viviseawrites

[viviseawrites]

“Rob, how do you always manage to kick off all the blankets?”

“I get hot, sue me,”

“I can see that, Rob, are those hearts on your bra?”

“Steven, if you ever look at my boobs again I will blackmail you into never showing your face in this town again. You know I could,”

“You’d miss me too much,”

[viviseawrites]

With only a few days left in the official posting season, the mods wanted to go ahead and share the extension application. If you feel like you’ll need an extension to finish your gift, please fill out the form below. Extensions are granted until midnight PST on the 14th of January. If you feel you will need more time than this, please let us know in the form.

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[viviseawrites]

Yuletide

Yeess!! It's time! This is my gift for @viviseawrites and @steddieexchange!!

I hope you like it, your prompts were fascinating and I wanted to write something different, so... here you are, I hope it's funny for you too!!! I tried to do a little Hallmark Christmas fic but... with a twist!

Thank you a lot to Jess who helped me a lot with the inspiration and KT for beta reading that mess and make it readable! (I'll tag them asap!)

Happy, happy holiday!!

[viviseawrites]

———

“Then I will ask for your removal from your duties. You are to leave this dreadful occupation. Perform for your own love of performance.”

“Your majesty, you’ve always had such a way of making the impossible seem so simple.”

Edward leans back in his chair, cowl jingling as his head hits the carved stone. Steven approaches the chair wearily, leaning against it as he speaks. “I mean it, Edward. You will be freed.” He offers Edward a look of certainty. The look he gives when he commands his subjects.

“I am tethered to this wretched place, Steven,” Eddie says, voice breaking. “My fathers curses fall upon me so cruelly. For his sins against your family, I will forever be tethered to this place- to this role. I will forever be your fool. Your family’s entertainment- their payback for my father’s wrongdoings. If I were to leave this place-…” He trails off, imagining the outside air- the sunshine, and the subsequent torture that would ensue as the bindings of the curse suddenly wrapped tighter around Edward’s soul. “Well if I were to leave this place, Steven, I fear there would be more than the King and Queen’s disdain I would have to face.”

“That is why you will be leaving with me.” Steven says. Oh, how he says things so simply. How it rolls off of his tongue and hits Edward’s ears like music!

“Your majesty..” Edward mutters, a somber tone echoing his empty chamber.

“You mustn’t call me that,” Steven says, leaning closer to explore Edward’s downward gaze. “Not anymore. At dusk, I will retrieve you. You will shed that cowl once and for all- you will explore every possible realm beyond your wildest dreams. I will escape my duties as prince, and you will escape your curse. I promise you, Edward. Please.”

Edward mulls the idea over in his head, mouth slightly agape as he fumbles through his racing thoughts to form one- just one- cohesive response. Freedom would taste sweet. Especially sweet if Steven had anything to do with it.

“At dusk?” Edward asks.

“Yes,” Steven replies with a nod, reaching to grasp Edward’s hand in his. “We will slip into the night together. Just you and I. We both have something to escape, Edward. I’d want nobody else by my side but you.”

Edward sighs, a small chill running through his body as he imagined the carnage that could follow their sudden disappearances. But the look in Steven’s eyes eases it all- convinces him, somehow, they will find a way. He brings Steven’s hand to his lips, pressing them against his knuckles before pulling away.

“Your wish is my command.”

————

Silly Fantasy Steddie art (+ a little writing to go with it!) for the Steddie Winter Exchange! @arelliann , I hope you enjoy! <33

[viviseawrites]

A Quiet Storm (I Think It's You)

This is a gift for @monologichno written for the Steddie Winter Exchange 2024 ( @steddieexchange )

Happy Holidays, I hope you enjoy your gift and that I hit on some of your favourite tropes in the right way. I had fun writing these two figuring their stuff out. Eddie was a little all over the place in some places, but I hope I wrangled this into a coherent story. 

Summary: Eddie doesn't postpone Hellfire campaigns. The weather doesn't care about that and when a snow storm cancels Hellfire for him, Steve and Eddie make the best out of a bad situation and spend the day with food, blanket forts and some feelings that have been buried beneath their relationship as roommates and occasional friends with benefits. Relationship: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson Tags: Roommates, Friends with Benefits, Blanket Fort, Getting Together, Blow Jobs Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61518877

"It's really coming down out there," Steve said, looking outside their living room window. 

"Is it?" Eddie asked while going through the notes for that night's campaign. "Bad enough that the kids have to stay over after Hellfire?"

"Nah, more like bad enough that they might not even make it here tonight." 

