Steve attempts to open his eyes and manages one. The other is shut tight and stings. In fact, the more he becomes conscious, the more his entire body aches. He makes a mental note to call down for some painkillers.
As he becomes more aware of his body and his eyes adjust to his surroundings, he finds himself not laid out on his back as usual but curled up on his side. For the first time in maybe half a decade, no one is touching him, draped across him, or snoring in his ear. It's just him and the soft cotton sheets beneath. He shifts his legs slightly and feels a little burn in his thighs but welcomes moving to the cooler area of the bedding.
His mind does a violently quick slideshow of last night. His finger subconsciously runs over his lips, and there is a slight sting when he accidentally brushes over a cut. Mine, he thinks to himself. Though he knows it was probably just heat of the moment, cock-drunk words, alone he allows himself to hold them closer than he should. He knows Eddie could never feel like that about him, not after all the trouble he caused.
And doesn't that just fucking land the most brutal blow of all?
Steve rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. His reflection is not staring right back for a change, and he can't pick out all his imperfections, but he didn't need a mirror for that game. Most of them weren't visible anyway. At least today, his outsides match his insides.
Sure, he built Eddie into something he wasn't. He'd ruined Eddie's life and couldn't pursue anything anyway. Not with everything hanging in the balance. But fuck if he wouldn't leap at the chance if he had it. Eddie was right. When he'd walked through the door to that meeting, he'd stopped him in his tracks entirely. Steve didn't really believe in love at first anything, not anymore, but he knew a hot guy when he saw one. Not only hot but talented and passionate about what he does. The way he talked about his ex, he probably loves ferociously, as evident from last night, rage-fuelled or not, he can definitely fuck ferociously, not that Steve had anything to compare him to, only women and the odd blow or hand job from a guy. He can already tell that sitting down anywhere would be interesting today but fucking worth it, he smiles to himself.
He'd never imagined it could be so good. The first orgasm was incredible, but that second time, he actually thought he'd died, completely lost himself for a few seconds, utterly checked out. That feeling was dangerous, addictive, even. Because if there is a sensation Steve enjoyed most, it is not being trapped in reality. This was different, though. The way his body felt so charged, then that blip of absolute stillness, then after how his skin felt like it was humming, and his head was full of cotton candy, and then all he could see, think or comprehend was Eddie.
Maybe that's what made him reach out for him? Like he was a lifesaver that Steve so desperately needed. So he'd copied him, made Eddie taste how he'd ruined him, and called him his own because he wanted it so badly right then and there.
For those final moments to last forever, so neither of them would ever have to go back to before, remember why they were fighting, or have to deal with the aftermath between them or anyone else.
He is struggling to put into words for himself what he's feeling. It's not love. He doesn't even know Eddie, not that that's ever stopped Steve from immediately thinking he was in love before, but he's had his fingers burned many times now. He knows it doesn't work that way, but he knows he wants him. Wants him over and over, more than a drink, more than a line, more than a pill, more than a fat pay cheque. But it's also more than just want. That's too crude, and it's more precious than purely some wanton lust.
And then there was after. When Eddie lay back on him, catching his breath, he looked so beautiful. He completely collapsed in Steve's arms, like he was free of everything weighing him down for a minute. Steve would have loved to have stayed longer in that bubble, but he was afraid of saying something ridiculous and genuinely worried about covering up as much as he could.
A manly fight he could get away with, but a manly fuck, no way. He'd save that thought for Robin later. She might find that funny if she wasn't pissed at him too.
Steve worries he'd show too much of his soft underbelly to Eddie. Showering with him, getting him a warm towel, asking him to stay. Maybe the positive side of that could be he wouldn't have to pretend so much around him? Well, for however long that might be. He just didn't want to be too far from him, that was all, and not in a possessive or horny way, but almost like he needed Eddie near for a little longer. Like Steve had moulted his shell, and he needed Eddie to protect his vulnerable state until a new one grew back. He usually didn't want to wake up alone purely for his ego's needs, for adoration, not safety.
He turns his head to the side, and the bed is empty. He trails his hand over the bedding where he would have slept. He picks up a pillow and sniffs at it, but it doesn't smell anything like him, not a trace of that musky, metallic, woody, leathery scent from sex, violence and cologne. The pillow just reeks of the shared products in the shower.
He holds it against himself anyway and stares up at the ceiling. He hears footsteps approaching and prepares himself for the incoming lecture from someone, slowly shuts his eyes and braces for impact.
"Ah, you're awake. Any idea where the coffee machine is?" Eddie asks, and Steve's stomach drops so hard he feels like the mattress swallows him up and spits him back out.
"What are you doing here?" Steve blurts out, even though he knows that's not what he means. He's trying to get over the fact Eddie actually stayed.
Eddie looks awkwardly around the room, adorably screws up his face, "You, um, you kinda asked me too. You don't remember?" He asks, starting to look a little worried.
Steve swallows nervously and quickly plays it off, "Of course, wasn't gonna make you walk past Buckley on your own, now was I?" He adds an extra detail, an innocent one, to ease Eddie's concerns about him being out of it or high or something. He remembered he asked about him taking anything last night. He hadn't. He was just having the fucking time of his life.
Steve wonders if it would have mattered how he'd answered that question? If he'd said yes, would Eddie have tried to get away with something wholly debauched, or would he have stopped all proceedings. That thought makes his mouth dry, but he can't decide if the nervousness is from fear, excitement or both.
Steve tries to sit up quickly and immediately regrets it because the pain is incredible, and he's sore in places he never thought he could be. Still, he tries not to show it, just bites his lips together, "We don't make the coffee," and checks the time. It's like five in the morning. The trolley wouldn't be outside yet, but he could call it earlier. "We call for it." He smiles, dials the front desk, requests some painkillers and relays Eddie's order, "Shouldn't be long. They're really the best staff here." Steve enthuses, but his smile fades slightly when he sees the darkened bruising on Eddie's face and neck.
"Eddie, can I just say something?" He asks but doesn't wait for Eddie's permission. He needs to get this out, "I don't expect forgiveness or anything. I just wanna say I'm sorry." He turns his back to Eddie as he talks, "I got obsessed with the photo, and I should never have posted my frustrations publically, but believe me when I say I was stupid enough not to understand the implications of that, and no one told me anything had happened to your business after. I just thought you were busy being successful, like me, and I couldn't work out why you continually didn't want to work with me again. I'm just an idiot, Eddie. I didn't mean any malice." He wraps his arms around himself, "And yesterday, when you said the photo was meaningless, I just lost my mind. I can't explain too much, and this also isn't me trying to make an excuse. I just wanted to give some context. It was just all I had at points. The hope that one person in the universe really saw me. Even though they were a stranger, I had the evidence in print, or so I thought."
He turns his head to look back at Eddie, who's sitting on the other side of the bed, his back turned to him, too, "I'm sorry, I got that wrong, and if I can in any way repair anything I did, please give me a chance to do that. I know we're not gonna be buddies, but if you're happy to and they let us, maybe we can at least finish these projects civilly? Then we can both leave with something; if not, I have connections. I've got more money than I know what to do with," he laughs awkwardly and, in a panic, quickly adds, "N-not like in a charity way. Not like that at all. I just want to…If you're happy with it, try and fix what I broke."
For a while, there is quiet.
"You think they'll let us?" Eddie asks. Steve can't read Eddie's tone if he's hopeful or wants the label to give him an easy way out of this whole thing. His heart stirs groggily in its cage anyway.
"I don't know, honestly. I think there is enough contractual red tape to make it not worth their time to sift through, but, you know, at least we got some shots, and we did a bit for your book on the plane, right? It's not like we don't have anything at all." Steve forces a laugh, trying to make light of everything, even though he feels like he's collapsing inside, enduring the longest goodbye.
"Yeah. You're right." Eddie agrees. There is another patch of silence, and Steve loathes it because his thoughts are so loud. He really needs to shut off, but he doesn't have anything. He can feel himself get antsy at the prospect.
Steve gingerly shifts his position on the bed to turn to see him. "I don't mind doing a little more now if you like?" Eddie's head snaps to the side, looking slightly alarmed. Steve quickly realises how his words might be misunderstood and turns his head away. "Of the-the interview, I mean, for the book. Your book." he stumbles awkwardly over his words, a little embarrassed.
"You sure?" Eddie asks.
Steve, eager to regain any crumb of his rockstar cred that he can, snorts out a laugh, "Yeah, man, I pretty much have interviews all the time. It's part of the job, you know? Though I'm assuming you don't have any thirst tweets for me to read out?" Steve tries a little humour, and it works.
"Unfortunately not, Ha-Steve. Unfortunately not," Eddie chuckles, and Steve's heart wrestles at its bars because it didn't miss how he'd corrected himself over his name. "Could you maybe go for some background questions? Or is that too personal? I can keep it to just music if you prefer?"
Steve's brain does prefer that. Stick to now. The music. That's what it said the project was about. It's not an autobiography. They already have two people lined up for that. But, whilst Steve knows all of that is correct, he is completely distracted by his feral withered heart gnawing at its prison, foaming at the mouth to tell Eddie anything, everything, let him know you, see you.
"Background is fine, but there are some things that I can't tell you, ok? It's label stuff, and I dunno if someone found your tape and leaked it, it could have some real dire consequences for many people." Steve tries to sound business-like, as his mom taught him to do in stressful situations.
There is a gentle knock at the door, and Eddie jumps up to get it, and Steve has to painfully chase him down, "You aren't supposed to be here," he whispers, catching his breath, resists marginally from touching Eddie's shoulder to make him step back, but they both look at his hand braced to do so. Steve briskly turns to the door to open it.
A uniformed young lady stands on the other side of the trolley. Fuck he should have waited. He leans in the doorway, pops his hip out, turns up the Harrington, lowers his tone and volume, and slows down. "Mornin', sugar," he drawls," Thanks for bringing this up early." He beams brightly and watches her eyes widen, her phone clutched in one hand. He gestures to it. "Do you mind if we don't? Not looking my best." He laughs charmingly, and the girl relaxes. He pulls the trolley into the room but keeps his attention on her, "You got anything for me to sign, honey?" Without tearing her eyes from his, she rolls up her sleeve and extends her inner forearm to him, "Sure thing…."
"Angela!" She says quickly.
"Oh well, at least that's an easy one for me. You're mostly Angel, right?" He laughs at his own joke and raises an eyebrow, and the nervous, wild giggle that spills out of her is hilarious.
He takes the pen and gently holds her arm. He knows the line enough to get them all excited, not enough that it makes him look like a skeevy letch. He writes her name and repeats it for her again as he signs her skin. That's the kind of thing they like to hear. "There you go, honey. Actually, wait a second," she's busy gawping at her arm, tracing it with her finger. He quickly heads to one of the boxes in the room. He comes back with some merch, "Here you go. Hot off the press program, which is already signed, with some exclusive fan club stuff and a T-shirt they haven't released yet. Not on sale until the first show," She's beaming for a second, but her eyes trace over him again.
"Are you sure everything is ok, Mr Harrington? I could get one of the on-site medical staff?" She asks meekly.
A concern sweeps over him. Pictures will be taken of him and Eddie, both with bruises, and it will be hard to cover up, but he could attempt to get in first. He looks around, his voice falling to a whisper, and he leans in towards her, "Listen, just between you and me. I ran into some people who didn't like me very much. It got a bit physical, but my friend got me out of there, even though they suffered for that too."
"Robin Buckley?" She says excitedly, and that's when Steve knows he's got a real fan on his hands.
"Unfortunately not, if Robin had been there. I know they wouldn't have even gotten one punch in," he gives her another dazzling smile, and she nods affirmatively. "Anyway, I better get these painkillers down me. It was so lovely to meet you, Angela. Hope to see you at the show." He beams and waits for her to walk away before closing the door.
Only to be immediately confronted with Eddie, and he nearly jumps out of his skin, "What happened to I'm not supposed to be here?" he says, worry etched on his face.
"I know, and you aren't, but the thing is, she saw me, and if what you said about my fans is true, that they don't like you, and they see you fucked up too, which they will by the way because this place will be crawling with photographers tonight, then they are gonna put two and two together. Whereas now, we've got in first. So, there will be at least two sides to it. She'll post about all of this now, and it'll go viral. She'll love the attention. She'll get haters and people on her side," Steve says reassuringly, "One side will think you saved me," Steve says, accidentally searching Eddie's eyes for a second before quickly turning to the trolley and pushing it through to another small seating area, that didn't contain his last night events staged area. "Go get your stuff, dude," Steve says, trying to sound impatient, but he doesn't look at Eddie except to watch him leave the room.
Steve takes the opportunity to ease himself into an armchair and grab a coffee and some painkillers. He looks at the breakfast spread of actual food. He can't remember the last time he actually ate breakfast. He pours a coffee for himself and ignores it all for now. He hadn't meant to say it like that, not saved me . He meant stepped in or got me out of there. He thinks about the choice of words and wonders if that is a subconscious thing. Does he feel saved, or at least is he starting to?
Eddie barrels back into the room. With a small notepad and dictaphone at the ready, he gets totally distracted by the trolley and nearly trips over the coffee table. "Jesus, dude, watch where you're going!" Steve exclaims, quickly reaching out and grabbing the back of his t-shirt, stopping him just in time.
They both look at where Steve is holding onto him, and he lets go, "Help yourself to whatever, man. Just don't brain yourself in the process." Steve says it like he's reprimanding a kid. A tingling sensation rushes from his hand that had been bunched in the material up his arm, and his mind flashes to how he'd wound Eddie's T-shirts around his fingers to pull him closer last night. He quickly shakes it off and wraps his hands around his coffee mug instead, waiting for his insides to stop backflipping.
"You not hungry?" Eddie asks, piling some food on a plate, and though he tries not to look, he feels compelled to, like if he doesn't, it might be the end of the world. He shakes his head in a no and then watches Eddie do something entirely mundane, but Steve is completely transfixed, taking in every detail he can, like Eddie's moving in slow motion.
Steve's watching Eddie's dexterous fingers selectively pick apart the breakfast trolley, like he'd plucked at the worn ties holding Steve together last night, watches him taste small samples with that mouth that trailed over him, made him bend to its will, swallowed up his sounds of ecstasy for its own, and he's desperately trying not to watch it work around a fresh strawberry. Eddie wields his weapons like he doesn't know they're lethal.
"You sure you aren't hungry, man? Is it-Is it because someone normally fixes you a plate?" Eddie looks at him, a little confused, "Do you need me to fix you a plate?"
"Huh? No, um, I don't normally eat breakfast. Buckley usually brings me my breakfast , but it's a little early." Steve says with an awkward smile, air quoting around breakfast.
Eddie's nose scrunches up, and it's impossibly cute, "Then why do you order the….ohhhh got it. For your guests," Eddie laughs, then goes a little quiet, sits on the floor next to the coffee table and begins wolfing down his food, almost at an alarming rate.
Steve laughs, "Are you worried someone's gonna steal it, or is it just that good?" he teases.
"No!" Eddie says with his mouth full, then dabs his mouth, finishes his mouthful and starts over, "No. I'm just in a hurry because I wanna ask you more stuff, but I'm also so hungry I could eat a mammoth." His hands and arms animate his words, his eyes are wide with exuberance, and Steve adores that completely. Is this him? Is he seeing a genuine part of Eddie now? He tries to keep hold of the moment.
"How about we put the recorder nearer me? You ask your questions, and I can still answer if you're eating. Rather that than you choke to death on….what is that?" Steve says, confused, looking at his plate.
"Well, it's, er, you know, a half pancake, half-waffle, bacon, hash brown, strawberry and maple syrup taco-thing, of course" he pushes out a fake laugh like Steve should know what this is.
"A what now?" Steve says, even more confused.
"It's a piggy-spud-berry breakfast taco," he says with a grin, taking a much smaller nibble.
"Well, first of all, wow, that sounds insane, and second of all, this is all vegan, so it's a non-piggy-spud-berry breakfast taco." Steve corrects, still with a bit of concern in his voice.
