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[ms-spkhd]

Party guy!Eddie who goes clubbing and to house parties on the weekends, sometimes to perform with his bands, who regularly makes his way home around 4am looking like a hot mess.

Eddie constantly crossing paths with Runner!Steve who goes out to run at the same time looking like the complete juxtaposition of Eddie, all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed at ass o’clock in the morning.

Eddie with rumpled clothes, post-sex hair, smeared liner, and visible hickies showing above the stretched neckline of his shirt bumping into Steve (“that one annoyingly hot fitness freak”) who is wearing bright fucking reflective spandex and a runners vest, already glossy and red cheeked like he’s entering mile 3 when the sun hasn’t even begun to rise.

Eddie fucking hates him. Like ‘oh wow look at you all put together and diligent like some fucking psycho, seriously, are you for real??’

This happens so often that it would awkwardly not to acknowledge each others existence, so Steve smiles and offers as he passes: “hey! Wanna join my run?”

To which Eddie always responds “fuck off, golden boy!”

Every single time. It’s tradition.

Until one day, Eddie has partied a little too close to the sun. He’s still really fucking drunk when he encounters Steve (which Steve finds absolutely delightful because he’s never actually seen Eddie as the energetic drunk that he is, rather, than the exhausted rat man that emerges like a cryptid just looking for a hole to crawl into and die in).

Steve offers (like always), “hey! Wanna join my run?”

And this time Eddie, full of alcohol and artificially enhanced bravado, says, “you’re on pretty boy!” And startles Steve by taking off like he’s being CHASED by the police for a solid 10 minutes before collapsing by a nearby bush to expel his guys out.

By the time Steve catches up (left in the dust cuz wtf?) Eddie is out cold, his phone is locked and apparently does not have Face ID on, and Steve has no choice but fireman carry Eddie back to his apartment.

Eddie wakes up with his mouth tasting absolutely rancid, his head is pounding, he doesn’t know where he is, and for some god damn reason his legs are on fire.

“What the fuck”

“Thank god, I was half convinced you had just up and died on my couch. Dude it’s been like 11 hours. I’ve gone to work and came back. Robin thought I was gonna come home to my house cleaned out of all my valuable—not that I have any, but the tv is brand new so thanks for not like, robbing me. I got you Advil by the way.”

Which is way too many words for a hungover guy to process, apparently, because just leans over and throws up into a conveniently placed plastic popcorn bowl on the floor.

“Oh Dude, ew.”

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Modern Steddie where Steve is a very tired firefighter who just wants to sleep, and Eddie is his obnoxious neighbor who’s always setting off the fire alarm in their building.

This happens at least four times before Steve loses his patience. On the fifth time, Steve gets out of bed, goes straight to Eddie’s door and pounds on it until he finally opens. Whatever complains or curses he was about to yell are completely forgotten, though, once Steve sees the black smoke all over the other man’s apartment.

He panics for only a moment or two, his instincts kicking in then and making Steve search for the source of all that smoke. It comes from the open oven, where there’s still a pan inside with something that at some point had been food, but now just looks like char.

Turns out Eddie is setting off the fire alarm so often because he is just hopeless in the kitchen and cannot be trusted near a stove.

“I just forget sometimes,” Eddie explains. “I put the pan in the oven, then something else catches my eye and I lose track of time.”

For the sake of his own sleep schedule, Steve buys the other man a timer and offers to teach him some basic dishes that even Eddie won’t be able to fuck up. And that’s how Steve finds himself spending most of his days off in Eddie’s apartment, drinking beer, chatting and watching closely as Eddie follows his instructions every time they try a new recipe.

But Steve doesn’t mind because it’s been two months since the last incident with the fire alarm and he’s been sleeping like a baby every night. That's a major win for him, really.

(A few weeks later, Steve is the one who sets off the fire alarm and it’s all Eddie’s fault. He was the one who distracted Steve by kissing him in the middle of the kitchen, without giving him a chance to turn off the stove first. Steve's not complaining, though.)

[ms-spkhd]

im on episode one of bbc merlin after finally putting it off for years and i find it objectively hilarious that hunith sent merlin to gaius in camelot because she feared for his wellbeing. thats like having a gay son and sending him to be with his uncle at conversion therapy island

[ms-spkhd]

I think one of eddie’s many favorite things about raising kids with steve is watching their kids start to outsmart them (which, to eddie’s delight, starts way sooner than he’d expected it to).

One notable instance of this is when Moe is about two-and-a-half – maybe closer to three – and just starting to have real opinions about things, and one of the first things she had a very strong opinion about was how she did not want Steve going back to work after the parental leave he took when Robbie was born.

Look – Moe is who she is.

She likes a routine and she’s been stuck to Steve like glue pretty much since day-one, so she and Steve had both loved the way his pat-leave had allowed for three straight months of starting the day with some serious cuddles, but alas, that came to an end when Steve went back to work.

Thing is, Moe is also a smart cookie, so it didn't take long at all for her to realize that if she just woke up before Steve’s alarm, she could sneak into their bed and get her morning cuddles in which, sure, was cute at first, until Eddie was spending the rest of day with a toddler who got two hours less sleep than she was supposed to.

Which...isn’t ideal.

One morning though, Moe doesn’t wake up early. Steve points it out somewhat glumly as he gets out of bed, woken up by his alarm instead of their oldest daughter, and Eddie just groggily mutters, “Please don’t jinx this for me, Steve."

The early morning is notably Moe-less as Eddie heads downstairs to start the coffee maker and make Robbie's bottle while Steve gets himself ready for work. Still, Eddie has a funny feeling they'll be seeing Moe before Steve has a chance to head out for the day, and sure enough, just as Steve is sitting on the couch to pull his shoes on, Moe appears in the doorway, eyes bleary and blonde hair sticking up in every direction.

“Oh jeez,” Eddie says from his spot on the couch beside Steve, baby Robbie cradled in one arm as he helps her hold up her bottle, “Look who’s up.”

“Why are you out of bed?” she pouts at Steve.

“I woke up before you this morning,” he tells her gently as he finishes tying the laces on his sneakers.

Moe only stares at him blankly for a while, hands fiddling with the hem of her Cinderella t-shirt.

“But…” she says slowly, “But what about our snuggles?”

Steve lets Moe climb into his lap, gathering her up in his arms.

"We'll have so many snuggles when I get home from work," he tells her, "Promise. You've just been a bit of a grump lately and I wanted to let you sleep."

"You didn't get me," Moe says, ignoring what Eddie thinks is a fairly valid point. “I would’a got you if I woke up first.”

And Eddie can’t help the snort he lets out as Steve tiredly says, “Yeah, I know, babe.”

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[ms-spkhd]

flow home to your heart (back to sea level)

or: if you’ve been building a life together for years, why wait to call it ‘dating’ before popping the question? 💍

rating: t ♥️ tags: post S4, weddings💍, fluff, unspoken love (until it’s very spoken), best friends/roommates to fiancés, no in-between sorry, eternally devoted steve harrington, eternally pining eddie munson, when the idiots in love say it out loud, ✨marriage proposal✨, (at a wedding—which is totally fine right?), happiest of happy endings💕, summer wedding ☀️

very belatedly for @steddielovemonth Day Twelve—‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ by Elvis Presley Ingrid Michaelson

The first wedding they go to is for Max and Lucas. Steve doesn’t think he’s surprised…actually no.

He’s not at all surprised.

They took a hard road, no doubt, and, like, it’s not as if external factors did them any favors. But for as up and down as their earlier years had been, they’d stayed solid after Vecna. They’d been each others’ rock. They’d been steady, in the way that Steve had always felt proud of them—they were his kids—but now he’s recognized the shift where that pride includes the feeling of being proud to know them, the people they’ve grown into. They were unshakable, unwavering, and not afraid of a challenge: looked it all square in the eye and said—if Steve understands it right, and he thinks he does, now—

Mordor it is.

That was the test he knew he and Nancy never would have passed. He may not have had all the same words for that knowledge in the moments themselves, but he’d recognized it long before the hospital he’d spent most of his time in, that first half of ‘86.

