Strawberry

(Part 1)

For the Mini Pride Bingo hosted by @genderthings.

[AO3]

Prompt: Lipstick | Rating: T | WC: 3999 | Relationships : Steve Harrington & Eleven | Jane Hopper & Maxine "Max" Mayfield , implied future Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

Summary:

Max and El have fun with makeup at the Harrington's.

Steve is not jealous.

Steve took the cookies out of the oven and put them on a tray to cool down a bit while he cleaned up. He had prepared caramel pecan cookies, just because Max had thrown him the sweetest look she could muster while asking him. He had immediately folded when she had told him she wanted to share her favorite cookies with El. She was an absolute terror most of the time, but she was even worse when she went out of her way to look sweet. Her little tactics were rubbing on El, too, and her big eyes were even more effective than Max’s fake innocent smile.

Of course, Steve had caved. He had never really been able to refuse anything the kids asked before, but now, after everything that had happened, he had turned into a total carpet. The kids were walking all over him and he was letting them, too glad to see them walk around, happy, unhurt, alive. Max, especially, had spent way too much time in the hospital for Steve to refuse her anything. Especially when it was something as easy to make as cookies.

Once the kitchen was in order, everything cleaned and put in its place, he prepared a tray for the girls. He opened the fridge, hesitated a moment, then grabbed a few different cans of soda. That way, they could directly choose whatever they wanted without having to walk to the kitchen. He put the cans on the tray with the cookies and brought it to the living room.

At some point, his house had become the headquarters of the Party. He hosted Hellfire once a week, and a movie night at the same frequency, and was regularly invaded by whoever wanted a bit of space that day. Steve always complained about them coming without telling him beforehand and making a mess half of the time, but it was mostly for show. He had to keep a semblance of authority on the kids, even if seeing his house so full of life was one of the best things to happen to him.

Today his house had only been invaded by two gremlins and not the whole pack of teenage demons. Max and El were sitting on the ground against the couch, and Steve could barely see them, finding their location by following the sound giggles permeating the air. Seeing the kids mess around was one thing but hearing them laugh so freely was special.

He walked into the living room, announcing loudly:

“Cookies for the ladies!”

His arrival, or more exactly, the cookies’ arrival was met with even more glee.

“Are they caramel pecan cookies? Steve, did you make the caramel pecan ones?” Of course Max was checking if the merchandise had been baked according to her request. She was not Erica, but she was not playing around either when it came to cookies.

“Yes, Steve, Max said they were the best type of cookies, and you are the best at making snacks.” El said softly, aiming a big smile at him.

Steve was absolutely done for.

Were they constantly manipulating him into baking for them? … Perhaps. Were they the best kids in all of Indiana? The jury was out, and Steve had accepted a long time ago that he was biased as hell when it came to them.

“Of course I made your favorites, Max. Be careful, they’re still a bit hot.”

His warning fell into deaf ears. In two minutes maximum, all the cookies had been snarfed down, except for two they had generously put away for him.

“There are so good, Steve,” Max said, while still eating her last mouthful of cookies. She swallowed. “You brought them at the right time too, we were almost done with our makeup, and the lipstick would have smeared if we had eaten with it. Here, look,” She delicately grabbed El’s face and turned it toward Steve. “Isn’t she so pretty like that?”

Max had applied a really pretty purple eyeshadow on El, and she had definitely put other things on her face, but Steve couldn’t really tell what everything apart from the mascara and the blush. It was colorful without being too much, and she looked bright, happier than ever. Max, on the other hand, was sporting a heavy dose of black eyeliner, and for a moment all Steve could think was Eddie putting eyeliner on in his van just before a Corroded Coffin’s show.

Steve swallowed with difficulty. He felt strangely agitated, as much by the reminder of Eddie’s pre-show ritual than by the multitude of makeup products spread on his living room table.

“You’re both really pretty.” His smile was still reaching his eyes, but it was a close call.

“We’re not done yet!” Max grabbed a pink lipstick and applied it on El’s lips.

Steve’s heart fell into his stomach.

El frowned a bit, looking inside the bag open on the ground between them, and finally selected a dark red lipstick.

Steve’s missed a heartbeat, then felt as if his body was making up for it by beating fucking war drums in his chest. He took a slow, deep breathe, then another, trying to stay as calm as possible, or at least look the part for the girls. He didn’t want them to see him distressed, and he certainly wasn’t planning to tell them why he felt that way.

“I think this one would look bitchin’.” El put it on her best friend very carefully, visibly less familiar with the technique. She dabbed a cotton on the corner of Max’s lips to remove an excess of makeup and took a step back, clearly satisfied with herself. Then she turned toward him.

“Steve, can you take a picture of us?”

God. He wanted to throw up.

