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flowercrowngods · 1 year

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nice to meet you, where you been? (steddie tattoo shop au)

🌷 read part 1 here (or on ao3) | T – 2/3 – 12k 🌷

part 2: started with a spark, now we're on fire (| 4.5k)

Eddie spends the entire way home processing what the fuck just happened. Because there’s no way that what he thinks has happened is what actually, truly happened. He’s in such a tango of dazed and freaking out that he can’t even text Chrissy; every time he pulls out his phone to yell at her, the words kind of escape him. It’s frustrating.

What’s even more frustrating is that he has Blank Space stuck in his head. Of all songs, Steve! Of all songs!

Steve. Damn. That really happened, didn’t it?

Steve Harrington with the perfect hair and the perfect smile and the perfect lighting in his stupid perfect tattoo parlour that might not be so horrible on second thought.

Traitor! Eddie curses himself. It is horrible. Just like Steve’s taste in music.

Nice to meet you, where’ve you been — “Fucking dammit!”

A woman tuts when she passes him with a delighted looking child in tow, and while she looks royally pissed off, the kid looks up at Eddie with a hint of wonder and excitement. He grins at the kid and does a little wave, but before they can respond, their mother demands their attention again.

Eddie continues on his way home with a grin on his face that Harrington has nothing to do with. Well, almost nothing, but that’s close enough for Eddie right now.

As if the universe is playing a cosmic joke on him, he opens the door to the apartment he shares with Chrissy only to be assaulted with more Taylor Swift. In fact, just when he got rid of Blank Space playing on loop inside his head, he’s hit with that stupidly upbeat song on full volume from Chrissy’s room.

“Son of a…” he sighs, slamming the door shut to announce his presence.

The only reaction he gets is Chrissy singing along even louder, and Eddie is in such a good mood that he laughs as he walks over to her room.

“So it’s gonna be forever!” she sings — shouts, the menace —, lying on her bed, legs up in the air against the wall, head halfway off the mattress. A shit eating grin on her face because she knows Eddie hates this song, knows he hates everything indie and flowery and minimalist and touched with gentle golden light to match his personality— ah fuck. She totally planned this. All of this!

“I hate you!” Eddie exclaims over the music, but Chrissy doesn’t care, hardly even hears him with how loud she’s singing along — or trying, around her smile. “I hate you, Christine!”

“And you love the game!”

Her arms are flailing now, and she somehow makes even that look good. Eddie huffs and throws himself onto her bed, his legs against the wall right beside Chrissy’s, though he refuses to move his feet along to the cursed song.

She takes his hand and keeps singing, the mattress bouncing underneath them, and Eddie soaks up the whole moment. Chrissy is not metal, far from it, but the chaos is unmatched and that Taylor of it all is so worth it. Just don’t tell Chrissy that.

“So,” she says at last when the song is over and a new one starts, quieter this time, and Eddie doesn’t care enough to know what it is. He’s been around too much indie pop and normal pop music today, it’s enough to last a lifetime. Or at least until the end of the week. “How was your tattoo appointment?”

“It wasn’t a tattoo appointment, I just wanted to go check out this place you refused to shut up about, Christus.”

He lifts their joined hands into the air because he loves the feeling of blood rushing down towards his shoulder, his hands growing cold and then flushed with warmth once he lowers his hands again. Chrissy lets him.

“I hate you, by the way.”

“Why?” she says, and the grin turns into a look of careful worry. “Was he an ass about it?”

“Huh? Oh! No, he was… God, he was perfect about it. And ridiculously golden. And pretty. And, Jesus, I hate him for it. Like, how dare he?”

“How dare he be pretty and kind and accepting and really fucking talented?”

