#implied past stomarol

[formosusiniquis]

have your cake

So way back in August 2023 the steddiemicrofic challenge was Cake and 311 words, my head empty brain came up with one thought and it was Steve Munson having a bakery called Mun's Buns and so many months later I finally got around to finishing my vision

Ships: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson; Tommy Hagan/Carol Perkins; implied/past Tommy Hagan/Steve Harrington/Carol Perkins WC: 6408 | T | tags: Future Fic, the lightest of post homoerotic friendship breakup angst, fluff, Tommy POV AO3

The bakery has a stupid name, is the first thing Tommy thinks when Carol tells him where he's supposed to meet her on his lunch break. He’s still thinking that, when he sees the place for the first time through his rain speckled windshield. It's a modest storefront, small for what Carol says is a booming business, tucked in next to a used bookstore and a music shop. There's a baby yellow awning hanging from the front just underneath a sign lettered in soft blue that reads Mun's Buns.

He's late, is the second thing he thinks after pulling up. Caught up in some stupid bullshit for his dad he hadn't managed to slip away until 12:30. Even then it had only been because Tommy had told him he was going to be late for their cake tasting. He'd rolled his eyes when his father and Greg, a guy that Tommy only considers a co-worker in the sense that they are technically on the same payroll since Greg in every other aspect is incompetent and an idiot, had winced. Shooing him away like a kid who'd just admitted that he's already twenty minutes past curfew. But catching sight of the way Carol has her arms crossed, tapping her foot fast enough to kickstart a motor, while her hair hangs limp in a way that it hadn’t this morning a third thought crosses his mind: maybe he should have been a little more worried.

Waiting isn’t going to make things any better. So he steps out of the car, let’s the misty damp cling to him in a way that makes his dress pants and button down feel like a poorly tailored second skin, and takes his licks like a man. "Late, thirty minutes late. Christ, it's the only thing I've asked from you Tommy." Her right hook stings just as badly as it did sophomore year when she punched him for asking out Erin Murphy instead of her.

Shit like that is probably why no one expected them to make it this long or this far.

When they went away to college; different schools, hours apart. His parents had been gleeful as they'd warned him that high school relationships didn't always last. That he should keep his options open, he didn't want to miss out on the love of his life just because of comfort. He didn't get offered the family ring when he decided to propose right after graduation. Carol has always been particular. Wanted the house to come back to before the wedding could happen, wanted a long honeymoon. That meant saving, a lot of it. Tommy knew and Carol did too, they'd overheard his mother and aunt gossiping in too loud voices after too much wine that they hoped the long engagement meant they were both trying to figure out a good way to break it off with one another. 

Still, over the course of their now five year engagement no one's asked once if they wanted to trade for it.

Carol thought it was horrendous anyway. She’d had her ring picked out since ‘85, styled her class ring so it would look like the oval cut diamond she wanted. Had him slide it on her finger the second it came in.

Cause in the politest of terms, Carol could be a raging bitch. She was Tommy's favorite person in the entire world.

There’s going to be a bruise on his shoulder tomorrow, even if she’s guiltily smoothing a hand down his arm now. Thrust toward the door first in offering, Carol is sorry she hit him but she’s not apologetic. “I’m serious, Tom, if we lose this appointment and have to go with Sweet Treats for our cake I'll- I'll-"

Whatever threat she was preparing is drowned out and then cut off by the echoing TONG of the door chime. A light in the back shifts color for a second, out of place enough that he wonders if he even really saw it. Head tilting toward Carol, his question catches in his throat when he notices her pinched off appraising. Better not to add to the ammunition she might already be building.

And if Carol is looking he better do it too. She'll want to debrief when they're having dinner tonight, just like they did with the florist, the caterer, the three wedding planners they'd met with, and each of the venues that they'd visited. And it wasnt because she was demanding, fuck you Greg. It wasn't because she was being nitpick-y, alright it was a little bit because she was but he liked being particular with her. He liked being involved in his wedding.

So he looked around.

The way they utilized their space -- a building that big and there's barely enough room to stand, we want someone who knows how to work with limited space for the venues we're looking at -- was the reason their first wedding planner hadn't gotten hired. Small, but not cramped. There are a handful of tables scattered in the open space in front of the counter. It’s the kind of small town cozy that Hawkins had tried for and he doesn’t see very often anymore now that they’ve moved out to Indianapolis.

It’s lunchtime, still too early for people to be seeking out the rows of deserts in their neat glass counter and too late for the breakfast crowd. But one of the tables is occupied by a teenager with long, black braids scribbling in a notebook while a slice of ice cream cake melts on a plate by her elbow. 

Everything was neat, organized, and compliant with health code regulations -- they hadn’t even made it in the door of the first caterer’s when she noticed a trail of ants and roaches marching into the open kitchen door.

Carol had always been quick when she was making up her mind about something. Like those Sherlock Holmes stories they’d had to read in school, in a couple of seconds she could spot everything she needed to make a decision. After a decade Tommy still couldn’t keep up; but he was always best at following someone else’s lead.

The smile she’s got frosted across her face is as sugary and fake as the roses on the cupcakes he can see behind the low topped counters as she approaches the only visible staff member. A girl, young in the way that nebulous way anyone younger than him was now, with thick squared glasses that magnified two distressingly blue eyes. The counters looked like they were designed to sit low enough that she could easily see over the top while in her wheelchair.

“Welcome to,” her customer service tone borders on bored. Two words into a clear script and she sighs, as if saying the name physically pains her, “Mun’s Buns. We’ve got a special series of summer flavors: Strawberry Lemonade, Lavender Mint, Chocolate Fudgsicle, and,” she sighs again, “for the grownups a boozy Blue Moon with orange zest.”

