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say-al0e · 16 days

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Body Electric

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Steve has never lived in a home full of noise but he likes to think he'd enjoy spending the rest of his life in one. (AKA Steve Harrington is soft and proposes.) | Ft. Anon Request: "Is that my shirt?" + "We should get married." "Funny." "I'm not joking." (Listen, when I took the requests, I intended to stick to them, even if it's been like two years.) Warnings: Mentions of the Upside Down, some anxiety. Nothing too graphic or heavy. Pairing: Steve x fem!Reader (I think it might actually be GN!Reader) Word Count: 2.7k

Faint sounds of life - rain pattering against the windows, falling in sheets; a car starting in the parking lot; music, pouring from a neighbor’s stereo and bleeding through the thin walls; a laugh track, the theme tune to some primetime television show from the apartment next door - never left much room for silence in the small apartment Steve shared with you.

If you listened, waited a few moments with bated breath, you could hear the sounds of a dozen lives being lived without ever leaving the comfort of your own home. It was strange, especially for him, as he’d spent much of his life living in silence.

There were stretches of his memory, days at a time he could recount passing without hearing even the faintest sound of life from another being. Now, nearly every moment was filled with some kind of sound; the noise of neighbors, the noise of the city, the noise of you.

It was new, completely and utterly foreign, but in no way unwelcome.

Steve noticed it before you did. You grew up in a house full of noise; parents who cut on the radio first thing in the morning, just to hear the news, and siblings whose vocabulary lacked the word quiet. He found it harder to allow it all to fade into the background and still startled at the occasional slamming door. Whereas you adjusted quickly, Steve still heard every minute noise just as clearly as he had that first night.

A small part of him - that same part that hoped he never got used to the giddy feeling that still bubbled in the pit of his stomach every time you smiled at him, eyes glittering with a soft fondness he’d never tire of - hoped he would never adjust.

In addition to the noise of your neighbors, the world carrying on around you, Steve could clearly hear you.

The quiet humming in the morning as you dressed for class or work, usually some tune that only existed in your head; the clink of dishes as you made coffee for the both of you, his just the way he’d always liked; the sound of your voice, echoing over the shower as you danced in the bathroom; your soft breathing, quiet hums of content with each plot twist; the rustle of paper, pages flipping as you spent your night reading.

Steve was able to hear each sound you made, no matter how quiet, and reveled in the noise.

Every moment that he spent with you, in the small apartment surrounded by a dozen other lives, was one he was grateful for. And though the television played low in the background, volume never raising much higher out of respect for your neighbors - something he’d never had to consider before, something that secretly made him smile - he couldn’t remember what he’d wanted to watch. There’d been a reason he wanted it on, but you were more interesting, anyway.

He rested with his head on your lap, cradled by the plush of your thighs, and watched as you flipped through the yellowed pages of a book you’d picked up earlier in the week. He couldn’t read the title - it was upside down and the spine was cracked, the perks of choosing well-loved secondhand books - but you were enamored and that was enough for him. It would soon be added to the little shelf in the corner of the living room, already overflowing with titles you devoured steadily, but the realization only made him smile as your lips pursed in concentration.

There were moments Steve hated interrupting, blissful seconds where the weight of the world no longer rested on your shoulders. Others, however, he just couldn’t help himself. As happy as he was for you both to exist in your own worlds, there were moments he was desperate to recapture your attention and remind yourself that you were his.

As such, he felt little guilt as he shifted and turned his full attention to you.

Soft fingers gripped the hem of your shirt, rubbed at the worn cotton idly, and Steve’s warm brown eyes met yours when you spared him a moment of attention. “Is that my shirt?”

“Our shirt.” Steve laughed, easily amused by the same reply you’d been giving him for years, any time he pointed out you wearing his clothes. “I think I’m allowed to wear it. We both graduated from Hawkins High,” you reminded him - as if he needed it. He regularly regretted not meeting you sooner, not paying attention to you when you both roamed the halls of Hawkins High.

Either way, he was glad that he managed to find his way to you in the end.

“Sure,” he agreed easily, happily. “But you could wear your own. I saw another gym shirt in the dresser. What’re you reading?”

