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onlyseokmins · 2 years

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limbo • w.j.h.

Pairing: wen junhui x afab!reader

Genres: smut (minors dni!), afterlife!au

Warnings: this is kinda plot heavy not good smut but lezzgo just in case 😭 um daggers (no knife play tho dhdjjs), lil bit of threats and maybe violence, junhui deserves a warning himself I think he's hot, tying up/tentacle play kind of but it's shadows um like idk how to describe it 🤡 supernatural things!, biting 🦷, mentions of blood, death, lil bit of angst but I'm fluffy as usual <3, lots of mentions of souls and afterlife shenanigans, thigh riding, mirror sex, pls forgive me and just hmu if I missed smth

WC: 2.5k

A/N: for the lovely @katetattoolover <3 mwah I hope you enjoy this even if my brain died halfway writing it ndksksks another unplanned thing but limbo is just too powerful... Also for my huihuis mwah ILY... Idk how to describe this but I'm in a spooky mood bc of Halloween fics so this kind of played into it ig? I just like the plot 😭😅

If you were in heaven or hell, you didn't know. And you didn't care.

The fact of the matter was that you did know where you were.

Limbo.

The great boundary between worlds. Soul suspended, unable to leave. Not until you made a decision based on the knowledge gathered about your death that you learned here.

Neither heaven, hell, or earth.

A bleary place full of everything and nothing. Guarded and watched over by the enigmatic figure whose dark eyes were trained on you.

Blonde tresses tinged with white highlights are smoothly swept up in a ponytail to display his ears where little diamond studs twinkle like stars. When you'd first met him at the gates, he'd been wearing what you could only presume as combat armor, despite its lack of protection across his midriff. Vainly showing off his well-defined abs.

Now, he's donning a ruffled white blouse that looks like something old paintings of the founding fathers would have been dressed in. It suits him though, the v-cut down the front granting a delicious view of his décolletage and scorched ends adding to his devastating visuals.

You wonder how no one has succeeded in brutally attacking him with how exposed his outfits were but you suppose his eerie beauty is enough to render anyone immobile. Besides, even when his disinterested gaze shifts from you to the large glass of what you hope is simply wine, you can feel the shuddering intensity of the power he holds. Dangerous enough that it causes even your soul's shape to ripple in the stagnant air.

"You're a curious one, you know? Most are on their knees, begging for mercy."

"Is that what you prefer? Begging?"

The red liquid swirls as his fingers tap against the side of the glass. Silver hand jewelry accentuating the veins on his hands sparkles under the low, candlelit glow of the chandelier and matches the smirk that grows on his red lips.

"Only from those who dare to threaten my authority."

A silver, pearl-encrusted dagger lays on the floor between his golden throne at the table of gluttony and where you stand defiantly down on the concrete floor. Your wrists are bound together in front of you by a writhing strand of black shadows that spew out tiny hisses, much stronger than they look.

"I told you, I don't know where that came from. It's not mine!"

"Oh but darling," he laughs — though it's without humor, "it is."

You bare your teeth like a wild, caged animal. "I don't know a single thing! I just arrived here, someone has to be framing me, that dagger is not mine!"

Heeled boots create an echoing thud through the room that seems to enlarge and shrink at the same time. He bends down to pick up the dagger, turning it in his hands and inspecting it.

"This definitely belongs to you."

You stomp your foot. "No, it does n — "

"Because it was originally mine."

Your breath catches in your throat. Not just in response to his statement but because of the sharp point of the dagger inches away from your jugular. You may be an incorporeal existence now but fear fails to leave your instincts. Especially with a powerful entity's threats that could truly hurt you.

"Do you want a new life that bad?" he questions and for some reason he almost sounds… wistful? You're able to feel the cold steel against your chin as he taps the dull side of the dagger underneath it so you meet his searing, scarlet irises with a wide-eyed gaze. "That can't be it. There should only be one reason why you're standing before me."

"... Which is?"

"To return to your rightful place."

You attempt to take a step back but the shadows under his control swirl around your feet, anchoring you in place as he leans in.

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"To come back to me. My queen."

"What?"

"The only other rightful ruler of Limbo." He's close enough that you can smell the sweet but smokey scent emanating from him, the dagger still poised between the two of you. "Allow me to remind you, my beloved."

Shadow wisps tickle your cheeks, encouraging you to close your eyes as they wrap around you. You think you should be terrified, screaming and struggling in protest. But the caresses of darkness welcoming you have nostalgia entangled within. A strange but familiar sense of comfort has you willingly grant them access into your mind to reawaken suppressed memories of a past life.

An arranged marriage. Heavy crowns. Lovelessness. A kiss stolen under the stars. Satin silk sheets. A dagger decorated with pearls. A promise, an oath. Blood. A chained box. Death. A name.

"Junhui," you breathe out.

"My love," he affirms with a hushed whisper of your own name.

Your eyes reopen with a glow, drinking in his features with a different sense of appreciation. One that holds recognition and fondness. Utter longing.

"How did this happen?"

He gently takes your hand, releasing your hands from the bindings and leads you up the stairs.

"After the soldiers cut me down, I found myself here. Searching for you, for a sign. Instead I found this." The ornate chair next to the one he was sitting on holds an old, beaten-up wooden box with heavy silver chains. It lies open but empty. "The higher beings told me I would have to wait and be patient… that I would have absolutely no doubts when you finally arrived."

You take the dagger he holds out to you, the same as you did on that fateful yet tragic night. Fragmented memories piece together the events that led up to your demise. Frantically digging a hole to hide the box containing the written love notes exchanged between your lover. The dagger should've joined them but the devastating news your personal maid delivered to you was buried into your body instead of the ground. Infused to become a part of your soul.

A sob unwittingly escapes. "For how long?"

"Too long." Junhui sighs. "I lost count thousands of years ago."

"I'm so sorry — "

"Don't. You've come to me now and that's all that matters."

"Jun…"

"Welcome to my lost world," he wipes away the tears that trail down your cheeks. "I've built it all for you, my queen. No one can defy or separate us now."

It is not the paradise you envisioned in your mortal lives nor the nirvana your soul imagined it'd be sent to. But that didn't matter because you realize that what you've always wanted — who you've always needed — was standing before you. Welcoming you with an open embrace.

"So, what happens now?"

"We must ensure that your soul is bound here… and to me so it won't move on or disappear… if that is what you want. You must make a choice."

You brush the strand of hair that escaped from his ponytail behind his ear. "What choice is there to make? I want to stay with you, to be with you. What must I do to make that happen?"

Junhui bites his lip. With a deep breath, he walks you over to where a shattered mirror sits in the corner. You try to hold back a scream and whimper instead, watching through the cracked glass as Junhui's arms wrap steadily around you — but nothing of you visible — in the reflection.

"Oh my g — "

"God can't help us now, beloved. He was never on our side to begin with." You nod pensively and Junhui continues. "Would you allow me to touch you, darling? Like before? I must bind your soul here and to do that, I will have to claim you as mine."

You turn to face him with a smile. "Aren't I already yours? Years ago, hidden under the veil of night?"

He beams back at you. "I take that as a yes, then?"

"Yes" rolls off your tongue and then Junhui's pressing his lips against yours. Running his tongue across your lips to seek permission, you chase his mouth as he walks backward until he's seated on his chair.

You fall against him, knees planting on either side of his thighs cushioned by the plushy surface. The ruffles on his blouse tickle your sudden bare skin and you pull away, looking at him in shock.

"Special privileges," he smirks devilishly, "I can manipulate the Limbo landscape quite easily so making your soul bare for me takes little effort."

"Will I be able to do the same?"

"Of course, my queen. And more." He takes your hand and places it over his chest. "But it's not like you need any powers to strip me, my dear. And I hope you'll use those kinds of powers on no one else but your king."

It's an invitation you would never refuse. The sound of tiny buttons and the clatter of the dagger hitting the floor fill the room as you rip off his shirt and slide it down his shoulders. Your hand trails down his pecs to the abs you were graced with upon your arrival, following the defined veins that disappear into his pants. He halts you when you start to slide down and you frown.

"I thought you liked people begging on their knees?"

"I do… but only in certain cases. Perhaps we can save that for another time, I'm supposed to be worshiping you, my love. Encouraging you to stay with me. Uniting our souls."

You want to tell him that you would not leave no matter what. But you know the strange workings of the afterlife and anything before, between, and after have strict rules that must be followed.

So, you relent. Letting him take control, peppering your upper body with kisses as he runs his fingers up and down the sides of your body. Committing it all to memory once more. Though you are no different to him than you were centuries ago.

The sting of coldness from his rings and fancy jewelry comes as a shock. Junhui feels you jolt against his hold and pauses, looking up at you from where his head is positioned between the valley of your chest.

"Are you okay?"

You nod, explaining the sensations, and he smiles contently; resuming his journey across the curves of your body. The soft material of his pants press against your center as you slowly begin to sink down on his thigh, submitting to the thrall of pleasure. As he tenses the thick muscle, you feel the breath of his snort when he guides your hips to move.

Sharp teeth graze the supple skin of your breasts and you furrow your brow, fingers running across his equally razor-edged jawline as you gently push his head back. Lidded eyes gaze at you with a lust-filled yet yearning look as you inquisitively explore his mouth.

Marveling at the same features you'd gawked at in your previous life, all motions halt as your lover dutifully lets you run your finger across his fangs. Earlier, his tongue had focused on tangling within your mouth in fear of potentially slicing you.

But as you prick your thumb on the point of his left canine tooth, no pain and no blood comes as you are neither dead nor alive. Giggling, you press a kiss on the mole right above it and gleefully show him.

"You can't hurt me."

"Not yet," he winks and encourages you to move your hips again. "As long as you're nice and wet, it won't."

"I don't think pain exists here."

He frowns, eyes darkening. "It does. I was so very lonely. It deeply hurt and ached so much that I slowly became numb. But all of that is a distant thought, overshadowed by you in my arms and on my lap."

You kiss his nose next. "I don't want you to feel lonely anymore. I'm here to stay with you for the rest of eternity."

He turns you around and you gasp. What once was reflected in the empty, cracked mirror now shows a depraved image. Junhui's hands move faster, one hand moving down to spread your cunt open for you to see while the other fondles your tits.

Leering over your shoulder, he harshly sucks on your neck before biting down lightly. You moan. Head thrown back as his fangs pierce you but once again, no pain is felt and no blood is spilled. Just pure bliss and pleasure.

"Look at you," Junhui praises. "Look at how beautiful you are when you finally sit on this throne."

By throne, he must mean his cock. The diamond encrusted belt is slipped off and dropped on the floor, his fingers busy as he unzips his pants. You feel his hard length slap against your back, having shifted forward to give him space to move.

His shadows aid him, lifting you up a decent amount and playing with you a bit to stretch you out before they ease you down on his thick girth. You throw your head back against his other shoulder and he takes the opportunity to lick up the opposite side of your neck. Biting as he pleases.

You both let out synonymous moans when he bottoms out, gasping at how fiery his gaze is that it's almost melting the glass of the mirror as he stares you head-on.

"Your beauty shines in this abyss."

If you could, you'd ride him into oblivion but the burning stretch of his thick cock is overwhelming enough that even your supernatural body cannot escape the plethora of pleasure surging as your hole clenches tight around it. Luckily, the shadows sweep forward at his beckon once more, tendrils wrapping around your ankles in the effort to assist your feeble movements.

It's far from scary because they are just another part of him. Curling around your nipples, brushing tenderly at your cheek, tickling your clit… yet it feels like Junhui's hands are all over you. Even though you know he hasn't moved away from your hips as your nails dig into his forearms from the intense up and down motions, ass slapping against his thighs.

