Chapter Text
1986
Steve didn’t drink very often.
Not anymore, at least. He had spent his early teenage years, before everyone he knew presented, drinking until he couldn’t see straight. He lost track of how many nights he woke in places that he didn’t remember, hungover, head absolutely pounding. It used to be fun.
It started being less fun when everyone started presenting.
Sure, they still had fun, but it was almost impossible to walk five feet without running into a pair of Alpha’s who were in each other's faces, snarling and snapping their teeth like they had something to prove. Steve could only watch it happen so many times before he just grew… bored of it.
Steve was also what society would have called a.. late bloomer. Most of his friends presented as their secondary gender going into the beginning of their junior years, but not Steve. His presentation didn’t happen until the summer before his senior year, and it had been wrong.
His entire life, he had been trained, prepared, false presenting, as an Alpha. It wasn’t hard with his family’s social status to believe that he would be one day, even though secondary genders don’t work like that. He fell into the role easily. James Harrington wanted nothing more in life than to have an Alpha son that would take over the family business and pass down The Harrington name, but that wasn’t what he got with Steve.
No, right before the beginning of his senior year, Steve went into heat for the first time.
It had been miserable, his body going through so many changes in such a short period of time. At the time, he didn’t even have the capacity to think about how different he was now, only able to think about the urge to make himself feel good, to feel full, to be knotted by an Alpha. He had spent the entire four day duration of his first heat with his fingers tucked so far up his new pussy that his wrist hurt, and he was sore for days after it.
Male Omega’s were rare, Steve knew that. After the high of his heat wore off, he laid in bed and cried until he couldn’t cry anymore. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He didn’t know how his parents would react, how his friends would react, or how all of Hawkins would take the news that up and coming Alpha Steve Harrington was actually an Omega.
Upon telling his parents, his father immediately sent him to the doctor for scent blockers and birth control. He didn’t want Steve to tell anyone. Steve’s secondary gender soon became The Harrington family’s dirty secret, and he hated that. Sure, it wasn’t what they wanted, but it’s what it was. There wasn’t anything that anyone could do about it.
But, Steve did what he was told. Every morning, he got up early to apply his scent blockers over the spot on his neck, took his medication, and went on with his day. If anyone thought anything was different, they didn’t say anything.
Everything does change once he presents, though.
He feels less comfortable being around his old friends, considering that he’s been around them long enough to know what their thoughts and opinions are on people like Steve. He’s heard Tommy talk about how badly he wants to fuck a male omega, just to say that he did it. Before, it didn’t bother Steve as much. After? It makes him sick to his stomach. He doesn’t want to be seen as just some sexual object.
So, he distances himself from everyone that he used to be close to before. He goes from being at the top of the school social hierarchy to the bottom, and he’s mostly okay with it.
He’s just lonely now.
He thought that he was lonely before, but nothing compares to having no one there. At least before, he was able to lean on Tommy and Carol for some company, he could let them fill the emptiness of his home with parties, with their laughter. Without them in his life, there isn’t anyone.
No parents, no friends, nothing. Just an empty house.
So, he gets a job.
It’s not a well paying job, he’s scooping ice cream after school, but it gives him an excuse to talk to people. He can smile, laugh, watch people enjoy themselves, and it makes him feel a little bit better. He meets a girl there named Robin, and they don’t get along very well at first. She’s too loud, too different from the people that Steve had surrounded himself with previously, and he doesn’t know how to deal with that.
Day by day though, it gets easier.
She’s funny, which is the first real thing that Steve learns about her. Some days her jokes are pointed at him, poking fun at him, but sometimes they’re not. The first time, it’s because a customer walks in with the worst haircut that either of them have ever seen, and Robin makes fun of it under her breath. It’s a comment that Steve wasn’t supposed to hear but does, and he quietly snorts under his breath. Robin looks at him with wide eyes, because it was supposed to be just for her, but she ends up laughing with him.
It becomes a daily thing. Robin says something and immediately looks to Steve for some kind of reaction, and it’s almost always laughter. He can’t remember the last time that he laughed as much as he does when he works with Robin.
When they start hanging out outside of work, they become attached at the hip. Wherever she is, he’s right behind her, and her high energy that Steve used to hate becomes his favorite thing about her. There’s never a dull moment between them, and he’s never had a friend like this before. Someone he can rely on fully, trust with every part of himself. She doesn’t judge him, no matter what he was like before he presented.
She’s the first person that he tells he’s an omega, and she just smiles, holding her hand out for a fist bump.
“Me too.”
Robin makes everything easier. He’s not alone anymore. There’s someone who understands his soul at a level that he doesn’t even, and it makes life easier. They spend most nights together, finishing up their homework for the school year before crawling into the half-bed, half-nest that they’ve created in Steve’s room over the last few months together. Robin’s floral scent is all over his room, and it’s the first time that Steve feels like he has a pack, even if it’s just one person.
They do everything together, so it’s almost a no-brainer that he’ll go with her when she asks him to come to a party with her, even if he doesn’t like to party anymore. She’s never been to a real high school party, and she wants to experience it before they graduate. Steve’s been to enough that the thrill is gone, but that means he can make sure Robin has the time of her life.
It’s a party thrown by a kid in Band, meaning that there’s less imaginary expectation on Steve’s shoulders to be a party animal. His old friends won’t be there, which is exciting. Maybe Steve can actually have fun tonight. Let loose a little bit.
They get ready at Steve’s house, Robin wanting to look extra nice for the party. She spends a little extra time in Steve’s bathroom, doing her makeup, and Steve sits on top of the toilet, watching and listening to her babble on about how excited she is.
“I don’t know why I’ve never been to a party before. Band kids have parties all the time, Steve. All the time! But, I’ve never been! Not one! I’ve barely even drank alcohol in my life. Oh my god, do you think I’m going to royally embarrass myself tonight? Steve, you can’t let me get too drunk. I’ll die-“
“Robin,” Steve laughs, shaking his head, “You’re gonna be fine. Promise. Everyone else is gonna be too hammered to even notice you.”
“That’s worse! I want at least one person to notice me. I want to kiss someone tonight, Steve. That’s what you’re supposed to do at parties, right? Be free and adventurous, make bad decisions! I can’t do that if no one notices m-“
“You’re spiraling again.”
In the mirror, she pouts. Crosses her arms across her chest, huffs out a quiet noise, and Steve smiles at her.
“I know, I’m just nervous.” She sighs, tapping her foot on the ground, “I don’t know how you did this, like, every weekend.”
“It gets easier the more you go. I was nervous for my first party too.”
“Yeah, all the way back in freshman year?”
“Not my fault that I got a head start on being cool, Buckley.”
“You suck.” She says, picking up a random piece of her makeup, chucking it across the bathroom at him playfully. They both laugh when it hits the ground, and Steve shrugs his shoulders.
“I just don’t think you have anything to be worried about, Robbie. Really. It’s gonna be easy. Just go, be yourself, have some drinks, and we’ll have the time of our lives, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Plus, you can treat this like a… test for when you go to college. Learn how to party now so you’re a seasoned pro there.”
“When we go to college. Package deal, remember?”
Steve smiled at her, nodding, “Yeah, I know. Even if I don’t go to college, I’ll be wherever you are.”
“Sappy-ness aside for now, can I borrow that black and white flannel of yours? The… floral one?”
“It’s not black and white. It’s cream and black.”
“I take back what I said earlier. Package deal is off.”
They both laugh, and Steve does pull out the requested shirt for Robin before they leave. She’s wearing a pair of pants with the oversized shirt of Steve’s half buttoned, her hair is messier than normal, and her makeup is more intense than Robin wore day to day, but she looks nice nonetheless. Steve doesn’t dress up too much. He settles for a pair of tight dark wash Levi’s, ones that Robin insisted made his ass look ‘too good,’ and a gray short sleeved shirt that hugs his arms nicely.
Steve knew that he didn’t look bad. He was a good looking man, well built, still in shape despite the fact that he stopped playing sports around the time that he presented. He still went running, still ate balanced meals, and it paid off. He styled his hair messier to match Robins, allowing a few of the strains to fall framing his face instead of its normal pushed back look.
One of Robin’s friends from Band, a beta girl named Michelle, comes to pick them up from Steve’s house around 8:30 P.M. It was weird for Steve, being the one being picked up instead of the one driving, but it was a nice change of pace. This meant that if he wanted to drink with Robin, he could. Michelle is a nice girl, they’ve had a few conversations when Steve comes to watch the band perform before games or at their concerts, so all three of them fall into conversation pretty easily.
He isn’t expecting a big party, not like the ones that Tommy and Carol used to throw at their houses with half the high school population shoved inside, body to body, with little to no room to move. He’s excited at the idea that he’ll be able to move, be able to talk to people, and that there won’t be any expectations on him all night to be someone that he isn’t anymore.
And sure, the party isn’t as big as the ones that his old friends would throw. There aren’t as many people, the house that they’re in isn’t nearly the size he’s used to, but that doesn’t mean that the party isn’t as intense as he’s used to.
He didn’t know what he was expecting from a bunch of band kids, but it wasn’t that they partied this hard. Immediately upon entering the house, there’s a drink being shoved into both his and Robin’s hands. Robin looks over at him with a giddy smile, knocking back the drink without a second thought. Steve matches her, and he almost gags for a second at the feeling of alcohol burning his throat after so long.
The first drink is the hardest, but it gets easier with each one that is handed to him. Two hours in and Steve is drunk. Robin is too, she’s far more gone than he is, but that’s only because he’s trying to keep somewhat of an eye on her. She’s having the time of her life from what Steve can tell, dancing with her friends, throwing back shots left and right. She’s laughing, and Steve can smell her happiness from across the room.
Steve mingles. He doesn’t know a lot of these people, not really. Sure, he’s been going to school with most of them his entire life, but he spent too long running with the wrong crowds. He doesn’t have friends here beside Robin, but no one lets him be left out. There’s almost always someone talking to him, and he finds himself wishing that he wouldn’t have fallen into the wrong crowds so early.
He’s leaning against the island in the kitchen, talking to a girl whose name that he doesn’t know, when he gets a single whiff of the most intoxicating alpha smell, one that Steve knows a little too well. Not on a personal level, just based on a few shared classes, and the fact that said alpha almost always refused to wear scent blockers.
Eddie Munson was one of the most hated people in Hawkins, but Steve never really understood why. Sure, he was loud, picked on jocks and other alphas like it was his job, but the guy didn’t really… do anything to warrant the amount of hate that he had gotten since he presented. Maybe it was because he didn’t hide it, maybe it was because he didn’t fall into the stereotypical categories of what an alpha should be, or maybe it was just because he presented earlier than most people did.
Munson had been in the middle of his junior year, Steve’s sophomore one, when he disappeared for a solid week. When he came back, he smelled different, and it didn’t take long for the other students to catch onto why. Between students being forced to declare their presentation with the school, and the kids above him being able to make out the scent of an alpha, word spread fast.
Steve watched from a distance that year as seniors kept trying to have a go at Eddie. They would bear their teeth, snarl at him, try to force him into submission, but Eddie never went. He either ignored them, or he gave it right back to them.
Truth be told, that was part of the reason that Steve hadn’t been able to look away from Eddie since then.
Even before presenting, Steve found himself just… drawn to Eddie. He liked his personality, the way he smelled, the way he carried himself. After his presentation? It was worse. Steve came back with a new and improved sense of smell, one that made him want to seek out alphas more, but he always came back to Eddie.
He didn’t know what it was about him.
Steve wanted to blame it on biology, things that he couldn’t control, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t… interested.
In what? He wasn’t sure.
Since his presentation, Steve hasn’t slept with anyone. It’s been somewhere between being too nervous and trusting very few alpha presenting people to care about him and his needs. Being friends with the majority of them meant that Steve knew exactly how their little pee brains worked, and he wasn’t about to let his first time having sex as an omega be with someone who wouldn’t pay attention to him.
Eddie on the other hand, could be different.
There isn’t any school gossip that are based in truth when it comes to Eddie’s sex life. A few stupid rumors spilled around about Eddie only fucking men, about him only liking to fuck other alphas, about him having a knot too big to fit inside of an omega. Steve tries not to listen to them, but his hindbrain always whispers about the last one. About what it would feel like for Eddie to take him, to knot him for the first time. It was that thought that got him through the two heats that he’s had.
He was always a little ashamed afterwards.
Eddie and Steve hadn’t even spoken five words to each other, and yet, Steve found himself fantasizing about the alpha during his heats. It was embarrassing, but he found comfort in the fact that Eddie didn’t know about the fantasies that happened in the depths of his bedroom
The girl beside Steve nudges him with her arm, and when he looks over at her, her eyebrows are furrowed together.
“You okay?”
“Yeah? Sorry, I-.. Zoned out. A little drunk.”
“Maybe you should take a break.” She says, and Steve nods.
“Probably,” He swirls the red solo cup in his hand, “After this one.”
The girl, Steve thinks her name is Nicole, shrugs her shoulders before turning her back to him to have a conversation with someone next to them. Steve lets out a quiet sigh, bringing the cup to his lips to knock back the rest of his drink. He needed water and air. Needed to be away from Eddie’s smell, which only got more intense as the moments passed. He was getting closer.
When Steve goes to put the drink back down on the table, he locks eyes with Eddie from across the room. Eddie is staring at him with his eyebrows furrowed together, confusion written all over his face. Steve stares back, mostly just to take the alpha in. He looks good.
His long curls are pulled up into a half bun on top of his head, some of them still falling on his shoulders, a few pieces framing his face. His bangs are messy, per usual, but they look good. He’s wearing a sleeveless band tee for a band that Steve has never heard of before, and a pair of black jeans that cling to his legs. Chain wallet, bandana in his back pocket, lunchbox in his other hand.
Steve is scared that if he looks any longer, he’s going to start drooling.
Tearing his gaze away, Steve tries to hide the arousal building his core. Eddie didn’t even do anything. He just existed in the same room as Steve, looked at him once, and Steve is already pathetically whipped for him. He shakes his head, uses his hands to push himself away from the kitchen island, and he isn’t sure where he’s going. He just knows that he needs to get away from this room, away from Eddie woodsy smell, and he needs fresh air.
Weaving through the few bodies that are by the back door, Steve makes his way outside. The back patio is almost unoccupied, and Steve is grateful for that. The fresh air feels good on his skin, making him take a deep breath to calm himself as he plops down on one of the steps. He leans his head against the railing, closes his eyes, and tries to block out the sound of everyone around him.
He gets about five minutes of peace before the backdoor slides open, and the smell he had been trying to avoid invades his nose again.
“What is King Steve doing at a party for the lower ranks?” Eddie asks, coming a few steps behind him. Steve doesn’t turn around to look at him, simply shrugs his shoulders.
“Don’t think I’ve been King Steve since last year.”
“Yeah, you passed your crown down to Hargrove, didn’t ya?”
“Was never my crown to begin with.”
He still doesn’t look over when Eddie circles around him, plopping down on the step next to him. This close, Steve almost feels lightheaded with how much he can smell Eddie. It’s intoxicating. If there wasn’t alcohol in his system, Steve’s sure that he could get drunk off of Eddie’s scent alone.
“What’re you doing out here all by yourself?” Eddie asks, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pants pockets. He opens it, offers one to Steve, who gladly takes it.
“Well, I came with Robin because she was nervous that she was going to flounder at her first party, but she’s doing a lot better than I am, so.”
“Buckley’s first party and she’s out drinking you? You’re losing your touch, Steve.”
“Maybe she’s just a party animal. Probably unleashed something in her tonight that I’ll never be able to wrangle.”
Eddie laughs, and it sends a shiver straight down Steve’s spine. Add that to the growing list of things that Steve apparently really likes about Eddie.
“Good luck with that.”
“Thanks.” Steve says, taking the lighter from Eddie when he’s offered it. He lights the cigarette, taking a small puff of it, “What’re you doing out here?”
Beside him, Eddie takes a long drawl off his own cigarette. Steve is barely glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t miss the small smirk that places on the alpha’s lips. It makes Steve have to squeeze his legs together, just a bit, hoping to mask the way it made him feel.
“Well,” Eddie sighs, almost dreamily, “There was this… guy in the kitchen. Making eyes at me, I think. And then he came out here, and I couldn’t just… pass up an opportunity to see if I got it right.”
His face flushes, hot and heavy on his cheeks. Eddie has to be talking about him, but Steve thought that he had been more subtle than that. The eye contact had barely lasted a few seconds, and despite the fact that Steve was thinking thoughts about Eddie, he was pretty sure that he had kept his face neutral. Maybe he was more intoxicated than he thought he was.
Or, maybe he wanted to end up exactly in this situation.
“... Well, guess you better go find him, huh?”
Eddie scoots closer, they’re not quite touching, but if he moved even an inch, they would be shoulder to shoulder. Their knees almost bump.
