Chapter Text
Everyone freezes at the sound of a smash, all eyes immediately turning to the glass vase that's been knocked off the large dining table in the Harrington home, which now lies in pieces on the hardwood floor.
Oh shit.
Immediately, there’s a cacophony of voices all talking over one another before Max yells over the din for everyone to shut up.
All the teens look at one another in silence before Dustin speaks, looking down at the shattered shards littering the ground, “We’re in deep shit.”
Max scoffs slightly before she speaks, “It’s fine! We just… We just need to clean this up before Steve comes back, that’s all. I’m sure his Mom has tons of vases. We’ll just put another one out, and if he asks about it, we’ll say it’s always been that one. No big deal.” She shrugs a shoulder as if trying to reassure herself, too.
Lucas raises an eyebrow, “You want us to lie to Steve about it? He’s going to notice as soon as he walks in!” The teen looks at El pleadingly, “Can’t you fix it somehow? With your powers? Please?”
Mike scoffs loudly before he speaks, “She can move things with her mind, not glue stuff back together, Lucas.”
“I don’t know, can’t she like, hold the pieces together while we glue them or something?!”
Immediately, the two begin talking over each other, Max getting drawn into the argument as El and Will watch before Dustin yells over them all, “Guys!”
He waits until he has everyone’s attention before he speaks, “Max is right. We need to fix this before Steve comes home, or we’re dead. Max, El, and Will start searching the house for replacements, ideally one that looks similar. Lucas and Mike start sweeping up as much of it as you can, then I’ll use the vacuum to clean up any smaller pieces. That way, we just have to throw it all into a trash bag and throw the whole thing away!”
Max frowns at Dustin, “What if he sees it when he takes out the trash later?”
“Then I’ll hide it in my backpack until I can throw it away at my house, how about that?”
She ponders the idea for a second before nodding her agreement.
The curly-haired teen nods before he grows serious as he points between the teens, “No matter what happens, we don’t tell Steve. No one talks about it, no throwing each other under the bus, no arguing who did it. We pretend that nothing happened. This is a pact that we take to our graves. Got it?”
The Party looks between one another, all gauging each other’s commitment to this plan before they all nod in agreement.
Dustin grins, pulling his sleeve up to check his watch, “We have about… Fifteen minutes before he comes back with Robin and pizzas, so let’s move people! Go, go, go!”
They all scatter to do their assigned jobs, El, Max and Will’s footsteps thumping through the large house as they pull open all the cupboard doors in various rooms to find a suitable replacement.
Lucas uses a broom from the kitchen to sweep up as much of the glass as he can, while Mike’s on his hands and knees using a dustpan and brush to get any of the finer bits that the broom can’t pick up, before they empty both pans into a new trash bag they got from under the kitchen sink.
Dustin struggles the vacuum cleaner out of the cleaning closet before he plugs it in, running it all over the dining room floor as fast as he can to try and make sure they’ve gotten every last shard of glass before he unplugs it and practically yanks the bag out of the machine.
Lucas grabs the dust bag from him, stuffing it into the trash bag while Dustin replaces the bag in the machine. The girls and Will return, the boy holding onto a very similar-looking glass vase with a pleased look on his face, “I found it upstairs in the back of a dusty cupboard.”
Mike grins at him as Dustin ties the trash bag up and goes to stuff it into the bottom of his backpack, “Nice work, Will.”
Max’s face lights up as she gets an idea and gestures to Will for the vase, the boy easily passing it over before the redhead goes to put it on a shelf on the cabinet that’s against the wall (which already holds a bunch of fancy plates that they all doubt Mr and Mrs Harrington would notice were gone either). She makes sure it’s tucked in so there’s no danger of this one falling off before she looks at the rest of them, “If he asks about it when he comes back, we can just say that we moved it because we didn’t want to break it.”
They all ‘ohh’ in agreement with Max’s explanation before the sound of a car door slamming shut interrupts them all, six pairs of eyes darting to the window of the living room before Lucas hisses, “Act natural!”
Once more, they all scatter, Max and El running for the living room through the open archway that connects the two rooms where they’d left their comics earlier, and the boys immediately attempt to go pick up where they left off painting their Dungeons and Dragons minis. All six of them try in vain to look as natural as they can as the front door swings open, the air filling with Steve and Robin’s voices that are clearly in the middle of a conversation.
“No, I’m just saying that it would be a bad idea, Robbie-”
“You don’t know that for certain, Steve! It could be the most brilliant idea ever, but you won’t know until you try it!”
The two round the corner, pizza boxes in hand and Steve stops in his tracks, Robin bumping into him as he frowns while he takes in the scene before him. He looks between the four boys sitting at the dining room table with all their Demons and Lizards shit, before glancing through the archway at Max and El, who have looked up from their comics and are smiling at him in greeting.
“You guys did something, didn’t you? None of you are ever this quiet. Like, ever.”
Dustin scoffs as he puts down the paintbrush he was holding before he gets to his feet, “What the Hell, Steve? You can’t just accuse us of stuff without any evidence. Now, did you get my double pepperoni like I asked?”
Steve scowls, huffing as he puts down the stack of pizza boxes in a clear space on the table, “Yeah I did, you butthead, Jesus-”
The teens basically descend on the pizzas, Steve throwing his hands up in exasperation as he backs off to stand next to Robin to leave the kids to sort it all out between themselves, since God knows he’s not getting a slice in this moment in time. He eyes the table curiously for a few seconds before he speaks, knocking his knuckles on the table, “Hey shitheads, where’s the vase that used to be on this?”
Max speaks first, gesturing with her head as she and El pile their slices into one of the boxes to share in the living room, “We put it on that cabinet, so it wouldn’t get broken.”
Steve looks over to said cabinet, eyes landing on the innocuous glass vase sitting amongst all the fancy plates, “Huh... Cool. Thanks, guys.”
Once the kids are done, he and Robin lean in to grab their own slices before they head off into the living room, Steve missing the looks the six teens share as they dig into their pizzas.