That hospital where he’d sat next to two beds on rotation with his heart in his throat, unprotected and vulnerable every hour of the day until Eddie’s hand twitched, until Max’s vitals shifted for the better—and Steve had realized over the months he helped Lucas stand beside Max while Steve himself walked with Eddie, the four of them there through rehab, side-by-side for every win as much as every setback: Steve had realized that even if it’d finally calmed back down to his chest, safe behind his ribs, his heart wasn’t any less vulnerable.

He wasn’t any less vulnerable.

He couldn’t even look back and say he’d been confused by it, or surprised. Using Steve’s house when the town was half-shaken apart had been practical—size and privacy and accessibility, not too far from any medical professional either of the patients in question needed to see: basically the house was finally just being fucking useful.

Eddie staying, once it wasn’t just practical, had always found…logical explanations.

But the feeling—even if it had more just…dropped fully-formed into Steve’s veins than it’d been any kind of steady blossoming; the feeling was unmistakable, having known something close to it before, but dialed so far down in comparison to this. All the blood and tears. All the frustration and the pain and the long hard road to get to standing straight again at the head of the trail, let alone choosing to fight in order to walk its path. The secrets whispered after two people admitted that sleep didn’t come unless a breathing body was next to them, didn’t matter how. The trust, the ease and the soft-worn knowing when you woke up tangled up in someone as a rule, just because: no agenda.

When you fell asleep to their heartbeat and they woke against yours: steady.

When you recognized that building a life came easy, with two pairs of hands. And maybe it wouldn’t last like this—but.

Something in it would always last. Was unshakable. Even death couldn’t touch it—and Steve was well enough acquainted with the life and death shit to confidently say as much.

And it’s not like it was the first time he’d had feelings for a friend. Maybe the first time he felt something so strong for his best friend—platonic soulmates notwithstanding.

Speaking of: Steve didn’t know what to make of two soulmates in his life, for a little while. But that was mostly because of the…embarrassment of riches in it all. Way less than the…the clear recognition that Robin was his other brain cell, his half-a-functioning-human who made living possible, and worth grasping at when things felt hopeless; when either of them needed the reminder.

So then: Eddie. Eddie was…Eddie was his…

So it’s not that it’s the first time he’s caught feelings. Or the first time he found those feelings leading him to his soulmate, like a pot of gold at the end of each rainbow, nothing like he expected and so much richerfor it, every time.

But it was definitely the first time, ever—Steve’s learned well by now that the one time he thought he’d had it before he’d been foolish, too easily dazzled, caught in his own need for anything that could pass for the feeling, even the palest imitation, the most unreciprocated glimmer of something—so it was, thiswas definitely the first time Steve had ever really and truly fallen in lo—

“Dustin said they needed to finish these up before they loose their,” Eddie settles a champagne flute in front of Steve on the table, reaching over Steve’s shoulder and wiggling fingers once they’re free of their delivery, presumably mimicking bubbles in the drink—which, Dustin’s not wrong, but Max and Lucas had only barely waited until after graduation to tie the knot, into the very first hint of summer, so they’re all still underage, not that anyone gave a shit, here, but still—and he and Eddie are seated how they are, close enough for their knees to bump, because Eddie’s been single long enough that offering his plus-one would kinda almost land like a slap in the face, and the walls may be thick in Steve’s house but the front door and the windows aren’t quiet—it’s why he didn’t sneak people in and out if anyone else was home during his peak high school tryst years—but that’s how Steve knew Eddie wasn’t…entertaining in his room, just across from Steve’s.

Even if Steve had always been clear he was welcometo, especially once they wordlessly agreed their living arrangement was permanent for the foreseeable future, once Steve took over the deed upon his parents’ permanent departure from Hawkins; that this was Eddie’s home, too.

Even if the idea of him using it in that exact capacity kind wrung at Steve’s heart a little. That was just…that was just how things like this worked.

And Steve? His originally intended plus-one had ended up being the very first, ever, time he’d dumped someone himself, rather than getting blindsided, or just patiently waiting to be on the receiving end of the inevitable breakup. Jesse hadn’t been serious-serious, but he’d been long-term, nearly a year, and he’d only been Steve’s second actual relationship of any kind with a guy, versus a hook up that may or may not have involved any names exchanged. But cheating was a long-established expulsion-level fuck up, and Rob and Eddie had actually thrown Steve a party—not even a pity one—after he’d rid himself of the asshole, to celebrate his ‘ability to finally extricate yourself from people who hurt you and fail to cherish you like you deserve’, he’s pretty sure that was what the obscenely long and wobbly-hand-stenciled banner had read.

It’d been stupidly nice; they’d all gotten pleasantly crossfaded, and it was probably the best end to a relationship Steve had ever had.

But that would have been his plus-one, and he’s long gone. Steve hasn’t even really sought out anything since, either, not even casual. Because despite the very nice party and the best friends a guy could ask for, it’s all still kinda…raw.

Which isn’t to say sitting with Eddie like this, like he is Steve’s plus-one, doesn’t claw at something inside him, too, but that’s different. This is his best friend. And Steve’s gone years basking in that love with every goddamn cell of him, while learning very well how to swallow down the bile of the other, wilder love in him, alongside that other welcomed love, that needs to diealready, but refuses to.

He’s gotten to the point where he’s just about accepted it’s never going to change its mind, either. Love’s fucking stupid that way, sometimes. Steve knows that well enough.

“Promise I’ll get you something better next round, big boy,” Eddie grins, full-dimpled, as he pulls Steve from his head and settles with his own champagne at Steve’s left side, nose crinkling as he takes a sip—he’s never been impressed with wine generally, but champagne’s definitely his least favorite of the bunch.

They both still make their sacrifices for these kids, though. No question.

Doesn’t look like that’s on track to ever stop, either.

“They’re gonna have such a life,” Steve comments idly but then not even close, chest so fucking full, watching the dancing under the glittering lights strung haphazard and perfect for it, all over the backyard of the Hopper-Byers place—a couple who themselves did the City Hall thing and then threw a cookout afterward; years ago, now. After—

Well. It’s been three years, give or take. Closer to two since it was all finally over, and they could live. Hop and Joyce had signed on their dotted line quick as hell, after that.

And Steve’s heart’s learned fairly well in that time how to survive unprotected for swelling up too-strong, for feeling too big. Ribs having proven early on to be embarrassingly unfit to the task when Steve’s heart—as he’s come to terms with over this much time—isn’t just rubbed raw for the futile reaching it gets up to—as if it’s an accident when it’s anything but. It knows exactly what it’s doing, and opts to feel that much anyway.

He feels anyway.

“They kinda already have,” Eddie counters, fond as fuck as he watches Max and Lucas dance chaotically with the other gremlins to a mid-tempo song that lets them get away with it. It’s…yeah, fuck it.

It’s endearing to see.

“But yeah,” Eddie kinda sighs, setting his glass down and propping his chin on his knuckles; “yeah they are.”

And if Steve doesn’t achieve one more thing, like if he doesn’t manage any other goddamn thing in his life, save that every single one of them are on this makeshift dance floor, giggling like they’re still the middle schoolers Steve met a lifetime ago?

He’d still be able to die more accomplished than anyone ever used to think he’d manage. He knowshe’d be able to die more satisfied with what he’s got than he ever thought he’d get to.

Speaking of—

“They said they figured the first would be me,” Steve gestures with his half-full flute to the gaggle of no-longer-kids.

“The wedding. Marriage. Out of all of us,” he explains when Eddie gives him a blank sort of look. He’s not even sure why he’s saying it, what it matters; why he thinks it’s worth repeating.

“I guess I should have expected that,” and he means the wedding assumptions.

Mostly.

Eddie just snorts, but it sounds…there’s something off in it.

Steve can’t say what it is, but he knows Eddie too well; pays too much attention to miss it.

“You really should have, dude,” Eddie deadpans back, and Steve lets the earlier moment slide because Eddie’s smirking at him, and Steve can only roll his eyes and accept it because…yeah. He’d had his white-picket-fever phase. And he hadn’t exactly been subtle about it.

