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ONE.
It may have been shiny at the time, but the crown Steve Harrington wore as King Steve had been heavy and laden with counterfeit confidence. And sure, losing it hurt for a moment but ultimately, the humiliation of it being unceremoniously usurped now pales in comparison to the relief from years of ache, of falsehood, of bullshit. So much of his persona has been carefully crafted, fake, even, that coming out to his closest friends feels a bit like breaking a window and escaping from a castle of his own creation.
That’s how Steve finds himself in Eddie’s trailer, just the two of them as Steve does his best, albeit accidental, impression of Robin. Eddie stares with wide eyes, eyebrows shot up towards his hairline, and mouth turned up in an amused grin as Steve word vomits.
“And it’s like, I don’t know… I was not a good guy in high school, and I think I knew on some level that I wasn’t, y’know,” Steve waves the hand not laced in his hair in a circular gesture. “I wasn’t straight, or whatever. And I said the worst shit! Not because I actually believed it, I don’t think I did, but because I just didn’t want anyone to know? And I overcorrected? And now I want to be myself and quit hiding behind whatever the fuck I created in high school, and I’m just so fucking tired, man.”
Eddie blinks a few times in quick succession, nestled comfortably into the corner of the couch with his cigarette completely forgotten in the ashtray. He wishes it was a joint— if he’d known that Steve nearly beating down his door at 11 o’clock at night would lead to this, he would’ve been better prepared. Instead, he’s staring at Steve Harrington— the same Steve Harrington he’d harbored a crush on throughout high school and again after watching him gnaw on a fucking demobat— pace a pattern into the trailer’s carpet and bleed his soul all over the coffee table while confessing that he’s not straight.
And he’s sober for it. It’s a lot.
“That’s… a lot to take in, Harrington. Uh,” Eddie flounders for a second and wracks his brain for what Gareth, Jeff, and Frank said when he had the same meltdown to them a year or so ago. “Thanks for trusting me with it though?”
Steve turns to face him as he walks back and forth, one hand still in his hair and the other situated on his hip. His eyes are a little wild, a little blown out, and he’s maybe a little terrified but there’s nothing in Eddie’s face that tells him to be afraid. Beneath the thin veneer of shock, there’s a smile blooming like the tulips at the entrance of the trailer park. The same tulips that Steve may have clipped with his car coming around the corner, but that’s an after thought considering his haste to get here.
“You’re… you’re welcome? Is that— is that all?” Steve’s not sure what he’s looking for and neither is Eddie. This was certainly not in the plan for his evening— not that he’d had one, but if he had, it wouldn’t be this. He doesn’t think that Steve knows about him, that he’s gay, and even if he does, Eddie doesn’t owe him an explanation or a coming out of his own.
He offers one anyway.
“Well, uh, me too?”
Eddie watches as Steve nearly trips over his feet when his feet stop moving before his brain catches up with the abrupt halt of his body. He turns slowly, almost comically so, and clears his throat.
“You too, what?” Steve’s voice is choked, each word a bit garbled in his mouth, his tongue tripping over itself just as much as his feet.
This can’t be real, Steve thinks.
Until it is.
“Me. Too. Steve.” Eddie enunciates each word, punctuating each with a tap of his fingers against the laminated wood of the coffee table.
“You’re… you’re bi, too?” Steve can’t fathom a world where he’s not the only queer man in a town like Hawkins.
“Sort of? Without the uh, without the whole being attracted to women, too thing. If you catch my drift?”
Silence sits heavy between them, even the movie Eddie had been watching when Steve arrived but hadn’t had time to pause sounds muffled from the weight of it. Steve’s brain is stuck in a hysterical loop of Eddie’s gay? and Eddie’s body feels paralyzed, his brain catching up with what he’s just done. He knows that Steve is different these days, knows that he won’t run and tell everyone without his consent or laugh at him the second he leaves the room, but it’s still Hawkins, and he’s still gay.
“So… gay?”
Eddie can’t help but chuckle. “Very eloquent of you. But uh, yeah.” He points both of his thumbs at himself. “Gay.”
Steve’s hand finally falls to his side, his fingers releasing their grip on his scalp as he leans back against the wall before sliding down to sit on the floor. Small carpet fibers roll between his fingers and the cool paneling of the wall bunches his shirt up between his shoulder blades. He stares down at his fingers, absorbing the moment. He’s out. He’s out to Robin, and now to Eddie. One step closer to being real.
