Risk And Reward

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Just asked my husband to create an app or website to replace NaNoWriMo (jokingly), expecting him to lol and leave it at that. Instead he says, ‘what shall we call it? SteddieWriMo?’ And I’m obsessed. So this November I’m doing SteddieWriMo, yeah boi!

Is there a fic out there when after season 4 Steve doesn't trust/react well to Joyce and Hopper? I just think that him being the oldest and real adult left in Hawkins to deal with and protect the kids would mess him up a bit.

Like, I understand Joyce left because she wanted to protect her blood children and El, but none of the other parents are read in on the situation. She left the rest of the kids after another super traumatic experience where multiple people they knew and cared about died and only Steve, Nancy, and Robin could support them. Not to knock Nancy and Robin, but the show doesn't show them supporting the kids the way Steve does, so it all ended up on his shoulders.

Add in the fact Joyce up and abandons her kids when she learns about Hopper being alive, and then even more terrible things happen, and I feel like Steve would not trust the adults anymore and truly resist ans get upset when they try to parent him or take care of *his* kids.

So I'd anyone has fic recs or wants to write one... let me know...

𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐜𝐤 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮. 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 [9.3k!!]; friends to lovers, forced proximity, mutual pining, kinda dialogue heavy, soft kisses, eventual smut, not much dirty talk bc they're really sweet about it, p in v (unprotected 😛) 18+! inspired by this beauty of a fic by @rebelfell

ALSO!! this is my submission for day one of @littlexdeaths twelve days of promptmas writing game!! 🫶🏻🎄

Your regularly scheduled movie night runs amuck when your friends ditch out because of the heavy snow. Everyone except Steve, that is. Trapped in your apartment during a freak blizzard, stuck together under a mountain of blankets with nowhere to go anytime soon, your night eventually leads to some confessions.

I don't proofread my work before posting, so please be forgiving of any mistakes.

"Can you let me in? S'fucking freezing out here".

Steve's shivering voice carries tacky through the tannoy, receiver pressed to your ear as you buzz him in to your apartment complex.

He's right, it was fucking freezing. It's not like you had left the safety of your small apartment today, but the snow had been falling heavy since around 5am. A particularly loud snow plough had awoken you in the early hours, not that it had been back around since, sheets of sparkling white caking the road outside. You didn't know where the sidewalk ended and the street began.

It had become something of a ritual, twice monthly movie nights where your friends flocked to your place on a Friday night with snacks galore in hand. It was cramped, delightful sure, but cramped. You, Robin, Steve, Nancy, Jonathon, Argyle, and Eddie, all crowded into your living room that barely had capacity to house but one visitor was something out of an SNL sketch. Your second-hand sofa wasn't big enough and despite the regularity of their company, you never quite had enough glasses to go around.

Sometimes the kids joined, sometimes they didn't. It was easier when they were absent, since space was scarce and Eddie could turn up proud as punch with an obscene amount of beers tucked tightly under his arms. Jonathon and Argyle never failed to provide generously fat pre-rolled joints of their precious Purple Palm Tree Delight. Even Nancy sometimes brought a couple bottles of wine to liven the party.

But Hawkins, Indiana had been under attack by a particularly intense snow storm the past week. Gradually with each passing day, you would receive phone calls that one of them couldn't make it, which in time lead to all but one cancelling on you. Firstly it was Jonathon and Nancy, explaining that Joyce would be frantic if either of them even attempted to trudge across town in this weather.

Argyle followed soon after, something about the biting chill giving him bad vibes. Eddie the next day, apologetically explaining that he didn't want to leave Wayne considering there was the promise of a blizzard on the horizon. Then Robin only this morning. She didn't even need to provide a reason, you let her off the hook regardless, the night was a total flop anyways.

You hadn't actually told Steve that the others had dipped, assuming that Robin would have filled him in. They were roommates after all, they shared everything with each other, and you had obviously wrongly supposed a cancelled movie night would've been included in that everything.

"Robin not tell you?" you huff at him with your arms folded, not with impatience or annoyance, more guilty with the knowledge that he had driven through mountainous reams of snowfall just to get here.

"Tell me what?" Steve glances up at you as he's dusting off his coat outside the door, melting pearlescent beads of remnant snowflakes twinkling at the tips of his hair.

"Everyone canceled," you shrug, a small tremble engulfing you as you face the icy breeze, and Steve easily picks up on the disappointment laced within the words. You had been in your comfy clothes all day, a cream long sleeved cotton shirt and some baby blue checkered pyjama bottoms, well accustomed to the snug safety of your apartment, so the bite of frost outside your front door was a bit of a shock.

His cheeks are speckled a deep candy floss blush, no doubt chilled to the bone considering the plummeting temperature outside, the tip of his nose that one shade darker.

Pretty, you think despite yourself, gaze lingering a little too long, the sensation of a heated flush spreading along your chest beneath your cotton lounge shirt.

"Haven't seen her," he shrugs back. "Since work closed until this weather lightens up, she sleeps like... all day," his eyes widen in a side glance, pausing the ruffling of his sleeves to affix his stare to you in emphasis. You chuckle, standing to the side where he shuffles past into the hallway to kick off his sneakers that were entirely inappropriate for this time of the season.

"Sorry, you travelled all this way in that shit just to go right back out there again," you cross your arms over yourself a second time, eyebrows furrowing, leaning slack against the radiator that buzzed with delightful warmth.

He eyes you then, confused, as he hangs his coat casually beside yours, clearly not in any rush the step back out into the barrage or sleet and powder white. Steve turns in your direction, his hand through his damp hair that flicks droplets of water onto the floor below him.

"You want me to go?" he responds flatly, a curious tilt of his head, and you immediately redden with panic. Jesus, did you just hurt his feelings? Was it wrong of you to presume he didn't want to stay? But why would he? The two of you never hang out alone.

"No, no. That's not what I meant at all" you assure him in a hurry, tripping over yourself with a small breathy chuckle following swiftly behind in an attempt you save yourself. Steve's lips tighten into a line, though the corners lift into the wisp of a smile nonetheless.

Your heartbeat thrums in your chest, right up into your throat so intensely you were sure that Steve could see your skin pulsing. Though he's just nodding in thought, training his gaze at anywhere but you, and you're both subdued into a terribly long beat of silence. Great, now we've fucked it. God, if you're listening, please let the ground swallow me whole.

Steve had been someone you admired from afar. Of course you considered him a friend, but that type of friend you only hung out with when others were around. You would be lying to yourself if you said that a crush wasn't mingling there at the depth of your belly, a feathered flutter of wings circling around your heart whenever he would beam all pearly white teeth and glossy lips.

Everyone but him seemed to know it, sense it, as if cupid had physically manifested themselves and shot you square in your left ass cheek. Maybe that was why Robin didn't tell him, knowing in her plotting mind that Steve would for sure turn up at your door anyways. Robin knew Steve as well as she knew herself, souls connected at the heart, and you could picture the evil smirk on her face when the lightbulb moment hit.

Steve was kind of the blueprint, not just in your book, clearly. You knew how popular he was with the ladies, and goddamn you couldn't blame them. Angled jaw and olive skin, constellations of espresso freckles that complimented him so nicely. He was also so kind, goofy and silly, bitchy when he wanted to be but mostly raw sugar and candy apple sweetness.

But it was Steve. And you were you. The feeling would not be mutual, as much as your heart swelled at the thought of any maybe's, you had come to terms with that. It was easier that way.

"Well, I brought these," He fills the suffocating gap and you're snapped from your enraptured trance, digging into a blue plastic bag that was swinging from his wrist. You're watching him fumble, a deep crease between his brows and he's frowning. At least you can stare at him that little bit longer.

Steve eventually pulls out two boxes of Nerds, shaking them enticingly in your direction. There's that flutter again, seduced by his natural charm even when he wasn't trying. "I know they're your favourite. Watermelon and cherry, right?".

You were taken aback for a moment, you didn't even know that Steve payed so much attention to you, especially to the things you like. You're a little puzzled but you take them from his grasp with grace nonetheless, your fingertips brush faintly, noting the breath that hitches at the back of your throat that you force yourself to ignore.

"Right. Thanks". Your heartbeat pumps violently beneath the skin of your cheeks that were now a fiery shade of red. You probably sound a tad ungrateful right now, but the tips of your ears were burning and your mouth had run dry and you couldn't help it when the radiator was this hot at your back.

"No problem. Oh and this too". It sounds like he didn't notice your tone, either that or he chose to not pay it much mind. He's handing you a VHS tape then, surely one he had taken from work without hiring it out as he was supposed to. Fast Times at Ridgemont High. You hadn't seem it, four years late to the hype, but this works for you.

You smile back at him, those growing embers of fondness stoke a little wilder in your tummy, and Steve returns the grin just as kindly. The small pause of discomfort fizzled out as quickly as it came, no longer looming when Steve's eyes lifted with affection, platonically of course, glinting handsomely at the corners.

"Perfect. Come in, make yourself at home". You're ushering him inside, socked feet pattering down the hallway with Steve following a pace behind. He knew your apartment like the back of his hand, which wasn't exactly hard. If your group had an assigned headquarters, it would be your place that only had two windows and a bathroom so miniature you could barely take a shower in it.

Your evening set in motion like clockwork. Steve was busying himself with setting up the VHS player, proudly stationing your couch cushions just right on each end, a generous selection of candy littering your coffee table.

Nerds, red vines, milk duds, and cherry sours. The only thing missing was popcorn, which you were hastily shoving into your microwave that would pick and choose when to work. Thankfully, it was on your side tonight. It must have known you were a nervous wreck as it was, which feels dumb to think of in the moment afterwards.

"Uh... No alcohol tonight, though. That okay?" you call to Steve through the walkway after searching through the fridge, twinging with guilt again when you pull out a half empty bottle of cherry soda, as if it was difficult for him to hear you from the next room.

"You think I need alcohol to have a good time with you?" Steve chirps, a cocky eyebrow quirking as he appears through the kitchen doorway, and damn him you were scorching something sickening again.

Steve had turned up in some well fitting grey sweats and a navy blue-black sweater, with some mismatched socks to complete. An attire you couldn't miss when you first opened the door to him merely fifteen minutes earlier. You try not to stare, honestly you do. But those sweats fit him so well in all the right places and he was leaning so slack against the door frame, sleeves shifted up a quarter with his arms criss crossed. Damn him, damn him, damn him.

"I didn't mean it like that," you have to turn away from him before the staring became too apparent, focusing your attention on the dwindling pop pop popping in the microwave. "You warmed up enough yet?", you ask in desperation to change the topic.

It was only half a lie, that you didn't mean it in that way. The majority of social situations you had experienced with Steve involved alcohol; hangouts, parties, afternoons lounging around at community pool, that one summer where you all took a spontaneous day trip to Michigan City beach.

Where a set of sunburst hazelnut eyes peered at you fondly over the lip of a beer bottle, cheesy grin dripping in admiration that you had only taken in chaste. Steve had let it linger too, comfortable enough in your presence around friends, observing your doting smile and sing-songy laugh. But the thought of being alone with you made his heart skip, enjoying your company at arms length because of course he didn't like you like that, right?

Of course you wouldn't feel the same even if he did... right?

"I don't know, have I?" he's trialing, voice carrying closer the longer he speaks, and with your back turned, head bubbling over in thought and vulnerable to his actions, Steve presses the frozen back of his hand to the nape of your neck. His fingers hook absentmindedly beneath the collar of your shirt, and you yelp loud in response to his icy touch.

"You jerk!" A shrill floods his ears as you jump away from him, mouth agape and hands flying to swat him away. Steve is laughing, really laughing, and it's so chocolatey rich and sickly sweet and fucking intoxicating.

"Jesus christ, your hands are purple," you announce when you calm, discreet alarm hidden beneath your swift once over of him, chuckling with half the heart since your spine had ricocheted in a white-hot tremor. You reach for him then and he lets you, stepping into his space to encompass all eight fingers and two thumbs around his.

Steve watches you with a kind of intensity you weren't used to, the soft swipe of your fingertips kindling where you were burning, ice to your fire.

You nibble at your bottom lip, the corner of it dipping where you're gnawing at the skin on the inside. A tender dip atop the bridge of your nose, and Steve could count every blemish, every freckle, and every smile line this close up.

You couldn't look at him, losing your nerve at the mere thought of meeting his honeysuckle gaze, and he's thankful for it. Because now he can stare a little longer at you, too.

"Anyway..." you trail off distractedly, a brief glance up at Steve then back to your intertwined hands again. He clears his throat, a harsh swallow then he’s dropping away from where you linked. The room was colder when he took one step back into his own space, purposefully creating that distance.

"Popcorn?" he adds with a breath of finality and a small smile, mentally challenging himself to pay no mind to the lingering warmth of your touch. He shoos you out of the kitchen once you nod, eyes a little sparkly and rounded at the edges.

Steve finishes up in the kitchen as you collect an extra blanket from your bedroom, grabbing two full glasses he had filled with a generous helping of ice and soda in each on your way past again.

Dimming the lights in the living room like you do every movie night, you stand back to admire the sheer cosiness of it all with the snow flurrying down through the window above the television.

It still felt strange, collapsing onto the couch as Steve follows shortly after with a rather large bowl cupped in both hands, towering with buttery popcorn. Though you relax a little in each other's company rather swiftly, cosying a respectable width apart with the bowl secured between the side of your thigh and his.

You settle back into the couch once the movie develops full swing, revelling in the opportunity to steal greedy glances at Steve from the corner of your eye. Mocha blemishes and eyes flashing sparkly with the reflection of the television screen. Your gaze flits to where his silken lips stretch wide absentmindedly, chitters of laughter through his teeth and huffs through his nose.

You don't think you have ever watched him this long, especially not in in the security of nobody else clocking your ogling. Your head lolls back, attention flicking back to the movie when he would readjust or reach for more popcorn.

You didn't stare at him too long, just in calculated intervals. But you revel in him despite yourself; his left arm is stretched along the top of the sofa, fingertips a mere inch or so from the tilt of your scalp in his direction, thighs spread wide beneath the blanket, taking up far too much room, and the back of your neck prickles with some sort of ferocious heat.

You concentrate on the movie again, the possibility of Steve catching you mouth parted and lids heavy, blatantly undressing him with your eyes made your stomach twist. He's just a friend.

Neither of you had said a word in about 40 minutes, not that you had to. The silence was comfortable enough and the copious amount of snacks before you kept your hands occupied.

Though Steve snook at few peaks your way too, soft features and fluttering lashes, fingers twitching when he studies the strands of hair that illuminate silver and blue. He knows he shouldn't, and he curses himself as he surveys the cushioned push and pull of your lips as you chew on a red vine.

Another couple minutes pass, reaching into the bowl beside you to grab a fistful of popcorn, fully engrossed in the flicking scenes in front of you at this point. Steve's hand was digging into the pile too, though his movements considerably slow when his fingertips brush with yours.

You pull back with a clipped "Oop", darting a glance that meets his, and you blush where he pales. Steve's skin is alight, all firing nerve endings and dancing senses.

You're leaning forward then to grab a sweating glass of soda from the coffee table, shuffling to the edge of the couch and shifting yourself unintentionally further into his space. The plush of your hip nudges a fraction into his kneecap, enough for you to both notice, but neither of you move away this time.

You picture Robin beaming down at the scene, the air electric and thick with an unspoken eagerness to be close, so close, closer. Whether this was a wicked plan or not, you knew that the rest of your group would be sighing in relief that the two of you were even just alone together, for goodness sake. Because if you both stewed long enough in this growing familiarity, this growing fondness, face to face with temptation, maybe then these seemingly unrequited feelings would come to a head. At last.

50 minutes in and Steve knows the scene that's about to flash up, literally, because who doesn't pause Fast Times at 53 minutes and 5 seconds? The pool scene. Red bikinis, dripping wet hair and bare tanned skin, you can't look away. Your eyes are fixated on the screen but Steve's are glued to your face, noticing the way your lips part wet at the centre and you grip your glass that tiny bit tighter.

Though as fate allows, it never reaches the crescendo, the iconic segment coming to a close and just as Phoebe Cates goes to undo the front of her bikini top, the screen cuts to black. The lights do the same, no warning, just complete darkness with the only saving grace being the amber streams of light cutting through your window from the street lamps outside.

