#Steve saying 'you could have WAITED' as Robin practically shrieks 'why does he look like that?!' in a tone that would summon dogs

[vecnuthy]

Eddie and Steve kept catching the other's eye every time Dio, their grey and white cat, kept flopping down with a world-weary sigh that, this time, wasn't due to Eddie being annoying showing affection. The poor thing had formed a habit of seeking out the cool floor vents or worming his way into fridge when it was open, but that behavior never seemed too out of character, considering how his fluffy butt would shoot outside and completely starfish-jump into a fresh mound of snow if given the opportunity. And he was always given a lot.

On a leash, of course.

The first time that had happened, Steve and Eddie doubled over in laughter, hands slapping at arms until the "Did you see that?!" of the moment turned into "Can you see him?!" and they both frantically started digging for him. The snow-chilled but panic-warmed reunion yielded a very unamused Dio held tight against Steve's chest (with a hyperbolic "He's frozen solid!") as Eddie's forehead pressed between Dio's snow-dusted ears with a vow of "Never again" spilled from his chapped lips.

But that was January of last year, and it was now July of this year, and — look. The decision was that the cat needed his fur trimmed past just the regularly-scheduled maintenance of the very necessary Butt Trim. It was the peak of summer, and Dio was obviously uncomfortable in his long fur that was thicker than Eddie's skull, the latter of which was unfortunately to blame for the current situation:

Little Dio, Baby D, Dionysus, Rice-a-Ronnie fighting for his hairy little life on the top of the dryer, wiggling like an eel half out of Eddie's hold, claws raking through fur clippings and skidding against its absolutely gripless surface. The clippers buzzed menacingly from the floor after falling off the dryer.

Eddie tried his best to talk the cat down, cooing little things like "You're gonna look so handsome, Steve's gonna be so impressed. You're gonna be such a cool cat," but Dio the Diabolical didn't want any part of that.

Butt trim? No problem. Starting there probably would have been the better idea, but Eddie — alone, forsaken, and abandoned, thanks to Steve getting called in to work on his off day — had started working at the other end and soon found that the job couldn't be carried out with just one set of hands, committed though they were.

After a well-fought struggle, Eddie finally let Dio go with permission to "be free and angry — for now," and turned the clippers off, but he was not prepared for the sight that fully registered when he found Dio sitting on a stool next to the counter.

After an appropriate gasp, Eddie muttered, "Ohhh my god. Diogenes, what have I done?" from behind his hand, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry.

Dio ignored him, fully in ice-out mode as he groomed his face. He didn't even flinch as Eddie snapped a picture on his phone, but didn't take too kindly to the tone of Eddie's "Why are you so tiny?!" so he hopped down and found another spot in a different room.

Eddie texted the following to Steve:

I made a mistake he won't let me clip anymore. Will I be arrested.

Not even ten seconds later, Eddie received a video call from Robin Buckley, who was absolutely howling in laughter, featuring a horrified Steve in the background, unable to tear his eyes away from his phone.

The rest of the fur trim may or may not have happened until a few days later because the sight was just so ridiculously fascinating (and Robin had insisted on experiencing its full glory in person). His fuzzy boots and a fluffy tuft at the end of his tail remained, though.

[platypanthewriter]

Hook Possum 3/4

Art by @monsdasarah​ for Harringrove Big Bang!

PART ONE | TWO

The next morning, Steve did the First Aid class.  “Hook Possum here has offered to help—” he began.

“What?!” Hook Possum hissed, as the kids shoved him forward, laughing, and Steve paced around like a drill sergeant.  

He’d always liked teaching first aid.  “Attention up here, everybody!” he shouted, grinning.  “Who knows when to yell for help?  You?” he pointed to a wide-eyed kid who shook his head.  “We call ‘em the Big Bs,” Steve told the kids, crossing his arms.  “Bleeding, breathing, barf, burns, bones, and bites.”

“Barf,” giggled a little girl.

“If anything is happening like that—bleeding, anything wrong with someone’s breathing, you see barf—” Steve paused, gratified to see Hook Possum miming a gouting wound, gasping for air, and puking his guts up.  “—if anybody gets burned—” Hook Possum grasped his hooked paw, frowned at it, and yelled “My paw got burned off!”, and everybody laughed uproariously.  

