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"I'm gone for Thanksgiving, but I'll be here for Christmas," Eddie said over the phone as Steve sat in the kitchen that afternoon. The phone nestled between his shoulder and ear while he waited for his toast to pop up in the toaster. El was in her bedroom on the radio with Mike, and Hopper was still at work, so the cabin was quiet. "It's a family tradition. We go down to the cousins in Louisville, pick 'em up, and then head to West Virginia. We do it every Thanksgiving, have for as long as I've been with Wayne."
Steve sighed down the phone line, like a puppy whining at the door for his owner. He felt like an asshole for missing Eddie already. Steve was happy his boyfriend had traditions he enjoyed. He was! The man had every right to have good family traditions with Wayne. "I'm just going to miss you."
"I'm gonna miss you, too, sweetheart, but it's only a few days. We've gone longer between seeing each other when we're both in town. And it's not like you'll be alone this year. Isn't this your second Thanksgiving with the Hoppers?" Eddie asked.
"Yeah, but it's not the same. Last year, I was angry at Hopper and felt trapped in the cabin. El was the only good thing in my life," Steve waved his hands around, even though Eddie couldn't see them.
"Right, right," Eddie said, sounding frustrated or upset to Steve's ear, not that he could fathom why.
"You'll be around for Christmas?" Steve tried to keep the whiny tone out of his voice. It wasn't becoming to beg his boyfriend for scraps of holiday time together.
"For Christmas, Steve. I'll be there for Christmas. Hell, by the end of Winter Break, you'll probably be annoyed and done with me."
Steve smothered an unearthly chitter of delight, hiding it with a cough before he volleyed, "I'm annoyed by you every day. There'll be no new change there."
Eddie laughed flatly. "Maybe it's time to start a new tradition, Harrington. Maybe it's time to start one that you look forward to yourself."
"I guess," Steve sighed again before changing the subject.
Since Wednesday was the last day of school for the week, Steve picked up Robin, El, and Dustin. He expected a lot more happy smiles since they had five days off, but it looked like he was wrong.
"This is bullshit," Dustin said as he threw first his bag and then himself into the car before he slammed the door closed.
"Hey, come on, man. Don't slam the door," Steve shouted.
"Bullshit," El reiterated, climbing in the other side. At least she didn't slam the door. Small mercies.
"Okay, what's up with you guys?" Robin said as she slid into the front seat. She immediately started fiddling with the radio.
"Hey, I was listening to that," Steve said. What the hell was up with everyone today?
"Oh yeah? Name the song." Robin dared him.
"Yeah, Steve, name the song." El backed her up from the back seat.
"Well, I don't know now. You guys are being weird, and I forgot," Steve said.
"Liar," Robin sing-songed with a grin. "Doesn't matter anyway. I've got dibs on the radio because I've got a new tape I'm listening to."
"The new Tom Petty?" Steve asked, mostly because he wanted it himself, and if Robin had it, he could borrow it and make a copy.
"No, stop, boo," Robin said. "No, Jonathan lent me his Oingo Boingo."
Steve recognized the cover, "Skip the first song on Side A." He'd heard it once with Byers and thought the song was pretty funny, but there was no way he was listening to it with Dustin and El in the car.
Robin looked at the tracklist on the back of the tape and said, "Oh yeah, good idea."
The two assholes in the backseat didn't seem to hear Robin and Steve's conversation. Instead, they were arguing about whatever was "bullshit" in their lives.
"All right, what happened?" Steve said, knowing that he would only hear the end of their grumbling bad moods if he asked.
"We have homework over Thanksgiving break," Dustin said.
"Yes, it is a break! We should have no homework. That is what a break means." El joined in Dustin's whining with enthusiasm.
Steve couldn't believe these two brainiacs were complaining about homework. Steve watched Dustin do extra studying for fun because he was on a "curiosity voyage."
"High School sucks," Dustin continued. "They would never do this to us in Middle School."
"Get used to it," Robin said, twisting around in her seat to stare them down and fanning the flames of their ire. "It only gets worse."
"I thought you loved High School. I thought you were so happy to hang out with Eddie and your Hellfire friends." Teasing Dustin was always the best way to get his mind off whatever topic he'd decided to fixate on.
"Don't even pretend they're not your friends, Steve," Dustin said.
