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badcaseofcasey · 9 hours

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part 2 of runaway bride stevie! modern au, exes to lovers, transfem stevie harrington pt 1

Eddie Munson is not having a good day.

His phone died last night so his alarm didn’t go off, his bassist is sick so their gig tonight has to be canceled, and his last three Uber rides have stiffed him on a tip.

He accepts a request from some dude named Scott with a terrible comb-over in his profile picture and gives himself two seconds to bang his forehead into his steering wheel in frustration with a closed-mouth scream. Then he dials it back so he doesn’t seem absolutely fucking insane. He can see the suit he’s about to escort to some fucking meeting even though he’d rather be doing any-fucking-thing else, and he pastes a fake smile on to greet him. He’s gearing up to fall into the usual routine of this godforsaken job, but then it all goes a little sideways.

There’s movement from the corner of his eye, and then a blur of a body is slamming into poor Scott from behind, shoulder checking him and almost sending him careening onto the sidewalk. The dude pinwheels his arms like a cartoon character, suit jacket puffing up around his shoulders awkwardly, expression so baffled it makes Eddie snort despite himself.

“Oh, shit,” he mumbles, and he’s reaching for his seatbelt to see if the guy needs any help - he looks like he might break a hip if he hits the ground - but then a whirlwind of white fabric swoops into his backseat and a loud, desperate voice yells "DRIVE!" in his ear, and he sort of just thinks 'sure, why the fuck not,' and slams his foot on the gas.

The car fishtails a bit and the tires squeal as he swerves into traffic, horns honking after him, and he picks a direction at random, going way too fast for this area of town.

His heart is pounding in his chest, worst case scenarios running through his head. He’s going to get car jacked. He’s going to go to jail for being an unwitting getaway driver. But there isn’t any more yelling from the back seat, just heavy, panicked breathing, and he settles into traffic and slows down to a more normal speed before he cuts his eyes up to the rearview mirror.

Time stops.

It’s Stevie.

He can’t believe he didn’t recognize her the second he saw her, but in his defense, it's not like he was expecting to see his ex-girlfriend in a goddamn wedding dress running like she stole something today.

Pure panic wraps tight around his throat as he takes her in - is she hurt? In danger? Nothing good could have had her sprinting away from her own wedding, but it seems like she’s just shaken up.

His heart calms a bit once her tears dry and they get properly on the road.

And shit, it’s so unfair, because she's just as breathtaking as she was the day they split. She looks just as sad, too, which is certainly not how a woman like Stevie Harrington should look on her wedding day. But seeing her in a gown like that - Jesus Christ. His heart squeezes painfully in his chest. It’s like something out of a fantasy, seeing her in the exact kind of dress she used to whisper to him about wanting, the kind of dress he’d once promised to marry her in. Of course, they fell apart before he could even get a ring on her finger, but it still sends his stomach swooping to see the future they’d spoken about come to life.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” he can’t help but ask, glancing over his shoulder at her.

“Yeah,” she says, voice high and a little squeaky. “Yeah, I’m totally fine. Just in my ex-boyfriend's car after I left my fiance at the altar, it’s all fine, it’s chill.”

“Okay,” he says haltingly, delicately, because Stevie Harrington is not the kind of person who says it’s chill, “it’s just that, you know, all of that sounds decidedly not chill.”

“This is so chill. It’s the chillest I’ve ever been, actually - hold on–” she says, and next thing he knows a swirl of silk is blocking his view and he sputters a bit as the train of her dress smacks him in the face, but she’s clambering gracelessly from the back seat and over the console to plop down on the passenger side with a loud huff and a cloud of perfume.

It’s different from what she used to wear. She used to smell spicy and warm, with notes of amber and cinnamon. He’d kiss the little spots in her wrists where she’d spritz it on, trace the veins beneath the tan skin with his nose to keep the scent of her with him.

Now she smells like vanilla and something floral, airy and light. Like he stepped into a bakery. It’s not bad, of course it’s not bad, but it’s…different. Not her.

