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luveline · 2 years

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losers and the supernatural | steve harrington x reader

summary Steve has a theory about Hawkins being divided into two subsets. You try to work out where you fit within that. [4.5k]

warnings fluff, getting together, confessions, first kiss, mutual pining, pre-s4, no major s4 plot spoilers, gn!reader, shy!reader

Steve isn't how you remember.

In school you'd thought he was a bit of a jerk. A hot jerk with stupid nice hair, but a jerk. It's a surprise to see him uninjured for once, remembering the bruise that had covered his face during your last year of school, a bouquet of yellows and purples, and another surprise to see him at all behind the desk at Family Video.

"Hey," he says, at first sounding hesitant and then with a little more of his familiar bravado, "Y/N, how's it going?"

He leans over the desk on his elbows. You flounder – you hadn't expected to see him.

"Hi." You pull your strappy bag closer to your chest.

"What are you looking for?"

You can feel the heat rising in your cheek, distracted by him. He's more attractive than you remember, his big hand scrubbing over the bottom of his face as he waits patiently for your answer. You've never been good with people, with anyone housing a drop of popularity. You'd depended on weird Keith being here to get through a human interaction without sweating.

"Do you guys have Dressed to Kill?" you ask quietly.

"Sure thing. You want me to get it?"

You nod, chancing a glance at him. He's watching your hands where they abuse the hem of your shirt. You let them fall to your sides.

Steve rounds the desk and starts to where the tape must be hiding, stopping a foot away and making a small motion with his hand for you to follow so you do, the distance between you closing fast.

He smells of a musky cologne, bergamot and citrus hiding under a heavier smell, like sage or lavender, maybe both. It's distracting. You're still breathing him in when he pulls the movie down from its shelf and offers it to you.

The box has a pair of long legs and red heels. It looks pretty provocative. Your hands tremble as you take it from him, your embarrassment rising.

"That the one?"

"I- yeah. Thank you."

"You're welcome." A small silence. "You didn't start college in the fall?"

"No. S'expensive. I'm not, uh, scholarship smart."

He snorts. "Me neither. I haven't seen you around, I thought for sure you would've ditched Hawkins 'soon as school let up."

You tilt your head to the side and smile at him in reflex, confused. "Really?"

"Hundred percent. Are you kidding? Hawkins is full of losers." He shifts and you try desperately to maintain friendly eye contact, only he's crossed his arms and you can see the line of his forearm, the curve of muscle. "Losers and, like, the supernatural." He seems to have said something he didn't want to say, a nervous, lopsided small stretching over his lips. He scratches his cheek. "I'm pretty sure I saw a vampire last week but Robin won't hear it, she says it's just Keith lingering after his shift."

A laugh bubbles out of you, startled at his sense of humour. Keith does look like a vampire. Steve laughs too and smiles at you, something you don't know in the way his eyes darken and his lashes kiss in the corners.

"And Robin, is that your girlfriend?" you ask. Purely conversational, of course.

"No," he says quickly, taking a small step away from you as he shakes his head. "She's my best friend. She works here, when she's not sick."

"Oh. Sorry."

"C'mon, don't be. Do you have a boyfriend?" And, at your giggling, "What, is that funny?" His voice is warm with a light amusement.

"No, I’m not dating anyone."

"Thank god," he says.

You flush from head to toe.

He's smiling and suddenly not, hands flinching towards you. "Not like that- I mean, not not like that- what I meant was, uh, what I said. Losers and the supernatural, you know?"

You don't have a clue what he means and don't know if he's flirting or socially inept as you are, but you know what it's like to bumble around awkwardly and hope the other person will save you.

"Losers and the supernatural," you agree. "Which one are you?"

"A loser," he says, with a huge smile. "Definitely."

You'd paid for the movie and Steve had chatted with you a little bit more, kind and awkward but still undeniably Steve Harrington. He'd spoken offhandedly, said, "You'll have to tell me how the movie is," as you'd been leaving.

It followed you all week. You'd gone home and watched Dressed to Kill that night, then spent days agonising over how to summarise it in a way he would find cool. You knew it was stupid, it was literally his job to be friendly, but you really wanted to impress him.

That in itself felt weird to you. You never expected to feel like this but you knew the feelings you were experiencing marked the beginning of a crush. You couldn't help thinking about the sound of his voice, the earnestness of it. Worse, you were plagued with memories of his shirt sleeves, how they stretched over his bicep as he filled your details into the computer at the front desk, shifting muscle under tan skin.

