Here Be Dragons @foxysoxes - Tumblr Blog

Stuck in the Middle with You

Part One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen

NSFW

Eddie’s cuddling him. Like, properly snuggled up in the crook of Steve’s arm. Billy’s pressed up against Steve’s back, an arm thrown carelessly over Steve’s middle.

It’s pretty good. Top tier stuff. Steve feels like he could wake up like this every day for the rest of his life. He’s going to have to start pushing that with Billy. Like, gently. Like a sane person.

Too much too fast and Billy’s going to back off. If Steve confessed that he’s, probably, already pretty much in love with Eddie, Billy would probably stage some sort of intervention.

So he needs to wait. Steve wonders if he googles how long does it normally take to fall in love? he will get an answer. Probably not a definitive one, he guesses. Maybe if he works out like...six weeks? from their first date with Eddie, and then holds on until then. He could put a reminder in his calendar, to make sure he doesn’t spill on accident before then.

Six weeks feels really reasonable, more than reasonable. Possibly excessive.

Maybe he should think about clearing out a little closet space, invite Eddie to start leaving a few of his things here; purely for his convenience, obviously. Maybe some spare clothes. A few of Eddie’s books on their shelves, a couple of his records mingling with Billy’s.

Just totally normal, totally expected signs of their lives coming closer together. So normal it’s pretty average. Mundane, even.

And if they just keep doing that for a while, eventually, Eddie will have moved in without even realizing and that seems like a completely normal way to go about doing that.

And then Steve will never even need to talk to Billy about it, because woops, oh well, looks like Eddie is just here all the time now. No ulterior motive at all on Steve’s part.

Eddie’s nose twitches, and he frowns, nuzzling his face into Steve sleepily, eyes still closed. It’s one of the cutest things Steve’s ever seen. Eddie’s slept for a long time, considering he crashed out pretty early last night. He didn’t even put his rain sound thing on, he fell asleep so fast. Not surprising really considering the evening he’d had.

He went down hard, way harder than Steve’s ever seen with anyone else. Maybe he should have known it could happen, with the way Eddie goes non verbal and stuff, even when what they’re doing is pretty tame by comparison. Yesterday was tame really. No restraints, nothing hardcore. Just a couple of blowjobs.

Maybe Eddie should have a safeword. No. No he doesn’t need one. If he taps it stops, if he says no or wait or so much as frowns wrong, they can call it and find out what’s going on.

You only need safewords for circumstances where someone could be screaming a no that actually means yes.

Eddie’s hand comes up, he rubs at his eyes sleepily, and then tries to stretch, inadvertently slapping the back of his hand against Steve’s chest in the process.

He blinks the rest of the way awake, and Steve watches in real time as the confusion clears from Eddie’s eyes, the little nose scrunch starts up, and then he smiles, “hey.”

“Hey,” Steve answers, unable to resist the pull. He leans in for sleepy morning kisses, and doesn’t give a single shit about the morning breath.

Behind him, Billy groans and then rolls away. Steve can feel the movement of the bed as Billy performs his morning big stretch. “Coffee?” he asks, voice still sleep rough.

Steve hums, finally pulling away from the soft kisses he’s sharing with Eddie, “yes please,” he says.

Eddie smiles, eyes slowly blinking open again after their kisses, “yes for me too, thank you,” he says, smiling happily up at Steve. Jesus he’s pretty, is all Steve can really think, Eddie all sleep soft and in their bed, his hair a wild fuzzy halo around his face. I want to keep him forever.

Steve rolls over enough to watch Billy climb out of bed. He shuffles off out of the bedroom, sleep pants hanging low on his hips, top half bare, idly scratching at his back while he walks off to get their coffee.

“Should we get up?” Eddie asks.

“Do you want to? He’s going to bring it here if we don’t.”

Eddie hums, snuggling closer, “lets stay a bit longer.”

Steve peppers kisses all over Eddie’s face, so pleased with himself when he gets Eddie to giggle, “sounds good.”

Billy does indeed come back with three coffees on a little tray, which he distributes before climbing into bed again. Once they’re drunk, Steve returns to kissing Eddie, now tasting of sweet coffee.

“How do you feel, after yesterday?”

