Tumgik
#event: blurbcember
lovebugism · 5 months
Note
hi bug! can I please request the dialogue prompt “Hold up, she said what?” with steve and shy!reader? maybe she is robin’s friend and robin tells steve something reader said (maybe that she thinks steve is cute or nice or something of the sort), and it leads to a cute conversation between the two?
ty for requesting angel!! — steve finds out the cute girl at the record store likes him and decides to bring her ice cream as a proclamation of love (shy!fem!reader, friends to lovers, tooth-rotting fluff, 2.3k)
blurbcember ⋆⁺₊⋆ ❄ ⁺₊⋆ ❄
“Wait, wait, wait,” Steve interjects suddenly, a metal scoop in his hand and a wild look in his eye. “She said what?”
Robin fumbles with the metal tub of Peppermint-Chip ice cream she’s refilling. It clangs when she drops it into place with haphazard care. The shop goes unusually silent without her rambling to fill the dead air. Holly, Jolly Christmas crackles quietly from the broken speakers overhead.
The girl blinks at him with a wide ocean gaze. Her rogue-tinted mouth falls softly agape. She knows she’s said the wrong thing, but she can’t remember what.
“...Huh?”
“What’d you just say?”
Her doe eyes flit to the left for a moment. It takes her a second or more to recall the words she’d only just said. She does this thing sometimes where she rambles on and on about nothing, and Steve was the first person in the whole world to let her. So it’s way too easy for her to tell him a billion things at once and forget about all of them a second later.
“That the music store just got new cassettes in?” Robin answers, her gritty voice a few octaves higher than usual.
Steve nods slow and with a crooked grin that pulls at the corners of his mouth. He rests his elbow on the glass case above the ice cream and eggs her on. “After that?”
“…That you and the pretty new girl that works there have the same taste in music?”
“Before that.”
“That she said she wanted to show you the new tapes,” she says, wincing with the realization that she had, in fact, said the wrong thing. A secret she swore not to tell has just spilled from her lips without her even knowing it.
“And?” Steve lilts with a wider, rosier smile.
“Because she likes you…” Robin confesses (or rather, re-confesses) with her teeth gritted.
Even though Steve had heard her perfectly the first time, hearing it the second makes his heart skip a beat. The pulsing organ lurches into his throat. He almost forgets how to breathe.
“She likes me?” he repeats, mostly whispering, with an incredulous gape of shock. His bushy brows raise until his forehead wrinkles. His eyes go wide until the honey of them starts to glimmer.
Despite her best friend’s lovesick disposition, Robin’s freckled face hardens. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that,” she rumbles like a storm cloud, knocking her shoulder against his when she walks by him.
“Why?” Steve retorts like a child, following behind her just the same. 
He nearly bumps into her when she stops short at the deep freezer. She returns the cloth mits she carried the ice cream in with after spending her whole break organizing the case by color. Steve could never even be bothered to put the damn things back where they belonged in the first place.
“Because I swore to her I wouldn’t,” Robin agonizes, then whips around to face him again. Her features are twisted like a hurt puppy as she pleads. “Don’t tell her I said anything either, okay? She’ll hate me.”
Steve wasn’t planning on it. Not because he thought it might make you hate her, though. He’s not entirely sure you’re capable of that. 
He’s only known you for a few months — ever since the leaves started changing color and people traded their ice cream cones for cool music at the new record store. He spent half that time admiring you across the landing, but you’ve never been anything but gentle with him. You were soft, with a soul of sunshine. 
He didn’t know it was possible to be made of sunlight until he met you.
“Well, did you tell her I liked her back?” he presses, hoping Robin might’ve done some of the hard work for him.
Her face screws up like she’s tasted something sour. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I promised you I wouldn’t.”
Steve shoots her a deadpanned look.
Robin caves. 
“It’s not like I meant to tell you she liked you just now, okay? It just came out!” she explains, gesturing wildly with her hands. “Maybe next time I stick my foot in my mouth around the new girl, I’ll tell her that you’re obsessed with her, and the two of you can finally start dating instead of making sex eyes at each other all the time.”
He wouldn’t put that past her. Robin the Mastermind, Robin the Blabbermouth, Robin the Matchmaker. But his fluttering heart is pumping with too much adrenaline now. He feels like he could move mountains with the knowledge of your affections — knowing that all his own big, fuzzy, suffocating feelings have been reciprocated all this time.
If he doesn’t talk to you now, he’s scared he’ll never work up this kind of courage again.
“No. Screw that,” he concludes with a shake of his head. He’s in King Steve mode now — feeling half as suave as he used to back when the whole town was falling at his feet — chest puffed and ego reeling. “I’m gonna go talk to her.”
Robin watches, dumbfounded, as he dumps a scoop of their best-selling ice cream into a paper bowl. Another tub she’ll have to refill. Steve ducks under the counter door and heads for the exit. “Wait— what am I supposed to do?” the girl shouts across the empty store.
Now out in the bustling Starcourt mall and taking short strides towards the music store, Steve spins on his heel to face her. He shrugs and readjusts the sailor’s cap on his head. “Wait for me to get back.”
—————
You’ve been banished to the back of the store.
Not exactly. But that’s what it feels like.
You got a bit too overwhelmed working the front counter, and since Eddie’s crazy soft on you, he let you put up all the Christmas decorations he’d been putting off instead. It’s a win-win situation, really. 
You’re stringing up sparkling tinsel over the rows of records when a deep blue sailor’s uniform catches your eye. Looking over your shoulder, you find Steve in all his glorysauntering towards you. He’s wearing shorts even though it’s basically winter now in Indiana. He’s beaming at you like sunshine anyway.
Beneath the amber glow of the dimly lit store, he looks borderline angelic. Almost unfairly ethereal.
“What’s that?” you wonder with a smile you don’t even know is there, nodding to the Scoops Ahoy brandedcup in his hand. 
You can almost smell the syrup-cinnamon concoction of the ice cream he holds in his palm. Or maybe that’s just Steve, and the sugary sweetness is radiating from his pores after working in a confectionary shop during the holidays.
He looks at you even sweeter.
“New flavor,” he answers vaguely, smirking as he leans against the metal shelves. He stumbles slightly when it rocks beneath his weight. “Oops. Sorry. It’s, uh— It’s pancake chunks with maple syrup swirl. I call it Wake and Bake.” 
A giggle tumbles from your lips when he hands it to you. “Eddie’s gonna love that,” you murmur.
“Well, it’s actually called Breakfast in Bed, but— I don’t know— I thought my idea was better.”
“Way better,” you concur with a nod and a pretty smile.
Steve watches with attentive honey eyes as you spoon a bite into your mouth. He feels a bit like it’ll be his fault if you hate it. His irrational need to impress you always makes him feel hopelessly inadequate. 
“Woah,” you hum without your mouth still a little full. The cream melts softly on your tongue, tasting of a sweet and early morning. “This is really good.”
His brows raise, and his eyes widen. “Yeah?” he wonders. Your words wash over him like a compliment for a reason he can’t name. It feels good to make you feel good.
“Mhmm. I might have to come by after work and buy the rest of it, actually,” you joke with a curt shrug. It’s a feeble confession — your way of telling him that you want to see him more because you could never say the real thing out loud.
Your heart sinks when Steve shakes his head. Then swells when he smiles.
“No way,” he scoffs, lips curling into a lopsided grin. “I’m not gonna let you pay for it— that’s crazy.”
“You can’t keep giving me free ice cream, Steve—”
“What my manager doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” he lilts lowly and with a cool shrug that makes you melt. He goes very distinctly soft when he looks at you, all scruffy-faced and sweet-eyed. 
It’s suffocatingly beautiful. You crack under the pressure of it. 
“Well, uh— Thanks for the— ice cream,” you stammer and motion the bowl back to him. Thanks for stopping by and keeping me company, but you’re too pretty and I’m not sure how much longer I can take it, you don’t say.
“You don’t want the rest?” he asks with pinched brows.
“I just… should probably get back to work, you know?”
“Eddie doesn’t let you take breaks?”
“No, he does,” you answer quickly, shifting your weight on your feet. It becomes virtually impossible to meet his gaze. “Just not with…”
Steve’s brows raise when you trail off. “Not with me?” he finishes with a laugh.
“Well, not with the… pretty-boy-ice-cream-slinger in the sailor’s uniform,” you correct, then quickly follow. “His words. Not mine.”
In all honesty, Steve couldn’t care less about what Eddie Munson has to say about him. If Hawkins’s local freak is the only thing standing between him and the pretty girl at the music store, he’s down to break a couple of dumb rules.
He takes a small step towards you. His pink smirk widens. You swear your heart stops when he looks at you with it. “You don’t think I’m pretty?” he teases with a twinkle in his squinted eye.
Suddenly, there’s a frog in your throat and you’re fourteen all over again. You’re flustered and drowning and totally unsure of yourself. “I didn’t say that,” you mutter, gaze flittering and smile wavering.
Steve goes to rest his elbow on the shelf again, then remembers its unsteadiness and decides against it. His arm rests awkwardly in the air for half a moment before he crosses both of them over his chest. 
“Well, I mean, you didn’t not say it, so…”
You squint up at him, busying your clammy hands with the melting ice cream in your palm. You know what he’s fishing for. Your pride urges you to stay silent even though your heart sings the sweetest songs for him. 
“You know you’re pretty, Steve,” you murmur matter of factly.
“But do you think I’m pretty?”
Your thundering heart lurches into your throat when Steve takes another small step closer. He smells like wintertime — like Christmas and nostalgia and boy. You don’t trust your voice to answer him verbally, so you nod, slow and sheepish.
“Good,” he hums with a beam he couldn’t hide if he tried. “‘Cause I think you’re pretty, too.”
Your chest gets all sparkly at his admission — the affirmation that all your girlish feelings are being reciprocated by a boy you never dreamed you could have. You don’t feel hardly deserving of the fondness dripping from his features, but you pray he never stops looking at you with it.
You grow warm with the irrational hope that he might kiss you. You think he might actually kiss you until your boss’s voice pierces the golden bubble of puppy love the both of you are basking in.
“How’s the decorating going?” Eddie announces himself, appearing suddenly between the two aisles.
Robin idles at his side. She’s in the feminine version of Steve’s sailor outfit — with silver chains around her neck and bandaids on her knees. Effortlessly endearing and totally unaware of it all.
You push Steve away from you without thinking, all but shoving the softening ice cream into his chest. Some of it smears white against the scarlet tie around his chest. “Sorry!” you exclaim in your moment of fleeting panic, then turn to Eddie with the same apologetic wince. “Sorry…” you repeat quieter.
“Robin?” Steve gapes at the sight of his best friend — apparently the second thing standing in his way, right beside the freak. “What the hell are you doing here— did you tattle on me? What are you, four?”
“I got lonely,” the brunette answers plainly. “And I knew you were around here somewhere, so I asked Eddie where you were—” She waves a pale hand your way, fingers painted with chipping maroon polish.  “—And now I’m here.”
Eddie grins wide and tilts his wild head to his shoulder. “Yeah. Can’t believe you’re trying to taint my one good employee, Steven.”
“I’m not tainting anybody, Munson,” he bites back like a bickering brother, then screws up his face and turns to Robin. “Wait. If you’re here, who’s manning the counter?”
Her freckled face falls like a child caught in a fib. Her deep blue eyes widen when she blinks at him. In a mousier voice, she confesses, “Dustin came by… And I told him he could eat all the ice cream he wanted as long as he made sure no one stole anything.”
The four of you fall silent. The soft rock of Christmas Wrapping plays weakly from the radio at the front of the store. Eddie breaks first. ‘Cause he can’t ever be serious about anything. 
The boyish sound of his laughter sends a giggle sputtering from your lips. The pretty noise makes Steve smile despite his baffled disbelief.
He turns to you with a dumbfounded grin. “You’re still stopping by after work, right?”
“Yeah,” you answer softly, nodding as your smiling face grows hot.
Eddie scoffs when Steve walks by him. “If you still have a job by then.”
2K notes · View notes
lovebugism · 4 months
Note
"we’re arguing when the ball drops on new year’s eve, and decide to kiss and shit i don’t think i hate you anymore"
with eddie and grumpy!r pls
ty for requesting! :D — your new years kiss ends up being the loudmouth, metalhead, wild-haired boy you can't stand (enemies to lovers, grumpy!reader, 1.5k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
Another year passes in a blink, and suddenly everyone around you is chanting “new year, new me” like it’s not just some overdone mantra destined to be forgotten by mid-February. 
It’s not surprising that you and Eddie are the only two not participating in the holiday theatrics. It’s also not surprising that the two of you are spending the entirety Steve’s New Years party bickering like a married couple on the couch.
You both got dragged here — you by Robin, and him by Dustin — and the two of you are acting like total grumps about it accordingly. And even though you can’t stand being in the same room as each other, you’ve been shoulder-to-shoulder in the living room all night.
You’re sitting pretty in a black dress beside him, scowling like a storm cloud while Eddie scoops a handful of pretzels in his mouth. Seemingly noticing your side-eyed glare, he starts to chew more audibly because he knows how much you hate it. The slow and rhythmic smack smack smack makes the chatter around you sound more distant as your skin begins to crawl.
Eddie smiles when you tense — wider when you glare at him.
“Sometimes I wonder why I hate you, and then you do stuff like that, and I think to myself, “oh yeah, that’s why.”
He grins with all his teeth, pretzels crumbs and all. “The feeling’s mutual, princess.”
“Don’t call me that,” you grumble with a roll of your eyes.
You shake your crossed leg to the music playing softly overhead and try to focus on the television in front of you. The staticky film of Times Square isn’t quite as distracting as the boy beside you — and not just because he’s purposefully trying to annoy you. 
He has no right to be this pretty, with his wild hair and black button-up and smudged eyeliner. It’s hardly fair.
“Don’t act like one, and I won’t,” he retorts, muffled through the food in his cheek.
“Don’t talk with your mouthful. It’s disgusting.”
He doesn’t say anything, just gives you the widest smile he’s ever looked at you with. The bits of chewed-up pretzel in his teeth make you grimace.
“You’re a child,” you deadpan.
Eddie laughs — a pretty little sound in a scoffed-out breath. 
He sits the half-empty bowl on the coffee table, then pushes his sleeves to his elbows. His arms are pale, lanky, and tattooed. Some of the ink is faded and messy, obviously not done by professionals. You think those intrigue you the most. You’d ask about the stories behind them if you even cared.
Eddie rests his elbows on his knees and looks at you over his shoulder. His smile is pink and made of honey — his eyes dark and made of fire. 
“You can act like you hate me all you want, but everyone here knows you’re obsessed with me,” he teases with a scrunched nose, motioning to the room with his pointer finger. 
No one’s paying either of you any mind. They’re too focused on their own conversations to care about the ones you and Eddie have had a thousand times over. You try to act as disinterested as they do. You think you’re playing the part pretty well, honestly, but Eddie’s looking at you with a twinkle in his eye like he can see right through it.
“That’s very presumptuous of you, Munson.”
“Just calling it like I see it,” he huffs and leans back again, spreading his arms across the back of the couch. 
The sudden proximity isn’t lost in you. Neither is the smell of nicotine and sandalwood radiating off of him. It stirs a velvety feeling in the pit of your stomach that you try hopelessly to shove down.
“You must be completely and utterly blind, then.”
“Uh-uh,” he hums with a shake of his wild head. “Twenty-twenty vision, baby.” He leans in close to croon the words in your ear, and your heart lurches into your throat. You shove him off with a half-hearted hand anyway. 
