GIF Imagines [s.h]

04

TW: mention of blood

Tossing and turning in your bed, you cannot fall asleep no matter how hard you try. Sighing, you untangle the sheets from around you and slowly pad downstairs to get a glass of water.

Flicking on the kitchen light as you go, you walk towards the cupboard to get a glass. As your hand reaches out to open the cupboard door, you hear a noise. Your hand stills as you strain your ears to hear the source of the disturbance. The handle on the back door jiggles loudly, making you jump. You turn around to face the door, reaching blindly behind you to grab anything you can find on the counter to protect yourself.

The door swings open. You hold your breath, unable to see who it is amongst the shadows and-
"Y/N? What the hell are you doing with that pair of oven gloves?"
"Steve?" you exclaim, holding the oven gloves to your chest in surprise. "You almost gave me a heart attack! What are you doing here?"
He chuckles. "Sorry! I um, I need help and you were the first person I thought of."
"In the middle of the night?" you ask, laughing. "Sure, what help do you need?" Steve doesn't reply. "Earth to Steve?"

He steps forward into the light, causing you to scream and drop the oven gloves. Steve walks towards you, his hands out to calm you down. "Hey, hey! Y/N! I'm okay, I'm okay. Calm down, please!"
You look at his face, your eyebrows furrowing. "You are clearly not okay Steve, look at you!" Your heart is racing as you take in the sight before you.

There's a deep cut on the bridge of his nose, his lip is bust open and the left side of his face is covered in blood; you can see bruising under his eye already beginning to form under all the blood. You reach one hand out and gingerly touch his less bloodied cheek. "What happened?"
He shakes his head, his eyes tearing up a little. "It doesn't matter."
"You can't just barge in here all beaten up and not tell me what happened. I'm your friend Steve, you can tell me."
He snatches your hand away from his face. "I came here for you to help me clean myself up, not for a therapy session."
"Woah. Okay. Sorry I care, Jesus Christ! Wait here." You glare at him, before turning on your heel and stalking out of the room, heading towards the bathroom.

Closing the bathroom door behind you, you sink to the floor, running your hands through your hair. The idea of Steve being beaten up almost kills you inside. He's been in fights before, but never this bad. You hate to think of him being in that position. What you hate even more is the fact that he's not telling you what happened.
After taking a minute or two to calm down, you rummage around in the bathroom cabinet, until you find your mini emergency first aid kit.

When you return, you find Steve sitting on the kitchen island, staring at his hands, which are fiddling nervously. Upon hearing you enter, he looks up, giving you an apologetic look. "I'm sorry Y/N."
"It's fine," you give him a short response, still hurt by the comment. You walk over and set your kit up. "This is going to sting."
He nods, bracing for impact as you go about cleaning up his injuries, standing between his legs.

You're nearly done when he gently puts his hand on your wrist to stop you.
"I'm nearly done, just let me-"
"It was a fight," he interrupts.
"No shit Steve." He sighs, looking at you imploringly. You raise your eyebrows, encouraging him to continue.
"I don't remember who it was."
"How can you not remember?"
"Y/N. Let me talk. Please?"
"Fine, go on then."

He takes a deep breath and continues. "I was at a party," he sees you raising your eyebrows disapprovingly, so he snaps, "I wasn't drunk!"
"Ok." You shrug, as if it didn't make a difference to you.
"So, as I was saying, I was at this party when this dude started badmouthing you and I told him to stop but he wouldn't, so I," he pauses, "I hit him. And then he hit me back. And, well, you can guess the rest. He looks worse." He smiles slightly but the smile falters at the sight of your expression.

"That was really stupid Steve." A small part of you feels pleased he stuck up for you, but that quickly gets squashed when you think of the severity of what happened.
"What?" He looks at you, confused.
"Someone saying something mean isn't a good reason to get into a serious fight." You shrug, stepping back and leaning on the counter opposite. Steve hops down from the island.
"I was sticking up for you though." He looks down, dejected.
"Yeah, which was stupid." You cross your arms.
"You don't understand. He was saying really, really horrible things about you. How could you expect me to just stand there and listen?"
"You could've just walked away."

He's quiet for a few seconds, trying to compose himself. "Walked away and let him carry on talking shit about you?"
"Yep. That would've been the non-stupid thing to do."
"Can you stop saying it was stupid? I know it was stupid! I'm stupid! I get it! You don't need to keep saying it." His voice gradually grows louder, his anger slowly escalating.
"I'm sorry! It's just that I wasn't even there to hear what the guy was saying! Why does it even matter? I don't get why you did it, that's all."
Steve's eyes almost flash with an anger you haven't seen from him before. "You don't get why?"
You shake your head, not wanting to give him a verbal response to rile him up anymore.
"Because," he slams his hand down on the counter beside you, "because I LOVE YOU GODDAMMIT."

A heavy silence cloaks the air. Steve looks at you, more pain than anger in his eyes now, breathing heavily, almost tired from the shouted confession that exploded from him.

"Because I love you," he repeats, quieter this time. Your eyes soften, feeling regret at how you handled the previous conversation. You never would've dreamed that Steve Harrington, of all people, would love you. Of course, you both spend a lot of time together and you have grown closer recently, but you didn't realise he loved you.
When he said those words, it stirred something inside you and you realised that you loved him too. All those feelings towards him that had been tormenting you for weeks, could finally be put under an emotion: love.

"Y/N?" Steve whispers, stepping towards you. "Say something, please."
Your gaze meets his and all you can think about doing at that moment is something you've tried to avoid thinking about for as long as you can remember. You crash your lips on to Steve's as his arms wrap around your waist, pulling you in closer. For a few moments of bliss, your mouths move in synchronisation, almost as if they were made for each other.

Without warning, Steve pulls back. "Shit, that really hurts."
"Wha-" you begin to say before slapping your hand over your mouth. You completely forgot to think about his bust open lip. Although the swelling has gone down a lot since he first came in, it would still be painful and, come to think of it, you can taste a slight metallic twang from the remnants of the cut. "I'm sorry Steve, I didn't think."
"It's fine," he holds your face between his two hands. "I'm glad you did it, but I think we should probably wait to do it again."
"Mm, yeah, probably for the best. You're still bleeding."
"Oh no." Steve tries to hold a straight face but fails, bursting into a round of laughter. You can't help but join in, both of you laughing until you're doubled over. Oh, what a night!

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
hiii!! we're so close to 200 reads so
thank you!

i have mixed feelings on bits of this
but oh well!

hope you enjoyed!
and
thanks for reading <3
- mia💌