzle pieces.

In his sleep, Steve’s mouth presses against the back of your shoulder, and only when you involuntarily shiver at the contact, does he stir.

It takes Steve a bit to really wake up, mumbling words that don’t make sense, scrunching his eyes shut even further before blinking them open. He’s met with the sight of you right in front of him. Body curved perfectly against his.

“Steve? You awake?” you ask, checking.

“Mhm,” he hums.

Then, something that has his cheeks flushing pink, he registers the feeling of his boner pressed against your ass. He shuffles them back enough so there’s space between you. “Fuck. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you say. Because he can’t control the way his body reacts while he’s asleep.

“I didn’t think-” he cuts himself off, because he’s not quite sure how to say I didn’t think about the whole morning wood factor or that I’d fucking plaster myself to you when I suggested a sleepover without sounding stupid. Instead, he just repeats, “I’m sorry.”

You twist yourself around to face him, sheets crumpling and twisting as you move. When you settle back onto the pillow and look at his face, at the redness on his cheeks and the tips of his ears, you squeeze his hand that’s now laying between you.

“It’s okay, really,” you say. “It’s, like, anatomy. You’re human, Steve.”

“I don’t want you to think I invited you to sleep in here for some pervy reason,” he says, scrunching his nose when he says it.

“I don’t think that at all,” you tell him. You squeeze his hand again. “We’ve shared a bed like, a hundred times by now. If anything I’m surprised this hasn’t happened already.”

“Oh my God,” he groans, shutting his eyes and pushing his face into the pillow.

“Steve,” you drag out his name, fighting a giggle at the way he’s acting. He’s got a reputation, after all, and how shy and embarrassed he seems to be doesn’t reflect the things you heard about him in high school. He’s changed a lot since then. “It’s seriously fine. We can pretend it never happened. Promise.”

Steve pulls his face from the pillow, eyes catching yours as his fingers squeeze yours back in appreciation. He lets his eyes wander a bit, at the messy bits of your hair around your face from sleeping, the marks in your cheek from the pillowcase, the way your sleep shirt has fallen off your shoulder.

He feels lucky to get to see you this way, right after you’ve woken up. Vulnerable, unguarded, beautiful.

It’s during this small stretch of silence that you realize how close your faces are now. You’re sharing a pillow, his nose not even an inch from yours. Shift forward the slightest bit, and they’d be touching. Your eyes trail down to his mouth, to the visible patch of chest hair and the freckles that dot his skin. He’s already looking right at you when your eyes flick back upwards.

You know Steve, could tell what he’s feeling just from the look on his face, but this is one you’ve never seen before. At least, not directed at you.

Steve moves first, his eyes a little darker than usual, shifting forward slightly, then looking at you. Daring you to make the next move.

“What if we didn’t forget about it?” he says. Quiet and scratchy.

You don’t have time to think before you move forward a bit, too. Your noses brush. “What would that mean?”

Steve doesn’t answer with words. Rather, he moves forward the final bit and brushes his lips against yours in a question mark of a kiss, giving you time to pull away.

You don’t.

Instead, the hand of yours that isn’t still holding his comes up to the back of his neck, gently encouraging him to do it again. His free hand tightens at your waist as he dips in a second time.

It isn’t as tentative now that you’ve urged him on. His lips meet yours more sure, more firm, but still soft against you. Neither of you cares one bit about morning breath, or about what this might change. As if the morning’s haze slows time, minds still a little sleepy.

You’re simply acting on instinct. And this feels too right to stop.

Soon enough it grows more heated, Steve shifting to hover over you, his elbows pushing into the mattress to hold himself up, his tongue sneaking out to lick against the seam of your lips for permission.

Just as you open up for him, the blaring sound of Steve's alarm cuts you off, pulling back with a gasp. He simply leans up on one arm and slams the snooze button—and you laugh, you laugh, at how hard he hits it—before diving back into you.

You feel hot all over, where one of Steve’s hands has moved to cup your jaw, his thumb running delicately against your face as his mouth moves against yours, practically devouring you. Where the blankets are still over your lower halves, trapping in heat. When he pulls back, looks into your eyes, fucking smiles all dopey and pretty, and then kisses you again.

It’s so good, you’re almost angry at yourself for not kissing him sooner.

You kiss until his alarm goes off again and Steve's forced to pry himself away from you, groaning about being on his ‘last tardy warning’ from Keith.

Still, he takes the time to kiss your forehead on his way out, Family Video vest slung over his shoulder, calling a sweet, “bye, angel,” on his way out. His hair’s still a mess from your fingers, and he doesn’t even seem to mind.

You stay in his bed longer than you probably should, blinking up at the ceiling, fingers pressed against your lips like you’re searching for physical proof that everything was real.

What the fuck just happened?

It’s been a couple of weeks, and Steve can’t stop thinking about that kiss. He doesn’t know it, but you can’t stop thinking about it either.

Neither of you have brought it up, and things have faded back to normal as if it had never happened. But you and Steve are both thinking the same things without knowing it. How good and natural and easy it felt, how, every now and then, you think about doing it again.

You talk and joke and watch movies and eat meals together the same way you always have, and it’d be so easy to stay that way, to never kiss again. But then, what if you could stay that way and kiss? Wouldn’t that be something close to perfect?

You lay awake thinking about it every few nights. Because, when you really reflect on your life and how intertwined it is with Steve’s, you realize that you’ve sort of always acted like a couple, minus the kissing and sex aspect. You go on what could easily be classified as dates—the movies, lunch or dinner—you cuddle on the couch almost nightly, and you’ve never shied away from physical touch with one another. Held hands, a palm on your back.

You haven’t brought it up with Steve because you haven’t even come to terms with it yourself. Feelings are so fucking confusing and messy and you’d like to have a better idea of what’s going on in your own head before asking him about his.

Meanwhile, Steve has allowed himself to come to terms with it. He’s in love with you.

He’s pretty sure he has been for a while. Months, maybe even years.

It hadn’t come easily, though. It was nights spent similarly to yours, running through interactions you’ve had and the way he felt that one time in senior year when you went on a date with some guy from your math class. Even then, a part of him felt wrong about it, that pit in his gut.

Then there were his shifts with Robin at Family Video where he’d practically spilled everything just to get her opinion. She looked up and sighed “thank you” before saying that it was nice of him to finally catch on.

Had he really been that obvious? All this time? And had he really been that oblivious to his own feelings?

Steve can’t answer those questions. He can’t say when his love for you changed from platonic to romantic, he just knows that it has and he doesn’t think he’ll ever come back from it.

You’re his best friend in the entire world, the prettiest girl he’s ever seen, and he can’t picture himself loving anyone but you so wholly.

He’s fucking terrified of losing you, but he’s also terrified of never telling you how he feels and testing that what if.

So, like a desperate idiot, he knocks on the door to Eddie’s trailer.

Eddie opens it after a minute and what sounded like him stubbing his toe, “oh, hey Harrington. More weed?”

“No, shut up. I need your help.”

“You,” Eddie points at Steve, then at himself, “need my help for something? Are you ill?”

“Okay,” Steve, dramatic and bitchy as usual, sighs and mutters something about this being a stupid idea and turns to leave.

“Come on,” Eddie laughs, “I’m just joking. What’s up?”

Soon enough, Steve’s sitting on Eddie’s couch, Eddie pacing in front of the coffee table like this is a very serious matter, and telling him pretty much everything. Your kiss, the train of thought it sparked.

“Basically I’m in love with her and I have no clue what to do,” Steve finishes, sinking back into the couch cushions. It squeaks as he shifts.

Eddie pauses, tugging at his bottom lip between his fingers, then looks at Steve and says, “You know I’ve never dated anyone in my life, right?”

Steve groans into his hands, “Why do all of my friends have to be losers with no dating lives.”

Eddie ignores that, because he can tell how affected Steve actually is by all of this. How much he cares. He walks over and sits down on the opposite end of the couch. “Have you ever thought of, I don’t know, telling her how you feel?”

Steve rests his elbows on his knees, leaning forward and letting his head hang for a moment before picking it up. “Of course I have, but I’m fuckin’ scared.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Um, she could reject me and not feel the same way and everything would be awkward because I ruined it and I’d lose my best friend in the entire world.”

“What if she does feel the same?” Eddie asks.

He’s both yours and Steve’s friend, he’s been around the both of you together. He’s seen the way you look at each other. Eddie might not be an expert, but it’s always looked a lot like love to him. He’s pretty sure the chances of you feeling the same are quite high.

“What do you mean?”

“What if she does feel the same and you never figure it out because you’re too afraid?” Eddie says. “Man, don’t you think that risk is worth taking?”

Steve thinks about it, and as much as he hates to admit it, Eddie’s right. He’d hate to always wonder, to lose out on the chance to really be with you when he knows it could be so good.

You are worth the risk to him.

“When the fuck did you become so wise, Munson?”

“Dunno,” Eddie shrugs. “Wanna smoke?”

Steve laughs, “Yes I do.”

With Steve gone at work and you off for the day, there’s been too much room for your thoughts to creep in. Too much silence.

You’ve already been thinking about things so much. Thinking about him so much, that in his absence, your mind seemed to work overtime to fill in the gaps.

You thought about the day he picked you up from your apartment, how quick he was to drop whatever he’d been doing and come over and help you and take you home with him. The day he took you shopping and bought you a dress because he thought you looked pretty in it, the way his fingers fiddled with the strap on your shoulder when you tried it on for him.

The day he gifted you a remade version of your favorite picture from summer camp because he knew how much it meant to you, the way you held on to each other afterwards.

How you’d been waiting for him to get home that night he went to Eddie’s, just to make sure he was okay. How when he came in, he smiled at the sight of you curled on the couch, and he kissed your cheek when he walked by like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Your brain knew he was high, you could smell the weed mingling with his cologne on his clothes when he leaned in close, but your heart didn’t care about that. It thumped in your chest the second he leaned in closer, even worse when his lips touched your cheek.

The realization hits you now like a shock, a quick zip of electricity running through your system. You fucking love him.

Sure, you’ve loved Steve practically your whole life, but this was different. You love him, love him. Like, you want to kiss him when he comes home from work and in the morning. You want him to introduce you as his girlfriend and to be able to call him your boyfriend.

You feel stupid for not realizing it sooner, because looking back on things now, knowing how you feel, you can see it written throughout your entire friendship. Holding hands and kissing foreheads and hands pushing hair away from faces.

For a second, you’re purely happy, because you get to be in love with your best friend and it feels as warm and sweet as sunlight. Then, the fear creeps in, and you’re scared. Scared of losing him, of making things weird, of change and doing the wrong thing.

So scared that you start to panic and pack up some of your things in your bag like you’re running away.

Truthfully, you’re not sure what else to do. You’ve never been in love before, you’ve never known it this way—so kind and unconditional. And your parents sure as hell didn’t set a good example for you. They’d fight, and someone would leave with the slam of a door, and then they’d be back and the cycle would continue.

You’re scared and confused and your instincts are telling you to run away even though the only place you really wanna be is with Steve. In his arms.

You’re stuffing clothes into your bag just to keep your hands busy, breathing hard and fast, when you hear the front door open and close. Steve’s quick to find you, his eyes scanning your room and then looking at you. “What are you doing?”

You feel like you might cry just looking at him. His brown eyes worried but warm as always, his hands stuffed into his pockets like he’s nervous.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to be home until later,” you say, hoping he can’t hear the shake in your voice.

“It was dead, so Keith let me off early. I-” Steve furrows his brows, “are you leaving?”

You nod. “I’ve been in your way long enough.”

“I told you, you’re never in my way.” Steve knows you, and he loves you, and he can tell that there’s something going on. That you’re panicked and trying to get away from whatever it is. He cares too much to let that happen. “I want you to stay.”

You want to stay, too. You just don’t know what comes next, and that unknown, the lack of control, of familiarity, it makes your hands shake.

Your mind doesn’t work the same when you’re afraid.

“Give me one good reason why I should stay, Steve. I’ve been taking up your space for weeks and-”

“Because I love you.” Steve cuts you off. He hadn’t planned on telling you this way, he wanted it to be romantic and perfect but he can’t wait any longer. Especially not when you’re trying to run away. “I’m in love with you. And I want you here.”

You immediately stop in your tracks, blinking up at him like you’re not sure you’d heard him correctly. “You- what?”

