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Eddie has an idea. And like always, Steve is concerned. Eddie has that glint in his eye, the one that sparkles when an idea swirls behind them. The one that Steve has come to recognize since striking up a friendship with the metalhead.
Friendship, he thinks sarcastically as he smiles at the man across from him, because sure, that’s all this is.
You see, Steve had made some discoveries following the last battle, war-torn and hollowed out as he sat next to an unmoving Eddie in a stark white hospital room. He wasn’t sure what it meant at the time that he would’ve fought anyone who tried to drag him away from his bedside post– that he’d almost gotten into it with Hopper when he’d tried– but Steve knew enough about himself to know there was something very special about the man who’d still been intubated in the bed before him.
Since waking up though, Steve had gotten to know Eddie. Really know him. He’d learned his favorite songs, favorite movies, favorite foods. He’d learned how Eddie preferred his coffee, why he’d started dealing, why he lived with his Uncle. He’d learned that he fed the stray cats, that he cared so deeply behind his mask of not caring about anything, that he was sensitive and needed physical touch to sleep. Because that’s something else Steve always does with his just friends. He always shares his bed with them and spoons them to sleep after a rough nightmare. He also always lets his friends spoon him to sleep after a rough nightmare, right? All of these months later, Steve’s realized he wants Eddie as more than a best friend but he’s squashed that want so deep, it inadvertently becomes one with his DNA— which is quite the opposite of Steve’s plan.
So yes, when Eddie stands up from the desk chair he’d been perched on in Steve’s room, exclaiming that he has an idea, Steve takes one look at his eyes and knows this is going to be trouble. And he’s right.
“Let’s go as each other!” Eddie says, waving his hands around theatrically. “You can get a taste of my excellent fashion sense, and I can get an idea of what it feels like to be a newly reformed jock.”
Steve can’t help but smile, picturing himself in more of Eddie’s clothes. Something besides the Dio vest, and preferably not while staring death in the face this time. It feels like a full-circle opportunity, and their friends have been heckling him about not having a costume for the party he’s hosting at his own house tonight. He can’t find the harm in it so he says, “Happy to hear you think I’m reformed and sure, fuck it, why not?”
Eddie claps his hands together and wags his eyebrows before diving into Steve’s closet.
What Steve hasn’t taken into consideration, what he’d missed in his quick mental calculations, is that this also means seeing Eddie in his clothes and, well, that unlocks something new in his brain. And in his dick.
“Do I look like you? Think I could pull off the basketball star schtick with this? Think I could– what the fuck did you call it? Letter?”
Eddie is pacing back and forth in a pair of Steve’s Levi’s that sit a little lower on his hips than they do on Steve’s, a striped polo, and his letterman jacket. Hawkins High logo printed on the sleeve and Harrington blazing across the back. He twirls a bit in the middle of the room for a full view and knocks Steve’s brain sideways.
Eddie. In his letterman jacket. I’m not going to make it, Steve thinks. He’s lent it to girls he’s dated before, salivated over the show of possession as they walked around the halls of Hawkins High School, and now Eddie is wearing it and all Steve wants to do fuck him senseless wearing nothing but that stupid jacket.
A solid minute passes and Steve doesn’t realize he’s just been staring wordlessly, unable to stop the loop he’s created in his mind of different surfaces he could press Eddie against or over. The silence stops Eddie in his tracks. “You alright? I can choose something else if this is like, special or something. Don’t wanna, y’know, encroach.” He says with a flourish of his hand.
Steve snaps out of it and shakes his head no. He should lean into that, actually, have Eddie pick something else, but Steve I-Like-To-Make-Myself-Suffer Harrington tells him to go with that. So he does.
They load into Steve’s car to trek over to Forest Hills, Eddie insistent on giving Steve a full array of options the way Steve's done for him. The drive is painful, Steve’s urge to glance over and rest his hand on his friend’s thigh while he mans the steering wheel is damn nearly unstoppable. But he manages to tune himself into the story Eddie’s telling about a Halloween a few years back when he and Wayne set up a very intricate haunted graveyard in the trailer park that kids apparently talked about for months.
“...Wayne set up this fake scarecrow thing to lure everyone into a false sense of security and then on Halloween night, we replaced it with me. So kids came up to get candy, thinking I was just the same boring ass scarecrow and next thing they knew– BAM!” He slapped the side of the passenger door. “Scared the piss outta them. It was fucking awesome.”
Steve chances a quick look and sees Eddie beaming from ear-to-ear, meeting his gaze immediately. You never needed to get on the roof of that trailer, he thinks, you could’ve annihilated the entire Upside Down with that fucking smile. He knows he could get lost in there, so he clears his throat and turns back to the windshield, not wanting to crash the car and more importantly, not wanting to explain to everyone why he’d crashed the car.
“Why did I never hear about that, man? That’s dedication.” He opts for, watching as the burnt sky flickers through the dying trees.
“You weren’t exactly the target audience, no offense. I’d have invited you now, if that’s any consolation. Scare us up some children.” Eddie wiggles his fingers together in front of his face in a show of false malice. Steve rolls his eyes but can’t contain his own grin, the fondness that tugs at his lips only in Eddie’s presence. Oh, he thinks, I am so fucked.
They arrive at the trailer, a merciful reprieve for Steve, and immediately begin digging through Eddie’s clothing for something that screams Munson and that fits Steve’s slightly wider frame.
Steve spins a bit, trying to see himself from every angle without a mirror. “Dude, I’ve never even seen you wear this shirt, will anyone know I’m supposed to be you?”
