Chapter Text
Better Than Me
Every girl from here to SoHo
Loves to tell me things I don’t know
Beautiful and smart,
And no good for me at all!
-The Brobecks
Harrison
After a particularly loathsome Saturday afternoon spent refolding shirts and fake-smiling at Merry-Go-Round, Steve collapses onto the bed, staring at Robin’s ceiling, trying to put such petty exhaustion out of his mind.
Because he knows all too well what soul-crushing exhaustion feels like, so the aftermath of working retail and managing being a student again should be a cake walk.
With Robin out of the country and thus effectively out of commission for constant communication, Steve spends most of his evenings exactly like this: alone, lying in his-slash-Robin’s bed in the corner of their room, too exhausted to feel weird that this is what his early twenties are made of when she’s not around.
And he’s just as tired as he always is, sure, but for whatever reason, he actually does feel weird about his solitude tonight. Maybe it’s because his classes weren’t awful enough to totally break his brain this week, maybe it’s because spacing out all by himself is actually starting to feel like a routine of its own.
Maybe it’s because he can hear Eddie strumming on his acoustic just beyond the wall. The wall between them is thin enough that he can clearly hear his quiet humming alongside his playing.
Eddie’s a decent roommate, if not necessarily the one he would’ve chosen for himself. Eddie and Robin moved to the city together after the summer of ‘86, and it wasn’t long until Steve followed them. He’d been living in the dorms at the school he and Robin both attend, but with Robin off on her European study abroad for the semester, Steve agreed to move in and take over her half of the rent.
He and Eddie stay out of each other’s way, never choosing to share space in any way that feels intentional. They’re comfortable enough with each other after everything they went through, but Steve gets the sense that Eddie’s biting his tongue on the occasions they’re together—almost scared of Steve sometimes, like he doesn’t want to say anything real to him. That, or he looks at Steve like he resents that he’s his roommate for the time being, like he really misses Robin.
Steve just wishes Eddie would say that out loud, because he can’t think of a sentiment more worthy of bonding over.
After he’s had his fill of lying in bed and waiting for life to happen to him, Steve kicks himself up to a sitting position and trudges out of his room to the phone in the kitchen. He doesn’t really have much of a plan as he presses the numbers, that much is clear when Claudia picks up and greets him with familiar warmth.
There is an apology in her voice as she informs him that Dustin is out, off doing something or other with the rest of his friends. Steve’s glad that he’s allowed to do such things again, in the aftermath of rebuilding from all of the catastrophe that he’s trying to forget.
He stands idly by the phone after he hangs up, staring at it like it’ll ring or like it’ll tell him who he should call next.
Unfortunately, all the phone on the wall seems to do is shrug, practically laughing at Steve for even mentally asking it who else he might call.
He sighs as he resigns himself to another night counting the little dots on Robin’s ceiling, slowly shuffling through the hallway toward Robin’s room. He’ll always think of it as Robin’s, even though it’s technically his right now.
Just before he walks into the room, he stops. Eddie’s still playing his guitar, but his door isn’t closed all the way. Slightly open, like maybe he’s not entirely committed to being alone tonight. And Eddie’s usually out, not hanging around in his room like this, so maybe he is committed to being alone tonight.
But, hey. Fuck it.
Steve releases Robin’s door handle, and instead approaches Eddie’s, knocking a couple of times on the door frame. The guitar playing doesn’t cease, but the humming does, and Steve thinks it’s permission to push the door the rest of the way open.
“Uh, hey man,” Steve says after he does, feeling especially ill at ease and out of his element considering that Eddie looks bewildered by Steve’s presence. He’s sitting at his desk chair, his mismatched-sock-clad feet propped on the desk, and he’s staring up at Steve expectantly, never quitting his meticulous, yet lazy plucking.
And perhaps Steve’s truly out of practice with making friends, because the couple of blinks that Eddie sends his direction seem packed to the brim with an awkward sort of surprise.
“Hello,” Eddie replies, giving Steve absolutely nothing.
“You, uh… you wanna do something tonight?” Steve asks.
