#eddeve

[metaldeputy]

If You're Not Into It, Just Say The Word by lemmerman

Rating: Explicit Relationships: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson/Gator Tillman Additional Tags: Sexual Roleplay, Handcuffs, Blow Jobs, Praise Kink, Daddy Issues, Explicit Sexual Content, Implied Consent, Sexual Fantasy, Internalized Homophobia

Summary:

When Eddie comes home to find a familiar piece of paper at the bottom of the stairs, he knows he’s in for a surprise in the bedroom. What awaits him instead of his boyfriend Steve however, is a mysterious stranger who looks just like him but claims to be Gator Tillman, a deputy from North Dakota who wants to arrest Eddie for deviant behaviours. But maybe, if Eddie plays his cards right, he can use those deviant behaviours he’s so famous for to get himself out of jail free, and get himself off at the same time.

Short little blurb under the cut!

Eddie froze on the spot. "Sorry officer, I thought-" "How about you let me do the thinkin’, huh?" He slid his hand down his thigh and freed his gun, pointing it in Eddie's direction. It did look very realistic, almost to the point of uncomfortable. "Now, hands behind your head." Eddie did as he was told, interlocking his fingers. He gave Gator his most sympathetic look. "But officer, I'm a good boy, really." "Are you makin' fun of me?" Gator asked, stalking forward. "Because I can guarantee that makin' fun of me isn't gonna go the way you want. I'm a winner, and you're a loser – and that's just how it is." "Are you sure about that?" Eddie teased.

#we weren't able to find this author here on tumblr #if you know their url or twitter handle let us know! #metaldeputy #steddie #eddie munson x gator tillman #steve harrington x eddie munson #gator tillman x eddie munson #steve harrington #eddie munson #gator tillman #crossover #stranger things #st #fargo #fargo s5 #crossover au #stranger things x fargo crossover #munman #steveddie #eddeve #eddie munson x steve harrington

[deceiver-a-day]

The Chronicles of Eddeve Cadmeis

• [x] relate what Eddeve Cadmeis has seen

• [x] teaches lessons from history

• [x] puts events into perspective 

• [x] highlight people in power

• [x] are accessible to anyone willing to read

#Nobilis #Nobilis RPG #Deceivers #pStates #Excrucian #Eddeve Cadmeis

[codercampsposts]

Student Project Showcase: EdDev

#Student Project Showcase: EdDev

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

hey so i finally wrote more witch au!

enjoy, friends!! though it's significantly shorter than the first part

pairing: steddie | word count: 2,004 | rated: T

Mama thinks that Steve’s had a love spell on him this whole time.

“Since when?” He’d asked.

“I don’t know, my dear, maybe since before you were even born.”

“What?! How?! I thought you said there was no such thing as love spells!” He knows that’s not true.

“There are none that are worth the pain.” she repeats, trying to placate him.

“Yeah, well.” Steve huffs, dropping his hands to his hips and heaving a sigh.

“But there are some that are rumored to be true love spells, soulmate spells.” She continues on when she sees the look on his face. “Rumored, Steven, only ever rumors.”

“Okay, so what do the rumors have to say about them?”

“Every spell like that I’ve ever heard of of this nature is specific to each caster.”

“So I’ve had this spell on me for possibly my whole life, and there’s no way to know anything about it or about the caster.”

“...I’m sorry, honey.”

“Maybe there are clues in the words you have.” Robin cuts in, reaching for the notepad and sliding it in front of her.

Steve huffs, “I need to know the whole thing; there’s definitely words missing.”

“Should you eat more bread?” Robin asks, already sliding the previously abandoned plate of bread towards him.

“You shouldn’t overwhelm yourself.” Mama says, pushing the plate back. “We don’t know if there’s a trigger to the spell, or if you and the caster’s paths will just cross one day, maybe they don’t even know they cast it.”

Steve blinks at her. “So I have a true love and they might not even want me?”

“No!” Robin belts out immediately.

“No, of course not,” Mama says, continuing on. “The one known thing about any spell like this is that they only work on those who are receptive to it.”

“So some weirdo can’t put you under their spell?”

“Yes, exactly Robin; Steve, whatever this is, whoever this was, they love you with all that they are. And you them.”

“I don’t even know who it is! How can I?”

Mama doesn’t have an answer besides saying “Your soul must know them already.”; Their conversation was over soon after that.

Steve spends the next couple days silent and brooding. He can’t stop thinking about how he’s what, marked to love someone he doesn’t even know? How’s that fair?

It could be any random person on the street that thought he was hot, some weird old guy or a lovesick middle schooler..He only just turned 25 the day before the bread incident, but he’s saddled with this huge unknown that isn’t going to get better any time soon?

Okay, apparently not just some weirdo according to Mama, but still. Un-fucking fair all the same.

He’s also pissed that he can’t give anyone all the baked goods he’s made within that time. Each and every one of them ending up with a sour aftertaste. 

“Damn witch bullshit…” he grumbles to himself, only half serious, as he scrapes another batch of sour sugar cookies into the trash.

He’s salty, okay? Pun intended. If he hadn’t ever learned the truth about the powers over food his grandmother (and now him too, apparently) has, he could’ve just excused the batch after batch being off on bad butter, or old flour.. Something other than his mood being what’s ruining his cookies.

That’s what he’d done every other time something he’s made tasted off, now he knows it was him the whole time.

Mama comes in then, he doesn’t have to look up to know the look she’s giving him.

Steve leaves the bowl of leftover dough on the counter, mumbles out a “I gotta go.”, then tromps out the back door and into the woods behind his grandparents’ home. 

He supposes it’s good that they live just outside the city, really, having the trees to escape under like this has helped him before, and he’s hoping will help him now.

Meandering through the underbrush, he strolls along until he reaches the small clearing he’d claimed for himself when he was what, 8? 9? Doesn’t matter. It’s his spot to get away from anything he needs to.

He sits down against the big oak at the edge of the clearing and tips his head back toward the sun filtering down on him through a gap in the canopy above him. He breathes in the fresh air, focuses on the warmth hitting his face, and just exists there for a while, slipping in and out of a soft snooze.

Suddenly, he’s shocked out of his dozing by the sound of twigs snapping underfoot.

If it were coming from behind him, he’d expect it’d be Robin coming to find him here, but it’s not. It’s coming from ahead of him across the clearing.

Steve stands and presses back into the trunk of the tree, wondering if there’s bears in these woods when a person stumbles through the tree line.

The man is thin, about Steve’s age if he were to guess, and covered in dirt, his light wash overalls and his boots are caked in it. His hair is long, pulled half-back away from his face and full of bracken from the forest.

He also seems to be in a daze, staring with dark eyes at Steve with an unfathomable expression. 

It shifts soon after, though, warming into a watery smile. “I’ve come home to you.” he says, clear as day, then collapses onto the grass.

“Oh, shit!” Steve rushes forward, kneeling down beside the man and quickly checking him over for injuries. 

Steve presses his fingers to the man's pulse confirm it's still there (it is) and there don’t seem to be any bruises or breaks in his limbs, so he goes to his head, feeling quickly under the tangles in his hair for any blood, any knots.

Nothing. There’s nothing apparently outwardly wrong with him.

“Hey, hey, wake up! You gotta stay with me, man.” he says, shaking him lightly. 

The other man’s head lolls to the side and his eyes open a crack, his lips quirking up into a smile. “M’love…”

“What is your name?” Steve insists in a slow, clear voice.

Instead of answering, the man raises his hand slowly to cup Steve’s cheek. “...v’wait’d so long..” he slurs, then goes limp again, his hand dropping to his chest.

“Oh no you don’t,” Steve gets his feet under him and gathers the man up into his arms in a bridal carry. His steps falter when he feels how light the man is in his arms, how much more thin he is than how he’d looked.

Steve adjusts his hold on him, making sure not to let his head hang backward over his forearm, and rushes back toward the house.

“Mama!” he shouts as soon as he clears the treeline into the yard.

She’s at the back sliding door as soon as he is. “Steve, honey, what—”

He pushes past her, hurrying to the spare room on the first floor with her on his heels. “I found him wandering the woods, I couldn’t just–I don’t know what’s wrong with him, Mama.”

She gestures him forward to the bed, “Put him there, on top the covers,”

He does, setting him down as if he’s made of glass.

As soon as the man is out of his arms, Mama takes his place. “Nothing seems broken, but he’s so light, he needs food, he needs water, should I call 911? I don’t even know his na—” he rambles on, not even realizing he’d started to pace until his grandma stops him in his tracks.

“Steve, listen to me.” she says, pulling at his wrists gently, removing his hands from his hair. “He will be fine. Now, go get a bowl of warm water and a washcloth and come straight back here.”

He nods dazedly, stumbling backward out the doorway and spinning to the kitchen.

Steve slides to a stop on the tile floor in front of the kitchen sink at the same time Robin gets home from her classes that day.

“I have a date!”

Wait, he needs the bowl first. He scrambles to the opposite counter for the large mixing bowl Mama uses for her damn bread and fishes it out with a clatter of everything that that had been in front of it on the shelf tumbling out to the floor.

“Steve?”

Should he put soap in it?

“Steve!”

No, Mama just said ‘warm water’, not ‘warm soapy water’. He nods to himself and turns on the tap, reaching under the sink next for a washcloth.

“Steven Otis Harrington.”

“Oh, hey Robin, you’re home.” The bowl’s almost full.

“Steve.” She spins him to face her, holding tightly to his shoulders.

He tries to twist back around futilely, “The bowl–”

“Steve. What. Is. Happening.”

He blinks at her a couple times. “Robin!” He pulls her to him in a tight hug. “Holy shit, you’re not gonna believe–”

“Steve, the bowl?”

“Shit,” It’s nearly full when he shuts off the tap, so he dumps a bit out and picks it up with both hands, “C’mon, he’s this way.”

“He? Who’s he?”

“Dunno, I found him in the woods.”

“Aw, Steve, you can’t just take in any ol’ stray dog you happen to find out in the wood—-” Robin cuts herself off as they get to the bedroom door. “Ohhkay…so..not a dog.”

“He looks to be dehydrated, but I don’t think he has any injuries.” Mama says in lieu of a greeting when they return. Steve sits down on the opposite edge of the bed that she is, and carefully passes over the bowl of water without looking at her.

The stranger immediately takes in his attention. His soft features, dark brows…Steve starts to pull the bits of brush out of the man’s hair, untangling twigs, leaves, and he can already see one of those pesky prickle things twisted into the hair next to his ear.

Mama sets the bowl on the sidetable, and gets to work immediately, wiping the dirt and grime from the man’s face and arms. “Robin dear, can you grab one of those sports drinks Pa loves so much outta the fridge? And a bottle of water.”

“Of course!” she says, darting back into the kitchen.

“We’ll need to get some food in him too,”

“We should make him scones.” Steve states apropos of nothing. “With chocolate chunks.”

“Maybe after he’s a bit better, sweetie.” Mama scoffs, wringing out the washcloth. “He needs healthy fats first, butter, oatmeal, avocado, things like that.”

“I can do that!” Steve says, jumping up excitedly. His former task forgotten, he rushes out of the bedroom and to the kitchen, nearly bowling Robin over in the process.

He gets to work on simple eggs and toast for their houseguest, avoiding Mama’s lucky bread in favor of his own store-bought stuff for now, he can make him his own later. 

As he scrambles the eggs, he focuses everything in him on the stranger, on getting him better, making him healthy again. He’s not exactly quite sure how to do what Mama does, but the sour cookie dough says he’ll do it without thinking about it…kinda.

Whatever. 

All he knows is that he’s telling the fuck outta these eggs to make his love better. Make him whole again.. Make him—

Wait..

Did he just refer to the random man laid up in the other room as his love?

Is…

The fugue state he’d been in since first laying eyes on the man crackles away just long enough for him to think.

What did he say before he collapsed? "I've come home to you."?

That..sounds right....why is that so famili—

Steve's eyes leave the pan of eggs in front of him and snap immediately to the scrap of paper he'd scrambled for a few nights ago.

Is he…?

And of course, as if the words weren't already plastered permanently onto his grey matter, there they are, plain as day.

tagging those that were interested on the last part!!! @mugloversonly @kittydeadbones @maybequizas @queenie-ofthe-void @newtstabber @angeldreamsoffanfic @eyesofshinigami @sunflower-trashbaby @perseus-notjackson @kaspurrcat @quinns-shadowy-arts

also, idk if this counts for it, but one of february's songs for @steddiesongfics is work song! which is what this fic is based on! 😊😊

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #witch!eddie #witch!steve #work song #hozier #steve harrington x eddie munson #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #stranger things #st #robin buckley #eddie munson x steve harrington #steve has good grandparents #steveddie #eddeve #witch au #noelle writes

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

the secrets that you keep | for @steddiemicrofic's April prompt: Fool AND for my submission to this month's @steddiesongfics, Talking In Your Sleep by the Romantics!

pairing: steddie (duh) | word count: 454 | rated: M | on AO3

Eddie Munson isn't an idiot.

You can't fool, trick, or cajole him into believing the impossible.

And what he and Steve are doing, have been doing, it's impossible.

Okay, not impossible, seeing as how they have been and it’s been nothing short of amazing. Steve's almost unbearably sweet, the sex is indescribable... but it can't last. No matter what Eddie's feelings are on the matter.

He's known from the beginning that he's nothing but an experiment for the younger man,

“Mhm... Eddie..”

He knows where he stands in the general hierarchy of life, and it ain't higher than his knee.

“....More... please.”

Even now, as he listens to Steve's soft moans and mumbles of some dream he’d be loathe to interrupt and it turns into his usual mumbled nonsense from beside him in bed,

“..Eds…”

Eddie knows that in the end, he'll force his way too big feelings for the pseudo Adonis next to him into the lockbox in the back of his brain,

“..I love you..”

And never think about them again after Steve gets sick of hi—

..what.

Eddie blinks down at Steve's sleeping face. “Steve?”

The golden sun come to Earth has the nerve to smile all soft and syrupy, quirk his lips up on one side, and mumble out another “I love you, Eddie.” clear as fuckin’ day.

Eddies heart is in his throat, its deep in the pit of his stomach, its impaled on the icy crags in his heels 

“Steve?” 

"...waffles.."

"Steve?!"

His last cry finally wakes the other man, the comforter whisking off Eddie's naked lower half as Steve whirls off the mattress, his bat at the ready.

Stark naked himself, standing firm between Eddie and the bedroom door with his head on a swivel, Steve slurs out a still sleepy "What happened, what'd you hear, what's wrong?” 

Eddie's traitorous heart makes it hard to say anything, but he manages to whisper, “You love me?”

It takes him a handful of seconds, but eventually Steve turns back to face the bed, much more awake than he had been.

“I do?” Eddie’s face must’ve twisted up at the questioning tone because he corrects course, “I mean, I do.. but how’d you know that? Did Robin say something?”

He starts to pace; quite the sight, him being bare as the day he was born with his bat still hanging from his fist, “I knew I shouldn’t’ve told her something that big (“Steve..”), but how could I not? I tell her everything (“Steve.”). But she promised not to say anything to you and now–

“Steve!”

Steve finally stops pacing, though he’s still avoiding Eddie’s gaze.

“Look at me.” and when he does, Eddie smiles and says, “I love you too.”

#steddie microfic #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington x eddie munson #eddie munson x steve harrington #eddeve #steveddie #st #st ficlet #steddie ficlet #stranger things #noelle writes

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

good morning!! it's @henderdads' birthday!!!! happy happy happy birthday to youuuu cass!!!

The minute Eddie Munson turned 18, he could see it; the only color he would see until he and his soulmate kissed for the first time.

Yellow.

Rays and rays of warm yellow sunshine, the middle light (and middle light only) of the one stoplight in town, one half of their school colors, the dandelions spotted agross the grass between the trailers, the stubborn daffodils that keep reappearing in Ms. Wilson’s garden though she’s long since passed…

The half-toned things he’s told are green, half yellow, half blue, and that he got lucky his soulmate’s favorite color wasn’t black or gray (then he felt glad he’d settled on a different color than either of those by time he was older, he didn’t want to subject his soulmate to more black and white..

After Steve Harrington turns 18, he can see the color of the lipstick his mom wore in their last family portrait, the color of the punch that gets spilled all over Nancy’s shirt at Tina’s halloween party, the stripes and piping on his godforsaken Scoops uniform, the red of his own blood rushing down the drain beneath his feet.

The dark tone puddled beneath Eddie’s limp body in the Upside Down.

The same color splashed onto Dustin’s arms and legs.

Pressing his hands into it to stop it from spreading, to start it flowing again, Steve presses his lips to Eddie’s once…he hasn’t done CPR since he worked at the pool….twice…”C’mon man, don’t leave him like this.”....

The third time is when it happens.

The feeble beat of Eddie’s heart starting again, the push of breath into his lungs, the sudden flood of cool, dark colors around them. 

“Eddie? Eddie! C’mon man, stay with me.”

It looks like it takes a herculean effort to do so, but Eddie’s eyes open. “H–hey, Harrington. Wh–”

“I’m going to pick you up now, Ed,” Steve says, doing just that, tucking Eddie into his chest and starting for the trailer. “El is keeping the gate open for us but we gotta hurry.”

The four of them manage to get him out through the gate and into the RV, this time with Nancy behind the wheel. 

Having to let him go at the doors to the ER is one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do, but he manages, Robin telling him over and over again that she’d already called Eddie’s Uncle and that he’d be safe.

While they’re waiting, filthy and exhausted but victorious nonetheless, Nancy says to him: “It’s blue, by the way. The…everything down there has some sort of blue tinge to it.”

Steve doesn’t ask how she knew, just appreciates that he can look at something and she’ll tell him the name of the color. 

