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for @penny00dreadful

Ch 1 <-

Chapter 2: Yellow Brick Road

WC: 4946 | Ch 2/4 | AO3 <-

They’d been walking for quite a while, nothing to see save for the fields of corn spread out on one side of them, wheat on the other, when they came upon a fork in the road.

Steve stood in the middle of the intersection, peering as far as he could down one path, and then the other, but there was just no way of knowing where each of the winding roads led. He threw his hands up in frustration before settling them on his hips. “Great, just great. Now what do we do?”

“Convenient how no one thought to mention the road split off.” Eddie grumbled.

“Right or left?”

“Flip a coin?”

Steve shrugged, it was as good a way to decide as anything else. “Sure, why not.”

Eddie stared at him expectantly.

“What?” Steve asked.

“Well, I don’t have any money on me.”

“Then why did you suggest flipping a coin?!”

Eddie bristled, as if Steve were the one being ridiculous. “Because you’ve always got spare change on you!”

“It’s those damn kids, always begging me for quarters for the arcade.”

“Did you ever think if you stopped carrying coins, the little shits would stop hitting you up for them?”

Steve frowned. “That’s… hmpf.” Because no, he hadn’t, actually. He started to rummage through his front pockets—a feat, frankly, given how tight his pants were, and wondered how big a fit Dustin would pitch if he were to actually stop handing out free money like he was a goddamn ATM machine.

“Hey!” A voice called out. “Dingus one and Dingus two!”

Steve startled—they hadn’t seen another soul for miles.

He looked all around for the source of the sound and finally spotted something—a lone figure mounted to a pole just inside the split-rail fence, nestled between a few stalks of corn. One of its arms was propped up, pointing, the other resting at its side. He grabbed Eddie’s hand and rushed towards it, swinging his legs easily up and over the wood planks, glimmering heels and all, before helping the other boy do the same.

As they got closer he could see that it was a girl made of straw and burlap—a scarecrow, his brain supplied offhandedly, though her face looked remarkably human and alive.

She winked, and smiled down at them.

Steve gasped, his eyes raking over the dusting of freckles painted over the girl’s cheeks and nose. “No—No way.” He shook his head, taking another step closer. Was every person in this place a version of someone from home?

“Robin?”

The Scarecrow frowned. “Never heard of her.”

Steve deflated. “Right.”

“Is that the way we’re supposed to go? The way you’re pointing?” Eddie asked, getting right to business as if he were unfazed at this newest encounter. Which was fair. It was pretty tame compared to the horrors of the last alternate dimension they’d been trapped in.

“That way’s okay.” She said with a small shrug, before dropping her left arm and raising her right—rotating it like a windmill in the process. “But that way’s pretty good too.”

“Very helpful.” Steve deadpanned.

“Of course,” she went on, ignoring him as she crossed one arm over the other—pointing in opposite directions at once. “People do go both ways.”

Eddie snickered, immediately clapping a hand over his own mouth to stifle his laughter.

Steve felt a rush of heat as he broke out in a full body flush, cheeks flaming. Surely The Scarecrow hadn’t meant—

The thing was, Robin—the real one—had been talking to him a little bit recently about the possibility of going both ways, as it were. He’d been starting to suspect, for no reason in particular, that he might not be as entirely straight as he’d previously thought.

Okay, fine.

There was a reason, and the culprit, cause, and source of his suspicion was standing right next to him, looking at him with those big brown eyes, sparkling with the last remnants of laughter, and smiling in that very particular way that showed his dimples to full effect.

It made Steve feel wild, like a swarm of butterflies had taken flight in his stomach.

He wondered if Eddie knew, if he should tell him, but he wasn’t sure he was ready for that.

It wasn’t the possibility of being bisexual that frightened him. More than a possibility, he supposed—clearly that ship had sailed—what with the way he practically salivated anytime Eddie raised his arms to stretch or reach for something up high, exposing that delicious little strip of tummy and—

Yeah… definitely not straight.

And he knew the other boy was gay, Eddie and Robin had both come out to the rest of the group a few months ago, so, the possibility was there, but just because Eddie liked guys didn’t mean he liked Steve.

All of that to say, his fear lay more in the worry of ruining their friendship if Eddie didn’t feel the same way about him.

“We’re looking for the Emerald City, do you know it?” Eddie was asking The Scarecrow when Steve tuned back into the conversation.

“I can’t say that I do, no, but that’s not much of a surprise. I haven't got a brain, you see.”

“How can you talk without a brain?” Steve asked.

“Seriously?” She quirked a brow. “Have you heard what comes out of most people's mouths? It’s not that hard.”

Well, she had him there.

“The thing is, my words come out faster than my thoughts sometimes, and I just wind up rambling on-and-on until I stop making any sense at all! No one understands me, and I just know if I had a brain it would solve all my problems. “She sighed wistfully, staring off into the middle distance for a moment before seeming to remember that they were there, and snapped back to attention. “What’s in the Emerald City anyhow?”

“A wizard, hopefully.” Eddie said.

“We’re going to see if he can help us get back home to Hawkins.” Steve added.

“Hawkins, huh? That’s a funny name.” The Scarecrow mused. “Well, if he’s capable of interdimensional travel, surely he could handle one measly brain. I’ll even take a second hand one, I'm not picky! Can I come with you?”

Steve resisted the urge to point out that her figuring out all on her own that multiple dimensions even existed was proof enough that she did, in fact, have a brain. He didn’t mind the idea of her tagging along, even if she wasn’t Robin.

“It’s fine with me,” he said, looking to Eddie, who nodded his agreement. “We should warn you though, there's a witch after us.”

“I ain’t afraid of nothing except rabies and talking to girls, which is completely normal.” The Scarecrow paused, thinking it over. “And maybe a lighted match.”

With a little finagling they managed to get her down with minimal damage. Steve held her around the waist while Eddie loosened the nail in the back of the pole, and it would have been fine, but in the heels his center of gravity was a little off, not to mention the uneven ground, so when she was set loose and suddenly he was holding all her weight, it put him off balance, sending them both sprawling to the ground.

She lost a little hay in the fall but quickly shoved it back in, rearranging it this way and that in the front of her top. Steve looked quickly away—it was like watching his sister adjust herself in her bra or something.

“What? You don’t like boobies?” The Scarecrow asked, finally done fluffing herself up.

“Not yours!”

“Well that’s just rude,” she huffed, pushing herself to her feet. She vaulted the fence, and started slowly making her way down one side of the yellow brick road.

Steve glanced up to find Eddie already above him with a hand out ready to help, and he let the other boy tug him to his feet, his skin burning where their palms touched. But Eddie accidentally pulled just a bit too hard and they wound up chest-to-chest, while Steve struggled to find his footing.

“Thanks,” Steve said softly, tongue darting out to wet his lips as his gaze flicked down to Eddie’s mouth, heart beating like a jackhammer.

“Anytime, Stevie,” Eddie whispered back, sounding just as breathless as Steve felt.

They were so close, it would take nothing at all to just lean in and—

“You dweebs comin’ or what?” The Scarecrow shouted from a few yards away.

They broke apart in surprise, sharing an awkward laugh, and hurried to catch up with their strange new friend.

“It’s Steve and Eddie, actually.”

“I’m starving.” Eddie griped for the dozenth time in the last half hour alone.

It wasn’t like Steve couldn’t sympathize, he was hungry too, but Oz didn’t exactly have a convenience store on every corner, and whining about it incessantly wasn’t helping anyone.

Even if he did find Eddie’s whining to be sort-of… cute.

God, he was in so deep.

Thankfully, as they walked, the scenery began to change and the fields that had been flanking them on either side for so long gave way to a grove of trees, and not just any trees–

“Oh!” Steve tugged on the other boy’s shirt and pointed excitedly ahead. “Eddie, look, there's a bunch of apple trees.”

Eddie curled his upper lip in disgust.

“Were you, or were you not, just complaining about our lack of food?”

“Yeah, but I was hoping for a cheeseburger or something, not… fruit.”

“Don’t be a baby,” Steve rolled his eyes as he stepped off the path, heading towards the nearest tree, and reached up to pick one of the many shiny, red, and delicious looking apples.

Before he could even register what was happening, the tree moved, a cluster of its branches wrapping around his wrist like a hand, squeezing tight.

“What do you think you’re doing?” A deep voice croaked.

A voice that seemed to be coming from The Tree.

Had Steve not faced down a demogorgon, demodogs—plural—the Mind Flayer, an entire swarm of demobats, and fucking Vecna, before, he probably would have been terrified at the prospect of a talking goddamn tree, but when he got over the initial shock he was mostly just annoyed that he couldn’t get himself free.

He wrenched and pulled but it was no use, until Eddie appeared at his side, taking hold of The Tree’s other arm—if you could call it an arm.

“Hey man, let go!” Eddie yelled at it. “You didn’t have to hurt him, we were just hungry!”

“How would you like to have someone come along and pick something off of you?!” The Tree barked.

Eddie snarled, bending back several of its smallest branches until the thing squealed in pain. It released Steve abruptly and he stumbled sideways, right into Eddie’s arms, and together they backed up to where The Scarecrow stood.

“It’s alright, Steve. You don’t want any of those apples anyway.” She said, looking down her nose at the offending plant. Er, creature?

Whatever.

“Are you hinting my apples aren't what they ought to be?!” The Tree grunted.

“That depends, are they supposed to have little green worms?”

“Get out of here or I’ll–”

“You’ll what? Grow at me?” She taunted.

The Tree growled, struggling in place and waving its branches at her.

The Scarecrow stuck her tongue out, blowing a raspberry at it, and pulled the boys away by their collars.

They were only a short distance away when she stopped on a dime, whirling back around to face the small orchard. “Get bent by a stiff breeze you weeping willow!”

“What are you doing?!” Steve hissed.

“Getting you some apples, duh,” She shot back. “Come on, catch!”

Steve turned, and sure enough The Tree, along with several of its brethren, were now hurling perfectly ripe apples straight at them. He caught as many as he could, cradling them in the front of his shirt until he couldn’t hold anymore, while The Scarecrow hid behind him.

Eddie, for his part, tried his best, but sports had never been his thing, and it showed. He wound up on hands and knees chasing after a few of the fruits that had rolled away in the soft grass.

The other boy was only out of sight for a moment, but Steve’s heart still dropped when he called out from behind a tall shrub.

Steve rounded the overgrowth in an instant, bracing for whatever new threat had come to find them. He was prepared for a lot of things, a pack of rabid bunnies perhaps, or a sentient rose bush, what he wasn’t prepared to see was a girl made out of tin, and not just any girl—Nancy.

“Nance?”

“I�� don’t think that's her name.” The Scarecrow said, circling the other girl’s still form. “I’ve heard of these things. She’s a Tin Woodswoman!”

Steve stared. The girl was frozen like a statue with one arm held aloft wielding an ax, and though she couldn't blink or move her head, her pleading eyes were looking right at him, following him wherever he went.

Suddenly, a sound much like a squeaky wheel came from between her unmoving lips.

“Was that… did you try to say something?” Steve asked.

“Ooooooool ca,” The Tin Woman tried again. “oooooooooil–ca”

Steve snapped his fingers. “Oil can! She said oil can!” It didn’t take long to find the small container with its built-in dispenser stashed behind a nearby tree trunk. “Where should we oil her first?”

“You should probably get her consent before you start in on all that.” Eddie muttered.

“Eddie,” Steve glowered. “Be serious.”

“Not that I know much about these things, but maybe start with her mouth so she can talk?” The Scarecrow suggested.

“Right.” Steve aimed the end of the spout, dispensing a small amount of the liquid to the corners of her mouth.

Within seconds the oil went to work and her lips loosened. “Oh thank goodness I can talk again. Can you oil my arms next, my elbows?” The Tin Woman said.

Steve worked quickly, lubricating all of her joints, but still her one arm was stuck up in the air. Seeing her struggle, Eddie grabbed it and yanked. The limb finally fell, axe and all, the sound of it like an old car door being forced open.

Eddie grimaced. “Oh shit! Sorry, did that hurt?”

“No, it feels so much better, I’ve been holding that ax up for ages.” The Tin Woman assured him, taking a few tentative steps. She only creaked a little.

“What happened to you?” Eddie asked.

“Misread the forecast. About a year ago I came out to cut a tree down when it started to rain. I rusted solid—mid-chop!”

Curious, Steve continued to examine her, wondering what enabled her to walk and talk. Not that it was any weirder than The Scarecrow, really. He knocked on her middle, the sound reverberating like a drum.

“Wow! What an echo! How’d you pull that off?” The Scarecrow asked.

“It always sounds like that.” The Tin Woman shrugged. “I guess the tinsmith forgot to give me a heart.”

The Scarecrow gasped, “no heart?!”

“No heart,” The Tin Woman sighed, hanging her head. “It’s not that I mind not having one exactly, they are easily breakable from what I understand. It's just that, well, it makes me come off kinda cold, y'know?”

Now, this wasn’t Nancy, Steve knew that, but damned if he hadn’t had the same thought about her once or twice after she’d so thoroughly crushed him, calling him and his love bullshit that night in the bathroom at Tina’s Halloween party—and the betrayal that had come after.