“Yeah, I probably should, shouldn’t I?”
“Mhm.”
“What’s someone like you doing making eyes at someone like me, Steve?” He smiles, leaning his face a bit closer to Steve’s own. It makes his breathing hitch, he suppresses a shiver, and he still doesn’t look over at him.
“I wasn’t.” He lies.
“Oh, you weren’t?”
“Nope.”
“So, that smell in there? That wasn’t you? Getting wet from just looking at me?”
Steve squeezes his thighs a bit more, choking on his words, face still neon red. Stupid alpha sense of smell. Beside him, Eddie chuckles quietly, leaning until their pressed shoulder to shoulder, leg to leg.
“It’s okay if it was,” Eddie whispers, mouth right beside Steve’s ear, “Cause you smell fucking delicious, Steve.”
“You’re one to talk.” He says, turning his head sharply. It puts them almost nose to nose. The tension between them is palpable, the smell of arousal strong, and Steve thinks that if they don’t get out of here soon, they might end up snapping in front of a large group of people.
He doesn’t know how his fantasies are playing out in front of him right now, but he isn’t about to deny himself this one thing.
“Yeah?”
“Mhm,” Steve says, very purposely dragging his eyes along every inch of Eddie’s face, letting them linger on his lips, “Did you drive here?”
“Yep.”
“Wanna get out of here?”
Steve expects Eddie to say yes immediately, so he is taken by surprise when he smiles and shakes his head, “Not yet, sweetheart. I just got here. Think you can let me mingle for a little bit? Got some stuff to sell.”
“Really?”
“Need the money, baby. Meet you out front in an hour?” Eddie smiles, tongue darting out of his mouth to wet his lips. Steve pouts, but he nods his head anyways. The alpha is still smiling when he leans in and presses a quick kiss to Steve’s lips, one that he can’t even reciprocate because it’s over so fast. He doesn’t have time to process that it’s their first kiss before Eddie is pushing himself to his feet and disappearing back inside.
Steve is practically vibrating when he stands back up and makes his way inside, bobbing and weaving his way through all the different people until he spots Robin dancing, arms thrown in the air, a big smile on her face. She’s surrounded by a group of her other friends, and it makes Steve's heart swell to see her having such a good time.
He feels almost bad interrupting her by grabbing her arm. Almost.
“Steve!” She says excitedly, turning towards him with a big smile on her face, “I am having so much fun. So much. I’m- Michelle wants me to stay with her tonight to have a girls night. I’ve never had a girls night! I’m so excited- Oh my god, she drove you here. Oh my god, I’m a terrible friend- I forgot you- Steve. Okay. Okay, no girls night-”
“Robin, it’s fine. Go to your girls' night with your friend. I can find a ride home.”
“But, we were supposed to watch a movie tonight.” She half whines, leaning her full body weight into his chest, forehead against his collarbone. He laughs, bringing a hand up to pat her back.
“It’s fine, we can watch it another night.”
“Are you suureee you’re not mad? I can cancel.”
“I promise. Tonight was about you having fun, right? Are you having fun?”
She nods, propping her chin against his chest. Her eyes are unfocused, she has a big smile on her face, and she even giggles a little bit, “So much fun.”
“Good.”
For the next hour or so, Steve hangs out close to Robin. If she can smell Eddie lingering on him, she doesn’t mention it, or she’s too drunk to really notice. Steve watches the clock that hangs in the living room like a hawk, not wanting to be even a minute late to meeting Eddie outside. Right before the hour, he double checks with Michelle that she’s good to drive, kisses Robin on her head, and slips right out the front door.
He waits by the steps for a few minutes, kicking a single rock that’s on the ground, waiting for any sign of Eddie. Minutes feel like hours as they pass, Steve thinking that maybe Eddie isn’t coming, until the door swings open and he steps out. They make eye contact, a small smile spreading out across his lips.
“Right on time, Harrington.”
“I like to be punctual.”
“Not true, I happen to know that you’re regularly late to class.”
“Class is different. I’m not excited for class.”
“But you’re excited for me?”
“More than.”
“Come on, sweetheart. Vans parked down the street.
Eddie starts walking down the sidewalk, so Steve follows immediately. They don’t talk on the way down the van, but the silence is comfortable. The night air is warm, the moon is high in the sky, and Eddie keeps bumping their hands together as they walk.
When they get close to the van though, it shifts. Eddie lets Steve get right beside the passenger door before there are hands on his shoulders, shoving him up against the cool metal, and then there are lips on his again. Steve doesn’t have time to process it, doesn’t want to, just starts kissing Eddie back like his life depends on it.
It quickly escalates from just lips, to teeth and tongues mashing against each other, soft noises bubbling up and out of Steve’s throat as Eddie presses even further into him. They’re chest to chest, there’s nowhere for either of them to go, and Steve loves it.
When Eddie pulls back, both of them are panting, lips still almost close enough to touch when he speaks,“Your place or mine?”
“Mine.”
“Get in the van.”
Steve doesn’t need to be told twice.
______________________
The drive to his own house is almost unbearable. Eddie is driving, one hand on the wheel, one hand on Steve’s thigh, squeezing it roughly. Steve knows that Eddie can tell how wet he is, how badly he wants this, because he keeps pushing his hand further and further up Steve’s thigh as they drive.
Steve’s whole body feels hot, he feels like his clothes are suffocating him, and he just wants out of them as soon as possible. The smell of arousal from Eddie doesn’t make it any better, only making Steve wetter. He’s never wanted to be fucked this badly in his life.
Eddie’s hand slowly inches further and further up Steve thigh, until it rests over Steve’s jean covered cunt, pressing in until Steve can just barely feel the pressure of his fingers against himself, palm against his hard cock. It makes Steve whine, pushing his hips forward, just seeking more. If Eddie doesn’t touch him soon, he thinks he’s going to die, so he tells him as much.
Eddie laughs, slowly sliding his hand up to where Steve’s pants button is, patting it.
“Then open this up for me, baby.” Eddie smiles, and Steve doesn’t think that his fingers could move faster if he tried. He fumbled with the button for a second, popping it up and unzipping his pants. Eddie doesn’t waste a moment dipping his hand in Steve’s pants, under the thin material of his boxers, straight to his cock, palming at the length of it. He rocks up against Eddie’s palm, electricity running through his body, and he hears Eddie half chuckle beside him.
“Oh, you’re desperate for it, aren’t you, baby? You’re absolutely fucking soaked.” He whispers, hand dipping below Steve’s dick to his slick folds. A single finger trails between them as best it can, the angle is awkward, but it feels good. No one has ever touched Steve like this. He hasn’t had anyone since presenting.
“Want you so bad,” Steve’s voice is quiet, and he squirms around when they come to a stop at a red light, “Need it. Need you.”
“Gotta wait, baby. Traffic laws.” Eddie says, finger still running slowly up and down Steve’s pussy, gathering all of the slick he can on the digit before bringing his hand back up to smear the wetness on his shaft. Steve’s legs are jerking, his body is shaking, and he feels almost ridiculous having this big of a reaction to such little touching.
“Fuck waiting- Pull over and fuck me on the side of the road.”
“You want everyone to see how desperate you are for the freak? Is that it?”
“Alpha- please.” He whimpers, bucking his hips up to try to get Eddie’s hand to dip lower. He just wants something inside. Eddie’s finger, his tongue, his cock, something. “Please.”
“God, you’re making it hard to fucking behave.” It’s lower than he was talking before, and Steve doesn’t even have to tell Eddie what he’s begging for, he seemingly just knows as his hand slips down to Steve’s entrance. A single finger slowly circles around it, barely pushes in to the first knuckle before pulling back out, teasing him just enough to make him whine before it pushes all the way in.
Steve gasps, the feeling foreign but not unpleasant. It feels different than having his own fingers inside himself, Eddie’s are colder, they’re longer, they feel better. With Steve’s pants in the way, Eddie can’t really move much, but just having something inside is easing the insistent want he feels.
Pulling into his driveway has never felt more of a relief, right up until the point that Eddie withdrawals his finger from Steve’s cunt. He lets out a whine that doesn’t even sound like himself, one he isn’t aware he’s making until it’s too late, and one that Eddie shushes, narrowing his eyes at him.
“Be a good boy until we get inside, okay? No whining, no begging. Understood?”
Steve nods, fumbling with the door of the van until it opens, and he stumbles to his feet the moment that he can. His pants are still unbuttoned, they’re falling down when Eddie rounds the front of the van and starts dragging him towards the front door. Their hands are intertwined, both laughing, and Steve is barely holding his pants up when they get to the front door.
Eddie stands behind Steve as he fumbles to put the key in the door, pressing hot, open mouthed kisses up and down the side of his throat. It makes his concentration even worse, makes his hand shake more, it’s almost impossible to get the door unlocked.
“You’re making this hard,” Steve laughs, melting into a quiet gasp when he feels Eddie’s teeth on his skin, “Let me get the door open.”
“I’m not stopping you.” The man behind him replies, hands wrapping fully around Steve’s body, sliding up and under his shirt. He finally, finally gets the fucking door open, and the two of them stumble inside. Eddie never lets go of him. They move together as one person, and Steve is turned around, pushed up against the door before he even has time to process it.
There are lips on his, a knee bullying its way between his thighs, pressing up against his pussy. Steve gasps into Eddie’s mouth, and the alpha uses it as an opportunity to lick straight behind his teeth. It feels like Eddie is trying to crawl inside of him, and Steve would let him if he could.
The hands on his hips start moving up and under his shirt again, and their lips only part long enough for Eddie to slip the shirt over his head. It’s tossed somewhere on the ground, Steve doesn’t care where it’s at, because his only thoughts are Eddie, Eddie, Alpha.
The kisses get more intense, if it’s even possible. Hands slide back down Steve’s torso, straight towards his already unbuttoned and falling down jeans. It doesn’t take much for them to slide down his thighs, barely even a push from Eddie, but Steve doesn’t let them fall all the way down before he’s gripping at the bottom of Eddie’s shirt, trying to pull it off too.
“Wanna see you too,” Steve whispers between kisses, “Please?”
“You will, baby. Later. Let me make you feel good, yeah?” Eddie smiles against his mouth, hand slipping straight past the elastic of his boxers, dipping towards his center. Steve’s head falls back against the door when he feels Eddie’s hand on his cock, and he ruts himself against it, moaning quietly. He doesn’t know how he’s survived this long without an alpha to make him feel like this, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to live without it again.
“Okay,” He nods, inhaling sharply when Eddie’s finger finally starts to slip inside of him again, “Make me feel good, Alpha.
The name spurs Eddie on, makes the smell arousal in the room thicker, and then Eddie’s dropping to his knees right in front of Steve. His jeans and boxers are pulled down in one swoop, straight down to his ankles, leaving him bare for Eddie to see. Steve watched as Eddie’s eyes trail over every part of his body, the hunger in them deepening with every passing second, pupils blown wide with want and desire.
“Lift your feet, sweet thing.” Eddie says, gripping the edge of his pants. Steve listens, doesn’t think he could resist if he tried, and once his pants are removed, Eddie pushes Steve’s legs apart. Strong hands rub up and down each of his thighs before pulling him closer to Eddie's face. Steve watches with apt attention when the man between his legs rolls his tongue out of his mouth, leaning forward until it’s resting flat against his pussy, all while never breaking eye contact with Steve. It’s both the most intimate and hottest thing that someone has ever done to him.
It gets better when Eddie licks into him with a broad stroke of his tongue, then the hands on his thighs are wrapping around to his ass to hold on tighter. Eddie half growls, half moans against him, and it’s almost like he loses control after that. His face is buried deep into Steve’s cunt, he’s alternating between licking between his folds and sucking his throbbing cock into his mouth. Steve is helpless but to let his eyes flutter shut, to bury his hands into Eddie’s curls, trying his best to not be too aggressive with the way his hips move against his face.
Steve can count on one hand the times that he’s come since presenting while not in heat, and it always took him a while. Not with Eddie. He’s on the brink before he even realizes it, the coil in his stomach tightening and tightening, more noises slipping out the closer that he gets to his orgasm.
“Eddie- Fuck, fuck- Don’t stop-“
Except, as the words leave his mouth, Eddie pulls back. Steve’s eyes fly open, he looks down at Eddie with a noise of protest on his tongue, but it dies before it can escape. Looking up at him is the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen, an alpha as pretty as Eddie with Steve’s slick smeared all over his face, eyes pitch black, hair disheveled from his own hands. His knees almost buckle when Eddie growls at him.
“Try again.” The hands on his ass tighten, nails digging into soft flesh. Steve gasps, nods his head, no hesitation.
“Alpha, please- Please. Wanna cum on your face.”
Beneath him, Eddie smiles, the grip he had on Steve’s ass lessening, “That wasn’t so hard, was it, baby?”
Steve shakes his head, watching Eddie dip his head back to his pussy. He doesn’t warm back up to the level he was at, instead he dives straight back into Steve like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, like he’s a starving man.
When one of the hands that was holding his ass slips between his legs, two fingers pushing straight into Steve’s cunt, he tips over the edge. His body shakes, he moans loud and unabashed, and his hips don’t stop moving against Eddie’s face until the intensity of his orgasm starts to fade.
His face is still shiny with slick when he pulls away, and Steve finds himself wanting to lick it off. He’s never tasted himself, but seeing it spread all across Eddie’s face makes him want to more than anything. Using the hands buried in Eddie’s hair, he drags the alpha up to meet him halfway in a fierce kiss. It’s all teeth, tongues, and lips mashing together over and over again. His own taste on Eddie’s tongue makes the kiss more intense, more fun, even though it feels so filthy.
“Bed?” Steve whispers into his mouth, and Eddie nods, slowly standing up. Neither of them pull away, lips still pushing and pulling against each other, until he’s fully to his feet in front of Steve. His hands are still on his ass, pulling him forward until they’re flush together.
Eddie pulls back, just enough to let his lips barely brush against Steve’s, “Jump.”
“Your shirt-“
“Ruin it. Want it to smell like you forever.”
He doesn’t think after that, just jumps to wrap his legs around Eddie’s hips. Hands hold him sturdy under his ass, Steve’s own arms snaking around Eddie’s neck, and then they’re kissing again. They’re stumbling towards the stairs, making it up exactly one before Eddie is pressing Steve’s back against the wall to kiss him deeper.
Once they make it up the stairs and into Steve’s room, he feels insatiable. He needs Eddie now, needs his hands on him, needs his knot locking them together. Anything and everything that he can get from him, he needs.
Legs still locked around Eddie’s waist, Steve is dropped down to the bed with the alpha caging him in with his arms on either side of his head. They’re kissing, but Eddie breaks it to start trailing sloppy kisses down his neck again, all while Steve’s hands grab at his shirt to try to pull it off.
“Off, off- Take it off.”
Eddie laughs as he sits up, Steve’s legs still hooked around his hips, but he finally grabs the bottom of his shirt and pulls it up over his head. It’s tossed somewhere to the side, Steve’s hands shoot out to run along Eddie’s chest and torso, over the tattoos that live there.
“You like ‘em?”
“Like you- You’re so fucking hot.”
Again, the alpha laughs, leaning down to capture Steve’s mouth in a softer kiss, “You’re not too bad yourself.”
“If you don’t fuck me in the next five minutes, I swear to god-“
“You’ll do what?” Eddie asks, using one hand to grab Steve’s wrists where they hover between them. He’s quick to pin them above Steve’s head, and Steve lets out an almost pathetic half moan at the action. “What’re you gonna do if I don’t fuck you, Steve?”
“I- Fuck myself. Make you watch.”
“Maybe I’d like that? Your fingers? Or do you have a cock around here?”
Eddie’s other hand starts trailing up and down Steve’s thigh, dipping closer to the inside, nails scratching against sensitive skin. The closer that he gets to Steve’s cunt, the harder it is for him to stay still.
“Both,” Steve says, pushing his hips into the air when Eddie’s finger just barely brushes his swollen cock, “Fuck myself on my hand for a while, then I- Ah , I’d make you- Watch me take the knot on my-“
Above him, the alpha growls. It’s low in his throat, in his chest, it sounds almost possessive , and Steve loves it. He purrs in response, watching the alphas free hand go down to his own pants to start fumbling with the belt and button. In one swoop, his pants and boxers are down, cock springing free its confines, and Steve moans at the sight of it.
Eddie is so hard that it looks almost painful, curved up towards his stomach, a deep red color. The base of it looks like the knot is already swelling, and words can’t describe how badly Steve needs it inside of him. Despite the hold that Eddie has on his wrist, Steve shimmies down as much as he can, until he can trick himself into thinking he can feel Eddie already.
“Gonna fuck you so good that you won’t even think about your fake cock again,” Eddie says, voice still low, hand wrapping around the base of his cock. He shifts forward, pushing the head of himself through Steve’s folds, and they both moan at the contact. He can feel Eddie’s cock throb against him, and Steve doesn’t think that he’s ever been so wet in his life. “Gonna ruin your pussy for anyone or anything else.”
