#Eddie goes upstairs and finds Steve already asleep in bed

[morganbritton132]

One day, Eddie’s live streaming in his studio. Steve comes down after a run and drops down on the couch like, “Over-did it today. My legs feel like jello.”

The way the camera is set up, you can only really see Steve’s faded Hawkins High Track and Field t-shirt and his running shorts. And because Eddie hasn’t actually gotten better at not immediately forgetting about his live-streams, you can see him jump up on the couch from his seat on the floor and straddle Steve.

You can see him lean forward and hear him kiss Steve out of frame before he is nudged back, “Ed, I’m sweaty and gross.”

“I like when you’re gross.”

That gets a laugh out of Steve and he says, “Let me take a shower and then, uh, think about joining me upstairs.”

“That’s the first run he’s went on since the death threats,” Eddie points out fifteen minutes after Steve went to take a shower and then abruptly ends his stream like, “Sorry, got to go fuck my husband. Bye.”

[starryeyedjanai]

@steddiemicrofic bonus round: birthday | 290 words | rated: M happy birthday @steddieas-shegoes!! 💕💕💕

—

It’s not that Eddie expects to fuck Steve within an inch of his life today, but when Steve kisses him gently on the lips and tells him he’s turning in early, he can't help but frown.

Steve's been working extra hours to afford the Metallica tickets he bought Eddie, so Eddie knows he’s tired.

And it’s not like Eddie had a bad birthday! He’s going to see one of his favorite bands in a few months. He got to hang out with his friends and then come home and cuddle on the couch with the love of his life.

He wishes he could do more than cuddle with him, but it’s fine. Maybe they can have slow, sleepy morning sex tomorrow if he wakes up early enough.

He stays downstairs for a little while, not moping, but letting Steve fall asleep without him puttering around and getting ready for bed.

He makes his way upstairs after half an hour, turning the lights and the TV off on the way.

There’s a dim light coming from the bedroom, which makes him bite back a smile. If Steve goes to bed before him, he’ll sometimes leave the bathroom light on even though it makes it harder for him to fall asleep so that Eddie doesn't have to fumble around in the dark.

He opens the door and gets dizzy as all the blood in his body rushes south.

Steve's definitely not asleep.

“Thought I was gonna have to start without you,” Steve says, leaning back against the headboard, one hand moving slowly under the skirt he’s wearing.

“Looks like you already did,” Eddie says, coming closer. “What other presents you got under there for me?”

“Come find out,” Steve says, grin feral.

[super-cosmic-library]

@puppy-steve added this, and I want to add to it:

Things are a little uncomfortable at first. The Munsons don’t quite know how to make themselves at home in their new house, and Steve, despite his insistence that it’s their house, still feels a little territorial of it. It’s the house he grew up in. Hell, it’s practically been solely his house since freshman year, when his parents decided to start leaving him in Hawkins for months at a time. So, of course the plates go in the cupboard next to the oven, and the cleaning supplies goes in the downstairs coat closet that’s next to the half bath.

But he tries to remind himself that it’s technically their house now, and there’s no way they could have known where things go because the Harringtons had movers clear out all of their belongings, including Steve’s, which they had put in storage. (And moving all of that on top of the Munsons’ belongings in the middle of summer is hell on his still healing back, and could have been totally avoided if his parents had even thought for one second to call him. Although, he’s grateful that they even left his stuff behind for him. The Munsons were already having to build back from the ground up. Acquiring a third thrifted bedroom set on top of everything would have sent him over the edge.)

So, yeah, it takes all of the self-control and character development he feels like he’s gone through over the past few years to not bitch at Wayne when he wants to hang his mug collection from the hanging pot rack over the kitchen island or to tell Eddie, no, the pool house can’t be a smoking lounge, there’s too many toxic chemicals in there.

But it’s also really nice to have people making noise in the house again. And the Munsons’ decorating style is far superior than Tiffany Harrington’s showroom style. It actually starts to feel like a real home, with the comfy couch and the various chintzy knick-nacks, and the fading family photos in mismatched picture frames. It inspires him to repaper his room with a wallpaper that doesn’t make his migraines flare up.

Wayne takes his parents’ old bedroom, and Eddie sets up in Richard Harrington’s old office because he can’t quite make it up the stairs yet.

It’s nice having the two men around. Steve finally has someone to watch baseball with, and, although he refuses to admit it, he enjoys the racket Eddie and his band make out in the garage whenever Eddie’s finally feeling up to playing the guitar. When they get a big enough fold out table, Eddie starts hosting DND games, which means the kids come over more. And Wayne loves lounging on a pool float with a cold beer after work, so Steve finally has someone else to keep the pool clean for (and maybe he enjoys seeing Eddie in only his swim trunks, and he doesn’t yet want to confront why).

