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steveseddie · 2 months ago

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don’t wait for the sky to clear

steddie | rating: t | wc: 1,7k | cw: none | tags: steve has a crush, eddie has no impulse control, flirting, pet names

for @steddie-spooktober day one, prompt “rain”

read here on ao3

Steve almost doesn’t hear the knock on the door— barely audible over the heavy rain that’s been falling over Hawkins for most of the evening.

Then he almost ignores it, ready to wave it off as the wind making some tree branches knock against the side of the house, mostly because he’s convinced no one would be stupid enough to set foot outside in this downpour.

But then he hears it again. Louder, more insistent, definitely not a branch knocking against the house.

Frowning, Steve turns off the TV, cutting off the commentators narrating the basketball game that has kept him mildly entertained since the rain started. As he pads over to the door, his eyes dart towards the nail bat resting against the wall and he wonders if he should reach for it, if it’s possible that what’s waiting on the other side of the door is actually monster, flushed out by the rain like sewer rats during a flood.

Steve shakes his head. “Chill out, Harrington,” he mutters to himself, “Monsters don’t knock.”

And so Steve swings the door open and is immediately hit by the sharp biting cold— and the sight of a soaked Eddie Munson, shivering on his porch.

“Eddie?” Steve asks, voice laced with shock.

Eddie shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “There you are! Thought you were gonna leave me out here to drown.”

Steve hangs a hand from his neck. “Sorry, I didn’t actually expect anyone to be out here.”

“Well—” Eddie holds his hands out in a ta-da gesture, “—Surprise!”

“I am surprised. What the hell are you doing out here in this storm, man? You’re drenched! Did you fucking bike here or something?”

“Nope, I drove, of course,” Eddie explains, waving a hand at the van parked in Steve’s driveway. “But I spent the last twenty minutes pacing in the rain so there’s that.”

Steve sputters. “Why?”

“It helps clear my head,” Eddie says with a shrug, like that makes perfect sense. It doesn’t.

“And you decided to do it in front of my house because—” Steve trails off, hoping Eddie will elaborate.

“Convenience,” Eddie says, which doesn’t actually explain anything. Then he bites his lip nervously. “You see, Stevie, I have something to tell you.”

Steve tears his eyes away from Eddie’s pink lips, narrowing them at him. “And you couldn’t, I don’t know, call me?”

Eddie shakes his head, sending droplets of water flying, hitting Steve’s face. “It’s not something I wanted to say over the phone,” he admits, scruffing his feet against the floor, deliberately not meeting Steve's gaze.

Steve’s eyes dart to the bat again. He tenses up, fear bubbling up inside him. “Oh shit, are you seeing things? Is it Vecna again? Fuck, it’s only been a few months, it was supposed to be fucking over. Christ, do we need to call a code red? Do we—”

“Steve, hey, breathe,” Eddie cuts in, stepping into the house, trailing water all over Steve’s entryway, the wind swinging the door shut behind him. He grabs Steve’s shoulders, digging his thumbs into his collarbones to get his attention. “It’s not Vecna, it’s not the Upside Down, everything’s fine. Stevie, look at me.”

Steve does, hazy eyes taking a moment to focus on Eddie— his limp soaked hair, his drenched clothes, his nose and cheeks both red from the cold.

“You look like a wet rat,” Steve says, swallowing a few times to get rid of the lump that lodged itself in his throat as he spiraled.

Eddie huffs out a snort. “I know,” he says, his nose scrunching up in a way that makes Steve want to kiss it. “Not a particularly attractive look, which isn’t ideal considering what I’m here to do.”

Steve disagrees, he finds Eddie plenty attractive like this, but he lets the comment slide to ask, “And what’s that?”

Eddie bites his lip. “Please don’t freak out on me again.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t the Upside Down—” Steve says, raising his eyebrow.

“It’s not, it’s— fuck, it’s nothing. I’m just being dramatic. You’re a good guy, you’re not gonna freak out even if you don’t—” He trails off, gesturing vaguely.

“Even if I don’t what?”

Eddie lets out a puff of air. “Even if you don’t like me back,” he says and Steve’s heart stutters in his chest. “‘Cause what I came here to do— the reason why I was pacing in the rain, probably catching pneumonia or something— was to ask you out. On a date. With me.”

Steve’s stomach flip flops. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees lightning flash in the distance. “Right now?” He asks, glancing at the window as thunder follows, the rain refusing to let up even for a minute. “Because I’d love to, Eds, but I really don’t want to go out in a storm—”

Eddie makes a pained expression. “No, sweetheart, not right— Wait.” He blinks as Steve’s words register. “‘You'd love to’?” He asks, his voice an octave higher.

