The babysitters club|| Steve Harrington

8

неделя длинная

серебристый кот ест

когда синий встречается

с желтым на западе

"The week is long, the silver cat feeds" the four of them read the translation aloud. Matteo had translated the last two lines while Dustin and Robin had done the first two (Matteo refused to acknowledge that Steve helped greatly.) "When blue meets yellow in the west"

"Fucking amazing" Matteo rubbed his face to try and get rid of the tiredness.

The rest of the mall shops had long since closed down since it was well past ten. So it was just the four of them in the middle of the mall, all alone. Larry never really cared how late they stayed as long as they stayed for their whole shift and closed up properly.

Matteo would always find a way to push the floor cleaning job onto Steve since he hated doing that the most.

Now, the four of them locked up, still complaining about how the code made no sense (which was kind of the point of a secret code)

"I mean, it just—" Steve pulled down the metal front and crouched, holding the lock in one hand, "It just can't be right"

"It's right," Robin insisted.

She and Dustin walked ahead, but Matteo stayed behind, watching Steve fumble the keys.

"Move" He told him, grabbing the keys from his hand, trying his best not to think about the contact, about how Steve's hands were calloused and rough but also surprisingly warm.

He locked the parlor up and looked up to see that Steve had waited and not moved on with his weird child and Robin. Matteo flashed him a grin as they speed walked to catch up with the two.

"Honestly, I think it's great news," Dustin said.

"How is this great news?" Steve ran a hand through his hair, finally not having to be kept under the stupid hat. "I mean, so much for being American heroes. It's total nonsense"

"It's not nonsense" Matteo rolled his eyes, "It's a code"

"Exactly, it's too specific," Dustin agreed.

Matteo slung an arm around Robin's shoulders.

"What do you mean, a code?"

"Like a super secret spy code" It was moments like these when Matteo realized that Dustin really was just a kid. He was excited about this, taking it way too seriously, and in a way, Matteo admired that.

"That's a total stretch"

"I don't know" Robin shrugged, trying to trip Matteo as they walked, "Is it?"

"You're buying into this?" Steve scoffed.

"Listen, just for kicks" Robin said, snorting as Matteo did trip over her shoe finally and went sprawling onto the floor. He glared up at her and accepted Dustin's help to stand back up, "Let's entertain the possibility that it is a secret Russian transmission. What'd you think they were going to say? 'Fire the warhead at noon'?"

"Exactly"

"And our translation is correct," Matteo said with more confidence than he had. "So, 'the silver cat feeds', why would anyone talk like that unless they were trying to hide the real meaning of their message?"

"Exactly"

"And why would anyone want to hide the true meaning of their message unless the message was somehow sensitive?" Robin added.