#spicysixwinterfanworkschallenge

[ahhrenata]

a little piece for @thefreakandthehair ‘s SpicySixWinterFanworksChallenge 🩵 my prompt was holding hands. thanks lex for hosting again!! it’s been awhile since I’ve done a steddie piece so this was a fun one to do :)

[kaspurrcat]

A very last minute entry for @thefreakandthehair's Spicy Six Winter Fanworks Challenge for the prompt books! This one was so much fun to do and a bunch of fics have Eddie reading The Fellowship of the Ring to Steve and I couldn't not draw it when I picked books for my prompt.

Anyways this now has me on a steddie in libraries/bookshops kick so you can expect more of that from me in the future.

[artbean]

for @thefreakandthehair’s winter challenge—“sunlight on fresh snow”

i'm finding i can fly so high above with you

[hotluncheddie]

Memories of somethin' even smoking weed does not replace.

wc: 2.9k | cw: alcohol | rated: M | part: 1/2 | tags: pre s4 au, steve harrington centric, stobin soulmates, raised catholic steve harrington

part 2 | ao3

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8:32pm January 3rd: Steve’s car

‘God stop complaining! It’s one party!’ Robin says, her exasperation at Steve finally boiling over.

Steve rolls his eyes, hard, wants to make sure she sees it. He’s stressed and uncomfortable and wants to be petty and petulant and complain because this night is going to end in him embarrassing himself somehow, he just knows it. 

Robin makes just as much of a face back at him but then her eyes are full of concern. ‘You’ve just, been so mopey lately.’ she fiddles with her fingers, bites a nail even though that was her resolution. ‘and I know you say you haven’t been, but you know that I know, that you barely got out of bed on your days off over the holidays and that makes me sad.’ Robin laments, ripping his bitchiness off like a bandaid, seeing whats underneath.  

Steve signs, defeated by her big beautiful brain. She is right, but. ‘Robbie. it was between Christmas and new year, there was nothing going on. What do you expect me to do? it’s literally time made for relaxing.’ Steves own exasperation falling away into something that just sounds tired. He’s so tired. And he hates it when she worries, he’s not, he’s still not used to it. Someone who cares, notices when he spends three days in bed because the thought of getting up when his parents are downstairs makes him want to puke. And, he loves her for it, but, sometimes it makes his skin crawl, makes him feel like he’s not good enough, not hiding well enough. Pitied. 

‘But you don’t relax. You mope. You, like, wallow.’ She pokes his arm a couple times for emphasis, but her voice is softer, still a little sad. ‘And.’ she takes a deep breath. ‘I know you don’t want to talk about it. But I also know this time of year makes you miss Nancy.’ 

‘Oh God, Rob, please.’ Steve whines, desperate now. ‘Don’t start bringing up Nancy.’ He drags a hand down his face, that is the last thing he wants to talk about. Think about. Admit anything to anyone about. 

She’s not, entirely wrong but Steve still hates hearing it. He does miss Nancy, or, well, misses her in theory. He doesn’t really miss her anymore. But, he misses being her boyfriend, a boyfriend. Being needed, and being held, as pathetic as that sounds.

‘I know. Just.’ Robin says, twisting in her seat to look at him looking at the road. ‘I just. I want you to have some fun dingus.’

Steve squeezes the steering wheel. He nods. Glancing at her and giving her enough of a smile that she knows not to feel bad. It’s really not her fault that this time of year makes him want to sink into a hole, makes him think about purgatory and black vines, what he wants for his future if both can exist.

‘It’ll just be some band kids there, a few stragglers, no one’s going to care that you’re there too.’ Robin explains. ‘Plus, if they say anything I’ll be there to defend you.’ And Steve can hear that care again, but its lighter, said through the joke. He lets his shoulders drop and Steve smiles for real. He can’t help it. 

‘Yeah, yeah.’ he says, like she isn’t his everything. Glancing away from the road a second, Steve catches her smile. Happy she’s won but happier that he’s going to at least try and have fun.

‘And, don’t forget you promised to help me with seeing if any of the girls there are even remotely available to me.’ Robin sits back normally in her seat. Talking normally again, worry about her soulmate time over. ‘Plus, who knows, your new favourite customer might just be there too.’ She says into the window, head leaning on her palm. 

‘Robin!’ Steve near shouts, scandalised that she’d bring that up. 

Robin just cackles.

‘Man, you say a guys jeans fit him nice one time and then it’s all you hear about.’ He grumbles, pretending his cheeks aren’t flaming red. He really hopes any discomfort tonight has nothing to do with that. He almost prays on it. But monsters come out of walls so he stops himself. 

Robin wriggles around in her seat, delighted by his suffering. ‘Hey! Hey! No, okay you ragged on me over Tammy! I can make fun of you for making goo goo eyes at Eddie Munson!’

9:00 January 3rd: Kitchen

Steve shivers as the heat from the house mixes with the cold evening air he just walked through. Robin at his side but she’s quickly swept up in a little crowd to say hellos. She looks for him but Steve just waves her on with a scrunch of his eyebrows and a gesture to the beer he wants to find a sport for. 

The kitchen in strewn with bottles and cups and snacks, not a total disaster but people have definitely been helping themselves. Steve is a little laser focused on getting the cans set down so he can start on one, relax his nerves a bit, so he doesn’t even notice Eddie sitting on the counter until he nearly gets kneed in the crotch. 

He takes a hasty step back and gives himself a mental shake, get out of his own head. Eddies smile looks amused, his eyes able to look so sharp. Steve swallows, grateful for Eddies silence. 

‘Hey man. You want one?’ Steve offers Eddie a beer and makes a spot for them on the side. 

Eddie takes it, nodding in thanks, their fingers don’t brush, Steve would know. ‘You looking for anything stronger tonight? like King Steve back in the day?’ Eddie asks, taking a drink, hair framing the long line of his neck.

The old name makes bile raise in his throat. Eddie didn’t mean it like that, probably, wouldn’t have said it if he’d known how much that name feels like a brand on Steves skin. Itchy and scarred. Like ‘Harrington’, like ‘Bullshit’, like something that makes people think they know him, like his body and self isn’t his own.  

Steve looks away. ’Uh, nah, I’ll stick to the classics.’ Popping the lid and taking a long gulp, going for casual, slouching against the counter.

Eddie nods like it’s no big deal. ‘I won’t make this awkward by asking you about college. I know you know I’ve seen you at family video.’ 

‘Your late back on ‘Poltergeist’.’ Steve says without thinking. Winces, why is he acting like such a loser? ‘But uh, yeah. Thanks.’ He finishes lamely. No way any colleges wanted him on his concussion grades and zero extra curricular credits. 

‘Shit, so you do actually do your job.’ Eddie shakes his head, like Steve had deeply wounded him, sarcastic and mocking, pretty little glint in his eye. But it still makes some ugly, desperate little part of Steve rear up and want to take it back, beg for forgiveness. 

Steve drowns that thought and chugs the rest of his beer. 

Someone must motion something to Eddie from one of the other rooms because he nods his head up in understanding. But before he goes he leans in closer to Steve, smirking. ‘Oh, and, don’t thank me yet. I also saw you in that sailor get up at the mall.’ 

Steve chokes on his spit, coughing and spluttering like an idiot.

‘Thanks for the beer.’ Eddie says, patting him once on the shoulder before hopping off the counter and into the throws of the party.

Steve watches him go, skin of his shoulder tingling through his sweater. He feels an itch, like he’s being watched and turns his head to find robin staring at him from where she’s still by the door, talking to friends. Her smile wicked. 

Robins parting words from the car float back through his mind and make his stomach twist. ‘Lucky for you, Eddie makes goo good eyes right back.’ She’d said, quiet and teasing, and Steve hates her. her hates her. 

It’s going to be a long night. 

10:54 January 3rd: Staircase

It’s a little quieter at the front of the house.

It had been going pretty well and then someone mentioned Starcourt. A couple pairs of eyes flashed to him in recognition. Someone murmuring to another,  mentioning Hop. And then Steves eyes were prickling and his wrists were tingling and he had to excuse himself. Squeezing Robins shoulder for her not to follow. Just a minute alone to breath. Sip his drink to get the copper to wash from his lips. Get his teeth back where they’re supposed to be.  

Orange streetlights filter through the window of the front door. It catches the dust, makes it sparkle. 

He thinks about midnight mass with his parents, their one Christmas plan that he’s not allowed to get out of. Thinks about how the light filtered through the stained glass, made patches of the floor look red. Thought about the ceiling of Starcourt, the taste of red metal on his tongue as the world spun. 

Went up for communion and crossed himself. Looked up at the crucifix. Thought about how the gash that opened in Joyce’s living room was red. How somethings grow in darkness, in cracks and out of sinew. A nail bat ripping through skin. 

He looks at the drink Robin made him as a joke, its almost wine coloured, a murky, deep red. It makes Steves insides twist, she didn’t mean it, she didn’t. But blood of the lamb is making the back of his eyelids flash red and brown, flash lightning and ash floating through the air. His nose filled with mould. 

‘Yeesh what is that Harrington?’ Steve looks up, Eddie’s blocking some of the orange light, head haloed and face in shadow. 

Steve looks back into the cup, seeing it for what it is again. Remembering how her face lit up with laughter as she dumped in whatever she could find, knowing it would be awful but knowing Steve would still drink it. She made it for him, how could he not? 

He looks back up at Eddie, Steve can smell his cologne. It smells good. ‘Don’t ask, Robin made it.’ He waves his hand and tries to clear his head of red and black. The spirits mix with the beer and now his hands and feet tingle, he focuses on that, it’s nice.

Eddie eyes it warily. ’You wanna trade?’ and he holds up a beer, a different brand that the ones Steve brought, he has two, for some reason. 

Steve looks into his cup, ‘Its honestly not that bad.’ He swirls the contents around a little, there’s something floating in it. 

‘Seriously?’ Eddie asks. Steve looks up at him and his eyebrows have disappeared behind his bangs 

Steve smiles, his lips tingling. ‘No.’ and his smile grows at Eddie laugh, he has dimples.

He looks at Eddie and decides, then, to take. See what he gets given. He can confess later.

The alcohol made a couple of the awkward conversations he had tonight bearable and the couple less awkward conversations he had enjoyable. Maybe it’ll do the same for him now. Steve takes the beer and places his other drink carefully on the stair behind where he’s sitting, makes a mental note to dump it out when he moves. 

He shifts, sitting in a way he hopes looks casual, like he wasn’t just thinking about divine sacrifice. The staircase it wide and the carpet is soft, a nice place to take a break. A nice place to talk to a boy. A boy who makes his heart beat in his throat. Steve can confess later. 

‘You run Hellfire right?’ He asks, sipping his beer and cataloguing again how the orange light shines on eddies hair, over his shoulder. 

Eddie faces him fully, bobbing his head slightly to the music, Steve doesn’t recognise the song, he doesn’t think its one they play on the radio. ‘Yeah?’ 

‘Yeah. like X-men’ Steve says.  

Eddie blinks at him, but then the corners of his mouth curl and his eyelids droop and Steve feels too hot suddenly. ’Okay, I’m gonna need his majesty to explain how he knows about either of those.’ 

Swallowing, Steve goes for honest. ’Well first off you used to put new posters up every, like, two weeks man, kinda hard to ignore.’ Steve says, lifting up a finger. he paid attention, eddies doesn't need to know yet how much. But Steve paid attention. 

Eddie stays silent, looks at him, eyes roaming over his face, lip still curled. Steve feels his adams apple bob. 

‘Second, I babysit some of the dweebs who are current members.’ Steve lifts a second finger, takes another sip of beer. ‘And three, X-men is like super popular. And, like, super good.’ And Steve takes another drink, just because, just to help him be. 

Eddies lips curl into a full smile, all teeth and a little tongue. He sips his own beer, looking away from Steve then back at him a couple times, like he thinks he’ll vanish, change before his very eyes. He shakes his head. ‘What changed with you man? I never expected any of that to ever come out of your mouth, like, ever.’ And eddies sounds kind of delighted, voice musical and tinkling. 

Steve just shrugs, feels hot, Eddies voice too close to happy, words too close to praise. ‘Grew up a little, I guess.’ He crosses his arms, looks down at his shoes. 

‘Yeah? That why no more parties?’ and Eddies voice is soft, Steve can feel his body heat, his knee by eddies hip. 

‘I’m just not so big on, that much attention any more. That much noise.’ Steve says, looking back into Eddies face. Finds him staring, lips quirked in a little smile, softer, then before. Leaning his chin in his hands on the banister, leaning into Steves space.

‘So, you and Buckley, what’s that about?’ Eddies whispering now, like he knows it’s precious. The orange light kisses his cheek.

Steve clears his throat, whispers back. ’Summer job. We scooped ice cream and she, uh, scooped up my heart.’ he smiles, just from talking about her, thinking about them. 

‘Oh.’ Eddie says, drawing away just slightly, eyes hardening in a way Steve hates. 

He almost reaches out, something drastic, desperate. But he pulls back, fiddles with the tab on his can. ‘No, um. Not that kind of oh. I mean in, like, a friend way. Totally platonic oh.’ 

‘Right’ Eddie comes back, but it’s not quite the same, the moment lost. Steve feels a rosary between his knuckles. 

‘Seriously, platonic soulmates. It’s a thing.’ He tries to lighten, tries to make Eddie read his mind the way robin does. It takes a moment, but then Eddie lets his eyes drink in Steves face again. His smile unfurling, sweet and pretty and different than before. He nods once, taking a drink. Looking away, cheekbones flushed pink. 

Steve can confess later. 

Robin comes barrelling down the hall calling out for Steve. But she skids to a halt when she sees Eddie. Then her eyes find Steve and she looks at him with raised eyebrows and barely contained glee bubbling under its surface. ‘Munson.’ She greets, eyes staying on Steve. ‘You’re late back on ‘Poltergeist.’

Eddie laughs, big and delighted. ‘Hey Buckley.’ He says. ‘Looking for your boy?’ but as he said that he’s gone back to the same position, still leaning on his hands, still looking right at Steve. 

Steve feels his cheeks heat. 

‘Ugh, not my boy. You are definitely not getting out your late fee for that.’ And she shoves him out of the way to get to Steve and grab his hand. ‘They want me to play beer pong, you’re on my team.’ And she’s pulling him up and away. 

Steve cranes his neck back to give Eddie a little wave goodbye but he’s pushing off the banister, he’s following. 

He walks slow, lazy, almost sauntering. Looking right at Steve still, with that little smirk. He knows. He knows. Steve feels the eucharist on his tongue. ‘What?’ Eddie asks, innocent but his smile isn’t. ‘I wanna watch.’ And Steve just squeezes Robins hand tighter, lets her pull him into the kitchen. 

11:45 January 3rd: Kitchen

People cheer as Steve neatly sinks the ping pong ball into the final cup, Robin nearly jumping onto his back she’s so exited. The first couple games with Robin and some of her random band friends really weren't great, he drank a few times, helped Robin get through her shares, they barely won. But by the third game he basically played alone and won pretty easily. The crowd seem entertained, cheering for him and random people kept patting him on the shoulder. it’s weird, a little stale on his skin to be congratulated like that, over something like this again. But he’ll be that guy again for one night, if just to make Robin smile. 

He downs a cup someone offers him in celebration. Accepting a couple high fives from Robins band friends. Tries to not be weird, to not show how the praise makes him itch. 

Steve lifts his wrist up to wipe at his mouth. His eyes drawn to the far side of the room. Eddie is leaning against the wall, black jacket against stark white. He claps slowly once, twice, his eyes shining with something. Like Steve is something funny, something interesting. 

Steve’s hands and feet tingle, his lips a little numb. Feels warm. Doesn't think about churches or blood or monsters. Just lifts his eyebrows, sucks some of the sticky beer from the pad of his thumb, and winks. 

Eddie rolls his eyes and rolls off the wall, disappearing into another room. 

But Steve saw his smile. 

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part 2 | ao3

written for Lex’s Spicy Six Winter Challenge! run by @thefreakandthehair and using the prompt: 'spiked eggnog'. ty for putting this on always!! sorry im posting on the last day again lol xoxo

title from 'stick season' by noah kahan (edited slightly to fit better)

@pearynice and @xxfiction-is-my-realityxx ty for the kind words and guidance getting me unstuck with this fic <3 its alive now

lmk if you would like a tag for part two :)

[thefreakandthehair]

Selfish as he may want to be, and as badly as he wants Steve there with him, he can’t stomach the idea of Steve pushing through just because he feels he has to. Sure, Eddie might not be the best at making friends, and maybe this isn’t just friendship on Eddie’s end anyways, but whatever it is, he doesn’t want Steve to be uncomfortable. It’s a cardinal rule, really.

He’s halfway through his thought spiral when Steve wiggles his fingers a few inches across the countertop, landing on top of Eddie’s right hand and gently clasping around Eddie’s fingers. Squeezing, just twice, just enough for Eddie to know it has to be intentional. The pad of Steve’s thumb is a bit calloused against the inside of Eddie’s pinky, probably rough from all of the hand washing at work, but the way Steve touches is so achingly tender. He can’t even imagine what the rest of his touches might feel like.

Eddie’s eyes flicker from their connected hands to Steve’s face, still looking down, and back again before Steve responds.

“Coming here to hang out with you and eat pie filling is all that got me through the day. Being here helps. You help.”

When Eddie was younger, Wayne used to call him a great little helper when he’d fix something around their trailer, or hold the flashlight just right beneath the hood of a car Wayne was fixing for a neighbor. He’d done something concrete, done a task, and felt helpful. But sitting here in the diner with Steve’s fingers wrapped around his own, nothing he’s done is a tangible help. All he’s done is exist in the same space with Steve and Eddie’s never felt like his presence is soothing. Always too much, too big, too loud.

He doesn’t know what to do with Steve wanting to be with him, or with their hands clasped together, so he just stays the course.

“Well, shit. Good. That’s, yeah. That’s good to know. Ready to test some cherries?”

read the rest of what's mine is yours (to leave or take) here on ao3!

@tboyeddie I'm so so so sorry this is like, a solid week late but COVID got me and ate an entire week of my life. I hope you enjoy!! 🎄✨

[undreaming-fanfiction]

For A Handful of Bandaids

This is my entry for SpicySixWinterFanworksChallenge organized by the lovely @thefreakandthehair.

“Hey Steve, do you know where we’ve got some bandaids?”

In hindsight, Eddie should have known that a simple question like that would never prompt a simple response from his boyfriend. Steve was many things - brave, loyal, a great cook, wonderful in bed, but most of all - he tool Eddie’s well-being very seriously. He was a raging bull whose red flag was anything related to health, injury, sickness or danger, no matter how small.

Well. Not really raging. More like anxious, caring and always ready to whip out half of a pharmacy.

So of course, the answer wasn’t “they’re in the second drawer,” nope.

Instead, Steve stood up, grabbed Eddie by his shoulders and started checking him for injuries. “Eddie, are you hurt? Did someone in town attack you again? Shit, I thought things’ve calmed down, did you recognize them?”

It would have been hilarious if Eddie hadn’t hated making Steve worried.

He reached for Steve’s hands, still on his shoulders, and put on his most persuasive voice. “Steve, baby, I swear I’m fine! No attacks, no black eyes, no broken bones. I’m completely fine!” He even grabbed his collar and moved it to the side so Steve could check. “See? No strangulation marks. Uh...no new strangulation marks, post-bat.”

Steve seemed to be calming down, good. Fantastic. “So...” he said slowly, “...you don’t need them for yourself? Did one one of the kids get hurt? Wayne?”

Eddie really wanted to punch himself in the face now. Why hadn’t he spent those five extra minutes looking for the bandaids himself?!

“No. Look, Steve. I need them for myself, but for something small. Something very very VERY tiny. I just made a not-so-ideal decision and now I want to treat the consequences.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed and his stare traveled directly into Eddie’s soul. “Eddie. What. Did. You. Do?”

“...I think it would be easier to show you.”

---

In another hindsight, it would have been easier to tell Steve. If Eddie thought seeing the crime scene would calm his boyfriend down, he was dead wrong.

Steve’s eyes traveled over the destruction. Eddie’s books, neatly arranged on bookshelves that morning, were now lying everywhere. The books from the bookcase didn’t fare any better - except the bookcase was now lying on them, over their bed. Speaking of the bed, the plant that they saved from a local dumpster and nurtured back to health? That plant was now depotted over Eddie’s pillow.

He sucked in a breath through his front teeth. “Did someone break in?”

Eddie shook his head so fast his hair became a tangled mess. “No. Nono. Steve. No one invaded our wonderful home. No one damaged our property. I mean, someone did, but it was...very much deserved.”

“Eddie. Explain. Now.”

“Oh yeah. Sure. Will do. Um...how long a version do you want?”

“Concise.”

“Right. In short - Ozzy did this.” Noticing Steve’s disbelieving stare, Eddie quickly added: “But I deserved it. Totally.”

Steve sat down onto the single clean and empty spot on their bed. “Are you telling me that our cat knocked over a full bookcase?”

Eddie had the decency to look guilty. “Oh no, that was me.”

“I take back the “concise” request. Tell me everything. Step by step.”

“Right.” Eddie’s eyes darted between each aspect of the crime scene, trying to put together a reasonable explanation. “So. I was sitting on the bed with Ozzy. He didn’t like something I did and decided to run away, but I was...sort of connected to him.”

“Sort of connected...?”

Eddie waved his hand. “I’ll explain. But as he was escaping, I had to go after him, because you know...connected. And he really didn’t like that. So he jumped up that bookcase and we were still-”

“-connected?” Steve didn’t seem to understand or believe any of it, but he was certainly entertained.

“Yep. So I tried to climb the bookcase and get him down.”

Steve’s palm connected with his forehead with a resounding slap. “Eddie. Do you know how physics work?”

Snorting, Eddie shook his head. “Of course I don’t, Steve. Failed high school twice, remember? But I also know your grades and because of that I dare to say - neither do you. Not that physics would have gotten Ozzy down.”

“That part is true.” Steve was grinning back at him, imagining the chaos. “So, you climbed the bookcase and it fell on you. What next?”

Eddie pointed at the sad remains of Steve’s plant. “I knew how much you love that plant, so I decided to save it. Since it was on that bookshelf. I heroically leapt from the bookcase and towards the plant, but I have miscalculated my daring rescue.”

Steve’s eyebrows did that adorable confused scrunch. “You what?”

“I jumped too fast and it fell on my head.”

“Oh.”

Eddie nodded, touching a sore spot on his nape. “Yeah. And my head gave it that extra bounce to land on the pillow. Wrong side up, I’m afraid.”

Steve reached out to the plant and picked it up, examining its leaves. “I think she’ll live. She’s a strong girl. Continue.”

