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#steve’s little brother
artiststarme · 6 months
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Steve looking up at Uncle Wayne as the father figure he never had. Unlike his dad, he doesn’t cheat or disappear from his life when things get tough. Eddie loves it because it means he can see his boyfriend even more. It’s all fun and games until Steve goes to his father figure to complain about his boyfriend leaving him at a McDonald’s after a fight they had. Then Eddie has to deal with an upset boyfriend, a disappointed uncle, and an angry Robin to boot.
He has no choice but to take desperate measures. Eddie tells Hopper that Wayne is trying to take his “cool dad” spot in the Party and watches the chaos unfold.
By time anyone realizes what he’s done, he’s made up with Steve and escapes another murderous rage by the skin of his teeth. Mission accomplished, indeed.
Should I make this into a longer fic? I feel like I could go places with this lol
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atmilliways · 6 months
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What if a fic where Eddie finds Steve so pretty and cute and at times downright adorable that he keeps wanting to bite him, but he can't because they're friends. Eddie isn't even out to Steve, doesn't want to risk it. So instead of biting, he ends up grinding his teeth a lot.
He starts getting a lot of really bad tension headaches, which brings Steve even closer into his orbit because Steve is very sympathetic (and secretly, selfishly, kind of likes having a headache buddy, because it sucks but at least they're not, like, alone). Which means Eddie grinds his teeth more and ends up with more frequent headaches.
But trying to avoid Steve results in Steve showing up outside his door with over the counter painkillers, tea, Gatorade, Pedialyte, hot and cold compresses, high quality sleep masks for cutting out light while he rests, essential oils, anything he knows that works for him when he gets a migraine. He offers scalp massages and times his compress use and refills his cup of whatever he's hydrating with and even guides Eddie to the bathroom when he doesn't want to crack an eye open to navigate the hallway.
I don't know how it ends, but at one point Steve asks Robin if migraines are contagious. She wants to grab him and shake him a little bit because what no, but he just looks so earnest and concerned and maybe a little guilty, it'd be like kicking a puppy.
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flowercrowngods · 3 months
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Steve startles awake, disoriented and filled with a slight bout of panic — as always when he takes a nap that turns into five hours of deep sleep and catapults him right into the next dimension for a while there.
Heart racing, he blinks his dark bedroom into existence, and it takes him a while to realise where he is and what woke him up.
And then the landline phone on his nightstand rings again, and he exhales deeply before reaching for it with clumsy, sluggish movements.
“‘Ello?”
“Steve,” comes Eddie’s sing-song voice from the other end, washing over Steve in a soothing way that leaves him falling back into the pillows. He clutches the phone to his ear as he closes his eyes, the smile already forming at how happy Eddie sounds. He rarely sings Steve’s name like that. He should do it more often.
“Hi there.” His voice sounds like shit. Like he just took a — Jesus Christ, has it really been four hours? Well. He sounds exactly like someone who took a four-hour nap after a shit day at work would sound like.
There’s fumbling on the other end, but it stops suddenly. “Did I wake you? Shit man, I thought it was past nap time.”
“I don’t have nap time,” Steve grumbles, actually pouting at Eddie’s words and realising only a second too late how ridiculous he sounds.
“Sure, man, whatever you say. We all know you’re actually just a life-sized toddler.”
Steve sputters, sitting up against his headboard as he gradually wakes up. “Hey! Also, I don’t think you actually understand what life-sized means.”
“Yes, I do.”
Steve shakes his head at this ridiculous, ridiculous man. “What exactly do you think a non-life-sized toddler looks like, Eduardissimo?”
“Like Dustin.”
The answer is so quick and deadpan, Steve cannot contain the laugh that bursts out of him, waking him up quicker and gentler than anything else in the world could have, and he revels in the sound of Eddie joining him. He must look so smug right now, and so damn proud of himself. Steve wants to see him. Wants to kiss that smile right from his lips and replace it with something a lot more genuine.
“You’re an asshole,” he says instead, pulling his blanket further around him as he lifts his knees to sit more comfortably.
Eddie hums, still teasing somehow with just that noise, and Steve just can’t stop smiling. “You like me so much, Harrington.”
“Hmm,” he mirrors Eddie’s hum, but even he can hear the smile on his face. “Jury’s still out on that one, actually.”
“Any tendencies yet on the verdict?”
“Nope, they can’t decide.”
Eddie snorts at that, and Steve has no idea how that can sound so sweet. But it does. He buries his smile in his knees for a bit, the blanket hot around his burning cheeks. He’s hopeless.
“Well, let me know as soon as they do, yeah?”
“Will do,” he laughs, ruining all his attempts to sound solemn. “So what’s up? Why’d you call?”
“Oh!” And suddenly it’s like a switch has been flipped and Eddie doesn’t sound teasing and smug anymore, but instead just fucking giddy! “I have a bed now!”
Steve smiles at it. At that voice, that tone, that infectious emotion. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!” More fumbling on the other end, and Steve can only imagine that Eddie is rolling around in his newly acquired bed.
Who’s the life-sized toddler now, hm?
“No more sleeping on the floor for this Munson boy, nuh-uh, my good sir! We are in possession of a bed now. A wooden bed, no fancy headboard or anything, just…”
“Just a bed,” Steve says, feeling like he’s about to burst into a million little particles of fondness and affection and the never-ending need to kiss Eddie. To hold him. To touch him in any way he can. “That’s great, Edsie.”
“It is, Stevesie.”
“Man, I hate you so much,” Steve squints at the ceiling and laughs, actually kicking his feet, the minute breeze providing a little relief for the heat in his face.
And Eddie has no business to sound so smug when he says, “Yeah, you do.”
A pause then, and it feels loaded even through the phone. Steve clutches it closer to his face, hoping stupidly that Eddie can feel it.
“You should come hate me in my new bed.”
Steve’s breath hitches, and his brain shuts off for a hot second there. Before he can overthink this, he decides to just… play along. And listen to what his heart has been telling him for months now.
“Oh yeah?” he asks, breathless still, but his whole body tingles with just these two words. With the possibility they bring. The offer that they are. The question. The everything that’s stored in them.
“Yeah,” Eddie says, and he sounds just as breathless. “I mean, if— If you want to?”
“I do.” Steve swallows. “Right, uh— Right now?”
“Whenever.” And it sounds more like an As soon as possible.
“Okay,” Steve breathes, scrambling out of bed as quickly as possible, pulling off his shirt with the phone still pressed to his ear, letting out an embarrassing noise as it gets tangled in a mess of cord and fabric. He scrambles to free it, almost dropping it in the process. “I’ll be there in thirty.”
“To come look at my new bed?”
“Sure.”
On the other end, Eddie laughs again, but he still sounds just as breathless as Steve does. Just as excited. As fragile. Just as many fucking things.
“Alright,” Eddie murmurs, though Steve can still hear the smile. “I’ll see you then.”
And then he hangs up before either of them can get lost in their own heads about this sudden certainty of change. Steve is grateful for the steady noise of the dial tone reminding him that this is happening. But that nothing has to happen.
It’s a nice bed, he finds hours later, fingers combing through Eddie’s hair who’s cuddling him half asleep. It’s the best fucking bed he’s ever seen, if only because it led to this.
🤍 permanent tag list gang: @skiddit @inklessletter @aringofsalt @hellion-child @stobin-cryptid @hotluncheddie @gutterflower77 @auroraplume @steddieonbigboy @n0-1-important @stevesjockstrap @brainvines @puppy-steve @izzy2210 @itsall-taken @mangoinacan13 @madigoround @pukner @i-amthepizzaman @swimmingbirdrunningrock @hammity-hammer @stevesbipanic @bitchysunflower @estrellami-1 (lmk if you want on or off)
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darkavcngers · 2 years
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STEVE OFFERING HIS HAND TO EDDIE AND THEN BEING DISAPPOINTED WHEN HE DOESNT TAKE IT STEVE HARRINGTON I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE
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findafight · 2 years
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Steve shows up to work one day with a baby bjorn complete with sleeping baby on his chest and Robin is like Steve....what the fuck?
And Steve says "I would've called you last night but she'd only stop crying when I held her and my parents were fighting, obviously, and I had to figure out how to make her bottle then I fell asleep with her on top of me and I think my dad legitimately forgot about us even though this is his fault, and there's no one to take care of her so I had to bring her. Sorry."
That is a lot and answers very few of Robin's questions.
"who...is she?"
Steve brightens and smiles down at the baby who's tiny baby fist is scrunched up in his work vest. "Oh! My half sister. Her mom works for one of my dad's business partners and brought her to my parents while they were away last week so they came home, mostly to dump her off on a nanny they forgot to hire--hence my baby holder here--and fight. Turns out dad cheating is easier to ignore when there isn't actual proof of it."
"oh. Woah."
"yeah. Anyways, ready to rewind some tapes?"
So they start work Steve logging returns into the computer and cupping the baby whose name I don't know yet's head. Then the little baby wakes up, making little baby noises, and Robin is not one for babies really, but Steve coos and picks her hand off his chest and waves it at Robin.
