Well, not so much a plan… more of a series of events that he hoped whatever deity might be listening and actually bothered to give half a fuck would actually make happen.
Because he was at least eighty… four percent sure Steve had been sending him signals over the last few months.
Months listening to Steve gush about the kids that had recently fallen into his lap, helping Dustin out with his curls for the Snow Ball, or blinking those big sad eyes up at him when he talked about his dad making him get a job somewhere in the new mall so he could understand what real hard work was.
Eddie had scoffed at that.
Like Harrington Sr. knew what real hard work was.
But there had been all these little touches. These lingering looks.
And the blushing.
Eddie prided himself on the fact that he could get the most biteable pink colour to rise in Steve’s cheeks and over his nose with only a couple of words.
All that was to say that Eddie was going fucking crazy with it all and he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to survive it much longer.
So he had to do something about it.
Which is what led him here, to Steve’s front door.
Or more accurately Steve’s driveway because he hadn’t worked up the courage to actually step outside his van yet.
But the lights were on and there was no sign of his parents, otherwise he would have turned right around.
So there was nothing left to do other than step out, saunter up to the door, give it three hard knocks, confident knocks, just like he’d planned and hit Steve with his most charming grin.
Once he was inside he’d pull out every stop, lay the flirting on so thick Steve would barely be able to breathe and then, when the time was right, he’d brush a curl behind Steve’s ear and lean in.
Okay so it was a little hopeful, but Eddie was nothing if not an improviser and he was an expert at going with the flow, so on the slim chance that anything went wrong, he could work around it.
He would be getting a kiss today if it killed him.
Or he’d take the rejection if it came, but he was really trying not to dwell on that possibility.
Okay.
Okay.
Eddie took a deep breath and finally stepped out of the van, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans, though he’d blame that on the muggy late May air.
He was able to deliver those three solid knocks to the door.
After some shuffling and some cursing coming muffled through the door, Steve poked his head out, his face completely draining of colour when he caught sight of Eddie.
Well.
Not off to the best start.
“Eddie.” He breathed, keeping his body hidden behind the door.
“What are you doing here?”
“Is it a bad time?”
Fuck.
Maybe he’d completely misjudged the situation.
“Um…”
“I checked to make sure your parents were gone but…” Eddie let the words fade out as he really took in Steve’s expression.
He looked uncomfortable, tense and a little scared.
“Is everything alright, sweetheart?” The pet name just slipped out, coloured completely by his concern.
That delicious pink colour dusted over Steve’s cheeks again and he stared at Eddie hard, like he was trying to solve a puzzle.
He seemed to come to a decision, his shoulders slumping and a sigh escaping him.
“Everything’s fine, it’s just…” Steve cut himself off with a huff and a groan. “You’re gonna see it eventually, I guess. So will everyone in fucking Hawkins so might as well-”
He disappeared behind the door, a solitary arm coming out to wave Eddie inside.
Screw his plan, something was wrong.
“Whatever it is, Stevie,” he said, stepping inside and turning as the front door clicked closed behind him, “I’m sure we can figure-”
But his words faded away when he finally registered what he was looking at.
There, Steve was standing in all his glory, red faced and trying to look unaffected, a hand on his hip and very determinedly not looking at him.
All the while wearing the most ridiculous and somehow the most salacious little sailors costume Eddie had ever seen in his life.
He was completely struck dumb, openly ogling, openly staring, dragging his eyes up and down Steve’s body, from his strong legs wrapped up in those tiny shorts to the chest hair poking out over the top of the shirt just begging Eddie to bury his fingers in deep and pull.
Steve was fidgeting under his gaze, getting more and more uncomfortable with each passing second until he had to break the silence.
“There’s a fucking hat too.”
Eddie could only absentmindedly nod and mutter, “Is there?” to show he was listening because in all honesty he was on a whole other plane of existence.
“Yeah, it’s fucking…” Steve shook his head, pulling the aforementioned hat out of his pocket and cramming it onto his head with a scowl, waving his hands out as if to say ‘tada’.
There was nothing Eddie could do about it, he could only just keep staring.
It didn’t make any sense?
How did he look so pretty?