Or not his version of her, anyway.

This is someone else’s Stevie now, and she smells like fucking cookies instead of home.

Instead of commenting on it, he just tells her to put on her seat belt, and she looks at him like he’s an idiot.

“And wrinkle this dress?” she says, her nose curling a little, and God she’s such a bitch and he’s missed it so much.

“I hate to break it to you,” he tells her, “but some wrinkles are not the worst damage that thing has seen today.” There are small grey splotches on the bodice where her makeup dripped as she cried earlier, and the hemline has some muddy staining from her mad dash on the sidewalk. It’s not ruined, but it’ll have to be cleaned, and a couple of wrinkles will be the easiest thing to get out of the formerly pristine fabric.

He glances over at her in time to see her run her hands over the skirt of the dress, smoothing it out over her thighs. It shifts, the leg slit parting to show her skin, teasing at the hint of a crease where her thigh and stomach meet, and Eddie rips his gaze away to stare at the road instead.

“Probably for the best, anyway,” he says, and he feels her eyes latch onto his profile.

“And why’s that?” she asks, and he smirks.

“Well, pure white? C’mon, Stevie, we both know that’s a lie.” He flashes her a wicked grin and she makes an outraged sound, but a small smile is teasing at her mouth even as her cheeks flush.

She kicks off her heels - red bottoms, because of fucking course they are - and slouches in the seat. She pushes herself up, adjusting in the pile of silk and corsetry she’s been strapped into, and he sees the absolute mountain of a rock on her hand, and manages to bite his tongue about it being the gaudiest thing he’s ever seen.

"So who was the lucky guy?" Eddie asks before he can stop himself, and the glare Stevie gives him could cut glass. “Or lucky woman. Person? Far be it from me to deny you your bisexual rights.”

He probably sounds like a jealous asshole, but he can't help it. He's the getaway driver for his one that got away on her fucking wedding day, and he feels like he deserves to ask a few questions.

His hands tighten on the steering wheel as the silence lingers, but eventually, Stevie just groans, letting her head fall back against the headrest dramatically.

"Don't laugh," she demands, and Eddie shakes his head.

"Scout's honor," he promises, and he swears a wry little grin teases at her lips.

“You were never a scout. You would have been kicked out for inciting a riot.”

“Hey, I just ensured we all earned our arson badges, okay? I did every one of those kids a favor.” Stevie scoffs, and it almost sounds fond.

Then she says, “Tommy,” and he almost swerves into oncoming traffic.

"HAGAN?" he says, louder than he means to, and her hand flies up to grab the oh-shit bar.

“Eddie, Jesus!” she says, glaring at him, and he shakes his head, focusing back on the road.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, but fucking - really? “Really?” He can’t help himself. “Tommy Hagan?”

“Yes, really, Tommy Hagan,” she says hotly, like she’s defensive, like she didn’t just leave the schmuck at the fucking altar.

“Well that explains the ring, at least.” She reaches over, smacking at his arm, which, thanks to the aforementioned ring, is probably going to bruise. “Hey, ow!” He glares at her, taking a hand off the wheel to rub his bicep. “Watch it, that thing’s a weapon.”

“Then stop sassing me about it,” she snaps, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms and her face falls into that adorable bitchy little pout he’s always fucking loved, and he looks away again.

He can’t help but glance back over at her left hand. The ring is…certainly something. Giant, square, one big diamond surrounded by other, smaller diamonds, with even more diamonds on the band. It looks heavy and cumbersome and like she’s going to smack it into every wall and door and get it caught in her hair and seriously, he’s pretty sure he’s already got a knot forming on his arm where the thing hit him.

It looks like Tommy walked into the priciest jewelry store he could find and asked for the most expensive ring they had.

It looks like a status symbol.

It doesn’t look like her.

“Apologies, highness,” he says, shaking himself free of his thoughts. It’s not fair to hold her to those standards. He hasn’t spoken to her in years. He can’t know what kind of person she is now.