“How about a wedding cake.” He’s impressed. Carol made it through the speech without interrupting.

“Do you have an appointment?” the girl raises her voice, enough to make them both flinch back. Customer service isn’t a requirement for this part of the job necessarily, but Carol had bailed on two venues because the staff hadn’t been polite enough.

Her smile doesn’t crack though, “Yes.”

Even though he’s pretty sure this girl has to be basically blind with the inch thick frames, she levels Carol with a lethal stare. “Not you.”

From the open entryway behind her Tommy had been able to make out what sounded like the highlights of yesterday’s game. He assumed that space had to be the kitchen where these rows of deserts were made. He’s still surprised when a guy’s voice is shouting back, “I don't know, Max, do I? Why don't you check?”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Max shouts back, glowering at then in stand in for her mystery boss.

“With your finger, asshole. It's in braille. When I gave you this job you said you were actually gonna work.”

“Douchebag." Her eyes never leave them, while her hands rummage around in a space beneath the counter where the cash register sits. Max offers no explanation or apology for her shouting or for her boss. A large red appointment book gets slammed down on the nearest counter, making Carol jump but the neat two by twos of chocolate frosted cupcakes don't budge. He watches, a little fascinated by the way her finger scans the page before slowing. "Did you write this or did Dustin?"

Carol has always valued gossip over professionalism, he thinks that’s why she’s done so well as a hairdresser even though she was always awful at chemistry. It’s also why he’s held off from pointing out that they could solve this a lot faster if this guy would come out from the back. "Why?" 

“Cause one of you can't spell and one of you is trying to invent braille shorthand. So I'm not really sure what to do with TomGan Wed.”

“It might be Thomas and Wedding.” Carol leans over the appointment book as she says it, using a tone of voice he has never once heard her use in the entire time he’s known her. He thinks it’s supposed to be helpful.

“Wedding sampler.” The girl calls toward the back, “It's getting late.”

“I’ve got it,” the voice from the back shouts back.There’s an effortless assurance Tommy can hear from where he’s standing. It hits him with a wave of nostalgia so strong he grabs Carol’s arm on instinct.

“Really,” she says, cutting her gaze over to him. He’s not sure what she sees. “If we could hurry this along, it's just we've only got an hour.”

“You're late.” The glare she gets shuts Carol down faster than he’s ever seen.

“Right.”

“Okay I've got it.” The voice from the back is now the voice in the doorway. Hidden for a second by a serving tray loaded with samples of rich looking cake, it’s the first time since arriving that Tommy has actually wanted to be here. Not just because he can make out strong shoulders and a body of a man that’s still very fit but clearly enjoys his work too; the hint of love handles above strong thighs. Only then that tray dips, and for the first time since 1985 Tommy finds himself looking at the shocked hazel eyes of Steve Harrington. “Oh.”

Carol reacts for him, taking in a breath sharp enough she might puncture a lung. They’ll both wind up suffocated on the floor of this stupid bakery with an awful name, because Tommy can’t manage to breathe at all looking at Steve. Still unfairly handsome, faintly pink at the shock of seeing them too he imagined.

His hair is long, is the first real thought his half fried brain manages to put together. Soft looking even where it’s damp at the temples where sweat has pooled. He has it pulled back with a couple of the same butterfly clips that Carol likes to use.

His second, somehow more hysterical thought: this wasn’t how Steve Harrington was supposed to be included in his wedding.

Tommy was six years old and knew he wanted to marry Steve. When he’d told his mom -- to ask for her ring, Steve thought it was romantic like princes and princesses that they had a special ring that they got married with -- she’d grabbed by his arm so hard it’d left finger shaped bruises. So he’d held that certainty quiet in his heart until he was ten, and suddenly it was okay to want to play with girls on the playground -- he thinks it’s because Steve got tired of there never being an even number when they tried to play kickball, he had a way of making everyone want to do the thing he was. Carol wasn’t afraid to tell Tommy C. that he was dumb or to tell Mark L. that he hadn’t actually made it to the base, Steve liked her fast. Too fast, and Tommy had to tell her that one day he was going to be able to keep Steve all to himself. But he knew that it wasn’t right to say that now, even if he wasn’t all the way sure why it wasn’t. He was ten, but he would be eleven soon, and he took this part of him that he’d kept secret for so long and he whispered it to Carol under the slide while Steve tried to convince Brad P. that he could too pick two people for his kickball team first.

He was ten and Carol said they could share. Boys can’t marry boys, but girls can. So they could both marry her and live together forever.

It became a joke when they finally shared it with Steve, thirteen and boys going out with girls wasn’t funny the way it used to be. Sarah Jane asked Carol if she had a chance at going steady with Steve. She told Tommy about it later and they both told Steve that he was too good to date any of the girls in their grade. “Well I’ve got you guys,” his voice cracked when he said it, throwing an arm around both of them. Carol didn’t care as much, but even she’d noticed the way Steve was changing from boyish to handsome.

They were sixteen and disaster was just around the corner, not that he knew that. Steve dated around but he always came back to them. The head, the heart, the body. They don’t feel complete without each other -- at least Tommy doesn’t. Mr. Kripke, who was hungover more often than he wasn't, passed out ten minutes into study hall. Carol didn’t even wait to see if he’d wake back up before she left her assigned table for theirs. She smoothed out a lined piece of notebook paper for them, and Tommy scoffed like he was supposed to. “Aren’t we a little old to be playing MASH?”