“If anything happens to anyone’s bones—” Steve went on, and got to see Hook Possum clutching at his leg, “—or if anyone or anything’s teeth breath somebody's skin—” he ignored Hook Possum yelling about vampires, trying to keep a straight face.  “If any of the Big Bs happen, you need an adult, okay?  We’re gonna need to take a look at it, and maybe take that kid to the doctor.”

“Okaaaaay,” the kids chorused, most of them looking faintly rebellious.  

“A lot of it we can handle here, though,” Steve told them, and several brightened.  “Lemme show you all your way around a first aid kit.”  

Steve demonstrated how to bandage a possum, diagnose a possum with heatstroke, splint a possum’s tail, and he pretended to give him a shot with the new epi-pen, in case of bee allergies.  At the end, he let all the kids play with the gauze bandages he’d used, and a box of band-aids.

Hook Possum didn’t look any less uncanny with his face covered in Scooby Doo and Sesame Street band-aids.  It almost made him worse, somehow, because your eyes caught on the cartoony band-aids first, and then processed the mangy, vacant-eyed, toothy head.  

The possum did look hilarious all trussed up in bandages, and one little girl tried so hard to make a sling, she wrapped the bandage around his neck and pulled, and Hook Possum gagged, twitched, and slumped onto the picnic table Steve had been using for demonstrations.  

“If you can’t help them, you gotta at least hide the body,” Steve told everyone, his cheeks hurting with how wide he was grinning.  “What’s the campsite rule?”

“Leave it cleaner than you found it,” they chorused, watching Hook Possum’s twitching legs in the air.  

“We could tie some rocks to him and dump him in the lake,” a very small girl in pink ruffled overalls suggested, and the kids around her edged away.

“Now, hang on,” Steve told them.  “Remember a possum is actually unconscious if it’s ‘playing dead’.  It makes an awful smell, but if you leave it alone, sometimes they’ll wake up and wander off.  We should probably leave Hook Possum alone for a while.”

Around then, Robin called for lunch, and the kids started to wander off.

“Don’t you dare leave me tied up,” Hook Possum hissed, and Steve patted his shoulder, and told him to stay there.  While the kids were straggling into the mess tent, Steve ran and got the old camp camera, and took about five pictures of Hook Possum trussed like a turkey.  “You utter asshole,” he hissed flatly, but he was laughing, Steve could tell.

After lunch, there was a mud flats exploration party, and the kids all ran off with buckets.  Steve got Hook Possum some cool water, and closed his eyes politely as the mask was removed.  

“When you gonna let me look?” he asked, laughing.  “It’s not like I’m gonna tell anybody.  You gonna keep this up for weeks?”

“...I need the bonus,” Hook Possum muttered.

“Yeah, I know,” Steve told him, “—but you’ve got the mask off already, what difference does it make if I see you?  There’s nobody else around!”

“Leave it alone, Harrington,” Hook Possum growled, and Steve felt the picnic bench shift.  When he called out, and then dared open his eyes, several minutes later, Hook Possum was gone.

After that, Steve didn’t ask.  He encountered Hook Possum a few times in the showers—late in the Indiana night, when it felt like every breath was clingingly hot, and only the shower stalls were cool.  

“Don’t turn the light on,” Hook Possum always hissed, and Steve snorted a laugh, shaking his head.  

“I won’t, dude,” he always said, and they’d talk, some, in neighboring stalls, just letting the water wash away the sweaty heat of the night.  

Hook Possum was moving to the west coast, he said, and Steve felt a pang at that, the same as he’d seen in Max.  “It cools off at night there,” he said dryly, and Steve just bit his lips together, nodding.

“Hard to argue with,” he admitted.  “Uh, when...when are you leaving?”

“As soon as I pack after camp,” Hook Possum said, a little muffled, like he was washing his face.  “Why stick around Hawkins.”

“Oh,” Steve said, nodding again.  He couldn’t really think of anything to say, so he focused on scrubbing the sap off his toes from the conifer right by their cabin.  

