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lovebugism · 2 years ago

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forgive me for what is likely a basic ass request but... steve has a crush on eddie's best friend? smut optional but encouraged :) (love, j.d. aka mypoisonedvine)

✶ ┄ LOVE YOU, ON PURPOSE (i)

part one | part two

summary: steve harrington took extra care to avoid the local freaks of hawkins. having shared custody of a fourteen-year-old forced him into a bitter friendship with one, he's steadfast in his refusal to befriend the other. that is, until you start working at the groove beside family video. steve claims he only fell for you because you tripped him. (17k)

pairing: steve harrington / eddie's bff!reader

tags: strangers to friends to lovers, mutual pining, protective eddie, canon divergence TW swearing, bullying, some smooching, talks of insecurities, reader is doubtful of steve's intentions because steve used to be a dick <3

a/n: this request has been sitting in my inbox for ages. ages, i tell you! i wrote the outline the day it was sent in and ended up turning the blurb request into a full on 30k+ word fic. i'm sorry for the wait j.d. (and to everyone else who's been waiting patiently for me to put this out). i quite literally put my heart, soul, pussy, and so, so many hours into this. please enjoy! feedback is always appreciated! xoxo

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Something happens and I'm head over heels.

It would be a total disservice to call you Eddie’s best friend.

It wouldn’t even feel right to call you his platonic soulmate or his sister from another dimension. Not when the two of you are essentially an extension of the same human being. It’s a twin flame on steroids — your mirrored souls make the rest of Hawkins believe in some sort of higher power. There’s no way it wasn’t destiny that placed the two of you together at exactly the right place, at exactly the right time.

Your entwined spirits could’ve been a beautiful thing.

It’s too bad you’re both total fucking freaks.

Unfortunately, being a couple of metalheads who spend their free time creating fantastical worlds in silly little board games hasn’t become cool yet — for some sad, strange reason. It leaves you and Eddie as the town’s token social pariahs. The kind of misfits you only spot when you care enough to look — laughing too loudly at the lunch table or sharing a cigarette in the alleyway between school buildings.

The kind of weirdos who get your attention without trying. The kind that people only look at when they need something to make fun of.

With that being said, everything Steve knew about you came from the people that hated you.

Tommy Hagan said that you and Eddie had been fucking since the seventh grade, that the two of you had gotten close between blowjobs and fingerbangs in the old chemistry classroom. No one’s quite sure where it came from, but they believed him without thinking twice. You and Eddie tried to squash the rumor for years before leaning into it full throttle.

“And these are the freaks,” Tommy announced when he approached your lunch table. He was giving Billy Hargrove a grand tour of the high school, or rather the shithole, and detoured like you and Eddie were some kind of sideshow attraction. Him and his goons ogled at you like zoo animals.

Steve idled some feet away, not as interested in the bit as the rest of them. He was even less interested in entertaining the new kid on the block thateveryone else seemed to be obsessed with.

“Hey, Tommy...” Eddie sing-songed through a mouthful of PB&J. You’d given him the other half of your sandwich, because you always give him the other half of your sandwich. “Hope you’re not comin’ back to ask for a handy again. I already turned you down, remember?”

A dumb grin took over the boy’s freckled face. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned over to the California boy. “I wouldn’t get too close to them. Don’t know where their hands have been, you know? If I had to guess, I think Punchy got Munson’s rocks off in the janitor’s closet before lunch period.”

Neither of you were particularly fazed by the laughter that erupted all at once and threatened to swallow you whole. Instead, you smiled with bits of grape jelly smeared on your chin. “I bet you think about it a lot, don’t you, Tommy?”

You really lived up to the nickname. Punchy. You weren’t entirely sure where it came from — your fierce temper, perhaps, or maybe your intense personality. Either way, it suited you.

Vicki Carmichael once said that you bit a guy on a date one time. Barry Jenkins, a tennis douchebag who thought the world revolved around him because his dad owned a string of local laundromats. He took you on a date in his mom’s Impala and assumed making out in the backseat gave him free rein to stick his hand up your skirt.

The asshole sported a red mark on his neck the next day.

When people asked you about it, you smiled with all your teeth in place of any real answer.

Carol Perkins loved to comment on the state of your wardrobe, telling anyone who would listen about the time she caught you rifling through the $1 bargain bins outside the thrift store. She liked to joke that you were stealing from them. “Because she can’t even afford a couple measly dollars. It’s kinda sad, honestly. I feel a little bad for her,” you overheard her saying once.

You were smoking a cigarette in the stall and watching through the crack of it while her and her friends touched up their lip gloss.

“Wait, really?” Tina wondered, stopping mid-swipe of mascara through her long lashes to gape at the girl beside her. Because, god forbid, they don’t have someone to make fun of.

Carol snapped bright pink bubblegum between her teeth. She looked offended, almost — manicured brows furrowed and shiny lips snarled — like the idea of her taking pity on you was insulting. “No,” she snapped in response.

You’re pretty sure it’s the only rumor about you that’s got any bit of truth to it. Or any rumor of hers, really. The thrift store was great and all, but you firmly believe that your best pieces come remanufactured straight from Eddie Munson’s closet.

So it isn’t any wonder why the two of you seem to dress so similarly — all leather jackets and distressed jeans and hand-me-down t-shirts that are either too big or too small. The both of you take little care in your appearance, wearing only what you feel good in. And sometimes that means wild hair and baggy clothes that swallow you whole.

To make it worse, you and Eddie even talk the same. You’re both loud and brash and have very little awareness of personal space. You aren’t scared to make a scene or use your voice when you think it’s being stifled. And when you love someone, they know it, because you won’t leave them the hell alone.

These are all the things that Steve hated about Eddie. So he hasn’t quite figured out why he’s so damn in love with you.

But he is.

Quite dreadfully so.

Head over heels and stumbling since the day he met you for a second time.

It was the spring of 1986 and The Groove had just opened up. Steve had heard murmurings of a record shop taking over the empty outlet adjacent to Family Video but had no idea it would nearly run them out of business. The shiny, new music store attracted all of their usual customers. People were more excited to buy new cassettes than rent movies they’d seen a thousand times already.

Steve didn’t mind, though. He liked it best when the store was empty. But all of his friends — a closeted lesbian, a basket case, and a couple of fourteen-year-olds — seemed to have the same affliction that was plaguing the rest of the town.

He tried not to be offended when Robin said she was going to spend her break next door and not with him in the closet-sized break room.

He failed.

Robin spent her half-hour and then some meeting you. She returned forty-five minutes later with a blushing face and a bleeding heart. Suddenly, there were two people in Steve’s life that couldn’t seem to shut up about you. As much as it annoyed him, he let her gush about you anyway, because that’s what best friends do, after all.

But Steve knew you once upon a time. Or he thought he did.

You were a loudmouthed metalhead who wore all black to blend in to Eddie’s shadow. You created fictional characters because it was easier than making friends with real people. You were strange and awkward and mean and gauche — the total opposite of this heavenly, mystical creature Robin was making you out to be.

But then it became this whole… thing.

With Robin and Eddie constantly talking over him about you, the rest of the kids were as confused as Steve was. And as they so often tend to do, the group decided to take matters into their own hands and make the short trek to meet you formally. Steve figured that their answer would be final. When those teenagers hate you, you know it. He learned that the hard way

They’re gone for a little over an hour and come back with a thousand stories and various tapes they say you gave to them for free.

Lucas has got a new Beastie Boys cassette and a proud smile on his face as he recounts the promise you’d made him about catching his next basketball game. “And she said she really liked my ranger,” he brags less than humbly, telling the older teens about how you’d heard stories about his track record in Hellfire campaigns. There’s a sudden suaveness to his voice as he bounces his brows up and down at them.

Max scrunches her face in disgust. She clutches a Kate Bush tape close to her chest, like it’s a prized possession she never wants to let go of. She rolls her eyes at her boyfriend (or maybe ex-boyfriend, but Steve can never keep up these days) and makes her own conversation with Robin. The two girls are the only ones with more than half a brain cell between them, or so they claim.

The redhead tells her that she plans on bringing her broken skateboard over to your store soon. She says the thing’s been wobbly for days, and Robin nods along like she knows all about it. “Well, apparently, she has some tools and knows how to fix it. Said the trucks just needed to be reinforced or some shit, I don’t know, I’m just glad it’s getting fixed.”

“Wait, why didn’t you tell me?” Steve asks her, confusion contorting his words along with his features. He crosses his arms and leans against the counter. “I could’ve fixed it.”

“You don’t know anything about skateboards,” Max monotones.

“Okay, but you don’t even know this girl! She’s a total stranger, Max. That’s dangerous.”

She rolls her eyes. “She’s nice, Steve. Way nicer than you—”

That makes him scoff.

“—And you’d know that if you got to know her.”

It’s Dustin’s turn to gush about you next. His opinion, for a reason Steve has never been able to place, arguably means the most to him. And the kid is just absolutely fucking beaming about you. He holds a Star Wars orchestral vinyl in his hand — the brand new one he’s been talking about for weeks but couldn’t afford.

He talks of the collection of DnD figurines you were painting behind the counter and the promise you made to make one for his bard come the next campaign.

Dustin gazes at Steve, wide-eyed and nodding like he’s as amazed by the revelation as Steve is. “She’s cool, Steve. Like… really cool.”

The boy thought that Robin just had a crush, that Eddie was just being Eddie and overdramatizing all of his stories about you. But you’re everything they said you’d be and then some. The kind of stranger you meet that takes your breath away, that makes you sad in the understanding that you’ll never see them again. Dustin is grateful you don’t have to be a stranger anymore.

You sounded… nice. More than nice. They painted you out to be a fucking angel, the way you took care of a bunch of kids you barely knew for the better part of an hour. You weren’t the freak everyone made you out to be all that time ago.

They talk a great deal about your looks, too. Dustin, mostly. Lucas had received a glare and a half-hearted punch on the arm from Max when he said how pretty you were — even though she ultimately agreed with him. The curly-headed boy uses too big words to describe the renaissance painting you are, all heavenly morose and beautifully strange.

“Hey,” Eddie scolds from the sidelines, mostly playful. “That’s my sister you’re talking about. Bring it down a few notches, ‘kay?”

Steve is silent for the rest of the day after that. He’s not pouting about it like Robin keeps saying he is, just reserved in his reminiscence.

He can’t tell if he’s intrigued or annoyed. They talk about you the way people used to talk about King Steve — with a borderline obsession for someone they don’t really know. And deep down, he knows he’s just jealous. Jealous that no one talks about him that way anymore. Jealous that none of the kids have ever talked about him that way.

It leaves him skeptical and wanting to see the real thing for himself.

Steve opts to meet you on his lunch break the next day with a tight chest and sweaty palms, like a part of him knew it was going to change the trajectory of his life for the foreseeable future.

The door dings with his arrival. The record store smells like earth and nostalgia, a bit like flipping through the pages of an old book. Vinyls sit in rows and in towers that rise to the ceilings. Colorful cassettes, of which there are thousands, have nooks and crannies of their own. Posters decorate the walls along with various patterned records — there’s hardly a blank spot in the entire store.

And when Steve sees you for the first time, he only sees the back of you.

You’re in all black, just like he imagined you’d be. A sliver of skin at your midriff is showing from where your too small shirt has ridden up your torso. And your hair is as wild as ever, though a little longer than he remembers. You’ve haphazardly pinned back the ornery strings with a sparkly pin, but it doesn’t do much to tame them.

A breeze of warm wistfulness washes over him at the sight of you. A reminder of a life that used to be his, that you were a part of only passively.

It’s your smile that does him in. Maybe because you’ve never looked at him with it. As far as Steve’s concerned, no one’s ever smiled at him the way you do, and you barely even know him. You hadn’t seen him in over a year and if you shared any words in the past, it wasn’t anything more than snarky one-liners. But here you are, looking at him with sunshine anyway.

“Hi,” you beam with the warmest grin he’s ever seen, swiveling in your chair to face him. “Welcome in.”

He’s too stunned by the sight of you to respond. He just stands in the doorway, all wide-eyed and gaping, like he’s the first to see an angel on earth. And it’s strange because you’re far from perfect.

You’re blousy and a little disheveled, like you’d been running late that morning. The lack of makeup allows your imperfections to shine through in a way that makes you somehow more alluring. And you’ve got paint splattered like freckles on your cheeks, the culprit being the figurines you’re painting behind the counter. If you know you’re dotted with shades of red, blue, and green, you don’t show it.

“Can I help you find anything?” you ask him, still kind even though he’s acting like a fucking weirdo. That’s supposed to be your thing, not his.

Steve grasps for something to say but comes up short. His lips part and then close again in an embarrassing pattern that resembles a fish out of water. It makes sense, though; it’s a bit how you’ve made him feel just now.

When he realizes he can’t make out anything intelligible, he shakes his head. “Uh… nope.”

He’s leaving before he even realizes he’s leaving. The door dings again and he’s on the other side of it, long legs carrying him the short distance to Family Video at record speed.

He swings and slams the egress shut in quick succession, as though the ghost of you had been chasing him. He leans against the glass pane and exhales a heaving sigh, eyes squeezing shut as he recoils at what he’d just done.

He always knew that King Steve had died some time ago, but this was a new low.

Robin watches from the front counter with wide eyes. “…Did you forget something?”

Steve sighs a big, hopeless sigh, then peeks his eyes open. “My dignity.”

“She’s cute, right?” she asks, already knowing the answer. Her brows bounce in time with the smirk on her painted lips.

“Yeah, she’s cute,” he answers, all mad because it’s obvious. “She’s fucking— she’s beautiful.”

“Aw. Look at you,” she sing-songs and tilts her head to her shoulder. “I think your heart grew three sizes today, Stevie.”

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

I never find out 'til I'm head over heels.

Steve, all caught up in his boyish misery, has no idea that he’s enraptured you in a similar way.

You hadn’t cared very much for the guy in high school. You didn’t really know him then, and you didn’t particularly want to. King Steve was rich. King Steve was pretty — too pretty. King Steve got attention from pretty cheerleaders and overaggressive douchebags alike.

King Steve didn’t need any affection from the local freakshow.

But, by some strange turn of events, he’d managed to make nice with your best friend.

The way Eddie talks about Steve, his words always dripping with a distant venom, it sounds like they still hate each other. Maybe they do. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to admit that they hang out far too often not to be friends.

If you were still in school, you probably would’ve judged him for it. Being friends with the boy whose buddies made your life hell certainly warranted some degree of ridicule. But now, having graduated and trying to move on from it all, you can’t find it in yourself to.

High school might as well have been a lifetime now. There’s no use in holding onto old ghosts.

If Eddie could let that shit go, so could you.

He drops by after school to keep you company like he always does when he doesn’t have a campaign to prep for. It’s his favorite pastime, perhaps a close second to Dungeons and Dragons. He gets to hang out with his best friend and swim in an ocean of music while he does it. As far as freaks go, Eddie Munson considers himself the luckiest.

He likes to hear you talk about everything new you’ve gotten in while he rifles through the old stuff that isn’t selling as well. You happily let him take what he wants for free. And what he doesn’t take, he doesn’t pay for either, because you cheat the system with your employee discount and then wipe the record from inventory. Just to be safe.

“I love having a criminal for a best friend,” he jokes every time, without fail.

Eddie stays by your side until the sun sets. He parts only to flip the sign at the door to closingfor you, then plops himself back on the counter again. His legs hang off the side of it, sneakers occasionally thudding against the wood when he kicks them back and forth too hard. He scans the back of an old Lynyrd Skynyrd vinyl and bobs his head to the rhythmic bass as the song fills the empty store. He’ll take this one home, he decides.

You keep on painting like you have been all day, breaking only to assist customers or stretch your aching spine. The forest dragon had been far more work than you expected — made of pretty purple leaves instead of scales and blowing blush-colored flowers instead of fire. The little piece of clay has resulted in a day of back-breaking work.

You’ll be damned if Eddie’s next campaign isn’t the most stellar looking one yet.

Focusing on that makes it easier not to bring up Steve.

You want to. You just don’t know how.

Eddie’s friends were Eddie’s, and you don’t get involved where it doesn’t concern you. Besides, you did sort of give him shit for hanging out with The Hair way back when. The last thing you want is him taking the piss out of you about it.

You don’t want to sound like you care too much. Even more, you don’t want it to be obvious that you’ve been thinking about the boy all day — making yourself sick as you stew in what could’ve run him out like he did.

“Saw your friend today,” you remark, feigning a sort of absentmindedness, as you swipe your brush along the petals of your dragon. “King Steve.”

“Oh, you met him?” Eddie wonders, more intrigued by your words than you expected he’d be. He says it like you didn’t already know the guy — like this new Steve was a totally different person you needed to be reacquainted with to really know.

“I wouldn’t say met him exactly. He just, like, popped in for half a second and ran out.”

With your back facing him, you don’t see the shit-eating grin that pulls at the corners of his mouth.

Eddie was waiting for Steve to crack and finally see you. He knew he’d bite after the way the kids had talked about you — Dustin, especially. Because even though he claims he doesn’t have favorites, he’s got a very obvious soft spot for the boy. And he knew Steve would like you because everyone likes you. When they’re not clouded by judgment and high school hierarchies, at least.

He’s still got no idea how a guy that trips all over himself at the sight of a pretty girl could’ve ruled Hawkins once upon a time.

“Fucking idiot,” Eddie laughs to himself, already gearing up for the shit he was going to give Steve the next time he saw him.

But you see the boy before Eddie does. Steve comes back the next day, an hour or more after opening, less frazzled than the day before. The nearly twenty-four hours he had to prepare himself for the angel he was going to see allowed him not to make a total fool of himself when he stepped into the store again.

And you wouldn’t say it out loud — hell, it’s not even something you want to admit to yourself — but you’d been hoping he’d stop by again.

You thought Robin would come by and drag him with her, or that Dustin and his friends would come around before Steve dropped them all home. Frankly, you didn’t really care what brought him back. You just wanted to see him again.

Steve’s different than the boy he used to be. Enough that it was obvious from a measly thirty-second interaction. He used to be a charmer who could talk his way out of anything. Not to you, of course, he wouldn’t have been caught dead talking to you. But then he stops by out of nowhere, in rare form, stumbling all over himself and looking like he didn’t recognize you at all.

You’re still trying to figure out if that was a good thing or not.

He’s mystified you in a way he probably isn’t used to. Most girls like the hair and the arms — the super buff, super strong arms that fit so nicely in his uniform — or the fact that he’s got money and a reputation that precedes him. But you’ve never given a shit about any of that.

You’re more enchanted by the way nothing could even begin to conceal the soft, shy boy that King Steve had apparently turned into.

The door chimes above his head when he enters. The scent of earthy nostalgia is already familiar to him — lavender, sage, and something deeper. Steve considers it progress when he plants himself a few feet away from the door this time. If he runs out again, he’ll have to make an embarrassingly longer escape.

You turn away from your nearly finished figurine to greet the new customer. The practiced smile unconsciously widens at the sight of him. “Hi!”

“Hey,” he smiles with a curt nod. He regrets the half-wave he gives you the second his hand shoots up.

“You gonna run off on me again?” you tease and swivel in your chair to face him completely.

You’re wearing a Hellfire shirt that’s just slightly too big for you. It probably belonged to Eddie before it belonged to you. And you wear a corset-looking thing over top of it, a sheer number with a lace embroidery and a ribbon that’s tied in a bow at your belly. It doesn’t cinch you in the slightest, though, more for decoration than practicality.

“No that was… I just—” Steve huffs out a laugh as he tries and fails to come up with an excuse. He figures anything is better than the truth — that he saw how pretty you were and his brain forgot how to work because he’s the lamest person on the planet.

So he chucks a thumb over his shoulder and fibs. “I left something back at Family Video. Had to run back.”

“It’s okay. I was just teasing,” you assure. “Uh— Are you looking for anything specific?”

“No. Not really. Just… new records to add to my collection, you know?”

“Oh, you collect vinyls?”

He doesn’t realize that’s what he’s just said until you repeat the words back to him.

He’s kind of just talking out of his ass and hoping something sticks. That line does, apparently, because you’re beaming at him instantly. He’s scared to say no because then you’ll stop smiling. And he can’t have that.

“Yep,” he answers with a nod. The stack of records collecting dust in his den has to count for something, right?

He can’t find it in himself to regret his little white lie when it has you lighting up like a christmas tree.

You toss your paintbrush down when you rush from behind the counter to meet him. You seem to have forgotten that you’d just dipped the thing in purple paint. The thing splatters shades of lilac all over the limestone bench. And, in your haste, you nearly smack yourself with the leaden slab as you raise it to pass by.

Steve’s eyes widen when you narrowly dodge the weighty thing — then jumps, startled by the dense thwap that echoes through the small store when it slams back down again. He’s almost worried that it might’ve busted the hinge.

You cower at the loud sound but move on with a commendable finesse, too focused on him to care about anything else.

“That’s so cool! I’ve always wanted to collect, but records are so expensive, it’s crazy,” you ramble as you walk up to him, totally unthinking in the way you grab his forearm and usher him to the back of the store.

Your sheer black skirt swishes at your ankles as you walk. The dainty fabric is patterned with sparkly stars and crescent moons. He notices you wear a pair of dark shorts underneath for modesty. Steve tries his best not to stare at your ass. He almost succeeds.

“We actually just got in a couple of Dio records — The Holy Diver, you know, the one that just came out. I’m pretty sure there’s only, like, a couple thousand of these things in the whole world — which is totally fucking bonkers if you think about it,” you explain in one breath, laughing, before stopping abruptly in your tracks. Steve nearly runs into you when you turn around to face him.