“It’s dirty MASH, and I thought you’d think it was funny.”

“I think it’s funny,” Steve had said, “that you’re getting eiffel towered on your wedding night. Who else is joining in, Carrie?”

“We couldn’t agree on who got you for their side of the aisle. So we’re taking you to bed instead.”

He was sixteen and the way that the two of them looked when they shared a joke was the hottest thing in the world. The way their smiles mirror when they turned to him, sharp and ready to flay open the softest parts of him.

Tommy’s two days older when Steve lets him kiss the taste of Carol out of his mouth.

It was three days after he turned seventeen and he had to pretend he didn't want to die when he saw how Steve looked at Nancy Wheeler. Like he didn’t want to rip his hair out because Steve was fucking infatuated with this mousy little teacher’s pet and wouldn’t even look at him anymore.

He still doesn’t like to think about the breakup. He pokes it like a fresh bruise. Less often now, but when he does he digs his fingers in. Baits Carol into fights he doesn’t mean just so he can pretend like he hasn’t lost something that hurts like a limb.

Steve Harrington turns twenty-eight next week, and he’s standing in front of them both holding pieces of what might turn into their wedding cake.

“Wow I can’t believe you’re in Indy!” False excitement grates, but at least Carol has gotten herself together enough to speak. He thought he’d have at least another few months to prepare for the thought of seeing Steve, by their ten year reunion he was going to be married and happy and over it.

“Yeah, this is- Married, wow! I kinda can’t believe you haven’t already.” He says it to Carol, his platitudes had always been for Carol, but his eyes find Tommy. 

While Carol chatters at them and for them both, nervous, he knows she’s nervous. The situation is sudden and strange and fraught. But Tommy just looks at Steve, who looks at him. He’s getting married in three months, one week, and two days from now and for the first time in eleven years Steve is looking at him.

"Takes a while to save up for when you want the best of everything. Dad's still the skinflint he always was, I think he'd pay me less than minimum wage if he could get away with it."

And those soft brown eyes look so sad, looking at him. Sometimes he thinks no one will ever understand him the way that Steve did.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting the best, or having a long engagement." Carol defends. It's the same line she's been giving everyone. Defensive of him and herself and the choices they've been making. He can't believe Steve is someone she thinks they have to defend against.

“I really hope you're happy, man," he says, and the sincerity is a balm on the sting of this conversation. He pushes his hair back from his face, the way he always has when he's uncomfortable and trying not to make it obvious. And there's a fresh new hurt when Tommy catches sight of a plain gold band on Steve's finger, shining bright between the golden highlights of his hair.

“I’m happy about this,” he can say honestly. Carol is one of the only things he’s ever been sure about. She held him steady as she could when his other sure thing left him with a cracked foundation in a convenience store parking lot. “What about you? How long after meeting the future Mrs. Harrington did you wait to put a ring on her finger?”

“Tommy,” Carol chides as the teen in the corner snorts. To anyone else it would sound like a reprimand for being nosy, he, and he suspects Steve, knows she’s telling him to stop worrying a scab that has no hope of healing right.

Married and they didn’t know. Wouldn’t have found out until the reunion. It’s not like he expected an invitation, maybe an engagement announcement sent to their parents’ houses. They’d sent one to Loch Nora when the real ring had finally made it to Carrie’s finger. It was equal parts olive branch and offering. They’d gotten it back return to sender with no forwarding address.

The bell above the door tongs again, loud enough to make Carol jump. The platter of cakes doesn't shift at all in Steve’s hand. His arm shows no sign of fatigue. It’s almost distracting enough that he misses the obvious. The bell signals someone is coming into the store.

“Sorry, Sweetheart. I know I said I wasn't gonna be late but Mike…” There just inside the door is the Freak. Undeniable even with his head down as he digs through his shoulder bag. From the riot of poorly maintained tangles that still hang around his shoulders to the expanded mess of tacky ink on his arms. The only thing that’s changed is the age in his face and the band on his shirt.

“Munson?” Carol has the reflexes and the personal grace to address him first. Shock more than the disgust it might have been when they were still kids.

Tommy feels like a kid still. Looks to Steve in an instinct he’d thought he’d stamped out years ago, only to be met with wide eyes and teeth grit tight enough to draw out the square line of his jaw.

“Christ, I still get nightmares that start like this.” Munson says, eye darting between the three of them. “Max, am I naked?”

“Don't know, don't wanna know.”

“I thought you'd be able to tell by the energy in the room.” He wiggles his fingers, still bedecked in silver, like they can divine the vibrations or some witchy shit.

That’s enough to make Steve break just a little. A soft, exhaling scoff before he finally starts to move out from the counter. Tommy catches, and he doubts Carol misses it either, how Steve passes the closer tables to set his tray down between them and Munson.

“I can tell I don't want to be here for this.” Their redheaded audience member says, “I'm taking my 15.”

“Don't go harass Mike, he's finally working,” Munson says.

“Will and El are on shift on the other side,” Steve calls out, not looking at any of them as he moves cakes from his tray to the table. A deliberate selection he seems to be making.

“Whatever, I’m gonna call Lucas and break up with him so he can play better or whatever.”

“Don’t be too harsh,” Munson calls out, “I’ve only got him on a five point spread.”

If Carol’s nails break from how hard they’re digging into his arm, somehow it’ll be Tommy’s fault. Not the fact that they’ve advanced the worst part of their ten year reunion by months, and also Munson is here and knows shit about basketball.

“Sorry, think my hearing’s going, sounded like you said you want him to lose and he’s getting kicked from the next one shot. I’ll let him know.”