 Every night, the Hook Possum stories got more in-depth.  “One full moon, a girl and her boyfriend drove out to this very campground and parked,” Robin began, as some of the kids said ‘why?’ and others said ‘ew!’.  “He was driving,” she said, leaning in, so the light of the campfire lit her face from underneath, “—and even though it was past midnight, and she asked and asked to go home, he wouldn’t start the car.”

Some of the kids looked unimpressed, but some of them were listening avidly.  

“He looked at her,” Robin said, “—and he smiled, and he said ‘Nobody knows I brought you here.’”

“He’s gonna sink her in the lake, with rocks,” said the tiny girl in the ruffled pink overalls.

Robin high-fived her, and then leaned in again.  “The boyfriend grabbed her arm and twisted it around, and whispered, ‘Nobody knows where you are’, and the girl screamed, because her arm felt like it would break.  ‘You know what I want,’ he said.”

Steve knew his cue, and he reached down behind the log he was sitting on to scrape the fire poker along the hatchet they’d used to cut kindling, making a long, metallic scrape.  A couple of kids shrieked, looking around.  

“Just then!” Robin shouted, standing up, and more kids yelled, “—the two heard a ripping, metallic noise on the roof of the car.  The boyfriend was so angry he shook the girl, and then yelled ‘What the hell is that?!’, but she didn’t know.” 

Steve scraped the poker on the hatchet again, angling it for a sharper, higher-pitched noise.  

“Something scraped along the door, and the girl screamed again, because she was already so afraid.  She’d been thinking of opening the door and running into the woods, but as something scraped the door again—”

Steve scraped them together as loud as he could, having practiced with Robin beforehand, and everyone yelped and winced.  Even Robin’s eye twitched at the awful noise.  

“—the girl begged her boyfriend not to get out of the car.”

“But he did,” whispered one of the kids, eyes wide.

“He did.  He left her there.  Once he got out, though, the noise didn’t come again, and she sat, listening, and crying.  She heard him scream, the way she had, when the bones of her arm creaked in his grip.”

The kids were rapt, and El met her cue with a branch-shuddering wind, making the whole clearing full of campers shriek.  

“Did she get out of the car?!” Pink Overalls asked, urgently, and Robin shook her head.  

“She heard branches break, and then, crashing through the underbrush.  It might have been more screams, or it might have been the wind.  The girl curled in her coat, staring at the blackness through the windows, and when she felt another thud against the car, and—” Steve scraped the hatchet with the poker again, long and grating, and a kid moaned.  Robin lowered her voice, and the kids leaned closer to hear.  “Heard another noise, like something scratching to get in, the girl locked the doors.”

Robin waited several beats, her face darker and more red as the fire burned down to coals.  “In the morning, the girl woke to find her boyfriend pinned to the driver’s side door with a massive hook through his hand.  He was whimpering, staring into the forest, and he didn’t respond to her voice.  His hair was white.”

“Hook Possum,” gasped Pink Overalls, and everyone turned to stare.

“Hey, he got what was coming,” Hook Possum said.

 That night, predictably, a bunch of kids came looking for Hook Possum.  “There are floating lights,” one squeaked, pointing, and Steve bit back a laugh, remembering seeing the marsh gas and fireflies as a kid.  “It’s Hook Possum,” he whispered, but the kid shook his head, pointing.  

“No, he’s right here.”

Steve considered.  “It’s weird telling stories about you when you’re around,” he told the furry bulk at his elbow, glaring.

“Well, sorry,” Hook Possum shot back.  “There aren’t a lot of jobs a possum can get, Harrington.”

“We always said the lights were Hook Possum,” Steve said, shrugging.  “Searching for the one who wronged him.  The reason he can’t move on.  He never sleeps.”

“Euuugh,” said one of the kids, shuddering.  “He does sleep, though!  I’ve seen his bunk.”

“Yeah, we know he’s really a...person,” said a small voice in the dark, shakily.  “In-in a costume.”

“Mostly a person,” said another little voice.

“Yeah, we know you’re mostly a person,” said another one.  “E-except at night.”

“Hang on, now,” Hook Possum hissed, but Steve elbowed him.  

“Hook Possum won’t let anything happen to you,” he told them.