You laugh again, a sadder one, this time at yourself, as you bring your palm to your forehead. “Sorry. I don’t— I don’t even know if you like Dio. I mean, of course, you don’t, right? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… rambled like that.”

You’d just been so excited and Steve had just been so different that you forgot who you were talking to. Hawkins High Royalty, Prom King, Biggest Flirt and Life of the Party in the yearbook.

As far as you’re concerned, Eddie Munson is your only friend. He’s the only person in the whole world you can be yourself around and never get self-conscious about any of it.

But sometimes you have moments like this one with a total stranger. Moments where you lose yourself in the conversation and your own jumbled thoughts. Moments where you talk and talk and talk until something thumps you on the head and you realize how annoying you’re being. This time, it’s the musky smell of his cologne that knocks you back to Ms. Click’s history class. The crisp breeze of bitter nostalgia makes you shiver.

Steve can see the way you get so suddenly aware of yourself and how the cognizance of the moment makes you writhe. He tries to bat away the lingering insecurities with a smile.

“Love ‘em,” he responds with a nod. He raises his brows and scoffs, grins and crosses his arms over his chest. “I mean, Dio? God, they’re like… top ten bands of all time, at least. Maybe even five.”

That isn’t totally true. He doesn’t know much about the band to have an opinion, but he’s pretty sure he might’ve said he hated them once. That was only because Eddie wouldn’t stop talking about them, though. Steve could learn to like them, if it means so much to you.

That’s exactly how he justifies spending $60 on four records.

He tells himself that he’ll listen to them and think of you, that it’ll be a solid conversation starter the next time he sees you.

You had a whole damn rack dedicated to all your favorite bands — “I put it together myself,” you’d bragged with a proud smile. S it’s a wonder Steve didn’t walk out with the entire damn store. Because you just kept on smiling and talking, so happy to have someone to care about what you had to say, and he ate up every second of it.

He’ll have to work overtime to keep his pockets from hurting, but it’ll be worth it. Because he’ll get to keep talking to you and indulging in all the things you seem to love more than life itself.

You’re still rambling as you ring him up. Steve notices you haven’t stopped yourself like you did before. His lack of dismissal has made you more comfortable, it seems. He likes that.

“I think we’re also gonna get a couple cases of Def Leppard cassettes tomorrow, which is super sick. I think I might have to start collecting, honestly. Tapes are whole lot cheaper than records, you know,” you tell him as you scan and bag all his vinyls. “And it’s also, like, a fucking stellar album. I don’t think I’ve stopped listening to Photograph since it came out.”

“Photograph. Right. Love that one,” Steve nods with a kind smile as he props his elbows on the counter. He doesn’t particularly care that he’s not entirely sure what you’re talking about, or that he’s never actually heard the song. He’s starting to realize you could talk for hours and he wouldn’t get bored.

“Oh, is that your favorite too? Eddie’s more of a Foolin’ kinda guy.”

Despite the fact that he’s never heard the song or this album in his life, he nods anyway.

He sort of spent the first eighteen years of his life faking just about everything — it kind of came with being the King of Hawkins High. It’s a talent that hasn’t yet left him, it seems, lying through his teeth to impress people. It’s almost become a second nature to him.

“Foolin’s good, yeah, but I think Photograph is obviously better.”

“Obviously, right!” you exclaim with a sunshine-coated laugh. “That’s exactly what I told him! But he’s way too hard-headed to be wrong about anything, so…”

“Well, I’d like to put it on the record that I firmly agree with you,” Steve replies so smoothly that his tongue must be dripping with honey. It’s so easy for him to fall into King Steve mode — when he isn’t forgetting how to speak and running off, that is.

You’ve learned a lot Steve in the past half hour. He likes metal, but leans more toward rock. Particularly all the metal and rock that you like. He hasn’t once had a differing opinion than you, besides telling you he heard Eddie playing a Metallica song once that he didn’t particularly care for. The second you tell him it’s one of your favorites, he backtracks instantly, blaming the Munson boy for being too sloshed to play it properly.

And you don’t miss the way he’s looking at you just now either, with his chin toward his chest as he peers up at you with warm amber eyes. He’s the charmer that he always was. It makes you remember, again, just who you’re talking to.

“We have a lot in common, King Steve,” you lilt with a playful grin.

He deflates at the use of the old nickname. You see the light in his eyes flicker for a just moment before he’s ducking his gaze away from you completely. He tries to brush it off with a laugh. “Yeah, I’m not— I’m not really King Steve anymore…”

“No?”

“Nope. Just… Just Steve these days.”

When he looks back at you, he finds you nodding at him, almost in approval.

Most people are upset to find that he’s changed so much. They hate that he’s no longer the recklessly stupid dumbass they used to get drunk with.

Not you, though.

“Cool,” you mumble, smiling softly, as you hand him his bag and receipt.

“Uh, I’d love to, you know, come take a look at those tapes when you get ‘em in,” he says as he walks backward towards the door, finally making the brash offer he’s been thinking about this whole time. “Maybe I can bring lunch and we can—”

“Well, Hellfire’s been doing campaigns during lunch recently. And Gareth’s out sick, so I’ve been subbing for him, you know, so…” you interject awkwardly, shifting your weight on your feet. You hate to turn him down, but Eddie might just kill you if he has to get a substitute for the substitute.

“Oh…” he nods, softly puckering his plump pink lips that you can’t seem to stop staring at.

“But I don’t think they’re coming in until late, anyway,” you add quickly. “So, you can stop by at closing, if you want?”

“No, yeah, that’s cool. So cool,” he replies, a little more flustered than he’d been just moments before. He’s just happy that your rejection wasn’t a total refusal.

You try to bite back the wide grin threatening to take over your mouth. “Okay… I’ll catch you later, then, Just Steve.”

“See you,” he waves right before startling himself when he backs into the basket of clearance tapes sitting just beside the door. He barely catches the thing before it tips over completely. He flashes you a shaking smile afterward and finds you covering your mouth with your hand while you try not to laugh too loudly.

He wishes you’d just went ahead and laughed at him. He wouldn’t have even cared that you were laughing at him, if it meant he got to see you smile.

And even though he’d just gotten done making the biggest fool of himself, he walks back to work feeling like the coolest man alive. There’s a foreign strut in his step that hadn’t been there before he saw you. It doesn’t leave him when he realizes he’s gone slightly over his break and that Keith is manning the counter in his absence.

The man mumbles a monotoned goodbye to the customer he’d just checked out.

She turns around and Steve realizes he recognizes this girl — Mindy or Mandy or maybe Monica — from Mr. Kaminsky’s class way back when. She did all of his homework for him before and after letting him fuck her on her twin-sized bed in her all pink room. That’s when Steve was conquering girls like they were Mount Everest, way before Nancy, when King was a title he wore with pride.

But he’s still so stuck in his head with thoughts of you that he doesn’t even see Mindy-Mandy-Monica or the flirtatious wave she throws his way.

“You’re ten minutes late,” Keith scolds, with his dead tone and his deader eyes.

Steve only shrugs, uncaring if it came out of his paycheck because — “I just got a date with the hottest woman on the planet,” he boasts with a puffed out chest and too smug smile.

It doesn’t lessen Keith’s anger, just diverts it. Because he knows exactly who he’s talking about. And so does Robin, as she pops her head out from behind the man from where she sits at the computer. “No way,” they chorus in disbelief at his words.

Steve nods. “Yes way.”

“Eddie’s gonna kill you,” Robin remarks with the shake of her head.

He knows she’s right. He just doesn’t care.

Eddie’s always been protective of you. Everyone knows that. But the two of them were friends now — or somewhat good-natured acquaintances, at the very least. He would’ve been mad about a year or more ago, if King Steve had decided to suddenly woo his best friend.

But it’s different now. He’s different now. Eddie knows how much everything’s changed, it’s just a question of if he’s willing to rehash old wounds.

It’s a good thing Steve knows how to take a punch.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Don't take my heart, don't break my heart.

Steve finds you again the next day less happy than he’s gotten used to.

The record store is dim and the red sign at the entrance has been flipped to closed, but the door is left unlocked — for him. The warm scent is a distinct contrast to the frigid spring night, a cozy high hemp and lavender, but your absence is noticeable and terribly heavy.

Steve lingers in the doorway, his shadow looming like a giant before him from the moonlight streaming in from outside.

He calls for you in the emptiness.

“Uh… Punchy?”

He’s relieved when you answer. The “back here!” you shout to him is muffled and far away. He follows the sound of your voice, filled suddenly with a childlike consolation.

The yellow fairy lights dangling over his head guide him through the aisles of cassettes and closer to you. Through a cluttered backroom, Steve finds you standing just outside an opened door — left ajar, for him.

The smile you flash when you see him is as dim as the closed-down store. It lacks all the sunshine you usually look at him with, shades of stormy gray rather than the usual yellows.

A look of concern flashes across his features — furrowed brows and inquisitive twinkling eyes — as you take a drag from the lit cigarette caught between your pointer and middle finger. You muster your best grin, but it flickers like a shoddy radio signal.

“Punchy, huh?” you tease.

Steve’s brows pinch together as confusion floods his features. It takes him a moment to realize what he’d said and the nickname he’d used — and he doesn’t want to be dramatic or anything, but he kinda wants to die. It’s embarrassing, he thinks, to hold on to an old high school monicker. And, fuck, if you hate it half as bad as he hates being called king, he deserves a slap to the face right about now.

You laugh instead of ball your first. He’s able to smile meekly in relief. “Oh. Shit. Sorry, I… I don’t think I even realized it came out.”

“No, it’s okay,” you assure when you see him getting all apologetic. “Eddie still calls me that all the time, so… Old habits die hard, I guess.”

Steve tries to move on, but it’s hard to when you’re so obviously gloomy. He hates how reserved you’ve gone in your quiet, not talking up a storm like you had been the last time he saw you. Now you’re just… a storm. It’s a little like sitting next to a rumbling rain cloud.

The rumbling rain cloud beside him takes a drag of her cigarette.

“You okay?” he asks and sounds like he really cares.

You didn’t think King Steve was capable of caring about anything other than his hair, but he looks down at you like he can feel every blue bolt of your doom and gloom. He makes you feel seen in the void of your sadness despite all the years you spent being invisible to him.

“Uh, yeah. It’s just the tapes. They didn’t come in,” you answer with a shrug. Smokes leaves your mouth and lingers in white clouds in the air. “So I’m a little bummed.”

“Oh…” is all Steve says and his pink mouth forms a too pretty ‘o’ shape that you can’t draw your gaze from.

The following silence makes you momentarily cautious. Insecurity runs cold over you because no sane person gets this about upset over a broken promise of a couple cassettes. It’s stupid, you know it is, but you were really looking forward to them. It’s like promising a kid the most metal present ever and then snatching it out of their bare hands.

Now, over the course of a couple hours, you’ve managed to convince yourself you won’t remember happiness until you get those stupid tapes.

“Sorry,” you apologize to him for a reason he can’t place. You shift your weight on your feet and peer at him from beneath your lashes. “I know you were looking forward to them, too.”

You extend your hand and offer him the cigarette between your fingers like it’s an olive branch. He takes it from you with a distant smile, then opts to laze against the brick wall like you are. He stays a respectful distance on the other side of the entryway.

“It’s okay. They’ll come. If I’m being honest, you know, I was kinda more excited to see you.”

His admission is brazen and a tad bit brash, even for a certified ex-douchebag. It lacks all of the usual honey-coated flirtation that usually tints his tone when he’s talking to a pretty girl. Because he wasn’t trying to make you swoon — though he certainly wouldn’t have minded if you had. This wasn’t some romantic advance, just a proclamation of his own personal truth.

A flash of shock contorts your features. “Really?”

“Of course,” he answers, breathing out a laugh that exits along with the smoke in his lungs. “I love talking to you. You’re… You’re cool, you know? S— Super cool.”

His face screws up at his stuttering, and he shakes his head at how the words sound leaving his mouth. His cheeks glow cherry red beneath an orange street lamp.

“Super cool, huh?” you repeat with a giggle that’s bright enough to illuminate the velvet night. “I don’t think anyone’s ever called me that before.”

Steve scoffs when he passes the cigarette back to you. Because, lately, that’s all he’s been hearing about you. From Eddie, from Robin, from Dustin — every good thing a person could say about someone else, they all say about you.

He’s starting to understand why.

Because you’re sweet. Like, pure sugar poured on the tip of his tongue kind of sweet. You’re bright like sunshine and soft like summer rain. You’re a shot of pure espresso for a boy who thought his life was at a dead end. He’s not entirely sure how he ever could’ve thought you were some deep, dark, devil-worshipping freak.

“I don’t believe that,” he dismisses with the shake of his head.

You breathe out a sharp exhale and a puff of nicotine-coated smoke. “I’ve been the town pariah since I was eleven, Steve. Everyone thinks I’m some kinda delinquent who’s in a cult because I play a dumb board game. So, no. No one’s ever thought I was cool before.”

“Still?” Steve wonders with a twisted face. “You graduated, like, a year ago. Are... Are people really still on your ass about that?”

“A little,” you answer with a shrug, trying your best not to look as affected by it all as you feel.

Steve feels his chest swell with the fiery urge to protect you. The same one he gets when Dustin tells him about the assholes at school that are bothering him. He wants to defend you from the same sort of assholes that he used to be. The impulse is borderline primal, rooted somewhere deep and far within himself, because god knows he’s got a terrible track record when it comes to winning fights.

“Shit, Punchy… I’m— I’m sorry.”

You sputter out a laugh at the apology, louder when you realize he’s using the nickname again.

He can’t relate to any of this. The trials and tribulations of being persona non grata everywhere you went were certainly lost on him. Steve might’ve lost his touch somewhere down the road, but he’ll always be crown royalty — the kind of guy you think fondly of when your wonderyears are long gone. But you? You’re lucky if people don’t cross to the other side of the street when they spot you coming.

Perhaps that’s why his words warm you so much. Because, despite all that, he’s trying to make you feel better anyway.

You give him a tender smile and a dwindling cigarette.

“It’s okay. I mean, it’s whatever, you know? I think it’s because I still hang out with Eddie all the time. Like, people see us and remember what fucking freaks we used to be,” you say with a laugh, then start to ramble without thinking. “We saw Tommy Hagan at Melvald’s the other day, and he looked at us like we caused him severe PTSD or something, like, he looked terrified. I honestly felt a little bad.”

Steve smiles, wide-eyed, equal parts intrigued and unsettled by the reminiscent glimmer in your eye and the daunting giggle that spills from your lips.

“But I wouldn’t leave Eddie, you know?” you blurt, suddenly serious, like you’ve taken offense at the very thought. “Not even if it meant people stopped being so mean. ‘Cause I love him and everything… Even though he’s a pain in the ass.”

“Oh, he’s a total pain in the ass,” Steve agrees and flicks the butt of the cig between his fingers. “He loves you too, though. I can tell. The asshole never shuts up about you.”

“He talks about me?” you ask, voice fragile and pitched higher than normal.

Steve doesn’t like the way you say it. He hates how you look at him even more, with a scrunched up face and eyes that flicker with embers of shock. Like you don’t believe it, like you think yourself unworthy of it.

“You’re all he talks about,” the boy assures, feeling so suddenly brave and wanting to make you feel brave too. He hands the cigarette back to you. “I don’t blame him. If I were him, I’d never shut up about you either.”

The contorted look of confusion on your face untwists itself, and your features fall flat with disbelief. A smile pulls slow at your mouth. Your eyes glitter an orange gold beneath the streetlight. They flit over to the boy beside you just long enough to take the stick from him.

“Steve Harrington…” you lilt, almost scoldingly so.

It makes him smile. “What?”

“Stop flirting with me.”

“Well, that’s very presumptuous of you,” he retorts playfully. “Who’s to say I was flirting?”

“So you weren’t then?”

“Maybe a little,” he shrugs with a knowing, practiced smirk. “Can you blame me?”

You don’t seem impressed by his not-so-subtle attempt at flirting, and he isn’t at all used to that. The bravado and the puppy dog eyes are his one-two punch — any other time, he’d have a phone number tucked safely in his pocket by now. But you’re not biting.

“I’m so not your type,” you dismiss with the shake of your head.

“Yeah?” he challenges, shoving himself off the brick wall with his shoulder and making the short trek over to you. He plants himself next to you, leans with one sneaker crossed over the other, and smiles with a playful twinkle in his eye. “And what’s my type?”

“Nancy Wheeler,” you answer without missing a beat. “Pretty girls.”

“Well, I think you’re very pretty—”

“Not like her,” you interject with a foreign firmness that Steve hasn’t seen from you until now. You’re still smiling at him, though, still kind but looking like you don’t believe him. Like you think this must be some kind of sick joke that he’s taking too far.

You can entertain Steve. You like Steve. Mostly because he’s totally different from the douchebag you remember him being — the douchebag you were expecting him to be.

You find that he’s terribly clumsy and not overtly good with words. He says dumb jokes that don’t come out right and smiles in relief when they make you laugh anyway. He’s soft like peach fuzz or a fluffy cloud, mushy like warm chocolatey gooey goodness, and not at all like you remember him.

But then he does this. He morphs into something else, changes shape right in front of you. He smiles at you with little of his dumbassery behind it — all smirks and faux longing gazes with the intent of making you swoon at his feet. He grins down at you and all you see is the teenage boy who would’ve never looked at you that way four years ago. Hell, not even one.

It reminds you of who he is, who he used to be, and who you are now.

You haven’t changed so much since high school. You’ve matured a little, sure, but there was never an asshole exterior that you felt the need to outgrow. You’re still loud at times, unaware and ignorant of the world around you. You still play lightsabers outside Eddie’s trailer in between lengthy Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. You still pretend like the lingering glares from all the people you used to know don’t bother you.

They do, though. They always have.

You look at Steve and you see this butterfly — someone made of rainbow colors and mostly mature. He’s growing, and you’re stuck in the same cocoon you’ve been wrapped in since freshman year, still fumbling around and trying to figure out where you fit.

He’ll always be the pretty butterfly he always was, with his pretty little iridescent wings that catch the light and all the attention. He’ll feed off the applause he gets while you’re sitting on the sidelines. The girl who’s destined to stay bundled in her cocoon forever only hears all of his praise — never watches, never receives.

“You and I are completely different people, Steve Harrington,” you declare with a grin that tells him you’ve already made up your mind.

The boy doesn’t get it, though, why you seem so upset by the idea. Him and Robin were completely different people. Him and Dustin were, too. The two people he adored — tolerated — most in the entire world weren’t a single thing like him, and it was better that way.

You don’t seem to share a similar philosophy, though. You take a drag from your mostly gone cigarette and mourn what could have been; if only he had been the town freak or you had been born the pretty girl next door.

“That doesn’t have to be such a bad thing—”

He’s abruptly cut off by the sound of muffled rock music and the bright yellow headlights of Eddie Munson’s van. The two of you shield your eyes when he whips into the desolate parking lot and parks in front of you. The sudden intrusion feels like being blinding like the sun after you’ve found such comfort within each other in the dead of night.

The stifled Def Leppard song — or maybe Poison, Steve can never quite tell the difference — is brought to a sharp halt when the engine shuts off. The headlights dim. The metallic slam of the driver’s side door sounds so much louder in the darkness.

Eddie rounds the front of his van and eyes the two of you rather suspiciously. The boy inhales deeply, puffing out his chest and splaying his hands on his hips. “…What’s going on here?” he squints at you.

You give him a terribly manufactured sunshine smile and bat your lashes his way, like you’re pretending to be un-innocent. “Nothing…” you sing-song.

Eddie rolls his eyes at you, then turns his attention to Steve. They’re not really strangers anymore, but he still feels the need to treat him like an outsider anyway.

“Harrington,” he says in the place of any real greeting. “Don’t you have other shit to do? Like, I don’t know, a shift as the mannequin at the GAP or something?”

Steve can’t find it in himself to get self-conscious about his fitted-sweatshirt, khaki-slack combo when the insult comes from a guy in a decade-old leather jacket, unwashed t-shirt, and ripped jeans.

“Very funny,” the brunette monotones.

“I’ll see you around, yeah?” you ask when you turn and walk backwards towards Eddie, like there’s a gravitational pull dragging you to him.

You say it to be polite mostly, but you’re hoping for an affirmative — a promise that you’ll have another night like this one, where he sees you just to be seeing you. Hell, you’ll even take a nod if that’s all he’ll give you. And when he does, he gives you a tiny smile that almost makes you trip over yourself.

Fuck, you think to yourself, like your brain is talking to your heart. We just agreed not to do that.

Before you get in the van, you walk by Eddie and bring your cigarette up to his mouth. You coax the stick between his lips with your pointer and middle finger, opting to let him take the last couple of hits because he never turns down a free smoke.

The passenger door shuts once you’re tucked into the seat of it. The sound it makes punctuates your absence. Steve feels all of its emptiness.

He eyes Eddie from the distance, immediately noticing the darkened skepticism dancing in his dark eyes.

The boy’s always felt the need to protect you. When the entire town got spooked about stories of some satanic panic and started treating you like monsters, he wanted to shield you from the boogeyman everyone turned into.

Steve wasn’t one of them, the bad men. But Eddie loves you and it’s made him doubtful.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Steve feels the need to say, as though he’d been caught with his pants down and not just sharing an innocent cigarette with a friend.

Eddie takes the final few puffs of it and exhales rather dramatically, lips pursing to blow it in his direction though it’s too far away to hit him. The boy throws the filter to the concrete and extinguishes the ashes with the toe of his dirty sneakers.

He waits until the white smoke has fully dissipated to speak.