Steve nods, a smile tugging at his lips.

“Holy shit,” Eddie mutters. His hands, which up to this point were still on Steve’s shoulders, fall to his sides as he stands there, mouth agape and eyes wide.

“What? You thought I’d say no?” Steve asks, tilting his head. “That I’d freak out?”

Eddie shrugs. "I just thought that if you liked me too, you would’ve asked me out already!”

“I thought about it,” he says, eliciting a squeal from Eddie. “But Eds, I’ve only ever been in one relationship and I fucked it up. I didn’t want to do the same with you.”

“Oh,” Eddie says softly, lips pursing as he thinks over something. “Well, I’ve never been in a relationship so technically I haven’t fucked up any so maybe our odds will balance each other out, y’know?”

That doesn’t sound right to Steve, but Eddie is grinning at him and he just asked him out on a date, and Steve can’t bring himself to care about anything else.

“Okay,” he agrees, unable to stop himself from grinning too. “Then yeah, I’d love to go on a date with you, Eddie.”

Flustered but obviously pleased, Eddie plays with his hair, water dripping from the wet curls.

“Can I ask you something too?”

“You just did,” Eddie says with a smirk. When Steve half-heartedly rolls his eyes, he adds, “But yeah, I’ll allow it.”

“What made you do this right now in the middle of a storm?” He asks, an amused tilt to his voice.

“Well, I was talking to our favorite redhead on the phone, just shooting the shit, y’know? So after like, the third time I said, um, that I missed you, she told me I was pathetic and that I should drive over here and ask you out already so—” Eddie shrugs, “—I did. I don’t think she expected me to just hang up on her and take off in the middle of the storm, and honestly neither did I, not until I was doing it.”

Steve shakes his head with a laugh. “You’re ridiculous,” he says, “but hey, I was missing you too, y’know.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asks, giddy and disbelieving at the same time.

“Of course, Eds.”

Eddie giggles, high-pitched and cute. “Well, hopefully you won’t miss me too much now.” He glances at the window, lips pursed. “Since I should probably head back.”

Steve’s eyebrows knit in a frown. “No way, you’re not going out in this rain again,” he says, “you can stay here and I’ll let you borrow something to wear.”

“Okay, okay,” Eddie says, yielding all too easily.

Steve smirks triumphantly. “Good, now let’s get you out of those clothes.”

Eddie lets out a squeak, clutching his chest. “Harrington! At least buy me dinner first!”

“Hey, you asked me out, so you are buying me dinner,” Steve says, wagging his finger in Eddie’s face, who pretends to try to bite it off. “Right now I’m just making sure you don’t get hypothermia.”

“How chivalrous of you, sweetheart,” Eddie says, eyelashes fluttering, a pretty pink blush covering his cheeks.

Steve hates to leave the sight of a flustered Eddie, but since he arrived his shivering has gotten worse and Steve is worried he’s actually going to catch something.

“Wait here,” he says, heading upstairs to his room. There, he grabs some old sweatpants, a cozy green sweater he’d love to see Eddie in and a pair of fuzzy socks Robin got him for his birthday last year. Fighting a blush, he also grabs some boxers. Finally, he stops by the bathroom to grab a towel so Eddie can dry his hair.

He goes back downstairs where he follows the water path and finds Eddie, not in the entryway but in the living room, going through the Harringtons’ VHS collection.

“My, my, my, Stevie! What’s this?” He asks when he sees Steve, holding up a tape to him with a playful smirk.

Steve recognizes it as one of the Star Wars movies— not the one he likes, with the teddies.

“Oh, that’s Henderson’s,” Steve says, dumping the clothes on the couch and joining Eddie. “He must’ve left it here.”

“‘Left it here’, uh huh,” Eddie says, doing air quotes with his fingers. “Just admit you like it. That you’re a nerd!”

Steve smirks. “No, but I like you, nerd,” he says, cupping Eddie’s cheeks with his hands and tilting his head forward so he can press a kiss to Eddie’s forehead.

When he pulls back, Eddie is staring at him with wide eyes, his face bright red.

“Cute,” Steve says, out loud this time, which only makes Eddie blush even harder.

“Jesus H. Christ, if hypothermia doesn’t kill me, sweetheart,” Eddie says with a shaky laugh, tugging some hair in front of his face, “you might.”

“If you die before you can take me on a date,” Steve says, hands on his hips, “I will.”

Eddie sniggers. “Not even death could keep me from taking you out, Stevie! I would crawl out of hell just to have dinner with you! I would brave one thousand storms!”

Steve laughs, interrupting Eddie’s dramatics and steering him towards the downstairs bathroom, picking up the clothes on the way. “Okay, you weirdo, come on.”