"What!" Eddie exclaimed dramatically and jumped up to join Steve at the window. "Doesn't the weather know I don't postpone campaigns?!"

Steve shrugged, amused by Eddie's antics. "I doubt the weather cares about your nerd game, dude." 

Eddie scoffed. "You can call it nerd game," he made air quotes around that, "all you like, but I know you pay attention when we play and I know you're dying to find out how they'll manage to defeat the second Displacer Beast and if Inspector Grotesque is still alive." 

Steve had the decency to look a little embarrassed. "Yeah well, maybe. You're just a really great story teller, Eddie." 

Eddie had to fight a pleased little grin and instead turned back to the window. "Looks like you'll have to wait a little longer for the conclusion to that story. I haven't seen that much snow in years." 

As if on cue, the phone rang and Steve went to pick it up. 

"Harrington. - Yeah we figured. - No, of course, stay safe. - Eddie will survive." He was clearly talking to one of the kids who had called to cancel and Eddie dropped into a dramatic heap by the window. 

"You don't know if I'll survive. I might die from a lack of DnD. It's been known to happen!"

Steve just laughed at him and Eddie huffed. "Rude." 

"Yeah, that was him. He's being dramatic. I'll have him call you to reschedule once the weather has calmed down. - Yeah, we'll call them. - You too, say hi to your mom from me. Bye." Steve hung up the phone and walked back over to Eddie, offering him a hand to help him up. 

"That was Dustin. His mom won't let him leave. He's calling Lucas and Max, and wants us to call Mike, Will, and El." 

Eddie allowed Steve to pull him up with a defeated groan. 

Continue on AO3

[viviseawrites]

oh golden boy (don't act like you were kind)

part i : you were mine

for @kultiras at the ❄️ Winter @steddieexchange 🖤🩵

Arguably the sharpest knife in his chest about this whole fucking shitshow?

Eddie thought they were doing good.

Like: so fucking good.

Eddie thought they were on the cusp of…that they were building something.

He’s such an idiot. Such a…

A heartsick fucking idiot.

But if he’s gracious—which he’s not, least of all to himself—when he puts all the pieces together, lines the evidence up and analyzes it, thinks of it in terms of a narrative that he can understand and recognize the flaws in, where he’d rewrite the ending or tweak the rising action so everything slides into place realistically, cause and effect in balance just right: Eddie can see that the way this has all shaken out is fucked up. So, so fucked up.

Because there honestly hadn’t been any signs that they weren’t laying the foundations of something long-term, something lasting; that they weren’t in this deep and rooted, strong and committed and serious in a real, tangible way, and, just…

Forever. Eddie was…he was playing for keeps, here. He thought, he just, he thought—

Fuck.

He just…really believed he wasn’t alone in it all.

Again: idiot.

It’d started so fucking predictably, really, because if there’s one thing that Eddie clocked about Steve Harrington from the get-go of actually getting to know him versus operating on the popular-gorgeous-jock framework he’d distilled the guy down to in his head before 1986: the one consistent thing he’d figured from what he’d heard and what he’d seen put together was that: Steve Harrington?

Bastard’s protective to a fucking fault.

So when he blinked back to the land of the living with Steve goddamn Harrington at his bedside? Standing guard, looking a little haggard—like he cared, at least enough to worry—but still fucking devastatingly pretty, good god-

When he woke up to that, Eddie was surprised and also: not at all surprised.

The way he lit up when he saw Eddie was conscious, like world was less before that moment and something right slid back into place? Eddie…Eddie felt like his body was pretty wholly broken but that fucking cracked something down his middle, decimated parts of him in new ways that hadn’t been already devastated on another plane, were sitting ripe for wholesale ruin.

He’d let Steve blame the breathiness that’d overcome him on coming back from the brink of death, because Steve didn’t need to know the sensations, the emotions, that were running riot through Eddie’s veins.

But then it hadn’t stopped.

Steve standing guard at his side became a constant, like Eddie couldn’t quite comprehend save that it felt like his body was knitting itself around the fact of this more-than-good dude and Eddie wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that, save kind of just…poke curiously at the new shape of everything he was for it, and once he worked through the fear of the unfamiliar in it?

To kinda…savor it. Roll around in it and relish.

Probably it was gonna be short lived anyway. Probably it was gonna go away when Eddie finally got out of here. Only made sense to soak it up while it lasted.

And it was one of those early days, where Eddie was soaking it up and before anything possible beyond the bubble of middle-space they were existing in inside Eddie’s hospital room was even hinted at. Steve had gone to check on Max while Eddie grappled a bit to look down at himself a little better under the handkerchief that the hospital deemed sufficient as clothing, and he braced for the worst because it felt like the worst and what he did remember at all from the scene of the inter-dimensional mauling definitely aligned with being ‘the worst’: but it was honestly mostly bandages and pain.