But there’s still a bone-deep knowing that overtakes him at the feeling of the woman next to him. A sense of deja vu so strong it threatens to knock him over.

A different car, a different time, a different circumstance, but the same person. The same love.

He’d picked a direction at random, but as the streets become more familiar, he realizes he’s heading towards his place. It’s as good as any, he figures, and he shifts lanes, reaching to tap on his phone and shutting down his Uber account.

“You know, I almost expected you’d still be driving that beat up old van,” Stevie says suddenly, and he crows a laugh.

“Ah, Van Halen, you served me well until you almost blew up on the highway,” he says fondly. “Lost her about a year ago. It was tragic. I held a funeral.” She laughs again, shaking her head.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” she says, turning that pretty smile his way, and his heart does a somersault.

“That was a very impressive move back there, by the way,” he tells her, “that shoulder check of that old defenseless businessman?” He whistles. “Haven’t seen anybody move that quick to steal an old man’s ride before, really, it should have been documented.”

“Oh my god, shut up,” she says, but there’s a laugh in her voice, and she brings up her hands to press to her pink cheeks. He can’t help but keep digging.

“No, seriously! And sprinting like that in heels? And in that dress? What’s that thing weigh, like twenty pounds?”

“It’s a dress, not a suit of armor,” she tells him, but her smile is growing, making her eyes crinkle.

“Just saying, it was pretty metal,” he shrugs, and she snorts.

“Well, you would know,” she says, and he ignores the way his face flushes in response. She gives a little sigh, wiping below her eye and frowning at the smear of black on her fingers.

“Here,” he says, reaching across her. His arm brushes her leg as he opens the glove box and he’s so fucking normal about it. He pulls out a few fast food napkins, holding them out to her. “No makeup wipes in here, but that’ll help with the worst of it.”

“Thanks,” she says, and she flips the visor down, tapping a napkin to her tongue to wet it before wiping at the mascara tracks running down her face. “God,” she groans, scrubbing at a particularly stubborn smear, “I look like a raccoon.”

“A very cute raccoon,” he says before he can stop himself. Jesus, Munson, dial it back. “Like the raccoon that’s about to get the best trash in the bin, she doesn’t even have to ask for it.” Stop talking. “The other raccoons are just gonna give it to her, on account of how cute she is.” He’s gonna throw himself into traffic.

“Did you just call me a raccoon on my wedding day,” she asks. Fine, commit to the bit.

“You called yourself a raccoon on your wedding day. I was just agreeing with you,” he replies, keeping his eyes fixed to the road.

Her eyes are on him - he can feel her stare burning into the side of his face, and his cheeks are going pink and blotchy and God, he’s an idiot–

And then she laughs. Not her polite little contained laugh, either, no, this is that loud, wide mouthed laugh that she hates, that makes her shoulders shake and her head fall back. It’s squeaky and hearty and a little obnoxious and he’s always been so obsessed with getting her to let it out, and he can’t help the smug beaming little smile he gives at the sound.

“You’re such an ass,” she says through her laugh, and Eddie can’t help but laugh with her even if it’s at his own expense, because at least she doesn’t look so goddamn sad anymore.

When they finally reach his apartment complex she’s a little more subdued, but the look on her face isn’t totally heartbreaking, and he’ll take what he can get. He comes around to the passenger side to open her door for her and helps her gather the dramatic skirt of her dress to keep it off the pavement as they head towards the stairs, and he knows he looks like an insane person as he carts a bride down the hall, but he just smiles at his nosy neighbors and lets this cement his reputation as the weird as fuck off-putting metalhead he knows they all think of him as.

He feels a little self conscious as he opens the apartment door for her, sweeping an arm dramatically to allow her to enter first. For the first time since she swept into his car, he wonders if this is a good idea. But it’s too late now – Stevie’s giving him a little smile and stepping into his home, and part of him knows this was inevitable. She may not have called him, but he was always going to come if she needed him.