“My money was on Jon and Nance,” Steve shrugs, and nods over toward them standing together on the edges of the odd-convulsions-currently-trying-to-pass-as-dancing; “but only because I didn’t think these two,” he points to the happy couple of the evening, “would move so quick. Or would want to get hitched here.”

Like, Steve saw them lasting. For sure. But he saw him getting on a plane to somewhere…maybe with a good basketball program, to be there for the nuptials.

“I wanted it.”

Steve turns sharply toward the low murmur that’s soft enough he easily could have misheard, because that doesn’t make sense as…words, now.

From Eddie, especially.

“What?”

But: Eddie? Eddie looks especially pale all of a sudden, concerningly so—

“Nothing,” Eddie croaks, eyes gone all big and simultaneously shifty, and that doesn’t make Steve feel any better, he feels his pulse thump hard twice as he goes to lean in, put a hand on Eddie’s arm, maybe cup his face, check his—

“The hell’s going on here?”

They both startle, but Eddie brightens—a little too forced, but it’s not…it’s real, because Max is the source, and they’re both soft for her especially, and with Lucas behind her, arm half around her waist like he can’t bring himself to let go: their little family-within-their-family, forged through everything they pushed through to get to the other side of the aftermath of hell.

Steve makes himself back down, ease off: lets Eddie set the tone as he seems to soften as he soaks up Max’s playful smirk, paired with the beaming smile Lucas can’t seem to dim if he’d even want to try—Steve feels it too, infectious as hell.

Calming, too. Familiar—soothes the way his blood rose up fearful, protective as a rule at seeing Eddie be, just…

Being anything that’s not-quite-Eddie.

“Get the fuck out of your chairs,” and Steve wants to razz her a little for language half for the bit, and half out of habit, but it’s not just her special day, it’s a point of contention she’d made clear for months: if she could work her ass off, if Steve had watched and pushed her to get to her feet again against every set of odds, and be able to walk down the aisle on her own steam?

“Get out there,” and Lucas pushes them both from behind, never far from her side, and steers them toward the swaying hoard:

“And dance.”

Because if she could do it, after everything?

She’d made it very clear that no one was going to be tolerated sitting down when they could be moving to the music instead.

Steve doesn’t think about how his hand links with Eddie’s between them as Max and Lucas each grab the hand free on either side and drag them in, giggling and glowing and so fucking free, everything Steve fought for, the future he swung his bat to help keep in the cards.

Fuck: but they got here. They are here.

Steve doesn’t know who grabbed for who’s hand first, with him and Eddie, but when the happy couple deems them fully enough on the dance floor to leave them to their own devices, Max filled-up with joy enough to kiss Steve’s cheek before she drags Lucas off?

Their hands are still grasped like that’s how they know best how to be.

But that’s probably just Steve’s perpetually-swollen heart being dramatic.

“Eds, you’re stiff as a board, Jesus,” he laughs easily—the swollen-heart thing’s just kinda the status quo at this point—when he forces himself to let go of that hand and give in to the inevitable; when he tries to lighten the moment by matching the theatrical energy he’s picked up over time from the man himself, posing Eddie limb by limb into something more free-flowing, until his hand only just brushes Eddie’s chest, only barely makes contact on the way to shake at Eddie’s shoulders, get him to relax; it’s only accidentally that he touches at just the right place in just the right second to feel—

“Fuck, you’re about to break your goddamn ribs, man,” he pauses and catches Eddie’s eyes: wide again, and almost scared but more…more mourningand Steve can’t even fucking guess as to the why, this day is happy—and Steve’s own ribs might be well-practiced to take the pounding inside them by now, but Eddie’s pulse feels like it’s about to rip straight through his veins between one jackhammer-beat to the next, and Steve?

Steve can’t fucking bear it, and he knows Eddie won’t want to answer in public so he does the only thing he can and turns them so Eddie’s shielded from any other eyes before he asks, unflinchingly desperate:

“What’s wrong?”

And Eddie swallows so many times it makes Steve’s own throat hurt; definitely makes his chest hurt when he can catch Eddie’s heartbeat at his throat for the motion.

Steve doesn’t even know how long it takes for Eddie’s mouth to open; barely registers that the song’s gone softer, slower.

That he’s swaying them gently back and forth on instinct, to keep from drawing too many eyes for whatever’s happening in Eddie’s head.

Part of the point of Steve forever-vulnerable heart is to stay always poised at the ready to protect wherever it’s needed, however it’s needed.

Whenever it’s called for.

If it’s particularly attuned to the needs of Eddie Munson, well.

That’s just…how it is.

“I wanted the first wedding of the group. Like it was me, my wedding, in my head,” Eddie whispers, half-choked; doesn’t look at Steve but stares into the middle space of nothing as his brow furrows, as all Steve wants is to reach and make it smooth.

Make it all okay.

“Stupid thoughts, idle,” Eddie huffs, laughs at himself but it’s…it’s mean; “fuckin’ thoughts.”

He trails off then, still avoiding Steve’s eyes, and there’s a corner of Steve’s mind that recognizes he should hurt, should be gutted at the confirmation that Eddie has thought of marriage, a thing they’ve never really talked about for all the things they’ve shared, the hours they’ve passed in one another’s pockets, talking about everything.

But never that. He hadn’t shared that with Steve.

And maybe Steve does hurt, does bleed out hard, in that tiny corner.

But the rest of Steve’s mind is immediately hellbent on shutting up that mean voice in Eddie’s head where it’s weeping out inside his words—nothing about him is stupid; is anything less than everything.

And then there’s the whole of Steve’s heart, that never had illusions about where it was welcome and how. The revelation—Eddie’s thought about marriage, about a forever, that he didn’t share with Steve; that stung, maybe, but Eddie was what mattered.

And Eddie’s pulse is still visible in his fucking throat.

“They’re not the only ones who’ve had such,” Eddie murmurs, eyes on his shoes now, sounding like he hates himself for the words that rip out of him, razor sharp:

“Such a life.”

And Steve…Steve’s only the quickest when it comes to standing in front of an oncoming tackle; when it’s down to putting himself between the people he loves and the things aiming to do them harm.

So it takes him a second.

Eddie’d thought about marriage, about his ownmarriage. And when they’d said Max and Lucas would have such a life, had already—already because of what they’d been through together, all of them, and Eddie…Eddie loves the Party, but he, it had to be one of them, right, to have lived that much life already, and if it had to be one of them—

“Eds,” Steve half-mouths more than even breathes, let alone speaks. His voice is…elsewhere, apparently.

His heart’s more than happy to take up its space in his throat, instead—because Steve’s not good at hoping, but especially not when it comes to feelings. Commitment. Not when it comes to love.

And then: when it comes to hoping, and Eddie—

“I’m sorry, Stevie,” Eddie’s eyes are too bright, too full of shine; he looks ready to bolt but his hands are less settled on Steve’s hips for the facade of dancing and more clinging there to bruise, to stay standing as his voice trembles: “I’m so fucking sorry.”

And Steve’s not the quickest about most shit. And Eddie’s words are running the gamut of making no fucking sense.

But Steve knows Eddie.

And Steve’s also foolish enough in this moment, with this man’s shaking frame beneath his touch, to hopeso fucking foolishly that the only way he can see the fragments coming together at all is somehow also the impossible, unfathomable, full-hearted truth.

Against all fucking odds.

Because why else would Eddie hold so close, so tight, and still look so scared, so heartbroken and damn near resigned—and then apologize, on top of it all; apologize to Steve, for, for—

“Don’t you dare.”

And he doesn’t just look heartbroken, anymore, or just scared; he looks caught out, and what else could he be looking at Steve like that for when they know the whole of each other except for one thing, the one thing that swelled Steve’s heart so sore to chafe between his ribs and peek out unprotected; the one fucking thing that Steve never let himself even consider might somehow not have been something unique to him alone, for the hiding.

And maybe Steve hasn’t had luck in this…ever, really. At least not like this. He’s mostly let himself settle safe and warm and more-than-content with the love that he has, that he holds closer and dearer than any other of the kinds he’s aimed at in the past.

But. But.