Eddie doesn’t blink this time.
“Yeah, okay. Sure,” he nods easily, calming Steve down slightly in the process. “What’d you have in mind?”
Steve shrugs. “Nothing particular in mind, really. We could go get a drink somewhere, if you want?”
“‘Kay,” Eddie says, kicking his feet off of the desk and onto the floor, finally stopping his casual guitar playing. “I can be ready whenever.”
*
Steve’s earlier fleeting feeling of being out of practice in the friend-making realm overtakes him completely once they’re out, sinking in and infecting his entire body as he watches Eddie talk to some guy at the bar across the room. He’s got a hand on the guy’s shoulder, and they’re both smiling like they want to rip their cheeks open, and Steve cannot believe the height of the wave of envy that tears through his lungs.
Eddie hardly talks to Steve at all and they fucking live together, but the very first person he’s sidled up next to at this college bar is immediately earning laughs and conversation and a level of interest in Eddie’s eyes that Steve knows he could never put there.
And when they both start walking back toward the table together, the cresting wave of jealousy threatens to drown Steve. So Steve gets up, follows Eddie’s earlier path to the bar. He nods to Eddie and Eddie’s New Pal as he passes them, and Eddie gives him a cocky ass half-smile that doesn’t quite make his blood boil, but it’s simmering.
Steve’s not sure what it is about him, but since they’ve known each other, it’s like Eddie’s got this uncanny ability to get Steve all internally revved up. It’s like fight-or-flight—heart beating faster, hyper-aware of everything, energized and defensive, like they’re always about three seconds from getting into a fight. But he’s never angry at Eddie, so he knows they’re at no risk of exchanging blows, even if his pulse doesn’t seem to realize that.
Maybe he hates the way that Eddie looks at him. Maybe he hates the way that Eddie doesn’t look at him.
He hasn’t made up his mind.
At the very least, Steve’s always been a jealous motherfucker, but this still doesn’t feel typical for him.
And the fact that Eddie has immediately ditched Steve to find a more interesting friend for the evening, like he couldn’t stomach the idea of hanging out just the two of them? Well, that’s certainly doing nothing to help Steve chill the hell out and get his pulse in check.
Steve might not be able to make a friend anywhere like Eddie can, but he’s at a packed bar. There are people all around him. It might not be a buddy that he can pin by his side, but he can find someone to make something shallow of his envy.
It only takes a few glances to the left and right of him to spot a pretty, big-eyed girl, similarly scanning her surroundings, twirling her ginger hair and sipping on something undoubtedly fruity.
He takes a breath and approaches her. Before he’s even opened his mouth to fish for an opener, she’s got more intrigue in her stare than he could’ve put there with words, so he lets the breath out easily.
“Are you in Stimson’s Tuesday morning lecture? Eight in the morning, sparsely attended?” she asks.
“I don’t think I would understand half of the shit he talks about, even if I’d been lucky enough to get a spot in one of the afternoon lectures,” Steve nods, shakes her hand. “I’m Steve.”
“Ally,” she smiles, with a respectably firm handshake. “I would be happy to help you out. If you need someone to help make sense of things, that is.”
“I’m sure I’d be more interested in any words coming out of your mouth rather than Stimson’s, even ones about math,” he says. And it’s not his best line, but she chuckles anyway. “I’d offer to buy you a drink, but you beat me to it.”
Ally laughs. “No, not me. Someone else bought me this, but I sent him away when he didn’t want to hear my statistics lecture.”
“Sucker didn’t know what he was missing,” Steve shakes his head in mock-sympathy.
After a few minutes, Steve realizes that this girl actually does know a hell of a lot about seemingly everything, educating Steve on all things statistics and school and the city. She’s beautiful and smart as hell, which is basically exactly his type.
Big eyes, smarter than him, and could undoubtedly ruin his life? Hell, he’s nothing if not consistent.
He acts like he’s interested in her math-talk for another round, and he starts to gain genuine fascination about this girl. She puts a hand on his thigh as she explains shit about regression and confidence intervals, and it starts a low thrum of warm energy through his body.
