Chapter Text
Eddie was getting tired. You could tell because he had just accidentally set his kitchen station on fire, something he was attempting to deal with before anyone else noticed.
Luckily, it wasn’t his actual kitchen. He was streaming Plate Up with the rest of the Corroded Coffin boys, a group name for the set of streaming channels belonging to him, Gareth, Jeff and Frank, lovingly borrowed from the band name they came up with in high school. While nothing ever came from those few nights playing at The Hideout, the dingiest bar in their hometown, at least the name has served them well in their current venture.
The boys had started streaming on Twitch mostly as a joke but they found that something about their dynamic as a group drew in a nice little crowd. Two years in they had a sweet if brutal little community who enjoyed their particular brand of chaos and took every chance they could to tease them at how awful at games they were.
Eventually the rest of the boys cottoned on to whatever nuisance Eddie was making of himself in the kitchen and they all ran in to help, not that it was necessarily useful to have all their characters yelling and flailing around. Soon enough the fire was fully out of control and they were met with the restaurant closure screen.
“Remind me again why getting the danger hob was a good idea?” Jeff asked, his voice muffled as he rested his head in his hands in defeat.
“It was efficient!” exclaimed Eddie.
Gareth laughed. “I don’t think you can call something that was the ultimate downfall of our excellent restaurant business efficient, Eddie. That’s, like, the opposite of efficient.”
“Ugh, whatever.” Eddie glanced at the chat to see how bad the teasing was. Turns out. Pretty bad.
“No, chat,” Eddie said, frowning and crossing his arms, “I am a perfectly decent cook in real life, this is just a hard game.”
He heard a scoff over his headset and looked back to his other screen to see Jeff shaking his head.
“Eddie, I’ll admit I’ve never known you to actually set light to shit in the kitchen, but you cannot tell me right now that you think you’re a good cook,” replied Jeff.
“Yeah, dude,” Gareth added, “I hate to say it but I’ve only ever seen you eat pasta or, I don’t know, some sandwich.”
“Sandwiches are an art Gareth! I make a mean sandwich.”
“I really don’t think that counts as cooking, man.”
Eddie huffed and started running his character around in circles in the menu rooms. He sighed and threw his head back against his chair dramatically.
“Fine! I don’t see why shaming me is the topic of today’s stream though, and this game isn’t exactly teaching me good habits.”
“Hey, Eddie,” said Frank who had been tactfully keeping quiet up until then, “Looks like chat are recommending you check out this guy called... SteveH1986? They’re saying he does cook along videos, whatever they are.”
“Guys! I don’t need to learn how to cook!” Eddie exclaimed, flinging his arms wide. “I am alive and well! Everything is fine!”
“Yeah well, it wouldn’t do you any harm,” replied Gareth, smirking at Eddie through his camera. “As the person who currently lives with you, I definitely wouldn’t mind if you learnt to cook if it meant I got to reap the rewards.”
Eddie rolled his eyes and turned to his second monitor typing in the username of this Steve guy and tuning out the argument the boys were now having over which of them was the better cook in real life.
Eddie started scrolling through the profile he found. His about page had a simple greeting saying his name and that he streamed different types of cooking videos weekly. Looking at his schedule, Eddie could see that was true and that he was last online two days ago for a baking stream. He clicked on the video, skipped forward a minute or so and watched as a guy, who he assumed was Steve, pottered about in front of an oven, setting down a large bowl and some scales before glancing back at the camera. Eddie’s mouth dropped open as he caught sight of surely what must have been the most attractive man he’d ever seen.
Steve’s hair was an impressive swoosh on his head, and he swept a few loose strands away from his eyes as he squinted at something below his camera set up. Moving closer to the screen allowed Eddie to see the smattering of freckles on the man’s face and neck, his skin a glowing golden tan beneath them. Steve reached down out of the view of the camera for a second and pulled on a pair of wire rimmed glasses, the gold of the frames highlighting the flecks of gold in his hair.
“Eddie? Yeah, we’ve lost him to something.”
Eddie blinked and shook his head slightly, glancing back at his main monitor to see Gareth had closed the server.
“Huh, what?” Eddie said eloquently.
“Dude,” Gareth rolled his eyes, “We’re closing down the stream. Get your ass in gear, man, and say goodbye.”
Eddie glanced at the chat to see a few people asking if he’d been looking up Steve’s profile and generally poking fun at his expression. He waved a hand at the camera and said a distracted goodbye before closing the stream and going back to his previous tab. A message came in on Discord from their group chat but he ignored it, clicking play again on the stream recording and sitting back to watch. Maybe he could learn something from this Steve guy after all.