“If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, or like, maybe trying,” Steve fumbles, swallows rough, tries to catch Eddie’s eyes, needs to see him true; “maybe trying hard as hell not to,” and he’s flailing, he knows it, and Steve’s heart fucking hurts with how fast it’s pounding and he’s scared, he’s fucking scared for what he’s saying and what he’s risking and he’s most scared of what he stands to lose if he’s wrong when usually he is wrong—but he knows Eddie.

And he loves Eddie.

And it’s Eddie’s rabbit-heart running wild at his throat that Steve wants to hold and calm and protect, more than any of the rest of it.

So even though he’s usually wrong, and even though it might cost him everything, < I>again, but this time it’ll be so much worse because this time what he feels is real:

“Don’t you dare be sorry,” Steve hisses, a little shaky for all the feeling in him, and he finally manages to snag Eddie’s gaze and he holds it, grasps at it like a rope for the drowning and he wills Eddie to see, but also to know that whatever he finds, he’s welcome to what he wants. All that he wants.

And he’s as welcome to throw back anything he doesn’t, just the same.

And Steve means that shit. Even if it kills him in the end this time: he means it.

But then Eddie’s shifting the way they stand, the way they move, the way they’re still touching—never stopped touching:

“Steve.”

And Steve’s never heard his name in that voice like that before—trembling and terrified but doing anything but shying from it, somehow. Steve will never understand how Eddie still thinks he’s anything but brave, so fucking brave.

Brave enough to gather the hand Steve had moved to make to comfort him and pull it to his chest like they’re dancing for real, like lovers on the floor swaying soft and slow and Steve…Steve feels Eddie’s heart slamming against the backs of his knuckles but his own’s doing the same; makes it hard to track the difference.

If there actually is any meaningful difference at all.

“I don’t care if it breaks my fuckin’ ribs,” Eddie whispers, eyes brimming but not trying to look away anymore, chest heaving under Steve’s hand—so scared, so much courage, and the fire in his gaze betrays how deep he knows, he knows how those words gut Steve clean, for how Strve broke those very same ribs years ago, knows the terrible moments on that rotting ground where Steve hadn’t thought he was enough to coax Eddie’s lungs back to breathing; where everything they are now, everything they’ve been and could become, maybe, maybe: where all of it—in almost being lost—really began.

“Hopefully it’d get where it belongs that way,” Eddie breathes out, stuttering and shaky but eyes so goddamn bright as he pulls Steve’s hand close to the drumbeat of his blood as he grits out like he’s ripping it from the bones of him:

“To who it belongs.”

And Steve is still, stunned, disbelieving. Things sometimes take him an extra second or two. And things like this take him a couple seconds more than even that—because he’s never that lucky.

Not in this.

Unless he was never that lucky, before, not once, because somehow the universe knew he was waiting for this; only for this.

“If he could ever want it,” Eddie licks his lips, looks ready to fucking snap in half, and Steve…even if Eddie doesn’t mean Steve in all this, it wouldn’t matter one bit because Steve would be, is now, just as desperate to hold that heart either way, to keep this man safe; he’s always wanted to keep this man safe, to keep this man’s heart safe, long before Steve had ever lost his own to him in return, fuck—

“If he’d ever be willing to catch—”

“Marry me.”

If. If.

Fucking if Eddie even maybe, could ever possibly be talking about Steve; if it’s all been about Steve this whole time, somehow; if there’s a single fucking chance in hell?

“We might not be the first, but,” Steve’s breath is caught in his chest, constricted in his lungs by the frenzy of his pulse, but that’s probably why the words make their way out at all:

“Marry me, Edward Munson.”

Because they’re the exact words etched inviolable on the heart that’s beating the fuck out of Steve’s lungs, so.

Makes sense they’d squeeze out either way.

Eddie, though.

Eddie had gone still the moment Steve had spoken at all, frozen from the first on the dance floor under Steve’s hands but fuck—if his pulse was a mallet before?

It’s a fucking battering ram and Eddie’d asked, right—he’d very clearly asked.

And Steve would never deny him a single thing. No matter how this turns out, so.

If he folds both his hands over Eddie’s thrashing heart, to keep and to catch or just to save from taking damage from the elements until it calms back to baseline: whatever it needs.

Steve can taste his own pulse in the back of his fucking throat, he’s wound so tight, he’s so fucking overwhelmed, anxious to his toes but liberated, almost. Because it really doesn’t matter, when it all shakes out. Or how.

Because Steve’s here, for Eddie.

Whatever he needs.

So Steve watches the same heartbeat he’s caging between his palms rage at the line of Eddie’s throat, convulsing with every swallow: the only motion to be seen.

But it’s life, pure and simple, this one single thing. It’s Eddie, coursing through those veins, safe under the skin but undeniable on display. And Steve will stand guard there to the day he dies, ‘til his last breath leaves him. He’ll stand still here just like this until it fucking kills him, if he has to.

Eddie’s whole chest shudders, heart stuttering under Steve’s hands in a new rapid-fire pattern as he sucks in a shaky breath and looks at Steve…with something Steve doesn’t have a name for, exactly, but that he recognizes as in the ballpark of suspicion or, more accurate probably: confusion. Disbelief.

But there’s something else on the edges of it, bright and inescapable. And Steve really needs to not be entirely wrong if he calls it out as being close as shitto hope.

(Please, please be hope.)

“You’re,” Eddie’s voice drags rough, trembling with the assault of his heartbeat against the words on the way up his throat as he eyes Steve, tries to find something in him when Steve’s always worn his heart on his sleeve, even when it’s been less stripped-bare than this moment right now.

“You’re serious?” Eddie asks, eyes wider than Steve’s ever seen them, and fuck does he love those eyes, loves right now especially how they’re rimmed thicker with that maybe-hope-like light, different from the sheen of tears at his lashes as he whispers, small and timid, and Steve presses his hands tighter: safe. He’s going to keep all of this man so fucking safe.

Forever, if he’s given the chance.

“You mean it?”

Steve wants to kiss him. He thinks he shouldn’t feel hesitant about it when he’s just fucking proposed but—he’s not a total fucking idiot. He knows he’s skipped steps, or at the least made assumptions about the steps that maybe aren’t…tenable.

Or shared…at all.

But Steve knows where his own heart lies, other than back in his fucking throat, wishing for the same things Eddie was saying, maybe-maybe-not about him.

Wishing like hell to be in the hands of the man he loves.

“I’ve only wanted you,” Steve tells him simply, pointed, heart bare on offer in a way he doesn’t think he’s ever considered allowing before; absolutely never felt so clear on the subject of wanting it, before.

“For so fucking long it’s just been you,” Steve flattens one of his cupped hands over Eddie’s chest, over that still pounding heart. “I can’t even remember the last time it was anyone but you,” and that’s the truth, that’s the truth down to his bones; “and anyone I canremember, it,” Steve’s voice breaks a little as the heft of it all kinda rocks him, not as a surprise but just…it’s that strong.

It’s that much, and it’s slamming through his fucking veins.

“It wasn’t like this, it wasn’t this,” and he stretches his palm out and presses harder, makes sure the touch is still a safeguard before he moves one hand away, and Eddie stiffens the slightest bit before Steve unfolds one of Eddie’s hands gathering Steve close and touches the pulse at his wrist before Steve stops just wishing that the man he loves could hold his heart in his gorgeous ringed hands; he lets Eddie feel the way his own heart’s just as fierce for the thrumming as he breathes out:

“Not for anybody but you.”

And Steve watches as Eddie’s expression shifts closer to shock, to…he can’t say wonder, he can’t fall into false hope just in case, not like this—but Steve’s broad palm over Eddie’s beating heart?

He feels the moment that beat shifts from pounding into racing. It’s a subtle change that feels a world of difference. And Steve does believe that it fucking means something.

“It’s not too fast,” Eddie mouths more than speaks, states more than asks; “when we haven’t,” and he swallows hard, and that beautiful neck moves elegant almost, around how it lifts his words past the still-watchable pace of his pulse: “don’t you need to think about—”

“You’re already all I think about,” Steve cuts in, can’t help it; just like he can’t help lifting Eddie’s hand where he’s holding it to his chest for just a second, just a moment to kiss his wrist and taste his heartbeat there before setting it back. Because Steve knows what Eddie was failing to flat out ask.