“Damn right, it isn’t.”

That’s all he says. He doesn’t even look at Steve when he says it, or when he rounds the van and hops into the driver’s seat next to you. Steve squints when the too bright headlights come alive again in time with the roaring engine and dated rock music. His tires screech when he speeds out of the back parking lot.

The tin can he drives nearly tips over when he turns too sharply onto Main Street.

Steve doesn’t get a chance to get a good look at you before you’re gone completely. It makes him all boyishly upset, knowing the hours without you will be most agonizing, but the empty feeling is eclipsed by the warm relief of not getting clock cleaned by Eddie Munson.

Damn right, it isn’t. Four words. That’s all he gets. But they’re daunting and coated with a lingering foreboding that feels almost like a threat.

So, by all accounts, Steve probably should’ve known there was no way Munson was ever going to back down that easily.

Eddie comes back the next day, a thundering storm cloud of the boy he usually is, head wild with curly hair and a million thoughts.

The door dings far too gently for such an aggressive arrival. Metal bangs against metal as the handle collides with the window pane. He stomps to the counter in several quick strides, dark eyes darting around the half-empty store — obviously searching for something.

Robin, manning the front counter, is entirely unable to be threatened by him. The all black, chunky metal rings, and crazy hair stopped being so intimidating when she found out you called him Eddie Spaghetti. Now, it’s all she can think about when she sees him.

Even as he stands ahead of her, obviously upset, all she sees is a very cartoonishly angry Eddie Spaghetti, and it takes everything in her not to laugh.

“Where’s Steve?” the boy finally wonders when he realizes the boy’s not in the front.

“Uh, he’s in the back, I think. Why?”

Eddie doesn’t humor her with an answer. He just storms past the counter and makes a b-line for the break room.

Robin watches him over her shoulder. “You’re not supposed to go back there!” she half-heartedly shouts, but makes no further effort to stop him from doing so.

He finds Steve working beneath the dim yellow light of the back room. There’s a warmed-up container of leftovers on the small round table on one side of the room and a stack of unorganized tapes on the counter on the other. Steve multitasks between both and hums something summery under his breath — The Beach Boys, maybe.

He’s too distracted to notice Eddie’s abrupt appearance. It’s the subtle click of the shut door that gets his attention.

Steve’s confused at first. His head snaps over his shoulder like a ghost must’ve closed the door on him. He realizes that it’s just Eddie, and he’s so innocently relieved that it’s almost humorous, then confused all over again. His brows pinch together and through the chicken tender jutting out his check, he mumbles: “You’re not supposed to be back here—”

“Yeah, I got that part,” Eddie interrupts in a monotone.

He swallows. It’s as thick as the tension that settles between the two of them, made heavier by the lengthy silence. He crosses his arms over his chest, stands up a little straighter, and bares his neck when he lifts his chin. “I want you to leave her alone.”

Steve scoffs and chews through his mouthful. “Leave who alone?”

“You know exactly who I’m talking about,” Eddie squints with an unusual sort of seriousness. “I don’t want you messing around with her anymore, man. I’m, fucking— I’m so fucking serious right now.”

The clarification makes Steve laugh. He shakes his head and goes back to piling the myriad of tapes into organized stacks on the counter. “We were just talking, Eddie. I don’t need the lecture, okay?”

“We both know it’s never just talking with you.”

“What? Are you in love with her or something?” he retorts, trying to make a joke of it.

Eddie, for the first time in his life, isn’t amused. “Oh, god, get over yourself, dude. I know what kinda guy you are, alright? I’m not gonna let you hurt her.”

His words hit Steve like a pot of boiling water. It prickles his skin, leaving blisters and burning red blotches in its wake. He’s all but on fire with his anger, less offended by the accusation than by the person it comes from.

Steve and Eddie aren’t friends by any means. They’re just two guys with shared custody of a bunch of teenagers, bonded in their want to keep them all safe. But through their lighthearted animosity, is a sort of understanding: neither of them are the assholes the entire town claims them to be. Eddie isn’t apart of some satanic cult. Steve isn’t a douchebag that uses women as accessories. And that’s just a silent agreement they’ve both come to on their own terms.

But now here they are, talking like it’s 1984 all over again and they’re strangers who hate each other’s guts.

“No. I’m not gonna hurt her. Because we’re just friends, Eddie.”

The boy just shakes his head. He scrunches his nose like he’s wincing, then laughs — a big, dramatic laugh that fills the tiny break room. He begins to pace, waving an accusatory ringed finger Steve’s way. “No, see… That’s the thing. I don’t think King Steve is capable of being ‘just friends’ with a pretty girl.”

Steve rolls his eyes with a heavy huff. He comes to the conclusion that Eddie’s just projecting and that there’s no use in arguing his case. He shoves a black VHS tape into its designated sleeve and slots it in with the rest of them, muttering under his breath, “I’m not King Steve anymore…”

“What?”

“I said, I’m not King Steve anymore!” he yells, a bit louder than he intended to.

He drives a tape onto the pile with an unexpected aggression. It hits the wall with a resounding thud. His arms flail wildly at his sides when he turns to face Eddie again. “God, you guys act like people can’t change! I’m not the asshole I used to be, alright? Jeez…”

Eddie exhales sharply through his nose in the place of any real reply. Deep down, he knows all that. He knows it’s all true because he would’ve never befriended him otherwise. Steve Harrington — the king, the rich kid, the douchebag — turned out to be a pretty damn good guy.

And maybe if Eddie didn’t love you so much, he’d be able to wrap his head around all that.

But does. So he can’t.

He saw you two together the night before, sharing a cigarette behind The Groove — albeit a little too close for his liking — and suddenly, it was junior year all over again.

You’re stressed out about the ACT and college acceptance rates, none of your clothes quite fit you, and you’re trying out bold things with your makeup that don’t quite fit you either. You grin wildly up at Eddie through the vibrant lipstick smeared on your lips, laughing at his half-hearted attempt to cheer you up.

And Steve is a senior, standing on the other side of the hallway — with his pretty clothes and prettier hair — and he lets all of his friends laugh at you. They make fun of your un-styled hair and the way your shirt makes your boobs look, and Steve doesn’t find any of it particularly funny but he lets them mock you anyway.

Eddie sees you together and forgets about the man Steve is now. All he sees is a boy who never stuck up for you, for either of you, who let his best friends make your lives hell because his reputation mattered more.

And it wasn’t like it was his job to defend you, because it wasn’t. Not really. It’s just that you would’ve done it for him, if the roles were reversed. Eddie, too. Neither of you would’ve let a lamb be led to the slaughter quite like that. It was the Hellfire motto, after all — to protect the little sheep from the creeping wolves.

That’s where the difference lies. It’s where the mistrust settles deep and where the root of all of Eddie’s worries lingers.

But Steve has done more to prove himself than Eddie likes to give him credit for.

He takes care of a bunch of kids like it’s his job. He runs Robin to and from school most days out of the week, on time each morning — which, for a guy who showed up late every day for four years, was definitely saying something. He even comes to Eddie’s shows when he’s not too busy working the graveyard shift, never minding that he sticks out in his collared shirt and slacks — a pretty boy amidst a crowd of freaks.

Fuck. Steve Harrington was a pretty alright dude.

But you’re better than alright. You’re better than good. Better than perfect.

If you got your heart broken, Eddie thinks he’d feel all of it times a thousand.

Steve’s been through his own kind of heartbreak, though. He’s slapped a bandaid over his own bleeding heart, and it’s made him soft. The good kind of soft — the kind where he sees a bug on its back and has to flip it over because it hurts too much to let it suffer. Eddie knows he’ll be that kind to you. Kinder, even.

“Yeah, you better hope so, Harrington,” the boy concludes with a slow nod of his wild head. He steals a chicken tender from the styrofoam box it sits in, like it’s some kind of power move, and waves it at him like a condemnatory point. “I hear you do anything — anything — to her… And your ass is grass.”

Eddie takes a hearty bite from the strip, then tosses it back into the container again. He spins on the ragged heel of his sneaker and stalks out of the break room, punctuating his absence with the slam of the door. The ancient thing gets lodged and doesn’t quite shut all the way, so he has to double back and shut it fully.

Steve is left dumbfounded, in more ways than one.

“…He just ate my chicken,” he mumbles to himself with a frown settled deep between his brows. But there’s a lingering tension in Eddie’s storming out — a tangible fog within his words that settles something heavy in the Family Video breakroom that doubles as storage.

It feels almost like a blessing.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Won't escape my attention...

The more time you spend with Steve, the more confident you get.

You visit him at work more often, caring less and less about bothering anybody when you realize they all wanted you there. You let yourself ramble in front of him, too, not stopping yourself nearly as often as you used to. Steve guesses you started to believe him somewhere around the millionth time he promised he liked hearing you talk.

You turn to glitter in his presence, becoming more unapologetically yourself and glowing with it — with all the things that used to make you insecure, things that King Steve would’ve made fun of you for some time ago. Everything you were scared made you too different, is why he liked you in the first place.

And Steve gets to watch it all play out right before his eyes. You inch slowly out of the protective shell you’ve built around yourself and bloom like springtime flowers. He’s grateful he gets to witness it, even more that you feel comfortable enough to do it all in front of him.

You’re hardly as timid as you usually are when you saunter into Family Video. Rather than tiptoeing in and apologizing for intruding, you burst through the front door with a beam and a high-pitched squeal. You’re as bright as every star in the galaxy combined; even dressed head-to-toe in black, you’re more blinding than the sun.

Eddie’s leather jacket, either stolen or unenthusiastically lent from the boy himself, swallows your upper half. You wear a piece of Metallica merchandise beneath it. The thing is cut up to your ribcage. The jagged edges in the fabric, likely from a dull pair of kitchen scissors, tells him the chop was intentional.

A leather skirt clings effortlessly onto you, revealing the pudge of your stomach and the curves of your hips. The thing is donned with two spiked belts and several chains hanging loosely at your waist.

Steve is dozing at the counter with his chin propped on his first when you walk in. He’s half-asleep until he sees you. The shot of espresso that walks in makes him instantly forget how tired he is.

“Guess what?” you ask with wide, sparkling eyes as you skip to the counter with your hands behind your back.

Steve always hated that question. Usually, it came from Dustin or Robin — or, god forbid, both of them — followed by a “No, seriously. Guess.” It left him with no choice but to humor them until they ultimately caved and told him something he couldn’t have guessed in a million years.

He isn’t so annoyed now, though. In fact, he smiles. “What?” he replies.

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth, as though in a futile attempt to conceal the wide grin on your face, and take your hands from behind your back. You flash him the cassette tape you hold in the palm of them, a blue and yellow thing with the angled Def Leppard logo printed on the cover.

“No way!” Steve finds himself exclaiming like he’s the number one fan of the rock and roll band. He isn’t; never has been, really. But he is a fan of you. All of his excitement, all of his bright and shining smiles — they’re all for you.

“They came in last night— when I was off, of course— and I opened this morning and there was a whole damn tower of these tapes! I’m the one who does the tape towers, okay? Plus, I’ve been doggin’ my manager for weeks about the things, so I can’t believe they came in and no one told me, you know?”

Steve gets lost in your rambling right along with you, nodding because he never wants you to stop talking. His twinkling gaze follows you back and forth as you pace in front of the counter. You gesticulate wildly with your hands, nearly elbowing a customer when they get too close to the line of fire.

“And she was all like ‘I can’t control when they come in,’ And I was like ‘well, you can’t control when I come in either, I’ll be taking a long lunch now, thank you’—” you recount, albeit at a slightly louder volume that shocks anyone who doesn’t know you. People shoot you lingering side eyes from over the aisles.

Steve doesn’t care. He’s even happier that you don’t seem to either. You feel comfortable enough with him now to stop caring about the rest. When you stop yourself, you do it because you’ve said everything you need to say, not because you feel like you’ve annoyed him in some way.

“Anyway,” you conclude with a sigh. “I wanted to run it to you personally because, besides Eddie, you’re the only person I know who cares as much as I do.”

You smile sweetly at him, peering at him through your lashes, so suddenly timid — no longer the boisterous girl lighting up the whole room. Steve notices that you do that a lot, go from loud and sunny to shy and glimmering. Eddie does it too, sometimes, but it’s not nearly as cute.

“My wallet’s in my locker,” he tells you when you hand him the tape. He cocks his thumb over his shoulder with his free hand. “Let me go grab it. I’ll be, like, two seconds—”

You reach over the counter and take him by the arm, wrapping chipped maroon nails around the crook of his elbow to keep him from straying too far. Shock coats his features at the suddenness of your touch and the way it makes him buzz.

You scoff. “Are you serious? I’m not gonna make you pay, you weirdo.”

“No?”

“Of course not! It’s a gift.”

“Well, gee, Punchy. Considered me flattered,” he concedes with a faltering smile.

You laugh at his half-hearted attempt to be charming.

He rests his crossed arms on the counter and leans over the top of it in an effort to be the slightest bit closer to you. He gazes up at you with honey eyes and raised brows and a big, dumb smile. “And, you know, flattery... it goes a long way with me.”

You arch an un-manicured brow at him. “Does it, now?”

“Yep. So much so, I’m willing to break a few rules and let you pick out a couple of movies. On the house.”

It’s dumb and it’s sweet and so terribly innocent. He wants to give you so much than that but he’s got about eighteen dollars to his name, so all he can do is offer you a few measly VHS tapes. It has you beaming like he just offered you the world.

“Steve Harrington,” you scold playfully. “I didn’t know you were so naughty.”

He falters. His resolve slips and, for no more than half a second, his brain forgets how to work.

He’s not quite sure how you manage to do that to him all the damn time. You make his brain shortcircuit and his belly quiver and his vision swim. He’s known you for a while now, long enough that the lovesickness should��ve well worn off.

Steve’s worried that there’s no cure for you, that he’s in it for the long haul now — upset stomachs, heart palpitations, and all.

“Well, I’m full of surprises,” he shrugs and sways on his feet. “What’s your poison, Punchy? Molly Ringwald? Robert Downey Jr.? The John Hughes type?”

You can tell he’s joking. You squint over at him and rest your elbows on the counter top your face-to-face.

The wintergreen mint on his breath makes your head swim.

Your rouge-tined lips are so close he can taste them — he wants to, desperately so.

You don’t miss the way his gaze flits to your mouth, lingering there for no longer than a blink.

“Try Night of the Living Dead,” you challenge.

“That is so dreadfully on brand for you,” he manages to reply without much stuttering. He’s surprised he’s able to get any words out at all, with the way his heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest.

“I’m nothing if not predictable.”

Steve doesn’t respond as he leaves the counter to get what you asked for. Silence is easier than saying that you’re the most surprising thing he’s ever met in his life.

When he returns, he brings the entire film franchise with him. All three movies are stacked in his arms and he scans the backs of them, hoping Keith won’t notice that they’re being rented free of charge.

“Have you ever seen them?” you wonder.

He shakes his head. “No. I saw one of them at a drive-in a long time ago, but I wasn’t exactly paying attention, if you know what I mean—” he answers with a soft laugh, quick to cut himself off. It was supposed to be a dumb joke, but both of you know what he was insinuating and it makes everything awkward.

Robin would’ve slapped him on the back of the head if she were around to hear it.

He would’ve deserved it.

“Well, you missed out,” you scold, not quite meeting his gaze. “They’re actually pretty good.”

“I’ll try and watch ‘em sometime then.”

“Tonight?” you offer suddenly.

Steve furrows his brows. “…Huh?”

“I mean, like— I don’t know… I thought maybe we could watch them tonight,” you stammer with your eyes turned down toward the counter, where you draw invisible patterns onto the granite with the tip of your finger. “Like, together… if you want.”

Steve is momentarily speechless. He’s spent weeks plotting how he was going to ask you out. It would come to him in waves. He’d feel like he’d concocted the most perfect, foolproof plan right before realizing there was no way in hell he could ever go through with it — all in the same fleeting thought.

But here you are, biting the bullet for the both of you.

He’s grateful. He thinks he’s dreaming.

“That sounds…” Steve trails off with the mindless nod of his head. “Yeah. No. Totally. That sounds… really cool.”

A wide smile pulls at the edges of your lips. You purse your mouth to the side in attempts to conceal it. “Cool,” you murmur all cool-ly, like his affirmation isn’t heaven to your ears.

“Uh, not to sound like a total douchebag or whatever, but my dad— he’s got this theater room and everything, and my parents are almost never home,” Steve rambles as he puts all three movies into a paper bag. Then his eyes go wide and his face glows cherry red. “Not like that! I didn’t mean it like— That sounded really weird… I’m sorry—”

You giggle at him, at the way he can pretend to be so suave, and then reveal all the marshmallow fluff he tries to keep hidden a moment later. “It’s okay, Steve. I got what you meant.”

He writes his address on a yellow sticky note with the Family Video logo printed in green at the very top. His handwriting is boyish and sloppy, the sign of a boy who never did care much about school. Some letters are connected, others far apart; some written too big, while others are too small. You find it endearing, but Steve knows it’s just because his hand was shaking something fierce.

He leaves his number written at the very bottom. Just for good measure.

“No funny business, alright, Harrington?” you joke, waving a ringed finger at him as you walk backward out of the store, heading back to your own job.

Steve bites back a smile. Once upon a time, he was all funny business. No girl was ever going to invite King Steve over and not expect some heavy petting. And he wants so badly to kiss you — fuck, he wants to kiss you all the time — but the want to spend innocent time with you eclipses all of those boyish feelings.

He yearns to be close to you. Like magnets. Or a moon and the ocean’s tide.

“No funny business,” he promises.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

You keep your distance with a system of touch.

It isn’t until you arrive at the front gates of the Harrington home you realize you’ve never been in the suburbs of Hawkins before.

You grew up on the very outskirts of town, where there were more trees than people or houses. The block was half rundown already and horribly secluded. The only interesting thing about it was the winding trail through the woods that led to the anterior of Forest Hills trailer park.

That’s where you spent the bulk of your time, practically living with Eddie and Wayne in their one-bedroom trailer, until you felt guilty enough to go back home for a day or two. Your parents would inevitably remind you why you ran off in the first place, and then the cycle would start all over again.

It was all just far enough away from Hawkins that you could pretend like the town’s bullshit didn’t exist. The freak from the wrong side of the tracks didn’t belong on Maple Street or Fairview Road or Laurel Avenue. That was for people who could afford new shoes every school year, who could go clothes shopping and not feel guilty about cutting into their food money, who were set up with trust funds before they were even born.

But here you are now, on Fairview Road, seven o’clock sharp, and standing in front of the biggest house you’d ever seen.

You ring the doorbell and flinch when it’s louder than expected. The chime is light and jaunty. You wonder if it’s been programmed for the change in season.

Steve answers no more than a couple seconds later. He swings both French doors open, arms spreading wide like the smile on his face.

He’s traded in his slacks for comfier jeans and his vest for a form-fitting sweatshirt he’s bunched at the elbows. You realize, then, that you’ve never seen him without the forest green Family Video jacket. It makes him look naked, almost, like a totally different person — no longer the dork who works a measly nine-to-five with his best friend and visits the freak next door on the off chance his manager won’t dock his pay for it.

The vest had humbled him to a certain extent. Now he just looks cool. Like the boy people would either praise or avoid like the plague, for fear of getting in King Steve’s path — just a little bit more mature looking now, with his chiseled jaw and scruffy chin.

It makes you feel a little stupid from where you stand on the porch ahead of him, wearing the same thing he’d seen you in earlier that day. He’s got no idea you spent the past couple of hours agonizing over what to wear. For the sake of not seeming crazy overzealous, you opted not to dress up. Now you’re scared he thinks you just didn’t care enough to.

But you do care. So goddamn much that’s it scary.

You never had to worry about what you wore or what you looked like before you left the house, about what you had too much of and what you lacked. Now, it’s all you can think about.

If Steve notices anything at all, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps on smiling at you, too happy to see you to care about what you’re wearing. He’s just glad that you showed up.

Truth be told, he had a six-pack and Robin’s number on speed dial on the off chance you canceled on him. He was preparing himself to wallow in self-pity and spend the rest of the night ranting to his best friend about the bleeding heart he had for you. Because, as far as he was concerned, you were far too good to be true.

You were beautiful and funny and kind and perfect. You treat him like you’ve known him for years, like he didn’t spend so many of them avoiding you in attempts to keep some measly title that didn’t mean shit. You were too perfect. Sometimes, Steve gets scared that he just made you up.

But whether you’re a dream come true or the real thing, you’re standing on his front porch anyway, with a smile and a bottle of grocery store wine.

He saves the beer in his fridge and the wallowing for another day.

Steve escorts you through his lavish living room and to the downstairs area that’s got a movie screen hanging on the walls and a couple of leather couches sitting in front of it. The coffee table in front of them holds a myriad of glass bowls — popcorn, various candies, and more popcorn.

“You planning on throwin’ a party down here, Harrington?” you tease with a soft chuckle, trying to conceal how your heart’s about to burst at the mere sight of it all.

“Well, I just— I didn’t know what you liked, and I didn’t— I wanted to make sure you had something to eat, you know,” the boy stammers out. He brings the palm of his hand to rub at the back of his neck. “So I just… I got… everything.”

“It’s a good thing a like everything then, huh?” you smile at him as you pluck a Red Vine from its dedicated bowl. You rip off an inch or two with your teeth and then talk as you chew: “I hope you’re prepared for all of this shit get eaten, Harrington. I can get quite ravenous.”

Steve nods to himself and tries not to smile too big. “Sounds entertaining… Maybe I’ll just watch you instead of the movie.”

It was supposed to be a joke.

