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Chapter Text

“You ready for this week’s round of Who The Fuck Is That Guy?”

“Shoot, hit me,”

“Alrightttt,” said Gareth, putting on a 50’s style gameshow host voice. “For any new listeners out there this week, this is the part of the podcast where I show Eddie the internet’s favourite influencers and he has to tell us,” Gareth gave a drumroll with his fingers on the edge of the desk. “Who the fuck is that guyyyyyyyy?”

Gareth turned the monitor around to face Eddie, who leaned back in his chair.

“Who the fuck is this guy….” mumbled Eddie to himself, nose scrunching.

“That’s the spirit,” said Gareth idly as Eddie studied the pictures in front of him.

Eddie readjusted his headphones. They were new and the cushioning on the earpieces were a still a bit too firm. Some new tech company had sent them, along with new microphones, cameras and monitors in exchange for promos. The podcast itself was barely three years old but people were falling over themselves to get a sponsored ad or paid mention of their product on an episode. It was a pandemic project between Eddie and some friends that took off thanks to TikTok. Going from ‘cult following’ to ‘worldwide success’ just a few months after they first used an old iphone to record ten minute conversations was enough to make their heads spin. But when they got off the plane at LAX and signed a multi-million dollar distribution deal, they got used to the idea pretty quickly.

The studio was stuffy as hell today. Summertime in LA was kicking Eddie’s ass in a big way and he never thought he’d ever actually miss swimming in the dirty quarry back in Indiana during hotter days. The beaches out here were nice, sure, but they were crowded like, all the time, and public pools were even worse. People back home at least had some idea of personal space. As nice as it was having a room with a desk to rest their equipment on instead of using milk crates in Gareth’s mom’s garage, and a separate little booth for their producer (Ok, another friend of theirs who spent a night on google to learn the basics of sound mixing…), he did wish that soundproof didn’t also mean no windows. Their unit was tucked away in the back corner of a warehousing and industrial complex so Eddie always insisted that it was quiet enough to at least leave the doors open for some airflow, but he was outvoted any time he spoke up.

A tower fan droned over Eddie’s shoulder, angling a cool breeze right on the back of his neck where his long curls were caught up in a bun. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk, eyeing the bait that his co-host had provided him. Eddie was flexing his hand around one of the many stress balls that littered the desk in front of him. He found having something to occupy his hands helped him focus better on the actual conversation during recordings. The pictures on the Instagram feed he was scrolling through all looked half way between ‘candid’ and ‘fashion week’. Eddie highly doubted that whoever this was would leave the house without an entire glam squad. The guy probably never posted an unfiltered selfie in his life. How many times did he pretend to drink that coffee while they got the perfect shot? As Eddie scrolled, one picture caught his eye. Yellow overalls, a wide smile, hazel eyes… Fuck. He was cute.

“Any ideas?” asked Gareth.

“No clue,” said Eddie, rearranging his face in an overly dramatic grimace as he continued to look down the feed. “Does his hair always do that?”

Gareth laughed as Eddie used his hand to make a flipping gesture at the top of his head. This segment of the show had become a fan favourite because of Eddie’s scathing commentary on people who, in his words, ‘didn’t work for their money’. Despite the name, any gender was eligible to be in the firing line for this particular game. He had a stack of cease and desists almost as tall as he was from content creators who demanded he kept their name off his show. There were forty minute long youtube videos made by beauty gurus dedicated to showing him how much they did work. He’d tear them apart for it on the next episode ignoring every last one of the very valid points they made.

“You know, it does,” explained Gareth. “It’s like his whole shtick,”

Eddie hummed, clocking the username. @theharringtonhair. He scrolled back up and lingered on that one picture a split second longer than the others. The captions on the photos were kind of funny, but he wasn’t going to admit that out loud. They looked to be a mix of song lyrics or tv quotes. From the few Eddie read, they apparently shared a love of both Ayesha Erotica and Tears For Fears, as well as 90s sitcoms.

“This dude has like, zero thought behind those eyes, huh?” muttered Eddie, becoming aware he had yet to say much. “What’s he talking about here? ‘The apology tour is over’ ? He was on tour? Doing what, exactly?”

Gareth snorted as Eddie read the caption on the most recent post.

“Nah man, he means like, he’s done saying sorry for something shitty he did,” explained Gareth, turning the monitor slightly to the left so the camera behind Eddie could see the screen properly.

“What did he do?” asked Eddie, looking at Gareth dubiously, eyes flicking to the camera that was facing towards him.

“Oh uh, funny story actually,” Gareth was trying to keep from laughing as he pulled up the video of what it was He had done on the second monitor. “He punched someone for grabbing his friend’s butt,”

Eddie raised his eyebrows. That didn’t seem too terrible.

“And he had to say sorry for that?” he asked, before looking into his camera and pointing at it. “Punch a perv, folks, do your civic duty,”

Their producer Chrissy was giggling in her booth. The extra camera that they had set up in there to catch her reactions to their conversations was always the source of many fan edits online. People loved her. Twitter went wild one day when she wore a ring on her left hand and demanded to know if the rumours about her and Eddie were true. When the cameras switched on for the next episode, a pride flag hung firmly in view of all three cameras and Chrissy wore a pretty pink and orange dress. Eddie dressed in various shades of blue. They didn’t address it beyond that. The rumours fell flat soon afterwards. Turned out the ring was a pull tab from a soda can that she got stuck on her finger.

“He doxxed the dude all over twitter so yeah,” laughed Gareth. “I’d say he needed to say sorry,”

Eddie found himself disagreeing as he watched the video of the man, taller than Eddie expected, absolutely steamrolling a guy that was probably twice his size and pulling a girl away from him. Honestly? It was impressive. He scrolled back to the yellow picture. The caption was ‘All natural, baby’, apparently in reference to the large patch of chest hair under his overalls.

“So what’s the username about?” asked Eddie. “His hair made him…” Eddie sighed and put heavy air quotes around his next word. “Famous?”

“Take another look at it,” said Gareth, adjusting a level on his microphone. “You know that name,”

Eddie pushed his lips out into a heavy pout and squinted at the screen.

“Harrington… Harrington…” he mused. “Oh, shit, like the hotels?

“Ding ding ding!” chimed Gareth. “Winner winner! You are looking at Stephen Otis Harrington, twenty six year old heir to the Harrington Hotel Group fortune, who as you rightly guessed, is very proud of that luscious mane on top of his head. He has his own line of hair products and Steve even paid two million dollars to a charity event instead of shaving his head for the cause,”

Heir. Hair. The Harrington Heir. The Harrington Hair. Eddie had out rub a hand over his mouth to hide the grin that was creeping onto his face. That was clever, though he hated to admit it. Plus two million dollars to charity was nice enough. More than nice. It was outrageous. Even if it was for a shallow reason. Not that Eddie would be super willing to shave his own head but…whatever.

“Well I’m sure that hard earned money of his keeps him well-stocked with the good shampoo. I doubt he uses his own brand,” said Eddie, rolling his eyes. “I mean props to his parents or grandparents or whatever, great hotels, the breakfast options are top quality, but does Stevie Baby here even know how to work his own hairdryer?”

Gareth laughed again.

“I mean come on, he looks like a supermodel in like, the most vapid way,” said Eddie, waving a hand at the screen. “Besides, no one looks that good without a spoon of Vaseline over the camera lens,”

Eddie realised slightly too late that he’d accidentally half-complimented Steve’s looks and Gareth raised a pointed eyebrow.

“Sounds to me like you’re going a bit too easy on ol’ Steve here,” teased Gareth. “Have we found one that you actually might like? What was it that did it for you? It was the random street violence, wasn’t it?”

“No, no!” said Eddie quickly, shaking his head. “I’m just saying he’s kidding himself if he thinks no one notices that clear mascara,”

“You wear mascara,” came Chrissy’s voice, thin and wiry through a small microphone that she liked to use to make fun of the boys sometimes.

“I admit to it!” said Eddie defensively while the others openly laughed at his floundering. “I wear the KVD Go Big Or Go Home and I’ll be damned if that,” Eddie jabbed a finger towards Steve’s Instagram again. “Is anything other than the Wet N Wild Clear Brow And Lash Mascara!”

Eddie huffed and sat back in his chair with his arms crossed heavily over his chest.

“All natural my ass,” he mumbled into his mic while Gareth ran through the closing spiel to wrap up their recording.

Eddie was shocked by his own inability to say anything outwardly mean about Steve. It usually didn’t matter who popped up on that screen, he’d find some tiny thing to latch onto. He could decimate someone’s entire character within minutes. He didn’t have that stack of cease and desists for no reason. And look, it wasn’t that he was a bad guy, he just had a reputation for hating whatever it was that influencers did (or didn’t do, in his opinion) online. He leaned into it. It was an easy way to keep the comments rolling in. He was actually a pretty pleasant person, this was just a character that they trotted out for the last twenty minutes of every show. Someone once called his personality the halfway point between Joe Rogan and Joe Santagato. Rogan was furious at the comparison, called Eddie a ‘lefty femboy’ and ate a raw steak while doing it for some fucking reason. Santagato posted a boomerang to his Instagram story of the two of them at the Streamys with pouty lips and peace signs, captioned ‘Lefty Femboys For Life’.

Glaring at the monitor, that stupid yellow picture still right in the middle of the screen, there was so much ammo right there that he had just…ignored. A grown man in overalls? Come on. How much hairspray did he go through that day? It probably felt like he was wearing a helmet. But all Eddie could focus on was his eyelashes? What the fuck even was that? Maybe he was getting softer with age. Twenty eight was around the time that kind of shit usually started, right?

“Say goodbye to the people, Eddie,” said Gareth, taking him from his thoughts.

“Goodbye to everyone except Steve stupid Harrington,” he sulked. “I hate his hair!”

The recording finished and Chrissy came in to make sure all of the equipment was turned off properly, and to gather up the notes she had given the boys before they started their session. Eddie took off his headphones and put his head into his arms, resting down on the desk.

“So….” said Gareth, sending a sly wink in Chrissy’s direction. “Are we going to talk about that?”

“Talk about what?” she said, her voice laced with faux-innocence. “Eddie, do we need to talk about something?”

“No,” Eddie’s voice was muffled from his position.

“Steve Harrington seems like an interesting guy,” said Chrissy. “Don’t you think, Gar?”

“I agree!” said Gareth brightly, bouncing on his chair. “And I am sure that Eddie does too, Right?”

The fucking bullies. Eddie hated them.

“Leave me alone,” bleated Eddie, still hiding in his own arms.

“Oh, I don’t think that’ll be happening,” chided Gareth.

“Don’t worry, Eds,” offered Chrissy, patting him on the shoulder. “This episode won’t come out for a week, plenty of time to come up with an excuse for why you were so nice,”

“Yeah, plenty of time to explain away your massive hard-on for The Harrington Hair,” giggled Gareth.

“You should probably turn off your notifications the day this one drops,” joked Chrissy. “I have a feeling this will really get people talking,”

“Get fucked, both of you, you’re fired, get out,” he replied, rubbing his face with both hands, listening to Chrissy’s cackle as she continued to tidy the studio around him.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Chrissy was, as was often the case, one hundred percent right with her prediction of the audience reaction to the Steve Harrington situation.

Eddie spent the last week since the recording thinking to himself that maybe people wouldn’t notice that he wasn’t as cruel as he usually was. He figured that the rest of the episode was strong enough that no one would even care about the ending segment. He even checked through the comment section of a few older episodes to reassure himself. It became obvious pretty quickly though that Who The Fuck Is That Guy? was the main reason people even left comments, chiming in with their own opinions on whatever poor man or woman was unlucky enough to be flashed up on the screen that week. Eddie considered asking Chrissy to edit out the whole piece and put a statement out that a new cease and desist had come in. It felt cowardly but Eddie was embarrassed for the first time in a very long time. His tendency to be flustered by pretty boys wasn’t something he willingly owned up to. Especially not the kind to wear yellow overalls.

In the end, Eddie said nothing and let the episode go online without his input, as usual. He didn’t know the ins and outs of editing or the ups and downs of sound mixing, so he had no problem trusting Chrissy to do a great job every time. He enjoyed watching the episodes when they were released to see what parts she had chosen to focus on and what, if anything, she cut out or glossed over.

He should have known that this particular instalment of their little game would take up more than the normal amount of time this week. Twenty five minutes more time. Eddie watched in horror as yet another close up of his own face filled the screen, mouth slightly open. He definitely didn’t remember being this quiet while he was looking at Steve’s pictures.

@EddieMPod:

u fucking bitch

@callmechrissy:

You watched it!

@callmechrissy:

So glad you love it

@EddieMPod:

we didnt even spend that much time playing the game

@EddieMPod:

no way i took ten mins to look at his face

@callmechrissy:

The magic of editing says you did, babe.

@EddieMPod:

i hate u

@callmechrissy:

I know 🥰

Eddie’s social media was blown up with edits of his stunned face intermixed with pictures of Steve Harrington. That dumb yellow outfit was immediately the thumbnail of everything he was tagged in. Deuxmoi even got submissions asking about it, for christ sake. Their response of ‘Could be a cute pairing, but I haven’t heard anything.’ made Eddie’s stomach flip. The idea of being in a pairing with someone like Steve Harrington, the literal personification of everything Eddie called out as being vacuous and tasteless, was ridiculous. It made his skin itch. It made the tip of his nose tingle and his ears feel warm.

Eddie refused to look up Steve’s Instagram, half afraid that he might accidentally Like one of his pictures and screenshots of @EddieMPod Liked This! would be plastered all over tumblr. He had no reason to care what was on Steve’s profile anyway. If his face popped up on tiktok, he scrolled away quickly, refusing to interact in any way. It was difficult since Steve apparently live streamed all day every day and was constantly featured on those ‘Check out which popular accounts are live now!’ notifications that every app seemed to send out. He hated it.

Yes. That’s what that feeling was. It was hatred that led to Eddie making a fake Instagram account under the name @indiana_boy so he could stare at that stupid yellow picture in the privacy of his own home. It was hatred that made him click that Follow button with the intention of watching one of Steve’s live streams. It was that same feeling that made Eddie’s heart beat so fast the next time he got the notification that @theharringtonhair is live now! that he couldn’t actually bring himself to watch it because he suddenly felt like vomiting.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“Attention K-Mart shoppers, this is your captain speaking, my name is Eddie Munson and I’m here to make you forget all about your unhappy marriage, your screaming kids, and your dead end job for the next ninety minutes,”

Eddie spoke loud and clear into the microphone as he opened the next recording session of the podcast, in his best imitation of a baseball announcer. The fast paced theme music played under his words.

“Shout out to our girl in the booth for keeping this show on the road, who done me fucking dirty last week, Chrissyyyyyyy Cunninghammmmmmm,”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” giggled Chrissy through her microphone over the intro music.

“And Gareth is also here,”

The music stopped dead in a record scratch as Eddie introduced Gareth. It was an old joke from when they were younger, playing local dive bars in a shitty metal band. Eddie was so nervous for their first gig that he forgot to mention Gareth at all when he was doing a roll call of the band members. He only remembered as the sound system got unplugged at the end of their set, squeaking ‘Gareth is also here’ right as the stage went dark and his mic got cut.

“So are we gonna talk about it?” asked Gareth quickly.

“Let’s talk about it,” came Chrissy’s voice.

‘First off, who said you could speak?” said Eddie through a nervous laugh, waving a threatening finger towards Chrissy’s booth.

“Me, I have the soundboard,” said Chrissy sweetly, holding her hands under her chin as she looked at the boys through the window that separated them.

“We’re not talking about it,” said Eddie firmly. He was an idiot if he thought they’d listen.

“Steve Harrington had caused quite the stir for us here this week!” said Gareth into his microphone, scrolling through his phone. His screen was mirrored to his monitor, and he shifted it so it was more visible in one of the cameras. Gareth scrolled through his twitter mentions, and ‘Steve Harrington’ was highlighted in at least ninety percent of them.

“I can’t win, can I?” sulked Eddie. “People cry all the time that I need to be nice and I need to try give at least one compliment to the people we rag on. I try it one time and this happens! I’m never being nice again,”

“Let’s take a look at what tiktok had to say, shall we?” said Gareth, ignoring Eddie entirely.

Eddie groaned and sank down into his chair, holding one of his hands over his eyes. He stayed slouched down like that for the next hour. He was forced to watch multiple tiktoks of himself with voiceovers about how great he and Steve would be as a couple. Gareth read out two fanfictions imagining the pair of them in a relationship. This was deranged. All of this because Eddie had looked a little too long at a picture? These people would lose their minds if they ever walked outside and saw a relationship in real life.

“Gross,” interjected Eddie when one of the posts Gareth was reading implied that he might call Steve ‘Daddy’.

Painful wasn’t a strong enough word for how bad it was to sit there and watch yet another meme of himself drooling over Steve, but he kept telling himself that getting it out of everyone’s system would be for the best. Chrissy and Gareth had clearly been planning this for the two weeks since the original recording because their banter was flowing suspiciously quickly. Eddie got the feeling that if he didn’t let this play out, then it would only carry over to next week’s recording too.

“Is he even gay?” Eddie found himself blurting out at one stage. “Like, this is all weird enough as it is, and I mean that seriously,” Eddie looked into his camera. “This is fucking weird, people. But if he’s a happy hetero then it’s just rude to joke about it like this, right?”

He was desperate for this to be over, but he was never a lucky man.

“Now that you mention it!” said Gareth a bit too loudly in excitement, causing Eddie to wince at the volume in his headphones. “Harrington is allegedly the person who originally said the quote ‘I like the wine and not the label’, so you’re in the clear to have a crush,”

“I do not have a crush,” moaned Eddie, burying his face in his hands. “I never even heard of him before you put him in that stupid game,”

“Tiktok says you do,” chimed in Chrissy. “Wanna see?”

“I’m literally begging you both,” said Eddie, holding up his hands in surrender. “Can we please get back to something interesting? Chrissy how’s that campaign to get us a spot interviewing on the carpet for the MTV awards going?”

“You’re not interested in the guy who made you blush for the first time in your life?” asked Gareth in faux sympathy.

“I did not blush,” said Eddie petulantly, annoyed his attempt to change the subject didn’t work.

“I have tiktoks for that too!” said Chrissy, waving her phone in the window. Eddie got a bit of satisfaction when the action of waving her arm knocked over her coffee cup. Gareth twisted in his chair, and they both spent a few minutes watching her frantically cleaning up the spill.

“Ok fine,” said Gareth, turning back to speak into his microphone. “How about we play this week’s edition of Who The Fuck Is That Guy?”

“Please,” said Eddie, delighted to finally be getting back to normal.

Of course it was another picture of Steve fucking Harrington that came up on his screen. Eddie threw a stress ball across the table at Gareth, hitting him right on the forehead. The way he fell off his chair was so cartoonishly funny that Eddie laughed hard enough to have him reaching for his inhaler.

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@GarethIsAlsoHere:

Steve Harrington talked about you on his live stream last night

It was late. Eddie was in bed and now was the exact wrong time for him to be thinking about Steve Harrington. He’d had a few beers while streaming on twitch earlier in the evening and he was feeling a nice buzz. His mods ended up having to mute the words Steve, Harrington, Yellow, and Hair entirely. Eddie usually streamed for a solid four or five hours after a recording session but he logged off after just two because he was getting sick of all the creative ways people were managing to ask about some dumb hotel heir. He blamed a bad wifi connection, point blank refusing to acknowledge that all the talk of Steve was getting under his skin.

Eddie got the courage shortly after going to bed to double tap one of Steve’s posts. He stared at his phone for thirty full seconds afterwards, checking and double checking that he had in fact been using the fake @indiana_boy account and not his real one. He double tapped a few more pictures while he was at it. Fuck it, why not. Steve had literally millions of followers, he wouldn’t notice one more username popping up in his notifications. He was still only feeling mildly guilty for launching the stress ball at Gareth’s face a few hours ago.

@EddieMPod:

who?

@GarethIsAlsoHere:

Ha ha. Do you want to see the video or not

Well yes obviously he wanted to see the video.

@EddieMPod:

idk

@EddieMPod:

sure

Eddie took a breath and pressed play on the video that Gareth sent. It was a screen recording, the time on the top corner indicating that it had been roughly 2am when it was taken. Steve was sitting in what looked like a walk-in closet, surrounded by expensive looking clothes and lit up better than a damn sound stage. Eddie wondered if Steve had a ring light of if the lighting in there was really just that good. The chat was bursting with Eddie’s name.

· @sheena76: Have you watched eddie munsons podcast???

· @callmedaddy: do you use your own hairdryer or not steve

· @mikeohara: eddie munson says you don’t use your own products 😭

· @metalheadforlife: Heard your name for the first time on the Eddie Munson Podcast and expected to hate you but honestly dude you seem like a pretty cool dude

“Aww, thank you…” drawled Steve, half distracted by whatever he was doing with his hands just below the screen. “I am a pretty cool dude, once you get to know me….”

Eddie’s stomach flipped again at hearing Steve’s voice for the first time. It was deep and smooth as silk. He looked tired. Eddie wondered if he’d just gotten back from a party or something, but his speech wasn’t slurred so it didn’t look like he had been drinking.

· @momo27: come to brazil!

· @jaxxylovesya: has he talked about eddie munson yet?

· @harringtonfanbase: wer u at the disney event 2nite???

“I sure was at the Disney thing tonight…” said Steve, eyeing the comments still rolling in. “It was fun, but I’m happy to be home now…”

· @alaskaforharrington: do you use your own hair products?

· @chrisruffy: has eddie munson reached out to you???

· @billiesantos: what are you doing now? bedtime? 😴

“Yeah… Probably just bed time now….” said Steve, giving a fake looking yawn. Eddie shifted on his pillow, trying to ignore how cute the action was. “Just taking off my nail polish…”

Steve lazily lifted a hand up to show the stream, wiggling his fingers so everyone could see the half-removed blue paint. The casual way Steve was speaking to the viewers made Eddie a little jealous. He had a sort of easy charisma that most people in Eddie’s line of work would kill for. The way he let every sentence fade out quietly kept people feeling like they were in a conversation, like Steve was really talking right to them, and not just reacting to words on a screen. He wasn’t even talking that much but people were still enraptured. It was like a free masterclass in engagement. Eddie considered taking notes.

· @nini: steve did you see eddie munsons podcast

· @TommyH: Looking Good Babe!

Steve rolled his eyes and looked unamused for a second.

“Everyone tell Tommy to get out of here,” said Steve, deadpan, to his audience. “I’m still pissed at him for Milan,”

Tommy? Who the fuck was Tommy? And what happened in Milan? Eddie felt something flare in his chest that he didn’t quite like. The chat was instantly running at a mile a minute with angry emojis all directed at whoever @TommyH was.

“Matter of fact…” said Steve, grabbing his phone. The way the video shuddered let Eddie know that he was tapping the screen to do something. “Blocked! Bye Tommy,”

A mildly triumphant look settled over Steve’s face as he placed his phone back in its original spot.

· @BonnieBoBonnie: did they break up again? its getting boring watching them do this every month

· @hairingtonluvr: Tommy and Steve are such cuties ☺️

· @ElsaWhite: I don’t know why he keeps going back to that loser

Eddie paused the video and thought about opening up Instagram to comb through Steve’s profile for any mentions of @TommyH. There didn’t seem to be any when Gareth showed the profile during the podcast, but maybe Eddie hadn’t gone back far enough? He chewed his lip for a second before deciding against it. He reminded himself firmly that he didn’t care. He didn’t know this person or anything about his life, and he did not want to. Eddie pressed play again. Steve was swaying gently to some music in the background, still only half paying attention to the people in his chat.

· @seymour1979: Did he dump tommy for eddie munson?

· @user5734657346546534: 🎀cLiCk My PrOfIlE fOr SeXiiii gIrLs🥵

· @Hawke4Ever: Guys he’ll never address it so just drop it

· @kissmekate: Steve pleaseeeee the people need to know if you watched Eddie Munson’s podcast last week?

“You know…” continued Steve, looking straight into the camera now and idly lifting something to his face. “People keep asking about some podcast, and they keep mentioning that name that you guys are all saying…”

Eddie’s eyes widened when he realised what was happening.

“But you know…” said Steve softly with a wicked grin, swiping the Wet N Wild Clear Brow And Lash Mascara over his eyelashes. “I have no idea who the fuck that guy is…”

Eddie knew then that he was fucking done for.

Chapter Text

Harrington Hotel Heir fight night? Big blowout with pal at Milan beauty event!

Stephen Harrington, a well-known face to his 20 million Instagram followers, reportedly got into it with a friend outside a make-up launch event in Milan last week!

Sources confirm to TMZ that Harrington, 26, and friend, YouTube prankster Tommy Hagan, 25, were brawling in the courtyard of one of the family’s own namesake hotels.

Hagan, who we can reveal was not invited to the event, reportedly gate-crashed, camera in hand, and was able to evade security before being escorted back outside by Harrington. The pair then taxied back to the Milan Harrington Hotel, but they came to blows soon after arriving.

The hotels are notoriously anti-paparazzi thanks to their high calibre clientele so no videos are circulating of the altercation, but a witness tells us:

“It was real bad. They were just throwing punches and rolling on the ground at one point. Steve ended up with a black eye and the other guy ended up with a split lip. It took five hotel workers to get them off each other. It was brutal. Steve was pissed, there was blood everywhere.”

We’ll be watching Hagan’s YouTube channel closely to see if any of the footage from his own camera finds its way online!

Eddie glanced up at his iPad. Steve’s face filled the screen as he talked his livestream viewers through the finer points of his morning routine. There was no sign of any injuries on his face. He was showing off the products from his own haircare range. Eddie had watched him every day for almost a week now. He told himself that having the iPad propped open while he worked on stuff for the podcast on his laptop didn’t mean he was actually watching him. Occasionally though Eddie would realise his fingers had been hovering over the keyboard without moving for forty five minutes, while he watched Steve talk about his most recent favourite coffee order. It was famous on Deuxmoi, apparently. Eddie was considering trying it next time he passed a Starbucks, if he could find a good enough excuse to order something so flashy.

“This one, you guys…. Is like… My favourite….” said Steve, combing his fingers through his hair, reading the side of the small glass bottle in his other hand. His products were black bottles with rose gold tops. Eddie thought they looked pretty cool, actually. “The serum is like… A lifesaver….”

This didn’t seem the type of person to get into a fistfight. Eddie wasn’t buying it. The article was dated just over a month ago. Eddie backed out of the livestream and scrolled through Steve’s profile to get down to the same timeframe. It took almost five minutes. It was no wonder he never managed to get this far down the feed when they checked his profile on the show, they would never have had the time.

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie mumbled, half-impressed at how often Steve actually posted a picture of himself. Eventually Eddie started to see posts that had Italian street signs, and slowed down his scrolling.

“Oh shit…” said Eddie aloud.

A picture of Steve, smiling and pointing to the camera, with a black eye and a bloody lip, sat nestled between a picture of a pink flower wall and a boomerang of a yacht. It was posted the day after the TMZ article was published. The caption had no hashtags, and comments had been disabled.

@theharringtonhair: Shoulda seen the other guy.

Eddie wanted to laugh but something was threatening to flare in his chest. So far he’d managed to avoid falling too deep into the rabbit hole that was Steve Harrington’s life and internet presence, which seemed to be two sides of the same coin, but it was getting more and more difficult to stop himself from googling Tommy Hagan’sname.

One thing Eddie noticed about Steve was that he liked to add songs to his Instagram stories. Some of the fan accounts that were suggested to Eddie based on the activity of @indiana_boy (god help him) had compelling theories that the songs were a form of communication, posting a screenshot of the story alongside a brief analysis into it might mean. If Steve’s name was being rolled around TMZ or PopBase, there would usually be a song referencing it to some degree. The one that made Eddie laugh the most was, upon being accused by a beauty guru of sleeping with her and never calling, was the inclusion of 99 Problems by Jay Z on his next post. No Scrubs by TLC looked like the dates lined up with the Milan fight. There were some less fun ones too. The fansites couldn’t quite pin down why Steve would post Crazy World by MNEK, but when Eddie listened to the song himself he felt a familiar sting in the last verse, and thought maybe he got it.

Eddie went back to the top of the screen to re-join the livestream. He leaned closer to his iPad and thought he caught the shadow of a graze just under Steve’s bottom lip, already covered with make-up.

Steve was moved on to another product now, having finished talking about the hair serum.

“This is…. The mousse, I guess?” said Steve, sounding bored and checking the back of the can he was holding. “I think we…. Yeah, ok… We use just like… One pump… And that should be fine for like… Your whole head…”

Eddie huffed, noticing the clear unfamiliarity he had with his own products. He fucking knew he’d called it right when he said Steve never used his own stuff. He narrowed his eyes and opened the keyboard.

· @prissykissmas: Does it work on afro hair??

· @michellemylove: The packaging is super cute. Is it recyclable?

· @indiana_boy: why do you keep checking the instructions? shouldnt you know already if you use them all the time?

· @indiana_boy: looks a lot like you dont use your own stuff. fake.

The influx of comments replying to him was so fast that Steve had to lean over and scroll back up to see what had originally been said. Eddie had never been threatened so violently or creatively in his life as he was in the split second after he left his comments. He actually put a hand to his chest in genuine offence at one point. Steve bobbed his head along to the music in the background while he found what everyone was reacting to.

“Oh… Right… “ said Steve with an eyeroll. “Well… You read the instructions on the ramen every time you make them, don’t you? Same thing…. “

Eddie was one hundred percent sure that Steve never read the back of a packet of ramen in his life.

“So… Like I was saying….” continued Steve in that same lazy drawl that he always seemed to use. “Two pumps for longer hair… One pump if your hairs like mine…”

Steve squinted at the screen again, silently reading comments.

“This one won’t work super well on coarse hair or afro hair, no…. We’re working on a formula for that though… Should be out soon….”

Eddie rolled his eyes. This was the exact reason he hated people like this. They didn’t care about anyone who didn’t look just like them. Half of the cease and desists he got were from people he’d called out for launching a make-up line with seventeen light shades and nothing beyond ‘Soft Tan’ for everyone else. He typed out another comment.

· @indiana_boy: why werent people with different hair textures included in the first launch?

· @indiana_boy: didnt care enough?

Another wave of hate came his way. People were so eager and quick to defend Steve.

· @supersam: OMG just block the hater???

· @lucksson: I’m not POC personally but I don’t think he should have to explain himself for that

· @SoulSearch: A free reading awaits 😌 Visit my profile to claim your psychic predictions

“They were included actually… We rolled back on it though…. It was too greasy…. Too heavy… Weighted down people’s curls….”

Eddie kissed his teeth, quickly googling to check if that was the truth. He clicked a link and was redirected to Steve’s brand’s Instagram page. Sure enough, a post with the caption “We got it wrong, we’re sorry, and we promise to do better 😢” had a full explanation of why that particular line had been pulled and even included a timeline for its return. Eddie huffed and went back to watching.

· @lovethehair: You’re so real for even responding!

· @kissmekate: Hater must be an Eddie Munson fan 🤣

· @hairingtonluvr: we love you steve!!!

“Awww, thank you…. Yeah… That guy’s name keeps coming up huh… I’m rooting for him though…. For whatever it is he does…”

Eddie’s mouth went dry at Steve’s reference to him. Steve gave the camera a lazy smile while he brushed his hair. He looked like he was just about to start talking again when a voice came from behind him, and Tommy Hagan waltzed into the background. Eddie felt his lip twitch.

“Oh you streaming babe?” asked Tommy, elbowing his way into frame by Steve’s side. The comments started to fly, torn half and half between loving and hating Tommy.

· @HarringtonFanBase: whoa are they back together?!

· @tommyfan: omg our dads made up!

· @SarahFerg: ew gross

· @LaverneLutzenberg: Hey babe I’m on the promotor team for That’s So Gay! Check your DMs to collab!

· @MoloYolo: Tommy hagan jumpscare warning 🙄

· @ElsaWhite: STEVE BLINK TWICE IF YOU NEED HELP

“Hey chat, what’s going on?” said Tommy in an attempt at a booming voice, putting his face close to the camera. There was a still-healing scar on his lip. “Don’t forget to sub to my YouTube channel, me and the boys have the best pranks and skits and you will laugh your ass off, Tommy High Life coming your way, WOO!!”

“Get out of here,” Steve said, nudging him out of the way. He looked a lot less annoyed than Eddie expected him to. Almost…amused? It was a total one-eighty on the previous reactions to Tommy’s name being brought up by viewers.

“New TikTok house coming soon, chat! Follow me for updates, At Tommy H, same on all platforms, road to Twitch partner starts here, peace out,” said Tommy, with a wink and a kiss towards the stream. He leaned over to kiss Steve on the cheek before he left, and Eddie found himself pushing a heavy breath out through his nose as he did.

Eddie winced when Steve smiled at the kiss and put a soft hand on Tommy’s chest, deciding he’d seen enough for today and exiting the stream. He only watched Steve’s stories twice before closing the app entirely, and found a strange comfort in knowing he’d made Twitch partner himself two years ago.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“Look all I’m saying it a little mousse wouldn’t hurt,” said Gareth, taking a swig of his energy drink while Eddie twirled a lock of hair around his fingers, unseating his headphones as he did.

“Mousse won’t help me in this humidity, man,” countered Eddie. “You’re lucky, your hair isn’t as curly as mine. Thicker too,”

“Blessed with the best, I guess,” said Gareth, flipping his hands through his hair while Eddie fixed his headphones. “Everybody tell your friends, Eddie is looking for haircare advice. If we get enough recommendations we’ll make him try them,”

Chrissy gave them the signal to start wrapping up the recording.

“You’re not touching my hair. But listen up all you folks at home, before we go this week we have an announcement!” said Eddie into his microphone, shifting his chair closer to the desk and shuffling some papers like a newscaster. Gareth did the same. “Chris, why don’t you tell the people what you did?”

Chrissy blushed in her booth.

“I didn’t do it alone,” she protested, her face beet red.

“You definitely did,” said Gareth, twisting his chair around to look at her. “So come on, spill it,”

“Ok, um, so I started a campaign on twitter a few months ago, just for fun, to see if I could get us a media spot…” she began weakly. Eddie and Gareth started a slow drumroll with their hands on the edge of the desk. “And, well this morning we got an email saying that it had worked and…”

The drumroll gained speed.

“C’mon Chrissyyyyyyy,” encouraged Eddie.

“Oh my gosh this is so embarrassing,” she giggled, putting a hand on her forehead. “We got a spot interviewing people on the red carpet for the MTV awards at the end of the month,”

Eddie and Gareth cheered, standing up and throwing their arms in the air. Gareth pressed play on the outro song for the podcast as Eddie leaned back down into his microphone.

“That’s right folks our girl in the booth the beautiful, the effervescent, the incomparable Chrissy Fuck Yeah Cunningham has gotten us a coveted media spot on the MTV VMAs red carpet at on August 28th,” crowed Eddie. “Which means we’ll be playing Who The Fuck Is That Guy? live and in-person as I try to piss off as many talentless, autotune-relying, nepo-baby hacks as I possibly can. It’ll be beautiful,”

“It’ll be so much fun,” added Gareth.

“It’ll be something alright,” mumbled Chrissy.

Gareth took over the closing statements for the show as Eddie continued to dance around the studio. Once the recording lights were all off, Chrissy came in to clean up like usual.

“Do you both want to do anything specific in next week’s show?” asked Chrissy, scribbling on a notepad as she checked through the notes the boys had been using.

“It’ll be the last one that goes out before the awards, right?” asked Gareth, spinning around in circles in his chair.

“Yeah so I was thinking maybe we can use it to build hype for it?” suggested Chrissy, dropping her notepad and banging her elbow on the desk when she ducked down to grab it.

“Bang the other one for luck,” mumbled Eddie, checking his phone for notifications as Chrissy nodded and tapped her opposite elbow gently off the desk as well. Steve had gone live again and posted three more pictures, and a handful of stories. He couldn’t check them now, but it did give him an idea.

“Coffee orders,” said Eddie, clearing his throat when the others shot him confused looks. “Sorry, for next week. All the people who’ll be at the awards must have complicated coffee orders right? So why don’t we order a bunch and try them on the show?”

“That could work,” said Chrissy with a nod and a shrug. “Make it a game, match the coffee to the person?”

“That sounds like fun,” agreed Gareth.

“Ok great, I’ll get a list together,” said Chrissy brightly.

Eddie made a mental note to find the highlight reel he’d bookmarked on Instagram with Steve’s coffee order and find a way to make sure it got featured.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

It was 3am and Eddie was watching another one of Steve’s streams.

He shouldn’t have been, really. They were due to record their next episode in the morning, but at least it would be the one with all the coffee. The MTV announcement had been live since that afternoon and people were going crazy for it. Their fans were over the moon and Chrissy’s name trended worldwide for hours, with people congratulating her for what had been a truly impressive campaign. A picture of her smiling with her hand on her forehead, alongside one of Eddie and Gareth cheering, became the week’s most popular meme template. Her name was being thrown into the ring with some major producers already, and this was just ramping that up.

Eddie was glad. Her folks weren’t too happy about her ‘running off to LA to press buttons for a radio show’, so he and Gareth always made an effort to hype her up as much as they could. Getting this media spot for them on such short notice was the only proof any of them ever needed that Chrissy was the biggest catalyst for their success. Maybe she’d finally relax enough to get herself a girlfriend now that she was cementing herself as a hot shot.

But here he was, legs bent up in front of him on the couch, phone balanced between his knees, watching Steve go through his bedtime routine. Steve had his hair, entirely unironically, twisted up in a towel and Eddie couldn’t bear to take his eyes away from him. Eddie also couldn’t help but wonder how much each product he was using on his skin cost.

“I was at Nobu tonight, yeah, thanks for asking… I don’t eat meat though so it’s like, hope you like miso… That’s on all of their vegetarian dishes and well… Lucky for me I like miso, so….”

Steve was barely looking at the comments as he went about his skincare, carrying his phone with him around the place as he moved. Eddie found himself scanning the background for clues into what Steve was like in real life, something that had become a common practice for him any time he watched. Sometimes there was a flash of something that gave away a bit more of his actual personality. There was a bookshelf that was pretty full in one of the rooms Steve walked through sometimes but Eddie couldn’t ever get a look at the books that were on it. One thing that he was really intrigued by was the electric guitar on the wall of his living room. Steve never made any allusion to it and no articles Eddie read ever mentioned him being able to play. It probably wasn’t even his, thought Eddie. He probably bought it for the aesthetic and didn’t even know it made noise. The amp and wires did move around a lot though…

· @BonnieBoBonnie: You’re up so late Steve! 😮

“I am up late… I had a long day…. Lots of meetings… Saw my mom for lunch… Dad was there too… You know how it goes… “

Eddie did not, in fact, know how it went. There was very little possibility that anyone watching this stream knew how it went to meet your hotel baron parents for brunch. He wondered how many others were like him and had been rehomed with their uncle after being disowned for kissing a boy when they were ten, too. Probably not many. Eddie took a drink of his usual night time drink, decaf green tea. Did Steve like green tea? Maybe. His skin was clear so he might? Eddie heard it was good for all that detoxing stuff. Steve leaned in to read comments and Eddie was typing before he knew it.

· @indiana_boy: do you like green tea?

He cringed as he hit the send button. There was no way Steve would even see it, not with the amount of other people in here. Even if he did, Eddie had been labelled a hater on previous streams so he’d most likely ignore it. Steve smiled slackly at the screen, swiping some moisturizer across his cheeks.

“I love green tea… I drink it in the mornings… Sets me up for a good day…Decaf at night….”

Eddie stomach flushed hot at the recognition. He bit down a smile and felt his cheeks glow. So that’s what it felt like to be noticed by Steve without him being a bitch about it. (That fucking Wet N Wild mascara was haunting Eddie’s dreams) He wanted to type out a message of thanks but he stopped himself. Eddie reminded himself that he didn’t care about this person. He was just hate-watching him, in case his name was brought up on the show again. That was his story and he was sticking to it. Eddie shuffled further down into the couch cushions and held his tea close to his chest, bubbling a little at the idea of them enjoying the same thing.

· @CiaraSays: Your hair looks so good!

· @michael2018: are you going to the mtv awards??? I hear your hosting???

“Hmmm…. Not hosting, no, but I’ll be there, I think… And thank you… I haven’t changed up my hair routine recently… That reminds me though… For anyone with maybe… Curly hair, kind of thin… We have this product that might help define curls in the humidity…”

Wait, what?

Eddie watched as Steve held up one of his brand’s products and showed off the spray bottle.

“Super hydrating, heat protective… It’s like a serum… Sprays like a mist but holds like a gel… Not too heavy… Turn your head upside down… Spray and scrunch from the bottom….”

What the fuck? What the fuck?

“Tell your friends… And let’s hope the people who need this advice get to hear it….”

Steve was watching the podcast. Steve was watching the fucking podcast.

Did he know Eddie was watching his streams? Eddie checked and double triple quadruple checked he was on the @indiana_boy account every time he joined to watch one, so no, he couldn’t know. It was impossible. Unless his ego was big enough that he just assumed Eddie was? Which made sense, the guy’s ego really did know no bounds. The amount of time he spent reading articles about himself out loud while live showed that. But Eddie was actually sitting here watching him at 3am on a fake account so…Whatever. It didn’t matter. None of the comments seemed to catch on to what Eddie thought was happening, so maybe he was just over reacting.

Eddie opened his notes app and wrote down the name of the hair serum. For research.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Buzzfeed, through some karmic magic, actually ran a full feature on celebrity coffee orders that week, so by the time the next recording rolled around, Chrissy had ten separate drinks lined up in the studio.

“I can’t do this anymore…” moaned Eddie, head down on the desk. He had the microphone angled down so he could whine into it from where he was. “This is too much coffee,”

“This was a terrible idea,” lamented Gareth, head back and rubbing his stomach. “You’re telling me not one of these people orders anything but whole milk?”

“The coffee was my idea,” defended Eddie as best he could. “Deciding we had to finish them all was fucking… Crucifier Cunningham over there,”

Some time between Khloe Kardashian’s Seven Pump No Water Dirty Chai and Charli D’Amelio’s Caramel Cold Brew (“Who’s dick do I have to suck to get my own coffee at Dunkin?” “Pretty sure she’s a minor, Ed,” “Oh fuck, cut that out,”) they had hit the wall so hard that Eddie wasn’t even sure he liked the taste of coffee anymore. He was almost curious if any more caffeine would grant him the ability to smell colours at this point.

“Aside from it being bad to waste food, it makes for good content. Come on, there’s only two left,” Chrissy tittered, carrying in another tray of drinks. “Well, two each, I mean…”

Eddie rolled his head to the side and squinted up at her. His stomach was not handling this caffeine overload too well.

“So this,” she said, leaning down and commandeering Gareth’s microphone as she read off her phone screen. “Is a bone dry cappuccino with cinnamon on top, and this,” she dropped a large iced drink in front of each of them. “Is a triple espresso over ice with extra pumpkin cold foam. I had to go to three places to find somewhere that did pumpkin year-round,”

Steve’s order. Eddie recognised it right away and had to stop himself from grabbing for the cup.

“We’re not expensing the gas for that,” said Eddie quickly, earning a clip on the ear from his producer.

“Cappuccino seems normal?” said Gareth suspiciously, lifting the lid and eyeing the drink. “You sure this is right?”

“That one is Nicole Kidman,” groaned Eddie, finally lifting his head. “She said it on Ellen. She’s famous for real though so this doesn’t count. I’m not drinking that,”

“Spoil sport,” said Chrissy, now back in her booth, with a roll of her eyes. “Try the other one,”

“This looks like toxic waste,” said Eddie, picking up the pumpkin drink.

