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steveseddie · 9 months ago

Text

with a cold breeze

rating: t | cw: none apply | word count: 4,281

tags: eddie munson lives, didn't know they were dating, getting together, first kiss, fluff and hurt/comfort

for the @steddielovemonth prompt: “love is giving him your sweater even if it makes you cold” by @stevesbipanic

a/n: this is my first time writing a prompt for this event and it was so much fun! also this ended up longer than i thought but. enjoy 🩷

click here to read on ao3

***

In Eddie’s defense, he shouldn’t have been expected to bring a jacket. Not when Steve didn’t tell him where they were going or when he sent Eddie spiraling into a pit of pining by showing up at his doorstep with a white shirt tucked into a pair of tight blue jeans and a black jacket thrown on top, looking like he stepped out of Eddie’s dreams.

Now that he thinks about it, Steve might’ve told him to grab a jacket, but Eddie was too busy picking his jaw off the floor to listen to him.

When he stepped out of the trailer and followed Steve to his car, Eddie felt a light chill in the air, but since he assumed Steve was taking them to the movies or for dinner at that diner he likes, he figured the flannel he was wearing over his Metallica singlet would be enough to withstand it.

Eddie doesn’t know exactly when this became a thing they did- Steve picking him up and taking him to dinner or a movie or ice cream or roller skating.

(That last one was Eddie’s least favorite one because he spent half the time they were there falling on his ass. Or maybe it wasn’t, because the other half was spent holding on to Steve’s hand as he guided Eddie around the rink and helped him keep his balance.)

Eddie still can’t help but feel surprised whenever Steve turns up at his door, even if it happens multiple times a week these days. He knows this is what friends do, but maybe it’s still just a little hard to believe that he’s friends with Steve Harrington.

(“You make it sound like I’m some kind of celebrity, man,” Steve said the first time Eddie voiced his shock about him wanting to spend time with Eddie.

“Dude, you are the king of Hawkins! You are a celebrity!” Eddie said, dramatically shaking Steve’s shoulders which earned him a mighty eye roll and a playful shove. “And celebrities don’t want to spend time with freaks like me.”

Steve’s face softened at that, he bumped Eddie’s shoulder with his. “Well, this one does.”)

Eddie knows Steve is being genuine every time he says he wants to hang out, but a part of him always expects Steve to get tired of him and ditch Eddie, and start taking a nice pretty girl on these outings instead.

(“Dates, they’re dates,” Max deadpanned after hearing Eddie ramble about Steve for roughly ten minutes straight. She’d clocked Eddie’s feelings for Steve right away when he came back from the roller rink with his backside bruised, but still with a dopey smile on his face to Max waiting for him at the steps of his trailer. “Steve Harrington is taking you out on dates!”

“He’s not, they’re not dates,” Eddie said with a firm shake of his head.

“Dude, Lucas literally took me to the roller rink last week.”

“Aw, cute. Did he hold your hand?”

“I held his, I skate, remember? And for a jock, he’s got terrible balance,” she says, lips twitching into a little smile. “Not as bad as yours though.”

“Hey!”)

Even if Max insists on calling them dates, Eddie won’t. He can’t. He knows Steve doesn’t see them that way so he can’t do it either, not if he wants to protect his heart.

So he ignores that Steve opens the door to his car for him like he would if this was a real date and he ignores that he lets Eddie pick the music or that he keeps a few of Eddie’s tapes in his car for him to choose from, even if they’re not at all what he likes, and he ignores the way he keeps glancing at Eddie at stop signs or red lights with a sweet little smile that makes his stomach swoop like when he went through the gate to the Upside Down did, only better.

Or he tries to ignore it, at least.

“Soooo where are we going?” Eddie asks, contorting himself so he can sit cross-legged in Steve’s passenger seat after picking the music for the ride.

Steve bops his head to the beginning of a Dio song and Eddie can’t help but feel proud.

“It’s a surprise,” he says.

Eddie groans. “Is this surprise also going to end up with me not being able to sit properly for a week?” He only realizes how that sounds when Steve’s head snaps to him, eyebrows high on his forehead. God. “You know cause I kept falling on my ass at the roller rink, not because- uh.”

He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence, but luckily Steve spares him. With a soft laugh, he says, “Don’t worry, you won’t have trouble sitting after tonight.” Then Steve smirks, the little shit. “From falling on your ass- or some other reason.”

Eddie flushes bright red.