“Not much more to tell,” Eddie shrugged. “Ozzy used the commotion to disconnect himself from me and darted outside. I got soil out of my hair and went to ask you for bandaids.

Steve was stroking the plant’s leaves, checking for damage. “The one thing I don’t understand is this. How didn’t I hear it happening?”

“Oh, it was much faster than it sounds. And I believe you were washing the dishes.”

“That explains it,” Steve nodded and set the plant into its miraculously unharmed flower pot. “One more question then. How were you connected?”

Eddie started chewing on his hair and looking at the ground instead of Steve. “You know...it’s almost Christmas, right?” he asked in a quiet voice. “And you love Christmas. Everyone knows you love Christmas, so...”

“Eddie. How were you connected?” he repeated slowly, carefully.

He smiled sheepishly, pulling something colorful from his pocket. “Do you know how they say that fate connects you with a red string? Something like that. The rest shall be revealed when we find Ozzy. I think he’s hiding under the sink again.”

Steve stood up and sighed the deepest sigh Eddie had heard in ages. “I have no clue where this is going,”

---

Ozzy was, as Eddie had predicted, hiding under the sink. He was hiding really well, 10/10 would not find the cat, except for the red wool that led from the corridor directly to the bathroom. And when they finally got the unhappy cat out with promises of treats and even more treats, Steve finally saw it and laughed.

“Really, this is what you did?” he asked and reached out to free Ozzy.

Despite his prompt escape, Ozzy still bore wounds from his brave fight against Eddie. Except those weren’t wounds, it was a half-unraveled red Christmas sweater. Steve thought he recognized Claudia Henderson’s work. No matter who knitted it, Ozzy obviously hated the idea.

Eddie was, just like the sweater, bright red. “See, it was nearly finished and I promised to try it on him, just to see if it fits. And when he decided he didn’t like it, which was pretty much immediately, I think one of the loose threads got caught on my rings. So...yeah.”

 Steve pulled him into a kiss and scratched Ozzy’s back, now free from the wooly prison.

“You really thought you could get that sweater on our cat? You’re adorable. I’ll get those bandaids.”

[starryeyedjanai]

All things end and all things change.

Steddie | 23k | Explicit | Read on ao3

written for @patchworkgargoyle for the server gift exchange! 🥰 this is also a fill for @thefreakandthehair's winter challenge

Summary: 

When Eddie took over Robin's room, Steve made a promise to himself that he wouldn't scare Eddie off, that he wouldn't do anything to let him know that he’s still carrying a torch for him this many years later—because Steve feels like Eddie had to have known in college.

He had to have seen it every time Steve looked at him for a beat too long, every time he looked to Eddie first when told a joke, every time he wore his feelings so loudly because he’s never had to reign them in before.

And now he’s doomed to spend more than a week letting Eddie show him glimpses of his life that he’s never seen before, parts of him that he’s kept to himself up until now.

Steve feels like the more he gets to know Eddie, the more ingrained these feelings for him become.

But, you know, other than all of that, what could possibly go wrong?

Or, Steve was planning to spend the holidays alone, but there's no way Eddie's going to let that happen.

-

excerpt under the cut!

“Hey, are you going to be in town for New Year’s Eve?” Eddie asks as Steve walks out of his room, bleary eyed and barely awake. “I told you I’m visiting my uncle Wayne for Christmas, but I can be back in time for New Year’s Eve if you’ll be here.”

“I’ll, uh, I’ll be here,” Steve says, his voice still scratchy from sleep.

“What are your plans for Christmas now that Birdie’s gone home with Chrissy?” Eddie asks, dropping the curious act and getting to what he really wants to know.

It’s too early for this.

Eddie knows he has less of a filter when he’s just woken up, so this is a targeted attack.

He’s been avoiding answering the question when Eddie’s asked what his plans were before, but Christmas is in a few days and it looks like his hemming and hawing around an answer—‘I might go with Robin and Chrissy,’ and ‘I’m not sure yet’—won't suffice anymore.

Robin left yesterday with Chrissy to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve with her family, her first time taking Chrissy home to her parents, and Steve obviously didn't go with them.

He hums and takes the cup of coffee Eddie pushes into his hands when he takes a seat at their kitchen table. He takes a sip, trying to formulate a way to not say outright that he’s staying here alone.

He shrugs his shoulders and says, "I’m not doing much. I’ll be in town for New Year’s Eve though,” because his brain is still mostly offline and he’s hoping Eddie will leave it alone. (He knows that he won't, but it’s a nice thought.)

Eddie asks, “How are you getting to your parents’ place? Or are they coming to town?”

Eddie knows Steve isn’t super close with his parents just like he knows that he hasn't spent Christmas with them since he graduated college—he and Robin have spent it together since she and her parents aren't big on Christmas as a whole.

They did visit Robin’s parents the first year after college and spent the holidays there, but since then, they’ve just had Christmases at their apartment, getting each other a couple gag gifts and a couple real ones and opening them in front of their comically small Christmas tree. The only reason they aren't spending it together this year is because Robin’s parents want to finally meet Chrissy.

He gulps down more coffee before saying, “I’m not going to Hawkins.”

“Steve, work with me here. Are you or are you not spending Christmas with your parents?” Eddie asks, leaving no room for ambiguity or ‘misinterpretations’ of his question.

So he just sighs and comes clean.

“My parents are in France for Christmas, so I’m just hanging out here for the holidays,” he says, not looking Eddie in the eyes. His parents did invite him to come along, but his passport is expired and he didn't want to stress about getting it renewed in time for the trip.

“Hanging out here alone?” Eddie asks.

Steve nods, still not looking at him, fiddling with the handle of his coffee mug.

“And how’d you get Robin to leave without you?” Eddie asks, suspicion in his voice.

“What do you mean?” Steve asks, playing dumb.

“I mean there’s no fucking way she’d let you spend the holidays alone, first Christmas taking her girlfriend home or not. So what did you tell her you were doing for the holidays?”

Steve sighs, so worn out all of a sudden. He wishes they weren't having this conversation at 8 in the morning—well, he wishes they weren't having it at all, wishes Eddie’s ADHD would have let him forget to ask what his plans were before he left for his uncle’s place.

“I may have said I was spending the holidays with you,” he says sheepishly, finally looking up at Eddie.

Eddie levels him an unimpressed look and then, in an even voice, he says, “Okay. So you’re coming home with me.”

“No,” Steve says. “No. I swear I’ll be fine. It’ll be nice even. Relaxing, having some time to myself.” It sounds weak even to his own ears, so he’s not surprised when Eddie doesn't let up.

“Uh huh, sure. You come sit by me when I’m doing my virtual D&D sessions even though you don’t play because you hate being alone for that many hours, but you want me to believe you’ll be alright being alone for more than a week over the holidays?”

God, it's so not fair bringing up how needy Steve is right now. Steve only pretty recently realized how codependent he and Robin were. They spent almost all of their free time together before she started dating Chrissy and when she moved in with Chrissy and Eddie took her bedroom in their apartment, he had to actively stop himself from monopolizing all of Eddie's time because he doesn't deal well with being alone.

He keeps finding himself almost meandering into Eddie’s room first thing in the morning because spending any amount of time without someone’s voice filling his ears is unbearable to him. Even just having someone in his presence, even if they weren't talking, is better than being alone.

He tries to save face by saying, “I swear I’m fine being alone—“

“Nope, you’re coming home with me,” Eddie says, cutting Steve off, his voice final. “It’ll be a tight squeeze since my uncle’s place is pretty small, but he’ll be glad to have someone to talk sports with, so—you’re coming.”

And this is why Steve has been trying to avoid this conversation so hard for weeks now, skirting around the truth with half-answers and changing the subject because he knew Eddie wasn't going to drop it once he knew.

He really has no choice but to accept or else Eddie won't shut up about it. Or worse, he’ll tell Robin and she’s definitely not going to drop it. And she’ll be disappointed that he lied and she’ll make him drive to her parents’ house and threaten to come get him if he refuses and it’ll spoil her Christmas with Chrissy and her parents. And he doesn't want that, obviously.

This is the first time Robin’s been serious about someone and all he wants is for her to spend her Christmas in love and happy and not worrying about him.

So he says, “Fine. Fine, I’ll go home with you.”

As much as he doesn't want to insert himself into someone else’s holiday plans, he doubly doesn't want to ruin Robin’s Christmas.

“Great. We leave tomorrow afternoon.”

The triumphant smile on Eddie’s face doesn't lessen the growing guilt and unease in stomach.

He really was going to be fine, spending the holidays alone. It would have been quiet and he would have hated every second of the silence, but he could have handled it.

His parents were never super into the Christmas spirit part of Christmas anyway. They never had traditions or decorated the house or anything. Growing up, Christmas was mostly about the gifts—not that he was complaining. He always had the newest toys or video game consoles, so for the most part, he was happy enough to skip the rest of it.

It was only when he was dating Nancy and saw how her family gathered for the holidays and spent time together that he realized that his Christmases were always kind of lonely even when his parents were around.

So after college, when he and Robin moved in together, they started to make their own traditions for the holidays, decorating their apartment and wearing matching pajamas and FaceTiming Robin’s parents on Christmas morning.

This would have been the first Christmas since he started having actual Christmas traditions that he’d be spending it alone. So yeah, it would have sucked, but it would have been worth it if it meant Robin got to have her Hallmark Christmas movie moment.

And now he’s apparently going to the Munson’s for Christmas.

At least now Robin won't actually kill him when she gets back and finds out what he did for the holidays.

read the rest on ao3

[fuctacles]

in love and war

For Spicy Six Winter Challenge hosted by @thefreakandthehair

T | 2203 | inspired by that one episode of The Office | friends to enemies to lovers, idiot4idiot, questionable courting methods aka pulling pigtails, feelings realization | part 2 | part 3

“I fucking hate him,” Steve seethes into the phone, sniffling loudly right after.

Robin makes a disgusted noise.

“Not right in my ear! Use a tissue!”

“Don't have any,” he murmurs, using his sleeve instead.

“Need me to make a grocery run for you? Get some chicken soup while I’m at it?” She’s joking, but there’s a hint of “I'll do it if you need it” in her voice.

“I’m fine,” he insists. “Just a bit cold.”

“I think you should just tell him he’s going too far-”

“No,” he interrupts her. “I want my revenge. This is war now.”

Robin sighs into the receiver the last breath of hope that her best friend will act like an adult.

“Okay. What’s the plan, Captain?”

He winces.

“Scoops flashbacks, pick a different code name.”

She hums in thought but comes up with an alternative suspiciously fast. 

“What's the plan, Batman?”

“What?”

“Because of the bat?”

“That’s stupid.” He searches his brain for the matching nerd trivia. “And that of course, would make you Robin?”

“Precisely!”

He can imagine her grin and it’s hard to be annoyed at that. He scoffs nevertheless. On principle.

“We’re planning revenge on Joker or what?”

“Fine.”

It started like all wars do. With a lover's quarrel. At least that’s how Robin will tell the story at their wedding, but that's over a decade ahead. Now, here, it starts with a snowball. 

“Hey!”

Steve swerves around to look for the culprit but while there’s none in sight, he spots a familiar van, standing nearby. His eyes narrow and he reaches down to scoop some snow.

“I know it’s you, Eddie! Show yourself!”

Silence. He keeps his eyes peeled while slowly moving to the side. The snow crunches under his foot and something black shifts near the front of the van. He throws.

The black something yelps.

“Score!” Steve cheers. 

But just a second later he’s plowed with a flurry of snow. 

“Munson!” he growls, hiding his face and ducking as fast as he can behind his car. There’s no aim or finesse to Eddie’s throws, he’s going for the pure quantity of them, meaning must have been making snowballs since he left the store about an hour ago. Steve has no chance.

The balls are sturdy and precisely formed, he can feel their impact on his back. Can hear them thudding against his car.

“You’ll be paying for the lacquer job!” he yells and the shooting stops. Figuring it’ll give him a second to arm up he starts scooping snow and forming balls. He’s at a disadvantage again, his car is parked in a mostly shoveled parking lot. Unlike Eddie’s, standing on the curb where the snow has been piled up. 

Switching to the offensive would be his best move probably. 

Or he could get in his car and leave. But where’s the fun in that?

He holds a ball ready and peeks out. A snow projectile wheezes right above his head while he nearly takes Eddie’s hat off.

“Nice aim, Munson!”

“Fuck you, jock!”

Steve cackles in delight and for a moment they exchange more throws like that. 

“You chickening out?”

“Never!”

“Out of ammo, huh?”

“You fucking wish!”

He was, though, running out of snow. It was time to attack.

He throws a couple more balls by the front of the car while shuffling to the back.

“That's all you’ve got?!”

He doesn’t answer not to compromise his position. And then, he runs.

Eddie has a ball in hand when he spots him but is too stunned to aim properly. He screams and turns around to flee, but his long legs aren’t going to save him, because Steve isn’t here to chase him.

Instead, he jumps.

They both land in a pile of snow.

“Steve, no! No, no, no!”

“You started it!” he reminds him, shoveling snow down his jacket while he screams.

“Steeeeeeeeeve!”

He thought that was all, but it turned out it was just the beginning.

A furious Henderson walked into the store the next day.

“Eddie is sneezing,” he says like it was Steve’s fault somehow. He raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, and?”

“And, if he’s sick he won’t be able to DM and we’re this close to the big bad!”

“Okay, still-”

“And it’s your fault!”

“Yeah, no-”

“Steve.” Dustin pushes himself up on the counter, his feet dangling just to get right into Steve’s face. “You put a finger on my DM and you’ll perish.”

Steve bops him on the forehead. It makes him lose his balance and stumble back on his feet.

“Sure munchkin, I’m quaking in my boots.”

“I’ll make sure mom never makes a chocolate cake for you,” he threatens with a venom no high schooler should be capable of. 

“Is this really about yesterday?” Robin peeks out of the horror aisle. 

“Yes!”

“Apparently.”

“You guys are ridiculous,” she comments and goes back behind the shelves. Which reminds Steve he’s at work and this is, in fact, ridiculous.

“Listen, I’m not touching Eddie. He started it, first of all, and it got a bit out of hand. It’s not like we’re holding snow fights every day,” he waves his hand dismissively.

Dustin squints at him.

“You better not be.”

“No worries, I’m not a child. I have better stuff to do.”

“Uh-huh.”

Steve frowns at his tone.

“Hey, what is that supposed to-”

But Dustin already turned around, off towards the fantasy section.

“Dustin!”

“You’ve raised him well.”

“Shit!” Steve jumped up when Robin appeared next to him. “Warn a guy, jeez.”

“Yeah, no,” she smiles sweetly at him. “Get back to work, since you’re not a child.”

He huffs.

When they close the store a couple of hours later, he realizes he hadn’t taken the other variable into account. Eddie was a child and had nothing better to do.

Moreso, he found back up.

Turns out Max and Lucas were much better shots than him, moving the scales in their favor.

That is until a fire lit up in Robin's eyes and she started throwing snowballs with an alarming accuracy.

“Where did that come from?” he marvels at her with wide eyes. 

“You’re looking at a five-year family champion in snow fights. Twas the only way I could be violent against my gross cousins,” she explains, laser-focused on the ginger strands peeking from behind the van. 

He laughs, mostly providing her with ammo while she does the shooting.

“Why are you encouraging this?!”

Robin was the one on the receiving end of Dustin’s wrath this time. Steve watched it with amused anticipation, but all she did was shrug.

“I just got caught in the crossfire. Don’t involve me in this.”

And then she disappeared in the back.

“Steve!”

Steve sighs. 

“What did I say?!”

“Not to touch your DM? Which I didn’t. He’s the one who brought reinforcements!”

“You must have done something! Eddie doesn’t just start shit!”

Steve scoffs.

“Well, clearly you don’t know your friend so well, then. Because he sure fucking does and he sure fucking did.”

“He sure fucking didn’t!”

“Language!”

And so, Dustin storms out. A moody teenager shouldn’t be getting to him as much as he is, but he does and Steve’s in a foul mood now. 

Robin, bless her heart, stays an extra hour to close up with him again. They both steal glances through the shop’s windows, in search of any anomalies. The coast seems clear.

“Maybe he parked in the back?”

“That wouldn’t make sense.”

They were standing, eyes glued to the glass, keys ready. 

“Well, this whole thing doesn’t make sense.”

Robin nods to that and pushes the door.

There is no ambush. They walk briskly to Steve’s car, and no snowballs swish by. The doors close behind them, wrapping them in metallic safety.

“Steve.”

“Right.”

He shakes out of his stupor and starts the ignition. He drives Robin home and nobody follows. Slowly, he relaxes.

“Hope that’s the end of it.” Robin squeezes his shoulder before leaving. “Take a hot bath, call it an early night. You’re tense like it’s another apocalypse.”

He shoots her a glare.

“Don’t joke like that. Jesus Christ, Robin!”

She waves her hand.

“I’m just saying! You’re stressing over nothing!”

She was right, of course. He sighed.

“I guess. It’s all Dustin’s fault, it’s like he knows exactly how to piss me off.”

Robin rolls her eyes and he doesn’t need to hear how stupid it is to get involved in a high-schooler's drama. He knows.

He drives home with the radio turned down, already winding down from a long day at work. There’s some leftover soup in the fridge and he can whip himself a quick grilled cheese. Maybe he’ll open a beer and watch a sitcom before falling asleep.

Damn, he feels old.

Calmness settles over him with the sound of his tires switching from asphalt to the short driveway to his house. He steps out of the car, noticing the new layer of snow under his shoes. Makes a mental note to shovel it the next day. When he turns around he sees a snowman in his front yard and he frowns at it. When did that happen?

“Duck!”

He does so instinctively, monster-fighting reflexes kicking in. A snowball falls apart against his car’s window.

“It’s a trap!” 

Someone answers to that with a battle cry and all hell breaks loose.

Hands are pulling him behind the car as he watches the snowman fall apart, revealing a red-nosed Eddie. He’s too stunned to react and lets himself be moved around until he’s crouching next to rosy-cheeked Lucas. 

“Changing teams?” He raises eyebrows at him. 

“Well, last time I only joined for Max. Now I think Eddie’s going overboard.”

“No shit,” Steve scoffs. They form snowballs while talking.

“He’s got Mike and Will on his side.”

“Will?”

“He goes where Mike goes.” Lucas shrugs.

“Well, we can take them.” Between his and Lucas’ skills, the nerds stood no chance. He sighs. “I just wanted a nice night in. Maybe I could make a break for it…?” He can’t even see his front door from here.

��I could distract them when they run out of ammo,” Lucas offers.

“You’re a godsend.”

Eddie seems to be possessed. The snowman hid his stash of snowballs, which he now throws without thought. 

“Show yourself, jocks! There’s a traitor in your midst that I’d want a word with!”

Lucas rolls his eyes before jumping up and hitting Eddie square in the chest. 

“Where’s the other two?” he frowns, gathering snow again.

Steve takes a cautious look around just in time to see one of the snow-capped bushes move. He barely ducks from a projectile Mike throws. 

This feels like a proper ambush, the two of them hiding behind a car while the other three close in. Eddie has abandoned his snowman post, his probably-last snowballs carried in his arm while he swings with the other one. 

“I think we should make a run for it,” Steve whispers, trying to hit Eddie while he zig zags out of the way. Thankfully losing some ammunition in the process.

“We’re sticking to the plan. When I tell you, run to your door, I’ll run to my house. It’s not far from here anyway.”

Steve nods, somehow used to listening to plans made by his younger friends.

They keep throwing, looking for the right opportunity, when something happens on the other front.

“Will!”

Mike stands in shock, mouth gaping, as he turns to his best friend. Will giggles mischievously, taking a step back.

“Mutiny! Get him!”

“Now!”

They start running. Will from Mike, Mike after him. Steve to the door. Eddie drops his ammo to cut his way and Lucas scrambles to attack him but he’s unfazed. Before the boy realizes the snowballs don’t bother him because he’s solely focused on Steve, it’s too late.

Eddie grapples Steve, they flop over a bush and roll in the snow.

“Ha! How the turns have tabled!”

“I think it’s-” but he doesn’t get to finish before he’s hit with an avalanche of snow. “What the fuck, Eddie?!”

“You took one of mine and now you have to pay!” the man on top of him declares, holding him in the snow. His cheeks are red and his nose is running but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“If you get any snot on me I’ll fucking-!”

Lucas runs into them, trying to get Eddie off of him but it only makes him cling to Steve and roll them away in the snow.

“Eddie!!!”

They shovel snow at each other until Lucas manages to get a hold of Eddie and Steve scrambles to make a run to his house.

His shivering hands lock the door and he looks through the window. Eddie seems to have given up his pursuit and is giving Lucas a noogie. When he lets go he’s motioning to his van, probably offering him a ride home. He’s even weirder than Steve thought and he just can’t get a read on the guy.

As they are walking away, Eddie turns and spots Steve in the window. Covered in snow and red-faced, he grins brightly and waves at him. 

Steve shows him the finger. 

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

it's finally here! one month late, and a couple thousand words more than i thought it'd be! happy leap yeap!

Here's my entry for Lex's (@thefreakandthehair) Spicy Six Winter Fanworks Challenge! I had dialogue prompt #22 "Guess we’re the only two without dates, huh?”

pairing: steddie | word count: 10,446 | rated: E | on AO3: hey you really turn me on

Why in the hell did he agree to this? It’s 20 fuckin’ degrees out and he’s outside?? In the snow?? Voluntarily?

If the boys could see him now.. “Who are you and what’ve you done with Eddie?”, “Since when do you do shit outside?”, “All this for Steve fuckin’ Harrington…”.

And that’s the rub, it is because of Steve. Hopeless crush aside, Steve is the reason he’s there. Why they’re all there in the first place.

When Steve got the call, Eddie and the other older teens of their world-saving group were just hanging out; movies, beer, snacks, a little weed, music playing low…all in all, a great kick-back. 

Then the phone rang.

It was relatively late too, 10 maybe?

Steve went to answer it of course, the conversation muffled through the living room and kitchen walls, but after a minute or so he came back. The long phone line stretched across the hall back to the hook in the kitchen.

“When is this again?” Steve says into the receiver, waving towards the sound system. Robin had scrambled up immediately, nearly falling back on her face to turn the volume down.

“Uh huh. And you and Dad won’t be there? Mm hmm.” he nods.

Eddie looked over to Robin first, eyebrow raised. She only shrugged, as does Nancy when he turned the look to her.

“And how many rooms?” Whatever the answer is causes Steve’s brows to shoot up. “Wow, okay, yeah we–” 

Eddie was closest to him, previously starfished out on the carpet, but had sat up and leaned back on his palms when Steve returned, so he could just barely hear the sound of another voice on the other end of the line.