Heartless.

He knew it wasn’t strictly true. Those were the thoughts of a boy who’d had his heart stomped on by the first girl he’d ever given it to. Nancy had the capacity to love, and fiercely. He’d seen it in the way she protected the people she cared about, willing to do anything to keep them safe—including him. She just didn’t love him in the romantic way. It had taken him a long time to accept that, to be okay with it and get over her, but as he looked into Eddie’s eyes over the top of The Tin Woman’s pointed funnel hat, he knew it’d all been for the best.

Nancy had a heart, she just didn’t always know how to show it, and he was willing to bet this Tin Woman had one too.

“You should come with us!” The Scarecrow said.

The Tin Woman tilted her head. “Where are you going?”

“We’re going to see a wizard! Eddie—that’s the long haired one.” The scarecrow leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. “And Steve here are trying to get home. I'm in the market for some brains, and I’m sure the wizard could manage a heart for you too!”

“Do you really believe he’ll get you home?” The Tin Woman asked, turning to Steve.

“I hope so, we’ve come such a long way already.” He said.

A shrill cackling laughter filled the air, and in a plume of red smoke The Wicked Witch appeared out of nowhere, atop the roof of a nearby log cabin.

“Long? You call that long? Why, you’ve only just begun!” She sneered down at them, turning her attention on the two newest members of their little party. “And you two lovely ladies, helping them along are you?”

“Yeah, what of it?!” The Scarecrow taunted.

“Stay away from them, or I'll stuff a mattress with you!”

“And you—” The Witch paused, pointing the tip of her broom down at the Tin Woman. “I'll use you for a beehive.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” The Tin Woman growled.

“Oh, the crumpled up wad of aluminum foil wants to play with fire, huh? Let’s see how your highly flammable friend fares against this—” The Wicked Witch raised her hand palm up, conjuring up a fist full of flame that she hurled at their feet.

The Scarecrow shrieked and threw herself to the side, even Steve and Eddie shrank back from the heat of it, but The Tin Woman, who had nothing to fear from a little unfriendly fire, quickly put it out, using her hat to smother the blaze. By the time it was done, The Wicked Witch was gone.

“You weren’t kidding about a witch being after you!” The Scarecrow said.

“About that,” Steve began, rubbing the back of his neck. “I think it would be best if Eddie and I traveled the rest of the way alone. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to either of you because of us.”

The Scarecrow narrowed her eyes. “Not a chance. I'll see you safely to the Wizard, whether I get a brain or not.”

“Me too!” The Tin Woman agreed.

Not long after their confrontation with The Wicked Witch, they continued on their journey down the yellow brick road, where their surroundings changed yet again. The scattered trees thickened into dense woods, dark where the canopy blocked out most of the sun, and the air was filled with the sinister sounds of unfamiliar wildlife.

“I know I said I wasn’t afraid, but I don't like this forest. It’s dark and creepy.” The Scarecrow said.

Steve shrugged, bumping his shoulder against Eddie’s. “We've seen worse. Anything is better than a sky full of demobats, right?”

“What’s a demobat?” The Scarecrow asked.

“It’s like a regular bat,” Steve began. “Except… not at all? They’re bigger than you might think, with gray leathery flesh, and wings, and these long tails they like to choke you with. Their mouths are small but don’t let that fool you, they’re full of razor sharp teeth.”

Eddie glanced at him sideways, a crooked grin playing on his mouth and a light blush spreading across his face. “I dunno, Harrington. I’d pay good money to see you take a bite out of one of those little fuckers again.”

Steve grinned back, cheeks burning under Eddie’s attention. “That so, Munson?”

The Tin Woman gaped at them. “What is wrong with you two?”

If possible, Steve’s face grew even hotter, but as luck would have it a series of bellowing roars sounded off in the distance, and their flirtation, if it was indeed that, was quickly forgotten.

“What was that?” The Scarecrow whisper-shouted.

“Lions?” Eddie guessed.

Deep growls filled the forest next.

The Tin Woman hung onto the Scarecrow’s arm. “And tigers.”

Steve strained to listen for what else might be out there, and heard a long huff and a distinct gnashing of teeth. “And bears.”

“That doesn’t seem right, all in the same woods?” Eddie murmured skeptically. “Lions, and tigers, and bears?”

“Oh shit.” Steve shouted as something came barreling out of the trees and onto the path, coming straight for them.

They all reared back, cowering away from the oncoming threat and The Tin Woman stumbled in the process, dropping her axe to the brick road with a clang.

Steve scrambled to pick up the fallen weapon, twirling it out of habit as he took up a spot in front of his people, stepping between them and the overgrown stuffed toy who for whatever reason seemed to mean them harm. In hindsight he should have known better than to expect Eddie to stay back with the others and let him handle it, for as much as the guy liked to call himself a runner and a coward, not once had he backed down from a fight when the safety of his friends was in question.

Now being a prime example.

Armed with nothing more than Steve’s tied-together discarded sneakers, which he was swinging around wildly like every teen boy who saw The Karate Kid in theaters and decided to try their hand at nunchucks, Eddie joined Steve at his side, facing their foe head on.

“Put ‘em up, put ‘em up!” The Lion sneered.

Steve was pretty sure he’d had footie pajamas that looked like this guy once.

Mid swing, the laces on Steve’s sneakers came loose from their knot, and one of the shoes went flying out of Eddie’s hands, beaming the lion right in the forehead with a loud smack.

The beast’s paws flew to his head, cradling it as he began to cry hysterically. “What’d you do that for, I didn’t bite him!”

Eddie furrowed his brow, looking from the pathetic sobbing creature to Steve and back again. “Were you… going to bite him?”

“...No?”

Steve scoffed.

The lion moved his giant mitts from his face, tilting it up into the light. “I-Is my nose bleeding?”

“It would serve you right if it was!” The Scarecrow scolded.

Now that Steve had a better look at the guy, he realized he’d seen The Lion’s eyes somewhere before. He peered closer, squinting into the oddly humanoid looking face when it clicked.

He looked back at Eddie and mouthed, ‘Jonathan.’

Eddie snorted.

“Hey, can’t you see he’s just scared?” The Tin Woman said, pushing them both gently aside. She gazed down at The Lion with a telling softness in her eyes, and took up the end of his tail, drying his tears with it. “There now, that’s better.”

He blinked up at her in awe. “I-I’m sorry.”

She patted his hand and smiled. “Now, do you want to tell us what that was all about?”

“Oh, I'm just a stupid coward is all.”

“I don’t know about that,” Steve cut in. “I mean, you did come after the four of us all by yourself.”

“Naw, that’s not being brave. I saw you coming and I got scared, like I always do, and decided to lash out first before you could do the same to me. If I was really brave I'd have just come out and said hello.”

“Well, no harm done I guess, but we should really get going.” Steve said.

“But we can’t just leave him here all alone.” The Tin Woman insisted. “What if we brought him along? Maybe The Wizard can help him too. Even if not, the world is much less terrifying when you’re not alone.”

Steve couldn’t help but look Eddie’s way at that, feeling the truth of her words in his soul. They’d been through so much together since their fraught beginnings at the boathouse—made countless trips into the Upside Down before it’d been destroyed, faced Vecna and his hoard of monsters, twice, and it’d all been that much easier to bear because they’d been together.

Eddie nodded as if he’d heard all of Steve’s innermost thoughts though he hadn’t said a thing out loud, and he knew they were on the same page.

“The more the merrier, I guess.”

Before long they reached the edge of the forest, which opened up into a sprawling meadow full of bright flowers in shades of red, pink, purple, and orange, growing right over the yellow brick road. That sight alone was enough to take Steve’s breath away, but it wasn't the only thing that caught his attention. Just on the other side of the vast ocean of blossoms was a cluster of tall brilliantly green buildings, a city, shining just like the emerald gemstones it was named for.

“There’s The Emerald City!” Steve shouted, pointing towards the horizon excitedly. “Oh, look! Eddie, we’re almost there!”

But Eddie didn’t respond, he was squatting down at the edge of the growth, eyeing the colorful blooms with suspicion.

“What is it?” Steve asked.

Eddie turned concerned eyes up at him. “Something doesn’t feel right about this, like maybe it’s some sort of trap?”

“How can flowers be a trap?”

“Well, for one thing they’re not just any flowers, they’re poppies.”

Steve crinkled his brow. “Okay…”

“Poppies? Y’know, the thing they use to make opium?”

“Oh!”

“What’s opium?” The Scarecrow asked.

“I don't think they have drugs here.” Steve said.

Eddie tilted his head thoughtfully, and shrugged. “That’s fair, no need to trip balls when you already have talking trees.”

“So what do you want to do?” Steve asked.

“I don’t like it, but it doesn’t look like we have much choice. The only way to the Emerald City is through it, so.” Eddie shook his head, pushing himself back to his feet, and reached for Steve's hand. “I guess we’ll go as quickly as we can, and hope for the best.”

The unlikely quintet formed a chain of linked hands and ran together as a unit through the vibrant meadow. At first Steve thought Eddie had been wrong, that it was just an innocent field of wildflowers, but by the time they’d reached the top of the first small hill he was gasping for air, and his legs felt like they were pushing through molasses, unusual for someone who exercised regularly, jogging at least four times a week.

“Wait, wait.” Steve panted, leaning heavily into Eddie as he tried to regain his breath.

“Steve?” Eddie looked him up and down, worrying his bottom lip.

“I can’t run anymore, I–I’m,” Steve cut himself off with a yawn. “I’m so sleepy.” He wobbled in place, knees going weak. The other boy caught him around the middle, lowering him gently to the ground.

“What’s wrong with him?” The Scarecrow asked.

“I don’t know.” Eddie said, studying his face as he hovered over him, eyes wild with panic.

“I have to rest for just a minute.” Steve babbled, knowing it sounded ridiculous. They were so close to their destination, he could practically see the individual windows on the buildings of the Emerald City, and suddenly he wanted to take a nap? Something wasn’t right, but he couldn't seem to fight it.

The Lion yawned loudly. “Now that you mention it, catching a few winks doesn’t sound like a bad idea.” He swayed on his feet, kept upright only by The Tin Woman’s grip on him.

The next thing Steve knew, Eddie was gently prying his eyelids open, though he didn’t remember closing them. “Fuck, I knew something was off about these flowers. It’s that damn Wicked Witch, it has to be!”

Not that Steve was paying much attention to what he said, because god was Eddie pretty like this—his big brown eyes even larger and more beautiful up close, so dreamy, with his dark curls hanging down around him like a curtain.

Eddie's lips parted in surprise as his hands still cradled Steve’s face. “What did you just say?”

Oh shit, in his tired stupor had he actually said some of that out loud?

“Eddie, I–” Steve managed to force out, but Eddie swayed above him, eyes rolling back in his head for a moment before he tipped sideways, falling gracelessly to the ground beside him.

It was becoming harder and harder to keep his eyes open, and Steve knew it was only a matter of time before he succumbed to the magical sleep that was pulling him under. He turned his head and found Eddie looking at him too, doing the same long blinks, both of them fighting a losing battle.

With his last bit of strength Steve reached out, and Eddie reached too, clasping their hands between their bodies, fingers entwining with practiced ease like they were made to fit together.

As Steve’s eyes slipped shut there was another thunk nearby, the distinct sound of a body hitting the ground, something he had unfortunately heard enough times to know, and could only assume The Lion must have been felled by the same thing that’d gotten them.

The last thing he heard as his consciousness faded away, were the terrified shouts of The Scarecrow and The Tin Woman calling out for help.

Thanks again to @pearynice and @hitlikehammers for all your help with this!

Chapter 3 (coming 4/27)

Chapter 4 (coming 4/28)

Let me know if you'd like to be tagged in the next chapter(s)!

#i am fucking rolling on the floor #this is so god damn funny #this has no fucking right to be this funny #it's HILARIOUS #but also shit it's getting me right in the god damn heart #I adore this #i love it so much #AND THAT ENDING?????#AAAAAHHHHH!!!!

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penny00dreadful · 20 hours

Text

roll for time-for-sex-in-the-beemer

Because Steve is right there to indulge Eddie in a backseat quickie indulge Eddie in a second pre-campaign-launch quickie help Eddie get his DM groove back, right?

or: Eddie didn't think 'happy' was in the cards for people like him. (Spoiler alert: he was wrong.)

✨CW: explicit content / NSFW✨

I Could Be Your Nurse (or something)

Or: Five Times Eddie Has To Ask For Help, Plus One Time He Doesn’t Need It Anymore (but asks anyway) ✨ for @penny00dreadful 💜

<<< four: play 🎶

👑 🐍 five: climb 💦 🎲

It actually was kinda weird, the first time Eddie thought about it; weird in the best possible way but nonetheless weird: how just grinding dicks—not even unzipped, just through the denim—blows every other sexual, or hell, even not-quite-sexual-mostly-just-sensual encounter Eddie’s ever had before March: blows it out of the water. Bar none; no contest.