"see, that's your auntie Robin! Say hiii auntie Robin!"
The baby chews her tongue at Robin and blows a spit bubble.
And how is Robin supposed to not be charmed by that?
"awww," she says, letting the baby grab her finger, "yeah, I'm your auntie Robin. Your big brother's gonna take care of you so good huh? You'll know your way around retail in no time."
Steve giggles.
It is then that The Gremlins decide to show up and Cause Noise. Baby sister starts to cry and Steve takes her to the back to get her to calm down and change her, comes out (ignores the party's questions. Giving them Ultimate Mom Pose with Bonus Effect of Baby) hands her to Robin who is a little nervous but she will not let her new niece (?) Down, and goes back to find and heat up a bottle.
Eddie, who drove the gremlins and was looking for something in his van comes in, sees Robin holding the baby and is like huh? What's this?
And then Steve comes out with a bottle and a baby blanket over his shoulder, reaches for the baby from Robin and tries to get her to latch on the bottle with quiet words and gentle hands and Eddie is not okay he's not fine he's having a melt down because Steve with the kids is one thing but Steve with a Baby is something very different and he should not be expected to keep it together seeing this
Part 2.
Part 3
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formosusiniquis · 1 year
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y'know like barbie
ao3
It's Erica who gives him the idea, incidentally. Though she carries herself with a maturity that far surpasses the boys most days and though she's been through multiple life altering events, she does continue to only be eleven. Which is, it turns out, prime babysitting age.
The Sinclairs are going out of town overnight, it's their anniversary -- 18 blissful years, since our marriage can vote we thought we deserved a night away -- and they don't want Erica to spend the night home alone.
Enter Steve, who the Sinclairs trust with their children and who is inexplicably the only person Erica would accept staying the night with her. Steve honestly didn't believe it even as Mrs. Sinclair was saying it. But he smiles and nods, looks over the emergency numbers on the fridge when they're pointed to, nods at the money on the counter for food that he probably won't take, and waves as they walk out the door promising that he and Erica will be fine for the night and not to worry.
It's only when their car is out of the driveway and the door is shut that Steve realizes he isn't really a babysitter. He is a keep children alive while in a dangerous situation and when the situation is over drive them around because you feel bad that their childhoods have been marred by trauma-er which doesn't have quite the same ring as babysitter, and it's a lot harder to say with that rude tone the boys have been favoring. He also realizes that he's never actually dealt with children, or not girl children. The boys had all been older than Erica, when he had started keeping them alive. Max was definitely basically a teenager when he started really dealing with her; and she was usually okay to do what the boys wanted to do, like go to the arcade. Hopper didn't really trust him with El and that was fine, he wasn't sure he trusted himself with El either.
It put him in an awkward spot now though. Staring at Erica in her kitchen, a little afraid to ask the question on the front of his mind which was "What now?"
So he asks the second question on his mind, "What do you want to do that isn't eat ice cream all night?"
Say what you will about Steve Harrington, and a lot has been said, but he always keeps his promises and he always brings a pint of ice-cream for Erica to have when he comes over to the Sinclair house. Tonight he brought three, all different weird flavors he thought she'd like to try.
"Why can't I eat ice cream all night?" She says it with a challenge in her eyes, but he'd bet dollars to donuts that she's just doing it to make him sweat. "Because I've seen you eat ice cream, we've only got enough for two hours at most." His hand migrates as if of its own mind to his hip. "You need more than two people for Dungeons and Dragons, right?"
Her brows raise, for the first time since he's met her Erica Sinclair is stunned silent. Maybe she's just surprised he got the name right.
It lasts about as long as it takes him to notice it. "You'd play Dungeons and Dragons with me?" There's something fragile in the way she asks, and there is the eleven year old girl she's meant to be. 
"Sure, you'd have to show me how, but if that's what you want to do I'm game."
Eyes narrowed in a distinctly intimidating way he kind of thinks she stole from Nancy, he does his best to make his sincerity clear on his face. "We need more than two people, but I've got something else we can do if you think your fragile manhood can take it."
He's got a retort at the tip of his tongue about just what his manhood can take and remembers just in time that yeah probably shouldn't make a joke like that in front of an actual child. "My pride isn't that delicate, I think I can handle anything you dish out."
"Famous last words."
He follows her to her bedroom, waiting outside the doorway to let her space stay private until he's told to come in. A clear plastic tub slides out from under her bed, out of sight but easily accessible and when the lid pops off he gets why. Rows of Barbies stacked neatly on top of each other, a mass grave for childhood. Steve has a stuffed bear, fur rubbed off of one ear, tucked up on the shelf of his closet that also got put away sooner than he would have chosen to, when it was too babyish.
“Alright, so who is the, like, elven warrior.”
“That’s not how you play Barbies.”
It’s snapped so fast that he thinks it embarasses her. He tactfully avoids eye contact, pulling out a doll with blonde hair snipped into a professional, if uneven, bob and a green skirt set. She's missing a shoe. “Then how do I play Barbies?”
“That one just won the Nobel Peace Prize, she solved world hunger, but she has plans to kill the Barbie who won the prize in Physics because she stole Barbie One’s research and gave it to NASA claiming it was her own.”
“Right, of course.” This was the kind of shit that happened on Dallas, only Barbie had a lot more awards. “And they’re all called Barbie?”
“Except for Ken, but Ken doesn’t do anything.”
“Well if Barbie just won the Peace Prize wouldn’t she use Ken to kill Barbie so she doesn’t get caught.”
Erica manages a look that is both condescending and considerate. “Barbie can do anything, including get away with murder; but she wouldn’t want to dirty her hands with that sort of thing.”
“And if Ken goes to jail it’s no loss.”
“Right.”
-
So maybe it's more accurate to say that Dustin actually starts it.
Dustin with the shittiest attitude this side of the Ohio, something Robin blames him for.
“Like father, like son.”
“Dustin doesn’t even know his dad.”
“I mean you and Eddie, dingus.”
“I am not that kid's dad. A brotherly figure at best, strong male role model more likely.”
“He’s a bitch because you are, Steve. Maybe if your and Eddie’s love language wasn’t being as bitchy as possible it wouldn’t have rubbed off on your kid.”
“Please don’t put Dustin and rubbing off in the same paragraph let alone the same thought wave.”
Dustin comes sprinting into Family Video on a Tuesday afternoon. “Steve! I need your car.”
“Did you learn how to drive when I wasn’t paying attention?”
“Obviously, I meant I need you too.” His hands are on his hips, eyes rolled. Shit maybe he did get it from Steve. “There’s this theoretical physicist coming to Notre Dame to give a talk on the Multiverse Theory.”
Steve was allowing himself a second to consider whether this was worth it, for once, instead of just blindly agreeing to drive Dustin wherever. The drive sucked ass, but it would put him close enough to Chicago that he could try to find a music store that would carry albums from the international metal bands Eddie couldn’t stop talking about.
It was a second too long for Dustin. “Steve, a theoretical physicist-”
See Steve had this suspicion that the kids did actually think he was an idiot. He was pretty sure that none of them, hell maybe none of Hellfire, save for Lucas realized that every athlete in the school had to keep up at least a 2.5 GPA. Which might not have been anything to write home about but Steve kept a 3.2 for most of high school, until the multiple concussions started to catch up with him. He wasn’t stupid, was the point and even if they didn’t think he was an idiot in a mean way he was a little sick of the shit.
“I know, like Barbie.”
That shuts Dustin up real quick.
“N- no, not like Barbie! Barbie is some girl's toy.”
“Excuse me?” Robin, who told Steve that she would not help him parent his children on work days or any other day ending in y had remembered that Martes doesn’t have one and her shift was almost over. “What does that mean, exactly, a girl’s toy?”
“And,” Steve adds, because he can and because Eddie made him drive him to fucking Bloomington because he was fixated on time travel and needed access to some science journal that only existed at Indiana U apparently, “Barbie is on a research team looking for the Higgs particle so she can start figuring out time travel.”
The bell chiming as Dustin leaves has never sounded sweeter.
He’ll definitely end up taking the twerp to stupid Notre Dame.
-
The thing is that Steve thinks he’s never really stopped being a bitch.
He doesn’t want to stop. He likes being bitchy. It’s fun, when you’re doing it with people you like it’s pretty funny, and honestly he’s kinda like Spiderman. With great power comes great responsibility, he’s only bitchy responsibly now.
And it’s actually perfectly responsible as an older brother type babysitter figure to correct the behavior of the younger siblings by being bitchy. If they don’t learn at home they’ll go out in the world thinking that kind of behavior is acceptable, see Steve Harrington in his early high school days who talked to people like his father did.
So when Mike interrupts El with, “I’m not going to ask Steve, he probably doesn’t even know what a Pulitzer is either.”
He says, “Oh, yeah like Barbie won. Or Nancy will someday, probably. It’s a journalism award, Wheeler.”
And when Lucas corrects, “I don’t actually think you can win an award for comics. It’s still really great though, Will!”