“I love you. Romantically. And I think I have for a really long time.”

“You’re not high again, are you?” You ask, your eyes a little misty.

Steve walks over to you and grabs both of your hands in his, making sure you’re looking at him, at the sincerity written all over his face, when he says, “Completely sober. I fucking love you and I want you to keep living with me, because this house doesn’t really feel like home unless you’re in it.”

“What about when my apartment is ready?”

He squeezes your hands. “Stay then, too. Stay forever.”

You look up at him, his hair falling over his forehead, his eyes so honest, a tentative smile on his mouth. The only boy you’ve ever loved.

You feel silly for trying to escape this when this is how it’s turning out. Steve had been brave just now, telling you he loves you and he wants you to stay, so you decide to be brave, too.

It’s easier than you thought it would be to say: “I love you, too, Steve. I feel the same. I only just realized it and freaked out. I’m so scared of losing you, is all.”

“You won’t. Not ever.”

You tip your chin up to kiss him after he says it, because you can. You pour your feelings into it, and Steve returns your kiss as if it’s one he’s known for years. It’s slow, and deep, and sweet, and so full of love you’re practically overflowing with it.

The two of you only pull away when you need a breather. Steve doesn’t go far, resting his forehead against yours.

“So what happens now?” You ask.

“Well, we’ve been acting like a couple for a while, I think, so we stay the same. Mostly. Except now I get to call you my girlfriend-”

“Um, I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to ask me first.”

He lets go of one of your hands and pushes a loose strand of hair behind your ear, his knuckle running lovingly across your cheek. “My angel girl, will you be my girlfriend?”

Your grin is wide and lovesick and cheesy and you don’t care one bit. “Yeah, yes I will. Boyfriend.”

“And, being your boyfriend means I get to do this.”

He kisses you once more. And you don’t ever want to not be kissing him again.

𝜗𝜚

thank you guys so much for reading!!! it would mean a whole bunch if you would consider leaving a comment or a reblog and letting me know what you thing!! it helps more than you know <3

#dottyrecsfics

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dottydoesstuff · 4 months ago

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“Well anytime, any place, anywhere that I go, all the people seem to stop and stare; They say, "Why are you dressed like it's Halloween? You look so absurd, you look so obscene!’ ”

Steve Harrington x Goth!Reader

An Edward Scissorhands inspired AU • MASTERLIST • Part One

Summary: Your scissorhanded guest spends his days in the garden while you feast on Cavendish. Daily life is now a work of speculative fiction, amazed every day by Steve and the wonder he’s brought after only living with you for a week. - While out together on a day running errands, Steve learns more about who you, the owner of that single lit window he watched from his old dark mansion, are, and explores parts of himself while meeting all sorts of strange and new life.

Word count: 8k

Warnings: nothing explicit this chapter but my blog is 18+ so minors pls dni, no use of y/n, no physical descriptions except for outfits, make up, and reader having long hair (essential to the story, you'll see later on) food mentions, niche references, mentions physical danger, sharp objects (scissorhands), these two are so touch starved it's ridic, reader has a pet snake, Henry and Victor Creel, nonbinary!Robin Buckley, cane user Eddie Munson, annoying neighbors, and cozy home vibes. If I missed anything, let me know!

A/N: sorry this update took so long, this AU is so special to me and perfectionism took over. Happy one whole year of Stevie Scissorhands, thank you to those who’ve been so patient and stuck with me and Stevie, thank you @deadboyfriendd & @jo-harrington for the support and encouragement 🖤

All through that first night, Steve waited, watching that large ebony-stained oak sliding door to the upstairs loft. If he closed his eyes, he could picture you laying in bed softly sighing and dreaming.

For a week now, this was his time to reflect on the days he had spent with you. He picked up on your schedule: when you woke, how you spent your mornings with coffee and a book in hand, though now your mornings were filled with conversation over the island counter as Steve watched you scoop children’s chocolate cereal out of stoneware with polished cutlery that looked like they belonged to the dark ages.

Your kitchen was your pride and joy, natural light coming in through half-moon windows above cabinetry and an arched panel glass door set into a brick wall that made your avocado green glassware on the natural black granite countertop glow without the uranium.

These nighttime hours didn’t last long, watching the hands on the face of that old ornate mantel clock. He’d blink, and an hour would pass. Creeping sun coming in through the blackout curtains of this remodeled carriage house sent a buzzing throughout his leather suit; blades twitching and scraping their sharp neighbor, yet carefully, so that he didn’t slice through the afghan.

Well, make another slice through the knitted perylene black and a plum that matches your walls on the afghan. He’d be apologizing profusely upon your discovery, but right now he was still with wide-eyed wonder looking around your home as the dawn’s birth of a new day illuminated your solitary mausoleum of a parlor.

Dried flowers? Steve broods on; this home should be decorated with Asters, Bellflowers, and Alpine Betony- all flowers that he had in his gallant garden back at the top of the mountain.

Purple seems to be your favorite color, a rich color that could be simultaneously so cool and so warm, a color of indulgence and mystery.

It suited you well, he thought.

There were some perennials in the backyard along the house, Steve noted during his weeklong vacancy here. They looked to be Salvias and even Gray Knights, given the proper attention.

He would make those bloom for you, he pronounced to no one but himself.

Dead set on reviving that stubborn herbage to thrive for you, he was nearly lost in a transcending daze that didn’t hear the sounds of your charcoal gray wool on the high catwalk path before they descended the twisting staircase, walking on the balls of your feet not to wake up your special guest, or, you guess, now insinuated, new housemate.

“Good morning, my love,” Steve hears you coo, the way your voice is soft and slow like wildflower honey first thing in the morning, making his automaton heart wind up and tick- but he knows you’re not talking to him, he knows you’re standing over Sylvia’s terrarium to make kissy faced dotings to see her fork-tongued face as you go to switch her UV lights from night to day.

In the glass you see Steve’s silhouette of wild hair slowly rise from his vertical position on the couch, coming to sit in Nosferatu fashion as he awaits for you to turn towards him, a smile on your face blessing his new mornings like the rising sun welcoming the new day.

This morning, however, your petal-like lips were now painted a striking sable, the corners curling like dying arachnid limbs to see his wishy-washy pale face and frozen parted lavender lips to greet you with a morning salutation.

“Good morning,” Steve softly pushes from his chest, still trying to take in the bewitching sight of you drably dressed up to the nines. He was used to seeing you in plain sweaters and solid-colored pants all week.

Your hair was electrifyingly done up, crushed crow velvet clinging to your ribs where long bell-sleeved lace went past your elbows to sway at your wrists with wide pants that billowed with each step taken around the house.

His eyes flicker, the rest of the greeting stuck under his the collar of his leather suit.

“Morning,” you kindly smile over your shoulder as you’re on the move, drawing back curtains to let in more light that makes him squint from the east-facing windows.

He’s met with bleached corals and baby blues in the distance; the pastel neighborhood already about their days. He heard the revving symphony of engines an hour ago as the heads of houses headed for work.

Today it was Friday, the last day of the scheduled silence before children were home from school and ran amok in gangs on their bikes up and down cul de sac.

In a previous encounter this week, Wednesday, a meek child in parakeet-ribbon-tied pigtails lost her ball in your backyard. You can probably already guess how this interaction concluded: apologizing to the little sniffling stupefied girl in pale pink play clothes as you had to return her deflated ball from Steve, who was only trying to assist with retrieving her toy.

There were already rumors amongst the murmuring pups that lingered on your lawn, telling the other children stories about a vampire witch living in that old house with a giant python she fed children to in that overgrown garden and now, thanks to pigtails, the witch had her own Frankenstein’s Monster with scissors for hands.

“Did you sleep well?” You ask as he slowly gets up and watches the ceremonial daily lighting of that peppery clove, rose, and patchouli dual-wick candle that delightfully tickles his nose every morning.

Your home had so many wonderful smells: incense-like perfumes, stomach-growling aromas from self-indulging takeout, and even the scent of all the blankets he wrapped himself in every night. It was delightful to wallow in your scent, rather than the smell of the dusty attic and stale mold from rainwater damage.

“Mhm,” he simply nods, not telling you these past few days that sleep wasn’t necessarily a requirement for someone like him. He could sleep, he has slept, but why would he need to escape into his subconscious now that he was living in a hazy dream?

“You look….”

Beautiful, he wants to admit his admiration, but bashfully holds back, “-good.”

So simple, plain- yet said after a pause that made a strange warmth creep up your corpse-like contoured cheeks.

“Thank you, Steve,” is said in a similar soft tone, your hand rubbing over the plush of the velvet on your torso that suddenly felt tight from the way his focused gaze didn’t peel away, sensing there was more behind his eyes than he expressed, “-that’s awfully kind of you.”

A small twitch in his dark brows reacts, “Why is that awful?”

The young man, like a shadow, could smell your freshly spritzed perfume: mysterious and whimsical of tropical fruits. Lush, a narcotic jasmine with a rustic soil-after-rain earthy undertone.

Like a fruit bat, he amused himself, though features remain stoic at the humorous and well-fitting comparison as the drooping sleeves resembled the mammalian wings as you watered those young dracaena off a sheet covered surface.

“Are you going somewhere?” He asks, wondering what the occasion was to dress in chiaroscuro vanitas. “Out there?”

“We,” you emphasize, starting the coffee machine that again fills his senses with delight. A robust hickory roast.

“We are going out there today. I need to run some errands on the other side of town. Not sure how long that’s going to take, so I figured you’d come along with me this time.”

You decided it was best to leave Steve at home while you zipped to the Piggly Wiggly that first morning after he came to live with you.

You found Steve attending your overgrown backyard while you were out.

You found Steve wearing the clothes you offered him on his first day: men's slacks and an oversized sweater.

Yellow like the butter you bought to make a new batch of shortbread cookies, sans lemons.

You never wore it, an impulse buy thinking a splash of color in your wardrobe would do you some good.

It did not.

It suited him more, oddly, casually wearing it consistently through these previous days though the bottom hem of the sweater and the sleeves were shredded to ribbons.

It had to be removed via antique shears kept in that purely decorative bag of surgical instruments, the closest item you could find while running into the house after Steve got his pinata-like frill caught on the wrought iron gate pikes of your backyard garden.

“Then, afterward, we can go to that nicer supermarket.

Gotta get you more chocolate cake, right?”

The thought of being amongst a bigger crowd brought pins and needles to his steel blades, though a wink from you made the high collar around his neck tighten against the crawling blush conducted by the sharp jet-black ink that geometrically lined your eyes.

Steve sits with his hands between his knees, the tips of his lanceolate fingers jabbing into the rubber floor mats as he sits in the passenger seat. Pikes on his leather boots tap in rhythm to the mixtape in the cassette deck, his newfangled affinity for New Wave making his grin stretch ear to ear as he watches the blocks of suburbia turn more commercial and street signs turn to palm trees.

It was peculiar, yet intriguing, how the faded-sienna AMC gremlin became a spaceship traveling to another planet of neon and whacked-out youth fashion.

“Is it too bright?” you ask at the red light while watching Steve squint as he stares out the window, completely fascinated by bodies in crop tops and leggings under cut-off denim. Before he can respond, you’re looking over Maila Nurmi squared-triangle shades, a hurried search through the dash, “I think I have an extra pair- ah- here we go,” you reach in front of his knees, pulling out circular shades of garnet that aroused Steve’s curiosity.

“C’mere,” is beckoned over the stick shift in the center console, making him lean forward for the curve of black wire to send a shiver down his spine from the back of his ears being caressed. Suddenly seeing everything in red as the pads comfortably sat on the faint horizontal scar at the bridge of his nose, his eyes popped at this new look on the world.

“Woah-hoh-hoh,” you admirably chuckle at his new look, the sunglasses suiting him very well. With a grin, black painted nails brushed across his forehead, pushing aside loose tendrils of his wiry fringe.

“Check yourself out, Stevie Boy,” he watches as your hands return to the wheel and gear stick after flipping down the visor.

His chin retracts to his neck, his sudden reflection making him stare to catch himself in flagrante delicto, a scissored hand coming up to slowly poke at the small mirror that only displayed his face and wild hair.

Metamorphoses, the cautionary tale of solipsism and self-obsession his creator read to him, comes to Steve, at this moment understanding Narcissus and the pond.

