#but yeah eddie himself is totally a possibility

[lover-of-mine]

just had an ‘oh shiiiiit’ moment bc what if it isn’t chris who gets hurt playing basketball but actually eddie? looking at the script again from a different perspective, instead of maddie reassuring buck it could be maddie misunderstanding what happened

“it was an accident, [_] knows you didn’t do it on purpose”

‘buck doesn’t say anything’

“evan. you didn’t do it on purpose did you?”

to me that could read like maddie realising like “wait, DID he??” especially bc he says nothing after she first ‘reassures’ him, kinda gives off guilty vibes

maybe buck and eddie argue and buck lashes out and eddie gets hurt? not seriously obviously, just like pushed over and sprains his wrist or something and that’s why buck ‘hasn’t really talked to him’

🤯

Dude, I've been thinking about this but I haven't felt like actually saying anything because people can be mean lol, so I'm so with you on this. He could have very much hurt Eddie. Even more with the tendency this show has of putting buddie in situations in places we will never see again (the fountain, the equine therapy place, the graveyard) so a basketball court could absolutely fit that pattern, and like, things are rocky between them, is very easy to give that impression considering where they are on the season finale, and you take freshly broken up with Buck (if the Natalia is not coming back thing is true) and you create some sort of tension between the two, to have Buck react and do something dumb, and accidentally hurt Eddie, makes sense. Like push him too hard on a play, or throw a ball he would trip on, something that's an accident but could not be if Buck analyzes it enough. And it's really easy to get hurt on a basketball court, I played for like, 7 years, and dude, the dumb ways I hurt myself are ridiculous lol, so like, it could be Eddie and Buck is scared of his reaction. Chris is the easiest to assume, and easiest to hurt, a ball to his crutches and he sprains his ankle or something, but Eddie himself is very much still a possibility. And Eddie dismissing Buck if he tried to help makes more sense than Buck leaving a hurt Chris behind. Unless the situation involves the 3 of them and Eddie is gonna go full overprotective dad because initially it seems worse than it is, let's say there's a moment they think Chris actually broke a bone or something, that lashing out is a reaction we've seen from Eddie before, fear is a powerful things, so even if Eddie doesn't react towards him because he's worring about Chris, Buck assuming Eddie is mad at him could be based on some logic. Also Eddie getting hurt and just saying I'm fine, I'm gonna go home and ice it, and Buck absolutely spiraling that Eddie hates him now is super on brand for Buck.

[plistommy]

Steve’s known to be very good at charming girls.

He’s used to making them blush and giggle at his sweet words. Used to them giving him the bedroom eyes as their delicate hands slowly moved up his arm, squeezing the muscle there while begging for him to take them to his room and fuck them.

He never left them unsatisfied.

So, it wasn’t any different when he used the same technique on Eddie.

They had been sitting on his couch, a movie playing in the background when Steve had finally made the first move after months of them tiptoeing around each other and their feelings.

He’d made the older boy laugh at his dumb jokes before he had scooted closer, slowly moving his arm to rest on the back of the couch, very close to the Eddie’s shoulder and then… he had leaned in.

And Eddie had responded so well.

He kissed Steve back with the same type of desperation, arms finding their way around Steve’s waist and Steve felt like he was buzzing with excitement as he deepened the kiss, softly caressing the back of Eddie’s neck.

”Let’s go upstairs,” He had said, voice deep and low and it had made Eddie moan.

When they got to his room, Steve was all but ready to push Eddie to his bed and make him stay there looking all pretty while Steve did all the work.

But instead, he felt Eddie pushing him towards the bed and soon he was the one laying there, big brown eyes looking up as Eddie came to lay between his spread legs with a wide grin. He grinded down on him, making their clothed dicks brush against each other and Steve let out a soft moan out of surprise.

It was a total switch up from the nervous Eddie from earlier and it had made Steve feel many, many things as the older boy started to kiss his neck.

Steve had to bite back a moan when he had licked his pulse, but Eddie wasn’t having any of that, apparently.

”C’mon, let me hear the real you, sweetheart.”

Steve hadn’t known what he had meant by that. Wasn’t this the real him?

When he has had sex before, he’d always focus on his partner and their pleasure over his as he’d try to make them as loud as possible when they cum. That’s what he does and what he loves.

But once Eddie was cock deep inside Steve’s tight heat, holding onto him and praising him of being such a good boy and the most gorgeous creature he’s ever laid his eyes on, Steve couldn’t help the way he whined.

Couldn’t help how he moaned with every thrust his lover was giving him. How he begged for more as he held onto Eddie’s shoulders and cried when Eddie answered to his pleas and fucked him harder.

How he came untouched for the very first time.

After that, when they were laying in his bed, both sweaty and panting from the sex, Steve realized he’d been so so wrong about himself and the sex he loved.

It made him a little irritated how much he had held back his own pleasure.

So, it hadn’t taken long until he was already up for a second round, riding Eddie with earnestness as he took control of the pace this time, listening to his own body and the things it liked. The things it needed.

Which was the way Eddie’s dick felt inside him. How full it made him feel and how it always hit that spot inside him that made his whole body tingle.

Yeah.

Steve was never coming back from this.

[sofiiel]

Eddie would buy a new mattress, hint at you suggestively about breaking it in and when you come out of the bathroom after preparing yourself, he is aggressively jumping on the bed, giggling.

He looks over at you absolutely confused as to why you have put on your sexy underwear.

Until it dawns on him there was a miscommunication on what he meant vs what you thought, and he just flops down like a sack of rocks, desperately trying to unclothe himself as fast as possible.

"No, yeah, That's totally what I meant. I was just, uh, loosening up the bed springs. Testing for squeakage and....yeah." ← out of breath Eddie trying to catch a second wind.

[hawkinsbnbg]

cherry on top

Prompt: top | Word count: 510 | Rated: E | Tags: dry humping (just a bit), grinding (on the dance floor), mutual pining, modern setting | @steddiemicrofic | ao3

Eddie thought he was going to die.

Because seriously, Steve and crop tops? A killer combo.

And here, in a Metallica crop top and snug jeans, Steve was bopping on the dance floor, so carefree and sexy that it drove Eddie up the wall.

Nope, he wasn't annoyed when some guys sidled up to grind against Steve like animals.

Just… Jesus H. Christ.

When the fuck did Steve get a belly piercing?

With a thumbs up from Gareth, Eddie inhaled deeply and sauntered to the dance floor as confidently as possible.

“Hey,” Steve smiled over his shoulder.

Pretty.

Eddie wanted to lick him. Or kiss him.

“Hey yourself,” Eddie smiled back and put his hands on the waistband of Steve's jeans. “May I dance with you?”

It sounded utterly ridiculous. Like they were in prom and not in the middle of a gay bar with music blasting their ears off.

Despite that, Steve still pressed his back to Eddie's chest and guided Eddie's hands up to grab his naked waist.

“Thought you'd never ask.”

Eddie couldn't say anything. Because his brain had short-circuited by the soft and sweaty skin beneath his fingertips.

His hands couldn't help but wander, scratching lightly at the happy trail and earning a soft chuckle from Steve.

“Where did this come from?” Eddie toyed with the rhinestone cherry dangling just below Steve's navel.

“Robin took me to Chicago on my birthday and we got this together,” Steve answered easily while swaying to the music, grinding his ass against Eddie’s clothed half-boner.

If God was real, then she was Robin Buckley. Eddie fucking decided.

Tightening his grip on Steve's waist, he grazed his teeth on Steve's pulse point. “It suits you, sweetheart.”

“Yeah?” Steve moaned and craned his neck aside. “There's also a rose gold one on my left nipple.”

Eddie checked immediately and true to Steve's word, he found it beneath the thin fabric.

Fuck.

He pulled Steve out of the bar and moments later, he found himself kissing the daylights out of Steve in his bed.

Once they parted, Eddie was pushed onto his back with Steve straddling him.

“Hi,” Steve smiled down at him, hips undulating artfully and driving Eddie crazy.

“Baby,” he choked, grabbing and pulling Steve down on his aching cock.

“Shh,” Steve stroked his cheek gently. “Let me make you feel good, okay?”

Eddie nodded and when Steve moved again, slow and sultry, he was a goner.

It was embarrassing how fast he came, but he couldn't care less when Steve looked so beautiful above him. Like an angel.

“Let's date,” Eddie blurted out sometime later while they were cuddling.

“You're not joking?” Steve arched an eyebrow.

“No,” Eddie shook his head. “I mean you're beautiful and totally out of my league but–”

His rambling was cut short by tender lips.

“You’re lucky you're cute,” Steve smiled between the kiss. “Just treat me right and I’ll be all yours, honey.”

And since Eddie lived to serve, he had spent the rest of his life giving his baby everything, including his heart.

[starkidmunson]

glitter & crimson

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Realistically, Steve knows the band won’t hang around Chicago forever. He knows they’re out promoting a new album; knows they’ll have to move on and that Eddie has to go with them. It doesn’t stop him from wanting Eddie to stay; to live in the quick familiarity he’s built within Steve’s little found family.

Eddie and Robin seem to have already created their own secret language, all gestures and movement and eye contact Steve picks up on but can’t quite read. He’s already picking on the Party like he’s known them their whole lives; ruffling Dustin’s hair, elbowing Mike, throwing his arm around Will’s shoulders, and giving Lucas little shoves. 

It’s easy; so easy to get caught up in how charismatic Eddie is. Steve has a hard time keeping his eyes off him, and Eddie knows. He keeps making comments, throwing winks in Steve’s direction, seeing right through every wall he’s ever built around himself and Steve is caught between being obsessed with it and terrified. 

He stops drinking after the one beer, worried he’ll make things weird if he gets anywhere near tipsy, opting to stay as far away from the possibility as he can. If anyone notices, they don’t comment.

Lucas is chatting animatedly with Jeff, Max sitting close by, twisting braids into El’s hair. Dustin, Mike and Will appear to be grilling Gareth and Freak about dungeon and dragon campaigns Eddie used to run. Nancy has her arm looped through Robin’s, but her attention is on the phone in her hands, as Eddie and Robin talk about what touring is like.

“Where else are you going on this tour?” She asks as Steve tunes back into the conversation.

“This isn’t really a tour, we just haven’t been on the road in a while and we just stopped the album, so we lined up a few shows to get our feet wet before we hit the road for real this summer. One more show out in LA on Tuesday, then we’re done until May, for now.” Eddie explains.

“We’re in LA on Thursday!” Robin exclaims, and Steve’s stomach drops because, yeah. LA on Thursday. He trains his eyes on the glass in front of him, not willing to actually look at anyone they’re around. 

“We could totally meet up again if you guys are able to swing it?” Freak offers, and Steve forces a little smile onto his face and nods.

“We can figure it out later,” Eddie says after a few beats, and Steve is grateful for how the conversation rolls onto the next topic. When he finally looks back up, though, Eddie’s still looking his way. Steve hits him with what he hopes comes off as a reassuring smile, but it doesn’t seem to pay off the way he hopes.

Once the tab is closed and the staff is tipped well, Steve catches Eddie’s elbow on their way out the door. “I would like to meet up in LA, if you’re interested. I didn’t mean to get weird about it, it’s… I’ve been in my head a bit about that game since it was announced.”

“Oh, hey, no worries. We’re in LA the whole week, then we’re heading home. So no pressure, honest.” Eddie hooks his hand over Steve’s softly.

“Well, we should get in Wednesday, but we could totally do something after the game or even Friday?” 

Eddie smiles and nods, patting over Steve’s hand. “Text me about it.”

“I can do that. How much longer are you guys in town for, anyway?” Steve asks.

“Ah, the dreaded question comes,” Eddie’s playful, and it makes Steve’s face heat up. “We’ve got just under another 24 hours in the Windy City before hitting the road again.”

“Oh,” It pulls his chest in a way he wasn’t expecting, in a way that shouldn’t be happening for a rockstar he was adjacently aware of in high school. “Are you busy tomorrow?”

“Harrington,” Eddie’s teasing again, and it does nothing to help the blush on Steve’s face. “You can’t possibly miss me this much when I haven’t even left yet.”

“Shut up,” Steve shoves him away then, crossing his arms over his chest with a pout, only for Eddie to pull him in with an arm around the shoulder.

“We can grab brunch or something? We leave around 8 to avoid rush hour, so I’ll have to be in the bus by 6, or I’d say dinner.”

“Brunch works for me.” 

~~~~

The trip back to the hotel doesn’t go as Eddie expects; everyone is silently chatting amongst themselves, nodding and tapping along to the music and not causing a scene. He almost points it out, but elects not to bring unwarranted bullying upon himself instead. The guys had been giving him shit about Steve near constantly, so this was a nice change of pace after the last few days.

There was actually quiet as he made his way back to his room. A hot shower finally restored warmth to his bones the hockey arena had stolen, and he was drying his hair when he heard his phone vibrate with a text notification.

Steve: anything you're craving for brunch tomorrow so I can pick a place?

It’s practically too easy to flirt with Steve; he sets up lines without even seeming to realize. But Eddie still can’t get a real gauge on how Steve feels about the flirting, so he sidesteps the easy pass he could have made about Steve being enough of a meal, in favor of actually answering.

Eddie: French toast?

The next series of texts come before Eddie even moves his hands back to the towel over his hair.

Steve: sick, I’ll pick you up around 10:45

Steve: you mentioned going home, did you mean like, back to Hawkins?

Eddie twists his hair up in the towel, and lays down on the side of the bed he doesn’t sleep on before firing off an answer.

Eddie: nah, I’ve got a place in Nashville and no reason to go back to Hawkins anymore. My uncle moved to Indy, so that’s usually as close as I get.

Steve: any reason you moved to Nashville?

Eddie: are we playing 20 questions?

Steve: sorry.

Eddie bites his lip, and only hesitates for a moment before flipping over onto his belly and hitting the FaceTime button. Steve answers on the second ring, looking embarrassed, but Eddie doesn’t let him get a word in.

“My mom was born and raised in Memphis, but she always told me her favorite city was Nashville. I was there with her a few times when I was little and she’d just, like, light up. And music is so heavily engraved into every inch of the city, it’s hard to not find inspiration everywhere you turn. So. I bought a place in Nashville the minute I had enough saved up, and it’s kind of my home base now.” Eddie explains, watching as Steve’s face softens and he relaxes into his chair listening to Eddie’s answer. “Do I get to ask a question now?”

“I really wasn’t trying to be annoying, “ Steve looks ready to keep going with an apology, but Eddie cuts him off.

“Why do you play hockey?” It stops Steve dead in his tracks, and he genuinely looks confused for a moment. Eddie almost offers to drop the topic, but Steve fumbles his way into an answer.

“My, uh. My dad wanted me to play before I was even born. Because he played. Professionally for a few years when I was growing up, then he went on to coach.” Steve explains, and it sounds a little rehearsed. Eddie’s sure it’s something that comes up often if his father played and coached. “Gotta keep the Harrington legacy alive, I guess.”

There was a bite to Steve’s words that wasn’t lost on Eddie. “You don’t sound too thrilled about it.”

Eddie can see Steve working over how he wants to answer before he shrugs and sighs. “Because it’s all a show for him. The part we don’t talk about is how I got hurt and benched most of my senior season and he cut me off when I didn’t get full rides. Convinced me it was better to not go to college at all, despite the other scholarship offers, than to not get promised a spot on the ice. Convinced me to self-sabotage so I had to fight tooth and fucking nail to get into the league at all.” Steve pauses, then, and lets out a quiet laugh. “Sorry, that’s so unbelievably whiny of me. I love getting to play professionally, and I don’t take the opportunity for granted.”

“Not whiny. Dads can be the fucking worst.” Eddie offers, gently, and is grateful when Steve doesn't press on that particular bruise.

Instead, he takes his turn to ask a different question. “Why music?”

“This is lame, but the answer is once again my mom.” Eddie rolls his eyes at himself, but he smiles. “She was a musician. There were always instruments around and music was always playing and we traveled for her to perform. I knew my whole life I wanted to be a musician like her, but it wasn’t until after she died that I figured out that songwriting… telling stories and painting pictures with words and melodies and making people feel something…” Eddie trails off, lost in the thought.

“I’m sorry you lost her. It sounds like you enjoyed your childhood with her.” Steve offers, hopes it doesn’t sound like a forced nicety, but Eddie smiles and his nerves ease.

“She was a force to be reckoned with. Firing on all cylinders at once, chaos and home bundled into one.” Eddie’s soft a quiet for a moment, and Steve appreciates the silence by taking in how relaxed the other is to be talking about his feelings; it’s a refreshing break from many of his experiences with teammates or opponents who don’t know how to get emotional in a healthy way. Eventually, though, Eddie clears his throat. “Anyway. Back to 20 questions,”

“I wasn’t trying to start a game, really, I just… like talking to you,” Steve admits around a blush, tucking his chin into the collar of his shirt in an effort to hide the shade of his cheeks, but Eddie’s smile says his cover is blown.

“ANYWAY!” He announces louder, then taps at his chin. “Favorite and least favorite teams to play and why, go.”

“I’m not a dog.” Steve laughs but thinks about his answer anyway. “Favorite is probably the Flyers in Philly. Their fans are absolutely brutal, and their mascot is hilariously terrifying.”

“I have seen many a Gritty TikTok, so I completely understand,” Eddie gives him a few beats before he prompts. “Least favorite?”

“The Kings. LA. Billy Hargrove.”

“The…, what the fuck? How many guys from Hawkins are professional hockey players?” Eddie asks, because honestly, how had he not known there was more than Steve?

“He’s technically from LA, which is why he went back, thank God.” Steve mumbles, before dropping his head back against the wall behind him. “But, for whatever it’s worth, there’s me, Billy, and Tommy Hagan in the league.”

“Well isn’t that a fun bunch to surround yourself with,” Eddie muses out loud. Tommy and Billy were two of the biggest assholes Eddie had ever met, and it sounded like Steve wasn’t too fond of the other pair either.

“I actually…” Steve trails off, before trying again. “I was going to invite you guys to come to the LA game, but I’m really not sure it would be a good idea, so I’m… I’m actually going to ask you guys not to come, if that’s not too much of a dick move? I can get you tickets to literally any game you want for the rest of the season, just. I don’t think it’s worth it to get Billy started, and if he’s heard any of the press about us, I’m already going to hear it even if you’re not there.”

“Homophobe extraordinaire still, then?” Eddie guesses, and Steve chokes out a laugh, before covering his mouth and holding up a finger to ask for a moment to compose himself.

“He's… a lot of things.” Is the response Steve opts for, but Eddie can tell there’s more there. Whatever the two of them are doing, it doesn’t feel like Steve is ready to elaborate, so Eddie moves on. 

“I think it’s your turn.”