“Yes, of course.” The polaroid camera was in his hand before he had even realized it.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

“Here. One for each of you, and one for me. I’ll put it on the wall.” They looked so happy, he could not pass up the opportunity to have such a sweet picture to his collection of the Party's best moments. Even if his smile was tight and his eyes were burning.

“I’ll leave you to your girly things, alright?”

He fled the room, barely hearing the two teens screaming about the movie they were about to watch.

The house was empty, and Steve couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t because of the Upside-Down. The ache in his chest was different, both old and new, and turning in his bed again and again ended up being prodigiously ineffective.

Steve stared at the clock, the red numbers gleaming like a beacon in a tempest.

3:45 a.m.

3:46 a.m.

3:47 a.m.

Steve threw the covers down and stood up. He was not going to sleep tonight. He walked around the house without thinking, until he found himself staring at the mirror in his parents’ bathroom. The curtains were open, and the night was just clear enough to illuminate his tired face in the moonlight. Steve blinked, half-surprised to see where his feet had brought him. He started drumming his fingers against the tile behind him, keeping a bit of distance between the basin and himself.

His mother was not often here, but she liked to keep what she deemed as “essentials” in the Hawkins house, just in case. Her bedroom was full of clothes she liked enough to keep but didn’t care to bring on her travels, and her bathroom was fully stocked, from her favorite shampoo to all her necessary makeup.

And Steve was standing here, in this mausoleum of his mom’s life, staring at that damn bathroom drawer. The handle had been changed when Elizabeth Harrington had gone through her latest home renovation frenzy three years ago, but the furniture was still the same, if a different color. In the dim light, it looked eerily like the bathroom he had known in his childhood.

Shit.

With trembling hands, Steve opened the second drawer. A bunch of cosmetics had been left there, waiting in vain for the return of their owners. Most had never been used, and the others were still barely used. Steve reached in the drawer and picked up a red lipstick. Slowly, he took the cap off and stared at the vibrant color, muted by the relative obscurity of the room. The lipstick was new; Steve had the intrusive thought that if he tried it on, he would leave a mark, and his mother would know.

It was stupid. She wasn’t at home enough to remember which lipstick she had used or not.

Minutes passed.

He stared.

Finally, he put the cap back on, then threw the lipstick back in the drawer and left the room, flying both his pale reflection and the tube of makeup.

He didn’t go back to his bedroom. At this point sleep was clearly out of his reach for the night, and turning for hours in his bed for nothing was not very appealing at the moment. Instead, he took a turn, walked down the stairs, and set his course for the living room.

But between here and his goal, there was…

His dad liquor cabinet.

Steve froze in front of it, his brain working in slow motion. He had done his best to cut down on his drinking when he had started to date Nancy, but he had stopped trying when she had stomped over his heart like a herd of wild buffaloes. And he felt better now, with Robin, the kids and Eddie, but he could still remember vividly a time when he had beer for breakfast on weekdays to chase his hangover. Alcohol was… a difficult subject these days.

He opened the cabinet and picked up the first bottle he saw. Scotch. A good one at that, way older than him and probably worth more than the price of his battered liver on the black market. He swore. If his mom would not even realize it if he decided to ransack her whole bathroom, His dad would definitely notice his missing bottle. He had, before, and Steve never wanted to put himself in that kind of situation again. But even if the cabinet was off limits, there was still the wine cellar in the basement…

Steve shook his head and put the bottle back in its place, glass clinking. He took a deep breathe, his eyes closed. He wasn’t going to drink himself into a stupor just because he felt stupidly jealous of a couple of teen girls. He was better than that.

He fled toward the living room, stopping in the kitchen just long enough to grab a can of coke, then threw himself on the couch. Maybe a movie would be enough to lull him to sleep.

Back when he was eight years old, his parents had started going on longer and longer trips, and Steve had been left with a nanny. Linda had pretty blue eyes, pretty brown hair, a pretty smile, and was generally the prettiest person ever, according to little Steve. She had succeeded to Janice, who had only babysat him when his mother was busy, but had been mean enough that the idea of getting a nanny like her full time for weeks had been really scary. But after her, Linda was an angel, and Steve was in love.

She was so kind to him, Linda, always reading him a story before bed and telling him how strong and brave he was when she cleaned up his raw knees after a fall, just because he didn’t cry. She was the best, period. Steve wanted her to stay forever. She was way nicer than his dad, and Steve had decided quickly that he was not going to follow in his dad step and be a boring lawyer like everyone wanted him to be one day. No. Instead, he was going to be just like Linda, with her kind voice, her beautiful puffy hair and her pretty red lipstick.

One day, when Linda had been busy cooking dinner and he was supposed to do his boring homework in the living room, he had tiptoed up the stairs all the way to his parent’s bathroom, and picked up the lovely red lipstick his mom had left behind. He had tried to put it on just like he had seen her do it, making an “o” with his mouth and smearing the product on his lips.