As he turns his head to admire the sunglasses on his sharp profile, there’s a small burning in his belly from the glimpse of his image in something foreign. It’s exhilarating, curious, painful, and infuriating.

At this moment of recognition, he pauses, looking into the outsider’s perspective of himself.

It feels rewarding, yet a punishment.

“Looking good,” you’re grinning through a complimenting tune, despite this new sense silently washing over Steve’s being like a thick fog.

It’s heavy, this heightened sense, uncomfortable even as he realizes he’s about to be among others who did not look like your paired dreary-dull anomalous.

This murky chalk and cheese cognizance stays with Steve to the far ends of Main Street as he enters the first shop in the line of your listed errands. There are cracks in the concrete, he notes, more gum than on the other side, and squashed cigarette ends carried by the wind, until walking over the bristly beige welcome mat with a trail of gray from years of foot traffic.

High oak shelves covered in a fine layer of dust, this smell is old; a permeated musty smell of old wood. Stale, yet familiar. If there was a more oxidized metal smell, it could match the memory of his place of creation.

It is dark in this narrow shop, yet you navigate down the creaking carpeted floorboards, playing a deep hollow tune under each roll of your boot’s heel.

“Good Morning,” greets an eloquent male voice, welcoming in its vocal clarity. Soft from its lowness, it trails off in a faint and smooth throat rasp that scratches the back of Steve’s brain.

“Good morning, Henry,” Steve can hear you smile at the tall, slim man as he hides behind your figure like a mousy child, staying close enough where polymer frozen ends of your hair tickle his nose.

It was the same way you greeted Steve in the morning, he further notes during his expedition on this Forbidden Planet. The tinkling bells in your voice that were once thought exclusive are now fading lackluster of nonpareil.

After a week of exclusive company, he was not used to standing around as you conversed with strangers.

In mere minutes this little curated world has expanded and he’s not sure if he likes this terra growth; he walks in the fair sunshine, yet that damp and moldy fester of a feeling returns like an itchy rash, occupying his thoughts downright.

He did not realize that the entire walk from the parking lot you were carrying the mantel clock that kept him company in the living room.

As he ventured through this strange new world, he was too far in his own little world to notice this entire shop was housed with clocks that ticked and tocked in synchronous rhythm; an entire wall of grandfather clocks, and a glass display case counter of watches that you rested the heavy piece from your hold upon gently.

The man behind the counter greets you formally, and Steve wonders about your acquaintances.

“I think there’s something wrong with my little friend here,” you continue, Steve’s brow twitching at the sudden feeling of a spotlight until he realizes you’re speaking of the object between you and the blond man in the ironed sky-blue gingham that looked nearly white.

He watches the man still adorn a plastered tight pressed smile, an eeriness in the way his neatly combed hair remains stiff like a doll's as he hovers an ear over the Victorian period dated object, checking for a pulse of life.

There’s an assessing hum to be heard as the man’s eyes flicker in thought, making you anxiously shift weight on your platform heels, patiently awaiting the horologist’s diagnosis.

Peering over tinted shades and over your shoulder, Steve also inspects the charming faux marble and lion head mounts.

It’s in very fine condition, the black lacquer and marbleized finish preserving minor marks for antique character.

“Does it still gong on the hour?”

“And the bell rings on the half-hour,” you add as if it would ease the tension.

“So what seems to be the problem?”

“I’m not too sure, Henry, I just can't hear it… tick. It chimes but I can’t hear any of the works inside. It was kind of my favorite part, I like hearing its little heartbeat.”

That earns a smile from him, the personification of an inanimate object having your worry.

“We’ll have a look at it. Father?” the young man beckons a much older gentleman, making Steve’s eyes widen as the slouching figure in a thick-knit beige cardigan with all the buttons done up shuffles from the backroom.

This man with clouds in his eyes, Steve’s eyes shift restive, not knowing where to look as the man of white wispy hair stares forward before the forbearing hand of his son upon his crescent moon spine guides him to where he’s needed.

“Good Morning, Mr. Creel,” you greet with slightly raised genteel, still sweet as the man well nearing his eighties addresses you by ‘Dear’ in his salutations.

Mr. Creel’s gaze shifts, sensing another presence at the counter.

“You brought along a friend this time?”

“Hello,” Steve speaks for the first time since the drive into town.

He was so quiet. You assumed he wandered off in this labyrinth of grandfather clocks.

“Oh, yes,” you take a step next to his piked leather shoes, “-this is Steve, he’s… new to the neighborhood.”

Mr. Creel outstretches a hand, making a bolt of electroshock zap your nerves in reaction to flinch and place a hand on Steve’s leather sleeve in hypervigilance before the paper-skin and liver spots on frail , crooked knuckles meet with his eagerly friendly sharp steel.

Henry, admirably stoic, follows your lead, taking his father’s wrist to place hands upon the mantel clock’s golden mounted lion heads instead.

Your eyes meet with his blues, a worried look that melts into a bydint of understanding.

That line between Steve’s eyebrows questions your actions, only thinking he was being polite, quickly diminishing as the two of you catch Henry’s engrossed stare at the reflective blades.

Steve then lowers his hand, bringing it back to his leather-belted hip to sheath his shame.

They stayed there as if the metal rusted at his sides, even later, as you were carrying two big brown paper bags full of clothing items from the trunk of your car, using your foot to open the door into a darkly painted boutique.

Revamped Relics, the dangling store sign reads in an elegant ghouly lettering.

Steve enters the smell of an old closet.

Incense, not as sweet as the ones you burned at home, but earthy. The sounds of a earwormy guitar riffs engulf him, something that makes one feel like a sci-fi teenager in peril. He feels the high reverberation levels in between his blades.

This environment feels familiar to his new home. He is more relaxed.

“What are you doing here?” A tall enigma raises a brow, then surrenders a grin through Blase Apricot lip gloss and Tawny Peach eyeshadow from double-pierced to triple-pierced ear, “-Your stay-cation doesn’t end for another two days, boss.”

Sarcasm dripping like the small bead of sweat down your brow, “Parting is such sweet sorrow, I couldn’t possibly stay away from you another day, Robbie” You greet the figure behind the register crouched down, sorting through cassettes and labeling them individually with red, gold, and green dot stickers. Their epicene appearance in a combed back dirty-blonde ducktail throws Steve for a twist, their blazer embellished with a myriad of music buttons, political statements, and dangling jewelry with rolled-up sleeves and a bolo tie.

“I had some errands to run in the plaza, figured I’d drop these off instead of keeping them in my trunk for another month.”

“What treasures have you bestowed upon us this fine afternoon?” they grin playfully with an interested spark in their eyes; Steve watches how their hands rub together like a rascally fly with slime green and moldy blue painted nails before they take the bags from you, relieving the weight you carried under the beating sun from the insufferable asphalt parking lot.

“Just some men’s clothing, a pair of boots, a bracelet or two- ” you reply to Robin with nonchalance of the disposal.

“Were they yours?” They now smile at your company, who, with a sudden shyness, looked away after staring at their flummoxing appearance.

Steve shakes his head ‘No,’ that single long curl off his hairline dangling like a swinging hook, but turns to look at all the pieces being pulled out of the bag as they held it up high and folded it over the counter.

Men’s clothing? They looked just about Steve’s size. Why were you giving them away?

“No, of course not,” Robin smiles to ease his timorousness. “You’re more of a Rivethead than a Metalhead,” they smirk, putting down the Sepultura on top of the folded Morbid Angel.

“You rang?” a voice comes from the back room door behind the cube of counters. Heavy, flat, and in Reeboks with a black forearm crutch on the scuffed and squeaky linoleum, they make their way from their second cigarette break this hour.

“Ooo, pretty-shiny,” the man with a head half-shaved long curls down beyond his shoulders snatches the long chain of stainless steel ball beads on the counter before greeting you and Steve, already seeing how it looked on his hip.

Though, he already decorated the ripped-up black dickies double chains- one, actually connected to the leather wallet he’s had for so long it left an imprint in the twill.

“Why’re you giving all this stuff away, Siouxsie Sioux? This stuff is practically new,” he looks at you with double-coated mascara on his Clockwork Orange-like bottom lashes, one under-eye smudged from accidentally rubbing tired espresso hues, waking up earlier than noon to open the store.

“Then you keep it, Eddie,” you chuckle, playing off an unbothered shrug, forcing your attention onto the newly displayed miscellaneous pin bin next to the register, “-I don’t care. They were just taking up space.”

Why were you holding onto these pieces? They’re just forgotten clothing, after all. They belong to no body anymore.

“Cenobite Robert Smith over here didn’t wanna vulture on any of these?”

Eddie then looks Steve up and down, finally noticing the blades at his sides that were making his coworker internally, anxiously, sweat.

He swallows thickly, turning slightly to mumble to Robin through a crack in the side of his chapped lips, “What’s wrong with him?”

He’s then cut off by a rolled-up blazer elbow jab from Robin before the two of them are taken aback by a scoffing declaration.

“Nothing’s wrong with him,” you drop the new hematite ring into its bowl of brothers and sisters for it to echo in the silence from the sudden defense.

The alternative pair not meaning any harm look at you in sincerity as you clear your throat in embarrassment.

“Nothing is wrong with him.

He’s just… special.”

Special, the way you said it, making the corner of Steve’s mouth curl faintly, barely noticeable- a twitch- a small fuzzy ball of warmth beneath the leather of his torso, but from the way everyone started to smile back, that same fading feeling returned softly.

Again.

It’s a heavy weight on his chest and shoulders- does everyone feel this way? Surely, from the group in this small boutique, someone has felt this wave of sudden exhaustion that made him want to retreat to the dark afghan on your couch.

“Ah… I’m about to tag some new arrivals,” Robin’s gentle vocal fry changes the topic, “-And I know you said we’re not allowed to reserve pieces, but I immediately thought of you.”

Your drawn-sharp brows jump out of immediate curiosity, flashing teeth at the consideration as you follow Robin along the long glass counter until you reach that hip-level flip-up countertop, their plethora of rings clattering with the squeaking hinge.

Their footsteps descend far down the long narrow aisle of surrendered treasures and fabrics woven with ghosts, all holding onto a similar smell as the Clockmaker’s, only sweeter. Strands of light from the window displays, newly quirky and decorated before dull winter fashion takes over, reach the very back to where Robin now stands. To the right, a mannequin torso of your stature fashioning a snow-white and cream crushed velvet opera coat that drags along the floor like thick ornate curtains.

“From the stitching, it’s been altered a bit at the arms. Vintage? Totally. I’m thinking she’s from the sixties- the tag is faded and illegible- who knows how much she’s worth.”

Priceless- you think to yourself, the four large rhinestone buttons down the front catching your eye. This coat needs to be shown off, and the fact Robin thought of you to tell its story, you had to have it.

Look, Steve, your next immediate reaction is to gawp with the young man, assuming he followed you to the other half of the store.

Instead, you had no shadow, and his, dark and slim, stretched the length of the floor.

With a small chuckle of a sigh, you beckon with a wave for Steve to join as Robin politely smiles with a tight lip as they go to unbutton the coat and slip it off the stiff shoulders.

“Sorry,” a contrite smile is sent Steve’s way as you watch his heavy-footed scurry across the old floors, one piked boot in front of the other in quick strides, hollow floorboards creak along with sounds of leather brushing and metal tinkling. Scissorhands pinned to his hips, careful of the sleeves hanging off the long vertical racks. His face shows no disdain, just a soft twinkle now he could be near.

“Take the weight off your feet,” you motion with a distracted point to the round and wide leopard print ottoman, already with your bandage-wrapped forearm slipping into the sleeve’s soft and caressing lining, piercing the cream.

Admiring yourself in the mirror as Robin’s hands smooth over your shoulders until they become dusting pats, feeling their nimble fingers fold and fix the crease of the spear-long pointed collar at your neck.

A black cat clothed in silk, Steve’s heart swells and swirls and jumps around in his chest at the sight of your built-up confidence from posing in front of the three-paneled mirror.

A dancing angel, he keeps to himself.

“Like a glove-” Robin exhales, and they free you to the mirror dimension as you stand on the scuffed bridal riser before the large tri-fold.

From the points of your pikes to the tips of your spiked hair, you scan the length of yourself before catching the sight of Steve off your shoulder. Once again, standing statuesque, blending into his surroundings.

He’s quiet enough that if there were any customers right now, they would most likely mistake Steve for a mannequin.