The pattern of the chairs is orange and purple, the plant in the corner is green (“All plants are some shade of it for the most part.”), the wallpaper is his favorite though.

“It’s yellow.”

“I guess I know what color Eddie’s been seeing the past few years..” It’s the first and last thing he says until Wayne Munson comes to get them.

“You three need’ta be looked at too. Not jus’ Henderson.”

He leads them back to a room, and Steve recognizes Dr. Owens there waiting for them.

They get looked over, they get cleaned up, and Steve gets a shot of something that’s supposed to help stave off anything those flying rats may have given him.

And for the next week, he stays. 

He and Wayne maintain a constant vigil at Eddie’s bedside. Wayne leaves for his shifts when he has to, Steve is allowed to stay because of his soulmate status, and Eddie wakes up a little more than a week later.

Wayne had left a couple hours ago, so Steve will have to call him at the plant but first: “Steve?” Eddie manages to croak out when his eyes crack open the first time.

“Hey Eds, welcome back to the world of the living.”

Eddie shuts his eyes and huffs a laugh, then cringes, “Still painful as always, I see.”

“Oh yeah? What else do you see?”

Steve watches his brow furrow as he tries to make sense of the question, watches as he opens his eyes again, a bit further this time, and when they widen in amazement as they travel around the room.

“What–? What the hell..?” The heightened beeping of his heart monitor makes Steve feel almost giddy, getting to watch him see this for the first time. “What nurse kissed me while I was out?” He pauses, staring down a painting of colorful wildflowers on the opposite wall before turning back to Steve. “And can they come back so I can get more pain meds?”

Steve chuckles as he stands stiffly from the hospital chair he’d been all but glued to for the last week, reaching over Eddie’s head to press the call button.

“What’s so funny?”

“You, of course.”

“Thank you, I try, but what’d I do this time?”

“It wasn’t a nurse, Eds.”

Eddie blinks at him for a moment, confused, “I don’t quite have the brainpower for riddles, Stevie.”

Steve’s stomach flips at the nickname, “It wasn’t a nurse, it was when we were still in the—down there.” he pauses, feeling suddenly embarrassed. Did Eddie want it to be him? His first assumption was one of the nurses… “Someone had to give you CPR.”

He watches as Eddie scrolls through what he can only assume is a roster of their “Team Vecna”; Nancy? It’s been known that she’s been able to see in full color since she and Jonathan got together. Dustin? Yeah..no. Ro–

“And it wasn’t Robin.” Steve says when he sees Eddie’s lips curl into an ‘R’.

“Then who—”

It dawns on him at the same time the summoned nurse arrives with a new shot of whatever it is he needs.

She leaves with an excited “We’ll call Wayne!”, and Eddie drops his head back to his pillow.

Steve’s stomach twists anxiously. “Eddie?”

“So you’re telling me that the one and only Steve Harrington gave me the kiss of life and also the gift of colorvision, and I wasn’t conscious enough to experience it properly?”

Steve ducks his head, scratching behind his ear nervously. “Uh…yeah…? Sorry Eddi–”

“Can you do it again?”

His head snaps up again, “Huh?”

“And preferably before I lose the battle for my consciousness?”

Eddie’s face is soft and open, a smile quirking the pink of his lips and crinkling those dark eyes of his…Who is Steve to tell him no?

He smiles softly in return and stands.

Leaning forward with his weight braced to one side of Eddie’s head, the other hand coming up to cup his uninjured cheek, Steve kisses him properly for the first time.

The first of many many many more to come.

eeee i hope you liked this little thing!!! i've never written anything w soulmates before!! 🥹 i hope you have the most bestest day today, friend!! 🫶🫶

#i looked back at your trope tier list for this 👀 #damn was that tag game useful or what? #steddie #steve harrington x eddie munson #steve harrington #eddie munson #soulmates #st #stranger things #eddie munson x steve harrington #steveddie #eddeve #noelle writes

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

Stunned | for @steddiemicrofic 's April prompt: Fool

pairing: steddie (duh) | word count: 454 | rated: M | on AO3

"Quite the day, wasn’t it, m’lord?”

“Oh yeah, quite the day.” Steve laughs at his side; The party trucks on ahead of the pair, tired, tacky with sweat and dust from the long day at the faire. 

“Only one thing would’ve made it better, hm? Perhaps the acquisition of a new lady friend  would’ve sealed the deal for you?"

Steve smirks, shaking his head only slightly, so his borrowed (though made of very real metal) crown doesn’t fall. “Perhaps.”

“I, of course, still haven’t been able to conquer the lingering presence of my long lost, unknown love.” Eddie woes on, for the umpteenth time, “His sandy brown locks, those perfect brown-green eyes that met mine across a crowded hall only the once…”

He’s playing with fire, with lava more like, trying to pull this shit. Though, luckily, it seems Steve is none the wiser—

Steve groans in irritation, stopping Eddie with him on the packed dirt path. “Would you stop that?”

“What ever could you mean, Stevie?” Eddie grins, despite the rock that sits heavily in his stomach.

“Stop making it seem like you don’t have a thing for me. As if the ‘soft-haired, hazel-eyed love’ that ‘Edmund’s been going on about isn’t-–”

Eddie cuts him off in return, managing a clipped “I know not what you mean.”, before attempting to flee, hurrying off down the path ahead of them after the rest.

“Do not take me for a fool, Edmund,” Steve calls after him, effectively rooting Eddie to the spot. 

For a brief moment, Eddie’s thoughts whirl; When did– Does Ste– Hang on, where’s this coming from? Steve had played along with his kingly role today, though only sparingly–

Steve is at Eddie’s side at the same moment, whispering low into his ear. “I know it is I that… troubles you.”

Eddie's head whips over, taking in Steve’s hooded gaze and confident expression.

He gulps, feeling his face flush hot with color. “Forgive me, your Majesty, I did not think–”

“No, you didn’t.” Steve states, authority in his voice that has all Eddie’s brain power rushing south. 

“Now, are you going to allow me to tell you of the troubles you’ve caused me without interruptions, or should I take… preventive measures?”

“Preventative?” Eddie squeaks as Steve pulls him toward the lengthening shadows of the forest around them.

Steve nods, eyes still hooded. “I would normally offer my services,” the image of Steve on his knees in front of him shoots through Eddie's mind. “But it seems it is you who needs to listen.”

The Eddie who took Steve's place in the vision has nothing on the Eddie who emerges 30 minutes later with Steve’s crown on his head and dirt on his knees.

#first microfic #woo!! #steddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #steve harrington x eddie munson #eddie munson x steve harrington #steddiemicrofic #st #stranger things #ren faire #eddeve #steveddie #noelle writes

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

@steddiemas Day 7 - Mall and/or Job

pairing: steddie | word count: 1,884 | rated: G

“Munson Residence, wha'd’ya want?” Eddie groans into the receiver.

Whoever this is better be someone super fucking important to have woken him up with their damn ringing. He’s surprised Wayne didn’t wake up too, but it’d be kinda hard to hear the phone over those snores.

“Eddie! Thank god,”

Oh. Steve! Very important, actually.

“Oh, hey Steve, what’s up?”

“Eddie, can you do me a huge favor?”

“Yeah, of course, what’s wrong?” he immediately spirals into what all could have gone wrong, what could be going wrong. Everything dark blue and cold, vine-y and the flashing of red lightning—

“Nothing, nothing–well, something.. Can you please run to my place later today and grab my lunch? I forgot it this morning and I know I’m not going to be able to run back and get it and get back in time to eat it before my break is over.”

“Your lunch?” “Yeah, I packed one this morning but left it on the counter. There’s a key under the mat and everything.” Eddie barks out a laugh, “Tryin’ to get robbed, big guy?”

“I don’t care about any of the shit in that house.” Steve scoffs. He shrugs even though Steve can’t see him. “Fair enough. Sure Stevie, I’ll bring your lunch; when do you want me there?” “Dude, you’re the best; My lunch break is right at noon, can you be here just before then?”

“Got it. Five to noon at Family Video.” he drawls out as if he’s writing the information down.

“Uh, actually…not Family Video..”

A short two hours later, Eddie finds himself among a throng of people inside Melvald’s. He has to fight his way forward at first, but the crowd thins out as he gets closer to the registers.

Damn, he’s not even that far into the store and he feels like he’s ran a mile.

“Ms. Byers!”

“Oh! Hello Eddie, what brings you here?” “Steve called and asked if I could drop off his lunch to him. Do you know where he is? I didn’t even know he was working here.”

Joyce just grins at him. It’s weirdly mischievous. “Only temporarily, he’s near the back of the store. Just head back there and I’m sure you’ll find him.”

“Uh..thanks. See ya later Ms. B.”

He wanders toward the back of the store through the aisles, but stops up short when a fake white picket fence blocks his path.

The whole back corner of the store has been covered in fake felt snow, a couple of those fake plastic trees like Steve’s (though these are a normal size), a candy-striped ‘North Pole’, and dozens of paper snowflakes hang from the ceiling between what seems like hundreds of string lights.

And there, sitting in the middle of it on a throne that looks suspiciously like the one he used to use during Hellfire, is Steve. Dressed in a Santa suit. With long white beard, big ol’ belt and buckle, shiny black boots..

“Psst!”

He’s got something stuffed into his Santa jacket to give him the right shape, and even some small half-moon glasses, but those sparkling eyes, the freckles, that one swoop of brown hair stubbornly sticking out from under the fuzzy brim of his hat, that’s all Steve.

“Eddie!”

Santa Steve is fully enraptured by whatever story the kid on his knee is telling him, their hands waving every which way but somehow missing smacking Santa right in the face. Steve just continues to nod along, then gives them a hearty “Ho Ho Ho!” when they try to squeeze their tiny arms around his fake belly.

“Eddie!!”

He glances over at the sound of his name, and sees Robin waving frantically at him from her spot at old school music stand-turned-podium. She’s got on some sort of outfit that honestly looks like it was supposed to be a jester costume, where’d she even get that from?

His feet start toward her, but his eyes fall back on Steve Claus, now posing for a picture with the kid who’s smiling so wide it looks like his face will split in half.

Managing to take his eyes off Steve for a moment, he sees Jonathan behind the camera, and that Argyle kid is crouched in front of Robin, talking to the next kid in line to see Santa. All three of them are wearing matching jester costumes.

Eddie steps up to her podium after Argyle and the new kid pass in front of him to see Steve, “Family Video not paying enough, Birdie?”

She rolls her eyes, “Well, the extra cash doesn’t hurt. Joyce asked us to help out.”

He nods at her, and finds his eyes drifting back to Santa Steve.

This kid is much more shy than the last one, tilting her head down and taking short glances up at Steve’s face.

Steve is saying something to her, a low comforting sound that Eddie can only make out the tone of. His one hand covers the entirety of her upper back, and his thumb is moving up and down to try and soothe her nerves. His head is ducked down to be more level with her, looking at her over those half-moon glasses.

Suddenly, the girl’s head snaps up and Steve leans back a bit. “Yeah?” he hears him say.

The girl grins, nodding her head like crazy, then she too is squeezing Steve into a hug. It’s so unfairly endearing, he can actually feel his heart swelling in his chest.

Robin speaks up then, “So..?”

“So?” he repeats dumbly.

“So wha’d’ya think, Munson?” 

“Does he need a Mr. Claus?”

He regrets the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth.

“Uh, wait, I mean Mrs.–Do you have— is someone going to—”

Eddie chances a look over at her…she’s wearing a smug, shit-eating grin. She leans toward him conspiratorially and mumbles out “I wouldn’t mind a Mrs. Claus myself.”

She leans back, still looking smug, but there’s a note of panic in her eyes.

He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “So would he.” he mumbles out himself, jerking his chin towards Steve.

Robin only shrugs “You never know.”

“You never—what do you know, Buckley?” he asks, stepping closer and pointing an accusing finger into her still smug face.

“I know that there’s some mistletoe hanging above the breakroom door.”

He’s confused for just a moment, then understanding floods through him, “You little—”

A short whistle interrupts his incoming tirade, and Eddie can see Steve Claus moving out of the corner of his eye.

“Sorry folks, it’s time for Santa’s Cookie break!” Robin calls out over the long line of people. “He’ll be back in 30 minutes though, don’t you worry!” the smile falls off her face as soon as she turns her back to them.

Eddie follows her, Jonathan, and Argyle toward the back rooms, “I’m gonna take a nap.” She says, “Tell Santa to grab me before he goes back.” She waves toward a door as she passes it and from the sprig of greenery hanging above it, this must be the breakroom. 

Robin takes a right down a turn in the hall, and Jon and Argyle push out the back door of the building.

He expects more of the same when he opens the door to the breakroom, for Steve to huff and grouse about the kids or the parents or something, but when he does, Steve is grinning ear to ear as he combs through his (now removed) fake beard.

“Hey Santa Stevie.”

“Eds!”

“I’ve got your lunch.” he holds up the brown paper bag for Steve to see. Steve nods, and lays the beard out on an empty chair, taking off his hat and glasses too and setting them both on top before stepping forward to grab the bag. “And you have hat hair.” Eddie laughs.

Steve’s free hand jumps to his head and scruffs up the long hairs, making them stick up every which way instead of just being plastered down on his forehead.

“Better?”

“Sure, big guy.” Eddie pokes Steve’s fake belly.

Steve chuckles, then heads to a table in the corner where he dumps out his lunch bag.

“So what’d Past Steve pack for Future Steve?” Eddie asks, plopping down in a chair kitty-corner from Steve’s. “Bologna and mustard sandwich, Doritos, and half of a leftover Hellfire cookie.”

“And a Coke,” Eddie says, taking a can out of his jacket pocket, “I grabbed one for you from your fridge.”

“Thanks, Eddie.” Steve smiles warmly at him. “You want some?”

“No way dude, you gotta get your energy back after dealing with all those kids, right?” Eddie says, waving him off. 

“Eh, some of them are little assholes, but most of them are really well behaved.” he’s ripping his sandwich in half, “Gotta impress Santa, right?”

He offers him one half, and Eddie takes it.

“It’s really not a bad gig, though the beard is itchy as hell…”

Steve starts talking about some of the kids who have come by in the last couple days of them doing this, having started on that past Monday, the 1st.

There were the kids asking for baseball bats, Lincoln Logs, Malibu Barbie, Rockstar Barbie (“Barbie’s a rockstar now?”, “Barbie can be anything, I guess.”), all the usual things.

Then there were kids that asked for actual Santa stuff, “I don’t want my mom and dad to get a divorce.”, “I wish I had some friends.”, “I want my grandpa to get better.”

“Makes me wish I actually was Santa, y’know? Then maybe I could actually help them.”

Eddie’s heart is definitely getting way too fuckin’ big for his chest.

He puts his hand on Steve’s forearm where it’s resting on the table between them. “You are a good man, Steve Harrington.”

Steve’s face flushes nearly as red as his suit. “Thanks, Eddie.” he glances above Eddie’s head then, “I better go wake up Robin, if she naps too long on top of the potatoes, she gets cranky.”

Eddie snorts out a laugh, “Yeah, better get on that.”

Steve stands up and tugs on his hat, not bothering to put on the beard and glasses yet. The fuzzy white band smushes a lock of his hair onto his forehead. 

“Hold on,” Eddie stands as well, reaching forward to tuck the hair under the bottom of Steve’s hat. “Now you’ll be ready to see your adoring public.”

“Thanks,” Steve laughs, walking with him toward the door.

And of course, Eddie forgot all about the damn mistletoe until Steve’s arm stops him in the doorway.

‘Jesus H. Christ…’

He glances over at Steve, then up at the offending plant.. 

Eddie looks back down, out toward the rest of the store where they’d be clearly visible in the doorway.

“I guess you owe me one, huh big boy?” Eddie chuckles, ‘Stupid plant, stupid Robin, stupid Ed–’

His thoughts are cut off when Steve tugs him back into the breakroom, moves him against the wall, and leans down to press a kiss to his cheek. The opposite to the kiss he’d given Steve three weeks ago.

Steve leans back, a smirk on his lips and a pink flush on his face. “Now we’re even.” he winks, then turns out the door to wake up Robin.

i may have actually kicked my feet and giggled about this one lmao

also, rockstar barbie mentioned here is from the 1986 Barbie and The Rockers set

also, also, i'm getting rid of the 'pre' before the steddie up top, you all know what's happening and where this is going lol - it's steddie.

other parts! Pt. 1 (Day 1) | Pt. 2 (Day 2) | Pt. 3 (Day 5) | Pt. 4 (Day 6) | Pt. 5 (Day 7) [YOU ARE HERE] | Pt. 6 (Day 11) | Pt. 7 (Day 13) | Pt. 8 (Day 18) | Pt. 9 (Day 21) | Pt. 10 (Day 25) also on AO3! this year

#santa steve!!! #i feel like all the entries today are going to have something to do with a mall santa type situation #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington x eddie munson #steddiemas #steveddie #eddeve #robin buckley #jonathan byers #argyle #joyce byers #wayne munson #st #stranger things #st ficlet #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #noelle writes

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

it's steddiemas!! i am so excited for these prompts!!! i'm sure i'm not going to make something for each day, but there are a good few that i'm excited about; my plan is to make all the ones i do write be one story, but we'll see how that goes 😅

@steddiemas Day 1 - Deck the Halls

pairing: steddie | word count: 1,793 | rated: G

Eddie wakes up too early on November 1st. But hey, when nature calls, you answer.

He takes care of business and is turning back to the guest room he’d crashed in last night when a movement catches his eye.

Someone is awake already, and is weaving a string of artificial greenery along the bottom of the rail where the second floor is open into the living room.

Eddie takes another step forward and sees Steve's face peeking up over the floor, perfectly and completely content. The seemingly always furrowed brow he has is gone, his eyes are soft, and his lips set into a just barely there smile as he hums quietly to himself.