He lowers the window and shivers when the cold air hits his face, but the wind helps cool down his flushed cheeks so he leaves it open. He notices that instead of driving them downtown, Steve is driving them further out.

“I’m not gonna have trouble sitting ‘cause you’re luring me into the woods to murder me? Is that it?”

“And why would I want to murder you?” Steve asks, pinching the bridge of his nose like entertaining Eddie’s nonsense causes him physical pain.

The wind blows Eddie’s hair away from his face. “Maybe you’re jealous of my luscious hair.” He hopes the wind makes him look like one of those cover shoots on the magazines that he sees at the store, but realistically, he knows he probably looks like a dog sticking his head out the window. “My naturally beautiful hair that doesn’t need any Farrah Fawcett spray.”

Steve narrows his eyes at Eddie. “That little shit told you!”

Eddie grins. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. Dustin told you, didn’t he?”

“I won’t reveal my sources,” he says, pretending to zip up his lips.

“You don’t have to, you dork. Dustin is the only one I told.” He pauses, thinking. “Maybe I am committing murder tonight.”

“Mine?”

“Henderson’s. And then yours so the secret dies with you.” He glances at Eddie with a smile. “And maybe because I am a little jealous of your beautiful hair.” His voice is a little too soft to sound like a joke.

Eddie gives him a shy smile and then flicks his hair over his shoulder with a dramatic flare. Steve laughs, head thrown back, as they drive past the Leaving Hawkins sign.

***

Steve drives them to the top of a hill just outside of Hawkins.

Eddie’s first thought when Steve parks his car next to a little forest is that maybe he’s actually planning to murder him tonight.

His second thought comes when Steve opens Eddie’s door and a gust of wind hits Eddie, making him realize that no, his flannel won’t be enough. He’s going to freeze his ass off so even if Steve doesn’t murder him, Eddie will die anyway.

His third thought comes when Steve takes hold of his wrist and drags him out of the car and towards a cliff overlooking most of Hawkins.

Eddie voices that thought with an appreciative whistle.

“Holy shit, that’s a killer view.”

“Right?” Steve asks with a grin. His fingers are still wrapped around Eddie’s wrist and he can feel the way he’s bouncing excitedly from one foot to the other.

“Yeah, wow. You wouldn’t think that Hawkins is a shit town from up here,” Eddie says, taking in not only the night lights, but the stars above them too, shining brighter than Eddie has ever seen them.

“Yeah, it almost looks normal, no monsters or alternate dimensions.”

“No hordes of angry town people who want to burn you at the stake.”

Steve gives Eddie’s wrist a comforting squeeze. He glances at the ground. “No shitty parents calling you a disappointment and an embarrassment,” he says, voice barely above a whisper.

Eddie frowns. He shakes his hand until Steve loosens his hold, but before he can retreat it into his pocket because he thinks Eddie is trying to get him to let go, he tangles his fingers loosely with Steve’s. “They came back tonight?”

Steve stares down at their hands, his thumb rubs over one of Eddie’s rings. “Yeah, and they managed to pick a fight within five minutes of walking through the door. Must be some kind of record.”

Eddie squeezes his hand. “I’m sorry, Steve.”

With a sigh, Steve finally looks up. “It’s not your fault, and besides-” He smiles at Eddie. “I didn’t bring you here to talk about them.”

Eddie narrows his eyes at him. “What did you bring me here for?”

Steve’s smile turns into a grin, he drops Eddie’s hand and starts walking backward toward the car. “Wait here.”

“You better not be abandoning me to die here!”

He gets no reply. Eddie squints at him as he rummages through the trunk of his car but it’s a little hard to see clearly in the dark. He wraps his arms around himself while he waits, feeling colder by the second, and resists the urge to ask Steve if he has an extra jacket lying around. It’ll send him into Mother Hen mode and he’ll start fussing about Eddie catching something and probably scold him for not bringing his own jacket.

So he acts as nonchalant as possible about the cold when Steve comes back, hiding something behind his back that Eddie can’t see.

“I didn’t bring you here to murder you or abandon you. I brought you here to have a picnic with me.” As he says this, he shows Eddie what he was holding behind his back- a checkered blanket and a goddamn picnic basket.

Eddie blinks dumbly at the two items and then at Steve, mouth gaping like a fish. “A picnic?”

Steve nods a little shyly. “Um yeah, is that okay?”

Eddie lets out a disbelieving laugh. A fucking picnic under the stars- oh, Max is going to have a field trip teasing Eddie about this one!

