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siriusly-rem-fic-recs · 2 years ago

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Kaz is literally so cute. He a little emotionally constipated when it comes to expressing himself but he’s trying 😭. This fic is cute, I love it sm

Flowers [K. B]

Kaz Brekker x reader

word count: 8.4k

summary: some jealousy motivates Kaz to finally face how he feels about you

A/N: I have literally weeks writing this and I hope I got it right, I tried to write the reaction of jealousy as appropriate to Kaz as possible lmao. Also, when this Freddy photoshoot came out I just imagined. You'll find out later, I hope you enjoy it!

taglist: @rustyyyyspoonz @be-lla-vie @milkshake0 @ladespedidas

Kaz took a deep breath before opening the door, bracing himself for what he would face as he crossed into the next room, already a tremendous hubbub.

It was Inej's birthday and you had insisted on throwing her a celebration, something everyone else was excited about, because you thought that of all of you she was the most likely not to have had such a party. Well, actually the main candidate was Kaz but he would kill all of you when he found out that you had arranged a surprise for him.

You had decorated the room in The Slat and you had invited (threatened, rather) the members of The Dregs so that they would celebrate your friend and you also invited (to them, kindly) some girls from The Menagerie, with the security that if someone tried to touch them you would defend them. You also told the criminals that if they thought of bringing a gift they would make sure that it was not stolen, nor was it stained with blood, nor was it from the corpse of a dead person. And so far everything was perfect.

"Kaz!" he was greeted by Per Haskell, who had been playing cards at a table and already had a couple of drinks on him "Son, I admit that when you said you wanted to have a party I thought you were crazy, but this is great."

"Y/N wanted to do it, I didn't" he murmured sincerely and Per just laughed. Parties weren't really his thing, though he'd probably feel better after some alcohol. He looked for his usual group to get closer to them and not die from the anxiety that social situations generated in him.

He found five of his crows chatting and laughing at a table on which was an empty chair, which Kaz thought was surely for him.

"Look who decided to join the party" Nina mocked, looking at the black-haired boy with a smile.

"Happy birthday, Inej" he murmured politely, as he handed the girl a leather case containing a nice set of knives. Her eyes lit up as she thanked her friend and Kaz allowed himself to smile "Is anyone sitting here?"

"Y/N" replied Jesper, who had an arm around Wylan's shoulders "But she's been missing for a while."

"Maybe she's helping out in the kitchen," suggested Matthias, who was feeling more relaxed than usual.

"Huh-uh" Wylan denied, with a mischievous smile, while he took a sip of his drink "Look there" he exclaimed and his head pointed surreptitiously in one direction.

All eyes at the table looked at you at the bar and Kaz, who hadn't seen you before, was surprised by how jovial you looked. You had left your hair loose and you were wearing light-colored clothing, very different from the usual black, gray, or brown, along with ribbon adorning your hair, but the smile that this generated in the black-haired man was replaced by a frown upon noticing that you were smiling broadly towards another person. Towards a man.

"That girl is on fire" the Grisha mocked, quite proud, and the others made similar comments, between laughs.

"Who is that?" Kaz hissed, sounding angrier than he intended, at Inej, who was closest to him and most likely to know the answer due to your friendship.

“A new guy that Per hired, I thought you knew him. I heard that he comes from Shu Han”

At that moment he turned around and he could see the features that demonstrated that theory: tanned skin, slightly slanted eyes, and black hair. He wore a simple outfit, in very poor taste according to Kaz, and he couldn't have been more than 17 years old. He was just a brat who was too close to you.

Although he didn't say anything, you only needed to see the expression on his face to know that he wasn't happy, something that fortunately no one paid attention to, because they assumed that it was just a normal reaction in Kaz when seeing any kind of displays of affection.

"He's handsome," Jesper muttered, and Wylan turned to give him a pointed glare. "I mean, not like you, nobody's as handsome as you, but he… got his stuff."

Was he really handsome? Kaz didn't know if he was in a position to judge that, since he didn't even know if he was what someone would consider 'attractive'. That had never bothered him, of course, he was simply curious as to what the others might think. What could you think about, actually.

Most of them decided that the matter didn't deserve any more importance and they continued talking about other things, almost all of them logically related to Inej, however, he couldn't take his eyes off you and your peculiar company for even a second. He noticed you chuckled softly and when you did, he could see the guy across from you reach out to tuck a piece of your hair behind your ear; Kaz squeezed his cane to appease the urge to go do the same to the aforementioned neck.

Almost as if you felt the heavy gaze you looked in his direction and when your eyes met you smiled reflexively, making his heart race. You still chatted for a while, but your attention wasn't entirely on your new friend now that you were aware of Kaz in the great room. In due course you apologized to him and before saying goodbye he stroked your arm too confidently, promising that he would make sure to look for you later. After he left you practically ran to the table where your friends were.

"Y/N" Inej laughed, feeling you hug her from behind.

“How is the most beautiful birthday girl in the place doing?” you asked excitedly, kissing her on the top of the head and hearing her reply that everything was excellent “Oh, hello, Mr. Brekker. What a joy that you honor us with your presence” you joked as if you had barely noticed, and you were disappointed to see the unfriendly look he gave you.

“Who was the young man you were talking to?” Nina asked casually, while her boyfriend shook his head at how gossipy she was sometimes.

"Lior?" you muttered. So that was the name that should be written on the tombstone "It's huh... a new guy, he was thanking me for inviting him"

“I hope he doesn't get used to it,” Kaz said grudgingly. “Don't think there will be any more birthday parties. Much less with all these Dregs”

A collective groan was heard, alleging that the boss was very bitter and appealing to 'healthy coexistence', which amused you.

"That was my chair, shall I sit on your lap or shall we bring a new one?" you exclaimed, close to the man's ear. Kaz didn't expect that and it was obvious you didn't mean it, but he had to abruptly get up from his chair and walk away, leaving all of you stunned.

"What did you say to him?"

"Nothing! I just told him that I was sitting there, but I was kidding, I didn't want him to leave”

“That's how he is,” Inej said, with a touch of bitterness and a shrug. But you didn't take that so lightly, you hated that Kaz was mad at you because he made you feel so guilty, even if you didn't know what he was mad at. Maybe you had crossed some line? You weren't even going to! It had only been nonsense that had escaped your lips for the liquid value that you had ingested.

You ended up taking the chair that he had left empty and although you participated actively in the conversation you couldn't help but feel restless. Of course you didn't know that Kaz had left there to prevent you from noticing his cheeks flushed with fury at the scene he had seen and the way you had said the name of this Lior guy, a blush that only increased when he felt your breath so close to his skin and hear your soft voice.

First he had to calm down, why had that bothered him in the first place? Although he was aware of a certain protective relationship that he had towards all of you, it was not normal to feel that anger when you were talking to someone else, or when another man was touching you. Jesper was constantly holding your hand, once he had found you and Wylan cuddled up sleeping on a couch and you always challenged Matthias to fights you knew you weren't going to win and he just laughed it off, making no effort. But that was different, he had touched you… with other intentions. Kaz was no fool and he knew better than anyone that you were beautiful in every way, no matter how hard he tried to deny it. He maybe couldn't appreciate the masculine beauty, but, although it was not in his total interest, he could judge the feminine. So he was mad because a guy was interested in you? Was that what explained the heat that grew in his chest and that now he himself was torturing him? But why?

“Kaz Brekker?” said a voice behind him. He had gone outside to get some air and didn't recognize who had called him until he turned around. Today was his damn lucky day "My name is Lior, Per said that you are like the boss"

"I'm not like the boss" Kaz replied with total contempt "I'm the boss"

"Huh, yeah, sure. I'm sorry. I just wanted to introduce myself” Kaz looked at him without saying anything, obviously trying to make the other understand that he had no interest in meeting him, and the boy took the opportunity to clear his throat before speaking again “And… ask you if… a girl I was talking to is from your team. She mentioned you before, her name is Y/N”

Kaz didn't know what that Lior had in mind to go and ask him such a thing, but for a moment he believed in the Saints and thanked them for making him so stupid.

"And what does that interest you, silly boy?" he muttered. Lior was probably the same age as Kaz, but the black-haired man had the advantage of being a few inches taller, of having an imposing presence leaning on his cane, and of… well, being the fucking boss.

"In nothing, I just thought I'd ask you" replied Lior, visibly dismayed by the unexpected hostility of his new leader, and mistakenly thinking that he would fix something, he continued: "She's very kind and I wanted to get to know her better, I thought you could help me”

“You're here to steal, spy and obey orders, you're not here to meet girls, let alone someone like her. So I recommend you keep your distance and focus on the job, which is why we hired you”

and that the contrary had contained himself a little. For a moment he thought that Kaz took his job very, very seriously (it was partly true) so that's why he had been so annoyed at the suggestion of him looking for one of his close friends. He never knew that he was mad to hear that someone so vulgar wanted to befriend his Y/N.

"Kaz!" for a second he thought he was imagining your voice, but when you appeared a few seconds later he knew it wasn't like that "I was looking for you, you... Lior" you interrupted yourself, looking at the other young man who had paled a little "I see that you are already met"

"Yes, we already had the fortune" he answered with all the sarcasm existing in his body, although you didn't notice it.

"I was leaving, anyway"

“Wait, have this,” you said, handing the boy a piece of paper “It's a restaurant, Nina and I go there for breakfast all the time. If you ever want to join us, just say so” Your tone was so kind and your face so happy that Kaz was afraid he would start foaming at the mouth.

"Yes, I..." Lior didn't dare look at Kaz, who was watching him with murderous eyes "I'll think about it, bye"

"Bye," you replied, a little disappointed by his lack of effusiveness.

"You really want to make new friends," he snorted with inevitable scorn.

“Well yeah, my old friends run away from me,” you muttered, keeping your tone playful no matter how upset he was. Then you sighed and got a little more serious, “Listen, I know you hate parties and people, but I would really appreciate it if you were with us at the table. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, but I did this to have a fun time and to make Inej happy. There is alcohol inside, if you don't like it, I can find you something better to prepare the drink you prefer but, please, stay even for a while"

His frown on him relaxed considerably as he watched your pleading eyes looking down at him but the unknown feeling towards the new guy grew like flames consuming an entire forest. You had told him where you used to go for breakfast, which meant you wanted to see him again.

“Only if you promise not to go out with that idiot”

“With Lior? And why shouldn't I?

"I already told you. He's an idiot" he said simply and you laughed.

"And how do you know?"

"He looks like one"

"You're going to need a better reason than that and probably a bouquet to convince me otherwise," you muttered, totally sure that the latter was so ridiculous that it would only prove that you weren't going to change your mind. Lior wasn't the most handsome guy for you, that place was reserved for someone special, but you had decided that giving him a chance wasn't such a bad idea “Come on, don't be grumpy, and let's go in there. I got a cake and you don't want to miss it,” you said, starting to walk back inside, and after sighing Kaz followed you without question.

Once morning came the birthday cheer was gone and things went on as usual; going to the Crow club, keeping order at The Barrel, odd jobs, and a couple of unfortunate fights.

In the span of a week you had already seen Lior at least three times, and he always seemed to be conveniently close to various places you frequented. Being with him was nice and little by little you were getting used to his company, the only thing that seemed too strange to you was that every time Kaz appeared in the same place as you he said goodbye and left immediately before your boss could see it. You assumed he was just afraid of him, like most people, and you didn't say anything.

Suddenly you began to think that you had hardly seen the man in those days and you wondered if he was attending to your basic needs since you had hardly seen him go to the kitchen of the place for the food that you prepared. Sometimes loaves of bread would disappear, but that was Fahey's trademark.

"You are listening?" asked Lior, who was in front of you at a betting table and had brought you out of your musings. You were taking a break at the club and again he was hanging around so you thought about having a drink but right now you only remembered the beginning of what he had been saying to you so you couldn't lie to him even if you wanted to. You just smiled embarrassedly in response, making him laugh. "Too much to think about?"

"No, none of that. I was only gone for a moment"

"Well," he started to say, with what you'd already recognized as a flirtatious smile, "I hope I can find you when that happens."

You were going to answer something when you heard a fight near you. A couple of drunks had a disagreement over who had won the game and they thought the most effective way to settle it was beating. You quickly got up from your chair to separate them and had to dodge the fists several times, having no luck a couple of times. Lior was about to jump in to help you when suddenly one of the men fell to the ground with a thud. Everyone in the room looked in the direction of whoever had knocked him down and there was the only logical option.

"If you guys want to beat up each other like animals, do it outside my establishment," was all Kaz said. You were still holding the other man back, but he didn't put up much of a fight when he and his friend were escorted outside. You shook off your jacket and rubbed your arm where one of them had managed to hit you.

This time Lior couldn't escape the boss's eyes and Kaz felt his blood boil again at the sight of his face. He still didn't fully understand the nature of his feelings, but it was clear to him that he didn't want you near that boy after a couple of days when you no longer stopped by to say hello in his office or struck up a conversation with him. Although, indeed, he was never the most sociable now he wanted to make an effort to spend more time with you, but he had difficulties finding ways to do it.

"Damn drunks, huh?"

“Did they hurt you?" he asked quietly. You looked up in confusion and took a moment to process it. Was Kaz worrying about you?

I mean, he cared for all of you during missions and times of real danger, but on those occasions he just saw to it that you stayed alive and continued his duties. It was weird hearing something verbal.

"Nothing I can't handle," you replied, with a challenging little smile.

“I want you to help me with some things. Unless you're busy…”

Saying this he looked at the skinny boy behind you, who looked away immediately. If there was one thing to be recognized about Kaz, it was how he never showed fragility and therefore forced others to surrender first.

"It's that urgent?"

"So I would say"

Now it was you who held his gaze for a few seconds, looking for something implicit that would reveal why he now wanted to take you to another place, but there was nothing. There was only neutrality in those beautiful blue eyes.

“Lior, I have to go. Some work" you exclaimed and he internally celebrated the apparent victory that you had chosen him over someone else, although the satisfaction was short-lived when he saw that you took a step and planted a kiss on the boy's cheek.

Kaz thought about how he wasn't mad at you, but at him, and it suddenly dawned on him that he was actually jealous. That was what he was feeling like a plague.

Jealousy.

You noticed the radical change in his attitude when he didn't even look at you and began to walk quickly down the hall, so you had to speed up to keep up with him. Worst of all, he didn't really have anything he needed help with, he'd just said it so you wouldn't be with the Shu boy, so when you set foot in the office he was stunned.

“I want you to help me sort these documents by date,” he said, extending in your direction a huge folder that he found in a drawer that only contained papers from the previous year. It was not necessary to order that because he had already used it, but he preferred to ask you that than look completely dumb.

"And the magic words?"

"Abracadabra?" he said sarcastically, but he sighed heavily at the sight of your crossed arms and your clear intentions of not taking the folder until he said so "Please, Y/N"

“Do you see how cute you sound being a polite child?” you exclaimed to annoy him and before another complaint you took the things and placed yourself in an empty end of the desk.

Kaz watched you from time to time, intent on your task, your lips slightly pouting, and each time he did he felt his heart swell.

What was happening to him? he was afraid that he would find out and not like the answer.

You finished in record time and he let you off to wherever you wanted to go through the door, a little worried that it was with the new kid. As soon as you left he took his hat, coat, and cane to go directly to The Slat, hoping that the person he needed was there.

He knocked on the door a couple of times, but no one answered and for a moment he felt desperate. He badly needed the help of the one person he knew who wouldn't judge him for asking obvious questions and also had enough discretion so that others wouldn't realize he suspected he had feelings for you. He suspected.

He was going to make one last attempt which wasn't necessary as the door swung open as he raised his fist, revealing a small figure with loose hair and less weaponry than usual.

“Kaz?”

"Hello, Inej"

You were sitting in the dining room of your shared house, pouring yourself some coffee in a chipped cup hoping it was strong enough to wake you up, while you racked your brains trying to solve the mystery that had been bothering you for a few days ago.

Turns out, after the drunken brawl incident and helping Kaz, you had gone to rest, falling asleep on the bed almost immediately. No problem with that. The strange thing was that the next day you had woken up with a bouquet of wildflowers of various colors resting on the nightstand. The first time you thought that you had put it there and you didn’t remember it, so you just sniffed it with pleasure and placed it in a glass of water. Normal day, you went to sleep at the end and the next morning there it was again. You knew that it was not the one you had collected the day before because these were in the glass. A little confused, you put the new flowers with the old ones and continued with your day, without imagining that the next morning things would repeat themselves. Three times in a row was already disturbing, so you made an effort to imagine who was the author of all this. If it was the girls, it was nice that they had such detail, and you could have even tolerated it from Jes, Wylan, or Matthias, but if it was an outsider then it was a worrying situation because it implied that a lunatic had been messing around to your room at night for a week straight. You made sure to lock your room and still, the flowers appeared there, as if it were a magic trick.

Was it Lior? Impossible, or you would have seen him come in in the morning or at night. Also, one day you had woken up earlier than usual and even that time the flowers were there.

"Bonjour" greeted an energetic Jesper, who had appeared still in nightwear, and ruffled your hair as he approached you "You don't look very lively"

"I am not a morning person," you said sipping your coffee.

One by one your other companions joined the morning coffee, Kaz being the last to arrive. It was funny how much 'morning drinks' could say about each of you: Inej drank coffee with some sugar, Jesper coffee with cream, Wylan drank tea, Matthias just milk, Nina hot chocolate and lastly you and Kaz shared a taste for the coffee bitter and very hot, so it was not a surprise that when he arrived you already had a cup for him.

“We're running low on supplies,” Matthias announced, pointing to the empty cupboard, to which you groaned.

None of you had any culinary skills, but since you were the least likely to give them food poisoning, they had all decided that you would be the designated cook, which included doing the shopping.

"I'll go to the market later"

“I will accompany you,” Kaz said, so fast that they all fell silent and turned their heads to look at him. Observing the situation, he adopted a defensive attitude "I need to buy some things too and I have to make sure Y/N isn't wasting money"

“Sure, my specialty is diverting resources by saying I bought potatoes,” you joked, rolling your eyes. “If you want to go with me, let's go now. At this time there are fewer people" you explained and he nodded. You just finished drinking your coffee and grabbed a large bag in which you loaded the food before leaving the building.

As soon as you got out, they started speculating.

"Why did Kaz want to go?"

"I wonder the same thing"

“Maybe he really did have things to buy,” Matthias said, and though Nina heard her black-haired man's racing heart, she decided not to contradict anyone. Inej looked at her almost as if she read her thoughts and they both shared a knowing look without saying anything.

On the way to the market, neither of you spoke, but he noted that you were right when you said that the city was quieter at that time, probably because life in The Barrel really began when night fell.

The market was quite a distance away, but he put up with it like a champ, so when you got there you were very hungry and you assumed he was the same.

“Eat,” you said suddenly, extending to Kaz a piece of bread with jam inside that you loved to buy when you went there “I pay for this with my own money, by the way. So you don't accuse me of being a thief."

"You are a thief," he reminded you, grimacing and taking a bite of the piece of food. It was sweet, freshly made, and melted in the mouth.

You two walked for a couple of blocks, still in silence, while you were choosing food. You were wondering what those 'things' were that Kaz needed to buy and when he would ask you to make a detour to a store, but the moment didn’t seem to come, which made you suspect that there was really no such reason and it was just an excuse. You were curious as to what he might be looking for by doing that and you let your mind wander to possible answers, from when he was looking for advice he didn't yet know how to ask to when he just needed some fresh air and jumped at the chance, without you being involved in any way.

Kaz, for his part, was entering a crisis. He wanted to talk to you and have a nice time but he didn't know how to do it. He had thought that, once you were alone, the words would sprout by themselves and then you would continue the conversation, however, he had limited himself to watching you feel the fruits to decide which was ripe and which was not.

“Do you think she really likes that boy?”

“I don't know” Inej had told him “But I don't think that's the case either” she continued and her friend nodded her head “I think what she likes about him is that she listens to her and keeps her company; he is attentive to her. You could start there."

"Are you hungry?"

"A little, nothing that will kill me"

"Let's have breakfast" he murmured. Did it sound like an order? Yes, but he hoped to get a little better with practice.

"Only if you pay" you answered with a mischievous smile.

He led you to a small establishment you'd never been to, which he probably chose because he was all alone, and you sat at one of the little tables with worn cushioned chairs, facing each other. The question you wanted to ask him was on the tip of your tongue, but you were still working up the courage to gesticulate it.

Kaz ordered some eggs and bacon and since you were craving something sweet you ordered some fried dough stuffed with currants, on the recommendation of your companion, and both of you ordered the second coffee of the day.

"And what is?"

"What is what?"

“The deal” you exclaimed, as if it were obvious, but he didn't seem to understand “I suppose if we came here alone it's so you can ask me to make a deal. Steal, spy on someone right?"

He was stunned for a moment. Didn't you notice the effort he was making? Was that your idea of his actions? Honestly he couldn't blame you, because, probably, in other circumstances that would have been the case to isolate himself from the others in the group. But not now.

"There's nothing" he replied, but you narrowed your eyes to let him know that you didn't believe him "No tricks, I promise"

"So does that mean I'm the boss's favorite?" you asked with mock enthusiasm, deciding to play with his patience a bit.

"Shut up or you're going to lose your privileges," he countered. It felt good to tease you, have a little fun for a change.

You were sitting there until the mass of people that gathered at noon allowed it and then you returned to The Slat with your hands loaded with bags that at some point in the day you would place in the cupboard, not wanting to do it immediately so as not to spoil the atmosphere of peace between you and Kaz, who hadn't left you yet.

“Anything in particular you want for lunch?” you asked, moving closer to him. It was just the two of you in the kitchen and the rest of the place was relatively quiet. "You know, to offer you privileges to threaten you with later."

He almost laughed, but the suppressed smile you saw on him was enough to make you want to see more. You and Kaz were friends (or so you hoped, at least) but there weren't many memories between you like that, almost all of them were related to work or at the club or with one of you saving the other's ass. You had only once helped him heal a wound, just because he couldn't reach that section of his back and then he justified himself by asking for your help by saying that it had been partly your fault, which was totally false but that you weren't going to argue with him if that made him feel less embarrassed.

It felt different, like something more relaxed, soft… more domestic. You had just returned from shopping together, you had eaten an exquisite breakfast that he paid for and now you were asking him what he wanted you to prepare for him to eat… were you a couple of criminals or a newly married couple?

The thought of a marriage with Kaz warmed your cheeks and you wanted to laugh at how absurd that would be.

"Whatever you want, anyway, my stomach already has enough defenses against indigestion" upon hearing this you barely pushed his arm, but as soon as you did, your eyes widened as you remembered who you were talking to, although to your surprise he didn’t complain.

"I'll make pea soup," you informed. You knew it was one of his favorites because of the second course he always served himself when he thought no one else was looking. You did, you looked at Kaz Brekker all the time.

He just hummed in the affirmative and left without another word.

During the course of the morning you did more activities, but you couldn't stop thinking about him and the walk they had taken together. Suddenly you would surprise yourself remembering his expressions at your bad jokes and smiling like a fool when you thought about how beautiful his eyes looked with the brightness of that morning.

Kaz ever had a partner? Did he like someone? Was he even interested in those things? You didn't know, but it wasn't a crime to have some admiration for him either, right? Jeez, he'd only been a little nice to you, why were you so excited about that?

You had never thought about whether you had feelings for him, beyond the initial working relationship that had now become a kind of family bond, although now you were reflecting on it.

And later, when his expression brightened from the plate of food you served him, you felt that it might not be such a wrong idea.

I like your smile.

It was the only note that had been left with the flowers, which you had been receiving for quite some time. Always without fail, always on the nightstand in your room.

Although you were worried about who this "secret admirer" might be, your curiosity was greater and you had been careful not to mention anything to your friends. Well, it was really just the boys, because Inej and Nina knew a lot about things, since the jobs to steal were scarce lately, you guys had more time to do anything else.

Kaz trusted any of you so he let you roam the Crow club as you please, but also to check that things were in order: no scammers, control fights, check that the girls weren't harassed by the clients, things like that.

That night the club was short of a barista, so you and Wylan had split the responsibility for it by taking turns meeting the demand.

He was more skilled than you at making cocktails, perhaps due to his chemical mixing skills, but still the boy was patient with you and he only laughed when you messed up.

"I prefer this to be like poor Jes” you muttered amused, because from where you could see the boy sitting next to the door playing with one of his guns, obviously annoyed because Kaz had ordered him to stay away from the gaming tables. You thought that Wylan also had something to do with it, because they both hated that it fueled their gambling problem "But I need to distract myself a bit, will you be okay by yourself?" you asked. You knew he would be fine so you walked out of the bar without much guilt.

You were taking a walk among the tables when you felt someone grab your arm and you turned defensively. It was Lior, who you had already served too many drinks for a person of his size and now he was suffering the consequences. After serving perhaps the fifth in a row you got a little worried, but you didn't want to intervene because you thought it was none of your business. As long as he paid them, you had no objection.

"Y/N," he said, drawing out his tongue. Several of the Dregs were standing around him, apparently also drinking some beer, and were watching you curiously. "Sit with us," he ordered, patting an unoccupied chair next to him.

You didn't want to be rude and tried to say you were working now, but he was insistent until you agreed to sit down for a few minutes. The other men weren't chatting with you, probably as a matter of avoiding trouble with the boss, but Lior was particularly eloquent. As an effect of alcohol, he didn’t measure distances and sometimes he would spill some beer near you or invade your personal space to talk to you. You let it go because you didn't want to cause a conflict and, to a certain extent, it was tolerable.