You can feel a distinct power surge — twisting and turning as your drooling figure becomes more and more defined in the melting mirror. The Limbo is welcoming the long awaited queen into its domain, accepting the share of powers as the king ravages his beloved on the very throne he once spent decades crying upon.

"You are mine, aren't you, my queen?"

"Yes, I am yours… my king," you huff out, surrendering to your climax with an otherworldly scream as your soul adjusts to its newfound abilities as he joins you in a blazing release deep within your cunt.

Sweat makes your skin glisten as you lay in Junhui's arms panting. The shadows come forth once more — at your command — solidifying into an elegant black outfit.

The king hums in approval. "No crown is needed to represent your authority, but I will give whatever gems and riches you desire."

"I want nothing but you."

"Isn't it funny? Alive, I could offer you nothing but now in this realm of ours — anything is possible."

You kiss his forehead, smiling extra sharply with your newly acquired fangs. "Thank you for waiting for me."

"Thank you for coming back." Junhui whispers against your lips. "Now we have the rest of eternity to make up for what we lost."

Bound together. Forever. In Limbo.

#ez.creates #svt smut #seventeen smut #kpop smut #junhui smut #wen junhui smut #jun smut #Pls forgive me for this it was fun while it lasted istg #svt.smut

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curiositydooropened · 2 years

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Domesticity

After the final Battle of Hawkins, Steve Harrington has been recruited to find all of Brenner's "experiments" that didn't perish under Henry Creel's hand. Undercover in Suburbia, with you under his arm playing the role of dutiful wife, Steve uncovers more truths about himself than he bargained for.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x female!Reader

Wordcount: 16,490

Warnings: fake marriage au, slowburn, angst, pining, canon typical violence, one tiny mention of infertility, but several mentions of trying to have babies

Navigation • Masterlist

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Suburbia succumbed to fall in a tattered mess of fallen leaves, run-through with bikes and station wagons. Floral arrangements on stoops were replaced with pumpkins and the smell of barbecue replaced with chimney smoke as everything bit crisp and bitter in the air. Fog crawled over roots and soil, chased rainwater into clogged gutters, clung to the insides of windows as children cackled and adults sipped wine around leaf-in dinner tables.

Steve’s polos had been replaced with cozy sweaters that pulled on the hair of his chest and warmed his cheeks. Or maybe that was the red wine he’d barely drank. He had to stay sharp, and the tart berry undertones reminded him too much of his mother. Or maybe it was you, sidled up beside him, chatting away as you sipped the wine in your own glass, one hand floating down his arm, resting on his thigh, your lips stained a deep plum.

“And what about you two, hm? You planning on joining the PTA with us anytime soon?” Marcie Jones waggled her eyebrows, cigarette smoke circling her harsh features. The chandelier shadowed her eyes, making her look even more of a tired skeleton than normal. You’d told him about Marcie’s fucked up childhood, her eating disorder, her husband Jimmy’s affair. Marcie and Jimmy’s five-year-old had to be held back in kindergarten for stabbing another kid.

“Oh, believe me, we’re trying.” You punctuated that fact by raising your glass high in the air, wine legs reflecting honeyed light.

The room whooped and hollered, but Steve’s entire body buzzed. “We are?” He choked out, heart stuttering in his chest. Not only was a pregnancy impossible to fake, as far as he was concerned, but the idea of you running around with a brood of Harringtons was something that crossed his mind on a nearly daily basis, along with the idea of making a brood of Harringtons with you. His sweater felt excessively tighter, like the tentacles of a bat wrapped around his throat.

A loud thud of a strong hand to his shoulder pulled him back into the room, raucous laughter. Chip Lafferty gave his shoulder a shake. “Looking a little green around the gills there, Steve-O.”

Steve managed a half-hearted smile and turned to look at you. You were giving him that big, bright, fake smile that screamed “play along, damnit”, and he licked his lips, pulling his glass to take a long gulp. The wine was too sweet and too tart and dried on his tongue. He winced and set the glass back down.

“God, men do not listen, do they? In one ear, out the other.” You rolled your eyes, but you leaned into him, patronizing tone turned lovey and sweet. You planted a wet kiss to the stubble growing on his jaw. “Guess the ‘why’ or ‘how’ isn’t that important as long as you’re enjoying it. Huh, baby?”

Steve swallowed, familiar hunger burning in his chest, tightening his jeans, and he was thankful for the second loud eruption at the table thanks to your words.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Chip and Jimmy high-fived.

Chip’s wife, Amie, tossed her napkin at you from her lap. “Girl, you are bad.”

You shushed her with a giggle that poured around your slender finger held to your lips. You hiccuped and tilted your head all-the-way back to finish your glass of wine, the last drop spilling onto your tongue blood red.

“Okay,” Steve muttered, wiping the corners of his mouth with his napkin one final time before resting it on the tablecloth. “I think it might be time to get the Missus home.”

“Yeah it is,” Chip waggled his eyebrows. Chip and Amie Lafferty were Suburbia’s sweethearts. Amie worked at the local high school in the administrators office and Chip’s dad owned all of the business parks on his side of the Mississippi. They were perfect in every way, and yet you’d managed to uncover everything about Amie’s dark past, abusive father, Chip’s affair. Jesus, these guys were assholes.

Steve snorted, managed to fake a smile, and pushed off from his chair. “Shall we, dear?” He placed a hand on your chair.

“If you insist,” you offered the girls a wink, and they cackled like they were in on the joke.

You wiped your lips, spotting the ivory napkin pink, and allowed Steve to pull you upright. You stumbled into him, masking your giggle behind a shy hand as Steve caught you around the waist. You were so warm, sticky sweet. Your hum buzzed through his chest. “M’a little tipsy, baby.” God, that pet name would haunt him until the day he died.

“That’s the best way to do it,” Amie crowed, pushing off from her own chair. “That’s how Christopher was conceived.” She winked at Steve, and he felt his stomach plummet to the floor.

“Oh fuck yeah, that was a great night.” Chip waggled his eyebrows, staring over at his wife with darkened eyes. “Niagara Falls.”

“Chicago,” she sat him a look of utter disdain, any romance falling dead on the table between them.

You started planting wet kisses along the column of Steve’s jaw, and he squeezed your arm so hard he hoped it hurt.

“Great dinner, Marcie. Thanks so much for having us.” He offered the woman a tight-lipped smile.

Marcie blew out her last smoke cloud and waved it out of her face as she stood from the table. “Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for the excuse to put the kids to bed early.”

“Our house next time,” you dangled your fingers for her to take.

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow around 10.” Marcie nodded, tickling your fingertips with her own.

“What’s tomorrow?” Steve placed a hand on your back and walked you toward the coat rack in the entryway. You stumbled a little in your heels.

“Marce is taking me to her book club.” You explained, helping him pull your jacket over your arms. You pulled your hair out from the collar, and his jaw clenched at how that made him feel.

“You can read?” He smirked, tugging down the sleeves of his sweater to pull himself into his own woolen coat.

“Shush,” you swatted at him, but the smile that clung to the corners of your mouth was worth every tease, made his knees weak.

“It’s a brunch book club. My friend, Doris, hosts once a month.” Marcie explained. “Scrambled eggs, French toast, Mimosas.”

“Ah, there it is,” Steve sighed, and you nodded excitedly.

“Well, you two walk home safe now,” Marcie pressed dry lips to his cheek, reeking of cigarettes and sadness. She gave the same to you, claws gripping your dainty hands.

Steve shook hands with the men, both of which gave him dog-ish smirks and waggled brows, and Amie offered a shy smile and wave before he opened the door and led you out into the chill of autumn. Fog coated the streets like a night at the junk yard, and he tucked you tighter under his arm as your frame wracked with a shiver.

“Goodnight!” The party called as the two of you stepped onto the sidewalk. You turned and waved, and Steve led you a block down to your perfect little house. The hedges out front needed a trim, and the lawn was littered with leaves from the large oaks that lined the park just to the south of the little lot.

Bright white columns flanked the oversized door, and you rolled your ankles in a stumbled walk all the way up the brick walkway. You leaned into him while he fumbled with the keys, lock a little old, a little janky, but eventually the door popped open and he helped you inside. You crossed to the entry lamp and shrugged out of your coat, and he closed the door behind himself.

“What the fuck was that?” He rounded on you, his jacket caught on the shoulders of his sweater, and he tugged until something tore.

“Steve, come on,” you rolled your eyes, toeing off your heels and massaging the balls of your feet.

“So now we’re trying to have kids? What does that even mean? How are we going to fake something like that?”

You ignored him, breezed past him out of the foyer and into the kitchen, any stumble or stagger or feigned drunkenness removed from your walk. The light cast soft shadows against the staircase and through the hall.

He ran a tired hand over his face and kicked off his shoes. He set his keys on the entry table, just beside the photo of you both, arm in arm, madly in love. Like every other staged photo scattered around the house, taken over the span of a week, made to look like years of a happy marriage. He heard the water running and cursed under his breath, following you into the kitchen.

You were pressed against the counter, downing a glass of water, and then two. The soft light cast sunken shadows in your features, highlighted the column of your throat, the staggered up and down of your chest with each breath. You set your glass above the sink, catching him in the reflection of the kitchen window, and you turned to face him, arms crossed over your chest.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, crossing to pull a glass from the cabinet above your head, turning on the faucet beside you to fill himself a glass. He avoided your gaze. “I do trust you. I guess I’d just appreciate a little warning before you change our entire narrative.”

“I’m not changing the narrative. We’re a married couple in our twenties. We’re going to want to have kids.” You explained, walking to the pantry to look for something. He didn’t know how or where you had room for more food after that lasagna. “So, we’re trying. Doesn’t mean we’ll succeed. Maybe we’re having fertility issues. That’d be a believable bit of gossip to tell the girls. It’d probably make them like me more.”

Steve scoffed. “That’s so fucking twisted.”

You shrugged. “It’s that or you have an affair.”

He drank his water and considered your words. He knew you were right, you were always right, but it didn’t hurt any less. Christ, he could picture it now, you poking around in the pantry like you always did, returning with a half-eaten Ding Dong, belly swelled three feet in front of you, that mischievous grin on your face. He’d swoop you into a kiss, force you to sit down, press his face against you and murmur sweet nothings about how beautiful you are, how in love with you he is.

“I’m going to bed. Gotta be up early,” you waved off the pantry, coming up empty handed.

Steve pushed off from the counter, discarding his cup beside the sink. “Yeah, what’s this book club thing? You think she’ll be there.”

She. Number Fifteen. That’s what this was all for. He had to remind himself. You were just pretending, he was just pretending, a mission you’d been sent on together to find the missing patients of one Dr. Martin Brenner, all the ones that hadn’t died under Henry Creel’s hand.

You shrugged. “It’s possible. If not, it’ll give me a few more connections. Did Chip tell you anything when you guys were in the garage?”

Steve shook his head, flicked off the kitchen light. He followed you back into the foyer, climbed the stairs behind you, forced himself to look anywhere but the crux of your thighs beneath your dress. “No, he just bullshitted us about the business. Bunch of bullshit about more warehouses and the stock exchange? I don’t know. You know I zone out when that shit starts coming out of them.”

You flicked on the bedside lamp, bathing the little bedroom in more honeyed light. You shook your head, brushed your hair off your shoulders to one side and backed to him for assistance unzipping your dress.

He held his breath, closed his eyes. He’d done this a million and one times by now, but it never got better. He never got used to the soft skin of your spine against his fingertips, never got used to the slope of you beneath the dress, the soft waistband of your panties just at the base of the zipper, the dimples of your hips. He didn’t release his breath until you thanked him and stepped away, peeling the sleeves over your shoulders and exposing your back before you disappeared into the closet to change.

