Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Alright, I’ll see you in five, hon!” you chime as you hang up the phone on your best friend. Taking your bag off of its place on your closet door and swinging it onto your shoulder, you check yourself once more in the mirror before running down the stairs. Looking around on the table next to the door, where you all keep your keys, you can’t find yours. Trying to retrace your steps, you remember having made a beeline for the kitchen last time you came into the house, because your mom had ordered your favourite food in for after work and you really needed that.

Completely forgetting that your brother was going to have one of his friends over while your mom was at work, you get into the kitchen and walk straight into someone. Still completely in your own world, you blurt out a, “Sorry, hon!” as you keep looking around.

You’re pulled out of your trance by your brother loudly interjecting with an, “Uh-uh, pause. What the fuck is this?!” 

You look over at Dustin to see him pointing between you and the person you’d collided with. Who you now realise is Steve Harrington himself. Shit. How he went from being the guy everyone felt lucky to be blessed to be in the same room as, to one of your baby brother’s best friends, you can never truly understand, but it seems like he’s always around. Having never really been the type that Steve would have even looked at, you usually tend to keep out of his way as though you would have done at school.

“Uh, language, dipshit,” you run the faucet and throw water at Dustin, who hisses at you, which makes Steve laugh under his breath. Shaking your hand dry, you look over at Steve, which feels almost sacrilegious, and hurriedly apologise. “Sorry, I was just on the phone to my friend, that’s what we call each other, my brain is frie- Hey, Dustbuster, have you seen my keys?”

Steve holds back a snort of laughter, “Dustbuster?”

“You’ve seen him eat, right?” you deadpan, and he laughs harder. He was always too… Untouchable in school to attach any kind of emotion to, but here in your kitchen, laughing at your dumb jokes aimed at your dumb brother, your heart soars.

Dustin glares, “Okay first, hate this,” he points between the two of you, then points to the counter behind you. “Keys are there.”

You pick them up just in time to hear your best friend pull up and sound her car horn outside. “Alright, I’m out, be good, Dustbuster!”

“Have a good time, hon!” Steve calls out as you walk out of the kitchen. You turn your head to stick your tongue out at him and he chuckles, winking at you through the doorway. The last thing you hear before you leave the house is the generic sound of Dustin yelling at Steve, though you can’t 100% make out the words.

You decide not to tell your friend about your interaction with Steve. Funny as it was, she might start trying to talk you into actually crushing on him, and you’d really rather not actually cross that line.

<~>

It becomes a regular inside joke now between you and Steve, every time you end up seeing him at your house, you refer to each other as various pet names. You quickly become confident with it, reminding yourself that you are not the kind of person King Steve would call “angel” outside of messing with Dustin, and so you’re able to match Steve’s energy well.

Today in particular, you’re in charge of making dinner. As you start to get your ingredients out, you hear a knock on the open kitchen door, and the familiar sound of Steve’s voice singsonging, “Honey, I’m home!”

Again all too familiar, Dustin screaming from down the hallway, “You’re not funny!”

You reply loudly, “Hey there, sweetcheeks,” taking delight in Dustin’s scream of anguish.

“What are we having for dinner tonight?” Steve asks, hopping onto the kitchen island right next to where you’d started unloading food.

You slap his knee jokingly, “You, if you’re gonna sit in the food prep zone!”

He leans close to you, “Are you saying I’m good enough to eat?” His voice is lower, quieter. Outside of Dustin’s range.

As you stand there, dumbfoundedly trying to process a response, Dustin walks in and starts shouting again. “Nope! No, no, no, absolutely not.” He walks over to you, waving his arms in the air in crossing motions before pushing you away to the other side of the kitchen.

“Why are you moving me?! I’m just trying to cook! Do you not want dinner tonight?!” you flip the peak of Dustin’s cap off of his head, and he squawks as he fumbles to pick it up from the ground. “Move him, I’ve gotta get started,” you jerk your head over at Steve, folding your arms impatiently.

Steve makes eye contact with Dustin, who silently gestures for Steve to move using only his eyes, and then looks over at you and smiles smugly. “I’ll move, if you ask nicely enough.”

Taking a deep breath in, you put on your best sickly smile. “Steve, sweetheart, would you be a darling and hop off here so I can be a good little housewife and cook you the greatest brisket you’ve ever eaten?”

Steve looks you up and down and slowly drags his teeth along his lower lip. “For you, baby? Anything.” 

“Have you pre-heated the oven yet? I wanna stick my head in it,” Dustin complains as Steve moves out of the way, making the effort to come over to you first to tap you on the nose playfully before walking back to your brother. “Just for that, you can drive me over to the hardware store, I need more batteries,” Dustin pokes his finger into Steve’s chest before turning to look at you. “We should be back in time for dinner, right?”

“Yeah, this’ll take hours, you kids have fun,” you smirk, waving them away. “Miss you already, hot stuff!” you shout to Steve as he gets through the doorway.

