#simultaneously the slowest of burns and the most obvious flirting

[starkidmunson]

glitter & crimson

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

Steve comes home from his first post-injury workout drenched in sweat and throws himself onto the sofa on his back. Robin winces as she watches him go, raising an eyebrow. 

“That bad?” She asks, to which Steve groans in response.

“They want me to wear a bubble.” Steve responds, digs his hand around inside the gym bag still attached to his side and lifts out the full face mask.

“Wouldn’t be the worst idea, protect your face at least.” Robin observes, only to be met by a glare from Steve. His facial expressions are making a triumphant return as he regains more control over his face as the wound heals, and he’s taking full advantage of his bitchy looks whenever he can.

“Says the one not blowing hot air back into their own face as they work out.” He grumbles, flopping back and dropping the mask onto his stomach. “Everything hurts. You’d think I’ve been out for months, not just a few weeks.”

“How’s the headache?” Robin predicts, and Steve gives her another look before he sighs. 

“It’s not bad, don’t overreact. It’s not the concussion.” He insists, ignores the way her eyebrow rises again and instead pushes himself up again. “I’m going to shower,” Steve announces, making a quick escape from Robin.

It’s not exactly that he’s lying, because he’s not. He doesn’t think anything he’s feeling is concussion-related. The soreness in his muscles is from suddenly being weighed down with his hockey gear again, after weeks without. It’s a similar feeling to the first workout of the pre-season. The headache is a little trickier to convince everyone around, so he’d avoided mentioning it and done his best to hide it at the rink. It’s no surprise Robin can just tell he has one, though.

He lets steam fill the bathroom before he steps under water so hot his skin turns pink. He lets the shower spray target the middle of his back, shifts so it settles between his shoulder blades, and rests his forehead against the cool tiles in front of him.

Eventually, he emerges back into the apartment in sweatpants, his hair air drying. Robin is setting a cup of hot tea down on the coffee table, her own tucked onto an end table beside her on the sofa. Steve smiles softly and mumbles his appreciation as he sits and takes a sip.

As he drains the cup, the headache eases a bit and he feels a bit more human than he had after returning home from his workout. 

“You got mail from your parents today,” Robin eventually offers over the New Girl re-run neither of them are particularly paying attention to but have on for familiar background noise. Steve just grunts, uninterested, and instead busies himself checking any messages he may have missed from people he actually cares to give the time of day. 

Dustin had demanded a “family dinner,” which Steve agrees to and warns Robin when to expect a full house. Max, traveling with the Blackhawks for a game tomorrow night, had sent him a detailed threat to not push himself too hard while working out. He responds with a video clip the trainer had taken of Steve nailing a series of wrist shots.

Steve tries hard not to be too disappointed that he hadn’t heard from Eddie. They’d texted about their plans for the day, Steve knew Eddie had said he’d be spending the day in his studio working on a few new tracks he was putting together. Still, though, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t hoping he’d have found a text or two from the other in the time he hadn’t been looking at his phone, something that was quickly becoming a standard for the pair.

Biting back his pride, he decides to send the first text, figuring the other will answer whenever they’re wrapping up in the studio.

Steve: Hope you’re having a good studio session.

After a long few moments, Steve can’t help the little sigh he lets out as he buries himself into the throw pillows filling out the sofa beside him. Robin nudges him with a foot, eyebrow raised, and he shrugs back at her, turning his attention to the television. It isn’t long before he zones out, though, thinking and overthinking.

His injury has given him a lot of time to think about a lot of things; primarily what landed him off the ice. He’s only mentioned it to Robin, but he has been considering coming out to his coaching staff and league officials to give background on what seems like an otherwise unprovoked violent streak from Billy Hargrove. Steve learned, in the days he spent in LA after the attack on the ice, Billy had taken to calling him names and slurs with press and on social media. The trash talking had landed him another fine from the league, but it wasn’t slowing him down. It was more than enough to prove the attack was premeditated, if everyone who needed to know the background was read in on their history.

And while Billy was staying on the attack, his teammates were apparently squared up and ready to defend Steve in a way he probably should have expected but hadn’t seen coming. Each of the players who had gotten physically involved in fighting Billy after Steve had taken a stick to the face had made comments with press about how Hargrove plays dirty and mean. Several had also spoken out about Steve’s leadership and sportsmanship on and off the ice, throwing their support behind him through his recovery. 

Coming out to the league and his coaches also had the potential to alleviate some of the anxiety he was feeling around his personal life. There had always been concern about coming out, getting kicked off the ice and ending up without the one thing he knew best. Long before he’d joined the league, his father had impressed upon him that he would have to settle and make sacrifices if he wanted to stay with the sport, but Steve wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to keep his sexuality bottled up and hidden away from the public.