“Barbie won the Kirby Award in 1985 for best artist, I’m sure Will is soon to follow.”
Or when Nancy tells Holly, “Are you sure you wouldn’t want to be something important instead?”
“You could be an actress and do something cool like go to space if you want, Hols, like Barbie.” And maybe he says it with a little more bitch than he should that time, but he’s seen the ballerinas in Nancy’s room, she didn’t always want to be an investigative journalist.
It gets to be second nature. When someone starts being shitty about something or to lighten the mood.
Erica doubts whether she should run for student council. It's her first step to being actual president, like Barbie.
Dustin makes a crack about Steve's possible future prospects when he butts in on a conversation between Steve and Robin. "I could do all three, I could be a counselor and a hair stylist and an engineer. Maybe I'll add EMT too, Barbie wouldn't stop at three, why should I?"
Or when Mike sneers at him, "What are you a cop?" All because Steve told him not to buy weed now that Eddie had stopped dealing.
"Ew, no, because you look like a fresh-faced little narc trying to be cool and you're gonna get ripped off."
"What so not like Barbie?"
"The Barbie world has achieved equality at a level that it doesn't need the cops." Eddie sometimes has to get high after a run in with Powell or Calahan who he still doesn't really trust after the spring. Steve has been treated to many a lecture on why the police were a waste of resources.
He lets Mike sit with that for a minute before he adds, "Like Barbie, I am very cool and know what it looks like when I'm being taken for a ride. If you're gonna get pot from someone other than Eddie, ask Hop where he used to get all of his shit."
It doesn't feel stupid, until El comes running into the cabin one afternoon that Steve has decided to join the rebuilding effort. It’s actually just him and Hop, who has started trying to quietly parent him, something he’s not entirely convinced isn’t revenge for telling Wheeler that Hop has smoked pot before. Steve is pretty sure El was crying when she came in, something he bumps up to a certainty when he sees how awkward Hop looks right now.
“You mind taking that kid? It’s been a long time since high school.” he rubs the back of his neck, Steve does appreciate that he has the decency to feel weird about asking. “If it’s anything outside of big brother shit I can take over.”
He does let himself get suckered by that big brother line.
El is facedown on her bed in a clear ‘leave me alone I’m crying’ pose but he figures he’s already here it’s not like he can turn around and tell Hop that he was too afraid to approach a crying teenage girl. Like that wasn’t the whole reason he’d been sent in the first place. “Hey Ellie, can I come in?”
She sits up, tear tracks plain on her face but no more are falling, and nods in that endearing, aggressively certain way she’s got. “Is everything okay?” He pauses and asks, “Was it Mike?” because he knows that’ll be the first thing Hopper asks when Steve comes back out.
“You are worse than Dad.”
“That stings, Ellie Bell.”
She takes a deep breath, steeling an already impressive will, “Lucas says it is okay to just want to be happy right now, but all they talk about is what they are going to do. Dustin is talking about going to admission early, Will talks about talking to Dad and Joyce about art school, Lucas worries about his sports and scholarships, and Mike talks about classes that count twice. I do not know what I want to be. I do not know why I have to be anything.”
“You guys have been through a lot. I don’t think anyone would blame you for taking time to just be a kid.”
“What if I never want to be something? What if I do not ever want to go to college?”
He’s made his way over to the bed with her, sits tentatively on the edge like he’s seen Joyce do before. “Then you don’t. You’ll probably have to get a job at some point, but that doesn’t have to be what you are. Lucas isn’t a landscaper just because he mows lawns in the summer.”
“You don’t think Dad would be upset?” she asks.
“I don’t think there’s anything you could do that would really make Hop mad. And you might change your mind. I've been out of school for almost two years and I’m only thinking about college now. Or you could go to college and change your mind about what you want to be. You could be a hundred things, you could be anything! Like Barbie.”
He feels like an idiot almost immediately. A jerk quickly after that. He’s made El’s genuine crisis part of his stupid running joke. But something settles in the room. The underlying tension, the thing that had the hair on the back of his neck raised. He realizes, now, that her powers had probably also been on edge.
"Like Barbie." She says it with a graven seriousness, like Steve's dumb little joke is a mantra now.
"Yeah, and you're a sophomore you don't have to have your whole life figured out right now. And don't take life advice from Henderson anyway, he thought it was a good idea to raise an Upside Down slug as a pet."
He mostly just used it to be a bitch though. Because it was fun. No, it was what he was good at. So good at it he didn't even have to try.
Because Steve had a plan to be bitchy. Specifically to Mike Wheeler who kept flirting with Steve’s boyfriend while taking advantage of his hospitality. Sure it was at their stupid Dungeons and Dragons game, and yeah Steve was the one who said they could host the game at his house now that Eddie had graduated. Yes, he knew Eddie didn't mean anything by it when he responded and usually didn't flirt back with the kids. But it was still the kind of behavior that had to be gently corrected, for Mike's sake because if he didn't stop things were going to get drastic.
His initial plan is already in action. He encouraged El to come along to watch the Party play. It was, admittedly, a half hearted plan. Wheeler got so awkward anytime El was around he mostly just hoped that would keep him from trying anything.
It isn't. Eddie starts to describe a new character, "Blonde and statuesque, she has a long bow in hand and delicate elven features."
And even though El is sitting a few feet from him Mike perks up the way he always does when there's a new NPC to flirt with. He is going to have to have a talk with Eddie about letting the kid try out a bard.
He does at least have one other tool in his belt. "Oh, like Barbie."
Steve knew what he'd get as he said it. A groan from Dustin, who falls for this as being sincere about as often as he falls for the dumb-dumbs and dipshits line -- which is everytime for the record. Will and Lucas keep their laughs small, enough that they're covered by Erica's snort. The original Hellfire crew mostly looks confused, it's becoming less and less their default as they warm up to the Steve he is rather than the Steve they thought they remembered; but he likes to keep them on their toes.
Eddie is charmed. He can tell. Sees him duck his head behind his screen and his binders, trying to preserve the stern and scary dungeon master image. That apparently isn't possible if you're smiling like an idiot at your stupid boyfriend, so he's been told.
And Mike has maybe been on the wrong end of the joke a few more times than everyone else. He turns an interesting shade of red, two parts anger and one part embarrassed is Steve's guess. The foot stomp is unexpected, but he expects its been passed down the Wheeler line as a shared signal of outrage. "Not like Barbie, this isn't some stupid kids game. She's probably a hot, wisened archer ready to reward us for helping her village, not some stupid doll that you're obsessed with."
Eddie's blank face with the twitchy eyes has fallen into place when he sits back up from behind his screen. His things aren't going according to plan, panicked face. "I think that's a good place to end things this week. Wheeler, Henderson, Jeff, and Lady Applejack you've all cleared enough experience to level right? Do that before next week."
Steve knows enough to keep his mouth shut while everyone packs up to leave. Sends a small smile to Erica on her way out to the family minivan, he knows she struggles a little being the youngest at the table even if she won't say it. He has to imagine that the outburst had stung a bit.
"You gotta be nicer to little Wheeler." Eddie chides once everyone is gone, halfhearted at best when he's telling Steve off into the soft skin of his neck. When he feels the admonishment more than hears it.
"I'm not mean to Mike." He says on instinct, he does try not to be. "And he started it."
"Definitely think you started the Barbie thing, Sweetheart."
And well, yeah. "I Barbie all the kids equally."
Eddie hmms Steve can feel the vibration of it through his back and on his neck. Eddie is about to start something he better plan on finishing. "He asked Hop where he should get weed."
Oh. "I didn't think he'd actually do it!" And then, "Is that why he keeps flirting with you, revenge?"
"No, he's got a bunch of misplaced jealousy because Will and the girls think you're hot." He toys with the edge of Steve's shirt as he says it. Perpetually cold fingers brushing the clothes warmed skin beneath making him shiver.
"The girls don't think I'm hot."
He hums again, nips at the blush red skin at Steve's neck. "El used to, Max definitely has a taste for jock.
"That's not my fault, you let Mike play a bard." He wishes he didn't sound so desperate.
"Wanted to leave the Paladin spot open for you, baby."
"I'm starting to feel convinced, we could go upstairs and you could show me your character sheet."
The things he'll say to get laid.
"Don't think I can do that Stevie, smooth as a Ken doll down there. Could show you the actual character sheet though." 
His back is cold as Eddie pulls away, smirking unrepentant as he lets Steve have the tiniest taste of his own medicine.
"Barbie has a very active sex life, actually." He's never been one not to double down. "Let me show you the fun we can have without getting your dick out."
-
He does leave it alone for a little while, even though he really, really doesn't want to. But despite what his friends, his fifth grade report card, and his mom might think; Steve is capable of keeping a hold of his worst impulses when he wants to.
So he lets opportunity pass him by.
He makes no comment about Barbie when Eddie talks about how John Carpenter is a film auteur. Not even when Dustin tries to define auteur for him. Incorrectly, but Robin comes to Steve's defense.