Like, he’d always basically categorized sex as increasing in both pleasure and quality-of-end-product as the clothes came off. Not that he had a wealth of experience, especially not in places or circumstances where there was much opportunity for clothes to come off so much as shoved just out of the way and tugged back up before the chance of sticking a little to the inside of your own fly was entirely off the table but like, he read a lot. He had a stash of mags under his bed like any other guy. And he listened to gossip, of course he did; there had to be some upside to being one of two polar opposites in high school: the center of attention, or part of the furniture.

But like, there was a reason porn wasn’t done clothed.

So, or else he figures: what makes the reality of this—back of the Beemer, panting enough to steam the windows, Steve’s palm braces on Eddie’s chest and that’s like, kinda how they always end up, no matter the place or position, one hand on a chest not like Eddie’s previous partners, yanking him from the hips, but more like bracing, balancing more than just their weight, more than just bodies, this unspoken intimacy where when it’s Steve’s hand on Eddie’s chest he’s keep Eddie steady so he can fucking soar, and Steve just wants to feel it as it happens, Steve just lights up and comes alive in whole new ways like it’s a privilege and what the fuck, y’know, but it’s that and then second, except how could it ever be considered second, but it’s secondary how Steve uses that hand as leverage to grind them just right, the lengths of them caught deliberate, a planned sort of taunting in how they’re both wholly dressed, not even a top button popped and Jesus fuck is is everything—but Eddie figures that this, and so much else, is wholly believable as more and better and bigger and right beyond anything he’s ever known before this, and them, even without a stitch of clothing removed—it boils down to the singular fact of his boyfriend, the love of his fucking life, Steve goddamn Harrington, who rewrites every rule there could ever be.

“Not gonna be able to hold on if you keep going, babe,” Eddie keens, cants up so the perfectly-painful strain of his cock presses into where he knows the vein of Steve’s own dick throbs in those sinful goddamn jeans, even before Steve gasps for it, then groans so low that Eddie has to throw his head back against the window where Steve’s shoved both their coats for cushion; so deep that Eddie has to clench his teeth close to cracking and yes, fuck yes he whines a little for it; is so far past being embarrassed by it for both the arousal coursing through him and causing the goddamn problem in the first place, and the comfort he has in all of this, with this man pressed against him: there’s so very little he has left to be embarrassed about, and fuck: even less of a reason for it, because even when he’s at his most humiliating, he gets to feel loved.

And that’s just fucking wild, man.

Which is probably how Eddie processes what happens next in slow-motion with at least a five second delay: puts together based wholly on sensation when Steve only answers not by stopping, because they’re in the high school parking lot and yeah, sure, it’s the back lot, all the sports have away games, save for the basketball team who’s basically locked in the weight room for the next half-hour, it’s long enough after the last bell that everything’s cleared out save for clubs and Hellfire had delayed their session on account of the aforementioned basketball commitments because sometimes Eddie learns his goddamn lessons: but no. No: Steve doesn’t stop even though they don’t have fucking changes of clothes and Eddie’s gonna, he is gonna—

Nope: Steve slips down, wedges the base of his dick somehow into the seats beneath them and presses hard, holds himself back as he yanks Eddie’s zipper down and slides a warm hand practiced straight into Eddie’s boxers, coaxes him like a goddamn pro through the flap while it nearly sends Eddie over the edge just for his touch save Steve pinches the head the slightest bit to keep him there, just there at the edge until he doesn’t grab Eddie’s hips, more slips his hand right under the globes of Eddie’s ass and lifts Eddie’s dribbling cock in between Steve’s ready lips and let’s go of the pressure beneath the crown, lets his thumb drag that ridge so Eddie jerks for it before he starts jerking full-body, hit straight down Steve’s throat and holy goddamn shit.

Eddie’s only left uncovered from the middle of his dick, all Steve needs to suck him dry before they collect themselves to leave the car but Jesus H. fucking Christ: Steve’s kinda fucking everything lays Eddie wholly bare every time, and Eddie never expected that kind of nakedness to feel so sweet, but.

Y’know. Steve Harrington. Just out here rewriting all the rules.

And Steve, Jesus fuck: but Steve licks at the slit after he’s cleaned Eddie just spit-damp with his mouth, then he kisses the very tip before he tucks Eddie back in, zips Eddie back up, then slides all graceful-like up Eddie’s chest to kiss him on the lips this time, lets Eddie taste himself before he reaches to fluff his hair—and it bounces right back into place, too, goddamn him—and pop the lock on the door as he shuffles off of Eddie’s thighs and lands on his feet the stretch just outside the car, groan when he gets his back to pop just right and wink at Eddie with a grin before he tugs his shirt into place, adjusts his own not-at-all-flagging hard-on, and shakes a familiar key ring in Eddie’s direction where, yes: he’s still boneless on the back seat catching his breath, and apparently still operating on delay because it takes arguably too-long of a time to notice that those keys are his, and Steve swiped them sometime between crawling on top of him and sucking him dry.

And he’s now on his way to the back of Eddie’s van to get the supplies they’d packed in there, that Eddie’d protested shoving into the backseat he’s currently occupying.

Jesus.

Eddie hauls himself up to sitting and squints at Steve’s ass—yep, his own keys are in the back pocket, hard to fucking miss—before he pulls himself out of the car and locks the doors behind him, then makes to help Steve unpack the little extras he’s prepared, scenery and shit made of cardboard and science fair trifolds. He slides up next to Steve, who’s delicately stacking the poster boards that’d been propped near the curve of the wheel-well, and reaches for the mass-ass camping backpack Steve had got for all his various supplies with enough separate zippers to keep all his dice and manuals and miniatures safe and separate and yes indeed: Steve had gotten so many fucking blowjobs that weekend as a thank you that Eddie wasn’t sure his jaw was gonna survive it, but hell if it wasn’t more than deserved for his gratitude.

“Careful,” Steve warns in the now with a glare when Eddie knocks the bulk of the bag against the other pieces as he drags it with enough force to sling it over his shoulder; “you’re gonna fold ‘em!”

“It’s fine,” Eddie huffs and shakes his head, grabs what he can of the smaller cardboard builds before he fears he’ll start dropping them; “makes ‘em look rugged.”

It’s only once he’s got almost too many stones piled into a hollow-box tavern mock-up that he notices how still and silent Steve’s gone, and looks up, concern first at the front of his mind but—

Then he sees Steve’s face. That’s his bitch face.

The concern kinda does stay in place but, it shifts significantly.

“We legitimately took two vehicles here because you said they couldn’t fit in the back without, like, creasing them or something,” Steve narrows his eyes at Eddie, tone flat.

“Ah ah ah,” Eddie picks up quick because this, this he actually has a very honest and ironclad answer to: “you may wish to revisit your recollections, my dearest beloved,” and Eddie risks falling flat on his face and crushing all the shit he worked so hard on just to smack a kiss to Steve’s frowning cheek while they’re still hidden from view by the van doors;

“I believe I said wouldn’t fit in your backseat,” as in, he refused to do so; “which was wholly true,” because he’s very bad at lying to Steve, established fact;

“Because I had other, much more important plans for your backseat,” and if he meets a little at the still-slightly-foggy windows, like only if you knew to look and suspect and Eddie did in fact knowvery nearly drop all his shit this time when he feels the sharp nudge of something long and thin against his ass.

He swings his head back around to see Steve holding all the poster boards in a stack, and swinging them back to hit Eddie’s ass again.

“What,” Steve deadpans; “you want them to look rugged.”

And Steve overtakes him, walks right past and fails at stifling a snort as he flicks the poster boards back against Eddie’s shins in the process and, and…

It’s like this, right: there is not a single red blooded human person with a pulse and a sex drive who hasn’t caught a glimpse of Steve Harrington and imagined, Eddie is convinced of that. The straight men and the lesbians, sure, they don’t imagine long, and they probably think about it all very differently, but Eddie doesn’t even think he’s being biased, here. Seeing Steve Harrington jumpstarts ideas what his hair smells like (sweet, so long as the aerosol’s faded), how his moles feel to touch (delicate, like little kisses of something that holds you before you’re born but these marks stick around; better question would be how they taste), whether there are flecks in his eyes (so many), how he treats his dates (The Harrington Experience was legendary, after all), what kind of husband he’d be—

Okay, fine, but Eddie was clear: just because he’s firm in his belief that everyone imagines, he never said he was some exception; that he didn’t ever imagine the same.

But Eddie was an exception, on at least some level, because when it came to thinking about dating, about relationships—which it almost never went that far, he wasn’t so delusional: because people like him didn’t get happily ever after, but then fuck—people like him didn’t get happily. People like him got maybe a number scrawled on a napkin for when you’re back in town, that even connected to a real person half the time; people like him got a preferred back alley less trash-drowned than the others, and people like him, no matter what other reliefs or tastes of something got collected, built up toward a word like real if only real-for-now: all of it was rooted in wholly logical fear, closer to fucking terror when the high faded and the booze left your system. People like him didn’t get…this.

Because Eddie thinks the bubble of joyful, chaotic bliss between his ribs has to be made of something heretofore unknown to man, because it’s squeezes through the spaces in the cage more and more every day for how big and full and bright it’s growing but it never bursts, just sends little current of warm and right and, and love through him to beat through his veins with every swell of the feeling, lasting whole-on until the next press of more against those ribs to let a new wave consume him. Eddie never dreamed it could be joyful. But more than that:

Eddie never dreamed, never even dared to have the passing thought, that he could have love, and it could be playful, like normal people, like smacking the ass of your partner with a stupid little poster board because he contrived to leave your backseat free for a car-quickie.

And for the way Steve glances back at him where he still stands a little dumbfounded and starstruck for it all, his heart throbbing heavy and filling up that bubble of blissfulness with every pump; the way Steve looks back at him not wholly different, wide-eyed and beaming awestruck, Eddie thinks maybe this is the Steve Experience, the real one, and maybe it surprises Steve to have found something so damn precious, too.

He trips over his own feet a little to catch up to Steve, who waits for him, and they walk together the rest of the way into the high school, shoulder brushing innocent but deliberate, Steve holding the door.

Eddie ducks his head and bites his lip, no hands free to hide behind his curls: it’s all just kinda…magic.

He glances at the clock when they close the drama room door behind them—Eddie has permission to use it, because Eddie had permission for a lot of things this year; the school wanted to be assholes about granting his degree while recovering, but the Feds forced them to let him try one more time, even if the technical limit was three-strikes, and they had to be fair, Eddie even had an overseer from the Department of Education to make sure everything was above board and, in all honesty, he likes that DoE better than…the other one.

But either way: the clock’s broken, still, hasn’t been fixed in his absence as he walks in for this first campaign after…after everything. He grabs Steve’s hand, checks his watch and nods; okay.

Okay, he can do this. This being setting up, and then…then also more than just the setting up.

But if he's learned anything these past months? One thing at a time, man. Baby steps.

He gets to work, moves smoother now than he honestly expected, getting most of his dexterity back, just more sore more often. He brought his baby Dragon Slayer to give the bard some extra oomph, finally able to hold his guitars long enough to play a short fucking set, thinks he’s close to a full length show when everyone’s ready, if they’re ready. Another thing he’s learned is some patience—at least, as it counts for someone like him. Who started with negative patience points, basically.

And so he flits around, sets up the table, asks for a hand up onto his long-missed throne just in case is balance fails him—he’s pretty confident, and he hasn’t wobbled in a bit but like hell he’s going to compromise the work he’s put in here to have everything just so; that Steve’s put it at his side because he knew as well as Eddie where things were meant to go and there it goes again, the warm joy filling up his heart to beat through his every limb—Steve’s hand in his as he climbs to the vantage and appraises the stage: perfect.

He sighs, and squeezes Steve’s hand as he drops down and sighs.

“Think they’ll be okay with it?” Eddie asks, a little breathless as leans back to survey the table again from the lower vantage point.

“Eds,” Steve keeps hold of his hand but swings up behind him, puts hands on his shoulders and grips tight and talks just below his ear: “they’re gonna be over the goddamn moon, man.”

And Eddie grins, because he’s, he thinks he did pretty good but he’s still, he’s just, it’s just…still—

“I,” he sucks at his bottom lip and rolls his weight back into Steve’s body behind him from right, almost like a lean into his warmth:

“It’s only a oneshot though,” which is true. And which is shorthand for all the ways he’s afraid this, the story, the set up, the concept—him, now, how he is and what if he’s less now, what if he can’t do this or maybe even worse: what if he can’t do it the same and then he’s a whole different kind failure because they know what he used to be and can see the decline, the knock-off version that’s left, he’s rusty and anxious, yeah, but what if he’s just not able anymore, even at his very best and they’ll smile and they’ll stay and they won’t say shit but Eddie will be able to see it, see the pity and the disappointment and—

“Which is better anyway because it’s almost Christmas break,” Steve reminds him, in fact, uses his own words; “you said yourself that two weeks between is a blow to the narrative momentum and compromises the structure of—“

And then Eddie’s pulling him from his hand, over the back of the chair and yeah, it pulls weird as shit and kinda hurts but it’s worth it, more than worth it to catch Steve’s lips just so, to suck at the sweet.