“She gets that from you,” Steve and Munson say in sync. Glaring playfully at one another the way Steve used to with Carol.

“I’ll tell Robin you were-”

“Do not sick Buckley on me, Max made the deaf joke not me.”

“Weird, that’s not what I heard.” Steve has always claimed his hair as his best feature. It isn’t -- Carrie liked his eyes, Tommy his hands -- but it’s hard to deny that it doesn’t look good, flipping over his shoulder. His smile is private, just for Munson, soft the way he got whenever he picked up a new girl. Carrie taps the back of his hand, two sharp smacks, their signal for years that he needed to pay attention and notice something she had. Wide, nervous eyes dart to Steve -- like he hadn’t already been looking at Steve -- so he does his best to assess the way Carol would.

Jealous, viciously, Steve had been theirs in every way that mattered since they were ten years old and Carol had never liked sharing her toys with anyone but them. She watched his face for any sign of unhappiness anytime a new girlfriend came along, and when she found one she passed it along to him. So he could pick and joke until Steve was all theirs again.

So he checked the face. Tried to ignore the way Steve was lit up from the inside out with a joy he could barely remember, and then he saw the hearing aid.

He tapped back, three times. O.M.G.

“The 1985 Homecoming court here to reveal that this has all been a long con, Stevie?”

“Yeah I faked the name change paperwork and picked up a fake ID, sorry I took my business somewhere else.” Steve says it with the sincerity he’s always made those kind of jokes with, his strange sense of humor never coming across when he always sounded so serious. 

Munson gets it though, snorts loud and ugly, before a smile pulls wide across half his face the otherside taught with a gnarly scar. “Now I know why my fake ID business went belly up when we got to the city, not like I only sold three in high school.”  He gestures to the three of them in a wide arc.

Sophomores, they had decided it was time to throw their first real party now that Steve’s parents had moved out of Hawkins in all but name. Steve was a latchkey kid of new proportions and took to self sufficiency in a way that had seemed adult to him then; and in hindsight looked more like a child fighting for his life. Steve bragged how he’d been saving up the weekly checks they’d sent to ‘sustain him’ while they worked in the city during the week. His contribution to Tommy and Carol’s vague plan to throw a kegger by the pool. When they’d floundered, immediately, with the hows, Steve had been the one to suggest going to Munson.

“Love this preview of the reunion,” Carol cuts in, there’s no bite but Munson bristles anyway like she’s being rude for reminding them that there are customers present. “Steve?”

It’s funny, Tommy thinks, the way Steve still straightens his back at Carol’s tone. All this time and he can’t fight the old ingrained instincts either.

“Dustin made the appointment,” Steve apologizes, even as he’s posture perfect and preparing his pastries. The unsaid, ‘I definitely wouldn’t have’ doesn’t go unheard and it doesn’t sting any less even this far from their last interaction.

“Munson could join us,” Tommy offers, a new olive branch since their last one was never seen. Even if it does raise three sets of brows and makes Carrie’s nervous smile tighten even more in the corner of her mouth.

“Well at least one of us has to,” Munson, Eddie, says. Just says, tone like it was meant to be something said under his breath.

He's grown up a lot since high school, they both have. Still, he's only got twenty minutes left on his lunch break and it's been a long day. "God, is that why it's called that?" Growth, he doesn't say that Steve Munson sounds a lot dumber than Steve Harrington.

"It's charming," Carol and Steve both say. Though Carrie is definitely lying and Steve barely gets it out from between his gritted teeth, a sore spot. He's always been good at finding Steve's bruises.

"It's charming," Tommy agrees, like he always did when he was out voted.

Eddie has a smirk spread across his face and a ‘too proud of himself’ look in his eyes. Mouth open to make some quip that Tommy is going to pretend is funny, for Steve’s sake. Now that they’re here, he’s going to do something to show that they could talk to one another again. Steve clicks his tongue, taps his index and middle finger down to his thumb two quick times before he can.

He turns to the girl in the corner, "Erica, scram, go help Robin and the kids with the new donation that just came in."

The teen continues to scribble in the notebook in front of her, bulky headphones over her ears, she makes no sign that Tommy can see that she's heard Steve speak. "Erica, go, or I'll tell your mother you moved out of the dorms. You're 20, it's not child labor, and you've got a timecard."

She sighs and wordlessly packs up her things, she gives Steve a scathing look that takes Tommy back to high school. The withering eyebrow and rolled eyes would have been just at home on Steve’s own face in 1985, but she marches behind the counter, the sound of her dish rattling in the sink before she disappears out the same door that the redhead had gone out.

Now that the room has been cleared, an awkward silence has found the space to squeeze in. Munson, the original, still standing in the doorway and Steve standing between his unlawfully wedded husband and the two people who had lost their chance at him years ago.

The wedding and the reunion both on the horizon had dredged up a nostalgia that Tommy and Carol had been dealing with in their own ways. Dredging up old yearbooks, Carol had found a shoebox of old notes that she’d kept. Conversations written in three different inks by three different hands, nonsensical after all this time. Tommy woke up from dreams that he hadn’t had in years. Always of Steve and Carol, a study in opposites, but similar where it mattered.

“Well,” Steve says, taking charge of the situation like he always would when the other two faltered, “you’re here for a reason. We might as well get started on it.”

Steve’s fingerprints are still on them, just like he’d noticed theirs on him, molded as they were together. They’ve always bowed to his expectations, and his whims. When he ushers them to the table with a spread hand, Tommy and Carol go where they’re beckoned.

