in the dark there is discovery

Eddie should’ve never taken that loan. It was at the start of his career, he was young and desperate to make it in the industry. It was just to fund his demo tapes but he should’ve known better than to get entangled with the mob, it wouldn’t end there. Once his music took off, they wanted more and more.

Now he has a life, a husband, they’re talking about adopting and Eddie hates himself for keeping this from Steve. He rationalized it, didn’t want to drag Steve into his mess, thought he could keep quietly paying but they want too much now. Eddie’s career isn’t as active anymore, there’s no way Steve won’t notice, they’ll go bankrupt, revealing this secret that he shouldn’t have kept for so long.

He’s gotten a few ominous calls and an unfriendly visitor at the studio that made it clear, they want their money and they’re gonna get it. He has to tell Steve, it’s getting too dangerous. So now he’s sitting across the dinner table from his husband, over a meal so lovingly made for them, about to blow up their life.

“Sweetheart, there’s something—”

There’s a noise outside the window, could’ve just been the wind but there’s more noises, people… footsteps… Eddie grabs Steve, dragging him to the bedroom as he demands to know what’s going on. Eddie tells him everything, in a hushed voice crouching inside their closet with tears brimming, he tells him every lie that’s caught up to them, stained their marriage, apologizes for putting their lives in danger and Steve—

Steve is rifling through the closet, pushing aside clothes to reveal the wall. There’s a compartment behind a painting that Eddie’s never seen. He watches, speechless and shocked to his core as his husband, his kindergarten teacher husband who wears ironed polos and makes dinner every night in a ‘kiss the cook’ apron, takes several lethal looking weapons from the wall and starts loading them up, quick and efficient like a machine.

“Steve, what—”

“You’re not the only one with secrets, baby,” he presses a firm, forgiving kiss to Eddie’s forehead and leads him out of the closet, weapon raised, “Now get behind me.”

It’s the spinning that does it. Eddie couldn’t look away if someone paid him. Every single time it happens, he just stops what he’s doing and stares. Drooling. In the kitchen, out by the pool, in Eddie’s own bedroom and now…now at band practice.

Steve took over for Corroded Coffin’s drummer when he left for college. Turns out, Steve can actually keep rhythm really well and while he can’t read music to save his ass, he can understand beats and notes like a natural. The problem is– the problem is that he keeps spinning those fucking drumsticks and Eddie’s gonna jizz in his goddamn jeans one of these days.

The thing is, Eddie knows it’s leftover from his Scoops Ahoy days. That Steve used to spin an ice cream scooper directly into his ‘scoop loop’ to dangle from his shorts like a total fucking jock. Robin said it was both impressive and disgusting how quickly he taught himself to do it and how slick he looked nonchalantly spinning a damn ice cream scoop day after day.

Eddie full on believes her because his dick has been hard for weeks now. He was already struggling when it was just utensils in the kitchen, but then he’d seen Steve with his bat out to check for a noise in the backyard. It was a raccoon but Steve had spun that bat like it was an extension of his own arm.

And now. Fuck. Now he sticks his fucking drumsticks in his back pocket and takes every opportunity to take them out, spin them, and then tap out a rhythm on whatever flat surface he can find. Eddie’s dresser, the kitchen counter, tables, the side of Eddie’s van, the counter at Family Video. Eddie’s fucking heart.

Eddie would hear the rat tat tat tat tat of the sticks and look over - even though he knew he fucking shouldn’t - and catch Steve unconsciously spinning one of the sticks in his dexterous fingers, tap tap tap tap, spin.

He loved it, is the thing. Steve loved drumming. He grinned all through practice. He made music everywhere. And Eddie wouldn’t ever tell him to stop. Even if that meant putting up with that damn Steve Harrington patented Spin.

It gave Eddie thoughts. Ideas.

He wanted to put those fucking fingers in his mouth and suck on them until Steve begged him to never stop. He wanted those fingers wrapped around certain parts of his own body. Maybe buried in his body. Wanted to see Steve spin a bottle of lube as he leaned into Eddie’s space like the hottest thing to ever happen to a gay super senior.

“You okay, Eds?”

Fuck. No. Jesus. Put it away, Harrington. All of it. Put it all away. “Huh? Yeah man, I’m cool.” Eddie said instead. “You?”

