Falling For You

Falling For You

prompt: “You’re just so stupid!”

warnings: sexist comments, underage drinking, swearing (when do i not?)

Steve Harrington x oc; alludes to Billy Hargove x oc

a/n: this was written in response to a larger plot, so there are some references to outside events. it should still be easy enough to follow! requests are open

The last people on earth Beth thought she might publicly agree with were Carol and Tommy. Tonight, as she struggled to keep Steve upright and conscious, she couldn’t help but to concede when Carol suggested they find a way to drag him up the dock and inside before he blacked out or fell in the lake again and turned her rager into a crime scene. His wounds only worsened as he wriggled about in all three of the teenagers’ grips, as if he could somehow overpower them. Steve royally, monumentally, epically screwed up that night. 

While Beth commonly slapped a band-aid on his bruised knuckles and kept Tylenol in her purse solely for his use, she was in way over her head this time. Her babysitting training course never covered drunk, injured teenage almost-boyfriends. 

She knew things had gone from bad to worse when Carol called the party off, shooing everyone else from her lake house, for Steve’s benefit. By some miracle, the three of them managed to get him inside and relatively conscious. Carol and Tommy were quick to scatter and leave Beth to tend his wounds.

Steve groaned excessively from his makeshift bed on Carol’s pull-out couch. He protruded his bleeding lip in a haughty pout. His wet hair gave him a chill and without a dry shirt to keep him warm, he was left with only a blanket to huddle in. The worried pull in her brow looked an awful lot like anger to him, and Steve only wanted to see her smile.

“You’re mad at me!”

Beth stroked the side of his cheek, sighing:

“I’m not. Some things are just best left alone, Steve.”

“But I just wanted to protect you!”

Steve was a protector. He put himself in harm's way only as a barrier between his loved ones and danger, like he had done with the demogorgon and with the very human monster that is Billy Hargrove.

“I know,” she said.

He pulled at her hands, grasping to keep her close, milking this as much as possible. Beth let him, happy with the surge of energy his touch left her with.

When Beth suggested they go to a party thrown by his former best friends, Steve fully intended to coax her into a night at the drive-in movie theater, instead. After all, he hardly imagined a lake house was much fun in winter. However, when she showed up on his doorstep wearing white sunglasses much too large for her face and using one of his t-shirts as a bikini cover-up, Steve was putty in her hands. She had him wrapped around her finger for everyone to see- everyone, apparently, aside from Beth herself.

Not long after they arrived, Steve lost Beth in the crowd. He merely smiled and insisted she go have some fun when her two best friends cornered them. For a while, he watched contentedly with a solo cup in one hand and Beth on his mind. She danced along to every song as if it were her last. The smile she wore with every lyric she shouted alongside Amy, pulling playfully at Tiffany’s hands as the three of them danced drunkenly by the bonfire, tightened his chest.

He no longer cared much for parties. Nancy Wheeler spoiled the whole scene for Steve in a similar fashion to the way he forever stained her white blouse. House parties now equated heartbreak for Steve. Though he tried to avoid the thought, he couldn’t help but to wonder how Beth could break his heart tonight, if he wasn’t even hers. As if on cue, Steve’s train of thought received a rude interruption.

“Harrington,” the voice boomed.

Steve exhaled sharply, trying to remember the promise he made to Beth. Nothing stupid tonight. So, he kept his voice detached and prayed the message might be received:

“Hargrove.”

The Californian clasped a hand over Steve’s shoulder with more force than necessary.

He wetted his lips in an animalistic aggression. It seemed he had yet to leave well enough alone; Billy wanted revenge for the chance with the cute head cheerleader that was stolen from him. Stolen, he assumed, from Steve Harrington.

He knew Hawkins was a far cry from the golden coast before he ever set foot in the town. Still, he hardly expected to ever find himself fighting for women’s attention against a boy who couldn’t throw a punch to save his life. It was pathetic; Hawkins was pathetic. It had a saving grace, though. A glimmer of hope for Hawkins came from the smile of the girl whose hair reminded Billy of the beaches he missed so much and in her laugh, that never failed to melt the bars around Steve’s heart. If Billy had a heart, he might think about giving it to her. Instead, he took out the unchecked rage that filled that void on the boy who unmistakably captured her attention.