"What?!" you exhale harder than you meant to, glancing up at the ceiling where the filament of the bulb still glows bronze at the centre as it dies out. Steve rests his head back, a short laugh rattling in his chest in disbelief.

"Goddamn, haven't seen a tit in at least 6 months and this is how I'm treated?" he's rubbing the space between his eyebrows, harshly wiping his palm down the centre of his face and stalling over his mouth.

"Fuck, sorry," you heard him but weren't exactly listening, though you're apologising and he's confused by it, knees knocking with his when you shimmy forward and stand with purpose.

"This happened before?" Steve asks gently without judgement, trained on your movements as you pace over to the light switch to flick it up and down once, twice, three times, to no avail.

"Once," you glower, immediately grumpy and frustrated. "And my dumbass landlord never got the backup generator fixed either, so I doubt that'll save us". Steve grins at the way your expression crumples, petulant and stroppy but he wants to iron the creases out with his thumbs.

"You're laughing" you tell him pointedly, hands on your hips and one brow raised in a terrible display of sternness. Steve holds up his hands in surrender, voice as smooth as silk, "I would never laugh at you".

You believe him and feel your shoulders relax, running your hands over your face amidst a heavy sigh as you collapse back on the couch with him again. "Sorry that this has been a lame movie night," you're apologising once more and Steve is already sick of it, not in a irritated way, he just doesn't like the fact that you're clearly stressed.

"What?" Steve turns himself toward you, left leg triangled underneath him. You're pouting, shiny bottom lip pressed forward with your arms crossed over yourself. "No it's not. Honestly, I don't know why we don't hang out more."

"We hang out all the time, Steve" you remind him.

He rolls his eyes, head craning around and back onto his shoulders without any meanness in it, and you know him well enough to realise there was no intended hostility. "Yeah, but I mean... like, just the two of us," he corrects as if his initial intent was obvious, hands gesturing between the two of you.

Your hand reaches up to scratch at your cheek, concealing your giddy expression from him, skin warmer than the baking sun during mid July. God, your heart was in your throat. Just chill out.

"Did you only choose Fast Times so you could see a fucking tit?" you direct the conversation elsewhere before the iron grip of nerves rusts you beyond compare, like tin in a rainstorm. Your arms are still folded, the corners of your mouth twitched upwards in feigned disgust.

"Listen, I know that's on brand for me. But it was the first thing I saw on the shelf before I closed up the other day, okay?". Liar.

His cheeks are painted beetroot, that kind of dusting of deep rouge he got whilst four beers deep, a look you were familiar with at least two friends apart with music or blurred chatter overtaking any opportunity to absorb the sheer handsomeness of him.

Your skin prickles all over and the hairs on your arms stand on end, whether that be from the quickly dwindling heat in the cramped space, or from feeling like a organism under Steve's microscope, you weren't sure. Probably both. Definitely both.

Frost had now crystallised and diamond-dotted around the corners of the window, not helping any that it was merely single-paned. So the heat that did collect declined twice as fast.

"Okay, slick. I'll let you off easy," you prod, matching his eye-roll, nails scraping up and under your sleeves in an attempt to smooth out the goosebumps taking over. Steve follows your hands, a dip in his expression, a very illustrated sort of look.

"You cold?" he asks, then continues before you could answer, "You not got any candles or something?".

Your eyes light up at first, back straightening when you realise that you in fact do have some candles, ones you had collected over the years from birthdays and Christmas gifts. Though the hope is short lived, slumping back down even further into the cushions when you remember, "Fuck, I don't have a light though".

"I have some matches in my car," Steve sticks a thumb to the door, and the way you beam up at him from your turtled position has him heating up from the inside out.

"Wait there, I'll be right back," he's stumbling up off the couch, trudging down the hallway with a purpose, completely skipping his coat. He was a man on a mission.

It was the couple minutes that you were alone where you could finally fucking breathe. An ant under a magnifying glass being singed till your antennas smoked this entire time. It wasn't awkward, it was something in-between, like you couldn't exhale all the way out but also couldn't inhale all the way in either.

Two flights of stairs separate your front doorway and the complex lobby, therefore you were unable to hear Steve barging himself into an extremely stiff, absolutely without a doubt, frozen solid plexiglass. The at least two feet of snow that had collected in a pile-up right outside was no help either.

So Steve trudges back upstairs where you wait for him criss-cross applesauce, just as he had asked, chin ducked to his chest and hands running across his clammy face. Sweaty and exacerbated, he breaks the news that you were positively, doubtlessly, maybe or maybe not unfortunately, snowed in. Together. Trapped. With Steve. Alone.

"So what now?" you ask him when your face drops, no electricity and no heat with no way to get out of the building made your heart leap up into your throat for all of the wrong reasons.

"We uhhhh, we wait," Steve declares with a flair of certainty, trying to offer that sense of security you were gasping for in that moment. Though you didn't quite like that answer, no offence to him of course but you just couldn't accept waiting. So you hop up off the couch and call your landlord so that he could get his sorry ass up and actually call a goddamn snowplough or something.

"No answer. Of course he doesn't fucking answer," the last two words are accentuated by a pitiful slam of the receiver into the wall beside your telephone, a tilt into the more dramatic side but Steve kept his mouth firmly closed with that one. It was well past nine o'clock at night at this point, so neither of you expected to be able to leave until the early hours of the morning at the very least.

How utterly unfortunate.

You position yourself closer to Steve this time, swallowing over the nerves that wad up good and tight in your throat. He's sitting spread eagle as per usual, head leaning into the heel of his palm where his elbow is propped up on the arm of the couch, the other crossed over his lap.

"It's cold," you tell him bluntly as you bite the bullet and cosy yourself into his side, head on his shoulder, softening when he's peering down at you a little too skittishly. "Too close?" you question, then you're lifting your head up, a small gut punch when he doesn't respond immediately but it was one that you could probably manage.

"No! No, you're fine," Steve rushes to say and you were glad of it, unsure you could take the sting of rejection now that it didn't come, not when you had been shoulder to shoulder all evening.

You slip into silence then, one where neither of you were compelled to fill the gap.

His head is dizzy with you when you ease into him, floating into a dreamlike place when the smell of you overwhelms him. Vanilla and honey, a buttermilk richness that makes him want to press his nose into your hair. He won't though, that'd be weird. Since you were friends and all.

You could smell him too, bergamot and sage. Masculine and expensive, a scent you had picked up on before, but not one that filled your nostrils and sent you dumb with every inhale. Steve could undoubtably say that your breathing had changed, deepened. His mouth perks up into a faint smile.

Just friends.

Explicitly friends, even when Steve's hot palm skates over the back of your hand, fingers splaying out and catching at your wrist. Your pulse ramps up and you gawk up at him doe-eyed and pliant. He's swift with it, ensuring that you weren't caressing him in any way, just a quick slip up the shirt where your skin meets the forest of chest hair.

Steve must feel the bob of your throat as you swallow, because the sensation of his heart clattering under his ribs vibrates your nerves. "This too much? Sorry, I shouldn't've-" he grips your hand again but you resist him, pads of your fingers anchoring into his thatch of hair.

"No, no, it's okay. I'm fine with it if you are," You whisper to him in earnest, as if sharing a secret, scooting your head down so the shell of your ear closes right over where his heart sits. Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump. Each beat comes in rapid succession, especially so when your fingertips flex inattentively against his balmy skin.

"You're so warm," you mutter tenderly into the sanctuary that was his sweater, and Steve's breath almost hitches. Your voice is caramel smooth, comforting like a hot bath after a long day, as soft as feather-down pillows and fresh cotton sheets.

"And your hands aren't so purple anymore," you're thinking out loud at this point but Steve is listening, extending his arm you were leaning on once more so that you dropped into his side, head cradled at the dip where his armpit begins.

"Think you've helped me warm up just fine," he's speaking low, the verbalisation mulling over his tongue and purring at the back of his throat. It was enough to make you tremble, the deepness of it when he shushes to match you.

Despite the tip of your nose numbing from the chill, the intimacy of your circumstance cancelled out any bitter altitude. Never in a million years did you think you would be cuddling up to Steve Harrington like this. The Steve Harrington you admired from at least six feet away, the Steve Harrington that you were only in the presence of, at the very least, in the company of his shadow, Robin.

"It's late," you comment after a few minutes, charting the rise and fall of his chest, the steadiness of his heart that fell back into a somewhat regular pace once he acclimated to the weight of your palm.

"You wanna head to bed? I can sleep out here," he's asking with sincerity, but you wish he wouldn't. Steve huffs out a laugh through the nose that strokes at the climbing butterflies begging to fly out from that space between the cage of your ribs and the plummet of your stomach.

You shake your head, eyebrows dipping with two harsh tucks of skin that he has to hold back a laugh against, forced to restrain himself when all he wanted was to keep you this close for as long as humanly possible.

"Steve?" the mutter of his name climbs higher at the end.

"Hm?"

"You really think we should hang out more?" your voice errs on the side of doubt, as if you didn't believe him the first time round, and Steve takes in a stunted breath as he mulls over the question.

He stills for a moment, then takes a more even inhale through his parted lips, and you can hear the grin that accompanies his answer. "Duh. I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it".

You perk your head up to peek at him for the first time in a little while, chin prodding sharp into his breastbone but he doesn't say, not when you're so wide-eyed and breathtakingly beautiful in a way that would put Gia Carangi to shame.

"You're full of shit," you're chuckling and Steve wants to swallow every breeze of it, the whites of your teeth twinkling and eyes shining twice as bright. He can't fasten his attention to one specific part of your face, flitting down to the pull of your lips, watching the rosy hue flood over your cheeks, back up again to where you peer at him almost expectantly.

Your stares interlocked then, his golden gaze outpouring with the heat of a bonfire, pressed this close you could both feel the kick up of your hearts. Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump. Quadruple the speed as before and double the ferocity, your ears burned with it. Neither of you made a move to look away, not a chance.

"I uhm... I really wanna do something right now, but-" Steve cuts himself short when you stretch your neck up toward him, moving up as he's leaning down. Jesus christ, you feel sick with the nerves. Sick with the intimacy of him, sick with the scorching brush of his fingers behind your ear along the curve of your neck.

"It's okay," you're mumbling, the wash of your permission running over his lips that were so close you could already taste him. Steve's mouth twists up at the corners, the satin stroke of where he's teasing you with the promise of a kiss he's not giving you just yet.

But only for a couple seconds, unable to hold back for long when you suck in a desperate sort of noise, and your grip solidifies at his chest to the point where your nails are casting crescent moons in his skin.

The seal of your lips is courteous, joint satisfied and relieved exhales a tsunami over the flesh of your cheeks and lower jaw. It's nothing more than one long press, nothing too crazy, an ebbing wave of give and take.

"Sorry..." he mutters when you part, merely an inch or so, and you're almost compelled to punch him. The main thing you had been doing all evening was apologising to each other.

"Why are you sorry?" you're whispering and he's desperate to kiss you again, longing to erase that hint of disappointment in your eyes that squashes your pretty features.

"I dunno," his laugh has an edge to it, shy, and you never thought the boy had any capability of being shy of all things.

"You don't want to do it again?" you squint at him, loaded with insincere scrutiny that has his fingers clasping fully to the back of your neck to reel you right back in. A breathy laugh escapes him, his intent as clear as the blooming sunrise shedding light upon a tangerine coloured sky.

The second bump of your lips has more purpose behind it, teetering on the edge of unforgiving, brimming with unspoken truths and wordless confessions. You heave through the nose at this harsher descent onto one another, slipping your hand from under his shirt to bury your nails into the mess of hair behind his ear instead.

He really tastes you then when you open up to him with a muted smack of your lips, artificial cherries and candied watermelon. You can taste him too, lingering milk chocolate and sickly sweet berries. The sweep of his tongue over yours crack fireworks behind your eyes, nothing too hot and heavy just yet, still gentlemanly in his approach, knowing you can cut this short whenever you wanted.

You push yourself up after a minute of wet sloven kisses, begrudgingly having to separate yourselves so that you can shift onto your knees. Steve is watching, grilling you with the fire of his blown out pupils.

The timidness remains deep within the barren of your chest, swallowed by your determination to bring to life all of these wants and desires that had loomed over you for as long as you had known him. Of course the fear is still seated within you, especially when it comes to Steve. Because it's Steve. Handsome, charming, just out of reach Steve who carried a torch for you at the back of a crowd.

He's contemplating you as you move, not entirely certain of where to look; your dreamy expression, already swollen lips that are now twice as inviting, the warm spread of your doughy thighs as you position yourself over him.

He decides then to spread his palms over the fall of your waist, fingers binding to the hills of flesh hidden beneath cotton. You encapsulate his face in your hands, thumbing over his cheekbones, burning up again when his tongue dips out to wet his bottom lip.

Slick, pink and polished with your mixed fervour, noses bumping somewhat clumsy when you take this time to just drink each other in for a second. You chased where he dipped, the curve of your lower lip skating up over his cupid's bow.

It was deafeningly quiet without the blare of the movie in the background, sounds of dreamy sighs and lovesick panting permeating the air and drowning out the whistling howl of the blizzard wind. You were smothered under the safety of the night, cast in raven shadows and the silvery glows of the moon being your only witness.

You can feel it, the growing tent of him under those goddamn grey sweats. You test the waters, weighting yourself down further to nudge your centre right over his lap. Steve's mouth dries up almost immediately at the contact, fingers digging into you with a sudden cruelty and it is the first time you hear him moan.

God, you wish you could capture it on tape, and you choke on a breath when he does it. The richness of it, testosterone and roughness that demands you to press down on him again. Steve rolls his hips as you squirm above him, gasping into his waiting mouth as you ramp each other up into one giant needy mess.

"You're on fire. You wanna stop?" His question comes to you through the thick smog of want eventually, noticing that he's pulled back to inspect you like a bird with a broken wing, palm cupping the underside of your jaw, tipping your head from side to side as your bated breaths mingle into a simultaneous heave.

"You just made a noise like that and you're asking if I wanna stop?"

He swallows, swears at himself then his lashes are fluttering when he meets your eye. He's stumbling over a response, totally disbelieving that he's finally in this situation in the first place. So many fantasies and wet dreams come to life at long last.

"I don't want you to think-" almost combusting when you lean forward again and tread your lips along his jawline. "Fuck- that I just came here to, to..." he whines into your hair as he succumbs to the slide of your teeth at his pulse point, arms wrapping around your back now to force you closer into him.

"Shut up, I don't think that," you display your honesty with a feathery kinder press of your mouth to the bulge of a vein in his throat. Steve releases a pleased sort of sound, grateful and comforted in the clarity that you wanted this just as much as he did.

"But if you don't want to anymore then that's okay," you're sad when you murmur it into his collar, not in a pressuring manner, and Steve knows you well enough to realise you would never pressure him.

His hands are searching for your face, revealing you from your hiding place of the clammy skin of his neck. Your forehead shines from the outpouring of sheer want and need, shining eyes glazed over and gem-like.

He traces the outer corner of your lip with his thumb, dipping into the crease when you part them slightly for him. He tugs lightly at the pillow of your lower lip, focusing entirely on the way it bounces back and leaves a sheen on his thumb in it's wake.

"Shut up," his abdomen shakes with laughter when he tugs you back to him, and a wrecked sigh overcomes you when your hot mouths meet again. You lick over his tongue with urgency, wild strands of his har wadded up in your fists so tight it almost hurts.

Steve shifts beneath you, arms cascading up and around you, fingers tracing down the curve of your spine and back up again. The delicate touch of skin on skin juxtaposed the meanness of his kisses, noses bruised in a crush together, not even leaning back when you close and part your lips over and over again.

It was like a well oiled machine, accustomed automatically to the seam of his mouth and where you slot perfectly against him. You rock your hips over him again and wish that you could drag this out further, but the way that he's stuttering under you, his movements becoming messier and less calculated, you had to tear his clothes off and get this done with before you both erupted.

You were the first to tug off your shirt, escalating this further and curse you, your hands are shaking as you do so. Steve's ministrations follow your lead, large hot hands spreading flat to take in this new exposed skin.

He treads over the pillow of soft tummy, revels in the feel of the cushion of fat over your ribs under his thumbs, up further until his knuckles are brushing at the underside of your breasts. He hadn't even looked, his eyes are squeezed firmly closed and his features overcome with a look of pure anguish.

Because it was almost too much; the see-saw of your hips over where he was straining in his pants, the softness and heat of your tongue in his mouth, the furnace of your skin in this freezing room, and those fucking sick sounds you were making. You were breaking his will, crumbling chalk beneath your fingers.