Eddie is gleaming again, a twinkle in his eye that Steve can’t place this time which takes him a little off-guard, as he turns around wearing black jeans with holes at the knees, a Slayer tee shirt that’d had the sleeves cut out leaving the space beneath his armpits exposed, and Eddie’s leather jacket. They’d discovered at Steve’s that they’re close enough in shoe size that they could swap those without either of them losing a toe or faceplanting, so Steve slides into a pair of Eddie’s boots.
Unbeknownst to Steve, Eddie is having a similar crisis to the one he’s been fending off with a very weak stick. He’s seen Steve in his clothes before, and of course it’d done something for him— Steve Harrington naked from the waist up, chest hair taunting him through his own beloved vest? That was almost too easy. A softball pitch. An automatic. His mistake was thinking that was the hottest Steve could get. That the Vest Incident would be his go-to material when he needed a little, ahem , help. But now Steve is sitting on his bed, lacing up his boots in torn up jeans and leather, and Eddie thinks he’s going to take flight. He also thinks there’s a very real possibility that the intrusive thoughts win and he’s going to jump on Steve, straddling him on his bed–
He shakes himself from the filthy thoughts he knows he should feel guilty for having about his friend who’s been nothing but good to him, who trusts him as much Eddie returns that trust. But fuck, he looks so good. Eddie could weep.
“Aha! This’ll sell it a little better. A staple in your wardrobe, right?” Eddie blinks and Steve is holding Eddie’s black bandana.
Yep, gonna die tonight. This is how I’m gonna die. Way better than the bats, I’ll give you that, God, he thinks. Aloud, he just swallows thickly and laughs. “You pay attention, Harrington!”
A few more adjustments and they’re back in Steve’s BMW, windows ajar just enough to let the crisp air waft through, both secretly hoping it cools them down. Literally and metaphorically.
“How do you sit in these?” Steve mutters, shifting uncomfortably around the tight press of denim in his crotch. “Don’t they chafe?”
Eddie pops another chip in his mouth, a snack he’d grabbed from the trailer before they left, and nearly chokes. Of course they’re chafing, he wanted to say, your thighs are tree trunks.
“No, no, they’re uh–” He coughed twice more. “Probably just a little tighter on you, not all of us are all sporty and broad, y’know.”
Broad? Steve thinks, his hands gripping the steering wheel too tightly. He’s noticed… huh.
They let the rest of the ride pass in heavy, tense silence. Eddie didn’t even bother to complain about the radio’s constant loop of Cyndi Lauper and Bruce Springsteeen, afraid of what might fall from his tongue if he were to open his mouth, so he keeps filling it with chips instead. He averts his eyes to the passenger window, watching the landscape shift from his side of the tracks to Steve’s— the crack in his heart splinters a bit more at the reminder of their differences. Of Eddie’s lack and Steve’s abundance. Steve’s different now, Eddie knows that, but even a reformed King wouldn’t fall this far from grace just for him.
Steve, meanwhile, drums along on the wheel with his fingertips, mentally calculating how much more of his crush he could keep secret. How much longer could he pretend the man sitting next to him, munching on generic brand potato chips and wiping crumbs off his jacket with greasy fingers, was nothing more than an unexpected best friend whose presence in his life he craved in every way? That when Eddie isn’t with him, he finds the absence itching like a phantom limb, subconsciously reaching for something that isn’t there?
Fuck.
Eddie is relieved when they arrive back at the Harrington Household, eager to distract himself with whatever banal task he can find to finish setting up. True to form, Steve’s directing him to the kitchen in no time. They smash a few bags of ice on the patio outside for the coolers, loaded with beer, and Steve gets to work on his Hawkins Famous Punch.
The two men carry on like this for the better part of an hour, making easy conversation about Halloween and parties and taking guesses at what their friends will choose for costumes as they finish preparing the house. They’re carefully dancing around their current costumes— neither of them look at the other enough to realize that they’re intentionally not looking at each other.
Alright, Steve gives himself a pep talk, if I just maintain eye contact, I won’t look at the rest of him. You’ve got this.
“Pre-game?” Steve asks, turning around with a cold beer in each hand. Eddie’s eyes are dark and deep bright all at once and for the second time that night, Steve has wildly miscalculated. There’s no part of Eddie he can look at without desire bleeding from his fucking pores. So he hands a can to Eddie quickly, his mouth half-open about to answer affirmatively anyways.
Eddie sees something in the way Steve’s pupils dilate but he’s too focused on getting as far removed from his brain as possible, desperate to cut himself off from his fucking thoughts about Steve Harrington. And from his thoughts about fucking Steve Harrington.
“Hell yeah man, let’s get this party started!” He says, can already cracked and pressed to his lips.
Eddie and Steve are two and three beers deep respectively by the time their friends start showing up. Argyle pulls up in his van, Jonathan and Nancy popping out the side along with a few of Nancy’s new friends from a journalism workshop she’d started shortly after the world didn’t end.
“Whoa, my dudes! I love it!” Argyle greets them first with hugs, complimenting Eddie’s commitment to the bit as he stood with his hands on his hips. Argyle had slotted himself easily into their friend group. Once you’re one of us, you’re one of us, Steve had said as they’d reconvened all together for the first time, sharing their very different Vecnapocalypse stories.
Steve takes in the costumes and maybe it’s his third beer already hitting him, but it takes him a second to clock Argyle and Jonathan as Cheech and Chong. Argyle’s brightly colored button-down is unbuttoned to his stomach, red bandana tied tightly around his head and faux beard hanging snuggly down his chin. Jonathan, appropriately costumed as Chong with a yellow shirt underneath red suspenders and red beanie, gives the two a friendly smile and nod which knocks his fake mustache askew.
