#sue is bc johnny is lame and a fan of siouxsie and the banshees

[flowercrowngods]

just a teeny tiny little wintering kid fic thing for @cxwzkeys featuring transmasc!eddie/steve/johnny (that punk from family video) ❄️

Babies are the most punk rock thing to exist. Well, according to Eddie, they’re the most metal thing ever, but Eddie can’t be right about everything. They had lengthy arguments about it — lengthy only because they were busy laughing and kicking and fighting dirty about it (read: Steve distracted them both with kisses and scalp massages).

Secretly, Johnny decided that Val is their metal baby and Sue is their punkrock baby. Valerie Amalia Munson, born into the world during a glorious summer storm and crying her lungs out. “Most metal ever,” Eddie had breathed, exhausted and sweaty and so, so warm after giving birth to their babygirl.

And Johnny let’s them have it.

But Sue? Suzie Joanne? With her wild, blonde mane that Johnny likes to pretend to spike up into a mohawk? Oh, she’s his little punkrock baby, alright. Especially with that little pointy hat she’s wearing right now, sleeping soundly in her papa Steve’s arms while he caresses chubby red cheek whispering nonsensical promises to her sleeping form. It never fails to make Johnny smile, even as Joyce has him wrapped up in a conversation about… something. He’s not listening. Not when that’s his babygirl sleeping so soundly in the arms he knows can make anyone feel safe.

Joyce stops talking and follows his eyes, her hand coming up to Johnny’s forearm as she strokes him gently, as though she understands and forgives him.

“She’s beautiful,” she says.

“Yeah,” Johnny says. “She is.” Then, remembering where he is, he snaps out of it and looks back at Joyce, who has this awfully gentle look on her face, her eyes almost watery. She knows. She’s a parent, and she knows.

She had two little punkrock babies, too, even though Big and Baby Byers are a lot more normie about it.

He grins at her and motions for her to follow him. “How ‘bout we make some hot chocolate for those two, hm?”

“Oh, you deserve one just as much,” Joyce says, lightly nudging his shoulder as they walk through Steve’s winter holiday home — it should still be a crime that this exists, but Johnny knows how excited his idiot lovers get about snow, so he’ll pause the agenda for two weeks, in the name of stars in Steve’s and Eddie’s eyes. But after that, it is on!

“But I didn’t—“

“Yes, you did,” Joyce says, gathering all the stuff she needs to make her infamous holiday hot chocolate — these should really be capitalised, in his very secret opinion. “You’re doing a lot, all three of you, raising those two wonderful girls. And you’re doing enough. You deserve a treat about it even if you’re not drowning in house and care work, boy, when will you learn that?”

Johnny smiles sheepishly, his hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck, not really comfortable with the easy affection just because.

“Sorry, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”

“Now that’s what I wanna hear. Come, help me.”

And so he does. They work in silence, the entire situation still so unreal to him. Standing in this lavish kitchen in his big house somewhere in the middle of nowhere as humongous flakes of snow keep falling outside while he can walk around here in socks.

Some part about him wants to be angry about it. But another part is just… calm. Happy. Indulgent.

They get to have this, get to invite Steve’s found family here each year before the rest of Eddie’s and Johnny’s will arrive, too, for two weeks of winter fun.

Two weeks where his little family gets reminded of how big it actually is. It takes a village, they say — and man, they really actually almost got one. It’s insane. He loves them all so much.

The rest are lounging around the fire, with a very mortified-looking Hopper trying not to move as a two-year-old little metal gremlin girl spends her nap time sleeping on his stomach.

Johnny grins as he meets his eyes, saluting to him with too much cheek, knowing it will land him face-first in the snow later, but he doesn’t care as he carefully balances three too-large mugs of hot chocolate in his hands, walking over to his best guys over on bank by the large window.

Steve has stopped whispering things to his little banshee girl and is gently swaying her this way and that instead — Johnny wonders if he’s aware he’s doing it.

He watches for a moment, just to take it on, just to feel again how unreal everything is. Still he can’t help the smile as he steps closer and presses a kiss to the crown of Steve’s head, who hums in affection.

“Need me to take over?” he asks, finishing off with another kiss. “Take her for a while?”

Steve shakes his head, leaning back slightly to look up at him, his head bumping into Johnny’s stomach as he does, earning himself another kiss.

“No, she’s asleep.”

Eddie scoots closer to Steve to make room for him on their bench.

“Come sit with us?” they ask, barely tearing their gaze away from the dancing, tumbling snowflakes outside, their voice just as quiet as Steve’s, just as hushed, just as reverent. It’s the snow, Johnny figures. It’s the snow and their little babygirl.

Johnny hums and leans over to the side, lightly kissing Eddie and brushing his lips to his little girl’s forehead, too. It’s so… magical, having this tiny little human who is already so different from their other tiny human. Most beautiful goddamn thing he’s ever seen, both of them.

“I love you, little punkrock baby,” he whispers, delighted to see she doesn’t even stir. Delighted to see she feels so safe. So calm. That she can just fall sleep anywhere. She’s like her papa Steve.

“I love you, too, you big punkrock baby,” Steve says, bumping his nose into Johnny’s cheek with a smile. “Now come. Rest. While you can, before madame decides she’s jealous of this very delicious smelling hot chocolate you’ve acquired there.”

“Fuck off,” he chuckles, handing over their mugs as he slides in on Eddie’s other side, resting his arms on the window sill and just watching his little family for a bit.

In the end, they make use of the quiet they’ve been given when Eddie leans against Johnny and Steve against Eddie, the three of them falling asleep in a little pile, their baby safe in her papa’s arms.

It’s only when Val comes over an hour later and decides she wants to be part of their cuddle pile, too, that they have to stir and rearrange. She ends up in Johnny’s lap, watching the snow as Eddie tells a story about a Snowflake named Sam.

Johnny pretends not to listen raptly.