“Steve?” He immediately regrets interrupting Steve’s peace, as he startles at the sound of Eddie’s voice.

He looks up at Eddie briefly, then immediately relaxes back into his task. “Oh, you’re awake! Listen, I love you man,” Eddie’s stomach swoops at the words. “But I'm kinda in a groove right now, so once a couple of the others are up I’ll start making breakfast, ‘kay?”

Eddie nods in agreement despite Steve already looking away back to the garland in his hands. He really wants to ask why in the actual hell he’s hanging Christmas decorations the literal day after Halloween, but what comes out is “How are you not dying right now?”

Steve’s hands pause, and he blinks up at Eddie in confusion so he continues, “You had just as much to drink as I did last night…?”

Understanding floods the other man’s face. “Oh! I have a splitting headache right now.” Steve says, getting back to the task at hand and weaving the end of a string of lights through a gap between the banisters.

“Yet you’re awake. And putting up Christmas decorations.”

“Yes.”

The crease re-appears between Steve's brows, though not nearly as deep as usual. 

“Cool. Cool. Follow up question: why are you putting up Christmas decorations?? It’s only the day after Halloween!”

Steve stiffens at that, his brow furrowed fully now.

‘Shit, take it back asshole!’ Eddie chides himself.

“Exactly. It’s time for Christmas.” Steve sniffs, pausing before he continues in a soft voice, “I like Christmas..”

He doesn’t look back up at Eddie, and is now shoving the garland and lights through each gap in the railing, rather than slowly guiding them through.

Eddie watches him for a couple moments then says, “Alright big guy, what can I do to help?”

Steve is immediately relieved, looking back up at Eddie with a big smile (and no crease between his brows, thank you very much), “Wanna put the decorations on the mantle?”

“Sure thing Stevie,” Eddie smiles back at him, turning on his heel to trot down the steps and hang a left into the living room.

He freezes, taking in everything around him he couldn’t see from his spot in the hall upstairs.

There’s red and green tubs, boxes stacked upon boxes, loose strings of cranberries and shedded artificial pine needles absolutely everywhere.

There’s also a complete lack of any Halloween decorations left in the giant room. 

So, in the last however long Steve's been awake, he has: cleaned up from their party the night before, put away all the spooky decorations, pulled out a department store’s worth of Christmas decor, and is currently hanging garlands from atop a—holy shit!

“Steve! Why the fuck are you up so high??”

Steve twists back at Eddie's outburst, looking confused as all hell. “What do you mean, ‘Why?’? You just saw me upstairs, how else am I supposed to hang this?” he says, shaking his arm full of un-placed pine and the ladder in the process.

“You could’ve put them in from upstairs! On stable ground!” Eddie stresses, scrambling between and over boxes of holiday cheer to get to the other end of the room.

“I’m fine Eddie, I’ve been on a ladder before.” Steve snorts, going back to his lights. 

“Steve, sweetheart, you cannot be up that high on a ladder without someone holding onto the bottom!” Eddie says, finally getting over to him and grabbing onto it with both hands, leaning his weight onto it. “What if you fell? No one was awake! What if no one heard you!”

“Please.” Eddie could hear the eye roll in Steve’s voice, “I was perfectly fine.”

“Yeah, well, Wayne would kill me if I let you commit an OSHA violation.”

“What’s an OSHA?”

“Nevermind, keep working Stevie.”

He continues to work steadily, weaving and pruning the fake greenery to his liking and bunching up the end to stuff between two posts when he decides to come down.

He comes down the ladder and makes to move it when Eddie stops him.

“Oh no you don’t, you’re not going back up there.” he states, quickly letting the ladder fall together back from its extended length.

“I’m not done!”

“Didn’t say you were.” he says, leaning the ladder against the wall instead, out of the way, “You’re just going to do this from up there instead.”

For a moment, it looks like Steve is going to argue, but he gives up before he even starts, huffing petulantly and grumbling up the stairs. “And they call me ‘Mom’.”

“Thanks, Stevie!” Eddie calls after him.

“Yeah, yeah.."

Eddie snorts a quiet laugh, but goes back to his original task. He starts examining the boxes strewn out in front of him, the one labeled ‘GARLAND’ is already open, another boasts the title ‘LIGHTS’, another just says ‘KITCHEN’; after three huge tubs labeled ‘TREE’, he finds a smaller cardboard box with ‘MANTLE’ scrawled onto the side with marker.

You can’t say Steve isn’t organized.

He pulls open the top and starts to pull out the decorations. Everything in this box is colored in the few same shades of red, muted green, a handful more in bright silver. From the bottom, he pulls out a much shorter string of garland than the one Steve’s still fluffing to perfection upstairs, this one wound with a thick red, white, and green plaid ribbon.

“What?” Steve calls down after Eddie starts to laugh.

“More plaid, Steven?” Eddie grins, turning to show the garland in his hands.

This time, Steve snorts out a laugh, “Shut up, man.”

Eddie digs a little farther and comes back out with a small plastic box of thumbtacks and gets to work on the mantle. Using the ribbon to pin the length to the wood above the fireplace, he sets it in place along the edge, glancing up to fluff the fake branches out how Steve’s got the ones upstairs.

He gets into his own groove in no time, going back and forth from box to fireplace and placing the various baubles and tchotchkes how he thinks they should be. The clunky and gaudy seeming holiday themed frames at the bottom of the box throw him off for a moment, but soon there are years of awkward pictures of the shitheads leaning along the mantle.

A little red frame holds one of Max and El laughing brightly in just as brightly colored make-up and clothes, a framed polaroid of Robin and Steve in their Scoops uniforms, one of Will dressed up for Halloween; The pictures all must only be a few years old, Steve didn’t really get to know the kids until ‘84, but this little Dustin in the frame with the 3D train on it, and this one with a very disgruntled-looking Mike with his hair slicked flat in an over-the-top tree frame go right in the front.

“Nancy gave me that one of Mike, if you can believe it. He’s gonna hate that it’s up here.” Steve says from behind him now, a smile in his voice “Claudia gave me this one of Henderson. It’s actually from before their Snow Ball back in Middle school, I did his hair.”

Oh fuck, that’s adorable. Eddie’s heart squeezes in his chest. “You never told me that,” he says, accepting the last frame from Steve. A bright blue one with a Teddy Bear in each of the bottom two corners. This one has a JC Penney professional-looking shot of Erica and Lucas in matching holiday sweaters. Definitely a Mrs. Sinclair specialty.

“Erica gave me that one last Christmas, after everything happened at Starcourt.” he smiles, “They’re gonna hate that they’re all up like this.”

“Good.” Eddie grins, turning to face the other man, “What’s next, Stevie?”

They spend the next couple hours decorating; Steve tackles the tree next, working on it while he directs Eddie what to put up next, and making sure to call him back for any more ladder use at Eddie’s insistence.

At one point, Robin shuffles out from the first floor guest room she shared with Nancy, but she takes one look around and shuffles back down the hall.

Sooner than he thought, Eddie finds himself standing in the middle of a Sears catalog. The tree is huge, a fake one to fit the Harringtons’ high ceilings, covered in multicolored lights, red, green, and silver baubles, stringy silver tinsel, a sparkling star on top. 

The stair railings are lit up along both the top and bottom, the kitchen towels and utensils swapped out for holiday themed ones, even the front doormat is switched out for a Christmas themed one.

Steve is wandering around the place, vacuuming up stray glitter and pine needles, poking and prodding things until he’s satisfied, and Eddie is packing up anything unused and carting the tubs and boxes back to the garage.

After his last trip, Eddie swings back through the door to the living room under the steps at the same time Steve is coming back through the other way, both his arms filled with the last of the unused lights.

They collide, of course, and Eddie bends forward on instinct to catch any falling strings

“OOf–shit sorry, Stevie, I–” he glances up at Steve’s face for just a moment, but looks back up immediately, standing straight and keeping his eyes trained on something past Steve’s face, taped haphazardly to the underside of the doorframe.

“It’s okay, Eds, you oka–what’s wrong—?” Steve looks up as well.

Mistletoe.

“Mistletoe? How’d that–? Eddie, I didn’t– You–we don’t have to—”

Eddie’s lips find themselves brushing against the warm, soft skin of Steve’s cheek before the younger man can collect his thoughts.

He lingers there for a moment, pulling back with the lights in his arms instead. “I’ve got these, sweetheart, wanna get started on breakfast?”

Steve looks completely floored, his face flushed red and mouth agape; Eddie gives him a quick wink, then turns back toward the garage just before his own face starts to burn hot. “Holy shit,” he whispers to himself, smiling wide, “Jesus H. Christ.”

it was 100% robin that taped up the mistletoe in case you were wondering lmao

i looked up to make sure OSHA was around in '86 and it was established in 1970, enacted in 1971. if you assume wayne is a union man like i do, he would've definitely known all about proper OSHA compliance

also, i looked up old pictures of 80s era christmas trees and when abouts fake trees came into popularity (which was in the 80s :o) ) to get the descriptions right, and you just know the harringtons would've been on top of all the trends (though i think steve would prefer stringy strips of tinsel over long garlands of the stuff).

other parts! Pt. 1 (Day 1) [YOU ARE HERE] | Pt. 2 (Day 2) | Pt. 3 (Day 5) | Pt. 4 (Day 6) | Pt. 5 (Day 7) | Pt. 6 (Day 11) | Pt. 7 (Day 13) | Pt. 8 (Day 18) | Pt. 9 (Day 21) | Pt. 10 (Day 25) also on AO3! this year

#steddie #steddiemas #steve harrington #eddie munson #deck the halls #christmas #christmas decorating #stranger things #st #also i didn't mention it #but the halloween party was the just the older teens lol #jon and argyle are crashed in steve's parents' room #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #steve harrington x eddie munson #eddie munson x steve harrington #mutual pining #mistletoe #steveddie #eddeve #the party #dustin henderson #mike wheeler #will byers #lucas sinclair #erica sinclair #max mayfield #el hopper #noelle writes #steddie fanfic

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

y'know what else i'm thinkin about?

splash! au steddie where steve meets the merman that he would swear up and down was real when he was little; the little merman he'd see every time his family would visit the coast.

steve, who moves permanently to that (now much bigger, touristy-adjacent) town and runs into (no, literally, smack into) a fully naked (very handsome, holy shit!) man when he's on his way to the little shop he runs on the coast early one morning.

steve gives him his sweater and shuffles the softly smiling (vaugely familiar???) man to the shop and gives him a spare set of clothes that he'd had there from the remodels he did a couple years ago.

the man follows steve around the shop all day, poking around the books and tchotchkes the shop sells, listening to the tourist stories steve tells him, never speaking, until steve closes up early, taking him just outside town to get him some more clothes and such.

at one point while at the store, the man wanders away and steve panics, eventually finding him gazing wonderously at all the screens in the 'home entertainment' section, completely entranced by the multiple screens playing MTV and blaring music through the speakers for sale as well.

He tries to explain the non-speaking-ness of his new friend to the employee trying to close up their part of the store when the man suddenly speaks, "Hi Steve, how was your day?"

The employee ushers them out and the pair leave, walking back into town. Steve asks, "So what's your name, anyway? Did you learn it from the TV?"

The man rolls his eyes, "I had a name before today, sweetheart."

Steve's stomach flips at the term of endearment, assuming it's just a product of whatever commercials he may have seen today, maybe he thought it was a normal thing to call your friend..they are friends, right?

"O-okay, what is it?"

"It's kinda hard to pronounce in english,"

"Try me, I wanna know."

The man gives him a look, but does, squealing out something more suited for something living in the tanks at Sea World than for a person.

He grimaces at Steve's bewildered look, "I told you."

"Uh.. yeah. Well hey! That's okay, we just need to find something else to call you."

"Like what?"

"Well lets see.. There's Andrew?"

"No.."

"Joseph?"

Another no.

"James? Isaac? Brad? Seymour? John?" more and more names and 'no's until they're nearly home (and no closer to a decision). "Wayne maybe? Where are we... Ah! Edmonton." Steve mutters to himself. Only a couple more streets to go.

The name 'Pablo' is on the tip of his tongue when he's stopped by "Edmonton! I like that one."

Steve snorts out a laugh, "Edmonton isn't really a name, it's--" he cuts himself off this time, seeing the horrible kicked puppy look on the other man's face. "Hey, no, okay, Edmonton it is! We'll call you Eddie for short!"

Eddie grins at him so bright and sincere in that moment, that Steve can feel it hit him, and snap something into place inside him.

He's going to fall in love with this man.

He can feel it.

#i've been thinking about this for months #ig today is the day i finally post abt it lolol #anyone else use to watch splash! (1984) starring tom hanks and daryl hannah over and over when they were a kid? #no? #just me? #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steveddie #eddeve #splash!au #splash #splash! #noelle writes

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

@steddiemas Day 25 -  Opening gifts

pairing: steddie | word count: 2,674 | rated: T

hello again friends! this one is late (again, i'm sorry 😭) but here's the next part for day 25!! I had a great holiday and i hope you all did too!!

The whirlwind of the next couple days surprises him; after dinner on the 21st, there was a whole two days where he didn’t see Steve at all.

He was out of town on the 22nd alltogether for what Robin called “The Harrington Fake As Fuck Holiday Tour”, off seeing his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and the 23rd is when Wayne’s plant had their Christmas potluck. 

He may not have liked the holiday season all that much in the years before this, but who is he to turn down a full day of food?

It was on the way home from said potluck that Eddie realized. 

“Oh fuck..”

“Hm?” Wayne hums from the driver’s seat.

“Oh fuck. Fuckfuckfuck! I don’t have a present for him!” Eddie whips his head around to gape at the side of his uncle’s face, “Wayne, I don’t have a present for Steve!”

Wayne huffs out a breath, a low “Goddammit, boy.” coming out with it.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Sounds like you’re goin’ shoppin’ tomorrow, Ed.” he’s still shaking his head.

“I don’t have the cash for that, what am I supposed to do? What do you get your brand new boyfriend for Christmas?” Eddie pauses. “Wait, are we boyfriends?”

“Y’do know you two were friends before you were maybe boyfriends, right?” Wayne says, “What were ya gonna give him?”

“I was going to make him a battle jacket–but that’s not nearly good enough, Wayne! He only wore mine that one time! What was I thinking, he doesn’t wear vests, he needs something better, I need more cash, he needs something-–”

“Calm down Eds, take a breath.” Wayne takes a hand off the wheel to clasp a hand over Eddie’s shoulder. “Steve will appreciate literally anything you give him, he even liked it when you kissed him,”

“Shut up,”

“And you may be right,” Wayne shrugs, taking his hand off Eddie’s shoulder to do so, “He might not be a vest kinda guy, but what if ya, now hear me out on this, leave the sleeves on the damn thing?”

Eddie turns to blink stupidly at his uncle, now gazing at him as if over a pair of invisible glasses.

They both burst out laughing, “Okay, okay, I’ll still make him the jacket…though I don’t know if I have enough patches.”

Wayne only scoffs at him, turning his attention back to the road when the light turns green, “That’s a damn lie and you know it.”

“I don’t!” “You have a whole fuckin’ shoebox of ‘em in that closet of yours! You dump it out every time you add something to your own vest.”

“Let me rephrase: I don’t have enough Steve patches.”

“The hell is a Steve Patch?”

A Steve Patch, as Wayne soon finds out, is one of any number of patches Eddie may get his grubby paws on that isn’t something to do with one of the bands he listens to, or something to do with that game he likes.

“It’s gotta be things he likes, right?”

“Sure,” Wayne nods from his recliner, not bothering to look up from his paper at the pile of patches and miscellaneous bobbins of thread that his nephew has dumped all over their coffee table. “Or you can add a few that’ll remind him of you and take him to get more’a his own later. Make a day of it.”

His silence makes Wayne look up. Eddie’s gaping at him.

“What?”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re a genius?”

“Hmph,” he says, and goes back to reading.

Eddie’s hushed ‘Ow!’s and ‘Fuck!’s mingle with the low radio playing through the rest of their evening.

Steve’s old-new jacket was thrifted a couple months ago now, the denim only a couple shades darker than the denim of his own vest, and Eddie’d immediately brought it home and told Wayne of his plan.

His uncle had called him on his intentions almost as quick, saying “He must be pretty special, huh?” 

So Eddie worked through the night, moving into his own room come about three on the morning of the 24th to let Wayne sleep in peace. In the end, he only had four patches to add to the jacket: an Ozzy patch for Steve’s similar bat chomping prowess, one of the KISS logo since Steve had really taken to a few of their songs, a D20 for him and the rest of the party, and a scruffy-looking BMW patch he’d found at the same time he’d found the jacket; but the longer part of his work was the painstakingly embroidering a scattering of bats up the left arm of the jacket, and the best copy of Steve’s spiked nailbat he could manage along the backside of the right forearm, putting the spiked end close to the end of the sleeve.

He packed it up carefully, in a box that previously held kindling (old notes leftover from school), wrapping it up with a couple sheets of the last months’ Funnies, and laid down to catch at least a couple hours.

-x-

A few hours later, Eddie finds himself on the Harringtons’ front steps.

Steve should be back by now, of course, and the rest of the party he knows will be at home with the rest of their families. It is Christmas Eve, of course.

He hoped to just drop by to give Steve his gift, but he secretly hoped Mr. and Mrs. Harrington would continue to be America’s Greatest Parents and make themselves scarce for the fifth year in a row.

Aw fuck, that’s a shitty thing to think, hoping that his boyfrien—best frien—frien— Steve’s parents would be gone so Steve would have time for him?

How did Steve find it in him to like Christmas so damn much if his parents were always gone? Was Robin even telling the truth? Have they really been gone each of the past four?

Eddie’s almost-panicked contemplation is interrupted when Steve opens the door.

“Eds, hi! What are yo—”

“How do you like Christmas so much?”