“Please,” He whines, feeling the head of Eddie’s cock catching on his entrance. It would be so easy for him to use the leverage that his legs around Eddie’s waist gives him right now to push the alpha inside without any warning. He doesn’t, though. “Please fuck me- Fuck, need it. Need you, Alpha. Please.”
“Yeah?” Leaning in close, still dragging his cock all over Steve’s pussy, pushing the tip just barely inside, “You need me to fill you up? Fuck you until you can’t think straight? Put a pup inside of you?”
Steve’s back arches high off the bed at the sound of that, and any coherent string of thoughts he could form before fly out the window. All he can think about is Eddie, his cock, and carrying his baby.
He nods, using his legs to push Eddie forward just a tad, “Yes, please. Fuck me full. Knot me, make sure it takes.”
Without another word, Eddie lines himself up with Steve’s entrance, and starts pushing in. It’s a lot. The stretch burns, but he’s slow. Even when Steve’s eyes flutter shut, he can feel Eddie’s eyes trailing over every part of his face, and he stops moving any time he sees any sort of discomfort on Steve’s face.
Once he bottoms out, they both just stay still for a moment. Eddie is leaning over his body, hips pressed flat against Steve’s, and he starts peppering a few kisses along the side of Steve’s head, across his nose, down to his lips.
“You okay?” It’s barely a whisper, the deep tone from earlier gone.
“Mhm.” Steve replies, and Eddie finally lets go of his wrist, so he brings his arms up to wrap around his shoulders, “You can move.”
“You sure? You’re- You’re really fucking tight, Steve. Don’t wanna hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
“Tell me if I do?"
“Promise.”
Eddie nods, pulling his hips back just slightly, barely even an inch or two, before pushing back in. It’s a slow build up, but every thrust feels even better, until Eddie is pulling most of the way out. Steve swears he can feel every inch, his head falling back against the bed as Eddie fucks him over the edge of it.
“Fuck-“ Eddie mumbles, “Your pussy is insane, Steve. Feels so good. Squeezing my cock so good.”
Without thinking, Steve clenches his walls around Eddie, making the man on top of him sputter to a stop. Eddie dips his head into Steve’s shoulder for a moment, taking deep breaths, like he’s trying to calm himself. A wave of pride washes over Steve knowing that he can reduce Eddie, reduce an alpha, to this.
“If you want this to last more than five minutes, don’t do that,” Eddie laughs, “Cause fuck, baby. Gonna bust if you do that.”
“Want you to.” Steve whispers, pushing his nose into Eddie’s hair, breathing him in. He smells so good. Woodsy, almost like how it smells outside after it rains, mixed with cigarette smoke and a bit of alcohol from the party. Steve wants to be covered in it. He wants to smell like Eddie tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
“Trust me, sweetheart. I want to, but I want it to last more than just a few minutes.”
Eddie picks up on his thrusts again, faster and harder than he had been before. Steve’s body feels like it’s on fire in the best way. Every slap of Eddie’s hips against his has electricity running through him. Between the noises that Eddie is making above him, the sounds of their hips slapping together, and the feeling of Eddie inside of him? Steve’s close. His second orgasm of the night shouldn’t be creeping up on him nearly as fast as it is, but he doesn’t want to try to starve it off.
“Alpha- Alpha, you’re gonna- Gonna make me-“ He moans, head falling to the side. He doesn’t think about the fact that he’s exposing and presenting his mating gland to Eddie until the alpha’s head is in the crook of his neck, inhaling deeply. He feels Eddie’s tongue run over the spot over and over again, teeth barely brushing over it, and one of the alpha’s hands reaches down between them to stroke Steve’s small cock at a furious pace.
“Such a pretty omega,” Eddie whispers against Steve’s throat, “Gonna fuck you full of pups, gonna take care of you. Smell so fucking good right here. Fuck, Stevie.”
Steve tips over the edge again.
His body shakes, legs falling limp from around Eddie’s waist over the edge of the bed, and he moans loud and high pitched. Eddie doesn’t stop fucking into him, doesn’t stop rubbing Steve’s dick, even when his whole body is convulsing under him.
With what seems to be every bit of self control that Eddie has, he stands up straight. He never pulls out of Steve, still buried almost to the hilt, only being stopped by the swelling knot there. He stares down at Steve, running a hand down his heaving torso, along his pelvis, on the inside of Steve’s slick and sweat soaked thighs, right to where they’re connected. Steve feels him use two of his fingers to hold his folds open, using his middle finger to slowly trace around his own cock inside of Steve.
“You have such a pretty cunt, baby. Think you can still take my knot after two?”
Steve nods, knows he can, knows he might die if he doesn’t.
“Please.”
Eddie traces where they’re connected a few more times, pulling his hips out and pushing back in like he just wants to feel the sensation. Steve feels almost prideful at the way that the alpha can’t look away from him.
Eventually, he withdrawals his hand, leaning back down to cage Steve between his arms. He captures his lips in his, the kiss is sloppy and haphazard, but Steve likes it like that. He likes it even more when Eddie starts thrusting into him hard and fast, groaning against his lips. Steve can feel the alpha’s knot swelling and swelling, pressing up against his entrance, almost popping in with every thrust.
Nothing could have prepared Steve for when it felt like to be knotted.
Eddie slips completely inside of Steve, locking them together, and the stretch is intense. A broken cry garbles its way out of Steve’s throat, not of pain, of pleasure beyond his words. He can feel Eddie cumming inside of him, and he knows that not a single drop of it is going to fall out with how tightly they’re held together.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Eddie mumbles against Steve’s lips, still trying to kiss him through each word. Hands are rubbing up and down his side, and he can feel Eddie’s chest heaving against his.
For a bit, neither of them say anything. They’re still locked together, breathing heavily, coming down from their highs. Eddie has his forehead pressed against Steve’s, his hair creating a curtain around them, and his eyes are closed. Steve’s aren’t. He uses the moment to really look at Eddie, to take in just how beautiful he is.
When his eyes do open, there’s a small playful smile on his lips, “… Hi.”
Steve laughs with his full chest, knocking his forehead a little playfully against Eddie’s, “Hi.”
“That was-“
“Yeah.” He nods, agreeing without Eddie even having to say anything.
“You okay?”
“Sweaty, but yeah.”
“We can take a shower after… it goes down, if you want.”
“Together?”
“Mhm. I’m sweaty too. Save water.”
“Sounds good to me.” Steve whispers, arms draped around Eddie’s shoulders, tracing his fingers between his shoulder blades. Eddie ducks down, kisses Steve a time or two, before almost full body collapsing on him while waiting for them to be able to move again. Steve doesn’t mind. He likes the weight of Eddie on top of him.
______________________
The shower is good.
Eddie washes Steve’s hair, runs his hands carefully over every part of his body to clean him off. A low purr rumbles out of Steve as he leans against the alphas shoulders, allowing him to do whatever he wants. Despite having never really talked to him before tonight, Steve trusts him. More than he should.
He doesn’t let the opportunity to clean Eddie pass him by. He buries his hands in his soaked hair, scratching his nails against his scalp to cover it in shampoo. For the first time all night, Eddie purrs back at him. It makes Steve’s heart jump, makes him chirp quietly in response, and he doesn’t know how everything is changing so fast.
They make out under the spray of the water until it goes cold.
They towel dry each other off, but don’t even bother to get dressed before crawling back into bed together. Eddie opens his arms up for Steve to crawl into, which he does. He lays in the crook of Eddie’s arm, against his side, head laying on his shoulder.
It’s quiet.
Not awkwardly, far from. It’s just… quiet. They listen to each other breathe, feel the warmth of the other.
“I’ve never done that before, you know?” Steve asks, arm draped over Eddie’s middle, drawing shapes into his side. Under him, Eddie shifts, just a bit. Like he’s trying to get closer to Steve.
“Never done what?”
“Been with an Alpha. At least- Not since.. presenting.”
“… You’re serious?”
Steve nods. The arm of Eddie’s around his back tightens, pulling him in even more.
“You’ve never been knotted before tonight?”
Steve shakes his head, “No.”
“Did it hurt?”
“No. Not really, at least. I-.. I liked it. A lot. Felt good.” He shrugs, burying his face a little closer into Eddie’s collarbone. For a while, the alpha is silent. He’s running his hand between Steve’s bare shoulder blades, drawing absentminded shapes there, and Steve wishes that he could read his mind. He wants to know what he’s thinking. He wants to know Eddie’s every thought, every wish and dream. He just wants to know him.
“Do you want to know a secret?” Eddie whispers, breaking the silence. Steve cranes his neck up to look at Eddie’s jaw, at the stubble that’s growing in there, at the way his Adam's Apple bobs when he swallows.
“Yes.”
“I’ve never slept with an Omega before. Was.. kind of scared, you know?”
“Why?”
“Of hurting someone with.. it.”
“Omegas are made for it, though.”
“Well, even then, it’s not exactly like people are lining up to sleep with me, Harrington.”
Steve rolls his eyes, blowing air through his lips, all while shoving his chin playfully against Eddie’s shoulder.
“Oh, shut up,” He laughs, “I’m sure there are people out there who want a piece of Eddie Munson. More than you know.”
“Oh, yeah? Like who?” Eddie asks, finally tilting his head down to make eye contact with Steve. There’s a sharp inhale of breath when their eyes meet, Steve doesn’t know who it came from, or if it was both of them. Eddie’s eyes roam every part of Steve’s face, he feels bare under his gaze, but he likes it.
“Like me.” Steve whispers, eyes flicking down to the plump lips that he had spent the last hour doing nothing but kissing. They’re still a little swollen, still kiss-red, and Steve wants to kiss him again. He wants to make Eddie’s lips look like that all the time, and he thinks Eddie knows this by the way he runs his tongue along them, to barely wet them.
“Oh, like you looked my way before tonight.”
“I did,” He nods, bringing his hand from Eddie’s side to his chest, dragging dull nails along his skin, “We had English together. You sat three seats behind me. I could barely focus on what she was saying most of the time because I just wanted to look back at you. Your scent is overwhelming. Love it.”
Something soft washes over Eddie’s features. His eyes lighten, his lips part, and Steve can feel the careful breaths he’s taking fanning across his skin. His free hand comes to cradle Steve’s face in his hand, thumb brushing carefully under his eye.
“I didn’t know you even realized I was in that class.”
“Of course I did.”
“Can I be super embarrassing for a moment?”
Steve nods.
“I knew that you were an omega the first day that you walked into the class at the beginning of senior year. When you were… hiding it more.”
“How?”
“I could still smell you, despite the scent blockers you were wearing. I don’t know how no one else noticed, but… I did. You had- God. You have the most amazing smell, Steve. So sweet. Kind of like warm chocolate and Christmas. I’ve been obsessed with it since then. Kind of losing my mind getting to be this close to it right now.”
Steve, honest to god, giggles at that. It’s quiet, but it’s there. He leans his head into Eddie’s hand a little more, turning his nose into his palm to rub against it.
“That’s sweet.”
“You’re sweet. Both physically and metaphorically.”
“You’re gross,” Steve rolls his eyes, “You’re pretty sweet too, though.”
“You going soft for me, Harrington?” It’s playful, but the way they’re still staring at each other makes it so much more intimate than Steve expected it to be. Is he going soft on Eddie? Maybe. If he’s not now, then he could see himself later down the line. Eddie is everything that Steve has ever wanted in a life partner, despite not being what his parents would want for him. He’s kind, sweet, loving, he’s soft, and he holds Steve in his arms like he means something to him.
He can’t tell Eddie that, though. It’s too soon. He wants to enjoy this moment with him for as long as he can.
So, instead of responding, he just pushes his body up until his lips press against Eddie’s in a soft kiss. A noise of surprise escapes Eddie’s throat, but he tightens his arms around Steve’s body, kissing him back. Steve could get used to this. Kissing and being held by Eddie.
When they part, there’s a smile on both of their faces. Eddie’s hand on his jaw rubs against his face.
“I wanna know more about you.” Steve says, and Eddie tilts his head.
“What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you’ll tell me.”
“Okay. Question for a question?”
Steve nods, and without words, they shuffle down further under the blanket. Both naked, legs intertwined under the blanket, and Eddie slips his arm under the pillow that Steve’s head is on. They both roll onto their sides, completely facing each other.
“Do you want to start?” Eddie whispers, and Steve shrugs.
“I can.”
“Okay.”
“What’s your middle name?”
“Theodore. What’s yours?”
“James. Theodore? That’s so cute.”
“My Uncle Wayne used to call me Teddy when I was a pup.”
“I love that.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“That’s adorable.”
“It’s not that cute-“
“Little baby teddy. With your big brown eyes and crazy curls.”
“Now you’re just messing with me.”
“I’m not!”
“Mhm. Sure you’re not.” Eddie laughs, pulling Steve a little closer. He pushes his head into Eddie’s neck, pressing a gentle kiss there.
“Okay, okay. I’ll let it go for now. What’s your favorite color?”
“Blue. Yours?”
“Red.” Eddie smiles, “Kind of obvious, huh?”
“A little. What’s your life dream?”
Eddie snorts, draping his other arm across Steve’s side, “Jumpin’ straight to the big questions, huh?”
Steve shrugs, “Why not?”
“I want to be a musician,” He sighs happily, “Corny, I know. But, I’ve always had this dream of.. making it big. Selling out stadiums, having fans, people who want to listen to my music and care about it. I don’t know. Dream big, you know?”
“You could do it.”
“You’ve never heard my music, Stevie.”
“Don’t have to. I know that you can do it.”
“You might have a little bit too much faith in me.”
Steve shrugs, “Better to have too much than not enough. You’re gonna be a rockstar , Eddie. I know it.”
Eddie’s face softens again, and Steve wishes that he could capture that look on his face. Every time that it happens, it’s so much better than the last. Steve wants to stare at his face forever.
Against his better judgment, for a brief moment, Steve lets himself think about being the mate of a rockstar. Going on tour, getting first peaks of new music, watching people fawn after and beg for his partner when he knows that they’ll never have him. He likes that. He could get used to that. Easily.
“What about you?” Eddie asks, tapping his foot against the back of Steve’s calf, “What are your dreams?”
Steve doesn’t really know.
He hasn’t thought about it a lot. There were a lot of things about his life that had been laid out before he presented that would likely change now. He doesn’t think that his father will let him take over the family business anymore, unless he married and mated an alpha who could. He might get lucky enough for his parents to still pay for college, but he doesn’t even know what he would major in anymore. Everything was still so unclear.
There was only one thing that Steve knew he wanted, and that was to be a parent.
It feels stupid, like he’s just falling into the societal norms of what his secondary gender is supposed to want, but he can’t help it. Even before presenting as an omega, Steve wanted a family. He wants pups to take care of, a mate to spoil. Everything that he never had as a child, he wants to give to his future family.
The urge to be a parent, a mom, only grew more when he presented as an omega. That was a given, it’s what he was made for. But sometimes? It was all he could think about. An alpha to take care of him, to give him pups to take care of, being a good mom in the way his never was.
Robin told him it wasn’t a bad thing to want that, and Steve knew deep down that it wasn’t. It didn’t take away the weird feeling in his chest. He didn’t think anything ever would.
Eddie is still staring at him expectantly, and Steve just shrugs his shoulders.
“It’s kind of- dumb. And probably, definitely, not something we should talk about after- Yeah.”
“You should tell me anyway. I wanna know.” Eddie smiles, leaning forward to bump their noses together.
“It’s corny.”
“I don’t know if you’ve met me, sweetheart, but corny is my middle name.”
“I thought it was Theodore. Did you lie to me?”
Beside him, Eddie snorts, shaking his head. Steve lets out a quiet laugh, tapping his foot against the other’s leg.
“Oh, you’re soo funny,” He’s still laughing, hand splaying out flat along Steve’s back, “I’m serious, though. I wanna know.”
Steve chews on his bottom lip, letting his eyes trail over every part of Eddie’s face, just taking him in. Before tonight, Steve definitely knew that Eddie was pretty, but up this close? He’s… gorgeous.
“You’re going to laugh at me.”
“Never.”
“… I wanna- I wanna.. be a mom.”
“That’s not weird, Steve,” Eddie shakes his head, “You’d be a fantastic mom.”
“You don’t even know me that well.”
“Don’t have to. I just know.”
“… Think you have a little too much faith in me.”
“I seem to recall someone telling me earlier that it’s good to have too much faith than none at all. Do you remember that? I do.”
“Don’t use my own words against me,” Steve laughs, shaking his head, knocking their foreheads together, “It’s just- That’s what I’m supposed to want, right? My brain is hardwired for it. But, it’s just.. feels… Like I’m giving in to something. You know?”