In large part, it was easy to place blame on Eddie. The rockstar blew into his life and changed his perspective on what it was like to be a public figure, out and proud. Steve knew their status didn’t translate equally. Sports fans were different from fans of a band; Steve had joined a team with supporters who would cheer him on so long as he wore their colors and made them proud. Eddie’s fans had sought him out, decided to listen to his music and support him on their own. But for Steve to see Eddie carrying on with his life, not having to hide any part of himself or worry about not posting certain photos from their days in LA on social media (because what if they looked too suspicious and got people talking and asking questions?) was what Steve longed for. 

Chicago was a pretty open-minded town; it’s why he and Robin had first moved to the city to begin with. But it still wasn’t a guarantee that everyone would continue to support the team if he did publicly come out. And Steve was working to reconcile that in his mind; to gauge how much he should even care about it. A part of him knew the greater majority wouldn’t give a shit as long as he still scored goals and played a clean, fair and exciting game whenever he hit the ice. But the thought of those few who might push back too hard and how it could impact his teammates - his friends - in the long term is still what ate away at him.

“I can hear how loud you’re thinking over there.” Robin eventually says while he’s deep in thought, and he shoots her a small smile in response. “Look, Steve, you have to do what you think is best for you. Who gives a shit about anyone else.” She says.

He wishes it was that easy. He knows it could be, but he cares too much about the fallout to stop overthinking. They fall back into silence again, until Robin eventually closes her laptop and leans close to press a gentle kiss to Steve’s hair.

“You’re the best at what you do and if people can’t see that around the fact that you like guys, then that’s their loss.” She says, gently, before excusing herself off to bed.

Steve lounges around in the living room for a while longer, before he turns off the tv, grabs a blanket and makes his way out onto the terrace. He wraps the sherpa around his shoulders and drops into one of the loungers out there, looking out toward the skyline. It’s cold, but not as cold as it’s been, and he’s always found comfort in the winter weather, anyway.

His phone buzzes, catching his attention, and he smiles softly at Eddie’s name. When he answers FaceTime, he’s immediately met by chaos. It sounds like three voices are talking over each other, Eddie’s closest to the phone, making a loud ‘shhh’ sound until everyone around him is silenced.

“Did you mean to call me?” Steve asks around a smile, and watches as Eddie’s face lights up as he draws his attention.

“I did!” He insists, though Steve isn’t entirely convinced. “Want to hear what the track I’m mixing right now?”

Steve raised his eyebrow, only half sure he knows what Eddie’s talking about, before he nods. “Let’s hear it.” He agrees.

“Told you,” Eddie hisses at someone just out of the camera’s frame; probably one of the Corroded Coffin boys. Eddie taps a few buttons below the phone, then a soft guitar tune starts playing. It’s not like anything Steve has ever heard from the band before, gentler and softer. Other instruments crash in, in a more typical Corroded Coffin sound, for what Steve assumes will be a chorus once there’s a vocal track, but it slows back to just a guitar for the next verse. Eddie pauses the song and lifts the phone up again. “Thoughts and opinions are encouraged.”

“It’s different.” Steve says, still a little in awe.

“But not in a bad way!” He hears Gareth’s voice from somewhere in Eddie’s studio, and Steve nods in agreement.

“I don’t think it’s in a bad way, either. Just different. It still sounds like you guys in that middle part, when all the instruments join in. But the guitar, that’s… it’s soft and sweet and gentle. It works nicely, not that I know anything about music,” Steve laughs, and Eddie gives him a little smile.

“I appreciate your opinion,” he says, seeming to inspect the screen. “Your face looks a little less colorful. How was practice?”

“Fine, I’m sore now, though.” Steve admits, shifts and cracks his back.

“Gross!” Jeff cries from somewhere around Eddie, and Steve can’t help but laugh again.

“You should get back to working, I’m gonna head to bed soon anyway. We can talk tomorrow?” Steve asks, and Eddie nods. 