“I love when you’ve listened enough to my rambling that you can talk nerdy to me,” Eddie exhales with a unquenchable grin and Steve matches it, Eddie relishes the feeling of the stretch of his lips for it;

“I always listen to your rambling,” Steve says like it’s simple fact and Eddie can’t help but chuckle, kinda marveling.

“Doesn’t bore you?” Eddie asks; thinks he knows the answer as he strikes a thumb along Steve’s cheekbone.

“It matters to you, and that’s matters to me,” Steve sighs, leans into Eddie’s gentle touch and says it all so simple. “You love it,” and Steve reaches, catches Eddie’s hand now and kisses his knuckles before he goes to playing with Eddie’s rings and murmurs low:

“You look good in love,” and Steve’s not meeting his eyes because they’re not talking about a game at all.

But that means Eddie isn’t going to stand for not looking Steve straight on, letting him see the full extent of how Eddie’s heart belongs to him in pull, before he draws Steve in for a gentler, deeper kiss as he whispers between their lips:

“Flatterer.”

And Steve laughs a little, kisses back as tender but volleys the point like a pro:

“Don’t think I don’t know you asked Lucas to teach you about basketball.”

Eddie pouts dramatically, but it has very little effect when their lips are still pressed close.

“Little fuckin’ snitch,” Eddie huffs, and glares at the seat set aside for the elder Sinclair; “his character dies early, then, that’s handy.”

“He didn’t say shit,” Steve chides, grinning, nuzzling the nip of his nose to Eddie’s; “which is how I knew. He’s the only one of those dipshits that could keep their mouth shut. Plus the obvious option, in terms of experience, but then suddenly you know what a fucking free throw is?” Steve tsks playfully. “Does not take a Dustin Henderson to puzzle that one out, babe.”

And Eddie does smile at that, can’t keep up a ruse of annoyance as he swings Steve around by his hand to hold him to his side over the arm of the chair, leaning into him maybe a little too heavy, probably a little too telling but: Steve would pick up on his mood, read his mind either way.

More rewritten rules, and that’s shit.

“Hey,” Steve leans and kisses the crown of Eddie’s head through his curls; “they’re gonna love it.”

“But it’s,” Eddie starts, because he’s still unsure, even if the doubts are shrinking with every ounce of warmth bleeding into him Steve’s side pressed against him.

“They,” Steve cuts in, and squeezes Eddie closer; “are gonna love it.”

And it’s so…absolute. Steve doesn’t even allow space for it to be questioned. Eddie…feels really fucking grateful for that certain hand, just now. It steadies him. Helps him breathe deeper.

Then Steve’s climbing over him, settling in Eddie’s lap with his legs spread around him, knees hooking near the bends of Eddie’s own.

“I know you don’t like dwelling on it,” Steve’s gaze flits all around Eddie’s face; “but Eds, this is as good as you’ve ever done, if I understand any of it,” and Eddie reaches up to tuck Steve’s hair behind his ear even if it’s not styled to lie there, a comfort and a reassurance—Eddie loves how much Steve’s come to actually get so much of the game.

“But the fact that you’re still here, to do it,” and Steve’s tone doesn’t get more serious, but the beat of his heart bleeds into it, dips extra solemn before he tries to smile, and doesn’t even fail the attempt: “fuck, man, you could ask them to play fucking Yahtzee with the big dice and they’d be over the moon.”

And Eddie? He fucking snorts. Full body, fall straight into Steve chest and cackles.

“I,” he tries to catch his breath; “it feels kinda sacrilege but,” and he shakes his head between Steve’s legs because he can:

“I kinda want to figure out the rules for Yahtzee with a d20.”

“Maybe for April Fool’s,” Steve suggests and it sets Eddie off all over again.

“Holy fuck, that’s insane and brilliant,” Bevause it is, but then Eddie breathes deep, settles, and he’s still held tight to Steve’s chest so the only thing he can say is:

“I am so in love with you.”

And then the only thing he can do is thread a hand around the back of Steve’s head, tug at the hair and kiss him so goddamn hard. With everything he’s got.

“Also,” Steve adds, a little extra breathy when they break for air, foreheads tipped together; “don’t act like there’s not a whole notebook with ideas for the full campaign you're planning to start for them in January.”

“It’s epic,” Eddie agrees, but like even that’s not foolproof, not quite enough; “it has to be, because it’ll be my last—“ and Eddie doesn’t love saying it out loud. Admitting that he is on the road to graduation, ‘87 is gonna be his year, but leaving this, leaving all of them—

“You know they’re family, right?” and of course Steve feels it emanating from him, knows him that well, reaches to hold his face, to cup his cheeks and draw his gaze.

“You’re graduating,” and there’s a thrill in how he says it so sure, a fact to plan your life around, that he’s planning around, for the two of them; “and you’ll pass the club on, but the kids are our family,” and Eddie knows, he knows but…hearing that, too, is something he needs, means something so big for the undeniable truth of it, the way they’ll all live and grow and never not be in each other’s lives no matter where they end up—

“And I think your friends are warming up to me, especially the guys in the band,” Steve adds, hopeful, like there’s a question—

“The band adores you,” Eddie says without hesitation. “Dougie feels weird saying as much, and Gareth’s confused about it,” he concedes, because those boys aren’t great with emotion generally; “but they kinda think the world of you.”

Steve takes a beat to look dumbstruck, then his smile, so cute and little and…oh he’s gorgeous. Eddie wants to eat him, Eddie wants to tuck him straight inside his chest.

“That’s,” Steve swallows, soft and beautiful; “that’s good.”

“The rest of the group would probably marry your ass just for the baked goods,” Eddie tags on with a grin; “so they’re sold on you too,” and when Steve eyes him dubiously Eddie snorts and doubles down:

“Once they know you better, you’ll have ‘em asking you to prom before you know it.”

Steve chuckles and shakes his head, holds Eddie a little tighter before he replies : “The only person I’m saying yes to,” and he speaks so low: “is already right here.”

And Eddie…Eddie doesn’t think he’s being entirely delusional to think that answer’s speaking to more than…prom.

And Eddie can’t help but kiss him more, pull him close, deeper, chest to chest and devour—

“Nope,” Steve pulls back suddenly, and Eddie whines; “we agreed,” he eyes Eddie sternly, holds back his attempt to renegade with a palm on his chest: “unless we have a full fifteen minutes before they show or—“

“A locked door,” Eddie sighs; “yes.” That was the rule. Neither of them relished being caught in the act by the D&D club.

“Won’t be the first time I’ve DM’d with a boner because of you,” Eddie shrugs, and Steve’s eyebrow reaches impressive heights.

“Told you I had a crush forever,” Eddie grins, and just shrugs again because really, that’s it.

And Eddie didn’t intend for the truth to have the effect that is does but when Steve grabs onto him at the hips and tilts just so, fucking growls—

“Fuck it,” and presses down a little, like he’s surveying the lay of the fucking land and then grinds hard and gives his estimation: “think you’re close enough,” well.

It’s not like Eddie is complaining about breaking their rule, here. As if he would ever.

“Holy fuck,” Eddie gasps as Steve crawls off of him and starts to undo his jeans, again: “am now, baby.”

And Steve smirks so fucking sly; the both know they’re on borrowed time and they’re pushing the boundaries of getting caught but, but—

“An exhibitionist streak,” Steve purrs as he works Eddie out to the root of him, holds him as his dick twitches hard; “I like it.”

“Don’t act like it wasn’t obvious,” Eddie grits through clenched teeth, his head thrown back; he cannot help it—

“Not for this,” Steve counters, but ducks to lick at Eddie’s tip, judge his angle as Eddie rasps:

“Only ‘cause it’s not safe, here,” at the school, in the town, in the whole goddamn world, with the way he is—

“But I’m always safe with you.”

Eddie doesn’t even mean for it to come out, let alone as starry-eyed and reverent as it still manages while he’s already panting but: again with the rules, and how they’re different, now.

Also Eddie cannot lie to Steve to save his life, so: also that.

But it does its job, whether intentional or otherwise and between blinks Eddie’s dick is at the back of Steve’s throat, twitching, needy and desperate like he didn’t just come down in less than an hour ago. And he spills quick enough to be laughable, really, given the givens.

“Holy Jesus fuck,” he gasps with his head tipped back against the wooden line of his drama-prop throne.

“Good?” Steve asks, innocent as hell save for the way he licks his lips as he watches Eddie through his lashes, and gives himself away: he knows exactly what he’s doing.

“I think that answers it’s fucking self, Steven,” Eddie huffs, still too breathless for more than a shove but Steve laughs, stands and straightens his shirt while Eddie zips himself back up and tries to, you know. Breathe air correctly?

The fuck, man.

Then, once his pulse has calmed so he can hear the world around him, even if he’s still floating on that hazy orgasm high even a quickie with Steve send him on, he hears it:

Rubber soles on cheap-ass school tiles.

Fuck. Fuck, yeah, okay, Eddie sees it. They had that rule for a reason.

The quickly-approaching shitheads being the reason.

But Steve? Head enforcer of said rule? He’s cool as a cucumber, pats Eddie’s shoulder with a smirk that Eddie tries to scowl at but fails, still too up on that come-high, then he presses that smirk against Eddie’s temple and melts him all over again, the devil:

“I’ll go ask them to help haul in the drinks,” he shakes his head like it’s nothing, all in a day’s work; “give you an extra couple seconds,” and he nods down at Eddie’s thankfully limp-dicked crotch before he kisses Eddie’s cheek this time and squeezes his thigh to Eddie’s involuntary moan:

“Love you,” and then he’s striding toward the door at the far end of the room.

“How’d you learn to do that?” Eddie calls when he’s halfway there and Steve stills, turns with a tilted head.

“Hmm?”

“Have a stiffy in those fucking jeans,” Bevause Eddie could feel it, and can squint to see, and Steve hasn’t come once this afternoon, oh god, he’s a horrible selfish boyfriend isn’t he, but also he’s curious to a painful, near lethal fault so, so:

“How do you do it, and still strut like that?”

Steve turns fully for a second, crosses his arms and surveys Eddie from the distance like actual royalty sizing up their hoard. Tickled fucking pink . And then he’s walking to the door again, but now before tossing over his shoulder:

“I’m not the only one who’s been stuck with a hard-on in this shithole and had to manage the rest of a lunch period after somebody, I dunno,” he shrugs, but his grin’s too sharp; “spent his own strutting over the top of my food.”

And then, like the demon spawn he is, he leaves Eddie all alone to process the implications of that and not get painfully hard again, and this time end up stuck with it.

“Fuck me, you can’t,” Eddie splutters as he makes it to the door, palms the handle; “you can’t just drop that bomb on me and leave, I—“

Then he grins, steps through the opening, and lets the latch catch behind him, leaving Eddie open-mouthed with far too tight a fit at the crotch of his jeans.

“Steve!” he calls out for absolute fucking nothing, the room’s unintentionally almost soundproof and, and: fuck. He glances around a little desperately.

At least his DM screen will hide the damning bulge if it decides to stick around longer than Steve can keep the gremlins at bay.

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson

divider credits here & here

👾 title credit here

💫 ao3 link here

#steve dropping an absoloute bomb #and then just #WALKING OUT #like what the hell #but also fucking amazing #your honor I love them #I adore them #they are perfect #this is perfect

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penny00dreadful · 2 days

Text

For my beloved @penny00dreadful 💜🖤

My fandom bestie, writing soulmate, and one of my absolute favorite people in the entire world.

Happy (early) Birthday 🌈👠💖

Huge thanks to @pearynice and @hitlikehammers for all your help in making this story come to life!

WC: 3483 | Ch 1/4 | AO3 <-

Chapter 1: Over the Rainbow

To be perfectly honest, Steve always felt a little unsafe riding around in the van with Eddie. It wasn’t that he was a bad driver, per se, but he was definitely a distracted one, constantly needing to be reminded to keep his eyes on the road instead of the tape deck. He also tended to treat speed limits as more of a suggestion than something enforceable by law.

Tonight was no exception, the feeling of unease even worse than usual because of the storm raging outside. They shouldn’t have even been on the road in these conditions, a fact Steve had tried in vain to convince Eddie of. Hawkins was under a tornado warning for fuck’s sake! But the other boy wouldn’t hear it, their errand was too important.

They had plenty of beer, but they needed snacks.

According to Eddie there was absolutely no way they could enjoy Friday the 13th part 27, or whatever ridiculous number sequel it was that he wanted to watch, properly without the three basic food groups: Pringles, Twizzlers, and some form of chocolate.

They were having a movie night, just him and Eddie. It was no big deal, really. Steve wasn’t nervous about it at all. They’d been getting along fine since Vecna had been defeated, better than fine! They just… hadn’t spent a lot of one-on-one time together.

Typically, at least Robin, and some-or-all of the kids, would join them on a night like this, but the kids were set on going to the arcade, and Robin—who’d finally gotten over her fear of driving and managed to get her license on the first try—was taking Vickie out for what may or may not be a date, and borrowing Steve’s car to do it.

Therein lay the source of the problem, actually. It was usually Robin’s job to procure movie night snacks, and in her absence neither of them had thought to pick up the slack.

Which is what had led them to this moment.

Flying down the road at 15 miles per hour over the posted speed limit, minimum, in a fucking downpour, at night. They were just asking for a deer or some shit to come bounding across the road and then—BAM!