“I get it,” Eddie sighs, “Part of me… Also wants that, you know? To be a dad. I think I’m just more scared about fucking a kid up than anything.”
“I don’t think you would.”
“I just-…My Uncle Wayne’s the only family I’ve ever had, really. And he’s-.. He’s good. He raised me, and I’m so thankful for that, but I just… I don’t know. I think that I’m just… scared that I’d end up like my parents.”
“Me too,” He whispers, shrugging his shoulders, “Robin says that the fact that I’m worried about it though is a good thing. Because I would be… self aware if I ended up like my parents.”
“Maybe she’s right.”
Steve hopes that she is. Steve doesn’t want his life to resemble James and Stephanie Harrington’s in any capacity. He doesn’t want to have a mate that he doesn’t like, he doesn’t want to have kids that he resents for ruining his life. Steve wants everything good that he’s read about, that he’s seen in movies. He just… wants. So much.
He tries not to acknowledge the way that his heart flutters knowing that Eddie also wants a family, that they share some of the same values, because he knows that it would ruin everything between them right now. Today was the first real conversation they’ve ever had, Steve can’t just… jump straight into planning a family with him.
But, his hind mind is begging him to think about it. To think about pups with Eddie’s curls and his eyes, with Eddie’s energy and Steve’s smile. He thinks about Eddie making it big as a rockstar, with Steve and their child coming to a show or two to support him. He thinks about a big house, full of their things, a place full of love and family for them to raise a pack.
It’s too soon. He knows that. He won’t say anything about it.
It’s a nice thought to have, even for a moment.
“Yeah.. Maybe she is.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever have that, though.” Eddie says, shrugging, “Can’t think of a lot of people who would be okay with an alpha who was never home.”
“Why wouldn’t you be home?”
“Rockstar. Remember? I want to.. To see the world. All the things that I never thought I would get to have. I would… I don’t know. I would feel bad having a family and then having to up and leave for tour or something.”
“Couldn’t you… take them with you?”
“My mate, sure. I just- I don’t know how safe of a place tour would be for a pup. I also don’t know how well I would do being away from my kid for that long. Easier to just not think about it, you know?”
Steve nods, even though it breaks his heart a bit. The fantasy in his head cracks, one that he shouldn’t have let himself have, because he knew that it would be too good to be true. They weren’t dating, they weren’t mates, they were having a one night stand.
“Yeah, makes sense.” Steve nods, he needs to change the subject before his scent goes stale and alerts Eddie to the sadness he’s feeling, “What’s your favorite food?”
They talk the rest of the night. Still tangled together, still naked, breaking conversation every once in a while to just look at each other. When Eddie leans forward and kisses him again, Steve kisses back, he couldn't stop himself if he tried. One kiss turns into two, into three, into more than Steve can count, until he’s underneath Eddie for a second time that night.
It’s softer this time than last. Eddie takes his time, kissing all over Steve’s body until there isn’t a part of his body left untouched by Eddie’s lips. By the time that Eddie’s lips trail back up his body, capture his own again, Steve’s almost shaking with how badly he needs Eddie.
They fit together perfectly. Eddie slips into Steve’s body like they were made for each other, and every thrust of his hips has quiet moans and whines bubbling out of Steve’s throat. His body feels like it’s on fire, it’s the best he’s ever felt, and god, he wants this forever.
They cum together, Eddie’s knot burying deep inside Steve’s pussy, locking them together. They’re kissing when they reach their climaxes, Steve gasping into Eddie’s mouth at the stretch, because being knotted twice in one night is a lot when he isn’t in heat. It hurts, but it feels good, and he clenches his walls down around it to keep Eddie inside of him for even longer.
When Eddie’s knot deflates, he slips out, falling down beside Steve on the bed. Eddie rolls onto his side, Steve rolling into his chest, and they wrap their arms around each other. Steve’s tired. He knows that he needs to sleep, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want this night to be over. He wants to stay up until the sun starts peaking over the horizon, talking to Eddie, learning everything that he could ever know about him.
But, his body has other plans. His eyes are barely open, head buried in Eddie’s chest, breathing in his scent. It’s calming.
“Don’t let this be the last time we talk, Eddie. Please.” Steve whispers, right before he falls asleep. There’s lips on his head, a kiss pressed into his hair.
“It won’t be. Promise.”
__________________________
When Steve wakes up in the morning, Eddie isn’t there.
It hurts. Steve won’t pretend that it doesn’t.
He sits up in bed, scanning around his room for any trace that the alpha was still here, but there isn’t anything. The clothes that had been thrown on the floor, that had been tossed aside in the heat of the moment, are all gone. The only thing that proves that Eddie had been here last night was the throbbing between Steve’s legs, and the lingering scent of him on the other pillow.
It’s fine. Eddie didn’t owe Steve waking up in the morning. It’s fine.
Steve pushes himself out of bed slowly, picking up his boxers from the ground to slide back on, and he tries to convince himself that Eddie left because he had to, not because he wanted to. He had something to do, he needed to be somewhere, and he just didn’t want to wake Steve up.
It left a bad feeling in Steve’s chest, but he tried to push it down.
It’s Saturday, which means that Steve has a shift at Scoops with Robin. The clock on his bedside table tells him that he only has about thirty minutes to get ready and make it across town before she decides that she’s going to bike the entire way to Starcourt. If she was even home yet. He should call and make sure she’s there.
The walk downstairs feels salacious because every way he looks, he remembers a moment with Eddie. Eddie eating him out against the door, holding him up against the stairs, the shirt of Steve’s that had been discarded down here last night still sitting on the floor.
Not letting himself dwell on it, Steve calls the Buckley household, where a too peppy Robin answers. He swears that she was wasted last night, but she doesn’t even sound hungover. She tells Steve to take his time, but not too much, because they could not be late.
With a sigh, he trudges to the bathroom to get ready.
He showers, washes his hair, lets his hands trail over every part of his body because he remembers what it felt like last night when it was Eddie touching him. When it felt like Eddie couldn’t bear the idea of not touching Steve, only to leave him alone this morning. It didn’t make sense. Steve thought that they had a good night, one that would warrant waking up next to each other, but maybe that’s the part of his brain that romanticizes everything. Robin says that he has a habit of looking at everything through rose colored glasses, and maybe this wasn’t any different.
He wraps a towel around his waist when he gets out, and he walks in front of the steam covered mirror. He can see his frosted reflection, but he uses another towel to wipe away a cutout of his body in the mirror, and he just stares at himself. There’s a purple bruise that sits at the base of his neck, and he brings two fingers up to trace it. He doesn’t even remember when Eddie would have put this on him last night, can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but he likes the way it looks. It’s nowhere near his mating gland, the one that one day someone would sink their teeth into and claim his as theirs forever, but it’s close enough for Steve to fantasize about it.
It feels nice to be claimed by Eddie.
He’s positive that it’s just his hind mind dwelling on the fact that he had sex with an alpha last night, but it’s practically vibrating with excitement inside of him at just the thought. That Eddie claimed him, made him his, just a little bit. He runs his fingers along the bruise, he can see where Eddie’s teeth sunk in because it’s darker there than in the center. He likes it. He’s going to be sad to watch it fade over the next few days.
Steve sighs, finishes getting ready, wearing a shirt with a higher neckline than usual to cover the mark. He’s not embarrassed by it, he just does not want to have to explain himself to Robin.
Which, he should have known better. Robin knows Steve better than he knows himself most days, and she isn’t even in the car for a second before her eyes narrow at him into a tight glare.
She doesn’t even look hungover.
Lucky bitch.
“What did you do last night?”
“Hello to you too? Good morning? How did you sleep? Did you have fun at your girls night?”
"You smell like an alpha. Who did you fuck?”
“I do not smell like an alpha. I showered this morning!”
Robin, still glaring, leans in closer until her nose is pressed against his shoulder. She inhales deeply, before shaking her head, “You’re lying! I can smell it! Spill!”
“It is too early for us to be talking about my sex life-”
“Aha! You admit it! Who?!”
“None of your business.” Steve says, sticking his tongue out.
“Uh, yeah it is. We’re best friends. We talk about everything.”
“Except my sex life.”
“Well, it hasn’t existed since we met.”
“Ouch.” He laughs, shaking his head, “That was low, Buckley.”
“Spill!” She says, hands landing on Steve’s shoulders, shaking him playfully, “I need to know!”
“Ask me again later, when I’m more awake.”
“Fine.” Robin sighs overdramatically, flopping back into the passenger seat of the car, “I’ll wait until lunch to bug you about your sexual conquests.”
“Thank you, I know that’s so difficult for you.”
“Oh, Steve?”
“Yeah?”
“Nice hickey.”
His cheeks flush, hand flying from the steering wheel to the spot on his neck that he thought was covered. Beside him, Robin giggles wildly, propping her feet up on the dashboard.
“Onward! To work!”
__________________________
All in all, they have a good day at work. Robin had been nice enough to use her emergency makeup to cover the spot on Steve’s neck before they went in, because she said that the undershirt under the Scoops uniform looked “horrible.” It took her a little bit longer than they had, they were late getting in and opening the store, but the mark on his neck was basically nonexistent thanks to her.
The customers in the morning aren’t usually bad, and today is no different. No one really wants ice cream before noon, so usually they spend the first little bit cleaning and restocking. Robin stays true to her word, she doesn’t say a peep about Steve’s night until lunch time, making small talk about anything else she can think of. Band, her classes, a cute girl that she saw in the hallway last week that she’s pretty sure was flirting with her. How much Robin can talk is one of Steve’s favorite things about her, because she never fails to fill the quiet void that Steve had grown to hate so much.
He’s sitting in the back, feet propped up on the employee table when Robin comes back with a shit eating grin on her face.
“There’s someone here to see you.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Eddie Munson. And man… I thought I recognized his smell.”
Steve flushes, embarrassment making his face turn neon red, and Robin just giggles.
“... Tell him I’ll.. be out in a second.”
“You can’t keep anything from me, Stevie.” She sing-songs, twiddling her fingers at him. Steve grumbles, flipping her the bird, making her laugh even louder before turning on her heels to walk back into the front room.
Steve takes a minute to compose himself, runs his hand through his hair a time or two, straightening out his stupid uniform with the palm of his hands. He’s hated the sailor suit since he got this job, but he hates it even more now knowing that he’s going to have to see Eddie in it.
But, seeing Eddie makes it more worth it.
He had been scared that he wouldn’t see him again, that last night had been some blip in the timeline that neither of them were going to talk about, but Eddie was here. He came to see him at work, which had to be a good thing, right?
When Steve comes out of the break room, Eddie is standing at the counter, talking to Robin. He’s smiling at her, she’s leaning over the bar on one elbow with the same shit eating grin from earlier. Both of their heads snap over at him when he comes from the back, and neither of them stop smiling.
“Told you he’d be right out. He was actually about to go on his lunch break-“
“I was already on my lun-“
“Plus, we’re gonna be dead until our shifts are almost over, so as long as you two don’t go far, talk as much as you want!” Robin smiles, taking a step towards Steve, starting to push him out from behind the counter. He tries to plant his feet, tries to stop himself from being moved, cursing her over his shoulder while Eddie watches.
“I’m going to smother you in your sleep, do you hear me? Smother you.” Steve hisses, but Robin just smiles, giving him one more shove until he’s standing on the other side of the counter.
Across from him, Eddie’s eyes trail up and down Steve’s form, and a deep blush sets on his cheeks. Stupid shorts. Stupid sailor shirt.
“What was it that Robin said when I walked in? Set sail on an adventure of flavor? I’m down if you’re gonna be my co-captain.” Eddie says, doing another once over of Steve’s body. He has to stop that. Steve cannot be turned on in this stupid outfit.
“Ha-Ha,” Steve says, completely deadpanned, “What’re you doing here?”
“Well, I seem to remember last night, someone asking me to make sure it wasn’t the only time we talked. Remembered you worked here, was stopping by a record store in the mall, figured I’d come say hi.”
“You could have said hi this morning instead of running off.” Steve takes another step towards him, his voice quiet. Eddie nods his head, sighing quietly.
“I know I shouldn’t have left this morning, but I completely forgot that I didn’t tell my uncle I was gonna be out all night. He freaks out if I’m not home when he gets back from work, and I didn’t want to wake you. You look so peaceful when you sleep. Your nose scrunches up, and you drool. Super cute.”
Steve can’t help the little smile on his face, knowing that Eddie didn’t leave because he regretted what happened between them. He didn’t show up here to break things off, or to tell Steve to never talk about it again. Instead, he came here because he wanted to see Steve again. It makes his heart swell.
“Do you want any ice cream?”
Eddie laughs, nodding his head, “Give me your favorite.”
__________________________
They sat and talked for almost the entire rest of his shift. Steve peeks over his shoulder every little bit to make sure Robin wasn’t drowning, only to be sucked back into a conversation with Eddie as soon as he saw that she was handling it fine.
It becomes a regular thing.
Not Steve just sitting and talking to Eddie, but Eddie coming in to talk to Steve while he works. He stands across the counter, watches Steve fling ice creaming for children and their parents, and talks to him about anything and everything he can.
Steve enjoys it. A lot.
He comes after school almost every day for a week, but that’s the only time that they talk. Eddie never leaves a phone number for Steve to call him, never asks him to come over, hardly brings up the fact that they had sex to begin with.
It isn’t until a week after they slept together that Eddie finally gives Steve the push he was looking for.
“You’re off tomorrow, right?” Eddie asks, elbows on the counter, head in his palms.
“Mhm.”
“Do you wanna hang out?”
“Hang out?”
“Yeah. Wayne’s working a double at the factory tomorrow, so I’ll have the trailer all to myself. Figured we could.. make dinner? Watch a movie? Drink a little bit.”
It sounds like a date. Just the two of them, making dinner, curled up on the couch together afterwards, alone in Eddie’s trailer. That’s a date. Eddie is asking Steve on a date.
“Yeah, that sounds like fun.”
“I can pick you up? Like… 6?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Eddie doesn’t stick around much longer than that, and Steve can’t wipe the stupid smile from his face for the rest of his shift. He has a date with Eddie. A date.
He couldn’t remember the last time that he went on a real date.
Which meant that Steve spent the majority of the next day stressing over what to wear.
Robin stayed the night so that she could help him get ready, but that just consisted of her laughing at him preening and grooming himself.
“I think you need to lay off the hairspray, Steve. You’re gonna drown in it.”
“I need my hair to look good-"
“It looks better when you leave it alone.”
“I’m almost done.”
“I don’t know why you’re stressing about this so much. Clearly the guy is already obsessed with you.”
Steve snorts, rolling his eyes, “He is not.”
“Okay, sure. He just shows up every day for your lunch break, talks to you for your entire shift, has already slept with you, and is inviting you out on a date.”
“He didn’t say the word date. He just said ‘hanging out.’”
“Steve.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s a date. You guys are making dinner together and spending the night doing gross stuff. That’s a date.”
“It could be a date. It could also just be us hanging out.”
“I don’t think you would know that someone was into you if they held up a sign that said ‘Steve Harrington! I wanna bang you for the rest of our lives! Have my pups! Mate with me!’
Steve tries desperately to hide the red flush of his cheeks by turning away from her, the memory of Eddie telling Steve he was going to fuck him until it takes hitting him like a train. Maybe Robin had a point. This might be a date, it might be Eddie trying to court Steve, and the idea of that is thrilling.
He hopes that she's right.
The only bad thing about Robin staying over was that Steve had to take her home, which meant that he was pulling into the driveway only mere moments before Eddie did. He had even gotten out of his car yet. The van pulls up right next to his beemer, window rolling down as Steve steps out of the car.
“You goin’ somewhere?” Eddie asks as Steve crosses towards him. The woodsy scent of the alpha gets stronger the closer that he gets, and it makes Steve feel weak in the knees. It should be illegal for him to smell so good.
“Well, hopefully back to your place with you,” Steve says, crossing his arms across Eddie’s driver side window, “Robin was here, I had to take her home. Thought I would be back before you got here.”
“You and Buckley really are inseparable, aren’t you?”
“Mhm. Platonic soulmates with a capital P.”
Eddie smiles, leaning down into Steve’s face, one hand coming up to cup his jaw. Steve leans into the touch, doesn’t think he could stop it if he tries, especially not when Eddie rubs his thumb under his eye.
“Hi.” He whispers, thumb trailing a little lower until it’s brushing beside Steve’s mouth, over his bottom lip playfully
“Hi.”
“Missed you,” Eddie smiles, and Steve purrs quietly in response, “Can I kiss you?”
“Mhm.”
So, Eddie does. He uses the hand on Steve’s face to drag his head up just a touch until they’re kissing through the window. It isn’t hard or rushed, just a gentle press of their lips together before they pull apart, but it’s enough to make Steve’s heart beat out of his chest. He’s sure that Eddie can smell the excitement, the happiness, as it rolls off of him in waves.