“Yeah of course, that’d be great, we definitely will. Thanks Mom.”

Steve had sounded actually…happy to be talking to his mom. And here Eddie thought the Harringtons were objectively the worst.

“No, they’re going to love it, Mom, I promise.” another pause, “Nope. They’ll all be on their best behavior.” Steve glances down at Eddie, “We all will be.”

He scoffs up at Steve from his spot on the floor. Rude.

Steve only waves him off with a smile, “Yeah, the usual.” he says, “Rob, Nance, Jon, Jon’s friend Argyle–yeah, he’s the one from California, and Eddie.” Steve’s eyes flash down to Eddie again and his stomach twists sharply. Aw fuck, here it comes; the scolding, the yelling, the berating about how Eddie’s no good for him to be associating with, why are you stooping to his level, he’s a murderer, yadda yadda yadda.

“Yeah, he and Wayne are doin’ much better now, I’ll have to tell you about it next time, okay?” 

Uh.

What?

“Yeah, that’d be great if you don’t mind! Yep, Wheeler, Henderson, Sinclair,” He looks again at the other people in the room, they’re still just as puzzled as he is. What do the kids have to do with this? “I’ll talk to Hopper and Joyce, and I’m sure Ms. Mayfield would let Max go. Oh absolutely,”

Steve starts back into the kitchen, and Eddie can hear him all the way back to the hook. “No–Nope, it’s fine, I actually have a couple people over right now so I want to–yeah. Yep. Okay, love you too. Bye mom.”

Eddie looks around at the others; Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, even Argyle, though he’s not looking around wide-eyed at what all just occurred like the others are.

Steve comes back into the living room. “So…” he lets out a long breath, “How do you all feel about skiing?”

-x-X-x-

So yeah. Here they all are, at some ski resort up in Michigan. Boyd Mountain…or Bowie? Something with a ‘B’.

Turns out, Steve’s parents had a four-room cabin rental set aside as a perk for some deal they were trying to barter. It fell through though, and they wouldn’t be back from Colorado themselves until after the reservation would’ve expired so they offered it to Steve and whoever he’d like to invite.

They took care of everything too; got lift passes, boot and ski rentals set aside for each of them, even sent a whole ass passenger van to be dropped off in the Harrington driveway for them to make the drive; A huge 15 passenger one that even with the three extra seats, still barely held all their crap for the long weekend.

All of them piled into the van in the dark on a Friday morning, sleepy-faced and crusty-eyed; Robin as Steve’s co-pilot, and each of the rest of the older teens and the party piling in wherever they could (they’d fight about their seats when they woke up more, Eddie was sure of it).

The first rest stop on the way up went by without incident, but by time they stopped for late breakfast/early lunch at another, everyone was stir crazy. Sandwiches were passed out, gas was gotten, bathroom breaks were taken, and almost as soon as they got back in the van, Robin was snoring.

“Damnit, if I knew she was gonna tank like that I would’ve had someone else sit up here.” Steve had groused. 

“I’ve gotcha big guy, I won’t let you fall asleep.” Eddie said, now seated next to Dustin and El on the first bench behind the driver’s seat.

“Yeah, me either.” Dustin agreed.

He was snoring an hour later, El leaning into him for her own nap.

“That’s cute.” Was the first thing Robin said after waking back up.

All in all, not a bad drive. The worst part was tramping through the snow to the cabin after they’d arrived.

“Goddammit Steve, How am I supposed to get through this week in only my jeans?”

Steve sighs, “Eddie, you have made the same argument ever since my mom called; and every time you did, I told you everything would be here for you.”

He finally gets the door open, shoving it wide for them all and gesturing them in, “Get comfy guys, I’m going to grab the cooler with our groceries.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Jonathan says, following Steve back out to the van.

The large open main floor has a full kitchen with a raised bar counter and four stools, tall peaked ceilings, a fireplace on one wall with two couches and a rocking chair situated around it, and a sliding glass door to a balcony off the back side of the building overlooking the trees below.

There’s stairs too, a set going up and a set going down, and at least one bathroom here on this floor, off the kitchen.

Eddie wanders into the living room, picks out some pieces of kindling from the bucket on the stone beside the fireplace and a couple logs from the stack nearby, and busies himself with starting the fire while the party pokes around the place.

He glances over his shoulder when he hears the fake leather of the couch cushions squeak together, only to see Argyle has perched himself on the backrest, squashing a cushion beneath his feet.

The fire takes less than no time at all, and once it’s going and he’s re-situated the trifold metal screen back in front of the fire, he sits down beside Argyle’s shins and is immediately entranced by the flames.

Steve and Jonathan return not long after, lugging their things with the cooler hanging between them.

“So how do y’guys want to split up the rooms?” Robin asks aloud, ignoring the yelling the other teens are already doing about the same thing.

“I’m not picky.” Eddie shrugs, standing up to stretch again, deciding he really did not want to be sitting anymore.

“Me either sister, whatever you decide is cool with me.” Argyle agrees. “What’re the rooms like?”

“There’s a master up here!” Max calls from above them, looming over the log railing at the top of the stairs with El.

“We walked right past it, but there’s a room with a queen off the front hall there,” Jonathan says, shuffling his bag against the kitchen bar.

“Hey! Assholes!” Steve yells down the steps, the boys must’ve gone down there. “Go get your shit out of the van and we’ll head over to the main lodge!”

The four thunder up the steps, how any of them can understand any other over the other is beyond him.

“Will,” Nancy calls as he rounds the stairs last, “There are bedrooms down there?”

“Yep!” he grins, “Two rooms with queen beds, and a bathroom.”

“I don’t mind taking one of the queens,” Nancy says, “Robin, wanna share with me?”

Robin starts to splutter, still somehow not convinced that Nancy’s got a thing for her. It’s obvious to him, but he and Steve have both tried to tell her this. To no avail. Even after Jonathan and her had confirmed they’d split and that he was moving back to California with Argyle come spring.

Steve rescues Robin from her spluttering. “It’s only fair that Argyle gets next dibs, since he’s the one that’s offered to cook for us.” he says, lugging the cooler over to the kitchen to unload it.

He’d insisted on picking up groceries for their stay, saying “There’s a restaurant, sure, but that’d get expensive quick and we’ll have a full kitchen so why not?”

“Appreciated my man; y’wanna bunk with me, Jonny?”

Eddie follows Steve, leaning on the bar across from the fridge from him, “So where’s all my snow gear, Stevie?” he asks the back of Steve’s head.

“Eddie, I swear to God.” Steve huffs in return, bending down into the cooler at his feet to fish out a couple of cartons of eggs.

Eddie does not watch how the denim of Steve’s jeans pulls tighter over any part of him, thank you very much.

“Mom called ahead and has everything we might need set aside in the main lodge, we’ll go there first before we hit the slopes.”

“Oh my god, did you really just say that?” Eddie asks as Steve stashes away two jars of jelly, one strawberry, one grape.

“Say what?” Bacon and some packs of lunch meat are next.

“Like, that’s an actual thing that people say? It’s not just in the movies?”

Steve sighs, finishing off the groceries with a couple 12 packs of pop stashed on the bottom shelf. “What is just like the movies?”

“‘Hit the slopes.’? Really?”

“You’re super annoying, you know that, right?” he says, closing the fridge and pushing the lid back onto their cooler.

“Awe, c’mon baby, you don’t mean that.” Eddie coos, slipping around the counter to cup Steve’s face in his hands, “What happened to the man who loves me for my antics, huh?”

“Get off me, dude,” Steve laughs, batting Eddie’s hands away, his cheeks tinged pink.

‘Yes! Success!’ When did he decide he was trying to fluster Steve? Eh, whatever. No harm, right?

 “So, did you guys figure out the sleeping situation?” Steve asks the rest of the group, walking back around the bar.

Eddie follows, leaning back on the counter in his previously vacated spot.

Nancy nods, “Jon and Argyle will take the room on the main floor, us girls will take the two downstairs, you can take the master, and the boys will take the couches.”

The boys return with their bags then, and Mike immediately starts complaining about being relegated to the fold-outs. Eddie also hears Dustin and Lucas trying to talk him down, saying things like “Dude, that means we’ll be close to the fire!”, “We can throw things in it!,” and “We can make s’mores!”.

Steve doesn’t seem to hear them though, otherwise he’d be shutting that shit down. Instead, his face only scrunches in confusion, “What about Eddie?”

Nancy looks surprised for a blink, then disgruntled, like she’s pissed she forgot someone.

“I’ll just crash out here on the floor with these losers, no worries.” he shrugs.

Steve turns toward his voice, a deep crease between his brows. “That’s not fair.”

“I promise I’ll survive Stevie,” Eddie chuckles. At least he’ll be the warmest out here in front of the fireplace. “I’ve slept on worse, believe it or not, I’ll be sleeping like a king compared to then.”

Steve’s brows scrunch almost all the way together, then spring apart and settle into determined lines. “You’ll sleep with me.” he says with a nod, his arms folding across his chest.

A beat passes.

Eddie can’t resist.

He leans close to Steve’s side, “A bit presumptuous, Stevie darling,”

Steve’s face practically glows with the flush that appears in the next beat, mumbling something to himself as he walks to the door and starts to pull on his coat and boots.

Eddie pushes off the counter and follows, obnoxiously holding a hand up to one ear. “What’s that, sweetheart?” he teases, walking to his own tossed-aside boots, “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“We going to the lodge now?” he hears Lucas ask as he passes.

“Finally.” Mike adds, unhelpfully.

Steve huffs, standing up again and leaning close to Eddie’s cupped hand, “As if you hadn’t thought about it, darling.”

Four of the other ten are in their coats and boots and out the door after Steve before Eddie comes back online.

-x-X-x-

So here he is: outside. In the snow. With skis strapped to his feet. All because of Steve and his surprisingly generous parents.

He watches, amused, as Robin stands as still as she possibly can, arms spread wide, while Nancy helps strap her into her skis. As soon as the skis had gotten remotely close to being attached to her, it was discovered that no matter what section of ground they may be standing on, Robin would start to drift away. Sliding down some sort of unseen incline backwards, frontwards, and/or sideways.

Jon and Argyle are already almost to the closest lift, and Eddie watches as they do a weird half-jump onto the bench as it comes up behind them.

The gremlins had scattered after Steve’s ‘be careful’ lecture, telling them all when to be back to the van by, or back to the cabin if they will be coming off the slopes near there, telling them all to be safe and to keep to pairs or more so they can be radioed.

They’d all brought their walkies with them, and Eddie can see where the boys are still huddled together, swapping out their batteries.

He watches them split off soon after, Dustin and Lucas pushing off to where Max and El are waiting at the standing lift to the top of the training hill.

Mike and Will scoot off together in the opposite direction, toward the centermost lift a few dozen yards away.

“Guess we’re the only two without dates, huh?” He says as Steve slides to a stop on his own skis beside him.

He’d meant it jokingly, was probably going to follow it up with some jabs about being Steve’s wingman if he needed (there were already a few ladies he’d seen giving Steve some looks while they waited for their gear in the main lodge), but Steve shrugs and says: “I’ll be your date this weekend, Eds. Wouldn’t want you to feel left out or anything.” 

Eddie whips his head around to look at him, “That’s not–” he starts, but cuts himself off at the look Steve is giving him. His goggles have been haphazardly pushed up his face, trapping a few loose locks of Steve’s hair between them and the roll of his beanie, his cheeks are already bitten red with the cold, and he’s smiling so painfully sincerely under that damn teasing smirk that all Eddie can do is acquiesce.

“You better be the best date here then, Stevie,” Eddie chides, starting off toward the lift Jonathan and Argyle had disappeared up, “I won’t settle for anyone other than the bes–” he pitches forward suddenly, one of his skis sticking to the snow under it more than it should’ve.

Steve catches him, of course, and says “Will I get points taken off as ‘Best Date Ever’ if I make you go on the training hill?”

They do go to the training hill, lovingly called the Bunny Hopper, but he and Robin are thankfully saved from the embarrassment of actually being taught by the volunteers there; Steve and Nancy taking them to the slightly taller ‘big kid’ hill and teaching them there.

Surprising even himself, Eddie picks up on the motions and the feeling of being on skis easily. The whole ‘pizza’ thing about stopping was still iffy but the rest is no problem. Fun, actually.

“That was great, man! You’re a natural!” Steve beams at him, his grin lopsided from the meat of his cheeks being squashed under his goggles.

“I just had a great teacher,” he brushes off the compliment, elbowing Steve playfully.

Steve somehow grins even bigger, and Eddie’s heart stammers.

“You ready to go to the real hill now?” “This isn’t a real hill?”

He’s positive Steve just rolled his eyes under his goggles. “C’mon smartass, let's get in line for the lift.”

Eddie bows him forward, “After you, sweetheart.” 

He follows Steve to the end of the line; thankfully it’s not too long, now that it’s late afternoon and will be getting dark soon. 

Steve seems to notice this as well, lifting his goggles off his face again. “We’ll have to call the gremlins back sooner than I thought. It’ll be dark soon.”

“Stop reading my mind, Stevie.”

Steve looks over at him, squinting hard and pursing his lips (Eddie’s stupid lizard brain has a split second thought of those lips pursed around something). “Ugh! Ew, gross Eddie, what would make you think about that?!”

He feels his face blanche and scrambles to recover. “I was only thinking about our good friend Robin, Steve-o, you saying Robin is gross?” He pitches his voice higher and glances down the line to where he can see Robin and Nancy.

Robin flips her mitten up at him, and he can infer the gesture just fine, thanks.

“Shut up, asshole.” Steve laughs, pushing him out of the line on his skis.

They’re the next to hop up on the moving bench, and Steve’s…everything…seems to seize up as soon as they’re seated and on their way.

“Could you imagine?”

“Hm?” He’s still looking down anxiously, so Eddie scoots just a bit closer, pressing what he hopes is comfortingly into Steve’s side.

“If we could read each other's minds? If the bats biting us both somehow linked us together?”

It works a little; Steve tears his eyes away from the ground as it drops away from them, huffing out a short laugh, “I don’t think I would survive inside your head, it’d be even more chaotic than you already are.”

“As if your head would be any better.”

“Hey, my head is great!”

Eddie grins wickedly, “You get told that a lot, Stevie?”

Steve seems unphased, smirking slowly. “I do, actually. Why? You tryin’ t’see if it’s true?”

His cheeks start to prickle, “You offering, big boy?”

“Maybe I am,” Steve shrugs then leans closer, “Now the real question is if you’re gonna take me up on it.”

Eddie’s head reels in the couple seconds he takes to respond.

Where in the hell is all this coming from? Is it just part of the ‘date’ thing? There’s no fuckin’ way Steve is actually into him, is there? He’s always been flirty, just like Eddie is himself, but there’s no way there are any actual feelings behind it… So there’s no harm in playing along.

“I’m gonna have to now, aren’t I?” he grins back, “Gotta see if it lives up to the hype.”

Steve smirks, his eyes hooded. He’s good at pretending, he’ll give him that.

His eyes glance away, then back to Eddie’s face. The sultry look he’d been hamming up for his sake is gone, just an easy smile remains. At least this sudden flirting Steve’s decided to do isn’t going to ruin their surprisingly solid post-apocalyptic friendship.

“It’s almost time to get off, ready?”

Eddie looks ahead to where the couple on the bench before them are hopping off. They stand up off the lift easily and don’t end up in a heap, but he is starting to feel the anxiety Steve was feeling only minutes ago. How’s he supposed to get out of the way fast enough, isn’t there a drop? That looked way too easy.

“As I’ll ever be,” he gulps.

“Give me your hand.” Steve says, not waiting for a response and snatching up Eddie’s hand in his, “Okay, when I say so, you just gotta stand up. Ready?”

“Stand up, what do you mea—” he feels his legs lift a bit as the ground rises to coast under his skis, and it makes sense.

“Now!”

Wait, no! He wasn’t ready!

He stands just a breath after Steve, but isn’t fast enough, the lift continues up on its path and catches him again, forcing his butt back into the seat.

“Eddie, you gotta–”

He tries again at the same time Steve pulls him forward and he pitches forward, landing with an “Oof–” on top of Steve and forcing the breath from the other man’s lungs.

“Aw fuck, sorry Stevie!” He rolls off of him and out of the path of the upcoming lift chairs. “That went exactly as well as I thought it would.”

Steve wheezes out a breathless laugh, standing back up on his skis with no problem at all. Wait, how did he do that? How’s he supposed to get up with these things on his feet?

“Here,” Steve arranges his skis for him, putting one long side of each onto the snow, “Give me your poles, and push yourself up with your hands. You want to get your feet under you.”

He does as he’s told and walks his weight around on his hands to the fronts of his skis until he’s bent forward at his hips, standing straight out of the bend.

“...Huh.”

“Good job, man!” Steve grins, handing him back his poles, “Getting up on skis can be a bitch and a half; way to catch on quick.”

Eddie grins mischievously, deciding to be a little shit. “I dunno, you’d think my date would like seeing me bent over for him, huh Stevie?”

Steve just rolls his eyes, snapping his goggles back down with a smile, “C’mon, asshole, let’s get out of the way; the run to the right of the lift looked shorter on the map.”

Thankfully, the chair behind them had been empty, but the next one had a full four people on it and it was coming up fast.

“‘Sides,” He says, pushing off toward the top of the run, waiting for Eddie to scoot in next to him at the crest before leaning in and murmuring low into his ear, “I’d rather wait ‘till we’re alone to bend you over properly.”

Steve’s a good 20 feet away by time Eddie comes back to himself enough to follow.

They get about an hour and a half in on the hills, a grand total of six wipeouts under Eddie’s belt, and a couple others under Steve’s, with one successful landing off one of the jumps on the main drag to finish off the day.

“Didja see that?!” Steve yells, pulling down the balaclava he’d unceremoniously added to his getup about an hour ago.

“Hell yes Stevie!” Eddie calls, breathless, still coasting to the bottom of the slope after him. “You landed it!”

“I landed it!” 

Steve holds his arms open as Eddie once again fails to slow himself down properly, and catches him at the bottom in a crushing hug. His cheeks are flushed with adrenaline, bitten with the cold, his eyes bright in the setting sun and smile nearly as beautiful.

Damn he’s pretty.

Courteous as ever, Steve waits until Eddie’s arranged his feet the right way again before letting him go to spin the pack off his back for their assigned walkie.

Steve radios the party, and everyone is packed away in their van a scant ten minutes later. The older teens had already made it back to the cabin, letting themselves in off a run near there, so it was only the similarly flushed and excitement-filled younger teens babbling away in the back seats.

There’s overlapping stories of their own wipeouts (including one Robin took that Max swears was hilarious), Dustin insisting he saw a brown bear through the trees at one point, and all six debating whether or not they’d want to go to the main lodge for the waterpark tomorrow instead of back onto the hills.

They are still debating amongst themselves when they pull into the driveway. “Alright dorks,” Steve calls over the bickering, “Go inside and hang up your shit next to the fireplace so it can dry out.”

Eddie follows the troop into the living room and watches them pile all their outerwear together on the two hooks closest to the stone fireplace, then tear off downstairs where he heard there may have been a Nintendo stashed in one of the bedroom dressers.

Jonathan and Robin start methodically re-arranging the coats and snow pants on the hooks so they’ll dry easier, while Argyle pushes up off one of the couches to start on dinner. 

“C’mon Eds, get comfy,” Steve says, coming up beside him and gesturing to the loveseat directly across from the roaring fire. Eddie can already feel the burn of it across his frigid skin, “I gotta make sure I get you unthawed before I get you into my bed.” Steve murmurs into Eddie’s ear.

And isn’t that a whole new type of torment. They will actually be sleeping in the same bed tonight…the next three nights!

Steve turns back to the kitchen when Eddie drops cross-legged onto the sofa, and the tingling feeling in his cheeks has nothing to do with the fire.

It’s half from Steve’s scarily earnest-sounding flirting, but also about half from the look Robin is giving him while she takes the spot next to Nancy on the other couch.

“What? What’s the look for?”

Robin shrugs, picking up what must’ve been her discarded book from the end table between them (which she’s got the already read half curled backward around its spine, like a heathen), “Nothin’ at all, Eds.”

His face is burning hotter than the fire by the time Steve returns.

He passes them each a mug of cocoa, then flops down on the floor in front of Eddie’s knees. 

“What’s cookin’ good lookin’?” Eddie asks, surprised at the nonchalance he was able to muster up. He reaches forward and tugs on a lock of Steve’s hair without even thinking about it (and ignoring the muffled giggle coming from somewhere to Robin’s left. Oh great, Nancy’s in on his torment too?).

Steve lets out a contented hum, dropping his head back to lie heavily in Eddie’s lap, “Argyle’s whipping up some burgers.”

Eddie leaves his fingers in Steve’s hair, absentmindedly pulling them through a few tangles left behind by his hat.

Steve’s head lolls around in Eddie’s lap with the motions of his fingers for a whole thirty seconds before he snaps it back up, “Oh–ugh–wait, don’t do that,” Eddie pulls his hand away immediately, an apology on his tongue, but Steve continues, standing up and saying, “I’m all gross and sweaty, man, at least let me take a shower first. Be right back.” Steve grins, and heads upstairs to the master bedroom.

Eddie blinks into the space left behind by Steve’s departure, then Nancy is standing as well; “That’s a good idea,” she says, unfolding from her spot at Robin’s side and walking around the back of the couch, “I’ll be back up soon.” She gives Robin’s shoulder a squeeze, and heads downstairs.

Not a full five seconds pass before Robin says, “So...Steve’s super into you.”

Eddie balks at her, his eyes darting around the room automatically. Jon’s helping Argyle chop up toppings for their burgers, the two of them paying less than zero attention to him or Robin, there’s a yell from downstairs followed by laughter, the sound of a shower starting from the open balcony to the upstairs bedroom..

“You can’t just say shit like that, Birdie.” he whispers, his tone harried.

“What, the truth?”

“He is not into me.”

She nods in sarcastic understanding, “Ah, so you’re into him.”

“No I’m—” she levels him with a look. He sighs, glancing around at the no one around them, “Okay fine, yes, I am super into him. But he is not into me.”

Robin shrugs, going back to her book. “You don’t have to believe me, but I think he is. And I think you should make a move.”

“Make a mo—He’s straight as fuck, Robin!”

She gives him a glance, her brow furrowing for a split second then smoothing out. “Did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to.” he says, sinking back against the cushions.

She doesn’t say anything else, and he goes back to staring at the fire.

“If you make a move on Steve, I’ll finally make a move on Nancy.” she says a handful of minutes later.

He processes that slowly, takes a deep breath, then shoves his hand towards her without looking over.

She takes it, giving it one hard shake.

