written for @steddiemicrofic prompt: pool
442 words | rated T (out of an abundance of caution for Steve's vaguely impure thoughts) | cw: none
A bead of sweat trickled down Eddie’s neck, eventually settling in the dip of his collarbone.
Steve watched its journey and licked his lips, imagining diving into the shallow pool with his tongue and reckless abandon— salty yet sweet.
Eddie was rambling on about something that seemed very important to him as they drove around in the van, just having dropped the last of the kids off for the evening. The air conditioner was busted, and Eddie was talking about dragons again. So Steve was left to his own devices in watching the effect of the heat on his friend’s perfectly bitable neck.
It didn’t help that Eddie was wearing a tank top, or that his hair was pulled up into a bun.
“Stevie,” Eddie waved a hand in front of his face, snapping Steve back to the present. “You get heat stroke on me?”
“Something like that,” Steve mumbled. He wished he could blame the heat for way he'd been daydreaming about sucking the taste of Eddie's skin into his mouth, but that particular thought never seemed to leave Steve's mind these days.
“What’s wrong?” Eddie asked, always too attuned to whatever Steve was thinking (or sulking) about.
“Nothing,” Steve tried. Eddie leveled him with a look that would have melted stone. “You’re hot, is all.”
“Well I know that, Steve,” Eddie huffed. “It’s eleventy one degrees out and the A/C is broken.”
“What—?” Steve began to ask, but he didn’t actually think he wanted to divert the conversation that far. “Not literally, Eddie. I mean you’re attractive, and it’s driving me crazy.”
Eddie’s eyebrows pinched together in confusion, and Steve wondered how on earth he could be more clear. Until out of nowhere Eddie steered off the main road and into a small copse of trees just off the shoulder.
“What the hell, dude—”
“Don’t dude me,” Eddie chastised as he scrambled out of his seat and into Steve’s lap. Steve hurried to settle his hands on Eddie’s hips without much thought, and Eddie looked down at him with a wolfish grin. “You just told me I’m driving you crazy. I think that deserves a baby, or a sweetheart, or even a honey bunch.”
Steve was stunned at this turn of events, but bantering with Eddie was always the easy part.
“I’ve always kinda liked schnookums, if we’re being honest,” Steve said with a lazy shrug.
“Of course you would,” Eddie rolled his eyes with such affection it made Steve’s heart clench. “Can I kiss you now, schnookums?”
“Thought you’d never ask, baby.”
Eddie kissed the wry smile right off of his mouth.
Steve Harrington x Eddie Munson, 2.4k words, also on ao3
Just a silly little first kiss idea that fell into my head because I accidentally typed Lover’s Lick instead of Lover’s Lake.
It was a blistering day in Hawkins. As a twisted way to enjoy it, the whole party decided to spend the day at Lover's Lake to continue celebrating what they’d dubbed “Dead Vecna Summer.”
Eddie wasn’t sure he was enjoying himself, yet, but Robin was determined to make sure everyone did.
“It’s called exposure therapy,” Robin explained as she lazily dragged her toes through the water from her seat on the dock. “If we all come here and have a good time, the positive association will start to make the bad shit less scary.”
“That doesn’t sound like a thing,” Mike countered, and Nancy leaned down and flicked a handful of water at him. She and Robin were near inseparable now, physically sitting shoulder to shoulder as they soaked up the sun, but also to the point where Nancy steadfastly defended everything Robin said.
“It’s a thing, Wheeler,” Eddie drawled from his own beach towel. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was a thing or not, but Robin tended to know her shit, so he was going along with her plan for now. Eddie had no interest in actually getting in the water, but the shady little patch of grass he’d managed to lounge in was pleasant enough. “I just don’t know if it’s working.”
Admittedly, the whole experience was made more pleasant by the fact that no one else but their little group was around, staring them down or making accusations with their eyes. No one really wanted to spend much time at Lover's Lakep anymore, considering it had so recently been a crime scene. The quarry and the copious other lakes around Hawkins seemed delightful by comparison; but maybe that was just because no one else had Robin.
So far, only Dustin, El, and Will had been brave enough to venture into the water. They were off the shore a ways, splashing each other and giggling ferociously. The glee on their faces was helping to tamp down the lingering sense of dread that Eddie couldn’t quite shake, despite his best efforts.
Steve was also eyeing them warily, either watching like a hawk to make sure nothing weird went tickling at their ankles, or because he was fighting himself on whether he wanted to venture in after them.
Eddie suspected it was a little bit of both.
“Fuck it,” Steve muttered to himself, before stripping his shirt off and wading into the lake. Eddie watched him go from behind the safety of his sunglasses, doing his best not to let his jaw go slack in the presence of a half dressed, sun kissed, and about to be wet Steve Harrington.
Once Eddie finally tore his eyes away, he noticed Robin also looking after Steve—but her expression was a worried one.
“Maybe we should play a game,” Eddie suggested with a slow grin. “For positivity, and whatnot.”
“Oooh, how about truth or dare?” Max recommended in a heartbeat, like she’d been waiting for an opportunity to present itself for her to suggest it. It instantly made Eddie wary of her intentions, but he shrugged and went along. If it made Max happy to wrangle some embarrassment out of her friends, she deserved as much. Plus, truth or dare never scared Eddie much, since he could always come up with something freakier to challenge people with than anyone ever dared him to do. And truths weren’t tricky at all, because he had a knack for making bullshit sound like the truth on the spot.
They didn’t come around on his turn for a while, yet, so he let his gaze drift back across the strikingly serene water until it landed back on Steve. He started off indulging the kids in letting them dunk his head under water, but now he seemed to have found some semblance of peace, floating on his back with his eyes on the sky.
“Earth to Munson,” Lucas called out, cupping his hands around his mouth and deepening his voice for the intended bullhorn effect. “It’s your turn, so you can stop ogling Steve, now.”
“I don’t ogle, Sinclair,” Eddie said, pulling his best unaffected act. All the same, he dragged his eyes back to his immediate surroundings. “That’s much more your speed.”
Lucas nervously glanced at Max, knowing exactly what Eddie was implying. Max seemed to know as well, because she came to Lucas’s defense in a snap. Eddie would’ve thought it was sweet, if he hadn’t just aimed the Max Cannon of Shit-Talking squarely in his direction.
“You’re the one who looks like you want to lick Steve’s face half the time,” she said with a knowing smirk. Everyone else burst into laughter, and Eddie had no choice but to eat the shame of being completely obvious, to the point where even all the gremlins knew he had an enormous crush on Steve.
“Only half the time?” Jonathan asked, and Argyle snorted. When even the two of them were helping to gang up on Eddie, he lost any hope of someone backing him up instead of roasting him further. He sighed in resignation.
Not long after all the Upside Down drama had concluded, Eddie and Robin had both teamed up and decided to come out to the whole group together. It was partly because Robin was sick of having to deny the allegations that she was in love with Steve, and partly because they both agreed it would let the group adjust so that there would be as little friction as possible when Will decided to follow suit. It turned out none of them really needed the extra education in love and acceptance and all that, though. The kids barely blinked an eye, and instead just shifted the allegations about being in love with Steve off of Robin and right onto Eddie.
“Oh my god,” Lucas squealed, completely overcome with excitement for some reason. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Eddie as he said, “That’s your dare!”
“I didn’t even pick—” Eddie tried, but everyone was already turning to look at him with matching evil smiles.
“Lick his face,” Max sat back, folding her arms against her chest in satisfaction.
“That’s not my dare,” Eddie muttered, already knowing his fate was sealed. He had to lick Steve’s face, or suffer some unknowable torture for time eternal for being a chickenshit.
“Lick his face,” everyone chorused, mercifully at a whisper so Steve wouldn’t hear. That didn’t make it any less mortifying.
“I swear to Christ—” Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose, doing his best to ignore them. He thought maybe he could withstand the torture option, instead.
“Lick his face,” they all repeated, chanting like they only worshiped at the alter of humiliating Eddie in the most creative ways possible.
“You’re a bunch of heathens,” Eddie whined.
“Lick his face!” They repeated, insistent and already getting louder.
Eddie stared at Max in a silent plea, knowing she was the one who could most easily get everyone to lay off of him. This was her rodeo, and they both knew it. Max only stared back at him, unwavering. Eddie wondered if this was why she wanted to play truth or dare in the first place.
“Fucking,” Eddie grumbled, pulling himself up off his towel and whipping his own shirt and sunglasses off. Then he stood there, clad in nothing but his Garfield swim trunks, and took a deep breath to steady himself. He’d done worse than this, surely. It would be mortifying, but he’d get over it. Steve had a good enough sense of humor that Eddie didn’t think he’d be pissed, at least. “Fine.”
Then he stomped off into the lake and started swimming out to Steve to a round of raucous cheers at his back.
The calamitous thing he was about to go do was enough to distract Eddie from the fact that he was swimming in this lake for the first time since the spring, and he wasn’t being dragged down to its depths, or watching something mind-bendingly terrifying, or being chased for his life as he did. An entirely different kind of doom was spelled out for him, sure, but at least Eddie was swimming towards someone as his fate unfurled before him.
Steve really did look beautiful, sprawled out on his back, droplets of water glistening on his skin in the sun. Eddie intentionally caused a lot of fuss as he swam, making waves and noise as he went, so as not to startle Steve out of his peaceful reverie too severely.
Steve was already treading water, swimming upright again, by the time Eddie reached him.
“Hey,” he said, soft and trusting even though he probably shouldn’t have been.
“Hey,” Eddie echoed him, feeling the weight of fourteen sadistic eyes on his back. Once more, he was incredibly glad that no one else but their little group of friends was around to witness this. Eddie laughed, a desperate and delirious little sound that perfectly encapsulated how little he believed he was about to give in to peer pressure like all the preppy conformists he always made fun of.
“I’m sorry in advance,” Eddie said, and Steve tilted his head in confusion.
“Huh—”
Eddie reached up and grabbed Steve’s chin, watching as the lake water pebbled across the planes of Steve’s face, and gently tipped it towards the side. Then he licked a stripe up Steve’s cheek, quick but thorough, just enough to savor the feel of Steve’s skin on his tongue for even a moment.
Just as quickly as it’d begun, it was over, and Eddie turned around to face his jury, still idly judging from the dock. They broke out into another round of cheers and applause, so Eddie couldn’t help but thrust his arms up in triumph and give them a little show.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, then, and had to kick his feet quicker so he didn’t start sinking at the sensation of being spun around. Eddie braced himself, for a split second thinking he was gonna get punched.
The next thing he felt was, in fact, a hand on his face, but it was as gentle of a touch as he could ever remember feeling. Eddie peeked one eye open, only to find Steve looking back at him, a small smile playing at his lips. Steve rubbed his thumb across Eddie’s cheek bone, then very deliberately dropped his eyes to Eddie’s lips.
“What are you doing, Stevie?” Eddie asked, wondering if he was dreaming all of a sudden.
“What was Robin rambling about earlier?” Steve murmured, the low rumble of humor in his chest. “Positive associations?”
Eddie just nodded dumbly at him, entirely unsure if that was what Robin had said at all.
“Well, here’s mine,” Steve said simply, then leaned in and kissed him.
Even though the world had seemingly thudded to a stop, Eddie felt the way Steve’s lips moved against his own, firm and soft all at once, leaving him all tingly in an instant. Eddie didn’t know how, or why, but Steve was kissing him like he meant it—like he’d been ruminating on his desire to slot his lips between Eddie’s it for as long Eddie had been fantasizing about the same.
The realization was a heady one, and Eddie heard a surprised little whimper escape his throat. Steve hummed happily in response, then slid the hand on Eddie’s cheek into his hair, getting a better grip so he could maneuver the angle of Eddie’s face to his liking.
Eddie thought he’d let Steve position him however the fuck he wanted as long as he kept kissing him. He grabbed on to Steve’s shoulders on instinct, dragging him in closer, with the water allowing Steve to flow into Eddie's arms with ease until their chests were pressed together. Steve gently nipped at Eddie’s bottom lip with his teeth, and Eddie rode that wave to bold new heights, daring to drag his tongue along the curve of Steve’s, perfect, delectable mouth. Steve's grip on Eddie's hair tightened, then he opened up and rolled his tongue against Eddie's own.
Eddie thought Lover’s Lake might actually be the best place on Earth.
It occurred to Eddie that he might sink and drown and die in that moment, since he completely forgot how to tread water when the only thing he could focus on was Steve’s mouth on his own, Steve’s hand in his hair, Steve kissing him so thoroughly that it was worth it if this was where he died after all. But Steve secured an arm around Eddie’s waist, holding them both aloft in the water, letting the sunshine dance across their shoulders and set their kisses surging with even more heat than their hold on each other could generate on its own.
When they finally pulled apart, Eddie heard the distant roar of hooting and hollering coming at them from the dock and their friends nearby in the water, but he couldn’t do anything but stare at Steve, dumbstruck and with the taste of Steve's cherry lip balm still on his tongue.
“Was that okay?” Steve asked, looking worried now.
Eddie thought the best way to chase that concern right off Steve’s pretty face was to kiss him again, and again, and again.
“Oh my god, get a room,” Dustin hollered at them after a moment, and Eddie relished the feel of Steve’s smile against his own. Eddie pulled back just enough to tilt his head in silent communication, doing his best not to get too distracted by how Steve’s lips were still swollen thanks to him.
“Definitely,” Steve nodded in agreement, and two of them took off after Dustin in perfect sync. By the time Dustin realized what he was in for, it was too late. He paddled away like a mad man, screeching and giggling all the way, but Steve was too fast. He gained on Dustin quickly, getting his arms around him just as Eddie caught up.
Together, they each smacked a sloppy kiss to one of Dustin’s cheeks, then dunked him underwater together. Dustin did his best to look affronted when he resurfaced, but his grin was unmistakable.
“It’s about time,” he muttered, then splashed Steve and Eddie both and quickly paddled away again. El and Will joined in the chase this time, and Eddie heard several splashes from the dock behind him as reinforcements came to unite in a game of ganging up on Henderson.
None of them ever really panicked about taking a dip in Lover's Lake after that.
Written for @thefreakandthehair's Summer Fanworks Challenge for the prompt: "That look in your eye terrifies me."
Thanks so much for organizing this, Lex! It's been so fun!! 💜
tags/cw: fwb, jealousy, love confessions, consensual somno, deepthroating, semi-public sex, light d/s dynamics, cockwarming, good boy Eddie Munson, soft dom Steve Harrington, off-screen negotiated kink, meddling buckingham, one teensie reference to past stomarol, and more tags on ao3
Eddie is good for Steve, he thinks. Good in more than just the way he knows exactly how to turn Steve to putty in his hands, beyond how he can make Steve laugh, or make him feel safe, or even how he’s one of the best friends Steve’s ever had.
Steve really has to start grappling with the fact that he’s in love with Eddie—the little detail might have the power to ruin them forever. Ruin Steve forever. Because he’s the one that went and fell in love when they were supposed to just be fooling around, friends with benefits or whatever the fuck Eddie had called it when they first started this
When Steve’s being entirely honest with himself, he knows he was in love with Eddie long before their arrangement ever started, but he dove in head first anyway, desperate for an excuse to have Eddie in whatever way he could get him.
[read on ao3, or under the cut!]
Steve wakes up to Eddie’s mouth around his cock, and even though he’s barely conscious he’s already not sure how much more he can take.
Steve whines, a deep gravelly whimper that makes Eddie stop what he’s doing with a wet pop. The filthy sound of it, the way a trail of spit and precum dangles from Eddie’s lip as he smiles up at Steve, hair a wild mess and with nothing but hunger in his eyes—Steve has to bite down on his lip to keep from telling Eddie he loves him. If Eddie thinks he’s just stifling a moan, so be it.
“Mornin’ Stevie,” Eddie says, licks his lips and then slowly draws his tongue along the slit of Steve’s cock. Steve hisses at the sight as much as the sensation, so hard already he wonders how long it took for him to wake up.
“Morning,” Steve manages to say, brushing his fingertips across Eddie’s cheekbone and sending him a sloppy smile. “Started breakfast without me?”
“You just looked so fucking good, babe, I couldn’t wait.” Eddie lowers his mouth to lick Steve’s balls next, and it takes everything Steve has not to jerk his hips wildly in response. Eddie smiles like he can tell. “You can punish me if you want.”
And god, if Steve doesn’t love it when Eddie’s in a mood like this. He loved most of Eddie’s moods, actually. They were so in sync with their tastes, their desires, their kinks—maybe everything but their feelings for each other.
“Should I make you watch me jerk myself off?” Steve snakes his hand down his chest and grabs his own shaft with a squeeze that makes his breath catch. He watches Eddie’s eyes flare and doesn’t bother to hold back a shaky laugh. “Force you to keep that pretty mouth to yourself?”
As he watches Steve stroke his own cock—still soaked with Eddie’s spit—Eddie bites down on his lip so hard Steve wonders if he might break the skin. Steve uses his free hand to tug Eddie’s lip free, and Eddie doesn’t hesitate to suck Steve’s thumb into his mouth instead. Steve can feel the way Eddie’s spit is thicker with his own precum when Eddie swirls his tongue, sucking Steve’s thumb deeper.
Steve pulls it back and pushes three fingers into Eddie’s mouth instead, reveling in the way Eddie moans and looks up at him like he’s grateful. Steve shoves his fingers in deeper, and Eddie sucks them down as Steve moves them in time with each stroke of his cock.
“Gonna let me fuck your throat?” Steve asks eventually. Eddie’s eyes are pleading as he keens around Steve’s fingers, making a gurgling sound as he nods ferociously. Steve palms the head of his cock before stroking down again, then presses the tip right up against Eddie’s chin. “Fuck, baby. Lemme see what that mouth can do.”
Eddie sucks the tip of Steve’s cock back into his mouth like he’s starved for it. Steve moves his hand to cup the back of Eddie’s head, guiding it as he lets Eddie bob up and down a few times before he starts thrusting up into it. But Eddie seems impatient, makes a needy sort of grumbling sound as he swallows Steve down as far as he can go. His nose presses into the thick nest of Steve’s hair and he looks up at Steve with pride as he sucks in a deep breath through his nose—a plea for more.
Steve’s happy to oblige. He pushes up until Eddie gags and pulls back with a wet, sloppy smile. He comes back for more almost instantly, and Steve trusts Eddie will tell him if it’s too much. He thrusts up again and Eddie moans around his cock, relaxing his throat just at the perfect moment for the vibrations to send frissons of heat straight from Steve’s tip and licking up his spine. He holds Eddie’s head in a firm grip and lets himself get lost in how good it feels, makes sure to tell Eddie just how much.
“God, you were meant to be a pretty mouth to fuck, weren’t you Eds? Like your throat was made for my cock,” Steve says, and Eddie’s eyes roll back as he hums again, sending another wave of electricity through Steve like a serpent eating its own tail of absolute divine pleasure between them. The wet heat of Eddie’s mouth is perfect, he knows just how to press his tongue against the underside of Steve’s cock to make him see stars.
Steve wonders how Eddie can be so good at making Steve come undone without loving him back.
The problem is as much as Steve loves fucking into Eddie’s mouth until he can feel the tip of his dick pressing against Eddie’s perfect, pliant throat, sometimes he thinks he’d like waking up to a deviant round of cuddles just as much.
“Fuck, you’re so goddamn good for me,” Steve whines anyway, fisting Eddie’s hair into a tighter grip and thrusting up into his mouth again. Eddie looks up at Steve like he’s floating on the praise, tears now sparkling on his pretty lashes. The sight alone is nearly enough to make Steve fall apart.
Eddie is good for Steve, he thinks. Good in more than just the way he knows exactly how to turn Steve to putty in his hands, beyond how he can make Steve laugh, or make him feel safe, or even how he’s one of the best friends Steve’s ever had.
Steve really has to start grappling with the fact that he’s in love with Eddie—the little detail might have the power to ruin them forever. Ruin Steve forever. Because he’s the one that went and fell in love when they were supposed to just be fooling around, friends with benefits or whatever the fuck Eddie had called it when they first started this.
When Steve’s being entirely honest with himself, he knows he was in love with Eddie long before their arrangement ever started, but he dove in head first anyway, desperate for an excuse to have Eddie in whatever way he could get him.
It’s never in these moments that he regrets it, not when Eddie fits him so perfectly, knows just what Steve always needs and vice versa. They’ve negotiated every kink in the book, talked through what they like and don’t, fucked each other senseless so many times by now Steve wonders how he’s ever supposed to get hard for anyone else—or love anyone else.
But that part isn’t allowed. Those words are for thoughts only, allowed to stir a yearning ache that takes over Steve’s whole body in waves but never be released aloud into the space between them.
So Steve keeps letting his body say what his mouth can’t and fucks up into Eddie’s throat, desperately chasing a high he can never quite reach. Then Eddie flattens his tongue and relaxes his jaw just right, and Steve barely has time to register the way he feels that familiar tightening in his balls before he’s coming, babbling Eddie’s name like a prayer.
He paints Eddie’s throat in his cum, possessing him in the only way he knows how. Eddie swallows it all down hungrily, then takes the time to lick Steve clean until he’s on the verge of overstimulated and writhing.
“Eds,” Steve pants, using whatever weak grip he still has on Eddie’s hair to pull him away.
“Yeah, Stevie?” Eddie asks, all faux innocence, fluttering eyelashes, and swollen lips—like all he wants is to keep his mouth on Steve’s cock for the rest of their lives.
And there’s another one of those thoughts about forever that Steve has to shove away in earnest, bury deep in as many dirty thoughts as he can heap on top of it before he loses his senses.
He grins wickedly down at Eddie before pulling him the length of his body up for a filthy, salty kiss. Steve can taste himself on Eddie’s tongue, moans into it before hooking his leg over Eddie’s hip and flipping him onto his back. He pulls away slow, sucking Eddie’s bottom lip as he goes, not releasing it until he gives it a little nip.
He sees what’s left of the tear tracks staining Eddie’s cheeks and kisses them away—more salt on his tongue to temper the sweetness that is Eddie.
“You were so perfect, always make me feel so good,” Steve tells him between kisses, inching further down Eddie’s jaw, his neck, his chest as he goes.
“Can’t help that you taste so good, sweetheart,” Eddie purrs, arches his back as Steve starts to twist his nipple piercing between his fingers, before sucking it into his mouth. Steve feels Eddie’s dick twitch against his hip as he laps at his nipple—all cold metal and taut, pebbled skin beneath his hot tongue. He pulls away and looks up at Eddie, who’s watching every move Steve makes with rapt attention.
“My turn,” Steve promises, then sinks down for some breakfast of his own.
Steve almost regrets having to brush his teeth. He feels dirty to think it, shameful even, but he wishes he could keep the taste of Eddie and himself blended together with him all day, the mixture of their cum and spit that coats his mouth and reminds him of exactly how good things with Eddie can be.
“Can anyone make you come like I do, sweetheart?” Eddie had asked after they were both sated and finished, knowing full well what the answer was, is, has always been. Steve just smiled and stretched and avoided the question, but now that he’d retreated to the bathroom to get ready to leave, he can’t think about anything else.
Because he’s afraid it will always be Eddie for him. Not just because the sex is good—it’s phenomenal, but he loved Eddie well before he ever knew how well they could meld together in bed—but because Steve’s heart is so tied to Eddie he’s not sure how he’ll ever untangle those feelings without catastrophic damage.
It’s always this part of their time together that Steve dreads the most, where he inevitably starts to contemplate leaving Eddie behind and never coming back. Just Eddie’s fingers on his skin can make Steve feel more alive than he has in years, yet somehow it makes him feel so empty by the time he cleans up and leaves, that Steve’s not sure how much longer he can do this.
He’s not sure what stupid impulse ever made him think he was cut out for a no-strings-attached situation, but he curses it every time he feels like this.
Steve thinks it’s almost worse that Eddie’s never an asshole about it. He’s always more than happy for Steve to spend the night, to lay cuddled together in a tangled mess of limbs, talking and joking all night long—or at least until they’re ready to go again. Eddie’s always willing to let Steve make him breakfast the next morning, or to make Steve’s coffee perfectly and do the whole domestic thing that drives Steve even more wild than the orgasms do.