He follows her inside and tries to calm the pounding of his heart, watching her take in his space, struck all over again by her beauty and the impossibility of her standing here, and silently prays he isn’t going to fuck it up all over again.

this was almost even longer, but I figure 2.5k is enough for a part 2! no tag lists, sorry, but part 3 will be here at some point. thank you to everyone who's had a kind word to say about this au these two are very near and dear to me 💕

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badcaseofcasey · 10 hours

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modern au, exes to lovers, transfem stevie harrington

Stevie Harrington is not having a good day.

By all accounts, she should be. Robin woke her right on time by pressing a perfectly made brown sugar shaken espresso into her hand. Nancy and Chrissy got to the venue earlier than expected. The hair and makeup people were on schedule. Their boozy charcuterie brunch during their prep time was perfectly served, the mimosas delicious and the food fresh and light enough to put on her nervous stomach.

Everything’s gone off without a hitch. She looks gorgeous. She’s got her something old, her something new, her something borrowed, and even her something blue. Her hair’s done in a soft blowout, framing her face but out of the way, ready for the combs of her veil to slip into. Her makeup is elegant, not too showy and not too dramatic, neutral and warm and sweet. And her dress. It’s what she always dreamed of, clingy and silky with a dramatic leg slit and a long train, off the shoulders, perfectly white. She’s staring at herself in the mirror knowing that in forty-five minutes, she’s going to hold the world’s most beautiful wedding bouquet and walk down the most perfectly decorated aisle in the quaintest, sweetest church she could find, and she’ll stand across from her fiancé and take his hands and say “I do” and all of her dreams will come true.

So she should be having a good day.

Because it’s her wedding day, and Stevie Harrington is about to become Stefania Hagan.

Maybe that brunch wasn’t so perfect after all, because she thinks she’s about to puke.

“I can’t do this,” she says, but her voice is so soft it’s barely a whisper and the girls don’t even glance at her. “I can’t do this,” she repeats, and Robin - bless her, her favorite person in the world, her soulmate, her other half, her maid of honor - glances up.

“What’s that, Evie?” she asks, and the others look over at her, and Stevie stands there beneath their gazes and knows if she just says it again, says I can’t do this, don’t make me marry him, get me out of here, all three of them would drag her to an exit and get her the fuck out.

They don’t even like Tommy. Robin actively hates him, actually, and that should have been enough for Stevie to never look at him twice.

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t enough.

She thinks back to a few days ago, drunk in a bar with a white sash wrapped around her torso, a tiara on her head, and mascara running down her face as she desperately sobbed on Robin’s shoulder during her bachelorette party. That little meltdown wasn’t enough. And she thinks back further, to when Tommy proposed - in public, at a fucking baseball game, on the goddamn jumbotron. Dread had settled in her chest at the sight of the ring (huge, gaudy, she hated it on sight) even as she pasted on a smile and said yes. That hadn’t been enough.

But somehow standing here done up head to toe, about to walk down the aisle in her absolute dream wedding - that’s enough. Because everything about today is right. Everything’s in place. Everything’s gorgeous and going to plan and she should be so, so happy - but it’s the wrong man waiting for her at the end of all of it.

She can’t do this.

She looks up and meets Robin’s eyes and forces a smile. “I said I need to get my veil,” she lies, and she slips into her shoes (red bottoms, a gift from Tommy’s mother, perfectly white and pointed and it’s her dream day, how can she be throwing this away?) and walks into the other room where her garment bag is hanging, and her veil is there with its delicate detail and it’s scalloped edges and it’s all so fucking perfect she’s going to scream, she wants to rip it to pieces and she wants to tear this dress off and she wants to sob, she doesn’t want to do this, she doesn’t want to get married - not to him. Not to Tommy.

She could ask for help. Robin would have her out of here in five minutes flat, Nancy would craft an excuse to tell everyone, and Chrissy would cause a distraction. But even that’s too long of a wait. Even that’s too much attention, too much suspicion. She needs to move faster than that. She needs out now.

