"I need you to take a walk with me," Dustin demands as soon as Steve opens his front door.
"Well hello to you, too."
Dustin rolls his eyes. "Steve. Please come take a walk with me."
And Steve would have protested. He would have dragged it out a little more. Would have told him that he can't right now, he's getting ready for a date tonight (he would not have mentioned that said date is with Eddie. The kid doesn't need to know about that until they themselves figure out what this is). But the thing is- the thing is that Steve can tell there's an undercurrent of desperation there. He can see the barely constrained stress around Dustin's eyes. And Steve has never been able to leave Dustin like that. Will never be able to.
So he toes on his sneakers and hopes that wherever they end up won't get too much dirt on his light wash jeans or mess up his hair too much.
"You've got two hours," he says, glancing at his watch and shutting the door behind him.
***
Dustin silently leads them into the woods. Steve tries to ask him where they're going and why he needed to take a walk right then but Dustin stays quiet, giving only short replies when he bothers to talk at all.
It's freaking Steve out.
It freaks him out so much that he doesn’t even realize where they’re heading until they’re already walking on the old railroad tracks. This feels familiar.
Dustin is walking just slightly ahead of him, staring resolutely ahead. He only lasts maybe another 30 seconds before he sighs. “So.”
Steve’s head pops up. He’s finally going to know why Dustin dragged him out here.
“I think I’m ready to make love to Suzie now and I need some help,” he says, determined. He’s still staring straight ahead, not even looking at Steve.
“Ew, gross dude. Why’d you have to say it like that?”
That gets Dustin to turn around. “Steve! I need some help,” he says shrilly.
It takes everything he has in him but Steve manages not to laugh when he says, “I don’t know. I think it should kind of be a solo activity the first time, bud.” No, wait. That doesn’t sound right. “…or well. A party of two, I mean. Three’s a crowd and all.”
“Steeeeeeve.”
Steve does laugh then. “Okay. Okay! Fine. But why didn’t you just ask Lucas? Or Mike? They’ve both been with their girlfriends for years now I’m sure they’d have some useful information for you.”
“Ew, no. That would’ve been weird. Plus you have way more experience.” Um, rude. Was he calling Steve a slut?
“And it’s not weird asking me?”
Dustin scoffs. “No. That’s what older brothers are for. To teach you things that you can’t ask your mom.” Steve melts a little. He knows he and Dustin see each other as brothers, have for years, but it still gets him every time Dustin calls him that. “Plus,” Dustin continues, unaware of Steve internally liquifying. “I don’t want to know any details of Mike and El’s relationship. I want complete plausible deniability with Hopper.”
“That’s actually probably not a bad idea,” Steve concedes.
“I know,” Dustin says, arrogance shining through again. The kid really does need to humble himself.
They’re silent for another minute as they continue to walk on. “So?”
“So what?”
“Steve! Are you gonna help me or what?”
Steve stops and groans, running a hand down his face. “I can’t believe I’m actually going to do this, but yes. Fine. What do you want to know?”
Dustin beams up at him. “Yes! Okay. Okay,” he takes a breath. “Okay so, like, how does it work?”
Steve looks at him, horrified. “Dustin, what do you mean how does it work?”
“No! No, I know, like, the mechanics of it all,” he starts to make a gesture with his fingers but Steve slaps his hands down before he can get too far. “But how do I make it good? Like for Suzie. And safe! How do I know which condoms to get? Do I need to buy dental dams?”
“Whoaaaa slow your roll, dude. One question at a time!” He takes a deep breath. “Okay. So. You’re ready to have sex with Suzie. Is she ready to have sex with you too?”
“Um, yeah.” Dustin says yeah like he means duh. But then he pauses. “I mean, I think so.”
“You gotta know so. None of this ‘maybe, I think so’ shit. She’s gotta be into it and ready too. So you need to have an actual conversation about that first. And if you’re not ready to do that, then you’re not ready to have sex.”
“Okay. Yeah, I can do that,” Dustin says nodding.
“Okay. Good. What else?”
Steve spends the next hour and a half talking Dustin through it, giving him tips on eating a girl out (“dude I don’t know anyone who has ever used a dental dam” and “why are you flicking your tongue like that at me. No. No one wants that. Stop that, it’s gross”), on buying condoms (“just grab the regular size. No one expects you to have a magnum and honestly it’d be way more embarrassing and a much bigger problem if it slips off inside of her because you’re not actually big enough to fit in it”), on how to touch her (“do you know where the clit is?” and “you’ve got to curl your fingers, like this”), and on how to not blow your load the second you get it in (“jerk off before you go to see her. No, Dustin, don’t look at me like that. I’m serious. You are not going to last more than three seconds if you’re all keyed up and haven’t gotten off already at least once that day”).
By the time they make it back to Steve’s, Dustin feels a lot more confident, and Steve feels like he’s actually helped him to at least not completely humiliate himself his first time.
Dustin is strapping his helmet on when Steve stops him. “Oh, Dustin! One last thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Stop calling it making love.”
“But it is.”
“What?” Steve deadpans.
“It is making love. And it’s romantic.”
“Whatever you say dude. I’m just telling you, it’s not a very sexy thing to call it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Steve. What should I call it instead? Fucking? Boning?”
“Ugh. You know what? Call it whatever you want.”
“You know what Steve? I’m surprised you even get dates with that attitude.”
Dates.
Date.
Oh shit. His date with Eddie.
“Oh shit. It’s been way more than two hours, dickhead. Okay, I have plans and you need to go now,” Steve calls out before running inside to grab his keys and rushing by Dustin on his bike to pull out of his driveway and down the road. He will not be late to his first date with Eddie.
(He was a little late to his first date with Eddie. But Eddie said it was worth it after Steve told him about how he spent his afternoon. And yeah. He thinks this is something he’ll get to tell Dustin about sometime in the near future.)
