#maybe this takes place in a timeline where the party defeat vecna and the upside down in season 2 or 3

[thorniest-rose]

Eddie who specialises in alternative pest control, i.e. he safely catches the little critters and lets them out safely in the wild where they can’t get hurt or get into anyone’s homes.

And Steve who doesn’t want mice in his bakery but also really really doesn’t want to kill them because he’s too soft hearted and glue traps sound scary.

omg this is so cute!!!! Steve with a bakery?! That would be the sweetest thing ever... like Steve graduates and is completely over all the toxic masculinity he exhibited and was part of at school, and after everything goes to hell at Starcourt and he isn't working at Scoops anymore, he gets a part-time job in a bakery alongside his hours at Family Video. And it's just because they needed staff and he wants the extra money, not because he has any particular interest in baking, but while he's working there he quickly discovers how much he loves it and how fascinated he is by baking and being able to make pretty, delicious things with his hands that make people happy. He learns how to make all different kinds of bread and pastries, graduating to making cakes for events and weddings and doing all the sugarcraft and experimenting with flavour profiles until the bakery's sales are booming and its reputation sky-rocketing and people are coming from neighbouring towns just to buy something. And people just can't believe that king Steve of all people has such a delicate hand and can make such exquisite things, but he does, and you just know all the kids would be in the bakery and that he'd treat them all the time because he loves them so much.

And maybe after a couple of years Steve becomes head baker or maybe he opens a little place of his own. Perhaps the latter, and the place is run-down and needs a lot of work, but it's *his* and that's what matters. Except he realises he has a rodent issue, and while he doesn't want to kill all the cute little mice running around and nesting in the walls, he needs them out if he wants to run a viable business and not be shut down. He gets a recommendation for a pest control company, and he calls and makes an appointment with a gruff older man who says he'll send his nephew out the following morning.

Cue Steve standing outside the bakery the next morning waiting for him to arrive when he hears a blare of hard rock music and sees a van speeding around the corner. He rolls his eyes, thinks it's some drunk hellion, but then realises, mouth agape, that it's the pest control company. His mouth drops even more when the van parks up, haphazardly outside the bakery, and when, instead of the gruff man he spoke to on the phone, it's Eddie the freak Munson who jumps out. Eddie Munson who he went to high school with and who rocks up in a band t-shirt and ripped jeans, and tattoos across his arms and chest. Who grins at Steve when he sees him, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and says, "Hey Harrington, I heard you've got a problem with some pesky little critters," and Steve's eyebrow arches up and he replies dryly, "That's right. But I wanted to get rid of them, not let even bigger ones in" and Eddie thinks that's so hilarious, he lets out this bark of laughter around his cigarette and Steve can't help but laugh too, his life is so weird.

(Eddie would collect all the mice inside the bakery and in return Steve would make him a strong coffee and a freshly baked croissant, and Eddie would be telling him the entire time how it's the best thing he's ever eaten, hands flying everywhere because he's so excited and expressive, and all the while Steve is trying not to flush at the praise and trying not to stare too hard at Eddie's tattoos or his black nails or how his wild dark hair is swept up in a loose bun with loose tendrils of it framing his strangely pretty face.)