"Jesus christ" Steve groans into your open mouth, and you finally pull back so he can eat up your naked torso, feasting on your mouthwatering form. That's it, he's died and gone to heaven. There's no way that this was real.

You’ve seen a tit now, haven’t you, Harrington? You keep that one to yourself, he didn’t need to be embarrassed about it.

But damn you it is real, made even more apparent when you take his hands in yours and guide him to the perk of your breasts. He stills there for a moment, mouth agape and hips grinding up into you without meaning to.

You push his mess of hair away from his face, heart skipping a beat of two, lurching up into your throat when he beams up at you. Full ear to ear grin, teeth and all, large hands kneading into you. Another shift underneath you and your eyes are rolling back, cotton on cotton, the height of your clit prodding right over the grooves of his tip.

Steve slouches from the back of the couch, burying his face into the glossy juncture of your neck, you have to glue your nails into the nape of his hairline to trap him there.

You can't remember the last time you had been kissed like this, or ever in fact, greedy and harsh yet he was only give give give.

He's clumsy as he fondles you, suffocated under the bareness of you but it still wasn't quite enough. His tongue works over where your artery is screaming for him, groaning and tilting your head to the side to jam his mouth even further into you. You arch your back when his teeth ghost over you, not fully biting, just there to tease and make you want him more.

"Steve. Take this off, for fuck sake" you're mewling a plea, scampering to hook your fingers under the hem of his sweater. Steve is more than compliant, anything for you to keep sighing his name just like that. He's chuckling at your urgency, cock kicking up to meet your centre for another countless time. He needs to get these fucking sweats off like five minutes ago.

Your hands are trembling twice as hard as you undress him, and Steve takes laces your fingers in his once he's shirtless.

"It's okay," he soothes, rich and buttery smooth and your heart lurches up into your throat again. "You're okay," he tugs your interlocked hands up to his mouth, stippling one two three kisses across every knuckle and back again. He tucks your fists into his chest, that same soft thatch on full display and you never could have guessed that he was this hairy. It was a pleasant surprise.

"You wanna lay down? Hm?" he's cooing at you, forehead to forehead, but you don't feel chastised by it. You nod, nose bumping with his when you go to tease his lips again. A flush strikes you right from the crown of your head to the tip of your toes when Steve shimmies to the edge of the couch, grip strong as he holds you to him, not once hit with a falling sensation when you glides you to the side to settle you on your back.

He's on top of you then, crowding into your space and you're struggling for breath. He's so close and you still can't quite believe it. Can't believe that he feels this way, can't believe you're about to fuck on the couch where you've spent countless evenings admiring him like a lovesick puppy dog.

"If you wanna stop, you can tell me, 'kay?" your chest concaves and you could actually cry right now, the sweetness of him, so tentative and gentle and alluring.

"'Kay" you mirror back, swaddling his hair in your fist again as you tug him down to your waiting mouth, "Same goes for you". Your knees spread wide to allow him access, lowering himself onto you further, abdomen pinning to yours.

The sweep of his cock hiccups a gasp in your chest that Steve devours in earnest, lips enclosing around your tongue and he sucks. You keen something vicious, any remnants of self control now shattered glass beneath your feet. Steve moans twice as loud, abandoning pleasantries when you're mewling so good for him.

He releases you with a sickly pop, not even giving you a beat to recover before he's kissing you deeply again. Steve rocks the length of his cock along your clothed slit, and when you look down between your sandwiched bodies, there's a darkened patch of grey where he's beading with want.

"Steve, please, just -" but he's already fumbling for your pyjama bottoms, manhandling your hips up without you even needing to do anything. His stare bores into you when he slots his fingers beneath the elastic waistband, honey molten eyes replaced by a marbled inky black.

You whimper at the sight of him, lustful and without restraint, a demeanour you couldn't even conjure up in your daydreams with your hand tucked between your legs. You couldn't get enough of it.

Steve peels back your bottoms and panties in tow, achingly slow and methodical. He breaks eye contact to peak down at where you're fully exposed to him, an etch crumpling between his brows when he Ooh's out loud. You could scream you were so pent up.

"Look at you," he purrs, and your stomach twists with an aching need. He takes your ankle in his hand to pry one leg up and out, your lips blossoming open with the stickiness of your arousal.

"So fucking ready, huh?" he drags his pointer finger over your slit, spreading the mess you had already made of yourself. But you don't let him play for long, you can't, beckoning him up with a curve of your two fingers.

Then you're swallowing each others sounds for another time, Steve's biceps are tensing as he scoops one arm under you, arching your back and bearing your chest to smoosh into his. He's all over you all at once, the underside of his cock rutting through the seeping folds of your cunt.

He kisses at your jaw, murmuring curses and sweet nothings into your blazing skin as he travels down to suck on your neck. There's those teeth he had promised earlier, bruising a spot right beneath your earlobe ivy and plum. He laves over the area in apology, hot mouth softening the blow.

You hiss through the teeth and sway yourself back and forth to meet him, the tip of his cock probing into your aching clit with each overwhelming sweep.

He wanted to love on you more, take his sweet time with you, but the way you were near ripping his hair from the roots and sobbing his name, he was nearing his end much quicker than he intended.

"You ready?" he asks wholeheartedly, waiting on your reply before he did anything else.

"Yeah. Please," your eyes are wet and glassy when they sear into his, and he wasn't a man that would deny the pleas of a beautiful woman.

"Okay, baby. I got you," there was that gentleness again, that practiced well-polished dance of sweet and sour. Rough around the edges with a caramelised sugary centre. Steve grasps himself at the base, angling your hips up so that your opening meets his tip.

The first push of his length into you was easy, of course it was, you were dripping like a fucking faucet. You open up to him no problem, and it only took two thrusts before he bottomed out completely.

You're suspended in time then, the falling snow coming to a halt, the stars cease their twinkling, just so you can bask in this ultimate intimacy for as long as possible. Sucking in his exhale, foreheads leaning together, all either of you can do is just stare and smile.

The kindness resumes, still unmoving, Steve descends his lips back onto yours and the world begins to turn again. "Okay?" he whispers against your lips.

"Okay"

Then you squeeze your gummy walls around him and his angelic exterior shatters a little. Steve plants his hands on either side of your head before he's moving again, dragging his entire length out before sliding right back in to the hilt.

You gasp when he knocks his weight into you right at the end of his thrust, your body prodding upwards into the arm of the couch. It wasn't mean, or cruel, just pleading, carving the shape of himself so he fit perfectly and then some.

"More," you plead, unable to catch the breath it takes to tell him what you want and Steve doesn't half oblige. Your mewling spurs him on, retreating half as much this time but he ruts back into you twice as fast.

He pants out your name, eyes saucered and bottom lashes kissing the skin beneath. One leg is hiked up over the back of the couch, the back of your other knee resting in the crook of Steve's elbow where he's spreading you wide.

It was downright pornographic, the way you opened up for him without shame, but he adjusts his angle the faintest amount and then he's hitting that spot that erupts white light behind your eyes.

Steve mouth drops open when you squeal. "There?" he accentuates with a particularly hard snap of his hips and you almost black out. Tears brim at your waterline, stuffed to the brink of him, overrun with the sensation of having Steve fucking Harrington everywhere. He's watching you like you've hung the moon, tongue drawn between his teeth as he charts every reaction you bestow on him.

If he weaves his fingers with yours again, what would you do? You're grasping onto him as if you would fall into the abyss if you let go, is what you did.

If he bent your leg up that little bit higher and slowed his rhythm, what would you do? You cry his name and crush his fingers between yours until they're contusing indigo, is what you did.

He committed it all to memory, condemning your body to scripture that he would keep under lock and key, tucked snugly into the corner of his mind that he would dig out another time. Maybe even add another page or two, if you'd let him. Please, God, will you let him?

Steve kisses you firmly, with a finality that tells you the end was in sight. With you way you rotate your lap against him, chasing your high, head fuzzy and drifting into a euphoric peak that Steve is climbing to right along with you.

"You feel so, fuck, so good" he praises, pinching the tip of your chin, thumb swiping along your bottom lip. You have half a mind to take it into your mouth, though you can't help but be a little selfish when you can taste your orgasm on the horizon. You just needed one final push.

"I'm really close," you admit, releasing one of his hands to snake your fingers down where your middles meet. Steve's brain completely shuts down as he follows your movement, straightening his back so he has a better view of where you're rubbing tight circles into the bead of your clit.

He's ignited with a new sense of determination, your moans becoming a quiet mess of jumbled pleas and his name, cascading as fluidly as a waterfall. Steve is one for eye contact, you note, pocketing that confidential piece of him just for you.

Your stomach is billowing with pleasure, knot tightening and you swear you can feel Steve's cock swell inside you the closer you get to the edge.

"You gonna cum? Please cum, i'm right fucking there. Goddammit" he's seething through his teeth, another snap of his hips, a second third and fourth, so deep that it aches all the way into your chest. Your fingers are furious the way you tune yourself with the pace he had set, less forgiving and drowned in pure animalistic need.

His name slips off your tongue in prayer, kicking up at the last letters when you fall over that edge for him, exactly in tune to the final drives of his cock, scoring the throbbing veins of his shaft into the grip of your walls.

Steve slows as you both unravel, buried deep where his head nuzzles to the opening of your womb. You close those few inches where his lips sat just out of reach from yours, throaty moans echoing into open mouths, so sloppy that your teeth clack together.

"You are fucking insane," Steve chuckles when he stops twitching, his release already dripping around the base of his cock that's still seated inside you. You kiss him in turn, that wash of shyness overtaking you once more when the buzzing in your head starts to die down.

Steve goes to shift backwards because he knows you're ruining the couch right now, but you make a sort of pathetic sound from the overstimulation, and he settles right back down over you.

You didn't really care about the sore ache in your legs, or the cold globules of cum that were gliding down your ass onto the material below you. You just wanted to lay here with him for a little longer.

When it was all said and done, the rise and fall of your chests steadying, the gravity of the situation catching up with you in the post-coital haze, Steve buries his nose into your hair, lax fingers twirling three quarter circles into your bare shoulder.

He's still hovering over you as his hushes absorb into your scalp, his next words soak into your skin so they can live and breathe as a part of you. Seeping into your pores, coagulating with the warmth of your blood that rushes in and out of your heart.

"I really like you" he confesses, mouth curled into a giddy grin and you can feel it.

"I couldn't tell," you grin when he does, adding, "I really like you too, Steve".

"I'm glad we got snowed in together", he presses a small kiss to your temple and you beckon him down so he's laying on top of you full weight, the shake in his forearms subsiding when he does.

You expect the skin over your ribs to unfold and stitch back together again, sealing him with you for good. Now wouldn't that be lovely.

"Me too"

The flurry slows outside the window, a closing curtain on your first night together, one of many, the sky swirling with amber and lavender hues.

The morning came much sooner than you expected.

holy fuck i'm so sorry this took longer than intended. but ahhh!!!! I loved writing this, II can't tell you how many hours i've put into this, I just have very limited time :( hope you enjoyed regardless <3

gonna tag a couple peeps who have been waiting for this 🫶🏻 @losingmygrasponreality @professionalpromqueen

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

part iii: at your best you were magic

(this one has length, you guys, but the boys needed so much RESOLUTION 🥺)

for @kultiras at the ❄️ Winter @steddieexchange 🖤❤️

<<< part two // start at the beginning

Eddie kind of expects to be clocked hovering outside the window, or by the rattle of his van. He kinda expects to be left standing on the porch.

His heart’s fucking pounding, and he’s halfway to shivering because he didn’t wear a decent coat, because no one’s there anymore to bully him into being a little more aware of taking care of himself and he…he kinda feels like he did when he was running for his life, when they found him in Rick’s boathouse, he’s maybe gonna hyperventilate and wouldn’t that be a pretty fucking picture, pass out from lack of oxygen, or die flat-out, heart giving out on the steps of the man he loves, that he loves and that he wasn’t good enough to keep and—

“Oh.”

It doesn’t even matter how flat it comes out: Eddie’s breath catches just to hear that voice, holy fuck.

“Steve.”

He can’t even keep the word in, that single name in his chest knocked clean to launch from his lips, and Steve…

Steve looks rough. Drawn, kinda pale but in that exhausted washed out way where he’s not just blanched for his skin tone but in a way that makes the saturation of his whole self seem washed out and sallow. He’s got more stubble than he normally allows, much as Eddie has enjoyed the hell out of that gorgeous scruff now and again—he knows Steve only lets it get that way when they fuck too many hours in a row to want to get out of bed and properly plan to leave, or of he’s sick, or anxious, or…

Not good.

Eddie thinks it’s probably the generally not-good thing that’s to blame, here.

And yet somehow he’s still the most beautiful thing Eddie’s ever seen in his whole fucking life. No contest.

God, Eddie’s so fucking gone on him. All he wants is to reach, and pull him close, and keep all the sour things from his heart. All Eddie wants is to fucking…love him. For the rest of his goddamn life.

“I,” Eddie’s voice comes out raw, sandpaper rubbing to bleed; he would have wanted better, Steve deserved him to be better no matter what they were, what they weren’t, what they’d never be or maybe could be—but Eddie knows he’s weak as a rule, and here and now he breaks clean open, heart cleaving straight down the middle to bleed free because…

Fuck: Eddie had been hurting for being without Steve, but he’d underestimated just how much seeing him, breathing his air again would undo him. The sheer relief down to his cells, just to know in his bones that Steve was in the world. He’d been less than a shell, he’d been only half-floating through the world on his own for the way he’d healed himself around the give and take of Steve and to know it again, even just at arm’s length, feels like breaking water for the first time after drowning, but then it every single atom of him had been diminished on its own, then started vibrating again all at once after a fucking age spent stopped-dead.

“What are you doing here?”

Of all the things Eddie could hate out of the situation he’s standing in—outside of anything and everything that surrounds the fact of Steve, all that is Steve because that could never be hated at all—but of all the things to hate, the worst is maybe how flat Steve’s tone is. And worse?

How Eddie can’t read him. How, how did Eddie…

How did Eddie lose that?

“I,” Eddie moves his mouth, lips stretching awkward around the sound, and he’s adrift, man, he’s fucking loose ends with no hope of ever tying together, ever tethering to anything but the man in front of him, he believes that in his soul: with anyone else, anywhere but here, and Eddie would still just have this collection of stray threads of what it means to be himself, just reaching for Steve fucking Harrington forever and for always, holy fuck, and—

“I’m,” he grasps as best he can at the straws of what it means to form a thought, but all of what he comes up with is insufficient, rehashes the same core sentiment: I’m less of a person when I’m not with you, I’m scared by what that means but I’m more scared by what it means not to have you, I’m most scared by how hollow your eyes look and how dry your hair is at the ends because I pay attention where maybe almost everyone else has been letting that slide under the radar, I’m so fucking in love with you I think they could cut me open and only find you inside, I’m yours and I will be yours long after I’m more soil than corpse in the fucking ground, I’m—

“Jesus,” Steve huffs, and something in Eddie’s chest perks up at the bitchy little tone he throws put as he seems to give up on whatever was letting him stand in the doorway as he throws the door open and backs up into the hall, waving Eddie’s direction with too much resignation: “get in here, you’re gonna get frostbite, man.”

And maybe there’s a plummeting in Eddie’s gut at the tone but…he doesn’t need to be told twice.

He also doesn’t need to experience the thickness of the tension that descends immediately between them once the door clicks closed, suffocating, burning in his lungs.

“Hey,” the word gets punched out of him, not least because Eddie’s a little afraid that he won’t be able to draw another breath to get anything further said.

“Hey.”

And Eddie still can’t fucking read him, and holy shit, does it sting.

“Steve,” he only just manages not to moan but then—

“Why are you here?”

And it’s so…toneless. Kinda curt. So blunt and somehow Eddie feels it more like a spike, a fucking harpoon through his sternum that drags bloody against his heart with every goddamn beat.

“I,” Eddie licks his lips; “Dustin, he was—”

“Oh,” Steve sighs a little, bitter at the edges and Eddie’s just grateful that it’s something; “he send you?”

And Eddie doesn’t expect to feel it like a slap to his fucking face like this but: fuck if he doesn’t. Fuck if that’s not exactly what it is.

