#in my head they flirt with embarassing puns until robin threatens to throw things at them

[somedayillfindthecourage]

Hi I've not been able to stop thinking about this so please accept my humble words

Eddie Munson has never appreciated costuming more than he does in this moment.

Seriously, the boots alone are enough to give him swagger, but the leather vest? The bandana? The fucking hat??

Eddie Munson has never looked cooler.

“You look like an asshole,” Gareth says, and Eddie can’t even find it in his heart to flip him off, he’s that jazzed about the costume.

“Yar,” he says to his own reflection, winking at himself. Yeah. That’s the stuff.

He whirls around and claps his hands once. “I’m off to plunder.”

Jeff rolls his eyes and Gareth flips him off and Eddie’s gone, swaggering down the corridor. His normal confidence level is about chin level, but this, this is fucking eyebrow levels of self-confidence.

And up ahead, his white whale. Or, you know, probably that metaphor works, he read enough of Moby Dick to know with certainty that Melville was gay and then got bored of reading about whale bits and ship parts, but, it’s fine. Scoops Ahoy can be his white whale if he says it is.

Scoops Ahoy with its stupid little sailor costumes and bored teenage employees. He’s been plotting this hijink for weeks, sorting out the pirate costume and coming up with the perfect phrase. He sort of knows Buckley, so this whole thing is going to be hilarious.

He swaggers right into the store, hit with that weird waffle cone ice cream shop smell and opens his mouth to drop the line of the century:

“I’m here to plunder your treasure chest of ice cream, yarhar”

(Which is not at all dumb or childish, Gareth, it’s a work of comedic mastery and ironic wit)

Only, it’s not Buckley manning the counter with a bored expression on her face.

It’s Steve fucking Harrington.

Steve, who looks up when he walks in and smiles, all boy next door charm and golden boy glow.

Steve, who actually looks good in the stupid sailor costume, with the stupid white cap perched jauntily on his incredible hair. Nothing should ever be jaunty in real life, but that hat on Steve’s head is.

And that’s just the cherry on the sundae of Steve fucking Harrington, with his athletic thighs in those short shorts and the little curl of chest hair just barely peeking out the top of his little ascot-like tie thing.

It’s the chest hair that does him in. Eddie Munson knows better than to look Steve fucking Harrington up and down. His eyes get caught like a loose tape and static fills his brain. He never feels gayer than he does looking at Steve Harrington’s thighs and chest hair.

So instead of opening his mouth and delivering acerbic wit and pirate puns, his tongue practically falls out of his mouth and he says,

“I’m here for your pleasure chest.”

He doesn’t even wait to see the damage, just turns on his heel and speedwalks faster than that pack of moms in athletic wear he sees when he drives past fancy neighborhoods.

There’s probably a trail of smoke behind him, but Eddie doesn’t stop, not even when he careens past Gareth and Jeff standing outside the costume shop, near twin confused looks on both their faces.

No, Eddie doesn’t stop until he’s hit the fountain in the middle of the food court.

Then, he simply lifts one leg at a time until he’s in the fountain, and drops his ass right into the water.

“Oh my god,” he whispers to himself, mortification taking the place of his self-confidence.

He tries to replay the moment in his head, to prove to himself it wasn’t that bad, but it’s like his brain won’t even let him do that. It’s too embarrassing to remember. His brain is amnesiaing itself to protect him.

He didn’t even get to see the look on Harrington’s face.

Why couldn’t it have been Buckley?

Something hits his shoulder.

“Hey,” Gareth calls.

Something else hits the water near him, splashing his face.

“Dude,” Jeff says.

This time the penny hits him on the face, and he watches it plink down into the water.

“Aren’t these supposed to be quarters?” he asks morosely, because his life is over and his bandmates are throwing coins at him.

“Bitches be broke,” Gareth replies.

“Plus, quarters would probably hurt more,” Jeff adds. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Eddie groans and buries his face in his knees, the cold fountain water properly seeping into all of his clothes now, including his oh so cool pirate boots.

“I thought you were plundering?” Gareth practically shouts.

“It wasn’t Buckley,” he mumbles into his knees.

“What?”

Eddie pries his face skyward and rolls from his ass to his knees, which puts him high enough that the fountain actually knocks his hat off, soaking the bandana underneath it in seconds. His hair is a lost cause. He presses his hands to his face and lets out a mortifyingly strangled, “WHY” before just falling backwards into the fountain. It’s not deep enough to drown him, unfortunately, so after a moment he sits up again, properly soaked.

“I made an ass of myself in front of Steve Harrington,” he admits, refusing to make eye contact with Gareth or Jeff.

“Steve Harrington?” Gareth repeats, with far more emphasis than should be allowed on one person’s name. “How??”

“He works at Scoops,” Eddie sighs.

Gareth is undoubtedly smiling at Eddie’s terrible luck, but Eddie refuses to give him the satisfaction of looking at him.