He realizes that Steve might be taking his reaction the wrong way when he starts to fidget so Eddie wipes the surprise from his face and grins at Steve. “Depends on what you packed in there, big boy.”

A high-pitched laughter tumbles out of Steve’s lips and even with just the moonlight he can see his cheeks tint pink. “Well, do you like grilled cheese?”

***

Eddie makes grabby hands at the basket. Once Steve spreads the blanket on the ground, he flops down and starts digging through the contents.

There’s grilled cheese wrapped in tin foil paper, two bags of chips, two sodas, and a big serving of pie. Eddie’s mouth waters.

“So,” Steve asks, wrapping his arms around his knees. “What do you think?”

“I think,” Eddie pauses, thinking. “That I don’t care if you murder me as long as you let me eat this first.”

“You’re so annoying,” Steve snorts, rolling his eyes.

“If I’m so annoying,” Eddie says, neatly arranging the food between them on the blanket, or as best as he can on the uneven ground. “Then why did you go through all this trouble for little ol’ me?”

Steve bites the inside of his cheek. He looks like he wants to say something, but then changes his mind, only to part his lips again. The look in his eyes betrays nothing, no matter how much Eddie tries to read it. Despite the cold, Eddie’s hands start to sweat a little.

But then Steve shakes his head and looks down, picking up his grilled cheese. When he looks back at Eddie again, his eyes are soft, crinkling at the corners, but whatever he saw in them before is now gone. “Let’s eat before it gets cold, okay?”

After the first bite, Eddie discovers that Steve must be some kind of grilled cheese genius. When he tells Steve this, he waves it off with a shy smile, but he seems pleased.

They talk in between bites of food, or in Eddie’s case, through mouthfuls of melted cheese. The whole time, Eddie tries to ignore the chill in the air, but every gust of wind reminds him he’s only wearing a singlet under a very thin flannel and neither does much to protect him from the cold. Still, he does his best to hide his shivering from Steve, but it’s a little hard to do when Steve won’t take his eyes off of him for some reason.

Right now, he’s staring almost unblinkingly at Eddie with his legs crossed at the ankles and his arms wrapped around his knees, a soft smile painted on his lips as Eddie tells him how excited he and the kids are about the next Hellfire meeting.

“You’re always excited about your nerdy game,” Steve smirks.

“Fair, but this time it’s different because the kids finally convinced Max to play!”

Steve’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “How did they manage that?”

“Well, they didn’t convince her so much as they tricked her into it.”

“Yeah, that makes more sense.”

“But! It doesn’t matter cause she’s going to love it so much she’ll beg to join again! I’ve been working on her character sheet to make it perfect for her and I got her this cool set of dice- red dice, of course, cause her character will be called Ruby. Ruby the Rebel.”

Steve’s smile turns impossibly softer at Eddie’s excited rambling. “That sounds just as cool as her. What kind of- uh like, what’s her-”

“Class?” Eddie asks, stomach swooping a little at Steve trying to remember things about their nerdy game so he can ask Eddie. Steve nods. “Oh, she’s a-” He cuts himself off when a cool breeze stirs beneath his flannel and he shivers with a curse. “Jesus H. Christ!”

Steve startles and his head whips in different directions, looking out for danger. “What?”

“Sorry, nothing! It’s just really cold! Sorry!”

Steve relaxes, then frowns. Narrowed eyes travel over Eddie’s body. “Wait, where’s your jacket?”

“Uh.”

“Did you leave it in the car?”

“More like, left it at home?” Steve’s face turns pinched. “You didn’t tell me where we were going, I didn’t know I would need a jacket!”

“Yes, you did, I told you to bring one!” Steve says, exasperated.

Oh. So Steve did tell him to bring a jacket. Huh.

“Here,” Steve says and then starts shrugging off his jacket.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m giving you my jacket, obviously.” He removes it completely and Eddie gives himself a second to commit to memory just how tight Steve’s white shirt is. It’s also thin. Eddie shakes his head.

“But you’ll be cold.”

“I won’t.” He shrugs. “I run hot.”

“You’re hot,” Eddie says and realizes too late that his brain-to-mouth filter must’ve been damaged by the cold. “I mean you look hot, like you don’t look cold.”

Steve bites down on a grin. “Take the jacket before you catch something, Eds.”