“Thanks,” he breathes.
Eddie exhales a breath of his own that he doesn’t realize he’s been holding. “For what?”
Steve glances up and sees Eddie. Really sees Eddie. He notices the way the dim light of the lamp illuminates each and every curl falling from his messy bun, the softness of his smile, the dimples he’s never registered before as cute, but they are. Eddie’s kind of beautiful. Fuck, he thinks to himself.
“For answering the door.”
TWO.
It’s been two weeks since Steve and Eddie spend the night alone in the trailer, sharing secrets and signs they’d both ignored as the warmth of a tightly rolled joint wraps itself around them like a thick, wool blanket. In the safety of the trailer, Steve admits to Eddie that part of his draw to sports is the closeness to other men— he’s never been voyeuristic about it, but he likes to pretend maybe he has a chance.
Eddie tells Steve about his first crush, a boy named Andy back in third grade. He’d tried to give him a Valentine’s Day gift— wildflowers pulled from the playground— only to be teased right into another classroom. It was the first time Eddie realized he couldn’t be his entire self, so he’s doubled down on the parts of himself he can show.
It’s been two weeks since Steve and Eddie spend the night alone in the trailer, two weeks since Steve first considers the possibility of possibility with Eddie, and a mere two hours since they agree to drive to Indy.
“I’ve only been here a handful of times, but I’m a decent wingman.” Eddie grips the steering wheel tight and ignores the groaning of his brakes as he slows to a stop outside of the bar he and Steve decide to visit in Indianapolis.
Steve takes in the bustling crowd outside, people clad in everything from casual jeans and tee shirts like the two of them to sequins and mesh tops. The music pulses from inside the building and he can already feel the bass in his chest. Everyone looks so free, so happy. He wonders if they can be one of them someday.
Eddie hates himself already, if he’s honest. Why had he offered to do this? Why had he offered to bring Steve to a gay bar? To help him explore? What the fuck is wrong me? He wonders. But it’s too late now, too late to back out, and when he sees Steve’s awed smile at the crowd outside, he knows he won’t anyway. He can be a good friend. He can support Steve. He’s suffered in silence for all these years, what’s a lifetime more?
“I think I’ll do okay for myself,” Steve teases, turning to toss Eddie a sly smile. Shit, he looks good tonight, he can’t help but notice. Black v-neck, dark wash jeans with holes in the knees, shiny combat boots laced to the top. His rings gleam in the light of the lamp post above their parking space and he’s foregone his guitar pick necklace for a thicker, silver chain that hangs perfectly over his collarbones. He wants to lick him from boot to chain and it’s more than a little bit infuriating.
Eddie rolls his eyes and tuts at him from between his teeth. “Cockiness will get you nowhere, Steve. You’re turning into Dustin. A little humility?”
“Dude, don’t mention Henderson when we’re parked outside a gay bar. He’s the last little shit I wanna think about right now.” Steve reaches across the front seat and playfully shoves Eddie’s shoulder, letting his hand linger for just a fraction of second.
Eddie notices— he notices everything about Steve these days, much to the detriment of his own sanity. A touch here, a brush there. It doesn’t mean anything, he reminds himself. Just because Steve is bi doesn’t mean he’s interested in him.
“Fair enough, fair enough. Ready?” Eddie asks, gesturing at the front door of the building with his chin.
To watch you dance with another dude and probably fall in love and hate myself forever? Nope. Eddie answers silently for himself.
To do my goddamn best to get as close to you as I can before you realize what I’m doing and run like everyone else has? Nope. Steve thinks to himself.
They try, separately but unknowingly in tandem, to make no plans, to set no expectations. This is simply an experiment, an exploration of self. Nothing more.
If there’s no expectation, there’s no disappointment.
If there’s no plan, none can be broken.
----
Four hours and just two drinks between them later, Steve and Eddie find their way back to the van amidst the throng of fellow bar-goers at closing time. Steve’s voice is hoarse from singing, and his feet hurt from dancing, and he’s never felt more alive than he does at this moment.
That’s a lie.
