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Looking back, it probably wasn’t a good idea to begin with. To be fair, they’ve all snuck into Steve’s house before with no problem. Steve wasn’t technically happy when he came home and found his friends inside, saying that they could wait for him, but that took the fun out of it, so no one listened.
Sneaking in, this time, they had a good reason. It was Steve’s birthday, and they were planning a surprise party. It was supposed to be easy. Get in, decorate, wait for Steve to get home, then jump out and yell ‘surprise.’ Pretty simple stuff, right?
Wrong. They snuck into the house. Mission accomplished. They were all laughing and joking with each other, very excited for the day, hoping that Steve would like how much thought they put into it. What they didn’t account for was two angry dogs guarding the house and trapping all of them on Steve’s kitchen table.
“What are we supposed to do?!” Robin tried her hardest to shuffle further away from the edge as one of the dogs snapped at her heel in a warning. They were scared. Interdimensional monsters were different from their friend’s dogs. When did Steve even get dogs? Why didn’t he tell them he got dogs?
“I could do something.” El offered, her eyes never leaving the angry animals. The dogs were slobbering at the mouths, lips pulled back to show their sharp teeth. They were all huddled together in the middle of the table, not wanting to be anywhere near the edge.
“You can’t hurt them,” Will shouted, his arms tightened around his sister's waist trying to protect both her and himself, “They’re Steve’s dogs!” He was right, they didn’t want to hurt their friend’s pets, not that the animals seemed to share the same thought as them.
Now, Eddie will admit that they are beautiful dogs, white with black spots. Dalmatians. They both wore red collars with tags, but they were moving too much, circling the table like hungry sharks, for him to be able to see what their names were.
“He should be home soon, right?” Max was their main priority when getting up on the table seeing as how she couldn’t really run or climb yet. They were just lucky that she was feeling well enough to use her cane instead of her wheelchair.
They decided it would be a good idea to decorate an hour before Steve would get home, they didn’t have a ton of stuff so it wouldn’t have taken them very long. Eddie’s not sure how long they were standing on that table but Steve should be on his way home to save them right about now. Right?
“He got the dogs to punish us, didn’t he?!” Dustin cried as his grip on Eddie’s arm tightened.”For always sneaking in!” That sort of makes sense, but Steve wouldn’t do that. He’s too kind for that and, not to call him dumb or anything, he wouldn’t have thought that all the way through.
The sound of a car pulling up in the drive-way reached his ears and Eddie could almost cry with how happy he was that Steve was finally home. The dogs seemed to have heard the car as well and started barking even louder, wanting to inform their owner that they captured the intruders. Only, they weren’t intruders, they were Steve’s friends, his family.
The front door slammed close and hurried footsteps ran to the entrance to the dining room. Steve, with confused eyes, stood in the doorway looking shocked. The scene must have looked like something out of a movie. Will’s arms wrapped around El, Mike’s arms wrapped around the two of them, Lucas trying his best to hold Max up, Robin practically climbing on Eddie’s back while Dustin buried his face into his chest trying to keep the tears at bay.
“Shit.” Steve seemed to snap out of whatever shock he was in. “Jasper!” He ran forward and grabbed one’s collar, “Horace!” The other dog ran over and stood by his side. Oh, so those were the names of the black spotted demons. Why did those names sound familiar? Who cares, now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. The dogs, now at Steve’s side, were no longer barking, just growling at all of them. “Hey,” He popped them both on the nose very lightly, not to hurt them just to gain their attention, “That’s enough!” The two dogs looked confused, switching their gazes between them and Steve. “Would you guys please get off the table?”
“I don’t know,” Mike tightened his arms around Will and El, “Are your rabid dogs gonna bite us?”
Steve, in response, scoffed and crouched down to the animals’ level. “They’re not rabid,” one dog licked his cheek while the other nuzzled his neck, “They’re protective.” Well, now that they weren’t trying to kill them, Eddie could admit that they were very cute. “Why were you guys here anyway? I told you to stop sneaking in.”
“And I’m assuming the dogs were why.” Everyone shuffled off the table, still standing a good couple feet away, scared to get closer. Dustin’s voice shook slightly, his grip on Eddie’s arm not getting any lighter.
“Yes.” As Steve stood, the dogs stayed silently by his side, “I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Are you all okay?” His eyes quickly moved from person to person as if looking for any injuries they may have.
“We would have been better if you told us you had dogs, jackass!” Now that they weren’t being threatened and were on the ground, Max found the courage to speak up.
“When did you even get dogs?” You would think that Steve would, at least, tell his platonic soulmate that he was getting new additions to his family.
Steve shrugged his shoulders and made his way to one of the kitchen cabinets, the dogs following as he did so. “They belonged to my grandma,” He took a bag of dog treats out and placed it on the counter and grabbed two treats from the bag, “She left these two sweet boys to me in her will.” He smiled sweetly at the two dogs causing Eddie to scoff. Sweet boys, yeah right.
“But why did they try to kill us?” Mike pushed his way to the front of their small huddle to get closer to Steve which, in turn, caused one of the dogs to growl loudly. Mike flinched back as Steve got the four legged demons attention.
“Horace!” The dog turned to Steve innocently, like it didn’t know why Steve was mad. Steve smiled at the two of them and held the treats up for them to see, “Sit.” One dog, Eddie is assuming it’s Jasper, sat and waited patiently for the small strip of puppy bacon. Horace, on the other hand, didn’t. “Horace.” Steve said sternly before the dog plopped his but down next to his brother. “Good boys!” He praised the dogs and gave them the treats they were waiting for.
“So they’re nice?” El inched forward slowly, not wanting to cause the dogs to start barking again. Steve smiled at her and nodded his head. He held his hand out for her to take it, which she did, and he pulled her close, placing her hand near the dogs’ nose for them to sniff. “Hi.” The young girl giggled as they licked her hand once they realized she wasn’t a threat.
One by one everyone came forward, slowly, and let the dogs sniff and get familiar with them. It was weird, seeing as how they were prepared to kill them not too long ago. Finally, it was Eddie’s turn to go up to the dogs. He nervously held his hand out, as he tilted his head in confusion.
“One hundred and one dalmatians.” Steve looked at him with a sheepish grin as Eddie finally figured out why the names sounded familiar. “Your grandmother named them after CruElla De Vil’s henchmen?”
“Not really.” Steve shrugged and crouched back down to pet the dogs. “I named them, but what else was I supposed to name them? They’re dalmatians!” Eddie just laughed and shook his head at how he tried to defend himself. “Don’t listen to him,” Steve staged whispered to the dogs, “your names are adorable.” Eddie laughed again at his words, it indeed was adorable.