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“I need help!” Dustin yelled the moment he pushed open the door to Family Video.
Steve, who was standing behind the counter and marking a stack of tapes with “50% OFF!” stickers, leaped at the sudden noise before looking at Dustin and picking up the nearest blunt object (a keyboard). “What happened?” he started, “Who’s hurt?”
“Where’s Hopper?” Eddie said as his head popped up over the New Releases rack. Ever since the guy miraculously came back and helped clear Eddie’s name, Eddie acts like the sun shines out his ass. Steve loves to make fun of him for it, especially when he goes on rants about how cops aren’t actually there to serve and protect (“One cop, Steve, one! And the guy hid a child from the government for a year! He doesn’t count!”).
Steve helped him get a job (no one wanted to hire Eddie without a strong reference, and Robin’s off in Massachusetts for college, so it was kind of a no brainer), but you never hear him talking about Steve’s ass.
Wait.
“Not with that,” Dustin waved them off. “The gates are all firmly closed. My mom is just gonna kill me.”
Steve liked Claudia Henderson. She wasn’t exactly someone he would bring to a party, but she was a good mom and loved Dustin to bits. She listened to him and cared about his interests and encouraged him to pursue his dreams, even if they weren’t her own, which is more than he could say about most parents in Hawkins.
She was also a massive pushover who thought her Dustie-Buns could do no wrong. Which means that, whatever Dustin did, he messed up bad.
Steve put his hands on his hips. “What did you do?”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Dustin started, which was another bad sign, “He just makes me so angry. Did you know that once he told our class that everything expands when it turns to a solid? Not just water?”
Steve sighed. This wasn’t the first time he had heard a rant about Dustin’s chemistry teacher, Mr. Ryan, but it was the first time the complaints came with a request for help. “Dustin.”
“So now today he says something wrong again, and I’m like, hey, this is the correct information, if anyone actually cares.”
“Dustin.”
“And he’s all pissed off, because I didn’t raise my hand because I don’t respect him, and he says ‘Dustin’,” Here, Dustin’s voice goes high pitched and mocking, “‘Some other students are trying to learn.’”
“Dustin.”
“So I said to him,” and Dustin pauses, and looks at Steve with the most innocent look he can muster, oh shit, what did this kid do, and says, “‘Maybe I wouldn’t have to interrupt if I didn’t have a dumbass for a teacher.’”
As Steve put his face in his hands, he could hear Eddie laughing. Steve’s head shot up again to glare at him, as if to say ‘don’t encourage him.’
“What?” Eddie says. “I had him, too. So did you. He is a dumbass.”
And, yeah, but you don’t say that. Especially in front of Ryan’s most antagonistic current student.
“Anyway,” Dustin says, bringing them back to the point at hand, “He didn’t like that. Obviously. But I didn’t want anyone learning the wrong thing!”
Steve, like Claudia Henderson, could be a bit of a pushover when it came to Dustin. But he was pretty sure the kid genuinely did speak up out of kindness to his fellow students. Which he didn’t want to suppress, exactly. Just, jesus, man, have some tact.
“So now Higgins wants to talk to my parents about my behavior. He sent me home with a note asking her to come in.” At this, Dustin brandished the note and began frantically waving it in Steve’s face. “She’s gonna ground me! And Max’s birthday is this weekend and you know we’ve been planning it for months!”
They had been. They were planning to take her out of town on Saturday to really make this one feel special. Steve was the driver for the day, so he didn’t need to be reminded of this fact.
Eddie was not as understanding. “Oh, my little delinquent is growing up! Better late than never!” he said, while clutching his heart in mock pride.
Dustin simply turned to him and said in the calmest voice he’s used since barging in, “You really think she’ll let me out by Wednesday? Campaign’s set to wrap up.”
Eddie shut his mouth firmly. “Whaddaya need, Henderson?”
“I mean,” Dustin began, “This hasn’t happened before, right? Not to me. I don’t get in trouble. What if we just…didn’t tell her? And got someone else to go to the meeting?”
He looked at Steve meaningfully.
“No.”
“Everyone says you’re basically like my dad!”
“Please, we’re adoptive brothers at best,” Steve waved off, which made Dustin smile a bit despite himself. “And I’m not going to help you try and pull one over on your mother. Go home and face the music.”
“But Max will be so disappointed!”
“Well, you should have thought about that before you swore at and insulted your teacher.”
“Fine.” Dustin said, before immediately turning around, “Eddie! You wanna do it?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“What!” Steve exclaimed, “Why do you always encourage him? He should learn that his actions have consequences!”