Maybe it’s that she’s a stone-cold ten, maybe it’s that he hasn’t been touched in a longer time than he’d ever admit. Maybe it’s that he was getting worked up and pissed off by Eddie, and it’s translating pretty seamlessly into a much better feeling. Any which way, he’s barely conscious of the fact that he didn’t actually come here to get laid, but to make an attempt at being friends with his roommate.
Because, well. He’s probably going to get laid.
The next thing he knows, though, Eddie and the new friend he’s been talking to all night are approaching them.
Steve feels an angry surge of energy, almost vibrating underneath his skin as he registers that this is a completely different Eddie than the one he arrived here with. The whole ride over, Eddie barely spoke to him—Steve wasn’t saying anything particularly noteworthy, sure, but he could’ve been relaying the second coming of Christ and Eddie wouldn’t have batted an eye.
But now, here he is, bright and energetic and—fine, Steve will admit it—downright fucking intriguing. All because he talked to a random guy who is somehow more engaging than Steve after hardly any time.
“Hey dude,” Eddie says, giving a polite nod of acknowledgement to Ally. “We’re going to go hang back at the apartment where it’s a little quieter. Did you two want to share a cab with us?”
Steve looks to Ally, who is already getting out of her barstool.
And, well. He’s definitely going to get laid.
Good.
Great.
He almost wants to preemptively apologize to Eddie for all he might hear while he’s trying to have a conversation with this random, earring-wearing dude from the bar.
But he won’t have the opportunity to privately say sorry because they’re all climbing into a cab together, earring-guy in the passenger seat, Ally squished together between Steve and Eddie in the back.
After Eddie tells the cab driver where to take them, he sets on talking to the guy he’s bringing to the social gathering that will absolutely not be occurring at their home, even if Eddie hasn’t put that together yet.
Harrison, evidently, is a film student at Steve’s school, and Eddie is asking him all sorts of astute questions about the short film he’s working on. It all sounds terribly pretentious and self-serving, bordering on masturbatory, but Eddie is eating it up like he’s the most interesting motherfucker on the planet.
Steve doesn’t know why it infuriates him the way that it does.
But then Ally is tuned in too, eyes on the passenger seat to ask Harrison about the type of film he shoots on and some insane shit about how he plans to actualize the theme of the antagonist’s self-sacrificial nature without coming off as redemptive.
Everyone’s collective interest in Harrison has him getting ramped up again, and even Ally’s hand on his leg isn’t doing enough to dissipate his sudden nervousness that this is going to turn into a four-person social gathering.
He can’t really put his finger on why, but all of a sudden he’s especially motivated to get Ally into his room behind a closed door. Maybe just so he doesn’t have to watch Eddie reach out to put his hand on Harrison’s arm and laugh too loud at another one of his snobby, hipster-ass comments.
God, is he really this fucking insecure?
His prickle of nervousness at a group hangout are mercifully put to rest when Ally leans over and starts nuzzling into him, shamelessly kissing at his neck, at his ear like she doesn’t give a damn that Eddie is right there.
The warm, angry buzz of feeling that’s been coursing through him all night is putting him in the mood more rapidly than it should, but adrenaline is adrenaline.
Ally’s breath against his skin feels as good as her hand does around his thigh, as tight as a sure thing, and Steve doesn’t give a damn that Eddie is right there either.
It’s not even that he doesn’t give a damn—it’s… helping.
He’s getting an almost teenage-like high off of it, in fact. Wants to wear the brazen interest of this woman like a weirdly horny, sort-of-sexist badge-of-honor.
But Eddie either doesn’t notice, or he doesn’t care. Apparently, to him, Harrison remains to be the only impressive person in this stuffy cab.
Once the driver pulls up to their building, they get out of the cab and walk up the stairs, with Ally immediately clinging onto Steve’s arm and looking up at him with these doe-eyes that he’d probably be more gone over if he wasn’t so distracted by Eddie cracking up at Harrison just a few steps behind them.
