Chef Eddie x Overworked Steve (Steddie)
cw: gets a little steamy at the end, nothing explicit but heavily implied
Steve who’s endlessly busy in his corperate big boy job and doesn’t have time or energy to cook, starts becoming really unhealthy, skipping meals, eating vending machine snacks and McDonald’s when he finally leaves the office at 2 am, and Robin snaps at him about it one day when he’s green, throwing up in his paper bin at work and refusing to go home. She demands he eat better!
So, he hires a private chef. Out the back of his big house he has a pool house that he ads to the advertisement. Basically, he’s offering free accommodation, plus a paycheck for someone to cook him three meals a day.
Enter Eddie Munson, who’s always loved cooking and is slowly losing his sanity as a line cook, wasting away in his grimy apartment one afternoon, thinking about the window he has to get sealed before winter and the new lock he needs on the door and is wondering if he can afford to buy a steak if he omits a few things on his next grocery run because his birthdays coming up, when he sees the add. Obviously, he jumps on it.
Steve, desperate, and a big fan of greasy burgers and diner breakfasts, hires Eddie immediately, doesn’t even meet the guy since he’s so busy at work, and lets Robin handle the rest since she was so adamant on it.
Steve wakes up at 5 every morning and is out the door before 6, and doesn’t get home till after 10 pm most nights, so Eddie keeps missing him.
He’s always sure to have dinner made and ready for Steve before he heads home, then knocks off for the night and either crashes or goes out.
He prepares lunch the day prior and leaves it in a lunch box in the fridge for Steve with a friendly sticky note to have a nice day, along with the ingredients.
He also wakes up at 4 every morning, or just stays up long enough, to have breakfast cooked and plated by the time Steve’s alarm goes off in the morning, then heads back to the pool house to sleep in before he can catch Steve.
It’s not for ages that they actually meet, and Steve feels guilty for never saying hello to the guy slaving over a stove for him three times a day, who’s literally living in his house, but he’s a busy man. Plus, the guy has a great gig, free housing, Nice housing, and all he has to do is cook a couple of meals a day, and can eat as much of the food as he likes?!
Steve does always send him thank you messages with compliments after each meal.
One evening, Steve comes home early. It’s been a very slow, terrible week and Steve just needed a break. Robin sent him home with strict demands to do some self care and SLEEP since he basically hasn’t slept all week.
Cue him walking in as Eddie’s cooking dinner.
He's got metal music blasting, hair tied back into a low bun, ripped jeans on and a tight top, all under an apron. He’s at the stove, stirring something up and banging his head, so Steve can’t see his face.
He turns around, heading to the island, lost in his business so he doesn’t even notice Steve standing in the doorway, and starts chopping up a pumpkin.
And not only is his face fucking cute, all big brown eyes and pink plush lips; he’s fucking hot. Tattoos down the length of his arms, big hands gripping the knife, muscles flexing, veins popping out as he pushes down on the blade to cut through the tough vegetable.
And Steve’s brain melts.
Eddie catches sight of him and actually screams.
They get acquainted quickly, Eddie’s adorably rambling about how grateful he is for the gig, telling Steve he was worried about his next grocery run and the coming winter, and how he’s a struggling musician; and with these paychecks and stability he’s afforded to use recording studios and a decent fucking amp for his guitar, all whilst he chops and stirs and cooks Steve his new favorite soup.
Steve goes on to thank Eddie for all these amazing fucking meals, how he actually feels really healthy again, and is able to do more in his day and sleep better at night, and how he always gets excited to come home to a good meal every night, maybe desert if he’s lucky, how he always loves Eddie’s little sticky notes.
Once the meal’s cooked and plated, Eddie goes to put his own in a take out container and give Steve his space, but Steve insists Eddie stay and eat with him. It’s the least he could do, right?
So they stay and chat over dinner, and then maybe Eddie just really likes Steve’s company, and maybe he thinks he’s really hot, and maybe he doesn’t want Steve to disappear to bed right now because god knows when the next time they’ll see each other is, so he suggests they have dessert.
And Eddie totally doesn’t suggest a fresh, homemade apple pie because he knows it will take ages on purpose, he just knows Steve likes Eddie’s apple pie.
And Steve helps him make it. He lets Eddie boss him around the kitchen and make fun of his atrocious pastry rolling technique, and tries not to blush because Eddie’s putting his big hands over Steve’s and teaching him how to do it properly. And Steve’s never liked people bossing him around before, he’s always been the big man in charge, but something about the way Eddie does it makes his insides tingle.
Once’s the pie is done and ready to eat (hours later), they sit together on the kitchen isle, and Steve’s wondering if it would be unethical to maybe ask this guy on a date because he’s really cute and fucking hot and he thinks maybe they’ve been flirting a bit, and he’s also not getting hard at the sight of Eddie pushing the icecream off his spoon with his finger and then licking it off-
But before Steve can even think any further on that, Eddie’s all up in his space, holding a spoon full of pie and ice cream to Steve’s lips, telling him to open, and Steve’s brain short circuits.
He tries to eat it nicely, he really does, but some melted ice cream dribbles down his chin, and Eddie picks Steve’s chin up and wipes it away with his thumb.
And then, the icing on the fucking cake, he presses his icecream coated thumb to Steve’s lips, and tells him to lick it clean.
Their pie is abandoned until morning, Eddie learns what it looks like upstairs, and Steve definitely gets the self care he needed that night.
When he rocks up at work the next day he’s a whole other person, and Robin is baffled. When he opens his lunchbox, he finds a slice of pie and a little note saying, “Hope you like it, princess, but I gotta say it’s not quite as sweet as your ass.” And then Robin suddenly gets it.
When Steve knocks off at 12 am that night, he flicks Eddie a text “Hope my dinner is microwaveable, I’ll be home in 10, wait for me upstairs?”
And once again, Steve shows up to work positively glowing. Oh and it’s nothing compared to the “self care” he gets on days off.