Eddie shrugs, nose wrinkling and brows drawing together as he thinks, “fine, I think? And I mean I’m not, uh,” he blushes, “sore anywhere,” he whispers.

Steve suppresses the little laugh that wants to escape, and it bubbles down in his chest instead. He does not ask Eddie if he’s laid in bed clenching his asshole to check that. Doesn’t feel right, even though Steve really does want to ask that, he thinks he might cause Eddie to turn inside out with embarrassment if he points it out.

“That’s good, but how are you feeling. Like...mentally. Emotionally?”

Eddie bites his lip, nose still twitching as he, presumably, examines how he’s feeling, “pretty good I think? I really, really wasn’t sad yesterday I swear. I don’t even really know why I was crying. So that’s...fine, but I guess, I mean I...I don’t exactly love the idea of being...of not being close to you and Billy right now.”

“Yeah,” Steve nods, “that’s normal, and perfectly fine. Last night was a lot, we think you went under pretty hard.”

“Under?” Eddie’s looking at him with those big dark eyes, so trusting.

“Subspace. You were...really pliant, especially towards the end. Really trusting. Really good for both of us.”

Eddie squirms a little, “like uhm. Like a, uh, like a submissive thing?”

“Yeah, exactly that,” Steve’s glad Eddie clearly knows something. Unfortunately it’s just as likely that what Eddie might know could come from some criminally bad source like fifty shades of fail, as Billy calls it.

“I like it when you look after me,” Eddie admits, still whisper quiet.

“Good thing we really enjoy looking after you, then, isn’t it?” Eddie’s blushing even more now, and god, Steve want to eat him. In every sense of the word. “Do something for me today? If you feel off, at all, you tell me or Billy right away, okay? Sub drop can still happen.”

“Sub drop?”

“You...went right down last night, we think. And when that happens, especially when there’s intense orgasms too, a lot of different chemicals get released. You’re riding a high; if you come down too hard after, or you don’t get looked after the way you need, you could drop,” Steve still has a niggling concern. He’s pretty sure it was fine, from what Eddie had said at the time, and from what he’s already said now. But then Eddie hadn’t really been capable of any kind of meaningful conversation last night, “how did you feel when you stopped crying?”

Eddie bites his lip, teeth rubbing at the flesh for a minute before he speaks, “it’s so weird, I think I felt kind of good?”

“Yeah. Tears don’t always mean that you’re sad, it’s just...another release.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, he thinks for a minute, clearly putting it together with how he must have felt last night, “I think I got it. I’ll tell you, if I feel weird. I think I just...I just want to stay with you.”

“That’s good baby, we want that too. Anything else you want to do?” Steve would let Eddie have anything he wants on the planet right now, as long as it’s within Steve’s power to do it, he will.

“Maybe...maybe board games later? Oh, we could invite Robin?” They already have a Rummikub set, and Steve has been waiting for the right moment to produce their new copy of Barenpark.

It warms Steve to his fucking soul that Eddie wants to include Robin, “okay, I’ll message her and invite her, maybe we could do that later, and she could come for dinner and we can spend the day together? Maybe we get take out?”

“Sounds really good,” Eddie rolls his head sideways, letting it bonk into Steve’s shoulder, “I don’t mind what we have for dinner, cooking with you guys is fun too.”

Steve hums, leaning in for more kisses, “I’ll see what we have later.”

Billy’s hand sleepily smacks into Steve’s back, Steve knows it’s half an act, at least. Billy’s definitely been listening to them, “you two making out?” He sounds like he’s half snoozing.

“What if we are?” Steve answers, curling himself further over Eddie, sharing a secret little smile with him from four inches away.

Billy yawns before answering, “very good. Carry on,” which makes Eddie titter another laugh.

“Is it always like this?” Eddie asks quietly.

He could be asking about anything. Relationships. Mornings. Morning with them. Mornings with anyone. Steve likes to think he’s asking if this is what it could be, every day forever, if Eddie chooses them, “it could be,” he answers.

It’s Sunday, and Eddie is still uncharacteristically sleepy and...clingy. He’s never far away from one or both of them. He tangles his fingers in Steve’s tee shirt while they wait for the toaster to pop. He immediately leans into Billy when they end up on the couch together.

He’s alert, his eyes still big and observant and curious, same as always, so Steve isn’t worried and wouldn’t use the word subdued...more just calm. His nose crinkles when Billy turns on the TV, “are you going to watch sportsball on Sunday like stereotypical old men.”