And so does Munson.

They keep an empty chair between them, an artificial divide for Tommy’s sanity, but with the sprawl of Munson’s legs their knees still occasionally brush together. Carol had taken the spot closest to Steve, who has stayed standing. He is their gracious host, marking the head of the round table.

“I pulled out the full sampler before I realized it was you,” Steve says. Even with as off balance as the interaction has felt, Tommy doesn’t feel his hackles raising. While it’s possible he’s gotten more subtle with his digs, Steve’s vicious tongue was usually unmistakable. “I can tell you about as many of them as you want though if you want to pretend like we don’t already know what I’ll be making you. I’m sure neither of you have eaten lunch yet.”

“You are going to take us on?” Carol asks. Shock always gives her tone an extra edge, defensive and catty, even if she’s really just waiting to see if another shoe will drop.

“Obviously,” Steve says, placing a faintly orange square of cake in front of her. He slaps Eddie’s hand away from another piece without looking away from either of them. “That’s as far as I’ll be going in participation though.”

He doesn’t miss the way Steve’s mouth twitches up with the joke, a filthy smirk that leaves Tommy flushing hot. Too warm to not be a bright and obvious red at the acknowledgment of that old private in-joke.

It doesn’t get better when Carol moans, “Oh my god, Steve!” Even if it is about the cake.

He laughs, and Tommy suspects the two are actually trying to kill him. He chances a glance over at Munson who looks like he doesn’t care at all that his husband has made Tommy’s fiance moan. He is watching Tommy though, an inquisitive look like the one Carol gets when she happens to catch a nature documentary.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees with Carol, “I’ll do something small with that citrus cake for you and Tom so you’ve got something you’ll actually eat on your wedding, maybe a pineapple buttercream on top like that nasty Juicy Fruit gum you like so much.”

“I mean it’s really crazy how you’re so good at this when you’ve never had any taste,” Carol compliments, she never did learn how to be nice.

He could probably count Steve’s teeth in the answering smile. Tommy can feel it like an ache in his chest how much he missed this. He snatches another cube of cake off the tray just so has something else to focus on.

“That’s the fancy one for the people who hate their guests,” Munson says as the cake has settled on the flat of Tommy’s tongue.

“It’s lavender,” Steve corrects, and the floral flavor is lodged in the back of his throat at least gives him a reason now to feel so choked up. “And it is for a particular sort of bride.”

“Are you saying I’m not fancy and particular, Munson?” Carol asks. 

She’s obviously talking to Eddie Munson, who lifts his hands up in answer. But it’s Steve who says, “If you tried to feed that to Gail she would leave the reception bitching the whole time.”

“Well go on,” Tommy finds himself goading now that he’s swallowed, “finish calling your shot, Stevie. You said you knew what we were walking out of here with.”

Carol reaches across the table, locking eyes with Eddie as she snags the piece closest to him. The one his fingers had been inching toward like he thought Steve wouldn’t notice him trying to take it.

“I’ll make a small citrus cake for you, Carrie, we’ll hide it in the back of the larger cake so you can get the pictures of you cutting it and smashing into each other's faces-”

“We will not be doing that,” she interrupts, the warning for him and also unnecessary. He already knows how she feels about being embarrassed in public.

“Then the big cake for your guests will be a chocolate cake, I can cover it in a buttercream or a fondant icing also chocolate, because it’s the only kind of cake the Hagan family will eat. Even though I’m sure John hasn’t given you a dime for the wedding, he’ll complain until Hannah gets married if he doesn’t like the cake.”

“Really,” Steve continues, “the only thing up in the air is how many people you were able to get away with not inviting, Care.”

The two of them start talking actual wedding logistics, and as Tommy grabs another bite of cake -- this one looks like it might be a normal flavor -- he figures the real show of good faith would be talking to the only other person at the table while he eats what Steve correctly dubbed his lunch.

“Y’know he never actually answered me,” he says in an undertone.

Munson seems surprised at being spoken to, only widens his eyes in response to Tommy’s unasked question.

“I asked Steve how soon after the first date he proposed, he never actually answered.”

Eddie softens at the edges before he can even say anything. Steve had a way of doing that, bringing out the romantic in a person. He loved with a passion that demanded it be matched. “Technically I proposed to him, but he says it doesn’t count because we weren’t together and I was high on morphine after a major surgery and thought he was Apollo, come to whisk me away.” The smile on Munson’s face looks dopey and drugged up now, like the very memory of whatever hospital stay is so ingrained in his mind he can feel the high now.

“But,” he goes on, “he told me we were getting married whether it was legal or not about three months after he got legally married to another woman.”

“Stop,” Steve has always been able to sense when he’s about to be the butt of the joke. He has a finger pointed at Eddie like a teacher delivering a lecture. “You can’t tell people that. It was for tax reasons, I’m not cheating on my wife.”

“You say tomato, I say whichever one of us is your least favorite has to be the extramarital affair.”

“I say, you’re the most obnoxious person I’ve ever met.” Tommy can hear the warm affection behind the insult, the way their picking is a safer way to express their passion for one another.

He thought he would be jealous of whoever finally managed to reel in Steve Harrington for good, and he is. The emotion is there, present in the snarling tangle of emotions that this encounter has left in him. One that he and Carol will have to slowly tease and pick out tonight when they’re home in bed. Trying to make sense of what each thread is and what it means for them. But the one bright pulsing thread he can make sense of is happiness. He’s happy for Steve, happy that he gets to see an old friend so at ease and obviously cared for.