"Yes, Steve, don't pretend," El said, and Steve barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes.
"I'm not pretending. I love those guys and miss playing with Hellfire. That doesn't mean I can't call out a little hero worship when I see it," Steve said.
"It's not hero worship if Eddie is objectively the coolest person in Hawkins," Dustin said.
"Yeah," Robin agreed, in a much different tone from El's, "Eddie's objectively the coolest." She could barely keep the snicker out of her voice.
"I'll let him know you think that," Steve said to Dustin, looking at him in the rearview mirror, "the next time we hang out."
"What? No," Dustin backtracked, "Don't say anything, Steve. That's not fair. Don't say anything like—"
Steve laughed from the front seat and pulled out of the parking lot.
Hopper had been dead set on cooking the turkey for Thanksgiving, so Steve let him do his own thing while he fixed all the sides.
Hopper didn't know how to contain his mess when cooking and took over the whole kitchen during his turkey-prepping activities. Without any counter space, Steve had El help him at the dining room table, chopping and prepping every ingredient for every dish, including dessert.
Steve had spent his time driving to and from work the previous week thinking about how he wanted to approach the dinner. He hadn't lied to Eddie during their conversation over the phone earlier that month. Last year, he'd been in the wrong headspace to help with dinner. He had only begun to feel less trapped, less at the mercy of Hopper and of his shitty fate, by Christmas.
He wanted to make something simple this year because it was only the three of them. Still, thinking over that conversation and what Eddie said about creating traditions, he used the few good memories of Thanksgiving he had growing up to inspire the menu. He wanted some of the traditional sides he remembered from when his parents would take him to the Harrington family Thanksgiving in Rhode Island. He decided on his two favorites: green bean casserole and stuffing.
When he asked El what she wanted, she mentioned the scalloped potatoes from last year's Christmas party at the Byers'. El insisted scalloped potatoes were the potatoes for fancy holidays, and she had decided Thanksgiving counted as a fancy holiday.
"I don't know if keeping the TV on all day to watch the parade or football counts as fancy," Steve countered.
"We are making a feast. We are cooking a whole bird. It is fancy," El announced.
Despite a crushing lack of Eddie, Thursday was the best Thanksgiving Steve had ever had. Cooking kept him busy most of the morning while El and Hopper watched the parade. Football kept him busy in the evening through his turkey-induced coma. Hopper knew how to smoke an outstanding turkey because he might not be a chef, but he was a great grill master.
It felt like midnight outside. The dark outside the window was inky and total, even though it was probably only ten as Steve and El were brushing their teeth in the bathroom. Steve wasn't actively listening to anything, but his sensitive ears practically perked when the sounds outside muted softly in a way that Steve, a lifelong resident of Indiana, was very familiar with. He peeked out the window and saw only his reflection peering back at him.
"I'm going to turn off the light for just a second, okay?" he asked with a grin around his toothbrush. El grunted her approval with her head cocked to one side in an unspoken question. When he turned off the light, he could faintly see the glow of a light layer of snow on the ground under a fat, lopsided moon.
"Look, it's the first snow of the year," he said as he pointed out the window. El had to stand on her tiptoes to see out of the windowsill. He thought about last year when she wouldn't have been able to see out the window without climbing on the toilet. He couldn't believe she'd grown so much in one year.
"Snow," El said with quiet reverence. It blanketed them, warm and cozy in the cabin.
They both liked it for different reasons. His earliest and still some of his best memories with El were hanging out with her in the cabin last winter, hiding from the world, and getting a handle on his new powers. He associated it with his new family and finally belonging somewhere. El, he knew, felt it meant freedom and family. She escaped into a snowy Hawkins winter from the lab and the Upside Down. That was when Hopper found her and kept her safe. The following winter, Steve became her brother.
The only thing he was missing was Eddie. And Robin. He wanted all the people he loved at the table with him, even if he couldn't have it for Thanksgiving.
That night, everyone else in the cabin was asleep. Steve could hear Hopper snoring in his room and El's soft, even breaths from her own. He knew he shouldn't be able to hear them. Not that clearly. He shouldn't know their heartbeats, how they kept a regular, syncopated time together.