She quickens her pace as she crosses the room, dress dragging along the carpet, and she snags her phone where it’s sitting on the end table next to an overstuffed love seat, and in three long strides she’s out the door and in the hall and the church has been busy and packed all day but somehow, miraculously, there’s no one here.

No one sees Stevie as she gathers up the fabric of her dress in her hands and starts to walk towards the exit. No one sees as her walk speeds to a jog, and then a run, and then she slams out of a side door and she’s on the sidewalk and she’s sprinting, her heels are going to get scuffed by the pavement but she can’t care, she’s running as fast as she can and dodging people on the sidewalk as they turn and gawk at her and she cannot give them a thought, cannot focus on them even a little bit because she has to get away, escape is the only thought on her mind as she gasps for air, her dress is so heavy and it’s not made for running that’s for goddamn sure, and the last few years with Tommy flash through her mind - every time he’s undermined her or given her a backhanded compliment or policed her, told her she wasn’t feminine enough, told her she wasn’t trying hard enough to pass, told her to just keep it all to herself so no one would know she wasn’t cis, wouldn’t embarrass him by making a scene, all the times that come together to a glaringly obvious conclusion that he doesn’t really love her and she kind of hates him a little actually, and obviously she can’t fucking marry him and–

There.

A beat-up four-door with an Uber sticker in the window.

That’ll do, she thinks, and she changes course, shoulder-checking a man and not apologizing for it as she makes a beeline for the car. She pops off an acrylic wrenching the door open and tossing herself into the backseat, and she yells “DRIVE!” at the top of her lungs and somehow, through some miracle, they listen, swerving into traffic with a loud curse and a myriad of honking horns and a quaint, sweet little church growing smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.

She’s gasping for breath, chest heaving, staring out the back window like she’s waiting for someone to follow her - and maybe she is, maybe Tommy is hot on her trail, or maybe Robin is coming to kill her for not including her in her mad dash to freedom and instead jumping in a stranger’s car going God knows where.

“So uh,” a voice says, and she whips around, staring wide-eyed at the brown eyes fixed on her in the mirror, and no, no fucking way– “where to, ma’am?”

“Um,” she says, and her voice is shaky, cracking a little, she brushes her hair out of her face and stares and– wait.

There’s a beat. The driver’s eyes widen. Recognition flashes over his face at the same time it registers for Stevie.

“Stevie?” Eddie Munson, her ex-boyfriend of several years, the man she hasn’t spoken to since that fateful night they went their separate ways, is staring at her in shock, not even looking at the road, and the only thing she can think is how he’s just as averse to road safety now as he’d been way back when.

“Eddie,” she croaks out.

Too many emotions are overwhelming her at once and it feels like the biggest cliché in the world, but honestly, Stevie feels like she’s entitled to some dramatics. It’s her goddamn wedding day, after all.

Her failed wedding day.

Where she just left her fiancé at the altar.

“Oh god,” she manages. Her lower lip wobbles. Her vision blurs.

“Stevie,” Eddie says again, like a warning, and that’s enough to push her over.

She bursts into tears in his backseat.

“Hey hey hey!” he says like she’s a fucking spooked horse or something, which only makes her cry more, ugly sobs that shake her shoulders and drip tear drops onto her dress. “Stevie, honey–”

“Do NOT call me honey right now!” she manages, and he raises a hand in surrender before flipping on a turn signal and finding a parking lot to pull over in.

“Okay, okay! No comforting pet names, you got it,” he agrees, and he shuts the car off, turning in his seat to look at her, concern painted all over his face and that’s just really not fair, she thinks, that he still looks so earnest and sweet and fucking worried about her.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, urgent and serious, and she shakes her head quickly.

“No! No, I’m - I’m fine, really,” she insists and he proves that he is a gentleman after all, because he doesn’t call her out on the blatant lie.

“Okay,” he says, level, his hand hovering in the space between them like he wants to touch her. “What do you need?” he asks, and she wipes at her face with her hands, swallowing down yet another sob.