 One evening when the sunset was particularly fine, and Steve was for once off dish duty, Hook Possum was down sitting on the dock, his legs splashing in the lake.  The back of the costume was untied—except for the neck, since it hadn’t fallen off—and through the long slit in the back, Steve could see skin.  In the golden light of sunset, Hook Possum didn’t even look too terrifying, from the back, his plastic fur shining 

Steve pressed down a nearly-overwhelming urge to slide his fingers between the folds of polyester fur and let his fingertips brush over Hook Possum’s shoulder blades.  

“You’re getting all wet,” Steve said, dropping to sit on his hands, and Hook Possum snorted.

“Possums dry,” he said, kicking his feet in the water, and Steve realized, seeing a pale flash, that he didn’t have shoes on, and stared down, his heart thumping at every flash of ankle.

“...hey,” Steve said, like a genius, leaning to thump their shoulders together, and Hook Possum laughed.  Off in the woods, there was another grinding noise, a mechanical roar, and a horrible high-pitched whinny that made Steve’s teeth clench.

“...sounds like somebody needs a new fan belt,” Hook Possum said, leaning against his side, and Steve stretched, yawning, and reached an arm around his shoulders, feeling Hook Possum laugh.  “...what’s over that way?” Hook Possum asked, letting himself slump a little into Steve’s side.

“What?” Steve breathed, thinking about the little line of Hook Possum’s back showing through the back, and how it would feel to slide his thumb in there, up and down, feeling the bumps along Hook Possum’s spine.

Hook Possum laughed.  He sounded a little breathless.  “Uh, I just—what—what’s over there, where the um, where the engine noises?  Are coming from?”

“Oh,” Steve said, blinking.  “Uh, nothing.”  He frowned, thinking about it.  “Nothing’s supposed to be that direction, there’s no road.  It’s prairie, y’know, park lands.”  

“How come I keep hearing shit from over there, then,” Hook Possum mumbled, without lifting his masked head from Steve’s shoulder.

“...dunno,” Steve sighed, giving in to temptation, and sliding his thumb inside the gap at the back of the Hook Possum costume.  Hook Possum shivered, tensing, and Steve just rubbed a slow circle with his thumb until Hook Possum relaxed with a sigh.  They sat, splashing their feet, until Steve sighed.  “...I should probably go check it out, huh.”

“...mmmn,” Hook Possum said.  “...probably.  Since you kinda...own the damn park.”  He pulled away, sitting up straight, and Steve let his arm fall away.  “Keep forgetting your dad owns the damn place,” Hook Possum muttered.

“I mean, it doesn’t really matter,” Steve told him, hoping it didn’t.

“Yeah, like you couldn’t talk to him and get us all fired,” Hook Possum laughed, touching his mask, and Steve grimaced.

“I wouldn’t get you fired,” he groaned.  “Why in the hell would I get you fired?”  

“How the hell should I know,” Hook Possum growled, clambering back up onto the dock.  

 The next day, Steve led friendship bracelet making.  He always did, because he’d been going to camp so long he was really, really good at friendship bracelets.  

“What color you want yours?” he called over to Hook Possum, as a matter of course, and Hook Possum stared at him, smoke swirling from his eyeholes.  “...you’re gonna set yourself on fire,” Steve told him, laying out the embroidery thread.  “Pick out some colors.”

“...you’re making me a friendship bracelet?” Hook Possum asked, warily.

“Well, yeah,” Steve told him, shrugging.  “What colors you want?”

“...uh,” Hook Possum said.  “Possum colors?”

“The hell are those,” Steve asked, snorting a laugh.  “I’m not stomping it in the dirt.”

Hook Possum swung a leg over the bench opposite Steve, and leaned his horrible mask in his hands to pore over the color selection.  “...how many should I pick?” he muttered, his voice deeper than his usual fake squeaky hiss, and Steve bit back a smile.  

“Probably, uh, three to like...five,” he said, shrugging.  He’d started a pink, green, and orange candy-striped one for Pink Overalls, and he pinned it to the knee of his jeans to work on while Hook Possum considered.  

Finally, he reached his plastic-clawed paw and pushed a grayish blue forward towards Steve, and then a darker blue, and then hesitated between the other colors, and pulled back.  