Steve always looked pretty but this was pretty dialled up to eleven. This was soft and sweet and giant glittering, puppy dog eyes levels of pretty.
Was there fucking magic woven into the polyester fabric or something? Did that shade of blue just really, really suit him?
What was this sorcery?
“Listen, man. Can you just-” Steve crossed his arms over his chest. “Can you stop staring and just like… make fun of me now so we can get it over with and move on?” He had a little pout on his face, he looked embarrassed and upset and Eddie couldn’t have that.
He stepped forward.
“You look like a Ken doll.”
“Thanks.” Steve replied, sulking, stepping back and looking so uncomfortable Eddie couldn’t stand it.
“Stevie.” Eddie said, almost breathing the word into the scant air between them. When had they gotten so close? Steve jumped like he also hadn’t noticed how close they had gotten, his eyes going wide, flicking down to Eddie’s lips for just a moment before bouncing back up to meet his gaze again. “It’s a good thing.”
Eddie couldn’t help himself anymore, raising a hand to Steve’s chest to drag his fingers through the hair poking out.
He could feel Steve’s rapidfire heartbeat underneath his fingers and he heard the tiny little inhale when he touched bare skin.
Steve was still staring at him, mouth slightly parted. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” Eddie croaked back.
“Like you want to eat me.”
“Because I do.” He whispered, finally dragging his gaze up from the chest hair to look him in the eye. “Can I?”
Steve nodded.
Eddie dragged his hand down, wrapping his fingers around that stupid little red ascot and used it to pull Steve into him.
In all his planning and all his ideas of how this was going to go, he hadn’t thought that Steve was going to be looking like a walking wet dream.
He also hadn’t expected Steve to be just as eager. He’d expected, hoped, that he’d be just as into it but he thought he’d be shy. Maybe nervous or meek.
He’d been so stupid to think that.
This was Steve Harrington.
King Steve.
While he was pulling Steve towards him by the ascot, Steve’s hands snapped up to grab him by the hair, yanking him forward and they crashed together so forcefully he was pretty sure he cut open the inside of his lip on one of his bottom teeth but he didn’t fucking care.
He was finally kissing Steve Harrington.
His Stevie.
They were both pushing, the two of them manoeuvring and shoving, trying to get the other up against the wall but Eddie won out eventually, crowding him back, a hand at either side of his head, caging him in.
He was licking in, trying to taste every inch he could and almost as soon as his hands landed on the wall, he removed them.
Why the fuck was he touching the wall when Steve was right there?
He dragged his hands down, eventually bringing them around to cup that beautiful ass that he wanted to do terrible things to.
Steve took advantage of the movement, spinning them around until Eddie was the one caged in against the wall now.
Which was… different.
Not bad, but different.
He was always the aggressor but being blanketed completely by Steve, still able to pull him in by the ass was different.
Good, even.
“Like a Ken doll, huh?” Steve hummed against his jaw, grinding up against him.
Eddie could practically hear what Steve was gonna say next.
Does this feel like a Ken doll to you?
But…
Even though he expected it.
Even though he’d heard it before.
The shrill ringing of the phone still came as a surprise.
Steve was still holding him tight, still pressed it close, firm and caring, but his attention had drifted over to a spot on the wall by Eddie’s head.
He only had a few moments, a few seconds more.
Eddie brought his hands up to grasp Steve by the face, turning him back to look him in the eye.
"I love you, you know that?” He almost whispered, feeling that old familiar lump in his throat again, his bottom lip wobbling. “Please tell me you knew that before…"
Steve hit him with a soft smile, winding a hand through his hair, gently pulling him in and cradling him closer into his neck.
That fucking phone was still ringing in his ear, hanging where it shouldn't be, on the wrong wall in the wrong room, teal with a twisted cord.
"I know.” Steve soothed into his hair. “I know because you know. I knew I was loved by you. I've always known."
"Can you-" Eddie took a shuddering inhale, knowing it was futile but needing to try anyway. "Can you stay? For just a minute longer. Don't go yet."
"You know I can't." Steve gave him one last squeeze. "I have to answer this. It’s about Max."
The phone stopped ringing.
Back at the beginning, when all of this apocalypse nonsense started, Eddie wasn’t exactly involved.