Smiling, Steve spun one of his drumsticks in his nimble fingers, then the other. Rat tat tat tat tat. “Yeah man, I’m pretty fucking great actually.”

Yes. Yes you are, Harrington.

Eddie gets Steve’s pickles when they go out to eat. Steve gets Eddie’s tomatoes. The transaction is seamless; it requires no words

Most of Eddie’s t-shirts have done time as sleep shirts for Steve. Eddie steals Steve’s hoodies without remorse. Neither of them remember which pair of sweatpants originally belonged to who at this point

No one bothers saving them more than one seat at any kind of movie night or other get-together; Eddie spends more time sitting on Steve than on the couch

They become an interchangeable taxi service at some point. The kids will say they’re getting a ride from eddiensteve, but it’s anyone’s guess if it’s going to be Steve’s beamer or Eddie’s van that rolls up (the only real difference is if they have to listen to Steve complaining about providing rides and then asking how their activities are going, or if they have to listen to Eddie’s music at deafening volume)

It feels so easy, the way their lives mesh, when they finally get together, and maybe it isn’t strictly healthy, but anyone who wants to throw around the word “codependent” must first survive at least one Upside Down Event. In any case, no one else really seems to mind–

“Y’know, when you two got together, I thought it would be weird. Like seeing your two older brothers make out,” Dustin mentions one day.

Steve’s face screws up in disgust. “Ew. Henderson–”

“But,” Dustin cuts in, “I’m actually kind of relieved.”

“I’ll bite,” Eddie drawls. “Pray tell: why?”

“Because you’re not going to make me pick a favorite anymore. You’ve basically melded into the same person.”

There is a beat of surprised silence before Steve and Eddie, almost simultaneously, burst out with “Oh my god, no we haven’t.” – “We have not.”

There is another beat of silence in which the two of them blink at each other as a grin spreads across Dustin’s face.

“See?” Steve finally says, recovering and looking at Dustin but pointing towards Eddie. “The way we said that was completely different.”

“Totally different,” Eddie agrees with a nod of his head.

“And we were never going to make you pick a favorite. What the hell, man?”

“What do you take us for, recently divorced parents?”

“That would’ve been petty.”

“Juvenile, even.”

“Exactly!”

Eddie shakes his head, clucking his tongue. “Where do you get these ideas, Henderson?”

Dustin, who has been watching their exchange like a tennis match, shakes his head right back. “It’s like you have two mouths but only one brain.”

AU where Dustin gets Steve and Robin to play D&D with Hellfire and Steve decides his fighter is going to have a husband to make Will feel better.

Eddie loses his shit and ends up getting dog piled about not being homophobic from the Party.

It ends with him chainsmoking in a daze outside while Gareth (who was dying of laughter and immediately jumped on board with the "Yeah Eddie be cool" comments) and Jeff (who sympathized and tried to help Eddie explain but gave up when Eddie kept accidentally digging himself a bigger hole) sit next to him offering back pats.

One of them floats the only way out of this is to admit he's gay.

He just groans and practically eats his cigarette.

Ya’ll have been hiding absolutely GOLD in the tags I am DYING

This one’s from @scoupsahoy

Thinking about a deaf actor Steve Harrington x sign language interpreter Eddie Munson au.

Thinking about them doing interviews together and half the time it's just Eddie rolling his eyes and signing to Steve 'This guy asks really shit questions.' 'He thinks you're hot, can I tell him we're dating?' They weren't even dating yet. A lot of the time, Eddie has to smile and sign, 'He told a bad joke, laugh.' 'Too much, it wasn't that funny.'

Thinking about Steve eventually learning how to lip read and not needing Eddie to interpret as much but still bringing him to every event because having Eddie by his side just feels right, they're best friends after all.

Seeing them together becomes such a common sight that when they're on their own, they're immediately asked where the other is. A popular picture of Eddie features him wearing a shirt that says, 'Steve's not with me. Leave me alone' and it covers magazines for weeks.

Thinking about Steve finally getting the courage to confess to Eddie while he's standing up on stage after winning an award.

They've both been too scared to say anything, scared that talking about their feelings would ruin their friendship, but standing up there on that stage, Steve decides he doesn't want to be scared anymore. He signs, 'I love you' directly to Eddie, who's sat in the front row as Steve's plus one, and Eddie laughs, cries, and signs it right back at Steve.