“I believe you have somethin’ of mine,” he paused. “I want it back.”

“What? Are you drunk? Get lost, Bill-”

The taller boy erupted into a humorless rumble of a laugh. Steve was playing with fire, though he was made of ice.

“Cut the bullshit, Harrington.”

Subconsciously, Steve flinched at that all-too-familiar word. He wished new curse words existed so he never needed to hear the words that triggered his first heartbreak again. He much preferred a sarcastic King or a straightforward asshole than any form of that word. Billy didn’t need to know this, of course, so Steve tightened his jaw and decided to play along.

“What do you want? ‘M not in the mood”

He watched with wide eyes as his foe’s lips rolled inward like an engine revving up for a drag race. Steve said the wrong thing. His eyes merely followed as the blonde curls forming his mullet nodded in the direction of the short, oblivious girl who captured Steve’s- and apparently Billy’s, as well- full attention.

“No, no way.”

“Wrong answer”

Steve sucked his gums inwards, wishing Billy would fall off the dock and into the lake. Tonight was an escape for him and Beth. Billy fit nowhere in that equation. As much as Steve’s rational mind told him otherwise, his insecurities whispered to him that Beth agreed to go on a date with Billy for more reasons than a petulant promise to Dustin. Could she possibly fall for his looks? Steve hardly considered himself insecure in that right, but he found himself wondering if he could hold a candle to boys like that in Beth’s mind.

“She’s not an object! No one owns her”

Steve gaped incredulously up at him. Eyes wide, innocent, and begging to be destroyed, Steve was Bambi and Billy was the forest fire ready to devour everything he loved.

“Well, shit,” he said. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Man, what are you even talking about?”

Billy’s fingers traced over the healing scars he put on Steve’s otherwise smooth skin, a devilish smirk on his lips. He pulled it away just as smoothly, now booming with laughter. A cigarette breath coated Steve’s face as he exhaled like a snarky dragon. Steve took an involuntary step away from him, closer to the the edge of the dock. His insecurities manifested themselves in the form of a harsh reality check from his least favorite person.

“If it weren’t for you and my bitch of a step-sister-”

“Watch it!”

“I would have been elbow-deep in that pretty little skirt of hers. Maybe we might have actually watched some of the movie we were supposed to see,” he sighed.

“You’re delusional!”

“Don’t believe me? Why don’t you ask her yourself, then.”

He chanced a glance back over at Beth, who danced freely and blissfully unaware of the unfolding conflict between the two boys. Licking his cold, nicotine lips, he flickered his gaze between the two of them.

“It’s a shame, Harrington”

Steve disdained the sinful glint in his eyes. If he didn’t know any better, he might have half a mind to punch that smirk right off his lips. Against his better judgement, he decided to humor him:

“What is?”

“Plenty of bitches in the sea certainly did not mean I was giving you free reign of the hottest piece of ass in this cow shit town-“

Like the last bit of a heavy rain season on an overflowing lake, it was the burst that snapped the dam holding back Steve’s rage. He reached his arm back with every intention of clocking Billy in the nose, even remembered to plant his feet, too, only to realize that he miscalculated his balance and stepped a little too close to the edge of the dock. All it took was the seizure and twist of his cocked wrist by Billy, and Steve’s New Balances gave way to the slippery wood and he fell down into the water below, knocking his head against the wood pretty hard in the process.

“Steve,” she called out to him.

Beth glanced warily at the weak, tired boy with her hands planted firmly on her hips. She exhaled slowly like a deflating balloon before gingerly placing herself on the edge of the coffee table.

“You said something, uh, when we got you out of the water-“

He hummed in acknowledgement. Steve’s heart skipped a beat. His mind was still hazy, either from the alcohol or the concussion that was most likely forming. He hoped she would let him play dumb a little longer.

“Did you mean it?”

