Staking My Claim Part 3
Hey, guys! We're back!
Part 1 Part 2
We finally get the lowdown on what happened. Otherwise known as don't mess with Jeff.
Robin freaks out.
And Gareth is loaded. Or at least his parents are. ;)
I'm also going to try tagging the untaggables separate and see if you can't get you lovelies tagged.
@redfreckledwolf, @mira-jadeamethyst, @itsall-taken, @emly03, @rozzieroos
***
He hurried over to the phone and called Family Video.
“Hello, thank you for calling Family Video,” the soft female voice said. “How can I help you?”
“Robin!” he cried again. “I’m so sorry!”
“Steve!” Robin shrieked. “Where have you been? Are you okay? You’re not in the hospital or jail are you? What happened?”
“I’m not in jail or the hospital,” he assured her. Eddie huffed out a laugh. He whirled around to stick his tongue out at him. “I’m okay. I’m still in Indy. I just landed at some friendly metalheads’ apartment.”
“Wait...” Robin said. “Those friendly metalheads wouldn’t happen to include one Eddie Munson, would it?”
Steve looked over at said metalhead and turned away to hide his blush. “Maybe,” he mumbled into the phone.
“Hell yeah!” she crowed. “Now tell me what happened now!”
Steve pressed his lips together. “Um...to be honest...I’m not one hundred percent sure I know what happened last night. Like I remember bits and pieces, but it all kinda blurs together.”
Eddie walked over and pointed to the phone. “May I?”
Steve nodded and hand it to him.
“Robin?” Eddie asked. “This is Eddie Munson.”
“Hello, Eddie,” she said coolly. “Would you like to explain why my best friend isn’t, I don’t know, home?”
“I would love you to tell you that story if it’s okay with Steve finding out by me telling you?” Eddie questioned, looking over at Steve.
He shrugged and waved his hand for him to go ahead.
“He’s says it’s fine,” Eddie said.
“Noted,” Robin said. “Now spill.”
So Eddie did. He told her about the sleazeball at the bar who wouldn’t take no for an answer. About his daring rescue of pretending to be his boyfriend.
Steve blushed when he heard Robin go, “Awww,” at that.
Eddie grinned at him. Then he launched into the actual fucking rescue. It turned out that Mr. Persistent bumped into Steve to lace his drink with a drug to knock him out.
Steve’s eyes went wide. “He did what now?”
Eddie hummed. “Yeah...it was this whole thing. Jeff even got to punch the guy in the nose. I think the bartender has a crush on him now.”
Steve’s eyebrows went up. The bartender was a thirty something Asian dude with tattoos and piercings. But he supposed it made sense, considering the bar’s general attitude toward that specific portion of the population.
“At least he’ll get free drinks for life, right?” Robin said with a chuckle.
“That’s certainly one way to look at it,” Eddie agreed. “So yeah, this dude bumps into Steve and suddenly our friend is getting tipsy, fast. And I’ve been at many a rager to ply my wares, there was no way Keg King Steve was drunk after two beers, a margarita, and a half of a Cosmo.” The half a Cosmo was from sharing with Gareth.
Steve blushed. He wasn’t proud of those wild days in high school, but it probably saved his life in this case.
“Yeah...” Robin agreed. “I’ve seen him drink men under the table who were bigger and had been drinking longer.”
Eddie nodded even though she couldn’t seen him, but Steve could.
“Then the asshole comes over and starts flirting with Steve again, trying to draw him away,” he continued. “That’s when we really got that Steve wasn’t acting normal. So Brian steps in and tells asshole to leave him alone. But this guy has gone past persistent and into full creep territory.”
“Eww...” Robin hissed. “How did Jeff get his punch in?”
Eddie chuckled. “That’s honestly the best part, so Brian and Gareth take Steve out to my van and I go and get the bouncer. We come back and asshole is trying to get past Jeff to make his escape. So he takes a swing at Jeffy.”
“Bad idea, I’m guessing?” she said with a hint of laughter in her voice.
Steve tilted his head in interest and Eddie fought down a smile.
“Jeff’s dad is a former boxer who taught him how to fight to make the bullies leave him alone.”
Steve’s eyes go wide and Robin said, “Oooh. Please tell me he laid this asshole out! Please!”
“Dude stiffened like a board and went straight down,” Eddie confirmed. “The only downside is that they couldn’t prove anything, so he just got tossed out, but make no mistake, they’ll make sure spread the word around the other gay bars about this guy.”
“That’s good,” Robin agreed.
Steve wandered back over to his food, safe in the knowledge that he was in safe hands.
Jeff and Brian were at the counter grabbing their breakfast so Steve joined them. Coffee was was doled out by Eddie a few moments later.