And none of it fucking matters.

“Date me first, if you need to have the name on it, even when we both know that’s what we’ve been doing for fucking years,” because Steve’s never been brave enough to finish that thought for all the million times he’s had it—but now.

Now he can’t even pretend to be able to hide from it. Wouldn’t even consider wanting to.

Because Eddie hasn’t moved his hand. Is starting at it, like something unthinkable, on Steve’s chest. Like…

Almost like something miraculous.

“Make it a long engagement, if you need to feel it out some more,” Steve moves to see if he bows his head down, crushes his chin as low as he can, if he can kiss the tips of Eddie’s fingers.

He can indeed.

And those fingers press firmer back against him the moment he straightens back up, Eddie’s heart under Steve’s hand still racing but there’s nothing like fear in it anymore and maybe, fucking…

Maybe.

“‘Cause at the end of any of it,” Steve reaches this time to cup Eddie’s cheek again, and there really isn’t anything else to do but ask-without-any-question, one more time:

“Marry me.”

Eddie’s still, and still stares at his hand on Steve’s chest for a long stretch of breaths but Steve’s…even more than at the start, Steve’s not worried. Because he’s still as certain that no matter where this goes, his feelings and his devotion to Eddie won’t change a single fucking bit—not just because Steve’s heart’s stubborn, and knows where it lies. But the idea of Steve’s life with no Eddie, no matter how he fits, is unfathomable.

And Eddie hasn’t pulled b away from him, here—not once.

So there’s…there’s no way it ends as anything less that what he already has. And what Steve has? Is more than he ever dreamed.

What Steve wants, enough to have proposed it unplanned, maybe, but wholly desired, from the deep creases of his heart, is…is something more than he ever imagined even considering to dream.

And his pulse is manic for it, sure, but goddamn if it doesn’t feel right for Eddie’s hand to rest there. To press there like maybe it wants, like he wants.

Like he could want it too, somehow.

And then:

“I’ve always wanted to give you my mom’s ring,” Eddie exhales, his hand trusting Steve to keep hold over his heart without encouragement, which feels fucking significant, as Eddie traces a half-moon around Steve’s ring finger.

“I think about it all the time, I have had literal dreams of it on your hand,” Eddie’s voice cracks a little, the kind where it’s holding too much and overflows a little bit as a rule so his next breath in goes kinda shaky.

“Where I play with it before you wake up in our bed, in our home,” and on that his voice just flat out splits, and even Steve can’t underestimate the wanting, the hoping, and truth of the heart in Eddie’s words, same as it beats all the same things under Steve’s hand. “But I, the size, and…”

And he meets Steve’s eyes finally, stops staring at his hand on Steve’s chest and there are tears welled ready to fall like starlight in that gaze but holy hell, there is so much more of that bold-bright hope and Steve presses that hand closer, harder so it won’t fucking mistake the way Steve’s heartbeat fucking flutters because he thinks…

He thinks maybe the thing he’s never right about is literally in his goddamn hands.

Like, right fucking now.

“I want to give you my grandad’s family ring,” Steve tells him, watches one, two, three of those tears trail down Eddie’s cheek and that’s…Steve takes the liberty, is bold enough to lean and kiss them away and seems to have made the right fucking choice to do it for how Eddie sighs, shivers in the best fucking way: Steve recognizes it well but it’s never looked so breathtaking in and of itself—for all that it is on its own but more than that, for what it means.

Eddie was talking about Steve the whole time; maybe holds Steve’s heart in as much precious esteem as Steve holds his, just the same.

Unfathomable. In…

Incredible.

“Because you are my family,” and that’s been true for so, so fucking long now; “and maybe we can remake what that means between us, and everyone we have here,” and Eddie’s eyes widen and Steve knows he hears what Steve doesn’t need to say: maybe neither of us was ever the broken one, maybe we both just weren’t built for what the world thinks ‘family’ is supposed to be because we were always built for exactly this; “also because I think you’ll like it, it’s big and bulky and the crest is kinda like ones the miniatures you just finished have—”

And Steve isn’t actually expecting it when it happens, that it could happen at all even as this unbelievable turn of events is slowly revealing itself to actually-possibly be real, a tangible thing that’s happeninghere and now and Eddie tastes like smoke and the tang of growing things underneath tart champagne and buttercream where Max had drawn a line at the stiff sugar of a traditional cake, and his tongue is tracing Steve’s teeth like he means to memorize them, sucking like he means to drink Steve out, means to keep the heart and soul of him safe inside Eddie’s chest like Eddie could want that, like someone could want that from Steve, with Steve—

He breaks away after swallowing a moan Steve doesn’t make himself hold back in wherever he’s aiming to keep the rest of Steve, breathless and wide-eyed and his heart’s thumping under Steve’s hand again, wild and Steve wants it, wants to suck that heart and soul into himself the very same but Eddie’s staring at him, those eyes a little too big—

“Was that,” and Steve’s nascent buds of hesitation wither on the vein as he reads Eddie’s unspoken words: that kiss hadn’t been careful, or uncertain—anything but. It had been hungry and desperate and so overfull with wanting that Steve barely wants to trust it.

But Eddie’s heart in his hands is real. The halo of hoping in his eyes is…god, it’s fucking real.

So goddamn real, that Steve risks moving his hand from the proof of Eddie’s frenzied pulse and frames his whole face, both palms against those perfect-flushed cheeks.

“More than,” Steve breathes, leans in and runs the tip of his nose up the line of Eddie’s, feels the warm curve of Eddie’s lips as close in his chest as he feels the flutter of his own heart, like the flutter of Eddie’s lashes on his skin.

“I mean,” Steve presses an impulsive kiss to the high point of Eddie’s left cheek, inexplicably shy given how they’d just bruised each other’s lips so wantonly, but this feels…softer. That delicate touch more realsomehow as Steve says the only words in him he can even consider being said:

“It’s only natural to kiss your fiancé.”

And oh, but watching Eddie’s eyes glitter, stretched wide as he mouths, disbelief in him only outstripped by an undeniable giddiness as his lips shape around the word: fiancé.

And then again, one more time, lips stretched wider, somehow, in the joy of his unbridled wonder:

Fiancé.

And watching it, reading it so clear and plain: Steve feels it whole and unfettered; fucking real, even before Eddie finds his voice again:

“You have to know how much I want that,” Eddie’s breathless in a way Steve’s never seen, surpasses the way he loves, animated with enthusiasm like a rule, blow that standard straight out of the water—everything Steve’s ever seen Eddie exude pales in this…this supernova of fucking delight, of feeling, of giddiness that makes Steve feel close to vibrating out of his skin for it, too, just to stand so close as Eddie keeps a hand to Steve’s chest, but plays with the ends of his hair just at his chin, delicate. Almost…

Almost worshipful.

“You’ve got to know how much you’re my fucking heart and a piece of paper, it, I mean, I want that so goddamn much, but even though we can’t,” and Eddie doesn’t even sound sad for it, closer to apologetic than anything but it’s not that either, and fuck it either way, he shouldn’t even be close to it in any case at all because—

“I think we absolutely can,” Steve smirks a little, cocksure and his own version of swollen with feeling over all of this, all of them, and the words and the touch and the fact that they’re taking marriage as a given, forever as the understood ‘you’—

“I think the government owes us the fucking closest to that piece of paper they can manage,” and Eddie gapes adorably, kinda astounded and kinda doe-eyed-captivated, so of course Steve has to kiss him. Because he can.

And because he has to, in the face of that.

Has to.

“Don’t you?” he asks, more because he wants to breathe it into Eddie’s open lips, and feel Eddie’s own breath stutter for it. “After everything?”

And Eddie’s agreement is clear in how he finally moves his hands and pulls Steve properly into him, kisses him full-mouthed and whole-bodied: all of him surrendered to the way they move together like it was written this way somewhere in the cosmos; the way they taste.

“I love you, Steven Harrington,” Eddie pants in the bare-minimum sliver of space between them. “I love you with every cell in my goddamn body.” Then he grabs Steve’s hand again and plasters it against his ribs once more, where Steve feels his heart dancing eager and gleefully up against his touch, fucking breathtaking.