“Yeah!” Eddie agrees. “How dare he! He’s got all that, and for what? “ He groans and dramatically throws their joined hands onto the bed again in a pathetic excuse of swooning. “Do you know what he said to me, Chris? It’s nice to meet you, Eddie. Like it’s nothing! Like it’s not my whole entire life that he just… God! And his smile? Like, there’s something real about it now. It was gorgeous in high school, I’ll give him that, but now it’s… It’s like. Like an ‘I’ve seen some shit in life but I choose to be kind about it’ kinda smile. Disgusting! Makes me wanna throw up.”

Chrissy just chuckles and turns properly to face him. “What else?”

Eddie sighs and turns towards her, too, their knees touching, shoving at each other playfully. “He remembered the name. Corroded Coffin. Said, and I quote, it’s a rad fucking name.”

“So, obviously, you’re in love now.”

“Obviously!” he exclaims, followed with another dramatic sigh, throwing his arm across his face to hide his misery from the world. “How dare he?”

“I don’t know,” Chrissy says, playing with the fingers of the hand thrown across his face.

“He called me a wild card,” Eddie continues, quieter now, a smile on his lips. “Remembered me from high school and all he had to say is, fucking wild card you were. Not the… The girl stuff. Or the name stuff. Just. Just a wild card. Chrissy. Like somehow, to Steeeve Harrington, it’s all just… Like it’s all just whatever. But in the good way. God, I’m not even making sense. I want to punch him in his stupid face.”

“With your lips?”

“And tongue!”

Chrissy laughs gently and continues to play with Eddie’s hair while he hangs off his thoughts of Steve. It’s still so fucking wild, so fucking unbelievable. Everything about today just leaves Eddie with a feeling he’s not entirely familiar with. It tingles in his arms, in his chest, flutters there for a second before moving to his head, to his thoughts.

And then he’s thinking about Steve. About taking his hand and making him smile again, about bullying him for his music taste before dancing with him to The 1975 or some shit.

Steve is probably the kind of person who listens to Sweater Weather unironically. Ridiculous man.

Eddie can’t wait to see him again.

~*~

Tuesday can’t arrive quickly enough for Eddie. He’s been extra jittery all week, going on Chrissy’s last nerve and even all those extra ones she reserves only for him. She rolls her eyes with exasperated fondness and kisses his cheek before shoving him into the wall or smushing his face into her, his, their pillows. Eddie just laughs and grumbles and tackles her right back, pretending he stands a chance against his jocky best friend.

She even lets him win sometimes. That’s how he knows that she knows that he’s got it bad. He makes a mental note to get her some flowers tomorrow, or stock up on her safe foods secretly for her to discover at some point when she won’t pester him about his little crush.

And it’s not a crush. It’s just that no one will listen to reason — not even the butterflies that seem so insistent to stay inside his stomach and bug him, quite literally, all the way down the street to Steve’s shop. Only now does he read the sign above the door and frowns a little.

Ink-redible Dingus

Eddie snorts, a bit bewildered, a lot amused, an even lotter really kind of endeared. Silly man. Really hot silly man. Absolutely kind, pretty awesome, totally sweet, kind of golden Really Hot Silly Man.

Jesus, get a fucking grip, Munson. Incidentally, the grip comes the moment he opens the door and hears another indie pop or whatever-song assaulting his ears. Sounds a lot like The Neighbourhood, and he’s ready to hate crime Chrissy the second he’s out of here for making him even know that shit, let alone recognise it. He wouldn’t put it past her to send Steve her playlist actually, just to torment Eddie. Steve would, he thinks. Oh, he definitely would.

He huffs, smiling before the door even falls shut behind him, and Steve whirls around from where he was pouring over his iPad.

“Eddie!”

Steve sounds surprised. Happy. Excited. But Eddie is a little bit stuck on the surprised part, on the way Steve gets up immediately, his eyes wide, his smile wider, and he briefly considers turning on his heel and leaving the country, because this can only end horribly. He would do unspeakable things if it makes Steve smile at him like this.

But, apparently, all it takes is for him to actually show up.