“No one sent me,” Eddie’s fucking quick to correct that because Dustin may have begged him, but Eddie thinks his heart’s been ready to scramble to Steve’s doorstep and maybe just fucking grovel and promise to try and be whatever about him made Steve happy to begin with, or not be whatever put Steve off of him and they could be happy again, maybe, and Eddie’s chest could feel less in a vise all the goddamn time.

“He, uh,” and Eddie stumbles a little around giving context when all Steve does is raise a doubtful brow at his denial that he’s here primarily because of anyone but himself.

“He said some stuff that,” Eddie swallows hard, works his throat around a lot of half-formed things he doesn’t think he can quite get out before he ultimately just rasps:

“I got worried.”

“Nice of you,” Steve laughs a little save there’s no humor, sniffs a little and it’d read haughty if you didn’t know what to look for, if you couldn’t tell that Steve’s eyes are stretched too wide, and shine a little too bright and his hand’s twitching to rise to the bridge of his nose and pinch which only ever means—

“Not necessary though.”

And it’s so hollow, it’s just…it’s filled with so much nothing, those words, that voice, that it’s an anguish all on its own, and fuck, but how Eddie’s voice breaks on the next words that he doesn’t even give conscious consent to even come out at all:

“You’re supposed to be happy, Stevie.”

He feels the way his lashes stick as he blinks too fast, his heart hurting because Steve looks like he’s in fucking pain and why are they both in pain—

But Steve’s expression is all scrunched up, and he’s frowning, fucking baffled at Eddie from across the space, so small, cramped to the wall next to the closed front door but as good as a continent, an ocean stretched between for how Eddie’s can feel his heat, can’t reach, and then Steve’s squinting and near snapping:

“What?”

And it’s said so sharp but then weirdly without the bite in its anding, like he’s too worn down, too drained somehow to manage it, or even really want to. Eddie..

Eddie isn’t sure he wants to keep learning just how many times, how many ways a heart can fucking break.

“I,” Eddie’s throat’s dry as shit and he cannot possibly care because his heart’s pounding in a way he doesn’t know he’s felt before, because it’s all wrong, isn’t it, it’s all so fucking wrong; “whatever I was doing that was bringing you down,” he shakes his head, desperate as he leans forward to Steve as far as he dares, closer but not close enough, never close enough:

“If I’m gone, you’re supposed to be happy and it’s like,” Eddie groans, and maybe it’s more of a whine really, fuck it all, that fits, that fucking makes sense because; “you didn’t want me here anymore, so I—”

“I never said I didn’t want you here.”

Eddie startles, heart in his throat again and hammering, violent and hellbent as Steve cuts him off, voice bowstring-taut where it cuts through the mounted tension, but does nothing to diminish it in the process; does nothing to ease the way it makes Eddie’s pulse work harder, desperate to fight the weight of it.

“I have never once wanted you to be anywhere but here,” and Steve’s voice is fucking…pained and just, just: how?

“Stevie,” Eddie pleads, because he doesn’t fucking understand; “you flinched when I touched you,” and Steve does it just then, the slightest bit; Eddie’s chest clenches just at the echo of it.

“You moved away from my mouth when I tried to kiss you,” and oh, how that had hurt, how that had withered things in Eddie’s ribs that never died long, just regrew to be burned back because Eddie didn’t know how not to love Steve, didn’t want to know such an unthinkable thing: but good fucking god, if it didn’t start to hurt worse than dying when Steve stopped wanting him—and Eddie was okay with it not being love, for Steve, with it being too much or maybe too soon but he’d…

He’d believed what they had was something beautiful; he’d clung maybe foolishly to the possibility of…maybe Steve someday growing into love with him.

And then he’d pulled back; then he’d spurned Eddie’s affection with his body, he didn’t even have to say it, it was sown in his skin, he…

“That’s not tru—” Steve starts, tone tight as he tries to defend but: no. No, Eddie hadn’t fucking created his own heartbreak from whole cloth, without reason.

“You turned, repeatedly,” Eddie hates that it comes out as accusatory as it does, but he…he wasn’t fucking imagining it, he hadn’t been because you can’t make up that kind of knife in your chest, you can’t.

“You tried to make it look like a coincidence. But when you keep getting your mouth on the man you lo—” and Eddie, he chokes it back as much as it wants to come out, to be spoken and known even if it’s not returned, never returned because it’s not going away, it’s never going away, but he, he—

He can’t. Not…not now.

“When you keep getting your mouth on your guy’s cheek and not his lips, damn,” Eddie’s breathing shudders; “you fuckin’ notice.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, but his gaze has shifted to the ground. Eddie…doesn’t know if he should take that as permission to keep going. He doesn’t even know if he wants to keep going in the first place.

His heartbeat’s still a torrent, though, and he…he doesn’t know if he could stop the words that come next if he tried.

“You stayed on your side of the bed all curled up, like you,” Eddie swallows hard, because what he’s about to say out loud fucking hurts to put into words; goddamn—because he thinks it’s true:

“You made yourself small to not be near me.”

Steve’s shoulders shift, then, but he doesn’t move, just keeps staring at the floor.

“You won’t even look at me when all your plans to avoid me go wrong and we actually miraculously end up in the same place because of the kids,” Eddie keeps going because he’s opened the floodgates, he’s let the feeling in him sneak through and it was too fucking big, it tore off the dams he tried to put in place to hold it all at bay; “if you can’t get away quick enough, every time I almost catch your eyes you look like you’re in pain,” and he looks like it now, he looks like he’s just made of hurting: “you jump like you got burnt.”

Steve’s next inhale is a sharp gasp of a thing. Eddie tries very hard not to feel something like victory to get somereaction from him.

He fails miserably.

“Robin hisses at me when I see her,” Eddie keeps on, because he wasn’t lying, the gates have been obliterated, there are no guardrails left for the way his heart’s such a mess and it’s spilling onto everything, into everything; “and I’m convinced she’s basically your subconscious manifest when it comes to who she turns her venom on,” and even Eddie would have missed it if he hadn’t been fixated unwavering on Steve in all of his glory, now: those lips don’t quirk, exactly, but they move the slightest bit.

Eddie, again, didn’t really think that his heart could learn to break in any more ways, but: here he is.

“You didn’t pick up the phone—” he damn near fucking moans because it hurts, it still hurts, it might always hurt—

“You didn’t leave a message.”

Steve’s volley is clipped, a not-so-subtle indictment, gaze flicking upward when he speaks and Eddie’s caught in those sad fucking eyes so swift and complete, it feels like all that he is might be forfeit in their hold.

He’s okay with that, though. He’s been okay with that—more than.

It’s when he’s nothing to that gaze, when Steve can’t even bring himself to look, that Eddie starts to crumble.

“The machine isn’t on,” he breathes out, barely a whisper, and Steve just blinks, then looks back at the ground and Eddie…Eddie’s not this strong, y’know? Eddie’s been barely anything for weeks, in so many ways, and he…he can’t just keep holding himself together when all he sees is Steve in pain, when his own pain makes him weak on top of everythingbegs.

“Steve,” he murmurs, nothing short of a plea for fucking mercy, for this man to take pity and maybe just explain a little, help Eddie understand where it all went wrong; “talk to me.”

And Eddie isn’t expecting it when it happens, given the mostly-stoic mask Steve’s perfected to keep him at bay: but when Steve breathes in deep and the motion, the sound of it shatters around something broken like a sob?

Eddie breaks right along with it.

“Jesus,” he half-gasps; “you need to sit down, sweetheart, come on,” because Steve’s shaking, fucking shaking where he stands; “here, I—”

And Eddie reaches, hand fucking trembling as he forces himself to keep enough distance for it to have to be Steve’s choice to touch, because if Steve doesn’t want him, if Steve doesn’t want any of him, ever, then Eddie has to learn that’s what his world is, that’s what his world will always be, no matter how his heart aches with it all and—

Steve steps, leans, and Eddie doesn’t need more assent than that; feels his nerves light up when Steve gives into his touch, doesn’t shy from the way Eddie’s grip tightens on his arms as he walks them slow from the door to the living room, to the couch where he settles Steve carefully near where the throw pillows will cushion him; reins himself in from finding a blanket he knows is in the cabinet hidden by the TV and wrapping Steve up tight in it, keeps himself from sitting next to him too close, stops himself from gathering Steve in his arms, but…he can’t go too far.

He can’t.

“This okay?” Eddie asks gently as he can when he settles down the shortest distance away that he can justify, that he thinks he can get away with; Steve doesn’t stop him, doesn’t react and Eddie’ll fucking take that.

He doesn’t even wholly-consciously put his hand, palm-up, on the cushion between them; certainly doesn’t expect anything but for Steve to scoot further from it once he realizes it’s there, but then—

Then Steve’s hand is landing in Eddie’s, and Eddie…after the shock settles, he fucking folds his grip around Steve so goddamn tight.

And Steve doesn’t fucking flinch away.

“Talk to me, Stevie,” Eddie breathes out, his heart doing wild things for the way it feels to touch that skin again, even so slight, so innocent: it’s everything. “Stevie, please,” and he wasn’t above begging before; with Steve’s hand in his he’s sure as shit not above it, now.

Eddie thinks he’s holding out for nothing, then he scolds himself—he’s not holding out for nothing, he’s got Steve’s hand in his hand, he can feel Steve’s pulse at the wrist and yeah it’s too heavy, it’s too fast and all Eddie ever wanted to was to be the safe place that Steve’s tension could ease into but the proof of life, of Steve, here, with him, is enough, it’s enough and Eddie is a rich man beyond measure, he’s, he is, it’s—

“I’m,” Eddie jumps a little, clings tighter to the palm pressed against his own when that voice scratches low into the space between them, and then starts to bleed feeling deep and unbridled when Steve whispers harsh:

“It was already so fucking hard, before I loved you.”

And Eddie…look.

Eddie’s felt ice run through him before. He’s felt it when he ran terrified from what it meant to face down death. He’s felt it in another dimension as the bat bites stole the life from him. He’s felt it in his room because he’d lost the sun he’d shaped his world to orbit around, to draw life from.

But…Eddie’s not sure he’s felt it take him over quite like it does just now; like it does when he has to ask, because there’s nothing else for it, he has to know and so he has to be the one to invite the ice into all he holds dear and maybe fucking ruin them both when he says it, pushes them past this point of no return:

“What’s hard, Stevie?”

And he waits, again, and tries not to fall for being too greedy, for getting too much when he’s grown horribly accustomed to nothing, and he should just give thanks for the way he can hear Steve breathe, a fucking miracle, a gift; he doesn’t dwell on just how much the idea of Steve answering, of Steve speaking more and telling Eddie what went wrong, where Eddie maybe went wrong—

“Losing you was the worst thing that ever happened to me,” is what Steve says, plain like reciting a law of physics, a rule of the universe. “And I wasn’t even in love with you yet.”

Eddie…feels bowled over and a little light-headed. Steve…loved him? He knew he loved him like he loved the Party at large, fought for them all, would stupidly give his whole fucking life for each and every one of them but…this kinda sounds like more, and maybe Eddie’s just got rose-colored glasses over it all, maybe he’s suffocating himself under the veil of wishful thinking—

But then he sobers because: loved. Loved. Maybe it’s just what he’s saying and how he’s saying it, like, incidental.

But it also sounds…past tense. And Eddie’s heart, like; Eddie thinks somehow his heart wails for the idea that he had this singular, precious man, maybe even his singular, precious heart, all this time, but now, now he doesn’t, and—

“I can’t sleep. I’m just…” Steve shudders, and Eddie, he has to just grip harder to Steve’s hand; if he can’t hold to more of him, he has to hold hard to what he’s allowed, what he does have.

“I woke up next to you, the most random morning, nothing out of the ordinary,” Steve says it, voice a little distant, all of it sounding more like a story than anything save for how Eddie can still feel Steve’s rabbit heart under his fingertips.

“And I realized how fucking deep I was in this,” and Steve turns Eddie’s hand a little in his own, spins one of his rings like he used to and Eddie’s breath catches for it because it feels too intimate, it feels too right, like a dream that’ll fade so fast, that’ll decimate him all over again, what’s left of him, in an instant when it’s gone again.

“So fast, I know,” and Steve says it like he has to justify his heart like this, and Eddie’s struck with the stark realization of just how well he must have been able to hide what he thought he’d been broadcasting to the fucking cosmos despite his best efforts not to be too much, or too intense, or too insane.

Not to broadcast to the world the obvious truth that his heart got rewired early to beat in the rhythm that spelled Steve Harrington out in the goddamn stars—but Steve doesn’t seem to have seen it. Or maybe…didn’t believe what it was if he did catch a glimpse.

Fuck.

“And it was never about, like, what if you didn’t feel the same, or weren’t ready, that’s not, I mean,” Steve tosses his head a little, and it’s not just that the concept is already absolutely absurd—how could Eddie know Steve, truly come to know Steve, and be anything but ready to offer all that he is to him in half-a-blink?—but it’s more than that, it’s that Eddie can feel that it’s just going to get worse, that it’s going to be more devastating when Steve finishes that thought—

“I’m used to that, I wasn’t planning on saying anything, at least not yet.”

That. That is more devastating, because how can Steve be used to not being loved with everything, it never fails to break Eddie when it’s pointed out, when he’s reminded that so many people had hurt him, had failed him, and now, now…had Eddie done it too, without ever meaning—

But even more than all of that, fucking selfishly: Steve had been thinking of things in terms of not yet. Of a future, where they had love.

Eddie’s heart’s fucking sick with it, reluctant to pump at all because it just…it just feels pointless.

What had he fucking done?

“It wasn’t something I even planned on having change how I acted, really,” Steve’s continuing on, like the things he’s saying aren’t earth-shattering, soul-torching; “realizing I was like, whole-heart, soul-deep in love with you was…” and Steve just shakes his head and oh, oh but his lips kinda curve, he kinda smiles, and it’s…

It’s full of so much regret, like, a wistful thing in the worst goddamn way, and Eddie doesn’t think he can recover from this. He…doesn’t even know where to start.

“It wasn’t that new, right, it didn’t just happen, the only sudden part was putting it together, like, consciously,” Steve lays out like he’s making a map to try and explain to Eddie how his heart moves, as if Eddie hasn’t been making a study of that singular thing for months, planning to continue it for a lifetime, and apparently still failing to realize so much that he’s missed.

“So it’s not like, I mean…” Steve worries his lower lip; “I’d still treat you the same, y’know? I didn’t have to change. And you didn’t have to know.”

“But,” Eddie can’t hold himself back before his mouth moves before he thinks twice, automatic because; “you…”

The way Steve changed, the way they changed was…that’s the reason for all of it, and if Steve specifically hadn’t—

“Oh don’t worry,” Steve bites, so fucking sarcastic, so dismayed and so…goddamn resigned, unconscionably disgusted:

“I’m fucking well aware.”

And Steve folds in on his himself, and Eddie…Eddie can’t maintain the distance anymore. If Steve doesn’t want it, he’ll move back but he, he needs to be close enough that Steve could fall into him, if he wanted—

It takes less than a heartbeat, and given how Eddie’s pulse is auditioning for the role of a caged bird sobbing, it’s swift: as soon as he’s close enough to think he can feel how Steve’s body moves the air around him just for breathing, never once letting go of Steve’s hand in the process, Steve’s following the slightest pull Eddie gives on that hand, and falling into Eddie’s side.

And fuck if Eddie doesn’t wrap around him the instant he’s pressed against him; if he doesn’t tuck Steve into him and keep him under his arm; doesn’t sink into and relish the way the weight of Steve’s head goes just to the side of his chest, can undoubtedly hear the cacophony inside, and…he just presses harder, nearer.

Eddie might fucking cry.

“Nightmares,” Steve finally croaks, and the way it resonates, the way it hangs foreboding as a horror is thick in Eddie veins. “Like I’ve never had before, not after any of it,” and he shivers, ducks somehow closer into Eddie’s collarbone, like he means to hide and of course Eddie will keep him, will shield him, will protect him from the whole goddamn world. For anything and everything.

For fucking ever.

“I know what your chest feels like without a heartbeat I can find,” Steve turns his face further into Eddie’s chest, will damn well fucking feel the skip of that heartbeat that’d be a trial not to find just now, and oh, oh just: Stevie.

“What your mouth feels like without breath coming out, what your lips feel like cold,” and he sounds so tormented, so wrecked but then beyond that: disassembled and left for carrion, unforgivable—Steve should only be treasured, not taken apart and…discarded.