Eddie doesn’t put up any more resistance and finally changes into Steve’s clothes. Afterwards, they watch the movie that Henderson may or may not have left behind and they cuddle— to warm Eddie up, of course.

They both agree it doesn’t count as their first date, but when the rain finally stops and Eddie leaves, he still kisses Steve goodnight.

#steddie #steddie fic #steddiespooktober #i wasn't planning on writing this but it's been raining all day and it felt like a sign #stranger things #stranger things fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #monse writes

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idiopath-fic-smile · 1 year ago

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i make no promises, like i genuinely don't have any real ideas for scenes after this one, but uh here is more Singin' in the Rain ot3, continuing from here. they're not even on the honeymoon boat yet! but for whatever it's worth, there are shenanigans.

Here was another thing Cosmo had failed to predict: Don was a nervous flier.

Cosmo had been up in the air a handful of times; Archibald owned a small personal craft that he flew sometimes on the weekends. And sure, it was cold and noisy and there was no denying that watching the ground disappear below you could give a guy a bad case of the stomach lurches, but it was a thrill all the same. An adventure, he thought, burrowing deeper into the very warm wool coat he’d had the presence of mind to bring. Don was generally up for an adventure; he’d once ridden a motorcycle full speed off a high canyon and fallen ten stories into the water below, for nothing but a day’s wages and an approving nod from the director.

The airplane offered comfortable seats and tables and fashionable cold salads served by very calm stewardesses, but from the moment of liftoff, Don sat there like a man waiting for the electric chair. Now he was clutching the armrests so tightly, the knuckles stood out sharp and white against his normally very appealing hands.

“We should have taken the train,” said Kathy.

“Nonsense,” Don gritted out. “I’m fine. This is all perfectly fine.”

Belted in on either side of him, Kathy and Cosmo exchanged a look. One of the benefits, thought Cosmo, to being the funny little friend and not the leading man was that you were allowed to admit when you were terrified, at least a little, at least if you could make it a joke.

“I’m so sorry, Don,” Kathy said. “I should have asked if you’ve been in one of these before. Even knowing we’re perfectly safe, a train would’ve been so much more comfortable.”

Don closed his eyes. “Really, Kathy,” he said, a little more sharply. “You don’t need to—” The plane dropped several feet, and he swallowed hard.

Cosmo considered the situation. The facts were these: Don Lockwood was too proud, and too enamored with his wife, to be willing to discuss such a weakness in front of her, and now if somebody didn’t act fast, the three of them were in for an awkward, unpleasant flight. Or rather, series of flights, since the plane was going to need to refuel a couple of times along the way.

There was nothing else for it; Cosmo would have to save the day.

He took in Don’s ashen complexion and Kathy’s guilty face, and then he said cheerfully,

“Y’know, Kathy, for what it’s worth, Don actually has been in one of these before.” When this failed to earn any real response from the man, Cosmo poked him in the cheek. “Haven’t you, Don?”

“What?” said Don distractedly, swatting the finger away. “No, I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have.”

Don’s tense brow creased for a moment in irritation. “I think I’d remember—” he started.

“It was for one of those early stunting gigs,” said Cosmo. “A little biplane. They gave you goggles and an aviator hat and a brown leather jacket—” The incident stuck in Cosmo’s mind mostly because Don had looked very good in that jacket, but there were half a dozen reasons nobody needed to know that, “—and then they had you crash the plane through a barn.”

“Through a barn?” Kathy repeated, disbelieving, because apparently the fan magazines didn’t tell you everything after all.

“Into, not through,” said Don. “I didn’t come out the other side.” His fingers had relaxed ever so slightly on the poor armrests. “And that doesn’t count, that contraption never got off the ground, I only had to—”

“Into a barn?” Kathy interjected. “Why?”

Cosmo stuck a mock-pensive pose. “The things we do for art. And five dollars. And I think the producers let him keep the jacket.”

They had; Cosmo had suffered that autumn.

“Well, what about common sense,” said Kathy, “and human rights, and basic safety?”

“I said he had goggles on, didn’t I?”

The truth was, back in those days, no matter how dangerous the feat, how seemingly impossible the stunt, Cosmo had never truly worried. It was Don, and Don could do anything. Except admit to his wife that he needed help, apparently.

“What about—about dignity,” she went on, and Cosmo snorted.

“I regret to inform you that Lady Dignity will not be making an appearance tonight.”

“Cosmo,” said Kathy, slowly, “Why in the world did you let Don do a thing like that?”

“Let?” Don and Cosmo said in unison, Don a little weakly but it was something.

“Don’t pin this on me, madam,” Cosmo added, “I am not my brother’s keeper.”