"We'll colour me impressed because I did not know this was fake, and the only insane thing about this marvellous creation is the taste. Flavour town population me!" He takes another bite but stops with a smile, "Wanna try it?"
"No!" Steve replies like it's the most ridiculous thing he's ever been asked. He watches the mischief spread over Eddie's smile.
"Oh my god, you so do wanna try it!" He laughs.
"I'm quite happy with my coffee, thanks." Steve frowns and shakes his head.
"Ok, ok. Fine." He presses record on the dictaphone and pushes it in front of Steve, "So I know you were born in Indiana like me, but where did you grow up?"
"Hawkins," Steve answers, and Eddie's head snaps towards him. He frowns at first and then shakes his head.
"No. Not possible," he says, turning back to his breakfast monstrosity.
"What do you mean? Not possible. I was born in Hawkins. I left my first junior year of high school." Steve laughs at Eddie's audacity in telling him his own history was impossible.
Eddie turns to him again, "Because I lived in Hawkins, too! Moved in with my uncle in middle school. Left when I graduated. First time, I might add, which no one saw coming" Eddie raises his eyebrows at Steve, "So you can't be from Hawkins. Otherwise, I would have known you. I had my own metal band. We would have been friends, acquaintances for sure!" He laughs.
"A metal band in Hawkins? How old are you?" Steve asks quickly.
"I'm a year older than you, dude," Eddie answers, "Anyway, I'm interviewing you, so tell me where you really grew up."
"In Hawkins! I just told you that. Wait, wait. We're you in…uh…. don't tell me….Constricted Coffin?" Steve says, wracking his brain.
"Corroded, and how the fuck did you know that?" Eddie says, turning to him again.
"Because I was there! There was a cheer performance, and when we moved up to high school, they would be our cheer squad possibly, so we over dramatically decided all of us had to go to support them because eventually, they'd be supporting us or some bullshit like that" Steve says cringing a little.
"Wait…us… were you a fucking Jock?" Eddie says, his mouth wide open in surprise.
"Yeah, well, kinda, I guess co-swim captain, played basketball," he shrugs.
"Holy shit!" Eddie says, staring at Steve and taking a bite from his breakfast taco, "So ok, now we've established this is absolutely insane. Why did you leave?"
"I got scouted by a modelling agency whilst drowning my sorrows."
"In your junior year?"
"Yes! I was seeing this girl, she went a bit weird on me," Steve lies, but it's not Eddie's business, that is top secret shit, "I wanted to apologise, climbed up to her window and she was already trying to get it on with this other guy. I'm an idiot, so I stomped to my car and told my friends. They tried to wind me up about fighting with this guy, and then they suggested going out, and the rest is history."
"So you were underage drinking, and a modelling agency picked you up?"
"Yep. That's about it."
"You were a very young man in a bar, and someone much older than you said, 'Hey, wanna be a model?' And you were like, 'Yeah', and they emitted some evil laugh, I suppose and dragged you into the night? Is that what you're trying to tell me?" Eddie asks sarcastically.
"Well, it didn't quite go like that. I got their card, called them the next day, and got signed up," Steve shrugs.
Eddie narrows his eyes and pinches the thumb and forefinger of his hand together tightly, "Do you have any idea how dangerous that could have been? Hmmm? That could have been some rapist maniac serial killer." Steve just laughs.
"Well, they weren't. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here, now would I? I'm a big boy. I can take care of myself," Steve says, laughing at Eddie's concern for his past self.
"Says the big boy who won't eat his breakfast," Eddie shakes his head. Now, when he said big boy, that sounded a lot different, at least to Steve's ears and heart rate anyway.
"God, you're such a fucking nag!" Steve pretends to be annoyed and leans towards the plate again, "Go on then, let's try this culinary horror show." Steve makes a show of rolling his eyes, but his heart is pounding being this close again. He hopes it doesn't show. Eddie excitedly starts cutting him up a piece, making sure there is a little of everything and stabs it with a fork.
"Here we go," Eddie says with a huge toothy grin as he moves the fork towards Steve's mouth as if he is going to feed it to him. Steve looks a little confused, and Eddie seems a little nervous.
Steve gently takes the fork from his hand, brushes their fingers together minimally and feeds the mouthful to himself. Eddie watches him the entire time.
"Well? The verdict?"
Steve has been chewing over the sickeningly sweet morsel with the occasional blast of bacon flavour and the odd texture combination tumbling over in his mouth. But his face doesn't show a modicum of disgust because not a metre from his face is a wide-eyed, encouraging, beaming, handsome man making his imprisoned heart pound so hard in his chest it is bending the cage bars with each one. Steve doesn't want to peel his eyes away, but he also can't stare blankly like a maniac, so he pretends to mull over the flavours, pulling faces of thoughtfulness, surprise, alarm, confusion, whatever he can think of, and each one seems to make Eddie smile more until he laughs, and with his prize won Steve settles back in his armchair.
"I think it might be an acquired taste." Steve smiles into his coffee cup with his secrets, and there is a quiet patch. Steve hates it. He wants to say so many things, wants to ask so many things, none of which he can permit himself to, of course. He hears a click, and his eyes shoot to Eddie's hand on the voice recorder.
"Wanna get our story straight?" Eddie asks, not looking at him. Steve almost blushes and laughs at his wording because whatever they hope to hide with this story, it sure as hell is not straight.
"Is the interview over, then?" Steve questions carefully. Keeping to the subject at hand, but that isn't really what he's asking.
Eddie pushes the remaining food around his plate and replies, "I figure if we don't fuck up the cover story, they'll believe us, maybe? Then this doesn't have to be over, does it?"
Steve's brain knows Eddie is talking about their respective projects, but his rabid heart is bending back the bars of its cell now, trying to squeeze itself through, clawing at the air towards Eddie, but it can't quite make it. It tuckers itself out and is left panting on the floor of its cage.
"I guess the easiest thing to go for is sports, right? Drunk people fight about the stupidest things. Maybe you slated The Bulls or something?" Steve suggests with a shrug, and Eddie looks at him wide-eyed like he's trying his very best not to burst out laughing but folds his arms instead.
"What could I have said about your precious Bulls that would have instigated a physical fight between us?" he asks with a smile.
"That they were shit last season," Steve says matter-of-factly, and that pulls a low hearty chuckle from Eddie.
"No one is gonna buy that, dude," he laughs, waving his hands in front of himself.
"Eddie, I've been playing this game of hide and very little seek with the label, the fans, and the media for some time. The simpler, the better. Trust me,"
"And what if they grill me on that, huh? Then what?"
"You frown at them like they're complete weirdos and say, I don't fucking know, I was drunk," Steve smiles broadly and quickly turns it down a few levels.
"You seem well-practised," Eddie says, returning to his food. Steve detects a hint of something, surely not jealousy, resentment maybe.
"At lying to people that hate what I am, yeah, at tidying up hotel rooms only to stage a mess, no," that gets him a side glance from Eddie. He leans over and clicks to start recording again.
"So your modelling career is fairly well documented already, but how did you jump ship into music? Has it always been something you enjoyed?" Eddie asks in his best news anchor voice, and Steve ducks his head down to hide his smile before replying.
"Well, here's an exclusive for you. They asked me to join a boyband first," Steve chuckles, and he looks over to see Eddie's mouth dropped wide open in shock.
"No fucking way. There is no way that's true!" Eddie folds his arms, but a colossal smile erupts on his face.
"I swear, dude. I swear." Steve can't help but mirror him this time, and the laughter is spilling out of them both now, and it feels so good. Almost like friends. Almost like two guys that hadn't tried to knock one another out less than twelve hours ago.
"I just can't imagine it, you all like," Eddie makes some vague, robot arm movements, and Steve can't hold back any longer. The laugh that bursts from him is loud, unashamed and unreserved.
"Please do not tell me that is what you think dancing is," he manages to say between laughs, trying to catch his breath, clutching his sides.
"You don't like my moves? Consider me crushed!" Eddie clasps his hands together and punches himself in the chest.
He's a jester, Steve thinks as he barely holds on to his mask. The smile of fondness warming his cheeks, the giggles threatening just behind the surface that he is sure his heart might use as a crowbar if he lets them happen. He swallows them down and clears his throat, quickly turning away from Eddie's newly trailing gaze and pleased smirk.
Clearly, he likes to entertain as much as the next person in his own way. "Insults aside, Steve, what happened with the boyband?"
"I think they went with someone else in my place after I turned down the opportunity. I can't say too much because of NDAs and the like, but all I'm saying is they've done very well for themselves!" Steve sips his coffee and notices Eddie looking at him with wide wonder. If he'd been on a seat, he'd be on the edge of it right now.
"And then what happened?" Eddie bores the question into Steve's eyes with his own gorgeous, huge brown ones. He'd think they almost looked innocent if he didn't know the truth. It makes him feel unusual as if he has something to lure Eddie in with now.
Steve reclines more in his seat, "And then, they left me alone for a while. Got invited to some awards show I had no business being at. The red carpet question was about secret talents. I said I could play the guitar, and my agent's phone blew up as soon as it aired. So, it's not really the hard work playing dive joints that most rockstars go through. I asked you to, you know, but the money wasn't there, I guess? I know that fucking pisses people off too, but I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere until the fans, like you said, move onto the new thing."
He sees Eddie's expression fall to something like regret, and he knows he's said the wrong thing.
"Eddie, I didn't mean to bring that up like that. I just meant that's just how it goes in the public eye. You ride the wave of popularity as long as you can before you fall into obscurity, and then, if you're lucky, someone uses one of your old tracks in a cover, show, movie, or social media trend, and you get a renewed interest in your stuff and can get back on the surfboard for a while. So many artists have been through it now. It would be madness to think it wouldn't happen to anyone."
Eddie doesn't seem won over by his words, but before he can apologise, there is a click at the door, and Steve freezes in his chair.
"Mr H?" Buckley's voice rings out, and he instantly relaxes.
"Yeah, come in, Buckley," Steve says, and Eddie quickly scurries to standing. He looks terrified, so he lets his old instincts win and moves to stand in front of him, but Buckley glares around him intensely.
"Still here, I see?" She sneers at Eddie.
"Stand down, Buckley. It's ok. It was pretty even. Look at us," He gestures between himself and Eddie, and he doesn't miss the tiny twitch at the corner of Eddie's mouth when their eyes meet for a fleeting moment. Maybe he hadn't totally blown it.
"Yeah, well, it makes me look shit at my job, so forgive me a little annoyance!" She says, setting down the small case that instinctively makes Steve brush the end of his nose and lick his lips discreetly.
He thinks he can already feel the judgement from Eddie, and Buckley is already pissed, luckily most of it seems to be directed at Eddie, so he tries something to appease them both, "Might save that until after we get hauled in, Buckley. I had some actual breakfast this morning," he awkwardly laughs and hopes for the best, as Buckley stops in her tracks.
As she turns, she looks between them, and her expression softens before returning to something tougher again, "Sure thing, Mr H."
"Hey, I should get going," Eddie says, quickly gathering up his things and almost stumbling over the furniture as he retrieves his bag from the other room.
Robin waits until he's fussing out of sight. She gestures after him and whispers, "He stayed? I thought you'd snuck him out somehow."
Steve looks bashfully at the floor and then back up at her, "I asked him to," he says quietly.
"Steve, what is going on? What happened? Oh my god, did it happen? Like it?" She's still whispering but much more animated and getting closer. Steve cannot bring himself to look at her, but the jingle of Eddie's wallet chain breaks him out of his embarrassment and makes her retreat from him into her military stance.
Eddie comes into view, backpack on top of his jacket, and looks between them, "Ah, so yeah, um, I, er, gonna go," he juts his thumb at the door.
Steve notices the cut-up t-shirt in his hand, and something like envy rises in him. Yes, it's Eddie's T-shirt, but he wants it. He made it what it is. He should be allowed one keepsake. It should be his. He can still see clearly in his mind how the blade sliced through it so effortlessly, fell open to reveal the man underneath it, and lost in thought, he finally catches himself staring at it.
He looks up into Eddie's eyes. He can feel this is goodbye in his bones, which must be what emboldens him because he soon finds himself stepping towards Eddie and taking the t-shirt out of his hands, "I can take care of that for you, man. Don't want anyone getting a shot of you leaving here with that, you know? You said it wasn't sentimental, right?" Steve asks, knowing, or at least hoping, his words send Eddie back to that moment.
Eddie nods and rubs the back of his neck, "Yeah. Thanks. Saves me dealing with it," he half-smiles, "I'll, um, get yours back to you," he looks up at Buckley, "somehow." and with that, he turns to leave, and Steve grips the cotton in his hand tightly, until it hurts, because he needs to put his feelings about this heart-cracking goodbye somewhere. Eddie opens the door but stops dead in his tracks just before stepping through it. He looks over his shoulder at Steve, "I'm sorry," he says and leaves.
Robin closes the door, waits a little while until Eddie's footsteps can no longer be heard, and then turns to Steve. He looks him up and down, "How bad of a situation are we in?"
"Oh really fuckin' bad," Steve says with a half smile as Robin wraps him in a hug.
What if Steve was the rockstar and Eddie didn’t make it?
In his early 30's, Steve is riding a wave of established fame. He is a household name. He’s everyone’s favourite blue-collar, all-American, stadium-filling rockstar. Eddie doesn't make it successfully into the industry, though it remains a massive love of his. So he pursues another creative outlet to get him as close to that as possible. He became an event photographer, specialising in live music.
Years before this, Eddie covered a job for one of his photographer friends. This gig happens to be during Steve’s debut tour. That night, Eddie takes many photographs, but one captures the significance of that night for Steve, and it becomes a point of obsession for them both, but for very different reasons.
Author Note:
Key things to note. There is a 15-year time shift. Eddie and Steve are in their early 30’s. Neither of them had to face the horrors of the Upside Down. They haven't officially ever met one another before. This is a mature story with explicit elements, definitely 18+ only.
Tags/Warnings: rockstar!AU; band; touring; music industry; alternate universe; drug usage; alcohol abuse; performing; enemies to lovers; road trip
Chapter/Part Links
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7a | Part 7b |
Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 |
MadAboutMunson's Chaptered and Series Steddie Fics
Sweet Home Chicago - Complete -Set in Little Italy Chicago in 1959
I Think I Could Have Been Someone - WIP - Rockstar!Steve x Photographer!Eddie (What if Steve made it into the music business and Eddie didn't)
Again - Steddie fic where Steve and Eddie are in their mid 30's and everyone has sort of drifted apart
Raspberry Riddle - Complete
A little fic I wrote about Eddie meeting Scoops Ahoy Steve
Cryptic Cupid - Complete
Sequel to Raspberry Riddle with events of S3 and S4 in-between
This is set in a government-operated hospital after the events of season 4 but everyone is alive
Each part has a different POV, so far Robin, Steve, and Eddie.
A series of fics about the heaviest song ever written by Corroded Coffin
Rock-Steddie - Complete
Grain Damage - Complete
Rust In Peace - Complete
The Drive-In - Complete
A bailed on Steve Harrington meets a pursued Eddie Munson at a drive in movie.
Look through these blackened eyes You'll see ten thousand lies
I Think I Could Have Been Someone - Chapter 9
Ao3 Link
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Link to fic overview and all parts
Chapter Summary: Pumping with the adrenaline from their fight and with his permission, Eddie attempts to exact his revenge on Steve between the sheets. But is retribution all that is at play here?
Author Notes: This is a mature story, definitely 18+ only.
This is my first ever published smut chapter. I am sweating with nerves as I type this lol.
I have a few bang event projects to finish up, so this story will have to take a short break. Though the next few 5 chapters are already written then need to be edited, which takes me a lot of time. Sorry :(
Tags/Warnings: rockstar!AU; band; touring; music industry; alternate universe; drug usage; alcohol abuse; performing; enemies to lovers; road trip; stobin; platonic stobin; platonic with a capital P; canon typical violence; angst; masochism; fist fight; smut
I Think I Could Have Been Someone - Part 9 - Eddie POV
Even in his wildest dreams, Eddie couldn’t have possibly imagined this because nothing about this moment in time makes any sense to him at all.