In reality, it looked quite nice. The foam looked creamy and soft, the espresso didn’t look too watery, and despite the eight other coffees swirling in his gut, Eddie was looking forward to trying it. Not only because Steve liked it, of course not. He’d been looking to switch up his own coffee order recently anyway. Yeah, that was it.

Gareth took a swig and grimaced.

“It’s so fucking sweet man,” he said, dropping the cup back onto the table. “I can’t finish this one, this is all you,”

Eddie took a mouthful of his own and… Oh Shit. This was delicious. He let out a snort.

“I will not lie to you, my man,” said Eddie, shaking the cup to mix the foam with the espresso. “I think I love this,”

“Any ideas who’s order this is?” asked Chrissy with a smile, her eyebrows raised.

Yes.

“No clue,”

“Well you know how you have a crush on Steve Harrington?” she laughed.

“I do not!” said Eddie quickly. “I do not like him! Is this his drink? Don’t tell me this is his drink?”

Gareth was letting out pained laughter, still clutching his aching stomach. Eddie’s four years of high school theatre were thankfully paying off because neither of the other two looked like they were seeing through his act of not knowing about the drink already.

“Well, fuck Harrington, this is my order now,” he said.

“Bet you’d like to,” mumbled Gareth. Eddie launched another stress ball in his direction. “But now, let’s play this week’s episode of Who The Fuck Is That Guyyyyyyy!”

“If you put a picture of Steve Harrington on that screen I’ll put you through that wall,” warned Eddie, still sipping the coffee. It really was good.

“Not this time, not this time, probably next time, honestly, but for now….” said Gareth, turning the monitor around. “Who the fuck is this guy?”

Eddie felt his stomach clench as he looked at a picture of Tommy Hagan. The distaste on his face wasn’t fake or over-exaggerated for once, there was no need. Eddie had grown a genuine dislike of him over the last few weeks. No footage of the fight with Steve had appeared on YouTube, but there was a vlog dedicated to gate crashing the party. Eddie got through the first five minutes before turning it off, sick of hearing Tommy outline the plans to embarrass Steve in front of the other guests by pouring bottles of champagne over him.

“He looks like a sewer rat,” said Eddie, scrolling through the Instagram profile Gareth put in front of him. There were no pictures of Steve, just Tommy and the others that were included in his ‘Prank House’. “I bet he’s five-foot-six acting six-foot-two,”

It didn’t take much scrolling before Eddie found what he was looking for. Italian street signs, and a picture of Tommy in front of a familiar looking pink flower wall. The prick had the nerve to take pictures inside the event he’d gate-crashed to humiliate Steve. It was captioned ‘Moments before disaster 🤪🥊.’ Eddie felt himself getting angry.

“Ooooh it looks like we have the old Eddie coming back,” joked Gareth. “I was afraid showing you Stevie Baby every week would make you soft,”

Anything but…

“He seems the type to think YouTube pranks are the height of comedy,” continued Eddie, unable to slow his roll. “Can’t see how many Likes he gets on his posts, is that because he bought all his followers and he’s hiding the low engagement? I bet he’s riding the coat tails of the rest of his crew and riding them hard, too. You know what, get this prick off my screen, he’s too ugly to look at,”

Eddie pushed the monitor away and waved a hand at it, settling back in his chair to finish his drink.

“Well…” said Gareth, taking a deep breath. “He is in fact a YouTube prank bro, you got that right on the nose. You are looking at Tommy Hagan, and you’ll never believe it,” Gareth puffed out a laugh. “But this is Steve Harrington’s on-again-off-again boyfriend of the last two years,”

Eddie swirled the last of his coffee, looking down into the cup. Two years… Eddie wondered if he’d be able to find out what the ratio of off versus on was. Some of the fan sites @indiana_boy followed on Instagram would probably be able to tell him, he’d look when he got home.

Eddie swallowed hard.

“They probably deserve each other,” he said, before downing the final mouthful.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Eddie wiped the sweat off his brow and regretted not wearing a white shirt.

Sure, the black silk one he chose to wear with his jeans that morning seemed like a great idea, but now that he was standing at the barrier on the edge of the MTV red carpet, it didn’t feel like one. There was no shade where the media bull-pen was set up. He was thankful at least that his uncle had drummed the habit of wearing sunscreen every day into him. His hair was tied up in a messy half-knot at the top of his head and that was at least keeping his neck from sweating too much. Eddie spent a lot longer styling his hair than he usually did before he left his place, picking strategic tendrils of hair to pull down and frame his face. He would never admit it, having ordered the item to a single-use PO Box instead of his own personal one, but Steve’s spray gel stuff had actually worked wonders. His curls looked amazing.

Eddie was standing alone at the barrier holding a wireless microphone that was branded with the podcast logo and a camera set up on a tripod. Chrissy was in a producer tent where she could keep track of what the camera recorded and hear his microphone picked up. Gareth was a little ways away, right where the guests were arriving to give Eddie a heads up on who he should be looking out for.

“Red jacket, green pants,” said Gareth, his voice buzzing in Eddie’s ear through an earpiece. “Who the fuck is that guyyyyyy?”

“At least try on this one,” giggled Chrissy, her voice crackling through that same earpiece. Eddie was regretting agreeing to wear one given that they had been making fun of him the whole time, comparing him to the gossip mongers alongside him, but listening to Chrissy’s little oh fucks every time she dropped her pen was pretty funny. “And don’t block the lens this time!”

Eddie leaned against the barrier and hummed into his microphone.

“Red jacket? Yeah I see him…” he said. “Could be a god damn fishmonger for all I know. I don’t know who told him he looked good in those pants but they definitely lied. And what is that hairstyle?”

Red Jacket’s posture stiffened when he laid eyes on Eddie.

“I know you!” he called, the smile that had been on his face for the photographers dropping immediately.

“Interesting,” Eddie called back. “Because I have no idea who you are. When was the last time you got your roots done, man?”

“You can’t talk to me! My lawyers have your number!” shouted Red Jacket.

“Who told you those shoes matched that belt?” asked Eddie loudly, leaning right over the barrier, feet kicking up behind him. “That person is not your friend,”

“Everyone hates you!” cried Red Jacket before his team shuffled him away. Eddie mimed tipping and imaginary hat.

“Can we get some fucking drag queens on this damn carpet please?” asked Eddie into his microphone, staring down the lens. “They can at least throw it back, jesus. This is like fish in a barrel with these boring ass people. Whoever their managers are should either be hailed as business geniuses for getting them invited here or burned at the stake for hiring those stylists,”

A woman right next to him with an E!News microphone shot Eddie a dirty look and tried to scoot her own setup away from him. In the cramped pen that they were all crammed into, she only managed to gain an extra inch or so, so she firmly turned her back on him with a ‘Hrmph’ instead.

“You get extra gay at these big parties, you know that, Ed?” said Gareth.

“That sounds awful close to a hate crime, my friend,” laughed Eddie, winking at the camera.

“Oh yeah? Find something other than fashion to rag on and I’ll say sorry,” Gareth shot back.

Eddie snorted and Chrissy was laughing hard enough that someone else in the tent with her could be heard telling her to pipe down please!

“Sure thing,” she said, clearly turned away from her own microphone. The eyeroll was evident in her voice.

“Chrissy tell that dude to kick rocks,” said Gareth. “Just because they’re having a boring time and we’re actually having fun and–“ Gareth gasped loudly, the noise so loud in the earpiece that Eddie pulled it out for a second. “Oh my god,“

“Gar?” said Eddie into his mic. “What’s up?”

“White suit,” said Gareth, his voice strained in a way that made Eddie think he was holding in a laugh. “I get the feeling you might know this one,”

Eddie’s eyebrows furrowed while he settled his earpiece back into place. He scanned the carpet in front of him looking for anyone who might be a familiar face. This wasn’t the Oscars though, so there was basically no one who Eddie even half recognised but–

Oh…

Steve Harrington walked confidently down the carpet, a full entourage in his wake. He was wearing a white suit, just like Gareth said, with gold accents dangling from it. His chest hair was peeking through the mesh vest under the suit jacket and Eddie found himself struggling not to stare. Steve wasn’t stopping to speak with anyone, just swanning his way down the thoroughfare ignoring all the photographers and interviewers calling his name.

Steve slid his sunglasses down his nose as he drew level with Eddie. Eddie’s heart pounded and he gripped his microphone harder. Should he say something? Was Steve expecting him to? For all the time he’d spent watching Steve do his hair or paint his toenails on Instagram, Eddie never actually considered what he’d say when they met. He had a kind of…fantasy, maybe? that they’d just start talking and get along great, and Steve would touch Eddie’s chest the same way he touched Tommy’s but it would be better because it was them and not him and–

“Oh…” said Steve loudly, barely slowing down and looking right at him, face screwing up in fake pity. “I hate your hair,”

Eddie’s mouth dropped open but he couldn’t help but smile around the surprise.

“You fucking bitch,” he spluttered out through a shocked laugh.

Steve just cackled and kept walking. In Eddie’s ear, Gareth was wheeze-laughing to the point of breathlessness, and Chrissy was squealing in delight at Eddie being rendered basically speechless.

“I hate you both,” said Eddie, putting his face as close as he could into the camera, hoping it didn’t pick up the way his hand was shaking.

Chapter Text

The awards themselves were even less special than Eddie thought they would be.

He regrouped with Chrissy and Gareth in the press pit after the ceremony started, and they quickly packed up their equipment to be brought to a holding area. Chrissy wasn’t the biggest fan of leaving her favourite camera in a duffel bag in what was essentially a make shift cloakroom just inside the venue to be couriered back to their studio. Eddie was confused why she even agreed to leave it all there until she pulled three tickets to the show out of her bag.

“At least this means we don’t have to take our stuff everywhere,” she told the boys, signing her name on the equipment check-in list.

The ceremony was being held in a literal airplane hanger of all places so it wasn’t like they could just drop it home themselves and run back. This did make more sense.

Chrissy had managed to get them sitting at a relatively nice table. The large seating area was filled with round tables, surrounding the stage in a semi-circle. A catwalk came about half way into the crowd for performers to prance about on, and Eddie would definitely be looking up the rest of Olivia Roderigo’s music when he got back to his hotel room that night because her song fucking slapped. They definitely weren’t in what was apparently the VIP section, a roped off chunk of eight or nine tables, but they were very near some people who had TV cameras pointed at them. Someone from the general audience even called Eddie’s name and waved like crazy when he turned around. Gareth did float the idea of another, more long distance, game of Who The Fuck Is That Guy? but a giant security guard materialised out of nowhere to glare at them the second they took out their phones.

About half way through the night, with Chrissy schmoozing another producer to get free advice on the ins and outs of getting syndicated and Gareth now migrated to the next table where he was locked in animated conversation with someone who looked a lot like Rita Ora, Eddie noticed that he had a perfect view of Steve Harrington.

Steve was sitting right in the centre of the VIP section, on a table with a bunch of people who weren’t quite pulling off their look as well as the heir himself, in Eddie’s humble opinion. There wasn’t any qualms about people in that section recording, by the looks of the notifications flying up Eddie’s screen. @indiana_boy was getting at least one every five minutes telling him that @theharringtonhair posted a new story, and even went live at one point. Eddie looked over when he got the live-stream alert and saw Steve with his phone close to his face, speaking directly into the mouthpiece as if he was recording a voice note, only putting it down when the next nominees were being announced.

Tommy Hagan was at Steve’s side briefly, trying to record the reactions of people around him on his camera. Tommy’s own table was further back in the venue than Eddie’s and he had to walk right by to get to Steve. It was close enough that Eddie could smell his cologne. The temptation to trip him when he went past was almost as overwhelming as the amount of Lynx Africa that Tommy had on. Steve kept pushing his boyfriend’s camera away and would only speak to him when it was pointed down at the table. A security guard removed Tommy from the area when he wasn’t able to show a special wristband. There was very nearly a scene, but when he noticed his camera was seemingly out of battery, Tommy went quietly.

Eddie watched Steve clap politely for presenters and whistle for any performers, and pointedly bury his nose in his phone when anyone came on stage who he had ‘beef’ with. Someone called Manny was introducing an act when Steve held it in his lap and stared straight down. Eddie was dying to check twitter to see the reactions. If there was one thing Steve’s fanbase was particularly great at, it was making memes, and Eddie got a good laugh out of the ones he was able to understand.

He could sit and watch Steve without it being obvious because the angle that they were at, it looked like Eddie was watching the walkway that people going to and from the stage were being ushered down. It almost felt bizarre seeing him just existing in real life without being on the other side of a screen. Eddie nearly thought he’d blink and Steve would be gone, quick as ending a stream or deleting a story. He was looking forward to lying in bed later and clicking through all the posts Steve was making, seeing the night from a different perspective and finding out if they laughed at the same bad jokes and hated the same parts of the ugly staging. It was his own version of the evening newspaper these days. Eddie briefly thought about if he would be in the background of any of what Steve was posting. There were a few occasions when Steve moved his phone around and it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that Eddie might be visible over his shoulder. Albeit as a fuzzy, out of focus blob.

Steve was laughing at something being said on stage and Eddie quickly joined in the round of applause, looking around to make sure he hadn’t missed anything important. The main host was giving his closing speech to wrap up the evenings proceedings. Eddie tried to ignore the fact that meant he had dropped over a full hour staring at someone who’s only direct words to him so far were ‘I Hate Your Hair’ and started paying attention again.

“I’ll see y’all at the after party, I’ll be the one swimming in the heated fountain in the lobby!” said the host, who Eddie vaguely recognised from a reality show his uncle Wayne made him watch last time he went back home to visit. “Everybody say thank you to Steve Harrington’s grandaddy for thinking heated fountains were a good idea,”

Another laugh and light applause. Steve was already out of his seat and walking to the exit. A woman with short red hair appeared and followed him quickly.

“Now y’all don’t ned to go home,” the host continued. “But you gotta get the hell out of here! Good night Los Angeles!”

The crowd cheered as the TV cameras swooped around and the On Air lights went dark. The main lights went up, and the chatter and movement of people around them rose.

“So,” said Chrissy into Eddie’s ear, leaning over his shoulder and pressing something against his chest. “After party?”

“Where did you get these?” asked Eddie in disbelief, looking at the three guest passes to the official Harrington Hotel afterparty that she was handing him.

“Networking Eddie, networking,” she said, tapping the side of her nose. “And that guy I was talking to was looking for an excuse not to go so now he can tell people he left his tickets back in New York or something,”

Eddie laughed. That woman could talk her way in or out of anything she wanted. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d spent the last two hours securing herself as a producer on Pharrell’s next album.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

After parties were really weird.

Eddie knew this from the second he stepped foot in LA. They weren’t the type of party that regular people had. No one was relaxed and they were very much fashion over function. Whereas a regular afterparty might be chilled with some drinks and some music, with people selling pot in a dark hallway and a guy getting slapped by his exes new boyfriend, these were far more lawless. It was like being right in the middle of lions patrolling the Serengeti. It felt a strange kind of dangerous, and no two were the same. One thing that was always consistent though was that there were cheese boards and cocaine everywhere. Eddie, Chrissy, and Gareth were well passed the novelty of free drugs now and always scoped out the charcuterie instead. The few of these events he’d been to in the last couple of years taught him that there would rarely be a news story about any drama that went down at one of them, unless someone directly involved leaked it themselves. He lost count of the amount of fistfights he’d seen A-list actors get into, only for them to be acting like best friends promoting their Disney+ show the next week.

Eddie was wandering semi-aimlessly around the party, wondering if he’d see Steve anywhere. Three or four large interconnected ballrooms held the revellers. One room was even hosting a fake award show of its’ own. A tall blonde woman named Gigi with immaculate hair and make-up was handing out small bottles of Moet to ‘winners’. Eddie caught sight of one of the bottles as he passed a table. The sharpie on the label told him that this one had been awarded for best use of a TikTok audio. Eddie kept walking, holding the neck of a bottle of warm beer and feeling more out of place than he had in a long time. It was dumb, really. Eddie’s face was on a literal billboard downtown, people knew this name, but he still found himself side-stepping any time a group of people were walking too close to him. He didn’t feel like he should be near them. This was their world. A world he was building a career on making fun of. A world that had Steve Harrington in it. It did cross Eddie’s mind that Steve would never want to interact with him because of the things Eddie said about his friends. It was as close to feeling bad about it as Eddie had ever come. He wondered what his own mini bottle of Moet might say. “Biggest Dickhead”, probably, if the people in the room were the ones voting. Whatever. He didn’t want one anyway.

This hotel was fucking huge. It took almost twenty minutes to loop back around to the bar to find Gareth and Chrissy.

“Ok, so, that table back there has the good crackers but no salami, sorry Eddie,” said Gareth, listing the food options he’d found. Eddie forgot that he was even supposed to be looking for it, too busy thinking about Steve. “Chris, no sign of gluten free bread yet but I saw Mandy Moore eating a bruschetta so it must be around somewhere,”

“I’m probably going to skip the meat tonight,” said Eddie, taking a sip from his beer bottle. “My stomach feels weird,”

He was lying, of course. Steve didn’t eat meat and he was still trying to focus on places that they might bump into each other. Eddie hated the fact that he wanted to bump into Steve. He didn’t even want to talk to him. He just wanted to look at him up close for a second. He wanted to see if the moles on his face were real of drawn on. He wanted to check if he wore black or brown mascara. He wanted to smell the aftershave he wore. And now that he knew what Steve’s brand of products smelled like, Eddie wanted to know if his hair smelled like them or not. That’s all.

Eddie attention drifted away from his friends again. He was too busy trying to figure out why hadn’t seen Steve anywhere. This was his hotel, where else would he be going after the awards? Maybe Steve decided to skip the party altogether, or go to a different one. His stomach clenched when he thought that maybe he was already back in a room. Maybe he was in bed with Tommy. Maybe they left entirely and went back to Steve’s place. Maybe he was playing that guitar on his wall while Tommy slept off the post-orgasm haze. Eddie shook his head to get the thought out of it. That was the last thing he wanted to be thinking about.

The others looked suspicious but accepted Eddie’s intention to skip the catering. His phone was buzzing in his pocket and he just knew that Steve was posting. He couldn’t help it anymore, he needed to go take a look.

“I’ll be right back, gotta piss,” said Eddie, handing his bottle to Gareth and going to find a bathroom. He wanted to lock himself in a stall and put an earbud in his ear and listen to Steve’s voice for a few minutes.

Eddie walked out into the main foyer of the hotel and found a group of people who were doing exactly what the award show host had said. Jumping in and out of the heated fountain. The water feature was huge, with a large tiled back wall with a mirrored side. It could actually have passed as a swimming pool if it was deeper, it was fucking huge. Eddie walked by and suddenly found himself in the splash zone. Someone chose that exact moment to attempt a cannonball into the ten-inch-deep pond and sent a wave up over him. His pants were soaked.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” yelled Eddie, wheeling around and finding himself face to face with Tommy Hagan.

“Whoa, calm down man,” laughed Tommy standing up out of the fountain and holding up his hands in mock-surrender at Eddie “You won’t melt, or are you the Wicked Witch of the West,”

Tommy laughed at his own joke, with the rest of the group cackling like hyenas behind him. Eddie breathed heavy through his nose as he stared him down. He was delighted to discover how much taller than Tommy he was. He looked like more of a weasel in real life than he did online. It was hard to believe he was a grown man; Tommy looked like a sixteen year old kid. He didn’t even look like he could grow a beard.

The initial irritation at being wet without warning was being quickly overtaken by the anger at Tommy just existing six inches in front of him. Eddie’s fists started to ball up and he was half tempted to start a fight. The only thing that kept him calm was the knowledge that Tommy definitely was not currently in bed with Steve.

“These are designer fucking pants,” snapped Eddie, scrambling to find a reason he could use to justify his anger. They definitely weren’t. He’d had these jeans since he was nineteen.

“Like that means anything,” scoffed Tommy, rolling his eyes. More sneers from behind him.

“People need to come clean this shit up,” said Eddie, gesturing now to the puddles on the ground. “They have to come waste time dealing with this because you decided to act like a fucking idiot,”

Everyone around him laughed.

“Dude, that’s their job, that’s what they’re for,” said Tommy, his tone rubbing Eddie the complete wrong way. “It’s not like they have a union,”

Tommy smirked again and Eddie took a half step towards him, unsure if he was about to punch a youtuber or not, when another voice spoke up somewhere from Eddie’s left.

“You gonna hit him, man?” they said. “It was a joke, bro! Back off!”

“He’ll sue your balls off, dude!” said someone else.

“This is all on camera!”

Seven iPhones were pointed at Eddie, he realised for the first time. Tommy smile was more smug than ever. Eddie wanted to break his jaw. The housekeeping staff across the Harrington Group did actually have a union. Steve mentioned it off-hand in a stream last week when he was talking about hiring new staff for his brand’s warehouse. Tommy was literally in the room when he said it, playing around on his phone.

“Who even is this guy?” someone asked, pushing a phone closer into Eddie’s face.

“No one important,” sneered Tommy, stepping back away from Eddie.

Eddie knew that was wrong. I’m important enough for your boyfriend to watch me when you’re not there, he wanted to yell, important enough to have him thinking about my hair at two in the morning. Eddie closed the gap between them again and leaned right into Tommy’s face, close enough get under the Lynx Africa and register that no, Tommy did not smell like the Lavender and Bergamot of Steve’s products.

“Five foot six acting six foot two,” murmured Eddie, echoing his previous sentiments and letting the corners of his mouth twitch up. “I never miss,”

Tommy’s expression faltered. Eddie shoulder-checked him as he turned to walk away, looking at the ground to avoid slipping in one of the massive puddles. As his eyes dipped, he seen him.

Steve was sitting in the fountain, legs out in front of him. Eddie’s breath caught and he hoped he was able to disguise it as a shiver from the cooling water dripping from him. Steve’s expression was neutral but not quite calm, and Eddie clocked that his pupils were just a touch too big. Eddie was only half convinced that the rest of the people in the foyer wouldn’t let a stoned Steve Harrington drown in ankle-deep water. He wanted to stop to check on him, but they didn’t know each other. There was no reason for Eddie to care. He at least knew none of them wanted to deal with a dead heir, so he was probably safe enough. Steve’s eyes met Eddie’s and for the briefest second, everything froze. Steve opened his mouth as if to say something but Eddie forced himself to move forward. This wasn’t the time or place to live his little fantasy of their first real meeting. He managed to keep walking, stalking off in the direction of the arrow pointing to the bathrooms.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Eddie ended up sitting on the marble countertop in the bathroom for almost half an hour, his legs swung up underneath a hand dryer and his hair down from its bun.

He purposely made his way to a bathroom tucked away in a corner all the way up on the sixth floor, where the noise of the party going on downstairs was almost completely muted. It seemed a safe enough place to not be bothered by anyone while he dried himself off. Eddie texted Gareth and Chrissy a while ago saying his stomach was feeling worse, he was heading back to their own hotel (They couldn’t afford to stay in a place like this, are you crazy? They were staying at least a ten minute uber away) and he’d catch them both in the morning. His run in with Hagan was already plastered all over twitter, a video of him knocking against Tommy’s shoulder with the caption “Assault caught on camera!!!” was being retweeted left, right and centre. Steve definitely wouldn’t want to talk to him now. Fuck. The only saving grace was that the video cut off right before Eddie noticed that Steve was there too so at least people wouldn’t see him doing his best impression of the heart eyes emoji.

Eddie hadn’t watched Steve’s stories yet but he had clicked into one of two of notifications for main grid posts. Steve had in fact gotten one of the mini Moet bottles. He’d been crowned King Of The Influencers. Eddie snorted at his caption.

@theharringtonhair: I deserve this 👑

Eddie sighed and rested his phone on his lap. This was weird, right? Being so caught up in someone who, sure, knew he existed, but just barely. He wondered if it would taper off naturally or if he’d have to turn off the post notifications for all of Steve’s social media. He didn’t really want to though. Plenty of people all over the world would be getting those exact same notifications. It was totally normal. He was just a fan. A secret one. That Steve was speaking to through his live streams without knowing he was watching. Eddie ran a hand over his face. He’d all but convinced himself that was down to his imagination at this point. Someone like Steve would be far too busy with his own life to watch some podcast make fun of him, never mind sent cryptic hair care messages. Eddie made a mental note to never mention that to anyone in case he got fucking sectioned.

Eddie hopped down off the counter having decided his jeans were finally dry enough and stood against the urinal. He might as well relieve his bladder before trying to hail a cab to get back to his own hotel. Behind him, the door clattered open and two people were whispering and giggling.

Eddie had enough bathroom hook-ups in seedy bars to know you do not turn around when you hear something like that. You stay still and you mind your own business. He was long finished by the time the stall door slammed shut and the lock flipped. Eddie zipped himself up and went towards the door, freezing when he realised he was listening to Tommy Hagan’s voice.

“Come on, it’s fine, just… Yeah, come on,”

Eddie felt like vomiting at the unmistakable sound of a belt buckle. He didn’t want to hear Steve getting fucked tonight. It wasn’t until his had was on the door handle to leave that he heard the voice of the second person.

“What if Harrington finds out? I’m not trying to upset a guy with so much pull in this town,”

That’s not Steve…

“He doesn’t matter right now, come on,”

A few more seconds of muffled fumbling noise passed before a long, satisfied sigh filled the bathroom.

“Are you sure? I thought you guys were back together?”

“Yeah man, I’m sure, leave Steve to me,”

Eddie rushed out when he heard the crinkle of a foil wrapper, before he lost his cool and dragged Tommy out of that stall. He was cheating on Steve. Fuck. Did Steve know? There had never been any mention of an open relationship but maybe this was the reason they had been so on and off the whole time they were together.

Eddie stood in the empty corridor, head spinning. He stared at his phone as he tried to decide what to do. Was it his place to try find a way to contact Steve? Should he send an anonymous email to TMZ? DM Deuxmoi? Go back into the bathroom, record the noises, and create a fake twitter account to post the video to? Ok, calm down. Eddie was in the middle of telling himself that he wasn’t a teenage girl and this wasn’t his business, when someone crashed into his side and knocked him to the ground.

“Oof,” he gasped out, hitting the carpeted floor and feeling a whole other body land on top of him. “What the fuck is your problem?”

Eddie tried to push whoever this was off of him but when he realised they were dressed in white, soaking wet, and smelled like Lavender and Bergamot, he froze.

“Long list…” said Steve, holding himself up on his hands and struggling to focus his vision on Eddie. “Where’s my phone…”

Steve looked around and grabbed a phone from the floor next to them before shifting up onto his knees. Straddling Eddie. Mother of god… Eddie looked up at him, watching his confused expression when firstly Face ID and then his security code didn’t work. Eddie kept his hands by his head, fighting the urge to rest them on Steve’s thighs.

“What’s my passcode…” pondered Steve out loud.

“I don’t know,” said Eddie in wide eyed shock as he stared up at Steve.

Steve was exactly like he imagined. His height and build were more less evenly matched to Eddie’s, with maybe some extra muscle.

Steve made a noise mild irritation and stood up, pushing a hand into Eddie’s stomach for purchase. It was like watching a baby deer trying to walk for the first time and Eddie’s hands flew out on instinct to stop Steve from falling. Once he was…firmly?...on his feet, Eddie clambered up after him, still a bit winded from being knocked down and now wet all up and down his body. So much for his wasted time under the hand dryer.

“I think that’s mine,” said Eddie, noticing that it was his own phone case in Steve’s hands.

Steve looked at him and sighed, putting Eddie’s phone into his pocket.

“I said scrunch,” said Steve, with a flourish of his hands, before he took a step forward and took two fistfuls of Eddie’s hair to begin mauling at it. “Like this. Did you even bother?”

“Did I..?” Eddie was confused, taken aback at the proximity, not to mention the nerve of Steve to just grab his hair without permission. “Of course I did, hang on, my hair looks fucking great first of all–”

“You’re welcome…”

“–and second of all, what the fuck?” he asked, astonished.

“What do you mean?” asked Steve, letting go of his hair. “Your friend said you were looking for advice, I gave advice…”

Steve started to walk, well, stumble, down the hallway towards the elevator, taking Eddie’s phone back out of his pocket and bashing his fingers against the screen. Eddie picked up Steve’s phone from by his feet and followed him.

“You really did watch the show then?” Eddie couldn’t believe it.

“I watch everything my name gets mentioned in, it’s kind of my job to know what people are saying about me,” Steve told him like it was obvious while he was getting frustrated at not being able to unlock the phone. “And you make me laugh, so, it’s fine, I guess,”

Eddie didn’t have time to process making Steve laugh because Steve’s phone started to ring in his hands. Steve recognised his ringtone and looked confused when it wasn’t coming from the device he was holding.

“Look, this one is yours, I told you, that’s mine,” said Eddie, putting a hand on Steve’s wrist to get his attention again. It was warm to touch despite the cold water on his clothes. “It’s….Robin, here,”

“Why is Robin calling you?”

Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose and then finally, the penny dropped for Steve.

“What the fuck…. Urgh, this isn’t even mine,” said Steve, eyes going wide before he scrunched his nose and dropped Eddie’s phone on the carpet. “You have too many notifications. Gross, clear them,”

Eddie was about to scoff. Too many notifications? Coming from King of the Influencers? That was rich. But when he ducked down to grab his phone and saw that all of the notifications were his @indiana_boy account pinging Steve’s activity on Instagram through the night, his stomach clenched. Eddie tried to calm down by reminding himself that Steve was literally walking sideways with how drunk he was. There was no way he’d have been able to read what was on the screen, right? Let alone remember it tomorrow.

Steve snatched his own phone back from Eddie and answered the call, getting into the elevator that dinged open in front of them. Eddie stepped in next to him.

“Hey Robbie… Yeah…. I’m ok… No, I didn’t find him… What room am I in? I’m tired… Mmmhmmm, sure…. I’m in the elevator… Meet you there….”

Steve swayed as he tried to hit the right button for his floor while talking to Robin. Robbie. Maybe Steve and Tommy really were in an open relationship.

“Jesus christ, let me help you,” said Eddie, putting a hand on Steve’s elbow to steady him. “What room are you in?”

“1701,” slurred Steve. He was fading fast, and Eddie was suddenly worried he might have to carry Steve to his room. “Don’t touch me,”

Steve pulled his elbow away and fell against the wall, Eddie reacted quickly to stop him from hitting the floor again. Steve leaned heavily into his front.

“Oooo kay Stevie, let’s stay standing, hmm?” said Eddie, slotting an arm under each of Steve’s and propping him up.

“You’re not coming to my room with me,” said Steve, looking up at Eddie. Steve’s knees had buckled and Eddie was holding him upright as best he could. “You can take me there though, I don’t want to walk,”

“I don’t want to go to your room,” lied Eddie, amused at Steve’s attempts to make it look like not being able to stand was some sort of choice. “I’m handing you over to Robin as soon as these doors open and then I’m going back to my hotel,”

Steve’s brow creased.

“My hotel isn’t good enough for you?” asked Steve, looking genuinely offended.

Eddie laughed and pressed the button for the top floor.

“If I can ever afford to stay here I’ll let you know,” he said, readjusting his hold under Steve’s armpits. “The Freehand is much more my speed,”

“Ew, I hate it,” remarked Steve, swatting weakly at the arm wrapped around his chest. “Get off me, you’re not my fucking boyfriend,”

Eddie rolled his eyes.

“Well your fucking boyfriend is fucking someone else in a sixth floor bathroom,” said Eddie. If they were open it wasn’t a big deal to say it, right? “So if you want help getting to your room then I’m the best you’ve got,”

Steve let out a whine.

“He always does this me,” he said softly, the sadness in his voice making Eddie’s heart hurt. Eddie thought it was maybe a bit hypocritical if Steve was on his way to meet another guy too. “He always promises to change and then he never does… I ask him every time but he never does,”

Eddie shifted Steve’s weight again but didn’t respond. How long was this stupid elevator going to take?

"Deserve better," said Steve, more to himself than anything. "Fucking... bullshit fucking... shit...." 

Eddie swallowed hard, doing everything he could to ignore how Steve's body felt pressed so tightly against his.

“Eddie?” said Steve, his voice almost too low to hear over the mechanical whirring. His head flopped back so he was looking directly up at Eddie’s chin from where he was pressing against his chest. His weight was sagging further into Eddie now.

Hearing Steve say his name was a lot, honestly. Especially since he hadn’t introduced himself. Steve just remembered his name from the show, apparently.

“Yeah?” he responded, watching the numbers on the wall climb higher. Almost there.

Eddie never got to find out what Steve was going to ask, because the doors finally slid open, and the red-headed girl who followed Steve out of the awards was standing there.

“Steve!” she said, exasperated.

“Robin!” mimicked Steve, giggling as Eddie manoeuvred him out into the hallway.

So Robin was a girl. Ok, Eddie knew Steve didn’t have any gender preferences so fine, it still made sense.

“You’re pretty out of it, huh?” she asked, swiping some hair from his face as he was transferred into her arms. “Haven’t seen you like this since Milan, bud. Should I call Nancy?”

Steve actually hissed like a cat, and Eddie couldn’t help but laugh.

“Nancy is Steve’s manager, she’s pretty strict,” Robin told Eddie, as if he was a part of the conversation. “I’m Robin, I’m his assistant,”

She extended a hand to Eddie, struggling to hold Steve up while she did. Eddie felt a wave of guilt wash over him. He’d just told Steve that Tommy was with someone else and Steve was genuinely sad about it, because he assumed she was a hookup. Shit. Eddie ignored the niggle in his brain that said this might mean they’d break up again and Steve would be single. Eddie shook her hand quickly.

“This is Eddie,” said Steve in a stage whisper. “He’s staying at the stupid Freehand even though he has a crush on me,”

“I do not,” Eddie spluttered, feeling himself blush.

“I know who he is, babe,” said Robin sweetly, patting Steve’s cheek. “Now say goodbye, and tell Eddie thank you,”

Steve found his feet and gently stood up, turning to Eddie. He squinted at him and opened his mouth to speak, before closing it again and sighing. He looked almost confused about something.

“I’ll see you–“ started Eddie, but he was cut off when Steve, for the second time tonight, was crashing into him.

It was some semblance of a hug, with Steve’s arms draped around Eddie’s shoulders and his face pressed into Eddie’s neck. Eddie was winded again and had to take a step back to brace himself against the impact. Steve’s feet scrabbled against the carpet to push himself closer. When he decided he was close enough and squeezing around Eddie’s neck tight enough, his movements settled and his legs started to give out again. Eddie wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist to try avoid being dragged down to the ground under his weight. Steve let out a contented sigh.

“I… I think he’s asleep?” said Eddie, feeling Steve’s breath against his neck. He begged his body not to let his dick get hard right now.

“No m’not,” mumbled Steve.

Robin put a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh.

“His room is right down here, would you mind?” she asked, gesturing down the hallway.

“Uh, yeah, yeah, sure…” said Eddie, frantically trying to mind over matter the twitching in his pants. One of Steve’s hands had wound its way into Eddie hair and he was scratching at his scalp. He was losing his mind. It was almost too much too take and his senses were practically strangled with lavender and bergamot and the feeling of Steve’s wet clothes pushed against him. Robin walked ahead of them to find Steve’s door and get it open.

“Feels nice,” said Steve, when Eddie tightened his hold and started to walk with Steve in his grasp. His lips grazed the skin on Eddie’s neck. Steve’s feet were basically dragging on the floor between each of Eddie’s steps.

“You can just drop him here,” said Robin, pointing at the floor just inside the door to Steve’s room. “I’ll get him into a shower and then put him to bed,”

Dropping Steve was the last thing Eddie wanted to do. He barely even wanted to let him go at all but figured it would look weird if he refused to.

“Come on Stevie,” said Eddie softly, lowering him to the ground. Steve was verging on passing out so he wanted to be as gentle as he could. “Gotta put you down now, sweetheart…”

“Call me that again?” whispered Steve against Eddie’s shoulder.

Eddie’s stomach flipped.

“Any time you want, sweetheart,” Eddie said to him and Steve whimpered quietly. “Any time. But I need to go for now, ok? Robin’s got you, you’re alright,”

Steve hummed in acknowledgment as Eddie straightened up again.

“Thanks,” said Robin, looking almost embarrassed at the situation. “He’s not normally like this, he’s been trying to stay sober,”

“Don’t worry about it, happens to the best of us,” said Eddie, waving his hand. “You good?”

“I’m great,” she said with a smile and an exaggerated nod. “I’m kind of used to it. It’s been a while but, hey, like riding a bike, right?”

“Seriously, are you ok from here?” asked Eddie. He found himself feeling genuinely concerned for Robin’s ability to wrangle Steve even though she said she was well able. She looked a bit lost and Eddie didn’t like that at all. “I can stay to help, I have nowhere else to be,”

“Thanks, but I’m ok,” she said, smiling gently. “We used to do this every night, it’s nothing new,”

Eddie nodded back and stepped backwards out of the room, his hand on the door to pull it closed after him.

“Ok, uh, bye, then, Robin, Steve, see you around I guess?” said Eddie as he left.

“G’bye, Indiana Boy…” Steve sing-songed from his place on the floor, just as the door snapped shut in the frame.

Eddie froze.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Eddie barely slept when he got back to his hotel.

He’d tried to unwind with a beer in the craft beer place across the street before turning in for the night, but he could hardly focus on his (wildly overpriced and underwhelming) IPA. Not when thoughts of Steve Harrington calling him Indiana Boy were rattling around his head. How would he even react to it? Eddie ran through the options. Steve was definitely the type to post a multi part exposé on TikTok calling Eddie a freak. He’d done it before. Someone with millions of followers deleted her entire account twenty minutes after Steve got his claws into her over something trivial. So that was definitely option A, option B was most likely a cease and desist to add to Eddie’s ever growing pile. Option C was probably something along the lines of telling everyone in the industry about a nameless stalker and threatening to say his name publicly if Eddie so much as thought about googling Steve. Perez Hilton would post blind items about it. It would be torture. It was hard to think clearly about any of it when his body was still buzzing with feeling of Steve wrapping his arms around Eddie’s neck, holding him close, asking to be called sweetheart…

Fuck.

The other thing dominating his thought process was Steve’s reaction to what, or rather who, Tommy was doing in the bathroom. Steve said he knew, or at least suspected. This happened all the time apparently. Eddie felt a pang of pity for Steve, honestly. He sounded genuinely sad when they talked about it, if you could call anything about the frantic twenty minutes they spent together a ‘conversation’. At least his assistant seemed like she really cared about him. Rockie… Ronnie… Robbie, that was it. Her name was Robin. She looked like she knew how to handle Steve in whatever state he was in, knew to call for backup in the form of his manager. Eddie couldn’t remember her name right now but the reaction that Steve had when she was mentioned made it clear that she was not someone to mess with. His chest hurt a little at the memory of Robin saying how often Steve would get like that. Every night was the norm, according to her, or it was up until recently anyway. Eddie tried to scoff. It was the same for all those influencer types. Do nothing except get paid for holding a tube of lipstick up to a camera, and then get blackout blasted with the other twenty-three hours of the day.

It was getting harder and harder for Eddie to keep equating that train of thought with Steve, though. Despite the mean girl vibe, he just felt too…genuine? There were split-second moments on livestreams or videos fans would take of their interactions with him where it all seemed like an act. It came across as a character that he was glad to drop for the sake of an unfeigned moment. It wasn’t like Steve needed the money that came along with all on the #sponcon that he posted across his various platforms. He could sit happily in the penthouse of one of his family’s hotels in any continent he chose and still never have to even consider checking the balance on his credit card.

So why wasn’t he? That was something Eddie couldn’t figure out. Maybe Steve really was just an attention loving spoilt brat with nothing better to do than watch TikTok edits about himself (Where was that when they played Steve’s episode of Who The Fuck Is That Guy?!). What Eddie wouldn’t give to get a good look at that damn bookcase that was always in the background when Steve walked through his place with on a livestream, or that guitar on the wall, to see if they were even real. Who knows, they might just be elaborate cardboard cut-outs dotted around by an interior designer with an idea to make an airhead heir seem cultured.

Eddie chewed his fingernails, half expecting to see a google alert pop up on his phone that Hotel Heir Stephen Harrington Has Been Admitted To Hospital With Suspected Alcohol Poisoning. That was how Amy Winehouse died, right? She was sober for a while and then her body couldn’t take it when she started drinking again. Whatever else Steve was on wouldn’t help either. Fuck. Eddie rubbed his eyes and cursed himself for leaving Robin to deal with him alone, no matter how practised she insisted she was. Suddenly hearing the words Indiana Boy coming out of Steve’s mouth seemed like a very small problem to have.

Eddie shook his head. Not my problem… he told himself over and over again. Not someone he knew, not someone he had any obligation to, not someone he cared about.

Besides, Steve had a good support system. He didn’t need Eddie sitting around thinking about they why’s or wherefores of his life. Robin and his manager were there to keep his head screwed on. But he still found himself wondering why they were letting Tommy run rings around Steve. All the articles about their relationship painted it as nothing short of toxic, with more words written about them fighting than about anything else. Plus in Eddie’s experience happy couples at least had a hint of each other on their social media pages. Obviously there was a chance that Steve was actually holding something back from the public eye, but it didn’t seem likely, not with everything else out there on display. Eddie had watched Steve trim his nose hair on a stream a few days ago, for christs sake.

Eddie left the bar without even finishing his drink. He clicked into a couple of the notifications for @theharringtonhair’s Instagram updates. He found himself scanning the background of Steve’s stories to see if he could be seen, and screenshotted a few to zoom in on and check in the morning. In his mind he called it ‘research’ for a new phone he didn’t need, to see what the camera was like on the handset Steve had. Eddie eventually put his phone down, deciding to watch the rest of Steve’s stories when he was back home tomorrow. He spent hours tossing and turning in the unfamiliar hotel bed until, just after dawn, sleep finally crept in.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Eddie woke up to thumping on his hotel room door. He checked his phone, worried he’d overslept and Gareth was waking him up to check-out, but it was barely 8am. He’d been asleep for just over two hours. He tried to ignore it, figuring it was someone who got the wrong room and would move on quickly, but when the banging continued he pulled a hoodie over his bare torso and stumbled across the room.

“Alright, alright!” called Eddie, rubbing his eyes as he pulled the door open. “What’s the fucking problem?”

Steve fucking Harrington was standing in the hallway. Eddie was suddenly wide awake. In a pair of honest to goodness glasses, jeans and a soft grey shirt hanging open over a white top, he looked more casual than anything Eddie had ever seen of him before. His hair wasn’t even done. It looked nice, soft. Eddie kind of wanted to touch it. Steve still smelled vaguely of lavender and bergamot.

“Uh…Hey?” started Eddie, very aware that while he had a hoodie on top, he was still very much in just his boxers. He didn’t wear sweats to bed in summer, sue him. “What’s up–“

Steve slapped him so hard across his face that Eddie’s neck cracked with the force of his head being turned so quickly.

“What the fuckkkkk…..” Eddie breathed, his face stinging.

Steve pushed him into the room and slammed the door behind them. So, this was how Steve reacted to the @indiana_boy thing. He was going to beat the shit out of him, and judging by the weight behind that slap Eddie wouldn’t be able to stop it from happening. He had to admit, this was an Option D that he never saw coming.

“Thought it was funny, huh?” hissed Steve. “Got a real rise of seeing me like that?”

“What are you talking about?” asked Eddie, still stumbling backwards. He brushed his fingers over his face and thought that it would definitely bruise.

Steve took a step closer and pointed a finger right in Eddie’s face. The dark circles under his eyes were deep set and rimmed with puce.