As the months wear on, they fall into a groove together. Soon, Eddie is healed enough to make his move up to the bigger bedrooms upstairs. But just because his wounds are mostly healed, doesn’t mean he’s stopped having nightmares. Steve hears him one night and goes into check on him because he knows how awful the post-Upside Down nightmares all, and they stay up all night talking. At first it’s about the Upside Down, then it’s about the kids, then their shared memories of high school, then their deepest and most personal hopes and regrets, and then because everything got dark and heavy again and they are well into the early hours of the morning, their conversation turns nonsensical and full of sleep-deprived giggles until they finally succumb to their fatigue. And when Wayne comes home from work, it’s to find them curled up in Eddie’s bed, having good dreams for once.

They don’t mean for it to become a thing, but the next night, the two of them are hanging out in Steve’s room chatting about everything and nothing until they fall asleep again, and it just. keeps. happening. It doesn’t matter if they are in one or another’s bed or on the floor or even on the couch, whenever they have their nightly conversations, they always end up sleeping curled up into each other’s sides. And it’s definitely not intentional. They just keep finding ways to drag out their conversations, or Steve was watching a baseball game, or Eddie was reading aloud to him, or the album is better listened to with eyes closed, or—

Okay, so maybe it’s intentional.

It takes a full month of these excuses and near sleepless nights and miserable early morning shifts after said sleepless nights, until they’re finally ready to admit that maybe sleeping side by side is actually what they want. Then it takes another week and a half for them to realize and admit that they want to sleep together. Before they know it, they’re hopelessly in love.

By the time Christmas rolls around, they are a fully domesticated couple that pretty much the entire town knows about because they are almost always together and just can’t seem to keep their hands off of each other in public (seriously, does a deli trip really necessitate holding hands the entire time?). And the neighbors who were cold to them before—because they’re a bunch of rich snobs who resent the fact that “trailer trash” moved into the neighborhood—go out of their way to avoid the town queers. And although Wayne hates that people feel some type of way about his boys, honestly, he’s relieved that they’ve finally stopped pretended to be nice to him and coming up to talk to him when he just wants to garden in peace.

This kind of got away from me, but just..the three of them living together and building a home.

Eddie and Wayne getting not just any house post-vecna, but the Harrington house itself. Steve's parents were selling it to any buyer, govt took it and threw it at the munsons as part of their hush money.

Steve's in the middle of getting evicted and he's miserable but then shock! eddie and wayne invite him to live with them! and so on and so forth...

[flowerfan2]

Gray Skies

H50, McDanno, A03

What if Danny misses work because some days, he just can’t manage to come in? What if Danny didn’t move into Steve’s house just because he was worried about Steve, but also about himself?

Note - takes place during/after 10.09, but is a separate story than my Season 10 episode coda series Affinity.

*******

“He's worried about me,” Steve says to Lou, watching Danny wave his beer bottle as he chats with Quinn and Junior’s parents.  “He wants to keep an eye on me, I get it.”

“Nice when you got a lot of friends that actually give a damn about you, ain't it?”  Lou responds, a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

“Yes, it is.”

They banter for another minute and then Adam interrupts, suggesting they throw a football around.  Steve obliges, and finds himself having a better time than he expected.

At some point during their impromptu game, Steve notices Danny break off from the group and head into the house. He doesn’t think much of it until later, when he realizes Danny has been missing for more than an hour.

He thinks back to his conversation with Lou earlier that afternoon.  Lou hadn’t seemed surprised that Steve knew it wasn’t mold driving Danny to crash at his place.  But he couldn’t help but think that their conversation had cut off sooner than it should have.

He finds Lou by the buffet, grazing on the cheese tray.  

“Have you seen Danny?”  Steve asks, pretending to examine a platter of shrimp.

“Think he went inside,” Lou replies, grabbing a beer and heading off towards the beach.  

Steve steps in front of him, holding his ground as Lou tries to nonchalantly slide away.  “Hang on.  I need to talk to you.”

Lou shrugs.  “Go ahead.”

“Earlier, when we were talking about Danny staying here…”  Steve trails off, and lets the silence sit for a minute, hoping Lou will just fill in the blanks.  It’s a pretty good low-key interrogation technique.  Lou, however, is not new to this game.

“Yeah?”

Steve shifts and looks around, making sure no one is close enough to hear their conversation.  “Is there something you’re not telling me?  About Danny?”

 An uncomfortable look passes over Lou’s face, and that’s the answer right there.

 “Lou, come on.  If something’s wrong, I need to know.”

 Lou rubs a broad hand over his face. “Listen, Steve, I don’t really know. It’s not for me to say.”

 “What isn’t for you to say?  Did something happen, while I was gone?”