But then you settled down next to him on the couch, keeping a respectful distance but sharing the same fuzzy blanket, and he has to physically force himself to drag his gaze away from you.

He was right about what he said before, you were far more entertaining than the black and white film projected ahead of him — grabbing handfuls of popcorn at a time and quoting the movie through the mouthful.

It’s a tad bit barbaric, the faintest bit off-putting, and otherworldly levels of endearing. It leaves him virtually unable to take his eyes off of you.

He didn’t think you could get more beautiful, but you keep on proving him wrong.

He’s starting to realize he doesn’t know shit.

You’re slowly coming to the same understanding.

You’ve heard stories about Steve. Usually from gossiping cheerleaders standing in circles at their lockers or whispering in the back of a classroom. Doomed as the freak and all but banished from the inner society of Hawkins High, you became an observer. You were so invisible that people sometimes didn’t realize they were talking right over you, sharing secrets they wouldn’t want someone else to get a hold of.

But apparently you were the exception. Because you weren’t a someone to them.

They talked about how kind he was, how well endowed, how they were meant to go on some stupid date but missed their reservation because Steve got a little too handsy beforehand, and how they spent the rest of the night with their hands shoved down each other’s pants at Lover’s Lake.

You were seeing, firsthand, how much he’d changed. How he made his promise of no funny business and how he was sticking to it — no teasing you about the whole thing with a knowing smirk and flirtatious honey eyes, no urging to close this distance between you, no tiny touches on your arm or thigh in the hopes of heavier petting.

He spends the entirety of the first movie perfectly respectful. Just like you’d asked him to be.

And it was nice, knowing that you weren’t wasting your evening with some asshole who was only spending time with you in the hopes of you putting out later. But it leaves you the faintest bit empty. Hungry. You long for his touch like a missed meal. Starving and feeling it all.

It’s not even heavy petting you want, you just want to feel him next to you — to press yourself into his side and to warm yourself with him like a blanket.

But you weren’t a pretty cheerleader or a girl dripping in expensive clothes and daddy’s money. You were the weirdo, the freak, the loudmouth nerd, Punchy — all names you wore proudly, like lit-up signs or steel armor.

Until now.

Now you think if you weren’t Punchy, if were you someone different, then maybe he’d want to touch you more.

The first hour and thirty-seven minutes of your favorite movie are strangely agonizing.

Your hands itch with the desire to touch the boy next to you, and they busy themselves with the bowls of candy and savory junk food splayed out on the table in front of you. It’s mindless more than it is anything. You’re absentminded binging does nothing more than half-distract you from the thoughts raging rivers in your skull.

You don’t even realize you’re doing it until your hand falls into an empty bowl of popcorn and finds nothing but kernels at the bottom of it.

It makes Steve laugh, thinking you were just too into the movie to notice — having no idea it was him taking up all your brain power.

He leaves to fix more snacks for you while you slip the second VHS into the movie player. He returns with a bowl of freshly popped popcorn and two beers after the wine bottle has been sufficiently emptied. When he plops down next to you again, it’s in the same spot he’d been sitting in all night — a couple of excruciating inches away.

Under the guise of sharing the popcorn in his lap, you make the too bold decision to slither in at his side. It’s innocent at first — your thighs just barely graze and your elbows bump when you dip your hands into the bowl. And it’s still innocent some thirty minutes later, when you find yourself resting your head on his shoulder with your legs curled up behind you.

Steve tenses when he feels your temple pressed against him, but only for a moment before he relaxes again. It makes him all suddenly warm and self-aware of every movement he makes. He tries not to breathe too heavy or shift too often, for fear it might jostle you too much. He doesn’t want to stop feeling you against him like this, even if it’s got his skin prickling with a searing form of anxiety.

“Don’t tell me you’re falling asleep,” he jokes.

“Of course not. It’s way too riveting,” you scoff, even though he can feel you cuddling further into him. Your cheek rubs against the soft cotton of his sweatshirt when you look up at him. He turns his head to peer down at you and his nose nearly grazes your forehead.

He finds you with a certain glint in your eye. It’s borderline playful, like it so often is, but coated with a sweetness that drips over him like honey. “You like it so far?” you wonder.

“Yeah,” the boy nods quickly. He couldn’t tell you what had happened the past two-and-a-half films, but he could tell you how your jaw tenses when you chew and how your smile curls just before you laugh out loud and how your eyes widen every time you quote the movie. “It’s really good. I like it.”

You beam at him before turning back to the projector again. You shift to get more comfortable against him. “Good.”

By the third movie, you’re somehow even closer.

Truth be told, Day of the Dead wasn’t your favorite in the trilogy, so it left your mind wandering to far off places — namely, the pretty boy sitting beside you. He goes to put the tape into the projector, feeling immediately cold without pressing into his side, and when he returns he tries his best not to beg you to cuddle against him again.

“My shoulder’s gettin’ real cold over here,” he tries to joke.

You see right through his beckoning, though. It makes you happy to know he wants it just as much as you do.

“Just say you wanna be next to me, Harrington,” you tease like you aren’t happily obliging him. You snuggle into his shoulder and rest your head against him while your arms curl around his bicep.

“I wanna be next to you,” he repeats, a playful smile on his lips though his gaze softens with sincerity. “Is that so bad?”

You shake your head against him in reply. Suddenly as mushy as the boy beside you, you turn to look up at him. “Not unless it’s bad that I wanna be next to you, too…”

“Nah. It’s not bad,” he assures in something short of a whisper. “Guess I’m just glad I’m not the only one that’s so far gone.”

He doesn’t elaborate on what he means by that. He doesn’t have to.

Perhaps it’s the admission that this boy is so far gone for you that gives you a sudden burst of confidence. Maybe it’s the comforting feeling of being seen, of knowing you’re no longer alone in your similar far gone-ness. Each feels like rays of sunshine to your skin and has you pressing your lips to his wanting ones without much thought.

The plump pink of his mouth are magnets for yours. They meet and lock together with little effort, almost destined to do it. It’s a soft, meager, and lingering little peck that sucks you both in a little too easily. It’s hard to pull away from him, but when you do, your lips click in protest.

Then there’s a look, then a deafening silence that says more words than either of you were capable of forming in that moment. His amber eyes dart between both of yours, asking a question without saying a goddamn thing. One that you answer with your own softening gaze.

And it’s almost better than the kiss itself, the swirling feeling in the pits of your stomach, the knowing of what’s about to happen.

A silent plea and a blink later and his lips are on yours again.

It’s an awkward mess of yearning mouths and tangled limbs as the both of you fight to find purchase on one another. Your fingers knot in the collar of his sweatshirt, pulling him impossibly closer, while his grip the bare skin of your waist from where your shirt had ridden up. His touch makes you buzz, like a static shock or a bolt of lightning.

Steve makes several observations when he feels you melt into him like honey on toast. He notices how you press yourself into him, like you won’t be satisfied until you’ve swallowed him whole, and how it has you kissing him like you’re scared he’ll pull away — like you’ll open your eyes and he won’t be real.

You’re as domineering against his mouth as you are in real life, still as all-consuming and overpowering as the girl he’s gotten so familiar with.

He doesn’t realize how you’ve settled so intently on top of him until his back meets the pillowy cushion of the leather couch. You don’t either, until he exhales a sharp gasp against your cupid’s bow. Then you part from him, for the first time in several minutes, breathing in the oxygen your lungs had just begun to scream for.

Steve finds you with kiss-bitten lips and glassy eyes that look upon him with a softness that he didn’t know existed until now. He smirks with his own swollen and pinker mouth like he isn’t glowing red beneath you.

“I thought you said no funny business,” he manages to tease through bated breaths.

You don’t bother to make up excuses for yourself. You’re already on top of him, all over him — you’ve already kissed him like you would’ve died if you hadn’t. Now, you’re straddling him, caging him between your legs and under your torso. You’ve settled on top of him with a comforting weightiness, like you’re building a home in the familiarity you’ve sought in him.

“I lied,” you mutter with a lazy shrug. A sly smile pulls slowly at your lips until you’re all but beaming sunbeams down at him. He revels in your warmth. “’S not my fault you’re so damn cute.”

It’s easier to blame it on him for all the reasons you’re attached to him like a magnet to his metal, your moth to his flame. You part his lips with your mouth, rut your tongue against his own, reveling in the foreign familiarity of it all, and then blame him for the way you can’t seem to stop any of it.

Steve doesn’t seem to mind, though. The way his hands find purchase on your hips, petting the warmed skin there and sometimes squeezing to pull you further down onto him, tells you that he has a similar yearning to melt with you. He lets you kiss him all slow, allows you to taste all of him, and doesn’t rush you in your process. It’s comforting, tender. Free.

He’s not used to being on his back like this. Usually, he’s the one taking control. It’s his mouth that does all the work. So, it’s strange to be under you and to have you above him. But it’s more pleasant in an even stranger way not to be rushed — not to have to do all the work. His mouth opens so obediently for you and finds an effortless rhythm with your lips and your tongue.

It’s the easiest thing he’s ever done in his life, kissing you.

He delights in every ounce of the warmth and unfamiliarity you press to his mouth, and tries to shove down feelings of unworthiness that simmer in his chest while you do so.

You don’t part until your mouths are numb and tingling with it.

Your lips are more vibrant in their color, aflame and swollen from being so ardently kissed and sucked and bitten. Neither of you mind making out like a couple of teenagers. It’s comforting to know that things won’t go further than a couple soft touches on burning skin. It was never supposed to be anything more than that, anyway. It was just about being close to each other.

You’ve almost succeeded in your effort to melt into the boy beneath you, when you hear the distant sound of a door opening and closing again. Muffled voices follow — unknown to you but obviously familiar to him.

You part from him without thinking, like you’re a couple of kids again who’ll get in trouble if your parents ever found out what you were doing down here. Steve groans at the loss of you and in annoyance at the sound of his parents. His heavy eyes fall shut and his head leans back to the couch cushions as he fights to swallow down all of his anger.

His parents never really come around these days. They’ve got a bigger home in the city, closer to his dad’s work, and they choose to stay there most days of the week — month.

They used to make excuses for why they left their only son behind. It’s five minutes from your dad’s firm. There’s more opportunity for your mom’s real estate business. Oh, don’t be so selfish, Steven, you’ll finally have the place to yourself. It’s a win-win for all of us.

Steve didn’t want their excuses. It was actually easier with them gone.

But they come around every now and again, whenever it’s most convenient for them, and treat their arrival like something that needs to be celebrated. Like they aren’t supposed to be with their child in the fucking first place. And they somehow manage to pick the most inconvenient times for him, like they know he’s in a bind and want to see him struggle to get out of it.

Usually, it’s when he’s in between paychecks — when they want to take him out to some fancy dinner he could barely afford anyway, but especially when he’s hardly making it until payday. Now, it’s when he’s got the prettiest girl he’s ever seen on top of him, and he’s all hot and half-hard. Steve doesn’t want to let them ruin the moment, as good as they are at it.

“It’s okay. They won’t come in here,” he assures when he feels you tense at the unexpected company. “My mom will go to the bedroom and my dad will go to his office. We’re good, I promise.”

You figure he’s right. The voices grow more and more distant. Heeled shoes click up and up the stairs while heavy stomps head the opposite way. But you’ve already been so woefully knocked out of your stupor that you’re scared it’s too late.

Your lips are numb and the credits are rolling and you’re on top of this beautiful boy and you have no idea how you got there.

It’s almost frightening, the way Steve had consumed you mind, body, and soul by just existing next to you. You become dreadfully hyperaware of the whole thing — of who you are, who he is, and what you’re doing. You lose all your softness and turn to ice, hardening and shrinking back into yourself.

“I should—” you start before clearing your throat when the words come out heavier than expected. “I should head out anyway.”

“Oh,” is all Steve can say. “Right.”

You stare down at him, chest still pressed against his, nose nearly touching the tip of his own. “I just— I have to open tomorrow and everything, so—”

“No. Yeah. Yeah, I— I get it.”

You make tricky work of untangling yourselves.

His legs twist with yours when you both try to rise from the couch at the same time. Then your ring gets stuck in the fabric of his shirt, but not before his belt buckle gets somehow caught in yours. It’s like fate is protesting the imminent parting, but neither of you are paying attention to the signs.

He walks you to your car and chuckles under his breath as you scurry to the front door.

You’re not-so-distantly terrified of running into his parents. They probably wouldn’t mind that he’s sneaking around with a girl, surely that they’re used to, but you’re almost certain they’re not used to girls like you. Girls with wild hair and leather skirts and chunky boots and too bold makeup.

You’re not the girl next door. You’re the girl parents warn their sons about. “Leave that girl alone,” they say. “She’s nothing but trouble.”

You tell him all of this on the short trek to your half-broken-down car when you catch him laughing at you about the whole thing. You say it in jest, lighthearted and trying to make a joke of it. But there’s an underlying melancholia to your tone that reveals every truth you’re trying to evade.

“They don’t care enough about me to give a shit about a girl I’m with, I promise,” he confesses with a laugh that sounds more like a sad scoff than anything else. His chocolate eyes turn gold beneath the yellow street light. He smirks at you. “Besides, I don’t know if I told you this or not, but my middle name is actually trouble, so… I think we might be a match made in heaven.”

You roll your eyes at his attempts to flirt with you, though his lack of finesse makes you smile. “You’re an idiot, Steve Actually Trouble Harrington.”

“You really know how to say goodbye, don’t ya?” he grins when you reach the curb where your tin can car sits.

“Yeah, I’m pro,” you shrug with a teasing glint in your eye, then you beam. “I’ll see you around, ‘kay?”

“Totally,” he nods, suddenly forlorn at having to leave you like he hadn’t just spent the past four hours with you.

Themetallic click of your car door opening sounds much louder in the emptiness of the suburbs. You glance at the boy right before you sink into the driver’s seat, feeling your heart swell with something short of yearning — anticipation.

You weren’t actually a professional at saying goodbye, you find, because you’re realizing how hard it is to leave him.

“Steve!” he hears you shout from across the lawn when he’s halfway up the drive.

He turns around, expecting to hear you tease him some more or tell him you were having car troubles. Neither would’ve shocked him. You’ve got a smart mouth and a shittier car. But you keep on surprising him, all but launching yourself into him before kissing him harder than he’s ever been kissed before.

Steve tenses against you at first, then relaxes again in record time. He sighs in the comfort of having your body pressed so intently into his and your arms wrapped around his neck to pull him somehow closer.

You feel the breath of his exhale fan against your cupid’s bow. It makes you smile, and he feels the expression contort against his lips. His hands rise to the widest part of your hips without thinking. It’s all muscle memory now.

And even though he’s spent the better part of an hour kissing you, this one is so obviously different. This wasn’t just to pass the time. This was more than just to feel him — it was to tell him something. He hears every word you don’t say, but rather press like a stamp to his mouth.

He’s breathless when you pull away. You meet his flushed face with a mischievous grin.

“What was that for?” he wonders breathlessly, but doesn’t waver with his hold on you. He quickly notices that yours doesn’t either.

You shrug in response. “‘Cause you’re pretty.”

“Yeah, well…” he tries to play off like he’s not blushing like crazy. “You’re pretty too.”

Your beam ebbs into a teasing, tightlipped smirk. “Stop flirting with me, Steve Harrington.”

You shove him away with a rougher hand than you realize before you walk away from him. Steve rubs at the ache in his chest with the palm of his hand.

Your playful teasing and your lingering kiss is the only thing Steve has to remember you by when you turn on your chunky heeled boot and head off down the driveway again. He’s frozen, mesmerized by the sight of you and reeling at how you manage to drive him crazy without trying.

Your eyes find him again just before you duck into your car, and you see him still looking at you — mouth agape and eyes wide like you’re some kind of rare find. You figure you must be, in some way. Girls like you aren’t supposed to like guys like him. Vice Versa. Tale as old as time.

The boy stays locked in his stupor until the sprinkles whir on. The spurts of freezing cold water spray all over him and his pretty hair and expensive sweatshirt and his vintage jeans. “Shit!” you hear him swear as he rushes for cover on his front porch.

He’s quickly soaked and freezing cold, but he smiles anyway when he hears the sound of your giggling behind him. It’s as animated as your personality and spills from your mouth like so many rays of sunshine, just a little too loud for the quiet midnight suburbs.

It’s perfect, he realizes. You’re perfect.

#published by bug #steve harrington x reader #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington smut #steve harrington fic #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington #st oneshots #stevie oneshot #punchy x steve

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urdreamgirls-dreamgirl · 1 year ago

Text

and i wouldn’t marry me either, pt. 1

have u guys seen that movie plus one on hulu with jack quaid and maya erskine? ok well here’s this thing. also, tw for steve puking.

Steve is drunk. Like, really, embarrassingly drunk.

And that would be fine, really, if he wasn’t at someone’s actual, real-life wedding.

Somewhere between the ceremony and the cocktail hour, the father-of-the-bride speech that had made him cry and the cutting of the cake, he’d started thinking about Nancy Wheeler and thinking about Nancy Wheeler had led to him practically funding the open bar with the spare change he’d been sure to bring in his pockets for tips.

And the thing about it is, Steve normally loves weddings. He loves the flowers and the vows and watching the bride walk down the aisle. He loves the DJ announcing the new couple, loves throwing confetti outside the church, loves the look on the groom’s face when he sees his almost-wife in her dress for the first time. But—

“Harrington!” Tommy Hagan yells from across the room, gesturing for Steve to make his way over. Steve racks his brain for an explanation as to why Tommy H would be at this wedding; he doesn’t remember Gareth and Tommy being particularly close back in their college days. Steve stumbles his way over to Tommy’s table, keeping a secure hand around his gin & tonic, trying his best not to spill.

“Stevie!” Tommy’s fiancée, Carol, practically crows as she leans over Tommy’s lap. “Where’s Nancy?”

“Yeah, man, kinda thought you’d be the first one marching down the aisle,” Tommy laughs and Carol swats him on the arm.

Steve downs his practically full drink before slamming the heavy glass back down on the table.

“We broke up actually,” Steve grimaces. “Last week.”

Carol gives him an exaggerated pout while Tommy cringes. “Aw, baby, I’m so sorry,” Carol slurs. Steve has to hold himself back from rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, well.” Steve runs a hand through his hair. “We wanted different things.”

They offer him a few more words of sympathy before Steve finally flees, making excuses about finding the bathroom. He’s too drunk for this.

He leaves the table in search of another drink.

~*~

Eddie’s just outside the reception hall, out on the venue’s terrace, sparkling with fairy lights. He’s got a stack of index cards in his hands, trying to make out his own scrawled handwriting, when someone stumbles directly into his back. He feels something wet through the fabric of his dress shirt.

“Fuck, shit, sorry, fuck,” someone says, their hands patting at the wetness.

Eddie finally turns to see a disheveled Steve Harrington, a half-empty glass clutched in his fist. His hair’s a mess, his tie’s undone, and he’s clearly drunk. Eddie had seen him stumbling around the dance floor earlier.

“Dude, you good?” Eddie asks, genuinely concerned. He can’t remember the last time he’d seen Harrington drunk. It had to be way back in college, when he’d only known Steve as that annoying frat dude that Gareth and Dustin always brought around. He’d spent a full year trying to figure out what those two saw in him and doing everything in his power to avoid group hang outs.

They’d gotten closer over the years, once they’d graduated and become, like, real, fully-formed human beings. Harrington was actually a pretty chill dude, funny and sweet and able to give as good as he got whenever Eddie was in a particularly teasing mood. Eddie’s ego wasn’t so big that he couldn’t admit he’d been wrong about Harrington, at least in the privacy of his own head.

“Yeah, man, all good,” Steve slurs, barely coherent. He raises his empty hand limply in an attempt at a thumbs up.

“Man, you don’t look so good.” Steve’s eyes are practically vacant and Eddie is feeling genuinely concerned. And he’s proven right when Steve stumbles over to one of the concrete planters lining the terrace and pukes his guts out. It’s loud and disgusting and Eddie can feel the grimace on his own face. But Steve is his friend, so he reaches his hand out to rub Steve’s back, even as he keeps his distance.

“Hey, Eddie,” he hears Jeff call from the French doors that lead into the reception hall.

“Yeah?” Eddie spares a quick glance over his shoulder before returning his attention to where Steve is groaning into the dirt of some exotic-looking tree.

“‘Bout ready to cut the cake,” Jeff tells him. “Need you in a few.”

Right. Eddie’s best man speech. The reason he was out here in the first place. He’s not nervous or anything. He’s a natural showman and entertainer, loves being in front of a crowd. And he loves Gareth and Chrissy. He has plenty of good things to say about them, plenty of embarrassing stories from when he and Gareth were kids, and plenty of sweet ones from when they’d finally met Chrissy in college. Nah, Eddie’s pretty much got this in the bag. He’s just not used to the idea of his friends being actually, real-life married. They’re only 27; Chrissy’s practically a child bride for god’s sake!

Eddie glances down at Steve, whose face is red and sweaty. Eddie’s not blind or stupid; he knows Steve’s an attractive dude. He’s a little too preppy and heterosexual (even though Eddie knows on a theoretical level that Steve does sometimes sleep with other guys) for Eddie’s tastes, but the man is hot. Except for right now. He actually looks pretty bad, possibly the worst Eddie’s ever seen him. And that’s really saying something, considering Steve had actually had his stomach pumped during Greek Week their senior year. At least Steve seems to have cleared the contents of his stomach, at this point.

“Hey, man, you good?” Eddie asks him, his hand still rubbing slow circles on Steve’s back.