“I’ll put you over my knee, young whipper-snapper,” Billy gestures with the remote, already glued to the basketball.

“Do you really hate it?” Steve asks, smiling at their antics.

“It’s bad for either of you to get your way all the time,” Billy speaks before Eddie has the chance to answer, “this is character building, or something.”

Eddie just shakes his head, “it’s fine, I brought a book.”

It’s...wonderfully domestic. Steve and Billy watch the game, Steve half leaning on Billy, Eddie pressed into the other corner of the couch, one leg curled under him and the other casually thrown over Steve’s thigh. The couch is kind of tight for three grown men, but they’re absolutely making it work.

Eddie huffs a noise in the second quarter of the game.

“Alright?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie doesn’t put the book down to answer, “it’s just incredible that it’s taken Helena five hundred days to realize she’s probably, actually not safe trapped on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean with a megalomaniac.”

Steve has no idea what to say to that, but he doesn’t hear a peep out of Eddie for another hour or so, long enough that Billy’s moved from the basketball onto a football game. He finally puts his book down somewhere in the middle of the third quarter, pages held open, just staring into space, “you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah I think so. It’s fucking time travel. Of course it’s time travel.”

And then he picks the book up and carries on reading.

It’s nice that Eddie’s doing this with them. That he stayed, just to be close, even though Steve and Billy are doing something that doesn’t interest him at all. It’s nice. It feels good.

It’s probably at least another hour later before Eddie, out of nowhere, whoops a quiet sound of celebration, “Barry lives!”

By the look of disgusted horror on Eddie’s face, you would have thought Billy had just suggested murdering puppies or something. He hadn’t, obviously, what he’d actually said was, “I’m going for a run.”

Steve doesn’t miss it when Eddie’s fingers automatically find the hem of his shirt; not that he had any intention of leaving Eddie alone anyway, “have fun,” Steve tells Billy. Eddie relaxes as soon as it’s obvious Steve isn’t going.

“You want to do something else now? You can choose what we watch, if you want?” Steve suggests idly, but when he looks back to Eddie, Eddie’s cheeks are a little pink and he’s biting his bottom lip.

“Billy, uhm, Billy said it’s fine, if we do stuff even though we aren’t all here.”

Steve knows exactly what stuff is, even though Eddie still can’t seem to say it without imploding. “We can do stuff. You want to do stuff just the two of us?”

Eddie is not far off being the same shade as an actual tomato, and Steve watches him fiddle with his own fingers. Watching Eddie buck up the courage to ask what he wants is a fucking thing to behold. “Yes but. If Billy came back while, you know, if we were-”

“Oh my god,” Steve can’t help the words slipping out. Eddie’s inexperienced, and he’s shy, but Steve had already suspected that underneath all of that, Eddie is a kinky fucker. He just needs to be brave enough to let it out, “you want him to walk in on us?”

“Yeah?” Eddie looks up for a second, eyes wide, then goes back to watching his own hands, “I mean, is that…”

“Oh that is more than fine,” Steve’s been leaning steadily closer as they’ve been talking, and he pushes Eddie’s restless hands out of the way so he can move more over Eddie, pressing Eddie into the couch. He wants to tell Eddie. Wants to tell Eddie that he knows Eddie’s got some freak in him. But if Steve points it out Eddie might back track on it, so he leaves that for another day, “so, what, exactly, should we be doing when Billy gets home?”

Even though their faces are probably an inch away from each other, Eddie still manages to look down and hide his eyes from Steve. He mumbles his words, speaking so fast Steve barely catches the youcouldbeinme. It slides out as one run together word, whispered on a slightly panicked exhale.

“Yes,” Steve says, and then leans forward that last little bit to pin Eddie to the couch cushions. Eddie’s mouth falls open the second Steve starts kissing him, letting Steve inside, letting Steve press deep with his tongue and...repressed fucking feelings. Probably.

It’s ridiculously hot, what Eddie is suggesting. Steve can’t put his finger on exactly why it’s got him so worked up, but it has. It really has. And then his functioning brain kicks in and he pulls back just as suddenly, “are you sure you’re up for that? Last night was...intense. And I wouldn’t want to...rush, any part of that, since you’ve never done it before.”