Steve was restless. He wanted Eddie; he wanted someone to help him forget, for just a moment, that something was wrong with him. The rest of the Party was done with the Upside Down, but it wasn't done with him. It would never be done with him.
Everyone, even Eddie, seemed to forget all about the effects the Gate had on Steve once everything had calmed down and the Russian Gate was closed for good. He felt it calling out to him in the dark. A song he could hear since last year in the tunnels, even if he didn't know what it was until the Russians reopened the Gate.
He wasn't getting any sleep now. He sat up and moved to his private entrance. He should have grabbed a hat, socks, shoes, and a jacket - all the layers he'd need against the late November snowy cold - but he didn't. He knew the cold wasn't going to hurt him. He stepped out, barefoot, onto the small step and into the woods on the side of the cabin.
The moon would be full in a few days, but right now, it reflected brightly on the dusting of white snow that had laid down earlier that evening. Steve could feel the crunch of the small crystals under his feet and feel the bite of the cold against his bare neck and arms. The cold didn't bother him, hurt, or make his skin shrivel and his back tighten up like it would have even last November. The cold should have made smelling anything but the crisp, clean night air impossible. Instead, Steve knew a fox had whisper-walked around the cabin only moments before he stepped outside. He could smell the vole it was hunting. The smell reminded him of Tommy's hamster, Charlie, who died when they were eleven.
Whatever this was was different from his powers and El's powers. Those were weird but ultimately human. This was decidedly inhuman, and Steve knew it was from the Upside Down. The Gate opening this summer had ruined him, and he had no idea how far its rot went.
The week after Thanksgiving, when the leftovers had all been eaten, everyone was back in town after their family visits, and school was back in session, Steve announced an extended family dinner at the cabin.
"It's gonna be a new tradition," Steve told Eddie the night Eddie returned from his family traditions. They lay beside each other in Steve's bed, Eddie resting in Steve's arms with his head on Steve's chest.
It didn't take long after they began dating and Eddie was allowed at the cabin for them to figure out a routine. They had sex at Eddie's place but couldn't sleep there because Wayne didn't know Eddie was a "giant homosexual" - his words. Despite being circumspect about Steve spending the night, having privacy in the trailer was easy because Wayne was rarely home. Privacy didn't exist in the cabin, even in his room, since his home was always crowded. Here, though, no one there cared if Eddie spent the night as long as he didn't use all the hot water in the morning.
"Alright, darling. I can sit through a family dinner for you," Eddie agreed.
Steve kissed his cheek. "Oh, it's such a hardship to have me cook dinner for you and study with friends. Whatever will you do?"
"Shut up, asshole."
"Make me," Steve dared him. Even if they couldn't do anything here, it didn't mean he didn't want to.
"Oh, I will. Meet me at my place tonight. Wayne's back on his normal shift, and my time is my own."
Monday arrived, and with it, Steve's planned "extended" family dinner. Steve was in the kitchen when Eddie, Robin, and El arrived. Eddie drove them home that day so Steve could do the grocery shopping.
"Hey honey, I'm home," Eddie called out, deepening his voice so that it sounded like Ward Cleaver in the reruns of Leave it to Beaver that played on Nick at Night.
Hopper had caved and ordered cable a week into his recovery after Starcourt. Now, El was obsessed with Nick at Night, especially the oldest, most annoying shows, like Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best.
Steve pitched his voice up as if he were June Cleaver and said, "Oh, Ward, Let me grab your jacket from you." He minced over on his tiptoes as if he were walking in heels, taking Eddie's battle vest and leather jacket and placing them on the hook by the door.
El stuck her finger in her mouth and mimed puking. "Gross," she said. "Get a room."
Robin snickered behind her hand but held out her jacket for Steve to take as well.
He kept balancing on his tiptoes as he placed Robin's jacket on the hook by the door and then walked back to the kitchen, swishing his hips like he was wearing a skirt.
Eddie and Robin both whistled at him before they broke down in laughter.
It was fun to pretend he was a good little homemaker when he knew no one was gonna give him shit for it. He dropped his heels to the floor and said in his normal voice, "I hope you guys don't mind. I was just wrapping up a late lunch." He gestured to the sink of dirty dishes.
"Snacks," El demanded as she slammed her book bag onto the chair at the table. "I need after-school snacks."