Steve groans before looking up at him. “Eddie?” Steve squint. “You’re pretty. Like Nancy.” And Steve sounds so sad when he says it that even Eddie’s heart gives a little squeeze.

“Uh, thank you,” Eddie glances toward the open doors again. The cake is being wheeled out into the middle of the dance floor. “Listen, I don’t wanna leave you out here, but I gotta go give a speech. Can you, uh, stand up for me?”

“Yeah, man, totally,” Steve slurs out, barely comprehensible. He drags the back of his hand over his lips and chin, which should be kind of disgusting, but Eddie just feels sorry for him. Steve makes it one step before he’s slouching into Eddie’s shoulder, all his weight falling into Eddie’s chest. Eddie grunts and fits his hands around Steve’s waist.

“Fuck, dude, how much do you weigh?” Eddie’s voice comes out a little breathless.

“175, baby. Pure muscle,” Steve slurs back.

“Yeah, I believe it,” Eddie mutters, fingertips digging hard into the firmness of Steve’s lower back. “Okay, come on, let’s get you a chair.”

It takes some maneuvering but Eddie finally gets Steve inside and seats him at the closest table. It’s empty, since most people had been dancing and are currently crowded around the cake. Chrissy’s sister, the maid of honor, is holding a microphone, finishing her speech.

“We love you, Chrissy,” she’s saying, looking at the bride with tears in her eyes. “We know that Gareth will do everything in his power to make you happy. To Gareth and Chrissy!” She raises her glass of champagne, smiling, and everyone around her does the same, echoing her toast. “Okay, now where’s the best man?” She says, scanning the crowd.

Eddie smiles and makes his way over, taking the microphone from her.

“When I met Gareth, we were five years old. We’ve been through a lot together, from Gareth’s bug eating phase, to his wetting the bed phase, to that phase he had where he used to Naruto run to class in middle school, to his Hitchcock phase where he tried to talk in that transatlantic accent for literal months, to his bleach blonde phase, to his—”

“Alright, alright, we get it,” Gareth cuts in, rolling his eyes with an easy smile. The crowd laughs.

“Okay, okay. All I’m saying is I’ve seen a lot of versions of my best friend. But the best Gareth by far is the one he is with Chrissy. I remember when Gareth first met her, in their art history seminar. He came back to the dorm after that first week and told me he’d met an angel. ‘I’m in love, dude,’ he told me. ‘I’m marrying this girl.’ I, of course, was skeptical, especially when he pointed her out later that month in the dining hall. ‘Sorry, man, but no way. She’s way outta your league,’ I told him. But to my surprise, Chrissy Cunningham came marching up to us right then and there and asked Gareth if he’d started studying for their midterm. Gareth stumbled through that whole interaction making an absolute fool of himself. I’m pretty sure he put his elbow in my mashed potatoes,” Gareth and Chrissy laugh, “but that didn’t stop Chrissy from asking him to study that weekend. And the rest is, as they say, history.” Eddie raises his own glass of champagne in the direction of the happy couple. “When Gareth told me he was marrying Chrissy, all I could say was ‘it’s about fucking time.’ Chrissy is the smartest, sweetest woman I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet and she somehow makes my best friend an even better dude. So thank you, Chrissy, and congratulations to you both.” Everyone raises their glasses. Over the sounds of the room toasting, Eddie can hear Steve at his table in the back corner drunkenly cheering.

“Woo-hoo!” Steve claps. “Yeah!” Thankfully, no else really seems to notice and Eddie watches over Chrissy’s shoulder as Steve tries to stand from his seat but falls back into it on his ass, looking dazed.

“Thanks, Eddie,” Chrissy whispers as they pull away from their hug. “I love you.”

“Love you, too, babe,” Eddie tells her, squeezing her hands in his. He glances back over at Steve. “I’m gonna take Harrington up to my room, let him sleep some of the alcohol off.”

Chrissy’s eyes widen. “Oh, good idea. I was a little worried about him when I saw him stumbling around the dance floor before.” Eddie gives her hands one final squeeze before wandering off to collect Steve.

~*~

Getting Steve into the elevator is a struggle. He doesn’t want to leave, keeps saying he didn’t even get to eat a piece of cake yet. He only lets Eddie shove him through the metal doors when Eddie promises to bring him a piece when he comes back up later.

They make it to Eddie’s room without further incident and once they’re safely inside, Steve starts ripping off his suit without a care in the world. His hands and arms are flying everywhere. He almost takes Eddie out with an elbow to the temple.

“Dude, calm down,” Eddie tells him, hands on Steve’s arms. “Let me help you.” He unbuttons what’s left of Steve’s shirt and hangs it over the closet doorknob before reaching for Steve’s waistband and undoing his fly. His suit pants fall around his ankles. “Okay, step out.”

Steve braces his hands on Eddie’s shoulders and lifts one leg and then the other, until he’s standing there in only his briefs and his dress socks.

“Thought about this a lot in college,” Steve mutters, still slurring his words.

And that—huh? What? Thought about what a lot? Eddie undressing him?

Eddie does his best not to react. Steve’s drunk. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.

Eddie brings his own hands up to curl around Steve’s wrists and pull his hands away from his shoulders. He bends down and picks up Steve’s pants, folding them and placing them on the dresser. He folds back the bed’s comforter.

“Okay, big boy, in ya go.” He gestures toward the bed, encouraging Steve to lay down. Steve suddenly looks exhausted as he slides under the covers.

His eyes are half-closed before his head even hits the pillow.

Before Eddie shuts off the light and leaves to head back downstairs, he hears Steve call out softly, “sorry if I ruined it.” He shifts sleepily on the bed. “I always ruin it.”

Eddie feels like he’s swallowed glass as he slowly shuts the door behind him.

~*~

Steve wakes up to sunshine streaming in through the curtains of an unfamiliar bedroom. His head is killing him and his mouth feels like he’s swallowed 87 cotton balls. He groans, rolling away from the window, only to be met with the image of Eddie Munson’s shirtless, sleeping form.

Fuck. How drunk had he been last night? He vaguely remembers puking outside somewhere and Eddie rubbing his back, but he definitely doesn’t remember leaving the wedding. He doesn’t remember leaving the wedding with Eddie.

Steve spares a quick glance under the covers and is relieved to see that he’s still wearing his underwear and Eddie’s got on a pair of pajama pants. Surely he wouldn’t have sex and then put his underwear back on; that seems like something only a serial killer would do.

It’s not like he hasn’t thought about it. There was that one year, just after they’d graduated, that Steve had thought maybe there was something between them, something a little more than friendship.

But then he’d met Nancy Wheeler at his new job and she’d asked him out and he’d started imagining their lives together and thoughts of anyone else had just floated away.

So, yeah, Steve’s thought about it. Eddie’s gorgeous and funny and smart. It’s not like Steve would regret it. He could certainly do a lot worse.

But if he’s gonna sleep with one of his closest friends, he’d like to actually remember it.

In between Steve’s spiraling thoughts, Eddie must have woken up, because when Steve spares another glance toward his face, Eddie’s staring right back at him, making him jump slightly.

“Fuck, dude, make a noise,” Steve breathes out before running a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. “We didn’t—uh, nothing like… happened or whatever, right? We didn’t, like… you know… did we?”

Eddie stares at him for a long moment before putting Steve out of his misery. “No offense, Stevie, but I’m not really into guys that can barely string together a coherent thought.”

“Oh, thank god,” Steve sighs with relief, body sagging against the mattress. He sees Eddie’s mouth twitch. “Not that I… you know, you’re hot or whatever, but like…”

“Dude, relax,” Eddie laughs, moving to sit on the edge of the mattress. “You were black out drunk. I just brought you up here so you didn’t hurt yourself.”

Steve winces. “I didn’t, like, embarrass myself, did I? Or, like, ruin the wedding?”

Eddie looks at him with something like pity and Steve has to swallow nervously.

“No, Steve, you were fine. I just found you throwing up outside and though you’d had enough.”

Steve stares down at his hands. “Thanks, man,” he says softly.

“No worries, you’d do the same for me.” He sounds so totally sure that Steve would. “Weddings are tough. Can you believe I have, like, four more to go to, just this summer? I’ll probably black out at at least one of them. Anyway, I’m gonna take a shower and then you should probably also shower. You stink.” Eddie stands from the bed and claps his hands together. “And then we’re taking full advantage of the free hotel breakfast bar.”

~*~

After they’ve showered and Eddie’s gone back to the breakfast buffet for seconds and thirds, he offers to drive Steve home and Steve gratefully accepts. He’s really not in the mood for an Uber or, even worse, the subway.

Steve keeps thinking about what Eddie had said back in the hotel room. That he had four more weddings to go to this summer alone. Steve has five of his own and the thought of going through all that alone makes his stomach clench and his throat tighten. He knows he’s going to see Nancy at at least one of them and that thought alone has Steve desperate.

“Hey, you know how you said you have four more weddings to go to this summer?” Steve asks from the passengers seat. Eddie hums an affirmative response. “I have five.”

“No shit, that sucks, man. I actually fuckin’ hate weddings, to tell you the truth.” Eddie doesn’t take his eyes off the road.

“I used to love them, actually. But, I don’t know. They’ve kind of lost their charm,” Steve doesn’t mean to sound super mega fucking depressed about it, but he knows he does.

“Fuck, dude. Sorry,” Eddie glances at him, a worried look in his eye.

“But, uh, I was thinking,” Steve powers on. “Maybe we should, like, help each other out?”

Eddie’s brow furrows in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Like, you know.” Steve gestures vaguely with his hand. “Make it less unbearable. Like, we could go together or something.”

“You want to be each other’s plus ones?” Eddie asks incredulously.

“Yeah, man, think about it. You’d always have someone to chill with, even if the party’s fucking lame. We could make fun of the bridesmaids’ dresses together and shit. It wouldn’t be as god fucking awful if we were together.”

They’re stopped at a red light and Eddie has turned to stare directly at him.

“You do realize that would mean we’d be going to ten weddings, like, collectively, right? Why would I want to go to more weddings then I actually have to?”

“Well, nine, since Chrissy and Gareth’s is over,” Steve tells him, matter-of-factly. “Come on, Eddie, this summer is fucking torture for me. You know Nancy, like, crushed me or whatever. It would really help me out, to have you there. Just think about it.”

And, Steve thinks, that’s kind of what does it. Eddie has a savior complex about a mile wide and Steve has never been above using that to his advantage.

Eddie sighs and shifts his gaze back to the road as the light turns green.

“Fine, Harrington,” he finally says. “But you are paying for all my suit rentals and buying all the gifts.”

Steve smiles. “Deal.”

#steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie fanfic #steddie fanfiction #steddie ficlet #steddie fic recs #steddie au #steddie modern au #steddie rom com au

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penny00dreadful · 3 months ago

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CW for this chapter on AO3

Part 1/ Part 5/ Part 7 (Complete)/ AO3

Eddie was adamant they go to the library at the museum, now more than ever. It was urgent he had all of the information he needed for the fight ahead.

How else was he supposed to battle a supernatural entity that seemed determined to suck his face… in more ways than one.

They were all jogging up the stone stairs to the museum, Eddie at the front, followed by Robin and Steve, who were followed by the remaining Cowboys.

They never made it to the library, however.

Because as soon as their group turned the corner onto the main museum floor, they were met with Eddie’s boss; the curator and—

“You?”

Eddie stared at the man wide-eyed. The man who had met them at the opening of the underground temple after Vecna had been awoken.

The one who had glared at them and told them they’d fucked everything up, which to be fair, they had.

“Me.” The man said, standing amongst the ancient artefacts of his people. “My name is Ardeth Bay.”

Eddie raised a hesitant hand in a little wave, haltingly introducing himself while everyone else confusedly did the same.

“This is all very pleasant, but what are you doing here?” Steve asked, hovering over Eddie’s shoulder like he wanted to jump in front, to protect him from… what? Small talk?

“I suspect,” the curator sighed, “the same thing you are doing. Trying to find information on this Vecna fellow.”

Eddie opened and closed his mouth, his entire world view trying to rearrange itself to make sense of what was happening.

“We are a part of an ancient secret society.” Ardeth Bay proclaimed to the room.

Oh, so we’re just going to brush over everything and jump to secret societies? All right. Okay. This is fine. Eddie thought to himself, a little hysterically at how normal everyone was acting about such a proclamation.

“For 3,000 years we have guarded the City of the Dead and the evil that lay inside of it. We are sworn to do any and all in our power to stop Vecna from being reborn into this world.”

Eddie bit his lip.

“Sorry about that.”

“Question.” Steve asked with a raised hand, trying to pull the attention off Eddie. “Why doesn’t he like cats?”

“Cats are the guardians of the underworld.” Eddie answered him, though the question clearly hadn’t been directed towards him. “You could have just asked me.” He huffed.

Steve pursed his lips, but didn’t answer him, his face still a little twisted in the same way it had been when he was snarking about Eddie dating the mummy.

“So we just get an army of cats together to scare him back to death?”

“No.” Ardeth Bay said, his expression serious, not indulging Steve in lightening the mood. “He will fear them until he’s fully regenerated. Then, he will fear nothing.”

“Great.” Eddie sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“How would he achieve full regeneration?” Robin asked.

“By killing every single one of us and sucking us dry!” Jason screamed in hysterics.

Ardeth Bay didn’t answer, just gestured in Jason’s direction, confirming he was correct while the rest of them tried not to indulge his panic.

Robin nodded to herself, glancing around the room, taking a mental inventory.

“Where’s Tommy?” Robin asked.

“Hagan?” Billy leaned back against the wall, his arms crossed. “Haven’t seen him since the mummy came back to life. I thought he was dead.”

“No, he’s alive.” Eddie said. “I saw him a few hours ago. Right before—”

“Right before we found Fred.” Steve nodded.

“He ran like a bat outta hell. You don’t think–?”

“Oh yeah, I do think. Tommy has no problem changing loyalty if it means saving his own skin.”

Robin pressed her fingers into her eyes. “Okay, great. Now we have that to worry about, too.”

Eddie looked between their mysterious new friend and his boss, figuring the easiest way to ask this question was to just be blunt.

“Do either of you know whether Vecna was a particularly horny man?”

The silence that followed his question would be almost comical if Eddie hadn’t been completely serious. Everyone around the room stared at him like they thought he’d finally lost it.

With a great sigh, like his patience was still being tested, the curator responded. “Why do you ask, Munson?”

He was acting like Eddie was making fun of the whole situation. Not taking it seriously and yeah. His question might have been a strange one, but he was so super fucking serious.

“Well…” Eddie hesitated. “I think he tried to kiss me.”

Ardeth immediately straightened up. “And it was you who read from the book?”

Eddie fiddled with the rings around his fingers.

“It was an accident!”

“How do you read a book by accident, Munson?” The curator almost growled, glaring at Eddie like he was a child insisting the cookies ate themselves. “You know what? I don’t care for whatever nonsense explanation you try to give me. It seems that Vecna has marked you as the sacrifice needed to resurrect the body of his lover.”

“So he is horny for Eddie?” Robin asked, poking around the ancient spears.

Ardeth tilted his head back and forth, considering.

“In a way, yes.”

“Oh, well that’s…” Eddie placed his hands on his hips, sighing, “fantastic.”

“Sucks to be you.”

“Thanks, Robin.”

“Or… no wait, actually. Let’s think about this for a moment.” She said, coming around to stand in front of him. “We could use you as bait?”

“Nope.” Steve finally decided to speak instead of sulking in the corner, coming over to stand by Eddie’s side. “Not happening.”

Eddie turned his head to glare at him. “Who says you get to make decisions for me?” He poked Steve in the chest. “You were trying to set me up on a date with him ten minutes ago. Isn’t this what you wanted?”

Steve just scowled. They were gearing up for another bitch fight, a back and forth that would no doubt irritate everyone else in the room, but before they could even start, everyone’s attention was diverted.

The room was steadily being thrown into darkness and as they all looked up to the domed skylight above, they saw the moon slowly being covered in darkness.

An eclipse.

They were rapidly running out of time.

They ended up back in Eddie’s apartment, everyone tearing through his things looking for the Book of the Dead.

“Where is it?” Billy snapped at him, practically overturning his couch.

“Well it’s not under there.” Eddie snapped right back, on his knees, rifling through the luggage he’d brought back from the expedition.

“If you don’t have it then who would?”

Eddie looked up at Robin.

“You, I would have assumed.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not me. Who did we last see it with?”

“Didn’t that pompous guy have it?” Steve asked.

“The Egyptologist?” Eddie pondered. “I think he did, actually.”

“Then he’s in danger.” Jason looked up from his exploration of Eddie’s drawers.

“Alright then.” Eddie pushed himself to his feet. “Let’s go get him.”

“No, no, no, no, no.” Steve stopped him with a hand to the chest. “You are not going anywhere.”

Eddie’s mouth hung open in outrage. “Excuse me–?!”

“We have just had a conversation about a horny mummy looking to sacrifice you, I am not letting you leave this building.”

“Oh, really?” Eddie crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at him. “And how exactly do you intend to stop me?”

He stepped forward, intending to shoulder past Steve but Steve ducked, unexpectedly catching Eddie around the middle, and before he could do anything to stop it, he found himself thrown over the caveman’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“What are you— Harrington! What do you think you’re doing?! Put me down!”

For the second time in recent memory, Eddie found himself being thrown by Steve.

But at least this time he was tossed down onto his own soft bedding rather than being thrown overboard.

Steve barely spared him a glance as he turned his back.

“That is how I intend to stop you, Eddie.”

Before he could even push himself up to sitting, Steve had stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

Eddie was on his feet and storming forward before he could even breathe, but he was half a second late in reaching the door, the lock clicking just before he made it.

He grabbed the handle, trying to wrench it open but there was no give to it.

“Harrington! I’m not playing any of your fucking games! Let me out of here!”

From beyond the door he could hear Steve ordering Billy and Jason to stand guard and calling Robin after him as his voice got quieter under Eddie’s constant shouting and pounding at the door.

“Billy! Jason! Open this fucking door right now!”

“Sorry.” He heard Billy let out a satisfied exhale as he sat down, the creak of Eddie’s overstuffed couch a familiar sound to him. “You heard the man’s orders.”

Eddie kicked the door. Hard.

Steve ducked unexpectedly, catching Eddie around the middle and before he could do anything to stop it, he found himself thrown over the caveman’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“What are you— Harrington! What do you think you’re doing?!”

Steve had one arm curled around his knees, steadying him, while the other gripped the door handle tight, slamming it closed behind the two of them.

“Put me down!”

For the second time in recent memory, Eddie found himself being thrown by Steve.

But at least this time he was tossed down onto his own soft bedding rather than being thrown overboard.

He had expected Steve to turn and stomp his way out of the room.

What he got was somehow far more terrifying and exhilarating than that.

He was left wide eyed and breathless as Steve leaned down low over him, nudging his way onto the bed with a knee at the side of each of Eddie’s legs.

“What– what are you doing?” Eddie asked in a hushed whisper, not wanting to disturb the atmosphere building around them. He was leaning back on his elbows but as Steve slowly began to lower himself, bringing their faces closer, Eddie let himself sink down to his back.

“This, Eddie,” Steve whispered to him, his breath fanning out over Eddie’s lips, a hand coming up to rest gently against the side of his face, “is how I intend to stop you.”

Closing that final bit of distance, Steve’s lips met his and though Eddie was below him, Steve still managed to worm an arm around his waist like he weighed nothing, pulling them flush together.

Eddie’s heart was pounding in his chest but there was no way he was going to hesitate any longer than it took for his brain and his lips to catch up with what was going on.

His eyes slipped closed, and he kissed back, hard, his own hands coming up to tug at Steve’s hair.

Eddie’s legs developed a mind of their own, winding their way around Steve’s middle and clamping on tight, punching a low groan out of him that Eddie happily swallowed.

Steve pressed in further, his tongue gently pushing into Eddie’s mouth and his pelvis grinding down, hardness meeting hardness and they both broke away to exhale, strained between them.

“Eddie. I’ve been thinking about this for so long.” Steve breathed between them. “Been thinking about you for so long. Eddie.”

He tipped his head back, mouth hanging open on a light moan as Steve ground down again, pressing them together and Eddie’s eyes nearly rolled back in his head at the feeling of soft lips against his throat.

“Me–me too.”

“Eddie.”

Steve exhaled his name against his skin, like he couldn’t help it.

“Eddie.”

He kissed his way back up his neck and across his jaw before sealing their mouths together again.

“Eddie!”

Eddie opened his eyes, pillow below his head and the expected weight of Steve leaning over him.

But the eyes looking back at him weren’t the warm hazel ones he was expecting, but instead a bright electric blue.

Eddie tried to shove himself backwards, tried to scream but his mouth remained occupied, sealed against the man's own above him.

He could see nothing but blonde curls and angular features and his scream felt pulled from him, inhaled.

Like the breath was being stolen from his body.

Every moment he pushed away, he felt his muscles become weaker, darkness starting to pull at his vision again while those eyes became steadily brighter.

“Eddie!”

His bedroom door banged open, splinters of wood flying and Steve swung forward, landing on the outstretched leg he had used to kick it open and break clean through the lock.

“Get off of him!”

Eddie felt like all of the air had been sucked from his body, dragged out of him, his lungs crumpling from the pressure as the figure above him finally unsealed himself.

The next second he breathed in, inhaling like the moment before implosion, feeling it extend the whole way down his body.

He fell back to the pillows, his body having been lifted slightly with the force of the extraction. He tipped over the edge of the bed, coughed out a mouthful of sand, and breathed in air like a drowning man.

He looked up, Steve had Asy in his hands, holding her up in Vecna’s direction.