“Oh,” Steve says, laughing softly.  

Eddie closes the washer door. “What’s ‘oh’?” 

Wordlessly, Steve hands Eddie the box of detergent from his perch on the adjacent washer. He watches Eddie pour it into the hatch at the top and smiles. 

“I just realized something. That’s all.” 

Eddie hands the detergent back. He fishes around in his pocket for quarters. Meanwhile, Steve plants his heels on the empty laundry cart and pushes it around idly. The wheels squeak over the low rumble of the washers around them. 

“What’d you realize?”

stop it saw this and just thought of this

steve walking back home from family video to the fruity four apartment and just knows something is different. Steve, as the natural leader and mom of the party, was the one to plan the way the house looked. He got a plan of the apartment flooring, and draw the places where each of the sofas, chairs, table, and rugs. So he knew the place like the back of his hand, and so when he walked in he definitely knew something was wrong.

he heard the loud music from his boyfriends room and something in his gut told him he had something to do with this sudden change. he walked into the room and was left with his jaw on the floor

the smell of weed and smoke greeted him as he opened the door. He looked over to the messy dark brown hair, and saw his boyfriend seating on was of the most abominable with he’s ever seen. Steve’s eyes where burning at the sight of a bright orange couch with black stripes and eyes in the middle.

“eddie… What did you do?” steve coughed over the smoke

“can you believe it!” eddie jumped out and ran to the boy on the door “i was coming home and saw this baby in a yard sale. 80 bucks can you believe it!”

Steve was dying on the inside. Eddie’s room was covered in black. black sheets,posters, dark desk and the window was covered with some powerful drapes that darken the room even more, but now... now there was a bright orange couch, right on the middle of the room. Its was all crampped into the small aparment bedroom he had. but what really shock him, was the fact that the couch only fitted, because eddie's bed was gone.

steve blincked slowly before looking over at eddie and stabbing him with his death glare

"What happened to your bed?"

eddie plops down on the couch and puts both hands behind his head as he relaxes into the bright colors cushions

"Sold it, it wasen't that good anyways. but now! i have this baby"

and steve stops track completly.

The thing was, steve like eddie bed better than his, since it was bigger so the both of them could fit in while cuddeling and... other bed involveed things. But now... now he going to have sex on a garfield themed couched. And that is something steve was never gonna let happen.

so the next thing we know, nance and robin are entering the aparment, being greeted by steve and eddie shouting

"YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!"

"ITS ME OR THE COUCH EDDIE, ITS YOUR CHOICE!"

Famous Eddie who's not a rockstar, but instead an actor who's known for playing incredibly complex villains, or creepy weird little thriller roles.

He does method acting sometimes, he used to get a little carried away with it when he was younger, but he condemns people who just use it as an excuse to be an asshole. His ways of getting into character don’t disrupt anyone else, except maybe his family sometimes.

For instance, for the role of a horror novel writer who slowly goes insane living alone in his apartment, he spent 3 hours in a dark closet every day. But his daughter didn’t understand how that was Daddy’s “work” and she kept sliding cookies to him under the door.

Or the time he was playing the role of a sex addicted cowboy who owned a traveling rodeo where people mysteriously disappear, and his husband finally let him get that swing he’s been wanting for years and— whoops, maybe Eddie shouldn’t have said that on national TV.

All his media training is pretty much useless but that’s part of his intrigue. He is who he is. He only resurfaces every couple years to promote a movie and the public is always so shocked at the reminder that his husband looks like that. Eddie just loves it. Yeah, he takes pride in being the freaky little actor nerd walking the red carpet with a guy who looks like he’s the movie star of the relationship.

The Championship Game of 1985 is only a quarter of the way done, and Eddie is already certain that it’s not going to be a Hawkins victory.

It kinda blows, honestly. It’s boring, like correctly guessing the ending of a movie five minutes in.

And yeah, sue him, maybe high school basketball is a legitimate source of entertainment—he can admit that in the safety of his own head, at least.

Take, for example, the first game of the ‘83 tournament, when a timeout was called with only seconds remaining: the Tigers’ last hope of winning was to miraculously sink a shot with the fraction of time they had left. The tension in the air was palpable as the team formed a huddle—Eddie couldn’t hear anything apart from students chanting, but he stood on his tiptoes and found a gap in the crowd, just in time to read Steve Harrington’s lips: “I’ll make it.”