The most alive he’s ever felt is back in the bar, dancing with Eddie when his attempts to wingman for Steve fall flat. It’s not that Eddie’s a bad wingman, Steve just doesn’t find someone that catches his eye— not the way Eddie does. He tries his best not to think too hard about that.
When they reach the van, he settles into the passenger seat and he closes his eyes. He can still see Eddie moving to the beat of a song he most definitely does not recognize, their chests pressing together on a crowded dance floor and Eddie’s fingers gripping his hips tight. Strobe lights bathe them both in shades of pinks and purples and blues and all it would take is one small adjustment, one tiny step forward…
“So, how about that whole doing well for your—”
Eddie doesn’t get the chance to tease him for striking out enough times that he’d agreed to dance with him in the end. That’s all it’d been, of course. Eddie’s not the guy someone chooses, he’s the last resort and as much as he hates it, he’d rather be Steve’s last resort than Steve’s nothing. But he doesn’t get the chance because Steve falls asleep before they even hit I-69.
Steve drifts and dreams of futures that will likely never come, of pasts that he can never change.
THREE.
“As they say in some sport, I’m sure— round two!” Eddie exclaims, parking along the same curb outside the same bar a week later. Steve nearly chews a hole through his cheek as he stares at the bar and the patrons outside again, this time knowing what awaits inside. Three deep breaths, and he tugs on the handle of the van door.
“Oh, no, no. You’re too quiet.” Eddie reaches across the seat before he can get the door open and tugs gently on the hair at the nape of his neck. “You didn’t even tease me for the shitty sport joke. What’s going on up here?”
Nothing, nothing, just trying not to picture you being successful tonight. Y’know, like a terrible fucking friend.
“What, I’m not allowed to think my thoughts now?” Steve dodges his trailing fingers, using the side mirror to make sure no adjustments are needed. He can’t let Eddie’s touch brand him already, before they even reach the building.
“Well damn, Steve-O. Think whatever you want. Do you not wanna go tonight?”
Please say no and lets just go hang out instead, please say no, please say n–
“We’re already here, and it’s not that. I just uh, I don’t wanna strike out again. That’s all.” Steve lies through his teeth.
It’s not that he doesn’t want to go, he does. He just wants to go with Eddie. Intentionally.
Son of a bitch. Eddie bites back in his thoughts.
“Want me to leave you alone in there this time? Give you space to like, work the room?” Eddie shimmies his shoulders, the fake smile he’s mastered from years of necessity on full display.
Steve’s stomach drops and he whips his head to the side to face Eddie. “Don’t you dare.” The words fly out of him before he can stop them. They’re out and said before he even realizes they’re in his mouth. “Uh– unless, unless you want to. We’re not here just for me, y’know.”
Eddie cocks an eyebrow and nods slowly. “Mhm, okay. Let’s play it by ear then, but if you want me to make myself scarce, say the word.”
Yeah right, Steve thinks.
“Deal.”
----
Eddie doesn’t make himself scarce, and Steve never asks him to. If anything, Steve latches onto Eddie even tighter the second they approach the bar and just doesn’t let go.
They try a few times to meet people, to wingman, to explore, but each one ends the same way: rejection. Everyone seems to look at them and chuckle at some inside joke neither Eddie nor Steve are apparently in on, strangely enough in a way similar to Robin’s looks lately. One guy about their age even shakes his head with a smile as he walks away, leaving Steve a little offended and a lot confused on the sticky dance floor.
“What the fuck?” He asks, turning to glance at Eddie. “Did you see that? What, does no one believe I’m into dudes or something?”
Eddie shrugs and sips his room-temperature whiskey. “No idea man, I’m usually pretty good at this kinda thing. Maybe he was just a dick?”
“Why can’t I do this anymore?! I used to be a fucking hit.” Why don’t you want me? I used to be a fucking hit is silent. Steve throws a hand in the air and let’s it come to rest on one of his hips, the same hips Eddie had just last week used to guide him to the thumping of the bass and the drumming of his own heart.
Still are, Eddie corrects to himself. You have no idea how much of a hit you still are.
If they pause to take stock of themselves, they’ll see the problem, the inside joke everyone seems to be in on but them. Their pinkies are intertwined, shoulder to shoulder, their bodies subconsciously doing what their mouths can’t do just yet— pick up a knife and cut through the darkness, to make room inside of themselves for the love in the air.