“Night, Stevie.”

~~~~

He hangs up the FaceTime, steals a pizza roll off Jeff’s plate, and re-opens the notes app on his phone. Scanning over the rambling notes he’d made himself about how he imagined the song would work out, he starts a new paragraph.

And he stares at the blank line before him.

“You’ve composed, like, 4 tracks and you can’t come up with a single lyric for any of them?” Freak asks, takes a pull from a joint burning in an ashtray near the sofa, and blows the smoke out away from the group.

“Very helpful insight,” Eddie grumbles, and Jeff leans forward. 

“Do you want us to help? Like, do you have a theme for the songs, or is this just going to be your own little pet project?” He asks.

“Well, I guess it depends. If you want to drop a surprise EP or double album after the one we’re putting out, I’m probably going to need help. But if you’re cool with letting me sit on it, I can probably figure it out on my own.” Eddie offers.

Gareth twirls a drumstick between his fingers. “I think we let Eddie handle the love songs about Steve Harrington, and if he comes up with enough to make into something to drop, we drop them whenever he’s ready, and if not, we throw them onto the next album or whatever when he’s ready to release them.” 

Eddie sighs and drops his head back against the rest of his swivel chair. “Can we stop calling them love songs about Steve?”

“Guess you have extra incentive to write lyrics to them, then,” Freak teases, and Eddie groans back, making the other boys laugh.

It isn’t much longer before they all excuse themselves to the rooms they claimed around the house. Eddie spends a few extra hours in the studio, working on as many lyrics as his brain allows and even sorts out bridge for the song he’d played for Steve before he heads off to bed.

He isn’t surprised to wake up the next morning to a text from Steve, who routinely gets up hours before Eddie and is always the first to send a text wishing him a good day ahead.

Eddie: Go easy on yourself on the ice today, you were up too late listening to headbanger music.

It’s a while before he gets a response, which isn’t uncommon. They both have their own lives which responsibilities to get up to. But Eddie would be lying if he said he wasn’t waiting not-so-patiently for Steve’s next response. Freak flew out this afternoon, heading back to visit family in Ohio, leaving Gareth and Jeff at Eddie’s. They’re playing video games in the living room when Eddie’s phone rings with Steve’s name and ID photo.

“Hey, how was today?” Eddie asks immediately, launching himself off the sofa and away from the boys and the noise from the television.

“Well, that’s part of why I’m calling,” Steve says, sounding a little out of breath and hair damp with sweat, glancing off camera before he flashes a charming smile down at Eddie. “What are you doing Tuesday?”

His brain short-wires for a second, thrown off course by the response. Is this Steve, asking him out on a date? That can’t be it, right? There’s no way, not with the back-and-forth they have going on. There would be more to it than that, and Steve seems like the kind of guy to give more than 4 days notice for a date that requires at least one party to travel several states. So Eddie does his best to quickly calm and compose himself, hoping he hasn’t taken an alarmingly long time to answer, before he responds. “I don’t know, what am I doing Tuesday?”

“I think you’re coming to watch the Blackhawks play the Predators in Nashville. I’m allowed to travel and suit up, but I probably won’t play just yet.” Steve is grinning, and Eddie can’t help but smile back.

“Hell yeah, I’ll be there!” He agrees, already pulling up the link to buy tickets for the game. “If I get shamed for wearing my Harrington jersey to a Preds game, you get to take the blame for me rooting against my home away from home.” Eddie teases, and Steve lets out a breathy laugh.

“Bring it on,” he challenges, finally seems to Eddie like he’s caught up and gotten back the quick wit and sharp humor which had been on a slight delay since the injury. A sign of recovery, Eddie’s sure and it helps to see him returning to normal.

They catch one another up on their days, and Eddie lets Steve listen to a few more of the tracks they’ve been working on over the last few days, but stops before the lyrics start in the only one he and Jeff have crafted words to so far, not ready for Steve to hear it yet.

As they’re talking, Eddie gets a notification he almost swipes away without reading, but Steve’s name catches his attention, so he drags it down and reads over the words.

“You okay?” Steve asks, and Eddie realizes the face he must be making is ridiculous. 

“Oh, uh. I just got a notification about you?” he mumbles back, and texts the link to Steve.

Now it’s Steve’s turn to look confused as Eddie reads over the headline again.

Hockey Legacy Harringtons to Host Joint Fundraiser

Steve reads the words and seems to immediately understand them in a way Eddie can’t, and he closes his eyes in a heavy sigh. “I promise you, my life is not usually this dramatic.” 

Eddie hates how miserable Steve seems all of a sudden; regrets passing the link on but knows he would have found out eventually and gotten upset anyway. “Dude, really, I don’t even know what that means, so it’s not a big deal.”

“It is, though. This is my parents, deciding that I’m worthy of being their son again because I’m getting a bunch of positive press after the injury. So my name gets to be included in the gala invitation, which I have been excluded from since juniors, by the way.” It’s still piecemeal, the information Eddie is able to take away from Steve’s explanation, but it’s enough to get the general gist of the issue.

“Ah. So, the dad who convinced you to self-sabotage is now trying to take credit for your sportsmanship?”

“Something like that,” Steve grumbles, and Eddie can see how he’s holding the phone differently, typing out a text. “I think I have to get Robin and we need to figure this out, sorry to jump off like this. But, I’ll see you at the Preds game? We can grab dinner after?”

“It’s a date.”

Eddie physically can’t stop the words before they’re out of his mouth, and immediately waits for a hole in the ground to open up and suck him in and put him out of his misery. But Steve just raises an eyebrow, smiles and shrugs. “Not yet, but. Sure.”

Then, Eddie stares at himself in the reflection of his phone after Steve ends the FaceTime call and he has no idea what he’s supposed to do with Steve Harrington, who keeps finding new ways to catch him off guard.