Title: Winter's Respite
Fandom: Stranger Things
Pairing: Steve Harrington/Billy Hargrove/Jim Hopper (Hoppingtongrove)
Rating: PG15
AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36640486
Written for @clowntownbabey for our server's Secret Santa. I'm only a little bit late. Rory, I hope you like this.
Notes: Takes place after Season 3, but largely hand-waves a lot of what happened. Just go with it.
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Hopper sat on the cabin couch, nestled between his two beautiful boys. His arms were resting along the back of the sofa, lightly draped across their shoulders as they watched the fireplace crackle and pop. He smiled down at them and settled further into the cushions.
Steve was lightly dozing against Hopper’s chest, a full day of decorating and cooking having worn him out. He scooted closer to the older man, hand tightening in the Chief’s flannel shirt. The cream colored knit sweater was bunched slightly around his waist and Hopper had to resist giving the skin exposed there a featherlight touch.
On his other side was Billy.
Billy was wide awake but quiet, seemingly deep in thought. The quiet was new. Ever since he came back, Billy had been quieter, more reserved. Oh, he still had the Devil in his grin and hellfire in his eyes, but there was something haunted lurking in those depths. Something… darker, more painful. Hopper gave in to temptation and ran a calloused hand over Billy’s head. This was new too, the freshly shorn locks. After Steve and Hopper found Billy wandering in the woods, hair matted and dirty, facial hair a mess of dried blood and god knew what else, the only option had been to cut it off.
That had been three months ago. It seemed like Billy was a fan of the new look though, having asked Steve to trim it more than once since that first afternoon. Hopper continued stroking his short curls, and Billy moved into the touch like a cat seeking scritches. Hopper gave a soft smile and huffed a laugh. Billy turned his head up to look at Hopper, wondering what he found amusing.
This was about the time that Steve awoke fully. Stifling a yawn, Steve extricated himself from the police chief’s embrace and moved to get up. No sooner had he stood up than he was pulled right back down, right into Hopper’s lap. Hopper snaked an arm around Steve’s midriff, while Billy took the opportunity to lay his into Steve’s own lap. Steve squawked out a sound of protest at the sudden change in position but quickly settled back into Hopper’s chest.
Billy grinned up lazily at Steve. “And where didja think you were going, Steve-o?”
“Well I figured it was time to, I don’t know, start dinner? Or at least decide whether it’s a pizza night or Chinese.” Steve cozied against Hopper’s warmth, one of his hands finding its way to Billy’s ever-present necklace chain.
Hopper hummed and scratched at his beard. “I think we’ve done enough today. We can grab some pizza and a six pack in town, and I can swing by the station. See if there’s been any progress on the reports of vandalism.”
“Vandals? In our quiet Midwestern suburb? I am shocked.” Billy snarked. “It’s probably just those dumb kids that kept messing with Steve and Robin at Scoops last year. Always trying to get multiple free samples, stealing all of the straws, spoons, and napkins. Stupid, punk-ass shit.”
“Ugh don’t bring them up.” Steve groaned at the memory. A group of four or five high schoolers, around the ages of Dustin and the others, who would come in and act like hot shit while also making the biggest mess they could. It had been almost a year and a half since Steve even worked at Scoops Ahoy but those menaces were forever ingrained in his memory. They became even more annoying once they realized Robin didn’t give two shits about their pathetic attempts at flirting with her. Steve especially didn’t want to think about how that summer ended, with the events at the Mall or… the aftermath. He shook his head to clear those dark thoughts and slapped on his usual smile. They were together now and that’s what mattered.
Billy shifted off of Steve so they could both get up, turning to give Hopper a hand once they were both standing. Hopper stretched his back and slung an arm around each of their waists.
“I’m thinkin’ maybe a large Meat Lovers and a large sausage and pepper.” Hopper suggested, leading the boys to the entryway so they could put their boots and coats on.
“Yeah I bet you’re thinkin’ about a large sausage and meat fest, alright.” Billy leered. He let one hand trail the older man’s ass appreciatively. Steve slapped his hand away, not wanting either of the other men to get distracted on their way out the door.
“There will be plenty of time for fun later, Billy. Let’s just get to town and back before dark, yeah?” Steve suggested, not wanting Billy to actually think he was upset. He zipped his coat up and opened the cabin door, stepping out into the cold afternoon. “By the way, I’ve got shotgun!” Steve called out before taking off for the cruiser.
Billy wasted no time tying his own boots, opting to shove them on his feet and his arms through his jacket. He caught up with the other boy in no time and pinned him up against the side of the vehicle. “You wish, Harrington! Come on, Princess… I’ll wrestle you for it.”
Steve gave a token protest at being manhandled like this but they both knew he liked it. He certainly had last night. And this morning. “You’d like that wouldn’t you, Hargrove? Maybe I should stop letting you win.” Steve hid his smile at the indignant huff Billy let out.
“Let me-!” Billy was cut off by Hopper reaching the cruiser and opening the driver’s side door.
