Chapter Text
“Okay have a great night Henderson.” Steve smiles at him as he waits for him to get out of the car.
“Um, Steve?” Steve knew that tone all too well now, he puts the car in park.
“Yes?”
“Can you come in for a little bit?” Dustin isn’t making eye contact, Steve doesn’t audibly groan at least anymore.
“Yeah, I guess.” He turns off the car and slams his door as they walk up to the door.
“My mom is out of town.” Steve’s heart somehow hurts, his parents are out of town too. But, Dustin, he’s a kid.
“For how long?” Steve asks as they enter the house, Dustin hiding behind Steve some as he turns on lights.
“Just until tomorrow.”
“How long have you been alone?” Trying hard not to dip into sarcasm because his parents haven’t been home in three weeks.
“She left this morning.” He hasn’t even been alone yet.
“Is this why you spent the evening at the Byers?” They’re checking every room, he’s hoping to relax Dustin enough the kid will let go of his sweater.
“Yeah…”
“Do you want to go stay the night there kid?”
“No, because Joyce doesn’t know I was left alone and you know how she gets… my mom doesn’t want her to judge her, but my aunt needed her tonight.”
“Joyce isn’t judgmental.”
“She has been a bit since Will went missing…” Dustin trails off.
“Well, that’s the last room. You good?”
“Well, we can play a game!” Dustin suggests, pulling Steve into his room again.
“Kiddo, it’s eight at night.”
“Oh, are you going out or something?” Dustin looks disappointed and Steve takes a deep breath, no he doesn’t have plans, but this wasn’t a plan either.
“No, but…” he takes a deep sigh, “what do you want to play?” He takes his shoes off, he guesses this is what he’s doing tonight.
“Really?” Dustin has a huge smile and Steve has a small one, the kid seems ecstatic.
“Yeah, really. What do you have?” Steve sits on the edge of the kids bed.
“I have monopoly, sorry, clue, do you like clue?” He hasn’t ever played clue…
“Um, I don’t know. How about cards?”
“You don’t know?”
“I prefer to play cards.” He doesn’t need to be humiliated by the kid who would make fun of him for not knowing the damn game.
“Oh, okay. Yeah, I have cards.” Dustin is pulling them out of the closet and climbing next to Steve on the bed, sitting perched almost as he pulls out the cards for Steve to shuffle.
“What do you like to play?” Steve asks.
“Um, I don’t play really so anything you like.”
“How about war? You’ve played war?”
“Yeah! We play all the time.”
“Perfect, you cut the deck.” Steve smiles at Dustin some.
“Really?”
“Yeah, those are the rules.” They play four games before Dustin seems to get bored.
“Can we play something else?”
“What do you want to play?” He’s looking at the clock, it’s past nine o’clock.
“Can we play Clue? Please?” Dustin has that smile again. Steve relents, he guesses this will be the next thing the kid decides to mock him for.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Okay, I want to be Mister Greene he’s my favorite.” Dustin informs him as he goes to retrieve the board game.
“You can be.”
“Who’s your favorite?”
“I don’t have one.”
“How!” Dustin shrieks.
“I just don’t come on let’s set up.” Steve crosses his legs how Dustin is sitting as he opens the box.
“I heard they’re making a movie about the game.” Dustin says as he’s finding Mister Greene.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, I want to go see it, but it isn’t coming out for like a year.”
“How do you know about it?” Steve laughed looking at each little character.
“I read it in one of my mom’s gossip magazines.” Steve chuckles a little at it.
“I think I want to be…” Steve has a choice, he wants to be Miss Scarlet or Mrs Peacock if he’s being honest, but he looks at the kid who is going to mock the shit out of him.
“You’re holding two girl characters.” Dustin points out.
“Yeah, I am.” Steve sets both of them back in the box.
“Will is always Mrs Peacock.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. He thinks the character is lucky.”
“I’ll go with Miss Scarlet then, so I won’t rub my bad luck off on her.” Dustin laughs at the joke as he hands Steve a golf pencil.
“Okay, you can go first.” Dustin tells him, great he was going to lie and pretend he knew what he was doing, thank god he rolled a one.
“Your turn.” He smiles at him.
“What do you think the movie will be about?” Dustin asks him as he rolls.
“No idea.”
“I bet we find out who kills the guy.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, yeah, because it changes every game.” That made sense.
“Of course.” Steve agrees.
“You’ve never played Clue have you?”
“What? No I have.”
“Steve, you haven’t even looked at your cards.”
“Oh, right, my bad.” Steve grabs them.
“You can just read the instructions.” Dustin laughs some. So, that’s how they play clue, Steve somewhat clueless as Dustin giggled every single chance he got. At ten Steve stared at the clock, not sure what was next.