And he’s sad that his time is up, his lunch hour so close to an end he’ll be late getting back to the office. Something he can already hear his Dad and fucking Greg giving him shit for. Which means they have to end their time here.

Steve walks them to the door, flips the sign to mark them closed for lunch.

“Congratulations again, you two,” he says, “I really am happy I can get to be a part of this with you all. Even if it’s a little different than we used to imagine.”

Carol reaches out for the both of them, puts her hand on his arm. Tommy finds that he’s the one who actually says, “We’re glad you found someone who makes you this happy, dude. You deserve it.”

“Yeah, he’s alright most of the time.” It's said with such fondness it becomes a declaration. It’s hard to imagine how they thought they could ever be the something that could make Steve this happy. But maybe in a different life, under different circumstances it could have been.

There’s a minute where they all stand in the doorway. He wonders if they’re all afraid that this might be the last time they see each other, speak to one another, until Steve is delivering the cake on the day of the wedding. Maybe it’s just him, he was the one who pushed back the hardest after things ended.

Someone finally gives in and pushes the door open. It’s TONG a death toll for their current conversation. But it also sends a jolt through Steve, he straightens to his full height like a shock has gone through him. “Here,” he says, “here, um.” He digs around in his apron until he finds a pen and a receipt pad. Jots down something before tearing it off and putting it in Tommy’s hands, “It's our home number, in case you have any cake emergencies or something.”

They really can’t stay any longer.

Carol takes the note, better at keeping track of these things than Tommy is. It’s hard to know if they’ll actually use it, maybe after they talk about it, but if they do she’ll be the one to do it. She’s always been braver than him.

There’s no way of guaranteeing anything but the fact that they’ll have a cake on the table on their wedding day. But he hopes that Steve might stay for the ceremony once he brings it, he can even bring Eddie if that’s what gets him there. 

Alone in his car, Tommy lets himself take a minute to think about Steve Harrington one last time. He isn’t going to get what he wanted as a kid. Doubts that he’ll ever be as close to Steve as he’d been in childhood, too much time has passed and too much has changed.

But there’s an opportunity to get to know Steve Munson, and he isn't going to pass it up. Even if he doesn’t know how to name a bakery.

[devondespresso]

Just Let Me Come Home

T | 2850 words | Stomarol, post s2, pre-relationship | also on ao3 | cw: very minor implied child neglect

Gift for @momotonescreaming Happy very late Birthday Momo!!! STWG prompt: Home

Thank you so much to @pearynice for betaing!!

Hawkins’ sun sets early in November.

When school starts tapering off into winter break, so does the light each day, the world getting darker until it looks like midnight at six in the afternoon and no one can see Steve riding shotgun in the police chief's car.

It’s been a hell of a week. Or, more accurately, one hellish night with consequences bleeding into the days after, until the bruising on Steve’s face starts fading into uglier muddier colors and Hopper decides he’s been waiting in the hospital long enough, telling him to start the mental list for what he’ll pack in his overnight bag.

Steve looks out the window as Hop drives, letting the cold glass ice the headache pressing against his forehead, watching the lamplit storefronts as they drive, staring out as the occasional passerby glances over the car, unseeing, before turning back to whatever they were doing before.

It’s dark. They can’t see much, and they don’t really need to. They don’t really care.

Which makes it awfully convenient that hell keeps coming to Hawkins just after dark. It brings a lot less questions that he can’t answer, about nausea and terror that he can’t explain, that he wouldn’t know how to even if he could. 

It’s convenient. Gives Steve less people to worry about, less names to remember when things go bump in the night.

Hop drives past the end of Main street, the end of paved sidewalks and streetlights. He stops at a four-way to let another car turn, then takes a left down a darker road.

House lights take the place of street lamps, windows flaunting squares of lustrous orange light in every house they pass. The distance makes the light hazier, easier on the ache behind his eyes.

The street is familiar, more than just small-town same-roads familiar. It becomes depressingly familiar as the Perkins' house appears ahead, that feeling more of an indicator than the house’s appearance right now. Light fills almost every damn window, except for Carol’s bedroom upstairs.

Her powder blue convertible is missing from the driveway, too, and its absence leaves the whole house sickeningly monochrome.

It's probably in Tommy's driveway. He could check to be sure, they’ll pass by it in a block or two.

As quick as it appeared, Carol’s house disappears again, passing behind them just like every other house on the block.

Steve closes his eyes.

Keeps them closed, until the car slows drastically but doesn't feel the turn into the driveway.

Steve opens his eyes, glances towards Hopper and finds him looking out into the dark ahead, warily. Steve follows his gaze, and his stomach turns.

There’s a powder blue convertible stalling in front of his house—roof uncharacteristically up and hiding the interior—haphazardly parked half off the road. The people in the front seat are arguing, and there’s smoke billowing out the back still like they’re ready to take off at any second.

Hop rolls closer, headlights lighting up everything. Steve leans forward to get a better look, and Tommy’s face turns around in the driver’s seat to look back at them.

Tommy’s eyes pass over Steve, unseeing, then skipping by Hop too as he just sees a cop car and panics. He gets ready to drive off, only to be stopped by Carol’s hand from the passenger’s seat. 

It's uncomfortable just looking at them. Tommy is awkwardly crammed into Carol’s front seat like he’s too big for it—maybe because he is, maybe it's still adjusted for Carol—and Carol looks like she's fighting the seatbelt that's keeping her from jumping across the dash and taking the wheel herself. 

And what’s worse, they’re sticking with it. They’re parked on the side of the road and yet neither get out to switch seats and go back to what they're used to.