“Uh..what?”

Damn it Eddie, this is not the time for this. “Nevermind, nevermind, hey Stevie; can I come in?”

“Yeah, o’course.” He steps out of the way of the door and closes the door behind Eddie when he enters. “What brings you by? Not doing anything with Wayne?”

“He’s working tonight, so our only plans are cinnamon rolls for breakfast in the morning.” he shrugs.

Steve nods, “So what’ve you got there, sweetheart?”

Eddie’s heart swoops at the name, “I uh, got you something.”

“You did?” His face looks incredibly fond.

“Yeah, so you better have gotten me something too, big boy.” Eddie huffs, wrestling with the laces on his boots “I’ll tell you all about it as soon as I get these off.”

Suddenly, Steve’s down on one knee in front of him and reaching for his leg. “Give it here before you fall over.”

Steve hooks one hand around the back of his heel, and the other makes quick work of the fraying laces. Eddie quite likes to think he was holding it together just fine, thank you, until Steve’s hand moves from his laces to the back of his knee.

Eddie’s face flushes fast, and his boot is off in the next second.

Who the fuck has a knee-pit thing?

Steve sets down that leg and carefully lifts the other for the same treatment.

Okay, maybe it’s just a ‘Steve is touching a part of me that literally no one else ever has before’ thing, but still.

All in all, it was maybe a whole 30 seconds that Steve was knelt down in front of him, but it felt like it was an instant and like it was hours at the same time.

“There ya go” Steve grins, standing again, “Can I open my present now?”

“Be my guest, sunshine.” he passes Steve the box very cool-like and not at all still flustered with his voice still pitched high, thank you very much.

Steve starts in on Garfield, stolling into the living room and leaving a trail of shredded paper in his wake.

“Ooh, a box, thanks Eds.” Steve smirks, sinking onto the end of the couch closest to the tree.

“Ha ha ha.” Eddie deadpans in return, shoving his hands into his pockets and wanting desperately to look away from Steve’s possible reaction; but he can’t. He’s nearly vibrating in anticipation.

He finally tears through the flimsy scotch tape holding the top flaps together and opens it. 

Steve’s eyes jump to Eddie’s immediately, his jaw dropping.

“Is this–” he looks back down at it, pulls the jacket out and free of the box as he stands back up to hold it out in front of him.

Eddie’s face feels like it’s on fire, like his innards are stretched and twisted like the world’s most complicated pretzel.

Steve’s eyes are on him again, “You made me a battle jacket?”

All Eddie could do was nod, his throat clenched tight.

His heart was thrust somewhere into the aforementioned gut-pretzel when Steve slipped the jacket over his shoulders. 

Why he thought he could see it better while it was on him is knowledge lost to Eddie, but he tries his damndest to twist around to see the BMW and KISS patches on his right side. He seemed to notice the threads covering his arms when trying to pull the left hem of the jacket around to admire the Ozzy and D20 patches there.

“Eddie, did you—” Steve looks up at him in wonder

“Mm hmm,” he nods, then has to yank his hands out of his pockets as quickly as he can, wrapping his palms over careful stitches in denim when Steve takes two long strides to pull Eddie to him.

Now, up until the exact moment Steve’s lips were on his, Eddie could be convinced that what happened on Steve’s back patio a couple days ago was just a fluke; a daydream maybe, possibly a nightmare meant to torture him and he really had died back in March.

But he didn’t.

He was here. Being kissed by his boyfriend. For a present he’d given him for Christmas.

Holy shit..

“Eddie..” Steve breathes his name like a prayer and Eddie’s stomach swoops in response. “You are amazing, d’y’know that?”

Eddie hums into another kiss, his head is swimming, “Hmmm..no. Tell me again.” he teases.

Steve huffs a laugh, “You are amazing, Eddie Munson, you stitched this with your own two hands just for me?”

“It’s only four patches.” he noses forward to connect their lips again, but is held at bay. He opens his eyes to Steve’s own boring into him.

“It’s only nothing, Eds. Do you see this?!” Steve lifts his arm between them, the right one with the nail bat, “And this?” he says, re-placing his hand on Eddie’s cheek to lift his left into view instead, the arm with the bats. “You did that yourself, by hand. You are so fucking talented, Eddie. I love y--it. I love it. Thank you.”

Eddie’s finally rewarded with another kiss for having to suffer through that praise.

“You’re welcome, sunshine.”

Steve pulls back again, searching his face with those striking hazel eyes of his. His expression steels. “Damn you, Munson.” he practically hisses, letting Eddie go completely.

“Aw what?” he jokes over the stabbing pain in his gut, “First I’m amazing and now—”

“Oh shush,” Steve chides him, crouching down to search the lowest branches of his tree. 

“We really need to find you a back patch for that thing.” he mumbles while Steve continues his search. 

“Ah ha! Got it!” Steve stands and rushes back to him, “Here, open it.”

A simple white envelope is pressed into his hand.

“Look, Steve I really appreciate the thought,” Eddie starts, flipping open the top flap open, “But I’ve got a job you kno—”

His joking is cut off when he feels the thick cardstock finally drop into his palm from the upturned envelope.

Eddie looks down at it.

There’s two of them. General admission, for just a couple months from now.

Eddie’s not new to this, he’s been following the bits of news he could of his favorite bands’ tours and Iron Maiden is in what, Italy right now? He knew they were coming closer again soon but must not have been watching close enough.. He didn’t even realize these had gone on sale yet.

“Steve, these are–”

“Not as cool as Metallica or Ozzy, I know, but neither are coming by anywhere close anytime soon, and I knew you liked these guys too, the skull guy? Whatever, point is, I picked them up a couple weeks ago when me and Rob went up to Indy last and I thought maybe you and Wayne could go, or you and Jeff maybe—”

Eddie had stared, transfixed, while Steve went on his little tirade, pacing back and forth, but hold on..

“Hold on, Steve, stop.”

He does, looking nervous.

“Steve, sweetheart, first of all: thank you. This is amazing, perfect even! Second,” he drops the envelope onto the coffee table and runs his hands up and down Steve’s arms soothingly, “What in the world makes you think Wayne would want to come with me?”

It works, and Steve huffs out a laugh, rolling his eyes at him.

“You know what I meant, dickhead.”

“I know, sweetheart, but there’s only one person I’d want to come with me.”

Steve’s lips twitch, “I dunno Eds, I’m pretty cool with Claudia, but I don’t think even I could convince her to let her precious Dusty Buns go with you.”

Eddie smirks at him, letting his arms go “Now who’s being a dickhead.”

Steve smiles back, then his face falters, “You sure you like them? I can always get them exchanged or give them to someo—”

“You better fuckin’ not,” Eddie says, snatching the envelope back up and clutching it close to his chest, “My boyfriend got me these tickets, you cur.”

He expected Steve to latch on to that one, say something like “What–What’d you just call me?”, or “Cur? Who are you, Shakespeare?”, hell, even something as simple as “..Gross.”, but nothing comes.

He’s just…staring at him.

“What? Do I have something on my face?”

“...Boyfriend?”

Oh shit.

“Um..” Eddie gulps loudly, “Y-yeah, that okay?”

Steve’s hands are cupped around his face not a second later, and his lips on Eddie’s another moment later.

He’s lost to the feeling instantly, there’s nothing but SteveSteveSteve running through his head, wading through his soupy brains to reach all corners.

Steve licks into his mouth and Eddie melts to his front, arms wrapping around his boyfriend.

Eventually, Steve pulls back enough to murmur, “I’d love to be your boyfriend, Eddie.”

Eddie kisses him again, nothing pushy, no expectations, only the weird sense of gratefulness he has for Steve accepting his new title.

Steve hums in satisfaction when Eddie finally does let him go and gives him a last quick peck on the nose, which Steve pushes him off for with a smile.

“So whattya wanna do tonight, sweetheart? You got any good movies around here?” Eddie says, turning to squat down in front of Steve and Robin’s pile of favorite tapes next to the TV.

“Well, you know…”

“..I know?” Eddie encourages, picking up a copy of Rocky Horror in one hand and Rocky in the other.

“There are some things I haven’t done with a boyfriend before..”

“Uh, yeah, I’d hope not Stevie.” Eddie scoffs as Steve starts to move, heading out the room, “You’ve never had one before.”

“Exactly.” He rounds the corner out the door.

Eddie assumes he’s heading to the kitchen for snacks, but drops both tapes when he hears the bottom step creak.

Oh.

You’re just a whole-ass idiot, aren’t you Munson?

“You comin’ Eds?”

Eddie’s on his feet in an instant and on the steps behind Steve before he’s even done talking. “Holy shit, uh..yes, yep, yeah the fuck I am, Jesus H. Christ.”

oooohh i think the fic rating is about to go up 👀

some notes:

i based the ticket text off this image from a Bon Jovi show a week before iron Maiden's scheduled show (i couldn't find a pic of the IM show ticket, and i'm not sure if it also started at 7:30)

$14.50 in November 1986 dollars would $40.33 in November 2023 dollars!

the show date is an actual date i got from Iron Maiden's website! and eddie was right, last he may have heard, they would've likely played their last shows in Italy before the holiday in '86.

i am not the first or last person to give steve a jacket with patches and i just know he's gonna have fun finding more pins and patches for it with both robin and eddie <3

other parts! Pt. 1 (Day 1) | Pt. 2 (Day 2) | Pt. 3 (Day 5) | Pt. 4 (Day 6) | Pt. 5 (Day 7) | Pt. 6 (Day 11) | Pt. 7 (Day 13) | Pt. 8 (Day 18) | Pt. 9 (Day 21) | Pt. 10 (Day 25) [YOU ARE HERE] also on AO3! this year

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington x eddie munson #steveddie #eddeve #eddie munson x steve harrington #st #st fic #stranger things fic #steddie fic #stranger things #wayne munson #iron maiden #steddiemas #christmas #gift giving #i can hc steve as having gift giving as a love language right? #that cool with everyone? #okay cool #noelle writes

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

@steddiemas Day 11 -  Animated Holiday Movies & Pop/Alt Christmas Songs

y'all mind if i use all the movies and one of the songs from today's prompt? no? okay cool

pairing: steddie | word count: 1,612 | rated: G

“Alright Munson, it’s time to get you in the holiday spirit.” Steve says, pushing him down onto his own couch one Sunday in mid December. “I managed to grab Charlie Brown from work, and Rudolph, The Grinch, and Frosty will be on CBS tonight.”

“Damn alright, no need to get pushy.” Eddie grumbles, crossing his arms in front of him. He’s not looking forward to this, alright? He’s definitely going to get a stomachache.

“Pizza will be here in just a few minutes, Rudolph starts in 30, then The Grinch and Frosty are right after the other,” he’s pacing now, “I’ve got pop and beer, and chips, and leftover cookies—I’ve got to make more soon don’t I—”

“Steve, Stevie!” Eddie grabs his wrist as he passes in another line of worried pacing in front of the couch. “You gotta calm down sweetheart, why are you makin’ such a fuss?” Maybe if he ignores it, Steve won’t notice the pet name that slipped out from between his lips.

Steve heaves a sigh, “Yeah, yeah you’re right.” he drops down beside him, the couch protesting with a creak, “I just want you to have fun, I suppose.”

Eddie pats Steve’s shoulder comfortingly, “How’d you get all this set up anyway, where’s Wayne?”

Eddie had woken up in the late evening when he heard a crash from the kitchen followed by low swearing. Coming out in his ratty sweatpants and no shirt to Steve sweeping up a bowlful of pretzels back into a large mixing bowl in the middle of his kitchen was quite a sight, but before he could fully process, a green Hawkins Swim Team hoodie was shoved over his head, a hairtie pressed into his palm, and the rest of him being 'shoo'-ed into the living room and onto the couch.

His Uncle’s foldaway bed and his Uncle were missing from where they should be in the small family room, Wayne normally didn’t wake up until about now to get ready to head into work.

Steve shrugs, getting back up off the couch to go back into the kitchen, “When I asked him if I could borrow you for a movie marathon, he insisted I have it here. He’ll be back soon,”

“‘Back soon’? Shouldn’t he be sleeping right now?”

Eddie watches as Steve fiddles around in the kitchen for a few moments, picking up the previously be-floored bowl of pretzels and dumping it into the trash can, when the front door opens and Wayne enters with two pizza boxes balanced on one hand.

“Wayne?”

“Come grab these, will ‘ya Ed?”

Eddie shoots up at once, hopping over the low coffee table to grab the boxes while Wayne takes off his boots and Steve shuffles around them to pay the delivery boy standing on their porch.

The boxes are taken from him only a couple moments later, with Steve bringing them back into the kitchen.

Wayne snaps him back to himself with a hand on his shoulder. “Y’alrigh’ Ed?”

“Wayne. I can’t watch Christmas movies with him.” he says lowly, only to his Uncle. It’s one thing to make cookie cutters with him, but watching some of Maggie Munson’s favorite holiday movies is a whole ‘nother one thing altogether.

Wayne’s crinkled face smoothes out minutely. “Yes y’can, son. I’ll b’here too.”

“Don’t you have work tonight?”

“I swapped shifts with Roger so I could hang out with you boys.” Wayne says at a normal volume, fixing Eddie with a look.

Eddie’s eyes prick with the threat of tears.

That look says “I swapped so I could be here for you.”

“Wayne said he loves Christmas movies!” Steve grins, carrying back two plates with three slices each.

“Didn’ realize they were showin’ all these good’uns tonight!” Wayne says, stepping past them toward the hall, “‘Scuse me boys,”

While his uncle changes out of his coveralls and into his own comfy clothes (which will likely be a flannel and worn Levis), Steve shoves one of the plates of pizza into Eddie’s hands and leads him back to the couch.

He sets the other plate on the side table next to Wayne’s chair, and goes back to the kitchen for a third plate and three beers, all three gripped around their necks in one hand.

“You’re gonna love these, Eds.” Steve plops down beside him, “Charlie Brown is my favorite, but they’re all classics at this point right? That’s why they show them every year.”

Eddie gulps and puts down his plate of pizza on the coffee table. Putting on a brave face, he pulls his hair up into a bun at the back of his head.

“Forgive me if I’m skeptical, Stevie, but let’s get on with it, huh?”

Eddie has fun in the end, that pioneer man with the pickaxe in Rudolph reminds him of Wayne, so it doesn’t surprise him that he’s Wayne’s favorite.

A lot of the tunes and storylines are familiar, of course, it wasn’t like he can wipe the same movies from his mind just because mom is gone, but it was nice to see them again with Wayne and Steve by his side (though Wayne’s been sawing logs from the armchair since even before Rudolph was over).

By time A Charlie Brown Christmas is re-wound and put back in its case, Eddie is bushed. It’s only been a couple hours total that they’ve spent watching, these movies are shorter than he thought, but he’s stuffed full of pizza, beer, and nearly the whole (new) bowl of pretzels he inhaled during their little marathon.

He stretches out on the couch when Steve gets up to clear their plates away and swears he only closes his eyes for a second…only to wake up to the early morning light streaming in through the window behind the TV.

There’s a blanket tucked around him, another is thrown over Wayne (still keeping up with his very astute impression of a chainsaw), and Steve’s Nike’s are missing from the pile next to the door.

He snuggles back down into the cushions and promises to thank Steve later today.

Later today comes after their Hellfire meeting; the party stomps up Mike Wheeler’s stairs from the basement and trickle out the door at 8 o’clock sharp to their respective rides (a stipulation of the Wheelers and the Sinclairs if their boys would still be allowed to be in Hellfire after what happened in March).

Punctual as ever, Steve is already sitting in the Wheeler’s driveway waiting for Dustin and Will. Eddie immediately starts towards the maroon beemer but his steps falter when he hears the music that’s absolutely blasting inside the idling car.

“This yeaarr, to save me from tears, I’ll give it to someone special..” Eddie hears Steve singing along to that accursed new Wham! track, and not just singing along to the lyrics, but vocalizing the instrumentals too.

He manages to get to the driver side window without Steve noticing him, his attention on a book of Sudoku puzzles of all things.

“Knock knock! Earth to Stevie!” Eddie calls, rapping his knuckles on the pane of Steve’s window.

Steve, of course, jumps at the sudden noise, and cranks down the sound along with his window. Well, lowers his window. Stupid BMW with its stupid power windows..

“Jesus Christ, Eddie, you scared the shit outta me.”

“Not my fault you’re not aware of your surroundings, Stevie darling.”

Steve grins up at him, “How was the game?”

“The session was good, I was thiiiis close to killing off Dusty,” Eddie says, holding up his pointer and thumb, nearly pressed together to accentuate his point, “But Will the Wise here saved his ass at the last second.”

“And Dorngar the Monk will be forever grateful.” Speak of the Devil.

“Dorngar the Monk better watch himself next time.” Will says, shaking his head.

Will climbs into the backseat and scoots to the middle of the bench to start going through a play-by-play of the session with Dustin, who gets in the passenger side and kneels backward on the leather seat immediately.

Steve only rolls his eyes at the two of them, his lips curved into a fond smile still turned towards Eddie.

“Hey, I wanted to say thanks, by the way.” Eddie says, leaning his weight onto the roof of the car with his forearm.

Steve’s brows furrow immediately. “For what?” “For last night? I had fun. Surprisingly.”

“You’re welcome, Eds.” Ah good, the smile is back. “Did you sleep good on the couch? I was going to take you into your room before I left, but you looked comfy enough.”

“Oh yeah, I slept like a baby.”

Steve chuckles, “I don’t think a baby could sleep through your uncle’s snores.”

“I did! My mom used to take me over to Wayne’s whenever I’d get too fussy to sleep normally.”

“That’s hilarious!” Steve guffaws, “I can definitely picture it: your uncle asleep in that same chair? Little baby Eddie laid out sound asleep in his lap? Ha!” 