And he had—with a goddamn stunning full-court jump shot, too, the ball falling through the net just before the buzzer sounded.

Like, come on. Eddie would only admit it under pain of death, but that definitely rivals the intensity of any worthy campaign.

But he can see none of that excitement now. The Tigers have had few opportunities to even get the ball, and whenever they do, Billy Hargrove seems to have taken it upon himself to hog the damn thing, like it’s a symbol of his masculinity.

Of course, he loses the ball—again—and his nostrils flare with anger.

Maybe that’s why Eddie notices it. He’s checked out of paying attention to the game itself, instead focusing on the jaded expressions of Hargrove’s teammates.

As the ball makes its way down center court, Eddie’s eyes are instead drawn to Steve Harrington. He looks pissed, wiping sweat off his forehead and shouting what looks like some pretty choice words at Hargrove’s back.

Hargrove doesn’t seem to acknowledge it, but for just a moment he goes completely still, and all Eddie can think is danger.

Steve can do the cherry stem trick, because of course he can. Of course he can

He spent a stupid amount of time when he was younger trying to learn how to do it; ate a ridiculous number of cherries and just sort of started sticking them stem and all into his mouth, eating the cherry, and then working on the stem. He has 100% forgotten it’s not just a thing people do, so now that’s just kind of how he eats them - puts the whole thing in his mouth, eats the cherry, and ties a knot in the stem the same way someone might fiddle with a twist tie

The first time Eddie sees him do this, he sees Steve stick the fruit in his mouth without removing the stem and just start chewing and it’s like

Eddie: Did you just eat the… Steve, absently pulling a knotted cherry stem out of his mouth: Sorry, what? Eddie: Eddie: How are you even a real person

He spends the next three to five business days trying to get the thought out of his head. He’s absolutely disgusted with himself; it’s such a stereotypical flirting trick, it’s such a move, but for some reason it’s fucking working on him

(Robin has lowkey been waiting for Eddie to find out about this. She saw Steve do it multiple times with the maraschino cherries when they worked at Scoops and thought he was flirting with her at first before she realized he just… Does That. Like a weirdo.)

"Are you gonna actually do something tonight, or are you just gonna sit there and look handsome like always?"

Steve pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he looks up from the computer and rolls his eyes.

"I could ask you the same thing, you know," he says, leaning back in his chair and crossing. "This is the third time you've been down here in the last," Steve checks his watch, "hour. Don't you have a parking lot to patrol or something?"

Eddie only laughs and hooks his thumbs into his belt loops. "Bold of you to assume they let me drive the car, big boy. Nah, Preston drives and I get to be the passenger princess I was born to be."

Steve snorts. He definitely doesn't pay attention to the looks the other nurses are giving them.

"Besides," Eddie continues. He leans his elbows on the counter of the nurse's station. "It's your fault I'm down here so often in the first place."

"Oh really?" Steve raises an eyebrow and doesn't hide the fact that he's checking out the tattoos on Eddie's forearms that are showcased by the short sleeves of his uniform shirt framing his biceps. Hospital uniform policy says minimal jewelry but Eddie's never been one for conformity so his fingers are adorned with rings of different size.

(Hospital policy also says that security staff are, under no circumstances, to physically harm violent patients or visitors, but that policy doesn't say anything about Eddie threatening to dole out a knuckle sandwich or two.)

Eddie tracks Steve's gaze and smirks. He taps his fingers on the counter in a rolling rhythm, his black nail polish accenting the flashiness of his rings.

Eddie leans in a little more (which isn't necessary because the counter is a foot above the desk Steve is sitting at) and almost purrs, public decency be damned, "Because, princess, if it weren't for you, I'd be stuck up in my office doing something boring, like reading." He places a hand on his chest. "As much as I love my dragon hoard of books, seeing your pretty face for twelve hours is a much better option."

Steve blushes and tries to sputter out a response, but the radio clipped to Eddie's shoulder goes off.

It’s barely hit 9pm when Eddie muffles a yawn against Steve’s shoulder and murmurs, “Steve.”

“Yeah?”

“My eyes keep closing.”