Steve never feels like Eddie’s just using him for sex and somehow, beyond all of Steve’s deductive reasoning abilities, that’s become a huge problem. Steve loves every minute of it, every ounce of affection Eddie showers him with, but once he’s left to sneak back into his own house (or Eddie’s off to do the same), reality sinks in that Steve might have Eddie, but he doesn’t really have him in the way he wants to. Needs to.
He and Eddie were clear when they started this. Friends with benefits. Nothing more, nothing less. They would be each other’s ports in a storm against the lashing tides of loneliness. Because they liked each other, trusted each other, and it seems so silly to let all that attraction, all that sexual compatibility, go to waste.
Steve caught feelings anyway.
Well, if Steve was being honest like Robin wanted him to be, he’d caught feelings before he ever even agreed to the whole arrangement. That’s why Robin was so adamantly against it. Not because she didn’t like Eddie—he was her girlfriend’s best friend. In the same way Chrissy loved Steve, Robin loved Eddie.
Both of them seemed to hate the idea of Steve and Eddie, though.
So mostly they snuck around. It wasn’t terribly difficult, even though Steve lived with Robin and Eddie lived with Chrissy, considering Robin and Chrissy stayed together most nights. All Steve and Eddie had to do was suss out whose place would be empty most of the time, and then manage to sneak back home before either one of their friends noticed they’d been gone.
Steve had memorized the exact way to flip open the mechanism on his and Robin’s garden gate without making it creak in the night, just below Robin’s bedroom window, as he came home from what was starting to feel like a clandestine affair.
Eddie, for his part, had every stair that creaked on the way up to his bedroom in his and Chrissy’s place memorized, so as not to alert her when he was coming home at all hours of the night.
It’s working out fine, except for that empty feeling that’s a growing cavern in Steve’s chest. And it’s getting harder and harder for him to ignore.
Steve knows he has to find a way to extricate himself from this mess he’s made, to somehow clean up his own sloppy feelings and shove them back inside a lock box in his chest without letting Eddie know anything is actually wrong, without insulting him and damaging their friendship in the process.
Because even if Steve knows he has to stop sleeping with Eddie, he can’t fathom the idea of losing him altogether.
The first step is probably getting the hell out of Eddie’s apartment, however.
Steve finally spits his toothpaste into the sink, watching all remnants of the morning washing down the drain with an ache in his ribcage.
Like clockwork, Eddie slips into the bathroom behind him and wraps his arms around Steve’s middle. He hums into the crook of Steve’s neck and says, “Coffee’s ready, sweetheart.”
And just like that Steve’s staying for coffee, too.
There’s absolutely no way that Steve’s gonna make it home before Robin gets up now. He knows he’s in for it, that he’ll have to make up an excuse about some one-night stand he somehow managed to pick up after he’d left Eddie’s the night before.
The entire walk home, he curses himself for admitting to Robin that he was planning on seeing Eddie at all.
Robin’s sitting at the kitchen table waiting for him when he gets home. Steve takes a quick look around, finds no extra shoes by the door, no spare jacket still hanging on the hook. So Chrissy isn’t still here to also witness his lovestruck humiliation, or however Robin’s planning to dress him down over it, at least.
Steve doesn’t bother trying to dodge his fate when he takes in Robin’s face. She looks stern, sure, but also sad in a way that Steve can’t possibly ignore. He goes to sit beside her, probably looking like the picture of guilt the whole way.
“Where’ve you been?” she asks by way of greeting. Steve bites his lip, but Robin stops even the semblance of a lie from percolating on the tip of his tongue with a tired sigh. “Just tell me.”
“Eddie’s,” Steve mumbles, then pillows his head in his folded arms across the tabletop. “Go ahead and yell.”
“I’m not gonna yell, Steve,” Robin says softly, and that only makes him feel worse.
“No, I think I really need it,” he says, looking up at her again without lifting his head.
“And that’s how I know you don’t,” Robin counters, patting the top of his head sympathetically. “Three times a week for four months seems to have finally knocked some sense into you.”
Steve can’t help it, he feels himself gawking at her. “How did you…?”
“Chrissy and I aren’t idiots, Steve,” Robin rolls her eyes at him with more affection than he feels like he deserves. “Just because you figured out how not to make the gate creak doesn’t mean you don’t come home smelling like him. Like right now.”
Steve actually thought he did a pretty good job at covering up Eddie’s scent, but he always hates doing it. Maybe he’d been subconsciously sabotaging his own efforts.
“Plus, Chrissy and I went back to hers one night and totally heard you two going at it,” Robin adds with a shrug. “Apparently you were so loud you didn’t notice us stumbling-drunk into the apartment and crashing for the night.”
“When was this?” Steve asks.
“I think the same week you swore to us both that you weren’t going to mess around anymore, that you were ‘just friends and that was it. Pinkie swear.’” Robin gives him a skeptical look, like she thought maybe he was cursed just for breaking the sanctity of a pinkie swear to his best friend.
She was probably right.
Steve tries to think back to that week, that day even, when he and Eddie decided they’d had enough of Chrissy and Robin’s judgmental looks over their relationship, if you could even call it that. Steve was pretty sure that was the same night Eddie had surprised him with a cock ring. So yeah, that might’ve distracted him even from armageddon commencing, let alone the fact that there were people in the next room.
“Sorry,” Steve mutters. He genuinely is if Robin and Chrissy had to listen to that night.
“Remember how you caught us in the kitchen a week later?” Robin asks, and Steve does. A little too vividly for his taste, actually.
“Payback?” Steve guesses, and Robin just grins. “I guess I deserved that. What about Eddie, though? Did he get payback too?”
“Oh, we did the same to him,” Robin assures him.
“Thorough.”
“We really are,” Robin waggles her eyebrows at him before turning back to the topic at hand. “Seriously though. What happened?”
“Nothing,” Steve feels his shoulders deflate with a sigh. “It was the same as it always is—fucking amazing. And it’s not just the sex, Rob. He’s amazing. He makes me laugh and he’s so goddamn cute and I don’t even know why because he’s a dork but…”
“You love him,” Robin fills in, and Steve feels like he might cry if he admits it out loud. So instead he just nods once, stiffly, then swallows thick so he can try and move the conversation along.
“I can’t keep leaving there pretending I don’t want him for real, you know?” Steve asks, and Robin hums along like she does. Of course she does, because she seems to know everything that goes on in Steve’s head. “It’s eating me up inside. So I’m going to end it. I have to end it. Can you…fuck. Can you help me, Robbie?”
Robin takes his hand and clasps it between her own so quickly, it feels like she’s shoved a giant weight off Steve’s chest. “Of course I will, dingus.”
“Okay,” Steve lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding onto. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Robin says matter of factly.
Like clockwork, Steve’s phone dings.
Eddie: holy shit, Stevie!!!!! Jeff says Ghost is coming here in sept!!!! we HAVE to go, please say we’re gonna go 🥺🥺🥺👻👻👻🥺🥺🥺
Steve knows he’s grinning like a fool at his phone, despite the distinctly depressing conversation he’s in the middle of with Robin. He feels her eyes on him as he types out a response. If he’s teasing Eddie on purpose, Robin doesn’t need to know that. Plus, it’s not like he said he’d stop being friends with Eddie. Just that he’d stop fucking him. They could surely go to a concert together without fucking. Right?
Steve: I don’t even like Ghost
Three little dots pop up faster than Steve can blink. He prepares himself for a lot of punctuation.
Eddie: what!!!!!!!!!
Eddie: sacrilege!!!
Eddie: how can you say such a thing?!?!?!
Eddie: okay you might be teasing me so….really??
Eddie: cause you like fuckin’ e v e r y t h i n g
Steve: That’s a mean way to call someone bisexual
“Ahem,” Robin clears her throat, making Steve jerk his head back up to look at her. “What’s so funny in your phone?”
“Just a meme Dustin sent me,” Steve lies. He’ll find a random meme if he has to, but he doesn’t think it will matter either way based on the way Robin is narrowing her eyes at him. He’s saved by another ding.
Eddie: i just snorted coffee through my nose and everyone at work is staring
Steve: 😈
Steve laughs out loud as he types his reply, hits send just a millisecond before Robin snatches his phone from his hands. She gives him a disappointed look before she reads the conversation aloud just to rub Steve’s nose in it.
“Oh, apparently Gareth is reenacting the coffee snort, now,” Robin informs him as he makes a diving grab for his phone back. She dodges him easily, because apparently she’s got a measured athletic grace that kicks in when Steve needs her clumsiness the most. “He says you must all hate him.”
“Robin,” Steve grits through his teeth. “I’m sorry, okay? But he’ll know something’s up if I start ignoring him.”
“If you don’t at least avoid him for now you’re never gonna make it, Steve,” Robin says, matter of fact, and Steve knows she’s right. He doesn’t know how to maneuver this without ruining their friendship, too.
Sometimes he worries it’s already well beyond ruined, and he’s just in denial about it.
“So what do you suggest?” Steve asks, folding his arms across his chest. “I can’t…I can’t tell him the truth, Rob. He’ll be nice about it while he rejects me and it’ll kill me. And I can’t just ghost him.”
Steve winces at his lack of a better term.
“You won’t be,” Robin shrugs easily. “I’ll keep your phone for now. Pretend to be you and respond to him. You know. How friends do.”
“That was friendly!” Steve insists.
“That was flirting,” Robin counters.
“How am I supposed to get around without my phone!” Steve deflects.
“I’ll give you mine,” Robin says easily, almost like she thinks it’ll be fun. “We’ll be fine, we do it all the time by accident anyway.”
And, well, she’s not exactly wrong about that. They’re signed into all of each other’s social media and other accounts anyway, just by virtue of how they share phones like they do clothes. And thoughts.
“Fine. But don’t be mean to him,” Steve warns.
“I told you, Steve. Nothing but friendly,” Robin grins and types out a response to whatever Eddie’s saying now. Steve gets the feeling she won’t fill him in, and is proved right when she locks the phone and a wicked grin takes over her face.
Steve is a little scared of whatever plan she has cooking up.
“You know the best way to get over someone?” she asks.
“How…” Steve’s voice is so flat it can hardly be considered a question.
“Get under somebody else.”
“Rob,” Steve protests immediately. He can’t even think about someone else yet. Maybe ever.
“Come on, Nancy’s coming to town tomorrow, Chris and I were gonna take her out for a girls night. Nothing crazy. Just a bar or two. You should come with us. See if you can meet someone…distracting. And uncomplicated,” Robin puts her best pouty, puppy eyes on. The ones she knows Steve can never resist.
He already knows he’ll say yes, but he deflects anyway. “Your solution to me getting over Eddie is taking me out with Nancy?”
“I did not say you should sleep with Nancy, you creep,” Robin groans and flicks his forehead. “If anyone is taking Nance home at the end of the night, it’s me and Chrissy.”
Well that certainly achieved the distract-Steve-from-his-misery goal in a two seconds flat. He feels his eyebrows shoot up into his hair as he half-shouts, “And that’s not complicated?!”
Steve knew Robin probably wouldn’t want to hear it, but he was willing to draw on certain throupled experiences of his own with Tommy and Carol from their college days in warning of how that path was anything but simple. Robin seems to know that’s exactly what he’s thinking anyway, because she scrunches up her nose and barrels right past any opportunity for him to bring it up.
“Not with healthy communication about expectations, dingus,” she says simply.
“I thought I did that with Eddie,” Steve points out with a huff. “Look how that turned out.”
“Yeah, except you lied about how you really felt,” Robin says, voice dripping with exasperation.
“Oh. Right,” Steve mutters. She had a point. “Guess I’m coming to girl’s night, then.”
Somehow “Girl’s Night” turned into “Let’s Pick Out a Date for Steve Night” instead, and he’s already regretting agreeing to come. Robin and Nancy are really into it, scouring the bar for potential partners and rating them on a scale of one to ten based on what they think Steve will like.
It’s a little bit more illuminating about what they think of his taste than he’s willing to examine.
Chrissy at least seems to be taking pity on Steve, and is keeping up with him beer for beer as they watch a baseball game on the bar’s TV. Steve can still feel her concerned eyes on him every once in a while, though, like Robin’s told her exactly the state he came home in the morning before.
Or maybe Eddie’s talked to her about the sudden shift in tone in Steve’s texts, how it’s obvious something has changed between them and it’s freaking Eddie out as much as it is Steve. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
Steve’s not proud of it, the way he’s agreed to let Robin pretend to be him so he can take the space to breathe. But he just needs to not to get caught up in the whirlwind of Eddie and his charm, or the way he draws Steve in faster than any moth has been to a flame. So he gave Robin his phone, asked her to screen for anything important, and has been sticking to it for a solid thirty-six hours now.
Robin’s definition of important might differ slightly from his own, considering she hasn’t informed him of anything since yesterday, but that’s well enough for Steve. Maybe she has a point about not needing to respond to every text from Dustin within thirty seconds of receiving it, too.
She’s certainly right to keep him in the dark, mushroom style, every time he asks if Eddie’s called.
He’s stuck ruminating about it pretty hard when Robin elbows him in the ribs to get his attention.
“Him,” she says with all of the conviction Steve’s ever heard in her voice. He turns to follow her gaze until his eyes finally land on the guy in question, only a couple of barstools away from the table they’re huddled over together.
He’s not exactly an Eddie clone, but it’s close enough that if Eddie were to walk in while Steve was hypothetically talking to him, it would send a message for sure. He’s got dirty blonde, shaggy hair that’s not nearly as curly or long as Eddie’s, but also can’t be described as anything but a mane. He’s wearing a t-shirt for a band Steve’s never heard of and jeans that hug his ass so nicely that Steve’s almost tempted.
“I don’t think so,” Steve sighs and sinks further into the booth.
“Why not?” Nancy asks, and catches Chrissy and Robin exchanging a look. “What?”
“Eddie,” they say in unison, and Nancy gets a look on her face like sense has dawned on her once again.
“You’re still not fucking together, but you are still hung up on him?” Nancy rounds on Steve. “Seriously?”
“I—” Steve tries to respond, but Robin cuts him off.
“Well they’re fucking plenty,” she says, going the extra mile to rat him out fully.
“Rob,” Steve protests, giving her ankle kick under the table. Robin just shrugs while Chrissy snorts at their antics, used to them by now.
“You’re both so stupid,” Nancy grumbles before taking another swig of her drink.
Steve’s more tempted to go talk to the random hot guy now just to get away from the disapproving vibe at the table. The temptation only increases when he takes in the man’s hands—they’re strong hands, big and rugged like one of this guy’s hobbies requires some muscle out of them.
It only takes the man’s green eyes sliding over to watch Steve back, then an appreciative smirk lobbed in his direction, for Steve to make up his mind.
“He’s been checking you out for at least ten minutes,” Robin says, laying it on a little thicker. She’s lucky Steve is even willing to listen to her advice right now—and that this guy is attractive as fuck.
“At least he won’t give me shit over Eddie,” Steve grumbles at them as he goes to say hello. The stool beside the man is empty, so Steve slips into it easily and gives him one of the best Harrington Charm smiles he’s got on deck. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“Woah, not even a pick up line first?” the guy asks, and his flirtatious smile is cute as hell, Steve will admit.
“Do I really need one?” Steve asks, tilting his head as he does.
“Oh, so he’s cocky and handsome,” the other man nods seriously. “Deadly combination.”
Steve laughs, and it’s easier than he expected it to be. There’s still a hole in his heart that he doesn’t know quite how to sew up tight, but having a drink with this man—whose name is Derek, he learns—and his easy smile makes it just a little bit easier to ignore for now.
He’s not really planning on going much further than a little bit of flirting, maybe exchanging numbers if he’s feeling reckless. He’s really not in a place to do anything but take whatever ego boost Derek’s willing to provide. Maybe that’s not fair of him, exactly, but Robin’s right about one thing, at least: he’s distracted enough not to feel completely miserable for a while. Steve lets himself get lost in the simplicity of it, finds the flow of flirting without the weight of confusion and a million what if’s weighing him down.
It’s all going so well until he hears Eddie’s voice clambering through the crowd, from somewhere around where the girls are sitting.
“What the fuck, Chrissy,” Eddie’s question carries, and Steve’s whole body locks up in tension in an instant.
“What?” Chrissy asks, sounding the picture of innocence. Nothing follows, so Steve assumes Eddie’s just making a face at her, since silent communication is one of their strong suits as well. Then Chrissy laughs and says, “Well, he has a type I guess.”
And oh, Steve’s not ready for whatever’s coming next.
“Did I just stumble into a scenario where you’re trying to make your boyfriend jealous?” Derek asks, and Steve really wishes he’d just stayed home.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Steve says truthfully, yet artfully leaving out some context. He doesn’t really think Eddie has the right to act jealous in the first place, so Steve thinks a little bit of bewilderment on his part is also warranted.
“Ex, then?” Derek guesses, still eyeing Eddie over Steve’s shoulder. Steve doesn’t have the courage to turn around and look.
“He’s just a friend,” Steve sighs at the truth of it, can hear the disappointment in his voice.
Derek can too.
“He looks like he’s thinking about kicking my ass,” he says, sounding less impressed by the second.
“He is not going to do anything—” Steve’s decisive reply is cut off by a hand on his elbow. He’d know that touch anywhere. It’s gentle but demanding, soft yet strong enough to fall to pieces for.
All of a sudden Eddie’s crowding between them, somehow turning one of his more charming smiles into a sneer sent in Derek’s direction. But then his focus lands on Steve, and for a moment it seems like the rest of the room goes silent.
“Can I talk to you?” Eddie asks, eyes almost begging.
Steve can’t believe Eddie’s acting like this just because he’s talking to someone else, can’t believe that for a minute he considers going along with it. He turns to apologize to Derek. “I’m sor—”
But Eddie’s already dragging him off by the elbow. Steve just barely hears Derek say something like, “Why am I always the one that makes them get their shit together?” to his friend before they’re both out of earshot.
Eddie leads Steve out the back door and into an alley beside the bar. He slips his hands into Steve’s back pockets, manhandling him until his back is against the brick and giving his ass a firm squeeze.
“Are you trying to drive me crazy, Stevie?” he asks, an unknowable and wild look in his eye.
It feels twisted even to think, but Steve isn’t sure if he’s more irritated or elated from this reaction out of Eddie. He wonders if he should have started flirting with other people in bars sooner, but he runs with the irritation outwardly.
“What is wrong with you?” he asks, ignoring Eddie’s question entirely. “Since when did you turn into a jealous maniac?”
“That was hardly maniacal,” Eddie scoffs, but there’s this desperate sheen overtaking his whole face that Steve’s never seen before. It quickly disappears behind one of Eddie’s many masks, but Steve still caught it. It’s enough to give his pathetic heart a little jolt of hope—hope that morphs into white hot flames that envelope his whole body when Eddie slips one hand around Steve’s front to grab his dick through his pants. He grins when he feels how Steve’s already getting hard. “I’ll show you maniacal.”
Then Eddie’s kissing him, as possessive and needy as Steve’s ever felt his lips before. There’s nothing soft about it. Every ounce of desperation he saw on Eddie’s face just a moment before is now cascading into the kiss, a hot clash of tongues and teeth like Eddie’s trying to devour him whole.
Because they don’t talk about their feelings, they only do.
Steve just wishes it didn’t feel so goddamn good.
He threads his fingers through Eddie’s hair and pours himself back into what little space is left between them. Eddie bites down on Steve’s bottom lip and growls, all grasping greed and bravado before he soothes it over with his tongue. Steve opens his mouth and lets Eddie in, just like he’s been doing all these months, can’t help it when he feels like all Eddie wants is for Steve to be his.
I am, I am, I swear I’m yours, Steve’s traitor heart chants in his chest, and he’s afraid Eddie can hear it in every beat.
Steve pushes further into Eddie until their chests are pressed together and hips flush. Eddie groans into the contact, rolls his tongue against Steve’s and slots his thigh between Steve’s legs. Steve grinds down onto him just as Eddie pushes up, not a care in the world for how they’re dry-humping in an alleyway like animals.
Steve’s panting he’s missed this so much, and it’s barely been a couple of days. He knows he shouldn’t (promised himself he wouldn’t), but he’s leaning into it. Then Eddie’s hand is on his dick, and he’s losing himself in a sea of want and need and touch and Eddie. Steve can’t believe how he’s gone from vaguely flirting with a stranger to fully hard in a back alley and breaking his promise to himself—to Robin, too—in about two minutes flat.
The thought of Robin snaps him back to reality and he pulls away with a gasp.
“We can’t,” Steve says, but not before Eddie’s already moved to kissing his neck, biting along the underside of his jaw next.
“Why not,” Eddie murmurs against Steve’s skin without stopping. Steve’s hips move of their own accord, grinding into Eddie again as he curses himself.
“Because,” Steve says weakly, trying to remember why he said that in the first place. Robin, some rational voice supplies in the back of his head. And your goddamn dignity.
Steve’s eyes fly open and his hands fist in Eddie’s shirt, which Eddie mistakes as a sign of excitement. He chuckles darkly against Steve’s neck, and Steve has to muster every bit of self control he’s ever had in his life.
“Eddie, stop,” he says, somehow managing to keep his voice flat. Eddie does instantly, before he looks back at Steve with that same quiet desperation in his eyes again.
Steve realizes he’s scared.
Eddie tries to cover it with a joke. “Not as into sex in public as last month?”
“Not into sex with you right now,” Steve clarifies, and somehow he finds the annoyance in his chest again, buried somewhere down deep beneath all the layers of lust. And love. Which is why he’s doing this, Steve reminds himself.
He loves Eddie too much to lose him over it—or to lose himself in it.
“What did I do?” Eddie asks, voice straining.
“Nothing,” Steve says, because it’s true. Eddie hasn’t done anything wrong, it’s Steve and his feelings that are all fucked up here. The only thing Eddie’s done is dare not to love Steve back, just like he promised he wouldn’t. But Eddie’s face is crumpling, and Steve can’t stand to watch it. It makes him a little mad that Eddie even gets to look heartbroken, when it’s Steve’s that’s shattering right there in between them. “I just—need some time to myself, Eddie. Okay?”
Eddie’s shaking his head already, though, and Steve’s scared he’s being too vague, that nebulous reasons won’t cut it.
“You keep calling me that,” Eddie says. He finally pulls away entirely, putting space between them that Steve feels like a knife in the gut.
“What?” he asks.
“Eddie.”
“That’s your name,” Steve deflects. He knows exactly what Eddie means, that Eddie feels as foreign coming out of Steve’s mouth as Steve does Eddie’s.
“Not from you,” Eddie clarifies.
Steve doesn’t know how to do this. He has to get out of there. “Just…not now. Okay?”
He doesn’t give Eddie the chance to reply before he turns on his heel and runs back inside.
At first Steve thinks Eddie’s not going to follow him. He goes back to the booth where the girls are sitting to find them all looking at him expectantly. He can’t try to parse what they’re thinking, how they might be judging the undoubtedly miserable look on his face, or if they’ve noticed the slight bulge in his pants. He grabs his jacket and tosses some money on the table before telling Robin he’ll see her at home.
It’s that time of night when cabs are already lined up and waiting outside for the drunks to come stumbling out, and Steve finds one with ease. He’s relieved that Eddie seems to have taken the hint and isn’t following him this time.
Steve thinks he’s managed to escape this mess in particular, at least. Avoiding Eddie’s texts and calls won’t fly, not now that they’ve fought over it. But Steve just needs the space to figure out what to do next. He knows he’s an asshole for running away, but he can’t help it in that moment.
He’s wondering why Eddie even showed up tonight, but he shoves the questions away for later. Right now he just needs to flee.
The driver just starts to pull away from the curb when the door opposite Steve flings open, and Eddie hops in the backseat. The cabbie looks startled, but satisfied enough to keep driving when Eddie slams the door shut behind him and turns his wild eyes on Steve.
“What the fuck!” Steve exclaims, because really. What the fuck.
“I need you to talk to me, Steve,” Eddie says. He’s right, the lack of a Stevie feels almost like a death sentence. “Stop avoiding the subject and tell me what’s wrong.”
“Because dragging me off in a fit of jealousy before storming my cab and nearly killing yourself seems like a healthier way to communicate,” Steve scoffs.