“That’s about how it was,” Eddie grins, thinking of that exact picture his mom had taken during one such visit, the one in the fading photo album tucked away in his closet.

“Dudes, stop fucking around, we gotta get home!” Dustin gripes.

Eddie steps back from the window, raising his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, I’m leavin’ too, be careful getting these assholes home, Stevie.”

“You too, Eds, watch out for deer.”

Eddie’s heart stutters at the simple phase, the same one he’d asked Wayne why he would always say that every time he and mom left his place.

Wayne had just smirked, “Don’tcha know Ed? That’s midwestern for ‘I love you.’.”

to anyone outside the midwest: yes, that's a real thing and also watch out for deer on your way home <3

other parts! Pt. 1 (Day 1) | Pt. 2 (Day 2) | Pt. 3 (Day 5) | Pt. 4 (Day 6) | Pt. 5 (Day 7) | Pt. 6 (Day 11) [YOU ARE HERE] | Pt. 7 (Day 13) | Pt. 8 (Day 18) | Pt. 9 (Day 21) | Pt. 10 (Day 25) also on AO3! this year

#steddie #steddiemas #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington x eddie munson #wayne munson #the party #dustin henderson #will byers #mike wheeler #st #steddie fic #stranger things #stanger things fic #steddie ficlet #st fic #st ficlet #eddeve #steveddie #eddie munson x steve harrington #noelle writes

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

it's finally here! one month late, and a couple thousand words more than i thought it'd be! happy leap yeap!

Here's my entry for Lex's (@thefreakandthehair) Spicy Six Winter Fanworks Challenge! I had dialogue prompt #22 "Guess we’re the only two without dates, huh?”

pairing: steddie | word count: 10,446 | rated: E | on AO3: hey you really turn me on

Why in the hell did he agree to this? It’s 20 fuckin’ degrees out and he’s outside?? In the snow?? Voluntarily?

If the boys could see him now.. “Who are you and what’ve you done with Eddie?”, “Since when do you do shit outside?”, “All this for Steve fuckin’ Harrington…”.

And that’s the rub, it is because of Steve. Hopeless crush aside, Steve is the reason he’s there. Why they’re all there in the first place.

When Steve got the call, Eddie and the other older teens of their world-saving group were just hanging out; movies, beer, snacks, a little weed, music playing low…all in all, a great kick-back. 

Then the phone rang.

It was relatively late too, 10 maybe?

Steve went to answer it of course, the conversation muffled through the living room and kitchen walls, but after a minute or so he came back. The long phone line stretched across the hall back to the hook in the kitchen.

“When is this again?” Steve says into the receiver, waving towards the sound system. Robin had scrambled up immediately, nearly falling back on her face to turn the volume down.

“Uh huh. And you and Dad won’t be there? Mm hmm.” he nods.

Eddie looked over to Robin first, eyebrow raised. She only shrugged, as does Nancy when he turned the look to her.

“And how many rooms?” Whatever the answer is causes Steve’s brows to shoot up. “Wow, okay, yeah we–” 

Eddie was closest to him, previously starfished out on the carpet, but had sat up and leaned back on his palms when Steve returned, so he could just barely hear the sound of another voice on the other end of the line.

“Yeah of course, that’d be great, we definitely will. Thanks Mom.”

Steve had sounded actually…happy to be talking to his mom. And here Eddie thought the Harringtons were objectively the worst.

“No, they’re going to love it, Mom, I promise.” another pause, “Nope. They’ll all be on their best behavior.” Steve glances down at Eddie, “We all will be.”

He scoffs up at Steve from his spot on the floor. Rude.

Steve only waves him off with a smile, “Yeah, the usual.” he says, “Rob, Nance, Jon, Jon’s friend Argyle–yeah, he’s the one from California, and Eddie.” Steve’s eyes flash down to Eddie again and his stomach twists sharply. Aw fuck, here it comes; the scolding, the yelling, the berating about how Eddie’s no good for him to be associating with, why are you stooping to his level, he’s a murderer, yadda yadda yadda.

“Yeah, he and Wayne are doin’ much better now, I’ll have to tell you about it next time, okay?” 

Uh.

What?

“Yeah, that’d be great if you don’t mind! Yep, Wheeler, Henderson, Sinclair,” He looks again at the other people in the room, they’re still just as puzzled as he is. What do the kids have to do with this? “I’ll talk to Hopper and Joyce, and I’m sure Ms. Mayfield would let Max go. Oh absolutely,”

Steve starts back into the kitchen, and Eddie can hear him all the way back to the hook. “No–Nope, it’s fine, I actually have a couple people over right now so I want to–yeah. Yep. Okay, love you too. Bye mom.”

Eddie looks around at the others; Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, even Argyle, though he’s not looking around wide-eyed at what all just occurred like the others are.

Steve comes back into the living room. “So…” he lets out a long breath, “How do you all feel about skiing?”

-x-X-x-

So yeah. Here they all are, at some ski resort up in Michigan. Boyd Mountain…or Bowie? Something with a ‘B’.

Turns out, Steve’s parents had a four-room cabin rental set aside as a perk for some deal they were trying to barter. It fell through though, and they wouldn’t be back from Colorado themselves until after the reservation would’ve expired so they offered it to Steve and whoever he’d like to invite.

They took care of everything too; got lift passes, boot and ski rentals set aside for each of them, even sent a whole ass passenger van to be dropped off in the Harrington driveway for them to make the drive; A huge 15 passenger one that even with the three extra seats, still barely held all their crap for the long weekend.

All of them piled into the van in the dark on a Friday morning, sleepy-faced and crusty-eyed; Robin as Steve’s co-pilot, and each of the rest of the older teens and the party piling in wherever they could (they’d fight about their seats when they woke up more, Eddie was sure of it).

The first rest stop on the way up went by without incident, but by time they stopped for late breakfast/early lunch at another, everyone was stir crazy. Sandwiches were passed out, gas was gotten, bathroom breaks were taken, and almost as soon as they got back in the van, Robin was snoring.

“Damnit, if I knew she was gonna tank like that I would’ve had someone else sit up here.” Steve had groused. 

“I’ve gotcha big guy, I won’t let you fall asleep.” Eddie said, now seated next to Dustin and El on the first bench behind the driver’s seat.

“Yeah, me either.” Dustin agreed.

He was snoring an hour later, El leaning into him for her own nap.

“That’s cute.” Was the first thing Robin said after waking back up.

All in all, not a bad drive. The worst part was tramping through the snow to the cabin after they’d arrived.

“Goddammit Steve, How am I supposed to get through this week in only my jeans?”

Steve sighs, “Eddie, you have made the same argument ever since my mom called; and every time you did, I told you everything would be here for you.”

He finally gets the door open, shoving it wide for them all and gesturing them in, “Get comfy guys, I’m going to grab the cooler with our groceries.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Jonathan says, following Steve back out to the van.

The large open main floor has a full kitchen with a raised bar counter and four stools, tall peaked ceilings, a fireplace on one wall with two couches and a rocking chair situated around it, and a sliding glass door to a balcony off the back side of the building overlooking the trees below.

There’s stairs too, a set going up and a set going down, and at least one bathroom here on this floor, off the kitchen.

Eddie wanders into the living room, picks out some pieces of kindling from the bucket on the stone beside the fireplace and a couple logs from the stack nearby, and busies himself with starting the fire while the party pokes around the place.

He glances over his shoulder when he hears the fake leather of the couch cushions squeak together, only to see Argyle has perched himself on the backrest, squashing a cushion beneath his feet.

The fire takes less than no time at all, and once it’s going and he’s re-situated the trifold metal screen back in front of the fire, he sits down beside Argyle’s shins and is immediately entranced by the flames.

Steve and Jonathan return not long after, lugging their things with the cooler hanging between them.

“So how do y’guys want to split up the rooms?” Robin asks aloud, ignoring the yelling the other teens are already doing about the same thing.

“I’m not picky.” Eddie shrugs, standing up to stretch again, deciding he really did not want to be sitting anymore.

“Me either sister, whatever you decide is cool with me.” Argyle agrees. “What’re the rooms like?”

“There’s a master up here!” Max calls from above them, looming over the log railing at the top of the stairs with El.

“We walked right past it, but there’s a room with a queen off the front hall there,” Jonathan says, shuffling his bag against the kitchen bar.

“Hey! Assholes!” Steve yells down the steps, the boys must’ve gone down there. “Go get your shit out of the van and we’ll head over to the main lodge!”

The four thunder up the steps, how any of them can understand any other over the other is beyond him.

“Will,” Nancy calls as he rounds the stairs last, “There are bedrooms down there?”

“Yep!” he grins, “Two rooms with queen beds, and a bathroom.”

“I don’t mind taking one of the queens,” Nancy says, “Robin, wanna share with me?”

Robin starts to splutter, still somehow not convinced that Nancy’s got a thing for her. It’s obvious to him, but he and Steve have both tried to tell her this. To no avail. Even after Jonathan and her had confirmed they’d split and that he was moving back to California with Argyle come spring.

Steve rescues Robin from her spluttering. “It’s only fair that Argyle gets next dibs, since he’s the one that’s offered to cook for us.” he says, lugging the cooler over to the kitchen to unload it.

He’d insisted on picking up groceries for their stay, saying “There’s a restaurant, sure, but that’d get expensive quick and we’ll have a full kitchen so why not?”

“Appreciated my man; y’wanna bunk with me, Jonny?”

Eddie follows Steve, leaning on the bar across from the fridge from him, “So where’s all my snow gear, Stevie?” he asks the back of Steve’s head.

“Eddie, I swear to God.” Steve huffs in return, bending down into the cooler at his feet to fish out a couple of cartons of eggs.

Eddie does not watch how the denim of Steve’s jeans pulls tighter over any part of him, thank you very much.

“Mom called ahead and has everything we might need set aside in the main lodge, we’ll go there first before we hit the slopes.”

“Oh my god, did you really just say that?” Eddie asks as Steve stashes away two jars of jelly, one strawberry, one grape.

“Say what?” Bacon and some packs of lunch meat are next.

“Like, that’s an actual thing that people say? It’s not just in the movies?”

Steve sighs, finishing off the groceries with a couple 12 packs of pop stashed on the bottom shelf. “What is just like the movies?”

“‘Hit the slopes.’? Really?”

“You’re super annoying, you know that, right?” he says, closing the fridge and pushing the lid back onto their cooler.

“Awe, c’mon baby, you don’t mean that.” Eddie coos, slipping around the counter to cup Steve’s face in his hands, “What happened to the man who loves me for my antics, huh?”

“Get off me, dude,” Steve laughs, batting Eddie’s hands away, his cheeks tinged pink.

‘Yes! Success!’ When did he decide he was trying to fluster Steve? Eh, whatever. No harm, right?

 “So, did you guys figure out the sleeping situation?” Steve asks the rest of the group, walking back around the bar.

Eddie follows, leaning back on the counter in his previously vacated spot.

Nancy nods, “Jon and Argyle will take the room on the main floor, us girls will take the two downstairs, you can take the master, and the boys will take the couches.”

The boys return with their bags then, and Mike immediately starts complaining about being relegated to the fold-outs. Eddie also hears Dustin and Lucas trying to talk him down, saying things like “Dude, that means we’ll be close to the fire!”, “We can throw things in it!,” and “We can make s’mores!”.

Steve doesn’t seem to hear them though, otherwise he’d be shutting that shit down. Instead, his face only scrunches in confusion, “What about Eddie?”

Nancy looks surprised for a blink, then disgruntled, like she’s pissed she forgot someone.

“I’ll just crash out here on the floor with these losers, no worries.” he shrugs.

Steve turns toward his voice, a deep crease between his brows. “That’s not fair.”

“I promise I’ll survive Stevie,” Eddie chuckles. At least he’ll be the warmest out here in front of the fireplace. “I’ve slept on worse, believe it or not, I’ll be sleeping like a king compared to then.”

Steve’s brows scrunch almost all the way together, then spring apart and settle into determined lines. “You’ll sleep with me.” he says with a nod, his arms folding across his chest.

A beat passes.

Eddie can’t resist.

He leans close to Steve’s side, “A bit presumptuous, Stevie darling,”

Steve’s face practically glows with the flush that appears in the next beat, mumbling something to himself as he walks to the door and starts to pull on his coat and boots.

Eddie pushes off the counter and follows, obnoxiously holding a hand up to one ear. “What’s that, sweetheart?” he teases, walking to his own tossed-aside boots, “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“We going to the lodge now?” he hears Lucas ask as he passes.

“Finally.” Mike adds, unhelpfully.

Steve huffs, standing up again and leaning close to Eddie’s cupped hand, “As if you hadn’t thought about it, darling.”

Four of the other ten are in their coats and boots and out the door after Steve before Eddie comes back online.

-x-X-x-

So here he is: outside. In the snow. With skis strapped to his feet. All because of Steve and his surprisingly generous parents.

He watches, amused, as Robin stands as still as she possibly can, arms spread wide, while Nancy helps strap her into her skis. As soon as the skis had gotten remotely close to being attached to her, it was discovered that no matter what section of ground they may be standing on, Robin would start to drift away. Sliding down some sort of unseen incline backwards, frontwards, and/or sideways.

Jon and Argyle are already almost to the closest lift, and Eddie watches as they do a weird half-jump onto the bench as it comes up behind them.

The gremlins had scattered after Steve’s ‘be careful’ lecture, telling them all when to be back to the van by, or back to the cabin if they will be coming off the slopes near there, telling them all to be safe and to keep to pairs or more so they can be radioed.

They’d all brought their walkies with them, and Eddie can see where the boys are still huddled together, swapping out their batteries.

He watches them split off soon after, Dustin and Lucas pushing off to where Max and El are waiting at the standing lift to the top of the training hill.

Mike and Will scoot off together in the opposite direction, toward the centermost lift a few dozen yards away.

“Guess we’re the only two without dates, huh?” He says as Steve slides to a stop on his own skis beside him.

He’d meant it jokingly, was probably going to follow it up with some jabs about being Steve’s wingman if he needed (there were already a few ladies he’d seen giving Steve some looks while they waited for their gear in the main lodge), but Steve shrugs and says: “I’ll be your date this weekend, Eds. Wouldn’t want you to feel left out or anything.” 

Eddie whips his head around to look at him, “That’s not–” he starts, but cuts himself off at the look Steve is giving him. His goggles have been haphazardly pushed up his face, trapping a few loose locks of Steve’s hair between them and the roll of his beanie, his cheeks are already bitten red with the cold, and he’s smiling so painfully sincerely under that damn teasing smirk that all Eddie can do is acquiesce.

“You better be the best date here then, Stevie,” Eddie chides, starting off toward the lift Jonathan and Argyle had disappeared up, “I won’t settle for anyone other than the bes–” he pitches forward suddenly, one of his skis sticking to the snow under it more than it should’ve.

Steve catches him, of course, and says “Will I get points taken off as ‘Best Date Ever’ if I make you go on the training hill?”

They do go to the training hill, lovingly called the Bunny Hopper, but he and Robin are thankfully saved from the embarrassment of actually being taught by the volunteers there; Steve and Nancy taking them to the slightly taller ‘big kid’ hill and teaching them there.

Surprising even himself, Eddie picks up on the motions and the feeling of being on skis easily. The whole ‘pizza’ thing about stopping was still iffy but the rest is no problem. Fun, actually.

“That was great, man! You’re a natural!” Steve beams at him, his grin lopsided from the meat of his cheeks being squashed under his goggles.

“I just had a great teacher,” he brushes off the compliment, elbowing Steve playfully.

Steve somehow grins even bigger, and Eddie’s heart stammers.

“You ready to go to the real hill now?” “This isn’t a real hill?”

He’s positive Steve just rolled his eyes under his goggles. “C’mon smartass, let's get in line for the lift.”

Eddie bows him forward, “After you, sweetheart.” 

He follows Steve to the end of the line; thankfully it’s not too long, now that it’s late afternoon and will be getting dark soon. 

Steve seems to notice this as well, lifting his goggles off his face again. “We’ll have to call the gremlins back sooner than I thought. It’ll be dark soon.”

“Stop reading my mind, Stevie.”

Steve looks over at him, squinting hard and pursing his lips (Eddie’s stupid lizard brain has a split second thought of those lips pursed around something). “Ugh! Ew, gross Eddie, what would make you think about that?!”

He feels his face blanche and scrambles to recover. “I was only thinking about our good friend Robin, Steve-o, you saying Robin is gross?” He pitches his voice higher and glances down the line to where he can see Robin and Nancy.

Robin flips her mitten up at him, and he can infer the gesture just fine, thanks.

“Shut up, asshole.” Steve laughs, pushing him out of the line on his skis.

They’re the next to hop up on the moving bench, and Steve’s…everything…seems to seize up as soon as they’re seated and on their way.

“Could you imagine?”

“Hm?” He’s still looking down anxiously, so Eddie scoots just a bit closer, pressing what he hopes is comfortingly into Steve’s side.

“If we could read each other's minds? If the bats biting us both somehow linked us together?”

It works a little; Steve tears his eyes away from the ground as it drops away from them, huffing out a short laugh, “I don’t think I would survive inside your head, it’d be even more chaotic than you already are.”

“As if your head would be any better.”

“Hey, my head is great!”

Eddie grins wickedly, “You get told that a lot, Stevie?”

Steve seems unphased, smirking slowly. “I do, actually. Why? You tryin’ t’see if it’s true?”

His cheeks start to prickle, “You offering, big boy?”

“Maybe I am,” Steve shrugs then leans closer, “Now the real question is if you’re gonna take me up on it.”

Eddie’s head reels in the couple seconds he takes to respond.

Where in the hell is all this coming from? Is it just part of the ‘date’ thing? There’s no fuckin’ way Steve is actually into him, is there? He’s always been flirty, just like Eddie is himself, but there’s no way there are any actual feelings behind it… So there’s no harm in playing along.