“Not if those consequences interfere with my carefully planned D&D campaign.” Eddie responded, “Besides, just because I’m out of school now doesn’t mean I’m not gonna take the chance to mess with Higgins. And I agree with Dustin! Why should he be punished when his teacher can’t do his job?”
He had a point, but Steve still thought this would cause more problems than it would solve. “Can’t you just explain this really carefully to your mom? Maybe she’d understand and not put a wrench in your social life.”
“No dice. She’s pretty cool most of the time,” Dustin said with confidence, and Eddie and Steve nodded politely because they were adults who did not make fun of people for liking their parents, “but I think she’d freak if I got in trouble at school. It’s never happened before, so she probably would think I’m making bad choices and overreact or something.”
And, yeah, Steve could see that.
He sighed in defeat. “Fine. But I’m going in with you and Eddie. He’ll just make things worse.”
Dustin smiled at him, and he regretted it already.
~.~
They were seated across the desk from Principal Higgins. Steve, Eddie, and, between them as if he was their actual child, Dustin.
Dustin was wearing a smart looking button down, Steve was in a clean and respectable polo, and Eddie looked like he just stepped off of a concert stage, layer of sweat and all. They all wore innocent expressions as they looked at the principal.
He didn’t have time for this nonsense.
“Mr. Henderson,” he said, and they could practically hear the migraine coming on. “I believe I requested your parent's presence.”
“Oh, that’s why we’re here! Dustin has a bit of an interesting upbringing.” Eddie said, with a frightening glint in his eye.
“I know you’re not this boy’s father, Mr. Munson. You graduated last year.” And he had thought that meant good riddance, especially after the boy flipped him off after receiving his diploma. No such luck.
“Well, obviously not biologically,” Eddie said, not missing a beat. “He’s only, like, six years younger than me. That’d be kind of hard to do for a number of reasons. But adoption is just as special I say!”
Higgins then looked to the third occupant of the chairs. “How do you even know Harrington?” He said, which wasn’t exactly the problem at hand, but seeing the two of them together, especially helping an underclassmen stay out of trouble of all things, just felt off to him. They didn’t exactly run in the same social circles when they were in school.
Steve and Eddie looked at each other, the weight of their thoughts clear on their faces. Eventually, Steve choked out, “We work at Family Video together.”
The migraine was really coming out full force now.
“Is he paying you two or something?” Higgins said, while glaring a bit at Dustin.
“No!” Dustin said, outraged at the idea that he would have to pay Steve and Eddie to help him out. “Look, they’re basically my dads, okay? For real.”
The two older teens looked completely touched by this, although were trying to hide it. Higgins wanted to punch something.
“That’s very sweet,” He said through clenched teeth. “But I really would have preferred to speak to your legal guardian.”
“Well, Steve watches me a lot when my mom asks him to, and Eddie’s usually with him, nowadays,” He sees Steve turn red at this, which he thinks is a bit weird, “And she leaves me to Eddie for a minimum of four hours a week to play D&D, which all works out to me seeing them almost as much as my mom.” Which was a bit of a stretch, but closer to the truth than Higgins probably thought.
Higgins pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Look, Mr. Henderson.” He began. “You seem like a good kid. I’ve seen you in here far less than either of your -“ he rolled his eyes, “friends.” Which was true, Steve ended up in the principal’s office a handful of times a year, and he’d assume Eddie was here more often than him. “And I know that Mr. Ryan is …occasionally inaccurate.” Ryan was a certified idiot and everyone knew it, he just was an idiot with seniority. “So I will let you off with a warning, with the agreement that if I see you back here it will be with your mother.”
Dustin looked at him and nodded earnestly, but the giant smile that was creeping onto his face was ruining the effect. “Yes, sir.”
“Get out of my office.” He said to all three of them, and they hastily made their exit.
“See you around,” Eddie poked his head back in and gave him a mock salute, before quickly being pulled away by Steve.
He sure hoped not.
~.~
“I can’t believe that worked!” Dustin said on the car ride home.
“It didn’t work.” Steve pointed out. “I think we just annoyed him into submission.”
“Was that not the plan?” Eddie asked.
Steve groaned in frustration. “Is there a reason you try to pick fights with every authority figure other than the one that personally cleared you of murder charges?”
“I get along with my uncle.”
“Wayne thinks you can do no wrong!”
“So?”
“Guys!” Dustin interrupted, “It doesn’t matter, okay? It worked! My mom will never know what happened!”
“Congrats, Henderson,” Eddie said, and turned to Steve. “The three of us make a pretty good team, huh?”
Eddie was looking at him as if he was trying to say something else, but Steve couldn’t figure out what it was. He just smiled and responded, “Yeah. We do.”