FOUR.
It’s the middle of summer when they drive up for their fifth visit. The one that changes things.
Well, things have been slowly changing for Eddie and Steve between their drives already. Neither shy away from gentle touches anymore, from relaxing against one another next to Steve’s pool, from falling asleep with arms and legs tangled together on the couch. Robin notices, Nancy notices, Dustin notices– they’re together so much that when someone calls and can’t reach one of them, they instinctively call the others’ house, and they’re almost always right.
This time, they don’t stall in the van, they simply hop out onto the sidewalk and wave hello to a few faces they’ve come to recognize. They saddle up to the bar and make small talk with the bartender they’ve come to know as Phil who grabs their empties before they saunter out to the dance floor. Eddie’s hand finds Steve’s with practiced ease and he doesn’t bother looking around this time. Why bother? He wonders. No one compares. I’m fucked.
Adrenaline pumps through Steve’s veins to the beat of the roaring bass as he feels Eddie’s hand find his in the dark, squeezing twice to let him know he’s got him. Like all of their other visits, Eddie doesn’t make himself scarce and Steve doesn’t want him to. This time though, he really, really doesn’t want him to, not now that they’re in the middle of the dance floor packed so tight that their noses practically touch, that their smiles almost touch.
From this angle, Eddie watches with both of their hands now in each others’ and wedged between their chests as Steve’s as he laughs and sings, nearly belting the lyrics directly into his mouth.
Pour some sugar on me, in the name of love.
Pour some sugar on me, c'mon fire me up.
Pour your sugar on me, I can't get enough.
Much like that first night, the strobes put Out and Proud Steve Harrington on full display. Free and untethered, Eddie watches him with rapt, undivided attention and questions how no one here has seen him the way Eddie sees him– beautiful, fucking ethereal, incomparable. What is wrong with everyone?
“Like this song, big boy?” He whispers into Steve’s ear, unable to contain himself as his bottom lip catches on Steve’s earlobe. Steve does his best to suppress the shiver that runs up and down his spine, lightning to a metal rod, and Eddie pretends not to see the way Steve reacts to the intimacy, or the warm, shy smile so out of place for their current environment.
“The song, the place… the company. Yeah, you could say that.”
Steve watches the way Eddie’s face lights up at that, rivaling even the brightest club lights, and he can’t force himself to look away. Not this time, not like all of the other nights they’ve spent on this exact dance floor with nothing but a few layers of clothing, a sheen of sweat, and words still unsaid between them.
So Steve keeps staring and Eddie stares back, both of them trying to commit the moment to memory. To remember each other exactly like this forever, knowing that it can’t last– that it won’t last. The bar will ring the bell for last call, and they’ll break apart, and they’ll step back into a reality where Steve’s hands don’t dig into his own, where Eddie’s lips don’t graze his ear.
Every second counts— so Steve’s determined to make it count.
He swallows around the lump forming in his throat and commits silently, shifting and spinning Eddie around with a wolfish grin. Over the thundering bass, Steve can’t hear the surprised noise that Eddie will never admit came from him as he finds himself held, his back against Steve’s chest.
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shi— Eddie brain is a scratched record, unable to formulate thoughts other than holy shit. Steve’s hands are huge and they’re everywhere. Well, everywhere except for where he wants them the most but that isn’t appropriate for a dance floor, or for a friend. Because they’re friends, and that’s all, right? They’re just having fun. Besides, it’s not the first time Eddie’s had a friendship get physical, become more on his side, and sure, it’s a nightmare but how can he turn away when this nightmare looks like Steve Harrington? If this is all he gets, he’ll take it.
Even in the bun he’s tied it back into that now rests on Steve’s shoulder, Eddie’s hair is wild. Steve’s fingers ache as he lets them traverse Eddie’s torso and drift across the scars that almost certainly match his own, and he watches as sweat glistens down his temple into the crook of his neck. Terrible, wonderful thoughts of what he’d give to trail the curves of Eddie’s body like that little bead of sweat as it slips beneath the collar of his shirt nearly catapult Steve across whatever dotted boundary still exists. Steve feels his pants tighten and he tries harder to fight off the onslaught of other ways he could help Eddie work up a sweat. Eddie tossing an arm back and digging his nails into the nape of Steve’s neck does nothing to help that particular problem and Steve’s so goddamn gone, he doesn’t care. Part of him actually wants Eddie to feel him, to feel what he’s doing to him.