~~~~

Nothing changes after Corroded Coffin leave Chicago, though. Not in the ways Eddie had expected, at least.

Steve still texts him throughout the day, answers his Facetimes whenever he’s available. Eddie makes him the playlist he promised, and Steve gives feedback on which songs he likes and which ones he really doesn’t, after Eddie promises to not take Steve’s opinions personally. Which, to be fair, he tries really hard not to.

The concert in LA comes and goes, and Steve seems to send him every TikTok he comes across from the show. It’s a refreshing break, as every few videos in Eddie’s feed are of him cheering for Steve at the game, or Steve watching from sidestage in Chicago. 

A text from Robin eventually confirms their arrival in LA, and Steve and Eddie make plans to meet up after the game. Since Steve had expressed concern about Eddie going, he decides to just watch from the bar they agree to meet at. Televised games make it easier to track the puck, but Eddie decides he likes being there in person better.

Eddie’s sipping absently on his beer and in the time it takes him to look down at a text from Chrissy, several of the people around him react to something. Eddie looks around to make sure someone in the bar hadn’t passed out. When he looks back at the screen, absolute mayhem has broken out on the ice. The refs are trying to separate players from one another, and Eddie’s scanning through the numbers on each Blackhawks jerseys before he finally spots Steve, slightly off to the side from everyone else. The camera pans away from him, zeroing in on the fight, now between a Blackhawks defenseman and none other than Billy Hargrove. 

Billy’s helmet and gloves are off, teeth shining with blood as he grins like a psycho and starts to skate in Steve’s direction. One of the refs pulls him back, though, escorting him into the penalty box while another Kings player gathers his helmet, stick and gloves and clears them to the bench. 

The camera finally pans back to Steve, who is now sitting with his back against the boards. He’s got a gloved covering the lower half of his face, but his white jersey is covered in blood. A ref and the Blackhawks goalie are kneeling on either side of him as someone else speaks with him. The camera zooms in as the TV crews work to make out what is happening, just in time for Steve to lower his hand and shows off a gnarly gash along the side of his face. He leans forward a little and spits out blood onto the ice, and the TV jumps to the announcers in the booth. 

The volume is off, but they show a slow-motion replay of the few moments Eddie’d missed; Steve passes the puck off to another player on his team, just before Billy slams into his side. The impact sends both of them into the boards and down onto the ice. Billy swings his stick around and cracks Steve in the face with the blade heel. Steve reacts, throwing his whole arm into Billy’s face, before a sea of white Blackhawks jerseys sweep in and suddenly Billy’s a few feet away, with players from both teams piled up.

Eddie’s hand hovers over his phone; has no idea what to do in this situation. Texting Steve is useless; it would likely be hours, if not days, before he even thinks about looking at his phone. He doesn’t want to bother anyone, but he’s… well, he’s stressed. Even if Steve isn’t interested in him the way Eddie’s interested in Steve, they’ve still built a weird little friendship and that was an awful lot of blood.

So, Eddie ends up firing off a text to Robin. It’s just a simple 'let me know if there’s anything I can do,' but his phone lights up with a call immediately.

“How bad is it?”

“I’m not back with him yet, but just… meet us at the hospital, if you can?” She asks. While her voice waivers a bit, she’s calmer than Eddie expected her to be.

“I’ll be right there.” He agrees, hangs up and exits the bar before the game even returns from commercial break.

[boyfriendstevie]

lavender haze

unable to sleep, and having to share a bed with steve isn't exactly ideal, especially when you're in love with him... and you're not sure if he feels the same way | 4.2k, f!reader, friends to lovers, there's only one bed!!!, lots of feelings and fluff, fingering, unprotected piv | 18+ only!!! mdni!!!

You’ve been awake for hours. Days, even. Okay, that’s not physically possible, but that’s what it feels like, lying awake on your side, staring at the wall. You can feel Steve’s warmth behind you, and you know if you scoot back even a few inches, your back will be against his. In a cruel twist of fate, you’ve ended up in the same bed as your friend and not-so-secret crush. This would be a perfect scene in a romcom, but this is your real life, and it’s pretty much agonizing. 

A sigh escapes your lips, a little louder than you mean to, and you grimace as Steve shifts slightly next to you, but he stays quiet. You hold your breath for a moment longer, and then shift onto your back, pulling the blankets up higher. You sigh again, staring up at the ceiling after you drag your hands down your face. It’s silent for another minute, and then suddenly, Steve’s speaking. His voice is just above a whisper, and yet it feels deafening in the silence of your room, “Can’t sleep?”

You shake your head against your pillow even though he can’t see it, and reply quietly, “Not at all. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you—“

Instead of replying, the bed creaks beside you as Steve turns over, too, flat on his back, “Nah, haven’t been able to sleep either.” The bed is small enough that his arm brushes yours now, warm and soft under the sheets. You glance over at him, eyes tracing the slope of his nose in the dark of the room.  

“‘M sorry,” you sigh, “didn’t realize there’d only be one bed, and—”

Steve’s quick to roll onto his side, facing you. He props himself up on his hand to get a better look at you as he shakes his head, “C’mon now, none of that, babe. ‘S not your fault, and I don’t mind. Could be worse. Could be sharing a room with Eddie. Ugh, or Dustin.”

You laugh a little at that, lips quirking up as you turn to look at Steve. Your breath catches in your throat when you realize just how close he is, his face only inches from yours in the small space. If you wanted, you could count all of his moles and freckles, every single one of his eyelashes. Somehow, you manage to breathe out, “Yeah?”

“Totally,” Steve nods seriously, “Neither of them are all that pretty, either. Well, Eddie’s got that hair and those big, brown, baby cow eyes, but I’ve got my eye on someone else.”

You want to laugh at his joke, but the last part doesn’t feel all that funny with the way he’s looking at you, eyes all soft. Your fingers play at the edge of the blanket, eyes darting back to the ceiling as you ask, “You do?”

“Mhm. Kinda why I can’t sleep. ‘S hard when they’re laying next to you but you can’t even touch them,” he’s quiet, voice laced with nerves in a way you’re not sure you’ve heard from him before. 

Your heartbeat quickens at his confession, and you glance over at him, eyes wide. You turn onto your side to face him, the space between you even smaller, and search his eyes. He seems serious. Genuine. It’s hard to believe that he might feel the same way you do, but you want him more than anything, so you whisper, “Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Kiss me? Ple—“

He leans in and cuts you off with a kiss, not needing to be asked twice. For as quickly as he reacts, it’s a gentle kiss. Soft, and definitely not hesitant, but shy. It’s even better than you imagined. He kisses you like he’s been waiting to do it forever, lips slotting against yours perfectly. His nose nudges into yours, and his hands creep towards you, one settling against the curve of your hip. 

Steve pulls away with a heavy breath, hands almost twitching at your sides as he looks at you, searching your face for an answer. His voice is quiet, like he’s worried if he speaks too loud he’ll ruin everything, “Can I… can I touch you? Y-you can say no, I’ll stop if you want, I just—“

You nod a bit too quickly, desperate to have him closer, “Please. You can touch me. However you want, I don’t mind.” Your admission — the implication behind it — has you flushed, and you want to hide, but he doesn’t give you a chance as one hand cradles your jaw, the other slipping just underneath the hem of your big sleep shirt. 

His hand is warm on your cheek, and he’s gentle with you as he tilts your chin up to meet his lips in another kiss. The kiss itself is a little less gentle, a little more purposeful as he nips at your bottom lip, pulling a gasp from you. The hand under your shirt feels even hotter than the one on your cheek, a searing warmth on your skin, curling over your side, pulling your chest to his. 

One of your hands presses into Steve’s chest as you kiss, the other finding its way to his hair. As his kisses move from your lips to your jaw, you tilt your head back and murmur, “You know, I’ve heard— oh— ‘ve heard orgasms help… help to fall asleep.”

“Yeah?” Steve asks, a quiet laugh muffled against your skin, “We could always try…”

“Yeah,” you breathe out, nodding quickly, your fingers twisting into the strands of his hair as he sucks a mark onto your delicate skin, “if you want—“

“Well, we both need the sleep…” he trails off again. You’re both being hesitant about it. You know that if you do this, things will probably change in your friendship, but you’re not sure you can find it in yourself to really care. You want him and you want him to know it, so you reach for the hand on your side and pull on his wrist until his palm is on your rib cage, just underneath your breast. 

Steve takes the hint and swears under his breath as he cups your breast, pinching and rolling your nipple between his fingers until it peaks under his touch. Your back arches, chest pushing into his as you let out a whiny breath. You can feel his smile against your neck as he murmurs, “Got such pretty tits, babe, fuck.”

“You… you can’t even see them,” you , even though you’re barely holding it together. 

“Can I see them?” he asks, only half joking. But you pull back anyway, watching as his eyes go wide as you tug your shirt over your head. Steve reaches out again to touch you, pressing a kiss to your collarbone, “Christ, baby. I was totally right. Prettiest tits ‘ve ever seen.”

You desperately hope he can’t tell how flustered you are from his praise, instead turning your attention to his own shirt, pushing the soft, worn hem up his torso, “Your turn, handsome.”

“Y’think ‘m handsome?” he asks, muffled as he pulls his shirt over his head, tossing it towards the end of the bed. 

“Is that not obvious?” you ask, giving him a pointed look as you as you scoot back in towards him, hips pressing to his as your hands roam up his sides. 

“N-not ‘til r-right now—“ Steve stutters at the feeling of your body against his, your hands on his chest, his hips rolling into yours. It pulls a quiet moan out of you, and he decides he can’t wait any more, finally pushing his hand down your tummy towards the waistband of your pajama shorts. He pauses, eyes flicking up to yours in the darkness until you nod. It’s all he needs to slip his hand into your panties. 

Steve groans as his fingers find your wetness, dipping between your folds to collect your slick, “Shit, babe. So wet for me. You do think I’m handsome, huh?”

Before you can answer his jest with your own teasing, Steve presses a finger inside of you, drawing a sharp whine from you as it curls. His are much thicker than your own, and longer, too. Your hands scramble to find purchase on something, anything, and settle for grasping at Steve’s shoulders, nails leaving half-moon shapes in his tanned skin. 

Your hips roll against Steve’s hand, silently begging for more, and he gives it to you without question, a second finger joining his first. There’s a dull ache as his fingers scissor apart inside of you, pressing deep in search of the spot that will make you fall apart. His fingers fuck in and out of you slowly, the dirty sound of your wetness muffled by the sheets and the soft noises you’re making, “Ah, Steve—“

“‘S good?” he asks quietly, seemingly a genuine question as his eyes search your face for an answer. 

He finds his answer when you nod emphatically, eyes screwed shut, and whine, “More. Please, need more.”

Steve’s thumb finds your clit after a moment, slow and deliberate circles that are driving you insane in the best way. It’s like he’s exploring your body more than anything, familiarizing himself with you, figuring out what you like. He manages to find the spot that makes you feel weak, and doubles down when your lips part with another choked moan. 

Somehow, he seems to know your body like the back of his hand. He knows just when you’re about to cum, and pulls his hand away, leaving your cunt clenching around nothing as you whine pathetically, “Steve!”

You can feel the tip of his nose rubbing against the skin just under your jaw, the curve of his lips against the pulse point on your neck, and you know he can probably feel the way your heart is beating wildly. He huffs a laugh, a small puff of air that makes goosebumps prickle your skin. It’s not a mean laugh, more so teasing, maybe a little sympathetic as he murmurs, “Sorry, sorry. Just— just want to be inside you. Can I?” 

“Oh, fuck— yes, yeah. Want you.”

Steve’s breath catches at that, like he hadn’t been expecting you to say yes, and scrambles backwards so he has enough room to remove his remaining clothes. He sucks in a breath hard as he stumbles over his next question, “Shit, really? I mean— I don’t have any condoms, I just— you can say no, I won’t—“

Before he can talk himself out of it, you wiggle your hands out of the comforter so you can cup his jaw in them, tilting his chin until his gaze catches yours. Your heart is still beating out of your chest, but god you want him, so you swallow your fears and murmur, “Steve. ‘M sure. ‘M on the pill, and I just— I need you.” 

It’s like he’s in a trance, unable to move until your lips are at his neck and your hands dip back underneath the covers so you can shove his boxers down his hips. He only snaps out of it when your hand wraps around his length and strokes up towards the tip slowly. He’s painfully hard, and even though you can’t see him under the covers, you can tell he’s big. You worry for a second; maybe you should’ve let him touch you for longer. 

The thought disappears, though, when his long fingers wrap around your wrist, eyes big and pleading for you to stop, “Won’t last if you keep that up, babe. ‘D rather be inside you.”

“Oh, okay, sorry,” you giggle, shifting so you can also get rid of your last pieces of clothing. When your panties and pajama shorts are at your ankles, you kick them off under the covers and turn to your side once again to face Steve. 

His gaze is heavy, hazel eyes a darker shade in the unlit room as he looks at you like you’ve hung the moon that shines in through the curtains. He can’t even see all of you, and yet, he’s staring at you like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. With the way he’s looking at you, and the silence that’s fallen over the room, you feel shy, and Steve can tell. So, before you can pull away, a warm palm lands on the bare curve of your hip and he whispers, “C’mere.” 

He doesn’t give you much of a choice as he drags your body across the soft sheets closer to him. Not that you mind. You’ve thought about this. About how easy it would be for Steve to grab you to pull you closer and kiss you like it was his last chance. He does just that, lips meeting yours in a soft kiss as his hands roam across your side and pull your body into his. You fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, like it’s meant to be, and you briefly wonder how you haven’t done this before.

Steve’s hand moving from your waist down to your bum pulls you out of your head and back into the moment. A not-so-gentle squeeze has your eyes darting up to his in surprise. He all but giggles when your eyes meet, and it’s such a boyish sound that it makes you laugh, too, “Are you just coppin’ a feel or are you actually gonna do something?”

“You have a nice ass, okay?” he giggles again, squeezing a little nicer this time as his lips meet yours with a quiet hum. He kisses you and kisses you and kisses you, soft and slow as his hands wander again, finding the dimpled skin of your thighs. His fingers press into your thigh, flesh molding between them, and though it’s not enough to leave a mark, you swear you’ll feel his hand there for days. 

His palm leaves a scorching trail down the back of your leg until he stops just above your knee and takes your leg into his hand, hitching it up over his hip, pulling you in closer at the same time. He pauses as you hook around his waist, the tip of his nose brushing yours, his voice coming out gentler, more uneven than it’s been all night, “Is this okay?”

You nod quicker than you mean to and flush with heat, fingers threading into his hair after one of your arms pushes over his shoulder, “‘S perfect, Steve.”

He leans in for another kiss, lips pressing to the corner of your mouth and then your cheek, a welcome distraction as the tip of his cock nudges against your entrance. Your breath hitches as he pushes inside of you, your fingers digging into Steve’s skin at the not-quite-pleasant stretch. It’s not enough to hurt him, but he still takes notice, pausing for a moment to lift a hand to cup your jaw and tilt your face towards his, “Are you okay? Want me to stop?”

The way he nearly trembles in restraint as he waits for your word doesn’t go unnoticed, and you press your forehead to his, voice barely above a murmur, “‘M okay, keep going.”

“Okay. ‘Ve got you,” he replies just as softly, his thumb brushing up the plane of your soft cheek, gently rubbing back and forth against your cheekbone. His hips shift at the same time, drawing a sharp gasp from you that he soothes with more kisses until your hips are pressed to his, warm skin against warm skin. 

It feels like Steve is fucking everywhere. He’s so deep inside of you, and you feel so full in the best possible way. One of his arms is needled between your neck and your pillow, curving around your shoulders to keep you close, while his other hand wanders over your body, seemingly with a mind of its own, traveling from your thigh to your hip, up the expanse of your soft torso to your tits. 

His forehead is still pressed to yours, and the tip of his nose nudges into the apple of your cheek, his breath hot and heavy against your jaw as he says your name, “Christ, sweetheart. Y’got such a perfect pussy, feel like fuckin’ heaven around me. Been wanting you like this forever.” 

The whine that forces its way out of your mouth is half in response to the way Steve’s hips roll against yours, but almost more so a response to the confession that you’re not sure he realizes he’s made. Pleasure thrums low in your stomach from his words alone, and your head swims with the possibility that Steve’s felt the same way for you that you’ve felt for him all this time. Your fingers twist into his hair and tug, a bit harsher than you mean to, but it pulls the prettiest sound from him, one that you want to hear again and again. 

