#I’m sure someone’s already done something like this for this prompt 😅🙈

[pizzaqueen]

Third Time’s The…

Written for the prompt ‘charm’ for @steddiemicrofic

548 words / rated T / first kiss

The first time Steve thinks about kissing Eddie, he doesn’t do anything.

It’s the perfect setting— starry night at the quarry, sitting on the hood of Steve’s car, sharing beers —and there’s electricity in the air, a tugging below Steve’s ribs, drawing him toward Eddie, making his heart beat fast. But when he leans on one hand, turning to Eddie, he just…stops. And stares. Like an idiot.

It’s just… It was an automatic response, until, for once, his brain caught up, and he realized he was about to kiss Eddie. What the hell? Since when does he nearly kiss a guy? Does he… He wants to though. Which… Okay.

“Earth to Harrington.” Eddie waves his hand in front of Steve’s face.

“Huh?”

“You’re staring.”

“Yeah, well”— Steve shifts away, looking back out across the quarry —“you stare all the time, so…”

“Who wouldn’t want to stare at your adorable face?” Eddie leans in, hot against Steve’s side, and pinches his cheek.

“Fuck off.” Steve shoulders Eddie away, but the distance only lasts a moment before they come back together like a pair of magnets.

The second time Steve thinks about it, he’s decided he’s fine with kissing a guy, especially if that guy is Eddie. Because Eddie is funny and hot and being near him makes Steve feel better and his lips are pretty and Steve is almost certain they’d feel really fucking good against his.

If it means something about him that he didn’t know before then, whatever. He can think about that later. Right now, they’re talking cars in Steve’s room and he’s thinking about kissing Eddie, and any second now he’s going to stop thinking and just do it.

But when he reaches out, fingers skimming Eddie’s jaw, Eddie freezes. His brow furrows and, oh, fuck. Steve can’t stand the rejection, not from Eddie, not when he’s just decided he’s okay with wanting this, so he says, “You had something…” He rubs roughly at Eddie’s face with his thumb. “It’s gone,” he murmurs and then, “I have to piss,” and when he gets back from the bathroom, Eddie’s gone.

The third time, Steve doesn’t think about it. He’s put it firmly in the ‘not thinking about it’ box in his mind. (And if he’s opened the box to take a peek once or twice or three hundred times, it’s in his mind. Only he knows.)

But Eddie doesn’t know it’s in the not thinking about it box, which is also the not talking about it box. Because the next time he sees Steve, he blurts, “Were you going to kiss me the other day?”

“What, no? Why— That would be crazy.” Steve crosses his arms over his chest. “Weird.”

“Yeah.” Eddie frowns. “I guess …”

Steve’s hands tingle. “Wouldn’t it?”

A beat and then: “No.”

“Right.” Steve blinks. “Okay.” And then he kisses Eddie. Deeply. And, oh, his lips do feel really fucking good against Steve’s. “Wait, why did you leave the other day?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Eddie says, “I’m not going anywhere now,” and he kisses Steve again and again and again.

Fuck, Steve is never going to stop thinking about kissing Eddie now.

And, oh, yeah, third time? Totally the charm. (And the fourth and fifth and sixth and, well, Steve eventually loses count.)