Nancy laughs as she makes her way up the driveway dressed as Clare from The Breakfast Club. “When I suggested getting creative, I didn’t think you’d get this creative! Impressive!” She gives both men a warm hug, any residual weirdness from Steve’s RV confessional gone and chalked up to the adrenaline rush of staring down certain death. She introduces her friends, who Steve welcomes with handshakes instead of hugs. He hadn’t realized until that very moment that he’d been entirely uninterested in dating or in pretty girls since Eddie landed in his life like a meteor.
“You like? Do I pull it off?” Eddie jokes, spinning around and grabbing at the lapels of Steve’s jacket he’d sworn not to take off all fucking night, no matter how warm he gets. Gonna get every second of this fantasy where I belong to Steve Harrington, he’d thought when he’d made that promise to himself.
Before anyone can answer, another car pulls up and Eddie perks up like a dog who’s been told he’s going for a walk. Steve can’t bash the words cute and adorable down with a big enough stick in his brain. Eddie greets them, this time with hugs and one with a headlock.
“You’re welcoming guests with assault, Ed? Do the Harrington name some justice, Christ!” He jokes, inserting himself into the group and trying to stamp out the odd heat that rises from his stomach into his throat as the sight of Eddie touching someone. Someone else , that little part of him corrects. He knows what it is– he knows that familiar burn of jealousy when he feels it– but he doesn’t have time to unpack all of that right now.
“Harrington?” One of the kids says, pulling away from his banter with Eddie. “Like, King Steve, Harrington?” He recounts the nickname like there’s bile in his mouth.
Steve can’t help but wince. These must be some of the old Hellfire guys Eddie mentioned, the few he’d kept in touch with. Or that’d kept in touch with him, rather. I’ll never live that down, huh? Guess I deserve that, he thinks.
Before Steve can deflect with a self-effacing joke as he’s learned to do, Eddie turns around and places a hand on Steve’s cheek. The contact of Eddie’s palm against his cheek burns and he’s never been happier to stand in the fire.
“Definitely not King Steve, my friends,” Eddie practically sings as he turns back to his friends, hand still in its rightful place. “We’ve made wondrous strides!” Eddie couldn’t help himself. If anyone asks he’ll blame it on the beer, but he knows himself better than that. He wants to protect Steve, he wants to defend Steve, and if he wants to show off to his friends that he’s wearing Steve’s name across his fucking back whlie he does it, sue him. He turns back to Steve and catches a look of– something. Something like pride, maybe? Not enough time and too many people to read into that, he thinks, patting Steve’s cheek softly.
The vote of confidence seems to put Eddie’s friends at ease at least, and they file into the house behind Argyle, Jonathan, Nancy, and her friends. Before he can follow them, Steve grabs Eddie’s hand and stops him in his tracks.
“You didn’t have to do that, you don’t have to do that. I did some shitty stuff, and I deserve whatever I get for it, okay? I appreciate it, really,” he pinches the bridge of his nose, “but I don’t want you to like, feel like you have to stand between me and your friends.”
You beautiful fucking idiot, Eddie wants to scream. “Stevie, I stood between you and hoards of murderous bats. You think those guys are gonna top that? Catch up, sweetheart. You’re not the only one with a protective streak.” He gives Steve’s hand a squeeze and drops it as he turns back towards the house.
Steve doesn’t know what to do with that and instead, watches Eddie walk up the driveway, his own last name taunting him. He’s still standing there dumbfounded when Robin startles him, snaking an arm around his own. “I see you dressed as your boyfriend, very creative!”
“What the fuck Rob, Jesus Chr– wear a bell, will you?”
Robin laughs and adjusts her very oversized leather jacket. “I never realized how much Eddie and Bender dress alike.” Steve should’ve known Nancy would be matching with someone, and he bites his tongue at what it means that she’d decided to match Robin. He knew she and Jonathan had split– it was amicable, both them citing the need to, as Nancy quoted to him “get our shit figured out.” He hadn’t known exactly what that’d meant at the time but he was intimately familiar with the way Nancy looked at Robin, so now? Steve had a few guesses.
“You’re teasing me for trading wardrobes with Eddie, but if I call out you and your girlf–” Steve doesn’t get the sentence out before Robin claps a hand over his mouth. “Shut it, or I’ll personally fast forward every tape at the store just so you have to rewind them on Monday.”
Steve laughs around her hand and puts his hands up in a show of faux surrender. “Alright alright, come on, Eddie and I already started so you’ve gotta catch up. Oh and Rob?” He asks, walking up to the house where he could already hear that Eddie had chosen the music.
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been daydreaming about fucking Eddie all day because he’s wearing my letterman jacket so I need you to to keep an eye on me, make sure I don’t make a complete ass of myself.”
Robin laughs so hard she snorts, bumping shoulders with him. “No more than the average day, pinky promise.”
Unfortunately– or fortunately, depending on who was asks— Robin does not keep her promise.
The party’s going perfectly– everyone’s mingling, interesting groups of people have clumped up and are dancing, singing, and drinking. Cups litter the living room and kitchen, hard rock shakes the windows, and someone opens the sliding back door to let a cool breeze whip through the house.
Steve comes out of the bathroom after spending more time than he cares to admit pulling those goddamn jeans back up to find Robin and some of the old Hellfire guys getting a lesson in proper joint rolling from Argyle, Nancy and her work friends are taking a shot in celebration of something– who knows– and Jonathan and Eddie are standing on the couch doing something that resembles air guitar to The Clash pumping from the speakers.
Still covered in Steve, Eddie’s neck muscles flex as he throws his head back, laughter coating the walls of the living room, and Steve is experiencing gravity differently than he had just a few seconds before.
Oh.
Oh no. This cannot be the moment.
Steve is locked on, unmoving, unblinking. He might not even be breathing, but he doesn’t think he needs to breathe anymore because the feeling that’s just washed over him is substituting every other necessary function in his body.
