#thanks hy for providing me with prompts and motivation

[purrvaire]

I don’t really go here but steddie with 3 from the idiots in love prompts?

[ * dumps 1.5k words of absolute nonsense on your desk * thanks my dear for always sending me prompts, at this point you're single-handedly fueling my motivation to write :') hope you like it <3 ]

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3. And why do you think i’d ever like them? I have taste

Eddie maybe is going soft in his old age - just turned twenty one despite the attempts of the Upside Down to keep him away from drinking legally. Not that underage drinking is the most illegal thing he’s ever done, but still. It’s either that or admitting that he’s largely underestimated the munchkins' ability to meddle combined with their total disregard for the word no.

Either way, he fails to recognize he’s being ambushed long after he’s allowed Max inside the trailer and fed her the rock-hard cookies Wayne baked the day before in a burst of culinary inspiration. To her credit, she doesn’t even flinch when the first bite threatens to dislocate her jaw.

At that point, anyhow, Red has gotten nail polish apparently out of thin air and is waving her slender, little hands in front of his face expectantly.

“Don’t you have other people to harass in your free time?”

Max levels him with an unimpressed stare. “As if me being here is not the highlight of your day.”

Eddie sniffs. “Lies and slanders. I was busy.”

“Wanking is not being busy, Edward.”

Eddie gasps outraged. “I am appalled by your language. Where is the respect for your elders?”

“I thought you believed in challenging the authority”, Max says, her voice saccharine.

Eddie jabs a finger at her. “Not when the authority is me. Now, let me do your hands and then go be annoying elsewhere.”

Max hands him a periwinkle blue bottle and extends her hand with a sigh. As if she is the one doing Eddie a favor in letting him paint her nails.

The nerve.

“You know,” Max says, a couple of brush strokes in. “You’re starting to sound just like Steve.”

Eddie snorts. “I absolutely am not. Don’t speak jock just yet.”

Max waves her other hand impatiently. “I’m talking about the whole parenting schtick you inflict on us. Respect your elders. Don’t go where I can’t see you. Behave or else.”, she lists in a poor impression of his and Steve’s voices.

“Quit wriggling”, Eddie mutters. “I won’t be held accountable if my chef d’oeuvre gets messed up.”

Max cocks an eyebrow, as if he just proved her point - which, Eddie can admit, he kinda did -, but, blessedly decided to keep still. “Anyway”, she resumes, “I’m right. Steve even says we’ll make him go gray before his time, geez.”

“Can’t say he’s wrong. You dipshits are a handful.”

“I think Steve would make a gorgeous milf", she muses. "Don’t you?”

For a moment, Eddie actually contemplates the thought of an older Harrington, his luscious, thick hair all gone silver gray. The idea should be hilarious, it really should.

But, as his brain unhelpfully supplies, there’s no realm of possibility in which Steve Harrington is not painfully attractive.

When he comes back to his senses, he sees Max grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“Shut up”, he says immediately. He starts on her other hand with renewed focus.

Coming to his house just to put the virtual image of silver-fox Harrington in his brain.

Rude.

Max bats her lashes from behind the thick frame of her new glasses. “So, you do think Steve would make a gorgeous milf.”

“Never said such a thing.”

“But you thought it.”

“Did not.”

“You liiiike him.”

“And why do you think I’d ever like Steve?” Eddie drawls, feigning disinterest. “I have taste.”

Max snorts loudly. “Dude, you have many qualities but taste in men is not one of them.”

Eddie throws his hands in the air. “You don’t even know who I dated!”

Of course, calling it dating is a bit of a stretch. Living in a conservative little town in the middle of nowhere Indiana has never done wonders for his lovelife, and that was even before the murder charges.

“I saw the posters in your room”, she points out. “Besides, you and Steve are both lame, so it’s a match made in heaven.”

Eddie shakes his head. “Geez, thanks. I’ll make sure to tell him the next time I see him. Maybe I can’t get him to disown you.”

“And what would I inherit anyway? Your joint collection of hairspray cans?”

Eddie, with a surprisingly good aim, throws the dripping brush right at her nose. Max scrambles away with a shriek before retaliating with what remained from her half munched cookie.

Ten minutes later, they’re both lying down on the floor. Max’s nails are messed up beyond repair, crumbles are scattered in every corner of the room  and Eddie has got nail polish in his hair.

He inspects the raggedy carpet Wayne had installed some years ago in front of the sofa.

“Dude, this will be hell to clean later”, he complains, inching away from the bright pink stain and getting more comfortable on the floor.