Eddie didn’t…on second thought he didn’t know if he was ready to see what was underneath just yet, so he was actually kinda grateful that his hubris about it all didn’t immediately have a chance to floor him, especially when he was alone because he’d thought it’d be easier to stomach if it was just him—but the prospect, the bullet dodged, lodged in his throat and proved him kinda instantly wrong for the sharp cut of bile rising in him, and the violent jump of his pulse right behind it.

His hand had gravitated to his chest, though, like he could keep his heart from cracking his ribs that way, and he noticed that…even the light pressure ached, so he looked down a little more carefully, didn’t think the little fuckers had concentrated their attacks on the center of his chest so he tucked his chin and tried to see what was causing the sting—maybe just like, general area tenderness after playing buffet table to fucking…flying hellspace rodents but—

No. No: even from this weird-ass uncomfortable angle, Eddie could see the outline, coukd make out the dark stain of a bruise.

In the shape of a hand.

And listen, Eddie wasn’t foolish. He knew that everyone busted ass to get him topside and to a hospital. And that probably involved…stuff he didn’t want to really dwell on too long in terms of the nitty-gritty of his own mortality. He was also very much aware that Steve had played a crucial role, even if the man himself didn’t stand up and declare it. The kids didn’t have any sense of a fucking filter, so.

Eddie knew.

But Eddie then started tracing the splay of fingers on his sternum, his heartbeat so fucking heavy under even just the brush of his nails as he followed the outline of the purpling over, and over, and over, imagined what it would take to make that kind of an impression on his skin because Eddie was fucking pale, yeah, he marked quick—but not that dark.

Not that deep.

“Shit.”

Eddie’d startled, snapped his attention to the doorway where Steve had reappeared, looking a little breathless as he took Eddie in, came quick to his side and leaned to look closer at the monitor next to him and oh: Eddie hadn’t realized that the beeping was so loud, so fast. Hadn’t realized his heartbeat had ratcheted up quite so high.

Not that he was surprised.

“Shit, are you okay,” Steve barely breathed, eyes so goddamn big about it as his hands had kinda hovered, as he’d tried to figure out what to do, how to help, because that was what he was always doing; that’s who he was to his core, and Eddie…

“Oh god, let me call the nu—”

“Don’t.”

Eddie’d half-moaned it, god: scratchy but desperate as he reached for Steve’s hand and he…

He suspected he knew exactly how big that hand was; what shape it’d make to a fucking T. But he needed to see

For sure.

“What are you,” Steve’s brow had furrowed in that way Eddie was becoming increasingly aware he wanted to kiss smooth, and he started to ask it as Eddie grabbed to uncurl his grip from the bar at the side of the bed but Steve gave up fighting quick, focused on stopping Eddie from moving at all instead, from stretching the way he was against the precarious threads holding him together as he reached for the neck of his gown again, still loose enough from where he’d pulled the back up, left his ass out against the sheets to bare his breastbone, the mess of the tattoos on his chest more grisly after everything than any horrors he’d gotten inked before but—

This was a different kind of horrifying thing. Not least—maybe most—because it was entirely possible that it was also the most beautiful, sacred thing to ever touch Eddie’s skin. To ever beat through Eddie’s fucking veins.

“You,” Eddie let go of the last breath he could wrestle out before his lungs seized up too tight, because then he was watching it happen, watching Steve’s broad palm as it hovered over the imprint, shivering when Steve’s warmth made contact: eclipsing the bruise near-perfect, just like Eddie knew deep down it fucking would.

His heart took the hint and started shivering under Steve’s hand immediately, like it had something to prove.

“Ed,” Steve’s voice was wispy, choked a little; eyes too bright and Eddie feels like there must be so many kinds of dying, because he’d felt one keenly under that angry red lightning; this was a wholly other thing.

But felt just as keenly life-or-death.

“You,” Eddie whispered, the words, the truth, the feeling of it all too fragile, too precious to disturb, and he wondered if his heart knew Steve had pushed the bruises down around it to save it, if that’s why it was so unbridled and unabashed in hammering against that touch, that touch—

“I think I heard you.”

And Steve? Big eyes framed with those feather lashes, stretched wide and all made of shine and earnest fucking feeling?

“You didn’t…want to lose me?” Eddie’s voice had been so small, so so small because he did think he’d heard that, and the wisps of recollection, of a frantic but resolute voice demanding of him: what he was able to collect and try to tie into a whole matched up when he paired it all with Steve in his head, but what if he was wrong?

