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“C'mon it’ll be fun.” Robin repeats insistently tugging on Steve’s hand trying to drag him along behind her with very little success,
“Yeah Harrington it’ll be fun.” Eddie mocks smirking as he walks backwards in front of the pair, it makes Steve want to do it just to prove the metalhead wrong even if that is a petty and childish response.
“You shut up.” He warns Eddie pointing a finger a him and leveling him with a thoroughly unimpressed look, in a move of complete childishness Eddie sticks his tongue out at Steve before turning around and jogging to catch up with Nancy who’d gone on ahead after deciding to leave Robin to deal with Steve’s dramatics (her words not his). The metalhead quickly draws the shorter women into what looks like a very engaging conversation, Steve’s glad they get along so well they’re an unlikely pair but it definitely makes these semi-regular sort of double dates much easier especially when he and Robin end up forgetting their respective partners are there.
“Robin stop, you’re going to pull my arm out.” Steve laughs, stumbling falling after she gives a particularly harsh tug.
“I already said I’d go.” He whines, managing to pull his wrist free from Robin's freakishly strong vice-like grip. Rubbing the sore skin making sure it’s alright before looping his arm through Robins and falling easily into step with her moving like a well oiled machine.
“I still think this is dumb.” Steve grumbles letting out a high pitched yelp when Robin pinches his arm a little harder than he thinks was necessary.
“No you’re wrong haunted houses are great, you’re just a big old scaredy-cat.” Robin teases him
“Am not.” Steve replies petulantly only resisting crossing his arms over his chest because one’s linked with Robins.
“You so are.” Robin counters, rolling her eyes. They continue to bicker childishly back and forth until they catch up to Eddie and Nancy who have been mostly patiently waiting for the pair of them.
“Finally, took you long enough“ Eddie pushes himself off the metal fence he was leaning against checking his nonexistent wristwatch.
“I thought you’d chickened out Harrington.” He taunts raising a challenging eyebrow at Steve as he invades into his personal space.
“No, I'm just not in a rush.” Steve rebuts boredom refusing to give Eddie the reaction he’s looking for, instead he just rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest, causing his shirt to stretch snuggly i've his muscles, he barely resists smirking when he sees eddies eyes dart down than back up to meet Steve’s eyes who’s got a knowing look on his face.
“No rush sure-“ Eddie draws out the last word “-and it’s got nothing to do with you being scared.” He adds as the four of them join the long line that wraps around the outside of the haunted house,
“No of course it doesn’t because I’m not.” Steve huffs, turning his head up at the very idea and intentionally not meeting Eddie's wide brown eyes that always seem to drag the truth out of him.
“Sure.” Eddie knocks his shoulder playfully into Steve’s before moving forward with the line that slowly crawls forward for what feels like an eternity but is probably at most half an hour. They wave the girls off as they enter the attraction first.
“Good luck!” Eddie shouts receiving an excited thumbs up from Robin just before she disappears inside
“We’re next.” Eddie says in a way that’s makes it sound strangely ominous even as he bounces on the balls of his feet palatable energy radiating off of him, Steve has no idea why all of his friends were so keen to pay to get be scared he just can’t quite wrap his head around it. After a short wait the two men are waved forward to enter the haunted house and Steve definitely doesn’t pause because he’s not scared at all, don’t be so ridiculous he’s just being polite and letting Eddie go in first and it’s not even going to be scary anyway because it’s all fake and he’s faced far scarier things.
Following Eddies through the white front door that’s covered in blood smears and a few bloody hand prints that he supposes are meant to look like someone was holding onto to it and got dragged back inside. The door leads them into the dimly lit house trying to ignore his hands sweating for no reason. The metalhead leans into Steve’s space and whispers.
“You can hold my hand if you want.”
“Oh fuck off.” Steve shoves playfully at him walking ahead of him further down the long hallway there’s cobwebs scattered everywhere and it looks like someone went through the house randomly throwing fake blood around. The first door they reach is missing a torn and stained plastic sheet hanging over the entrance obscuring the view into the room. Pushing the sheet aside he enters the almost pitch black room squinting in an attempt to see anything, he jumps when a high pitched shriek comes from his left, stepping back out of the room his heart is beating fast in his chest. The two men continue through the house passing from room to room full of cheesy over the top decorations and people in unrealistic costumes and Steve is almost starting to see the appeal of this kind of thing being scared in a place you know you're completely safe is sort of fun. He’s been sticking as close to Eddie's side as he can without tripping the other man up as they walk, following his lead not because he’s scared though but because he doesn’t want to lose Eddie in the dim light. Eddie laughs gleefully anytime someone jumps out at them clearing reveling in the chaos and the joyful sound is definitely helping Steve feel much more at ease.