He squeezed his eyes together and tried to think of dead puppies, demogorgons, Max in a coma. With grit teeth, he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his socks.

“You really have to get him talking,” you chided from the closet, voice muffled by the clothes hung up around you.

“Yeah, I know,” he grumbled, gripping his sweater around the neck and pulling it off. He was relieved by the coolness of the room around him, and he pulled his white t-shirt back down around his torso. He tossed his sweater to the bed beside him and stood to remove his pants.

“Amie’s convinced he’s sleeping with someone new, and if it’s Her…” You entered the room for a split second before exiting into the en suite. You were slipping your night shirt over your head, and in the soft lamplight, Steve could just make out the swell of your breast before the gossamer fabric fell around your hips and thighs.

He heard the water running and swallowed, elected to keep his pants on a little longer. Dead puppies, Dustin’s mom, Dustin himself.

“I mean, maybe he could like introduce you?” You poked your head back out, toothbrush dangling from the corner of your mouth, foam removing the wine stains from your tongue, your teeth.

Steve nodded and crossed to you, reaching across the counter for his own toothbrush. He dolloped toothpaste and ran it under the water. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll figure something out. Maybe I’ll have an affair of my own, like you said. I’ll ask for advice.”

“Maybe you’re terrified of having kids.” You waggled your eyebrows in the mirrored reflection, bending over to spit foamy mint down the swirling drain.

Steve didn’t respond, just scrubbed as you rinsed. You turned the water from cold to hot and washed your face with a warm cloth, mascara running in black smudges along your cheekbones. He spit and rinsed with hot water, and you rinsed the suds and grime from your face. It was your routine, night-after-night side-by-side. You slunk to your side of the bed and he followed, like a lost pup. He finally kicked off his pants when you flicked off the light, and he slid beneath the duvet beside you like he did every night.

“What’re you doing tomorrow?” You hummed, back to him.

He sighed, watching the shape of your shoulders in the moonlight that poured in from old window fixtures. “Think I might trim the hedge.”

You yawned, snuggled further into your pillow. “Good. See if you can get Berta from across the street to offer you lemonade. That old broad knows more about the neighborhood than anyone else.”

Steve rolled onto his back, stared at the ghastly shadows cast along the high ceilings. He listened as your soft breath turned to soft snores, and he closed his eyes and fell asleep as he did every night, to thoughts of you with a kid on your hip, your lips to his throat, your fingers in his hair.

—

Steve woke late the next morning to the sun pouring in and the smell of your shampoo lingering in the air. He groaned and stretched and slipped into something comfortable before taking the stairs downward, two at a time, to the little kitchen. You were hunched over a book at the countertop, knees pulled onto your chair with you, face screwed up in adorable concentration.

“What’re you reading?” He asked, his voice raw from sleep.

You startled, pointed your spoon in self-defense, and clutched at your chest. “Jesus fucking Christ, don’t do that to me.”

He laughed and found his mug, bright blue with anchors, something you’d found at the mall and purchased for him because it made you laugh out loud to think of. He rolled his eyes and used it every day since. “This coffee fresh?” He pointed to the maker.

You nodded, unamused, and turned back to your book.

He poured himself coffee and found a bowl for cereal, and when his breakfast was prepared, he pulled up the seat beside you and tipped the edge to look at the front cover, The Shining. Top heavy, the book closed in front of you, effectively losing your place, and you rounded on him.

“What the hell, dude?”

He snorted. “It’s a horror brunch book club?”

“Yes, and I was just getting to the good part.” You groaned and leafed your way back through the novel to find your spot again.

“You know what happens. He chases his wife with the ax and then the kid does the footprint thing in the snow and then Jack Nicholson is in the picture.” Steve shrugged, taking in a mouthful of Honeycomb. It crunched, not soggy enough, and didn’t go down as easy as he wanted it too. He frowned and stirred the cereal to let it soak a little longer.

“Yeah, but the movie’s trash compared to the book.” You tutted, seemingly finding your spot.

Steve opened his mouth to protest, trying to procure all of the Kubrik-based trivia Robin had fed him over the years, when the front door swung open, startling you both. You were so surprised that you threw your hand out, rocketing his bowl of cereal across the countertop and onto the floor with a crash.

“Helloooo?” Came a call from the foyer. Marcie had let herself in.

“Does she fucking knock?” Steve grumbled, making to pick up the mess of cereal and milk you’d made of the small kitchen.

“Make out with me,” you hissed.

He blinked back at you, saw you’d climbed onto the countertop and spread your legs, gesturing wildly for him to join you. “What?”

There was that look again, Play Along Damnit. “Just get. Over. Here.” You hissed, and before he could reach you, you gripped at his shoulders and forced yourself on him, thighs wrapped around his waist, hands in his hair, tongue slipping between his teeth. He groaned and threw you back against the countertop for balance, gripping at the belt loops of your jeans for dear life, a life raft in a swell of emotions.

You moaned into his mouth, hands moved to fist the front of his t-shirt as your hips ground upwards to meet his.

And fucking Christ, he knew it was just for show, knew you were displaying your perfect marriage, full of passion and morning sex for snoopy ass Marcie, but he raked his fingers up your ribcage and prayed you could feel how bad he had it for you. He put that devotion into every kiss. Every front door peck goodbye before his morning commute, every not-so-secret make out in the hedges during a party where you’d both had to pretend to be drunk, every kiss to your temple, your knuckles, the crook of your elbow. He needed you to feel it, to know without knowing. Maybe it’ll seep in somewhere, this delusion of osmosis that he hoped would someday trick you into feeling the same way. He knew you didn’t.

“Hello? Oh holy FUCK,” Marcie exclaimed, entering the small kitchen.

Steve felt your hands pawing at his biceps for release, shoving him off of you, and he rolled back onto the countertop with heavy breaths, mouth swollen and tingling from the love bite you’d given him. He could hear your gasps, the ruffle of your clothes, just under the thundering of his pulse in his ears.

Marcie flashed you both a knowing smirk, before allowing her eyes to linger down Steve’s front to where his pants were tightest, and she flashed her gaze back to him, impressed.

He blushed, turned back around to you, gave you a warning look.

“I am so sorry, Marcie,” you flattened your hair, licked at cherry stained lips. “I didn’t hear you knock. Bit… busy.” You flashed your canines in a proud grin.

“I can see that,” she cooed. “Morning, Stevie.”

He gave her a two-fingered salute, adjusted his pants. Dead puppies, Hopper, the Upside Down.

“Baby,” Fuck. “I’ll be home in a few hours. There’s stuff to make sandwiches in the fridge. Please do not cut your finger off with the trimmers, okay? I’m going to need them all.” Oh Jesus Christ, you were trying to murder him.

Marcie whistled, and you flashed a grin as you hopped off the counter and scooped up your book.

“Ready, Marce?”

“As long as you are, sweet cheeks.” She waggled her eyebrows Steve’s direction one last time, and he offered a weak wave, light-headed.

“Love you, baby.” You squeezed his cheeks together in one hand, leaning forward for another kiss, long, languid, still putting on that show. He smacked your ass, squeezed the meat of it tight on one hand. Two could play that game. You pulled away with a warning glance, and he grinned.

“Love you, honey.”

—

He didn’t have try hard for Berta from across the street to wave a handkerchief his direction and demand he join her for lemonade. The leaves had been raked into a pile, and the hedge was trimmed. Steve tried focusing on the tasks at hand instead of the dizzying morning make out or the daydreams of children throwing themselves into the leaves. He waved at the old woman, set his trimmers and gloves down, wiped at the sweat beading his brow, and crossed into the old woman’s yard.

“Thank you, Mrs. Kennedy.” He smiled, accepting the small glass cup full of pale yellow lemonade. He took a sip, tarter than he hoped for, and swallowed back a wince to manage a soft smile, licking his lips.

“Your wife said you’d love it.” The old woman wagged a crooked finger and made about pulling things down from her cupboard. The kitchen mirrored yours, all these houses built by the same architect a hundred years ago, but hers had life to it, years of memories tacked to walls, staining the wallpaper. The photos displayed on Berta’s fridge weren’t posed: recipes, graduation announcements.

“It’s delicious,” he croaked around the sting in his throat.

“So tell me, young man, what’s new in the neighborhood?” You weren’t kidding. This old bird thrived on gossip. “Saw you two walking to the Jones’s the other night again. You seem to be getting on well.”

She placed a sleeve of fig cookies on the table, half-eaten, and he sighed, diving in for one to be polite. Hard as a rock.

“Yeah, Jim’s a good guy, and it’s nice for um…” He swallowed. “My wife to make friends around here. She’s glad to have Marcie and Amie.”

“Amie Lafferty?” Berta’s crone brows creased.

“Yeah, you know her?”

“Of course I do! Practically raised her. She’s the same age as my little Debbie.” Berta extended a finger to a photo of a homely looking girl with a baby on each hip, two more young ones crowded the front of the frame, missing most of their teeth.

Steve reached for the lemonade to quench the dryness in his throat.

“That Chip though…” Berta tutted her tongue against the back of yellowed teeth.

“What about him?” Steve leaned forward, trying not to cough up the sour drink.

“Well, I’m not one to gossip.” She waved him off.

He smiled at that, went for another cookie, further back in the sleeve in hopes of a thread of moisture. It was softer, sweeter against his molars.

“Oh alright,” she caved, pulling into the seat beside him and grabbing herself a treat. “They live just behind me, over that fence, you know,” she thumbed the direction of her back garden. He could just make out the fence line from her kitchen window, and the Lafferty’s brownstone mansion behind that.

Steve nodded, leaned in to indulge her.

“The other night, I heard giggling in the yard. So I peaked over, saw Chip showing someone the water feature. A woman. Not Amie.”

Steve’s heart picked up pace in his chest. “What did she look like?”

Berta shrugged, tore her cookie in two. “Oh you know, really pretty like. The kind of girl that would appreciate a guy like Chip for his money and not much else. The kind of girl you should watch out for.” She gave him a warning look, pressing her fingertips into his forearm.

Steve swallowed, shook his hair from his eyes. “What else did you see?”

The old woman shrugged, stuffed the rest of the cookie into her mouth, and then half of another. “Something’s off with their electrical. With all that money, you’d think they could pay to fix their damn lights.”

Steve felt his entire stomach sink into the wooden floor. “What do you mean?” He managed.

She shrugged, fluffy eyebrows creased in agitation. “Oh, a few nights this week, I look over and the whole house is going haywire, lights flickering from the bottom floor to the top. It’s only a few seconds before it stopped, but I damn near thought I was having a stroke.”

Jesus Christ. Steve downed the rest of his lemonade, thumping his chest with a fist to swallow it down, and he pushed off from his seat. “Mrs. Kennedy, thank you so much, but I better get that yard cleaned up before uh… before the Missus gets home.” God, why was it so hard to say it every time?

Berta stood and chased him to the front door, clapping her hands. “Come again anytime, my sweet boy, anytime.”

His mind raced over everything he said, and just before he left, he turned back to the old woman. “For the record, you don’t have to worry about me.”

She smiled, cocked a brow.

“I love her very, very much.”

Berta pressed a wrinkled hand to his cheek. “I know you do, and it’s lovely to see.”

—

You didn’t come home all day. Warm midday turned to pink afternoon turned to frigid evening, and the fog rolled in but you hadn’t. Steve sat at the living room window, a book open in his lap for appearances, but he spent an hour staring out the window not glancing at the book once. His leg bounced, pages flitting with every movement. Cars drove by, slow for kids at play, coming back from the grocery store or leaving for Saturday evening dates.