“Not as soft as yours,” you reasoned, as if it made perfect sense. And who was he to argue? He would’ve happily given up his shirts if it meant seeing you like this - soft, relaxed, content. Before he could even consider mentioning that, making the moment sappy, you hummed. “I Sing the Body Electric!. It’s a bunch of short stories,” you explained, dropping one hand to card through his hair, tough light as you worked your fingers through the freshly washed strands. “There’s one, the same title as the book, that was a Twilight Zone episode. I think you’d like it.”

Steve’s nose wrinkled. He’d never much cared for science fiction, despite your love for it, and always felt a little left out when you and Eddie began your deep dives into the meaning of episodes. He’d never managed to make it all the way through an episode and was skeptical as he asked, “What makes you think that?”

“I dunno,” you shrugged, “it’s just nice. It’s about a family. After the mom dies, they build this robot grandma. The daughter hates her, hates everyone because she thinks her mom left her, and refuses to love her. Then, the grandma saves her. It seems like she’s dead but she comes back and the little girl realizes she can’t leave her so she starts loving again.”

“Nice?” Steve tipped his head to get a better look at you, brows furrowed. “Jesus, babe, that sounds kind of awful. Like, horror movie stuff.” His face scrunched as he attempted to think, considering the few horror movies he’d seen and managed to retain. “Oh, like that one with the guy who puts people in his basement,” he exclaimed.

“There’s a bunch of horror movies where a guy puts people in his basement.” When Steve raised his brows, you rolled your eyes good-naturedly. “Point made,” you conceded. “But, still. It’s a bad description, maybe. It’s, like,” you paused for a moment, thumb marking your place in the book as you considered. “You go through a lot of shit and build up these walls because you’ve been hurt. Then someone comes in, goes through it all with you, and starts to chip away at the walls. Then, they get hurt and you start to realize what they mean to you. And when they come back to you, it makes you realize that you don’t want to deal with life without them. It’s, like, poetic, or something.”

“Poetic,” Steve mumbled, agreeable. His entire body warmed at the sentiment, even as he teasingly asked, “Are you reading into it?”

“I could be.” Your fingers continued to card through his hair, touch gentle as his gaze grew softer. “We’ve been through a lot of shit together, Harrington,” you reminded him, though there was no need. He remembered every moment vividly. “You didn’t believe in love anymore and I didn’t like you very much until you saved me from becoming demodog food. Guess it’s nice to think that even with all the shit we went through, something good came of it.”

Steve knew that nostalgia wan’t the right word, not when considering the hell Hawkins put you through. But he fond himself grateful for it, just the same. When he considered his life, where he might be if he’d never stumbled upon scenes out of his worst nightmares, he wondered if he’d have the life loved so much without the hell you both went through.

As much as you teased him for being a secret romantic, he liked to think he would. In any universe, in any timeline, he liked to think he would’ve found you. Eventually, anyway.

That was a declaration he’d made before, under the cover of darkness after a nightmare or two, and he knew you felt the same. He also knew that the moment wasn’t right, not when you were looking down with a soft smile reserved just for him.

So, instead of declaring that you were the best thing he’d ever been lucky enough to find, he softly urged, “Read to me.”

Despite your rumination on why he’d enjoy the book, you knew Steve. Science fiction wasn’t his favorite and he’d likely be out in a matter of moments. He could see the surprise, your brows winging up, as you asked, “Really?”

“Yeah,” he encouraged as he brushed his fingers over your exposed thigh. “There’s nothing good on,” he teased, though you both knew he’d settled onto the couch with the intention of watching something or other. “Might as well.”

Whatever it was he’d planned on watching was completely lost, entirely out of mind - and he knew he’d only remember what it was when someone inevitably asked him what he thought of it. There wasn’t a single moment of hesitation as he turned off the television, plunging the apartment into the only sort of quiet you could get, and glanced up at you expectantly.

As you’d done a hundred times before, you picked a page and started to read. The story itself was never very important. Steve was used to being dropped into the middle of your favorite books, just because he wanted to hear your voice.

There were nights where you read him Tolkien, Bradbury, Orwell, and a plethora of others he could never name. There was science fiction and fantasy, romance and mystery, fiction and non. He’d heard at least a portion of nearly every book on the shelf because on the nights when there was nothing on, when the anxiety you both learned to live with settled a little too heavy on his chest, when he just wanted to be selfish and drown himself in your attention, you read to him. Your voice filled the apartment, soft and warm as you read from another short story.

Steve tried to pay attention to the words. He wanted to be able to discuss it with you, to have the kinds of conversations you had with Robin or with Eddie about symbolism and meaning, but he found his attention drifting.