“What do you think?” you ask of him before admitting you’ve already made up your mind.

Steve approaches the riser for a closer inspection and you stretch out your arm with twinkling fingers for him to follow up your forearm and shoulder with his pointed nose.

His head tilts and you can hear the sounds of his quiet snips as he catches sight of you two obscurities posing like a portrait proper for a daguerreotype.

Eyelashes twitch like a hesitant sphinx moth and you await his words like an anticipated breeze, his lips parted and ready for it to escape him as the air in his chest stops short.

A vision of silver-mercury amalgam, an angel harboring a demon from the unknown; could a celestial shadow as such be a savior and harbor this fugitive from the festers of consuming solitude?

“You know what would look wicked with this?” Robin’s voice suddenly pulls you back, “-Those cross-chain brooch pins? the ones in the front display case-”

With your slightly dropped painted lip, Steve watches as an approving sound of awe is made as you nod in agreement, grabbing handfuls of the long coat above your knee to follow Robin, right past Steve, who hesitated on his step while you played dress up.

When a low and friendly voice then spins Steve to his left,

“Hey- Robert Smith-,” accompanies the gentle drumming on Steve's shoulder, the other young man grabbing his attention with his way of apologizing for his slight hostility, stepping a little too close in Steve’s bubble.

“Back there- I didn’t mean there was anything wrong with you. I want to apologize. I just… I know what it’s like to be… different.”

Steve looks down to see a metal rod in Eddie’s grip, leaning his weight on it for support as he walks across the small shop.

Shadowed hazel eyes then travel upwards, watching the way Eddie’s head of unbrushed chestnut curls tilts while he switches off the grips of his cane.

“I get it…. The whole… People handling you with extra care. Like you’re not capable.”

Capable.

Competent, useful.

Handy.

Steve watches Eddie make his way around the clothing racks as the loud awkward silence makes the other man assume the conversation has ended.

“Don’t you ever wish you could be normal?” Steve then asks from around the corner, making Eddie blink in sudden surprise at his clear and gentleness.

That hoop-pierced bulbous nose of Eddie’s then scrunches playfully with a smile, a shrug, and the shaking out of his frizzy curls.

“... Do you?” Eddie asks him, eyes lowering, and Steve’s cheeks start to burn. It felt like one of those scarce seconds of sunlight that would shine through the wind-slashed slits in the gray clouds that circled his old haunted house.

He then looks away from Eddie, as if his answer were to brew shame in wanting something that seems so vibrant with its colorless reality.

“I mean, in my opinion, why would you want to be normal?” Eddie’s lip trills to ease the slight pang of tension,

“Normal’s boring. If you had regular hands, then you’d be like everyone else.”

Eddie’s words replayed in Steve’s head like a broken record, keeping him more quiet than usual, despite his still-smiling composure whenever you turned your head towards him.

The exploration of Altair has yet to conclude, but it was the last interplanetary stop before your crew of two could head home.

The supermarket, the nicer one, you assured Steve as he’s met with a sudden mistral rushing past his ears after walking through glass doors that slide open on their own.

Floor disinfectant, citrus, and the wax of red ripe apples amongst cardboard and floral arrangements. Fresh, but with an aftertaste of slight sterilization that contrasts all the places sought today.

The sun was at its highest when you entered Revamped Relics, how did time pass him by so quickly? It was near dinner, yet the sun still shone its warm late-afternoon glare.

Circling from out to inwards, it’s an easy stroll as you peruse well-stocked shelves in aisles lit by symmetrical hanging lights instead of bars of harsh buzzing fluorescents.

In the produce section, sweet rambutans and kiwano melons catch his attention as you reach for a nearly mellow Tommy Atkins.

“Have you ever tried one of these?” you bring the mango to Steve’s nose after pressing your own into the dark red blush.

Steve shakes his head, “No,” smiling and curious. He leans in with a step as you lower it, making you chuckle as he sniffs the sweet skin again. The faint nectar scent delightfully filled his nose, alongside the nose scrunching smell of lemon and isopropyl alcohol on your fingertips.

“Let’s get a crate of these-” you sort through the fruit for the most appealing and promising of the bunch. “We’ll chill them as soon as we get home and eat them later tonight-” The shopping cart handle shocks your grip, feeling the sudden spiderweb-like corner collision of metal echoing by the giant jackfruits.

Gray Goose, orange juice, two jars of Goober- strawberry and grape- and a marked-down shrimp cocktail platter flashing before your eyes.

“Oh, my, I am so sorry, I can be such a clutz sometimes,” A woman with hair that smelled like a salon apologizes as she walks with hips swaying around her cart. “You see, I make this ambrosia salad and I only use fresh pineapples -Oh, hey now, don't I know you?” she grins extra-large with bleeding valentine-red; the pushing of her nose into your face as if you were a real life Killer Klown from Outer Space.

“Oh, that’s right,” she purs with a small suck of her teeth, “You’re that strange thing that’s lived just down at the end of the Culdesac for a whole year now!”

Two years.

Strange thing?

“I’m Kathy, Kathy Hall, my husband is Robert Hall, he owns Bob’s Plumbing, you’ve probably seen our billboard. I live just off Meadow street -Good gracious, how have we not been neighborly introduced until now?”

“Oh-” You blink the amount of times you heard the name Hall, still trying to reel everything in, “I’m almost never home during the day- I own that boutique at that mini mall-”

“More like boo-tique,” she interrupts with a giggle.

“When I saw that place open up I thought -oh, look, it’s another one of those tacky costume pop-up shops, y’know?” she keeps laughing as you begrudgingly smile.

“I thought to myself, now don’t those kooky-spookys know Halloween isn’t for another four months?”

She hoots, she cackles, she’s turning heads at the supermarket, walking in shocking sour colors of lime nail acrylics that go with her tangerine bouffant, and bright Barbie pink platform flip flops below floral canary capris.

“Practically all summer my boy has whined, “Mommy, Mommy, I wanna go to the Halloween store!”

Your mouth opens to speak, but words can’t squeeze into the fast-lane conversation with the speed her gums-

“Oh, my look at you now, I’m only playing! What’s a little clownery between neighbors, right? You’ve already dressed the part, and I thought I wore too much Avon. Which, by the way, I am a representative,” she proudly plugs, “-why don’t you give me a call instead of asking Mr. Andrews for cosmetic advice?” She laughs, nay, neighs, at her jabs so high that you swear you can hear the intricately stacked and cushioned nashi pears get ready to avalanche.

“Mr. Andrews…?” you smile through uncomfortable confusion.

She then tightens her overdrawn lips, enough chuckling, as you had no idea who she was talking about.

“Mr. Andrews… He owns the funeral parlor on Ashford Lane…? Y’know what, this is exactly why we ought to be bumping into each other more often, neighbor! You’re still so new! You hardly know anyone, I hardly know you… and your friend here! All quiet as the silence between heartbeats- my, my, my, aren’t you tall drink of water. What’s your name?”

“Water?” Steve questions, quickly turning away from the older woman to only look at you as if each of his blinks said,

Help. Please.

Kathy forces out another squawk of laughter, reminding you of one of those macaws that do tricks for peanuts.

“Aren’t you something,” escapes her in a guffaw with a tilt of her head, batting lids of Avon K501 and curled wispy lashes as feasting eyes lock on Steve with a gawk.

“How long have the two of you been married?” She then bluntly asks, still looking at him.

“We’re not-” you say, and Kathy shoots you a look as if you rudely interrupted. You can feel that piercing stare go right through your forehead like a silver bullet.

“We’re not married,” you speak up, firmly, “We’re just-”

Your eyes then meet with Steve’s, they were not in any way anticipating a right or wrong answer. So gentle, so attentive.

“We just live together,” you answer.

Though it was the truth, it felt deceptive. Oblique.

“So like, roommates? Friends?” Kathy nods, finding that information auspicious.

Friends.

How that makes the corners of Steve’s lips bashfully curl.

Friends have fun.

You’re friends with Robin and Eddie, he then thinks to himself, and the three of you laugh and have fun together.

You and Steve laugh and have fun together.

Friends, he agrees with the title.

Fitting, but the feelings he had for you were different from the ones he had for his new friends.

Was Kathy a new friend? She was a bit loud and her perfume tickled his nose like a failed sneeze.

Steve didn’t feel anything for Kathy like the way he felt about you.

“Well,” she then sighs, “I guess I should let the two of you finish your shopping. I almost never get to stop and chitty-chat like this, so this was very enlightening.”

Kathy then starts her hip-swaying waddle walk back to her cart, still t-boned into yours, and wraps her long acrylic claws around the plastic covered handle, “Now don’t be a stranger,” she teases, “I know where y’all live!”

You hold your breath until she turns the corner into the deli to order meats so thin you could see through them, and when she’s gone, you let out a dramatic sound that seemed a bit humorous to Steve.

Turning your head to look at him as he snorts: a reaction you haven’t seen from him yet until now.

“I feel like I’ve just been exposed to gamma radiation from that outfit alone. You thought that was funny, Stevie?”

“Very much,” he nods, still smiling.

From off the tip of his sloped nose you push back his red wire-round sunglasses in playful heckle, and that same sunshine in the garden feeling returns to his cheeks.

“C’mon-” you can’t help but smirk, “-let’s go get your damn olives.”

By the time you left the supermarket, the sky was a deep plum with amethyst clouds aflame.

Dinner was a hearty coconut curry with carrots, potatoes, and cauliflower. Steve liked the way your stewed vegetables weren’t too soft, able to poke and lift the food to his mouth without the chopped bits splitting into mushy pieces.

He liked the way he made you laugh with lips gleaming honey sweet at dessert, watching him bring a mango cube from the bowl into his mouth, then another, and another. More and more, Steve liked the way the golden fruit chilled his teeth and melted on his tongue.

He ate two of them that night, all to himself.

Steve sat in the living room while doing so, watching Sylvia in her tank from afar while you went upstairs along that catwalk ledge to have the day vigorously washed off in your bathroom upstairs.

Washing, conditioning, and combing took the better half of your shower, now standing in your kitchen to get the kettle ready as damp hair rests on your shoulders.

While Steve really liked seeing the versatility of your wardrobe, he liked seeing you back to wearing that long black cardigan that brushes over the ankles of your joggers.

“What do you want to do tonight?” makes him stand stock still at the center of the rug.

Too dark to work in the garden, too humid to sit on the patio and listen to the night’s symphony, his eyes flicker in thought at the abrupt limelight.

“Sorry,” your tired voice lets out a breathy chuckle as you fix your tank top, “-didn’t mean to put you on the spot there.”

Tea, strong.

Sarcasm, light.

During his stay you were the one to direct the program, he just followed along without a fuss or word of opposition.

He seemed to go along with whatever you wanted to do, as long as you were happy, but right now you were announcing complete enervation.

Letting this strange man take the wheel was your euphonious expression, letting it out through a deep sigh to exude an admittance of defeat from this enfeebling day.

“How about… a movie?”

Thick socks shuffle in languor to a walnut wood hutch near the television, opening the cabinet for him to pick from the selection.

Movies would be a nice way to forget your troubles for tonight; he stands close to the curated selection of tapes neatly arranged by no rhyme.

“We can always rent one later if you don’t like any of these,” you watch as he reads each title aloud like a pupil designated by the teacher to share the passage,

“By the Light of the Silvery Moon, Lure of the Wilderness, The 5,000 fingers of Dr. T-” He carefully reads on, a lot of tapes sharing the theme of a post-war Hollywood boom.

To the right of the tall shelves, a force at hip level sings a siren song to the young man, who stares off at the surface like a wide-eyed cat sizing up a specter.

Beneath, an upright piano, covered by an old bed sheet like a Halloween ghost. It was used for a few potted house plants in earthenware, a pair of flickering three wicks, and an embossed glass bowl of trinkets- its trick-or-treating bag- filled with Murano glass candies, like the ones your mother let collect dust, only a handful- then lost buttons, pins, and a broken bracelet of moonstone beads.

“Do you play?” Steve asks, eager and excited, as if he’s been dying to ask you all week.

There was a similar shape back home, only slightly more grand. He could tell what was underneath and it itched him like poison ivy to find the right time to ask you.

You must, you must, he stares into the high-ceiling space sometimes. You have a lot of song books stacked on your shelves.

“Well,” you weren’t expecting that question tonight.

“Yes, I do… but, I’m sort of… out of practice.”