“Get me out of here,” she pleads, and he searches her face for - something, she doesn’t know what, because she’s sure all she’s showing him is how much of a fucking mess she is, but he must find whatever he’s looking for.

He gives her a sharp nod. “Anywhere in particular, sweetheart?” he asks, turning to start the car again. She doesn’t call him out on the pet name this time.

“Anywhere but here,” she says, and he puts the car in reverse, pulling back onto the road.

“You got it,” he says, and some of that old charm must kick in - he winks at her in the rearview. She resolutely ignores the spike of emotion it gives her.

Then she takes a deep, shuddery breath, and opens the group chat to break the news to her wedding party.

part 2

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badcaseofcasey · 10 hours

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Buzzcut

For @klausinamarink ‘s birthday. I’m sorry this is late, my friend 💗

Eddie’s gonna kill him. Gonna murder his uncle and bury him in the backyard so he can never embarrass Eddie ever, ever again.

“This one,” Wayne the Betrayer continues, leafing over to the next page, “was Eddie’s eighth grade talent show.”

Steve makes a particularly strangled noise that lands somewhere between a coo and a laugh, pointing at the photo that Eddie is positive he’d set fire to last year.

Wayne must’ve made copies.

“Look at your hair!” Steve giggles, downright bouncing in his seat as he points to Eddie’s hideous buzzcut, “you were so cute!”

Eddie makes another grab for the photo album but his stupid jock boyfriend with his stupid, hot jock reflexes dances away, getting up from the couch to turn to the next page, which only makes him giggle louder.

“Look at you!” Steve downright coos this time, holding the photo album so close to his face it nearly rubs at his nose.

“I will never forgive you for this.” Eddie grumbles, Steve practically bouncing on his toes as he takes in Eddie’s woeful eighth-grade haircut, and Wayne has the audacity to scoff.

“Your boy asked. I ain’t about to refuse him.”

“You’re supposed to be on my side.” Eddie whines, and Wayne rolls his eyes.

“Not when you’re bein’ an idjit.”

Steve dances back over, keeping the album a safe distance away as he shows Eddie another photo, this time with him at a table covered in dice and miniatures, his hair still cropped close to his head. “I’m framing these.” Steve announces, tapping at the photograph, “look at you!”

And Steve’s smiling so big and wide, so obviously enamored, and Eddie, despite himself, feels his irritation shrink.

“We’re burning it.” Eddie counters, but it’s without heat, and Steve sits down next to him, no longer afraid for the albums safety.

“I love them.” Steve maintains, and Eddie softens more at the heartfelt way his boyfriend gazes on his awkward, gangly phase, on Eddie’s shaved head and how it accentuates his too-big ears and buggy eyes, Steve cradling the pages like those years are something precious.

“You’re biased.” Eddie grumbles, but he scoots a little closer to Steve. Presses their shoulders together. Their thighs.

“‘Ve got baby photos.” Wayne suddenly announces, and Eddie nearly topples off the couch, “you know he didn’t get hair until he was three?”

My permanent tag list (sorry yall are getting tagged twice in one day I am overdue on some gifts!!!) 💗: @hotluncheddie @hitlikehammers @hbyrde36 @littlewildflowerkitten @chaotic-waffle

@westifer-dead @perseus-notjackson @finntheehumaneater @theheadlessphilosopher @spectrum-spectre

@itsall-taken @marvel-ous-m @bookworm0690 @acasualcrossfade

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badcaseofcasey · 21 hours

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@_kassycakes_

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badcaseofcasey · 22 hours

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on this day, 6 yrs ago, bruno mars was surprised to see pete wentz

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badcaseofcasey · 22 hours

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I can't I can't I can't I can't

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badcaseofcasey · 22 hours

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badcaseofcasey · 23 hours

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life actually gets better when you leave the house consistently btw like im serious

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badcaseofcasey · 23 hours

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badcaseofcasey · 2 days

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kinda I want to (steddie, 1.5k, T)

Eddie gets home from work to music playing louder than usual from the kitchen. It’s not Steve’s latest obsession, at least—the guy gets fixated on one single record at a time and listens to it over and over again, singing along with his regrettably beautiful voice until Eddie’s learned every fucking word to every fucking song in Dream of the Blue Turtle against his will. It’s a problem.

