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“Harrington?” A gruff voice asked from behind him, startling him out of his staring match with Hopper’s front door. Steve flinched and span round to find the man himself stood behind him holing a stack of firewood. “What are you doing here, kid?”
“Hop, hi, I- er, I wanted to… I wanted to talk to you about something,” Steve said nervously, scratching at the back of his neck. “If that’s okay? Or I can come back, if this is a bad time. I’m sorry, I should have called ahead. I’ll, I’ll just go.”
He made to move off the porch, but a log of wood hit him gently in the stomach, halting his retreat. “Woah, there kid. We can talk. Calm down, okay?”
“Oh, okay,” Steve said, shyly. “Can I help you with that?”
Hop held out the armful of firewood and Steve took it easily as the chief moved to unlock the door. He followed him into the cabin, scuffing his feet on the welcome mat to knock the mud from his Nike’s, before heading towards the fire place to dump the wood. It wasn’t the first time Steve had completed this chore for Hop, and he found the familiarity of the action grounding in the face of his inner turmoil.
“Alright, Kid, what’s up?” Hop asked when Steve turned back around.
“I- I, um… Jesus,” Steve muttered to himself, his cheeks beginning to warm in embarrassment. Why was this so hard. He moved to sit on the couch and ran a shaking hand through his hair, before he finally looked up at Hop.
The chief was staring at him with wary eyes, a frown cutting wrinkles in his brow. “Alright, now you’re starting to worry me, kid. What’s wrong?”
“Okay, okay,” Steve said to himself, his knee began to jump up and down of its own accord, his foot tapping against the hardwood. “So, the first thing, I guess, it that… well, I’m not a beta.”
He glanced up to check Hops expression. His eyes had widened slightly at the news, but he didn’t react other than that. He suspected the news wasn’t too surprising, Steve hadn’t exactly been hiding it. He could probably smell it on him. Hell, he could probably smell Eddie and Chrissy too.
He swallowed before he continued. “My parents… my parents aren’t. Look, my parents don’t give a shit about me. I was a useful tool to them when I was a cute, over achieving kid. But now I’m just a disappointing freeloader to them. I don’t want them to have any say in… anything. But I’m an omega. Which means that I need an alpha in my life to act as protectorate. It didn’t really matter… before, but… well, I met my mates.”
“You did?” Hop asked gruffly. It’s the first thing that he’s said since they sat down, it startled Steve a little. He looked up, Hop kept his face neutral, but Steve could see a glimmer of happiness in his eye that gave him hope.
He couldn’t help but smile at the thought of his mates. His knee stopped juddering and his shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, I did. Hop, I- they’re brilliant. The best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“I’m glad, you deserve to be happy, Steve,” Hopper said warmly.
Steve blushed and ducked his head. “I- I’m glad you think so Hop, because… well, we have this thing. We’ve decided that instead of doing ‘meet the parents’, we want to do ‘meet the adult who actually gives a shit’. Because none of our parent’s opinions hold weight with any of us. But we do have adults who care. I’ve already met Eddie’s uncle, and Chrissy’s aunt, and I think they both like me well enough. But I… I didn’t know who to introduce them to. I’m the Omega, it… it’s important, isn’t it, that my pack accepts them? But beyond the kids and Robin, I don’t really have anyone to-”
He stopped talking. He didn’t know how to ask. It was one thing for Hop to drive him to hospital when he had a concussion, and to stop by now and then to make sure his PTSD was letting him eat and sleep, but for all he knew that could just be guilt talking. It’s no guarantee that the guy actually cared about him the way he hoped that he did.
“You want me to be your Alpha Protectorate?” Hopper finally asked.
Steve glanced up at him from under his eyelashes shyly, and nodded.
Hopper broke out into a smile. “It would be my honor, kid.”
“It would?” Steve asked, hesitantly.
“Of course, it would,” Hopper huffed, rolling his eyes. “Steve, you are part of my pack. I have considered you my son since you stood between the kids and those demodogs. You’ve been over for dinner twice a week for the last two years. Have I really not made myself clear?”
Steve bit his lip and ducked his head. “I didn’t want to assume,” he mumbled. He’d been accused of being needy and high maintenance in the past, he didn’t want to make that mistake with Hopper and El. He didn’t want to lose his time with them.
“Jesus, kid,” Hopper said. He moved from his seat in the armchair to sit beside Steve on the sofa and pulled the omega into his side. Steve melted into the hug, breathing in and letting the scent of his pack alpha soothe him. “You are one of us.”
“Thank you,” Steve sniffled.
“Now, tell me about these mates of yours,” Hopper said.
“Okay. Well, my Beta’s name is Chrissy Cunningham. She’s a year younger than me, and a cheerleader. She is the sweetest girl I have ever met. But she’s got a wicked dark humor, which I think comes from spending too much time with our Alpha. They have known they were mates since Eddie turned sixteen. They’ve been looking for me for four years, but I presented so late that we missed each other. Thank God for Dustin or they might never have found me.”
“Dustin?” Hopper prompted.
“Kid forgot his coat one morning, so I made him wear mine. It was snowing for Christ’s sake. He’s friends with my Alpha. Eddie smelled the coat and realised that it belonged to his Omega and badgered Dustin into bringing me his and Chrissy’s scent markers.”
“What’s Eddie’s surname?”
“Munson, why?” Steve asked, looking up at Hops face as he felt the man tense around him. “Hop?”
Hopper turned to assess his face. “Munson is good to you?”
“Yes,” Steve assured immediately. What was the problem.
Hop hummed. “Okay. That kid has been in trouble on and off since he moved here, but if you say he’s a good alpha I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. We will be having words, however.”
“You’re not going to scare him off, are you?” Steve asked nervously. He couldn’t deal with it, if his alphas couldn’t get along.
“No, kid, I won’t do that to you. But there will be some ground rules.”
“Ground rules?”
“Yes.” Hopper said, but didn’t elaborate. Steve didn’t want to push him.
El and Mike came through the door then and Steve quickly pulled away from Hop, neither of them wanting to lose face in front of Mike. They paused in the doorway, hand in hand as they took in the sight of Steve and Hop on the couch, looking like two kids caught in the act of something they shouldn’t be doing. Steve raised his eyebrow at them and Mike rolled his eyes before tugging El towards her bedroom.
“I’m going to leave you to deal with that,” Steve said generously, standing up.
“Gee, thanks kid,” Hop said and Steve snickered.
“It’s not as if Mike ever listens to me,” he said, “I would only antagonize him further.”
“You’re not wrong,” Hop agreed, hefting to his feet himself. “You bring those mates of yours by on Sunday. They can have dinner with us.”
“Sunday. Right. I’ll ask them. Thanks, Hop, for everything,” Steve said earnestly. Hop nodded and clapped him on the shoulder before making his way to El’s room, grumbling at Mike about inches.
Steve shook his head and quietly made his way out of the cabin. That went better than he’d expected. Now he just had to drop the news on Eddie that his future pseudo father-in-law was the chief of police. He was sure nothing could go wrong there.