“All my heart and all my soul and everything that’s bigger and more than even that,” Eddie vows, still breathy but his fathomless eyes hold nothing but truth:

“It’s all yours. And it’s all love.”

And Steve believes it with every cell of his body, not least because those cells exist the exact same in reverse.

And the music that’s playing for the other guests, the reception at large; the music moves on, and Steve might see motion to match it in his peripherals if he bothered to look, but why would he; why should he, when he’s got the man he loves most in his arms, tucked into the crook of his neck? Close to breathe in and feel home sinking into the marrow of his bones?

And Steve—who lets himself slump, seep a little into the unflinching hold Eddie has around his body, the way Steve’s coiled around him just the same with both arms, both hands; the way they neither of them let go, and only breathe because the other does in tandem:

Maybe they were the first wedding of the family, Steve thinks as he moves with Eddie’s pulse like a kiss to his mouth against the curve of Eddie’s neck; maybe.

And least in terms of where it mattered the most.

♥️

✨also on ao3

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divider credit here

[ms-spkhd]

Eddie confesses his love for Steve who very awkwardly explains he’s straight and not into him like that. Eddie is surprisingly okay with this, like he didn’t expect anything else, claiming he just wanted to tell him so he knew how loved he was. That sentiment does things to Steve but he doesn’t really know what, just knows it makes him warm and almost wish he wasn’t straight just so he could accept all the love Eddie clearly has to give. At first Steve thinks they’ll go back to normal and they kind of do, now with the shadow of Eddie’s love peeking through but not a hinderance, until Eddie tells them he’s going on a date with a cute guy and Steve? Steve sees green. Had no idea he was even capable of being this jealous but suddenly he realizes that lingering bad feeling has been regret. He regrets turning Eddie down, he regrets not taking what was his when he had the chance, he regrets not realizing he isn’t straight fast enough. Steve does his absolute best not to speed on his way over to Eddie’s and is so relieved to see him through his window still home. He practically stumbles into the house in his haste.

“Don’t go on that date,” Steve says before the door even closes behind him.

“Why?” Eddie asks in complete confusion.

“I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

“I didn’t know I loved you.”

“Oh.”

“Do you…did you stop loving me?”

“Never.”

“Then don’t go on that date.”

“Canceled. You’re serious?”

“Come here please,” Steve says and draws him into his arms.

When Eddie kisses him he truly doesn’t understand how he could have ended up anywhere but here, like this, with someone he loves. Someone who loves him back.

[ms-spkhd]

so tired of all these fics where merlin is captured and is like "p-please n-n-n-n-no" like this hoe didn't show up to camelot, immeadiately commit aggravated assault, get arrested, get out of prison, continue to try both commit aggravated assault and regicide, and then within the next 30 minutes of the episode commit like 3 counts of murder 😭😭

[ms-spkhd]

Eddie walks into his house after a three-day work trip in NYC to find…..a lot of boxes.

Most of them cardboard, most of them labeled DONATE or TRASH or GARAGE in Steve’s familiar handwriting.

“Oh, jeez,” Eddie mutters, because he knows what this is. Sure enough, he follows a trail of boxes upstairs to find the rest of his family in his youngest daughter Hazel’s room.

“Spring cleaning?” Eddie asks.

“Spring cleaning,” Moe says with an affirmative nod.

“Just Hazel’s room?” he asks, because Moe and Robbie are looking awfully comfortable sitting on Hazel’s bed while Hazel herself is rummaging through a back corner of her jam-packed closet, Steve watching over her shoulder with his hands on his hips.

“Uh, well, Moe ‘doesn’t do clutter’,” Steve says as he looks over at Eddie, “and therefore is exempt, apparently, and Robbie’s room gives me a migraine.”

“Plus,” Moe cuts in, “Robbie’s room is all clutter. If we get rid of it all, she'd have no personality left.”

“Hey,” Robbie says, jabbing her elbow into Moe's side, “Don’t be rude.”

Steve gives Eddie a do you see what I’m dealing with kind of look as Hazel finally emerges from her closet. 

“Dad, do you want this?” Hazel asks, holding out a very small, dog-shaped notebook with a comically large spiral binding that she probably acquired when she was in elementary school, “For writing or whatever?”

“Uh…”

“Just say yes so I can move some shit out of here,” Steve mutters, so Eddie takes the notebook from Hazel, and as soon as she was turning back to her closet, Steve took it from him and tossed it into the ‘Donate’ box in the hallway.

A moment later, Hazel emerged again, turning around to show everyone two plastic lawn flamingos (mismatched, Eddie notes).

“Thoughts?” she asked.

“Hon, those don’t even match,” Steve says (and he sounds all beleaguered and everything as if all this wasn’t his crusade to begin with), “They’re two totally different shades of pink.”

“Well, did you know that they’re actually white when they’re born? And then they eat mostly shrimp and that’s how they turn pink.”

Steve just stares at her for a moment, “Okay, Haze, those are plastic.”

“You should keep those,” Moe said, “Genuinely they’re, like, decor. You can put them somewhere.”

They spend a few minutes watching Hazel precariously balance the flamingos’ spindly legs on top of her bookshelf, but it doesn't take long for something else to catch Steve's eye.

“What’s that?” Steve asks, jutting his chin in the direction of something on an open shelf of Hazel’s dresser.

Hazel fetches a plastic Starbucks cup with a dozen or so dusty rocks inside.

“They’re rocks,” Hazel points out, “From when we went to the Grand Canyon.”

“Okay…” Steve says slowly, “Do they have to be in your sock drawer?”

“Why don’t you put them on your windowsill?” Robbie suggests, “You can charge the rocks, like, spiritually.”

“Oh yeah, there’s an idea,” Steve comments, but Hazel is already halfway to the window. Still, she pauses, and then turns back to face them.

“Do you think they miss their home?” she asks.

“What?” Steve looks at her.

“In the Grand Canyon?”

“Oh, Hazel,” Steve sighs.

“We could try to ship them back,” Moe suggests.

“None of you are helping.”

[ms-spkhd]

rip eddie munson you would’ve loved spaceballs

[ms-spkhd]

meta thoughts on the misinterpretation of steve harrington's self-sacrifice

what frustrates me about steve's fandom characterization, specifically in steddie, is not that he's self-sacrificial, because he is. its that so many people root steve's self-sacrifice in self-loathing. there's this overarching idea that steve feels so worthless that he throws himself in front of others because he believes they deserve to live more than him.

and that characterization does a severe disservice to him and blatantly ignores the best part about him - how deeply he loves his friends.

yes, he throws himself into danger, but it's not because he hates himself.

steve is an incredibly confident character. the reason he lets the others' snarky comments roll off his back isn't because he believes he deserves them, it's because he doesn't give a shit. because he knows who he is. honestly, out of every character in that show, he's the only one who really knows what he's about.

when steve throws himself between his friends and danger, it's simply because he loves them so much that he'll do anything to protect them. it's nothing more than that.

his humbleness when eddie waxes on about his heroics in season four stems from steve's protectiveness being so intrinsic to who he is that he just sees it as a fact of life, not as a big sparkly thing deserving of special recognition.

also as a side note, a lot of people make this self-hatred come from how he acted when he was younger. either he acted that way as a mask for his low confidence, or he can't forgive himself now for who he used to be. and i'll be honest, i don't think he ruminates on his past self at all by season 4. one of steve's core traits is that he's incredibly pragmatic. by the end of season 1, he realized he didn't like the person he was becoming, he spent season 2 changing that, and then he moved on. i don't think he spared much thought to it since.

that pragmatism also extends towards his protectiveness. he sees a threat coming for him and his friends, and he steps in front to protect them, typically because he's the oldest and/or physically strongest in the group (season 2 in the tunnels, the fight with billy, the strongest swimmer in the lake, etc). he's the best for the job so he'll step up and do it, no second thoughts or second guessing. that's what makes him so interesting and i hate to see it diminished.

no more self-loathing steve, please. i promise he's a much more fun character if you go deeper into the well.

[ms-spkhd]

Steve settles against the back of the couch and says, “I got a question, Ed.”