Hasn’t he loathed this man for years now? Didn’t this guy ruin his life? Hadn’t this guy just seconds ago tried to beat him down verbally and physically? Eddie realises it’s a resounding yes to everything, yet he feels a pulsing energy around them—something teetering on a cliff edge.
He didn’t know why he’d answered that way. It just fell out of his mouth, Only everything.
And he did want that. He wanted to steal everything from Harrington, just like he’d stolen everything from him, but he knew that wasn’t just revenge talking. Although that feeling is still very present, another looming entity is in the room. Lust. He could feel its selfish, irresponsible form like some gelatinous ooze was creeping all over him. Seeping into every recess of his brain, turning off logic centres as it passes, only leaving primal things in its wake. The only reason he lets it continue its pilgrimage into his very being is because it’s evident he isn’t alone in this.
Harrington’s lips are still at the shell of his ear. The last thing he’d heard from them was a whimper at his reply as his entire body weight rested on top of him. Eddie is in semi-thoughtful, mostly impulsive deliberations with the ornate ceiling above them. Then there is the delicate brush of stubble as Harrington pushes his head further over his shoulder until his lips press against his ear, “Then take it.” He whispers like silk, and Eddie is not god’s strongest soldier, or anyone's for that matter. His eyes roll back as the words and all their potential implications ignite every neuron in his body. Surging to the tip of his tongue for the next thing to say. Rocketing to his fingertips for the next thing to touch. His heart thumps powerfully in its skeletal hideaway, but not for love, for an imminent frenzy. For the thrill of finally getting something over the man who’s haunted his every waking day, every nightmare-filled night, and the poor wretch is offering it up to him on a silver platter. Take it.
Eddie never considered himself an angel, but he had principles and morals that kept him on the right side of judgement from himself and maybe others, but this might be a temptation too far. Harrington was correct. He had been a fan in the early days, at least. Perhaps even up until everything fell apart. Recalling his world imploding, he feels his grip on Harrington tighten again like he wants to squeeze the breath right out of him, but he resists when he hears that gentle groan in his ear.
He feels like he could both give in to something basal and still satisfy the need to get one over on Harrington if he follows the path his hormones are gouging out for him. He feels his accomplice's hands shakily run up his sides. The breath at his ear is now against his cheek as Harrington turns to face him, head still heavy on his shoulder. Maybe he was exhausted? Perhaps he’d already given up?
Eddie has to decide. Morally, this was bad. Professionally potentially the worst decision ever, but personally, maybe the sweetest fucking revenge. The holy grail of blackmail, or perhaps no one would even believe him if he told them. No one would think that Harrington, who walks the red carpet with his doting wife, or Harrington, who gets papped with his tongue hanging out for some harem of female groupies to hang off by sucking on it, would forgo them all to fool around with an average joe, like him. A nobody. A nobody who was, at one time, on the cusp of being a somebody.
And maybe that’s what seals the deal for him. He violently pushes Harrington off him, hoping to press against one of the many bruises currently developing, and he must because he hisses as he meets the carpet with a thud.
Eddie gets to his knees, and before Harrington can let any more spiteful words leave his wretched mouth, he grabs a fistful of hair and yanks him up until they are face to face. But Harrington isn’t struggling; he lets himself hang limp in Eddie’s grip. The previous violence has begun plumping parts of his face, the red marks deepening as burst blood vessels spill under his skin. His mouth hangs open slightly, “Take it,” he mumbles a reminder through swollen split lips.
Eddie’s other hand rapidly finds its way into Harrington’s obnoxious, luxurious hair and closes the gap between them with a clash of teeth. Their lips meet brutally. He can feel the hair strands fall between his fingers as his grip tightens, pulling it out from the roots. There is no polite request for entry when Eddie’s tongue forces its way into his mouth, but he’s not met with any resistance, only moans of pleasure.
Initially, Harrington is a malleable thing in his hands, bending to his will, letting Eddie cruelly bite and drag his teeth over the wounds on his lips before kissing his hisses and whimpering back into his mouth, like he doesn’t want to hear them. And he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to hear or see anything that might induce him to be merciful. Soon enough, Harrington springs to life, grabbing fistfuls of a T-shirt at Eddie's waist, twisting it around his fingers until Eddie feels it pull tight across his back. With a grunt pushed into his mouth, he finds himself yanked flush with Harrington. The heat and pressure from another makes the skin in all the places their bodies meet feel like embers of something long forgotten, but as they move together, the sparks find their fuel and ignite a searing wildfire across the surface of his skin. He can feel his heart pounding. He can hear it in his ears like a bass line to the wanton melody of noises between them.
He feels a shift again. Harrington’s knees bracket one of his own, forcing them closer together. Another sigh spills from out Harrington, and Eddie consumes it hungrily. Like he’s trying to capture everything. He would let the night have nothing. This was all his. Every sigh, moan, whimper and groan. He would gorge himself on everything he was pulling out of Harrington until he was sick from overindulgence or until Harrington had no more to give.
Then, just like he’s acclimatising, nothing further happens between them below the belt line, but Harrington’s hands find their way up and under Eddie's shirt. Calloused fingertips but soft palms glide over his back, urging him closer, even though it is physically impossible, but the gentleness is distracting and has no place here. Eddie drags his teeth over Steve’s tongue as he pulls away, only to have his mouth adorably chased by the man opposite him, who looked starved for it, even though they’ve been clamped together for who knows how long. Eddie ignores it, licks along Harrington’s jawline, and bites down on the hinge of it with his teeth, a helpful reminder of what is happening here.
He gets the message.
Harrington’s hands raise to his shoulder blades, rough fingertips press into his skin there, and then excruciatingly slowly, he drags his blunt fingernails down Eddie’s back. A gasp fights out and into his ear, causing a reactionary hip buck into his thigh from Harrington, whose fingers soothe their way back up the fresh scratches.
Harrington, for the first time, leans back, his spit-wet mouth slightly parted as he observes Eddie through barely open hooded eyes before raking his nails down him again, faster this time, making Eddie’s back arch towards him with a yelp from the stinging pain melting into a sigh caused by a wave of endorphins rearing up and crashing down on him. Involuntarily, he closes his eyes, maybe to savour the sensation of the burning strands of heat trailing over his back, perhaps to not look at Harrington. He isn’t sure, but he soon finds himself pulled into a more comfortable measured distance of zero. But no lips meet his. A hand grasps his jaw tightly and tips his head backwards. He feels a breath at the base of his throat, the moisture evaporating so quickly from him there is a coolness for a second before Harrington’s tongue drags up the column of his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. “Wait here,” he’s instructed as Harrington leaves, and he finally dares open his eyes, tries to catch his breath, palms at the bulge in his jeans for a second of relief, and relaxes back on his heels.
He watches Harrington busy himself with a door handle sign, and he opens the door a crack. Immediately, Buckley’s face appears in it.
“Jesus Christ, Steve!” She exclaims quietly, but he’s already trying to close the door again after hanging a do not disturb sign.
“Relax. We’re not fighting anymore.” He says and slams the door.
“Then what are you doing in there?” She yells angrily through the door.
Steve yanks the door open again, “I dunno, fucking hopefully,” she’s about to say something else when he slams the door shut and locks it again.
That makes Eddie spring to his feet, and his brain feeds him a million reasons why he really should leave, but the problem being he still has a reason to stay, and he’s still horny as hell.
Harrington slinks his way back and leisurely looks Eddie over, “What happened?” He smirks, “Didn’t wanna be on your knees when I got back?” Harrington reaches over and takes his arm, runs his hands over it, inspects it, leads him to the couch, and sits them both down. He waits for a second before crawling towards Eddie. He looked more creature than man. Almost under a spell, Eddie feels himself doing one thing but saying another. He reclines back on the seat, coaxing Harrington into his lap, saying, “This is a terrible idea, Harrington.”
“Oh, the absolute worst, for sure,” Harrington smiles slyly as he straddles Eddie’s thighs, “And I think it would be even worse for me to hear you call me by my name and not my brand.”
Eddie’s chest heaves as he is manhandled to make him a more comfortable seat, “Yeah, that would be a really dumb thing to do, wouldn’t it, Steve?” And he watches as Steve’s eyes shoot to his and shift from something amused to something all the more sultry. He tilts his head a little like he didn’t hear correctly, eyes firmly fixed on Eddie, who thinks he knows what he’s being asked to do, “Did you hear what I said,” Eddie lets his eyes fall to his lap and drags them unhurriedly back to meet the blooming dilated pupils of the man seated on him, “Steve?”
Like his own name is the shot of a starting pistol, Steve launches himself at Eddie again, with force enough to rock the furniture.
Within seconds, things start to feel almost competitive. Every kiss was returned with a more forceful one, every grip on the other's body was returned with a harder, more cruel squeeze, and every needy grind down was met with a hard thrust upwards.
The one-upmanship leaves Eddie intoxicated. He’s trying to think but can’t. He’s overwhelmed by sensation. His primitive brain just hungers for more. To take everything until all that is left is a carcass of the man huffing and panting in his lap. For a second, he doesn’t think he has ever seen anything more gloriously desperate as Steve. He wants Eddie with abandon of everything else. His persona seemed shed. He seemed real. Human. Not a nemesis. Not a celebrity. Not an object to covet. Just a guy. A hot as sin, ravenous, wild, hazardously beautiful man.
Something threatens to bloom inside Eddie’s chest, and a fresh urgency springs to life, like a survival instinct almost. He reaches for Steve’s shirt and begins unfastening it. His fingers feel their way clumsily over the buttons as the rest of his body is otherwise occupied. He finds his hands grasped and pushed down to rest on Steve’s thighs as he leans back for a moment to pull the shirt over his head, and he finds his hands placed back on his torso, and that feeling of much softer than expected skin under his fingertips is tantalising but as he caresses over his body, it’s when his fingers meet the stubble at his chest or the trail down his abdomen that really sends Eddie into a spin. It overheats him. He feels like his own clothes are suffocating him. That they are needlessly in the way. He craves to feel this against his own skin and reaches behind his head, leaning forward to shed himself of some of it, but a hand on his chest pauses him.
Eddie looks up to find Steve toying with one of the many long chains draped around his neck, but instead of asking any questions, his eyes force him on a mini visual expedition of what his hands had been trailing over. A short, stunted breath leaves his mouth. This was crazy. He’s seen this body a million times in magazines, adverts, album covers, billboards, through his own camera lens and eyes, yet it feels like he’s never seen anything like it before. Littered with tattoos, a visibly heaving chest, ribs that appear and disappear as he breathes, muscles that flex and pulse as he writhes his body, but eventually, he hears him.
“Does it hold any sentimental value?” Steve rasps, his eyes trailing over and grasping onto his T-shirt.
“No,” he replies with a pointless, unseen shake of his head. Steve immediately yanks a necklace from his neck with a grunt of effort, and he slides that under Eddie’s shirt. The chain still attached slides along his skin. Some links are still heated from Steve in parts. Others were cool enough to almost make him want to jerk away from them.
The safety-conscious part of Eddie is urging him to look at what might be happening under his shirt, but the hedonist who has clawed his way from the depths to the surface only wants to feast on what it wants to store for future reference.
It’s innocent enough to start with, taking in how engaged he is with his task at hand, how his eyes that, naturally slope into a sadness, are wide and alive with anticipation. The way his bruised lips are pressed together in concentration and occasionally bite back into his mouth. Then his eyes trail further down to the sizeable bulge in his jeans, how it’s pressed against his own. He can’t stop his hands from sliding up to his hips, running his fingertips over the bone he hopes to be more intimately acquainted with as soon as possible. He settles on gripping them tightly, rocking his hips upward impatiently. A series of tuts raises his eyes to Steve’s face again, noticing a small smile growing, “Patience, baby. Patience.” He barely mutters out, his eyes still focused on the job at hand until his hand stills high up on his chest, the pendant still gripped in his fingers, “Hold still.” He says with an audible metallic click. Eddie dares to look down but can’t quite see what’s happening until Steve raises his other hand, splays his fingers in a V-shape, pushes down on the material, and the small blade pushes through.
Panic sets in, and a new adrenaline wave surges through him. He should leave immediately. This was fucked up. The fact he had a knife on him this whole time was terrifying, regardless of how little damage it looked like it could do. As he takes a panicked gasp of breath, he looks up at Steve, who is almost chewing on his bottom lip, his heavy-lidded eyes focused on the metal, and he makes a sound of appreciation before rearranging his hands so that he can hold the material taught and pull the blade down. It slices through easily, the fabric falling open, exposing him as it glides down. Eddie’s still breathing hard, but his heart isn’t thumping so much with fear anymore as the knife cuts through the hem, and Steve retracts the blade and tosses it somewhere into the room. His fingers grip the top of the slit, roughly yanking it apart to rip open the collar with a grunt.
Eddie stays entirely still and simply observes Steve. He wishes he had his camera to hand, as it’s quite a sight to behold. He can’t remember the last time someone looked at him like this, not just lustfully, but like he was the most spectacular thing they’d ever seen. Steve’s large hands smooth over his skin and delicately push back the material. A yearnful noise emits from Steve like he can’t have what’s laid out in front of him as he presses into his skin, exploring it with his fingertips, his eyes trailing after them.
So Eddie reminds him that he can. He surges forward, capturing Steve in his arms, pulling him in tightly, pressing them together, and capturing his mouth with his own. It’s a mess of lips, groans and saliva topped with wandering mouths, causing careless, hurried nips of cuts and bruises. But the apologies are wordless. A hiss of too much from one is answered with a pleasurable pinch or caress elsewhere by the other.
Suddenly, Steve’s thighs clench hard around Eddie, and it doesn’t need explaining, but an excited smile sweeps across his face mid-kiss. He grips the back of his thighs and moves them up to wrap around his waist. Denim drags against denim, and he finds his arousal pressed up against something a lot plusher, and at the same time, Steve’s is now pressed into his abdomen, and he resolves these clothes have got to go now. He shuffles to the edge of the sofa, one arm holding their bodies together, the other draped under Steve’s legs, holding him up, simultaneously copping a feel of his ass.
And this must be where their experiences differ because Steve pulls back and looks unsure. Eddie smiles, “Better hold on to something, sweetheart.” He realises his mistake as soon as the pet name leaves his mouth, but he’s not gonna apologise awkwardly over words right now. He pushes himself up to standing, and Steve’s arms urgently wrap around his neck. Eddie checks in on him. Just a glance, he tells himself. Expects to see an almost comical face of panic, and he does for a second until he hears the thick swallow from Steve’s throat and watches his eyelashes bat slowly in a dazed blink at him.
Typically, Eddie knows he would have settled for the couch, but like he said, he wanted everything, and one of the things he wanted most right now was to see Steve an absolute mess under him.
He pushes adjoining doors open until he finds a bed. He stops at the edge of it, peels Steve’s arms from around his neck and unceremoniously lets him go so he lands on it with an oof and a bounce. Then Eddie’s hands quickly find his own belt buckle to finally get out of the remainder of his clothes. Steve doesn’t interrupt him. He just looks him up and down as he rests back on his elbows, his legs dangling off the edge of the bed, wetting his lips in anticipation.
He lets his jeans drop to the floor and kicks off his sneakers. As he bends down to remove his socks, he looks up and finds himself level with Steve’s knee, and his eyes trail up to his crotch, but from this angle, it’s easy enough for Steve’s eyes to capture him again and as he does Steve spreads his knees apart a little more and bites his lip temptingly.
That’s when Eddie acts out of sorts. Usually, he’d just let the other guy give him a show, but he reaches for Steve’s boot, unzips it and removes it for him, and the sock and the other set in turn. Like he’s saving him then trouble. Then clasps onto Steve’s calves, kneading into them through the denim as he works his way up over his knees until his hands glide over his upper leg. Steve’s mouth drops open a little with hope as he glances between Eddie and himself, but Eddie's nimble hands skirt around the place Steve wants him most to undo the fly of his jeans, but once he removes the belt and buckle from the equation he doesn’t find one. He sees where a zipper should be, something akin to the back of a laced corset. Metal eyelets with a black cord running crisscross through them. He tugs at one end, and the ties fall apart easily. His fingertips wander into the waistband of them. He anticipates feeling the fabric of some designer brand briefs, but he finds none. Only the softness of skin. Of course, he’s not wearing any underwear. Eddie almost laughs as he stands to get a better grip on removing his pants, but he’s interrupted.