As soon as he takes his hand back, Argyle lopes into view with a plate in his hand, “Food’s ready my dudes.” He says, sinking into the armchair closest to the glass balcony door.

Robin snaps her book shut and sets it down on the little end table between them (the cover curls back up immediately, the poor thing), standing up and heading into the kitchen. 

Eddie has just let his feet fall to the floor and has scooted to the edge of his seat to stand up himself, when Argyle yells out “Nice tits!”

“Whose tits are out?” Eddie asks, following his gaze automatically. 

Argyle goes back to his plate. “Steve’s.” 

Uh…Yeah…He can see that for himself now.

Steve is standing at the railing of the upper floor in nothing but a towel. One hand is flipping Argyle off, and the other is preoccupied with scrubbing a second towel over his damp hair.

The towel wrapped around him is slung low on his hips, and Eddie’s eyes start to roam on their own.

Steve’s stomach is solid yet soft-looking with all its faded pink scars, and it and his chest are still as hairy as Eddie remembers; strong shoulders, solid jaw, dusty lips that pull up into a smirk, all of him is so fucking perfect.

“Hurry it up, dingus, food’s ready!” Robin calls, startling Eddie out of his gawking.

His face goes hot with embarrassment, chancing another glance up to Steve and hoping he didn’t get caught…

Steve winks at him, then turns out of sight, disappearing just as his hand comes down to grab the towel twisted around him.

His face burns, and doesn’t stop burning until long after Steve returns from upstairs.

He makes up a burger for himself, and once each of them have theirs, they call the rest of the hoard upstairs. The six teens all but destroy the remaining burgers, two whole bags of chips, and would have gulped down at least one whole 12 pack of Coke if Nancy hadn’t relegated them to one can each.

Steve’s about to herd them back downstairs when El pipes up and says that they’ve decided they want to go to the waterpark in the main lodge tonight instead of tomorrow. Surprisingly, Steve agrees to drive them over there on the condition “you shitheads are careful, and are ready to go as soon as the pools close at midnight. Got it?”

“Agreed.” they say in unison, splitting off in all directions to grab their swim stuff.

“I’m surprised at you, Stevie, letting them go off on their own.”

He just shrugs, “There’s lifeguards.”

The troops are back in the living room within ten minutes, and in their boots and out the door in 12. 

Once they’re out the door, Robin goes back to her book, Jon and Argyle step out onto the balcony to smoke, and Eddie follows Nancy into the kitchen without even thinking about it, grabbing up the hand towel hanging from the oven door and placing himself to her right.

“Thanks,” she says, handing him the first wet plate from the mess of suds in the sink.

They work in silence for a few minutes, listening to the crackling of the fire, the clanging of silverware in the sink, the muffled voices of the two on the porch.

“Nancy?”

“Yeah, Eddie?”

“If I–If Ste–” he wasn’t sure how to ask this, how to even approach the topic, “Robin said—”

“He’d be lucky to have you Eddie, and you him.” She says, not looking up from the sink.

“How’d you–?”

“Robin tends to ramble when she's nervous, have you noticed?”

He stares down at her, dumbfounded. Her lips quirk into a smile. “She’s like that around me a lot, actually.”

“I’ve noticed.”

They fall back into silence again; on the last plate, she says, “Robin’s already had this conversation with Steve about me, so I only assume it’s fair that you have it with me about him.” She passes the last plate to him and pulls the drain from the water. 

“Just remember Eddie,” She pauses and turns to face him, one hip cocked over to lean on the edge of the counter. “If you’re gonna go for it..Steve loves with all of him at once. Don’t take it for granted.”

He sets the dried plate onto the rack beside the sink as she passes behind him, patting him on the shoulder as she does.

He wants to take a moment to process all that, but just his luck, Steve returns then, passing in behind him where Nancy just left to grab up a six-pack.

Steve hands one to Eddie as he leaves, “You okay, Eds?”

“I’m good, thanks Stevie.” he says, fixing his face into an easy smile.

The six of them lounge around the rest of the evening, slowly sipping on their drinks while they play cards in front of the fire, but there’s a catch: Eddie’s going absolutely insane.

Steve’s touching him everywhere. His thigh and foot are sitting comfortably under Eddie’s own thigh where it’s crossed above it, his arm is draped across the back of the couch behind Eddie’s shoulders and methodically twirling long lengths of dark hair between his fingers.

Eddie’s been doing his damndest to ignore it, and succeeds, actually, for short periods of time while they are playing Uno, but every time Steve leans back from dropping his next card on the coffee table, he casually puts his arm back where it was, and grabs up a new lock of Eddie’s hair to torture him with.

And each time he does, Robin gives him the same knowing look.

It’s. Agony.

He wants to relax, wants to scream, he wants to swing his leg over Steve’s lap and press him into the cushions with heated kisses, he wants to haul the other man upstairs and throw him onto the bed…be thrown onto the bed.

Finally, Nancy calls it, breaking their little bubble to stand into a long stretch around nine. Steve hops up off the couch after Robin to gather up all the rest of the cans, and Eddie helps Jon and Argyle pull apart the couches enough to fold out the beds for when the goblins come back.

He escapes upstairs after a short goodnight to the two, Robin and Steve are still bickering in hushed tones about something in the kitchen, and pulls out his bag. He’s fishing out a new pair of boxers when Steve finally gets upstairs, shutting the room’s double doors behind him and heading into the ensuite.

He left the door open in his wake, so Eddie grabs up the rest of his things and follows. He drops his pile of stuff onto the closed lid of the toilet and shucks his shirt unceremoniously, tossing it to the floor.

The glass door of the huge half-walled stone shower squeaks softly on its hinges when he opens it to start the water, squeaking again when it swings closed. He reaches up to a shelf above the toilet to pull down one of the provided towels, turning to hang it on the hook beside the shower.

It’s while he’s turning back to the hook that he chances a look at Steve.

Steve, frozen at the sink with his toothbrush hanging listlessly in the air and a glob of foamy toothpaste slowly drooping off his lip, is staring. 

Unabashedly.

At Eddie’s bare torso.

Eddie caught and cataloged this in the split second it took Steve to realize Eddie was staring back, but it was enough. 

The flirting had been one thing, a natural, goofy continuation of their friendship that led to their ‘date’ today, the soft touches and hair-playing had been another, something Eddie could explain away just as easily. Steve is a touchy guy once you get close to him, and had been with Eddie since they’d gotten closer after spring break.

But this?

He’s looking at him with the same wide-eyed look Eddie’d given him earlier: gobsmacked and slightly hungry.

Steve turns away quickly, spitting into the sink and mumbling something under his breath while he finishes rinsing out his mouth. 

Eddie snorts, shaking his head and finally hanging up his towel.

“Oh, what, now you’re gonna be all shy?” he grouses, twisting around to scowl at the back of Steve’s head. Steve looks over his shoulder to glare at him in return, his cheeks glowing red. “Really? The guy who was joking about bending me over only a couple hours ago? The same guy who was winking at me in nothing but a towel earlier?”

Steve flushes darker, and it irritates him to no end. “Honestly Steve?” Eddie starts, turning back to the shower and pretending to fix how his towel is hanging, “If you’re into me, just do something about it. Otherwise, just…back off, okay? I’m super into you but I can be a big boy about it because honestly, I’d rather keep you around as a friend if nothing else and—”

His rambling is cut off by the click of the bathroom door closing.

Eddie lets out a long breath, “Yeah.. that’s about what I expected.” Robin was wrong.

He takes a moment to collect himself, but just as he pops open the button on his jeans, Steve’s voice breaks through the sound of rushing water.

“Were you being serious?”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Eddie yelps, spinning around to face the man who’s still very much in the bathroom with him. “What the fuck, Steve?”

“Were you?” he asks, pushing off from where he’d been leaning back on the door.

“...About what?”

“About how you’re ‘super into’ me?” he grins.

Eddie crosses his arms across his chest defensively, “You don’t get to be an ass about it, Steve.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Steve says softly, reaching out to unfold Eddie’s arms. His fingers follow the length of them and grasp Eddie’s in his, “I wasn’t trying to be, promise; I’m just surprised is all.”

“Surprised?”

“Well yeah,” he shrugs, “The super hot metalhead you’ve been mooning after since March confesses he thinks you’re also super hot? That’s kinda hard to believe.”

He can feel Steve’s shirt brushing faintly against his stomach now. “I never said you were super hot.” he manages to say.

Steve catches his eyes, smirking at him with an obnoxious head tilt, “Didja have to?”

“Shut up..” Eddie snorts out a laugh and pushes lightly at Steve’s chest; he’s laughing too. “Okay, okay, now leave me alone so I can shower.” he says, pushing a bit harder this time. “I’ll be out soon and you can do with me what you wish.”

Steve’s leaning his weight against him, fighting going back to the bedroom, “Or…”

“Or?” Damn, he’s heavy what the fuck!

“I could, maybe, if you want..Icouldgetinwithyou.”

Eddie stops pushing.

Steve scratches at the back of his head in embarrassment, “I mean, I’ve been wanting to get you naked for months now and there’s a perfectly good reason right there, and I think it’d be nice to shower, y’know…together.. and wow, I am being super awkward, actually..so I’m just gonna…yeah.”

Steve gestures over his shoulder toward the bedroom but he doesn’t even move to turn before Eddie is pulling him back the other way.

He lets him go a couple steps away from the glass shower door, “Better get t’stripping big boy, can’t shower very well with clothes on, can you?” he winks, then faces away from Steve to finally shed his jeans (and for his own sanity).

Eddie can hear the split second it takes for Steve to start pulling off his clothes, taking another second for himself before pushing his jeans and boxers off his hips.

He had been trying to be in the shower under the spray before Steve was even out of his clothes, but one of his legs got caught, then he had to pause further to pull off the stubborn sock that decided not to come off with his jeans.

Which of course led to him nearly toppling over.

He caught himself on the wall, but not before Steve’s hands caught him around the waist too. “Careful, Eds.”

Oh fuck. Steve’s hands should not feel that good against his skin..also, dammit! He was trying to be all suave and cool by getting in under the water before Steve could see him fully, and now his bare fuckin’ ass is out for all to see…

Eddie laughs to himself.

“What?”

“Nothin’, I just thought I’d be…better? At this?”

“At what?”

“Stupid fuckin’—” Eddie finally gets his sock off, then sighs, “I dunno, being sexy, or mysterious I guess? Coy maybe?” 

“Why would you need to be any of that?”

Eddie shrugs, stepping out of Steve’s hold and into the shower and under the spray, staying faced away from the door while Steve follows.

“Are you gonna look at me?” he asks, voice devoid of anything but concern.

Taking a breath, Eddie steels himself and turns to face Steve in the large shower.

Steve’s expression is calm, open, but skews slightly into concern under Eddie’s gaze.

The long lean lines of his torso are just the same as the other two times he’s seen them, but they’re close now, and in good lighting too; Eddie can see a few other scars other than the ones from the bats, others he’s gotten over the years protecting the heard of goblins they’ve been co-parenting since last September.

He watches rogue droplets of water slough down the now-damp hairs on his arms, his legs, his chest, the ones that follow the path of darkening hairs down his stomach to his—

Steve steps closer, sharing the warm, wide spray of the shower with him.

He lifts his hand and brushes the damp hair back from the scar that marrs Eddie’s face and neck, stepping forward fully and cupping the puckered flesh in his palm when the hair settles wetly behind his shoulder

Eddie feels time stop for a brief moment. 

All of Steve is pressed into him and they line up perfectly, like they were made to share the same space. Steve’s other hand slides onto Eddie’s hip and it tugs him closer. Steve's half-hard length slots into place beside Eddie’s own, into the crevice where his crotch meets thigh.

Eddie shudders a breath at the feeling, opening his eyes to study the planes of Steve’s face and the way he is seemingly drooping forward into Eddie’s orbit. 

Steve’s smiling softly at him, the soft spray of water reflecting off their chests is misting up onto his cheek and lashes. His eyes are so much more green than he’d thought before, besides how little of the color he can see around the much larger pupil.

“Gorgeous.” Steve says, his voice is breathy and low, full of admiration, of longing…and it takes Eddie out of his reverie.

“Wha?” He says, eloquent as ever.

“You’re gorgeous, Eddie.”

Then, Steve’s lips are on his, tentative and sweet; soft, but becoming heady fast. 

The next time their lips meet, it’s punctuated with a short huff of air from Steve’s lungs when Eddie spins them, pressing Steve into the stone wall beside the shower knobs. He parts his lips to mumble out an apology, but Steve’s tongue decides to fill the space instead.

The hand Steve had on Eddie’s jaw snakes down to grab hold of his other hip and pulls him even closer, using the both of them to roll Eddie’s hips into his.

Their tongues slide languidly against the other, the fast pace they’d been building into falling off in exchange for slow, sanguine kisses instead.

Eddie lets out a shaky breath when they do part, blinking across the short distance between them at Steve’s kiss-bitten lips for only a second before letting his eyes fall shut with the exhale.

“Steve…is this—Is this real?”

Steve breathes out a shaky laugh of his own, “Why wouldn’t it be real, Eddie?” He asks, gently tracing the length of Eddie’s nose with his.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve had this exact dream before; are you sure I didn’t snap my neck during one of those falls earlier?”

The younger man laughs fully this time, and Eddie relishes in the slippery feeling of the wet skin of Steve’s stomach rippling against his own. He can’t help but grin in response to both the laughter and the funny feeling, his eyes opening without a second thought.

Steve looks like he’s floating, his face soft and dripping with a bright beaming smile..

“Do you need me to pinch you?” Steve asks, finally coming down from his brief fit of laughter.

“I don’t know if I want to find out this isn’t real.” Eddie grins in return.

One of Steve’s large hands leaves his hip then, snaking around to pinch the underside of Eddie’s asscheek.

He sucks in a short hiss of pain and lets out a soft whimper of something else (holy shit, when did that become a thing??) in the same breath.

“Okay…” he gulps down a mouthful of nothing, “Not a dream.”

“Not a dream..” Steve repeats. 

There’s a beat, two full breaths of more nothing before Steve spins them around and pushes Eddie back into the cold stone instead, his arm wrapped around him and up to cup the back of his skull protectively against the tile.

He presses a thick thigh between Eddie’s and does three things almost simultaneously.

The first, a second before the other two: He locks his heavy-lidded gaze on Eddie’s; two and three: presses the thigh between Eddie’s legs up, and pulls the hand at the back of his skull down along with a fistful of dark curls.

“Aahhh—ohhh fuck, Steve…” The sting from his scalp pulls a moan from his exposed throat, and Eddie scrambles to grab hold of something.

His nails dig into the slick skin of Steve’s back automatically, and he opens his mouth to apologize the same moment Steve latches onto his neck with a low groan of his own.

The hand not tangled in Eddie’s hair is starting to pull him down in waves against Steve’s thigh and hips, both of them hissing in pleasure with each pass of the other’s length against theirs.

“Mmmm, Eddie..” Steve moans, unlatching from the bruise he’s sure to have left on Eddie’s throat to lave his tongue and lips against his jaw instead. “Baby, you feel so good against me.”

“AAaahh—mmm..”

“Ooh, and you sound so sweet..” His lips trail down from his jaw back to the definitely sore spot on his neck, one that he prods lightly with the tip of his tongue before continuing on to nip at the taught skin of his collarbone, kiss lightly over the skin of his scarred pec, finally landing tongue first onto Eddie’s remaining nipple. 

The reaction to this is immediate; Eddie arches his chest further into Steve’s mouth. Steve, the sonofabitch he is, suctions his lips away from Eddie’s flushed skin in response.

“Hhnng—what the actual fuck, Steve?” Eddie glares best he can though the panting, “Get that mouth back over here.”

Miraculously, Steve obliges, sliding forward into a saccharine kiss and pulling Eddie away from

the wall and back under the spray of water.

“C’mon Eds, tilt your head back before the hot water runs out.”

Eddie just gapes at him, at his dick, both their dicks, still standing at attention, back up to his face.

Steve just purses his lips together as if holding back a grin and tugs Eddie’s head back by his hair again, soaking the strands through under the water.

He lets Steve turn him this way and that, reveling in the feeling of the other man’s hands in his hair, slick with soap on his skin, the gentle nudges and pulls relaxing him further into this weird world where Steve’s totally into him and also they’re naked in the shower together.

Finally, when Steve tilts his head back for the final time to rinse the conditioner out of his hair, Eddie decides to be a little shit, pushing his hips forward to clash their (still half-hard) dicks together.

“What are you—really? A sword fight?”

Eddie lets out a long cackle, “What? You knew what you were getting into with me, didn’t’cha Stevie?”

Doubt crashes into Eddie’s chest the instant the words escape his mouth.

He did, didn’t he? He likes him for his antics right? Oh fuck…How long would it take for Steve to get sick of his shit?

Despite Eddie’s near-crushing doubts, Steve smiles and says, “That I did.” easy as breathing, then pulls Eddie flush against him in another heated kiss.

Steve walks him backward after a moment, and Eddie drops his hands behind him to feel for the inevitable press of cold stone on his back, shuddering when it finally makes contact.

His gasp from the cold tile only seems to egg the other man on, hunching down to grip him around the backs of his thighs.

Eddie’s legs lock around Steve’s waist in panic, but pleasure shoots through him with the motion too, the horny thrill of being picked up so effortlessly along with the pressure of Steve’s stomach against the underside of his dick.

“Mmph—Steve holy shit,” he’s only just managed to thread the fingers on one hand into those sleek brown locks when he has to stifle down a long groan with a bite to his knuckle. “Hnngh–Steve, Steve, you gotta—oh fuck..”

The muscles of Steve’s stomach bunch under him as he grinds up in slow, torturous rolls..

“Oh, fuck—” the words spill out of his mouth, loud and long; his palm snaps up to hold them in as Steve pushes his shoulders into the tile behind him and leans back, leaving Eddie’s body balanced between strong thighs and shower wall.

The tile hits hard on the back of his skull when Steve wraps one of those hands of his around both their lengths. Eddie manages to look down, only to knock his head back again at the sight. 

Even with the added height of being on top of Steve’s thighs, their heads are exactly level, disappearing over and over again into the water-warmed skin of Steve’s fist.

Steve hunches forward again, pressing kisses into Eddie’s sternum. “Gorgeous.” 

“Steve...” he whispers in return, grinding as much as he can against the length slotted along his.

Again, too soon, Steve is pulling away, releasing his grip on them both.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie asks, already moving to drop his legs back to the floor. 

Steve stops him, hoisting his legs back around him and lifting him off the wall. “I’m taking you up on your offer.” He says, twisting off the now-cold stream of water and carefully stepping over the lip of the doorway through the glass door.

“My offer?”

“You said that after your shower, you’d come back out here to the bedroom and I could have my way with you.”

A half whine, half moan curls out of Eddie’s throat to his utter embarrassment.

“D’ya like that idea, sweetheart?” Steve says, grinning mischievously. 

Eddie manages to scowl at him as they leave the steamy bathroom, and is dropped down onto the mattress soon after. 

“Aw shit!”

“What? What happened?”

It’s cold as shit, that’s what.” The air-cooled temperature of the covers against his skin has him breaking out in goosebumps.

Steve winces, “Sorry, I didn’t think about that.”

What was calm and collected confidence flickers off his face, and Eddie can’t have that. “Jus’ come over here and warm me up, big bo–wait,” He sits up and stops Steve when only one of his knees has made it onto the bed. “Lemme look at you.” 

He looks down at Steve, and yep. Big Boy is very accurate. He’d felt it against him already, Steve’s too-gorgeous-to-be-real dick; he’s longer for sure, cut and curved up like something out of a wet dream. 

“Oh, definitely big boy,” Eddie grins, looking up at Steve’s somewhat embarrassed expression.

“It’s nothing special.” he shrugs, his cheeks heating up as he climbs up Eddie’s damp body. He lowers himself down lay between his legs, his dick slotting itself beside Eddie’s once again.

He hunches over to kiss lightly up the scars on Eddie’s left side, lips brushing along the healed edge of the biggest one. It tickles, then it doesn’t, then does, then doesn’t, his lips pressing halfway onto skin and halfway onto puckered pink flesh.

“Steve..”

“Yeah baby?” he responds after a few more kisses.

“You’re giving me more goosebumps.” Eddie says, somewhat breathless.

Another kiss, “Mmmm.. You’re welcome.”

That shocks a laugh out of him, “You’re such a dork.”

Steve takes one of Eddie’s hands where it lays on the mattress, lacing their fingers together and pressing them back into the mattress beside his head.

“Says you.” he affirms, locking those ridiculous hazel eyes on his.

Eddie’s about to crack off another one liner, say something to…all that, but it’s completely erased from his mind when Steve ducks his head down to find his nipple again.

“Oh fuckin–nnng..” his hips buck up hard into Steve’s, who presses down into him in return.

He can feel it when Steve grins against his skin. “Shut up, asshole, that fee–ee–els so good.”

“Hmm, tell me about it, baby.” He’s grinding down slowly now, adding to the exponentially increasing Steve-addled brain fog he’s currently experiencing.

“Ahhh—I want to but–”

“But what?” Steve’s breath over the spit-slick spot on his chest sends a chill through him. 

“Oh fuck–If any of them hear us, we’re never going to hear the end of it.” he tries to warn around another stifled moan.

The Menace is undeterred, swirling his tongue around the little nub open-mouthed and hot once more before moving upwards, trailing his lips up Eddie’s breastbone until he’s sucking kisses into his throat once again. He continues up along the length of his neck until he reaches his ear, “Then you’d better keep it down, huh?”

Well that didn’t help. He lets out a long moan in response, clamping a hand over his mouth way too late.

“You sound so good though,” Steve says, continuing his slow grinding, “I can’t wait to get you alone so I can fuck you properly.”

That pulls another moan from behind Eddie’s palm. “Jesus H. Christ,” Eddie bucks his hips up as much as he can, but Steve's palms move down to hold him in place.

“Can’t have that now, can we?” Steve chides, trailing his lips down his stomach as he slides back to the edge of the bed, his eyes locked on Eddie’s.

“Wh–Why not?”

“Because I’d prefer,” a kiss above his belly button, “to choke,” a kiss below, “on my own accord.”, then swallows Eddie down in one go.

“Oh fffuuck—”

Steve hums in agreement around Eddie’s dick and the vibrations course up his spine to rattle around in his brain.

“Oh shit, Stevie, that feels so fuckin’ good.” He breathes, twisting his fingers into Steve’s hair.

In response, Steve starts to bob his head, swirling his tongue around Eddie’s on the upstroke, and sucking with fervor on the down.

“Steve, sweetheart–fuck–if you keep going I’m gonna—haah—”

“And what if I want you to?”

“And what if I want to to-together?”