Steve smiles. Traces a soothing, circular path along Eddie’s scalp. “That’s okay.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Don’t wanna…” Eddie trails off for a moment; Steve feels his body relaxing further, slumping against him. “Don’t wanna miss it.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. The Golden Girls is playing in the background. “Uh, I mean. I could tape it?”

“No,” Eddie repeats, and his hand clumsily pats Steve’s cheek. “Don’t wanna miss it.”

Steve presses his lips to the warmth of Eddie’s palm. “Ah,” he says, gently teasing, “‘cause saying the same thing twice definitely makes sense.”

Eddie tsks. He prods with one finger at Steve’s jaw.

“Ow,” Steve laughs.

It doesn’t hurt at all.

“Talkin’ ‘bout you,” Eddie says, “Steve Harrington.”

And there’s the way he says Steve’s name, all rounded, like he’s savouring each syllable.

“There’s so much… so much goin’ on in there,” Eddie continues. Tap, tap, taps across Steve’s face. “You’d…” A sleepy huff of laughter. “You’d be a terrible spy.”

“Thanks,” Steve says dryly.

The thing about drinking at 31 years old is that it's different from drinking at 18 years old– or 21 years old, or even 25 years old. Each shot, each drink, is one sip away from a terrible night’s sleep and an equally terrible morning.

Eddie Munson’s figured this out. Steve Harrington though? Steve Harrington has not. 

That’s how Eddie finds himself corralling his husband onto the couch after stumbling into the house, the front door slamming loud enough to jolt their cat out of her otherwise peaceful slumber. She glares for a moment before stretching her paws and curling back into a neat little ball. 

“Okay, okay, okay,” Steve repeats, an immediate tell that he’s definitely not making it any further than the couch anyways. “I’m good, I’m fine, this– this is a nice couch.” He punctuates his thought by slapping the cushion and laughing. 

Eddie shakes his head and grins. “Yep, it sure is. You picked it out, remember?” 

Steve gasps and laughs some more, falling back into the corner of the sectional. “I don’t but it’s comfy so if I did, I did a good fucking job.”

He watches with fond comfortability as Steve squirms around on the couch and lays back, arms over his head and dopey laugh still on his lips. It takes a lot of willpower and frankly, respect, not to climb on top of this giggly, flushed, disheveled man he loves so goddamn much and kiss him until he’s flushed for other reasons, but he digs deep and focuses on doing the next best thing: taking care of him. Eddie’s a little worse for the wear in his own right but a sliver of his iron constitution remains from his wild youth and he hangs on by a thread. 

Eddie gets Steve situated into a comfortable position, his back against one side of the cushions and his head propped up on a few pillows to make sure he doesn’t end up with his face smushed into the corner somehow. 

“I’m good, I’m fine– hey, hey, what are you doing?” Steve slurs and Eddie looks up from his position at the end of the couch, his fingers moving quickly as he unties Steve’s sneakers. 

“Taking your shoes off? You can’t sleep in your jeans, Stevie. You’ll thank me tomorrow.” 

Steve hums from somewhere high in his throat but doesn’t say anything else Eddie moves to unhook his belt. 

“Stop–stop it, hey, I’m married!” Steve smacks Eddie’s hand and Eddie barely suppresses a cackle. “You’re hot and all but I’m married and my husband’s hotter than you anyways.” 

Steve not being much for nicknames. At most he'll pull out a 'buddy' or 'man'. It's just not his thing. But nicknames are Eddie's bread and butter. He hasn't stopped using them since that first faithful 'big boy'.

'Babe', he says it so much Steve forgets it's not his real name.

'Sweetheart', with a smirk because he knows it makes Steve all flustered.

'Hey, sexy,' while batting those big doe eyes of his and he definitely knows that one makes Steve even more red in the face.

Steve loves the names and Eddie doesn't mind that he never uses any in return. Maybe that's why the first time he does, Eddie is literally too stunned to speak.

They are lying in bed, it not anything special. Steve has to get up for his afternoon shift soon.

Eddie just wanted some cuddles first. They aren't really talking, just kinda tangled above the sheets. Steve is already dressed for work and Eddie had been kicking around in sweats all day.

Eddie not bothered at all that Steve was just staring at him, had been for a bit.

Eyes looking over every inch of his face. Fingers coming up to trace feather light down his nose, over the bow of his lips, back up his jaw, following the arch of his brow before slipping into the fringe of his bangs. His hair wild from lack of brushing that day.

