u die i die

But, this was different. Or, maybe it was entirely unrelated; yet it only seemed to happen after he'd left Dustin alone with his grandpa Matthew for a few minutes- aaaaand Dustin was crying, okay something was actually very wrong.

"Hey, hey - talk to me, please. What's going on?" Steve asked, shifting as he tried to unbuckle, so he could directly look at Dustin, who was wiping at his face.

"Your grandpa is really attractive," Dustin got out between sniffles.

"Okay," Steve started slowly, searching his face. "You're having a stroke or something. I'm going to carry you back inside and call 911." Steve said, going for the door, but Dustin grabbed his arm, shaking his head repeatedly.

"No- Steve, I'm...fuck, Steve. Steve, I'm in love with you." Dustin blurted out, tear streaks still red on his face. He was such an ugly crier, Steve hated seeing him like this. The fear in his eyes, the uncertainly there, how he held himself smaller in that moment.

"I... don't follow? At all?" Steve whispered, looking down at where Dustin's hand was clenched into his sleeve. "Are you sure you're not having a stroke?"

"Yes," Dustin looked mildly irritated, even covered in snot and saline. "I just...I was talking to your grandpa, and he was telling me about his time in the war. He had a best friend, you know... He didn't make it."

Steve had heard that before, the guy was named Steven. He'd grown up with his grandpa, they both enlisted together, and Steven saved his grandpa's life by sacrificing himself. It was a scar left on the family, and his grandfather had supposedly been a very outgoing person before the war - though Steve had only known him as a quiet old man.

"What does that have to do with..." Steve didn't want to say the words. Dustin wasn't in love with him, not really. Right? No, of course not.

Why did that disappoint him?

"I was thinking, oh, he's attractive for an old guy. Full head of hair, clearly genetic, very distinguished looking. I thought about you being his age, and I was just... His friend, who clearly loved him, he never got to see Matt as an old man. Steve, I want to see you everyday. Forever. I want to see you as a hot grandpa." Dustin finished, voice shaking. The car felt like their entire world in that minute, and the colors outside the windows blurred together, and not just because Steve refused to wear his glasses.

"You're going to be an ugly old man," Steve told him, and Dustin's brows scrunched together in a way that made him look a bit like a disgruntled carp. "... I'd be glad to have you prove me wrong."

Steve watched the wheels and cogs turn in Dustin's mind, before a slow smile spread across his face. "You'll have to stick around to find out."

"Guess so," Steve answered him, holding eye contact until he felt It. The spark. The electricity. Dustin leaned in a bit, and Steve did the same, until they accidentally bumped noses. It hurt, but Dustin pushed forward and kissed him properly, nose ache and all. It was awkward doing it sideways in his truck, but it was perfect none the less.

"Don't ever tell anyone we got together because I said your grandpa was sexy." Dustin breathed out against his lips, and Steve pulled away, glaring accusatorially at him.

"Sexy?"

"Because he looks like you! Is that so wrong?!"

(For legal purposes this post is a joke. All ships are valid, please don't come for me I'm just having fun.)

#1. Dusteve - epic friends to lovers, had a whole breakup/makeup arc in the eleventh hour, made a suicide pact and then rode off into the sunset together. Canonically extremely weird and jealous about each other but also very sweet and wholesome. Came out of nowhere to consume my attention in the final season and I'm still here hyperfixating six months later. Everybody else needs to get on their level. 100/10

#2. S teddie - very Basic of me so feel free to judge but this is my guilty pleasure "two attractive white guys standing next to each other" ship. Very little canon basis other than some vague flirting and a lot of the fanon interpretations are annoying but when done right it compels me. it's fun. It's hot. There's not really much more to it. 7/10

#3. S tommy - I consider this semi-canon after reading thay the actor played tommy as being in love with steve and after my rewatch I can see it. Tommy isn't a big enough character for me to get majorly invested but it's fun to think about the hooking up pre-canon. Sad gay pining for your oblivious best friend is always a winner. 6/10

#4. H arringrove - Listen. I see the appeal, okay? There's definitely tension. Billy rolling into town and immediately deciding to make steve's life hell for no reason is like pulling pigtails taken to its homicidally violent extreme. Unfortunately since billy is Like That I can't ever see it being consensual so I can only really buy it as an extremely dark ship that just isn't my bag most of the time. Seeing fluffy headcanons for them makes me feel like I'm on another planet, but to each their own. 3/10

To make things worse, there’s now 16-year-old Dustin who has to decide if he’ll ever tell Wayne the truth about what happened and that his nephew’s body likely got blown up and sent into oblivion.

in honor of pride month, just sharing my thoughts on the hawkins high basketball team :)

They spend the morning in Indianapolis and then drive around back country roads stopping at fruit stands and yard sales and old forgotten cemeteries and abandoned siloes in soybean fields and wherever else just because they can and have nowhere else to be. They alternate between listening to the radio and listening to the quiet rumble of Steve's truck. They talk quietly of old hurts and unresolved grief, of the Upside Down and middle school bullies, of what they used to think was important and what they value now instead.

Steve pulls them over at a state park in the afternoon, the summer sun still high in the sky. They have hours before the long June evening begins to draw twilight across the sky. It's hot and humid, the air utterly still, thick with moisture and the loud cry of insects, and they find a small deep pond fed by a creek whose water is bracing and frigid and there's no choice not to strip naked and leap in, shrieking as the water freezes the blood in their veins. They wrestle like they're boys again, because in many ways, they still are, laughing and pushing one another into the water, chasing each other around the edge of the pool and not giving a damn about what they look like because no one is there to see. Something settles in Steve after that, like the final vestiges of pain over their desperate fight in basement of the Hawkins Lab have finally healed.

Afterward, they lay on the grass to look up at the deep blue impossibly wide Indiana sky. They let the sun dry their bodies and when Steve looks over at Dustin his skin is glowing pink and golden and bronzed and somehow or other, his friend has become a young man. The muscles of his arms are supple, the planes of his chest and stomach more defined. It's not that he's grown taller or broader necessarily, but more that he's grown into himself somehow, and that's what takes Steve by surprise. And when Dustin looks over at him, eyes looking even more blue than ever, quirked in amusement and question as to why Steve is staring at him, it hits him all at once. Dustin is so indescribably beautiful.

"I need to get that piece of acacia out of your eye before you go blind, Steve. Just relax, I'm not going to hurt you. I can see it there, it'll be a half second with the tweezers, then we get to go to the hospital. Yay!" Dustin told him with false enthusiasm. Why the fuck did his boyfriend decide to take up woodworking at 26?

"I just don't like the idea of your fingers near my eyes..." Steve grimaced, trying to stay still, but every time Dustin got closer he couldn't help but jerk back.

when steve sees dustin standing on his front step looking fancy and with the roses he loses his goddamn mind because although he's been the one to try wooing his dates in the past, he's never been in the position to be wooed and although at first he was skeptical about the idea of dustin picking him up and paying for the date, he realizes in one fell swoop that actually he really likes being pursued and wooed, and lets dustin do everything for him all night.