The entire ride back to Eddie’s trailer, he has his hand on Steve’s thigh. It doesn’t move up his leg like it did the first time that they rode together, but he does give the meat of his thigh a squeeze every once in a while. They talk about anything and everything, and it’s so strange to Steve how easy it is to fall into meaningless conversations with Eddie.
Even when they get to Eddie’s trailer, they just keep talking. Steve learns that Eddie has lived in this trailer with his uncle Wayne since he was seven years old. Wayne was an older omega who never mated, who took Eddie in when something happened with his parents. Eddie doesn’t tell Steve what happened between his parents, and Steve doesn’t push.
As they talk, opening up to each other more and more, they make dinner. Eddie had put a box of spaghetti noodles, a can of sauce, and two beers on the counter before he left, so they were able to immediately start cooking when they got back. Steve stood in front of the stove as everything cooked, Eddie wrapped around his waist, head on his shoulder.
It’s nice.
It’s too domestic.
His stupid omega brain won’t stop telling him how nice this would be. To cook dinner with his alpha, with Eddie, every night. To be wrapped in his smell and warmth for the rest of their lives. He loves the way that it feels when Eddie pushes his nose into his neck, when his lips barely brush against his skin, teeth coming into play every once in a while. He adores the way he can feel Eddie laugh against his back, how he rocks them side to side.
Steve thinks he could fall in love with Eddie.
They finish their beers, eat dinner cross legged on the couch, and then settle into each other for a movie of Eddie’s choice, which surprisingly, is Back to The Future. It’s one of the few movies that Steve has seen more than once, and he finds himself paying less attention to the movie than he is to Eddie. How it feels when he breathes, how he runs a hand up and down Steve’s shoulder blade, the way that he lays his head on top of Steve halfway through the film.
The beers that Eddie had put out for them have long since been emptied, replaced with one, two more by the end of the movie. Steve’s body is relaxed, he feels like he’s floating, and it might be the happiest that he’s been in a long time. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the alcohol, because of the closeness of Eddie’s body, but he knows that he likes it.
When Eddie’s hand slips up from his side to his jaw, when he carefully tilts Steve’s head up until they’re looking at each other, and their lips slot together easily.
One kiss becomes two, becomes three, becomes even more, but never enough. Steve wants to kiss Eddie until they become one, until their bodies meld together and have to be pried apart. He wants to crawl inside Eddie and live there, make a home in his skin and bones, because he’s never felt safer than he does wrapped in the alphas arms.
Right there on the couch, Eddie lays Steve on his back. They strip their clothes off, kissing and touching any skin that they can get their hands on, and Eddie dips low. His mouth dragging along the skin of Steve’s lower stomach, over his thighs, down to his cock. Steve’s hands tangle in long brown hair, pull and tug as Eddie moves his mouth expertly over him, one of his hands tracing down Steve’s legs, right under his cock, tracing Steve’s pussy slowly up and down.
The only thing in the world that compares to having Eddie Munson's head between his legs, mouth moving to pleasure him like he’s worshiping him, is how it feels when he pushes into him. The stretch, the way that Eddie mouths at his neck and mating gland in a way that feels almost wild, and how he’s completely still until Steve tells him that he can move.
They fit together like puzzle pieces in every way. Their mouths, their hands, their bodies. Even on the small couch, with one of his legs laying halfway over the edge, Steve has never been more comfortable. Eddie laces their fingers together, hips moving into him at an impossible pace, face buried in his neck.
It doesn’t take long for either of them to cum.
Steve feels Eddie’s knot swelling, pushing against his entrance, he’s mumbling quiet praises about how good Steve feels into his neck over and over again until it pops inside. Steve doesn’t even have to reach down to touch his own cock, the pressure and pleasure from being knotted sending him over the edge at the exact same time that Eddie does.
Eddie kisses up from Steve’s neck until their mouths meet, it’s a gentle and sweet kiss, just lips moving back and forth because they can. Their chests are heaving between them, bodies covered in a thin sheet of sweat, but neither of them care. They kiss long after Eddie’s knot goes down, long after he can pull out of Steve, but he doesn’t, not for a while.
Not until Steve’s back starts hurting from the couch.
“Not that I’m not- Enjoying this. But, do you have a bed around here?” He laughs, trying to talk between Eddie still kissing his lips.
“Mhm. Wrap your arms and legs around me. I’ll carry you.”
“I can walk.”
“Want to carry you.”
He barely has a moment to wrap his arm around his neck, legs around his waist, before he’s being hauled up off the couch so much easier than he should have been. Steve yelps, limbs tightening around Eddie’s body, before a quiet laugh bubbles up his throat.
Eddie carries him straight back in the trailer, kicks a bedroom door open, and then Steve is surrounded by Eddie’s scent. It’s everywhere. It’s overwhelming. It’s amazing. He’s laid down on blankets and pillows that smell so distinctly like the alpha that he wants to live inside of them. He burrows underneath them, shoves his nose into the pillow under his head, a quiet purr rumbling out of his chest. From above him, he hears Eddie laugh.
“You seem to like my bed an awful lot.”
“Smells good,” Steve shrugs, “Get in here.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Eddie smiles, lifting the blanket up and slipping in right next to Steve, arms snaking around his waist to hold him close. “We can’t leave our clothes in the living room, though. Wayne’s gonna kill me enough when he smells the house, think I’d be six feet under if he knew we fucked on his couch.”
“Then go get them.”
“Mmm, will later. Wanna hold you right now.
Steve’s heart skips a beat in his chest, and he’s helpless but to push his head straight into Eddie’s chest. He wraps an arm around Eddie’s waist, closes his eyes, and tells himself that he can’t fall asleep here. He has to go home.
He wakes up the next morning still naked, still wrapped in Eddie’s arms.
__________________________
Despite the awkward morning that involved Steve coming out of Eddie’s room wearing a pair of Eddie’s PJs to sneak out to his car, only for the two of them to come face to face with Wayne, the two of them continue to see each other every day.
For a few weeks, Steve knows that he’s going to see Eddie almost every single night. They have dinner, a beer or two, and they can’t keep their hands off of each other.
They’re not dating.
It might be close, though.
Steve can’t explain it, but he needs to be close to Eddie. His hind mind screams when he’s not in the same room as him, the urge to be protected and mated has only gotten worse with the more time that they’ve spent together.
They’re not dating.
Robin laughs at him anytime he brings Eddie up, or when he shows up to her house with a hickey the size of Eddie’s entire mouth on the side of his neck. She insists that they are dating, but Steve knows that neither one of them have said that word, so they are not. They’re just having fun, enjoying each other’s company.
They’re having a lot of fun.
Like right now, with Eddie between his legs, face buried in Steve’s cunt like he can’t bear to part from it. Steve’s already cum on his tongue twice, his legs are shaking, he’s overly sensitive and overstimulated, but he loves it.
“Alpha- Fuck, give me just a second-“
Lifting his head up, resting it against Steve’s thigh, Eddie smiles up at him. His face is shiny with slick, cheeks flushed, lips swollen, and he presses a gentle kiss to the inside of his leg.
“Sorry, baby. You just taste so fucking good. Sweeter than normal. Can’t describe it.” Eddie says, kissing back down the inside of Steve’s leg, until his mouth is hovering above his core once again. “Smell so good too.”
“Didn’t do anything different- Eddie, Jesus Christ.”
Steve’s hand shoots down to Eddie’s curls as the alpha licks a stripe from his entrance, all the way to around his cock, circling it slowly.
It takes another hour or so for Steve to be able to pull Eddie up his body into a heated kiss. He wraps his legs around his waist, pulls him close, running his hands up and down his body over and over again because he just likes to feel Eddie.
They don’t even have sex. Eddie just lays on top of Steve, rubs his face all over his cheek and neck, covering Steve in his scent. They fall asleep wrapped in Steve’s blankets, naked, holding each other like it’s painful to be apart.
__________________________
The last week of school, Steve gets sick.
Leave it to him to catch one last flu from public school before never having to return to it ever again.
It starts one morning the moment Steve wakes up, and he barely makes it to the bathroom before he’s doubled over it, head in the bowl, emptying any contents of his stomach that was left from dinner last night. It’s been a long time since Steve threw up, or was even really sick, so he isn’t exactly prepared for it. There isn’t much medicine laying around his house, not that he can really look, he can’t make it more than a few steps away from the toilet before landing back on his knees to dry heave.
It’s a Saturday, which usually means that he and Robin would have a shift together, but there’s absolutely no way that Steve is going to be able to handle an eight hour shift if he’s throwing his guts up every time he moves. He still feels like shit when he makes his way downstairs to the phone, dialing Robin’s number.
“Buckley’s, Robin speaking!”
Her voice is too peppy, makes the headache that Steve didn’t even know he had yet throb behind his eyes, and he recoils from the phone just a tad.
“Hey, Rob. It’s Steve.”
“Steve! I need you to come pick me up early, I need to tell you all about that cute alpha girl from my science class, Sierra. She asked me for a-“
“I can’t pick you up for work. I’m sick.”
“What do you mean you’re sick? Are you dying? Steve, you can’t die. I don’t know what I would do without you. No dying. Do you need medicine? Soup? I can have my mom drop some off when she takes me to w-“
“I’m fine, Robin. I just don’t feel… the best. Soup sounds good, though. Might just throw it back up.
“Ew, don’t talk about throwing up. That’s gross.”
“I’m sick!”
“I’m a sympathetic puker! I can’t even think about someone throwing up without feeling queasy. Oh. Yep. There it is. My stomach is turning. This is all your fault. Oh my god.”
“You’re dramatic.” He laughs, wrapping his free arm around him in an awkward self hug.
“Correct! Anyways, we will be by with soup before work. Feel better. Don’t die. Love you.”
She hangs up before Steve can even reply, making him chuckle under his breath. Once the phone is back on the receiver, he shuffles his way into the living room, where he collapses on the couch. He pulls the blanket off the back of the couch, drapes it over himself, and uses the remote on the table to turn on TV. He’s barely paying attention to it, but the background noise is nice.
Robin lets herself in when she gets there, places the soup in front of him on the coffee table, and kisses his head before she leaves. He spends the rest of the morning on the couch, trying to convince himself to sit up, and he ends up falling asleep laying there.
When he wakes up, he feels better. The nausea is still there, but it’s less, more manageable than it had been earlier. He can get up, move around the house, and manages to eat the soup that Robin brought over after heating up. By that night, he’s fine. He feels good.
But, in the morning, he’s sick again.
They don’t work on Sundays, so he uses the day off to rest. It’s the same thing. Sick in the morning, better by night time.
This routine continues for the remainder of school, but Steve pushes through it.
__________________________
Steve, Robin and Eddie graduate.
It’s on a Saturday, the sun is out, and Steve feels free.
He screams until his throat is raw when Robin and Eddie walk across the stage, and they do the same for him.
__________________________
The things about presenting as an omega that sucks the most are the heats and having post-heat periods.
As fun as it is to be horny, to have an alpha around right now that will take care of him, Steve hates going into heat. Mostly because nothing seems to solve the itch in his stomach, the tingling between his legs, no matter how deep he shoves his fingers inside himself, or how many toys he fucks himself until he’s sore on.
He knows that the only real way to get this feeling to go away is to be knotted by an alpha during his heat.
The only problem with that is that male omegas are most likely to get pregnant during their heats, and that isn’t something Steve is looking for now. While female omegas are relatively fertile all year round, male’s see a significant drop outside of their regular heats. That doesn’t mean that male omegas can’t get pregnant randomly throughout the year, but the majority of recorded pregnancies were conceived during a heat.
So, as much as Steve wants to spend his upcoming heat with Eddie, he can’t risk it.
Eddie also happens to be out of town for the entire weekend that it’s supposed to happen.
As much as Steve hates it, it feels almost like… fate telling him how bad of an idea it would have been to invite Eddie into the nest he would make to continue to have mind blowing sex for the duration of it. They could do that on their own time, not when Steve was out of his mind with want.
It’s a week after graduation, two weeks since Steve started feeling sick, and the feeling hasn’t gone away yet. He spends most of his mornings curled up in his bed, willing himself not to throw up, before forcing himself through the rest of the day. The world doesn’t stop just because he’s had an annoying stomach bug. He doesn’t complain about not feeling good as he and Robin sling ice cream together, doesn’t complain on the drive back to her house, or when she invites him in for dinner.
He does it all with a smile on his face.
But, the weekend of his heat comes out of nowhere, and suddenly Steve is off from Thursday to Monday. His only communication with Robin would be through phone until then, because he knew that he was going to be too hot, tired, and horny for any real company.
The only other two heats Steve has ever had started Thursday night, right before bed. He would be under his blanket, and his body would start to feel physically hot. He remembers running his hands along his body, how good it felt, how he had pinched his own nipples between his fingers for just a bit of electricity between his legs. It was easier to ignore that night than the following morning, when he would wake up coated in sweat, thighs wet with slick already, and the insistence urge to be fucked making him miserable.
It’s what he’s expecting when he wakes up on Friday, but… he feels normal.
Aside from the sickness he’s had for going on three weeks now.
Did he ask off for the wrong weekend? The last one was right on time. He thought he had done the math between them right, but Steve’s never been the best at math. Maybe he messed up.
He sits up, runs his hands up and down his face before getting out of bed. After this long of waking up sick, he was better at holding it down, so he skips going to the bathroom to empty his stomach to walk over to the calendar on the wall. Written and circled on June 10th is ‘Heat Weekend. Be Prepared!’
He’s so confused.
He makes his way downstairs, grabs a bottle of water out of the fridge, and calls Robin.
“Buckley Residence! Robin speaking.”
“Do you remember when my last heat was?”
“Good morning to you too?”
“Do you?”
“Not really? It was before Christmas, I think. Why? I thought the whole reason that mom was having to drive me to work while I suffer through it alone was because your heat was this weekend?”
“I thought it was. But, I feel… Fine.”
“You sure you’re not pregnant? You and Munson can’t keep your hands off of each other.”
She means it as a joke. Steve can tell by the way that she laughs when she says it, but a cold chill runs it’s way down his spine. No. He’s not. He would know, right?
It’s not like him and Eddie have been particularly… safe.
Steve doesn’t think that they’ve ever used a condom.
He doesn’t even remember the last time he took his birth control.
His stomach twists up in knots, his grip on the phone feels like it might crack in his grasp, and his heart is beating in his chest. No. He’s not. There’s no way. Except, there is. Eddie loves to knot Steve. They stay stuck together for twenty, thirty minutes after sex because it just won’t go down. Sometimes it happens more than once in a night.
How could he have been so stupid?
“Steve? You there?”
“What?”
“I was just joking. You probably just did the math wrong. Or, maybe it’s just setting in later than normal. Don’t freak out. It’s all fine. Probably.”
“… Yeah, you’re right.”
He thinks she is, but not about him overreacting. If anything, he’s under reacting right now. He needs to go to the store. He needs to get a pregnancy test. He can’t do that in Hawkins without someone recognizing him, without someone telling his parents. He’s off for the weekend, he can drive a couple towns over to get one.
Robin changes the subject pretty fast after that, talking until she has to get off to go to work, but Steve doesn’t register a single thing that she says. What if he’s pregnant? What is he supposed to do? His parents will kick him out as soon as they find out, if they don’t kill him first. He doesn’t know where he would go. He can’t move in with Robin, her family doesn’t have enough space. He can’t afford his own apartment with just his scoops paycheck.
He can’t even ask Eddie what to do, because he’s out playing shows for two weeks.
Eddie, who wants to be a rockstar. Eddie, who had hopes and dreams outside of Hawkins. Eddie, who told Steve that while he wants a family, wants pups, he wants the glamorous rockstar lifestyle more.
This would ruin everything for Eddie.
Steve feels like he’s going to be sick.
There is no music playing the entire two and a half hour drive he makes into Kentucky, desperate to make sure that no one recognizes him. He stops at a little convenience store off the exit, walks in straight back, head held high, like he can convince the cashier that he’s an alpha buying pregnancy tests for his omega and not an omega who may have royally fucked up.
He picks up five different tests. It feels excessive, but he has to be sure. The cashier smiles at him, and she either buys into the fake alpha bullshit he was putting on, or she’s polite enough to not say anything.
“Oh!” She says, scanning each test, “Hoping for good news with your mate with these?”
Steve shoves his hands into his pocket to pull his wallet out, nodding his head. Good alpha facade. Pretend, deflect, agree.
“Yeah, hopefully.”
“Well, I wish you the best of luck. It’s nice to see young people starting a family. You have no idea how much children change your life for the better until you have them.”
He doesn’t say anything, nods his head and pays, before quickly walking out of the store. The bag of tests is thrown haphazardly on the passenger seat, and it feels like a bomb in the car the entire drive home.
He’s not pregnant.
He’s not.
