Work Text:
“Ah, shit.”
The grease in Steve’s heavy-bottomed pan hisses and spits, splattering uncomfortably across his chest and forearms. Screwing up his face, Steve thrusts out his hand, fork brandished like a nobleman’s sword in his grip, to work over the ominously spuming, sputtering fare. He hooks one strip of bacon between the tines of his fork and flails his arm to turn it over, droplets of molten fat licking at his wrist like a particularly effervescent soft drink would his upper lip.
He makes quick work of flipping the strips, still overcrowded in the pan but shrinking by the second. With the last piece of bacon turned onto its uncooked side, Steve retracts his hand lightning fast. He lets the fork clatter noisily against the counter in his haste to draw his thumb into his mouth, where a particularly large droplet caught him just below the cuticle.
“Mother of–”
“I thought I smelled bacon.”
Steve spins quickly on his heels, finger still wedged between his parted lips and the git of his front teeth.
“You’re supposed to cook it low and slow, you know,” Nancy teases, her voice soft and sweet and still scratchy with sleep. Her eyes are squinted, curls bent and stuck out at odd angles, but she’s wearing a fresh shirt of Steve’s pulled from his closet that hits her mid-thigh and she’s never looked so beautiful.
“That way it won’t splatter as much.”
As if to prove her point, the bacon in the pan spits again, and Steve jerks forward nearly a foot as the spray stings against his back.
“Duly noted,” Steve says with an appreciative nod. He pivots three quarters to turn the burner off, then grabs the pan by the handle and pulls it off the heat, bottom scraping unpleasantly against the element.
“I made coffee,” Steve offers, reaching around on his other side and pulling the French press forward on full display. “Not gonna lie, though, I’m not sure I used it right. It’s not like there are instructions.”
Just to double-check, he spins the press around in a circle, then picks the whole thing up to check the bottom. Nancy giggles as she watches him, shaking her head. She slides up beside him and wraps her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek against the center of his chest. Steve falters for a second, but quickly recovers, setting the pot back on the counter and wrapping his arms around Nancy in turn. He bows his head and drops a kiss to the crown of her head, the lingering scent of sour-sweet sweat and floral hairspray tickling his nose.
“I’m used to disgusting work coffee, so whatever you’ve managed to come up with,” Nancy says. “I promise you, we’ll drink it.”
Steve knits his brows and pulls back, just enough to get a good look at Nancy’s face as he puts on an exaggerated air of being deep in thought. “Don’t you make the work coffee?” he asks.
Nancy narrows her eyes at him and jabs an accusatory finger into his left pec. “It’s the pot.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Steve replies, his voice airy and playfully dismissive in a way that makes Nancy laugh. So much of her face is a wide, cherry red mouth and bright, piercing blue eyes, to see her lit up catches Steve’s breath in his throat.
“Hey, so, last night,” Steve hedges nervously, the shift in his voice jarring enough to stop Nancy’s bemusement dead in its tracks. Her hand rests against his chest, fingertips featherlight. Steve sighs heavy and steals a quick glance at her open, earnest expression through the thick fan of his lashes. “That was okay, right?”
Nancy takes a quick breath, her mouth, already gently parted, opening wider to speak. Steve waits, but the silence stretches, and the valley of soft, pale skin between her eyebrows turns craggy and furrowed. She closes in, bare feet shuffling against tile, to press just that half-inch closer Steve needs to feel her heartbeat in his chest.
“Steve,” Nancy whispers, so tender and soft, heat pools behind Steve’s eyes. Her fingers twitch against his skin, and Steve raises his arm to slide overtop hers, taking her hand in his and twining their fingers together. The air is heavy in a way that presses against his lungs, and when Nancy drags him into a kiss, her other hand clamped around his neck, thumb stroking against the hinge of his jaw, it’s easier to breathe.
“I’m just not used to this,” Steve admits, the words mumbled messily against her lips.
Nancy chuckles softly. “I don’t think any of us are used to this,” she says.
Steve makes a small, reluctant sound, high and tight in the back of his throat. “Not,” Steve whispers, pausing for a breath to still the quaver in his voice. “Not because of that.”
Nancy reaches up to smooth the furrow between Steve’s brows, and he leans greedily into her touch.
“I’m having a hard enough time wrapping my head around the fact that I get to have this once,” Steve says. “Twice? Like, actually twice?”
“I’m sorry,” Nancy says. She bows her head and presses a soft kiss to the center of Steve’s sternum. Steve rubs her back, feels the warmth of her seep into him.
“You don’t have to apologize, Nance,” he says.
“No,” Nancy says. She shakes her head rapidly, and she’s so close, Steve feels the point of her nose trace against his skin as she does. “I do. I never wanted to make you feel that way. Like you don’t deserve–”
“No, I know,” Steve assures her, fingers tracing soothing lines across her scalp. “And it’s not–”
Steve pauses, collecting his thoughts. Nancy is quiet, breathing with him. The scent of her hairspray is in his nose again, the aerosol itching, burning his eyes.
“I don’t think that,” he says. “Just– I think sometimes about what you deserve. And that maybe I don’t measure up.”
For a moment, the kitchen is eerily quiet, until finally, “come on,” Nancy whispers. She takes a slow, measured step back, pulling Steve along where their hands are intertwined.
“Where are we going?” Steve asks.
Nancy’s thumb strokes gently against his skin. “Back to bed.”
Steve follows her blind, backward stumble through his house, letting her navigate with little bumps and scuffles around the walls and the furniture, until they reach the foot of the stairs. Her heels knock against the first step, and the hand in his tightens to keep her balance. Steve steps in close, wrapping his arm around her waist until their bodies are flush. She fits neatly in the breadth of his grip, his palm fanned out across the swell of her hip under his shirt.