“You stopped answering my texts and literally just ran away from me, Steve!” Eddie throws his hands up in exasperation. “You’re not winning any medals there, either.”
“I haven’t stopped responding—” Steve tries, weakly.
“Oh, please.” Eddie’s laugh is a bitter one. “I know it’s been Robin texting me. I can tell the difference.”
Steve doesn’t point out that no one else has seemed to notice their little phone swap. Instead of trying to read into how well Eddie knows him, he tries to get back on track.
“Eddie,” Steve all but grits his name through his teeth. “When I said I can’t do this right now, I meant that.”
“But why can’t you?” Eddie asks, and as annoyed as they both sound, there’s a current of misery beneath Eddie’s tone that threatens to crack Steve’s heart into a billion shards of glass. “Yesterday morning everything was fine, Stevie. Then something completely beyond my control and knowledge seems to have happened to make you hate me, and you won’t talk to me? Or even look at me?”
“I don’t hate you,” Steve mutters under his breath. He crosses his arms and looks forward, trying to seal his lips shut before he says anything else that might bury him.
“What?” Eddie asks, and every precaution Steve has taken (and not) to avoid this moment has utterly failed him.
“I said I don’t hate you, alright?” Steve all but explodes. He turns to Eddie, who’s staring at his hands in his lap instead of looking Steve in the face. He just jumped into a damn moving vehicle, complained about Steve not looking at him, but now he’s only got eyes for the rings on his pretty fingers. Steve’s so wrung out, pulled taught with exhaustion from holding it in, he throws caution to the wind. Partly because he doesn’t know how else to deal with this, and partly because he’s lost his last bit of sense that’s been keeping it back. “Because I fucking love you. And you don’t love me like that! So I’m trying to unlove you as quickly as possible so everything doesn’t get even more fucked up than it already is, okay? There. That’s my terrible secret, Eds. Are you happy now?”
Eddie doesn’t look up, not right away, and Steve’s heart seizes in his chest. He can’t believe he finally said it out loud, can’t believe how it’s both a relief and absolutely agonizing now that it’s hanging in the air between them.
Behind the curtain of Eddie’s hair it’s hard to see for sure, but Steve still doesn’t think he imagines the way Eddie’s lips twitch.
Eddie finally looks up and Steve’s proven right—his smile is wicked but warm, and there’s a mischief dancing in his eyes where they were filled with fear just a moment ago.
It doesn’t seem like Eddie’s reacting poorly, but Steve’s not entirely sure what to make of it.
“That look in your eye terrifies me,” he admits, and Eddie just laughs. A delighted sound that pools in Steve’s belly and heats him through.
“There’s a fine line between terrified and turned on, Stevie,” Eddie practically crows. The teasing lilt of his voice has Steve’s stomach doing backflips.
“What does that even mean?” Steve’s pretty sure it’s not bad, but he really can’t be sure when his anxiety is blazing through his senses like wildfire.
“It means I fucking love you, too.”
The force of it hits Steve head on, sending him careening into a cloud of relief and shock and unadulterated joy. He stares at Eddie, gobsmacked, can’t possibly believe this is the outcome from finally admitting how he feels.
But he did. He said the words aloud, and then Eddie said them back. Tentatively, he reaches out for Eddie’s hand, brushes his fingertips across the back of it. Eddie smiles again, almost shy, and wraps Steve’s hand up in his own.
Then he pulls Steve in to kiss him.
It’s sweet, this time, careful like they’re afraid to tread on thin ice. But Eddie’s lips are the same as they ever were; and now they’ve gone and told Steve that Eddie loves him, too, so Steve cherishes them even more than with all of the other kisses that came before. Eddie squeezes his hand, smiles against Steve’s mouth.
“Can I take you home now?” Eddie asks. “I promise you can keep yelling if you need to.”
Steve laughs, and it’s the lightest he’s felt in ages. “Yes, please.”
He catches the driver grinning at them in the rearview a few times on the rest of their way home.
Steve’s hard-on only grows more urgent on their way from the car up to his bedroom, even though Eddie’s barely laid a finger on him. It’s the anticipation that’s getting to him more than anything, the promise of this night and many more to come.
Because Eddie loves him.
They’ve both already peeled their shirts and shoes and jackets off and discarded them along the way to Steve’s bed, and Eddie’s shoving Steve up against the bedroom door before Steve even has it closed behind them. Then he’s kissing Steve everywhere, his jaw, his chest, his mouth, like he’s checking that every fiber of Steve is real—that his loving Eddie in return isn’t some kind of mirage.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Steve asks as Eddie works on sucking a mark into his neck.
Eddie pulls back, searching Steve’s eyes for any sign that he’s joking—like he thinks the answer should be obvious. “I didn’t want to lose this. Lose you.”
Steve doesn’t point out the irony that they almost lost each other for the same stupid goddamn reason. Instead, he says, “I’m not going anywhere, Eds.”
Then Eddie’s kissing him again, feral, like hearing Steve say the words has awoken a new hunger inside of him. Eddie’s slender fingers move to take Steve’s pants off in a hurry, shoves them down just far enough to free Steve’s erection before moving to take off his own—he’s in a rush, and Steve can’t exactly blame him.
Eddie manages to get his pants down around his ankles before Steve can get hands on him. Steve spits in his own hand to add to the slick of precum already leaking out of the tip of Eddie’s cock.
“Fuck, Stevie,” Eddie hisses as Steve gives him a few firm pumps. But he replaces Steve’s grip as he crowds in closer, nudges his cock against Steve's in a slow but urgent slide. “Ah, shit—that’s better.”
Steve laughs through a moan, finds it cute that Eddie thinks he’s gonna stay in charge for long. For the moment he leans into it, though, grinds back against Eddie at his pace, accepting the sloppy glide of their cocks against one another just for a little bit of relief through the friction.
Then Steve’s cock catches Eddie’s frenulum at just the right angle, and Eddie lets out a strangled whimper that tells Steve they have to slow down. This is the first time they’re having sex after saying I love you, and maybe it makes Steve a hopeless romantic, but he wants to savor it.
So he grabs two fistfuls of Eddie’s hair and drags him in for a kiss, laps his tongue against Eddie’s and swallows down his shallow breaths with greed. Then he gives Eddie’s hair a tug until he’s looking back at Steve through heavy lidded eyes—they know each other’s signals so well by now that Eddie gets the message to slow his hips without anything more.
“What do you want?” Steve rasps before tugging Eddie’s earlobe between his teeth.
“Just you,” Eddie replies with ease, and Steve’s stomach swoops. Still, it’s an answer that won’t do.
“Use your words, baby,” Steve tuts.
“I am,” Eddie retorts with a playful whine. Steve looks at him skeptically. “I mean it! Are you really gonna boss me around when I just told you I love you?”
“Well, I did say it first. So, yeah,” Steve shrugs, nonchalant. It’s too easy to get Eddie worked up, he can’t help himself. “Plus, I’m pretty sure you love me because I boss you around.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Eddie’s whole face softens, and Steve knows they’re not teasing anymore. He cups Steve’s cheek and somehow inches a little bit closer, until Steve can feel the cold metal of Eddie’s nipple ring pressing into the overheated skin of his bare chest. “I love you for so much more than just that.”
Steve melts into Eddie’s hands, wants to ask him to list all the reasons without sounding needy. Instead he decides they’ve got time, that right now he just needs Eddie, however he can get him.
Steve pulls him back in for a sloppy kiss as he moves them towards the bed. As soon as Eddie hits the edge of the mattress he sits, and Steve takes the break between them as an opportunity to get his pants the rest of the way off as Eddie does the same.
Eddie looks up at him, waiting, like Steve could literally demand anything in the world from him in that moment and Eddie would do it. He does wrap his hands around Steve’s hips and make a request, though.
“I want you to do something really devious, Stevie. I’m talking filthy stuff,” he admits. There’s mischief playing in his gaze, and Steve can’t wait to find out why.
“Oh?” he buys in. “What’s that?”
“I want you look me in the eye while you let me fuck you,” Eddie leans forward to kiss along Steve’s stomach, looking up at him with wide, pleading eyes the whole time. “I want you to see just how much I love you, while you tell me exactly how good it feels to have my cock so deep inside you that it feels like we’ll never be apart. Because I never want you to doubt it again.”
Steve holds Eddie’s gaze for a breath that catches deep in his lungs before he feels a slow smile take over his face. As if he could deny such a pretty face, asking so nicely.
As if he could deny Eddie anything.
“Lay back,” Steve instructs, and Eddie hastens to do just that. Once he’s propped up on the pillows, Steve grabs his bottle of lube from the bedside table and tosses it on the bed. Then he climbs in, straddling Eddie’s waist and sliding their cocks together once more just to get another breathy moan out of the beautiful man beneath him. He slicks his hand with lube before jerking Eddie off a few times with it. “You wanna watch me ride your perfect cock? Watch how good you make me feel while I come apart on it?”
“Fuck, Stevie,” Eddie hisses. “Yes, please.”
“What’re you gonna do for me?” Steve asks, likes drawing it out until Eddie gets whiny about it.
“Gonna fill you up, be so so good for you,” Eddie promises. “I’ll leave you full of my cum just so everyone will know you’re mine, and I’m yours.”
“You’re so fuckin’ perfect, Eds.” Steve smirks down at him, and Eddie preens. Steve uses more lube on his fingers and reaches behind himself, slicks his hole before slipping two fingers inside. He fingers himself just to make Eddie watch, delighting in the way Eddie’s cock leaks a little bit more when Steve groans at that first stretch his knuckles provide. Once he’s desperate for more, Steve leans down and grabs Eddie’s chin before licking into his mouth.
“Gonna ride you until we both come, but only if you’re good for me,” Steve murmurs, and Eddie shivers beneath him.
“Anything you want, Stevie,” Eddie agrees in a single breath. “Use me, claim me, I don’t fuckin’ care I just need—fuck—”
Eddie’s blathering begging is replaced with a high whine as Steve lines up his cock and sinks down onto it slowly, inch by inch until Eddie’s bottomed out and fisting Steve’s sheets like it might kill him.
“Shhh,” Steve soothes, even though he’s the one that feels so full he might split in two. He rubs careful circles around Eddie’s nipples while they both adjust, enjoying the way it makes Eddie twitch beneath him. Slowly, Steve leans down to lay more of his weight on Eddie until they’re chest to chest. The extra stretch of his hole around Eddie’s cock as he moves is so delicious, nearly consuming when coupled with the way his own cock gets a little bit of friction as it rubs against Eddie’s stomach.
Eddie closes the rest of the space between them, kisses Steve messily as his hands find their place on Steve’s hips. Neither of them move yet, happy just to feel each other for a blinding moment of anticipation.
Once Steve catches a little bit of his breath he leans back a fraction, brushes some of the hair away from Eddie’s face and just breathes him in.
“You feel so—” Eddie whimpers as Steve clenches around him, “—fucking good, Stevie.”
“You too, Eds,” Steve purrs, and Eddie grips his hips harder. “You ready?”
“For you?” Eddie’s eyes light up and his voice slips back into something velvety. “Always.”
Steve can’t help it, his cock twitches between them, leaves a fresh trail of precum leaking on the skin of both of their stomachs. He groans, fully aware he can’t take it anymore as he starts to ride Eddie’s cock. The wet slide of it is intoxicating, the way Eddie fills him up so perfectly it feels like they were always meant to do this. He stays pressed close to Eddie to start, setting a slow enough pace to drive them both wild with every roll of his hips. Eddie stays patient though, doesn’t try to speed Steve’s pace or even thrust up into him as he moves.
“You’re doing so good for me,” Steve praises as he sits up again, plants his hands on Eddie’s chest for better leverage. Steve’s cock bobs between them as he grinds his hips into a rhythm, and Eddie watches it and bites his lip like he’s straining not to touch it. Steve smiles down at him. “Look so fucking gorgeous beneath me, Eds.”
“Fuck,” Eddie gasps, squeezes Steve’s hips tighter as his hips finally stutter up at the praise. It’s barely a thrust, but it’s timed just right for Eddie’s cock to graze Steve’s prostate. Steve groans as he rides the shockwave of it, a hot gush of arousal straight up his spine. “Wanna touch you,” Eddie says, eyes pleading again.
Steve considers it for a minute, but slaps Eddie’s hand away when he takes Steve’s pause as permission.
“Not yet,” Steve chides, deciding to slip his fingers through Eddie’s instead to hold his hand in check.
“What about my other hand?” Eddie asks in a challenge, somehow managing to be a smartass in such a compromising position. He waggles the fingers on his left hand for effect, and Steve has to bite back a laugh. He does slow his pace down to a near stop, earning a pathetic little whimper out of Eddie in return.
Steve grins down at him sweetly.
“I could always tie you up instead,” Steve threatens with a raised brow.
“Tempting.” Eddie swallows thickly, gives Steve’s hand a squeeze. “But no thanks. Hold my hand, please.”
“Sap,” Steve smiles. He takes Eddie’s other hand in his own, too, before pushing both of them into the mattress beside Eddie’s head as he leans forward again, grinding his cock into the solid yet soft flesh of Eddie’s belly again.
“You started it,” Eddie grins up at him—a dopey, lovesick sort of grin that Steve really should have realized meant Eddie loved him back ages ago.
He can’t get caught up in that now.
“So you wanna jerk me off, huh?” Steve asks as he starts to grind down on Eddie’s cock again. Eddie just nods, biting his lip like he’s afraid he’ll say something bratty and make Steve stop again. Smart boy. “Gonna make you earn it, Eds. Use your pretty cock as a ride for as long as I want before you get to touch me. Before I say you can come, too.”
Eddie whines aloud, but doesn’t complain further. “Anything you want, Stevie.”
Steve hums as he presses down on Eddie’s cock again and can’t help but let out a low groan at this angle—knows he needs more.
“Go ahead and fuck me, Eds,” Steve locks his eyes on Eddie’s again, just like he asked for. “I know how bad you want to.”
Eddie doesn’t hesitate, fucks his cock up into Steve’s hole with a perfect, fluid motion that leaves Steve seeing stars. He can’t believe how well-timed Eddie’s thrusts are with hardly any leverage in his position. The drag of his cock inside of Steve is unbearably good, hitting his prostate over and over and leaving that tight ring of muscle burning and clenching for more.
Steve knows he won’t last long like this. And based on the mess of satisfied sounds falling out of Eddie’s mouth with every filthy, slick slap of his hips against Steve’s ass, he won’t either.
“Say it again.” Steve grits out the command through clenched teeth, holding on for dear life as he feels another dribble of Eddie’s hot precum inside of him.
“Wha—” Eddie sucks in a deep breath through his nose, like he’s fraying at the seams trying not to come apart before Steve tells him to. “Say what, Stevie?”
“You know what.” Steve licks Eddie’s top lip, keeps riding him without mercy. Eddie’s already a whimpering, needy mess. His cries are just about the most beautiful thing Steve’s ever heard—at least until the next words out of his mouth, anyway.
“Fuck—sweetheart, I—god I fucking love you so much,” Eddie groans.
Steve clenches to hear it, rolls his hips a little more on Eddie’s next push up inside of him. Eddie whines in that way he only does when he’s near tears, and Steve feels like he’s on fire. “What else?”
“What?” Eddie asks, desperately squeezing Steve’s hands, now. “Stevie, please, I’m so close.”
“Tell me what you need, gorgeous,” Steve coos, genuinely wondering which answer he’ll get out of Eddie.
“You, you, you, y—goddamnit—you,” Eddie babbles. “I only ever need you, sweetheart.”
“F—uck,” Steve hisses, his voice carrying the word out of control like a song with the next drag of his cock against Eddie’s stomach. “You’re such a good boy, Eds—” Eddie groans at that, a guttural sound that Steve feels down to his toes. “Love you so much, need you to come inside me.”
Eddie’s responding moan is so desperate, it’s almost violent what it does to his voice. His hips stutter, and Steve knows hearing the words affect him just as much as they do Steve.
Eddie doesn’t let go right away, though. Instead he nods at Steve’s aching, swollen cock between them. “C—can I? Please? Want you to come with me.”
Steve groans and just releases Eddie’s hands as his permission, wonders if the red marks he left between Eddie’s knuckles will bruise. Eddie’s almost giddy in the way he wraps his ringed finger around Steve’s cock, hitches his other hand to the curve of Steve’s ass in a tight grip to guide his movements.
“Go ahead, pretty boy,” Steve encourages. “Let me see you come.”
With Eddie’s cock buried deep in his ass, Eddie’s hand wrapped around his own cock and jerking him off in perfect strokes, Steve has to hold on not to come right away. But he wants to watch Eddie first, doesn’t want to miss a minute of him losing control. He watches as Eddie’s face contorts and his mouth falls open, drinks in every blissed out sound Eddie makes, rides Eddie faster and somehow keeps himself together until Eddie falls apart.
Eddie’s orgasm is shattering, leaves the very air around them buzzing with the force of it, and his whole body is shaking as he comes with a throaty scream. Steve feels the hot gush of cum inside him, feeling it pushed further in with every broken thrust of Eddie’s hips as Steve rides him through it.
It’s enough to make Steve lose his hold on the edge. He finally goes tumbling over into an all-consuming pit of ecstasy once Eddie’s grip on his cock tightens through the last gasps of his own high.
“Eds—fuck!” Steve cries. He manages to keep his eyes open to watch the spray of cum he leaves all over Eddie’s chest, the way Eddie opens his mouth to try and catch some of it like snowflakes on his tongue. It’s so filthy, so beautiful, that another searing shockwave crests through Steve, his whole body crackling with electricity as the next spurt of cum hits the corner of Eddie’s mouth and chin.
He laps it up greedily, and Steve whines as he watches, mesmerized. Eddie pumps every bit of pleasure out of Steve that he can, until the last fragments of his orgasm are an echo through his limbs and he’s nearly ready to collapse from it. Somehow, Steve manages to stay upright on shaking legs long enough to drag his fingers through some of the cum on Eddie’s stomach. Eddie’s eyes widen as he watches, anticipating what Steve’s next move is with ease.
Steve brings his fingers up to Eddie’s lips, and Eddie’s mouth is already open and waiting for them. Eddie moans around Steve’s middle and forefingers, swirls his tongue around them and lets his eyes fall shut like Steve’s cum is a full-course meal.
“Fuck, you’re so perfect,” Steve praises again, and Eddie hums before releasing Steve’s fingers with a slurping noise that makes Steve’s spent cock twitch pathetically between them.
“All mine,” Eddie says, wipes the last bit of cum from his chin and licks his fingers clean of that, too. “Will never get enough of you, Stevie.”
It’s unbearably sexy, but more than anything it makes Steve’s love-wrecked heart soar.
“Love you,” Steve murmurs, stroking Eddie’s face as he does. Eddie leans into his touch, and even though Steve can feel Eddie’s cock softening inside him, he wants to stay right there forever. “Can we stay like this for a while?”
“God, yes,” Eddie agrees with a low rumble, wrapping his arms around Steve’s middle and bringing him to lay against his chest. Steve goes happily, mess between them be damned. For now he just wants to keep Eddie inside of him for as long as he can, feel the stretch and the fullness and the cum leaking out of him in sated bliss.
“You were so good for me,” Steve tells Eddie, running his fingers through his tangled, sweaty curls. He presses soft kisses to Eddie’s face, revels in the fact that he’s not losing this—that he doesn’t have to go anywhere. “Gonna take such good care of you.”
It feels like a bigger promise than for just that moment, and Eddie hears it too.
“Love you, Stevie,” he whispers before catching Steve’s lips in a kiss. It’s languid, almost lazy with satisfaction. Once more Steve can taste himself on Eddie’s tongue, and instead of it leaving him feeling empty this time, he feels full to burst.
Steve’s not sure how long they stay like that, holding each other tight and unwilling to let go. But eventually Steve moves to get something to clean them both up with before they freeze or end up uncomfortably stuck together. There’s only a slight wobble to his gait as the best kind of soreness starts to set it, even if his legs are still a little shaky. When he makes it to the hallway—stark naked and still with Eddie’s cum leaking out of him—he notices the light beneath Robin’s door is on. Realizing exactly how there’s no talking their way out of this one, he keeps his dash to the bathroom short. He wipes himself down in a hurry before wetting a fresh washcloth and taking it back to Eddie.
He winces as he carefully closes the bedroom door behind him, because he knows there’s a good chance Robin will come barging in if she knows they’re done.
“What’s that face for?” Eddie asks, voice still sleepy.
“Robin’s home,” Steve says guiltily. “And probably Chrissy, too. Which means they’re gonna kill us, because we were loud as fuck.”
For some inexplicable reason, Eddie smiles. With all the conviction in the world he says, “They’re not gonna kill us.”
Steve gives him a confused look, but his curiosity unlocks his body enough to move towards the bed and start taking care of Eddie like he meant to.
For a moment, Steve tries to focus on wiping Eddie’s skin clean. Eddie watches Steve’s soft, deliberate movements as he clears the last of the sweat and cum from Eddie’s chest, careful to get the rest of the lube off the sensitive skin around his now softened cock. Steve’s slept with people who thought this part was gross, who hated the intimacy of sharing it with him. Eddie’s so comfortable, though, soaking in everything Steve does with such affection—no, Steve can say that it’s love now—that it makes Steve’s heart stutter a little happy tune against his ribs.
He loves that Eddie lets him take care of him, that Eddie takes care of Steve right back.
“You’re so good to me, Stevie,” Eddie hums as Steve finally settles back into bed with him. He thinks it’s some kind of minor miracle they didn’t wreck the sheets, too. Or maybe it’s a sign they didn’t try hard enough this go around.
“Yeah, well,” Steve smiles as he snuggles into Eddie’s side, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him close as pillows his head on Eddie’s shoulder. “That’s ‘cause I love you.”
Eddie’s returning smile is so bright, Steve would happily go blind just to keep looking at it. “Mm, as luck would have it? Love you too.”
Steve kisses him with abandon, relishing the way he can leave his heart open and soul bared now. There’s still fear there—that things might go wrong somehow, that Eddie will change his mind and run—but knowing that Eddie feels the same soothes some of that ache, keeps it pinned to an undercurrent that Steve can choose not to focus on. Instead he can let the love float to the top, the way Eddie’s hands in his hair and lips pressed up against his own makes him giddy with the possibility of a future.
“What’d you mean, before?” Steve eventually asks. “Why won’t Rob and Chris kill us when they’ve been trying so hard to keep us apart?”
“Aha, but I suspect they haven’t been, not really,” Eddie says with an almost appreciative smile.
“Explain.”
“Chrissy definitely waited until you were talking to that guy to text me and ask me to come down to the bar,” Eddie says, and Steve feels his jaw drop open more than he allows it.
“She told you to come?” Steve asks, probably more surprised than he should be. “But the whole point of tonight was getting me away from you!”
“Pretty sure the actual whole point of tonight was triggering enough jealousy to make me break,” Eddie shrugs.
“Oh my god,” Steve says, realizing Eddie has it right. “Those schemers.”
“Absolutely conniving,” Eddie agrees. “But it worked.”
“Mmm,” Steve says skeptically, unwilling to give them all that much credit yet. Especially since Steve’s really the one who broke. He doesn’t get to make the distinction before a sharp, loud moan erupts from Robin’s bedroom, however.
Apparently Robin and Chrissy’s payback will be swifter this time around, and Steve wishes they’d taken the cab back to Eddie’s place instead.
Eddie’s eyes go wide as two more distinct voices follow the first. “Is that…?”
“Nancy,” Steve nods with equally wide-eyed realization. He isn’t grossed out by Robin’s sex life, and he knows she’ll tell him everything in the morning whether he hears it happening in real-time or not. He’s more concerned with the fact that he’s going to wake up with three expectant and smug faces waiting for an explanation in the morning, and he’s really not sure there’s any way to prepare for that. “Robin did warn me they might bring her home.”
“How thoughtful of her. Chrissy didn’t bother,” Eddie laughs, but seems willing to let it go as he presses soft kisses into Steve’s neck.
Another round of noises from the other room interrupts their flow, though.
“We’re going to have to come up with a system for choosing which apartment everyone goes to at the end of the night,” Steve points out with a pout. “Between us, and now them? The neighbors are gonna think we’re porn stars.”