“I think I...I think I want to because of last night. I’m feeling…” Eddie swallows frowning, but taking his time, “I think...I think I know it’ll be okay, because last night was okay? And...I want to be close right now.”

And that is basically as close as two people can be, if Steve has his dick in Eddie. That’s like, maximum closeness. And needing that after last night kind of makes sense actually. “Okay...Okay,” Steve has to actually get control of himself so he can think about this, about how Eddie reacted yesterday, “we have Robin coming over this evening, we were going to play games. And you kind of, yesterday-”

“I fell asleep. Hard,” Eddie says, following Steve up into a sitting position, and then he sighs, “and I got all,” he motions at his own face, vaguely, “face leaky.”

Steve can’t help the little snorted laugh before he makes himself sensible again, “that did happen yes.”

“Okay so...not this time, then?”

Steve feels like he’s starting to judge Eddie pretty well, “this is not a rejection, not ever, it’s just...we should do this for the first time when we have the whole day together with no commitments. And maybe the next day?” Some people fuck, get up, clean up, get dressed and leave. A lot of people do. Steve is already certain that Eddie is not one of those people and will need a good few hours of aftercare, at least. Steve wants to be sure, especially the first time.

“Yeah,” Eddie does readily agree, but he looks kind of deflated, he must have been building himself up to this a little bit. Steve can fully imagine Eddie giving himself pep talks and bringing himself around to asking for something he wants. The fact that the second they were alone without Billy, that was the opportunity he took. Steve doesn’t know why that might be, but the Billy coming home during this is kind of hot. “Okay sooo..?”

Eddie wants to know what Steve suggests instead, which is fair, and he does sort of have an idea along the same lines, “how about we have a quick shower together, and then you can sit on my face?”

Eddie goes scarlet, but he’s nodding like his head is on a loose spring, So Steve calls that a win.

Eddie’s all pale and soft looking. He’s nervous, Steve can definitely tell, but he’s up for it too. The way he watches Steve. Eddie’s delicate, smaller and shorter than both Steve and Billy, but his slimness creates an illusion, makes his limbs look long and slender, all that pale skin only broken by the occasional mediocre tattoo. No, that’s unfair; some of them are sort of okay.

Steve is bare too, and he climbs up onto the bed, both of them freshly showered. Eddie didn’t mind at all when Steve slipped a soapy finger into him; he just clung tight to Steve, making wuffling, breathy little noises right into Steve’s ear while Steve made sure he was squeaky clean. “Okay, I’m going to lie here,” and Steve does, he lies down, pillows shifted away so he’s flat on the bed. That way he can get Eddie to kneel over him facing the door, giving Billy full frontal Eddie when he walks in.

He had been tempted to message Billy, to tell him without Eddie knowing. Just to make sure they get the timing right, just to make sure they can make Eddie’s fantasy exactly right. He decided against in the end; it doesn’t really matter how far along Steve and Eddie manage to get, Billy is still going to be walking in on some fun. And it’s always nice to actually surprise Billy.

It takes a little bit of encouragement to have Eddie knee walk over and then position himself over Steve. He’s so shy and delicate about it all; determined though, he’s clearly eager, it’s just all so new. The clear arousal mixed with shyness is a good look on Eddie, the way he shifts nervously over Steve, so careful not to knee him or anything, the way he swallows so often, nose twitching away. He doesn’t seem to know where to look, or where to put his hands, but that’s not new either. Despite all that, his cock has been hard since before they even got in the shower.

“We can stop anytime,” Steve reminds him gently, “either tell me, or tap my chest. Okay baby? Say it back to me please,” Eddie’s still hovering what feels like a mile above Steve, Steve’s head settled between Eddie’s shins, where Eddie kneels on the bed.

Eddie sighs, and speaks just loud enough for Steve to hear, “I know you’re not going to hurt me. I know I can say any time and we’re going to stop and everything will be fine.”

“Yeah exactly that baby, good job. Now, come here, settle a little,” Steve grips the place that passes for Eddie’s slim hips, pulling a little, but Eddie doesn’t budge.