Eddie…Eddie didn’t discard him, he would never.

So how the fuck did they end up here, like this, where Eddie’s just trying to hold Steve close enough, steady enough that he can staunch all the invisible, undeniable bleeding in him?

“I know what your blood tastes like,” Steve breathes into the notch between his clavicles; “because it was all over when I tried to breathe for you.”

Steve’s mouth’s right there when Eddie’s breath caches, when the whine brews just under his lips where they drag sloppy against Eddie’s shirt, wet on the cotton and so alive, so alive—

“I know how my heart stopped when I thought it had all be for nothing,” Steve whispers there, and then holds where Eddie knows he can feel the pulse; “that I’d failed you, that—”

And Steve shakes his head, and Eddie makes to speak, to tell Steve he could never fail him, not ever, but Steve seems to have broken his own floodgates, now, and he spills:

“But that’s wasn’t new, right, so I wasn’t expecting any of it to shift, y’know? Like, if anything I figured, with love in the mix it’d be more, like, fear of rejection, shit from, just, with all the girls, with Nance, like all that old high school bullshit would be what reared its head,” he laughs, the most tragic sort of agony in the sound where it never should be, where there should only ever be Steve’s joy:

“But nope. Nope, my scrambled goddamn brain decided fuck that, let’s try something else.”

And Eddie can’t seem to get any words out anymore, now, much as he wants to. His mouth’s too dry, throat too tight. He just clings, clings so tight and fucking…prays that Steve can feel in his hold, in his heartbeat, in everything between them here and now, that he loves all of Steve. That all he is, is committed to making sure that Steve doesn’t hurts like this anymore, ever again.

If Steve will let him.

“I didn’t want you to leave,” Steve whispers, “I never,” and he shakes his head, smashes his lips over his teeth, jaw tense enough to twitch and Eddie just wants to fix it, just wants to ease all of it and make Steve okay, and somehow make up for how he—despite never meaning to, despite never choosing to be—seems to be the reason Steve’s in such turmoil, such pain.

“I can see how it looked like that, like, I hear what you’re saying and I get it, but,” Steve licks his lips, brow furrowing in the way Eddie loves to smooth but he doesn’t think he can, now, doesn’t think he should and it’s twice the wound just to watch like this: to know it might not be welcome, and to know that Steve may have to hurt here, beyond Eddie’s capacity to soothe, in trying to work through what it is that’s gutting him so harsh.

“When you’d reach for me, sometimes it would jolt me out of the, like, fog of it all,” Steve finally says it, tells him without looking to make eye contact but he’s tracing Eddie’s fingers, now, and it feels…significant; “because it’s the worst when I sleep, when I see all the what-ifs, but when I wake up it always lingers, and I get lost in it all the same, it all hits just a little different from what’s actually happening and then from the dreams, how it was when I’d watched just seconds before, when you’d,” and as much the words dry up in an instant, choked on a swallowed-down sob, Eddie can hear the obvious ringing out as if it was ripped straight from that precious fucking chest, raw and bloody:

When in the dreams, you’d died.

“You in reality was just, so opposite to what everything in my head sticks on?” Steve breathes, less a question than a plea for Eddie to accept what he’s saying, to understand and believe, as if Eddie would, could do anything else; as if the way the sheer truth of it in Steve’s aching tone isn’t soaking into the layers of Eddie’s fucking heart and flaying the pieces apart in real time. “The echos, the, umm,” Steve swallows, and Eddie cannot look away from the way how he swallows stretches the skin of his throat; “the ghosts of the horror shows I get on repeat every time I close my eyes,” he screws his eyes shut, then, like it’s muscle memory, like it’s ordained and unavoidable, to recoil from the magnitude of what haunts him in the night.

“Like, how could you be touching me, when you were…”

Steve lifts their clasped hands to his mouth and Eddie nearly comes apart for how it feels, but then at the very same time he aches for the way Steve’s hand can’t wholly stop trembling, even as he pulls Eddie’s pulsepoint to the swell of his lips where he murmurs:

“How could you be warm?”

Eddie watches, refuses to blink, as Steve holds there, breathes there, nuzzles a little against Eddies wrist and drags his lips there, back and forth and Eddie might fucking die here and now, like this, because it’s perfection, but at the same time, it’s devastation incarnate.

It’s pure fucking pain.

“I didn’t want to make you feel how the,” Steve’s throat clicks for how hard he swallows; “how the things in my head felt. Especially after the first few times,” he shakes his head, and Eddie can taste his own pulse for how hard it beats at the base of his throat; “I couldn’t tell what was real, when you were against me. Because it felt more real then anything, but I’d just watched you,” and again, the unspoken is louder than words themselves could ever be:

But I’d just watched you die.

Eddie wants nothing more than to slice himself open somehow, and gather Steve inside him and hold him closer than close, so that he can know all the reassurance he needs and Eddie can know it too, at the very same time; so they can know each other’s lifeblood as close as their own, because for Eddie, Steve’s is closer, means more than his own: he just wants to gather Steve close and keep him so fucking safe. Keep the whole of him, unwavering.

“It scared the hell out of me, but then the first time I woke you up,” Steve closes his eyes, bites at his lip again.

“You were out of it, I think I scared you, too, and I couldn’t even see everything beautiful about you without seeing,” and Steve’s voice is a harrowing thing, is so fucking gutted out, and Eddie just wants to be…Eddie just needs to go back to that moment, he can’t even remember the moment where he didn’t even know he failed to make Steve feel better, safer, not fucking alone and all he wants is to go back and find that turning point and turn it on its head. Make it right.

But then Steve is gabbing his hand, and lacing their fingers so tight it fucking hurts in the best possible way, before he breathes out a whisper:

“It was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, when it actually happened,” and they both know he means the bats, and the blood, and the red lightning sky; “but it’s like my brain got stuck there, like it stopped at the losing and not what came after,” and Steve brings Eddie’s hands up to his lips and less kisses, more buries his face in Eddie’s hands and just breathes before he moans a little around the words left:

“It got stuck, and it just runs from there.”

And if that’s not the simplest line of pure ruinous hurt that Eddie’s ever heard, holy fuck.

“Stevie,” and it’s Eddie who moans around the word, now, because god, his baby’s been aching with all this for…for how long?

“You hold your breath sometimes when we kiss,” Steve says, more incidental on the back of a breath, mostly air around the moving of his lips; “and when my head’s been like this, just, soaked in this, I can’t—”

And, oh.

Oh, Steve’s…Steve’s telling him why. He’s explaining why he, why he did all the…why he turned away, why he pulled back, and oh, oh god—

“Robin doesn’t know all the details,” he pushes on, and Eddie can see how he’s biting down on his tongue fucking hard behind his lips; “I’m sorry she’s been,” he huffs a little, tips his head as he circles his thumb a little against Eddie’s knuckle; “growly at you.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Eddie breathes, cupping Steve’s face because he…he needs to, he needs to show him he’s cherished, that Eddie’s heart is his, fucking beats for him and belongs to him and he, he is…

“Baby, don’t be sorry about anything, please don’t be sorry,” Eddie begs because, because fuck: “I’m the one who’s sorry,” and he is, he’s so sorry, he didn’t know but he never wants Steve to hurt and he’s only made Steve hurt harder because he thought he understood and was doing what he could to help and in truth he was doing anything but—

“I couldn’t look at you because my heart hurt,” Steve turns his face into the palm Eddie’s framed against his cheek; “and I know you stepped away because I can’t get my shit together, because I’m losing my fucking mind and,” but he didn’t, he didn’t and he wants to say it but Steve’s barreling on, convinced as fuck and that’s, that’s not okay; “and I know, of course I know that it’s better that you don’t go down with me, I know that. But fuck,” Steve laughs in that terrible, self-sacrificing way that has no idea what he’s worth, what he means:

“I don’t know what hurts more, the dreams or the waking hours when I see you and you aren’t, you don’t feel,” Steve’s words catch again, and he shakes his head into Eddie’s hold, breathes as Eddie strokes his cheek and holds him, just holds him until he can say the rest:

“Losing you like that is worse, but it’s not real,” Steve swallows hard, keeps his eyes clenched shut tight like that’s the only way he can manage to keep going; “losing you like this is better, because you’re still,” and Steve’s fingers find the pulse at his wrist again—because somewhere, it’s still beating:

“But then, it’s the truth, and,” Steve’s voice cracks and god, this man, this beautiful man…

“It just hurts,” Steve says “so goddam much and—”

“That’s not the truth.”

Eddie can’t keep waiting, just to let Steve keep circling this horrific pit of agony, for all the things they both misunderstood, for all the hurting they’ve both breathed through too long.

No more. Steve blinks up at him, and…yeah.

Eddie’s turn, now.

“I am yours,” Eddie pledges like his whole life’s behind it, and in truth: it is. It absolutely is.

“And I feel so fucking much Stevie-baby,” Eddie whispers, because there’s something profound in it, and there’s something magical and beautiful and sacred inside all Eddie feels so much of, and it needs to be revered accordingly as he traces Steve’s cheekbone, the bow of his lips with nothing less than worship. “I didn’t think people were built to love like this. I’ve never seen it. I didn’t know it was a thing to feel at all until now.”

He means it. Steve’s gaping at him a little, marveling a little even, maybe, but it’s not an unbelievable thing. Because this is Eddie Munson’s heart. For Steve Harrington.

This is the only thing.

“And I am sorry,” Eddie exhales all that he has in him to give to an apology because he is sorry, he thinks that sorrymight be seeping out his pores: whatever he did to cause this, whatever extent of a part he played, as much as he never wished or planned to.

He’s fucking sorry.

“I didn’t leave, I just,” he tries to explain, tries to prove somehow that no matter how fucked it all came out to be, he could never leave his Stevie.

“I didn’t leave you, not at all like you’re thinking,” he kisses Steve’s temple, and then draws him close to speak into his skin, like he can press it deep enough for Steve to know without a shred of doubt as he strokes Steve’s hair, tangles his fingers and holds him dear, breathes him in.

“I thought maybe you needed space, but I should have asked,” Eddie laments with a waver in his voice, eyes watering because fuck, fuck:

“I wanted to be what you needed so bad I hurt you on the way,” and isn’t that the fucking kicker? Isn’t that the gut punch, the unbearable truth at the core.

“Then I stayed away, because all signs pointed to it being me,” Eddie murmured into the crown of Steve’s head; “but that was just because I’m scared, because loving you this much is bigger than I can hold sometimes,” and he makes himself pull back so he can meet Steve’s eyes, red-rimmed to match Eddie’s where they’re actively streaming now as he breathes out the truth of his deepest, truest fucking soul:

“You’re the best thing I could ever ask for and I,” and he bends his forehead to Steve’s, breathes there for a handful of beats:

“I didn’t want to push you, and ruin it,” he confesses as the weakness that drove him to cause so much suffering, in only hoping to help. “I didn’t want to lose you, because I’m selfish, and having you taught me a whole new level of what made breathing worthwhile,” and he brings Steve’s hands both to his chest now, presses them tight to the shaky rise and fall, the tremorous hammering underneath as he speaks clear the only truth he really knows:

“Heart and soul I love you, Steve.”

And Steve’s hand on his chest clenches, and Steve’s breathing stumbles, and Eddie loves him.

So goddamn much.

“I didn’t mean to leave you, I would never mean to,” Eddie tells him, shaky and watery with the tears that are still falling; “I thought I was doing what was right,” he huffs, because, nice fucking work on that one, Munson, definitely bet on the winning goddamn horse there, Jesus Christ.

“I never, ever wanted to hurt you, I could never want to hurt you, I’d rather cut my own arm off, my own heart out,” and he turns his head the slightest bit, so he can find skin to kiss how much he means this into:

“I am so fucking sorry.”

Steve chases his mouth and Eddie leans, keeps himself pressed up close to speak straight against him as he gathers Steve’s hands at his chest a little tighter, tries to convey everything he might do with his eyes with the rest of his body now, with the way his voice floods with the heart of him whole:

“Could you ever,” he stammers a little, because he…he doesn’t want to face what it means if the answer to what he’s about to ask is set to break him apart all over again.

But he loves this man, and now that he has what could be a chance—Steve can’t be leaning into his touch, can’t be telling him all of this started because it hurts too much to lose Eddie, with there being no possible chance—but Eddie might have a chance to have Steve back, to keep Steve for always.

Like fuck he’s gonna be a coward at risk losing this again.

“Could you, y’know, like, ever think about giving me a chance to make up for it?” Eddie’s voice is so small, but so earnest, because he will do anything. “To fix it, and prove I’ll never hurt you again if I can help it,” and he will, he will do whatever it takes to prove what his heart and soul knows through to the bottom, bright inside his bones:

“Fuck, I’d break myself in half before I hurt you again, baby,” he promises, vows deeper than anything—

“I don’t want that.”

Steve blinks at him, eyes fucking intense, and Eddie stills, his heart plummeting because…well, of course it was possible, and of course Eddie understands, he hurt Steve in a way he doesn’t know if he can wholly forgive himself for, in a way that’s maybe worse for how Eddie’d tried for anything but, such a gross misstep and he—

“I don’t want you broken,” Steve reaches, flips his palm from atop Eddie’s heavy thumping heart and grasps, brings Eddie’s hand to his lips and kisses there, pinning Eddie with his gaze through his lashes:

“Not ever, not for anything,” Steve says it heavy, emphasizes each word with intention: “never for me.”

“You’re the only thing that’s worth it,” Eddie counters, just as firm, just as committed to that truth with his whole goddamn chest: “worth anything.”

Worth everything; and Eddie thinks Steve hears that too; hears it all.

And it’s Steve who’s reaching, now, who’s framing Eddie’s face and pulling him in and Eddie sinks into it, falls into the way that Steve moves him, takes control in those subtle, automatic ways and fuck if Eddie didn’t quite realize just how much he missed this part, the way that Steve commanded the moment and tipped his chin just so to kiss deeper, to draw moans from spaces inside Eddie that he didn’t even know he possessed: electric.

In-fucking-toxicating.

“Come home?” Steve asks-but-tells him soft, earnest; “what I do want, is for you to come home.”

And fuck if Eddie wants anything else in the world; fuck if that isn’t everything.

Home. With his Stevie.

He chokes on a fucking sob and he wraps around Steve so goddamn tight.

“Thank you,” Eddie presses lips to his jaw, peppers kisses up to his temple, across his brow, down the bridge of his nose, worshipful and dazed, so viscerally relieved, like a noose he didn’t know was tightening around his neck was suddenly torn free and he can breathe, he can breathe, he’s still got the best fucking reason to breathe.

“Thank you,” he mouths at Steve’s lips as he makes his way down his chin to his neck to worship that space with this gratitude, his devotion as he swears deeper than he’s ever even considered committing to anything:

“Promise you won’t regret it.”

“I don’t regret it,” Steve shakes his head like the idea’s anathema; “maybe it was hard, some of it, and maybe it was getting harder, worse than I could keep a handle on, but without you,” and Steve’s voice breaks a little, and he shakes his head harder, more like he’s trying to get rid of a nightmare, his eyes glassy when he looks back up:

“Without you is so much worse, Eds.”

And Eddie’s heart jumps because he’s not okay with that hurting.

But also because Steve…Steve’s saying outright, after all of this, that with Eddie is a better way to be.

Fucking sue him if that hits him just so, okay?

“I’m sorry I made you feel like I could ever want a life without you in it,” Steve whispers into his temple, teasing his hairline. “Fucking unthinkable, baby.”

And Eddie shivers, because…he’d hoped this could be where they’d end up, but he…he was scared. So scared that he’d lost it, that there was no coming back.

“God, I missed you,” Eddie breathes, shaky as fuck, wet on the edges at best; “every second of the fucking day.”

“Me too,” Steve meets him, a little sniffly in his own right; “so much, Eddie. So much.”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says again, wobbly, because he is, he fucking is—

“Stop saying you’re sorry,” Steve chides him with a peck at the bow of his lips; “I believe you, that you thought it was the right thing.”

“Because it meant making you happy, not for me,” Eddie needs to he sure Steve knows that part, knows it in his fucking bones. “I would never leave you because I wanted to,” Eddie whispers, kinda fucking horrified at just the idea; “nothing could make me want that.”