Like, yeah. He wasn’t particularly involved before Spring Break either, but the apocalypse had started a couple of weeks after that and Eddie had ended up convalescing all over again because of it.
But this time it was within an infirmary tent in Evacuation Zone C, rather than a fully stocked hospital. The rush to get themselves out of Hawkins and the panic that came with not being sure where the rest of their friends and families were while they ran had meant Eddie, still looking like a demobat chew toy, had pushed himself too far.
He had woken up in the tent, barely exonerated and immediately panicking because while the infirmary wasn’t empty, there wasn’t a single member of the scrappy little Upside Down Fellowship to be seen.
It had only been a few moments later, however, when he heard the familiar voices of both Nancy and Dustin raising holy hell somewhere outside, screaming at some poor soldier about getting back in contact with Agent Stintson, Doctor Owens, his commanding officer if they had to, because they had been told, they had been sworn to that their friends and family would also be evacuated. That their people might be sent to one of the other five Evacuation Zones, but they would do everything within their power to get them all into one place together.
No big surprise then, when that hadn’t happened.
It had apparently been two days already, according to Dustin’s high pitched shrieks and they had heard nothing. He didn’t know where Claudia was, or if she’d even gotten out, Nancy didn’t know where her family was. They didn’t know what had happened to Max, still at Hawkins Memorial Hospital when the apocalypse hit. They had no idea where any of the Sinclair’s were.
Robin.
Steve.
Wayne.
They could be at a different Evacuation Zone. They could be dead. They could be still in Hawkins, now on a militarised quarantine lockdown, no one in or out unless they wanted to go up against a line of soldiers.
Even then, the cracks spreading out like a spiderweb, the vines bursting up through the ground, the demogorgons, the Ghouls mostly deterred anyone looking to break back in.
He could still remember bouncing around in the back of Nancy’s station wagon as she weaved her way at top speed out of Hawkins, black spots in his vision the pain almost unbearable, but not unbearable enough to drown out the sounds of the rest of the town trying to run.
The screaming, the screeching of tires, the crunching of metal as people veered off the road at speed, the sirens, the complete and utter confusion.
It had definitely sounded like an apocalypse.
And it had gotten quiet since.
At least, that was what the rumours were.
From complete chaos, to silence over the last two days.
Which meant anyone still inside… it didn’t bear thinking about.
They just didn’t fucking know.
The only people they thought were maybe, probably safe were the Byers, Hopper and El.
They had all left barely twelve hours before everything went down, travelling back to California to pick up the last of the Byers stuff to move back to Hawkins.
They’d probably barely made it to Tulsa when it happened.
But they were out of Indiana when it hit, they all knew that for sure thanks to a quiet phone call from El when they hit St. Louis.
She hadn’t wanted to go, hadn’t wanted to leave Max’s side. But her stuff was down in California too and she had only agreed to go when Hopper had promised to stick by her side and Jonathan had promised they would stop often so she could call back and check in for any changes to Max’s situation.
They’d only managed one call before everything went to shit.
And like, Eddie wasn’t stupid. Neither were Nancy and Dustin, so when the three of them spoke in hushed voices around Eddie’s little cot in the infirmary tent, they agreed that El’s leaving Hawkins had probably been what spurred Vecna into attacking when he did.
There wasn’t a psychic child in the town anymore to defend it, not that she could have. His attack was vicious, quick, sudden and unexpected.
They all had thought they’d have more recovery time before shit hit the fan.
The three of them had silently agreed to never mention it to her.
If they ever saw her again.
She’d probably figure it out herself and they didn’t want to add to the inevitable guilt.
Eddie had attempted to sneak out of the infirmary on day four of their stay, to join Nancy and Dustin on what would have probably been a suicide mission to sneak back into Hawkins and search for their people themselves.
But he’d been caught, just as Dustin and Nancy were caught not long after.
The only reason the three of them had avoided military detainment for what would have probably been a never ending amount of time, was because Nancy and Dustin had slowly been amassing a small number of loyal followers.
People had started to notice.
People had started to become aware that those two, and Eddie to a lesser extent, had more information than even the soldiers about what the fuck the vines and demogorgons and ghouls were.