Oh fuck, I’m in love with him.
Somehow, the man standing on his couch, air guitaring and laughing and wearing his clothes, has ignited a flame in him from the inside. He wants to ask Eddie how he got in, how he’d accessed this part of him that Steve couldn’t even find the key to anymore. But more than anything, he wants to kiss him. He wants to march across the room, grab Eddie by the face, and kiss him in front of everyone so that everyone knows he’s his.
Before he can act on it though– because he was absolutely about to act on it– the song ends and Eddie jumps off the couch, stumbling at the landing but helping Jonathan down nonetheless. He downs the rest of the beer in his hand, this time a bottle of something light that one of the Hellfire guys brought, and sees Steve across the room.
Eddie lays the bottle down on the table, winks at Steve, and starts spinning it on its side. “Who wants to play Spin the Bottle?!” He yells out.
Liquid courage, Eddie thinks, his body being pulled to Steve like a moth to a flame. And it’s suddenly very clear to Eddie that he’s in deep. That he’s going to get hurt. That he’s staging this game, everyone in the room flocking to the coffee table, so that he can maybe kiss Steve. It doesn’t matter the circumstances, doesn’t matter if it’s real. He wants to kiss love songs so deeply into Steve’s mouth that he still hears lines of them everytime he speaks even after he inevitably gets tired of hanging out with Eddie. He wants to leave a mark.
Steve’s the last to join, hesitant to play because he doesn’t want to kiss anyone else at this fucking party and he has the worst luck. He tries to up his odds by sitting directly across from Eddie, squeezing himself between Nancy and one of Eddie’s friends. It’s an interesting social experiment– people who’ve never spoken kissing, most chaste but some put on a show. One of Eddie’s friends really lays one on one of Nancy’s friends and the whole party goes insane, egging them on. Robin delivers a very platonic kiss on Argyle, who ends up landing on another of Eddie’s friends. Steve can’t help but notice that no one even bristles about two guys kissing. Promising, he thinks.
And as if on cue, one of Nancy’s friends spins first and it lands dead-center on Steve. Are you fucking kidding me? He isn’t sure what he believes in anymore, but he wants to climb on his roof and yell at God for tormenting him. He starts to panic as she smiles and makes a move to stand.
He can’t do it. She’s gorgeous but he can’t bring himself to look away from Eddie, the man he’s recently discovered he’s in love with, who he can read better than any book his English teachers tried to make him read, and he looks sad. It guts Steve.
“I’m– I don’t think I can play. It’s nothing against you, I swear, I just– sorry.” The girl stops mid-movement and looks at him, confused.
“Why?” Jonathan, surprisingly, asks. Everyone is staring at him, Eddie included, and he very briefly thinks that maybe he should’ve let those bats get him when he had the chance.
He can’t think of an answer on the fly and looks to Robin on Eddie’s right, panicked.
She knows he’s looking for an out– she’s about to step in and pretend to be his secret girlfriend or something, even preparing to kiss him if necessary to shield him from being outed, when Nancy, bless her fucking heart, grabs the bottle and spins. “He doesn’t want to play, so we’ll just keep going.”
Steve shoots her a look of gratitude as he stands up, headed towards the back door.
The hard plastic of the poolside chair rubs against his thighs as he sits with his elbows on his knees, chin on his steepled fingertips.
I’m in love with him. The realization sits pressed against every raw nerve in his body, that flame still lit. Wonder if it’ll always feel like this with him, he thinks. He looks up, watches the stars flicker and fade before him, watches the way the clouds pass before the moon. It’s a metaphor for the way he loves Eddie– clouds will pass by, might disguise the intensity of what he’s feeling for a moment, but they will always pass. Eddie will always be there— steady, stable, ever-changing but there.
A cold breeze rips through and he pulls Eddie’s leather jacket around him tighter, curling over to rest his forearms on his knees. He’s safe out here with no one but the sky to judge him, so if he lets a few tears escape, no one will be the wiser.
“Need a light?” He hears his moon say after a few moments, voice raspy from laughing and singing all night. Steve’s head shoots up and he feels his body tense and relax all at once. No one has ever made him feel that before– if anyone ever does again, he’ll forever think of it as the Eddie Effect.
“Need a smoke first,” Steve tries for levity but his voice cracks and betrays him. Eddie looks at him, soft enough to cut him to the quick, and holds out a tightly rolled joint. Argyle’s work, no doubt.
Steve takes it between his lips and reaches for the lighter when Eddie sits next to him, their thighs and shoulders touching. It’s almost too much for Steve, and it’s almost too much for Eddie, but neither will pull away. They’ve both always loved the feeling of too much. Eddie clicks the lighter to life and lights the joint for Steve instead, holding his jaw steady with his free hand. He inhales, reveling in the feeling of the smoke curling its way into his lungs. Eddie plucks it from him when he’s ready to exhale, placing it between his own lips.
The two men go back and forth in silence, pressed together, watching the sky ebb and flow. Eddie wants to ask him what the fuck that was about, but he doesn’t. Steve looks… looks like glass. Like one wrong movement, one intrusive question, might break him and Eddie would die before he breaks Steve. Their bodies are touching though, and that’s enough for him for the moment. It’s enough to quell the ravenous craving he has to squeeze Steve tight enough that any broken bits click back together in the quiet that surrounds them.
When the joint is ashed, crumbled at their feet, Eddie stands and offers a hand to Steve who takes it without thinking. He smiles at the man in front of him, straightening the lapels of the jacket.
“It’s getting rowdy in there, I think I got everyone going,” he says with that same glimmer in his eye from that morning and an eyebrow wag, “let’s go join ‘em.”
