#steve standing outside eddie’s window w a boombox.. eddie insulting steve’s music taste…. they’re in love Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[yersina]

thinking abt steve n eddie and steve just. being a gentleman? all the bells and whistles, checks all the boxes—holds the door open, flowers, etc—and like sure, some of that comes from his upbringing and his family and The Harrington Status and whatever, but it’s also super clear that steve’s just. like that. like he’s so. so painfully happy to sweep nancy off her feet at the beginning of their relationship.

and like, the thing is. nancy doesn’t like that. i mean sure, she can be as charmed by it as the next girl, but i don’t think she necessarily wants it. she wants more than to just be treated like a girl, she’s been chased by guys all her life, and i think where steve feels like he’s treating her special, nancy feels like she’s being put into a box that she’s not meant to be in. they just… don’t match up in that way.

but eddie. eddie, who’s been shunned all his life in different ways for different reasons. i think eddie wants that special treatment. eddie deserves to be treated with gentleness and love, god fucking damn it. and i don’t think he ever expected to get it—esp if this is the 80’s.

so i imagine that at the beginning of their relationship, when they’re still kinda feeling things out and figuring out what their dynamic is, steve tries really really hard to just. like. treat eddie like one of the guys?? to make it obvious that eddie isn’t just some girl to him? that he knows that eddie’s different, and not just bc he’s a guy, and steve’s not just abt to pretend to ignore that. but steve’s relationship skills start and end with high school girls, so sooner or later i imagine that his romantic gestures have to turn to candle-lit dinners and chocolate and roses at some point.

and he’s kinda expecting eddie to poke fun at it or make fun of ‘king steve’ for thinking that he could… could woo eddie with a fucking bouquet of tiger lilies (that he bought bc he passed a florist and the flowers reminded him of eddie, alright?) all bc some wannabe prom queen would’ve eaten that shit up w a spoon. and eddie wouldn’t, probably. it’s exactly smth eddie would’ve made fun of him for when they were both in school. which is to say: steve almost aborts the whole thing and tosses the flowers in the trash and—he has a lot of second thoughts, okay? but then eddie is already coming out of the wheeler’s house, dnd materials packed away in the bag over his shoulder, and he’s already spotted the flowers and well, it’s too late now.

which actually works out, bc eddie seems to… like the flowers? he doesn’t exactly swoon like a victorian maiden, but he does blush a bit and smile and knock his shoulder into steve’s before he claims shotgun, much to dustin’s dismay. and when steve’s over at eddie’s place a few days later, they’re in a glass of water (literal drinking glass, maybe a mug, bc eddie munson sure as hell doesn’t own any vases) and, yknow, kinda wilted but still hanging in there, adding a pop of color to the place from the center of eddie’s dining table.

and steve doesn’t exactly have a lightbulb moment at that point, it’s not quite enough to spark the realization, but it does open the floodgates for more ‘traditionally’ romantic gestures. at one point steve opens a car door for him and eddie’s so confused but by god he loves it.

y’all. i just want eddie to be cradled w care and affection like he deserves.