“...white?” Steve suggested.  “It’d still be a blue bracelet, but it’d show up.”

“White,” Hook Possum said, nodding.  “Possum colors,” he announced.

Steve found himself grinning, again, the way he always was lately.  His cheeks were tired and it was only eleven in the morning.  

He got distracted helping the kids with theirs—Pink Overalls wanted to make one for Bell Witch Mirror kid, and so on—so it wasn’t until after dinner, when he snuck back to their cabin with a tray of spaghetti, that he managed to work on it.  He slid the tray onto Hook Possum’s bunk, hitching up the flag curtain so the guy wouldn’t sit on it by accident, and then dropped into his bunk.  He looped the cut embroidery thread around his toe, frowning up intently at the ceiling of his bunk as he wove the strands.  

Hook Possum wandered in shortly after.  “Where’d you go?” he asked, leaning in.  “You okay?”  He stared for a long second, and then asked, “...is that my bracelet?”

“Yep,” Steve told him, his fingers dextrous after the long day of reminding himself of the patterns.  

“...it’s almost dark in here,” Hook Possum said, nearly a whisper, and Steve laughed.  

“I been making these so long I could do it in the dark,” he said.  “You better eat, if you’re gonna go sit around the fire.”

“I think I can miss a night of Hook Possum stories,” Hook Possum said.  “I’m gonna grab a shower first.”

Steve nodded, only half paying attention, because it was getting dark, and he had to keep up the rhythm or turn on the light to find it again.  

When Hook Possum returned, Steve was half done, carefully not looking over as the human who wore the possum suit sat just out of sight, leaning against Steve’s bunk, and ate the spaghetti Steve had brought him.  The dim battery lantern Steve had set behind his bunk lit them both yellowy from the back, so even if he’d looked over, he couldn’t have seen much of Hook Possum’s face.

“How are you even doing that,” Hook Possum asked, and the bunk creaked as he sat next to Steve, warm and damp from the shower, smelling of soap and the pine trail back to the cabin.  His curls—he had curls, Steve thought dazedly—tickled Steve’s shoulder, as he reached up to run his fingers over the dimly-lit, smooth-woven thread in Steve’s fingers.  

“...practice,” Steve said, his throat weirdly tight.

The head against his nodded, and Steve could feel stubble against his cheek.  Hook Possum’s body was heavy against his, his hairy legs a little itchy, and Steve wanted to roll over and explore, slide his fingers all over Hook Possum’s body.

“What do I do with it,” Hook Possum said, and Steve’s fingers paused.  “I just mean, uh,” the guy said quickly, “—there are rules, right?  Like I’m not supposed to...take it off?”

“...what, you’ve never had a friendship bracelet?” Steve asked, laughing, and felt the head against his shake.

“Nah,” he said, dryly.  “Never been to a summer camp before, either.  I was the kinda kid that’d get in trouble.”

“There’s always one every year and you think ‘I’m gonna have to pull that kid out of a toilet or something’,” Steve told him, sighing.  “We figure it out.  Haven’t lost a camper yet.”

“I wear it until it falls off?” Hook Possum asked, his voice rumbling against Steve’s shoulder.  Steve could barely move his right arm, but he didn’t ask Hook Possum to move.

“Yeah.  It’ll just wash with you in the shower,” Steve told him, grinning.  “Some kids take theirs off to make them last longer, though.”

“What about when it does fall off?” Hook Possum breathed in his ear.  “You gonna make me another one?”

Steve felt his face heat, because Hook Possum was being weird and intense about a friendship bracelet, of all things.  “...you saying I make a faulty product?”

“I’m asking if you’ll...work here next year,” Hook Possum muttered, sighing into Steve’s shoulder.  “If it falls off.”

“The hell do you care,” Steve laughed, his stomach twisting.  “You’re moving to Oregon or somewhere.”

“...California,” Hook Possum sighed.

“You saying you’ll give me your address?” Steve asked, nearly forgetting himself and sitting up to look over.  He shut his eyes tightly, his heart pounding.  “So—so I can mail you a friendship bracelet?”  Hook Possum was quiet, his fingers tight on Steve’s wrist.  “...you saying you’d...come back to see me?” Steve ventured, and Hook Possum snorted a laugh, so Steve tried to backtrack.  “Yeah, no, not for a friendship bracelet,” Steve laughed.  It felt forced.  “That’d be pretty dumb.”