Before you get the chance to elicit another groan from him in that way, a strong arm curls around your waist, a warm, heavy, weight against the small of your back. He’s not as smooth as he wants to be as he pushes at your body to get you onto your back. You thud into the pillows behind you, giggling as Steve clambers back over you, kneeling in the space between your legs. Big hands on your thighs, he pulls your body towards his with a huff of a laugh, “That went a lot more smoothly in my head.”

You laugh again, completely enamored with the stupidly hot dork in front of you. Somehow, everything he does is endearing. Makes you want him even more. But he’s taking his time after getting you on your back, and you need him closer, want him back. You pout at him, bottom lip jutting out as you reach up towards him, managing to get an arm around his neck to pull him close, “Stevie, come here. Need you. Please.”

“You don’t have to say please, baby,” Steve murmurs as he gives in easily, a sucker for your pretty pout. One hand presses into the soft pillows beside your head as he leans in towards you, “Whatever you want, just say the word.” 

The thought of saying what you really want out loud makes heat rush to your face and your chest, so you settle for moving your hips, lifting them towards his, desperately seeking any sort of friction to ease the ache in your cunt. It works for a moment — a quiet gasp tearing from you when the tip of his cock catches against your entrance, bumps into your clit as his hips shift against yours. You give another hint, hitching one of your legs up around Steve’s waist so you can press your heel into the small of his back, urging him even closer. 

Steve takes pity on you — doesn’t make you say it out loud… this time — and takes the hints, finally sinking back into you with a bit more ease. You sigh in pleasure, a high-pitched noise that has Steve smiling into the crook of your neck, “That what you wanted, babe? Just needed my cock?”

“Mhm,” you nod against the pillow, bringing your other leg up to press into Steve’s side as he rocks into you slowly, an inch at a time, “feel so good, Steve.”

“Oh, fuck,” he mutters as he bottoms out, dotting a kiss to where his face is pressed into your skin, surprisingly chaste in contrast with what comes out of his mouth next, “Fuck, you’re so tight. An’ so wet, too. Just for me, huh?”

“Uh huh, just, ahhh, oh god— j-just for you, Stevie,” you reply, stuttering through your words as he pushes in deep, and grinds his hips against yours. The deliciously slow drag of his cock through your wet heat is making you dizzy with pleasure, and you clench around him. It draws a low moan from Steve that you can feel just as much as you can hear, his arms shaking, breath hot against your neck. 

You’ve never loved your name more than you do when Steve groans it against your skin as your hips meet his. The way it comes out of his mouth is a short fall from reverential, and full of love, and you want nothing more than to hear it again and again. You push your hands over Steve’s freckled shoulders, pulling at him until his chest is crushed against yours. The smattering of hair covering his chest scratches against your skin as he presses into you, but you can’t find it in yourself to mind, because this is all you’ve ever wanted. 

It’s quiet in the room, save for the soft noises you’re both making, and all of your senses are dialed up to 11, filled solely with Steve. His body heat, his hands on your thighs, your hips, your breasts, lips brushing any place he can reach, his cock filling you so perfectly with every thrust. The sound of his skin against yours, his moans and pants in your ear. The smell of sweat and sex and something warm and comforting that is so uniquely Steve. It’s all overwhelming in the best way possible as you inch closer to the edge, and it’s too much. But somehow, it’s still not quite enough. 

Like he can sense that, one of Steve’s hands grabs at yours, fingers sliding between the spaces of your fingers as he pulls your hand until he can press it into the pillows underneath you. He squeezes it tightly as his mouth finds yours in a messy kiss, as if to say I’ve got you. And sure enough, after a few moments, his other hand is traveling down the length of your body, slipping between the two of you to find your clit. 

“St-Steve—” his name comes out broken and choked, followed by unintelligible sobs as pleasure thrums through your body. You feel like you’re on fire, and every one of Steve’s touches ignites another fire inside of you until you combust. It consumes you, your entire body shaking, cunt clenching around his cock as you cum. He doesn’t let up, fingertips rubbing circles against your clit, hips meeting yours in a steady rhythym, only faltering for a moment when he cums, too.

He sounds like a fucking angel; the noise he lets out as he spills inside of you is one you’re going to remember for the rest of your life, though you desperately hope you’ll get to hear it again and again. Panting into the crook of your neck, he only slows when he feels your body go lax underneath his, and he gives your hands another gentle squeeze. Between that, the mind-blowing orgasm, and the kisses that he presses along your jaw, you swear you’ve gone to heaven from all of the affection. 

Slowly, he lets his body drop against yours, though not quite all the way, in fear of crushing you. You can sense his hesitance, and press your hand against his shoulders again, legs crossing at the small of his back to pull him close and keep him there, like your very own weighted blanket. He lets out a short laugh, shaking his head as he nuzzles into you, “Okay?”

“Perfect,” you murmur softly, sleepily, in response, fingertips drawing lines between freckles and moles as they make their way down his back. 

You stay like that for a few moments, basking in the softness and the silence of being with each other. It’s like nothing you’ve ever felt, and despite how content you are, there’s a nagging feeling in the deepest parts of your mind that make you wonder if you’ll ever get this with Steve again. He doesn’t say anything, even as he pulls his face from your neck and gazes down at you like you’ve hung the stars in the sky. His hand pulls from yours, only to settle at your hairline, his thumb brushing short strokes over your temple, soft brown eyes searching yours. 

Steve presses a kiss to the tip of your nose, at your cheek, close to the corner of your lips, and finally one last one to your perfect mouth, and then his warmth is gone. You watch with heavy eyes as he slips off the end of the bed and pads towards the bathroom without so much as a word. He’s back moments later, though, washcloth in hand to clean you up. And then, when he’s done, he’s back under the covers with you, an arm slung over your waist like this is your normal.  There’s so much to talk about, especially when it comes to the matters of your heart, but it’ll have to wait until morning, because apparently orgasms really are helpful when trying to fall asleep, and you blink slowly as you snuggle into his touch. 

“Babe?” he says quietly after a moment, fingertips tracing shapes against your bare hip.

“Mm?”

“I… I meant what I said,” he pauses for a moment, heart beating wildly in his chest, “About wanting you forever. Always have, always will. I’d love to actually take you out. Do things the right way.” 

You mumble something that he can’t quite make out, and it’s only when he glances down at you on his chest to find you fast asleep. Clearly, you haven’t heard any of his confession, but he can’t be upset with how peaceful you look. He’ll tell you again in the morning. 

[lexirosewrites]

That post about Steve getting bitched and still having a huge cock gave me brain rot so here's this. (This got so long my B)

After Steve gets bitched he is extremely self conscious about the size of his dick. His doctor said it was possible, but rare, for the penis not to retract to typical cocklet size after the transition. The doctor says surgery is an option, but it will take Steve years to save up for the procedure so he resigns himself to (still) being a little uncomfortable in his body for a little longer.

Steve doesn't have sex for almost six months after his transition. His hormones need time to balance, he's sore for almost a full month after, and he doesn't necessarily trust anyone around him that he's attracted to not to comment on his dick. The knot is gone, but he doesn't feel like he looks like a "proper" Omega still.

One night he goes out with Robin and meets a friend of a friend who's very pretty and who's aura and sent are incredibly calming. They flirt a little, Steve doesn't think he's ever met someone as chill as Argyle, and they head back to Argyle's place to have easy, fun sex. Argyle makes him feel confident, and he never coments on the size of Steve's dick like he's always worried people, and especially Alphas, will.

Afterward, Argyle says that Steve is "totally bodacious" and explains that him and his best friend (Jonathan) run a small but successful queer skin magazine, and would he be interested in doing some photos with them? At first Steve is shocked, even brings up the whole Giant Penis thing, doesn't really think many people would be into that, but Argyle gives him a comically sincere look and says "oh yeah my guy. People are gonna love it."

So Steve says fuck it. He doesn't have regular work right now and Argyles figure for the first shoot is more than fair. They hammer out details that night. Argyle doesn't date their subjects, which is a little disappointing but not heartbreaking for Steve. And Steve doesn't want his face to be published anywhere. He's also not sure about having sex, wants to focus on single person shots.

Steve figures he won't have much success, but to his surprise, the issues featuring Steve are the ones they sell the most copies of. He didn't know it at the time, but the first shoot be did with them ended up being used for the next month's cover page. It was a rather simple shot, more nude than he thought he'd get at a first shoot but Jonathan and Argyle made him feel very comfortable. He's standing in front of a dark, non descript couch, completely bare. His hands are clasped behind his back. He had been swaying forward and backward on the balls of his feet looking very much like a Good Boy eagerly waiting for direction from his Dom. And, of course, his pussy had been slicked up with artificial slick and a little bead of artificial precome was just being to slide down his length. Seeing the photo, Steve began to feel confident in his body for the first time in a long time.

So, he kept working with the studio, making good money on the side of his other gigs.

Photos of Steve in panties that do nothing to cover his dick. Photos of Steve from behind on his hands and knees, pussy slicked up and dick visible from between his legs. Eventually, a photo of Steve with just the tip of his cock in another Omega's pussy. They didn't really have sex, which was Aokay with Steve since it still felt uncomfortable with having sex someone for work purposes, but he was particularly fond of those photos, thought they turned out really well.

All the shoots were still artfully framed or cropped to omit Steve's face though.

Of course, unknown to Steve, local Alpha Eddie Munson has been hoarding his pictures like a greedy dragon. Eddie has been a long time subscriber to the magazine, but he's never come so hard in his life as he did to that first photo of Steve. The pretty pussy, the perfectly placed moles and freckles, the HUGE fucking cock. Eddie's never wanted an Omega to fuck him so bad in his life, or want to fuck one so hard for that mater. His absolute favorite is one of Steve's earlier pictures. It's simple, Steve reclined back on his elbows, knees bent and open to show off his panty clad pussy. There not just any panties though, they're female Omega/Beta panties. They cling to him like a second skin and barely cover the first two inches of his dick, making it look even bigger than it already is. Eddie buys five copies.

One day, they run into each other at the grocery store of all places. Eddie accidentally bumps into Steve, causing him to drop his basket and blow up his tomatoes. Eddie is already getting ready to apologize to the stranger when Steve turns around and Eddie is faced with the most beautiful Omega he's ever seen. He immediately starts tripping over himself to help him replace anything broken in his basket and once they get through check out asks if he can take Steve out after they drop their groceries off at home. Steve, absolutely charmed by this Alpha's looser energy and leathery sent says yes.

Yadayadayada they have a fantastic date and decide to take it back to Steve's place. Things are getting steamy but as soon as Steve gets his shirt and pants off Eddie immediately knows who he is and comes in his half unbuttoned pants like some kind of pavlova response because Holy Shit. He's so embraced for shooting off and also completely mortaphied at the prospect of telling Steve he's been hoarding his pictures like a creep that he panics and bolts without a work.

By the time he's back home Eddie is absolutely kicking himself because the man of his dreams was literally RIGHT THERE and he screwed it up! Steve, of course, is incredibly disappointed. He felt a real connection witn Eddie and because be didn't say anything, he's pretty sure Eddie got freaked out by his body and literally ran for the hills

Of course they find each other again and Eddie apologizes profusely and begs for the chance to court Steve. Steve is a little nervous but he says yes, especially once Eddie explains why he freaked out and assures him that he doesn't want Steve to stop. He even comes to a couple of the shoot, acting as an unintentional fluffer for Steve.

Eventually, Steve stops doing it as often as he finally finds a stable job as a climbing instructor in town that he loves, but he never stops completely. He loves the confidence it gives him and thinks it's fun! It doesn't hurt how much his mate loves his pictures too.

OMFG THIS IS SO HOT I CANT😩🥵😳🤯🫠😮‍💨

[jadeylovesmarvelxo]

Eddie is desperate to speak to you about what you saw in the woods but with Harrington guarding you at every turn how was that possible?

Jealous Eddie, 18+, misunderstandings, protective Steve. Robin is done with all this shit.

Part one here

💌♥️

You spend your time at Family Video trying to distract yourself from ever thinking you and Eddie could be something in the first place. It's hard though because at unexpected times the kiss will creep back into your mind and you were swept back into your deep feelings for Eddie once again.

It wasn't like there was an on or off switch to turn off how you felt. If only it was that easy.

Steve has been amazing, he's comforted you since you went into Family Video, tear filled eyes and lip trembling as you explained to him and Robin what happened.

The thing about Steve is since he's changed dramatically in the last few years, grown into a better man thanks to a knock on the head from various people (Nancy, Robin, You, Dustin and all the other little shits) he's also become more protective of everyone he cares about.

So seeing you teary eyed and that little pout on your face has sent all of his protective instincts going haywire, he can never resist a pout and puppy eyes-something the kids have picked up on and used to their advantage.

He's determined to do anything to protect you from Eddie hurting you even more, and it's not like he disliked the guy, Munson was cool. Hurt his friends though and any good will he had disappeared fast.

It doesn't help his irritation when Eddie is constantly everywhere he looks, he's driving you and Robin to school and Munson is watching with a pained expression.

Serves you right dickhead. He thinks to himself and wraps his around you, comfortingly when you freeze as you see Eddie.

The anguished expression on Eddie's face darkens into something else and he zeroes in on Steve's hand that is gently rubbing your shoulder.

Steve doesn't think it's the last he's seen of Munson, if his expression is any indication then he expects Eddie won't keep his feelings quiet for very long.

...

It takes less than a day for Eddie to show up at the store. You're working with Steve and watching IT to pass the long work day away.

"You know this feels so familiar" Steve smirks at you and you can't help but laugh, kids banding together to fight an ancient evil, it rings a few bells.

Eddie looks between you and Harrington, jealousy bubbles in his stomach and he grips the video he's holding tightly. Inside jokes, the two of you had inside jokes.

He swears under his breath, curses himself that he fucked up so badly. Wishes he could explain to you and tell you that Chrissy didn't mean anything, she was nervous getting weed for the first time and he just wanted to make her feel comfortable.

The only person he wanted was you but you had gotten things totally wrong. The jealousy twists in his gut again when Steve gently nudges your side as the two of you laugh over something.

He's itching to go up and talk to you but how could he when Harrington was like a guard dog.

Robin sidles up to him, returning tapes, she narrows her eyes at Eddie as he looks at her pleadingly all puppy eyed and pouty.

"Don't you do that look Munson, I'm as pissed at you as Steve is and I swear if you're hanging around to just break a certain someone's heart again then I'm borrowing Steve's bat and...' Eddie manages to intervene before she passes out from lack of oxygen.

"No, shit, that's not why I'm here Buckley. I came to apologise, beg for forgiveness. I am not interested in Chrissy. I've been crazy about princess for months and I'm kicking myself that I've messed things up" Robin deflates and softens just a tiny bit.

"Well why haven't you apologised?" she exclaims and then she turns around to look at Steve and sighs. "Yeah, it's not ideal when Steve is in "protective mode" but suck it up Munson" Eddie swallows feeling thoroughly chastised.

Suck it up and get his princess back. He could do that.

💞

Eddie doesn't come back to Family Video after his talk with Robin. The thought sours your mood because you guess he really doesn't care that you're hurting.

Or Robin and Steve have collectively scared him off.

Maybe he really did have chemistry with Chrissy and he would rather pursue her. The least he could do is tell you so you weren't surprised one day when he walked into Family Video with her.

Robin is talking about Vickie and asking you and Steve about ideas for a movie date, you're distracted as Eddie comes in. Your heart skips a beat and his big brown eyes are full of nerves as he walks up to you.

Pissed off and despite yourself really missing Eddie you concentrate on rewinding the tapes that people had brought back. Ugh, be kind, rewind. It was right there on the video cover, there were so many tapes to do and that was annoying you as well.

♥️

It really was time for you and Eddie to talk. Steve looks reluctant as you head over but you assure him you'll be fine.

"We need to talk, I'll be okay Steve. Promise" he nods but is still glaring at Eddie, his gaze darkening even more when Eddie approaches.

"Do not fuck this up Munson or you'll have me to answer to" Eddie nods, his gaze is still on you.

Robin rolls her eyes as she looks between him and Eddie and gently pushes Steve back behind the counter. "Come on Steve, don't be a dingus and let them talk it out" Eddie throws a grateful smile Robin's way.

Once you're alone with Eddie he immediately launches into what he's been itching to say, he trips over his words a few times but he's desperate for you to understand that he's in no way interested in Chrissy, not one bit.

Eddie shakes his head. "I don't want Chrissy, I'm not interested in her, she is sweet but she's just my friend and she's not you. I was goofing around when you saw us talking because she was nervous, it was her first time getting weed and I just wanted her to relax sweetheart, the only "spark" I feel is with you"

You smile feeling the stirrings of relief build up inside you. "I've been trying to tell you all week princess but I didn't want to fuck up any more and well, Steve hasn't exactly let me anywhere near you" he looks past you to Steve and you squeeze his hand.

"He's just protective that's all" you soften as you gaze at him, can sense that he's worrying, "Eddie there's nothing between me and Steve, he's my friend that's all" Eddie nods and brightens considerably.

"As long as Harrington knows that" you roll your eyes amused as Eddie straightens and tries to look intimidating to Steve.

"Yes he does, we're friends Eddie. He's just as protective of Robin" Eddie nods and presses a kiss to your head.

"I've missed you sweetheart" you lean into him and his arms wrap around you. You've missed him like crazy, "Maybe we could try this again princess? A proper date?" You nod and press a gentle kiss to his lips leaving you both a bit dazed but smiling happily at each other that everything is going to be okay.

