and you picked me

And then slowly the back of the van starts to change. A pillow here, and blanket there, Gareth figures Eddie's just taking more naps in the back or crashing there instead of driving home when he drinks. But then one day Eddie says he can't let them pack up their instruments in there.

"Why not?", Jeff asked.

"It'll mess up the carpeting."

"I've been thinking, maybe I should get a tattoo," he says as nonchalantly as possible, as his fingers follow the sweep of each bat.

Below him, Eddie bolts upright, his head almost colliding with Steve's chin. A look of deep concern has overtaken his face as he asks tentatively, "where?"

"Where? What do you mean where? I'd just go to your guy."

"No, where on your body do you want a tattoo?"

"I was thinking..." Steve trailed off. In reality, he hasn't thought it through that far. He doesn't really even have a design in mind, let alone a placement, so he offered his own forearm to Eddie. "Here maybe."

"Oh no, no no no," Eddie insists with a shake of his head, "not there. You can't cover up your best freckles."

"Okay, fine. What about here?" Steve asks, pulling up his shirt to expose his torso, his hand vaguely gesturing to his chest awash in hair.

"Absolutely not! It's not worth the risk."

"The risk? You said tattoos are perfectly safe."

"Yeah, they are. But shaving your chest isn't. What if some of the hair doesn't grow back?" Eddie explains as he runs his fingers through the dark thicket. " That's not a risk I'm willing to let you take, Stevie."

A deep laugh erupts from Steve as he hikes up one leg of his sweatpants. "What about here then?" he inquires, gesturing to his upper thigh, though he knows the answer before Eddie even speaks.

"But my favorite mole is on that thigh, you wouldn't take one of my favorite moles from me, would you?" Eddie's eyes are puppy dog big, as he tilts his head to one side. "And before you even suggest it, my second and third favorite moles are on your other thigh."

They search the rest of his body together, finding a problem with each and every spot, until Eddie announces with great exasperation, "face it, sweetheart, you're already a work of art."

A groan escapes Steve's lips at the cheesy compliment yet he can't help but lean over to kiss his boyfriend, his hands wrapping their way around the creatures creeping up Eddie's neck, until Eddie's lips break from his long enough to say, "unless you want to get a lower back tattoo. I've always thought Michelangelo's David would look even hotter with a tramp stamp. Maybe 'Property of Eddie Munson'?"

"Oh, fuck off!" Steve grumbles as he pushes his boyfriend down onto the couch.

Eddie wants to impress Steve, so he adds hot sauce to his pizza; Gareth opens his mouth to say something, but Eddie silences him with a single look, then he turns to Steve, looks him straight in the eye, and flashes a half-smile before taking a bite of pizza.

The sauce stings his mouth, but Eddie acts as if he doesn't feel it; he doesn't want to embarrass himself in front of Steve, but as soon as he starts chewing, his whole mouth burns, and he can’t stop the tears from running down his cheeks. It’s as if hell were in his mouth!

“Did you just ruin a whole pizza by drowning it in hot sauce?” Dustin asks exasperatedly.

“I'm going to eat it,” Steve interjects, holding out his own pizza to Eddie. “There’s no hot sauce on mine; you can have it.”

Resigned, because he is actually a bit hungry, Eddie takes Steve's box, thanking him, then he watches him bite into the hot-sauce-laden slice of pizza without batting an eye. Steve shows no reaction; he doesn't squint or wrinkle his nose, his face betrays absolutely no discomfort, and no tears run down his cheeks.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Meanwhile, said man is as frozen as a statue, eyes wide, because what you mean a pigeon landed on his perfectly pampered head?!

the first video being a tour of the house. at one point Steve opens the door to a bathroom to a racoon sitting in the toilet. "Shit, sorry dude," he says calmly closing it before barricading the door. "Let's just not tell Robin about that for right now." At the end Robin and Steve stand on the front step and Robin says "Alright, between my ADHD and autism," (Steve: mhm) "and your ADHD and dyslexia," (Steve: mhm) "nothing can go wrong!" (Steve: mhm!)

Robin finds out about the racoon while editing the video and the next installment is titled Operation Racoon Eviction. She steals Dustin's comms equipment to set up communication between herself in the car and Steve in the house. Both have gopros recording both their povs and Steve is caught in 4k lying about what he's doing multiple times.