Steve, obviously not happy about anything slowing down, has sat up, pushed Eddie’s hands out of the way and is currently mouthing at him through his underwear, and Eddie wants it not to feel this good, but it absolutely fucking does. He looks down to meet the hungry, longing eyes already looking up at him, planting eager kisses and licks over the material that is gradually getting soaked through. Steve’s chipped, black, polished fingertips crawl into the band of the Kirkland signature briefs. Eddie wonders for a second how much more expensive the nail polish is compared to them before nodding and Steve pulling down his underwear so he can finally spring free of its oppression.
Steve stops. He stares and goes a little cross-eyed before looking back up at Eddie and running his tongue over his bottom lip. This is different from how he wanted this to go exactly, but who is he to say no. Nobody says no to Steve Harrington, right?
He watches himself taken in ringed hand, fingertips running down his length are soon accompanied by the flat wet expanse of Steve’s tongue dragging up it until it’s rolling around the throbbing head of his cock, and as his lips finally wrap around him, he looks right back up at him again, Eddie has to look away. He puts his hands in his hair, lolling his head back and groans with delight. Not solely because of the fact he’s getting his dick sucked, not just because it’s someone famous, but because it felt like, finally, the tables had turned. Finally, he’s in charge.
Steve’s hands urge him closer, but Eddie plants his feet and steps back even. He looks back down to watch himself pump in and out of that pretty pink pout. and it’s so good, but he needs more. He cards his fingers through Steve’s hair, which gets his attention. Their eyes meet again, and this time, Eddie makes himself gaze back. His hand falls to the side of his face as his head bobs rhythmically. His thumb brushes over his cheek, his fingers cradle his wide-open jaw, and it feels like Steve leans into his palm. Eddie shakes his head quickly, moves his hand back into Steve’s hair, and holds onto it. And it brings the current events to a slower pace.
Steve opens his mouth wide, extends his tongue out, and laps at the underside of the head of his shaft in a sort of come hither motion with the tip of his tongue, but Eddie does something else. He grips more tightly onto his hair and drags Steve towards him and off the bed until he’s on his knees. Steve doesn’t complain. Smiles even, with his tongue still hanging out, desperate for its next taste.
With a firm grip, he tilts Steve’s head back a little so he can see his face as he tugs hard on his hair, pulling him towards him forcefully until he gags and pulls him back off again. Looks down at him and raises an eyebrow in question as Steve catches his breath. He smiles up at him and drops his mouth open again, letting his tongue hang to his chin. Eddie slowly drags him by his hair up and down, repeatedly, occasionally forcing Steve’s nose to be pressed hard into his thatch of curls and held there, choking, his throat squeezing around Eddie as he does before he’s forced off of it again. He lets Eddie wield him like a plaything. And soon, that’s not enough either. Eddie finds himself gripping the sides of Steve’s hair, observes the grey tear stains rolling down his face, the drool pooling at the corners of his mouth, and by the gods, Eddie wishes he had his camera right now. And he thinks about it, about pounding himself into Steve’s face until oblivion, until he’s spent, leaving Steve hard and unsatisfied, but he finds his hand trailing over his face again. Whatever he was trying to prove, he felt like he’d just done that. Now, he wants something else. He wants to hear Steve fall apart.
He cups Steve’s jaw gently, encourages him to stand, and once up, he wipes at his face a little. He wants to ask him if he’s ok, but he knows he shouldn’t. He smooths his hands down his back until Steve takes matters into his own hands. He swiftly turns them around, deeply kissing Eddie as he does so, walking him back towards the bed. He feels the back of it hit his knees and sits down as Steve finally frees himself of his pants but doesn’t give Eddie much of a show about it all. Before Eddie has even had a chance to perceive how perfect his dick might be, Steve has clambered onto the bed too. He crawls up Eddie until their mouths slot together again, as one of Steve’s hands presses against his chest, encouraging him further back until he hits the headboard.
He finds himself caged between Steve’s arms, pressed against one another without a safety barrier of fabric. Desperate kisses move south to become more languid and wet at his throat, which chills him when Steve intermittently huffs out a breath over the sites of desire as his hips roll down into his own, causing delicious friction between them.
Steve moves lower but scoops his arm behind Eddie’s back, arching his chest upwards to dip his head and trail his tongue, which he wields like a demon, over it. He mouths over his stiffened nipples as he finds them, kitten licks them, chances a drag of teeth over them, as his lower position has him slowly thrusting against Eddie’s thigh. With each roll of hips, Eddie watches him slowly coming undone. Controlled deliberate kisses turn into him sucking down on Eddie’s skin, placing fresh areas of burst blood vessels next to the less recent ones. Ones from pleasure next to ones from pain. Calculated nips at his torso become full bites that linger to quieten his moans as they seep under Eddie’s skin.
Whilst it’s thrilling to watch Steve fall from grace as he uses Eddie as a means to get there, and it feels fucking fantastic, he wants it to be him that does it. He wants it to be him that pushes Steve over the edge. Up until the fight earlier, he’d been entirely sure that this guy was as straight as they come, but from what Eddie had witnessed so far, that was absolutely not a possibility. He’s done this before. Maybe countless times. Maybe with other guys like Eddie? Maybe with guys more like himself who both have to keep it quiet? Something hideous squirms inside him unpleasantly at the thought.
He captures Steve’s chin on the knuckle of his index finger, lifts his head, and receives a dopey smile. Eddie hasn’t seen him take anything, yet he looks pretty out of it, “You ok?” He asks, even though he knows he shouldn’t, but he doesn’t want to be doing any of this with someone out of their gourd.
“Mmmhmmm,” he nods on the crook of Eddie’s finger and smiles lazily.
“Did you take something?” he asks plainly, scanning him for clues.
Steve shakes his head and crawls forward so their noses brush against one another, “The only thing I want right now is you,” his voice trembles as he leans in for another kiss. Eddie's stomach flips, which he can’t help feeling is very inappropriate.
That isn’t what this is, he reminds himself.
He pushes him back to break the kiss and runs his fingers over Steve’s lips, cuts and bruising included, before hooking two of his fingertips inside his bottom lip and gently pushing them further into Steve’s mouth. Eddie almost shudders at how obediently he opens his mouth wider with a nudge of his hand. He doesn’t even have to ask. He adds fingers, letting Steve suck down on them until he feels it’s enough.
He lowers his saliva-soaked hand between them and reaches for Steve first. Rolls his palm over the head before sliding his fingers easily down the shaft until he has him in his grip. At first, his strokes are slow and soft, not for Steve but for himself. He watches Steve’s eyes close, his breathing deepens and shudders, still on all fours hovering over Eddie, his fists clenched against the bedding, as his head drops forward against Eddie’s shoulder. He quickens his pace and tightens his grip until Steve is just a series of cut-off guttural noises in his ear. Then he lets go, takes himself in hand, and lazily moves his hand up and down. Their proximity means that the back of his fingers occasionally bump against Steve’s shaft. Maybe sometimes he stretches his fingers out so the contact is for longer, just so he can hear those whimpers in his ear again that are swirling around his head, disorienting him from his goal. He hadn’t realised how much faster he’d gotten, like Steve’s delicate whispered exhales reverberating through him were speeding him up. Soon enough, he finds his own moans intertwining with Steve’s.
“Fuck, you sound good.” Steve manages, and his first instinct is to quicken his pace further, let Steve’s voice ring in his ears as he succumbs to pleasure himself, but somehow he resists. Turning his attention and hand back to Steve, and the gasp in his ear, he’s sure he’ll be able to recall until the day he dies because his name is whispered out immediately after.
He must have heard Steve’s voice in his ear hundreds of times before, listening to his music and interviews before everything went wrong. He remembers how thrilling it had been to hear his whispers on record or the bits a live recording would catch before and after a song, and now Eddie was collecting his own, all just for himself, never to be released or shared with anyone else.
From the corner of his eye, he notices Steve’s arm shaking, the one Eddie had to beat his way free from. He sits up a little, taking the weight from his arm upon himself, and maybe it’s an act of compassion too far. Perhaps he should have waited until he’d collapsed because he feels his eyes on him again. He can’t help but glance, and he’s greeted with a snapshot of brutalised perfection. His lips, cheek, and one eye are swollen and reddening, but his jawline is still perfectly angular, the beauty marks still decorate his skin, his long lashes flatten out against his cheek when he blinks dumbfounded, maybe even a little surprised, mouth dropped open letting stuttering breaths pass freely. Eddie takes a mental snapshot. A pang of fleeting guilt runs through him, but entirely by chance, it’s interrupted.
Steve’s hands quickly reach out to clumsily hold Eddie’s face. His palms on his cheeks almost squeeze a little too hard, pulling him towards him, but the fingertips in his hair, caressing his scalp and the lips that ravenously meet his, make him forget to breathe.
The sea of sin Eddie had been cannonballing into and happily disrupting the surface of suddenly didn’t feel like his safe space anymore. Occasionally a shadowy something below the surface reaches out. Threatens to drag Eddie down with it. He wonders how long he’ll have the strength to escape its grasp.
Eddie adjusts his position a little, doesn’t pull away from Steve, gets closer so he can take them both in hand, slides his hand over them both, takes his time, and thumbs over the top of them for any droplets of added lubrication he can find. The moans passing into his mouth grow louder. He opens his eyes to see Steve’s brow knitted together, his eyes no longer softly closed but screwed shut. Eddie moves faster, and Steve pulls back. A string of curses leave his mouth, “Shitshitshitshit.” He quickly moves out of Eddie’s grip with a hiss, “Fuck!”
“Something…wrong?” Eddie teases a little. Steve shakes his head, looks down at himself, wipes his hand over his face, and laughs a little. “If you wanna stop, put your big boy pants on and say so, Harrington.”
Steve’s smile fades, and his mood switches. “I never fucking said that. If you…” he starts, and whatever was about to leave his mouth makes him cower back down, “I-I didn’t say that, that’s all.”
Eddie can’t guess what he wants to say but wants to know, “My mistake.” He offers, and Steve looks up at him again, hopefully. Eddie hops off the bed and retrieves the wallet from his jeans. On return, he props himself up with pillows, tips out a bunch of lube sachets and condoms from his wallet and then tosses it onto the floor somewhere.
Eddie tears open a lube sachet with his teeth and squeezes it over his cock and hand. The cold sting of it makes him bite down on his lip to hold in a reactionary noise. He hitches up his knees and makes eye contact with Steve as he pleasures himself. The slick glide soon has him breathing more heavily, and like a moth to a flame, Steve is soon stalking his way back up the bed, looking between Eddie’s face and his display. Eddie stills his hand, sighs, and looks expectantly at Steve, “If I what?”
“If you…” Steve starts, and Eddie starts pumping his fist again. “If you hadn’t got laid in this long” He catches on pretty quickly as Eddie quickens his pace, lets his growling moans out freely, and watches how it makes Steve’s dick twitch when he does. Maybe he over-performs a few to wind Steve up further. He then exhales slowly as he squeezes the base of his shaft and stops again.
“What are you just playing Yahtzee with your friends in your playroom, Harrington? Is that it?” Eddie chuckles, and Steve looks a little conflicted.
Steve takes a hard swallow of what must be his pride and talks directly to Eddie’s glistening dick, “I might as well have been,” he starts, and so does Eddie, “I haven’t been able to, um, you know” Eddie pumps himself faster, trying to make the most lurid noises with the lube and an occasional exhale of a moan from his mouth. Steve is silent, quietly inching his hand towards himself. Eddie slows again, raises an eyebrow at Steve when he looks at his face, “Fuck, I mean, I thought it was gone for a year or something. Until…well, tonight.”
And now many pieces are slotting into place for Eddie, why he’s so desperate and needy. Letting Eddie use him, why he pulled away, he doesn’t know if this is a one-off or not, and not just with him but his own body too. He wants the works, and though Eddie really shouldn’t have any pity for him, he feels a spark of it.
“Lie back,” Eddie says, and Steve double-takes.
“What?” He frowns.
“Don’t what me, asshole. Come up here, and lie fucking back, Steve!” Eddie performatively snarls, and he sees the corner of Steve’s mouth twitch up as he ungracefully hurries to obey.
He straddles Steve’s thighs, pinching them closed between his own and transfers most of the lube still on his hand onto Steve’s thigh ungraciously. Nothing too exciting for him right now, not yet.
He leans over him, careful not to create too much friction between them. Brackets Steve's broader shoulders with his arms and returns to how they started. Urgent kisses, wandering hands, teasing tongues. Walks a series of gentle bites along his jaw, licks at his throat, and sucks down onto his skin, leaving his mark as he travels down, making a kiss or lurid lick pitstop at every beauty mark and tattoo he finds. Pulls gently at the nipple piercings with his teeth and soothes over them after with the wetness of his tongue. Traces over every muscle dip until he gets to those hip bones he’d promised himself earlier. Steve writhes like the reptile he is under him as he mouths over them. Eddie might be getting a little too into it and reaches down to give himself some much-needed touch before moving down further, resting his chin on Steve’s thigh and looking up at the dewy-eyed, breathless creature above him.
Eddie observes him and waits for his attention before blowing gently on the moistened tip of Steve’s dick. He watches Steve’s craned neck release and throws his head back into the pillows, “Jesus!” he breathes into the air above him.
Eddie waits a little while until his breathing slows before hitching up Steve’s knees and separating them so he can lie between them. He trails a mixture of wet kisses and teeth drags along the inside of his thighs, watching his body constantly, ensuring it’s enough to keep him in that sweet spot but never too much.
He tests a slow trail of kisses along his solid shaft, which, on closer inspection, as Eddie had predicted, was indeed as perfect as the rest of him. It would almost be annoying if Eddie wasn’t having such a good time.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Steve moans as his hands grip onto the bedding. Eddie smiles. This is what he’s after, keeping him right here until Eddie decides to push him across the line. He wets his lips and pushes himself onto his elbows, admiring the gift before him as Steve settles down again. Then, he licks a fat stripe with the flat of his tongue from base to tip, and Steve jolts. He flicks the tip of his tongue along the slit to collect what is pooling in it and watches Steve’s back arch off the bed. Gods, Eddie wishes he hadn’t done that. He tastes delicious. So fucking good, Eddie is trying to spread the tiny droplet around his tongue so he can savour every aspect of it, and that makes Eddie lose sight of what he’s supposed to be doing. His hand rushes down to fuck into his own fist as he takes Steve wholly into his mouth until the tip of it threatens his throat. He just about hears Steve’s broken-off ahs and chanting of his name over his own guttural moans caused by hollowing out his cheeks and letting his tongue massage the underside of the throbbing cock in his mouth. Strong hands grip his shoulders, pull him out of his trance, and he releases him with an audible pop.
Steve’s chest and face are sweetly flushed as he’s gasping for air, and then the knitted brow falls into a content expression once he’s calmed again.
Eddie reaches over him to grab a few more lube sachets and a condom, but as he does, Steve desperately grabs at him again, pulling him in for another kiss, and Eddie isn’t sure it’s because he’s so damn close himself, but it makes his head spin, almost drops what’s in his hands. It’s not a hard, rough kiss like before, but it has passion and want all the same.
“Turn over,” Eddie says gently as he encourages him back down to the bed. Steve stalls for a second. Eddie figures he’s misheard, “Turn. Over.” he repeats softly, and this time he meets the request, “Just so I’m clear, this past year, you haven’t fucked anyone but has anyone fucked you?”
“No,” he answers quickly, though the pillows slightly muffle it, and Eddie has to bite his lips together to not whimper with anticipation as he sits behind Steve, rips open another packet of lube, and observes this new angle. The huge wolf tattoo he’s seen plenty of times, and the text stamped at the base of his spine he’d seen twice before partially, but now Wild Thing had an entirely different meaning.