♥️

[eddieandbird]

One More Request —

A reimagining of Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington’s first kiss.

A/N: happy Bridgerton day everyone!! I am still fully on colin and pen brainrot, so enjoy my take on this scene! Even if you don’t watch Bridgerton, I still think it’s a super cute concept -bird

tags/warnings: fluff | 2.2k words | f!reader | love realization

———

As the sun dipped down in the Hawkins’ sky, you gently dropped another cardboard box into Eddie’s van with the rest of your belongings you’d be taking with you to college.

“Okay, I think that’s the last of it,” You grunted, shutting the door.

“Alrighty Miss Indiana State. Are you ready for big girl school?” Eddie chuckled, leaning his back against the car.

“Almost,” You said with an exaggerated exhale. “I have one more request,”

“Oh boy. It’s that bad huh?” Eddie had a wry smile. “Okay, what is it? I’ll try my best not to laugh,”

You gave a humorless chuckle “Oh, I think that’ll kind of be hard,”

Eddie’s eyes widened for just a moment as if to say ‘oh my god’ then he spoke up “Well come on, don’t make me nervous. Out with it, kid,”

“I don’t know, I’m having second thoughts now,” You bit your thumb nail.

Eddie could see you were serious. He had hoped you were just pulling his leg, so he could laugh it off. But of course, you weren't. He peeled his back off the van so he could face you.

“Come on, spit it out. I promise I won't laugh that much,” He grinned, trying to lift your spirits.

You covered your face in your hands for a moment before taking a deep breath.

“Will you kiss me?” You shut your eyes tight, terrified to witness his reaction.

Eddie shook his head and waved his hand in confusion “Excuse me? What in the hell-“

“Eddie, I don’t know how to say this, but I leave for college in a couple of days and I still never had my first kiss. And there’s no way I am letting my over-prepared, always anxious self go to college; the land of hookups and parties, without having my first kiss!” You explained so quickly that you had to pause to breathe.

Eddie looked down at the ground for a moment before looking back at you with a bewildered expression, “You sure you're not just messing with me now?” He smirked then nudged your shoulder.

When you didn’t laugh back, he paused, and looked down again with a blank stare, as if he was putting the pieces together in his head, “Oh you’re serious aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I know it sounds totally insane, but it’s kinda important to me. I wanted to do it with someone I really trust,” Your shoulders slumped forward a bit in embarrassment. You knew you were throwing a curveball at Eddie with this request, but he was one of your best friends. It made better sense in your head.

Eddie shook his head, stammering “But I’m not your- I mean we’re not-“

“No! No, please it’s not like that, it doesn’t have to mean anything or be amazing or whatever! I just really want to do it,” You gulped, your thumbs toying with the cuffs of your sweater.

Eddie was still trying to wrap his head around the whole thing. Your reasoning was rational, you wanted your first kiss to mean something rather than just some fling or a situation you were pressured into like most people. He couldn’t help but be impressed, you were such a perfectionist and you truly thought this through.

He sighed, looking at the ground with a cheeky grin, “Yeah alright. C’mere, I’ll do it,” He jokingly scoffed.

You let out all the air you were holding in your lungs when he said yes.

“Oh thank god. I thought I was about to be humiliated,” A nervous giggle was woven into your words.

“Okay do we just do this here or-“ You suddenly realized you did not know what else to do.

A part of you didn’t think you’d get this far, but you were damn proud you did. Unfortunately, the lack of preparation for this part left you a bit frazzled. Eddie chuckled, finding your plan endearing. He was a little nervous himself, not even considering the possibility that you would ever ask him this favor.

“Yeah here is fine, unless you wanted it out in some field of wildflowers and a sunset or something,” He said, grinning wickedly. “Just get closer,” He motioned toward him.

You playfully scoffed as you leaned in, trying not to roll your eyes at his implication. A romantic atmosphere was the least of your worries.

“You said you wouldn’t make fun of me,” You mumbled, stepping forward and shifting your gaze upward to meet Eddie’s.

“I said I wouldn’t laugh, I never said I wouldn’t tease you,” Eddie countered. He swung his arm around your hip, pulling you even closer.

You let out a soft gasp as he grabbed you. You cleared your throat.

“Fine, whatever, just tell me what to do first,” You said, feigning impatience.

“Don’t get an attitude with me,” Eddie said with a smirk.

He was enjoying this power that he suddenly had over you. He’d never seen you this nervous before. He was used to you having a witty comeback or retort to counter anything and everything he said, but you were flustered and vulnerable in front of him.

He chuckled as you asked him what to do next, and he grabbed your other hip, so you were standing flush against him.

“Just relax,” He brought his face down closer to yours, your noses nearly touching.

You could hear a gulp clearly in your ears. You tried to relax your shoulders and empty your mind. Eddie then pressed a chaste kiss to your lips, so softly you barely felt it, as if it was a butterfly flapping its wings on you. He was unsatisfied at the quickness and subtly it had, so he decided to do it once more, this time with more enthusiasm.

You were in no state to refuse him. With your eyes closed, you were left to only feel; his breath that tickled your face and his lips that were pillow-soft on yours. He was surprised at how willing you were underneath his touch. Normally you were strong-willed and stubborn. But now, you were soft and quiet. His mouth moved against yours, molding his lips to yours perfectly. His breathing grew stronger as he kissed you, forcefully exhaling through his nostrils.

Eddie pulled back after the second kiss, his eyes slowly fluttering open. It was more of a real kiss, a proper one. To his surprise, he found himself coming undone at the feeling and the thought of you. The kiss completely morphed his view of you as just another person he had grown up knowing and caring for, to someone he didn’t want to let go of.

Eddie’s emotions slowly started to unravel. He always pushed away these thoughts of you or rationalized them in his head. But now, as he had you pinned against the car, his chest against yours, and his fingers tangled in your hair, he was struggling to keep his feelings in check.

You both stared at each other for a moment in silence, standing there frozen in each other’s arms. You were the first to pull away. It shocked you because it actually happened, but also because you enjoyed it. Your body reacted in ways you never experienced before. Your skin was flushed and your heart pounded harshly against your ribs. Fight or flight kicked in, and you decided you had to flee.

“I should go. It’s late and mom’s expecting me to be there for dinner,” You sputtered, halting the silence. “Thank you so much for um… doing all this,”

You gave Eddie one more quick hug before storming off inside your home.

“Oh shit…” Eddie muttered to himself.