But after a while, his behavior became more annoying. He was holding your hand and even tried to stroke your leg, but what made you jump back was when he leaned in for a kiss. Luckily you had been faster.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" you asked flustered, drawing the attention of the others at the table.

"Oh, don't pretend you don't want to" he replied. His body leaned towards you again and you moved further away, which made him annoyed "I've seen how you look at me"

"Sorry, what?"

"You want me," he stated. You were suddenly startled by the confidence with which he was saying that and how deep his voice sounded, like that of a wild animal. And, from his perception, you played the role of the prey.

"That’s not true, fuck you," you spat, getting up from your chair, but you were stopped by his strong grip on your forearm.

"Come on, Y/N. You like me and I like you, stop making yourself difficult"

"I told you no" you exclaimed with a trembling voice. The problem wasn't whether or not you could face the boy, but that he had caught you off guard. Although it was true that you liked him a little, you weren't going to allow him to want to kiss you just like that, to say the least… because judging from his insistence, you doubted that a kiss was all he wanted.

You almost screamed as he pulled you towards him and this caught the attention of several people around you, but before you could do anything an object came between you and threw Lior back into his chair in one movement.

It was a cane.

It was clear that by this point several tables had already stopped their games to pay attention to the menacing expression of the bastard with the barrel hovering over a drunken kid imprisoned in his chair.

"No means no" Kaz said slowly and quite close to the challenging face of the opponent. It was almost like he had been watching you the whole time, waiting for the perfect moment to intervene, or maybe he just had a sixth sense that would alert him when one of his crows was in trouble.

He thought that this would be enough to scare the boy and withdrew the cane from his chest, intending to turn around to check on your well-being, but he did not count on the fact that Lior's drunken state also gave him the courage to dare to jump in to hit him. The black-haired man's instinct made him turn around just in time to stop the drunk and throw him face-first against the table, holding his folded hand against his back.

If there was anyone left who hadn't noticed the discussion that was enough for them to notice, including Wylan, Jesper, and Matthias who had risen from their places to intervene if necessary. But it probably wouldn't. Kaz was furious.

You saw him whisper in the boy's ear and you knew it was a threat from the expression on his face, in addition to the groan of pain that the youngest emanated when Kaz mercilessly pulled his arm.

He remained in that position for a moment, completely blinded by anger, enjoying the cries of pain the shu boy was making.

"Get him out of here" Kaz ordered The Dregs, who had been watching everything in silence. You also didn't get to hear what he said to one of them, but the chances of Lior waking up the next day in pain from a beating were pretty high.

As you backed away you collided with a huge body and calmed down to see that it was Matthias, asking if you were okay. It didn't take long for all the men of the team to gather around you to ask what had happened, but you were still a little stunned to answer coherently.

Even so, you looked for Kaz's gaze just to realize him and he didn't look angry, but worried and his eyes were in charge of communicating everything that his mouth didn't. Somehow you quietly reassured him too, but he couldn't bear to see the glitter that threatened to turn to tears.

"Thank you" you managed to whisper, still a little nervous.

“Take the night off,” the black-haired man murmured, again sounding more like an order than a suggestion. “Walk her to The Slat, Jesper. Matthias, stay at the door”

The three of them returned to their respective posts and for a moment you thought that Kaz was also going to accompany you, but when you looked back he was already rushing with a firm step towards the door where the rest of his men had left.

Once you were in your room, and Jesper made sure for the thousandth time that you were okay, the feeling of discomfort eased considerably, but you noticed the bruise already beginning to form on your forearm from the man's grip.

What had happened to him? He had always been kind to you and respectful... you didn't even think that he would behave like that with you. You were disgusted and even scared by how quickly things had happened, but you were infinitely grateful that Kaz had come like a guardian angel to help you. You probably could have handled that on your own, however, the shock of receiving that kind of treatment from a person you were beginning to trust and even care for was what put you at a disadvantage.

You struggled a lot to fall asleep, because a part of you felt very hurt and sad to think that you didn’t deserve to have sincere love, but one where they only wanted you for physical matters.

Also, the flowers didn't arrive that morning.

When you finally got out of bed you were having trouble concentrating on anything and Nina had to take care of breakfast because you were too sensitive to do anything. This didn’t go unnoticed and everyone insisted that you rest a little more, but when Kaz arrived and realized the situation he didn’t wait to take action on the matter.

“We’re going out,” he said, when he finally intercepted you alone in the kitchen area, even though you weren't in much of a mood at all.

"A job?"

"A walk" he corrected you. You looked confused but didn't say anything and when it was time to leave The Slat you realized that Kaz wasn't talking about hanging out in a group, but just the two of you.

You didn't know where he was taking you, yet the road was as silent as usual. He watched you out of the corner of his eye just to see if your features changed in any way with the landscape, the aromas, or the morning breeze, but he felt a little disappointed when he noticed that your expression was still serious and even a little sad.

He wished he had taken more time with Lior last night.

"He won't bother you again" when he remembered that, he felt the need to let you know that now you could rest easy, and that you know that he himself had taken care of dealing with the matter.

"I don't doubt it," you said, letting out a bitter laugh. You knew what Kaz was capable of when he was angry. "It's just... I feel silly."

"Did you love him?" the man asked. You had already arrived at the place where he wanted to take you in the first place: it was a small meadow, with a lonely bench and too much life to be in the sad and gloomy Ketterdam. It was like finding a little piece of heaven on earth.

“Love him? By God, no, of course not. It was nice to be with him, but… talking about love is too strong. He was just an idiot”

"I'm sorry this has happened" he exclaimed, a little calmer after hearing your negative words about the other man, and at the same time the fact that you were alone gave him a little more confidence to say what he was thinking without being judged, trying to make you realize that he really cared about you.

"It's okay" you smiled to reassure him. He was going to say something else when a purple stain caught his attention under the sleeve of your dress that you had already risked up to the biceps. The night before he didn't notice that the boy had hurt you when he struggled and at that moment his blood boiled with anger "It's nice"

"What?"

"The place," you said, looking everywhere; the slightly gray sky, the birds flying around, the flowers growing next to your feet, and Kaz right in front of you. All of that made up the beauty you were talking about. "Why did you bring me here?"

"I thought maybe you needed to calm down a bit"

"Then you're a good friend," you said softly. Kaz couldn't remember anyone using that term with as much fondness filtered into their voices as you just did.

Friends. You were friends, you loved him at least a little.

"I hope so. I don't have much practice” he confessed and you smiled tenderly. Although you wanted to keep seeing Kaz, something in you forced you to look at the floor, as if there was something there calling you.

The flowers… were those flowers. You could recognize them after receiving them for days and keeping them fresh in the vase: there were the yellow ones and the lilac ones, both with small petals and a brown center.

You paused for a moment to make sure you weren't misreading or confusing things, but when you knelt down to pick up a cluster you knew for a fact that your theory was correct.

"What a curious thing"

"The flowers?" he asked, trying to sound as calm as possible. Even though you couldn't see his face, you somehow knew he was frowning.

“I've been getting exactly these kinds of flowers every weekday for a while now,” you said, getting up and showing Kaz the plants. “The stranger places them on my nightstand before I wake up, every time, without fail. Except for today"

"Maybe I wanted you to come to see them in person"

You froze in place, not expecting such a quick confession from him, and he looked at your face for a reaction. You were still holding the cluster in your hand and you unconsciously squeezed it hard.

In a panic you tried to find another interpretation of his words that didn’t imply the fact that he was the author of those signs of love, but you couldn’t find it. And from the man's slightly embarrassed face, you assumed that was true.

But the worst thing about it was the existence of the note that had kept you tossing and turning the day you received it. I like your smile. Kaz had written that too?

"So... it was you"

"Who did you have in mind?" he asked, a bit defensive, and you smiled, shaking your head.

“No one, I didn’t imagine who it could be. Honestly, at first, it scared me to think that someone was stalking me” you said sincerely. You looked at the bouquet of flowers again and noticed that some were withered, thinking that Kaz probably always chose the prettiest ones to take with you. You fell silent, not of your choice, but because he wasn't saying anything, and then you closed the distance between you by taking a small step forward, still respecting his personal space but enough to make the conversation intimate. “Why did you do that?”

Words were never Kaz's strong suit and he felt his throat tighten as he tried to answer you. What could I tell you about that? Did he himself have a coherent reason for doing that?

He thought you were going to get mad at his silence, but you smiled tenderly because, although he didn't realize it, once again his eyes had been in charge of telling you everything he was keeping quiet about.

"I like them a lot" you spoke again. If he wasn't ready to tell you, you weren't going to push him "I put them in a vase every day and when they're withered I put them in a box" you confessed. Fearing rejection, you lowered your hand to his, took it for a moment to place it higher, and then placed your own flowers in his hand. He held them tremblingly "Calm down, I'm not going to tell anyone"

"Tell them what?"

"I'm the boss’s favorite" you joked and a knot formed in Kaz's stomach when he saw that your eyes dropped for a second to his lips and you licked yours, perhaps unconsciously. You pulled away from him because you thought he might be uncomfortable with the closeness and instead, you left him wanting to have been in that position a little longer “Do you want us to sit here? I like to watch the birds”

He ignored you and a few minutes later you two were sitting next to each other, still saying nothing. Kaz was looking at you out of the corner of his eye and he thought he couldn't be prouder that your sad expression was gone.

And how was I to be? If you had just discovered that you had the sympathy of the man you admired most in all of Kerch.

"You were right," he spoke suddenly, snapping you out of your thoughts about what it would feel like to be a bird and be able to fly.

"About what?"

"You're my favorite. As a person. You are my favorite person” he managed to say. His look from him was sweet and sincere "And I like to see you smile"

"You already told me," you said, trying to suppress a smile and feeling how the blood rose to your cheeks. It took you a moment to dare to say what you were thinking. “I appreciate you, Kaz. I mean it very seriously."

You two stayed there for what seemed like hours and just enjoyed each other's quiet company, the sound of the wind, and the sight of the place. You looked at the horizon and he watched you covertly, thinking about everything he would be able to do to keep you out of the dangers of the world and what he had not realized until the night before when your integrity was threatened.

One of your knees collided with his and Kaz, instead of pulling away from him, moved his knee slightly to rub against yours.

That day a silent pact had been sealed between you. He loved you and so did you.

No more words were necessary. Just lots of flowers.

#kaz brekker #six of crows #six of crows fic #kaz brekker fic #kaz brekker x reader #ash recommends six of crows

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siriusly-rem-fic-recs · 2 years ago

Note

Minors DNI

Fuckkkk

Kaz Brekker and dry humping >>>>>>>>

He’s so hot. I cannot

Hello! I've got an idea for some headcanons! (If you're comfortable) Maybe dry humping with Kaz for the first time because he's not ready for skin to skin content but he's ready for something :)

yes yes YES!!!!

nsfw under the cut!

kaz would be dying to touch you, i think that it would literally be ripping him apart that he doesn't have the strength to do so yet. because he wants to pleasure you, he desires you so much that it probably gets to the point where it pisses him off that he doesn't feel comfortable with touch yet.

but you understand this, at this point the two of you have been together for so long that you know all about his trauma with jordie and touch that you don't let him beat himself up about it.

so instead, you two try to think of different things to be intimate. slowly building him up to the idea of going all the way.

you two have kissed, done all of that stuff, but the two of you still haven't been able to have sex, or you give him head, or anything of the sorts.

honestly, the idea of dry humping didn't get on any of your guys' radar before one day you were sitting together and you were looking at his thigh, watching it flex for just a moment and suddenly getting the sudden overwhelming horniness.

i mean come on, the man is so fucking hot. like drop dead gorgeous and he doesn't even try.

and then without even thinking you put your book down, turn to face him and watch as his attention came onto you. you breathed out suddenly, asking, "do you trust me?" and of course his answer is yes. "just stop me if it's too much."

you got up and straddled him, which caught kaz by surprise because hello you're so hot and straddling him and this isn't the closest you've ever been to one another but it's pretty close. his breathing gets heavier, yours does too.

you placed yourself above his hips, clothes against clothes, and bucked your hips forward, feeling your core press against his clothed dick and OH MY LORD does it feel good.

all this pent up tension between the both of you is finally getting some relief and at this point kaz is realizing what you're doing, it feels so good for him too, that his gloved hands place themselves on your hips and start helping you with the movement. your head finds its way to his shoulder and you're lightly moaning into his neck. he even lets out a few grunts too.

and you two continue like that until you both find release. earth shattering, amazing release and you two realize that there is a lot you can do clothed. and you were definitely doing this again.

#kaz brekker #kaz brekker smut #kaz brekker x reader #six of crows #six of crows fic #ash recommends six of crows

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siriusly-rem-fic-recs · 2 years ago

Note

Minors DNI

Oh my god!! He’s so??? Beautiful. Truly. Eddie with cheerleader reader>>>

I saw you did someone’s request and I had to put mine in! Eddie being behind in class and the top of the class cheerleader reader is told to tutor Eddie and it somehow ends in them fucking between the bookshelves of the library, please? 🥺

Meet me in the library

Eddie Munson x sweet cheerleader fem!reader

⚠️warnings: SMUT 18+MDNI, playing never have I ever, Eddie has a slight corruption kink, dirty talk, public sex, fingering (f receiving), oral sex (m—receiving), unprotected p in v sex, cream pie, all of my “sweet and innocent or virgin” girlies are always undercover freaks, it’s hard for me to write for super innocent characters since well, I’m not 😈

A/N: I was recently rewatching st and realized a lot of the kids reference failing Spanish, so I thought that could be the subject Eddie needs help with in this, as I don’t see that much in other fics. Anyway, thank you to whoever sent in this request. Hope you like it <3

Today, was not your day. You had woken up 15 minutes late, missed the bus, did not have time to eat anything but a granola bar and to top it off; Tyler in first period, sent you one of his weekly pervy notes, that read: “You’re so hot, my zippers falling for you.” You couldn’t help but roll your eyes as you crumbled the paper to throw away on your way out, to second period.

As you walk into Mrs. Burtons Spanish class, the vanilla air freshener sitting on her desk, wafting through the air. You take a seat in the middle and begin taking out your text book.

“Buenos Dias, clase.” Her inability to roll her tongue, peaking through her sentence.

“Buenos Dias, Mrs. Burton.” You and a few other pupils, say back.

“Please take out your Spanish 1, text books and turn to page 24.” As you move to open your book with the rest of the class, the classroom door is pulled open. Eddie Munson walks in, without a care in the world that he’s late. Choosing the open seat right next to you, he plops down. The smell of weed, hitting your nose. Clearly smoking before class was more important.

No wonder he’s a super duper senior - you thought to yourself

You usually try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but you’ve had a shit day and thus, no filter. You don’t dislike Eddie, you’ve had multiple classes with him throughout your high school career and even though you both have never really had a full on conversation, you’ve still never bought the crap this town says about him.

“So nice of you to join us, Señor Munson.” Spits Mrs. Burton, face adorned with the fakest of smiles

“Uh, I forgot my book in my van, sorry.” He says while slumping down in his chair

“Mmhm” Mrs. Burtons continues while rolling her eyes and turning towards the chalk board

“Psst, what page are we on?” You hear being whispered in your direction

You turn toward it, not sure if the questions is directed at you or someone else. As you turn your head towards the leather jacket wearing metal head, you notice his eyes trained on you, eyebrows lifted as if to say “hello?”

“Oh um, page 24.” You whisper back

“Thanks, Pom poms.” He says with a wink

Your face instantly blooming a rosy pink— Eddie notices as he throws you a cocky smirk.

You bury your head in your text book as Mrs. Burton explains the difference between “los padres and el padre”

After Mrs. Burton dismisses the class, and you’re packing up your belongings. She sets her sights on you.

“Y/L, Munson? Can I have a word with you both, before you go?” Her eyes darting from yours to Eddie’s

“Sure” you both say in unison, although your tones were anything but similar

You put the purple straps of your backpack on your shoulders, while Eddie haphazardly slings one strap over his. Bag zipped halfway.

You both walk up to Mrs. Burtons desk, side by side. Eddie looked annoyed, like he had better things to be doing, while you always did your best to be polite.

“Y/N, I wanted to ask. Since you are my best student, if you wouldn’t mind tutoring Eddie, here? If he passes these next two tests, they will count for half of his grade, if he can bump his F up to at least a C, he can finally pass my class.”

She says, all while side eyeing Eddie. His jaw clenching through her proposal. You couldn’t help feeling bad for the way he was treated, by peers and teachers alike. You wondered how it must feel to have your teachers give up on you. You would probably stop caring, too.

Before your thoughts could carry on, Mrs. Burton begins talking again.

“So, what do you say?” Her eyes pleading for a yes, she clearly wants him out of her class.

You look over again at Eddie, the action making your tummy fill with butterflies. Having to be in close proximity to him, most likely alone. You couldn’t tell if the nerves were from intimidation or infatuation.

You’d find out soon.

“Yeah, of course. I’d love to help!” Words coming out way too enthusiastic in comparison to how you were internally feeling.

“Okay, excellent.” She says as she sits down in her seat to begin grading papers.

She looks up at you and Eddie through her lashes “you both are free to go.” She says with a tight lipped smile

Eddie is the first one to make his way out the door. Exhaling a breath he’d been holding.

“So, when and where do you wanna meet up?” He says through gritted teeth, face impassive as his eyes flicker to yours.

“Meet me in the library, after school.” You say as you turn on your heel and head to third period.

The day dragged on, until finally the last bell rang out. You made your way to your locker. Exchanging some of your text books for ones you’d need to help you study that night.

As you swing your locker shut, your thoughts interrupted by a figure leaning up against the next locker over.

“Hola, pom poms.” Eddie says with a smirk, your widened eyes turn squinted as you return the smile.

“I thought we were meeting in the biblioteca?”—You inquire

“The what?” He says as he reads your face for the answer

Oh lord, you had your work cut out for you.

“Biblioteca means library in Spanish, Eddie.” You say with a giggle

“Mm, no yeah, I-I knew that.” His smirk drops, as he swallows. Addams apple bobbing at the motion.

“Sure you did. So do you wanna lead the way, or do you need directions?” You say with no bite to your words, purely a joke.

“Oh, low blow, princess!” He says as he puts his hand over his heart. “All have you know, I’ve been to the library once or twice before.” He smirks while looking back at you.

The butterflies in your stomach returning, ten fold.

As you both shuffle into the library, it was mostly empty. Most of your peers have already headed home for the day. You both find a nice secluded table towards the back shelves. Away from the judging eyes of Mrs. Westin, the grumpy old librarian who loves to tell people to be quiet, even when their voices are just above a whisper. You knew Eddie could be loud, witnessing his little outburst in the cafeteria and in classes you both have shared together, through the years.

As you reach the furthest table; you remove your backpack, taking out your text book along with some paper and a pencil. Meanwhile Eddie slams his body into his seat, slumping down and spreading his legs out as he crosses his arms against his chest. You can feel him watching you as you turn to the page your next test was going to be on.

“Are you going to keep staring at me? Or are you going to get your text book and writing utensils out, so we can study?” You ask as you uncomfortably shift in your seat, his gaze doing nothing to ease the butterflies flapping around your belly.

“I’d rather study you, princess.” He says as he brings his chin towards his chest, looking at you through his lashes. Big doe eyes roaming your chest, neck and face as he brings his bottom lip behind his top teeth to bite. Finally his eyes meet yours and you can’t help but to get lost in them.

What was he doing to you?

You were hardly boy crazy, basking in the fact that you never took any of these boys serious. School always came first. That’s not to say you haven’t dated or had fun, you certainly have but you knew graduating and getting the hell outta this soul sucking town was the real object of your desires.

But Eddie was making you feel ways you’ve never felt, ways you didn’t even know were physically possible for you.

You bring your thoughts to a halt, as your eyes quickly find solace in the page in front of you.

“Text book, Eddie?” You say, with a tone you weren’t familiar hearing from yourself.

“I-I didn’t bring it. Is it cool if we just share?” He stands up and makes his way around the table to plop in the chair, beside you. Mirroring the same slouch and spread legs, as earlier. Not even waiting to hear your answer.

“Sure, why not.” You whisper to yourself as you continue looking over the page, trying to gage what lesson you wanted to work on first.

Eddie sits up and scoots his chair closer to you, elbow touching yours. Sending something as easily described as electricity, coursing through your body. You begin to move uncomfortably in your seat again. Eddie, watching you closely out the side of his eyes.

He was purposely trying to throw you off, and it was working. You close your text book and look up at him, while you scoot back in your chair. Eddie moves back a bit too, eyes widening as he thinks you’re going to get up and walk away from him and his antics.

“How about we put off studying for a day and I don’t know, talk?” You say as you collect your book and utensils to put back in your backpack.

“Talk? What would you like to talk about, poms?”

“My name is y/n, not Poms not Pom Poms just y/—n. Okay?” You snap, although the nickname was kinda cute coming from him, you’d prefer to be called your real name.

Eddie puts his hands up in surrender.

“Y/n, right. Sorry.” He says as he begins nervously scratching the back of his neck.

“Well, why don’t we get to know each other a little bit? Maybe that way you can get more comfortable with me and then it’ll be a little easier to study.” You’d much rather talk to him anyway, see what’s going on under that beautiful, luscious head of hai— nope, no. Don’t even finish that thought.

Eddie raises his eyebrows, smirk adorning his full pink lips

“I’d love nothing more than to get to know you, princess..” smirk growing wider

Okay, so much for wanting him to call me by my name. Cause if it’s between that and princess, princess wins. Hands down.

“How about we make it interesting?” Face full of mischief

You could tell that face was going to be nothing but trouble, but you couldn’t help the intrigue it brought you.

“Okay, what did you have in mind?” You ask, trying your best to be impartial.

“Have you ever played, never have I ever?”

“I mean, a couple times at a sleep over and once at a house party, but that involved alcohol.” You say as your heart thumps out of your chest. You remember those questions being anything but innocent. The middle of the library probably not the best place for this. But, you also thought it could be fun.

“Right, well unfortunately for us, we don’t have any. So maybe we can just put a finger down, instead.” Disappointment in his voice “Okay, you start.” He says with a motion of his hand.

“Never have I ever… ditched school.” You wanted to start off small and work your way to the good stuff

Eddie puts his finger down, with an exhale of his breath.

“Okay, princess. Let’s play fair.” He snorts out with a chuckle

“Never have I ever, had a one night stand.” He says with a cocky smirk, as he puts a finger down. Eyes trained on you, as he waits for your answer

You shake your head, as you nervously play with your fingers in your lap.

He’s just jumping right in, okay.

Eddie nods his head as he laughs to himself, as if to say “I knew it.”

“Never have I ever… Um, broken a bone.” You put a finger down, remembering 6th grade and your bright pink cast you had to wear for a whole a year.

Eddie barks out a laugh as he shakes his head.

“No, no, no sweetheart. Dirty questions only.” He says with a smug smile

“Why? I meant get to know as in little details of each other’s lives, not sexually.” You whisper the last word, making Eddie roll his eyes

“C’mon princess, this is so much more interesting.” He whines

“Okay, fine. Never have I ever had sex in a car.” You say as you put a finger down

Eddie’s eyes widen at the new information. He thought you were a virgin, miss Virgin Mary in the flesh. You had unexpectedly surprised him.

“Mm, that’s what I’m talking about, sweetheart.” He says smug smirk still adorning his face

“Never have I ever, had a threesome.” He puts another finger down, as your eyes widen at the fact.

“You’ve had a threesome? With who?” You ask, tone in disbelief

“It was a friend and some girl.” He answers

“With another guy?” The thought making your thighs close, as you swallow down the curiosity plaguing your mind.

Eddie just nods his head, as he looks at you. Awaiting your next revelation.

“Never have I ever, kissed a member of the same sex?” You couldn’t help it, you were curious.

Eddie side eyes you, he knows exactly what you’re doing. He puts his finger down, as you mirror him. Having made out with your best friend at a few of your sleepovers.

That was totally normal, wasn’t it?

You and Eddie, both clearly surprised by the others answer.

“Oh, so miss goody two shoes is actually just a secret bad girl. Having sex in cars and kissing girls? Mm, I like this version much better.” He snickers

You roll your eyes, but can’t help but laugh along.

“Okay, okay” Eddie begins “never have I ever… had sex in public? Car sex doesn’t count.” He continues

“How does that not count? It’s literally in public.”

“I mean in a public place; a park, a gas station, a library?” He says leaning closer to you as he whispers the last part.

Your face heats up at the thought of Eddie, fucking you against one of these bookshelves. Before you could think about the words, they’re already leaving your mouth.

“Nope, can’t say I’ve ever had the privilege of getting fucked in a library.”

Eddie’s eyes darken and his jaw tics at your language. He’s never even heard you cuss before, not even a damn or hell. He was loving that you weren’t as innocent as he thought. Although he did very much want to corrupt you, he thinks it’ll be easier now.

“Well, do you want to?” He asks, big eyes staring into your souls as he licks his lips.

“Um, I-I don’t know.” You stammer

Of course I do! I want you to do whatever you want to me— your brain betrays you, with its horny thoughts. God, it hasn’t been that long. Has it?

“Just say the word, princess. We can change that, if that’s something you’d like.” He says, voice not matching the sexual undertones of the conversation. He sounded so sweet and understanding. Like if you said no, he totally wouldn’t pressure you. He’d just go about his day, like nothing was even said. And that, makes you want him even more.

Your voice feels stuck in your throat. How do you tell him you do, really, really want that without sounding like a slut? I mean clearly, he was one but you don’t know if you’d like to be looked at in that light.