Sachet, still hanging out his mouth, Eddie has an idea. He wraps an arm around Steve’s waist and pulls him onto his knees so his peach of an ass is raised in the air. He runs his hands up Steve’s back and out to the sides so he can hold his arms. Trails his fingers down them until he has hold of Steve’s hands and brings them around so he can spread himself for him, and he wordlessly obeys as Eddie takes off his rings.
He generously applies the lubricant to Steve and himself, secretly relishing in every exclamation or body spasm from the man before him.
He touches the pink puckered flesh, circles it gently, listens for the melody of moans he’s conducting and feels infinitely harder with each one. Waits for that magic moment when Steve backs up towards him, eager for it. Eddie pushes his finger inside and holds it still for a while as Steve’s body tenses, accompanied by a hiss until he finally relaxes. Relaxes might be a strong word because the way he’s clamped around Eddie’s finger makes him wonder if this would be possible at all.
Steve pushes back again, taking him deeper, and honestly, Eddie is impressed with how keen he is but does a quick glance of a check anyway. Steve’s face is side on, pushed into the pillows, panting heavily. He thinks maybe it’s enough. He’s had his fun, he’s already a mess, but Steve catches him looking, “What’s the holdup, stud?” he mumbles out, pushes back again, and that pisses Eddie off. Fine. He was just trying to be courteous, being fond of switching it up himself. He knows how it feels on the other side of things, but fuck it, right? Steve doesn’t give a shit.
Eddie does, however, and he’s not letting this debauched freak drag him down to something he’d regret. So he continues loosening Steve up, sometimes, to be spiteful, excruciatingly slowly, delighting between the switching Steve’s whines of frustration and groans of ecstasy as his fingertips meet the spot he knows is making him see stars.
When he’s primed to Eddie’s satisfaction and squirming in the hotel’s bright white sheets, a pathetic begging mess of a man, Eddie reaches around and quickly gives him a few firm strokes, making him huff out into the pillows. Eddie returns his fingers to his mouth for another taste, like an amuse-bouche before the main event.
He taps the sheathed head of himself at the tight entrance, pushing Steve’s hands away, and amuses himself by sliding over it a few times because it feels exquisite and drives Steve insane. He waits like a predator stalking his prey, waiting for Steve’s frustration to reach its peak. He waits for Steve to turn around with a frown, pushes the tip of himself inside as they lock eyes, wipes the scowl right off of it, and takes his breath away.
Eddie would love to smugly smile back, but he’s gripping Steve’s sides for dear life. Jesus Christ, he was tight. He stays perfectly still. Which alone is making him start to sweat. He pushes himself deeper. Another x-rated groan from Steve and clenching around him almost has him retreating entirely. A strange jealousy sweeps over Eddie. All those noises from Steve were supposed to be his. He wraps his arms around Steve’s torso, coaxing his back to press to Eddie’s chest. Steve almost panics when he realises his weight might slide him down quicker than he wants, but Eddie holds him tightly until he’s found a comfortable squat, “There you go, sweetheart, take your time,” he croons slyly in his ear.
And Eddie expects this evident pain slut to impale himself on his dick, but that isn’t what happens. His arms that are wrapped around his torso are mapped over by Steve’s, their fingers become intertwined, and as he turns so, they are face to face again. The grey streaks of eyeliner-saturated tears and tenderness take Eddie entirely off guard and snap him out of his attempted cruelty. He couldn’t figure this guy out at all.
This close, he can see that no photograph would do his eye colour justice, not without editing, and where is the reality in that. Eddie gets lost in the pigments, getting bullied to the edges of his iris by his dilated pupil or looking at the beauty marks on his face that aren’t hidden by the blemishes he caused.
Before he can say something clever or push him away, he finds his bottom lip trapped between Steve’s teeth. He pulls and drags his teeth over it as he sinks down a little more. It’s released when a groan threatens to escape Steve, which Eddie swallows down in a kiss and feels the fingers intertwined with his squeeze tightly.
Eddie senses the danger now, but it happens in fits and starts because, in between the warning signs, his pleasure centres are blocking out any logical functions. Eddie knows he’s treading water, the shadowy thing licking at his heels, making its presence known but never quite revealing until it disappears again. He wonders if Steve feels it, too. If he feels like there isn’t just hate and lust here. He hopes to any deity listening that it is simply his hormones talking nonsense. That he’s merely just in the heat of the moment.
Steve pushes down again, and Eddie is in to the hilt. He’s clenched around him tightly and overwhelmed by sensation, and Eddie gives in. He softly sighs into another kiss and almost forgets why he’s doing any of this in the first place. Almost. It’s the roll of Steve’s hips and the whimper of “Fuck Eddie. You feel so fuckin’ good.” That pulls Eddie entirely out of his trance, reminding him of the aim here,
“Good.” he purrs in his ear before untangling their hands and pushing him back down to the bed.
Initially, the pace is slow, deep and deliberate as his fingers grip tightly onto Steve’s hips, and Eddie is just enjoying watching himself disappear inside him when Steve decides to say something stupid.
“Is this how you fucked that guy at the hotel?”
And in that one question, everything comes flooding back to Eddie again. The reason he’d stayed at the hotel, the reason he had to come crawling back to work with Harrington, everything he’d lost.
With an absence of a reply, he tried to jog Eddie’s memory, “The one that looked like I used to?” As if implying that Eddie fucks so many people in hotels he’d not know which one he was talking about. It makes Eddie's lip twitch into a discrete sneer.
“No, but I probably should, shouldn’t I? Treat all you sluts the same, right?” Harrington’s body tenses under his touch as he pushes him around, making him arch more and his legs spread wider. He grabs his wrists and pulls them behind his back, landing him face-first into the bed again. Eddie tugs on his wrists, pulling him into a stretch almost. He starts thrusting again much faster this time, enough to make Harrington’s groans waver with each one, “He was beautiful, wasn’t he? Actually had some meat on his bones, something to really dig my teeth into. Something that I thought about for days later, and thank the gods for you bringing him up now, Harrington, because I get to think about him all over again whilst I fuck you wide open.” Eddie goes for broke and wants to make Harrington feel like dirt, like nothing, that he's lost it all in this moment.
Eddie sets a relentless pace. There is no talking now, just the sound of skin on skin, an occasional curse word from Eddie and Harrington’s muffled groans as he bites down on a pillow. With every noise, he fucks into him harder to shut him up until he’s just a set of stunted breaths, and Eddie becomes a sweaty grunting mess.
Harrington’s noises go up an octave as Eddie lets go of his arms and adjusts his position. And soon Eddie, hearing his name chanted again in a mixture of curse words and blasphemy, knows he’s got him where he wants him.
“My god, Eddie, fuck,” Harrington babbles. “I’m so close, Eddie, please” And fuck does he think about stopping right there, but he’s achingly close himself. Only a staring competition between this fucking giant wolf on Harrington’s back was helping.
Eddie spits in his hand, reaches around to spread it over Harrington’s length, and takes one of Steve’s hands and places it there, “Go ahead, Harrington, make a mess of yourself,” Eddie says with a slight mockery in his voice.
Harrington doesn’t need telling twice. Eddie watches his arm move in time with his thrusts and with a screwed-up face and a strained “Jesus. Fuck” Harrington spills with a loud exhale, and Eddie slows to a stop and pulls out as Harrington’s body stutters before it goes limp. He’s desperately near cumming himself, but he wants the full view. He rolls Harrington over so he’s lying in his own cum, picks up some on his fingertips and decorates Harrington’s lips with it whilst he’s trying to catch his breath. He then repositions himself between his legs and hooks them over his shoulders.
Harrington looks down but can’t form a response. He just slams his head back into the pillows behind him in blissed-out exhaustion. Eddie reinserts himself easily and leans right forward, bringing Harrington’s knees nearly up to his shoulders and leans down to messily lick over his lips as he rears his hips back only to slam them back down, a guttural winded noise leaves Harrington, and Eddie grins, looking down at this picture perfect fucked out freak underneath him.
Eddie wedges a hand between them and runs his fingers over his length to see if he’s got anything left or just to overstimulate him. He gets the latter, some amiable noises, turning into things on the edge of expressing pain, but he’s not doing a single thing about it. He slams into him again, and this time, the gasp comes with a sigh of enjoyment. Eddie continues to pick up the pace as he watches Harrington’s face contort underneath him.
And Eddie starts to lose himself. He closes his eyes as they roll backwards at the pleasure he’s feeling course through his body. He whimpers and moans, curses the gods, curses Harrington. The sweat is dripping from him as he closes in on the finish line. Steve’s hands on his face make him finally open his eyes. He’s brushing the curls and sweat from his face between huffed-out noises from Eddie’s jackhammering.
“You’re so fucking, hot, Eddie,” Steve sighs out as one of his hands reaches in between them. Finds Eddie’s hand to jerk off Steve together. “Are you gonna cum for me?” He manages before his brows push together, and he moans loud and long. In his pre-climax state, Eddie leans forward to capture his sounds for his own.
“Mine.” He growls through gritted teeth as his hips rut faster into Steve.
Steve’s unoccupied hand cradles his jaw, “Yours,” he whimpers out, and Eddie’s insides, already buzzing with adrenaline and imminent climax, completely somersault. “That’s it baby, cum for me.” he urges Eddie on, and stupefied by hormones and sensations, Eddie wholeheartedly agrees.
“Fuck, I’m gonna cum so hard for you, sweetheart,” Eddie pushes through his teeth.
And that has Steve in a real mess, his arm moving much faster. Eddie watches him babble incoherent things, his eyelids flutter, and tears spill out as he cums again between them.
This was everything Eddie wanted. He had finally broken Steve Harrington, maybe not in all the ways he wanted, but certainly in an unforgettable way.
As Eddie's most satisfying climax is seconds away, a broken Steve paints Eddie’s lips with his cum covered fingers, “Mine,” he hiccups as the tears spill out of his eyes, and he reaches up for a kiss as Eddie's hips stutter against him and he careers off the edge into complete euphoria.
As Eddie slowly comes down, he finds himself repositioned, held in Steve’s arms, fully collapsed against him, slow kisses being gently applied all over his lips and a hand in his hair.
Still catching his breath, Eddie raises his eyes to his. With their chests heaving, for some reason, they both laugh, and Eddie sees a side of Steve he’s not encountered before that maybe he’s seen glimmers of. When he laughs, he holds on to himself, and his eyes almost completely disappear from view because the apples of his cheeks are pushed up so high, even though there isn’t much to them these days. There is only silence or the sounds of their breathing for a while.
Eddie finds himself back where this started, staring at another ornate ceiling. His heart still thudding in his chest, he chances another glance over at Steve, only to look away quickly because he was already being observed. Steve’s hand gently plays with his hair, “We should probably clean up before they get here. Make it just look like a fight.” Steve’s voice is quiet and rough, but Eddie thinks he can hear a little sadness, too.
“Before who get here?” Eddie asks in confusion.
“Whoever the label sends when they get wind of this.” He sighs, “Damage control. To make sure you aren’t gonna leak anything. To remind me to behave myself, maybe teach me a lesson,” Steve pats him, sits up, takes the condom off Eddie, ties it up, and then starts gathering the wrappers before heading to the bathroom. Eddie hears a flush before he returns, “Come on, get up,” he says kindly with a smile, “gotta get this in the laundry shoot asap.”
Eddie can see him favouring one arm over the other as he tries to gather up the bedding. He winces occasionally but makes no sound of pain. He just tries to bundle everything up as Eddie watches the melancholy work its way over him. The Harrington of it all makes Steve disappear again. “Here, let me do that,” Eddie pretends to be annoyed as he bumps Steve out of the way to take over, “Goddamn rockstars got no clue about chores, obviously” he bundles everything up in his arms, “Where is it going?” Eddie looks at him like it’s the biggest inconvenience in the world, but Steve just stares for a second before silently pointing him to the private shute. Eddie heads towards it, calling back, “Let me know when you're done in the shower.” as he shoves the material down.
But the reply is closer than he expects, “You can wait if you want, but there’s room for two,” Steve says, looking between Eddie and random objects around the room. Steve swallows, “Or you know more? I’m pretty sure I’ve had four or five in there at a squeeze before,” with that, he walks away, saying, “You know, saving the planet, Eddie, not wasting water or whatever.”
He’s frozen in deliberations with himself, can feel that shadowy thing lurking closer now, and senses the danger of where his endorphins are taking him, but he’s also curious about Steve’s behaviour now. Was he afraid of the label?
Eddie resolves to take a chance. If what he said was true, this could be their last few minutes or hours together, the final opportunity for information for his book. He quickly shoves the material down and ensures it has not got stuck on the way. And follows the sound of running water.
He eventually finds the lavish bathroom. For a moment, he is confused that he can’t see a shower but can hear one until he realises another part of the room is around the corner. He pokes his head around, and the sight that meets his eyes is not what he expects. Steve's forearms and fists against the wall, his forehead pressed against the tiles, and his body slightly hunched over as it shakes like he’s sobbing. Eddie retreats quickly and thinks about leaving entirely. Was it because of what he’d done? Fuck he’d wanted to get revenge so badly he’d forgotten there was a human inside. What had his anger led him to become? Another bully, another vile person in a despicable place.
Eddie swallows down his emotions and resolves this was enough, he’d gotten something, which wasn’t everything but better than nothing, and maybe if he could fix this with the label, he’d get his career on the up again. He nods at no one and steels himself, “Steve, are you in here?”
“Y-yeah,” Steve replies, and Eddie gives him a few seconds to compose himself before strolling in like he’d seen nothing, putting on a show, looking around the area and whistling.
“Wow, this is truly fancy, huh?” He smiles, and Steve mirrors it as best he can and pushes open the door for him.
“This is the presidential suite.” Steve jokes and that’s the last thing said between them. They shower in silence, but it doesn’t feel awkward. Steve occasionally hands him a bottle of product. He doesn’t look at him when he does; he just holds it in his eyeline to take. Eddie notices the hair products are specifically for curls.
Steve gets out, towels himself, and sits in the chaise lounge. Eddie goes to grab a towel from the pile, but before he can, Steve hands him one from a rack, and it’s warm to the touch.
As Eddie dries off, he can see Steve examining the aftermath in the mirror. Poking at his face and body, wincing occasionally. Eddie joins him in the reflection.
“Shit, man, I’m sorry. I lost it,” Eddie tries.
“I deserved it,” he says back simply before checking over his teeth, which makes Eddie feel terrible. He looks at the floor and goes to leave, “I started it on purpose, Eddie. You tried to walk away.” Steve says as he continues to look in the mirror.
“Yeah, well, I should have just kept walking, shouldn’t I?” Eddie says solemnly.
“I wasn’t gonna let you walk out of there without hitting me.” He says, running a comb through his hair, which he hands to Eddie as he catches up to him.
Eddie plays with the comb between his fingers and leans against the hallway wall, “Do they do this often?” Eddie asks.
“Who? Do what?” Steve asks, a little confused.
“The label about people you spend time with,” Eddie says vaguely, not looking up from the comb teeth he’s running his thumb over.
He hears Steve sigh, “Look, as you’ve probably guessed by now, I’m not as straight as I’m portrayed, ok? They want me to stay that way. That’s what keeps me making money. If I were to come out, it would ruin the whole thing. So no, they don’t normally do this because I don’t normally do this. Buckley usually keeps me in line, not because she wants to, but because I ask her to,” he pauses, “and sometimes I ask her to turn a blind eye, when we’re away, when there are fewer company spies, but usually, that’s for five minutes or so, at some no coverage allowed party, you know?”
“Why don’t you just tell them to fuck off? You’ve got more money than you could possibly know what to do with.”
“Yeah, but it’s not just me, Eddie. It’s Buckley, Denise in PR, Fred in merch, and Gina in finance. Harrington isn’t just me. It’s a machine, and I’m just one cog everyone can see,” Steve says, “also, money can’t buy everything, or so I’ve found. Sometimes you gotta be in with the right people too.”
“Steve, you paid nearly a million to work with me. You’re telling me there is something millions of dollars can’t buy?” Eddie folds his arms and almost laughs.