Eddie laughs again, clearly delighted that Steve’s apartment has turned into the Horny Place. Steve can’t remember a time he’s seen him this happy. Eddie rolls on top of Steve and brushes two fingertips against his lips, a devious smile playing on his own. “Well, we might as well live up to it the rumors and give them a show, don’t you think?”
He kisses the pout off of Steve’s face and spends the rest of the night giving the performance of a lifetime.
please consider reblogging if you enjoyed! it means the world <3
🌸 affectionately known as Steve the Botanist 🌸
Steddie | Rated T | 6k | cw: language, making out, and some grinding
Read on AO3
Eddie was running late.
That was nothing new, strictly speaking, but after last year’s traffic debacle he swore he’d never be late to his standing dinner date for Chrissy’s birthday again.
And yet there he was, scrambling to find somewhere to buy her a present on the way from his apartment to their favorite restaurant. Eddie was already cutting it close, but if he managed to actually land on something to get her in the next three minutes he was pretty sure he’d be fine.
He’d dodge that same smug and mildly amused Chrissy face this year. There would be no groveling. Eddie was gonna make it.
Stopped at a red light, Eddie’s eyes started drifting. They landed on a vibrant little florist’s shop that sat right up against the edge of the park—the same one that Eddie always looked at fondly from the gay bar across the street without ever actually going inside.
Weathertop Nursery and Florist, the sign out front read, and Eddie wondered if that was meant to be a Tolkien reference.
“Motherfucking duh,” Eddie laughed at himself before pulling over to park.
Was a bouquet of flowers the most original thing he could get Chrissy for her birthday? Not exactly, but there was no denying that Chrissy loved flowers. At the very least Eddie could bide his time with them and buy her dinner, then surprise her with something more thoughtful later.
It wasn’t like Chrissy didn’t know Eddie was forgetful, but she also knew he cared a whole lot, regardless of if his gift-giving skills were lacking. And this time he wasn’t going to be late, so he took a little bit of pride in surpassing expectations as he made his way inside the shop.
It was even more charming than he always expected it to be.
The walls were painted an earthy green color that instantly managed to soothe some of Eddie’s manic energy. Plants and flowers populated every shelf and surface, their happy and well-cared for petals and leaves seeming to greet him as he walked in. There were enough windows and natural light that Eddie almost felt like he was still outside, except for the fact that it was wonderfully cool inside.
There was a big greenhouse connected through a door on the left hand side of the shop and a garden out back, which the sloped windows behind the counter overlooked like a dream. A few people were milling around in both, enjoying the extended daylight now that the first day of summer was so near.
Eddie wished he weren’t in such a rush to get in and out. He thought he might’ve liked to linger in this place for a while and let its cheer sink into his bones. Even more so he wished he was at all good with plants so he’d have an actual reason to be there. Eddie wondered if maybe he could learn as he made his way towards the counter for help.
The guy working had his back turned, the broad slope of his shoulders hunched over what looked like a potting bench. Based on the steady sound of clipping, the man must have been pruning the stems of the pile of pink roses he had sitting beside his right elbow.
Eddie impatiently drummed his fingers against the countertop beside the register, hoping to make this a quick one and done stop. Even in a hurry, he couldn’t help but notice that he liked watching the way the man’s muscles moved beneath his t-shirt even more than he liked the whole vibe of this place.
“Excuse me,” Eddie piped up, probably a little too impatiently. He heard one final snip, and the man finally turned around.
Whatever nerves Eddie had to get out of the shop as quickly as possible died on the spot.
The man that stood before him was an absolute dream—tall, tan, with a full head of chestnut hair that Eddie immediately wanted to run his hands through.
He was pretty sure his jaw dropped, especially when he noticed the guy was wearing a black graphic tee with several plants printed across the chest, each of their pots a different color to make up the rainbow. Almost like it was for Pride.
The way the shirt was probably a size too small didn’t hurt matters, either.
So this guy was dorky, hot, and potentially queer? Eddie wondered if he fell down in his haste to get inside and smacked his head on the pavement. He had to be hallucinating, or at the very least getting ahead of himself. It was June, after all. The dude could just be trying to be supportive.
“Can I help you?” he asked, a friendly smile playing at his lips—which looked perfectly kissable, just to add to Eddie’s distress.
Eddie snapped his jaw shut, trying not to overheat when the other man looked him up and down.
Act normal, dipshit, Eddie told himself as he sucked in a deep breath that smelled like some kind of floral paradise. You’ve talked to pretty people without dying before.
Maybe none so pretty as this guy, admittedly, but Eddie thought he could try. For Chrissy’s sake. Remembering the reason he came in here at all snapped him back to reality a bit.
“I need a birthday gift for a girl who will roast the shit out of me if I show up to take her out to dinner empty handed,” Eddie said, feeling a tad frantic about having waited this long to get Chrissy something.
“I think we can manage to avoid getting you roasted,” the absolutely fucking delectable man who worked there said with a low laugh. He leaned on his elbows on the counter and looked up at Eddie through his lashes, and Eddie nearly swooned. “Are we talking a gift for a girlfriend, sister, friend, or…?”
“Just friend,” Eddie said, then realized how ridiculous it sounded to call Chrissy just anything, and course-corrected. “Best friend, actually. Why? Do you have certain flowers that mean certain things?”
Really, Eddie hoped this guy was just fishing for information about if he might be single.
“I mean, sure,” the man shrugged. Eddie wished he was wearing a name tag. He wanted to feel this beautiful creature’s name rolling around on his tongue. “I’m a firm believer in buying people flowers based on what they like, or what you do, but I can ramble on about symbolism if you want.”
“I’d probably listen to you talk about just about anything,” Eddie admitted freely as he leaned his hip against the countertop. Stopping to flirt would make him late, but Chrissy would get it. He hoped she would get it, anyway, because the smile he got in return made Eddie weak in the knees. “But I know next to nothing about flowers.”
“Seems like a perfect match, then,” the man said with an easy smile. “I’m Steve, by the way.”
And oh, Eddie was definitely done for. He’d be lucky if someone came along to scoop him up off the floor from the puddle he was surely turning into in time to make it to dinner.
“Eddie,” he replied, somehow managing to sound the slightest bit normal. His face had the muscle memory to remember how to flirt, it seemed, because it flashed Steve a dimply grin of its own accord.
“Well, Eddie,” Steve said, still smiling as he made his way around the counter. “How about I show you some cut flowers to start?”
“Whatever you say, sweetheart,” Eddie said, instantly fascinated by the way Steve ducked his head in reaction to the pet name. Eddie didn’t bother to hide the way he tilted his head to admire how nicely Steve’s jeans hugged his ass as he walked them down an aisle overflowing with colorful plants, either.
“Do you know what your friend likes?” Steve asked as he pulled up and idled near a refrigerator full of already cut flowers.
“In movies? Or women? Yes. In flowers? Not so much,” Eddie shrugged easily. Steve barked out a happy little laugh
“I can relate.” Steve barked out a happy little laugh, then turned to point at a container full of flowers Eddie couldn’t identify if he tried. “What’s her favorite color, then?”
“Pink and green,” Eddie said, almost rote in his recitation. Chrissy’s favorite colors hadn’t changed since they were fifteen.
“Perfect,” Steve muttered under his breath. He turned towards the left hand side of the fridge and plucked out a pretty, soft pink flower with a bright, verdant stem and leaves. To Eddie’s untrained eye, at least, he thought it kind of looked like a rose. “Peonies—my best friend’s favorites. And she has great taste in plants and women. Usually.”
Steve offered out the peony, and Eddie stepped closer to examine it. He felt Steve’s eyes on his face as he delicately reached out to brush his fingertips against the velvety edge of a petal. Each petal curled along the edge, folding in on each other in what looked like an endless cascade of feathery clouds towards the center.
They reminded Eddie of Chrissy instantly. They were pretty, sure, but they also had a little bit of extra personality to them.
“They’re perfect,” Eddie murmured, turning to Steve. He was standing a whole lot closer than Eddie realized, and Eddie wondered if there wasn’t a little bit of magic living in this place. “How did you—”
The next in a series of reminders Eddie had set on his phone sounded in his pocket and interrupted him. He groaned, and pulled it out to read his note to himself.
Your ass better be outside that restaurant if not already in it, Munson, it read.
“Shit,” he grumbled. “I’m gonna be late.”
“Maybe get two dozen, then,” Steve said with a teasing grin. “Make it up to her, Munson.”
Eddie felt himself flush as he realized Steve must’ve been reading over his shoulder. It only made him want to shove Steve up against a refrigerator door and kiss him more, somehow. Eddie realized too late that he’d probably buy the moon if Steve suggested it.
“You’re an excellent salesman, you know?”
“Only when I have such handsome customers,” Steve volleyed back without delay. And god, if that smirk wasn’t going to be what finally did Eddie in at the tender age of thirty-one, he wasn’t sure what would.
“Okay, okay, I’m buying the flowers, no need to keep laying it on so thick,” Eddie lamented, nodding towards the container of peonies Steve was already pulling from for him.
“Who said it was about getting you to buy flowers?” Steve asked with a wink. “Come on, I’ll check you out.”
“I thought that’s what we’ve been doing this whole time,” Eddie said, thrilled at how it drew another laugh out of Steve.
“Fair enough,” Steve conceded before leading them back to the register. If Eddie noticed a little bit more swagger in Steve’s gait as he walked, he kept as much to himself. Instead he just watched, utterly entranced by another human after only knowing them for a matter of minutes. Eddie wasn’t sure how or why, but it felt like getting hit by a meteor.
Desperate to do something with his hands or his mouth other than ogle Steve as he dried and then delicately wrapped the flowers in paper, Eddie glanced around the front counter a little. It didn’t take long for his eyes to land on a little display of what looked like handmade jewelry.
“Did you make these?” Eddie asked, zeroing in on a bracelet in particular that he thought Chrissy might like. He did spend enough time listening to Chrissy talk about crystals and rocks to know that the delicate little gem wrapped in silver was moonstone.
“Nope, can’t take credit for those,” Steve said, sounding a little proud when he realized what Eddie was looking at.
“The best friend?” Eddie guessed, and Steve nodded. So he made a decision on the fly and plucked the silver bracelet from where it hung on the rack. “Then I’ll take this, too.”
“Gift wrapped?” Steve asked.
“Definitely,” Eddie said, glancing at the time again. He was already late, so sloppily tossing an unwrapped gift at Chrissy would probably only look worse.
“I’ll be quick,” Steve promised, and Eddie honestly wished he wouldn’t. Instead of admitting it aloud, though, Eddie opted to dig out the cash he owed while Steve boxed up Chrissy’s gift.
“How the hell do you keep all of this alive?” Eddie couldn’t help but ask, still looking around in wonder. There weren’t just flowers on display, but plants of all sorts, and that was just from peeking into the greenhouse without getting started on all the stuff also growing outside.
Steve took the question in stride with a low laugh. “Not a plant guy, I take it?”
“Unless by ‘plant guy,’ you mean an incredible capacity to kill everything I touch?” Eddie asked, shooting for innocently hopeful. He was rewarded for it with another crooked smile out of Steve, which was rapidly approaching the top of Eddie’s list of favorite things to see.
Steve just shook his head and handed Eddie his change. The time to actually leave was suddenly staring Eddie in the face, and he desperately didn’t want to. Eddie decided to admit as much aloud. “Which is a shame, because I really could use an excuse to keep coming back here.”
“Like what you see?” Steve nodded towards the shop in general, but Eddie wasn’t gonna let the implication slide.
“You have no idea, gorgeous,” Eddie practically crooned, feeling sparks light in his chest when Steve flushed just in just the slightest. It was adorable, because surely people had to flirt with this man all the time. But every compliment or pet name Eddie threw in his direction only seemed to affect him more.
“Well why don’t you come back tomorrow?” Steve suggested with a raised eyebrow. “I’ll show you some plants that even you can’t kill.”
Eddie took the promise of seeing Steve again and ran with it, practically floating as he made his way out the door.
“Happy birthday, favorite person of mine!” Eddie said cheerfully the minute he finally laid eyes on Chrissy. He spread his arms for a hug, making sure to hold her flowers and bracelet out prominently. Chrissy accepted the hug and well-wishes with a smile, but Eddie knew there was more coming just from the way she tilted her head.
“You’re late,” Chrissy drawled with her arms crossed, visibly unimpressed from her perch at the table she’d kept waiting for them.
“Chris, you’re gonna forgive me—” Eddie tried as he scrambled to sit down, passing her gifts to her right away.
“That’s a bold assumption,” she interrupted, but brought the peonies up close to her nose with a small smile. “Pretty flowers aren’t enough to forgive you for being late to my birthday dinner.”
“Well sure, but that’s not the only gift I got you!” Eddie pointed out the small jewelry box next with his most charming of smiles. It wormed a slight twitch of the lips out of her, but she narrowed her eyes at him without opening it.
“Being late just so you could buy me stuff seems a little backwards, don’t you think?”
“Well that’s not…” Eddie bit his lip and paused, wondering if Chrissy would forgive him for this after all, “…entirely why I’m late.”
“Aha,” Chrissy hummed with a knowing sparkle in her eye.
“There was this guy—”
“Aha,” Chrissy was all but gloating now. “I assume he was pretty? Dark haired? Athletic?”
Eddie pursed his lips, not exactly loving how he was being called out with such little effort on her part. Eddie figured fifteen years of being best friends would do that, but he wasn’t sure it was entirely necessary. He’d never been happier to see a waiter in his life, who gave him some time to collect himself while they took drink orders.
“Did you get his number, at least?” Chrissy asked before Eddie got a chance to defend himself.
“No, but I’m seeing him again tomorrow,” Eddie preened, and Chrissy finally cracked a smile.
“That sounds promising. Tell me about him,” Chrissy said, settling back in her seat with an expectant look on her face.
“Well he picked your flowers, for one,” Eddie said.
“No shit, you know nothing about flowers,” Chrissy laughed and finally reached for the box with her bracelet. She carefully untied the ribbon with an amount of grace that Eddie wouldn’t have afforded it, then popped off the lid with an expectant smile. That smile only grew when she saw what was inside. “Aw, Eddie! I love it!”
“I picked that. Because I know that moonstone is one of your birthstones,” Eddie bragged, before reaching across to offer to put it on her wrist. She took him up on it happily, so Eddie added, “And I know enough about flowers to know those are peonies.”
“Oh wow,” Chrissy breathed, sounding surprised. “You really must be smitten.”
Eddie opted to look at his menu rather than trying to deny it.
“He was so pretty, Chris,” Eddie whined, two drinks and an appetizer platter later. “I wanted to cry.”
“You should let me come with you tomorrow so I can see him.” Chrissy’s smile was a wicked thing, and Eddie only whined again. Until he remembered something.
“Ohhhh but that won’t be necessary, my dear friend,” Eddie crowed as he dragged his phone out of his pocket. He went straight to the camera roll and stopped at the last photo he took. It was a clandestine, somewhat blurry photo taken in haste so no one would notice him pressing up against the glass of the flower shop like a complete weirdo. There was a glare on the glass that reflected Eddie’s already yearning face rather unflatteringly, but Eddie didn’t really care.
The important part of the photo was the easy way Eddie had captured Steve’s smile as he talked to another customer, and the long line of his tanned forearm as he handed a small potted plant across the counter.
Eddie thrust the phone across the table for Chrissy to see how utterly pathetic he already was, and exactly why.
Chrissy picked up the phone, careful not to touch the screen and disrupt the photo Eddie had queued up for her. The amusement on her face when she finally took it in was palpable, and Eddie had half a mind to hide behind his hair.
“Do you ever get tired of me being right all the time?” Chrissy beamed.
“I admire your consistency, if anything,” Eddie said drily. He was mildly afraid of the way Chrissy’s expression shifted into something curious and appraising next. “What?”
“Just…” Chrissy bit her lip, like maybe she wasn’t sure she wanted to bring it up at all. Then she shrugged and continued. “Please don’t tell me you were late because you went back to work and tattooed his face on your ass already?”
She said it like getting faces tattooed on his ass was some kind of regular occurrence.
“Jesus Christ, that was one time, Chris,” Eddie grumbled. It could hardly be considered his fault that he and the boys got drunk after work one night, and Jeff convinced Eddie to get Gareth’s cute little mug inked into his left butt cheek. And it certainly hadn’t been anything romantic.
Eddie hadn’t gotten a stupidly impulsive tattoo since (though he was pretty sure he’d given people a few).
“You can’t blame me for asking!” Chrissy argued with a little too much glee in her voice.
“I did not get Steve’s face tattooed on my ass,” Eddie deadpanned for the record. “I haven’t even tried to find his Instagram yet.”
“Oooh!” Chrissy lit up even further with excitement and scooted her chair closer to his. “Let’s do that now.”
By the time Eddie got to the shop the next afternoon, he’d thoroughly convinced himself the beautiful man he’d met the day before had been a mirage. Surely no one was that pretty, just up and walking around this town looking like that while subtly signaling that they’re queer. And they certainly didn’t so blatantly flirt with Eddie while also helping him pick out flowers.
Especially considering his and Chrissy’s resolve to find Steve’s social media had ended up being a big flop. Without more than a first name to go by, all Eddie could find was the flower shop’s official Instagram—which obviously didn’t have much more than plants on it.
It was a great page to promote the business, with very professional looking and tasteful photos. But Eddie couldn’t help but think they neglected to highlight the biggest draw for the place: Steve. There wasn’t a picture of him to be found, and after a cursory glance of the shop’s followers he couldn’t find any usernames or photos that seemed to match the man he’d met either.
If it weren’t for the photo Eddie had taken himself, he would’ve been completely convinced that Steve was a heat-induced hallucination on his part. But that photo did exist, which meant so did the man inside. So Eddie squared his shoulders and made his way into the little store at the front of the greenhouse once more, this time wearing his Iron Maiden crop top for good measure.
“He’s around back,” a woman with a strawberry blonde undercut told Eddie the minute she laid eyes on him. Eddie wondered if she was the best friend Steve had mentioned. She pointed towards a door at the back of the store from her perch behind the register.
Eddie didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but the fact that she’d clocked that he was looking for Steve immediately made him hope that maybe Steve had mentioned him. Just like Eddie had spent the night before gushing to Chrissy.
“Uh, thanks?” Eddie said, already making his way towards the door. “I’m—”
“Eddie, yeah,” she laughed lightly as her bored expression receded. “He told me. I’m Robin.”
“Right,” Eddie felt his heartbeat kick up into a higher gear. “Thanks, Robin.”
She went back to reading a book with a small smirk on her face.
Eddie found Steve out back without much difficulty, trudging around in the dirt in a patch of purple flowers with vibrant green leaves. Today Steve was in cutoff denim shorts, crouched on the ground with his back to Eddie, and giving a perfect view of how the curve of Steve’s ass rested back on his heels.
And yet somehow, that wasn’t the most interesting thing about the scene.
What had Eddie most captivated was the way Steve was looking up into the branches of one of the trees bordering the garden and squawking. Eddie followed the line of Steve’s gaze upward, but he heard it before he saw it. A raven was perched on one of the lower hanging branches, apparently talking back at Steve.
“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said after making a series of croaking noises at the bird looming in the tree line above. “You don’t need me to help feed you, my guy.”
“Are you talking to a bird of death?” Eddie finally asked, and Steve startled. He turned around slowly, with a dirt-covered hand clutched to his chest. He didn’t bother to stand up right away, apparently relaxing when he saw it was only Eddie.
God, he looks pretty on his knees, Eddie couldn’t help but notice.
“Is that a problem?” Steve asked with that same adorable, crooked smile Eddie had been daydreaming about since the day before. Then his eye’s landed on Eddie’s exposed abdomen and lingered there in the most exquisite of pauses.
So it had all been real, then. What a fucking trip.
“No,” Eddie shrugged before deciding to let his mouth run away with him. “It’s really fuckin’ attractive, actually.”
The raven croaked again (in agreement, if Eddie had to guess), and Steve ducked his head as he laughed. Then he pushed himself up off the ground and made his way over towards another little potting bench and outdoor sink beside the door Eddie had just come out of.
Eddie watched Steve wash the soil from his strong hands and swallowed thickly. “Don’t you like wearing gardening gloves?”
“More fun when you can get a little dirty, I think,” Steve smirked over his shoulder before grabbing a towel off the bench.
Eddie’s breath caught, and for a split second he thought he might’ve completely forgotten how to flirt. But somewhere along the way, his innate must-chat-up-the-pretty-person hindbrain kicked in and took over for him.
“Don’t have to be a gardener to agree with that, sweetheart,” Eddie replied, delighted at the way Steve’s shoulders hitched once the remark hit him.
Steve kept his expression smooth, but his perfect lips still quirked up into a self-satisfied little smile. Eddie wanted to skip the pretense and kiss it off his face.
“I’m glad you came back,” Steve said as turned to face Eddie fully again. Eddie matched his stance, stepping just a little bit closer as he did.
“Well, you promised to work miracles, if I recall,” Eddie teased. “Or you just really underestimated how bad I am at keeping plants alive.”
“Let’s go with miracle worker for now,” Steve said, confident yet hopeful in the way he appraised Eddie’s face. Once again, Eddie felt entirely tongue-tied, which was mildly frustrating for someone who usually considered himself a smooth-talker. “Should we find out?”
“Lead the way, big boy,” Eddie said as if he was at all interested in plants.
Steve looked like he might have a retort for the nickname, but instead he bit it back and smiled. Then he inclined his head in a way that screamed maybe I am, and Eddie felt himself start to sweat a little.
The feeling only heightened when Steve led them into the greenhouse, which was practically blistering inside. On instinct, Eddie reached for the hair tie on his wrist as Steve led them over to what looked like a whole section of cacti populating a raised bed along the far wall. Eddie pulled his hair up into a loose bun just to get it off his neck as he looked around. There were all kinds of plants in here, including a whole lot of vegetables, and something that with almost shiny leaves seemed to reach out and tickle him when he walked by.
It startled Eddie into looking back at Steve, whom he caught staring in just the nick of time. Eddie wanted to punch the air in triumph as he watched Steve shake himself and drag his eyes away from the curve of Eddie’s jaw.
“You okay?” Steve asked, voice remarkably calm. Eddie was impressed.
“Yeah, it’s just warmer in here than I expected,” Eddie said, tamping down a smirk. Based on the way Steve wouldn’t quite meet his eye, he didn’t tamp it down all that well.
“Yeah, well,” Steve scratched the back of his neck and nodded at a cactus. “The succulents like it hot.”
“The succulents and I have that in common,” Eddie winked, doing his damnedest not to make a dirty play on the word succulents.
Steve’s lack of response other than a faint flush let Eddie’s hearing work in earnest for the first time. Before, his brain had been too busy chanting Steve, Steve, Steve! to really hear anything else from his surroundings, but now the sound of Hungry Like the Wolf finally filtered in through Eddie’s ears. Instinctively, he scrunched his nose. “Do the plants like Duran Duran, too?”
“Well, I like Duran Duran,” Steve corrected, “and I like to think they like what I do.”
“And just when I thought you were perfect,” Eddie sighed, both dreamy and with feigned disappointment.
“Don’t you like 80’s music?” Steve asked with a playful roll of his eyes. Eddie was relieved he took the jab in stride instead of being insulted.
“I like good 80’s music,” he said, leaning forward to give Steve’s shoulder a nudge. The muscles he felt as a result were solid and delicious beneath his fingertips.
“Excuse me,” Steve laughed, then eyed Eddie’s shirt again. “I’m sure you only listen to very cool rock bands, then?”
“Cool is subjective, Stevie,” Eddie said with a lazy smile. “Some people think plants are cool.”
“That they do,” Steve hummed, and Eddie wanted to sink down into the cadence of his voice like a hot bath. He’d meant what he’d said the day before; he’d listen to Steve talk about just about anything. Even Duran Duran. Thankfully, Steve took the cue to start rambling on about his plants instead of music, though. He patiently explained how he thought Eddie could surely handle something called a snake plant because they were “almost indestructible,” and Eddie sort of drifted off into the lull of Steve’s expertise.