“O-kay, mom Steve.” He accepts the jacket, and when he puts it on, he can’t help but sigh happily. It’s warm from Steve’s body heat. It also smells just like him. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Steve smiles. “Now, what were you saying?” He asks and it takes Eddie a minute to remember what they were talking about, distracted as he is by Steve’s warmth and smell surrounding him.

***

“Do you ever think about leaving Hawkins?”

Eddie jerks his head back, out of the basket where he was looking for the forks that Steve packed for the pie. “Uh, like, every day of my life, man.”

“Because of Vecna?”

“No, long before that.” Eddie finds the fork. Singular. “You only packed one, Stevie, but I can just use my fingers.” He wiggles them and Steve shakes his head.

“We can share,” he says. Alarms go off in Eddie’s head at the thought of passing the fork back and forth between them, sharing the slice of pie. He hasn’t been to that many dates in his life, but sharing dessert sounds a lot like a date thing.

“Sure,” he says, shrugging casually. Steve takes the first bite and hands it to Eddie. “Anyway, yeah. I always knew I wanted to leave. Knowing that there’s an alternate dimension at our feet that could pop up the next monster at any second only made the urge stronger, but. Gotta graduate first.”

“Where will you go? When you graduate?”

“I don’t know. Some big city with a cool music scene, maybe. I can join a band that’s actually going somewhere.” He snorts. “No offense to Corroded Coffin.”

Steve chuckles. “I’ve always thought you belong in some big city.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asks with an arched eyebrow.

“Yeah, dude, you’ve always seemed- I don’t know, too big for Hawkins,” he says with an awed tone. Eddie’s throat feels dry, he skips the next bite of pie, giving it back to Steve. “Like you should be somewhere with people as loud and talented and great as you.”

Eddie swallows thickly. His eyes haven’t left Steve’s face, but Steve isn’t looking at him, instead he’s staring ahead at Hawkins or maybe like he’s trying to see even further than that. Eddie’s glad he’s not looking at him, he doesn’t even know what his face is doing right now, listening to Steve talk about him like that, there’s probably hearts in his eyes or something.

“I- I’ve always wanted to go to New York,” Eddie says to break the silence. Steve hums like he thinks it’s a good idea. “What about you, Steve? Do you think about leaving?”

“Sometimes. I- I’ve actually been saving up money to go to college. Nothing prestigious like Nance or Robin, just community college maybe.”

“That’s great, Steve,” Eddie says.

“But I don’t think I can leave until I know it’s over, you know? The Upside Down, especially if the kids are still going to be here.”

“Yeah, I’ve thought about that. Kinda makes you want to steal another RV, pack them all up and leave Hawkins for good.”

Steve meets his eyes finally. He smiles. “Yeah, exactly.”

“I think we could do it,” Eddie says, entertaining the thought for a moment.

“You don’t think we’d end up in jail? For grand theft auto and kidnapping children?”

“Shh, let a guy dream, Harrington.”

“Okay, okay,” Steve says, holding up his hands in defense. “You know I haven’t told anyone about saving up for college. Just you.”

“Not even Buckley?”

Steve shakes his head. “I already failed once trying to get in. I don’t want anyone to know that I’ve failed again. I don’t want to disappoint anyone.”

Eddie thinks about what Steve said when they got here, about the fight with his parents, about them calling Steve a disappointment. “You could never disappoint me. Or Buckley or the kids. We all worship the ground you walk on, King Steve.”

“Shut up,” Steve says with a lighthearted shove to Eddie’s shoulder. “You don’t.”

“We do! Because we know just how good and badass you are, and whoever can’t see that is a butthead.”

“Are you calling my parents buttheads?” Steve asks with a barely concealed snort.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing!” He puts his hands around his mouth and yells. “The Harringtons are buttheads!”

Steve breaks into giggles, falling back against the blanket, squirming with laughter. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Yeah, but you love it,” Eddie says without thinking, and watches as something flashes across Steve’s face.

Before he can backtrack or brush it off as a joke, Steve sits up again, his jaw set with determination.

“The fight with my parents was because of you,” he says. And okay, that’s not what Eddie was expecting.

“Me?”