And people were starting to get just as pissed off with the lack of information being communicated.
So there was a near schism.
It was clear the military goons hadn’t been told much. They’d just been told to follow orders like good little soldier boys and they had been doing absolutely nothing to quell the frantic questions, anger and growing conspiracy theories amongst those in their Zone.
And while a growing number of people were starting to latch onto Nancy and Dustin as their de facto authority leaders, it wasn’t everyone.
Some people refused to believe anything beyond what they had already decided was the truth.
Be it aliens (incorrect), a government conspiracy (somewhat correct) or Eddie himself (comically incorrect).
Eddie had found himself slipping back into that persona he had perfected in school.
Protector of his sheep.
Though it was slightly more dangerous now than schoolyard bullies, Eddie was also slightly more dangerous than he had been.
And he looked it, too.
Covered in bandages and wounds that were only just starting to heal again, a gnarly chunk of flesh missing from his face and neck that made even the most self-important fucker grimace at the sight of.
Adding onto that, there was a look in his eye now, a steely strength to his shoulders and his jaw that did just as much as a battle vest ever had for sending the middle-classers scattering.
Probably had something to do with him having a fist fight with death and winning.
And the satanist rumours.
They came in handy now. People were wary of him, more than they ever had been.
And that was how he found himself playing guard dog for Nancy fucking Wheeler.
It wasn’t all bad. Those that had a little more common sense than righteous indignation running through their veins were actually starting to come around and… respect him?
It was one of the wildest things to ever happen to him and that was saying something.
He’d been to a whole other fucking dimension, he’d been accused of murder, accused of witchcraft and deals with the devil, but respect from the refugees of Hawkins was still something he never thought he’d have.
Things only continued to get better for them once Wayne turned up.
He was full of fire and spit at being given the runaround from the military in Zone E, insisting they had better things to be doing rather than search for his nephew. One guy amongst hundreds missing or misplaced.
Eddie threw himself at his uncle right there in the main thoroughfare of Zone C and held on like his life had depended on it.
Wayne had clutched at him tight and later, with Eddie tucked under his arm like a scared child, had listened to Nancy and Dustin tell him how he was the first to be found. How the military were effectively stonewalling them. How they knew next to nothing.
It hadn’t been long then, for Wayne to join Dustin and Nancy in what had essentially turned into a coup of authority over the military.
Eddie wasn’t far behind, but the injuries on his neck and face meant he only ever really spoke when he had to, and the impact of that had people listening closely whenever he did.
The arrival of Wayne had reignited all of their hopes that everyone else would show soon, like it was practically a given. Of course the rest of their friends and family would show.
Wayne turning up meant the others couldn’t be far behind, surely, whole and determined and invincible as they all were, as they all had been in the past.
Eddie looked back on those days now with a bitter sort of feeling, wondering how they could have been so naive.
Nancy was the first one to have to deal with the gut punch, telling them all that wasn’t quite true.
When Karen Wheeler was found along with Mike, Holly and the Sinclair parents, they arrived exhausted, emotionally drained and already coming to terms with their losses.
Ted had gotten his wife and his kids out once the hoard descended and had died for his efforts.
The Sinclair parents were alone.
No Lucas. No Erica.
They hadn’t heard from anyone else. They were all just as in the dark as the rest of them.
They had no answers about where everyone else was.
Nancy had been alight with rage that had nowhere to go, apart from barking at military officers.
The Sincair parents remained hopeful for as long as they could, perking up every time new people arrived into Zone C, but that was all dashed every time.
As the weeks slowly passed, Susan Mayfield and Claudia Henderson were found and transferred in.
Dustin clung onto his mom for hours afterward.
Susan was dead eyed and defeated.
No one knew where Max was, if she was still trapped in the hospital she’d last been seen in or if she’d gotten out somehow.
It was highly unlikely.
She’d still been comatose and broken.
If she had woken up at any point… it wasn’t looking good.
The Buckley parents, arriving in the middle of it all, were just as lost, slowly retreating back into themselves.
The military still weren’t giving them any answers.
And it only served to draw more people to their side, the fact that a high school journalist, a drug dealer, and a nerdy kid who spent his time fucking around with his walkie in the hopes he could contact any of his friends were the only ones with any kind of inclination as to what was going on, and any kind of idea of how to move forward.