“Not my brother at all,” Don muttered, which stung a little, but Cosmo decided to let it slide in the face of how his plan was working.

“That’s hardly the worst thing we did for money,” Cosmo said instead. “Has Don told you much about our ignoble days on the road?”

Kathy shook her head, delighted. Don very discreetly kicked Cosmo in the shin. Things were looking up.

“So there we are,” said Cosmo, “performing in this tiny hamlet in Nebraska called, I kid you not, Oatmeal—”

“Oatmeal?” Kathy laughed.

Don had freed his fingers from the armrests entirely; he was now resting his entire face in his hands. He was no longer pallid as Nosferatu; in fact, he might have been blushing.

“It was Coyoteville,” Don volunteered without looking up.

“Pal, if you think I’d forget a place with a name like Oatmeal, Nebraska—”

“If you think I’d forget a place with a name like Coyoteville—”

“Coyoteville was in New Mexico!” said Cosmo. “Coyoteville was where we had to bunk with that ventriloquist, remember?” He watched as Don sat up and snuck a look at Kathy, who was clearly having a ball.

“The one who insisted his dummy got its own bed?” Don said with a slight smile.

“Don and me had to sleep on a twin mattress on the floor,” said Cosmo, “Curled up like a pair of puppies, if you can picture that—”

“I think so,” said Kathy, leaning forward, eyes bright, “only what happened in Oatmeal?”

“Wait, was Oatmeal where—” Don started.

“Yes! We’re about halfway through our routine, singing and hoofing our hearts out—fit as a fiddle and ready for love—when we look off to the side, at the next act waiting in the wings and we see—”

Don laughed. “You’re right, we were onstage when we realized it!”

“—at more or less the same time, I think—”

“Yes?” said Kathy.

“—the Amazing Dancing Daisy, the headliner following us—”

“Nobody had bothered to explain to us that she was a trained donkey,” Cosmo explained. “We were literally opening for an ass.”

“How was she?” Kathy managed, once she had more or less gotten her wild laughter under control. “The dancing, I mean?”

“Her footwork was a little sloppy,” said Don.

“Don’s just cross,” said Cosmo confidingly, “because she got much more applause than us.”

“They kept throwing her flowers!” said Don. “What was she meant to do with them? She didn’t even have hands!”

“So listen, Kathy.” Cosmo leaned way over Don to make eye contact with her. “The next time you two are having some sort of petty domestic squabble, if Don tries to act all high and mighty, just remember: I’m pretty sure your lawfully wedded husband is still, deep down, jealous of a donkey.”

Don grabbed Cosmo’s shoulder and flashed him a mock-scowl. “Why, when we get back on solid land…”

“I’m not afraid of you, villain,” said Cosmo, “not with your lady love here.” He stretched out an arm to Kathy. “You’ll protect me, won’t you?”

“Of course, good sir,” said Kathy, genteelly taking his hand and it was a joke, it was ridiculous, it was all completely harmless because Cosmo was hardly a threat to their marriage, and so Cosmo ducked his head and fluttered his lashes at her, and cooed,

“How shall I ever repay you?”

And then, without breaking eye contact, Kathy brought his hand to her mouth and kissed it, just a quick, warm, press of lips, entirely chaste but somehow something different, and Cosmo darted a nervous glance at up Don—he was practically in Don’s lap at this point, to better reach out to Don’s wife—because threat or not, there had to be some kind of line Cosmo was crossing. But Don was just watching them, with parted lips and slightly glazed eyes, as if it was not at all upsetting to see his girl and his best friend doing…whatever it was they were doing, and this moment was rapidly sliding away from any point of reference Cosmo might’ve had.

Normally, Cosmo liked other people’s eyes on him. That was half the reason anyone was in showbiz, wasn’t it? Nobody might’ve looked at him twice in the street but with the right props and a couple of dance moves, he could be somebody for the length of a number or two, spread a little joy and get a lot of it back. So it wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy Don looking at him and Kathy like that. It was just—it was too much, too close to something he might’ve dreamed up alone in his bed at night. He hadn’t, but that was mostly because he’d lacked the imagination.

Cosmo freed himself, twisted back upright, and coughed. “On second thought,” he said. “I think the ventriloquist was in Dead Man’s Fang, in Arizona? Coyoteville was where that strongman threw up inside Don’s fiddle.”

“How did he manage to—” Kathy sounded sincerely perplexed. She’d left a coral pink lip print on the back of Cosmo’s hand. He tugged his coat sleeves down to his fingertips.

“Sheer determination,” said Cosmo.

#to be clear all of the tiny town names they reference i got from pausing on the signs that flash up briefly in the movie #i WISH i was enough of an artist to invent the town of Oatmeal Nebraska #singin in the rain ot3

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