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dreamofbecoming · 8 months

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ok fuck it context now on ao3

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“I’m freaking out, man!”

“You’re what? Why? This is like, what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?”

“I mean, yeah, dude, but now it’s here, it’s happening, and tomorrow it’ll be done and I can’t take it back!”

“Do you want to take it back? Because I think that’s a terrible idea, but if it’s really what you want, I’ll sneak you out the back right now.”

Dustin deflates a little, slumping into the plush chair this weird little church greenroom was nice enough to provide. “No, I don’t want to leave. Of course I don’t.”

Steve puts his hands on Dustin’s shoulders, not massaging, just resting. He doesn’t want to smear too much of his scent onto him before the ceremony, but old habits die hard. Steve suspects he’s always going to want to scent the kids for comfort, even though they’re literally all grown and starting families of their own and don’t need their old omega babysitter anymore.

Case in point, Dustin’s wedding is meant to start in, oh, looks like about 25 minutes, so Steve has to smooth this crisis over double time.

“What’s really bothering you, Dust? You were over the moon yesterday, and the day before that, and every day since you and Susie proposed to each other. Hell, every day since you met! What’s going on now?”

There’s a pause, which is always unsettling coming from Dustin, who hasn’t shut up for more than twelve consecutive minutes in the decade plus Steve has known him, but then he sighs.

“She wants kids.”

Steve’s brow furrows. “And you…don’t?”

Dustin huffs, frustration rising in his scent. “It’s not that I don’t, it’s that I don’t know if it’s a good idea, you know?”

“And you guys haven’t talked about this before now? You’ve been together for like eleven years, dude!”

“We have, of course we have! I’m just thinking about the risks, Steve! I’m a beta, I can’t carry her pups, and pregnancies are dicey for alpha females! What if something happens?”

“First of all don’t call women females, it’s weird. Erica or Nance will definitely smack you for that, and you don’t need a black eye in your wedding photos.” Dustin nods, cringing a little.

“Second, pregnancy isn’t the only option, man, and also it’s her decision. If she wants to carry them, that’s a discussion you need to have with her, but you can’t just shut her down about it. She knew you were a beta when she decided to marry you. She picked you because she loves you, don’t go deciding for her she’s better off with someone else. And besides, if you decide it doesn’t feel right for both of you, you can talk about adoption, or surrogacy, or…I don’t know what all the options are, but I bet there’s tons! Hell, I’d carry for you guys, if you wanted.”

“You would?” Dustin’s eyes get big and shiny almost immediately, and shit, Steve’s gotta shut this down now. The groom can’t be going out there with red eyes and tear stains, Susie will murder Steve on principle.

But he can’t lie to Dustin. Swore he never would, not when it mattered. “Course I would, man, what’s family for? Aw hell, kid, don’t cry, your mate will run me over with her car if your photos are fucked up because of me.”

“I just- I can’t believe you’d do that for me! You don’t even know if I’ll be any good at it!”

Ah, so that’s what this is really about.

“Of course you’ll be good at it, Henderson. You’d be an incredible dad, any kid would be lucky to have you. I mean, your kids are gonna turn out to be nerd city, but that was always a given.”

Dustin gives him a bitchy little eye roll, which was of course Steve’s aim. He still smells anxious, though.

“How can you be sure, though? It’s not like I have any idea what a dad is supposed to be like, you know? It’s why I kept latching onto older male figures, no offense to you and Eddie.”

Little shit. “You should be so lucky, you little twerp.”

Dustin shoves him away, but he’s grinning now, and his scent is slowly returning to the lemon-bright joy that colors it so often Steve just associates it with Dustin’s base scent at this point, so he’ll take the win.

“You really wanna know how I know you’ll make a great dad, Dustybun?”

“Don’t fucking call me that, today’s supposed to be my day!”

“I’m your best man, I’ll call you whatever I want. Seriously though, I have a story for you.”

“A story, huh? I don’t know, Eddie’s more the storyteller in your relationship…”

“I’m gonna go out there and tell your bride to delay the ceremony because you shat your slacks and need new ones, you menace.”

“Okay, okay!” Dustin laughs. “Tell your story.”

“I was gonna put this in my speech later, but I think you need to hear it now, and honestly it might be more about me than you, and I don’t want to steal the spotlight or anything.”

“Not worried about that, but I’m intrigued.”

“You know how when you’re a kid, you learn how to pick out emotion scents by context clues, from like your family and stuff?”

Dustin lifts an unimpressed eyebrow. “Yes, Steve, I’m aware of one of the foundational tenets of our society, which we all personally experienced.”

“Almost fifteen years I’ve known you, and your attitude hasn’t improved one bit, you know that?”

Dustin waves imperiously for him to continue. Steve glares at him, but they really are running short on time.

“You ever know a kid who had like, a gap? Some feeling they had never run into before, so they didn’t know what the smell meant?” Dustin shakes his head, looking curious.