Eddie wasn’t sure how long he stood there, staring like a buffoon at Steve’s lips as they moved, but at some point Steve apparently stopped talking. And Eddie had no idea how long ago. All he knew was that Steve had a cute little confused tilt to his head and he was—for some reason—staring at Eddie’s neck. Again.
“Sorry, what?” Eddie asked, trying to blink the love struck veneer from his eyes. He thought maybe he could use the heat in the greenhouse as an excuse for being completely out of his wits. Really he was just rapidly falling for someone he barely knew, and yet was desperate to know more about.
“Sap,” Steve said, and Eddie’s heart clenched. Was he being so obvious that Steve was calling him a sap already?
“I’d hardly say I’m a sap,” Eddie tried to sound casual about it.
“No,” Steve chuckled. It was such a warm sound that Eddie thought he started sweating harder. “You’ve got sap on your neck. Looks like from the rubber tree.”
“Oh, I—” Eddie stuttered and started pawing at his neck to try and get it off. Steve just laughed again, and stepped a little closer.
“Here, let me,” he offered. Before Eddie could exhale a sputtering breath, Steve’s tongue darted out to lick the pad of his thumb. Then he delicately dragged the same rough, damp skin against the side of Eddie’s neck and wiped the sap away. The cool wake of Steve’s spit left a trail of shivers racing down Eddie’s back, and yet he felt like he was on fire. Steve pretty deliberately traced the slope of Eddie’s lips with his eyes before meeting his gaze. “There.”
Eddie wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get himself in so deep in less than twenty-four hours, but there was no denying it now. Then something slotted into place in his mind, a little too late and a lot too dirty.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie scoffed. “Did you just say there’s something called a rubber tree?”
Steve snorted and Eddie knew he’d gotten the joke, at least. Robin poked her head into the greenhouse just as Steve poised himself to reply, though.
“Hey, I’m outta here, dingus,” she said with a mock salute towards Steve. She spared a smile for Eddie that felt like she saw right through how smitten he was. Eddie wondered how much of that little display she’d been watching through the windows.
“Okay.” Steve didn’t really look at Robin as he spoke, Eddie noticed. Instead his eyes stayed stuck on Eddie. “Can you—”
“I’ll lock up on my way out, like I always do,” Robin finished for him. Her tone was annoyed, but her smile was fond as she ducked back out in a flash.
It took Eddie a moment to catch up to what Robin had actually just said, but he got there eventually. He realized the absolute dearth of other people that were around since he’d walked in. “Wait, you’re closing?”
“Always close earlier on weekends,” Steve said with a shrug.
“So why am I here?” Eddie asked, wondering if maybe he’d gotten his wires crossed or showed up later than Steve had wanted.
“Because you want to be, I hope,” Steve said simply, with more earnest want in his eyes than Eddie had ever had directed towards him before. Despite the fact that Eddie was nearly certain they were about to kiss, and despite all the flirting that led up to it, he still felt floored by it. “Thought it’d be easier to talk without customers around.”
“Aw, if you’d told me this was a date I would’ve dressed up, Stevie,” Eddie trilled, unable to help himself. Steve didn’t shy away though, rewarding Eddie with a roguish smile for saying exactly what he thought again.
“You look pretty good to me,” he murmured, inching ever-closer and brushing the faintest of touches against Eddie’s bare stomach.
Eddie was never happier to have decided to wear a crop top in his life.
He also wasn’t willing to wonder what kissing Steve was like any longer—he needed to know. He reached out and hooked his fingers through the belt loops of Steve’s little shorts and pulled him in until their hips were flush, then Eddie tilted his head just so.
Steve dove in the rest of the way, his lips hot and searching against Eddie’s own in an instant. Eddie hummed into his mouth happily, and Steve moved to cup his face with those strong, capable hands of his.
Eager to get handsy as well, Eddie squeezed the curve of Steve’s hip with one hand, then trailed the other right up the front of Steve’s solid chest and around the back of his neck. The faint sheen of sweat Eddie felt beneath his fingertips only served to rile him up further, and he pressed in impossibly closer, until he could feel the steady beat of Steve’s heart reverberating through his own chest.
Steve shifted just enough to slot his thigh between Eddie’s, and Eddie hissed out a needy little noise that would have been embarrassing if Steve hadn’t swallowed it down with a greedy gasp of his own.
It wasn’t enough somehow, even though it was probably too much too soon by most people’s standards. But Eddie wanted to be entirely overwhelmed by Steve, caught in a tidal wave of taste and sound and smell and want. Eddie prodded at Steve’s bottom lip with his tongue, delighted with the soft, wet swell of it. Steve opened up for him shamelessly, swirling his tongue against Eddie’s in a delicious twist that left Eddie grinding down on Steve’s bare thigh.
“Shit,” Eddie panted, grateful to come up for some air when Steve moved to trailing kisses against his jaw. “Any chance that rubber tree could help us out?”
Steve laughed, his hot breath fanning out across Eddie’s neck like a dream. “Not that kind of rubber, sadly.”
Eddie thought it was sad, too, especially when he could feel the bulge in Steve’s shorts pressed against him, and even more so when Steve maneuvered Eddie until his ass rested against the edge of the raised planter with enough force to send soil toppling over onto the floor.
Eddie slotted his fingers into Steve’s soft, perfect hair while Steve went back to sucking what promised to be a delectable hickey into the column of his throat. Eddie moaned aloud, not caring how desperate a sound it was, and rutted into Steve again.
“That mouth of yours is showing a whole lot of promise,” Eddie hummed.
“Just my mouth?” Steve asked just as he rolled his hips against Eddie’s again. He didn’t move his lips from Eddie’s throat, and when Eddie moaned again, he felt Steve’s smile against his skin.
Eddie tugged Steve back from his neck by the hair, his dick twitching when Steve let out a pleased whimper at the pressure Eddie used.
“How about you let me take you out to dinner before I have to go home and change my pants?” Eddie asked, unabashed by how turned on he already was.
“Stevie,” Eddie whined, completely disbelieving of how this was already going. At best he’d hoped for some more flirting and an exchange of phone numbers, and here he was ready to drag Steve back to his apartment just because that was where the condoms lived.
Eddie was a little mad at himself for failing to be properly prepared in the first place, if he was being honest. He diverted the subject in an attempt to hold onto a little bit of sanity before he started giving out handjobs to someone he’d just met.
“You don’t even know what I do,” Eddie pointed out with a pout.
“You’re a tattoo artist at the shop a few blocks over,” Steve shrugged, then very deliberately ran his tongue along the tattoo that peeked up above Eddie’s collar and curled around his neck. Steve must have heard the surprise in Eddie’s groan, because he huffed out a little laugh. “Don’t pretend you weren’t also stalking my socials last night.”
It took a long pause for Eddie to remember that Steve already knew his last name, but to be fair he didn’t have much blood flow to his brain at the moment.
“Just the shop’s Instagram,” Eddie grumbled, annoyed that Steve undoubtedly had a whole lot more info on him than the other way around, now. “I couldn’t find yours, but I did try.”
Steve laughed at Eddie’s obvious frustration, low and dark, then went back to teasing his knuckles against the zipper of Eddie’s jeans. “Where did you wanna get dinner?”
“Somewhere we can curl up in a corner booth,” Eddie said, dropping his hand to dance his fingers along Steve’s collarbone. “Where you can sit there, half-hard and thinking about finishing this while I run my hand up your thigh.”
“Eddie,” Steve groaned, a delightful sound that Eddie wanted to hear every day going forward. “Now who’s being a tease?”
“Definitely me,” Eddie smirked as Steve finally pulled away, giving Eddie’s hip a little squeeze as he did.
“C’mon then, I know a place,” Steve said with a wry smile. “If you behave maybe you’ll even get to find out if you were right about the whole ‘big boy’ nickname.”
“Uh, I could already tell, sweetheart,” Eddie said around a laugh, adjusting himself in his jeans as he did. Steve bit his lip and watched, still putting that mouth to good use even when it wasn’t on Eddie. “God, you’re trouble, aren’t you Stevie?”
“You have no idea,” Steve said, eyes full of promise and mischief. Then he held out his hand in offering, and Eddie didn’t hesitate to take it. “Place we’re going has good food and fast service.”
The little wink Steve gave him was nearly enough to make his heart stutter to a stop.
“Excellent,” Eddie cooed, albeit weakly, before allowing Steve to lead him out into the dwindling summer sunlight of the back garden. As they rounded the side of the greenhouse towards the street, though, Eddie heard another familiar croak. He thought he might’ve been hallucinating, but it was a throaty syllable that distinctly sounded like the word sluts.
“Did your raven just slut shame us?” Eddie asked, whipping his head towards the sound, aghast.
“Robin may have taught him a few words…” Steve admitted with a sheepish grin. Then he squeezed Eddie’s hand and kissed his cheek, before leading them off down the street.
Eddie realized he didn’t much care for the commentary of birds—or the fact that he hadn’t actually bought any plants—when he was already having the time of his life.
taglist: @stobinesque @starryeyedjanai @patchworkgargoyle @steves-strapcollection @scoops-stevie @spicysix @soulsofstarsliveinyourveins @bifuriouswaterbender
(Just everyone who's previously expressed interest! There will probably be more bits of this AU in the future, so just holler if you want to be added or taken off!)
Written for @corrodedbisexual for the STuad Server Gift Exchange!! I hope you enjoy it friend 🥰
tags: domestic fluff, homoerotic wound care, cuddling for warmth, nerdily named cats, Good Boy Eddie, which probably warrants a Soft Dom Steve too, mild praise kink, hand kink, unprotected sex
Summary: Eddie tries his hand at skiing to try and impress Steve. It goes about as well as one would expect, and Steve’s got to take care of him (and keep him warm) in the aftermath.
The smell of fresh brewed coffee roused Eddie from a deep, sound sleep. Before he even opened his eyes, he felt the warmth of one furry cat curled up against his hip (probably Crowley), and heard the other meowing for breakfast in the next room (definitely Aziraphale). Peeking out his bedroom window, he found a gray, rainy day brewing outside, as the wind whipped whatever was left of the bare trees’ fallen leaves through the air. The weather was finally changing to something that resembled winter.
Once upon a time, Eddie would have pulled a pillow over his head and rolled over, unwilling to wake up at a civilized hour—especially on cold days when he didn’t have to work.
But now he had Steve to look forward to in the mornings. So Eddie all but leapt out of bed, spared a scratch for the still sleeping Crowley, and padded out to the kitchen.
“G’morning, sweet cheeks,” Eddie greeted his boyfriend around a yawn. He thought it was a particularly fitting moniker, considering the way Steve’s pajama bottoms hugged his ass. Steve smiled to himself at the pet name and flipped the omelet he was making before replying.
“Morning, beautiful,” he said, his eyes so earnest and full of affection that it made Eddie’s heart tumble around in his chest like it’d been knocked loose. The only thing that kept him grounded was Aziraphale bonking into his shin to say hello before returning to his food dish. “You sleep well?”
“Like a log,” Eddie admitted before wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist from behind. He closed his eyes as he notched his chin into the dip of Steve’s shoulder and breathed deep. Eddie thought he could probably slip back into a peaceful sleep just like this. “You?”
“Same,” Steve hummed, then nodded towards the cat. “Only reason I got up was to feed everyone.”
“You’re good that way, babe,” Eddie smiled and pressed a kiss behind Steve’s ear. “We’d all starve without you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Steve grumbled good-naturedly. “Coffee’s ready. Go sit and I’ll bring your plate.”
Eddie did as he was told, pausing only long enough to grab a mug and the sugar bowl on his way to the kitchen table. He sat back and watched Steve work on plating up their eggs and toast, content as ever. Just as Steve put their food down, though, his phone rang.
Steve sighed as he checked the caller ID, then gave Eddie an apologetic look before leaning back against the counter.
“Hey, mom,” he answered the phone in his cheery, talking-to-family-voice. Eddie gave him a sympathetic smile before taking a giant bite of his breakfast and groaning obnoxiously loudly at how good it was. Steve laughed and flipped him off, probably without missing a word of whatever his mom was saying.
“Oh that’s nice,” Steve said half-heartedly. Eddie figured “nice” had to be code for “boring as shit” once Steve started examining his cuticles as he listened. Eddie knew he wouldn’t eat while he was on the phone with his mother of all people—that was a big faux pas in Harrington Land.
“Well we were supposed to go see Eddie’s uncle—uh huh. Oh really?” Steve’s voice kicked up into a surprised register that instantly set alarm bells off for Eddie. All of a sudden, the kitchen smelled of in-laws meddling with each other.
“What—” Eddie half-whispered, but Steve was already waving a hand at him to shush.
“So we’re all spending Christmas together,” Steve said, recapping for Eddie’s benefit. “And Wayne agreed to come along so no one gets left out?”
Eddie heard a somewhat exasperated yet amused, “Yes, Stephen,” through the phone. He stopped listening so he could focus on wondering why the hell Wayne wouldn’t run something like this by him before agreeing to it, though.
Unless he just wanted to be a smartass, which was as likely an explanation as any.
Before he realized it, Steve was off the phone and sitting beside him at the table.
“Looks like there’s no getting out of Christmas with my parents now. Apparently Wayne happily agreed to come along,” Steve sighed. The look on his face showed that he knew all too well exactly how Eddie was already working himself up into a panic.
It wasn’t that Eddie and Steve’s parents didn’t get along, exactly. The Harringtons were always perfectly polite to him, and at times he even felt like they were bonding over the years. But he still always felt mildly uncomfortable in his skin around them, like he had something to prove just by virtue of the fact that he had tattoos and grew up in a trailer park.
If Mrs. Harrington was willing to head them off at the pass and invite Wayne first, though, maybe he was overthinking things.
“It’ll be fine, Stevie.” Eddie knew he sounded like he was still trying to convince himself. “Hell, your dad and Wayne will probably be best friends once they start talking about baseball.”
It was a mildly terrifying thought, but Eddie kept that to himself.
“It will be fine,” Steve agreed before sipping his coffee. There was still a line of worry burrowing its way in between his eyebrows, though.
“Why do you look worried, then?” Eddie prodded.
“Well,” Steve hedged, then placed his mug down before speaking gravely. “They want to go skiing for Christmas.”
“And…” Eddie fumbled around for why that might be such a bad thing. “You’re more of a snowboarding kind of guy?”
“No,” Steve rolled his eyes. “It’s more that I can already tell you’re worried about impressing them somehow. At a ski resort. When you’ve never skied in your life.”
It took Eddie a minute to catch up with what Steve was implying, but once he did, he snorted.
“You think I’m gonna bust my ass trying to impress your parents by strapping death blades to my feet?” Eddie asked in his best incredulous voice, even though the thought had absolutely already crossed his mind. It was less about impressing Steve’s parents , though, and more about trying it out as a nice gesture for Steve . He felt like Steve always got caught in the middle of the somewhat chilly relationship Eddie had with his family.
“I think that’s exactly what you’ll wanna do, and I’m begging you not to. There are a million other things we can do at the resort. I promise.” The tone Steve had slipped into was much too inviting for Eddie not to indulge it.
“Like?” Eddie asked, quirking an eyebrow up playfully. Steve wasted no time taking the bait as he stood and moved closer, before plopping himself right into Eddie’s lap. On instinct, Eddie’s hands moved to rest on Steve’s hips.
“Like, sneaking into the hot springs after hours,” Steve suggested in a low tone. He dipped his mouth closer until his breath skirted the sensitive skin of Eddie’s neck just enough to send a small shiver through his shoulders. “Spend a romantic evening in front of the fire, spend a night getting wine-drunk at the bar before heading back to our cabin…”
“Sounds like you’ve got a lot of plans for not spending time with your parents,” Eddie pointed out, but very much enjoying the sound of it.
“Oh, that’s the Harrington Way,” Steve assured him with a coy smile before moving to kiss along the column of Eddie’s neck. By the time Steve was running his tongue along the shell of Eddie’s ear, he’d completely forgotten what they’d been talking about. “So, no attempts at skiing?”
Lost in the sensation, Eddie would have agreed to just about anything at that point. “I promise, Stevie.”
“Good,” Steve grinned and then tilted his head teasingly. “I was thinking after breakfast we could go back to bed?”
“Oh, breakfast can wait, sweetheart,” Eddie promised. “I’m not that hungry anyway.”
“Oh really?” Steve asked in a mildly offended tone.
“Well, not for eggs at least.”
❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
Eddie had a plan. Maybe it was silly and unnecessary—or maybe even stupid—but once he got an idea in his head, he wasn’t going to quit until he’d at least tried .
And all plans, regardless of their cleverness, called for the input of a good friend.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Chrissy asked, her brow raised skeptically as Eddie clicked his boots into the skis she’d loaned him for the afternoon. Of everyone in his life, Eddie was grateful that his best friend was a certified snow bunny—and someone willing to entertain his whims. “I’m sure Steve wouldn’t want—”
“Me to feel like his family won’t like me if I’m not the perfect skier?” Eddie cut in, waving her off. “Yeah. I know. But I still want to try. So teach me to shred some powder, Cunningham.”
“I was going to say ‘wouldn’t want you to get hurt,’ but,” Chrissy leveled him with a look that almost made Eddie feel bad, but not quite. It’s not like he was as clumsy as Robin, for Christ’s sake. He could handle this. Chrissy sighed and trudged on, seemingly reading his mind. “I know your stubborn face when I see it.”
“Good,” Eddie grinned widely at her acquiescence, or at least her reluctance to argue with him. “Now be a dear and take a photo while my hair still looks intentionally windswept instead of like I got caught in a blizzard.”
Chrissy laughed even as she rolled her eyes and began to search for her phone in one of her many pockets. While she patted herself down, Eddie shuffled into a better pose at the top of the small hill they’d come out to for practice. When he’d asked Chrissy if she could teach him to ski, she laughed at first, but eventually agreed to get a feel for if he could even try to learn or not. Chrissy had loaned him an old pair, and agreed to show him the basics on a hill that even little kids could handle with a sled so that he didn’t break his neck.
It was a perfect day for it—Steve was at work, a fresh snow blanketed most of the town. Now it was only flurrying lightly to add some sparkle to the air. There weren’t many people around to witness him potentially embarrassing himself, and the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds, giving the occasional illusion of some warmth trickling through the crisp wind.
Moving in his skis didn’t feel nearly as foreign and awkward as he’d expected it to, and Eddie felt a pleased smile work its way onto his face at the thought. He could do this.
Except that he couldn’t.
In his attempt to look good for a photo, Eddie did exactly what Chrissy had told him not to, and leaned a little too far forward on his skis a little too close to the edge of the slope. In an instant, he lost his balance and was tumbling forward and down the hill at a faster clip than he’d been ready for—which was none at all.
“Shit shit shit shit shi—” Eddie’s panicked curses became muffled as he tumbled off his feet and onto his front. He ate a mouthful of snow in the process, and went from being vaguely able to feel his cheeks to not knowing which direction his face was even supposed to be pointing.
Eddie kept hurtling down the hill, ass over tea kettle, until his skis popped off and he finally landed in a heap at the bottom, with all the snow he’d accumulated on his way down still clinging to him.
Vaguely, he noticed Chrissy rushing towards him, looking graceful and not at all like an idiot as she skidded to a stop beside him with her concerned face on.
“Eddie!” she yelped, and he already felt guilty for worrying her.
“I’m okay—” Eddie tried to assure her before she could even speak, but he barely got it out before he coughed up some melting snow like something out of a cartoon.
“Yeah, you look it,” Chrissy deadpanned as she kneeled down to check him over for wounds. “Anything hurt?”
“Besides my pride?” Eddie quipped, and drew a small smile from Chrissy. “I don’t think so.”
“Your face is cut,” she pointed out, then gently dabbed his cheek with her glove. He was surprised to see it come away with a small blood stain. “And you’re covered in snow, and—Jesus, really Eddie?”
“What?” Eddie asked, starting to feel the shock wear off and the cold set in. Snow pants were helpful at keeping that feeling of frozen wetness at bay, sure, but not perfect by any stretch.
Especially when they’d slipped off a little on his way down, effectively soaking his underwear.
“You didn’t even put your gloves on yet?” Chrissy asked, exasperated as she took in Eddie’s shaking hands. They were already red and stinging from grasping for purchase in the snow.
“I was trying to look good for the picture?” Eddie tried, and Chrissy clicked her tongue at him.
“Can you stand?” she asked. “We need to get you out of this cold.”
“You mean I can’t try again?” Eddie asked, already letting her help him stand up. When he put weight on his left ankle, though, he winced.
Of course Chrissy didn’t miss it.
“ No ,” she admonished. “And even if you weren’t hurt the answer would be no.”
“You’re no fun,” Eddie grumbled, but dutifully hobbled off with Chrissy’s arm looped around him.
❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
“For the last time, Chris, I’m fine ,” Eddie insisted again, plopping down into the safe cushioning of his couch at last. “I’m just sore and cold.”
“Right,” Chrissy said, not sounding at all convinced as she went off to make him some tea. Crowley came over to greet him then, but promptly gave him an offended look when he felt Eddie’s cold fingers scratch his chin.
“Well sorry ,” Eddie grumbled, and Crowley gave him a brief lick on the arm before disappearing to warmer climes. At least he cared enough to try to clean Eddie up, if only a little.
If he was being honest, Eddie’s ankle hurt pretty bad, but he could still walk on it well enough. But all he wanted at this point was to warm up and live down his humiliation in peace.
Naturally, Chrissy wasn’t going to let that happen. Once Eddie was sipping his tea, she gave his hurt ankle a gentle squeeze, palpating like she knew what she was doing. Eddie tried to hide a pained whimper behind an annoyed grumble, like her fretting over him wasn’t needed.
“I wish you’d go get this looked at,” she sighed, but carefully lowered his foot back to the floor. “I don’t think it’s broken, but if you wake up with a fat, purple ankle tomorrow and Steve has questions—”
“Questions about what?”
For the first time he could remember, Eddie winced at the sound of Steve’s voice. Because of course Steve was here to witness this embarrassment that Eddie’d been hoping he could take to his grave. Steve tilted his head in question at the scene before him, the look on his face growing quickly more concerned as he took in Eddie’s state. Eddie was pretty sure he looked something like a drowned, half-frozen rat.
“Are you okay?” Steve asked after what felt like an eternity of silence, eyebrows pinching together when his eyes finally landed on the bloody cut on Eddie’s cheek. Then he was by Eddie’s side in a second, kneeling beside Chrissy and putting her nervous fussing to shame. “What the hell happened?”
“Well, see,” Eddie fumbled for an excuse. He wasn’t prepared to come up with a story yet, thinking he’d have hours before Steve got home. Not that Eddie wanted to lie to Steve. He just didn’t want to worry him, either. “I tripped.”
“Down a mountain?” Steve asked, incredulous.
“Pretty close,” Chrissy mumbled, and Eddie gave her a soft kick with his bad leg and regretted it immediately. “He tried to ski.”
Steve’s eyes locked on Eddie’s with a look that was somehow equal parts pity, concern, and also somehow finding Eddie to be the most endearing thing in the whole world.
Even though it was still half-frozen in his chest, Eddie felt his heart clench.
“He what?” Steve asked, calmer than Eddie expected. Steve was speaking to Chrissy, but didn’t take his eyes off of Eddie.
Eddie gave him the best sheepish smile he could muster.
“You know the big hill all the kids like to sled down? Just up the road?” Chrissy asked. Steve just nodded. “Well. He wanted me to teach him to make it to the bottom.”
“Seems like you made it, one way or another,” Steve raised an eyebrow.
“Ha ha,” Eddie groaned. “Now will you stop mocking me and help me? I’m injured here.”
“I tried to take him to the hospital but he refused,” Chrissy added, making sure she tattled on Eddie in every way she could.
“ Eds ,” Steve chastised, but he was already rushing to take care of Eddie himself. He moved to slip Eddie’s coat off and found a thick blanket from the couch to replace it with, to start.
“Can you throw some of his clothes in the dryer for me, Chris? Warm them up a little?” Steve asked, and Chrissy was already moving towards the laundry before he’d finished the question.
“I’m fine, Stevie, I swear,” Eddie tried.
