#(nancy catches steve staring at this and is just like woooow)

[prodigal-upsiders]

Steve and the ulterior motive laundry

time to talk about steve’s own deranged bi little brain now. so, eddie wears a lot of flannel button-ups once he’s out of the hospital--they’re easy to put on and he gets cold easily while he’s still recovering. most of the shirts are at least a size too big, having come from the corroded coffin guys or the donation bins after most of eddie’s own stuff was lost when the trailer was torn apart. 

steve can’t help noticing that eddie, at home in worn-in flannel with rolled-up sleeves and too much room in the shoulders, looks really soft. he’s still quintessentially eddie, still bright and energetic as he gets better and the kids come around to see him, but steve’s around now for the quieter times in between. and maybe he can only see eddie curled up with the sleeves of his too-big shirts pulled over his hands, idly chewing on the buttons on the cuff as he reads the hobbit again, so many times before something in his brain is insisting that he owns lots of sweatshirts that he doesn’t wear very much anymore, that would also be too big on eddie’s shoulders and would keep him warm now that he’s getting able to wear pullover tops again.

and steve does the laundry in the house, because it’s his house anyway and it’s just something that he takes care of and he always ends up washing the random shirts and hoodies and socks that the kids leave strewn around anyway, it’s not a big deal. it’s just maybe a coincidence that all of eddie’s flannels end up needing to be washed on the same day. and he doesn’t have one to put on when he wanders into the kitchen and pouts because it’s cold. and steve’s not going to just let him freeze, but it’s a big house and it takes a while to heat, so when he tells eddie to grab a sweater from his own room it’s very casual and normal of him to do so. 

tells himself he can stay very casual and normal about seeing eddie sprawled out on the couch a while later, with one sleeve of steve’s old swim team hoodie pulled down over his fingers and the other sleeve pushed up to the elbow while he scribbles in one of his notebooks. eddie keeps chewing on the hoodie strings and steve is pretty sure that he should find that gross but instead he keeps looking at the way his name looks across the back of the sweatshirt, harrington a little rumpled up across eddie’s narrow shoulders, partially hidden where his hair is escaping from a messy bun.

and maybe it just takes him a couple of days to put the laundry away because of other reasons. but he doesn’t exactly complain when eddie keeps stealing his sweatshirts anyway.