“Get off me!” you groan, face scrunched in a childlike annoyance. “And don’t call me baby.”
Eddie settles back beside you with a subtle pout between his brows. “If I can’t call you princess and I can’t call you baby, then what am I supposed to call you?”
“Nothing!” you shout, like being called baby hadn’t stirred something foreignly pleasant behind your ribcage. “Don’t call me anything! Don’t call me at all—”
“Guys! Come here! The ball’s about to drop!” Dustin shouts over the chatter to get everyone’s attention, a bit too loudly. He stands in front of the television along with the rest of the small crowd, ogling at the bad reception of the Times Square Ball and a flashing countdown.
“Sounds like me in middle school,” Eddie jokes, making Steve snort out a laugh when he walks in from the kitchen. You shoot the wild-haired boy a squinted look of disgust and he chuckles. “Oh, c’mon! That was funny, and you know it.”
“Ten!” the crowd begins to chorus.
“You’re an idiot,” you grumble.
“And you’re the one who’s obsessed with the idiot, so… Who’s the real weirdo?”
“Nine!”
“Still you.”
“Ooh,” Eddie lilts, plush lips softly pouted. “So you are obsessed with me?”
“Eight!”
You scoff a bitter laugh. “You love putting words in my mouth, don’t you?”
“Like I said,” the boy hums with a smug smile. “Just calling it like I see it, honey.”
“Seven!”
The dumb name shouldn’t make you melt like it does. You turn into a puddle before you can come up with another comeback. You forget how to form words and get lost in how soft his lips look, pink and delicate like a flower. God, he’s so pretty, you hate him.
“Six!” your friends continue to chant, the only sound in the expansive living room. “Five!”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed about, honestly,” the boy assures with an absentminded shrug, tilting his flushed cheek to his shoulder and flashing you an unkissed grin.
“Four!”
“You’re not the first girl to fall head over heels for me, and you won’t be the last.”
The corner of your lip curls into a quiet smirk. You squint at him, eyes twinkling with mischief and a sudden longing for him to eat his words. “Is that so?” you croon lowly.
“Three!”
He leans in like he’s about to tell you a secret. The nicotine-whiskey concoction on his breath brushes your cheek. Screw the alcohol in your abandoned cup — you’d sooner get drunk on him. 
“I’ll make sure to let you down easy, alright? I promise,” Eddie hums with a feigned seriousness.
“Yeah?”
“Two!”
He nods, bushy brows pinching softly together and petaled mouth gently pouting. “Yeah. I’m not in the heartbreaking business, you know? I don’t wanna hurt your feelings, princess, but you should there’s no way in hell that I’m ever gonna—”
“One!” the house chants together, louder this time as they shout, “Happy New Year!”
You blink, and suddenly everyone’s grabbing onto somebody. 
Robin and Vickie share a quiet peck you don’t miss in the corner of the room. Mike and El smack a more obvious kiss in the very center of it. A newly grown-up Dustin tries his chances with Nancy, glancing at her with a silent smile she shakes her head at — “Not a chance, kiddo,” she says with a soft pink grin. Even Max leans over to brush a kiss to Lucas’ cheek, right before scowling at him, “This doesn’t mean we’re back together, Sinclair.” 
So you feel it’s only right, that in a room of kissed mouths, you get kissed, too.
Eddie is the perfect victim. Mostly because he hasn’t stopped yapping since he sat down beside you, some hours ago now. You reach for him, splaying your hand across his warm jaw (that grows somehow hotter beneath your touch), and pressing a kiss to his blabbering mouth. 
You swallow all the half-hearted insults he spews at you because he thinks you really hate him. In Eddie’s mind, if being mean is how he gets closer to you, then when you go low, he’ll go all the way to hell. 
You don’t kiss him like you hate him, though. You kiss him like you can taste stars in his mouth. Like the rest of your whole life is sitting on his tongue.
Your mouth locks with his for a moment, kissing the breath from his lungs, only to pull away a second later.
Eddie’s totally frozen when you’re gone. The loudmouth boy — who you decided to hate if you couldn’t love — is left so suddenly speechless. He blinks at you with heavy, velvet eyes and grieves a thing he didn’t even know he could have.
A grin pulls at your freshly kissed mouth. It feels good to have the upper hand again.
“You’re never gonna what?” you tease, tilting your head like you’re innocent.
His mouth parts for an answer. Nothing comes out.
Your smile widens. “That’s what I thought. Honey.”
1K notes · View notes
lovebugism · 4 months
Note
rockstar!eddie x shy!reader , christmas party shenanigans, shes so sweet she made cookies & sweets for everyone but she wasn’t asked to , run ins w celebs 🤭
hope u like it angel!! — a rockstar flirts with eddie munson’s girl minutes before corroded coffin plays a show (shy!reader, established relationship, fluff, 1.4k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
Corroded Coffin’s got their own green room — backstage at one of the biggest music festivals of the year. There’s a team of people dressed in black waiting at their beck and call. Eddie’s pretty sure KISS is in the suite down the hall. As a boy from Middle of Nowhere, Indiana, he doesn’t feel very deserving of any of it.
He feels like he’s dreaming, really. The only thing keeping him from pinching himself is Dustin and Lucas’ roughhousing and Steve’s stupid belly laugh. Having all his childhood friends here is strangely humbling.
Eddie lazes on an expensive leather chair, totally unsure of what to do with himself when he’s not holding you. He’s trying to get comfortable in the foreign leather drab that stylists put him in when the door yawns open. It swings with such ferocity that the metal knob slams against the opposite wall with a low thud. It isn’t any surprise that the culprit is Robin Buckley.
She storms in first, followed more quietly by you some seconds later.
“Woah, woah, woah— what happened?” Eddie wonders aloud, already on edge with anxiety. Robin swooping in like a dark grey storm cloud doesn’t make it any better.
You shrug with a tin of Christmas cookies in your hand. Some are already missing because you wanted to pass them out to the workers. “It’s not like I don’t have enough to go around,” you’d said with a shy chuckle, nodding to the table lined with homemade pastries. You always bake when you’re nervous.
“We bumped into someone on the way back,” you explain in a gentle murmur, mindful of the emotional girl across the room. “I think she might’ve known him…”
“You didn’t recognize him?” Robin blurts from where she’s flopped on the leather couch. Her eyes go wide, the edges of them smudged with brown eyeliner. The look she gives you makes you cower.
“…No?”
“That was Roger Taylor,” she tells you. And then, when it still doesn’t hit you— “From Queen.”
Your doe eyes flood with a similar, more innocent look of shock. “That’s who that was?”
Robin groans and shoves her face into the fluffy throw pillow beneath her. She decides to talk to the only person in the room who could understand her and her wild emotions. Steve, sitting next to her with cookie crumbs all over his mouth, somehow manages to cipher her mumbled, emotional slurs.
“You don’t get it— it was like seeing an angel, Steve. He was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen— and I don’t even like men!”
“Yeah, so that’s definitely saying something,” the boy mumbles through a mouthful of pastry.
Eddie, still wide-eyed with amazement, turns to look up at you. You’re lingering at his side, a sweet thing dressed in pastel pink. He reaches over to smooth a hand over your pale tights. His ringed fingers are almost achingly warm when they curl around the back of your thigh. He tilts his chin to smile at you with all his teeth.
“I thought you loved Queen, babe,” he chuckles, squeezing gently at your leg.
“I do,” you insist, always shy in your way, as you shift your weight on your feet. Your sheepish gaze flits to the tray in your hand — to the hand-made snowmen, trees, and snowflakes. “I just didn’t know that’s what he looked like.”
“Was he pretty?” Eddie teases with a knowing squint in his chocolate eyes.
You shrug, burning with misplaced embarrassment. “I don’t know… I didn’t really look,” you mutter. His chest swells with something short of pride. “They just wanted to try my cookies—”
“That’s what she said,” Gareth quips. Followed by an audible slap when Jeff reaches over to smack him. “—Ow!”
“Was Freddie Mercury there?” Dustin wonders from across the room, smiling wide at the thought. His giggle is boyish and high-pitched. “That’d be insane.”
You shake your head in response. “No— but now that I think about it, that’s probably why they said they needed to take some extra for Fred. There was another guy there, though.”
“Yeah?” Eddie lilts to egg you on.
“Yeah. He kinda looked like a poodle—”
“Brian May!” the room choruses.
“Um…” you mumble under your breath. “Maybe?”
“One of the best guitarists of our time Brian May?” Robin wonders, a tad bit dramatic, and filled with life all over again. “Astrophysicist and super genius Brian May?”
Your smile is innocent and utterly sincere. “Oh, he’s an astrophysicist? That’s so cool!”
Robin groans again, and you flinch.
“…What?”
“Nothing,” Eddie answers for her, squeezing your leg to bring your attention back to him again. His rosy grin widens when your eyes meet his. “You’re just cute.”
Your face heats like it’s the first time he’s ever complimented you. Your warm cheek tilts to your shoulder as you smile quietly back at him. “Well, thank you,” you mutter shyly.
“Why can’t anything good happen to me?” Robin whines.
Steve doesn’t mean to laugh, but it tumbles out before he can stop it. “It did happen to you. You were there.”
“Well, it didn’t feel good at the time!”
The door creaks open again. Nancy and Jonathan walk in together, fashionably late. It wouldn’t be surprising if she stopped a couple of musicians for impromptu interviews and didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer — bound to be on the front page of Hawkins Post come Sunday morning.
Jonathan, however, looks a little bit dazed. “Is that— Is that Queen in the hallway?” he whispers to the group of you, like he’s scared the band might hear him.
“Yep,” Robin deadpans in response, popping the p.
“Ooh. Smells like a bakery in here,” Nancy lilts with a pretty pink smile.
You get all shy because it’s entirely your fault. “Yeah. Sorry. I kinda… went overboard with the cookies.”
“Don’t be sorry. I love when you bake us stuff,” she assures you, then bites the head off of a sugary snowman. She sighs at the heavenly taste and nods with it stuck in her cheek. “Don’t ever, ever be sorry.”
You giggle all pretty in response.
Jonathan reaches into the tray and pulls out a crumpled piece of paper. “Woah. What’s this?”
“Oh. Shit. Sorry. I meant to throw that away—”
Nancy rips it from his hands. She straightens it out as best she can and squints when she finds writing on the back of it. She grins like she’s found some kind of hidden treasure. 
“Wait, this is someone’s phone number,” she announces to the rest of them room. She reads it out loud for all of you, each of you on the edges of your metaphorical seats. “Thanks for the cookies, but I bet you taste sweeter. I’m free after the show. Call me. Roger.”
The room goes deadly silent.
Eddie is among the gaping mouths of shock, unsure if he should be jealous or amused.
“He wanted to try your cookies, alright,” Gareth chuckles under his breath. Jeff snorts out a laugh, then reaches over to slap him again. The curly-haired boy cowers. “Oh, come on! You thought it was funny, too!”
“Let me see that,” Eddie insists, rising on his feet to take the paper from Nancy’s painted fingertips. 
His brown eyes flit back and forth as he reads it for himself. Once, then twice, then a few more times after that. He’s about to play a show for thousands of people, yet this is somehow harder for him to grasp.
“Roger Taylor wants to fuck my girlfriend,” he murmurs in amazement to himself.
For some reason, feeling the need to defend yourself, you rush to get the words out. “I didn’t know that’s what that was, Eds, I swear— I figured he thought I worked here, and he was just giving me his trash to throw away.”
Eddie turns to you, still silent. His chocolate eyes are slightly glazed over as he blinks at you — the sweetest thing he’s ever laid his eyes on, so polite in her shyness and aloof with it, too. 
Still in a state of subtle disbelief about all of this — the phone number, the looming performance, and the fact he ever landed you in the first place — he shakes his wild head with a dumbfounded smile.
“I love the shit outta you, you know that?” he says with a burst of low, boyish laughter. He doesn’t give you the opportunity to answer before wrapping you up in his leather-clad arms and pressing a smothering kiss to your mouth.
2K notes · View notes
lovebugism · 4 months
Note
SAYING UGLY THINGS ON CHRISTMAS EVE WITH STEBE PLEASEEEEEEE
let's just pretend it's still christmas ok? hope you like it angel! — steve gets cruel when he's anxious, and with his parents coming to town, he's practically a timebomb (ditzy!fem!reader, angst, hurt/comfort tw for toxic parents, 2.1k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
You were only trying to help. 
Really, you were. 
Steve’s been stressing himself sick about his parents coming over, and you’ve been following him around with your heart in your throat, trying to help him before he totally implodes.
He’s always a ticking time bomb when his parents are in town. He doesn’t know how to be anything else when it comes to them. He doesn’t know how to be anything other than perfect because he’s terrified of his mom’s backhanded compliments and his dad’s sneering replies. 
He always turns into his teenage self when he’s scared — and there’s nothing more terrifying than being a teenager again.
You know all this, so you try your best to be supportive when he gets in moods like these. When he’s on edge and fussing over every little thing. You help him dust the top of the fridge and organize the spice cabinet and wipe down all the windows — even though you know his parents won’t notice, or otherwise care, about any of it.
And then, when you finally get the buzzing ball of anxiety to cuddle up with you on the couch, you manage to screw everything up all over again.
His head is on your chest, wild hair still drying from his shower. You hear him sniff once, then twice. “What’s that smell?” he wonders, not entirely apprehensive ‘cause the TV’s got most of his attention.
“What smell?” you ask, more distracted than he is. 
His weight on you is a comforting one. You pet him like a cat accordingly — one palm rubbing up and down the length of his back and the other curling in his hair. With your nose among the chestnut strands, you don’t smell anything other than his floral shampoo.
“It smells like something’s burning.”
You pull back from him and sniff hard once. It smells a bit smoky, like cooking something over a campfire. Because something is burning. Your heart plummets to your stomach at the realization. 
“Oh…” you hum under your breath, blood running ice-cold.
Steve only tenses up because you do. Your warm hands on his body go suddenly rigid. His scruffy chin rubs against the chest of your sweater when he turns to look at you. His honey eyes twinkle with confusion and concern. “Oh, what?”
“I think that might be the turkey…” you answer in a tiny voice because you know what’s coming.
“The what?”
“I put it in while you were in the shower, ‘cause you were so worried it wouldn’t get done in time—”
“Shit, babe!” he blurts and pushes himself off the couch. He rushes towards the kitchen without another look your way. You follow behind him like a puppy and hopelessly try to explain yourself. 
“—And then you wanted to cuddle after, so I laid down and totally forgot about it!”
“So you’re saying it’s my fault?” he scoffs and swings the door of the stove down. He flinches at the billowing gray smoke. He rises again and rummages through an adjacent drawer, in search of oven mitts.
Your face swirls with confusion. “No!”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I forgot!”
“That’s not an excuse, babe!” He grimaces as he reaches into the hot oven. The tray clatters to the stove with a smoking turkey on top. It’s not totally burnt, but it’s hard as a rock and charred all over. Neither of you are chefs, but you could probably guess it’s less than edible. 
“Shit…” Steve huffs under his breath. His hands fall to his waist and he cocks a hip to the side, blinking at the molten turkey before him because he’s at a loss for what to do now.
You stand just behind him, cowering as you wring your hands together. You feel small, like a child moments away from getting scolded. “I’m sorry, Steve,” you murmur, voice wavering. “I just wanted to help—”
He laughs loud. A bitter scoff, at most. “Well, you did a great job of that, didn’t you?” he says with a sour smile on his plush pink lips.
Tears burn the backs of your eyes. You decide to blame it on the lingering smoke. 