“They came home just as I was packing this up.” He gestures at the picnic basket. “I didn’t hear them come in until they came into the kitchen. They thought I was doing all of this for a girl so they started going off about me wasting my life and everything that they worked so hard to give me just to go on dates and work at a goddamn video store. They told me that it didn’t matter how much I tried, this girl was going to realize I was a failure and leave me. I don’t know what made me more angry- what they were saying about me or that they were talking about you like they knew you.” Steve pauses and takes a deep breath. “So I snapped and I told them I wasn’t packing all of that for a girl, that I was doing it for you. A guy. And that you would never leave me because I work at a video store or because our dates consist of grilled cheese sandwiches and roller skating and babysitting kids. And I guess that was a little presumptuous of me since we never really agreed that these were dates and I don’t even know if you-”

“Yes,” Eddie says when he finally finds his voice. He lost it somewhere around Steve calling this, and all the things they’ve been doing together for weeks, dates.

Steve blinks, his lips press together like he’s trying to stop himself from smiling, from getting ahead of himself. “You don’t know what I was going to say.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “What were you going to say?”

“That I don’t even know if you feel the same way I feel for you.”

“Yes.” Eddie repeats. “Holy fuck, Steve, yes I do.”

Steve stops trying to hide his smile. He beams at Eddie. “Yeah? You’re crazy about me too?”

Eddie whines low in his throat. “Steve.”

Steve pushes himself to his knees and then he closes the distance between them by crawling towards Eddie. “Are you?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t stop thinking about me and you want to listen to me talk all day about nerdy shit too?” Steve asks, crowding against Eddie until he has no choice but to lean back until he’s lying down on the blanket and Steve is hovering over him.

“Sports shit but yeah, yes.”

Steve leans down until his lips are right next to Eddie’s ear. “You want to kiss me too?” Eddie shivers, and this time, it’s not because of the cold. He’s never felt warmer in his entire life.

“Yes,” he says. “Please, Steve.”

Steve closes the distance between them and crashes his lips against Eddie’s, kissing him hard and desperately, drawing a whimper out of him. Eddie kisses back with just as much enthusiasm, his hands coming up to grip Steve’s waist, his shoulders, his arms.

His freezing arms.

“Christ, Steve!”

“What? What?” Steve asks, pulling back just enough so that Eddie can see his face- flushed with parted, swollen lips and blown pupils.

And oh. Yeah. Eddie needs to see Steve looking like this again soon. Preferably when he’s not freezing to death.

“You’re freezing, man. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I was a little busy,” Steve smirks.

Eddie shakes his head. “I’m giving you your jacket back,” he says, squirming as he tries to shrug off the jacket with Steve still on top of him.

“No, Eds-”

“Then we’re going to the car.”

“But I can’t kiss you like this in the car,” Steve pouts and the sight of a pouty Steve because he wants to straddle Eddie and kiss him stupid shouldn’t make him consider staying out here in the cold, but it does. Just for a moment.

“You can, if we climb in the backseat, baby,” Eddie says with a sly grin.

Steve’s eyes widen, his eyes flick to the car and then to Eddie’s lips and Eddie sees the moment he makes a decision. “Yeah, okay. Maybe I am a little cold. Let’s go.”

They pick up the trash and the blanket in record time, even while stealing short, giggly kisses.

“I can’t believe we’ve been on so many dates and you haven’t even asked me out once!” Eddie says, balling up the tin foil paper and throwing it at Steve’s face. He throws his head back with a groan. “I can’t believe Max was right!”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “You talk to Max about me? Your fifteen-year-old neighbor?”

Eddie arches an eyebrow right back. “Oh, so you don’t talk to Dustin, your fifteen-year-old best friend about me?”

“Of course I do,” Steve sniggers. “He’s the one who told me you can’t roller skate to save your life.”

“Then why did you take me to the roller rink?” Eddie asks with an undignified squeak, feeling the phantom pain of his many falls.

“So I could do this-” Steve takes hold of Eddie’s hands, tangling their fingers together, “-all night.”

Eddie flushes, looking down at their hands with a smile. “That was a good plan, I’ll give you that.”

He rubs his thumb over Eddie’s knuckles. “I have more where that came from.”

The touch makes Eddie’s insides flutter, he pulls a strand of hair across his face with his free hand, but Steve can probably still see his red cheeks. “Yeah?”

“Mhm,” Steve hums. He crowds against Eddie until his back hits the car, pinning him against it. “And I can show you. If you agree to go on a date with me.” Steve’s free hand plays with the lapel of his jacket on Eddie. “Officially, I mean.”

Eddie grins. “I thought you’d never ask,” he says, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth.

Then he’s dragging him into the backseat, and for the rest of the night, neither of them feels cold again.

#steddielovemonth #day 23 #hi hello first prompt for this event hopefully i can write more before the month is over #steddie #stranger things #stranger things fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #monse writes

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