Linda had found him there, with red all around his mouth, and had screamed at him for the first time. She had rubbed a hard cloth against his face to wash it off.

“Lipstick is for girls, Steve. Girls. Never do that again, do you understand?” Her voice had been hard, sterner than it had ever been, and her grasp on his arm had hurt.

He had promised her he would never play with his mom makeup again, and had been sent to his room without dinner. He had swallowed down his tears, and accepted her reprimand, because it was Linda, and Linda was always right.

She had been a bit more strict for a few days, but Steve was pretty sure she had forgiven him after that.

But then his parents had come home, and the first thing his dad had done had been to slap him, hard, and give him the verbal lashing of the century while shaking him. It had been worse than that time he had helped Tommy egg his neighbor’s house. Between his dad harsh words and his mom’s disappointed face, he had understood.

Linda had snitched.

He had been punished, again, and had spent two months without any sleepover at Tommy’s. After two weeks, his fury against Linda the Snitch had abated, turning into a deep hurt. He didn’t love her anymore, and he certainly didn’t want to wear pretty red lipstick like her, because she was a traitor, and he never wanted to be mean like her.

Lipstick was for girls anyway.

The kids were always squatting his house like a bunch of invasive little rodents, so, of course, Max and El came back two weeks later for a girls’ afternoon, just the two of them. They had asked for baking goods, again, but this time their alleged means of survival were brownies.

Steve, whipped as he was, made brownies.

When he brought the cakes to the girls, his nose was assaulted by a sharp smell.

“Steve!” Max raised her head, abandoning for a second the nail polish she was putting on El’s hand. “Come here, El needs someone else to practice using nail polish.”

Steve froze.

“What?”

“She already did my nails. It’s not exactly perfect, but she’s doing better each time!” Max wiggled her hand in his direction, showing off her bright green nails. “Look, she barely put any on my skin.”

Steve stood there, staring at the two teenage girls seated on his living room’s floor, dumbfounded. They wanted to… do his nails?

Max must have read his trouble on his face, because she immediately started to argue.

“You know, El needs more experience in normal people’s activity. So you would be helping her.” El nodded vigorously. “And you know, plenty of guys wear nail polish.” Now, that was a lie. Steve was a guy, and he had plenty of male friends back in high school when he was on top of the food chain. None of them had ever used nail polish, because it was a girl thing, and would have ended with the dude stuck in his own locker. Max was so full of shit right now.

“Like Eddie!” El added.

Wait what?

“What? Eddie doesn’t…”

“Yes, he does! He painted his nail black with us once before going to Indianapolis!”

There was an implication there that Steve was not ready to think about. All he knew was that Eddie definitely didn’t wear nail polish in Hawkins. People would have made even more comments against him if he had, and he really didn’t need more hatred from every asshole in town right now.

Still. Even if Eddie didn’t really paint his nail on the regular, it didn’t mean Steve could not do it once, discreetly, for the girls. He would just have to remove it before going to bed.

“You know what? Okay. I’ll do it.”

Max and El cheered as he set the brownies on the coffee table and sat down with them. The girls rummaged in a bag for a minute, before El brandished a little blue bottle.

Oh shit. That was… a rather bright color. He winced.

“Are you sure about this one?” He asked them.

They both nodded. “It’s blue. Blue is a boy color, you’ll be fine.” Max added, rolling her eyes.

Steve tried to ignore the blue eyeshadow El was sporting and gave her his hands.

El took her time, carefully painting each of his nail blue, sticking her tongue out in concentration. It was always very sweet to see her do mundane activities with her friends instead of fighting for her life. Steve did his best to focus on the satisfaction he felt at seeing her this happy, and ignored the pit that was trying to grow in his stomach.

He was fine. It was just nail polish.

“Aaaand done!” El threw him her best smile. “What do you think?”

It was…

Well, it wasn’t so bad. A bit unusual, of course, but the color created a good contrast with his skin. It was eye-catching, and Steve found at his great surprise that he rather liked it.

“It’s lovely,” He said, a bit breathless.

“It’s my turn, now!” Max said, grabbing the makeup bag. Steve frowned. Everyone’s hands were already painted, what did she want to do? Steve wiggled a bit to hide his feet under himself. He was not letting her paint his toenails.

She brandished a pink tube.

Oh.

“Max, I’m not letting you put lipstick on me,” he started, voice stern. “That’s for girls. You know I’m not a girl, right?”

“Oh, come on!” Max said with a big smile. “Just for a few minutes. It’s not even a very colorful one. It’ll be very discreet.”

“And we’ll match.” El continued.

Steve felt the pit in his stomach grew.

“I… It’s for girls, Max.”