“Don’t tell me you forget about our little—“ Don’t say date! “—appointment, Harrington.” He tuts dramatically, ignoring the way his heart beats inside his throat or the way his own lips are tucking up into a smile before he can stop them.

Steve comes to a stop in front of him, shoves his hands into his pockets and has the gall to give him a sheepish little look that does not at all quench Eddie’s desire to punch him in the dace with his lips.

“I didn’t forget,” Steve starts, a bit hesitant in the way he doesn’t really meet Eddie’s eyes. “I was a little worried, actually. That I had somehow, like… Offended you? Said something wrong, I don’t know. I’m very good at that, you know, saying the wrong thing.”

Eddie stares at him for a second, fully aware that he’s blinking a bit owlishly, but he shall not be blamed, because… Steve can’t be serious. He can’t be serious. Can he be serious?

“What?” Steve asks after a second of Eddie’s staring, and he blinks out of it quickly, tries to go for nonchalant and runs his hand along the wooden counter instead of reaching for Steve.

“I hope you’re kidding, Harrington, because it would be pretty idiotic if you weren’t.” He shrugs and then finally looks up, earnestly. “You didn’t say anything wrong, Stevie. In fact, you were kinda perfect, actually.”

Two seconds is exactly how long it takes Eddie to realise just what exactly he just said, and then there he is, blushing profusely in the most polished tattoo parlour he’s ever set foot in. Twice.

But Steve is grinning, the kind that makes his eyes crinkle and breathe deeply, like there’s a laugh ready to bubble out of him any second now. It’s almost worth the humiliation of telling him he’s perfect.

“Glad to hear that, man,” is all he says, but Eddie knows he wants to say more. Wants to tease. It’s written in the dimples on his cheeks, in the line of his shoulders or the way he shoves his hands even deeper into his light blue jeans. Eddie almost wants him to tease. Wants to flirt. Wants to get the feeling that Steve reserves his grin for his eyes only, wants to experience the Harrington Charm just one more time.

Wants to travel back in time to his teenage self explain to them that he’ll be fine, everything will be fine, and Steve Harrington will flirt with you in his stupid tattoo shop ten years down the line, wearing a silly pair of bright blue jeans and a yellow sweater vest over a white shirt in a way that shouldn’t look good, but he pulls it off somehow. Oh, and there will be a ridiculous amount of soft pop music. Because of course.

“Anyway, I, uh, I’m glad you came.” Hang on for just one second, is Steve blushing?

Oh shit, he is blushing. Eddie’s going to faint. Die. Be slain. Lain to rest. Because Steve Harrington is blushing at him.

“Of course,” Eddie says lamely, and then there’s silence between them for a moment, a heaviness in the air between them that Eddie can’t quite make sense of. Not that he’s particularly trying to make sense of it, not with the way Steve is still blushing, looking anywhere but at him.

It’s kind of cute. Makes Eddie aware of the picture they’re making: Himself in his black ripped jeans and Metallica shirt, a black denim jacket adorned with patches of really old bands, good old classic metal ones. Steve, on the other hand, the polar opposite of Eddie’s all-black look. He’s preppy, colourful, really fucking bright in a way Eddie can’t quite but his finger on, and his hair once again makes Eddie want to reach out and run his fingers through it. It’s almost golden in the way it catches the light, and Eddie both loves and hates that it wasn’t a lie his brain told him last week, Steve really is golden in this kind of light.

Disgusting.

He wants to hold him forever.

“So, uh,” Steve catches himself at some point, fumbling a bit, and Eddie just watches him for a bit, inclining his head like that will reveal more of Steve to him, like it will make him look up again.

It does. Eddie’s heart is doing several somersaults at the way Steve falters with a half-smile on his lips.

“Yeah, uh, what kinda tattoo are we thinking? I don’t mind doing it right now if you have, like, an idea or something, or we could brainstorm and do a few designs? I don’t have another costumer coming up for today, so…” Steve trails off and shrugs, makes it looks so casual and nonchalant that Eddie can’t really believe he’s real. “I’ve got time, is what I’m saying.”