“You’re pathetic, you hear me?” Steve was practically growling. “You’re nothing. I’m a fucking rockstar, I’m a force of god damn nature and you’re nothing,”

Steve pushed Eddie again, walking them both across the room until Eddie’s back hit the wall. Steve held his hands against Eddie’s arms, effectively pinning shoulders back.

“I get it, I get it,” said Eddie, his voice shaking with his hands up in surrender. He hadn’t been beaten up since he was in high school, he didn’t want to break that streak now. “I’m sorry, ok? I’m sorry, I–”

“Whatever fucking videos or, or, photos, or whatever you have from last night, you delete them right fucking now,” seethed Steve, cutting Eddie off. His face was red with anger. “I don’t need to see your shitty little podcast talking about How Steve Harrington Acts When He’s Had Too Much,”. Steve shifted his tone to mock Eddie’s voice.

Eddie was about to open his mouth to defend himself again but something wasn’t quite right.

“Videos, what…? No!” said Eddie quickly, Steve’s breathing was erratic now and Eddie was still sure he might get hit again any second. “I didn’t take any pictures of you!”

“Don’t lie to me!” snapped Steve. “All you streamer, fucking, oh I’m so cool I own a camera bros are all the same. Taking fucking sly pictures to boost their content. Now pick up your phone, open your gallery, and delete all of it,”

“Steve, I swear,” said Eddie, hoping his voice was steady enough to show how genuine he was being. “The only time my phone was even out of my pocket was when you had it after you pushed me over,”

Steve’s posture softened the barest amount as his eyes searched Eddie’s face.

“What do you mean, I pushed you over?” asked Steve. His lip was still curled in a snarl. “Why did I have your phone?”

Eddie took a breath.

“What… What do you remember from last night?” asked Eddie.

Steve looked him up and down, hands falling to his side.

“I remember you,” he said. Eddie’s breath caught in his throat. “Why did I take your phone away from you?”

“You didn’t,” sighed Eddie. “Not on purpose anyway. You were running in the hallway and I came out of the bathroom after…” Fuck. If Steve didn’t remember much of the night should he mention Tommy? “After washing my hands, and I guess I was in your way. My phone fell out of my pocket and you grabbed it, you thought it was yours,”

“Oh,” said Steve simply. His chest was still rising and falling quickly but his expression started to relax.

“Yeah,” breathed Eddie. “I didn’t take any pictures of you. Your assistant called and you asked me to help you up to your room and that was all,”

Steve chewed the inside of his cheek. Eddie was standing stock-still against the wall.

“You had too many notifications,” said Steve quietly, looking around them as he reached for the memory. His eyes rested on Eddie’s phone on the desk. “I told you to clear them…”

“Fans commenting on the previews Chrissy posted for the red carpet from last night,” Eddie blurted out. If Steve didn’t remember enough to remember @indiana_boy then he wasn’t about to let him think hard enough about it.

Steve hummed, eyes squinting a little at the phone. He hadn’t moved back enough to allow Eddie away from the wall. He looked back to Eddie again, staring at the red mark blossoming on his cheek.

“Fuck, I shouldn’t have hit you,” said Steve, crowding into Eddie’s space again to check the damage. He lifted a hand to cup his chin as he examined his face.

The feeling of Steve’s fingertips on his jaw was going straight to Eddie’s dick and please god no he didn’t need to get hard right now. It was like the elevator all over again. At least they were both sober this time though.

Steve’s brow furrowed.

“You called me sweetheart,” he mumbled, swaying forward and closing the gap between their bodies. “No one ever calls me that,”

Eddie swallowed hard. Steve being pressed against his chest twice in twelve hours wasn’t exactly something he had expected and now he definitely wouldn’t be able to hide it if he got hard.

“You asked me to say it again too,” said Eddie, trying to stay casual. He took a moment to notice that actually, Steve’s moles were in fact the real deal and not just dotted on with make-up. They looked like a map of exotic islands in a warm sea. Eddie wanted to trace a trail between them with his tongue and see if each one tasted the same as the last.

“Don’t,” said Steve, shaking his head slightly. He wasn’t quite making eye contact. “Don’t call me that again,”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll eat you alive,” said Steve with a small self-deprecating smirk.

“I think… I’d let you,” said Eddie, breathless.

Steve was pushing himself against Eddie with purpose now. His big doe eyes locked onto Eddie’s and now that they were, he wouldn’t look away. Steve stared at him, his mouth slightly open, with an expression that he couldn’t figure out. Half surpassed, half confused. Eddie thought he looked beautiful, no matter what it was. Steve rocked his hips forward into Eddie’s, the denim of his jeans catching on Eddie’s boxers.

It took a second for Eddie to realise that Steve was hard now too. What the fuck was happening?

“Don’t say that,” whispered Steve, looking down at Eddie’s mouth. “You don’t even know me,”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Eddie, matching Steve’s tone.

Steve’s hands rested on Eddie’s biceps again, pinning him against the wall once more.

“Why did you help me?” asked Steve earnestly. Eddie could smell his bubble gum from this close.

“Because you asked me to?” said Eddie, like it was obvious. “You couldn’t even stand, I wasn’t going to just leave you, you couldn’t walk,”

Steve leaned back a bit. It was almost like he was shocked.

“You don’t even know me,” he repeated.

“So?” asked Eddie.

Steve let out a small noise from low in his throat. He rolled his hips forward again and Eddie’s eyes fluttered closed. Eddie felt Steve’s hot breath against his mouth.

“Say it again…” he heard Steve say, barely above a breath.

“Say what?” asked Eddie, eyes still closed. “That you can eat me alive and I’ll let you? Or that it doesn’t matter that I don’t know you?”

Steve’s nose brushed Eddie’s cheek.

“Or maybe,” said Eddie with a gulp. “You just want to hear me call you my sweetheart again,”

“That one,” said Steve into Eddie’s mouth. “Again, just like that,”

Steve moved from Eddie’s mouth down to his neck. He teased his fingers into the neck of Eddie’s hoodie, shifting it to the side so he could lick at the skin. Steve bit down on the side of Eddie’s throat and sucked around the flesh he held between his teeth.

“Anything you want, sweetheart…” said Eddie, feeling the breath whoosh out of his body as Steve pressed impossibly closer to him. His hands were moving slowly down Eddie’s sides, settling on his waist, holding them both close enough to feel the other’s heartbeat through their clothes.

But then Eddie’s phone pinged, and the spell was broken.

Steve jumped backwards as Eddie’s eyes snapped open and he look over to the desk at his phone, screen lit up by a text from Gareth.

Gareth 8:24am

Why’d you split last night?

For real, I mean

You got lucky, right?

Tell me everything

It sat right on top of the twenty or so notifications from Steve’s Instagram. Eddie moved quickly to snatch the phone up and shove it into his pocket, hoping that sober Steve hadn’t gotten a chance to discover his little alias all over again. When Eddie looked over to Steve again, he was staring at the pocket that the phone was in with a furrowed brow, but he said nothing. Eddie let himself relax a little. He didn’t see it. He can’t have, not from that angle.

“Do you want…” started Eddie, but another ringtone cut him off.

Steve lifted his phone from the back pocket of his jeans and watched it ring until the noise stopped.

“I should go,” he told Eddie quietly, still watching the screen. “I have to… I’ve got a meeting to go to, Tommys asking where I am,”

Steve looked physically smaller as he spoke, somehow. His shoulders fell forward and his chin dipped and he turned towards the door. Eddie wanted to grab him and pull him back and call him sweetheart all over again until they were both seeing stars, but Steve was already opening the door and letting it slam closed behind him. Eddie ran to yank it back open.

“Steve!” he called after him.

Steve stopped, looking back over his shoulder as he pressed the button for the elevator.

“You don’t… You can stay here, if you want,” tried Eddie, keeping one foot in the doorframe to stop himself from being locked out.

Steve looked like he was about to laugh.

“What for?” he said. “So you can text all your little friends to tell them about it while I’m still in the same room?”

Eddie gulped.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said. “Just thought…”

“Thought what?” mocked Steve, looking more like his online persona now that they were out of the bubble of the room. “I should never have come here, consider it a mistake,”

Eddie narrowed his eyes.

“A mistake?” he asked.

“You heard me,” said Steve coolly. “Should never have bothered, a letter from my lawyer would have been easier. Sorry for interrupting your morning, I guess,”

Steve waved a hand to dismiss Eddie, effectively trying to shoo him away.

“You know what? Fine,” huffed Eddie, rolling his eyes. “You ever want to spend an hour with someone who won’t, what was it you said? Take sly photos of you? Yeah, you ever want some time away from that, you let me know,”

“Whatever, man,” mumbled Steve. “Hope you had fun last night,”

“What? This is exactly why I don’t understand people like you,” shot Eddie. “It’s like you’re talking a different language. At least I’d be more interested in you than all the people around you if I had the chance to be,”

The elevator slid open in front of Steve. He hesitated for a second and Eddie thought he might actually turn around. He even looked over at him properly, sighing and making the briefest eye contact.

“You wouldn’t like it,” said Steve, before he stepped inside.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Eddie pushed his headphones back off his ears as he clicked the button to end his stream. They were a pair he was wearing just for fun. Black with rainbow light up cat ears. They were a gift from a streamer called Finnster after the whole Joe Rogan Leftie Femboy incident, so he wore them with pride.

He was also wearing a scarf to cover up the giant hickie Steve had left on him before he bolted from the hotel three days ago. Whenever any viewers asked about it he just said he was getting a sore throat and was keeping it warm. It seemed to work.

It was a little unusual that he went live on Twitch on a day that he hadn’t recorded with Chrissy and Gareth, he was never in the right headspace without already having sat in front of a mic for a few hours. He couldn’t stop thinking about Steve Harrington’s mouth on his fucking neck and his dick against his god damn thigh so it seemed like a good idea to distract himself with something mindless. He was playing through an old PC game called Myst, which, ok, wasn’t exactly mindless, while his subscribers laughed at how bad he was. It was listed as like, one of the most difficult riddle games of all time though, so who could blame him for not knowing what the stupid lever in the stupid library was for.

Eddie settled back in his chair and checked his phone, flipping off the Do Not Disturb and letting any missed notifications come through. Steve’s Instagram had been quieter than usual since the awards, with maybe half the amount of daily stories, but he still went live each night before bed. Steve wasn’t live yet, but Eddie knew he would be soon. He watched through the stories, smiling to himself at a black and white shot of Steve sucking food off his finger. He screenshotted that one and added it to the ‘Hidden’ folder in his gallery. It was full of pictures like that from Steve’s stories and streams. It wasn’t like he was jerking off to them or anything, he just thought they were cute. Sometimes he looked through them and imagined he was the one that had taken them, and what they might have been talking about in the meantime. Eddie looked at the black and white one again and thought that maybe they would have been discussing the movie they saw before they went to dinner. The new Scream or something. They would have both loved it, and talked about it for hours.

Eddie sighed, checked his @EddieMPod account for any important messages, and pocketed his phone, deciding to make himself some dinner while he watched Steve’s stream. He went to the kitchen and propped his phone against the toaster before busying himself with chopping whatever vegetables were looking a little mushy in the bottom of his fridge. They’d be fine with pasta, he supposed. He leaned over and tapped into the Instagram app again, typing Steve’s username into the search bar. His profile picture was now lit up with the LIVE icon so Eddie clicked into the stream. He turned to fill a pot with water while Steve’s voice filled the room.

“Oh yeah… I do see it… That is pretty funny I guess…”

· @Hairington: omg is that for real???

· @BetsyBeauty: SCREAMINGGGGGG

· @harringtonbrazilfan: 👀👀👀👀

· @Annmarie McKlay: is he going to say anything????

Eddie scrolled up through some comments to try figure out what had happened but there were too many just saying oh my god to figure it out. He shrugged and went back to boiling his pasta.

Steve let out a heavy sigh and gave a dramatic eye roll.

“Anyway, you guys… I still need to figure out my outfit for this event next week… It’s outside so I’ll need to stay warm…”

Steve reached into a nearby drawer and held up two scarves. They were both pretty non-descript, plain black, not unlike the one that Eddie had shrugged off and left by his computer.

· @cassie: left!

· @mikeymc: left for sure

· @sarahstagram: right looks warmer!

Eddie typed a quick comment.

· @EddieMPod: you’ll look good either way 😍

Oh…

…No.

Eddie froze. So that’s what everyone was reacting to when he joined. He didn’t notice because he was too distracted by his fucking vegetables. He forgot to switch back to @indiana_boy before he went onto Steve’s profile. He stared at the screen as comments flew in so fast they were blurred. Eddie’s stomach felt like it was about to drop out through his ass and Steve had definitely seen it because he was obviously trying to hold back a laugh as he spoke.

“Oh my god you guys… What happened… Did I miss something…?”

That bastard. Eddie fumbled with the phone getting tomato paste covered fingerprints all over it when he left the stream as fast as he could. He flipped to the other profile, checking that he was on the right one thoroughly before he rejoined.

Steve was leaning towards his phone now, clearly scrolling up through the chat.

“Guess he left, you guys… Shame… But at least he liked my scarves…”

Steve threw the scarves behind him dramatically.

“Someone like him doesn’t speak my language anyway… He’d never understand what we’re talking about here, right guys…?”

Fuck.

The comments were still lit up with Eddie’s name. The notification bar at the top of his phone was signalling him being tagged in tweet after tweet of screenshots taken of his addition to the conversation. He rested his elbows on the kitchen counter and held his head in his hands. Figures that after a near miss with Steve finding out about, and then forgetting, @indiana_boy that Eddie would find a way to humiliate himself anyway. He didn’t know how he could have been so careless after so long of being so on top of not being found out.

· @bigbraintime: that was SososososoOoOoO funny omg

· @suziepoozie: Can’t wait to hear him deny it on his podcast!

· @JCrew17: Steve have you seen the boyfriend does my makeup trend?? You and tommy should do it!

Steve made a face at the camera and laughed.

“Ew, no… I don’t do trends like that… I would never trust anyone that wasn’t on my glam squad to do my makeup… Especially not Tommy… Gross…”

Eddie watched the rest of the stream, double checking every five minutes or so, that he was on the right account. He was also ignoring the many messages from both Gareth and Chrissy making fun of him for his comment and desperately trying to find out if the screenshots were real or photoshop.

Steve finished up at around two in the morning and Eddie was lying in bed with his phone resting on the pillow next to him. He was tired now, and had just been listening to the familiar sounds of Steve’s night time skincare routine. There was a new step tonight and Eddie lifted himself up onto his elbow to watch as a cotton swab dipped in extra strength retinol was swiped over the beginnings of a zit. Eddie couldn’t see it, but Steve was swearing to the viewers that it was there.

The stream ended and Eddie swiped the app closed, already half asleep. He was just about to drift off when his phone buzzed. The screen hadn’t even gone dark yet. He groaned and raised his head, squinting through one half opened eye against the bright light. It was a message on Instagram. It was from Steve. He suddenly wasn’t tired anymore.

@theharringtonhair:

You know…

@theharringtonhair:

I didn’t have you down as a fan

Eddie’s mouth was dry.

@EddieMPod:

im not

@theharringtonhair:

Could’ve fooled me.

@theharringtonhair:

Glad you liked my scarves.

@theharringtonhair:

Wouldn’t want to lose my voice.

@theharringtonhair:

Think they’ll keep me warm enough?

Eddie sat up and actually looked around the room, making sure he wasn’t about to have Ashton Kutcher and the rest of the Punk’d crew burst out of his closet.

@EddieMPod:

uh. sure?

@theharringtonhair:

Why are you still awake?

@EddieMPod:

working on a script for the pod.

@EddieMPod:

you?

Eddie was lying out his ass as if he hadn’t just watched Steve floss for fifteen minutes.

@theharringtonhair:

Liar.

Shit.

@EddieMPod:

what?

@EddieMPod:

why?

@theharringtonhair:

What’s the script say?

@theharringtonhair:

Show me?

@theharringtonhair:

Curious what your handwriting is like.

Eddie thought quickly of a cover story.

@EddieMPod:

i write on my computer

@EddieMPod:

just shut it down

@EddieMPod:

sorry

@theharringtonhair:

So write something now then

@theharringtonhair:

To show me.

@theharringtonhair:

🙄

Eddie snorted, navigating to the Freeform app on his phone. He quickly wrote ‘Do you always act so spoiled?’ on the screen and snapped a screenshot before sending it to Steve.

@theharringtonhair:

Cute

@theharringtonhair:

And yes.

@theharringtonhair:

I’m pretty used to getting what I want

Oh.

@EddieMPod:

oh

@theharringtonhair:

How much of the stream did you watch?

@EddieMPod:

not much

@theharringtonhair:

😂

@EddieMPod:

what?

@theharringtonhair:

Nothing

@theharringtonhair:

How much did you see?

Eddie bit his lip, trying to remember what had and hadn’t been said before he left.

@EddieMPod:

not much

@EddieMPod:

like i said.

@theharringtonhair:

You stream on Twitch right?

@theharringtonhair:

What’s that like?

Hmm. Eddie must’ve mentioned it on one of the podcasts where they talked about Steve. He’d already admitted to seeing the ones where his name was mentioned.

@EddieMPod:

its fun

@EddieMPod:

i play video games

@EddieMPod:

dont talk much

@theharringtonhair:

Not super different to what I do then

Eddie let out a noise of offence.

@EddieMPod:

absolutely not

@EddieMPod:

i have a real job and thats a part of it

@EddieMPod:

and i definitely dont make as much money as u do

@theharringtonhair:

Looks pretty similar to me

@theharringtonhair:

Maybe I should get some cat ear headphones and start my own channel

@EddieMPod:

twitch would eat you alive

Eddie bit his tongue when he realised what he said. It was an echo of what Steve had told him in the hotel. His stomach twisted while he waited for a reply.

@theharringtonhair:

Would you let them?

Jesus christ.

@EddieMPod:

not my job to protect u

@theharringtonhair:

Awh 😭

@EddieMPod

🤷🏻

@theharringtonhair:

You never answered me

@theharringtonhair:

How much of my stream did you watch?

@EddieMPod:

i told u

@EddieMPod:

not much

@theharringtonhair:

Yeah but how much?

Eddie sighed.

@EddieMPod

enough to know u don’t trust ur boyfriend

@theharringtonhair:

🙄

@theharringtonhair:

It was a figure of speech

@theharringtonhair:

Thought you’d left by then

@theharringtonhair:

Guess not

And fuck it all anyway, because he had left by then, hadn’t he? Well, @EddieMPod had left, but @indiana_boy was watching.

@EddieMPod:

figure of speech

@EddieMPod:

right

@EddieMPod:

cause i remember u going kind of crazy over the idea of streamers putting their cameras in ur face without permission

@EddieMPod:

but not him right?

The little green dot beside Steve’s name went dark after the word ‘seen’ came up under his last message. Eddie cursed out loud, admonishing himself for not being able to just enjoy actually talking to Steve for longer than five minutes without ruining it. Eddie dropped his phone onto his chest and thunked his head back against the pillow.

His phone buzzed again a few minutes later.

@theharringtonhair:

I thought we could maybe be friends since you helped me back to my room

@theharringtonhair:

Even if you took someone else home

@theharringtonhair:

You seemed nice

@theharringtonhair:

But whatever

@theharringtonhair:

If you’re going to bring up stuff that’s none of your business then forget about it

Eddie ran a hand over his face, watching the three dots in the corner of his screen appear and disappear over and over again, but another message never came and the dots went away entirely.

@EddieMPod:

i didnt take anyone home

@EddieMPod:

u were literally in my room three seconds after i woke up

@EddieMPod:

dont know where u got that idea

No response, but the green dot remained.

@EddieMPod

sorry for what i said

@EddieMPod:

not my place

@theharringtonhair:

You’re right, it’s not

Eddie ran his fingertips over the bruise on his neck, pressing in ever so slightly.

@EddieMPod:

did u really want to be my friend?

@theharringtonhair:

Not if you can’t keep your opinions to yourself

@EddieMPod:

fair

@EddieMPod:

ill try to though

@theharringtonhair:

See? I knew you were nice

@theharringtonhair:

I’m telling all my friends

Eddie laughed.

@EddieMPod:

u wouldnt dare

@theharringtonhair:

Guess you’ll just have to keep being nice to me

@theharringtonhair:

Or I’ll tell everyone

@EddieMPod:

Deal

@theharringtonhair:

😄

@EddieMPod:

im going to sleep

@EddieMPod:

some of us have work to do in the mornings

@theharringtonhair:

That’s not nice.

@theharringtonhair:

Dialling Mikayala’s number rn

@EddieMPod:

who?

@EddieMPod:

nevermind I don’t care

@theharringtonhair:

It’s ringing…

Eddie couldn't help but laugh at how cute Steve was being.

@EddieMPod:

dont be a brat

@EddieMPod:

u are not calling anyone

@EddieMPod:

goodnight steve

@theharringtonhair:

Goodnight x

Chapter Text

@theharringtonhair:

Look! It’s you!

@theharringtonhair

😄

Being friends with Steve Harrington was like having a neighbour that was genuinely quite nice but seemed to spend most of their time insulting your rose bushes. Case and point, this message that had a picture of an overflowing trashcan attached. This was third time this week Steve had compared Eddie to various dumpsters or piles of garbage. There was even a big rat once, that Steve had seen in New York when he went to film an interview for some online magazine. Eddie bit down a smile. He was in the studio, Chrissy doing some final checks in her booth before they turned their phones off and their mics on.

@EddieMPod:

maybe one day u can compare me to something nice

@theharringtonhair:

Why?

@theharringtonhair:

You’re not nice?

EddieMPod:

i am to u

@theharringtonhair:

Fine

@theharringtonhair:

Here. It’s you.

Steve attached two pictures of himself holding a tiny fluffy golden haired dog. Eddie hadn’t seen them before so maybe they were never posted online? Steve looked younger by a couple of years, his hair was a little shorter and his style was less refined. He was holding a champagne flute despite being in a trucker hat and t-shirt though so there was no doubting that he was still the same old Steve. It was an objectively cute set of pictures, he was even throwing up a little peace sign in one of them. Eddie tried not to read too much into the way the dog was being cuddled.

@EddieMPod:

i look nothing like that thing

@theharringtonhair:

🙄

@theharringtonhair:

Big brown eyes and all that hair?

@theharringtonhair:

Twins tbh

Eddie did laugh at that, butterflies flittering around his stomach at the mention of his eyes. Gareth looked up at him suspiciously but eventually went back to checking his notes. Eddie pulled at the collar of his hoodie. It wasn’t the ideal time of year to be wearing one so big but the bruise on his neck was still shining bright, even though it was almost two weeks now since the morning in the hotel. He tried to figure out how to cover it with makeup, even asking Steve’s advice one night and getting nothing but a string of laughing emojis in return. Eventually the hoodie was the easiest and fastest option.

Steve and Eddie had been chating back and forward over Instagram DMs almost constantly, barely brushing the line between flirting and joking, despite the fact they still weren’t even following each other. Daytime messages were much the same as the ones Eddie was currently reading. Some light hearted insults and jokes, nothing more than a few sentences at a time, and then one or both of them had to focus on something else until they could pick up their phone again. At night though, usually in the early hours of the mornings after Steve’s livestreams, they would talk for a few hours at a time about their days, as if they hadn’t been in touch for most of it anyway. Eddie would tell Steve all about his plans for the next episode of the podcast or about Chrissy’s plans to get them on more red carpets. Steve would tell Eddie about people he met at interviews and all about other influencers or brands who reached out for collabs. It was easy to talk to Steve and replies never took more than a minute. It just flowed. He really liked listening to Steve talk about Robin too, and his manager Nancy. They were actually friends despite the fact they worked for him, which was something Eddie didn’t think really existed in modern showbusiness. Most nights Eddie almost thought if they were talking on the phone, he’d be winding the cord around his finger.

Steve dropped names all over the place and Eddie found himself googling half of them for context. He’d mentioned ‘Mikayala’ a few more times since their first conversation, and Eddie found out that he did actually know her. She had been a target on Who The Fuck Is That Guy? a few months ago. Eddie was delighted when Gareth played a recording of her crying because she had to work past five in the afternoon, it was one of his favourite episodes. The reason Eddie even recognised her was because Mikayala was the only person, except for Steve now, he guessed, to totally ignore it. No long, rambling response video, no cease and desist, no nothing. Her comments were flooded with people begging her to address it for about a week but she never did. Eddie actually watched a handful of her videos and yeah, it made sense that she and Steve were friends. Both were dripping in trivial scandals that had no bearing on the real world and had an impressive ability to move right on past them. He even ended up liking her a little bit. Learned a lot about hiding dark circles, actually.

It all stayed fairly superficial in nature. They never quite scratched the surface of a real conversation. Eddie hadn’t asked about Steve’s guitar no matter how much he wanted to, or about anything else. Because as Eddie had to keep reminding himself, Steve had a boyfriend. Tommy Hagan was the one who got to hold him close at night time. He got to trace his hands over the moles on Steve’s neck and kiss those plush lips that probably tasted like fruity chapstick. The thought of it drove Eddie wild. Sure, he was jealous, but Tommy just seemed so…undeserving. Eddie kept his promise of keeping his opinions on the matter to himself, but whenever Tommy’s face popped up on his TikTok For You page, he was always so obnoxious. He’d almost thought it was an act until the night of the MTV Awards, but in Eddie’s opinion someone using the phrase It Was A Prank, Bro unironically is a pretty solid indicator of being a scumbag. Eddie even caught a glimpse at just how much Steve hated having Tommy’s camera pointed at him without permission when he scrolled passed one of Tommy’s livestreams. Thank god for TikTok showing a preview without needing to click into them, right? He was trying to get Steve to talk about how great their previous night at Logan Paul’s party had been, but was met with absolute silence.

“Guess he’s on his period,” Tommy had joked, sticking his tongue out at the camera after Steve physically pushed him out of the bedroom and slammed the door behind him.

@EddieMPod:

whatever u say

@EddieMPod:

i gotta go work for a living

@EddieMPod:

catch u later

@theharringtonhair:

Have fun!

@theharringtonhair:

Don’t talk about me too much 🥰

Eddie rolled his eyes and switched his phone off as Chrissy took her place in her booth.

“Why are you dressed like that?” asked Gareth, gesturing towards his hoodie. “You look like you’re dying over there,”

Eddie took a long sip of his drink, the pumpkin spice foam abomination that he was now having four times a week. The baristas knew his name at this point.

“Really?” asked Eddie, shifting it around again to try at least expose some skin on his lower back so the air from the fan would hit it. “Guess I’m just not feeling the heat today,”

He absolutely was, and the beads of sweat sliding down his back were proof.

The ‘Recording’ light lit up, and they slipped into their On Air personas for the next few hours.

“Now, we usually play Who The Fuck Is That Guy? at this point,” sighed Gareth into his microphone as they drew to a close. “But Chrissy’s still not done sorting through all the new threats from lawyers after the MTV Awards,”

Eddie leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, smiling wide and giving a smug wink to his camera. The footage of him on the red carpet had been their third most successful episode yet, with the first mention of Steve Harrington being ahead of it in second place. Most popular by far was the episode they recorded the day they brought Chrissy to get her wisdom teeth out and filmed the whole thing. Gareth fainting in the dentist’s office trended on twitter for two weeks.

“What can I say?” he said, shrugging. “I’m a force of nature,”

He smiled to himself as Gareth rolled his eyes, only realising afterwards that he’d borrowed Steve’s description of himself.

“So since we can’t take any risks,” continued Gareth. “We’re just going to react to some TMZ articles instead this week,”

“What if there’s an article about someone who sent a letter?” asked Eddie, frowning as he subtly lifted his hair off his neck to let it feel some cold air.

Gareth pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows, looking back through the window of the producer booth at Chrissy. She hadn’t thought that one through either judging by the look on her face.

“Uhhhh ok how about this,” said Gareth slowly. “We keep going and before this goes up I’ll help Chris go through the letters to see what we need to cut out because that’s my bad, I should’ve thought that one through,”

Eddie laughed and rubbed his hands over his face.

“Ok, hit me, what’s up first?” he said, waiting for Gareth to turn his screen around.

They discussed someone called Blac Chyna having her facial fillers removed (“Ground breaking,” Eddie sneered) and Chrissy tried her best to explain the Vanderpump Rules cheating scandal to the boys, who looked like they were hearing the Microsoft shut down noise the whole time.

“Last up!” said Gareth, spinning his screen around to Eddie for the final time. “It’s your favourite influencer, who would look great in any scarf!”

Eddie sighed as Gareth mocked him. He shouldn’t have been surprised that Steve’s name was being brought up, they could nearly credit him as a recurring character at this stage. Eddie had decided not to tell either of his co-hosts about their new friendship, not even mentioning their meeting in the hotel. They saw the videos of him and Tommy getting in each other’s faces, sure, but as far as they, or anyone else was concerned, that was the moment Eddie went home.

“Jesus, you make fun of a guy on your own time once and people lose their minds,” Eddie mumbled, leaning in to read what was on the screen, feeling more sweat trickle down his stomach.

Harrington Hotel Heir: Trouble In Paradise? Wouldn’t Be The First Time!

Photos emerged this week of influencer Stephen Harrington, 26, and his on/off boyfriend, Youtuber Tommy Hagan, 25, having what looks to be a heated discussion outside a restaurant in Palm Springs.

Witnesses tell us that the pair arrived separately to Copley’s On Palm Canyon just before 8pm Sunday night to meet friends, but Harrington was overheard saying he was unhappy with the people in attendance.

“Steve doesn’t like any of Tommy’s friends,” a source close to the couple tells us. “He’s paranoid about keeping his image perfect but everyone already knows he’s had issues in the past. We all keep telling him it’s pointless to care about it anymore,”

Sounds like Harrington’s inner circle might think he’s overreacting, but our advice after seeing these pictures, and these, and these, and these, and these  ones   too, is that maybe Steve needs to find better friends. We’re bored of seeing this guy cry!

Eddie frowned as he read through the article and resisted the urge to ask Gareth to click the six other links to apparently similar articles, jesus fucking christ. Steve mentioned being in Palm Springs three days ago but he never said anything about a fight. He didn’t stream that night, Eddie supposed this was obviously why. Eddie tried to remember if Steve attached a song to any of his Instagram stories the morning after, but he came up blank. Was Creep by Radiohead the day before? Or the next night? The pictures of Steve crying were making Eddie’s stomach twist. Both he and Tommy were clearly waving their arms around and leaning in to each other while they argued. One photo in particular, of Steve with his hands on his chest and looking like he was pleading, really made Eddie’s chest burn. In the back of his mind he thought that maybe one day he’d bring Steve back to Copley’s, just the two of them. TMZ wouldn’t even know they were there.

“Thoughts, comments, questions, concerns?” asked Gareth, readjusting his headphones. “What’s that Tommy guy like in real life anyway?”

“Did you really hit him?” asked Chrissy. “Twitter is dying to know,”

Eddie glared at her and took a deep breath through his nose.

“Back in your cage, Cunningham,” he said, spinning around to face her. “You know damn well I didn’t touch him. Too much like hitting a kid. He’s…Hang on,”

Eddie took off his headphones and pulled his hoodie over his head. He moaned softly at the feeling of the cool air now that he was down to a t-shirt before getting himself situated in front of his mic again.

“He’s what happens when a parent doesn’t get say ‘No’ enough,” he said, picking up the iced coffee he’d insisted they get on UberEats a little while ago before he passed out from the heat.

Being so focused on Steve’s face covered in tears, it was easy for Eddie to miss the way Gareth’s eyes widened and his smile grew.

“Have we ever seen anything about him where he’s not attached to Steve’s hip, or does he need the publicity that bad?” asked Eddie rhetorically. “If even TM-fucking-Z are telling you that your boyfriend is trash, you should probably listen,”

Eddie finished with a flourish of his cup before putting it back on his desk. Gareth was still staring, looking like the cat who got the cream.

“You did get lucky after the MTV awards, didn’t you?” asked Gareth through a broad grin.

“What are you talking about?” countered Eddie, eyes flicking over to Chrissy who was giggling into her hands.

Gareth leaned his elbows on the table and rested his chin into his hands.

“Where’d the hickie come from, Eds?” he crooned.

Oh fuck. He hadn’t even thought about it when he took the hoodie off. He was too focused on not dying of heat stroke.

“No one you know,” said Eddie quickly, hoping to god he was wearing a neutral poker face. “No one anyone knows,”

“That sounds like a lie,” said Chrissy through the speaker.

“A big one,” said Gareth, still smiling.

“I own the majority of this company,” snapped Eddie playfully, a smile tugging at the sides of his mouth while he pointed a finger at both of them. “Remember that when you get your next paycheck,”

Chrissy threw her head back and cackled, almost falling off her chair, while Gareth sat up straight and put on a comically serious facial expression.

“Yes sir, of course sir,” said Gareth in a fake deep voice. “No further insubordinations, sir,”

“It’s no one you know,” repeated Eddie, giving in and letting himself laugh. “It’s not like it was some rockstar or something,”

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Of course the conversation about Eddie’s neck was the clip that Chrissy sent him later in the week to post to his social media pages to promote the upcoming episode.

@EddieMPod:

ur not subtle

@callmechrissy:

I’m not trying to be?

@EddieMPod:

im not telling u who it was

@callmechrissy:

I know

@callmechrissy:

I’m hoping he outs himself in the comments

Eddie rolled his eyes and posted the clip. Steve would absolutely not be outing himself in the comments of the post, or the podcast itself. About an hour later, Steve DMed him. Eddie was surprised that it was a direct reply to the clip on his story.

@theharringtonhair:

Rude.

Eddie raised his eyebrows.

@EddieMPod:

watch my stories often?

@theharringtonhair:

Don’t let it go to your head

Eddie clicked into his stories and checked the Viewed By list. It wasn’t something he usually did because frankly he didn’t care. He usually only posted memes and the occasional reminder to register to vote anyway, sometimes a fit check if he was feeling particularly good that day. Sure enough, Steve’s name was there on every single post he’d made in the last twenty-four hours. Eddie searched for @theharringtonhair on his following list but it was still missing. Which meant Steve had to actively navigate to his profile several times a day. That, or he had post notifications on for anything @EddieMPod posted, just like @indiana_boy did for him. Eddie tried not to think too hard about what that meant. Could mean. Absolutely didn’t mean. Fuck. Maybe it did? He thought back to the pictures of Steve in tears in Palm Springs, and in six other cities after he’d gone back to check the other links in the TMZ article too. Steve was right, Eddie really didn’t speak his language because he couldn’t figure this out at all.

@EddieMPod:

thought u were busy all day today

@theharringtonhair:

I am, took a smoke break

@theharringtonhair:

I’ll text you tonight when I’m done streaming

@theharringtonhair:

If you’re still awake?

@theharringtonhair:

I’m sure you will be

@EddieMPod:

what times ur stream?

@theharringtonhair:

Like you don’t already know

@theharringtonhair:

Found you again btw

Eddie mentally prepared himself to be compared to another piece of rotting garbage as he opened the attached photo. He… Oh. This was different. This was…Oh. Eddie was looking at a photo of Steve standing in a store, cradling a grey bat plushie. It looked soft and fuzzy. Eddie was trying to figure out the insult behind it when Steve messaged again.

@theharringtonhair:

Like your tattoos, get it?

Eddie was momentarily frozen. He glanced down at his arm as if to confirm that yes he did have a flock of bats tattooed there.

@EddieMPod:

yeah, I get it

@EddieMPod:

i like it, very ozzy

@EddieMPod:

its cute

@theharringtonhair:

Thought so too

@theharringtonhair:

Txt you tonight!

@EddieMPod:

have a good day sweetheart

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Eddie decided to stream on twitch for most of the day after Steve sent him the picture of the bat plushie. The bat plushie that he’d agreed was cute. Was he calling Eddie cute? His brain was fried, so he sat at his desk and fired up his stream. He needed the distraction, and people had been begging him to play Myst more often anyway.

Eddie had started to hide the chat function when he played to avoid accidentally getting help from a viewer. He was determined to crack it by himself, even if the temptation to download a walkthrough guide was growing. He didn’t even realise it was almost midnight by the time he checked his watch, having been clicking on various burned books in a library for hours without figuring anything out. Honestly Eddie wasn’t even sure he’d solved a single puzzle yet. He started to wind down when he realised he was missing Steve’s stream, it was probably two hours in by now.

“Oh shit,” said Eddie, saving the game quickly. “Gotta go you guys… Uh, early morning meeting tomorrow. Thanks for watching, and tune in next time to see if I figure out the whole clocktower spinning around thing,”

Eddie quickly shut down his set-up and went to the kitchen where his iPad was on charge. Since the iPad never left the house, he’d decided it was safer to have @indiana_boy logged in there instead of on his phone to avoid any other mishaps. He started making his nightly green tea while he brought up Steve’s profile and clicked the ‘LIVE’ icon.

Steve was sitting back in his chair in the closet, like usual, but he had his arms crossed and was barely paying attention to the chat, instead focusing on his own iPad in his lap. Steve let out a huff and stared at the phone screen again, leaning over to tap at it a couple of times before checking his watch.

• @canispeak: has he been like this all night guys?
• @mikeymc: What’s wrong Steve 😭 Please tell us
• @stommyfan: Not all night, but most of it.
• @HarringtonBrazilFanbase: Come to Brazil! You’ll be happy here!

“I’m fine you guys…Just tired…Might cut off early….”

Eddie frowned, stirring some honey into his tea while he watched the comments try to figure out Steve’s bad mood.

• @indiana_boy: bad day?

Steve looked the iPad again and perked up, setting it down and checking the stream’s chat.

“My day was fine, thanks for asking…I’m sorry guys I guess I’m just a little restless…Been working a lot lately…Dealing with some stuff…”

• @michellemylove: did u and tommy break up again 😢
• @SarahFerg: Was Palm Springs the next Milan fight night???
• @ElsaWhite: tmz hates tommy confirmed
• @MoloYolo: Not as much as Eddie Munson hates Tommy 😂
• @LaverneLutzenberg: steve is it true eddy munson hit tommy???

Steve smiled and let out a small laugh, relaxing back into his usual self. Eddie popped the spoon into his mouth to suck the rest of the honey while his drink cooled, leaning a hip against the countertop.

“No…Eddie didn’t hit Tommy, I was right there, don’t believe any of what Tommy and his little…” Steve sighed and rolled his eyes, waving his hand dismissively. “…squad say about it…It never happened…I don’t wanna talk about Tommy right now though…”

• @tommyfan: omg did he just say Eddie’s name?
• @number1stevefan: You’ve met Eddie????
• @lovethehair: What does Tommy think of Eddie!!!!!

Steve leaned out of frame and when he sat back down he was holding something close to his chest. It was the bat plushie. He’d bought the cute bat plushie that reminded him of Eddie instead of just snapping the picture in the store and leaving it there. Oh god. That was… That was something, alright. Eddie watched, wide eyed, still holding the spoon on his tongue, as Steve snuggled it.

“You guys like my new friend here?...He’s cute, right?...His name’s Ozzy…”

Eddie was dreaming. He had to be. He touched the back of his hand to the hot cup in front of him to make sure.

“Ow! Motherfucker…” Eddie hissed. So he wasn’t dreaming. Steve was actually cuddling the bat while he was talking.

“I know Eddie, yeah…We’re friends…We talk a lot…”

Steve got a wicked glint in his eye and nuzzled into the bat while the comments flew in, demanding more details.

“What, I can’t have friends?...He’s a nice guy, not from LA though, right?....” His smile grew and his eyes narrowed. “Hmmm, yeah, I hear he’s an Indiana Boy…”

Eddie dropped to the ground and pressed into the front of the counter, hiding from the screen as if Steve could see him. That fucker. How the hell did he remember @indiana_boy ? He couldn’t remember anything from that night! Eddie leaned back in his crouched position, straining his neck to look up and catch a glimpse of the screen. Steve was yawning now, a big fake yawn that Eddie knew by now was an excuse to log off soon.

Three separate pings rang out on Eddie’s phone. He reached up and patted his hand around the surface to find it, still not willing to stand up again. The spoon was still in his mouth as he opened the first notification.

@callmechrissy:

You up?

@callmechrissy:

Check the pod email. It came in at 12:01 like it was queued up to send.

Eddie frowned at the message and opened his Outlook app, seeing immediately what Chrissy was talking about.

Tommy Hagan had sent them a cease & desist.

“Fuck…” Eddie breathed out, scrolling through the letter. It was the same template that every lawyer in California used so he was well used to how it was laid out, but he was scanning it for one thing in particular. Steve’s name. Thankfully, he didn’t find it, but that didn’t mean that Steve hadn’t been consulted on it. Eddie looked up over the edge of the counter again. Steve was chattering away about a new lipgloss he was trying, still clutching the bat. Was he messing with Eddie? It didn’t seem fair if he was. Maybe the reason he perked up earlier was Tommy texting him to say ‘hey, sent that c&d letter!’. Eddie slumped back down and checked his next message, a text from Gareth.

Gareth 12:04am:

Check your tiktok. Like right now.

Eddie pulled down on the screen to bring up the third and final notification, which sure enough…

TikTok: @TommyH mentioned you in a video!

What the fuck…

Eddie opened the video, which had been posted at 12:02am. Tommy was standing in front of a microphone, speaking into it like he was doing a podcast and wearing a large pair of headphones.

“Attention K-Mart shoppers, or whatever intro that guy uses. My name is not Eddie Munson, but that’s who I’m here to talk to the Haganation about. Imagine my surprise when I see his name on my boyfriend’s phone, telling him to Have A Good Day, Sweetheart! You barely know him but you’re throwing out nicknames? Bold move! You wanna talk shit about me on your little show but then DM Steve behind my back? Move on, bro, he’s never going to sleep with you! He’s too busy letting me blow his back out for that,”

Eddie paused the video and groaned. Tommy’s smug grin frozen on his screen. Steve was still talking on stream. He couldn’t believe Steve would agree to being spoken about this way. He pressed play.

“But maybe that’s a little too much info for any kids watching,” said Tommy with a wink, his smile still in place. “Stay away from him, Mr Podcaster, and I know you won’t talk your trash about me again if you know what’s good for you,”

Tommy blew a kiss to the camera before the video ended.

Eddie was seething. It must be really easy to act tough when you’ve made sure that your target legally can’t come back at you before posting a video about them. He thumped his head back against the cabinet behind him, Steve’s voice still coming from the countertop above him before being cut off into silence abruptly.

Eddie rolled his neck and started to type a comment.

@emunson: who are you again?

He couldn’t help himself, sue him. He snorted out a laugh when he realised that actually, Tommy could sue him for it. Oh well.

Eddie pocketed his phone and hauled himself back up to a standing position. Steve was staring down at his iPad again with a furious look on his face, having muted the stream. Eddie rubbed a hand over his face and closed Instagram before going to bed, leaving his green tea forgotten behind him.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

@theharringtonhair:

Hey

@theharringtonhair:

You awake?

@theharringtonhair:

It’s cool if not…

@theharringtonhair:

Eddie?

@EddieMPod:

what do u want steve

@theharringtonhair:

I didn’t know about that tiktok

@theharringtonhair:

Not until after it was posted

@EddieMPod:

👍🏻

@theharringtonhair:

Why didn’t you say we were just friends?

@theharringtonhair:

In your comment?

@EddieMPod:

are u serious?

@EddieMPod:

why didn’t u tell ur boyfriend that?

@EddieMPod:

did u show him all our messages or

just the one where I called u sweetheart? 