Creamer, milk, and sugar were placed next to the coffee pot.
“Robin says not worry about coming into work,” Eddie murmured to Steve. “She said she would tell Keith you have the stomach flu. Which according to her will get you at least three days off.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” Brian said. “I don’t think there is anything I could tell my boss short of being in the hospital that would get me even a couple of hours off.”
Steve laughed. “Keith has a weak stomach. You just mention vomiting and the dude turns green.”
“Handy that,” Eddie said with a smile.
“It’s very handy when you’re out drinking and drink too much,” Steve said with a shrug.
“I’ll say,” Jeff said. “I’m just glad we were there, man.”
Steve blushed. “Yeah, me too.”
He dug into his food and was happy to note that while it didn’t necessarily ease the queasiness in his stomach, it didn’t make him want to throw it all back up, either.
He cleared his plate.
“So this is what’s going to happen, Stevie,” Eddie said as he cleaned up the pans from breakfast, “you are going to stay here until I am sure one hundred percent that you won’t throw up on the three hour journey back to Hawkins.”
Steve opened his mouth to argue, but he couldn’t. Right now nothing was coming up, but put him in a moving vehicle and he couldn’t say for sure that breakfast wouldn’t come right back up.
He nodded.
“I gave Robin the address so she’ll be stopping by after she gets off work,” Eddie continued. “I recommend that you get so actual rest, she seems like she’s a lot without her worrying about you, I can only imagine what she’s like when she is.”
Steve blushed.
“We’re going to all stay here,” Gareth said. “At least for one more day. I talked to my mom about it and she would rather pay more for utilities this month then worry about Steve getting worse.”
The other boys nodded their agreement, while Steve blinked at him in confusion.
“What now?”
“You do realize I live in Loch Nora, right?” Gareth asked, raising an eyebrow.
Steve shook his head. “My parents were very much exclusionists, dude. I only got to hang out with people that they deemed acceptable. Nicole, Carol, Tommy H. If they thought they weren’t in the right trade or held more liberal views, they weren’t worthy to interact with their son.”
Gareth blinked. “Fuck, that must have been lonely.”
He ducked his head and half shrugged.
“Anyway,” Gareth continued into the now deafening silence. “They pay for this apartment in the city for when we play gigs or need a place to crash after a night of drinking.”
Steve frowned. “You’re not eighteen yet, though, right?”
“No,” Gareth said with a laugh. “But my parents trust these guys to keep me safe.”
Steve thought about Dustin and his mom. That despite all the things that Steve had gotten up to in his high school career that she still trusted him to take care of her baby.
“Yeah,” he said fondly. “I can see that.”
Eddie came over to the other side of the counter. “Come on, up you get. You’ll be sleeping in my room.”
Steve’s eyes widened. “How many rooms does this place have?”
“Three,” Jeff said. “Brian shares with Gareth, but Eddie and I get our own rooms.”
“That’s because you’re both sluts,” Brian said rolling his eyes, “and me and Gareth don’t want to be kicked out of our rooms when you bring someone home.”
Steve laughed. “Yeah, okay. That’s fair.”
“I’ll give you the tour when I steer you back to my room,” Eddie promised.
Steve nodded and allowed himself to be lead back through the apartment and back to the bedroom.
Eddie tucked him back in and put a garbage can next to the bed. “I’ll be out in the front room, holler if you need me.”
Steve nodded and let himself drift off to sleep.
***
Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
Yeah, I'm sorry, I doubt even a middle class family would buy their very young son (if we hold to the belief that Gareth is OG drummer and was in the talent show with Eddie and Chrissy, putting Eddie in 8th grade, Chrissy in 6th, that would make Gareth in 5th grade) a drum kit.
Tag List: @spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @artiststarme @swimmingbirdrunningrock @gregre369 @a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @chaoticlovingdreamer @maya-custodios-dionach @goodolefashionedloverboi @messrs-weasley @val-from-lawrence @i-must-potato @danili666 @carlyv @rozzieroos @wonderland-girl143-blog @justforthedead89 @emly03 @bookworm0690 @itsall-taken @vecnuthy @bookbinderbitch @redfreckledwolf @littlewildflowerkitten @yikes-a-bee @awkwardgravity1 @scheodingers-muppet @mira-jadeamethyst @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @genderless-spoon @anne-bennett-cosplayer @irregular-child @lololol-1234 @r0binscript @monsterloverforhire @mugloversonly @live-the-fangirl-life @f0xxyb0xxes @lublix @breealtair @croatoan-like-its-hot @confuseddisastertm @dissociatingdemon @sleepdeprivedflower @thedragonsaunt @jamieweasley13 @hellfireone @dragonmama76
305 notes
·
View notes