Barbie goes unmentioned, barely when an argument breaks out about Nobel prize winners, of all things. He thinks the kids argue more now than they ever have like it's the only way they have to get their bloodlust out now that the Upside Down was closed. He was quickly boxed out of the conversation, even if Erica kept sending him little glances over everyone's heads. (She'd let him have Peace Prize Barbie a couple weeks ago and maybe he was a little obsessed.)
Holly wants to be a vet now, a singing vet who is also on TV, but mostly a vet. She tells him all about it while he waits for Mike to find his shoes? Definitely not his quarters for the arcade, the day any of them bring those is the day Steve brings the nail bat back out. He’s one impulse purchase away from getting one of those little coin dispenser belts that the employees have -- Gareth just quit, maybe he still had his? Mike's frown is a little less general annoyance at Steve and a little more confusion when he's finally ready to leave and Barbie has gone unmentioned.
He almost breaks again when Eddie starts talking about sports. Or he starts talking about NASCAR which is close enough for Eddie, he has a surprising taste for racing for someone who never wanted to put his van on the starting line at parties. A woman led a Busch Series race for the first time, what a year '86. He's got no opinion on Barbie's ability to drive at all.
He could let a joke go. He could be nice. It wasn't so out of character that it needed this kind of attention.
-
Mike has forgiven him by the time the next session rolls around. Delayed two weeks after Eddie screamed so loud on stage that he couldn't speak for two days, and then again for Jeff's emergency appendectomy. Eddie has stopped leaving pointed gaps in conversation for Steve to fill with mention of Barbie, he has had his thinking face on instead which is good for Steve about as often as it isn't.
He leaves it alone. A little bit of non-life threatening surprise is good for the soul, or something. Listen, he’s made it this far by only asking questions when shit is about to get really, really bad and Eddie’s thinking face has only resulted in something bad once or twice -- and they probably should have spent more than a couple minutes negotiating that particular kink anyway.
When the kids start showing up and nothing has come from the thinking face, he assumes it was just for them anyway. He settles in to see whatever shit Eddie is going to do.
"From the ditch you pull a human man, a paladin. His plate is dirtied by his time on the ground but clearly gleams in its typical state. He's handsome, a square jaw and fluffy brown hair-"
"Ugh is this Steve? You already made us do a quest for him," Mike complains, maybe he hasn’t completely forgiven Steve for that last interruption.
Steve has, by his own count been the inspiration for at least three NPCs for this campaign: a white light faction rogue, Sol, that the party had to rescue from the dungeons of the nightmare King after he was caught sneaking into the bedrooms of the prince -- like it was Steve's fault that Wayne had super hearing; a young fighter from the gladiatorial combat ring who helped the party rescue a group of kidnapped children that were going to be used as bait in the next round of fights; and the most obvious Prince Stefan who sent the party on a quest to kill his betrothed a Duke called Thomas the Boarish and rescue his knight Rowen and beloved Bard Edwin -- it's not like he could unkiss Tommy, and he could be a dick but boarish was dramatic. 
He was not this paladin, assuming Eddie was telling the truth about saving the Paladin he'd made for Steve.
"Cut the out of character chatter, Michael, before it starts counting in game. The Paladin before you is handsome in a bland, approachable, non-threatening way," Mike opens his mouth again, how is that not like Steve surely perched at the edge of his tongue and stopped in its tracks by elbows from Erica and Joey. "He introduces himself to his rescuer, Will the Wise, 'Thank you, kind sir, I would have been down there for ages before my lady noticed my absence. I am Sir Kenneth.'"
"What deity does he serve?" Will asks, something suspicious drawing across his face.
"Is there a holy symbol on his armor?" Gareth follows up. Gareth has been backing a lot of Will's plays lately, Steve thinks something might be going on there but he hasn't wanted to deal with Eddie teasing him for being a meddling matchmaker, again.
"There is no identifiable holy symbol on his clothes or armor." Eddie says, there's a mischief in his eyes, the way he tilts his head with quiet challenge and smiles.
"What God do you serve?" Erica asks, blunt and to the point. She gets cranky when her rogue doesn't have anything to stab.
"'The Lady in Pink,' he answers."
Any time Eddie reveals lore shit there's always a bunch of people talking over top of each other. It always turns into the kind of mass blob of shouting that Steve has a hard time parsing out, especially these days. Eddie somehow manages to distinguish not only people but the things they're saying and keeps his cool enough to keep the story going.
"Roll your insight, Gareth. Jeff, with a 15 history check, you have heard some whisperings from your homeland about a newly ascended goddess but not a name. Dustin, you're not getting shit with a 5 don't even try that but my back story says shit with me. Will, pretty sure that's a cleric spell but I'll let you have it he's a Neutral Good alignment. An 18, shit, yeah Garebear he does seem to be telling the truth that is the deity he follows; but that isn't the whole truth, you know a lot of the newer pantheon have a colloquial name and a true name."
"I'm sorry," Lucas says, "we aren't familiar with your lady. What can you tell us about her? Why would she leave you there? And that's a 14 on persuasion before you even ask."
"Why would I have asked that, Sinclair the elder? He has stars in his eyes when he speaks, 'before she ascended she was already limitless. A powerful warrior, an expert marksman, a mage beyond compare. Her power grew and grew until the only place left to explore was godhood.'"
"And what's her real name, if we wanted to spread the word?" Joey asks.
"'Oh she's everything. She's the lady in pink, she's the goddess with the golden mane, but before she ascended she favored one name I assume she has kept it.'"
"What is it?" Mike asks, perched at the edge of his seat.
"Oh no," Dustin whispers, a dawning horror on his face.
"'Barbara, though she preferred it shortened. Nicknames you call them," Steve sees the joke, knows where this is going a split second before reality breaks through the haze of fantasy for the players around the table. Eddie's smirking now, smile too pleased and too attractive. "'Y'know like Barbie?'"
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Text
Charles and Sue Sinclair, after they find out that Steve took a plate to the head saving Lucas from Bully Hargrove: We're giving Lucas and Erica a brother.
Steve: Congratu-
Sue: *slams adoption papers in front of Steve* It's you. You're our son now. Sign here.
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sp0o0kylights · 1 year
Text
Steve was going to kill Jonathan. 
He had to save the guy’s life first, but once he did, Jonathan was a dead man. 
Skidding around the corner, eyes wild, Steve only slowed down when he could visually confirm that he had in fact, made it in time.
“Whoa, hey.” Jonathan said. startled as Steve nearly crashed into him, dropping the paper plates he was carrying to his backyard. “What’s wrong?” 
“You-” Steve huffed, breath coming out in sharp bursts and man, wasn’t that a sign that he’d been slacking lately on his workouts? “You need to--”
“What’s happening?” Will interrupted, sensing trouble-- and running immediately towards it as always, El trailing behind. “Are you okay?” 
“No.” Steve growled, hands on his knees, glaring up through his hair. “No, I am not okay. Jonathan won’t be either if he doesn’t go inside and stay there for at least the next twenty minutes.” 
He slowly stood, his general fitness allowing him to regain his stamina quickly even if he had been neglecting it. 
���I’m sorry I ever stopped going on bi weekly runs.’ 
“What?” Jonathan asked, at the same time Will and El said;
“Why?” 
Steve turned his attention to Will, startled to find the kid was almost taller than he was. That was  a train of thought for a different day, because right now he was still focused on keeping Jonathan living and breathing. 
‘The shit I do for these people.’
“You guys remember Gareth?” He said, staring pointedly at Jonathan. 
Ah yes, there was the little wince he was looking for. 
“Gareth?” El asked, voice soft as Will stiffened visibly besides his brother. 
Steve nodded, still glaring Jonathan down. “You know, Gareth. Skipped a grade, Brown hair, part of the Hellfire club, got his ass kicked by Carver’s asshole buddies because he’s super close to Eddie?” 
“Steve--” Will started, staring at him and not at his brother's hunched shoulders, the very first sign of guilt in a Byers. 
(Among many other things, but Steve knew Jonathan better than he knew Will, and those? 
Those were guilty shoulders.) 
“Your brother,” Steve interrupted, making sure the sheer annoyance in his tone came through, “--decided to have a talk with Gareth.”
He  put his hands on his hips, doing his best to communicate ‘you done fucked up’ with his own face. “Eddie found out and is on a rampage.” 
A fact he had been alerted to by Gareth himself, after the poor kid had called him from Eddie’s shiny new government supplied house, begging Steve to stop Eddie before he made the situation worse than it already was.
(Considering Eddie’s paranoia and general protectiveness was still ramped up to a hundred even now, six months after all the Vecna bullshit, Steve didn’t blame Gareth for calling it like it was. 
Eddie absolutely would make things worse.)  
There was a very long pause, in which Steve got a front row seat to several different Byers expressions. 
First was confusion, followed quickly by realization, and then the slow dawning of horror as Will cued in to exactly what his brother had done. 
Meanwhile; Jonathan’s hunched, guilty form took on the look of something a bit more pinched. 