“Because you’re not at home usually?” He remembers from the Kathy Encounter. “You’re busy with the store?”

Not even work was an excuse to why you haven’t played in years, you were closed every Monday and Tuesday.

“I guess,” you rub the sides of your long cardigan, knowing in just a moment you were about to remove this dust cover and touch a piano since moving to this old carriage house.

“-But let’s see if I’ve still got it.”

Throwing the back of your cardigan over the wide bench like a pianist with its tailcoat, you sit rather snugly and close to Steve, who you beckoned to join you instead of looming over your shoulder again.

Closer than in your small car, closer than that night he kissed the wound on your forearm- still wrapped, he notes in qualm as you shove back the long sleeves up to your elbows and give a shake of your hands, loosening the nerves that ran to your fingertips.

Curved, not buckled in, knuckles relax as they feather over the row of teeth that have gone untouched for too long. You hold a bubble in each of your palms, hesitant, as if you were waiting for your fingers to move with minds of each their own beneath your manicure that matched the semitones.

With a meek squeeze of the air in your hold, Steve watches you fill your chest with a big gust of breath, hold, then exhale it across the keys in a choppy Chopin waltz that had you apologizing extensively for your unsound nocturnes.

Trying to hide your face with a chuckle, fingers fled skittery to hide beneath your thighs, sitting on them, and not yet able to look at Steve, who was surprisingly, smiling at you with great enthusiasm and delight.

If he could clap, he would laud the darnedest private performance you just gave him.

“Maybe Robin knows someone that can tune a piano,” you suddenly stop, no longer able to bear the heat of embarrassment that rushed throughout.

“Play another one,” he says with patient eyes of enthusiasm that lean in closer, just barely an inch, to watch you properly warm up.

No, stop this torture. Let’s just go to bed.

Another deep sigh exhaled through your nose, you hold that emptiness with hesitance.

“Alright,” drags out with a smile; a friendly lean into his leather shoulder.

You shortly practice long tones and scales, building up confidence and oil the rustiness of your skill.

An A Minor Beethoven and a B-flat major Bohemian Rhapsody, an hour goes by, then two- up until your bottom is nearly asleep and you’re trying to pull out all the tricks from up your sleeve for Steve.

Confident after a Moonlight Sonata that even impressed yourself,

“I want to play you a song I wrote,” you softly confess, turning to face him, noses closer than you were expecting.

It was originally a duet, rewritten, only ever played solo.

You stick to the left, drab and slow. Melancholy, widowed.

It’s parlor music for those in mourning. For tears to be wiped with embroidered handkerchiefs, dampening with heartache.

There’s grief in these notes, oddly, he can recognize, but to Steve, it’s a dream.

The sight of you, losing yourself without written notation, he watches you dance over the keys like the winter’s first snow.

He knows this feeling, an ephemeral trance he gets whenever his scissors are kept busy.

Everything about you still fascinated him, you’d be utterly oblivious to say this feeling didn’t resemble something adolescent.

It’s puppy love, you tell yourself, the way he heads to your old tricks.

But even as Steve’s just sitting there, you find yourself accidentally skipping skittery across the keys, a stutter each time your peripheral senses him just… looking.

At you.

A moment of self-scrutiny squeezing your brow, a high pitched,

plink-plink-plink

then rings in your ear, turning your head to the sight of one of his blades tickling the far corner ivory.

Retracting your hands, you give him a squint of your eyes as he mirrors your smirk- his, pleased and mischievous, though.

Steve has you smiling back, growing into a grin, smiling back stupid, from the way a feeling you thought was lost then swirls and blossoms in your chest as you continue to play.

A sudden lean into Steve’s side, arms extending over in front of his statuesque torso. He watches as wrists align where his should be. Ringless fingers, imagining them as if they were his own, playing the whimsy, happier notes.

Your left hand is high, an E minor chord without the G. A strike of your right thumb, it’s a blow right through his chest as you start to hum so sweetly, before you sing, almost lulling.

Your lips part to softly breathe lyrics you’ve always known by heart, but before the next self-written verse, your singsong suddenly drifts away due to a distraction.

That’s when you catch it,

A single crystal bead falling down his cheek.

The piano’s warm timbre echoes until it’s nothing.

In the darkened living room as amber candle light flickers over his features, you ever so gently, with the knuckle of your index, scoop the tear off skin so pale the shadows across his face are bruised-violet.

Not realizing he sat paralyzed on the bench with you so close to his side, Steve slowly comprehends the warmth seeping into his side like that oolong long forgotten on the kitchen counter.

“Was it that bad?” You joke with a worried pinched brow.

He blinks away the blurred vision, another tear falling straight onto his lap as he turns to look at you with wet eyes.

“That was beautiful,” he praises, admiration unwavering as he softly speaks your name.

“Awfully beautiful.”

Beautiful song, beautiful you.

The guts it took to share your song with him, he’ll hold onto it for as long as he can.

“Why is that awful?” you tease, making him charily turn away.

“Will you play more?” Steve asks, though you’ve already stood up to stretch high and groan as feeling returns to your bottom after sitting on that church-pew hard bench.

“I can,” you groan once more before pulling down the sleeves of your sweater, “-tomorrow. I think I’m ready for bed.”

“You’re tired,” he confirms.

“Dead tired,” you sleepily chuckle with your chin in your throat for one more stretch above your head.

“I might sleep in tomorrow, but I’ll get up and get things ready before you head out into the garden.”

Steve nods politely, “Thank you.”

“Sure thing,” you give him that soft smile, and Steve gathers all his courage again to ask you another question he’s been dying to share all week.

Going to stand, he calls your name once more as you push the bench back in, and the question makes you look up at him with wide eyes.

You weren’t expecting that question tonight either.

Your warmth still lingering on his side was still savored, Steve was hungry for more.

The chambers of his heart become an ensemble of timpanis, watching you contemplate as you lick your finger before squeezing out one of the candle flames. It was the closest he could get to you, and your answer brought on a symphony in his chest.

He wonders if it's real, stepping along the high path above the spiral stairs, and through the right doorway.

Into the Russian Violet room draped with smoky gossamer, Steve is embraced by licorice and a black cat murmur of your moony voice,

“Let’s go to bed, Stevie.”

comments and reblogs are very much encouraged, appreciated, and cherished ♡

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dottydoesstuff · 4 months ago

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fixer upper

A/N: IM ACTUALLY SO EMBARASSED TO ADMIT THIS IS BASED ON ‘FIXER UPPER’ FROM FROZEN 💀💀💀 does that mean it counts as a song fic…….. (gif creds: @buckysbarnes)

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Fem!Reader (Season 3)

Summary: The kids aren’t saying you can change him, per se. They’re only saying that love’s a force that’s powerful and strange. 2.8k words

Warnings: fluff, babygirl steve, cursing, mentions of toxic (?) relationship, hopeless pining, pet names (sweetheart), shameless flirting

Steve can barely see through his rose-tinted daydream, but he's sure he recognizes your smile as soon as you enter the food court. And you lead a trail of whiny teenagers right to his register. This is the fourth time this week you've heard about Steve's lusturous hair and dazzling eyes. You have to hand it to them, they're not bad salesmen, just a tad young to elicit ethos. What the hell do they know about love anyway.

That's what happens when you're licensed and free on a Friday afternoon: babysitting duty. Now, in the event that Steve had been the one saddled with the party on his day off, he would've argued that they're not really babies and they should be self-sufficient. Knowing Dustin, however, this argument proves to be false almost every time.

But it wasn't Steve, it was you. Steve doesn't think he's heard you complain about one thing in your life.

Not even your deadbeat boyfriend called Brad. Who, as Dustin and Max and Robin love to remind him, is utterly replaceable and on thin ice every other week. Steve knows better than to get his hopes up after three months of having them crushed, though. He's learned to live with the strong sense of yearning he feels whenever you're within thirty feet of him.

Take now, for example: you're coralling half a dozen brats into a somewhat single-file line without even having to raise your voice. He should think it's impressive, but he's too distracted by your lip gloss and your voice and the way you did your hair today.

"I hope you give discounts to distressed young women," you tease, brows knitting when you look up at him. This is the part where he's supposed to respond with something charming. Sexy and charismatic, maybe.

"Oh, uh," he chuckles, "No, I mean, yeah. Sure"—Oh, but you smile at him and all that pent up charisma flies out the neon-framed sliding doors. They chatter out their orders at lightning speed, and he can barely catch half of what they're saying when you look at him like that. You finally make it to the register and pay half price. And your cone is always on the house, of course.

"Isn't he such a gentleman?" Max says unenthusiastically. Lucas elbows her side before retreating with Dustin.

"He's also a great driver!" Will chirps, shuffling away to one of the booths with Mike and El who giggle the whole way there. You turn back to Steve who stares off at them incredulously.

"You see what I have to deal with?" you say with some degree of affection for the chaos.

"Aw, come on," Steve says, tilting his head with a shrug, "you love it."

"I think they keep forgetting I already have a boyfriend."

Not much of a boyfriend if you ask me, he thinks.

But what he says: "Ah, yes. The elusive Brad."

You roll your eyes and grin at him. You know Steve has a crush on you. Or else the kids and Robin wouldn't be so adamant on marketing him to you. It's sweet, really. And honestly, you don't think Steve's unfit to play boyfriend or anything, but you're also not disloyal.

Your scoop melts down the side of the cone between your fingers. Steve nearly hurls himself across the counter handing you a thick stack of napkins.

"Shit, thanks," you huff, lapping at the stream of sticky ice cream. His stomach churns as his face screws into a sickly smile.

"Yeah. No problem."

"No, really"—you wrap a napkin around the cone, shoving the rest into your pocket—"I don't know what I'd do if I had to pay the entire bill everytime one of them had a craving."

"Really, it's not a problem," he shrugs it off like it doesn't come out of his paycheck. "I like helping out pretty girls when I can."

You giggle and tilt your head. "Steve Harrington, you're my hero."

He's almost embarassed at how fast his face flushes red hot and frantic. He reaches for the back of his neck on impulse, and any attempt he makes at seeming suave is foiled by Robin patting him on the shoulder.

"If you think that's heroic, there was this one time he singlehandedly saved Hawkins with this sick baseball bat with nails—"

He huffs, "Robin—"

"No, seriously! Don't be so modest, Steve, you're selling yourself short!"

"I'm not trying to sell myself at all!" he says, turning her around and guiding her towards the door to the back room.

"Great seeing you!" she hollers over her shoulder just before disappearing behind the swinging door. You wave with a chuckle. Steve tuts, fixing his sailor hat and shaking his head.

"Did you really do all that? Save Hawkins, I mean?" you ask. And you seem genuinely interested which is why it guts him. The one girl who actually gives a shit is coincidentally unavailable.

"Yeah," he says, shrugging, "but only to clear my conscience. It's like penance, or whatever."

You giggle, not sure if he's being truthful or playing it off. He meets your eyes and he's sure his heart stops dead in his chest for a beat. Nobody pulls off mall lighting like you.

The kids come skipping back to the counter, declaring they've all got different wants and needs around the mall for the next few hours.

"Okay, hold on, I promised I'd have you guys back before my date," you say, Steve overseeing the conversation from over your shoulder.

"Well," he interjects, "when's your date?" All the attention shifts to Steve, and he suddenly wishes he could swallow up the words and take them back for good.

"Two hours from now. Across town," you say, looking a little guilty knowing he's about to make the kindest offer of the year.

"I'm off at five, so I can just"—stop talking—"take them home after my shift."

"Steve, really, you don't have to—"

El grins, eyes wide as she whispers in Max's ear.

Steve shakes his head, "Sweetheart, believe me, I want to. Besides, you've already been through enough with the rascals. Go have fun."

You turn to the kids, almost pleading with them to accept Steve's generosity.

"Is that okay with you guys? I don't wanna leave you stranded," you admit.

They nod in agreement, throwing out a couple yes's and sure's. They're bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as ever, but you still feel bad dumping them on Steve like this.

Dustin interrupts: "This really just goes to show how Steve is a great candidate for marriage and other domestic relations. He can be odd at times and he might care too much about his hair, but you can tell by his actions that he would be a very reliable husband, a generous life partner, and—"

"And a great friend," you giggle, trying not to let Dustin get too carried away. You have sat through enough of his speeches for one day. "Now, quit trying to set us up!"