Next is a 30 second video of Steve getting a rabies shot and refusing to let go of Robin's hand. When their channel gets popular these first three videos get dubbed "The Raccoon Saga"

They clear out half the rooms on the ground floor of junk and Robin pretends to do an auction of the stuff they found. Off camera is Steve bidding on the items. Robin uses increasingly creative descriptors to call on him. ("And here we have a baby doll, with its head and body detached and connected by a string, creating what experts in the nunchuck industry call 'babychucks'. Include with this item is the soul of whatever tortured child haunts this thing. Bidding starts at one billion dollars." "One william gazillion dollars!" "Going once, going twice... SOLD to the guy with the Alvin and the Chipmunks haircut!")

Steve's house becoming a home for all the Party.

Like, a place where they can decompress, a place where there's always a comfy bed and a warm meal if they need it, a place where they can just be, with people who understand them and don't judge.

So if one of them ever fights with a parent or has a PTSD episode and need a place to get better, they go to Steve's house

Just... Steve making a big, warm, welcoming home out of his big, cold, empty house

And his parents coming back and finding the place finally lived in, and not exactly messy, but it's clear there was a family in there, you know?

Eddie: Steve Harrington? At Scoops??

Jeff: Uh huh!

Eddie: Oh this I GOTTA see

The boys and Eddie devise a plan, for Eddie to go into scoops ahoy and somehow try to really embarrass Steve as a way of getting back at him on behalf of all the freaks, calling out all that Steve and his stupid posse stood for.

They spent hours while they were hanging out laughing and throwing around different ideas of what he could do to make Harrington make a fool of himself, maybe Eddie would leave a massive spill for him to have to clean up, or keep getting him to give Eddie a taste of flavour after flavour just to see how long it would take for him to break.

He was so ready. This was going to be so good! He couldn’t wait to rub it in Steve Harringtons face that - outside of high school? He was just another dude. Welcome to the real world, asshole.

The next day…

Gareth: So Ed’s how did the plan go? Was he as gloriously embarrassing as he sounded? Did he lose his shit at you for being a prick??

Eddie: Oh, well um… about that.

Gareth: ??

Jeff:

Gareth: What man?? What happened?

Eddie: …

Jeff: Eddie.

Eddie: Well I um- I did go! I really did, but I also just… left. Like right after.

Gareth: The fuck??

Freak: I thought we had a Plan??

Jeff: Did he do something to you?

Eddie: I know, I know. And No! No definitely- he didn’t do anything. I just couldn’t do it! Sorry guys…

Jeff:

Jeff: You thought he looked hot, didn’t you.

Eddie: I-???

Freak: Goddamnit Eddie.

Gareth: No, that makes sense.

Written for @steddiemicrofic.

for good measure

July Prompt: Micro | Word Count: 555 | Rating: T | CW: Language, Minor Injury, Feet | POV: Eddie | Tags: Future Fic, Established Relationship, Slice of Life, Steve Should Know Better Than To Enter His Lair

"Godamnit, Jesus Christ, what the fuck?!" 

Eddie jolts up straight, only to find that there's a paper stuck to face. He grasps at it, batting it away, trying to assess the situation. 

"What? What's wrong?" Eddie asks. Alarmed.

Steve's hopping around the spare bedroom, the one where Eddie does his hobby shit. 

"I stepped on a Lego!" Steve hollers, voice incredibly bitchy.

Eddie doesn't have any Lego in here, so that seems rather unlikely. But he's not about to tell Steve that. No use poking the bear with a stick.

"Sit down, let me see," Eddie says, heart hammering in his chest. Steve scared the fucking shit out of him. He doesn't usually bulldoze his way into a room, making a ruckus. That's Eddie's schtick. Not Steve's.

for @corrodedcoffinfest day 23 prompt 'acid wash'

rated e | 744 words | no cw | tags: established steddie, oral sex, post-vecna

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The jeans don’t fit him, but he tries anyway.

They must be Eddie’s. No one else is this skinny in the hips that would have left their jeans here. And he’s probably the only one besides Jeff to wear acid wash denim still.