“I said I was sorry,” you insist in a tiny voice, trying your best to stand up for yourself. You fucked up. Both of you know it. Rubbing salt in the wound doesn’t help anything.
“That doesn’t fix it, baby!” he argues, hands gesticulating wildly when he turns to you. His chiseled features are sharp with anger, but you decide to count your blessings ‘cause he’s still calling you baby. He only uses your real name when he’s really upset.
“I’m gonna have to go all the way to the store and make it all over again!”
“I’ll pay for it, Stevie, it’s okay—”
“That’s not the point!”
“Then what is the point?”
“My parents are coming over tonight! And if everything’s not perfect, I will never hear the end of it,” he agonizes, voice fragile and close to breaking. His honey eyes go glassy when the red emotion slowly turns blue. “About how I can’t make it on my own, how I moved out too early— how I never should’ve moved in with you.”
His words sting a little bit, in the most literal sense. The very center of your chest starts to ache, like he’s shoved a red-hot knife into your sternum. 
You try to shrug it off as best you can. “Well, who cares what your parents say?”
“I do! I have to, ‘cause I’m the one that’ll have to hear about it every goddamn day!”
His misplaced anger begins to build, like the looming shadow of a boogeyman. The weight of it starts to suffocate you. At a loss of how to make any of it better (because you’ve got a record of doing the exact opposite) you try to bring your high-strung boy down again.
“It’s just a turkey, Steve. We can make another.”
You prepare yourself for an argument, but Steve only huffs — so deep it makes his chest rise and fall. His head tips back as he rubs two wide palms over his face, down to his chin and back up again. He swipes his fingers through the still-drying strands of his unstyled hair and doesn’t say a single word. 
His teeth are clenched tight. You can tell by the sudden sharpness of his jaw and the way his temples are slightly shifted. His eyes are still shut as he breathes in deep, rhythmic patterns. You can almost hear him counting to ten inside his head in attempts to calm back down again.
Steve is painfully self-aware of how hotheaded he gets when he’s anxious. Every little thing feels like the end of the world when he’s cranked up to one hundred. Problem is, he only realizes how cruel he’s being after he’s hurt someone with it.
That someone in question is you now. The sweeter-than-sugar you, the brighter-than-sunshine you, the well-meaning-but-sometimes-totally-careless you. 
And Steve, on the other hand, is utterly troubled. He’s harsh, and he’s hopeless, and he loves you so much he’s not totally sure what to do with it all. Sometimes it scratches him like barbs. Maybe that’s why he confuses love and anger so often.
He thinks of his parents — how they were supposed to love him, how maybe they do, how they have a terrible way of showing it, and how he isn’t at all deserving of the way they treat him — and something inside him seethes. It burns somewhere deep within his ribcage and squirms like a feral animal trying to break free.
He feels trapped and he turns violent, like some kind of hurt dog. ‘Cause if he can’t be loved, then he might as well be feared. And sometimes he bites you, the warmhearted stranger willing to love something that doesn’t know how to love itself. And maybe that’s why he snaps at you when he’s so high-strung. 
You love him the most, out of everybody in the whole entire world, and no one could understand all this quite like you do.
“You’re right,” he sighs when he comes down to earth again, arms falling to his sides when his shoulders are no longer tense. 
The shades of red give way to something more golden when he looks at you. It makes his heart twist because you’re still looking at him the same way you were ten minutes ago — like you’re looking at the rest of your life in the flesh.
One more breath, and the worry slips away.
“Yeah, you’re right— it’s just a turkey— everything’s fine.”
You want to comfort him. Your wringing hands ache with the longing to hold him like you were before all this, with his cheek to your chest so your heartbeat can keep him grounded. You’re just not sure if he wants that yet.
So you linger in place and try not to implode with your yearning.
“I can get a storebought one before they come over if you want,” you offer meekly, peering at him beneath your lashes. “I don’t think they’ll know the difference if we just lie and say we made it.”
He laughs again. One snorted breath, but much more genuine this time. A grin blossoms like a pretty flower on his rose-petaled mouth. It’s impossible not to smile back at him.
“Or we can just, like, not say anything, and watch my parents pretend to like it,” he jokes.
“That’s evil,” you say, hiding your giggle behind your palm. “But then we’d probably have to eat it, too— to make it believable and everything, you know? And I don’t think I can put that in my mouth without gagging.” You snort a laugh at yourself, then grow strangely serious as you mumble, “That’s what she said.”
Steve laughs, loud and boyish. It paints the kitchen golden and makes your chest feel all sparkly. “C’mere,” he hums with a grin, throwing his arms out for you. 
You gravitate towards him instantly, like he’s the sun and you’ve just suffered a terribly long winter. You hug him tight accordingly — suffocating, warm, and tender. He holds you back the same. 
His arms curl around your back, wide palms spreading along the length of it. He noses at your hair and presses a gentle kiss there. “Sorry for yelling,” he apologizes, mostly muffled from where he’s holding you so intently. “You forgot. It’s okay. I overreacted.”
It’s still hard for him to apologize sometimes. Even when he’s in the wrong. Especially when he’s in the wrong. He grew up with parents who fought and then acted like nothing happened the next day. There was never any closure. Just bottled up feelings.
It feels good to be wrong — to acknowledge it and to still be loved after.
“I really was trying to help,” you mutter, burying the words into his chest.
Steve nods against you. “I know.”
“I didn’t mean to make it worse—”
“You didn’t make it worse, don’t say that,” Steve interjects before the words can properly leave your mouth. He squeezes you tighter, in hopes it’ll make his words stick more. “You know I’d stress myself to death if you weren’t here.”
“Yeah. And if your parents came home to a corpse, that’d be really morbid,” you murmur gently.
Steve chuckles when he pulls away from you. He unwraps his arms from around you, just to hold your face in his hands. His palms are warm and softly calloused against your cheeks. He swipes his thumbs over the warm apple of them.
“It would be,” he concurs with a nod and a big, dumb grin. His honey eyes sparkle as they melt for you. “I’ll tell them that when they come over— that you singlehandedly saved their son. They’ll have to love you, then.”
He says it like it’s a joke, but it isn’t really. It’s true in a lot of ways. Way more than you know.
“Think they’ll still like me even if you don’t say all that?” you wonder meekly and with your nose scruched, peering up at him with a hopeful gaze.
“Oh. Yeah. Totally,” Steve scoffs without thinking twice. He shrugs like it’s obvious with his face twisted like he’s confused why you’d even ask. “They’ll fall in love with you the second they see you.”
“Well, that’s just dramatic,” you mumble, laughing under your breath. 
You’re not nearly as confident as he is because you have no idea you’re made of flower petals, sunsets, and winter skies — all things delicate, tender, and impossibly loveable.
“I’m pretty sure it’s impossible not to be in love with you,” Steve insists, still cradling your face in his palms. It’s easier than saying that he loves you so much that he’d follow you anywhere — or that the rest of the world could fall apart, and he wouldn’t care as long as you were standing with him. 
“I think you’re biased,” you tease with a quiet smile.
“I know from firsthand experience, babe,” he argues with a rosy smile. “I’m pretty sure I’m an expert on the matter, actually.”
802 notes · View notes
lovebugism · 4 months
Note
hi bug!! for blurbcember, how about ❝ don’t tell anyone, but, i spiked the eggnog. ❞ where shy!reader is by herself at a work holiday party, maybe she’s new or just really shy and doesn’t talk to many people, and steve/eddie goes up to her and jokes about spiking the eggnog to break the ice and flirt with her bc he has a crush on her and wants to make her laugh 🥹 totally not based on what i wish would happen to me at my work’s holiday party lmao
ah this is so cute! :D i decided to do this one for steve so i hope you like it!! — steve harrington spends the company holiday party flirting with shy!you (friends to lovers, shy!reader, fluff, 1.9k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
The quiet mouse and the personality hire walk into an office holiday party.
It’s like the start of a really bad joke.
You try to be as enthusiastic as you can about the whole thing, but spending the last half of your day socializing with coworkers who've never looked your way before now isn’t exactly thrill-inducing. Neither is having to hear “Oh, I didn’t know you actually spoke” a thousand times over.
You just don’t want the lecture about being a team player just because you have a harder time talking than most people do. Everyone knows you’d rather be at your desk, anyway. That’s what you do best — keep your head down and get your work done.
But Steve Harrington? He’s totally in his element.
He flits around the common area with a drink and a smile, making people laugh without even trying. It’s hardly fair.
You don’t know how he does it — or why he chooses to waste his charm on you. You’re hardly deserving of his dumb jokes or his pretty smile, but he’s stuck to you like glue, anyway.
He leaves your side only once. To get you another cup of eggnog because you were too scared to cut through the crowd for seconds. “Here you go,” the pretty boy croons as he hands you the plastic cup with a strong, golden hand.
You mutter a small “thanks” under your breath when you take it from him. At least, Steve thinks you do. You’re so quiet it’s hard to make the words out sometimes.
He pushes his sweater sleeves up to his elbows — a deep evergreen with a cream stripe around the chest, lined with several little Christmas trees — and leans against the wall beside you.
He towers over you in every way imaginable. It makes it hurt not to cower when he looks your way. Most of all, when he beams at you.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he asks suddenly, nose scrunched and honey eyes sparkling.
Your brows pinch momentarily in confusion before going lax again. “Sure?”
He leans closer to you, his warm scent engulfing you instantly — like morning coffee and woodsy cologne. It’s suffocating, in the nicest of ways, to be this close to him. 
“Don’t tell anyone, but I did actually spike the eggnog,” Steve whispers beneath the cheesy holiday music and distant chatter, quiet enough for only you to hear. 
You laugh before you mean to. 
He laughs because you are.
“I actually wouldn’t mind that,” you joke with a shy shrug.
“It’d make this whole thing a lot more tolerable, right?” he scoffs and brings his cup to his mouth. The heavy cream of the eggnog clings to his cupid’s bow before he licks it clean again.
You get quiet for a second, momentarily lost in how pretty he is. “Yeah. Definitely.”
“I think you’re the only person I know that’d rather be working than be here.”
“Well, I’m not really a—” Your mouth opens and closes like a fish until you find the words to say. That happens a lot. It’s why you find it easier not to speak sometimes. “—A social butterfly or whatever, you know?”
“I thought you were gonna say people-person.”
“That, too.”
Steve thinks for a moment, flits his eyes to the ceiling, and juts out his pretty pink lips. He crosses his arms over his chest and shrugs. “Well, I don’t think that’s totally true.”
Your brows furrow. Maybe he doesn’t know you as well as you thought. “No?”
“No,” he says confidently and with a shake of his neatly styled hair. He swipes his fingers through the intentionally messy strands. Then he shrugs. “Well, I mean, maybe. But I would say you are a Steve-person, you know?”
Your face screws up. His attempts to flirt with you don’t land.
He quickly tries to explain himself. “I just mean that— you know— that you don’t let everyone know you the way you let me know you.”
He gets all shy about it, but you think he might be right. 
Steve Harrington is more than just magnetic. He’s the kind of person that draws you in and opens you like a flower. An ounce of his attention feels like being basked in sunlight. He’s as handsome as life, too. Something holy, maybe. 
It’s his divinity that draws something out of you, you think.
“Well, that’s ‘cause you’re different from everyone else,” you shrug instead of elaborating on the dramatic religious metaphor in your head. Your gaze falls to the untouched cup between your palms. It’s easier to look at but much less interesting than the melting honey in Steve’s eyes.
He grins all sweet even though you’re not looking at him to see it.
“You mean prettier?” he jokes.
“Yeah,” you scoff and smile before you realize it. “No one’s competing with those dimples, Harrington.”
He beams. It basks you in golden sunlight. 
Something about the way he looks at you is comforting. Nostalgic. It makes you feel safe. Makes you feel brave enough to raise a trembling hand to his scruffy jaw and poke gently at the dimple in his left cheek.
“You just make it easier to talk. I guess.”
“Well, that’s good. ‘Cause I love hearing you talk.”
You squint playfully up at him. “Is that because you’re usually the one talking all the time?”
He nods. “That’s exactly why.”
You laugh, and it sounds like stars falling over his skin. 
“It just feels easy to me, you know? Being around you and everything,” Steve shrugs to pretend like you don’t stir something sort of poetry in his chest. “I just think you’re cool. Exactly the way you are. And, you know, when you apologize for being too quiet or too complicated or whatever— it makes me wanna kick the world’s ass for making you feel that way. ‘Cause you’re, like, one of the best people I’ve ever met.”
For a second or more, you’re not totally sure what to say. And not in the way you usually are. This is different. This feels like there’s sunshine in your throat, and you can’t speak a word through it. This feels like being so choked up you could cry.
No one’s ever been this nice to you, you think. No one’s ever been so kind to you about the thing you hate most about yourself.
You swallow through the sun rays and muster a wavering smile.
“See what I mean?” You try to laugh, but the words get caught in your throat. You cough once to clear it. “I have to talk to you because no one else will say such nice things to me.”
“And that’s just a shame. ‘Cause saying nice things to you is basically my favorite hobby.”
You laugh again, even though he’s not really joking.
“Like, if I could get paid to do it, I’d be out of this shithole in a second.”
You smile up at him, so wide it makes your eyes squint and your nose scrunch. No one else could stir such a loud emotion from the quiet you are. No one else but Steve.
642 notes · View notes
lovebugism · 4 months
Note
How about "89. I’m drunk and fall asleep in a snow bank and you’re the kind stranger yanking me to my feet and lecturing me on how dangerous that is" with Steve?
ty for requesting!! — steve harrington rescues you, his worst enemy, after finding you all alone on a snowy bench on main street (enemies to lovers, hurt/comfort, tw for toxic relationships, 2.4k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
On his way home from the Wheeler holiday party, Steve thinks he sees a dead body in the snow.
He slows at a stoplight and knows he sees a dead body in the snow.
With nothing but sheer stupidity and a savior complex, the boy rushes out of his warm car and into the vacant road on Main Street. The piling snow crunches under his sneakers and dampens them instantly. Crystalline flakes fall from the pitch-black sky at a merciless rate, sticking to his lashes and his fuzzy Christmas sweater. 
The snow glistens as it clings to the limp body lying on the bench. A girl, Steve realizes as he gets closer — a pretty girl in a pretty dress who’s not at all clothed for this kind of weather. 
He steps closer, blinks snowflakes from his eyes, and realizes that it’s you. The reigning princess of Hawkins. The homecoming queen. His absolute worst enemy. 
Steve loses his sympathy in an instant. Now that he knows you’re not dead, anyway. 
But he nudges at you gently — just to make sure — and you grumble something unintelligible into your folded-up arms.
“What are you doing?” he wonders aloud.
“What’s it look like?” you slur, rubbing your cheek against your sleeve like a cat.
“It’s freezing out. You know that, right?”
“Really?” you muse sleepily, eyes still shut. “I haven’t noticed.”
Steve scoffs a bitter laugh and rolls his honey eyes. He puts his hands on his waist, cocks his hips to the side, and leers down at you even though you can’t see him. He wonders if you even recognize his voice — if that’s the reason you’re being so short with him or if you’re just too drunk to care.
“It’s good to know you’re still a priss after all this time. It’s really refreshing, actually.”
He expects you to argue with him. That’s what you used to do, anyway. Your relationship (or lack thereof) is built on this kind of petty, meaningless banter. So he feels a little empty when you don’t bite back. Maybe even a little bad.
You fall back to sleep, a soft snore sounding from your throat. You shift in your slumber and it sends you rolling off the bench. Steve catches you before you can. He puts you back into place with two warm hands around your arms.
“Alright. Get up,” he says with an annoyed huff.
“No, thank you,” you sigh, still sleepy.