Hop shifts the car into park, and Steve glances over to find Hopper already looking at him, eyebrows raised and quietly asking. 

Steve turns back to the car in front of them for a second. Carol glances back from her spot in the passenger’s seat too, then turns to her real objective of saying something to Tommy. Something Tommy, apparently, doesn’t want to hear. Has already heard several times, if the overplayed frustration is anything to go by.

Steve sighs.

“I’ve got it.” Steve mutters, and ducks down to find his keys in his bag.

Hopper doesn’t say anything and goes back to eyeing Carol's car, but when Steve sits back up he shoots him another uncertain look.

“You’ll know if I change my mind.” Steve says, and gets out of the car.

The headlights sting his eyes even from behind so Steve squints and turns his head away from them, watches his step and shoves his keys into his pockets as he walks over. A car door in front of him opens, letting the tail end of a very annoyed “Carol!” slip out before it slams shut again and the familiar clacking of boots makes its way over to him. 

Steve looks up properly and Carol stops, squinting from the headlights, staring at the bruising on his face openly, shock softening a very reassuring grimace. Steve closes the last bit of distance so he doesn't have to be loud, doesn’t make this any bigger than it has to be.

“Can this happen at literally any other time?” 

Carol stares at the worst spots of his face for another second, trying to juggle new thoughts with whatever the hell she was planning to say, but a voice from the other side of her car beats her to it.

“Steve?”

He and Carol both look over at Tommy, standing from the driver's seat to get a better look over the hood of the car, equally taken aback, if only for a second.

Tommy jogs over—that slowed down jog to keep from looking too uncool—and stops, a little further away than Carol is, keeping a cold distance. It nicks an old nerve, one he's used to having hit, but now it’s fanning a bitter flame that he’s happy to indulge.

“What the hell happened to you?” Tommy says.

“Why do you care?”

“Steve.” Carol snaps at him.

“No, actually, what are either of you even doing here?”

“Looking for you, asshole.” Carol says, and takes barely a step forward. 

“Carol dragged me with her.” Tommy says, with that light, cocky tone he’d use in the hallways or on the court or in the locker room, where everythings a goddamn joke.

“Tommy.” Carol hisses, hitting Tommy’s arm and Tommy scowls at her.

“Well that makes this easy then.” Steve says, letting bored disdain leak out with every breath. He directs an extra bit of bitterness Tommy’s way, then turns back towards his house.

“Steve–” 

Tommy grabs his arm. Reaches out and grabs for him. 

Steve turns back and looks down at Tommy’s hand on his forearm, pointedly, then back up at Tommy. Challenging, to let Tommy know he’s doing it—reaching out and touching another boy—and waits for Tommy to let go or pretend it’s more aggressive than he meant it.

Tommy’s hand slips away and falls to the side.

“Look, man,” Tommy starts, “We heard about Wheeler–”

“Yeah, I know.” Steve says, and even though his voice wavers Steve tries to make it harsh, be cold and detached like he would be if they were in the halls right now. “You just know everything there is to know about Nancy Wheeler these days.”

Carol makes a face at him and Tommy scowls again, and it feels like so much, feels familiar and nauseating, soothing and insufferable.

“Man, I’m fucking trying, alri–”

“To do what?”

Tommy pauses, face still scowling but his eyes searching, confused.

“What are you trying to do?” Steve asks again.

Tommy looks away, shoves his hands into his jacket pocket. “Fucking talk, man, what…” Tommy smiles, shoots him a look of casual apathy, doing it on purpose now. “What does it look like I’m doin’.”

Steve tamps down a curled lip, keeping mostly neutral as he stares at Tommy. Making a show of listening even after he stopped talking, waiting for either another deflection or a real answer.

It takes Tommy a good few seconds to realize Steve isn’t planning on playing along. He connects the dots and drops the casual act, apathy hardening into irritation, and refuses to say anything.

Steve glances over to Carol, standing off to the side and mostly watching Tommy. She catches Steve’s eye, but with nothing written on her face. 

She looks at Tommy again but doesn’t try to intervene, doesn’t try to say anything.

Steve turns again quietly, away from the cars and headlights, and starts up his driveway. Gets a little ways away before Tommy does anything about it.

“Steve, fucking– hold on!” 

Steve turns before Tommy can reach him, catching him off guard, so instead of grabbing Steve’s arm Tommy gestures around with that energy, pointing to him and Carol and right at Steve’s chest.  

“We came out here because it was always the three of us, always! You, me, and Carol. And then you ran away, you keep fucking off to do your own thing like neither of us ever mattered.”

“So you came here to yell at me.” 

“I came here because you sure as hell weren’t coming back! You were getting off on ‘caring about other people’ but you don’t give two shits about us!”

Tommy lets the words hit, then loses steam with a loaded huff. He stares Steve down like Steve’s dragging the word out of him, like Steve’s the one forcing this conversation to happen.

“And you’re happier now.” 

Tommy looks sick with it, keeps channeling anger over the sickness and it’s working, he’s yelling, but Steve can’t stop seeing what’s under there. 

“But we still give a shit about you, and Carol dragged both our asses over here cause she’s the only one with enough balls to admit it.”

Tommy’s hand moves again, barely a reach that’s pulled back, a small reflex that Tommy probably doesn't notice, but Steve does, only because he’s looking for it.

A lump forms and clogs Steve’s throat—and Tommy sees it, something of it because he lets the anger melt out, smooths it down a little until–

“You tell me to fuck off and I’ll do it, but you’re going to let me fucking try first.”

–until he just looks like Tommy again.