And once they’re all inside, Steve stares back at Eddie and fucking Harrison for all of three seconds before he decides he doesn’t care enough to hang around politely any longer than this.
“Good night,” Steve nods in their direction as he and Ally immediately head toward Robin’s bedroom. “It was nice to meet you. Good luck with your movie, man.”
Eddie’s eyebrows raise minutely, perhaps at the fact that Steve has found someone to run straight to bed with, but they go back down quickly enough. Steve doesn’t know why he gets such a deep sense of arrogant pride about it, like a past iteration of himself momentarily resurfacing.
Maybe it’s because it feels like proof that Steve actually is worth talking to and people like him, even if he spends most of his Saturday nights alone while Eddie seemingly has a million friends and is very rarely here on weekends at all.
Maybe it’s just an animalistic guy thing, a juvenile sort of dick-measuring contest—parading an obvious conquest in front of Eddie, who’s probably going to spend the rest of his night laughing at cinematography and aspect ratios and all sorts of other dumb shit that Steve can’t for the life of him understand why he’s pretending to care about all of a sudden. It’s not like they really talk, but Steve has never heard Eddie mention any of this avant-garde bullshit.
Either way, there’s not a lot of time to think about it before he and Ally make it behind the threshold of Robin’s door (and he’s already mentally apologizing to her for having sex in the bed that he can only think of as hers), and he slams it behind them.
The satisfaction of the clicking lock goes straight to his pants, and he feels his mouth water at the prospect of all he’s about to feel.
He doesn’t even have time to hate himself for the fiery flicker of satisfaction he gets over knowing that his roommate might be forced to hear it, might be forced to feel some of that inadequacy Steve always somehow feels around him.
Because Ally, god love her, wastes no time. She gets her hands behind Steve’s neck and she’s kissing him without any real preamble. He’s taken a little off guard, if only that it's been so long since he’s been this close to another person.
He’s also taken a little off guard by how into it she seems, not that he’s complaining. He’s been wanting this since the bar, been needing it since the cab ride.
They shuffle toward the bed, lazily collapsing onto it, making out in such a way that leaves absolutely no question about where they’re headed. Her skin is warm, the friction of their bodies smooth and addictive as the air grows thicker, even if he’s been taken a little off guard.
Until he’s taken a lot off guard.
Because after a few minutes, he hears Eddie’s bedroom door shut too, and the laugh he lets out at whatever bullshit must’ve just come out of Harrison’s stupid mouth is somehow especially loud when it’s echoing out of Eddie’s bedroom.
Steve’s sliding his lips against Ally’s, and she’s making these breathy little sounds that he’d normally be trying to spur on, but instead he’s practically straining his ears to listen for whatever the fuck is going on next door. He can’t really make out what they’re saying too well, can only hear the low back-and-forth of a conversation from beyond the wall.
And with Ally shoving her soft hand down his pants and into his boxers, it ought to be extremely easy to tune out the quiet sound of his roommate’s voice, saying something he can’t even hear.
But then, all of a sudden—he can hear it.
“That’s it, baby, look at you,” Eddie coos from beyond the wall. Then a condescending laugh. “Come on, honey, you can do better than that.”
Holy shit.
Steve’s grateful for the girl attached to his lips that’s currently tearing his shirt off, because were she not here, he would be repeatedly smacking himself in the face for being so colossally idiotic.
Because, god, even being as close as he is to Robin, he’s still this dense about what has been transpiring between Eddie and a random bar guy right before his eyes?
He cannot believe it took a low-voiced that’s it, baby for the blatantly obvious truth to crash into him. He should’ve seen it from that first hand on the shoulder, from Harrison’s stupid earring, from the smile that Eddie doesn’t typically wear, from the way that Eddie was downright giggling throughout a way-too-thorough conversation about a stupid fucking student film the whole way home.
He also cannot believe that a low-voiced that’s it, baby has made his dick twitch with interest.
Because why the fuck did that—
Surely it’s the words themselves that have made him flush with more heat than the unbelievably hot girl who’s currently stroking him has been able to spark.
