radio_gaga | Move on up, toward your destination [Steve, January 10, 2020]

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steve harrington

Move on up, toward your destination [Steve, January 10, 2020]

They've known it was coming. Robin's made it clear that on her eighteenth birthday, she'll be out. It doesn't matter that the staff had insisted it was perfectly okay for someone over the age of majority to stay until the end of the school year. It definitely doesn't matter the way some of the less subtle staff members had implied that a woman of freshly eighteen moving in with a man of the same age was the type of endeavor that might land her pregnant in the gutter (the joke was on them, twice over). Robin wanted out. She wanted her own bedroom, her best friend, and even her evil little hamster.

There's not really a big moment of anything. Robin doesn't have much stuff at the Home and the majority of it has already been left at the apartment already. All that's left, on this fine Friday morning, is the duffle bag of clothes she needs to sling over her shoulder. Her phone and wallet grabbed and she's out the door, never to sleep at the Children's Home again.

The only pit stop she makes is near a bakery, grabbing two huge double-chocolate muffins and a pack of birthday candles.

She takes the first bus she catches and lets herself in to Chelsea Cloisters, cheerfully riding up to the fifth floor. "Steeeeve!" Robin calls through the door. Then she knocks smartly with her knuckles. "Steeeve! Guess what day it is!"

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Steve has been looking forward to this, and as her birthday gift, he got her a new set of bedding and washed it and put it on the bed in his guest room. He also picked up a book case at a secondhand store, and even put a plant on little desk in the corner. It isn't much, but he wants it to feel like home. As much as it can in this place, anyway.

At the sound of the pounding on his door, Steve jerks awake and twists his head around to look up from his bed, squinting in the direction of the doorway. He gets up and yawns, reaching for a shirt as he stumbles out toward the front door.

He opens the door and stares at Robin with a flat expression as he pulls on his shirt, and then scrubs his hand through his messy hair. "Of course you're a morning person."

Robin has seen this Steve before, watched him stumble blankly into Scoops pre-opening shift. Seeing it now is kind of hilarious because she knows she's going to see it pretty much every morning for the foreseeable future. "I am a morning person when it's my birthday and I can't wait to get the fuck out of somewhere," she fires back. Shaking the bag in front of him, Robin adds, "I brought muffins."

Stepping through the door, Robin lets herself have a second. She gets to call this home.

"I accept," he says, reaching out to take the bag. He's halfway through a muffin when he turns to see her just sort of staring at the apartment, and he watches her with a fond expression. It's going to be adjustment, but he's pretty sure they can make it work.

"Welcome home," he says, leaning over to give her a smacking kiss on her cheek before he takes another bite of his muffin. "Come on, I'll show you your room."

He stops in front of her door and pushes it open before gesturing her inside. "I didn't want to do too much, 'cause it's your space or whatever, but it was too empty."

"Ugh, gross," she says, because it's expected, part of their routine. "Don't get all soft on me now, Harrington." For the kiss, she gives him a light slap upside the head, barely more than a nudge.

"And come on, I know where the room is. I've crashed there enough–" Robin cuts off, sort of amazed at the room she sees. The room in front of her is familiar but distinctly spruced up from her preferred crash pad. It's tidy and smells like laundry detergent and the plant that's there is alive, perky-looking, even.

There's a second where she wants to fall back on sarcasm to hide how much it means to her, too practiced in not being vulnerable. Then she remembers where she is and who she's with and Robin lets herself smile. "You really know how to roll out a red carpet, huh?"

"I'm rarely ever soft, Buckley," Steve volleys back, following Robin into the room and holding his hand under his muffin so he doesn't drop crumbs. He's expecting another joke but Robin looks touched, which is what he was going for, so he smiles.

"Yeah, well--" Steve looks around and gives Robin a confused look. "Where's Boris?"

He finishes off the muffin and wads the wrapper up to toss into the trashcan next to the desk. "The bookcase was mostly for him, you know."

"What?" Robin asks, pretending alarm. "I thought he was already here!"

Before Steve can actually freak out, Robin gently shoulders off her backpack and sets it on the ground. The top is already partially unzipped to let in air, making it easy work to open her bag all the way and show Steve that Boris is safe and sound. "I wrapped a scarf around him to keep him warm." An added bonus is that he gets to stay in the dark because Boris, like Steve, is no a morning fan.

"I can keep him next to my chem book," she says, nodding at the shelf. "I ordered a new cage off Nile, 'cause I found a really good deal. It's supposed to get here today."