Steve releases him with a wet pop, kissing his way back up to Eddie’s lips, humming in satisfaction when he reaches them, like kissing Eddie is the best part of all this.

And doesn’t that make his head spin.

“All you’d have to do is ask.”

Eddie pulls Steve back to his lips and bucks up into him again. “That’s me asking.”

Steve grins down at him and re-starts his slow, tortuous pace.

He’s rock hard against Eddie’s thigh, and this is getting fuckin’ ridiculous.

“Alright, you know what,” Eddie pushes his hips up hard and flips them over, straddling Steve’s thighs in no time at all.

“Holy shit—“ Steve blinks up at him in astonishment, like he’s surprised that he’s been flipped so easily.

 Eddie grinds down onto Steve, “You don’t get to tease me like that, big boy.”

“Is that so?” He chuckles, then groans when Eddie wraps his hand around their lengths. His hands grip onto Eddie’s thighs, squeezing tight to match the hold on them.

Eddie fucks forward into his fist, pulling his hand down to meet each thrust and watching as Steve’s head drops back onto the mattress.

He lets out a long groan. “Eddie…”

“Yeah, Stevie?”

Eddie runs his fingers over both their heads, adding to the slight slip of pre with a well aimed glob of spit that makes Steve hum out a short breathy moan as it makes contact with his head.

More noises of appreciation are pulled from the man under him as he rubs the pad of his thumb through the mess and under the head of Steve’s cock in small circles.

“Mmhm oh fuck..”

“You like that?”

“Mmhmm,” he nods dazedly “Keep moving though, feels so good, Eds.”

“You got it, sweetheart.” Eddie grins, wrapping his palm around them again and pushes forward into his fist.

Steve’s head drops back onto the pillow beneath him, “Just like that Eddie, fuck.” 

He gives them a few more strokes, then Steve’s hands start to move; his warm palms skirt along the wiry hair on his legs, one traveling around to grab onto Eddie’s horribly non-existent ass, and the other comes up to his remaining nipple, pinching it between two digits.

That did it. The hot coil of pleasure already broiling in his stomach twists even tighter. “Ahh—Stevie..I’m so close, Jesus Christ…”

“Me too..”

“Yeah? Well c’mon sweetheart, give it to me.”

A scant two passes of his hand later, Steve shoots hot across his stomach, and Eddie follows a half stroke later. 

He sinks down to the bed against Steve’s heaving ribs, tucking his shoulder under the other man’s arm.

After a few more breaths, Steve pulls Eddie into him and presses his lips to Eddie’s still-damp forehead.

“Ew gross, don’t do that, I’m all sweaty.”

“Don't care.” Steve mumbles softly into his hairline.

In return, Eddie wipes his soiled hand off on Steve’s stomach.

“Ew! Gross!” Steve laughs, shoving Eddie away with no actual intent behind it.

A few minutes later, Steve breaks the comfortable silence. “So,”

The word sinks heavily into Eddie’s gut. “So?”

When Steve doesn’t continue, Eddie turns his head to find Steve gazing at him with soft eyes, and even softer smile.

It morphs into a teasing smirk. “Did it live up to the hype?”

—--

One snooze and another heated shower later, Eddie crawls back into their bed and gets comfy while he listens to Steve pull his clothes back on to go down to the main lodge for the hellions.

He hears a short shuf when Steve’s leg skirts around the end of the bed. “I’ll be back in 15,” he says, kissing the damp hairs on Eddie’s temple. “Go to sleep, Eds.”

“Hmmm…” he hums in return, cozy as ever, and is out as soon as the door clicks shut.

Too soon, the sounds of the shitheads scrambling into the house interrupts his dozing, the door to the bedroom squeaking open not long after.

“Eds? You awake?”

Instead of answering, Eddie simply opens his arms.

He listens to Steve strip off his clothes, beckoning the man forward again when he feels the end of the mattress sink under the other man’s weight. 

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’, hold your horses.”

“My horses have been patient enough.” Eddie grumbles as Steve finally shuffles between the sheets and into his waiting arms.

-x-X-x-

“Dude! What the hell happened to your neck?! Did you get attacked by a vampire?”

“Henderson, you are way too loud for how early it is.”

“It’s 10 am, Eddie.”

“Exactly.” the barstool creaks as he climbs onto it, gratefully accepting the plate of eggs and bacon Argyle passes him.

“Leave him alone, guys.” Steve says, coming up behind Eddie on his stool and kissing his cheek as he passes into the kitchen with his empty plate.

There’s three whole seconds of silence before the younger teens burst out into a cacophony of various outbursts.

“Aw, what? Eddie! Steve’s way too lame for you to be dating!”

“Steve, did you fuck my DM?!”

“I fuckin’ knew it. I told you they’d get together, didn’t I? Dustin, you owe me 10 bucks.”

“I don’t owe you shit, Maxine.”

“Holy shit, congrats guys.” Lucas is his new favorite… Will and El too, nodding along to Sinclair’s assessment.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough; All those heading back to the waterpark better be ready to go in T-minus three minutes otherwise I’m leavin’ without you.” Steve calls out over the noise.

The complaints follow him out of the kitchen and into the tiny laundry room off the entryway.

“Why don’t you guys get yelled at?” Eddie grumbles, poking up a forkful of egg.

Robin snorts a laugh, “Because none of us are sleeping with the babysitter.”

okay, some notes:

steve's mom is a lawyer in this canon and she's the one who paid for eddie's legal counsel/helped with clearing his name after s4

wha?? steve harrington has good parents?? insanity

"canon" hawkins is about an hour outside of indianapolis so i used shelbyville, indiana as my base and from there to boyne mountain is about a 7 hour drive. if they left at 6 am from hawkins, they'd get to the resort around 1 or 2 and have a good couple hours to ski before it gets dark again at 6 (daylight hours in the midwest during winter are a bitch.)

i did way too much research into the ski resort i based this at, only to realize that neither the cabin itself OR the waterpark were there in the 80s. so...let's all just pretend, okay?

the map above is a trail map of the resort from 1985

when i asked my husband what i should add to 'my most recent blorbos' he said 'nice tits!' so that's why that line lmao

who'da thought this'd go from skiing to shower sex? cause i didn't

i got stuck on the smut part of this for way too long and i am so glad i am a) done with it and b) that it actually turned out relatively coherent.

on that note though, i have been looking at this damn fic for so so long that i don't know if it's actually good or what. 'cause to me, it's complete garbled garbage

the title of this is from 'Object of My Desire' by Starpoint

lex i am so sorry this is late ilysm 🫶

[hbyrde36]

Burnin' For You

(Pt 1 of 2) AO3

Written for the Spicy Six Winter Fanworks Challenge

Hosted by @thefreakandthehair!

Dialog Prompt: “Who sets the fire alarm off at 3am in December?” / “Who runs outside without a coat at 3am in December?”

Ever since Steve's ex broke up with him and walked out on their life together he hasn't been able to sleep in their apartment on his own. For months now he's taken refuge in the space under his desk, in his /thankfully/ privacy office on the 8th floor of a high-rise on the edge of the business district. It was all going fine, really, until the night the fire alarm went off.

WC: 2,557 | Rating: E (for smut in pt. 2!)

The ear-piercingly loud siren of the building’s fire alarm jerked Steve out of an already fitful sleep. He startled awake, tried to sit up, and wound up banging his head against the underside of his desk hard enough to see stars. 

Great.

Just what he needed, another knock to the head. As if the two concussions he’d picked up playing sports back in high school hadn’t been enough.

He laid there like an idiot for a moment or two, hoping it was a mistake and the grating sound would stop on its own, but the wailing of the alarm only seemed to grow louder the longer he was awake. 

Shit.

What was he supposed to do now? 

The obvious answer was to follow protocol and go outside to wait for the fire department to arrive, which he really, really, didn’t want to have to do. In his defense there was no smell of smoke or anything but seeing as it was the middle of the night and everything, there was basically zero chance that this was a drill.

He sighed heavily and reluctantly got up, shoving his feet into a pair of slippers he kept in his office for late night trips to the bathroom, or sometimes to the coffee machine in the break room when he really couldn't sleep, and grabbed his cell phone off the charger. He didn’t bother stashing his pillow or rolling up the sleeping bag, still hopeful that it was a false alarm and he’d be back in no time to resume what was left of his night on the hard floor with its all too thin commercial carpeting.

He walked on autopilot to the elevator, remembering just as it dinged and opened that if there really was a fire or some other emergency, he should be taking the stairs. He shuddered as his mind conjured up high resolution images of being trapped in there as the building burned down around him. 

Thanks for that, brain.

He shook his head and quickly backtracked to the stairwell access door.

-

Steve shivered, wrapping his arms around himself as he crossed the street wearing nothing but red checkered flannel pajama bottoms and a white long sleeve t-shirt, his version of Christmas pajamas. Not that he felt very festive this year, but he was trying. At least he had something on his feet. He blamed sleep deprivation for the fact that he hadn’t thought to grab his coat off the rack on his way out.

He came to a stop next to the building that faced the one he’d just fled, chin tucked in tightly to his chest, slowly curling in on himself more and more as the cold seeped into his bones. It couldn't have been more than forty degrees outside. His teeth chattered and he wondered how long it would take for the fire department to arrive. Maybe he could just sneak back into the building for his coat. It wasn’t like there was anyone around to stop him.

The abrupt sound of a throat clearing loudly nearby made Steve nearly jump out of his skin. His head snapped up, locking eyes with a man who was leaning against the wall not five feet away from him. Steve knew with certainty that he’d never seen him before, even in passing. He would have remembered those deep brown eyes and gorgeous head full of long dark curls. He wasn’t sure how he’d missed noticing the stranger’s presence just now, his only excuse being that he hadn’t expected anyone else to be around at this time of night. 

“Oh, uh. Hi.” Steve stuttered out awkwardly. “Were you in there too?” 

“Yeah.” The man said, sounding a little nervous himself. Steve guessed he was also surprised to see another person.

“That’s odd.” Steve said, tilting his head to the side. “I didn’t hear anyone else in the stairwell.” And with the way his own footfalls had echoed on the steps he thought for sure he would have.

“Oh. I took the elevator.”

“That was pretty dumb, what if it got stuck?” It was a little tactless even for Steve, given that he’d almost done the same thing, but could he really be blamed for putting his foot in his mouth given the hour and the circumstances?

The stranger raised both eyebrows. “Wow, charming.”

“Wasn’t trying to be.” Steve grumbled.

“Okay, fine. If there was a fire it would have been stupid, but clearly… ” The other man trailed off, gesturing towards the building which sat whole, still, and very much not on fire in front of them, before grumpily pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket.

Steve swallowed hard. Smoking was a disgusting habit, or so he’d been trying to tell himself for the past six months since he decided to quit, but damn if this infuriatingly attractive stranger didn’t make it look hot. The way he raised one to his mouth and wrapped his plush lips around the end of it had warmth pooling in Steve’s gut despite the frigid temperature surrounding him.

Nope. He wasn’t going there. He needed to deflect, now. 

“But you couldn't have known that. Unless… '' Steve paused, a thought occurring to him. Suddenly it clicked and he was livid. “Oh you absolute fucking asshole!” 

It probably wasn’t completely fair, but it was easier to be pissed off at some jerk, cute or not, for being an idiot than it was to face the truth. He wouldn’t be in this situation if he could just sleep in his apartment like a normal person, but ever since Tommy left he couldn’t stand being there for any longer than it took to take a shower and change his clothes. It was supposed to be their home, their life that they were building together, until it all fell apart.

“What did I do?!” The other man squawked in reply.

Steve gave him an unimpressed look, gesturing to the cigarette in his hand and, more pointedly, to the smoke that was curling up and away from it. 

“Shit.” He cursed, throwing the cigarette to the ground and stubbing it out violently with the toe of his boot, as if getting rid of the evidence now would erase it from Steve’s mind. “It was an accident, okay? It’s never been a problem before, I just blow the smoke out the window and it’s all good, usually, but I guess the direction of the wind wasn’t on my side tonight.” 

Steve bristled. “Well thanks to your accident,” He began, using air quotes to highlight how ridiculous it sounded. “I'm stuck out here freezing my ass off. Who sets the fire alarm off at 3am in December?!”

The man smirked, an expression that somehow made his already stupidly pretty face that much more attractive, and crossed his arms over his chest as he spoke. “Who runs outside without a coat at 3am in December?”

Well, he had him there. 

Still Steve glowered, willing a scathing retort to form on his tongue. But, before he could manage it the doe-eyed stranger was shrugging out of his jacket and stepping up to drape it across his shoulders. The leather was worn soft and smelled vaguely of tobacco and some expensive brand of warm, spicy cologne. Steve breathed the scent in deep and felt the beginnings of a blush crawl up his neck to settle on his cheeks. 

“Better?” The stranger asked, voice gone soft in a way that sent shivers up Steve's spine that had nothing to do with the weather. 

“Yeah, uh, thanks… “

“Eddie.”

“Eddie.” Steve repeated, liking the way the other man’s name felt on his tongue. “Steve,” he said, introducing himself in return before adding, “but, won’t you be cold now?”

Eddie shrugged. “I’ll be fine, I run hot.”

You can say that again.

Steve looked Eddie up and down as subtly as he could manage, taking in the way his newly exposed t-shirt was stretched tight across his body, accentuating lightly toned arms and a thin waist. He bit down on his lip hard, trying to snap out of it. He couldn’t remember ever being this attracted to someone at first sight. 

“If you don't mind me asking, what are you doing here in the middle of the night?” Steve asked.

“14th floor, Hellcheer studios. Do you know it?”

Steve nodded. He’d never visited that part of the building before, but he knew of the small yet successful startup production company that was housed above his own offices.

“I sneak in here a lot at night to record when inspiration strikes. I don’t like taking up time that could go to other artists. There's less pressure too, when no one else is around. Just me, my guitar, and a microphone.”

“Couldn’t you get in trouble for that?

“No, it’s, uh, let’s just say I know the owners really well.” Eddie chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “What about you? And don’t say working.”

“How do you know I’m not here burning the midnight oil, same as you?”

Eddie laughed and shot him a truly wolfish grin. “Well, for one, no one really works between Christmas and New Years unless they absolutely have to, and for two, you’re wearing pajama bottoms, sweetheart.” 

“Oh, right.” 

Steve deflated a little. He’d completely forgotten the state he was in and was instantly embarrassed at the reminder. He didn’t even know what he was still doing here. He was so stupid, standing on a street corner waiting for the fire department when really he should just get over himself and go home, be normal. 

He slid his shoulders out of the leather jacket to try and give it back to its owner before he fled, but Eddie was having none of it. He wrapped it right back around him, only this time they were facing each other and Eddie had to move in extra close to swing it around his back. So close that Steve could feel the other man’s warm breath brush across his cheek as he spoke. 

“No, please keep it on.” Eddie began, rubbing his hands up and down Steve’s covered arms, warming him further. He kept his voice low and gentle and the whole thing was so undeniably intimate that Steve thought he might actually swoon. “I can't have you freezing to death when it’s my fault we’re stuck out here. I’m sorry if I said something to upset you. I didn’t mean anything by it, I swear. I was just…  teasing, I guess, and maybe a little curious?”

Steve was too tired to come up with a believable excuse, if there even was such a thing.

“I, um, I can’t sleep in my apartment anymore. Ever since my ex left I just… it doesn’t feel right to be there alone?” 

It was quite the admission to make to a perfect stranger on the sidewalk in the middle of the night, but despite his initial embarrassment, there was something about Eddie that made him want to open up. He felt strangely safe.

“I’m sorry, that must be rough. How long has it been?”

“A few months.”

“Oh, Steve.”

“And I know what you're going to say. I should be over it by now. That’s what everybody says.”

“Actually I was going to say, your poor back. I can only imagine how much it’s suffering sleeping on a cot or god forbid the horrible floors in that building.”

“Oh.” Steve said, looking away.

“Hey, you’ll get over it in your own time. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Eddie said, reaching up to cup his cheek. The hand was so warm on his icy skin that Steve was helpless to stop himself from nuzzling into the touch. 

“Thank you.”

A beat of silence fell over the two men and by all rights it should have been uncomfortable, standing there wrapped up in someone he didn’t know, but Steve couldn't bring himself to care. Eventually the sound of sirens in the distance prompted him to speak again, knowing the fire department would be there soon. 

“I kinda am, y’know? Over it, I mean. My ex… looking back I’ve realized he wasn’t the best person. I don’t miss the relationship exactly, I think it’s more like I miss what could have been.”

Eddie hummed in agreement. “I get that.” He said, and paused before asking, “why haven't you moved?” 

“I think at first it was because I hoped he’d come back.” Steve answered, risking a glance into Eddie’s wide sympathetic eyes. “Pathetic, I know.” He murmured. 

“None of that Stevie, you’re not pathetic for holding out hope.”

“After a while I realized it was for the best. Tommy… I don’t think he was ever as committed to us as I was. I don’t think he even liked me by the end, let alone loved me.” Steve sighed, closing his eyes against the memories that flooded his mind.  “I was offered a promotion. It would have come with a huge pay raise but it also would have meant longer hours at the office and less time at home. I turned it down, there wasn’t any amount of money worth that, to me at least, and besides, I like my job. Tommy didn’t agree, he was furious.”

“I’m sorry, but the guy sounds like a dick.”

Steve laughed, cracking a smile for the first time in a long time. “Yeah, yeah I guess he was.”

A fire truck with flashing lights came barreling around the corner seconds later, coming to a stop directly in front of them. Eddie, to Steve's disappointment, let him go, explaining that he should be the one to talk to them since the whole thing was his fault, and stepped away to greet the handful of responders.

It was only a few minutes before Eddie came jogging back, a look of obvious concern pinching his face. 

“I tried to tell them it was my fault, that it was a mistake, but their chief said he has to clear the building anyway and it could take a while. I don’t think we’re getting back in there tonight. I guess we’ll both have to head home for the night.” Eddie sounded sad at the idea, as if he were as upset as Steve was that their time together was coming to an end. 

But maybe it didn’t have to.

“It’s alright, my apartment isn’t all that far from here.” Steve said, contemplating the best way to make his move. 

“I’m sorry,” Eddie said, grasping Steve’s hand and squeezing it. “I know you said you hate sleeping there alone.”

This man could not be real, Steve decided, he was far too fucking sweet. And something about that must have made him feel brave, because he looked Eddie right in the eyes and just went for it. 

“I was sort of hoping… maybe I wouldn't have to sleep alone?”

Eddie raised a single eyebrow, face breaking out into a tentative smile. “Are you sure?”

In reply, Steve tucked a finger into Eddie’s belt loop and tugged him forward, closing the distance between them as he crashed their mouths together. Eddie let out a pleased hum as he deepened the kiss, and Steve was pleasantly surprised to find that his lips were even softer then he could have possibly imagined

Part 2!

Thanks and love to @penny00dreadful for being the best cheerleader and beta reader a gal could ask for! 🥰

[starrystevie]

'tis the damn season | written by rogersharringtons on ao3

the only good thing about coming home for the holidays is this. seeing eddie. taking him apart with lips and hands and teeth and hips. warming his bed and his bones from the inside out as they hole up together in the harsh indiana winter, only leaving each other’s sides when familial duties call. it’s just fucking, or at least was, until steve fell in love in 1989 and couldn’t look back for anything except memories of what could be’s.

prompt from @thefreakandthehair winter spicy six challenge: "new year, new me." "you're so full of shit."

explicit | 12.8k

tags: everybody lives/nobody dies, angst with a happy ending, friends with benefits, both bi steve & eddie, top steve, bottom eddie, lack of communication, past tommy hagan/steve harrington, tommy hagan fake boyfriend extraordinaire

[hellfireloserclub]

written for @thefreakandthehair spicy six winter challenge prompt: prompt 40 -If I hear this song one more time, I’m going to jail.-

Also on Ao3

Little Drummer Boy

It was something straight out of a shitty Christmas movie.  

Eddie wasn’t convinced that some higher being hadn’t sent down the whole damn situation to torture him. 

Had he not earned a break from the relentless torture that society insisted on dragging him through on the daily?

Hell, he had died for this godforsaken town and this was his reward?

Steve motherfucking Harrington walking around looking like Mr. December in a charity pin up calendar, right in front of his poor besotted eyes. 

He had only taken this job over the holidays to save up enough to actually move out of Wayne's, god knows his uncle deserved to have his own space. Wayne didn't need his deadbeat nephew under foot any longer, but between working on his GED and the few questionable side hustles -aka anyone that would employ a high school dropout who was accused of murder- his options had been few and far between. 

Joyce Byers had been left in charge of the Hawkins festive festival, and like the absolute angel she was she had put him to work alongside Robin and Steve as the general dogsbodies. No job too big. No job too small. 

However, this almost constant presence of Steve was hard-wiring Eddie's brain to sit constantly at a state of half horny half stupid. Sometimes he couldn't hide the frustrated grunt that shot out of him as he banged his head on the counter. It happened whenever Steve walked past with his stupid ruddy cheeks doing something dashing and noble and endearing himself even more to that really weak part of Eddie's psyche. 

So far in the last few days since they had set up, he had been a witness too, in no discernible order a thousand tiny acts of Harrington heroics. 

Steve had shimmied up the enormous Christmas tree in the town square to fix one of the blown out lights. The view had been spectacular, his stupid handsome grin shining almost as bright as the plastic angel that was lit up on top of the finest spruce the town had to offer. Various cheesy Christmas hits interwoven with carols filling the air as Steve had meticulously twisted each light one at a time.

Eddie had held the ladder as Robin taunted him relentlessly about his stupid crush under her breath.

“Come they told me Pa rum pum pum pum A newborn king to see Pa rum pum pum pum”

 Eddie loudly sang along to the music coming from the speakers in the town square, hopefully drowning out her words enough that Steve couldn't hear her from his precarious perch. Robin looked too smug in her knowing glances and her eyebrow wiggles. 

Eddie almost regretted letting Robin in on his dirty little, very confusing, secret, but it felt right at the time. Even if he couldn't quite get his head around the idea that he might be attracted to another man. He stupidly figured Robin would know where he was coming from, even if it was from the opposite direction, so to speak. Robin hadn’t asked for specifics, but it wasn’t hard to guess who his life-changing revelation was over. It wasn’t as if there were that many people in their immediate friend circle. 

But Eddie dared anyone not to fall a little in love with Steve Harrington, Demobat slayer. He was charming to a damn fault, nobody was immune to it, he even had Hopper wrapped around his little finger. And that was all it was, the charm. He wasn’t having very new, very frightening feelings over one of his best friends. The man who had saved him. 

Blah blah blah it was like some stupid typical pulp fiction trope, right down to the hairy chested man boobs, torn shirts and epic scars, just make it gayer. Even so… Eddie… he wasn't gay, at least he didn't think he was? Right now staring up at Steve leaning over to flick at a dud bulb his tongue poking out between pink chapped lips, Eddie wasn’t sure how long he could keep telling himself that. 