“You just admitted that you’re hurt, so hush. You’re bleeding, you’re soaked—” Steve paused just long enough to brush his hand against Eddie’s cold cheek, warmth blooming across Eddie’s skin from his fingertips alone, “—god, Eds, you’re freezing . Come here.”
Steve wrapped the blanket even tighter around Eddie’s shoulders, then pulled Eddie into his arms—surprisingly warm, always strong and inviting. Eddie sank into the embrace, and even though he was still wet through, he was happy to stay there for a little while and absorb some of Steve’s warmth.
“Clothes are in, including your fuzzy penguin socks,” Chrissy informed them as she made her way back into the living room. Those were Eddie’s favorite pair, and he was suddenly very glad that Chrissy knew it. “I trust you’ve got him from here?”
“I do,” Steve assured her. The deep rumble of his promise echoed through Eddie’s cold bones, sending another shiver running through him. “Come on, let’s get you out of these wet clothes.”
“Is that a come on?” Eddie asked, smirking and unable to help himself.
Steve rolled his eyes, but bit his lip all the same. Eddie only heard a muffled snort come from Chrissy as she slipped out the front door.
“Pants off, Munson,” Steve ordered once he’d helped Eddie into the bathroom. He left Eddie leaning against the sink as he got the hot water going in the shower, then he gave Eddie two pain pills and urged him to take them for his ankle.
“You know,” Eddie said once he’d swallowed. “If you wanted to get me naked so badly, you could have just said so this morning. Might’ve saved us a lot of trouble.”
The exasperated sigh that escaped Steve’s mouth turned into a low chuckle as he ran a hand through his hair. The look he gave in return left Eddie feeling closer to warm than he had for hours.
“I’m serious, Eddie,” Steve nodded at Eddie’s zipper as his voice dropped even lower. “Off.”
Eddie couldn’t help but note the promise in the way Steve was turning bossy already.
“My hands are much too cold to be of any use, Harrington,” Eddie crowed, surprisingly grateful for how this was turning out. “You’ll have to help me.”
Steve didn’t look too displeased at the prospect, either. He stepped towards Eddie with a little more hunger coloring his eyes now, beyond just the worry. Eddie thought maybe his flirting was going a long way towards convincing Steve that he was alright.
Steve paused after undoing Eddie’s snow pants and pushing them to the ground, looking surprised. “You borrowed my long underwear?”
“Yes?” Eddie asked more than answered. “Sorry.”
“No, I’m glad you did,” Steve chuckled lightly as he played with the waistband between two fingers. “Some of my favorite parts of yours would’ve frozen off if you hadn’t.”
“Oh? Like what?” Eddie asked, unable to help himself.
“Oh, you know,” Steve shrugged. Slowly, Steve worked his hands around to cup Eddie’s ass and squeezed, drawing Eddie in closer as he did. Steve just barely pressed one thigh between Eddie’s legs, creating just enough friction on Eddie’s dick to grab its attention.
Eddie let out a small gasp, but Steve kept moving along.
“I expected you to be a little more apologetic, really,” he mused as he pushed Eddie’s underwear to the floor. Steve deftly ignored the way Eddie’s half-hard cock bobbed as he did, and moved on to peeling Eddie’s shirts off next.
Eddie tilted his head to the side, watching Steve’s face as he started to feel the steam from the shower defrost his stinging skin. “Why’s that, Stevie?”
Steve didn’t answer at first, instead grabbing a towel off the hook and running it through Eddie’s damp hair. It felt so good, the way he massaged Eddie’s scalp as he gently wrung the melted snow from his curls, that Eddie almost forgot he’d asked a question.
“You broke your promise,” Steve sighed, sounding almost hurt about it, but still resigned. Like he knew all along that this was exactly what Eddie would do, one way or another. “You hurt yourself, made me worry about you.”
Steve brushed Eddie’s hair over one shoulder, then just barely brushed his lips against the skin of the other. Eddie felt his muscles contract at the gesture—and felt the burn of probably having pulled one or two of them as he fell—and gained new resolve to fix things.
Because Steve was right, Eddie had broken his promise.
“Let me make it up to you?” Eddie suggested.
Once more, Steve didn’t respond right away. Instead he moved around to towel down Eddie’s front, taking his time to trace along each curve of Eddie’s torso and make sure not a drop of cold water was left clinging to him.
Then Steve dropped to his knees, and Eddie bit back a gasp as he watched Steve dry off each of his legs, slow and deliberate, taking extra care around his sore ankle. Steve propped that foot up on his own thigh for a moment, giving Eddie a much needed break from putting any weight on it. He ran the towel between Eddie’s legs last, sending another shiver up Eddie’s spine from just the barest touch of his cock.
“I don’t know if you can be that good, Eds,” Steve murmured, then pressed a kiss to the inside of Eddie’s thigh.
“I’ll be so good for you, Stevie,” Eddie retorted quickly. “I—”
“Promise?” Steve finished for him as he drew himself back up to stand, his eyes skeptical.
Eddie gulped, regret and anticipation coursing through his veins and fighting it out for dominance. So he just nodded, hoping his gaze would impart the pleading he felt in his gut as he locked eyes with the man he loved—the one he regretted hurting more than he did hurting himself.
Steve smiled, a dangerous, beautiful thing, then drew Eddie’s bottom lip between his teeth and sucked. “Show me.”
“What do you want me to do, sweetheart?” Eddie asked, happy to comply with whatever Steve wanted.
“Wait here,” Steve smirked as he drew back from Eddie, leaving a gulf of empty space in his absence as he opened the door and left. Eddie heard the distinct thunk of the dryer door opening and closing before the machine started up again. Steve thankfully returned nearly as quickly as he’d gone, holding up a clean robe for Eddie. “Put your robe on.”
“But—”
Steve raised an eyebrow in challenge, and Eddie swallowed his retort. He chose to rephrase it in the form of a question.
“Aren’t I supposed to be getting in there?” he asked, nodding towards the shower.
“Nope,” Steve said simply, guiding Eddie’s arms into the warm, fluffy robe as he did. Eddie melted into the softness of it, thinking maybe the clothes dryer was a contender for the greatest invention of all time. “Just needed the steam to help warm you up.”
“Why just steam?” Eddie asked, hearing the way his voice had melted and finding it hard to care. “Why not actual water?”
“Because going from too cold to too hot too fast will just make it worse,” Steve explained patiently as he tied the robe around Eddie’s waist. “I’ve gotta warm you up slowly.”
“I have a few suggestions for that, you know.” Eddie wiggled his eyebrows, and not-so-subtly nodded at the tent he was sporting in his robe.
Steve looked down and bit his lip, but still didn’t touch. It was already driving Eddie mad.
“Only you could get that hard at a time like this,” Steve pointed out.
“Hmm, I think you’re selling yourself short, sweetheart,” Eddie said, just as he palmed Steve’s dick through his pants. Sure enough, Steve was sporting the start of his own hard-on.
Eddie grinned like he’d won a prize.
“I need to wrap your ankle before you get any more of those ideas, Eds,” Steve said. His words didn’t quite match the way he was running his teeth along the underside of Eddie’s jaw, though. Or the searing grip he had around Eddie’s hips.
Eddie wanted to argue, wanted to say that his ankle was fine, that all he needed was Steve to touch him for real —but more than anything he wanted to be good for Steve, to reassure him, to be everything he needed in that moment.
“Okay,” Eddie hummed, and Steve steered him to sit before getting an elastic bandage from the medicine cupboard.
Steve kneeled back on the floor and got to work, starting at Eddie’s toes and working his way up as he wrapped the bandage just tightly enough for Eddie to feel the relief of it. By the time he was done, Eddie’s ankle barely hurt at all.
Sometimes he swore Steve’s hands were magic.
Like he’d read Eddie’s mind, Steve ran his hands up Eddie’s still bare legs, slow and steady, before stopping to squeeze Eddie’s thighs and slot himself between them. Seemingly out of nowhere, he produced a tube of ointment and dabbed a small amount on Eddie’s cut cheek.
“You’re still cold,” Steve remarked as Eddie leaned into his touch. Their faces were so close, Eddie could almost feel the heat of Steve coming off him in waves. He wasn’t sure he even remembered what feeling cold was like anymore.
“Nuh uh,” Eddie argued. “I’m warmer than I’ve ever been. Feel like I’m on fire. You fixed me, Stevie.”
“Mhmm,” Steve mumbled, clearly unconvinced as he leaned in to press a soft kiss against Eddie’s lips. It was too quick, though, before Steve was talking again. “I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“Show me?” Eddie asked, echoing Steve’s own words. Steve smiled again just as the dryer beeped to signal its finish.
“Glad to,” Steve agreed, and once again was on his feet and out the door.
Eddie did his best to keep his complaining to a minimum as Steve put more clothes on him instead of less—especially considering how nice his fuzzy penguin socks felt coming straight from the dryer.
Still, he had to say something.
“Stevie,” Eddie half-whined as Steve slipped a thermal shirt over Eddie’s head, “aren’t you going a little overboard?”
“Definitely not,” Steve gave him a stern look and put his hands on his hips. Now that Eddie was fully clothed and cared for, Steve finally turned off the shower, but the lingering steam still left his skin more flushed than usual. Eddie found it mesmerizing to look at. “Now are you going to behave and get in bed yourself? Or do I have to carry you?”
“Oh, you definitely have to carry me,” Eddie grinned at the prospect.
In an instant, Steve hoisted Eddie up and draped him over his shoulder, like he barely weighed anything at all. All Eddie could see was Steve’s back, entranced by the way his muscles worked beneath his t-shirt as he carried Eddie into their bedroom. It was all so surprising, even though he’d asked for it, Eddie couldn’t help but laugh wildly.
“So much for being good,” Steve muttered under his breath, but Eddie could feel his shoulders bobbing with laughter as well.
“I am, Stevie, I swear!” Eddie said, his own giggles interrupted by a snort.
“Gonna need some more proof,” Steve said just before he dumped Eddie onto their bed. Despite Eddie’s flailing, he managed to do it gently, and Eddie felt like he’d landed on a warm, soft cloud.
Eddie didn’t know how or when he’d managed to do it, but Steve had piled at least three more blankets than usual on their bed. There was an indent in them that was distinctly cat-shaped, which Eddie thought was probably vacated when Steve discarded him on the bed. Apparently neither of the cats cared to stay and find out why one of their dads was tossing the other around the house like a rag doll.
“In you get,” Steve nodded as he pulled the blankets back.
“Aren’t you getting in with me?” Eddie pouted just enough to still be taken seriously and get his way.
“Figure I don’t have much of a choice,” Steve smirked as he stripped down to his boxers. “You’ll need the extra body heat.”
“Damn right,” Eddie agreed and moved to take his socks off before slipping his feet between the covers.
“What are you doing?” Steve asked, and Eddie stopped his movements.
“You know I hate wearing socks to bed, Stevie,” Eddie said.
“Humor me?”
Eddie left the socks on. Steve’s small smile as he climbed into bed was worth it.
Steve laid back against the pillows and held his arm out—an invitation for Eddie to tuck himself in. Eddie thought about protesting, about throwing a leg over Steve’s waist to straddle him and kiss him until he forgot whatever his plan for the rest of their night was. It was tempting, but so was finding out what Steve had in mind.
And based on the look on his face, it was more than cuddling.
So Eddie complied, laying on his side and burying himself in Steve’s arms. Steve folded around him easily, happy with the responsibility of being the big spoon for now, and pulled the blankets up around them in a cocoon of warm coziness.
“You know, I’m still a little chilly,” Eddie murmured without an ounce of sincerity. “I think skin to skin contact would be much more effective.”
“Oh I bet you do,” Steve laughed, but obliged by taking his own shirt off. Then he prodded Eddie to sit up, and slipped his off next. Eddie took the opportunity to quickly kick his socks off, as well.
“You know I am capable of undressing myself—”
“Shh,” Steve hushed Eddie as he pulled him back under the covers. For a while he just held Eddie and let the steady beat of his heart warm them both. Eventually Steve started to massage Eddie’s sore shoulders. He hadn’t even realized how tight they were before Steve’s strong hands were working out the knots, then moving on to Eddie’s arms, his hips, his scalp. By the time Steve slid his fingertips across the line of Eddie’s collarbone and down his chest, Eddie was turning to mush in his hands.
It also had the added bonus of leaving him feeling hot all over.
“Stevie,” Eddie sighed, somehow in a daze of contentment and yet getting unbearably excited again. He could feel each slow, happy thunk of his heart reverberating through his ribcage.
“What, baby?” Steve asked, voice quiet and full of innocence.
“Please,” was all Eddie said.
“I know,” Steve hummed as he pulled one of Eddie’s nipples between two fingers. He couldn’t help but arch into the contact. “You’ve been so patient for me, letting me take care of you.”
“I have,” Eddie opted to give himself a little bit of credit, and Steve rewarded him with a low chuckle.
“What do you want, Eddie?” Steve asked, just like he always did when Eddie let him take the lead.
“Don’t care,” Eddie said, because it was true. He just needed Steve to touch him, to love him the way only he could.
“Then you can’t want it that bad,” Steve laughed.
“ Steve .”
“ Eddie ,” Steve matched his tone. “Tell me.”
“Want you to fuck me,” Eddie admitted around a whine. “Just like this, with you holding me.”
For a moment, Steve’s presence at Eddie’s back disappeared, and Eddie felt the loss like an ache. But then he was back again, this time pressed closer still, and slowly pushed the waistband of Eddie’s sweats down his thighs. He continued his slow movements, massaging Eddie’s hips, his legs, his ass, leaving no part of him feeling unloved or uncared for.
Eventually, Steve withdrew his hands for a moment, just long enough for Eddie to be surprised at the cold feel of lube trickling against his hole.
“Ack, that’s cold !” Eddie gasped, even though the temperature swing felt kind of nice. All the same, Steve pulled away and began warming the lube with his fingers.
“You usually like that part.” He placed a single, soothing kiss against Eddie’s shoulder.
“Well I’m more sensitive since I became a human snowball today,” Eddie retorted quickly.
“Sorry,” Steve assured him, but his quiet laughter let Eddie know he wasn’t sorry at all. Eddie was proven further right when Steve started humming Frosty the Snowman into the crook of his neck.
“Stop that, you assho— ohh ,” Eddie’s laugh morphed into a moan as Steve finally slipped his fingers inside. He stretched Eddie open just how he knew it would frustrate Eddie the most—with just enough of a burn to leave him needing more, and now .
Eddie pushed back onto Steve’s fingers, dragging his aching cock against the sheets for some much-needed friction as well. Steve laid a hand over Eddie’s hip to still him just as he pulled Eddie’s earlobe between his teeth.
“Stay still, babe,” Steve instructed, and it took all of Eddie’s willpower to comply. Seemingly reading Eddie’s mind—or body, or both—Steve slid one arm beneath Eddie’s head until he could press his hand against Eddie’s chest, then pulled him back until he was flush against Steve’s. The position had the added benefit of holding Eddie still, while also making him feel the safest he’d ever been. “You ready for me?”
“Fuck, sweetheart, beyond ready,” Eddie said, practically panting already.
Steve pulled his fingers free, leaving Eddie clenching with anticipation. Then, ever so slightly, he felt Steve line the tip of his cock up with Eddie’s hole. And then he waited.
“Please, Steve.” The plea was barely out of Eddie’s mouth before Steve pushed deep inside in one hard thrust, the wet sound of it filling the room alongside Eddie’s gasps. Eddie tensed at the sensation, pleased and relieved and aching all at once.
Steve rubbed soothing circles into Eddie’s hip with his free, still lube-slick hand, and began pressing more kisses into the now overheated skin of Eddie’s shoulders.
“You feel so fuckin’ perfect, Eds,” Steve groaned, setting Eddie’s senses further alight. “Doing so good for me.”
The praise went straight to Eddie’s dick, already twitching and leaking precum all over the sheets. Eddie only managed a whimper, desperate for Steve to move, to touch him, for anything more than he was willing to give in that moment.
“You wanna touch yourself?” Steve asked, eyeing the way Eddie’s cock was clearly in need of attention.
“Y—yes,” Eddie managed weakly. “Can I?”
“Not yet,” Steve said lowly, then took Eddie’s hand in his own as he started to move his hips. He set an agonizing pace, slow and deliberate so that he could coax every bit of pleasure out of Eddie’s prostate with the tip of his cock and sheer willpower alone. Eventually Eddie managed to hook his leg up and over Steve’s behind him, deepening each thrust so deliciously that Eddie couldn’t tell where his body stopped and Steve’s began.
For what felt like ages, Steve dragged Eddie right to the edge and then back, picking up the pace and slowing it again, like a pendulum of pleasure and denial. Steve’s free hand kept roaming, too, teasing Eddie’s sweaty skin with what he might do next—whether that was pinching Eddie’s nipples, or pressing into his taint, or just barely teasing the nest of hair at the base of his cock before pulling away again.
“Goddamn, sweetheart,” Eddie gasped, feeling like he might fall apart at the seams as Steve set another particularly punishing pace. “I— fuck .”
Steve stilled his hips, filling Eddie up completely and staying there until a torturous kind of pleasure trickled up Eddie’s spine and spread through his limbs. Then Steve finally wrapped his hand around the base of Eddie’s cock and squeezed , leaving Eddie seeing stars and desperate to thrust into it, desperate for any movement at all.
The sight of Steve’s hand on Eddie’s cock alone was enough to drive him crazy—from the slight sheen from the lube and precum on his fingers, to the way he enveloped Eddie fully, or how the veins between his knuckles strained against his skin.
It was electric, the way every inch of Steve could make Eddie fall apart, and it was reaching the limit of what Eddie could handle.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Eddie chanted, grabbing a handful of sheets so he didn’t immediately come all over Steve’s perfect fist.
“Who’s my good boy?” Steve asked. His lips brushed Eddie’s ear as he talked, hot and breathless yet entirely in control.
“ I am ,” Eddie all but screamed, pleading for it to be true. “I am, Stevie— please . I’ve been so—fuck— good .”
“Have you?” Steve asked, his teasing bordering on unbearable at this point.
“Yes!” Eddie cried, squirming in Steve’s talented hands now as he babbled. “I swear I have, I’ll do whatever you want baby, please, please, fuck don’t stop.”
“Anything I want, huh,” Steve mused, voice playful, then licked a stripe up the side of Eddie’s neck. “What if I want to stop?”
Eddie actually managed to laugh, but it was a pained little sound. “I’d probably cry, but I’d do it. For you.”
“For me?” Steve asked softly, all traces of teasing gone from his voice now, leaving nothing but want in its place.
“It’s all for you, baby,” Eddie nodded frantically. “I’m only good for you…please, I swear. Shit, please let me come, Steve.”
“Well, since you asked nicely,” Steve purred, and Eddie could’ve come from the sound alone. Steve swiped a bead of precum from Eddie’s tip, then brought it to his mouth and licked his fingers clean. Eddie groaned loudly at the sight, barely able to hold it together before Steve even touched him again.
In time with his thrusts, now, Steve wrapped his hand around Eddie’s cock and jerked him off in long, graceful strokes. There was nothing slow about the way Steve moved now, with each roll of his hips getting sloppier as he chased both of their orgasms like he meant it, this time. Every push inside sent a shockwave roiling through Eddie’s whole body, every roll of Steve’s palm over the head of his cock seemed to splinter time itself. Barely holding on, Eddie grasped for whatever purchase he could find, reaching behind him to thread his fingers through Steve’s hair. Steve let out a broken whimper when Eddie gave it a tug, and Eddie wasn’t sure life could get better than this.
“Go on, Eds,” Steve said, his own voice sounding wrecked now. “Wanna watch you come for me.”
That was all it took—all Eddie ever needed, really.
“ Fuck ,” Eddie nearly howled, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears as his orgasm tore through him like wildfire. He could barely hear Steve follow him soon after over the blood buzzing in his veins, but Eddie felt the hot, wet spray of Steve coming inside of him. It sent another spark of arousal shuddering through him, and Eddie made a desperate, keening sound as his body contorted around it. He wasn’t sure if it was moments or hours later when he finally gasped out a raspy little, “Goddamn it, Stevie.”
“Good?” Steve asked, and all Eddie could muster was a weak laugh.
“Incredible,” Eddie corrected. “Some of your best work.”
Steve’s small, proud smile at the compliment was enough to set Eddie’s heart all aflutter again, like some kind of lovesick teenager. But that feeling never really went away where Steve was concerned, and Eddie never wanted it to.
“Do you still want that hot shower?” Steve asked eventually, once they’d caught their breath and the sweat started to cool.
“I’d probably just drown,” Eddie said simply. “Couldn’t move if I tried.”
Instead, Steve opted for the quick clean up with a warm washcloth. Then he helped Eddie shift, bonelessly, to move one of the dry blankets beneath them for now.
“You’re too good to me,” Eddie purred as Steve finally curled his body back around him like it was exactly where he belonged. Eddie believed wholeheartedly that it was.
“Here I thought you were the good one,” Steve said as he settled in closer and pulled the covers tight around them. Eddie twisted in his arms so that they were face to face.
“Oh, I am,” Eddie assured him with a kiss on the nose. “But you can be, too.”
“Oh phew,” Steve grinned, pretending to be relieved. “Are you warm enough?”
“Positively toasty,” Eddie said. Then a wicked thought occurred to him. “Maybe I should totally fuck up at skiing more often.”
“Don’t you dare ,” Steve warned, just barely letting his amusement shine through his stern face. He still wasn’t actually annoyed enough to stop running his fingers through Eddie’s hair, though. He sighed, seeming thoughtful for a moment, so Eddie didn’t interrupt. Instead he let himself get caught up in the feel of Steve’s hands in his hair, their legs a tangled mess, the way he felt warm through, and more than just on a physical level.
“You know you don’t have to change anything for me, right?” Steve finally said, a whisper filling up the narrow space left between them. “Whether you know how to ski or not isn’t gonna change how much I love you, or how I wanna spend the rest of our lives together.”
The words settled in Eddie’s chest and crackled like they were flames and Eddie’s heart was the kindling. He swallowed thickly, not sure how to respond right away no matter how many times Steve said something so earnest like that.
Even though Eddie knew he and Steve were in this for the long haul, sometimes it still knocked him off his feet to be reminded.
“I know,” Eddie said softly, grabbing Steve’s hand in his own and bringing it to his lips for a soft kiss. Steve seemed pleased to hear it, his brown eyes gleaming. Still, Eddie had a question. “Isn’t the point of sharing a life with someone to grow together, though?”
“Well, sure,” Steve nodded, then shifted until he settled further into his pillow, close enough for them to bump noses now. Then he grinned. “But in ways you actually want to, Eds. You don’t need to force yourself to become a human snowball for my benefit, is all I’m saying.”
“But you would’ve thought it was hot if I showed up at the resort and kicked your ass on the way down a mountain,” Eddie guessed, because that was the mental picture that had driven him to insanity. He still thought the idea of surprising Steve with a triumphant kiss at the bottom of even the smallest of slopes would’ve been a nice Christmas present.
Steve seemed to be picturing it as well, because after a moment’s contemplation he admitted, “Yeah, okay. That would’ve been hot.”
“I rest my case,” Eddie said, and sealed it with a lazy, slow kiss—like they both knew they had time to savor one another.
“ This outcome was pretty hot, too, though,” Steve pointed out when they pulled apart, and Eddie couldn’t really disagree.
“I knew you love it when I’m a damsel for you,” Eddie said, preening just to see the affectionate way Steve rolled his eyes. “Either way, I made the right call today, I think.”
“You’re not gonna stop until I agree, are you?” Steve guessed.
“Nope.”
“Fine,” Steve relented, but then he cupped Eddie’s cheek the way he always did when he wanted something. “Can we just agree not to try winter sports again, though? Otherwise I might just let you freeze, next time.”
“If you do, you know I’ll have no choice but to haunt you mercilessly,” Eddie pointed out. To his surprise, all that drew out of Steve was a blissful smile that Eddie couldn’t help but return.
“Is that a promise?” Steve asked.
“You bet your sweet cheeks it is, Stevie.”
❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
Eventually, as Eddie started to drift off into sleep, he glanced out the bedroom window. He found the snow was falling outside once more, accumulating along the edges of the sill like it was stopping by for a visit.