Anxiety clawed up his esophagus. Berta’s words echoed in his mind. He kept his eyes looking from the drive to the back of Chip’s house just in the distance. Where were you?

He stood abruptly, made for his coat in the hall and his keys on the entry table when the door burst open. His keys went clattering to the ground, and he heard the loud shuffle of bags and boxes as you, Marcie, and Amie all pushed past him with armfuls of shopping bags.

“Hey, baby,” you called, dumping your haul into the little parlor.

“Stevie, you’re going to want to work an extra shift this week,” Marcie cackled. “Your wife went a little ham.”

“Why didn’t you call?” He tried to relax, heart thundering.

“Sorry, baby,” you stood on tiptoe to press a chaste kiss to his lips, pulling his anxiety from them. He relaxed into you. You pulled away with wide eyes, play along. Your gaze flitted to his shoulder, and you picked at something there, tutted. “And now I wish I would have. I didn’t know you ripped your coat.”

He glanced to his shoulder where your dainty fingers attempted to mend the seam, and he sighed and shrugged out of it to replace on the coat rack. “It’s fine, honey. Did you girls have a good day?” He stepped beside you into the little living room where Marcie and Amie were organizing their purchases. The whole room was full of tissue paper and bright colors, like Christmas morning.

“We sure did,” Amie cooed, picking up the tiniest package of the bunch to shake your direction. “Show him.”

You swatted at her and hid the little bag behind yourself, flashing him a smile that had something behind it he didn’t recognize.

He swallowed, took a step toward you. “Show me what?”

“Okay, don’t be mad.” You held a hand to his chest, fingertips right over his heart, and he could never be mad at that. He watched the way your ring sparkled in the lamplight. “I was just really excited, alright? And the girls made me do it. And you know, maybe it… stuck.” You offered, and he was so confused he glanced over at the other girls who were positively beaming to see his reaction.

“Maybe what stuck?”

“This morning,” Marcie offered with a quirked brow.

“Last night,” you corrected, sucking your cheeks in to fight back a smile.

Oh. Steve felt his face heat at the charade. He’d been so worried about you, he’d forgotten the rendezvous in the kitchen, forgotten the conversation over the last moments of dinner.

“So… you wanna see what she got?” Amie prodded her forward.

He looked you over, tried to decipher that unfamiliar look in your eye, was it regret? Apology? Disdain? He nodded, and you pulled the bag between you, stared into the tissue for a moment too long, before your dainty hand went in and plucked out the sweetest, tiniest little baby onesie he’d ever seen in his entire life. It was soft gray, and he didn’t dare touch it, but the way you held it between your fingers made it look so soft. The tiniest of blue whales was embroidered in the very center.

“Do you…” He cleared his throat. “Do you really think this was the best idea?” He said it through his teeth, careful not to sound unkind, the heart of something that never was, never will be, wracked through him.

You shrugged, pain flashed in your eyes that mirrored how he felt. He pressed his fingertips into the soft skin of your forearm.

“Oh don’t be mad, Steve-o. We practically forced it on her.” Amie stood to your defense, tucking the little onesie back into its bag.

“Truly, we dragged her into the store. She didn’t want to go.”

You swallowed, nodded. “And like I said, maybe something stuck.” Your voice cracked at the end.

“And if it didn’t, we got this,” Marcie cackled. Steve turned to see her holding up a piece of lavender lingerie, barely any material with too many bells and whistles, and he heard ringing in his ears. Amie scolded the other girl, but you all laughed in tandem at some inside joke you’d come up with at the mall.

Steve felt sick, dizzy, too warm, this little house too crowded with all of the girls and the bags and the information he’d gleaned from the little old woman across the street. He ran a hand through his hair and winced at the headache forming in the lamplight.

“Baby, are you okay?” You slipped your fingers into the hair at the back of his neck, and a shiver shot down his spine at the tug of your fingernails.

He backed away from you, stepping out of your reach with outstretched hands, keeping you at a distance. “I’m fine. I just… had a long day. Think I’m gonna go to bed.” He grumbled. “Excuse me, ladies.” And he sidestepped out of the room. He took a deep breath to the tune of rustling tissue before climbing the stairs, hand clenched on the wooden railing.

“What’s his deal?” He heard whispered below.

“Yeah, sorry. I really didn’t think he’d be mad.”

“It’s fine, guys.” You comforted. “He’ll get over it.” His heart clenched and he closed the bedroom door with a groan.

—

He wasn’t sure how long he’d laid in bed, staring at the shadows of the ceiling while your chatter continued downstairs. It felt like hours. Finally, the rustle of bags and the air flow of the open door signaled your friends’ departures, and you called out to them a little too-loudly before closing the large door with a slam that rattled the light fixtures. You took the stairs quickly, lithe hurried footsteps before you swung open the bedroom door.

Steve sat upright, brow furrowed, ready to argue. He pushed off from the bed towards you. “What the hell was that ab-“ But before he could get his words out, you’d launched yourself at him, wrapped your arm around his shoulders and buried your face in his neck, your breath hot and shaky against his skin. He stumbled backwards a moment before relaxing into you, pulling you up by your waist, sinking his face closer to yours, cheek-to-cheek.

“She was there.” You whispered into his ear, and his blood ran cold. He froze. He could feel both of your heartbeats against his ribcage. “At brunch. I wasn’t sure, but we reached for the butter at the same time and she has a scar on her wrist.”

Steve swallowed, eyes darting around the room. “You think she’s spying on us?” Remote viewing. You had a protocol for this, training you underwent. Steve prayed every night you wouldn’t have to enforce it.

“I don’t know,” you whispered. He sagged under your weight and you pulled away, hands at the base of his neck, your beautiful eyes full of something, fear maybe. “I didn’t think so, but when Doris asked where we were from, I said Chicago, and Marcie piped in with a ‘isn’t Steve from Indiana?’ And that might have blown our cover.”

Steve cursed, ran a tired hand down his face. That was his own damn fault, accidentally spewed it in your first ever conversation with the Jones’s. All that training, and still managed to spill where he grew up.

“It’s okay,” you breathed, ducked your head to hold his gaze. “We know what to do.”

Fucking A. Remote Viewing protocol meant she could be watching in at all hours of the day. It meant never lifting the veil, never exposing their true selves, loving husband and doting wife at all hours of the day, at least until they took her down. They couldn’t risk Fifteen watching them talk-shop, couldn’t risk her finding out about their plans to take her in.

Steve tugged your hips back into him, took a deep breath, spoke a little louder. “Berta told me Chip’s electrical’s out of whack. Billion year old mansion like that? Doesn’t surprise me he has faulty wiring.”

Your eyes widened. “Amie didn’t mention any of that to me.”

He shrugged under your hands. “Maybe it’s not happening when she’s around.”

You nodded in understanding and let out a shaky breath, pressing your forehead to his chest. He brought up a hand to rub between your shoulder blades and breathed in the soft scent of your shampoo.

“Tell me about your day,” he offered, voice a little hoarse. He took a step back from you, giving you space, preparing himself to speak in code for the unforeseeable future, preparing to have his heart ripped into shreds with every brush of your hand or your lips.

Your smile was weak, and you ran a tired hand down your face, making for the bathroom to start brushing your teeth. He joined you, waited for you to spread the paste to your brush before he did his own. “It was fine. Long. Met a bunch of bitches who thought the movie was better than the book.” You rolled you eyes.

Steve smiled, foaming poking from the corner of his mouth. You elbowed his ribcage. Maybe this wouldn’t be so different.

You washed your face, changed from sweater and jeans in the closet, came out in that oversized nightshirt. You turned off the lamp, bathing the room in moonlight, and you climbed into bed beside him.

He wasn’t sure what to do next, if Fifteen would be watching even in the nighttime hours. He didn’t know if real married couples spooned or if that was just on television. Did you expect him to kiss you goodnight? He cleared his throat, kicked his legs around in the duvet until his ankle hit yours. You tapped the top of his foot with your toes.

“Goodnight, Steve.” You yawned, back still to him.

“Night.” He sighed, stayed still in his spot until your soft breaths became soft snores, and then he turned back to his back and fell asleep, thinking of that tiny onesie and the Honeycombs smattered on the kitchen floor.

—

He’d never forget the first time you kissed. It was in an oversized boardroom at Hawkins Lab, overlooking the parking lot and tree line just beyond. His wounds had barely begun to heal, stitches tugging at his left cheek, just beneath his eye. You wheezed when you talked, lungs healing from smoke inhalation, and you had that cut on your bottom lip.

Owens had left you alone to get comfortable, for hours, he’d lock you in the conference room, force you to talk. Steve was ninety percent sure he was watching you, red eye of the camera in the corner glaring your direction. You sat on the table sipping nasty black coffee, and Steve hunched just past arms’ reach, his own arms crossed over his chest like a shield. You talked interests and asked about his, mostly you commiserated over how fucking annoying Eddie Munson was now that he was alive again.

“Hey, Harrington,” you coughed, wincing at the strain of your voice.

“Yeah?” He cocked an eyebrow, wondered how he’d been conned into this gig, wondered what the hell made him the best candidate.

“I need you to kiss me.”

He swallowed, blinked back at you. “What?”

You leaned over to tug at the sleeve of his polo. “If it’s gonna be believable, you’re going to have to start kissing me now. It’s gotta be comfortable, like we’ve been doing it for years. I don’t want our cover blown because you’ve never kissed a girl.”

“Fuck off,” he said with a laugh, but when you gave him a pointed look, he glanced around the large room again. “What, now?”

“Now or never, dickhead. Chop chop.” You swung your legs and pat your thighs as if telling him to saddle up, and his throat went dry. But he didn’t want you to think he was a bad sport, so he slid himself between your legs and brushed a lock of your hair from your eyes. “How romantic.” You sucked your cheeks in to mask a laugh.

“Shut up.” He chuckled, nerves tingling all the way up his arm.

“Make me.” You challenged, and he did. You winced as your lip split, and he tasted warm iron against his teeth, but you didn’t pull away, coaxing your thighs higher up around his hips and your fingertips scratching at the hair at the base of his neck, sending fireworks through his entire body. Oh God, this was something he could get used to.

Only he never did get used to it, every kiss driving him deeper and deeper into this web of lies that sugarcoated his lungs. The demo-whatever may not have killed him, but you surely would.

“Baby,” you cooed from your perch atop the counter, shoveling cereal into your perfect mouth with little slurps.

He looked up at you from over his newspaper, the perfect portrait of a married couple.

“Do you wanna call the boys and see if they want to play poker one day this week?”

“Poker?” He winced, taking a sip of his coffee. God, you made it so good.

You shrugged. “Or something. I just think you should really talk to Chip. Amie’s getting really worried.”

All the subtext steeped into him, and he nodded, glancing back at the sports section. “Okay, hon. I’ll give him a call.”

“And I might go to Amie’s today.” You said it matter-of-factly, tossing the rest of your bowl into the sink with a clatter.

Steve closed the newspaper, sat up to look at you. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” He thought of the lights, of the potential of another Vecna situation.

You avoided his eye contact, shrugged, left the room. He followed quickly on your heels, called your name.

“She left a bag,” you held a shopping bag aloft as explanation. “And you know, if they’re having electrical issues, I’ll give her the name of a good electrician.”

“I’m coming with you.” He stated, searching for his keys on the side table, but they weren’t there. “Did you take my keys?”