“No. Seriously. Get up before you get frostbite.” 
His voice is coated with an obvious concern. You don’t miss it — not even in your exhausted, drunken, and heartbroken state. Maybe that’s why you don’t fight him as much when he forces you to sit up, but you’re still hardly more than dead weight. He’s forced to hold you so you don’t fall over again.
Steve can see you better now that you’re fully upright. Snowflakes stick to the strands of your done-up hair, made-up lashes, and the knit material of your dress. Your eyeliner is smudged beneath your eyes, and your lipstick has been mostly kissed off. There’s a hole in the knee of your tights, too, and scuff marks on the toe of your boots.
You’re pretty. You’ve always been pretty, but just a little extra now. Way too beautiful to be all alone on this bench in the middle of Main Street.
“What are you doing here?” Steve blurts as he crouches in front of you. Snow wets the knee of his jeans, but he’s too distracted by you to care. “Where’s your boyfriend? Why isn’t he with you?”
He can’t even say the name — of your douchebag boyfriend, that is. Just thinking of the words Billy and Hargrove makes him feel like vomiting. Steve didn’t think he could hate anyone more than he hated you until he met that asshole. The two of you deserve each other, really.
Your tired head lolls to your shoulder. Your eyes flutter shut as you shrug.
“You weren’t with him?” the boy presses.
“I was,” you slur dramatically. “But he left.”
“He left you?”
You nod, slow and lazy.
“He left you here?”
You nod again.
Steve’s chest stings. His heart aches for you, even though he knows it shouldn’t.
“Why?” he agonizes.
“I got too drunk at a party�� And I talked to a guy he didn’t like very much.”
“Then what?”
You start to go limp in his hold. Exhaustion weighs you down again, accelerated by the winter’s bitter cold. Steve squeezes your arms to keep you upright. Your eyes open again but the lids of them are visibly heavy. 
“Um… We fought in the car. And he told me to get out,” you explain in mumbled slurs. Your voice is calm and airy, as light as the falling snow. You’re too drunk to understand how heartbreaking this is. “And I tried to get back home, but then I forgot how to walk.”
Steve’s eyes start to burn. He feels like he could cry. Because sure, you’ve been his enemy since the third grade, but you’re soft and you’re gentle and utterly undeserving of Billy’s assholery. 
Because of this (and his lingering savior complex), he feels the overwhelming urge to take care of you.
“Here. C’mon,” he huffs as he rises to full height again, jaw tense to keep his teeth from chattering. He tugs at your arms to pull you up with him. You comply (as best you can on frozen, drunken limbs) but not without confusion. Your face twists with it.
“What?” you murmur.
“Get in the car, okay? C’mon.”
You plant your feet. It becomes virtually impossible to move you. You and Steve idle at a standstill with your shoes digging into the piling snow. Your toes feel close to frozen, but your hands are strangely warm with Steve holding them so tight.
“No,” you insist, dramatically stubborn in your less-than-sober state.
“No?”
“Billy will get mad.” 
Steve scoffs. “Screw Billy.”
“I do that already.” Your reply comes so swiftly, and without a single hint of a smirk, that it’s impossible to tell if you’re joking or not. Maybe you aren’t and you’re just too drunk to understand sarcasm. Maybe you are joking and the receptors in your brain aren’t firing properly enough to tell you to smile at yourself.
Either way, Steve’s face scrunches with disgust. “Gross,” he mumbles under his breath.
—————
Steve has to drag you to his car. 
He puts his palm over the crown of your head to keep you from bumping it when you duck inside. He guides your legs in, too, when you have trouble maneuvering them. Then he reaches over to buckle you in before you have to ask him for help — because god knows there’s no way you could do it on your own.
He smells like cedar and something sweet when he leans over you. His whole car smells like that, actually. It’s nice. Comforting. Almost achingly warm. 
You curl into the heated seat and provide exactly zero help when he drives you home.
“You still alive?” he asks after a couple minutes of driving.
You grunt, slumped over in your seat with your forehead pressed against the window.
“What’s your address?”
“Hm?” 
“Where do you live?” he presses.
“Why do you wanna know, perv?” you slur, obviously not all there as you shift to get more comfortable in the passenger seat of his car.
Steve scoffs. “Oh, right. I’m the perv ‘cause I didn’t leave you out in the freezing cold. Makes so much sense. Maybe next time, don’t call me when your asshole boyfriend abandons you, alright?”
He’s bitter. Intentionally hurtful. 
You’re too drunk to understand. “I didn’t call you in the first place,” you retort sleepily.
He falters. “Well— you know what I mean.”
“I can’t go home,” you answer finally.
His structured features twist with concern, but your eyes are closed so you don’t see it. His honeyed gaze squints with worry, flitting from your limp form to the darkened road and back again. “Why?”
“‘Cause I live with Billy. And he doesn’t want me there,” you tell him with a lazy shrug. Then, more quietly, you mumble. “Nobody wants me anywhere…”
You say it so softly that he barely hears it. He wishes he hadn’t. It’d make it a whole lot easier to hate you if you were still the same priss he grew up with. He isn’t so sure that you are — or if you ever were. All you are to him now is a heartbroken girl he found in the snow, in desperate need of some kindness.
So when you drift off again, he lets you. And he doesn’t wake you until you get to his house.
You feel the warmth of his presence first — the weight of his chest at your side and his hand on your waist. Your heavy eyes flutter open to find him leaning over you. He fusses with the seatbelt buckle for a moment before it clicks.
“What are you doing?” you wonder aloud, voice weighed down by exhaustion. There’s a million questions swirling in your head right now — where am I, why are you here, why are you taking care of me. That was just the first to slip out.
“Good. Now I don’t have to carry you,” Steve jokes.
He holds your hand to help you out of the car, then wraps an arm around your waist to keep you from falling. He guides you towards a too big house, lit up white with expensive Christmas decorations.
“Where are we?”
“My place. You can sleep off the alcohol on my couch.”
Your head lolls to your shoulder, eyes red-rimmed and glassy as you blink up at him. “And they say chivalry is dead,” you tease, still slightly misarticulate — though not nearly as much as when he found you in the show.
Steve’s rolling his eyes at you one moment, silently scolding himself for getting out of his car in the first place — and the next, he’s standing in his kitchen, filling up a glass of water and putting slices of bread on a plate for you. He even cuts off the goddamned crust. Just in case.
He left you on the couch in the living room, but you’re gone when he gets back. It’s like he blinks, and he’s annoyed with you all over again. A huff tumbles from his mouth as he trudges up the stairs to find you.
The door to his room is cracked open. 
He finds you curled up in the center of his bed.
“No. Nope,” Steve scolds as he walks further inside. He sits the bread and the water on his nightstand and tries to shake you awake. You’re totally knocked out, hardly anything more than deadweight from the alcohol. 
And he can’t even be mad at you about it because it’s not even your fault. You shouldn’t have gotten left in the first place.
“C’mon. Get up— you’re not sleeping in my bed,” he insists. His hand curls around your arm with the intent to pull you up before he realizes how cold you are. You’re freezing, even over your dress. The notion makes Steve stop in place. 
He squints to take a better look at you — to really look at you — and swears the color of your skin is tinted blue from the cold. Your mascara is smeared — from where you’d been crying, maybe. He thinks those might be dried tear stains on your cheeks, too.
All at once, he doesn’t have the heart to wake you. He curses himself for being so hard on you. You never deserved it — not tonight, not ever — and he figures this is his time to atone.
He maneuvers you beneath his navy blue sheets with a warm and gentle hand. He brings the top of the comforter up to your jaw and you curl into his bed on instinct, sighing as you settle further into the warmth. 
Your eyes are still closed and you’re still barely conscious, but the pillow is soft against your cheek. It smells like floral detergent and musky cologne and sweet-smelling hairspray. It brings you a foreign comfort that lulls you into a deeper, much-needed sleep.
Steve settles beside you, over the covers and with his clothes still on. He wants to be awake in case you need him. He doesn’t want you to get sick and not be alert enough to help you. 
He’s laughing at the sound of your gentle snores one moment, then falling asleep to them the next.
Hawkins’ royalty. Arch enemies since elementary school. Sleeping together in one bed like you haven’t spent the majority of your lives hatingeach other.
You sleep soundly together in spite of all that. You don’t wake for several hours — not until you’ve slept the alcohol off and your suddenly sober brain reminds you of the night before. Touchy guy on the dance floor, Billy’s rough hand around your wrist, “God, you’re such a slut!” 
The last thing you remember is passing out on a bench on Main Street, so you’re not entirely sure how you ended up in a bed. 
You wake with a start, distinctly and palpably terrified. 
You’re rousing wakes Steve up, too.
“Billy?” you murmur, heavy with sleep, as you squint in the navy blue darkness. 
A part of you hopes it was all just a too vivid nightmare. Or, at the very least, that your boyfriend came to his senses and picked you up after completely abandoning you — but somehow that feels more unrealistic than all the shit he put you through the evening before.
“No—” Steve answers groggily, then clears throat when the word gets stuck there. He rises to his elbows and looks over his shoulder at you, squinting a tired eye to see you better. “No, it’s— it’s Steve.”
He can’t see you too well, not in the pitch black of his bedroom, but he swears he hears you sigh. One of relief, maybe, or maybe one of ease. Either way, you don’t seem very upset that he’s here with you.
“Oh,” you answer, still a bit breathless. “Okay…” You lie back down again, feeling eons safer than just seconds before, as you curl back into your shape on his mattress. You sigh into your pillow and try not to gravitate towards the warmth beside you.
Steve’s hands fidget with a similar fight to keep from holding you. “It’s okay,” he settles on instead, hoping his words can embrace you in a way he doesn’t let himself. “You’re okay.”
892 notes · View notes
lovebugism · 4 months
Note
66. you’re sick and I feel bad because I’m pretty sure i gave it to you, so I bring you some of my great grandmother’s soup and watch movies with you with Eddie Spaghetti please 🥺
ty for requesting!! — eddie makes you soup (like the angel he is) after accidentally getting you sick (friends in love, fluff, 1.5k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
It’s a virtually impossible thing, you realize, to operate like a normal human being when you’re sick. 
You’re reduced to a withering thing on your couch, rotting from the inside and out, and drowning in a sea of crumpled-up tissues. In your fever-induced hysteria, you’re pretty sure you’re dying when a knock sounds at your door. 
You shout a hoarse “come in” with all the strength you have left. The last person you expect to walk in is Eddie Munson.
He’s wearing smudged eyeliner and a pink smile when enters your living room. His chestnut hair is more wild than you’re used to, but his eyes are made of a familiar melted chocolate. There’s a plastic bag in his pale, ringed hand, full of stuff you can’t make out.
You think he might be an angel. 
“Eddie?” you sigh in a tiny voice, scratchy and quiet. 
You look at him like no one’s ever looked at him before. Not like you’re excited to see him. No, it’s more than that — it’s like you’re relieved. Like out of a billion people that could’ve stepped through that doorway, you’re happiest that it’s him.
He cowers under the weight of your twinkling, tired gaze. 
“Yeah. Hi. Sorry to, like, come over without calling or anything,” he apologizes, laughing awkwardly as he shifts his weight on his dirty sneakers. “But I felt a little bad about getting you sick at Steve’s the other night. I was gonna stay home, but Dustin wanted me to go. He insisted on it, actually—”
He’s rambling like an idiot, making a total fool of himself. He doesn’t know why you’re smiling so gently at him like you find it all endearing. “It’s not your fault, Eds,” you assure, voice slightly stuffy, as you shake your head at him.
“Well, it kinda is, actually, so…” Another awkward laugh tumbles from his smiling mouth. In his shyness, his gaze flits from yours to the bag in his hand. “I, uh— I wanted to do something nice, you know? Like, make you soup or something. But then I realized I don’t actually know how to cook, so I went to the store and got some of the canned stuff.”
“Oh,” you hum, then sniffle. “Thank you, Eddie. That’s— That’s really nice of you.”
“It’s no problem. Really. I can make it for you if you want. Or microwave it, I guess. So you can, you know, rest of whatever.”
“You don’t have to do that—”
“I want to.”
“I just don’t want you to get sick,” you agonize, face scrunched with a distant worry.
Eddie grins at your concern and shrugs off every ounce of it. “I already had it. So I’m basically immune at this point, right? I mean, I’m pretty sure that’s how the science works, anyway.”
You laugh for the first time in three days. You forget how sick you are until the action makes your chest ache. Your smile is weighed down by exhaustion, but it doesn’t waver once when you look at him. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”
Even though your muscles are achy, you manage to walk yourself to the kitchen. You tell Eddie you can put the soup on yourself, but he isn’t having any of it. He walks you back to the couch and warms it up for you — even puts it in a heart-shaped bowl he found in your cabinet, ‘cause he thought it might make you feel a little better.
He tastes it with a separate spoon to make sure it isn’t too hot, then rushes back to your side in record time.
“Thank you,” you murmur when he passes you the newly warmed-up soup. The words come out more scratchy than you mean for them to. You try to clear your throat, but you don’t think it makes it any better.
“Don’t thank me— I’m the reason you’re in this mess,” he laughs and sits on the couch beside you. He keeps a cushion of space between you, lest he get any closer and make you uncomfortable. “So, I’m not, like, above spoon-feeding it to you or anything.”
You try to laugh at his dumb joke. It comes out in a single, hoarse breath that makes your chest sting. “I think I got it from here. Thanks for the offer, though.”
Eddie runs out of stupid things to say and the apartment goes silent. 
Your TV plays so low it’s basically on mute, and your neighbors talk on their porch outside — the sound of both gets increasingly louder without either of you talking over them.
He doesn’t know what to say — how to tell you that he’d like to spend more time with you without actually having to say the words. Confessing his schoolboy crush out loud, to the pretty girl he got sick, would be the least metal thing he’s ever done.
“Do you wanna, like, put on a movie or something?” he offers suddenly, rubbing his ringed fingers on his dark jeans to make them feel less clammy. “I can run to Family Video and bother Steve until he lets me take something for free? Unless you’re, like, totally sick of me— which would be totally understandable—”
“No,” you interject with a shake of your head, still trying to smile even though it takes so much energy out of you. “I mean, I’d like that, but…”
“But?” Eddie repeats when you trail off, brows raised behind his fluffy bangs.
You tilt your chin to your chest and peer at him through your lashes. Your eyes are red-rimmed and glassy, still pretty enough to drown in. “Don’t you have a show tonight?” you remind him in a gentle whisper.
His heart would swell at the thought of you knowing his show schedule if it wasn’t already dropping to his ass. He’d nearly forgotten all about it, too worried about you to remember the ten people at The Hideout waiting for him.
“Fuck…” he groans and slumps against the couch. His head tilts back and bears his pretty neck for you. You can see his pale jaw clench and his adam’s apple bob when he swallows. He’s too beautiful for his own good.
“You can go. It’s okay,” you assure gently.
His chocolate eyes melt for you when he opens them again. He looks sincerely apologetic, like leaving you hurts him the most. “I’d totally stay, but—”
“I get it. It’s fine,” you repeat, still grinning ‘cause you don’t know how else to look at him. You duck your sheepish gaze to the bowl in your lap and try to joke. “I’ll survive until tomorrow… I think.”
Eddie sits up again and leans closer to you. You get a better whiff of his musky cologne and the nicotine on his breath. “You better. ‘Cause I’m definitely coming over, and we’re definitely watching a movie, alright? All day until you’re sick of me.”
Your smile grows despite your exhaustion. You feel like this is his way of asking you out — like you’re too sick and he’s too nervous, and he’d love to do it some other way, but this is all he’s got for now. It’s more than enough for you.