Pretty as it was, Eddie was more than grateful to be inside, warm and safe in Steve’s arms.
Where Eddie wakes up a little bit different, Steve is obsessed, and Dustin gets his Meddling Kids Platinum Badge™.
I know I posted a couple teasers from the last chapter of this over the weekend, but friendly reminder that this is primarily an idiots to lovers fic, and they take their sweet ass time getting there.
Warnings: None for this part, except the obvious mentions of blood.
Steve didn’t ever really leave Eddie’s bedside, while he was sleeping. The only breaks he took were to shower or go visit Max down the hall. Most nights he stayed past visiting hours, the nursing staff having long given up on trying to stop him falling asleep in an uncomfortable hospital chair—oftentimes with Lucas's head resting on his shoulder.
One of those nights, with Steve already leveled with exhaustion and barely holding his own head up, Robin came in to sit with him.
“Steve,” she all but whispered.
“I’m okay, Rob,” he said automatically. “Just gonna rest my eyes for a bit, then I’ll drive you home.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Robin said, sounding fondly annoyed. “Nancy’s gonna drive me. But—don’t you think you should go home and get some rest?” she tried.
They’d had this conversation every day for the last three, now. Steve hadn’t yet relented.
“I’m just gonna worry if I go home,” he said honestly. “I won’t sleep. At least here I know they’re both still breathing.”
Eddie had made strides in that regard, at least; they’d extubated him earlier that day. There still weren’t any signs of him waking up, though, and there was no change at all with Max.
Robin sighed, apparently having expected that answer. She was quiet for a minute, as they both listened to the slow beep of Eddie’s heart monitor.
“Can I ask you something?” Robin asked, voice still low. “And you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, to be clear.”
Steve had an idea of what was coming next and let it happen anyway.
“Sure,” he said.
“This,” she started, gesturing towards Steve slumped in his chair, “is more than just guilt, isn’t it?”
Of course Robin knew. She always went on about how she couldn’t read social cues very well, but Steve couldn’t ever get anything past her. Maybe it was their “telepathic brain thing” that Dustin always complained about them doing. Sometimes it weirded Steve out a little, but right now he was just grateful for it. For Robin.
“No,” he said. His voice sounded small. “It’s hardly guilt at all, really.”
Robin just made little humming noise to herself. Steve took that to mean she wanted him to keep going.
“I mean, I wish we’d done things differently, obviously” Steve said, laughing bitterly so that he wouldn’t cry instead. He’d go back and do things over a thousand times not to end up here again. “I wish I’d stayed with him and Dustin, maybe. Or dealt with Jason when we’d had the chance…” he trailed off, thinking of Max down the hall, Lucas’s swollen face, and the way Erica jumped at every loud noise now. “I’d do a lot differently—or I wouldn’t do it at all. But I blame Vecna more than I blame myself, believe it or not.”
He couldn’t quite figure out what Robin was thinking, or what the look she was giving him meant. Her eyes were soft, a little sad, but also something else.
“I just,” Steve started, but he didn’t know how to say it out loud. Except he knew Robin was waiting for him to, and that she’d be proud of him if he did. The promise of that propelled Steve forward. “I can’t lose him, Robin. Not when I just got him.”
Steve didn’t think he had Eddie, not really. He just knew how Eddie’s teasing grin made his insides warm. How whichever pet name for Steve fell out of his lips at any given moment made him almost forget the apocalypse they were fighting together. Steve didn’t need to have Eddie as his own, he thought. He just needed to know he was alive, that Steve had more days ahead of Eddie invading his personal space, and leaving Steve breathless when he left his scent of smoke and something spicy in his wake.
“You won’t,” Robin said, something steely in her voice now as she grabbed Steve's hand and squeezed. “Neither of them are going anywhere. Not if I can help it.”
Steve did his best to believe her.
———
On the seventh morning of Eddie’s hospital stay, Steve dragged himself into Eddie’s room like usual. Coffee didn’t really do much to quell his exhaustion these days, but he sipped on some anyway as he got to his new routine. He played one of Eddie’s cassettes—quietly, as he’d gotten plenty of dirty looks from the nurses for being too loud before—humming along as he pulled a chair up next to Eddie’s bed. He was so still, Steve couldn’t help reaching out to thread his fingers around Eddie’s wrist, just to feel his pulse still beating away.
This time it stuttered under Steve’s touch. That was new. Steve looked at Eddie’s face, confused. He looked peaceful, like this. His skin was still cool to the touch, but his breathing was even, pulse slow and now jumpy. Was that a good sign?
“Hey, Munson,” Steve said, settling in. He let his grip around Eddie’s wrist loosen, leaving his hand to cover Eddie’s own instead. “It’s been seven days in here, now. Three since you’ve been breathing on your own again. Max is still asleep, too. I wish I had better news. Dustin misses you. I miss you,” Steve sighed and tried to think of something cheerful to share.
“The press does seem to be buying the government’s alternate serial killer theory, since it’s simpler than ’Satan did it,’ I guess. Wayne said the police are working on closing the case against you, so that’s a relief, at least.” Steve dropped his head into his free hand. What good was clearing Eddie’s name if he wouldn’t wake up to see it himself?
“I was wondering why I wasn’t handcuffed to the bed,” a surprisingly smooth and awake voice said above him.
Steve’s head snapped up so fast his neck cracked. Eddie was looking down at him already, his brown eyes darker, somehow. But they were open, bright, and alive. Steve felt his mouth stretch into a wide grin. He didn’t know what to say for what felt like a long time, just smiling stupidly at Eddie.
“Disappointed by that?” Steve finally replied, then immediately felt like kicking himself. Here Eddie was, waking up from a coma, and Steve couldn’t even figure out how to say something normal. Something like, how are you feeling or can I get you some water, sprang to mind too late. But apparently all Steve’s stupid little brain could manage was something not-so-vaguely flirtatious under Eddie’s gaze.
But Eddie didn’t seem to mind. In fact, if Steve wasn’t totally deluding himself, it seemed like Eddie liked it. He didn’t blush, but he looked flustered. Hungry. Steve let that revelation settle deep into his bones, warm and pooling like syrup.
Then he got his shit together.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, squeezing Eddie’s hand. He was still cold. Eddie’s gaze flicked down to Steve’s neck and back. If Steve hadn’t been analyzing Eddie’s every move—for any sign that he might break, might fall back into a coma, might leave again—he’d have probably missed it.
“Starving,” was all Eddie said with a devilish grin.
Steve watched, somewhat dazed, as Eddie let the doctors marvel over his recovery for about forty-five minutes before checking himself out against medical advice. His bites had already scarred over, completely healed in somewhat miraculous fashion. The doctor’s seemed mildly concerned about Eddie’s circulation, given how much blood he’d lost and how slow his pulse still was. But all of his tests were normal, had been for days now. He didn’t seem to have any muscle atrophy, no loss of brain function. He was just Eddie.
So Steve didn’t argue when Eddie asked him to drive him home as soon as possible. Steve wheeled Eddie down the hall to visit Max before he took him back to the motel where Wayne was staying. Eddie had complained loudly about the wheelchair, only relenting when Steve gently laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “Humor me.”
They sat with Max for a while, sobering Steve’s giddiness at Eddie’s complete turnaround. But Steve knew if anyone had the strength in them to do the same, it was Max Mayfield.
No one was here visiting yet—it was still early by anyone but Steve’s standards. So they took their time talking to her, Eddie giving her the daily update like Steve had done for him. He gave Steve a knowing grin as he said, “We all miss you, Red.”
Steve was too busy looking at his feet in embarrassment, so he didn’t notice Eddie hopping out of his wheelchair at lightning speed.
Then Eddie was in his space again, quicker than Steve had time to even account for. Eddie turned into Steve’s neck and whispered, “Cover for me, Stevie.”
Then he dipped down the hallway and into the stairwell.
Steve fumbled to recover for a minute, wondering what on earth had just happened. He looked to Max’s sleeping face as if maybe she’d know. Steve imagined her usual lazy shrug and his heart ached.
Sure enough, a minute later one of the younger nurses came looking for Eddie with discharge paperwork. Bewildered as he was, Steve could handle this part. He leaned against the door frame next to her and grinned.
“I think he went back to his room for something,” Steve said, before putting on the most convincing show of fake flirting he could muster. It still wasn’t his best—Steve was mostly still thinking of Eddie whispering into his neck and ear—but it worked well enough to distract her. Steve was actually surprised to see her face fall when he brushed her off for Eddie’s return.
Take that, Robin, he thought, picturing her damned tally board. Steve thought this whole endeavor probably warranted a point in the ‘You Rule’ column, but he didn’t care much. He was too busy watching Eddie saunter over to his side with his now-zipped jacket suspiciously full looking, and his grin bright.
“Let’s blow this popsicle stand, shall we?”
Steve was too busy caught up in the thrill of Eddie—alive, probably healthy as Steve had ever seen him, laughing breathlessly as they made their escape to Steve’s car—to even ask what he’d been covering for. He wondered if they’d just robbed the hospital pharmacy.
Eddie seemed to wilt a bit once they got outside and the sun peeked out from behind a cloud overhead, hitting him straight in the face.
“Shit,” he mumbled to himself, ducking back into the shade by the doors. “Didn’t think of that.”
“What?” Steve asked, offering his sunglasses over. Eddie accepted them with a grateful smile, then took a tentative step back into the sunshine.
“It’s nothing,” he said, seeming to relax a little once the sunglasses were on. Steve couldn’t help but notice they looked good on him. “Help me to the car, would you?”
So Steve did, offering Eddie an arm to lean on as they made their way through the parking lot. Steve eyed him carefully, but didn’t ask questions.
Well, at least not until they got into the beemer. That’s when Eddie immediately pulled something out of his jacket—was that donated blood?—then tore into the bag and sucked its contents down like, well, water.
Then Steve had questions. The first of which being a hearty, “The fuck?”
Eddie drained the bag and let his head fall back to rest on the seat, exposing the column of his neck. Steve swallowed, cursing his brain to pay attention to what the hell was happening instead of being a slut for once. Eddie lolled his head to look at Steve and gave him a gleaming, bloody smile.
“So, funny story,” he paused. If Steve had to guess it must’ve been for dramatic effect. “I think I’m a vampire.”
———
Admittedly, the whole vampire revelation made Steve a little anxious in a what-in-the-Vecna-fuckery sort of way, but he didn’t trust Eddie any less over it. Just because he was on the slithering asshole’s radar, Steve didn’t understand why he’d have to worry about Eddie being mind-controlled by Vecna anymore that he did for Max or Will. The whole vampire bit was admittedly a curveball, but so was the rest of Steve’s life at this point.
All the same, Eddie himself had insisted that they give it a few days before letting him around the kids, to be sure. Dustin only gave it twenty-four hours before calling a “family meeting” and inviting everyone over to Steve’s. Steve had not been consulted, but what else was new?
So there he sat, Eddie sandwiched between himself and Robin on his couch, while Mike, Lucas, and Dustin took turns pacing in front of them.
The kids eventually devolved into having a rapid-fire debate about some dude called Kas—who apparently destroyed things? Steve wasn’t sure it really mattered. Dustin kept yelling something about Kas and betrayal, whatever that meant, but Mike was countering with something about evil and alignments. Steve guessed it wasn’t about any dark desires from a chiropractor.
Eddie had finally had enough of their bickering and whistled for them to shut up.
“Look, kiddos. I want a Vecna-free brain just as much as you guys. Well, more than you guys do,” he paused to fiddle with his rings. Steve wondered if they weren’t real silver, or if that was just a myth. Then he realized he’d thought all vampire-related things were myths up until yesterday. He shook himself out of his thoughts as Eddie continued. “If he is secretly hanging out in the ol’ noggin, I can’t tell. But don’t you all keep telling me about a girl with mind-reading abilities? Think she could suss him out?”
The room went silent, blessedly, for maybe one-and-a-half seconds.
“Genius!” Dustin exclaimed.
“Where’s El?" Mike asked Lucas at the same time.
“Will that work?” Lucas questioned over everyone else.
“One at a time, Jesus,” Steve cut in, rubbing his eyes. When he stopped, Eddie was looking at him with some emotion Steve couldn’t quite interpret. He stopped trying and turned back to the kids, who stood there staring at him like they were waiting for assignments. Steve sighed, and pointed at Mike. “You first, Wheeler.”
Mike turned to Lucas. “Was El still at the hospital when you left?”
She spent most of her time with either Hopper or Max these days, so it was a fair assumption.
“She was,” Lucas confirmed. “Is that something you think she can do?”
“Probably,” Mike shrugged.
“Definitely,” Will amended, speaking up for the first time in a while.
And so that’s how Steve ended up going to get El so she could “do a proper seance” on Eddie’s brain, as he’d put it.
“I don’t feel him,” El said about an hour later. “Your mind is strange.”
Robin failed to hide her snickering behind her hand.
“Believe me, kid, I know,” Eddie agreed with a grin.
With everyone more relaxed after that, Eddie regaled the kids with his tale of evading tipping off the nurses to his being awake while he pieced together that he’d woken up not quite…human.
“So I played dead,” Eddie told them and flopped on the floor like a sack of dead weight, letting his tongue loll out of his mouth and everything. Steve watched the hem of Eddie’s shirt ride up just far enough to give him a glimpse of the worst of his scarring. They already seemed to have faded again since the day before. “And hoped like hell I wouldn’t eat anyone before I could figure out how to get down to the blood bank. Then Stevie came to my rescue.” He flashed Steve an exaggerated wink and whisked himself back to his feet as he told everyone how waking up felt.
Eddie apparently had a lot of weird dreams while he was still under, too. When Dustin asked, Eddie explained how most were like watching his body turn cold, like steel—or dreams about blood. He recounted waking up and being overwhelmed by feeling almost everything around him, of being able to hear the heartbeat of the patient in the next room over before the monitor even registered it with a beep.
As an added bonus, Eddie also enjoyed showing off the fangs.
Steve had to work to control his face every time Eddie popped those out. Steve thought the fangs should be freaking him out, but they didn’t in the slightest. To the point where Steve thought maybe there was something wrong with his fight or flight response after one-too-many trips to a different dimension. A normal person would be scared, not inexplicably turned on by the thought of them sinking into the flesh of their neck.
In the interest of not exposing himself as a lovestruck idiot to absolutely everyone in the room—Robin absolutely already knew, based on the looks she’d been shooting him all afternoon—Steve excused himself to the patio for a smoke break. He didn’t usually smoke much anymore, unless he was drinking, largely due to Robin’s incessant nagging about it. But Steve was pretty sure if he had to keep his blossoming crush on his friend the vampire in check, he’d need a lot more nicotine to distract himself.
Except Eddie slid out of the patio door to join him. Steve offered him one from his own pack wordlessly. Eddie accepted with a toothy—but thankfully fang-free—grin.
“Do these do anything for you anymore?” Steve asked, suddenly curious.
“Not really,” Eddie shrugged. “I just wouldn’t know what to do with my hands if I quit. Or for an excuse to leave the room when I’m uncomfortable.”
Steve huffed out a nervous laugh, unsure if that was meant to be Eddie calling him out. Unwilling to really find out, Steve stayed quiet and stared up at the few stars that were starting to show themselves.
“Are you sure you wanna let me drive them home?” Eddie asked after a minute, staring determinedly at his shoes. Steve didn’t know what the hell to make of that question.
“I’m not your mother, Munson,” he tried for a lighter tone.
“True,” Eddie smirked, “but you’re kind of theirs, though.”
Fair, Steve thought. But he still wasn’t sure what Eddie was actually getting at. “What’s this about?”
Eddie sighed and stubbed out his cigarette with a frustrated flourish. “I guess I’m asking if you’re sure you trust me to be around them. By myself. When I’m like…this.”
Steve almost laughed, but managed to hold it in once he saw that Eddie was being serious. He was tucking into himself like a pill bug, like he was expecting the fear and revulsion to finally come rolling off of Steve in waves.
Steve had wondered if it was a delayed reaction on his part, as well, and if eventually he’d be disgusted or freaked out by the whole situation. So far those feelings showed no threat of surfacing, and Steve didn’t really think that they would, either.
Instead, all he felt was relief. He was relieved that Eddie was still alive. Or, well, kind of alive. He never really mastered the logistics of all the vampire movies Robin has made him watch. And really, after all of the Upside Down creatures that had tried to eat them over the years, Eddie seemed positively tame.
Most importantly, he seemed like himself.
So, gently, Steve reached his hand across the empty expanse between them and laid it on Eddie’s forearm. Eddie’s eyes snapped up to meet his own.
“I trust you,” Steve said, putting every ounce of sincerity he could muster into the look they shared. Eddie seemed to believe it, because after a moment he deflated, melting back to lean against the house. “And more importantly, so do they,” Steve added, jerking his head back towards the kids inside.
“Your trust is pretty important to me, too, Harrington,” Eddie admitted with an almost shy smile.
Steve sucked whatever he could out of the last dregs of his cigarette and prayed for the strength to survive being a total goner for Eddie Munson.
———
Max seemed to be improving physically, but there were still no signs of her waking up anytime soon. The longer she slept, and the more things deteriorated in town, the more everyone wanted to find Vecna and finish the job.
Soon enough they all coalesced around a plan to end the Upside Down nonsense once and for all. With El and Will back in town, and Eddie’s newfound enhanced abilities of his own, it didn’t take much. Especially once they realized their old friends the demobats were now more inclined to follow Eddie’s lead than “Old Slitherfuck,” as he called Vecna.
One spring night they snuck into the Upside Down one last time and ended things for good. Max woke up in Lucas’s arms the moment Vecna was done and dusted, and El closed the gates for what they all hoped was the final time.
And now? Well. Now everyone was trying to get back to normal. Or as normal as they could be when they had to figure out ways to steal blood for the vampire in their friend group.
So on they went, trying to settle into yet another new set of skin. Eddie was still wary of himself, Steve could tell, but he never withdrew into isolation or tried to convince everyone they were better off without him.
Which was good, because everyone wanted Eddie around that much more.
Dustin wanted nothing more than to test his abilities, and did test whatever Eddie would let him get away with. Robin asked if they could have vampire movie nights, or if Eddie would find that insensitive (he heartily agreed to it). Nancy had a million questions like the good reporter she was, and she and Dustin often piggybacked off each other’s ideas. Mike tended to go between staring at Eddie in awe and wondering if maybe his sexuality was just “people with superpowers.”
Or at least that’s what Steve and Robin assumed when no one else was listening (and Robin wasn’t pointing out Steve’s own crush on a certain vampire).
Steve was just doing his best to cope. He was getting used to the whole “Eddie Munson is now an undead vampire” situation. Really, he was.
Was he sometimes inexplicably a little bit jealous that he apparently didn’t get enough demobat venom to also be turned? Jealous that he wasn’t the one with superhuman strength and outright awe from the kids at his mere existence? If he was, Steve wasn’t willing to admit it out loud. Because he knew where the jealousy was really coming from, and he certainly wasn’t going to admit how attractive he found Eddie’s new set of pearly whites, no matter how many times Robin tried to get him to.
With everyone’s support (and curiosity), it didn’t take very long for Eddie to finally relish his adaptation into an immortal being either. They’d determined that the sun was hard on him—it made him feel sluggish and itchy, “like Kryptonite"—but he didn’t burst into flame under its rays. Usually he just wore sunglasses and carried around an umbrella like an old-timey gentlewoman who didn’t want to accidentally gain a freckle.
Eddie had been a night-owl before, anyway, so nothing much had really changed there either. Silver didn’t hurt him, mirrors still worked on him, and garlic only made him sneeze. No one was willing to check if a wooden stake would do anything, and Eddie seemed as glad of that as Steve was. Other than the commanding an army of bats, invulnerability, and the obvious diet changes, Eddie didn’t seem all that different.
It was driving Steve wild.
The simplest of flirtatious remarks sent him into a tailspin most days. And Eddie was full of flirtatious remarks by default. The more Steve let on that the flirting flustered him, the more elaborate Eddie got with it.
Eddie’s retelling of his and Steve’s escape from the hospital became more embellished, as well. Steve didn’t exactly know what had happened before he’d arrived to visit that morning, but he was pretty sure it didn’t involve a ravenous Eddie hanging upside down from the hospital ceiling to avoid being caught out of bed while he looked for the blood bank, like Eddie claimed.
Once, he was regaling Will and Dustin with his harrowing journey down into the basement on the “hunt for blood,” as he stood on top of the coffee table in Steve’s living room. (Steve did not have it in him to object to this, a bit of a double standard that Robin mocked him mercilessly over.) Steve was only half paying attention—he’d been there, thank you very much, he remembered what actually happened—from the kitchen while dumping a bag of chips into a bowl.
He perked up though when Eddie said, “Steve was pitifully flirting with a nurse for my benefit—“
“Hey!” Steve protested as he made his way back to the living room. He shoved the bowl into Eddie’s chest and flopped on the sofa next to Will. “She was into it.”
“I could tell your heart wasn’t in it, sweetheart,” Eddie said, and shot Steve a wink. It was so simple, barely even a blip on anyone else's radar, but it had Steve feeling heated through.
Steve tried not to melt into the floor as Will gave him a sideways glance. He did his best to ignore it. The last thing he needed was for someone other than Robin to needle him about his ridiculous behavior.
That particular desire was quickly snuffed out by one Dustin Henderson, though.
———
One day in May, Dustin cornered Steve on their way out of the Henderson house.
“Do you have a problem with Eddie?” Dustin asked him, point blank in his hallway. Steve was suddenly very grateful that Claudia was not at home at the moment.
“No?” Steve couldn’t help but let it become a question. Dustin narrowed his eyes.
“Well, it seems like you do. All you ever do is stare at him, you barely talk, you act like you’re going to jump out of your skin if he even looks at you. Are you afraid of him or something?” Dustin’s face softened, like he was trying not to be quite as harsh as usual. There was still a fierceness there, though, that Steve knew was just born of protectiveness over Eddie.
“No,” Steve replied without hesitation. “Even though you might think that’s a perfectly reasonable reaction to have to our friend the newborn vampire, I’m not afraid of him.”
“Well that’s just it!” Dustin half-yelled, throwing his hands in the air. He just barely missed clipping Steve’s nose. “He’s our friend, but you’re back to treating him like some kind of freak. So if you’re not afraid of him, I’d like to know why you’re being a dick.”
Steve flinched. Dustin wasn’t outright saying it, but he got the implication all the same; you’re acting like King Steve again.
He so violently wanted to reject the accusation that he considered telling Dustin the truth.
It wasn’t like Dustin didn’t accept queer people. He knew about Robin now—thank god—and practically mooned over her for weeks with how cool he found it. Steve was pretty sure Dustin wouldn’t react any differently to finding out he was also a member of the fruit basket, as Robin had dubbed them.
Steve took in the sheer disappointment on Dustin’s face and sighed. He retreated into the living room and plopped on the couch, restlessly running his hands through his hair. Tews came up to him and rubbed her cheek against his pant leg. He gratefully scratched her ears.
Steve knew if he just admitted to the jealousy, Dustin would feel better, but wouldn’t entirely lose that kicked-puppy look. ‘I just want my dads to get along,’ he’d taken to whining whenever he felt like Steve and Eddie weren’t bonding to his specifications. Steve tried not to spontaneously combust each time any of the kids referred to him and Eddie as such.
Fuck it, Steve thought. He knew Dustin would latch on to his confession like Dart with a Three Musketeers, and Steve dreaded the conclusions he’d jump to. But he couldn’t stand to disappoint the kid. He took a deep breath in as Dustin sat beside him. For once, he’d kept his mouth shut instead of berating Steve into submission. He waited patiently, quiet.
“I’m not afraid of him,” Steve said again. “I don’t think he’s a freak. I’m not turning back into King Steve.” He gave Dustin a pained look, who had the grace to look a bit sheepish in response. “I like him, okay?”
“You don’t seem like you—“
“No, Dust,” Steve interrupted. He held Dustin’s gaze this time, hoping he’d connect the dots without too much explanation on Steve’s part. “I like him. I stare and barely talk and tense up because he makes me nervous. But in the butterflies in your stomach kind of way, not the oh god he’s going to kill us all in our sleep kind of way.”