Steve can perfectly imagine the look on Eddie’s face, the twitchy nose, the bitten lip, as he says, “but I don’t want to hurt you.” Steve can also perfectly picture the little frown on Eddie’s face when Tay Tay tells them to Shake It Off, Eddie has opinions on Steve’s music taste and Steve maybe shouldn’t have gone for this particular playlist.

“You definitely won’t, now, touch your dick and sit on my face,” and he tugs again. Steve has no clue if Eddie is following the first instruction, but he finally follows the second one. Steve wraps both arms around Eddie’s slim thighs, holding him close. He’s still a little warm from the shower, and smells just like Billy’s shower soap. It’s warm from Steve’s breath already, and Steve holds his tongue out flat to lave his tongue across the tight furl of Eddie’s hole.

Eddie’s thighs twitch under Steve’s hands as Eddie’s hip buck up and away reflexively. He gasps out a surprised moan though, before allowing himself to be tugged back down onto Steve’s waiting mouth. He takes it by the choked off noises he can hear that Eddie’s enjoying himself.

Steve scrapes his teeth across the soft skin of Eddie’s ass, discovering he really likes it if Steve follows the crease where thigh and ass meet, so he does the same with his slightly scratchy stubble, leaving Eddie panting and whimpering, his skin pinker and pinker the more Steve does it, “you better be touching your cock baby,” Steve’s voice is muffled.

“Yeah,” Eddie’s voice cracks, “I am I am I am,” he whines, sounding fucked out and a little senseless.

Steve spends time licking, letting spit pool in his mouth so he can get Eddie nice and wet. He stays outside for the most part, carefully pointing his tongue and letting just the tip press inside a tiny bit occasionally.

He feels Eddie shift, a hand resting on his stomach, and then another wrapping around his cock. It feels good, the slow stroke he allows Eddie to do before pulling back and turning his head so he can speak against the soft skin of Eddie’s inner thigh, “baby, don’t do that, sit up okay?” He feels Eddie let go again, his cock hard enough to sort of slap against his stomach when Eddie lets go. “Sit up straight so Billy can see you real good when he comes home yeah?”

Which, if Steve is right, should be really fucking soon now; he was pretty sure Billy wouldn’t leave them for that long. A whole day crashed out in front of the couch is a bit too much for Billy, he gets restless if he doesn’t do something physical on his day off.

Unlike Steve who is pretty acclimatized to sitting in front of a desk nine to five, Billy’s job is really active.

Steve lets himself sink back into his task, absorbed in the choked off noises Eddie makes every time Steve presses just past the tight ring of muscle, teasing at his hole. He listens to the muffled, wet sounds of Eddie touching his cock, and has to shift a little on the bed, rubbing his thighs together to try and relieve himself a little. He’s aware of how hard his cock is, of the bit of wet leaking from the head onto his skin, but he can wait.

He can wait until Eddie’s come is splashing down on his stomach, and then he can get his.

He wonders if Eddie’s eyes have slid closed, wonders if his back is arched and just how pink his skin has gotten.

He has no chance between the soft music and Eddie’s whimpering, it’s impossible to hear Billy coming.

Eddie jolts, a startled movement, and then Steve feels the bed dip, and he knows Billy’s back, “well, this is nice,” he says coolly. Understatement of the fucking century.

Steve can feel Billy hovering over his legs, the bed sinking, but he doesn’t quit. His rhythm stutters when Billy sucks down his cock in one movement, a little huff of air escaping before he moans right against Eddie’s hole.

Billy’s a deepthroating fucking champ; Steve’s not going to last very long. They’ve been together so long that Billy knows everything about Steve. Knows what winds him up fastest, knows exactly how to give his balls a gentle tug and then press a firm knuckle right up between his legs. How to squeeze at the base of his cock while he sucks hard on the head.

Eddie’s panting now, ass wriggling and sort of humping down on Steve’s face, thighs going tense under Steve’s hands as he gets closer to coming, Steve being pushed along for the ride by the tight seal of Billy’s lips on his cock. Steve tries to shift, wants to spread his legs or lift his knees or fuck right up into Billy’s mouth, but he can’t, he can’t, Billy’s big fucking hand pinning him every time he tries, leaving Steve to squirm and take it out on Eddie by rubbing his tongue hard as he can against the tight pucker of Eddie’s hole. Feels it clench as he comes. Feels his body go tight with it.