“There was this girl in my class when we were like, seven? Eight? Something like that. Anyway, she borrowed Tommy’s favorite eraser, one of those animal-shaped ones with the faces printed on? He loved that thing. The girl, Cassie, she broke it, by accident. Tommy lost his shit. I’d never seen him so angry. And like, you know how little kids emotions don’t really come through that strong? He smelled like, grown-up angry. Filled the whole room. Freaked the teacher out, too. Everyone’s backing the hell up out of Tommy’s way, even me. But Cassie was just confused. Because no adult in her life had ever been truly angry around her, so she hadn’t learned what it smelled like yet.”

Dustin is listening avidly, looking gratifyingly similar to how he does when Eddie DMs.

“Anyway, Tommy slapped her so hard it left a bruise, got his dumb ass suspended. But I just remember being so jealous, you know? Can you imagine? Eight years old and never knew what anger smelled like. Hell, at that point anger was just what home smelled like to me.”

Aw shit, now Dustin just smells sad.

“Do you remember when I drove you to the Snow Ball?”

Dustin’s got his thinking face on now, trying to figure out why Steve keeps jumping all over the place. Sue him, he’s no Eddie.

He nods anyway.

“Before you got out of the car, when I told you I’d come back to pick you up, you gave me this huge smile, and the car filled up with something I’d never smelled before. Not really, anyway. Maybe like, in passing, you know? Like in the hallway at school, but always faint and never towards me, so I never focused on it.”

Dustin’s eyebrows are totally scrunched up now, little genius brain whirring away. Goddamn brat never had any patience.

“I didn’t ask about it, because I wasn’t sure it was important, and also a little because I felt like enough of a caveman around you little rocket scientist dweebs I didn’t need you explaining feelings to me too, but I kept smelling it from you after that. And from El, and a little from Lucas and Max and even once from your mom, but it was just confusing, you know? I couldn’t figure out what was causing it, so I had no context clues to figure out what it meant.

“And then at Starcourt, after Robin and I went to go puke up those Russian drugs—”

“Ditched me and Erica who were very responsibly trying to wrangle you, you mean.”

“Tomato, tomahto, kid. Anyway, I told her I had a crush on her and she panicked and came out to me, so I switched to making fun of her crush so she would know I was okay with it, and suddenly there was that smell again. First time I ever smelled it coming from her. So after everything was done, I asked her.”

“Oh, so you’ll ask her, but not me? Hurtful, Steve.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, shithead, because Robbie already knew I was a moron, and she was never gonna want to go out with me, so I didn’t need to impress her. I could look stupid to Rob back then, but I still wanted you guys to think I was cool.”

“Steve, buddy, my brother, my best friend, my favorite jock please don’t tell Lucas I said that, we literally never thought you were cool.”

“Now who’s being hurtful?”

“Just the truth, Munson. I tell it like it is.”

“Ugh, whatever. The point is, I asked Bobbie what she felt for me in that bathroom, and she told me that’s when she realized she would love me forever. That we were going to be best friends.”

Dustin looks stricken.

“That’s what I was smelling all that time. Honey. That’s what I smelled in the car in the Hawkins Middle parking lot. You loved me. You were literally the first person in my whole life who ever did.”

“Steve—”

“This isn’t—look, I know it’s kind of sad and pathetic for kid Steve, but this isn’t about that. It’s not about me, okay? It’s about how my whole life turned around the day Dustin Henderson decided he loved me, because he never stopped. Not for a single second of the last thirteen years, and because you loved me then, I have a platonic soulmate and a horde of little siblings and a mate I adore and more friends than I can count on all my fingers and toes! You’re the one who encouraged me to go to cosmetology school, you’re the one who introduced me to Eddie, you’re the one who stood by me and let me crash on your mom’s couch when my parents kicked me out. My life is full of love, and joy, and purpose, and it all started with you, Dustin. I’m here because you loved me, and because once you started loving me you never stopped. I have smelled honey on you every single day since the 1984 Snow Ball, and that’s how I know you’ll be an incredible father. Because if you have all that love for a washed up ex-jock omega nobody had ever loved before? You’ll have all that and more times a million for any kid lucky enough to call you Dad.”

They’re both crying by now. Susie is gonna kill them for sure, but as Dustin buries himself in Steve’s arms like he’s still six inches shorter, Steve decides it doesn’t matter. This is worth it.

There’s a knock at the door, just in time it seems.

“Dingus, baby Dingus, you in there? T minus 5 minutes, boys, stick those feet in the oven if you gotta!”

“Yeah, Bobs, I hear you! We’ll be out in a sec, no cold feet in sight.”

“Roger that, bubba! I’ll inform the bride!” He can hear her racing off, probably dancing with pre-wedding excitement. For a cynical lesbian who has a new girlfriend every month and swears marriage is an archaic institution built on misogyny and omegaphobia, she sure does love weddings.

“You ready, kid?”

Dustin has taken the brief interlude as an opportunity to splash his face with water from the sink in the corner, so he doesn’t look like he’s been crying to into Steve’s shoulder, but Steve makes sure to straighten his tie and finger comb his curls back into place.

“Yeah, I think I’m ready.” He looks at Steve for a long moment, then throws his arms around him one last time. “I’m really glad you’re my brother, Steve.”

Steve squeezes him tighter for a moment, breathing in the familiar scent of lemon and cut grass and honey. Of family. Of love.

“Yeah, kid. Me too.”

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