WHAT: Steve and Eddie get caught in the snowstorm; find a cabin with only one bed WHERE: The Woods WHEN: First day of the Aeor plot WARNINGS: Making out FANART:Mivian-Art on Tumblr STATUS: Complete
What Steve meant was “No, I don’t want fucking peppercorns.”
What came out was, “Peppercorn.”
Steve was about to scream. Every fucking word that had come out of his mouth over the last hour had been fucking peppercorn and it was getting more and more difficult to communicate. They didn’t have paper. His phone was on low battery and they weren’t sure if they needed a flashlight soon or to call for help, so he didn’t want to risk that.
But goddamn, he was about to. It was supposed to just be a quick delivery, to a family that needed it just as the storm was amping up. Steve wasn’t about to let Eddie go it alone, so he tagged along, and as soon as the delivery was done and they were headed back to a waypoint, they realized they were well and truly lost.
Frustration gave way to some kind of dumb curse, and now Steve could only say “peppercorn”, and the storm picked up. It was truly a damn miracle that they even found shelter in the first place, but now they needed to sort a fire. Communication was really a problem at this point, because what Steve wanted to say was: “Calm the fuck down, get kindling, I’m going to put my boyscout training to good use, idiot.”
What came out was, as usual, “Peppercorn.”
Eddie was losing his mind. It wasn't bad enough that they'd gotten lost in some freak blizzard, or the quaint, picturesque cabin that had conveniently – too conveniently – materialized out of the swirling snow: a much needed shelter from the howling winds and biting chill, but was probably home to an axe murderer, or a witch with a cauldron filled with child stew, or maybe home to an ancient book of black magic that would probably possess one of them in the night and use them to perform the blood sacrifice that would undoubtedly summon it's demonic master.
It was that whatever malevolent force that had led them to the cabin had apparently robbed Steve of the ability to say anything but peppercorn. Eddie didn't know what it meant. He barely knew where to find peppercorn in the grocery store, let alone in the middle of the woods. But when he'd told Steve that they should probably avoid the creepy cottage in the middle of the woods lest they stumble wake forces better left sleeping, Steve had just said peppercorn and when Eddie had been forced to admit that creepy cottage was better than the alternative (the fast approaching onset of hypothermia), Steve had said peppercorn and now that Eddie was looking, Steve only said peppercorn, as that would suddenly materialize the… spice? Was peppercorn considered a spice? from thin air.
"I'm fucking looking!" Eddie said, exasperated, pulling more pans out from the bottom counters. Honestly, this cabin probably could have been considered nice if Eddie hasn't decided it was sinister the second he'd seen its looming shadow. There was a wood stove in the corner, currently cold but very homestead, and a nice bed with a warm-looking knitted quilt, and the cupboards were stocked with pots and pans and stone plates and cups.
No peppercorn though.
He frowned up at the top of the cupboards. He could climb up on the counter to check up there, he thought. He didn't notice when his feet started, slowly, to lift off the ground.
Oh my god, was what Steve wished he could say out loud, instead of in his head. It was practically shouted there, in frustration and annoyance. He was half a step from shaking Eddie senseless to try and convey that the peppercorns coming out of his mouth were not what he meant at all.
Steve’s hands landed on Eddie’s shoulders and he did shake him, but only gently. Gestures would have to do for now, so he just made a cut-off signal and shook his head, hoping that would do it. Then he picked up a nearby stack of newspapers and a few old magazines and smacked him on the shoulder with it before he made his way to the wood stove.
With a very large gesture, he opened the door to the stove noisly and then turned back to Eddie and made an obnoxious face. Before he could talk again - probably just to say fucking peppercorn again - Eddie was floating and Steve could just stare. Uh what the fuck? “Peppercorn?”
Goddamnit if that made Eddie continue looking, Steve was going to hit him with the newspapers again.
Right. Message received. No peppercorn (though, part of him wondered if actually finding peppercorn might not solve his problem. Maybe that was the cure. Just eating raw peppercorns. Or something). Steve seemed to have the right idea though. The cabin might have been warmer than outside, if only because it was out of that biting wind, but that didn’t mean that it was by any means warm, so finding something to burn would probably be a good idea. .