"What--" Steve feels an unexpected panic rise up in his chest, one that's quickly quashed when she pulls off her backpack. He rolls his eyes and reaches out to take the bundle from Robin, uncovering his head enough for him to give it a little rub with his fingertip.

"You gotta give him better reading material than that," Steve jokes, cradling the scarf in one arm, like a very delicate football, as he goes over to sit on the edge of her bed. "Oh, yeah? Cool. I might have bought him a new toy."

He cuts his eyes to the side. "And some chew sticks."

"I can't believe you're whipped by a hamster."

It should annoy her that Steve's being so cute, especially with her little hellspawn. It seems, from unruly kids to devil hamsters, he has a magic touch. It's taken a lot of work over the last month and a half to get Boris to enjoy being around her (and ride in her backpack), but he seemed to take to Steve pretty much immediately. Maybe it's the hair.

"I'm hoping he chews a hole through the molecular equations," she says. From deeper in her backpack, Robin takes out the hamster ball and opens it up. "He can hang out in here for now."

"If wanting him to have a good life makes me whipped, then so be it," Steve says easily, watching as Robin unearths the hamster ball. Steve unwraps Boris from the scarf and rubs the top of his fuzzy little head before carefully easing him into the opening so Robin can close it up.

A roommate and a pet all at once. It should overwhelm him a little, but it doesn't. It feels inevitable, like it was meant to happen.

"Is that really all your stuff?" Steve asks as he nudges the bag with his foot. "I was going to help you unpack, but I didn't expect you to show up like a sad hobo with a little stick and bindle."

Boris walks a few assessing circles around the base of his ball, as he always does, and then settles. Robin closes the lid and gently sets the ball on the ground, sidestepping it so that he's got a clear path around the room. The task done, she looks to Steve and offers him a tiny grin. They're both definitely whipped for a hamster.

"Yeah. None of the furniture was mine and I didn't have much besides the hamster tank and I didn't want to deal with that on the bus." Robin nudges him and then points to the sizable duffle bag. "This is more than a bindle!" It's not much but it still feels like the start of something, a footprint to prove her presence.

"Well, it's a start," Steve says as he looks around the room. He doesn't really have too much of his own, he's realizing, but he's tried to make this place will like home. It isn't his home, or hers, but they can try and make it something close.

"Now you can put up some art." He turns and spreads his hands out to encompass the blank wall. "Maybe a poster of a girl in a bikini. You know, classy."

There's still a tiny coil of alarm that springs loose when they talk about it out loud but the more they talk, the easier it gets. The tension leaves Robin as quickly as it came and she recovers in time to elbow Steve again. "It's gotta be one of those 1940s pinups or nothing," she tells him firmly. "That's classy."

A chime comes out of her phone and Robin checks the notification. "Damn. Nile really tells you everything. Hamster paradise is two stops away."

"Duly noted," he says with a nod, filing that information away in case he ever wants to make hilarious use of it.

"Okay, I need coffee before dealing with a hamster paradise," Steve says as he leaves her room and heads for the kitchen. "Especially if there's going to be assembly required."

"Come on, even you have to admit it," Robin says. It's a little easier to talk about as a concept. Pinup fashion, Robin has noticed, is definitely a thing these days. People genuinely think of them as sexy and classy and even her straight classmates have Bettie Page on their purses and mirror compacts.

"Coffee sounds amazing right now. You got a lighter? I want to put a candle on my muffin." Just because.

"I am not debating the hotness of pin up girls," Steve replies as he fiddles with the coffee maker. "Of course it's hot. Girls are hot."

She asks for a lighter and he looks at her for a moment before pulling a small pink box out of the cupboard and setting it in front of her. Inside is a cupcake with white frosting and colored sprinkles, with one candle sticking out of it. "This was supposed to be for after dinner."

"That we can agree on." It feels good, joking about it, even if it's just with one person.

She's about to start razzing on Steve when he gives her a funny look but then he turns around and puts down a birthday cupcake and it's the goofiest little thing. Initial defensive instinct tells Robin to tease him but it's quickly overwhelmed by the fact that she's really, truly touched by this.

Steve Harrington set up her bedroom and got her a plant. Steve Harrington got a cupcake in a pink box for her birthday. Robin's smile is nervous because it's not used to sincerity. "We are so cheesy," she finally says, but she thinks Steve will get it. "I'm still putting a candle in the muffin. Then I can blow out my candles twice. And that, Steve, is luxury as far as I'm concerned."

Steve prepares himself for her to crack a joke, but he isn't all that surprised when she doesn't. Neither of them ever really had anyone that truly saw them, all of them, including all the hidden away and shitty parts of themselves. Until now.