“Miss you more, honeybun!” he replies, though his voice sounds choppy. Your assumptions as to why ring true as you eventually hear him laugh, “Alright, Dustin, quit it!” above the sound of what is obviously your brother hitting him over and over again.

<~>

You’ve been enjoying having a day off with the house to yourself; your mom is working, and Dustin is spending time with his friends. You’re so immersed in your book that you don’t hear the front door unlocking, or Dustin running up the stairs. The only thing you hear is Steve, once he’s sat perched on the arm of the couch you’re sprawled across, after he pokes your foot lightly to get your attention. “Hey, babe!”

“What’s happening, cutie?” you ask instinctively, not looking away from your story. If you had looked up, you’d have realised Dustin isn’t even around to tease.

“Well, actually, I’ve got something I wanted to ask you. There’s a special drive-in screening of that new movie, the Ferris something’s Day Off? Anyway, I won this dumb radio contest I entered on a slow day at work, and I got two tickets, and it’s tonight. Wanna come?”

You finally look up over your book at him. “Your friends couldn’t make it?”

Steve shrugs, “I dunno, didn’t ask ’em.”

Your heart does a somersault. “Well, I’m sure you’ve got a plethora of phone numbers in your diary that have girls just waiting on the other end of each line for a chance to go to the movies with Steve Harrington. Surely not all of them have turned you down.”

Steve frowns and shakes his head. “None of them have, didn’t ask any of them, either.” You rack your brain to try and think of why on earth else Steve would ask you before anyone else, but he interrupts your train of thought with a, “So?”

You repeat, “So, what’s the motive then, are we taking Dustin or any of the other kids to see it, or -”

“Come on, you’re killing me,” he rests his elbow on his knee, and his jaw on his fist.

Running out of possible reasons that he could be asking you, now, you sigh in resignation. “You’re leaving it a bit late, what if I had plans?”

“Yeah, because you look so busy right now,” he leans down and throws your feet off the couch to sit on the cushion. You glare at him, and he simply stretches himself up to line his face level closer to yours. “What’cha readin- ooh, is that a romance novel?”

Your face turns beetroot as you shove the book between the cushion and the back of the couch. “Shut up. I’m doing market research, I’m running out of things to call you in front of Dustin.”

“Does that mean you’re picturing me as the big, brave hero?” he asks, rolling over so he’s on his back, tilting his head up to look at you upside-down. You’re not sure why he doesn’t just face the right way up, but he does look cute like this, with his hair falling in all directions.

“In your dreams,” you bend your leg to poke your foot into his side, and he laughs, cowering at the touch. "You know what? Yeah, I'll go with you. Any excuse to look at Matthew Broderick all over again."

Steve scoffs, rolling back over so that he's now laying on top of you. He interlocks his hands and rests them between your collarbone to push himself up to look at you. You notice every strand of hair that didn't quite fall back into place after he'd moved, every freckle on his face, the different shades of brown that live in his eyes. Your breath gets heavier, and you know it's not just from the added weight on your chest. "Are you saying I've got competition?"

You pull a face, confused. "Why would you be in any competition with him?!"

He tuts, exaggeratedly rolling his eyes. "For your undivided attention, obviously," he replies smoothly, smiling ever so slightly. "Besides, you said again, right? So it's not like you'd need to watch it all, you know what happens. I can work with that."

You roll your eyes, though your insides are churning at an alarming rate. "Fine. Do I at least have time to get showered first, or have you left it that last minute?" He rolls himself completely off of both you and the couch, awkwardly standing up once his feet make contact with the floor. You bounce your eyebrows once, smirking, "Smooth moving, babygirl." He pulls an expression of mixed confusion and surprise, to which you laugh as you stand, "I told you I was running out of names!"

He squints and nods, picking up your book and throwing himself onto the couch, laying across it with his ankles crossed and one hand behind his head as he holds the book in the other. You look at him with fleeting horror and he smirks, "Doing a little research of my own, kitten, you go get ready."

Once you’re all showered, dried, dressed and (hastily) made-up, Steve’s waiting for you at the foot of the stairs. He smiles adoringly up at you. “Ready to go, pretty thing?”

Dustin scoffs from the other end of the hallway, “Nice try. This bit’s gone on too long, I know you’re only saying those things to mess with me, it’s getting old now.”

You run down the stairs and, much to his surprise, grab the front of Steve’s shirt and kiss him. He starts to react, moving his hands towards you, but you push him away to gauge the reaction you were hoping for: Dustin’s look of shocked disgust. “Well, don’t keep me waiting, loverboy,” you smirk as you head out the door. Dustin’s scream can still be heard even when Steve closes the door behind him, much to the amusement of the pair of you.

Just before you can get into Steve’s car, he reaches out to pull you close to him by the wrist, then rests his hands gently on your shoulders as he leans in close to kiss you again. Gentle pecks that press with the promise of more to come. His thumbs reach up to stroke just under your jaw as his grip on your shoulders pulls you ever closer to him. In that moment, the world only exists for you and Steve Harrington.

Until you can hear the muffled scream from your brother looking at you both through the window.