The living room is dark when they re-enter, music pumping on high volume and the bass rattling Steve’s chest. Eddie grabs a cup of punch for Steve and another for himself before pulling him onto the makeshift dance floor in the space the coffee table used to occupy. They move around one another, sipping and spilling little splashes of red punch on the carpet. Steve smiles, relieved that his parents will never come back to find out. It’s his house now and for once in his life, he can do whatever the fuck he wants in it.
He spots Robin and Nancy dancing by themselves, Nancy’s arms thrown carelessly around Robin’s shoulders who’s blushing the color of Nancy’s shirt. Argyle and Jonathan are dancing with some of the Hellfire guys, who Steve could swear he saw holding hands? It’s a clusterfuck and he’s holding heavily spiked punch in one hand, Eddie’s hand in the other, and the world is spinning in the best way possible. He might only get tonight to hold Eddie’s hand, so he hangs onto it like a drowning man to a lifesaver.
A new song kicks over on the mixtape Eddie curated for the occasion– without being asked, of course– and the beat is heavy. Loud guitar, loud bass, all Eddie’s taste.
“You know,” Eddie whispers, pulling Steve closer, “you’re wearing the right outfit for this kind of song. Oughta take advantage of that.” Eddie means that Steve should finally give headbanging a shot but oh, he gets so much better.
Steve doesn’t pull away. He should pull away, should put some distance between him and the way Eddie’s breath feels against his ear, but no. He’s not sure if it’s the beer, the punch, the weed, or just having Eddie so close to him in a crowded, sweaty room with dimmed lights and the house shaking and him still wearing his letterman jacket, but Steve presses against him– chest to chest, nose to nose– and sways them to the music.
Eddie squeaks as he pulls him in, soft enough that no one but him knows that he does, but he does, and he’s not proud of it. And then he feels Steve’s hand take his cup, place them on a nearby table, and tighten their grip on his hips. He feels his own hands wrap around Steve’s neck, and then a delicious friction building where Steve is pressed against him in the Levi’s that he may never give back at this point. That he may never be able to give back if Steve keeps fucking grinding into him like this to Def Leppard.
Pour your sugar on me
I can't get enough
I'm hot, sticky sweet
From my head to my feet, yeah
The lyrics of the song ricochet off every atom in Steve’s body. He wants to lick the bead of sweat he sees trailing down Eddie’s temple, he wants to suck dark bruises into his neck, wants to fucking devour him. And then Eddie digs his fingernails into the nape of Steve’s neck and Steve sees him bite his bottom lip and that’s it, he’s fucking done. His eyes meet Eddie’s, both dark and consuming.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Ed.” His lips graze Eddie’s ear this time, and Steve feels him shiver.
“Au contraire, Steve-O. I know exactly what game I’m playing. And I’m banking on you being competitive.”
Eddie sees it now. He sees how desperate Steve is to touch him, desperate enough that Steve’s just one rhythmic motion away from humping his goddamn thigh in a room of other people. People they’ll have to see again. That’s when it clicks.
Why Steve was staring at him in this jacket earlier. Why he’d taken up post at his bedside. Why that’d carried over into their post-hospital days. Why he’d asked so many questions about him and his life and his past. Why he cared enough to ask.
Why he’d refused to kiss that girl earlier.
Oh. Holy shit.
Eddie’s 30 seconds into a realization about Steve that turns his world sideways when Steve makes a noise akin to a growl— well, that did something for me, will assess that later, he thinks— and starts backing them away from their friends. They barely make it to the hallway before he finds himself shoved unceremoniously against the nearest wall, bracketed by Steve’s forearms.
“You sure about this? We’ve been drinking, and I’m not that kind of guy, but I’ve been stuck in a loop of really terrible things I want to do to you since you picked this goddamn thing,” he flicks Eddie’s shoulder to point out the jacket, “this afternoon.”
It takes everything— truly, everything— not to coat the inside of his boxers immediately. This sight, Steve in leather pressing him against a wall, eyes blown out and hungry, is something he’s dreamed about. Really, he has. Robin’s probably still traumatized from his recounting of it when Steve was out of earshot one day at his trailer.
“Why didn’t you kiss her?” He’s not sure why that’s what his brain picks to say in a moment so heated but he and his brain aren’t exactly connected at the moment so Eddie’s just along for the ride.
Steve’s mouth pulls into a crooked smile. “What?”
“The girl. At the spin the bottle. You said you couldn’t and then you bailed. Why?”
He’s not sure how to answer that, his brain isn’t dialing fast enough. Probably because all of his blood has rushed to more essential functions, like the painful erection stretching against Eddie’s too-tight jeans.
Eddie takes the silence as his opportunity to spin them around, Steve’s back landing against the wall with a small thud.
“Tell me why you didn’t kiss that girl, Steve. She was into it, we all saw her eyes light up when the bottle landed on you. It could’ve been her here in this hallway with you. So tell me why you said no.”
“It never could’ve been here in this hallway. She’s not you.” He laces finger through the belt loops of Eddie’s Levi’s and pulls him in. “I only want you.”
For all of his brazenness, Eddie hasn’t had many first kisses. Just two others, and the lead up didn't feel like this. He felt static the way he does before lightning strikes, felt the air around him crackle like it does before the tornado warnings start blaring. He revels in that feeling, teasing Steve whose fingers graze his hip bones by brushing their lips together but not landing. Not yet.
Steve’s brain has left his body now— Eddie’s moving his thigh to slot between Steve’s and the pressure makes him ache. He’s willing to dry hump the man’s leg like an animal if he has to, he wants to scream do whatever you want to me, anything, but dear God fucking kiss me.
He doesn’t scream it but he does say it.