“Do you, maybe, wanna stay over?” Steve asks, ignoring the question.
Eddie is surprised. Isn’t that what people typically say before sex rather than after? Was this guy insatiable? Did he want another round? No, he’s just made sure the evidence was gone.
“You haven’t gotta, I just thought maybe….I dunno. I guess I just don’t know what’s gonna happen, is all, and punches and fucking aside. I kinda like your company and, uh, though this isn’t your responsibility, I don’t really like waking up on my own. I mean, I could get Buckley to call someone in, but, um, they might ask questions,” Steve gestures to himself.
Eddie looks up at him, but he’s looking down and toeing at the carpet. Eddie huffs out a laugh, “Guess it beats walking past Buckley on my own right now.”
Steve raises his head, and there is a twitch of a smile, “Thanks,” he says as he disappears for a minute or two, leaving Eddie with his thoughts, before returning fully dressed, holding Eddie’s clothes and wallet. He takes the cut-up T-shirt, returns to the lounge area, and starts planning his crime scene as Eddie puts his underwear back on. He starts placing glasses and leaving drops of alcohol in them, spilling a little on the carpet and doesn’t tidy up any items cast on the floor. Partially fills two glasses and carries them through to bedroom further down the hall. He places a drink on each bedside table and hands Eddie a fresh T-shirt from his own clothes.
“You're gonna have to put it all back on, so it doesn’t look…well…gay?” And Steve bursts out laughing at that, and Eddie joins him. The bed is enormous, so there is no need to be close. They take a side each.
The lights go out, and it’s still and quiet again.
“Goodnight, Eddie,” Steve says.
“Goodnight, Steve,” Eddie says as he closes his eyes for sleep to take him.
This was a pretty long chapter so I've split it in two just for ease of reading :)
I Think I Could Have Been Someone - Chapter 7b
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Link to fic overview and all parts
Chapter Summary: Eddie gets the chance to interview Steve for his book.
Author Notes: This is a mature story, definitely 18+ only.
Tags/Warnings: rockstar!AU; band; touring; music industry; alternate universe; drug usage; alcohol abuse; performing; enemies to lovers; road trip; stobin; platonic stobin; platonic with a capital P;
“Is that what your book is gonna be about?” He asks, sitting back in his chair. Eddie fusses nervously with his notepad and looks down at the blank page. Now, he’s been asked outright about the book's subject. It almost feels a little vulnerable.
“Yeah, well, I’ve been collecting pictures of artists, and I ask them all the same question, and the intention is to show a truth through words and the photographs,” Eddie looks up to find he has Harrington’s undivided attention, and that also feels a little strange, unnerving but not totally unpleasant. The admission of that in itself was weird, “Money and fame are great motivators, but not like music, right? People still make music even when those other things are no longer around. So I figured it would be interesting to see how artists felt about it at all different levels of fame.” Harrington tilts his head but says nothing, and Eddie feels like the quiet and his stare are pulling the words out of him, “So you are a huge star, right? Like, a household name, so you’d be in there, but then I also have my Uncle in there who has only ever played at an open-mic night once because I was too nervous about getting up there on my own when I was a kid. He has, like, zero interest in music being anything other than a source of enjoyment for himself. Even if he is pretty damn good, actually.” Eddie smiles fondly at the W on the inside of his wrist and brushes his thumb over it.
“Can I think about it a little while?” Harrington asks with his eyebrows slightly pushed together, and Eddie realises he’s said too much, but he would have expected Harrington to mock him for it, not whatever this was.
“Yeah, sure, uh, maybe we could, um…” Eddie looks at his other questions that lead on from that one. Most people just say music is everything to them and gush about their favourite band or the first time they heard a particular song or their first gig. Harrington's ringed hand waves near his face before he can decide the next course of action.
“Thought I’d lost ya there,” he chuckles, “Tell me to shut up if you need to, but I think I could offer some pointers if you want?” He holds up his hands in submission, “But I don’t wanna tread on your toes,” Harrington looks up into his eyes with a smile, “I just really wanna help you out, Eddie. In any way I can, you know?” his head tilts to the other side as he pours himself back into his seat, spreading his knees further apart.
Eddie does not want to admit defeat on his project, and it didn't seem like Harrington was trying to sabotage it with his delay in answering the question. It felt almost like he wanted to consider it more carefully, which was unexpectedly kind of him. But, the realist in Eddie knows that if he gets off this plane without the answer, he might never get the chance once they touch down. Logically, he recognises Harrington does these things all the time. He knows how these things go, “You know what, sure. Why not?” Eddie smiles with a light laugh. In for a penny, in for a pound, he figures.
“Good. That's good,” Harrington praises, which also feels strange to Eddie. He didn't want this guy’s approval, right? Did he? No, that's ridiculous. “So tell me, Eddie, how many of these books do you wanna sell?”
“What? Like a number?” Eddie asks, a little confused.
“Just a kinda idea, that's all. So I know what you’ll need, in respect to my fans anyway,” Harrington says, putting down his drink and turning back to Eddie, “That's why you want me in the book, right? So, my fan base buys it? You don't give the impression of being an avid fan of mine,” He adds with a smirk, and that gives Eddie the distinct impression he’s aware that this whole contract was essentially a mutual use of one another.
“I want to sell as many as I can, and yes, shamefully, appealing to your fan base is part of that,” Eddie says with a small smile.
“Nothing to be ashamed of. It's just business,” Harrington smiles at him and looks around the small area, “Bring your camera,” he says as he gets out of his seat and moves to one of the plainer parts of the section, “Easier to edit out if it's less busy I figured,” Harrington says as he observes the light on his hand and seems to try and find an acceptable place to stand before untucking his shirt.
“Hey! Wait, whoa, what are you doing?” Eddie blurts out, nearly dropping his equipment in a sort of panic. Why was he getting undressed? This was not that kind of book.
Harrington laughs, “Just take the pictures, would ya?” He turns around, his back to Eddie. He pulls the shirt up and ducks his head, revealing a substantial menacing wolf tattoo and cute text stamp of ‘Wild Thing’ on his lower back and the ribcage heart on his arm.
Eddie obliges and takes numerous shots as Harrington slightly repositions himself and the shirt to make it look as though he’s been caught in the middle of undressing. It felt very much like a voyeur shot, especially when he ducks his head to hide his face.
Eddie’s alarmed reaction causes the curtain to flick open and Jesse’s head to pop out, but he only glances at Eddie to assess the situation and then sends his gaze and smirk towards Harrington’s exposed torso.
“Hey,” Eddie pretty much barked at Jesse, “consider this a closed set. He’s half undressed,” and whilst Eddie knows that is said mainly out of jealousy, he would do the same for anyone he was in a shoot with. It’s always felt like his responsibility as a photographer to keep his subjects feeling safe so they could open up to the camera.
“Easy there, big dog,” Harrington laughs, “Maybe if he’s gonna gawk, he can make himself useful.” Harrington removes the top entirely and throws it at a giggling Jesse, who fumbles to catch it.
Harrington stands one hand on his hip, the other beckoning to Eddie, “Dude, my ego isn’t gonna withstand it if you don’t get that lens back on me.”
This isn’t a side of Harrington Eddie had expected to see, acknowledging his persona, playful, knows his craft and public. Though loathe to admit it, he didn’t mind this peek into his other aspects.
“Sorry,” Eddie says, looking between them, “It's just habit. Protecting my models, I mean.”
Harrington’s eyes widen briefly, “Well, I wasn’t expecting that kind of forcefulness from you, but from our last meeting, there was a hint that you could be a bit of a spitfire,” he smirks mischievously and then tilts his head and plunges his hands into his back pockets, “I’m ok though, more than used to it. No harm in having fun when doing these things unless that would interfere with your process?”
Eddie observes him, and he’s almost softer somehow. He’s pliant with what Eddie wants to achieve, and honestly, he didn’t look bad doing it in a certain light. Eddie brushes that off again. He didn’t like Harrington, not like that. It was just another model body.
Eddie adjusted the camera settings, focusing on the wolf tattoo as Harrington turned around again. "That ink's impressive. Gotta story behind it?"
“Oh, you know, typical rebellion, my body is my own, I’m a lone wolf, bullshit,” Harrington answered lazily, striking a few poses as Eddie snapped away.
Eddie chuckles, “Lone wolf? Are you ever truly alone? I can’t imagine that you are.”
Harrington laughs, “Oh, brace yourself for the cringiest truth,” he looked back over his shoulder at Eddie, “It’s possible to feel entirely alone with a room full of people,” he turned around and shrugged, “Sounds stupid. I know.”
Eddie knew that feeling only too well in the fallout of his failing business. He’d felt very much like that. People just didn’t get him or wouldn’t listen, so he felt incredibly alone and cut off whilst still going through the motions of being there.
He feels a slight tug on his sympathy. Two men, two very different paths, both ended up feeling exactly the same for a time. He hears his Dad’s voice in his head calling him a pushover, but he’d rather be a pushover any day of the week than what he became for a time.
“Everything ok, Eddie?” Harrington asks with what sounds like genuine concern, and Eddie nods with a crooked smile, “Good, thought I’d lost you for a second there,” Harrington smiled at him, and it looked concerned and laced with something Eddie couldn’t quite figure out.
“What about your other tattoos?” Eddie tries to shift the conversation back to something safe.
Harrington turns around and poses for Eddie to capture the few tattoos on his body. For the most part, it turned out the tattoos were essentially meaningless other than Harrington was claiming back a bit of himself with each one. It’s not a big deal now, but for a time in product advertising or acting roles, tattoos were generally not welcomed. So, with every tattoo he went out and got for himself, it was a piece of Harrington they couldn’t sell that he could keep covered up.
Eddie couldn’t imagine being treated like that. Like a piece of land, a show pony, or a billboard. Harrington assures him that most artists go through it at some point when the people who funded them want to reap the harvest. With Harrington, who’d been lucky enough to have been brought up around money and got some pretty pricey people to look over his contract, he wasn’t as over a barrel as most eager wide-eyed artists are money-wise, but not even that could help with paying back what he owed, and the louder Harrington was about supporting specific causes, which he saw as human rights, the sooner they wanted to be paid back.
It started with the text on his lower back that reads ‘Wild Thing.’ at the time, he was trying to make a statement. Now, it just makes him laugh.
The Slayer tattoo on his lower abdomen was another joke. He’d been touted in the papers as some kind of playboy whose dick put women under some sort of obsessive spell. It was total bullshit. He wasn’t dating any more people than the average person his age, and one at a time, but the paparazzi and gossip columns kept screwing things up for him, so his romances were short-lived. He walked into a tattoo shop, saw the word Slayer and decided that was the tattoo for him. Even though he had no clue who the band was.
Many years later, that did bite him in the ass pretty hard, though, once tattoos became a little more embraced, they started appearing in his pictures. His fans caught wind of it, thought it was a band Harrington liked, found out about the band and although very popular as they were on the metal scene, it brought the band into the mainstream again for a year or two, by a pocket of his fans getting into them too. So, in the midst of this, Slayer invited him to play with them. This began a month-long crash course of all things Slayer for Harrington, and he actually became a fan.
“No way, man!” Eddie gasped, completely amazed. “I can’t believe you got to play with one of my favourite bands!”
Some refilled drinks had appeared, but Eddie had hardly noticed them being topped up after they’d sat down and Harrington had gotten dressed again.
“Hey, if we get these projects tied up nicely, I’d gladly give their people a call for you. They’re real awesome guys,” Harrington beams at him.
The heart-shaped rib cage on his arm was something again he rolled his eyes at. When Eddie pushed, he simply said, “Matters of the heart aren’t always as soft and pliant as we might have been taught.”
The last tattoo on the list is the heart gramophone in the centre of his chest.
“What about that one? That has to be the most unusual out of the lot,” Eddie points the end of his pencil toward the centre of Harrington's chest, where he can just make out the tattoo through the sheer shirt.
Harrington smiles, and it feels genuine and if Eddie didn't know any better, almost impressed.
“Yeah, this design was a collaboration. It’s kind of a tribute to a song that saved my life and also a reminder, “ Harrington smiled, and it wasn’t one of his smirks. It doesn't look like the type Eddie has seen in photographs of him. It looks real. “It’s also kind of the answer to your question, actually.”
Eddie notices he’s on the edge of his seat, pencil poised against his notepad. This flight had been quite the reveal. He wasn’t best buddies with Harrington or anything, but finding him helpful and pleasant to be around had helped Eddie soften towards him, which was paying off. The less Eddie bristled, the less Harrington hid behind his image.
“My Slayer educational journey opened me up to listening to more heavy music, and exploring that genre was interesting. Turned out I’m not a super thrashy guy, but I appreciated it. From that, I started to listen to Metal that was born during my era, ya know. I found that Nu Metal stuff,” Harrington stops and looks at Eddie like he’s reading him.
“Yeah, I know that genre. It’s kinda my era too, but I am very much a thrash guy also,” Eddie smiled as if to reassure him he could carry on.
Harrington looks him over and relaxes back in his seat, “Well, I heard this song by Korn called Twisted Transistor and apart from literal parts of the lyrics,” he laughed, “It very much resonated with me.”
Eddie watches Harrington swallow, and his arms wrap around himself subtly, “So, in answer to your question, it’s not really what music means to me. It’s very much that I don’t feel I could survive without it. It’s caught me so often when I was free-falling into the depths. The right song at the right time can be a lifeline, you know?”
That only intrigued Eddie more. What the hell happened to this guy? Is he just talking about overindulging and pushing too hard, or was it something much less hedonistically caused than that?
“And I also felt that music gave me one way I could really express myself. Even if it has to be heavily coded sometimes,” Harrington gives him a shrug of a smile.
Eddie can see that vulnerable look on Harrington and decides to change the subject. He has his answer for the book. “I remember you going through that phase,” Eddie grinned, “It made the news for weeks, that photoshoot and music video reveal.”
Harrington hums, “Yeah, it did, didn’t it?” And Eddie almost feels like maybe that might not have been what it seemed.
Eddie puts down his notepad, but the dictaphone is still running. He and Harrington talk about music, their favourite artists, first and favourite gigs, guilty pleasures and phases, and before he knew it, the time was up. A huge surprise to himself, but he was disappointed the conversation was over.
“You’ll have to return to your seat now, Mr Munson,” Jesse advises, whom Eddie had utterly forgotten about for a while.
“Oh shit, yeah, of course,” Eddie said urgently as he scrambled to get his equipment together and packing it away to take back to his seat.
Once packed up, he turned to Harrington, “Thanks for your time, Harrington. It was a pleasure,” and he meant that. Maybe his therapist was right. He felt lighter for letting go of all that hate for a little while.
“It really was,” Harrington beams at him and stands up to shake his hand.
As Eddie turns to head back through to the other section, he feels a tug on his sleeve. He’s half expecting to see Jesse, but he knows as he turns from that heady cologne it’s Harrington.
“So when we get back to the hotel, you’ve got your pick of where to stay from what’s available, but if you don’t like anything on offer, my suite has multiple bedrooms, and you’re welcome to one if you need it.” Harrington offers, and Eddie is almost floored by it.
“Uh, well, I kinda like to have my own room, in case of different, uh, schedules,” Eddie says. He didn’t want to seem ungrateful for the offer, but he didn’t want to be kept up all night by Harrington and friends.
Harrington tilts his head and smiles, “Yeah, that’s fair. How about we go through the photos and the checklist for the residency later? Drinks on me,” he laughs, and it’s fucking charming. The checklist has been signed off, and maybe Harrington is just looking for another way to hang out with him, and he guesses he understands that, in respect of he’s enjoyed their interactions today. The more amiable they were, the better this project would turn out, and after what he learned today, it sounded like they both really needed that.
“It would be a fantastic opportunity for me to finally be able to give back. You’ve been helping me for years,” Harrington’s eyes flick to his and then back out the window.
“What?” Eddie frowns in confusion.