When Steve's feet were firmly back on the ground, he had quizzed them on what was so funny. 

Eddie had gone bright red and deflected but Robin had just said something catty about Eddie enjoying the view. 

It didn't help his cause when he helped Steve put the damn ladder away, following behind holding the other end of the rungs trying to look anywhere but at the picture perfect view of Steve’s ass in blue jeans.

“A newborn king to see Pa rum pum pum pum” Eddie muttered under his breath, singing along to distract his stupid mind. Steve watched him quizzically as he propped the ladder up against the wall. 

“That song gets stuck in your head right?” 

“Yeah something like that.” Eddie was glad when the walkie on his belt burst to life asking them to come help set up the candy cane village. 

○°○°○●○•°○•●•○°○○•●•●°○°○•●•

 Steve saving the baby Jesus was unexpected.

An epic hero moment, saving the son of God from the jaws of the stray dog that had kidnapped the thing from the nativity scene outside the church. 

Eddie had seen Steve take down three Demodogs with one swing of a bat, however it paled in comparison to watching Steve dive head first into action mode to chase a Jack Russell Terrier into the dumpster behind Maldives. He had returned victorious hoisting the little plastic doll above his head until he passed it on to old Mrs. Stevens to put back in it manger. 

Robin was forced to listen to how her ‘nice young man’ had saved the day for the rest of the shift and Eddie had wound her up relentlessly. Sweet revenge for the inner turmoil she had inflicted on him. 

“Robie and Stevie sitting in a tree…” Eddie teased as they watched Steve getting force fed sugar cookies from the women of the church guild.

It earned him a punch in the arm so strong it nearly knocked him off the fence where he was sitting. “It's not me who wants to be sitting in a tree-” She was about to go on a rant…

“ Our Finest gifts we bring, ” he jumped down from the fence “ To lay before the king pa rum pa pum pum So to honor him ” Eddie sung as he plucked a hot chocolate from the stand he was supposed to be manning and skipping over to Steve he presented him with his stolen bounty.

“What's this for?” Steve asked, looking down at the festive paper cup. 

“You just saved the son of god, my good sir. That deserves the finest vittles.” Eddie joked, bowing low. “Plus, you need more sugar to wash down all that sugar, sugar.” 

“That's a lot of sugar.” Steve beamed at him. Cheeks flushing. 

“Sugar and spice and all things nice, Stevie.” He knew his own face was reddening, even more so when he realized they had an audience. The ladies of the church guild were watching them both, eyes wide. 

“I am a poor boy too. ra pum pa pum pum I have no gift to bring.” Eddie sang slinking over to the woman standing next to Mrs. Wheeler and gently taking the effigy of the baby Jesus and bolting the tiny fence to secure the thing into its manger with a zip tie. Then because ‘tis the season ‘ replacing the swaddling around it with all the care of a new father, tucking in his firstborn. 

Rattling out a drumming rhythm on the wood before he straightened up, he gave a rousing chorus of the song that was well and truly stuck in his head.   

“And to think we thought you were a serial killer.” Mrs. Causey from the post office offered a sugar cookie like she hadn't just said the most bat shit crazy thing a woman in a knitted two piece wearing a pink bobble hat had ever said. 

“I never thought you would have done the things they said you did Edward.” Ms. Roberts said, nudging Mrs. Causey in the side. “I know your dad, Al made some stupid choices, but he’s a big old pussycat. Mad as a box of frogs, but wouldn't hurt a fly. I very much doubt any son of his would do such awful things.“ 

Mrs. Causey looked like she was about to say more, but Ms. Roberts hushed her up. To be fair, it was nice to hear someone say good things about his old man for a change. But he was holding off on the mad as a box of frogs until next week when he went to see his Dad on visitation. Last time he had spoken to him he was trying to persuade the guards to let him do a nativity play for the other inmates. It probably hadn’t ended well, Al Munson’s big ideas never ended well. That was why Eddie was with his Uncle Wayne after all. 

Eddie smiled his most shit-eating grin in the general direction of the good women of Hawkins, “Ah, Yeah dad has the flair for the dramatics, and I'm afraid the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But I’ve got Steve to keep me on the straight and narrow. Isn’t that right Stevie?” He jumped the fence again, this time landing with a wobble right in front of Steve. The other man reached out to steady him, with a flourish so as not to spill his hot chocolate. “Ah, my hero, you see this ladies? You need to watch your daughters, he will sweep them off their feet next.” 

“I think we need to watch out for the pair of you Mr. Munson, you’re both quite the catch.” Ms. Roberts grinned as she started walking away. “Charming and resourceful. Quick thinking with the zip tie, maybe next year we should handcuff the baby Jesus down, less chance of a canine abduction” 

Eddie was suddenly aware that Steve still had hold of him by the waist, he jumped away as if burned. It was one thing to be close behind closed doors, quite another to be like that outside and in front of the damn Nativity scene of all things. Eddie clocked the quick look Steve shot towards his handcuff belt, and ached to make a joke but Robin came to save the day. Demanding that they come and help with a spillage on the ice rink. 

Still Eddie couldn’t help but feel that every time he looked up to talk to Steve, he caught the man quickly turning away, like he was already looking at him and had gotten caught. Eddie was finding it hard to believe that the redness in Steve’s face was all to do with the cold. 

○°○●•°•●○○°○○○○○○°••○○○

Christmas eve snuck up quickly. And with it Robin’s relentless teasing somehow increased. 

Every time she walked past now she would sing the stupid little drummer boy song, but now she had alternative words for the damn thing, and every time Eddie heard it over the speakers it instantly reminded him of Steve’s existence. Because Robin was a cruel and evil being sent to drive him to his own despair. 

“Don’t stare at Steve’s bum, pum pum pu pum pum”  Robin sang as she rounded him on the outskirts of the candy cane village, dressed as a jolly little elf arms full of mystery gifts for the meek and mild, or whatever it was kids were supposed to be, he hadn’t been paying attention in that part of the class. Thankfully, Steve was busy perfecting the piles of presents, attempting to make them stay in neat stacks, it would have been easier if he wasn't struggling with the stupid elf costumes Joyce had bullied them all into. He kept tugging the ill-fitting trousers from where his butt cheeks were trying to consume the itchy material. Eddie wasn't fairing much better but he at least had less to deal with in the ass department. It was hard to pull out a wedgie when you jingled all the way. 

 On the plus side, they had gotten off lightly, Hopper was currently dressed as a very unconvincing Santa Claus, and the rugrats had been roped into dressing as Angels and were currently caroling next to the tree- the lights kept flickering and they all kept exchanging worried glances, or at least they had until El glared the bulbs into submission. 

To make matters worse, Steve started to sing the song under his breath all the damn time now. Eddie was getting some sort of twisted pavilion response to the tune. He was like a mouse looking for a treat. Whenever he heard that man offer his little drumsticks up to the little baby king he perked up and automatically sought big King Steve. And he was pretty sure Steve had cottoned on to him. Because whenever the song came on the festive rotation, right between Wham and David Essex, Steve was within viewing range of Eddie's new superpower. 

It was hopeless he was hopeless, and right now he couldn't escape, not the same 24 Christmas songs on repeat or Steve and his peachy bum bu bum bum - fucking Robin! 

The sound of bells jingling signaled Robin's return just as the telltale drumming started up through the speakers .

“If I hear this song one more time, I’m going to jail.” 

Eddie nearly knocked himself out spinning on the spot. He hadn't expected Steve to sneak up to him when he jingled and jangled more than any one man should. Eddie hadn't noticed that the crowd had thinned, it must be time for Hopper's grand entrance. At least they only had to man the grotto and the sugar heart attack that was the line. Argyle and Jonathan were manning the slay. 

“I thought you liked the little drummer boy?” Eddie rocked back on his feet trying not to look like Steve hadn't scared the ever living shit out of him.

“I do, but we hear it like sixty times a day, not including the wonderful remixed version you and Robin seem to have penned in your downtime.” Steve cocked an eyebrow, “Who knew Steve and bum could be used in so many creative ways?” 

Eddie nonchalantly looked across the square, pretending to watch the Santa procession. He felt Steve step towards him, this time he jingled. He must have been ninja as fuck to get the drop on Eddie, because every minute movement was like crisp Stereo sound right now. 

“Oh, come on Eds I totally set you up for that one, not even a ‘that's what she said’ joke? You're probably already on the good list, I mean saving the world has to be worth at least that right.” Steve's voice quietened towards the end, as if something had caught his attention. 

He chanced a look at Steve from below the rim of his elf hat that he had pulled down further both to hide from Steve's questioning gaze, and protect himself a little more from the snow that had begun to gently fall. Steve was ignoring him now watching the white flecks falling, the first of the year. It wasn't the same now, not when it looked too much like the particles that had engulfed them and blocked out the sun. The haunted weary look crossed Steve's face and Eddie wanted to do anything to replace it with that content smile he had seen for the last two weeks. 

“I write you a ballad about that peachy ass of yours, and all you do is complain.” 

“You missed the ra pum pa pum pum” Steve pointed out, but the frown was gone, replaced with a smirk. He looked like the epitome of a bad idea. But bad ideas were something Eddie excelled at. 

Eddie suddenly felt brave, there was a first time for everything. 

“Ass doesn't fit the rhythm. It's got to be bum or butt, Dustin's A big butt head pa rumpa pum pum. See, fits the pattern. Has Weird Al taught you nothing?” 

“I mean he's taught me how to make a damn fine sandwich.” He shrugged, shuffling forward and flicking the bell that hung on the end of Eddie's elf hat. 

It rang out its happy little tune as Eddie focused on that and not the fact that Steve was up close, right in his personal space. Like how was he supposed to function with this blatant discard for his boundaries? If Eddie’s brain would like to send his body an answer on a postcard, he was happy to receive its feedback. 

Was it hot in here? Had someone turned on the space heater? Had Eddie or Steve accidentally set fire to their stupid polyester and wool crimes against fashion? 

Was it just him? Was he having a stroke? Was this some dormant form of upside down rabies? If it was, Robin would kill him. He had bitten her only last week when trying to stop her stealing the remote at Steve's place. She had bitten him first; it was only fair. But if it was rabies at least death by Robin would be a quicker way to go, then whatever was making his heart drum in his chest like the warm-up act to Megadeth.  

Steve tapped the bell on the end of Eddie’s hat again, he was trying to do it in time to the jolly HO HO HO of Hopper over the speakers, but he failed miserably. Still Eddie watched every little movement, like he was about to sit a SAT on Steve Harrington and he had to pass or there would be grave consequences for his immediate future.

“You're the musical one okay. I haven’t got a musical bone in my body-” Steve was grinning at him now, a bright thing that made his eyes sparkle in the twinkling rainbow lights of the sugar plum grotto. One eyebrow was sneaking dangerously close to his hairline, it was like he was waiting for Eddie to finish his sentence, or catch up to the joke. Unfortunately for Steve Eddie’s brain had taken a mini sabbatical, it had to go somewhere to send him that postcard after all. 

“Ok what’s up, that’s the second terrible sexual innuendo I’ve set you up for and you failed me dude, where’s your head at?” Steve tapped the side of his face and Eddie turned to look at him. Nobody should look good dressed as a bloody elf, but Steve was somehow pulling it off. 

Oh shit, he was talking again and Eddie hadn’t heard a word of it. Staring at Steve’s chapped lips should really make it easier to follow the situation, but when had anything worked out right for Eddie. 

Just then the speakers kicked in and the dulcet sounds of George Micheal filled the little room around them.

“Maybe next year I'll give it to someone special”

The Santa parade must almost be over, soon this little bubble between them would be filled with sugar-filled hoodlums. But right now it was just him and Steve and in any second …

“Would you look at that, it's the song about my bum.” Steve wiggled his eyebrows and the bells on his hat jingled, but that wasn’t the thing that caught Eddie’s attention. 

The feeling of Steve’s nose brushing his own was the only thing he could grasp as real. Steve was too close. He tried to focus on him but it was making him cross-eyed.

Why was Steve so close?

Anyone would think he was trying to- oh…

“Please don’t hit me.” Steve whispered as his lips softly pressed against Eddie’s, there was a moment's hesitation as Eddie’s brain got the memo, and Steve started to pull away. Probably thinking that he was about to get up close and personal with Eddie’s rings to his face. He was, but not from a punch, Eddie somehow found the cognitive function to get his body to do what he wanted. A hand coming up to grab Steve’s face and pull him back in for a kiss, and the other one finally getting to grips with Steve’s right butt cheek. It seemed to be all Steve needed to press back in and drag Eddie into him till there was no doubt that this was what they both wanted. 

Steve made a content noise as he broke the kiss, resting his forehead against Eddie’s, filling the space between them with a chuckle.

“Did you just pat my butt in time to this song?”

“Maybe?”

“Does that make you the little drummer boy?” 

“Ah, less of the little, big boy try before you deny and all that. Stevie the real question here is are you the king, the gift or are you my drum… pum pa pum pum” Eddie dropped his other hand to Steves other cheek tap out the beat in time to the song. 

That got a dirty snort of a laugh, and it was one of the best sounds Eddie had ever heard. 

Suddenly Eddie felt like he was the bravest man in the world.

“So, am I visiting you in jail? Do they still do conjugal visits?” Eddie asked, nudging Steve's nose with his own “Do I have to start wearing dresses so I can fool the guards and have my wicked way with my jailbird of a lover?” 

“I mean, what I want to do to you would probably get me arrested in at least five states.” Steve glanced across the snowy square. The sound of the Christmas hoard moving towards them with Hopper guiding the way growing ever nearer.. The bubble of whatever the fuck this was was getting smaller by the second “But since I get to do this now-” Steve lent forward and gave Eddie a soft quick kiss, “Hopefully, whenever I want. I won't feel like I'm crawling out of my own skin when I hear this song… ra pum pa pum pum?” 

“Hey, that one almost worked!” Eddie grinned as the first of the visitors to Santa's grotto could be heard crunching up the gravel Oohing and ahhing at Rudolf and his cohorts. Hopefully nobody looked too close and realized they were actually just donkey's with fake antlers-it was dark and well the magic of Christmas was doing a lot of heavy lifting (no animals were harmed in the making of this magical wonder-but Robin had almost been kicked, more than once.) 

 Eddie, feeling bold, snuck in another quick kiss before they were thrown headfirst into the chaos of Christmas eve. They aimed for casualness as the first kids stormed around the corner to join the line. 

Robin's face was too knowing when she walked up to join them.. But Eddie was pretty sure nobody had seen anything untoward.  

“What did I miss, dingus squared?”

Robin placed herself between them and started untangling the hats from their jingling and jangling entanglement. The dangling ends of the Elf hats joined Eddie and Steve and It was obvious they had to have gotten a little up close and personal for that to have happened, “Did a Christmas miracle happen?” Robin teased as she bounced both bells back off their owners' nose. 

“Santa’s Elves can go on the naughty list you know,” Steve tried to stare her down with the same look he shot at the gremlins, but it hadn’t worked on Robin before and it wasn’t about to start doing so now. 

“Steve! Do you copy?” The walkie talkie on all their belts crackled into life with the sound of Dustin, throwing Robin and her accusations off track.

“Yeah butt head what is it?” Steve sounded annoyed but his face read as fond. 

“Fido’s back for round two, You forgot to say, over. Over.” 

Steve looked out across the square and the snow that was now bleaching down. 

“Did Fido get through the cable ties? Over.” Eddie radioed back wondering how the dog had got past his fool proof retaining method. 

“The manger is halfway down the street. Over.”

Robin looked at the line of kids waiting to go into Santa Hop, then looked at Eddie and Steve. She looked torn, and Eddie knew she was trying to decide if she wanted to tell Dustin to stuff it, or if she could last till the shift was over before getting the juicy gossip. 

“Go. Do your stupid action hero thing,” she barked at Steve. She grabbed Eddie by the wrist stopping him from following Steve on his biblical quest. “But you stay here, I need emotional support against the heaving masses,”

Steve saluted her, bouncing on his feet. He nudged Eddie with his hip as he passed. “So little drummer boy. If I don’t get back, mine after work?”

Eddie tried not to be too enthusiastic when he nodded aware that Robin’s eyes were on him. 

She looked like she was about to say something when the doors to the grotto opened and the kids in the front of the line started jostling for position to be the first to see the big man in red. 

Eddie started taking the tickets as he watched Steve dart around the waiting kids and head out into the snow. He tried not to stare at Steve's ass as he slipped on the snow but he knew he failed when Robin started ra pum pa pum puming at his side. 

“Did you tell him?” He whispered accusingly as he helped up the line with his little red rope.

“I didn’t tell him anything. You sing out loud, you big goof.” Robin didn’t have to look so smug, 

“I might have nudged him in the right direction. He wasn’t sure he had heard you right, you know I was just doing my bit, making sure that you were both barking up the right pine tree, being a good samaritan”

“I didn't know Steve was … you know?” Eddie muttered under his breath. 

“He's not, well he is… a bit. Enough to flirt with you in front of the infant king and half the ladies’ auxiliary.” Robin took the next bunch of kids tickets and waved them through the velvet rope of hope. They all looked drunk on sugar and dazed in the lights. Eddie knew how they felt.

○°●•●•●°●○•○○○°●••●○°○•●°°○

They got to the end of the long line with Eddie in a haze. Steve did not return to them until shortly after Hopper had stormed off complaining he needed at least an entire bottle of whisky to deal with the amount of kids who had asked him for a Ninja Turtle.. 

Steve hastily locked up the grotto and started toward the car, Robin charging ahead calling shotgun. she narrowly avoided the snowball thrown at her by Steve as he yelled at her to wait up. She pointedly ignored them slipping and sliding in the snow till she got her position at Steve's passenger side.

“It's ok Bucks, I know my place in the pecking order.” Eddie grinned as he slid into the back seat, however he leaned forward to interrupt the silent conversation happening between Robin and Steve. He would never understand the semaphore that was their eyebrows, but he could interrupt the signaling. 

As soon as they were outside Robin's. Eddie scrambled through the gap in the chairs to steal her place in the passenger seat. She affectionately rolled her eyes as she turned to say goodnight. 

, it’s my gift to you ra pum pa pum pum. Now you can touch Steve’s bum ra pum pa pum pum ” She sang before she slammed the door closed, flipping them both the bird. 

“She's going to try to take the credit for this, you know?” Steve said as he snaked his hand over the center console, searching out Eddie's knee to squeeze. 

“I mean, credit where it's due, I think we can blame Bing Crosby and David Bowie and their dedication to creating the most annoying earworm that rhymes with your bum.” Eddie watched as Robin pulled the door closed behind her with a wave and a thumbs up. He glanced around the street checking that nobody's curtains were twitching, all he could see was softly falling snow and HOA approved fairy lights. So he took matters into his own hands and twisted his fingers in with Steve’s, tugging him closer, unable to wait any longer. 

Steve's lips met Steve's with no resistance, he sunk into the warmth, the feel of Steve's chapped lips moving against his own, it would be easy to get lost in it. He was getting lost in it, right until a snowball hit the windscreen and shocked them apart. 

Battle mode activated and the two of them looked for the threat, only to see Robin standing in fluffy pajamas on her porch, waving at them to get a move on. 

Heart racing from more than just the shock of the snowball, Eddie flipped her off as Steve put the car into drive and the radio kicked in, the song that had started it all playing quietly as they pulled the corner towards Steve’s house. 

“Then He smiled at me pa-rum pum pum pum. Me and my drum Me and my drum.” Eddie sang as he tugged playfully at Steve’s hat, the bells ringing in time to the music, Steve’s smile lighting up the snowy night. 

He was living in a cheesy Christmas movie, but for once Eddie Munson was more than happy with that.

[werepuppy-steve]

it's the spirit of the season

steddie | T | 3.8k | complete | ao3 link

written for @thefreakandthehair's spicy six winter fanworks challenge!

Steve tilts his head in confusion, but before he can ask who the “big man” is, Wayne’s letting out a loud, sharp whistle that makes his left ear twinge. They stand there for a few minutes and through the ringing in his ear, Steve can just barely make out the sound of sleigh bells. His eyes widen in disbelief when a big red sleigh comes floating down from the sky, four reindeer attached. He blinks a couple times and Eddie laughs beside him, loud and joyous. “Wha-” “Come on, Stevie!” Eddie pulls him onto the sleigh by the hand, Wayne following. “We don’t have all night!”

@yournowheregirl @judasofsuburbia @steves-strapcollection @stobinesque @vecnuthy @tboygareth @starrystevie @inairbinad @flowercrowngods @starryeyedjanai @matchingbatbites @corrodedbisexual @theheadlessphilosopher @sidekick-hero @patchworkgargoyle @sentient-trash @wormdebut @legitcookie @corrodedcoughin @steddieas-shegoes @wynnyfryd

[thefreakandthehair]

Hi friends! It's that time again! I'm so excited to host the Second Annual Spicy Six Fanworks Challenge! The past year of seasonal challenges has been such a blast, and I can't wait to see what people come up with this time around!

Here are the rules: 

It's a Spicy Six challenge so of course, you must include someone from the Spicy Six (Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, Eddie, Steve, Argyle). Don't feel pressured to include everyone, of course. You can be ship-specific or general. Chrissy is also included! (I know that makes seven– I just don't want to change the title, honestly.)

There are two links below, one for dialogue prompts and one for more general prompts. Please DM me at thefreakandthehair with your claim. Prompts go on a first come, first serve basis, and historically, they've gone fairly quickly! I'm just one person, so DMs make it easier for me to see who claimed what first. If we're friends on Discord, that's also totally fine since those are timestamped, too.

More than one person can claim the same prompt if it’s for a different pairing/character/grouping or if it’s for a different medium (i.e.: a prompt can be claimed for a fic by one person, and the same prompt can be claimed for a fanart by someone else).

This year, I'm limiting people to two prompts per person. If you'd like to use two for one fic, please just claim the one that's the main inspiration and feel free to use whichever others you'd like within the fic!

No word count minimum or maximum for fics. 

Posting will run from December 15th through January 31st. With all of the events happening, we're having a longer posting timeframe this year! Additional posting details here!

When you post, please use the tag SpicySixWinterFanworksChallenge and tag me so I can see and reblog it!

Please feel free to reblog to spread and signal boost.