He realized then and there he had feelings for you. This sent him into a spiral as he had his back pressed to his van with his chest heaving. You were leaving for college soon and he needed to make a move before he lost you forever.

~~~

Eddie came to see you around the same time the next day. He sheepishly rang the doorbell, then shoved his hands back in his pockets. You opened the door looking at him puzzled.

“Eddie? What are you doing here? We don’t have to get on the road for another ten hours,” You asked, stepping out and closing your front door.

“Hey, yeah, I know. I just have something a little urgent I gotta tell you. Can we go sit in the van?” He pointed with a head nod. He looked worried. You followed him to the back of his opened van, taking a seat beside him.

“Everything okay?” You asked, attempting to decipher his pained look.

Eddie was trying his absolute hardest to hold back his anxiety, but he knew you could see right through him. His hands were shoved in his pockets to stop himself from fidgeting, and he was rocking back and forth on his feet awkwardly. He didn’t know how to word his thoughts at that moment.

Once he was seated with you in the back of the van, he closed the door for some privacy. He was looking down at the ground, avoiding eye contact, before he finally spoke up.

Eddie took a deep breath before speaking, still avoiding eye contact with you. “Yeah, sort of. There’s just something I really need to tell you before we leave tomorrow.”

His mind was racing as he tried to put his thoughts together. How was he going to explain his newly found feelings to his closest friend?

“Oh? Well, I’m sure I don’t gotta remind you that you can tell me anything. What’s going on?” You asked curiously, but light-hearted, hoping to alleviate his anxiety over the conversation.

You tried not to read too much into his expressions, but you noticed that his demeanor was a whole lot like yours from the night before. Eddie chuckled slightly at your words, knowing how much truth there was behind them. You were right, you were his best friend. And he could tell you anything. That also scared him, because what he needed to tell you just so happened to be something he didn’t even fully process yet. He finally looked up at you and met your eyes, but for a split second before looking away again.

He let out a shaky breath, “Yeah I know you’re my best friend, which is why I feel like I should tell you this before you leave tomorrow. I don’t want you to go away thinking I couldn’t man up and tell you my true feelings.”

“True feelings?” You repeated, your voice trembling as you were piecing together what he was trying to say.

Once you did your mouth hung open and your eyes rapidly blinked in shock. You placed a hand on his knee, keeping his attention on you.

“Eddie, what exactly are you trying to say?”

He finally looked up at you and held your eye contact for a couple of seconds.

“God, this is even more embarrassing to say than you asking me to kiss you,” He muttered.

He looked back down to your hand on his knee and he placed his on top of it. “I think I have feelings for you.”

With your predictions confirmed, you were completely beside yourself. You shook your head in confusion.

“I thought- but we’re friends-” You said instinctively.

Eddie saw your stammering and became even more nervous. “I know. I know we were totally in agreement and complete understanding yesterday before that kiss happened, but it made me realize so much and I-“

You interrupted him by cupping his cheek, bringing him into a kiss that matched last night’s urgency. This time you were in control. Your lack of experience or confidence mattered very little. You poured your feelings, all the unspoken affection you had for him finally manifesting in this one action.

“I feel the same. I wanna be more than friends too,” You confessed quietly as you pulled away.

When you leaned in to kiss him, Eddie felt the tension melt away. Suddenly all his nervous energy faded away as your lips touched his. He let out a breathless gasp as you pulled away and then his mind processed what you had said. A grin crept onto his face at your words.

“Yeah? You really mean it?” He asked, bringing a hand to your cheek and looking into your eyes.

Then his smile fell again as he realized the circumstances. “But what about when you leave for college?”

You refused to let school get in between each other. This would not be the end.

“I’m only an hour away,” You said starry-eyed as you brushed your thumb over his cheek. “We’ll make trips out to each other and I’ll be home for every semester break,”

Your tendency to over-plan was working its magic once again. Your heart and mind were racing as you felt his stubble underneath your fingertips.

“I promise I’ll call you every night after class is over and write you cheesy letters all the time,” Your voice was shaky but full of hope. “What do you say, Eddie?”

He was always so in awe of your determination, and how it could transform a problem into a plan. He smiled at your list of promises and ideas, knowing deep down that you always managed to get what you wanted or find a way to make it work. He loved that about you.

“I say you’re a lunatic for wanting to have a long-distance thing with me. But, I don’t care. I like the sound of all that,” Eddie shook his head before bringing himself to kiss you.

[munson-blurbs]

Living After Midnight (Failed Rockstar!Eddie x Motel Worker!Reader)

♫ Summary: Apologies were in order when Eddie's true whereabouts were revealed, but would a rainy evening bring forgiveness or an even harsher storm? (4.6k words)

♫ CW: slowburn, strangers-to-lovers, angst, misunderstanding, anxiety, self-deprication, parental conflict, poverty, jealousy, brief touching, eventual smut (18+ only, minors DNI)

♫ Divider credit to @hellfire--cult

chapter eight: mind your own business

A simple conversation changed everything.

Admittedly, it was not your conversation, but one you had eavesdropped on. 

You had turned in the final exam for your Experimental Psych class, ruminating over any possible wrong answers as soon as your paper touched the pile on your professor’s desk. Did you get an abnormal amount of Cs in the multiple-choice section? Were your short answers detailed enough?

And then you overheard two guys talking in the hall, one sounding like he’d just chain-smoked a carton of cigarettes. 

“Dude, what the fuck happened to your voice?”

“Lost it at a concert the other night. Totally worth it, though.”

“What concert?”

“Death’s Echo.”

You froze, hoping your sudden stop didn’t draw any attention to you. Death’s Echo had a concert? Where was it? Is that where Eddie was on Monday night?

Potential exam mistakes forgotten, you strode over to the guys on a quest for information. “Excuse me.” Your lips curved into your best customer service smile. “Did you say you saw Death’s Echo?”

The hoarse-voiced one nodded. “Yeah, why? You like them?” His eyes narrowed in assessment; you clearly didn’t embody his expectations of a punk music fan. A fair enough judgment, because you certainly weren’t. 

“Where did they play?” You pressed, ignoring his question. 

“Webster Hall,” he coughed, and his buddy laughed at his apparent pain. “You listen to them?”

“Yup,” you lied easily, not wanting to stick around and have him find out why a “fan” didn’t even know about a local gig. “Um, feel better!” You hurried out of the building, head spinning with this newfound knowledge. 

Webster Hall. It was just over an hour to get there, which meant that the concert must have started late; a practice not unheard of for more up-and-coming bands. The prime time slots went to the headliners who brought in the most money. 

If Eddie had gone to the concert on Monday, why wouldn’t he tell you? Did he think you’d be angry? Disappointed?

Or maybe he just didn’t want you to know he was blowing off work for a concert, you reasoned, and your opinion beyond that is irrelevant. 

Should you ask him about it tonight? Could you? He might hole himself up in his room, ignoring your knocks and only coming out after your shift.

Maybe that was for the best. 

His harsh words from last night continued rattling around your brain, barely taking a reprieve during the test. Honestly, you were grateful you wrote down actual psychological terminology instead of I am a total hypocrite over and over until self-deprecation filled the pages. 

Tomorrow was your last official day of your undergraduate career, your own personal deadline for confessing the truth to your parents, and yet you were no closer to being ready than you were when you first made that silent promise. 

The problem spun a web woven from neurons and synapses, its delicate threads slowly taking over your mind and catching the most daunting tasks. 

NYU Essay revisions Graduation The motel Eisen’s Eddie

Too much. It was all too much, but you couldn’t shake them from their entrapment. You wanted to squeeze your eyes shut and only open them once everything had been resolved. 

You had a fleeting thought of boarding the bus and remaining seated as it rolled past the motel, leaving it all behind and reclaiming your sanity. Running away was always an option, in theory; realistically, you would be overwrought with guilt before the bus made it to the next stop. 

What you’d once considered loyalty was now stained with splotches of cowardice. 

Maybe one day, you would be able to see yourself the way you wanted to be seen: as a trailblazer, a go-getter, a woman in pursuit of her dreams. 

Today was not that day. 

Rain streamed down from the clouds in thick sheets as though compensating for the week’s idle threats of stormy weather. It pelted against the motel’s windows like a steady drumbeat that wouldn’t be drowned out by your clock radio cranked up to its maximum volume. 

Darkness loomed in the night sky, heavier than usual. Wind accompanied the rain, jostling the power lines and making the lights flicker. 

If the electricity went out tonight…

You couldn’t finish that thought, not when the front door swung open to reveal Eddie, drenched from head to toe. His curls clung to his forehead, his cheeks, the back and sides of his neck; his chest heaved beneath a faded Black Sabbath t-shirt that was saturated with rainwater. 

He stood in the doorway for a moment, unmoving and catching his breath. 

This was your chance to apologize. To admit what you know—what you might know. The timing of the Death’s Echo concert could have been a coincidence, but your intuition told you it wasn’t. 

Another awkward smile that didn’t reach his eyes, a tentative “hey,” and he was trudging past you without attempting to stop.

Opportunity went as quickly as it came. Every word you had planned had been scrambled like a tornado swept through your brain and left gibberish-laden debris. 

The version of you that had confidently confronted him about smoking pot a few weeks ago would have scoffed at the way you failed to utter a simple apology. But this was much more complex. 

Eddie’s forgiveness—if he forgave you—was only half of the battle. His blatantly false accusations about your work ethic had cut too deep to ignore. 

Did he really think that little of you? Or was that his own defensiveness rearing its ugly head and taking over?

Then came a cry from down the hall.

“Of fuckin’ course!” Eddie boomed loud enough to be heard beyond his closed door. “Goddammit!”

You abandoned the desk, grabbing your essay papers and bolting to his room. He was at the window, violently pushing down on the pane, but it remained open. The shirt he’d been wearing earlier laid right next to the door as though he’d peeled it off as soon as he stepped into the room. 

Your eyes landed on the dusting of hair that was now plastered to his pecs, another effect from the weather, the soft brown tendrils partially obscured by his demon head tattoo. 

This wasn’t the first time you’d seen him bare-chested. The night he had arrived, he answered your knock in only his Calvin Klein boxers. He was wearing Fruit of the Loom tonight, the elastic waistband exposed from the weight of his rain-sodden jeans. 

Heat burned in your belly, a sensation you hadn’t experienced in a long while. 

“Little help?” Eddie grunted impatiently, and you nodded, tossing the essay onto his nightstand among a sea of his own handwritten papers. 

Had he caught you staring? 

He moved over, bringing both of his hands to the right side so you could press both of yours to the left. The combined force was enough to smack it closed, the resulting burst of wind sending the papers airborne. They floated to the ground, paragraph-laden parachutes, but all you could focus on was the patch of carpet beneath you. It was completely soaked, visibly darker where the rain had seeped in, and it squelched under your sneakers.

“I’ll grab towels.” You started towards the door, pausing to scoop up a sheet of looseleaf that had landed near your feet. It was obviously Eddie’s; his was not as meticulously curated as yours, full of scratch-outs and barely legible, but the words you could make out were enough to pique your interest.

Want what I can’t have

She’s got me mixed fucked mixed up

You couldn’t read any more of it without him noticing, and you certainly did not want to get caught snooping after upsetting him, so you placed it on the bed as casually as you could.

There were extra towels stored in the supply closet, and you jogged back to the lobby, mentally calculating how many you’d need to sop up the mess. Taking as many as you could carry, you perched your chin atop the oversized pile and lumbered into Eddie’s room, dropping them to the ground. 

To your dismay, he had put on a new shirt, but it did nothing to temper your thoughts of running your fingertips over his inked skin. 

The air was now rife with the scent of burning tobacco, the cigarette between Eddie’s lips already smoked halfway to the filter.

“Thanks.” It was muffled and gruff, hardly an olive branch, but it was enough to tug the corners of your mouth in a tepid smile.

You wanted to stay, wanted to ask about what he had been writing, but Eddie snatched up your essay papers from where they’d scattered before you could ask. He shoved them towards you, leaving the edges creased where they crinkled under his grip. 

“Don’t worry, I didn’t vandalize them,” he sneered. A gray cloud whorled from his lips as he spoke, but it didn’t hide his sarcastic grin. 

You steeled your gaze and forced yourself to look just above the glowing ember and into his eyes. “I’m sorry.” You let your apology float downwards, watching for any indication of a softening expression, but he remained tense. 

“You didn’t even bother asking where I was,” he spit. 

“I’m sorry,” you repeated, less abrasive this time. “I assumed...because you were so mean to Ben…” Any further explanation felt too much like an excuse, so you left the sentence unfinished.

Eddie’s chest deflated slightly, his bravado extinguished. He’d been expecting a fight, you realized. 

You refused to give him one. 

“Were you at Webster Hall?” Your voice deliberately turned up at the end, careful to pose it as a question rather than a declaration. Certainly not as an accusation. 

Eddie flinched, his forefinger and thumb quickly pinching his cigarette to keep it from falling. “What?”

“Monday night,” you said. You pushed your right foot into the mound of towels, hit with a sudden bout of antsiness. “Was your errand seeing Death’s Echo play at Webster Hall?”

He said nothing, just looked at you. Really looked at you, assessing whether or not you deserved to know the truth. 

The admission came out gradually, as if it was being met with resistance, pulled from a place so deep he had forgotten its existence. 

“Yeah.” 

“Why?”

Eddie took another drag from his cigarette. He held the smoke in his lungs until forced out with a cough. “Wanted to hear how they sounded with their new, ah, frontman.”

Lower lip tucked snugly beneath your front teeth, you nodded. “And how did they sound?”

“Great. Really fuckin’ great.” His wry smile held more sadness than amusement. “Better than when I was with them.”

Your heart lurched. Without thinking, you reached out and took his hand, giving it just a little squeeze before letting go. “I know that’s not true,” you said. “I heard you playing on Sunday, and you’re good, Eddie. Not just anyone could pull off playing Metallica without an amp, but you did.” 

You wished he could see himself from your perspective, see the man whose talent was too vast for a dingy subway station, whose music deserved to be heard by sold-out crowds at The Garden.

Eddie didn’t agree, but he didn’t disagree, either. His face remained neutral, and given the circumstances, you considered that a win.

“I can work tonight. Hang the new wallpaper.” A lightning-speed subject change, but you were becoming accustomed to seamlessly shifting tracks to follow his train of thought. “I’ll be back out as soon as I finish this.” He lifted the cigarette to his mouth again and you nodded, closing the door behind you.

Part of you expected him not to return. If his brain worked like yours, he would overthink the conversation, replaying it over and over until he’d wrung out all the positives and left it saturated with the negatives. He’d opt to stay in his room and smoke out his pack, leaving the wallpaper job unfinished. But you heard the door hinge creak and his footsteps pattering into the lobby.

One thousand words flooded your brain to form myriad sentences, from a joking long time, no see to a much more serious who were you writing about?

Ben thought Eddie had feelings for you, ones that stretched past the platonic confines. But he’d only met him once, briefly. He didn’t really know him. 

Want what I can’t have She’s got me mixed up

Did you really know him?

Eddie had an endless list of things he couldn’t have, which often was the case for people facing poverty. As for the girl who had him mixed up, you couldn’t narrow that down, either. The only women you’d seen him interact with were Phyllis (an unlikely muse, but it wouldn’t be the most bizarre case of unrequited love you’d ever heard of), your mom (again, not likely), and you. 

There was no doubt you had him mixed up. Maybe even fucked up, as he’d written and crossed out. But had you had enough of an effect on him to warrant poetry or song lyrics–

Song lyrics.

It all clicked into place: The band; more specifically, the drummer who happened to be his ex-girlfriend. He’d gone to see them play. He could have spoken to her, and maybe realized that a spark was still present. A real spark, not whatever pathetic flicker you might have felt that night when he’d held your hand as you removed wallpaper, or when you’d exchanged gentle touches after his unfortunate wasp’s nest encounter, or when he’d loomed over you in the subway car and a delicate dip in your belly made itself known.

You decided that this explanation, the one in which you had little to no involvement, held the most logic. His inspiration was his past love–potentially his current love–and your argument was a mere distraction from a much more complicated situation.

A natural silence fell over the lobby, a healing balm over the wound you’d taken turns picking at and reopening. It was the perfect setting to finish editing your essay, and yet you found the task impossible. Any threatening grammatical errors paled in comparison to the slight movements of Eddie’s back muscles, visible through his white cotton shirt as he smoothed down the wallpaper panels. 

The pronounced flex of his tricep as he drove the paper cutter above the moldings with utter precision. 

The soft grunt that escaped his lips as he pressed on his thighs to stand up and admire his handiwork. 

You didn’t know how long you’d been staring at him before the slamming front door snapped you out of it. 

“L-Looks good,” you managed, throat suddenly bone-dry. 

Eddie crossed his arms, took a small step back, and nodded. Wide brown eyes scoured the wall for any uneven edges or unglued seams, his lips pursed in concentration. “Not my best work but, uh, it’ll do.” He smirked at you, then jutted his chin to your left.

A middle-age man stood beside the desk, rainwater dripping off of the slope of his nose. He held an umbrella, turned inside out and rendered useless by the wind. 

“Sign out front says ‘vacancy.’” He grumbled and swiped at his bushy eyebrows, revealing a sliver of beer gut when he raised his arm. “Just need a room for the night.”

“Mhm, of course.” You found your footing with a polite smile and collected the stranger’s money, just as you always had, just as you were supposed to. Because you were at work, and that was your job–not watching Eddie hang wallpaper.

As you scanned the wall behind you for a key, a warm whisper tickled your ear, breath tinged with a smoky aroma. A shiver reflexively wiggled down your spine as Eddie spoke, your body unused to this level of proximity.

“Put him away from my room. He looks like a snorer.”

You tucked your lips into your mouth to stifle your laughter. Eddie was right; you weren’t quite sure what it was about the man, but he did look like he snored. Loudly. 

You meant to look over your paper after your shift, but sleep was too seductive to resist. Just one more day, one more final exam, and then you were done. At least until August. 

Summer stretched before you, and though you would still be spending nights behind the desk, your days were wide open. 

Days that might be spent alongside Eddie. 

There was no formal apology from him last night, a fact that nagged at you throughout the bus ride to school and prevented you from looking past the first page of your essay. That, and the burdens of shame both you and Eddie carried: yours from the blatantly wrong accusation, his from…what, exactly? Why was he embarrassed to tell you where he’d been?

The wound was still too raw last night to press on it, to ask further questions; instead, you kept the conversation light and airy. The only foray into dangerous territory came from Eddie himself when he asked about the vandalism at Eisen’s. You couldn’t answer fast enough before clumsily pivoting the discussion to the warming weather.

And maybe it was your inner people pleaser that craved reconciliation, needed it to unfurl and bloom like a budding rose, that lowered your guard and bade you to talk with him. But people-pleasing didn’t explain the warmth that crept through your body, lazily winding through your veins, when he laughed at your jokes.

That laugh–the gentle nose scrunch it evoked, the lightheartedness it exuded, how it chiseled away at the remaining iciness between you. It was all you thought about that night, your heart relaxing as the friendship was no longer in limbo. 

But when you got to class and flipped through your essay one last time, that newfound homeostasis meant nothing. Yes, there were ten pages present and ready to be stapled, but unless your conclusion focused on angsty song lyrics, you were missing the final page.

Dread’s chill pricked at you, followed by an overbearing wash of heat. The granola bar you’d scarfed down threatened to make a reappearance. 

Stupid. How could I have been so careless? All I had to do was check before I left home, but I was too busy thinking about Eddie to do the bare minimum.

It was a bad dream; you’d wake up and find yourself in bed with your full essay safely stored in your bag. All you had to do was wake up and page ten would be a continuation of psychological development in infancy. 