"What are birthdays for, if not luxury?" Steve smiles and sweeps the cupcake off of the counter to return it to the cupboard for later, and then pats his pockets, only to remember that he's in his sweats.

After quickly bounding to the living room, he retrieves his lighter and goes over to present it to Robin with a dramatic flourish. "Put the candle in there, so I can sing."

When she doesn't tease, Robin sort of expects Steve to tease back. It's still weird, knowing just how much she doesn't have to pretend with him. Weird, but good. Still, she doesn't expect to get through today without at least taking some shit–it's not a birthday if she doesn't.

Steve better not sing like a muppet.

"You look a little too excited about that," she says, flicking open the lighter against her candle.

She knows what he's going to do. Of course she knows, but she lights the candle anyway. Steve stands in front of her and starts to sing the birthday song in a completely normal way, up until the third line.

"Happy birthday dear Robin," he shouts out in his best and loudest muppet voice, reaching out to grab her face in both hands. "Happy birthday to yooou."

And then he leans in and gives her smacking kiss on the forehead before letting her go. "Now make your wish, dingus."

He starts to sing and there's a second, a very split second, where Robin thinks this might not be going where she fears it is. And then it does. Steve smushes her face all while doing his very best impression of Kermit and part of her wants to headbutt him when he kisses her. She doesn't, but she does whack Steve lightly on the arm.

"If this is your idea of a welcome party, I should never have come here," she lies.

Her phone chimes again with another Nile notification and she rolls her eyes. "Better eat up."

"Bullshit." He grins at her and reaches up to ruffle her hair before grabbing the rest of his muffin and shoving it into his mouth, mumbling around it about coffee.

He pours two mugs and slides one over to her before grabbing the creamer from the fridge. "Are they here?"

"Yeah, we can buzz them in right?" They might have to pause to put this thing together but they shouldn't have to leave. That's just not civilized. "Honestly, it's so weird how they can just tell us these kinds of things. It's like something out of Space Odyssey." But not too like it, she hopes. The last thing they need is something like HAL.

Robin pours an excessive amount of creamer into her coffee and then glances around until she sees Boris' travel ball. "Don't let that one escape."

"I try not to think about it," Steve replies, gently nudging the hamster ball with his foot until he's roaming away from the door. He buzzes in the delivery guys and opens the door as he waits for the elevator.

It dings and Steve looks over, eyes widening when he spots two men carrying a large box down the hall. "Uh, Robin? Did you order anything else? Like a dresser, maybe?"

"What?" Robin asks. "No, why?" The answer presents itself immediately as she follows Steve to the door. The box they're carrying is so huge that Robin has to check her phone, twice, to make sure that nothing else she ordered is due to be delivered today. Nothing, nothing at all.

Stomach doing a funny sort of flip, she navigates to the page for the enclosure she bought and slowly rereads the measurements for the first time.

"Oh my god. I screwed up," she says, unable to help the hysterical giggle that follows. She totally screwed up and it would be so much worse if it weren't so goddamn hilarious.

"Ya think?" Steve asks, eyes frantically wide as the delivery men cart the giant box inside. Robin laughs and Steve shoots her a wide eyed look, but he can't help it. He cracks up too, and the delivery guys share a look as Steve directs them to Robin's bedroom.

"Yeah, you guys can leave this monstrosity in here," Steve tells them, huffing out another laugh as he looks over at Robin. "And I thought the hamster was spoiled before."

The delivery guys clearly have no idea what they're even carting, much less why its delivery is so funny to them, but Robin nods and lets them set it down. She thanks the men profusely for the help and then goes to find the hamster ball.

"Oh god," she says, holding up the hamster in comparison to the flatpack box. "I should've gotten something stronger than coffee."

"Robin, this thing says team lift on it!" Steve says once the delivery men have gone. "It says assembly required, Robin!"

He lets out a cackle and drops down onto the end of her bed, shaking his head as she comes back with the hamster ball. "I don't even know if I have the tools required to build this hamster mega mansion."

"Oh my god, are we going to have to go to the hardware store? Maybe it'll have one of those hex key things in it?" It's not like that's actually, really a problem but the idea of leaving this thing behind feels mind boggling. Like if she doesn't get the momentum going now, then it's never going to happen.

Holding the ball at eye level, Robin stares in at Boris. "You had better be, like, the best goddamn hamster on the planet after this," she warns him.

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Move on up, toward your destination [Steve, January 10, 2020]

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