I just wanted to say regardless of whether you've seen the show that you're my favorite ST writer. I dont know how you capture the characters so well while further developing them perfectly but it's genuinely incredible. I must've read your steddie fics like 97 times just because I adore them <3 If you're still taking prompts, I'd love to maybe see Steve and Eddie! Maybe with "Oh this is too good to pass up" as the dialogue? Either way, you're incredible and I can't wait to read all your other work <3
Okay, wow this is VERY sweet ;w; You are so so kind anon. I think I'm getting better at writing them now after having practiced. Those first fics have a fond place in my heart for being the first ones, but every day I am tempted to rewrite them LMAO
anyways, I'm certainly far from perfect but I'm grateful that you enjoy them!! This warms my heart so much. I really do love writing them and the positive response to those fics made me wanna keep going and improve. Still haven't seen the show yet but honestly I'm chilling in this little niche I've carved for them.
Hopefully this fic makes you happy and pushes me a lil closer to being worthy of the honor of being your fav. Really hope you enjoy--I fuckin love these boys <3
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Ahoy, Sailor
You can read this as a season three au or as season four. Either way, Steve and Eddie have a bitchy will they/won’t they rivalry situation going on. Eddie REALLY likes pushing Steve’s buttons.
It’s not unusual for Eddie to find his way to the Harrington house for some excuse or another, but he’ll admit it’s unusual to be invited. He tends to just appear and haunt Steve unasked. It’s more fun that way.
Steve had called him, muttering something about how Eddie needed to come pick up his vest because it ‘smelled like a depressed hippie’. Eddie had fired back that Steve’s room couldn’t possibly smell any better without it, and their usual bickering had Eddie leaving fifteen minutes later with a grin on his face.
He loves Steve. Messing with him, that is. So, naturally, when Eddie ascends the stairs and sees Steve dressed like a little schoolboy, he takes a minute to compose his best jokes.
“Ahoy, sailor.” Eddie whistles, leaning in the doorway to Steve’s room. He drinks in the Scoops Ahoy uniform and all it blessedly has to offer.
“Wh—oh, fuck off. It’s laundry day.” Steve rolls his eyes.
“Aye aye, cap’n.” Eddie salutes. Steve flips him off.
“Cool the attitude, sassy lost child.” Eddie snorts. There’s piles of clothes on every surface in the room, arranged in a way that suggests intention but would baffle even the most equipped psychologist. Eddie wants to ask about the system here, but he knows he’s no better, so he just watches Steve flit around with a little pout on his face.
“You look like Donald Duck’s worst cousin.” Eddie snickers into his fist.
“You done?” Steve puts his hands on his hips.
“For now.” Eddie shrugs. Steve huffs.
Steve keeps rooting through the piles on the floor--slow enough to be mesmerizing, but fast enough where he’s clearly looking for something specific. Oh, his vest. Laundry. Eddie scans the room until, aha--he spots it hanging over the back of Steve’s desk chair, smooth and loved. Striking, compared to the state of everything else. Eddie smiles before he can catch himself.
“My vest is over there.” Eddie jerks a thumb towards Steve’s desk.
“Yeah, I see that.” Steve gives him a perplexed look. He shakes his head and keeps drifting through the clothes.
“Then what are you looking for?” Eddie ventures, stepping into the room properly. As much as he wants to, he doesn’t shrug his vest on. It feels like a conclusion of business, a visual excuse for Steve to kick him out despite the olive branch he’s inexplicably extended.
“A shirt. Robin’s got a date to impress.” Steve sorts through a pile. He looks between a yellow sweater and a green one, sighs, and tosses them both aside.
“By wearing…your clothes?”
“Yes, Munson, keep up.” Steve puts a hand on his hip. “She’s gonna be here eventually, probably freaking out, and I wanna give her two options. Just two. She’s gotta look good, but she’s gotta be comfortable.”
“Right.” Eddie nods slowly, as if this makes sense.
“Hey, make yourself useful. I’ve got this shirt, uhm, dark blue? With a little stripe? If you find it, let me know.” Steve flaps a hand at him. Eddie knows precisely the shirt--it fits Steve distractingly well.
“I’ll get right on that, sweetheart.” Eddie flops backwards on the bed. Steve shoots him a withering look. Eddie gives his most charming smile and folds his arms behind his head.
God, he loves this part of their little dance. The way Steve looks at him, the undeniable fondness buried beneath the exasperation—it’s a thrill.
Steve tugs at a shirt underneath Eddie’s body, but he can’t get it free. He heaves a belabored sigh.
“Do you mind?” Steve’s eyebrow twitches.
“Not at all. I’m enjoying myself immensely.” Eddie smirks.
“If you stretch out my shirt, I’m gonna push you in the goddamn pool. Get up!” Steve jabs Eddie in the side. Eddie giggles and flinches violently.
Steve Harrington is looking at him as if he’s the best present he’s ever received, and while some deep and unacknowledged part of Eddie does flips at the sight, it’s terrifying.
“Oh, this is too good to pass up.” Steve crawls onto the bed after him, his devilish grin curling wider by the second. Eddie’s face burns and he scrambles to flee, but Steve’s already on top of him.
“Don’t you dare, Harring—aaah!” Eddie’s soul and dignity flee him in a high-pitched shriek.