Eddie was officially hooked. It turned out Steve also had a YouTube channel where he posted edited versions of his past streams, and the content was actually useful, much to Eddie’s surprise. Over the days following his discovery of Steve’s channels, Eddie watched too many videos to count and was feeling some motivation to put his newfound cooking knowledge to the test, something that had never happened before. Despite his protesting when the boys challenged his skills on their last stream, Eddie could admit he was a shit cook. And so watching Steve’s videos was essentially like... studying? It doesn’t matter that Eddie had never willingly studied in his life. No time like the present and all that.
However, after a few days Eddie was quickly running out of content and so set to searching for Steve on Instagram and TikTok to see if there was any more there. Eddie found Steve’s official accounts and followed him, though it seemed he hadn't updated those in a while. While Steve himself wasn’t very active on anywhere apart from Twitch and YouTube, a small collection of fans seemed to make up for it, and Eddie lost an embarrassing length of time watching compilation videos on Steve’s terrible jokes, or his best chopping tips, or, a particularly memorable set because it seemed so random, a whole series of TikTok videos dedicated to his polo shirts.
Living with Gareth, who was nosy to his core, meant Eddie couldn’t keep the fact that he had taken Frank’s advice and started watching Steve’s videos a secret for long. In fact, by their next stream Gareth was practically vibrating with the information and very quickly dobbed Eddie in to the rest of them.
While a bit embarrassing, Eddie stood his ground and reminded them all that they’d made the suggestion he get better at cooking so they could shut up and live with the consequences of it. Any suggestion his interest was maybe to do with the fact that Steve was a very pretty man were shut down as well, though not before Eddie completely gave himself away by the furious blush on his face when Jeff mentioned that particular point. Their chat was having an absolute field day with the whole thing, so at least their engagement was good, even if Eddie wanted to strangle his friends.
A few weeks passed and Eddie was laying on his bed mindlessly scrolling through TikTok when an Instagram notification popped up on his screen.
SteveH1986 is now following you.
Holy shit.
Eddie’s mouth dropped open as he sat up and stared at his phone screen. Quickly clicking through to Discord, he sent a panicked message to the group chat.
unemployed firestarter 🔥: holy FUCKING shit guys code red
freakoid: what
unemployed firestarter 🔥: sent an image
honk bitch: omg shoot your shot
unemployed firestarter 🔥: NO gareth this is serious how did he find me
honk bitch: dude you followed him weeks ago ???? SHOOT YOUR SHOT COWARD
yes chef 👨🏿🍳: i second this you should shoot your shot
unemployed firestarter 🔥: gihusgjkjahkjghkdjh no it’s fine I'm cool I’m calm and cool everyone I'm fine
freakoid: literally the biggest lie you’ve ever told but okay
Eddie let out a groan and collapsed backwards, throwing his phone down onto the pillow beside him. His phone buzzed again and he rolled over to look at the screen, expecting another message from the group chat. He quickly sat up when he realised that wasn’t the case.
He snatched his phone up from where he’d thrown it and opened his Instagram DMs.
SteveH1986: Hey man! Just wanted to say thanks for mentioning my channel in your stream and let me know if you ever want any tips or anything. Hope your cooking journey is successful!
Eddie couldn’t stand it, who the hell let Steve be both the most beautiful man he’d ever seen and ridiculously sweet. This wasn’t actually fair.
He realised he’d been staring at the message for longer than potentially acceptable and started typing before he could talk himself out of it.
eddieeemunson: thanks! your videos have actually taught me something, like ive not set fire to the kitchen once since i started watching them
Eddie sent his response and then instantly regretted it. Who the fuck suggests they actually set their kitchen on fire regularly. Steve totally doesn’t watch their videos, how would he know about that stupid inside joke?
Spiralling, Eddie almost missed the next message coming through.
SteveH1986: Haha good! Do you have any favourite dishes? Maybe I could fit one into a stream in the future.
Eddie sat there for a second as every meal he’d ever eaten left his brain.
eddieeemunson: umm well my uncle used to make this really good stew when I was a kid, with mushrooms, onions, carrots, all in a gravy. he’d just throw it all together and put it in the oven for ages and it would always turn out so good.
SteveH1986: Something like this?
Steve sent a picture of a glossy, dark brown stew that looked just like what Eddie remembered.
eddieeemunson: yeah exactly like that! i think he got the recipe from this old magazine in the library but i remember it was british or something? so it also had these little scone things on the top but when we tried it they came out like rocks so we just stuck to boiled potatoes from then on aha
SteveH1986: Oh cool, sounds like a challenge! I’ll look it up and see if I can find a recipe for those too. 😊
Eddie wanted to keep their short conversation going but he wasn’t sure how, and so he simply heart reacted to Steve’s message and closed the app. He stared down at his phone in disbelief for a second before collapsing back on his bed again, groaning up towards the ceiling. What actually was his life.