He glanced back at Steve, and frowned, not quite able to make sense of what he was seeing. “Did you get shorter?” he asked, a moment before his head thonked gently into the ceiling. He started, looked up, and managed a “What the fuck?” before he came crashing back down to the ground.
It, luckily, wasn’t a very long drop, and though he landed heavily, he wasn’t hurt when he collapsed unceremoniously onto his ass.
“Peppercorn!” This time it roughly translated to “no, fuck you.” and for once, Steve’s tone probably conveyed that. Maybe. That was still up in the air cause so many of the peppercorn’s he’d said had meant similar fuck you’s.
But then Eddie fell on his ass and laughing was thankfully still a thing that Steve was able to do, and it didn’t translate to barking out the word peppercorn over and over. But it would be Steve’s luck that when he leaned down to gently pull at Eddie’s elbow to help him up, and ask “You alright?” That part would come out as “Peppercorn?”, much to his frustration. But fuck if his follow up “Jesus fucking christ are you fucking kidding me?” wasn’t peppercorn at all, but his actual words, for the first time in an hour.
Eddie let Steve help him up, grumbling at the laughter, and then scowled when Steve spoke. “Yeah, well, I’d like to see you manage a graceful landing when –” And then, belatedly, he realized that Steve had actually said something other than peppercorn, and he stopped mid sentence to stare at him. A slow, tentative smile crossed his lip. “Holy shit Harrington, did you just speak?”
Steve punched Eddie’s shoulder lightly. “Yes. Fuck yes I did. Fuck fuck fuck. I’ve never been so happy to say the word fuck in my life.” He stood fully and reached down to pull Eddie up, and hissed as their hands touched. “Jesus, your hand is freezing. Fuck, okay, we need to get a fire started and figure some shit out. Like if we’re going to need a rescue or something.”
It was still snowing outside and damn if he knew where they were exactly but there were psychics and shit that were paid for that sort of things, right? If they couldn’t get a fire going, anyway. Steve started gathering whatever paper products he could get his hands on. “You got your lighter?”
Eddie’s hands were cold. His everything was cold, now that he thought about it. His leather jacket had been good for keeping the wind out, but it wasn’t doing much for keeping the heat in.
He tucked his hands under his armpits, and glanced out the window. The snow was still falling hard enough that he couldn’t see much further than a foot out the window, and the wind was whistling through the cracks in the window. The idea of anyone else finding them in this storm seemed low, at least until the snow calmed down. It was, he was beginning to realize, practically a miracle that they’d stumbled upon this cabin at all.
“Trust me, if I didn’t have my lighter on me, you’d have heard about it a lot sooner than now.” He pulled it from his pocket, fingered his pack of smokes, and decided they could wait for now, and extended the lighter to Steve. “You know how to light a fire? Because unless you’ve got a can of gasoline hidden somewhere, I’m not going to be any help here.”
Steve took the lighter with an affectionate roll of his eyes. “Yeah, I got it. Boyscout.” He hadn’t actually been a boyscout, not for long, but Steve still flashed his best boyscout-like charming smile at Eddie. He’d picked up a lot from Dustin and had been the one to start a number of the Hawkins bonfires up whenever they did parties in the forest. He bent over the fireplace and got to work setting smaller logs and kindling in a neat pile.
He glanced back over his shoulder to Eddie and waved a hand at him. “Stay moving for now. Check out what blankets are on the bed, am I going to have to spoon you so you don’t die of hypothermia?” Not that he was doing much better, the fire felt fucking amazing in close proximity as it started to spark to life at the same velocity as Steve’s smug smile. “Fuck yeah, that’s good.”
Oh no, that smile. Eddie pulled a lock of hair across his face, and then turned away to do what Steve said. It didn’t matter that he knew that he and Steve were, at some point in the future, maybe – the future here didn’t seem as set as it always seemed to be in the movies – that he and Steve would get married and adopt kids together, but that didn’t make him feel any less awkward now. If anything, it had only made things more awkward, because now there were all these expectations. Eddie had never done well with expectactions.
“Okay, if anyone’s going to be spooning anyone here, I’m spooning you,” Eddie said, pleased that it didn’t sound like his heart was beating in his throat even if it felt like it.