"You can get them for yourself." She was learning to be a demanding brat from Mike and Dustin and excelling at her lessons.
She rifled through the cabinets, opening a bag of chips and stuffing them in her mouth. "Brownies?" she asked.
"No, I'm not making brownies from scratch right now," Steve laughed. "That would take forever."
All three of them turned as one and batted their big, sad eyes at him. Eddie, he expected, but Robin was a traitor.
He pointed to Robin and said, "You haven't even had my brownies."
"I like the whole camp June Cleaver thing you've got going, and I want to continue the experience. You got a ruffly apron or something back there?"
"Ha ha," Steve said, giving in to their demands. He poured through the cabinets to see if they actually had the stuff to make brownies.
"Camp?" El asked Robin as she dragged out one of her folders. "Like in tents?"
"Uh," Robin said, suddenly aware that she had said something she shouldn't have said around El. He got it. Steve had no idea how to explain camp without talking about being queer or potentially outing Robin. He had only recently begun to understand camp himself, and that was with Eddie and Robin's patience and desire to induct him into the secret languages of queers like them.
Eddie took over and said, "The word can mean multiple things, but right now, the way Robin was using it means being extra silly with gender stereotypes. Steve is acting like a 1950s housewife, even though he's also a strong, masculine man." Eddie flexed his arms like he was striking a strongman pose.
Robin mouthed "masculine" at Steve before she mimed gagging herself behind Eddie's back.
"Oh," El said. "Like Queen in that one music video? Where he's vacuuming in heels and a mustache?"
"Yeah, that one." Steve agreed. Now that the cabin had cable, MTV had overtaken local sports as her preferred afternoon TV viewing.
"And that's funny?" She asked.
"It's extra funny," Robin said, "because he's actually going to make us brownies." She pointed to Steve, who gathered all the ingredients he'd need from the kitchen cabinets.
"Hey," Steve said from his place in the kitchen. "Do you want to tease me, or do you want brownies?"
Robin mimed zipping her lips.
Eddie added with a flourish Steve knew he used as an NPC, "Oh, benevolent overlord of the kitchen, we do desire thou magnificent brownies."
"All right then, let me get this in the oven. You guys start your homework."
The brownies cooled while the high school students studied. Steve looked at the courses for his potential first semester at Robert Dale Owen Junior College in Bloomington. Part of him wanted to dive right in with a full course load, and part of him understood working full-time and going to school full-time would destroy any semblance of free time he had. That would be fine if Steve knew what he wanted to do and was sure college was the best route, but he wasn't sure of anything right now. He had a hard time imagining his future at all, with the Upside Down lurking inside him.
They all took a break for Jeopardy before Steve cleaned up his paperwork and started prepping for dinner.
Eddie, ever happy for an excuse to not study, sauntered into the kitchen and leaned over Steve's shoulder as Steve started to soften some onions in the pan.
"What's for dinner, sweetheart?" he said, wrapping his hands around Steve's waist.
Steve leaned back into Eddie's solid warmth behind him. "Chicken pot pie," he said, then whispered, "Don't tell El, but there's going to be extra vegetables."
"You and your mission to get your little family to eat their vegetables," Eddie scoffed.
"Oh, like you're not included in that now," Steve said with a laugh.
Eddie blinked at Steve a few times and was about to say something before Robin interrupted him. "Hey, Eddie, get back here," Robin waved him back to the table. "Stop canoodling with your boyfriend; help me with my language flashcards."
"You're already getting an A in Senior Honors French, Robin," Eddie complained. He grabbed the knife from Steve and pushed him out of the way. "And I'm chopping onions."
"I'm going to maintain that A," Robin rejoined.
Steve let Eddie "help" in the kitchen, showing him how to dice the onion instead of smashing it haphazardly.
"Like this?" Eddie said, again with a flourish and turning to Steve. It was a mistake. A small mistake, but a mistake with a knife was always serious. He missed the onion, and the blade cut into his fingertip. "Ow, shit." He said, immediately sucking on his finger.
Steve couldn't breathe; he needed to not breathe. He could smell the blood, the metallic notes and the rich base note of human warmth, over the onion on the cutting board. He started salivating like he had pulled a pie out of the oven.
