to be alone together
pairing: Steve Harrington x reader
summary: steve has to work on valentine’s day, but maybe it’s not as bad as he thought it would be
warnings: none, 1.8k
a/n: u know i had to do a lil something for my steve girlies too <3 went for a more steve centric pov bc he is the definition of pining simp
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(gif credits to @harringtondaily)
“Kinda sucks that you gotta work tonight.” Robin’s voice through the phone pressed to Steve’s ear was staticky, but still provided a good distraction from the empty video store around him.
It was Valentine’s Day and Steve had been at Family Video since opening, watching couple after couple come in to pretty much clear the romcom shelves, and yeah, he was a little bummed about it, but there was no point moping around about it any longer than he already had been.
“It’s whatever, honestly. Not like I had any plans to begin with.” He sighed, shifting the receiver so it was wedged between his cheek and shoulder as his fingers drifted down to fiddle with the pen on the counter absentmindedly.
“Steve, that’s sad.” Robin replied. Steve wrinkled his nose, a slightly offended noise escaping the back of his throat. “No! I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant that you should be out and about, having a good time.”
“You know what’s actually sad? You talking to me instead of paying attention to your date.” He shot back, only half serious. “Where’s Nance?”
“Oh she’s right here. Say hi, Nance.”
Steve heard a faint ‘hi Steve’ in the background and he returned the greeting. “What are you guys doing tonight?”
“She made this really fancy pasta thing for dinner, we’re just waiting on the chicken to finish in the oven and I thought I’d see what was going on with you.” Robin sounded casual, but he knew this was her way of checking up on him since he was the only one on shift all day and she knew how he felt about today.
“Rob, I don’t know how many times I gotta tell you, but I’m fine. It’s really not a big deal.”
“Why don’t you just close up early, come join us for dinner? We have more than enough food.”
“You’re seriously inviting me to crash your romantic dinner date with your girlfriend?” He snorted, rolling his eyes playfully. “What does Nancy think of that?”
There was some shuffling on the other end, a bout of silence, then Robin was back on the line. “She’s giving me a weird look, nevermind. Now that I think about it, it wasn’t my best idea.”
“I love you both, but you know I can’t.”
The bell above the door jingled softly, drawing Steve’s attention away from his phone call and to whoever just walked in.
Shit. It was you.
You were dressed like you were supposed to be on your date, not here, hair and makeup done up all pretty, floaty dress in his favorite color swishing around your knees as you made your way into the store. It made him wonder if you chose that color on purpose, but he knew that you didn’t. You couldn’t have known you’d be seeing him tonight. Wishful thinking on his end though.
“Rob, I gotta go,” He blurted, straightening up behind the counter.
“Wait, what—”
“I gotta go, she’s—someone’s here, I gotta help her.”
“She? Oh my god, wait! Is it—”
“Have a nice date, tell Nance I said bye!” With that, Steve hung up, slamming the receiver onto the base with enough force to send it skittering a few inches. “Hey, Y/N.”
“Steve!” Your previously downturned lips lifted into a smile, one that had Steve’s heart thudding a little faster in his chest. It always did. “I didn’t know you were working tonight.”
See, you were also part of the reason he decided to take the extra shift today, but through no fault of your own. You’d mentioned earlier in the week while you were hanging out with him and Robin that someone had asked you out for tonight, and Steve didn’t really know how to feel about it.
You were friends, but had Steve been harboring a crush on you since pretty much the first day you met? Yes.
Did he feel an itching sense of jealousy that you were going on a date with someone that wasn’t him? Also yes.
Would he do anything about it? Probably not.
Okay, so maybe he knew exactly how he felt about it. Hell, he’d picked up an extra shift to distract himself from it.
“Yeah, I got called in last minute." A lie. "Aren’t you supposed to be on a date right now?” A casual, not at all hoping that it crashed and burned question. That would be mean. (But also a little gratifying for him.)
You chuckled, a tad bitter as you leaned forward, propping your elbows on the counter, the action sending a whiff of your perfume his way. Steve’s knees almost gave out. “Supposed to, yeah. But the guy never showed up.”
Steve had to fight a noise of surprise. What kind of dumbass would skip out on a date with you? “Really? That’s—that sucks, I’m sorry.”
“S’okay. Wasn’t really looking forward to it anyways.”
“Oh?”
“I didn’t really know him that well, honestly. He was a friend of a friend, asked me out in front of a bunch of people, and I didn’t really wanna turn him down and make it awkward.”
“You’re way too nice, Y/N. And he’s an idiot for standing you up.”
“Thanks, Steve.” You smiled warmly at him, patting his hand. Steve had to pretend his pulse wasn’t racing right now. “What about you? Why’re you here and not out with anyone?”