Steve’s begging him to kiss him, to touch him, and his hands unlace from his jeans and pull Eddie in closer, and it’s about all Eddie can take.
He stops Steve, grabs his hands, and pins them above his head against the wall. Steve writhes against him and whines which sends every drop of blood left in Eddie’s other organs straight to his dick.
“You sure? No going back once we know how each other tastes, Steve.” Steve feels Eddie say it more than he hears him over his heart pounding in his ears.
“Please— please, Ed,” he chokes out.
“Oh fuck.” Eddie kisses him. Finally.
Steve doesn’t know much about physics but if he did, he’d describe this first kiss as the birth of the Universe. No, the birth of millions of Universes, flickering in and out the way the stars did in his backyard. Every atom, every molecule, every fundamental element in his body explodes with the heat of Eddie’s mouth against his, chapped and warm, and tasting of fruit punch and hops.
Eddie maintains steady pressure to keep Steve pinned where he is— writhing and ragged against him— as he licks his way into Steve’s mouth.
And oh God, he’s on fire. Eddie is burning alive and he wants someone to throw gasoline on him, to fan the flame. Icarus flew too close to the sun, sure, but the tale forgot to mention that Icarus was in love with the sun and wanted to be as full of him as possible. That Icarus had died in ecstasy.
Both men find themselves grinding and bucking up into each other and Eddie will fucking disintegrate if they don’t make it to somewhere not the hallway where he can properly get his hands on Steve. “Bedroom? Bathroom? Laundry closet? Somewhere with a door, maybe?” He asks, pulling away to find Steve half-lidded, lips shiny with spit and kiss swollen.
“My room, come on,” he pants. Eddie loosens his grip on his wrists and hangs into just one as Steve leads him to his bedroom. He knows where it is, of course, and wastes no time kicking the door shut behind them. Steve regains control for a moment, grabbing Eddie by the jacket to pull him into a searing kiss, all tongue and sloppy. Eddie’s hands find Steve’s hair and he’s delighted to find that Steve The Hair Harrington moans into his mouth when he tugs lightly, experimentally.
“Like that?” He mutters around Steve’s mouth, tugging again. Steve breaks the kiss and pushes Eddie back until his thighs hit the mattress and he falls backwards. Eddie loses the shoes and Steve toes off his boots before climbing on top of this man who must’ve fallen from the sky. He sheds the leather jacket and rips off the shirt in a fluid motion.
“So much.” He dives back in, bracketing Eddie in between his thighs and forearms, both hands cradling Eddie’s jaw as he kisses him until he can’t breathe. Their tongues fit together too easily, like they’ve been doing this dance for eons before this lifetime. And maybe they have. If the Upside Down could exist, past lives are child’s play.
He sucks deep, purple marks into Eddie’s collarbone, biting at his neck and earlobe.
Eddie’s hands work their way up Steve’s bare chest, back into Steve’s hair, relishing in the way he’s messing up Steve’s trademark look. He gets to do that now, and nothing will stop him. One good tug and Steve moans, vibrations hitting the roof of Eddie’s mouth. He moves to flip them over, finding himself perched on Steven’s lap.
Steve watches, chest heaving, as Eddie removes the letterman jacket and the polo. Scars and raised skin litter his torso and Steve needs to touch every single one. He’s seen them before— he’s the one who changed the bandages, after all— but not in this context. Not in the context I love you, I love you, you could’ve died and that hits him like a freight train.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he whispers, tracing everything jagged line he can reach. Eddie’s chest swells and he smiles down at Steve. The moment can’t last though, Eddie has a mission so he rolls hips down slowly, achingly slowly. Steve gasps and huffs out a breath, whispers fuck. So Eddie does it again. And again. And again, each time slower and harder than the time before.
“Too many— too many clothes.” Steve croaks out, his cock suffocated by his pants and desperate to be sprung loose. Eddie smirks and rolls over, easily discarding the Levi’s and his boxers before helping Steve out of his.
Eddie’s eyes dart straight to Steve’s dick, and well, he’s seen his share of well-hung guys in magazines but he must have done something very right in his lifetime to deserve this dick, swollen and bleeding pre-cum for him already.
“Can I touch you? Wanna make you feel good, baby. Can I?”
Steve isn’t used to being on the receiving end of questions like that but he wants nothing more in the world right now than for Eddie to touch him. He craves the absolution of Eddie.
“Yeah, yes, please.”
Eddie crawls between Steve’s thighs and peppers every inch of skin he can reach with his lips— thighs, hips, stomach. Steve catches himself reaching for Eddie’s hair more than once, but he grips the bedsheets with both fists instead. He watches, eyes nearly rolling already, as Eddie looks up at him from underneath those unfair eyelashes.
“Stop me if you don’t like something, or if you want something I’m not doing, okay?”
Steve nods, unsure of how to form words anymore. Eddie traces the moles and freckles along Steve’s body with his tongue, teasing his dick with light kisses and licks just near it but not touching. He smiles at the way Steve’s breath sharpens, the way his dick twitches as if it’s trying to get his attention. He gives in when it looks like Steve’s settled into the rhythm of things, eyes closed and head moving in small, contented circles, with a firm flat tongued lick up the underside.
“Holy fuck—“ He gasps, hands tightening in the sheets, eyes shooting open. Eddie’s got that look in his eyes now, the same as earlier when he suggested dressing as each other. It makes Steve wonder how long Eddie’s wanted him like this. Well, for a second at least, because Eddie takes his cock in his mouth fully and properly in one fluid motion and Steve hits the goddamn ceiling.