He would know.
He would be able to tell.
There would be signs.
Except, there are signs. Steve knows that. The mystery illness that he’s had every day for the past three weeks, how sore and sensitive his nipples have been, the pain in his hips. His eyes glance down at his stomach as he drives, and even though it would be too early if he was, he tricks himself into believing that he can already see a bump under his shirt.
He drives a little faster on the way home.
Part of his brain tells him that taking the tests at home is stupid, there’s a chance of him forgetting one laying around somewhere, for his parents to find them when they decide to come home. But the other part needs the familiarity of home. He needs his room, covered in Robin and Eddie’s scents.
He takes all five, lays them on the counter, and waits. He alternates between pacing around the bathroom, sitting on the floor, walking up and down the upstairs hallway for the full five minute wait. His stomach is in absolute shambles, nerves completely shot, he feels like he just ran a marathon unprepared.
He can’t be pregnant.
He just can’t.
The walk back to the bathroom is slow. He stands outside the door for a few minutes extra, arms crossed across his chest, taking deep breaths to settle himself.
It’s okay.
Everything is okay.
He stops in front of the sink, hand hovering over the rest, stopping only inches from grabbing it over and over. He just needs to look. That’s all. He just has to look, and it’ll be negative, and this feeling will go away.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Steve grabs the first test, flips it over, and just stares at it.
Two lines stare back at him where there should only be one.
Two lines.
No. No, no, no.
He flips over the next one, same thing.
And the next.
And the next.
And the next.
All five of them have two lines staring back at him, and Steve feels his world collapsing around him. He’s pregnant. With Eddie’s pup. With a guy who has dreams of touring and seeing the world, who told Steve first hand that he didn’t want a family.
He doesn’t know what to do.
Hot tears are pouring down his face before he can stop them, and he’s helpless but to just stand there and stare at the test.
Everything is going to change.
He knows that it doesn’t have to. There are options. He doesn't have to be a mom, not yet. He can… take care of this, never tell Eddie, and then find an alpha down the line who can give him the family that he wants when the time is right.
But, part of him can’t fathom the idea of ending the pregnancy. His hind mind screeches at the idea, begging and telling him to protect the baby now that he’s aware of it.
Steve stands in the bathroom and cries for a long time, unsure of what to do, but deciding that he needs to sleep on it. All but one of the tests are thrown away, hidden deep at the bottom of Steve’s bathroom trash can, the remaining one shoved into his bedside table for safe keeping. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do with any of this.
He’s too young. Eddie has dreams.
But it’s part of them.
He cries until he falls asleep, wishing that Eddie was here to tell him what to do.
__________________________
Steve’s dreams are plagued with images of a little girl with Eddie’s curls and Steve’s eyes. She smells like honey, calls Steve mommy, and he loves feeling like he has a purpose.
When he wakes up, one arm is wrapped protectively around his stomach.
__________________________
Three days.
That’s how long Steve lets himself think about it.
Three days.
It was enough time for him to weigh all the pros and cons, to make a plan.
He’s going to keep the pup. He can’t even think of getting rid of the baby without bursting into tears, even though he knows that it’s going to change everything. Nothing will ever be the same, but maybe that’s okay.
Steve isn’t going to tell Eddie. That part doesn’t change, no matter how much he thinks about it. Every bad reaction outweighs the good ones, and he can’t justify it. This isn’t what Eddie wanted. He doesn’t want to be held down with omega, not this young, and especially not before he achieves his dreams.
That means Steve has to leave town. There isn’t any hiding it from Eddie if they were in the same town, so he has to go.
Luckily for Steve, feels almost like fate, there’s a house about an hour and half from Hawkins that his mom’s mom used to own in a small town before marrying Steve’s grandpa. When his grandma died, she left that house to Steve in the will.
He never planned on living there, and was hoping to sell the house and land when he got old enough, but it’ll be a safe haven to hide and raise his child. He doesn’t know people from there, and if they do recognize him, none of them should know Eddie. He won’t even breathe the alphas name once he moves.
The idea of starting over, of making a new life for himself is… nice. The expectations that his parents had for him would be null and void once he moved out, if he was no longer living under their roof, and they couldn’t take the house his grandma had given him away. It was his the day he turned eighteen, they didn’t have any say over it.
So, he’s going to go there.
The biggest problem that he has is leaving Robin.
They have made so many plans together over the last year-ish that they’ve been friends. They were going to leave Hawkins together, Steve would follow Robin to whatever town that she ends up going to college in, and then they would start their lives officially when she graduated.
All of that would have to change now.
As much as Steve would want Robin to come with him, he can’t ask that of her. She has so much potential to make a good life for herself, and just because Steve is choosing to change the trajectory of his life doesn’t mean that she needs to do that too.
He isn’t planning on telling her that he’s leaving until the day he’s driving out of town because he knows her. She’ll want to come with him if she’s given the time to pack.
So, for a week, Steve goes to work with her during the day, acts like everything is normal, and then goes home to pack up his room. He doesn’t have a lot of stuff, but he makes sure that it’ll all be easy to unpack, and that none of the boxes are too heavy. For a week, he’s able to keep it under wraps. He doesn’t think that he’s acting suspicious, any different than he normally does, until Robin shows up unannounced at his house one night.
She doesn’t even knock on the door, just lets herself in with the key that Steve had given her a few months ago. He’s halfway down the stairs with a box in his hand when she barges in. Her normal happy scent is soured with confusion and anger.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Robin.” He says, shaking his head, “Would it kill you to knock? You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“We need to talk.” She says, stopping at the end of the stairs, essentially blocking Steve from moving around her.
“About what?”
“Whatever you’re hiding from me.”
“I’m no-“
“Bullshit. I know you, Steve. We tell each other everything, and there’s something you’re not telling me. I don’t know why, what I’ve done to make you think that you can’t trust me, but it ends now. You’re telling me what’s wrong, what I did, and what you’re hiding from me so we can fix it. I-.. It feels like you’re pulling away from me, and I hate it, and I need it to stop.”
Steve’s heart pulls in his chest, just a bit. He didn’t mean to worry her, to cause her any kind of distress.
“Rob-“
“Why are you carrying a box that says ‘bedroom’ on it?”
He knows he should lie to her, but he just… He can’t.
“… Because I-… I’m- I’m moving.”
“You’re what?”
“Moving.”
Robin goes quiet, which is so unlike her that it’s unsettling. Her eyes are wide, they scan over every part of Steve’s body, over the box, up the stairs to where his bedroom is. She taps her foot on the ground, crosses her arms across her chest, before nodding her head.
“Okay. Where are we going?”
“Robin-“
“Where are we going, Steve? Because you made a promise to me that we would do everything together, and when I said everything, I meant everything. So, if you’re moving, I’m moving. Where are we going?”
“You can’t just pack up your life and mov-“
“But you can? How does that make sense?”
“Because I have to, Robin.” Steve says, adjusting the box in his hand, shaking his head. “I don’t expect you to understand, but I have to.”
“And why do you have to, Stephen?”
“Because I-“
“What reason could you possibly have to leave me high and dry with no explanation?”
“I was going to tell you-“
“Were you?! Or were you just going to disappear in the middle of the night? Please, Steve. Tell me what could be so important that you can’t even tell your best friend that you're planning on movin-“
“I’m pregnant.” Steve shouts, and everything around them goes silent. It’s the first time that Steve’s said it out loud, and it makes the dam that has been threatening to snap over the last week crack and shatter. The tears well up in his eyes, they fall down his face one at a time, and he shakes his head.
In front of him, Robin is just staring. Her mouth opens and closes a few times, her eyes are glued to Steve’s torso, and he doesn’t know what to do. The silence drags on, until Robin nods.
“Where are we going?”
“Robin-“
“Stop. Where are we going?”
__________________________
After two days of arguing with Robin about it, Steve relents. She isn’t backing down, so she’s going with him. The house that they’re moving into is a two bedroom, so they’ll each have their own space, but they’ll be together.
Robin doesn’t bring up Eddie when they talk about the pup, which isn’t often. He thinks that she can tell that Steve doesn’t want to talk about it as much right now. She promises him that she’s going to be there, that she’s going to help, and that they’re going to raise the baby together.
They rent a U-Haul, which Robin’s dad is nice enough to drive while they drive the beemer. They don’t tell her parents about Steve’s situation, but The Buckley’s like Steve enough to not bug about why they’re moving, only smiling and telling them that they’ll help them where they can.
Steve doesn’t tell his own parents about why he’s moving, just that he’ll be out completely by the end of the week, and his parents don’t ask questions. It’s easier that way.
Eddie will be back in town in a couple of days, so they leave.
Steve and Robin ride in the Beemer, Mr. Buckley in the small U-Haul, and they drive over the city lines. Steve won’t miss Hawkins, he doesn’t think.
__________________________
There’s a small diner down the road from Steve’s new house, one that his grandma used to go to when she was still alive, but that has long since been rebranded.
What used to be ‘Mickey’s’ is now ‘Benny’s.’
The diner was passed down from generation to generation, and apparently it was tradition to change the name with each new owner. Steve didn’t know how or why that would be useful, but he didn’t question it.
Especially because Benny’s has a ‘Now Hiring!’ sign in the window.
They saw it when they drove into town for the first time, Robin pointing it out from the passenger window. They made an agreement that they would go check it out together once they were settled. That was a week ago, they were mostly unpacked and situated in their new home, and they desperately needed jobs.
Baby stuff is expensive, on top of the other bills that come with owning a house, even ones that have been paid off for the better part of two decades.
So, as they do most things, Steve and Robin go down to Benny’s together. They walk through the door, are greeted by a little bell above it, and an arrangement of eyes that look up at them with confusion. It’s understandable, new faces don’t wander through this town often. Still, it makes Steve freeze in place just a bit.
Since realizing he’s pregnant, Steve’s omegean brain is on alert when it comes to feeling unsafe. His body is designed to protect his unborn child, and even though he isn’t necessarily in danger, he doesn’t like the looks he’s getting from the men who sit at the bar. He knows that they can probably smell his pregnancy hormones from across the room, especially if they’re alphas.
A middle aged man with a bald head, nicely groomed beard, kind eyes, and a white t-shirt looks up at them from behind the counter. He does a once over of Steve, one of Robin, before nodding his head.
“Ain’t very often we get new faces stumblin’ in here,” He calls out, “What can I do for you?”
“Well,” Robin says, stepping forward, Steve following a stumble behind her, “To be honest, we just moved to the area, and we saw your sign in the window. We were just wondering if you were still hiring.”
“We are.” The man says, walking towards the end of the counter to meet them halfway. The closer that he gets, Steve realizes the man is an alpha, but he has a comforting scent. It reminds him of pine needles and burning wood. “But we’re only looking to fill one spot.”
Steve’s heart drops to his stomach. He knows that it’s stupid, but the idea of not working with Robin makes him feel sick. She’s the only person that he knows, the only support that he has through all of this, and she’s his best friend. He doesn’t want to spend his entire day away from the only pack that he has right now.
“Well, that’s a bummer. Because we’re a package deal.” Robin nods, “We’re really hard workers, though. You’d be lucky to have us on your team.”
“Would I now?” The man laughs, throwing a towel over his shoulder.
“Mhm. We’re both incredibly personable. We love to talk. Bet we could get people who haven’t tipped in ages to tip just because of how charming we are. Did I mention we’re really hard workers? Like to work lots of really long days. Hard hours. Can be here at the crack of dawn. Don’t even live ten minutes from here.”
While Robin talks, Steve scans the room. Most of the patrons are still staring at them. A few of them have their brows furrowed, eye line lowered, staring at Steve like they know without him even having to say anything.
“Well, clearly you’re talkative, but I ain’t heard a word out of him yet. You talk, boy?”
“What?” Steve asks, head whipping back towards the man. Robin steps closer to Steve, digging her elbow into his side.
“He talks. He just gets nervous. Isn’t that right, Steve?”
“Wha- Oh! Yeah. I just- Was looking around. It’s a nice place here. My grandma used to bring me here when I was a pup.”
It isn’t a lie. Steve has been to the diner before, but only once, sometime before his grandma got sick. He doesn’t remember much about eating here, or what they talked about, but he remembers being here.
“Really?” The man asks, skepticism in his voice. Steve nods.
“Back when it was still… Mickey’s? I think? My grandma owned that old cottage down the road. That’s where we’re living now. It’s close by. Like Robin said, we’re hard workers. There aren’t a lot of job openings in town, and I need to save up a good amount of money in a short amount of time.”
A look that Steve doesn’t quite know how to read washes over the man's face, eyes flickering down to Steve’s stomach and then back to his face. Like he knows without Steve really having to say anything, like all he needed was those few words for a confirmation.
Steve watches as he takes a step towards them, walking around the counter until there’s little to no space left between, and he speaks in a hushed whisper.
“Listen,” He says, sighing, “I feel for you, I really do. But, I ain’t looking to hire a pregnant omega who’s gonna need to take it easy. We’re short staffed. The hours are long. It’s hard work.”
“I don’t need to take it easy,” Steve says, standing a little taller, “I need to make money. I can do it.”
“You say that now, but what about when you’re seven months into this? Eight? What about after the baby’s born? What’s your plan then?”
Truth be told, Steve didn’t know. The idea of being inside of this absurdly hot building when he was ready to pop makes him feel queasy, but he needs the money. He has a pup to provide for.
“I don’t know yet. But, what I do know is that you need extra hands, and we need jobs. Robin’s a hard worker, and I’ll prove to you that I’m two times better than you could even imagine.”
The man’s eyes narrow for a moment, doing a once over of Steve again, and he’s completely silent. Steve doesn’t back down, no matter how much his instincts are begging him to in the presence of an older alpha. He meets his eyes, and he watches the change happen.
“… Alright,” He says, “You sold me. Better not disappoint me, you hear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Name’s Benny. Don’t call me ‘sir.’ Shit makes me feel ancient.”
“Am I hired too? Because we’re kind of a package deal. You don’t get one without the other. If Steve’s hired, then I am too, right?”
Benny laughs, nodding his head, “Yeah, kid. You both got the job. Let’s go get you some uniforms and start talking ‘bout your first day.”
__________________________
Steve makes it through a whole week of work before someone says something hateful to him.
He’s running around the diner during a rush, balancing multiple plates on his hand, smiling at every customer who walks in or that he talks to. He bobs and weaves between them, stopping to talk to the booth of four omega ladies who come in almost every day.
Their names are Claudia, Joyce, Sue, and Karen, and they come to the diner to have a cup of coffee each, and split a plate of french fries. They’re all incredibly nice, smile at him and welcome him into conversations when he has a free moment. He really likes being able to talk to them, especially because sometimes, they give him advice on being pregnant. Each of them has at least two pups of their own, so they’re more than happy to help him out.
They’re the ones who tell him to elevate his feet when he gets home from work to try to get a head start on the swelling that he’ll get the further along he is. They tell him that they all have hand-me-down clothes of some sort for all ages that he’s more than welcome to.
It’s all of the advice he had hoped his mom would give him in this situation, but he’ll take what he can get.
Most of the regulars at the diner are nice to Steve, except for one gentleman named Paul.
He hates Steve, and Steve doesn’t know why.
Paul is a beta man, probably in his mid to late 40s, and he almost completely refuses to let Steve serve him if Robin is there. At first, Steve thinks that maybe he thinks Robin is pretty, that he’s trying to get her to look his way, but the behavior doesn’t stop when Robin isn’t there.
It’s his first shift without her, and if anything, Paul is glaring harder at Steve than normal.
But, he puts on a good face. He doesn’t let it show that it’s bothering him as he runs food to different tables, tops up coffees, and smiles the entire time. Paul always sits at the front counter, always wants a black coffee and a breakfast platter, so Steve gets it put in for him before he even asks for it.
When the food is ready, Steve slides it front if Paul with a smile, “Went ahead and had this put in for ya, hope you enj-“
“I didn’t fuckin’ want this shit.” Paul says, and he sounds angry. Steve furrows his brows together, shoving his hands into the pocket of the apron that hangs around his waist.
“… I’m sorry, it’s just what you usually get-“
“Well, maybe I didn’t want it today. You ever think to ask people shit, or do you just always assume?”
Steve grinds his teeth, just a bit. He had heard stories about how people treat waiters at restaurants, but it was never something that he had seen or dealt with first hand. Until Paul.
“Guess I just assumed. Sorry, Paul. What can I get for you instead?”
“Yeah, I can tell that you just assume. That’s how you ended up an unmated pregnant omega, huh? Assuming an alpha would take care of you when you let them knot you, only to end up pregnant and fucking alone.”
His blood runs cold, fist clenching in the pocket of his apron around his order book. His foot taps on the ground, his jaw is clenched, and he takes a few deep breaths, reminding himself that he can’t lose this job. Not over an asshole like this.
“What can I get started for you instead, Paul?”