“Uh,” Eddie says intelligently. They’re both really on their a-game today, huh? But the thing is, Eddie has given this a lot of thought. Just, well, not as many words. “I’m thinking weird. I’m ready to enter my Weird Era.”

It’s a test, of sorts. Make Steve Harrington be weird, unhinged, see what’s under that golden pastel shimmer. See what hides behind those crinkling eyes.

Those very same eyes that are now squinting at him. “Is that a Taylor reference? From the one and only Eddie Edward Edwin Munson?”

“Hey, that’s a hate crime actually.”

“What, fake-full naming you?”

“Nah, man, saying I make Taylor references. I’m not a pastel preppy sunshine boy who probably listens to her way too much.”

Steve shakes his head, hiding one of those smiles that makes his eyes crinkle. Eddie wants more of that. It’s a good look on him.

Also, are they flirting? It feels a bit like they’re flirting, but maybe they’re both just weird and compatible in it. Either way, it’s a bit of a win.

“Right, tattoos,” the pastel preppy sunshine boy says before Eddie’s thoughts can travel too far and wax poetic about that smile and sunshine and something something Stevie. “You want it weird?”

“Let’s make it weird, pretty boy!”

Steve just cackles before turning around to grab a black binder. Eddie watches with interest, because the last thing a pretty boy should be doing when a weirdo requests weirdness from him is to turn around and grab a binder labelled Upside Down. It’s full of— oh.

Oh yes. This is the kind of weirdness that Eddie’s talking about! Funky lines all over the place in a way that would make Picasso green in the face with jealousy. Monsters and mushrooms with too many eyes, skulls and anatomically morphed hearts with leaves growing or weird slime flowing out of them. They’re uncanny. Tarot cards with a touch of horror to them. Disintegrating ands holding weirdly detailed, realistic cigarettes.

Steve Harrington is a Weirdo!

He is also, most definitely, queer. No straight guy looks like this and draws like that, Eddie decides.

“Most people bring their own designs, obviously, and not everyone is on the… the supernatural kinda grind, but most of these are actually some wanna-do’s of mine. Kinda itching to eternalise those.”

Eddie is quiet, staring at the designs, and maybe he’s taking too long without moving on to the next page, maybe he’s too quiet for too long, but Steve seems to take his silence for bewilderment. Confusion. Disgust, probably. Rejection, definitely.

“We don’t have to do them, it’s, uh, I know they’re weird, it’s totally cool if it’s not your kind of—“

“I need all of these, actually,” Eddie interrupts Steve’s rambles.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Eddie snorts, going back a few pages to the design that caught his eye the most and instantly. “Imagine how I’m feeling here. Steve Harrington, preppy pastel guy, the most normie to ever norm, everyone’s high school sweetheart, is secretly a weirdo. It’s a lot to take in, man.”

Steve snickers and crosses his hands in front of his chest. “So, what, you get to be a weirdo but I can’t?”

“Got it in one, pretty boy.” God, Eddie really should stop calling him that. But he can’t, not when there both being like this and it’s fine, because Steve might be weird but he’s not weirded out. And Eddie is a bit breathless with it.

“That’s so homophobic,” Steve grumbles, and, okay, maybe Eddie’s entire world has just stopped. Because… No. No. No way. Steve being secretly weird and Munson-detected queer was one thing, but him admitting to it in Eddie’s face with that adorable little pout while they’re flirting? Boy, oh boy, that is a whole other thing.

So much so that Eddie drops the binder. But sue him. Holding onto things is a bit overrated when Steve Harrington looks at you with that cheeky grin because he knows what kinda effect he has on you. Because you keep calling him pretty boy. Because he knows.

Oh shit.

“Uh.”

“Yup,” Steve snickers again, crouching down to grab the binder, finding the page Eddie’s been fixated on. “Thought I’d level the playing field a bit, y’know.”

