Chapter Text
Steve opened the door with his cheek full of sandwich. Unlike most people who have the sheriff on their stoop, he merely swallowed and went in for another bite. “Hey, sheriff. What’s going on?”
It took Steve too long to notice the shoebox in the man’s hands. His fingers lightly tapped on it until he glanced at it and decidedly stopped. “I don’t have any way of explaining things to you. All I know is that these should be with you. And. Uh...they refuse to be separated.”
Steve distantly wondered, Like magnets? in his mind as he accepted the box -
“Don’t open it out here,” Hopper warned. “Take them inside. Water, food, the works. Listen, this happened on the worst day because I gotta go. But you have my number.”
“Yeah, sure,” Steve answered by default, feeling supremely lost but not wanting to be an obstacle. If Hopper was delivering something in a shoebox that needed to be fed, how hard could it be?
He took the box to the kitchen and opened a cabinet for a plate with a tall brim. If it was chicks or something, they would need something they could drink out of without falling into...
Steve lifted the lid off the box and froze. He stared into alarmingly familiar brown eyes. If the past three years in Hawkins, Indiana hadn’t happened, he might’ve reacted badly, like flinching or yelling or something.
Now, though...he ventured a wary, “Hi?”
Perhaps if Hopper had given him a better description of what the box held, Steve would have thought of something cleverer to say to his tiny doppelganger. Because that’s exactly who he was seeing: a version of himself that was so small, he could fit on Steve’s palm, lying down.
The box was padded with a baby blanket on the bottom, and two plushies on either side, protecting the little ones - because there were two, Steve was realizing in staggered terror. Hopper had clearly stolen his secretary’s handkerchiefs and used a safety pin to toga-wrap them for some kind of clothing.
The little Steve sat down right on the other little one, who lay in a fetal position on the blanket. Big Steve realized all at once that the small one was glaring at him.
“I won’t hurt your friend,” he immediately softened. “Sorry, my name’s Steve.”
“My name’s Steve!”
Big Steve’s mouth hung, thoroughly at a loss for words. Well, they’re not babies...
Then he recovered, “That’s great! We’re the Steves. Is it okay that I get you some water and food? Is your friend okay?”
The large head underneath little Steve’s protective stance swiveled to point teary, but bright blue eyes at him. Once again, Steve felt like his brain just couldn’t keep up and hadn’t noticed in time that the other one’s hair was blond. Oh no...
Little Steve lowered to the blanket to huddle close to the other one. Maybe he thought he was whispering, but Steve heard clearly, “Biwwy? Food?”
Big Steve swallowed but kept his voice level and kind. They refuse to be separated.
“Billy? Do you know what your favorite food is?”
A single Fruit Loop would fill these guys up...
For all of the fear that Billy’s body language carried, his eyes were resilient and his bottom lip pushed up in a pathetic - and adorable - whimper. “Em nn Ms.”
“M&M’s?” Steve reiterated as he quickly ran through his memory of the fridge and pantry. He couldn’t imagine that the sheriff station had a lot of options “Coming right up. Are you two warm enough?”
“We’wre naked, dumb ass!”
“Wow,” Steve croaked as he hid the original water dish in the sink and went for the shot glasses. “You really remind me of someone.”
With the electric kettle, he warmed up some water with honey and set the glass in the box. “Be gentle, okay? It’s a little hot but you need to drink some water and it will keep you warm. We’ll work on getting you guys clothes later.”
“Biwwy wants emm and emms!” little Steve shouted, his voice cracking a little.
Steve put his elbows on the counter to be more on their level. “I know, but I need an extra minute. Don’t strain your voice. I can hear you really well, I promise.”
Delicate slurping filled the air as he ripped open an M&M’s package and cut through the peanuts before it occurred to him that people have nut allergies. “Do you two happen to have any allergies?”
Billy answered, “Awergic to people bein’ pokey!”
Steve inhaled for patience. “Do you like chocolate M&M’s or peanut M&M’s?”
“The rwed ones!”
“Okay, but is there something crunchy in the middle or not?”
“Why wouldn’t there be?”
Steve finished cutting a couple of candies in half and set them next to the shot glass. Billy chomped contently over the candies while Steve cracked an egg into a bowl and got a pan onto the stove. The glass chiming of the whisk made two heads perk up over the edge of the box, using one of the plushes as a stepladder. “Steve?”
He looked at his smaller version. “Yeah?”
“What’s that?”
“I’m making a scrambled egg for us. You need more than M&M’s to keep that hair shiny.”
Tiny hands sandwiched his head as he considered that, but little Billy scrutinized him with lips pressed into a discontent line. “Are scwambled eggs good?”
“They’re my favorite.”
Billy looked at the smaller Steve as if both Steves were one and the same. Then he waved a little hand in the air, summoning. “Pick me up! I wanna see.”
“Hang on, hang on, the stove is too hot to risk you getting too close. I’ll move the box. Hang on tight.”
Ever so gently, Steve grasped the box and picked them up to set them on the counter beside the stove. The small Billy and Steve didn’t hang onto the box, though. They put their arms around each other, and held onto Steve’s thumbs hooked on the edge of the box.
The living heat radiating from those little hands into Steve’s skin made his heart break and stitch itself back up at the same time. All at once, these two...humans? Creatures? Were very real, and Steve was in very deep shit.