He cups Steve cheek and lets Steve lean into how it fits just so before he murmurs low, still shaky:

“Barely even survived it,” because fuck, now that it’s over, Eddie can appreciate how much it took from him, being away from Steve, and when he couldn’t even see why. “You’re the sun, Stevie.”

And fuck, if that’s not the truth. He is the center of the galaxy. He is all life in the universe.

Everything.

“Steve,” Eddie finally disturbs the sweet bubble of yes, right, this is right that they’re holding between them, and only because he…

He can’t risk this. Ever again. And he’s not foolish enough to think this thing’s fixed, that it’s one and done. But Eddie, and his devotion to Steve, and his love: that’s not ever going to be done.

Loving Steve is not something he is fucking ever going to be done doing. Done drowning in gratitude for the goddamn privilege of.

“I need you to promise me you’re never going to keep this, anything that hurts like this, locked up ever again, okay?” he runs his thumbs along the crests of Steve’s cheekbones. “I am here with you, I want to be here for everything, all of it, always,” and he kisses just between Steve’s brows, holds there for a few moments before he leans back and lifts Steve’s chin on his fingertips to look him straight in the eyes, see down to his soul entire:

“I’m never not going to want to help, to try and make the hurting go away, or at least find a way to help make it easier to bear,” and he means it, and he holds Steve’s gaze firm until he can see the conviction in his own veins start to color Steve’s irises brighter, to be taken in and believed.

“You could tell me to fuck off forever,” he tucks his cheek along Steve’s, burrows a little on the crook of his neck to breathe in the scent of him, to feel his blood move under the surface; “like…leaving you alone this time was a bridge too far, go to fucking hell Munson. You could come to me in twenty fucking years and I’d still drop everything just to make you hurt less.”

And Steve cranes his neck, opens up that space for him and lets Eddie fit there closer and just breathe, breathe, breathe, tucks Eddie under his chin like the tables are turned and…maybe they are. Or else: no, not maybe. They both were hurting. And they both love too much to let any of that hurt be anything but tended to, but dressed and cleaned and soothed, now that they have each other in arm’s-reach. Now that they can press each other close and hold and be, and remember all over again what life feels like where it sings in one body held tight to another, when it’s loved this full.

Steve keeps him there, lets him get his bearings, before Eddie inhales extra deep so he’s got Steve in his lungs when he makes himself pull back; gathers Steve to him again, now, and it’s…it’s just as much a comfort. It doesn’t matter who’s in whose arms. So long as they’re here.

So long as they’re them

“This is,” and Eddie makes damn sure that his hands are on Steve and nowhere else, that he’s holding onto Steve, that his fingers are locked with Steve’s, that he’s entangled to the point where it’d hurt to get out but he’s never going to try so it’s irrelevant. He needs Steve to know, and never question that Eddie’s never going anywhere.

“All this, is heavy, Stevie,” and he’s got his lips pressed to Steve’s hair before Steve can even finish how he makes to tense up; “and it breaks my heart that you’ve been carrying it all on your own.”

And Eddie holds there, holds and keeps Steve so close, until the other man slumps a little, until he gives that little bit of tension and then some back into Eddie, and it feels…it feels like how Eddie imagines someone feels when they exchange vows at the altar, or else, how they want to, how it’s talked about. Because there’s nothing present in this moment save sheer fucking trust, and the willingness to give between two bodies, two souls.

Eddie can’t help but pull him a little closer, duck down to trail his mouth down Steve’s forehead, his cheekbones, the apples of his cheeks, just: show him how much he feels. How much he feels lucky that Steve’s leaning into him, that Steve’s giving him this; this…opportunity to hold him up, too.

The fucking gift of it. Of him.

“So strong, my sweetheart,” Eddie mouths against Steve’s lips, then; “so brave,” and it kinda fucking floors him, really it does, that this man is…all that he is. Fucking superhuman, sometimes, good fucking god.

“But I love you, and that means you never have to shoulder anything alone ever again,” Eddie moves to kiss Steve straight on, properly, and then he lets Steve deepen it as far as he wants: and shit, he wants.

And Eddie cannot put into words what it means to have this again. To have his Steve in his arms, to have him want to be there, to let go in Eddie’s embrace.

“Never alone, baby,” Eddie nips his lower lip when they break apart, gasping; “yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, clear eyed and red-swollen lipped and fuck, he’s exquisite.

“I can’t take back what happened, with Vecna, the first time, or anything before or since,” Eddie needs, all of a sudden, to bare a little more of his heart, to make sure Steve knows all the little crevices of him, so he’ll never fill the gaps in with anything but the unfettered love that’s meant to be there, that lives there always and creates the shape of what Eddie holds in his chest.

“I can’t erase the fuel for your nightmares, and I hate that,” Eddie moans, and Steve’s the one who leans in for his lips this time, who kisses Eddie so fucking thoroughly he feels lighter, he thinks, for the pieces of him blissfully surrendered up on how their mouths meet.

Eddie decidedly does not hate that.

“I do want to die in your arms,” and Eddie’s a little dizzy as he says it, giddy and buoyant with how his heart flutters and maybe another time he’d think twice before being this candid, but not anymore. Not flooded with relief and joy and gratefulness like this, and faced with the real possibility of the future he aches for:

“When we’re old and grey and wrinkled and still so fucking in love that we’re rewriting what it means to feel,” Eddie rips open the whole of his lovedunk heart for Steve to see and hear and know, and maybe even embrace for all the hopeless romance Eddie’s finding real hope for holding in Steve and Steve alone; “making new rules and setting new standards for everyone who comes after us, for how deep and much and well we loved.”

Eddie’s never seen Steve’s eyes shine like they do when he looks up and locks their gazes, takes all that Eddie’s giving, showing: he’s not just witnessing it.

He’s embracing it. He’s fucking eager like Eddie is, and how could Eddie be this lucky, to be welcomed, to be forgiven, to be understood, to be given the chance to earn this for keeps, to hold Steve close and safe to his chest for fucking ever.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, for trying to do it ahead of schedule down there,” Eddie murmurs at the corner of Steve’s mouth, just…just kinda to be close, to feel his breaths as they come; “and then thinking I knew what you needed and fucking it up, here,” and he makes himself draw back, then, to hold Steve’s chin and look him square on, because he needs Steve to see, he needs to hear and know, just, like, one more time, in case it’s the one that sticks strongest, most lasting:

“I never meant to hurt you,” he doesn’t let himself drown in those eyes just now, needs to tether in them and weave himself in the thick glow of them, the way the caramel color swims; “never want to hurt you,” and he lifts his touch to run his thumbs under Steve’s eyes, no tears to wipe but he feels…he feels a need to touch there, delicate, reverent:

“Never want you to hurt.”

“I know,” and Steve wraps his fingers around Eddie’s wrist, holds tight; “I know, babe, thank you,” and Eddie is going to make sure he doesn’t overlook any of this ever again: Steve failing to understand how deep Eddie’s feelings run, how much he means to Eddie, how Eddie’s heart couldn’t even beat right without him, for how much of it’s made up of Steve.

He’s going to make sure Steve knows that the only thanks necessary in what they share is the all-encompassing gratitude. Is just being thankful, for the fact of a love unprecedented.

“Maybe I could,” Eddie throws off the first thing that comes to mind to face how they got here head-on, and maybe he riffs out loud a little, goes with the pull at the base of his heart and leaps, tries to chart the right course to make sure he does get to die in Steve’s arms one day, where they both take their last breaths in the same second and their hearts go to whatever’s next—something other or something quiet, something next or something final—together, always together, never-not-together, ever again:

“Maybe I could hold you tight to me, like, every night, all the time, and now that I know what’s happening here,” he taps Steve’s head lovingly, rests fingertips at the side of Steve’s neck to touch at the pulse as he offers, kinda fucking clumsy, and hopes like hell the depth makes up for it; “then I can be ready to catch you.”

And Steve pulls back, just looks at him, and he feels so dismantled in the best of ways, like being unraveled when the knots holding you up were too tight anyway and then it’s just pure release, and when he sees the soft little hint of a smile on Steve’s lips, blinding in his eyes—it’s everything as Eddie promises from his goddamn cells:

“I will always catch you, Steve.”

And Steve, he just sighs, and falls into Eddie once more—again, the gift of that kind of trust, Eddie will never get over it, or take it for granted—but Steve just falls and burrows into Eddie’s chest, settles at the center and Eddie would put fucking money on the fact that his heart swells to meets that weight, that presence of Steve; that every part of him just knows who’s there to listen and feel. That his beating fucking heart wants, because of how much Eddie wants. How much Eddie knows this man means.

“Maybe we could get a really big shirt,” Eddie muses as he stokes up and down Steve’s spine, spread over Eddie’s whole chest as he is; “and stretch out the neck so we can both fit, then when you wake up and you think,” Eddie pauses, doesn’t want to put those things into words to live in the world any more than they’ve already been forced there.

“But then you’re pressed as close as you can be, and you can feel the truth, and I can hold you until you believe what you feel,” he doesn’t know if that makes sense at all, but Steve’s breaths are damp and warm over the barest ends of the scars that stretched a little farther toward the center of his chest and…fucking hell.

That’s just a heady fucking feeling, y’know? And all Eddie wants is to keep.

“Like, maybe we could try it?”

He’ll try, more than try, just about anything.

“What if I—” and Eddie doesn’t need Steve to finish that thought, he can read the fear, the worry, the resignation that he’ll somehow have some reaction that being held tight to Eddie will make unbearable, maybe even dangerous given just how wide those eyes go.

Eddie’s not gonna let that shit stand anymore. Not ever a-fucking-gain.

“There’s nothing you could possibly do that I’m not ready and willing to catch, and hold so close, and keep so safe. Remember?” He tips Steve’s chin up so he can look at him, drink him in entirely and hold him there until he can read that he’s heard and understood through and through when he vows with his everything:

“Always gonna catch you.”

And Steve’s hands come to Eddie, now, and he writes the moment again, takes control of the momentum in between them and grabs Eddie’s face, draws him into the kind of kiss that lights up his nerves neon bright and sparkling, shimmers through him like pure fucking magic:

“I love you,” Steve breathes in between Eddie’s lips, then goes to pressing that feeling all over, drawing the dopiest grin to Eddie’s whole fucking face:

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” then he braces his palms on Eddie hips, and honestly, Eddie had apparently floated a little bit into the here and now because he hadn’t even wholly processed Steve straddling him until he’s gazing down at him with so much fucking affection:

“Thank you,” and the serious tone he says it in is somehow made, like, twenty-dimensional and all the more significant; “for coming back.”

And Eddie…Eddie doesn’t really understand how that’s something to be thanked for when coming back feels like putting his heart back together again, but: fine.

He can meet the sentiment.

“Thank you, for letting me,” Eddie leans in, kisses Steve’s still-a-little-swollen lips; “for wanting me.”

“I want you forever,” Steve answers, solemn and sure and without hesitation. “I want you,” then he smiles, because maybe they’re a little fucked up to find joy in this sentiment but fuck if it’s anything but the best possible thing Eddie could imagine:

“’Til the day we die.”

“Swear it, sweetheart,” and Eddie isn’t even going to try and deny, or reshape the fact that he’s just gazing at Steve, now, fucking marveling because how can he not?

Why would he do anything but wonder at the goddamn miracle in front of him, perched atop top him, nestled in his chest and safe inside his heart: why the fuck would he do anything else, anything less?

“Stevie, baby,” he exhales a little shaky, leaning into just, just…kiss all of it into Steve’s soul:

“I fuckin’ swear it.”

❤️

✨ also on ao3🖤❤️

for @kultiras🖤

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divider credit here and here

Finished it, as promised! Porn with some plot, a lotta teasing, some of which in a public place, overstimulation, pet play if you squint, 5.3k words. I haven’t read over it thoroughly to check for spelling errors and tbh i prolly wont (edit: i did.) This was my first time really writing smut so i hope it turned out well. Have fun, hope y’all enjoy <3

P.S. Skip to the second text splitter thingy if you just wanna get to the smut faster :)

They had just dropped off the last kid- Dustin. Now it was just Eddie and Steve in the front two seats of Steve’s BMW. “So, you want me to drop you off at the trailer park?” Steve asked as he turned to face Eddie.

"Uh- Actually my shift starts soon. Could you drop me off at work?" The question made Eddie nervous. He preferred not to tell anyone where he worked due to the oddity of it. The taboo-ness.

It's not like it's a normal job that is easily accepted, especially not in Hawkins in year 1986.

It's actually the reason it's an establishment you can only get into with a code or invitation from a friend. It's a supportive community but to be supportive they have to take certain precautions.

"Oh shit, yeah I forgot you took that night job. What was it again?" Steve looked at Eddie so sweetly. Wide eyed and innocent. Eddie wondered how much that would change soon.

Maybe he could just be discreet about it? Tell Steve a half truth. "Oh uh, just this bar. It's pretty new and small and you need an invitation to get in typically. Chrissy's cousin's friend's something's something owns it so she gave them a good recommendation about me. Its called Stonewall."

Stonewall is a gay bar that hosts quite a few people in the kink and bdsm community. Eddie assumes that its not really Steve's scene. Eddie wonders if Steve even knows what kink is. 'King Steve' is quite known for being a good pleaser in bed, but that's usually with Hawkins innocent cheer team or sweet book nerds like Nancy Wheeler. He's gotten close with Steve so he wants to be honest about his own identity, but he's worried how it would go.

"Ah, I like bars. You'll have to show me around when we get there. Just give me the directions as we go, that cool?" Steve smiled at Eddie as he started backing out of Dustin’s driveway without an answer and Eddie's stomach just. Dropped.

"Hah yeah sure sounds great!" Eddie muttered out with an uneasy smile.

———————————:)—————————————

"Hey Steve," Eddie started as they got out of Steve's car. "once we get in there just wait by the door while I change into my work clothes alright. Then I'll show you the bar and everything. Just a warning, people here are very uh... flirty, and touchy. You may have to pretty assertive if you don't want that kinda attention."

Steve smirked at that. "Ya'know how my charm is, I cant turn it off even if I wanted to." And god the way he was looking at Eddie, he did know, he knew too well. He wished he would’ve just shut up and had Steve drive him back to the trailer park so Eddie could've driven himself to work, even if that meant being late to his shift.

Eddie rolled his eyes and started walking to the entrance. "Yeah, sure Stevie." He knocked on the door. The building had no giant signs stating the name of the establishment, or anything indicating that it was anything at all.

There was a slider on the door for a girl on the inside to peak through. She took a moment to take them in. "Heya Eds, who you got there?"

"Hey Micky, this is my friend Steve."

"Ah Steve!" She looked over to him standing kind of awkwardly next to Eddie, then back at Eddie. “Can he uh.. be trusted?"

Eddie shifted his feet and looked nervously at her. He glanced at Steve who looked curiously at Eddie. Seemingly clueless. "’M not sure yet, Mick. But if there is any trouble I'll deal with it." Micky hummed suspiciously, glanced at Steve again, then unlocked the door.

Steve and Eddie stepped in, Steve even more confused than before at the interaction. Everything seemed so secretive and mysterious. What was happening in this building? Money laundering? Mafia meetings? Is that a thing? Was there a mafia in Indiana? It sounds ridiculous but there were Russians under Starcourt, a mall, so who knew?

"He seems harmless, but I swear to god Eddie, don't blow this. You're a good dude and I like ya as a coworker alright? Don't get fired." Micky made her statement, then walked away and disappeared into the crowd of people.

As Steve looked around he noticed the bar had a similar setting to that of a club. Rowdy music, flashing lights, the crowd looked as if it consisted of a lot of grinding and kissing. Before Steve could look too close, Eddie stepped in front of him and forced eye contact.

"I'm gonna go change. If you see anything uh... weird. Don't act rashly alright? I'll explain whatever you wanna know once im behind the bar." Eddie seemed jittery and nervous.

Steve cocked his head to the side - which should not have been as cute as it was - clearly confused, but he shrugged it off. "Alright Eds, just be quick, don't wanna be late for your shift." Steve smirked at Eddie which made him grow hot. He started to flush as he turned away and started for the bathroom.

As Steve started to look around more he noticed the place was a bit run down, as if it was previously abandoned. But it seemed fairly kept. The bar seems nice enough for a small business and there was a decent crowd.

Before Steve could analyze more he noticed someone approaching. A big guy, maybe a little taller than Steve, tatted kinda like Eddie but... much more. He looked Steve up and down.

"Hey." He said simply.