“I have a picture you took of me, and I,” he looks at the ground for a spell, his hands on his hips. He looked embarrassed but built himself up to say, “I felt you captured me in that shot, like my very soul in that moment in time.” He shook his head with a soft laugh, “That’s why I’ve been bugging you for years to work with me. I wanted to be around someone who really saw me, just like you did in that picture.” Harrington shifted his weight from one leg to the other, “It helped me feel less disconnected when I’d look at it.” Eddie sees another odd thing, Harrington gives him an awkward smile. The kind that people give you when they already know you're about to reject them somehow.
Eddie ponders that maybe this photograph he enjoyed so much didn’t hold the weight for Eddie that Harrington thought it did, but that was pretty normal in his photography experience. He didn’t look at every family portrait he’d taken and gush with pride like the family did when they looked at it. Maybe this time around, he could genuinely capture some magic if he got to know Harrington a little more. Today hadn’t been so bad at all.
“You know what, yeah, that would be really helpful, thanks,” Eddie smiled.
Harrington’s face erupts into the biggest grin he’s seen to date, and he wishes he hadn’t packed his camera away, “Great, see you later then, Eddie,” he flicks his hand in a wave, and they both return to their seats.
Eddie sits in his seat and sighs contentedly as the seatbelt sign lights up. Maybe it didn’t need to be such a chore. When a flight attendant comes around to check his belt, they also hand him another notecard, which he opens quickly. It has a telephone number, a smiley face, and ‘Harrington’ written, not signed, underneath it.
Upon landing, there is a very direct split in the people on the plane. The majority of people, including himself, are requested to remain in their seats. Harrington is swamped by security and bustles through their section, quickly off the plane first. That makes sense, Eddie thinks. He’s gotta beat the crowds and get to the hotel.
As the plane door opens, Eddie hears the crowd's noise, a mixture of cheers, screams and the shutter clicking, and this is on the tarmac. He hasn’t even got down the stairs. The shades of his and some of the security’s sunglasses show their purpose as the flashes go off. So many Eddie thinks their lenses look like star-crowded skies, but there was only one star in which anyone else was interested.
A few minutes after Harrington has descended into the chaos, one of the lesser security team members appears back through the door and waves everyone else off the plane, down the stairs and towards a small executive coach.
Once everyone is in their designated seats, they all have a small gift bag with their hotel key card, an overpriced designer bottle of water, some towelettes to freshen up with, and some snacks already inside.
The security member stands at the front of the coach and pushes her shades on top of her head, “Ok, everyone, we’ve got a mix of veterans and newbies to the Harrington convoy, so I’m just gonna go over this for ya. Please give me a minute of your attention. It's super simple.”
“Mr Harrington, as you can see, is currently running distraction for us,” she gestures out the tinted window to where Harrington is still signing things and taking pictures, much to Eddie’s surprise, “But he can’t do this all day, so our side of the operation has to be slick,” she says looking around the coach as the driver starts it up, “So let’s keep it simple, go where I tell you without argument if you have a problem between here and your hotel room I’m your point of contact. Once in your rooms, please stay put until we call you to notify you the area is cleared down. There will be fans and professionals alike trying to infiltrate the hotel to get at Mr Harrington or information on the upcoming performances, so consider this your first reminder that strangers aren’t your friends on this trip.”
As the coach finally departs the tarmac to head for the exit, she smiles at them, “That might sound a little restrictive in principle, but it’s for your safety and the safety of others. However, for the duration of your stay, you can consider yourselves under the Harrington family umbrella,” That gets an excitable buzz throughout the vehicle that confuses Eddie, and a handful of others clearly don’t understand the significance of that either.
The security team member smiles at the puzzled faces, “Anything you need during your stay, anything at all,” she emphasised with a smirk, “Is on Mr Harrington or the label. When you get to your rooms, the number for your point of contact will be taped next to your phone. For any room service or housekeeping, you can call down to the front desk.”
She pulls her sunglasses back down, “And last of all, remember to have fun,” she smiles and disappears into her seat to applause.
It only took around fifteen minutes to get to the hotel, but they were to remain seated as their luggage was retrieved. They were assured it would be returned to them shortly and to just go to their room and wait for the call.
Eddie finds his room without trouble. He finds the number taped next to his phone and notices a key with a different room number on it.
He walks around his sizeable room, reclines back on the bed, and watches TV while waiting for a call or his luggage to arrive.
Twenty minutes and a knock on the door, Eddie is reunited with his luggage and work gear. He stops the security guy before he leaves, “Uh, I think someone left another key in here, but the number on it isn’t to this room,” Eddie says, gesturing towards the phone.
“Oh sure, yeah, that’s to Mr Harrington’s suite. He wanted to make sure if you changed your mind about the entourage rooms or wanted to catch some more candid shots, you had the access to do so. The number on it is just a decoy-type thing. Probably a good idea to reassure him you got it,” he nodded, “Anything else I can help you with?”
Eddie shakes his head, “No, that’s great, thanks,” he smiles and closes the door behind the security guy as he leaves.
Eddie takes out his phone and the note card in his pocket and messages Harrington.
I got the key card and gift bag. Thanks. Let me know if you still wanna go through the photographs later. If not, it's understandable. It looked crazy out there! Eddie
Moments later, his phone pings. It’s Harrington.
No problem, buddy. It might be fairly late, though. I got a few interviews and hotel obligations before I’m free. Steve 🙂
Cool. Let me know when you’re free, Eddie replied
Eddie spends the next hour or so making some barely edited versions of the shoot on the plane. Just making them look less flat and adjusting some aspects of the lighting to make the tattoos really pop.
He can’t hear much outside noise in the hotel room, but Harrington must be here now as there is some kind of kerfuffle outside, which is enough to shatter the peaceful sanctuary of his room. Eddie gets up from his desk and takes a peek.
The relatively busy road they had travelled to get to the hotel was at a standstill. Someone was trying to redirect the traffic because a solid wall of fans was going partway across. The two lines that look like they are coming out of the hotel, which he imagines but be more fans flanking the hotel entrance, it was challenging to say for sure at this height.
Soon, the outlines of the crowd start to be bitten into by sharp, bright white stars. Like popcorn, there are few at first until the area is almost entirely flooded by repeated small explosions of light, and then they die out. Just like the main chunk of the crowds until barriers are gone and traffic flows as usual.
A while after the phone rings in Eddie’s room, a member of security advises him he’s free to roam freely around the hotel and its pool, theatre, casino, and stores.
He does just that, but his mind is plagued by the conversation on the plane, how he diverted the press and fans, and the hospitality in general. He had the whole plane in the same hotel as he was, and whilst Eddie chugs a cocktail slushie that he didn’t have to pay for because it’s all taken care of, he paces around the slot machines, and wonders if Harrington was truly as awful as he’d built him up to be. It’s not like he knew about the aftermath.
He turns a corner and comes face to face with a life-size Harrington cut-out, directing anyone with his charming half smile to check out the all-new Harrington-themed slots. Eddie blinks a few times, shakes his head, and returns to his room. There really isn’t anything they wouldn’t put him on.
Eddie’s phone goes off several hours later, and he wakes still wrapped in the robe from after his bath and a plate of green stalks from the chocolate-covered strawberries he had treated himself to.
He blindly reaches for his phone to find a message from Harrington.
I’ll be ready in 20 if you still wanna hang out.
Eddie goes into full panic; he thought the lack of messages throughout the evening meant he wasn’t going to be available, yet at nearly midnight, he’s carved out some time for Eddie.
He scrambles to get ready but then thinks better of it and texts back a much more relaxed message than he actually feels.
Yeah, cool. See you then.
Nearly twenty minutes later, Eddie finds him outside the door of Harrington’s suite. Buckley is right next to the door, and a few members of her team line the hall. Eddie gives her a nod and a forced smile of greeting. In return, she raises an eyebrow and turns away again.
She held her earpiece momentarily and then turned to Eddie, “You can go in.” She says simply, and Eddie does as he’s told.
He walks in to find Harrington in a different set of Rockstar attire. Another set of clothes can be seen slung over a chair, some blue jeans and a white T-shirt. Staple Harrington uniform. That’s how he looked on most of his albums and tours, not this dark, brooding version of himself.
“Hey man,” Harrington says almost pleasantly, not the couldn’t care less greetings he’s had before, “Didn’t know if it was gonna be too late for you?”
“Nah, I’m good,” Eddie says with a laugh. He’s not even sure why he does that, “Thought you might be wiped from the day.”
“I’m used to it, plus I’ve kinda been looking forward to this,” Harrington says with a small smile, “We got a full bar of drinks, and I can order some food if you're hungry. Just help yourself to whatever you want, you know?” He leans a bony hip against a table and gestures around before his hand migrates naturally back to his hip.
They while away the next half hour chatting about music, looking through Eddie’s pictures of other artists, and talking through Harrington’s expectations for the checklist of photos.
Eddie, weirdly again, is enjoying his company, or maybe it's the energy drink he’s gulping down?
“Hey, could I see the ones you took of me last time? Could you talk me through ‘em?” Harrington asks with hopeful eyes, his hand on Eddie’s shoulder.
“Yeah, of course. I mean, my work has improved since then, but I still have them,” Eddie says, leaning over to find the correct folder.
Scrolling through hundreds of photos is pretty fun. Harrington makes a few self-deprecating jokes about how he looks now compared to then. But Harrington's mood drops as they move into more backstage candid shots. Eddie knows he could completely ignore it, and he tries to a few times, distracting him with anecdotes, but Harrington will reopen the same picture repeatedly. It’s that same barrier shot, and he’ll look at it, then Eddie, but say nothing, and it’s confusing as hell and a little annoying. So Eddie bites the bullet.
“You don’t like some of these shots or something?” Eddie asks cautiously, “I mean, feedback is feedback. It will help me ensure I don’t make the same mistakes twice.”
Harrington furrows his brow in confusion, “It’s not your work, Eddie, that’s great. It’s just,” he stops himself from the next thing he’s about to say and huffs in frustration, “You can’t make the same mistakes again, because those people aren’t around anymore. Fucking assholes. Traitors!” Harrington seethes, and he brings up the same barrier shot again.
Eddie feels like something is unspoken, and he keeps moving back to this picture where he thinks he saw him for who he truly was. But Eddie had just taken a tried and tested shot.
“I’m surprised this one is your favourite. It was everywhere at one point,” Eddie tries to lighten the mood.
“Was it? I wouldn’t know. They took all my social media away from me,” Harrington grumbles, and Eddie can see him slowly sinking in on himself.
“Yeah, man it was on every kind of merch and your posts, fan stuff, news articles everywhere. But I guess you wouldn’t have seen the full impact of it without socials.”
“It fucking sucks sometimes, you know? Getting treated like a fucking kid. Being pushed and paraded around like a living fucking billboard for whoever is throwing their money at us that week. This life is fucking gross sometimes,” Harrington complains.
Eddie can’t help but feel how easily he’d give up most things to be as rich as Harrington. He’d kick the fame stuff to the curb and just disappear with a boatload of cash, flipping everyone the bird goodbye.
“I mean, that sure sounds like it’s sucked, but it could have been worse, dude,” Eddie says, consoling him a little bit, also trying to get him out of this side of himself that is slowly grinding on Eddie.
Harrington huffed out a laugh, “Really? Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to have that happen, like explaining to your peers, ‘Oh, I’d love to promote your charity, but my socials are run by that eighteen-year-old cyborg in the corner because they are viewed as more responsible than me’? Or worse, fans asking me questions at panels that I have no idea how to answer because I have never seen whatever post they are referencing?” Harrington looks annoyed almost, “Then I get labelled as high or drunk or worst of all that I don’t give a shit.”
Eddie has an excellent idea of what it’s like to have something hit him out of nowhere, the source of which is a post he had no idea about. Eddie’s lip twitches and he is about to suggest looking at some of the pics he took at an open mic night a few months back, but Harrington is still going.
“And for what? I got a little wasted one night and posted a rant video. Like, who gives a shit? There are people out there who do way worse and keep their socials. They get fully cancelled and then turn up a month later, and everyone forgets about it! That’s just the modern world! People just need to suck it up!” Harrington spouts from his imaginary soap box.
Eddie's relaxed hands are balled fists, his smile is a tight line, behind it a set of gritted teeth on a clenched jaw.
This guy is precisely the privileged prick he thought he was. Unaware of the consequences of his actions. They’ve been hidden from him so well that he’s complaining that they didn’t let him get drunk all the time and spout his unfounded woes night after night to the public. Eddie wished his biggest problem was being unable to retweet his friend’s dog’s wedding pictures.
Eddie is livid and feels like he has a chance to stand up for everyone Harrington has potentially bulldozed in the past without a care in the world about who he affected.
Keeping his voice barely level, he asks, “Do you even remember what you said in that video? The one that got you banned from socials?” Eddie figured he’d need to specify because this asshole would be able to differentiate between them all.
“No, man, I was fucking wasted. I bet the people who watched the video couldn’t even make out half of what I said. It was a stupid little video,” Harrington huffs out a laugh, making an unholy rage run rampant through Eddie.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Eddie sneered, “I think they heard you loud and fucking clear!”
Harrington’s head snaps to him, “Are you ok, man?”
“No, man, I’m not fucking ok. That stupid little video ended my career!” Eddie snarls out his words as he feels the bile rise in him, “You were complaining about your sad little rich boy life,” he mockingly pretends to cry, wringing his fists by his own eyes and fake pouting, “and you felt that I was special enough to make the cut for the list of people that did you wrong!”
Harrington shakes his head in disbelief, “No, that’s impossible. Someone would have told me.”
Eddie makes an incorrect buzzer sound, “Wrong! They wouldn’t because they needed you to not be sad-boy-Harrington and get on with your fucking job. Sent you to a nice swanky rehab after making a show of it. That you were ‘struggling’ with some injury or some fucking bullshit.”
“What?” Harrington asks, entirely in shock.
“That was, of course, complete fucking lies too because you hopped the rehab fence and were seen dancing and drinking the night away in some bar with your fans!” Eddie is raising his voice now.
Harrington just stares at him blankly. His mouth partly opens and closes like the pea-brained goldfish of a man that he is. God, Eddie hated him.
“You complained about how I wouldn’t work with you. Which was not true! I couldn’t! I had no space in the calendar. But the twisted whispers from facts to whatever met your ears apparently gave you the right to call me out publically.” Eddie glares at him as he stands up and paces away and then back to him, “I didn’t even see the original video when it landed, but I didn’t need to because your fucking nutcase cult of fans harassed me incessantly for years!” Spittle flies from his mouth as he rages at Harrington, purging everything he can at the confused man sitting in front of him.
“And all for what? For a meaningless picture, you read your fucking bullshit into.” Eddie feels the venom fill his body, and he bites a visibly crumbling Harrington right where it hurts most, “I saw nothing in that photo other than a ticked checkbox. This isn’t a special fucking shot. I just wait for the correct marks to be hit!”
Chapter Summary: Steve POV of the aftermath of meeting Eddie for the first time
Author Notes: This is a mature story, definitely 18+ only. Note specifically for this chapter: Don't Panic lol :D
Tags/Warnings: rockstar!AU; band; touring; music industry; alternate universe; drug usage; alcohol abuse; performing; enemies to lovers; road trip; stobin; platonic stobin; platonic with a capital P;
I Think I Could Have Been Someone - Part 6 - Steve POV
Steve didn't wake up alone this morning despite his friends leaving and no hired help because he hasn't even been to sleep, not for two days now.
He's holed himself up in the studio surrounded by instruments, dry marker scrawlings over every glass surface apart from one whose job was to store the thing that was helping him stay awake, to pull on this thread of inspiration.
In between are pulled-out pages from catalogues, scribbled-down telephone and product codes, ashtrays full of cigarette butts and a few empty beer bottles.
When the door swings open and Buckley steps in, he feels a waft of fresh air rush in, making his skin goose pimple. He's so excited.
"BUCKLEY!! You aren't gonna believe this! Look, I've written, like, three song demos, and-and I've found the best photography kit currently available, but I'm not allowed online without a chaperone, so I'm gonna need you to order these for me. Eddie's gonna be so pleased. I just know it!"