And Eddie does— how can he not? The hard line of Steve’s cock presses against his ass, Steve’s fingers trail down his torso and his fingertips dip beneath the hem of his shirt, grazing the patch of hair just above his belt.
“This okay?” Steve whispers, gently tapping his fingers against Eddie’s skin.
“Yeah, yeah, very okay,” Eddie cranks his neck to respond, finding himself eye to eye and nearly mouth to mouth with Steve. “Keep it up though and uh, we may have to get outta here.”
“Oh?” Steve grins and deliberately tugs Eddie tighter, letting his pinky finger slide just behind Eddie’s belt buckle. Eddie’s breath hitches and he looks at Steve likes he wants to fuck him right there on the dance floor. It gives Steve the confidence to ask, “why’s that?”
Is this fucking happening? Eddie thinks.
Eddie bites his bottom lip and turns around to face Steve properly, grabbing fistfuls of Steve’s shirt at his sides.
“I’ve avoided arrest for murder and drug dealing, and I don’t think I can get away with public indecency, too. And the things I’ve wanted to do to you, Steve?” Eddie pulls him in close and whispers against his ear. “Utterly and entirely indecent.”
It’s almost embarrassing, the way Steve’s body reacts to Eddie so intuitively, so easily. Almost. A shiver runs up his spine and he tilts his head back, exposing the long expanse of throat for Eddie to nose at and press his lips against.
“Wanna get outta here then? Don’t want you to get arr— fuck,” Steve hisses as Eddie’s teeth sink gently against the side of his neck, just below his ear.
“Oh, I don’t know, this is kinda fun, don’t you think?” There’s a twinkle in Eddie’s eye, a sparkle that Steve recognizes. It’s the same glimmer he’s noticed when they watch movies and end up tangled together on the couch, or when Steve sits at the edge of the pool with Eddie, shoulder-to-shoulder and thigh-to-thigh, or when they end up on top of Eddie’s van smoked halfway to another dimension and naming fake constellations.
Oh.
Oh.
“Fun as this is, I think we could have more fun out in the van. Don’t you think?” Steve punctuates his sentence by deliberately rolling his hips.
“Yep, yeah, yes, let’s go,” Eddie grabs Steve’s hand and tugs him through the crowd towards the exit doors. They’re so caught up in each other that they completely miss the bartender’s wolf whistle.
FIVE.
Eddie isn’t a betting man, but if he was, he wouldn’t have taken the odds of the night ending with him in Steve’s lap in the back of his van. Maybe this is another of his oh so vivid visions about Steve, the ones that end with him sated and happy only to wake up shallow and alone, buried alive by his own dreams.
“Can you please just say it?”
“Eddie, I thought I was pretty clear in there. I want this.”
“Spell it out for me like I’m stupid because I am a little stupid when it comes to you and I need to know what you mean by this.”
Steve takes a shuddering breath and strokes Eddie’s cheek, gentle and intentional with how he touches Eddie.
He notices the way the dim light of the lamp illuminates each and every curl falling from his messy bun, the softness of his smile, the dimples he’s never registered before as cute, but they are. Eddie’s kind of beautiful.
Warm light from the lamp post outside backlights Eddie above him and deja vu drags him under like a tidal wave. Just like the night Steve bombarded Eddie with confessions and secrets, the night he’d come out to him in the dim light of the trailer, Steve sees Eddie. Really sees him. There’s a tiny scar right above his eyebrow Steve’s never noticed, and his smile is equal parts timid and confident, and Steve wants to kiss him so badly that he might lose his mind if he doesn’t find out what Eddie’s lips feel like against his own in the ten seconds.
“You. I want you. I want— I don’t know what to call it, but I want you, Ed.”
“Not just for like, exploration or whatever?”
Steve scoffs and holds Eddie’s face between both hands, cradles him like a precious gem. “Dude, I wasn’t even trying in there. No one caught my eye because I couldn’t stop staring at you. I’ve been staring at you since that night in your trailer. What kind of idiot explorer keeps digging when they already found the treasure?”
“What the fuck, you can’t just call me Dude and then say the most romantic shit I’ve ever heard. Jesus Christ.” Eddie shakes his head, face splitting smile reaching both of Steve’s thumbs. “You’re really something, you know that?”