“Sure,” you say with a firm nod.
“I can bring you more food, too, if you want! Whatever you feel like— say that word, and you got it.”
You falter for an answer to his sudden question.
He shakes his head. “That’s okay. Call me later if you want. I should be home around ten, if that’s not too late?”
“Okay,” you smile, then clear your throat when the word gets caught there.
“I’ll see you tomorrow— Feel better by then, okay? That’s an order,” he jokes and stands back up again. 
He doesn’t know what compels him to kiss you on the cheek — only that it felt right to do it and that he didn’t even realize he was doing it until his lips brushed your warm jaw.
His cinnamon eyes go wide. His rosy mouth falls softly agape. He looks more surprised than you do, but you’re not entirely sure that’s possible. A moment you’ve been thinking about for ages just happened before you could blink. 
You don’t think that’s very fair.
Eddie tries to laugh it off. “Forget I just did that… That was— That was really weird. Sorry.”
Your cheeks burn like fire. Not from the fever this time, but from the boy in front of you. From the yearning to feel him close again. 
“I’ll talk to you tonight,” you promise, even though your throat still burns. You’re not sure you care too much, anymore. You wanna talk to him until you can’t anymore.
“Yeah,” he sighs, breathless for a reason he can’t name. He walks backwards towards the door. “See you around,” he says finally, before spinning on his sneakers and nearly tripping over your carpet.
You blink, and he’s gone. Again. 
Your burning cheek still tingles with the imprint of his mouth. He’d asked you to forget, but you don’t think that’s possible. There’s no forgetting him at all.
563 notes · View notes
lovebugism · 4 months
Note
“Remind me why I can’t kill the carolers?” with a grumpy scrooge eddie!! maybe he and reader move into a new neighborhood with friendly neighbors who go all out for christmas and are always caroling? i can’t imagine the people of hawkins showing up at his door lol
ty for requesting :D — the metalhead freak gets stuck with a bunch of carolers and runs to his girl for comfort (established relationship, fluff, eddie "loves being babied" munson, 1.2k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
Eddie moves to the nice side of Hawkins with you. Not the suburbs, exactly, but pretty damn close. 
It’s a house with stairs and a sliding back door, both of which only existed in movies for a kid who grew up in a trailer park. The backyard is fenced in, too — big enough for a dog. A couple of them, even. And maybe a pool if his music career takes off. The realtor also told you that the school district is “to die for,” and even though that’s not really an issue right now, Eddie figures it’ll be important sometime soon.
These are all things you’re supposed to care about when you’re settling down with someone you can see a future with. Eddie thinks so, at least. He can see himself getting old with you, in this house and on that front porch. He’ll be holding your hand on your afternoon walks until both of yours are spotted and wrinkly.
The only bad thing about life (halfway) in the suburbs is running into all the assholes he used to know in high school. Vicki Carmichael was walking her too-expensive dog yesterday morning, and the afternoon before that, Tina Burton had the whole cul-de-sac down the street shut down for her kid’s first birthday party. What the hell is a one-year-old even supposed to do with a bouncy house?
It’s totally trippy. 
But Eddie’s been able to avoid them well enough. Or maybe everyone else is avoiding him. Either way, he’s grateful.
“No— where are you going?” you whine as Eddie slides open the glass door of the shower. You’re still getting used to being able to do this with him now that you’ve moved into the new place. The bathroom back at the trailer was barely big enough for one person, let alone two.
“I’m already done, and you’ve barely even started,” he answers, laughing at the dramatic desperation in your voice. 
He steps onto the plush mat outside the tub and wraps a towel around his tattooed hips. Steam flows out, and the outside cold swoops in. It pricks your skin and makes you shiver. You duck under the faucet for warmth until he closes the door behind him.
“You’re gonna be in here forever, and I’m gonna get all pruney,” Eddie insists, right before shaking out his damp curls like a wet dog.
“You usually like it when I take my time,” you joke, laughing when it makes him silent.
Eddie’s brain gets all foggy at your words. Worse than the heavy steam filling up the bathroom. He’s contemplating whether or not to jump back into the shower with you — and really let you “take your time” — but a knock on the door throws a wrench in his plans.
“Can you get the door for me, honey?” you ask just to tease him, ‘cause you know he’s milliseconds away from pressing you against the shower wall.
He listens to you, because he always listens to you, and then ultimately decides he never will again.
Eddie leaves the warmth of the bathroom, shoves on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that do little to protect him from the bitter cold outside, and finds a number of familiar faces standing on his porch. 
It’s an entire crowd of people who used to bully him in high school — plus a bunch of snotty private school kids — all dressed up in the most horrendous, white-bread Christmas outfits the world has ever seen.
“Oh, shit…” Eddie mumbles under his breath, the evidence of his words leaving in a thin white cloud. He hadn’t even meant to say them out loud. They just sorta spilled out in the moment. Honestly, he thinks he might be dreaming.
The town’s resident metalhead is forced to sit through a botched rendition of Deck the Halls and Holy Night. And since you’re still in the shower, you can’t even swoop in to save him from it all. He just suffers through the half-out-of-tune caroling while his drying hair frizzes, a wavering smile of confusion stagnant on his face. 
When they’re finally gone, Eddie shuts the door with a chest-deflating sigh. He isn’t totally sure he’s taken a single breath since he opened the damn thing.
“Who was that?” you call from the top of the stairs, a fuzzy towel clutched to your chest. The warm scent of your body wash flows from the opened bathroom door and down the steps.
Eddie turns to look up at you from the bottom of them. He feels so suddenly drained. Like he just ran a marathon or pulled an all-nighter — something utterly exhausting that’s taken a piece of his soul. Maybe it’s dramatic, but he feels a little like his suffering has stripped ten years off his life.
“Remind me again why we can’t kill the carolers?” he jokes as he trudges up the stairs, the railing of them lined with glowing garlands.
“Those were carolers?” you gape, eyes wide and brows raised to your hairline.
Answering the door isn’t really Eddie’s thing. Conversations with strangers at the door aren’t really his thing, either. You think he might’ve just lived through one of his greatest fears.
“Yeah,” he scoffs, laughing through an exhausted sigh. He walks to your shared bedroom and flops on the center of the bed. A heavy sigh falls from his lips like he just got done working a twelve-hour shift. 
You’d laugh at his dramatics if you thought they were anything but totally real. So instead, you sit gingerly beside him, careful to keep your towel from falling, and try to comfort him without giggling.
“Shit, babe. I’m sorry,” you mutter, rubbing a palm up and down the length of his back. You’re grateful he can’t see your smile from this angle, lest he think you aren’t taking this seriously.
“Oh, don’t be,” he tells you, muffled into his pillow. Sarcasm drips from his honeyed lips like venom. “It was tons of fun seeing Jason fucking Carver on our doorstep.”
“Jason was out there?” you gape, a little louder than you mean to. Your shock is palpable.
Eddie huffs and turns onto his back. “Yeah— did you know he has a kid now?”
“What?”
“Uh-huh,” he nods with a small smirk. The life returns to the chocolate of his eyes now that he can gossip. “She was a really cute baby, you know, considering. The odds weren’t really in her favor there.”
You tilt your cheek to your shoulder and cup his jaw with a warm hand. Your thumb rubs gently over the flushed apple of it, tinted cold from the outside weather. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to save you,” you tell him, half playful but with a sincere glimmer in your eye.
“No, it’s okay,” he says with a shake of his head. “I’m glad you weren’t there to see that.”
You can’t tell if Eddie knows you’re teasing him or not. Or if he’s joking about the whole thing ‘cause it’s over now. Your boy’s too hard to read for his own good. You decide to keep pitying him anyway. His love language is basically being babied.
“Want me to make you some hot chocolate?”
He nods, a small pout jutting out his rosy lips. “With the mini marshmallows, please?” he mumbles.
You bend at the waist to plant a kiss on his forehead. “Whatever you want, babe,” you promise in a gentle murmur.
555 notes · View notes
lovebugism · 4 months
Note
being with toxic people on Christmas eve, hurt/comfort with eddie + shy!reader, because this is my situation and I'm projecting 😔
i'm so sorry angel! i hope this makes you feel a wee bit better!! — when being around family gets too hard, eddie makes everything feel easy again (shy!reader, hurt/comfort, friends in love, tw for brief mentions of toxic family, 1.1k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
December is bitter, glittering, and terribly cold. 
The crisp chill takes your breath away when you storm out into it. It burns your lungs and scratches at your chest like a living thing with claws. When the initial shock of wintry dreariness fades, you take your first deep breath in all day.
You feel somehow less alone out here by yourself than you did inside your own house. The falling snow keeps you company in a way your family never could. The empty, faint pink sky drapes over you like a fuzzy blanket. 
You think you’d rather freeze out here — in the peaceful, early-winter melancholy — than step foot back home.
You walk down the gravel path of the trailer park with snow crunching beneath your feet. The sound is soft and hollow and pleasant. The piling crystalline dampens your sneakers as your legs move on their own. Muscle memory at its finest. 
You gravitate towards the Munson trailer without thinking twice ‘cause the safest thing you know is waiting for you there — standing on his snowy front porch, smoking a cigarette, and shivering under a thick flannel coat that’s obviously older than he is.
A quiet smile lifts the corners of your mouth when you see him. 
Eddie’s winter-kissed features twist in concern at the sight of you, all alone and in the dark. “The hell are you doing out here?” he asks in place of any real greeting, breath leaving his rosy, chapped lips in a thin white cloud. “It’s freezing!”
You know this. The cold is impossible to ignore. You were just too eager to get out of your house, too eager to get here, that you forgot to notice how much your frigid limbs were aching.
“I wanted to see you,” you confess in a tiny voice, as light as the falling snow sticking to your hair and sweater.
Eddie’s chest swirls with warmth. Suddenly it’s summer, and everything’s golden instead of navy blue and bitter. With a sudden longing to close the distance between you, he says, “Get up here before you freeze to death.”
You climb up the steps of his porch without a word of complaint from your mouth. You gravitate towards him like he’s the sun, a bright yellow thing that makes the winter seem less dreary. You ache to be near him just the same, to hold him with your frozen hands until you’re warm again.
He reaches for the lapel of his coat, and you think he might take it off for you — swaddle you in its warmth like they do in the movies. Despite the swarm of butterflies the thought stirs in your stomach, you’d rather him keep it on. You don’t want him to suffer just because you forgot to put on a jacket before rushing here.
Only Eddie doesn’t take it off. He keeps it on and ushers you closer with a silent nod of his wild head. He wraps you up in it with him — with his palm on your back, his curls tickling your forehead, and his heart against your heart. 
You bury a final sigh of relief into his Corroded Coffin tee, thankful to be in his arms. He soothes you with the familiar scent of his musky cologne, heals you with the kindness of his touch. He opens suns inside your heart and makes you forget how cold you used to be.
“What happened?” Eddie asks, chin bobbing against your head. He snuffs out his cigarette on the small ashtray on the wooden railing, then swipes a hand over your hair to brush off the snowflakes sticking to you. “Why aren’t you at home?”
You make a vague I don’t know sound, muffled into his chest. “I just needed to be outside for a second,” you say finally, so soft your words get buried in the whistling wind. In a strained and fragile voice, you tell him, “It’s so loud back home.”
Eddie knows that’s not totally the truth. You didn’t leave in such a hurry that you forgot to put on a coat just because it was loud. You decided it was more important to risk freezing on your way to him than stay where you were, so it must be more than you let on.
Eddie doesn’t pry, though. Just holds you tighter.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he says in a sympathetic sigh.
You can hear music playing from inside the trailer — Steve Miller Band, you think, or maybe Lynyrd Skynyrd. Uncle Wayne loves both, and their rhythmic guitar shakes the walls of the old house accordingly. The Munson clan’s closest friends and family manage to shout over it all, mixed with loud laughter and something warm. 
It doesn’t sound as mean as the shouting you’re most familiar with.
“How long do I have you before your folks start hunting me down?” Eddie asks, lips curled into a smile against your head.
“As long as you want,” you answer with a sad laugh. “No one’s coming to look for me.”
Eddie nods despite his stinging chest and sways you gently back and forth.
“Good. I wanted you all to myself— It’s what I asked for for Christmas, actually.”
You snort a disbelieving scoff.
“I’m serious!” he insists with a loud laugh. You feel the rumble of the boyish noise against the apple of your cheek. “I put the letter in the little Santa mailbox on Main Street and everything!”
“Well, I’m glad I could make your wish come true,” you joke with a conceding sigh. You pull slightly back from him, only enough to see his face. You find him smiling down at you, a pink grin that shows all his teeth. Beautiful. Warm. Sunlit.
You try to smile back. It’s a little too forced and ends up looking like a wince.
Eddie’s face twists in concern. Still smiling, just a little softer now. “You’re okay, right?”
You nod at first. ‘Cause you feel like that’s what you’re supposed to do. Then you realize it’s Eddie, and you shrug. “Now I am,” you answer finally, quiet in your subtle confession.
His rosy grin widens. “That is very cheesy,” he teases with a twinkle in his dark eyes. He squints them a second later. “You’re not flirting with me, are you?”
Your face burns hot as you laugh out loud. “No!”
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” he jokes, pouting now.
“Shut up.”
He shrugs. “I just thought we had something going here.”
“Are you flirting with me, Eddie Munson?”
“Of course I am!” he blurts with a laugh you can feel in your chest. “I’m surprised it took you this long to notice.”
You figure he must be joking, so you shove him away with a halfhearted hand. He pulls you back into him with gentle fingers wrapped around your arms, and you let him — resting your cheek against his shoulder with every intention of melting with him.
There’s something innately sweet about his presence. His warmth. This closeness. And this silent sense of understanding you share. 
You don’t want to think about what you’re running from anymore. 
You’re just glad you ended up here.
669 notes · View notes
lovebugism · 4 months
Note
can I request [ MISTLETOE ] for sender and receiver to find themselves under the mistletoe. with steeb and shy!reader?! maybe they’ve both been crushing for a while and so it’s all fluffy??
ty for requesting :D happy xmas angel!! — you and steve have your very first kiss under the mistletoe (shy!fem!r, new relationship, fluff, 1.1k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
You’re pretty sure your friends are debating which Christmas song is better. You can’t be sure, though, because it all just sounds like static. Everything feels a little like static, too.  
You’re sitting on Steve’s couch, but it’s more like sitting on a cloud. He’s right next to you — arm lazy around your shoulders, fitting into your side like a puzzle piece — but you can’t really feel him, either.
Steve can tell how far away you’ve gone. You haven’t said a word to him in ages. He can’t be totally sure you’ve even blinked, either. He squeezes your shoulder with a gentle hand, one that you barely feel, to bring you back again.
You turn to him, sluggish and slow and softly smiling.
“Still good?” he wonders. His grin is barely there and slightly lopsided. His honey eyes sparkle with a subtle concern. He doesn’t know how to be anything but entirely tender with you.
You nod, though your eyes are still a little glassy.
Steve’s smile widens. His golden features drip with a fondness you don’t feel very deserving of.
He’s so close, you think he might kiss you. You can smell the hot chocolate and candy canes on his breath — a lethal concoction that makes you melt further into him. And truth be told, he wants to kiss you, but he’s terrified of being too forward.
You’re made of something delicate. Like flower petals or winter sunlight. He doesn’t want to be too rough with you.
“Wanna get out of here?” he asks.
Your chin jerks back a bit. The subtle meaning behind his words makes you flinch. “…What?”