“So, you ready for bed?” Steve tried then as Dustin put the game back.
“No.” Dustin said.
“Really?”
“We can play another game?” Dustin had an unsure smile. Time for a new tactic.
“I mean, I’m tired. You know the doctor said I had to sleep more with my head.” Dustin scrunched his nose at his comment.
“I’m not tired.” “Really kid? You’ve been yawning for ten minutes.”
“Well, you yawn from lack of oxygen.”
“Okay, well, I’m tired and ready to head home.” Steve smiled some.
“Go home?” Dustin scrunched his face again.
“You… you don’t want me to go home do you?” Dustin looked everywhere, but at him before he finally spoke, eyes staying on his feet.
“I thought you could just stay over. In case something bad happens.”
“Gate’s closed. Nothing bad can happen.”
“Not true! I heard someone got murdered in Chicago last week.”
“In Chicago, not really common here in Hawkins.”
“You said you’d keep us safe though.”
“A month ago.”
“You aren’t going to protect me anymore?”
“Don’t… don’t give me those eyes.”
“You said you would! That’s why you drive us now!”
“I drive you all for your parent’s sense of safety, yes.”
“So, keep me safe.” Dustin smiled again.
“You’re what? Fifteen?”
“I just turned thirteen.”
“I think your math is off.” Steve tried doing the mental math again.
“Please Steve.”
“The gates closed, nothing to be scared of.” Steve reassures.
“It was closed last time we had a sleepover too.”
“Last time we, kid that was not a sleepover.”
“Yeah it was.”
“No it wasn’t.”
“Yes it was.”
“No it wasn’t.”
“Yes. It. Was.” Okay, he was spending his Friday night fighting with a child.
“No. It. Wasn’t.”
“Was.”
“Was not.”
“Was was was was was.”
“Wasn’t, wasn’t, wasn’t, shit, how many did you say?”
“Okay, let’s look at the details. You drove us home, we ordered a pizza, we watched movies until we all fell asleep, hate to break it to you, we had a sleepover.”
“I have a concussion! Of course I stayed over at the Byers.” Steve exclaimed.
“The facts show me we had a sleepover. Because you like us.”
“No, no I do not.”
“Then why are you still here?” Dustin pushes, so Steve matches the kid’s attitude. “You’re right Henderson.” Steve has a cocky smile.
“I am?”
“Yeah, why am I here?” He got up, because he didn’t need to fight with a kid, he told them he would keep them safe, Dustin was safe.
“No no no no no no. Steve!” Dustin grabbed him by the door.
“What?”
“Please, please have a sleepover.”
“It’s not a sleepover.”
“Fine, fine, you win. Can you just spend the night? We don’t even have to sleep we can stay up all night! We have pizza bagels!” Dustin had a huge grin again, Steve rolled his eyes.
“I get to pick the first movie.” Steve said to him.
“No, you can pick them all after the first movie.”
“What? No that’s a dumb deal.”
“I’ll fall asleep and the tv is all yours.” Dustin offers.
“Fine, little weirdo.” Steve laughs some, Dustin is grabbing blankets and pillows, piling them onto Steve.
“Take them to the living room.”
“What are we doing?”
“Well we’re gonna sleep in front of the tv.” Dustin said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Ah, yes, of course.” He rolled his eyes and followed the orders.
They did set up every blanket and pillow Steve swore Dustin had in his house. Dustin insisted the floor is more comfortable, but hey the cat at least was curled on Steve’s lap as they watched StarWars because Dustin lost it when he found out he hadn’t seen it. Half way through the film the kid was fighting sleep, head dipping before shooting back up.
“Go to sleep man, I won’t run away.” Steve finally said.
“No, we’re watching the movie.”
“More like you’re quoting the movie none stop while I try to watch it. But you’re half quoting because you’re falling asleep. Go to sleep man.”
“You won’t leave?”
“Nope, Tews has me pinned.”
“Okay…” Dustin still seemed unsure, but laid down anyways.
“We can finish it in the morning, then you can be more annoying.” Dustin smiled some.
“Okay, there are other ones too.”
“Can’t wait.” Steve mutters. A few minutes of silence passes as Steve switches the tapes so he can watch something he wants to. He’s running his hand in Dustin’s unruly hair because it’s just instinct and he remembers it put the kid out when he was all anxiety driven about a month ago.
“Steve?” He sighs, what could this kid want now.
“Yeah?”
“You awake?”
“I haven’t laid down yet.”
“Oh yeah. Um. Thank you.” Dustin’s voice is small, just above a whisper.
“Of course.” Steve says back softly.
“I love you.” It’s on the edge of sleep, but Steve freezes, his hand half in his hair.
“Yeah.” Steve recovers about thirty seconds later, still running his hand in his hair, Dustin notices, but choses not to say anything.