Archive of Our Own ^beta

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THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
did you guys know there’s a whole channel for sports?

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
cause i didn’t

DJ JAZZY JEFF @therealjefffaugn
@eddievaninhaler yeah man, couple of em

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
@therealjefffaughn
[GIF: Lucille Bluth, nodding at the camera, saying, “Good for her.”]

DJ JAZZY JEFF @therealjefffaugn
@eddievaninhaler what you watching?

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
@therealjefffaughn the 2023 world aquatics championships. i’m into it tbh

DJ JAZZY JEFF @therealjefffaugn
@eddievaninhaler seriously? how stoned are you?

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
@therealjefffaughn rude!!! i’m not stoned at all!! ii’m legit fascinated by the sport i’m in it for the love of the game okay

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
@therealjefffaughn bc it’s a beautiful sport full of intricacy and intrigue ansd whatnot + it is deserviving of this prime time ESP spot

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
in unrelated news does anyone know if this guy is free to hang out thursday?

MICHIGAN SWIMMING & DIVING @umichswimdive
Congrats to recent UMich grad and two time Olympian Steve Harrington on his performance at this year’s World Aquatics Championship!
[ALT TEXT: Harrington, pictured here with friend and fellow swimmer Heather Holloway, stands in his swim trunks with medals around his neck: four gold, two silver. Holloway has a gold and three silvers of her own. They are both damp, and grinning.]

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
because i’m free thursday if he wants to hang out on thursday night when i’m free

It was a little before eight pm when Steve let himself into the condo he shared with Robin. His shoulders were killing him, he was jet-lagged to fuck, and it was blisteringly hot despite the fact that the sun had started thinking about setting, but something smelled absolutely delicious coming from the kitchen and Steve was also fucking starving. Him and Heather had bought snacks at duty-free like it was going out of style, back in Fukuoka and then again in Hong Kong while waiting for their connection, but there was only so much those snacks, plentiful they may have been, and two in-flight meals could do for athletes like them. They’d even contemplated just eating again at Logan together before getting in their respective Ubers home, but they’d both just wanted their own beds after nearly ten days of hotel rooms and living out of each others pockets — to say nothing of how you feel about anyone, even a good friend, after twenty hours of traveling together. So they’d split, air kisses and half hugs and Steve to his place in Southie and Heather to Jamaica Plain. 

Steve had never been a big jet-setter guy, even with his chosen career path. He’d always been kind of a homebody, would much rather tool around Boston or visit the family back in Indiana than be constantly on the move. But such was life for an Olympic swimmer, he knew, especially one that had at least two more Olympics in him: next summer, in Paris, and then 2028 after that. Then he could start thinking about what the future would look like, if he’d go for Olympics number six just to say he beat Phelps at least there (but, listen, he was going for medals too) or if he’d retire after five trips to the parthenon or whatever.

(His own pool, he thought most days, when his mind wandered to the image of retirement. Usually on long haul flights like Hong Kong to Boston, honestly, after an equally long competition. He’d open his own pool, train some kids the way that Ben Hammond had trained him when he was that age, and probably live off all that sweet, sweet Wheaties money as long as he could before picking up some ESPN commenting gig like SVP was always trying to threaten him with — usually when Steve would remember Dustin and Erica had made him a Twitter so he could out of pocket during the NBA season to people who would, quote, actually care, thanks, Erica.)

But for now he was back home in Boston, and Robin was in the kitchen, and he was gonna eat his weight in carbs and take a minute before he quite literally dove head first back into training for the US Open at the end of November.

He was in the process of basically flinging his carry-on to one side and trying to float, cartoon animal style, to the source of the smell for whatever Robbie had cooking, calling, “Honey, I’m home” — like the slamming of the front door hadn’t already alerted her — when the sudden bark of her laughter startled the shit out of him.

For as much shit as she liked to give him about his laugh — “Like a goose getting strangled,” she once lovingly described it in an SI interview that he had never quite forgiven her for — she also had a wild one. It was loud, and kind of mean, and honestly he was just glad to be hearing it. They hadn’t been looking forward to the Championship and the World Cup overlapping, even before Robin had broken her ankle in training back in June. It had been made even worse when the surgeons and team doctors wouldn’t even clear her to fly to be with the team in Australia, let alone play.

So hearing her laugh at something was good, in his opinion, no matter how it made him clutch at his chest like a Victorian maiden.

“Jesus,” he said, rounding the “what the fuck was that for?”

“Oh my god, Steve!” she crowed. She was sat at the kitchen table, a huge fuck off thing penne alla vodka from the place he liked in front of her, and her left leg kicked out and up onto a chair layered in throw pillows. She’d been cut out of the plaster cast two days prior, and she’d already begun to cover her new air cast in Sharpie doodles of strange little people, Keith Haring style, and an endless array of artistic boobies. “I am so glad you’re back because, like, a, I’m starving, and b, you are going to die over these tweets.”

She held out her phone in one hand and a fork of penne in the other. 