“It’s cool, don’t sweat it. We’ll just get back to stud-“ finally you find your voice, you have to just say it, own it. Who cares, you want Eddie. You want him to fuck you and that doesn’t make you any less than anyone else.

“N-No, I um” you sit up straighter as you try to say the rest of your sentence with more confidence “I want you to fuck me.” You say as you look him directly in the eyes.

His smile beams, as he rubs his chin in deliberation. As if, trying to grasp at the fact that, Hawkins sweetest and most innocent cheerleader just asked him to fuck her in the library. This was better than Christmas. Hell, christmas and his birthday combined. He couldn’t wait to get a little taste of your sweetness, he hoped this wouldn’t be the last time either.

“Okay, anything you want princess.” He whispers as he put his large ringed hand on your thigh. Rubbing up to the hem of your green and yellow cheer skirt. Goosebumps spreading all over your thighs at the coldness of his rings. You squeaked at the gesture.

“Shh, shh. It’s okay, baby I’m just g’na get you nice and ready for me, is that okay? Get that pussy, all nice and dripping for me? Huh?” He whispers closer to the shell of your ear. You bite your lip at his filthy words. Rosy cheeks making another appearance.

He moves his hand up higher, grabbing at the fat of your upper thigh and letting out a low growl, as if that really turned him on. Your heart was beating out of your chest as you began looking back towards the front of the library, trying to make sure you wouldn’t get caught and suffer the wrath of Mrs. Westin.

“It’s okay, sweet girl. I won’t let us get caught, okay?” He says as he grabs your chin and turns your head back to look at him. As you take in his face, you notice his eyes trained on your lips. He wanted to kiss you, so without thinking twice you move in closer, closing the space between you both. He watches you and realizes what you’re doing. He begins to completely close it, by putting his lips on yours. The kiss is soft and sweet, until his other hand grabs the back of your head, pulling you even closer. He slips his tongue past your lips as he entangles it with yours, the kiss now needy and passionate. His hand continuing to skate up your skirt, until he reaches your panty covered slit. He can feel just how soaked he’s made you.

“Fuck, you always this wet when you tutor dumbasses, like me?” He laughs, but his self deprecation pulls at your heart strings.

“You’re not a dumbass, Eddie. Don’t talk like that about yourself.” You say shyly, but voice full of tenderness, a tenderness eddie was not use to.

“What? You care about me now? I got your pussy wet, so you think you give a shit about me? Is that it?” He says, but his tone was anything but mean. It was more teasing, something about it made your sex throb and your panties soak up more of your juices.

“N-no, I just don’t think you’re a dumbass. I think, you don’t apply yourself in things that don’t interest you. I think, if you would actually let me help you, and make it interesting enough, you could pass in no time. I’ve worked with dumbasses, you Eddie are not one.” You continue

Eddie’s never been great at taking compliments or receiving love, so he does the only thing he can think of in that moment that doesn’t include any talking. Smashing his lips back into yours with a deep set growl, it’s wet and sloppy, you want more.

And just as if he was reading your mind, Eddie slips your cotton panties to the side, and brings a ringed finger up your slit to collect the wetness. You open your legs wider, as Eddie smirks into the sloppy kiss. He begins rubbing at your little bundle of nerves, and you’re so in the moment that you can’t help but moan out, immediately moving your face into your elbow to cover it up with a cough. Eddie throws his head back in laughter, at that. He can’t take how fucking cute you are. It’s driving him, crazy!

Before you can collect yourself from that embarrassing moment, Eddie plunges a finger into your dripping hole, as he brings your face back to kiss him, trying to conceal your moans.

Finally, he removes his hand from your panties as he whispers in your ear. “Cmon, let’s go find a more private place, for this.” He stands and holds his hand out for you to take, you put your smaller hand in his, as he guides you to the book shelves even further back. You would have to hurry, as the library will be closing soon, but luckily you have more than enough time to spare. You’ve been stuck in this library multiple times to study, so you know about what time, Mrs. Westin comes around to start telling students to, pack it up.

As you follow Eddie behind the bookshelf that reads “science fiction.” He pulls you over and gently puts your back up against the shelves, a couple books digging into your back, but you didn’t mind.

“You sure you still wanna do this, baby?” He asked with such softness, you couldn’t help but melt.

“Yes, I do Eddie.” You whisper to him as you hold his gaze

His smile was infectious. He brought his hands up to your waist, grabbing at the flesh and then rubbing down towards the fat of your ass, grabbing two handfuls.

“Such a pretty ass, I can’t help myself every time I see you, baby. I just gotta look.” He whispers into your ear, making you shiver in excitement.

“I can’t do everything I’d like to do to you, here. But I’m g’na give you a little taste, until next time. How’s that sound?” His voice so silky and smooth. You nod your head, as your eyes water. The anticipation was making you mad, you needed Eddie right then and there.

But the promise of a next time, made the butterflies in your stomach explode.

You didn’t care, you needed him in your mouth. No more waiting. You turn him around and push him up against the same shelf you were just standing against, as you drop down to your knees. Eddie’s eyes bulging out of his head.

“Holy shit.” He whispered to himself

You begin working at his button and zipper, pulling his black jeans and red checkered boxers to his knees. His dick springing out and tapping your cheek. Now, it was your eyes that were bulging out of your head. You knew Eddie’s cocky attitude probably solidified the fact that he was packing, but not like this. He was porn star big.

“Mm, open up baby. Open that pretty little mouth for me.” He says as he grabs his pretty pink cock in one hand, tapping it against your mouth. The pre cum being smeared on your top and bottom lip.

You open and take the head of him, into your mouth and suck. “Fuck” you hear from above you. Taking more into your mouth inch by inch as you reach the middle, not able to fit his whole length in at a time. He grabs your hair in a makeshift ponytail and whispers “I know you can take more baby, cmon just a little bit more.” And the desperation in his voice does nothing but make you want to obey.

So you continue taking more of him into your mouth, until your nose brushes against the tuft of curls situated at the bottom of his shaft. You can hear him making gasps and groans above your head, so you move your eyes to focus on the metalhead above you. The knuckle of his thumb between his teeth, as he bites down. Trying to hide his moans from being heard, from across the dead library.

You want nothing more than to hear him, his groans and mules and praises. But as he said, you’ll save that for another day.

He gently pulls your hair, as if to silently tell you to get up on to your feet. You stand back up, drool covering your lips and tears staining your cheeks.

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful baby.” He says as he bites at his lip, and uses his finger to wipe up a stray tear. “Come here.” He grabs the small of your back pushing your chest into his, as he kisses you, pulling your skirt up to reveal your baby pink cotton panties. He smiles as his eyes take in the wet spot, just for him.

He moves you further down to another book shelf, as he pushes you back up against it. Grabbing your left leg and hiking it up around his waist, as he digs back under your skirt to move your panties to the side. Taking his cock in one hand. He spreads your arousal all over the tip before it begins breeching your tight hole.

“Fuck, I knew you’d be tight but holy shit.” He gasps

He continues moving in, deeper and deeper. Inch by inch.

You moan out into his ear, something only for you and him to hear, as he begins fucking into you, stretching you out and stuffing you whole. He speeds up as your pussy begins to stretch wider for him. You’re both moaning into each others mouths, ears and necks as he fucks you better than you’ve ever been fucked. Your toes curling in your white ked sneakers. Head thrown back, against the book shelf as he hits that spot so deep inside you. Your pussy begins to flutter around him, making him fuck into you harder. You knew if Mrs. Westin were to come and check on you both, she’d immediately know what was going on. The thought making your pussy flutter even more.

You moan out as you look into Eddie’s eyes.

“Right there. Fuck, don’t stop.”

“Is that your spot, baby? Fuck yeah, I’m not stopping. Not until your cumming all over this cock.”

He was so close but he needed you to finish first. Taking his ringed fingers and bringing them to your lips, you open up and begin sucking on ‘em. Getting them nice and wet. He moves them between your bodies as he reaches your clit, wet fingers drawing circles over the sensitive bud. Making your vision go white and your legs shake.

“I’m cumming, fuck I’m cumming, Eddie.” You screech out.

“Fuck, so am I. Where do you want it?.” He says as he throws his head back, hair falling beautifully behind his shoulders as he drives his cock harder into you, almost animalistic.

“Inside, please cum inside me.” You cry out

The suggestion and desperation in your voice tipping him over the edge as he releases, white hot ropes inside of your fucked out cunt.

Eddie’s face falls into your neck as he holds on to your hips, you both catching your breathes. Coming down from the best high of your life.

“Damn, yeah we’re definitely g’na have more fun, next time.” He says as he kisses your lips, and pulls away to stuff himself back into his jeans.

You fix your panties and smooth out your skirt as you, and Eddie begin making your way back to the table.

Eddie grabs you by the waist and brings you back towards him, as he notices you begin to close back into yourself. “Hey, that was okay, right? I wasn’t too rough or anything?” He says, he really had a way of making you feel cared for.

“It was perfect, Eddie. I can’t wait to do it again.” You smile as you grab your backpack and sling it over your shoulder, not caring to fix it properly.

Eddie throws his arm around your shoulders, kissing you on the crown of your head. “Let me walk you out to your car.” He offers

“Oh, thank you. What a gentleman.” You joke

You both make your way out of the library, Mrs. Westin side eyeing you both until you walk out of the library, in a fit of giggles.

“Hey, so can I get your number or something?” Eddie says as he leans against your car and opens your door up for you.

“Yeah, sure.” You say back as you rip a piece of paper out of your journal and bring out a pen. Writing your number as you fold it up and hand it to him. He opens it, smiling at your name with a little heart right next to it.

“Alright, I’ll talk to you later?” He asks as he leans in, to give you one more peck to your lips.

“Yeah Eddie, I’ll talk to you later.” You say as you climb into your car.

Holy shit, you just fucked Eddie in the library and you’re going to do it again.

Thank you for reading! 💞

Comments and reblogs are appreciated

#eddie munson smut #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #stranger things #stranger things fic #ash recommends stranger things

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siriusly-rem-fic-recs · 2 years ago

Text

Minors DNI

GOING ABSOLUTELY FERAL. DRY HUMPING IS SO HOT TO ME. AND KAZ IS SO HOT. TOGETHER?? FUCKK

Kaz Brekker Dry Humping You Headcannon

Warning(s): Touch aversion, female bodied reader, dirty talk

This one is dedicated to @nyks-bella-blog for giving me the idea to turn my old fics quote into this lil smut!

Just because Kaz can’t stand skin to skin contact, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t get horny.

On the contrary, the man has a terribly high sex drive. That’s partly why he’s always in a bad mood. He can never be fully satiated from lust.

But that’s where you come in. Sometimes, well, all the time, Kaz storms into his office. You’re just sitting there, looking at him with a knowing glimmer in your eye.

“Get on the desk and spread your legs, Y/N,” he states nonchalantly, but with a groaning need in the back of his throat.

You do as he asks with an excited “yes sir”, spreading your legs with your skirt up and nothing but your panties exposed.

“Look at you, I can see how wet you are through your panties,” he presses a gloved finger against your clit, wiggling his finger to stimulate it for a little while.

“I can’t fucking take it any longer,” he nearly moans, grabbing your ankles forcefully and pressing his straining, hard bulge against your clothed cunt.

“Fuck,” he grunts as he begins to hump, the ridge of his head catching on your clit every time he grinds upwards.

“One day Y/N,” he begins, biting his lower lip in an incredibly seductive way, “I’m going to fuck you. One day before I die, I’m going to be inside of this perfect, tight little pussy. That’s a promise,” he states as his hips begin to sputter, nearing his release.

“I’m going to cum—“ he humps faster now, your orgasm crashing down on you suddenly from the stimulation to your clit. “I’m cumming! Saints—“ he feels the pulse of your cunt even through your underwear, triggering his orgasm alas. You watch his dark pants get even darker in the crotch area as he cums in his pants.

He collapses in his chair, his head thrown back as he calms down. Silently, he reaches out a gloved hand for you to take, pulling you into his lap. “Good girl.”

#kaz brekker #kaz brekker smut #six of crows #six of crows fic #kaz brekker fic #kaz brekker x reader #ash recommends six of crows

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siriusly-rem-fic-recs · 2 years ago

Text

Minors DNI

SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP BRO

Honestly I thought this was just gonna be smutty (which it was) but I didn’t expect the heart wrenching roller coaster of the lies and betrayal. The guilt of knowing you’re doing something wrong but not having the willpower to stop it?? Beautiful. Also the ending?? Truly an amazing read

PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 PART 4

Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 7/7 complete

Word Count: 52166

FIC MENU

#eddie munson x reader #steve harrington x reader #steddie x reader #stranger things 4 #stranger things fic #eddie munson smut #steve harrington smut #stranger things #ash recommends stranger things

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siriusly-rem-fic-recs · 3 years ago

Text

Minors DNI

Screaming, crying, throwing up

This was so beautifully written. The backstories, the headcanons, the allusions. Truly a work of art, I loved it so much 😭

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐀𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 - 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 | Eddie Munson x female reader

𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 | THEN. You’re the only survivor among the Mind Flayer’s victims, thanks to your friends - but after the Battle of Starcourt, you find yourself adrift in a sea of nightmares. Until an encounter in the woods with Eddie The Freak Munson offers an unexpected life line and turns your world upside down.

NOW. Four months have passed since the winter night you walked out of Eddie’s trailer and his life for good. But when the mysterious headaches and nightmares return full-force and something wicked stirs in sleepy Hawkins, starting a witch hunt against Eddie, you realize that there are two things in this world that might be more persistent than you’d thought: Evil…and love.

The story will be told in two timelines: the past (after the Battle of Starcourt) and the present (during the events of season 4).

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 | angst with a happy ending, fluff, smut, it turned into a fix it fic for ST4

𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | SMUT (you need to be 18+ to read this story!), angst with a happy ending, attempted assault, bullying, canon-typical violence

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐧𝐞: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐰𝐨: 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐫: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐥𝐮𝐭

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐢𝐯𝐞: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐦𝐞

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐢𝐱: 𝐇𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧: 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝-𝐆𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐑𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 𝐓𝐨 𝐅𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐍𝐢𝐧𝐞: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐂𝐥𝐮𝐛

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐞𝐧: 𝐒𝐦𝐨𝐤𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐌𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫𝐬

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧: 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐀𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐁𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐔𝐬

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧: 𝐁𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐦

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧: 𝐒𝐰𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐨𝐧𝐠

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐢𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧: 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐤

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐢𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧: 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐖𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤

+ 𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 (𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐝)

#eddie munson #stranger things 4 #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x reader #ash recommends stranger things #stranger things fanfiction

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siriusly-rem-fic-recs · 3 years ago

Text

This is so cute, I’m crying

I love these boys so much and I love them together

Steddie my beloveds

Eddie's crush on Steve Harrington takes a strange turn when Harrington shows up at school two weeks before Thanksgiving of '84 and refuses to take off his sunglasses until his English teacher threatens to send him to the office - Eddie catches sight of the purple and yellow bruises and Steve spends twenty minutes feeling woozy and then ends up running to the bathroom to throw up because concussions are a bitch.

Eddie, like an idiot, chases after him. Spends half a minute listening to Steve retch and then crawls under the locked stall door to Steve's confused protest and leans against the stall with Steve's hair gathered in one hand until Steve is done puking.

"Hell of a hangover, Harrington," Eddie says to lighten the mood, knowing full well that's not it, and Steve thinks about pressing his face into the cool toilet, doesn't because this is a fucking boys high school bathroom.

"Billy Hargrove knocked my brain around," Steve says, wincing, and Eddie pushes the sunglasses he'd snaked off Steve's desk back on his face.

Eddie smokes him out behind the football fields at lunch and when Steve tries to pay him for the weed Eddie patently ignores the offer - uncaps a pen from his jacket pocket and scrawls his phone number across Steve's forearm and tells him to call if wants to hang out.

"What if I just want weed?"

"My business hours are ten to seven."

Steve calls him two nights later at half past seven and Eddie is Very Cool about it. (He's so not cool about it, he dances around the living room for a full five minutes and is thankful Wayne isn't around to see it.)

They spark up the strangest friendship either one of them have ever had but the moment Eddie realizes he actually genuinely likes Steve as a person he shoves that crush way down deep because Harrington is a genuinely cool dude and Eddie's fucked up friendships misreading the situation before.

----

Gareth fucking hates Steve Harrington.

He comes back from winter break to find Steve Harrington sitting next to Eddie at lunch, keeps his cool until Harrington leaves for gym class and then pitches a whole ass fit but it's too late because Eddie had introduced Steve to the band and a few of the Hellfire club during the break while Gareth was stuck in Mishawaka with his super religious bigot aunt and uncle and all of them grudgingly LIKE Harrington.

Jeff shrugs when Gareth tries to gather up some support. "He made us hot chocolate after band practice because the garage was cold. He charmed my mom into forgetting she hates Eddie."

Paul's zero help, because when Tommy Hagan ran into them at the diner a week into winter break and tried to start shit Harrington had threatened to rearrange Tommy's face and Tommy hasn't looked twice at them since.

The Hellfire club thinks he's adorable because he doesn't know what a kobold is and the thought of a twenty sided die makes him scrunch his nose up like he's in physical pain having the think about it and for some fucking reason they all find that sort of stupidity charming.

Eddie is a nonstarter - one bad word against him and he ices Gareth out for a week.

The third time Harrington almost freezes to death sitting in Gareth's garage while the band practices, he offers up his own garage (It's heated, because of fucking course it is, and he has the decency to pretend to be embarrassed at how fucking rich he is) and then cooks them dinner afterwards like some fifties housewife and actually, fuck everything, Harrington is an alright dude but Gareth doesn't have to LIKE him.

---

Jeff finally has someone to talk to about baseball - Harrington never played but he's a Cubs fan and when Jeff laughs about that for a full twenty minutes Steve has to explain The Curse, and if Eddie gets a gleam in his eye about the masochism of choosing a team destined to lose then Jeff isn't gonna say a word about it. Not his business, and he's not gonna step in shit just because Steve doesn't actually seem opposed to the outrageous fucking flirt Eddie is around him.

He loves his friends, would do pretty much anything for them, but they're all so enamored with the idea of being outcasts that all his mainstream interests get shoved aside and Steve is so goddamn mainstream he's actually not sure how Eddie befriended him but he's not gonna complain about it.

When it becomes clear, sometime around April, that Eddie is probably gonna fail (again) Steve gets a bug up his ass about it and suddenly Nancy fucking Wheeler is spending three nights a week at Eddie's. It'd be sweet, if it didn't cut into band practice, but the first time Jeff bangs on the trailer door to bitch about Eddie missing it again, Steve throws the door open and invites him in to watch the show - Eddie looks like he's about five minutes away from shaking little Nancy until her head pops off, and she looks like she'd like to strangle him right back, and they're arguing about concepts Jeff can't wrap his head around but the fact that Eddie knows his shit and just doesn't apply himself isn't new to Jeff but it clearly is to Wheeler.

When she finally leaves (only after watching Eddie painstakingly write out a scribbled mess of a paper for English class, checking on his progress every twenty minutes or so to his absolute mortification) Steve hands Eddie a beer and Eddie stares at a wall for ten minutes.

"Your ex is scary," Eddie finally mutters, and when he halfheartedly stuffs the finished essay into his bag Steve takes the time to reorganize it in a way that Jeff thinks might actually remind Eddie to turn the fucking thing in.

Jeff doesn't mention that he thinks it's kind of weird to be friends with your ex-girlfriend, especially when the rumor mill is pretty adamant that this particular ex cheated on Harrington.

"I'll make sure to write out a thank you note when you graduate because of her."

They're halfway through a movie when Gareth calls, Steve and Eddie arguing over some piece of trivia about the production team that Steve knows he's wrong about but refuses to give up the fight over, and Jeff feels a little shitty about forgetting the reason he came over in the first place.

They're interesting, is the thing. Jeff likes hanging out with them just to watch the juxtaposition of two guys so startlingly different from each other. And maybe he's a little invested in the will-they-won't-they of it all - because he'd been the first one Eddie had introduced to Steve in the nebulous time between whenever the fuck they'd started hanging out and when Eddie had decided not to keep him some dirty little secret - because he'd sort of just trusted Eddie not to be an idiot about it, and if he thought Harrington was important enough to bring into the fold than who the hell was Jeff to deny that - because Harrington is shockingly loyal and steadfast and Jeff thinks he's probably about a month off from a realization about himself he's probably not fully prepared for.

Jeff's gay uncle is the loneliest dude he's ever known and he'd always figured that was just how it was to be gay but there's shit brewing between Steve and Eddie that Eddie refuses to acknowledge and Steve hasn't noticed yet and there's probably gonna be some drama when it all comes to a head but Jeff knows Steve's gonna need someone other than Eddie to talk about it. So.

---

Steve invites himself into Gareth's the moment he opens the door. Just presses past him and lays himself out on the couch in the living room, and he knows Gareth isn't his biggest fan but that's sort of why he'd come here first. If anyone was gonna give him the absolute truth it's gonna be Gareth.

The thing is, he's been cruising along since November, barely passing his own classes, enjoying having friends who aren't pieces of shit, enjoying getting close to Eddie, ignoring that voice in the back of his head that still lingers in the feel of Eddie's fingers in his hair while he was puking his guts out on the cold bathroom floor, and the ignoring is getting harder and harder because Eddie's naturally a touchy feely person and Steve isn't used to that shit from anyone. The thing is he's pretty sure Eddie telling him he's gay, admitting it like some dark confession with wide eyes and a lick of fear crowding his features - Eddie telling him that shouldn't put him on edge like this, shouldn't make him so fucking angry, because he's trying, alright, he's trying to be, like, a better person and he's pretty sure he'd reacted okay because Eddie hadn't bolted but he's - he's upset about it and Gareth and Jeff are the only ones he's sure already know and he needs some fucking clarity.

Gareth will give it to him straight.

He's on a roll - pacing and gesturing and trying to work his way through all the shit in his head, the idea he's got of Eddie telling him because he's into someone and Steve's gonna end up in the back burner, or third wheeling, or fully fucking forgotten when he's had all of Eddie's attention for the last six months. "It's, like – I'm mad about it. Or. Like. Not mad, I just. The thought of having to see him happy with someone el–."

And. Huh.

"Dude," Gareth says, and Steve feels the laughter breaking loose - the ridiculousness of this moment, of choosing Gareth of all fucking people, the one person he hasn't won over despite his best attempts to not be a total dickhead. Steve fully fucking loses it, flopping onto Gareth's couch, laughing himself hoarse while Gareth stares at him like he's grown a second head, only sobering when Gareth sits himself down on the edge Steve isn't occupying.

"Shit, man," Steve says. "What do I do?" Because he can't lose Eddie, right? Other than Eddie he's got a gaggle of middle schoolers for friends and if things sour with Eddie it's not like Jeff or Paul or any of the others is going to choose Steve.

"Did you mean to come out to me right there, or was that an accident?"

"I literally didn't know until just then."

Gareth's been called some version of a homophobic slur enough times to know it sucks even if it's not true, and he's met Jeff's uncle a few times, seen the pain he carries, has always been terrified of Eddie losing his sparkle to a cruel world, and maybe he's never quite trusted Steve Harrington but clearly Harrington trusts him, which is.

"Eddie's had a crush on you for years, man, why do you think he wanted to be friends with you in the first place?"

"Fuck off," Steve says, and he looks a little miserable about it like he thinks this is some cosmic joke Gareth's cooked up.

"You should probably, like, take some time. Think about it. Make sure you're prepared for how much people fucking suck and decide if whatever you're feeling right now is worth the hassle."

"Eddie's not a hassle," Steve says, and Gareth decides right then and there that Harrington? Actually a good dude.

---

Steve throws a graduation party. It's a smaller affair than he would have had a year ago, more laid back, but a surprising amount of people actually show up - all of Hellfire, even the you freshman who Steve expressly forbids from the punch bowl that's mostly vodka (a few of them sneak a taste and Harrington berates them comically, hands on his hips and looking every inch a harried mother as they slink off towards his pool with the solo cups of water he replaces their punch with).

Nancy shows, even brings Jonathan, and Steve pretends it's not awkward, makes a joke about Nancy avoiding the punch that lands better than he expected and when Nancy slings both arms around Eddie and congratulates him, Jonathan and Steve take a moment to watch the pair.

They've had a few awkward moments in the halls, and a few more any time they happen to be bringing their respective heathens around to the Wheelers at the same time, but Steve had given NancyandJonathan the green light as best he could and he genuinely wants them to do well even if it had fucking sucked at the time to realize he'd felt way more for Nancy than she'd felt for him.

When Eddie and Nancy break the hug they start an argument that will last at least an hour if no one puts a stop to it, so Steve shows Jonathan to the liquor cabinet to make better drinks ("Wasn't kidding about the punch, man," Steve says and Jonathan's smile is almost warm.) and he beelines it out to the poolside where Nancy has her nose scrunched and Eddie is gesturing with both arms flailing in the air.

He has a fucking type.

When the younger kids finally leave and the group dwindles, Jeff and Gareth bemoan who the fuck is gonna run Hellfire now and Jonathan and Steve both throw a name into the hat - and Eddie's only met the kids that seem to hero worship Steve a few times but he tells Jeff to be in the lookout for them and proceeds to chug a full cup of punch. Grimaces once he's done, and Steve shoots Gareth a frown because - because they'd come up with a plan, sort of, and this party was mostly for Eddie even if Steve had graduated too but he hadn't planned on Eddie getting wasted.

"Don't see why you can't still go through with it," Gareth says under his breath while Jonathan and Eddie are getting high next to the pool, and Steve pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to remind himself that Gareth, for all that he's the closest thing Steve has to a confidante outside of Eddie, has been on one date in his entire life.