“Tough luck”, Max replies unbothered, her head propped up on his legs. Then, more softly, she adds: “You know, it’s okay if you do like Steve.”

“I don’t”, Eddie replies weakly. Max ignores him.

“Sure, he’s lame and sometimes he nags too much, but he’s good, you know. Safe.”

She quiets, letting her words sit for a while between them. The late afternoon sun filters through curtains, making Max’s hair shine red gold. The noise of tires scratching on the gravel coming from the window temporarily fills the silence.

Safe, Eddie thinks. That’s a word he wouldn’t think he’d ever apply to Steve Harrington.

And yet.

“Yeah”, he says. “He is.”

He feels more than see Max nodding. “And also he’s hot”, she adds through a smirk.

Eddie laughs, pulling a little at her hair. “My, my, what would Lucas say if he knew you go around calling other boys hot.”

“What I say is my business”, Max replies dryly. “And you’re not denying it. You liiiike him.”

“Not this shit again!” he groans, but he can feel the smile pulling at the corner of his lips. 

“And you think Steve is…”

“You think I’m what?”

Eddie scrambles up so fast that Max shrieks and almost bangs her head on the floor.

Steve looks at them both with a bemused expression on his face.

Eddie blinks up at him. “Harrington, what- what are you doing here?”

“The door was open”, Steve supplies unhelpfully. “And I’m here to pick up Max, didn’t she tell you?”

Max, still half sprawled on the floor, has the audacity to smirk.

“It must have slipped my mind.”

Eddie narrows his eyes. What the fuck did you do? he tries to convey.

Watch and learn, dumbass, Max’s lazy grin says back.

“Steve, actually, I think I might head home, after all”, she says, with an apologetic tone that would fool no one who has spent more than a minute in her company. “I’m tired and my hip feels funny”.

Eddie would gasp at the audacity of pulling the I-barely-survived-the-monster-fucked-up-dimension card if he was not worried about her next move.

Steve, bless his kind soul, falls for it. “That’s what you get for sitting on the floor without pillows and shit”, he grumbles, but he crouches down and bodily picks Max up and helps her on her feet.

Which, mind you, it’s not that difficult since Max is skin and bones but Eddie might need a minute or two here to recover from this image.

Thank fuck, he’s already on the floor or he would have swooned.

Then, Max goes in for the kill. “Well, since you’re already here you could hang out with Eddie instead. Be lame together or whatever.”

Eddie’s eyes pop so wide open that they threaten to fall on the floor beside him.

He kinda wants to scream so that was your plan all along! while dramatically clutching at his fake pearls or something.

Harrington looks down at him, a half smile on his face. “Well, if Eddie doesn’t mind, why not”, he shrugs.

Eddie doesn’t know if it’s wishful thinking or not, but he thinks Steve looks almost hopeful.

“Yeah, sure, whatever”, he manages to say.

“Cool.” Steve claps his hands. “I’ll take Mayfield home and then we can hang out.”

“I live literally next door, Mom.”

Eddie watches them walking all the way to the Mayfield’s trailer and very pointedly does not freak out at his evening prospects. Max shoves Steve rather forcefully for someone who had just claimed that her hip hurt and he ruffles her hair.

He hears them bickering until their voices fade and he goes inside in search for a movie to watch with Steve. 

***

(“Are you sure he doesn’t know that we set this up?”

“We? I did everything while you stood there looking dumb.”

“That’s what you told me to do, actually.”

“Whatever. And yes, I am. God, you’re both so besotted with each other it pains me.”

“Robin said the same thing.”

“She’s right. I don’t know why I don’t hang out with her instead of you idiots.”

“God forbid. You’ll start ganging up on me worse than you already do.”

“Scared, Harrington?”

“As every wise man should.” A pause. “So… you’re sure he likes me.”

“Positive.”

“100% sure?”

“Yes. God.” A shove. “Go get your man.”

Steve smiles and ruffles her hair. “Will do, Mayfield. Will do.”)

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send me a prompt from this list <3

#lidia writes (sometimes) #thanks hy for providing me with prompts and motivation #i think after reading hundreds of fics this summer it was only a matter of time before i wrote something about them #when i tell this shit wrote itself and im only a victim of the events #i thought i would write like 600 words and call it a day but here we are #im very nervous bc ive never written about them and im a very casual st fan #nothing casual about how i feel about steve and eddie tho #steddie #ficlet #steddie fanfic #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #may mayfield #the actual hero of this story #stranger things season 4 #also take a shot every time i use italics