“Bet the alpha who knocked you up ran away when you told him, huh? Realized his mistake the minute you said something-“
“Paul,” Claudia says from behind them. Paul swivels on his stool to look at her, and when Steve glances over at the ladies, they’re all giving him an unimpressed, flat look. “Do you know how to shut your big mouth? Nobody here wants to listen to you berate a young man who’s doing his best. Especially not a room full of people who have known you our entire lives, who know more dirty secrets about you than you’d want out.”
From behind him, Steve watches Paul's back tense up, and there’s a few moments of silence, where he can hear the beta opening and closing his mouth in an attempt to find something to say, but never responding. A smirk plays on Cheryl’s lips, and she nods her head.
“Now, apologize to Steve, and leave that young man alone.”
“I ain’t apologizing to nobody-“
“You want me to tell Benny when he gets here? Cause I don’t think he’d appreciate you harassing his employees. Again.”
He hears him grumble under his breath before swiveling back around on the stool, not looking up from the plate of food that Steve had already laid out for him.
“… Sorry. And this food is fine.”
“If you need anything else, just holler.”
Claudia throws Steve a little smile over her shoulder as he rounds the counter, and he smiles back. It feels good to know that despite not being from here, despite his socially unconventional life now, there are people here who have his back.
__________________________
Despite the bump that is starting to show itself underneath all of Steve’s clothes, he manages to not think about it all of the time. There’s a small part of his brain that lets him believe that his life isn’t changing this fast, this drastically, so soon. If he doesn’t think about the life growing inside of him, then it isn’t there.
That changes one night after a long shift at Benny’s. Steve comes home, dragging his feet on the ground with how tired he is. It’s an exhaustion that he can feel down to his bones, being pregnant and pulling doubles is draining, but he has to do it. He has to save up money, needs to get all the necessities that he needs for his pup, and he can’t do that without money.
So, he works until he can’t stand up anymore.
He barely makes it to the bathroom to clean off all the junk from a long day at the diner, opting to sit on the edge of the tub and wipe his body down with a washcloth instead of an actual shower. He can do that in the morning, tonight is all about the bare minimum. He sits on the edge of the bathtub long after he’s done cleaning himself, just breathing deeply, feeling his feet throb at just the thought of standing back up.
His bed hasn’t been made since they moved in, but he likes it better that way. There are pieces of him and Robin’s clothing thrown all over it, tucked neatly into the best version of a nest that he can make, and he loves getting to crawl into it every night. Whatever fear he feels about being an unmated, pregnant omega flies out the window the moment he can collapse into the comforting smells of his small pack.
The only piece of clothing in it that doesn’t belong to him or Robin is a sweatshirt of Eddie’s, one that Steve presses to his face every single night before bed. It doesn’t smell like Eddie much anymore, and that kills Steve’s hindbrain just a bit, but he lets himself pretend that if he pushes his nose far enough into it, he can still smell the woodsy scent of the alpha.
He strips down to just his boxers for bed, curling up against Eddie’s hoodie and into the rest of the clothes, pulling his blanket up as much as he can. It’s instinct when his hand lands on his stomach, rubbing it in slow circles, trying to lull himself to sleep. He doesn’t think much of it.
Until he just barely feels something inside of him move.
His eyes shoot open, but he doesn’t move to lift the blanket. He doesn’t know if that’s what he thought it was, so he waits until it happens again.
This time, it’s more noticeable. It isn’t anything painful, more just like a slight pressure against the inside of his stomach, but he can feel it. His brain is jumping for joy at the sign that his child is alive, that it’s moving, and his hormones catch up with him before he can stop the tears from falling.
He lifts the blanket back to stare at the bump under it, and he rubs all over it with a big smile and a watery laugh.
“… Hi to you too.” He whispers, scratching dull nails against his skin, “It’s nice to meet you.”
There isn’t much movement after that, and Steve hopes that they settled into a spot that’s comfortable. His eyes don’t leave his own stomach for a while though, secretly hoping to get just a glimpse of seeing them move. He’s still crying, still quietly laughing to himself, and it’s the happiest that he’s been since his last night with Eddie.
It’s the first night that everything feels real.
There’s a baby growing in him that’s going to rely on him for everything. Every day, they get stronger, they get closer to being here, in Steve’s arms, and he can’t waste anymore time pretending that it isn’t happening.
“Don’t worry, baby,” Steve says when he pulls the blanket back up, one arm still wrapped protectively around his pup, eyes fluttering shut, “Momma’s gonna take care of you. Promise.”
__________________________
Steve buys the baby their first toy.
It’s nothing spectacular, just a snoopy plushie that he saw at the grocery store, but he spent fifteen minutes staring at it on the verge of tears before he bought it. He didn’t know why it caused such a strong reaction, but it did, so he had to buy it.
Ever since feeling the pup move, the connection that Steve feels to the baby is so much stronger. He wants them to have the best life. To give them everything and anything they could ever want or need.
He doesn’t know how this snoopy plushie is going to play into it, but mental images of a little baby holding the toy close for the majority of their childhood dance around in his head. He hopes they like it as much as he wants them to.
__________________________
Steve loves Benny.
The tough guy persona he had been putting on when Steve and Robin were hired was the biggest act in the world. The guy was more of a teddy bear than anything else. He went from being hesitant to hire Steve because he was pregnant, to keeping a special container of ice cream in the employee fridge with Steve’s name sticky noted on it. All because Steve had mentioned one time that he was craving mint chocolate ice cream, but that he couldn’t justify buying it right now.
Benny is one of the few alphas that Steve has met that he doesn’t absolutely hate. The list is small, pretty much only consisting of Eddie and Benny. Some of their regulars are okay, but they still feed into that heteronormative alpha bullshit that Steve hates so much. They either give him dirty looks for being unmated and pregnant, or they try to swoop in like Steve needs an alpha to take care of him and his baby.
It always gets shut down pretty fast when Benny is there, though. He doesn’t tolerate it. Once people start to realize how serious Benny is about protecting Steve, the hatefulness starts to fade. People talk to Steve to get to know him, they don’t bring up the baby, and it starts to feel like him and Robin are becoming part of the town.
__________________________
Robin goes with Steve to all his doctors appointments.
The thing about Steve is that he’s never liked going to the doctor, has spent almost his entire life meticulously avoiding it, only to end up with required, regular appointments.
But, Robin goes with him. So, it’s never that bad.
The nurses at the Omega Health clinic they go to are all nice enough, they always smile when Steve walks in, and ask him how he’s doing. No one ever bats an eye that Steve is an unmated, pregnant, male omega when he comes here. He’s just another mom, waiting for a chance to get a glimpse at his baby.
They get set up in a nice room, Robin pulling a chair next to the bed that Steve is laying on, and she holds his hand when the nurses raise his shirt to put the cold gel on.
“How far along are you?” The nurse asks, and Steve doesn’t even even have to think about it.
“About twenty-weeks.”
“Oh! Are we doing an anatomy scan today then?”
“Can you do that already?” Robin asks, squeezing Steve’s hand just a bit. The nurse, one whose name he doesn’t remember, smiles and nods.
“Twenty weeks is the preferred time frame by most doctors, things are usually pretty accurate around that time.”
When Robin squeezes his hand again, he looks over at her. She has a big, happy smile on her face, one that Steve is sure is mirrored on his.
“You think we should?” She doesn’t stop smiling.
“It would make buying stuff easier.”
“And naming them. You can narrow down the two ridiculous lists of names you’ve picked out if you know what they are.”
Steve nods, looking back over at the nurse, still smiling, “Yeah, I wanna know.”
It takes a few minutes for the nurse to get a good shot of the baby, they won’t stop squirming around, but eventually she looks over at Steve with a big smile.
“Hows that list of boy names looking?”
“It’s a boy?!” Robin says, shooting up from her chair to lean over Steve’s body, trying to get closer to the monitor.
“Mhm, that’s what it’s looking like. Your doctor will go over everything for sure, but, congratulations, Steve.”
He wants to reply to her, but he can’t. He can’t do anything but look between his own stomach and the monitor, at the grainy photo of his son.
His son.
It’s a boy.
__________________________
Steve’s contacts dry up.
It’s a small thing on the ever growing list of things that are going wrong in Steve's life, but it’s enough to tip him over the edge, just a bit.
He blames it on the pregnancy hormones.
But when he gets up for work that morning, exhausted, feeling like he didn’t sleep at all, only to find that his last pack of contacts are dried up? He can’t fight the tears. He stands there with the dry contact case in his hand, squeezing it tightly, tears falling down his face over and over again.
They can’t afford new contact lenses, which means Steve is going to have to start wearing his glasses again. Except, Steve hates his glasses.
He tries to rationalize it in his head, rebudget quickly, but there’s still so much stuff that he needs to buy for the baby. He doesn’t even have a crib yet. He barely has clothes for him. He can’t spend this kind of extra money on something as small and trivial as his contacts.
Squeezing his eyes shut doesn’t stop the tears from falling, and it doesn’t matter how hard he tries to hold back the sobs that threaten to shake his entire body, they fight their way through.
He feels like such a failure.
He wonders if Eddie being here would make any difference.
Sure, he has Robin, and she puts a fair share of money in for bills and household repairs, but Steve tries really hard to not let her buy baby stuff. She works hard, took a gap year of college just so she can watch over Steve through his pregnancy, and she deserves to spend her extra money on herself instead of Steve’s baby. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t buy random stuff almost every single time she goes to the store, onesies, diapers, bottles, despite Steve begging her not to.
If Eddie was around, they could buy stuff together. Split the costs. Maybe Steve wouldn’t have to work as much, he’s sure that Eddie would have put in all the extra time to take care of them as best he could.
It’s days like this that he wished he would have just told Eddie. Because he just needs someone to lighten the load, take a bit off of his shoulders, and the only person he wants to do that is the father of his child.
But, that isn’t the decision that Steve made.
He did what he did because it was the right choice. Eddie deserves to follow his dreams, play his music, not to be tied down to some omega from his hometown.
Eddie would get his dream, Steve is getting his.
He uses the back of his hands to wipe his eyes, trying to stop the tears before they fall. He doesn’t want to cry, he doesn’t want to be stressed, because all of the baby books that he’s been reading say that it’s bad for pups. Except, he’s always stressed, and he’s always crying, and he’s so scared that he’s failing his son before he even meets him.
As if on cue, the baby moves. Just a bit, feels like he’s stretching out after waking up, so Steve drops one hand to his stomach to rub it.
“Good morning,” He whispers, voice still warbly with a sob, “Did you sleep good?”
Against his hand, a foot presses out, like the baby is answering his question. He knows logically he’s not, but he lets out a watery laugh.
“Good, I’m glad. I love you. I’m sorry I was crying.”
Steve runs his hand up and down the length of his stomach one more time, before shaking his head. Contacts aren’t the end of the world. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t like his glasses. He’ll get over it. He has to, because there’s only a few months until he’ll be here, and Steve doesn’t have time to be held up over something like this.
So, he puts his glasses on, and gets ready for work.
__________________________
The ladies at the diner throw him a baby shower.
It makes him cry. A lot.
He wasn’t expecting it, to say the least. He walks through the employee door at the back of the diner, makes his way through the kitchen with his hand on his stomach as a gentle shield, just in case. The diner is quiet, which it almost never is, so he isn’t sure what’s going to be waiting for him on the other side of the door.
He doesn’t know what he thought it would be, but it wasn’t everyone that he’s gotten to know over the past few months standing there with big smiles on their faces, and a ‘It’s A Boy!’ banner hanging above the windows.
“Surprise!” They shout happily, and Steve stands there for a moment with his mouth slightly agape. He scans the room, sees the presents that sit on the tables, and his heart pulls in his chest.
Then the tears start.
He can’t help it, can’t stop them, being pregnant makes him cry a lot. Robin is standing in the front of the small group, and when everyone laughs quietly to themselves, she makes her way across the room. Her arms are thrown around Steve’s neck, his snaking around her waist as best he can despite the bump between them, and she presses a kiss to the side of his head.
“Stop crying, you big baby,” She laughs, knocking their heads together, “You’re supposed to be happy.”
“I am! I just-... Is all this for me?”
“And baby. Mostly baby. It was Claudia’s idea, she said that there was no way we couldn’t throw you a shower.”
When Steve looks over her shoulder, Claudia is smiling at him with a level of fondness that Steve isn’t used to. She was the first of the older omega ladies at the diner to take Steve under her wing, and it doesn’t seem like she’s going to stop any time soon. He lets go of Robin, walking straight towards Claudia with his arms already open. She laughs, standing up to pull him into a tight embrace.
“Thank you,” He whispers, burying his face into her shoulder, “I don’t know how to thank you enough for this.”
“No need, Steve. You’re family at Benny’s now. It’s the least we could do for ya.”
The next few hours are spent eating food, playing stupid games about when Steve would give birth, or how big Baby would be, and then opening presents. The women in the diner didn’t go small with their gifts for Steve either. There’s more onesies than he thinks he has combined, a bunch of bottles and pacifiers, a couple pairs of the tiniest shoes that Steve has ever seen, and an assortment of other things.
The biggest gift that was gotten for him was from Benny.
It was a crib.
Nothing fancy, just a hand-me-down one from one of his sisters, but it was a crib. Steve didn’t have one of those, had been saving up trying to find a cheap one at a yard-sale or something, but he wasn’t having any luck. He had off-handedly mentioned it to Benny one day during one of his shifts, didn’t think anything of it, but apparently the man has listened and taken note.
Steve crushes him in a hug, making Benny laugh, his beer gut pressing right up against Steve’s bump.
“Thank you, Benny. Thank you.”
“Ain’t a problem, kid. Like Claudia said, you’re family round here. We’ve got you.”
__________________________
Steve spends the holidays alone.
It isn’t Robin’s fault, she has to go home to spend Christmas and New Years with her folks. She invites him, but Steve knows deep down that he can’t go back to Hawkins. There’s too many risks, too much on the line, at least while he’s still pregnant.
Still, she calls him every day that she’s gone so that he doesn’t feel lonely, but it only helps for the times that they’re talking.
When the line disconnects, the loneliness washes over him again.
He spends most of his days on the couch, a blanket pulled up high around his body, watching random TV shows on their dingy little television. The diner is closed from Christmas til The New Year, something about letting employees spend extra time with their families, which is nice for everyone but Steve
The only person that he has to spend it with isn’t here yet.
He talks to his son, rubs his stomach and tells him that they’ll celebrate good next year, for his first real Christmas, but it doesn’t ease the sadness in his heart. Steve hates being alone.
Robin comes home on January 1st, she’s walking through the door before it’s even noon, and Steve tries his best to push himself up off the couch to meet her half way. He feels like a beached whale these days, which is more than unfortunate because he’s only seven months along and it’s going to get worse before the baby is here.
They meet in the middle, arms throwing around each other, heads burying into the other’s neck to inhale their scent deeply. Steve missed her scent when it was fresh, not just from clothes that he had stolen from her room over the past week.
“I missed you.” He says, holding her a little tighter.
“Missed you too. Next year, you and baby are coming with us. Or my parents are coming here. I don’t know. I just- I hated that. Hated that you were alone.”
“It’s okay,” Steve whispers, shaking his head, “I’m just glad you’re back.”
“I have to tell you something.”
Steve pulls back from the hug, just enough to look her in the eye, raising one eyebrow.
“About what?”
“I saw Eddie when I was in Hawkins.”
His heart drops to his fucking stomach.
“What?”
“I-.. I was at the grocery store, and he saw me across the aisle before I saw him, or I swear I would have walked away and hid-”
“What happened?”
There’s a nervous glint in her eyes that Steve doesn’t like.
“He just- He asked me how I was doing, where I’d been. I lied and I said that I was going to college in Indy, which meant that he started asking me about college, so I had to come up with a whole fake roommate and all these crazy party stories for like twenty minutes-”
“Robin.”
“He asked about you.”
Steve’s going to be sick.
No, Eddie can’t know. He can’t know that Steve is here, that he’s pregnant, anything. He doesn’t think that Robin would tell him, but it’s suddenly the only thing that he can think about. Eddie knows. He knows, and he’s going to come take his baby away, and then Steve will have nothing-
“I told him that I hadn’t seen you in a while. That we-... We got into a fight before I left for school and hadn’t talked since. That I didn’t know where you went. I don’t know if he believed me. He looked skeptical, but he didn’t push it? I don’t know. I smell like you all the time and I’m sure that he has to know what your scent is, but I tried-”
Steve pulls her even closer, burying his head back into her shoulder, letting out a sigh of relief.
“Thank you, Robbie.”
“I’m not going back to Hawkins for a while. Just- Just to be safe. I’m sorry, Steve. I didn’t know he would be there.”
“He doesn’t know. That’s all that matters.”
“Want me to make dinner tonight?” She asks when they finally part, and Steve nods his head with a small smile on his lips.