“Yeah?” Eddie replies and tries very hard for Steve not to notice that he spent the last fifteen minutes either picking at a loose thread on his jeans or sneaking surreptitious glances at him.

“And be honest with me. No deflecting.”

“Uh-huh. Go ahead.”

“Do you…” Steve pauses, and he’s got this look where he’s tossing the question around like a salad over and over in his head, like he hasn’t gotten it right quite yet. “Do you think Arnold Schwarzenegger is hot?”

Eddie blinks. This cannot be his real fucking life. 

Steve’s still looking at him expectantly, as if the question that just left his lips wasn’t affixed between world-endingly stupid and nuclear bomb-levels of disastrous to Eddie. It’s…he’s so blase about it, too. Completely unaffected! As if he didn’t just drop that question onto the gay friend he’s conveniently, y’know, swapped bodily fluids with. 

“Excuse me?”

Steve shrugs. “So you’re gay, right?”

Alright, foot-in-mouth gold medalist Steve Harrington expertly sticking the landing as always. It’s curious, Eddie thinks, out of all of his friends, Steve should be the one most well-acquainted with the sheer magnitude of Eddie’s gayness and the biblical nature of it–what with the whole dick in ass thing.

Eddie purses his lips and tries not to play the cynic, the you of all people perched on the tip of his tongue. The last thing he wants to do is scare him off again, not with their shoulders pressed against each other like this; the closest they’ve ever been since that night. He axes it before it goes any further and causes trouble. “Well shit, what do you think?”

“Alright, dumb question,” Steve concedes, though there isn’t any shame in his voice. He smiles that golden smile of his and waves his hand at the screen, where Arnold and the fussy flight attendant are busy studying a piece of paper evidence. They’re an odd pair. “So, does he do it for you or not?”

Eddie blinks, takes a sip of his High Life and purses his lips in thought. “Nah, not really.”

Steve’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline and his eyes dart from the screen to Eddie’s apathetic expression. “Really?” “Don’t act so surprised, man.”

Steve shakes his head and looks away from Eddie, chin resting on his palm. “No–no, I’m not surprised or anything–”

“Well, girls like pretty boys, so…”

“But you’re not a girl, you’re a gay guy.” Steve scoots to the side, fully facing Eddie, and gestures wildly at the vague wholeness of Eddie’s body, like he’s the representative for every homosexual man northwest of Lake Michigan.

“Last time I checked.”

“Gay guys like macho dudes, right?”

Eddie grimaces at Steve’s naive brightness. There’s a decently well-oiled machine that whirrs away in his head, but Eddie is absolutely and positively dumbstruck, and operations screech to a halt. If things go any further, it’s going to reach triangle-shirtwaist levels of disastrous. What the hell does Steve Harrington–homecoming king and president of the Key club fucking Steve Harrington–know about what gets gay guys’ rocks off? I mean, yeah, he’s wandered into ‘have gay sex and only acknowledge it as a mistake’ territory, but far be it for him to thumb open a copy of Blueboy or–God forbid–fully understand the concept of a leather daddy.

“You’re…serious…?” Eddie ventures.

Steve’s mouth twists and scrunches at the corner as he wilts slightly, lost in the proverbial woods.  “I’m pretty sure I am, yeah.”

“Okay, well”--Eddie scoots forward in his seat and knocks Steve shoulder with his fist in a semi-decent attempt to lighten him up– “think of it like this: attraction isn’t a monolith.”

Steve’s eyebrows scrunch curiously. “Right.”

“Right. So some chicks like macho guys like Arnie and other chicks like prettier guys like…uh.”

“Iceman?” Steve supplies helpfully.

“Yeah. That guy.”

“Val Kilmer.”

“Oh! The hot guy from Willow. Anyways, gay guys are the same, we’re not all just into Arnold Schwarzenegger ‘cause he’s got muscles. Some of us also like pretty boys. Hell–ugly guys are on the table, too. It’s open season, man!”

The corners of Steve’s mouth twitch upwards and his basset hound eyes brighten a fraction in relief. Eddie lowers his hand to his lap, taking it as a personal victory. Well, the word ‘victory’ is a bit of a reach, all things considered. In those massive Merriam-Webster dictionaries he used to leaf through to understand the books Wayne would lend him, ‘victory’ was defined as an achievement of mastery or success in a struggle or endeavor against odds or difficulties. Explaining the ins and outs of gay sexual attraction to some haplessly gorgeous straight man like multiplying fractions to a fourth grader was the farthest thing from a victory. Especially since Eddie’s unfortunate enough to be halfway in love with said haplessly gorgeous straight man, what with his kind eyes and swoopy hair and disarmingly boyish charm. But! A success it does make. 

Christ, it’s a sacrifice nonetheless.

“Okay, new question,” Steve prompts, because apparently he’s fixing to be this decade’s new Sherlock Holmes. Or Colombo. Eddie tries to push the rapidly materializing image of Steve wearing a tan trenchcoat and loosened tie with a cigar pinched between his teeth to the back of his mind because–to the surprise of absolutely no one–he finds it devastatingly sexy. He shoots a cute little message up to God in his little corner of the sky (or whatever primordial being is running this fucking hellscape) begging to grant him some actual, discernable relief.

“You’re a curious cat tonight,” Eddie says after his brief yet exhaustive prayer.

“What can I say,” Steve replies with a shrug, “I like to get to the bottom of things.”

“Go ahead, champ.”

“So…Val Kilmer, huh? You like pretty boys?”

  Eddie has half a mind to jump onto the couch, take Steve by the shoulders with an iron grip, and shake him around wildly, screaming and spitting, “You’re the prettiest boy I’ve ever met! And handsome! And sexy! Beautiful! Every synonym in the Goddamn thesaurus!”

Thankfully, Val Kilmer is a high enough jumping point for Eddie to prevent himself from swam-diving and landing face first into the bottom of the figurative ‘I’m so deeply in love with you it’s not even funny’ pool.

“Hell, I’d never say no to Madmartigan.” Eddie tips his head backwards against the couch headrest and fans at his face, all hot and bothered. “He could do whatever he wanted to me.”

Steve rubs the back of his hand against his lips and his breathy laugh clips at its edges. “What about sexy naval fighters? Tom Cruise in a uniform do it for you?”

“Nah, too establishment. He may be hot, but I’m not tripping over my feet for the military industrial complex. But if you want me to be honest…” Eddie’s eyes drop to his rings, his fingertips brushing against his nickel plated rings. They start twisting the scratched and worn things before he looks up at Steve’s expectant expression.

“I like honesty,” Steve says.

“Well there’s this movie, The Sting, it’s one of Wayne’s favorites–saw it in theaters and recorded it when it showed on TV Christmas day of, ‘79, I think. Could’ve been watching It’s A Wonderful Life or whatever, but the old bastard wanted to watch some movie about these two con men bullshitting an Irish guy. Anyways, Wayne loved it, so he’d play it all the fucking time, but I wasn’t complaning, like, at all, because the main character was the hottest man I’d ever seen in my life.”

“Wow.” Steve blinks. “All that talk and I don’t even know what he looks like.”

Eddie releases his grip on his rings and drums his fingers against worn denim instead. “Well, he’s Robert Redford.”

Steve shrugs smugly, because of course he doesn’t know who Robert Redford is. Eddie’s so Goddamned charmed by it.

Eddie hums, leans back, and rolls his head towards Steve. “Tall. Chiseled jaw”--he lists the traits with his fingers– “Blue eyes. Looks insanely handsome in a dress shirt with rolled up sleeves. Blond, which is curious because I don’t particularly care for blonds, but I think the hair thing is pretty much null and void because I like the devil-may-care attitude.”

“So you like bad boys, then?”

“Depends on your definition of bad. Rebel without a cause? Hell yeah. Downright war criminal? Not advisable.”

“I didn’t know war criminals were on the table.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Alright,” Steve says, clapping his hands with finality, and straightening himself on the couch.. “You say you like pretty boys, but generally go for more handsome, refined guys.”

“Who said I like handsome?” Eddie interrupts..

“You when you said you had a thing for rolled up dress sleeves,” Steve says, self-satisfied. “And you like ‘em bad. Not bad bad, but like, a realistic amount of bad. Spray paint and knife fights, not like. Uh.”