"Hey." Steve returned.

"Are ya with him?" The guy asked gesturing toward the bathroom Eddie just went into.

"Yeah! Thats my bud, Eddie, he's just gonna show me around his work place a bit." Steve smiled up at him, slightly uneasy from the unfamiliar territory and knew faces and being approached randomly.

"Ah, gotcha. Well, I'm Ben. Er whats your name?" Ben asked then leaned forward a bit to hear Steve better. Something is Steve's stomach flipped.

"Uh, Steve!" Steve called, just noticing the loud noise Ben was clearly trying to hear him over.

"Nice to meet ya. Say, Steve, are you a friend of Dorothy's?"

Steve furrowed his eyebrows, "uh, who-?"

"Hey Ben." Eddie was walking up to them. He wore black jeans similar to his usual pairs, except this pair had several holes and rips, showing much more leg than Eddie typically did. His shirt - Steve's mind about froze - for a top Eddie wore nothing but a black mesh crop top. It showed off a pair of nipple piercings Steve never knew Eddie had. Steve huffed at the sight without even noticing.

"Hey Eddie, hows it going man." He went to dap Eddie up.

Eddie returned the dap which evolved into a hug. "Pretty good pretty good, about to start my shift"

"Cool cool." Ben nodded then paused, "hey uh, Steve doesn't know Dorothy."

Eddie nervously chuckled, "yeahhh man, I'm working on that don't worry."

Ben hummed, nodded, regarded Steve and Eddie before walking away into the crowd.

Steve turned to Eddie with an odd look on his face. "Okay, two things. One, respectfully, you look hot as hell man. I can see why you'd wanna be a bartender, im sure you get tipped heavily." Eddie flushed not expecting the compliment. He avoided Steve's eye contact shyly for a moment. He had his hair up which prevented him from hiding behind a curl or two. "Two, I feel as though theres something really secretive about this place that im just bot catching onto and no one will tell me. What's goin on Eds?"

Eddie sheepishly looked at Steve through his eyelashes then sighed. "Come, sit at the bar. Let me clock in and I'll fill you in."

Once they had settled, Steve sat at the bar stool and Eddie took over for the person previously manning the bar. Eddie went to lean on the countertop in front of Steve.

"Steve... I you're a good friend and we've been growing very close recently. I enjoy that- a lot. So I want to be honest with you." Eddie paused for any sort of reaction out of Steve, but Steve just looked intently at Eddie with care in his eyes. It was driving Eddie insane. "This is a gay bar, Steve. A lot of people here are looking for an accepting community for being queer and into the kink and bdsm type scenes. I am... also gay"

Eddie had been intently avoiding Steve's gaze by looking at the surface of the bar. Then he heard Steve chuckle and his eyes snapped up to make eye contact once again. Steve, as usual, was smiling at Eddie. His eyes seemed to sing acceptance, but there was still a knot in Eddie's gut that said he was wrong. That said he compromised a safe space. That said he was going to lose one of his closest friends. That said he was going to be beaten half to death soon by ‘King Steve.’

"Eds..." Steve started, making a point to hold eye contact. "I know." Eddie probably looked horrified and so utterly confused. He tried to mutter out something but he just stumbled on his words. He didn't struggle long because Steve start talking again. "I mean," he leaned back and rubbed his hand on his neck, "I obviously didn't know about this place, that explanation makes a lotta sense. However, you." Steve leaned forward again, just forward enough to be intruding on Eddies personal bubble. "I knew. Of course I knew Eddie. Do you think I don't know hanky code?"

Eddie scoffed at that, struggling to process all thats being said to him. "You don't know Dorothy."

Steve's smile softened. He rested his elbow on the bar and used his fingers to lightly brush a stray strand fallen from Eddie's bun behind his ear. Eddie tensed, wanting to fall into the touch, but still hesitant. As Steve made the move, he spoke. "I... lied." He looked shyly at Eddie, then chuckled at Eddie's confusion and put his hand down again. "I got the feeling this was a safe space with all the secrecy, but I wasn't sure and wasn't about to risk it. Ben seems nice though."

Eddie looked long and hard at Steve. He seemed to be internally fighting with himself. "How long did you know?"

"Well since I first met you I had a little inkling because of your hanky- which I was looking at as an excuse to look at your ass fyi. But I also asked Robin and she said she thought so just due to your behavior. Gaydar or something, I guess. But if she ever found out for sure she didn't tell me due to respect of your privacy."

"Steve Harrington," Eddie gasped out. Steve cocked his head to the side (still adorable). "You were ogling my ass" Eddie acted offended and playfully smirked at Steve.

"Oh Eddie," Steve said slyly, looking somewhere far below Eddies eyes. Steve licked his lips and returned his gaze to Eddies through his own eyelashes. "I've been ogling so much more than your ass."

Eddie froze in place. His smile faltered for a moment and Steve caught it. Steve caught how a flushed pink crawled onto Eddie's skin in the dimmed lights of the bar. Then just at that moment- "Hey! Barkeep, stop googly eyein your boy you brought in huh? Ya gotta customer. Do your job" Micky shouted at Eddie.

Eddie cleared his throat and clumsily stumbled to the girl waiting to have her order taken. He felt Steve's eyes on him heavily as he took the orders. Even more so when he was making the drinks, using the silver cups to mix the fancy alcoholic drinks that they probably charged a little too much for. Once he poured the drink for the last person in line, Eddie looked over to Steve. "What do you fancy, Steve?" Steve started to smile but Eddie cut in, "I swear to god if you say something cheesy like 'you' im gonna lose it."

Steve's smile fell into a look of mild surprise. Then he chuckled, "Do you just have a beer?"

"Sure, babe." Eddie said out of habit. He always said that to customers. When Steve lifted an eyebrow Eddie tried to ignore it. He grabbed Steve their most popular beer and slid it over. "On me."

"Thanks 'babe." Steve grinned.

"Oh shut up." Eddie groaned at the tease.

Steve popped the tab on the can. "Oh what, you don't like it?"

Eddie ignored the question, "So, what's your story, Steve? Are you gay or are you just messing with me now?"

Steve seemed... shocked, even concerned by the question. “Oh uhm. Man,” Steve laughed awkwardly, “I thought you realized by now.” Eddie looked confused. “I’ve been flirting with you this whole time Eds, not just tonight, but for a while.

Eddie’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What, why?”

Steve continued to look at him awkwardly. “Because I like you..? You’re hot and I wanna flirt with you because the way you react is really funny and cute. I mean, you’re so easy to fluster but you don’t realize other people even know you’re flustered. You think you’re being discreet but you’re really not.”

Eddie flushed at that, just proving Steve’s point. “So what, I've just been too shallow to notice you’re gay and into me?”

“Bisexual, actually. And yeah I guess. Rob has even tried to drop you hints, but you never act on anything so we assumed you either weren’t into it or you just weren’t picking up on it.”

Eddie huffed, “definitely the latter.”

“Oh, so you’re into it?”

Eddie’s eyes snapped to Steve’s. “Uh, I wouldn’t say im not..”

“So you’re indifferent?” Steve pestered.

“I'm into it, okay? I'm into you, Steve, I have been. I'm just really surprised that for once in my life I’m getting just- handed what I want. This isn’t typical and I’m just waiting to wake up.” Eddie rushed the words out as if they could bite him if he didn’t.

Steve placed a hand on Eddie’s. “You won't, I'm not a dream. And I hope its obvious but, I’m into you too. In fact this whole conversation has been driving me crazy because I’m so into you. I wanna slam you onto this bar and fuck you senseless but noooo,” he dragged out the ‘o’ dramaticaly, “you’re working… technically, and we have to be talking about feelings and being surprised that we’re both gay or something.” Steve looked at Eddie pointedly.

Eddie’s breath hitched at the confession. At the idea of Steve fucking him here, now, right over this counter where everyone can see. It drove him kinda crazy.

“And these,” Steve reached over the counter to grab Eddie’s waist and pull him closer. Once he had done so, he let his hand slowly drift up to Eddie’s chest. When Eddie looked at Steve, all he saw was Steve looking back at him, biting his lip. Something clearly eager on his face. Then Eddie jolted as he felt his nipple piercing being toyed with. “This fucking piercing Eddie, god, and this slutty fucking shirt. Really, how much do you usually make in tips? How much do you get laid? Every night you work?” Steve flicked the piercing again at the end of his sentence before putting his hands back to himself.

Eddie felt so hyper aware of the fact that they are in his place of work. Many people around them that could be watching. Most of which would probably understand what is happening a little too well- being in the bdsm and kink community. He still felt hot where Steve had touched him. Eddie took a deep breath, and once he felt somewhat calm again he said, “I haven’t worked many shifts yet,” He cleared his throat and regained his posture, “but I like to think most of the guys in this building wanna fuck me bad and hard.”

Steve’s eyes widened but he smirked. It made him seem a little manic. “Oh is that so? Are there any you’d let fuck you, ‘bad and hard’?”

A customer walked up to the bar. There hadn't been many of them. Maybe most people felt the tension between Steve and Eddie and decided to steer clear.

“Maybe one.” Eddie winked at Steve in the same moment he flicked his own piercing, then spared no moment to help the customer. Steve scoffed in disbelief. This boy was gonna be the death of him. He couldn’t wait.

Once Eddie finished up with the customer, Steve was getting ready to leave. Eddie raised an eyebrow at him. “When does your shift end? I’ll be back then to pick you up since you don’t have a ride.”

“Uh- seven.” Eddie stumbled, confused.

“Great, I’ll be back then. And in the meantime, how bout you think about all the surfaces in this place I could bend you over. Then let me know if you’d actually wanna act it out at my place once you get off work. Bye.” And before Eddie could even respond or process half of what was said Steve grabbed him by the jaw and pulled him into a deep kiss. Eddie melted into it faster than he would have liked to admit. Steve swiped at Eddie’s lips with his tongue and then just as fast as the kiss started, it ended. Then Steve was leaving. Was this how he always got his girls back in highschool? Get them riled up then leave then wanting more? Hell of a way… it was working.

———————————:)—————————————

Eddie was jittery for the rest of his shift. He wanted to do what Steve said and just fantasize about what that man could do to him all night. However, Eddie had work. He didn’t think popping… another, boner would help anything. So he focused on cleaning and serving as many people as he could until Steve came back for him.

When Steve did come back, he had changed his outfit. He was previously wearing one of his cozy mom sweaters and jeans, now he’s still sporting the jeans, but now he had his hair more puffy and well done. He's wearing a white shirt and a brown jacket over it, and some cool guy shades.

Eddie got into the car and choked out a muttered “you look nice.”

Steve smiled at him, “you too.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Oh please, I just worked a seven hour shift, you don't need to lie to me.”

Steve furrowed his eyebrows. “I'm not.” He then started the car. “What did you decide, my house or yours?”

“Please, your house. Of course.” Eddie rushed out, but then tried to not seem that desperate.

“Oh?” Steve asked simply as he started the drive.

Eddie hummed agreeably.

“No elaboration?” Steve asked playfully.

“Steve, we’ve established I want you. I want to be in your house while you’re in me. Get that?”

Now it was Steve’s turn to hum agreeably. “Did you think about what I told you to?”

“No, Steve, I didn't think getting hard at work again was a good idea.”

Steve raised his eyebrows. “Again?” He glanced over at Eddie who looked away shyly. “Aw, poor thing, did I get you riled up?” Steve patted his hand on Eddie’s thigh as if he was trying to soothe him, then just rested it there.

His hand wasn't near Eddie’s knee, but it wasn't on his crotch either. The position along with the comment was enough to make Eddie hot. He tried to close his eyes and control his breathing to calm down. Once Steve noticed what he was doing he moved his hand ever so slightly higher, barely brushing his pinky against Eddie’s dick.

This drew an involuntary whine out of Eddie, it was soft and quiet but Eddie knew it was loud enough for Steve to hear. He saw Steve smirk right before he noticed them pulling up to Steve’s house. Eddie felt nervous, the past 8 hours have already had so many twists he wasn't expecting. Now, when they walk through Steve’s door, what's going to happen could change their friendship forever.

Eddie decided he wanted to take hold of that change. The moment they got through the door Eddie pushed Steve into the closest wall he could and got his mouth on Steve’s the moment he was able.

The kiss was heated immediately. Steve shoved his tongue into Eddie’s mouth and basically shoving it down his throat. Eddie held onto Steve’s waist under his shirt, feeling and taking in his skin. The prickle of Steve’s hair of his happy trail, scars he has from demonic fights of the upside down and some which were probably from highschool fights and sports.

Steve put his hands in Eddie’s hair and began pulling and teasing it at the same time that he pulled on Eddie’s lip with his teeth. Eddie whined at the bite. His hair eventually fell from the bun he had it up in. His hips involuntarily bucked up when Steve latched onto his throat, teeth grazing his skin before biting down lightly, but still hard enough for Eddie to feel a sting.

Steve lifted his mouth off of Eddie completely to look Eddie in the eyes. Steve pulled Eddie’s hair back as he pushed his thigh in between Eddie’s legs. He moved his arms onto the sides of Eddie’s ribs, just above his waist.

Eddie groaned and dropped his head onto Steve’s shoulder. He braced himself by moving his own hands to the sides of Steve’s arms.

“Little bit of touching and you just go pliant, huh?” Steve teased breathlessly to which Eddie huffed at. Steve flipped them so that Eddie was against the wall and Steve was still pressing against Eddie’s sensitive hardon. Steve grabbed onto Eddie’s waist and moved Eddie to grind on his thigh. Eddie threw his head back into the wall with a loud thud and bit his lip. Steve watched, chuckling at the submission and openness. Steve continued to guide Eddie’s hips, “Aw Eds, you can do better than this.” He enunciated the last word by replacing his thigh with his hand, cupping Eddie’s dick and pressing into it.

“Mmmfgh, Steve, shut up.” Eddie pushed Steve off of him. Steve seemed confused for a moment, as if he’d messed up somehow, until Eddie dropped to his knees and fiddled with Steve’s pants. He tried to get the button undone but damn, Steve wore tight pants, and the button was so big for the hole it was supposed to fit in.

Steve smiled at Eddie’s struggle before he pulled Eddie’s head back by his hair with his left hand and swatted Eddie’s away with his right. He then undid the button expertly with the one hand, and let go of Eddie’s hair so he could continue his work.

As quick as he could get his hands on Steve, Eddie pulled down Steve’s pants just as much as he needed then did the same with his boxers. “Shit.” Eddie muttered out once he pulled out Steve’s dick.

Steve smirked, “they don’t call me King Steve for nothing, Eddie.”

It was a solid eight to nine inches. Thick and heavy. Prettiest dick Eddie has ever laid eyes on. It was beading with precum at the tip. Eddie felt his own cock twitch at the sight. He licked his lips and his mouth watered. His head spun.

Steve tried to bite down a chuckle, but once Eddie licked at the tip and put his lips around it, the chuckle came out at an odd noise like “ha!-aughmmm, hmm” humming at the end of it. Eddie dragged his fingernails over the fabric on Steve’s thigh. Eddie looked up and made eye contact with Steve, giving him his best ‘fuck me’ eyes. Steve’s jaw dropped open and his breath got heavier.

Once Eddie realized his effect on Steve, that he had him right where he wanted him, he went down on Steve’s dick as far as he could. He felt it hit the back of his throat and there was still about two inches of Steve’s shaft he couldn’t fit in. He put his hands around what he couldn’t fit and swallowed around him, tightening his throat. Steve braced his hand over Eddie's head, against the wall.

“Eddie, holy shit man.” Eddie responded by humming. Steve’s other hand immediately flew back to Eddie’s hair and pulled him off his cock. Eddie looked at Steve, confused with puffy lips. “Be a good boy for me and go slow, yeah?” Steve guided Eddie’s head back to his tip.

Eddie made a show of sticking out his tongue in the sluttiest way he could. He then gently put it to Steve’s tip. Steve said go slow, so he’d go slow. He licked up the slit ungodly slow, then started to circle around the whole tip at the same pace, all while holding eye contact.

Steve breathed out a sigh. “Fuckin brat, get up.” He pulled on Eddie’s hair till he stood up, then dragged him by the hair to his room. Eddie shouldn’t be turned on by it, it was almost disrespectful. They hadn’t talked anything through and god- Eddie didn’t think Steve would be into anything non-vanilla but he is clearly into some sort of kink. Already, mild degradation and pet play are shown. Eddie was here for it.