“Steve the hair Harrington, who you mooned over all last year, captain of whatever sports team—”

“Basketball and swim,” Jeff fills in.

“--the guy you composed an actual sonnet for in English class? That Steve Harrington?”

“It was a dirty limerick at best,” Eddie corrects.

“Holy shit,” Gareth says. Then, with more emphasis, “Holy shit. And you just walked in there, dressed as a pirate, and said—”

“I’m here for your pleasure chest,” Eddie whispers, but because Gareth has fucking sonic hearing or some shit he hears him, and immediately starts laughing so hard Eddie’s worried he’ll pee himself.

“No,” Jeff says, properly mortified on Eddie’s behalf, because he’s a good friend, unlike traitor Gareth, who is actually using the side of the fountain to support himself now, lest he fall in and drown laughing too hard at Eddie’s life-ending mistake.

“This is how he finds out who I am,” Eddie moans, dragging his sopping wet hands down his face. “I can never come here again.”

“I mean, the mall cop is gonna kick us out for sure if you don’t get out of the fountain, but—”

“Hey.”

Eddie must be having some sort of chlorine fountain related stroke, because that sounds like Steve fucking Harrington’s voice.

He can’t look. He can’t risk Steve seeing his tomato face and his wet cat hair. If Steve Harrington followed him out to the mall food court fountain, Eddie cannot look at him.

He keeps his palms pressed over his face and holds as still as he can. Like if he can’t see Steve and he doesn’t move, Steve won’t be able to see him either.

“Hey,” Jeff replies, and Eddie wishes Gareth would stop laughing long enough to actually help with something. “What’s up, man? I didn’t know you were working here.”

“Yeah,” and it is Steve fucking Harrington, oh no, casually striking up a conversation with Jeff like they aren’t total strangers. Like Steve didn’t rule the school they all attended with no idea who the gutter rats below his throne were. “Needed to do something this summer, you know?”

“I hear you,” Jeff says, because he’s respectable and does know, got himself a part time job at the costume shop, the only reason Eddie could afford this stupid get up. “I’m at the costume shop just down the way.”

“Cool,” Steve says, and it actually sounds like he means it. “Is that where he got the, uh, pirate costume?”

There’s a beat of silence when Gareth stops laughing, and Steve must have gestured to where Eddie is playing the worst game of freeze tag in the middle of the food court fountain. 

“No, that’s, uh, a new performance piece,” Gareth finally says, and it’s not at all convincing but he’s trying, and for that Eddie is willing to forgive nearly wetting his pants over Eddie’s misfortunes. “It’s a, uh, new statue they added.”

“Weeping Odysseus,” Jeff adds, as though an incorrect reference title is enough to convince Steve that the guy who just walked into his workplace and asked for his pleasure chest is actually just a statue in a fountain. 

“Right,” Steve says, like he doesn’t believe them but is willing to play along, and Eddie might be actually having some sort of breakdown, but he thinks he hears a hint of disappointment in Steve’s voice. “I was just— I was hoping to—” he stops, and Eddie wants to look at him so badly, so he shifts his fingers just enough that he can peer between them.

And Steve fucking Harrington is standing at the fountain edge, in his stupid sailor shorts and jaunty little hat, his face a stupidly cute shade of pink. He’s looking at Eddie in the fountain, and moving his fingers was a mistake, because Steve looks at him with his soft brown eyes, making actual honest-to-god eye contact. He actually blushes harder when he spots Eddie’s eye looking back at him. 

Sirens are going off in Eddie’s brain. 

“Maybe when he’s done weeping, Odysseus can come back to the shop,” Steve says, and he’s smiling, looking hopeful or something at Eddie, soaking wet in the middle of the fountain. “I’ve got plenty in my pleasure chest.”

Then Harrington spins on his heel and marches away, and it’s not fair how good his ass looks in the stupid sailor shorts. They’re stupid. Why is he so hot?

Jeff and Gareth watch him go too, but not really in an ass ogling way, more in a disbelieving kind of way. 

“Did Steve Harrington just use your own shitty line back on you?” Gareth asks. 

Eddie stands up abruptly, water spraying everywhere. He sloshes to the edge of the fountain, grabbing his floating hat along the way, and shoves it back onto his head, uncaring of the water pouring off of him all over the mall floor. 

“Excuse me, boys,” he says, unable to stop the dopey grin from spreading across his face. “I’m off to plunder a pleasure chest.”

eddie going in to scoops ahoy dressed as a pirate and saying he’s here to ‘plunder scoops’ treasure chest of ice cream yarhar’ only he gets to the counter and it’s Steve serving, not Robin. He was expecting Robin. What comes out of his mouth is ‘I’m here for your pleasure chest’. Cue eddie turning on his heel, walking out of scoops and sitting himself down in the fountain of the food court, hugging his knees while the corroded coffin boys throw pennies at him.