"I'm not gonna tell him I'm in fucking love with him when he might be too drunk to goddamn remember it," he tells Gareth and Gareth's eyes go a bit wide because - whoops, Steve hasn't actually said that before.

"You -."

"New plan," Steve interrupts before Gareth can call him out on it. "I'm gonna drink the rest of that punch and forget we ever even made a plan."

Gareth recruits Jeff to talk him down from that.

---

Steve gets a card from his parents for graduation and a week later he gets a call from his father telling him it's time for him to man up and make his own way in the world.

At least, that's what Eddie had gleaned from the conversation they'd had on his front stoop two days before graduation.

He wakes up from a night of getting absolutely blitzed to his face plastered against one of the soft pillows from Steve's bed and spends a good thirty minutes staring at the plaid wallpaper before he finally manages to turn over to find the glass of water and the bottle of Tylenol on the bedside table. By the time he finally manages to make it down the stairs the rest of the overnighters were already stirring, and Steve is making waffles and talking to Nancy in a quiet voice.

"...didn't even get into Tech. He's just trying to prove a point, because he hates having a screwup for a son."

"Did you even apply to Tech?" Nancy asks, and Steve shoots her a look over his shoulder. The answer is no, and Eddie knows that because these are the kinds of conversations he has with Steve, the same soft voices and then same knowing looks and Eddie watches them for a moment with something burgeoning on understanding.

The moment is broken when Gareth rolls past Eddie into the kitchen and does a double take.

"Nice sweatshirt," he says, and he wiggles his eyebrows like that's supposed to mean something - but Eddie hadn't even realized he wasn't wearing the same thing he'd come in until Gareth pointed it out.

It's Steve's - and Eddie hadn't paid it much mind when he woke up because he'd woken up in Steve's fucking bed but it smells like him - some sort of sports related monstrosity with green and orange accents and when Jeff claps him on the back and says the same fucking thing Eddie watches Steve's face go pink.

He's annoyingly cute, and Eddie shoves that thought down because in a moment of weakness he'd allowed himself to compare his relationship with Steve to Nancy fucking Wheelers relationship with Steve and - and it's a fucking sweatshirt, and Eddie vaguely remembers spilling punch on his own shirt, and Steve bundling him up the stairs and tossing a change of clothes at him, remembers splaying himself out on Steve's bed once he'd changed, and then nothing. He'd had a fucking lot to drink.

Everyone trickles out after breakfast, Gareth the last to leave before Eddie, and Eddie watches the two of them have a whispered argument by the front door that ends in him gesturing in Eddies direction and then throwing up his hands before shoving past Steve out the door

He doesn't get what Gareth's problem with Steve is.

Steve is - Steve's great, actually, which is a problem for Eddie in particular but shouldn't be an issue for Gareth the same way, because Gareth is strictly a tits man. No, Gareth had had a bug up his ass about Steve Harrington since that first day and Eddie hates that he won't just give up whatever idea he's got in his head that Steve isn't a fucking dream.

He's bad at ignoring the crush, alright?

When Steve sidles back into the kitchen he's got a serious look on his face Eddie doesn't particularly like. And - he should probably go, too, like the rest of them, but he's still perched up on the counter, wearing Steve Harrington's clothes and drinking Steve Harrington's coffee and admiring Steve Harrington's stupid pretty face.

He's so fucked.

"What do you remember from last night?" Steve asks once he's got his own coffee cup back in his hand, and Eddie gives him a rundown of the first half without issue. It gets a little foggy after he'd downed a second cup of punch.

"Did I do something stupid?" He doesn't drink very often, is the thing - too many bad memories of the elder Munson getting shithoused - but he'd fucking graduated and flipped Higgins the bird with diploma in hand and he'd indulged, just the once.

Steve grimaces. "Not - stupid, no. Just. Before you fell asleep you uh..."

Eddie tries to pull up the memory, gets a throbbing pain in his temple for the trouble, and manages only a vague whisper of a memory - catching Steve's fingers in his own as Steve tucked a blanket over him.

Steve takes a sip of his coffee. Runs a hand through his hair - delightfully messy, which is the sort of thing Eddie should t let himself linger on too long because it's not like he's going to get to see him like this often, rumpled and sleepy even though he's been up for a while now.

"You. Said something "

Eddie says a lot of things, and mostly he says a lot of bullshit, but -

Steve's knuckles against Eddie's lips, minty fresh breath because Steve had told him he'd feel better in the morning if he brushed his teeth before he passed out, Steve standing over him and smiling as Eddie's eyes shuttered closed, a soft sigh escaping his lips as Steve's fingers drifted from his. "Love you," he'd muttered under his breath, when Steve's footsteps had retreated -

Fucking.

Drunk Eddie is a goddamn problem.

"What did I say?" Eddie asks, and he's thankful his voice doesn't waver because he's gotta play this off, some how, some way, because he's not ready to not have Steve in his life and -

"It - it doesn't." Steve sighs. "You really don't remember?"

And he sounds - upset, about it, like he'd expected they'd be able to talk about it later.

"Uh..."

Steve runs a hand over his face. Sighs. Turns his head up to stare at the ceiling and Eddie, like an idiot, stares at the long line of his neck and thinks about biting it.

"Screw it," Steve says, and before Eddie can so much as blink Steve's across the kitchen and crowding into Eddie's space. He's shorter, like this, with Eddie perched on the counter, has to tilt his head up to catch Eddie's gaze and he's - close. Closer than Eddie tends to let him be for extended periods of time. "I like you, Eddie."

"...but?"

Steve snorts, and his hand curls around Eddie's knee, which is - it's doing something to Eddie's head, and maybe he's still drunk from last night because everything feels a bit hazy. "No but, man. I - you -." He scrunches up his nose the same way Wheeler does, but Eddie doesn't find it half as endearing when Nancy does it. "You've had my name splashed across your back all morning and it's driving me crazy, man, I'm so into you it's not even funny."

Nice sweatshirt, both Jeff and Gareth had said, like they were all in on some sort of joke, and Steve had chosen this shit out of one of his drawers, and Steve hadn't seemed like he had much to drink at all last night, and Steve is -

"If this is a joke it's a fucked up one, Steve."

Steve curls a hand into Eddie's hair and kisses him.

---

Gareth doesn't comment on the sweatshirt when he strides into the Harrington garage two days later, but he takes one look at the purpling bruise on Steve's neck and spends a moment torn between wanting to high five the dude and bemoan how insufferable Eddie's going to be with a full ass boyfriend. He keeps his mouth shut instead.

Jeff doesn't have the same problem. "Nice hickey," he says, poking at it as Steve hands out drinks, and Steve goes red and ducks his head but later, in the quiet privacy of the closed garage he tugs at Eddie's belt loop and presses a kiss to his cheek in full view of the band. Eddie preens, so Gareth was 100% right about that.

On the plus side, Gareth thinks, even as Eddie tries to persuade them to warm up with a fucking love song, at least Eddie might have something to stick around in Hawkins for a little bit longer.

#steddie #steddie fanfic #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #steve harrington x eddie munson #stranger things fanfiction #ash recommends stranger things

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siriusly-rem-fic-recs · 3 years ago

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This put such a big smile on my face, I’m crying

Remus is still my all time favorite comfort character and with the way I’ve been feeling I needed some cute stuff :’)

James and Sirius my beloved balls of energy. I love them all so much

the girl with the books | r.l

pairings: remus lupin x reader (she/her pronouns) genre(s): marauder era, strangers to lovers, fluff, humour summary: james and sirius notice that it’s not the books that keep remus in the library, and are determined to know whether you – the object of remus’s affection – return his feelings. word count: 3.0k warning(s): none note: this is a 2022 update of the fic of the same name that i wrote back in 2016! my writing has improved by leaps and bounds and i couldn’t help but edit and improve the fic that a few of you seemed to really love :) i hope you enjoy it if you liked the original, or that you find something new to read

The Hogwarts library was the place where you found the most solace. Even on the few days that the Scottish countryside provided undisturbed sunshine, like today, you preferred to curl up with a book on one of the grand wooden tables. You enjoyed your time in the library; reading fiction or researching different topics that you were curious about. While your friends encouraged you to enjoy the warm day with them, you easily waved them off in favour of the dimly lit library.

Remus Lupin could be found in the library as often as you, except it wasn’t the books that kept him coming back. The sight of you sitting in a corner reading by yourself was enough to draw his attention every few minutes. He couldn’t even help himself, his eyes had no choice in the way they continually found your figure, but he was in no place to complain.

Remus sat with his three best friends at the other end of the library, and they were less than happy to be spending the first sunny day of spring in the library rather than bothering the giant squid in the black lake. Now that the weather was no longer freezing, Sirius and James were desperate to cause some mischief, and Peter was happy to comply.

“What is it that you find so fascinating about a hall full of books?” Sirius inquired, lifting a book up from the table, grimacing at the idea of spending his free time reading, and carelessly dropping it back onto the table.

Remus flinched as the sound resonated throughout the library, capturing your attention as you gave the four friends an inquisitive look. For a moment, Remus held his breath, unable to tear his eyes away from you as you gave him a speck of casual attention. Realising it was just James Potter and his friends messing around, you happily returned to your reading without a second thought.

“It’s not about the books, Padfoot,” Remus snapped quietly, glancing away with reddened cheeks, the heat of your gaze on him still warming his body. “And I didn’t force you to be here,” he reminded.

“Well, no,” Sirius sighed. “But it’s terribly tragic for you to spend the first nice day Hogwarts has seen in-“

“A decade,” James chimed in, exaggerating to help Sirius make a point.

“A decade,” Sirius agreed with a nod. “Inside a hall full of books instead of playing outside with us! As your friend, it’s our duty to convince you to abandon this wretched place and do something more fun.”

“Well said, Padfoot,” James agreed, tall frame spread languidly across three chairs in a makeshift bed. “Dare I say, revolutionary. So, black lake, Moony?”

“I’m perfectly content here, thank you very much,” Remus refused, thoroughly entertained by James and Sirius’s usual dramatics.

“Who could be content in such an oppressive place,” Sirius complained, as if he himself didn’t have good grades and didn’t spend time studying in this very library. “Other than Lily,” he added, recognising the smitten glint in James’s eyes that he got every time he brought her up.

“She’s so responsible, my lovely Lily,” James sighed, pleased with himself. “I’m going to marry that girl, just you wait and see. It’s the only reason I come to the library with her.”

“You come to the library to chat up Lily? No wonder you aren’t dating yet,” Sirius teased. As James and Sirius went back and forth poking fun at each other, Peter pondered Remus’s words.

“If you’re not here for the books, what are you here for?” Peter wondered aloud, causing Sirius and James to glance expectantly at their friend.

Remus rolled his eyes, intending to fabricate a fantastic comeback that would distract his three friends, but even the thought of you caused his stare to drift back to where you were, now getting up to choose a different book to check out of the library.

He loved the way you did that. Even if you finished a book in your time at the library, you always made sure to bring a book with you.

Remus loved the way you did everything, really. He had always liked you, ever since you loaned him a quill when he forgot his during Defence Against the Dark Arts. Even now, it was his favourite class just because it made him think of you.

“Moony?” Sirius waved a hand in front of Remus’s face in an attempt to grab his attention. “Remus, what are you staring at?” he followed Remus’s gaze and saw exactly what he was staring at. “Oh,” he said, finally connecting all the very obvious clues together. “It’s not a what, it’s a who,” Sirius practically giggled with glee.

James’s head snapped in your direction, scrambling to sit up and launch himself next to Sirius in an effort to get a good look at you. This commotion once again drew your attention, leading James and Sirius to act as naturally as they could. They picked up the books stacked in front of them and made a big deal out of reading the text aloud, the act so comical and over-the-top that it couldn’t possibly be convincing.

You grinned to yourself, shaking your head in amusement, and slipped behind a bookshelf to look over the Herbology section. Frank Longbottom had recommended a delightful title on growing Dittany and other healing herbs, and you took the older boy’s recommendations very seriously.

Once you were out of sight, James tossed his book thoughtlessly aside, snatching Remus’s book from his grasp to gain his undivided attention. “Who is that, Moony my dear?” James asked, adjusting his glasses. They had slipped down his nose when he whipped his head around to look at you, and the act had made the boy a little dizzy.

“Who?” Remus asked, knowing that his performance was pitiful and unconvincing, and pretending not to understand regardless of this fact. “What do you mean?”

Frustrated that Remus was lying, and subsequently that he was an absolutely terrible liar, Sirius exclaimed, “The girl you were staring at!”

“Who is that girl? Do you know her?” James asked excitedly, taking a more enthusiastic approach than Sirius in hopes that it would make Remus open up about his crush.

“Girl?” Remus repeated, squinted as if he was giving this conversation a real good thought, before widening his eyes sarcastically. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sorry boys.”

James and Sirius shared a look – having a silent conversation that Remus would promptly regret keeping them in the dark about his crush – before rolling their eyes and sighing. They had decided it: they were just going to have to catch you when Remus was gone.

A few hours later, it had darkened considerably since you first entered the library, and once you realised that you had been hauled up in the library for a considerable amount of time, you realised how hungry you were. Perhaps camping out in the library all day without a proper lunch wasn’t your best idea, but at least you knew dinner would be ready soon.

Rising, you stretched your legs before collecting all the books you had flicked through that day and moving to stow them back in their original places on the tall Hogwarts library shelves. Most of them were within a reasonable reach, slotting easily into their previous spots as you strolled happily throughout the library. However, one of the books was at a considerably higher place on the shelf, and you couldn’t put it away even on the tips of your toes.

With a huff of frustration, you stood flat on your feet and were about to reach for your wand when someone took the book from your grasp. “Here,” a voice said from behind you. “Let me help you with that!”

You turned just in time to see Sirius Black easily putting your book away for you, his friend James Potter standing nearby with an uncharacteristic spring in his step. Though James and Sirius were always a ball of energy in the classes you shared with them, the grins they sported today were difficult to identify. Perhaps mischievous would be the best way to describe the perfect simpers on their faces.

“Thanks,” you acknowledged his help with furrowed brows, wondering what Sirius and James could possibly be so ecstatic about. When the two boys simply stared at you, unmoving, you figured that they wanted something from you. “Did you two need something?” you asked, their unwavering smiles growing slightly unnerving.

“Oh!” Sirius seemed to realise that they were staring at you, and how disturbing this might be to a girl they had hardly spoken to. “Right! Yes, actually. We wanted to have a word with you.”

“Okay,” you nodded as if this wasn’t unusual. James and Sirius certainly didn’t seem to think their behaviour was odd, so you figured they were harmless on this particular occasion.

“We were just wondering if you knew Remus,” James explained himself, barely keeping still with excitement. “I mean, you do know him, don’t you?”

You nodded, still weary of where the conversation was leading. Sirius and James were known to be pranksters, and you weren’t sure if you were the next victim of one of their jokes. “Yes, I know Remus,” you confirmed. “He’s your friend, right? I speak to him sometimes when we’re in the library at the same time.” When Sirius and James linked hands and started jumping up and down, utter confusion overwhelmed you. “Uh, why do you ask?”

Noticing your discomfort, James and Sirius stopped jumping in favour of smiling at you. “I’m sorry, what was your name again? We share a few classes but between listening to the Professor and keeping James in check it can be hard to keep up,” Sirius said, his natural charisma making him instantly likeable.

“Y/n,” you introduced yourself.

“Nice to meet you, Y/n,” James said politely. “Now, this may seem quite blunt, but we want to set you up with our friend Remus,” he said matter-of-factly, followed by an encouraging nod from Sirius.

Your eyes widened at the confession. “Oh,” you said awkwardly. “I’m not going to lie, I had no idea that’s what you were going to say.”

“We have that effect on people,” said James, nodding sympathetically, as if people often had this reaction to the things they said. “So? What do you say? Give our mate Remus a chance?”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” you shook your head, trying to smile politely.

The smiles on Sirius and James’s faces faded. “Why not?” Sirius inquired, tilting his head to the side as he observed your nervous expression. “Do you not like Remus?”

“Why wouldn’t you like Remus?” James added, appalled and affronted at the mere idea of someone not liking their best friend. “You like reading, don’t you? Well, Remus might even have you beat! He’s the world’s biggest bookworm.”

“Incorrigible,” Sirius agreed. “Can’t get him out of this bloody library. And you aren’t helping, either,” he added.

“I’m not?”

“Of course not!” James exclaimed. “You only keep him here even longer than usual! Even on a day as lovely as this.”

“Perfect for wasting time,” sighed Sirius, lamenting the wonderful day outside they had missed out on. “So, how come you don’t like Remus?”

“That’s not it,” you said hurriedly, struggling to get a word in amongst their quick banter. “It’s just,” you sighed. “Why are you asking me this anyway?” you changed the subject, hoping it would take some of the heat off of you.

Luckily for you, it worked. “Well, Remus seems to have developed a crush on you,” James said casually, as if he wasn’t bearing one of his best friends’ deepest secret. Well, second deepest secret. “It’s really quite adorable. All the typical crush symptoms. You know, longing gazes,” James began listing the many qualities he had noticed in Remus during the last few hours. “Romantic, hopeless sighing whenever you’re around, losing focus, refusing to play with his best friends even on a day as perfect as this.”

“The list goes on!” Sirius exclaimed. You had to smile at the two friends, not only were they quite comical, but they seemed to be buzzing with endless energy. “I think it would benefit you to give Remus a chance. He’s rather attractive, our friend.”

“Though, not as attractive as us,” James added, winking to show that he was joking.

“Well we can’t hold everyone to such impossible standards,” Sirius said sympathetically, nodding to himself. “Still, he’s quite attractive! Charming and kind, too. All the things girls like. So are you in?”

“Well,” you stammered, feeling your face burning with embarrassment when you saw how intently Sirius and James were looking at you.

To save you from your answer, the sound of Remus’s footsteps and voice interrupted your sentence. “What are you boys still doing here,” he froze when he came into view, noticing the way Sirius and James had cornered you. “Y/n?” he asked, the picture of you hanging out with his two best friends nothing short of foreign and unfamiliar. Remus sighed in annoyance when he saw Sirius and James exchange guilty faces. “What have these two told you?” he asked you, already dreading your answer.

“We didn’t tell her much,” Sirius said, quick to defend their actions. “We’ve just been… talking,” he added, purposely leaving out the subject matter. James nodded rigorously, smiling innocently at Remus with visible panic in his eyes.

“I’ll talk to you both later,” Remus said to his friend, tone firm and borderline scolding. Then, he faced you with what looked like an apologetic smile. “Do you need help putting that away?” he asked, nudging his head to the last two books in your arms

You smiled, instantly more comfortable now that Remus was there. With a nod, you left Sirius and James behind in favour of putting your books away. “Listen,” Remus began, gently taking your books and putting them on the correct shelf in the Herbology section. “I’m really sorry for whatever Sirius and James said,” he let out a nervous laugh, easily reaching the high shelves thanks to his tall height.

“Don’t be,” you shrugged, charmed by Remus’s very presence. Something about Remus’s gentle spirit contrasted comfortably with Sirius and James’s craziness, and it settled your heart in a wonderful way. “They meant well, I think,” you smiled up at Remus. “Your friends are really nice.”

“I wouldn’t say nice, perhaps deranged is more accurate,” Remus joked, a pleased smile gracing his lips when you laughed. “But they’re pretty great. I can always count on them to say things I’m too scared to say,” he admitted, trailing off into a comfortable silence.

“I don’t know about them being deranged, but they did have some interesting things to say,” you admitted, fully intending to tease Remus once you realised his friends were telling the truth. He really did have a crush on you. “All about crushes, and longing gazes,” you added, grinning when you saw Remus turn slightly pink at your insinuation.

Remus groaned, lifting his hands to cover his face in embarrassment. “Oh Merlin,” he muttered, nervous laughter bubbling from his mouth. “I’m so sorry! If anything they said made you uncomfortable, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you shook your head. “I wasn’t uncomfortable. Stunned by the sheer force of their energy? Definitely. But not uncomfortable. I guess it was just hard to believe,” you admitted. “Still is, really.”

“What, that I fancy you?” Remus asked, uncovering his eyes once you assured him that you weren’t upset. “Why is that hard to believe?”

“I don’t know, you’re… Remus Lupin,” you explained terribly. “You’re a Gryffindor and you’re funny and popular. Your friends didn’t even know what my name was and I’ve been in your class for nearly six years now,” you recalled, shrugging your shoulders good-naturedly.

“Sirius and James hardly remember their own names, I wouldn’t take it personally,” Remus wisecracked, though there was a seriousness in his eyes that made you believe his words. “Besides, the trouble is only just starting!” he added. “Now that they know your name, you won’t be able to get rid of them.”

“Sounds terrifying,” you joked back, grinning.

“There’s no escaping those two,” Remus said dramatically. “I’ve been trying to shake them for six years now, but they don’t seem to care.”

“Maybe I should change my name,” you offered.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Remus burst out, laughing at your banter. You grinned at each other, so absorbed with the other person that you didn’t notice Sirius and James poke their heads around the shelf to eavesdrop on your conversation. “Y/n, do you think,” Remus paused, intimidated by the adorable way in which you turned your head and smiled at him. You were overwhelmingly perfect, and it was really starting to distract the poor boy. “Would you maybe…”

“Would I maybe?” you encouraged.

“Would you maybe want to go to Hogsmeade with me? This upcoming weekend? If you’re not busy that weekend, I mean,” Remus said, barely getting the words out without struggling.

“Oh,” the smile on your face widened almost impossibly so. “I think I might be busy,” Remus’s face dropped, eyes averting to his feet to hide his disappointment. “Changing my name to avoid these two boys I just met. However, their friend is pretty cute, so perhaps I could postpone my plans,” you added quickly, not wanting your joke to go badly.

Remus’s head rose quickly to meet your eyes, a relieved sigh leaving him. “Really?” he asked rhetorically, and before you could confirm your answer, you heard loud cheering come from beside you. Within seconds, James and Sirius leapt out from behind you and tackled Remus into a hug.

“Yeah Remus!”

“That’s our best friend!”

“Our best friend is finally going on a date!”

“Don’t scare her off,” Remus warned, pushing James away as he started peppering kisses across his face. “Seriously, stop it,” he laughed, not meaning a single word.

“No,” Sirius said proudly, pulling you in to join their hug. “Y/n’s just going to have to get used to us.”

You quite liked the sound of that.

#the literal love of my life #remus lupin #marauders fic #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin fanfic #marauders imagine #ash recommends marauders

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siriusly-rem-fic-recs · 3 years ago

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Arius best character 😤

Please I want to know reader’s backstory so bad. Anyway I love it!!

Paring: Reggie Peters x Reader

Summary: (Y/n) (L/n) has been able to see and feel ghosts ever since she was little, which made it hard to tell the ghosts from the humans. Everyone has always thought she was a bit crazy, even her best friends, Julie and Flynn. But when three ghosts with a love for music appear in Julie's garage, suddenly (Y/n) doesn't seem so crazy anymore.

“If our love makes you crazy, then I must be insane.”

*Warnings= mentions of drugs, alcohol, sex and violence throughout the series*

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

A/N: I do give credit to the people who created the song in the beginning of each chapter, but i want to specify that a lot of the songs after season one are “originals” from the band and/or one person, bc I can’t make up 50 different songs for this fic😀

<< Main Masterlist

#reggie jatp #reggie peters #reggie peters x reader #julie and the phantoms #jatp fanfiction #ash recommends jatp

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siriusly-rem-fic-recs · 3 years ago

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Sobbing. All the little trinkets

I love rocks and I love gifting them to my friends this is so cute 😭😭

The Price of a Kiss - Eddie Munson x reader

Summary - You start trading Eddie little nick knacks for kisses

A/N - Tiiiniest little drabble from my drafts because I feel bad not being able to post any new writing, 1k words

“What’s this?” Eddie’s eyes weren't even looking at the rock you were holding up in front of him, his dark, doe brown eyes were linked to yours, and he wasn’t planning on looking away.

“A rock,” you smiled proudly at him, the small stone glinting softly in the sunlight as you held it up, with tiny streaks of crystal scattering the light and reflecting onto his face.

“I can see it’s a rock sweetheart,” he said as he picked the small rock from your fingers before holding it up to the sunlight and admiring it. “But why?”

“I dunno- I saw it and it looked pretty, I wanted to give it to you,” you wrung your hands together as you spoke and in that moment Eddie knew you had to be the most adorable creature to ever walk this earth-

“So you saved it? Brought it all the way here to me?” Eddie asked you with big eyes, the rock long since pocketed in his black ripped jeans, and you nodded in response to his question, biting your lip ever so slightly.

“Why thank you sweetheart,” his voice was soft as he spoke, and he was close enough that you could hear every slight shift in his voice, every breath and tone change. Eddie’s arm was wrapped around your waist bringing you impossibly close to him. “How could I ever repay you?”

It was painstakingly clear what he wanted, his lips were hovering over yours, almost brushing but just barely not, yet you could still swear you would know what he would taste like when he finally kissed you.

“A kiss perhaps?” your eyebrows raised ever so slightly and you tipped your head to the side, pursing your lips together as you looked at him.

“A fair trade indeed,” Eddie cooed at you softly, his rough hands grabbing your face and cupping it in his hands before he connected your lips together. His lips slightly chapped, but yet they were always softer than you expected, and he kissed you with such gentle care almost as if he was worried about shattering you in his grip.