By the time the Hoppers-Byers turned back up, it was nearly nine months later.
And things had both gotten worse and better by then.
The military had up and abandoned them.
They had woken up one morning in the previous month to find their usual bases a ghost town, equipment left behind, fatigues and weapons and some trucks abandoned.
Communication with the other quarantine zones told them that the same had happened all over.
The military had been pulled out of Indiana completely, leaving them all to be ghoul food.
And so their planning started.
Nancy, Dustin and Eddie had started making plans to collect people, scared and panicked from their quarantine zones, not knowing what to do or who to turn to.
They had a plan set up and ready to go when a truck pulled up to the gates, beaten to hell and barely slowing down.
The gates had slammed open on their own, sending Nancy’s appointed patrolling guard into a frenzy.
The only reason the Hoppers-Byers didn’t end up riddled with bullets was both because of El’s powers and Dustin, Mike and Nancy’s shouts to ‘hold your fire!’
El threw herself from the truck without a care in the world and straight into Dustin and Mike’s arms.
Their elation was short lived, however.
El informed the camp that the cracks were spreading, the vines and demogorgons and ghouls were branching out and it wouldn’t be long before they were overrun.
They needed to abandon camp and they needed to do it now.
The bad news didn’t stop there.
El was being… blocked somehow.
She couldn’t enter the void, she couldn’t even access it anymore.
It was like Vecna had shut her out, like closing off a plane of existence to her.
She could still move things with her mind and that was awesome and Eddie was pretty sure he was just staring at her open-mouthed since she’d blasted the gates open, but she couldn’t search for people any more.
And so, any hope that might have been building that they would have been able to find their missing party members crumbled once again.
While they all came together to plan out a hasty retreat, settling on a small town in the north with a sizable gated community that Karen had been hoping to move to at some point in her life, Dustin refused any input.
Apparently the Party had been aware of Karen’s hope to move and had dubbed the place ‘Rohan’. Years ago, when they were still full of childish whimsy and the worst thing they could think of happening was one of their party members moving forty-five minutes away by car, they had meticulously tracked the way there and back in case they needed to rescue Mike from suburbia.
Dustin put up the mother of all fights, screaming at them all that they had to stay. This was where they were supposed to meet Steve and the rest of the Party. This was where they would have been told to go! They had to stay! They couldn’t leave until they turned up. What if they arrived and everyone had gone?
It was only the darkening and reddening of the clouds in the distance that convinced him it was futile to stay.
But even so, he insisted on leaving a message.
They left a crude spray painted ice cream cone on the stone wall at the entrance with an arrow pointing back to the command center hut.
Inside, they’d ripped all of the maps, diagrams and papers from the walls, needing to take them with them, but that ended up being Dustin’s canvas.
Scoops Troop, Ranger and Red.
The week is long,
The silver cat feeds,
When blue meets yellow in the north,
A trip to Rohan sounds nice,
If you tread lightly.
None of them knew what the fuck Dustin had just come up with or how that explained anything, but he insisted that it made sense, slamming his compas down on the desk directly below the words and storming out of the hut.
Eddie decided to leave his own memento, just in case. Because as much as he tried to placate Dustin, there was a terrible, horrible little glimmer of hope in his own chest that somehow Steve was still alive and out there, looking for them.
He wrapped his black bandana around the gated entrance, a small sticky note covered in sellotape to protect it from the elements attached:
Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.
Their trek to Rohan was long and winding. They took constant detours to the other evacuation zones, collecting people as they went.
All in all, it was a month later by the time they reached the high walls and gates.
The things that had earned Eddie ire from the good people of society before the apocalypse now seemed to be viewed with respect.
Case and point, the ridiculously rudimentary and hastily applied chain and padlock holding the gates closed and barring them from entrance to the abandoned community was quick work for him, able to leave the lock intact enough to be locked again behind them.
They had swept the place, hoping that they weren’t breaking into some other groups safe haven but it seemed like the richy-riches of Indians had been able to be evacuated much more smoothly than the poor fuckers from Hawkins.
And so, that was where they had settled ever since.