The air is warm and Ally’s lips are soft and they taste like cherries, but all he’s really conscious of is the harsh intakes of breath he can vaguely make out from beyond the wall.
“Fuck, baby,” Eddie drawls out to Harrison, and… Jesus Christ.
Like it always does around Eddie, Steve feels his pulse pick up, feels that heady increase of all the energy in his body, like he’s actually aware of the blood rushing his veins, can fucking hear it somehow.
Pure adrenaline, hot and heavy.
It’s like fight-or-flight in a way—a good way.
A really fucking good way.
“You’re really big,” Ally says into his mouth, and her hand feels about as good as her words do—which is to say that Steve hardly fucking notices them right now. “I can’t wait to feel you inside me.”
Steve kisses her quickly and fiercely, and keeps on listening intently to the other side of the wall.
He hears Eddie let out a strangled moan.
He’s never heard anything quite like it in his life.
Steve gasps into Ally’s mouth, and she speeds up her motions around his cock, encouraged.
“Good boy, that’s better,” Eddie says. And with his eyes closed, Steve pictures the wide smile on his face. “You look so right like this, on your knees.”
Steve tells himself that it’s for Ally’s enjoyment that he pulls away from her enough to kiss down her body, that he pulls down her panties as she pulls her dress off over her head—and that he slides down to the floor so he can get on his knees.
He pulls her forward so her legs are hooked over his shoulders, her thighs pressed to either side of his face, and he immediately takes to lapping at her pussy, greedy and eager as if there’s a chance he could be taunted with the words come on, honey, you can do better than that.
Her panting breaths are hot—that’s why he’s listening like his life fucking depends on it.
“God, your mouth,” Eddie hums from his room. “You were made to have a cock down your throat, huh?”
Steve exhales a groan, his eyes squeezed shut, his lips around Ally’s clit, suckling as if he could get it all the way in his mouth. Like he could get it down his throat.
“You’re gorgeous like this, baby,” Eddie says, and Steve’s imagination is running wild with what he must be doing right now. Maybe he’s running his hand through Harrison’s hair, or maybe he’s running his fingers across his cheek. Surely he’s looking down on him, approving and condescending and warm and a little bit scary all at the same time. “Keep going, you can do it.”
And Steve is doing his best, licking and kissing and practically fucking Ally with his tongue.
Ally is falling apart, she’s all heavy breathing and trembling thighs, so Steve keeps going.
He can do it.
“Fuck, Steve, I’m coming, I’m—god-”
She’s practically crying as she writhes against his face, loud enough that he knows he’s missing out on whatever’s going on next door, and her thighs are warm and shaky against his head as he eases up while she comes down from her first orgasm.
Hungrily, she’s grabbing at his hair, pulling him up so he’s back on top of her, and she’s kissing him like she can’t get enough of the taste of herself in his mouth.
“Do you have a condom?” she asks between searing kisses, and he hastily reaches for the drawer, fumbling to get one. Ally’s looking up at him with interest, with awe, with want, and it feels fucking great, but for reasons he’s unwilling to dwell on, all he can think about is getting his eyes closed again.
“All fours,” he hears Eddie say, “there you go, just like that.”
And god if that isn’t–
Steve ignores the salacious compulsion to position himself as such, instead rushedly putting on the condom and pressing a finger into Ally, who gasps as he begins to slowly work her open.
He hears Harrison let out a gasping moan from the other side of the wall, needy and breathless. Steve’s not really sure what he should be picturing, not particularly caring to picture Harrison on all fours, but that’s all he has to work with here.
All he has to work with, that is, until Eddie’s talking again.
“So tight and all you’ve got is one finger,” Eddie says, darkly chuckling. “Do you think you’ll even be able to take my cock, sweetheart?”
Oh, fuck.
And Harrison’s babbling that he can—begging for it.
Steve works another finger into the girl spread out before him on the mattress, thumbing against her clit as he presses in and out of her.
The slick feeling of her is great, but he’s never felt like he was quaking head-to-toe just from fingering someone before. Maybe he still hasn’t.
It’s a strange sensation, being somewhere else entirely during a hook-up.