“If you two are about finished, I’d like to get going. Unless you want me to just leave you here?” Hopper started the vehicle and waited. He knew the boys wouldn’t actually let him leave without them. After a minor push-and-shove battle, Steve climbed into the front seat. Billy slid into the backseat, looking for all the world like a petulant child. Hopper caught his eye in the rear view and saw the lascivious wink thrown his way. He knew Billy wasn’t actually upset but would definitely make Steve pay for it later. Hopper shook his head in amusement and shifted the SUV into drive.
Steve, Billy, and Hopper chatted the whole way to town, nothing important but the conversation flowed easily. Even the verbal barbs were good-natured. By the time their errands were run and dinner was picked up, the sun was setting and a fresh dusting of snow was covering the road back to the cabin.
No sooner had they removed their outerwear and shoes did Steve point above their heads. Mistletoe.
Billy smiled, a real one and not his typical smirk. “You tryin’ to romance us, Steve?”
“I dunno, is it working?” Steve stepped closer, running a hand over Billy’s head and cupping the back of his neck. Hopper took the opportunity to mold himself to Billy’s back, placing one of his own hands low on Billy’s stomach.
“Is it, sweetheart?” Hopper’s low voice tickled his ear and sent a warm jolt down his spine. Billy groaned and gave himself over to the two men caressing him, grinding back against Hopper’s crotch and allowing his own hands to roam Steve’s body blindly.
“Yeah… yeah it is.” Billy breathed out, coming to his senses enough to start kissing Steve back. He tilted his head so Hopper could get better access to his neck. He would definitely have hickies there later.
They seemed to move as one to the bedroom, pizza and beer forgotten in the entryway. They could deal with that later. Much later.
AO3 will be down for about 15 hours starting at 08:00 UTC on January 21 (what time is that for me?) while we make some improvements to searching bookmarks and series, including:
adding the ability to search, filter, and sort bookmarks by word count
making sure bookmark search results are correct when you use tags containing letters and numbers
preventing series blurbs from listing tags that were only used on draft works
preventing series blurbs from listing tags used on restricted works for guests
updating series bookmark search so it only searches the tags on works you can access
red can mean whatever the heck you want it to mean, that is never going to change that this straight up looks like they DRAGGED A BLOODY BODY ACROSS THE FUCKING FLOOR 😂
Hi fun fact, colors do have meaning and there is a legit thing called color theory. Red does has more positive connotations than negative like the @mintymaiden said. Red is associated with more love, lust, passion than blood and death just like the chart shows you but If you want, here’s a link for you to check it out yourself. Also, check out “The Designer’s Dictionary of Color” by Sean Adams. Have fun learning something
Xoxo
-Designer
What isColor Theory? Color theory is a term used to describe the collection of rules and guidelines regarding the use of color in art and de
I like that the presumption here is that “No One On Tumblr Has Heard of Color Theory, Let Me Explain in Depth” rather than simply acknowledging that the VISUAL EFFECTS of this particular color choice, applied in the manner it was, can still amount to “this is a hospital and that looks like blood”
like, color theory doesn’t exist in a vacuum. If your design of choice for Blood Red Paint is asymmetric splatters and sploches against the wall, or in this case, a snail trail on the hallway’s floor, an infographic won’t override the viewers’ instinct.
I think the solution to kids on the Internet is to have specific, kid friendly spaces on the Internet. Kids wouldn't come across "adult content" on YouTube if barbie dot com still had flash games and this is a hill I will die on.
Oh! Then I know the EXACT person you should be mad at! Michael O'Rielly! He's the one that gutted the Children's Programming Rules, which covered internet as well as television.
#so the death of the Saturday morning cartoon is THIS motherfuckers fault?????
Indeed it is! The FCC controls how much of broadcasting has to cater to children and that includes how educational that programming has to be, and exactly how much and in what way you are allowed to advertise to kids. That's why for the entire 90s and up to the early 00s, kids shows had shorter commercial breaks, and ads that talked about a website had to say "ask your parents before going online", and those websites had to be non-commercial--i.e. they could not be shops, and could not have any way you could spend money or were encouraged to spend money. That's why Barbie.com was flash games, and O'Rielly LIFTING that ban is why Barbie.com now takes you directly to a storefront instead.
If you're mad about Saturday Morning Cartoons, dark patterns in ads targeted at children, online protections for kids, or wondering why educational children's shows aren't as much of a thing as they used to be, get mad at the FCC and the person in charge of it who is gutting the Children's Brodcasting Rules (sometimes called the Kid Vid Rules), because those rules control all of that!
While O'Rielly is responsible for gutting the rules in 2019, he was replaced in 2020 by Nathan Simington as head of the FCC, and Simington resigned in June of this year. The post remains vacant as of the time of this writing (August 31, 2025).
And a side note: Things like KOSA and SCREEN and all those other censorship bills that use "think of the children" are not going to protect children at all; if you want to protect kids online, there is already a way to do that it's called the Kid Vid Rules and the FCC is the one that can update and change them to keep up with the times! It doesn't need a congress vote, it already got voted on in 1990!
I completely forgot I scheduled this post a year in advance and woke up to see the cat fish of fortune had come in the night to deliver the good news. Auspicious September everybody
Is this thing on? @katiebug9 - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