“Sure,” Eddie says, a bit too loud, too cheerful, a bit too delighted at the expression of absolute glee and mirth and mischief on Steve’s face. Gods, he might be a bit in love. “You’re a weirdo.”

“It’s about time you catch up, Eds. Can’t associate with the people that I do without being a bit weird.”

Tell me about your people. Tell me everything. Your entire biography. Their entire biographies. Your thoughts. Your weird, weird design ideas.

They’re approaching dangerous territory of having Eddie put his chin on his hands, kicking his legs and asking Steve all those question with hearts for eyes. But they can’t. He can’t be falling deeper, not yet, not before he got a weird fucking tattoo from the prettiest boy he knows. Even if he has to do it to the tune of some whiny voice from the speakers announcing that ‘This is for Mathilda.’

“So, I’m thinking this one,” he says instead, pointing at the little creature that captivated him from the beginning.

Steve’s eyes light up in an instant, like they’re wont to do. “Oh, excellent choice. It’s Robbie’s favourite, actually, and she made me promise to tell her the very second it gets claimed. It has a name, too, you know? You’ll never guess, though.”

Eddie looks away from Steve and down at the… thing. It looks a bit familiar but he can’t quite recall where he’s seen that before.

“It’s an ofan, or a galgal” Steve explains. “From the book of Ezekiel. An angel, kind of. Most of those angels dubbed biblically accurate aren’t actually from the Christian bible, y’know? Robbie’s Jewish, so she sometimes makes me draw these things with my own twists. See, they don’t actually have that many eyes, nor are they melting or disintegrating,” Steve chuckles, a bit sheepish, and Eddie’s breath gets stuck in his throat. “If you’re bothered by religious imagery on your body, though, we can find something else for you, it’s no biggie.”

Eddie gives him a bit of A Look before pulling down his shirt to reveal the upside down pentagram adorned with a pretty awesome looking devil with his tongue out. He just barely resist the urge to mirror the devil’s face at Steve like he does every time he reveals this tat to an unsuspecting soul.

But Steve just grins and nods.

“And anyway, religion is what you make of it, isn’t it? And if getting that little ofan buddy tattooed so I an lecture people about how saying ‘biblically accurate angel’ is wrong, then it’s a win for everyone, don’t you think?”

They talk about the design for a moment, Steve asking if Eddie wants any changes to it, and the only one he has is for there to be more eyes. Steve grins as he edits it on his iPad, showing Eddie as he works. But Eddie is mostly staring at the way Steve’s hair keeps falling into his eyes. It’s adorable. He hates it.

“Where’d you want it?”

“I was thinking here,” Eddie says and points at the biceps of his right arm, right where his sleeve ends so the ofan will always peek out. “Do I, uh, do I need to take off my shirt?”

“Nah, we’ll just tape the sleeve up, no problem.”

Yeah, he kind of needs to marry this guy and his dignity-saving tape.

And then that’s how Eddie finds himself sitting rather comfortably in an adjacent room. It’s just as clean, the decor just as minimalistic but horrendously tasteful that Eddie sort of wants to lie down on the floor for a moment. It looks very inviting, dark wood and all.

Before he can think about how to explain the want for Floor Time because he’s a bit nervous, he’s having his arm shaved while Steve hums along to yet another Taylor song. Eddie wants to throw up.

“You okay there, Eds?” Steve asks like he knows exactly what his problem is. “You look a little green.”

“I hate you,” he grumbles, no heat behind it. And Steve, the little shit, miraculously makes the music just a touch louder. “I’m getting a discount for this, I hope you know.”

Steve laughs and Eddie is pretty sure the next one is actually a gentle touch, even through the gloves. It make his heart flutter. Good choice for his first tattoo, the little buddy has eight mismatched, slowly melting wings, it can do the fluttering when this is over.