Eddie hums acknowledgement around him, holding him to the hilt and then sliding back up slowly to draw circles around the head with his tongue. He keeps going at that pace— up, down, up down— for an amount of time Steve can’t process because it doesn’t fucking matter. He could lay there forever in the heat and slick of Eddie’s mouth, eyes barely open, moaning to a God he’s pretty sure doesn’t exist, fingers numb from holding back because he doesn’t want to hurt Eddie with what he wants to fucking do to him.
But then the pace changes unexpectedly, and Steve feels the tip of his dick hit Eddie’s throat, and he can’t help the way his hand finds itself on the back of Eddie’s head, tangled in black curls. Eddie moans this time, looking at him with a primal want. He slides up and lets Steve’s dick fall out of his mouth just long enough for him to say, “do it, I want you to do it. I’ll tap your thigh if I need a break.”
Steve’s only dreamed of this before, of burying his cock in someone’s throat with abandon, and now Eddie’s letting him? He wants it? And then Eddie is back on him, mouth open and tongue out this time, encouraging Steve’s left hand to join his right in his hair.
He experiments with a few shallow thrusts, eyes boring into Eddie’s looking for any sign of discomfort or distress but all he finds is acceptance and pliancy as he closes his lips around him. Steve works up a rhythm of his own, holding Eddie still and thrusting upwards until he meets resistance over and over. The wet, choked sounds he’s pulling from Eddie are enough to send him over the edge on their own, nevermind the way spit and precum are drooling down from the corners of his mouth, or the fat wet tears leaking down his cheeks, or the way he notices Eddie is thrusting into the mattress himself. It’s slobbery and feral and devastating. Eddie Munson is fucking beautiful.
Steve can feel it brewing, he feels the familiar pull of that favorite black hole of his. Sweet, sweet oblivion. But just before he crosses that horizon, Eddie taps him and he stops, because he’s about to come but he’s not an asshole.
“I want you to fuck me, Steve. I need it. I need you.” Not that he would ever say no to Eddie asking that of him anyway, but how could he when he’d asked with tear tracks down his cheeks and spit stuck to the corner of his mouth?
Steve smiles and wipes Eddie’s face gently, like he’s something to behold. Because he is.
“I’ve got you baby, I’ve got you. My turn, okay?” Steve’s read up on anal sex before— he’d down something of a rabbit hole researching what little he could find about sexuality when Robin came out to him— so he reaches for the lube in the bedside drawer he’s used in himself before, curious about the feeling of fingers inside of him.
Eddie climbs up Steve, who promptly flips him to his back. “Gonna get you ready, want this to be so good for you.” He mumbles, kissing Eddie and tasting himself in the process. Eddie nods. “I trust you.” It hits Steve harder than I love you would’ve, but he has a promise to keep here so they’ll circle back to that later. Steve keeps his clean hand wrapped under Eddie’s neck, cradling his head, as he inserts a single slicked finger.
It takes less time than Steve had taken with himself to get to three fingers, which kickstarts a whole onslaught of questions, and images, about how often Eddie fingers himself.
“I’m good baby, I’m ready, please please—“ Eddie nearly keens, rocking down on Steve’s fingers again. The pleading is killing Steve. He doesn’t have a chance to respond though because Eddie flips himself over onto his forearms, hoping that actions speak louder than his words. He’s ready, and he means that.
Steve positions himself behind Eddie, dick coated with lubricant, suddenly enamored with the curve of his ass. How has he missed this for so long?
“Stop me if I hurt you,” he says, bending over Eddie’s frame to trail a line of kisses down Eddie’s spine.
He lines himself up against Eddie's tight hole, and that first push is excruciating. He stops to let the man beneath him adjust. It’s push and pull for a few moments, Eddie sliding back against him to help the cause, whimpering and shaking but assuring Steve’s it’s good, it’s so fucking good.
When Steve finally bottoms out, Eddie buries his face in the sheets to muffle his cries. Steve doesn’t move, just rests there nestled inside Eddie. He could bust right there if he’s being honest, and it’s embarrassing to admit that he isn’t going to last very long.
“Move, please, need you to move.” He hears Eddie plead as he pushes himself back up to his forearms. So he does. Steve starts with shallow, slow movements and words of encouragement.
“God Ed, you’re doing so good for me, taking me so well. So, so good. You’re a natural, baby.”
He works Eddie up until he’s able to thrust harder and deeper, drawing moans that turn into muffled screams buried into his pillow. The bed shakes and he doesn’t care that his friends probably hear it. He has his hands on Eddie’s hips and he wants to fuck him through the mattress if he’ll let him.
Neither man has a grasp on words anymore, any and every thought tumbling out of their mouths as Steve picks up the tempo.
“Am I good? Do I feel good around your cock, baby?”
“God, you’re so good Ed, I wanna fuck you forever, never want anyone else, you’re so good for me, never had anyone like you.”
“You’re so deep, feel you everywhere.”
“Can’t believe I’ve lived my whole life without this, God, fuck, please let me do this in every fucking lifetime.”
“Stevie, you fuck me so good, I never want to stop, I want this forev– oh my God!” Steve hits something deep inside of Eddie that kicks him from the inside out.
“Want you to choke me, need to come, choke me, pull my hair, please, please, please—“ Eddie is fully babbling, desperate for release while Steve hits that spot over and over again.
He leans down and pulls Eddie back by the hair to get closer to his ear as he stops mid-thrust, the head of his cock pressed against the bundle of nerves that are absolutely going to ruin Eddie.
“Say it again, what do you want me to do to you? Tell me.”
Eddie asks again, practically begging Steve to choke him. He’s never done it before so even in his fucked out haze, he’s careful with the way he wraps one hand around Eddie’s throat and presses lightly. It’s enough to send Eddie spiraling and Steve feels his own orgasm building.