What if it was all just fever dreams and wishful thinking on his deathbed, what if Steve had no investment in him beyond keeping the Party safe in its entirety, no exceptions; what if Eddie was fucking wrong and showed too much of his hand with this, with Steve’s palm pressed to his thrashing heart and—

Then Steve was brining his free hand to Eddie’s cheek, fucking…cradling it like it fucking meant something, like he could matter and—

“I couldn’t lose you.”

Oh.

“You,” and so many possible ways to end that thought had swam through Eddie’s head—you barely know me, you can’t possibly care if I live or die, I cannot matter one fucking bit in your universe, so why would it matter but Steve’s hand was warm under his, and Steve didn’t pull away, only leaned in, only stayed close enough that Eddie could feel his breath on his skin and Steve could chart the way Eddie’s heart took to pummelling his already-taxed ribs but it didn’t matter, it couldn’t matter because Steve held there, so careful of the pain but nothing short of steady, devoted, a soul-sworn guard of that heart under his hand like it did matter, like Eddie did…

Like Steve ever could—

“Stevie,” Eddie would probably have flushed if the situation had been anything but what it was. If his heart wasn’t racing into Steve’s touch at the chest and just under the jaw where Steve’s thumb pressed almost proprietary, almost like a shield but also like a welcome, like the idea of Eddie’s heart beating into him wasn’t a dealbreaker, and fuck, fuck—

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Steve breathed out against him, prickling dangerous across his skin and Eddie’s heart leapt a little, fuck; more than a little and Steve felt it, front-row-center, couldn’t not feel it but he just leaned closer still, and Eddie was front-row himself to the catch in Steve’s inhale, undeniable and unapologetic as he murmured low, turning into Eddie’s cheek a little and Eddie maybe resented how it forced him to pull away,until his lips brushed the tip of Eddie’s jawbone and drew a whole ass shudder down his goddamn spine.

“Just know,” Steve gasped there, fucking…panted and hell if it didn’t catch in Eddie’s blood like pure bliss; “just know why.”

And fuck, but Eddie could only press in to the warmth of Steve’s lips where they moved for the words alone, let alone what words; what Eddie thought maybe they meant—

“Me too,” Eddie rasped a little, because fuck him, man; this was something…something else, swelling up in his chest so strong and Steve had to be able to feel it where he still held against him, palm to his galloping pulse at the source, feeling the life he coaxed back into the world.

“Does it have to make sense just yet?” Eddie asked, knew he sounded too hopeful, too desperate, more than he’d earned, than was safe but his heart kept knocking against that hand, so fucking insistent and who was he to deny it, to try and wrestle in into being less when he couldn’t even hide it, when it was evident to the man it was leaping at; for.

“I don’t think so,” Steve mouthed more than spoke where his lips dragged wet across the stubble on Eddie’s cheek.

“Then,” Eddie tipped his head, tried to catch Steve’s eyes, aimed to reason, to convince but the moment he moved, Steve dipped his chin just so to take Eddie’s lips, to kiss so hard, so complete with what felt like it couldn’t even be reasoned as less than all of him, because how could less than all feel like this—

Fucking impossible.

And Eddie couldn’t shy away—as Steve kissed him breathless, left him gasping; Eddie couldn’t shy away from the sense that he was being killed and revived all over again, endless and unbreaking, and it was perfection.

Jesus fuck.

And the kicker was that…weeks passed. A whole month, close to another. And if anything changed it was all for the better, for the more and Eddie wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it, if he was entirely honest. He…the bruise healed, y’know? That brand above his heart but—

He didn’t need it anymore. That was the thing. He didn’t need to see.

He was very fucking aware. Every minute of every day. He was…so aware. It could kill him better than those bats, it was so big and so much, and so quick, but with all that, probably because of all that: Eddie’d never felt anything even remotely like what it meant to shake off sleep and have Steve Harrington kiss you to wakefulness, to hold you for the nightmares as much as the news of small victories on the road to recovery: never wavering.

Never leaving.

When Eddie got the go-ahead to continue his rehab outpatient-style, his original conviction that all of this ended at the latest upon discharge was immediately challenged, because Steve had become so much more than he’d started as, but Eddie still worried. Made himself sick over it.

Felt like an indefensible monster as Steve rubbed his back, brought him soup, tended him like Eddie didn’t cause his own suffering, and all for the terror of losing the very man who was there, without question.

Then he signed himself out, and Steve drove him home.

Save that Eddie recognized where they were headed and…he only knew one person in Loch Nora.