When they got to the entrance of Steve’s room Steve stopped them and let go of Eddie’s hair. “Before we continue, you doing okay? If you want me to stop or change anything at any point just say the word.”

Checking in, consent. Maybe Eddie didn’t give Steve enough credit. More than Eddie gave him before slamming him into the wall but… seems like Steve was into it so- “uh yeah, everything’s great Steve. Still hard as a rock though.” Eddie smirked playfully.

Steve smirked back at him and licked his lips. He looked Eddie up and down. “First, how much do you like that shirt?”

Eddie swears his eyes dilated at that. “Do whatever the fuck you want to it, Steve.”

“Awsome, now get on the bed. I want those slutty ass jeans off and your ass up.” Without an answer, Steve walked into his room and looked in his night stand for something. Eddie immediately stumbled to take his pants off along with his boxers and dove onto the bed. He arched his back as pretty as he could and rested his head on a pillow. The pillow smelt like Steve and his hair products.

Steve started walking to the foot of his bed, dragging his fingers along Eddie’s spine. Once he reached the foot of the bed he crawled onto it. He swiped his fingers over Eddie’s ass, leaving behind a glob of lube. He then, without much warning, dipped a finger in. Eddie’s body jumped and shook at the sensation.

Once Steve could fit a second finger in he took them out, lined up his cock, and held onto Eddie’s waist. “You like pain at all baby? Or do you think you need more prep?”

Eddie groaned, “mm-mmn” and pushed his ass back onto Steve’s dick. But before Eddie could get anything, Steve pulled his dick away.

“Uh-uh. Use your words, Eddie.”

Eddie whined, “Steve c’mon.”

“Alright.” Steve started to get off of the bed before Eddie nearly shouted.

“No! No, alright? Okay, Steve, please- please put it in? I need it so bad, need you. Been wanting this for so fucking long, don’t make me wait longer.” Eddie’s curls cascaded over the pillow as his almost muffled voice came out tentatively but stern.

Without saying anything else Steve pressed his head against Eddie’s ass once again, then slowly slipped it in. Eddie’s hole stretched around it, he moaned through the pain. A sadist and a masochist. Perfect pairing. Eddie started moving with Steve’s thrusts, fucking himself on his cock.

Steve reached up and grabbed the back of Eddie’s shirt by the collar, pulling until Eddie got the memo. Eddie pushed off his hands and got on his knees. Steve reached around, under Eddie’s arms, and grabbed the front part of Eddie’s collar of his shirt. Steve bit into the junction of Eddie’s shoulder and neck right as he pulled down on the collar.

The shirt ripped easily enough, and Eddie’s chest was exposed. Steve’s hands immediately went to Eddie's nipples and those godforsaken piercings. He toyed and twisted them and bit harder into Eddie, who moaned at all the different sensations.

Then they were all gone, Steve unlatched and pulled out. “Huh-“ Eddie panted.

”On your back.” Steve commanded.

Eddie flipped onto his back, with his legs on either side of Steve. Steve’s right hand went to stroke Eddie’s dick at the same time that he latched his mouth onto Eddie’s nipple, finally feeling the bar of metal in his mouth. Then he paused.

“What-“ Steve leaned back to look at Eddie. “You really like putting metal through your sensitive parts, don’t ya baby?”

“Mhmm” Eddie whined and bucked his hips up into Steve’s hand, which Steve just chuckled at. He latched his tongue back onto Eddie’s nipple and started stroking him faster than before. “Augh, Steve, pl-please.” Eddie put his hand in Steve’s hair, ruffling it and gripping and pulling.

Steve’s hand was going up and down so fast Eddie’s head spun. He felt his stomach tighten and noises were falling out of his throat uncontrollably. “Mmph, Steve, im gonna- im gonna come.” And once again all sensations were lost. Steve sat up and took his hands off Eddie, instead he moved to put his dick back inside him. Instead of going slow like he did before, he slammed into him. He fucked into Eddie like an eager hound dog. He used his hands to toy with Eddie’s piercings and his chest.

“You’re so good for me baby-“ Steve groaned out before smashing his lips into Eddie’s, putting his hand into Eddie’s hair. Steve shoved his tongue down Eddie’s throat for the second time that night. Steve began to stroke Eddie again. Eddie felt like his body was on fire, so much was happening and all of it felt so good. He barely processed his climax coming back up.

“Steve- Steve!” Eddie yelled out as a warning before he came. Come spurting out over Steve’s fingers as he continued his brutal pace. “Steve please-“ Eddie cried out from the beginning of the overstimulation. Eddie started to tear up, but he refused to say ‘stop’ because the pain was honestly too good. Steve never stopped stroking Eddie and the stimulation on Eddie’s prostate and dick was driving him insane. Soon he was full fledge crying. He tried to hide his face with his arm but the moment Steve noticed what he was doing, he took his free hand and pulled Eddie’s arm away. Once Steve saw his face, tears streaking down his cheeks, eyes bloodshot, lips puffy, he came immediately. His brutal pace just got faster, fucking through the orgasm. His body shook along with Eddie’s, who came for a second time purely from the sweet feeling of pain.

Soon enough Steve slowed down and pulled out of Eddie and looked over at him. “You okay, Eds?”

Eddie sighed shakily. “More than, thank you Stevie. Can we uh.. sleep? I'm exhausted.”

“Sure baby. First, here.” Steve pulled off what remained of Eddie’s shirt off him and used it to wipe off Eddie's cum from his hands and Eddie’s dick. “There.” He then kissed Eddie on the forehead and laid down next to him so they could both fall asleep.

Vecna's Generals AU Masterpost

Vecna's Generals is a post-Season 4 timeline where the final attack on Vecna injured him into near paralysis. To combat this, he revives the lost friends and foes of The Party, to take his abilities and continue the fight in his stead. They return, cursed with the appearance and powers of their cause of death.

While this collection of doomed soldiers remains themselves for the most part, their leader is able to take control of them whenever he requires, to act out his destructive plans.

When they are free, or dormant, they are "The Imprisoned".

When they are controlled, or activated, they are "The Board".

-----------------

This post will link to every single relevant VG post from here on, with everything from the actual story to bits and pieces in between (because let's be real, I can't stfu about this AU).

Some small notes, this AU does have body horror, Vecna being horrible and the characters suffering for it, "getting so much worse before it gets better," Steddie, the ST canon assholes seeing the error of their ways, and an eventual happy ending. Just figure y'all should know what you're getting into.

This entire AU is still very much so in-progress, so some things are likely to change, such as arcs and information. I'd love to hear all perspectives for it actually, and am very open to feedback! I want to make this cohesive, enjoyable, and satisfying to read, so bring it on!

-----------------

Informational

- Cover Art: Imprisoned/Board version - Character Sheets: The Imprisoned/The Board

Chronological Storyline

- The Civilians - Piercing Gold - Second-in-Command - Average Day in The Imprisoned's Cave (currently text version) - Mourning - By Vecna's Hand - False Titles - Beacons and Chains - Worthy... - King's Gambit: Part I - Game Night

Ramblings

- Pissed Fred - Monotone Eddie - Immortality - Eddie Song Thoughts - Ignorance

Outdated (in case you're curious about the humble beginnings)

- Original Masterpost - Original Imprisoned/Board Song List

vampire hunter eddie and vampire chrissy

“Marry.”

“What?”

“Marry. He’s hot, I’m not gonna kill him.”

“Eddie, we’re not playing FMK; you’re supposed to be telling me his name.”

“Oh. That’s…. Joe Jonas.”

“…he’s literally from Hawkins. And he’s holding a hockey stick.”

“Nobody from Hawkins is that hot, man, no way.”

~~~

Gareth posts the clip to his personal TikTok. Before he can get around to reposting it on Corroded Coffin’s band account, it has more than 100k views. Things only spiral from there, because once the band shares it, the video goes more viral and ends up on the screens of the right people.

chiblkhwks: @harrington94 is social media challenged, but we’re going to make sure he sees this. Will keep you posted.

The comment is immediately overshadowed by a busy day of PR. A photoshoot to an interview to a radio show to the green room at the Fillmore in Boston, before an intimate pre-album release show for members of their fan club. Eddie has completely forgotten about the video entirely, but Gareth’s phone pings with a text notification.

“A response has been issued!” He declares to the room, still grinning down at the screen of his phone.

The rest of the band shares a collectively confused look, all seeming pleased to find they’re not alone in whatever they’ve missed.

“What?” Jeff asks for the group.

In lieu of an explanation, Gareth just flips the phone in his hand around to show a TikTok, stitched with the clip they’d made earlier that morning.

~~~

“Marry. He’s hot, I’m not gonna kill him.”

#Stitch

“Is… is that supposed to be a compliment?” Steve asks, making a pinched face as he laces up his skates.

“You watched the whole video. He compared you to Joe Jonas.” The girl behind the camera responds, but he levels her with an unimpressed look. She doesn’t respond, and after a beat, he sighs.

“Yeah, alright, I guess Joe Jonas is hot. I’ll take the compliment.” He huffs, standing to his feet and moving from the bench he’d been suiting up on toward the ice. The girl follows him, gliding toward the net once they're in the rink, never falling out of pace with him.

“Do you know who it is talking in the video?” She presses, and Steve looks unimpressed again.

“You mean the other hot guy?” He asks with a grin, then nods. “That was Eddie. I’m surprised you don’t know him, the Party listens to Corroded Coffin all the time.”

The video loops back to the stitched clip from Gareth’s initial TikTok then. Everyone in the room processes what just unfolded.

“The Party? Did… did Steve Harrington just make a reference to DnD? Or is that some sports thing I dont understand?” Jeff asks.

Freak raises his hand, indicating he’s next to speak. “Not only that, but his nerdy DnD friends listen to us all the time?”

“Did King Steve call Joe Jonas hot?” Eddie asks, visibly still trying to connect the wires in his brain that fried at Steve’s agreement. “Did he call me hot?”

All three turn toward Eddie, whose face is still reflecting the long form math equation his brain is trying to work out, and Jeff sighs.

“Well, boys. I think we’ve officially lost him.” He says, bowing his head. Freak and Gareth join him solemnly, making Eddie huff and cross his arms over his chest.

“You’re all so dramatic.”

“Gee, I wonder who encouraged us to be this way,” Freak exaggerates through a grin, before shoving a guitar into Eddie’s chest, just in time for Paige to open the door and summon them.

“We can have a meltdown over Harrington after the gig,” Gareth promises with a pat to Eddie’s back as everyone moves around him, exiting the green room and heading for the stage.

~~~

Riding his post-show high, Eddie makes a bold move in the CC band TikTok, commenting under the video Steve had stitched.

corrodedcoff!n: we’ll be in chicago 1/26 if @harrington94 and ‘the party’ are free 🎫

He only gets about 20 minutes of peace before Gareth is jumping around, proclaiming himself the greatest wingman in history.

“It’s an offer for free concert tickets made over social media, and he hasn’t even answered, Gare Bear.” Eddie tries to get him to relax, but he, too, is eager to see how the other reacts to the offer.

He wakes up the next morning to the answer he’d been waiting on, and his stomach flips as he reads it over.

harrington94: only if you guys come to the home game 1/27 🏒

__________

Steve doesn’t even bat an eye when Max shoves her way into the locker room, b-lining straight for him.

“Can I help you?” He asks without looking up, unhooking the padding from his calf and letting it drop to the ground in front of his locker.

“Are you using TikTok to publicly flirt with Eddie Munson?” She asks, voice quieter than he’d typically expect from her, but he just scoffs.

“I’m just being friendly! You’re the one who started this in the first place! What, you didn’t expect me to log on and check if they’d responded?” He asks in response, freeing his foot from the skate, before placing a cover over the blade and letting the boot drop into the lower shelf beside his locker.

“I’m just confused because you’ve been super weird about coming out, and now you’re out here hitting on a rockstar all over social media, that’s all.” Max says, and Steve freezes for a moment.

“Do you…” he trails off, before closing his eyes and rubbing a thumb into his temple. “You really think I just accidentally came out?”

“You called Joe Jonas and Eddie Munson hot, encouraged this rockstar to come to your game when he’s in town and also accepted tickets to see him perform, Steve.” Max was monotone, and held her hands up defensively when he groaned. “I’m not starting anything, I’m just saying that this could get blown out of proportion now.”

They discuss a little further, deciding neither of them will publicly acknowledge anything that’s been posted to the account for now, until they actually come up with a plan.

Once he’s in his car heading home, Steve calls Robin.

“Dingus,” she greets, as always, and he lets out a grumble. “Uh oh. What happened?”

“I think I accidentally came out on the internet, and it’s Eddie Munson’s fault.” He’s met with several seconds of silence as he starts his car on the path to him and Robin’s shared apartment.

“Eddie, the drug dealer from high school?” Robin eventually asks, confused, and Steve groans again.

“Yeah. He uh, also is in a band?” He supplies, and Robin’s quiet for a moment as she processes. Then, he hears the tapping of a keyboard. “What are you doing?”

“Looking Eddie up, obviously.” Steve can practically see her eye roll, even though they’re not FaceTiming. “You’re nothing if not consistent, I guess. Doe-eyed curly brunet.”

Steve scoffs. “You say as though you’re not the one currently waking up beside Nance every morning.”

He’s met again by a short silence, before Robin lets out a little puff of air, in a small laugh. “Thank you again for being so cool about that, by the way.” She says, before he hears clicking on her end. “Apparently, Eddie is out as bi. Corroded Coffin does a charity show for the Trevor Project every year, and he’s been to a lot of Pride events.”

Steve’s stomach twists with each new bit of information she provides, because a part of him wants to be that out, wants to be like Robin or apparently Eddie, freely sharing that part of themselves with the world and having no one give a shit. But that’s not how it works on so many levels for Steve. Beside the shit he’d have to deal with on the ice from certain other players, he had no idea how it would impact the team overall. There’s no way to gauge how fans would react, when there’s never been an openly gay player in the NHL. And that didn't even begin to touch on how his parents would react.

“Hey,” Robin breaks him out of his spiral and he realizes he’s been chewing a hole into his cheek. “I can hear how loud you’re thinking right now. Do you need me to come home?” She asks, gently, and he sighs.

“Please.” He mumbles after a long pause, and is grateful when he hears the jingle of car keys from the other end of the phone.

~~~

Robin scrolls through article after article once she gets to their place, pulling Steve onto the sofa with her and laying his head in her lap. Her fingers twist through his hair, doing her best to keep him calm as she reads up on the situation playing out to try and help gauge how big of a hole he’s dug himself this time.

“I don’t think there’s really anyone who thinks you were flirting with him. Not seriously, at least.” She tries to assure him, but he’d already seen the twitter posts to contradict that before she came over. He sighs and rolls onto his back, so he’s looking up at her, and shrugs.

“I kind of don’t think there’s any avoiding it, at this point.” He mumbles. “I’m not… I’m not ready to come out, not like this. Not on this scale. I think the only thing I can do is carry on and hope it doesn’t get turned into any bigger of a deal.”

Robin hums down at him, and continues to brush his hair back out of his eyes. “Okay. So you don’t come out yet. But don’t overcompensate for it, okay?” He scrunches his face up at her, and she types something into her phone before turning it back into his face. He immediately pales, met with a photo of him out with Heidi last year. With a black eye on full display, he looks miserable behind a fake smile.

“Low blow,” he grumbles, pushing himself away from Robin to sit up beside her, and she raises her eyebrow at him, still holding the photo pointed in his direction.

“‘Maybe they won’t notice or ask why my literal teammate punched me in the face at practice if I take a fucking supermodel out to dinner.’” Robin’s imitation is a little too good, a sure sign of too much time spent together.

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it!” He asks, taking the phone off of her and closing out of the image before locking it. He drops it back into her lap with a sigh. “I just don’t know how many times I can keep getting away with hiding it.”

“Well, it helps that Billy got traded out to LA. He would be insufferable about this, and would absolutely make everything 10 times worse.” Robin muses.

Steve sighs and hesitates for a moment before dropping his head back into her lap, curling into her. “I just want it to be on my terms, when I’m ready.”

“We’ll figure it out, and it’ll all be okay, no matter what. Okay?” She assures quietly, leaning down to press a kiss to his cheek.

His phone dings with a new notification; Max texted him a screenshot from TikTok.

corrodedcoff!n: you’ve got yourself a deal 🤝🏻