She looked as pissed off as he had ever seen her, spiked fur and claws out, but not directed at Steve.

She hissed and yowled so loudly that Eddie felt it ringing in his ears.

The otherworldly screech that came from the man above him only added to the noise but as Asy swiped for him, he dematerialized around them, spinning himself into a swirl of sand and blasting himself out of the window.

Eddie breathed heavily in the silence around them, putting a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes.

Great.

So the horny mummy had made his first move.

“Eddie? Are you okay?”

Steve was hovering over him, his brows pinched in concern but his posture hesitant, so different from how he had looked in Eddie’s dream–

Oh fucking Christ.

Eddie had dreamed of him!

What the fuck was wrong with him?

He lifted his eyes again, up to Steve.

Steve, who was looking down on him, all big hazel eyes and chest hair and moles.

There was a blush rising to his cheeks.

Nope. He was absolutely not going to be thinking about that right now.

He sat up, the collar of his sleep shirt falling open, practically hanging off his shoulder.

Eddie tugged it back into place while Steve stared up at the ceiling, apparently finding it very interesting to look at, a deep red blush crawling up his neck.

Robin just raised her eyebrows at him.

“‘M fine.”

He snatched up his trousers from where they had been tossed over a chair and tugged them on.

“I’m getting really sick of unexpected kisses.”

Steve let out an offended noise, his head whipping around before his eyes went wide at the sight of Eddie buttoning up.

He turned his head away again.

“So you’ll call that a kiss, but not mine?”

Eddie grinned at Steve’s back.

“Jealous?”

He couldn’t see what expression was on Steve’s face but he could feel the stare he was giving Robin, some kind of silent communication that she just rolled her eyes at.

Unfortunately, the answer as to how Vecna had managed to get into Eddie’s room when he had two guards at the door was that the guards were no longer at his door.

At least not alive.

Vecna had sucked the life from the two of them which at least explained how he was less corpse and more man when he snuck into Eddie’s room like a giant fucking creep.

And honestly, Eddie was over it at this stage. He was over unwanted kisses and undead corpses and sacrifices and plagues.

He was just fucking over it.

He stormed back up the stairs of the museum, just wanting this shit ended. Robin, Steve and Ardeth, who had still been at the museum, were on his heels, scrambling to keep up.

“Eddie, wait!” Steve called after him.

Eddie had the benefit of long legs on his side, able to clear multiple steps at once in his rush and pure irritation.

“When I’d read about the Book of the Dead before, I never really took it seriously. I mean bringing people back to life?” He scoffed. “Sounded like nonsense. But now that I’ve seen what I’ve seen, there’s a chance the Book of Amun-Ra will have a way to kill him. We just have to find it.”

“And you’re going to find it, are you?” Steve snarked. “It’s not like people have been looking for that for hundreds of years.”

“Thousands.” Eddie quipped right back.

“Right. Thousands.”

There was a low murmur coming from outside, getting closer as Eddie finally found his way to the huge stone tablet, the sound of a crowd forming, a slow chant becoming clearer and clearer the closer they got.

Vecna. Vecna. Vecna.

Great, just what they needed.

An enthralled crowd.

“Are you sure you need to be here for this?” Steve asked, his back tense as he looked over the railing of the upper section they were on, down to the lobby.

“How else do you expect me to read this if I’m not here?” Eddie muttered, tracing his fingers along the hieroglyphics.

“Robin could have read them. We could have gotten you somewhere safe so you’re not…” Steve huffed to himself, “...kissed again.”

Before Eddie could answer, Robin chimed in.

“Wouldn’t have worked. I understand alphanumeric texts better. Eddie’s the expert when it comes to logographic writing.”

“Okay. According to the Bembridge scholars, the Golden Book of Amun-Ra was supposed to be located inside the statue of Anubis.”

“But that was where you found the black book?” Ardeth asked.

“Right.” Eddie nodded. “They mixed up where they were buried. So if the black book was actually inside the statue of Anubis, then the Golden Book has to be…” Eddie trailed off, taking his time to make sure he was translating correctly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Robin wave him along impatiently, trying to get him to hurry up.

Eddie dismissed her with a wave of his own hand, trying to keep his focus.

He’d been focusing so hard he didn’t even flinch when he heard the door to the museum slam open and the unmistakable sound of the crowd start to filter in, lowly chanting to themselves.

“Keys.” Robin held her hand out urgently to Steve, who threw her his car keys without a second of hesitation.

As soon as she caught them, she was off, tearing down the corridors of the museum in the direction that would lead her to the back entrance, where Steve’s car was parked. The one they had used to get here.

There.

Eddie had found it, finally.

“The Golden Book of Amun-Ra is at Hamunaptra inside the statue of Horus.” He turned back to what was left of their party with a huge smile, his eyes landing on Steve. “Take that, Bembridge scholars!”

Steve’s smile in return was something soft and a little proud if Eddie was reading it right, making something squirm with satisfaction in his belly.

The feeling only got worse when Steve grabbed his hand and pulled him along the corridor, keeping him close as the three of them followed the same route Robin had taken while the sound of footfalls got ever closer.

Outside the museum, Robin was waiting with the car, sitting behind the wheel and practically bouncing in her seat, urging them forward.

Eddie made a dive for it, throwing himself face first into the open top back seat, Ardeth following smoothly behind while Steve pulled some kind of hero move, vaulting himself over the passenger door and into the seat next to Robin, who slammed her foot down on the gas pedal immediately, Eddie still rolling like a pinball in the back.

The crowd was slowly shuffling around the corner and through the museum doors and there, pushing his way through the middle, was Tommy, eyes ablaze as they landed on Eddie, who had finally managed to sit up, poking his head out over the back seat, hair flying around him in every direction.

Tommy puffed his chest out and let out a scream of “Vecna!”

Sand immediately began to swirl around the museum, slowly whirlpooling and condensing down into a vaguely human shape standing next to Tommy that was lost to them when they turned the corner and sped down the road.

“Why the fuck did we ever trust that guy?” Steve shouted at Robin over the wind rushing past them.

“Hey!” Robin pulled the wheel around, trying not to hit anything, her driving more erratic than smooth. “He was your pet, not mine!”

The car jolted again, skidding a little across the road before she got it back under control.

“Jesus, Robbie.” Steve was white knuckling the dash in front of him, “Need me to drive?”

Eddie was clutching onto the headrest in front of him, trying and barely succeeding in keeping himself from being thrown around, Ardeth doing the same.

“This isn’t me!” Robin grunted as the car shifted again, skidding out in a far more terrifying and uncontrolled way.

As they spun out, sand started to kick up underneath them and when Eddie whipped his head around to see what was happening he caught sight of a river of sand, writhing and undulating in and out under the wheels of the car.

With one last terrifying spin, the car tipped. Two wheels bouncing up against the pavement and the front crashing into a water fountain, bringing the car to a sudden halt.

Eddie was thrown forward, over the seats and into the front, landing in a crumpled heap between Steve and Robin, the two of them trying to shake off their own impact into the steering wheel and the dashboard respectively.

He was vaguely aware of the ever constant chanting of the crowd getting closer but he was finding it a little difficult to pay attention to, his head still spinning, even as Steve took his arm and helped to guide him out of the car.

The crowd was still approaching, still chanting as the four of them backed away until they had nowhere else to go, a stone wall stopping their retreat.

Steve plucked a burning torch from a bracket on the wall and waved it in front of them, trying to stop the crowd from their continued approach, Robin and Ardeth holding revolvers aloft, but they needn’t have bothered.

The crowd parted for a man who stepped forward clothed in a flowing fine linen blouse and an intricate pleated linen kilt, tied at the waist with a large jewelled belt. His bright blue eyes were lined with kohl and his bright blonde hair hung in swooping curls atop his head.

Vecna.

Fully regenerated.

Seemed like he’d been snacking since the last time he and Eddie had come face to face.

Steve, Ardeth and Robin stepped together, placing Eddie firmly behind them, blocking him from sight.

Tommy shuffled along at Vecna's side, eyes darting between all of them.

When Vecna opened his mouth to speak, Tommy translated for him and Eddie had to wonder if it was just for Steve’s benefit because both he and Robin could understand him easily, and judging by the expression on Ardeth’s face, he could too.

“Come with me, my love.” Tommy said after Vecna spoke. “It is time to make you mine, forever.”

Eddie scowled and poked his head out over Robin and Steve’s shoulders.

“He said ‘for all eternity’, idiot.”

Tommy’s lip curled and he opened his mouth to snap back but when Vecna began to speak again, he switched track almost immediately, translating again.

Vecna stretched an arm out towards them.

“Take my hand,” Tommy said, “and I will spare your friends.”

“Bullshit.” Steve spat.

Eddie brought a hand up, resting it on Steve’s shoulder and leaned in to whisper in his ear.

“Have you got any bright ideas?”

Steve didn’t move from where he was, still standing in front of Eddie like a statue.

“I’m working on it.”

“Well,” Eddie sighed, hating himself for having come to the conclusion that he had. That this was the best way forward. That without Steve and Robin and Ardeth, the world would definitely be doomed. And that the best way to make sure they stayed alive was to comply… for now.

He stepped around Steve, allowing his hand to drag across his shoulders and down his arm, taking his hand momentarily.

“You better think of something fast because if he turns me into a mummy, you’re the first one I’m coming after.”

“What– Eddie!”

Eddie ducked low, slipping under the arm that Steve threw out to try and stop him.

He stepped forward, taking Vecna’s hand and felt himself get pulled in close, curled into Vecna’s side, almost lovingly.

Eddie’s eyes didn’t leave Steve, who looked like he was ready to set the world on fire, pulling his revolver out and taking a step forward.

“Steve, wait!” Robin and Ardeth grabbed him by the arms, pulling him back between them and Eddie held a hand up to stop him as well.

“Stop, it’s okay, Steve. He has to take me back to Hamunaptra to perform the ritual.” He lowered his voice, almost imploring him to keep a level head despite his own heart thumping loudly in fear. “You have time.”

There was a tense moment where Eddie wasn’t entirely sure whether Steve was going to listen to him, Ardeth whispering into his ear, repeating the same thing. It looked like Steve wasn’t even sure if he was going to submit, but eventually he took a step back, though it seemed to take a great effort to do so.

“I’ll be seeing you later.” Steve growled, pointing his torch directly at Vecna, who just smiled at him, placid and confident.

Eddie felt himself being pulled, almost dragged away and even though he’d conceded to this, it was difficult to make his legs comply.

He looked back over his shoulder where he saw Tommy approach Robin, reaching into her pocket to pull the puzzle box out.

Robin glared at him and suddenly raised her fist, faking out a punch to the face.

When Tommy flinched back, Robin grinned at him and Tommy turned his back, following after them.

“Kill them!” Vecna shouted to the crowd.

God damn it, why had Eddie expected anything different?

“No!” He tried to pull away as the crowd closed in, blocking him off from his friends but Vecna’s grip was unfaltering.

He would have bit and scratched and clawed his way out.

If he had to resort to dirty tactics, he would.

He would have popped Vecna’s fucking testicles under his knee if he’d had the chance, but he didn’t.

Eddie’s senses were assaulted, sand swirling around him and he could feel it getting sucked into his mouth, up his nose, in his eyes, in his ears and everything around him darkened.

Part 1/ Part 5/ Part 7 (Complete)/ AO3

Happy birthday @hbyrde36

My biggest thanks and much love to @pearynice and @hitlikehammers for the beta work with this and to the @strangerthingswritersguild for their motivation!

#steddie #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #steve x eddie #eddie x steve #penny00dreadful #steddie fanfic #steddie fic #fanfic #stranger things fic #ao3 #the mummy au #eddie as evie #steve as rick #enemies to lovers #the mummy #1920s

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sadhours · 1 year ago

Text

simmer down - chapter two

billy hargrove x hagan!oc

read on ao3 • masterlist • prev chapter

requests are open!!

warning: 18+ minors dni, smut, tiddie fucking, p in v, oc x steve, slow burn

summary: Gina has it easy being Tommy’s little sister. A spot with the cool crowd. Invites to all the parties. Everything she could ever want. But it seems to be more a burden when the new guy from California shows up and becomes best friends with her brother. At least she has Steve, or does she?

word count: 10k

—

Gina wore the outfit Carol picked out. She paired it with the fancy cropped leather jacket her parents had bought her for Christmas. She’d painstakingly curled her chestnut hair with her butane powered curling iron. She had to wake a whole hour earlier to do so. It was a lot of work to go through for a boy, but Gina was determined to catch Billy’s attention. She even wore foundation makeup, which hid the majority of her freckles and she spent too long doing her winged eyeliner. She had to skip breakfast but she hoped it was a worthy sacrifice.

When she gets downstairs, she’s glad she catches her parents before they leave. She bounces on her tip toes and makes big doe eyes at her mother, “Can you schedule me an appointment at the salon? I need my hair permed again.”

Her mother smiles, “Of course, sweetie. You look pretty.”

“Thanks,” Gina beams.

Tommy snorts, shoveling a spoonful of his cereal into his mouth. “She’s trying to impress my new friend,” he says around the Wheaties.

“Shut up!” Gina groans and her mother gives her a knowing look.

“That kid with the Camaro?” their dad asks, “He seems like a good kid. Very respectful.”

“You two should ask him over for dinner. I’d like to get to know him,” their mom says, double checking her briefcase.

“He’s joining the basketball team,” Tommy adds, standing from the table to dispose of his bowl in the sink.

“What’s his name again?” their dad asks.

“Billy Hargrove,” Gina says with a dreamy smile and Tommy smacks the back of her head.

“Thomas Michael Hagan! Do not hit your sister,” their mother scolds.

Tommy mocks her, swinging his backpack over his shoulder as their little sister wanders into the kitchen. Gina double checks the small girls braids. She’d done them last night before bed and wants to make sure they’re not too messy from sleep.

“Invite that nice young man over for dinner,” their mom repeats, “I’ll make shepherds pie.”

“Yeah, I will, mom,” Tommy says exasperatedly and he ushers Gina out the door, tugging her by her backpack.

She climbs into the front seat and Tommy does the same in the drivers side, he turns the key in the ignition but before he shifts any gears, he turns to his sister and she meets his intense gaze. It’s a look he hasn’t given her before and if she’s honest, it scares her a bit.

“I told you he’s off-limits,” he tells her sternly.

Gina swallows the lump in her throat, “I’m… I know. I wasn’t wearing this to impress him.”

Her voice is shaky and she hopes Tommy can’t pick up on the obvious lie. She wonders if Carol talked to him last night. While she did consider Carol to be her best friend, she wouldn’t put it past her to tell Tommy their plan.

“Don’t fuck this up. I want to be his friend,” he continues, “I don’t have a guy friend to do cool stuff with anymore. Since the shit with Steve, I just hang out with you and Carol and no offense, you guys aren’t that fun.”

“You don’t think your girlfriend is fun?” Gina scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest.

Tommy groans, shoving the gear shift in reverse before looking behind him as he pulls out of the driveway. “I didn’t mean it like that. Don’t go telling her I said that,” he retorts. “I just mean, I get bored doing whatever the hell you two wanna do.”

Gina sighs, shaking her head, “I get it. I don’t like Billy, okay?”

“It’s not a matter of if you like him, just don’t try to sleep with him,” Tommy replies, turning on the stereo to cut their conversation short.

Gina doesn’t mind, though. Sometimes her and Tommy got along so well and then other times, she couldn’t stand to be in the same room as him. When they pick Carol up and Gina moves to the backseat, it’s like the conversation never even happened at all. Carol’s ranting about her parents the whole drive to school, not even sensing the tension between the Hagan siblings. As they pull into the parking lot, Gina sees Billy leaned against the side of his Camaro, talking to Tina. It makes her heart sink a bit but she remembers quickly that Tina doesn’t listen to the same music as him. Maybe it’s silly but she thinks it gives her an upper hand.

Gina doesn’t head over to Billy and Tina right away. Due to the conversation with her brother, she hangs back and pretends to be looking for something in her backpack. While she’s doing so, Steve pulls up and parks beside Tommy’s car. He’s alone and he looks forlorn, turning his car off and sinking into the seat. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back. She’s tempted to open the passenger door and sink in beside him, try her best to comfort him. However, she’s sure he’d tell her to get lost. Her eyes follow the curve of his nose down to his lips and she gets lost in memories of how it felt to kiss them. Then Steve lifts his head and opens his eyes, meeting her gaze.

Steve lifts his hand and waves, a small smile spreading across his lips. Gina’s sure she’s blushing as she waves back and pulls her backpack over her shoulders before turning to walk towards her group of friends. Tina’s excitedly talking to Carol and Tommy’s showing Billy a sports magazine. Gina’s fingers play with the strap of her backpack as she takes her place next to Carol, replaying the small moment she’d just had with Steve over and over in her head. She thinks it means something. An acknowledgment from him was all she’d been wanting for months now.

“What are you smiling about?” Billy asks as he kicks against her shoe, their eyes meeting.

“Nothing,” Gina replies, her smile not faltering.

Her stomach is full of butterflies, turning her head to watch as Steve walks towards the building. She suddenly can’t wait for study hall, the whole plot of impressing Billy with her outfit has fallen by the wayside. Steve’s name dangles on the tip of her tongue, those feelings of infatuation flooding back from such a minuscule interaction.

“Ya want a cigarette?” Billy offers and when she turns to look at him again she doesn’t miss the way his eyes travel down her body and back up.

“Sure,” she shrugs, taking the Marlboro perched between his fingers.

Billy leans forward to light it for her and Gina can feel everyone’s eyes on them. Especially the narrow ones of her brother and Tina. She sinks her shoulders a bit, turning away from Billy and instead involves herself in the conversation the girls are having. Carols worried about some test and Tina’s relating. Gina is suddenly reminded that next year she won’t have the security of her friend group. They’re all seniors. Come this June, they’ll be free of Hawkins High and onto whatever awaits them next. Tommy and Carol have plans to attend school out of state. Gina’s not too excited to assimilate into another group. She’s scared of being lonely.

——

Steve smiles up at Gina when she walks into study hall and takes her seat. Unintentionally, her effort in getting ready this morning has clearly caught his attention. She smiles back at him before opening up her backpack and pulling out her binder, shuffling through the pages to get started on her math homework. Steve’s eyes are burning holes into the side of her face. She’s happy about it but she still feels shy so she untucks her hair from behind her ear and lets it fall against her cheek. She wonders what this means. Perhaps Steve and Nancy are broken up now.

A note is tossed on her desk, coming from Steve’s direction. When she turns to look at him, he stretches his arms up and fakes a yawn, not looking nearly as inconspicuous as he’s trying to. Gina’s cheeks hurt from the smile spreading across her lips and she’s pretty sure she hasn’t stopped blushing since she walked in the classroom. Her fingers unfold the paper to see Steve’s messy handwriting scrawling out the simple message next to a smiley face:

Gina chews on the end of her pencil as she reads it, glancing up to see Steve tapping his fingers against the top of his desk. This is more than an acknowledgment, it’s a conversation. Tingles run up her legs, her heart beating a little faster as she reads it over again. Her pencil meets the paper, jotting down her reply.

Hey

She carefully folds it back up, darting her eyes to their teacher. He’s focused on whatever he’s working on at his desk. Since the coast is clear, she slides the note back to Steve before trying to get back to her homework but the numbers don’t hold her attention for long as she eagerly awaits his reply. Out of her peripheral, she sees Steve writing on the note before folding it back up and passing it to her.

How have you been? Missed you.

Gina’s heart about jumps out of her throat, her stomach flipping as she focuses on the last two words of his reply. Possibilities of the implications race through her mind. Did Steve miss her in the way she missed him? Was this friendly or romantic? She’s got to play it safe and assume it’s friendly so as to not embarrass herself. Gina writes back:

Bored. Missed you too.

Steve’s fingers brush hers as she passes him the paper back, their eyes meeting and Gina recognizes the glint in his brown ones. Steve is flirting. It’s very safe to assume Nancy is no longer his girlfriend, at least Gina thinks so. Unless her attempt to get Billy’s attention inadvertently caught Steve’s. Which was odd, Gina didn’t show up looking like a completely different person. Steve had seen her dolled up plenty of times before. Maybe Nancy and Jonathon really had something going on.

Steve tosses the note back, lounges back in his desk a bit and glances up at the clock.

Me too. We should get together soon. Do something fun.

Suppressing the excited giggles rising up her throat proves to be a difficult task as a few of them escape. Gina blushes an even deeper shade of red, quickly covering the note with her homework as their teacher snaps his head up to look at her. She quickly purses her lips and pretends to be mulling over her math problems, scribbling circles on the margins of the page.

“I don’t need to remind you all that study hall isn’t a free period,” the teacher announces, “Keep quiet and do your work.”

Gina couldn’t do her work even if she really, really wanted to. Steve’s at the forefront of her mind now. She imagines all the things they could do for fun, each scenario leads to a familiar excitement between her legs and she actually has to cross them for a bit of relief. After a few minutes have passed, Gina uncovers the note and writes in her best cursive:

Sure, I’d like that.

She meticulously folds it back up and slides it back on Steve’s desk. He quickly scrawls out his reply and hands it back over. Gina unfolds it slowly, checking to make sure the teacher hasn’t turned his attention back to her.

I’ll let you know when, babe.

Gina bites her lip to make sure no more excited sounds bubble out of her. After she’s folded the note back up, she tosses it into her backpack and spends the next excruciating twenty minutes daydreaming about the brunette boy next to her while failing at solving the rest of the problems on her worksheet. The bell rings finally, alerting the class that it’s lunch time and Gina starts putting her things away. Steve stands before her, puts his palm on her desk and smiles down at her. He looks so handsome in his jeans and pressed polo, the collar sticking up over his Member’s Only jacket.