His face falls in a gaping horror. “Wait— No— that’s not— That’s not what I meant,” he stammers quickly, an awkward laugh sputtering from his lips. “I was trying to ask if you wanted to get a drink before Eddie breaks out his metal version of Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer.”
His dumb joke makes you laugh. He’s grateful for it.
He walks with you towards the kitchen, guiding you with a warm hand on the small of your back. Robin gives him a not-so-subtle thumbs up when he passes her. “Real smooth,” she mouths. 
He flips her off but feels a little bad about it a second later. The mistletoe hanging in front of the sink was definitely her doing — and probably his only opportunity to kiss you tonight. He’ll thank her for it later, if everything goes to plan.
You stand across the room at the fridge, pouring him a glass of eggnog like the sweet thing you are. He doesn’t know how to get you over to him without being too obvious. So he just lingers in place, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest, and hopes you’ll eventually migrate towards him.
“Here you go, babe,” you murmur under your breath, not even looking his way as you sit the full glass to the side. 
Steve wonders if you noticed the nickname spilling from your mouth, or if it just came out without you realizing it. It makes his chest all warm and fuzzy either way. He wants to kiss you stupid about it, but he has to get you over here first.
“Uh, can you hand it to me, please?”
You look over your shoulder at him, expecting to find him busy in some way. He isn’t, though. He’s just kinda standing there. Like he’s waiting for something.
You’re confused, but you don’t press it. You go to hand it to him without complaint. Sweet thing, indeed.
You take a few steps towards him and reach out your arm, not quite under the half-hidden mistletoe yet. Steve grimaces slightly. “Little closer?” he pleads.
With furrowed brows, you take another step closer.
“Just a little bit more—”
Your golden laugh fills the kitchen. “What are you doing? Just take it, weirdo.”
Steve beams when you’re finally beneath it. His gasp is almost cartoonish, but it makes his eyes sparkle anyway. “Ah! Look at that! We’re under the mistletoe!”
Your eyes flit to the ceiling. The artificial plant is mostly hidden, strung up between hanging pots and pans. A smile tugs at your mouth — you wonder if he planned this or if the chance just fell into his lap.
You’re grateful for it, either way.
“What a coincidence, huh?” you murmur sheepishly, stomach so full of fluttering butterflies that it aches.
“Yeah. Not planned at all,” he beams, totally honest, as he takes a small step closer.
“Not even a little bit,” you tease.
His hands settle on your waist, warm with how clammy they’ve gone. His thumbs rub gently along your ribcage, over your reindeer-patterned Christmas sweater. His chest presses intently against yours, and you wonder if he can feel your racing heartbeat.
“Totally unintentional, actually. I think the universe willed it.”
“Totally.”
“Well,” Steve lilts with a quirked mouth and twinkling eyes. “Do you wanna?”
He won’t do anything you don’t want to do. He’d never force you to do a damn thing, but fuck, if he doesn’t want you to say yes more than he’s ever wanted anything in the whole world.
His heart nearly bursts out of his chest when you nod at him with your own quiet smile. 
When he leans in to kiss you, it feels like something out of a movie. There’s a swelling choir in the distance and snow falling all around you. It’s in black and white or technicolor, something so obviously old Hollywood, because only the golden age of film could capture these once-in-a-lifetime romantics.
And it’s weird, ‘cause it’s just one little peck.
His chiseled nose bumps once against the side of your own, scruffy chin scratching at your skin. His lips lock momentarily with yours with all their plush pink glory. It’s heaven — for a flash of a second — and gone way too soon.
Both of you are grinning like lovesick idiots when he pulls away.
His freshly kissed mouth opens to say something — to tell you that he’s head over heels for you or that you taste like hot cocoa, maybe — but nothing like that comes out.
Something metallic cracks in the distance, like a valuable thing broken, and all the loud voices in the living room suddenly go quiet.
“Little shits…” Steve mumbles in an annoyed sigh. His blatant irritation makes you laugh. The sound makes him smile all over again. “I should go make sure no one broke a limb or something.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
His hands squeeze gently at your sides before he goes, grieved to leave you.
He barely gets five steps away before you’re calling him back again. 
“Wait! You forgot your drink.” 
When he walks back towards you again — nicely settled beneath the hanging mistletoe he’d already forgotten about — you sneak another kiss in. It’s quicker than you’d like, but more languid still. 
It takes his breath away all over again.
834 notes · View notes
lovebugism · 4 months
Note
hi bug! could i have ditsy!reader with eddie with the prompt “we can put up the christmas lights tonight!”
she’s just the clumsiest bean ever and almost falling off the ladder as she leans across to hang up the lights. and eddie is just gripping onto her waist so incredibly tightly as he doesn’t want his girl to get hurt :((
just something incredibly fluffy!!
ah this is so so cute! i hope you like it :D — you, the clumsiest girl on earth, decorate the munson trailer and make a worrier out of your otherwise carefree boyfriend (ditzy!fem!reader, established relationship, fluff, 1k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
The trailer smells entirely of the holiday season — of vanilla and cinnamon and something somehow sweeter. It’s because Eddie’s burning a batch of sugar cookies in the oven. “Shit, shit, shit,” he mutters as he sits the smoking snowflake pastries on the stove. 
They’re not totally black, so that’s a plus. They may be only slightly inedible, though.
He shakes his pale hand from the oven mitt and figures he’ll have to throw them out before you get to them. He knows you’ll pretend to like them just so you don’t hurt his feelings — too sweet for your own good. 
Eddie’s contemplating this when he notices how quiet the living room has gone. The television plays a muted static, but the lack of your voice is palpable. You’re rarely ever so silent. It’s like every room you’re in glows with the sound of your voice. You only get this quiet when you’re super concentrated.
His head snaps towards the living room — not totally surprised to find you hanging up Christmas lights by yourself but still a little terrified, anyway. His chocolate eyes widen in time with his heart plummeting to his chest.
“I thought we agreed to take a break?” he shouts, rounding the kitchen counter and rushing over to you.
He plants himself in front of the couch you stand on, slightly unstable on the peeling pleather cushion. His ringed fingers are warm on either side of your hips. They clutch you tight with a worry you don’t seem to have.
You string rainbow-colored lights over Wayne’s collection of mugs, leaning over the arm of the couch to fuss with the dangling bits.
Excitement and clumsiness is a dangerous concotion when it comes to you.
“We did, but these were the last things left in the box, and I couldn’t stop thinking about them,” you explain in a tiny, faraway voice — obviously distracted. Your tongue pokes gently from your lips as you try to string lights over the last mug on the left.
“Babe, c’mon,” Eddie urges, voice wavering as his hands grip you tighter.
He doesn’t know if he’s helping as much as he thought he would, or if you feel more comfortable being less careful because you know he’d never let you fall.
Either way, he breathes out a sigh of relief when you stand upright again.
“They were looking at me funny, Eds, I swear!” you say with all your usual dramatics as you turn away from the wall to face him. You’re still standing upright on the old, rickety couch, and he’s still holding tightly onto you.
Your brows are furrowed, your doe eyes wide and twinkling with innocence, and your petaled mouth softly pouted. He couldn’t be angry with you if he tried. You’re too pretty to do anything but love on.
“I believe you, baby,” Eddie assures you with a soft, pink smile. A small chuckle spills from it as he helps you to the ground again, pale palms clutching the outsides of your elbows. 
He keeps holding you like that when you stand in front of him. He gives you a gentle squeeze there and rubs his thumbs over your skin. “Just let me know next time, alright? Before you give me a damn heart attack.”
“But I wasn’t even doing anything,” you insist, still pouting softly but only so he’ll wanna kiss you more.
He pulls you closer by your arms and makes you stumble into his chest. “I just don’t want you to get hurt, sweet thing,” he murmurs lowly to you and with his lips curled into a pretty, lopsided thing.
“It’s just Christmas decorations,” you shrug in a measly voice.
Eddie gives you a hardened look made entirely of melted chocolate.
You cave immediately. 
“I’ll be careful,” you promise.
His big, stupid grin returns to him. “Good,” he hums, right before bending softly down and smacking a kiss to your waiting mouth.
It’s a fleeting peck — a slotting of your lips and a leaving. You can taste the sugary icing on him, anyway. It leaves you buzzing for more when he pulls away.
“I’m gonna put some more cookies in the oven, ‘kay? Give me ten minutes, and we’ll finish decorating, alright? Together.”
He walks backward towards the kitchen. You beam in response. “I’ll go get the ladder so we can do the rest of the lights!” you offer, voice coated with excitement and sunshine.
“Absolutely not!” Eddie exclaims with a chuckle. Your smile ebbs instantly. “Wayne's ladder is older than I am, babe— you’ll definitely break your neck on that thing!”
You roll your sparkling eyes at him. “You’re being dramatic,” you say with a smile and shake of your head.
“I’m serious, babe,” he tells you, gentle but still stern. He tilts his chin to his chest and gives you a deep brown and serious glare. “Don’t make me fight you over this,” he cautions, still playful in his way.
Your cheek falls to your shoulder. You shoot him a teasing smile and cross your arms over your chest. “I’d still win,” you insist in a pretty little voice.
Eddie scoffs and walks the short distance back to you. “Obviously. But with the power of distraction, I’d keep you from climbing your pretty ass on that ladder, so… Who’s the real winner?”
“Still me,” you joke, smiling when he plants another kiss to your mouth.
“How about you come in the kitchen with me then, huh?” he suggests, if only to soothe his anxious heart. “You can sit on the counter and look pretty while I destroy another batch of cookies. I won’t even feel bad if you make fun of me for burning them.”
Your lips purse softly to the side as you think on his offer.
“I’ll give you a kiss for it,” Eddie blurts in attempts to persuade you.
He blinks, and your arms are wrapped around his neck — an embrace most pleasantly suffocating. He laughs softly, with his nose smushed against yours, and wraps his arms around your waist. He lets you kiss him like your life depends on it a second later.
639 notes · View notes
lovebugism · 4 months
Note
“we don’t like each other, but we’re at a mutual friend’s Christmas party and we keep getting caught under the mistletoe together”
eddie and r at steve’s christmas party!
ty for requestling lovie! pls enjoy xoxo — you and eddie, arch enemies since you met, share a kiss under the mistletoe thanks to your meddling friends (enemies to lovers, fluff, 2.2k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
Steve’s hand is warm on the small of your back as he leads you the long way to the kitchen. His too big house is glowing with life — with warm-colored Christmas lights and the laughter of your closest friends. It all makes your skin sparkle. Or maybe that’s just the alcohol.
You’re draining your cup of its contents, head tipped back to catch every drop of Steve’s dad’s expensive liquor. You let the boy lead you blindly for a refill until you notice that you’re further from the kitchen now than you were sitting with him on the couch.
“Where are we going?” you wonder with a hearty chuckle.
“To get you another drink!” he insists, playing innocent.
“Then why are we circling your living room?” 
He guides you around the French doors of the entrance and past the wooden staircase — where Max and Lucas dangle mistletoe from a string on the upper story. They bicker back and forth about exactly where to place it and forget to be discreet about any of it.
You’re about to walk past it and towards the kitchen, but Steve stops short before you can. Eddie exits the hallway just in front of you, seemingly led by none other than Dustin Henderson in an obviously concocted plan. 
This marks the second Christmas of your friends trying to get you and the freak to kiss.
It’ll also be the second Christmas that they fail.
“I can see you, you know?” you shout to the arguing teenagers.
The banter quietens all at once. 
Lucas shoots an awkward smile down at you, dressed in an itchy sweater and collared shirt that his mom obviously dressed him in. Max is much less apologetic. Her auburn braids sway on either side of her face as she leans over the railing, clutching at the lit-up garland with a bandaged hand.
“Can you just kiss and get it over with?” she pleads with all her practiced teenage desperation. “Lucas almost chopped my hand off cutting the fishing wire, and I need to know it was worth something.”
“Yeah, in your dreams, Mayfield,” Eddie scoffs, walking past you without a single glance your way. You wouldn’t know, though, because you weren’t looking at him either. You bypass the mistletoe and head the opposite way toward the kitchen. “Not a chance,” you murmur under your breath.
“I said I was sorry!” you hear Lucas exclaim as you go.
Max squints her stony blue eyes at him. “Yeah, ‘cause sorry’s gonna fix my hand, right?”
You pour your own drink while Steve lectures the kids about being distracted. He’s back a couple minutes later, wearing a dumb Christmas sweater and an even dumber grin. “Watcha doing?” he lilts slowly as he walks to stand at your side.
You lick beer from the side of your thumb after spilling a drop or more. “Separating myself from the plotting,” you answer, vague and somewhat ominous.
He furrows his brows and scoffs out a laugh. “What are you talking about?”
“Everyone’s trying to get me and Munson to kiss. It’s disgusting.”
“It’s just a joke,” he assures with a shrug, even though you both know it’s more than that. 
He could’ve used that excuse the year before — when he and Dustin were practically tripping over themselves to get you and Eddie in the same room and under the same mistletoe. Now it’s a competition. Now it’s real. 
They’re trying to prove to themselves that they can get you and Eddie to kiss more than they’re trying to prove that they’d been right about the two of you all along.
“Is that why you hid a mistletoe by the records?” you squint and raise your cup for another sip. 
You and Eddie have a history of fighting over what music gets played at parties. You’re notorious for it, actually. Even tonight, you argued about whether to play Christmas music or the regular stuff. That was before you noticed the ribboned plant hiding in the cabinet of records, of course. Then you walked away entirely.
That’s why you’re listening to Dio now instead of Nat King Cole.
“Robin did that, actually,” Steve tells you as he crosses his arms over his chest. “And it would’ve been genius if she actually hid the damn thing. It’s like I’m the only one taking this seriously!”
“Both of you are idiots. And creeps.”
“Do you wanna go smoke, or do you wanna keep calling me names?”
“Hm…” you hum and pretend to ponder his question. You purse your lips to the side and flit your eyes to the ceiling. “How about we go smoke and I keep calling you names.
He thinks for a second. Then nods. “Deal.���
Steve’s deck is as ornately decorated as the rest of his house. It glows yellow from the wreaths on the windows and the garland on the railing. The golden color is the only warm thing about being outside. The bitter breeze bites through the material of your sweater, pricking at your skin no matter how tightly you fold your arms around yourself.
You and Steve huddle together like penguins for warmth. He pulls out a little tin box from the back pocket of his jeans — there’s one joint left inside it. He passes it off to you, then pats at his sides with a frown between his brows. 
“Shit…” he huffs.
“What?” you ask, teeth chattering.
“I forget the damn lighter.”
You scoff. “Genius.”
He rushes back inside. The glass door slides open, basking you in a momentary warmth, before sliding shut again. 
You’re not alone for very long, though. He’s back far quicker than you expect. You hear the schlick of the opened door and feel the woosh of golden heat. When you look over your shoulder with a half-hearted complaint on the tip of your tongue, you realize that Steve isn’t back.
It’s Eddie fucking Munson.
“Oh, you gotta be shitting me,” you mumble under your breath.
His brows pinch together, dark eyes twinkling with confusion when he looks at you. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
“Wait— Don’t shut the door!”
“What are you talking about?” he laughs and shuts it anyway.
“No, don’t—” 
It’s too late. You rush to the glass and hear a faint click on the other side. You wrap your fingers around the cool handle and pull. It doesn’t budge. 
“Those assholes locked us out here,” you grouse — partly for Eddie, but mostly for the assholes in question locked inside.
Steve peeks through the blinds. You can only see his eyes, honeyed and sparkling with mischief. “Who’s the idiot now?” he teases. The big dumb grin is audible in his voice. You blink, and he’s gone again.