“No, I didn’t take your keys and no, you don’t need to come with me, baby, it’s fine. I can handle it.” You shrugged off a shaky laugh. “It’s just Amie’s. I mean, Christopher’s a little shit, but I can handle a bunch of shit kids, right?” The look you gave him pulled him home a little, and he softened.

He took a cautious step closer, tucked two fingers into your hand. “Can you just… wait until I talk to Chip?”

You were staring down at your hands together, avoiding his eye contact.

He took another step closer, inches away, and he pulled your chin up until you looked at him, a bit of fire behind your eyes, indignation. “What if Amie found something out, huh? Don’t want you going over there and walking into World War III. Not without me there you save you. You know that’s what I’m here for.” You were the brains, he was the brawn. He understood the dynamics from day one.

You rolled your eyes and took two steps back, releasing his hand from yours. “Ugh, fine. But we do need to go grocery shopping for the week.”

He sighed, relief flooding through him knowing you weren’t going into that house alone, and he nodded. “Will you help me find my keys?”

—

Public spaces were complicated in this context. He hated pretending with you, hating the gnaw of guilt when your hand swung in his and made his throat tighten. But pretending at the house was harder, a switch that always flipped the moment that door closed was forever in the upright position. It was murky waters, hearing you call him baby but not knowing if it was okay to sweep you up into his arms. But in public? In public it was encouraged.

The grocery store, on a Sunday evening in Suburbia was hectic. You and Steve stuck out like sore thumbs, comfy clothes, shrugged sweaters and mussed hair, agnostics in sea of Christianity. You slumped lazily behind Steve, hiding your face in his back to avoid stares, and he tugged at your hand to pull you down another aisle, basket getting heavy in his hand.

“We should’ve gotten a cart,” he huffed when you rounded to the cereal aisle, staring at the assortment of bright colors as though you weren’t just going to pick Honeycombs again.

“I’ll carry it, big baby,” you teased, pulling a family sized box of Honeycombs into your arms. He hadn’t realized how small you looked until now, and he noticed you were wearing his sweater, the one from the other night.

His heart thud in his ears, short circuited. Shit. Dead puppies, Christmas lights, that sliver of skin when you…

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” You smiled, swatting at his chest.

He blinked, coughed, switched the basket into his other hand.

“What’s wrong?” You were so damn pretty, lips split as you looked both ways down the empty aisle.

“That’s my sweater.”

You looked down at yourself, and he saw the duck of embarrassment as you fiddled with the hem. “I thought it might…” Make you more believable.

He nodded. “It does. Nice touch.” He met you in the center of the aisle and tugged at your sleeve, loose from days of wear. “Could’ve washed it first.”

You looked up at him then, all alone in the cereal aisle, a backdrop of colors, and he leaned in to press his lips softly to yours. He felt the box settle into his chest between you, and you let out a soft noise of indignation that made him pull away. Your lashes fluttered open, and you gave him a look. Perhaps in warning.

Careful, sailor boy, you’re blurring the line. He swallowed and barked a wry laugh. “I’m getting a cart.” He mumbled and hurried off in search of a better vehicle for the groceries, and maybe a six pack.

—

Steve was tucked into the armchair nearest the front window, thumbing through the latest issue of Sports Illustrated, which you’d tossed into the grocery cart alongside a few girly pop culture magazines, an olive branch. Night had broken, slowly reflecting his own visage in the window by lamplight. A windstorm came in, blowing through the trees in the park and undoing his handiwork from the weekend, but he didn’t mind the task if it meant something to keep himself occupied.

You were partway through your next book, a thriller that hadn’t yet been adapted into film, and you slipped from the living room and into the kitchen for a glass of water. He glanced at the little space in the doorways, watched the way your hips swayed against the countertop while you hummed to yourself. He quickly looked back at his magazine as you returned.

“Steve,” you voice was soft, and he looked back to see you in the doorframe, fingers wrapping at the wood.

He raised his eyebrows in response, folding his magazine closed.

“The laundry’s done.” You explained, chewing at the inside of your cheek.

He smiled and pushed off from his chair, following you through the kitchen and down the rickety staircase into the basement below.

You’d been terrified of the basement from the beginning, which he absolutely understood. Unfinished, a mess of wires and support beams. The boiler, probably made of lead, made strange hissing noises depending on the time of day. And at this time of night, with the singular dangling bulb casting haunting shadows into the darkest corners, he couldn’t blame you for being scared.

Steve unloaded the dryer into a basket on top, everything warm and soft, his sweater right on top. He smiled and switched items from the washer to the dryer, and carried the basket back upstairs on his hip to meet you.

“You ready for bed?” You asked, hand on the kitchen light switch.

He nodded and waited at each doorway for you to check the lights and lock the doors, and then he climbed right behind you all the way to the little bedroom at the top. He dumped the clothes onto the bed and began to fold, while you busied yourself around the little room, picking up a stray sock here or t-shirt there and depositing them into the hamper in the closet. And then you joined him, hips bumping, bending deep to reach for a matching sock on your pillow.

“What do you do when I’m not here?” He asked, first as a tease and then with mild curiosity.

You smiled back at him, pink lips and shrugged shoulders. “I do things.”

“Like…?”

You sighed, folding one of his shirts against your chest. “Like… read. And clean and just… think.”

“What do you think about?”

You looked up at him then, soft and sweet, and said, “Home.”

He thought of home too, all the time. He thought of Dustin and Robin, both yelling at him to quit being an idiot. He thought of his mom, wine drunk and curled under a throw blanket. He thought of his dad and Eddie and Hopper, but mostly he thought of you. He tried to remember moments of you before battle, moments in the school hallways or at the video store or at Bradley’s, any sliver of time spent in your presence that he wished he could just rewind and replay over and over again, cling to.

“I think about you a lot,” you confessed, and he could have sworn he heard your voice catch just a little, folding a towel into thirds. “I wish you were here so I had someone to talk to.” You shrugged, but quickly snapped to look at him. “Don’t let that go to your head.”

He snorted, shook his head. “No, I know what you mean. I feel like we used to talk a lot, before…” During training, hours spent getting to know you, falling in love with you, like he was supposed to, like he wasn’t supposed to.

“Yeah, we really did.” You smiled. “Now we’re just so busy.” You expression turned rueful as you held up the two remaining socks, unmatched.

Steve snatched them and tossed them into a drawer before throwing himself down onto his side of the bed. The mattress bounced under the weight of him. “So, what do you want to talk about?”

“What?” You chuckled, prodding him off of your clean, folded laundry.

“Married couples talk, right? So talk to me. Tell me what things you want to talk to me about when I’m at work.”

“Okay, um…” You disappeared into the closet momentarily to put your things away, and when you returned, you slumped onto the mattress beside him. “On Friday morning, a bird flew into the house. I had to chase it out with a broom.”

Steve smiled at the idea of you frantic, ducking, broom handle raised. “What kind of bird?”

Your face screwed up in thought, and you shook your head. “I don’t know. A small one?”

“Fascinating.” He grinned, and caught your hand as you swatted his chest.

You stopped then, and he caught something in your gaze, squeezed your fingers between his own. “Steve?”

“Hm?”

“We are going to be okay, right? We’ll get her?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, resolute. “We will.”

—

The sun dipped real low to the west, casting honeyed amber across the vast field, fog rolling in from the trees just beyond, settling on the river just past that. The ground squished under Steve’s sneakers, a slog of damp soil and the slush of sun-soaked gourds. The whole place smelled Earthy and spiced, like too many hands had spilled too many vats of mulled cider onto the grounds. He didn’t mind the mud on his soles or the tickle in his nose though, when he felt the tug of your arm and watched the quirk of your brow.

You’d convinced him to take you pumpkin-patching over dinner, slurping homemade soup that made him sleepy, mind-blowingly better than anything Campbell’s had to offer. You explained that Halloween was only a week away (was it? How did that happen so fast?), and that your little home was the only one on the block that lacked decorations. And if he wanted Trick-or-Treaters, he better drive you on down to the patch before it closed for the night.

Neither of you finished your soups, exchanging spoons for jackets and car keys, windows rolled down clear to the farm. Steve dutifully paid for your warm styrofoam cup of cider, and held it for you as you traipsed through muddy remnants of smashed pumpkins looking for the perfect one.

You wore your hair in braids, which he’d teased you for, tugging on the curled ends until you offered him a warning glare, and you were all bundled up, scarf and coat and gloves. You put the honeyed taste of autumn back where it belonged, having been replaced by ashes and dust all these years. You were sweet and spiced and warm where he’d been empty and hollow and dry.

“You might have to toss out that cider,” you commented, reaching the far end of the field. The sky was starting to pinch purples and blues.

“What do you mean?” He asked, peering into the cup to watch the amber slosh, powdered with cinnamon.

“I mean,” you grinned, hands on your hips. “I just found the perfect ones, and they’re fucking massive. You’re going to need two hands.”

Steve cursed and chugged the rest of your drink. It was sticky sweet, and had gone lukewarm in his hands. He threw it back with a cough and deposited the empty, crumpled cup in the pocket of his jacket.

You had gone ass up, bent low to the ground to remove the stem from your ideal find, and Steve felt his pants tighten at the hug of your jacket to your waist and over the swell of your behind, and he squeezed his eyes tight against the thoughts that reared their ugly heads. Dead puppies, Hopper naked, the feel of your body pressed against his, the breeze tossing the thin sheet around you, pebbling your skin beneath his hand…

“Steve,” you groaned.

His eyes fluttered opened to see you stood before him, a round, orange pumpkin cradled just over your abdomen, the swell of which you were struggling to hold aloft. His ears rang, heat crawling up from the collar of his sweater.

“This is going to fall and break!” You cried as the sides slipped in your grasp.

“Shit,” he hurried to you, pulling the hefty thing from your hands. It was heavy, but hollow, and he hiked a knee up to hitch it higher in on his hip, like a toddler.

“I’ll grab the other one,” you grinned, and you turned again to procure the other gourd that made your face light up that way.

He’d seen you this happy a handful of times. A genuine grin, sparkling eyes, melodious laughter coursing through him like a freight train because you’d gotten what you wanted. The first time you’d convinced him to pick up Honeycombs, that was like that. And once, in Hawkins, the night before the mission, when you’d all shared beers at Hop’s cabin. You were talking to Eddie and to Robin, and Steve watched you from across the dilapidated room, knowing he was already too far gone to ever come back. Knowing he’d do anything to see you smile like that again and again forever.

“Isn’t she a beauty?” You asked, holding up your other find, this one much smaller and far less round, but still a vibrant orange. This one, you could manage, shifting it onto your own hip and wiping your gloved hand against your thigh. Somehow, you’d managed to coat your face in soil, a wash of freckled brown that reminded him of soot and ash, the aftermath of battle in Hawkins.

“Oh, you’ve got…” he gestured to your face.

You blew up your bangs in vain, face all screwed up, and he laughed, closing the distance to wipe the dirt from your soft cheek with the flat of his thumb. It wasn’t until you were mostly clean, streaks of brown on your forehead, and across your upper lip, that he noticed a boundary may have been crossed.

You looked up at him from under long lashes, eyes dark, something behind them he didn’t recognize. He brushed his knuckles against your cheekbone, licked his lips. The sounds of crows tearing into the flesh of pumpkins faded into the background, the white noise of his heart replacing them in his skull.

And then his imagination took over, or at least, he thought it was his imagination. You leaned up on your tip-toes, hand to his chest, leaving freckles of soil there on the lapels of his jacket. The pumpkin on your hip bumped his. Your breath, warm and spiced, fanned his lips.

“You kids want a wagon?” And all at once, the spell was broken. You stumbled backward, foot squishing down into ripe flesh, and Steve hoisted the pumpkin further on his hip. You cursed, and he turned to see the approaching farmer, all overalled and waved arms.