“I’m gonna have to now, aren’t I?” he grins back, “Gotta see if it lives up to the hype.”

Steve smirks, his eyes hooded. He’s good at pretending, he’ll give him that.

His eyes glance away, then back to Eddie’s face. The sultry look he’d been hamming up for his sake is gone, just an easy smile remains. At least this sudden flirting Steve’s decided to do isn’t going to ruin their surprisingly solid post-apocalyptic friendship.

“It’s almost time to get off, ready?”

Eddie looks ahead to where the couple on the bench before them are hopping off. They stand up off the lift easily and don’t end up in a heap, but he is starting to feel the anxiety Steve was feeling only minutes ago. How’s he supposed to get out of the way fast enough, isn’t there a drop? That looked way too easy.

“As I’ll ever be,” he gulps.

“Give me your hand.” Steve says, not waiting for a response and snatching up Eddie’s hand in his, “Okay, when I say so, you just gotta stand up. Ready?”

“Stand up, what do you mea—” he feels his legs lift a bit as the ground rises to coast under his skis, and it makes sense.

“Now!”

Wait, no! He wasn’t ready!

He stands just a breath after Steve, but isn’t fast enough, the lift continues up on its path and catches him again, forcing his butt back into the seat.

“Eddie, you gotta–”

He tries again at the same time Steve pulls him forward and he pitches forward, landing with an “Oof–” on top of Steve and forcing the breath from the other man’s lungs.

“Aw fuck, sorry Stevie!” He rolls off of him and out of the path of the upcoming lift chairs. “That went exactly as well as I thought it would.”

Steve wheezes out a breathless laugh, standing back up on his skis with no problem at all. Wait, how did he do that? How’s he supposed to get up with these things on his feet?

“Here,” Steve arranges his skis for him, putting one long side of each onto the snow, “Give me your poles, and push yourself up with your hands. You want to get your feet under you.”

He does as he’s told and walks his weight around on his hands to the fronts of his skis until he’s bent forward at his hips, standing straight out of the bend.

“...Huh.”

“Good job, man!” Steve grins, handing him back his poles, “Getting up on skis can be a bitch and a half; way to catch on quick.”

Eddie grins mischievously, deciding to be a little shit. “I dunno, you’d think my date would like seeing me bent over for him, huh Stevie?”

Steve just rolls his eyes, snapping his goggles back down with a smile, “C’mon, asshole, let’s get out of the way; the run to the right of the lift looked shorter on the map.”

Thankfully, the chair behind them had been empty, but the next one had a full four people on it and it was coming up fast.

“‘Sides,” He says, pushing off toward the top of the run, waiting for Eddie to scoot in next to him at the crest before leaning in and murmuring low into his ear, “I’d rather wait ‘till we’re alone to bend you over properly.”

Steve’s a good 20 feet away by time Eddie comes back to himself enough to follow.

They get about an hour and a half in on the hills, a grand total of six wipeouts under Eddie’s belt, and a couple others under Steve’s, with one successful landing off one of the jumps on the main drag to finish off the day.

“Didja see that?!” Steve yells, pulling down the balaclava he’d unceremoniously added to his getup about an hour ago.

“Hell yes Stevie!” Eddie calls, breathless, still coasting to the bottom of the slope after him. “You landed it!”

“I landed it!” 

Steve holds his arms open as Eddie once again fails to slow himself down properly, and catches him at the bottom in a crushing hug. His cheeks are flushed with adrenaline, bitten with the cold, his eyes bright in the setting sun and smile nearly as beautiful.

Damn he’s pretty.

Courteous as ever, Steve waits until Eddie’s arranged his feet the right way again before letting him go to spin the pack off his back for their assigned walkie.

Steve radios the party, and everyone is packed away in their van a scant ten minutes later. The older teens had already made it back to the cabin, letting themselves in off a run near there, so it was only the similarly flushed and excitement-filled younger teens babbling away in the back seats.

There’s overlapping stories of their own wipeouts (including one Robin took that Max swears was hilarious), Dustin insisting he saw a brown bear through the trees at one point, and all six debating whether or not they’d want to go to the main lodge for the waterpark tomorrow instead of back onto the hills.

They are still debating amongst themselves when they pull into the driveway. “Alright dorks,” Steve calls over the bickering, “Go inside and hang up your shit next to the fireplace so it can dry out.”

Eddie follows the troop into the living room and watches them pile all their outerwear together on the two hooks closest to the stone fireplace, then tear off downstairs where he heard there may have been a Nintendo stashed in one of the bedroom dressers.

Jonathan and Robin start methodically re-arranging the coats and snow pants on the hooks so they’ll dry easier, while Argyle pushes up off one of the couches to start on dinner. 

“C’mon Eds, get comfy,” Steve says, coming up beside him and gesturing to the loveseat directly across from the roaring fire. Eddie can already feel the burn of it across his frigid skin, “I gotta make sure I get you unthawed before I get you into my bed.” Steve murmurs into Eddie’s ear.

And isn’t that a whole new type of torment. They will actually be sleeping in the same bed tonight…the next three nights!

Steve turns back to the kitchen when Eddie drops cross-legged onto the sofa, and the tingling feeling in his cheeks has nothing to do with the fire.

It’s half from Steve’s scarily earnest-sounding flirting, but also about half from the look Robin is giving him while she takes the spot next to Nancy on the other couch.

“What? What’s the look for?”

Robin shrugs, picking up what must’ve been her discarded book from the end table between them (which she’s got the already read half curled backward around its spine, like a heathen), “Nothin’ at all, Eds.”

His face is burning hotter than the fire by the time Steve returns.

He passes them each a mug of cocoa, then flops down on the floor in front of Eddie’s knees. 

“What’s cookin’ good lookin’?” Eddie asks, surprised at the nonchalance he was able to muster up. He reaches forward and tugs on a lock of Steve’s hair without even thinking about it (and ignoring the muffled giggle coming from somewhere to Robin’s left. Oh great, Nancy’s in on his torment too?).

Steve lets out a contented hum, dropping his head back to lie heavily in Eddie’s lap, “Argyle’s whipping up some burgers.”

Eddie leaves his fingers in Steve’s hair, absentmindedly pulling them through a few tangles left behind by his hat.

Steve’s head lolls around in Eddie’s lap with the motions of his fingers for a whole thirty seconds before he snaps it back up, “Oh–ugh–wait, don’t do that,” Eddie pulls his hand away immediately, an apology on his tongue, but Steve continues, standing up and saying, “I’m all gross and sweaty, man, at least let me take a shower first. Be right back.” Steve grins, and heads upstairs to the master bedroom.

Eddie blinks into the space left behind by Steve’s departure, then Nancy is standing as well; “That’s a good idea,” she says, unfolding from her spot at Robin’s side and walking around the back of the couch, “I’ll be back up soon.” She gives Robin’s shoulder a squeeze, and heads downstairs.

Not a full five seconds pass before Robin says, “So...Steve’s super into you.”

Eddie balks at her, his eyes darting around the room automatically. Jon’s helping Argyle chop up toppings for their burgers, the two of them paying less than zero attention to him or Robin, there’s a yell from downstairs followed by laughter, the sound of a shower starting from the open balcony to the upstairs bedroom..

“You can’t just say shit like that, Birdie.” he whispers, his tone harried.

“What, the truth?”

“He is not into me.”

She nods in sarcastic understanding, “Ah, so you’re into him.”

“No I’m—” she levels him with a look. He sighs, glancing around at the no one around them, “Okay fine, yes, I am super into him. But he is not into me.”

Robin shrugs, going back to her book. “You don’t have to believe me, but I think he is. And I think you should make a move.”

“Make a mo—He’s straight as fuck, Robin!”

She gives him a glance, her brow furrowing for a split second then smoothing out. “Did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to.” he says, sinking back against the cushions.

She doesn’t say anything else, and he goes back to staring at the fire.

“If you make a move on Steve, I’ll finally make a move on Nancy.” she says a handful of minutes later.

He processes that slowly, takes a deep breath, then shoves his hand towards her without looking over.

She takes it, giving it one hard shake.

As soon as he takes his hand back, Argyle lopes into view with a plate in his hand, “Food’s ready my dudes.” He says, sinking into the armchair closest to the glass balcony door.

Robin snaps her book shut and sets it down on the little end table between them (the cover curls back up immediately, the poor thing), standing up and heading into the kitchen. 

Eddie has just let his feet fall to the floor and has scooted to the edge of his seat to stand up himself, when Argyle yells out “Nice tits!”

“Whose tits are out?” Eddie asks, following his gaze automatically. 

Argyle goes back to his plate. “Steve’s.” 

Uh…Yeah…He can see that for himself now.

Steve is standing at the railing of the upper floor in nothing but a towel. One hand is flipping Argyle off, and the other is preoccupied with scrubbing a second towel over his damp hair.

The towel wrapped around him is slung low on his hips, and Eddie’s eyes start to roam on their own.

Steve’s stomach is solid yet soft-looking with all its faded pink scars, and it and his chest are still as hairy as Eddie remembers; strong shoulders, solid jaw, dusty lips that pull up into a smirk, all of him is so fucking perfect.

“Hurry it up, dingus, food’s ready!” Robin calls, startling Eddie out of his gawking.

His face goes hot with embarrassment, chancing another glance up to Steve and hoping he didn’t get caught…

Steve winks at him, then turns out of sight, disappearing just as his hand comes down to grab the towel twisted around him.

His face burns, and doesn’t stop burning until long after Steve returns from upstairs.

He makes up a burger for himself, and once each of them have theirs, they call the rest of the hoard upstairs. The six teens all but destroy the remaining burgers, two whole bags of chips, and would have gulped down at least one whole 12 pack of Coke if Nancy hadn’t relegated them to one can each.

Steve’s about to herd them back downstairs when El pipes up and says that they’ve decided they want to go to the waterpark in the main lodge tonight instead of tomorrow. Surprisingly, Steve agrees to drive them over there on the condition “you shitheads are careful, and are ready to go as soon as the pools close at midnight. Got it?”

“Agreed.” they say in unison, splitting off in all directions to grab their swim stuff.

“I’m surprised at you, Stevie, letting them go off on their own.”

He just shrugs, “There’s lifeguards.”

The troops are back in the living room within ten minutes, and in their boots and out the door in 12. 

Once they’re out the door, Robin goes back to her book, Jon and Argyle step out onto the balcony to smoke, and Eddie follows Nancy into the kitchen without even thinking about it, grabbing up the hand towel hanging from the oven door and placing himself to her right.

“Thanks,” she says, handing him the first wet plate from the mess of suds in the sink.

They work in silence for a few minutes, listening to the crackling of the fire, the clanging of silverware in the sink, the muffled voices of the two on the porch.

“Nancy?”

“Yeah, Eddie?”

“If I–If Ste–” he wasn’t sure how to ask this, how to even approach the topic, “Robin said—”

“He’d be lucky to have you Eddie, and you him.” She says, not looking up from the sink.

“How’d you–?”

“Robin tends to ramble when she's nervous, have you noticed?”

He stares down at her, dumbfounded. Her lips quirk into a smile. “She’s like that around me a lot, actually.”

“I’ve noticed.”

They fall back into silence again; on the last plate, she says, “Robin’s already had this conversation with Steve about me, so I only assume it’s fair that you have it with me about him.” She passes the last plate to him and pulls the drain from the water. 

“Just remember Eddie,” She pauses and turns to face him, one hip cocked over to lean on the edge of the counter. “If you’re gonna go for it..Steve loves with all of him at once. Don’t take it for granted.”

He sets the dried plate onto the rack beside the sink as she passes behind him, patting him on the shoulder as she does.

He wants to take a moment to process all that, but just his luck, Steve returns then, passing in behind him where Nancy just left to grab up a six-pack.

Steve hands one to Eddie as he leaves, “You okay, Eds?”

“I’m good, thanks Stevie.” he says, fixing his face into an easy smile.

The six of them lounge around the rest of the evening, slowly sipping on their drinks while they play cards in front of the fire, but there’s a catch: Eddie’s going absolutely insane.

Steve’s touching him everywhere. His thigh and foot are sitting comfortably under Eddie’s own thigh where it’s crossed above it, his arm is draped across the back of the couch behind Eddie’s shoulders and methodically twirling long lengths of dark hair between his fingers.

Eddie’s been doing his damndest to ignore it, and succeeds, actually, for short periods of time while they are playing Uno, but every time Steve leans back from dropping his next card on the coffee table, he casually puts his arm back where it was, and grabs up a new lock of Eddie’s hair to torture him with.

And each time he does, Robin gives him the same knowing look.

It’s. Agony.

He wants to relax, wants to scream, he wants to swing his leg over Steve’s lap and press him into the cushions with heated kisses, he wants to haul the other man upstairs and throw him onto the bed…be thrown onto the bed.

Finally, Nancy calls it, breaking their little bubble to stand into a long stretch around nine. Steve hops up off the couch after Robin to gather up all the rest of the cans, and Eddie helps Jon and Argyle pull apart the couches enough to fold out the beds for when the goblins come back.

He escapes upstairs after a short goodnight to the two, Robin and Steve are still bickering in hushed tones about something in the kitchen, and pulls out his bag. He’s fishing out a new pair of boxers when Steve finally gets upstairs, shutting the room’s double doors behind him and heading into the ensuite.

He left the door open in his wake, so Eddie grabs up the rest of his things and follows. He drops his pile of stuff onto the closed lid of the toilet and shucks his shirt unceremoniously, tossing it to the floor.

The glass door of the huge half-walled stone shower squeaks softly on its hinges when he opens it to start the water, squeaking again when it swings closed. He reaches up to a shelf above the toilet to pull down one of the provided towels, turning to hang it on the hook beside the shower.

It’s while he’s turning back to the hook that he chances a look at Steve.

Steve, frozen at the sink with his toothbrush hanging listlessly in the air and a glob of foamy toothpaste slowly drooping off his lip, is staring. 

Unabashedly.

At Eddie’s bare torso.

Eddie caught and cataloged this in the split second it took Steve to realize Eddie was staring back, but it was enough. 

The flirting had been one thing, a natural, goofy continuation of their friendship that led to their ‘date’ today, the soft touches and hair-playing had been another, something Eddie could explain away just as easily. Steve is a touchy guy once you get close to him, and had been with Eddie since they’d gotten closer after spring break.

But this?

He’s looking at him with the same wide-eyed look Eddie’d given him earlier: gobsmacked and slightly hungry.

Steve turns away quickly, spitting into the sink and mumbling something under his breath while he finishes rinsing out his mouth. 

Eddie snorts, shaking his head and finally hanging up his towel.

“Oh, what, now you’re gonna be all shy?” he grouses, twisting around to scowl at the back of Steve’s head. Steve looks over his shoulder to glare at him in return, his cheeks glowing red. “Really? The guy who was joking about bending me over only a couple hours ago? The same guy who was winking at me in nothing but a towel earlier?”

Steve flushes darker, and it irritates him to no end. “Honestly Steve?” Eddie starts, turning back to the shower and pretending to fix how his towel is hanging, “If you’re into me, just do something about it. Otherwise, just…back off, okay? I’m super into you but I can be a big boy about it because honestly, I’d rather keep you around as a friend if nothing else and—”

His rambling is cut off by the click of the bathroom door closing.

Eddie lets out a long breath, “Yeah.. that’s about what I expected.” Robin was wrong.

He takes a moment to collect himself, but just as he pops open the button on his jeans, Steve’s voice breaks through the sound of rushing water.

“Were you being serious?”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Eddie yelps, spinning around to face the man who’s still very much in the bathroom with him. “What the fuck, Steve?”

“Were you?” he asks, pushing off from where he’d been leaning back on the door.

“...About what?”

“About how you’re ‘super into’ me?” he grins.

Eddie crosses his arms across his chest defensively, “You don’t get to be an ass about it, Steve.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Steve says softly, reaching out to unfold Eddie’s arms. His fingers follow the length of them and grasp Eddie’s in his, “I wasn’t trying to be, promise; I’m just surprised is all.”

“Surprised?”

“Well yeah,” he shrugs, “The super hot metalhead you’ve been mooning after since March confesses he thinks you’re also super hot? That’s kinda hard to believe.”

He can feel Steve’s shirt brushing faintly against his stomach now. “I never said you were super hot.” he manages to say.

Steve catches his eyes, smirking at him with an obnoxious head tilt, “Didja have to?”

“Shut up..” Eddie snorts out a laugh and pushes lightly at Steve’s chest; he’s laughing too. “Okay, okay, now leave me alone so I can shower.” he says, pushing a bit harder this time. “I’ll be out soon and you can do with me what you wish.”

Steve’s leaning his weight against him, fighting going back to the bedroom, “Or…”

“Or?” Damn, he’s heavy what the fuck!

“I could, maybe, if you want..Icouldgetinwithyou.”

Eddie stops pushing.

Steve scratches at the back of his head in embarrassment, “I mean, I’ve been wanting to get you naked for months now and there’s a perfectly good reason right there, and I think it’d be nice to shower, y’know…together.. and wow, I am being super awkward, actually..so I’m just gonna…yeah.”

Steve gestures over his shoulder toward the bedroom but he doesn’t even move to turn before Eddie is pulling him back the other way.

He lets him go a couple steps away from the glass shower door, “Better get t’stripping big boy, can’t shower very well with clothes on, can you?” he winks, then faces away from Steve to finally shed his jeans (and for his own sanity).

Eddie can hear the split second it takes for Steve to start pulling off his clothes, taking another second for himself before pushing his jeans and boxers off his hips.

He had been trying to be in the shower under the spray before Steve was even out of his clothes, but one of his legs got caught, then he had to pause further to pull off the stubborn sock that decided not to come off with his jeans.