@theharringtonhair:

It’s complicated

@theharringtonhair:

And no, I left my phone in a green room

and he saw your message on the screen

@EddieMPod:

oh yeah sounds real complicated

@EddieMPod:

im going to sleep steve

@EddieMPod:

not sure if im even allowed talk to u anymore

@theharringtonhair:

What?

@theharringtonhair:

Why can’t you talk to me?

@EddieMPod:

well I havent had a chance to read the full

letter from his lawyers to see if urs co signed it

so im just going to play it safe for now

@theharringtonhair:

What letter?

Eddie went back to the email from Tommy’s lawyers and screenshotted the message before sending it to Steve.

@EddieMPod:

look familiar?

@theharringtonhair:

No

@theharringtonhair:

It doesn’t

@theharringtonhair:

Can I ft you?

@EddieMPod:

what?

@theharringtonhair:

Facetime, video call, can I facetime you?

@EddieMPod:

i know what ft means

@EddieMPod:

why? so tommy can sit in the background and

get ammo for his next little video?

Eddie was surprised when Steve sent him a video. It started on Steve’s face, lying sideways on his pillow, before scanning up and over his shoulder to show an empty bedroom around him. It was lit up under a deep blue light that cast water patterns on the ceiling.

“It’s just me…” came Steve’s voice, quietly. Eddie’s stomach flipped at the sound.

@EddieMPod:

ok

@EddieMPod:

fine

Eddie’s phone started to ring with the Instagram video call almost immediately. He flipped the lamp beside his bed on before answering, pulling a blanket up to cover his bare chest.

“Hey…” said Steve, the phone propped up next to him so he could stay lying down without needing to hold it. He looked so comfortable and warm.

“Hi,” said Eddie shortly.

“I didn’t know about any of it, I swear,” said Steve, almost shy. “I wouldn’t have… I would have told him not to be so dumb, I would have stopped it,”

He seemed so genuine that Eddie couldn’t help but feel himself soften. He sighed.

“I don’t like being made a fool of, Stevie,” said Eddie, shifting around so his position mirrored Steve’s. It was almost like they were lying next to each other. “Didn’t like how he talked about you either,”

Steve squirmed and looked uncomfortable.

“I hated that too,” said Steve. “I asked him to take it down but he said it was too late, too many people already saw so there was no point,”

Eddie had to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

“He’s right though, I barely do know you,” said Eddie. “It’s not my place to call you any nicknames,”

“No,” said Steve, so quickly that Eddie’s eyebrows flew up. “I um, I like it when you do. It’s fine. Don’t stop that,”

Eddie smiled.

“I won’t,” he said, and Steve smiled back at him.

There was a long moment of silence.

“Wanna play twenty questions?” asked Steve.

“Isn’t that the game that highschoolers use to figure out a girl’s bra size?” joked Eddie, earning a laugh from Steve.

“I’m a B-Cup, got great pecs,” Steve shot back. “And I’m counting that as your first one, your turn!”

“Hey!” Eddie protested. “That’s not fair!”

“Rules are rules and questions are questions,” said Steve, sliding a folded arm under his head. “Now ask me something,”

Eddie chewed his lip and looked around as he thought about what to start with.

“You play guitar?” is what he settled on.

“Mmhmm, electric,” answered Steve. “Blues mostly. I play piano too,”

“How come you never play on your streams?” asked Eddie.

“You watch enough of them to be sure I don’t?” teased Steve.

“Fine, don’t answer me,” said Eddie, rolling onto his back and holding the phone up over him. “Ruin your own game, why don’t you,”

Steve gave a dramatic sigh.

“So pushy…” he said. “It doesn’t really fit too well with my image, you know? My followers might not like it so I just…Don’t,”

Eddie hummed. He had never censored himself for the sake of his following. He’d done the exact opposite; been aggressively him and said to hell with anyone who didn’t like it.

“How about you?” asked Steve. “Any instruments?”

“Guitar, same as you. My uncle taught me some harmonica when I was a kid but I think I’ve forgotten that now,” said Eddie, putting an arm behind his head.

They were quiet again.

“I don’t know what else to ask you,” said Eddie eventually. “I don’t want to like, offend you,”

“You won’t,” said Steve with a laugh. “If I don’t like something I’ll just hang up. You’ve got seventeen more, come on,”

“Urgh, fine,” said Eddie, acting affronted. “Oh, I know, when did you remember the Indiana Boy thing, you little sneak?”

Steve giggled so hard he had to turn his head into his pillow. Eddie wanted to lick the screen.

“The message on your phone in the hotel,” said Steve. “About you taking someone home after the after party, remember? There was still some notifications on there and you just weren’t fast enough when you tried to hide it,”

Still was still giggling while he spoke. Eddie groaned.

“Who did you take home that night anyway?” asked Steve, pulling his blanket up to his chin.

“I already told you,” said Eddie. “I went straight back to the hotel after I left you with Robin,”

“You did?”

“I did,” said Eddie with a nod. “I’m assuming Robin told you where I was staying?”

“I’d started to remember a couple of things on my own by then,” Steve told him. “By the time I got there I was half way to having all the pieces, I think,”

“Did you…” Eddie cleared his throat. “Did you remember what I said about Tommy… When we were in the elevator?”

Steve scrunched his nose.

“I remembered it after… “ he said. “It… It happens a lot… I just ignore it now…”

Eddie fought hard to keep his expression neutral despite how sad Steve sounded.

“You don’t think you deserve better than someone who’ll do that to you?” asked Eddie. “TMZ aren’t even on his side at this point,”

Steve took a deep breath and started to shift around, reaching for his phone. Eddie prepared himself to be hung up on, but instead he watched as Steve situated himself so he was on his stomach, arms folded under his chin, phone against the headboard pointing straight at him. Eddie tried not to pay too much attention to how Steve’s shoulder blades jutted up at this angle.

“I guess I do, deep down,” said Steve quietly. His chin was squishing down against his forearm with every word, his head bobbing as he spoke. “But it’s easy, you know? There’s not many people who understand what it’s like to be in this lifestyle and… I don’t know, you find someone who understands the travel and need to constantly have your phone in your hand and… It’s like that phrase my mom always uses. It’s better the devil you know than the devil you don’t!” Steve sighed and rolled onto his back, so Eddie was left looking at the top of his head. “No one else is going to want to deal with someone like me anyway, so…It doesn’t matter what I deserve, it matters what I got,”

“So that’s why you’re with him?” asked Eddie tentatively, surprised Steve was opening up to him like this. “Because you’re afraid that no one else will want you,”

“Kind of? I guess,” said Steve, reaching up and grabbing the phone, holding it over his head now like Eddie was. “I mean… We’re technically not even together. He keeps calling me his boyfriend and checking my google calendar so he can turn up at interviews and stuff but… I dumped him in Milan and we never had the We’re Back Together talk. He just came over one morning and I…let him? I dunno, I should’ve slammed the door in his face but…Easy, like I said,”

Steve finished with a heavy sigh.

“All those pictures of you crying in Palm Springs don’t exactly make it look easy, sweetheart,” said Eddie. He knew they had reached a line. He took a breath, and crossed it. “And you’re telling me you can’t think of anyone else who might be happy to treat you right?”

Steve blinked at the camera for a few seconds, looking like he was chewing the inside of his lip.

“Why?” asked Steve. “You know anyone?”

“I can think of one person,” said Eddie.

Steve ran his fingertips over his eyelashes in silence.

“I like your tattoo,” he said eventually, firmly changing the subject. “What is it?”

Eddie looked down at his chest, the blanket having shifted away to reveal more of his bare skin.

“Just a random demon head. Chrissy drew it, actually,” said Eddie, running a hand over the demon’s head on his pec. “Gareth wanted to be a tattoo artist when we were all in highschool so I let him practice on me. Chrissy being the better artist should have tipped us off that he wasn’t destined for it,”

“Chrissy seems really nice,” said Steve, stretching out. “Gareth too, I like it when they gang up on you,”

“Of course you do,” laughed Eddie.

“You think they’d like me if they met me?” said Steve.

Eddie considered it for a moment.

“They’re much nicer than I am, real people persons,” said Eddie, with a faint smile. “They get on with just about anyone. They’ve sweet-talked me out of the back of a cop car god, must be ten times over the years. And it wasn’t my dazzling personality that got us on that red carpet,”

Steve giggled again.

“Where did she get her nickname?” asked Steve.

“Chrissy? Does she have a nickname?” wondered Eddie.

“You always call her Chrissy Fuck Yeah,” explained Steve. “Sounds like a nickname to me,”

“Oh,” said Eddie with a quiet laugh. “Yeah I guess it is. She does this thing, whenever she like, achieves something, or whatever. But it can be anything, if you ever take shots with her you’ll hear it. She’ll finish what she’s doing and she’ll just whisper fuck yeah to herself. Which is hilarious because she’s super sweet and hardly ever swears, so it makes me laugh every time,”

Steve laughed at that.

“Robin would like Chrissy, I think,” said Steve, “We should introduce them,”

“Yeah?” said Eddie. “You think they’d be friends?”

“They’d get along for sure,” said Steve. “And Gareth? What’s the whole he’s here too thing?”

Eddie snorted.

“I forgot to introduce him on stage when we played our first shitty metal gig,” Eddie explained. “It turned into a thing, he leaned into it,”

“Sounds like you guys are all really close…” said Steve softly. “That must be really nice, to have that…”

“It is,” said Eddie. “They’ve always had my back,”

Steve chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment.

“Come on, you’ve got eight more questions,” said Steve, jigging his phone for emphasis.

“Do you have any tattoos?” asked Eddie, trying to keep things light now. “Since you’re so busy gawping over mine,”

“I’m not gawping, god, who even uses that word?” said Steve, shifting to lie on his side again. “But no, I don’t have any. Too scared that I’ll change my mind and hate it. Tommy wanted me to get a T on my hand, he drew one and everything but–” Steve made a face and stuck out his tongue. “–I don’t trust him enough for that,”

“So what do you trust him enough for?” asked Eddie. Steve moved his head around on his pillow.

“Ask a different question,” he said gently.

“Hmmm, ok,” said Eddie, looking around his room for inspiration. “Oh! Ok, how did you find my room in the hotel that day?”

Steve bit back a smile.

“Would you believe me if I said I knocked on every door until I found yours?” asked Steve innocently.

“Absolutely not,” said Eddie, deadpan.

Steve laughed and turned over onto his other side, bringing the phone with him. Eddie watched with delight as his hair fell over his eyes while he twisted around. He imaged being able to reach out and move it to the side.

“You’re going to think I’m a psychopath,” said Steve, rubbing his eyes. Eddie was enamoured with how cute he looked when he was sleepy.

“Consider it a secret, you tell me one and I’ll tell you one,” offered Eddie.

Steve rolled his eyes.

“Ok fine,” he said. “I maybe, kind of, just a litllllle bit, bribed the receptionist to give me a general idea of what your room number was….”

“Oh my god,” laughed Eddie, slapping a hand over his eyes and rolling onto his side again.

“You owe me a secret, so spill,” Steve demanded lightly.

“I have very little to hide, Stevie,” said Eddie truthfully. “What kind of secret do you want?”

“Ever killed anyone?” said Steve quickly with a quirk of his eyebrow.

“I have not killed someone,” laughed Eddie. “That’s the best you got for that one?”

Steve pushed his lips out into a pout and narrowed his eyes while he thought about it.

“Was I what you expected me to be?” asked Steve. “After you’d already formed you oh so expert opinion on your show,”

Eddie groaned and smiled.

“This counts as a question and a secret, just so you know,” said Eddie, brushing some hair off his forehead. “You…Were different than what I thought you’d be. I guess I was expecting you to be a lot like Tommy, especially when I saw you sitting in that fountain,”

“So what changed your mind?” asked Steve.

“You did, sweetheart,” said Eddie softly. Steve tried to hide a smile by pulling his blanket up over the bottom half of his face. “You were cute, despite trying to steal my phone, and I like it when you DM me. You’re not as much of a bimbo as I thought,”

“I think the correct term is himbo, thank you very much,” said Steve with fake offence.

Eddie laughed again. He was getting tired now but hanging up was the last thing on his mind.

“You’re different too, you know,” said Steve. “I really thought you were just like everyone else who does what you do. Always looking for content, never living in the moment, camera constantly in your hand… It was nice to be proved wrong,”

“I’m glad,” said Eddie. “So why was your first instinct to slap me?”

Steve snorted.

“You hadn’t proved me wrong yet, Eds,” said Steve. “I was going off what I was used to,”

“You’re used to people using you for content?” said Eddie half-sarcastically. “Interesting, that happen a lot?”

“Careful…” warned Steve. Eddie lifted a hand in surrender. “I’m just protective of how people see me these days, that’s all,”

“How come?” asked Eddie.

“I wasn’t always the uh, clean cut good boy you see before you,” said Steve, huffing a small laugh. “Have you ever googled me?”

Eddie shook his head. He’d typed his name into the search bar of every social media platform there was, but never into google.

“ I had some issues in the past, the articles are all old now, they’d be hidden pretty far down any search anyway,” explained Steve. “Partied too hard, too many days in a row… Had to kick the habit before it kicked me type thing, you know?”

“I do know,” said Eddie. “Had some family with similar problems…”

“So you get it,” said Steve with a sigh. He was on his back again now. “I just kind of fell into the whole scene too easily. My dad, he uh, he never really got the whole influencer thing, said that it was just an excuse for lazy people to get paid to take drugs all day, so I figured hey, why not prove him right,”

Eddie made a noise of acknowledgement, a feeling of guilt creeping up his spine at the realisation that that’s the exact line he’s always spun himself.

“I try stay away from it now though. I’m not like, an addict or whatever, but if I get overwhelmed with how I’m feeling and it’s around then I kind of forget to pace myself and, well, I end up wrapped around a podcast host who hates me in an elevator,”

Steve tried to laugh but the sound died in his throat.

“I never hated you,” clarified Eddie. “When Robin said that she was used to taking care of you every night, that’s what she meant?”

“Pretty much…” said Steve, an arm up over his head. “She dragged me out of more parties and k-holes than I can even count. She’s pretty great,”

“She sounds it,” said Eddie. “Why do you do it though? The whole being online thing. You can’t need the money?”

Steve shrugged.

“My dad said some, uh, not great stuff when I got my first boyfriend,” said Steve, shuffling so he wasn’t looking at the camera. “I didn’t want to ever have to worry about relying on him if he cut me off. People already knew me, so, hey, why not make money off of it. I don’t know how much you can relate to that kind of thing…”

“Pretty heavily, actually,” said Eddie, his chest tightening.

“Yeah?” said Steve, lighting up. “Can you…Will you tell me?”

“Sure, I’m not ashamed of it or anything,” said Eddie, moving so he was propped up on an elbow with his phone on his bedside table. “I went to live with my uncle when I was ten. My dad caught me kissing a boy and he…wasn’t happy, at all… I ended up in the hospital–”

“Oh, Eddie I’m so sorry,”

“–It’s ok, but yeah I ended up in hospital and my uncle Wayne was the one who came to bring me home. Haven’t seen my folks since. Going from a house to a trailer was kind of weird but Wayne’s awesome. I go back home as often as I can to see him,”

“Will you ever set him up out here?” asked Steve.

“I’ve been trying to,” said Eddie, running a hand through his hair. “He’s a good ol’ boy though, you know? Not enough good fishing spots out here as far as he’s concerned. I’ll get him here one day though,”

“Would he like me?” asked Steve. Eddie was only half sure he was joking.

“He’s a lot nicer to strangers than I am,” chuckled Eddie. “I’m sure you’d be fine, especially if you ask him about his mug collection,”

“Mug collection?”

“He has dozens of them,” said Eddie. “My favourite is one that’s shaped like Garfield. He used to make me hot cocoa in it when I was a kid,”

“That’s cute,” said Steve, gathering his blankets under his chin again and lying on his side.

They were quiet again for a long time. Steve’s eyes flickered closed and Eddie was sure he’d fallen asleep. Eddie watched him, marvelling at how his long eyelashes touched the swell of his round cheeks, and his lips pursed together. Eddie was about to hang up when Steve spoke without opening his eyes.

“Eddie?” he said, his voice low and laced with sleep. “You still there?”

“Sure am, sweetheart,” said Eddie quietly.

“Can I come on your podcast?” asked Steve.

Eddie almost choked on his own tongue.

“If you want to, yeah, why not,” said Eddie, trying to keep his voice level. “What would we talk about?”

“I don’t know,” said Steve with a long, tired breath out. “Just think it might be fun,”

“I think so too,” said Eddie. “You wouldn’t be scared of me?”

Steve smiled, clearly close to drifting off.

“Nah, you’re a puppy dog,” said Steve. “Or a teddy bear. Shaped like a bat,”

Eddie let out a soft laugh, trying not to make too much extra noise so as not to disturb Steve.

“Besides, I like talking to you,” sighed Steve. “Want to do it more,”

“Oh yeah?” asked Eddie, heart pounding. “Why’s that?”

Steve nuzzled into his pillow.

“That’s number twenty one,” he said. “You’re all out of questions…”

“That’s fair,” said Eddie, settling down with his phone propped up beside him. “I guess I’ll have to wait until the next time we play to get my answer,”

“Guess so,” yawned Steve, eyes still closed. “Eddie?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you stay until I’m asleep?”

Judging by how Steve’s words were started to melt together, it wouldn’t take long until he was out cold.

“Of course I will,” said Eddie, getting himself comfortable. “Goodnight Stevie,”

“Goodnight, Indiana Boy…”

Eddie grinned, and waited until Steve started snoring quietly before he hung up.

Chapter Text

“He WHAT?”

Eddie flinched as people at the table next to them in the coffee shop glared in their direction. He was sitting with Chrissy and Gareth in the place he came to get his ridiculous pumpkin foam coffee, discussing plans and making notes for the next few episodes with their laptops open in front of them. Eddie casually mentioned Steve asking to be a guest, trying to slide it into the conversation without either of them noticing. It did not work. Eddie chugged his drink while Gareth apologised to the next table.

“Sorry, sorry,” said Chrissy quietly, smoothing down the front of her shirt. “I over-reacted…”

“You said it, not me,” said Eddie, grimacing again at the look she gave him. His stomach had a heavy knot in it.

“Shut up,” said Chrissy quickly. “Now tell me everything. How did this happen?”

“He uh, he sent me a message on Instagram and asked if he could come on and talk,” mumbled Eddie, playing with the condensation on the side of his cup. “I kind of already said yes, so…”

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve spent getting used to the sound levels for your voices?” hissed Chrissy. “And now you want me to do it for someone else? I’m not a real producer Eddie, I don’t know how this shit actually works,”

“Chris shut the fuck up you know you’re perfect,” said Eddie, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll do the sound editing myself if it’s an issue,”

Chrissy snorted and crossed her arms.

“As if you could–”

“Hey!”

“– And what are you even going to talk about?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “Show me the message he sent you, let me see what he said,”

Eddie cleared his throat and shuffled around on his chair. They had found out about the burgeoning friendship between the pair thanks to all of the screen recordings of Steve calling Eddie his friend and saying they talked, but Eddie still kept downplaying it whenever they asked.

“No,” said Eddie slowly. “It was one of those uh, disappearing texts, you know? They only last a few seconds…”

“Instagram doesn’t do that,” said Gareth, finally piping up.

“Who’s side are you on?” wheezed Eddie holding his head in his hands now. “I don’t get why it’s such a big deal,”

The others were quiet for long enough that Eddie lifted his head up to make sure they were still there. They were having a silent conversation through wide eyes and hand gestures when he looked at them.

“What?” asked Eddie.

Chrissy sighed.

“We’ve never had a guest before, Eddie,” said Chrissy. “We’re not set up for it, especially so close to all the promos we have coming up,”

“We’ve been talking about starting to take guests for months,” said Eddie, whining ever so slightly. “Why not start now?”

“With Steve Harrington?” said Gareth, raising an eyebrow. “You know he made someone from Buzzfeed cry last week?”

“What?” asked Eddie, hearing about this for the first time.

“He’s a smart guy,” said Gareth with a shrug. “I watched some of his interviews before we played Who The Fuck with him. He’s not going to let you be the one in control, here. He’s a spoiled rich kid, you think he’ll sit nicely and let you decide the direction it takes?”

Eddie gulped and didn’t respond. That made a lot of sense. Eddie thought about the twenty questions game and how Steve had subtly steered the whole game the way he wanted it. Not to mention the posts Steve makes on Instagram after yet another picture of him and Tommy arguing makes its way online. Shit. Eddie kind of forgot how media savvy Steve needed to be in his everyday life. He suddenly felt silly asking if Steve would be scared of him if they done an episode together. Eddie was definitely the one who should be scared here, and no doubt Steve knew it. The knot in his stomach only grew.

Chrissy flipped through some of the notes in front of her, her face stony. Eddie was reminded of trips to the principal’s office in school, waiting to find out if he was going to be given a month of detention or not.

“He can do next week or he can wait until after Christmas,” she said after a while. “I have too many things lined up for the sake of your career as well as my own, Munson, and some guy you’re obsessed with isn’t getting in the way of it,”

She was pointing a finger right in Eddie’s face now. Forget the principal’s office, this was just like the time Eddie was late to a recording because he was too hungover to get up with his alarm. Chrissy was scary when it came to their work schedules and ethics. Not a real producer, his ass…

“I’m not obsessed,” said Eddie a bit too quickly, eyes darting between his two friends. “We’ve just been talking, that’s all,”

Chrissy dropped her hand and frowned, her expression changing from annoyed to confused.

“What’s really going on here?” she asked, closing her laptop. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”

“Are you two…” asked Gareth, wearing a similar expression. “You’re not like, talking talking, are you?”

Eddie shook his head frantically.

“No, no, no,” he said, lifting his hands in defence. “I swear, it’s all above board, all friendly, honestly,”

Chrissy’s eyes were so narrow Eddie wasn’t sure if they were even open.

“Is this something we’ll have to like, protect you for?” asked Chrissy. “Answer me honestly or I swear to god I’ll make you sound like a chipmunk for the next six weeks,”

“ ‘Cause we will, we just need to, you know, know about it,” added Gareth.

Eddie felt a rush of gratitude towards them both and reminded himself how lucky he was that he of all people ended up with two such great friends in his corner.

“No,” said Eddie, not entirely sure if it was the truth. “Thank you, but no, it’s fine. We have some stuff in common and we talked about it, that’s all,”

Eddie again purposely left out that what they have in common is a homophobic parent and they discovered this during a 2am facetime call that only ended when one of them fell asleep.

“I’ll send him a message and ask if next week is good. It’ll probably never even happen,” finished Eddie.

Chrissy rested her fist under her chin and examined Eddie, humming.

“If Tommy Hagan mentions my name in any of his videos after this then I’ll kill you,” she said.

“Uhhh,” Eddie thought she might actually do it, too.

“But ok, set it up for next week if you can,” she said, slipping back into her usual sweet demeanour and opening her laptop again. “And Eddie?”

Chrissy leaned across the table and held his hand.

“We’ll protect you anyway,” she said with a wink.

Gareth put his hand over theirs.

“Go team!” said Gareth, nodding.

Eddie laughed, and the knot in his stomach loosened at last.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

@EddieMPod:

are u free next thursday?

@theharringtonhair:

Are you asking me out?

@EddieMPod:

no?

@EddieMPod:

u said u wanted to come on the show?

@EddieMPod:

if u didnt mean it then its cool

@EddieMPod:

nevermind

@EddieMPod:

doing anything interesting today?

@theharringtonhair:

🙄

@theharringtonhair:

Of course I meant it

@theharringtonhair:

What time? And where?

@EddieMPod:

oh

@EddieMPod:

cool

@EddieMPod:

📍You sent a map location

@EddieMPod:

we start at 10am usually

@theharringtonhair:

Can’t wait, I’ll get Nancy to drive me

@theharringtonhair:

It’ll be fun

@EddieMPod:

ill go easy on u dont worry

@theharringtonhair:

Cute

@theharringtonhair:

I won’t be doing the same

@EddieMPod:

gotta say sweetheart im surprised ur

free on such short notice

@theharringtonhair:

Oh I’m not

@theharringtonhair:

But I’ll be there 😄

@EddieMPod:

wait what

@EddieMPod:

if uv got stuff to do then we can rearrange

@theharringtonhair:

See you on Thursday, 10am sharp!

@theharringtonhair:

You’ll have a coffee waiting for me, I’m sure

@theharringtonhair:

I know you know my order

@theharringtonhair:

Gotta get back to work, I’ll txt you later

@theharringtonhair:

😄

Eddie put his phone down on the kitchen counter and held onto the edge, holding himself steady through wobbly legs and shaky hands. Steve was going to make a meal out of him on this show, Eddie could tell already.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Eddie was nervous.

For the first time since he was a kid, his was really, truly nervous. He stood outside the studio and was checking his watch every few minutes, leaning against a tree and bouncing his foot against the ground.

Steve wasn’t late. It wasn’t even 10am yet. But what if he was? What if it got to almost noon and he still wasn’t here? What if he didn’t show up at all, and he stood Eddie up? Not that this would count as being stood up, this was a business arrangement so it was just a…breach of contract? Could you have one of those without having a contract?

“Eddie it’s barely nine-thirty, man,” called Gareth from the open door behind him. “Come back inside,”

“Just having a smoke,” replied Eddie over his shoulder, lighting his third one in thirty minutes. It was the only excuse he could think of for being outside. He didn’t want it to be totally obvious that he was waiting for Steve.

The morning had passed by in a blur that was equal parts too fast and in slow motion. Eddie insisted on reading back over the suggestions from Gareth and Chrissy about what to actually talk about with Steve over and over again, just to make sure he wouldn’t stumble and leave an awkward silence while he figured out the next line of questioning. Steve was been too busy over the last couple of days for them to really talk so Eddie wasn’t even sure if this was an interview or just the two of them shooting the shit. He tried to prepare for both eventualities but until Steve actually pulled up in his car, it was all up in the air. Gareth’s advice of “Dude has two sex tapes, talk about them if you have nothing else” was ringing in his ears. Eddie wasn’t exactly sure he could talk about them even if he wanted to. It wasn’t like Eddie cared about it or anything. Just seemed like a weird thing to bring up to a friend.

Eddie’s stomach flipped every time he heard a car approaching. They were tucked away in the back of an industrial complex so no cars ever came back here unless they got lost and needed a place to turn around, so trying not to be disappointed every time an engine cut out or went a different direction before it got to the turn was difficult. Eddie stubbed out his cigarette when it was barely half way through. Having so many in such a short space of time was making him nauseous. Added to the nerves he was already dealing with, it was a terrible combination. He thought he might throw up. He checked his phone as the clock ticked closer to ten. There were no messages from Steve cancelling or saying he couldn’t make it, so that was a good sign, right? Eddie wouldn’t be left standing there at a quarter after, paying for the coffee he’d pre-ordered on UberEats with no one to hand it to. He wouldn’t have to go give some made up story to Gareth and Chrissy as to why Steve never came. He let out a shaky breath and rolled his neck on his shoulders. Steve would be here. He would. He hadn’t lied to Eddie yet, so why would he start now.

Ten minutes until ten, and an engine rumbled closer and closer. Eddie listened intently, and when a sleek black BMW with tinted windows rounded the corner, his heart leapt. He tried to keep a neutral expression as he pushed away from the tree and walked to the edge of the kerb. Steve beamed at him from the passenger seat as Nancy (Eddie presumed) pulled in.

“You’re early,” said Eddie, as Steve stood out of the car.

“Like you weren’t out here waiting for me,” mumbled Steve, closing the door behind him.

Eddie held back a grin as Nancy also exited the car.

Steve was wearing the same sunglasses as he had been in the hotel on the morning Steve gave him the hickie and was holding a brown hat in his hand. The hickie had finally faded, thanks to a TikTok video detailing how to use a cold spoon to get the bruising to go down. Steve’s hair looked recently cut and the brown pants/white socks combo he had going on was something that Eddie would usually store away as ammo to tear someone to shreds, but on Steve it all just looked cute.

“Eddie, right?” she said matter-of-factly.

“Uh yeah, that’s me,” he said with a nod as Steve came to stand next to him. Eddie wanted to hug him but thought that might be weird. He didn’t know yet if they were the hugging type of friends. “You’re Nancy?”

Eddie recognised her immediately. This was the woman that a random guy had grabbed, who Steve had swiftly knocked out with one punch.

“Nancy Wheeler, yes,” she replied, tapping away at an honest to god Palm Pilot.

Steve noticed Eddie’s eyebrows twitch at Nancy’s chosen organisational tool.

“My parents are super old school,” whispered Steve, leaning over into Eddie’s space. “They want everyone who works for us to use the same tech, they don’t like the modern stuff,”

“A pen and paper would be more modern that thing,” muttered Eddie, earning a quiet laugh from Steve.

“What time are you planning on this being over?” asked Nancy, looking straight at Eddie. He felt mildly as though his soul was being assessed.

“Uh, like two hours?” he answered. “I’m not sure though?”

Nancy rolled her eyes.

“Steve, just text me when you’re out,” she huffed.

Chrissy and Gareth came outside and Eddie knew immediately that they must have been watching through the window, too impatient to wait any longer. Eddie forgot sometimes that they had never met Steve.

“Hi!” chirped Chrissy, holding her hand out for Steve to shake. “I’m Chrissy, I’m the producer!”

“Steve,” he said politely, taking her hand and kissing the back of it. “My pleasure, I’ve been keeping up with how you build engagement online, it’s impressive,”

Chrissy fucking giggled and went bright pink. Eddie stored it away to make fun of her later.

“You must be Gareth?” asked Steve, turning and offering his hand to be shook.

“Oh! Yeah,” said Gareth, caught off guard by the recognition. “That’s me, it’s good to have you here, man,”

“Thanks for having me,” said Steve. “This is Nancy, my manager,”

Swept his arm out to introduce Nancy, who was still on the opposite side of the car. She gave a smile to Chrissy and a wave to Gareth, her nose crinkling as she smiled wider at him. Hmm. Eddie made a mental note to ask Steve later on if he caught that too.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” said Nancy, her gaze still lingering on Gareth, who looked like he was at a middle school dance with how he was looking back at her. “Steve, text me, and have fun!”

“Oh wait,” said Chrissy. “You never sent us the list of things you want us to avoid talking about, do you want to go through that before you go?”

Steve hummed and Nancy raised her eyebrows at him.

“Depends,” said Steve, turning to look at Eddie. “Can I trust you?”

Eddie almost forgot how to speak.

“Sure,” he managed to get out, his voice cracking before he cleared his throat and tried again. “Sure, yeah sure, you’re good, you’re safe,”

“He better be,” said Nancy, before getting back into the car and reversing so she could disappear back around the corner.

“So, should we head inside?” asked Steve.

Eddie was about to answer when the sound of another engine interrupted him. Another car swung around the corner and came to a halt in front of them, lengthways across two parking spaces and a disabled bay.

Tommy fucking Hagan.

“Hey babe!” said Tommy brightly, hopping out of the car and approaching the group. His camera was already in his hand, held up and recording.

“Shit…” Eddie mumbled, staring at his shoes.

Eddie hadn’t looked at the cease and desist in too much detail but he decided to do what he did with everyone who sent one, and pretend Tommy just didn’t exist despite the fact he was standing a few feet away. Eddie took a few steps backwards and leaned against the tree again.

“Tommy what are you doing here?” asked Steve, his voice low and glancing over his shoulder at Gareth and Chrissy.

“Saw it on your calendar! This is what you cancelled on Vogue for, huh?” said Tommy, smacking some gum loudly. “Figured I could drop by, watch the interview, bring you home after,”

Eddie was staring straight ahead, trying his hardest not to even look at Tommy. He lit another cigarette just for something to do with his hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Steve shuffle his weight from one foot to the other.

“You can’t…” said Steve quietly, clearly trying to find an excuse for Tommy not to stay. “They don’t let other people sit in, you know?”

“Awh I’m sure they’ll be happy to have me!” said Tommy, his camera twisting around to focus on Chrissy.

“No,” she said firmly. Eddie risked a quick look over in their direction. Chrissy and Gareth both had an expression that gave away they’d simply never met anyone with this kind of audacity before.

There was a second of silence while Tommy processed what she said.

“No?” said Tommy, his smugness apparent in his voice. Eddie didn’t need to be looking at him to tell that. “What does that even mean?”

Tommy stepped forward to put his camera right into her face.

“It means no,” she said again. “I’m sure you’ve heard it plenty,”

“I’ve come all this way and you’re going to say I can’t stay?” said Tommy, faking incredulity in his voice. “You’re really going to turn me away?” He turned the camera around to face himself. “You guys hear that? They don’t want me here! This is discrimination, and why? Why? Tell me why I can’t stay here! Right now! I want three reasons right now!”

“You weren’t invited, for one,” said Gareth coolly, holding up three fingers and counting on them. “There’s barely room for four people in there and definitely not five, and you’ve been told no twice already. Third times the charm though, right?”

Tommy took three quick steps towards Gareth, almost knocking into his nose with the camera.

“What’s your problem, bro?” said Tommy. Eddie rolled his eyes at the tone. He was like a toddler on the verge of a tantrum. “You don’t even know me. I could be the best thing to ever happen to your little show,”

Tommy spun around to face Eddie, getting the camera in his face. Eddie kept his eyes forward, watching a pair of crows flap their wings at each other on a roof across the parking lot.

“Maybe this guy is to blame, huh?” sneered Tommy as Eddie blew smoke out into the lens. “I bet there’s tonnes of room in there but you just want to get my boyfriend on his own so you can turn him against me? Right? RIGHT?”

Eddie took a deep breath.

“Nature is beautiful….” He said softly, still watching the crows. Tommy looked confused as he turned to see what Eddie was looking at. Eddie took the chance to flick his eyes over to Steve and give him a wink. Steve, as uncomfortable and embarrassed as he looked, managed to crack a faint smile.

“You know what?” Tommy said, pointing the camera at the three of them individually. “Fuck this, fuck you, and you, and you fucking too! I’m outta here. My babe will call me for a ride home when he’s ready for me, won’t you?”

Steve crossed his arms and looked at the ground.

“Nancys bringing me home,” said Steve quietly. “You should go, Tommy, we… We have to get started…”

Eddie chanced a glance directly at Tommy now that his attention, and his camera, were directed elsewhere. Steve arms weren’t so much crossed as he was holding himself, and Tommy’s face was like thunder. Maybe Eddie’s assessment of him never being told ‘No’ as a child was more dead on than he realised. Chrissy had moved so she was standing a half step in front of Steve, almost like she was preparing to block him. Gareth was in front of the door to the studio as if he was getting ready to stop Tommy from running through the door.

“Whatever,” said Tommy eventually, walking backwards towards his car. “This place blows anyway, so lame,”

Tommy got back into his car, camera still pointing at everyone. He didn’t reverse neatly the way Nancy did. Instead he swerved quickly around in a large circle, almost taking out another car parked a few spaces away and leaving a plume of smoke in his wake.

“Let’s go inside,” said Gareth, reaching behind him to open the door. “Get this show on the road,”

Steve nodded and followed Chrissy’s gesture for him to go through the door.

“I get it now,” she said to Eddie, nodding. “The whole thing. I get it now,”

Eddie looked over to Gareth who gave a brief thumbs up of agreement before following Steve into the studio.

“Go on inside, coffee’ll be here soon, I’ll wait for it,” said Eddie. He reached over and put his fingers around her wrist, squeezing gently. “And, you know, thanks, or whatever…”

“What else are friends for,” said Chrissy with a smirk.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“Attention K-Mart shoppersssss,” started Eddie when the recording light lit up and the intro music started. Gareth was in the booth with Chrissy, the pair of them watching Eddie and Steve like they were on a nature documentary. “That is the intro that this guy uses, thank you very much. I’ve got a very special guest here with me today. Heir to the Harrington Hotel fortune and King of the Influencers himself, whatever the fuck that means, Steveeeeee Harringtonnnnnn,”

Steve sat opposite him, flinging his arms around in what Eddie realised was lazy voguing moves while he was introduced.

“How you doing sweetheart, you having a good day?” asked Eddie, trying to hit as many references to Tommy’s TikTok as he could, just for fun.

Steve smirked.

“Pretty good, you got my coffee order right,” said Steve, sipping his drink.

“You talk about it at least once a day on your instagram, so…” Eddie said, trying to brush it off.

“Oh that’s right,” said Steve, grinning. “You watch my streams, I totally forgot. Remind me again which scarf you thought I should have worn to that fashion show?”

Eddie tried not to splutter on his own mouthful of coffee. Oh, he was in for it now, wasn’t he?

“You didn’t have any friends to ask for advice?” Eddie scoffed. “You had to worry about my opinion?”

“Don’t need friends when I have fans like you,” said Steve, tapping his fingers on the desk.

“No friends?” asked Eddie, trying to steer to conversation and baiting Steve into publicly calling Eddie his friend again.

“Like I said, don’t need ‘em,” answered Steve, his expression neutral.

“Your assistant Robin might be upset at that,” said Eddie. “And your manager? Nancy? They’re not your friends?”

“They’re more like family,” said Steve. “They don’t count. Besides, I give them far too many days off and I’m not going to call them up on their vacations to ask about a scarf,”

“Sounds lonely,” said Eddie, quirking an eyebrow.

“I get by,” said Steve. “Besides, if I do get lonely I can just log onto Instagram and have people just like you there waiting for me,”

“People like me?” asked Eddie, brow furrowed.

“Oh, you know,” said Steve, a smile creeping onto his lips. “Loyal, devoted…”

Eddie snorted.

It didn’t take long before Eddie was getting the full Steve Harrington experience. He felt a great sense of understanding towards the poor bastard at Buzzfeed that ended up crying. Steve had an answer for everything, and he was quick. There was zero hesitation in anything he said. Eddie thought that if Steve could bottle his confidence and sell it in small batches, he’d double his net worth easily.

“Nice haircut by the way,” said Eddie into his microphone after they had been going back and forth for over an hour, sipping the last of his coffee and trying to set up a joke about his barber being blind.

“Thanks,” said Steve. He sounded genuine until… “Let me know when you can relate,”

Eddie jaw dropped and he laughed, left with no comeback.

“I use your products!” said Eddie. “If you don’t like my hair then that’s your own fault, not mine,”

“My products?” purred Steve, leaning his elbow on the table and resting his chin on his hand. He reminded Eddie of a black cat with the way he moved. “Do your listeners know that? I’m honoured, by the way. Which one is your favourite?”

Eddie blinked and tried to decide if he should answer. It was the mousse.

“Cat got your tongue? That’s ok, you’re probably intimated by…” Steve sighed and ruffled a hand through his own hair. “All this, so let me just….”

Steve pulled off his headphones and slipped his hat on before putting the headphones back on over it.

“Ta-da,” said Steve slackly, gesturing to his head. “Now you should be able to focus a bit more on not stuttering every time you open your mouth,”

“I do not!” yelped Eddie. “I do not stutter,”

“Sure you don’t,” said Steve, faking pity and rolling his eyes. “You’re just so confident that the words get caught up trying to get out, is that it?”

Eddie scanned over his notes as fast as he could to try find something to ask Steve. All the things he’d written down suddenly just seemed like giant targets.

“Running out of things to say already?” asked Steve. “Come on Eddie, ask me anything,”

Eddie had never been so much on the back foot before. He was floundering, and as much as he didn’t want to use Gareth’s suggestion of how to take back some control, he felt like he had no other option. Steve was actually intimidating him without even trying and Eddie could only hope that the cameras weren’t picking up on how much he was shaking.

“Alright Steve, ok,” said Eddie, sitting up straight. “Talk to me about those two sex tapes of yours,”

Eddie expected Steve’s smile to falter, or for him to blush, but his just grin widened and his eyes narrowed.

“Sure, I can talk about those” he said sweetly. “I was only awake for one of them though, so I’m not sure how much I can give on that other one. Ironic, right?”

The world fucking stopped. Eddie looked over to the producer booth and saw Gareth and Chrissy both with their hands over their mouths. Eddie felt the blood drain from his face as his stomach dropped through the floor.

“What’s your question, Eddie?” asked Steve, lounging back in his seat. “I don’t make much money from them, if that’s what you want to know,”

“I, I uh…” Eddie stammered out, trying to think of a way to back pedal. “I’m sorry, I didn’t, uh… Fuck…”

Eddie looked at Steve in horror, trying to figure out a way to get himself out of the hole he’d just dug.

“Did you even watch them?” asked Steve innocently, like he was asking if Eddie had tried a recipe he’d recommended.

“No!” said Eddie. “I wouldn’t! I never…Fuck, Steve I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

Eddie sat back in his chair and put his hands over his face.

“Didn’t do your research before your guest came on?” asked Steve, voice still light, “Tsk tsk tsk, you’ll never get on primetime TV with that attitude. Maybe you should google me, you’d know all it about it then,”

Steve was still smiling when he sighed and looked up to one of the cameras.

“Eddie’s microphone is actually still working, in case anyone watching thought it broke,” Steve told the camera calmly. “Now what he should have said there, was Ok Sweetheart, Tell Me About The One You Enjoyed, and I would have told everyone a great story about the night I found quaaludes in my mom’s medicine cabinet,” Steve gave a dramatic sigh. “But instead, he didn’t prepare properly for any answer, and now he’s embarrassed, poor guy. He just can’t thrive when someone isn’t afraid of him.”

Steve gave a fake pout and turned back to the desk.

“And I am not afraid of you, honey,” said Steve playfully, leaning over the desk to grab the stack of notes from in front of Eddie. “We’re moving on though, what’s next?”

Eddie watched in stunned silence as Steve flipped through the pages and gave noises of approval or disapproval to each of the things he read.

“Oh!” exclaimed Steve at one point. “This looks fun. ‘Compare hand sizes, ask if his dick is equal to the wrist to fingertip distance’. Well anyone who’s watched those silly little sex tapes we talked about earlier would already know the answer to that but here, come on,”

Steve scooted himself around the desk on his chair, letting the wheels glide across the carpet.

“Hold up your hand, where’s the camera on this side, can they see?” he asked, grabbing Eddie’s wrist and positioning his hand with the palm facing outwards.

“They, uh, yeah, that one can,” said Eddie dumbly, pointing to the camera. He felt almost numb at how easily Steve had moved on from the sex tape mention, and the fact he just dropped a joke about it almost took him out.

“Ok, look,” Steve pressed his palm against Eddie’s, like they were high fiving without pulling away. Steve’s hands were soft and warm, and Eddie couldn’t help but flex his fingertips gently to rub them against Steve’s. Steve shifted his hand sideways quickly so he could push his fingers between Eddie’s, linking their hands together before shaking it around. “Mine’s bigger!”

Steve manoeuvred himself back around to his own side of the desk. He grabbed the papers he had been flipping through and threw them up over his shoulder.

“Do you always try and script your interviews?” Steve asked Eddie, gesturing to the fluttering pages before leaning forward on his elbows. “You never just go with the flow? Vibe? Let it happen?”

“I don’t interview people,” said Eddie, subtly rubbing his palm where it was tingling after being pressed against Steve’s.

“I can tell,” Steve said sharply but without malice.

“Hey, you guys?” Chrissy’s voice came softly through the speaker. “It’s time to wrap up now, if that’s ok?”

“Thank you Chrissy,” said Steve, shooting a smile towards her booth. “Eddie, did you want to ask me anything else before I say goodbye to everyone?”

“How are you so calm?” Eddie blurted out. He couldn’t help it. Steve was an unbreakable façade. It wasn’t even that different to the person Eddie had watched fall asleep on facetime, but Steve’s transition from who he was in private to this public persona was seamless and apparently unshakeable. Eddie wondered if he’d get a DM later where Steve would reveal how upset he actually was during the whole thing.