“He lured us… With weed…” Eddie murmurs. You can’t tell if he’s talking to you or himself. He nods with a small shrug. “That’s kinda genius, actually.”
“Except we can’t smoke it. ‘Cause we don’t have a lighter.”
Eddie’s face screws up in offense, chin jerking back like he’s flinching. He pulls a pale hand from the pocket of his leather jacket. The metal Zippo glimmers beneath the Christmas lights. “It’s like you don’t know me at all, sweetheart,” the wild-haired boy teases.
“I don’t,” you concur and snatch the lighter from his ringed fingers. “And I’d love to keep it that way.”
“You’re a real ray of sunshine, you know that?” he jokes, squinting at you with eyes made of chocolate and smiling with lips rosier than flower petals.
“Thanks for noticing,” you mumble through the joint. You hold your hand over the flame while you light it, taking a deep puff before passing it off to the boy beside you.
“At least we have a break from those psychos, right?” he jokes as he takes it from you.
Your laugh comes out in a white cloud. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure we’re, like, the only normal people here.”
“Yeah…”
“Don’t let that go to your head, though. You’re still a freak.”
“And you’re still a bitch,” he lilts with a grin, then passes the joint back to you — a makeshift peace offering.
“Don’t be mean to me—” you squint and snatch the blunt from his hand. The tone you use is a foreign one, coated with a hurt he can’t tell is real or in his head. His eyes go wide, anyway. An apology bubbles in his throat, but you beat him to the punch. “—It turns me on.”
“Oh,” he murmurs under his breath, heart thudding hard against his ribcage. “…Oh.”
Your lips curl into a smirk around the edge of the joint. The ash burns orange when you take a deep inhale and turns dark again when you pass it back.
His ringed fingers brush yours, and Eddie gets shy in a way he never really has before. Not with you, anyway. Your touch has him buzzing, gets him all awkward like a giddy teenage boy who’s never been around a girl before. 
He forces a laugh through a sparkling chest. “Now I don’t know if I should stop or keep going.”
A giggle sputters from your lips before you can stop it. You hadn’t meant for it to come out, of course — you were actually trying really hard to swallow it down. But it’s spilling from your smiling mouth like rays of golden sunshine in a navy blue winter, anyway.
Eddie couldn’t hide his amusement if he tried. The blunt burns, unhit, between his fingers, because he’s too busy looking at you.
“I don’t think I’ve ever made you laugh before,” he says, chuckling to himself while pride swells behind his ribcage. “Hell, I don’t think I’ve even made you smile before.”
“Don’t get used to it— I’m just tipsy.”
You reach over to snatch the burning stick from his hand, and he suddenly understands what you meant before — the whole don’t be mean to be, it turns me on thing that he’ll probably be thinking about for the next week or so. 
‘Cause you’re always rough with him. Rough and a little bit bitter. It bordered on hate, unrooted and visceral. Erotic. Maybe he liked teasing you so much because he liked it when you told him off. Maybe that’s why he can’t seem to leave you alone even now.
“I like you like this, though,” Eddie confesses, voice as soft as his melted-chocolate gaze. His eyes get all squishy around the edges when he looks at you now. It makes you cower because you’re not used to that — to liking it. 
He shrugs and sticks his fidgeting hands into his jacket pockets, trying hopelessly to play it cool. “Maybe we should, like, go get drinks together or something? So, you know, you can be nice to me and— halfway tolerate me or whatever.”
You get quiet, and he isn’t totally sure what to make of it. 
His flitting eyes (going halfway blind from staring at Steve’s Christmas lights instead of you) find your gaze again. You’re wearing a smirk he’s never seen on you before, barely there but still obvious. No one’s ever looked at him the way you are now — like the world could fall apart, but you’d never know it because he’s somehow more distracting.
You catch his button-eyed gaze and hold it until it hurts.
“In your dreams, Munson,” you singsong sweetly to him, lips like wine. It’s his words from earlier (ones he’s starting to regret right about now), but you say them with a wider and more sincere smile.
It feels almost like a promise.
A whistle sounds in the distance, coming from above you.
You and Eddie share confused glances before taking a single step forward. Max and Lucas are leaning over the balcony a story above you — with that damn mistletoe hanging from fishing wire. That means Dustin and Steve aren’t too far, either. Which means Robin’s probably up there, too. 
“What the hell are you doing?” Eddie squints up at them, chin tilted to reveal the pale expanse of his neck. You don’t know why you can’t stop looking at him. Maybe it’s the weed and the one beer you had, but you never thought a neck could be pretty until now.
“We’ve been here for a while, actually,” Max sasses in return.
Lucas concurs with a shoulder pressed intently against hers. “Yeah. My arm’s starting to get a little tired over here.”
You and Eddie huff and roll your eyes at the same time, so strangely synchronized. You’d both be similarly annoyed if your minds weren’t racing. ‘Cause it’s a tradition now — for all your friends to get you to kiss with storebought mistletoe — and it’s always tradition for them to fail.
It’s a record you and Eddie would like to break now, almost painfully so, but neither of you will humor the other by saying that out loud.
The boy beside you merely shrugs. His cheeks flush pink with an embarrassment he’d sooner blame on the cold. You can see it in his eyes, though — in the twinkle in the deep chocolate of them. His gaze is weirdly expressive in that way. He couldn’t hide anything from you if he tried.
“Should we…?” he trails off. 
He won’t let you know that he wants to — kiss you, that is — but he’s not gonna do anything you don’t want to do, either. He’s not a total asshole, just a stupid boy falling head over heels for a girl he thought he hated five minutes ago.
“Let’s just get it over with,” you huff in annoyance.
You say it begrudgingly — like tasting him with your suddenly longing lips is some kinda chore.
You kiss the breath from his lungs a second later.
882 notes · View notes
lovebugism · 5 months
Note
punchy x steve with "Why aren't we making out yet? We're 5 minutes into an argument, 5 minutes! Goodness."
thank u for requesting! :D — steve gets angry with you sometimes, but he'll never turn down an opportunity to kiss you (punchy/steve universe, angst-ish, mostly fluff, 0.8k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
He’s so cute.
Yeah, he’s mad at you and everything, but you can’t get over how adorable he looks.
His scruffy jaw is clenched tight, and there’s a subtle furrow between his bushy brows, and his pink lips are gently pouted. His honey eyes are twinkling too — with anger, maybe, but they’re twinkling at you nonetheless.
With his sweatshirt pushed up to his elbows and his hands on his hips, how are you supposed to do anything but melt for him?
“Okay, Steve,” you huff, interjecting his longwinded rant. You cross your arms over your chest and sink further into the couch while he paces ahead of you. “I know you’re pissed at me, but—”
“Oh, that doesn’t even start to describe it,” he scoffs. His laugh verges on bitter.
“I know that.”
“I mean— I have no words.”
“Is that why you haven’t stopped bitching at me since we got home?”
He stops his pacing to gape at you. “Bitching at you?” he repeats with an incredulous gape on his pretty face. “Seriously? That’s what you think this is?”
You sigh at yourself and drop your head to the back of the couch. You don’t know how to stop saying the wrong thing. You just want him to be upset with you and be done with it, ‘cause if he doesn’t kiss you stupid soon, you’re scared you might die.
“I didn’t do anything wrong— I don’t know what you want from me!”
His brows pinch together. His pretty face swirls with hurt. 
You shrink under the suffocating weight of his obvious heartache. 
“This stuff is really important to me, babe,” Steve tells you softly, voice light and nearly breaking. “And it’s like you’re just shitting all over it.”
“Well, I’m sorry I don’t wanna spend my Friday night with everyone who bullied me in high school.”
“Oh, don’t play that card,” he scoffs bitterly. 
You feel the weight of his words in your chest. Like he’s taken your heart between his fingers and squeezed all the life out of it. You try not to let it hurt you. His insensitivity isn’t your fault. 
“This isn’t about them, alright? It’s a big deal for me, but you’re deciding your pride is more important.”
You huff like a dramatic teenager.
Steve laughs in response, but there’s little emotion behind it. “What? Am I annoying you now?”
“Can you just kiss me?” you blurt before you mean to.
He falters. Your plea comes out of left field, makes him forget to be angry at you for a blink of a second. “...What?”
“You can keep yelling at me after, I promise. I just wanna kiss,” you confess, features soft and squishy around the edges — filled with adoration. Your eyes sparkle when they blink up at him, with the hope that he might give in and give you the loving you need.
Steve still wants to be mad at you. He’s too stubborn for anything else. You make it real hard, but he tries to be proud about it anyway. “Why?” he presses and crosses two golden arms over his chest.
“‘Cause we’ve been arguing for five whole minutes, and we aren’t making it out yet,” you answer, voice as soft and sheepish as a child’s. You pick at the fuzz of your sweater and try hard to meet his gaze. “I think it’s gotta be some kinda record at this point.”
Steve doesn’t know how to do anything but be obsessed with you. From the arches of your eyelids, to the base of your neck, to the pudge of your tummy, to the chipped polish on your toes. Your beauty bewitches him. Surely, you must be some kind of witch.
“You’re lucky you’re cute, you know that?”
You beam up at him, smiling so hard that it makes it hard to kiss him back. He leans down and props his weight on two hands along the back of the couch, one on either side of you. You tilt your head back in wait for his mouth. 
Steve gives you one fleeting peck — a subtle smacking of his lips to yours that he plans to tease you with after. He’ll pull back, and you’ll pout about it. “One more, Stevie, pleaseee?” you’ll drag out in that pretty voice of yours. And he’ll give you one, but only after hearing you beg a little bit more.
He ends up being the needier one, which maybe shouldn’t surprise him. One peck quickly turns into another. Then a third, lingering and languid thing after he hopelessly melts into you.
You’re the one that ultimately pulls back, lips shining and obviously well-kissed. His knees shake when you smile at him. “Okay. You can go back to being mad at me now.”
Steve shakes his head immediately. 
His tongue darts out to swipe along his rosy bottom lip. His eyes dart from your glimmering gaze to your rose-petaled mouth. “I can be mad at you later,” he insists, the warm breath of his softly spoken words brushing your chin. “Now, I just wanna kiss the life outta you.”
693 notes · View notes
lovebugism · 4 months
Note
ooooo what abt for blurbcember being alone on Christmas Eve w Steve x reader & once one of them realizes they are alone when they called they speed over and spend the night together, maybe confess some feelings too👀
hope you like it!! — you call steve when you end up alone on christmas eve and he comes over without thinking twice, 'cause that's what best friends are for, right? (friends in love, hurt/comfort, 1.4k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
Just a moment ago, Steve Harrington was on his couch. He had an arm around his girlfriend and a scruffy cheek on her hair as they watched A Christmas Story for the third time that evening. His dad was snoring over it from his spot on the recliner while mom watched on from the kitchen, where she’d just popped in another batch of cookies. 
Everything smelled like vanilla. Like home and the holiday season.
Then the phone rang. His mother picked it up, hiding her wine-drunk slurs as she answered. It was for him, of course, because it was you. “Feel like spending Christmas Eve getting drunk with me, Harrington?” you’d ask through the static of the receiver.
It’s like he blinked and he was in your childhood bedroom, splitting a bottle of your dad’s expensive liquor with you in your twin-sized bed.
The too-big house down the street was dark and empty, with you abandoned inside of it. The entire mansion was horribly clean — too clean — like no one actually lived there. The only Christmas decoration in the whole place was the tiny Christmas tree on your dresser. It basks the two of you in a golden hue while you laugh together in similar colors.
“So your parents just… left you here?” Steve presses, lying on his side at the edge of your mattress, propping his weight on his elbow.
You nod and take a swig from the glass bottle. Your lips shine with the amber liquid until you swipe your tongue against your buzzing bottom lip. “Holiday party at the Carmichael’s. No kids allowed,” you answer. You manage to smile as you say it — ‘cause you haven’t been a kid for a while — but it’s still slightly forced. 
Steve can see right through it.
“Still,” he insists with a furrow to his brow as he takes the bottle from you. “That’s really shitty.”
“Well, my parents are basically the king and queen of being shitty, so…”
Steve scoffs an emotionless laugh and raises the whiskey to his lips. The thing glugs when he tips it back. He takes a small sip, just enough to coat his tongue, because he knows he’ll have to go back home eventually. He licks at his shining rosy lips, just to feel how numb they are. 
“Your parents are shitty, and mine are… total fakes,” he concludes with a lopsided, sorrowful grin.
“Drunk enough to vent yet?” you tease, smiling down at him with your cheek tilted to your shoulder.
“No— I mean, there’s… there’s nothing to vent about, you know? They’re just, like, putting on happy faces for everyone at the party like they weren’t totally falling apart two days ago. Now it’s just like… nothing ever happened.”
You figure by “nothing to vent about,” he means that there’s a world of shit to vent about but that he doesn’t really feel like getting into any of it. You don’t blame him. He’s not the one who called his best friend on the very brink of falling apart, anyway.
“Is that what you were doing when I called?”
He nods, blinking slow and smiling soft. “Thanks for saving me, by the way.”
“Bet you’re missing loads of fun right now, Harrington.”
“Yeah, right,” he scoffs and passes the whiskey off to you. “Right now, my dad’s passed out in his Laz-E-Boy, and my mom’s watching the same Christmas movie over and over and over again.”
The visual makes you laugh.
Steve laughs because you are.
“Yeah. I mean, Nancy’s into it, I guess, but that’s just because she’s way too nice to—”
“Nancy’s there?” you blurt before you mean to, gaping with a shock you couldn’t hide if you wanted to. You thought he might’ve been as lonely as you were. You figured that’s why he dropped everything for you without thinking twice.
Your confusion makes his face screw up. He’s too oblivious to understand. “…Yeah?”
“You said you weren’t doing anything important!”
“It wasn’t important!” he exclaims, right before realizing how insensitive he sounds. He cowers, as though Nancy could somehow hear an entire block away. “Well— Not that she isn’t important— It’s just that—”
He stammers hopelessly. ‘Cause he doesn’t know how to say “you’re more important to me” without sounding like a total douchebag.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he settles on, suddenly shy about the whole thing. His eyes fall to your comforter because it’s easier than meeting your eyes. His fidgeting hands pluck at the tiny pills of cotton.
“Steve…” you whisper in an airy sigh because you don’t know what else to say.
He can’t tell if that’s good or bad, but his name sounds like honey spilling from your lips, anyway.
“Her brother’s there, though! And all his little shithead friends— so it isn’t like she’s totally alone,” he assures you in a single breath. You can’t tell if he’s saying it more for him or for you. “Plus, you said you were here by yourself, so I… I wanted to make sure you weren’t alone.”
“And they say chivalry’s dead,” you tease despite the distinct warmth swirling in your chest.
Steve flashes you a crooked grin to hide his similarly hidden feelings. “Well, whoever said that has never met me. Obviously.”
“You should really go back home, though,” you tell him. It’s not like you want him to leave. You’d rather him be here all the time. You’d rather it always be Steve and never anybody else. But it can’t be like that. It can’t ever be that way.
“What? No!” Steve shouts with his face screwed up in offense. The lights from your Christmas tree leave harsh shadows on his chiseled features, making them that much sharper. 
“Your girlfriend’s there, Steve. And all of your friends—”
“Not you, though. And you’re, like, the most important friend I have.”
“Steve,” you groan.
“I’m serious,” he insists, even though he’s laughing at your dramatics. “I’d much rather be here with you than pretending to be happy with everyone else.”
Your chest aches — a dull, hot, and empty ache. It’s like his words are a knife, and he’s just pierced your sternum with it. “You’re not happy?” you ask him in a fragile, broken whisper.