Like a soccer player who had clocked that the ball was in the air, hurtling dead towards his face, and all he could do was stand there and take the hit. 
“Oh.” El said, her head tilted comically, correctly reading her brothers faces. “Gareth is the boy Will has a crush on.” 
She turned to peer Jonathan, Will’s face managing to somehow go redder at his sister's words. 
“The talk Jonathan gave him was like Jim’s talk to Mike.” 
Implied: That talk broke the two of them up. 
Implied: Said talk was now firmly rooted in El’s head as a bad thing. 
Implied: Jonathan was screwed. 
“That’s not good.” She finished calmly, as Will whipped around to confront his brother. 
“What the hell!?” He shrieked, voice cracking right in the middle as Jonathan raised his hands defensively. 
“Look, you’ve been through a lot, and-” He started, only to be immediately interrupted by a furious;  
“That’s not an excuse!” 
Will advanced on him, sticking a pointed finger in Jonathan’s face, a whole tirade of words pouring out of his mouth. “I can’t-I can’t believe you! I told you about Gareth in confidence! You told me I could tell you anything, Jonathan!” 
Steve raised an eyebrow, impressed to find that baby-Byers could actually be intimidating when he wanted to be. 
He was pretty sure it was the height. 
“Scream about it later, get inside now please.” Steve said, trying to cut Will’s attempt on Jonathan’s life off. 
Personally he didn’t care if the guy’s own brother murdered him, he just didn’t need Eddie to catch a charge.
Again. 
The very thought coincided with their time ending, as a furious screech of wheel’s and muffled metal roared into the Byer’s driveway. The car wasn’t even off by the time Steve heard the door slam, Eddie’s stomping footsteps loud enough for Steve to track him as he came around to the backyard. 
“Hey, El?” He said, as he turned to face down his furious boyfriend. “Tell Will I’m on his side for this one, would you?” 
El nodded politely, a smile overtaking her face as she watched Steve match Eddie’s stride, aiming to head his boyfriend off. 
Kid probably knew what he was going to do before he did it, the little shit. 
“Get out of my way, Steve-!” Eddie bit out, stopping only so he could point to where he wanted Steve to move to. 
Sadly for him, Steve had a different plan.
Instead of slowing down, he simply bent at the knees, wrapping his arms around the back of Eddie’s thighs and putting his shoulder firmly in Eddie’s torso. He had to withhold a grunt to do it, the step- to kneel-to carry was not as smooth as it used to be when Steve was in proper shape and throwing girls around like footballs, but he managed to get Eddie over his shoulder anyway. 
“Hey!” His boyfriend squawked, as Steve smoothly continued walking, right back out of the Byer’s backyard, Eddie hanging over his shoulder. 
“Steven Reginald Harrington, put me down right now!” Eddie shrieked, the words only slightly tangled with Will’s own;
“You’re DEAD Jonathan!” 
(and Els’ gentle laugh, of course.) 
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livwritesstuff · 5 months
Text
a happening in the harrington house circa 2010-ish
(aka another example of Eddie being a kind, loving, gentle parent like Wayne was to him and Steve being absolutely fine with his children being mostly feral as long as they’re alive)
“Dad, am I adopted?”
Eddie blinks, then furrows his eyes as he looks at his seven-year-old daughter, Robbie (who he hadn’t even heard come into the room, to be honest), because he knows that he and Steve have been very upfront with all three of their children about how they’re adopted.
“Yes,” he tells her, “You’re adopted. You’re all adopted.”
“Then how come Hazel and Moe look like sisters and they don’t look like me?” she asks.
And Eddie feels his heart break a little bit.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, running a hand over her curls, “Well, first of all, you all look very similar, and you do all have the same mom, 100%. Sometimes genes are just weird that way.”
Robbie scrunches her nose, “Jeans?”
“Uhh…” he trails off, scratching his head and knowing full well he barely made it through sophomore biology (and that was almost thirty years ago).
When Steve comes home thirty minutes later, he finds Robbie Skyping with Dustin in Indiana and he’s got his camera facing a white board while he talks the first-grader and her middle-aged dad through a very basic explanation of punnett squares and genetics.
“What’s going on?” he asks skeptically, dropping his backpack onto the counter.
“Uncle Dustin’s showing me why me and Moe aren’t related,” Robbie replies, not taking her eyes off the computer screen.
“No,” Dustin cuts in emphatically.
Steve looks at his husband for an explanation.
“She thinks she’s not related to Moe and Hazel because she doesn’t look like them,” Eddie tells him.
Steve’s eyebrows fly up as he looks back at their daughter.
“Robbie,” he says, “Where’s your head at? You and Moe have the exact same face with different hair.”
“Moe has brown eyes,” Robbie fires back.
“And Hazel has blue eyes just like you. So what? All three of you are basically identical. When you and Moe were little, you were so tall that people always told me how cute my twins are.”
yEARS later, Moe and Robbie do that tiktok trend where the camera switches back and forth *very* quickly between their faces to show how similar they look, and their friends all comment shit like ‘wow y’all TWINS twins’
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morganbritton132 · 1 year
Note
I remember a while ago Steve wasn’t letting go of hope for his Mom showing up because he said she’s always late. Does he hit a point after that where he starts to admit maybe she isn’t coming? How does Eddie handle it?
@mcneen asked: Was there ever any further discussion between Steve and Eddie when Steve’s Mom didn’t show up, and Steve was like “oh she’s going to be late, she’s always been late”? I love love this series and check for more updates every day, thank you so much for writing it!
I’m going to kill two birds with one stone here since these two are asking for similar things
He always knew that she wasn’t coming.
He has known it every time he’s extended an olive branch just to watch it wilt and rot, and he knows that his friends and family think that he’s in denial about it. He knows that they have worriedly whispered conversations about him, but they don’t get it.
Yeah, it would be less heartbreaking to just give up but it wouldn’t be easier.
The Buckley’s are amazing parents that still send care packages to their daughter and call her every day for a month leading up to her birthday. Wayne took in his nephew when he didn’t have to and stood in defense of him against an entire town. Joyce – Jesus, Joyce Byers went to hell and back for her son. Hopper, Claudia, Sue, Karen… they’re all amazing parents, and you know what?
His mom was amazing once too.
And he knows. He knows. He knows. He knows how untrue that statement really is. He’s been in therapy long enough to know that he had a bad childhood and his parents were neglectful, but he cannot rectify that with the little boy inside him that loves his mom to pieces.
In the same way that he will always be sixteen years old and scared of the dead girl in his pool, he will always be small, waiting by the door for a mother that always eventually came home. Though, he knows.
He knows that seasons change and old injuries never heal quite right, and it never really mattered if his mother came home because she was always leaving but… But she was never outright cruel.
His father was a mean man that demanded perfection and belittled anything less than that. He was a unhappy man that fostered an atmosphere so hostile that his only son barely dared to breathe in his presence, and his mom. Well, it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t know how to be a mother.
But she was there. Sometimes as the silent observer, sometimes disinterested, but always the one to say, “Enough.”
“Enough,” she said after Barb’s disappearance, after the phone call from the police, after the lecture that turned physical. She stood between them with her hand pressed against her father’s chest and said, “That’s enough. Steven, go to your room.”
“Enough,” she said after the final rejection letter, after the job at his dad’s company was rescinded, after he was told to get a job or get out. “Enough, James. What is all this yelling going to do? It will not get him into college.”
“Enough,” she said after Steve stood his ground and took back nothing when he told them that Eddie was not just a friend, that he loved him and for the first time ever, it felt like someone loved him back. After the fighting, and the yelling, and being kicked out, she finally uttered, “Enough.”
About insurance.
His father stripped him line by line of everything he has always known, but insurance was where his mother drew the line. They all new that he would never be able to afford his medication without it and, “God forbid, he have a seizure and get another kid killed, Jay.”
The last conversation Steve had with his mother was at his father’s funeral. He said she looked well given the circumstances and she said that he should really do something about all that gray hair.
So, no. He’s not expecting her to show up. He never really is, but he wants it. He wants it so bad and it all kinda comes crashing down around him one evening after Eddie casually mentions that Wayne called earlier, “He said you’re getting better at speaking on camera.”
“What?”
Eddie explains that Wayne caught Steve’s interview about his YouTube math tutorials going viral. Steve asks how a man living in Florida manages to watch a local news broadcast from Illinois, and Eddie says that he looked it up online. Steve asks, “Why would he do that?”
“Because he’s proud of you,” Eddie says simply.
Something just cracks and the next thing either of them knows, Steve is crying. It’s kinda funny how wide Eddie’s eyes go, but Steve can’t even laugh about it because he feels like he’s going to drown inside himself.
It takes time and a lot of coaxing for Steve to get to a point where he tell Eddie that he’s sad. He just doesn’t understand what he’s supposed to do to make her want to see him. He doesn’t know what he did that was so wrong that she can’t forgive him and why – “Why can’t she just love me?”
Eddie tells him firmly, “Stevie, baby. I want you to listen very carefully to me, okay? I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life, okay?”