“What? What did I say?”

He wasn’t a very good liar.

“C’mon Steve, don’t play dumb with me! I want to hear you say it.”

He caved, locking eyes with her. If this turned out badly, at least he had a plethora of excuses to back him up.

“I just thought, y’know, maybe you liked him. It’s just that he’s the first boy you were willing to go out with in years and, well, I want you to be happy, even if it is with… him.”

Much to his horror, she burst into a hysterical fit of laughter. Steve rubbed nervously at the back of his neck.

“What- what, uh, what’s wrong?”

“You’re just so… stupid, Steve!”

She had him there. On a scale of confused to competent, Steve was well past clueless.

“Well, yes, but-“

“Billy Hargrove is a racist, self-serving, narcissistic douchebag and I would rather die than be his girlfriend. As far as I’m concerned, he and his right hand should get very well acquainted at the rate he’s going, because that's the only thing that will even get close to him when I’m done with him. And that’s exactly what I told him”

Steve sat up a little, shocked and admittedly excited, only to shrink back from the pain in his head. Beth, who was honestly one of the most angelic girls he ever laid eyes on, had declared war on the new popular kid, which could jeopardize her own reputation in the process, and he couldn’t help but to hope it was loosely tied back to him. Either way, Steve was twitterpated with her.

“I think I love you.”

His brash comment flushed Steve’s cheek a scarlet as deep as Carol’s fingertips. As if falling in the lake weren’t mortifying enough, he’d gone and said one of the dumbest possible things to Beth. His stomach only began to plummet to the ground when she spoke back, its descent turning from a freefall into somersaults of butterflies.

“I like you, too, Steve. A whole lot. But there’s plenty of time to talk about this later- when you’re sober and a little less concussed. Right now, let’s just get some sleep, okay?”

Beth tucked him in on the couch and set aside some pain killers for when he woke up with a hangover and healing wounds. Steve refused to stay put until she cuddled up against him on the pull-out. He sighed out in a happy relief.

Steve may have gotten his ego bruised beyond recognition that night, but all he cared about was the girl who stayed to nurse his wounds. He didn’t think he deserved Beth. Beth could have gone home with Billy and let his faint-hearted attempt to let her go work, but there was one thing far more important than any of that:

She loved her stupid boy.

Reblog if you’d be okay if your friend came out as transgender

let’s see how many transphobics we can weed out

This blog has unconditional love and respect for Noah Schnapp

this is one of best things i’ve read in a long time oh my goodness. brb sobbing

Chapters: 2/? Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Steve Harrington/Original Female Character(s) Characters: Steve Harrington, Billy Hargrove, Nancy Wheeler, Jim “Chief” Hopper, Jonathan Byers, Joyce Byers Additional Tags: Angst and Fluff and Smut Summary:

Pepper Riley used to spend all of her summers in Hawkins traversing a complicated web of emotions with the boy-next-door: Steve Harrington. Now she’s back two days before Halloween 1987 -her twentieth birthday- after not having seen Steve in two years and the two have to figure out where they stand with one another. [Went a little overboard with posting and here’s Chapter Two of my fic. I hope you like it! It gets a wee bit smutty here so please 18+ only!]

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Need more blogs to follow!!

Hypochondriac : Part 02

warnings: mentions of bullying, slow burn, not much :)

summary: returning to Derry was terrifying enough, but when Eddie finds himself forced to deal with painful truths, he second guesses everything he thought he knew. Peggy returns to her childhood home and decides that being a sacrifice isn’t so bad, as long as the ones she loves make it out alive. And she lets herself wonder what could have been when she finds out the fate of her first love.

a/n: this is my first attempt at writing for IT, and feedback is always appreciated!

PART ONE HERE

1985

The plane ride from JFK to Bangor, Maine didn’t sit well with Peggy for more reasons than a hellish storm and dangerous turbulence. Something felt off- even more off than the sound of Mike Hanlon’s voice as he told her that IT returned. She squeezed her eyes shut and marked the page in the book she’d given up on reading.

may or may not be working on part 3 soon woot