Hook Possum’s hand ran slowly up Steve’s arm to his face, and Steve waited, his blood thudding through his veins, his eyes clenched so tight shut he saw lights, feeling Hook Possum’s fingers touch his cheek.  

Hook Possum’s thumb stroked over his jaw, and Steve trembled with the effort of holding still.  He wanted to yank Hook Possum closer, or—or roll on top of him, or something, and the gentle sensation of Hook Possum’s hesitant breath on his lips made him want to scream.

After endless seconds, Hook Possum shoved away, thudding to the floor of the cabin and stomping over to prop the little shuttered window open and lean out.  He gasped for air, taking ragged breaths, and Steve felt just the same, like he’d been running.  

He opened his eyes and stared up at his foot on the roof of the bunk, and the inches of bracelet dangling between his toes.  “You can tell Max when it falls to pieces,” he said, with a weird rasp in his voice.  “If you want another one.  I can—I can get you another one.”

“You’re gonna keep making me friendship bracelets,” Hook Possum said, half a groan, and Steve could just see the dark shapes of him leaning his head into his arms.

“Well, you seemed worried about it,” Steve told him, grinning.  “Don’t want my possum getting lonely.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Hook Possum muttered.

 Hook Possum actually tried not to smoke too much around the kids, but every night, he’d wander out and have a cigarette on the steps of the cabin when the air inside was hot and close.  Steve awakened vaguely to the sound of his voice talking to one of the kids, and then fell back asleep.  

When the pounding at the door started, he jerked awake with the other counselors, mumbling and smacking their heads on the wooden bunk frames.  The cabin door opened, and Steve recognized the voice of Pink Overalls.  “Hook Possum went off in the woods to see what the lights were,” she sobbed.  “He hasn’t come back.  It’s been four hours!”  

She thrust a glow-in-the-dark watch face into Steve’s face, and he blinked blearily at it.  It was a quarter after five in the morning.  

“Shit,” he muttered, rubbing his face.

“He could be in the lake,” she sobbed.  “With rocks.”

“I’ll go get him,” Steve told her, stumbling out of bed.

“We’ll all go get him,” Robin said, clicking something in the dark, then smacking it.  Her flashlight lit up the cabin.  “Wake up the other counselors, tell them they’re on breakfast duty.”

“Oh-okay,” Pink Overalls sniffled, and slammed out.  

Steve found another flashlight, and he and the other counselors tromped through the grasslands, squinting through the occasional tree cover until Steve was pretty sure they were in the right area.  His foot caught on a low patch of smooth mud and then grass, and he frowned down at what looked like tire tracks.

“Holy fuck,” Robin whispered, grabbing him, and waving her flashlight around.  “Jesus.”  

“Wait,” Steve said, holding his own flashlight still on the plants they’d been tromping through.  “Is—is that—”

“Marijuana,” Robin snickered.  “Somebody’s got a good crop back here.  I need to find some really big trash bags, stat.”

“Hook Possum first,” Steve reminded her, shuddering at the thought that he’d stumbled into drug dealers out here.  The thought of their faces as Hook Possum lurched out of the darkness was hilarious, but they could have hit him with anything, Steve thought, walking along the tire tracks, and then jogging.  They might have had guns, even.

There was a loud crash and yelling ahead, and he ran.  

“He’s in the shed!” yelled one of the other counselors, brandishing her heavy flashlight at an unfamiliar guy in a t-shirt who looked stoned as hell, and Steve ran by, looking for a shed.  His flashlight slid over it, and he stumbled to a stop, trying to remember the place.  An old fire season ranger hut, he thought, yanking on the locked door, and then pressing his face to the glass.  

“Hook Possum!” he yelled, and got back an “I’m fine, jesus.”  Steve threw his shoulder against the door and it gave instantly, dropping him on his hands and knees inside.

“My hero,” Hook Possum said, as Steve scrambled to his feet, swinging the flashlight around until it caught on the furry shape.  His hands and feet were tied, then handcuffed to a rolling office chair.  