“There, I think that is reward enough don’t you?” Before you could protest Eddie’s lips had left yours and you could tell he was fighting back the smirk that was nipping at the corner of his mouth. You pouted at him and stood on your tiptoes to try and reach his lips, which easily cracked his facade and his grin broke out over his face.

“Nuh-uh my love, that wasn’t our deal, I’ll suppose you’ll just have to trade me more.”

That was the first time you and Eddie exchanged a trade, and it was only the first of many times. After that you did whatever you could to find things to trade with him. Little knick knacks, a scrunchie, more pretty rocks you would pick up on the walk to his trailer, and once you made him a friendship bracelet that had him peppering your face in kisses.

“You know, I think you might end up collecting all the pebbles in Hawkins if you keep this up,” he once told you just before he gave you your well earned kiss. “I don’t care- if it means you’ll kiss me like that again I’ll do anything.

“Well, do you have something else to trade with me?”

It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t gladly give you as many kisses as you wanted, all you had to do was ask him, and you did. But you still loved the little trades you shared, and you loved finding little things to trade with him.

It almost became a little game to you, find the prettiest rock, the most perfect shell, make him something that you knew he would appreciate for more than just your small deals.

However, what you didn’t know was that Eddie kept everything you traded him, while he would pocket whatever little trinket you had brought him, when he got home, or when you weren’t looking he would slip it into the little box he had started keeping under his bed.

Even the bracelet you made for him, after he had given you your kiss he excitedly asked you to help him tie it around his wrist and after that it became a regular accessory, sitting just below his usual leather cuff. It was almost a little funny seeing the hand braided colourful friendship bracelet tied around his wrist next to the hard and cut black leather, it was such a stark contrast that it shouldn’t make sense yet somehow it did so perfectly.

It was almost like a sense of pride for him, every now and then he would reach under his bed to fumble around for the box, pouring out all the small trinkets onto his bed just to scoop them all up into his hands. Like a goblin would with his gold coins.

And it would lead to the silliest little pieces of conversation between the two of you. Like the time you were sitting on the couch, his hand tangled with yours when you pulled a slightly cracked shell out of your pocket, you didn’t even have to say anything. He simply picked it from your hand and started examining it against the dimmed light in the trailer living room.

“I don’t think this is enough for a kiss my love, my rates have gone up,” his voice was silky smooth as he spoke, and his thumb was on your chin forcing you to part your lips ever so slightly and the softest whine escaped from your lips. “Would you settle for a kiss on the cheek?”

“Everything is so expensive in this economy these days,” you muttered and complained, pouting ever so slightly at him to try and gain some affection in your bargaining.

“Oh but you’re so cute, how am I supposed to resist?” Eddie let the question hang in the air for a moment before he kissed you.

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things #ash recommends stranger things

11K notes · View notes

siriusly-rem-fic-recs · 3 years ago

Text

Minors DNI

Screaming, crying, throwing up

I love Steve sm and this was so cute 😭

Can We Always Be This Close?

Steve Harrington x fem!reader [22.4k] A biggie. Best friends to lovers, summer, childhood, pining, crushes, a kiss that wasn't supposed to happen, the last cherry popsicle and three promises.

When you were both eight years old, Steve Harrington handed you the last popsicle and told you he loved you.

It was the most innocent kind of talk, from the mouths of kids, fresh faced, summer freckles, ankles dipped in the pool and sunburn on your cheeks.

You weren’t truly sure you both knew what those words meant back then, the depth and meaning that they held. But you said them back, lemon and sugar on your tongue and he’d beamed at you, brighter than the Indiana sun and that was that.

And that night, when you were camped out on his bedroom floor, the first day of summer vacation and his bed sheets draped across your heads, he shared his secret stash of twizzlers with you, lips tinted red and pinkie fingers linked.

His eyes were solemn when he whispered to you, the dulled yells of his parents downstairs acting as his backing track. His mom was slurring a little, his dad laughing mirthlessly and something smashed. You had both flinched, moved closer together between the pillows and stuffed animals.

You remember his mouth brushing up against the shell of your ear, hushed promises falling from his lips, the kind that only an eight year old could make.

Steve Harrington promised you three things that night:

One, he’d always be your best friend.

Two, he’d always protect you from everything bad and scary.

And three, he’d never break your heart.

He only kept two of those.

Have I known you twenty seconds or twenty years?

“I think Jessica is coming over,” Steve said as he handed you a can of soda, the cold condensation on it making your fingers slip over his.

You screwed your face up and rolled your eyes behind your sunglasses - Steve’s sunglasses - ‘cause it was a rare Saturday that you’d managed to get off work together, seventeen and desperate for time to do nothing with your best friend.

It wasn’t meant, but you let the sound of annoyance slip from your lips, stretching yourself out on one of the Harrington’s sunloungers. Steve looked at you from where he’d sat himself down by the pool edge, exasperated and somewhat fond. You picked at the edge of your bikini bottoms, peachy orange and still damp from the water.

You scrunched your nose, looking over at him from over the top of his old Ray Bans as he took a sip of his cola, eyes on you, waiting for you to talk. He knew you wanted to say something, could tell from your face, the way you twisted your lips and fidgeted with your swimsuit.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

If you didn’t know the boy well enough, you’d have thought his tone was condescending, maybe even a little mocking. But when you were both fifteen, he’d stood by your side at the counter of the ice cream parlour, watching your cheeks flush a pretty shade of pink when the older guy behind the freezer had winked at you, handed you your cone and called you ‘sweetheart’.

Steve had called you the same ever since, never getting tired of the way you lit up at it, all soft and full of affection, lips twisted to hide your smile, nose turning pink.

“I thought it was just gonna be us hanging out today?” You asked, trying to keep your voice level, casual.

It was silly the way your chest was hurting, an anxious creep across your bones, making your skin too warm in a way that the sun wasn’t. It wasn’t necessarily because you didn’t like Jessica, you didn’t really know, honestly.

But you’d been in Steve’s life long enough to know that not many of his girlfriends had liked you. It made hang outs and movie nights awkward, a fresh set of eyes on you, watching the way you and Steve interacted, holding back from the way you’d normally touch him, keeping your head off his shoulder, throwing your legs over the arm of the chair instead of his lap.

You’d go to the kitchen, the bathroom, bringing back more snacks and a drink only to hear the boy being interrogated about how long had Steve known you, didn’t she have a boyfriend and god, why was she always here?

You’d stand with your back against the hallway wall, a packet of twizzlers crushed to your chest as you listened for Steve’s response. It was always the same, sure and strong and leaving no room for argument. It made you feel warm and a little safer, like you belonged in the Harrington house just as much as him, brought up in the large home with its pool and absent parents together, barbecues in the summer, Christmas in the dining room, mom and dads by your sides.

“She’s my best friend,” he’d always say, “where she goes, I go.”

Some girls put up with it for longer than others, dirty looks given to you out of the car window when Steve would insist on dropping you home too, a messy press of a kiss pushed to your cheek before he made sure you got in your front door okay.

There were girls that were done after bumping into you in the school hall, a sweater on your frame, the hem almost covering your shorts and god, they’d think, that looks awfully familiar. They’d sit in whatever class they had next, eyes on the chalkboard but their minds trying to decide if they’d seen that sweater on Steve’s bedroom floor before, thrown lazily over the back of his desk chair.

You’d find them arguing about it at his car after school, voices clipped and raised, drawing a little too much attention and you’d hear your name said like a curse. Steve would let them walk away, hands rubbing at his eyes and when he’d pull himself onto the trunk, he’d find your gaze across the parking lot and he’d smile, a little soft and a little sad.

But he’d look at you from the driver seat when he was taking you both home, eyes flickering with something else as they dare to roam across your shoulders, your chest. You’d catch him staring, brows raised and your knowing smile would make him blush but he’d tell you, everytime:

“Looks better on you anyway.”

Steve shrugged, looking a little guilty but swung a leg into the pool, letting the water swish around his shin.

“I know, but,” another shrug, his gaze on the blue tiles, “she’s my girlfriend.”

You sighed, pushing yourself off of the lounger and walking over to the edge of the pool, chlorine and cedar from the garden filling the warm air. You poked a toe to the boy’s side before sitting down next to him, both feet in the water and the garden slabs sun-warmed against the back of your thighs.

You nudged a shoulder into Steve’s, fighting a smile when he did it back, shuffling closer so your arms brushed together.

“We haven’t hung out just the two of us in ages,” you told him, trying to sound annoyed but your words came out a little mournful, huffy even. “It’s been weeks.”

You knew it wasn’t Steve’s fault. Between school and both of you working weekend jobs, it was hard to find time to see each other. And since the startling realisation of finding out there were kids with superpowers out in Hawkins, other worlds that held monsters and magic, you figured trips to the cinema were at the bottom of both of your lists.

“M’sorry,” Steve said anyway, and you hated the way he sounded, like he really meant it, like it made him sad too. “If the kids didn’t need rides to the arcade all the damn time, maybe we’d-”

You rolled your eyes, fond. “You know it’s not the kids I mind, Harrington.”

And that was true. You and Steve had taken your unofficial babysitter roles pretty seriously, and with six twelve year olds to wrangle together, it would’ve been a hard enough job without the threat of impending doom lurking behind every corner.

You’d grown up thinking monsters only lived under your bed, hiding behind your closet door, and they could be banished with a flashlight, a kiss from your mother, the promise of chocolate chip pancakes in the morning from your father.

But you’d grown up too fast, seeing things that weren’t supposed to be real and you hated the way you knew how to butterfly stitch someone's skin back together, how you’d seen too much of your best friend's blood.

He pressed his nose to your shoulder, warm skin on warm skin and he let his teeth graze you, a playful threat of a bite before he sighed, knowingly, understanding.

“Jess said she likes you,” Steve offered, hands on the grass as he leaned back, head tilted to the sun. He was watching you from under his lashes, the length of them casting shadows over his cheekbones. “Said you had chem together and you were crazy smart.”

You scoffed, laughed mirthless, because the only reason Jessica Preston knew you had class with her was ‘cause she used you to cheat off of you before you moved seats.

“I bet she did,” was the only answer you gave, because the garden gate was suddenly squeaking and Steve was standing up, splashing water over your thighs as he greeted the girl in question.

“Jess, hey!” Steve called out, reaching for her and pressing a kiss to her lips. His came away glossy and a little pink as Jessica reached into her bag, pulling out a tube and quickly reapplying. He gestured to you, smiling, “you two know each other, right?”

You grimaced, holding your hand up in some sort of wave before you pushed Steve’s glasses onto your head.

“Sure,” you said, not sounding sure at all. You stood up, brushing drops of water and small flecks of gravel from your skin. “Chemistry, Mrs Telford’s class.”

Jessica squinted at you, pretty features twisted in confusion and Steve wanted to jump head first into the pool from the awkward silence that had filled the yard.

“Right!” The girl finally gasped out, all false smiles and white teeth. “Totally! Of course.”

And then, you were dismissed.

“Steve, there’s a party tonight,” you heard the girl tell him, stomach twisting as you walked past them, grabbing your shorts from the lounger and dragging them up your legs. “Matt’s parents are gone and,” she tapped a finger on his chest, trailing it down his sternum. “So are mine.”

You wondered if you had too much sun, wondered if the heat was what was making your insides bubble, your chest feeling too tight. You found your way into the kitchen, the open patio door doing nothing to curb the same heat that had leaked in from outside.

You ran the tap, waiting for it to turn freezing before filling a glass and chugging it, back pressed against the counter so you didn’t have to look out the window.

You could still hear them though.

“You can pick me up, right? I’ll be ready at eight and then you can stay over at mine,” Jess was practically purring and it made you slam the now empty glass down into the sink a little harder than you meant to. “We’ll have the place all to ourselves.”

“Uh, actually, we’re having a movie night later,” you froze, turning to look over your shoulder to see Steve gesture to you through the window. Jess followed his hand, lips downturned and eyes holding venom.

“You’re kidding right?” The girl asked, disbelief spilling from her lips. “I’m offering you a night in my bed and you’re turning me down for Back To The Future with her?”

It was actually The Goonies, you’d wanted to tell her, but Steve was licking his lips nervously, eyes flickering between you and Jess and you really wish you could say something to save him.

You stepped out the patio doors, arms crossed self consciously over your chest. “Steve, it’s okay, we-”

Steve shrugged and he didn’t look surprised when Jessica stepped out of his embrace, glossy lips twisted in shock and annoyance.

“We’ve had it planned for a while Jess,” he explained, “movies, pizza and-”

“Well come after,” Jess demanded, like it was simple. “Or better yet, just do your stupid movie night some other time.”

Steve looked confused, staring down at the girl as if he was wondering which part she wasn’t understanding. You grimaced, eyes wanting to fall shut ‘cause you knew what the boy was going to say and god, you wished you could hide from it.

But then he was explaining to her that you were staying over, crashing at his like you always did, like you had done for years.

Steve said it so plainly that you almost wanted to laugh. In fact, your lip twitched, the threat of a smile pulling at it and you turned, toeing at the grass as you waited for the impending blow out. The boy had an endearing habit of stating the truth with such a sincerely soft tone, almost oblivious to the carnage his honesty could sometimes cause.

“I’m sorry,” Jessica stated, voice climbing a little higher in volume and pitch as she took in this new information. “I could’ve sworn you just told me you had another girl staying with you tonight.”

Steve scrunched his nose, mouth parting as he wondered what he was supposed to say to that. He floundered, hands gesturing wildly as he tried to gain some control on the matter.

“Jess, what? It’s not a big deal, it’s not like that.”

And he was right, it wasn’t. Not yet.

Nothing had ever happened with you and Steve, not when you were pressed together at night, side by side in his bed, moving closer as you slept, pillow creases on your cheeks, hands close to places you shouldn’t have been touching.

Nothing happened in the mornings either, when you were both soft with sleep, hair mussed and misbehaving, warm hands and toes pushing into the other's skin as you tried to find the comfort of that lazy feeling in each other.

You’d never noticed him stare at you when you got out of the shower, skin still damp, hair pushed back from your face and a too big shirt clinging to your thighs. He never realised you held your breath when he pulled his top off at night, body warm and solid beside you, fingers desperate to trace a map of constellations across his back, freckle to freckle.

Your realisation that your best friend wasn’t just attractive, but was pretty, was a slow burn. It came as you aged, an appreciation growing as you did, Steve too. You noticed the boys in your class as they grew taller, filling out, and you didn’t realise the same was happening to Steve until the summer you both turned fifteen.

You’d spent school vacation at his parents lake house, watched him laze shirtless on the small motorboat, new muscles flexing, drops of water casting tiny rainbows across the tanned skin it clung to. He’d grown his hair out, chocolate brown strands out of control and messy, boyish as it was pretty. You didn’t know what to do with this new information, new feelings, and when Steve continued to throw you over his shoulder, playing in the shallows of the lake, his wide hands spanning the curves of your thighs, your hips, you ignored the burn his touch left behind.

Jess huffed out a laugh and it sounded dangerous, a little like a threat. She found your gaze, held it until hers dropped to scan you up and down, doing her best to make you feel small.

“Whatever, Harrington,” she shoved past Steve, shoulder edging into his chest as she headed for the gate. “Ask your little friend to suck your dick instead.”

You burned at her words, eyes wide as you stared at a crack in the patio, refusing to watch as she stormed through the gate, the hinges protesting loudly as it was slammed shut, leaving you both in silence.

The trickle of the pool filter was the only sound for a minute, maybe two, then you heard Steve sigh, heavy and world weary. You looked at him, feeling a little guilty.

“Shouldn’t you go after her?” You asked.

Steve gave a half shrug, already moving to sit down on the lounger that you’d spent your morning on. You joined him, sitting on the end so you didn’t touch, like you weren’t supposed to after Jessica’s accusation.

“Nah,” he told you, “it’s fine, it’s… whatever.”

You snorted and the sound made the corners of his mouth lift a little, eyes flitting over to you, always interested in what you were going to say.

“That’s a new height of romance, Harrington,” you mused, foot dipping into a small puddle of pool water. You drew lines and shapes on the dry concrete with your toe, watching the sun dry them out almost instantly. “It’s whatever?”

“I dunno,” Steve sighed, reaching over to pluck his sunglasses back from the top of your head and pushing them over the bridge of his nose. He looked good with them on, you mused, too pretty, too nice. “Wasn’t like we had that much in common.“

“Then why date her in the first place?” You asked, face twisting with annoyance.

Steve had developed a habit in freshman year of dating girls who gave him nothing more than wandering hands in the back of his car, passive aggressive comments when he missed their calls and whiplash when they found out about you.

A smirk tugged at his lips, a handsome match with his Ray Bans and messy hair and he turned to you, eyebrows raised.

“You’re a pig,” you muttered, trying to sound disgusted but Steve was pushing his fingers into your sides, hands dragging over your ribs and you were laughing despite yourself, “get off me!”

You were ignored, unsurprisingly, and you wondered if Jessica had made it back to her car yet, if she’d driven away or if she had heard your shriek of delight when Steve suddenly stood and scooped you up.

One arm was wrapped around your waist, a wide, rough hand pressed against the skin just under your breast, his thumb grazing the of your bikini. The other curved itself on your thigh, your body held tight to his as he ran with you, hurtling you both to the edge of the pool and you pressed your face into his neck when he jumped, bracing yourself for the cool water.

Steve didn’t let you go until you both surfaced, his feet planted on the bottom of the pool as he pushed you both to the surface. Your hands were around his neck and you gasped, water dripping from your lashes and lips, hair a wet mess and he was laughing. That soft laugh that made any summer day feel warmer than it already was, a laugh that reminded you of fresh lemonade and bedroom sheet forts.

He let go of your legs before you waist, letting the lower half of your body slide out of his grasp and slide against his, so you were chest to chest, your abdomens pressed together and you almost lost your footing, chin slipping under the water, eyes gazing up at him despite the way the sun made it hurt.

Maybe it was the way you pressed a hand to his stomach to ground yourself, feeling the muscles tense under your touch, maybe it was the way you were looking at him, maybe he just forgot he wasn’t supposed to look at you like that. But something happened and Steve cleared his throat, letting go of your waist and allowing himself to fall backwards and under the water.

He reappeared a few feet away, hair darker and slicked back, eyes a little wild as he looked at you, like you were suddenly dangerous.

And I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you.

You weren’t overly fond of Nancy Wheeler, not at first.

You couldn’t deny that the dislike you felt for the girl stemmed from jealousy and your own inability to get a handle on your feelings but, you had to admit, she was better than most of the girls Steve had dated before.

Pretty, smart, sharp and with a keen eye. She liked journalism, the quiet and even you. You shared the knowledge of The Upside Down, bonded over the fear you both felt for her brother and his friends and when you passed each other in the hallway, you nodded, civil and overly aware of all the things you’d both seen together.

You weren’t joined at the hip and you didn’t love how she slid her hand into Steve’s, or how he kissed her at her locker, telling you he’d catch up with you at lunch. You’d spent months telling yourself you weren’t jealous of Nancy, just that you missed your best friend and you resented the way the girl took up all his free time.

You missed the way he snuck in your bedroom window, a pointless task and waste of his energy, ‘cause your parents would hear him clambering up their drainpipe, eyes rolling, fond and affectionate, ‘cause it was Steve.

He’d always told you that he did it for the fun of it, to see you smile when his head appeared over the sill and so you’d help him clamber over the window frame. He’d spend the late hours with you, whispering about nothing and laughing about everything, shoulder to shoulder in your bed until you both fell asleep, sprawled on top of the sheets, his shoes in the middle of your floor and his arm slung over your waist.

You liked it when the sun woke you early, the curtain still opened from when you’d forgotten to close them after Steve’s sudden appearances, the light pink and peach as it leaked into your room. It painted stripes of light and shadow over your walls, over the boy’s broad shoulders and cheek, the other smushed into your mattress, hair a mess and lips parted sleepily.

You got to admire him like that, when his eyes were still closed and he was so unaware. Steve couldn’t catch you staring, wondering if his lips were actually as soft as they looked, if he knew how pretty you thought he was, if he thought you were pretty too.

He still picked you up for school in the morning, his BMW sat at the end of your drive but his clothes were sleep creased, hair mussed from spending the night with Nancy instead, sneaking through her bedroom window and not yours. He still smacked a kiss to your cheek when you parted for class but it wasn’t the same, he wasn’t quite just yours anymore and you hated the way it hurt.

So yeah, you could appreciate that Nancy was a nice person and seemed to be good for Steve - at least, until she wasn’t - but you didn’t have to like her for it.

When she broke your best friend’s heart, you’d found him sitting on the hood of his car after school, lips downturned and expression sour, nothing but worry beating in your chest ‘cause you hadn’t seen him since the morning before and no one answered your calls to his house that night.

But then rumours started swirling around the halls, floating over tables in the cafeteria like wildfire and you couldn’t fucking find him. You saw Nancy in the library during your free period, her head bent close to Jonathan Byers as they whispered about something you couldn’t hear, their hands on the table, fingers too close to touching and Nancy had the right to look guilty when her gaze met your own.

So you’d marched straight over to Steve and he crumbled a little when he saw it was you, slipping off the hood and letting you usher him to the front seat. He didn’t really hesitate when you held out your hand to him, silently asking him to let you take care of him.

He placed the car keys in your palm, eyes tired, face sad and you were desperate to fix it. You hadn’t seen Steve like that before and you didn’t know what to do, his pain was yours, your heart beating hard against your chest until you felt like your bones were bruised.

There were talks of the girl cheating on him, wandering around late with Jonathan and you knew they shared the same worries and trauma that you all did when it came to knowing things the rest of the town didn’t, but you didn’t know what was happening between the pair.

So you drove him home, listened when Steve told you that he loved her, that he didn’t know how to fix it. But then it was and then it wasn’t, a game of on and off, yes and no, that you couldn’t really keep up with.

It all came to a head on Halloween, after months of leaving your window open for no one.

Steve climbed in, startling you, hands finding your bedroom floor before his feet did and when he stood, eyes meeting yours, you wanted to be mad at him.

It had been a week since you hung out, passing in the halls and waving when you could, exams stressing you out and his time taken up by Nancy and all the parties he seemed intent on going to. He’d given up trying to get you to go with him, sick of it all after the second time, a spare part, third wheel, an audience to his kisses with Nancy.

But he stood by your bed with the most forlorn expression on his face, features soft and watery and you simply pulled back the sheets, shuffling over to the side that had been made yours when you were both seven, so Steve could claim his.

The boy toed off his shoes, his jacket falling to the carpet as he shrugged it off and you felt like a kid again when he crawled across your mattress, shuffling underneath the covers and pushing himself against you.

Steve got as close to you as he could without asking for a hug, his pride already seemingly too hurt to put himself out there, even with you. But he didn’t hesitate when you turned into him, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him into you, your nose pressed into his hair. He smelled like smoke and weed from the party, a little like Steve underneath it.

He returned your touch instantly, seeking it out with a desperation that almost shocked you, eager to accept it when it was offered. He tugged you in by the waist, arms wrapped around you and his face pressed into the crook of your neck.

He wished he told you then, that you smelled like summer and afternoons by the pool, like cherry popsicles and promises and home. But he didn’t feel brave enough, not then, not yet.

“We broke up,” Steve finally mumbled, voice a little broken and muffled by your neck and hair. “She broke up w’me. Called us bullshit.”

You frowned, confused, pulling back a little in the hopes that Steve would look at you and explain but his grip on your waist only tightened and you patted at his hair, smoothed the almost curls at the nape of his neck and whispered his name.

“Steve, hey, babe, what?” You received a groan in answer but you persisted, shuffling out of his grasp and gripping his chin with your finger, pushing at him a little pleadingly until the boy looked up and met your gaze.

“What happened?”

Steve didn’t answer until you pulled the sheets over your heads, your own little bed fort that let the dim light of your bedside lamp filter through, soft and warm and hazy. You let go of his chin, your hand smoothing his hair back from his face and he pushed his cheek into your touch as he spoke.

“Nancy, it’s over,” he told you, a frown pulling at his brow, “she said the whole relationship was bullshit, that I was bullshit.”

You held your breath, letting him talk as you smoothed a thumb over his cheekbone, feeling him relax into you despite the way he was letting his words tumble from his lips, mixing in with his emotions until he was stuttering over himself.

“She, she said we were just acting like we were in love?” Steve caught your stare, his eyes confused as he looked at you, as if he could find an answer in your gaze but you just gaped at him. “Said that I only thought I was in love with her ‘cause I was too busy tryin’ to pretend I wasn’t in love with someone else, or some shit like that, I don’t fuckin’ know.”

“What?” You whispered, voice full of surprise because what the fuck?

“Right?” He answered, indignant and wide eyed. “I don’t know what she was talkin’ about, she would answer me, just told me she wasn’t in love with me and god, fucking Byers took her home.”

“Jonathan?”

You screwed up your face, hardly even reacting when Steve groaned again, pushing himself back into you, his face comfortably pressed into your chest, just above the swell of your breast, his mouth warm through your shirt.

It should’ve startled you, the proximity, the intimacy, especially after missing him for so long. But it was still Steve, your best friend, the boy that promised to be there until the very end.

“Why’d Jonathan take her home?” You asked, your cheek pressed to the top of his head as you spoke, the sheets fluttering around you both as Steve shifted, arms wrapping around you more, pulling you until you were flush with his body.

He couldn’t have been touching more of you if he tried.

“She was drunk,” he mumbled into your chest, lips moving over your shirt, making the material shift across your skin and it lit you up, body electric and the air buzzing. “I told him to. She didn’t want me.”

You sighed, eyes closing at the pained sound in the boy’s voice and you let him hold you, your own hand taking into his hair, scratching at his scalp in a way you knew he liked.