Falling into fucking delirium while somewhere else entirely.
He can’t even think about what he’s going to feel like after this, because in this moment, there is no after this. There is only this.
Eddie’s just chuckling next door, just letting out these little breaths of laughter, as Harrison seems to be wailing a prayer to a false god.
Steve is sweating, Steve is ready to burst.
Steve is a fucking live wire as he curves his fingers inside the woman below him, and she’s begging just as loudly as the man bent over for the taking in Eddie’s bed next door.
Behind the wall, Harrison is pleading for a third finger or for Eddie’s dick, he’s whining about how he doesn’t care which, he just needs more, and Steve finds himself eagerly awaiting the answer that Eddie’s withholding from him.
He’s not sure what Eddie’s given him to cry out over, but cry out he does, and Steve feels every drop of blood in his body flood to his dick. He’s giving it his all as he works her through her second orgasm on his hand, and he’s relieved that she’s already come twice.
Because it’ll take all he’s got not to have the fastest, most bizarre orgasm of his life if his roommate keeps at it like this.
This room is a thousand goddamn degrees. He never wants to cool off.
“Please, please fuck me,” the woman he should be focused on begs him, hungrily grabbing at his hips, pulling him in. “Steve, come on–”
He doesn’t know if anyone’s ever wanted him so badly—and she is but a fraction as needy, as starving, as soul-crushingly desperate as Steve is in this moment.
Eddie exhales a groan from beyond the wall, and Steve feels it like he’s breathing right against the shell of Steve’s ear. He fucking feels it, Eddie’s breath all over his skin, igniting his every cell as he eases into what’s-her-name, who keeps her hands on his hips.
“You’re taking it so well, baby,” Eddie purrs, “I wasn’t sure if you could, but look at you. Haven’t even got a hand on your dick, and look at the mess you’re making.”
Steve chokes on a moan, shameful, delicious sweat prickling at his hairline.
His hips stutter, his rhythm faltering slightly as he rocks in and out of… Ally.
Ally.
He’s with Ally.
Steve. is. thinking. about. Ally.
“God, honey, this is even better than that mouth of yours,” Eddie says, voice steady over the sound of Harrison’s gasps. “So good.”
Even as he sings filth, as he fucks someone who apparently feels so good , Eddie sounds remarkably calm and collected. Put together, even as he tears apart.
Steve is irreparably wrecked, ripped apart as he fucks Ally, like he’s possessed. Like he’s in a goddamn fugue state, only capable of feeling this sick, richly irresistible need, twisting in his gut; only capable of feeling the hot curl of it, the way it spikes and burns with Eddie’s every syllable.
“Go ahead, fuck yourself on it if you need it so badly,” Eddie says, almost demeaning.
Steve can faintly make out the slap of skin-on-skin in the other room, somehow ringing more loudly and deliciously in his ears than the very loud, wet, tangible smack of his own body against Ally’s.
Steve’s fighting to pretend it isn’t so, but he wonders if Eddie has any idea that his words are currently responsible for making three people in this apartment come undone.
Steve’s pathetically trying to swallow every sound Eddie spits, even though they’re not for him.
That must be why it feels so fucking good—it’s forbidden.
It’s wrong.
“Steve, oh my god—” she pants, high-pitched and reedy, “harder, more please, shit—”
As he works into her more deliberately, faster, harder, deeper, she grows louder beneath him. She feels amazing, the warmth of her pussy wringing all the pleasure from his skin even as he listens raptly to get lost in the type of pleasure that he’s finding can only come from the mind.
“Needy boy…” Eddie tuts, but Steve can finally hear the hints of full-body pleasure in Eddie’s voice beneath all of that bravado. “Aww. Gonna split yourself open, hm?”
Holy fucking shit.
Steve whimpers, the almost-haughty words setting him on fire, his fingers curled tightly in the sheets as he clings desperately to his composure.
He’s fucking her like he’s got something to prove, and she’s getting louder as he surrenders himself to the carnal, bone-deep desire that’s roasting him alive.