Steve slumped into the free chair, leaned forward, and said around his mouthful of pasta, “What am I looking at here?” as he peered owlishly at her phone. In what Heather had said was classic Harrington fashion, he’d left his glasses in the airport in Hong Kong by accident and he’d always been too much of a wimp for contacts. Plus, even with goggles, his constant chlorine exposure sort of fucked with that too, so why bother, he figured.

“Tweets,” said Robin, significantly. She grabbed a forkful of pasta for herself and then fed Steve more. “Want me to read them to you? They are a-mazing. You’ve gotten some good ones in the past, but these.” She fanned herself, only a little mockingly. “PG-13, to say the least. And I’m not even into that kind of thing.”

“What kind of thing?”

“Penises.”

“Oh,” he said. “Those kinds of tweets.”

“Yes,” she said. Clearing her throat with the air of someone who once tried to do college theater to impress a girl before realizing being a pro-soccer player would probably net her more babes in the long run, just by the law of large numbers, she began to dramatically read the tweets aloud to him. It started simple enough, just some guy watching the Aquatics Championships on ESPN — he honestly hadn’t realized they’d been streamed or taped or whatever — before he left turned and asked Steve if he was free Thursday, then left turned again and things went exactly in the direction he thought they were about to go.

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
wtf are swimmers supposed to be that caked up is it for buoyancy either way i’m a fan alright never change bébé

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
look at that, i mean makes you believe in a kind just god

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
or maybe not because i can’t touch it. someone should invent a tv where you can touch stuff  

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
how is this shit allowed on cable 

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
like how is this legal is what i want to know this adonis is. he’s WET and his hands are the size of dinner plates

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
this feels targeted frankly and i won’t stand for it. i mean, i would, but he looks like he could have that handle for the both of us if you catch my drift

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
i want him to break my back like a glow stick. or. like. i could break his back like a glow stick whatever he’s into i’m gonna be into

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
(preferably: i wanna be in TO him nah mean)

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
jesus stop talking about wingspan and the breaststroke i’m already turned on enough espon man

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
i want him to [redacted] me in the [redacted] over a [redacted] [redacted] with a — excuse us while we cut to our commercial sponsors!!

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
[GIF: Kate McKinnon asking, “What is that, a big ole robot?”]

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
he could make me bark like a dog and i’d thank him tbh

DJ JAZZY JEFF @therealjefffaugn
@eddievaninhaler bro get on private or something lorne is gonna fire you man

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
@therealjefffaugn he knew what he was getting with me
[GIF: Lady Gaga performing Born This Way ]

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
@therealjefffaugn plus it’d be like discrimination if he did because it’s like retaliation for me being queer af

DJ JAZZY JEFF @therealjefffaugn
@eddievaninhaler i don’t — i don’t necessarily think that’s how it works but i don't know enough about HR to dispute it

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
@therealjefffaugn plus he’s not on twitter so

DJ JAZZY JEFF @therealjefffaugn
@eddievaninhaler who lorne or the poor guy you’re objectifying rn

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
@therealjefffaugn lorne. hottie mcspeedo has one he only uses for two weeks every june (what’s up with that) so i’m in the clear until next year 

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
it’s a masterpiece by the way. his profile pic is a michael phelps meme + the link in his bio is to the itunes terms of service i love him

THAT ED MUNSON YEAH @eddievaninhaler
anyway is it a crime that i just wanna choke on that chlorine flavored [gunshot]

“Wow,” said Steve.

“I know,” Robin said gleefully. “There were some really thirsty ones that got deleted pretty quickly after but I have a Google alert for your name, and screenshots are forever, so we'll dig into those later. Though there was apparently also one that got taken down for a community violation — I’m pissed I missed it. Now I can only imagine it.”

“They’re actually kind of funny,” he said.

“Are you surprised?”

He shrugged. “I mean, usually they’re just uncomfortably graphic. These are, like, good jokes or whatever.”

Raising an eyebrow, Robin asked, “Did you miss the part where he was talking about Lorne?”

Steve stared blankly at her.

“Lorne Michaels?” she said. She rolled her eyes. “He’s the creator of SNL! Dingus, you’ve met him! You and your relay team were in a cold open! You, like, totally shook his hand probably!”

“Well, okay, sure, SNL, but, like, I was like seventeen then,” he defended. “And high off being a fucking Olympian! I don’t remember a lot from then!”

“Fair, but still,” said Robin.

“So have I met that guy then? Was he around then? Oh, no, wait, I wouldn’t care for that.” 

“No, you’re in the clear. Well, I mean,” she said. Her smile was growing wide again, and a little more manic. “Of, like, a particular grossness. I’m pretty sure you have met him though. Or, at least, you knew of him. We both did. Not in the capacity that he was really famous for when we were teenagers — you were pretty regularly getting drug tested, so you never had cause to cross paths with him when he was the premier teenage plug of Hawkins High. More, though, in a I can’t believe my kids are betraying me for that Munson asshole kind of way.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Wait.”

“I know!”

“Munson?”

“Uh-huh!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“The fucking Dungeons and Dorks guy Dustin was obsessed with in school? The guy who used to walk on the lunch tables and yell about conformity?” said Steve. “That Munson? He’s the guy asking me to blow his back out?”

