ΉΛDΣƧ

Steve's found the perfect hiding spot for the game of hide & seek he and his cousins are engaging in. Well his five year old brain thinks it's the perfect spot. He's crouching down behind a large rose bush. He hears one of his cousins run past him trying to find a spot to hide. He hears a rustling sound coming from deeper in the bush and turns towards the sound. He witnesses a deep purple rose slowly opening as it blooms. The petals look velvety soft as he shuffles closer to inspect it. He doesn't notice how the thorny branches move aside, keeping him safe.

He's completely mesmerised as the petals shimmer with a golden hue. Steve reaches out to stroke the bloom, curious to see if its as soft as it looks, but the bloom closes as soon as he touches it. He frowns and huffs before sees a second and third bloom opening up, both the same deep purple but each has a different hue to them, one silver and one soft pink. The bushes rustle around him again, accompanied by chittering and clicking. The branches around him slowly move aside creating an opening, making way for an uncanny looking dog. It's limbs are too long and spindly, its body too thin with bony ridges sticking out, its fur short and bristly. It's muzzle is what truly makes it look otherworldly, the lower yaw is hanging open with a seem running between it that's split open.

Had Steve been older he would have realized the danger he could be in, but all he saw was an interesting looking dog. He holds out his hand palm up so the dog can sniff his hand. He giggles when the dogs hot breath tickles his hand as it deeply sniffs him. The dog steps closer and starts sniffing at him, burring its nose in his hair. Steve pulls a face as the dogs warm and rancid breath hits him full in the face.

One minute Steve’s bitching about hauling amps, the next he’s on the rug in the middle of the living room, dropping into a backbend that looks exactly like something out of a black-and-white training photo. His ribs stand out, his hair brushes the air, one hand wrapped around the heel of his opposite foot like it’s nothing.

Eddie is quite literally in shock at this.

“What on earth are you doing, Harrington?” Eddie manages, voice strangled.

“My back hurts,” Steve says, like that explains anything. “I’m stretching.”

“I’ve never seen someone bend that way, man,” Eddie says, because holy shit. “That’s not stretching, that’s… something else”

Steve blinks up at him from upside down. “Huh? We used to do this in class all the time.”

“Class?” Eddie echoes.

“Yeah, ballet?” Steve says it so casually Eddie almost misses it. “Danced for like eight years. Stopped before high school.”

There’s a ringing in Eddie’s ears. “You did what?” he says, strangled, because Steve Harrington, secret ballerina apparently, is already more than his crush-riddled brain can handle, and now all he can think is: if he can bend like that, what else can he do?

He drags his gaze away before he gives himself away completely, shoves his hands in his pockets and tries, desperately, to sound normal. “Cool, yeah.”

Steve’s sitting up now, looking at him with this curious little squint. Eddie squirms. “What?”

Steve huffs, rolls his eyes, and pushes to his feet. “Don’t be weird about it, Munson.”

“No, yeah, I’m not, I’m just— y’know.” He shrugs, hears himself babbling. “Ballerina Steve. Whatever.” He can feel the heat in his cheeks and turns away so Steve can’t see his face hiding under his hair.

From behind him, Steve lets out this half-laugh. “Wanna see something else cool?”

Eddie’s mind trips over itself. What else could he *possibly* have up his sleeve? “Uh. Okay. Yeah. Sure.”

He turns back around—

and Steve’s already moving, spotting some invisible point on the wall and snapping into a clean fourth position before Eddie can even process it. Then he’s turning, fast, tight pirouettes one after another, the kind of spin that should belong on a stage, not in the middle of a dingy living room. His shoulders stay level, his chin locked, feet whispering against the rug in quick, sure steps until he snaps to a stop like someone hit pause.

He’s a little breathless, hair mussed, wearing this self-satisfied smirk that hits Eddie like a truck. “Still just ‘whatever,’ or did I earn an upgrade?”

Eddie’s jaw works uselessly. Words have apparently left the building. All he manages, wide-eyed and bright red, is a breathy, “…cool.”

Steve laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s heard all week, shakes his head, and claps Eddie on the shoulder as he walks past. “Knew you’d be into that,” he says, halfway under his breath.

The picture is Strider sat proudly behind the DM screen, tongue out as always but expression otherwise very serious looking, and affixed to his harness and partially covered by his grey fluff is a front of white jersey cloth. Eddie has clearly had his fabric pens out, drawing Strider his very own Hellfire shirt, he shows Chat of course and they all agree Strider looks adorable.

"He is VERY cute, but I prefer the usual DM xxx"

He doesn't expect Eddie's scandalised response of "🙀 can't BELIEVE you don't love my beautiful son! I'm keeping him in the divorce, papers inbound. so rude. xxx"

"oh my god... hang on Chat, Dad's getting a divorce." he calls Eddie and puts him on speaker,

"Steven." He already knows Eddie is pulling that cheeky face, lips pursed as he smiles, visibly up to no good.

"Hey Eddie, couple of clarifiers, if you're keeping Strider, and I'm presumably keeping Scoops, who gets to take Chat?"

"Chat are old enough to decide who they want to stay with, Steven." he can hear the amusement in Eddie's voice and hopes Chat can too, though a pink and blue bar appears on his overlay when he looks over,

"Oh for God's sake, who made a poll?" Above the warring bar of colour is 'Who gets Chat in the divorce?' with 'Dad: Steve :(' as the pink side and 'Dad: Eddie :)' on the blue. Dustin, his newest Mod, is spamming LUL in chat, so it seems to be his doing. "You're supposed to be playing D&D, you little shit!"

"His DM's busy in a divorce hearing, this is the one time he's not gonna get his phone slapped out of his hand."

Either his chat hate him or they've seen an opportunity to meme on Steve, because Eddie wins by a landslide.

"Wow, wow, no loyalty any of you!" he accuses, though there's plenty saying they voted for him in chat, "I give you over a decade of the best years of my life and you jump ship the moment you get the chance, disgusting." He playfully berates chat a little more before Eddie cuts in,

"You know what? You're pretty hot when you put your foot down, divorce is tabled for now, but I do have a game to run."

"That's a relief," he does an exaggerated swipe of his forehead for his webcam, "Call you later?"

"Absolutely! Gotta let you know who dies!"

"Great, tell Strider I love him," then he's laughing because chat is filled with 'Tell Dad we love him!'

"Yeah, yeah, tell Chat I love them too." Eddie laughs.

"What about me?"

"What about you?"