“I’ll see you around, Gina,” he purrs and it takes everything in the freckled girl to not melt into a puddle on the seat.

Her voice is a dreamy whisper when she replies, “See you, Steve.”

His fingertips tap against her desk before he turns and walks out of the classroom, leaving her a little breathless and unbelievably elated. Steve Harrington wants to hang out with her again. It’s almost like she’s dreaming, she considers pinching herself to confirm she’s not. Gina’s practically dancing through the halls as she makes her way to her locker. She wonders if Steve will take her on a proper date this time. Every time they hung out before were under different implications, either Tommy was around or they were having sex. She hopes this time will be different.

By the time she makes it to the parking lot, everyone’s already gathered around Billy. Tina is curled into his side but Gina is quite literally so ecstatic that she can’t find it in herself to care. She’s getting Steve back, she’s so sure of it that the crush on Billy has slipped to the back of her mind. All she can think of is how soft Steve’s hair is, all the moles that scatter across his body and the way it felt when he kissed her. Steve, Steve, Steve. She’s basically chanting his name in her head. And the worst part is she couldn’t speak his name into existence around her friends. At least, not unless it was attached to an insult.

“Hey, Gina,” Billy greets in his low drawl, smirking lopsided. Just this morning that would’ve had her knees shaking but now, it reads as friendly.

“Hi, guys,” she chirps, “What’s up?”

“Billy joined the basketball team,” Tommy announces, beaming so bright it’s a little uncomfortable. Gina wonders why he’s so excited. Then she’s reminded about Carol’s comment about Tommy wanting Billy all to himself and Gina can’t bring herself to look at her brother.

“Very rad,” she muses, craning her head to look for the stupid boy she can’t get out of her head. She’s curious as to what Steve’s doing for lunch if he isn’t dating Nancy anymore. He never had trouble making friends but she doesn’t see him hang out with anyone besides Nancy these days. Aside from the group of middle schoolers he babysits.

They used to all sit in the cafeteria until Billy came around. The blonde doesn’t each lunch, ever. All he does is chain smoke during the hour. In fact, Gina realizes she’s never seen Billy eat but she knows he has to eat quite a bit for him to have muscles like he does. The new routine isn’t one she likes to much, she’s always starving when she gets home from school. Tommy is too. They started raiding the fridge and pantry as soon as they get through the door. However, Gina is pocketing the lunch money their parents give her and that’s been a nice bonus.

“Can’t wait to see him on the court,” Tommy continues, “He’s gonna devour Harrington.”

And there it is. Gina shouldn’t be shocked, Tommy can’t go an hour without shit talking his former best friend.

“Speaking of that,” Carol butts in, “Who’s all betting on him and Wheeler being over?”

“I have five on it,” Tommy snorts.

Tina giggles, “I’ll bet ten that they’ll get back together before the week is over.”

God, Gina hopes that isn’t the case. She also has some insight they don’t. Steve’s note is burning a hole in her backpack. She desperately wants to show it to someone, but it wouldn’t be received well. In fact, it’s guaranteed that Gina would be the only one to feel positive about it. And as much as she loves these assholes, that’s what they are— assholes. No doubt they’ll twist it and make Gina second guess Steve’s advances.

“Who fucking cares?” Billy seethes around his Marlboro, “Harrington’s love life is a bore. This place must fucking suck for each and every one of you to have such a vested interest in it.”

That’s one thing Gina’s noticed and liked about Billy; his disdain for gossip. Which is funny because that’s all her friends do. She’s guilty of it herself because well, the Californian is spot on. Hawkins is so dull that there’s not much else to talk about besides the people in it. The group kind of mumbles in agreement though it’s all a show for the new guy.

“And you know what I’ve noticed? Gina’s the only person who doesn’t talk about the guy,” he continues and all eyes fall on her.

Gina’s red cheeks are back, though in utter embarrassment. Thank god Billy can’t read minds because then he’d know that Steve is all she thinks about.

Tommy cackles, “That’s because she’s had a crush on him since she was like ten.”

“Shut up,” Gina fumes, smacking her brothers arm, “I do not.”

Billy’s eyebrows are raised as he looks at the small girl amused, “No shit?”

“I don’t not have a crush on Steve,” she defends herself and it’s true. It’s not a crush, she’s full blown in love with him.

“Tommy, you’re such an asshole,” Carol scolds, hooking her arm with Gina as she guides her away from the group but making sure to shove her shoulder against her boyfriends on the way.

Once they’re out of earshot, Carol continues, “Sometimes I have no idea why I love your brother. He’s the fucking worst.”

Gina swallows back the tears and hates herself for how easily it is to make her cry. She lets Carol drag her back to the cafeteria, they grab a small lunch each and Gina is eternally grateful she has Carol. They sit down at a table and Gina heaves a huge sigh.

“I hate him so much,” she complains, cracking open her Coke before shoving a straw into it. “That was so embarrassing.”

“I’m sorry,” Carol frowns, opening her pudding and shoveling a mouthful. “Tina’s really digging her claws into Billy anyways. Let them run their course and then make your move.”

Maybe the crush on Billy isn’t entirely dissolved, she was mortified with him finding out about her infatuation with Steve. Gina shakes her head, “I don’t want Billy.”

Carol rolls her eyes, “Oh, shut up. We all want him.”

Gina opens her bag of chips carefully and raises both her eyebrows at Carol, “Why don’t you dump Tommy and go for him then?”

The older girl heaves a sigh, resting her head on her hand as she looks at Gina, “Unfortunately, I love him.”

“Do you think you’ll marry Tommy?” she asks before munching on a handful of the Lay’s.

Carol giggles then, her face reddening at the thought and Gina’s happy for them. They really do love each other. It’s pretty gross.

“Hi,” the familiar voice catches Gina off guard, her and Carol look up to see Steve standing at the edge of the table, holding tightly onto his lunch tray.

A deep blush rises up Gina’s neck to her cheeks, staring up at big, dark eyes and a hesitant smile. Steve’s alone. It must feel awful given he’s walked up to Gina and well, Carol of all people. But he doesn’t glance to the redhead, keeps his eyes firm on Gina’s light brown ones. Of course, the older girl is shooting him daggers.

“What do you want, Harrington?” she seethes, mouth turned in disgust.

“Do you wanna join us?” Gina asks, voice sweet to offset Carol’s harsh tone.

“If that’s okay,” Steve replies, a little shy and still acting as if Carol isn’t there.

Gina nods, scooting further down the bench to accommodate the lanky brunette. Steve sits next to her, their thighs touching. The freckled girl sips her coke while she look’s curiously towards Carol. She seems amused and a little confused. She kicks Gina under the table and then stands.

“I’m gonna go find Tommy. See you after school?”

Gina nods, smiling wide, “Okay, sounds good.”

Once Carol stalks off, Steve heaves a sigh, “Well Carol still hates me.”

Gina giggles and offers, “I don’t.”

It almost looks like Steve is blushing, his cheeks swollen with the smile spread across his lips and he shakes his head. “For which I’m very grateful. I was kind of… a dickhead.”

Gina doesn’t want Steve to know how heartbroken she actually was from his departure. Always trying to be the cool girl, the one with no feelings and just a desire to have a good time. Something bred within her and Tommy, the biggest need to fit in and be liked. Their parents instilled in them how important it was to not stand out, do good in school, not catch too much attention.

“Yeah,” Gina breathes out, “I get it, though. I’m not mad at you.”

Steve smiles at her, offering the other cookie from his lunch while he bites down on one. Gina takes it with a grin, biting into the sweetness and holding her hand out to catch the crumbs falling from it. Steve looks at her with this intense, contended gaze. It makes her skin crawl in the best way, she likes his eyes on her. Gina likes attention, it’s a fault at most times. That’s why she has such a hard time saying no, always eager to please.

“How’s gymnastics?” Steve asks, suddenly.

Gina flushes, remembering how Steve used to go to all her meets and cheer her on. She always tried a little harder when he was there.

“Oh, I quit,” she says after swallowing the cookie, tucking her curly hair behind her ear.

“You did?” Steve’s eyes widen, in disbelief. Gina had been doing gymnastics since she was six years old. The Harrington’s paid for it until her parents could afford to. Barbara used to take her to the meets, Steve and Tommy in tow when her parents were too busy working. Gina was unbelievably competitive, she would cry if she came in second place. Gymnastics was her life for the longest time. She worked really hard to excel at it. When she wanted to quit, her parents were pissed.

She nods, reaching for her soda again, “I joined the cheerleading team. So I’ll be cheering you on during games.”

“You’ll be the best cheerleader with all that training,” Steve replies, stars in his eyes and it takes everything in Gina to not touch him. Her fingers tense, pressed firmly on her thigh.

“I’m a flyer,” she brags, “I’m not as tiny as Chrissy, but I can land just as good.”

“Probably better,” Steve compliments, “I remember going to all your meets. You always got first.”

“And when I didn’t, I’d throw a fit,” Gina reminisces, giggling in embarrassment.

Steve nods, chuckling with it, “You worked really hard.”

“So, maybe tomorrow we can hang out after school?” Gina offers, biting her lip.

“Yeah, my parents are in New York. For the month,” he explains, looking just a bit forlorn.

Steve used to brag about how he was always home alone, but Gina always figured he got lonely and that’s why he used to invite her, Tommy and Carol over everyday. She knew how reserved Nancy was, could only imagine that Steve spent more time alone than with her. For a good few months, Gina was over at the Harrington’s every day. She’d made out with Steve on practically every piece of furniture in his house and thinking about it now, she has to squeeze her thighs together. She recalls one time they’d made love on the piano displayed in the living room. It was a bit awkward, but nevertheless got her aroused to think of. She wonders if Nancy would let Steve take her anywhere or if she only let him have sex in bed. Gina wonders if her and Nancy are similar at all. She doubts it.

“Okay. I’ll come over after school,” Gina smiles, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Cool,” Steve nods, stealing a chip from Gina. She wants to ask Steve about Nancy but she doesn’t.

“Is that boy coming over?” Gina’s mom asks after Tommy and Gina walk through the door.

“Yeah,” Tommy says, “He’s gotta watch his sister until his parents get home, then he’ll be over.”

Gina completely missed that conversation and within the excitement of Steve finally acknowledging her again, she forgot Billy was supposed to come over for dinner.

“I’m gonna do my homework,” she mumbles, rushing to her room and shutting the door behind her. She drops her backpack on her bed and fishes through it for the note from Steve. Gina’s fingertips smooth over it, the butterflies in her stomach swirling around fast. It’s a little pathetic on her part, how easily she’s back wrapped around his finger. She throws herself on her bed and lets out a fit of giggles, holding the note close to her chest. She reads their conversation over and over as she begins imagine what they’ll do tomorrow. The mention of his parents being out of town gives you a slight indication, but she wonders if Steve will be different, now. Maybe Nancy sparked something in him and now he’s romantic. Gina hopes he asks her to be his girlfriend and she knows how foolish that is, because him and Nancy just broke up. But maybe Steve missed her. Maybe he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

After an hour or so of daydreaming, she lifts herself from the bed and files through her records. She pulls out Fire of Unknown Origin by Blue Öyster Cult and puts it on the record player, dropping the needle down and turning the volume up. She opens her closet up, delicately picking out her outfit tomorrow and lying it out on the chair in the corner of her room. She picks a turquoise shirt with white stripes and a white tennis skirt while imagining how she’ll style her hair and makeup. However, a particular blonde crosses her mind and she turns her eyes back to her closet. Just because she’s got the promise of Steve doesn’t mean she can’t look cute for Billy. She can’t help but wanting to catch his attention.

Settling on a pair of comfy, cheer shorts and leaving her Metallica shirt on, Gina sits at her vanity and begins touching up her makeup. It wasn’t too bad, but it did need to be freshened up. After, she reaches for a scrunchie and ties her hair up in a messy ponytail, making sure to pull a few pieces out to frame her face. The goal is to look effortless while actually putting the effort it. Gina grabs her bottle of cherry almond scented lotion and rubs it into her legs and arms. She glances at her alarm clock. It’s almost five thirty. Billy should be over soon. She grabs a copy of Cosmo and travels to read it in the living room.

An article about how to get your man’s attention is particularly enthralling. Gina takes notes mentally. Be mysterious, make lots of eye contact and laugh at their jokes. She hums, thinking about how Steve often makes her laugh. He’s very funny.

When she’s about halfway through the magazine, the doorbell rings. She remains calm, doesn’t jolt up from the couch to answer it like she desperately wants to. Besides, she can hear her mom answer the door and greet Billy.

“Billy, right?”

“That’s right. Nice to see you, Mrs. Hagan.”

“Please, call me Kathryn. Come on in.”

“Thank you, Kathryn.”

Billy walks into the living room, peeks over the couch at Gina and drawls out, “Cosmo, huh? Anything juicy?”

“Hi, Billy,” she says without looking up. Mysterious.

“Tommy’s in his bedroom,” her mom tells him before trailing back in the kitchen. “Dinner will be done soon.”

Billy reaches forward and grabs onto Gina’s ankle, jostling her playfully and then winks as he descends down the hall. Her breath catches her throat, flipping into her back as she stares up at the ceiling. Tries to ignore the tingling feeling where his fingers just were, closes her eyes and pictures Steve’s face. It works okay until she hears her brother’s obnoxious laugh, muffled by walls but loud enough to hear in the living room. She opens her eyes again and sighs, sitting up and wandering into the kitchen.

“Do you need help?” she asks her mom.

“Sure, sweetie,” Kathryn smiles warmly, “You can go ahead and set the table.

Gina nods, walking over to the cabinet and carefully grabs six plates. She carries them to the table and places them in their designated spots, realizing the usually empty seat is right across from her. She’ll be staring at Billy for the duration of their meal. Awesome. She tears off six squares of paper towels and lays them out. Next, Gina collects the silverware and places a fork next to each plate. She retrieves two wine glasses, sets them in front of her parents plates before grabbing three glasses and then Bridgette’s special plastic cup with cartoon characters decorating it. She fills Bridgette’s cup with milk and then fills the other glasses with juice.

Just then her dad walks into the kitchen, kissing her cheek and then her mothers.

“How was school today, sweetheart?” he asks.

“It was good. I’m going to stay late tomorrow to work on a project for science class,” she explains, chewing on her lower lip while she hopes it doesn’t sound like she’s lying.

“Alight, honey,” her dad smiles and turns to his wife, “Smells good. Almost ready?”

“All done,” Kathryn nods, “Gina, go grab your brother and his friend.”

Gina waits until she turns away to scrunch her face up, unsure why she’s suddenly so nervous. Once she gets close to Tommy’s bedroom, she hikes her shorts up just a smidge. Her knuckles wrap against the door, her stomach fills with butterflies as she opens it up and peeks in to see Billy and Tommy lying very still on their backs on his bed.

“What are you guys doing?” she asks, tilting her head.

Billy has his hands on his chest and Tommy’s are in fists by his sides. It looks weird. Even weirder when Tommy sits up and Gina sees his cheeks are flushed, hiding his freckles.

“Nothing,” Tommy says, “What do you want?”

Gina glances at Billy, as he remains on his back. She almost wishes she hadn’t knocked and just barged in to see what they were doing.

“Dinner’s done,” she narrows her eyes at Tommy. She’ll be sure to ask him once Billy leaves.

“Okay,” Tommy says, “We’ll be right out.”

Gina opens the door wider and leans against the frame, “You guys look suspicious. What are you hiding?”

Tommy reaches for a pillow and chucks it at her, “Get out. We’ll be out soon.”

“If you guys have grass and you’re holding out, I’m gonna be pissed,” she whispers, picking the pillow up and throws it back at him before retreating back. She heads to her sisters room, smiling at the small girl as she rearranges her stuffed animals on her bed.

“Bridgette, it’s time to eat,” Gina smiles and the little brunette hops up to her feet.

She slaps Gina’s leg as she runs passed her, “Tag, you’re it!”

Gina goes to chase her but Billy’s exiting Tommy’s room and she almost collides into him. He grabs her wrist and hip to catch her, chuckling softly as their eyes meet.

“Careful,” he says lowly, “Ya almost took me out.”

“Yeah, well…” Gina taps his chest and runs passed him, calling back, “Tag! Billy’s it!”

Billy walks into the dining room casually, eyebrows raised as he watches Gina round the table and hide behind her younger sister, the both of them giggling. He pouts at them, “No fair. I didn’t even know we were playing tag.”

“That’s what makes it fun,” Gina grins, using Bridgette as a human shield.

“What’s fun?” Tommy asks when he finally makes an appearance.

Billy pats his shoulder, “Tag— and you’re it.”

Tommy just rolls his eyes before sitting in his seat, reaching for his glass of juice and taking a big gulp. Gina notices his cheeks aren’t as flushed but his lips look swollen. Her stomach turns suddenly, wondering if her suspicion are true. Maybe Carol was right all along. She quickly pushes the thoughts aside, feeling sick at the thought of her brother kissing Billy.

“Tommy doesn’t play tag,” Bridgette complains as she sits in her chair, pushing her hair out of her face. Gina walks behind her, pulling her hair up and ties with the the hair-tie from her wrist. Then she sits in her seat, watching as Billy sits across from her.

“Thanks for dinner, Kathryn,” Billy smiles, “I appreciate it. Bless my step moms heart but she’s not the best cook.”

“Oh, well you’re welcome to join us whenever you’d like,” Kathryn smiles at the blonde.

“My mommy’s the best at cooking,” Bridgette beams, “She makes me peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for school.”

“I bet,” Billy smiles, picking up his fork. “Do you guys say grace or?”

Their dad laughs, “Nope. We’re a godless house. Go ahead and dig in.”

“If you say grace, we can,” Kathryn says, always wanting her guests to feel at home.

“Oh, we do at my house but that’s my dad’s thing,” Billy explains, his cheeks a little pink suddenly. “I just didn’t want to be rude.”

The Hagan patriarchy chuckles again, “Rude? You’ve met my kids. Hard to surprise me anymore.”

“I’m not rude!” Bridgette whines.

“So, Gina,” Kathryn changes the subject, “Who are you working on this science project with?”

Gina swallows the lump in her throat. She was hoping they wouldn’t bring it up in front of her brother and Billy. Even though she was gonna repeat the same lie to them tomorrow. She shrugs, waving her hand, “Some kids from my class. We’re just gonna work in the library.”

“You’re gonna walk home then,” Tommy mumbles with his mouth full. His mom shoots him daggers across the table.

“The car came with the responsibility of driving your sister around, Tommy. You’ll pick her up,” their dad says, reaching for his glass of wine.

“I’ll get a ride from someone, it’s fine,” Gina insists, “I don’t know when we’ll be done anyways.”

“You know your curfew,” Kathryn says.

Gina nods, finally lifting her eyes to Billy and noticing he’s staring right at her. Her skin feels warm as she wills herself not to blush. His eyes are so intense but she likes them on her.

“Oh and I have cheer practice this week, but it’s the same time as basketball practice,” Gina adds, still looking up at Billy.

“I heard you joined the team, Billy. You play before?” their dad asks.

Billy turns to look at him, “Yeah. Back home, I played basketball and baseball.”

“We actually have a chance this year,” Tommy adds, beaming from ear to ear.

“You competitive, Billy?”

“Yeah, I don’t like to lose,” Billy says with a laugh.

“Gina’s like that. She was a gymnast for ten years,” Kathryn smiles at her daughter, “Placed at least second every meet, if she didn’t win.”

“Yeah,” Tommy snorts, “And she’d throw the biggest tantrum is she didn’t get first. Water works, stomping around, the whole nine yards.”

Gina rolls her eyes, “I did not.” She did.

“You were a gymnast?” Billy asks, an amused look on his face. “Why’d you stop?”

“I wanted to join cheer. The schedules conflicted,” she shrugs, “If I don’t like it, I’ll join gymnastics again.”

“Win any trophies?” he asks, and it feels like they’re the only two people at the table. Her heart flutters as she pushes her food around her plate with her fork.

“A couple,” she shrugs again.

“She has a whole bunch in her room!” Bridgette exclaims, bouncing in her seat.

Billy laughs, turning his attention to the younger girl, “Do you play any sports?”

“I’m in tumbling,” she says proudly, “That’s how Gina started. I’m gonna get a bunch of trophies like her.”

“Very cool,” Billy smiles at her.

“Do you have any trophies?” Bridgette asks.

“Mhm,” Billy hums as he chews his food, swallowing before answering her, “I have a couple for surfing.”

“Surfing?!” Bridgette squeals, eyes wide, “Like in the ocean?!”

“Yep,” Billy tells her, “I used to live right by the ocean.”

“I didn’t know you surfed,” Gina says, surprised.

Billy nods, “Can’t do it here. But yeah, I used to go out every morning at like four to surf before school and then during summers, couldn’t keep me away from the ocean. I started when I was eight years old.”

“The ocean scares me,” Kathryn admits, “So vast. So unexplored.”

Billy frowns, “Huh. Yeah, plus sharks and stuff. But in my experience sharks are pretty laid back.”

“You’ve seen a shark?” Bridgette gapes at the older boy.

Billy grins wide, “Yeah. I used to pet them.”

“And they don’t bite you?” she looks at him alarmed, almost like she can’t believe him.

“Nope. Well, not the ones I pet. But some of them bite,” he tells her. “I saw a lot of Leopard sharks. They’re harmless. But we had Great White sharks out there and those ones are mean. I didn’t see them often, though.”

“How do you not run away when you see them?” Bridgette wonders, her eyebrows knit together.