It was where they had set up, what was essentially Hawkins 2.0.
The high walls were constantly patrolled, keeping them safe from ghouls and bandits, they had crops planted, they had a laundry and a water supply from the water tower up the hill.
It was the best they could have ever hoped for.
And even then, their little broken Fellowship always hoped for those figures on the horizon.
But they never came.
Steve’s face was swimming in front of him, beat and battered, smelling of smoke and ash, still dressed in his Scoops uniform, sitting on Eddie’s fucking couch smiling through the pain.
Wayne knelt in front of him, gently dabbing antiseptic over his face.
They were quietly joking with each other, keeping the mood light and all Eddie could do was stand and stare.
Stand and stare in numb shock at the state his boyfriend had appeared in amongst the ambulances and flashing lights outside the mall, waving off Wayne’s attempt to help him walk to the van, Eddie trailing behind, wide eyed and completely helpless.
They had kept up a steady banter, Steve and Wayne while Eddie sat in the back, unable to take his eyes off the caked in, already dried and flaking blood in Steve’s hair, the handprint slowly blooming around his throat, the raw ligature wounds around his wrists.
Nothing about it said fire.
Eddie knew deep in his bones that he would spend the next few hours staring at his uncle and his boyfriend, smiling and laughing with each other through the tension like Steve had just skinned his knee on the basketball court.
He knew after that that he would help Steve wash everything off in the bath, not wanting him to stand in the shower.
He knew that when he saw the mottled bruising skin under his shirt, the cuts and other injuries he could barely even stomach thinking about, he’d have a quiet little breakdown in his bedroom when Steve insisted with what seemed to be his last thread of dignity that he could handle the rest by himself.
He knew that he clung onto Steve throughout the night and the next morning, barely sleeping, unable to stop watching the slow rise and fall of his chest, just making sure that he was still alive.
And as Eddie was shocked into consciousness by the sound of unfamiliar footsteps coming up the stairs towards his bedroom, he knew that whoever had woken him up had saved him from the teal landline phone with a twisted cord appearing on the headboard of Eddie’s bed.
He had barely cracked his eyes open, taking in the reality of the devastatingly empty bed next to him and between one inhale in and the next, he had his hand solidly around his weapon.
He snatched the rifle up from the side of his bed, and had it cocked and pointed at his closed bedroom door as those heavy footfalls kept approaching, survival instinct beaten mercilessly into him.
Though in the back of his head he knew that there was no way a ghoul could have made it up the stairs to his bedroom, there would have been uproar in the streets and he would have been awoken long before, as a line of defence. And in any case, ghouls moved almost silently. They were deadly quiet.
But then, ghouls weren’t the only dangerous things in the world right now.
Sometimes…
Sometimes humans were worse.
Eddie knew the sound of Wayne’s footsteps, he’d grown up with them, he’s spent the majority of his life listening to them and whoever was approaching him right now was not his uncle.
“Hold your fire, Munson!”
Hopper’s voice came through the wall rather than behind the door, almost like he had pressed himself up against it, in case Eddie shot first and asked questions later.
Smart move.
Hopper seemed to understand more than anyone else why Eddie had become so trigger happy recently.
Eddie let out a breath he wasn’t even aware he’d been holding in.
Clicking the safety back on, he placed the rifle back in his lap and called out for Hopper to come in.
“There’s been a drop.” Hopper poked his head in the door, “looks like the government has finally remembered we exist. Let’s go.”
<<Previous Part | AO3 | Next Part>>
Fic title and lyrics from Through The Valley by Shawn James but it was this version by Ashley Johnson as Ellie that truly captured me.
Big thanks as always to @hbyrde36 for the magnificent beta work and to the @strangerthingswritersguild for their motivation.
Saw a video of a supposed attempted store robbery where the lady flashed the thief and he just left... like he looked at them and left. Idk if it was real or a skit but now I’m thinking steddie 😭
Steve working some fuck ass job at a gas station and Eddie comes barging in with a ski mask talking about “EMPTY THE REGISTER! GIVE ME ALL YOUR CASH!”
And Stevie baby is just, his mind panics and glitches and for some reason his first instinct is to flash the guy. Just, pulls up his shirt and flashes the guy.