“Please,” Steve smiled, crossing a bit of field to meet the man and his little red wagon, the interior of which was wracked with hay and pumpkin seeds. Steve heaved his into the cart and waited for you to join to set yours down as well.

“Thank you, sir,” you smiled at the old man.

He shrugged. “Figured you didn’t want to carry these puppies back in the dark.” He slapped at the skin of the fat one. It made a hollow thud. “Any more for you or shall I haul ‘em back to check out? We’re about closed for the night.”

“We’re done here,” you confirmed, crushing dirt beneath your feet and Steve’s heart in your hands.

The air in the car had shifted, the smell of soil wafting from the trunk, and Steve felt as though something had been lost, like he’d forgotten his toothbrush for a long trip and have to get a new one. It was something intangible yet unsalvageable. Especially when you finally opened your mouth to remind him of tomorrow night’s poker game.

“I’d like to know more about Chip’s electricity.” You sat up straight, all business, all mission. “For Amie. Asked her about it over the phone, and she thinks she ought to go into the basement and look at the breaker. But I don’t want her going by herself.”

Steve gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. “I said I’d talk to him.”

“I’m just reminding you.” You sighed, pressed your forehead to the passenger’s side window.

After brushing the spices from your tongue and wiping the soot from your face, you climbed into bed together. You said goodnight, flicked off the lamp, and remained on the far edge of the bed. Steve sighed and stared at the shadows of the ceiling, trying to block out the sight of you with the giant round pumpkin for a belly.

—

You were competitive. He’d known it for months, saw the way you picked off demobats with a tennis racket, keeping count for every one you mashed, yelling for him to keep up. He saw it at target practice, the way you fired ceaselessly at the three circles until your trigger finger ached and you hit the very center. He saw it when you sat across from him in the boardroom, Dustin between you with flashcards, quizzing you on your backstories. Your face would split into a proud grin whenever you answered more correctly than him, which was every damn time. And apparently, you were competitive at poker.

When he arrived home from his car dealership job (his dad would have been so proud), to find you bent over the oven to remove the casserole, he expected explicit instructions on letting it cool and hopefully a kiss goodbye. But when he shrugged out of his blazer and counted the seats around the table, something didn’t add up. Further more, you’d cracked open two beers from the bottom drawer of the fridge, tapping the neck of his with the neck of your own before you prepared yourself for a night with the boys.

Steve made loud protests until the guys arrived, and then you’d cast your charm, asking to be taught how to play. “It’s PTA night, boys. Your wives are out having fun without me. Can’t I have a little fun with you?” You pouted, and Jesus Christ, the shirt you wore exposed the soft lavender of your bra as you leaned over to dish the casserole for everyone.

You’d won $725 with the swell of your breasts alone. Another $83 was taken when you’d passed out cigars and blatantly peaked at everyone’s hand, and yet none of the men around the table had a lick of disdain for you. No, instead it was all praise. Your dinner was delicious, dessert was delightful, and oh boy, Steve was sure they couldn’t get enough of the view.

“Steve-O, your wife is a piece of work,” Chip flashed you a grin, picking at his teeth with a toothpick you procured from a kitchen drawer.

“Tell me about it,” Steve rolled his eyes, picking at the corner of his hand of cards with his thumbnail.

“You’re a lucky man,” Jimmy agreed, smoke swirling his dark hair. “My wife hasn’t cooked me anything that wasn’t out of the frozen section in years.”

You swatted at the man’s arm. “Oh shush, that is not true. Marcie’s a great cook.”

“I think James has a point,” Ron Hubbard coughed around the cigar under his bottlebrush mustache. Ron was a portly man, VP of operations for Chip’s dad’s company. “Our wives are too scattered these days, always running to PTA meetings or book clubs or knitting circles - stitch and bitch, I call them. God forbid they have jobs as secretaries and the like. It’s refreshing to see a woman where she belongs.”

Steve blinked back at him, reached under the table for your hands that he knew were clenched into tight fists, but you shrugged him off.

“Speaking of jobs,” you smiled through your teeth. “Chip, Amie tells me you’ve been having some electrical issues. Can’t you call someone in there to work on the wiring in that big ole house?”

Steve’s heart pounded in his chest, and you refused to make eye contact, instead shooting fluttered eyelashes across the table to Chip Lafferty. You had this look of pride he’d seen a thousand times before. You’d won.

Chip smiled back at you, tongue between his molars. He shrugged. “Big ole houses like that are bound to have buggy wiring sometimes, sweetheart.”

“You know, Steve’s uncle used to be an electrician. He apprenticed with him in high school, could probably give it a once over for you.” You offered the lie, slick, nonchalant. Steve squeezed at your thigh too hard, a warning. You squirmed away, pushing out of your chair to gather plates to take to the sink.

“Didn’t realize you were an electrician, Steve-O,” Chip made eyes at Steve, a threat for your curiosity, eyes dark.

“Oh, you’d be surprised. My husband’s always been good with his hands,” You sealed the deal, pressing your hand to his trap to lean over him for his plate. You halted in front of his face, offering a smile, and Steve watched the other man’s eyes slide from yours, to your lips, and down the front of your blouse.

“I fucking fold,” Steve tossed his cards to the tabletop.

To add insult to injury, you called for Chip to “be a dear” and help you with the dishes while Steve walked the other fellows out. Ed Blansett, from the dealership, looked pale, having lost his savings for a down payment, and Steve sighed and forked some of your winnings back into the man’s hand when the others weren’t looking. Ron left commending Steve on his excellent breeding skills, skeevie as Hell, and Jimmy left with a clap to Steve’s shoulder, a look of woe etched across his dark features.

“Steve-O, how you holding up?”

Steve ran a hand down his tired face, itching at the scruff of his jaw. “I’ve been better.”

“I feel you, man,” he nodded, lighting a cigarette on the front stoop. “Marriage is hard work. Somedays you just want to give up, somedays you just feel like a fraud.”

Steve bristled at his words, swallowed, the smoke-filled air thick on the brick path.

“But if you love her, really love her, the things you do that hurt each other won’t matter.”

Steve swallowed. He wasn’t sure where this was coming from, or what it meant, but he felt uneasy. The cigar smoke had gotten to him, made him dizzy, paranoid. Jimmy gave him a two-fingered salut and stumbled his block home.

Steve almost forgot the straggler until he stumbled, exhausted, back to the amber light of the kitchen, where he found you pressed against the countertop, clutching at Chip’s shoulders with sudsy fingers, while the man whispered something into your ear.

“What the fuck?” The words spilled out before he could take control, and he watched Chip slowly peel himself from you, turning to face Steve with a smirk across his smug face. Steve could punch him. He felt his jaw and fist tighten in tandem.

“We were just talking about what a creep Ron is,” you offered with another punctuated giggle.

“I told her she may belong in the kitchen, but I have a secretary position opening up if she’s interested.” Chip grinned.

“What happened to your last one?” Steve knew the answer before he asked, and nearly growled at the smirk that curled its way onto Chip’s thin lips. “Alright, Chip, maybe it’s time to go.”

“Steve,” you admonished, less about him being rude and more about not finishing the task.

“No, no,” Chip wiped his hands dry on a hand towel before raising them in surrender. “Steve-O’s just a bit sore I cleaned him out on that last round. No hard feelings.”

He pulled his blazer from his folded chair at the card table and pulled something from it, extending the small slip of paper across the counter toward you. “I’m serious about that position though. If you ever get tired of making casseroles.”

You giggled behind your hand.

“Can I walk you out, Chip?” Steve gestured toward the front door.

Chip flashed you a knowing smile and a wink, before taking the necessary steps down the hall to the foyer so Steve could let him out. It took every bit of restraint not to slam the door in his face.

“Thanks for the fun night, Steve-O,” instead, the man extended a hand. “Gained more than I expected.”

Steve gave him a firm handshake, teeth hurt from clenching his jaw so tightly.

“Listen,” Chip leaned in, cigar smoke and beer on his breath. “Your wife was right, my house has pretty shitty wiring. It’s over a hundred years old, and I can’t get Amie to shut the hell up about it. Would you care to come take a peak?”

This was exactly what you’d hoped for. Maybe you had won this competition after all. Steve offered the other man a curt nod.

“Meet me there tomorrow afternoon. Around 2? Might even pay you back what I snatched from you tonight.” His grin was malicious, too toothy.

Steve said nothing, and the other man seemed satisfied with that, whistling to himself while he twisted his keys around his pointer finger. He waved and turned on his heel to walk down the driveway toward his shiny Mercedes. Steve lingered on the porch until the man sped away, leaving a cloud of exhaust and the frigid October air.

—

Tomorrow it’d all change forever. The thought tickled at the base of Steve’s skull as he sloughed up the stairs, leaving you to turn off the lights. He couldn’t even look at you, couldn’t imagine the screaming match that he felt bubbling inside of him. He felt disgusting, like the grime and soot of the Upside Down clung to his shirt with the cigar smoke and the taste of Chip groping you on his tongue.

He couldn’t get the image out of his head. Even as he stripped of his t-shirt and closed the bathroom door: your fingers bubbled with soap, wetting the top half of Chip’s collared shirt, your wedding ring discarded atop the window sill for safe keeping. He hated seeing another man pulling those sounds from you, hated the way it made him nauseas.

He turned the shower on hot, let the steam fill the room as he stripped from his slacks and socks and boxers. He stood for a moment, glaring at his own reflection in the mirror as it fogged around the edges. He looked as pitiful as he felt, shoulders slumped, scars lining his lower abdomen like vicious pockmarks, memories of a pain he’d feel again and again if it meant never having to lose you. Pitiful.

He toed under the scalding flow, letting the heat satiate the tense muscles of his shoulders and back. He tried not to think of you climbing the staircase, of you stripping out of your low-cut blouse and jeans, of you slipping on that soft night shirt. He tried not to think of the countless nights this week he’d woken with his fist entangled in that shirt, your face pressed to his chest, your thigh high on his hip.

He cursed and turn to scrub his face, letting the flow sting at the soft skin of his cheeks, his chest. The shower threatened to drown him, and it honestly felt better than the idea of breaking the news to you that tomorrow’s the day. He’ll go to the mansion, and if your theory is right, she’ll be there. Fifteen. And once she’s taken in, this little game will be over. You can go back to Hawkins, back to your normal lives, not having to pretend anymore.

The air in the bathroom was cold once he’d turned off the faucet and dried his freshly shampooed hair. He brushed his teeth alone, allowing the steam of the mirror to dissipate. He felt fresh, but still not ready to face you. The hot water made him lethargic, and his head had begun to pound something fierce, just behind his eye sockets. He was used to the occasional migraine, enough concussions’ll do that to you.

Wrapping the towel around his waist and flicking the bathroom light off, he took a deep breath before opening the door to the adjoining room. You were sat up on your side of the bed, reading beneath the honeyed lamplight, knees high, nightshirt fallen away to expose the stretch of your thighs. You set the book down when you heard him come out.

“Steve,” you started in immediately, hopping off the mattress and crossing to him.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to contain the dull thud that just grew louder with your approach. He wasn’t ready to talk to you, wasn’t ready to have this conversation. He was still in a towel, for Christ’s sake.

“What’s wrong?” Your tone wasn’t half as combative as he expected, but worried. He felt a gentle hand to his bicep.

And then he heard it. Ear-piercing, the dull knocking in his brain turned to a ring in his ears, louder than he’d ever heard it. He’d experienced this before, the tingle at the back of his neck like he was being watched. He never knew what it was, was never sure, until this very moment. He was being watched. You were being watched.