As if on cue, just as Steve had the thought, something did indeed dart out from the side of the road to cross in front of them. Fortunately, for once, Eddie was actually paying attention. He slammed on the brakes, simultaneously jerking the wheel, allowing them to narrowly miss hitting the poor wild animal.

Unfortunately, that combination of evasive maneuvers caused them to spin out, and sent the van careening into a ditch on the side of the road. The vehicle flipped, and Steve had just enough time to think how glad he was that they’d both been wearing their seatbelts, before something from the rear came flying up to smack him hard in the back of the head.

Steve came to slowly, blinking awake, wincing as the bright light of day attacked his retinas.

Day?

But it’d been night, hadn’t it? It was dark, and it was raining, and…

The evening before came back to him in a sudden rush. The van sliding across the road, the sickening crunch of metal as it rolled, gravity doing what gravity does. He didn't remember anything after that, but it looked like somehow they’d managed to land upright in the end at least.

He rubbed at the nape of his neck, pleasantly surprised to find no lumps, bumps, or blood, nor did he feel the telltale nausea that sometimes came with a really bad blow to the head. He wondered if Eddie–

Oh my god, Eddie!

Steve looked to the left, finding the driver's seat empty and was instantly gripped by panic. He scrambled out of the car, nearly falling on his ass in his hurry.

“Eddie?” He called out, fear churning in his gut. “Eddie?!”

He spun a circle, relief washing over him as he found the other boy only a few feet away.

Eddie was sitting on a large tree trunk, rocking ever-so-slightly back and forth, gnawing on his fingernails as he stared at the backside of the van.

“There you are! Dude, you scared the shit out of–” Steve trailed off as he rushed to Eddie’s side to see what he was looking at, and swallowed hard. It was a pair of legs in striped stockings wearing a killer pair of red heels, sticking out from under the rear tires. The shoes glittered cheerfully in the sunlight. “Oh, fuck.”

Eddie dropped his head into his hands. “I thought I swerved in time. I thought we missed it.”

“I thought it was a deer.” Steve mumbled.

Eddie cut him an annoyed glare. “Clearly not, Harrington.”

“Hey,” Steve said softly. He knew Eddie well enough by now to tell when he was scared—when he felt guilty, even if he was trying to act otherwise. “This isn’t your fault. It was an accident.”

“Yeah,” Eddie huffed. “Tell that to the cops! They thought I was a murderer once already. It’s only been a few months where I can actually be seen in public without someone calling me a devil worshiper, or worse. Now they’ll think they have proof that I really am a killer!”

“You know Hop will go to bat for you again, and I’m here. I can be a witness.”

“That’s not all.”

“It somehow gets worse than us accidentally killing some lady?”

Eddie sighed, raking a hand over his face as he rose from the stump. He turned, gesturing to something behind them, but Steve was still stuck on those legs. He couldn’t look away.

“Why the hell was someone out in shoes like that in the middle of the night anyway?” Steve mused. “It was pouring.”

“Steve, look.”

“What if we just said I was driving? Then we– “

“Steve!” Eddie gripped his upper arms, forcibly turning him around.

Steve’s eyes went wide. They were standing right on the edge of a little town. Little, not only in the way that the town itself was small in, like, area, though it was that—about the size of one city block—but for the fact that all the colorful little buildings and bungalows were miniature. The whole thing was surrounded by gardens laden with all sorts of beautiful plants, shrubs, and trees, with flowers of every shade in bloom.

“What the fuck,” Steve breathed, taking a few tentative steps into the vivid village.

“Yeah.”

“Eddie, what the fuck?! Where are we? And why is everything in technicolor?”

Eddie stepped up from behind to clap him on the back.

“I don’t think we’re in Hawkins anymore, big boy.”

Steve shot him a look over his shoulder. “What was your first clue?”

“I see where Dustin gets his tone from.” Eddie mumbled.

Steve chewed on his bottom lip. “Do you… do you think it’s like the Upside Down?”

“In the sense that it’s another dimension? Maybe, but I don't get the feeling this one has any terrifying monsters. It’s too clean. It even smells nice, like roses and shit.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. Eddie had a point, nothing about this place screamed danger. “The Upside Down always smelled like mold and rotting flesh.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

“What do we do? How do we get back?” Steve asked, not really expecting Eddie to have all the answers, but he did his best thinking out loud with company.

“No idea.”

“Should we start walking? Maybe try and find a payphone?”

Eddie scoffed. “A payphone?”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

The other boy was quiet for a moment, a rare occurrence, but eventually threw his hands up in defeat. “No, actually. So, I guess walking it is.”

Steve turned back, intending on pilfering the van for things that might be useful, like water, weapons, or one of the many lighters that littered the floor, when something in the distance caught his eye.

“What the hell is that?” He asked aloud, pointing up to the sky at a giant pink bubble that was headed straight for them.

Eddie squinted up at it. “I think there's something inside.”

“Should we run?”

“Maybe we should pop it.”

“You just said there was something inside! Wouldn’t that let it out?”

Eddie shrugged.

In no time, the bubblegum colored sphere settled near them and faded away, leaving behind a woman with long dark wavy hair. She held a long scepter, and wore a tall crown and a poofy ball gown, of all things. There was also something very familiar about her face.

“Wait.”

“No.”

“Is that?”

“It can’t be.”

“Joyce?!” They both said, in tandem.

The woman in the ballgown tilted her head. “Who’s Joyce?”

“You are.” Steve said.

She shook her head, offering him a kind smile. “I’m afraid not. I’m Glinda, the Witch of the North, and who might you be?”

Eddie leaned in, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. “Is she serious?”

Steve snorted a laugh, quickly trying to hide it with a cough.

“What’s so funny?” Not-Joyce asked.

“Nothing, uh, I’m Steve, and this is Eddie.”

She stepped carefully around them, pointing her sparkly stick at the half-a-dead-body that jutted out from under Eddie’s van. “What do you boys have to say for yourselves?”

“I’m sorry?” Eddie said, sobering quickly. At the same time Steve insisted, “It was an accident!”

“Stop giving them a hard time, Glinda. They did us a favor!” A strangely familiar voice called out from behind a nearby bush, and a moment later 6 small-ish figures came popping out of the surrounding foliage.

“They killed The Wicked Witch of the East!” The one with curly hair shouted, as the others cheered.

Eddie jumped. “Jesus H. Christ, where did all you little fuckers come from?!”

“Oh my god.” Steve muttered under his breath.

It was the kids, except they were actually kids. The 11-year-old versions of Dustin, Will, Lucas, Mike, Max, and El pushed and shoved their way past each other, all trying to be the first to approach.

“Who you calling little?” Baby-Lucas said.

“Okay, what the hell is going on here guys? Why are you so young, and what’s with the outfits?” Steve asked, completely dumbfounded.

Once he’d gotten over the initial shock of their appearance, Steve realized they were all wearing costumes or something. The girls wore pink frilly dresses and tall pointed bonnets, something he knew for a fact Max would never have agreed to, and the boys had these funny little shorts with long socks and matching tops—except for Dustin, who donned long pants and an even longer coat, along with a striped bow tie and a giant pocket watch hanging from his side.

Eddie looked similarly stunned. “How did you get us here? And how did you get Joyce in on it?”

“Who’s Joyce?” Mini-Mike-Wheeler asked.

“I think they mean me.” Not-Joyce said.

Tiny Dustin’s face twisted up in confusion. “But that’s not your name.”

She shrugged. “I tried telling them that.”

Steve groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Okay fine, she’s Glinda. Who are you?”

“Oh! I'm the mayor of Munchkinland.” A wide, gummy smile spread across tiny-Dustin’s face as he stuck his arm out, er, up, for a handshake.

Steve stared down at him, unimpressed. “You’ve gotta be shitting me. I'm done playing whatever game this is. How do we–”

A sudden explosion went off in the middle of the town square only a few yards away, creating a thick cloud of red smoke. On instinct Steve and Eddie both moved to place themselves between the oncoming threat and the Munchkins.

The air cleared quickly, revealing a woman in a long black dress and matching cloak, carrying a broom and wearing a hard scowl.

Steve blinked at her, then looked at Eddie for confirmation that they were seeing the same thing.

“Mrs. Click?”

Eddie nodded.

Her complexion was all wrong but the resemblance was uncanny.

Steve leaned in, whispering, “If that’s Click, who do you think the one we hit was?”

Eddie grinned. “O’Donnel.”

“I am the Wicked Witch of the West. You killed my sister. Prepare to die.” The newcomer declared loudly, sneering at the two of them.

Eddie rounded on her, pointing a finger right in her face. “Look lady, we’ve had just about enough–”

Steve grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him back. “What my friend here means to say is, it was an accident and we’re very sorry.”

“I’ll show you an accident, young man,” The Wicked Witch said, raising her green hands and long pointy nails threateningly in their direction.

“Aren't you forgetting something?” Glinda raised her voice, as she too moved to protect the little ones.

“The ruby slippers! Yes!” The Wicked Witch smiled gleefully and made a beeline for Eddie’s van.

When her back was to them, Glinda winked at Steve and did some kind of wavy-woo with her stick, which, in hindsight he realized was a wand, and the red shoes disappeared from the dead body’s feet right before their eyes, reappearing in Steve’s hand a second later.

“They’re gone!” The Wicked Witch gasped, whirling on the spot and narrowing her eyes at him.

“Why is it always me?” Steve grumbled, resigned to the fight, only to find Eddie taking a protective step in front of him as she approached.

“You! Give them back. I’m the only one who knows how to use them. They’re of no use to you!”

She wasn’t wrong, but Steve felt like maybe it wasn’t the best idea to give what he suspected was a powerful magical object to a woman whose sister they’d just murdered. All those months of spectating while the party played D&D were finally paying off.

“Put them on and stay tight inside of them, Steve.” Glinda said, her tone grave. “Their magic must be very powerful, or she wouldn't want them so badly.”

Nailed it.

“You stay out of this, Glinda, or I'll fix you as well!”

The Good Witch waved her off. “You have no power here. Now be gone before someone drops a… a… a…” She stuttered, waffling as if searching for the right word.

“A van?” Eddie supplied.

“Ah, yes. Thank you, Eddie dear.” She cleared her throat, pausing for what Steve could only assume was dramatic effect. “Now, be gone before someone drops a van on you, too!”

“Very well, but I'll be watching.” The Wicked Witch hissed, zeroing in on Steve once again. “I’ll get you my pretty-boy, and your little dog too!”

“Hey! Who are you calling a dog? You looked in the mirror lately?! Witch.” Eddie spat.

She huffed, raising her broomstick high above her head and bringing it down hard against the road at her feet, sending more red smoke billowing up from the spot to quickly engulf her form. When it was gone, so was she.

“Little dog. Pfft.” Eddie muttered.

“It’s the hair.” Little-Max said, matter-of-factly.

“Yes,” Tiny-Dustin agreed, nodding as he rubbed stubby fingers against his small chin. “The word scruffy does come to mind, to be fair.”

“Watch it, Mayor.” Eddie warned.

“That, and the way you were guarding your friend there.” Little-Max spoke again.

Eddie glowered as she dissolved into giggles that quickly spread through the small crowd. Soon all the Munchkins, as well as Glinda, were clutching their sides with laughter.

Steve didn’t get what was so funny.

“Don’t listen to them, Munson. I like your hair. It’s very… metal.”

Eddie put on a show of rolling his eyes, but under it all was a shy pleased smile. “Thanks, Harrington.”

“That’s rough, boys. You’ve made quite the enemy. The sooner you get out of Oz the better I think.” Glinda said, when the laughter had finally faded.

“And how do we do that exactly?” Eddie asked. “The van’s broken down, and even if it wasn't, I have no idea where the hell we are or how we even got here! Let alone how to get back to Hawkins.”

“The only person who might be able to help you would be The Great and Wonderful Wizard of Oz himself.”

Steve pursed his lips. “Okay, I'll bite. How do we find this Great Wizard?” It took all his strength not to put those last two words in air quotes.

“He lives in the Emerald city.” She said.

“And how do we get there?”

“Follow the yellow brick road, of course.”

Eddie shook his head. “Of course, she says.”

“Do you not have yellow brick roads where you come from?”

“No.” Steve snapped. He was already so tired of this shit, and somehow he knew that the end of, whatever this was, was nowhere in sight.

“My, my, you two are grumpy.” Glinda muttered. Without another word she took a few steps away from them and waved her wand, conjuring a new pink bubble around herself.

“Wait, you can’t just leave us here with these kids!” Steve shouted, but it was too late, The Good Witch had already started to float away.

“We’re not kids, y’know.” Tiny-Dustin said.

“You look like kids.”

“Whatever.” The boy shrugged, taking one of their hands in each of his. “Come on, we’ll walk you to the edge of town.”

The edge of town turned out to be roughly 10 feet away from where the van had landed, which wasn’t a surprise given the compact nature of Munchkinland as a whole, but it did have Steve wondering why they even bothered.

At least the kids—sorry, the Munchkins, had been helpful enough to point out the yellow brick road.

As if they could have missed it.