“Your uncle’s still in the motel by the plant,” Steve had explained what Eddie already knew but hadn’t put together when Eddie raised an eyebrow in askance, wholly unsure how to process any of this, any of this; unsure how to hope in the face of what he was seeing, held against what he was wishing.

“Government’s being fucking assholes about setting you up with someplace appropriate,” and something in Steve’s tone had made plain that he was not just very clear on what constituted ‘appropriate’, he was probably actively involved somehow in holding the people in question rightly accountable for appropriate, and nothing less.

And Eddie…he did say he didn’t need a mark you could see on his heart, didn’t he.

“You need the room while you get better,” Steve murmured as he killed the engine, and lifted Eddie’s hand to his lips, pressed his mouth on the knuckles, nuzzling a little, eyes closed and Eddie…Eddie didn’t know what to do.

The only saving grace was that he didn’t have a monitor to rat his ass out when his heart started trying to escape orbit—fuck just his ribs, how pedestrian—this time.

They sat in a living room that looked like it was once absolutely pristine and still was, mostly, but up close Eddie could see little snags on the sofa, could feel the texture of the fabric different under his fingers for scrubbing out a stain. He suspected four infamously unmannered teenagers were the culprits. The remaining stiffness of the cushions was good for the way his body was still working through being gnawed apart, but he was gone far enough to kind of immediately hope he’d see how they wore with love and use and maybe something more once they got there, once Eddie’s body cooperated again, because he…Steve brought him home.

And maybe they didn’t have to stop when Eddie left the hospital. Maybe he didn’t have to lose.

He’d only made it shortly past the best fucking grilled cheese he’d maybe ever tasted, and he didn’t think it was only because it was his first meal without an aftertaste of sterile in too fucking long—but he only lasted a little more than an hour before Steve’d helped him to a guest room on the first floor that’d obviously been reworked for him, from the way he could reach the bed from just inside the door, to the fucking posters that he knew for a fact Steve wouldn’t have had on hand, and Eddie’d giggled a little wetly at the Ozzy one, because he figured the man steadying him at his side would never be anything but intertwined with the Prince of Darkness in his mind, now—but Steve, who’d more than proven he was so far beyond any kind of king, won hands down. By a landslide.

And who could have seen that coming?

“Careful,” Steve chided him gently as he guided Eddie slowly down to the mattress and made to tuck him in, and the word was so warm, so warm but Eddie had to…

He had to reach. Again. He needed Steve, he…needed.

The handprint on top of his heart didn’t need to be a thing he could see, but he needed Steve to…know some level of what he was feeling, of how much was inside him already, and growing, the momentum building and he didn’t want to feed it, didn’t want to let it run if he wasn’t going to have someone to catch it, to run with him but he also didn’t think there was any chance to stop it, now, he didn’t think he could trim it back or tame it from consuming him and he wasn’t sure he’d even want to if he actually had the power because it was the best feeling he’d ever known, even if it was terrifying, even if it could hurt him more than anything he’d ever known and—

“I don’t want to be alone,” was what spilled from his lips with Steve’s hand above his heartbeat as it pumped so goddamn hard it couldn’t be denied, it couldn’t be misconstrued, and he didn’t want to sleep alone, didn’t want to lose what he’d rebuilt himself around all these weeks, he—

“Good,” and Steve leaned down, cradled Eddie’s face and tipped him up to kiss him full, hard, one hand still on his chest because that was the mark, the promise, the fight for all that this was and all it could be like a fucking vow and Eddie melted for it on sight, on contact.

“Because I’m not leaving,” and Steve brushed the tip of his nose back and forth against Eddie’s, his smile like honey in his tone as he pecked Eddie on the lips one more time before stretching his hand to follow him across the bed, to crawl to the other side and slide in next to Eddie, to carefully arrange him against Steve’s body, to wrap around him with so much care, to touch nothing too tender and everything safe to hold as Steve tucked his face against Eddie’s neck and kissed behind his ear as he breathed:

“Never gonna leave you all alone again.”

And Eddie believed him.

Eddie believed him.

And when, weeks later when Eddie was hurting less and moving more, perched in the corner of the couch that was starting to give a little under persistent weight, starting to feel like it was meant to be used and lend comfort; as Eddie was poking at campaign notes for the gremlins, pen caught between his teeth, he only paused when he felt the gravity of a familiar gaze settle on him—not immediately, because he liked just existing in it, feeling its heft, but after enough moments to satisfy him he looked up, met those eyes and felt them in his goddamn soul as he asked:

“What?”

And Steve had just kept on staring, the bare hint of a quirk at the corners of his lips spreading to the full sunrise of his smile.