Feels the hot ropes of Eddie’s come land on his chest and he tries to fuck up into Billy’s mouth. His cock twitching and muscles tight as he follows Eddie over the edge, coming right into Billy’s mouth.

Billy spits it out. Spits it onto Steve’s stomach and chest, slaps a hand on it, rubs and mixes Steve’s and Eddie’s come into his skin, getting his chest hair matted with it, “don’t move,” Billy’s hand pulls off, and Steve can hear the wet noises of him jerking off but he can’t see so he lies here with his eyes closed, face pressed against the inside of Eddie’s thigh, panting.

It isn’t long before Billy’s come splatters down on him too, “god you’re a mess,” Billy says affectionately.

“Oh my god he’s standing up,” Robin is stating the obvious, Eddie is indeed, standing up. Like having a birds eye view of the current lay out of the dining room table might somehow improve his chances.

“That means this is serious,” Eddie replies, “you stand up when you really mean it.” And then he gets out his phone, and takes a picture of the table.

“Is that cheating?” Robin asks.

“How is that cheating?” Eddie replies, only slightly incredulous.

“Why have you taken a picture?” Steve asks, equally perplexed. Eddie and Billy are being really nice; they’re playing with the tiles facing Steve and Robin, so all the numbers are right side up. But that means that from where Billy and Eddie are sitting, they’re playing looking at upside down numbers. They are somehow both still doing really well at this.

“I think I can win, but I’m not sure, so if I’m wrong I’ll have to put everything back how it was after, and there’s no way I’ll remember this.”

Eddie’s right, there must be forty tiles or more spread out on the table. Taking a picture is smart. Not that it matters; after a lot of rearranging and a minute or two of staring, Eddie gets rid of his last tile. It’s fucking impressive.

“Did Eddie need to go or something?” Robin asks idly from where she’s hanging limply over both sides of the armchair, one leg bouncing restlessly.

“What?” Steve asks, from his place on the couch.

“He just like...left?”

Billy’s up first, “how long ago?”

“Like, just now. Just took his jacket and I think his boots?”

“Shit,” Steve is saying as he forces his feet into his sneakers, “I thought we were past this.”

“Obviously not,” Billy answers, getting the door.

“What is happening?” Robin asks from the doorway to the lounge, clearly perplexed.

“Just wait,” Steve calls back to her, following Billy as they barrel down the stairs. There’s only one place Eddie would have gone right now because his van in here, so he will have gone straight out the back way into the car lot. He must have really moved; Billy and Steve spill outside just in time to watch Eddie’s van turn the corner.

“Shit,” Billy sighs, “any clue?”

“No,” Steve answers honestly, because he has absolutely no fucking idea what set Eddie off, “I thought we were having a nice time.”

“We were. Pretty sure. Okay, okay this is fine, lets just go message him, he’s going to need a little time to decompress anyway. We know this is a thing he does, it’ll be fine.”

“Yeah but I thought…” Steve tries not to sound too upset about it, because he knows, logically, there’s no linear change with people. That’s not a realistic expectation for him to hold, so he has to keep it together and not take this personally. “I thought he’d come to us, rather than doing this?”

“Yeah, yeah, but Robin’s here don’t forget, maybe he didn’t feel like he could with another variable in the apartment.”

And that does make Steve feel a lot better, because it does make complete sense, “okay. Okay yeah, lets just go message him and tell him we’re here when he’s ready.”

“Good plan,” they trudge together back up the stairs to the apartment, but half way up Billy stops on the turn of the stairs, “I wonder what set him off? I mean...usually there’s a reason right? Like a sensory thing?”

Steve keeps walking, “no idea, lets go look though, he was looking for socks.” Eddie had kept ramming his feet under Steve’s thigh for warmth, but he’d been so fidgety that in the end, he’d just told Eddie to help himself to a thicker pair of their socks to put over his.

Steve follows Billy into the apartment and along the hall. Robin had apparently been playing on her phone while waiting for them, but she gets up to follow too, “what’s happening?”

“He sometimes does this,” Steve starts to explain. He doesn’t want to go into it in too much detail; he’d feel like he’s betraying Eddie’s trust, “but there’s usually a reason."