Robin nods, starts gathering up papers, looks at them and then slowly walks towards Steve, backing him towards the vocal booth. He's confused but still so excited about inspiration finally appearing again and how he's going to make everything up to Eddie. And they would have the best time in Vegas together, and he'd think about the consequences afterwards.
Once the soundproof door slides softly closed behind them. Robin roughly unplugs all the wires in the booth.
"Hey! This is very expensive equipment here, you know. You could be a little more gentle!" Steve complains and is starting to get a little annoyed that Robin is killing his buzz.
Robin dumps everything on the small chair in this tiny space before raising her hands to either side of her head and yelling at Steve, "What the hell were you thinking?"
“What do you mean? What was I thinking?” He frowns deeply at her.
“The photo, Steve, the one I said to not do anything stupid with!” She whisper-shouts back at him. Steve draws a blank. He’s trying frantically to recall, but his brain is swimming with ideas, not whatever this is. “Jesus, Steve, you don't even remember, do you? The picture of your photographer outside your home?” The words are flying out of Robin’s mouth like machine gun fire, and there is no room in the vocal booth for him to step back enough to dodge their intended impact, “The one you absolutely had to have? So I sent it to your stupid secret phone, ringing any bells? Which I knew was a mistake, but I was taking pity on you because you were all dewy-eyed!” She wags her finger at him.”But then Steve, you decide you want to get your little super-sleuths on the case and post it undercover to your fans?” Then it all comes rushing back to him, a moment of weakness. He knew his fans would find out everything about Eddie for him, and all he had to do was pretend it was some girl leaving his house. He knows Robin is mad, but he is hungry for intel. He locks eyes with her and feels himself lick his lips. She rolls her eyes and flops her arms to her sides in defeat because she knows what he’s about to ask.
“Did they find anything?” Steve quietly enquires, biting his lip back into his mouth immediately as the words leave him, and he winces a little.
“Of course they did!” Robin’s eyes widen as if he’d asked her the most ridiculous thing in the world, “They are minutes away from his blood type, his hairdresser’s dog’s name and what his regular coffee order is!”. Steve cautiously releases his bottom lip and looks around the ceiling, desperately trying not to ask what he wants to know. “Unbelievable!” she scoffs and shakes her head.
Steve tries a different tack, “Well, it's not like I can take it back now, is it?” he gives a little shrug and laughs as his eyes search the ground he is currently toeing at, “Sooo….” He looks up at Robin through his eyelashes.
She sighs and rolls her eyes, “He’s not married.” Steve punches the air, and Robin tuts and folds her arms, “I still stand by what I said, Steve. I’m getting weird vibes from him and the mountain of evidence that he wasn’t falling over himself to work with you.”
“We’ve been over this. He was busy! We both shot up the ranks at roughly the same time. He was fully booked for two whole years, and then we just couldn’t get our calendars to line up, that's all. His agent always sends those nice apology gift baskets with the little truffles you like in? Remember?” Steve searches her eyes with a slightly forlorn hopefulness. He needed her on his side. He needed this. Something to ignite his long, snuffed-out candle of creativity.
“Steve, no one is that busy.” Robin scoffs.
“I don’t know what you want me to say. He’s here now, isn’t he? He’s signed up. What does any of the past matter? I’m not bothered by it. Maybe he just wanted more money, or, “ he raises an eyebrow at her, “Maybe he wanted an international celebrity to beg for him?” He laughs as Robin screws up her face in absolute disgust.
“I don't think he was busy at all.” She says seriously, but Steve waves his hand at her dismissively and laughs.
“What? He’s just been getting offers from me, refusing, and twiddling his thumbs? Is that what you think? Oh, come on, Rob!” He puts his hands on his hips, “That's ridiculous!”
She starts to say something but stops, and he watches Robin read over the many partial lyrics, chord tabs, diagrams, and randomly noted ideas. The corners of her mouth twitch up slightly, and her eyes finally find his, “Just be careful, ok? You’ve been doing so well since I started. I know that isn’t just down to me, and I know you’re still struggling and still indulging in too much, Steve, but you're doing so much better than when I got here. I just don't want you to sink back down there again.”
“Please, babe. I’m into him, yes. But it's not all that serious, you know?” Steve half-smiles.
“Are you sure about that?” She gestures around them.
“I’m just inspired. That's all it is. I know you haven't seen much of that so far.” he reaches out for her hand below the sight of anyone looking through the booth window, “It’s nice that you care, though.”
She pats his hand, moves away and starts plugging wires back in, mumbling, “It's kinda my job.”
“Was that what you came to tell me? About how I shouldn't have sent the picture?” Steve asks, picking up some of the papers.
“No, actually. It was just Heidi messaged me, but it’s nothing important.” Robin says quickly, trying to leave the booth.
“I thought she flew home the night she left here? Don't they start filming this week or something? I barely take in anything she says. She talks so much.” Steve shakes his head with a little smirk. Then he takes a pause. He wasn’t sure if the lack of sleep was finally catching up with him, but Robin seemed a bit hurried. No, she looks nervous, and that is not something Steve ever has or ever wants to see in his bodyguard, “What did Heidi want exactly?” he pries, crowding Robin a little, holding out his hand for her phone.
“I honestly don't think it’s important right now. Don’t you wanna get back to your writing?” She tries, with a grimaced half smile, and he immediately knows it's not good news she's attempting to save him from.
He knows he could walk away from this, go into the other room, rack up a few more lines and forget all about whatever this is, but within Steve, unfortunately, is a hunger to know. He sometimes wonders if it's because he is a glutton for misery. It's almost like he’s so used to it being impossibly attracted to him that he now tries to ambush it first.
He makes a grabbing motion with his hand at Robin, and she takes the phone out of her pocket, “This is a bad idea.” She says seriously and softly. Steve looks at the floor and stretches his hand towards her again, “Shall I just tell you what it is? Maybe that would be easier, huh?” Now, he was perturbed. What on Earth had Heidi done? God, he hopes she hasn’t posted anything fucking stupid, so he’d have to cut all ties with her. He wasn’t planning on anything serious with Heidi, but at least she was easy enough to get along with. She doesn't ask too many questions and gets what she wants. Steve gets what he wants, and they both go their separate ways. She wasn’t a friend, but at least an amiable acquaintance.
Robin finally places the phone in his hand.
The trepidation on Robin’s face works its way into himself until there is almost a feeling of static between his thumb and the screen. He takes a deep breath and opens the message.
Tell Steve I think I figured out why the photographer didn't want to stay over.
A little picture collection sits in a box below the words, and Steve already feels he knows what is contained within. Cloud 9 busting ballistic missiles. He could hand it back. He could save himself from reality and continue floating around in the happy haze of crushdom. He could keep this Eddie on his pedestal.
His thumb hovers over the small box of thumbnails. He wasn’t with Eddie. He didn't own him. He was a colleague. A really cute one. One that Steve had been waiting years to be in the same room as. One that captured the real him when no one else could see, and Steve had drowned in that particular work, night after night for years. He thought he’d be meeting some greying gent, an artistic sage, who Steve could thank profusely, and they’d discuss that particular photograph over cocktails or coffee and become real friends, and Steve would have someone that he didn't have to pretend around because this guy had seen the same photo too. He must have seen the dull, desperate hopelessness in Steve’s eyes against the vibrant backdrop of live music.
But instead, he’d manifested an impossibly hot, almost looked like a rockstar himself, of days gone by. With huge brown eyes, a dazzling smile, and ringed solid hands that looked perfect for capturing Steve not just through a camera lens, who moved like a panther and made Steve’s heart skip a beat whenever their eyes met.
His self-preservation, which had been trying to warn him away from thoughts of Eddie since his eyes were graced with him the first time, shoves the starry-eyed part of his psyche off the ledge of indecisiveness into the reveal.
His thumb taps against the screen, expanding the images, and a smile creeps over his face. There he was, sitting at the bar, chatting with the bartender, giving her one of his gorgeous smiles.
Swipe.
This one is a little more difficult to interpret, his eyes cast down toward his glass. He almost looks a little blue, and doesn't that just make Steve’s heart bleed. There should never be a day that makes a beauty like that look glum this way. He feels a ridiculous urgency to make it right somehow. Rush to the hotel he’s no longer at to put a smile back on the face of the man who is no longer there.
Swipe.
Steve’s heart stops, and a breath catches in his throat. He’s sitting with someone else. He feels his eye shoot to Robin as his chest rises and falls a little quicker, but she’s already looking at the ground. That's when he realises it's only going to get worse.
Swipe.
Eddie is beaming at this guy that Steve can see a little better now because he’s throwing his head back, laughing with a slight blush on his cheeks.
Eddie’s made him laugh.
Steve’s stomach drops as if his imagination rollercoaster nudges his emotions over the top, and down it falls. No brakes. He sniffs and pinches the bridge of his nose, wipes his hand down the lower part of his face and zooms in on the other guy. Sunkissed, muscular, younger. Clothes that unintentionally hug his figure simply because of his build. He feels his mouth downturn because, for a moment, he doesn't know why it hurts so much. He looks down at himself and what he’s become. When he and Eddie first crossed paths all those years ago, that is what they would have looked like together. That perfectly coiffed swoop of hair and that chest-hugging polo shirt would have been his. He feels his eyelids flicker, swallows down the crippling self-loathing, and the green-eyed monster of a coach, calls his inner masochist off the bench.
Swipe.
His hand is on Eddie’s knee as he leans forward mid-conversation, and he’s completely captivated him. Eddie's eyes fall a little lower than the man’s eye line, a subtle smile on his lips.
Swipe.
Eddie is holding up a cherry, and the younger man obediently opens his mouth to receive it on his tongue. Steve's lips are a tight line now.
Swipe.
But the last picture just bounces in place. There are no more images to beat himself up with. He swipes through them all again a few times in absolute silence before handing the phone back to Robin, who tries to look at him compassionately. She opens her mouth to say something, but Steve beats her to it.
“I don’t blame him. He’s cute.” Steve says, forcing a smile to his face, but too quickly, the bitterness races over his tongue, “Just another airport hotel slut looking for a hookup. Probably rinsed Eddie for all he’s worth. What could they even possibly have in common? Slim pickings in airport hotel bars, in my experience.”
“Right.” That is all Robin says as she tucks away her phone in its holster on her belt and goes to leave the booth. She stops halfway through the doorway, “Do you want me to stay and talk about it?”
Steve forces a laugh, knits his eyebrows together and his mouth twitches, “Buckley, please. I’m a fucking grown-up, ok? I just wanted to jump his bones, that's all. I’ve got time. For god's sake, I feel the same about the new gardener.” Her eyes look him up and down in a careful systems scan. He knows she doesn't buy it but hopes his display is enough to shout, I’m done here. He nods, “Buckley.”
It must be because she nods respectfully, “Mr H.” she says and leaves.
He busies himself reorganising the cables in the vocal booth. Buckley had tried her best but had no clue how this all worked. As he toils away, his thoughts only get louder. What was with this guy? He could have spent the night here with me, and he decides to go back to the hotel and take his chances in a bar? No, this is ridiculous. He catches a glimpse of his reflection in the booth window as he stands to leave. As usual, he takes his own bony jaw in hand and twists it this way and that. Tilts his head up and down, widens and narrows his eyes until his reflection holds that tested and true Harrington pose. There is just no way Eddie isn't attracted to him. Sure, he looked different. He didn't look like modelling had just spat him out into the music industry any more. His body attests to his journey. His tattoos are a coded skin tapestry of the lives he’s lived. Most lines on his face are fine, except for the ones caused by lack of sleep.
There must be something else.
This pity party would not do. He’s Steve Fucking Harrington!
He leaves the booth and heads back out to his earlier station at the mixing desk, locates the treats he’d lined up for himself before Buckley turned up. Inhales his ‘medicine’ like a good boy and springs up with a “Goddamn!”
He does a whole-body shudder and reasons with himself in the nearest wall mirror.
Here are the facts. You, Steve Harrington, are hot, wealthy, famous, talented and successful. There is nothing here not to like. Not a damn thing. This guy at the hotel is nothing. The next time you see Eddie, they could only have possibly been seeing one another for two weeks. Nothing serious. Nothing incorruptible. If they even saw one another again at all, which was probably unlikely the way that preppy whore was mediocrely guzzling down that cherry in public. If you want Eddie, you can get him. You’re Steve Fucking Harrington!
The only interactions Steve had with Eddie until this week had been that concert and then years of practically begging Eddie to work with him, which wasn't a great look, granted, but it was honest. Maybe he’d messed up their meeting a little? Perhaps he was a little overzealous? Maybe Eddie doesn't like to be chased? Perhaps he wants to do the chasing?
A small smile spreads across Steve's face. So, let's give him something to chase.
"I do NOT want this assignment, Marney!" Eddie pushes the flimsy file back over to his agent. He already knows what's inside. It shows up at least once a year, which was a relief compared to how frequent the request used to be.
"Eddie, baby, hear me out. It’s not an assignment. It is a project. It could get you back on the radar. It's not even a tour. It's a residency, and his team have already provided you with a list of shots he wants for the book. It's pose, point and shoot, Ed. Easy money." She slides it back over to him, keeping her fingers on top of it firmly, drumming her bright red talons on the card as she looks him right in the eyes, "and it's not like the gigs have been rolling in for you, now have they, sweetheart? Other than the family portrait business that I know you absolutely adore!" She smirks and holds his gaze. Using his favourite pet name against him makes his blood boil, but he isn't angry with her. It was Him.
"Gigs drying up for us is not my fault! The last client wanted all candid behind-the-scenes shots. I provided that. I edited them, barely, because they wanted the realism of life on the road, and they ok'd them. It's not my fault the internet is a cruel, unforgiving place!” Eddie exclaims in annoyance, “Especially when it’s full of Harronites, or whatever those lunatics call themselves." Eddie mumbles under his breath.
She raises her eyebrow at him, "He asked for you specifically." She says, and flicks open the folder revealing an old photo Eddie had taken of Rock Phenom Steve Harrington at one of his shows. He didn’t know what was so special about the picture. He’d taken this shot hundreds of times for artists. It's on a list of shots they can ask for. The artist climbs the barrier, and the hands of the fans reach up to them like worshipers praising their false idol. Eddie waves his hand, and the artist looks straight down the lens. It's supposed to be a duality of intimacy. The solid eye contact with the camera whilst in the arms of strangers, eager to reach out and touch their obsession, which none of them would ever possess. Lest of all, that guy.
What a piece of work. Ruined Eddie’s career and damn near ruined his life!
"He says," she balances her reading glasses on the tip of her button nose and pulls the sticky note from the photo, "no one captures his truth like Eddie Munson." She flips over the message so Eddie can see, “Signed it too. Could be worth something?”
"I've never even spoken to the guy. Why's he so obsessed with me?" Eddie whines, and his agent shrugs.
"Does it matter, Ed? There are a lot more zeros here than we'd see normally."
"Something seems off about this. I don't like it."
"You like his stuff, don't you?"
"Did! I did like his stuff until I published that stupid photo. He's been on my case ever since."
"Not flattered, Eddie?" She laughs
"At first, sure. Until his demands started rolling in, and his fans started giving me grief for declining them. They called me washed up! I hadn't even begun! I thought that picture was gonna be my big break! It went viral! Remember you told me that! But it was actually my demise, Marn!" Eddie seethes, “Imagine calling up your horde of rabid fans because you couldn’t get your way!” He closes the file and folds his arms. “No fuckin’ way! I can’t post a picture of a fucking sunset without his fans all over it like a rash.”
“Then just say yes, Eddie. It can’t be any worse than it is right now.” Marney says with a kind smile of compassion. She did want what was best for him, and though it killed him to admit it, he did need that money. He was in debt up to his eyeballs, barely breaking even at the studio, and the numbers on the cheque he saw could clear that and then some.
Eddie sighs and sinks back into his chair, “I’m gonna regret this. I know I am.” he says tensely, running his hand through his hair.
He looks up at her, and she is already back in her chair, phone in hand, finger poised over the green call button.
At his lowest, Eddie admits defeat and nods.
