strangersatellites

[strangersatellites]

Three's Company AU where Steve breaks up with his girlfriend and Robin and Chrissy invite him to move in with them, except their landlord doesn't feel comfortable letting a man move in with two "respectable young ladies".

(He doesn't need to know that Robin and Chrissy are lesbians, and have been together for over a year.)

It's Steve who blurts out an "I'm gay," much to the girl's shock. "So it won't be a problem."

The landlord is still iffy about it, but he doesn't seem to mind. Cue Steve having to keep up a facade of being gay whenever the landlord comes over, while also helping the girls hide their own relationship from the man.

In the midst of all of this, he becomes friends with the guy who lives down the hall, Eddie. A guy who obviously thinks Steve is gay because Steve is acting gay, and subsequently starts flirting with Steve because Eddie is actually gay.

Steve starts worrying about trying to figure out how to let Eddie down, while not knowing if he'll rat Steve out to the landlord. He doesn't know Eddie that well, and if he's the type to get jaded, it could end badly, but also- he just really likes being friends with Eddie.

He's loud and obnoxious, busy also kind and fiercely loyal. Steve finds himself spending more and more time with the other guy.

It all comes to a head when Eddie is over one night, and after a few beers Eddie just- kisses him. Steve doesn't know what he expected to feel, but it's certainly not the butterflies that suddenly erupt in his stomach. It's certainly not the immediate need to press closer, to kiss Eddie deeper.

He doesn't think about it too deep, just makes out with Eddie until the man finally goes back to his own place. Steve spends the next 24 hours going through a sexuality crisis before he comes to terms with the fact that, he doesn't know if he likes men, but he likes Eddie, and that's enough for him to want to try with the guy.

It's a few months later when they go to the landlord, asking to switch Steve's residence from Robin and Chrissy's apartment to Eddie's.

Wayne, of course, says yes.

[strangersatellites]

[strangersatellites]

I'm not a hater but so much shit is stupid

[strangersatellites]

im gonna need to get real. and also a clue. and also a grip

[strangersatellites]

you can tell a lot about a guy by the stuff you make up in your head about him

[strangersatellites]

someone with more time on their hands than me, steddify this for me

[strangersatellites]

Not that there's anything wrong with having something wrong with you

[strangersatellites]

[strangersatellites]

if your lie is a good enough lie god will make it real

[strangersatellites]

With zero context behind this shot:

You wanna tell me, after looking at this, that there’s no chemistry?? I’d melt if Steve looked at me like that. That man isn’t listening to a damn word outta that metalhead’s mouth.

Steve: *I’ve never been this close to Eddie before. Has his mouth always looked this good?*

[strangersatellites]

my top hobbies are shame and embarrassment but i also occasionally dabble in envy

[strangersatellites]

🔪 knife stop 🔪

Take a knife or two to complete any tasks you need to finish soon. Reblog to give your mutuals a knife for any group projects you may be working on

[strangersatellites]

stupid thing i drew last night before the melatonin got me

[strangersatellites]

God, bless this butt 🙌

[strangersatellites]

i hate how you get desensitized to the cool stuff in your WIP if you've been writing it for a long time so when you read back over it you're like "this isn't as cool as i thought :(" but it still is! you just read it too many times

[strangersatellites]

rainy day 🌧️

[strangersatellites]

posting this feels like I'm crawling out of my grave and gasping for air

anyway- inspired by this post by @inthedarknessofnight

here's 1.3k of concert photographer!Steve and rockstar!Eddie because I couldn't get this out of my head

gimme, gimme more

1.3k words | this is the most g-rated thing I've ever written, it won't happen again

Steve’s feet hurt.

They always do after a show, but this one was particularly hard on him.

He’s been at this venue for two years now and shot countless shows in that time. But never in his career has he been challenged so– athletically. 

The photo pit at this place is light years better than his last venue. There’s more than enough room for all of the photographers and their gear without stepping on each other. Usually Steve is grateful for this because surely there is only so many more beatings his 35mm can take before it kicks the bucket. Today though, he’s grateful for the space because of the full-tilt sprint this band had him in. 

He’s never seen anything like it.

Well, less so did the band have him in a sprint and more so the frontman but, semantics. 

The guy is everywhere. Steve could barely keep up with the way he ran around stage, jumping, climbing on equipment, leaning off-stage toward the barricade.

It was fun but Jesus, what is his deal?

Steve hadn’t even known who Corroded Coffin was 24 hours ago. Now he’s burned through two SD cards in an hour and a half. 

The guy’s hot and a good photo subject, sue him.

Well, he thinks he’s a good photo subject at least. He won’t know until he’s culled through every single shot. Steve’s a good photographer, took to it naturally the first time he picked up a camera. His downfall though, according to his college professors at least, was that he pays absolutely no attention to what he’s shooting while he’s shooting it. Hence the overshooting. 

On more than one occasion he’s gotten started on editing and someone is wearing an outfit he’s never seen before, someone’s got sunglasses on in every photo, a tag hanging off their jacket. All he’s concerned with is the framing, the lighting, and the focus. The content can be a problem for Future Steve. Everything can be fixed in post.