Steve nods.
“You did nothing wrong,” He says, and Steve just – he can’t believe it. He can’t believe that because then there’s nothing he can do to fix it and he – “Tell me this, Steve. Tell me what Erica Sinclair – Lady Applejack herself. Tell me what she has to do to make you consider cutting contact with her? What’s the least she’d have to do? Think about it an give me an answer, sweetheart.”
Steve things about it and eventually settles on, “Open the Upside Down on purpose.”
“Have you even opened a portal to a hell dimension on purpose then, babe?”
“Ed-“
“No, I want an answer,” Eddie says. “Have you ever purposely ripped a hole in the space-time continuum to an alternate reality?”
“No.”
“You ever do something worse than that?”
“I- no? Eddie-“
“Then it sounds like the problem is with your mom and not you,” He answers. “It sounds like she needs to get over her own fucking issues, and I know. I know that fucking sucks, Steve, but you cannot spend the rest of your life blaming yourself for her unwillingness to grow as a person.”
Eddie wipes the tears from his face and kiss the tip of his nose, and Steve admits, “I’m still sad.”
“I know, baby,” Eddie tells him. “That’s okay.”
Steve doesn’t know how much time lingers between them in silence, just that he’s tired the way he always is after he cries a lot. He’s about to tell him that he’s going to go to bed when Eddie states, “Joyce still lives in Hawkins, right? I’m gonna call her and see if she’ll beat your mom up.”  
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kennahjune · 26 days
Text
Teen Dad AU
Part 6!!!
@cam-cat-writer @jackiemonroe5512 @finntheehumaneater @irregular-child @grimmfitzz @fantrash @bookworm0690 @fiddledeedee85 @hunterbow04 @strangeforest @just-a-tiny-void @jaimeweasley13 @thelittleclare @rebellatio-03 @sirsnacksalot @geekyfifi @sapphireoceansoc @salty-h0e @dragonmama76 @mentallyundone-blog @lingeringmirth @moomkin77 @netflixisacopingstrategymom @jaytriesstuff @goodolefashionedloverboi @hellfirebaby-86 @blu3stars @blackpanzy @strawberryyyenthusiast @lololol-1234 @thestarslittleking @silenzioperso @forest-fogg @bebopbabyy @lawrencebshaggoth @stevesbipanic @dauntlessdiva @live0rdive @y4r3luv @jonesn4coffee @sofadofax @sensationalsunburst @scarlet-malfoy @l393ndjean @asspirin-s @fandomz-brainrot @mugloversonly @virginlemontea @littlebluejane @paintsplatteredandimperfect @astrid-nomically-steddie @maferisa-7 @phantomrose17 @thoughtfulbreadpolice @fandomnerd103 @atemisiscursed @croatoan-like-its-hot @myownworstenemyyy
(Sorry to anyone who’s tags are messing up, I’ll try tagging you in the replies when posted)
.
The Universe had a strange way of making Steve Harrington hate Life.
Like waking up in a hospital after simply trying to pick up Louie.
Ugh.
Because it was never “simply” anything anymore, right? Now it was monsters and other dimensions and asshole blonds with pretty eyes who liked to beat him half to death.
Oh. And a bunch of mouthy middle schoolers.
“Dude, you up yet?”
“Give him a minute, Mike! He was literally half-dead not even yesterday!”
“Well if he keeps groaning like a zombie I’m gonna assume he’s become one!”
Steve found his voice, although crackly and rough from disuse, just to say “Shut the fuck up.”
“He’s alive!” One of them shouted instead.
Steve peeled his eyes open and immediately groaned at the harsh lights. Blinking against the stark white hospital walls, he turned his head to look at the kids piled in the chairs of the room.
Max and Lucas were squished together in one chair, Mike and Will taking the second. Baby Byers must’ve already been let out. Dustin was sat cross-legged at the foot of Steve’s hospital bed, that El girl right next to him. Steve felt like he was in the middle of an interrogation with how she stared him down.
Steve sat up, ignoring every bodily protest telling him to lay the fuck back down. Dustin grinned wide at Steve, and Steve gave him a very weak smile in return.
“So are you actually alive, now? Cause you still look half-dead,” Max teased, smirking at him. Steve rolled his eyes and flipped her off, snorting when she gave it right back.
“Yay he’s alive wooo!” Mike snarked sarcastically.
Steve huffed, but Mike reminded him of Nancy which then reminded him of how he got dragged into this shit when then reminded him of—
“Fucking shit,” he swore under his breath.
“Are you ok? Do we need to called the nurse?” Will asked tentatively. All the kids suddenly looked on edge at Steve’s perceived pain.
He shook his head quickly and then immediately winced. It felt like his brain was jumping around his skull. “No, no I’m fine. Just— Wheeler where’s your sister?”
Mike stared at him funny. “Dude there is no way you’re thinking of my sister after climbing out of your deathbed.”
“What? Of fucking course I am! She was watching Louie and I never got chance to pick him up or ask her about him—“
“Whoah hey— who’s Louie?” Lucas spoke up.
“He’s—“
“Oh!” Dustin perked up. “Is he the baby my mom’s watching? Little chubby thing that looks like a cute little raisin? He’s got your hair, dude!”
Steve visibly relaxed back into his pillows. “Oh my God. Ok. Ok.” It was fine. Louie was fine. Everything was fine—
“Oh the kid Nancy’s been watching?” Mike perked up. “He’s real cute.”
“Is he your little brother?” Will asked.
Steve was steadying his breathing still, so he shook his head and smiled weakly. “No. No he’s, uh— my son.”
El tilted her head. “You are his Papa?”
Steve looked at her, really took her in; her curly hair, her worn and a little too big button up, her curious head tilt, her big eyes. He smiled at her. “Yeah, sure.”
She smiled back at him, small and shy.
“You have a kid?” Lucas asked.
“Aren’t you like— 15?” Dustin accused.
“He’s like 18.” Max corrected. “He and Billy are in the same grade.”
“17, actually.” Steve informed. “But I’ll be 18 in July.”
“Who’s the mom?” Mike asked.
“Nobody you need to know,” Steve shot back. Mike huffed.
“Why was he at Mike’s?” Will asked. The kid was quiet, much like his older brother. Baby Byers only spoke up after talking to Mike, as if needing reassurance. A massive pang of guilt ran though Steve, remembering all the shit he’d said to Jonathan last year.
Steve cleared his throat. “Nancy was watching him for me for a bit cause I had work.”
Dustin perked up, grinning mischievously. “Where do you work?”
“Yeah, no. You’re not coming by to harass me.”
“Booooo!” Max shouted.
“Party pooper!” Lucas joined, sticking his tongue out. El grinned and stuck her tongue out, too.
It was then that the nurse walked in with Hopper and Mrs. Byers.
Thank God. Because it was seriously starting to feel like an interrogation.
.
Hopper stole his car.
He stole Steve’s car and refused to let him drive it.
Steve was discharged later the same day he woke up. They gave him some medicine, some papers, and sent him on his way.
But he couldn’t leave because Hopper stole his car.
And then forced Steve to sit in the passenger seat of his stolen car.
Steve had never sat in the passenger seat of his own car.
“Stop huffing and puffing.” Hopper grumbled.
“I’m not huffing and puffing.” Steve (didn’t) huffed.
“Then quit sulking.”
“It’s my own car,I’ll sulk if I want to.”
“You get beat half to death and suddenly gain an attitude.”
Steve smirked out the window. “You and I both know I’ve always had an attitude.”
Hopper made a gruff sound that could’ve been a laugh, probably thinking of every time he’d had to break up one of Steve’s parties or drive him home cause he’d been wandering around drunk off his ass.
Steve perked up when they skipped the turn to go the trailer park.
“Uh, Hop? Where we goin?”
“Relax, brat. Your kid’s still with the Hendersons.”
Oh yeah. Maybe he was more out of it then he thought. Steve relaxed back into the seat a bit more than before.
“Still don’t see why I couldn’t just drive myself,” he muttered, just to be a shit.
Hopper groaned.
.
When Hop pulled into the Henderson’s driveway Steve wasted no time in getting out. Hopper yelled from somewhere behind him about waiting for the car to stop next time. Steve payed him no mind and ran up the porch stairs to hastily knock on the door.
Mrs. Henderson opened up soon enough, a smile on her face and a hand on her hip.
“Steve, dear, hi!”
Steve smiled shakily down at the short women, pleased to see her but desperate to see Louie.
“Hi, Mrs. H. Is Louie here?”
“Of course, sweetie! He’s with Dusty and his friends, come say hi!” She left back into the house without another word. Steve followed after with Hopper.
Just as Mrs. Henderson claimed, Little Louie was in the living room with The Party. There was a light yellow knitted blanket spread on the floor where they all sat together, except Max and Will, who sat on the couch.
Louie was sat in Mike’s lap, Lucas right in front of them letting Louie play with his fingers. Dustin sat right next to Mike, pressed into his side and cooing down at Louie with a wide grin.