“Steve,” you murmured, soft and sympathetic.

He whispered your own name back to you, his tone the same and it made you smile. You could feel his own against your chest, lips lifting, breath coming out in a small huff.

“You could still talk to her tomorrow, y’know?” You said conversationally. You hated yourself for trying to fix it for him, for attempting to out the girl back between you both but fuck if you weren’t a good friend. “Maybe she just said all that shit ‘cause she had too much to drink.”

You twirled a length of the boy’s hair around your finger, making it curl. “Was it Jack Templeman’s punch? That dude makes rocket fuel in a bowl, she might have been absolutely wasted.”

Steve shook his head before he pulled back, falling into your pile of pillows and gazing at you.

“Nah, I don’t wanna chase her,” he said and despite the sadness in his voice, he sounded sure. “I don’t wanna be with someone who thinks I’m bullshit. I mean, I know I’m not perfect, but damn, bullshit?”

You shook your head, gaze hard and you wanted to shake him, to make him understand how wrong Nancy was.

“Steve, you're not bullshit.” He held your stare, lips parted. “You’re the furthest thing from that, I’m sorry I don’t know why Nancy said that, I wish I could-”

He stopped you before you could continue, a small smile lifting at his lips and he found your hands between the tangle of sheets, tugging you over to him and onto his chest. You lay your head there, protesting when Steve’s finger poked at your cheek, fond and soft.

“I know what you’re gonna say, sweetheart, and it’s fine.” He sighed, sleepy and weighted. “You don’t need to fix everything for me, not this time, anyway.“

You fell silent, thinking about the times Steve was referring to, wondering if this was finally the year he stopped needing you. The thought made your chest hurt, your eyes blur and you sniffed.

“My dad’ll be home from that conference soon,” he mumbled softly and you could tell without even looking at Steve that he had his eyes closed. “You can come fight my battles for me then, how’s that sound short stuff?”

It was silly, his words. The way they made you feel. Like you were needed again, important. Like he didn’t wanna face the things that scared him without you. It hurt that after all those years, he still felt like that about his own father but it calmed a part of you to know that he didn’t seem as cut up about Nancy Wheeler as he once was.

“Are you okay?” You asked, tentative, and you made a face ‘cause god, that seemed like a stupid fucking question. “Will you be okay?” You asked instead.

Steve hummed noncommittally and you craned your neck to look up at him, smiling when you were proven right at his closed eyes. His lashes fluttered against his cheeks as you shifted over him, tucking yourself into his side.

“I mean yeah, sure,” he murmured, voice dropping lower and rougher as sleep pulled at him. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got you, haven’t I?”

He turned his face to yours at that, nose nudging at your forehead as he blindly sought out your features, pressing a soft, warm kiss to your temple.

“M’sorry,” he whispered into your hair and you stilled, swallowing the lump that had caught in your throat. “I’m so sorry I’ve not been around.“

You squeezed your eyes closed at his words, letting them burn until you were sure you weren’t going to cry.

You wanted to say it was okay, to soothe him, to make Steve feel better but the lie got caught on your tongue and you couldn’t bring yourself to tell him something that wasn’t true.

You shrugged instead, lips twisted to keep them from turning downwards, his words heavy on you because god, you’d missed him so much.

“I missed you,” Steve whispered and fuck, it lit you up inside. “Like, really missed you.”

He was soft and gentle with it, words brushing against your temple, breath warm, hands twisting in the sides of your shirt, barely grazing at your skin, head butting at yours playfully.

He was Steve, he was late nights, long days, summer rainstorms, driving lessons, flunking your test, Saturday afternoon drives, feet on the dash, music too loud, smile blinding.

He was a little bit yours again.

“Yeah,” you sighed, feeling a little lighter than you had before, eyes falling shut like Steve’s. “I missed you too, Harrington.”

Steve’s breath was becoming slower, chest falling heavy and lazy and you both curled into each other on instinct, sleep pulling both of you together, the same way it did when you were both ten and piled on the sofa, movie still playing.

“You still my best friend?” His voice was a soft mumble, and you heard the worry there, hidden behind a crack of humour.

“Yeah, I’m still your best friend.”

—————

You didn’t see Nancy until a week later, and when you did, you didn’t expect her to corner you at your locker, big eyes wide and asking if you could talk.

You met her after school, walking to the opposite end of the parking lot from where Steve would be waiting on you, perched on the hood of his car as usual.

Nancy saw you coming, her face a little nervous as she bid goodbye to Jonathan who’d been standing beside her and you watched as they squeezed each other's hand before he took off.

You raised your brows as you approached, tugging your headphones to sit around your neck and you wondered what Nancy Wheeler could possibly have to say to you.

The world wasn’t ending, the kids were all safe and she wasn’t your best friend's girl anymore.

She squinted at you, trying to work out your mood, your emotions but you remained a little stoned faced, wondering if Steve would be pissed if had to see you here. You knew they’d spoken since Halloween, a chat that Steve had said felt too formal and stilted, but the air was cleared enough that they could cross paths when dropping Dustin, Will and Lucas at Mike’s house, an awkward wave exchanged from the front door to the car.

“You wanna sit?” Nancy asked, gesturing to a bench that sat by the edge of the school line, shadowed by trees that provided a little coverage from the wind that was picking up now that winter was approaching. You kicked at the leaves on the ground and shoved your hands into your jacket pocket, holding it tighter to your body.

“Sure,” you muttered, following her across the grass, leftover rain sticking to your boots.

The sky was still blue, a crisp Fall day that turned your nose pink, numbed your fingers and had you wishing for a Hawkins summer, the smell of sunscreen and cut grass replaced with rain and the promise of snow.

You sat on opposite ends of the bench, bodies turned to face each other and with the safety of your school bags between you both. You picked a dead leaf off the sole of your shoe, waiting for the other girl to talk.

“Look, I don’t know what Steve’s explained to you,” Nancy said, voice cracking a little with what seemed like nerves. “You know, when we spoke the other week.”

You shrugged, “I mean, not much,” you answered, “but it’s really not my business to know.”

Nancy nodded at that, appreciative, “I guess but I just want us to be friends, you know? I wanted you to understand why I broke it off with Steve. He’s a great guy but-”

“I know he is,” you interrupted, brows pulled together in confusion ‘cause there was never any debate about that. You softened a little when Nancy smiled at you, lips pulled up and eyes a little knowing. “Sorry, that was rude.”

“It’s fine,” she told you, voice lighter than it had been before. “Like I said, Steve’s great… I guess I just didn’t love him the way I should’ve. And maybe that would’ve been a little easier if I didn’t see the way he looked at someone else.”

You frowned, staring at the girl as she looked back at you, silently willing you to catch on.

“What?” You asked, “I thought this was about you and Jonathan? You can’t act as if you haven’t been glued to Byers hip since this happened.”

Nancy had the right to look guilty, picking at her nail before looking back up at you. “Yeah, no, you’re right. I didn’t mean for what happened with Johnathan to happen… it just did, but that doesn’t make it okay.”

She brushed a curl from her face, bringing her bag down to her feet so there was less separating her from you. The wind rushed at you both, stinging your cheeks and whipping at your clothes before it settled back down and let Nancy speak.

“I’m not blaming this on Steve, I’m not, and I shouldn’t have said he was bullshit,” she rushed out, “maybe we were just meant for other people you know? And think that, maybe, Steve doesn’t know that he’s already found his person.”

“I genuinely don’t know what you’re talking about,” you huffed, “but whatever. I’m just glad I don’t have to hear the two of you arguing every other day.”

Nancy nodded, smiling at the way you were avoiding her gaze, your mind suddenly racing with what she’d said.

“For what it’s worth,” the girl murmured, foot nudging friendly against yours, “it would probably make it a lot easier on the poor guy if this girl could admit that she was in love with him too.”

“Alright, yeah,” you stood up suddenly, cheeks flushed and your head a little scattered. “I think you’ve got it twisted Wheeler, but, uh, good talk.”

The girl hid a laugh, pressing her lips together as she watched you gather your bag, eyes shining. Nancy nodded, looking up at you as you stood a little awkwardly. You raised a hand in a goodbye, a small smile lifting at your lips in what seemed like an amicable agreement.

You stopped before you got too far, the sun in your eyes as you squinted back at the girl who was still sitting on the bench.

“Hey, Nancy?” She looked at you, eyes surprised.

“Yeah?”

“Are you happy?” You asked and she was taken aback at how genuine you sounded. She paused, eyes flicking over to where Jonathan’s car was parked, engine idling as he waited for her.

She nodded, resolute. “Yeah, I am,” she answered quietly and confidently.

You nodded too, surprised at how it warmed you to hear that. You never wished ill on the girl, you just didn’t like how she broke your best friend, leaving you to put him back together again, piece by piece.

“I’m glad Steve’s got you, you know,” she called back before you could start to walk away again and her words made your heart stumble. You swallowed, looking at her with parted lips. “He’s lucky to have you.”

And well, wasn’t that a statement to behold?

When you finally clambered into Steve’s car, bringing the chill and some stray leaves from the outside, Steve was frowning softly, concerned by your lateness.

He looked at your flushed cheeks, pink nose and glassy eyes from the sharp wind and cranked up the heat, pointing his vents to your side too.

“Where’ve you been?” He asked, voice worried, “I was gonna call in the kids, start a search party.”

You laughed, a little strained after the conversation you had, rubbing your hands together for warmth and you shrugged, noncommittal.

“I was uh, just catching up with a friend.”

Can I go where you go?

When Steve got a job after graduation at Scoops Ahoy, it was supposed to mean free ice cream and catching a late showing at the cinema after his shifts.

It brought you Robin Buckley, Steve in a sailors hat, a new flavour of ice cream every month and fucking Russians.

You thought dimensions and demogorgons were about as much as you could handle but Dustin came back from camp with a new gadget he’d built, some kind of high tech radio that looked like it was held together with duct tape and paper clips but the thing actually worked.

It worked well enough to pick up secret codes from underground labs, translated by Robin and well, fuck. Suddenly you were trapped in an elevator that wasn’t actually supposed to be an elevator and Erica Sinclair was going to miss her Uncle Jack’s party.

You knew Steve wasn’t happy with you, you could tell by the way his jaw was set, the way that he looked at you when he thought you weren’t paying attention, and his lips twisted and his gaze dropped when you tried to catch his gaze.

It made the air in the elevator crackle and buzz, tension on top of tension as you moved around each other, looking for a way out, hardly touching, hardly speaking. Robin twisted her lips, sympathetic, when she caught your gaze, your face flushed with annoyance.

He’d told you not to come.

Not out of meanness, or because you had fallen out, simply because he didn’t want you in harm's way. You’d ended up yelling at each other, a hundred feet below the mall and trapped in a metal box because why did it matter when Robin and the kids were stuck there too?

Steve, of course, cared that he had another friend, a thirteen year old and a ten year old to keep safe and he had every intention of doing so. But he couldn’t help but feel sick, his stomach rolling, at the thought of you being put in a dangerous situation.

You’d told him that he was being stupid, that you weren’t leaving him. You thought you’d seen all the dangers Hawkins had to offer, you could handle yourself, you could help him.

His worst fears came true when you all got split up, Dustin and Erica hopefully somewhere above you all, on their way for help, for something, anything.

But then a man came, tall and dressed in uniform, badges adorning his chest, and he took one look at the way Steve stood in front of you when he entered and swung for the side of his head.

The boy fell backwards, dazed, groaning at the shock and pain of it all before pulling himself off of the floor, body slow and sluggish. He lifted his head in time to see the same man gripping you by the back of your neck, hair fisted painfully in his grasp as he pulled you out of the room. Robin was yelling, swearing as she tried to get a grip on you, her hand wrapped around your ankle from where she was on the floor but you were pulled from her easily, a swift kick sent to her stomach for the audacity of her trying.

Steve felt his heart leave his chest, plummeting to his stomach, his blood running cold and everything around him slowed down. His vision was fuzzy but he could see the panic on your face, lips parted in a gasp as you tried to get to grips with what was happening.

Russians. A lab. Under Starcourt Mall.

He couldn’t move fast enough and he wanted to yell out, he wanted to run. But it was like being trapped in a bad dream, body damp, sheets tangled around his limbs as he tried his best to scream, to move, but nothing fucking happened.

The door slammed shut before the ringing in his ears could stop and he could taste blood in his tongue, metallic and horribly warm. He made his fists bleed from pounding on the door, knuckles cracked and bruised, voice wrecked from yelling your name.

He only stopped when the man came back, pulled him from Robin's side and threw more hits to his face, his body. His skin was littered with angry bruises, almost black, skipping the shades of lavender and pink, turning inky within minutes.

Between each punch, Steve spat out blood and asked where you were, groaning as he spoke. He was ignored, time and time again, until he lost it completely, tried to lash out, fists swinging, legs thrashing and he wasn’t sure if he was crying, or it was just blood dripping down his face but he wanted to sob, desperate for you.

He was thrown to a chair, tied back to back with Robin as some guy in a white coat threatened him with surgical equipment that looked like it didn’t belong in a hospital and when his eyes fell shut with the weight of his injuries, he wondered if he’d ever see his best friend again.

You were finally gathered up in what could’ve been hours later, maybe one, maybe five. A guard tugged at your wrists, taped together and red raw from where you’d tried to pull them apart and suddenly you were pushed through the same door they’d taken you from, thrown at Steve’s feet and the yelling continued.

Who did you work for, who did you work for, who did you work for?

It didn’t end until people were dead and Starcourt Mall was on fire.

Alarms had gone off, Dustin rushing in with an electric cattle prod of all things, weidling it like battleaxe and telling you all you had to run. You weren’t sure who was supporting who as you all tumbled back to the surface, dripping blood and tears onto the mall floor as Steve gripped your hand with a fierceness you’d never experienced from him before.

But then there were guns, El broken but still fighting, the rest of your friends, concern and confusion written on their faces ‘cause when you had all been fighting Russian Soviets, they’d been fighting Billy, the evil inside of him turning him into something different from the boy you’d seen in the school halls.

You’d held Max when he fell, body bloodied and ripped open, eyes glassy like he’d known what was coming. You left the mall that night with a new fear of loud noises, of fireworks that cracked and snapped in the sky. You knew what burning flesh smelled like, you knew that there was more to be said about monsters, more danger in the world than just the creatures that lurked in the cracks of the earth.

You knew that evil could come in the shape of a man, a familiar face, behind a uniform, a doctor's white lab coat.

You were tired, beaten, a little bloodied and bruised and your throat was raw after you’d screamed for Steve, fists beating on the door as you went ignored. You heard him from behind the steel walls, his voice as wrecked and panicked as your own and you sobbed when you heard his yells turn to groans, sickening wet thumps of bone hitting bone, breaking up the sound of him calling out your name.

You sat beside him in the ambulance, hands still clutching each other tightly, fear of being torn apart again ripping through you both. The medic wanted to take him to hospital, to make sure his cheekbone wasn’t shattered, that you both weren’t suffering from shock or concussion but Steve refused, just wanting to go fucking home.

The sky was angry, red and crying, plumes of black and crimson smoke billowing from the broken building and you didn’t know what to do. People were dead and the whole world seemed to be burning.

But Steve took you by the hand, pulled you to his side as you made sure everyone was okay, as well as they could be considering the circumstances and the boy stood a little numb as he watched you drop to your knees and fold Max into a hug, tears streaking through the blood and dirt on your cheeks when you pressed a kiss to El’s forehead.

Everyone was a little broken, barely standing, barely breathing and it didn’t seem difficult to continue the lie to your parents, calling them from a pay phone to say that you were okay, you had seen the news but it was fine, you had been at Steve’s the whole time, you’d be home in the morning.

You let Jonathan bundle you both into the back of his car, one of his old jackets thrown around your shoulders as Nancy sat in the front, Steve beside you, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. He dropped you both at Steve’s front door, little to be said between the hour of you as shock and tiredness tugged at your bodies, your heads. Hands were pressed to shoulders, squeezing softly, telling each other everything you all needed to say but couldn’t - not then, not just yet.

Thank you, I’m sorry, I’m glad you’re okay, I’m happy you’re safe.

The Harrington house was empty, as expected and the rooms felt darker and colder than they had before, empty and too big, your harsh breaths rattling too loudly and you could feel a panic building inside you, clawing at your chest.

It grew when you looked at Steve’s face, dried blood and dark bruises making him look like he was about to fall apart and when you squeezed your eyes closed, you could hear the way he yelled your name, raw and broken.

A sob bubbled from your throat, spilling from your lips and you’d barely taken a breath before Steve was in front of you, arms pulling you into him, a hand around your neck, foreheads pressed together. It was supposed to ground you - and it did, in a way - but the cries still came, stuttered and broken, the heavy kind of sobs that made your body heave with the exertion of it all.

Steve held you through it, both of you swaying unsteady on your feet in the middle of his hall, shoes streaking dirt across Mrs. Harrington’s white tiles. Neither of you could ask the other if they were okay, ‘cause the answer was obvious but when your tears finally stopped, your face wet and your head sore, the boy took you by the hand and led you up the stairs.

He walked past his bedroom door, the little slice of heaven you most wanted at that moment in time, the only place in the large house that truly felt like home to you both. It was a surprise when he nudged open the door to the main bathroom, rarely used due to all the ensuites that were accessed through bedrooms but the large corner tub there suddenly looked like a gift from above.

You felt like a spare part when Steve let go of you long enough to turn the taps, filling the bath with hot water and a mixture of his mother’s expensive soaps and bath milks, sweet smelling bubbles and steam filling the room.

You found a first aid kit underneath the sink, pushed to the back of the cupboard, unused and when you motioned to the boy to sit on the closed toilet seat, he did without arguing. He spread his legs for you without you needing to ask, standing between his knees with a bottle of antiseptic and some cotton balls, more tears slipping down your cheeks as you mumbled out apologies, dabbing the stinging liquid into his skin.

Steve simply held onto your legs, eyes closed and his hands wrapped around the back of your knees, his thumbs stroking over the sensitive skin there as he whispered back, telling you it was okay, it’s fine, I'm fine sweetheart.

The cuts on his face didn’t seem as angry, as severe, when you wiped away the blood that crusted around them but the dark bruises seemed mean and vicious against the pale cast of his skin, shock seeping out all the colour from his cheeks.

He let you press a kiss to his forehead, clutching at the sides of his head, fingers buried in his damp, messy hair and the push of your lips was fierce, conveying everything you wanted to say but couldn’t, because fuck, you didn’t know how to tell your best friend that you think you were falling in love with him. Because how else could the thought of losing someone hurt so fucking much?

Steve left you alone to bathe, skin stinging as you stripped down to your underwear, your body and bones lazy as you pulled at your jeans and shirt. You gave up when you got down to your underwear, cotton pants and lacy bralette mismatching in a clash of cherry print and forest green and they both stuck to your skin as you slid into the hot water.

You drew your knees to your chest, eyes closed and head pressed there as you let the heat nip at you, cuts and scrapes protesting but it was good to feel something when your head felt numb, your chest hollow. You weren’t sure how long you sat there for but you could've sworn someone was calling your name, a knock on the door echoing on the tiles and your mouth felt too fuzzy to answer.

Steve could only hear the slow, steady drip of the tap and panic rose in his chest when you didn’t answer him and he had thoughts of you unconscious and slipping beneath the bubbles.

So he knocked once more, heart racing before he turned the handle and pushed at the door a little, calling out your name.

He heard the water splash at the sides of the tub, movement at least. But then he heard you sniff, the noise turning to soft sobs and it gripped at his heart, crushed it a little and before he knew it, he was in the bathroom, bare feet on the tiles and staring down at you, tucked into the smallest ball you could amongst the bubbles.

Neither of you spoke as Steve pulled off the shirt and cotton sweats he’d changed into, his own eyes glassey as he left his boxers on, stepping into the water with you, sitting down in the space behind you.

It felt like the most natural thing in the world when he spread his legs and pulled you into them, your back to his bare chest as he wrapped his arms around your knees too, holding you to him. He let you cry like that, head bent over yours, the two of you curled into the water together, steam licking at your skin. You think you felt a tear drop from his eye, warm as it slid through your hair and onto your cheek and the feel of it made you search for his hand, scrambling desperately under the hot water and foam so you could link your fingers through his.

Your grip on each other was as tight as it was when he’d pulled you to your feet after Dustin saved you from pliers and scalpels, the same way it had been when a six year old Steve had helped you up from the playground, knees scraped and front tooth missing after falling from the monkey bars. It was the same touch you granted him when you were twelve and he had to go to the emergency room, his arm broken after falling off of his bike. You’d begged to ride in the ambulance with him and his mom, his ink stained fingers reaching for you, not Mrs. Harrington.

When you had no tears left to give and the water was turning lukewarm, Steve turned the tap again, let the hot water fill the room back up with steam and soothe your tired bodies. He grabbed a sponge, tapped at your knee until you turned to him, face to face and unbelievably vulnerable.

But you let him smooth the sponge over the bare skin that he could see, up your arms, wiping away the soot from the fire, the stubborn dried blood that didn’t want to leave. He squeezed warm water over your chest, looking at your eyes and definitely not your bra, the pretty, green lace turning darker against your skin.

He pressed a kiss to your hair when you let your head fall into him, too tired to sit up and when you couldn’t hear the far away whine of sirens in the distance anymore, he helped you stand, the water that was light pink with blood swirling down the drain. He wrapped you both in towels, murmuring the whole time that you were okay, he had you, it was gonna be fine.

You pulled your favourite shirt from underneath his pillow, tugging it on and falling into his bed, the smell of Steve and home surrounding you in the same way that the sheets did, soft and comforting. The boy clambered in beside you, body stiff and pain settling in his bones but you glued yourself to his side, hands intertwined and pressed between your chests and you couldn’t close your eyes until Steve leaned into you, breath warm and smelling of mint as he pressed his lips to your ear as he told you: “Remember when I promised you that I’d protect you from everything bad?”

You nodded, remembering that cherry flavoured popsicle and the way Steve’s pool looked so much bigger and deeper back then. “We were eight, Steve.”

He hummed in agreement, forehead rubbing fond against your own and you revelled in the fact that you both smelled like the same cotton and lemongrass body wash.

“We were,” he agreed, voice a soft whisper, cracking a little from the yelling that had ripped his throat apart. “But the promise still stands, sweetheart.”

You opened your eyes to look at them and he looked a little fuzzy as you teared up. But Steve shook his head gently, hand tightening around your smaller one.

“No more tears, please babe,” he sniffed too, as if the entire night suddenly hit him, “I got you now, yeah? I’m never gonna let anythin’ happen to you, promise.”

You slept then, a little broken and fitful, but every time you shifted in your sleep, the boy followed, bodies traversing across the mattress and between the sheets. When you woke in the morning, you had your head on Steve’s chest, a leg thrown over his own, your thigh hitched high over his and his arms were a vice grip around you, his face pressed to the top of your head.

The sheets were on the floor, a pillow by the door as if it had been kicked and the sun was shining through the gap in the curtain, bright and warm and mocking. The world felt a little different after that night, and so did your friendship with Steve Harrington.

I've loved you three summers now, honey, but I want 'em all.

Working at Family Video with both Robin and Steve meant that you got to spend a lot more time with your friends. It also meant that Robin was more privy to watching how you and Steve interacted with each other and it had the girl taking notes on your relationship with the boy like her new favourite science experiment.

“Look, I’m just saying, he’s not really dated since Starcourt and the boy lost it over you that night.”

You rolled your eyes, still putting away the videos that were stacked in your arms as Robin followed you up and down the aisles. The store was quiet, a Tuesday afternoon giving you little to do but you’d graduated after you fought a monster and survived the soviets, so applying for colleges wasn’t all that high on your to do list.

Your parents had taken that news better than Steve’s, both couples perplexed at their kids' choices to stay in Hawkins and work for the summer but at least your Dad had threatened bodily harm against you when you’d told him.

You eyed Steve who was on the other end of the store, leaning lazy against the counter as he ticked off the delivery list. He looked a little older, like you did, but the stubble on his jaw and the broadness of his shoulders made your lips part every time you chanced a look.

He was still Steve, but he was a little taller, a little stronger. He was still late night drives and sneaking through your window, mixtapes on your birthday and cherry popsicles in his backyard during the summer. Maybe he flirted a little more with you, comments suggestive and compliments coming easier but you tried not to think about it. When you did, late at night and alone in bed, it made your head spin, your lips part, your eyes close.

You sighed, turning to Robin to tell her with an exasperated whisper, “we’ve been best friends since pre-k, of course he was upset that I was dragged away by a fucking Russian Soviet, Robin.”

She rolled her eyes at you, stumbling over her own foot as she tried to keep up. Steve glanced up at you both at the noise, brows furrowed as you both froze, eyes a little wide and you waved, hands raised awkwardly in unison.

“What’re you both doing?” He called out, suspicion lacing his voice and you felt heat travel from your chest to your cheeks.

“Nothing,” Robin called out at the same time you told him you were fixing the horror section.

Your voices piled over each other and you wanted to groan, because Robin couldn’t lie to save herself and now you both looked like idiots. But Steve just smiled, fond, and turned back to his stack of papers.

“I'm telling you,” Robin continued, voice a little lower now, “Steve likes you, like, he likes you, likes you. Why can’t you see that?”

You stopped and turned at her last words, truly taken aback at how sincere she sounded, how confused she seemed.

‘Cause Steve was still Steve and you were still you and nothing in the world could really change that. Steve had promised you that he’d always be your best friend, and at nineteen, that still seemed like a pretty sweet deal.