“I think we would both appreciate that.”
__________________________
Since the house is so small, they rearrange Steve’s room.
Or, Robin rearranges the room while Steve picks up smaller things to move out of the way.
It isn’t a lot, they just need to be able to set the crib up close to Steve’s bed, and the way that the room was originally didn’t account for that.
In a perfect world, his son would have his own room, but this house only has two bedrooms, and Steve isn’t letting Robin talk him into her giving up her room for the baby. Steve doesn't mind sharing his room with the baby, he’s more content to have him close anyways.
They build the crib together, and Steve spends the next few hours arranging blankets and a few toys to sit at the bottom up. It shouldn’t have taken him as long as it does, but he just wants it to be perfect.
The last thing that he puts into the crib is the Snoopy plushie that he bought at the store almost four months ago. It’s been laying in his bed with him since he bought it, he’s been trying to cover it in his scent for when the baby is here.
It makes everything look… complete.
All that is missing is a mate to share in the moment with, and the baby that isn’t here yet.
When he lays in bed that night, all he can do is stare at the crib beside his bed, rub his stomach, and think about the fact that there’s only a few months left before he’ll never be alone again.
__________________________
He picks the baby’s name.
He doesn’t think that Robin is going to like it, but Steve does. That’s what matters.
They’re sitting on the couch, Robin has her legs thrown over Steve’s lap, and they’re watching a movie that Steve hasn’t been paying attention to for a while now. He knows that Robin isn’t going to like it, or she’s going to tell him that it’s a bad idea, but he can’t picture naming him anything else.
“I picked a name, by the way.”
“Did you?”
“Mhm.”
“Well, don’t leave me hanging! What is it?”
“Before I tell you, know that I will take any disagreements that you have into consideration, but I’m pretty set on it.”
Beside him, Robin sits up straighter. She puts her hands on her knees, furrowing her eyebrows together.
“... What is it?”
“Theodore.”
“That’s cute. Why would I have a problem with it?”
“Because it’s Eddie’s middle name.”
“Steve-”
“Listen, I know. I get it. But, I just… I really like the name, and I want to give him part of Eddie. It’s something small, but it connects them in a way that it’s noticeable. I wanna call him Theo, or Teddy. But I want his name to be Theodore.”
Steve expects more of a fight. He expects Robin to try to talk him out of it, to tell him that it’s a bad idea, that he’ll regret it one day.
She doesn’t, though.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
She nods, leaning back against the couch, and she smiles at him.
“I like the name Theodore. Theo. It’s cute.”
“Teddy.”
“That’s a little on the nose, Stevie.”
“Yeah, I know.”
__________________________
Robin takes a single photo of Steve’s stomach every month that he’s pregnant.
He always complains that he doesn’t want there to be photos of him looking his worst, but Robin insists. She says that he’ll look back on them fondly after Theo is born, and even though Steve doubts it, he lets her take them.
She hides them in her room, mostly because every time Steve sees a photo of himself from an unflattering angle, he cries.
There are a lot of other photos too. One of Steve putting stuff like the stroller and the car seat together, one of him using his stomach to fold laundry on, some of him just laughing. He steals the camera every once in a while to take photos of Robin, pay back of sorts.
He starts a photo album with the assortment of pictures taken between the two, and he marks the front of it with S+R+T.
It’s where they’ll keep all their pack memories at.
It feels good to have a family that’s just his.
__________________________
On February 14th, 1987, everything changes.
Steve wakes up that morning, starts to get ready for work, but is interrupted halfway through with the worst cramps that he’s ever had. It feels like every part of his stomach is collapsing in on itself, and he finds himself crouching on the bathroom floor, swaying side to side, trying to control his breathing.
It hurts like nothing else ever has before.
Robin finds him in that position only a few minutes later, drops to her knees beside him with a hand on his back, rubbing it slowly.
“Steve?” She asks, scooting in closer to him, “What’s wrong?”
He can’t talk, only shakes his head, one hand on his stomach as another wave of pain and pressure washes over him. Theo isn’t due for another two weeks, but his doctor has been telling Steve that Theo could come at any point. His hindbrain is screaming at him to get in his nest, that it’s time, but he knows that he can’t do that.
When the wave finally crashes, Steve takes a long, deep breath before looking over at Robin, “We have to go.”
“Hospital?”
“Mhm.”
“I’ll get the bags. You go to the car.”
Steve doesn’t fight it. He walks out to his beemer, crawls into the passenger seat with his hand on his stomach and waits for Robin to join him. He takes the few painless minutes to scan the countryside that they live on now, the green pastures and forest, the small creek next door, the place where he’ll get to raise his pup at. He wants to give Theo the best life he can out here.
Robin throws both the bags into the backseat, one of Steve’s stuff and one of Theo’s, and she has their camera bag hanging off of her shoulder. She smiles at Steve when she turns the car on, reaching over to grab his hand.
“Ready?”
“No.”
She laughs, “Too bad.”
Contractions come and go on the drive to the hospital, Steve alternating between being doubled over in pain and mostly fine. Robin talks him through them, and he’s grateful for her. He doesn’t think he would have been able to make it if it wasn’t for her.
They pull up to the hospital, get inside, and Robin almost shoves Steve into one of the wheelchairs. One elevator ride later lands them in the maternity wing of the hospital, and the nurses meet them halfway, all of them smiling and talking Steve’s leg off as they take him to his hospital room. With the help of his nurses and Robin, he’s moved from the wheelchair to the bed, and then the nurses get to work getting him hooked up and ready to go.
Robin never leaves his side.
For the next four and a half hours that Steve is laying in bed, alternating between being fine and having contractions, Robin is right there. She holds his hand, gives him encouraging squeezes when the pain is too much, and she always kisses his head once they pass. He doesn’t think that he would be able to survive this without her.
When the doctor comes in to check Steve for the last time, smiling up at him when he tells him that he’s ready to push, a wave of fear washes over Steve like a tidal wave. He doesn’t know if he’s ready for this. He doesn’t know if he’s ready to be solely responsible for another human, if he’s ready to be a mom. He’s scared he’s going to fuck this up, that he’s going to fuck Theo up before he even has a chance to get it right.
There isn’t time for worries though, because this is happening now. Pushing is the worst part, Steve feels like his body is being ripped in half, but Robin is there beside him the entire time. She holds his hand, presses her forehead against the side of his head, whispering encouraging words to him every second.
“You’ve got this.”
“He’s almost here.”
“We’re gonna raise the most kick ass baby together.”
“I’m so proud of you.”
At 1:52pm, February 14th, 1987, the most beautiful sound that Steve’s ever heard fills the room. It’s almost nasally, comes out in broken cries, but every part of Steve’s body feels alive hearing it. His eyes had been squeezed shut, but they fly open when the crying gets closer, a weight landing on his stomach. In front of him, on top of him, is his son.
“Oh my god,” Robin says, there are tears streaming down her face, “You- Oh my god, he’s here. You made that. You made a baby- Oh my god- He’s-“
A half laugh bubbles out of Steve’s throat as he watches the nurses clip the chord, and then Theo’s being whisked away to be cleaned off. Steve watches them from across the room the entire time, watches as Robin gets up to walk over and get a better look at him, sees her wipe her eyes a few times before looking over at him with a smile on her face.
“He’s perfect.” She mouths, and Steve smiles, because he already knows that.
Once Theo is cleaned up and swaddled carefully in a blanket, a nurse that Steve particularly likes named Caroline scoops him up in her arms, carrying him carefully over to Steve. One of the other nurses shows Steve how to hold his arms, and once he’s situated, Caroline smiles, carefully transferring Theo from her arms to Steve’s.
Everything suddenly makes sense.
Every bad thing that’s ever happened to Steve, every heartache, every lonely night spent wishing for something more, it all comes together in this moment. Without all of that, he never would have ended up here, in a hospital bed, holding his son in his arms. Looking down at Theo feels like coming home, like Steve found his purpose in this six pound, eight ounce little boy.
Despite the hat on his head, Steve can see the edge of dark brown curls on top of his tiny head. His little lips are pouty, cheeks are round and red, and his eyes are closed. Steve wishes he could see what color they are, if he got his or Eddie’s, but it doesn’t even matter to him. Because Theo is here, he’s alive, he’s healthy, and he’s his.
Deep down, Steve knows that the only thing that would make this moment better is having Eddie here, but he can’t dwell on it. The decision that he made was for the best for everyone involved, even if Eddie was unaware of it. It’s the best of both worlds in the long run. Eddie can pursue his dreams of being a rockstar, and Steve gets his of being a mom.
“Hi, Theo,” Steve whispers, bringing one hand up to trace his chubby cheek, “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
In his arms, Theo squirms just a bit. He doesn’t start crying, but he does whine, and Steve’s instincts take over before he even realizes what he’s doing. Calming and happy pheromones roll off of him in waves, and Theo’s whines fall short almost immediately. Steve smiles, still rubbing his cheek with his thumb, and he gets to watch when Theo’s tiny eyes blink open, seeing the world for the first real time.
A pair of dark chocolate eyes blink up at him, and Steve lets out a watery laugh. Brown eyes, brown hair, pouty lips, all unmistakable marks of Eddie that Steve will get to hold onto for the rest of his life.
A hand lands on his shoulder, but he doesn’t have to look over to know it’s Robin. She’s leaning in close, staring straight at Theo with him, and she smells happier than he can ever remember. Their little pack feels complete with Theo staring up at the two of them.
“He’s so fucking cute, Steve.”
“I know. I make pretty good looking babies, if I do say so myself.”
“I can’t believe you made him.” She laughs, and Steve nods.
“Me either.”
“Oh! Camera!” She says, halfway leaping across the room in one step. She pulls the dingy little camera that they’ve had laying around, just waiting for this moment, and she turns towards Steve with a big smile on her face.
Normally, Steve would protest any photos of him being taken when he didn’t look his absolute best, it’s what’s been engraved in his head since he was a child, but he doesn’t care right now. Robin snaps photo after photo of Theo, of Steve and him together, and she even has one of the nurses take a photo of the three of them. Robin presses her head completely against Steve’s, they’re both smiling so big it hurts, and Theo is sleeping in Steve’s arms.
Life feels the best it’s ever felt.
Eventually, the nurses have to take Theo away to finish his check ups, and Steve hates how cold and empty his arms feel without the weight of him in them. But, he takes the time to rest. The exhaustion crept up on him in a flash, and he takes advantage of the fact that Theo is safe with doctors and nurses to take a nap.
He doesn’t know how long he sleeps, but he knows that when he wakes up, his head is turned towards the small couch that’s in the room. He sees Robin sitting on it, knees pulled up, and Theo is resting carefully on top of her thighs. She has a single finger in his fist, her other hand tracing his cheek and face over and over again. His heart swells at the sight. He loves them both so much.
“He sleepin’ good?” Steve whispers, and Robin jumps, head swinging over in his direction. She gets a sheepish little smile on her face.
“Yeah, they brought him back a few minutes ago, but you were still sleeping. Figured you could use the rest. He’s such a quiet baby. I didn’t know babies could be so quiet. He’s just been asleep since he was born.” She rambles, looking back down at him, “I don’t know how he’s so cute. I never thought babies were that cute, but Theo? Oh my god, Steve. He’s perfect. Did you notice the little mole he has on his nose? He’s got one on his neck too, just like you.”
“Does he?”
“Mhm.” Robin shifts, scooping Theo from her legs into a cradle, standing up from the couch, “Here, you probably want him, don’t you? He’s your baby. I’ll probably hog him sometimes.”
Steve laughs, but he doesn’t protest as Robin slides Theo back to him. His body instantly relaxes at the feeling of his pup on him, and a small content purr bubbles out of the back of his throat.
“He’ll probably be in someone’s arms 24/7 between the two of us.” Steve laughs, leaning down to press a kiss onto his son's forehead. Robin nods.
“Oh, absolutely. Gonna be spoiled. Hey, Steve?”
“Hm?”
“You’re already a good mom.”
Maybe it’s the hormones, maybe it’s the fact that he’s been dreaming about being a parent since he was younger, or maybe it’s just the sweet compliment from his other half, but Steve tears up. Just a bit.
“Thanks, Rob.”
Nurses file in and out. They teach Steve how to feed Theo, how to change him, all the things that he didn’t know beforehand. It’s a lot, but he catches on quickly. Caroline calls him a natural more times than he can count, and all Steve does is shrug and smile.
Before the day is over, they fill out Theo’s birth certificate, which is the part that Steve has been dreading the most. Due to his status as an omega, Steve isn’t given the choice on putting down Eddie’s name on the birth certificate as the father. He tries to fight it, he really does, but the law works a certain way, and they can’t go against it.
“So, even if.. Even if his father doesn’t know I was pregnant, I still have to put his name on here?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Don’t worry, though. The father will not be updated on this change. It’s mostly just for the state to keep track of how many children each alpha has. I know the law is stupid, but there really isn’t anything we can do about it.”
Steve knows that the law exists because of omegas like him, ones that got pregnant after a hook-up and tried to keep the pup a secret from the alpha for whatever reason. The law exists to keep people in row, to prevent lawsuits and court cases with paternity tests, and to give alphas a one up on seeking full custody if they want it.
It makes Steve sick to think about.
He doesn’t think Eddie would want to be a full time single parent, that he would want to give up his rockstar dream to be a dad, but that doesn’t mean the fear doesn’t exist. If Eddie wanted to take Theo from Steve, he could, in the blink of an eye. The courts always swing in favor of the alpha, present or not.
“… Okay.” Steve nods, glancing over at his son in his bassinet.
“Don’t worry,” Caroline smiles, rubbing Steve’s shoulder, “This doesn’t mean they’re going to tell him, okay? It’s just for record keeping purposes.”
“… He just- Can’t know.”
“I know. But, hey, look, we’re doing the fun part right now. We’ll do alphas name last, yeah?”
Together, they fill out all the information about Steve’s son. Theodore Vincent Harrington, born February 14th at 1:52pm, weighing six pounds and eight ounces, fifteen and ¾ inches long. Steve gets to proudly sign his name on the certificate first, before printing Eddie’s name above where the signature should go. It breaks his heart, just a tad.
Theo’s little feet are pressed onto the paper, and it’s almost astonishing how little they are. Everything about his son blows his mind, from how perfect he is, to how small he is, and everything in between.
Robin, against her wishes, ends up having to leave the hospital that night. Now that Theo is here, Steve’s going to be taking a small leave from work, which means that Robin is already planning on working doubles and extra days to make up for the money they won’t have. Steve was smart with his income, he saved a lot of it, but he also had to buy so much stuff for Theo. He apologizes to her over and over again before she leaves that night, but she just kisses both Steve and Theo’s head before smiling, shaking her head.
“We’re a pack, Steve. We took care of each other before, and now there’s a pup to add into the mix. You’ve worked enough, it’s my turn.”
Once she’s gone, Steve and his son are alone together for the first time since he was born. No nurses, no Robin, no doctors prodding at him. Just him and Theo, who had been asleep in his bassinet, but wakes up a few minutes after Robin leaves with a pitiful little cry.
“Hey, hey,” Steve coos, slipping up in bed despite the fact that it still hurts to move, pulling the bassinet over to the side of the bed, “You’re okay, Theo. You’re okay.”
He lifts the baby into his arms, the crying doesn’t stop though, so Steve starts to release calming pheromones to his son while grabbing the bottle that the nurse had left in here only moments before Theo woke up. Steve brings the bottle to his son's lips, watching as the crying calms once he realizes that he’s getting what he was looking for.
Big brown doe like eyes stare up at Steve as he sways them side to side, and he’s never been so in love in his life. He knows that Theo will never have to want for anything, that Steve will bend time and space to give him anything and everything he could ever want, just by looking at those eyes. Without his little hat on, Theo’s head of thin dark brown hair lays in every direction, and Steve smiles to himself.
“Your dads hair was crazy like yours, you know that?” Steve whispers, slowly sliding back against the pillows. Theo stares up at him, but his eyes start to slowly blink shut, falling back asleep already. “Same big brown eyes, too. You’re gonna look just like him, aren’t you? Gonna be a little metal head, too? Maybe if he makes it big, I can show you all his music. That would be cool, right? Listening to Daddy’s music? Mhm? Yeah?”
He knows that in the long run, there won’t be any hiding who his father is from Theo. He’s going to ask questions, he’s going to be curious, and Steve won’t crush his curiosity. He’ll tell him whatever he wants to know, who Eddie is, the few smaller things that he knows about him. He’ll tell Theo one day why he made the decision that he did, and he’ll hope that he understands.
Steve may not know exactly what he’ll do when that time comes, but he’ll be prepared.
None of that matters, though. Not right now.
All that matters is that Steve got his dream. There’s a little boy in his arms that he loves more than he ever thought possible, and he’s going to give him the best life that he can.