"Shit, Steve, it's not that bad," Eddie said, looking back and forth between Steve and his finger. "But you look pale. You okay, darling?"
Steve couldn't pull his gaze away from Eddie's finger.
"I-," Steve began but couldn't finish. The chittering felt like it would burst from this throat and he couldn't let people know it was still there, still part of him.
"Jesus." Robin pushed Eddie out of the kitchen. "You know where they keep the band-aids. Get yourself cleaned up." Then she turned to Steve. "You can hit monsters with a bat, but you can't take your boyfriend getting a little cut." Her eyes widened, and she glanced at El, who was studiously ignoring their drama.
Eddie disappeared into the bathroom, and the scent of his blood faded.
Steve swallowed twice, and when he was sure he wouldn't make any weird noises, he said, "She's fine. You know she's fine."
"I know, I know," Robin said, leaning her forehead against Steve's shoulder and breathing deeply to calm down. "But it's a bad habit to have, just to say it out loud without thinking."
Eddie came out of the bathroom waving his bandaged finger around. "We know why Steve is the cook in the family." He returned to studying alongside Robin and El as Steve finished cooking the pot pie. He made the roux, quickly added the already sautéed vegetables and chicken, and tasted them for seasoning before he declared everything good enough to bake.
Hopper came home sometime around 5:30. He wasn't on light duty anymore, which meant he was working full-time again. Still, he wasn't exactly back to his old definition of full-time - full-time plus overtime every night - either. That meant, unlike last year, Hopper was home on time daily. It made planning meals for his family more manageable, but Steve could see it wearing Hopper down. The man did not delegate well, and the rest of Hawkins's PD was exactly how Eddie described them - incompetent dumbasses.
Steve served dinner at six, just as Hopper finished his shower and everyone else put their homework away.
"I only wasted a half hour working on a Hellfire campaign instead of my homework," Eddie said, laughing at himself.
"Fifteen of those minutes were spent helping me with my French," Robin admonished him.
"Technically, I'm in French Two, so you were helping me," he said. "Take that, Buckley."
"What about you, Steve?" Hopper asked.
"I'm not sure if I should take a full course load to start an AA degree or just the EMT certification class they offer in the spring semester," Steve answered. "I've still got some time to think. I have to decide before January third."
"You'll figure it out." Hopper hummed before he tucked into his dinner.
"Jesus, Steve, how did I not know you cook this well?" Robin said, with a full mouth.
"It's just a pot pie," Steve said, feeling decidedly uncomfortable with the praise. He still did about his cooking, even when he knew he was good. It was weird for a dude to care as much as he did. As much as he'd been unlearning that sense of embarrassment for over a year now, whenever someone new was surprised by his talents, it reared its ugly head again.
"Steve is a very good cook," El bragged.
"Yeah, my Stevie is just a great homemaker all around," Eddie said. The sardonic praise made Steve blush. It was different than Robin's praise. Which just left him familiarly uncomfortable. He wasn't sure why Eddie making him a little embarrassed and uncomfortable made him squirm. It was like Eddie was giving him a hickey, but metaphorically.
Eddie noticed Steve's discomfort and squeezed his hand on top of the dinner table, checking in with him briefly. Steve smiled back at him, trying to reassure him everything was okay. Steve didn't need to talk about that feeling at the dinner table with his family.
Steve looked down at their entwined hands and smiled. He flipped his hand over so their fingers could intertwine and squeezed back. He remembered Robin's brief moment of panic earlier that afternoon. Most of the world wasn't safe, but this cabin was safe. His family was safe. Steve and Eddie could be who they were here without fear of repercussions.
He was well aware that as kind, thoughtful, and heroic as the rest of the Party was, Steve and Eddie's relationship could still be a bridge too far. Even if they accepted them in theory, could they accept them holding hands at the dinner table or kissing each other while Steve sautéed onions? Steve wanted to think they would, but he couldn't be sure. Nor could Eddie. So they continued to be circumspect everywhere but here.
Robin looked at the hands and said, "Oh," before she turned back to her plate of food and took another bite.
He kicked at her foot with one side of his, checking in to make sure she was okay.
She looked up at him, and he realized she had tears running down her cheeks.
Eddie learned around Steve to ask, "Robin?"