Your eyes opened hopefully, but you were still in the classroom, and the page still beared Eddie’s sloppy scrawl:

I’m the castle She’s the queen Can’t be a king I’m too obscene

The lyrics a few lines down stopped mid-sentence:

Crushed beneath a broken dream Failed to launch now I

You were wasting precious time. If you left now, you could probably make it home and back before the professor left. You’d have to fork over the money for a dollar cab and forgo your afternoon coffee, but it was a sacrifice you needed to make. 

Stupid stupid stupid—

Your name being called drew you from your pit of self-loathing. It wasn’t Nora; the voice was too masculine and too far away for it to come from beside you. 

It was someone with the same name. Just a coincidence. 

And then you heard it again. Loud enough so it echoed down the hall, but not frantic. And yet your heart fluttered in your chest. 

Eddie. 

There was no way; he couldn’t be—

You squeezed past Nora and thundered towards the door, trying to quell your hopes before they rose too high. 

But there he stood, sweat pasting his hair to his forehead. His chest heaved beneath a white cotton undershirt that was tight around the biceps. Deep brown eyes lit up when he spotted you in the doorway, his lips curving in a triumphant smile. 

“I have your paper!” Sure enough, your conclusion paragraph was clenched in his calloused hand.

You could have cried with relief. Fueled by gratefulness and residual adrenaline, you flung your arms around him. Your hands found his back muscles; at first tensed, almost reflexively, but quickly relaxed. The paper crinkling between your torsos jarred you out of the moment, and you took a step back before he could return the gesture—if he even would have. 

“Sorry, I…” Words suddenly evaded you, eviscerated by the musky scent of his deodorant. He didn’t appear to be uncomfortable, all soft doe eyes and lazy grins from his unlikely heroism, but…still. Your relationship now teetered between employee and friend, and you couldn’t afford to knock it off-balance. “How did you get here so fast? And how did you find me?”

Eddie exhaled a chuckle. “Took a cab. And when I got here, I asked every other person where the psychology classes were.”

“You walked from where the dollar cab dropped you off?” How many blocks was that? No wonder he was sweating. 

His cheeks, already flushed from exertion, tinged a deeper shade of pink. “N-No, I, um…it was a regular cab.”

Sheer disbelief widened your eyes. He must have dipped into his meager savings to shell out the money for an actual cab, putting him even farther behind in his journey home. 

“I…” There were one thousand ways to finish your sentence. 

I can pay you back. 

I can’t believe you did this for me. 

I am so sorry I ever doubted your character. 

I wish we’d hugged just a moment longer. 

You finally settled on a string of words that required no courage at all, just a genuine thankful smile. “I have your lyrics. Let me turn in my paper and I’ll grab them for you.”

Eddie’s timid expression shifted into one of amusement. “Shit, yeah,” he said with a laugh. “Was wondering where those went.”

Opportunity splayed out in front of you, tempting you to ask him about the woman who had him mixed up. Every cell in your body ached to know if she was the same queen he’d placed on a royal pedestal, unattainable despite his valiant efforts. 

Was it fear or politeness that held your tongue? You weren’t supposed to see the lyrics in the first place; how could you justify your questions? Sorry I read your innermost thoughts without permission, but could I pick your brain about them?

Any doubts about your intentions were confirmed when he took the page from you, cocked his head, and asked: “What’d you think?”

There it was. Your opening. You could see it, practically touch it, your fingertips brushing the chance to admit that the songs’ mysterious inspiration gnawed at you—

But then he might ask why you wanted to know. And, quite honestly, you lacked the energy to figure it out for yourself. The desire was too strong to be nosiness, too personal to be gossip. 

Not to mention the inexplicable sourness that burned your esophagus when you’d considered the high probability that he’d written them about his ex-girlfriend. 

“Really good,” you managed. “I can’t wait for the finished product.”

Coward. 

“Me, too,” he agreed with a laugh. “I’m sure the folks at the train station are dying to hear it.”

“The rats’ll give you a standing ovation.”

He snickered. “My biggest fans.” 

A hand squeezing yours prevented you from getting lost in the slight dimple that appeared when he smiled. Nora now stood beside you, expression innocuous to Eddie or any other man, but her dark brown eyes silently asked, are you okay?

I’m fine, you replied with a squeeze of your own, grateful for someone who swooped in seeing you with a man she didn’t know.

“Nora, this is Eddie,” you introduced her. “He’s–he’s my friend who’s been helping us out around the motel. Eddie, this is Nora, best friend and study buddy extraordinaire.”

“Ahh, Wallpaper Boy.” Nora furrowed a brow. “You go to school here?”

Eddie cleared his throat and scratched the back of his head. “No, I…she left her paper, so…” He trailed off as though embarrassed by his chivalry. 

“So now she can graduate!” Nora wrapped you in an embrace so tight that you briefly worried about your shoulder dislocating. She leaned in knowingly, her tone teasing with an air of seriousness. “And keep me company at the ceremony, right?”

You rolled your eyes, acutely aware that Eddie was watching the entire interaction. The last thing you wanted was attention drawn to the fact that you weren’t attending graduation. “Maybe,” was all you said, and Nora left it at that.

There was an awkward beat before anyone spoke again, and it was Eddie who eventually filled the silence. “Heading home now?” He asked you, already starting towards the building’s doors. 

“No, I’m going to Eisen’s. I promised Ben that I’d help clean the graffiti.” You braced yourself for a volatile reaction, or at least something akin to annoyance, but his response was more surprising than any snarky remark. 

“I’ll come with.”

Cocking a disbelieving brow, you did your best to keep your tone free of judgment. You were waiting for the gotcha, but you couldn’t let him know that. “Seriously?”

Eddie nodded. “Yeah, why not? I’ve got the day free, and I have some…expertise in graffiti removal.” He relented with a shrug when you and Nora exchanged curious glances, a hint of a smirk tugging at his lips. “My trailer got hit a time or twelve back in the day. The tragic life of a Satan-worshiping freak, y’know?”

“But I bet the vandalizers were upstanding citizens.”

“Keys to the city and everything.” Eddie stuck out his hand, palm up, and you could see the details etched into his pale skin. Calluses decorated the pads of his fingers; you’d assumed they were mostly from guitar playing, but now you could add physical labor to their origins. He looked down at his hand, then back at you. “Shall we?”

Your own hands were suddenly slick with anxious perspiration, like a middle school student on her first-ever date. Even that juvenile scenario held more significance than this—two friends scrubbing down a hardware store was a far cry from the Sandra Brown romance novels you secretly devoured in high school. 

And yet, you felt it—that soft electricity that crackled through your whorls of fingerprints when you slid your palm against his, the jolt of energy as he tugged you forward and laced his fingers with yours. If he noticed the nervousness that embarrassing seeped from your pores, he didn’t mention it. 

Nora, ever astute, excused herself with a story about not wanting to miss the bus, but not before whispering in your ear, “he’s cute.” An approval that would almost certainly be followed up with a phone call later to discuss the fine details of the afternoon’s escapades. 

There are no ‘escapades,’ you reminded yourself. You’re removing graffiti, not embarking on a Parisian vacation. 

Eddie led the way until he reached the building’s doors, blinking as his eyes once again adjusted to the sunlight. “I, uh, I have no idea where we’re going.”

You laughed at his candor. “Follow me.”

It was an opportunity to break the grasp, to unleash the anxiety that threatened to cleave you and Eddie back into two separate pieces. He was dangerous because he was temporary; if you allowed him in even farther than you already had—beyond the confines of friendship—his inevitable departure would destroy you. 

Let go. Let go. Let. Go. 

And yet you kept holding on, adjusting only to take the lead. Eddie’s thumb brushed against yours, pausing just at the knuckle to press down in subtle acknowledgment. 

Hi. 

You pressed back with an accompanying smile. 

Hi. 

This time when you reached the subway station, you both jumped the turnstile. 

--

taglist (now closed ♥):

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[pizzaqueen]

Got a line in my head and wrote this around it. Just over 300 words of established relationship fluff

Eddie’s lying in his bed and Steve is next to him. The backs of their hands are pressed together between them and Eddie has his ankle hooked over Steve’s. He’s so full of love for Steve, and so full of Steve’s love for him, he wonders how his body can contain it all.

He loves Steve more than he thought he could ever love someone. He loves Steve in a way that he always thought was made up for movies or songs or whatever. But it’s not. It’s so real.

He glances at Steve, heart skipping a beat at how beautiful Steve is and says, “I want a tattoo.”

“You’ve already got some.”

Eddie rolls onto his side, propping himself on an elbow. “I want a new one.”

“What of?”

“Your name.”

Steve snorts, disbelieving, then he looks at Eddie. His brows raise. “You’re serious.”

It’s not a question, but Eddie nods.

“But…” Steve presses his lips together. Eddie waits for some kind of protest—it’s too risky, other people will see, will know—but when it comes, it’s not what he expected. Because Steve says, “It’s forever,” with an undercurrent of uncertainty that makes Eddie’s chest ache.

“So are you,” Eddie says, poking Steve in the side.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Steve smiles, looking as loved as Eddie feels; he tucks his hands behind his head and says, “Maybe I should get one too.”

Eddie’s heart leaps. “Of your name?”

“Oh, yeah, totally.” Steve shakes his head. “Of your name, you dork.”

“That,” Eddie says, clambering on top of Steve, straddling his thighs, “would be so hot.” He can’t believe he’s never considered the possibility of Steve with inked skin before, but now it fills his mind. Definitely hot. And that Steve’s first tattoo is going to be Eddie’s name… Fuck.

Steve reaches up, brushing Eddie’s hair out of his face. “You’re forever, too,” he says, a shared promise, and pulls Eddie down for a kiss.

[epiphainie]

I see and love all your tearjerker proposal ideas, but we don’t talk enough about the absolute hilarity that would ensue with an Evan Buckley Proposal™️. Like I’m imagining him being soooo excited about it in the most Buck way possible. He has this ten page speech about how much he loves Tommy and how they’re soulmates and the universe pulled a sick one by putting them on each other’s paths and he’s planning to tell Tommy all that before he pops the question and he’s preparing this big romantic night for it with the most romantic flowers and the most romantic music and the most romantic ring at the most romantic place in all of Los Angeles and he’s roped in everyone at the station to help him, threatened Chim with cold-blooded murder if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut, made Eddie reassure him about every step of his plans not twice but thrice, talked to Bobby with blushing cheeks and fidgeting hands till Bobby gave him his absolute blessing. Hen, Maddie, Athena, they’re all in on it. He’s Ready to do it The Right Way.

Then at like 2pm on a lazy Tuesday afternoon his poor brain that has been overworking on this for weeks gets overloaded and crashes. And suddenly he Needs To Ask Tommy Right Now. Like, just like that the entire plan is overridden, and he doesn’t even process what he’s doing before he sends Eddie a text that just says, “I think I will do it now” and ditches his phone and marches to the garage where Tommy has been working on his truck all day.

The next thing we know Eddie is opening his door to a Buck who has his arms wrapped around himself and his big blue eyes are filled with tears. He looks like a puppy kicked a thousand ways and before Eddie can even open his mouth he cries out, “He said no,” and drops face first on Eddie’s couch. Eddie is like ???? but also “Well, I can’t deal with this shit on my own,” so he calls Hen and Chimney and ten minutes later Buck is sitting on the couch being interrogated by his best friends.

They’re all obviously confused.

Hen, disbelieving, asks, “He said no?”

Buck makes the most pathetic pitiful sound known to the human kind and nods.

Chimney, not really helpful, murmurs, “Well, that doesn’t make any sense,” to himself because he knows how much Tommy loves Buck and would say yes to marrying him months, hell, years ago.

Hen, trying to make sense of it all asks, “What did he exactly say?” because Chim is right, it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Buck, still looking like a wet cat, goes, “He said it wasn’t the right thing for us.” His voice hitches and he moans, “He said it wasn’t s-smart.”

Hen and Chim shoot a look at each other. Eddie at this point is getting angry because what the fuck? Which is exactly what he says and Hen, the only one trying to be actually somewhat helpful, shakes her head like, “No, Eddie,” and then to Buck with what she hopes is a reassuring voice says, “Maybe he just doesn’t believe in the institution of marriage?”

Buck looks even more miserable at that and buries his face in his hands as he bemoans “Noooo,” and shakes his head like he’s grieving. “We t-talked about it before. At the beginning of our relationship, we both agreed we’d do that if it felt like the right time.” He slumps back on the couch like his life has just ended. “I t-thought it was the right time.”

Eddie, totally pissed off now because how are you gonna be with a guy for years, move in together, buy a house together, be committed to each other fully, and then say no to his marriage proposal, goes, “Oh fuck him. Do you want me to beat some sense into him?” Because damn, this is his best friend who looks absolutely crushed and Eddie will kick Tommy’s ass, fuck the fact that he’s really good at Muay Thai, he hasn’t seen Eddie’s wrath before.

Hen, still the sound of logic and seeing how Buck gets sadder each passing moment, stops him again. “We’re not beating anyone up.” Then says, “Buck, I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding. Tommy loves you.” Because yeah he does in the most sickening teen boy with a puppy crush way, so none of this makes sense and Hen’s brain is whirring but she’s not sure what’s happening yet. “And you love Tommy.”

Buck, hands covering his face again moans into his palms, “I do.” Then his hands drop, and his face shot with panic and fear he goes, “Wait?! Does this mean we broke up?”

A pissed-off, disbelieving noise leaves Eddie; Chim shoots another look towards Hen’s way; Hen just gives an awkward unsure smile. “No. No.” She tries to reassure him. “Of course not.”

“I mean,” Chim says with a shrug. “I don’t see how a relationship comes back from that, you know?”

This gets Buck start crying again.

“You’re. Not. Being. Helpful. Chim.” Hen mutters.

Eddie jumps up, “Oh, I’m beating him up for you.”

Buck’s wails get louder.

It all devolves from there with Buck going between hollering and sniffling and Eddie dead-set on confronting Tommy and Hen trying to do damage control with “We’re just gonna talk to him,” and Chim continuing to be absolutely unhelpful with his comments about how Tommy is great, and so cool, and perfect, and he’d make a great brother-in-law, and this doesn’t make any sense.

So, the four of them somehow find themselves marching towards the Buckley-Kinard house with Eddie at the helm and Buck looking like a pathetic mess between them. They’ve barely entered the front yard when Tommy bursts out the front door with his phone in his hand and he goes, “Where have you been?! I’ve been calling you for hou—”

“I trusted you, man!” Eddie shouts, voice echoing through the street.

Tommy stops in his tracks. He takes in the sight of his friends who are all shooting him deadly (and confused) glares. Then he looks at his boyfriend and finds him avoiding his eyes, keeping his gaze at his feet like all the happiness has been sucked out of his entire universe. Brows furrowing in confusion, Tommy takes a step towards him. “Evan.” He tilts his chin up and sucks in a breath when he sees the tear tracks on Buck’s face. His own face crumbles, now in concern. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

Eddie lets out a mirthless laugh. “Pretending you don’t know, huh?”

Tommy looks at him, at Chim, at Hen. “Don’t know what?”

“Oh, you’re a bigger asshole than I thought, Kinard.” Eddie spits in his face, his head shaking. “Acting like nothing’s wrong after saying no to a guy’s proposal so cruelly.”

Tommy freezes. His gaze snaps to Buck with a confused, “What?” but Buck is avoiding his eyes again. “What proposal?” Tommy asks. “Evan didn’t propose to me.”

At this point all tired and beaten Buck sighs, “It’s okay, Tommy.”

“No. No—” Tommy shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”

Buck shrugs. “We don’t have to talk about it now.”

“Evan.”

Sighing again, Buck finally looks up. “Look, I get it. We can talk about it later.” He chews at his lip. “Right?” Because he’s still not sure if they’re broken up or not and god he really wishes they’re not because marriage is a dumb institution rooted in patriarchy to maintain and reinforce traditional gender roles and they didn’t even let two men marry till a decade ago, so it’s not like they need anyone’s acknowledgement and all he needs is Tommy, but also he had the absolute perfect ring picked out and he doesn’t know if he can get a refund on it, and calling Tommy his husband would be so fucking nice, and maybe he has been dreaming about that for the past however many years.

At this point, he’s tearing up again, so Tommy cups his face and brushes away some of the tears, before saying with the biggest gentlest eyes, “We can talk about anything you want. But… Baby, what proposal?”

Buck sniffles. “Earlier. W-when I asked you in the garage.”

Tommy frowns harder because that doesn’t make any sense. “You didn’t ask me to marry you, Evan.”

“Yes, I did, Tommy,” Buck huffs.

“No, you asked me if I wanted to take a vacation.”

“I think I know what I asked.”

“You said you wanted to go on a trip!”

“That’s not what I said!”

“Okay, you didn’t say trip! You said, you said something like if I wanted to take a new journey with you! Embark on adventure or something. You said you wanted a travel companion for a voyage!”

“Lifelong voyage.” Buck murmurs, lips pursing and arms crossing together. “For our grand adventure together.”

No one says anything for a minute as Buck avoids their eyes and scuffs his feet in the dirt.

At last, as the person with any semblance of intelligence Hen says, “Buck. Did you use any word related to marriage? Like “husband” or “marry” or even “matrimony”?” Her eyebrows rises. “Anything that’s not a metaphor?”

Buck, face red up to the hairline now, just shrugs. “I had a-a speech, okay? I was n-nervous and it was long so I had to paraphrase.”

Finally, Hen sighs, not unkindly.

Chim chuckles, kinda unkindly.

Eddie looks almost as embarrassed as Buck and murmurs, “Sorry, man,” to Tommy as the realization hits it was just his best friend being a huge dumbass and Tommy actually didn’t do anything to deserve a beating.

Tommy, his entire focus on his boyfriend and not paying them any attention, pulls Buck’s arms down and lifts his face up again. He gives him a smile. “I said no because I thought you were asking to go on a trip, Evan,” he says softly. “And that we’ve just got a mortgage together and can’t afford one.” He shakes his head. “I was covered in grease, Pearl Jam was playing in the background, I wasn’t paying attention.”

Still looking abashed but at least not snotty anymore, Buck says, “N-no. No. It’s my fault. I’m sorry, Tommy,” he says with a shrug.

Tommy smiles again. “It’s okay, baby.” For a moment, he rubs his boyfriend’s arms up and down, then says, “Sooo…”

Buck, realizing the faint pink on his boyfriend’s face, looks at him with the roundest eyes. “You mean…?”

“Well…” Tommy shrugs. “Are you gonna ask me for real or what?”

The sun dawns on Buck’s face. His eyes go bright with fresh but happier tears. “Yea-yeah.” He nods frantically. “Tommy. W-will you marry me?”

“Yes,” Tommy says. Buck pounces on him with a kiss that gets a surprised moan from him as Hen, Chimney, and Eddie start clapping and Buck cries again and so does Tommy and later that night, Buck gives him the perfect ring he had picked out and come Saturday they actually go to the greatest restaurant in LA and Tommy listens as Buck explains every step of his original proposal and all the metaphors he’s curated carefully for his speech.

The end.

[shares-a-vest]

Just a Shirt (Read on ao3)

wc: 1.9k | Rated: T | cw: Mild descriptions of Steve's s4 injuries (mostly the scar on his neck), Hospital mention, Brief mention of nightmares

Tags: Eddie Munson Loves Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Post s4 Fix-it (Everyone Lives), Hellfire, Fluff and Angst (Happy Ending), Love Confessions, Injury, Cuddling

Eddie makes Steve a customised Hellfire shirt, just for him. Based off this ficlet/headcanon. But the BIGGEST thank you goes to @tangerinesteve (formally babydollbaron) for their incredible tags below. They gave me the biggest and softest brainworms. I hope I did your wonderful ideas justice!

“Here-p,” Eddie mumbles, pushing a too-neatly folded shirt into Steve’s hands.

“Uh, thanks,” his boyfriend hums, quirking a brow in confusion.

Eddie shrugs the whole thing off for good measure because it’s just a shirt – that’s all it is.

... But not really.

Like, at all.

He looks away, avoiding Steve’s gaze. While their relationship isn’t too new for gifts, it might be too fresh for a t-shirt that screams, ‘You are part of me and I can see that you are in pain and I think I can fix it. Nay, I need to make you comfortable’.

Yeah… it’s perhaps a little too premature for something that says all that.

So Eddie looks at the floor, his beige sock blending into the similarly-coloured carpet that lines Steve’s bedroom. His foot really only looks like an actual foot and not a patch of carpet thanks to the hole in his sock that is currently exposing his pinky toe.

It’s just a shirt, he desperately reminds himself as he catches Steve unfurling it out of the corner of his eye.

It’s just a shirt.

A customised Hellfire shirt he made especially for Steve.

One that is two sizes too big, made of the softest cotton and led to an emptying of his wallet to obtain. A Hellfire shirt that has short sleeves and a loose, scooped neck Eddie fashioned himself after borrowing a sewing book from the library. A neckline he sewed on Mrs Pemberton’s machine after crossing the trailer park and answering a slew of questions from an all too inquisitive Max Mayfield.