The moment Louie caught sight of his dad he let go of Lucas’ fingers and reached for Steve, bringing the attention of the Brat Brigade onto him.
Steve bent to grab Louie from Mike, his focus solely on his son being back in his arms. Louie babbled happily, his chubby baby hands making grabs for Steve’s hair and tugging lightly. Steve ignored the ache in his head in favor of smiling wide at the babbling baby.
“Hi sweetie, how you doin’ baby?”
Louie’s response was a gummy smile and one of those weird baby gurgle-trills. Steve’s grin only widened.
“Yeah I bet you’re having fun with the brats, huh?”
“Hey!” Dustin scoffed on the floor, pulling Steve’s attention back to the room.
Mike and Lucas were silently pouting, seemingly at the loss of the baby. Dustin looked downright offended at being referred to as a brat. Will and Max were kind of staring at Steve, but he ignored them for the most part outside of shooting them a small smile.
“Oh I’m sorry, did I interrupt your time with Louie?” Steve teased, chuckling at Lucas’ bottom lip sticking out. Mike made more of an effort to hide his pout but wasn’t very effective.
“Yeah, jerk. We were having a conversation.” Mike snapped, though there was no real venom in his tone.
Steve snorted, letting Louie pat at his face and ignoring the sting of the bruises. “I sincerely apologize for taking back my son from you heathens.”
“We’re not heathens!” Dustin protested.
“Yeah right! You kids would be the worst bad influences on my baby boy!”
Louie added his two-cents in the response of a squeal and particularly hard hit to the face, unfortunately right on a still healing cut on Steve’s cheekbone. Steve hissed under his breath.
“Alright—“ Mike suddenly appeared in front of Steve and took Louie. “—he’s ours again.”
Steve chuckled. He melted a little inside seeing Mike hold Louie so tenderly. He was so gentle with the baby, such a stark contrast to his usually loud and brash demeanor.
Dustin and Lucas were both up immediately to get the baby’s attention. Steve smiled as much as he could with the now slightly reopened cut, finally relaxing with seeing Louie.
“So when we’re you going to tell us you were a dad?” Max spoke up from the couch.
Steve glanced at her and placed a hand on his hip. “Who’s ‘we’? I met you like two days ago.”
Max rolled her eyes and brought her feet up to sit crisscross on the couch. “Well Billy hasn’t said anything about Louie so I assume you’re on the down low about being a dad.”
Not really, Steve thought. He just hasn’t brought Louie to school with him since Hargrove started. Mason and Gran had no problems helping out so that he could continue senior year without interruption.
But Steve didn’t tell the kids that, simply nodding and smiling.
.
Mrs. Henderson was reluctant to let Steve leave.
“I mean it, Steve. You have my number, you call me if you need anything at all.” She made him swear.
Dustin was even more reluctant, going as far as to cling to Steve’s sweater.
“You have to give us your address! Come on, man! We wanna see Little Louie!”
So Steve gave in and wrote down the address to the trailer, if only to get Dustin to stop whining. Mike grumbled about how they could’ve just asked Nancy.
Again, Hopper drove. Which absolutely irritated Steve but he wasn’t about to sit and argue with the Chief of police with his baby in the back seat.
But Hopper agreed that Steve could be back to driving himself in the next couple of days— which Steve immediately protested.
How was he meant to get to and from work if he couldn’t drive?
Apparently, Hopper took it upon himself to settle that.
“What do you mean I’m not going to work?”
Hopper grumbled and wiped a hand over his face. Steve might’ve thought he looked pissed, had he not known that’s just Hop’s face.
“I mean you’re mot going to work. I already called your boss, gave them a rundown— the government one with the wild dogs— and she said it’s fine.”
Steve threw his arms out. Was it dramatic? Yes. But Steve deserved to be dramatic after the time he’s had. “I need the money! I fucking live off of those tips, Hop!”
“I know that and I already talked about that, too. You’re still getting paid, don’t worry.” Steve tried to protest again but Hopper gave him this look that made his mouth snap shut. Steve shot his gaze to the floor and crossed his arms.
.
It was a weird 3 days of no work. Steve spent it at home in the trailer with baby Louie and— occasionally— Gran and the twins.
Eventually, it was time for him to go back.
Steve knocked on the Wheeler’s front door bright and early on Saturday, surprised when Mike opened the door instead of Nancy.
“Hey, Wheeler. Where your sister?”
“In the kitchen. Is that Louie?” Mike grabbed the car seat from Steve without waiting for an answer. Steve shrugged mentally and followed Mike into the living room with the diaper bag.
Color him surprised when he sees the rest of the kids sans El crowded around Little Louie, cooing and grinning while the baby thrives in the attention.
Steve smiled.
Yeah, alright. It was admittedly a very sweet sight.
Maybe everyone knowing about Louie isn’t too bad.
.
AGH I DID IT!! OMG ITS OUT
I’m so sorry this took so long LMAO
Fuck mental health, my PHYSICAL HEALTH has gone to absolute shit recently. And I’m also dividing my time between Stranger Things and ATLA atm and it’s taking 200% of my motivation lol
Next part should be longer in length and have more Steddie interactions. I’m finally making some progress 😭🙏
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artiststarme · 9 days
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Officer Phil Callahan wasn’t often seen in a positive light. Most people viewed him as immature, impulsive, condescending, and a poor excuse for a poor excuse of a police officer. However, no one could accuse him of being a bad brother. He prided himself on always being there for his little bro and his brother knew he could count on him too for anything. As such, Phil was the first person he went to after receiving the beating of all beatings.
So, when Phil opened his front door to see his baby bro leaning against the doorframe for support with his bruised face bearing more resemblance to a blueberry, he dropped everything to help him.
“Holy goddamn shit, Steve! What the hell happened to your face?!” He ushered Steve inside and settled him on the well-worn couch adorning his small living room.
Phil didn’t know what had happened to his brother and he didn’t know who had tried to pulverize his face but he did know whomever had committed this atrocity would pay. He didn’t care if he had to arrest Jonathan Byers again or face off against the powerful Hagan parents to cuff Tommy H in public, he was going to make someone suffer.
His rage only grew as he watched Steve dry heave and vomit for hours on end. Phil aspired to return the beating to the perpetrator that gave Steve the headache of all headaches and physical damage to boot. He took care of Steve through the night by waking him up every four hours, rubbing his back through the dry heaves, and giving him water to keep him hydrated. As soon as he seemed stable enough to be left alone though, Phil was badgering him for the name of the attacker.
He waited just long enough to hear, “Billy Hargrove, but don’t-“ before he was off.
Dressed in his Sheriff’s Deputy uniform with his gun on his hip, he set off to find the sack of shit that hurt his brother. Would this look bad in front of the townspeople? Definitely. Could it hurt his job and his position in the department? Most probably. But he would do what he had to do and probably beat the shit out of that dirtbag in revenge.
As expected, the Californian hippie delinquent was standing by his Camaro in front of the school with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. Phil pulled the patrol care right up to his bumper before storming up to him and shoving him against his own drivers side door. Billy’s cigarette dropped ashes against Phil’s forearm but the rage inside of him burned even more than the fluttering ash. The eyes of nearly the entire student body rested on him but he didn’t let it phase him.
“You roughed up Steve yesterday,” Phil growled.
“You’re crazy. Who the fuck-“
“You’re gonna shut up and listen, buttercup. If you even think about touching Steve again, you kinky shit, I will make your life a living hell. Stay away from my brother.”
“Whatever, man. Did Steve go running home to mommy-“
He didn’t even register his just flying until Billy’s head whipped to the side followed by a pain in his hand. Shit, he just hit a kid. A bitchy one, but a kid nonetheless. “I’m sorr-“
“Is that all you got? I guess you and Stevie-boy both hit like the pansies you are.” Billy sneered at him with blood coating his teeth.
This little prick. Phil wasn’t going to let some high school bully get away with this. First he tries to kill his brother and then he starts talking shit about the both of them? Nope, no siree. Phil pauses but a minute before pulling a pair of handcuffs from his belt and latching them around a struggling Hargove’s wrists. “Okay, you little shit. You’re under arrest for felony assault, attempted murder, and anything else I can throw at you. No school for you today, now get in my car.”
“Are you fucking serious?!” He yelled, bloody spittle spitting from his lips.
“Yep, just like that concussion you gave my brother. Now shut up and stop resisting before I have to shoot you.” He wouldn’t actually shoot this kid but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Phil knew the charges probably wouldn’t stick but he still felt lighter, relieved, that he had gotten at least a little bit of justice for Steve. And if the increasingly panicked murmurings in the backseat brought a smile to his face? Well, no one was any the wiser.
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harrywavycurly · 11 days
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I saw you opened up requests! Can I request for Eddie to go back to Hawkins and take us with him? Or at the very least him being sad and introspective and regretful about leaving us behind?
Hiii babes!! So I hope you enjoy this, it’s Eddie at least talking about his feelings and maybe there will be a part 4? Who knows 😂💖
-find part 1: here
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milf-harrington · 1 year
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inspired by @flashyysins
Two days after Hawkins was almost split open, Robin saw a woman pacing in the hospital waiting room.