You shrugged, pushing the last copy of Nightmare On Elm Street onto the shelf and you crossed your arms over your chest, suddenly feeling far too exposed at her interrogation.

“It’s not like that,” you told her, whispering still, “it’s never been like that with Steve.”

She huffed, swiping a finger along the row of videos and blowing away the dust she’d collected. Robin turned, an eyebrow raised. “Would you want it to be like that? ‘Cause seriously, dude, I still can’t believe that, in like, sixteen years of friendship, you’ve never even kissed once.”

You shrugged again, holding back on telling the girl that sometimes you thought the same.

When you were fourteen, you thought that Steve was going to be your first kiss. Looking back, you weren’t sure why, you just did. Maybe it was a feeling, maybe it was hope, maybe it was just inevitable.

‘Cause you grew up beside the boy and never once did he feel like a brother, and that had to mean something, right? He held your hand when you watched scary movies, when you crossed the road on Main Street, when it was rush hour, just like your parents had told you to when you were seven. He never dropped your hand, he never kicked you from his side of the bed when the movies you watched together became too much.

You went through middle school and high school still the same, joined at the hip, still sharing secrets, still holding hands when things got too hard.

But then one summer, Hayley Collins had a birthday party and you’d been sick, too ill to attend but Steve had still stood underneath your bedroom window, features twisted with conflict as you told him it was fine, he could go without you. You remember telling him to have fun, and to bring you back some candy.

He did. He brought you back fistfuls of sweet stuff, bags of M&M’s and pop rocks but you didn’t expect him to bring his lips to your ear and tell you a secret you never expected.

Steve had had his first kiss. A game of spin the bottle in Hayley’s basement with her cousin who was from out of town. A girl a year older, a girl who had pretty blonde curls and a reason to wear a real bra.

You remembered the feeling when your heart sank and the pop rocks stopped fizzing on your tongue. You wondered why the sugar tasted bitter, why your eyes were suddenly pricking with hot tears and when the boy asked if you were okay, a grin slipping from his lips, you lied and told him that you still felt sick.

You turned to Robin, a fake smile pulling at your lips as you tried to act casual, as if her words weren’t kickstarting a feeling in your chest that you had been trying so hard to ignore for the last five years.

You furrowed your brow, turned to the cart that was still full of videos no thanks to your friend, and picked up another pile. You stacked them until they reached your chin, until they gave you a reason to walk to the other side of the stands and take a deep breath.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” you lied, and it felt heavy on your tongue, tasting too sweet and sinful. Because of course you had. “It’s not something that’s crossed my mind.”

Robin saw right through you and you could tell by the way her brows rose and she hid her smile behind a press of her lips.

“Sure,” she said, voice too light. “Humour me then. What do you think would happen if you did let it cross your mind?”

You stared at her, mouth agape, because what the fuck was the girl getting at.

She grabbed some of the videos you were holding, The Exorcist close to slipping from its slot underneath your chin and she started stacking them beside you, completely out of alphabetical order, but that was a problem for another day.

“Just listen,” she said and you hated how she sounded excited. “What do you think would happen if you asked Steve to kiss you?”

She dropped a box, cursing when the corner of it hit her toe but she bounced back up, bright eyes still brimming with all the thoughts that were swirling round her head at once.

“Cause you know he would, right? Like the poor guy can’t say no to you, he’s never been able to.”

You made a sound of protest, heart hammering in your chest because Steve was still right there, fingers running though his hair, pen between his lips and so completely fucking oblivious.

But Robin suddenly stopped and spun to face you. She wrapped a hand around your wrist, soft and warm and you could tell she was choosing her words carefully before she said them, a sure fire way to tell that the girl was being serious.

“There’s a reason that none of his girlfriends have stuck around, babe,” Robin murmured, sincerity lacing every word. “It’s ‘cause he always picks you, every time.”

—————

It had been a week since Robin had cornered you at work, whispering to you about Steve and kissing and god, you couldn’t stop thinking about it.

You thought about it when he gave you a ride home after work, sun setting, the day turning pink and casting indigo shadows over his face, the line of his jaw, the curve of his mouth.

You thought about it when he pushed himself into you during Saturday morning shifts, his body lazy as he leant against you, his chest to your back and his head on your shoulder. It felt softer and intimate than when he’d done it before, your mind running wild with the idea that if you turned around and kissed him, right there in the middle of Family Video, he might kiss you back.

You thought about it when you were lying by his pool, his parents gone, the kids and Dustin’s new friend Eddie starting water fights on the lawn. You’d watch the way Steve watched you, jealous eyes and lips pouted when Eddie soaked you with a water balloon, skin damp, cheeks flushed and eyes bright. You watched how he softened and lit up again, your attention on him when you shook your wet hair over his bare chest and you couldn’t help but notice how his gaze followed the movements you made when you bent to slide your shorts back up your legs.

So maybe it was for those reasons that you turned to him one Friday night, when it was just the two of you out in his backyard, and asked him why he’d never kissed you.

It could’ve been the joint you’d been sharing making you feel braver, or maybe the shadows that you were hiding in, the spaces that the pool lights didn’t quite reach.

Maybe it was the way Steve had been looking at you each time you took the joint from his lips and put it between your own. Hair a little messy, eyes hooded, jaw slack.

Maybe it was because of all of it. Maybe it was because you were nineteen and growing impatient. Maybe it was sixteen years of build up. Of wondering, wanting, waiting.

The air smelled the same way it did when you were eight, chlorine and cedar from the trees, that afternoon's sunscreen mixing with weed and smoke. Your tongue was stained red from the popsicle you’d had, Steve’s blue and there were new freckles on both of your faces, noses a little pink from lying out in the sun all day.

And when the afternoon faded into evening and the sky was lilac, Steve produced a joint with a grin, a wiggle of his brows and suddenly you were lying on the deck together, the pool filter trickling in the background and laughing soft as you blew smoke into the night.

There was a buzz of insects from the forest that stood behind the house, the faint hum of someone’s music that played from a couple of yards over and you felt the warmth radiate from the boy from where he lay beside you.

Your bare feet pointed to opposite ends of the pool, one of yours dipped into the water and your heads were touching, cheek to cheek. If you turned to look at him, you knew your lips could slip over his easily and the thought of it made your body fizz.

He had just plucked the joint from your mouth, thumb grazing clumsy over your top lip, fitting pretty into the dip of your Cupid’s bow when you tilted your head, cheek resting on the patio, the slabs still warm from the afternoon sun.

“Hey, Harrington,” you sounded quiet and lazy, like you didn’t have a care in the world. But god, your heart was in your throat, pulsing like a warning. “You ever thought ‘bout kissing me?”

If Steve was shocked, he didn’t show it, not really. His eyes widened slightly, joint hanging slack from his lips and he stubbed it out on the concrete before swallowing, hard.

He turned to you, noses almost brushing and you watched the way his gaze settled on your lips.

“Why d’you ask?” His voice was a hush, warm and rough.

You shrugged, boldness faltering because he hadn’t answered your question but holy shit, he was still looking at your mouth, the way your tongue snuck out to wet your bottom lip before you spoke.

“Just something Robin said,” you told him, nose scrunched.

Your words made his lips part, nodding in understanding because of course Robin was involved and the girl had been at him too, hounding him in the stockroom at work, calling him out on his obvious crush on your over old, dusty videos.

But all the boy could say was, “oh.”

And then there was silence, for a second, maybe two. It felt like minutes, like an hour, like the sky was suddenly crashing down on you, as if lavender clouds and the stars were going to bury you were you lay but then-

“I have,” Steve said, quietly sure. You looked over at him as he blew out a breath, “course I’ve thought about it. ‘Bout kissing you.”

“Oh,” it was your turn to keep silent, his admission washing over you like a tsunami sized wave, one that you weren’t sure you’d be able to keep your head above.

You sat up suddenly, shocking Steve and he leaned up onto his elbows with wide eyes, watching as you turned to face him, legs crossed and knees knocking into his thighs.

“Why haven’t we?” You asked, bemusement colouring your tone and you couldn’t help but press your hand to his where it lay on the deck. Your fingers brushed over his, a new kind of touch. “Why haven’t we ever kissed?”

You wondered if he could hear your heartbeat, if it was rattling against your ribs as loud as it seemed to be. You held your breath as Steve sat up too, mirroring your pose and crossing his legs until you were knee to knee and looking like a couple of innocent kids again.

He shrugged, blowing out another breath and he tugged a hand through the front of his hair, making it stand on end. He looked a little wild, like you short circuited him, like you were half way to ruining him.

The boy’s voice cracked a little when he tried to answer and you wondered if this was okay, if you should’ve asked but then Steve was speaking, his thumb drawing absentminded circles over your bare knee.

“I’m not really sure,” he said and he spoke soft and quiet, like he was telling you a secret. “I suppose I just didn’t wanna lose my best friend.”

It was the answer you expected. Best friend first, the prospect of a girl to kiss in the background of his mind. You should’ve been happy, you should’ve felt loved, but the idea of never having Steve in the way you realised you wanted him was becoming more crushing by the day.

“Or maybe,” he suddenly continued, “I guess… I guess I didn’t realise I was allowed to.”

Your lips parted at that, a small bomb dropped in the middle of the Harrington’s backyard. You waited for the pool to empty, for the small wave to hit your back, for the sky to light up but nothing came and Steve was watching you, waiting.

“You’re allowed to,” you whispered and oh my god, you didn’t feel high enough for this, but you continued, tummy dropping and skin electric. “You’ve always been allowed to.”

You heard Steve’s breath hitch and it only felt natural when his hand came up to cup the back of your neck, thumb pressed to the spot behind your ear and god, he was leaning in and so were you.

“I just don’t know if we should,” he was telling you but he was still moving into you and his hand never fell away from your face.

“It’s just a kiss,” you told him, voice shot, lips falling apart and you could smell his aftershave, the leftover chlorine that stuck to his skin and he was summer, he was cherry and smoke and god, he was forbidden, he was yours. “Friends can kiss, doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“It’s really just curiosity, right?”

His nose was bumping against yours, both of your eyes fluttering closed at the feel of the other's breath falling across your lips and you wondered if he’d taste like his popsicle, blue raspberry, sugar and fizz.

You nodded at his question, too gone to speak and the movement made your top lip brush against his. Sparks against your skin, electric, dangerous and it made you sigh.

“Steve?” You whispered, eyes squeezed shut like you were seven again and making a wish beside your birthday cake, candles making your skin glow.

He hummed, thumb still pushing against that spot on your neck, “yeah sweetheart?”

“Will you kiss me?”

And fuck, maybe Robin was right because the boy didn’t say no. In fact, Steve didn’t say anything, he just moved into you until your nose was pressed into his cheek and his lips were plush against yours and oh my god you were kissing your best friend.

He still tasted like raspberry, like you thought he would. Like summer and promises and pool days and a little smoke and Steve.

It was a slow push of his lips to your own, mouths slanting over each other’s, soft and languid like you both knew this was your only chance. You thought you heard him moan, a soft, low noise that made your chest hurt and when the kiss lingered, you brought your hands to his cheeks, fingers splayed over his jaw as you tugged him a little closer, greedy.

And when his tongue licked at the curve of your bottom lip, his hand travelled to tilt at your chin, asking you to open for him, you did, no questions asked. You sighed, blissed out, when his tongue slid over yours, a hand falling to fist in his t-shirt, soft cotton crumpled in your hand because you felt like you were going to float away.

Then Steve was pulling back, chest heaving, forehead pressed to yours and eyes still slammed shut as he gave you another secret, pressed to the corner of your mouth, your jaw, the curve of your neck.

“I always thought you were gonna be my first kiss,” he said it like a confession, like something holy. “M’sorry you weren’t.”

And then he was back on you, lips melted between your own and you knew that the pretty noises that you pulled from him would play like a record in your dreams for months on end. Steve was grasping at your hip, the material of your dress bunched under his hand, making the cotton hitch higher up your thighs.

You were in his lap, wide hands on your sides, guiding you as you kissed him, lovesick, eyes closed, body buzzing and you fell across his knees, thighs shifting apart to cage him underneath you and oh my god.

Fuck.

You sat a little higher than him, knees planted on the deck and his head was tilted back to kiss you as you crowded him. One hand was on your jaw, thumb rubbing against your cheek as he kissed you deeper now, a little dirty and when he pulled a small moan from you, his hand clasped at the back of your thigh, skin on skin.

You could feel him hard underneath you and it made your head feel fuzzy, your body pleading with you to drag yourself along the length of him, hips rolling, chest heaving.

When you pulled back, panting, the reflections of the pool were bouncing off your faces, ripples of light dancing across the boy's features, hitting his eyes and turning them caramel. You felt golden when he touched you, skin lit up, the air around you both crackling like a storm was coming.

Maybe it was still the weed, maybe it was a new found courage, maybe it was just teenage hormones and the thought of seeing each other naked for the first time since you were both four, but when Steve asked if he could take you inside, you didn’t hesitate to say yes.

It felt different in his bedroom when you both tumbled in, colliding with the dresser as you kissed each other like you meant it, like you’d never do it again. The room felt smaller, darker, softer, more intimate than it had ever been for you and suddenly you felt like a girl at the end of date.

Steve touched you like you were more than just his best friend and it made your stomach roll, your thighs rub together and you couldn’t quite get over the way his hand spanned the width of your cheek, fingertips grazing your hairline whilst his thumb managed to pull at your bottom lip, eager for more of you.

It all got a little wild after that, loose change and bottles of aftershave cologne clattering off of the drawers, falling to the floor as Steve picked you up and slammed you on top of it, legs spreading for him to fit in between. Hands roamed up your thighs, pushing at the soft skin there until he hitched a knee up and over his hip, pressing himself into you.

Your dress came off first, his shirt following, a mix of colours on the carpet and he pressed his lips to the skin he uncovered, mouth over lavender lace and delicate straps.

It felt desperate, you felt desperate. And when he sucked a bruise into the column of your throat, you keened, high and needy. It made the boy groan, mouth vibrating against your chest as he kissed over the lace triangles covering you, his gaze flicking up to watch you nod at him before he was pushing one aside, tongue smoothing over a nipple.

It made you grab at his hair, fingers delving deep, tugging in appreciation and you were prepared for the sound it pulled from him, low in the back of his throat and it made his eyes flutter shut.

“Sweetheart,” Steve huffed out, hands skimming up and down your sides as he pressed his forehead to yours, “I’m gonna come in my pants if you keep that up.”

He sounded wild, unravelled and sharp around the edges. It made you feel full of power, pretty lips and lace and soft skin, and you pressed the softest kiss to Steve’s mouth, his breath coming in harsh pants and before you could ask, you were being manhandled again, legs around his waist and his hands on your ass.

He sat you both on the bed like that, spread out pretty on top of him, knees pushed into the mattress as you pulled at his belt, holding yourself up as he shuffled out of his jeans. He sucked tiny bruises on your collar bones as your bra was peeled off, nothing but your underwear separating you both and you felt his hands drag down your back, a touch that was so affectionate and soft that it took your breath away.

Then night seemed slower after that, like time paused for you both, just for you to remember every touch. Like the world stopped spinning on its axis just for you two, just so you would both remember the way the other felt, ‘cause fuck, you had a feeling this wouldn’t happen again.

“We don’t have to go any further,” Steve gasped, lips barely leaving yours as pushed and pulled at your hips, helping you rock over him, body rolling across his lap. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

But you were ready to climb him, your hands grabbing at his hair to tug him back to you, kisses swallowing his words and telling the boy that you wanted exactly the opposite.

It was strange how natural it felt, to tug the length of him out of his boxers, the feel of him hot and hard in your hand. You shuffled in Steve’s lap as he palmed you over the lace of your underwear, breath uneven. It didn’t take long for him to tug them down your legs as he slid on a condom, your foot kicking purple lace to his bedroom floor and you suddenly felt like you were underwater; body moving lazy and slow as you lifted yourself onto your knees, Steve’s hands strong and reassuring as you took him in your hand and sunk down onto him.

Neither of you moved, bodies tangled and still as you fit perfectly in his lap, arms wrapped around each other as you panted heavy into parted lips. Steve whispered your name, like a prayer, soft and broken before he pushed his lips to yours, head tilted into you so he could catch your lips deep and slow.

He grunted in surprise when you tightened around him, body clenching on his at the touch of his tongue across your bottom lip and you whimpered, hips beginning to wiggle. This was more than you’d felt before, more than wandering hands in back seats, more than a quick and fast hook-up in a party bathroom, more than fingers under skirts in your bedroom when your parents were asleep across the hall.

“Can I move?” You ask, quiet, your hands grappling desperately at Steve’s shoulders palming over the muscles there. “I need to move, Steve, please.” If you were begging, you didn’t care, because you felt so full, so tight around him and you couldn’t help but admire the way the boy looked underneath you.

But Steve didn’t have you waiting long, any teasing long forgotten about ‘cause he felt like he was wound too tight and you felt like fucking heaven around him. You didn’t know your eyes were wet until his thumb smoothed over your cheekbone, breath stuttering and you both gasped and swore when you lifted yourself up, just to rock yourself back down.

He moaned your name so prettily, lips glossy from your kisses and his eyes were hooded, gaze set on you, jaw slack, hands roaming across the expanse of your back as he held you to him.

You moved over him with purpose, Steve answering with low groans and he pulled soft whimpers from you, your hand catching his face so you could look at him, gazes heavy and hot, pinned to each other. Your thumb found the curve of his bottom lip, tugging a little and Steve moaned when the pad of it slid over the edge of his teeth. “Steve,” you gasped, hips moving messy and the boy grabbed at your ass, helping you ride him a little faster.

“That’s it, sweetheart, tell me, tell me what you want and I’ll give you it,” he pressed his lips to yours as he spoke, words slipping over your lips, your tongue and god, they tasted sweet. “I’ll give you anything.”

“More,” was all you could manage, breath hitching, eyes slamming shut ‘cause Steve’s hand dropped between you both, skin slick and he pressed his thumb over your clit; quick, hot circles that made stars flash behind your eyelids. “Close?” Steve asked, voice rough and you nodded, moving a little wilder over him, the boy reciprocated, hands holding your hips still so he could thrust up hard into you until you were biting down on the muscle on his shoulder, thighs tensing, eyes tearing up.

Steve whispered your name when he came, arms tight around you, head buried in the crook of your neck, eyes squeezed shut, hoping and praying that he’d always remember the way you felt around him.

He kissed you one last time that night, bodies still naked and stretched out between his sheets and you didn’t say anything to each other as you caught your breaths, eyes wide on each other. There was a part of you that wished you could have the excuse of alcohol, too messy after some party to remember. You couldn’t blame the weed either, the half smoked joint still stubbed out in the backyard, hardly enough to do anything than let you both share a buzz.

In the morning, you pulled on your clothes, wrinkled on Steve’s bedroom floor, still smelling of smoke and the boy. You tiptoed around his room, searching for your underwear, your shoes, all while the boy lay on his bed, face down, hair mussed and the white sheets barely covering his waist.

You wish you had it in you to let yourself drop back down into bed with, to have the courage to press a kiss to the freckle on his right shoulder, smooth a soft hand down his spine. But the sun was coming in through the window and your lips were still swollen from your best friend’s kisses and everything was starting to taste like a mistake.

You didn’t know it, but Steve was awake as you left, eyes open and face pressed into the pillow that still smelled like your shampoo, heart beating wild in his chest but he didn’t move, didn’t call out to stop you. And well, that was that.

My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue.

You didn’t talk about it.

A week passed and neither did Steve and before you knew it, you were a month down the line, the feel of your best friend's lips on your skin feeling like a fever dream and you didn’t know if you’d ever be able to forget the feel of him moving against you, inside you.

It hurt to look at him, for a while. It got worse before it got better, stilted conversations and awkward eye contact, the taste of regret in both of your tongues and all the things you wanted to say to each other were left unsaid.

But it was fine.

Steve asked you round for a movie one Friday, videos stacked on the coffee table in his living room, your favourite sweater of his lying out on the arm of the sofa along with red vines and the good kinda popcorn.

You didn’t push yourself into his side like you normally would and you didn’t know if that disappointed him or not, but when he dropped you off home later that night, the sky was a dark, rosy pink, the lingering smell of rain in the air and he smacked a messy kiss to your cheek before you climbed out of his car.

It was fine. Until it wasn’t.

Steve started dating again, one girl, two girls, three girls. Lucy on Saturday, Matthew David’s cousin Paula the next Friday, Cindy from last year's cheer squad the week after.

You didn’t ask about it and he didn’t tell you, just poking an affectionate finger to the apple of your cheek when he told you he’d see you the next day. You were his best friend, again, still, only.

It was fine until one Friday shift, when you disappeared into the back room a little earlier than the store closed. You came back out in a new dress, short and pretty, with blush on your cheeks and a gloss on your lips. Robin had wolf whistled, Steve had frowned.

“Where are you going?”

His tone of voice cut you in half, accusatory and a little shocked. Steve leaned over the counter, a finger picking delicately at a lock of hair that you’d spent too long trying to get to sit nicely.

“A date,” you told him, voice soft, gaze lowered as you tried to cram lip gloss tubes and perfume bottles into your bag.

“With who?” Was the instantaneous response, that same tone of voice.

You saw Robin’s gaze flitting between the pair of you, not privy to the events that took place a month prior, but not for a lack of trying. The girl was perfectly aware that something happened. She just didn’t know what and neither your or Steve had told her anything.

“Nate Owens,” you told him and god, why was it so hard to meet his eye? “You know, he was on the team with you.”

Steve pulled his brows together, bewildered at your answer. “Yeah, I know him, why the fuck are you going on a date with Owens?”

You heard Robin’s sharp intake of breath and she watched as you squinted at the boy, annoyance on your features. Knowing what was to come, she grabbed the last of the returns and made her way to the other side of the empty store, leaving you two alone.

“What?” You huffed out, exasperated already. Your stomach was tumbling and you hated the way you didn’t know why. Maybe it was first date jitters, maybe it was the way Steve was looking at you, maybe it was because you knew you had absolutely no interest in dating anyone that wasn’t your bet fucking friend. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Steve grappled for something to say, stuttering over excuses until he tutted and grabbed the stapler, carelessly turning it over in his hands as he told you, “you’ve got nothing in common with him, like, at all.”

You scoffed, pulling at the hem of your dress and smoothing out imaginary creases, you were annoyed, something burning and twisting inside of you. “Sure Harrington, I forgot you choose all your dates based on compatibility and shared goals for the future.”

“He’s a douchebag,” Steve tried again, “he’s only after one thing.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I am too,” you said loftily and you didn’t look for Steve’s reaction, you didn’t want to. You moved from behind the counter, leaving a cloud of perfume in your wake and headed for the door. “Robs, I’ll call you later, ‘kay?”

Before the girl could answer, Steve was tailing you, moving across the store with that stupid stapler still in his hand and he called out your name, making you stop and turn.

“He’s just gonna hurt you,” the boy explained and you hated how his voice had turned a little softer. “You can do so much better than him.”

“Yeah?” You turned fully, chin raised and shoulders set as you locked eyes with Steve. “Who should I date then, Steve? Who’s good enough?”

The air felt electric, fully charged as the boy stared back, lips parting, chest barely moving as if he was holding his breath. If Robin was still there, you didn’t know, your mind only registering the way the boy was still silent in front of you.

“That’s what I thought,” you eventually muttered, hot tears threatening to prick at the corner of your eyes. “Don’t wait sixteen years to start taking an interest in my love life Harrington, I’ve got by just fine without your advice.”

You’d opened the door by the time Steve replied, voice hot and clipped with anger and something else, a tone you’d never heard him use with you before. “Yeah, well, don’t come fucking crying to me when he turns out to be a dick.”

You laughed humorlessly, your back turned to him as you faced the night outside, the cool air nipping at the heat on your cheeks. You wanted to go home, to chance a look at Robin and silently ask her to clamber into bed with you, if she’d let you cry onto her shoulder as you ate pizza and watched reruns of Charlie’s Angels.

There was also a part of you that wanted to turn to Steve, glassy eyed and confused, to ask why it suddenly felt like you were fighting for the first time since middle school.

But you didn’t.

You walked out into the night and let the door slam shut behind you.

If you’d hung around, you would’ve heard Robin slam down the copy of Stand By Me that she was holding, eyes a little angry and disappointed as she looked at the boy and said: “You’re a fucking idiot.”

‘Yeah,’ Steve thought, ‘he knew he was.’

----------

You hated that Steve was right, you hated that Nate Owens was a pig, you hated that he did nothing but look at your chest over the dinner table, you hated that he tried to lean in for a kiss the minute you both got back into his car, you hated that he got pissy with you when you didn’t let him push his hand up your dress, you hated that he told you to put out or get out.

You hated that he left you on the side of the road, a little out of town, at a restaurant that you didn’t really know, dinner paid for with his daddy’s money.

You hated that when you finally found a payphone at the side of a dark gas station, you punched in Steve’s number. You hated that you started to cry when you heard his voice, you hated that he told you was coming to get you.

Steve found you easily despite your awful directions, and when he asked if you were okay, voice quiet and gentle, you choked out a little sob, feeling pathetic and Steve told you to stay put, that he would be there as fast as he could.

He definitely broke some laws to get to you, flashing through amber lights faster than he was supposed to and when he pulled into the station only twenty minutes later, his heart ached at the way you leaned against the brick wall, half in shadows with your arms wrapped around you, the slight wind picking at the hem of you dress, lifting it from you thighs.