It’s a Hellfire shirt in its logo only – despite what his friends might think. Or the fuss all his pea-brained lost little sheepie buddies kicked up along the way.

They have been a total nightmare these past few weeks, scheming and plotting and sabotaging like a little hoard of gremlins. But Eddie supposes he can really only blame himself.

He should have never said anything, never asked Gareth for the original master copy of the Hellfire logo he knows his best friend keeps filed away in secret on the rare occasions they let in new members. Or to get new t-shirts printed in instances of spilled beverage-based stain emergencies. But then Gareth of course squealed to Jeff, who teased Eddie mercilessly before blabbing to Freak, who, well… Freaked about the possibility of a jock joining Hellfire.

The shock. The horror! Oh, the humanity!

And then came what was nothing short of a campaign via Dustin, Mike and Will, all collectively working to not only prevent Eddie from something he wasn’t even going to do in the first place but to also create a drama so seismic that rumours got around the whole of Hawkins that one Eddie Munson would no longer be running his little ‘demonic’ social club.

Or at least that’s what Wayne said Ernie at the plant had told him that his son had said.

The only thing is, Eddie feels more than a little sorry for Lucas Sinclair, a kid now sulking around, utterly crestfallen that his favourite Laundry Basket Friend isn’t also secretly a full-blown nerd.

It’s just that Eddie wanted to give Steve a nice, soft, comfy shirt he had hoped he would look at just like he is right now.

Besides, Steve had admitted that he liked the Hellfire logo months back when they first started dating. Told Eddie it was, “So creative, man”, after expressing some mild disappointment that he hadn’t shown up for their first date wearing it.

He smiles at the memory, Steve’s eyes lighting up as soon as he hopped into the Beemer, far too eager to head off to Benny’s Diner that he hadn’t even bothered to let Steve chivalrously walk up to the front stoop of the new and improved Casa de Munson.

“Eddie…” Steve says, his voice just above a whisper and sounding just as soft as the too-important shirt in his grip.

“Don’t worry,” he snorts, “I’m not making you join or anything it’s just… You said you haven’t been sleeping well…”

He gestures with his hand, searching for the right words. Better words that won’t sound so monumental and weighted as Steve’s eyes trail right along the shirt’s scooped neckline.

The hem is probably a little flimsy, but hopefully, Steve won’t fucking claw at it like the old Tigers gym shirt he almost tore in two a few weeks back after bolting upright in a sweat after a nightmare. That is what did it – really set Eddie on his mission. Seeing Steve’s sniffles turn to tears and how he tried to hide them away, shrugging Eddie off before rushing to the ensuite bathroom.

He had come back a few minutes later, eyes red as he hugged his arms across himself, appearing small and frightened but acting cold as ice.

“Yeah…” Steve nods before mouthing what appears to be the word, “soft”, as he balls the fabric between his fingers.

“Hell, I know you haven’t been sleeping,” Eddie continues to ramble, “Just… tossing and turning. Also your… Y’know…”

He gestures to his own neck, referring to the still-reddened scar around Steve’s. One that Eddie knows leaves his throat scratchy and hoarse at the slightest provocation. A mark that nosey townspeople gawk at when Steve is at work, leaving him all embarrassed and well, not like Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington at all.

And Steve hadn’t even told Eddie about that part. Nope. He found out from Robin, who swung by the mechanic one afternoon, inconsolable about her best friend spending their shift at Family Video hidden away in Keith Anderson’s stinky loser palace of an office.

“Mhmm,” Steve nods, pursing his lips.

Eddie knows he isn’t mad – it’s just something his boyfriend doesn’t talk about. That he doesn’t like talking about.

He needn’t ramble anymore, really – fill the silence between them or attempt to explain himself because, in a flash, Steve slips off his tight-fitting navy polo and replaces it with his new Hellfire shirt.

And Eddie can’t help but beam at a job well done.

It hangs nicely. Loose enough to sleep in, but not billowing so much to swallow that physique entirely. The neckline sits just where he had hoped too, much lower than the regular Hellfire shirts, scooped below Steve’s collar bones so that even if it stretches in his sleep, it couldn’t possibly pull and tug at his scar.

It’s perfect.

Exactly what he wanted to give Steve, who looks down at the devilish, very metal logo – a sight that is sure to scare off his snooty parents for good if they ever see it.

Before he knows it, Steve lunges for him and Eddie feels his cheeks squish against his boyfriend’s hands as he is kissed.

And kissed.

And kissed some more.

Kisses that last for long enough and grow softer with every peck that Eddie soon feels his legs buckling and he forgets altogether what they are even doing up here, in Steve’s bedroom, in the middle of the day on a warm summer afternoon.

It’s just the he –

“ – I love you,” Steve smiles when he comes up for air and – 

His eyes blow wide in an instant.

And Eddie is sure his own do too – maybe even pop right out of his goddamn skull with an audible gasp in there somewhere as well as they both fully realise what has just been said.

Steve loves him?

Just the same as he loves Steve. So much that he is blurting it out now, in the middle of his bedroom on a warm, mid-summer afternoon – perhaps months too early when they are probably, most likely still in the honeymoon phase.

All because of one perfect t-shirt.

Steve’s brow pinches together and his jaw goes slack as he looks away.

“I…” he trails off, drumming his fingers on Eddie’s shoulders.

“Stevie...” he tuts, smiling back at him.

He steps closer still, closing any remaining space between them as he loops his arms around his partner’s middle and squeezes him tight.

Eddie backs them a step back, then another. Then another until he is at a safe enough distance to rock Steve back and collapse onto the bed.

They fall with a conjoined, “Hmphf” – one that knocks the wind out of Eddie’s already breathless lungs and has Steve momentarily distracted away from whatever inner turmoil he had going on a moment ago. As he lands on top of his boyfriend, Eddie gets a feel of the shirt, now warmed by Steve’s permanently hot body temperature. A feeling that makes it seem even softer.

Like it is already worn in and loved.

He wants to ball a handful of it up in his fist and never let go.

But Eddie forces himself to sit upright, settling down in a straddled position to hover over Steve’s clothed form. He smiles down at the sight beneath him, his giddiness short-lived and quickly fading as a big, brown and now glistening set of panicked eyes return.

“Stevie,” he whispers, running his hand up Steve’s torso.

He ghosts his fingers with a featherlight touch over the printed logo, an illustration he had first scribbled on the back of his math book in his junior year.

Eddie leans forward and takes Steve’s hands, clasping them tight and one by one, he brings them to rest above his head where his super-soft signature swoop is sticking every which way, mussed by the bedspread.

He can’t help but chuckle a little at the sight – momentarily giving into the greedy feeling he gets when he thinks about how this Steve is the one he gets all to himself.

But Steve frowns, those expressive brows looking positively pained now as if only one thing could possibly soften them.

“I love you too,” Eddie says, freeing a hand to delicately pluck at Steve’s loosened neckline, “Obviously.”

“You do?” Steve asks.

Eddie nods as a visible relief washes through Steve’s eyes, leaving his brows to soften up so much he wonders if his boyfriend might now cry.

And before he can say or do anything more, Steve bolts upright, once again leaving Eddie feeling winded and more than a lot flushed this time as he wraps his arms around him and buries his face in his neck, snuffling close like the world’s cuddliest puppy.

They stay like this for a long while, simply breathing in sync as they hold each other. And soon Steve begins to sink, his body going lax as his head slips down onto Eddie’s shoulder.

“I really wanna sleep,” he hums as tears seep through Eddie’s own plain black t-shirt.

“You wanna try now?” Eddie offers, pulling back enough to give an encouraging little smile.

Steve nods, refusing to let him go as they lower down together as one, his eyes fluttering shut when his head meets the bedspread.

“Wanna get all cozy under the covers?” Eddie continues, nudging at the bedding.

He really doesn’t want to move too much more – not when Steve looks like this.

Relaxed.

Loved.

Comfortable and wrapped up in a softness Eddie would like to keep him cocooned in forever.

But as he always does, Steve moves for them and rolls to the side. He snuggles in close, burrowing his head between the crook of Eddie’s neck and the mattress all protected and safe. Eddie palms around for the blanket and haphazardly wraps what sliver of it is free around them, shielding his partner a little more for good measure.

It’s good like this.

Calm. Warm.

Soft.

[harrywavycurly]

Idk if it’s possible or makes sense but could you do a Harry fake wife thing? Really liked the Eddie one💕

Hiiii lovey!!! I’m so happy you liked the Eddie one, of course I can do one with Harry! I don’t know why but this is just what popped into my head for how you’d even meet him for this scenario to take place so I hope you enjoy!!💖

You let out a sigh as your hands grip the sides of the sink in the downstairs bathroom of your friend Amy’s house that was currently filled with people who you haven’t seen or talked to in years, including an ex of yours that left you teary eyed and broken hearted the last time you saw him. You stand up straight and try to gather your thoughts as you look in the mirror and check to make sure you don’t look too disheveled.

“It’s going to be fine.” You mumble as you reach into your back pocket for your chapstick. “Maybe he left already…yeah he totally left already he doesn’t like parties especially house parties.” You just nod to yourself as you attempt to calm yourself down as you quickly apply some chapstick before putting it back in your pocket. “He’s not even that hot anymore and remember he couldn’t ever get you-”

“Uh as much as I love a good pep talk I do think you should save some of this for maybe when you’re not in a toilet with a random stranger?” You jump at the sound of a deep voice coming from behind you as one of your hands goes to your chest as you feel your heartbeat begin to quicken and your cheeks get hot.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry.” You blurt out as you quickly turn around so you’re facing the person you didn’t know you were currently sharing a bathroom with. “Uh why are you sitting in the tub?” You ask with a raised eyebrow as you take a closer look at the man and when you see an all too familiar mermaid tattoo on his forearm you run a hand over your face because of course out of all the people at this party you’d find yourself in a bathroom with Harry Styles.

“Much like the uhm man that you don’t think is attractive anymore I don’t care much for house parties and this is my favorite bathroom in the house.” Harry explains as he stands up and steps over the edge of the tub so he can reach his hand out to you. “I’m Harry by the way so we don’t have to be total strangers anymore.” You just give him a small smile as you shake his hand and introduce yourself.

“So hiding in the bathtub is your plan then?” You ask as Harry takes a seat on the edge of the tub as you lean against the sink.

“Obviously it’s not my most well thought out plan considering you were able to just burst in.” You roll your eyes as a playful smirk forms on Harry’s face.

“Burst in? I knocked twice and you didn’t say anything and the door was unlocked.” You explain with slight annoyance dripping from your voice as you motion towards the door with one of your hands making Harry chuckle to himself because even though he doesn’t know anything about you besides your name, for some reason he likes how your face looks when you’re annoyed with him.

“Like I said,” His voice is playful as he leans over and rests his elbows on his knees as he looks over at you. “Not my most well thought out plan.” He adds making you just nod your head in agreement because hiding in a bathroom at a house party, especially in the tub isn’t a wise choice considering he could’ve just hid in a bedroom or outside on the patio.

“Well since I’m here already do you mind if I borrow your hiding spot for a moment or two?” You ask as you take a small step towards the tub and motion to the empty spot next to him. He looks over at the spot and then turns and looks up at you and nods as he moves over to give you a bit more room to sit down.

“Who are you hiding from? The unattractive guy that hates house parties?” You just nod as you sit down with a sigh.

“He’s an ex and I know he’s probably wondering around out there somewhere and the thought of running into him just kinda makes me-”

“I get it.” You turn your head and look at Harry who is giving you a reassuring smile. “No one likes running into an ex.” He adds as he twirls one his rings around that he has on his index finger.

“Especially when nothing has changed on my end and I’m sure he’s gone off and done all these cool and amazing things and I haven’t even moved out of my shitty studio apartment he dumped me in.” You explain as you look over towards the bathroom door in an attempt for Harry not to see the embarrassment that’s written all over your face at your little confession.

“What if he didn’t know all that?” He asks as he stands up and takes a few steps so he’s now leaning against the sink and looking directly at you. “What if all he knows is you’re happily married?” You look around the bathroom as if someone else is going to magically appear as you raise an eyebrow at him as you stand up.

“Uh and who is it I’m going to be happily married to?” You ask as Harry looks down at his hands and begins to slide off his giant gold ring that’s in the shape of the letter S.

“Me.” You feel your eyes go wide as he reaches his hand out towards you. “He doesn’t need to know the details he just needs to believe we are together.” Harry ignores the expression of shock on your face as he grabs your left hand and slides his ring onto your ring finger.

“But you’re Harry Styles.” He just laughs as you state the obvious but you feel like it’s an important thing to say because he can’t be serious right now about wanting to go out there and act like a married couple.

“And for tonight you’re Mrs. Styles.” You just look down at the ring on your left hand and then back up at Harry who is giving you a grin that shows off his dimples.

“Fuck it.” Harry chuckles as you run a hand through your hair and readjust your top before taking a step towards the door. “Don’t touch my ass and I don’t like to be called babe.” Harry just nods as you give him some basics while he takes a step so he can grab the doorknob and open the bathroom door for you.

“Feel free to touch any part of me you like.” You playfully roll your eyes as you step out of the bathroom with Harry behind you and you suddenly realize how scandalous this looks to anyone who is watching. “Don’t worry my darling no one saw us.” You feel Harry’s breath on your neck as he leans down and whispers in your ear as if he could hear the thoughts that were going through your mind as he quickly grabs one of your hands and interlocks his fingers with yours so he can lead you towards the living room.

“Do you know anyone at this party?” You ask once he has successfully escorted you to the living room so you’re standing in front of an armchair that barely looks big enough for one person let alone the two of you.

“I know three people here.” He answers as he sits down in the chair and before you can say anything you feel his arms wrap around your middle carefully pulling you onto his lap. “And one of them just so happens to be my wife.” You roll your eyes as you attempt to get comfortable making Harry chuckle as he loosens his hold around you making it easier for you to get yourself situated in his lap.

“Who are the other-”

“I knew that was you.” Harry feels your body go tense as a man comes from the kitchen and stands in front of you and Harry. “Harry? What are you doing here?” He asks as he looks over your shoulder at Harry making your heart drop to your stomach because of course he doesn’t notice you when Harry Styles is sitting right behind you.

“Do I know you mate?” Harry asks with a questioning tone that makes the man standing in front of the two of you let out an awkward laugh as you look over to your left and out the window as you feel one of Harry’s hands grip your hip giving it a light squeeze letting you know Harry is well aware of who this man is.

“Oh sorry I’m just-”

“A fan?” You bite back a laugh as Harry raises an eyebrow at your ex who is now rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly with the hand that’s not holding a beer. “Usually I don’t mind meeting fans but I’m actually with my wife so you understand that I need some privacy right?” You smile as you feel Harry lean down and place a kiss to the top of your head before you turn and look at your ex who looks like he just saw a ghost. It took him all of ten seconds to register it was you sitting in Harry lap and his eyes dart from you over to Harry and then land back on you.

“You’re his wife? How did-”

“It’s a long story.” Is all you say as you look away from your ex and up at Harry who is already looking at you with a smile on his face.

“It’s funny this party is actually a lot like the one we met at isn’t it baby?” You laugh and turn your body a little so you can playfully swat at Harry’s chest allowing your ex to get a decent view of your ring finger.

“I just figured if you married someone like Harry Styles I’d at least read about it? How have you kept this a secret?” You feel panic begin to creep in at his question but before you can fully start to freak out Harry is gently giving your hips a squeeze letting you know he wants to stand up so you quickly stand letting him get up so you can take his spot sitting in the chair.

You can’t help but feel a bit relieved when Harry takes a sort of protective stance as he makes sure to stand in front of you so that he’s blocking your ex’s view of you. Because in this moment Harry has made the decision that he doesn’t quite like the man standing in front of him so he doesn’t really mind that he’s about to hurt his feelings.

“You can look at me not at her if that’s quite alright? I have a thing about strange men staring at my wife.” You don’t miss the harshness of Harry’s tone as he moves a bit so he’s now fully standing in front of your ex who’s mouth opens as if he wants to say something but then closes as his eyes finally meet Harry’s.

“Sorry I uh actually know her so it’s just shocking to find out she somehow secretly married-”

“It wasn’t a secret mate.” Harry cuts him off as he crosses his arms over his chest and sends your ex a hard glare. “We just told the people who actually mean something to us and sorry to be blunt but you say you know her yet I don’t even know your name.” You put a hand over your mouth to hide the little smirk that has formed on your face as Harry puts your ex in his place.

“Oh uh it’s-”

“It’s not really important but to answer your other question about how you didn’t even read about it.” Harry looks over his shoulder so he can give you a quick glance to make sure you’re okay before he looks back over at your ex who is bright red from embarrassment making you smile to yourself. “Well I am Harry Styles so I have my ways of keeping things private.” He adds with a smug smile as he looks over at you and shoots you a playful wink.

“Yeah that uhm makes sense.” Your ex’s voice slightly cracks as he speaks making him have to clear his throat, you take this moment to stand up causing Harry to step to the side to give you some space as he drops his arms from his chest so he can drape one over your shoulders and pull you into his side.

“Can we go outside for a bit H?” You ask as you look up at Harry making him just nod his head and move his arm from your shoulder so he can place his hand on your lower back.

“Of course love.” You smile at his choice of pet name as he gently applies some pressure to your lower back so you’ll start walking towards the back patio door. “If you see Jeff walking around give him your address and I’ll send you an autograph if you’d like?” You giggle to yourself as Harry raises his free hand up and waves to your ex as the two of you walk out of the living room. “Enjoy your night mate!” Harry tries to shout over his shoulder but it comes out more of a laugh as he opens the back door for you and you’re secretly sad you can’t see the look on your ex’s face because you’re sure it’s a mixture of absolute embarrassment and a little tiny bit of regret at the idea of letting you get away.

“Is it bad that I loved every minute of that?” You ask as Harry just laughs as you turn around and place your hands on his shoulders. “You were amazing.” You add making him smile.

“I mean I am an actor.” He says with a shrug making you playfully roll your eyes as you suddenly become very aware just how close you’re standing to him as his hand that was on your lower back has moved so now it’s loosely gripping your hip. “I’m going to have to call Jeff in the morning and fill him in just in case anyone else got an earful of that little story.” You feel a sense of anxiousness start to overtake you as you realize the situation you have put Harry in and it’s as if he can feel it because as you begin removing your hands from his shoulders he is quick to place his over yours keeping them there.

“I’m sorry.” Your voice is shaky as you look away from Harry. “This is going to be such a mess for you and-”

“It was my idea remember?” He states as he bends down a bit so he can look you in the eye. “It’s going to be fine I’ve had rumors going around that I’ve died before and besides what if I did just meet my future wife in the toilets at one of Jeff’s annoying friend’s house parties? That’s a story for the grandkids don’t you think?” He gives you a grin and a wiggle of his eyebrows making you chuckle as you rest your forehead on his chest and let out a long sigh as his hands go to your back and begin running them up and down in a soothing motion.

“You think Amy is annoying?” You tease as you look up at Harry who rolls his eyes as your arms are now loosely wrapped around his neck.

“Yes.” You laugh at how quickly he answers the question as he looks down at you and you watch his eyes flicker to your lips briefly before they make their way back up to your eyes and you know what he’s silently asking you so you just nod as an answer. You close your eyes as his hands come up and cup your face just a few seconds before his lips meet yours in a sweet kiss.

“You sure you want to tell the grandkids about this?” You joke as Harry pulls away making him laugh as he rests his forehead against yours as his hands fall from your face and back to your hips.