They don’t even go over his thighs. He’s always been thicker than Eddie, more muscle where Eddie’s scrawny, but he usually can at least get the pants on his body. He hasn’t really noticed any weight gain, but maybe the less frequent trips to the gym have caused an issue. He is getting older, and gets tricked into eating McDonald’s a lot more than he should…

A hand smacks his ass.

for @corrodedcoffinfest day 25 prompt 'smoking section'

rated t | 822 words | cw: smoking | tags: famous corroded coffin, airplanes, jeff is interim band manager while steve isn't there, established steddie

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The beauty of having your own plane is that you can make plenty of your own rules. As long as it’s not an FAA thing, it’s allowed.

Steve stays on top of the rules for them, but Steve isn’t here.

Jeff wishes he’d talked with him before this. Well, they did talk. He got the rundown on the schedule and the point of contact for all of their interviews. He knows where they should be and when, and even what they should probably wear for each one.

He knows when their flights take off and land, and what airports they do these things at.

But he doesn’t know if Steve cleared what’s currently happening in the back of the plane. He’s pretty sure he didn’t and Eddie’s about ten seconds from being banned from flying ever again.

“I’m sorry sir, there’s no smoking section on this plane. We have strict rules against any type of smoking within the doors before, during, and after the flight,” the flight attendant kindly says. She has been extremely tolerable of their shenanigans for nearly two hours now, and her patience is thinning. “We appreciate your cooperation.”

Eddie stares at her over the cigarette he pulled from his mouth the second she walked up. So he clearly knew he shouldn’t be doing this, but still tried. He’s such a menace.

“Oh. I thought we could on private?” Eddie sounds so genuine, he almost fools Jeff, who hasn’t fallen for his shit in years.

“I’m sorry, sir. Some planes allow it, but our company is quite strict. I have to ask you to put that out immediately.”

Eddie, even though he is a menace, is not one to make someone’s job harder. He puts out the cigarette in the ash tray he brought with him and gives her a smile.

“No problem. Sorry.”

She smiles and nods politely before walking back to the front where Frankie and Gareth have been playing a dangerous game of cards. He should probably go back and supervise, but he’s pretty sure if the pretty flight attendant is there, they’ll behave themselves.

He sits down next to Eddie and pats his leg. “Doing okay?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs. “How much longer is this flight?”

Jeff checks his watch. “About four more hours.”

“Seriously?” Eddie groans. “Do you have anything that’ll knock me out?”

Jeff watches him for a moment. How his leg is bouncing and his fingers keep tightening into fists. How the dark circles under his eyes have only gotten worse over the last week while they’ve been going from late night shows to SNL to radio interviews. He’s pretty sure he’s sleeping, but since they all have their own rooms in hotels, he can’t be sure.

“I thought you quit smoking,” Jeff finally says. He definitely didn’t think that. He did think he switched to just weed, though.

“I did.”

Jeff raises a brow and gestures at the ash tray. “So…”

“It’s just while we’re gone.”

“Uh huh.” Jeff realizes a little too late what’s going on. “Does Steve know?”

Eddie shakes his head and leans back, closing his eyes. The closer Jeff looks, the more convinced he is that Eddie’s not resting, and probably not taking care of himself in any way besides what he absolutely has to to get through this promotional tour.

He misses Steve. Jeff misses his girlfriend, too, but it’s different for them. All they’ve ever known is him leaving for tours and recording and her waiting for him to get back for a couple weeks just to do it all again. Steve’s been their band manager, been with them every step of the way for years. Eddie’s never without him by his side for longer than a few hours, maybe a day if they have to try to fit a lot into visiting one city.

It’s not that he can’t function without Steve. Eddie’s more independent than all of them, actually. Jeff still can’t cook, Gareth has somehow managed to ruin half his laundry anytime he does it, and Frankie would forget his own head if it wasn’t attached to his body. But Steve makes things easier. Better. More fun.

For all of them, really, not just Eddie.

“If you want to smoke one in the bathroom, I’ll make sure the flight attendant is distracted,” Jeff offers. He’s not usually one to push the rules, but Eddie clearly needs something to relax. “But try to be quick and make sure you use the air freshener to get rid of the smell.”