Steve yanked at the cuffs, tugging at the ropes around Hook Possum’s ankles, and being generally ineffective, when Robin stormed in.  “There’s a phone,” she panted.  “I’m calling the police.  Get him out of here, they’re trying to fight us, or something.  I had to brain one with my flashlight.”

The sound of a sputtering engine came up the road, and Robin yelled “Fuck, more of them?!” before running to the phone.  

Steve gave up on the cuffs and ropes, and rolled Billy out of the shed and along the muddy tire tracks in the office chair.  They trundled quickly away from the noise, and then the chair nearly overbalanced, and Steve nearly tripped over Hook Possum’s tail and took them both down, so he slowed.  His heart was pounding.  “Are you okay,” he panted.

“I’m fine,” Hook Possum grunted, squirming in the cuffs.

“Lemme get your mask off,” Steve said, stopping.  “Did they hit you?”

“I’m okay!” Hook Possum yelped, nearly overbalancing as he tried to duck away.  “Leave it on!”

“Look, if you need money that much, I can give you some, lemme check your head—” Steve offered, checking the mask for cracks.  “Did they—”

“They threw a goddamn tarp over me and I couldn’t find my way out in this thing,” Hook Possum said bitterly.  “I’m fine.”

“O-okay,” Steve said.  “...okay, okay, okay…”  He took a slow, shuddery breath, squeezing Hook Possum’s shoulders as he pushed him along in the chair.  It rattled across the uneven ground.  “What were you even doing?!  Wandering off alone in that thing?!”

“Had to see who was trespassing on your grounds, lord and master.”

“Fuck you,” Steve hissed.

“This might be the most undignified thing I’ve ever done,” Hook Possum growled.  “Trussed up in a rolling office chair.”  

“It’s handy,” Steve told him, catching the guy’s weight again as the ground tilted the chair.  

“We’re never talking about this again,” Hook Possum said.  “Ever.”

“I’m rescuing you,” Steve told him, grinning, as his heart rate started to slow.  “Like a princess.”

“Shut up,” Hook Possum growled.

“Princess Possum,” Steve sighed happily.  

“So you’re my Prince Charming?” Hook Possum snarled.  “You gonna kiss me and uncurse me, or what?!”

Steve opened his mouth, and then closed it.  “...uh,” he said.

“A real Prince Charming doesn’t just grab random possums,” said Hook Possum, his voice entertainingly uneven from the bouncing of the chair.  “Help!  Help!  I’m being oppressed!”

“Shut up,” Steve laughed, giggly with relief that his...his Hook Possum wasn’t bleeding out from a head wound, or tied to rocks, sinking in the lake.  “Just a little longer.  I’ll get you back safe.”

Pink Overalls threw her arms around Hook Possum when Steve pushed him back into camp, muddier even than usual.  She sobbed about ropes and murder victims, and Steve sawed at the ropes with the bread knife, until they frayed, and cut, and Hook Possum was free to stand—one paw still handcuffed to the office chair.  

When Robin got back, exhausted but elated, and carrying three mysterious trash bags, she got the hatchet.  Steve held the chair across from Hook Possum’s wrist over the wood chopping stump, and Robin smashed the chain between the two cuffs until one came loose, and the chair fell away.  “The police will have to talk to you,” Steve told him, sliding his finger inside the cuff, and along Hook Possum’s human wrist.  “They can take it off.”

“...yeah,” Hook Possum whispered, holding very still.

“I knew he’d save you,” said Pink Overalls, crying with relief. 

PART ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR

[starriider]

hi if you’re still doing prompts?? could you do 15 for harringrove??

15. A fierce kiss ending with a bite on the lip, soothing it with a kiss.

“Where are you headed after work? I got this new VCR so I can finally force you to watch Star Wars.” Robin rounds the counter, facing Steve.

“I-uh, I’m actually going to the pool today.” He says looking down at his shoes. He knows Robin isn’t stupid and that she’s put two and two together and it’s unsettling to say the least.