See, the problem was, now that Steve had said he might cook one of Eddie’s favourite meals for him on stream Eddie couldn’t stop thinking about the man. He wasn’t sure how serious Steve was when he suggested it, but Eddie knew that his crush was solidified. He’d barely even spoken to the guy but he just seemed so sweet. It totally wasn’t fair.
To make matters worse, everything seemed to remind him of Steve now. Eddie would be sat at home in the evenings contemplating what to have for dinner, which naturally would make him think of Steve. The café near his work served chocolate brownies just like the ones Steve made on the first stream Eddie watched. He’d be listening to music and suddenly Steve’s laugh would pop into his head. Admittedly, that last connection was a stretch, but Eddie couldn’t help it if Steve’s laughter was like bells! He was officially doomed.
Eddie had just finished streaming for the evening when he tabbed over to Steve’s profile to catch the end of his own stream.
“Guys look,” Steve said, holding up a steaming dish to show his audience. From what Eddie could see, it looked like some kind of baked pasta one pot.
“Can you see how good the cheese looks on top?” Steve continued, balancing the dish on one gloved hand to poke at the crispy cheese he was referring to. “This is what makes pasta bake so good! It goes all crispy and delicious.”
Steve served out a portion into a bright yellow bowl and took a bite, fanning a hand over his mouth and blowing out to try and cool down the mouthful.
“Okay, maybe let it cool down a bit first before taking a bite,” Steve said after he had swallowed and taken a sip of water, “But regardless it’s very good! Definitely would recommend this one.” Eddie watched him as he continued to eat and started answering some questions about the dish that were coming in through his chat. He sighed and rested his chin in his hand as he listened to Steve talk.
Eventually, Steve placed his finished bowl down on the counter in front of him.
“Well, thanks for coming tonight, everyone, I hope you enjoyed cooking with me,” Steve said, moving the half empty dish off to the side and wiping his hands on the front of his apron.
“Don’t forget, next week we’re doing a cook along session so if you’d like to join in on the fun you can find a link to the Discord server in my profile or below or wherever it lives,” Steve paused for a second to look down below the camera. “And looks like Dustin has put the link in the chat too, thanks buddy.”
Glancing over to the chat window Eddie saw the link and clicked through to join without thinking about it. The server popped up on his other monitor and he started scrolling through the channels, only half listening to Steve’s stream in the background. He quickly found the cook along channel where Steve had pinned the recipe for the next stream. As he was reading it, Eddie started to tune back in to Steve still talking.
“Yeah, it should be a fun one! It’s a recommendation which is a bit of a change, so hopefully it turns out well.” Eddie glanced back at his other monitor to watch as Steve paused again to read the chat.
“Just recommended to me by a friend,” said Steve. “I think it’s a bit of a family recipe, so I’ll do my best to do it justice.”
Eddie looked away again to re-read the recipe. Yep, definitely looked like the meal Eddie had mentioned to Steve the other day. Eddie felt his face start to flush as he realised what was happening.
“Um, I don’t know if they will join the stream,” Steve continued, still answering messages from the chat. Eddie glanced at the stream again and saw Steve busying himself in tidying away some things still left on his countertop. He was turned away from the camera, but Eddie could see the back of his neck had flushed pink.
“But hopefully? We’ll see anyway.”
If Eddie hadn’t already been intending to join that would have definitely sealed the deal. He opened up Discord on his phone so he could screenshot the recipe and ingredients and also to double-check Steve’s streaming schedule, half listening as Steve said goodbye to everyone and closed down his stream for the night.
Eddie was still scrolling through the different channels in the Discord server when a notification pinged up to say he had a friend request. From SteveH1986.
He clicked accept and a few seconds later a message came through.
SteveH1986: Hey Eddie! Sorry, I hope you don’t mind me messaging on here but one of my mods just mentioned you’d joined the server and I wanted to check something with you.
CorrodedEddie: hi, no all good! I don’t mind, your mod has beady eyes
SteveH1986: Haha yeah they’re great 😊 So basically, I was going to use your recipe for a cook along stream next week but I realised I never actually checked with you if that was okay, so is it fine to do? Like, I don’t mind if you’d rather I not, just I mentioned it tonight on stream that a friend had recommended it and people were asking questions, but I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.
CorrodedEddie: no no it’s totally fine! it’s barely my recipe, so it’s fine for you to use it for a stream and i don’t mind you mentioning that it was recommended
SteveH1986: Okay cool! Thank you
CorrodedEddie: no problem man, i’ll see if i can tune in as well, it would be cool to learn how to make it
SteveH1986: You’d be very welcome if you wanted to come! It would be great to have you, but no pressure.
CorrodedEddie: nah it’s no pressure, i’ve been challenged by the boys to step up my cooking game anyways so might as well put the time in 💪
SteveH1986: 😊 😊 😊
Eddie closed Discord and sat back in his chair. That was settled then, he’d be actually joining in on one of Steve’s streams. Gareth was never going to let him live it down.