He watched, breathless, as they exchanged a pointed look. Had his reaction been that visible last time? Did they talk about it in his back?

They turned back toward him. Unexpectedly, El was the one to start.

“You know, I’ve seen lots of people acting like other people doing things differently than them is wrong. And at first it hurt, because I wasn’t like anyone else. Like at all. I still don’t understand everything people say, because I didn’t learn about a ton of things as a kid. But now, I don’t care anymore.” She took a deep breath, then smiled. “The most important thing I learned was to be myself, whatever ‘myself’ meant, and to try to be happy with that. Rules about what you should like or not are stupid. So don’t listen to the dumb mouth breathers who say only girls can wear lipstick.” El shuffled closer to him. “They’re wrong.” She whisper-shouted in his ear.

Steve swallowed around the lump in his throat. She… She wasn’t wrong. These rules were stupid.

“Okay,” he mumbled.

“Okay?” Max’s smile was soft. “So I can put lipstick on you?”

“Go ahead.” Steve closed his eyes tightly. “But if I don’t like the color I’ll take it off.”

He sensed more than he heard Max coming closer to him, but the weight of her hand on his shoulder made him jump anyway.

“You need to stop biting your lips, Steve.” Max’s voice was soft, and for a moment he felt like she was talking to a spooked horse. The wild staccato of his heart wasn’t breaking the comparison either.

Steve was acting like a total idiot. It was just some damn lipstick.

He let go of his bottom lip and took a deep breath, trying his best to relax.

“Here we go…”

The lipstick wasn’t cold. Steve wasn’t sure why he had expected it to be, but it wasn’t. The texture was dryer than lipbalm but it tasted vaguely fruity, and Steve had to refrain from licking his lips. The whole process was sort of underwhelming.

“Okay, it's almost over. ‘Max slipped a piece of paper between his lips. “Now, press your lips together.”

He followed her instructions, bemused.

“And we’re done! You can open your eyes.”

Steve blinked, disorientated. He didn’t feel anything. It was weird. He was wearing lipstick. Surely he should have felt different. Changed. Maybe less of a man, or something. But no.

Maybe it was just because he couldn’t see himself.

El picked up a hand mirror and waves it in his direction.

“Here, look at yourself! You’re so pretty!”

Steve caught the mirror and angled it toward his face.

Oh.

It was. Nice.

Very nice. El was right, he did look really pretty like that. Max had chosen a lovely strawberry color, and it matched well with his reddened cheeks. He ran his hand though his hair and tilted his head, admiring his reflection.

“Yeah, I think that color is really working for me.” He smiled at the mirror. “Damn. I look fine.”

El and Max started giggling madly.

“You do!” El said. “It’s very nice.”

“I think you should show it to Eddie,” Max continued with a plotting look on her face.

Steve blinked owlishly. Why? How? Did she really expect him to drive like that all the way to Forest Hill just to show to Eddie how the soft red of his lips complimented his face?

“Why would I do that?”

The giggling resumed.

“He likes makeup.” El said.

“Yeah, sometimes he put some eyeliner on.” Max added.

’ I know, but I don’t think I ever saw him with eyeliner unless he’s playing with his band? That’s part of his rock star persona. Like ABBA’s crazy concert clothing.” Then again Steve wasn’t spending all his time with Eddie. Maybe the guy had hobbies he shared with other friends. Like the ones he met in Indianapolis.

“No, I saw him with eyeliner on weekends too. I think he’s a bit shy about it.”

“Eddie? Shy? Have you met him?”

“He probably thinks you would react badly if you saw him with makeup in a sort of normal setting? You did just imply makeup was only for girls…”

Steve sputtered. “I wouldn’t have said anything mean to him if he had shown up to a movie night with eyeliner!”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t know that. And you have a huge jock vibe, so that doesn’t help.”

El nodded. Traitor.

“So if you showed him you’re not against wearing a bit of lipstick, he should appreciate another guy who does nonconforming things, like him.”

Steve took a second to really think about it. Eddie was always very vocal about non-conformity. They were probably right. He should show him how he looked right now. Show him how he wasn’t just a former jock. Eddie didn’t need to go all the way to Indianapolis to find interesting friends. Steve had dept. He could be unconventional if he wanted.

“You know what?” He stood up. “I’m going to Eddie’s.”

“Wait, what? Right now?” In Max’s defense, he had decided to never leave the kids unsupervised in his house after the carpet incident. But it was El and Max, they were not like Mike and Dustin. He could trust them with the furniture.

“Yeah, why not?” He briefly turned back toward the girls, one shoe in his hand. “Are you going to destroy the house if I leave you alone?”

“Of course not!”

Okay, I’ll be right back,” Steve said, walking out.

He closed the door, nearly missing Max’s last comment.

“You won’t!”