Eddie let out a long whistle. “Wow, that is YELL-ow. Like, I know they said it, but I guess I expected it to be dull or dirty or something, not this bright sunshine color. Kinda reminds me of that sweater you used to wear.”

Steve tucked the pair of heels awkwardly under his arm and started down the path, wishing he had a bag or something to put them in. Holding onto them like this was going to get annoying fast.

“Aren't you going to put those on first?” Eddie asked.

“Are you serious, Munson?” Steve slowed his pace, turning to gape at him.

Eddie grinned, bumping their elbows together when he caught up. “What, afraid you can’t walk in ‘em?”

“I wear a size 13 men’s shoe, they’re never gonna fit me!”

For a fraction of a second Eddie’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “Jesus, guess I was onto something with that nickname, big boy.”

Steve rolled his eyes, shoving the shoes in Eddie’s direction. “Why don’t you put them on?”

“No, that Glinda lady gave them to you, expressly.”

“I'm telling you they’re not gonna fit.”

“Magic shoes, Steve.” Eddie wiggled his fingers for emphasis. “Magic shoes! Just try, I'm sure it’ll be fine.”

Steve glared as he toed his sneakers off, tying the laces together before throwing them over Eddie’s shoulder, and finally slipped his feet into the sequin adorned pumps.

They fit like a glove.

He twisted at the waist, glancing behind his own back, sticking first one leg out, and then the other, as he looked down at himself. “Hmm, they do make my ass look nice, I guess.”

He also just so happened to be wearing his date night jeans, the ones that hugged him in all the right places, and with the addition of the shoes? It was a good look, if he did say so himself.

A high pitched noise escaped Eddie’s throat. “As if you needed any more help in that department.” He mumbled under his breath.

Steve swallowed hard. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing.”

Eddie was always doing that—flirting, making little comments and then pretending he hadn’t. It drove Steve crazy, never sure if Eddie actually meant it, or if he just liked to tease—not quite sure which answer he hoped was the truth.

Steve turned on his heel, literally, and strode away, tired of wasting time. His first few steps were a bit wobbly, a little like a newborn calf learning to walk, but he got the hang of it pretty quickly. He wasn’t, like, swaying his hips side-to-side confident or anything—yet—but he was reasonably sure he wasn’t going to randomly fall over. It was good enough for now.

“What are we looking for again?” He asked without turning around.

“The Emerald city.” Eddie replied, falling into step beside him again, cheeks a little pink. “The little guy who looked like Will said we’d know it when we saw it.”

“Nicely vague, figures.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it. They seem to take everything very literally around here, so my guess is if we see a place with a lot of big bright green buildings, that’ll be the one.”

Ch 2 (coming 4/26)

Ch 3 (coming 4/27)

Ch 4 ( coming 4/28)

Let me know if you'd like to be tagged in the next chapter(s)!

#you guys #oh my god you guys #how can i express my gratitude at this MAGNIFICENCE #this put UNHINGED MAGNIFICENCE #IT'S FUCKING AMAZING #I laughed so hard my fucking tooth started hurting #I am so beyond in love you have no god damn idea]#i'm gonna be thinking of Steve in those heels for the longest time

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penny00dreadful · 2 days

Text

time for that age old question: is love enough to beat back the apocalypse?

Because Steve's right there to protect everybody like the self-sacrificing asshole he is help Eddie make the music he's not strong enough for yet help them all put Vecna in the ground for good this time, right?(!??!)

or: what's the song for your walkman, baby? does it even matter?

I Could Be Your Nurse (or something)

Or: Five Times Eddie Has To Ask For Help, Plus One Time He Doesn’t Need It Anymore (but asks anyway) ✨ for @penny00dreadful 💜

<<< three: sleep 🌗

🎧 🎹 four: play 🎶 🛡️

To tell the whole truth of it: it comes too quickly—Vecna’s last stand. Of course it does.

But probably, if he’s being fair: they’d never have been really ready. Not for this, and so maybe it’s best that they’re not fully healed, not at full strength when it all comes to a head, not least because that means Vecna and his petal-toothed brigade aren’t at full strength either. And that choice, for their side, is sloppy; the Party stands on the right-side-up against the attack because they have to. Vecna makes his move because—or else, Eddie’s fairly sure—because the sadistic ballsac is losing his fucking mind.

Which is terrifying, sure, but fuck if it doesn’t help their cause.

It’s actually over pretty quick, even compared to Spring Break which, while it felt like a lifetime for how much it changed Eddie’s own, it’s only been those handful of days—but it’s kinda like the grand finale at a fireworks show: everything all at once then, done. In the everything’s though: he might not like it, but Eddie’s not so foolish as to believe he’s not still too tender, still too deep in healing the finer points of being gnawed alive to be anything but a burden in the thick of it. He refuses to be sidelined, though, and he thinks it says a lot for the long-term health of this glorious impossible thing he’s…building? Yeah, he, umm, he, Eddie Munson, is building a real goddamn thing where he doesn’t even just let someone into his heart and treasures them there, no, he’s building a thing where he gives his heart and gets on new and soft and trembling in kind and they both get to work at the treasuring of something more precious than just their own vulnerable insides, but yeah, yeah:

Eddie thinks it bodes really fucking well for the hopes he has that lean hard toward forever, already, in Eddie’s chest at least when Steve looks his way as they’re planning the teams and he locks eyes with Eddie and Eddie doesn’t even get his mouth open to breathe, to plead don’t cut me out, don’t send me to Wayne to be ‘safe’ or ‘out of harm’s way’ or whatever, don’t leave me so fucking far from you my heart hurts just because it’s beating in the middle space unmoored and shaking around all bruised up with it for not knowing and I know I can’t do what everyone else can but it’ll be bad enough not being next to you please don’t push me far enough that I won’t know the moment you’re safe, just—

Steve meets his eyes, and Eddie’s breath catches before his heart trips, and then Steve speaks up—and he doesn’t, not all that often when the nerdiest among them are shoring up the battle plans—but he watches Eddie without blinking when he pipes up:

“Eddie’s on medical and audio, with Erica and Jon.”

And maybe it’s his tone—this almost wholly novel thing in Steve that’s steely and unquestionable but no one pushes, they nod and get back to work, totally seamless and, and…yeah. That’s all Eddie wanted. Best he could hope for. Just outside the gate they go through. Close enough to hold a hand on the way down, and reach for purchase on the journey back.

Steve swallows hard, and nods at Eddie before he looks away and starts gearing up, twirls his fucking nailbat so it catches the sunlight even thought the metal’s mostly rusted, now and just…Eddie hadn’t needed to say a word. And Steve wanted to send him to safety, the way his throat had bobbed made it real clear there was something heavy he’s held back but: he’d said what he said. He’d laid the line in Eddie’s favor. Eddie wants to hold him, wants to pull him close and feel him breathe, and—

Yeah. Eddie kinda feels like the way it goes is a really good sign for their future as a couple. A couple. Them. Together.

With an always on the other side of all of this that could be kinda fucking magnificent, maybe. Given the chance.

Point being: Eddie gets himself set up with at least a full ambulance’s supplies for first aid, definitely not acquired legally, and a stereo set up he really wishes someone had been kind enough to outfit him with in not-the-apocalypse, holy shit is it gorgeous, but since the strength in his hands is still a work-in-progress, he’s gotta be ready to crank up the noise as a distraction from arm’s-length. It’s actually driving him fucking crazy—or, was; it was, pre-active return to the regularly scheduled world ending—the whole not being able to make music, to translate the noise in his head into sounds on the strings but even that, even that’s been tolerable, survivable because of Steve—who he loves, he gets to love Steve Harrington holy fuck—but Steve’s not just there to be everything and more than the air Eddie goddamn breathes, to become the music just by existing, nope, he one ups that shit: he asked Eddie if it’d be enough to learn the chords he needs. So Eddie could match the words with the notes right, so Steve could be a—

“—kinda piss-poor substitute but,” Steve had shrugged for it with a crooked grin; “but even a bad translator gets a message across, and you’d know when it’s wrong so we can figure out how to fix it and—“

And Eddie’d grabbed Steve’s chin and yanked his mouth close to fucking consume that man like a soul goddamn starved.

“I’d be a shit teacher,” Eddie had mouthed against Steve’s lips after they were sucked well-swollen; “if I still can’t lift the fucking neck for more than a minute,” but Steve had heard none of it, just shot right back:

“You don’t think we’ve beat steeper odds than that?”

And in the face of that raised brow, those red lips parted, that pulse in that neck still a little bit visible like a tease: the fuck was Eddie supposed to do but dive back in and love on the man who’d somehow agreed to be his, and to claim Eddie of all people in turn?

Which is a whole other reason why everything’s gonna be fine: Steve’s gonna make music with him. Steve’s gonna be Eddie’s muse and the vessel for what he inspires. It’s gonna be like Greek fucking poetry, except it’s gonna be them.

So Eddie’s all stocked up, s’got everyone’s floaty-bone-breaky songs queued up on blast for immediate deployment as necessary, and Steve’s the last to go through—he always is, in Eddie’s experience, waits for everyone to be safely accounted for before he spares a thought for himself and it might kill Eddie one day but not fucking today, because it’s gonna be fine—

“Eddie.”

It feels a little like history repeating itself, the way Steve huddles him in a little. Henderson’s through, with Lucas and Hopper and the weird stray Russian, but it’s not like history repeating, because Eddie’s got different words to see him off with; so fucking different.

“Last time I didn’t have,” and Steve reaches, cups Eddie’s cheek, drags down to press on his chest as his voice strains hard: “and it almost killed me,” and Steve usually pinches between his eyes to keep his feelings in check but instead of using his free hand to hold back the tears he reaches for Eddie’s and laces their fingers as his voice cracks and he chokes out:

“Please,” and it’s for everything. For all the almosts from last time; for all the possibilities rife this time. For all the hopes Eddie thinks they share beyond how this shakes out.

“Exceptionally underqualified field med,” Eddie breathes, and squeezes Steve’s hand so, so hard like a promise, because it is; “exceptionally overqualified DJ,” and Steve chuckles, wet but real and it’s enough, because:

“I got it, Stevie,” Eddie bends his forehead to Steve’s to say better than with words that he’s not in this to be a hero, he’ll be right here the whole time, but that doesn’t mean he…that doesn’t mean he can help but to ask this time:

“Just,” and the breath in him punches out unexpectedly as he damn-near begs:

“Only bring me back the little things, yeah? That I know how to fix?”

And they both hear what’s said underneath it:

Don’t turn around and die down there, and kill me in kind..

And—if anyone’s keeping track—they turn out not to need it but: the way the kiss is a wholeass wartime farewell, man.

And then: Eddie waits, and fucks with the speakers for less than an hour before the earth shakes, and his heart drops, but then he hears it.

The fucking whooping of those shitheads echoing through the cracks.

And then he sees it, runs, grabs the first hand that’s clinging to the rope this time and pulls with strength he doesn’t have, is probably more a hindrance than a help but he steadies them each back on the ground and hugs them so tight, kisses more than one of them on the head or the cheek as he doesn’t pretend not to be sobbing through the laughter because they did it, they fucking did it, somehow it’s over and he loves these people and he’s so fucking happy they’re alive and safe and here and—

And the person he loves more, loves most, brings up the rear, a little bloodied, a little scratched up, dingy with the fucking air down there but smiling and Eddie…

Eddie falls into him so fucking hard they both hit the ground and just, just grab onto one another. Just hold and breathe and catch lips every few seconds like an afterthought because they feel each other’s heartbeat where their chests are pressed tight and it’s, they’re…

Steve’s got four broken fingers across both hands. None in a row. He’s basically giving a Vulcan salute by default for how they’re taped.

Eddie loves him so goddamn much it hurts.

And Eddie’d obviously known—once things start to settle in the days that’ve followed—that teaching Steve guitar with those Spock-y hands was on the back burner, but he does ask Steve to sit, and to rest, and to help hum back the tunes in Eddie’s head while Eddie jots lyrics with a hand that’s still shaky but steadying out more every day, and it’s kind of perfect, and Steve adds some things into the melodies either on purpose or by accident but they’re better for it every time and—

Muse and vessel, man. The light of Eddie’s whole goddamn life.

With fucking Vulcan hands still, though, so: excuse Eddie for being…bewildered when his boyfriend—boyfriend, that’s his boyfriend—but his taped-up-healing-Vulcan-handed boyfriend is propping the front door open and lugging in a long, not-recovery-friendly thing that looks close to dropping on his toes and—

“The fuck are you doing?” Eddie asks with a little more panic in his voice than he’d hoped for as he rushes as best he can to where Steve’s kicking the door shut behind him, fluttering his hands around uselessly as Steve maneuvers past him, leans across for a peck at the corner of Eddie’s mouth and calls—“It’s fine, it weighs, like, nothing”—over his shoulder as he settles the, the thing down on the coffee table in the living room they’ve started actually using for, y’know.

Living.

