Only I push you against that wall. Again, again, and again.
It’s 1987, baby, and the club’s lights flash in a splatter pattern from left to right, right to left, and exploding in the middle. It's fourth of July and these big city people celebrate as roaringly private as well as can be.
The crash and crescendo sparking early in the music subverts usual expectations; fittingly as the dancers break out while the first drag show of the night starts at midnight. It's far from Hawkin's two drinking holes as Steve, Robin and Eddie can manage.
Not so far out for Eddie who'd visited back in the day for a weekend or so when he could afford the gas. Hard hands and insistent lips a highlight of his trips away.
But fuck him so very much to learn that, yeah, Robin is a passionate fan of Dorothy, let alone her beautiful, sun-kissed soulmate who is just as bent as the freak of Forrest Hills.
Said soulmate has Eddie's eyeliner ringing wide, hazel eyes. Making them look bigger, wetter, and more than Eddie can comfortably look at for more than a few seconds at a time. Currently, those ebony framed features are trained beyond Eddie's sight, sitting far above Robin's cropped shirt that rides, what feels, scandalously high. The edges almost above Stevie's tits, bare to Eddie's covetous gaze.
The older of the two leans his arms against the bar, deliberate and casual while watching that patterned crop top tauntingly sway and caress against caramel tanned skin. Against scarred grooves that Steve has apparently forgot, but Eddie can't look away from. Those streaks of white against warm, smooth swathes that seem etched and drawn for the greedy eye to lock onto. To look, to touch, to feel, to taste with a warm tongue wide against a salted body that surely tastes as sweet as it looks.
It's not the first time that Eddie's watched another person trail their fingertips against the ribbed tissue of Steve's battle scars. Men. Women. Steve is pretty to many. Especially in the dark corner of a city club. And it’s definitely not the first time that Eddie has darkly coveted this beautiful man.
Eddie shakes the thought out. Trying to slip away. Away from how consumed he is. Easily obsessed with those large, blunt hands that touch the long-haired, slim-hipped beauty against Steve’s beautiful body.
He swallows thickly. The beer Eddie holds loosely warm and stale and a memory on the back of his tongue. He can't look away. From the peacock daring to glom closer to his Steve. Watching him stretch lips and push forward hips, cornering Steve against a hard wall. A wall that should be Eddie's to own.
It's hours. Minutes. An age later and Steve has shaken off the diverting embrace of the other man. Eddie doesn't understand, he never does. Steve dances, he kisses, but he never leaves with any of the others that he touches in these dark spaces. Always returning to Robin (if she hasn't left with her own reward) and always, always Eddie.
It's not that Eddie is ever alone. It's not that he doesn't have enough men approaching him, looking him up and down from across the room. Eye-fucking him with promise of actual fucking if he just gave a goddamn inch. But no. Steve doesn't do more than kiss. Eddie never leaves the bar. Neither one speaks about it, but the rule is as hard and implacable as the bare red bricks of the original walls.
Steve is by Eddie's side again, leaning over to accept a chilled drink from the bartender. Eddie shakes his stiff fingers from his own stale beer bottle. The bubbling that has built days, months, not yet quite a year, but he doesn't know if he's strong enough to weather more time than he's spent watching Steve be loved and adored by everyone but himself.
"You don't want him?" Eddie leans into the side of his mouth, kicking into a smirk that feels as inauthentic as watching Steve walk away from him. Every, single time towards that fucking dance floor.
"No," Steve's eyes are level, warm yet a hint of stern that riles something deep in Eddie's gut. "No, I learnt my lesson a couple of years ago. Never want someone who doesn't want me."
Eddie's throat clicks with how sharply he swallows. Steve's not talking about some random twink. Some random potential love interest. Eddie has denied his own attraction for the sake of protecting his sanity, but his sanity is only as pristine as the idea that Steve could never love him. But this… what this could be…
Eddie would be lying if he said he could see the dark motes in Steve's eyes, the ring around his pupil or any other physical indicator of a lie or excitement, but he can. He can see it shining in Steve's eyes, waiting for Eddie to understand.
"I learnt my lesson, Eddie. A while back. I won't love someone who doesn't want me, do you want me?” Steve pauses, a hint of uncertainty colouring his words. “Eds?"
The earth shudders. It quakes and breaks open the soft meat that is now and forever for the boy and man that is the whole of his heart and home. It's the only reason for Eddie's hand to tremble as it does while reaching for the man who has held his heart for as long as he kept him sane in an insane, underworld quest. As he fell in love with a sweet and strong man that took in lonely lambs and their lonely shepherd.
Eddie calms that shaking hand to the man he thought was unobtainable, to suddenly and confidently fist at the back of soft, silky locks and pull those plush, candy-sweet lips to his own.
Steve never visits that hard brick wall again. Not unless Eddie is there, pushing him hotly against it, once again. Again, again, and again.
