@steddie-week day 2: fluff | 1.8k words | teen and up
The door to the apartment slammed shut, followed by the jingle-clang of keys landing in the ceramic bowl Robin had made for Steve two years ago.
"Babe?" Steve looked up from the magazine he'd been flipping through and frowned at the stormy expression on Eddie's face.
Eddie barely acknowledged him, just swept past with stomping feet, dropping an absentminded kiss to the top of Steve's head as he made his way into the bedroom. A few moments later Steve heard the telltale thunk and flop of Eddie's bag hitting the ground and the man himself hitting their bed.
Ah, so one of those days.
Steve set down his magazine, folded his reading glasses neatly atop it, and pushed himself up from the couch to make for the bathroom.
~*~*~*~
Eddie wanted to die. Nope, no, he wanted to commit a homicide.
Actually, scratch that, being wanted for murder sucked.
What he wanted was for the world not to be full of a bunch of entitled little shitsacks who had never been taught how to talk to another human being who didn't have a white collar around their neck.
At least his bed was there to support him. The mattress was a little lumpy, sure, but nothing could outmatch the satisfaction of dramatically flinging oneself onto a flat surface after a shity day at work.
The sound of running bath water filtered into Eddie's awareness.
Okay, maybe one thing.
Steve usually allowed him a few minutes to sulk and brood when he got home feeling like shit. Sometimes interacting with any human (even someone he would literally—and nearly did—die for) was just too much.
"Eds?"
"Mmph." Eddie spit some of the hair that had landed in his mouth out, but didn't bother to raise his head more than half an inch off the bed to do so.
Steve chuckled. "Okay, five more minutes—otherwise the water will get too cold. I'm gonna go make us some tea."
Eddie raised an arm and waved vaguely in the direction of Steve's voice in acknowledgement.
He let himself drift for his five minutes to the sound of Steve puttering around the kitchen—grabbing mugs, teabags, the sugar jar—before peeling himself up off the bed when the shrill whistle of the kettle pierced through the relative silence of the apartment. If he wasn't in the bath by the time Steve made it there he'd be in trouble. Which could be fun, but it wasn't what he was in the mood for today.
Eddie stripped off his—itchy, sweaty, suffocating—uniform as he padded over to the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothes behind him as he went.
~*~*~*~
Steve waltzed back into the bathroom with two steaming mugs in his hand to find Eddie already situated in the tub, knees pulled up under his chin, hair piled up in a messy bun, and one hand dragging lazily across the surface of the water.
Steve set both mugs down on the ground next to the bath. "Hey, baby," he murmured, pressing a kiss to his boyfriend’s temple.
"Hi." Eddie's voice was low and subdued.
“Bad day?” Steve asked as he pulled his shirt up and over his head.
Eddie shrugged. “You could say that.”
“Wanna talk about it?” Steve shucked off his jeans.
Eddie shook his head. “Not much to talk about.”
“Okay.” Steve folded his clothes, set them in a neat stack atop the closed toilet lid, and carefully lowered himself into the bath behind Eddie.
The water was just a touch too hot for his own comfort, but Eddie ran cold and preferred his baths on the scalding warmer side. (Shared showers were a trial. Eddie insisted that Steve was trying to murder him with frostbite. Steve maintained that Eddie was trying to boil the both of them alive.)
Some of the tension had already bled out just from being in the bath. Eddie’s shoulders were no longer curled up around his ears—instead, he was slouched forward into the water.
Steve wrapped his arms around Eddie’s waist and pressed a kiss to the patchy birthmark high up on his back, smiling when Eddie responded with a humming little sigh. “Wash my hair?” he asked.
“Sure thing, Eds.”
Steve reached over to grab the shampoo and tiny bucket they left in the shower just for this. “Wanna drink some of your tea before I douse you?”
Eddie didn’t say anything, but reached out blindly to grab one of the steaming mugs next to the tub. Steve didn’t bother holding back a snort that he’d managed to grab the “Don’t Bother Me, I’m Crabby” mug they’d nicked from Wayne.
Eddie took a slow sip of the tea, and the second he’d set it back down and straightened back up, Steve dumped a bucket of warm water over his head.
Eddie spluttered. “Babe, what the fuck!”
Steve snickered from behind him. “Just wanted to make sure you were here on earth with me, bedhead.”
Eddie shook his head like a rain-soaked dog. “You could have at least taken out the ponytail first!”