Steve just laughed.

“You think you’re the biggest or the baddest that’s ever tried to come for me?” he asked coyly. “That’s cute,”

Eddie stared at him. Maybe he wouldn’t get a DM at all, he sounded like he truly was unbothered. It was a little scary, honestly.

“Ok, um, that’s our show everyone, and, uh….” Eddie struggled to find his words. He was still shook up after the sex tape thing.

“Oh my god, let me do it,” said Steve, standing up and walking around the desk. He put his arm around Eddie’s shoulder and leaned down to speak into the microphone. “That’s all for the show this week, thanks for listening, and thanks to Chrissy and Gareth for being so cool about Eddie inviting me to come on. I’ve had a lot of fun. You’ve had fun too, right Eds?”

Steve squeezed Eddie’s shoulders.

“Uh huh…” said Eddie, looking up at Steve. “Yeah, thanks…”

“Great!” said Steve brightly. “Maybe I’ll come on again some time, maybe not though, only one coffee for this whole time? Kind of amatuer. Bye everyone!”

Steve stood up and gave a thumbs up to Chrissy, who jumped slightly and cut the recording. He was the only calm person in the studio right now, and he knew it. Eddie pulled off his headphones and stood up, grabbing Steve by the arm before he walked away.

“Steve, I–”

“Did nothing wrong,” said Steve quickly. His phone started ringing in his pocket. “Honestly, no big deal. This is Nancy, I gotta take it,”

Steve answered the phone as he walked out of the studio. Chrissy and Gareth opened the door to the producer booth slowly, waiting until Steve was completely gone before they walked out.

“That went….” Chrissy started. “I want to say ‘well’, but….”

“Was that like, common knowledge?” asked Eddie, not needing to say what he was referring to. “If I googled it would it come up?”

Gareth pulled out his phone and clicked at the screen, before letting out a long breath.

“Yeah,” he said, reading quickly over what he found. “Yeah, he gave an interview about it, little over a year ago. He leaked it himself to try minimise the impact,”

“Brave,” said Chrissy quietly.

“I need to go talk to him,” said Eddie, before following Steve to the parking lot.

Steve was still talking to Nancy when Eddie got outside, leaning against the tree Eddie had been standing at earlier. He raised a hand to greet Eddie when he seen him come through the door.

“Yeah we’re just done now….Super fun yeah, I’ll tell you all about it when you get here…Ok great….Great….Ok….Ok cool, bye, bye….Bye,”

Steve hung up and Eddie opened his mouth to speak, but Steve held up a hand to silence him.

“I said it was ok and I meant it,” said Steve, taking his hat off and shaking a hand through his hair to fluff it up.

“It doesn’t feel ok,” said Eddie, his hands in his pockets. “Gareth just checked, you uh, you put it out there yourself?”

“Sure did,” said Steve, pushing away from the tree. “It was Tommy’s idea, actually, said it might be a good move. I didn’t really want to, but, you know, he started talking about the Streisand Effect and I got scared,”

Eddie’s chest tightened. Of fucking course it was Tommy’s idea.

“And it’s barely even a sex tape,” Steve said with a shrug. “Two guys rubbed their dicks on my face when I was passed out, they’ve shown worse on HBO,”

“That’s still…” Eddie ran a hand over his mouth. “Look, I’m really fucking sorry, I should have done some actual research before you came here, you were right,”

Steve waved his hand.

“It’s fine, these things happen, I get reminded of it all the time,” he said. “At least this time I was able to have fun with it,”

“You…Who reminds you?” asked Eddie, as if he fucking had to.

Steve looked at the ground and slipped his sunglasses back on.

“Kind of difficult not to be when they keep getting invited to dinner parties,” said Steve simply, leaning forward slightly as if he was telling Eddie a secret. And maybe he was, Gareth didn’t mention if anyone had been named in that interview he was reading.

Something clicked into place for Eddie.

“That’s why you were crying in Palm Springs,” he said slowly, taken aback that Tommy would try to force Steve to be around those people.

Steve winked and clicked his tongue, using one hand to give a finger-gun.

“Why… Why didn’t you get out of there?” asked Eddie. “I mean, fuck, sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, it’s not your fault they were there…”

“How could I have?” asked Steve without accusation. “I didn’t drive there so I had no car, I could have ubered back to the motel I was staying in but I would have had to wait outside in front of a bunch of photographers. Who could I have called that wouldn’t open their mouths put it on Rich Lux’s radar? I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t keep friends, Eddie,”

“Nancy? Robin?” said Eddie. “The fucking police?”

Steve smiled and rolled his eyes.

“Did I not say earlier that I give them a ton of days off?” said Steve. “It’s not like Palm Springs is a super quick car ride away from LA anyway,”

“So when you want to get out of somewhere you just, what, stay?” asked Eddie in disbelief.

Steve crossed his arms and shrugged again.

“Easier that way,” he said simply.

“Like a lot of things,” said Eddie, remembering that was his reason for not cutting Tommy off entirely. “Give me your phone,”

“Excuse me?” asked Steve, eyebrows shooting up into his hairline.

“Your phone, Steve,” repeated Eddie, holding his hand out.

Steve took his phone out of his pocket and held it up to unlock it with the face ID before putting it in Eddie’s palm.

“You ever need to leave somewhere, anywhere, for any reason…” said Eddie, tapping the screen. “You call me, ok?”

He turned the phone around, showing Steve that he’d saved his number. Eddie pressed the Call button and let his own phone ring once before hanging up so he’d have Steve’s number too.

“What do you mean?” asked Steve, taking the phone back. “What if I want to call you just to talk and you panic?”

“You can call me whenever you want on Instagram to talk, to fall asleep, to tell me all about the latest dumpster that looks just like me,” said Eddie. Steve laughed. “But as soon as I see your actual phone number on my screen, I’ll get ready to come running. I’ll pick you up from wherever you are, no questions asked,”

“You want to be my knight in shining armour?” asked Steve, trying to sound like he was joking but Eddie caught the brief look of expectation on his face.

“If that’s what you want to call it, sure,” agreed Eddie. “And I don’t work for you, so I won’t take days off either,”

Steve smiled and looked down at his phone, where Eddie’s number was still on the screen. Nancy’s car swept around the corner behind him.

“Thanks, Eddie,” said Steve softly.

“Don’t mention it,” said Eddie, waving to Nancy.

Steve pulled Eddie into a tight hug, arms around his neck. Eddie gave a small Oof sound because he hadn’t been expecting it, but he couldn’t help wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist to squeeze him right back.

“Will you tell the others I said goodbye?” whispered Steve, pulling back so they were face to face, their noses almost touching.

“Sure thing, Stevie,” said Eddie, smelling the lavender and bergamot of his hair products. He took in the warmth of Steve’s body pressed against his own, rubbing his hands gently along his sides.

“I did actually have fun today,” said Steve with a gentle smile. “Can we facetime tonight? Before bed?”

Eddie nodded.

“Of course,” he said. “I’ll be looking forward to it,”

Steve’s smile widened and hugged Eddie again before pulling away entirely, and going to get into Nancy’s car.

“Bye Eddie,” he called out of the window as she reversed.

“Bye sweetheart,” said Eddie quietly to himself as the car disappeared around the corner.

Chapter Text

Steve didn’t call Eddie the night after they recorded the podcast.

He didn’t stream, either. He posted a blank background on his Instagram story saying “No live tonight guys, long day, going to bed asap 😴 ” at four in the afternoon and that was it. The usual fifteen to twenty pings that @indiana_boy would get on Eddie’s iPad whenever Steve made a new post weren’t there either. It was a radio silence that was completely jarring with the normal overload of posts that Eddie was used to seeing every day. Even the fan accounts were questioning it. Steve had apparently never gone quiet online before, except for two days after something called ‘The Cocktail Incident’ that Eddie was still deep diving through Tumblr to figure out. It wasn’t just Instagram, either. @indiana_boy had slowly built up accounts across all the major platforms over the last few months. Tumblr, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, even BeReal, just to make sure he didn’t miss any of Steve’s content. There was a double edge to it now though, given that he could click into one of Tommy Hagan’s TikTok lives whenever he wanted and snarl at the screen for a while.

Eddie had put off his own usual stream too on the recording day, he wasn’t in the right headspace to think of anything but Steve. He was struggling with Myst enough as it was and he wasn’t in the mood to play something mindless like Animal Crossing even though it might have helped. Luckily his streaming schedule was pretty erratic so he didn’t have to offer any major explanations, just send a quick message to his mods saying they weren’t needed that day. Eddie was worried, more than anything else. He didn’t know if Steve would ever talk to him again, even though they seemed to part on good terms outside the studio. Steve had hugged him, for Christ’s sake. But with no contact afterwards, it was too easy to let his mind run wild. Eddie kept forgetting that Steve had no issues running his mouth online and tearing strips off people who’d done him wrong. So why should Eddie be any different here? There had been a few small insults thrown around before they actually met, and the memory of the slap still made Eddie’s ears ring, but what exactly was stopping Steve from posting a video titled “Storytime! Podcast host tried to slut shame assault victim?!“ ? Nothing, that’s what. Eddie tried to hard not to think about the fact that Steve also had a lot of things he could say about Tommy that he was pointedly choosing not to.

So when the next morning rolled around and there was still no messages from Steve, Eddie sent one himself.

@EddieMPod

hope ur ok after yesterday

@EddieMPod

let me know if u want to talk

The message was read almost immediately, but Steve didn’t reply. A few hours later, Eddie got a notification that Steve had ‘liked’ it.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

@callmechrissy:

Do you trust me?

@EddieMPod:

???

@callmechrissy:

There’s enough usable footage of Steve to

get basically a full episode.

@callmechrissy:

But it’s going to take some work

@callmechrissy:

Let’s call it creative editing?

@EddieMPod:

chris i dont know if we should even post anything

@callmechrissy:

Do you trust me or not?

@EddieMPod:

yeah. ok. i do.

@callmechrissy:

Here’s the preview, post it tomorrow.

@callmechrissy:

Ep will be live on Wednesday

@callmechrissy:

Sent a video!

Eddie took a deep breath before opening the preview. It was a shot of Eddie in his chair with his head in his hands. It faded to black as Steve’s laugh rang out. It cut to Steve in his own chair, leaning back like he hadn’t a care in the world before asking What’s your question, Eddie?

Eddie stomach squirmed the following afternoon as he posted it to his story with the simple caption “Wednesday.”

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

It was a full week since the recording by the time Eddie heard from Steve again.

Steve’s online posting schedule had slowly picked up again. There was even a Get Ready With Me reel posted, showing Steve pulling on a just-more-than-casual looking outfit before an event later on that evening. He was doing a little spin to show off the detailing on the back of his plaid jacket, and then there was a sped-up timelapse of him putting on some makeup. It slowed down for a second when he held a tube of Wet n Wild mascara and winked. Eddie huffed a laugh and rolled his eyes. Ok, so they were still playing that game. Fine. If nothing else it gave Eddie hope that Steve wasn’t entirely disgusted by the thoughts of them still being friends. The reel ended with Steve blowing a kiss to the camera. Eddie half expected to get some notifications of Steve posting during the night but none came. There was just one, Steve reposted a photo of him and Robin together. She was dressed in a knit sweater and a short skirt, and matched Steve's vibe perfectly.

Tommy was at the event too. He posted a series of TikToks dedicated to prank calling other guests and recording their reactions from around a corner. Eddie watched them all, safely hidden behind his @indiana_boy username. Reported two of them for bullying for fun. One of the videos had Tommy and two of his buddies approaching Steve when they ran out of phone numbers for the people around them.

“Give me your phone, babe,” Tommy said, not even looking away from the camera that his friend was holding as he interrupted the conversation Steve was having.

Steve’s eyebrow curled upwards and his lips pursed together.

“As if,” he said in a low voice, turning back to whoever he was speaking to. Eddie recognised this person vaguely, he’d seen him on his For You Page a few times. Leo something. Nice guy, wore a lot of Versace. Pronounced it Ver-Sayse.

“Don’t be such a buzzkill!” whined Tommy, still not looking at Steve but holding his hand out in expectation. “I just want a few phone numbers, maybe some DM access, and then I’ll give it right back,”

Tommy winked to his friends.

“If you can guess the passcode you can have it,” said Steve, deadpan.

Tommy’s brow furrowed. Eddie thought he looked like a kid about to start flailing around on the floor.

“That’s like a sixteen-number code,” said Tommy, wheeling around to finally look at Steve. “Come on just–“

Eddie watched as Tommy inadvertently found him staring right at the chest of six-foot-seven Leo instead of up at Steve’s face. Leo looked down at him without moving his head.

“Boo,” said Leo.

The video could only see the back of Tommy’s head but Eddie was sure that he actually jumped.

“Whatever,” said Tommy, turning back to his friend with the camera. “Lesson learned guys, Steve Harrington doesn’t understand the importance of a great joke,”

The video ended with Tommy rolling his eyes, mumbling fucking loser under his breath. Steve didn’t appear in any of Tommy’s other TikToks after that, but Leo was in the background of a few, talking to other people. Eddie wondered if Steve had gone home, or if he was now standing behind the camera watching everything unfold.

Two or three hours after the last of Tommy’s videos were posted, and a little while after the rest of the people at the event started to post their Oh My God You Guys Tonight Was So Fun wrap-ups, Eddie was sitting outside on his balcony with a cigarette and a six pack. The weather was turning cooler now and Summer was long forgotten. Well, as much as it could be in LA anyway. He was finally able to wear a hoodie without feeling like he was going to die. Halloween was coming up next week and the podcast was going to be dedicated to the best episodes of The Simpsons Treehouse Of Horror specials. It was after midnight and the Eddie found himself enjoying the calm night, hanging his arm over the balcony edge, despite lingering thoughts of Steve prickling at the back of his mind, when his phone pinged.

@theharringtonhair:

ft?

Eddie’s chest tightened as he stared down at the message.

  @EddieMPod:

yeah sure, when?

Eddie’s phone started chiming immediately. He took a second to prop his phone up against one of the empty bottles on the table next to him before answering. The angle would be weird, facing him more sideways than frontways, but he couldn’t think about it too long or else Steve might hang up.

“Hey,” said Eddie as the video connected.

Steve looked awful. He was sitting in his closet, on the chair usually reserved for his live streams. His hair was a mess and his eyes were red. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Eddie wasn’t sure if he had recently stopped crying or if he still was.

“Hey back,” mumbled Steve, scratching at his forehead, just beyond his hairline. Steve was high. If the size of his pupils didn’t give it away then the slowed down speech was the next big indicator.

“Are you ok?” asked Eddie, lighting a new cigarette.

Steve took a deep breath and looked around him.

“No,” he said plainly. “Why are you outside?”

“What’s wrong?” asked Eddie.

“Why are you outside?” asked Steve again. “You’re never outside,”

“I don’t like smoking in the house,” said Eddie slowly, trying to figure out how to get Steve to talk about the state he was in. The mascara he’d applied so meticulously earlier was streaked down his cheeks, running along his jaw as it tensed and clenched.

“That’s good, that’s good,” said Steve, looking down into his lap. “Gotta keep the house smelling nice… Your neighbours can’t…Can’t like, hear you can they?”

Eddie gave Steve a small smile.

“No, they can’t hear us,” he said. “I’ll go inside though, if you want?”

“No, wait until you’re finished, you know,” said Steve lifting his hand to his mouth and miming smoking.

Steve spun around in the chair and looked behind him.

“It’s Eddie, I’m ok,” he called to whoever was coming into the walk-in.

“Steve come on we said–“ Robin came into view and stopped dead when Steve thrust the phone out for her to look at. Eddie offered an awkward wave. “Oh, it’s Eddie,”

“I told you it was…” Steve huffed, sinking down further into the chair and holding the phone close to his chest. He looked small like this.

“I’m going to make you something to eat,” came Robin’s voice. Steve shifted the phone so she was barely visible over his shoulder, to avoid sitting up and turning again to see her. “No arguments,”

Eddie’s eyebrows pinched together at the exchange.

“Bring my green tea too,” Steve muttered, before she left.

Eddie took a long drag of his cigarette while Steve settled himself down into a comfortable position.

“You still have your makeup on,” remarked Eddie.

Steve ran a hand over his cheek and looked at it.

“Oh, right…” he said, looking confused. “I’ll take it off later or something…”

Eddie hummed.

“So what happened tonight?” asked Eddie again.

Steve sighed, pulling at his eyelashes.

“Was out, big event,” he said, before running his tongue along his gums. “Fucking hated it. Fought with stupid people… Robin came to get me,”

Steve was apparently unaware that he’d started crying again.

“You have a lot to drink?” asked Eddie softly. He was making a point to not lift his own beer bottle now.

Steve nodded.

“Other stuff too,” admitted Steve with a heavy breath. “Sorry,”

“You don’t need to apologise,” said Eddie. A piece of Steve’s hair had fallen down over his forehead. Eddie wanted to reach out and brush it away. “Will you tell me about it?”

Steve chewed his lip, eyes unfocused and looking just to the left of the camera.

“Steve, noodles, come on,” Robin arrived back with a bowl of ramen and a cup of what Eddie assumed to be green tea.

Steve groaned and tried to turn his body away from her. She set the bowl and cup down on a nearby surface before hooking two hands under Steve’s armpits and hauling him into a straight-up sitting position. The phone jerked around wildly in his hand while it happened, but Eddie definitely saw the long-time practice of this in Robin’s demeanor. Clearly worried, wanting to take care of her friend, but knowing that in this state there was no room for coddling. Steve struck Eddie as the type to be able to bat his eyelashes in order to weasel his way out of taking care of himself. Eddie wondered how long it took Robin to be able to see through the act and just get on with it anyway.

“I’m not eating anything,” said Steve, looking up at her. “I’m not even hungry,”

“When was the last time you ate?” asked Robin, now off camera. “Before or after you puked on the side of the highway? Or in the bathroom before we left the restaurant? Or in the bushes outside?”

Steve’s face was neutral while he thought of an excuse.

“After,” he said, with a gesture of his head to indicate that it must be obvious.

“Steve,” said Robin firmly.

Eddie was starting to feel awkward. It reminded him of being in a friend’s house as a kid when their parent started yelling at them.

“Those noodles look good,” he piped up. “What, uh, what brand are they?”

Steve’s eyes snapped to the screen, as if he had forgotten Eddie was even there. Robin left quietly, passing by Steve and glancing back at him. Eddie saw the look of concern on her face as she went.

“Top…Top…Robin adds good stuff to make it nice,” said Steve slowly, looking over at the bowl. “Yeah. Top,”

“Top Ramen? I like those too,” said Eddie.

Steve shifted around in his seat and balanced his phone between his knees so he could put his hands around the rim of the bowl and lift it gently into his lap.

“Careful…” Eddie mumbled.

“Mmhmm,” Steve hummed. “Hot, right?”

“Yeah, sweetheart, it’ll be hot,”

Steve looked around the room.

“Where’s Robin?” he asked.

“She went back to the kitchen, I think,” supplied Eddie. He stubbed out his cigarette and fixed the collar of his hoodie up around his neck. He was getting cold now. “Why don’t you call her, if you want her?”

Steve shook his head, a bit too fast. He looked dizzy when he stopped.

“Did you eat dinner?” he asked Eddie.

And yes, Eddie had eaten not too long ago. He’d ordered a sub from the fast food place down the street and inhaled it while watching the new episode of Drag Race.

“No, now that you mention it,” he said instead, having a feeling this would be more helpful.

“You should eat,” said Steve, staring down into his bowl.

Eddie stood and Steve flinched at the sound of the metal chair scraping against the concrete floor. Eddie walked inside holding his phone to go to his kitchen, thinking quickly about what he could pass off as ‘dinner’ without actually eating anything.

“Wait,” said Steve, squinting at the screen. He was still holding the bowl in his lap, but he was holding a fork now too. “Show me,”

“Uh, show you what?” said Eddie, standing still.

“Your house,” said Steve, jabbing the fork towards the screen. “Show me,”

“Uh, sure, yeah,” said Eddie. “This is my room, you’ve seen this, last time we talked like this, remember?” Steve hummed, and started raking the fork through his noodles. Eddie kept walking, slower now. “And uh, my hallway, I guess? I have some art hanging here, see?”

Steve had bent his neck down so he could look closer at the screen. He wasn’t blinking as often as he should, his red eyes staying wide. Eddie walked down the hall, phone tilted so Steve could see the pictures on the wall. He was giving little noises of affirmation at each one.

“And then, this, is my living room, I spend most of my time in here,” said Eddie, gesturing around him, showing Steve the large grey couch and wide screen TV.

“You own a lot of stuff,” said Steve, spearing a piece of green pepper and his fork and nibbling on the edge as Eddie panned over the fireplace, packed full of skull shaped candle holders and shelves of Funko Pops.

“Yeah, I kind of just pick things up without thinking about where to put them…” Eddie admitted.

“Like me?” asked Steve.

Eddie’s thought process stuttered.

“Uh, no, I don’t…” he cleared his throat, tried to laugh as if it was a joke. He half thought it might have been but didn’t want to ignore it, just in case. “I don’t think about you like a thing, don’t worry?”

“You don’t?” asked Steve softly, looking back to his noodles and re-examining the green pepper.

Eddie crossed the threshold into the kitchen.

“No, of course not,” he said, propping his phone against the toaster and opening the cabinet. “We’re in the kitchen now by the way,”

“You’re bad at house tours,” said Steve, trying to slurp some broth off his fork and appearing to not understand why it wouldn’t work.

“Well, maybe you should teach me how to do it right. Aha!” exclaimed Eddie, pulling a pack of Top Ramen from the shelf. He showed it to Steve, who smiled. “We can eat together, how’s that sound?”

Steve nodded and threw the fork over his shoulder, Eddie heard it land on the carpet with a dull thud. Steve lifted the bowl to his mascara stained face and sipped the broth over the rim. Eddie mimed crumbling the dry ramen into bowl without actually doing it, before adding water and the seasoning packet, and putting it into the microwave. He was going to be ‘eating’ nothing but MSG flavoured water but hey, that was the best part of these things anyway, right?

“So who did you fight with?” asked Eddie, leaning a hip against the counter.

Steve scrunched his nose.

“Stupid people,” said Steve, shaking his head vigorously again. “Don’t want to talk about him,”

Ah. So it was another fight with Tommy then. Eddie wondered if he’d see it on TMZ tomorrow.

“Were you having a good time before then?” asked Eddie, worried Steve might spill hot food all over himself if he didn’t calm down.

“Yes!” said Steve louder than he meant to, apparent by the way he flinched at the sound of his own voice. “Saw a friend I haven’t talked to in soooooooo longgggggg,”

Eddie couldn’t help but smirk at the sing-song voice Steve used.

“Oh yeah?” asked Eddie, taking his bowl of hot water out of the microwave. “Tell me about them?”

Steve sipped more of his Ramen, pinching a noodle between his fingers and dropping it into his mouth. Eddie sipped at his bowl too, leaning his elbows on the counter so he was eye-to-eye with the phone.

“He like, so positive, you know?” lamented Steve, eating more and talking with his mouth full. Well, full except for the three noodles hanging out of the corner of his lips. “He doesn’t have time for anyone else’s opinions and….He’s like, free, you know? Only cares about himself but in like, the best way. You probably don’t know him, Leo? Skepti?”

Eddie hummed while he swallowed a mouthful of water.

“I do know him actually,” said Eddie, Steve looked surprised. “I’ve seen his stuff of TikTok, I really love his whole vibe,”

“You do?” said Steve quickly, voice suddenly firm. Eddie’s shoulders tensed.

“Yeah, his energy is pretty great,” said Eddie carefully. “You said it yourself,”

“You know he has a boyfriend,” said Steve, eyes narrowing. “So you can’t like, say that you like him or anything,”

Eddie gave a surprised laugh.

“I don’t,” said Eddie. “I’m just agreeing with you. What, are you jealous that I might like someone, Stevie?”

“No,” snapped Steve, biting a piece of carrot with far too much force. “I’m just telling you that he’s taken,”

“So are you,” said Eddie. “So should I not say that I like you? As a friend, I mean,”

He added the last part quickly, abruptly remembering that Steve was in a massively altered state.

“I’m not,” mumbled Steve.

“You’re not what, sweetheart?” Eddie asked gently.

“Your friend,” said Steve, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. “You’re not listening to me,”

“Of course you’re my friend, why wouldn’t you be?” asked Eddie. “I am listening, come on, tell me,”

Steve put his bowl down and took his phone from its balancing spot between his knees. He started to cry again, pushing the heel of his hand into his eye.

“Because I was a dick to you,” sobbed Steve, suddenly in a worse state than he already had been. They were loud, heavy sobs that came straight from his chest. “And I’m so embarrassed because you and your friends were so nice to me,”

“Hey, hey, come on, don’t do that,” shushed Eddie. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about, ok? I’m the one that should say sorry here,”

“No!” cried Steve. “No! I’m so used to being asked stupid fucking questions and I shouldn’t have said what I said, I could have just moved on, ignored it, but I didn’t! And I knew you weren’t trying to be mean to me, I did, I swear, I don’t know why I didn’t just lie about it,”

“Stevie, sweetheart, listen to me, ok?” said Eddie, holding his phone in both hands and wishing he could have Steve’s face cupped in them instead. “I should never have brought it up in the first place, that’s the facts. I’m not used to people getting one over on me, and then you come along and, you weren’t lying, were you, when you called yourself a force of nature?”

Steve gave a wet laugh before dissolving back into tears, his arm slung over his eyes.

“I feel so dumb,” said Steve, quietly bawling. “I didn’t want to attack you like that, I couldn’t help it. You all, you all, you all stood up for me and that shouldn’t have been how I repaid you. They didn’t even talk, talk, shit about me afterwards on tw-twitter or anything,”

“I didn’t feel attacked, none of us did,” said Eddie earnestly, longing to kiss the stutters right out of Steve’s mouth. “I felt stupid for asking about something I never should have just because I felt intimidated. They would never say anything bad about you, Stevie, especially not after that,”

“You were intimidated by me?” asked Steve, his voice still small.

“I guess I wasn’t prepared for who you are in public,” said Eddie honestly. “I’m too used to who you are when it’s just us,”

“I like it when it’s just us,” said Steve meekly, peeking out from under his arm.

“Me too,” agreed Eddie. His heart was breaking more and more with every stilted blub that came out of Steve’s mouth.

“So w-we’re still f-friends?” hiccupped Steve through his sobs. “You still want that?”

“I was worried you wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore,” said Eddie. “We’re still friends, as long as that’s what you want,”

“I want that,” whispered Steve, wiping his face with his entire arm and smudging the black stains around his face even more. “Do your friends hate me?”

Eddie smiled gently.

“Not even a little bit, I promise,” he said.

Steve let out a few more strangled sobs before his breathing calmed down fully. Robin came running into the background.

“Steve? What’s going on?” she asked, coming up behind him to put a hand on his shoulder. “Eddie.”

Robin said his name like it was an accusation.

“I’m ok, I’m ok,” repeated Steve, swatting her away. “I’m ok, I’m just talking to Eddie,”

“And what’s he saying to you?” asked Robin, her soft voice betrayed by the look of thunder she was shooting at the camera. Eddie shrunk back under her gaze.

“He’s being nice, I’m ok,” said Steve again. “I’m saying sorry,”

“He doesn’t have to say sorry,” said Eddie to Robin, leaning back towards the phone again. Her expression softened slightly when she saw that Steve had almost totally finished his food.

“We ate together,” Steve mumbled, pushing the phone into Robin’s face. “He had ramen too, see? Look at the bowl, it’s right there,”

Eddie gestured to the bowl in front of him to help Steve’s case. Robin rubbed her hand across Steve’s back.

“That’s great, hon,” she told him. “Drink your tea before it gets cold, hmm?”

Steve nodded.

“We’ll wash your make up off later, ok?” suggested Robin. “Get your skincare done, you’ll be upset in the morning if you don’t,”

Steve stuck his tongue out and shook his shoulder out from under her hands.

“And then bed, hmmm?” she added.

Steve made a noise that sounded like a fake retching sound in protest.

“I, uh, I need to do that too, now that you mention it,” said Eddie. Steve and Robin both looked at the camera in surprise and Eddie was struck with how like a pair of meerkats they looked. “You can help me, Steve, I have some new products that I don’t know how to use yet,”

Eddie was, of course, lying out of his ass. He had a tube of moisturiser, a bottle of micellar water, and a pack of cotton pads, all of which he knew how to use just fine. But he was getting an idea of how Steve’s mind was functioning right now, and offering to do something alongside him seemed to be helpful.

Steve nodded sharply, making himself dizzy again.

“Yes,” he said. “Let’s go do that now,”

Steve got himself to his feet and grabbed his green tea as he stumbled to the bathroom.

“No house tour for me?” teased Eddie, leaving the kitchen and going to his own bathroom.

Steve rolled his eyes and grinned lopsided, slowing down briefly to take a gulp of his tea.  

Robin followed behind Steve as he walked, only leaving when he pushed a headband up around his hair and settled his phone on the edge of the sink. She mouthed a ‘thank you’ to the camera when Steve wasn’t looking before she went. Eddie winked at her.

Eddie set his own phone on the shelf under his shaving mirror.

“Show me what you have,” said Steve, already swiping at his own face with a cotton pad.

“Oh, yeah, uh…” Eddie held up the micellar water and moisturiser. “Just this…And some wipes too,”

Steve stared at the screen.

“And you…,” he started, before closing his eyes and shaking his head, thankfully slowly this time. “You don’t know how to use them?”

Eddie shrugged, keeping up the bit.

“…no?” said Eddie. “Not… Not properly, I guess?”

Steve sighed, using a dropper to put serum on his skin.

“Mmmkay well, I have way more steps than you so you can wait until I get there,” said Steve. “Remind me to send you a list of things you actually need. Your pores will thank me,”

Steve was sounding more like himself than he had all night now that he was in a more natural environment. Skincare and being a bitch. It was like the secret formula for Build-A-Steve.

“Thanks,” said Eddie sarcastically, rolling his eyes and sitting on the closed toilet seat while he waited for further instructions. Steve smirked.

“So tomorrow’s podcast day, right?” asked Steve. He was clearly aiming for casual but he missed by a mile. “I saw the preview on Instagram,”

Eddie wished he could say it caught him off guard, but he knew sooner rather than later Steve would ask about it.

“Yeah, tomorrow,” confirmed Eddie, running a hand over the back of his neck.

“How does it look?” asked Steve, chewing the inside of his cheek while he warmed up some cream on his hands before dotting it across his cheekbones. He wasn’t swaying anymore, the focus on the task helping him.

“I don’t know, honestly,” admitted Eddie. “Chrissy does the editing but she, uh, she says it’s good,”

Steve kept rubbing at his face for a few seconds before he picked up another cotton pad.

“Do your micellar water now,” instructed Steve. Eddie stood up and grabbed the bottle and the cotton pads. “Swipe it under your eyes and outwards, then up like this and down and around and finish in at your nose,”

Eddie watched, dumbfounded, as Steve pointed at the camera and wiggled his finger around, clearly trying to trace a map of Eddie’s face through the screen. When Steve looked away to grab his next product, Eddie just wiped it over his face in whatever haphazard way he usually did, giving Steve a thumbs up when he looked back to his phone.

“Sit back down, I have more to do,” said Steve, rummaging through a box of products. “You’re sure Chrissy doesn’t hate me though?”

Eddie found himself once again wishing he was standing next to Steve so he could wrap his arms around him for reassurance.

“I don’t think Chrissy Cunningham is capable of hating someone,” said Eddie. “I trust her, she’ll do a good job,”

“Can I trust her?” asked Steve. “Moisturiser, come on, follow me,”

Eddie quickly reached for his moisturiser and mimicked the way Steve was dotting it around his face before rubbing it all in. It was at least three times the amount he usually used.

“You can trust her,” said Eddie. “I promise,”

Steve smiled to himself as he packed up his stuff.

“I skipped so many steps,” whined Steve, almost more to himself than to Eddie. Eddie already knew that though, having watched this routine love more times than he could count. “I’m too tired, so I’ll deal with it tomorrow,”

“Bedtime, sweetheart,” said Eddie, grabbing his phone again and walking into his room. He lay on his bed, fully clothed, and held his phone up over him while he watched Steve pull a tiny bottle of water from a fucking mini fridge under his sink and drain it in three mouthfuls, before also going to his own bedroom.

“ROB-INNNNN!” yelled Steve as he lay down without turning off the light. “I’m sleeping now!”

Steve listened for a reply before nodding.

“Will you stay with me?” asked Steve, pulling his blankets up to his chin and nuzzling down into his pillows. His eyes were still rimmed-red but his face was clear and his speech was clearer. “Until I sleep?”

“If you want me to, yeah,” said Eddie, putting an arm behind his head.

“Mmhmm, and after too, in case I wake up,” hummed Steve. “Night…”

“Goodnight, Stevie,” said Eddie quietly.

Steve was asleep within minutes. Robin tiptoed into the room not long after and gave Eddie a quiet wave. She looked exhausted too at this point. Eddie wondered how long they had been battling about food and washing Steve’s face before he called Eddie. He expected her to pick up the phone and hang up, but instead she leaned down and planted a kiss on Steve’s forehead and flipped off his lamp, and smiled at Eddie before leaving, closing the door gently behind her.

Eddie watched Steve’s eyelids flutter as he slept, hoping he was having good dreams. He deserved the best dreams, as far as Eddie was concerned. Fluffy, soft, sweet dreams that left him feeling warm and safe when he woke up. Eddie wondered what Steve’s fight with Tommy had been about tonight. Whatever it was it was, it was bad enough that Steve got so worked up to get as high as he was. That only happened when he was overwhelmed, or so he’d told Eddie.

Eddie found himself getting angry as he thought about the video of Tommy demanding Steve’s phone so could take people’s phone numbers out of it. He was glad that Steve didn’t just hand it over, standing up for himself in that small way, at least. Maybe Leo’s presence there was enough of a confidence boost that Steve felt like he could stand up for himself. Eddie felt a pang of jealousy that he, Gareth, and Chrissy didn’t inspire that same kind of backbone, but then again Steve didn’t realise at the time that they’d protect him. A revelation that apparently had left quite the impression on Steve. Eddie wished he could say something stupid about Tommy but with the cease and desist in play, he was risking real legal action. He was lucky to get away with the TikTok comment a few weeks ago.

Eddie clicked out of the video call, minimizing Steve’s sleeping face to a small corner of his phone screen, before taking a picture of his hand. A middle finger, pointing up towards the ceiling, and adding it to his Instagram story. He chose a song to go with it carefully, figuring that he should take a leaf out of Steve’s book and have an appropriate audio for whatever it was he posted. Eddie decided that Boyfriend by Tyler Cassidy was perfect. He chuckled to himself before letting Steve fill his screen again, and setting the phone on his nightstand.

Eddie changed into a pair of sweatpants and got into bed, making up his mind to let his phone battery decide when the call would be cut off.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Eddie woke up late the next day after letting his phone die while on the video call with a sleeping Steve. He set it to charge while he brushed his teeth and pulled on a t-shirt.

Eddie went to the kitchen to grab a can of coke from the fridge and his iPad before going back to lay on his bed. He yawned while he typed in his pin code and let his phone wake up. Eddie flinched when he saw the amount of notifications on the screen. He had forgot to turn off replies to the picture of his middle finger last night.

His inbox was full of people trying to figure out who it was about, with the vast majority guessing it was about Tommy Hagan. Eddie cringed inwardly. Six months ago getting involved in this type of vague posting about other people’s bullshit would make him balk, but now here he was inserting himself right into the middle of it. He was practically creating his own drama at this point.

Eddie groaned and turned away from his phone, looking instead to his iPad. Steve had posted two stories already this morning, which wasn’t unusual in regular circumstances, but it was way more than there had been in the last week or so.

Eddie clicked into the first @indiana_boy notification to see that Steve had reposted a motivational tweet by his friend Leo about not giving any more second chances in 2023. Eddie hoped the sentiment would extend to his relationship with Tommy, and clicked onto the second notification.

Steve had reposted the announcement that his episode of the podcast was up after Chrissy posted it on her own page.

Eddie gulped. He settled back against the headboard of the bed and went to the podcast’s youtube channel. He took a deep breath, and pressed play on Episode 187, Featuring Steve Harrington.

The video opened with a security camera shot of the parking lot outside the studio. Eddie, Steve, Chrissy, and Gareth were all standing around, voices muffled but recognisable.

Should we head inside? came Steve’s voice.

Tommy Hagan’s car came into view, fully blurred out, and when Tommy got out, Eddie’s jaw dropped. Chrissy had edited a clown emoji over his face.

Hey babe!

Eddie laughed in shock. She’d edited Tommy’s voice to sound like a chipmunk. Eddie watched as the whole parking lot interaction played out on screen, Tommy’s little clown head bounced around the screen as his high-pitched voice squealed at not being allowed to sit in on the interview. Chrissy zoomed in on any shots that might have shown Steve looking uncomfortable and edited out the second half of Steve’s sentence when he said You Should Go, Tommy.

The video faded to black when Gareth said Let’s Go Inside, Get This Show On The Road.

Chrissy came on screen. The video was grainy, giving away that she was recording herself off her computer's webcam. She was in a big hoodie and large headphones, sitting in her home office.

“Hey everyone,” she said, holding the microphone on the headset wire up to her mouth. “So, bad news first. I’m editing this episode and I literally just got a letter from someone’s lawyer, and that with the rest of Eddie’s…” She sighed, and waved her hand around. “Collection of those, it’s made some of the stories that Steve Harrington tells kind of… Impossible to show. Good news though! I can edit around it. It’ll look weird and choppy and a lot like a Dan and Phil vlog from ten years ago with the amount of jumpcuts, but we love Dan and Phil in this house soooo….”

She spun around on her chair.

“Let’s do it!”

Eddie stared at the screen.

“You fucking genius…” he whispered to himself.

The video cut to Steve sitting in his chair in front of the microphone, voguing to the intro music while Eddie started the show.

Everything went more or less unchanged for the first half of the episode. Chrissy added entirely unnecessary shaky jumpcuts, beeped out words, and blurred mouths to sections that didn’t even need them to back up her previous claim of things being a little all over the place. The end result had the conversations basically exactly the same as they happened on the day, but seeming to be chopped and changed thanks to all the edits.

“Running out of things to say already?” asked Steve. “Come on Eddie, ask me anything,”

Eddie held his breath. Chrissy was on screen again.

“So here is where it gets really hard,” said Chrissy brightly, leaning towards her webcam with an elbow on her desk. “There was a great story about quaaludes but this is all I could salvage from that, and for the rest of the episode. Take it or leave it, I guess,”

She shrugged with a wide smile, and the episode started again.

“What’s your question, Eddie?” asked Steve, lounging back in his seat.

The video cut to Eddie sitting with his face in his hands.

Another cut.

“Didn’t do your research before your guest came on?” asked Steve, voice still light, “Tsk tsk tsk, you’ll never get on primetime TV with that attitude,”

It cut again.

“Eddie’s microphone is actually still working, in case anyone watching thought it broke,” Steve told the camera calmly.

Cut.

“And I am not afraid of you, honey,” said Steve playfully, leaning over the desk to grab the stack of notes from in front of Eddie. “We’re moving on though, what’s next?”

Cut.

Eddie and Steve comparing hand sizes.

“Hold up your hand, where’s the camera on this side, can they see?” he asked, grabbing Eddie’s wrist and positioning his hand with the palm facing outwards.

“Ok, look,” Steve pressed his palm against Eddie’s, like they were high fiving without pulling away. Steve shifted his hand sideways quickly so he could push his fingers between Eddie’s, linking their hands together before shaking it around. “Mine’s bigger!”

Cut.

Steve throwing the papers. Chrissy edited in a piece of audio of Eddie laughing over the shot.

Cut.

“I don’t interview people,” said Eddie..

“I can tell,” Steve said sharply but without malice.

Cut.

“You think you’re the biggest or the baddest that’s ever tried to come for me?” Steve asked coyly. “That’s cute,”

Cut.

Steve standing with his arm around Eddie’s shoulder. The shot was zoomed in on Steve’s face, to avoid everyone seeing the look of helplessness that must have been on Eddie’s at this point.

 “That’s all for the show this week, thanks for listening, and thanks to Chrissy and Gareth for being so cool about Eddie inviting me to come on. I’ve had a lot of fun. You’ve had fun too, right Eds?”

Cut.

The camera showed Chrissy and Gareth standing alone in the studio, obviously after Eddie had followed Steve outside. Gareth’s phone was still in his hand.

Chrissy sighed.

“This is going to be a nightmare to edit,” she said.

The video faded to black again, and Chrissy was sitting in her chair at home, giving a thumbs up to the camera while she smiled awkwardly. The episode ended there.

Eddie set his iPad down and let out a long breath.

Chrissy Cunningham deserved diamonds. He wanted to give her awards. There was nothing in this world he could equate to what she had somehow managed to pull off in that episode. There wasn’t a single shot that made it look like Eddie was horrified by anything Steve had said. She had mashed together clips to make it look like the live-action thought process that was in his head the first time he’d seen that picture of Steve in those yellow overalls. Throughout the whole thing, Steve looked calm and in control, and funny. People were going to eat it up. He came out of it totally on top, and with no indication whatsoever that anything had gone wrong. From the parking lot to the outro, he was perfect. Eddie looked flustered, he stammered, he got tongue-tied, but it always seemed to be in a red-faced response to something cute Steve said or did, and never as a result of anything else.

@EddieMPod:

ur getting a rolex for Christmas

callmechrissy:

I’d prefer a raise

callmechrissy:

Steve sent me a message, said thanks

for how it turned out

EddieMPod:

so hes seen it already?

callmechrissy:

Obviously?

Eddie sent Steve a message asking if he wanted to talk about the episode, but it went unseen. The next day, Eddie got the notification that it had been ‘liked’.

 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“You guys I don’t fucking know what the fuck this means! Voltage? Of what? The fucking rocket ship??”

Eddie leaned back in his chair and ran his hands furiously through his hair, taking a sip from his beer bottle. The Treehouse Of Horror episode of the podcast was in the bag, including a heated debate in on Citizen Kang Vs.The Raven, and he had some spare time to waste. He’d been playing Myst on twitch for almost five hours and was still just moving back and forward between a stairwell and a hallway. It was almost midnight now, it was freaking bright outside when he started. Asking his viewers was redundant, he’d been hiding his chat for weeks now to avoid hints. He regretted it right now though, that was for sure. Eddie pulled his hair once more before returning to his keyboard and clicking up and down a few more times, hoping for inspiration.

His phone pinged.

Eddie had taken to not setting his phone to Do Not Disturb or Aeroplane Mode since he gave Steve in phone number, just in case. It was kind of pointless to insist someone could call you any time if you were unreachable for a few hours a day.

“Oh shit, sorry guys…The Bat Phone is buzzing…Nothing important, just, uhhhh….”

@theharringtonhair:

Omg

@theharringtonhair:

I literally can’t watch this anymore

@theharringtonhair:

This is actually unbearable

@theharringtonhair:

It’s 59 volts

@theharringtonhair:

Fuck.

Eddie grinned, before trying to tamp it down to hide the expression from his viewers.

@EddieMPod:

u watch my streams often?

@theharringtonhair:

I’m literally waiting to board a plane

@theharringtonhair:

Just type 59 onto the keypad so I can fly in peace

@theharringtonhair:

It was in the book of musical notes that you ignored in the library

Eddie put his phone down and tried to act natural for his viewers.