Steve rolls his eyes at the boy. "Seriously, at least wait 'til she's single. Then she can reject me for me."

You whip back to face him with a sour look on your face.

"Steven! That's not—that's rude to yourself," you huff, "Say three nice things."

He chuckles, crossing his arms over his chest and squinting at you.

"You're pretty, I like your shoes, and you smell nice."

"About you!"

"Ohh," he feigns surprise, "No." But you reach across the counter to whack him on the arm with a shocking amount of force. The kids chuckle from behind you. Steve can't help but smile when you raise your brows proudly. "Fine! I am deserving of love, I am great company, and my hair looks particularly shiny today."

"Good," you nod, "I agree. And I have to go, see ya!"

"With which one?" he says, watching you jog out of the store waving. "Wait! Sweetheart? Agree with which one??"

Steve sighs sharply, hands perched decidedly on his hips as his gaze falls flat on the militia of pre teens staring him down.

"What do you want?" he says.

"You're hopeless," Max says, mouth pressed in a hard line before she wanders off, arm-in-arm with El.

"Yeah, dude. And kinda desperate," Mike shrugs.

"Hey," he grumbles. Who knew such harsh words could come from such little humans. You'd think they'd be harmless at this age. You'd be wrong.

"You're a total virgin," Dustin says, very matter-of-factly.

Steve cocks a brow, honestly trying not to laugh at the severity of Dustin's demeanor when he says it. "I don't even think you know what that means."

Dustin blinks. "Well, I think you haven't had sex in long enough that you qualify as one."

"Shit."

...

Much to Steve’s surprise, it only takes butthead Brad two more weeks to absolutely shatter your heart. No one knows the complete details other than it happened at a frat party and you had to walk back to the dorms alone. But Steve doesn’t need complete details to know he wants to shatter Brad’s jaw with his fist.

But he also vowed to use means other than violence to get his point across. He should be awarded for the amount of restraint it took to see your bloodshot eyes and not speed immediately off towards Asshole University like a Brad-seeking atomic missile.

Of course, he’s thankful you felt comfortable enough to call him. In fact, he was the first one you rang. And he knows this fact because you told him while you were sniffling away tears a week and a half after the break up.

Now, you’re sitting in the passenger seat of his beemer, curled into your sweater, and listening to late night soft rock radio while he focuses on the dark highway ahead of him. You hadn’t wanted to do anything else but sit in his car and think. His heart clenches everytime you wipe away a tear with your soggy sleeve.

He pulls off the highway during an ad break, finding a secluded diner surrounded by nothing but trees and gas stations. He pulls into a parking spot near the back of the lot where the overhead lights aren’t blinding, but you aren’t completely in the dark. He leaves the car on so the cold doesn’t seep in, engine still purring softly from under the hood.

“Who needs ‘em,” he says in attempt to lighten the mood. “Being single is way cooler. Take it from me. You get a bed all to yourself and you can fart whenever you want.”

You’re frowning, but you know he means well. You just can’t help the fat tears rolling down your cheeks.

“Oh, come here,” he whispers, leaning over the center console and dipping his hands over your shoulder and around your waist. His arms feel so strong and so warm where they envelop you entirely. Steve always was the best hug you ever receieved.

You can’t help but chuckle wetly into his collar after a moment.

“God, he was such an asshole, wasn’t he?”

“Uh, duh! Doesn’t take a genius to…” Steve laughs, pausing and brushing the hair away from your damp cheeks. “I know, sweetheart, and you deserve heaps better. You were always way too cool for that loser.”

You blink up at him in the low light. There’s a kind of twinkle in your eye that makes the tips of his ears hot. This time, you reach for him, weaving your arms beneath his jacket with a deep sigh. Your breathing slows against his neck, and he rubs your back while your arms tighten a little around his waist.

He can’t help but wonder what you’re thinking whenever you look at him with your doe eyes, seemingly sweet and far too inquisitive. He knows you’re probably just looking, maybe thinking of something else. But the hopeless romantic in him rattles his rib cage and shouts you might actually consider him this time.

“Wanna go get shakes? On me,” he whispers. You sniffle, wiping your aching nose on the cuff of your sleeve.

“I can pay for myself,” you tease, popping open the car door when he cuts the engine.

“Nope! Sorry, I don’t let girls pay, remember? Super sexist, I know. Plus the whole pretty privilege thing. Honestly, I should just be paying you at this point,” he says, hooking his arm around your back and feeling yours reach for his shoulder as you march towards the diner.

“I agree, rich boy,” you chuckle, “Reparations are in order for wrongdoings on behalf of your sex.”

He chuckles. He’s absolutely head over heels.

The waitress seats you at a cozy booth in the corner and makes a casual comment about the cute couple, asking how long you two have been together. Steve flounders at the question, flustered and pink in the face.

“Oh, we’re actually… not together,” you say, laughing awkwardly when she pouts and, again, remarks on how cute you’d be together. You order shakes for the both of you before perching your chin in your hand. Steve’s still reeling when the waitress walks away.

“Funny. We can’t even escape the third-degree from complete strangers,” you tease, winking at him from just a few feet away. Jesus, he’d think you were trying to kill him if you didn’t seem so lighthearted and playful.

“Yeah, pretty funny,” he sighs. And he’s probably being so obvious. Or maybe that’s how he is all of the time, so his heart eyes seem subtle. Or it’s obvious all of the time.

The waitress slides the shakes in front of you, and the bright red cherries sink further into the whipped cream.

“You know,” you murmur between sips, “I always thought you were pretty cute.”

He nearly chokes on his mouthful of chocolate malt, clearing his throat and trying not to crumble in on himself.

“Oh. Yeah, I get that a lot,” he huffs, “Mostly from little old ladies, but—Hey!”

You flick him and say, “Really! I know it’s not couth considering… Brad and all, but…”

“You’re being facetious,” Steve accuses.

“No—”

“Sarcastic!”

“Steve—”

“Ironic?”

“Try serious!” you hum, “I’m just saying, you’re very handsome. I was shocked to learn you were single when we first met.”

Steve’s blushing and puffing trying to maintain eye contact.

“What can I say? I’m just,” he huffs, “I’m not really worried about it.”

You tilt your head. “You’re not?”

“Nah. I know the right girl will find me in the end. Even if it takes a while. I don’t mind waiting for the right one.”

You settle back in the padded seat, wincing when it squeals beneath you. It makes you feel a little dejected, but you suppose he’s right. Especially because he seems so confident. So sure. It’s admirable. You want to be that sure of soulmates and love and the future.

“I feel the same way,” you whisper. He finishes off the rest of his glass with a smile.

“Though, it doesn’t exactly help having a bunch of little shitheads telling you to go get laid all the time,” he laughs.

“Oh, yeah, tell me about it” you lean in, “Just break up with him, steve is so much nicer. Dump that loser. Steve has a big crush on you.”

“They said that?” Steve’s not dumb, he’s sure you know by now, but he thought it was all conjecture. They will be hearing about this next time they want free ice cream.

“Yeah, that was like their main point. But I know with all the love in my heart they’re all full of shit.”

You shrug, and he chuckles dryly. He can’t decide whether you knowing is for better or for worse.

“Yeah,” he sighs.

Steve drives you home. You fall asleep in the car, and he keeps the radio low so as not to wake you. By the time he pulls into your driveway, he doesn’t care about the time or the fact that he lives far. He does, however, care about the way you smile lazily and peck his cheek in thanks.

“Anytime, sweetheart.”

He says it but he wants to tell you what he’s feeling. He wants to ask if you’re over Brad. He knows you’re not and that’s okay, but he wants to ask if he can hold your hand to keep it warm. He wants to ask what kind of flowers you like and if it would be okay for him to drop them off on your doorstep tomorrow. He has so much he wants to say and do, but he doesn’t want to suffocate you.

He doesn’t know that you wouldn’t mind him asking.

masterlist

#dottyrecsfics

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dottydoesstuff · 4 months ago

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"you should be at the club" I should be working on my fanfic

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dottydoesstuff · 4 months ago

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Steve no bitches Harrington please end the show with no bitches. Like I dunno I just like to hang out with my ex girlfriend and her new boyfriend. And my gay best friend. And this weird child. This is the perfect Steve 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

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dottydoesstuff · 4 months ago

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updating chaptered fics is like yippeee ok they liked my last chapter!!!! and your brain devil goes but what if. what if they. what if this is the one they hate

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dottydoesstuff · 4 months ago

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#the scream i scrampt #i’m unwell

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dottydoesstuff · 4 months ago

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Mood

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dottydoesstuff · 5 months ago

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Need your lips on mine

Steve Harrington x fem reader

Steve Harrington will hook up with you. So why won’t he kiss you?

This is something quick and silly I wrote in an attempt to drag myself out of the writing slump I’ve been in, so be warned that this is barely proofread. 2.1k

18+ minors dni: semi public sex, fingering, oral (f receiving), a little bit of angst and insecurity, premature ejaculation whoops

Steve Harrington is a great kisser.

Everyone knows it’s true.

He’s been making girls swoon since the 10th grade.

Becky Lewinsky was the first. A game of spin the bottle in her parents basement, the damp, dark space crowded with twenty odd teenagers sat in a lopsided circle. As if by some divine magic, the bottle of Jack snuck from the liquor cabinet upstairs stopped pointing at the birthday girl. Becky crawled gleefully across the threadbare carpet and planted one on Steve in front of everyone.

She spoke about that moment near constantly for two weeks, all starry eyes and flushed cheeks.

That is until Steve Harrington had his second kiss.

A study session with Noelle Chambers cut short when the school librarian caught them making out in the Historical section.

Then it was Noelle’s turn to brag. About how soft Steve’s lips were, how he tasted like spearmint and strawberry chapstick, how butterflies fluttered wildly in her stomach when his large hand cupped her jaw.

Then it was Laurie. Then Amy. Back to Becky. Followed by a seemingly never ending list of girls, each one with a story of how Steve Harrington blew their minds with just a few kisses.

Even Nancy Wheeler, always so prim and proper, turned giggly and foolish when Steve’s lips touched hers.

You wouldn’t know what it was like.

It’s not like you weren’t privy to his other talents.

As you all grew older the rumour mill turned more suggestive, then downright sordid.

Steve Harrington eats pussy like it’s his last meal.

Steve Harrington always makes sure his girl comes first.

Steve Harrington was packing, enough to have you walking awkwardly for hours when it was over.

Those things were all true. You could vouch for them.

But you didn’t know for sure that Steve Harrington was a good kisser. Because he would never kiss you.

In fairness, during your first encounter you hadn’t even noticed.

It had been a blur of hurried movements, bodies tumbling out the front door of some house party of some vague acquaintance. Quick footsteps crunching over gravel and the heat of Steve’s body pushed flush to your back as he wrenched open the back door to his beemer. Only the necessary clothes were removed, both of you too eager to bother undressing properly. Your jeans were tugged down to your ankles, sweater pushed up around your neck, and Steve Harrington sunk to his knees in the tiny awkward space behind the passenger seat.

You saw stars with your thighs wrapped around his head. Too drunk on bliss to even care that anyone else leaving the party would be able to instantly see the steam shrouded windows and the rocking of the otherwise stationary vehicle when he finally clambered over you and fit his body so perfectly with your own.

When it was over, Steve helped you tug denim back in place over your hips, chuckled softly as he wiped sweat from his brow.

Steve Harrington is a gentleman.

So it was no surprise that he drove you home. Even waited until the front door was closed behind you to pull away from the curb.

Only as the low rumble of the engine faded into the distance did you realise, he hadn’t kissed you once.

Despite his gentlemanly tendencies, you hadn’t expected Steve to call. In fact, you didn’t remember giving him your number, so the first time you heard the low timbre of his voice over the cracking phone line was a total surprise.

It was obvious what he was after. It wasn’t a date. But still, he was sweet with his suggestion, offering to pick you up for a ride back to his place. A dip in the pool in his backyard to wash away the cloying summer heat.

It was all too easy to accept.

Even easier to let Steve pull loose the ties that held your bikini in place, the soaked garment tossed carelessly onto tiles still warm from sun that had set hours before. Your head fell back, face to the stars as Steve pressed you firmly against the pools edge. You could still see the sparkling constellations with your eyes closed as he thrust in long, deep strokes, the cool turquoise water rippling as your bodies met.