“Here’s something,” Steve says, voice just above a whisper before he pulls Eddie down to reach his lips, pausing just before they touch. “You know, they say the moment before a first kiss is even better than the actual kiss?”
Eddie wraps one arm around Steve’s neck, threading a hand through the hair at the base of his skull as Steve moves one hand from Eddie’s cheek to pull him closer by the waist.
“One way to find out, yeah?”
Steve brushes his fingers along Eddie’s hairline, forehead down to his temple and tucks a rogue curl behind Eddie’s ear. “Yeah,” he whispers, barely audible but Eddie doesn’t need to hear it. He can feel it.
It’s not clear who closes the gap first but when their lips finally, finally touch, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the slow, deliberate movements of mouths and tongues. Eddie whimpers, Steve’s lips gliding across his easily and gently capturing his bottom lip between his teeth. It’s not perfect in the traditional sense— it’s timid, and new, and unrehearsed. For a brief moment, their noses clash and instead of it being uncomfortable or awkward, Steve simply smiles against Eddie and tilts his head at a different angle. They find a rhythm this way, months of pent up desire communicated wordlessly through lips and tongues.
Steve’s breath hitches when Eddie licks his way into his mouth, both hands tangling themselves in Steve’s hair.
Those fucking hands, Steve thinks. He’s watched them before— watched them fight demobats and swing oars, watched them pluck his guitar, watched the ways they finessed that RV so many months ago to jumpstart it as if by magic. Steve’s watched his hands be used to fight, to create, to help, and now he gets to feel them against his own skin. He gets to feel them love.
Eddie groans into Steve’s open mouth as he feels Steve’s hands slide beneath his shirt, carefully caressing every inch of skin he can reach from this angle— his stomach, his ribs, his chest, all the way up to the back of his neck where he pulls Eddie towards him. He goes without hesitation, pliant puddy in Steve’s huge, warm hands.
“Can I take this off?” Steve asks.
“Please,” Eddie breathes.
Steve makes quick work of Eddie’s shirt, accidentally pulling out what’s left of his bun in the process. “No clue where that hair tie went, sorry.”
Eddie pulls back and grins, one side of his mouth quirked up as eyes Steve like the prey Steve desperately wants to be. It’s an odd thought to have, he knows, but he also knows it’s true. He wants Eddie to look at with those dark eyes and take him apart, atom by atom, with his bare hands.
“Got a better idea anyways if you’re interested.” Eddie pulls back and kneels between Steve’s thighs, kicking them apart with his toe. “When’s the last time you got your dick sucked, Steve?”
Never, he wants to say. Because none of the other times have meant anything, not if meaning something means feeling the way he does right now, like he’s suspended in the space between Heaven and Earth. His cock’s leaking in his jeans and Eddie smiles at Steve’s rapid blinking.
“Been awhile, Ed. Been a long awhile.”
He reaches down and cups Eddie’s chin, running his thumb along Eddie’s bottom lip. Steve doesn’t expect Eddie to take it into his mouth and swirl his tongue around the digit, as if it to demonstrate what Steve’s in for next.
“You okay with the van?” Eddie asks, releasing Steve thumb. “I know it’s not quite the picture of romance but you’re just so goddamn beautiful like this, I won’t make it back to Hawkins without getting my mouth on every inch of you that I can.”
No one’s ever called him beautiful before, and Steve’s races. “As long as it’s you, I don’t give a fuck where we are.”
Eddie lights up from the inside, unable to contain his giddiness. He smiles, biting the side of his bottom lip and shakes his head. “Buttering me up to do a good job, I’m onto you.”
Steve’s pupils are blown out as he watches Eddie scoot back a bit and undo his jeans. They and his briefs are gone before he realizes what’s happened, and he rips off his own shirt for good measure. Eddie bends down, his knees creaking against the blanket lain on the floor of the van, entirely uncaring of the way it scrapes and bruises. He wants marks from this, he wants to know it was real tomorrow.
“Don’t hold back, okay?”
“What do you mea— oh fuck,” Steve hisses as Eddie licks a hard, wet stripe up the underside of his cock, following the roadmap of veins up the shaft with his tongue.