Billy is rooting through the top drawer, where Steve’s underwear is. Steve doesn’t know what it is he expects to find really. Steve is consumed by a horrible, dawning suspicion though, when he sees that it’s the very bottom drawer that’s open a teeny tiny bit, the front of the drawer not quite sitting flush with the rest.

“Oh, shit” Steve says, with quite a lot of feeling.

“What?” Robin and Billy speak over each other.

Steve kneels, Billy moving out of the way as Steve pulls open the bottom drawer, just to confirm what he suspects. They don’t go in this drawer; it’s full of stuff they hardly ever need. Passports, birth certificates, the thick wodge of all their insurance documents. The lease for the apartment. The apartment that they have talked about, repeatedly, ending the lease on so that they can be adults and buy a fucking house.

It’s where they throw things that they can’t lose, but know they won’t need to look at again for at least six months. It also means it’s where they store stuff that Steve is too idiotically sentimental to just throw away.

And he had meant to, really. He had intended to throw it away. When Shane left he mostly cleared out his stuff. Billy and Steve’s stuff had slowly spread out again, without discussing it, they silently filled the little gaps Shane had left behind. He hadn’t been living here, they were no where near that, even Steve, as besotted as he believed he’d been at the time, hadn’t pushed for that. But he still had stuff here. Still took up space in their lives. And when Billy had finally insisted they throw away the bits Shane clearly wasn’t going to come back for, Steve had quietly kept some of it.

At first it was because he told himself Shane was going to come back. And then it was because he wanted something tangible to hold onto, just for a minute longer. And then it was just...because. And he’d told himself he’d get rid of it, but he’d migrated it into long term storage instead, and then just...forgotten about it.

They weren't even nice things, is the thing. Shane didn’t do nice. He wasn’t that kind of person who really cared about anyone but himself, so Steve knew, the valentines day card that sat in the drawer wasn’t at all sincere, even if Steve framed it that way in his mind.

The two pairs of panties that Steve liked Shane in best were...well, yeah, he can admit to himself now that he was a bit insane for keeping those. Looking back he doesn’t even know why he’s like this. Why he latches onto things like they could make a difference.

The collar is probably the most damming. Especially since it’s engraved with property of Billy and Steve. Steve knows instantly, looking down at the little heap, the way the material is unraveled and the collar isn’t curled up into it’s neat swirl. He knows Eddie went in here, and he saw this.

“He thinks we’re seeing Shane,” Steve says, the strip of leather held uselessly in his hands.

“You didn’t get rid of it,” Billy’s tone isn’t accusatory, exactly. Steve knows how Billy thinks, and Billy’s very much a no point in crying over spilled milk kind of guy. Billy doesn’t waste time on blame, only on solutions.

“No,” Steve admits, “I forgot it was there.”

“You are a dumbass of the highest order,” Robin informs him from the doorway.

“That is not helpful,” Billy says, pulling out his phone, he goes to sit on the edge of the bed, he starts typing.

“What are you saying?” Steve asks, not really having the energy to get up off the floor, “you should tell him I was stupid, it’s my fault.”

“I’m going to tell him that when he’s ready, we would like to talk about whatever it is he thinks just happened. And I’m going to tell him that the stuff he found in the drawer is from a while ago and we aren’t seeing anyone else.”

“Tell him I’ll get rid of it. Or like, I already have, and I’ll do it now,” Steve grabs the bits out of the bottom drawer, ready to take to the trash. He feels nauseous. He did this. What if they never see Eddie again? What if Eddie just, doesn’t believe them, "what if he thinks we've been cheating on him this whole time?"

He must be so hurt, and Steve really has to try and stop thinking about that. Eddie going home, Eddie being really upset. Oh no, what if he’s crying about it? And he’s alone? Steve feels like he might actually throw up- "he probably doesn't see it that way."

"What?" Steve finally looks up, Billy's put his phone down now, he's staring listlessly over at the windows, running his fingers through his hair.

"We have to spell shit out for him. Very clearly. We cannot rely on him to pick up on hints or work anything out from context, we knew that but-" Billy stops talking, making a frustrated noise.

"We never actually said anything about being exclusive. Or being in a relationship, or anything-"

“We will tell him when we see him,” Billy answers, with way more confidence than he looks like he's actually feeling.

Steve physically cannot help himself, “but what if-”

“No. We’re not doing what ifs. Just wait. All we can do is wait, okay?”