You hesitated outside of Family Video to check your hair in the window. Through it, you could see that the desk was empty.

You edged open the door slowly and slipped inside making your way to the desk and peering around. Nobody was there, though you heard voices a second later.

Steve, undeniably. "If you could have, like, a modicum of compassion for me, that would be-"

"Modicum. What, have you been reading the fucking dictionary?"

"Says you! You realise normal people don't use the word capricious in everyday chitchat, right? Tell me you know that, Robs."

"And what use is compassion? You're a sinking ship. Crying about it doesn't unsink the Titanic."

"One, that was a tragedy, so get some class. Two, it's not sunk. I fumbled the ball a bit, but it's hardly time to call it quits." A crashing sound and a groan that sets you alight. "Oh, fuck."

Robin laughs very loudly. You could imagine her pointing at him as she does, the sound condescending. "Idiot."

"You're a bad friend."

"Steve," Robin sighs, "maybe the Titanic wasn't the best analogy. And I do feel sorry for you, you're pathetic-"

"Thanks so much."

"-but that doesn't mean it's over. They live in Hawkins. Their options are pretty limited."

"Thank you for your vote of confidence," he says, monotone.

You think maybe it's too late to pretend you aren't here and definitely too late to announce yourself so you don't do either. You pull your headphones from your bag and click play on your cassette and when the Family Video employees finally emerge you take them off like you've been listening to music the whole time.

"Y/N," Steve says, sounding antsy. "How long have you been waiting?"

"Not long," you say. You're being too quiet.

Steve doesn't seem to care. Robin smiles at you, looking almost as deer-in-the-headlights as her colleague but hiding it better.

"I'm gonna go… finish… that thing we were doing. Yep," she says, fleeing to the back room.

Your headphones around your neck, the metallic sounds of Tears for Fears' Songs from the Big Chair, you give the King of Hawkins High a cautious but honest smile. You worry you might pass out when he returns it.

"So? Did you like the movie?" he asks.

You turn to your bag and pull the tape out where it had fit rather snugly. "It was okay. I don't know, I-" you wince. "I wanted to say something cool but, I'm not very good with movies." Your voice rises in pitch as you go.

You hold the tape out. Steve takes it but doesn't take it, both of you with one hand on the box. You almost feel like you've been shocked, staring down at his fingers, his knuckles and his class ring.

"I'm not great with movies, either," he confides. "I know what you're thinking – this jagoff works at Family Video but doesn't know what makes a movie good? What are they paying him for?" he acts out dramatically, a smirk playing on his handsome features as he accepts your tape.

You laugh and he fails to hide a smile as he logs your return.

"What do they pay you for, then?" you ask.

"What do you think? My good looks and charm, duh."

"Here I thought it was for the hair."

His eyes light up. "They should be! You know how much hairspray it takes to style this thing?"

"I can't imagine," you joke with him.

"You don't want to. I'm gonna have to remortgage the house if this carries on."

You hum under your breath and lean across the desk just as the tape switches. Head over Heels plays loudly, your hands inching towards his unthinkingly.

"What are you listening to?" he asks, nodding his head to your headphones.

They're a cheap set with orange foam pads. You pull them over your head and offer them to him bashfully. He's much more confident as he accepts them, pushing them over his hair. You delight in his enthusiasm, at odds with Steve from three years ago, who would've died rather than ruin his immaculate updo, who might not have even looked your way.

He bobs his head along to the song, looking to you as the chorus builds. His lips form a satisfied 'o' and he leans backwards. "Hey," he says, too loud, "this is awesome. What's this song called?"

"Head over Heels," you say, hoping he can read your lips if he can't hear you.

He peels the headset from his ears and gives them back to you, fingertips brushing yours. Pinpricks of heat crawl over your skin.

"Head over Heels?" You nod. "You might not know movies but your music taste is pretty stellar."

"Thanks," you murmur, shy at his praise.

"You ever been upto Indianapolis? They have a lot of live music there."

You rush to answer. "Yes, yeah! Freshman year, AC/DC played the Market Square arena, it was amazing. I've never seen so many people in one place. It felt like all of Hawkins could've fit in there."

"AC/DC? You like rock music?"

If he'd asked a different way you might've lied. He didn't sound judgemental or surprised, only interested.

Your shoulders hike anyway as you answer. "Yeah, I do. More when I was in High School."

"You're cool, Y/N L/N," he says, palms braced on the desk.

You squeeze the headphones in your hands and try not to show how affected you are. "I'm not."

"You are. Too cool for Hawkins."