Billy tilts his head, “If you act calm, they don’t bother you. If I tried to get away really fast, they might come after me.”

“I’m not going to touch a shark,” she says, “I don’t want to get bit. Have you been stung by a jelly fish?”

Billy smiles at her. He’s got this sweet look on his face that makes Gina a little smitten, seeing this bad boy facade kind of fall while he talks to her baby sister is the cutest thing. She thinks Billy would be a good dad and then goes down this short spiral of daydreaming about having a baby with him. Clearly Tommy can read her face because her kicks her under the table.

“I have, actually. My friend had to pee on me,” Billy tells her while scrunching up his face.

“Ew! Why?”

“I don’t know. We heard you had to do that,” Billy says, “But I think it just made it worse.”

Bridgette giggles, “And it’s gross.”

“It was gross,” he agrees.

“I’ve never been to the ocean,” Gina admits.

Her mother sighs, “One day, you will. We’re due for a vacation soon. I’m thinking Disney world.”

Bridgette gets excited, starts begging her parents to go. Their dad sighs, “See what you’ve done, Kathryn.”

—

Gina’s cleaning up after dinner. Her parents are enjoying glasses of wine on the back patio and Bridgette is watching a movie in the living room. Billy wanders into the kitchen, leans against the counter.

“Need help?”

Gina smiles at him, “I’m just about done. I always have dish duty.”

“Me too, usually,” Billy admits, “Kind of weird not to.”

“Enjoy it while you can,” Gina tells him as she scrubs the last pan with the sudsy sponge.

“So, you’re pretty flexible, then?”

“Excuse me?” Gina turns to him as her face erupts in red.

“Well, being a gymnast and all… you’ve got to be flexible to do that,” Billy explains, smirking at the younger girl.

Gina gapes at him, his tone and eyes seem to indicate that he’s flirting yet she can’t bring herself to believe it to be true. So she doesn’t really know how to respond to him. If Tommy hadn’t told her to back off and if Billy wasn’t so goddamn handsome, she’d flirt back easily. But she just… can’t.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so. I was kind of gunning for the Olympics but well, I don’t know if I’m that good,” she explains a little sheepishly.

Billy bites his lip, nods at her slowly before he tells her, “You’ll have to show me sometime.”

Gina smiles awkwardly at him, “I think I’ll be doing some stuff for cheer. I’m a flyer, so they’re gonna be throwing me up in the air to do flips.”

“Guess I’ll see it then,” he muses, “Can I see your trophies?”

Her stomach flips, thinking about Billy being in her room.

“Uh, sure…” she sets down the last pan to dry and nods towards her room, “They’re just on a bookshelf in my room.”

She trails down the hallway until she gets to her bedroom, slowly opening the door and scanning her eyes across the room like it’s the first time she’s seeing it. Wonders what Billy will think of it. Her carpet is a dusty rose pink and her wallpaper is floral stripes, daisies and roses. She’s got a full size bed pushed up against the wall on the right side, a white frame with pink and white floral bedding. Her nightstand is white as well, has a pretty pink and blue dolphin lamp on it next to her alarm clock and the latest romance novel she’s picked up. Next to her nightstand is her matching vanity, where all her hair products, makeup and perfumes are displayed delicately. Her walls are decorated with posters, mostly bands she likes but a couple of framed prints her mother picked out as well. Across from her bed is her dresser, her record player on top of it and next to that is her bookshelf. The first two top shelves meticulously display her trophies, the middle one stores her books and the bottom two keep her records and cassettes.

“Interesting,” Billy says, sounding amused.

“What?” Gina asks, suddenly really nervous.

Billy shrugs, “It’s very pink. I thought it would be different.”

He’s thought about her room. Gina tries not to bounce on her feet in excitement.

“What did you think it’d be like?”

“Well, you listen to metal… so more… that,” he chuckles and Gina laughs with him.

“Oh… well, here’s my trophies,” she gestures to the bookshelf.

“I thought they said you threw fits if you got second,” Billy mumbles, fingertips grazing the pieces of plastic, “All of these are first place.”

“Well, I’m not gonna display that I lost,” she explains, her cheeks hearing up, “Those are in the garage.”

“Ha,” he scoffs as he squats down to look at her records, “but you’ll display this?” He pulls out an album, flipping it to show Gina. The Go-Go’s.

“I like that album,” she frowns, bending down next to him as he slides it back in.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Billy whispers, looking up at her with a glint in his eyes, “but I like it too.”

“You really do have good taste then,” she giggles.

Just then, her door swings open and Tommy bursts through.

“What’re you doing?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed.

“Billy wanted to see my trophies,” Gina explains, standing up as Billy does.

“Well, I better get back home,” he checks his watch, “Curfew.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Tommy insists.

“I’ll see you later,” Billy says on his way out, before Tommy follows him, he turns to Gina with narrowed eyes.

—

Steve’s house is quiet as the two of them walk in the door. He leads her up the stairs and to his very familiar bedroom. She drops her backpack on the floor and looks up at him, expectantly. Steve smiles, walks towards his bed and sits on it.

“Make yourself at home,” he says.

Gina smiles awkwardly back at him, walking towards the bed and sitting beside him. It’s kind of strange being so close to Steve again. Gina feels eager, has to keep her fingers busy fussing with her skirt so she doesn’t push him back down on the bed and straddle him.

“So,” Steve says, but doesn’t continue. Instead he just looks from Gina’s eyes to her lips.

“So,” she parrots.

Steve cracks a grin, moves his fingers forward and tucks Gina’s hair behind her ear. The shell of her ear tingles from the touch and she drops her eyes down to his lips. He bites his lower one, let’s his fingers ghost the supple skin of Gina’s cheeks.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, still smiling at her.

“Steve,” she whines, raising her hands to cover her face.

He grips her wrists as he laughs, pulling her hands down, “I mean it. I’ve really missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” she admits shyly, looking back up to meet his big brown eyes.

“You don’t hate me?”

“I could never hate you,” she promises, her heart skips a beat as he links their fingers together.

“Yeah?” Steve whispers, scooting closer to her. Gina nods at him.

Then Steve leans in, ghosting his lips over Gina’s. He seems like he’s hesitant, like he thinks she’ll push him away. So she lets go of his hands and grips onto his shirt, pulls him close so their lips finally collide. Steve’s hands shoot up to hold Gina’s face, he makes the softest little moan against her plush lips and she can’t help but squirm at it. His tongue grazes her lower lip, Gina parts her lips instantly to allow him entrance. Her thighs tingle as their tongues meet. Kissing Steve was always her favorite. She found no other boy could kiss like him. The way it made her head swim was addictive.

He lays her back on the bed, situating himself between her thighs as he deepens the kiss. It’s urgent, desperate. Gina clings on to his polo like she’s scared he’s gonna float away. His nose bumps against hers, causing them both to smile into the open mouthed kiss. He lowers his hand down and starts feeling Gina up through her bra and shirt, squeezing softly. She hooks her leg over his waist, pulling him even closer.

Usually, Gina would be content to lay here for hours just kissing Steve but it’s been so long since she’s had him and she’s pretty eager for more. She pulls his shirt over his head, breaking the kiss for just a second and then smoothing her hands over his chest. While they continue kissing, Steve kicks off his Nike’s and they land to his floor with a dull thud. Gina takes that as her cue and does the same, but hooking her leg back over him when she finishes. Steve pushes her shirt up, exposing her bra to him and he lowers his head to place delicate kisses over the curve of her breast. Gina gasps out, hooking her fingers in his soft hair. Steve sucks a pretty sizable bruise into her cleavage before pulling her bra cup down enough to get his lips around her hardened nipple. Gina’s particularly sensitive there and her back involuntarily arches at the feeling.

“A-ah, Steve!” she moans out, eyes fluttering shut.

He swirls his tongue around it before sucking it back between his lips. She pulls on his hair, rolling her hips up against him. He grinds back, giving the tiniest bit of friction with his jeans. Gina gasps out as Steve flicks his tongue against her nipple before he’s pulling away. He pulls her shirt over her head and she sits up a bit so he can unclasp her bra and pull it down her arms. He cups her breasts in his hands, pushing them together and then jiggling them as he gazes down with hungry eyes. Gina giggles, her cheeks flushed while he plays with her tits. He used to compliment them a lot, tell her they were the biggest he’d seen.

“Can I fuck your tits?” he asks, his eyes going dark as he glances back up at her.

Gina nods frantically. She’d let Steve do anything he wanted, “Please.”

He grins, pulling away to shove his pants and briefs down his legs. He straddles her middle, hand wrapped firmly around his long cock. He strokes himself a few times, squeezing his tip and then pressing his slit to her perked nipple. The coolness of his precum smearing against her sensitive bud makes Gina squirm.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” she mumbles, watching the action with her eyebrows knit together.

“Mhm,” he grins, rubbing the head of his cock against her nipple a couple of times.

Then he spits in his hand, spreads the saliva over his cock and lays it between Gina’s breasts. She props herself up on her elbows, watching as Steve pushes her tits together. He rolls his hips slowly, the head of his cock appearing from the top of her cleavage. Gina giggles before sticking out her tongue, his tip meeting it with each thrust. Steve groans lowly, his hips snapping a bit harder each time.

“Jesus, Gina,” he whines, “You’re so hot.”

Eventually, Steve gets fed up and scoots up. He rubs the head of his cock against Gina’s lips so she sticks her tongue out again. He slaps the tip against her tongue and she wraps her lips around it, looking up at him with wide eyes.

“Such a good girl,” he coos in a dreamy voice, pushing her hair back while he slowly thrusts into her mouth.

Gina hums around him, relaxing her throat to take his length. He’s always gentle though, doesn’t shove it too far down. Steve likes her to focus on his tip, while he squeezes the base.

“Gina,” he whines, his lips bitten pink and shiny with the way he keeps licking them.

She loves the view, staring up at him with adoration. She thinks Steve might be the prettiest boy she’s seen. Gina absolutely loves his floppy hair, his big brown eyes and the slight hook of his nose. The moles too. The two on his cheek and the two on his neck.

He pulls back, gasping as he does so. Gina licks her lips, looking up at him all doe-eyed and Steve curses, squeezing his dick.

“Gina— Christ,” he pants.

“Need you,” she begs, rolling her hips up.

Steve lowers himself to the ground, forcing Gina to sit up right to watch him. He pulls her leg warmers and socks off, grazes his fingers against her calves before pulling her closer to the edge of the bed. He reaches up, pulling her underwear down her legs. She goes to pull her skirt down but his hand stops her.

“Keep it on,” he insists, bunching it up above her waist before pressing kisses to her freckled thighs.

Her breath catches in her throat, watching him closely as he spreads her legs further apart. Steve lips dip down, pressing a kiss against her soaking cunt. She hisses when he slides his tongue up her slit. Steve’s the only one who’s ate her out. And he’s still the only person who has made her cum. He’s done it with his mouth a number of times, but his dick has been the only one big enough to reach her g-spot. So she was kind of spoiled with him being her first sexual partner. Everyone after had been incredibly disappointing, the only thing she gained from them was a quick confidence boost.

“Oh, Stevie,” she hums, knotting her fingers in his hair while he licks through her folds. “Feels so good.”

She can feel him hum against her, vibrating in the best way that has her back arching at the sensation. The feeling almost has her eyes close but she needs to watch him. He looks up at her while he does it, mouth pressed flush against her pussy and the sight is absolutely delicious. She wants to tell him how pretty he is but she thinks men don’t like being called that.

He swirls his tongue around her clit, raising his eyebrows as he does so. She whimpers for him, pushing his hair off his forehead. Her shoulders tense up, mouth hanging open while soft moans tumble out. It’s like time stops with Steve’s mouth on her. All the bad blood and history falling away. It’s like he never ditched her for Nancy in the first place. It’s like Steve loves her.

“Steve,” she preens, her thighs tightening around his head as she feels her orgasm creeping up on her. “Need you. Need you now.”

He pulls back, Gina scoots up the bed and spreads her legs for him. Steve positions himself between her thighs, kissing her deeply as he does so. God. She’s still in love with him. Gina loves him.

She clings onto him tightly, gasping into his mouth as he sheathes himself inside her. She can’t believe it’s finally happening. It’s been so long, months and months of waiting. He gets his cock about half the way inside her before he stills, the two of them panting into the kiss. Steve does that a lot, stops for seconds at a time. Gina thinks it’s because he’s trying not to cum and for some reason, that’s really sweet. All the boys after Steve didn’t care about her pleasure. She felt used afterwards. And even if Steve drives her home right after this, she’ll still be madly in love with him.

“Steve,” she moans against his mouth, wrapping her legs around his waist as she pulls him the rest of the way inside.

He makes a strangled noise, moving to shove his face against her neck. It’s a stretch she’s missed dearly. A stretch her fingers or the handle of her hairbrush couldn’t replicate. Not to mention, the breath on her neck. The weight of him on top of her. She’s not sure she can go any time without this again.

Gina has to roll her hips up because Steve’s still not moving, panting into her neck and grabbing onto her elbows.

“Slow down, baby,” he grits out, “You feel so good.”

The pet name makes her walls flutter, clenching tightly onto him. He chokes out a laugh, pulling his head back as he grabs onto her jaw. Steve turns her face and plants a big, fat kiss on her cheek. It makes Gina giggle, wrapping her arms around his shoulder and squeezing him. All the desperation inside her subsides and is taken over by a warm, heavy feeling of love for Steve. She realizes she wants to take this slow, wants to savor the moment. She pushes his hair back, gazing into his eyes. He smiles down at her, she returns it.

“Missed you,” she mumbles softly, “Missed this.”

“Me too,” he admits, cupping her chin and stroking his thumb against her lips.

“You’re pretty,” she finally says.

Steve scrunches his face up before he laughs softly, “You are.”

He rolls his hips against her slowly, his tip brushing against the sensitive, spongy part deep inside her. Gina gapes, eyebrows furrowing while she whines out softly. Steve builds a languid rhythm, petting Gina’s hair with every slow thrust. They keep the eye contact, lips parted as soft moans slip out. Even Steve’s voice is pretty, almost melodic. She thinks he’s a good singer, used to tell him all the time, though that seems inappropriate now. Gina recalls a time when they got into his parents records. Steve had put on a Three Dog Night album and sang to her, trying to be silly with a cigarette between his fingers. As funny as Steve was being, he sounded good.

Suddenly, he jerks his hips abruptly against hers. Hammering against her g-spot in a mind numbing fashion. Every damn thought in her head dissolves and that neediness takes over again. Gina writhes against him, scratching down his back while squeezing her eyes shut. He builds up a quick pace, makes Gina’s eyes roll back as he cries out. Steve drags his hand down her stomach, presses the pad of his thumb against her clit. The sensation makes Gina jump, grabbing onto Steve’s shoulders when he rubs firm circles against it.

“Stevie,” she cries, moving her fingers into his hair again.

Steve pistons his hips quicker, little grunts and pants falling beautifully from his lips as he brings Gina to completion. The orgasm is almost violent, makes her yell out as it seizes through her body. Steve makes the prettiest sound, a cross between a whine and moan. Once she’s recovered enough, she presses her palms against Steve’s cheeks, looking into his eyes while he pumps his hips into her.

“Oh, Steve,” she moans, feeling the tears collecting at the corners of her eyes, “Cum for me, baby.”

Steve grunts, his face contorting in pleasure, “Where?”

Gina sticks her tongue out, meeting his intense gaze.

“Fuck,” he whines, pulling up and quickly shuffling up to straddle her chest.

Gina wraps her lips around his tip, sinks down as much as she can and hollows out her cheeks. She looks up at him with glassy, wide eyes. The brunette whines repeatedly, emptying in her mouth with his fists gripping her hair.

“Gina!” he grits out, “Fuck, fuck…”

She continues sucking, milking every bit of cum out of him. Steve collapses down beside her, breathing heavily while Gina swallows his spunk down. She giggles, turning to cuddle up against her. He pants, holding her loosely as he comes down from his high.

“God damn,” he exhales after a minute, turning to the freckled girl.

“Mmm,” she hums, leaning close to peck his lips. After a beat she bites her lip, “I need a cigarette, I think.”

“Fuck, me too,” Steve chuckles, sitting up slowly. He stands, reaching for Gina’s hands and pulling her up with him. They silently dress and then Gina grabs her pack of cigarettes and follows Steve out to the backyard. They sit in lounge chairs and light a smoke each. Gina closes her eyes as she inhales, feels like her body is vibrating.

“So… how mad is Tommy?”

“At you?” Gina replies, turning to look at Steve, “I think… I think he just feels like you chose Nancy.”

He seems to visibly deflate at the girls name, which doesn’t make Gina feel all that great. But she’s just telling the truth. It was like ten years of friendship down the drain because some girl didn’t like Tommy. Carol told Gina that Steve said they were all assholes, but Steve was too and used to be worse than Tommy.

“Yeah, I kind of did,” he says after a beat. Gina doesn’t mention how he chose Nancy over her, too. Because her and Steve never solidified their relationship. They had to hide they were sleeping together and Gina was always too nervous to ask him what they were.

“He’s pretty mad,” she offers slowly, “But I think more than anything, he’s hurt. Don’t worry though, he’s found someone else to follow around.”

“Oh, yeah… Billy. God, that guy is such a dick. Like royally.”

Gina bites her lip, takes a deep inhale from the cigarette and feels the heavy smoke fill her lungs. She turns to Steve, “He’s nice to me.”

Steve scoffs then, “Gee, wonder why.”

“I don’t know,” Gina replies, “I haven’t really seen him be mean to anyone.”

“Oh, come on,” Steve raises his eyebrows, “You’re a pretty girl. Why else would he be nice to you?”

Gina sits up at that, tosses her cigarette to the ground before standing up, “I’m gonna go home.”

“Wait— Gina, I didn’t mean it like that,” Steve stands, following her into the house.

She ignores him, trudging back up the stairs to Steve’s room to retrieve her school bag. He doesn’t let up, footsteps right behind her. When Gina turns to exit the room, he grabs her wrists.

“I know guys like that,” he mumbles, “I used to be one. I’m sure he’s gonna try to get you in bed and I think you’re better than that.”

“I’m a big girl, Steve,” she narrows her eyes at him, “I only sleep with people I like.”

He sighs, pushes his fingers through his hair and nods. “I know… I really just don’t like that guy. I don’t really like that you’re hanging around him.”

Gina scoffs, exaggeratedly looks around his room, “Well I don’t see him here. I came here to spend time with a guy I like.”

“You like me?” Steve asks, his cheeks reddening slightly while his lips curl up.

Gina’s jaw drops, “Is that news to you?”

“Kinda,” Steve replies, chuckling softly.

He places his hands on her hips, leaning down to catch her lips in a soft kiss. As mad as she was two minutes ago, the second he touches her it all melts away. Her arms wrap around his shoulders, standing up on her tip toes to meet his mouth. Steve deepens it and Gina gives in, kisses him for a while before she’s pulling away.

“I really should get home, though,” she whispers.

Steve pouts, wrapping his arms around Gina and squeezing her, “You can’t stay for longer?”

Gina sighs, resting her head on his chest, “Yeah, I gotta get my homework done at some point.”

“I’ll drive ya,” Steve kisses the top of her head.

The ride home is like old times. Steve’s cracking jokes and turning Gina into a puddle of giggles. However the air in the car turns awkward instantly when they’re up the street from Gina’s house and Billy’s pretty Camaro is parked out front. Steve pulls over a block away, nods down the street and asks, “He come over a lot?”

Gina shrugs, “Sometimes.”

Billy’s only been in town a week and he’s been over three times, maybe that is a lot but Gina’s not sure. Steve sighs and puts his BMW in park, he turns to her.

“I’ll see you on Monday. Maybe you can come over again,” he tells her, looking a little deflated.

“I’d like that,” Gina smiles, leans over the center console and gives Steve a quick kiss. “Bye.”

She grabs her backpack and opens the door, walking the short block to her house. She turns to see Steve make a u-turn and head back towards Loch Nora. Inside, her house is quiet. She can see Tommy, Billy and Carol sitting out on the back patio. Her parents must be at Bridgette’s tumbling class. Gina sets her backpack in her room and wanders out back to meet the other teens. Tommy and Carol are messing around in the grass, so Gina walks up next to Billy. He reaches in the cooler and hands her a beer.

“Who is he?” he asks, taking a swig from his own can.

“What do you mean?” she asks, knitting her eyebrows together.

“I can always tell when a woman’s just had an orgasm,” Billy quips, smirking at the small freckled girl.

Gina’s cheeks heat up and she can feel her eyes water in embarrassment, so she quickly opens the can of Miller Light and takes a long drink of it. She swallows hard, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure ya do,” he chuckles, turning to her. “You’ve got all the markers. Messy hair, swollen lips, glassy eyes, you’re walking kinda funny. Plus you seem happier than usual. So who is he?”

Gina’s been caught. She didn’t know it could look so obvious. She smiles softly, thinking about the sex with Steve, “I’m not telling you.”

Billy frowns, “That embarrassing?”

Gina gapes, quite the opposite. She’d love to scream from the rooftop that she was just in bed with Steve Harrington. But Tommy might actually murder her.

“No,” she huffs, “No one would believe it anyways.”

Billy raises an eyebrow, looks her up and down before he laughs, “The King?”

“No!” she denies, her eyes widening, “Absolutely not.”

“That’s fucking funny. Tommy would kill you, huh?” Billy retorts, chewing on his bottom lip.

“It’s not Steve,” she presses, bringing her drink back up to her lips.

Billy sucks his teeth before reaching for his pack of Marlboros, “Don’t worry. Secrets safe with me, darlin’.”

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