Eddie follows him in, though, because of course, he’s half-a-dog on that man’s heels, whole-caught-in-the-gravity-of-his-everything: but Eddie follows as Steve tosses himself backward with something in his hand, rolls and rucks up his fucking absurd Hawking Middle tee across the sweet curve of his hips, the way the soft give of skin tempts Eddie to run his tongue over the trail of almost-curls, like baby-curls where they lead under the waist of his jeans: Eddie would happily volunteer to survive on the taste of that musky-delicate space until the end of goddamn time—

But then Steve’s huffing a breathless ha from behind a chair where he’d been stretched to reach and a light catches Eddie’s eye from his periphery where he’d been staring unblinking just at Steve: the big long black thing on the coffee table. It takes a genuine concerted effort not to keep at the Steve-staring—not an uncommon state of Eddie’s existence, in all fairness—and check what’s glowing on the table: something turned on. Was plugged in, right, that’s what had Steve rolling on the floor without Eddie on top of or being deliciously pinned down by him.

The something being the big long black thing that Eddie takes in for the whole of it, now: a keyboard.

“Jon picked it up for me second-hand from the place next to Fox Photo when he drove down for his camera, and Rob vouched that it’s a good brand and like, really good condition,” Steve’s raised up on his knees, now with his hands braces on his thighs as Eddie studies the keys, fingers the ends of a every few of the naturals.

“Rob helped with those, too, so I’d know the right, like, chords,” and yeah: they’re stupa of masking tape stuck to the keys with letters in blue, black, and red pen, alternating so they don’t get mixed up, some with and arrow, Eddie assumes, to indicate a sharp.

“I only remember like half of one song from when my parents thought it would look good to have me take piano lessons,” Steve huffs in whole-ass judgment; “my mom wanted the endorsement of the guy who was stepping down from city council, and his wife taught private lessons, so, y’know,” Steve rolls his eyes; “super convenient leading up to the election.”

“What song?”

Steve blinks, tips his head in askance for what Eddie recognizes very clearly as something closer to a croak than a question, his throat all tight. He tries to cough, to clear it.

“What song do you remember?”

Steve snorts at that, leans back on his palms, and fuck is he beautiful.

“Clair de Lune,” Steve grins crooked; “the one song I was allowed to pick, instead of just being assigned.”

“Why’d you pick it?” Not that Eddie doesn’t like it or anything. It’s more that…he knew Steve could more than just drum fingers on keys, if only just, and that a baby grand used to sit in the corner where there’s a stereo cabinet now, but.

But: see, there’s like a whole half of his heart that’s dedicated to collecting new knowledge about everything Steve: his favorite food when he was 12 versus the now. How his favorite color became his favorite color. The story behind all the polos. The nitty-gritties about why he’s in a big-ass house alone for approximately 360 days a year, and how long it’s been that way. Eddie’s whole heart is basically Steve’s but every day that half overflows a little, and Eddie’s only keeping it relegated to parts filled with Steve-lore so he can feel the collection break containment every other day, this grand and joyous bursting under his ribs as everything spills over again, and again, and again until it’s all just Steve, and his heart has to burst or stretch, or both.

Eddie thinks both will be amazing.

And right now, in the interest of building toward that amazing-both: he wants to know why Debussy.

Steve chuckles to himself—better music than any dead French guy by a country mile—and eyes Eddie almost slyly.

“Do you remember Claire Reynolds?”

Vaguely. Like, very vaguely. He remembers…uneven pigtails. Very actual-cult-like vibes about her family as a vague impression and now that he’s bringing it to mind he feels a new wave of indignation: those Children-of-the-Corn motherfuckers were just fine but Eddie liked a board game and he was probably a murderer.

“When we were in like, first grade,” Steve’s continuing on; “she asked me every, single, day, to come over and see her sheep.” Steve looks up at Eddie and bites his lower lip, lets his gaze dance and lets Eddie fall into it for a few dazed seconds before he spells it out.

“She had these crazy eyes about it, it was kinda unsettling,” Steve nudges, but Eddie’s doesn’t get it until:

“And it’s not like I do now, because obviously I don’t, but I definitely didn’t speak a lick of French when I was eight.”

It takes Eddie a hot second before he snorts hard enough to hurt:

Claire, da Loon.

“I was eight,” Steve protests Eddie’s laughter halfheartedly even as he joins in, reaches to slap at Eddie’s upper arm which honestly: just makes him laugh harder.

“Anyway,” Steve fights through the last of the chuckling as it peters out between them, drags himself to sitting next to the coffee table and taps his hand to the top of the keyboard.

“I know it’s not the same as learning guitar to help, and I can probably only get the top and bottom notes with these,” he lifts his Vulcan-fingers his a shrug; “but I was hoping that’d be better than nothing?”

And, like, how Eddie was talking about his heart having to swell, for all the things he gets to tuck inside of it that come with loving Steve Harrington?

He might crack a rib, just now, because—

“This is for me?”

Steve purses his lips, lifts a brow:

“Well, technically it’s for me,” steve singles his fingers, which looks absurd with the splints; “but yeah. To help you get the songs out. I mean, once these are free again, you can help me with the guitar like we talked about, until you’re—“

And Eddie cannot be blamed, see: he cannot be fucking blamed for tackling Steve to the floor and kissing him hard enough to bruise because…

“You got hurt,” Eddie half-breathes between kisses; “you got hurt and I was so afraid I was gonna lose you,” and Eddie reaches for those taped fingers and kisses them, too: so gentle and Steve’s expression softens so quick:

“I was scared, too,” he whispers between them, cups Eddie’s face with his unloaded hand; “you were as safe as I could make you within the fucking city limits but I was still so goddamn scared.”

Cue more rib-cracking for the heart-swelling, because Jesus fucking Christ.

“And you,” Eddie exhales, slow and shaky; “you’re hurt, but you went and got,” he nods to the keyboard;

“I know it’s not ideal,” Steve’s quick to, to what, apologize? For being insane and perfect and—

“Shut up,” Eddie says, voice low and watery and he’s still kissing at Steve’s fingers, holding his wrist delicate but also like a lifeline.

“You’re hurt,” Eddie maybe kinda moans it because he hates it, as much as he’s so fucking grateful that’s it’s just this, no worse than this; “and you still—”

“I promised, didn’t I?”

And that…that’s one thing Eddie’s learned beyond reproach; that even to his detriment, Steve keeps his goddamn promises.

And he’d promised to help Eddie get his words out, to place the lyrics to the notes and help unclutter his brain so he didn’t lose his mind.

Holy fucking hell.

“Steve,” Eddie starts, shakes his head, needs to find the right words. “You’re alive,” the most important thing. “You are healing,” another most important thing, for Eddie to oversee and make sure of, even as Steve keeps an eye on the last lingering threads of the long haul on Eddie’s road to recovery in kind, his beloved mother hen.

“This is,” and he runs his fingers too light to draw sounds across the keys, hopes he sounds as awed and grateful as he feels; “but you, you’ve gotta test, you have to,” and Eddie shakes his head and lifts his eyes to just fucking ask it:

“Why?”

And Steve: Steve just studies his face for a few seconds, reads what he needs before he smiles kinda exasperated, mostly fond and answers so simply, while also breaking a few more of Eddie’s ribs when he just says:

“Because I love you.”

And Eddie’s heart’s not so overfull yet of all of Steve, it’s not fair that it just bursts right then and there, Eddie propelled into Steve’s arms to kiss him deep this time, like he’s searching out Steve’s soul to taste and maybe he is, save that he needs his heart to not have exploded for feeling if he’s going to keep the memory of it safe in his chest for always, he needs to patch his heart back up first but he’s too distracted, too drowned in the way love actually fucking feels, fucking shifts his cells around and makes a new version of him, lets his heart grow bigger except it went and blasted apart with the unprecedented immensity of loving and—

And then Eddie’s got Steve’s taped up hands on both his cheeks, and he remembers that night, in the shower, where Steve ripped the seams from his shirt so taking it off wouldn’t hurt him; notices how Steve is wearing that same fucking shirt in this very moment, all in one piece, like it never split apart in the first place.

Master seamstress, tried and tested and true; truer than anything.

So Eddie just dives back in and kisses with everything in him, thinks maybe when Steve tastes the pieces of Eddie’s blowout heart under his tongue while Eddie goes diving for the sweet lick of Steve’s soul:

Eddie thinks Steve’s mouth might know how to stitch up torn things, too. Especially the kinds that are ripped at their seams wholly for the sake of loving that fucking hard.

divider credits here & here

👾 title credit here

💫 ao3 link here

#my heart #oh my heart #it is so full #it is so full of lovly sunshine and clouds #I adore this

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penny00dreadful · 4 days

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Last Sentence Tag Game!

rules: in a rb or separate post, post the last sentence you wrote in any of your wips (original, fanfic, etc), and tag as many people as there are words.

tagged by @pearynice for this, thanks!

He was blindfolded - better to be blinded by a wrap of cloth than by hot-iron pokers - and stumbled along the path he knew by heart.

Lots of words in this one 😅 not tagging that many people but: @rozzieroos @penny00dreadful @thefreakandthehair @dreamwatch @oh-stars

@momotonescreaming @lihhelsing

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penny00dreadful · 4 days

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last sentence tag game

rules: in a rb or separate post, post the last sentence you wrote in any of your wips (original, fanfic, etc), and tag as many people as there are words.

Tagged by @wynnyfryd! Thank youuu <3

Unless he's kicked out, he has all night here.

9 words! @zombiethingy @penny00dreadful @hbyrde36 @vecnuthy @carbonbased000 @postmodernau @aidaronan @jamiethegardener55 @steddieas-shegoes + anyone who wants to do this!!!

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penny00dreadful · 4 days

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last sentence tag

I was tagged by @wynnyfryd and since I'm actively writing something right now, I'm not going to let it sit in my inbox for 3 months for once! 😅

Steve’s parents just simply… never came home.

tagging 7 people for 7 words – @thefreakandthehair @just-my-latest-hyperfixation @sourw0lfs @hbyrde36 @penny00dreadful @medusapelagia @starryeyedjanai

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penny00dreadful · 4 days

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Title: dance with the devil

Chapters: 1/?

Words: 4k

Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Relationships: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington

Characters: Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, Joyce Byers, Jason Carver (implied), Billy Hargrove (implied), Henry Creel | One | Vecna, Steve Harrington's Parents

Additional Tags: Murder, Alcohol, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Steve Harrington Has a Bad Time, Eddie Munson Has a Bad Time, Steve Harrington is a Little Shit, Eddie Munson is a Little Shit, Guardian Angel Eddie Munson, Monster Steve Harrington, Joyce Runs Purgatory, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Are Best Friends, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Blood and Violence, Blood and Gore, Magic, BAMF Steve Harrington, throwing up, Panic Attacks, Soul Bond, Heaven & Hell, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

Summary:

The apartment is quiet around him, the only sound is the rush in his ears from the growing hangover, but it’s not so big he can’t find the owner. When he finally does, Steve actually throws up.

If it weren’t for the smallest sliver of still clean blond hair amidst the sea of blood-clump strands, Steve wouldn’t even believe that the mangled corpse in front of him is the same guy as the night before.

What the fuck happened?

OR: The one where Steve turns 21 and his life turns upside down in the worst ways, complete with gaining the most obnoxious guardian angel known to man

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penny00dreadful · 4 days

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Last Sentence Tag Game!

rules: in a rb or separate post, post the last sentence you wrote in any of your wips (original, fanfic, etc), and tag as many people as there are words.

Tagged by: @hbyrde36 @steviewashere @vecnuthy thank you lovelies 🫶

Eddie looks down at himself, "I think Steve is... 86% of my impulse control."

(So sorry I'm not tagging that many people and I'm ALSO SORRY if you've already been tagged!): @steddie-island @devondespresso @steddiejudas @scoops-aboy86 @klausinamarink @puppy-steve

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penny00dreadful · 4 days

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last sentence tag

Tagged by @cranberrymoons 🥰🥰🥰

“It's not running away if you’re coming back—now, go!”

No pressure tagging, 10 for 10 words! – @penny00dreadful @pearynice @dreamwatch @sidekick-hero @eriquin

@withacapitalp @hairstevington @devondespresso @shares-a-vest @soaringornithopter

#👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

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penny00dreadful · 4 days

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mombin pt 6 and look who showed up

(1)(2)(3)(4) (5)

#eddie!#turn- turn around!#eddie!!#EDDIE!!!#TURN AROUND!!!

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penny00dreadful · 5 days

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Trailer park Steve AU part 62

part 1 | part 61 | ao3

cw: violence, off-hand mentions of drug use

Light bleeds through the cracks in the boathouse walls. Max is the one who found it, spotted the glowing bulb over the door and called them down the slope behind the house to check it out, and now Steve leads the group inside and clings to his nail bat in a way he hopes is reassuring but is probably just putting everyone else on edge.

Can’t really be helped, though.

Place gives him the creeps.

It's dark and dank, overwhelmingly humid, with a smell like mildew and old food over a layer of fear sweat, and the wood groans beneath their feet while the walls sway with the breeze. Makes it feel like the room is breathing, like they're standing inside of a haunted lung.

Steve braces himself in the middle of the room, head on a swivel while the group fans out around the edges, dipping in and out of shadow. Dustin calls for Eddie. Max checks the latch on a window. Robin points her flashlight at a pile of food wrappers and says, "This looks new."