"Losers and the supernatural," you recall.

His grin is dizzying. "Exactly."

You can't take the intensity of it, of how bright his smile is and how it makes you nervous. You look away from him, eyes scanning the shelves, some half-stocked.

"You caught us on a Monday. Quietest day, so we're rearranging. Or, we should be."

"I'm sorry! Am I keeping you?" You turn back to him quickly.

Steve crosses his arms. "No way. Like I said, quietest day. You're the best part of my week."

He probably doesn't mean it the way you think he does, or if he does he's only joking, you argue with yourself.

He's watching you. "You want help finding another movie?"

He's around the desk and at your side before you can say yes, smelling strongly of that bergamot musk. You sink a little bit further, reckoning that Robin's Titanic analogy was spot on.

Six visits to Family Video later, you're thinking about returning a movie Steve has picked out for you – Sixteen Candles, which you've already seen but lied about so you can listen to him sell it – when you run into him at Bradley's Big Buy.

A cart full of groceries, you feel shocked and then silly. Of course he buys groceries. Everybody buys groceries, and it's imperative that you hide from him in your own grocery outfit - jeans and a paint speckled t-shirt from your Hawkins High days, a gym shirt with your name written across the front in teenage handwriting.

You're so busy hiding you don't hear him approach.

"Hey, Y/N," he says.

You bring your basket to your chest in hopes of hiding your shirt. It doesn't work.

"Nice shirt."

You grimace, about to explain how it's wash day and you don't always dress like an idiot, you swear, but he starts to pull up his hoodie.

You go a bit blind at first, eyes searching the expanse of midriff he exposes greedily moments before he finds the hem of his shirt and pulls it down for you to see. A Hawkins High gym shirt.

"Oh my god," you say.

"Funny coincidence," he says, dropping his hoodie back down. "It looks better on you."

You can't look at him, shy again from his flirting remarks. Your eyes are drawn to his groceries. It's funny how stereotypical it is, TV dinners and chips, ice cream, moon cakes. You raise your brows at him and laugh. His eyes go wide as saucers.

"We're having a movie night. Me and Robin. I swear, I eat like a normal dude. Mostly. Some of the time."

"No, I, I'm not judging. I'm not much better," you say, brandishing your basket at him. Slightly healthier but with a similar abundance of chips.

You go to talk at the same time, eager.

"What movie are you watching?"

"We're renting Alien."

He chuckles and you scratch at your collar.

"You ever seen it?" he asks.

"No, I can't watch scary movies by myself."

"It's… do you maybe wanna come?"

You end up in the passenger seat of Steve's 733i, abashed because you're badly dressed and because he invited you. Heart racing, you take the opportunity to admire his face when he can't see you, his eyes on the road as he drives from Bradley's. It's getting dark, the asphalt slowly blending with the sky as kilometres disappear under the BMW's tyres

"You're sure Robin won't mind?" you ask.

Steve glances at you. "Sure. She gets, like, acute verbal diarrhea around new people but she's the nicest girl I've ever met."

"She wasn't in our classes, was she?"

"No. Robin's still a senior. We met working at Starcourt."

Starcourt is a hard topic to navigate. People died. You decide to manoeuvre around it. "It's lucky you can work together again."

"It's not luck. She made me take a movie crash course before we applied, and when Keith didn't seem so taken with me she convinced him."

"She must really like you, Harrington."

He looks very thoughtful, inclining his head towards you though he doesn't turn, eyes on the road diligently. "She's a really good friend. I liked her…" he grasps for words, "as more than a friend. But she didn't like me back."

"I'm sorry," you say.

You can't mistake the look he gives you when he does turn, quick but undeniable. "Don't be," he says seriously, his eyes searching as they take in your face. "It never would've worked between us."

You smile at your knees. "No?"

"Nope," he confirms.

You infer something ridiculous; that it couldn't have worked because he seems to like you.

You pull up outside his house and find Robin waiting on the stoop.

"Where have you been? It's about two degrees from the ninth circle out here! I'm at risk of pneumonia."

"The ninth circle?" you ask Steve quietly, trudging down the driveway besides him.

"It's from that book, Dante's Inferno?" he tells you gently. "Slow your roll, Buckley! I was getting the goods."

Robin sees you, looks between you and Steve with wide eyes, and gifts you an uneasy smile, enigmatic in its awkwardness.

"Hi."

"Hi," you say back, wishing you'd worn a jacket.

"When you say goods, I trust you mean candy, right? Not just your- L/N," she finishes, cringing.