And Steve’s like ‘great I’m fucking dead cuz I don’t even have boobs. Why was this my first move?’
And Eddie is just like, confronted with the most glorious display of hunky pecs and abs.
Eddie: …
Steve: so, um…
Eddie: ok, yeah, this is uh
Eddie: I’m just gonna…
Eddie: *quickly pulls out his phone to take a picture and scampers to the exit, knocking over a chip display on his way out*
Steve is just left there like, ‘wtf there’s no way that worked.’
Meanwhile, Eddie comes back to his group and they’re like
“dude where’s the money? We need that money!!”
“I can’t, man.”
“Tf you mean you mean you can’t.”
(Throws his phone at them with the picture of a very cute gas station attendant flashing his pecs with the most confused deer-in-headlights expression)
“I mean Im too fucking gay for this! I asked him to empty the register and he, he showed me his boobs?
“And you took a fucking picture?”
“…and I took a fucking picture, yeah.”
Eddie then proceeds to frequent that gas station (sans ski mask of course) to flirt up a storm.
I feel like Steve always has this inkling suspicion just based on Eddie’s voice and mannerisms,
but it’s not confirmed for him until they’ve been dating for a bit, the sexual tension has been unbearably suffocating, and after being yelled at by Robin to ‘Fix It’ do things gets properly heated…
Anyways,
They’re making out, Eddie is pawing at Steve like a starving man, and Steve flicks off his shirt like it’s the most natural thing in the world staring up at Eddie with adoring eyes and Eddie—
Eddie is white screened.
Straight up staring at his tits like it’s the most glorious visage to have ever graced this earthly realm. His eyes are near to the brink of tears before he slowly lifts his hands and just, gently cups them. Like a nervous sinner laying their hands on a holy cross expecting to be burned on the spot.
So Steve’s just laying there, shirt casted to oblivion, a lap full of Please-Reboot-System boyfriend cupping his boobs and it looks like… omg is actually going to start crying?
Steve has never felt more confused, objectified, and flattered at the same time—
Except, that’s a lie ‘cuz he has and wait,
“Wait, are you the guy that tried to rob the gas station?”
Eddie reboots.
All systems are Online and he’s a squirrelly motherfucker.
He bolts for the door, but it’s locked cuz they were about to Gichy-Gichy-Ya-Ya, so instead of opening it to make his smooth escape he runs Full Speed into it and knocks himself for a solid three seconds.
You can imagine being Eddie then, waking up with a throbbing head, hot guy hovering over you concerned asking dumb fucking questions like:
‘Eddie can you hear me?’ And, ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ And, ‘do you know who’s the current president?’
While his shirt is still off, his pecs are right there and if Eddie ignored his splitting skull and just opens his mouth and leans up just a little bit he might be able to get a mouth full nipple—
Yeah, so, Steve knows now. Eddie is sitting on the bed with a pack of frozen peas (that have been expired for two years, really?) on the growing welt on his forehead looking like a guilty dog as he hands over his phone to Steve
And Steve is looking at The Picture, the Original Fucking Picture from that infamous day.
It’s slightly blurry, Steve’s looking at himself on screen sporting wide bewildered eyes seemingly at his own questionable action, hairy pecs on display,
And he looks back up at Eddie with the most shit eating grin, “Aw, babe.”
“Stop, omg I’m mortified. Please don’t call the cops.”
Offended, “Why would I call the cops on my boyfriend?”
Eddie, dazed, “wait, I still have a boyfriend?”
Yes, Eddie still gets laid that day after Steve clears him of a concussion.
And yes, Steve’s later he tells Robin and they get into a 2 hour argument on whether or not it can be classified as a Meet Cute.
Final project for the Eddie Munson Big Bang event 🥰 @vicecapitain and @alicetallula were amazing team mates 🖤 Please go read this amazing Southern Gothic AU fic
Isle of Dogs / Game of Thrones / Painting by Jenn Mazza / Unknown / Ancestral Memory by Hari Alluri / Unknown / Venetta Octavia / Emma Tranter / Unknown / Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo / @ machineryangel
dededos
annaxmalina
kaledo-art
pixelskylines
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
origamiaround