Almost.

Anyway, his feet hurt and he hates culling, so he pours himself a full glass of wine and plops down on the couch in front of an episode of trash tv with his laptop and props his feet up. Settles in for a long night.

2,461 images.

He throws his head back with a groan. Ugh. 

The first hundred or so are garbage.

They always are.

A few shots spent fucking with the exposure, a few the focus, some the flash.

He denotes the purple flag as his ‘good’ tag and orange as his ‘trash’ tag. The orange is stacking up fast. Around 163 he starts finding some good images. Ones that aren’t tainted by motion blur from his running around after this frontman. 

His photos of the drummer are pretty sick; he can't lie. The lights and the smoke and the near-manic smile on his face make for great photos. He’s not even this band’s personal photographer but he can imagine at least one of these will get posted to the band's socials. He’s good, what can he say?

He has a good bit of the bassist, his energy infectious enough you can almost feel it through the screen. Purple is making a comeback.

He finally gets through some crowd pics, some more drummer, some guitarist, some detail shots before he finally makes it to the frontman. 731 photos later. 

What did Wikipedia say his name was? Eddie, he thinks.

Weird, the very first shot Steve has of him he’s making fierce eye contact with the camera.

Ew.

No matter how long Steve does this, photos of people looking directly at the camera never get less jarring. 

Orange tag. Trash.

The next one is exactly the same.

Shit. 

He’s really bad to fall victim to the high speed shutter on this camera and often finds himself with a dozen copies of the same picture. Looks like he’s done it again.

Orange.

More piercing eye contact.

What? He squints and flips back and forth between the last two photos.

They’re not even remotely similar. As a matter of fact, Steve was in a completely different location in the pit for the second one. 

Green tag. Come back to this.

Taking a long swig from his glass he shifts so his laptop is closer to his face. Thinks that surely he’s not seeing this right. 

He takes to forgoing his tagging system and just flipping through every photo as fast as his fingers can press the arrow keys.

He’s clicked through about 200 when he starts getting worried, his heart rate speeding up. Surely he got something usable.

“What the fuck?”

He’s clicked through 50 or 60 more when he decides that, no he did not fall victim to the shutter speed at all. This guy is just making direct eye contact with his camera in every single photo.

Steve’s not mad, the opposite really. He didn’t spend much time looking at the guy during the show and now he gets to have an eyeful while he works. What’s there to be mad about? 

He is, however, mildly concerned that he won’t have a single decent photo to use for the venue socials when he posts about this show.

Whatever. Maybe fans of their music are also fans of uncomfortable eye contact. Who knows?

He finishes sifting through the rest of the photos, Eddie staring directly down the lens in every one, one’s where he’s not the subject included. Throws them all in an editing software and mass edits them all at once. He’ll detail edit later.

While the eye contact was a little unsettling, he did get one photo he’s particularly happy with. One that makes it look like the staring was on purpose.

It’s during the second to last song, a ballad– or as close as you can get with a metal band. Eddie’s standing center-stage and Steve had snagged the spot directly in front of him. He’s looking straight down, backlit with red spotlights, surrounded by smoke pumping from side-stage, and just close enough that Steve can see the sweat dripping down his neck. He looks a little bit scary, but that’s how Steve likes ‘em. 

That’ll be the cover photo for sure.

He shoots an album link to his boss to review before he distributes them anywhere, then spends  the next twenty minutes laughing to himself while he collects the goofiest photos of Eddie staring straight at his lens.

He puts them in a new album and copies the link.

When he opens up Instagram and searches Corroded Coffin he lets out a low whistle at the six million followers. Maybe he really should know who these guys are. With that many followers he doubts they’ll even see a message from his personal account, but whatever. He clicks on the message button on their profile and hits paste.

@ steveharrington.jpeg Great show tonight! Somebody tell this guy that he is allowed to look away from the camera though…

He only waits a few minutes for the reply.

@ corrodedcoffin HOLY SHIT THAT WAS YOU

@ corrodedcoffin Wait hang on

His phone pings with a message from a new account.

@ whoiseddiemunson HOLY SHIT THAT WAS YOU

@ whoiseddiemunson Sweetheart I wasn’t looking at the camera

Steve furrows his brows, confused. Starts typing a response but gets interrupted by another message.

@ whoiseddiemunson I was looking at the smoking hot guy behind it. Kinda hard to get a good look when he’s hiding behind the camera though.

Steve feels his cheeks flush and huffs a laugh to himself.

@ steveharrington.jpeg Well the guy behind the camera did manage to get a few good ones even though he was under surveillance the whole show. Wanna see those?

@ whoiseddiemunson Hell yeah I do. I just scrolled through your profile, your work is amazing. Do you want to show me the rest? Maybe over coffee tomorrow?

Steve smiles. His earlier heart palpitations replaced with butterflies.

@ steveharrington.jpeg Is this a date?

@ whoiseddiemunson It better be