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, oh God, fuck, fuck me harder, please—“
He reaches around and touches Eddie’s dick for the first time in what feels like hours. “Want you to come for me, wanna come at the same time, gonna fill you up baby. Is that okay? Can I fill you up?”
Eddie screams yes and his eyes roll back in his head, Steve’s dick thoroughly buried in him, Steve’s hand around his throat, and Steve’s other hand pumping his cock. It’s filthy and Steve uses the hand that was around Eddie’s throat to turn his face towards him best he can, takes in the ecstasy in his face, and slips his pointer and middle finger into his mouth.
The pressure on his tongue makes Eddie fucking throb, remembering what it felt like to have Steve’s fat dick in his mouth earlier, and he wishes he could somehow have both. He keeps his mouth open around Steve’s fingers instead, moaning and begging for more. He doesn’t know what else he wants but he wants more Steve.
“Mine, Eddie, tell me you’re mine.” Steve grits his teeth as he feels it building, feels it building in his stomach and in the way Eddie tightens around him.
“Yours, yours, yours, always yours, have been for so long, ohmygodohmygodohmygo—“
A few more thrusts and they’re both tumbling over the ledge, Eddie’s orgasm egged on by the novel feeling of Steve coating his insides with thick ropes of come.
Steve waits a few seconds and pulls out gingerly, Eddje wincing at the feeling of absence, a lack of Steve. They collapse together on the bed, rolling to avoid the spot Eddie desecrated with his orgasm. Steve grabs the polo Eddie had been wearing to wipe them down.
This part is very new to Eddie, the part where Steve creates a spot for Eddie to nestle into his side with an arm around his shoulders. But it feels good, it feels happy, so he lets himself pretend for a moment longer that this was more than a hookup that was destined to destroy their friendship.
“So, this is a thing now, right? You like… actually like me, right?” Steve asks, still soaking in the afterglow. Part of him is afraid of the answer but he just needs to know.
Eddie cranes his neck to look up at Steve, full of wonder and a healthy dash of confusion. How did he read his mind? Were they picking up the hive mind thing he and Robin shared now? “Do you like me?” He asks, shocked Steve had to ask. Isn’t it obvious?
Steve considers what he wants to say, how much he wants to get his heart splattered across the walls of his own home by someone he loves at yet another Halloween party. But then he thinks back on all that he’s learned about Eddie again. Eddie, who Steve has never seen judge a single person in front of him who didn’t deserve it, who Steve had learned secretly loves Spaghetti Westerns and folk music, who only likes his coffee if it barely tastes like coffee after milk and sugar and always in the Garfield mug. Eddie, who’d only started dealing because he wanted Wayne to work less, who lives with Wayne because his childhood was shit, who still– despite all of that– sees the good in the world and had nearly died to protect it. Eddie trusts Steve, so he has to trust Eddie.
“I couldn’t kiss that girl tonight because I’m in love with you and it wouldn’t be right. Because it wouldn’t be you.” The confession hangs heavy in the air for a moment.
Eddie struggles to make sense of the words, unsure that it’s possible for them to be said in that order. But he looks at Steve again whose face is equal parts terrified and hopeful.
He leans up a touch to kiss Steve before panic truly sets in. trying to communicate without words that he loves him too, that he wants to find every fucking crack in Steve’s soul and pour love into them like molten gold to make them beautiful and whole again.
But just for good measure, he pulls back and says it. “I love you too, you know. You could’ve just told me.”
Steven’s eyes are warm and teasing when he wraps his arms around Eddie’s frame and pulls him on top of him, chests together. “And miss out on this? Not a fucking chance. But I do need to ask for a favor.”
“Anything.”
“Keep the jacket on next time.”
They stumble downstairs the following morning— both in Steve’s clothes this time— to find the living room trashed and only their closest friends still there. Robin makes eggs for everyone after helping herself to Steve’s kitchen while Jonathan makes a pot of coffee. Nancy looked bereft while waiting for the Tylenol she took with her coffee to kick in while Argyle, tenacious as ever, was bright-eyed and bushy tailed.
“Good morning my bros!” He yells, causing Nancy to grimace.
“We went over this— not so loud.” Each word punctuated with a smack to his arm.
“Oh shit yeah, my bad Nance,” he starts before turning back to the two men in the doorway. “Good morning my bros!” He whispers.
Eddie, never a morning person on principle, wants to inject coffee into his bloodstream but was too exhausted to make the trek across the kitchen, so he plops himself on a stool by the island.
Steve catches Robin’s eye as she hands him two plates of what look to be edible scrambled eggs. One raised eyebrow from her and an imperceptible smile from him is all it takes to communicate what she needs to know. For the first time, Steve sees her consciously cut herself off from rambling. This is Steve’s to share and God, he thinks, he really does have the best best friend.
Eddie lays his forehead on the table, hands still on his lap, and asks Steve for coffee. He playfully pats Eddie’s head and smiles before grabbing a mug and allowing Jonathan to pour a cup.
He makes it with a disgusting amount of milk and way too much sugar, and Jonathan looks at him like he's committed a felony. “Eddie, uh, maybe don’t drink that, Steve just ruined it.”
Steve laughs and places it near Eddie’s hand. He lifts his head to take a sip and nods approvingly. “Nope, milk and sugar with a splash of coffee. Excellent.”
“Try before you deny!” Argyle nods, offering Eddie a high five.
Nancy is back online enough to register that Steve just knows how Eddie takes his coffee. “Wait, how’d you know he likes his coffee like that?”
Gears start turning and she’s truly too smart for her— and her headache’s— own good because when Steve unashamedly responds with, “Why wouldn’t I know how my boyfriend likes his coffee?” the kitchen devolves into very loud screams and congratulations.