He hangs his leather jacket over Steve’s blue-and-purple hoodie on the overcrowded coat rack, straining his ears. It feels vaguely familiar, but he can’t quite—

It’s nothing of Robin’s he can immediately place, either. Synth-pop, kind of dancey, except not New Order-bouncy. He takes off his boots and starts making his way to the kitchen. It kind of sounds like Depeche Mode? But the voice is wrong. Tougher, a little strained, a little… whiny? What the fuck is it?

He still hasn’t placed it as he gets to the kitchen. Steve doesn’t hear him approach—he has his back to the door, hands plunged into the suds-filled sink and he’s humming along to the mystery music. Eddie doesn’t step into the room yet. He needs to listen a bit longer, buy himself some time. Steve will think he knows what the tape is, and he’ll ask about it, and Eddie will have to admit that he doesn’t, and—

It’s a matter of principle, okay? He’s a musician and he works in a record store! He should be able to place whatever his less musically-educated roommate is listening to! Harrington catches him by surprise all too often, even after the nightmares they survived, even after moving to the city together, even after sharing this apartment that Eddie might refer to as shitty to get street cred with his intimidating goth co-worker at the store but is actually really nice, and warm, and by now probably, if Eddie’s being honest, feels more like home than Wayne’s, due in no small measure to Steve’s endless thoughtful little touches. The pink bathroom and the pale yellow walls here in the kitchen. The basil and mint on the windowsill. The mismatched wooden chairs, painted a glossy dark brown, set around the aqua blue formica table. It is but one of many surprises that Steve is just, like, weirdly good at—

The next song starts, and Eddie knows what they’re listening to. It’s something Pearl, the aforementioned goth co-worker, put on at the store a few times last week. Nine Inch Nails. Great band name, Eddie’ll give them that. Phallic and blasphemous at the same time? He’s almost jealous, honestly. They’re not metal, though, so it doesn’t count.

Eddie feels himself relax. He actually opens his mouth to finally say hi like a normal person, but then Steve starts bopping along to the beat. His legs bounce lightly, the movement rippling rhythmically through his thighs, his back, up to the soft curve of his shoulders. And it’s like Eddie can see what will happen if he announces his presence—Steve will turn to him, and smile, and say hi back. He’ll stop dancing. He’ll be embarrassed.

So Eddie stays right where he is. He doesn’t say a word, barely breathes at all, really. He surreptitiously leans one shoulder into the doorjamb because he needs some support during this difficult time. Steve is energetically brushing away at a gross saucepan, and his humming has turned increasingly coherent. “Your kiss,” he sings along with the second repetition of the refrain, shaking his hips. Your fist,” he croons, rinsing off the saucepan. “Na-na-na, na-na, under my skin.”

Because the thing is—and Eddie had noticed it already, pointed it out to Pearl in fact, who’d agreed with him, it should be noted—these lyrics are, uh, pretty gay? And so, and so, this, plus the dancing, isn’t helping one bit to rein in Eddie’s inconvenient, unrelenting crush on his roommate cum best friend cum life-debt beneficiary. He usually does a pretty good job of it, if he can say so himself, but it’s a daily struggle, of course, what with Steve looking like that, and being so sweet, and funny, and delightfully bitchy. There have been times—times! Moments, even. Steve coming out of the bathroom, freshly showered and drip drip dripping on the hardwood floor. Steve coming in after a run, flushed and sweaty and smelling like—

Eddie has turned out to be a much stronger man than he thought he was, let’s put it this way. Also, a constant source of free entertainment for their other roommate, who laughs in his face daily and slings baseless accusations about being able to cut the sexual tension with a knife in this fucking apartment.

Robin Buckley is unhinged and dangerous and should mind her own business.