Dialogue Prompts Here

Inspiration Prompts Here

tagging people who've been on the ride before/expressed interest/pals! everyone is welcome, tumblr just limits you to 50 tags per post: @starrystevie @starryeyedjanai @patchworkgargoyle @just-my-latest-hyperfixation @withacapitalp @stargyles @stevespookington @stevethehairington @nostalgicbones @shares-a-vest @wynnyfryd @steddieas-shegoes @steddieasitgoes @maxinemaxmayfield @maxineholtzmann @kaspurrcat @sparklyslug @sparkle-fiend @ahhrenata @sentient-trash

@hexiewrites @hbyrde36 @sharpbutsoft @thisapplepielife @henderdads @strawberryspence @spicysix @sidekick-hero @firefly-party @gothbat99 @fragilecapric0rnn @judasofsuburbia @kkpwnall @fastcardotmp3 @yournowheregirl @flowercrowngods @delta-piscium @hammity-hammer @unclewaynemunson @undreaming-fanfiction @fruityfour @frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe @hereforanepilogue @t-boyeddie @matchingbatbites @artaxlivs @wormdebut @pearynice @aringofsalt @spinmewriteround

[medusapelagia]

We are not making sense at all

written for the Spicy Six Winter Fanworks Challenge by @thefreakandthehair

Rating: General Relationship: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson Prompt: Warm Soup WT: Pre-relationship, sickfic, sick character(s), Christmas 1985 WC: 5108

Christmas was never Eddie's favorite holiday, it always reminded him how lonely he was: no family to spend the holiday with, only Wayne who usually worked at Christmas for the double pay. A few times Gareth parents have tried to invite him but he always declined the invitation and buried himself in his trailer, watching silly Christmas movies, eating chips, and drinking beer on the couch like his old man. What a legacy, right?

But this time is even worse: not only he is home alone, but he is also sick. The metalhead has done his best to hide it from Wayne but now that he is finally alone he can’t stop coughing and sneezing and the floor of the trailer is covered in crumpled tissues that he is too tired to throw in the bin, while his neighbors are celebrating playing some Christmas music so loud that the trailer is almost vibrating. He can’t really complain, after all, he is used to playing metal music so he assumes he can endure hearing Jingle Bells for the umpteenth time: what he really can’t stand is the phone that keeps ringing. It seems that every person who knows him has decided to call him to wish him a Merry Christmas, which is probably fair, it’s Christmas after all, but all Eddie would like to do is nap on the lumpy couch while watching some stupid movies about Santa Claus or any other Christmas Miracle. His favorite movie is Little Lord Fauntleroy: even if he is too old to still indulge in such fantasies, he still dreams that one day a rich parent will reach out to him, telling him that he searched for him for years and that he is actually super rich and he can leave Hawkins whenever he wants.

He will take Wayne with him, of course, and he will miss the Corroded Coffin and the Party, but the Corroded Coffin are destined to split up as soon as Gareth and Jeff go to college so he doesn’t feel too bad at the idea of abandoning them.

But that’s just a fantasy. 

Eddie coughs again, while the stupid phone keeps ringing; when he finally gathers the strength to stand up and get to the phone, Dustin’s happy voice wishes him Merry Christmas, asking him how is he going to spend it and telling him that if he wants he can still join him and his family.

Eddie sighs, Dustin doesn’t have a huge family either, it’s just him, his mum, and probably Steve Harrington, and not only he doesn’t want Dustin’s pity, but he is pretty sure he doesn’t want to spend Christmas with Harrington either. And he is sick, which is the perfect excuse to finally shut up the little shrimp.

“Thank you Dustin, but I’m feeling a little bit under the weather, I don't want you to catch any of my germs.” He says, coughing for good measure.

“Oh no! Being sick at Christmas is the worst! One year I got sick and I had to spend Christmas in bed, it was awful! Thankfully Santa still brought me some toys and I could play a little in the afternoon when I felt a little bit better, but waking up with a fever on Christmas day is no fun!” he tells him “Do you need anything? I could ask Steve to drive me to the trailer! I have a few comics that you haven’t read yet.”

“Don’t worry, I’m good, I just need to sleep a little and I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure? I’m sure Steve will not mind.”

In which world Harrington will not mind getting to the Freak’s trailer on Christmas to bring him some comics? 

Eddie chuckles, pretty sure that not only he would mind but he would be really pissed, even if probably he’ll do it if Dustin asks him to. It’s incredible how that little shrimp has both of them wrapped around his finger like two stupid puppets, but no, thanks, Eddie still has enough self-respect “I’m good, I swear. Thank you for offering.” 

“If you are sure…” Dustin finally agrees, even if he doesn’t sound one hundred percent sure about it.

After the call Eddie decides to unplug the phone and gets back to his couch, ready to spend the rest of the day napping and watching television.

***

He must have dozed off for longer than he thought because when he opens his eyes he doesn’t even know what he is watching on the television and the room is way darker than it was. For a moment he wonders if he woke up on his own, but then he hears the insistent knocking on the trailer door and finally gets up to open the door.

“Did you forget the keys, old man?” Eddie asks, convinced that Wayne is the one knocking, but he freezes when he sees that the person on the other side of the door is nothing less than Steve Harrington, fallen school king, ex-jock and richest boy in town.

“Hi.” He says, smiling, holding a Tupperware in his hands “Henderson said you are not feeling well.” But when Eddie doesn’t move he chuckles “Will you let me in or what?”.

Eddie moves from the door and lets the Harrington’s boy enter his trailer. As soon as he turns toward the living room he understands that there is no way he can hide how messy he is: there is a pile of tissues all over the floor, and the remains from his breakfast are still on the kitchen table.

“I… I…” he tries to come up with an excuse but Steve simply smiles.

“It’s ok. You are not feeling well.” He replies, getting closer to the kitchen “Can I have a pot, please?”

Eddie nods and gives him the only clean one that he finds and, even if it’s way bigger than needed, Steve takes it and pours the content of his Tupperware into the pot.

“Claudia made it?” Eddie asks, smelling the tasty soup that Steve is heating.

“Nope. It’s my nonna recipe. It’s a foolproof method against the cold.” He tells him.

“Your nonna made it?”

“Well, the recipe is her, but she died almost ten years ago so I’m the one who actually cooked it. I’m sorry it took a bit, but you can’t rush perfection, right?” Steve smirks and Eddie stares at him, astonished.

“That’s really kind but… why are you doing this?”

Steve shrugs “You know Dustin, right? He was worried about you and made me promise that I would check on you and I agreed.”

“And the soup?”

“It does wonder, you’ll see.” He promises, stirring the soup while Eddie sits on the chair, watching Steve move around with ease: the trailer’s kitchen is really small but Steve seems to find everything he needs even if he has never been there before.

“How can I help you?” Eddie finally asks, feeling like a guest in his own room.

“Can you give me a couple of bowls?” Steve asks, then turns, bushing “Sorry, I just assumed it was ok with you if I eat here but I just realized that I should have asked.”

“No… it’s fine. You cooked, so the least I can do is offer you a bowl and a spoon.”

If the smell isn’t enough, the taste is absolutely delicious, and Eddie is very vocal about how much he likes it, singing Steve’s praises.

“It’s just a warm soup.” He tells him, avoiding Eddie’s stare and preparing a bowl for Wayne to reheat in the microwave.

“It’s absolutely delicious!” Eddie insists. Wayne is a kind man but he is no cook and all they are used to eating are pre-made dinners that he heats in the microwave, so eating a magical soup that will nurse him back to health is something really special to Eddie.

“I’m glad you liked it.” Steve says, cleaning the bowls and what was left from breakfast before Eddie can stop him.

“Would you like to watch a movie with me?” Eddie proposes, then he suddenly feels ashamed “Sorry, I’m sure you have better things to do than staying here with me. You already brought me the soup… and I don’t want you to catch whatever my illness so please ignore me… I don’t know why I asked you…”

“It’s fine. I have a very strong immune system and I don’t have anywhere to be, to be honest: Robin is at his Uncle’s home and I told Dustin that I was coming here so my choices are watching a movie with you or at my place.”

“No date for King Steve?”

Steve chuckles “No, no date Eddie.”

It’s the first time Steve calls him Eddie and it sounds nice.

They sit together on Eddie’s little couch, their knees bump when they sit and Eddie laughs awkwardly, embarrassed to be so close to King Steve “All the movies I have are either western or horror movies, I fear.” He says, kneeling on the floor to look at the pile of VHS.

“It’s fine, I work in a video store, and I’m used to watching every kind of movie.” Stevee replies, making himself comfortable.

They are halfway through an old western when Eddie turns toward Steve, his profile is lit up by the black-and-white movie on the screen.

“Hey, Steve.”

“Mmh?”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

***

Somewhere between the second half of the movie, Eddie must have fallen asleep, because when he opens his eyes he is lying on the couch and there is no trace of Harrington anywhere. 

For a moment he wonders if he might have dreamed of him, but his Tupperware is still on the kitchen counter and Wayne is eating the soup.

“Nice boy.”

“Uh?”

“Steve, I think? Chestnut hair and kind smile?”

“Oh, yeah. He came because he knew I was sick.”

Wayne nods “As I said. Nice guy. And good cook.” He concludes, eating his soup.

Eddie nods, getting up and going to sit next to Wayne.

“Are you feeling any better?”

“Much better, actually. Steve said it’s the soup. It has some magical properties.”

“Bet it does.” The old man replies, ruffling Eddie’s hair “You know you can tell me anything, right boy?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Wayne nods and turns to clean his bowl.

“What? What are you implying?” Eddie asks, confused.

“Nothing. I’m going to bed, do you want to keep watching the television?”

Eddie shakes his head and goes to bed, still wondering how was it possible that King Steve came to his rescue.

***

Two days later Dustin is at Eddie’s door.

“What?” Eddie asks annoyed, he is not used to waking up so early when he doesn’t have to go to school, that’s what holidays are for: sleep. 

The boy gives him a very serious look before saying “It’s Steve.”

“What about him?”

“I called him and he didn’t answer.”

Eddie sighs “Dustin, he is a young boy, he is probably dating someone and he slept at their place, that’s what older boys do. Now go home and don’t bother me again.”

“No. Not Steve.”

Eddie snorts “If there is someone who is going on dates is definitely your friend Harrington.”

“You don’t get it, Steve always answers. Always. Especially if I call him on the walkie! But he didn’t! Neither yesterday nor today.”

Eddie sighs, pinching his nose “And what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to go to Steve’s house: you can pick a lock, right?”

“What?! I’m not going to risk two years for break and enter because Harrington fell asleep after fucking someone!” Eddie protests, crossing his arms and glaring at the kid.

“It’s not like that! We just have to be sure he is fine! Robin is not here or I would have asked her! Steve doesn’t have anyone else: just the two of us.” He says seriously and Eddie can’t suppress a smile.

“You are serious, aren’t you?”

“I definitely am.”

Eddie sighs “Ok, I’ll go check on your babysitter, but I want you to go back home, ok?”

“What if he needs help? He had two concussions in the past, I know how to help him and…”

“If he needs that kind of help I’ll drag him to the hospital, but I’m sure he’ll be out with some pretty girl and if you really want me to pick the lock of the richest house in town I don’t want any kid around, is that clear?”

“But…”

“Is that clear?”

Dustin nods, unconvinced, and then glares at Eddie “You call me the moment you find him, ok?”

“I’m telling you he won’t be there.”

“I’m telling you he will be, I checked and his car was parked in front of his house!”

Eddie raises his arms with a sigh “Ok, fine, I’ll call you, ok? Now go, and don’t bike here again! It’s dangerous.”

Dustin nods and gets back to his bike yelling “Call me, Eddie!” one more time before biking back toward his home.

Eddie sighs, gets back inside, puts on his leather jacket, and takes the van keys before driving toward Harrington’s house.

When he gets to Loch Nora he sees Steve’s BWM parked right in front of the house, as Dustin said.

Eddie rings the bell and knocks on the door until his knuckles hurt but none comes open.

“Harrington?” he calls, moving around the house to find an easy way to get in without breaking a window or picking a lock in the middle of the day. He tries every window until he sees that one window on the second floor is ajar. Cursing himself for his poor gymnastic skill, somehow he manages to climb toward the window and get inside, landing on the floor with a loud thump.

The room he is in is definitely Steve’s, even if the boy is nowhere to be seen and the bed is still perfectly made. Eddie moves around the other rooms but Steve is nowhere to be seen, so he gets to the living room to call Dustin to tell him that Steve is probably outside, having the time of his life, when he sees a figure wrapped in so many blankets that looks like a cocoon.

“Harrington?” he calls, and a pitiful voice answers him back.

Eddie runs down the stairs and gets closer to the boy “Hey, Harrington, are you ok?” he asks, but he can feel how hot Steve is even under all the blankets.

“Fuck. I think you got my virus.” Eddie curses, and Steve sneezes as a confirmation “Ok, don’t worry, I’m going to take care of you, ok big boy? Do you have some fever medicine somewhere?”

“Bathroom…” Steve murmurs in a small voice, and Eddie runs upstairs to the bathroom and comes back with a few medicines and a thermometer.

He takes Steve’s temperature, which is way too high, and tries to suggest calling a doctor, but Steve is adamant he doesn’t want to, so all that Eddie can do is help him sip some water and take a few pills.

When Steve falls asleep the older boy calls Dustin, informing him that Steve is sick but that he doesn’t have to worry because he will take care of him and he does, the metalhead helps him drink some hot tea, go to the bathroom and finally convince him to go to sleep in his bed and not on the couch.

“Can I call your parents?” Eddie asks, changing the wet towel on Steve’s forehead.

“They are in Paris. Or Rome. Don’t remember.”

“I can’t leave you alone like that.” 

“I’m fine.”

“No, you are not. Tell me who I can call to keep an eye on you or I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

Steve murmurs something that sounds like “Hopper” but Eddie knows that the chief died in the fire at the mall a few months before “I’m serious, Steve. You can’t be left alone like this.”

But the boy is already asleep, so he sighs and goes back to the living room to call Wayne.

“Hey, Wayne.”

“Kid? You ok?”

“Yeah. I’m at Harrington. I think he got my virus but much worse. Do you mind if I keep an eye on him? He is home alone.”

“Not at all, just pay attention.”

“I got sick before, I’m not going to get sick again.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Wayne whispers and Eddie frowns, confused, but doesn’t comment.

When he gets in the kitchen to make himself a sandwich he sees Steve’s nonna recipe on the kitchen table and decides to try to make it.

Eddie has never cooked before in his life, but the instructions are pretty easy: he follows them step by step, and an hour later the same smell of warm soup fills the air. He takes a couple of bowls and gets back to Steve’s room.

“Steve? Wake up. Stevie, come on. You have to eat something.” He tells him while he gently shakes Steve to wake him.

“Mum?” the boy asks with feverish eyes.

“Just me, Eddie.”

“Oh. Eddie. Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, you were probably dreaming, am I right?”

The younger boy nods, then looks at the bowl that the metal head is offering him “Is it…?”

“It is. Or at least I think it is. I followed the instructions step by step.” He replies, helping Steve sit up and giving him the spoon, but the boy is shaking so much that Eddie quickly resolves to spoon-feed him, slowly.

“So much for your strong immune system, uh?” the metalhead mocks him, cleaning Steve’s lips with a napkin.

“I’m sorry…”

“Stop saying you are sorry. You are sick and you need a little bit of help, it’s ok to need help sometimes, you know that, right?”

“Shouldn’t. I’m a Harrington.” He replies, covering his eyes with an arm.

“What the hell does that mean? Sorry to break it to you, but you are human, like everyone else.” Eddie tells him, tucking his blankets.

“It’s just a cold.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, but even if it was you have the right to feel like shit and have someone take care of you.” Eddie insists, giving him some water and a couple of pills to lower his fever “And if by tomorrow you are not feeling any better I’m going to call a doctor, even if you don’t like it.”

“I had the soup. I’ll be alright.” Steve replies convinced, his eyes half closed, and Eddie lets him fall asleep, he is not sure Steve will feel better in the morning, but even if he doesn’t he is not going to let him be alone in that big house, he will probably call Dustin’s mum, or Wayne, or some other adult that really knows how to take care of a sick person, for the moment he sits on the floor of Steve’s bedroom, watching his chest rise and fall like and hawk.

***

Maybe it was the soup, as Steve insists, or maybe Steve’s fever just broke on his own with the help of a few pills, but the next day the rich boy looks way better than the night before.

“Told you. That soup is magic. Thank you for  cooking it for me.”

“I guessed your mum cooked it for you every time you got sick, uh?” Eddie asks, giving him the cup of tea he already prepared for him. No coffee or milk after you have been unwell, it’s a core part of Munson’s doctrine.

“Nah. Just my nonna. But she was Italian, so she wasn’t around often.” Steve replies, thanking him for the tea, and sipping it slowly.

“Well, my mum wasn’t around either, but Wayne did his best to make up for it.” Eddie replies, eating some eggs.

“He seems like a good man. We had a little chat when you were feeling under the weather.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t try to scare you away with his rifle.” Eddie snorts.

“He actually did. Or at least he threatened me that he would have taken the rifle if I didn’t leave, but after I clarified that I wasn’t a thief and that there was some soup for him he became really nice.” Steve sips some more tea and then he asks “How did you know I was feeling unwell?”

“Henderson. He can be really annoying, or persuasive, it depends, in any case he insisted that someone had to check on you. He actually asked me to break into your house! Luckily for me, there was a window ajar in your bedroom and I got in from there.”

Steve smiles “Yeah, Dustin can be annoying but I love him, and don’t laugh at me, I know he is just a kid, but he is like a little brother to me.”

“Yeah. I get it, I think I feel the same, even if I must confess that I was fucking jealous of Steve Harrington. You have no idea how many times he mentions you every day! Steve did that, Steve said this, Steve is going to drive me here and there… Every day he talks about you! You are his fucking hero!”

Steve scoffs, blushing so softly and Eddie can’t avoid wondering if he would blush so sweetly even under the sheets “Dustin and I have some history. I helped him with some… projects. That’s all. I’m not the super cool Dungeon Master that plays his stupid game.”

“Hey! That’s not a stupid game! It’s really hard to be a good DM!” Eddie complains, crunching another cookie and letting the crumbles fall everywhere.

Steve’s hands twitch, getting a towel to clean the table, but in the end, he desists and keeps drinking his tea.

“I don’t doubt it. Dustin tried to explain it to me but I’m too stupid to understand it.” Steve says, avoiding Eddie’s stare, but the metalhead reaches for his hand.

“Hey, you are not stupid. The game it’s complicated, but if you want I can teach you.”

Steve chuckles “Thanks but if I couldn’t understand it on a good day I doubt I’ll understand it today.”

“Still feeling shitty?”

“Not too bad but, yeah, I think I have been better.”

Eddie clicks his tongue “Do you think you’ll be alright if I get back to the trailer? I can be back in the evening but I don’t want Wayne to worry.”

“There is no need for you to come back tonight, I’m feeling so much better.”

“And renounce the opportunity to see cable television on such a huge screen?” Eddie smirks and Steve nods.

“Ok, you can hang out at my place for the holidays if that’s what you were thinking, but I’ll have to go back to work tomorrow or Keith will definitely fire me.”

Eddie agrees, but before leaving he reminds Steve that he is going to get back in the evening “Do you think you’ll feel good enough to have some pizza tonight? There is a new pizza place, Garreth says is sick but I have never been.”

Steve smiles and Eddie can’t help but smile back at him “Pizza sounds good, but no beer for me.”

“Got it!” Eddie replies, getting in the van and driving home.

***

In the evening Eddie goes back to Steve’s house with a couple of pizzas and a six-pack.

“Thank you Eddie but I told you that I wasn’t going to drink beer.”

“Oh, that’s for me.”

“All of them?”

“Yeah, are you judging me, Harrington?”

Steve shakes his head while they sit at the table.

“How was your day?” Eddie asks, taking a slice of pizza from the box with his hands and starting to eat it straight away.

“I dozed off on the couch and watched some old movies.” Steve replies, taking a plate to eat his pizza and Eddie feels immediately ashamed for his manners.

“Sorry…” he mumbles with his mouth still full but Steve just smiles.

“You are just like Dustin. I like that.”

“You like my lack of manners?” 

“I like your freedom.” He replies, cutting the pizza with fork and knife, before eating a little piece “My mum was really fond of etiquette, I learned what was the right fork for each food before I was tall enough to get to the table on my own. I would have loved to eat some pizza with my hands, getting my face dirty with tomato sauce or whatever.”

“Oh… we can fix that.” Eddie replies, taking another piece and offering it to Steve “Come on, take it. Take and eat it: with your hands, as a huge fuck you to your family. How does it sound?”

Steve stares at the piece of pizza for a long time and finally takes it from Eddie’s hand, giving a tentative bite, and immediately covering his mouth with the other hand “It tastes better if you don’t cover your mouth.” Eddie winks and Steve lowers his hand, showing a little smudge of tomato sauce on the side of his lips that Eddie cleans with his thumb, before licking it without even thinking about it.

It’s only when he feels Steve freeze that he realizes what he has done and whitens “Fuck. I’m sorry. Wayne used to do it with me and…”

“It’s… it’s ok.” Steve replies, blushing, then he changes the argument “The pizza it’s tastier like this.” He confirms and Eddie beams.

“Told you. That’s part of the sacred Munson’s doctrine.”

“Tell me more about this doctrine.” Steve asks, while he takes another piece of pizza with his hands and Eddie talks about everything: about the game he loves so much, about the Theatre Room where they play, about his opinion on jocks and laundry baskets players “Present company excluded, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

The more Eddie talks with Steve, the more he finds out that the other boy is not half bad. They spend the day chatting and when it’s time for Eddie to get back to the trailer Steve offers him one of the guest rooms “It’s not safe letting you drive after all the beers you drunk.”

“That’s nothing, weren’t you the Keg King?”

“Once, now I’m a big brother and I worry. It’s part of the job description.”

“I’m older than you.” Eddie points out but Steve shrugs and guides him toward the guest room.

“Choose whatever you want.”

Eddie nods and chooses the first room he sees, but when Steve comes into the room to give him towels and toiletries, Eddie grins “Hey, Steve?”

“Uh?”

“What do you think Dustin would say if we became friends?”

“He will be happy, I think?”

“Maybe at the beginning… but I’m sure you know a lot of embarrassing stories about him, and I know a few too, so… what do you say if we exchange intel and we gang upon him?”

Steve smirks “Are you suggesting we torture the little shrimp? Together?”

“He deserves it!”

“He definitely does. He keeps mocking me for my beauty routine.”

Eddie snorts “Do you have a beauty routine?”

“Fuck you, Munson. I don’t want to exchange anything with you.”

“Sorry. Sorry. My fault. I will not mock you, pinkie promise.”

They share a look and then they shake hands.

“Come, sit here. I have so many stories to tell you.” Eddie says, scooting over to make space for Steve on the bed and the chestnut boys lies with him, exchanging stories about how Dustin lost his cat and somehow convinced him to search for it in the woods, while Eddie recalls the first time he saw him in the cafeteria with his signature thinking cap.