“You fit, here,” and he’d said it so simply, so…much like a truth, a fact of the universe—Eddie Munson fits, belongs in this place, this space, this home, this life—and then the smile dimmed ever so slightly, cloud cover across the shine as Steve shifted a little, crossed his arms loose but still as a barrier over his chest: “if you want to, I mean—”

And Eddie sat up straighter, and he reached both his hands out to Steve because:

“I want to,” it was all he wanted, really; it wasso far beyond his wildest dreams but it was real, Eddie could see and touch it, taste it, feel it through his blood when it pumped, tracking through his whole body, filling up his heart overfull and magnificent and he as just…

“Sweetheart,” he took Steve’s hands and tugged him down to sit next to Eddie, settled him so close; “I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want that.”

He leaned back, wholly prone and never once letting go of Steve’s hands, never once doing anything but keeping them laced together and anchored, locked tight and Steve matched him, followed him as Eddie drew him to his healed-enough chest to settle right at the center, to hear Eddie’s heartbeat for the declaration it was, it already was in its entirety:

“You fit here.”

And he did. They both did. Their worlds had shifted, grew around the shapes they made together and after not-long-at-all, they fit so fucking well that it was bespoke to their cells, they’d never fit anyone else. It was quick and it was heady and it was fucking right.

For months

And then it all went to shit.

Because Steve decided what should have been expected, honestly—that Eddie wasn’t worth the hassle, that he wasn’t right for Steve, that Steve’s staggeringly-expansive capacity for love was wasted to hell on this low-life dipshit who couldn’t even graduate on his third try at high school, who maybe didn’t have a murder charge anymore in the legal system but would never wash it clean from the court of public opinion, who was…trouble. Always trouble.

Not fucking worth it.

It’s just…Eddie never thought Steve would stop wanting him. He maybe went in reticent at first, but Steve had loved so hard out the gate that as soon as he knew he was allowed, and welcome? Eddie didn’t hesitate to meet that love beat for beat.

He just never imagined his love would ever be unwelcome; that that's how his heart would break.

What breaks in the moment, though—the heartbreak is constant, and unfortunately proving to be kinda fucking unending, really—but what breaks now is…possibly the handle on the front door for the way someone’s banging and jiggling it back and forth like the first time it didn’t give against the lock was just a fluke.

He frowns, considers waiting out whoever’s enough of a dick to knock like that but apparently not so witch-hunty to throw a brick through the window—which: Eddie will take progress, he guesses—but when a concerning creak sounds from near the hinges, Eddie thinks of Wayne, and how his uncle doesn’t deserve a broken front door, so.

Heartbroken or not, Eddie has to drag himself to deal with…this.

Then he’s throwing the door open and…this is—

“We need to talk.”

This should have been expected. There’s really only one little asshole who’d assault his door with that much…determination.

“Henderson—” Eddie huffs, because he knows he needs to set a date for them all to get together, he left the campaign they were in kinda dangling on a thread when he didn’t hold the gatherings at St—

Well, when their regularly scheduled venue became too much for Eddie’s heart to handle.

Which: okay, fine, he gets it but like, he can’t care as much as he maybe should when he feels like this, and the kids need to fucking take a chill pill and if they can’t understand, then at least they can just shut the fuck up for at a couple more weeks while Eddie licks his wounds and sees if they decide to finally scab over enough that he doesn’t keep with busting them back open every time he breathes—

“About Steve.”

Eddie’s heart shudders just to hear the name. He’s avoided hearing it for weeks, now; it hurts too much.

He hears it enough in his own head, in his dreams, in his nightmares when he see the worst, in the cadence of his fucking pulse because his heart doesn’t know how not to be Steve’s, kinda feels like it’s not interested in learning, will never be anything other than what it is now, forever, and—

“We need to talk about what you did to Steve.”

Wait.

Wait, what he did to—

What?

for @kultiras🖤

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson @theheadlessphilosopher @sadisticaltarts @bumblebeecuttlefishes @shrimply-a-menace @wheneverfeasible @1-tehe-1 @themoonagainstmers @dreamercec @ravenfrog @live-laugh-love-dietrich @stealthysteveharrington @tinyplanet95 @theohohmoment @samsoble @tinyloonyteacups @askitwithflours @awkwardgravity1 @pretend-theres-a-name-here @dragoon-ze-great

divider credit here

[viviseawrites]

❄️ Betting on All The Stars in the Sky ❄️

Steddie winter exchange fic

Graphic by @strangergraphics

I had the brilliant honor of writing/creating something for the wonderfully talented, Koko!( @carolperkinsexgirlfriend )

Koko, I hope you like it. I had so much fun getting to create for you!