The bed did have blankets, woolen and knit and probably warm, especially combined with the fire and with uh… with uh, body heat. He peeled them back and unlaced his boots, and then climbed under them. “Come on, big boy, time to get warm.”
Because dammit, if Steve was going to get Eddie all flustered, he was damn well going to return the favour.
It worked like a charm, because Steve’s cheeks immediately flushed. “You fucking wish, Munson” He grumbled it in the tone that everyone around him usually knew as empty threats, the one where he protested and then did immediately what was expected of him.
But he could stall for another minute or two as he made sure the fire was going and wasn’t about to embarrass him by snuffing out as soon as Steve sat on the bed. When he was confident it was going well he tossed the lighter on the nearby table and started pulling off his jacket and boots to slide in.
It was a little too easy to do just that, to fit into that open space Eddie left for him. It put them a lot closer than they usually were on a regular basis, and fuck-- Steve missed cuddling, so if he ended up just a little closer to Eddie than he needed to be? Pure coincidence. “Uh- hey there.” Smooth.
“Hey,” Eddie said, swallowing, because wow, Steve’s face was very close. Eddie had spent a lot of time studying his face ever since he’d chowed down on that demobat, but the flickering firelight made his hazel eyes flicker gold, made his hair nearly seem to glow, made the shadows play on his lips in the most distracting way.
Eddie needed to stop looking at his lips. He forced his eyes back to Steve’s, and wet his own lips.
“I don’t think we should call for rescue,” he blurted out suddenly. “I mean, not right now. Not until the snow calms its tits, at least. I mean, we’re probably alright now, with the fire and everything, and someone would probably get lost, and can you imagine if the kids got word of us looking for help? Dustin would run right out in the middle of this storm and probably wouldn’t even grab a pair of mitts on his way out the door.”
“Uh, yeah.” Steve had been doing the same amount of glancing down at Eddie’s lips, which was a problem. Well, not really a problem, since they were nice looking lips, soft looking. But it was a problem because Steve was struggling to concentrate on anything else. And cause it was probably weird. “It’s- sorry, it’s fine. El had said she could probably find us if she had to so like--”
He waved a hand, it nearly smacked Eddie in the shoulder from their close proximity. “This is cozy, so unless like, monsters attack then we’ll probably fine.” Probably not the right thing to think about in this moment but it wasn’t like it distracted Steve from his socked foot touching Eddie’s leg. That was still a thing that happened and Steve was being totally cool about it. Yep. No gay panic here.
Mostly because he’d well established now that he was into whatever made up Eddie Munson. Like to a stupid degree. Steve’s eyes darted back down to Eddie’s mouth and he found himself whispering. “Don’t think about monsters attacking or whatever.”
There was a moment there when Eddie was feeling very warm, though he thought that had more to do with the way that Steve was looking at him more than the blankets and Steve’s body heat. And then Steve’s foot was brushing against his leg, and it was almost enough to distract Eddie from what Steve was saying. He reached out to touch Steve’s chest.
And then Steve repeated himself, and the words actually sunk in. Eddie’s had closed in a fist, bunching up Steve’s shirt. “I wasn’t thinking about monsters attacking,” Eddie said, shooting a worried look at the window. Was that the wind howling, or something else? “Do you think there’s monsters out there?”
Maybe they should arm themselves. There was the fire poker… maybe one of them could swing around one of the burning logs? The monsters from the Upside Down hated things that burned, didn’t they?
“Uhhh- I mean prob--” Shit. Steve realized his mistake pretty quickly, as Eddie wasn’t as much of the type to jump into that shit as he was. Which was fine, cause being a hero before had got him in a bad place that Steve didn’t want to think about.
Fuck, that was really not the path his brain should have headed down, and Steve frowned. This semi-romantic snowy cabin adventure was taking a turn for the dire if both of them got stuck in their own heads. “Who the fuck would be out in this? We’re fine, alright? We’re good.” Steve reached up to cup Eddie’s jaw with a now-warmed hand, in a last-ditch effort to get his mind off of going down a path of monsters. It was his own fault, he could fix it.
So Steve kissed him. For all the kissing Steve had done in his life - a whole lot of kissing - he’d been worried about this. Overthinking it. Picturing it a dozen different ways. But when his head came up from the pillow and his lips touched Eddie’s for the first time, it all clicked into place.