“I mean, I am, I’m just…” he trails off when he can’t find the words to say. He sighs and lays back completely, relaxing for the first time all night beside the warmth of you. His honey eyes concentrate on the shadows on your ceiling until he’s brave enough to speak.
“I don’t know… I love Nancy and everything— you know that. But… I never felt like I had to stop pretending around her, you know? It’s like I’m still trying to impress her. All the time. And with you, it’s just like…” 
He loses the words again. Your relationship is much harder for him to describe. The way he feels about you can’t be put into words. He’s not sure that there’s any that even come close. 
“I don’t know— It’s just easier,” he concludes with a heavy sigh. “Don’t read into that too much, alright? I’m just tipsy.”
He’s only had a couple sips of alcohol. He’s not even close to being tipsy. He’s content, at best, but you’re probably more to blame than the whiskey.
You know all of this, too, but decide not to press it too much.
“Noted,” you nod, huffing as you lie on your back beside him. His fuzzy Christmas sweater scratches you when it rubs against the skin of your shoulder. You can smell his deep, woodsy cologne and the hot chocolate on his breath. You shouldn’t get as lost in it as you do.
You wonder if he ever has the same problem with you — if the smell of your perfume, or your hair, or your strawberry lipgloss drives him crazy — or if it’s all in your head.
It might be better kept up there, either way. 
Saying anything out loud might change things too much.
“But, you know, just for the record or whatever,” you start in a gentle whisper and with a teasing glint in your eye. 
Steve’s already smiling when he turns to look at you. He falters slightly when he realizes how close you are — enough to feel your whiskey-coated breath fan against his chin. He doesn’t know why it makes his heart race. 
“I’m glad I make it easier on you,” you confess, so suddenly soft, as your sparkling eyes flit between both of his. “‘Cause being with you is easier for me, too.”
Steve’s rosy lips curl into a quiet smile. 
His chest sparkles with a foreign emotion, and he isn’t completely sure why. Your words feel almost like a proclamation of love, but maybe he shouldn’t read into any of it too much. Not how gentle your words sound or how you’re looking at him right now. 
You’re just tipsy, after all.
527 notes · View notes
lovebugism · 4 months
Note
Okay, for your Blurbcember what about "Don't you think gingerbread houses with gingerbread men are kinda morbid? I mean, it's a house made out of flesh?" with Steve? And reader just pauses, bag of icing in hand while the gingerbread roof slowly slips off and stares at Steve like boy, I love you but what tf is in your eggnog?
you might be genius for this one, anon. hope u like it!! — you, the grump of the group, try hopelessly to decorate a gingerbread house with your perfectly ditzy bf (grump!reader, established relationship, fluff, 0.8k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
“We can’t decorate this if you keep eating all the candy. You know that, right?” Your voice comes in a concentrated, half-annoyed monotone. You’d be grumpier about it if you weren’t so focused. Now, you’re more worried about piping even shingles on the gingerbread roof than your boyfriend eating all of your supplies.
Steve stops chewing with a cheekful of something sugary. “Sorry,” he apologizes, mostly muffled.
You lay the piping bag on the tabletop and flash a deadpanned glance to the boy beside you. With his hair grown out and pushed over his head, chiseled jaw scruffy and unshaven, and ugly Christmas sweater pushed up to his elbows — you think he’s the coziest he’s ever looked. Far too pretty to be mad at.
“Can you hand me the gumdrops?”
He nods enthusiastically, happy to finally help in some way. He reaches to his left for the plastic bag of vividly colored candies. The bag is lighter than he expected, and much much emptier. It shouldn’t surprise him. He’s the one that ate them all.
“Sorry…” he repeats as he passes the bag to you. He gives you a crooked smile in return, an enthusiastic glimmer in the honey of his eye. “It looks really pretty so far, though!”
“Yeah, no thanks to you,” you murmur. 
Dustin told you that this was usually a team effort, a friendly competition between the whole group, but your fingers are the only ones cramping now. You delicately stick each gumdrop into place and try to ignore how tense your wrist has gotten. You figure the Henderson boy must be much of the same in the living room — he’s too much of a perfectionist for anything else.
“You’re the one that told me to stop helping!”
“‘Cause you almost broke the ceiling off, remember?”
“You underestimate my strength, sweetheart,” Steve argues, only half-joking. He leans his elbow on the table and props his scruffy chin on a balled-up fist. “My strong hands can crack that gingerbread, no problem.”
“Yeah. Okay,” you scoff.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect, okay? We just have to make it better than Dustin’s, because I do not want to spend another year with that little shit bragging about making the best house.”
Dustin Henderson is a little super genius, and Nancy, Robin, and Will are the judges this year. The odds of beating everyone’s favorite smartmouth aren’t exactly in your favor. You’re not the most creative person either, but you are pretty competitive. To a fault, some might say.
Honestly, the only reason you took this gig was because you wanted to spend more time with Steve. 
He doesn’t need to know that, though.
“Well, you didn’t have me a year ago, did you?” you quip, eyes still trained on the creation before you.
Steve grins so wide that it’s audible in his sickly sweet tone. “No. I didn’t. I got real lucky this go around, didn’t I?”
His smile grows when your face screws up in annoyance. “You’re disgusting…”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Hand me the candy canes,” you tell them. And then, because you’re trying to be nicer — “Please.”
With his lips quirked in a lopsided smile, he hands you the plastic bag. You stick a couple of the mini sticks into the makeshift yard, then break the ends off to use as windowsills. You put two of them together in a heart shape and stick them to the front of your house, just below the roof.
Steve’s chest swells with warmth. “Aw, that’s cute. You big softie.”
“Shut up…” you grumble.
“It’s a compliment,” the boy laughs, a sunshine sound that turns the kitchen golden. He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. The bottom of his sweater lifts slightly, flashing a sliver of his stomach. “It’s real nice, you know, for a gingerbread house and everything.”
You squint at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I mean— don’t you think gingerbread houses are kinda morbid? Like… It’s a house. Made out of their flesh.” He explains it all like it’s obvious, like it’s a thought he’s had a million times before. He scoffs out a laugh, amused by your visible confusion. “It’s kinda weird when you think about it.”
At a loss for words, you blink at the boy beside you. You don’t think you’ve ever been more dumbfounded — more in love with anybody else in the whole entire world.
Steve is so much different than you are. You’re sometimes too serious, easily annoyed, and a little bit gauche. And Steve is… like walking into the sun. He’s like walking into the sun for the very first time after a terribly long winter.
“What?” he says, chuckling at the silence. The plastic on the table crinkles audibly when he reaches for another gumdrop. He chucks three into his mouth at once, then remembers he isn’t supposed to be eating them at all. “Oh, shit— sorry, babe.”
“Did you spike the eggnog?” you blurt.
“No,” he scoffs, trying to get the candy out of the back of his teeth with his tongue.
You shake your head with a distant smile and try hopelessly to hide it from him. “You’re crazy,” you murmur under your breath.
Steve grins, lopsided and rosy, and with grains of sugar stuck to the corners of his mouth. “Yeah. For you.”
449 notes · View notes
lovebugism · 5 months
Note
"s'mores are perfect when the marshmallows are burnt" "you jsut can't cook" + eddie munson for blurbcember ❄️
ty for requesting! :D — you freeze your ass off to spend some time alone with eddie; he learns you love him more than s'mores (established relationships, fluff, 1.6k)
blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
You and Eddie sit stranded in Steve’s backyard, the only ones brave enough to weather the late-night cold. 
The bursting bonfire died down to a couple of sparkling orange embers, and the party followed accordingly. While your friends sought shelter in the warm living room, unfreezing their fingers around cups of hot cocoa, you and Eddie remained outside in the navy blue winter — too stubborn to tread behind them.
“But wait— we haven’t made s’mores yet!” you’d whined. The shivering bodies of your friends rushed by you and into the heated house, anyway. Eddie was the only one to stay with you after the fact. ‘Cause his girl was gonna get her s’mores even if it was the last thing he ever did.
He makes the first one perfectly. Mostly because that one was for you.
You sit patiently in the slanted wooden chair, knees up to your chest, drowning in the thick leather jacket Eddie gave you for warmth. It smells just like him — like pine and childhood. It keeps you as warm as the smoky marshmallow on your tongue. 
The melted sugar gets caught in your teeth, along with the chewed-up graham cracker and gooey milk chocolate. You smile with it all anyway when Eddie’s second batch doesn’t turn out nearly as good as his first. 
“Eds, that’s burnt!” you laugh with your mouth still full as he smacks a blackened marshmallow between two square cookies.
In several layers of dark flannel, the boy shrugs lazily. He plops onto the adirondack beside yours and shoots you a lopsided smile, tinted pink and softly chapped. His skin, made more pale by the dark and wintery night, rivals that of the shining full moon. It makes his flushed cheeks that much more rosy.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about— s’mores are perfect when the marshmallows are burnt.”
He takes a too big bite to make a point. You grimace at the crunch of the over-cooked confection, then smile when the melted sugar sticks to Eddie’s chin. “No, you just can’t cook,” you retort with a lovesick grin.
“But I’m right!” he insists, black crumbs sticking to the corners of his mouth.
He’s too hardheaded, and you’re too in love with him to argue about it any further. You just smile and shake your head, so full of adoration you’re sparkling with it. “You’re so cute,” you murmur, features warm and visibly fond.
He grins wide, never minding the food caught in his teeth. “I know.”
“Should we make everyone else one?” you wonder, nose scrunched as you spare a look over your shoulder. 
Through the sliding glass door, you can see into the golden-lit living room. Everyone’s lazing under blankets, crammed onto couches or lounging on the floor. You can’t tell if they’re sleeping or not. You feel the need to take care of them anyway.
Eddie scoffs with his mouth still full. “Hell no! Those cowards chickened out on us,” he answers bitterly, then in a deeper and posher accent, continues. “Only the bravest of warriors can be rewarded with such fine delicacies.”
“Getting hypothermia makes us ‘the bravest of warriors’?”
“You’re the one who wanted to stay out here!”
“I did,” you argue with a laugh. “But not for the stupid s’mores.”
He gets cartoonishly confused. His bushy brows furrow and his winter-kissed features swirl together. If you weren’t weathering the winter for his obviously unmatched cheffing skills, then what exactly were you out here for?
“Then… for what?” he wonders slowly and with his dark eyes squinted.
You roll your eyes at your oblivious boy. A smile hints at the corners of your mouth. “Eddie…” you murmur, hoping your sudden sheepishness might give him some sort of hint. Telling him, ‘I’m out here in the freezing cold because being next to you makes me feel warm’ is far too sweet and not at all on brand for either of you.
“What?” he says with a faint laugh, still visibly clueless.
“I stayed out here because of you, you idiot,” you confess, giggling softly when it makes his doe eyes get all squishy around the edges.
“Oh,” he hums, then grins all wide and giddy. “Sweet.”
It’s too easy to forget how much you like him sometimes. Mostly because he doesn’t feel very deserving of you at all. He just takes all the sweet moments alone with you that he can get, then tries not to explode every time you remind him that you love him back.
“I am starting to get cold, though,” you murmur, jaw tense to keep your teeth from chattering. 
A crisp breeze rolls by and shoves its teeth into every inch of exposed skin it can bite. Your cheeks and lips have long gone numb with it. You can only wrap Eddie’s jacket around you so much before it stops helping.
“Well, I know something that’ll warm us up…” the boy beside you croons with an audible smirk.
Your face scrunches at the implication. “Eddie…” you grouse.
“Get your head out of the gutter— I’m talking about booze.”
You squint at him. He reaches between his many layers and pulls out something from the inner pocket. It glimmers beneath the moonlight for a moment until you realize what it is — a glass, small and polygonal, half-filled with amber liquid.
“I picked the lock to Steve’s dad’s liquor cabinet,” he confesses, twinkling with boyish excitement. “This looked the fanciest, so…”
At a loss for words, you shake your head. “You’re insane,” you tell him, even though your smile says that you’re in love with him and all his crazy.
“I’m surprised it took you this long to figure that out,” he quips and unscrews the glass cap. He sniffs the liquid inside, then takes a sip without fear. He winces at the taste.
“Is it good?” you ask, hiding your laugh behind your palm.
“It’s great—” His answer comes wedged between coughs.
When he passes the small glass off to you, you take your own baby sip of the alcohol, with much more hesitation than the boy beside you. The bitter taste coats your tongue and stings going down. The burn makes you cough. Your chest blooms with warmth.
Eddie’s brows raise expectantly. His lip quirks at the edges. “Good?”
“It tastes like rubbing alcohol,” you grimace and hand the thing back to him.
“That’s how you know it’s good!” he insists. He takes another sip and doesn’t flinch this time around. “Like— this is the shit rich people spend hundreds of dollars on just to pretend it tastes good.”
“Being rich must suck,” you observe with your face screwed up.
“Oh, totally,” the boy scoffs. He goes to take a swig, then sends you a worried glance with the glass up to his lips. “Are you warm yet, at least?”
“Not really… My throat just kinda burns.”
“C’mere. Before you end up like that psycho from The Shining.” 
Eddie slouches softly in his seat and holds his arms out beside him. The invitation is a hard one to turn down. Hair wild, cheeks rosy, and dressed all snug — he looks so visibly warm. You want to curl into his chest like a cat and stay there forever.
“You want me to sit in your lap?” you wonder with your brows pinched.
He nods.
“Eddie. I’ll crush you.”
His features swirl with hurt. “I’m offended that you’re doubting my strength right now, sweetheart.”
“Shut up.”
“Get over here before I cause a scene.”
There’s not much of a scene to cause. Both of you know this. You rise on rigid, frozen limbs anyway and walk the short distance to him. 
His palms are oddly warm as they curl around your hips. You sit hesitantly on his lap at first, as tense as a rock, until he pulls you down completely. His arms settle around your waist like they were always meant to be there, hands fitting with you like a puzzle piece. It doesn’t take long for you to melt against him.
Eddie grins at the comforting weight of you. “See? This isn’t so bad, right?”
You try to bite back the beam tugging at your lips. This kind of love makes you feel like a teenager again — heart singing like it’s never been stung before. 
“I mean, yeah, but Steve and Robin are watching us through the blinds,” you tell him as a laugh sputters from your lips. 
You can tell they’re trying to be discreet, but their eyes showing through the slats — at two varying heights — are a dead giveaway. It took the two of them ages to get you and Eddie together, so you’re not entirely surprised by their snooping. They’re nothing if not your biggest cheerleaders. Even if it does make them a couple of creeps sometimes.
Eddie doesn’t bother to look over his shoulder at them. He just tilts his chin up at you and smiles with all his teeth. “Wanna give ‘em a show?”
You smile. Then press your tingling lips to the cold skin of his rosy cheek. 
You know that isn’t exactly what he was asking for, so his plea for another doesn’t surprise you.
“One more?” he wonders quietly, chocolate eyes glimmering with boyish hope.
Happily, you lean in for another peck to his cheek. He turns his head at the very last second and smacks a proper kiss to your mouth.
You pull back, face agape with shock, like he’s never kissed you before. “Eddie!” you gasp.
His doe eyes sparkle with feigned innocence. “What?”
“You’re incorrigible,” you insist and settle further into him.
His contented sigh brushes your temple when you rest your head against him. His ringed fingers give your sides a squeeze. “That’s a real big word, sweetheart. Means you like me, right?”
You let yourself smile wide. He can’t see how lovesick you are from this angle, or else he’d know that you do a whole lot more than just like him. “Yeah, Eds. That’s exactly what it means.”
421 notes · View notes