Which of course led to him nearly toppling over.

He caught himself on the wall, but not before Steve’s hands caught him around the waist too. “Careful, Eds.”

Oh fuck. Steve’s hands should not feel that good against his skin..also, dammit! He was trying to be all suave and cool by getting in under the water before Steve could see him fully, and now his bare fuckin’ ass is out for all to see…

Eddie laughs to himself.

“What?”

“Nothin’, I just thought I’d be…better? At this?”

“At what?”

“Stupid fuckin’—” Eddie finally gets his sock off, then sighs, “I dunno, being sexy, or mysterious I guess? Coy maybe?” 

“Why would you need to be any of that?”

Eddie shrugs, stepping out of Steve’s hold and into the shower and under the spray, staying faced away from the door while Steve follows.

“Are you gonna look at me?” he asks, voice devoid of anything but concern.

Taking a breath, Eddie steels himself and turns to face Steve in the large shower.

Steve’s expression is calm, open, but skews slightly into concern under Eddie’s gaze.

The long lean lines of his torso are just the same as the other two times he’s seen them, but they’re close now, and in good lighting too; Eddie can see a few other scars other than the ones from the bats, others he’s gotten over the years protecting the heard of goblins they’ve been co-parenting since last September.

He watches rogue droplets of water slough down the now-damp hairs on his arms, his legs, his chest, the ones that follow the path of darkening hairs down his stomach to his—

Steve steps closer, sharing the warm, wide spray of the shower with him.

He lifts his hand and brushes the damp hair back from the scar that marrs Eddie’s face and neck, stepping forward fully and cupping the puckered flesh in his palm when the hair settles wetly behind his shoulder

Eddie feels time stop for a brief moment. 

All of Steve is pressed into him and they line up perfectly, like they were made to share the same space. Steve’s other hand slides onto Eddie’s hip and it tugs him closer. Steve's half-hard length slots into place beside Eddie’s own, into the crevice where his crotch meets thigh.

Eddie shudders a breath at the feeling, opening his eyes to study the planes of Steve’s face and the way he is seemingly drooping forward into Eddie’s orbit. 

Steve’s smiling softly at him, the soft spray of water reflecting off their chests is misting up onto his cheek and lashes. His eyes are so much more green than he’d thought before, besides how little of the color he can see around the much larger pupil.

“Gorgeous.” Steve says, his voice is breathy and low, full of admiration, of longing…and it takes Eddie out of his reverie.

“Wha?” He says, eloquent as ever.

“You’re gorgeous, Eddie.”

Then, Steve’s lips are on his, tentative and sweet; soft, but becoming heady fast. 

The next time their lips meet, it’s punctuated with a short huff of air from Steve’s lungs when Eddie spins them, pressing Steve into the stone wall beside the shower knobs. He parts his lips to mumble out an apology, but Steve’s tongue decides to fill the space instead.

The hand Steve had on Eddie’s jaw snakes down to grab hold of his other hip and pulls him even closer, using the both of them to roll Eddie’s hips into his.

Their tongues slide languidly against the other, the fast pace they’d been building into falling off in exchange for slow, sanguine kisses instead.

Eddie lets out a shaky breath when they do part, blinking across the short distance between them at Steve’s kiss-bitten lips for only a second before letting his eyes fall shut with the exhale.

“Steve…is this—Is this real?”

Steve breathes out a shaky laugh of his own, “Why wouldn’t it be real, Eddie?” He asks, gently tracing the length of Eddie’s nose with his.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve had this exact dream before; are you sure I didn’t snap my neck during one of those falls earlier?”

The younger man laughs fully this time, and Eddie relishes in the slippery feeling of the wet skin of Steve’s stomach rippling against his own. He can’t help but grin in response to both the laughter and the funny feeling, his eyes opening without a second thought.

Steve looks like he’s floating, his face soft and dripping with a bright beaming smile..

“Do you need me to pinch you?” Steve asks, finally coming down from his brief fit of laughter.

“I don’t know if I want to find out this isn’t real.” Eddie grins in return.

One of Steve’s large hands leaves his hip then, snaking around to pinch the underside of Eddie’s asscheek.

He sucks in a short hiss of pain and lets out a soft whimper of something else (holy shit, when did that become a thing??) in the same breath.

“Okay…” he gulps down a mouthful of nothing, “Not a dream.”

“Not a dream..” Steve repeats. 

There’s a beat, two full breaths of more nothing before Steve spins them around and pushes Eddie back into the cold stone instead, his arm wrapped around him and up to cup the back of his skull protectively against the tile.

He presses a thick thigh between Eddie’s and does three things almost simultaneously.

The first, a second before the other two: He locks his heavy-lidded gaze on Eddie’s; two and three: presses the thigh between Eddie’s legs up, and pulls the hand at the back of his skull down along with a fistful of dark curls.

“Aahhh—ohhh fuck, Steve…” The sting from his scalp pulls a moan from his exposed throat, and Eddie scrambles to grab hold of something.

His nails dig into the slick skin of Steve’s back automatically, and he opens his mouth to apologize the same moment Steve latches onto his neck with a low groan of his own.

The hand not tangled in Eddie’s hair is starting to pull him down in waves against Steve’s thigh and hips, both of them hissing in pleasure with each pass of the other’s length against theirs.

“Mmmm, Eddie..” Steve moans, unlatching from the bruise he’s sure to have left on Eddie’s throat to lave his tongue and lips against his jaw instead. “Baby, you feel so good against me.”

“AAaahh—mmm..”

“Ooh, and you sound so sweet..” His lips trail down from his jaw back to the definitely sore spot on his neck, one that he prods lightly with the tip of his tongue before continuing on to nip at the taught skin of his collarbone, kiss lightly over the skin of his scarred pec, finally landing tongue first onto Eddie’s remaining nipple. 

The reaction to this is immediate; Eddie arches his chest further into Steve’s mouth. Steve, the sonofabitch he is, suctions his lips away from Eddie’s flushed skin in response.

“Hhnng—what the actual fuck, Steve?” Eddie glares best he can though the panting, “Get that mouth back over here.”

Miraculously, Steve obliges, sliding forward into a saccharine kiss and pulling Eddie away from

the wall and back under the spray of water.

“C’mon Eds, tilt your head back before the hot water runs out.”

Eddie just gapes at him, at his dick, both their dicks, still standing at attention, back up to his face.

Steve just purses his lips together as if holding back a grin and tugs Eddie’s head back by his hair again, soaking the strands through under the water.

He lets Steve turn him this way and that, reveling in the feeling of the other man’s hands in his hair, slick with soap on his skin, the gentle nudges and pulls relaxing him further into this weird world where Steve’s totally into him and also they’re naked in the shower together.

Finally, when Steve tilts his head back for the final time to rinse the conditioner out of his hair, Eddie decides to be a little shit, pushing his hips forward to clash their (still half-hard) dicks together.

“What are you—really? A sword fight?”

Eddie lets out a long cackle, “What? You knew what you were getting into with me, didn’t’cha Stevie?”

Doubt crashes into Eddie’s chest the instant the words escape his mouth.

He did, didn’t he? He likes him for his antics right? Oh fuck…How long would it take for Steve to get sick of his shit?

Despite Eddie’s near-crushing doubts, Steve smiles and says, “That I did.” easy as breathing, then pulls Eddie flush against him in another heated kiss.

Steve walks him backward after a moment, and Eddie drops his hands behind him to feel for the inevitable press of cold stone on his back, shuddering when it finally makes contact.

His gasp from the cold tile only seems to egg the other man on, hunching down to grip him around the backs of his thighs.

Eddie’s legs lock around Steve’s waist in panic, but pleasure shoots through him with the motion too, the horny thrill of being picked up so effortlessly along with the pressure of Steve’s stomach against the underside of his dick.

“Mmph—Steve holy shit,” he’s only just managed to thread the fingers on one hand into those sleek brown locks when he has to stifle down a long groan with a bite to his knuckle. “Hnngh–Steve, Steve, you gotta—oh fuck..”

The muscles of Steve’s stomach bunch under him as he grinds up in slow, torturous rolls..

“Oh, fuck—” the words spill out of his mouth, loud and long; his palm snaps up to hold them in as Steve pushes his shoulders into the tile behind him and leans back, leaving Eddie’s body balanced between strong thighs and shower wall.

The tile hits hard on the back of his skull when Steve wraps one of those hands of his around both their lengths. Eddie manages to look down, only to knock his head back again at the sight. 

Even with the added height of being on top of Steve’s thighs, their heads are exactly level, disappearing over and over again into the water-warmed skin of Steve’s fist.

Steve hunches forward again, pressing kisses into Eddie’s sternum. “Gorgeous.” 

“Steve...” he whispers in return, grinding as much as he can against the length slotted along his.

Again, too soon, Steve is pulling away, releasing his grip on them both.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie asks, already moving to drop his legs back to the floor. 

Steve stops him, hoisting his legs back around him and lifting him off the wall. “I’m taking you up on your offer.” He says, twisting off the now-cold stream of water and carefully stepping over the lip of the doorway through the glass door.

“My offer?”

“You said that after your shower, you’d come back out here to the bedroom and I could have my way with you.”

A half whine, half moan curls out of Eddie’s throat to his utter embarrassment.

“D’ya like that idea, sweetheart?” Steve says, grinning mischievously. 

Eddie manages to scowl at him as they leave the steamy bathroom, and is dropped down onto the mattress soon after. 

“Aw shit!”

“What? What happened?”

It’s cold as shit, that’s what.” The air-cooled temperature of the covers against his skin has him breaking out in goosebumps.

Steve winces, “Sorry, I didn’t think about that.”

What was calm and collected confidence flickers off his face, and Eddie can’t have that. “Jus’ come over here and warm me up, big bo–wait,” He sits up and stops Steve when only one of his knees has made it onto the bed. “Lemme look at you.” 

He looks down at Steve, and yep. Big Boy is very accurate. He’d felt it against him already, Steve’s too-gorgeous-to-be-real dick; he’s longer for sure, cut and curved up like something out of a wet dream. 

“Oh, definitely big boy,” Eddie grins, looking up at Steve’s somewhat embarrassed expression.

“It’s nothing special.” he shrugs, his cheeks heating up as he climbs up Eddie’s damp body. He lowers himself down lay between his legs, his dick slotting itself beside Eddie’s once again.

He hunches over to kiss lightly up the scars on Eddie’s left side, lips brushing along the healed edge of the biggest one. It tickles, then it doesn’t, then does, then doesn’t, his lips pressing halfway onto skin and halfway onto puckered pink flesh.

“Steve..”

“Yeah baby?” he responds after a few more kisses.

“You’re giving me more goosebumps.” Eddie says, somewhat breathless.

Another kiss, “Mmmm.. You’re welcome.”

That shocks a laugh out of him, “You’re such a dork.”

Steve takes one of Eddie’s hands where it lays on the mattress, lacing their fingers together and pressing them back into the mattress beside his head.

“Says you.” he affirms, locking those ridiculous hazel eyes on his.

Eddie’s about to crack off another one liner, say something to…all that, but it’s completely erased from his mind when Steve ducks his head down to find his nipple again.

“Oh fuckin–nnng..” his hips buck up hard into Steve’s, who presses down into him in return.

He can feel it when Steve grins against his skin. “Shut up, asshole, that fee–ee–els so good.”

“Hmm, tell me about it, baby.” He’s grinding down slowly now, adding to the exponentially increasing Steve-addled brain fog he’s currently experiencing.

“Ahhh—I want to but–”

“But what?” Steve’s breath over the spit-slick spot on his chest sends a chill through him. 

“Oh fuck–If any of them hear us, we’re never going to hear the end of it.” he tries to warn around another stifled moan.

The Menace is undeterred, swirling his tongue around the little nub open-mouthed and hot once more before moving upwards, trailing his lips up Eddie’s breastbone until he’s sucking kisses into his throat once again. He continues up along the length of his neck until he reaches his ear, “Then you’d better keep it down, huh?”

Well that didn’t help. He lets out a long moan in response, clamping a hand over his mouth way too late.

“You sound so good though,” Steve says, continuing his slow grinding, “I can’t wait to get you alone so I can fuck you properly.”

That pulls another moan from behind Eddie’s palm. “Jesus H. Christ,” Eddie bucks his hips up as much as he can, but Steve's palms move down to hold him in place.

“Can’t have that now, can we?” Steve chides, trailing his lips down his stomach as he slides back to the edge of the bed, his eyes locked on Eddie’s.

“Wh–Why not?”

“Because I’d prefer,” a kiss above his belly button, “to choke,” a kiss below, “on my own accord.”, then swallows Eddie down in one go.

“Oh fffuuck—”

Steve hums in agreement around Eddie’s dick and the vibrations course up his spine to rattle around in his brain.

“Oh shit, Stevie, that feels so fuckin’ good.” He breathes, twisting his fingers into Steve’s hair.

In response, Steve starts to bob his head, swirling his tongue around Eddie’s on the upstroke, and sucking with fervor on the down.

“Steve, sweetheart–fuck–if you keep going I’m gonna—haah—”

“And what if I want you to?”

“And what if I want to to-together?”

Steve releases him with a wet pop, kissing his way back up to Eddie’s lips, humming in satisfaction when he reaches them, like kissing Eddie is the best part of all this.

And doesn’t that make his head spin.

“All you’d have to do is ask.”

Eddie pulls Steve back to his lips and bucks up into him again. “That’s me asking.”

Steve grins down at him and re-starts his slow, tortuous pace.

He’s rock hard against Eddie’s thigh, and this is getting fuckin’ ridiculous.

“Alright, you know what,” Eddie pushes his hips up hard and flips them over, straddling Steve’s thighs in no time at all.

“Holy shit—“ Steve blinks up at him in astonishment, like he’s surprised that he’s been flipped so easily.

 Eddie grinds down onto Steve, “You don’t get to tease me like that, big boy.”

“Is that so?” He chuckles, then groans when Eddie wraps his hand around their lengths. His hands grip onto Eddie’s thighs, squeezing tight to match the hold on them.

Eddie fucks forward into his fist, pulling his hand down to meet each thrust and watching as Steve’s head drops back onto the mattress.

He lets out a long groan. “Eddie…”

“Yeah, Stevie?”

Eddie runs his fingers over both their heads, adding to the slight slip of pre with a well aimed glob of spit that makes Steve hum out a short breathy moan as it makes contact with his head.

More noises of appreciation are pulled from the man under him as he rubs the pad of his thumb through the mess and under the head of Steve’s cock in small circles.

“Mmhm oh fuck..”

“You like that?”

“Mmhmm,” he nods dazedly “Keep moving though, feels so good, Eds.”

“You got it, sweetheart.” Eddie grins, wrapping his palm around them again and pushes forward into his fist.

Steve’s head drops back onto the pillow beneath him, “Just like that Eddie, fuck.” 

He gives them a few more strokes, then Steve’s hands start to move; his warm palms skirt along the wiry hair on his legs, one traveling around to grab onto Eddie’s horribly non-existent ass, and the other comes up to his remaining nipple, pinching it between two digits.

That did it. The hot coil of pleasure already broiling in his stomach twists even tighter. “Ahh—Stevie..I’m so close, Jesus Christ…”

“Me too..”

“Yeah? Well c’mon sweetheart, give it to me.”

A scant two passes of his hand later, Steve shoots hot across his stomach, and Eddie follows a half stroke later. 

He sinks down to the bed against Steve’s heaving ribs, tucking his shoulder under the other man’s arm.

After a few more breaths, Steve pulls Eddie into him and presses his lips to Eddie’s still-damp forehead.

“Ew gross, don’t do that, I’m all sweaty.”

“Don't care.” Steve mumbles softly into his hairline.

In return, Eddie wipes his soiled hand off on Steve’s stomach.

“Ew! Gross!” Steve laughs, shoving Eddie away with no actual intent behind it.

A few minutes later, Steve breaks the comfortable silence. “So,”

The word sinks heavily into Eddie’s gut. “So?”

When Steve doesn’t continue, Eddie turns his head to find Steve gazing at him with soft eyes, and even softer smile.

It morphs into a teasing smirk. “Did it live up to the hype?”

—--

One snooze and another heated shower later, Eddie crawls back into their bed and gets comfy while he listens to Steve pull his clothes back on to go down to the main lodge for the hellions.

He hears a short shuf when Steve’s leg skirts around the end of the bed. “I’ll be back in 15,” he says, kissing the damp hairs on Eddie’s temple. “Go to sleep, Eds.”

“Hmmm…” he hums in return, cozy as ever, and is out as soon as the door clicks shut.

Too soon, the sounds of the shitheads scrambling into the house interrupts his dozing, the door to the bedroom squeaking open not long after.

“Eds? You awake?”

Instead of answering, Eddie simply opens his arms.

He listens to Steve strip off his clothes, beckoning the man forward again when he feels the end of the mattress sink under the other man’s weight. 

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’, hold your horses.”

“My horses have been patient enough.” Eddie grumbles as Steve finally shuffles between the sheets and into his waiting arms.

-x-X-x-

“Dude! What the hell happened to your neck?! Did you get attacked by a vampire?”

“Henderson, you are way too loud for how early it is.”

“It’s 10 am, Eddie.”

“Exactly.” the barstool creaks as he climbs onto it, gratefully accepting the plate of eggs and bacon Argyle passes him.

“Leave him alone, guys.” Steve says, coming up behind Eddie on his stool and kissing his cheek as he passes into the kitchen with his empty plate.

There’s three whole seconds of silence before the younger teens burst out into a cacophony of various outbursts.

“Aw, what? Eddie! Steve’s way too lame for you to be dating!”

“Steve, did you fuck my DM?!”

“I fuckin’ knew it. I told you they’d get together, didn’t I? Dustin, you owe me 10 bucks.”

“I don’t owe you shit, Maxine.”