Steve flexes his fingers on the bat; picks up an oar, too, just to be safe.

"What?" Dustin snorts. "You gonna dual-wield against your boyfriend?"

Steve rolls his eyes. "He's not my—"

"—Ex-boyfriend, then, whatever. Still can't believe you never told me about that."

“Okay,” Steve huffs. Dustin’s grumpy muttering sounds more hurt than he’s letting on, but he’s letting on plenty, and Steve’s too keyed up to do this right now. “Can we just—” He gestures around the room with the oar to illustrate how completely not the time for this it is. “Can we not?"

"No,” Dustin protests, voice rising, “no, we can't not, Steve, because you—" He steps into Steve’s space, jabbing a finger against his sternum and backing him up to the edge of a tarp-covered boat. "—are a liar. You have been lying to me for months! And now it looks like you're gearing up to try and bludgeon my good friend with two blunt objects!"

"Shut up!” Steve snaps. He takes a deep breath; lifts the blunt objects in question, giving them a little shake. “First of all, it's not the boyfriend I'm worried about using these on, and secondly—"

He doesn't get to finish that sentence.

He doesn’t get to plant his feet.

With a noise like a war cry, something blue blurs at the edge of Steve’s periphery and launches him across the room, shoving him backward over tarps and tackle boxes until his back slams against the wall and knocks the wind out of him, and his skull smacks the wood and sets off a snow storm in his vision — muffled ringing in his ears, tornado warning wailing through a thick layer of cotton. Steve’s friends are all shouting, and there’s something sharp against his throat, and someone is barking questions at him; hot, stale breath over his chin; a fist balled up in the front of his shirt.

“Are you real?” the voice demands, hand twisting in Steve’s collar and tugging him against the sharp thing. “ARE YOU REAL?”

Steve blinks. Blinks and sways into the sharp sting beneath his jaw until the dizzy spell ends.

The scene before him comes into focus slowly.

Steve thinks, for the millionth time that day, that he must be losing his mind. That he must have lost it already.

The blurry, shouting thing is Eddie. Eddie, who is glassy-eyed and drooling like a wild animal, who is pinning Steve to a splintered wall with a shattered bottle to his throat; whose face floods Steve with such intensely euphoric relief that he thinks he finally gets why people do hard drugs.

Even now, even like this, the only thought in Steve’s head is how lovely Eddie's face is.

How grateful he is to see it again, even if it might be the last thing he ever sees.

Beside them, Dustin speaks in low, placating tones, holding out his hands and encouraging Eddie to back off. Promising that Steve’s not gonna hurt him, that they’re all just here to help as Eddie’s eyes slip over and past Steve and his body tenses for the kill.

“Not real, not real, not real,” Eddie mumbles, spit shining on his shaking lip.

The bottle knicks Steve’s skin.

“Eddie!” Dustin begs. Max and Robin's eyes are huge. And Steve—

Steve laughs. A soft, hysterical thing, barely voiced, because of course Eddie’s going to kill him. Of course he is.

He’s already been doing it for weeks.

"What happened to your knife?" he jokes wetly, tipping his head back to bare his throat.

The question snaps Eddie back to himself. Steve watches from under his damp lashes as Eddie's eyes sharpen on him, darting all over his face with sudden, painful awareness, with something dangerously close to hope.

The hand holding the bottle trembles. "...Baby?" Eddie whispers, wet eyes searching still.

Steve holds his gaze. Nods against the jagged edge.

Glass shatters on the floor as Eddie collapses into him.

—

tag list in separate reblogs under '#trailer park steve au taglist' if you'd like to filter that content. if you want to be added please comment and let me know (must be over 21; please either verify in the comment or have your age visible on your blog)

#😭😭😭😭😭😭#oh that killed #oh that KILLED ME DEAD #in a good way!

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penny00dreadful · 5 days

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There are ghosts in Hawkins...

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penny00dreadful · 6 days

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STWG prompt 20/4/24

prompt: accidentally kidnapping a mafia boss

pairing/character(s): steddie

i somehow wrote 1.8k... enjoy

. . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

Steve doesn’t think he’s ever been this distracted by a customer before at work. He’s just so… hot. Like, the usual customers he serves are rich and well-dressed, sure. But they’re businessmen well-dressed, and that can’t even begin to describe this particular customer. He’s been calling him Hot Guy in his head for the past thirty minutes.

Hot Guy is in a suit, yes, but that’s not even the best part of this man’s look. The suit’s all black and hugs his waist deliciously, but it’s everything else that has Steve practically drooling where he stands by the bar, waiting for his next round of drinks to be made. Hot Guy looks a little less pristine and perfect than the usual businessmen; his hairs up in a messy ponytail, strands of a fringe framing his face, and he has beautiful silver earrings on and an expensive looking chain around his neck. And every time he moves just so, Steve gets to see a peek of a tattoo on his chest as his half-unbuttoned black shirt moves. Gorgeous…

“All ready for you, Steve.”

He’s snapped out of it by the bartender on shift, and looks at the bar to see, oh yes, all of his drinks are ready. He offers the bartender a smile and a thank you, and gets to balancing them on his serving tray.

See, he can get a little distracted by hot customers, but he can’t be seen as a slacker. He cannot afford to lose this job.

He and Robin finally were able to move to Chicago four months ago, and it took him three months (and a good chunk of his emergency savings) to find a job as a waiter at some restaurant. It’s not even a particularly nice job. Sure, the restaurant is fancy as hell, and the customers tip really fucking well, but the pay leaves much to be desired. Like, a usual customer (rich) tips him more than he gets paid for a whole shift! And he’s not complaining about the tips, per say, but when the restaurant’s clientele can tip that much… surely the restaurant can afford to pay their workers a decent wage!

Just as he manages to balance the drinks on his tray, he notices his newest co-worker, Danny, fiddling with his own collection of drink glasses. Danny looks awfully shifty as he glances over his shoulder at a table and then takes a small sachet out of his pocket, tears a corner and pours it into one of the wine glasses.

Steve’s eyes narrow at the action. What the fuck?

Over the last week of Danny working at the restaurant, he has thought him to be unpleasant at best and suspicious at worst. The one time Steve tried to make conversation with him, just asking where he worked before there, he got a glare and a clipped comment about not getting personal. Now that he thinks about it, Steve doesn’t even know Danny’s last name.

He watches Danny pick up the tray, do a final glance around the restaurant (either not perceiving Steve as a threat or not seeing him stood five feet away), and walks toward the table area.

And he’s not saying Danny would poison a customer. He’s not saying that, because that is insane. But. What’s the alternative? That Danny got a request to put, like, powdered vitamins in someone’s drink? It’s just shifty that’s all!

And, like he said, he can’t afford to lose this job.

That includes if it gets shut down for becoming a murder scene. Or him accidentally abetting a murder by not doing anything!

What does he even do? He’s going to look genuinely insane, whether he's right or wrong.

Danny reaches a table (it’s the table Hot Guy is seated at) with his tray, and plasters on a customer service smile as he starts dishing out the drinks. Steve keeps an eye on the (possibly) tainted wine glass as Danny puts it down in front of- in front of Hot Guy. Shit.

Steve’s heart starts speeding up as he watches Hot Guy pick up the wine glass, inspecting it and giving it a little swirl before starting to lift it, and- fuck it.

Steve bolts over to the table, definitely knocking over another server’s tray as he goes, and has to shove the wine glass out of Hot Guy’s hand to stop whatever’s about to happen.

The liquid splashes onto Hot Guy’s chest (Steve hopes the poison isn’t, like, corrosive), then the glass shatters to the floor, and Steve’s left heaving as he catches his breath. Not from the exercise, but from the adrenaline rush. Because Steve is- oh god, he’s in Hot Guy’s lap.

He scrambles to stand up, cheeks bright red, and chances a glance at Danny. On the surface, Danny looks shocked and apologetic to the rest of the businessmen at the table, but Steve sees his right eye twitch and his ears start to tint red. Okay. So. Even if he looks crazy, maybe he made a good move.

He looks back toward Hot Guy only to find that he’s already being watched with an inquisitive gaze. The man still has his hand held up like he’s holding the wine glass still, and he has one (perfectly manicured) eyebrow raised at Steve. Steve feels his cheeks heat up even more under his attention.

“I am so sorry, sir.” Steve finds himself blurting out, but Hot Guy just shakes his head at him, oddly calm.

“I’ll get you another drink, Mr Munson.” Danny says, giving Steve a pointed glare before walking away.

Hot Guy- No. Mr Munson looks like he’s about to say something, but Steve needs to get him somewhere he can tell him what happened away from other people and before Danny tries it again, so he boldly puts a hand on the man’s shoulder. The possibility of looking crazy be damned.

“Let me help you get cleaned up, sir.”

Mr Munson considers him for a moment more, and then nods. Maybe he sees the frantic, anxious look in Steve’s expression, or maybe he just wants to yell at Steve outside of the view of his assumed co-workers.

"I'll be right back. Don't talk business without me." Mr Munson addressed his table before following him off.

Steve leads him to the customer toilets, and then takes him to the staff hallway just behind them. Mr Munson’s eyebrows raise at that, and at the serious expression on Steve’s face.

“Sir, I’m so sorry for that, but I… This is going to sound insane, but I think my co-worker poisoned your drink.”

He levels Mr Munson with a serious expression as he speaks, trying to negate the craziness of what he’s saying by showing he’s not joking. Through doing so, of course, Steve also gets the chance to get a better look at Mr Munson’s face, which is just… like he said earlier, gorgeous. And that’s not even talking about the deep brown of his eyes.

Mr Munson doesn’t even flinch at Steve’s words, just looks down at the wine on his shirt with a vague look of disgust.

“I see.”

He doesn’t sound surprised. What the fuck? Who is this man?

“You don’t seem shocked.” Steve finds himself saying, and then his eyes widen and he smacks a hand over his mouth, “Ignore me! I don’t want to get involved in any, um. Not crimes. I’m going to stop talking now.”

As he keeps talking, Mr Munson’s face contorts into an amused smile, and his gaze wanders over Steve’s form, then back up to his eyes. When Steve’s done rambling, the man laughs.

“No. I’m not shocked.” Is all Mr Munson says, “But unfortunately, you are involved now, sweetheart.”

Steve feels the colour drain from his face at the words and the serious tone Mr Munson speaks them in, but before he can even squeak (or scream) in response, the Staff Only door slams open, and Steve is greeted with two pistols pointed at him.

Then he squeaks. And puts his hands up in a surrender position, even though the two men glaring at him don’t look like police officers. They’re wearing suits, like they’re customers of the restaurant. And they completely ignore Steve in favour of scanning over Mr Munson.

Holy shit. What the fuck is his life? Robin will never believe him when he gets home. If he gets home.

“Put the guns down, boys.” Mr Munson says from beside Steve, and then (gently) puts his hands on Steve’s arms to push them back down to his sides, “No need for all that, sweetheart.”

“Sorry, Eddie. We thought- you just disappeared, and we heard glass shattering, so-” One of the gunmen says, stumbling through his words slightly.

“We thought you’d been kidnapped. Again.” The other says, looking unimpressed.

Eddie rolls his eyes, and Steve notes how he hasn’t removed his hands from him yet.

“I’ve been told that- sorry, sweetheart, what’s your name?” Eddie starts, maintaining eye contact with Steve only.

Sweetheart. Kill him now. How is his dick still working in these conditions, and why is 'sweetheart' doing it for him? Maybe it's more to do with Eddie himself than the word...

“Steve.” He squeaks out.

“Right. Steve, here, thinks my drink was poisoned by his co-worker. He’s the culprit for the glass, and this,” Eddie gestures to his wet shirt, “and then he took me here to clean me up.”

“What’s the name of this co-worker?” One of the gunmen ask Steve, voice intense, and when Steve just blinks at him he takes a step forward like he’s about to put a hand on him. Steve can’t help his flinch in response.

Which Eddie apparently feels, given the way he tsks at his men and takes a step back, pulling Steve with him.

“No threatening my possible saviour, Jeffy. This isn’t an interrogation.”

“His- His name’s Danny. I don’t know a last name.” Steve says finally, and gulps when Eddie rubs his thumbs back and forth where his hands are still on him.

“Good boy.” Eddie says softly, and Steve can’t help the shudder that runs through him.

Okay. It's confirmed. Apparently being mildly traumatised by guns doesn’t stop him from getting horny. Good to know. Hopefully Eddie doesn't notice how red he's gotten again.

Eddie finally lets go of him to step toward his men.

“You heard the man. Gareth, go get a sample of the wine that spilled on the floor and figure out if Stevie here is right, and Jeff, go tell everyone else who we’re looking for and find Danny.”

The two gunmen leave with their orders, and Eddie turns back to Steve. He’s looking at Steve with that intense gaze once again, eyes dragging down to his beat-up Reeboks and back up to his dishevelled face.

“Now, how can I reward you for probably saving my life, sweetheart?”

#oh fuck goldie I am obsessed #I am on my KNEES #I am BEGGING #BEGGING YOOOOUUUU #this is in my brain forever now #Won't ever stop thinking about it

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