His simple question unleashed a choked-off sob. Once that small noise escaped, Robin couldn't hold back and started shaking and crying at the table. If she had been silently weeping before, this was loud bawling.
Steve glanced around the table. El was concerned. Hopper was being Hopper about it. He looked constipated whenever people were feeling strong emotions. That didn't mean he didn't want to help; he didn't know how to help Robin, but Steve did.
Steve grabbed her arm and pulled her to him in a hug. She sagged against him. "Hey, what's wrong?" he asked. "Do you need to go to my bedroom? Have a moment?"
"They don't care," she said around her tears. "No one cares."
"What does that-?"
On his other side, Eddie said, "Oh."
"You call him your boyfriend, you talk to each other, you kiss, you squeeze hands," she said, "here at home. With your family."
"Oh," Steve said as he had the same realization as Eddie.
"I never-" she began and then coughed, choking on the tears as her face flamed red. "I just didn't expect-"
"It is okay," El said. "We love Steve and Eddie."
Hopper grumbled something like, "Yeah, the kids are okay, I guess."
Robin straightened her shoulders, but her gaze was firmly on what was left of her dinner as she said, "I'm a lesbian."
"Robin," Steve breathed out in sympathy and squeezed her again.
"I know what that means," El said with pride only lightly tempered by her concern for Robin. "That means you like girls. And that you are more like Eddie than like Steve, but you are all more alike than different," she said.
"When did she get the pink triangle conversation?" Eddie asked, bewildered at El's descriptions.
"When we started dating, I needed to make sure she didn't out us accidentally," Steve said.
"I would not do that now," she said, "but I might have before by accident. It was a good lesson," El said. "Steve is a good teacher."
"Uh," Hopper said, catching up with the conversation. "Thank you for sharing that with us."
"Yeah, Robin," Steve said. "That was really brave." He didn't know why she had said it out loud; there was no reason for her to do it, but she looked happy, even if she was crying.
"I just never expected I'd have a place like this in Hawkins," she said.
The cabin was the one place where he could be Eddie's boyfriend without anybody giving them shit; as frustrating as it was to hide their relationship from the rest of the world, Robin didn't even have that.
Eddie reached around from Steve to rub Robin's back. "I get it, Buckley," he said. "This is some magical Fairy Wonderland in the middle of Hawkins' Forest."
"With King Steve Harrington of all people." She laughed. "King of the fairies."
"Hey," he said.
"No one was surprised more than me about that," Eddie laughed.
"Hey," Steve said, even louder this time. "Let's lay off the King Steve stuff. That's all in the past."
Eddie patted his head. "We know you've grown so much," he said.
"We're so proud of you," Robin joined in on the joke.
Steve rolled his eyes. He needed something that could calm Robin down without them poking at Steve's tender spots. The tray of brownies he'd saved for dessert called out to him from the kitchen. "Would brownies help?" he asked.
"Yes, yes!" El said from across the table.
Eddie drove Robin home that night once she had calmed down, and after, she insisted on doing the dishes as penance for causing dinner to get weird. El joined her at the sink; Steve thought more out of an attempt to cheer Robin up than because it was her turn to help with dishes. El was in her bedroom, on the walkie with Max, and Hopper was in the living room with Steve with the TV on in the background.
"You did good," Hopper said.
"I don't think I did anything," Steve said.
"You made this place safe for her. That's a lot." Hopper insisted.
Steve sighed. "I guess. I just- I'm not sure if it's enough."
"Of course, it's not enough," Hopper said. "You don't stop here. You start here. One safe cabin in the woods. Then maybe a trailer and a cabin. You add a house. You start a network. You find other cities. You find other people." Hopper clapped him on the back. "You'll do it because you want it. You want it for yourself and for others. That's the kind of man you are, Harrington."
Steve thought about walking outside in the snow, unbothered by the ice and snow last week. Was he that guy? Was the the man Hopper thought he was? Or was something more dangerous lurking inside him and only kept at bay because there were no more Gates?
"You create family and safety wherever you go, Harrington. Don't forget that." Hopper stood up and stretched. His back popped twice. "Alright, that's my sign to go to bed. Turn off the TV by the time Carson's over, okay?"
"Yeah, sure," Steve said. Hopper turned off the lights as he left the main room. Steve was left in the dark with the flickering light of the TV in front of him.