Steve first fully registered his feelings for Chrissy Cunningham after the apocalypse started.
Well, the term apocalypse was debated heavily on national news stations but Steve sure felt like it had come when the Upside Down began leaking into their world. Into Steve’s life.
He’d always had a vague awareness of something distinctly different about him. The way he’d just draw others to him, make people agree. Occasionally he’d look at his eyes too hard in the mirror and see silver flecks shining back. Seven shrinks couldn’t fix his “problem” of dunking his head under the bath water or the pool for hours on end, delighted that he could breathe and swim like a fish.
Then after Vecna, after everyone died and Steve saw Hawkins as the rotten graveyard that it truly was, there came a day where he was no longer able to walk.
It was the worst agony he’d ever been in. Every step he took made him feel like he was about to keel over, his skin was almost scaling over and he was constantly short of breath. At first Steve had thought it to be a curse from God before deciding that not even God would be that cruel.
Running out of options, Steve fled back to the only place that felt like a sanctuary. The pool. His greatest source of shame would be his salvation now.
The good thing was that the moment he slid under the water, he could breath again. His legs fused together into a tail and Steve had no doubt that if pools had mirrors in them, he’d be staring at eyes of the purest silver.
The less good thing was Barb Holland was staring at him. Glaring. Very much still alive.
After he swim her out and sent her on her way, the puzzle pieces of whatever was happening across North America started to fall into place. Whatever force was out there, leaking the upside down into the real world, killing the birds and the fish and the less prepared of Hawkins, was also bringing back those who had been killed by the upside down.
Because Barb Holland hadn’t quite been human when they made amends. She’d been something different. Something powerful. Something hungry.
That got Steve thinking about Chrissy. Sweet Chrissy with her light giggle and her cartwheels and the way she’d always call him Stevie whenever they met at parties. What had obviously been a crush in retrospect, now fell on Steve like a tonne of bricks. Shit, she couldn’t see him like this. Well, if she ever bothered to stop by at all. Somehow, that thought made him feel even worse.
It had been months since he’d had that thought and Steve felt like he was having a midlife crisis. From what human clothes he could wear, he looked like a damn trucker, he’d eat any small see monsters that slipped through the vents in his pool and he was just fucking lonely.
Of course, when he was at his lowest, that was when she came.
She looked older. More mature. Her hands were shooting beams of light at a demogorgon that seemed to be chasing her and of course she’d run into Steve’s back garden completely by mistake.
But then she saw him. Rotting away at the bottom of his pool. Cocked her head as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was looking at.
She took him out of the pool. Cast a spell on him so that he’d hold up long enough until he made it to her camp. She was living with Billy Hargrove and Eddie Munson.
Steves world briefly ground to a halt as he imagined sharing living quarters with all three of his crushes when he was a damn fish.
Hargrove and Munson weren’t friendly. They just sort of grunted at him, snickered something about King Steve and went about their day. Chrissy wasn’t phased.
She showed him his new pool. It was beautiful, a gorgeous sapphire blue. When she steadied his arms as he lowered himself in, briefly sparks flew.
But then she went back to her tent. Where she shared a bed with Hargrove and Munson.
For his own sanity, Steve tried his best not to imagine that.
Chrissy would come every night to the side of his pool to share food and gossip. She was so full of life, Steve couldn’t quite believe he’d once saw her dead body crumpled on the floor. Sometimes they even held hands.
Those days were Steve’s favourite.
Hargrove and Munson seemed to be warming up to him too, throwing out a “hey man” every time they passed Steve doing laps early in the morning. Chrissy was ecstatic. Steve wasn’t sure why.
Then she kissed him on his 21st birthday and things started to make a lot more sense.
They were all her boyfriends. Hargrove and Munson definitely seemed to have something going on too. Steve should have just been happy with that but he couldn’t help but want more. To prove himself to Billy and Eddie somehow.
Chrissy shook her head fondly and called him a silly fish when he told her. He asked why but instead she planted a kiss on his nose and said “you’ll see.”
Steve wasn’t sure what Chrissy had done but she must have done something because Eddie started to come to his pool with his guitar just to talk about The Hobbit or weed or whatever. Billy started doing laps with Steve, rarely talking but sometimes squeezing his shoulder and winking at him.
They weren’t exactly hiding their powers anymore either. Eddie would flash his fangs, very proud to be a vampire. Billy shifted into his wolf form with Steve still watching. It was almost like a courting ritual.
Eddie was a much easier target to get the information out of, even though half of it was an unrelated ramble. Something about Steve helping him get through his high school woes until he started dating girls and then his woes got even bigger.
Steve kissed him to shut him up.
Billy was a much tougher nut to crack. What had previously been lewd flirtation and confidence turned into quiet, introverted embarrassment. Though the manhandling had continued, to Steve’s secret delight.
Steve ended up having to grapple him and make the first move. Telling him that he’d been in love with him since the first time they met and that if Billy reciprocated, Steve might just die of happiness right there.
Billy just gulped, gave him a water lily and was about to run off before Steve dragged him back for a night under the water.
So Steve had two boyfriends and a girlfriend now. And he was a fish. Life was full of surprises
This is my fic for @st-rarepair-roulette which has been a joy to participate in! I still feel very honoured that I was entrusted with a mod role and I hope that everyone else had as much fun with it as I did!
