Steve Harrington x fem!reader ♡ 969 words
It was shaping up to be a slow, easy day. Grocery shopping, followed by a date with Steve, followed by an afternoon spent making out on your couch. Simple, satisfying. Routine, after a little over a month of dating Steve. That all went out the window when your doorbell rang and you broke Steve’s kiss to answer it.
There were six kids waiting outside. Too young to be missionaries, too many boys to be selling girl scout cookies. Loud and gesticulating and talking over each other and all asking for Steve.
You didn’t have to call for him. He came like their chaos drew him, appearing at your side with an exasperated look on his face.
“What the hell are you guys doing here?”
They all began talking over each other again. Somewhere in there, Steve introduced you, rattling off a bunch of names you’re trying very hard to keep straight, and eventually it becomes clear that they came looking for him because Dustin got gum stuck in his hair and they can’t agree on how to get it out.
“Just cut it out,” Max insists, with the long-suffering air of someone who’s repeated themselves more than once. “It’s the only way.”
“That’s what I’m saying.” Mike throws up his hands.
“I can’t cut it out, it’s right by my scalp!” Dustin practically squeaks. Tilting your head, you can see that there is, indeed, some white gummy residue sticking to the edge of his baseball cap and the hair above his ear. “Do you know how long it took me to grow it out this much? Do you have any idea?”
Max throws Steve a droll look, arms crossed. “You made him vain.”
“Hey, we’ll see how you like it if you get gum stuck in your hair,” Steve says back. He asks Dustin, “Did you try peanut butter?”
“You didn’t even try peanut butter?” Steve sounds appalled. He sighs, tenting his fingers over his brow like an overwrought parent. You fight a smile. “That’s the first thing you try! Look, you go find a jar of peanut butter—creamy peanut butter, not that nutty shit—“
“I don’t care what peanut butter your mom uses, Henderson—use the creamy kind, and it’ll come right out. Okay? It’s the oldest trick in the book.”
“I have peanut butter,” you say.
Everyone turns to look at you. The kids like they’ve forgotten you were there, Steve like he’s trying to convey a warning with his eyes.
“You can use mine,” you go on anyway.
They all look at Steve as if for permission. After a second, he sighs. “Okay, yeah, come on.” He waves them inside.
It’s sort of funny watching Steve interact with this band of teenagers. Sort of sweet, too. He’s all sighs and eye rolls, fondness hidden under the veneer of annoyance, but he’s not rough as he works the peanut butter into Dustin’s hair. As he does it, he gets the story for how the gum wound up there in the first place.
“I was seriously just trying to chew my gum—“ Lucas starts.
“No—no, you were blowing bubbles with it, which is distracting when someone’s trying to read—”
“Do comics really take all of your concentration, Dustin?” Max asks sardonically. “Do they really?”
“Fine, I was blowing bubbles, and Dustin wouldn’t shut up about how he wanted me to stop—”
“You wouldn’t shut up with the bubbles!” Dustin counters.
“So I started blowing them by his ear, and when one popped it got stuck.”
Steve’s face wrinkles. “Ew. What the hell, Sinclair?”
“It was funny,” Max agrees.
Quietly, as though to himself, Will mutters, “It was stupid.”
They go on like this, bickering and forging alliances and then breaking them, until the gum is out and Steve shoos them all out the door.
He shuts it with a weary exhale. Checks to be sure it’s locked before coming to join you on the couch again, setting his hand on your hip like you’re just going to carry on as you were before the doorbell rang. You’re smiling like the cat that got the cream.
“Sorry about that,” he says, leaning towards you.
You lean back. “How many children are you friends with?”
Steve sighs. “You’re actually not the first person to ask me that,” he mumbles. “It’s not like we’re friends friends. I’m more like their babysitter.”
“They look, like, fourteen.”
“Most of them are actually fifteen.” He runs a hand through his hair, cringing. “I don’t know. We hang out, I guess. Not in a creepy way. They ask me for advice and stuff.”
“About getting gum out of their hair.”
“Sometimes, yeah.” He eyes you. “You think it’s weird.”
You shake your head, biting your lip to control your grin. “I think it’s sweet.”
Steve looks hopeful. “Yeah?”
He smiles, too, as he leans down again, settling his weight over you. You recline against a throw pillow, finally letting him pick up where he left off.
“I swear it’s not, like, a move I do or anything,” he says as he kisses your shoulder. “I didn’t know they were coming.”
“I believe you,” you reply.
His mouth moves up the line of your throat, your knees tipping outward to allow him to slot in between.
“It’s interesting that they knew to find you here, though.”
Steve hesitates. “I…may have mentioned you,” he admits, somewhere between sheepish and flirting as he kisses the corner of your lips. “That bother you?”
You smile, letting yourself be kissed. “No, that’s alright.”
“It’s okay that I let them in here?”
“I’m the one who invited them in.”
“Your kids can come over whenever you want, Steve.”
He groans, landing a firm kiss on your lips. “Shut up.”