 Lou is clearly struggling with whether to come clean or not, but Steve doesn’t really care, because this is Danny they’re talking about.

 “Lou, please.”

 “He’s been… down.”  Lou doesn’t elaborate, just gazes at Steve with intent.

 “Down?  Down?  What does that mean?”  

 “Just keep an eye on your boy, okay? You should have plenty of opportunity, now.”

 “Now – you mean, since I’m back? Or with him in the house?  Lou-”

 They are, unsurprisingly, interrupted; Renee wants to know if it’s time for dessert, and if she can bring her special ice cream cake out of the freezer.  If it hadn’t been her, it would have been someone else.  Besides, it’s clear that Lou isn’t the person he wants to talk to.

 But when Steve goes looking for Danny, Tani tells him he left.  Steve sends him a text.  Eventually Danny writes back, saying that he is taking Grace and Charlie out for shave ice, and will be back later.

 Steve doesn’t argue, even though he is pretty sure Rachel has put a moratorium on surprise shave ice excursions. Especially on Thanksgiving, when her parents are visiting, and they have already argued ad nauseam about how the kids would be with her on Thanksgiving Day, and with Danny the day afterwards.  

 That night he winds up sitting on the beach with Adam and Lou, Danny finally joining them after almost all the other guests have left.  The torches set up along the water give off a flickering orange glow, reflecting off Danny’s dark hair.

 Steve stands up and grabs more beer, and when he comes back, he plops himself down next to Danny, shoulders close. “Everything okay?” he asks, low and quiet, when Adam’s attention is elsewhere.

 Danny wrinkles his brow.  “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

 About a million different reasons, Steve thinks, and those are only the ones I know about.  “You can tell me if it’s not, you know that, right?”

 A brief look of surprise flits across Danny’s face, so fast Steve isn’t sure it was even there.  “’Course.”

 Later they say goodnight to Junior, after he awkwardly explains that he’s going home with Tani, and Danny heads off to claim Junior’s bed.  Steve putters around the house for a while, straightening the kitchen and putting the extra chairs back in the garage.  He even outlasts Eddie, who is sacked out on his usual position on the couch.

 Finally Steve gets ready for bed, putting on an old pair of sweats and a t-shirt from a fundraising walk Grace made him do years ago.  He gets into bed, but he can tell he’s not falling asleep anytime soon.

 He notices that he’s left his bedroom door slightly ajar.  His subconscious apparently doesn’t think his hearing is what it used to be.

 Steve doesn’t get up immediately, when he hears Danny go downstairs.  He doesn’t want to startle him, or make him think that he’s been keeping tabs on him (although he has, of course he has, why hasn’t he done it before? Why didn’t he notice?  Why did Lou have to clue him in?).

 Danny isn’t on the couch.  He’s sitting at the table on the lanai, head down on his crossed arms.  It’s a strange place to sit.  It’s dark, the upstairs porch hanging overhead.  You can’t see the stars, or really feel the presence of the ocean. It’s not warm and cozy like his living room.

 Steve ducks back into the house and grabs a throw blanket, then joins Danny on the bench.  Danny glares at him a little when Steve puts the blanket over his shoulders and tucks it around them both, but he doesn’t say anything, just puts his head back down on his arms.  His face is tilted towards Steve this time, though, and Steve feels his heart sink.

 Danny has a terrible poker face, but right now, he’s not even playing.  Something is definitely wrong, but Danny isn’t fighting it.  

 “I couldn’t sleep,” Steve says into the quiet.  It’s not a lie, although tonight’s sleeplessness wasn’t just because of Doris.

 “Me neither,” Danny responds.

 “I, uh, haven’t slept well in a while.” This is also true

“Me neither.”

 “I don’t really feel like myself lately.  Kind of feels like there’s not much point anymore.”  This is hard to say.  But, again, true.  And it’s also an invitation.  Come on, Danny, Steve thinks.  Let me in.

 Steve can feel Danny hesitate.  Then he raises his head off his hands, and gazes right at Steve.  “Same.”

 Steve slides his arm around Danny’s shoulders, under the blanket, and pulls him close against his body.  “It’s good you came, Danno.  I’m glad you’re here.”

 Danny digs his face into Steve’s neck, and mumbles something that turns into a choked off sob.  

 “It’s gonna be okay, it is,” Steve says, rubbing Danny’s back as he shakes. He doesn’t know if this part is true, but he knows he’ll do anything to help get Danny through this. Steve’s been too distracted by his own grief to see what was right in front of him, but now he knows, and he can try to find a way to fix it.

Having Danny under his roof feels like the right start, a brave step that Danny took all by himself. "We're gonna be okay," Steve says again, holding Danny tighter. "We'll look out for each other. We’ll figure it out.  I promise."