“Holy shit. I’m barely touching you.” Steve staccato pokes him everywhere he can reach, quick and light, and Eddie can’t stop the giggles bursting from him in waves. He wants to think of something witty to say, but it tickles, and Steve’s smirking—it’s a lot to ask of man under these conditions.
Steve starts tickling him in earnest, his fingers skittering wherever they can reach. When Steve trips up his ribs, Eddie arches like he’s being hit with a defibrillator. He smushes his face into his hands, hoping maybe he’ll smother himself and they can call this a day, but Steve tuts at him and pulls his hands away from his face.
“No way you’re this ticklish,” Steve says again—does he really need to rub it in—and gives Eddie’s sides a curious squeeze. Eddie shrieks and flips himself over, attempting to crawl towards freedom.
“Where’re you going?” Steve drags Eddie back into place by his waist. He makes an incoherent whining noise that breaks off into laughter and goes limp on the bed. He tries to roll back over but Steve is solid on top of him. Being face-down gives him the small mercy of being able to hide his face while he cackles.
God, he didn’t even know that the back of someone’s ribs could be ticklish. Holy hell.
Eddie grabs at Steve’s knee and releases a desperate jumble of syllables. Steve yelps and falls backwards off the bed.
Eddie peeks at him over the edge of the bed, laughter petering off into gentle embers. Steve stares up at him, wide-eyed. Eddie backtracks, trying to figure out why a simple touch would’ve elicited such a big reac—oh. Oh.
Steve’s halfway down the stairs before Eddie even realizes he’s gone.
“Hey! Get back here!” Eddie skids after him two stairs at a time, swiping at the back of Steve’s shirt.
Eddie tackles Steve over the back of the couch, both of them a tangle of screeching, flailing limbs. Steve’s stronger but Eddie is scrappy, having long since abandoned his self-preservation instincts. Steve tries to roll them over and Eddie goes limp. Steve grunts under the deadweight, and it gives Eddie the two seconds he needs to clamber on top of him properly.
“Now—“ Eddie finally wrestles Steve down, huffing a lock of hair out of his eyes— “What the everloving fuck was that?”
“Nothing.” Steve’s poker face is good, but Eddie can see right through that easy smile. He walks his fingers across Steve’s stomach. Steve inhales sharply.
“Didn’t sound like nothing.” Eddie raises his eyebrows innocently. Steve narrows his eyes at him, but his fake smile is very slowly twitching into a real one.
Spurred on, Eddie kneads into Steve’s stomach, gentle and a little clumsy. Steve trembles under him, wrenching a hand free just to cover his face. Little huffs and snickers wobble out of him.
“Dishing out what you can’t take? Oh, this is precious.” Eddie snickers. Steve shoves his hand into the side of his face to push him away. Eddie licks it.
Steve screeches, but that breaks the dam. The first beautiful sound from him is a snort. Eddie gasps happily, then laughs right along with Steve.
It’s not that Steve doesn’t laugh, he does, but it’s often the restrained chuckle that Eddie loves to give every royal NPC in his campaign. Eddie’s never heard anything like this, this bubbly rush littered with voice-cracks and little bouts of nose-scrunched hiccups. He didn’t know Steve was even capable of these kinds of noises.
The stupid little Scoops shirt rides up and Eddie takes advantage of bare skin. Steve squeals and goes boneless on the couch. He hits Eddie with the full brunt of his smile, unfiltered and radiant, and something in Eddie’s chest flutters.
“EddieEddieEddie--” Steve snorts again, and the speed at which his face turns scarlet suggests embarrassment. Eddie can’t imagine why.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” Eddie reaches behind him and finds Steve’s knee, tickling just where the goofy shorts stop, and Steve wails. He curls his head into Eddie’s chest and seems to resign himself to die there. Eddie has absolutely no feelings about how warm Steve feels or the desperate little leg kick he does.
Steve grabs Eddie’s wrists and he relents, figuring the promise of future mischief is a sufficient tradeoff for a truce. Steve collapses back into the couch cushions with a delirious little giggle, rubbing his hands over his beaming face. Steve peeks at him overtop his hands, then snickers again.
The longer they sit here, both breathing a little hard, the longer Eddie has to notice the gentle warmth and curve of Steve’s eyes. A hysterical man would call them doe-like. Eddie accepts this new state of being and leans a little closer. His guitar pick necklace dangles over Steve’s chest. Steve’s jaw falls slack, eyes flitting to Eddie’s lips. Eddie’s hair falls in a frizzy curtain around them both.
Eddie doesn’t see Robin so much as he hears her—the screech of disgust bounces off every wall. He pops his head up and they make direct, unfortunate eye contact. She shoots him an all-knowing look with her beady, accusatory little eyes and he gives her his most threatening zip it gesture.
Steve decides that that’s the moment to counterattack, sending a cackling Eddie toppling off the cushions and onto the floor. Steve slides down after him, ducking under a flailing arm and scribbling his fingers wherever he can reach. Eddie curls up like a pillbug. He can hear Robin saying something but it's unintelligible over the sound of his own laughter.
“I know, right?” Steve grins back at her, then looks back to Eddie. Softly.
Steve has the audacity to wink at him. Eddie files that little moment away for Tonight Eddie to scream into a pillow about, and instead focuses on launching a counter-counterattack that’ll save his life.
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