Neither breaks their stare as Steve leads the first step up. Nancy’s foot follows his, their calves and ankles brushing. Their toes drag through the carpet, a dull hiss of friction. Steve’s arm around Nancy’s waist steadies her, lifts her when need be. Holds her close.
When they reach the top, they stay pressed together, shuffling down the hallway to Steve’s room. The door is open. Steve’s parents are out of town and not due back for a week, his father for business, his mother to chaperone his father.
Jonathan’s arms are spread out like starfish against the soft, rumpled sheets. Moles like constellations ornament the pale skin of his bared back. The covers pool low on his hips, and Steve drinks in the sight of the dimples near his hips, and the faint traces of his own purple-blue fingermarks left beside them. Nancy shoves him through the door frame, and Steve narrowly avoids tripping over his own feet. He falls into the mattress, and Nancy is close behind, clambering up beside him. She keeps shoving, until Steve shimmies toward the head of the bed where’s Jonathan’s beginning to stir.
“What’s going on?” Jonathan asks, voice scratchy and rough.
“We’re cuddling,” Nancy replies. Jonathan makes a short, disgruntled sound as Nancy draws back the blankets to cajole Steve underneath. “Sorry,” she apologizes, before quickly pulling the bedding tight around her shoulders, trapping Steve squarely between them.
Jonathan’s skin is scorching hot from sleep, and it feels like heaven when he turns onto his side to drape his arm over Steve’s waist.
“Why weren’t we already doing that?” Jonathan asks, his chapped lips scratching against Steve’s neck where his face is pressed into the curve of his neck.
Nancy tangles her legs with Steve’s and Jonathan’s, and her toes are ice cold in contrast. “Steve was making breakfast,” she mumbles into Steve’s chest.
“Bacon,” Steve elaborates, and Jonathan hums his approval.
“But now we’re talking about feelings,” Nancy says.
Jonathan’s fingers trace idle patterns against Steve’s side. “Oh,” he says. “Okay.”
They’re quiet for a while. Jonathan’s hand on his side slows, then stops entirely, and Steve thinks he’s maybe drifted back to sleep until he shuffles in closer and slides the palm of his hand from Steve’s ribs to the center of his chest.
“Am I supposed to be going first?” Jonathan asks, pausing to plant a kiss to the nape of Steve’s neck. “Because I don’t actually know what we’re talking about.”
Nancy laughs breezily and nips at the tips of Jonathan’s fingers. He jerks his hand back, and Nancy laughs harder. Jonathan peers over Steve’s shoulder as he reaches forward again, dodging Nancy’s playful teeth to cup her cheek in his broad palm. She curls greedily into him as he strokes the pad of his thumb against the hollow of her cheek, turning her head to nibble slyly at the protruding cartilage at his wrist before switching to a delicate kiss.
“I’m still getting used to this,” Steve whispers. Jonathan bumps the nape of Steve’s neck with his nose while Nancy’s big toe scratches against the bone of his ankle, not urgent or insistent, but a silent encouragement to go on when he’s ready.
“People like Steve Harrington,” Steve says finally. “They don’t like me. And for the longest time, I thought that was the same thing. But it’s not.”
Steve sniffs, just once, quick and restrained. Nancy wriggles closer until she’s all but under his skin while Jonathan stays stock-still, leaving Steve the room to reach out on his own terms, which he readily does, locking ankles and curling into Jonathan’s chest.
“So, I don’t know,” Steve continues, eyes sliding shut in defense of their ever-mounting sting behind them. “I don’t know how to stop being terrified that any second now you guys are gonna wake up and realize I don’t serve you a purpose anymore.”
“How about I finish breakfast?” Jonathan suggests.
Steve’s brows knit, and he turns his head to meet Jonathan’s eyes over his shoulder. They’re even more narrow than usual, swollen with sleep, but they’re warm and gentle in a way that unravels the knots in Steve’s belly.
“It’s Sunday morning,” Jonathan says, soft and slow. “And right now, the only thing I want is for my girlfriend and my boyfriend to get to stay in bed while I make them something to eat, because it’s sappy and romantic and I want them both to know how much I care about them, without needing anything in return.”
Steve narrows his eyes. “Well, now you’re just stealing my thing and trying to pass it off as your thing,” he says.
Jonathan chuckles. “Actually, when you think about it, I’m finding a cute, romantic way to help you navigate your relationship issues, which makes it pretty squarely my original thing.”
“Your original thing made of my coffee and my bacon.”
“Or,” Nancy interrupts with a stifled yawn and a languid stretch. “We could all just go back downstairs and finish making breakfast together.”
Steve and Jonathan turn on her together.
“And how exactly are you planning on turning pancakes into a three-person job?” Steve asks her.
Nancy smirks and raises an eyebrow. “Oh, I don’t know,” she sighs, fingers walking lazily up Steve’s chest. She looks up at Steve and Jonathan through her lashes, and her grin is positively filthy. “Last night, we managed to turn a lot of things into a three-person job. I think we have the ingenuity.”
“Or,” Steve posits, and Nancy smile only grows. Jonathan’s naked hips press against the curve of his body, and Steve twines their fingers together at his hip. “Or, we could revisit the idea of breakfast later.”
Nancy shakes her head, brow scrunched together in a facsimile of genuine bewilderment belied by the smile she can’t shake. “And let the bacon get cold?”
Steve shrugs. “We have a microwave.”
“Oh,” Nancy replies, a healthy, excited flush rising to her cheeks as their legs tangle like brambles under the sheets. Jonathan’s hand ventures under the hem of Steve’s shirt where it rides high on her thigh and pulls it even higher.
“Well,” she says. “As long as you have a microwave.”