[viviseawrites]

Happy holidays, @hereforthesteddie, for the Steddie Winter Exchange (@steddieexchange)!

I've prepared this wee gift for you with a mix of friends to lovers, accidental love confessions, and just a sprinkle of miscommuncation. I hope you enjoy it 💚💚💚

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

Rated E for a few other NSFW ideas you gave me 😉

Synopsis:

Steve realises that he likes girls and boys; yet, before he’s even had time to feel settled within his own understanding of himself, he is suddenly overwhelmed as Eddie overhears his confession that not only is Steve queer, but that he likes Eddie too.

[viviseawrites]

I’m excited to share my Steddie Winter Exchange gift for Sami (@/passthesteddie on ao3 and twitter) I am also a fan of the fluff trope and these two just being absolutely smitten with each other whenever possible 🥹 they deserve all the happy moments. Thank you @steddieexchange for putting this together 🧡

happy holidays everyone!

[viviseawrites]

It’s posting time!!! I had the pleasure of drawing for @lilacliam hope you like this vampire Eddie

[viviseawrites]

My steddie winter exchange gift for Rio!! (@steddieexchange) In which Steve throws caution to the wind and decides to show exactly how much his bard friend truly means to him. ♡

[viviseawrites]

Happy holidays, Bowties! @suitupbatman A little birdie told me you enjoy hurt/comfort and Fantasy AUs so! I hope you like your #SteddieWinterExchange gift!! It was a pleasure working on it!!!!

Tagging, of course, @steddieexchange !! Thank you to the event mods for putting together such a delightful event!

[viviseawrites]

Snowbody is more excited than the mods to announce….

❄️ HAPPY GIFTING SEASON!❄️

Stay tuned to see all the amazing things coming out of this year’s #steddiewinterexchange

Thank you all so much for all the work you’ve put in so far, and have FUN! ❄️

[viviseawrites]

Sound, color, touch

Written for the @steddieholidaydrabbles, day 17

Prompt: Lights

Rated: E

Tags: Magic AU; Established relationship; Married Steddie; Explicit sexual content

Notes: Once more for the Phantom Thief boys! I published the first part of this exactly 363 days ago, for last year's holiday drabble challenge. I'm not crying, you're crying!!

In the end, it's just the two of them again. 

The kids have gone home, the girls have left for Chrissy’s place, and Wayne's retired to his room. Eddie puts out the fire in the tavern's guest room while Steve cleans the kitchen. 

It's weird, he thinks as he wipes the counter, how much the place changes after closing time. How it goes so much darker, so much quieter. How the life and the lights and the laughter drain out of it, leaving it empty and silent. Like a place removed from the world - miles and miles under the sea or above the clouds, where you could scream for hours and days and years without being heard.

Eddie’s slots into him from behind, blanketing him in his warmth. His hands come to rest on top of Steve’s, taking the rag from his fingers. His lips find Steve’s neck and shoulders, kissing the tension out of his muscles.

"I’m here, honey,” Eddie says, words slicing through the silence. He doesn’t keep his voice low. Knows that Steve needs sound and color and touch. “Say it with me?”

Steve exhales, letting Eddie’s warmth bleed into the places where it’s cold and dark. “You’re here.” 

Eddie hums, turning him around so that he can kiss his forehead. “Let's go upstairs?” 

*

Eddie never stops kissing him as they make their way up the stairs.

Their room is in the attic, the single wall dominated by a large stained glass window. 

Eddie’s lips caress every inch of his skin as he lays him out on the bed, only pausing long enough to rid them of their clothes. Steve shudders, tipping back his head to give him better access, gaze catching on the painted ceiling above their bed. Eddie outdid himself with it. A purple and blue sky at dawn, the moon and stars twinkling between mountains of puffy clouds. 

In the beginning, Steve thought it was a trick of the light. That it was the glow of the window making the clouds look like they were lit in all the colors of the sunset, making the stars appear like white, winking needlepoints against the darkening firmament. 

The sound he made when he understood what it really was made Eddie laugh so hard he slipped out of him and collapsed by his side in a naked, cackling tangle of limbs. Steve slapped him. 

“Stop laughing, you asshole. Since when- … Why didn’t- … Fuck, Eddie, is it back? All of it?” 

Eddie shook his head and smiled, dark eyes shining with the lights from above. 

“Only a small bit of it,” he said. “Enough for a few tricks.” 

When he held up his hand, a firework of tiny sparks was crackling between his fingertips. Steve watched it, happiness clogging his chest, guilt tightening his throat, grief twisting his stomach, and the lights turned blurry. Eddie made a soft sound, magic fizzling out as he pulled him close. 