And Steve’s trying to be good, even if he doesn’t really know who for, because he can’t really think since his brain’s melted into a hot puddle of mush, but Ally’s so loud—
He’s lost—hell, he’s trying to get lost—but she’s so loud—
And he’s trying to convince himself that he’s into her right now, and her responsiveness should be so satisfying, so sexy—
He’s trying to stay in his room, trying so hard to cling to Ally—
But he can’t even hear what’s going on over there…
He’s hardly a person anymore, just a desperate bundle of nerves about to fucking explode—
And it feels so good, she’s so beautiful, and she’s so wet, and she’s so into this—
But he cannot even hear what’s going on over there.
So he knows what he wants to do, he knows it–
And he knows that if he does it, it’s going to crawl up his spine and eat him alive when this is over, it’ll ruin him, he feels it—
But fuck it, he’s got to do it—
So he wrenches his hand out of the sheets, and he clamps it over Ally’s mouth, as gentle as he can stand to be as he tries to muffle her sounds.
He leaves his eyes open long enough to watch hers roll back into her head, and he’s almost coherent enough to be relieved by the fact that she’s into such a thing.
(It’s not about her.)
“Mmph—” Ally moans, the vibration against his palm a warm relief.
(It’s not about her at all.)
“You gonna come, baby?” Eddie says, something melodic about the low voice that Steve triumphs at hearing again. “You can if you need to, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop. I’m not done yet.”
Fuck.
Why the hell is that so–
Harrison is moaning like he’s in pain, like he could possibly know how badly Eddie’s words can hurt.
Steve’s stretched thin and ready to fucking shatter, his whole body as tight as the press of his eyelids as he fights to keep them closed.
“I gave you permission, honey, what are you holding on for?” Eddie says, sounding a little breathless.
Steve’s trying so hard not to come, he can hold on, he can do it, he can—
“Fuck, Eddie, please,” Harrison sounds delirious, like he’s lost his mind. “Please, will you come—can you give it to me, please?”
And at that Eddie laughs, real and loud and mean .
Steve sucks in a desperate breath, and he figures his own mind will be found somewhere alongside Harrison’s some day in the future that he can’t presently envision.
“Only since you asked so sweet,” Eddie says, and Steve can see the grin on his face, can see the spit shining on his teeth, all wild and wicked even as he feels Ally’s against his hand. “After you, baby.”
The sound Harrison make is broken like a sob, and holy shit, this is so good, Steve knows he’s right behind him—
“That’s it, sweetheart,” Eddie’s voice is a hot, thick syrup, and Steve wants to pour it down his throat as he pictures Eddie’s hand running comfortingly, encouragingly down his spine. “Good boy, let it all out.”
And Steve comes—Steve snaps into a million fucking pieces.
He comes with a broken sound straight out of his lungs, his vision whiting out, his grip on Ally’s mouth going lax, burying his burning face in the pillow next to her.
Holy shit.
He doesn’t even–
Holy shit.
Slowly, the sounds of her panting breaths intermixed with his own bring him back to his body, bit by bit, proving that he is still a person, still of this earth.
Then she’s got her hand on his back, and he knows what she’s going for when she runs it comfortingly, encouragingly down his spine—but he barely stops himself from recoiling, pulling out and rolling over to lie next to her.
For the first time since he’s been in this room, he tries to tune out all the sweet nothings, the softness that’s now going on next door.
Because that would be tacky. A violation.
Forbidden.
Wrong.
He’s pulling off the condom and tying it off, sitting up to toss it in the wastebasket, trying not to think at all as he lies back down next to Ally.
Ally, who is great and beautiful and smart.
Ally, who he’s been in this room with for every moment of this evening.
Her and only her, here and only here.
“How… uh,” he has to clear his throat. “How are you feeling?” he asks her, hopeful that his only alibi also knows that he’s been in this room with her for every moment of this evening.
Her and only her, here and only here.
Steve hears the smile in her voice as she pulls herself closer to him, lying her head on his chest, the ginger waves of her hair slightly ticklish. “I’m great, baby, how are you feeling?”