“I suppose I could have,” Steve said, lips twitching up into a smile as he reached up to start pulling Eddie’s dark curls from where they’d gotten tangled in the hair tie. “I got you talking again in something other than a monotone, though.”
“Maybe I was enjoying playing the dark, broody hero.”
Steve pinched Eddie’s side, which resulted in a high-pitched squeak, and a wild flail that had water splashing up around them. "Behave," Steve chastised—though the warning was undercut by the laugh of unconcealed delight he barked out as Eddie’s arms swung around him.
"You're the one assaulting me in my time of suffering!"
"Suck it up, buttercup,” Steve shot back, combing his fingers through wet curls and gently detangling each and every knot he ran into. He couldn't help but rub the silky-soft strands between his fingers as he went. Steve's own day had been slow and uneventful, but a quiet sort of unease had been hovering at the edges for hours. Drawing Eddie a bath and settling in behind him to wash his hair helped settle Steve back into his body just as much as it did for Eddie.
Steve began working shampoo into Eddie's roots, massaging his fingers into his scalp, and Eddie's head tipped back as he let out a pleased hum that sounded almost like a purr. "Love your fingers in my hair, Stevie," he mumbled, sounding a bit hazy.
"Yeah? Is that the only place you like my fingers?" Steve asked, right into Eddie's ear.
Eddie scrambled back upright and turned to face Steve with an alarmed expression on his face. "No! Why would you think that? Did I say something to make you think that? Please, I’m so sorry, baby. Please know that I love your fingers anywhere on me. Or in me. What if they went somewhere else right now?"
Steve laughed, grabbing Eddie's shoulder to turn him back around with one hand, and dipping the bucket back into the water to rinse the suds out of Eddie's hair with the other. When Steve was sure he'd thoroughly rinsed Eddie's hair he leaned past him to grab the conditioner and whisper in his ear, "You can get them somewhere else a little later if you're good for me, baby," before leaning back and clicking the bottle open.
"I'll be so good for you, Stevie. Just tell me what I gotta do."
"Keep still and don't sass me for the next five minutes."
Eddie's mouth opened and then immediately snapped back shut as he clearly decided that whatever his response to that was gonna be probably qualified as "sass."
"Good boy," Steve said simply, dropping another kiss to Eddie's back.
"I can be good when I wanna be," Eddie grumbled.
"Careful," Steve shot back, gently chiding. He methodically worked the conditioner through Eddie's hair in sections, tugging gently as he did, just for the soft satisfaction that ran through him every time Eddie let out a soft gasp in response to it.
"Always careful, Stevie," Eddie mumbled back, eyes fluttering shut.
Steve reached down to brush one hand over the scars running down Eddie's side. "Not always," he whispered, just a little sadly, as he pressed a firm kiss to the mostly-faded ring of scars at his throat.
"Mm, don't be sad, baby."
"Not sad. Just glad you're alive."
Eddie was quiet for a stretch, and Steve chuckled.
"What? What were you gonna say, asshole?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, love," Eddie replied, all faux innocence.
"You were gonna say something sassy just then, that's why you went all quiet. So, out with it, come on. How were you gonna sass me in response to me saying I'm glad you're alive?"
"Promise you won't hold it against me?"
"Yeah, baby." Steve leaned over to press a kiss to Eddie’s nose. "This one's a freebie."
Eddie looked over his shoulder with a wide grin, and a twinkle in his eye. "I was gonna call you a sap."
Steve rolled his eyes. "Oh, well, fuck me for being happy my boyfriend's alive I guess."
"I was actually hoping that you would fuck me," Eddie replied.
"You're pushing your luck, Eds," Steve warned, yanking lightly at his hair.
"Sorry, baby."
Steve ran his hands up and down the sides of Eddie's arms. "All forgiven, Eds."
Steve let his hands drift as he waited for the conditioner to rest—digging his fingers into the dense coils of muscle in Eddie's neck, smoothing his palms down the ridges of Eddie's spine, ghosting his hands up Eddie's sides. When time was up, he grabbed the bucket, turned on the tap to fill it with clean, warm water, and spilled it over Eddie’s head. Steve combed his fingers through the chestnut locks again, making sure he’d thoroughly rinsed them once more. The two of them fell still and silent, like two little stones in the river bed.
Steve loved this. The quiet trance they fell into, as Eddie relaxed into the water, and Steve pressed kisses into his lover’s skin, and they both forgot the mugs of tea that Steve made.