“It's so little,” Steve said when the tears had dried and he lay with his ear pressed close to Eddie’s heartbeat, gazing at their very own sunset above. “You used to be a fucking force of nature, and now-” 

“And now I'm the happiest I've ever been,” Eddie said, lifting Steve’s hand to kiss his wedding band. “I'm with the man I love and I get to kiss him every day, every hour, every moment, for as long as we both live.” 

Steve opened his mouth, but Eddie pressed their entwined hands into the sheets, reaching between them with the other, and he forgot what he was about to say.

“And besides,” Eddie purred, picking up speed and bending down to suck a mark into Steve’s neck, grinning when the slick sounds of him stroking Steve’s cock mingled with breathy moans. “Are you saying I’m not a force of nature now, honey?” 

Now, many months later, Steve feels no bitterness looking at the lights twinkling on their ceiling. Instead, he arches his back and tangles one hand in Eddie’s messy curls as their lips meet, letting himself fall into the moment. 

The world is sound. Gasps and moans and whispered confessions of love, shared in the sliver of space between their lips. 

The world is color. Eddie’s eyes reflecting the light of the stars, pale skin and dark hair backlit by the shifting kaleidoscope of the painted sky behind him. 

The world is touch. The delicious pressure of Eddie’s fingers scissoring him open, the beautiful burn of Eddie slipping inside, of Eddie’s tongue coaxing apart his lips.

*

“Remember how you told me not to fall for you?” Steve asks later, when they’re both sated and exhausted, wrapped up in each other between the sheets. Eddie laughs, loud and boisterous, sweeping some sweaty bangs aside to kiss his forehead. “Did you really mean it?”

Eddie goes silent, connecting the moles on Steve’s arms with one finger as he thinks. 

“Yes and no,” he says. “I wanted you, even then. Even though I never thought I’d have you. And at the same time … I knew what you’d have to risk. Or thought I knew. I never saw any of it coming. The lengths they’d go to, the horrible things they’d do to you.”

He trails off, and this time, it’s Steve’s turn to pull him in and hold him close.

“Do you ever regret it?” Eddie whispers against his chest. “Falling in love with me?”

“Never,” Steve says. “I don’t think I could ever regret it. If asked, I’d do it all over again, in the exact same way, if it’ll lead me back here.”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes, eyes outshining the stars in the dark of their room. “Yeah, me too.”

They kiss under this sky that’s just for them, and it’s everything Steve never knew he needed, everything he’s ever wanted. Sound and color and touch. He wants to keep kissing Eddie like this forever.

He knows they’ll never stop. 

Tag list:

@sourw0lfs @bananahoneycomb @firefly-party @whoneedscanon @steddie-island

@sidekick-hero @theheadlessphilosopher @extra-transitional @penny00dreadful @medusapelagia

@mugloversonly @0happyeverafter0 @stevesbipanic @acingthecounts @sweetheartprincess28

@starryeyedjanai @sailing-through-hawkins @original-cypher @tinyplanet95 @n0-1-important

[viviseawrites]

❄️ Steddie Winter Exchange Posting Guidelines ❄️

Sleigh bells are ringing and latkes are sizzling, which means it’s almost posting time for our exchange! 

Our official posting window runs from December 20th to December 31st at midnight PST. You can post on whichever platforms you like—AO3, tumblr, twitter, bluesky—as long as you tag your giftee somehow and let them know their gift is ready.

When you post, remember to do the following:

Tag your giftee via the socials sent to you with your assignment*

Tag @steddieexchange so we can repost!

Use the hashtag: #SteddieWinterExchange

If posting on AO3, add it to the Collection + mark it as a gift**

Gift Wrapping Tips and Tricks:

*If you are not active on your giftee’s chosen social platform, reach out to the mods and we can make sure they get it!

**To gift a work to someone on AO3, simply follow these steps.

If you would like to post artwork on AO3 and have not done so before, follow the steps here.

Please reach out to a mod if you need any help or have any questions. We’re happy to assist! 

Thank you all so much for your hard work! You’ve made this exchange such a fun event and we appreciate every one of you. Happy gifting! 🎁

💕 your steddie winter exchange mods

[viviseawrites]

Last Day of Check-In Weekend

Hi everyone! Just a friendly reminder to fill out that check-in form if you haven’t already! It will close on December 8th at midnight PST. ❄️

If you haven't received anything from a mod, please reach out and let us know so we can give you the link to the form!

[viviseawrites]

13 days until posting! ❄️