“Holy shit, congrats guys.” Lucas is his new favorite… Will and El too, nodding along to Sinclair’s assessment.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough; All those heading back to the waterpark better be ready to go in T-minus three minutes otherwise I’m leavin’ without you.” Steve calls out over the noise.

The complaints follow him out of the kitchen and into the tiny laundry room off the entryway.

“Why don’t you guys get yelled at?” Eddie grumbles, poking up a forkful of egg.

Robin snorts a laugh, “Because none of us are sleeping with the babysitter.”

okay, some notes:

steve's mom is a lawyer in this canon and she's the one who paid for eddie's legal counsel/helped with clearing his name after s4

wha?? steve harrington has good parents?? insanity

"canon" hawkins is about an hour outside of indianapolis so i used shelbyville, indiana as my base and from there to boyne mountain is about a 7 hour drive. if they left at 6 am from hawkins, they'd get to the resort around 1 or 2 and have a good couple hours to ski before it gets dark again at 6 (daylight hours in the midwest during winter are a bitch.)

i did way too much research into the ski resort i based this at, only to realize that neither the cabin itself OR the waterpark were there in the 80s. so...let's all just pretend, okay?

the map above is a trail map of the resort from 1985

when i asked my husband what i should add to 'my most recent blorbos' he said 'nice tits!' so that's why that line lmao

who'da thought this'd go from skiing to shower sex? cause i didn't

i got stuck on the smut part of this for way too long and i am so glad i am a) done with it and b) that it actually turned out relatively coherent.

on that note though, i have been looking at this damn fic for so so long that i don't know if it's actually good or what. 'cause to me, it's complete garbled garbage

the title of this is from 'Object of My Desire' by Starpoint

lex i am so sorry this is late ilysm 🫶

#spicysixwinterfanworkschallenge #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington x eddie munson #eddie munson x steve harrington #steveddie #eddeve #background ronance #background jargyle #i also implied: #lumax #henderhop #and #byler #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #jonathan byers #argyle #mike wheeler #will byers #lucas sinclair #max mayfield #el hopper #dustin henderson #st #stranger things #steddie fic #steddie fanfic #skiing

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

@steddiemas Day 21 -  Home and/or Dinner

pairing: steddie | word count: 1,333 | rated: G

“For real this time.”

Steve’s words pull his eyes off that stupid sprig of greenery and back down to his face, but his brain is still sprinting laps in his head, “For real? Who put—? When did—?”

“Eddie.”

He takes a couple seconds to slow his brain down into a jog. “Yeah?”

“I’m being serious. I want to kiss you. Please.”

“....If this is a pity thing–” Eddie’s stomach twists at the thought.

“It’s not a pity thing.” Steve assures in a soft voice, trailing his hand down the wrist he’d taken hold of to link his fingers with Eddie’s. “I want to kiss you because you’re you and because I’ve wanted to for a while now.”

Okay…he seems genuine enough.

“And also it’s a little bit of a pity thing.” Steve grins good-naturedly.

“Ugh!” Eddie groans, dropping his face into his free hand.

“I just want to be 100% honest.” Steve laughs, “And if I’m being 100% honest, I put this one here, not Robin. And I followed you out here to make sure you were okay and also maybe to get another chance to kiss you.”

Eddie lifts his head and his eyes narrow, studying Steve’s face. His expression seems sincere; serious with an undercurrent of humor to it. His lips twitch too, like his mouth is having a hard time not smiling at him.

“Then you just had to get all sad and mopey on me.” Steve teases.

It breaks through Eddie’s wariness the rest of the way, surprisingly, and he bursts out in cackles.

“What?” Steve asks, laughing slightly with the word, but his smile is wary around the edges.

“Nothing, nothing, I just,” Eddie chuckles again, “Nothing. Yeah, sure, lay one on me, big boy.”

Steve squints at him skeptically.

“What?”

“I’m not gonna if you still think this is some big joke.”

“Well forgive me if the man of my dreams asking to kiss me is a bit of a hard concept to grasp.” 

The younger man is silent for a moment, though now his eyes are wide.

“What? Why do you keep staring at me?”

“I’m the man of your dreams?”

Oh fuck.

“Uh.. No. I lied, I was only fucking with you, I—”

Steve steps closer and raises a hand to Eddie’s face, brushing the backs of his knuckles along his cheek.

He studies him closely, eyes locked onto his own.

His hand slips off his face to place his palm at the side of Eddie’s neck, his fingers lacing into the hairs at the back of his neck.

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

“Okay.” Eddie gulps.

When their lips connect, everything else falls away.

Steve’s lips are soft on his, and the tip of his nose is freezing cold where it’s pressed into Eddie’s cheek, making him gasp.

Steve takes the opportunity to slide his tongue between Eddie’s lips, only the tiniest touch of their tongues feels electric.

“Steve,” Eddie sighs.

“Mmm..?” it’s more of a soft moan than an acknowledgment, and the sound shoots all the way down Eddie’s spine and into his gut.

“Mhm,” Eddie says in response, locking their mouths together, then after another moment he hums again. “Hm, wait, your nose is freezing!” he pulls away with a smile, looking across the almost non-existent gap between their faces at Steve’s expression.

His eyes are blown wide, his cheeks and nose are red along with his lips, from the cold and from Eddie’s obviously insane levels of kissing prowess.

“You think I care about that right now?” Steve asks, diving back in for more.

Who’s Eddie to tell him what to care about?

“Ah ha!” Robin’s sudden yell, even through the glass, startles them apart. The long blinds on either side of her ripple away from where she’s got two of them parted at the door.

“Jesus H. Christ, Robin!”

“What the hell?!”

She slides the door open and points accusingly at Steve, “You told him straight to his face “Now we’re even.” the last time mistletoe happened, and he still let you kiss him for real??”

“Wait, wha–”

“Oh yeah... Damn it Steve, why’d you let me kiss you like that? I’m still mad at you for Melvald’s.” Eddie says, teasingly pushing Steve further away from him.

“Kiss me?! I kissed you!”

He waves this off, “Semantics.” 

Steve just rolls his eyes in response. “Come on; you’re right, I’m freezing my ass off out here.” He squeezes between the two of them and through the open door.

Eddie turns his gaze to Robin instead, who’s grinning widely at him already. “Congratulations, Doofus, you got Dingus to make a move.”

“Good thing too; I don’t think I would have made one myself.”

“We know.”

“We? Who’s we—”

“You comin’ Eds?” Steve calls, already in the dining room.

“Yeah, yep, absolutely.” he scoots past a still very smug Robin and follows the sound of Steve’s voice.

Oh no. He can sense a pattern forming.

“Steve?” Most of the rest of the guests are piled in the far half of the room, the living room half. Lucas is in the dining half, and gives him a knowing smile while he slides a huge bowl of mashed potatoes into the center of the huge dining table.

“In here, Eds.” Steve calls from the kitchen.

“I don’t wanna hear it, Sinclair,” Eddie points threateningly, half-heartedly, at the teen.

He hears Lucas’ response as he ducks out of the room into the hall “I didn’t say anything, Eds.”

Wayne and Hopper are on one end of the island when he enters, though he doesn’t notice until after he’s placed himself at Steve’s side.

“D’ya need help Stevie?” he asks Steve’s back(side) while he pulls the now-baked pie from the oven.

“Nope, I’m good Ed.” he turns, and places the dish onto the island carefully. Eddie closes the oven for him anyway.

“It looks great, sweetheart,” He says, leaning close to Steve’s side, “I was worried it’d be too many blueberries.”

Steve opens his mouth to say something, but is interrupted by Hopper’s low voice.

“You boys better be careful, now.”

Eddie jumps back immediately, his eyes darting to Wayne.

Wayne is shaking his head fondly. “Took the words righ’ outta my mouth, Chief.” he says, going back to what he was doing (which was carving the turkey apparently; how’d he not notice that?).

He glances back at Steve (oh yeah, that’s why), who’s own panicked look is sliding off his face.

“Yes sir, Mr. Chief Hopper, sir.” he says, his eyes returning to Hopper’s amused expression.

“Where’s the formality coming from?” Steve leans in to say in a not-so-hushed whisper. 

Eddie not-whispers back in the same tone. “I dunno, the guy’s basically your dad isn’t he?” 

Wayne and Hopper laugh, and soon, there’s a herd of teens flooding into the kitchen to steal fingerfuls of the bird.

“Get yer damn hands outta my turkey, you little—”

“But we’re hungry Uncle Wayne, come on.”

“I said no, Mike, now go help set the table or something. Shit’s already done so it’s almost time, yea?”

Even with how large of a table it is, more chairs and another table had to be added to accommodate everyone. A couple folding tables and chairs, and the smaller ‘event’ table from the Harringtons’ fancy finished basement were hauled out, and the giant double-wide table is covered with tablecloths, with plates, and with piles and piles of food.

The chairs fill in in no time, and Eddie finds himself smushed between Jeff and Steve on one side of the table, Robin’s on Steve’s other side, of course, and Dustin and Claudia are across from him next to Wayne. 

He’s surrounded by his friends and family, the food is great, Wayne’s definitely being flirted with by Ms. Henderson, and Eddie’s hand is resting on Steve’s leg under the table, or across the back of his chair, or their legs are pressed together…

It’s the best Christmas dinner he’s had in years.

THEY KISSED FOR REAL!! I'M KICKING MY FEET AND GIGGLING RN!!!

other parts! Pt. 1 (Day 1) | Pt. 2 (Day 2) | Pt. 3 (Day 5) | Pt. 4 (Day 6) | Pt. 5 (Day 7) | Pt. 6 (Day 11) | Pt. 7 (Day 13) | Pt. 8 (Day 18) | Pt. 9 (Day 21) [YOU ARE HERE] | Pt. 10 (Day 25) also on AO3! this year

#steddie #steddiemas #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington x eddie munson #the party #robin buckley #mike wheeler #dustin henderson #claudia henderson #wayne munson #hopper #lucas sinclair #jeff stranger things #stranger things #st #steddie fic #steveddie #eddeve #christmas #christmas dinner #noelle writes

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

@steddiemas Day 2 - Winter Themed Sentence Starters

3. Did you know icicles make the perfect murder weapon? 

pairing: pre-steddie | word count: 426 | rated: G

“Did you know icicles make the perfect murder weapon?”

Of course, like always, the fact comes unprompted. Eddie had been staring out the front window of Family Video all morning, even through the rush Steve and Robin had just gone through. 

It’s been a couple days since he and Eddie had officially decorated for Christmas, and the ice storm that swept through Hawkins the night before had pretty much leveled anyone but the Family Video staff’s attempts at going to work that day; so of course they all decided to come in and rent a movie or three for their unexpected day off.

“Is that what you’ve been staring at all morning? The icicles?” Robin asks, unbelieving.

Leave it to Eddie to stare out at the frozen water hanging off their roof for hours on end. Steve sighs, “Eddie, darling, love of my life, I cannot handle another one of your not-actually-that-fun fun facts right now.”

And, naturally, Eddie ignores him (though the blush on his cheeks at Steve’s blatant flirting–flirting that the metalhead still hadn’t done anything about by the way, why kiss him then not do anything more about it??–was a nice addition to his face). “It’d be perfect, Steve! They’d never figure out what killed ‘em; The icicle would just melt away and boom! You’re out one murder weapon and one set of guilty fingerprints.”

“There wouldn’t be fingerprints in the first place would there? I wouldn't want to hold something that cold with my bare hands, you’d have to wear gloves.”

“Robin, don’t encourage hi—”

“You wouldn’t have as good a grip with gloves on.”

Steve drops his head to the counter in exasperation.

“You think you’d have any better grip with bare hands??”

“Well yeah, your hands would do the same thing to the icicle that your tongue does to a metal pole, right? They’d just stick.”

“Then the police would have really good fingerprints since your skin would get ripped off when you try to leave the thing behind.”

“So don’t leave it behind. Take it with you and let it melt.”

“As if you would get away without someone seeing you carting around a bloody icicle…”

“Why am I friends with you two again?”

“You love us,” Robin waves him off and goes back into her conversation with Eddie about any possible ways they could test their theories.

Steve just laughs, shakes his head, and settles in for the next few hours of his life with two of the three dorks he cares about most in this world.

me 🤝 eddie munson enjoys not-that-fun fun facts

linking other parts here! Pt. 1 (Day 1) | Pt. 2 (Day 2) [YOU ARE HERE] | Pt. 3 (Day 5) | Pt. 4 (Day 6) | Pt. 5 (Day 7) | Pt. 6 (Day 11) | Pt. 7 (Day 13) | Pt. 8 (Day 18) | Pt. 9 (Day 21) | Pt. 10 (Day 25) also on AO3! this year

#i just think they're neat #(fun facts) #steddie #steddiemas #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #christmas #stranger things #st #steve harrington x eddie munson #eddie munson x steve harrington #mutual pining #steveddie #eddeve #noelle writes #steddie fanfic

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

There's Such a Sad Love (Deep in Your Eyes) - Prologue

it's finally time, friends!! here is the first part to my ghost!eddie fic! I am planning on getting the first real chapter up tomorrow, and the rest as they are done! I'd like to have this done by halloween but we'll see if i continue to have the spoons for this story thanks for reading! 🙌🥰👻

pairing: steddie | rated: M | on AO3

CWs for this chapter include: mentions of suicide/ideations as part of chrissy's backstory, and depictions of violence but nothing graphic!

He’s spoken with her a lot since he died, the Moon.

She’s lovely, beautiful, bright, and loves her monsters (Eddie still doesn’t quite know what that means, are monsters real? …Well…he is a ghost now…).

She was the first one he cried to when he realized what had happened to him, why it did.

Chrissy was his better half, his soulmate, his sister, his best friend.

He’d found her afterwards, his first thought being how could he have not known? He could understand anyone else not knowing, not knowing her like he did, but even he didn’t know.

He’d found her letter just as her boyfriend found him.

Eddie replays his last few minutes on the mortal plane over and over again in his head in the years afterwards, starting with the front door to his trailer being blown open in the wake of Jason Carver’s entrance…

“Carver! Jason, I–I’m so sorry…”

“What’d you do to her, freak?”

“What? Nothing! I’d never—I just found her letter—”

He can remember that he was hit in that moment, struck across the face lightning fast, but he can no longer remember the pain.

Probably a good thing too, for what was to come. 

“Oh yeah, sure, like anyone’s going to believe that.”

Another hit.

Another.

Another.

Over and over again until eventually, Eddie’s memory goes sideways; his sight is blurry, but clear enough to tell he was now on the floor.

He’s faced towards Jason’s legs, watches as they shuffle and bend to pick up something.

Wait, Eddie was holding something earlier wasn’t he? Something important?

His vision starts fading out, still watching as Jason’s legs back away from him, then turn sharply to run out the open door.

Tired, Eddie succumbs to the darkness; his last thought being that Wayne was going to be the one to find them both.

“A tale as old as time, I suppose.” he had told the moon one night of the thousands he must’ve been through at this point, “Blame the Freak, right?”

Her words of love and encouragement normally helped soothe his soul, but there were some nights where he just couldn’t let the injustice go, it wasn’t fucking fair!

In the end, Jason got second degree murder. Eddie got a plain wooden box.

His uncle was left alone and heartbroken.

Jason only served a fraction of the time he was supposed to.

Eddie never graduated high school, never got out of this shitty town, never got the chance to make something of himself.

He had never fallen in love.

Now, he was stuck in limbo. Stuck haunting the empty trailer (he doesn’t blame Wayne for leaving), then the empty plot where it’d had once been, and now he’s the new Forest Hills Estate’s resident poltergeist.

Admittedly, kinda metal. When he was alive, he might’ve thought it’d be badass to one of the tortured souls he used to enjoy reading about.

Now it’s just torturous. 

It’s been 38 years of hell.

Three of people breaking in and stealing mementos of the trailer ‘that poor girl’ died in.

They didn’t even say her name.

Ten of watching his home crumble around him before eventually getting torn down on purpose, to try and rid Hawkins of ‘that boy what did her in’.

They don’t dare say his name.

15 of watching the whole trailer park fall to disrepair; everyone else leaves, saying they hear sobs carried on the wind at night.

In 2001, the land the Forest Hills trailer park was on is sold off and construction starts.

Eddie laughs with the Moon when he sees walls start to go up around him, a moment of sardonic reprieve.

“Is the town’s memory that short? Don’t they know this is where it all happened?” he asks her, but she was just glad he’d have a roof over his head again.

Joke’s on him, though, it wasn’t the town that built there, it was some private company that didn’t know the history. The town knew. They remembered. And no one bought the place (even with as large and lovely as the home was).

In the 23 years it was left standing empty, he’d had loads of fun messing with the teens who’d come around every fall. Daring each other to just go up to the door, to ring the bell, even to just step up the first step. 

Sometimes they managed to get in, and those were the best times, especially on Halloween.

Eddie found himself corporeal every October 31st. Some years he’d just answer the door nonchalantly when someone knocked, knowing full well his bruised and bloody appearance really added to the effect.

Some years they’d come the day before, and those were the best. He wasn’t fully “a person” again yet, just a solid black shadow. 

His power grows in the months leading up to the 31st, and he uses the extra juice to scream and wail, to throw shit around…it adds to the story a bit, though he’s realized in the last few years that the kids who come around looking for thrills don’t even know what he and Chrissy went through.

The first time he’d heard that, he’d nearly thrown a couple kids out a second story window in his rage.

Finally, one day in late winter while wandering the grounds, testing the limits of his haunting range as if they’d suddenly expanded out any farther overnight, he sees the bright red SOLD sign at the end of the driveway.

next ->

#in which the author's first fictional crush was casper #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington x eddie munson #eddie munson x steve harrington #st #stranger things #ghost!eddie #the party #steveddie #eddeve #noelle writes