There were plenty of other people as well, sitting or standing or walking the length of the room in a similar pattern, but there was something about the woman that Robin noticed. It wasn't just that she was beautiful, which she was- it's that there was something familiar about her.
She was in blue jeans and an old-school Hawkins High Letterman jacket, light brown hair twisted up in a claw clip. Robin had never met her before, she'd remember that at the very least, but still.
Something about the angle of her nose or the gentle waves of her hair felt like something Robin had seen before, something she'd be able to find in a crowded room or across a street.
But Robin had somewhere to be, so she shook off the odd feeling, and followed the familiar path to Steve's room.
---
"Hey Stevie."
Steve's smile was tired, but he was looking more lively than when he'd passed out in the waiting room the other day, so she'd take it.
"Robbie, you left me hanging yesterday."
She snorted and dropped into one of the chairs by his bed, swinging her legs over the arm rest and cradling the bag she'd brought with her in her lap. "You're the one who fell asleep during visiting hours."
He rolled his eyes, and she happily noted the colour returning to his skin. "You should be exempt from visiting hours, you're like...essential to my recovery or something."
She laughed to hide the way those words curled soft and warm around her heart, eyes stinging until she blinked it away. The dumbass had almost over-worked himself to the point of no recovery. "'Exempt?' Someone's been reading a dictionary- did one of your children leave theirs behind?"
"Oh fuck you-"
They were interrupted by a knock on the door, and Robin was startled to see the woman from the waiting room hovering behind a nurse.
"You have a new visitor Mr Harrington."
Even knee-deep in confused intrigue, Robin couldn't help but dramatically mouth Mr Harrington over her own shoulder, pleased at the face he pulled in retaliation.
And then the door shut, and Steve looked up to find the woman-from-the-waiting room standing at the end of the bed.
Robin saw his brain grind to a halt at the sight of her.
It was silent (well, as much as it could be in a hospital room, what with all the beeping and whirring) as they took each other in, and Robin slowly brought her knees in closer to her chest like it would shield her from the vague awkwardness chewing at her.
And then-
"Fucking hell, Eve." The woman breathed out, white knuckling the bar at the end of his bed.
At the same time, Steve's face scrunched up as he demanded: "What are you doing here?"
"What do you mean 'what am I doing here'? You're in hospital!"
"I thought you were in New York!"
"Yeah and then I got a call from Hawkins General that my little brother was dying in a hospital bed! Thank you for keeping me as your emergency contact, by the way."
"Well-" Steve spluttered and then crossed his arms over his chest, wincing at the pressure on his injuries. "Obviously."
Several things clicked into place like undone locks. Steve had almost been too comfortable about "feminine" topics for as long as she'd been an active member of his life- and even slightly before.
(He'd once run out of Scoops to buy her pads when she'd started her period in the middle of a shift. At the time she'd figured he was just trying really hard to beat the still a douche-bag allegations.)
Then there were the sweaters that he wouldn't confess to the origin of, the jokes he'd make about Robin "not being the only woman in his life" that she'd thought were about Nancy Wheeler, the vehement denial that the rom-com collection in the theatre room were his.
And, while Robin hated to enforce gender stereotypes, he'd always had the kind of mean girl cattiness that was usually only forged in teenaged girls and merely rubbed off on others.
Of course Steve Harrington had a sister.
Now Robin understood why she'd seemed so familiar in the waiting room.
"What happened to you?"
Simultaneously, Robin and Steve shifted uncomfortably, meeting each others eyes and coming up blank on both ends.
Steve's sister swallowed, jaw clenched and lip quivering as she look back and forth between them. She seemed suddenly fragile, like Steve after a nightmare, or right before he'd collapsed in the waiting room after carrying Eddie inside.
Steve cracked first. "Lou-"
"Don't fucking lie to me, Stephen. This is the third time you've ended up in hospital since your senior year."
Steve blinked, startled. "How did you-"
"I'm your sister." She seethed, and Robin could see flickers of Steve with an axe in his hand in the arch of her shoulders. "You might have told the hospital not to call but I still have friends in this town. If that Hargrove asshole wasn't already dead-"
"Lou-"
"Don't-"
"It was a serial killer." Robin blurted, drawing Steve's sisters' attention to her. "I don't now if you heard about it, but someone was going around killing teenagers. It started with Chrissy Cunningham- she was a cheerleader? kind of cute in a preppy sort of way, but, um- she was killed in our friends living room and then he sort of got blamed for it because, I mean, it was pretty sketchy but he didn't do it! I promise, Eddie didn't- anyway, there was this whole witch hunt, and two more people died which just sort of made it worse for Eddie and a group of us were trying to, like, clear his name, you know? Because we knew he didn't do it and we didn't want him to get killed next, but then one of our other friends - this girl, Max, she's a riot - she was being targeted by the real killer so we came up with this...really stupid plan to catch the killer but everything went sort of tits up and Eddie and Steve both got, well-" She waved her hands at the bandage around Steve's throat and the bruising around his wrists from the vines. "And Max, she broke her elbow and her knee when she fell, and I think Dustin twisted his ankle? So now Max and Eddie and Steve are all in hospital and Dustin has these crutches that he doesn't want to use but, I mean, Steve always makes him because it's Steve, and we don't really know if Eddie's okay yet but no one's come to tell us he's not so we're still hopeful-"
"Robin."
Robin shut her mouth, and took a deep breath through her nose. Steve's sister was staring at her in the startled sort of awe that Robin was used to seeing when she got going. She had the lungs of a trumpet player, it wasn't hard for her to talk until she forgot where she'd started.
"You fought a serial killer?" Steve's sister - Lou? - asked, and Robin hysterically felt like she should offer up her seat.
Steve, bless him, only nodded. Lou stared, lips pressed into a thin line and nostrils flared slightly.
And then, quite abruptly, she was straightening her back and stepping around the bed to hold out a hand to Robin. "Louisa Harrington."
Robin blinked, and shook her hand. "Robin Buckley."
Louisa nodded, like that made sense, and smiled the same cupids-bow smile as her brother. "The best friend- it's good to meet the other half of my brothers brain. Clearly the better half, considering you aren't the one in the hospital bed."
Steve made an offended noise, and Robin grinned.
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reineydraws · 1 year
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i have a soft spot for fics where billy sort of ends up adopting el and will alongside max. like, these are the kids that get dibs for rides in the camaro haha.
also im unfortunately not participating bc prev commitments but #harringrove for turkey is happening right now if yall want to donate to the earthquake relief funds for turkey & syria and get some art/fic back from harringrove fans! :) check out the tag if you're interested!!
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findafight · 8 months
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RE the posts about Nancy and Jon just kinda leaving the kids to their own devices; I find it very telling that in season four that despite Steve complaining a number of times about being the babysitter, none of the kids raise any objections to him being the babysitter, despite what it implies about them. It’s Nancy who reminds him “they aren’t babies anymore”.
I used to find that kind of funny, the idea that they might kind of like being babied a bit by Steve (for whom indulging younger kids is still a novelty). And it’s fascinating to me how Mike in particular, despite regarding Steve with utter disdain, feels entitled to Steve’s time and attention. Even *months* after Nancy has broken up with him, and Mike could just follow her lead and not have anything more to do with him, *Mike’s* the one ringing the service bell until Robin shouts for Steve.
The kids are maybe a little bit clingier than we or the characters give them credit for, eh?
(This reading gets really interesting when you consider that out of all the teens/adults, Steve’s probably worked/fought alongside them the most and knows full well what they’re capable of.)
I think Steve being someone the younger teens look up to as both a friend and as a leader is probably key. The age difference between them is enough that it makes a difference in how they look up to him and small enough that they'll be functional equals given a few years, but that they'll still defer to him. They like Steve! I think they like knowing that there's someone older willing to call some of the shots and take the heat y'know? Even if they also want to contribute to the decisions it's nice for them to know he has their backs.
Tbh I think Mike and Steve butt heads for the bit. Like they biker and groan about each other but Steve still thinks of Mike as maybe kind of annoying (as are. All fourteen year olds 🫡) one of his (mildly ungrateful) little friends. Of course it would be Mike ringing the bell repeatedly, he and Mike show friendly affection by being obnoxious motherfuckers to each other.
Sooo correct that what makes it different than Nancy and Jon, was that even though they've all gone through Upside Down stuff, Nancy and Jon went through it together, while Steve went through it, starting in S2, with the young teens. They see him and even though they stop Billy from killing him he saves them (specifically Mike!!) In the tunnels. It sort of establishes Steve as someone they KNOW is going to take charge to help them. They can and have! Mike knows he can rely on Nancy, probably, but he doesn't have the same...proof? I guess? That he does of Steve.
I think it's natural for them, even as they get older, to defer to Steve. He's sort of invincible to them, and they trust him. Does this make sense? They can call their own shots but I think maybe they'll also go "right, Steve?" Even if just in their brains.
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