Frantic, he opened his eyes to look at you, and your head was tilted in confusion, eyes soft, lips softer. And he panicked. He panicked because you were being watched, remotely viewed, and he was sure he’d done something to screw it up, and he didn’t know how to save you. So he thought back to your training, to your protocol, and he closed the distance between you and pressed into you with a passionate kiss.

You made a muffled noise of surprise, but sunk into his touch, fingertips scraping the hairs at the back of his neck, which stood on end. He felt your soft waist beneath the silky fabric of your shirt, pressed his fingertips into your hips and walked you backwards into the closet door for some sort of stability.

He poured everything he had into that kiss, those kisses, the material of your shirt slipping in his hand until he met bare skin. Your hands were frantic against his shoulders, the backs of his arms, holding him to you, impossibly close. You hiked your thigh up his leg, and the towel would have dropped had he not pressed his pelvis into yours, pulling another low groan from your lips.

He pulled away from you to catch his breath, headache made worse from the dizzy light-headed feeling of blood leaving his brain. You pressed your cheek to his, your own chest rising and falling to the rhythm of his as your fingers pinched at the flesh of his arms.

“Steve,” you breathed, a question maybe, needing an explanation.

He squeezed his eyes closed and he could feel Her, just there in the recesses of his mind. He nuzzled your ear with his nose, the soft skin of your neck smelling of your shampoo and cigar smoke and lavender. He took a deep breath before he whispered. “She’s watching.”

He pulled away and the look you gave him flashed pure terror, confusion, and then understanding. You swallowed, licked the plump, pink swell of your lips, and nodded. “Okay.”

“What?”

“It’s okay,” you nodded again. You were consenting. You were agreeing to take on the role of a married couple under the protocol. You were signing your body away to him under the guise of this faked marriage bullshit.

Steve thought he might throw up. With shaky hands, he released you, backed away slowly, watched the rise and fall of your chest as your tiny, bare foot found the wood panels of the flooring again. He scrubbed at tired eyes, the headache not subsiding, and his other hand kept the towel aloft.

“Steve?” You whispered. He heard the floor creak as you took a step toward him.

He shook his head, held a hand out to you. “I can’t. I’m sorry. This is too fucked.”

You didn’t say a word as he searched the walk-in for a t-shirt and shorts, the dull ache never leaving the base of his skull, or the spot where your nails had scratched into his skin. His hands shook, another product of his concussions, and his teeth chattered, and he didn’t know if he wanted to cry or punch a hole through the wall or relieve his stomach of the pit that continued to grow there.

You stood in the closet doorway, shoulders slumped, confusion in your eyes.

Steve sighed, rested a trembling hand to your side to gently nudge you out of his way. “I’m sleeping on the couch.” His voice was hoarse from the catch in his throat.

You didn’t argue. You didn’t follow him.

The stairs creaked beneath his feet, the entire home still and dark save for the lamplight coming in through the parlor windows. He curled himself onto the sofa, stuffing the cushion under the pounding between his temples, and he crossed his arms over his chest. He tried to regulate his breathing as he stared at the popcorned ceiling, these shadows vastly different than the ones upstairs. The house was quieter without your soft breaths, emptier with the heartbreak filling his lungs. He drifted to sleep with the image of your big, consenting eyes, and the grit of his teeth.

—

The morning autumn sun was hotter than he expected, pooling in through thick glass in the parlor like a magnifying glass, and Steve was the ant. His migraine had subsided to more of a hangover, and he rubbed the crusted sleep from his eyes and stretched his limbs. His neck was stiff from the sorry excuse for a pillow that had tumbled to the floor at some point in the night.

The sounds of meal prep from the kitchen pulled him upright, and his joints clicked through the entry way and down the hall. You were fully dressed, nylons and skirt, blouse hugging your curves, and when you turned and spotted him, you gave a tight-lipped nod. Tension hung thick in the air between you.

“Making leftovers,” you shoved a steaming plate of casserole his direction.

“Where are you off to today?” He asked, sidling himself up to the countertop.

“I have a job interview with Chip.” You stated, tone clipped, matter-of-fact.

“Jesus Christ,” he ran a hand through his hair. “No. Absolutely not.”

You rolled your eyes. “Yes, Steve. I’m going. We can’t keep letting this drag on. She knows who we are. You said yourself she was watching us last night. It’s go-time.” All the pleasantries of protocol had lifted, now that you knew he had an insight into being watched. The facade had left your shoulders, any soft, whispered sweet-nothings gone from your glossy lips.

Steve looked around the small house, this little home that was made of lies. The photo of the two of you on your fake honeymoon sat atop the window sill, right next to the sparkling diamond of your fake wedding ring. “I’m not letting you go alone.”

“You have to. You’re going to his house, remember?” You slid the business card across the counter to sit beside his lunch. The little black numbers stared back up at him.

“How did you…?”

“I was eavesdropping,” you waved him off flippantly. “Doesn’t matter. I’m going to distract him long enough for you to go into the house without him. I’m almost positive they’re running some sort of experiment. He’s being way too cagey.”

“How are you going to distract him?” Steve sneered, really unable to catch anything else you’d said.

You rolled your eyes, shoved a fork into his casserole, it folded sideways, clattering to the rim of the dish. “Like you care.” You mumbled under your breath, almost inaudible, but Steve heard every syllable.

“Of course I fucking care,” he snapped. “You’re going into the den of someone you think is holding experiments with fucking Fifteen. As in, same group of super powered freaks as Eleven and Henry fucking Creel and you don’t think I care about your safety? In case you forgot, I had to save your ass from that Demo-Whatever the night you set yourself on fire.”

“Okay, that,” you shoved a finger into his chest. “I had covered, thank you very much. And this, I have covered too! I can handle Chip fucking Lafferty. In case you forgot, I was peeling skid marks like that douchebag off of my miniskirt for years before you came around.”

Steve’s skin crawled at the thought. Back in the Hawkins Lab boardroom, late one night and a couple passes of tequila in, you’d manage to rattle off a few names of your past rendezvous, all assholes, all people Steve had wanted to punch in the face. A few of which, he had.

“I will handle Chip. You,” you shoved your finger into his chest again. “You take your nailed up bat, and go check out the house. You’re the brawn, I’m the brains, remember?”

And that fucking hurt. Steve knew he was dumb, knew he was a fucking idiot for every falling in love with you, for ever accepting this gig, for ever thinking this could turn out the way he wanted it to, for ever thinking he had a say in what happened and how it went down. You were the planner, the admiral, he was just a little sailor boy.

“Eat,” you shoved his food closer to him. “And get dressed. It’s almost noon. I need you to give me a ride.”

—

The nurses had cleaned most of the soot from your skin, but black smudges still caught in the wrinkles of your forehead and around your eyes and nose, the corners of your lips, turning the oxygen mask a little grey with each fogged breath.

Steve had roused from another cat nap, the beeping and busy calls from the nurses station in the hall keeping him from sleeping too deep. He had a crick in his neck from the chair, and the stitches on his left cheek were sore. He glanced around the room, leaned forward on his knees, mumbled your name softly.

He did it every so often, checked the various machines for any blip in your vitals each time he spoke, hoped for more than Max had given them months before. You had been conscious when you arrived, air lifted to a military hospital a few miles from Hawkins. Steve had ridden the helicopter with you, your hand clenched in his, tears streaking white lines down your soot-blackened face.

God, you were brave. That’s all he could think, as he threw an oxygen mask over his own face, hauled his ass into that burning building with firefighters to pull you out. You screamed his name when you saw him, clawing fingers, a rage tearing through you that had torn those motherfuckers apart. You were so God damn brave.

Eddie was there too, down the hall, Dustin and Mr. Munson keeping him company. Robin was off in Vickie’s room. Nancy and Jonathan sat bedside to Will. That one hurt, but Steve was just so grateful they were all alive, safe, mostly unharmed. Just a handful of stitches, broken bones, smoke inhalation seemed to be the worst of it.

But you had no one, no one but Steve Harrington who sat by your bedside for three days now, muttering your name under his breath every few minutes to ensure you were alive.

The coughs started first, a sputter of sounds that wracked through your frame. Steve pushed to his feet, saw your eyes blink open, hands frantically groping for the tubes on your face, attached to your arms.

“Whoa, whoa,” he placed a firm hand on your shoulder to hold you in place. “Don’t struggle. Just breathe. You’re okay. We’re at the hospital. Here…” He searched for the nurses button behind the bed and pushed.

Your eyes adjusted, pupils blown and irises deep red, and you squinted at him, seeming to relax under his gaze.

“Hey, killer,” he smiled, brushing sweat-stuck hair from your forehead.

“Steve?” You wheezed, starting another coughing fit.

A nurse strolled in, shoved him out of the way, and he waited against the far wall as the woman did a few tests, removed your mask, got you an oversized cup of water with a bent straw. She helped you sit up, slowly. Steve listened for your wheezes, for the strain in your throat. He bounced on the balls of his feet, ready to help if needed. He wasn’t sure how, but he was ready.

“You her boyfriend?” The nurse turned to him with a pointed finger.

“Me?” He felt the tips of his ears heat, and he glanced back at you with a sheepish smile. “No.” He coughed. “Just a good friend.”

The nurse seemed unimpressed. “Well, she seems to be doing much better. We might be able to let you out of here soon. I’m calling the Big Boss. If she starts to cough again, push that button.”

“Thank you,” Steve gave an awkward salute, and the woman rolled her eyes before leaving the room. The door clicked behind her, casting silence on stark white walls. It was just you and him, and the air between you.

You sipped water through your bent straw, lips parched and cracked, a large black split scarred the lower.

Steve took measured steps toward you. “Boyfriend, huh?” He smirked.

You sputtered, water trickling down your chin. “You fucking wish, Harrington.” You croaked and coughed. “Ow.”

“Kind of nice not having to hear you talk anymore.” He grinned, tossing himself back down into the uncomfortable chair.

You responded with a fresh middle finger, tonguing for the tip of the straw until it was back in your mouth.

He felt… warm. It was that feeling of hope, that feeling that finally, after years of chaos, everything was going to be okay. He was safe. Nancy was safe. You were safe, all curled up under stark white blankets, sipping water through a bendy straw, your chest rising and falling beneath your hospital gown in scattered breaths. He felt…

Steve swallowed, glanced out the west facing window at the sky-full of smoke from Hawkins, from the fire that you started, from the battle you ended. Had something sparked for you, more than admiration? He glanced your direction again.

You had followed his gaze out the window, greyed skies casting shadow against your soft features, sunken and tired, yet brave and… beautiful. He thought of your jests at him on the battle field, of the swing of your tennis racket, of the jabs to his ribs, your face split into a grin just before you hauled yourself into that building, fire blazing. An ember sparked within him.

“Knock knock,” Dr. Sam Owens knuckled the door as it sprung open, and he pulled himself into the small room. “How are Hawkins heroes doing today? Glad to see you’re up.”

You glanced from the man to Steve, eyebrows furrowed.

Steve offered Owens a soft smile, heart still racing with the thoughts of you in his mind.

“Have either of you considered a career with the US government?”

That was the worst moment of Steve’s life.

—

The small windows of the Lafferty’s basement reminded Steve of your own, little boxes at ground level that filtered light in through dusty cobwebs. The dryer rattled in a similar place, banging sheet metal against the washing machine so hard Steve could taste it. No, that was the iron of blood filling his mouth. He counted his teeth with his tongue, a molar in the back split. His ears rang, loud like they had the night before, that throbbing ache just behind his eye sockets, and grunted through the pain, eyes adjusting to the damp dark of the basement.