But Steve ran his fingers back into the thicket of curls, using his hold in it to bring Eddie head up. Bring his face to his, lips meeting in soft pecks. Over his full bottom lip, to the corner that was lifted to a dimpled smile then to said dimple.

Warm and chaste and loving.

Then leaning back, hand freeing itself from his nest of curls to cup his jaw as he sighed, "I gotta go now, be back soon, gorgeous."

Another kiss dropping to the tip of his nose before Steve untangled himself and got up from the bed.

Pulled on his shoes and with a tiny wave was out the room and then out the trailer all while not seeming to even notice Eddie had short-circuited.

Eddie blinked. 'Gorgeous'.

Eddie's hands came to his face as his stupor wore off but they couldn't hold in the giddy little laugh that bubbled out of him, his feet damn near kicking as he relished in Steve's first pet name for him.

Oblivious Steve starts calling himself 'bi' after learning Italian in community college, thinking it's short for bilingual.

No one dares to correct him.

He is a bit bewildered when he gets strange, sometimes even hostile, looks from others (what's even wrong with Italian?!), but doesn't really care. He loves the language, loves that he managed to learn it despite too many people in his life claiming he is dumb.

So he tells people, "I'm Steve, I'm from a small town from Indiana, I like sport, I'm a kindergarten teacher and I'm bi - I speak Italian!☺️"

It's not until Eddie seriously starts flirting with him. Steve receives tiny, earnest compliments, Eddie holds the door open for him wherever they go, brushes Steve's hair out of his face, always has spare batteries for his hearing-aids in his bags, gets Steve food.... (flirting?! "Sometimes I'm overcome thinking 'bout it. Making love in the green grass. Behind the stadium with you. My brown-eyed boy" - that man start serenading Steve).

Its then and there that Robin breaks and tells Steve that he's used the word 'bi' wrong for the last 2 years.

And yeah, that's -honestly- kinda embarrassing, but it makes so much sense. The way people looked at him: girls losing interest in him or others congratulating him for being so 'open and brave' about being bi. He always thought it was a bit overdramatic of them congratulating him for speaking another language, but he, you know, just rolled with the punches?! It makes so much sense now, SOOO much!

"It's just," Robin is saying with an apologetic frown, "Eddie really likes you, and he thinks you are available - which is kinda unfair. You should tell him you're straight, lay it out on the table before the man seriously falls in love with you." (She is unaware that Eddie has already done that ... too late).

And somehow, Steve feels...

Lost? Dejected? Like a fraud? (Like he is the troyan horse in person, rolling himself into the lgbtq+ community under the disguise of being bi while actually just talking about mastering Italian?!).

Steve doesn't know how he feels.

Just that telling Eddie about him being straight or not bi feels like a lie.

And that he doesn't want to lose Eddie's attention, doesn't want him not to brush Steve's hair out of his face and doesn't want him not to compliment his eyes.

Steve likes Eddie singing Van Morrison "Brown Eyed Girl" to him.

And it's then that Steve realises that he actually wants to do all these things to Eddie too - compliment him, run his fingers through his hair, hold the car door open for him, share ice cream from the container with only one spoon.

It's then that Steve realises that he probably never lied when he said that he is bi. It's just that he never realised it before, never thought too much about the tickling sensation when Eddie pushes his feet against his calves during movie night or when they share a smoke and Steve can feel Eddie's spit against his lips.

With that realisation, Steve simply corrects his introduction, "I'm Steve. I'm from a small town from Indiana. I like sport. I'm a kindergarten teacher. I speak Italian, and Im bisexual."

Over the course of nearly a year of sleeping together, Steve has learnt to barely react to the sound of the alarm on Eddie's wristwatch in his sleep. Eddie sometimes has an early shift at the garage (which he hates with all his guts, but at least it pays okay), so Steve is used to the background sequence of several incessant beepings five minutes apart that Eddie keeps snoozing, then finally a frustrated groan, the creaking of the bed and a kiss pressed to Steve's temple before Eddie heads out to work.

This time, however, the beeping stops almost immediately, and suddenly there are arms wrapped tight around him, lips ghosting up his jaw, then hot breath against his ear.

"Steeeevieeee," Eddie sing-songs quietly, smacking another, louder kiss against his cheek.