You don't know what she meant to say. Steve reaches between you in what you know is the first time he's ever touched you to squeeze your arm lightly before he pulls his keys from his pocket to unlock the door.

"Yeah, I got your candy. You're eating me out of house and home," he scolds.

Your ears are roaring so loud you almost miss her reply. "I'd need to eat more than a bowl of chips to do that, Steve. You live in a mansion, in case you forgot."

He scoffs. "Shut up."

The door opens. Steve dumps the bag of groceries swinging from the crook of his arm at the threshold to toe out of his shoes and jacket and you follow suit, embarrassed further by your mismatched ankle socks.

Robin gives you a look that says, get a load of this guy. "We're not all living it large. Some of us have, like, a wardrobe for a bedroom."

"Buckley."

She holds her hands up in surrender. "Just saying. I don't think your enabling of my sweet tooth is gonna put you out."

Steve gives you a look of his own as you follow Robin into the Harrington living room. He rolls his eyes good naturedly at her and you press your lips together to stop from laughing as he flicks on the lights and puts the tape in the TV. You stand awkwardly in the doorway as Robin throws herself down onto the sofa, a pint of melting ice cream in her hand.

"Steve, get the spoons?" she asks hopefully.

Steve sighs, a noise only the long-suffering can make.

"Hey," he says as he walks past, shoulder almost touching yours, the gap filled with a white hot electricity you're sure he must feel too. "Go sit down, make yourself comfortable."

You sit at the opposite end from Robin. She's already wriggling down onto her back, kicking her feet up onto the coffee table in a practised routine.

She turns her head slowly, like she can feel your gaze, and scrambles to fill the silence.

"Steve really likes you, you know?" she says, then something goes dead behind her eyes. She mumbles to herself, then grimaces at you with two rows of perfect teeth. "He thinks you're cool. I think you're cool too, obviously, too cool for Steve."

"Steve is cool," you deny without any real heat.

"Are you kidding? Steve is the opposite of cool. He cries at the end of every movie, he keeps his Scoops uniform at the bottom of his closet. He wears a shower cap."

You shake your head at her. Those are the kind of things that make him cool.

She rolls her head forward and shrugs, slinking down even further with the ice cream balanced on her chest. The movie previews can't be far from over as Steve returns with two spoons, passing one to Robin and one to you.

"It's your loss," Robin says as Steve sits in the middle of the couch and passes you the second pint of ice cream. She says it softly, like she knows it's not a loss at all.

"Steve, what about-" you, you try to say.

"You have it. I don't like rocky road," he interrupts encouragingly.

You peek at Robin and she's shaking her head vehemently, as if to say, that's not true. When Steve turns to her she acts as if nothing happened.

The movie plays. Robin makes quick work of her ice cream, an entire bag of chips and upwards of three moon cakes. You're in awe, your attention captured by her rather than the film. Steve has slowly deflated next to you, his arm brushing yours, the fabric of his hoodie soft against your bare skin.

You flinch as the alien baby bursts from Kane's chest on screen, edging closer to Steve without meaning to. He pushes his shoulder into yours, chin dipping back. "Oh, gross," he says excitedly.

"How do they make the corn syrup blood look so real?" you ask quietly.

"They must dye it with something. The chunks of his chest, that's disgusting."

Robin agrees, evidently, because she throws a hand over her mouth and leaps to her feet. You and Steve hear the firm click of the bathroom door and the awful echo of her retching as she loses her snack feast.

"Fuck, I'll go check on her. Pause the movie?" he asks. You nod. He clasps your shoulder thankfully and leaves the room.

Steve returns a little while later. You're ramrod straight on the edge of his couch, hand on your shoulder trying to feel where he'd just touched you, though you quickly stop. He throws himself down next to you roughly, his thigh to your thigh and sinking down. You lean over him.

"What happened?"

"She ate too much and Kane's explosion messed her up. Gonna sleep it off upstairs."

"But she's okay?" you ask, concerned.

He raises a hand like he's going to touch your face but thinks better of it. It falls to his chest. "She's fine. Don't worry, I set her up with a bucket and Rocky Horror."

"You have a TV in your room?"

Steve chuckles. "That's what you got from all that?"

"Robin's right. You're loaded."

"I'm not loaded. My dad's pretty comfortable." He pouts just slightly. "You wanna finish the movie?"

"Yeah."

You pass him the remote and he dutifully unpauses. It plays for only a few minutes before you want to talk to him again.

"Would you kill the baby alien?" you ask.

"Definitely."

"It's a baby." .