Dustin stayed silent, but his eyes were wide as saucers. Steve wondered if he should give himself a pat on the back for rendering Dustin Henderson speechless for possibly the first time ever.
“You okay?” Steve asked instead, picking at his pant leg. Steve was nearly certain Dustin wouldn’t care that he was bisexual, sure. But he couldn’t help but worry that Dustin still wouldn’t approve—that Steve wouldn’t be good enough, not for Eddie, not in Dustin’s eyes.
Dustin had a knack for surprising Steve, though.
“This is amazing,” he said, eyes practically fucking sparkling with delight.
Written for my lovely, talented, and frequent brainworm-sharing friend @stobinesque! Happy birthday, I hope you have the best day!! 🥳💙
This one is also affectionately known as stobin: codependent delivery drivers. Featuring the soulmates soulmating, some Rockie fluff, and just a dash of Steddie.
rated: T | wc: 4k | cw: none
[read on ao3]
Robin slaps the classified section in front of Steve as he’s making their morning coffee. It’s been another long night of tossing and turning, of holding each other through anxious dreams thanks to the latest round of shit they’ve been through. It’s exhausting, but they’re figuring it out together. Again. Because if all they can do is stay attached at the hip, share a bed, and tell each other everything’s okay as long as they have each other? Well, Robin’s more than willing to do that for Steve. And after two times around this ride already, Robin knows Steve’s more than willing to do that for her too.
So she uses the time not sleeping to scour the paper for job leads. It’s not like she’s dying to work again, but if she and Steve ever want to realize their plans of getting the hell out of Hawkins and moving to the city, they’re gonna need something. If they can’t sleep without each other, they certainly can’t be expected to work without each other.
Luckily Robin thinks she’s finally stumbled upon something that could be great for both of them.
“I think I found our next excursion through the perils of capitalism,” she grins and takes her mug from Steve, who always knows just how to make her coffee. She’s actually pretty sure they could do each other’s morning routines in their sleep, by now.
“Yippee,” Steve says with all the enthusiasm of someone on death row. He knows as well as Robin does that they need to find another job after the Family Video quite literally crumbled to dust, but neither of them is exactly eager to dive back into the hells of minimum wage labor. Not to mention that Robin’s more than a little worried that they’re cursed, and the total destruction of both of their previous workplaces might precede them.
“Come on, as long as we do it together it won’t be that bad,” Robin tries to persuade him before telling him what the actual job is.
“You said that about the last one!” Steve points out, looking so scandalized that Robin’s a little annoyed.
“Are you saying you don’t want to work together anymore?”
“No,” Steve course-corrects so quickly that Robin can’t help but laugh at him. “I whine about work about five-hundred percent more if you aren’t there with me, Robbie. You know that.”
“I’m familiar,” she chuckles, thinking back to every single time Keith scheduled Steve to work without her at the video store. And every time they’d come back to work together at Scoops after a few days apart, Steve would have countless tales of people-watching and bizarre customers to share, even before they considered each other certified soulmates.
“So what is it?” Steve asks.
“How would you like to be one of the newest faces of Surfer Boy Pizza?”
“I thought you couldn’t drive,” Keith narrows his eyes at Robin before going back to inspect her newly acquired driver’s license. She figured it was time to get one after the shit hit the fan for the second time in less than a year, so that’s exactly what she did…after a few tries, anyway.
Steve would argue that she still can’t drive, actually looks like the words are poised on the tip of his tongue before he thinks better of it.
Robin can’t exactly blame him, not after all he went through trying to teach her. She has to hold back a wince as she relives the time she popped one of his tires like a balloon just from rolling over a curb. But by some miracle—arguably her impeccable parallel parking skills, which might be the only thing she’s actually good at, go figure—Robin finally did manage to get her license.
So the way Keith is looking at it like it has to be a fake is a little bit insulting.
“It’s newly minted, I’ll admit,” Robin sighs and leans across the counter to try and level with him. How he managed to snag up a manager’s spot here so quickly baffles her, quite honestly, since they just opened. (The rumor is that the owners saw Argyle driving around in his van so frequently that they were inspired to open a franchise. Robin isn’t sure what that says about her potential new employers, but she’s trying not to think about it too hard.)
At least she knows how to talk Keith into things he doesn’t necessarily want to do by now.
“But I’m super careful and am an excellent parallel parker,” she continues. “You won’t find any scratches on your shiny new delivery vans when I’m working, or get calls from customers saying I left a dent in their bumper like the infamous kid that used to drive for that other pizza joint in town.”
“We don’t mention that place in here,” Keith grumbles, knowing full well that he is that infamous kid. It’s another reason Robin is shocked that someone hired him to work at a pizza place again, even if he isn’t driving this time around. Keith passes her license back over before glancing at Steve, who knows to stay quiet and let Robin handle things. He merely shrugs and gives Keith a look that imparts so much confidence in Robin that it makes her heart swell. “Fine, you’re both hired. Again. But—”
Robin cuts him off with a soft whoop, surprised at how excited she is to be able to make a mixtape and drive around town without a manager breathing down her neck for her entire shift. She doesn’t really care much about the handing pizzas off to people part, more so the independence. And then to come back to the store and gab with Steve about it while they wait for their next call.
It maybe doesn’t promise quite as much togetherness at work as they’re accustomed to, but Robin has a feeling they’ll find a way to work around that.
“But—” Keith says again with his supposedly stern face on and points at Robin specifically. “You’ll deliver by bike until I trust you with a van.”
Robin feels the way her shoulders slump like she’s sinking into quicksand. “It’s about to be summer, Keith—”
Steve kicks her ankle and clears his throat loudly before he sells her out like a Judas. “Deal.”
Robin stares daggers at the side of his head like the good old days when he was just the douchebag who left bagel crumbs everywhere he went. He doesn’t look at her, though, just shakes hands with Keith and seals her to her sweaty fate.
Robin doesn’t speak to Steve again until they pull up in front of her house. “I can’t believe you threw me under the proverbial bike like that, dingus.”
“Do you want to hear my plan, or do you want to go back and quit before you even get your little yellow visor?” he asks as he shuts off the Beemer.
“I’ll hear your plan,” Robin sighs, glad he seems to have one at all. “But I reserve the right to reject it out of hand. Visor be damned.”
Steve smiles and twists around in his seat to face her, like whatever he’s come up with excites him.
“Okay, so every time Keith sends you out on your bike, you ride around the corner and wait, then I’ll pick you up in the van. That way we can do all our deliveries together until Keith trusts you to drive on your own.” Steve crosses his arms and grins at her like he’s some kind of evil, work-avoidant genius.
Robin thinks he just might be.
“I guarantee we’ll still cover just as much ground if I push the speed limit, Hawkins is so small,” he continues. “Then we’ll both basically be getting paid to do one job, and Keith never has to know.”
“You’re a genius Steve, you know that?” she figures it can’t hurt to tell him. It breaks her heart a little to watch the shadow of disbelief that crosses his face to hear it.
“I don’t know about that…”
Robin claps a hand over his mouth before he can say anything self-deprecating. “Nope. Take the compliment. I only have one question.”
“Shoot, Bobbie,” Steve says. He’s probably trotting out one of Robin’s favorite nicknames to counteract the fact that his lips are moving against her palm as he talks, which he knows creeps her out. How she understands what he’s saying anyway is beyond her, but she does.
“What do we do on nights that I’m scheduled to work, but you’re not?” Robin asks as she drops her hand.
Steve shrugs and gives her such an easy smile, Robin thinks his knack for scheming is one of her favorite things about him.
“Help cover the gas, and I’ll drive you around anyway,” he says. “But you’re pretty good at convincing Keith to schedule us together already.”
Robin wonders if maybe this job will actually be kind of fun.
Robin’s pretty sure Keith catches on to their little routine after about a week of doing it. But she’s already plotted a route around Hawkins that maximizes the ground they can cover, and Steve’s had all the best places to speed memorized for years, so every customer ends up singing their praises to the point where Keith can’t really bring himself to do anything about it.
She thinks she might never have to drive a delivery van herself as long as they keep this up. That’s fine by Robin, because even if the pay is shit, it’s probably the most fun she’s ever had at work.
It beats slinging ice cream in a sailor outfit, anyway.
People actually seem happy to see Robin when she’s the one who rings the bell, delivering their dinner with a smile and a little bit of a clumsy lilt to her gait. It always gives her an extra dose of confidence when the particularly hot moms of Hawkins are thrilled to see her—whether it’s for closeted sapphic reasons or just gender solidarity, Robin can’t help but enjoy the attention and praises heaped upon her.
“Robin, you look almost as adorable in that uniform as you did in the sailor outfit. Yellow really is a good color on you,” Mrs. Wheeler says to her one night, and Robin nearly faints from it.
Eventually she starts flirting a little—not with Nancy’s mom, but maybe with some of the others who didn’t birth her friends—just subtly enough to make getting out of the car to talk to the babes on their route worth it. Steve grumbles about letting Robin talk to all the pretty girls at first, but it’s good natured and really Robin can tell that he’s proud of her for being a little charmer.
He doesn’t mind flirting with the dudes instead, anyway. Especially not when Eddie starts ordering pizza way more frequently than is strictly necessary, even for someone still recovering from his first stint in the underworld.
“Why don’t you just ask him out?” Robin asks when Steve climbs back in the van with a goofy smile on his face for the fourth time in one week. Between the kids hanging out at Max’s and Eddie calling so often, they spend more time delivering to their new, unearthquaked end of the trailer park than anywhere else.
“Why don’t you just ask Vickie out?” Steve counters, just like he always does. Robin tries to flick some of her Coke at him (that she may or may not have snagged from the work fridge behind Keith’s back), but she fumbles the execution and ends up spilling the whole can on Steve’s shirt. Then Steve’s laughing, but also glaring at her as he whines about his work shirt being sticky now.
Robin tries to stifle her own laughter with apologies, chooses not to point out that Eddie’s laughing from his door, too. She strips her own Surfer Boy tee off, leaving just the white tank top she’s wearing underneath, and hands it to Steve to change into. They share clothes like it’s their lot in life anyway. Robin’s actually kind of convinced that one might’ve been Steve’s shirt to begin with.
“Thanks,” he grumbles and changes hastily. He finally notices Eddie’s still watching once he’s trying to fix his hair in the rearview mirror.
Robin revels in the way his neck flushes, just a teeny bit. Steve waves shyly, Eddie waves back, and she wonders how long they’ll continue to be dumbasses as Steve finally pulls away.
“Where to next?” he asks, and Robin checks her list.
Her groan tells Steve everything he needs to know.
“Vickie’s it is!” He sounds entirely too cheerful about it.
The drive from Eddie’s to Vickie’s is vanishingly short, especially with Steve and Robin’s System of Fast and Efficient Pizza Delivery, patent pending.
“Gimme my shirt back,” Robin implores as Steve pulls up to Vickie’s, feeling exposed all of a sudden in just her tank top. She anxiously looks towards the front door as she waits. The porch light’s on for them, because Vickie is always one of the more courteous customers they’ve got—and one of the best tippers.
“Oh so I’m supposed to sit here shirtless because you don’t want to show off your arms to a pretty girl?” Steve asks, and Robin whips her head around to realize he’s not planning on giving her shirt back at all.
“It’s company policy not to approach a door without your uniform!” Robin shrieks, not because she cares much about company policy, but because Steve should have her back on principle. “Plus, you enjoy being shirtless, you flirt!”
“I don’t think Vickie’s going to mistake you for a missionary,” Steve says blandly, ignoring the mild-slut shaming completely. “Plus, you’ve still got your visor on.”
“Steve,” Robin tries, but he just grins at her without moving a muscle.
“You look great. Go get ‘em, Tiger.”
“Oh god. You did not just say that,” Robin sighs, delaying further just to make fun of him a little. She thinks it’s deserved.
“I did, and I meant it,” Steve raises an eyebrow at her. “Unless you want me to drop this one?”
“No,” Robin tells him with all the annoyance she can muster. She might be awkward, flailing, and hopelessly pining over Vickie already, but she’s not gonna let any of that stop her from going up to that door. “Gimme the damn pizza.”
Steve reaches to get it out of the back and hands it over to Robin with a shit-eating grin. She really regrets not giving him more hell over Eddie back there, but she takes the box and squares her shoulders before making her way up Vickie’s front stairs.
Robin rings the bell and does her best not to fidget the entire time she’s waiting. Which isn’t very long at all. Vickie opens the door with a wide smile in greeting, looking almost angelic in the way the light behind her frames her fiery hair, her eyes bright and excited just because Robin’s there.
Or maybe she’s just really hungry, a more cynical part of Robin’s brain corrects.
“Veggie pizza?” Robin asks, and Vickie nods.
“Thanks,” Vickie says, already moving to exchange pizza for money. “That was really fast.”
“Oh, well. Steve and I have a system. I kind of buried myself in maps for a night while I worked out the quickest routes around town, then we spent the next couple of days figuring out how to drive them quickly without hitting any pedestrians or breaking too many traffic laws,” Robin says without thinking. No matter how many times they talk, Robin doesn’t seem to be able to stop blurting things out around Vickie.
Vickie just laughs though, leaning a little around Robin so she can wave to Steve who is very obviously watching them from the car.
“That’s a whole lot of dedication to the job,” Vickie comments, and Robin can feel her ears turn pink.
“Sometimes I just plan stuff out when I can’t sleep, even if I never actually end up doing it,” Robin admits.
“Me too,” Vickie says with such soft knowing in her voice that Robin wants to wrap herself up in it like a blanket. For the first time she wonders if maybe Steve isn’t the only person who can calm her nerves enough to help her sleep. She doesn’t have much time to get caught up in the thought, though, because Vickie keeps talking.
“Is that your normal uniform?” she asks, and Robin hopes she’s not imagining the way Vickie’s gaze lingers over her bare shoulders, her chest, her neck. She feels exposed, still, her skin alight with any attention Vickie is willing to give, but it feels nice. So nice, actually, that Robin doesn’t remember how to respond for a moment. “Or did you just want to show off your tan?”
Vickie bites her lip and flushes ever so slightly, like maybe she hadn’t quite meant to say that part out loud. Robin can’t think of anything but how desperate she is to kiss her.
“I really don’t tan,” Robin admits. “Freckle, mostly. Sometimes burn if I’m not careful. Which I guess isn’t surprising, given the history of skin cancer in my family—” Robin hears herself and wants to die. She snaps her mouth shut before she can say anything else horrifying.
“Oh, I burn too! Even with all the sunscreen in the world, sometimes–” Vickie cuts herself off with a nervous laugh. “Well, the freckles look very good, anyway.”
“Thanks,” Robin murmurs, and she thinks maybe she’s blushing enough to look sunburnt now.
“Robin?” Vickie asks, still holding the pizza between them like she’s afraid if she moves the moment might break.
Or maybe that’s just what Robin’s scared of.
“Yeah?”
“Can you help me with something real quick, or are you super busy tonight?” Vickie asks. The hopeful way she tilts her head is so precious Robin might implode right there on the spot.
Robin doesn’t care how busy they are, there’s no way she’s not following Vickie inside. “I can help. What’s up?”
“It’s just that my VCR is jammed,” Vickie says, already leading Robin inside and talking over her shoulder. She puts the pizza down on the coffee table and nods toward the TV. Robin ambles over, not sure there’s anything she can do to fix it, but she’s willing to try.
“You worked at Family Video for a while, right?” Vickie asks. Robin nods and tries not to relive every time Vickie came in to rent something and Robin acted like a fool. “Thought maybe you’d have the magic touch with it.”
Robin doesn’t think she’s imagining the flirtatious way that Vickie says magic touch, so she pours all of her focus into the malfunctioning machine in front of her before she malfunctions and melts into a puddle on Vickie’s floor.
She feels Vickie’s eyes watching her as she works and thinks she might melt anyway.
It doesn’t take long to figure out the problem. After some fumbling, Robin manages to untangle some loose tape from inside the deck. She can’t help but think it looks haphazardly shoved in there. “Were you babysitting, or something?”
“No?” Vickie says, voice inexplicably laced with questionable guilt.
“Just seems like it got stuffed in there,” Robin says as she turns around with the tangle on display. “Like maybe a kid was playing with it.”
“Oh. Well. Weird.” Vickie’s biting her lip and looking at her feet all of a sudden. Robin can see the sheen of freshly applied gloss on Vickie’s lips. She wonders what it tastes like.
She also wonders if maybe Vickie put it on just for her.
“Vickie?” Robin’s voice is whisper quiet.
“Yeah?”
“Did you really need my help with the VCR?”
Vickie’s eyes snap to Robin’s face, worried, like she’s been caught out. But then Robin smiles at her, so gently she feels like it might break her own heart just to feel it on her face, and Vickie relaxes her shoulders.
“No,” she admits.
Robin doesn’t know where the courage comes from, what comes over her or how, but one minute she’s standing in Vickie’s living room thinking she might pass out from nerves, and the next she’s cupping Vickie’s cheek with all the casual smoothness Robin’s ever mustered in her life. Then Robin leans in to kiss her.
It’s heady, the power Robin feels just from being the one to move first. It’s like her body was made for this, for gently holding Vickie’s face and tasting the strawberry flavor of her lip gloss, feeling the soft pout of her lips slotting between Robin’s own like puzzle pieces fitting together.
But mostly Robin is soaring because Vickie is kissing her back, fiercely, like maybe this was actually what Vickie was hungry for instead of pizza in the first place.
Robin isn’t entirely sure what being a good kisser entails, at least not when you actually want the person you’re lip to lip with so badly you’re seeing stars. There’s no universe in which Robin thinks this can’t be good, though, because her whole body is tingling from the way Vickie presses up against it, the way she gently slips her hand into Robin’s hair and tilts Robin’s head just so.
Robin feels her visor come tumbling off her head, but she can hardly care when Vickie lets out a delicate moan that leaves her absolutely weak in the knees.
“Vickie,” Robin breathes out when they separate, already wanting to dive in for more. Vickie smiles against Robin’s mouth, kisses the corner of her lips again like she’s worried she missed a spot.
“Yes, Robin?” Vickie asks, suddenly sounding much more confident than she’d looked just a moment before—almost teasing.
“That was really good,” Robin says plainly.
“I agree,” Vickie hums. She pecks Robin on the lips one more time, gentle and quick about it. “And as much as I want to do it again, I think Steve’s waiting for you.”
It’s only then that Robin even hears the distinct sound of the van’s horn honking—two quick beeps to remind her that there’s still two more deliveries they need to make.
“Damn him,” Robin mutters, and Vickie just laughs. Her breath against Robin’s face is minty fresh, and Robin can’t really be expected to function when she knows Vickie planned this whole thing, can she?
“Call me later?” Vickie asks.
Robin nods, but not before kissing her again, deliveries be damned.
“Your lips are swollen,” Steve says first thing when she gets back in the car, dazed and floaty like she’s just taken the best drugs of her life. (This is something Robin actually has a point of reference for now, and she’s easily putting ‘Kisses From Vickie’ at the top of the list.)
“I kissed her,” Robin says, staring straight ahead. Steve squeals like a little girl and bounces in his seat.
“Finally!” he cheers, giving Robin’s shoulders an excited shake. “Are you comatose over there?”
“A little,” Robin admits, but she feels the smile break out on her face like an explosion of fireworks. She sucks in a deep breath and finally looks at Steve. He looks so happy for her she thinks her heart might burst all over again. “I kissed a girl.”
“Was it everything you imagined?” Steve asks, not bothering to hide the hopeless romantic that lives in his chest and pulls all of his heartstrings.
“And then some,” Robin says, hearing how dreamy she sounds and just rolling with it. Steve starts the van up again just as Vickie waves at them both from her front window. She blows Robin a kiss, and Robin thinks she’s died and gone to a heaven she’s not sure she believed in until now.
“Seems this job was worth it after all,” Steve admits.
SO I was gonna just write out a little paragraph or two...and then I did the whole thing. Or an abridged version, at least. I may expand on this someday but for now, enjoy some demi!Eddie.
Eddie’s always known he’s different. Not just because he’s the town freak, or because his tastes tend to differ from almost everyone else’s, or even that he realizes he thinks boys can be just as pretty as girls, if not prettier. Sure, all of that makes him objectively different from the herd of followers that he he’s surround by in a small town like Hawkins.
It takes him a little longer to realize there’s another kind of different to add to his already overflowing plate, though.
Because sure, he can appreciate the way a cheerleader’s skirt swishes around her thighs, or the way the sweat glistens on the jockiest guys’ arms in gym class. And yeah, when he first sees Nancy Wheeler shooting at something with that fierce gleam in her eye, it’s objectively attractive… in a terrifying sort of way.
But Eddie’s very rarely ever wanted to do anything about it. Not until he gets to know someone first, at least. He needs that first spark to burrow deep, for feelings to take root and claw away at him until he can’t not have someone. Except every time Eddie gets to know a crush in any real way, it becomes abundantly clear that his feelings are unrequited, or it takes long enough to realize all he really feels is a platonic sort of love now, anyway.
Flirting is still fun, Eddie thinks. Getting to know new people, to make them blush or flutter their lashes while he learned about their little quirks and dreams and what made them tick? That lit him up like fireworks on the Fourth of July. But so rarely does any of it ever turn into anything deep enough to warrant desire. So few had ever ignited that something more in him—that undeniable gut feeling of want and need and oh god why aren’t we kissing right now?
The few times Eddie actually has managed to feel that way, to develop a deep enough connection to dig into his marrow and let the love and attraction and desire break free? Well, those haven’t turned out so well for him, historically.
He wants so badly to want. For someone to want him just as much. He wants sex to not be going through the motions, getting it over with just so he could say he had, to not feel weird or vaguely wrong every time he tries.
Eddie needs to not want to run.
Instead it’s always that initial rush of this person is so cool, and oh they’re also pretty, then maybe if I get to know them, they’ll finally be someone I can be with, be the person I want to rip my clothes off for.
And they never have been.
Until Steve.
Steve awakens something in Eddie that he genuinely didn’t think existed, a ferocious kind of hunger that is almost always awake and demanding. He needs to touch Steve, needs Steve to touch him and make him feel like the world is spinning off its axis with every heated glance.
He needs to kiss Steve, to slide their tongues together and roam his hands all over Steve’s chest and give Steve every kind of pleasure he’d ever dreamed of and then some.
Steve comes around and all of a sudden Eddie is consumed by fire.
The moans he pulls out of Steve with his mouth don’t just turn Eddie on, they twist his soul. Contort his heart in ways he knows can’t be healthy or normal, but when has Eddie ever wanted to be normal anyway? He’d rather sink deep into this feeling, so raw and intoxicating and utterly new for him that he doesn’t know how to deal with it besides to dive in headfirst. Because Eddie’s been in love before, but no one has ever loved him back. But Steve does, by some strange twist of fate.
And Steve’s love…it’s something so much more than he ever bargained for. It’s a soft sweater in the middle of a crisp fall afternoon, that first taste of your favorite home cooked meal after going without for a while. The way Steve loves is all-encompassing, wild and loyal and unwavering.
Eddie can’t get enough. He’s probably getting ahead of himself, probably letting those feelings he always imagined latch on to his senses and and run away with them, threatening never to let go. But he never wants to let go of Steve, anyway, so where’s the harm, really?
So maybe Eddie’s a little bit weird for how he loves, how he wants—but Steve takes the weird and cradles it, nourishes it and cherishes it as though he wouldn’t want Eddie any other way.
And he proves it every single day.
They're sprawled out in Eddie's bed one afternoon, all lazy strokes and soft kisses and passing the time just being together. Then Steve chuckles a little to himself before asking outright.
“Who are those for?” Steve asks, sly and knowing smile on his face as he nods towards the wall.
The handcuffs. Eddie can't even be bothered to blush, because he knows why Steve is asking.
The cuffs have hung there for ages, because Eddie has been prepared and waiting for this. He’s known he’s a freak for years, knows all the kinks that come with living in his funny little brain. He’s just been dreaming of the right person wandering into his life, for the stars to align enough for them to want to use them.
So without a trace of doubt in his voice, Eddie smiles back and says, “You, baby.”