“I, uh—I didn’t really feel like going out tonight. Don’t think I’d be a very good date anyways.”
“Oh, you’re just being modest. What girl wouldn’t wanna spend Valentine’s Day with Steve Harrington?”
The one girl he wanted to spend this day with, he thought. You.
“You’d be surprised.” He muttered.
“Well then they’re idiots too.”
A small smile quirked his lips. “Thanks.”
“Hey, I just came to pick up some movies and spend the rest of my night shoveling down ice cream, but since we’re both here now and alone, d’you wanna…be alone together? Grab a bite to eat or do something?”
Steve’s shoulders slumped defeatedly. “I’d love to, but I—I can’t. I gotta stay here til the end of my shift, Keith’s been on my ass about taking off early and as much as I hate the guy, I don’t wanna get fired.”
“Oh, okay. Don’t worry about it, I’m, uh—it’s cool.” Was he hallucinating, or did you look disappointed?
“Would you maybe wanna, I dunno, stay here? We can watch whatever you want and I know where Robin keeps her work snack stash. That way we can be alone together and I don’t get chewed out again?” Steve blurted hopefully. He was honestly expecting you to say no. Why would you wanna spend the rest of your already shitty night with him in a dingy video store? But then your face split into the biggest smile and you nodded, rocking forward on the balls of your feet earnestly. “Go pick something out, I’ll grab the snacks.”
You scurried off to browse the near bare shelves, leaving Steve shaking his head amusedly in your wake as he watched you skim the tapes with a look of utmost concentration. He slipped into the back room to grab Robin’s last unopened bag of chips, making a mental note to buy more before tomorrow’s shift before returning to the video area.
He skimmed the store, spotting you in the romcom section, and when he made his way over, you were contemplating the last two tapes on the shelf.
You beamed at him upon spotting him. “Pretty in Pink or Sixteen Candles?”
“Am I allowed to say neither?”
���You said whatever I want, Steve.” You said pointedly, propping your hands on your hips.
“I did, didn’t I?” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. You let out a hum of pleasure, sliding your chosen movie off the shelf and wandering towards the TV in the corner. Steve hurried after you quickly, plucking the tape from between your fingertips and running away, not unlike a child would.
“Steve!” You huffed, whirling on your heel. He grinned mischievously at you, waving it in the air like a taunt. You caught up with him within seconds, lunging for the tape that he held up above his head and away from your outstretched hand. Your body was pressed against his as you reached for it, as you leaned against him in a fruitless attempt to overpower him. “Steve, gimme the tape!”
“No!” He laughed, but that laughter very soon trickled off as soon as he realized your proximity. You were so close, he could see the color of your eyes clear as day, looking right back at him. You’d fallen quiet too, as if you’d come to the same realization.
You were nose to nose, faces a hair’s breadth away from each other, the stolen tape in Steve’s hands long forgotten. Every fiber in his body was telling him to pull away, because the longer he stayed here the weirder it would be when he finally did manage to retreat, but no matter how hard he willed himself to move, he couldn’t. Instead, his eyes flicked down to your lips. Your breath hitched almost imperceptibly.
“Steve?” You whispered, gaze darting around his own face.
“Yeah?”
“Kiss me.”
You didn’t have to tell him twice.
Steve dropped the tape immediately, closing the gap between you and pressing his lips against yours. His hands came up to cup your face, holding you firm but kissing you soft, like he was preparing himself to pull away if you did. But from the way you were returning his kiss, how your hands clutched at the front of his vest to keep him this close, it didn’t feel like you’d be pulling away anytime soon, and that spurred him on even more.
One hand slid down to settle at your waist, the other curling around the back of your neck as he tilted his head, deepening the kiss just a little bit.
Steve’s lips felt tingly when he pulled away, tasted of your cherry lip gloss when his tongue darted out to lick them. He was sure to have a little bit on his mouth now, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Not by a long shot. Cherry might’ve just become his new favorite flavor.
“I really like you.” He breathed, chest heaving against yours. Your lips curved into a soft smile—the same smile that nearly sent Steve’s brain short circuiting every time it was aimed his way.
“After that kiss, I’d sure hope so,” You replied, smoothing out his wrinkled shirt as best you could. “I like you too, just so you know. Part of the reason I was so okay with my date ditching me. He wasn’t you.”
Steve could only beam at you, going in for another kiss. In his excitement, he missed his mark, hitting the corner of your mouth instead, but he didn’t care. The girl he wanted all along actually liked him back, and it only took one failed date and an extra shift to find out.
Maybe working on Valentine’s Day wasn’t so bad after all.
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so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.
first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.
it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.
and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.
you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.
and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.
your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.
in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.
in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.
so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.
you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.
once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.
and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"
you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?
hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!
you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.
we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?
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