He looks at you skeptically. "A baby that's gonna grow up. Trust me, it might look cute when it's not eating through your diaphragm, but that's what it wants you to think. Soon enough it'll be the size of a city rat and murdering your house pets."

"You sound like you have experience with this."

You think it's cute, how passionate he sounds, his enthused hypothetical. Steve ruffles his hair, scratching at his scalp lightly, his watch strap tugging at soft strands. He hisses and you reach forward to untangle a piece of hair from the clasp, holding very still as you do, your fingers methodical. You flatten his hair, combing the mess back into place.

"Thanks," he says slowly, his eyes on your lips.

You lower your trembling hand. "Don't mention it."

The two of you turn resolutely to the TV. Your face burns, your chest burns worse, and you demean yourself for thinking that Steve might kiss you.

"Robin said-" you start.

"I was wondering-" Steve tries simultaneously.

"You go," you tell him.

He narrows his eyes.

"What did Robin tell you?" Steve asks. You bite your lips until he sighs, faux forlorn. "I was only wondering… I mean. This might be a bad time to ask, but I wanted to ask you out on a date."

"A date?" you repeat, looking for a response and coming up empty.

"Right, like. Dinner? Enzo's." Your eyes blow wide and he scrambles, "Or not! We can go anywhere. Fucking McDonald's, if you wanted."

"Robin said you liked me," you say, breathless.

"Yeah, well she's a snake," he says snarkily.

"You like me?" you ask. Maybe it's not tasteful to beg for a confession, but you need to know.

"I did just ask you on a date."

You sit back and Steve gets up from his slouching.

"You're, like, the coolest person I've ever met. You're adorable, and you have a killer taste in music."

You've forgotten how to speak. Steve takes this the wrong way, brown hair falling into his eyes, the light from the TV painting his skin a pale green, then blown white like a photograph with the exposure too high.

"I get it, if you don't want to. I work at Family Video, I flunked school. I couldn't get into community college, so I-" he presses his lips together, his tone light, "I'm a total loser," he says, "oh my god. And I'm still talking."

"Steve," you say, pressing your palm into his thigh to gather his attention. "You're not a loser."

"I'm not the supernatural," he says.

"I don't know. You could be a vampire," you tease. "And anyways, this mould you've built for Hawkins is insane. Loser, supernatural. Which one would I be?" you ask curiously, fingers flexing over his thigh.

He covers your hand with his. You both look down to watch as he rubs his thumb over your knuckles, then wraps his fingers around yours.

"Supernatural," he says, too smug, you know he's about to say something corny. "There's something supernatural about those eyes, baby."

You laugh so hard it catches you off guard, choking on them. "What! Steve, how long have you been holding onto that one?"

"I just thought of it," he says.

"I can tell! That was awful, you really-"

"Can I kiss you?"

Your giggles fade. Your heart rockets in your chest. Steve's free hand finds your arm, teasing the hem of your sleeve, his eyes watching you carefully. They're so brown his pupils melt into the irises.

"Please?" he asks.

You nod without saying anything.

His long fingers push under your sleeve, spread out across your skin. He warms where he touches, squeezing the dough of your arm gently as he pulls you closer. His now familiar cologne hits you all at once and you're filled with a want to be closer, ducking in as he closes the gap between you and kisses you sweetly.

You steal your hand from under his to reach for him, hands smoothing over the hill and curve of his shoulders to meet behind his neck, brushing through his downy soft hair.

Steve covets your face, lips lifting away to realign and reignite a wave of firecrackers under your skin, firm as his lips part ever so slightly. He tastes like soda. It makes you giggle, a huff against his smiling lips.

He pulls away, the bottom of his palm touching your jaw but his fingers hovering over your skin, stroking the skin under your eye with the tip of his index finger so lightly it tickles.

Your eyes drift closed as he brushes against your eyelashes.

"You're really pretty," he murmurs.

He takes your face in both hands and kisses the well under your eye. You hold your breath, tummy churning with butterflies at the feeling of his warm lips on your delicate skin.

When he pulls away you're quick to take back your hands. He's less so, one big palm cupping your neck and the other rubbing a line down your arm until he finds your fingers, twining them together with his as he gives you what must be a cheek-aching smile.

"I think I'd like to go to Enzo's," you say shyly.

"Yeah?" he asks, leaning back in.

"Yeah," you say, your response quickly smothered by his lips.

You can feel his smile.

You were right about Steve being a vampire – you find out soon enough that he likes to bite. Your lips, gently, and your neck, less so.

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