Eddie’s body reacted before his mind entirely caught up – probably because Eddie’s mind had, more or less, stopped working the minute Steve’s hand touched his jaw. He’d been worrying about something, but whatever it had been was gone.
Four months. It had been four months, or near enough, since Eddie had first wanted to pin Steve down and kiss him senseless. He shifted, not breaking the kiss, in an attempt to roll half-on-top of Steve, to wrap his fingers in his hair.
Even as he wasn’t pulling away from the kiss, or objecting about the weight on top of him - in fact his own hands were pulling at Eddie’s shirt and gaining purchase on his chest and side. But he was still Steve Harrington, and still a little bit of a hopeless romantic.
And so even as his hands were finding places to roam, Steve was breaking the kiss off briefly. “Fuck--” No, that wasn’t what he’d meant to say. He broke off just to dive in for another quick kiss. “Should uh- we talk about this?”
Eddie pulled away, just far enough away where he could get a clear look at his face, propping himself up on his elbows over Steve. He squinted at him. “You want to talk about this? Instead of just doing it?” he asked, clarifying.
Eddie had never talked about this sort of thing before. There was very little talking involved in any of the hookups he’d been involved with. But, he realized, Steve wasn’t just a one-night-stand. Steve wasn’t even a repeated one-night-stand. Steve was the guy Eddie’d been thinking about for months, whose smiles he’d memorized, who he’d been listening to Taylor Swift for (he was not going to show anyone his Spotify Wrapped this year, thankyouverymuch).
His expression cleared. He leaned down to plant another quick kiss on the corner of Steve’s mouth, and then he rolled off him, settling in on his side beside him. He pillowed his head on his forearm. “Yeah, let’s talk,” he said. And then, “You first.”
Steve had not quite been expecting that abrupt of a change over and whined a little when Eddie did actually pull away, even if it had been his idea. Idiot.
But he wasn’t a one-night-stand guy either, not really. He’d hooked up with plenty of girls, but there was always an undercurrent of wondering if that was the one. He craved meaningful connections, he liked that bond you could form with someone, even after just one date.
Talking about it did make him worry, just a little. Everytime he got serious, it seemed that whoever he was with backed off. Steve raked his hands through his hair, and flopped back against the bed again. “Uh so it’s just-- I don’t want this to just be a dumb no-feelings thing, alright? But I’ve also never done any of this shit with a guy before so--”
Steve hated confessing things and it was not an easy thing for him to admit out loud, so he covered his rapidly-blushing face as he continued to talk. “I’m a little nervous about fucking this all up.”
Eddie grinned. He couldn't help it; Steve was too cute. He didn't think he'd ever seen him flustered quite like this: Steve always seemed to carry himself with an easy confidence.
"This is all new to me too," Eddie confessed. "I mean, not the hooking up with guys, but…" He wasn't going to have this conversation with Steve's hands, so he took them in his own and tugged them away from his face. "This isn't some dumb no-feelings thing, and that's definitely a first for me. I've been crazy about you ever since you went all Ozzy on that demobat. You're a certified badass, a genuine good dude, hot. And I mean, your grilled cheese has nothing on mine, but you're a pretty good cook otherwise. What's not to like?" He knocked his foot against Steve's. "We can fuck this up together."
Alright so that helped. All of it. Steve was probably still flushed, but he uncovered his face at Eddie’s tugging and gave in so he could meet eye contact. “First, fuck you, my grilled cheese is superior. None of this processed cheese shit.” But the processed cheese was what the kids usually wanted so Eddie did have that as a point in his favor. Ugh.
Not important. The rest of it had butterflies in his stomach and Steve nodded in agreement. It was more casual of a nod than it felt in his gut. “Yeah alright, let’s fuck this up together.” Romantic.
He was grinning when he dove back in for another kiss, no less enthusiastic than the first one had been.
Eddie had been prepared to defend his grilled cheese, defend it to the death if need be, but then Steve’s lips were on his again, and suddenly there was nothing at all left in Eddie’s head except for the need to plunge his hands in Steve’s soft hair and to kiss him back.
It suddenly didn’t seem very cold in this cabin at all.