“Sorry every one…Like I said, nothing important… Let’s uh, let’s start from the beginning though, right back at the beginning of this hallway here,”

Eddie opened his chat subtly, not showing it to the people watching, so he could scan through the comments, immediately hitting Ctrl+F and searching the number ‘59’. he was quickly shown what he wanted to see, and plenty of follow-up messages right after it.

• @boston_boy: 59
• @boston_boy: oh my god
• @boston_boy: eddie
• @boston_boy: It’s 59 volts
• @boston_boy: FIFTY NINE

Eddie bit his lip to keep his smile down and he read through Steve’s increasingly frustrated comments. He would definitely be asking him about that username the next time they video called.

Eddie’s stomach was in knots. How often had Steve watched him play? Did he like it? Did he join twitch just for him? The similarity between @boston_boy and @indiana_boy was too much to ignore, but maybe it was just a big coincidence. Eddie tried to remember if he had seen the username before, but he’d had his chat hidden for weeks now so he really had no idea.

“Alright,” he told his stream. “From the start. We’re going back to the library, I’ve definitely missed something,”

Eddie navigated his way back to the library and played dumb for a few minutes, before finally opening the blue book Steve had mentioned.

“This is…” Eddie screwed up his face in faux concentration. “Huh, let’s see if this is the order to play the notes on the organ, that should give us the volts, right?”

Eddie clicked the mouse and few times, playing notes on the organ before eventually ending up in front of the voltage keypad again. He keyed in 59 volts and…

“Bingo,” he said, smiling wide, as he was finally granted access to the rocket ship.

@theharringtonhair:

I’m boarding my plane now

@theharringtonhair:

You’re welcome

@theharringtonhair:

I’ll text you when I land

Eddie slid his phone across his desk after ‘liking’ Steve’s last message. He was practically giddy. Steve was watching him play. Steve was watching him to pass the time. Steve was fully engaged with the game. Steve went out of his way to make sure Eddie knew he was watching. Eddie felt like he was about to vibrate out of his skin. How was he supposed to function normally now, knowing all of this? His hand was shaking on the mouse. He couldn’t keep going like this. Especially now he knew that Steve had stopped watching. What was the point, after all, if the pretty boy wasn’t there to see him?

“Okay folks, I’m gonna bounce, I have no fucking clue what to do next anyway so I’m gonna sleep on it. Let me just check this chat first though to see how you’re all doing…”

Eddie regretted his decision to view the unfiltered comments almost straight away.

After the episode with Steve had gone live, a million and one edits had been made on TikTok, comparing Steve’s demeanour when with Eddie as opposite to with Tommy. The difference was stark. Steve was smiling when he was on the podcast for one, and just about every edit had a picture of him crying outside the Palm Springs restaurant. To his eternal shame, @indiana_boy had liked and favourited more than a handful. Eddie thought the best ones were the ones set to the tune of Emo Boy by Ayesha Erotica, showing Steve with his arm around Eddie, that then cut to screen recorded clips of Steve refusing to let Tommy touch him. They were fun, what could he say? Unfortunately, along with the fun came all of Hagan’s fanboys. Comment sections were flooded with anti-Eddie sentiments, and there was a whole trend dedicated to reposting the video of Eddie ‘attacking’ Tommy is the hotel foyer. Just about all of the naysayers had apparently made their way to his twitch chat tonight.

The comments were moving just that bit too fast for the one mod on duty to keep up with, try as she might.

• @Haganation75: How’s Tommy’s dick taste bro??
• @Prankluvr: this is the guy who thinks he’s better than tommy? 🙄
• @sixtynineseventyfour: you really think tommy hagan is worried about this idiot???
• @oneuptwodown: Keep Steve Harinton’s name out of your mouth 😤

Eddie rolled his eyes and let out a long breath through his nose. His own supporters were in between all of the hate messages defending him, of course, but this kind of thing wasn’t what he liked to see. His streams and chat were usually a safe space for people to come and relax. Tommy Hagan’s little fucking whipping boys were ruining it. Eddie was doing a great job of scrolling and ignoring, until one comment, in particular, got all the way under his skin.

@TommyH: You think I’m a little bitch? Say it to my face, bro!

Eddie felt something in his chest snap, and that was it.

“You know what?” he said, leaning back in his chair and looking directly into the camera. “Tommy Hagan, yeah, I do think you’re a little bitch. Let’s ask the audience, hmmm? This guy has Steve god damn Harrington on his arm and he can’t keep him happy? Is that a fucking joke? I mean come the fuck on!” Eddie’s hands were flying about wildly now. “You have someone like that waiting for you, you don’t fuck someone else in the hotel bathroom,”

Eddie huffed and shook his head, taking his headphones off but grabbing his microphone.

“That little shit stain hides behind his lawyers but keeps trying to act tough,” said Eddie into the mic. “He sent me a cease and desist but kept making stupid fucking videos about me. Did you all know that? No? Didn’t think so. He thinks he’s so fucking big and bad when he’s made sure he doesn’t have to take what he’s giving.But you know what? Fuck him, I mean that. Fuck Tommy Hagan. In the words of Jay-Z himself, I’ve got a few dollars, I can fight the case. And this bitch is one of the biggest problems and pain in my ass right now,”

Eddie took a deep breath, steadying his voice again.

“Steve Harrington deserves better than Tommy fucking Hagan, and I’m not even sorry for saying it,”

Eddie threw his headset onto his desk and pushed the microphone away before he ended his stream. He ran his hands over his face, knowing that he’d just created a huge headache for Chrissy, not to mention his lawyers. They were sick of his shit as it was. He was buzzed on the beers he’d had while playing though, and couldn’t find it in him to care right now. His short-lived high from Steve watching him was gone entirely, replaced with a hum of anxiety about what he couldn’t take back. In lieu of thinking of something productive to do, like calling people to give a heads up on what he’d just done, Eddie went to bed and squeezed his eyes shut, pretending that he wouldn’t wake up to an absolute shit storm in the morning.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“Hello?”

Eddie answered his phone without opening his eyes, his voice croaking as he spoke.

“Hey,” said Chrissy down the handset. “Um, I thought you should know…”

Eddie sat up, rubbing his eyes. It was just before noon.

“What’s going on,” asked Eddie, stretching out and yawning.

“We got a new letter this morning, from a lawyer,” said Chrissy. Her tone was measured and careful.

“Yeah, so?” said Eddie, not understanding why Chrissy called him directly for something that happened literally every day.

Chrissy cleared her throat.

“It’s um…” she started. “You said some stuff on your stream, I guess? I’m still checking through the footage from the lawyers… But you should maybe check the pod’s emails….”

“Or you could just tell me,” prompted Eddie, propping himself up on his elbow.

Chrissy gave a pained sigh.

“Ok, ummm,” her voice was quiet. “It’s from Steve. He sent a cease and desist,”

Fuck.

Chapter Text

For the immediate attention of Mr Theodore Munson,

This letter is served to you following unwarranted and harmful activities to the reputation of Mr Stephen Harrington (further known as ‘the claimant’).

This includes but is not limited to:

The claimant’s private life and business ventures.

The previous actions are unwanted, unwelcome, and considered unbearable.

If you do not cease and desist all related acts of contact with and discussion of the claimant, or other equivalent, a lawsuit will be commenced against you immediately.  

You must respond within     two   business days to confirm receipt and understanding of this letter. Failure to comply within the aforementioned time will result in a lawsuit being filed seeking monetary damages, as well as pursuing all available legal remedies.

Sincerely,

Perkins, Holloway, & Partners

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Steve was still watching all of Eddie’s Instagram stories.

Which was weird, right? It was two weeks since he sent the cease and desist letter, and they hadn’t spoken, but Steve was always one of the first names to pop up on the ‘Viewed By’ list. At this point Eddie was questioning if he really knew how those letters worked because between this and Tommy Hagan’s behaviour, he wasn’t totally sure anymore. Eddie wasn’t going to risk sending Steve any messages just in case, though. The last thing he needed right now was a lawsuit, especially with Christmas coming up faster than he was prepared for. He was trying to figure out a way to fly home to Indiana to see his uncle Wayne but realistically with his work schedule and all of the things Chrissy was plotting behind the scenes, it was looking like he wouldn’t make it back until after New Years’. It was just one more thing that was weighing heavy on Eddie’s shoulders that he wished he could just hand off to someone else. Eddie couldn’t even be annoyed at Steve anymore.

He was getting vertigo from the twists and turns of knowing Steve. From crying on facetime about their friendship, to the letter, it was like the worst rollercoaster ever. But Eddie had gone too far, hadn’t he? He lost his cool and he tore into Tommy on twitch, calling him names and letting god knows how many people know about the hotel bathroom. Steve must have been humiliated. So Eddie didn’t blame him, not really. He probably would have done the same. Eddie just wished Steve talked to him about it first, and then sent the letter.

Eddie was on his balcony with a hot cup of coffee and a smoke, huddled into his chair and braced against the pre-dawn chill in the air. He hadn’t slept very well since Steve’s letter came through so this was a new routine he was finding himself in. Go to bed around eleven, toss and turn until three, get up, drink a coffee, smoke, and delete hate comments from the podcast’s YouTube channel. Tommy Hagan’s fans weren’t happy about the parking lot security footage being included in Steve’s episode. Even with three other episodes posted since then, they weren’t losing steam. They claimed it made Tommy look like a fool, and how did they even know that’s what was really being said since the voice was edited so much? Eddie fought the impulse to reply with something along the lines of ‘Well you’re not supposed to know its him, that’s the point, you dick?’ and just kept blocking and deleting until dawn broke.

Even the TikTok edits ‘shipping’ him and Steve weren’t enough to cheer Eddie up anymore. The general public had no clue was had happened, of course, so as far as anyone splicing those little clips together on CapCut was concerned, it was still all just good fun. Eddie felt a sting behind his eyes every time he seen a new one, though.

Steve had fallen back into a type of post-drought again too. The fan accounts that @indiana_boy followed kept trying to figure out why, even going so far as to conjure up a theory that Steve was going to be a contestant on a celebrity version of Survivor and that’s why he kept disappearing. Eddie snorted when he read that one. Steve? In the wild, without his face serum? Absolutely not. He’d throw a fit the second he got some dirt under his nails. There was a single, hour-long stream, the day of the letter. Steve explained he was in Boston to spent some time with his parents before they went to Bali for three months. He looked tired. Eddie felt strange watching it, knowing that Steve would recognise the username now. Eddie kept one eye on his phone while the stream played on his iPad, almost expecting a court summons for breaking the cease and desist by watching. Did this count as ‘making contact’?. Steve spoke quietly when he said he had a full schedule while he was there and wouldn’t be posting much, ignoring every comment that came in. Nancy was moving around in the background, on the other side of a large window, hands flying wildly while she spoke on the phone. No doubt getting the lawyers riled up, he figured. Eddie almost broke a few times and typed a comment himself, just to ask if Steve was ok, to see if he’d respond to him like he usually did, but the thoughts of landing in a courtroom kept his hands away from the keyboard.

Eddie looked out over his balcony at the sky, slowly turning from purple to pink, and blew out a steady stream of smoke while he scrolled through twitter to try find something to take his mind off everything. TMZ, unfortunately for Eddie, were just as active during the night as he was. There were new pictures of Tommy and Steve arguing in public, along with a video that was taken from right beside them. Eddie didn’t unmute the video to hear what they were saying, but Steve already looked out of it. Eddie skimmed through the article. The latest ‘reliable source’ said it started over whether or not they were sharing a ride home. The source said Tommy was perfectly fine to drive, and that Steve tried to hit him for apparently no reason. But another named by-stander was quoted as saying Tommy goaded Steve about why he wasn’t driving himself. According to them, Tommy had cancelled Steve’s Uber and Steve was yelling about being left stranded because Tommy was too drunk to drive. He checked the date on the corner of the pictures. It was the night he’d spoken to Steve on video call. So that’s what happened, and why Robin had to go pick Steve up. Eddie’s chest tightened. Steve looked so helpless in the pictures, almost like he was at a loss as to why it was even happening. Eddie was at least glad he’d been able to comfort Steve afterwards by chatting with him, however small the gesture was. He felt his eyes prickle when he realised he wouldn’t get to talk to Steve like that again, probably ever. Eddie blinked away the feeling, blaming it on the smoke from his fading cigarette getting too close to his face.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“Anna Wintour has lost her damn mind,” said Eddie into his microphone.

Gareth was reading an announcement from the woman herself.

“Shut up it’s not done,” said Gareth. “Where was I… Ok, so it goes We have been working in confidence with many of the biggest voices on the world wide web to bring this event to life. The theme of ‘Curated Lifestyles’ will allow these content creators to fully express their style and understanding of the world they have moulded–”

“Oh my god,” groaned Eddie.

“–Shut up! The world they have moulded for the consumption of others. This event will bring a fresh audience to the main Met Gala, and introduce a whole new generation to the importance of the costume arts. So, yeah, looks like she’s got this whole… Mini Met thing all planned out,” finished Gareth.

Eddie ran his hands over his face.

“And when is this happening?” asked Eddie.

“Ninth of….” Gareth said, skimming back over his computer screen. “February, so like, three months? Three and a half?”

Eddie frowned.

“Don’t people get announced for the real Met like,” Eddie waved his hands around in circles. “Half a year before it even happens?”

“Looks like it’s been in the works for a while,” said Gareth, leaning his chin on his fist and studying the screen. “Yeah, here, I am pleased to have been working with such names as Uh…” Gareth cleared his throat and laughed. “Redacted, redacted, and redacted, over the past few months to build this vision. Our fully confirmed guestlist will delight even the most astute consumer of online content,”

“I guess when these people post stupid shit saying oh my god guys, huge plans in motion! Big secret though!they were actually telling the truth this time,” said Eddie, throwing a stress ball up over his head and catching it. “It sounds like they’re opening a brand new circle of hell. I vote we lock the doors and leave them all in there,”

Gareth cackled, but Chrissy kept her head down.

“Why are you so quiet over there,” said Eddie, throwing his stress ball against her window, making her jump.

“I just….” She started, looking for an excuse. “I’m just busy, that’s all,”

“You’re always busy,” said Eddie, eyeing her suspiciously. “You always have something to say about fashion events, what’s going on?”

Chrissy shook her head unconvincingly.

“Even if I wanted to say anything,” she said with an exaggerated sigh. “I’d have to check the Lawyer Letter Drawer first to make sure I don’t have to edit it out,”

Chrissy drew her fingers across her mouth, like she was zipping it shut, and threw away the imaginary key. Eddie’s stomach clenched. Had it really gotten that bad?

“It’ll be a bunch of buzzfeed journos and not much else, just watch,” said Gareth, while Eddie continued to try stare Chrissy down.

“Nothing wrong with buzzfeed,” remarked Eddie. “Except for that weird year when everyone made videos about how terrible it was,”

Eddie took a gulp of his pumpkin foam coffee (Steve didn’t own the order, he could still drink it if he wanted to, or so Eddie told himself when he started craving it after avoiding it for three days.) and took another look over towards Chrissy. She was back to sitting with her head down, typing on her laptop. At the mention of buzzfeed, something reappeared from the back of Eddie’s mind.

“You have someone on the inside at buzzfeed though, right Gar?” asked Eddie with a sly smile.

“Uh, no?” said Gareth, the tip of his nose turning pink.

“Hmmm, really?” asked Eddie, holding his chin in his hands. “Could’ve sworn you had some behind the scenes stories from an interview a while back,”

Gareth was shuffling through his notes quickly, desperately looking for the prompt from the next segment. Eddie leaned forward on the desk playfully.

“Guess I was wrong,” said Eddie, smiling and narrowing his eyes.

After the recording finished, Eddie was walking outside to light a cigarette when Gareth grabbed his arm.

“I didn’t know about the letter,” he said quietly.

“Oh, shit, man, no, that’s not what that was,” said Eddie quickly, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and putting it behind his ear. “I was just joking, sorry, I didn’t even think about that,”

“I would have told you,” said Gareth. “I swear, I would have,”

Eddie patted Gareth on the arm.

“I know man,” he assured his friend. “How’s it, uh, how’s it all been, since all that though? You two doing ok?”

Gareth shrugged.

“It’s kind of cooled off, I think…” said Gareth, scratching the back of his neck. “She’s super busy anyway, you know?”

“I’m sorry,” said Eddie. “Really, I uh, I’m sorry,”

Gareth smiled with his lips tight.

“It’s ok,” said Gareth.

Eddie felt like shit all over again. 

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Eddie was never more grateful for Chrissy Cunningham’s clumsy nature than when she tripped over a floor lamp and broke her ankle in the first week of December.

Obviously when Eddie climbed through her window after she called him in tears unable to move, he made sure she was perfectly ok before he launched into an interrogation of how she tripped over a floor lamp while they drove to the hospital. Every cloud absolutely had a silver lining in this case. Chrissy was ordered on bedrest by her doctor, meaning she couldn’t go to or from the studio for at least nine weeks while it healed. Even if Eddie or Gareth collected her, there was no way to keep her comfortable and keep her ankle raised while she worked. The decision was made to go on a hiatus until the end of January while she was injured, and instead release bloopers and cut-for-time segments alongside live streams from each of their respective homes.

It also meant that Eddie could go home for Christmas. He booked a ticket that cost more than his monthly mortgage repayments and hopped on the very last available seat back to Indiana. He was relieved, really. The whole thing with Steve and the letter was getting him down in a way he hadn’t expected. He’d been cut off by people plenty of times because of who he was and how he acted in order to make his money. Eddie had even lost some really close friends during the rise of the podcast because they were either misunderstanding of the pressure of his new schedule and thought it had gone to his head, or they expected a free ride to contacts with casting agents. But this felt different, and knowing now that Gareth’s potential relationship was suffering too? Eddie was glad to leave LA behind for a while and freeze his balls off in his uncle’s trailer in Indiana instead.

His uncle greeted him with a tight hug at the airport and Eddie held on for just a beat too long.

“You ok, boy?” Wayne’s voice was gruff in his ear, but he squeezed Eddie’s shoulders harder.

“Just missed you…” said Eddie, still holding tight.

That night, Eddie sat watching tv while his uncle went to work, surrounded by the sights and smells from his childhood and the same string of multicoloured lights they picked out together for the first Christmas they spent as a family. Wayne changed the bulbs and the plug more times than Eddie could count, but he refused to throw it away. Everything was warm and familiar and he could draw it from memory with his eyes closed.

Eddie sat there and cried his heart out.

Everything was suddenly too much. He sobbed deep from his chest, heavy tears falling over his cheeks. He was out of breath and his throat was sore, with no one to blame but himself. Eddie whined out loud, openly begging for inspiration on how to fix it. How to get Steve back in his life even though he had no claim to him, how to get his name off everyone’s shit list so he could make Gareth and Chrissy’s life easier, how to just… Be better. He didn’t know what to do, and he had no one he could, or wanted to, burden with even more of his bullshit. Didn’t everyone around him deal with the consequences of his actions enough already?

Wayne came home in the morning and shook him awake, shivering on the couch from falling asleep with no blanket, face still puffy from crying himself to sleep.

“Need to talk about it?” offered Wayne.

Eddie just shook his head and retreated to his bedroom.

“Nothing to talk about,” he said.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

They live streamed the podcast for New Year’s Eve.

It was the first time the three of them had been ‘together’ since the beginning of the month. Chrissy in her home office on her computer, Gareth on his couch with his phone in hand, and Eddie lying on his childhood bed with his laptop propped on his knees. They had a group chat that they discussed plans and made notes in, but with Chrissy uploading the clip-show style episodes while they were off air, they didn’t get together until today. As much as Eddie loved being holed up in Wayne’s trailer with nowhere to go, even if he was seriously missing his daily pumpkin coffee, he was happy to fall right back into the swing of things again.

Only… He didn’t.

There was at least five times he’d counted by the first hour of the planned three hour stream that Gareth had set up what would have been a home run of an insult if Eddie had taken the bait. Every time he found himself just about to bite the hook, he pulled back. He ignored the obvious joke at someone else’s expense and instead tried to skirt around it, acting like he never even saw it.

For the first time in his career, Eddie was scared. The consequences weren’t just catching up with him anymore, and every time a name was mentioned he felt himself cringe, wondering if they sounded like the type to add to the pile of letters that held up Chrissy’s desk. Or if a friend of theirs already sent one? Would talking about one person mean breaking a totally separate order? So Eddie just sat back and let Gareth lead the whole thing, with Chrissy piping up to fill the quiet that Eddie was leaving in his wake. When Gareth finally asked what was up with him, Eddie made the excuse that the Indiana winter was messing with his voice, and his throat was feeling the strain of the cold.

“You guys have any New Year’s resolutions?” asked Gareth.

“I’m thinking about getting bangs,” said Chrissy in a dreamy voice, shifting some of her long hair so it fell over her forehead.

“Don’t,” laughed Eddie, before reeling himself back again. Even teasing his friends was starting to sit heavy in his chest. When would be their breaking point? “Sorry, don’t mind me, you’d look great, I’m sure,”

“You’re not allowed make fun of me if I do get them,” said Chrissy, dropping her hair and pointing at the screen. “I have this on tape, you said I’ll look great,”

“You can even blame me if it looks bad, in that case,” said Eddie, smiling.

“How about you, Eds?” prompted Gareth. “Resolutions? Promises? Sacrifices?”

Eddie thought about it for a second before answering.

“Be less of a dick?” he sighed, truthfully. “Be nicer? Don’t get myself fucking sued?”

“That’ll be the day,” giggled Chrissy. Eddie managed to stop himself from flinching. Now that he was noticing how much he was willingly getting the others in trouble, it was difficult to ignore.

The stream continued for a while longer before Chrissy had to hobble to the next room to get the pain meds for her ankle. The boys both winced when they heard the tell-tale thud of a coffee table being smacked by a foot, followed by a low groan.

Chrissy shared ‘Host’ privileges with Eddie while she was gone so he could make sure they didn’t get accidentally cut off or run into technical trouble. It also meant that Eddie was able to see the live chat comments for the first time.

He scrolled through them almost absent-mindedly while Gareth told the viewers his Mom’s famous turkey meatloaf recipe (“Gareth why are you still eating leftover meat a full week after it was cooked?” “It stays good in the fridge, it’s fine!”)

Eddie skimmed over dozens of comments asking when the pod was returning to regular updates, more people than he was expecting were asking to see Chrissy’s foot in the cast, and even a few people who said that they too had leftover turkey meat and the meatloaf sounded perfect.

Eddie yawned and ran a hand over his face, swigging from a bottle of champagne that Wayne had won in a work raffle. Wayne didn’t drink anything but Bud Light, so he told Eddie to have it for the stream instead, ‘On account of it being to celebrate the new year and all, you know?’. There was more than a few incidents of it fizzing all the way back up the bottleneck and even coming out of Eddie’s nose at least twice. On principal, he was refusing to get up and find a straw, or a glass.

• @boston_boy: Eddie looks so tired. Is he ok?

Eddie froze. He froze so hard that Gareth actually asked him if his connection was dropping out.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Eddie, shaking himself out of his stupor. “I mean, wait, no,”

Steve was watching.

“Sorry, I’m fine, fizz in my nose again, you know the deal,” explained Eddie. “Just uh, just shocked at the amount of people loving that turkey recipe, your mom’s cooking really has some fans here,”

“See?” said Gareth, looking smug. “I always told you she was a great cook, it’s half the reason I moved her out here,”

Gareth continued on with his explanation of the recipe while Eddie flew back through the comments, looking for Steve’s name. Almost from the very beginning, he was there.

• @boston_boy: Where is Eddie?
• @boston_boy: It’s good to see them all together again
• @boston_boy: That champagne is going to go all over him if he doesn’t stop drinking it like that
• @boston_boy: I think I missed the joke about the guy in green pants? Can someone explain?
• @boston_boy: Eddie doesn’t seem like himself today

This had to be a coincidence. Eddie tried to reason with himself. This couldn’t possibly be Steve. Especially not on New Year’s Eve, when he would undoubtedly have a million parties to show his face at in the name of content. It wasn’t Steve. It was just some sick karmic joke, that was all.

• @boston_boy: What’s Chrissy’s skincare routine? She has like no pores.

Or not.

The comments suddenly disappeared. Chrissy had arrived back, and taken back her place as the only ‘Host’. He tried to hide the look on his face but was, apparently, unsuccessful.

“What’s wrong, what happened?” Chrissy asked, squinting at him through the screen, opening the tub of ice cream she brought back with her.

He shook his head quickly.

“Nothing, nothing,” lied Eddie. “Just, uh, that turkey meatloaf really got people going, I was totally distracted by it,”

He forced himself to laugh. Chrissy looked slightly to her left and laughed too.

“Oh wow,” she giggled, apparently reading the comments. “They really were, huh? Retinol and salicylic acid by the way, my mom swore by diaper rash cream for under eye bags but–”

“S’cuse me, uh, bathroom” mumbled Eddie, muting his microphone and switching off his camera while Chrissy rattles off her skincare routine for Steve’s benefit.

He thought as hard as he could back over the stream so far to try remember if he had said anything even remotely related to Steve, or Tommy. He can’t have? Chrissy had them set on a 30 second delay so she could catch any accidental slip-ups or mistakes, she would have let him know if there was anything that was being clipped out. Eddie’s chest was tight and he was breathing heavy. Fuck. Fuck. Why was Steve even here? Was he expecting Eddie to go off again and go crazy on him like he did Tommy? Half the audience were probably hoping for the same thing. They loved the drama Eddie created, it was why there were there.

Eddie unmuted himself and turned his camera back on.

“Did you take a bump or something?” asked Gareth, looking suspiciously at Eddie. “When did you start doing that again?”

“Huh? No?” protested Eddie a bit too loudly. He was hoping Steve didn’t think he’d been taking anything. “Why would you say that?”

“Your eyes are all red,” said Chrissy, spooning ice cream into her mouth.

“Oh, that,” said Eddie, wiping the back of his hand across his face while he thought of a lie. “My uncle’s smoking cigars in the living room, got a face full of it when I opened my door. Small trailer, lots of smoke, you know how it goes,”

It was an easy lie to tell, and to be believed. Wayne did smoke cigars on special occasions and holidays. He just happened to be staying with his girlfriend Claudia tonight and wasn’t even home.

“So, I actually have some newsss…..” Chrissy said, doing a small dance and waving her ice cream spoon around. She got a glob of it on her keyboard.

“What?” asked Eddie, surprised. She usually didn’t keep secrets. “You’re not leaving are you? You’re not pregnant are you?”

Chrissy levelled him with a look, one hand patting a napkin over the spilled dessert.

“I would never leave you both to die here, first of all, which you would,” said flatly. She wasn’t wrong. “Second of all I am a whole lesbian, who is currently single, so it’s definitely not that either,”

“So what is it?” asked Gareth.

Chrissy continued her dance for another minute, insisting it was to ‘build tension’.

“We, as in me Chrissy, you Gareth, and you Eddie,” said Chrissy, counting them all on her fingers. “Are going to be on another red carpet for the first show when we come back from our break,”

“Oh!” said Eddie, suddenly excited. “Sweet! Which one?”

Chrissy smile faltered but she kept her energy high.

“We might actually need to blindfold you for this one,” she told Eddie. “You know, to be safe,”

“What’s…. Going on?” asked Gareth slowly.

“So… You know that whole… Mini Met thing….” said Chrissy, popping her spoon back into her mouth.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” groaned Eddie.

“We’ll be right there at the top of the stairs, best spot there is,” said Chrissy brightly, clapping her hands. “Isn’t that so exciting?”

“Did I not just say I didn’t want to get sued this year?” whined Eddie, dropping his head back and slouching down. 

“I said,” Chrissy, her voice firmed up. “Isn’t that exciting, after all the hard work I’ve put in for months to get us there?”

Eddie straightened up immediately.

“Yep, yep, yes, absolutely,” he said quickly to save his ass. “Ten out of ten, eleven even, just, outstanding, truly,”

Chrissy nodded, satisfied, and spooned another mound of ice cream up to her mouth, dropping half of it in her lap.

“How come you kept it secret?” asked Gareth.

“You think Mr Cease And Desist himself over here would have agreed to it?” huffed Chrissy jokingly, nodded her head sideways as if gesturing to Eddie’s icon on her screen. He ignored the twinge in his heart at the barb. “I wasn’t going to let either of you stop me, besides, this is the quickest way to get us into the mainstream. Think of all that recognition,”

She finished with jazz hands.

“I do like attention,” mused Eddie, tapping his chin.

“We know,” the others said in unison.

“And hey,” said Gareth, chucking. “Maybe you and the heir who shall not be named might get into it,”

Eddie rolled his eyes.

“Well if it was good enough for Nicki and Cardi….” said Eddie, forcing himself to smile and desperately hoping Steve didn’t already have his lawyers on the line.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Naturally, the clip of Eddie comparing a potential showdown between him and Steve to Nicki Minaj and Cardi B’s infamous Met Gala fight night was the one Chrissy insisted on using the week before the event as the teaser trailer. He should have expected as much, honestly. She had been enjoying making him sweat in the blooper reels that were being released, by just skirting the edges of names before beeping them out. She said it served him right and really, he couldn’t disagree.

What Eddie wasn’t expecting however, was a response from Steve.

@theharringtonhair:

I’m Nicki.

Eddie stared at his phone with wide eyes, his mouth popped open. It was the first contact between them since October and Eddie was, for once, speechless. How should he even respond? Could he even respond?

@EddieMPod:

well good because im obviously cardi

Seemed a safe enough option?

@theharringtonhair:

Ft?

@EddieMPod:

is that allowed?

The response came in the form of an incoming video call.

“Uh, hey…” said Eddie, reaching over to turn on the lamp next to the couch he was currently sprawled across. It was still early in the evening but he was getting ready to wind down for the night. The Masked Singer UK was on in half an hour.

“You’re in your living room…” mumbled Steve. “I recognise that couch…”

“Yeah, uh, surprised you remembered,” said Eddie. He was staring at his phone like he thought Steve might suddenly jump through the screen and smack him.

Steve sighed heavily, looking around him. He was in his usual spot in the walk-in closet, phone propped on the table next to him, but the lights were almost all off and the shadows made him look exhausted. He wasn’t facing the camera directly, instead sitting with his legs flung over the arm of his chair, leaving Eddie to look at him at a diagonal angle.

“You ok?” asked Eddie tentatively.

“Yeah,” said Steve, with too much forced enthusiasm. “Heard you guys are covering the Mini Met and wanted to say congrats, you know… Great Job…”

“Thanks, Chrissy, you know,” said Eddie, running a hand through his hair. “She’s pretty great at getting us noticed by the right people,”

“She got you noticed by Anna Wintour,” Steve clarified, raising his eyebrows while looking at the ceiling. “That’s more than pretty great,”

Eddie let a real laugh slip out at that.

“And she’ll never let me forget it, either,” agreed Eddie.

Steve smiled, but stayed quiet. Eddie watched him for a few minutes in silence, taking in everything he wouldn’t admit he’d missed about Steve. From the curve of his nose to the flick of his hair, the moles on his face and the way his strong, toned arms contrasted and enhanced his gentle demeanour. Sure, Eddie had watched the precious few short and sweet live streams Steve had been doing lately, even though he knew he was running the risk of @indiana_boy being spotted. Devoured every vlog and Get Ready With Me that was posted on YouTube, let silly dancing TikToks play on repeat for far too long…. But actually being able to watchSteve was a whole other thing. It was making Eddie’s chest hurt with the feeling of want. The desire to just reach and put his hand on Steve’s arm, to pull him close and whisper tell me what’s wrong sweetheart into his ear, and inhale lavender and bergamot while he listened to every word out of that beautiful mouth, was overwhelming. Steve’s lawyers said Eddie was unbearable? This was unbearable.

“I guess I owe you an explanation…” said Steve softly, not looking at the camera when he finally broke the silence.

“Uh, yeah, I mean, no,” Eddie stammered. “If you want to, but uh, I don’t, I can’t ask for one, I don’t think, like, legally, or whatever,”

Steve hummed and twisted his hands around in his lap.

“I don’t even know if this is legal right now,” said Eddie, breathing a strained laugh.

“It’s fine,” said Steve. “I’m not going to… I was never planning on… Using it. The letter, I mean… Stupid fucking letter…”

“Oh,” said Eddie, at a loss but still nervous. “That’s good to hear. Thanks, I think,”

“I didn’t even want to send it,” explained Steve, still focused on his hands. “I just… I got off a plane in Boston and my phone rang like right away, and I had Nancy freaking out because…” Steve shook his head and bit his lip. “Because dumb fucking people were pissed off that you’d said something that I didn’t even hear because I slept on the plane instead of watching you, and you know what? You know what? It was a stupid fucking thing to say, Eddie, really, just, wow,”

“I know,” said Eddie quickly. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking and–”

“Obviously,” said Steve, cutting him off with an eye roll. “But I was going to talk to you, you know? Just be like, hey, that wasn’t cool, maybe don’t do that again, and it would’ve been all fine, you know? Like, hundy p, no problem, right? But Nancy’s still on the phone because she’s got texts threatening to send my parent’s home address to E fucking News so they can go ask about them about my DWI and then I start getting those same texts so I’m like, ok, I’ll handle it, let me handle it,”

Steve takes a quivering breath and Eddie starts to get worried, because he’s rambling now and he looks like he might burst into tears. Eddie had never read anything online about Steve getting a DWI, but all of the instances of him not being able to get away from a stressful situation because he had to wait for a ride suddenly made sense. Eddie tried to interject to tell Steve to focus on his breathing for a second, but Steve continues to barrel through.

“So I get into the car that’s going to take me out to the house,” continued Steve, his voice getting shakier by the second. “And now I’m on a fucking conference call with my parents and their lawyers because he fucking called them, Eddie!” Steve’s voice was starting to crack, and the tears started to flow. “He called them and he told them that they needed to get me in check and he made them think I was spiralling again but I wasn’t, I swear, and he’s texting me saying he’s going to sue you and drag you and ruin you and I didn’t know how to make it go away,”

Steve rubbed his eyes and sniffed loudly.

“Steve…” tried Eddie. His stomach was red hot with anger because he didn’t have to even ask who was making threats and phone calls. It was painfully obvious.

“And Nancy is yelling at them to just let her handle it,” cried Steve, strings of spit clinging to his lips between sobs, hands gesturing wildly. “But they said maybe their lawyers should be involved too because my Dad is so, so fucking sick of seeing our name in the tabloids and you don’t have the money to fight against my family’s lawyers, Eddie, trust me, but they wouldn’t listen and I wanted them to listen to Nancy and to listen to me but they wouldn’t and they just kept talking and I wanted them to STOP! TALKING!”

And oh.

Eddie hadn’t noticed it before because of the lighting, and the angle he was at. He couldn’t see his eyes properly, or notice the beads of sweat that would have been along his upper lip. Steve was high. He had told Eddie once that it was a type of crutch for when he was overwhelmed and stressed out and yeah… It sure was.

“So I told them to send it,” said Steve, his voice barely more than a mouse’s squeak. “And then I told him about it so he’d leave you alone… I didn’t know how else to protect you…”

Eddie’s heart shattered.

“Oh sweetheart…” he breathed.

“We’re not even together,” mumbled Steve. “Like, for real, I mean. Not like how it was after Milan…”

“No?” asked Eddie, trying to keep his voice level. His stomach flipped. Steve was single?

“Not, not since…” Steve looked around him, searching for the answer. “You remember we ate noodles?”

Eddie smiled softly.

“I remember,” said Eddie quietly.

“That day,” said Steve, nodding to himself gently. “And I wanted to tell you because… Well I wanted you to know, but I was nervous to tell you and then this happened and… How would it even work? What would we even do? I can’t even talk to you,”

“You can talk to me whenever you want,” said Eddie, running a finger along the edge of his phone as if it might somehow soothe Steve through the connection. As much as he wanted to press for more, beg Steve to tell him all about how what would work, he forced himself to remember that this wasn’t the time to try talk about it. “We can figure the rest out later,”

Steve sniffed, loud and wet.

“I can’t though, I can’t talk to you,” he whispered. “I thought I’d have some time, you know? I thought I’d have a day to convince them not to do it but it was already done by the time I even got back to the house. They made me go hang out in some stupid clinic for three days. Acted like it was a fucking spa or something. Didn’t even give me a choice, just fucking, drove me out and left me there,”

“Yeah…” said Eddie softly, not sure what else to offer at the admission. “It moved pretty quick, huh?”

“Nancy was pissed,” said Steve, with a breathy laugh. “Like, mega pissed. She hates when they overrule her, you know? She always says well what’s the point in paying me if you’re going to ignore me? Should I just leave, Sylvia? And then they remind her she signed like, fifty contracts so they can sue her too, and my mom gives her a raise because they don’t want to deal with me themselves,”

“Hey, sweetheart?” says Eddie, a thought suddenly occurring to him as he ignored the tug in his chest at Steve’s parents not wanting to deal with him in any way that didn’t involve sending a whole legal team after people who cared about him.

“Yeah?” mumbles Steve, rubbing his eyes, finally starting to calm down.

“You’re not there alone, are you?” Eddie was getting a prickly feeling on the back of his neck at the thoughts of Steve being by himself while he was so out of it.

“Nah, Nancy’s downstairs,” he said airily, waving a hand towards the door. “I told her I wanted to talk to you so she’s making dinner and…now I’m fucking, crying again on a stupid…fucking, facetime…”

“Good, that’s good that she’s there…” said Eddie, relived. “And anyway, you’re pretty when you cry, so it’s ok, I don’t mind,”

“I’m always pretty, Eddie,” said Steve firmly in protest of Eddie’s joke.

Eddie smirked, another thought swimming into his head.

“You’re not uh, not planning on going live tonight?” asked Eddie.

Steve shook his head softly. That was good too. No one else really needed to see Steve like this. His jaw worked side to side for a few minutes before he spoke again.

“So you’ll be at the Mini Met…” said Steve, a statement rather than a question. He was looking at the phone now but his eyes were unfocused.

“Right at the top of the stairs,” confirmed Eddie. “Will you?”

“Yeah, I will,” said Steve, nodding slowly. “That’s part of why I was in Boston, my fits gonna be custom,”

Steve wiggled his fingers and waved his hands across his chest, swaying slightly and raising his eyebrows. Eddie let himself smile at the gesture.

“You wanna tell me about it?” he asked.

Steve suddenly burst to life. He lifted himself up on the arms of the chair and shifted around to face the camera properly, hugging his knees to his chest. His eyes got wide and he tapped his hand on the top of the phone. Eddie thought that if they were next to each other, Steve would have prodded him right in the chest.

“So!” he said, bouncing on the chair, so brightly that Eddie was shocked at the sudden change. “There’s a guy back home, guy called Will, sweet kid, few years younger than me. His parents and my parents were friends, him and his friends swam in our pool a lot, weird kids, but anyway, the suit Eddie oh my god. So it’s got like–,”

Eddie could only nod along wordlessly at Steve’s flow. He was rambling now in a totally different way than before. The tears were still shining on his cheeks but his face was totally lit up while he spoke about the outfit. Something that felt a lot like pity settled in Eddie’s stomach as he wondered how many other people had actually asked about his new suit, and how many people had listened to the answer?

“–and then there’s this brown ostrich feather trim and I mean, it’s not real because I don’t eat meat or wear fur or anything, and did I tell you my whole range is going cruelty free this year? But it sets the pink of the fabric off so well and I know what you’re thinking, what about a shirt, right?–”

Steve had no idea what Eddie was thinking. It had nothing to do with what sounded like a very…interesting….outfit, and everything to do with how badly Eddie wanted to have Steve in his lap. He wanted to be sitting right here on his couch, laid back just like this, with Steve curled up across his chest while they spoke about the differing shades of blue being considered for the shirt. He wanted to feel every little movement and jump Steve made when he got excited about the hand stitching on the lapels. Wanted to hold him and listen to him. Eddie would listen to Steve forever.

“–and obviously there’ll be like, sunglasses or maybe a hat or something and show me your hands?”

Eddie blinked quickly at being addressed directly so suddenly. He held up his hands one by one, shifting his phone between them as he did.

“Yeah,” said Steve, leaning in to look at the screen closely. “I was thinking rings, something like those would be, like, perfect… So what do you think?”

“Sounds a lot like a hot version of Elton John,” joked Eddie.

Steve stuck his bottom lip out in faux consideration.

“You’re right,” he said, nodding sharply and almost sliding off the edge of the chair. “I will be hot,”

Eddie let out a small laugh. Steve blinked slowly his chin dropped forward before his caught himself from falling forward.

“Steve?” Nancy appeared at the door of the walk in, Eddie could see her over Steve’s shoulder. She leaned against the doorframe, speaking gently. “It’s time to say goodbye, they’re here,”

Steve rolled his eyes.

“Coming,” he said, leaning his head sideways onto his own shoulder, not looking back at her. He had shrunk back into himself again and was quiet.

She tapped her hand on the doorframe and waved to Eddie before she disappeared.

“My parents are here,” said Steve, Eddie let out a low whistle. “They think I don’t know they flew home from vacation through LA to check on me. They literally always fly direct,”

“Will they….” Eddie wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence that he started. Freak out that you’re so high? Send you off to another ‘spa’? Sick their lawyers on Nancy, Eddie, and everyone else they can think of?

Steve shrugged, as if he knew all the questions that went unasked.

“I want to see you at the Met,” said Steve, quieter than ever. “I don’t know how to but I want to,”

“You do?” asked Eddie, hope blooming in his chest.

“How else are you going to tell me how great my outfit looks?” joked Steve, biting at his fingernails and trying to smile but looking too expectant to really pull it off.

“We’ll figure it out, sweetheart, promise,”

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

New York in February was freezing.

If Eddie wasn’t already sure that Anna Wintour had lost her mind by holding a Mini Met Gala for influencers and young Hollywood upstarts, throwing it before the temperatures got into the fifties would have been confirmation.

“You could heat a small country with these things,” said Gareth, gesturing up towards the gigantic space heaters that were suspended above them.

The warm air swimming around everyone’s heads would have been perfect if not for the biting breeze coming in under the marquees erected around the famous steps of the Met.

“Can’t relate,” chuckled Chrissy through the earpieces that Gareth and Eddie both wore. “I’m so warm and toasty and I even have a bottle of Pellegrino,”

Eddie flipped off the camera that rested beside him. It was an almost identical set up to the MTV awards, except with Gareth with him things were slightly more cramped. Since Eddie would literally have to physically turn his back to the carpet when certain people walked by, Gareth was there as a kind of safety net. They needed someone to be able to commentate on the whole thing, after all. Chrissy would have been down here too, if not for her ankle still feeling tender after getting the cast off.

“Ahhhh so tasty, so crisp,” she hissed into their ears, loudly slurping her fancy water.

The first two hours of the arrivals were as offensive to the very essence of the Met as Eddie thought it would be. Groups of people arrived together as a united front for their TikTok houses or vlogging collective. There were too many snapbacks to count and if Eddie had to see one more pair of ballet flats he was going to tear his hair out because what the fuck was this, 2008? Gareth was also helping Eddie’s confidence with the little problem he’d been having when it came to actually making fun of people. With his friend next to him, he wasn’t feeling so much pressure. Gareth was doing most of the talking about people anyway, considering he legally was still able to. (A master stroke on Chrissy’s part after their ever first lawyer letter. Renaming the show The Eddie Munson Podcast instead of the original Eddie and Friends meant he was technically the only one gagged by the generic orders they got sent.) Eddie was able to add light jabs on occasion and have it feel totally natural, and not like he was about to get him and the others thrown in jail or something.