Steve got out of the car before you could move, pushing yourself off of the wall and he hated that your eyes were glassy, that you seemed embarrassed. You let him tug one of his sweatshirts over your head, one he specifically grabbed for you before rushing out of his door, ‘cause he watched you leave work without a jacket and if he’d been in a better mood when you were going on your date - if you’d have been going on a date with him - he would’ve teased you about being cold later.

Steve opened the passenger door, waiting for you to fold yourself into the front of his car and when he got back in, the only light coming from the old neon sign that was flashing red, telling customers that the store was open.

He wrapped his hands around the steering wheel, squeezing it until his knuckles turned white and he glanced at you, expression almost unreadable.

“Did he hurt you?” he asked.

“No,” you shook your head, and it was true. You’d thrown an elbow into the Nate’s chest when he tried to push you too far, too fast, the sharp point of your arm catching him just below his throat and he’d turned on you, telling you to get the fuck out. “The only thing hurt is my pride, but I guess that’s on me, huh?”

Steve sighed at that, turning fully in his seat so he could face you, his hand coming up to press into your cheek, his thumb running gently under your eye, catching the tears there before they fell.

“Sweetheart-” Steve started, but you were overwhelmingly emotional, everything from the night and Nate and Steve suddenly becoming too much and god, you just wanted to yell with it.

“What? Is this the part where you say I told you so?” You tried to sound biting, but the words hitched in your throat, fresh tears springing to your eyes. “Why’re you even here Steve?”

You knew why.

“Cause you asked me,” he answered, simply and that was all there was to it, wasn’t there? “And I’m not gonna tell you shit, I’m… I’m sorry I acted like that early, I dunno what was wrong with me.”

You wanted to press further, you wanted to ask him if he truly didn’t know the reason he acted like an asshole. You wanted to ask if he was jealous, if he wanted you the way you wanted him, if he missed you, if he thought about you when he went on all these dates, if he wanted to kiss you again, if he thought about it all the time, the same way that you did.

But Steve was still talking, fingers slipping from your face to pick at a stand of hair, playing with the end of it absentmindedly. The car felt too small, too warm and too dark, and you were sure that the last time you were both this close, you’d been in Steve's bed, wrapped around him as he made you come.

“He didn’t deserve even an hour of your time,” he told you, brows knitted together in a frown. “And you deserve better than Nate fucking Owens, you’re too good for him,” he repeated his statement from earlier and it made you chest ache, your tummy tumble over because god, you wanted to be brave.

“Who’s good enough then, Steve?” You breathed it out, voice almost a whisper because you were so close to losing it, to grabbing the boy by his face and telling him how you felt, how’d fallen in love with him fuck knows how many years ago and you’d only recently let yourself believe it.

He started, wide eyed, lips parted and waiting, the same reaction he’d had back at Family Video. But you didn’t walk away this time, you let out a huff of laughter, no humour in it as you sat back in the seat and started out of the windscreen. The gas station was deserted, the night creeping into a new day, the clock ticking closer to midnight and the light was still flickering.

It painted you both crimson, eyes brighter than they should’ve been, cheeks rosy. You pushed a foot to the dash, dress slipping up your thigh and gathering in the crease of your leg, showing off way too much skin but you didn’t care.

“I grew up with all the other guys in our grade knowing that I was Steve Harrington’s best friend,” you told him, voice hushed and cracking, “all of them too scared to touch me ‘cause your stupid ten year old ass always threatened to beat them up.”

He was still staring, lip twitching as if he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to laugh or not because it was true. But then he watched a tear slip down your cheek and it caught the light, a flash of ruby before it got caught on your top lip and you licked it away.

“Then in high school, I was a challenge, ‘cause I was still Steve Harrington’s best fucking friend. Boy’s would either be terrified to talk to me or treat me like the best prize they could win. They thought I was off limits, some thought I was your girlfriend and god, Steve, fuck…”

You swallowed, hard, breath catching in your chest and the car was so silent, the boy watching, listening.

“I never thought that I wanted that, to be anything more than your friend. I didn’t,” you tried to sound convincing, but even to your own ears, your protests sounded weak. “But then you kissed me.”

You looked at him from under your lashes, hands twisted nervously in your lap, his sweater fisted between your fingers and you hated the way it smelled like him, like mint and cedar and smoke and suddenly, it was all too much.

“I know I asked you to,” you blurted out, eyes brimming with tears again, spilling over the line of your lashes and suddenly, you didn’t care about what you said anymore. “But fuck! Robin said that you never say no to me, that you’d do anything for me and god, I just wanted it once, I didn’t know it would go that far that night… I don’t regret it,” you rambled, words falling clumsily over the next and you chanced a look at him, his eyes full of shock but there was a softness behind it, familiar and fond. “I don’t regret it at all, I just-”

You sucked in a breath, let your head fall back onto the rest and let your eyes fall closed before you admitted another secret.

“I just can’t stop thinking about it.”

You kept your eyes closed as you kept talking, the words, the confessions, falling so much easier now that you’d started. The dark made you feel a little bolder, the silence of the boy encouraging you to just keep spilling your heart out, no interruptions.

“I thought that maybe you would feel the same, that you’d say something first, ‘cause you’ve always been braver but then you started dating that girl, then the other one. And maybe I was just stupid, maybe I was wrong,” you sighed, gazing to the side to catch Steve’s eye, a warmth blooming over your entire body, embarrassment, adrenaline and the feeling that you were throwing yourself off a cliff surging over you. “But there was a part of me that thought you’d maybe figure out you loved me too.”

You didn’t know what you expected, really. There was such a large part of you that still believed you were only going to ever be friends, that if Steve wanted more, he would've told you by now. That part told you you were imagining things, that sleeping together was nothing more than an experiment, a product of being high and bored with your best friend. It told you to ignore the way you thought he looked at you, the way that sometimes, you were so sure his touch lingered for longer than it needed to.

But then there was a voice in the back of your head, a shit, it sounded a little like Robin’s and it told you that the boy before you would do anything for you, anything you asked. And wasn’t that why he was here now? It told you that friends didn’t look at each other like that, that friends didn’t have to untangle themselves from each other's arms each morning, that friends didn’t kiss like you had both done.

Steve whispered your name then, a hand reaching out to catch yours.

“You know I love you,” he whispered, voice a little shocked, a little awed. He sounded broken too, like he didn’t know what he was supposed to say, like he was terrified of saying the wrong thing. “I’ve always loved you, you’re my best friend.”

Your heart fell.

“I- I don’t wanna lose you,” Steve said and he was rambling, falling over his words as his eyes searched your face for something he wasn’t going to find. The softness you’d held in your features was gone. “Babe, you’re my best friend, I can’t lose you-”

“Don’t call me that,” you choked out, your heart racing, your stomach twisting. You thought you might be sick. “Fuck, shit, take me home.”

You pulled your hand away from where the boy held it, your demand sounding harsh and too loud in the quiet of the car. You couldn’t look at him. The red light was still flashing, flickering and it suddenly felt like it was splitting your head in two, like it was pulsing to the same beat as your heart.

Steve said your name again, pleading, his hand on your arm, silently begging you to turn, to look at him.

“Can you let me explain? Please, god, I didn’t mean it like that, you have to understand-”

“Take me home, Steve, please.”

But he ignored you, tugging the keys out of the ignition and leaning forward, a hand tilting at your chin to try and a catch your gaze but your cheeks felt too hot and the burn at your eyes told you that you were going to start crying again and all you could think about was the list of boys who were too scared to make you theirs, too happy with a quick fuck in the back of their shitty cars and you never used to care because you were only ever happy with one boy.

You knew you should’ve let him talk, that you owed him his chance to speak but the burning sensation of embarrassment and rejection was creeping up your spine like poison and you hated it, you couldn’t stand it.

You panicked.

You pulled at the door handle, fingers clumsy as you pushed the door open, clambering out with Steve’s sweater still swamping your frame and you could hear the boy calling your name even after you slammed the door shut.

You made a start for the alleyway behind the gas station, somewhere the car couldn’t follow and by the time you made it a few streets over, you realised Steve wasn’t coming for you anyway.

You got halfway home before the rain started falling, a pathetic spit that misted into the air and soaked you through. It made your hair stick to your cheeks, Steve’s sweater damp and hanging heavy on your body and by the time you reached home, it didn’t smell like him anymore.

Good, you thought.

Because when you were eight years old, Steve Harrington was the first big to tell you he loved you and then he promised you three things:

One, he’d always be your best friend. Two, he’d always protect you from everything bad and scary. And three, he’d never break your heart.

It took almost twelve years, but shit, the boy finally broke one of them.

Take me out, and take me home.

It took Steve twelve years to break his promise to you, but only four days to fix it.

Which was impressive really, when he spent the first three days agonising over what to say to you. You’d been avoiding him like the plague, worse than the plague, quite frankly.

He expected you at work the next day, chest sore from holding his breath as he watched the door, eyes tired from staying up all night.

He’d stayed in that gas station parking lot for too long after you’d left, eyes wide as he watched you leave, disappearing behind the alleyway almost instantly.

Steve had slammed his hands on the dash, overwhelmed with everything you’d said, admitted to him, with glassy eyes and he fucking hated how he’d made your bottom lip tremble, your breath hitch and stutter as you tried not to cry.

He’d panicked.

And you’d left.

He’d driven home slowly, trying to catch sight of you on the sidewalks that led home, rolling down the streets that looked unfamiliar to see if you were there, trying to find shortcuts. When the rain had started, he’d cursed, no sight of you anywhere and by the time he’d pulled up outside your house, he was relieved to see your bedroom light on, a sign you’d made it home safely.

He wanted to knock on the door, to climb into your bedroom window and try to make you smile again, to stop you crying because he couldn’t fucking stand it when you cried, especially because of him.

But the window was shut, a rare sight and he knew it was a hint, a very obvious clue for him to stay the fuck away. He watched your light flicker off, the house bathed in darkness and he’d sat, pushing the heels of his hands to his eyes and cursing himself.

He should’ve told you, he shouldn’t have been so fucking scared.

You didn’t show up at work and when he asked Robin if she’d heard from you, the girl had told him that you were sick, had called in early and spoke to Keith.

“She’s put in a line for the entire week, actually, said it’s a bad bug,” Robin had told him knowingly. “Whatever you’ve done, Harrington, I suggest you fix it.”

Steve didn’t ask how Robin knew, didn’t press her for any more details, ‘cause he knew her too well, knew she wouldn’t tell him shit so he just slammed a video he was supposed to be rewinding on the desk, and sighed, heavy and tired.

“I know.”

You didn’t answer his calls. With your parents visiting family out of town, there was no one in the house but you and you made a point of refusing to pick up the phone at all.

Robin would visit, not bothering to knock as she slipped into your house, huffing and humming to herself as she climbed your stairs, barging into your room unannounced.

She set a careful gaze on you, a lump underneath the duvet, as she dumped your favourite snacks at the foot of your bed.

“You’re not sick, are you?” You hated how it didn’t even sound like a question, just an accusation. “You wanna tell me what happened?”

And you did, you told her everything from the joint, to your kiss, the entire night. You told her about Nate, about your confession, about the way Steve looked at you when you told him that you thought he loved you too.

Robin listened, curled up by your pillows beside you, your head on her shoulder and her cheek resting on yours, a bag of Reece’s Pieces between you both.

“I know that this probably isn’t what you wanna hear right now,” the girl began, patting your hand with her own, “you know, with you being all heart broken and what not.”

You huffed.

“But I don’t believe for a second that Steve doesn’t love you, that he isn’t in love with you.”

“Robin, please,” you groaned, shoving your face into her arm, because she was right, you didn’t wanna hear it. You’d spent too long trying to convince yourself that she was right, Steve was in love with you, only to blurt out your feelings for him and have him look at you, sheer panic on his face, in return.

She sighed, knowing it was useless trying to make you see her side of things, so she pushed her nose to your temple, blew a raspberry to the side of your head and stole another Reece’s Piece.

“Have you spoken to him?” She asked, voice unusually quiet.

You shook your head.

“Have you let him try?” The girl said knowingly.

You shook your head again.

Another huff, a somewhat affectionate butt of her head to yours and then she turned, shuffling against the pillows until you were face to face.

“He’s really broken up about this,” she told you and her words made you wanna cry again. “You need to let him explain.”

You sniffed, eyes watering and despite the ache that still lived in your chest, you nodded.

“‘Cause I don’t think you said things right, y’know?” Robin squinted at you, trying to make sense of what you’d told her Steve had said that night. “He’s a guy, shit, he’s Steve. Communication isn’t his strong point.”

“I don’t know what’s more clearer than ‘you’re my best friend, I can’t lose you’. Idiot or not, he made it pretty obvious that we’re never gonna be anything more.”

The movie that you had both hardly been watching was over, the screen fading to black and the credits rolling. A love song started to play, soppy and too cheery and you grunted, searching for the remote between the sheets before angrily pressing the off button. Silence fell over you and Robin snorted, flinging herself over your lap and looking up at you with a small smile.

She pressed a finger to the tip of your nose and you scowled.

“Ever think that maybe he’s just scared?”

Your frown deepened and you stared down at your friend, lips parted at the absurdity of her question.

“What?” You scoffed. “I’ve watched him take down a demogorgon with a baseball bat, Robin, the boy isn’t scared of much anymore-”

“He also got his heart broken by the first girl he told he loved,” Robin interrupted. “He dates girls that he isn’t really interested in, that are the complete opposite of you. His folks are never around, he’s made his own family out of his friends.”

You swallowed, throat suddenly feeling thick, your chest tight.

“You're probably the most constant thing in his life, y’know,” she mused, voice unbearably soft. The girl brought a hand up to tuck a stand of your hair behind your ear, the gesture fond. “He’s always had you, maybe he’s just scared to fuck things up and lose you.”

You couldn’t say anything. You didn't want to. ‘Cause that stupid burn was scratching at your eyes again, at the back of your throat and you were so done with crying, you were so over pushing your face into your pillow to dry your face.

Robin sat up suddenly, stretching and bending down to pull on her shoes. She popped another piece of chocolate in her mouth before smacking a kiss to your cheek and you were still silent, bundled up between pillows and blankets in bed.

“Talk to him, babe,” she told you, heading for the door without any other goodbye, “ I’m sure he’s got a lot to say.”

Fuck.

You picked and put down your phone six times before you decided to pull on your shoes and start walking. It didn’t take long to walk from yours to the Harrington’s, but you moved at a snail's pace, playing tightrope along the edge of the sidewalk before you stopped at the corner of Steve’s street, heart suddenly ready to burst from your chest. The sun started to set as you waited, hesitating. The sky turned from blue to lilac, tangerine and peach and the air became still.

You walked up his front path, hand raised, ready to knock.

It was a sparkler between your ribs kinda feeling, jump off a cliff kind of feeling, take a shot of tequila kind of feeling, risk fucking everything kind of feeling.

You’d walked away from the boy, his words stuck in his throat, your name dying on his lips and now you were ready to make it up to him. ‘Cause Steve was right, whatever either of you felt, you couldn’t lose him either.

The idea of rejection hurt, but not having Steve Harrington in your life hurt even more.

So you knocked.

Once, twice, three times, but no one answered. His car was in the drive, no parents to be seen and you took a deep breath before you plucked up the courage to open the door like you normally could.

Your footsteps echoed in the large hallway and the only sound you could hear came from the backyard, the tinny sound of music playing from outside. You found him there, spread out lazy by the edge of the pool, shirt off, one leg dipped into the water and his hair messy from swimming and the leftover heat from the day.

Shadows from the tree branches above fell over him, cutting through the gold light, streaks of pink and rose painting his skin pretty and you stood for just a second, watching through the open patio doors.

You tugged anxiously at the tagged hem of your shorts, the T-shirt you’d tucked into it suddenly feeling too constricting and you wanted to pull at the collar, you wanted to take off running again, because the sight of him hurt.

Before you could step out into the last patch of sun, Steve sat up, muscles flexing, pool water swirling and he froze, lips parted and staring at you.

It had only been four days since you’d last seen him, but it felt like far too much time had passed. You hadn’t gone that long without him in years, not since your parents told you that they were taking you to Utah to spend a summer with your grandparents. They’d cut the trip short by two weeks, aggravated and done with their fifteen year old daughter who didn’t shut up about how much she kissed her best friend.

Yearly trips to the lake house with the Harrington’s resumed the summer after that.

The boy whispered your name as if he’d scare you off and he sounded tired, sounded a little broken, just like Robin had said.

You lifted your hand in an awkward wave, stepping out into the yard and into the streak of sun that stretched across the patio. It warmed you, skin lit up, a golden glow slanting over both of you and even from where you stood, Steve’s eyes looked like honey.

“Hey.”

He stood, a hand raking through his still damp hair, making it even messier than usual and he mimicked you, hand raised, wingers waggling shyly, as if you hadn’t known each other for seventeen years.

“I was just coming to see you,” Steve admitted and he sounded as nervous as you felt. “I tried calling you. A lot.”

You nodded, feeling guilty and it burned at your chest. “I know, I’m sorry.”

Steve nodded, bare foot scuffling against the slabs and you wanted to crawl back into your bed, already feeling defeated. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this with Steve.

“I was gonna come round, you know,” Steve started again, gesturing to you, he looked lost, a little helpless. “Before now I mean… I just- I didn’t wanna upset you and you didn’t answer the phone so I just,” he shrugged, looking at the pool instead of you. “I didn’t wanna upset you any more.”

Almost silence; the trickle of the pool filter, the buzz of insects, the sway of the wind in the tree branches.

And then, “I’ve missed you,” Steve said, voice softer than before. “A lot.”

You let out the breath you didn’t know you’d been holding then, feet moving forward and you let yourself fall into one of the loungers, a space beside the pool that was so overly familiar.

You looked at the boy then, and god, he was the last cherry popsicle, he was sunshine, he was summer, he was full of promises and all your secrets, he was late nights and early mornings, first crushes and last kisses.

“I’ve missed you too,” you told him, voice hurting with sincerity.

It seemed to be all the boy needed to surge into action, because he relaxed at your admission, moving to the other lounger so he could sit across from you, bare knees almost bumping and he was leaning forward, invading your senses and he smelled like chlorine and sunscreen, mint and cedar and boy and summer and Steve.

“Why’d you leave?”

“I’m sorry,” you told him, eyes suddenly filling with tears because you were so embarrassed by it all. From your outburst to your storming away, leaving the boy sitting confused after he’d come to get you. “I just- I couldn’t sit there and handle the rejection, I never should have said anything, it was so stupid of me-”

You were stopped by his hand reaching out and covering your own, that familiar warmth of his fingers twisting between yours, a wide, rough palm, calloused on your own.

You looked at him, cheeks warm with your ramblings and he sighed, affection radiating from him as he gazed at you. He didn’t look confused this time, or panicked. Maybe a little bit scared but there was something else there and it shone a little brighter.

“Sweetheart, I never once tried to reject you,” Steve huffed out a soft laugh, “shit, I don’t think I could if my life depended on it.”

“What?” You froze, brows knitting together as you replayed the same conversation you both had in the car and you shook your head, confused. “You literally told me I was your best friend, Steve, that you couldn’t lose me.”

“And that’s true!” He burst out, “you just never let me finish!”

He sighed, using his free hand to scrub over his face and he took a deep breath before he faced you again.

“I panicked.” He said it so simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m so sorry babe but I fuckin’ panicked. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to hear those words from you, you can’t even fucking imagine how long. I just didn’t wanna mess it up, I couldn’t. I couldn’t risk not having you.”

A sound of surprise left your lips at his words and you wanted to laugh at the irony of them, ‘cause yes, yes could imagine. But you kept quiet, letting the boy speak, making up for how you didn’t last time. You squeezed his hand instead, hoping it was reassuring enough.

You watched him lick his lips as he thought about his next words and your brows rose when he suddenly moved, kneeling in front of you and tapping at your knee, silently asking for you to spread your legs and let him in. You did, almost embarrassed by the lack of hesitation on your par but Steve moved into the space tour created for him, suddenly too close.

You exhaled a little slower, could count the new freckles on his nose, could see the small scar that cut through his brow, the one you gave him when you were seven and pillow fights got too boisterous.

He smoothed his hands up and down your thighs, a touch that brought comfort and he took another deep breath, readying himself for what he wanted to tell you.

“I’ve been in love with you since we were sixteen,” he said slowly, each word dropping like an atom bomb and you wondered if the earth was shaking. “Maybe longer, I was probably too stupid to work it out before then.”

You let out a disbelieving laugh and Steve grinned at the sound.

“It took me a little while,” he admitted, gaze lowering as if he were suddenly shy, “I didn’t know the difference between loving you and being in love with you. You’ve been in my life for as long as I can remember.”

His fingers found the frayed hem of your shorts, twisting the strands between his fingers absentmindedly.

“I remember Nancy telling me that, uh,” he cleared his throat, words catching on his lips with nerves and hesitation, “she uh, told me that I didn’t love her like I thought I did. That I was in love with someone else.”

You inhaled sharply, remembering the girl telling you something similar that day on the bench. You’d been confused and a little irritated at her, defensive maybe, now that you looked back on it. You remembered the way she twisted her lips to hide a grin that she didn’t want to annoy you with, eyes all too knowing.

“I kinda realised then,” Steve nodded, eyes finding yours from under his lashes and god, you wondered when his face had moved so close to yours. “She was totally right, I just didn’t really wanna admit it.”

“Why not?” You asked, voice a little sad, ‘cause that had been years ago, and you felt overlooked, like so many missed opportunities had passed you both by and god, were the two of you really that stupid?

“I was stupid!” Steve burst out and you laughed, a little sad with watery eyes but shit, you were too. “So I kept dating random girls, anyone, really. Tried to take my mind off you, tried to forget about you in my bed.”

God, the memory made you burn.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he whispered, still leaning into you, eyes closed like he was at confession. “Asking you out on a date seemed so ridiculous when I already know you better than anyone else.”

Your nose grazed Steve’s, and you let out a small sigh because as much as you were hurt by it all, you understood. You and Steve had seen every movie there was to see, had taken trips out of town to every concert, spent too many evenings at burger joints and ice cream parlours. You probably wouldn’t have guessed you were on a date with the boy unless he was in a tux and there was a chandelier above you.

And that seemed like a big ask.

“I would’ve loved to go on a date with you,” you said anyway, cause the idea of Steve pulling up outside your door with flowers in his hand gave you butterflies, tugging at your heart in a way that made you warm.

“Yeah?” He smiled, blinding and it only widened when you nodded.

He moved impossibly closer still, cheek to cheek so he could find your ear with his lips, hands moving to your thighs, thumbs rubbing circles on the inside.

“I spent so long tryin’ to work up the courage to ask you to be my girlfriend,” his admission sounded like his biggest secret yet and you held your breath as he whispered it to you. “So long that years passed and we got older and suddenly the word ‘girlfriend’ didn’t seem enough.”

It was strange, but you knew what Steve meant. The word seemed too arbitrary, too normal, to describe the relationship you had with each other, how you felt about the other.

“I know,” you told him, voice just as soft and quiet as his. “I’d still like to be yours though.”

His grin was contagious, warmer than the sun that was starting to set, brighter than the rays on the pool and you swore the world was spinning a little faster in excitement, as if the planets and the moon were just as happy as you were.

“Yeah?” He asked, low and rough, nose pressing to your cheek, lips just brushing yours.

You nodded, eyes fluttering closed, waiting, wanting.

“Can we always be this close?” Steve asked, and you melted a little at the question, at that soft sincerity he always managed to give you.

“Yeah, god, please,” you answered and your voice sounded a little husky, a little pleading because you couldn’t imagine anything else. “Can you kiss me, now?”

The boy swore under his breath, the curse mixing with a huff of laughter and he smiled against you, mouth pressing happy to your cheek and you beamed at him, lashes tickling his skin, both of you warm against the other.

“Could never really figure out how to say no to you, y’know that?” He whispered, as if he was giving away a secret. Steve let his lips hover over yours, his hands wrapping around the small of your back, fingers playing with your belt loops, pulling you flush with him. Your hands smoothed over his bare chest and around his neck, skin hot with the sun, with being near you.

“Can I take you on a date?”

Something bloomed inside of you, wildflowers between your ribs, a new day of summer, a heatwave in your chest.

“If I say yes, will you kiss me?” you asked, a little bratty, a little teasing. You’d waited so long for both, you didn’t know what you wanted first.

But then Steve was pushing into you, lips pressing down onto your own, his hand along the underside of your jaw as he used his thumb to push a little under your chin, tilting you up to his mouth so he could lick into you, adoration pouring into you. You felt the way he loved you, like the way everyone else saw it. It still felt new, his lips on yours, new in an exciting way, new in a ‘god, I could get used to this’ way.

“Lemme take you on a date,” he said again, a smile on his lips, pressing it to yours and his voice was sunshine but rougher, even warmer and it made you smile that cheek hurting kinda smile.

You nodded.

“You still my best friend, Harrington?”

Steve pulled back to look at you, eyes shining. “That and more, sweetheart.” And when he said that, it felt enough. ‘More’.

“You still gonna protect me from everything bad and scary?” You nudged the tip of your nose to his, voice sweet.

“With everything I have in me,” he answered honestly, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth, catching your laughter. “Baseball bat and all.”

“Promise you won’t break my heart?” You asked, forehead to his, eyes full of every emotion you felt. Love, excitement, fear, hope, nervousness, adoration.

“Promise you won’t break mine?” Steve whispered back, a hand on your cheek, thumb grazing over your lip.

“I promise,” you told him, hands gripping right at his shoulders, running across the nape of his neck, diving into his hair.

“I promise,” he repeated, and shit, you believed him.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington fic #steve harrington smut #ash recommends stranger things

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