The worst thing is that they keep flirting while Steve inks him, he stops every now and then not only to wipe away ink and blood but also to give Eddie a dead-pan kinda look that Eddie wants to kiss away. Or shove away and tell Steve to focus and not mess up his little angel friend. Steve just huffs.

At some point, Steve gives him a little squishy ball. A fidget toy, because maybe his nerves were showing more than he noticed, and he already has the apology on the tip of his tongue when Steve says, “Helps me sometimes, I figured you could need it.”

“Thanks,” Eddie breathes, squishing and relishing at the feel of it. It does kind of help. “Does it have a name you won’t tell me, too?”

“Nope, only Upside Down tattoos get names.”

“So you’re saying those other designs have names, too?”

A shrug, a wipe, a smile. “Maybe.”

“Weirdo.”

“Pot, kettle.”

“Steve,” Eddie gasps, dramatically. “Are you asking me out on a date, Mr Kettle?”

“Mr Kettle?” An adorable frown appears between those brows and Eddie really is in the kicking feet, giggling territory now. Shit.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head and keep tattooing me, if you will.”

“Diva.”

“Oh, look who’s talking,” Eddie exclaims, utterly delighted, and they both have to take a break then, the flirting a bit too much. Steve laughs, relaxes his hands, and almost shoves him out of the chair, earning another laugh from Eddie.

“Just so you know, Munson, you’re paying extra! You don’t just cost me time, material and creativity, but also all my fucking nerves. See if I’ll ask you out on that date if you keep that up.”

Eddie’s breath hitches, but he’s never been one to know when to leave well enough alone — and apparently, neither is Steve. “Is that a challenge, Harrington?”

A moment passes between them, intense stares getting deeper by the second before Steve sighs and rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ, I think it is.”

Eddie cackles but vows to behave at least so much so that Steve can continue.

It doesn’t take too long all things considered, 90 minutes and Eddie has a new buddy on his arm. He can’t stop staring at it, really kind of enamoured with Steve’s technique. There are so many details that can only be spotted on second glance, and he can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s all healed up. But Steve is good. Really, really good.

And Eddie is crushing. Really, really hard.

He wants to stay, he really does, especially since Steve’s closing up in half an hour anyway, and there’s nowhere for him to go, nothing for him to do, because Chrissy won’t be home until ten tonight. But the thing is, if he stays any longer, he’ll actually do something stupid like kissing Steve on his stupid lips or asking him on a date.

He talks big game, but Eddie is a little chicken when it comes to doing the real things.

So he lets Steve clean him up, apply the fancy transparent film to protect the tattoo and support the healing process. The amounts of times Eddie’s been left with plastic wrap or tinfoil, this feels like genuine luxury. Everything abut Steve’s shop kinda does, but not in the tacky manner. More in the I care about your comfort and have the means to provide it kinda way. Eddie’s learning to appreciate that, actually.

Steve doesn’t overcharge him in the end. He pays a fair price for his ofan with the secret name and is ready to turn on his heel and run out of here, the bubble of the tattoo room has burst, they’re back to being Steve and Eddie, not pot and kettle.

But just as he reaches the door, Steve calls for him.

“Hey, Eds? Do you wanna go out some time?”

He blinks, swallows. Thinks he’s dreaming. “Yes,” he says. “Yeah, sure.”

And if they stare at each other for a second too long, smiling, caught in each other’s eyes, well. Then that’s that.

---

tagging: @inmoonywetrust @lifeisnotsobadonceyoustopcaring @vampireinthesun @ajamlessbaby @momotonescreaming @zerokrox-blog @hotluncheddie @saganarojanaolt

🌷 read part 3 here

#steddie fanfic #steddie #steddie fic #stranger things fic #tattoo shop au #trans eddie munson #uh hi hello to my audience of... nine people :D it only took me a month to update this lmaoo #dio words #my disaster children are back and flirty as ever #sorry if i forgot to tag anyone or y'all dont care kjsfhs have a flower for your troubles 🌷

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