When it was over Steve held you close to his chest. He panted against the shell of your ear, chest quivering beneath your exploring fingertips while he regained his composure. He’d placed a gentle kiss to your temple. You turned your head, hope blooming behind your ribs that you might be able to chase his lips with your own.

But he was up and out of the pool in seconds. Stepping into his trunks and collecting your swimwear.

It was hard not to feel disappointed. You pondered it that night as you lay alone in your bed, the space between your thighs still aching from the stretch.

Had you done something? Was there something in your teeth? Oh god, did your breath smell bad?

That must be it, right? What other reason could there be for Steve Harrington gifting you the most delicious orgasms you’d ever experienced, but still refusing something as simple as a kiss?

You wouldn’t let it happen again.

When Steve called the following week, and you coyly mentioned that your parents were out of town, you set to action as soon as you’d hung up the phone. Brushing and flossing until your gums were sore, swirling mouthwash three times just in case. As your doorbell rang, you applied one final swipe of blueberry gloss, pouting at yourself in the mirror. You looked thoroughly kissable. Steve would have no excuse this time.

Except he did. Not that he voiced it of course. But the usual routine ensued. Steve kissed your neck, sucked deep marks into your chest, mouth hungrily over your cunt. But when he was finally over you and in you, fucking you hard into your mattress, each time you tilted your head towards his and pouted he pulled away. It was subtle, the way he’d bury his face against your shoulder, pepper soft kisses over your collar bones. But by the time he left your gloss was still disappointingly unsmudged.

It hurt. You liked Steve. Not just for the way he made your body tremble with pleasure. In the moments before and after he was so sweet, so funny, a little hint of bitchiness in his humour that you adored. He took the time to ask about your interests. He told you about his own. He cared.

You’d had enough. Your heart and your mind couldn’t take much more of the mixed messages. You needed answers, but you knew you couldn’t bring yourself to simply ask for them. It was too humiliating, too needy. So you hatched a plan.

The drive to Steve’s house was short, which was lucky really. If you’d had too long to think you might have started to question if your plan was such a good idea. You might have talked yourself out of it, convinced yourself that Steve didn’t really like you, maybe he already had another girl over, taking your place in his bed.

But you had no time to ruminate on such thoughts, pulling onto the Harrington driveway just minutes after leaving your own. The BMW sat alone, the house dark save for the light in Steve’s bedroom. You took a deep breath as you knocked on the door.

A moment later you could hear footsteps in the hallway. The porch light flicked on, bathing you in warm amber light.

When Steve opens the door his mouth falls open in surprise. His white t-shirt is tight across his chest, grey sweatpants sitting low on his hips. As your eyes trail downwards Steve shuffles, adjusting the all too obvious tent in the fabric.

“H-hey. Uhh- hey.” He says, sounding uncharacteristically nervous.

“Hi.” You reply sweetly.

Was Steve Harrington blushing?

“I wasn’t - I wasn’t expecting you.” Steve says. He runs a broad palm over the back of his neck.

“Sorry, I probably should’ve called. Just wanted to see you.” You purr, giving him your best bedroom eyes.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Oh. You weren’t - I mean, you didn’t. I w-wasn’t up to anything.” Steve stammers. His cheeks are almost maroon.

“Really? You weren’t doing anything at all?”

You’re teasing him. And it’s wonderful to see his reaction. The way he audibly gulps, his blown pupils darting from your face to the floor and back again.

“Can I come in?” You ask softly.

“Sure! Of course.” Steve says, stepping aside to let you through.

Steve seems to have given himself a mental pep talk as you follow him up to his room. Once the door closes behind you he’s back to his usual confident self.

Clothes are shed much like always. Steve spends what feels like an eternity working you open with his fingers, pulling one orgasm from you as you writhe on his expensive cotton sheets. When he steps away from the bed, retrieving a condom from his dresser, you prepare yourself to put your plan into action. You watch with rapt attention as Steve rolls the latex over his length, thrusting into a loose fist as he leans back over you. His lips find that familiar spot just below your ear as your legs spread wider, giving him space to slot between them. When he pushes into you, bringing that familiar burn that you’ve come to crave, he raises his head. His eyes roll back, lids fluttering closed as a groan spills past his pretty lips.

It’s the opportunity you’ve been waiting for.

Grabbing Steve’s cheeks you pull his face down to you, tilting your own up to meet him halfway. It’s a messy semblance of a kiss, lips clumsily crashing and teeth clinking painfully together.

Steve lets out a small surprised squeak, but you don’t allow yourself the time to question whether the sound is of pleasure or annoyance. You’re too busy swiping your tongue against Steve’s bottom lip. Realising that those old rumours still held some truth. Spearmint and strawberry chapstick.

Through the messy meeting of mouths Steve’s hips have begun to falter, losing a rhythm before he’s even had time to set it. When the tip of your tongue touches his, tentative and unsure, he makes a pained sound, a deep groan that vibrates from his chest. His hips stall, and you feel the warmth inside as he spills into the condom.

Steve Harrington has never been known as a two pump chump before.

You’re so shocked, for a moment your plan disappears entirely from your mind. Your lips leave Steve’s, a gasp escaping you. But you’ve unleashed something now, a wall that’s broken down, and this time it’s Steve that chases you. Whining desperately as he shakes from his orgasm, he kisses you deeper, his tongue thrusting past your lips to tangle with your own.

“Mmm. Steve -what-“ you try to question between his kisses.

“M’sorry.” He whimpers.

You don’t want to stop kissing him. After waiting all this time you’d quite happily let him continue to steal the breath from your lungs. But you need an explanation. Reluctantly, you pull lightly on Steve’s hair, tugging his face back.

“What the hell was that?” You whisper.

He’s blushing again, cheeks a furious red that spreads up to the tips of his ears and down his neck.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long.” He whines.

“Well then why haven’t you?”

“Didn’t think - I didn’t think you liked me like that. I thought you just wanted to mess around with me. And I thought if I kissed you, I’d get too attached. So I didn’t. But you - you just… fuck. I’m sorry, I’ve just been thinking about it for forever.”

Of all the possible reasons for Steve to avoid kissing you, this one never crossed your mind. But it was the best possible outcome. He’d been scared to kiss you because he liked you. He really liked you. So much so, that one simple kiss resulted in him coming within seconds.

Steve moves to pull out, humiliation clear as day on his face.

“No, don’t!” You say quickly. You use your hand in his hair to pull him back down to you.

This kiss is softer. Sweet and slow. You nip at Steve’s bottom lip, and feel the stirring between your thighs. He’s half hard again already.

Steve rocks his hips experimentally, hissing through his teeth at the sensitivity.

You grin against his lips.

“Think you’ve got some making up to do Stevie.”

“Yeah.” He sighs softly.

“I can do that.”

#dottyrecsfics

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dottydoesstuff · 5 months ago

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@starry-eyed-steve-library said in their reblog of you make me feel alive that Steve defo would’ve freaked when Dustin spilled the nerds in his car. I like to think that he was so preoccupied being unreasonably jealous thinking about you and Eddie that he just tuned out all the chaos going on around him but I hope you enjoy Dustin (somewhat) suffering the consequences of his actions in this chapter. But I digress, your point was actually what motivated me to keep writing this chapter because i was soooo stuck but then I was thinking about it and the scene of Dustin and Steve with the m&ms in his car came into my head and I had to write it and everything just started flowing from there, so thank you sm !!

You know in the end, I'll always be there (steve harrington x reader)

Based on the song ‘the promise’ by when in Rome

Part 3 of the Head over Heels mini series

I had to type Dustin so many times that now i'm not sure its a real word

Pls pls pls note that steve not getting Henry's name right is completely intentional and not me accidentally mixing the names up 😭

Will there be a part four soon or will I drop off the face of the earth again ? who knows. I literally have no clue how to end this (completely unintentional) series.

Angst, pining, idiots in love, no use of y/n,

4k words <3

Dred was eating away at Steve. It has been a week since that god-forsaken party. A week since he’d kissed you. A week since you had left him sitting alone on Tina’s porch. It has been the longest that the two of you have gone without talking since he met you. Steve had hoped that maybe you'd woken up the day after the party and developed a special type of amnesia that only made you forget about the kiss (and Joseph, but that was just wishful thinking) but as time went on the more his hope dwindled. It was clear you were avoiding him, there were no more late night phone calls where the two of you would talk nonsense till passing out, no more dropping by family video and no more afternoons spent driving around Hawkins with no specific destination in mind. Even after you had started seeing Jonah, you and Steve still talked on a daily basis but then he went and fucked it all up. Typical.

As Steve lay in bed staring at his ceiling, he thought about that day at the lake and how Eddie had so easily picked up on his feelings for you, he then remembered the vow he made himself about how his feelings should not interfere with your friendship. He grabbed the pillow next to him and covered his face before letting out a long groan and then tossed said pillow across his bedroom.

He’s. Fucked. It. Up.

The one thing he swore to himself he wouldn't do, he went and did anyway.

His heart hurt at the thought that his actions may have pained you in some way but relished as he remembered the feeling of your lips against his.

He truly didn't know what came over him that night at Tina's party. But before he could ponder on that for too long the phone on his bedside table began to ring.

He answered it in a heartbeat, silently begging for it to be you on the other side.

Unfortunately for Steve he was met with Dustin's screeching and not your soft voice.

Dustin was all but begging him for a ride to the arcade which Steve reluctantly agreed to. His shift was due to start in just under an hour anyway so he said he'd pick up Dustin on his way.

After hanging up the phone Steve was plunged back into a vicious silence due to his house being devoid of any life other than himself. For the first time in a week, instead of giving into it and wallowing in self pity, he got up to shower.

Steve pulled up to Dustin's house half an hour later.

“You're late” the younger boy declared as he yanked the door open and clambered into the passenger seat.

“I don't think we actually agreed on a time”

Dustin rolled his eyes as he fastened his seatbelt and reached into his pocket for his packet of m&ms.

“No, no, no” Steve said before snatching the packet out of Dustin's hands. “No eating in my car”

Dustin's look of bewilderment would've made Steve laugh had he not been in such a bitter mood.

“What the hell are you talking about, you let me eat in here all the time” Dustin argued as he attempted to grab the candy back from Steve.

“No, I used to let you eat in here until you went and spilled nerds everywhere, it's been three months and I'm still finding them.”

Dustin rolled his eyes and slumped back in his seat as Steve shoved the packet of m&ms into the glove box and went to start the car.

“Your just mad because you and your girlfriend had a fight”

Steve's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets at Dustin’s accusation.

“You- my-... what?”

“Yeah, haven't seen you two together in a while.” Dustin said as he waggled his finger in Steve's face.

Steve whacked his hand away from him with a look of disgust on his face. Partly because of what Dustin was saying but mostly because his hand was covered in Cheeto dust.

“First off, she isn’t my girlfriend,” Dustin gave him a sceptical look before starting to argue back.

“And second,” Steve interjected before Dustin could start picking holes in his words “we aren't fighting were both just, y’know… busy”

“Busy.” Dustin repeated, looking doubtful.

“Yeah she's got her stuff going on and I've got mine”

Steve kept his eyes on the road in front of him as he spoke knowing his face would betray him which would only give the other boy more reason not to believe his words. He hated lying to Dustin but knew that the boy was prone to meddling in others lives and if he knew how Steve really felt about you he couldn't be sure Dustin wouldn't insert himself where he was not wanted. Plus he wasn't really lying, you two hadn’t fought, you were just avoiding Steve like the plague. …There's a difference.

“I never said her name” Dustin's voice pulled Steve back into reality.

“Huh?”

“You knew exactly who I was talking about and I never even said her name”

Steve sat in silence as Dustin gave him a smug smile

“Whatever man that doesn't prove anything”

“Or maybe it proves everything”

They pull up at a stop light as Dustin finishes. Steve takes the opportunity to open his glovebox and grab the packet of m&ms and throw them at Dustin. They hit him in the face before falling onto his lap.

“Shut up and eat your m&ms”

Dustin looked like the cat who got the damn cream as he ripped open the packet and shoved a handful into his mouth.

“You should go for it though, if you do like her, she’s cool”

Steve valued Dustin's sentiment, however he would have valued it more if Dustin had finished chewing his m&ms before saying it. He didn't reply though, knowing whatever he said Dustin would have something annoyingly Dustin-ish to retort with.