“They’re not even having a formal dinner, this year,” Eddie was telling the camera, leaning with his back against the barrier. A group of make-up gurus were posing for pictures and strictly speaking he wasn’t even allowed to think about two of them.

“There’s a dinner?” asked Gareth. “Oh hey that girl is actually wearing heels,”

“Thank god, you wear heels to a fucking formal event, people,” sighed Eddie. “And yeah there’s usually like, a big fancy dining hall and an auction to raise money for the exhibit, but they’re just having an extra-long cocktail hour instead,”

“Two more pairs of Jordans and….” Gareth trailed off while the camera saw him squinting at some shoes. Eddie cocked his head and gave a hi how are ya to the person next to them from The Hollywood Reporter. He was getting more than a few strange looks for having his back turned so often. “…some Air Force Ones. They look fake though, logos definitely too thick,”

“And that, folks at home!” exclaimed Eddie, leaning close to the camera lens and rubbing his fingers together in a money gesture. “Is why they’re not having the auction this year!”

Gareth laughed and tapped Eddie’s arm, to indicate he could turn back around. Eddie settled down with his elbows resting on the barrier as he watched people climb the stairs.

“Thoughts?” asked Gareth.

“In theory,” said Eddie, holding his mic close to his mouth and speaking in a low voice. “If I was allowed to say anything about this guy right here, I’d say his spray tan didn’t wash off properly because wow, streaky,”

“Eddie,” admonished Chrissy.

“But I can’t!” he said quickly. “So I won’t,”

Tommy Hagan and six of his friends were coming up the stairs. Eddie stood with his back to them, arms firmly crossed. Gareth turned in solidarity.

“I’m turned away from the desk too!” said Chrissy, her voice faded in a way that made clear she had actually turned her chair away.

“You were right, Eds,” said Gareth, looking up at a large piece of fake greenery that arched over the entire stairwell. “Nature is beautiful…”

“That tree is the most genuine thing out here tonight,” said Eddie, squinting.

Gareth laughed. Eddie’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

@theharringtonhair:

I’m up next.

@theharringtonhair:

I look amazing.

@theharringtonhair:

See?

@theharringtonhair:

Sent a photo!

Steve sent Eddie a picture that looked like it was straight out of a photoshoot. He reminded himself quickly that it probably was. Steve had conducted whole shoots for an outfit before leaving the house for much smaller events, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to have one tonight.

@EddieMPod:

wow

@EddieMPod:

cant wait to see hot elton john in person

@theharringtonhair:

🙄

@theharringtonhair:

Just let me know when you’re inside

so I can find a way to see you

@theharringtonhair:

🥰

Eddie wasn’t sure exactly what kind of thing they had settled into since their video call last week. Steve’s parents hadn’t hauled him back home to Boston to lock him in a hotel room to detox, although they apparently very much wanted to. According to Steve, Nancy physically stood in the doorway to stop it from happening. Eddie and Steve spoke every day, and facetimed every night. Steve fell asleep on camera every time. Steve was streaming again each night as well, and some of the more die-hard fans were definitely picking up on the fact he always answered the questions that @indiana_boy asked in the chat. It was almost like how they were before they recorded the podcast together, only now with the knowledge that Steve was single hoovering over Eddie like a guillotine.

They hadn’t talked about it. Steve clearly didn’t want to, pointedly ignoring questions about Tommy on his streams, and Eddie wasn’t going to push it. He’d put his foot in his mouth far too much when it came to Steve. Now seemed a good a time as any to keep his mouth shut.

Just as Tommy and his gang disappeared over the crest of the stairs, Steve strutted up the steps like he owned them. Twisting and turning around for the photographers on either side, giving his best angles and poses to each and every one of them. It was mesmerising. The screams of his name were deafening and he managed to looked both enthralled and uninterested by the attention. As he made his way to the top, he gravitated ever so slightly away from the centre and towards the barrier that Eddie was leaning on, elbow perched on the top of the metal with his fist over his mouth. Gareth and Chrissy knew that Steve had been in touch to say he had no plans to actually action the cease and desist, but Eddie had neglected to tell them why, or that their relationship, or whatever it was, had re-escalated. Chrissy’s voice was in his ear saying turn around just in case, and Gareth was silently tugging his sleeve.

But Steve was blowing a kiss to a camera just to Eddie’s left, and as he spun away they made the briefest, sweetest eye contact. Eddie winked and if Steve wasn’t wearing so much make up, Eddie could tell by his face that he would have turned the same shade of pink as his suit.

Eddie straightened up as Steve giggled and faced the opposite side, and turned his back to the carpet once more.

“Who the fuck was that guy?” he mumbled into his microphone.

The sound of Chrissy laughing so hard she spat out her water was like music to Eddie’s ears.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

@EddieMPod:

inside now

@EddieMPod:

where are u?

Eddie checked his signal every five minutes and even restarted his phone, but the only explanation for why his messages had gone unseen for over forty five minutes was that Steve wasn’t checking his notifications. Which was fine, you know, it was cool. This was a big networking event and that was Steve’s whole thing, so it made sense that he wasn’t checking his phone.

Except it didn’t, did it?

Eddie pushed the thought to the back of his mind and nursed his soda water. Steve told him yesterday that he wasn’t planning on drinking tonight, so Eddie decided not to either as some sort of long distance moral support. Even if they did manage to see each other face to face, there were enough two-face shit-hawks here (Steve’s words, not Eddie’s) that they wouldn’t be able to spend any amount of time together before having to get back to the cocktail party so Steve could keep showing his face. Any disappearances would be closely monitored, he told Eddie. Everyone would be clamouring for the latest Storytime! Who hooked up at the Mini Met?! scoop. Neither of them wanted to give Tommy a reason to make good on any threats.

“Robin!” called Eddie as she walked through the crowd, passing by where he stood with Gareth and Chrissy, tucked into an alcove.

“Hey,” she said, glancing around quickly but approaching them anyway, smiling wide. “How’s it going?”

“Good, good,” said Eddie, biting his lip. “This is Gareth, by the way, and Chrissy, this is uh, Steve Harrington’s assistant Robin,”

Eddie quietly introduced them, Gareth being distracted by his phone before he snapped his head up and shook Robin’s hand and going right back to typing a response to whoever he was messaging, Chrissy also offered her hand.

“Chrissy?” asked Robin. “Is it short for anything?”

Eddie noticed that they were still holding their clasped hands in front of them.

“Oh,” said Chrissy, practically giggling. “Yeah, Christine. I prefer Chrissy though, or Chris. My friends call me Chris a lot,”

“Can I call you, Chris?” asked Robin.

Eddie was seriously impressed because jesus fuck that was smooth. Chrissy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Maybe,” she said.

“I was just going to the bar, do you maybe want to join me?” asked Robin, smiling. Eddie was in awe of the absolute game that she was dripping with right now.

Chrissy nodded and they went to move away, before Eddie put a hand on Robin elbow.

“Where’s Steve?” he asked quietly enough for the others not to hear.

“Oh, uh,” Robin briefly snapped out of her Chrissy induced rizz, answered him in an equally muted tone. “He was looking for Nancy, I think? I haven’t seen him in a while, check Mikayla’s table though, he was hanging out with her earlier,”

Eddie nodded and let the girls go, scanning the crowd for any signs of the pink suit. Gareth cleared his throat next to him.

“I’m just gonna go…” said, not quite coming up with an excuse in time to end his sentence with.

“Whoever that is better be worth leaving me alone here,” sneered Eddie playfully, pointing to Gareth’s phone and narrowing his eyes. “If these people turn on me it’s your fault,”

Gareth went red and tried to laugh but just succeeded in embarrassing himself more, spluttering as he walked backwards before scurrying away.

Eddie moved slowly through the event, keeping an eye out for any flash of pink tweed or brown ostrich feature.

He was about to circle back and start from the beginning when he spotted a small gang that looked vaguely familiar moving quickly, pushing past people without care or consideration. It was only when he spotted Tommy Hagan at the back of the group that he realised it who the merry band of bastards was. Tommy’s squad. Eddie curled his lip and went to look away when he saw it.

A pink jacket clutched in Tommy’s hands.

Eddie craned his neck to scan the group, moving around other gala guests to follow for a few steps before he realised with a jolt Steve wasn’t there.

Eddie’s stomach dropped. Something was wrong. Tommy looked scared.

Eddie spun around and sprinted in the direction they had come from, apologising profusely to everyone he was knocking in to. He had no idea where he was even going. He had no indication where Steve was or where Tommy and his friends had emerged from. He stopped and looked around, desperately seeking inspiration.

“Bathrooms,” he panted to himself like it made sense. Because somehow it did. Pictures from the real Met were always in the bathrooms so that’s where people went to get away from the noise.

Everyone around him looked relaxed and happy. People filing in and out of every bathroom door he passed. Not out here then. Further into the museum. Somewhere quiet.

Eddie pushed through a heavy door marked ‘Not Open For Event’ and skidded into a tiled hallway, away from the main party and removed from the gala exhibits. The door closed behind him, and the sound on the other side was muffled immediately. It was eerily quiet away from the hustle and bustle of everyone else’s good time.

It was dimly lit except for a streak of light coming from a door ajar down the end of the narrow walkway. Eddie broke into a run again, begging his legs to move faster. He came to a crashing halt in the doorway of a wheelchair access bathroom. The type with safety rails on the wall and big countertops.

Only this one had Steve Harrington, passed out and pale, with his tongue lolling out of his mouth on the floor between the toilet and the wall.

Eddie fell to his knees and crawled quickly across the ground.

“Steve? Stevie?” he said quickly, hauling Steve up into a sitting position and slapping his cheek. “Sweetheart? Hey, come on, gonna say something for me, hmm?”

Steve’s eyes rolled back and Eddie pressed a shaky hand to his neck. He was sweaty, and he had a pulse. It was fast. Too fast. Eddie pulled Steve close to his chest to angle him so his face was over the open toilet bowl.

“Steve? Listen, ok, hey, are you with me?”

Please god be with me.

Steve groaned.

“Hey, hey,” said Eddie. “Hi, I’m here, ok? We just gotta….”

Eddie shifted Steve’s dead weight again so he could prop his own knee under his thighs.

“We’re gonna be ok? You hear me, Stevie? We’ll be alright,”

Eddie fumbled for his phone, an arm solidly around Steve so they were back-to-chest.

“Chrissy! Chris where are you?” Eddie said before Chrissy even got the full word ‘hello’ out of her mouth.

“I’m at the bar, why, do you want a drink?” she answered.

“No, no, listen, there’s a…” he readjusted his grip on Steve to stop him slipping. “There’s a wheelchair bathroom, I’m down a hallway, and, fuck, I don’t know where we are,”

“Eddie what’s wrong?” asked Chrissy, concern seeping into her voice. “We? Are you with Gareth?”

“No! No, just…just find me, ok? I went through a fire door out of the main party and I’m in a bathroom and I need your help,” he said, his voice edging on frantic. “Bring Robin if she’s there, just get here!”

“I’ll find you,” she said quickly, hanging up.

Eddie dialled Gareth’s number next, mistyping and starting again because he was shaking so much. It went to Call Waiting. Eddie growled in frustration and slammed his finger down on the End Call button.

“Sweetheart? I’m gonna help you, alright? Trust me, ok, just trust me,”

Eddie wedged a knee under Steve’s stomach and tipped him forward, right over the toilet bowl, clinging to his shoulder.

“My hands are clean, I promise…”

Eddie took a deep breath, and shoved two of his fingers as far down Steve’s throat as he could. Eddie hated vomit. He cringed turned his face away while he pushed his hand deeper.

He didn’t even know if it was pills that Steve took, but the memories of seeing Steve’s jaw moving back and forward during their video call last week made it feel like a safe bet.

 Steve’s body started to convulse under the intrusion, but nothing came up.

“Come on Stevie, it’s ok, just… Come on….”

Eddie pressed down on the back of Steve’s tongue, holding back a gag of his own, with his knuckles jammed so hard against Steve’s front teeth that they were bleeding. He didn’t care if the teeth broke.

Eddie drove his knee up into Steve’s stomach, and with a loud wretch, Steve started to vomit. Eddie pulled his hand away and held Steve’s jaw, letting the bile fall into the water. The smell hit Eddie’s nose and he felt his eyes cross involuntarily.

Steve groaned again, but his body remained limp.

“Alright, round two, come on, I’ve got you,”

Eddie’s whole body was trembling so hard his teeth were chattering. Again, he pressed as far down on the back of Steve’s tongue as he could, and compressed his stomach. Steve threw up again. Eddie shook the fluid off his hand by flailing it around.

“Steve? Steve? Come on, talk to me?”

Where the fuck was Chrissy?

He was reaching for his phone again when Steve’s eyes creeped open.

Steve croaked something that Eddie didn’t quite catch.

“Don’t, don’t, it’s ok, listen, hey? Listening? You’re ok, don’t talk, it’s ok,”

Steve’s body reared up, seemingly under its own power and not down to any conscious effort, and he threw up a third time. Eddie held him tight through it, clenching his eyes shut at the pained sobs that came between retches, every muscle in Steve’s body tight as piano wire.

Steve’s tense body loosened all at once and Eddie scrambled to pull him back from the toilet. They were sitting in the middle of the floor now, Steve between Eddie’s legs and huddled sideways into his chest. Eddie bent a leg up against Steve’s back to keep him from tipping backwards.

“Eddie…Want Eddie…” Steve moaned, clawing weakly at his arms.

“I’m here, I’m here, look, look at me,” said Eddie, realising now at the sound of his wet voice that he was crying. He gripped Steve’s chin to look at him. “I’ve got you, see? I’m here,”

Steve sighed as he saw Eddie’s face, before twisting his head out of Eddie’s grasp, and vomiting again. It went all over both of them. Eddie groaned and tried not to breath too deeply.

“Oh my god,”

Chrissy and Robin had arrived, and Chrissy’s phone was instantly to her ear.

“I found them, use the Find My iPhone thing, it’s hard to explain. Tell Nancy to call an ambulance, she’ll have to give them Steve’s information,” Chrissy instructed. “Overdose. Yes, ok, get here quick,”

Eddie instantly felt more in control now that Chrissy was here, actually taking control.

Robin was grey.

“Steve…” she said quietly, eyes wide and fixed on her friend. Covered in vomit and not able to hold his own head up.

“Robin, let’s move away from the door,” said Chrissy, pulling at Robin’s arm.

Robin didn’t move.

“Is he going to die?” she asked, instantly panicking, wringing her hands. “I left him by himself, I’m so stupid, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Steve, can he hear me? Oh my god what’s happening?”

Steve was moaning again, as if breathing was hurting him. Eddie was trying to comfort him by rocking them side to side and brushing the hair away from his sweaty forehead.

“Robin come on, come out here,” said Chrissy, more forceful now.

“But what if he dies?” rambled Robin, still staring at Steve. “What will I do? He’s my best friend and I can’t lose him, and this will be my fault because I didn’t go with him to find Nancy, will he be–”

“ROBIN!” yelled Chrissy, slapping Robin as hard as she could across the face. Robin yelped. “You’re not helping Steve by freaking out, so you need to calm down!”

Robin nodded silently and allowed Chrissy to manoeuvre her away from the door, getting Steve out of her view.

“Eddie….” whined Steve, flopping his head back to look up at him with heavy lidded eyes.

“I’m here,” said Eddie, looking down at Steve, trying to keep his voice steady. “Nancy’s calling for help, ok?”

“Okayyyy,” said Steve in a long sigh. He lifted a vomited soaked hand and put it clumsily against Eddie’s cheek.

Which, gross. Eddie tried to subtly shift his face away from Steve’s hand.

“You found me…” said Steve quietly, stroking Eddie’s jaw.

“Told you I’d figure it out…” replied Eddie, wrapping a hand around Steve’s wrist to try pull it away.

“They all…left me here…” said Steve in a whisper. “Yelling…A lot…they left me…”

Eddie fought hard against the urge to let Chrissy hold Steve while he chased Tommy and his friends down, and ripped their throats out with his teeth.

“I know, I’m sorry Stevie,” said Eddie, doing his best to stay level. “I’m so sorry I didn’t find you sooner,”

“But you did…” uttered Steve. He turned his face in towards Eddie’s chest and rubbed himself against the fabric of Eddie’s shirt. “I’m sorry…your clothes….and all this”

Steve tried to wave a hand round to gesture to the general situation they were in, but his limb was heavy so it just kind of flapped. His eyes were barely open enough to even blink. But he was talking so Eddie tried to keep it going.

“You look so good, sweetheart,” Eddie lied. “This’ll all wash out, don’t worry,”

Steve smiled, a tiny thing.

“So do you,” he said slowly. “Hate… hate your hair though,”

Eddie couldn’t help but let a laugh slip out through a sob.

Gareth and Nancy careened into the doorway.

“Steve,” cried Nancy, her phone pressed solidly to her ear. “Yes, sorry, yes, we’re with him now, he’s conscious,”

Nancy continued to give instructions to the emergency worker while Gareth went to check on Chrissy and Robin, who Eddie could hear bawling just out of view.

“Whos’ here….” grumbled Steve.

“Take a look, come on,” said Eddie, trying to get Steve to lift his head. It had tipped forward and Eddie still had his free hand around Steve’s wrist. “They’re all worried about you,”

Steve grunted as he lifted his head up, in what sounded like a Herculean effort.

“Your friends are here…” breathed Steve. “Why…”

“They care about you,” said Eddie, tightening his arm around Steve’s shoulders. “You scared us. You scared me,”

“M’sorry…” said Steve.

“No, no, no,” shushed Eddie. “Let’s not do that, ok? You’re safe now, that’s all that matters,”

Something was happening in the hallway. For a second Eddie thought the paramedics had arrived, but raised voices made him wary.

“Let me in! I want to see him!”

Oh, motherfucker.

Eddie caught a glimpse of Tommy Hagan as he attempted to push his way past Gareth and come through the open door of the bathroom. He also saw the shine of the lens of the fucking camera in his hand.

“What are you doing to him?” yelled Tommy. Was this kid for fucking real?

Steve squirmed in Eddie’s hold.

“No…don’t want him here…” moaned Steve loudly. “No please….Eddie please no…”

Eddie looked up to ask for help but there was no need. Gareth already had his hands on Tommy’s shoulders, and Chrissy had a fast grip on his arm, keeping the camera firmly pointed at the ground.

“This is assault!” shrieked Tommy. “You’re assaulting me!”

Steve was sobbing into Eddie’s neck now. Eddie gave an involuntary shudder at the wet feeling of sick on his bare skin.

“You wanna see assault?!” Eddie saw Nancy lunge forward just in time to catch Robin around the waist and stop her from colliding with Tommy. “I warned you, Hagan! I told you to leave him alone!”

Chrissy took advantage of the distraction and ripped the camera from Tommy’s hands, and threw it to the ground. She stamped on it with a loud crunch, and Gareth followed suit without taking his hands off Tommy’s shoulders.

Tommy balked.

“Oh you messed up,” he said, waving a finger around, appearing to have forgotten entirely about the person overdosing on the floor five feet away from him. “That was an expensive piece of gear, you messed up!”

Gareth pulled Tommy close to him so they were nose to nose, his fingers white where they were holding his shoulders. Tommy went pale.

“Get out of here,” said Gareth said cooly, pushing his backwards and out of the doorway. Eddie heard Tommy stumble and hit the carpet with a thud.

“You’ll…You’ll regret this!” said Tommy, a shake in his voice. “You all will!”

A minute later Eddie heard the heavy door at the top of the hallway open and shut. Nancy came to stand beside Gareth now that she was able to release Robin. Gareth put his arm around her and looked down at Eddie and Steve, as Nancy leaned into him. Eddie couldn’t help it, ok? He had to give Gareth a look for that. Gareth’s nose went pink and he held down a grin, holding his chin that little bit higher.

Chrissy smoothed down the front of her outfit roughly once Tommy was gone.

“Fuck yeah,” she said to herself earnestly.

Steve started to giggle.

“You okay down there?” Eddie asked, allowed himself to be amused at the sound.

“She really does say it…” said Steve, his eyes more open now. “She really…really is Chrissy Fuck Yeah….”

Eddie smiled at Steve, tightening his arm around him again.

“Wouldn’t lie to you, sweetheart,” whispered Eddie, touching his forehead against Steve’s.

“I know,” said Steve, finally starting to breath more normally and regaining more control of his speech. “I’m glad you’re here… Glad you found me….”

“Me too,” said Eddie.

Steve’s hand was back on his face and look, as lovely as the moment they were having was, he really did need to get anything with puke on it as far away from his eyeballs as he could.

“Hold my hand?” Eddie asked Steve, saying a silent prayer when Steve dropped his hand from Eddie’s temple. It was in his hair for Christ’s sake, could you blame him?

Steve fumbled for Eddie’s hand and linked their fingers together.

“Am I gross?” asked Steve.

“Yes,” said Eddie. He’d literally just swore honesty, so he had no choice. “You’re still pretty though,”

Steve managed a real smile.

“Always pretty, Eddie,” he said.

“Always pretty, Steve,” agreed Eddie.

Two paramedics walked into the bathroom and crouched on the floor beside them.

They shined a light in Steve’s eyes and listened to his heart, before strapping a piece of plastic around one of his fingers.

“Steve, we’re going to take you to the hospital ok?” one of them said.

“No, no,” protested Steve. “Everyone will see….”

“They won’t,” said Nancy from the doorway. “Don’t worry, you’re going out a maintenance door,”

Eddie’s memory pulled at something he’d known for a long time, about incidents at these events never being known by the public. He wished he found out a different way just how true that was.

The paramedic hauled Steve up off the floor and carried him out to a gurney that was just outside the bathroom.

“Your friend needs fluids, and a lot of rest,” the other paramedic told Eddie, clocking his sudden look of helplessness, sitting alone in a pool of someone else’s puke. “He’ll be alright, but I think he’s lucky you found him,”

“Where’s Eddie?”

Eddie stood up quickly and was at Steve’s side in two long steps.

“I’m here, right here sweetheart,” said Eddie, grasping Steve’s hand again as he lay on the trolley. Robin and Nancy were preparing to go with him.

“M’gonna be alright,” said Steve. “They said you can’t come,”

Eddie sniffed back more tears and nodded, unable to find any words to offer as a protest. He leaned down to kiss Steve’s forehead. It was sweaty and sticky and somehow there was throw-up there as well, but it didn’t matter. Steve made a small noise in his throat at the contact, and he was smiling softly when Eddie pulled away.

“Call you soon,” sighed Steve, relaxing back into the padding behind his head.

“Ok, let’s go,” one paramedic said, and they started to wheel Steve towards the back door that Nancy directed them in through.

Eddie, Gareth and Chrissy walked with them out into the delivery bay that the ambulance was parked in. Steve waved as the doors closed.

The ambulance pulled away without lights or sirens, leaving them in a heavy silence.

Eddie’s feet moved on autopilot around the outside of the building and towards the nearest kerb. He ignored the others calling him back, asking where he was going. He put his hand out and stepped into the yellow taxi that pulled over, giving the driver the name of his hotel.

Thank god for New York cab drivers, because even head to toe in vomit, with bleeding knuckles and crying openly, the guy didn’t even bat an eyelid when he asked Eddie if he was in the city on business.

Chapter Text

They spoke every day.

Steve was lying low and had gone back to not posting much of anything online. Over the next two weeks there were only sparse Instagram stories, mostly pictures of a few make up products laid flat on a white surface with the bare minimum caption ‘todays face’. His messages with Eddie weren’t as constant as they had been, but they were there, and Eddie cherished each one. Especially the one that came early one morning simply saying, “I miss you”.

Steve had live streamed once or twice since the Met. Nothing of substance, just a quick check-in with his followers. He never read the comments anymore, there were too many mentions of Tommy. A picture of him holding Steve’s pink jacket leaked a few days after everything happened. Some people took it as an indicator that the couple were on good terms again after the event where Tommy cancelled Steve’s Uber. Eddie watched all of the lives, DMing Steve afterwards to let him know how much the other viewers in the chat appreciated it. Steve told Eddie he liked knowing he was there watching him, liked knowing that he was around. Steve always looked tired, and he never stayed on for more than half an hour at a time. Robin or Nancy was always there with him. Eddie would be able to see Robin’s arm reach in with a cup of green tea or hear Nancy’s voice while she paced around in the background on the phone.

No one had given the media the exclusive on Steve’s overdose. He panicked in the hospital, Robin told Eddie. He was scared that Tommy or his friends would be on the phone to whatever gossip rag they could find, spilling the beans on the whole thing. The doctors had to sedate him through the panic attack, and insisted he stay the night. Nancy slept in the room with him. Steve told Eddie about sneaking out of the hospital through a janitor’s entrance after he was discharged. Eddie offered to be there when he got out, but with Nancy and Robin, and his parents, all there, Steve said no. Promised they’d see each other soon.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

It wasn’t until Steve’s first event back in the spotlight that things took a sharp left turn.

Steve had given Eddie the details during the day. There was going to be a big brand affiliate dinner at a Carbonne pop-up Downtown, and then he was going to an afterparty that was joint with another big event that same night. Some youtuber had won a boxing match and Kylie Jenner was hosting the celebration at her place. Nancy was driving him to the restaurant, and Robin would be collecting him that evening. No one knew if Tommy and his squad would be at either part of the evening, but it was easy to assume they would be since there had been promotions for the fight across their socials.

Steve asked if it would be ok if he kept in touch during the night, and Eddie agreed easily. He wasn’t ever going to say no to seeing Steve’s name pop up on his phone, and he was anxious about Steve being out again so soon. Every thirty minutes or so, without fail, Eddie got a message.

@theharringtonhair:

They have literally no vegetarian options

@theharringtonhair:

The fight was fixed omg everyones talking about it

@theharringtonhair:

Can we ft later?

@theharringtonhair:

The trashcans here are too nice to look like you

@theharringtonhair:

Kylie’s house smells like vanilla

Eddie smiled and responded to each one in turn. Nothing that would warrant the beginning of a full conversation, just an acknowledgement that he was there on the other end.

As the night went on, Steve seemed to be relaxed and happy at the party and Eddie loosened up a little. Not entirely, of course, but he let himself be a bit less on edge. Eddie got ready to wind down for the night. It was after nine now and he knew Robin would be there around eleven, so Eddie figured he had maybe another two or three hours or so before he’d see Steve’s face on his screen.

Eddie was on his balcony in sweats and a t-shirt, smoke perched between his lips, when his iPad pinged on the table next to him. @indiana_boy got a notification. Steve was live streaming.

“Hey guys…Just checking in…Long night….Anyone watch the fight…?”

Steve was outside, lit up by the yellow street lamps around him. He was walking on the side of the road, which thankfully in the gated area of Hidden Hills wasn’t a real road, so at least he wouldn’t be getting hit by a car. Eddie couldn’t hear any sounds of a party in the background.

• @hairringtonluvr: oh my goddd steve hiiiii you haven’t been live in days!
• @Stommy4ever: Were you at the boxing match with tommy?
• @HarringtonBrazilFan: Come to Brazil 😍
• @luccussy: Where’s Tommy???

“No…Guys…You need to stop asking about Tommy, ok? We’ve been done for…A while now…Just….”

Steve ran a hand over his face.

“Don’t ask about him again, ok?....I’ll never be with him again….Like, ever…”

Steve stopped walking and looked around, like he wasn’t sure where he was. The sounds of the party were creeping into the background, and Eddie thought maybe he’d accidentally gone in a circle.

• @Sarah74: they’re done?!?!
• @MikeyMike: lol does tommy know about this?
• @sixtynineseventyfour: You go beg Tommy to take you back right now 🤬
• @indiana_boy: Steve what’s going on?

Eddie typed almost without thinking, half unwilling to take his eyes off Steve for the split second it would take to turn away from the stream to pick up his phone and text him.

Steve stared at the screen and gave a heavy sigh.

“Oh…Yeah, ok, actually…I’m gonna go, you guys, um, see you soon, ok?”

The live ended. Eddie’s hand shot to his phone and he was halfway into a message to Steve asking what happened when his phone rang. Steve’s name popped up on the screen. Eddie thought for a second it was a regular Instagram call, until he saw a phone number.

“Hello? Steve?”

“Hey…” said Steve softly. “Can you come get me?”

He flicked the cigarette over the balcony and practically ran back inside, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder while he pulled on a zip-up hoodie.

“On my way, sweetheart,” said Eddie. “What’s going on?”

Eddie was already halfway out the door, keys between his teeth while he rammed his feet into his sneakers without socks.

“I just want to leave,” whispered Steve. The party was loud behind him now, like he was still outside but had gone back to the front of the house. “I want to go home,”

When Eddie turned the key in the ignition of his car, the Bluetooth stereo connected to his phone and there was a moment where he thought Steve might have disconnected. Eddie breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Steve’s voice again coming from the speakers.

“Eddie?” asked Steve tentatively. “Is that ok?”

Eddie almost took out a neighbour’s trashcan when he reversed onto the main road. He had no idea where he was going but he knew Hidden Hills was a good thirty minute drive away, so he didn’t stop to wait for directions before he put the car in drive and put his foot down.

“I’m already in my car, Stevie, don’t you worry,” said Eddie. “How about you send me your location ok? Is there a guard at the gate or can I just drive on up to the house?”

“There’s a guard…” said Steve quietly. Eddie got the distinct impression he was huddled over his phone, cupping his hand around the mouthpiece. “Just give him the password ‘fantasy’ and he’ll think you’re coming to the party, he’ll let you in,”

Eddie would have rolled his eyes at the chosen password for an influencer party in a gated community, but all that was on his mind was get to Steve and get there now. Eddie’s phone pinged again with the location, and thank god for his car automatically adding it to the on-board google maps. He was never going to complain about the robots taking over again.

“Are you safe, sweetheart?” asked Eddie, cutting across two lanes of traffic to get to his exit.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m outside,” said Steve in a low voice. “I’m ok, I just want to go, and you said I could call you if I ever needed you…”

“I’m glad you did,” said Eddie quickly. “I’m twenty minutes away, ok? Do you want me to stay on the phone with you until I get there?”

“No, just…” Steve breathed out. “Just don’t take too long ok?”

“If I can make it in fifteen I will,” promised Eddie.

They said goodbye and hung up, and Eddie hit the gas.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Another thing Eddie would always be thankful for when it came to his car was that it looked nice. As it should, quite frankly, given the amount he paid for it. So what if he never used the heated seats because LA was like living in a furnace? Once he pulled up to the gate, the guard didn’t even ask him for the password, he just waved him right through after complimenting Eddie’s choice of rims.

Eddie drove carefully up through the winding roads. They weren’t as well-lit as the open roads outside the gated section of the community to make sure paparazzi couldn’t get a decent picture without using flash, and giving away that they were trespassing. He’d never been here before and was struck by how many houses had a literal White Picket Fence. The All-American dream, indeed. As he came around a sweeping corner, he saw the lights of the party right as his google maps announced his arrival. He felt a prickle of panic in his chest when he couldn’t see Steve anywhere, but when he pulled up to the kerb, he saw him sitting on the ground, with his back against a pillar of the low wall.

Eddie parked directly in front of him. He stood out of his car and walked towards Steve, hand extended to help him up. He looked perfect in the navy blue varsity pullover that he was so excited to wear tonight.

“Hey, what’s going on?” asked Eddie when Steve was on his feet. He rubbed his hands along Steve’s arms, bringing him close. There were dark circles under Steve’s eyes from where his eyeliner was smudged from rubbing at it.

Steve looked at the ground and shook his head, knocking his forehead into Eddie’s cheekbone.

“I just want to leave…” Steve said softly, fingers fiddling with the zipper on the front of Eddie’s hoddie.

“Alright, come on, lets g–”

“Oh you have got to be kidding me? You called the fucking podcaster?”

Eddie’s whole body tensed as he looked over Steve’s shoulder and saw Tommy Hagan approaching over the front lawn along with a group of his friends. Steve let out a shaky breath and Eddie squeezed his arms.

“Go sit in the car ok?” Eddie told Steve, moving to stand between him and Tommy. “Problem, Hagan?”

“Problem, Hagan?” mocked Tommy, his laughing friends flanking him in a semi-circle. Eddie counted four phones and one DSLR camera pointed in their direction. He couldn't even see the faces of the people holding them, just the flare of the flash in the dark. “Yeah I got a problem, Munson. Why are you even here? You look like you just rolled out of bed, boring night all alone?”

“Just giving a friend a ride,” said Eddie, forcing a smile onto his face. “Nothing wrong with that, right?”

Tommy snorted.

“Maybe there is, though, huh?” chided Tommy, taking a step closer. “Maybe I should wonder why my boyfriend suddenly decides he’s better off alone the second you start sniffing around?”

“Maybe you should ask TMZ?” said Eddie, raising an eyebrow. “They have all the answers you need, pictures too,”

Tommy laughed.

“TMZ only know what I tell them,” he said. “They’re in my back fucking pocket,”

Eddie’s fists clenched as he held his nerve and kept himself from socking this prick right in the face. 

“And they still think you’re trash?” teased Eddie. “Wow, man, that’s not great for your ego,”

One of Tommy’s friends started to laugh but it was cut off abruptly when two of the others turned to stare at him.

“You weren’t invited to this party,” said Tommy cooly. He took another half step towards Eddie.

“Kick his ass, Tommy!” one of his friend yelled. “He stole your boy!”

The others let out shouts of agreement, and Eddie felt the circle close in around them. He kept his hands at his sides, digging his nails into his palms.

“I’m not at the party,” said Eddie, his shoulders set as he tried to keep his voice steady. “I’m just here to give Steve a ride home, that’s all,”

Eddie wasn’t scared. Fuck no. He could take Tommy with both hands behind his back if he had to. He’d been in enough fights as a kid to be just as scrappy as an adult. The problem would be if one of Tommy’s dumb friends put down their camera to join in. Eddie didn’t need Steve to have to try break it up if that happened.

“Steve’s fine where he is,” said Tommy swiftly. “He’s having a good time, he’s with his friends, isn’t that right, babe?”

Eddie realised for the first time that Steve hadn’t gotten into the car and was instead standing just behind him.

“I’m…I’m going home…” Steve mumbled.

“And I’ll take you home!” said Tommy brightly, spreading his arms out. “Later though, we’re partying! We’re having fun! You don’t want to leave while we’re having fun do you?”

Eddie didn’t turn around but he could practically feel the force that Steve was shaking his head with.

“God, am I that bad to be around?” said Tommy in fake offence, putting a hand on his chest. “I’m so terrible that you can’t even wait for your little assistant to come get you? You had to call this guy? I mean, come on, Steve, really? You’re making me out to be some kind of bad guy here,”

“I’m not, I–”

“Have you ever thought about how this makes me feel?” asked Tommy. “You’re the one who should feel bad here, people will think I’m a bad boyfriend or something,”

“You’re not… You’re not my boyfriend…” stuttered Steve. His voice was weak. Eddie’s stare was still fixed on Tommy, who did not like that.

“And what am I going to tell people if they hear you say that?” snapped Tommy. “What am I going to say when people ask why? Give me one good reason why you’re so determined that you’re better off without me, and I’ll walk away right now,”

Steve stammered as he tried to respond, not quite finding any words with his shaking voice.

“He doesn’t owe you an explanation,” said Eddie instead. “He can make whatever decision he wants,”

“And that decision is you?” scoffed Tommy, pointing at Eddie and laughing, turning to his friends for support. “Steve, babe, what do you even see in this guy?”

Steve didn’t respond again, Eddie heard him shuffling his weight from one foot to the other behind him.

“He doesn’t even have a reason for that?” sneered Tommy, speaking directly to Eddie. “Aw man, that sucks! Bet you thought he liked you, huh? Come on babe, let’s go back inside, you know I know how to treat you right, stop being so dumb about this, ‘kay?”

Tommy held a hand out towards Steve.

“What?” Steve said after a beat, his voice weak.

“I said lets go inside,” said Tommy, smiling.

“You said you know how to treat me right?” said Steve slowly, less a question and more a clarification.

Tommy nodded gladly. So did his friends.

“You think you treated me right?” asked Steve, stepping forward to stand beside Eddie. “You think that’s what’s been happening this whole time?”

Tommy’s smile faltered.

“Yeah babe, I always did good by you,” said Tommy, his brows knitting together. “You know that,”

Steve laughed. It was loud and sudden and cracked like a whip.

“You’re… You’re not serious?” asked Steve, his voice shaking but loud. “You think cheating on me is doing good by me? How about all the times you fed me fucking molly or god knows what else so I’d pass out just so you could go through my laptop?” Steve laughed again, almost manic. “You think it was good when you literally flew to another country, just to humiliate me? Wow, wow! You held the camera while two of your friends…”

Steve cut himself off, chest heaving. Eddie wanted to reach out and touch him, but Steve was reminding him of a spooked animal who might not respond well to it. Steve glanced over to two people to their right and briefly Eddie considered getting in his car to run them over.

“We’ve always been good together,” reasoned Tommy, holding a hand up as if he was defusing a bomb. “Don’t tell me there were never good times, don’t lie to me, Steve,”

Eddie saw a couple of Tommy’s friend lower their phones, clearly uncomfortable with the rant Steve was on.

“Sure, sure,” said Steve, putting a hand on his chin and giving an exaggerated nod. “Plenty of good times, yeah, sure. Before you started putting my name in the tags of all your videos to get more views, though, right? Yeah, yeah, before you couldn’t be around me without recording it, or telling someone else to record it, right? How about, how about, oh I know!” Steve clapped his hands together, making Tommy jump. “How about when told me you loved me for the first time, but had a GoPro strapped to your chest the whole time! How about that? Were they good enough?”

Tommy looked angry now.

“You’re embarrassing me, Steve,” spat Tommy.

“Are you more or less embarrassed than I was when I was found ODing in an ugly bathroom?” asked Steve rhetorically. “That you left me in, by the way,”

“I came back for you!” yelled Tommy, starting to look flustered. “How did I know this fucking loser would beat me to it?”

“Had to go get your camera, right?” asked Steve.

“Are you trying to make me feel bad, is that what you want?” said Tommy, so ruffled that his face going red.

All cameras were pointed towards the ground. Three people had taken definite steps backwards and away from the situation, and the rest looked like they were seconds away from retreating altogether.

“What I want is to figure out if I wasted two and a half years of my life for a failed relationship,” said Steve with a sigh. Eddie was delighted at the amount of Steve’s own self coming back into his voice. “Or a failed collab. Because honestly, Tommy, I can’t tell the difference anymore,”

Eddie looked at Steve for the first time, pulling his gaze away from Tommy and his friends. Steve’s face was screwed up in a mixture of pain and disbelief. His eyes were shining but he wasn’t crying. Steve had one hand on his forehead and the other on his hip.

“So you’re saying you never loved me?” asked Tommy, waving his arms out dramatically. “That’s what you’re saying? In front of all these people you’re going to say you never loved me?”

Steve huffed, almost amused. Tommy’s friends started to walk backwards towards the house, casting looks of discomfort at each other. The party was raging on inside, a totally different world to what was happening on the front lawn.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” said Steve. Tommy’s smile crept back up. “I did, at one point, but then… Then you made it so hard to even like you. I just… I can’t even look at you without feeling like I’m about to be attacked–”

“I never attacked you,” snapped Tommy quickly, his expression falling completely and raising a hand to wave a finger at Steve. Eddie stepped sideways so Steve was partially behind him again. “Don’t try tell people I attacked you, do you know what that could do to my reputation?”

“Without feeling like I’m about to be exploited then, how’s that?” conceded Steve. “Because that’s what this turned into, right? It’s why you kept drip feeding the press all those stories about me, just so I’d stick around because you made me think you were protecting me?”

“I kept your name in the news!” said Tommy furiously.

“My name is on the side of sixty four hotels,” scoffed Steve. “Exposure isn’t an issue for me,”

“And how do you think all that made me feel, huh?” asked Tommy, his face screwed up. “How do you think I felt knowing you were upset or mad, and that I needed to find a way to apologise?”

Steve let out a heavy breath.

“You never once apologised to me, Tommy,” said Steve simply. “For any of it,”

“I swear to god, if you leave with him,” Tommy said, eyes flicking to Eddie as he stepped forward again. He was close enough now to poke Steve right in the chest. “You’ll regret it, I’ll make sure of it. One email, Steve, just one, and I’ll ruin you,”

“Do you have any idea who I am?” asked Steve in disbelief. “I’m Steve fucking Harrington. I’m a force of god damn nature. And you?” Steve leaned back and looked Tommy up and down, regarding him with a raised eyebrow. “People only know your name because it spent so long next to mine. Me leaving here with him won’t make a damn difference to my career, no matter what you do. Yours might suffer though,”

“You’ll regret this, Steve,” said Tommy, his voice cracking in anger. “You have no idea what I’m capable of,”

“And I’m rooting for you,” said Steve dismissively. “Or whatever…”

Tommy snarled, and made a move as if he was going to go for Steve. Eddie reacted quickly, putting his hand on Tommy’s chest to hold him back. He could feel how hard and fast Tommy’s heart was beating.

“I don’t think so,” said Eddie, voice low and firm. “Do you?”

Tommy practically growled at him.

“You think I’m scared of you?” said Tommy, pressing forward into Eddie’s hand. “You wanna go? Right here, right now, there’s only one of you and I know my boys have my back, let’s fucking go,”

The smile that came onto Eddie’s face made Tommy physically flinch.

“All your friends are gone,” said Eddie, shaking his head slowly.

Tommy glanced quickly over his shoulders at the empty lawn. He looked almost scared when he turned back to Eddie and Steve.

Eddie slid his hand up from Tommy’s chest onto his cheek.

“Now, I’ll fight you, if you want,” said Eddie. “But I’d rather leave quietly. What do you think?”

Tommy gulped, and nodded.

“Good,” said Eddie. “That’s good,”

Eddie tapped his hand firmly on Tommy’s cheek twice. The third time, he reared his hand back and brought it back to Tommy’s face with a hard crack, holding his palm in place on the skin to let the sting settle in.

“That’s good,” repeated Eddie in a whisper, as tears sprung to Tommy’s eyes.

Steve put his hand around Eddie’s wrist and squeezed.

“Eddie…” he said gently.

“Yeah,” said Eddie, lowering his hand. “Let’s go, come on,”

Eddie and Steve got into the car quickly. Eddie locked the doors as soon as they were closed. As they pulled away from the kerb and Eddie swung around to drive back the way he had come, Tommy Hagan faded in the rear view mirror, still standing dumbstruck at the edge of Kylie Jenner’s picket-fenced yard.

Eddie put his hand on Steve’s leg as he drove. Steve wrapped both of his hands around Eddie’s arm as if he was holding on for dear life. He might have been, if the amount he was trembling was any indication.

“Are you ok?” asked Eddie when they passed the guard house. “Put your address into the map, I’ll take you back there,”

“No,” said Steve quickly. “Um, can I come to your place? Please?”

“Yeah sweetheart, of course,” agreed Eddie, turning towards home. “Can I ask why?”

“Tommy doesn’t know where you live…” said Steve quietly.

Eddie understood immediately. For all the bravado he had managed to muster to finally cut Tommy down to size, Steve was scared of the consequences of what he’d just done and didn’t want anyone turning up at his door. Tommy definitely seemed the type to do that, too.

“I’m sober, by the way,” said Steve, looking out the window as they cruised through the city. “Didn’t even have a drink or anything,”

“That’s great,” said Eddie, pride swelling in his chest.

Steve sighed, and relaxed against the seat. They stayed silent for the rest of the journey home.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“Hey Robin….”

Steve was sitting on a bar stool in Eddie’s kitchen, his face in his hands with arms rested on the counter in front of him. His phone was between his elbows, on speakerphone.