“Mussolini?” Eddie offers.

“Not like Mussolini.”

(It's wip wednesday when I say it's wip wednesday (it is currently friday), so here's another snippet from my fic Stand There, Looking Backwards. i'm almost at the homestretch of the second chapter so. big if true.)

[ms-spkhd]

It’s ladies night at the gay bar Eddie works at which means no men allowed, which means, ‘how the hell did this dork in a polo make it pass the bouncer and how the hell has no one complained about him yet?’

Eddie watches the admittedly gorgeous guy approach the bar and ask for a drink. Eddie responds with, “How did you get past Frank?”

“The bouncer?” Pretty boy asks. “Oh, I asked if I could come in.”

“You asked?”

“Yeah?”

“And he let you?”

“Yeahhh?”

“None of these girls are going to go for you,” Eddie tells him in case he somehow missed that this was the queerest bar in town. “They’re lesbians. They like women.”

“I know!” The guy - Steve, Eddie will find out later - smiles, bright and big. “Isn’t that great?!”

Something in Eddie curdles with disgust because, “Nice try, buddy. You’re not going to ‘turn’ a lesbian.”

“Hope not,” Steve laughs and then pulls a stack of Polaroids out of his pocket. “Look at this.”

He holds one out to Eddie, showing him the image of a girl looking done-as-shit with the camera in her face. There’s a phone number written at the bottom.

“This is Robin," Steve says fondly. “Shes my best friend, and a lesbian, and the best person I’ve ever met, and I love her…she deserves a girlfriend so I’m-“

“Advertising her?”

“Helping get her a date,” Steve finishes. “This will make a great story at their wedding.”

“That’s insane…and strangely endearing.”

“Yeah, I’m like that,” Steve says, sliding over a Polaroid of Robin giving the camera the bird. “That’s my phone number too. Just so you know.”

[ms-spkhd]

hello steddie nation im back from hiatus to tell u i got the most steve harrington lyric tattooed onto me today

[ms-spkhd]

Steddie modern au where Eddie uses the dms of famous actor Steve Harrington to save posts that he likes because "This is waaay easier than searching for them in the saved posts" "It's literally not" and anyway "it's not like he sees them, he probably has like a media guy that does it"

It's all good and fine for months, just a string of unanswered memes and videos until

Steve.hrrgtn: Dude, you just made me laugh in the middle of a table reading

Batking: Why are you looking at your phone in the middle of a table reading

Steve.hrrgtn: New season boring af

now in a fic!

[ms-spkhd]

Based on this Steddie fic post, I thought I'd share what I've written so far. Do be mindful that this is a really rough draft, so everything might change in terms of style and events.

Is this just a shameless copy of the start of Dead Poets Society? Yes. Do I care?... No. Anyway, I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

It was unseasonably cool, the first day back. The clouds—overcast and gray—hid the sun away, its morning light weak and soft. The breeze, usually a welcoming reprieve from the heat, now chilled everything in its wake, forcing a shiver from even the most stoic as it blew through the green leaves of the great elms. Dew still clung to the manicured, uniform lawn. The red roses were in bloom, as were the tulips and daisies, and the splashes of pinks and blues from the hedges of hydrangeas were never dulled by the brown and gray stone behind them.

The church—a small but ornate building, its façade adorned with cherubic faces and scenes from the Nativity carved in stone—echoed with the last notes of the hymn before the audience settled into the hardwood pews with a smattering of applause. Principal Brenner — a tall man, with silver hair neatly parted and combed — stood proudly at the podium, his dull blue suit matching the dull weather.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Brenner smiled, his voice clear and crystalline. “Tradition. Virtue. Discipline. Fraternity. Excellence. These are the principles at Whitewood Academy we teach your sons — these foundations they will carry with them into the future as productive members of society. 

I stand before you, as my predecessors have done for one hundred years, with a promise: that if your sons are disciplined, if they strive for excellence every day, then they will receive the finest education this side of the United States of America.”

There was a great applause, and Brenner seemed to beam at the enthusiasm. “Gentlemen, what is our motto?” he asked over the crowd.

In unison, the boys of Whitewood Academy rose, their maroon blazers a shock of color against the colorless surroundings.

“Victoria per Scientiam. Scientia per Sapientiam.”

Their voices echo in the chapel— Victory through Knowledge. Knowledge through Wisdom. It is a very aggressive motto, in Stephen Harrington’s opinion, like a war cry cloaked in silk. He watches Brenner give a proud nod, stepping back from the podium before Father Bingham slowly steps up to the pulpit, draped in dark vestments edged with gold.

The sermon is short—as always. A reflection on duty, discipline, the fiery punishment for those who stray from the Light of God, and the enduring spirit of Whitewood. It is a mixture of Old Testament scripture and a school history lesson. Stephen’s heard it so many times, he knows it by heart.

When it ends, the parents applaud once more—politely—before rising in unison like chess pieces returned to motion. The boys are dismissed by row, the older students lingering, waiting until the lower forms have filed out.

Outside, the gray sky remains. The breeze is stronger now, bitter as it sweeps downhill across the lake. Beneath the church portico and across the gravel driveway, parents cluster like flocks of well-dressed birds, air-kissing, straightening jackets, offering thin smiles and quiet criticisms to their children.

Principal Brenner stands at the top of the steps, shaking hands and offering warm nods, each exchange measured and brief, like clockwork. His eyes scan the crowd constantly—counting faces, perhaps, or tracking reputations.

Standing in line with his parents—awaiting their turn to greet Brenner—Stephen Harrington is far away, his mind drifting back to summer in the Hamptons with the Hagans and the Perkins-

“Stephen,” Diana Harrington hisses, slapping his hand away from his mouth and bringing him back to the cold dreariness of Whitewood Academy.

His father, Richard Harrington, stares at him with barely concealed anger, his thin mouth pulled into a disgusted frown that Stephen knows is chewing on harsh threats. He mumbles an apology, straightening his back before glancing at his thumb—the skin around the nail raw and bleeding. The healing from summer, undone in a matter of hours. He wipes the blood away with a handkerchief, shoving the stained cloth into his pocket just as they step up to Brenner.

“Richard, Diana,” Brenner greets them with an enthusiastic, firm handshake. “I must say, the school appreciates your continued generosity. We're able to expand the library now, thanks to your significant contribution at the gala last fall.”

“I expect the library to be named after our family,” Richard says dryly, a flicker of worry crossing Brenner’s features—just before Richard claps him on the shoulder with a laugh. “Only joking, Brenner.”

“Ah, yes, of course!” Brenner laughs awkwardly.

Stephen wants to roll his eyes at it, the posturing and social performance, it’s all a bit pathetic.

Divider by @the-aesthetics-shop

[ms-spkhd]

Hopper is never having a good day when he has to deal with children but he’s having an even worse day when the kids in question are Eddie ‘Come Back With a Warrant’ Munson and Steve ‘I’ll Answer Your Questions When My Lawyer is Present’ Harrington.

They are eight and seven years old in the backseat of his truck after Hopper caught them separately doing shit they’re not supposed to do. His plan was to drive around a bit, scare them, and then send them on their way but neither are taking it seriously.

Steve, at least, is sticking to his words and hasn’t spoken since he requested a lawyer. Eddie, on the other hand, hasn’t shut up.

Hopper said he was talking them to jail and Eddie’s response was to point out that they weren’t committing crimes. They were committing miss-de-meters and second, “The police station’s that way. You’re drivin’ to Uncle Wayne’s.”

Hopper feels like a glorified taxi driver at this point. He makes one last attempt to instill a little fear of god into these future felons by saying, “You’re going to get grounded by your parents and you’ll deserve it.”

There’s a beat of silence before Steve pipes up, “What’s grounded?”

“It’s when your parents bury you in the backyard,” Eddie supplies helpfully.

“Oh…” Steve says and then loudly announces, “Mr. Hopper, I can’t be grounded. We have a pool.”

“That’s okay,” Eddie cuts in before Hopper can steer this conversation in the right direction.

He clasps a hand on Steve’s shoulder in the rearview and tells him, “They’ll drown you instead.”