Unlike what he said in the bar, there are evidently certain words that are absolutely not more interesting coming out of her mouth, but Steve cannot think about it right now.
He gives her a kiss on the top of the head, softly running his fingers through her hair like it’ll prove he’s been with her this whole time.
“Great, too,” he says quietly, closing his eyes even though he’s become inexplicably terrified of all that the back of his eyelids are capable of.
*
Steve’s exceptionally grateful that Ally spends the night, her presence in the morning grounding and somewhat effective at keeping any particularly potent feelings of unpleasantness at bay.
He’s even fairly confident that she attributes their far-less-spirited second round in the morning to residual tiredness from the night before, and not to the silence beyond the wall.
After they exchange numbers and she leaves, Steve takes a longer-than-normal shower before he feels brave enough to go forage for something in the kitchen.
Eddie’s sitting cross-legged on the counter when Steve walks in, with a bowl of cereal in one hand, the newspaper (undoubtedly turned to the comics section) in the other.
The fight-or-flight Eddie-feeling is on like it always is—only now, he has the added fear that he might blush or pop a fucking boner. Awesome.
Steve is overly conscious of his breaths coming and going from his lungs as he pours himself a bowl of his own, doing his best not to feel like he has something to hide.
He doesn’t. He has nothing to hide.
It’s not like it’s his fault that Eddie and he just happened to be doing the same thing at the same time.
Eddie drops the paper when Steve sits down in one of the chairs at the counter like a normal, civilized person.
Although, he supposes he has no fucking room to judge Eddie as being abnormal or uncivilized after what he–
Nope.
Not thinking about it.
He was with Ally.
Physically, mentally, spiritually.
Ally.
They only stare at each other for a moment, Eddie wearing his typical visage of biting his tongue , that familiar cloud of slight terror that he often puts on when he’s around Steve.
And—oh.
Steve finally understands why.
“That guy?” Steve says around a mouthful of cereal. “Seriously? You could not pay me to listen to one more word about his stupid fucking movie.”
The terror is completely gone from Eddie’s eyes now.
Now Eddie’s looking down on him with a shit-eating grin, and all Steve can think of is how much it looks like he’d imagined Eddie was looking down at Harrison when–
Nooooope.
No.
Ally.
“I dunno. It sounded pretty interesting to me,” Eddie shrugs a shoulder, but he’s still got that ridiculous, self-satisfied smile on his face.
Steve bites down and swallows the reflexive that’s because you were trying to sleep with him! because he doesn’t think he would be able to survive a conversation about that without blushing or bursting into flame.
“Ugh, no,” Steve shakes his head as he shakes it off. “He was too obsessed with it, like he thinks he’s actually going to be a big Hollywood movie director or some shit? Please.”
Eddie snickers as he hops down from the counter.
“Oh, you’re right. God forbid people have passions,” Eddie rolls his eyes, dramatic sarcasm dripping off of him. “Guys with actual interests? The worst. What a turn-off.”
And he actually flicks Steve in the forehead before he goes to rinse out his bowl, like Steve is an annoyingly amusing child.
The newfound seeds of guilt that Steve has hastily worked to bury almost take root and sprout at Eddie’s friendly nonchalance.
And Steve can’t help but flare with irritation at Eddie’s comments, like they’re meant to be a thinly-veiled insult at Steve. Steve who has no passions, no actual interests.
They probably aren’t supposed to be about him.
Steve isn’t insane enough to think so.
But all of a sudden he’s so bothered by the way that Eddie’s eyes don’t hook onto Steve, by the way that Eddie just walks right past him and back to his room, by the way that Eddie still doesn’t seem to find Steve particularly interesting in the least.
And he’s not very interesting, but it’s unbearably infuriating that Eddie has noticed as much.
Steve swallows hard as he washes his own dishes, relieved and frustrated that Eddie didn’t hang around out here.
He’s already longing to go back to bed, but instead decides to go for a run.
Running has always been a great way of clearing his head.
And if that doesn’t work, hey, there’s always hopping on a plane and moving to fucking Alaska!