It wasn’t that he had no interest. Though he couldn’t discuss relevant social themes in The Twilight Zone or which horror franchise was better, he wanted nothing more than to hear your opinion on the matter. He’d never read Bradbury on his own but usually found himself enthralled when you read it to him.

All he wanted was to live in that moment forever. To lie there, in the safety and comfort of your shared apartment with your voice washing over him; he was certain that there was nowhere else he’d rather be.

The thought had plagued him for month - years, really, as he’d known you were the one the moment you followed him into the depths of hell to protect a ragtag group of children - but marriage was always a fantasy. The moment hadn’t been right. He’d rehearsed the speech a dozen times, pictured what the ring might look like, where he might take you to pop the question.

It was almost agonizing, wondering when the perfect moment might strike, when you would both be ready to step into the future. But he realized that there was nothing technically “perfect” in your lives. From the moment you met, life was chaos and that was part of the appeal.

There would never be a perfect moment but he knew that nothing would feel as right as that moment, lying on the couch, with your fingers tangled in his hair as you lounged in his stolen gym shirt.

Without allowing himself to think too hard, he hummed, “We should get married.”

The words were spoken casually, as if he were commenting on the weather or the story you were reading to him. It was easy, completely concealed the heavy thud of his heart and the overwhelming noise blaring in his mind - the little voice yelling that he should’ve waited, he should’ve made it perfect.

For a brief moment, your fingers stilled in his hair. It wasn’t the first time Steve broached the subject, however, it was the first time he phrased it that way. Like he was looking for an answer, a reply, a decision.

Then, you continued carding through the soft strands as you hummed. “Funny.”

“I’m not joking.” He lifted a hand, carefully removed yours from his hair, before he sat up and turned to face you. The look on your face was nearly unreadable, though Steve had spent years practicing. He could see a slight apprehension - not at the idea; he knew you would marry him in a heartbeat, that you’d happily spend the rest of your life with him - and a hint of glimmering excitement, though it was overshadowed by an emotion he couldn’t place. Still, he carried on. “I’ve thought about it for a long time.”

“Steve.” The sigh of his name was soft, breathless, and in it he could detect the emotion that darkened your eyes. It was nerves, a residual unease - fear that life was going to well, anything more might leave you both scrambling from long-gone monsters once more.

“I know,” he assured you, voice just as soft as your own - mindful, of your feelings and of the privacy you no longer had. This was a moment for you, to be shared only between the inhabitants of the small apartment, and he was careful to keep quiet as he shifted closer and reached for your hand. “It’s weird,” he began, smiling as he met your eyes. “Some days, I wake up and I wait a few minutes, just to be sure I’m not still in Hawkins. I’m afraid that the last few years have been a dream, that I’m going to get a call any minute that the kids found something completely insane and we’re going to be running for our lives again. But I’m not. It’s over. We’re here and it’s totally scary, thinking that we could be happy, but we could. We could elope,” he offered, smile growing a touch wider when you exhaled and squeezed his hand tight.

“You don’t want a big wedding?” You’d never talked details, only agreed under the cover of soft moonlight that you wanted to be married, that your futures were thoroughly intertwined. “Wear a fancy tux, eat stupidly expensive cake, dance all night?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t really care about any of that,” he admitted. “The important thing is that it’s us. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and I’ve known that for a long time. We could go to the courthouse,” he offered, grinning when you laughed. “Robin and Eddie are in this building, the kids have been begging for an excuse to come visit. Us and them, that’s all that matters, right?”

The ragtag family the pair of you had created, a lifelong bond built on a difficult experience, was, indeed, all you needed. Neither of you wanted much more than to spend the rest of your lives together, to be happy and content and enjoy the life you built, so you nodded.

“Yeah,” you agreed, smile mirroring his own as you squeezed his hand. “You’re right. Let’s get married.”

Years ago, neither of you could’ve imagined your future with any degree of accuracy. Living in a small apartment, far from Hawkins and surrounded by the noise of life carrying on, was not something either of you expected. Even less expected was falling in love with one another.

But now that you’d made it, a proposal sealed with a soft kiss and a giddy excitement to look for rings the very next day - after making the call to rally the troops - neither of you could imagine a more perfect future.

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Author's Note: I almost got stuck in an elevator today. As someone afraid of elevators, it was pretty terrifying. 0/10, do not recommend.

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