“Yes!” Robin all but wailed. If she’d been able to fall out of her seat and roll around in mirth on the ground without ending up back in the hospital, he knew she would be. “Yes, the guy who you had that weird one-sided rivalry with despite the fact that it was pointless because you were an Olympian at seventeen and Dustin still thinks the sun shines out of your waxed asshole! Your parents just fucked you up, like, hella bad.”

“What the fuck,” he said. “What the fuck?”

“I know! This is genuinely the funniest thing to ever happen to me, I want you to know that.”

“Thanks,” said Steve. “Glad I could be of service. But, like — does he not — does he not remember me?”

“Babe,” said Robin, eyes huge. “That’s what you’re deciding to get hung up on? That he doesn’t remember who you are even though you didn't remember him, and not, you know, the fact that he got on main to talk about how he wants you to make him, and I can’t quote this hard enough, bark like a dog?”

He waved a dismissive hand. “People say shit like that on the internet about me all the time, you know this.”

“Yeah, and I’m actually starting to get a little concerned about how you react to that, dingus —”

“I just like to think I was kind of memorable in high school —”

“Oh, you were, I think maybe he was just high a lot. Probably burned off a few brain cells. It took him like three tries to graduate high school.”

“I mean, I probably wouldn’t have graduated if my parents weren’t throwing money at tutors so they could get a famous son, I don’t think it’s fair to judge —”

“No, you’re right again, ugh, don’t remind me how much your parents sucked. Twice in one night. Yuck. Also when did you get all noble?”

“When Coach Hammond threatened to stop training me if I didn’t get an attitude adjustment? And I decided you seemed like a cool person to be friends with despite the fact that you’re meaner to me than Carol Perkins ever was —”

“You sure know how to charm a girl —”

“Don’t act like you're not proud of that. Anyway,” he said. They’d finished their penne alla vodka a while ago, with Steve housing the lion’s share, but Robin had also gotten like six cannoli for them and he figured he’d do some extra cardio in the morning to make up for eating the lion’s share of those too. He stuck a cannoli between his teeth and went to toss their plate and fork in the sink. “Munson’s on SNL now? That’s where walking on all those people’s lunches got him?”

“Right?” said Robin. “Apparently he’s been a regular for a little while now. Look.”

Steve turned back to her and leaned over her shoulder. She’d pulled up a Google image search of Munson, showing an array of goofy wigs and goofier expressions as he presumably mugged for the SNL cameras, and he had a vague memory of someone who looked like that, though younger, he thought. Weedier. He’d been too, back then, even with all the training, didn’t quite grow into the promise of his shoulders until Rio as he took up Phelps's mantle. Maybe it had been the same for Munson, narrow still but with a weight to him, corded muscles hidden in thin forearms. 

There was one picture of a dark eyed, dark haired man on a red carpet that caught his attention, pulled him out of the past and into the present with alacrity. He clicked on it over Robin’s grumbles, enlarging the image so that he could stare. He was in a plain black suit with a white shirt, opened practically to his navel as he showed off an array of inky black tattoos on his chest, the gentle swell of his pecs and concave of his sternum shadowed by the lights of the red carpet, and his hair, long, was pulled back in a bun, curling in the humidity of whatever movie premier he was at. He had a toothpick in his mouth, and a wicked little smirk on pink, soft looking lips, and a small silver ring glinted from his nostril, shiny and bright.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, no, he’s hot.”

Robin whipped her head around so fast something audibly cracked in it. “Steven Anne, are you —”

“Don’t!” He held up a finger.

“Oh my god, you are,” she said. “Faster than a speeding freakin’ bullet, you’re developing a crush on the guy who was publicly horny about you in a speedo who was also a teenage fuckin’ dork, and honestly probably still is!”

“Robin,” he whined, dropping his face into her hair, hoping to suffocate.

She cackled. “Oh my god, this is the most you thing you have ever done! You wanna fuck the horny goblin man!”

“I want the horny goblin man to fuck me,” he muttered.

“You are the gift that keeps on giving,” she said seriously, reaching back to grab his head in both of her hands. “I’ve never been more platonically in love with you than this moment. God, you’re the biggest UHaul lesbian in all of Christendom. I’m thrilled this is happening for you. I can’t wait for you to get fucked by the horny goblin man.”

“I’m not actually gonna, though, is the thing,” said Steve. “He all but said so!”

“What?”

“I don’t do the Twitter thing,” he said. 

“Except for two weeks in June,” she said.

“Or like any other social media. I don’t want to. I like my two weeks in June. I don’t think I even remember the password, actually, so! So, like realistically, I was never supposed to see this, and he’s on SNL, right? It’s probably, just, like, a bit.”

Robin scrunched up her nose, and he said, “It’s not gonna be a thing. Plus, he deleted a bunch of the tweets too. Right? I doubt anyone else saw it, so, like, he’s cute, and I’m gonna move on. Now, c’mon, these cannoli aren’t gonna eat themselves.”