He continued stewing over Dustin's words in his head until they arrived at family video. Steve had barely finished parking the car before Dustin was opening the door and jumping out, shouting Steve a goodbye over his shoulder as he hurried into the arcade. Steve rolled his eyes affectionately at the younger boy's actions before sighing and reaching to the backseat to grab his family video vest, shrugging it on and adjusting his name tag as he climbed out of his car.

He’d been standing behind the front counter in a state of monotony for a few minutes (though it felt like hours) before Robin burst through the door.

“You look like a kicked puppy”

Steve looked up from where he had been staring at the floor and methodically scuffing the carpet with the toe of his shoe.

“Good morning to you too, Robin”

Robin waved her hand at him dismissively as she walked into the backroom to clock in.

“You need to grow a pair and talk to her Harrington” her voice echoed across the empty store.

“I have no idea what your talking about”

“You know exactly what I'm talking about. You've been sat here all week staring longingly at the door waiting for her to walk through it”

“I have not”

“Yes Steve, you have. You're waiting for all your problems to solve themselves, which is what you always do.”

“Oh yeah, your one to talk” steve mumbled

Robin rolled her eyes as she walked back over to where he sat.

“Even if I did talk to her, what would I even say?”

“Just tell her how you feel, dingus” Robin said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh yeah that's a great idea, so what, you want me to go up to her and tell her that I can’t stop thinking about her, that I haven't been able to get her out of my head for like months, that I’m so head over heels in love with her that it hurts and then what will happen Robin? I will loose her forever because incase you haven’t noticed she’s with someone else and so obviously dosn’t feel the same way, so I will live the rest of my life in misery while they go off and get married and have children and I’ll be sat at home with my four cats wishing that I’d just fucking told her when I had the chance.” Steve dropped on the stool by the computer with a huff as he finished his monologue.

Robin stood in silence with an amused look on her face.

“You have always had a flair for the dramatics Harrington”

Steve buried his head in his hands.

“Look they've been dating for like a month, I highly doubt they’re getting married anytime soon”

“That's no the point, I-,” Steve stood up from where he sat, avoiding eye contact with Robin as best he could as he walked to grab the trolly full of tapes to be restocked “Look the bottom line is I want her to be happy, and if shes happy with Josh then I should just forget about it”

“Steve”

“No, i'm just going to apologise and say it was a stupid drunken mistake and leave her be”

“Fine, if that's what you want the-”

“It is.” Steve said with such firmness that Robin couldn't argue no matter how much she wanted to. The look in his eyes was one of such finality and sadness that it broke her heart to see.

She had stood by and watched for months as Steve pined desperately for a totally oblivious you. She had watched as Steve went on date after date trying to get over you but his tactic had failed due to every girl he dated saying that he'd spent a great deal of time talking about you and was clearly harbouring an attachment. The notion made Robin cringe but also feel a great deal of sympathy for her clearly longing friend.

Robin couldn't shake the awful feeling that things were not going to end well for the two of you. She cared for you both greatly and couldn't bear to witness the aftermath of what would surely be an explosive end to your and Steve's friendship.

She was so sure that one of you would have come to your senses and confessed by now, it was completely, glaringly, painfully obvious to anyone outside the two of you that there were feelings involved. The longing stares, the inside jokes that date back years, the constant need to be close to each other and the uncanny ability to know what the other is thinking made Robin a tad envious if she was being completely honest. The two of you had been friends for as long as she could remember and somehow you weren't sick of each other.

She could tell that probing Steve any longer wouldn't amount to anything so she left him alone to restock the tapes as she manned the front desk, alone.

The rest of Steve's shift passed mind-numbingly slowly, and without a word from Robin, until the clock on the back wall struck 10 pm and Steve could be released from the hellscape that is family video. Robin had waved him goodbye with a sad smile as she left before he could offer her a ride home. He watched as she fastened her helmet and did up her jacket to try to somewhat protect herself from the downpour that had started 10 minutes ago. He felt like shit watching her go, realising that his misery was contagious and had just forced his best friend to cycle home in the rain rather than have to talk to him. Just as he was about to go into the back to clock out, the phone rang.

He huffed out a breath of air before picking up the receiver and mentally prepared his customer service voice.

“Welcome to family video, what can I help you with ?”

He was expecting a frazzled customer to beg him to stay open late so they could return their tape to avoid a late fee, or maybe a request to reserve the new Top Gun VHS they'd just got in. But that is not what he heard.

“Steve ?”

If he hadn't been listening so intently he would have missed it. It was your voice and hearing it had done a number on his brain. He opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish trying to get some semblance of a word to come out

“Steve? Are you there?”

“Uhh yeah, yes I'm here. What- uhh -what's up?”

“I didn't know who else to call.” You paused to try and work out what to say. He'd never in his life heard your voice sound so small. Through the static Steve swore he heard a muffled sob, without thinking Steve asked, “Are you crying?”

Steve talks without thinking far too often and when he says brainless things such as what he just asked you, it makes him want to bang his head on the counter in front of him. Repeatedly.

“I- Can you come pick me up?” you ask quietly, like you haven't quite decided if you want him to hear you or not, then you start talking very quickly as you add “i'm so sorry, I know its late, it’s just no one else is picking up and my parents would go mad if they knew where I was, plus-”

“Where are you ?” he asked gently, trying to calm you down.

“The Hideout”

That took Steve by surprise. The only time you would go to the Hideout was to see Eddie play with Corroded Coffin and even then you would only stay for his set. The sticky tables, seedy patrons and deafening music not really being to your taste.

“I’m sorry steve, I know its a trek but-”

“I'll be there in ten minutes”

Didn’t you know that Steve would go to the ends of the earth to make sure you were alright? A ten minute drive was hardly an ultimatum.

“Thank you Steve” your words were quiet but sincere.

“It's no problem”

There was a few seconds of silence before the line went dead, Steve hoped that you had run out of change and not just hung up on him.

Steve rushed into the backroom to clock out then back through the store to the front door. He made sure to lock it before covering his head with his jacket and running to his car.

He's not ashamed to say he broke a few traffic laws on his way to the hideout but he was running on pure adrenaline so really he can't be blamed. Your words were swirling around his thoughts. How you had said ‘none of your other friends’, Steve hoped that meant that you still viewed him as a friend and not that you were just trying to spare his feelings. Other is just a five letter word, was he really going to place all his hope in your friendship having a future on a five letter word? He thought that doing so may be setting himself up for disappointment when he realised that you had called him. He knew that you’d tried to call other people first but he was still considered as an option and that made him push his foot on the accelerator a little bit harder.

Questions clouded his thoughts. Why hasn't your boyfriend picked you up? Why were you at the Hideout? More importantly, why were you crying? Has Jeremiah made you cry?

He thought about what Robin and Dustin had said to him as he sped further through the sleepy town, how they thought he should tell you how he felt. Perhaps they were right or perhaps they have never cared about someone as much as Steve cares about you so could never understand what was at stake.

The rain was coming down even heavier now and making the road ahead harder to see, but he pushed on.

He still hasn't decided whether he would reveal his feelings to you as he arrived at the Hideout. The rain paired with the light coming from the dingy bar made looking through his car windows difficult but he still desperately searched the surrounding area for you. He soon realised that he would have to get out to find you so reached around to the backseats to search for his umbrella. He stuck his hand under the passenger seat and felt the cylindrical object and pulled it out. It was, like everything else in his car, covered in nerds. He got out of the car as he brushed them off whilst cursing Dustin and vowing to never ever let him eat in the car again (he broke that vow within the week)(he's starting to realise that he's awful at keeping promises that he makes to himself).

The rain showed no signs of easing up as he walked closer to the bar entrance, still scanning the surrounding area, until he finally spotted you. You were sitting hunched over under the awning near the entrance of the bar. Thankfully safe and dry but far from okay. Your knees were pulled up to your chest with your arms wrapped around them and your forehead resting on top facing the floor. Your hair was wet and windswept and your shoes covered in mud. As he walked closed he could see your foot tapping rapidly up and down as you so often did when you're feeling anxious. He stopped next to you and knelt town to softly touch your shoulder. Your head shot up at his touch and for the first time in an agonising week, his eyes met yours.

Your eyes were red and puffy and your cheeks had streaks of mascara flowing down them confirming what he'd asked you on the phone, your hands shook due to the cold and your voice quivered as you said “you came”.

Steve hated that there was a note of disbelief in your voice.

“Of course I came, idiot” he attempted to make it sound light and jokey akin to the way you would normally talk to try and make you and himself feel better.

You giggle slightly whilst looking down to wipe the tears from your face.

Steve didn't know what he was supposed to do next. He didn't know if he was meant to take you home, or back to his house, or sit out here or what. His knees made the decision for him as they began to ache due to his crouched position, so he moved to sit down next to you. Your legs brush up against each other and shoulders bump together in an all too familiar way as he settles.

Your presence was comforting but there was a sense of detachment between you that made Steve feel sick to his stomach. For a while the only noise was the howling wind and sound of chatter from inside the bar. Steve couldn't bear it, silence was not something the two of you heard much of when together.

“What happened ?” He can't bring himself to look you in the eyes again yet so he settles for looking at the trees swaying in the distance.

Steve doesn't quite know what he's asking. Whether he's asking what happened tonight for you to end up crying alone outside the Hideout or what happened between the two of you after Tina's party is unknown to him, but both answers pique his interest.

After a beat of silence you shuffle to sit with your legs outstretched like his and sigh “It's a long story”.

“I’ve got time” as he says it he reaches for your hand which is now resting on your lap and squeezes it whilst giving you a reassuring smile. He has no idea where the surge of confidence came from but he's glad he did it as you hold his hand tightly in return. You both angle yourselves toward each other as you let out a deep breath and try to work out how to tell Steve how you ended up here.

Your night had been a shitshow, to put it lightly.

Not just your night, your entire week has been one thing after another.

It started the minute your boyfriend came stumbling through the door at Tina's party and plunged you back into reality.

The second you had realised what you'd done, that you'd just kissed Steve, your best friend, the boy you've had a crush on for years and had finally just started to get over, your mind hasn't stopped racing. Because Steve had kissed you. Steve had kissed you. Steve had kissed you and you had no idea what it meant. And it fucking terrifed you.

Did he do it because he was drunk and horny? or because he liked you? or because he needed the ego boost after all his failed attempts at dating recently?

The only thing you knew was you needed to get yourself and your very inebriated boyfriend out of Tina's house. So you grabbed Henry by the arm and physically dragged him through the still raging party, out of the front door and away from Steve Harrington.

You walked home that night, slowly, as Henry stopped every block to throw up into bushes. You took him back to his house and pushed him through his front door, not even bothering to tell him goodbye as you set off back to your house. Despite knowing the dangers that lurked in the shadows of Hawkins you kept walking, trying to make sense of the night's events. Your mind was a conflicted mess and you had no idea how to go about sorting through the jumble.

On one hand you had Henry, who you'd started dating just over a month ago and who two weeks ago asked you to be his girlfriend. When you introduced Henry to the group you’d been so sure that he and Steve would get along, both being into sports and such but there was animosity between them that you couldn't quite make sense of. Eddie had said not to worry about it, that it was just Steve being protective, and you accepted that for your own peace of mind but now you're wondering if his dislike for Henry stemmed from somewhere else. The thought made your tummy fill with butterflies, that maybe Steve likes you. You smiled to yourself before remembering that you have a boyfriend. Henry was … nice, attractive, on the football team at Indianapolis community college and was decent in bed but- . You stopped in your tracks, you hadn't realised when listing things about your boyfriend that there would be a but, yet here you were realising that you could be dating Tom fucking Cruise, but he would never be Steve Harrington.

Steve, your Steve who for so many years had been the one person you can tell everything to, someone who you felt safe around, someone who you have envisioned having around for the rest of your life, someone who you had just kissed and left sitting alone on a porch at Tina's party. Tonight, when your lips met his, a flood of emotions washed over you, and it became clear, what you have felt for Steve wasn't some childish crush, it was love. Shit, You love Steve. The realisation should have scared you shitless but it didn't. Instead you felt a sense of clarity and calm before a storm of overwhelming guilt hit you.

You did a full three-sixty and began walking back to Tina’s. With each step you took your heart pounded with the realisation that you might be too late, that he’d left and you missed your chance to-, wait.. What were you going to do?

#steve harrington x reader #dottysaysstuff

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