Steve crashes forward and pulls Tommy in tight for a hug. Wraps his arms around him, ducks his face down into Tommy’s shoulder, half for himself, half as a final test, to see if Tommy would let him– let himself give as much of a shit as he used to.

Tommy jumps but grabs onto him with that reflex, wraps his arms around Steve's back and holds him just as tight, maybe tighter. Tears well up in Steve’s eyes, the treacherous kind that aren’t asking if or when they could fall, so Steve buries them in the collar of Tommy's shirt.

Tommy laughs a little, light with surprise and wonder and fucking joy, rumbling soothingly from his chest, from his throat right by Steve’s ear, and it makes Steve smile, too. Smiling so wide, even as tears fall freely and he silently chokes on his relief.

Tommy presses his face, too, into Steve’s shoulder, not quite tall enough to tuck his chin over. He presses his smile into the collar of Steve’s shirt and leans his head against Steve’s, so much softer, so much more confident, and more truly at ease than Steve’s seen him before.

Steve takes in a deep breath, slow and long so it feels like enough, and revels in the steadiness,  the warmth around him. And for the first time in a while, it’s easier to keep himself upright.

Another hand settles gently on his shoulder, light enough that it doesn’t hurt the bruises that have to be somewhere around there.

Steve pulls back, just enough to stand up straight and see Carol keeping her hand on Steve’s shoulder, looking slightly worried and only getting worse when he meets her eyes.

Steve shakes his head, wipes the wetness from his eyes, cringing when he presses against bruises, just making more tears fall.

Steve swallows hard and takes a deep breath again.

“I missed you guys, too.”

Carol moves fast, pulls him into her own tight hug immediately, squeezes a choked sob out of him instead of words. He hugs her back tightly, buries the lower half of his face in her hair, and gets a strong whiff of Farrah Fawcett hairspray.

Carol gives him one more squeeze before her grip mellows out into something gentler, decidedly gentle, and just as steady. And she stays there, face resting on his shirt, right over his heart like it's just as much for her as it is for him. His throat clogs up again, and Steve doesn't think he’s ever been happier.

After a moment or so, Carol mutters something that Steve doesn’t catch.

“What?” Tommy asks before Steve can.

Carol huffs with so much of her signature annoyance that Steve can't help but snort to himself too. She moves back but with an arm still tucked around Steve, shoots him a quick glare that doesn’t hide any of her fondness—if she was even trying to hide it—and turns to Tommy to enunciate everything at him.

“I said, it took you two long enough.”

 Tommy rolls his eyes immediately, like he’s heard something like this a million times before.

“Yeah, thanks for helping, by the way.” 

“You’re welcome.” Carol says, all over-innocent and cheery and it makes Tommy roll his eyes harder, “You two needed someone sensible around. All this emotional constipation really isn't a great look.”

Steve wrinkles his nose at the word choice while Tommy scoffs.

“Yeah, you’re real mature, like you didn’t bite Nichole Turner’s head off for finding that old swim team hoodie you won’t get rid of.”

“Tommy!”

Carol hits Tommy’s arm again, betrayed and annoyed but not trying to deny it.

“You kept that?”

Carol glances over before resolutely avoiding eye contact and shrugs, but doesn’t refute it.

“Awww Caroooool,” he says, drawing the words out comically, putting an arm around her, “You missed—” 

“It’s a sweatshirt.”

“You missed meeeee.” He sings and hugs her again, playing up the schmaltzy sweet flair.

“You two are such—” she starts, then sighs heavily before giving up, dropping her head to lean into Steve’s hug.

Steve smiles and looks back over to Tommy—to give Carol her moment to recover—and catches a soft smile on his face, too.

Tommy’s eyes flick up to meet Steve’s and he pauses like he knows he’s been caught.

“So…” Steve starts.

“Yeah.” Tommy says, landing a hand on his shoulder, casual except for how Tommy keeps it there, normal except for how it’s making Steve melt. “You gonna be alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it. I'm gonna head inside—”

“And find a bag of peas or something,” Carol interrupts, pulling away to give Steve another look, “I mean, like, in a nice way–”

“Don’t hurt yourself.” 

“You look like you’ve been hit by a car.”

“Yeah.” he laughs.

“Did you?”

“No, no…” Steve shakes his head. “No, it’s uh… long story.”

Carol raises an eyebrow, and when Steve turns to Tommy instead he finds him also giving Steve a searching look. Steve smiles a little, enjoying the care despite the context and the subjects he has to breach at some point—god especially when it comes to school again, basketball’s about to be a fucking mess—

“I’ll tell you guys later. Promise.” He says and he means it, even if he can only throw together some half baked explanation—maybe blame a little more on Hargrove than he really needs to—he wants them around enough to know. And also, maybe selfishly, wants them around enough to know when he’s lying, to know when there’s things he won’t say.

But for now, Tommy and Carol both accept the promise for later. And Steve nods over towards the front door.

Carol takes the silent invitation immediately, heads up the dark driveway and to the front of the house with Steve and Tommy not far behind her.

Carol waits by the steps for them as they catch up and lets Steve go ahead to the door, whispering something cheeky and teasing to Tommy that catches him off guard, makes him stutter for a second before muttering something snippy back.

Steve bites back a laugh and turns to the door. He finds his keys in his pocket and picks out the house key smoothly as Tommy and Carol linger behind him, their presence and their voices calming something in him, making the gaping void behind them feel less vast, less pressing.

He clicks the lock and opens the door wide and it’s somehow darker than what they’re already standing in.

Steve wanders in blindly, and Tommy and Carol follow right behind.