“That boy is something, isn’t he?” Eddie asks, and when he doesn’t hear a reply he turns toward Steve, only to find him asleep and gently snoring. He brushes some hair away from his face, covers them both with the blanket and falls asleep in Steve’s comfy bed.

***

One week later none expect it when, on the first day of school after the holidays, Steve goes to pick up Robin and Dustin, and the the jock and the metalhead hug in the parking lot as if they were best friends who haven’t seen each other in years.

“What the hell is happening?” Dustin asks, darting his eyes between the two of them.

Eddie puts an arm around Steve’s shoulder with ease “You wanted us to get closer, didn’t you, Dustin?”

“Yeah but…”

“Well, we did.” Steve concludes “Now get in the car before Robin and I lose another job!”

They are halfway toward Dustin’s house when Steve asks “So: is it true that you farted during the last campaign and you tried to pretend it was the chair?”

Robin snorts and Dustin freezes “It was the chair! And how do you know… oh no… oh no!” Dustin exclaims, his eyes wide with terror “Please, tell me that’s not true! Why did you have to talk about me!”

“You are the only thing Eddie and I have in common, we bonded thanks to you. Aren’t you happy?” Steve winks and Dustin is still grumbling something when Steve leaves him at his house, before driving Robin toward Family Video.

“So. You and Munson, uh?” the girl asks in a cautious way.

“Yeah. It’s nice to have a friend my age, you know?”

She punches Steve’s shoulder “I’m your age, dingus!”

“But you are a girl! He is a boy! It’s different.”

Robin glowers at him “Steven Joseph Harrington, did you replace me with Eddie the Freak Munson?”

“Never! You are my best friend. Eddie is just… different. It’s easy to talk with him, you know? And he is very funny, he makes me laugh a lot and we have a great time together.”

“Talking, uh? And what about Heidi?”

“Oh, we were supposed to go out on a date but Eddie wanted to hang out and… what? Don’t look at me like that!” Steve complains, turning into the Family Video parking lot.

Robin sighs, gets their uniforms from the back and sighs“I’m glad you finally found a special friend.”

“Come on. I just made him my nonna’s soup when he was sick. It’s not like it means something.”

Robin takes her uniform, but before closing herself in the bathroom to change she turns to say to him “If you are going to be kissed by a boy before I get kissed by a girl I’m going to be super pissed!”

And Steve stares at the bathroom door, confused, that’s not what it is! It’s just a friendship! Right?

[steddieasitgoes]

Pulling triple duty with this one.

Written for @steddiemas Day 29: Holiday Parties and @thefreakandthehair Spicy Six Winter Fanworks Challenge. It's also a holiday sequel to my big bang fic Signed, Sealed Delivered, I'm Yours

My prompt for the Winter Fanworks Challenge was: “If I wear that sweater to work, my boss will kill me."

Tags: Established relationships, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, Mailman Steve, Platonic Soulmate Steve Harrington & Robin Buckley, Slice of Life

wc: 4003 | Rating: T

Read on ao3 | ao3 collection

The Brookbridge Post Office holiday party is a tradition that dates back long before Steve joined the ranks. Every year Warren splurges on renting out a private room at a restaurant or banquet hall before passing all the planning off to his assistant of the month. The only rule, as far as Steve’s aware, is that it has to be tied to some charity organization so that he can write the whole thing off later.

This year is no different as the invitation he finds shoved into his work locker has the Toys for Tots logo front and center. What is different is the attire section that requests all guests break out their best holiday sweaters for the occasion.

Steve’s not sure what constitutes a holiday sweater, but he has a closet full of knit red and green ones that’ll surely work. No sweat off his back. Especially since he’s also done with the toy shopping.

The holiday party isn’t Steve’s favorite way to spend a random Saturday in December, but he always sucks it up and goes. Usually drags Robin along with him so they can stand in the corner getting drunk off free drinks while making fun of Tommy and his gang of mini-me’s as they try to hit on everyone’s plus ones.

It’s not the highlight of their holiday season by any means, but it's a tradition they’ve had going for years now. One he’s not sure he wants to break this year even though he could take Eddie as his romantic plus one. Which is exactly what he tells Robin during their Saturday movie marathon.

They’re sprawled out on the couch, Dumpster between them, with Christmas Vacation playing in the background. They’ve seen it enough times to quote the entire thing from memory so neither minds the interruption. It’s not like they ever actually watch movies on their Saturday movie afternoons anyway.

“Are you kidding me, Steve?” Robin snorts, lobbing a pillow at his head. “Of course, you’re taking Eddie!”

“But we always go together.”

“Only because you never have a date!”

“So, what? You’ve been going all these years as my pity plus one?” Steve asks, nudging her with his knee.

“I’m sorry, did you think I liked hanging out in some stuffy banquet hall listening to Hagan and his little groupies try to hit on me?”

“Don’t forget the year Warren hit on you.” Robin retches, startling Dumpster from her slumber. The cat yawns before slowly climbing off the couch and down the hallway in search of somewhere quieter to sleep.

“Take Eddie. It’ll be fun!”

“Don’t you think two months of dating is too soon to be taking him to work events?”

This time it’s Robin’s bony knee that jabs into the meaty flesh of his thigh.“Jesus, Robs,” he hisses, pulling the hem of his shorts up to check for instant bruising.

“You’re dumber than I thought if you really think you and Eddie have only been dating for two months. What about all those months before, huh?” Steve doesn’t say anything, just rolls his eyes in silent protest. She’s not wrong, but she’s not right either. “Besides, it’s not like he hasn’t already met some of the people from work when he goes to the post office.”

“I mean, yeah, I guess you’re right,” Steve sighs. Still, there’s something lingering in the pit of his stomach. A gnawing, unpleasant weight that he can’t shake. He takes a moment to collect his thoughts before he brings a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Tommy’s going to be there, though.”

The same Tommy who has been a Grade-A douchebag since getting removed from Steve’s route and put back on sorter/greeter duty. Steve’s not sure why he doesn’t just quit if he’s so miserable but every day he finds himself on the receiving end of a lackluster death glare.

Also, the same Tommy who gave Eddie the nickname “Mr. Dreamy.” The same Tommy who relentlessly hit on Eddie until he finally got thrown out of his house once and for all.

The same Tommy who has no idea that the guy Steve is seeing, because yes, Tommy knows Steve is seeing someone and teases him about it daily, is said, Mr. Dreamy.

Bringing Eddie into that is a recipe for disaster. One Steve’s not sure he even wants to subject himself to, let alone Eddie.

“On second thought,” Robin says, scrambling to sit up. “Can you take two guests? I will suffer the gross gazes and bad pick-up lines of your male coworkers just so I can see Hagan’s face fall when he realizes you’re dating the guy he was after.”

Steve laughs despite himself, shaking his head. If there’s one thing Robin loves, it’s being a fly on the wall for some good, old-fashioned drama.

📬 🎄 📬

With Robin officially denying his plus-one invitation, Steve sets out to ask Eddie.

It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, he knows this, but something about it also feels like a Big Deal — with a capital B and D. Sure, they’ve branched out from their routine lunch dates — they have a standing Sunday brunch double date with the girls and make a point to go out at least once during the week, plus Steve regularly stops by the shop now, but it's different inviting Eddie to go to a work event with him.

It’s another step in their relationship.

One toward a more permanent future and Steve doesn’t want to fuck it up by scaring Eddie away.

So he spends a week testing the waters. Asks Eddie about his holiday plans over Toasty Treats’ legendary holiday turkey sandwich on Tuesday. Brings up Tommy’s latest fuck up over chili leftovers on Thursday to gage Eddie’s feelings about him (“Jesus H. Christ he really is an idiot,” he laughs, clearly poking fun, but not in the teasing way he does with Steve that always makes his cheeks heat up). During brunch on Sunday, he goads Robin into sharing a fun anecdote from last year's party where one too many cocktails had her and Steve taking over the karaoke machine serenading guests all night with off-key renditions of Christmas carols.

When Steve steals a glance at Eddie he finds him smiling and laughing along with the story.

And just like that the seed is planted.

Steve finally gets the courage to ask the question he’s been dancing around for a week on Tuesday over leftover Chinese takeout.

“Course I’ll be your plus-one, Stevie,” Eddie answers mouthful of Chow-Mien. “I’ll be your plus-one anytime, anywhere, any—”

“Alright, you sap,” Steve laughs, leaning over the table to steal a kiss.

“Does this mean I’m finally going to see the back room where the mail sorter fairies work?”

“Unfortunately not. The party’s at the banquet hall in town.”

“Dammit,” Eddie sighs.

“Oh, and you have to wear a Christmas sweater.”

“Love me a good theme!”

📬 🎄 📬

Turns out, what Steve considers a Christmas sweater is very different from what Eddie considers a Christmas sweater. A fact he’s currently in the midst of learning as he glances around Eddie’s bedroom.

“Stevie, sweetheart, love of my life,” Eddie says, clasping his hands in front of him as he rocks on the balls of his feet. “That is not a Christmas sweater.”

Steve glances down at the knit sweater he’s wearing before fisting the hem and pulling it away from his chest to get a better look. He’s not sure what Eddie’s talking about. It’s totally a Christmas sweater!

“Yeah it is, Eds,” he defends. “It has a reindeer and a tree on it. That’s pretty Christmas.”

Eddie gawks for a moment before scrubbing a hand down his face. Steve knows he only does that when he’s frustrated so he braces for whatever he’s going to say.

“Objectively speaking, yes, it is a Christmas sweater. But it’s also not a Christmas sweater.”

This time it’s Steve who gawks at Eddie. He’s used to Eddie getting worked up over random things, but this is a new one. “Okay Christmas Sweater expert, what is an appropriate Christmas sweater then.”

“I’m glad you asked,” Eddie grins before stalking over to the pile of clothes on his bed. He shuffles through the clothes for a moment, tossing a few shirts to the wayside before he shouts victoriously and turns around clutching a red sweater in his hands. “Now this is a Christmas sweater.”

Steve can’t help the cackle that escapes him the minute his eyes land on the sweater. It’s a red monstrosity with an upside-down snowman sprawled out over the entire thing. A plastic carrot of some sort protrudes off and hanhs low, blending with the tinsel on the hat and two blue ornament balls that also dangle low

“If I wear that sweater to work, my boss will kill me,” Steve says through laughter.

“Oh come on, it’s not that bad!”

“Eddie!” Steve squawks, brows knitted together. “It’s literally a dick and balls!”

“Warren is a buzz kill,” Eddie sighs, tossing the sweater aside. Without another word, he reaches for another sweater from the mess on his bed and turns around. “What about this one?”

This one is green with a gingerbread man smiling in the middle. It looks innocent enough except for the fact that the gingerbread has bloodshot eyes and the words “let’s get baked” are stitched in big white letters followed by a marijuana leaf.

“Are you trying to get me fired? Again!”

“Hey,” Eddie scolds playfully. “I didn’t get you fired, I got you demoted. And we agreed it was both our fault. Don’t be putting the blame on me! Besides I’m just sticking with the theme.”

“Baby, the theme is Christmas sweaters not whatever this is,” Steve says waving his hands in the air.

“These are Christmas sweaters.”

“I mean, yeah, they’re technically Christmas sweaters but they’re not appropriate!” Steve laughs. “Where did you even find them?”

“Are you forgetting I work with artists all day? Me and the guys make them.”

“You made these?” Steve asks, snatching the sweater from his hands to get a better look.

Up close it's easier to tell that they’re homemade. The stitches are slightly askew, a missing thread or two here and there. Overall though they’re store-like quality. He didn’t even know Eddie could sew let alone sew an entire inappropriate Christmas sweater. If the tattooing thing doesn’t work out, maybe he and the Hellfire guys should start a clothing line.

“That’s pretty impressive actually.”

“So, does that mean you’ll wear one?”

“To my work party? Absolutely not,” Steve laughs.

“Come on,” Eddie whines. “Nowhere on that invite does it say it has to be appropriate!”

“I’m pretty sure it’s implied! Maybe you can get away with that at the shop's holiday parties, but Brookbridge is full of stuck-up employees. Warren might be sleeping with his assistant but I don’t think he’ll appreciate this,” Steve says, lifting the gingerbread sweater.

“I guess that means I should change then.”

“Wait, you’re wearing one of these right now?” Eddie nods, coaxing another chuckle from Steve. “What does yours look like?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

With eyes shining with mirth and that crooked smile, Steve loves so much, Eddie slowly peels off his leather jacket revealing the Christmas sweater he’s been wearing. It’s hunter-green and looks incredibly soft to the touch. Unfortunately, the words “Well Hung” are stitched in a bright green across the chest. Four baubles are stitched on underneath in various sizes trying their best to make the phrase Christmas-appropriate instead of the innuendo it is.

“Oh my god,” Steve wheezes, doubling over in laughter. It takes him a minute to compose himself and when he does Eddie is standing there beaming with pride. “S’clever and definitely true.” Eddie’s smile grows even wider at that. “But yeah, I think you should change, baby.”

“Ugh, you’re no fun,” Eddie groans.

“Hey, I’m plenty fun,” he says, quickly closing the distance between them. Steve gets his hands on Eddie, wrapping them around his middle and pulling him flush with his chest before searing a kiss to his lips. “But I don’t want to give Tommy any ideas. Don’t think he’d back off if he saw you advertising yourself like this.”

Eddie hums in consideration before reluctantly agreeing. Wiggling out of Steve’s grasp, he yanks the sweater off and tosses it onto the bed with the other rejected sweaters. Then, he sulks over to his closet to search for another sweater. A few minutes pass, nothing but the sounds of plastic hangers clanging against the metal rod filling the room before Eddie turns around with a huff.

“So, turns out I don’t have any appropriate Christmas sweaters.”

Steve laughs, shaking his head. “Don’t worry, I have a spare lying around. We’ll just stop by my place before heading over.”

📬 🎄 📬

They get intercepted by Debbie as they’re trying to leave, costing them an extra ten minutes they don’t have to spare. That added with the detour to Steve’s place and the inevitable quickie that follows when they realize Robin isn’t home makes them an hour late to the party.

But it’s not a big deal. Hardly anyone but Betty even realizes they’re late. And the only reason she notices is because she’s smoking outside the door when they get there.

“You clean up nice,” she says like she does every holiday party. Tossing the cigarette to the floor, she snubs it out with the toe of her boots before slowly dragging her eyes up Eddie. “You do too, Eddie, right?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m Eddie. And thank you, ma’am.”

Betty tsks, waving her hand in the air. “None of this ma’am crap. Just Betty is fine. Steve’s told me lots about you. Have you made a decision on that P.O. Box yet?”

Steve has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from snorting. That day doesn’t leave the best taste in his mouth considering how it ended, but it did start out with a lot of promise.

“Oh, uh, I don’t think it’s for me. S’much easier to have my mail delivered to me. Especially when he’s doing it.”

Betty glances at Steve and gives him another slow once over before winking at the both of them. “M’sure it is,” she laughs. “You boys better get in there. Don’t want to miss the fun.”

📬 🎄 📬

The banquet hall is decorated just as it always is. A giant Christmas tree sits in the middle. A handful of tables surround a small dance floor. There’s a buffet of food on one end, the donation table on the other. A small band is set up on stage, serenading the crowd with a mix of Top 40s and holiday hits. No karaoke machine this year much to Eddie’s chagrin.

After a round of drinks, Steve gets to mingling, introducing Eddie to the handful of coworkers he actually likes. The introductions are brief and his co-workers are quick to share embarrassing stories about Steve’s early days on the job with Eddie who listens and laughs along.

Eventually, Warren finds them, his wife draped lovingly on his arm while his assistant throws daggers his way from the bar. Steve puts on his best smile and expertly navigates the small talk, making a point to compliment Warren’s wife and joke about her being out of his league. Warren’s quick to excuse the both of them after that.

“He gives me the creeps,” Eddie shivers, watching as he guides his wife through the sea of people with a hand on the small of her back all the while making eyes with his assistant across the room.

“He’s definitely a douchebag,” Steve agrees.

He takes a sip of his drink as he scans the room. They’ve been here for almost two hours now and he hasn’t spotted Tommy once. Usually, he’s the center of attention at these things. Dancing up a storm and making it a point to flirt with everyone’s plus ones. Maybe he’s already staked his claim on someone and is getting lucky in the bathroom, Steve thinks before shaking the thought from his head. Who is he kidding, Tommy doesn’t have that kind of luck.

If he’s honest with himself, he’s sort of bummed that Tommy hasn’t made his presence known to him yet. Not because he wants to see him, he’d be happy going the rest of his life without having to share the same room with the guy, but because he wants to show Eddie off. And, okay, maybe he also wants to see Tommy’s face fall like Robin wanted to.

📬 🎄 📬

Steve is swaying with Eddie on the dance floor when the devil that is Tommy shithead Hagan finally materializes. He’s beyond tipsy, uneven on his feet, and freckled face flushed redder than Steve’s ever seen it. His eyes are glossy and his lips are curled in a way that sends alarm bells blaring in Steve’s head.

Trouble is afoot.

Afoot? Christ he’s spending too much time with Eddie.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Harrington.” He practically spits before whipping his head to stare at Eddie. “And oh, look what the postman dragged in. Yesterday’s mail!”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, taking a step toward Tommy. He gives Steve a mischievous look before cocking his head to the side as he gives Tommy his full attention. “Do I know you?”

“Oh don’t play coy in front of your little boy toy, darling,” Tommy slurs, reaching out to rest a hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

It takes all the strength in Steve’s body not to reach out and yank his arm away. Thankfully, Eddie does it for him, shrugging the offending hand off with more force than necessary.

“Oh come on,” Tommy scoffs, more of a whine than anything else. “Don’t pretend like we didn’t have the best times when Harrington got himself demoted. What’s it like getting my sloppy seconds, Harrington?”

“Watch it, Tommy,” Steve scolds, taking a step closer to Hagan. He’s not going to make a scene, he’s not. But he’s also not going to stand here and let him talk about Eddie like that.

Eddie scoffs, shaking his head. “If I’m anyone’s sloppy seconds I’m Steve’s. And they are very sloppy if you catch my drift.”

Steve bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. He knows he shouldn’t encourage this, but it's hard to be the bigger person when Tommy is standing right there purposely antagonizing him for his own gain. Sue him for wanting to play the game just a little.

“Sorry, Tommy, but Eds here is right,” Steve says, placing a delicate hand on Eddie’s shoulder before squeezing it. “Don’t you remember, I got demoted for hooking up with a “bombshell” in the van? Well, guess what, you’re looking at him.”

“That— that’s not what happened,” Tommy says, directing his words at Steve, not Eddie. “You weren’t with him! Aaron said you were with…”

Steve watches the metaphorical gears turning in Tommy’s head as he trails off. Can tell the moment things start clicking. He really had no clue that the guy Steve had been seeing was Eddie. Steve watches the stunned look spread across his face the same way it spread across his all those months ago when he caught Tommy leaving Eddie’s place. The gross realization that they actually do have the same type after all.

“Why don’t you keep moving Hagan,” Steve says, nodding his head in the opposite direction.

“Nah, I think I’m good right here, actually,” he says, confidence returning.

This guy just doesn’t know when to quit.

“Tommy seriously,” Steve tries again. “Go bother someone else. We’re not interested.”

“Oh, so you’re speaking for him now too?”

“Please,” Eddie scoffs. “You know I’m not interested in you. Never have been and never will be.”

That does it.

Steve sees the moment Tommy’s confident facade breaks. The rosiness of his cheeks grows into an angry red, flooding his body. His eyes, once glossy, are now laser-sharp and squinted. His fingers curl into fists at his side as he readies himself.

Steve’s faster though, stepping in front of Eddie at the same moment Tommy lunges. It would be easy to put an end to this once and for all. Give Tommy the gift of a black eye or bruised rib with one skilled punch that Steve would love to throw. But Tommy shithead Hagan isn’t worth losing his job for, so he reigns in his own anger and instead gets his palms on Tommy’s chest to hold him back.

“Don’t be stupid, Hagan,” Steve says. “Warren’s watching. Do you really want to lose your job for good this time?”

The words are supposed to knock some sense into the guy, calm him down. But it does the opposite, riling him up even more until Steve can practically feel his skin vibrating under his hands. Thankfully, Aaron and the rest of his minions are there in an instant, pulling him away and holding him back.

They try their best to calm him down but Steve can see Tommy’s anger growing by the second. He’s only seen him this angry once before — two months ago when Warren removed him from the route. He doesn’t need to see an encore performance so instead he reaches for Eddie’s hand and drags them away from the impending doom.

📬 🎄 📬

“Part of me still thinks you should have let him have it,” Eddie laughs, shoveling a mouthful of chocolate chip pancakes into his mouth.

“Tommy’s not worth it.”

“I would have been so pissed if I missed you deck him,” Robin says, working her way through her own mountain of pancakes.

“That’s the real reason you didn’t punch him, isn’t it?” Eddie teases.

“Oh yeah,” Steve deadpans, rolling his eyes. “Promised Robin I wouldn’t punch anyone unless she was there to witness it.”

“Does she also have to refrain from punching people,” Chrissy asks.

Robin shakes her head. “Why? Is there someone I need to punch in your honor?”

“Not yet,” Chrissy says, nuzzling into her side. “But if Eddie makes us go to the Birchwood Holiday party in these tonight, you might need to. Debbie’s nephew is in town and he keeps staring at me from the window.”

“Again with the sweaters,” Eddie huffs, letting his fork clatter to the table. “They’re cozy and hilarious. You guys are just boring! Besides, people are going to love my sweater. You’ll see. They’re going to be all the rage one day.”

“Debbie already thinks they are,” Chrissy giggles. “I saw her wearing the one that says “I’m So Good Santa Came Twice” the other day while she was taking out the trash.”

“You gave Debbie one?” Steve shouts, nearly spitting out his orange juice in the process. Robin does spit out her drink, through her nose as usual as she chokes on her own laughter.

“She cornered me and I panicked! I didn’t think she’d wear it!”

“Look on the bright side, Eddie,” Robin says between shrieks of laughter. “With Debbie’s help, every suburban mom in Brookbridge will be walking around in one by next Christmas.”

“It’s a good thing you know a great delivery man,” Steve teases. “Because they’re going to be flying off the shelves.”

“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he groans.

As the table erupts into another fit of laughter, Steve can’t help but tug Eddie towards him before giving him a soft, syrup-infused kiss. And if he whispers something about feeling inspired by the inappropriate sweater Eddie’s picked out for him to wear later, well, that’s between him and Eddie and whoever’s bedroom they end up in when they leave Murray’s.

Besides, he still owes him for not punching Tommy himself at that holiday party.

And Steve always delivers.