They pass through another doorway that’s got a tattered piece of fabric hanging from its frame, Eddie holds it to the side gesturing for Steve to step through first.
“Ladies first.” He smirks, tongue peaking out from between his teeth. Steve lets out a long suffering sigh, shaking his head at the idiot he calls his boyfriend as he passes through the doorway, one foot inside the room when a shadow of a person emerges from the darkness in front of him smirking meanly sharp yellowed teeth visible, they’re weilding a sharp knife above their head glinting dangerously in the low light of the room whilst he’s taking in the sight before him they let out a blood curdling scream that makes Steve’s heart stop in his chest, his entire body freezing in place like someone has grabbed a remote and hit pause, he stares in wide eyed shock before turning tail and running away as fast as his legs can carry him. Only stopping when his brain catches up with everything that’s just happened, fuck! He can’t believe he’d freaked out that badly over a stupid costume and probably a fake knife that was just embarrassing. Rubbing a frustrated hand over his face he presses his fingers into his eyes a little more harshly than is probably safe focusing on trying to slow his fast breaths.
He nearly jumps out of his skin again when a cold hand touches his shoulder,
“Fuck!” He startles
“Shit sorry.” Eddie quickly snatches his hand back like he’s been burnt holding his hands up in a placating gesture that makes Steve laugh.
“Are you okay?” Eddie asks in a voice full of sincerity as he slowly takes Steve’s hand , slotting their fingers together doing his best to make sure he doesn’t startle the other man again.
“Yeah. Yeah, just a bit startled.” Steve admits not feeling much like trying to brush off how he was and Eddie never made him feel bad for his feelings.
“That’s alright.” Eddie smiles squeezing Steve’s hand. In the darkness Steve can see a glint of something sparkle in Eddie's eyes and that normally leads to teasing or some ridiculous declaration.
“I’ll protect you.” He says dramatically puffing out his chest making Steve laugh at how much of a dork Eddie is. He loves this man so much it makes his chest ache.
“Oh really? You're going to be my knight in shining armor?” Steve asks
“Hell yeah big boy, every prince needs a knight.” He retorts matter of factly looking rather proud of himself that adorable dimpled smile on his face.
“Alright if you insist.” Steve teasingly relents, feeling a lot more at ease now that his heart has stopped pounding painfully against his ribs.
“Oh I absolutely do insist.” Eddie nods.
The metalhead leads them the rest of the way through the various remaining rooms, Steve jumps several times and with each one he ends up closer and closer to Eddie even when it’s not that scary but it’s a good excuse for closeness that the pair don’t often get to have in public.
The exit becomes visible as they round a corner and start making their way down a suspiciously long and very poorly lit hallway, they both freeze in place as the lights above them start to flicker Steve’s grip tightens around Eddie hand in a way that is probably quite painful for the metal head but he says nothing keeping his eyes fixed unblinkingly in the light waiting with baited breath for it to stop because apparently a flickering light will always be infinitely more terrifying and bone chilling than anything anyone could ever come up with. Once the light returns to its steady unchanging state a loud laugh booms behind them making both of them jump, heads whipping around locking onto a huge monster out man wielding a chainsaw, a cruel toothy smile cracking his face in half. He pulls the chord and the chainsaw roars to life.
“Run little pigs!” He bellows lunging forward
“Jesus!” Eddie shrieks taking off running down the hall dragging Steve along behind him, the sound of the chainsaw accompanied by a sadist laugh gains in them getting closer and closer no matter how fast they run it’s almost on top of them when they finally burst through the exit into the chill of the fall night they keep running adrenaline driving them forward until they spot Nancy and Robin sitting close together peacefully chatting and laughing as they share some fluffy pink candy floss on one of the random hay bails that are scattered around.
The boys collapse heavily onto the adjacent one leaning heavily into each other, hands still tangled together as they start to giggle breathlessly.
“See told you it’d be fun.” Robin grins snuggly at Steve who just rolls his eyes not wanting her to know that she may have been right and it was pretty fun, she’d never let him hear the end of it with all her gloating about being right.
“I guess it was okay.” Steve says blandly, leaning forward and stealing a chunk of the cotton candy receiving a loud indignant squawk from Robin who swats at his arm as he quickly shoves it into his mouth before leaning back against Eddie.