“I mean,” Eddie starts, his lips mouthing at the skin at the head of Steve’s dick. “Don’t. Hold. Back. If I don’t like something, I’ll let you know but it’s unlikely. The Freak label is apt, here, is what I’m trying to tell you, Steve.”
Steve’s brain is scratched record on a record player, repeating don’t hold back, don’t hold back, don’t hold back as Eddie grins up at him, arduous and desperate before sinking his hot, warm mouth halfway down his cock in fell swoop. Eddie doesn’t want to sound braggy, but Steve’s fucking hung and for a brief moment, pride outweighs lust. It’s a very, very brief moment though because Steve’s hips start to move in tandem with Eddie’s mouth. He sees his hands flexing, reaching but then pulling back and without letting Steve go, he grabs one and places it eagerly on the back of his head— where is should be, where Eddie wants him.
He drags his tongue on slow circles as he brings his mouth back to the head and lets go with an obscene pop. Steve’s breath shudders and his chest trembles beneath the hand Eddie snakes up his torso, scratching blunt nails through his chest hair and toying with Steve’s nipples in a way that makes Steve think he’s in love. Maybe he is.
Eddie’s rumbling voice tears him from the thought before he gets swept out to the sea of his own emotions.
“Since you lost my hair tie, mind holding this back for me, sweetheart?”
Steve’s hand gathers Eddie’s hair into one fist, carefully ensuring no stray curls end up in his way. Before he sinks back down, Steve tilts his head back to get a better look at him, to commit his half-lidded eyes and salivating mouth to memory, too.
“You’re beautiful, too, y’know.”
Eddie smiles up at him, devilish and confident, as Steve gently guides him back down to his cock. He only closes his eyes for a second, just until he relaxes enough to handle the head of Steve’s dick against the resistance of his throat. He breathes through his nose and lets himself settle, his fingers working and twirling still around Steve’s nipples.
“Goddamn it, how the fuck are you doing that?” Steve moans, mindful not to hold Eddie there, to just grip his hair and not push— not that there’s much farther he could push even if he wants to. Eddie’s nose is buried in the patch of hair above him and even the warm breath against his skin has his hips bucking.
Eddie doesn’t answer, simply opens his eyes and pulls up enough to glide back down, slower this time, tantalizing and teasing. He wants to push Steve over the edge, wants to bring him right to brink of insanity and then watch him come undone. So he soaks in Steve’s moans and whines and whimpers, every word out his mouth praising and reverent, as he bobs up and down— rhythmic, but with little changes in tempo and intensity.
After he gets a pattern going, gets comfortable and relaxed, Eddie makes pointed eye contact and reaches back to tighten Steve’s grip in his hair, trying to tell him that he wants Steve to take control, to guide the rhythm, the depth.
“Are you— shit, baby, that’s so good, I can’t—” Steve tries to ask if he’s sure, and then Eddie glides all the way back down and back up again and Steve’s brain short-circuits.
If I don’t like something, I’ll let you know rotates in what’s left of his logical brain and he trusts that Eddie will. They’ll have to talk about this more at some point but Eddie’s mouth is a little occupied at the moment so Steve nods, his own mouth hanging open and saliva collecting beneath his tongue as he uses the makeshift ponytail to push, to pull.
Eddie stares up at Steve, his own cock harder than he thinks it’s ever been in his entire goddamn life, his hips rutting against nothing but the friction of his jeans as Steve uses his hair as a tether. He gags when Steve’s hips jut up to meet him and before Steve can get his full apology out, Eddie does it again to himself, moaning around the spit and pre-cum that dribbles out of the corners of his mouth.
It’s holy, sacred, hallowed, even. And all for him. For them.
Steve feels the familiar coil tightening in his stomach.
“Shit, baby, I’m gonna— fuck, I’m gonna come.” Eddie moans in acknowledgement, uses one hand to scratch his nails all the way down Steve’s front, down to his thighs, hard enough to leave marks and Steve sees stars as he comes right down Eddie’s waiting, welcoming throat, Eddie’s name falling off his tongue as he rides the wave. Eddie swallows it all down, only stopping when Steve whimpers with overstimulation.
“You okay? Was that okay? Too much?” Steve asks when his tongue no longer feels too big for his mouth.