Steve separated Eddie’s hair into even sections, savoring the feeling of freshly cleaned locks passing through his fingers as he wove the strands together—over-under, over-under, over-under—and plaited Eddie’s hair down the length of his back. When he was done, he flipped the end of the braid back over Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie leaned further into him, pressing the length of his back against Steve’s chest.
Steve let his hands start wandering, and Eddie let out a soft gasp of surprise when the pads of Steve's thumbs brushed over both nipples. "Steve."
"Shh, I got you baby," Steve murmured, and let one hand drop down to where Eddie was stiffening up beneath the water.
"I know you do, Stevie," Eddie whispered back on a sigh and a gasp. "I know you do."
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Man this is so random but this theory is stuck in my head and I wanna see how other people feel about it because I don't see people talk about it a lot (I have no clue if the link will go through properly since I've never put a link in a ask box)
https://www.tumblr.com/art-w0rm/667910993425350656/theory-time
Oh god not this theory again. I really truly try not to be mean to people for no good reason on this blog, but this theory is literally one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever seen in my entire life. I don't talk about this theory because to me it's like the walten files theory equivalent of that tubby custard mechanically separated chicken post.
Most of the time I genuinely don't even consider it worthy of my time, because it's nonsense, but this is a very nicely worded ask, and I really don't mean to dedicate any of the vitriol I hold towards this theory to You, poor anonymous person, so I will deconstruct it. I will go through the theory point-by-point and deconstruct why I disagree with it.
First up, this:
Showbear is not a character in The Walten Files anymore. Showbear was fully retconned and is never going to appear in the series again. He was effectively just a cameo of ThunderingStatic's (one of Martin's friends) OC, but when The Walten Files blew up and people started assuming Showbear was Martin's character, Static decided to withdraw his character from the series and focus putting him in other projects.
Martin talked about this on Twitter forever ago, but I wouldn't be able to find that tweet now. But here's a bit from the interview he did with KnowYourMeme back in 2021 where he talks about it:
Now this:
This is just stupid to me? Like a complete logical incongruity? I barely even know how describe what is dumb about this because I can't even fathom how anyone draws this conclusion from this information. How is it strange for a man to say 'if my wife isn't home by the time she said she was going to be, let me know, in case something happened.'????? Why would Rosemary be out cheating on her husband with her fucking daughter with her??? If Rosemary was cheating on her husband why would her whole life collapse when he went missing? If Rosemary was cheating on her husband why would she show up at the restaurant every day after he disappeared asking if anyone had seen him and hoping to find him alive??? Why would she make paintings of herself and him together after he disappeared????? What the fuck are you talking about?
Ok now this:
Whatever. This is maybe the most coherent part of the theory, to me. I definitely agree that Sha evokes a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' sort of aesthetic, but I do remember Martin saying something in a Twitter Q&A at one point about how that wasn't actually intentional, and that Bon was the character he actually meant to seem unusually predatory. I looked for a while and couldn't find a screenshot of that, but I did find this one where he says the thing about Bon:
So whatever. take that with a grain of salt.
I don't even know what to say. here. Whatever. sure she was rolling in the hay
yeah Rosemary is asking if she's still beautiful because she cheated on her husband and not because she was chopped up and stuffed inside a big animatronic sheep. I think this is correct and is the True Deep Lore.of the walten files. I'm sure this doesn't have anything to do with the recurring motif of the double-meaning behind the word Beautiful either.
I don't know why it's weird that the lost lingering spirit of a mother would be calling out to her only living child. I Don't know why that needs additional explanation involving this batshit infidelity conspiracy theory.
Sha's chest is also ripped out
So is Banny's, honestly? Just a little less?
ok now this:
I guess I can't disprove this except that I think this is dumb. I think this is a really incredibly stupid logical leap to make. Y'know I really meant to go into this levelheadedly and very calmly go through every point and talk about why I think it's Decisively Disagreeable or whatever but I can't. I really can't. I just cannot keep my patience with this sort of thing.
You'd think if there was an infidelity aspect here it would've been lampshaded in some respect, at all, in the old /sophiewalten findjackwalten page text. Where it's literally Sophie talking to Jenny about what she remembers about her family.
Especially if the idea is that Sophie is meant to have been there. You'd think something like that would have come up here. Not 'she was nice and a good mom until my dad disappeared and her mental health started getting worse'
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