“Steve?” asked Robin. “What’s going on? I’m not late am I? How come it’s so quiet? Is it over?”

“No, No…” said Steve tentativelty. “I, uh, I left the party…”

“You did what?!” Robin screeched. “Where are you? I’m coming to get you right now,”

“Robin, Robs, please, stop, listen to me,” said Steve, cutting off her rambling. “I’m ok, I’m at Eddie’s place,”

Robin was quiet for a long moment.

“How did you get to Eddie’s?” she asked, clearly considering her words carefully.

“I called him… He picked me up…” explained Steve.

“Is he there?” she asked. “Can I talk to him?”

“Hi Robin,” called Eddie. He had his back to Steve, making them both a cup of green tea.

“She’s video calling, here…” Steve mumbled, sliding off his chair and coming to stand by Eddie. Steve stood behind Eddie and rested a cheek on his shoulder blade so he was mostly obscured, extending his arm out in front of them when he answered the call.

“Hi Robin,” said Eddie again, this time looking her in the eye. “I’ve got him, don’t worry,”

The relief in the sound Robin made was palpable.

“Oh thank god,” said Robin, sitting into a comfortable looking chair. “I was just checking, you know?”

“I know,” said Steve softly. “I’m ok, I’m safe here,”

Eddie nodded in agreement, stirring a spoon of honey into each cup.

“I’ll let Nancy know where you are, too,” said Robin. "You sure you don't need me? Or a change or clothes or something?"

"Eddie gave me a hoodie. And some sweatpants," said Steve, shaking his head. "I had to untie the string, my ass is bigger than his,"

Eddie laughed in offense and Steve smiled.

Steve finished his brief check-in with Robin and hung up the call, and stayed rested against Eddie’s back. The warmth of his body creeped in through Eddie’s clothes, and Eddie took a moment to close his eyes and savour it before shepherding Steve into the living room and onto the couch. Steve's eyes slid around the room slowly, taking in all of the parts of Eddie's space. He looked out of place in a way, so far removed from the bright white walk-in closet and sitting in Eddie's dimly lit living room. 

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” asked Eddie after Steve had been steadily sipping his drink for a few minutes. “You don’t have to, just if you want to,”

Steve shrugged and pulled his legs close to his chest, settling sideways into the back of the couch. He opened his mouth and inhaled as if to say something, but he stayed quiet instead.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” said Eddie, mirroring Steve’s position with one leg curled under him and the other hanging off the edge of the seat.

“I just…” started Steve, rubbing his eye with a fist, smudging his eyeliner even more. “I could feel it, you know? I could tell that it was going to end up like last time. I couldn’t find a way out and they were making fun of me for…”

“For what, Stevie?” Asked Eddie gently.

“As soon as Tommy seen me, he pulled out a wrap of pills and told me to take some, and I said no,” explained Steve. “I said I wasn’t getting fucked-up tonight, I wasn’t even drinking, and they all started laughing. Someone said I needed to work on building my tolerance back up after New York if I didn’t want to pass out every time I partied too hard,” Steve snorted, and took a long mouthful of his tea. “And uh, some of the others started saying that I, uh, that I’m more fun when I’m passed out anyway, so…” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t feel safe, so I left, and then I remembered what you said about always being around and I called you…”

Eddie thought if he could have steam coming out of his ears, it would be happening right now. He was furious, and he started to think about anyone he knew who might have access to a hitman. Ironically, the Harrington family seemed like the best bet. Steve was playing with a loose thread on the cushion as he spoke.

“I didn’t even want to take anything at the Met,” said Steve, holding his mug close to his chest and not looking at Eddie. “They all followed me to that bathroom. I was trying to get away from the noise for a while. I was about to text you. I wanted to see you so badly, you would’ve fucking loved my jacket… It was so great. I tried to leave, and Tommy grabbed me by my collar, pulled it right off my back… He locked the door and said that I shouldn’t be so rude, you know? He came all the way down that hallway with his friends to give me some pills and I should just be grateful and take them. They all thought it was funny…” Steve rubbed a hand under his nose and across his cheek. His eyes were red now and his voice was starting to shake. “So, I grabbed the whole bag and poured them straight down my throat. Yelled at him Is that what you want? Is it? Is that what you want Tommy? Over and over, just kept yelling…. They weren’t laughing anymore, so I guess I got what I wanted. At least they left the door open when they ran, right? You wouldn’t have found me if they closed it,”

Steve tried to smile but it got lost and ended up as a grimace.

“I would’ve found you anywhere,” said Eddie, trying to keep his voice steady. He was irate. He wanted to hit Tommy with his car. Or feed him to bears.

Steve smiled for real now before he sighed heavily.

“Do you remember the elevator?” asked Steve. “Back in the hotel?”

“How could I forget?” said Eddie with a grin.

“I remembered that whole conversation after I slapped you,” said Steve, draining his tea and leaving the cup on the coffee table. “I couldn’t stop thinking about how nice you were to me, still can’t… Even when I asked that dumb question you just… kept helping me. You were like, way different than I expected. I was so sure you’d just leave me there with my head caught between the doors or something,”

Eddie chuckled.

“Guess I was already caught up with how cute you are, Stevie. You never asked me anything though?” said Eddie. “Well unless you mean whining about why your hotel wasn’t good enough for me,”

Steve giggled.

“Oh, no not that, I-”

Steve was cut off by the sound of both their phones chiming at once with a google entertainment alert.

Eddie caught sight of it first. It was a Perez Hilton article and it had already blazed to the top of trending lists.

“Steve don’t,” he said, but it was too late. Steve’s phone was already in his hand.

Met Gala Overdose Drama!!!!!!! Ex-boyfriend speaks out!!!

Stephen Harrington apparently had a little too much fun at the mini-Met in New York earlier this month.

Tommy Hagan, a YouTube star, contacted Perez to voice his concerns over how his hotel heir ex-boyfriend’s life was going.

“He dumped me out of the blue a while ago, and at the party he was popping pills like tic tacs.” we were told in an email. “I tried to stop him, but he just threw his blazer at me and ran off. I was looking for him later on and found him and a group of other people being hauled into ambulances. He’s been hanging around a bad crowd the last few months, I’ve been really worried. His license is already suspended because he drove into a tree last year when he was out of it.”

The content creator, who runs the series Tommy High Life about his rich lifestyle, wouldn’t name names though!

“All I’ll say is, whoever people start seeing him with next, that’s probably whoever’s got him going down this road again.”

And did Tommy dearest have any words for his ex?

“Steve, babe, if you’re reading this, come home. Let’s fix it. I can make it all better.”

Inneresting! Thoughts, Perezious readers???

Clever fucking boy. Not naming Eddie directly, but still giving just enough to make sure it would be him who got the blame for Steve’s hospital trip if they started to be seen together. Tommy made sure people would think Eddie was responsible for the story he was spinning, without even mentioning him. Can’t send a lawyer after something that doesn’t exist.

Eddie looked up at Steve, but he couldn’t figure out his expression.

“It wasn’t a tree, it was a wall,” mumbled Steve. “And it was three years ago,”

Steve dropped his phone onto his lap and put his hands over his face, dissolving into loud tears. Eddie reached forward and pulled him close, so Steve was curled sideways against his chest, bracketed between Eddie’s legs. Eddie leaned into the couch while he held Steve as tightly as he could.

“It’s ok,” cooed Eddie, at a loss of what else to say. “It’s alright, we’ll figure it out, sweetheart, I promise,”

Steve’s phone was ringing but Eddie snatched it and held the power button to knock it off. He didn’t see who was calling. It didn’t matter. Anyone with anything beneficial to say would know to call Eddie instead if they really needed to.

Eddie’s heart tightened with every sob that wrenched its way out of Steve’s throat. His whole body was tensed up and quaking. He kept asking if he deserved it all, and why was Tommy trying so hard to make him look so bad.

And god, Eddie wished he could answer everything for him. Instead, he held Steve close to his chest and rested his chin on the top of his head. Eddie cooed and shushed, and repeated I know, I know, over and over again. He pressed his lips into Steve’s hair, calming the big sobs with soft touches and promises of a brighter morning that he was only half sure he could keep.

When Steve’s thundering howls calmed down into shuddered breaths, Eddie went to get him a glass of water. He made a pitstop into his bathroom on the way back.

“Hey, come on,” said Eddie softly, lifting Steve’s chin with his knuckle. “We need to take that make up off,”

Eddie dropped his bottles of micellar water and moisturiser onto the seat between them, before pressing the cold glass of water into Steve’s hands. He held up a cotton pad that he’d soaked with the cleanser.

“I don’t want to,” croaked Steve, his voice shot from crying so hard. “It’s fine, that stuff will ruin my skin anyway,”

“Oh yeah?” asked Eddie, taking hold of Steve’s chin. “More or less than sleeping with your foundation on?”

Steve considered it for a moment, eyeing the pad with more suspicion than Eddie knew what to do with. He hadn’t cried out all the attitude, anyway.

“Do you at least have moisturiser?” asked Steve eventually, looking down at what Eddie had brought. He moved so he was sitting with his legs crossed under him and facing towards Eddie. He made no move to take the pad.

“You know I do,” said Eddie, holding Steve’s jaw firmly while he started swiping at his face with the cotton.

Steve physically winced at the first touch of the make-up remover.

“Oh god that’s too much,” he said, scrunching his nose. “Squeeze it out,”

Eddie rolled his eyes and made a grand gesture of squeezing excess liquid over one of the empty cups on the coffee table.

“Now hold still,” said Eddie, putting his tongue between his teeth to concentrate.

“You’re really bad at this,” said Steve, a hint of a smile on his lips. Eddie had built up a small pile of used cotton pads between them at this point.

“You can finish it yourself if you want,” teased Eddie, taking his hands off Steve’s face so they were hovering a few inches away.

Steve shook his head and shifted forward, placing his chin in Eddie’s open hand again.

“Mmn-nmm, no,” he said. “You can do it,”

Eddie laughed.

“How kind,” said Eddie.

It was difficult for Eddie to ignore the way Steve was staring at him. Soft, and warm, blinking slow, and like they had all the time in the world to get through their task. He wanted to kiss every part of Steve’s face as a full stop, as if to say here, this part is clean now too.

“Close your eyes,” said Eddie. Steve’s eyes slid closed easily.

As Eddie ran a pad over his eyelids as gently as possible, Steve’s mouth fell open ever so slightly, the softest small, dopey smile on his face.

“There…” said Eddie, dropping the last piece of cotton and surveying Steve’s face. There was still a line of black under his eyes and foundation in his hairline, but it was better than nothing. “How’s that?”

“It’ll do” said Steve gently with a gently mocking shrug.

Eddie glared at him while Steve rubbed moisturiser into his skin and moved the make-up removers onto the coffee table. Steve leaned forward again and twisted around to retake his place against Eddie’s chest. He sipped his water slowly, and occasionally his hand would twitch out to the side as if he was looking for his phone before he remembered that Eddie had turned it off. Steve didn’t speak again, and Eddie was perfectly content to let him enjoy his moment of peace.

Steve’s breathing eventually turned deep and slow. Eddie took the glass from his hands and manoeuvred himself out of the way, so Steve could lay flat on the couch. Eddie shifted a cushion under his head and covered him with a blanket retrieved from his bedroom. Eddie considered going to his own bed, but then was struck with the thoughts of Steve possibly panicking when he woke up alone in an unfamiliar room. He grabbed a blanket for himself too, and settled in on the other sofa. Sleep came quickly, the sounds of Steve’s gentle snores lulling Eddie on his way.

 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Eddie was having a nightmare.

Or sleep paralysis or something. Whatever it was, there was a concentrated point of pressure pushing heavy on his chest and a black shadow moving above him. It was pitch black.

It wasn’t until his brain started to wake up enough to catch the scent of lavender and bergamot that he realised it wasn’t a random demon invading his space. It was Steve. He was clambering under the blanket and over Eddie to get into the small space between his body and the back of the couch.

Eddie groaned and shifted himself sideways so Steve had some more space to wedge himself into. He lifted his arm and Steve settled in under it easily, finding a comfortable spot with his front pressing into Eddie’s side, head on his collarbone and an arm slung over his stomach.

“You in?” grumbled Eddie, giving him a gentle squeeze.

Steve shifted around a second longer.

“I’m in,” he said with a yawn.

Eddie hummed.

“Eddie?” asked Steve quietly.

“Mmhmm?” Eddie was damned if he was awake enough yet to form full sentences.

“How come you didn’t go to bed?” asked Steve.

Eddie sniffed and held back a yawn.

“Didn’t want you to wake up alone,” he said truthfully, running his hand over Steve’s arm.

“Probably for the best…” said Steve. “Who knows if I would have ever found you?”

Eddie raised his head to peer down at Steve.

“What?” asked Eddie, confused.

“You know,” said Steve, voice lifting slightly. “Since you’re so bad at house tours,”

“Wha-? Oh my god,” Eddie groaned, laughing. He put the hand that wasn’t around Steve on his forehead, and gave his waist a pinch with the one that was.

Steve giggled so much he turned his head into Eddie’s neck. Eddie smiled at the feeling of Steve squirming next to him, trying to bury his little happy noises in his skin. He wanted to hear those noises this close up forever.

“That was a terrible joke, sweetheart,” said Eddie, faking offence but unable to hide the smile in his voice.

Steve nuzzled into his neck more.

“I like when you call me that…” he said softly. The feeling of warm breath across his neck was giving Eddie goosebumps.

“I know,” said Eddie, leaning into the feeling and rubbing his cheek on the top of Steve’s head. “How come?”

Steve sighed.

“Everyone always says babe, or baby, like…” Steve huffed. “Hey babe, how you doin’ babe, great to see you, babe. Kind of lost its impact. Sweetheart is…”

Eddie felt him smile against his neck.

“No one ever called me sweetheart,” said Steve. “Made me feel like you liked me…”

Eddie was sure he could feel Steve’s face heating up.

“I did like you,” admitted Eddie. “I do like you,”

“I like you too,” whispered Steve, like it was a secret despite them being all alone.

Eddie linked the fingers of his hands together across Steve’s body and held him close.

“I’m really scared, Eddie,” said Steve after a long moment. His voice was small. “What are people saying about me after he… That article was bad. He made me look so bad…”

Eddie kissed the top of his head.

“I know,” said Eddie into his hair. “It’s nothing we can’t figure out together ok, I promise. And hey, listen to me. Who are you again?”

Steve giggled again.

“I’m Steve fucking Harrington,”

“You sure fucking are,”

Steve was quiet again for a long time. The sky outside the windows started to streak with the pinks and purples that heralded the dawn, and Eddie started to be able to make out the shapes of Steve’s body under the blanket beside him.

“Eddie?” asked Steve, startling him a bit. Eddie thought Steve had drifted back off to sleep.

“Yeah?” he replied.

“Do you want…” started Steve. “Do you want to know what I was going to ask you? In the elevator?”

Eddie rubbed a hand along Steve’s arm again.

“Sure, tell me,” he said.

“So… We were talking about… About Tommy, right?” said Steve. Eddie made a noise of acknowledgement. “And I said that… I said that I asked him to change and he never did. And… Fuck this is so dumb…”

“It’s not dumb,” said Eddie. “Was what it?”

Steve shuffled around and gathered his nerve.

“I was going to ask if you’d change for me,” said Steve, shrinking a little with embarrassment. “If I asked you to, I mean,”

Eddie put a hand under Steve’s chin and tilted his head up so they could look at each other. He brushed his thumb along Steve’s jaw and took in the way the colour in his eyes was starting to light up with the rest of the room.

“I would have said…” said Eddie slowly, considering his answer. “I would have told you that you’d never have to worry about me needing to,”

Steve’s eyebrows rose at that. He searched Eddie’s face, looking for any hint of a lie. There was none, of course. Eddie would have dropped everything right then and there in that elevator for Steve. If only he had asked.

Steve lifted himself up onto an elbow, steadying himself with a hand on Eddie’s chest.

Steve lowered himself slightly so he could brush his nose against Eddie’s, taking a long moment to enjoy the warmth of their shared breaths and the feeling of being so close.

And then he closed the gap between them, and finally, finally, Eddie got to find out if a kiss from the beautiful, pouty, plush mouth of Steve Harrington tasted as sweet as he thought it would.

It did.

Chapter Text

Six months.

Six fucking months.

Six months since Tommy Hagan tried to take back control of Steve Harrington’s life by telling the world about his overdose. Steve handled it better than most people thought he would. He didn’t spiral or go on a bender, like he had done in his earlier years. He didn’t get on the phone to Tommy and beg forgiveness like he had done so many times in the past either.

No, Steve woke up safely in the arms of Eddie Munson, squashed beside each other on a sofa that probably wasn’t meant for two grown men to sleep on together. His lips still tingled from where Eddie had playfully nipped at them over and over. Steve smiled when he woke up, nuzzling down deeper into their embrace and planted his head firmly on Eddie’s chest. He wasn’t quite ready to turn his phone back on and let the real world come crashing in. He knew it would be a lot to deal with, but he was too busy enjoying the feeling of being lifted up and down, every time Eddie’s sleeping breaths went in and out. He closed his eyes again and let himself get lost in the rhythm of it. Steve knew the next few hours, maybe even days, were going to be manic, but there was no way he was about to tear himself out of this blanket before he absolutely had to.

It was also six months since Eddie rejected a call from Steve’s mother and turned the phone off. Their lawyers had been alerted basically immediately and they went into an almighty fury. Their entire legal team was mobilised right away to do whatever clean-up they could. Steve’s parents weren’t naive. They knew going after Perez to get the article taken down would be useless, that people would have saved it and shared it by now. So they did the next best thing. They sent threats. They had four people that were dedicated to keeping the family’s public image (and Steve’s online persona) as protected as possible. If only darling Perez knew half of the things that were hidden away in little locked cabinets. He’d lose his mind at the thoughts of all that traffic on his website.

So the lawyers sent an email stating Perez was not to, in any circumstances, post follow-ups regarding this story unless they were handed to him by the Harringtons directly. They contacted Anna Wintour’s camp to crack down on drug security at her next event or Steve would definitely not be there to draw in the crowds. There were no less than fifteen pre-emptive warnings sent to various outlets on how they should handle the story. They gave Nancy free reign to do ‘whatever it is that needs to be done’ on the ground level to get things back on track. For Nancy, in that moment this meant sitting back and enjoying a hot cup of coffee, wearing her boyfriend’s favourite cut-off flannel shirt, while he read her emails out loud to her. She and him both knew that until Steve resurfaced and turned his fucking phone back on, there was nothing that could be done. They considered calling Eddie to speak to them both, but then the offer of a foot massage took Nancy out of ‘work mode’ entirely.  

The Harrington lawyers had a cease and desist posted publicly on the family’s legacy website within thirty minutes of being told to start fixing things, and it was tweeted out on the Harrington Estate twitter account. The tweet informed people that the letter was for the direct attention of the person who had been corrupting their son and tarnishing their family reputation with lies and harmful public activities. People clicked onto it with glee expecting to see a specific name on the letter. The public weren’t dumb, they could guess who the Harringtons wouldn’t approve of their son being around. Everyone had seen the tiktoks warning a certain someone to stay away from Steve. So people ran to the website and read the letter, tagging friends and sharing it like wildfire. But everyone was shocked at the name that actually appeared at the top of the letter.

Tommy Hagan.

Because it had been seven months since Steve’s parents flew overnight from Boston to NYC on their private plane and cried when they saw their son, pale and small, sitting in a hospital bed with a tube feeding liquids into his arm. Nancy and Robin were there despite being off the clock and once Sylvia and Patrick got over the shock that these women wanted to be there for their son, they started to hear the name of someone else. Someone who was offering to take care of him, and who wanted to make sure he was feeling well enough to fly home and even volunteered to drive Steve back to California if that’s what it took. The same person who got the feeling something was wrong and crashed his way through a party to find their son. Who saved his life.

When they brought Steve back to their hotel and everyone sat down together to talk, they were horrified to find that it was the same name that they had signed off on a legal letter to not long ago. But where was his boyfriend? Where was the one who swore all this time that he was helping Steve? With help from his team, no, his friends, Steve told them everything. Well, almost everything. A grown man needs to have some secrets from his parents after all. They didn’t interrupt, and when Steve was finished talking, they hugged him close and promised to start listening from now on. Somewhere along the way they had started to ignore what should have been obvious, that their boy was in distress and needed help, not discipline. The family were on the start of a long road together, but together is what they were. At last.

It was five months since Steve’s followers noticed a change in his content. Almost like a switch had flipped, things were more relaxed, and somehow relatable, despite still being the envy of basically everyone. There were actual candid shots being posted on his Instagram, and not just on his stories. They were real grid posts that weren’t getting deleted. Pictures of him working out with friends and waving to the camera instead of trying to look stoic and focused. A photo of him boarding a private jet with the caption “Anyone want anything from Greenwood Market…?”. Ozzy was pictured set up at the breakfast table of a small kitchen that no one recognised, the caption asking if there was anything fun to do around Forest Hills for a bat like him. Google searches for ‘Forest Hills’ and ‘Greenwood Market’ quadrupled.

Steve even started playing his guitar on streams. His viewers loved it and started sending requests in the chat. Their favourite thing for him to play was a blues-ified version of Toxic by Britney Spears. Steve would have to take off a new ring he’d been wearing on his middle finger to get the chords just right because it was big and chunky and he hadn’t figured out how to keep it out of the way yet, but he just slipped it onto his other hand instead until he was finished. Whenever anyone asked where the ring came from, Steve smiled and said he found it on his nightstand.

Four months passed since Eddie’s regular audience started seeing a change. The podcast was ninety-nine percent the same, except for everyone’s favourite game. Who The Fuck Is That Guy? had undergone a subtle shift. It was no longer about being cruel to whoever popped up on the screen. Eddie was now given a photo of the person with their face and body blurred, and three random quotes from their videos. He had to figure out who they were and what type of content they made. He had five minutes, and it almost always ended up with him standing up, leaning all the way over the desk gripping the edges of the monitor, frantically looking for clues in the background.

They were all nervous to introduce this new way of playing. Eddie expected their subscribers to fall dramatically, but he was shocked when they started to grow. Even the most die-hard fans of Eddie being mean as possible were getting a kick out of seeing him floundering and screaming “Make up! Make up! I see make up brushes!” at the screen, and looking like a wounded animal when Gareth insisted he be more specific. He would tug on the piece of pink tweed material that was knotted around his wrist while he argued how ‘make up’ was a perfectly valid answer.

Eddie still poked fun where he could, but it was less like watching a snuff-piece every time he opened his mouth. It was easier, and more enjoyable, to make fun than to go for the neck, and he was as surprised as anyone when it was a hit. The targets of the game started to make fun of him right back instead of sending lawyer letters or crying to their audience. This new kind of I know you are but what am I back and forth with the influencers always left everyone with a smile, and without a sour taste in their mouths.

Three months passed since one of Tommy’s friends contacted Jeff Wittek and asked to go on his podcast. Jeff had exposed his own former employer and friend for being shady, so it apparently felt like the right fit. The friend played a recording on his phone, right into the microphone, of Tommy admitting to having TMZ in his back pocket and selling stories about Steve. Listeners and viewers had their hands over their mouths while the story was told about how Tommy grabbed a camera at the Mini Met and ran back to the bathroom to find Steve, with a plan to make it look like he was rescuing him. Jeff listened with his mouth open and tears in his eyes as he heard all about the night in Hidden Hills, when the illusion of who Tommy Hagan really was came crashing down. There were other people on the lawn that night who had no idea who the participants in that tape were, and certainly didn’t know that Tommy was the one holding the camera. When Jeff asked who exactly it was that came to drive Steve home, the friend just shrugged and said “Someone he’s better off with, that’s all I know for sure,”.

The internet had a hard time believing that Tommy’s friends had no idea about the truth of the tape, but his friend, and some of the others who followed suit, stuck to their story. Steve reached out and thanked them for finally speaking up, but asked if they could not mention it again. He didn’t send letters or contact his parents, he just asked politely over email. They agreed easily, one of them saying it was the least they could do. Another said that if he could turn the clock back and open his eyes up earlier, he would have, and that he would always regret it. Steve didn’t believe him, but he accepted the apology anyway.

It was two months since Steve walked triumphant out of the LA courthouse with a settlement notice in his hands. He’d been dragging Tommy through the system for a little while by this point, and as far as the public knew it was for defamation thanks to the Perez article. Under the surface, there were accusations of reckless endangerment, privacy invasions, and even grand theft. It would have gone on for much longer had Tommy’s ex-friends not provided letters directly to Steve’s lawyers, voicing their support and offering to speak against Tommy if necessary. They weren’t called in to appear at any of the hearings in the end, the judge deciding that there was more than enough evidence that Steve was in fact the victim here. Steve was awarded the full amount that he was requesting. One single dollar.

Steve could have gone after Tommy again, and the others in the tape, for damages if he wanted to, especially knowing that the recordings of the night outside Kylie’s house still existed. He decided to move on without it. He mourned the part of him that would have survived if it didn’t happen, letting himself be bundled up in a blanket by strong arms so he could cry while he processed it all finally being over. But really he felt empowered by the version of himself that was thriving despite it all. Pictures of Steve around Hollywood would often catch sight of a new Medusa keychain hanging off his bag.

The day the story of the settlement hit the press, Steve posted a picture to his Instagram putting a dollar into the tip jar at a coffee shop, with no caption, but he did add Kesha’s song ‘Praying’ to the story. The picture was zoomed in close onto his hand holding the bill, but in the background there was a tray with two orange foam drinks being held by someone wearing a full hand of silver rings, a pink bracelet, and a Dio shirt. Everyone thought Steve was being so funny setting up that photo, and speculating who it was that was actually holding the drinks. Because it couldn’t really be him, right?

Tommy’s platform dropped off quicky. His Tommy High Life series stalled now that he didn’t actually have anyone to pay for the luxurious lifestyle that he was showcasing. He went on radio shows complaining about cancel culture and the importance of second chances. His TikTok would constantly tease a new show or an up and coming project, but nothing ever materialised. He got himself onto the card at a Creator Clash boxing match, but was knocked out in the first round. Steve heard his name less and less around town. The most recent news Steve had gotten about him was that he was lined up for Lithuania’s version of Dancing With The Stars as an alternate if someone else dropped out before filming began. Steve was delighted the first time he found he truly didn’t care what or how Tommy was doing, good or bad. It felt a lot like healing.

One month ago, the background for Steve’s livestreams changed. He was no longer in the big white walk-in closet, surrounded by clothes he was never going to wear. It was a small room with red walls, bursting with music equipment and a large light-up mirror. The view out the window was different too, and his viewers were constantly comparing google map screenshots to try figure out where he was. Steve didn’t give any clues beyond confirming that yes, he was in a new place now, and did everyone like his studio space? Wasn’t it so cute? Any time someone in the chat of his lives thought they heard yelling in the background about burned books or a submarine, Steve insisted he didn’t know what they were talking about before picking up his phone to send a text. The yelling would stop soon after. Steve started teasing a new collab around this time too, but wouldn’t give any indication of who, or when. He just smiled and told people they’d ‘be going like, so crazy after it dropped’.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“Attention K-Mart shopperssssssssss! My name is Eddie Munson and I’m here to make you feel less like a failure and more like you could’ve finished college if you just really tried. So buckle up because we have a show today for you that I don’t think any of us saw coming,”

Eddie spun around in his chair.

“We have someone here today who has the pleasure of being not only our second ever guest, but our only ever guest. The incomparable, the one and only, the Kingggg himself…..”

Eddie took a breath and leaned close to his microphone, narrowing his eyes and smiling at the person across the desk.

“Steve Harrington.”

Steve was miming putting a crown on in his chair.

“Viewers might notice that Gareth is not here,” said Eddie, and a dramatic dun dun dun sound effect rang out through the studio. “He’s bringing his girlfriend to a spa for the day,”

“Lucky Gareth,” said Steve into his microphone.

“Are you kidding?” asked Eddie. “I saw the price of the place they’re going, lucky Nancy,”

Steve laughed and took a sip of his iced coffee.

“Our girl in the booth Chrissy is still here and she has a special guest of her own,” said Eddie.

The camera in Chrissy’s booth showed her and Robin sitting next to each other and giggling, while Chrissy pointed at various buttons for Robin to press.

“Hi Steve,” said Robin, waving through the window.

“Hey Robin,” said Steve, waving right back.

Eddie rested his chin in his hands as he watched them wave like absolute dorks, flailing their hands around and laughing at each other. Steve wouldn’t ask for this to be cut out despite how dumb it looked, Eddie knew that. He was enjoying being silly in public and not having to constantly have his best face on.

“So Stevie…” started Eddie, when what became a wave-war died down. “Been a while since you’ve been here. A lot’s happened, right?”

Steve cleared his throat.

“Yeah, you could say that,” he laughed. “I’ve uh, I’ve come into a new era, I guess,”

“Very Taylor Swift,” nodded Eddie, drinking his own coffee before opening a notepad. The page had bullet points listed that the camera didn’t quite pick up. Eddie raised an eyebrow at Steve before continuing, who gave the slightest nod. “The end of your last era was kind of rocky, did you think that’s how the past year would have gone for you?”

Steve shook his head, swallowing a mouthful of his drink.

“No, no,” said Steve. “I really thought I had it figured out, you know? I was like, ok, this is it, right? I go to parties, I test products for my line, I, I dunno, I see some more pictures of myself online and repost any that look cute, and then it starts over again,”

“That’s the dream for a lot of people,” said Eddie, lifting a pen to the notepad and drawing a line through something. “Not for you though?”

Steve sighed.

“It was, for like, the longest time,” said Steve, running a hand through his hair. “But, you know, you get fucking… I dunno, you get cheated on a few times, you take too many pills a few times, it starts looking a lot less like a dream, you know?”

Eddie nodded.

“I know,” he agreed. “You had all those pictures on TMZ of you definitely not living the dream. Was that the wake-up call, or did something else happen?”

Eddie drew another line.

Steve took in a deep breath.

“I think the obvious thing would be to say the Mini Met, right? The OD?” asked Steve, leaning his elbows forward on the table. “But there was some stuff before then. Like, these tiny moment of being shown, like, kindness, or whatever? And I was like, oh my god, this doesn’t happen to me, you know? This doesn’t happen in my everyday life but… I got it from places I didn’t think I would, or that I would never have expected. From one place, really. It was bizarre, but there was a night where I’d been yelled at in public, humiliated, had god knows how many cameras shoved in my face, and then all of a sudden I’m eating ramen with a friend and I was…”

Steve sighed and smiled. Eddie’s mouth was twitching into a smile too.

“I was so happy,” said Steve softly. “I shouldn’t have been. I should have been miserable, but I just felt… Accepted, I guess? I hadn’t felt that for a long time but, hey, there it was. That’s when I knew,”

Eddie drew another line in the notepad, blanking out another bullet point.

“How have you been doing since then?” he asked. “You had a pretty big win a couple months ago, right?”

Steve snorted.

“I know a dollar doesn’t seem like the right kind of payback for…Anything,” said Steve leaning back in his chair and stretching his arms over his head. “But it was big in terms of like, proving the point, you know? Not even to anyone else, just to me. That oh shit, this was all wrong and I’m not crazy for thinking so,”

“You disappeared then, for a couple weeks, not long ago,” said Eddie. “Were you just lying low after everything?”

“I actually spent fourteen days at a facility,” said Steve, nodding. “Just to remind myself that I can have a good time without feeling pressured about it, like enjoying a glass of wine without needing to finish the bottle. I don’t have to oblige myself to anyone, basically learning ways to treat myself kindly. I’m lucky with that, you know? Not everyone can have that one glass, and it’s something I keep myself aware of anytime I do. I have a great support system too, now more than ever, and again, you know, I’m lucky that I have those people who want me to be kind to myself,”

“I wouldn’t call it luck,” said Eddie, drawing a line through the final bullet point. “It sounds like you deserve to have that stable baseline, after everything,”

Steve smiled.

“Thanks Eddie,” he said.

“And what about now?” asked Eddie, closing the notepad and leaning forward. “What’s life looking like for you these days?”

Steve smiled.

“I’m doing really great,” said Steve, nodding. “I’m more relaxed, I’m having more fun, I’m feeling really lucky,”

“You look like you’re doing great,” said Eddie gently.

“I owe a lot to my new boyfriend,” said Steve, blushing. Eddie’s grin grew. “He’s been taking the most amazing care of me and… I guess I’m not sure where I’d be right now, if it wasn’t for him,”

“Sounds like he’s really into you,” said Eddie, playfully quirking an eyebrow.

“He better be,” laughed Steve. “I didn’t move all my stuff half way across LA into a way smaller house for nothing,”

Eddie laughed too. A loud Awoo-ga sound effect filled the room and they both jumped. Robin was in the producer booth looking terrified while Chrissy was holding her ribs and laughing.

“I didn’t mean to press it,” said Robin meekly.

Steve restarted the wave-war. Eddie let it continue for a few minutes while he drank his coffee.

“Alright, Steve Harrington, we have a very special edition of Who The Fuck Is That Guy? to play with you today,” said Eddie, passing over a large envelope.

“This feels very full circle…” Steve mumbled with a grin. “What are the rules?”

“Chrissy made flashcards,” explained Eddie, looking through the contents of his own envelope. “We each have pictures of well-known youtube videos and tiktoks, vines, things like that, and we’ll do a quick-fire thing of who can recognise the most the fastest. Got it?”

“God, just hand me the win, this is too easy,” said Steve, rolling his eyes.

The game was chaos. Robin and Chrissy joined in at one point, forming teams with their respective best friends. Steve even tried to climb across the desk to grab a flashcard from Eddie’s hands so Chrissy couldn’t see it. Robin came out of the booth to put her hands over Eddie’s eyes. There was twenty full minutes of footage that Chrissy had to add subtitles to because everyone had moved so far away from any microphone in the heat of the moment. Eddie tried to call time out to use his inhaler but Steve refused, saying it wasn’t his fault Eddie’s lungs were weak, he was here to win. Eddie just started to mime his answers while he held the device in his mouth and puffed.

“It’s probably for the best that Nance wasn’t here for that…” said Steve when the game was over. He was sitting on the same side of the desk as Eddie, sharing a microphone. Eddie’s hair was a mess, his bun having come half out during the bedlam of their game.

“Competitive?” huffed Eddie before gulping from a bottle of water.

“Oh yeah,” nodded Steve, fixing his own hair. “She would have hidden your inhaler,”

Eddie couldn’t help but laugh while he tried to catch his breath.

“So Steve, one last question before you go,” said Eddie, handing the bottle to Steve.

“Hit me,” said Steve, taking the water from Eddie and drinking gratefully.

“This collab you’ve been teasing everyone with,” said Eddie with a grin. “When’s that coming out?”

“Hmmmm,” hummed Steve playfully. “When’s this coming out?”

“Next Thursday,” said Eddie. “The nineteeth,”

“It’ll be up on the twentieth,” said Steve coyly.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Steve sat on a grey couch with what looked like the entire contents of his make-up collection spread out in front of him.

“Hi guys! Welcome back to my channel, oh my god I’m so happy you’re here! This is my first video in my new place, I’m excited, I’m excited,”

He did a little shimmy for emphasis.

“So, this is a super special video today, and we have all these goodies here in front of me…. Goodies, goodies, goodies, goodies….”

Steve raked his fingers through all of the bottles and pallets in front of him on the wooden coffee table.

“You’ve all seen the title of the video, so you know this is like, big… Huge, even… I honestly swore I’d never do this but….” Steve bit his lip. “Let’s have some fun, ok! This is, of course, the My Boyfriend Does My Make Up challenge and, you might be thinking, Steve, where is your boyfriend?? Well, he’s right here, come on…”

Steve looked off camera and gestured for someone to join him on the sofa. He scooted to the side to make room, as Eddie Munson walked into frame.

Eddie sat down on the sofa and looked at Steve, trying to bite down a smile.

“Hi Eddie,” said Steve with a giggle.

“Hey Stevie…” said Eddie. His voice sounded much deeper than Steve’s in this context, with Steve's high-pitched persona taking over.

“You’re going to put make up on me today,” Steve sing-songed, swiping at Eddie’s nose with a clean make up brush.

“This might be a little out of my wheelhouse,” mused Eddie, picking up a bottle and examining it.

“You wear make-up,” tutted Steve. “And you’ve watched me do mine like, a million times. You’ll be fine,”

“I wear tinted moisturiser and mascara–”

“Trust me I know,”

“–this is way more advanced,” said Eddie, picking up a beauty blender and squeezing it. “Will you talk me through it, at least?”

“I always do,” said Steve sweetly, fluttering his eyelashes. Eddie’s face went pale before he ran a hand over it.

“Steve,” he said.

“Come on, I already have primer on,” said Steve. “Start with foundation, it’s over here,”

Steve waved a hand over the general area of the table that held the foundations before closing his eyes.

Eddie plucked a bottle up and pumped some onto the sponge, taking Steve’s chin in his hand and swiping across his cheek.

“Oh no,” laughed Eddie. “That’s not right,”

The line of make up on Steve’s cheek was at least three shades too dark. Steve opened his eyes and picked up a hand mirror before he laughed too.

“Oh god, ok, yeah,” giggled Steve, reaching for a pre-soaked make up remover pad and wiping it off. “I only wear this one when I go to Greece,”

“Greece, he says,” said Eddie to the camera, rolling his eyes.

“You’re literally coming with me this year,” said Steve. “Shut up, now start over,”

“You can’t dump me for this,” said Eddie, holding Steve’s face again now. “If it goes bad, I’m just saying, this isn’t a break-up-able offence,”

Steve clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “It won’t be that bad, I trust you, come on,”

*

The video cut to Eddie trying to tap concealer under Steve’s eyes with his fingers.

“Just…No…Wait…Ok stop,” Steve flapped his hands to push Eddie away from him. “They’re eyeballs, Eddie, be gentle,”

“I thought I was being gentle!” said Eddie.

“Practise on yourself,” said Steve. Eddie started poking at his own face.

“Oh, ok, I see your point,” said Eddie.

“MMhmmm,” hummed Steve, leaning forward again.

*

It cut again to Eddie looking through some eyeshadow pallets while Steve was sitting with his eyes closed.

“Half of these have the same colours….” mumbled Eddie. “Do you really need all of these?”

One of Steve’s eyes shot open and he glared at Eddie.

“Do you really need all that hair?” hissed Steve. “Maybe I should cut it off tonight when you’re sleeping,”

“Jesus Christ,” gasped Eddie, his voice cracking.

He went back to comparing eyeshadow colours without protest.

*

“You hate red lipstick, right?” asked Eddie, twisting a tube of Mac’s Ruby Woo retro matte.

“I don’t hate it,” said Steve, applying his own mascara in a hand mirror. “I just never wear it. I go for big eyes and small lips,”

“Why not do both?” asked Eddie.

Steve shrugged.

“You can do both now,” said Steve.

Eddie’s grin was animalistic.

*

A shot of Steve looking wistfully at the camera, with pink lipstick haphazardly applied to the general area of his mouth, and large chunks of purple glitter over his eyes. Eddie was holding up his iPad with a meme of a young girl who looked strikingly similar while he struggled to breathe through laughing.

*

Eddie was resting against the arm of the sofa with his legs out along the seat. Steve was straddling his lap, contouring his nose. Steve’s face was clean, and slightly pink, as if he had just finished exfoliating.

“Your cheekbones are like, super high…” said Steve. “I think we can get away with a fierce contour here…”

“Like Trixie?” asked Eddie somewhat dubiously.

“Exactly,”

*

Steve was putting eyeliner into Eddie’s waterline.

Steve was giggling and trying not to let his hand shake while Eddie was letting out a low scream the entire time. Eddie’s hands were clamped onto Steve’s thighs with white knuckles.

*

“Blue or green?” Steve was asking, pointing to two different eyeshadow pans.

“Does it matter?” groaned Eddie.

“Nope!” said Steve gleefully, choosing the blue.

*

“Do you want to tell everyone our plans for this week?” asked Steve, moving an eyeshadow brush quickly over Eddie’s closed eyes.

“Sure,” said Eddie slowly, not sure how to talk without moving his whole head and ruining Steve’s work. “We’re going to stream some games on my twitch channel–”

“Link in the description, guys,”

“–Because you’re going to show me how to finally finish Myst–”

“It’s embarrassing at this stage,”

“–and you’ve been teaching me how to play some card games too,” said Eddie. “What was that one we were playing last night? Twenties?”

“Twenty-fives,” said Steve. “It’s an Irish game, my granny used to play it with me,”

“So we’ll be playing that,” said Eddie, blinking rapidly when Steve pulled the brush away. “And there’s a red carpet too, right?”

“Yeah, we’re gonna do live reactions to the Venice Film Festival,” explained Steve, wiping fallen eyeshadow from under Eddie’s eyes. “It’ll be fun,”

“We were invited,” added Eddie.

“We were,” confirmed Steve. “But, we wanted to bring our whole gang, you know, Robin and Nancy, and Gareth and Chrissy, but Robin doesn’t have a passport so we decided to do the live reaction instead, and we’ll do a mega-podcast with them all next week to talk about the looks we liked best,”

“That’s going to be crazy,” said Eddie.

Steve smiled.

“Have I told you yet we’re hosting it here?” asked Steve. “Your studio’s too small,”

“We’re what?”

*

Eddie was looking straight down the camera lens in full drag make up. It was Steve’s turn to hold up the iPad, showing a picture of a man with a heavily contoured face.

“Twins!” cackled Steve.

“You can laugh, but I look fucking amazing,” said Eddie, striking a pose.

“You’re welcome,” laughed Steve.

*

Steve and Eddie were sitting on the sofa drinking red bull through straws, trying not to crack the mud masks they were wearing. The both had their hair pushed away from their faces with fluffy pink headbands.

“Next time you should let me choose your whole outfit,” said Steve, gesturing to Eddie’s ripped jeans and black t-shirt. “Like a ken doll. I could do like, the latest trends and stuff on you,”

Eddie squinted, not willing to crack his mask for the sake of a proper glare.

“You want me to look like everyone you hate talking to at parties?” asked Eddie.

Steve shifted so his legs were underneath him.

“Good point,” he conceded, nibbling the edge of a pringle.

“Can I dress you up in my stuff?” asked Eddie.

“I’ll look amazing, so yes,” said Steve.

*

The final shot of the video was taken on Steve’s phone. He was holding the camera up above himself while he rested against Eddie’s chest, zoomed in close on his face. It was clear that they were both lying on the couch now.

“I still have glitter here…” he whined gently, using his other hand to prod at his eyelid.

“You’re fine,” came Eddie’s voice from above him. Eddie’s arm snaked its way around Steve’s shoulder and gave him a little squeeze, earning a small happy squeak from Steve.

“Thanks for watching, you guys….” said Steve. “This was a totally new thing for me but, I had a lot of fun…Did you have fun, Eds?”

“I always have fun with you,” said Eddie. The top of the shot caught Eddie’s mouth dipping down to kiss the top of Steve’s head.

Steve gave a happy sigh and cuddled in closer to his chest.

“If you guys all had fun too then you can subscribe, and follow me on Instagram and TikTok,” said Steve, rubbing his eyes like he was getting ready for a nap. “All those links are in the description, and Eddie’s are all there too,”

Steve twisted around so he could look up at Eddie.

“You wanna say goodbye?” asked Steve.

“Bye everyone…” said Eddie, just the bottom half of his face in the shot above Steve’s face. “Smash that like button,”

Steve laughed.

“Love you, Eddie,” said Steve.

Eddie smiled.

“Love you too, sweetheart,”