“Definitely not too much, don’t you worry.” Eddie’s voice is raspy and Steve’s dick twitches in a valiant effort to respond to the knowledge that he’s the reason for it. He grunts at the little bruises he’s sure his knees have earned, and learns back enough for Steve to see that Eddie’s dick is pressing uncomfortably against his jeans.
“Hey, why don’t you take those off and c’mere?” Steve suggests, his eyes flickering down to Eddie’s crotch.
It doesn’t take much convincing and Eddie finds himself just as naked as Steve in the back of the van, nestled between Steve’s thighs with his back to his chest, just like they’d been in the bar, just likes he wants to be forever. Steve bites gently at his neck, at his ears, and toys with his nipples, his free arm wrapped protectively around Eddie’s waist.
“Gonna make you feel so fucking good, baby, you deserve it. You deserve everything, y’know that? Always have.” Steve’s voice is low and breathy in his ear and Eddie’s preens at the praise, gasping when Steve spits in his hand and grips him in one hand, beginning long, slow strokes.
“Oh my God, Steve.” Eddie’s hips bucking up to meet each stroke.
“Yeah, that feel good? Say it again, say my name.”
“Steve, Steve, God, fuck, that’s so good,” Eddie sobs, already so close, already feeling his cock throb in Steve’s huge hands— the same hands that held him close in the bar, that held his through the crowd.
The same hands that helped stitch him back together when he was on death’s door are now taking him apart, and he wants to feel each thread fall loose.
“What do you need, Eddie? Use your words, tell me what you need.”
“Kiss me, please, please kiss me.”
Eddie turns enough to catch Steve’s lips— Steve’s tongue laves at his lips and Eddie pants against his mouth as he feels his crescendo build.
“Let go, baby, I’ve got you. Come for me.”
That’s all it takes for Eddie fall over the precipice in his mind, tumbling into a sweet, sweet oblivion in the safety of Steve’s arms, wrecked sobs and back arched. His body trembles and Steve strokes him through to the end, holding him tight and whispers words like good, and perfect, and love.
Not for the first time that night, nor for the first time over the course of the last several months, Steve and Eddie have the same thought without saying it aloud: you’re home.
+ 1
The ride back to the trailer is comfortably quiet, music playing low and windows open to soak in the breeze. Steve doesn’t fall asleep on this ride, preferring to watch the stars whip past them and to listen to Eddie hum, to feel Eddie’s hand tap out melodies against his thigh.
Both men are a bit too tired for serious conversations and find themselves asleep in Eddie’s bed, limbs tangled together like so many other times except that this time, it’s intentional. And so is Steve’s decision to keep Eddie curled into his chest the following morning, not detangling and separating for fear of rejection as he’s done so many mornings prior. This time, he keeps both arms around Eddie, one beneath his neck and the other draped across his bare shoulder as the sun rises outside of the bedroom window.
The trailer is warm—hot, even— and they’d kicked off the sheets at some point in the night, giving Steve a better view of Eddie. He can imagine what Eddie’s body might have looked like before the bats, before the heroism, before the scars— shiny and pristine, a brand new coin. But Steve loves the story his body tells now— a dime that’s been flipped too many times, a little less smooth but no less valuable. Perhaps even more so because the divots and markings tell his story.
Their story.
Reds, and purples, and oranges seep in from behind the threadbare curtain and Steve remembers some of those colors in his mother’s design board when they’d built the house in Loch Nora. Lots of reds and oranges, far too much plaid, and carpet samples were glued to a little poster board, along with photos of furniture and room layouts in an effort to build a home. None of it meant anything, Steve knows that now. He knows that home isn’t built on empty surfaces and bare walls, that not everything needs to planned to be meaningful. But if he were to plan— if he were to design a home for himself— he pictures a posterboard of Eddie’s scars that match his own, of ringed hands and curly hair, of ripped jeans and shirts with logos he doesn’t recognize.
Imagining his future used to be a sad, quiet thing but as Steve watches Eddie stir and sigh in his sleep, settling back down against his chest, he isn’t sad anymore. He’s hopeful.
Eddie sleeps well into the morning as Steve watches the sunrise, thinking of new beginnings and all of the things he wants to tell Eddie when he’s awake. So sure, the crown Steve Harrington wore as King Steve had been shiny, but it doesn’t hold a prayer against the afterglow of waking up in love.