“Baby,” someone cooed beside him. “Baaaaaby.”

He rolled onto his back to view the shadowed face of the girl across from him. Blonde hair pulled back, tight, into a high ponytail. She had sharp features, intense, and she slumped forward on her metal lawn chair with bony limbs. It took him five seconds to clock the blood tracing her upper lip and the scar on the inside of her left wrist. Steve spat a mouthful of blood at her feet, red soaked the concrete floor and splattered black patent leather.

“That’s no way to treat a lady, baby,” she sneered.

“Shut up,” he groaned, out of breath, something stung in his ribcage, a familiar, tight pain. His own words echoed in his head, behind his eyes.

Upstairs, muffled by wooden floors and feet of dirt and dust, the doorbell rang. Steve stared past the dangling light fixture, watching dust sprinkle from the rafters with soft footfall. He heard a friendly exchange, and then the soft pitter-patter of children running. There were kids in this house.

Amie wasn’t here when he got here. He’d let himself in. That means she came home at some point while he was unconscious. And now, by the sound of high-pitched chatter, Marcie had brought her kids to play. Jesus Christ.

He lifted himself onto his elbows, peering at the woman holding him captive. She seemed alarmed by the noises, frightened even, knocked off her game. He reached one hand out to grab her wrist, hoping to pull her off her feet, but immediately he felt the sting of pins-and-needles as he lost control of his motor functions, instead being catapulted backward into a load-bearing beam. It quaked under his weight, the sturdiness knocking the wind from his lungs. A cascade of dust fell into his hair, onto his shoulders.

Fifteen was squared to him, hand outstretched, blood dripping from her left nostril. She looked weak, tired, like it took everything in her to lift Steve, and when she finally released, he felt himself slump to the floor again, sputtering coughs and sneezes and desperate to fill his lungs. The ache in his rib made it harder to take in a deep breath.

She collapsed back into her chair. “Down, boy.” She breathed.

“Why are you doing this?” Steve huffed, clutching at his side.

Fifteen leaned toward him, mopping at her nose with her thumb. “I could ask you the same thing. You and little wifey. Thought Brenner would have sent someone with a little more… sparkle.” She twirled her fingers his direction, and Steve flinched out of the way. Nothing happened.

He coughed, and fuck, it hurt. Another mouthful of blood trailed, sticky down his chin, sticking his t-shirt to his chest. “Brenner’s dead.” He groaned.

This got her attention. “Liar.”

Steve glared at the girl. “Why would I lie about that?”

She rolled her eyes, but hugged wiry arms into herself, contemplating his words.

Steve took the initiative to keep talking, maybe keep her distracted. He hoped she didn’t notice as he surveyed the room, hoping for an out. The dryer still had a half-hour’s worth of time. He wondered if Fifteen had started it to dull any noises from the basement. It racketed into the washer with the same, harsh rhythm. “Sam Owens sent us. We’re part of a mission to retrieve any living of Brenner’s projects.”

“There are others?” Fuck, shouldn’t have said that.

Steve swallowed, banged his head backwards against the pole, and groaned when the dull ache returned between his eyes. “We want to rehabilitate you, give you a better life.”

Fifteen barked a laugh. “I don’t need rehabilitation. I have a good life.” She looked down her nose at him, blood crusting dry at the frilly cuff of her blouse.

“Oh yeah?” Steve scoffed. “Chip hiding you in his basement, only bringing you out for special occasions. You know, when his wife’s out of town.” He gestured around to the rat poison on the wall, the hamper of dirty laundry, a cot in the corner, the breaker… Bingo.

“Chip loves me.” Fifteen snarled, but Steve felt the heartbreak through it. His eyes snapped back to the girls, and that’s really what she was, probably no older than him, big brown eyes, the twist of anguish behind them.

He shook his head. “This isn’t love.”

“Oh, and you would know?”

The ruckus got louder upstairs, running footsteps, cackled laughter. The beat of the dryer echoed his thunderous heartbeat in his ears. Steve licked the iron from his split lip, spat a patch of blood near his hand, and moved himself into a crouched position against the pole. He thought of her question, thought of his own knowledge on love, and it tasted just as bad on his tongue.

He squeezed his eyes closed past the pain, and shrugged. “I guess I would. Because the girl I love, I’d do anything for her. Absolutely anything. I’d buy her favorite cereal, even though it’s pure sugar. I’d go into scary ass basements, even though I’m guaranteed to get my shit kicked. I’d go to the hospital every day to make sure that the moment she woke up, she’d have someone there that cared. Hell, I’d let her have a fucking gaggle of kids if they were as pretty as she was, and I sure as hell wouldn’t lock her, alone, in a stupid basement, to hide from the world. Because I’m proud of her, I’m so damn proud of her. She’s brave, and she’s beautiful, and I love her. And I don’t see why you don’t deserve the same God damn courtesy.”

He didn’t know where it all came from, this violent word vomit, the dribble of blood onto his shirt, and the slow and steady motion upward, until he teetered on two feet, slumped against the beam that quaked under his weight.

“Touching,” Fifteen sneered, but her hand was raised, and the hanging light began to crackle again.

Steve took his chance, dove in the direction of the breaker, for some sort of distraction, but before his body made contact with the wall, the basement door flung open, and they were soon ambushed by a swat-team of agents. Jimmy Jones and his wife, Marcie, were wrapped in bullet proof vests. Jimmy had a large device that reminded Steve of Russians and underground labs and sent a shiver through him, and that device was quickly shoved through Fifteen’s neck. Her knees gave way, and Marcie caught her lithe body.

“What the…?” Steve started, but you were there, wrapping your thin hand around his wrist, asking if he was alright. His head pounded, muffling the sounds around him. You led him upstairs, a wash of too-bright lights and a swimming skull. Your hand was soft in his, and the sirens were too loud.

He could just make out the soft sounds of children from the kitchen, little Christopher’s voice coming through the mist, “Mommy, what’s going on? I’m scared.”

—

Hawkins succumbed to winter in a flurried mess of fallen snow, run-through with bikes and station wagons. Rotting pumpkins on stoops were replaced with conifers and the smell of spices replaced with peppermint as everything bit crisp and bitter in the air. Slush lay over roots and soil, chased into clogged gutters. Fog clung to the insides of car windows and heated the panes of Steve’s new prescription glasses as he paced the aisles of the grocery store, souring at gaggles of kids chasing one another through the frozen food section on a Friday evening.

Maybe Robin was right, maybe he’d grown crotchety in his old age, or maybe seeing other people happy just miffed him, or maybe seeing kids reminded him of that future that, one again, slipped right through his blood-stained fingers.

Steve lifted at the wire on the bridge of his nose to rub at tired eyes. His basket grew heavier, a fistful of TV dinners, some stovetop popcorn, marshmallows in a bag. He promised Robin a movie night, only because she’d bullied him out of the house, and he promised he’d pick up snacks on the way. He tossed boxed butter in, having memorized Robin’s favorite cereal-based dessert recipe years ago. All that was left were the Rice Krispies.

Four aisles down, he found the cereal aisle, a mess of technicolor boxes, athlete’s and mascots illuminated in florescent light, and three-quarters of the way down, he saw you. He stopped, rubber soles squeaking against the linoleum, heart thundering in his chest, roaring in his ears. He hadn’t seen you in months, not since Fifteen was captured, not since Owens awarded you both hearty pats on the back and promises of a call for another mission somewhere.

To be fair, Steve wasn’t sure he was really seeing you now. He’d imagined you all around town, every one of Eddie’s gigs at the Hideout, he saw you pass the window. Every morning chauffeuring Dustin to Hawkins High, he saw you walking side roads, winding through the woods. He imagined you on Halloween, passing out candy to trick-or-treaters, black hat ears looped through your hair. He imagined you at Thanksgiving, serving pumpkin pie and a massive dollop of whipped cream. Just yesterday, he imagined you staring into a toy storefront, a gaggle of kids around you, promising things that Santa would bring.

The squeak of his shoe must have alerted you, because you turned your head to caught his gaze, and it was you. Your face split into that soft smile, the one that warmed him from deep in his stomach to the apples of his cheeks. His feet moved of their own volition, like you were a powerful magnet, and he a paperclip, all crumpled on itself, cowering in shame.

“Hi,” you breathed as he approached. From this distance, you looked as tired as he felt, like months of pretending had drained the life from you both, aged you. Even tired, you were beautiful. His heart clenched.

“Hey,” he felt the smile tug at his cheeks.

“I like the glasses,” you smirked, and he shied a bit. He felt like a fucking dork in the glasses, but he could see, and Robin and Dustin were constantly reminding him how important that was. The headaches went away too. “You look like a dad.”

That one fucking hurt. He peeled his eyes from you then, focused back on the task at hand. Looking beside you, he found the familiar Honeycomb mascot smiling back at him, taunting him. He scoffed, rolled his eyes. “Just buy the fucking Honeycomb.”

“Excuse me?” You sputtered.

“Every God damn time, we’d come into this aisle and have this big debate about it, and I know it makes you sad because it was your brother’s favorite, but it’s your favorite too, and when you eat it, you get this big nostalgic smile across your face. And you can’t admit it, but it makes you happy because it gives you the sugar rush you need with your coffee in the morning, apparently. Makes you the fucking Energizer bunny.” Steve ran a hand through his hair, and he hadn’t realized he said too much until he felt the heaviness of his own breath, the way you stared back at him, wide-eyed.

“I… didn’t realize…”

Steve shrugged, dumping a heavy box of Rice Krispies into his own basket. “You didn’t realize a lot of things.” He grumbled.

“What?”

He turned to you, then, hugging your stupid box of Honeycombs, eyebrows twisted into a crease just above your nose, perfect in every stupid way, and the flood gates open. “I love you.” A weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He stood taller, squared to face you head-on. “I am in love with you. I think I have been since the moment you killed the demo bat with that tennis racket. And pretending to be in love with you? When I was actually in love with you? That sucked. That really sucked.”

“Steve,” you breathed.

“And I’m sure it was easy for you, I mean, it seemed easy. But then you’d kiss me, or you’d make these loving little comments, and Jesus Christ, don’t even get me started on the baby onesie. That still haunts my nightmares.”

“Steve.”

“But you didn’t even trust me enough to tell me that Jim and Marcie were in on it? And then I get my shit rocked by a freaking Number, and you just brush me off, leave me to dry? I’ve spent months pining over you, and I didn’t even hear a word?”

“Baby,” you chided.

Steve’s throat dried, warmth prickling the tops of his ears. You took a step toward him, reached up to pick at the tear in his jacket, the one he never bothered to fix because it reminded him of you. “Yeah?” He croaked.

“Will you shut up?” Your eyes sparkled.

“Make me,” he challenged. And you did, standing on tip-toe to press your sweet, soft lips to his. Your hands clutched his lapels, sparks tickling his spine. He dropped his basket at your feet to wrap his arms around your waist, and you laughed into him as your feet left the ground, that stomach fluttering sound. He kissed your soft cheeks, the curve of your jaw, the soft skin of your ear.

“Baby,” you laughed, swatted at his shoulders until he let you down. You pulled him to your level, and he felt the hum of your lips against his own before you said. “I want all of my babies to be as pretty as you.” And he knew he was a goner.

---

A/N: As promised, Stevie in glasses, pining helplessly for the woman he loves. I had a lot of fun with this story, and I hope you did too. Thanks, so much, for reading and for all of your support. Much much love. xo-Amanda

Edit: Read the follow up autumnal drabble here.

#steve harrington fic #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #fake marriage au #steve harrington fake marriage au #stranger things fic #stranger things #steve harrington #joe keery #domesticity

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