As if the gay lyrics and the dancing weren’t enough, Steve’s wearing the good jeans, too: the Levi’s that send Eddie’s brain straight (ha!) back to the hallowed halls of Hawkins High, to his own sneaky, risky, guilty looks and the way light-wash denim clung to—not that Steve has any bad jeans, as such. And not that these could be the same jeans he had in high school: that pair was painted on, Eddie remembers it well, and Steve’s not as svelte as he was back then. (Personally, Eddie thinks he looks even better now, but that’s neither here not there.)

Eventually, he starts feeling less like he’s fondly witnessing his good friend’s moment of joyful abandon to the music and more like a fucking creep, so he leaves the safety of the threshold to take a step toward the boombox and turn down the volume. Not by much! He definitely doesn’t want to discourage Steve from turning shit up to eleven.

As expected, Steve startles, freezes, and his shoulders rise up toward his ears. He half-turns toward Eddie, doesn’t stop rinsing the saucepan under the tap. “Oh hey,” he says. “I didn’t hear you come in.” He looks caught, as if Eddie had surprised him doing something way more damning than listening to some music that’s a bit out of character.

Eddie clears his throat, steps closer, tries very hard not to look at the water splattered over Steve’s white tee and the enticing tiger stripes of see-through fabric on his belly, pink with skin and dark with hair. “Hey yourself,” he says, normally. “What in the world are you listening to?”

“Oh, this?” Steve says, gesturing toward the boombox with a couple of wet fingers. He sets the saucepan to dry, face down on a towel on the counter. “Just something Jon thought I’d like, I dunno.”

“Jonathan Byers,” Eddie clarifies, taking another step closer. “Lent you his Nine Inch Nails tape?”

“Gave it to me, actually,” Steve says. He shuts the water off and roughly wipes his hands on his jeans to dry them off, turning fully toward him.

“Gave it? To you?” Eddie repeats, less normally. What next, a fucking mixtape? he thinks, scoffing internally. “He’s—giving you music? I—”

I’m the only one who can do that! he wants to say. He also wants to kick his feet like a toddler. He does neither, because Steve steps closer still. He steps closer still, and he tilts his head in such a way that somehow brings him to look through his lashes at Eddie, even if they’re exactly the same height, and he asks, “Why, are you jealous?”

Eddie gulps, swallows nothing. He thinks of Robin’s smug, smug face and resigns himself to being mocked for the rest of his natural life. He would pay a steeper price, honestly, if that means he can—

“I am,” he admits. “I’m really fucking jealous.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve asks. He presses one hand to his chest. It’s still damp, and the warmth seeps through the fabric of Eddie’s shirt.

“Uh-huh.” He nods, stepping forward so his leg slots between Steve’s. “That’s my job.”

The stupid music is still going, another track change. How can you turn me into this? After you just taught me how to kiss, the guy whines, and it’s a bit too on the nose, right, as the soundtrack to a first kiss? But then Eddie touches his lips to Steve’s and allows himself a cliché: the music fades.

He pulls back, just a second, just to see what Steve’s face looks like from this new vantage point of a handbreadth away, but Steve had his eyes closed and he frowns as he opens them again. “Eddie,” he says, low, serious. “Don’t you want—”

“I do, I do, fucking—of course I do,” Eddie mumbles against Steve’s lips. “Jesus.”

Steve laughs, and then he takes Eddie’s fumbling first kiss and makes it ten thousand times better, angling his own lips and Eddie’s with a gentle hand on his jaw. “God, finally,” he sighs between kisses, pulling him closer.

Later, Robin finds them on the kitchen floor, very much not fit to be seen. To her credit, she doesn’t even shriek much.

“Seriously? In our shared kitchen?” she says, looking down at them with her hands on her hips. Unimpressed, but with a smile dancing on her lips. “Happy for you dinguses,” she adds. “I’m ordering pizza.” Then she turns and leaves them to the thirty-seconds walk of shame to their rooms.

Or, well, to Eddie’s room. Steve trails after him and Eddie’s sure as hell not sending him away. Not now, not ever.

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