“Really Steve.” She drops her head onto the counter with a dull thud, rolling her eyes at him. “This the sixth time you’ve been to the pool this week! And it’s friday.”“Look, Robin, you know how the kids are, they wanna go somewhere, I follow.” He defends because that is the only reason he would ever want to go the pool. Honest.

“My actual ass, Steve, you and I both know the reason you go.”

“Yeah, it’s to watch the kids-”

“Erica almost drowned because-”

“Since I am a responsible babysitter!”

“Because you were watching the lifeguard instead of the water!”

Robin glared at him, raised eyebrows saying tell me I’m wrong, I dare you.

And Steve, well, he couldn’t really do that.

“That was one time!” He shouted instead, his arms failing over his head.

“Oh my god, Steve.” She groans, her head now resting on her hands. “Why don’t you just...ask him out. It’s not like he never looks at you when you’re not looking.”

“I-what, no! I can’t just-ask him out? Are you insane?” 

“Well you’re gonna burn your skin off if you keep going to the pool, so take my advice or don’t.”She calls after him making her way to the parking lot. “Just remember I’m always right!”

-----------------------------------------

Steve’s been here for an hour and he can already feel his skin starting to burn.

He actually tried to focus on the kids today, he really did, but somehow his eyes drifted up a tall lifeguard chair. His gaze resting on tan skin and curly brown hair and red swim shorts, today with an extra accessory, a gray Everlast crop top.

Steve hoped Erica learned how to swim.

In his daze Steve didn’t notice a pair of light blue eyes staring back at him from over dark sunglasses.

He could’ve sworn his neck was broken with how fast he turned away. He hoped his blush wasn’t visible from across the pool.

Well shit.

-----------------------------------------

Suddenly, keeping his eyes on the kids was the easiest thing he’s ever done.

Two more hours had passed and slowly the kids were being picked up by their parents, leaving Max and Dustin, who had to wait on Billy and Steve respectively.

When Steve allowed himself to spare a glance up towards the lifeguard chair again, he found someone else sitting up there, a girl. Heather, he thinks.

He sits up in his disappointment, ready to tell Dustin it’s time to leave before a pair of warm hands grabbed his shoulder from behind. 

“Jesus fuck, dude!” Steve shrieked, one hand clasped over his pounding heart. 

When he turned around to see who grabbed him, he found his face lying an inch away from one Billy Hargrove, who is knelt over his shoulder to whisper in his ear.

“Locker room.” Billy whispered, low and throaty, in his ear. Steve watched him stalk off towards the locker room before his legs started carrying him there too.

He barely even walked inside when he heard the door click and he was being pushed up against it.

“Billy?” He asks, barely heard over the thunderous beating of his heart.

“I see you coming here everyday, pretty boy. Can practically feel you watching me.” Billy voice is a rumble. He’s so close, Steve can feel his breath ghosting on his neck. It sends shivers down his spine.

“So, tell me, what do you want?” Steve couldn’t get himself to answer that question if he tried. His voice was clogged and his skin was so hot as if Billy radiated more heat than the damn sun.

“Cat got you tongue, Harrington?” He laughs. His lips trail upwards to plant a feathery kiss on Steve’s jaw. Steve can feel himself being set on fire. “Is this what you want?”

Steve could only give him a jerky head nod, resting his head against the door as Billy’s lip trailed across his collarbone, planting light kisses all the way to cheeks, but never any further.

Fucking tease.

“Is that what you want, Steve?” He plants a kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth and when he looks down to meet Billy’s gaze, he sees the other boy smirking up at him.

“Kiss me.” Steve’s voice betrays him, coming out as a breathy whine.

“I have been, pretty boy. Unless...you mean something else.” Billy seemed to inch incredibly closer, causing their lips to brush momentarily.

“Kiss me on the fucking mouth, Hargrove.”

Billy kisses the way he does everything, fiercely. Steve couldn’t help but moan into the kiss.

Billy had his lip caught between his teeth, biting down hard enough that Steve knew it was gonna swell. Before Steve realized, Billy had taken to soothing the bite with his tongue, licking it until it barely ached.

“You free tonight, Harrington?” Billy asked, pulling away from Steve.

“No parents, big house.” Was all he needed to say.

“See you at 8 then, pretty boy.”

give me a prompt and a pairing!