Steve groans, opening one eye. It's dark, not even crack of dawn kinda dark. He grabs his boyfriend's arm resting on his chest, raises it closer to his face. The watch on Eddie's wrist reads 3:01.

"Eddie. What the hell."

He drops the arm on the bed and groans again, turning so he can face Eddie, still not bothering to open the other eye because he's determined to go right back to sleep. Whatever Eddie's up to, surely it can wait until morning.

Even in the dimly lit room, he can see a grin on Eddie's face, his teeth reflecting the faint light from a streetlight outside Steve's window. His eyes, wide open with excitement, look almost black in the night.

Despite the slight annoyance of being woken up, Steve's interest is piqued.

"Okay," he sighs, but with a small, amused smile. He rubs a hand across his face, slowly tries to pry his other eye open. "Seriously, Eds. What's up?"

"Happy birthday to you," Eddie starts singing quietly, the grin never leaving his face, and Steve stares in complete bewilderment. He recalls a faint memory of Eddie asking him what time he was born, and him needing to check his birth certificate because honestly, he had no idea.

"Happy birthday, dear Stevie, happy birthday to you," Eddie finishes the silly song with a soft kiss against Steve's lips, then rests his head on the pillow, pressing their foreheads together. "Okay, you can go back to sleep now, birthday boy. Sorry for waking you."

Steve gapes at him.

"Did you seriously set an alarm for 3am... to wish me happy birthday?"

"Yup," Eddie replies, squeezing him closer.

"You're insane," Steve murmurs, but he cannot help the huge grin spreading on his face as a warm, gooey feeling starts somewhere in his belly, rises up to his chest, wraps itself around his heart.

"Yeah, maybe a little." Eddie sighs, hand tracing gentle patterns across Steve's back. "Wanted to make sure I was the first. Dustin will probably call at like 8am, now he can't beat me."

The fondness in Steve's chest almost bursts his ribcage open. Suddenly, he's wide awake, throwing a leg across Eddie's hips, flipping him onto his back and feeling the surprised laughter rumble through his chest as Steve attaches his lips to his boyfriend's neck.

"We're not going back to sleep, I take it?" Eddie asks between short, breathless gasps, and Steve raises himself on his arms to look at him.

"Nope." Steve licks his lips. "I think I want my present now."

"Uhm. It's actually back at my trailer..."

"Ed-die," Steve enunciates slowly, chuckling. "Not that kinda present." He gently rolls his hips, watching his boyfriend gasp, 'oh', then draw him back down so their lips can meet.

In almost a year of dating Eddie Munson, lazy 3am birthday sex isn't even in the top 10 weirdest things he's done. But it will definitely be one of the most memorable.

There’s a table in the school library that’s nestled in the corner, right by a radiator; Steve has claimed it ever since his double block of ‘private study periods’ began.

Not that he’s planning on doing any studying: it’s the last day of school before the winter break, and while his face has healed up from the whole Billy Hargrove Incident, he still finds himself feeling wiped at random—like his body’s having a delayed adrenaline crash ever since he pulled Dustin out of that freaky vine-infested tunnel.

So really, this spot should be ideal for a couple hours of not having to think.

And it would be perfect, if his eyes weren’t instinctively drawn to movement at the front desk.

Because for the past god-knows-how-long, Eddie Munson has been in a back-and-forth with the librarian.

It had started when he ambled up to the desk with a healthy pile of books in his hands, placed them down neatly, all ready to be stamped. Flashed a charming smile.

Steve was too far away to hear the words, but he got the gist that whatever the librarian had said amounted to no, absolutely not, because Eddie scooped the books back up, dumped them on a table a little distance away from Steve’s, then hemmed and hawed before returning to the desk with a more modest pile than before.

He was sent away again with presumably the same refusal, and so the pattern repeated until this very minute: he’s returning with just one book in his hands, his smile less charming now, more desperate.

But… no luck.

Eddie slouches back to the table in defeat. Just stands there, staring down at the books.

And goddamn it, Steve thinks, now he’s invested.

“Hey. Munson,” he says in an undertone. “What’s up?”

He doesn’t miss the weird kind of double take Eddie gives him, but at least Steve knows it’s not because of his face being a mess this time—seriously, drawing looks from students when all he wanted was to get in line for crappy cafeteria pizza had not been fun.