“We can leave a few things out.” He answers with a smile before he places a quick peck to your cheek before standing up straight. “Not to be too forward but seeing as you are technically my wife for the evening would you like to maybe get out of here and get some dinner? I know a great place down the street.” You smile as he brushes some of your hair out of your face. “So what do you say Mrs. Styles?” He asks after you take a few moments to act as if you need to think about your answer.

“Lead the way Mr. Styles.” He smiles as you drop your arms from around his neck as he drops one of his hands from your hips so he can interlock his fingers with yours. “Oh and I’m totally telling Amy you think she’s annoying.” Harry laughs as he leads you down the steps of the porch and out the back gate and in the direction of his car.

[asbealthgn]

It occasionally happens that Steve or Robin will desperately need each other at suboptimal times of day.

It was like this for a while last summer after Starcourt and now it’s happening again in the aftermath of Vecna. Sometimes, Robin will wake up from a nightmare at three in the morning and ride her bike over to Steve’s house. If his parents are gone, she’ll let herself in with the spare key he gave her. If they’re home, she’ll stand by the pool and toss rocks at his window until he wakes up and comes down to meet her. Other times Steve will be on his second night in a row of no sleep and will drive over to Robin’s house to sneak in through her window. 

Tonight is one of those nights. 

He parks around the corner and walks towards the Buckleys’ house as quickly and casually as possible. He’s always a little worried about their neighbors spotting him and getting suspicious, but no one has said anything yet. 

At this point, he’s perfected silently climbing the trellis and creeping along the roofline to Robin’s window. But tonight, he gets halfway there before realizing that the window is open, soft voices wafting out. He moves closer, staying low, and tucks himself under the window until the voices coalesce into words. 

“—I do get it, though,” Robin whispers.

“It just sucks,” the other voice says—Eddie. That’s weird, Steve didn’t know they hung out like this. “‘Cause I know there’s no way he’s ever gonna feel the same.”

Steve wonders who they’re talking about. Who Eddie has a crush on. At least, that’s what it sounds like they’re discussing. And he realizes he should probably leave, since this likely isn’t a conversation he’s supposed to be overhearing, but he can’t help sticking around. He’s curious.

“I mean, you can never really know,” Robin says, “But in this case, yeah. Doesn’t seem likely.”

Eddie makes a sad noise that cuts right through Steve. It kind of makes him want to find whatever guy Eddie is into and shake him until he apologizes for making Eddie feel this way.

“I know,” Eddie says, “I’ve made my peace with that. Mostly. I just—don’t want to fuck anything up, you know? Don’t want my stupid feelings to get in the way of our friendship.”

So the guy is a friend of Eddie’s. That sort of narrows the pool, but Steve definitely doesn’t know all of Eddie’s friends. It might be someone in his band, except they’re all kind of too young for him. Or maybe Jonathan? He sort of seems like the type of guy someone like Eddie could be into. It’s definitely not Steve. There’s no way he’s Eddie’s type. 

He’s not sure why that thought is kind of disappointing.

“Your feelings aren’t stupid,” Robin says, voice gentle. “And even if he does find out, it’s not going to ruin your friendship. He’s a good guy. And he’s more emotionally intelligent than people give him credit for.”

“I know. But it would make things weird, and I don’t wanna make things weird. I like what we have.”

“For what it’s worth,” she says, “He does too. He loves being friends with you, and I think it would take a lot for him to give that up.”

Eddie makes a noncommittal noise. Whoever he likes, Steve thinks the guy’s an idiot if he doesn’t like Eddie back. He’s everything someone could want in a romantic partner—funny, sweet, smart but not in a condescending way, pretty, good with kids. What’s not to love? Steve would totally date him if he weren’t straight.

“And like I said,” Robin goes on, “You never know. Maybe he does like you back.”

“C’mon, Buckley,” Eddie says flatly, “You know that’s impossible. I mean, we’re talking about Steve here.”

Steve jerks at the sound of his name, smacking his head against the underside of the window frame. “Shit!” he hisses before he can stop himself, then freezes.

Inside, the voices have gone silent. There’s the creaking of springs like someone getting off the bed and then Robin is appearing at the window, poking her head out. 

“Steve, oh my God,” she says, looking down at him.

He straightens, trying to act casual even though literally nothing about this is casual. “Oh, hey,” he says. Fuck, what was that? He’s playing this wrong. He glances through the window and sees Eddie still sitting on the bed, eyes wide. He looks petrified. 

Abruptly, Eddie gets up and crosses to the window.

“Eddie, wait,” Steve says as Eddie climbs out of the window, not looking at him. He heads straight for the trellis without a backwards glance. “You don’t have to go,” Steve calls softly after him, but it’s too late. He’s already gone.

Robin sighs. “You should probably just come in,” she says. 

Insides roiling with guilt, Steve climbs through the window and just stands there, not sure if he should say something. She crosses her arms and looks back at him, eyebrows raised in expectation. “Um—” he starts.

She rolls her eyes. “What the hell were you doing, dingus?”

“I’m really sorry,” he says, “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I just—I couldn’t sleep so I came over, and I saw the window was open so I got curious and I—I didn’t mean to overhear that. I mean, I had no clue you guys were talking about me.”

“Well, we were,” she says, sighing as she moves backward until she hits her bed, sitting down. Steve comes over and sits facing her. “And now you know.”

“Now I know,” he repeats. “Makes no fucking sense, but now I know.”

It really doesn’t. What the hell does he have that Eddie would want? He’s not exceptional in any way, not like everyone else in their group. He’s not into any of the things Eddie cares about. He’s not stupid—he realizes he’s a good-looking guy—but Eddie doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would like someone solely based on that. So why would Eddie possibly like him?

Robin is frowning at him. “What do you mean, makes no fucking sense?”

He shrugs. “Just, like, I don’t know why he would be into me,” he says, “I’m—boring.”

“You, Steve Harrington, are many things,” she says, putting a hand on his shoulder, “But you’re not boring. Do you really think that about yourself?”

Now he’s feeling defensive. “I dunno,” he says, “Maybe?”

“Okay, well, don’t,” she says, hard look in her eye. “I don’t want to hear anyone saying bad things about my best friend.”

That makes him smile. “Okay,” he says.

“Okay.”

He shifts in his spot. “So—since when do you and Eddie hang out in the middle of the night?”

“Since never, really,” she says, “I think he normally goes to Nancy. But the Wheelers are out of town, and I think he needed someone to talk to.” She shrugs. “And, you know, I’m kind of the expert on you.”

“Yeah, that’s accurate,” he says, grinning. “Sometimes I think you know me better than I know myself.”

She smiles back at him. “Oh, absolutely.” Then her eyebrows pinch together. “So—you don’t mind? That he likes you?”

“No, of course I don’t mind,” Steve says, shaking his head. “If anything, I’m glad.”

“You’re…glad?”

“Yeah,” he says, “If he’s gonna like anyone, I’m glad it’s me.”

Then he frowns. Why would he rather Eddie like him than someone else? Why is it such a relief that Eddie said his name instead of Jeff or Jonathan? 

Robin is looking back at him with her eyes wide and mouth slightly open. “Steve do you—do you like him?”

He blinks several times. “Uh. I don’t—I’m not—”

What does this mean? If he wants Eddie to like him, does that mean he likes Eddie? He imagines for a second that Eddie does like someone else. He pictures him going on dates with some other guy, kissing some other guy. And it fills him with so much immense hatred for this faceless figment of his imagination. God, he’s jealous.

“Holy shit,” he whispers.

Robin takes both of his hands and squeezes them. “Holy shit,” she repeats.

He pitches forward and lets his head slump onto her shoulder. God, what does this mean for him? He doesn’t know what to do with himself. His world just got lifted up, spun around, and dropped back on its head with no warning. And now he’s just supposed to go about his life knowing that he has feelings for a guy. For Eddie. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Robin says, running her fingers through his hair. “There’s nothing wrong with having a crush on a guy.”

“I know,” he says, voice muffled by the fabric of her shirt. 

“But I get how earth-shattering this is.”

He lifts his head to look at her and she gives him an encouraging smile. She squeezes his hands again. 

“What do I do now?” he asks. 

“Well,” she says, reaching up to flick a lock of hair out of his eyes. “I think you should probably go talk to Eddie.”

(part two here)

[harmonictechnicality]

*my humble offering to @steddie-week (and the s4 anniversary!) | ao3 link here*

Like most bad ideas, it starts with a question. Eddie is sitting on the ground, messing with the laces on his sneakers. Tying, untying. Mindless shit.

Steve is taking up the whole damn park bench, practically laying on it. Hasn’t said a word in the last ten minutes. 

And Eddie sort of hates the silence. Would like Silence to get decapitated with a chainsaw or something equally gruesome. Needs that particular volume to die the loudest death possible. For the sake of irony, of course.

So Eddie kills it - the silence, that is. The lull taking up all this air between him and Steve Harrington.

He kills it with a question:

“What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?”

Steve’s head snaps in Eddie’s direction. “What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

“Fuck, I don’t know, man.” Steve sort of twitches, right between his eyebrows. Shoulders going lopsided, unnaturally angled. Uncomfortable.

Eddie shouldn’t be feeding off this tension so much. Judging by Steve’s body language though, the answer must be a good one. 

He leans forward, almost singing the words. “You sure about that?”

Pushing is fun, darkly playful. Eddie enjoys getting under people’s skin, crawling around till they shrivel up. Is it wrong? Morally unethical? Well… the verdict is still out on that.

Besides, he’s been around Harrington enough lately to know that it doesn’t take much to make him surrender. 

“Fine.” Steve huffs. He lifts himself to a sitting position, knees bobbing up and down. It takes all of Eddie’s leftover energy to not gloat about how easy that was - how quickly Steve caved. Teasing can (will) come later - right now, he wants answers. 

Secrets.

“So, Robin and I went to this party in the city… got pretty shitfaced.”

Eddie throws his head back. “Lame.” 

“Story’s not over.”

Oh? Interesting. Eddie places his hand over his heart, then waves it back at Steve. “My sincere apologies. Continue.”

Steve rolls his eyes, clears his throat (not that he needed to but whatever). “Anyways, she somehow convinced me to go to this tattoo parlor with her. Said her friend worked there and she wanted to visit them, so-”

“Wait wait wait. Don’t tell me this story ends with you getting a butterfly tattoo on your lower back.”

“Will you stop interrupting?”

There’s this serious expression in Steve’s eyes. A combination of dark colors and pure annoyance. Eddie is sane enough to know that annoyance isn’t something he should find endearing, but he does. On Steve.

Just a little.

He shrugs, and Steve continues. “Well, it turns out her friend wasn’t working that night. But the piercing lady was working and was like… superpersuasive.”

“Look, Munson, I don’t remember many details after that. Like I said, totally shitfaced. I just know when Robin and I woke up the next morning, we were so fucking sore. And not like, hangover sore either. We were sore in the same exact place. Right here.”

Steve’s pointer finger is gesturing at his stomach. Right in the center.

No. Absolutely not. Either Steve had severe stomach pains that night, or he’s suggesting that…

No.

“Yeah. There you have it.”  Steve says. Blankly nodding into space. “Stupidest thing I’ve ever done is get a matching belly button piercing with my best friend. Jesus christ, that’s freaky to say out loud.”

The Silence sneaks up on him. Stabs Eddie in the back when he isn’t looking because he’s too busy trying to imagine Steve Harrington with a piercing of any kind. Let alone the most famously slutty kind.

Wrong, so very wrong. He should never let the words slutty and piercing clutter up his imagination while thinking about Steve. The silence has been too long now. Gotta say something, anything.

“Bullshit.” His tone is harsh. Doesn’t mean for it to be. “There’s no fucking way.”

Steve pouts, crinkles his forehead. “I swear on my car - I’m not making this up.”

And see, here’s where the bad idea comes in. This stormcloud of pouting and piercings and chest hair, it’s all becoming dangerous. That urge to provoke is in Eddie’s bloodstream. He has to tip the scale, twist the knife of chaos as far as he can. Self control is out the fucking window.

“Prove it then.”

“Fuck off, Munson.” Steve laughs, maybe scoffs. Either reaction is a little confusing. “Seriously, this isn’t truth or dare.”

The truth is already out though. It’s the dare that Eddie is hungry for. “You can’t just drop a nuclear statement like that and expect me not to ask to see it.”

“Technically, you didn’t ask.”

Eddie clamors over to Steve, all theatrics and fake agony. “Please, Lord Harrington.” He clasps both hands together, rests his cheek on Steve’s knee. Batting his eyelashes till Steve cracks a smile. “Let me see the metal that has punctured thy skin. I beg of thee.”

Steve shoves him off. “You’re such a dork.” It’s lighthearted, barely qualifies as shoving. He’s become way too decent for actual aggression these days. 

A fact Eddie tirelessly clings to when Steve stands up. Lifts the bottom of his shirt and puts it in his fucking mouth.

“Holy shit.” Eddie mutters. No time to consider how pathetic it comes across.

In theory, this should all be stupidly unattractive. The way Steve holds his shirt between his teeth. The way he mumbles incoherent shit between the fabric in his mouth. The way he keeps pointing at it, poking it.

That shiny, teardrop-shaped metal. Just… hanging from Steve’s belly button, swinging slightly with every small movement. Eddie’s eyes start to swing with it, back and forth. Back and forth. Maybe those roadside hypnotists are onto something, because the dumbest piece of jewelry has Eddie captivated.

He could just be captivated by the guy attached to the dumbest piece of jewelry. Piercing.

Jesus Christ. Eddie really didn’t think his life could get any weirder. But here he is. Staring at Steve Harrington’s belly button piercing. Fucking mouth-breathing at the sight of it. Probably seconds away from salivating. 

He really should consider seeing a licensed psychologist. Fix his terminally horned-up brain once and for all.

“It’s…” Eddie swallows, his eyelids feel heavier than his stare. “Not what I expected.”

The fabric drops from Steve’s mouth. Unevenly falls around his waist... hips. “What were you expecting?”

To laugh. To mock. Threaten blackmail for six lifetimes, maybe more.

Instead, Eddie gazing at it the way people gaze through telescopes. He peers lower, tries to see if it’s silver or gold. Hard to tell at sunset. None of Eddie’s typical instincts are sinking in. All he wants is to feel the metal rolling over his tongue or get it trapped between his teeth. See how it tastes mixed up with Steve’s skin.

“Fuck.” Yikes. Eddie didn’t mean to say that out loud. Straightens up from his questionable position, does it so fast that his spine sounds like bubble wrap. “Sorry, sorry.”

What the hell is he apologizing for? Cussing? Having a skeletal structure? Christ almighty, he’s a mess.

Steve’s lips spread into a grin, doesn’t look like his own. Looks more like the kind Eddie might give after pulling off a successful decoy in one of his campaigns. “What’s wrong with your face, man?”

“My face?”

“It’s all…” Steve trails off. Sighs and sits back down on the bench. “Nevermind.”

Eddie reaches up to his cheek, understands exactly what Steve is referring to. He feels feverish to the touch, must be a shade of red that is so deep, it’s noticeable in the darkening sky. 

“Sorry… sorry.” Steve hangs his head. Seems troubled even though Eddie is nailing that particular routine all on his own.

“Think that’s my line.” Eddie jokes. 

“Right.”

Silence is lurking around them yet again. Eddie hates it, but he’s running out of steam here. The embarrassment is on display, his cheeks and neck covered in splotchy red patches. His voice is higher, somehow, as if his vocal chords are shrinking. He’s undergoing a crisis and crush simultaneously and it is not an attractive look for him.

“Just go ahead and get it over with.” Steve says. Interrupts whatever cynicism that’s currently brewing in Eddie's head. 

“Get what over with?”

“The teasing.”

“Oh that’s not… it’s um… you don’t…” Eddie can’t pick an appropriate response. They’re way beyond politeness and niceties. And any bullshit he tries to pull isn't gonna be convincing. So it’s best to stay honest. Embarrassing, but honest. “I think it looks pretty good.”

“You do?” Steve looks softer. 

“Yeah. I mean… Bowie probably has one, and he’s a fucking superstar so. Uh. Yeah.”

“Bowie, huh?”

“I like Bowie.” I like Bowie? What a beefhead answer. Eddie joins Steve on the bench, hopes it distracts from that very un-cool line. 

“I like Bowie too.” Steve messes with his hair a bit. Elbows Eddie in the side and chuckles. “You should get one.”

“A piercing?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t hold your breath, man. I’m not letting that nightmare creator you described anywhere near my lower abdomen. Not gonna happen.”

Steve reaches out, runs his knuckles down the bridge of Eddie’s nose. Stops at the crease of his nostril. “What about one right here?” His voice is even, calm. Too calm for what he’s asking.

His hand is warm, slightly calloused. The only two thoughts Eddie can process without going fully catatonic. Steve’s hand is on his face and it’s warm.

Slightly calloused. 

“Uh. Dunno.” Eddie says. A hoarse whisper in reply. “Probably not.”

Steve scoots in closer, never taking his hand off Eddie’s face. Just moving it around. Exploring. He brushes along to Eddie’s ear this time. Holds the edge of it between his thumb and index finger, looking straight at it. 

“What about right here?” Steve’s eyes stay fixed on Eddie’s ear. Every touch seems natural, just questions that involve connection or something.

Internally, Eddie is dousing flames. Fanning them left and right. Running in circles, fucking clueless on how to properly calm down. Be civil. Be Dude Civil. His breathing is so rapid, he knows it. Can hear it between them, collecting space. Decides it would be best to mimic Steve. Fix his eyes only on him, borrow the stability as much as possible.

“Mmm… maybe.”  Eddie gets stuck on the ‘mmm’ sound. That’s how good it feels having someone touch him like this. Careful, yet heavy in curiosity. Rolling the tip of his earlobe between two fingers, just enough pressure to create heat. 

It warrants that sound.

Steve’s glance drifts before his fingers do. Eyes landing on Eddie’s lips, slight hesitancy before his hand follows. Eddie has to hold his breath now. Minimal oxygen is the only way he’ll survive this moment, which makes no fucking sense, but it does all the same.

“Here would look really good.” Steve slowly traces the curve of Eddie’s bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. The back and forth pattern is disarming. Makes Eddie’s lips part, mouth slightly open.

Just enough to speak. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

If Eddie passes out from lack of oxygen, he’ll regret it. He’ll regret not taking the risk, finishing what Steve has started. Because this surpasses friendly touching. 

This is charged in electric shockwaves.

Eddie dips in, kisses Steve before he can move his hand out of the way. Steve makes a sound, not even a surprised one. It’s sweeter, laced in relief. Eddie pushes in, wants more, whatever he can get. Has his fingers wrapped around Steve’s wrist, the same hand that’s dragging down his face, his neck. Stopping at his chest. 

Every rumor is true, that kissing Steve Harrington is like the gates of heaven opening up. That his tongue could work miracles on amateur lips with a few licks and curls. But no one ever told him about the noises he makes - and those are the best fucking part. Heaving breaths, pleased whines, each one captured with Eddie’s mouth before they get any louder.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe those are just for Eddie. Reserved for kissing him.

Goddamn, he’s delusional. Completely delirious from kissing a dude with a belly button piercing.

There’s a light getting brighter, almost approaching them. Eddie opens his eyes, quickly backs off while Steve does the same. Has to literally detachhimself from wherever his hand was busy wandering all over Steve’s body. 

Headlights pull into the nearby parking lot. Eddie squints to get a better look at the car. It’s Robin and Vickie, showing up fashionably late as always. Sure, he’s grateful that it’s just them, the queerest people in his circle of weirdos. And while they’re reasonable people with shit like this, even they’dbe shocked to know that Eddie and Steve just sucked face for a solid three minutes. Probably best to not mention the gory details, not tonight. Eddie hopes Steve is thinking the same thing.

Both of them stand up, rearrange themselves to look presentable. Less tousled and kiss-bitten. Steve spends a few extra seconds with his hair before turning to Eddie, eyebrows high. Likely a non-verbal ask if his hair is looking as godly as ever.

Of course it does. Looks even better knowing Eddie’s nails were just digging into it.

Steve is a few steps ahead of Eddie, heading for the girls, when Eddie does it again. Kills the silence with a question. 

“Can we… do this again?” It’s edging on desperate, he’s so fucking aware of that. Self control really proving to be a major downfall with him tonight. Should definitely consider taking classes, train his willpower or some shit.

Steve stops walking. He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t even look at Eddie as he speaks. “My place.”

Oh. That’s… wow. Unexpected. Eddie jogs up to Steve, beside him. Way too eager now, sort of buzzing for more information. Hints of excitement or maybe a smile. Anything, really. He’s at that level of weak for this guy.

Steve just keeps walking, but leans in, right next to Eddie’s ear. The same one he messed with earlier. His voice is quiet, but Eddie hears every damn syllable:

“I’ll leave the window unlatched for you.”

For him. 

Maybe Eddie isn’t completely delusional after all.