This ain't me
Fallin' for such a hero
Don't let me wake up
And fall back to zero
- Mantaraybryn
July 7, 1995 - Tacoma, Washington
Eddie is the luckiest bastard on the planet.
He has to be.
There's no other way around it.
There's no other possible explanation for why he got to wake up this morning with Steve Harrington still fast asleep against his side, an arm curled around Eddie's stomach so his hand rests warm on the curve of his waist, his cheek smushed against Eddie's collarbone, and their legs entangled beneath the sheets. There's no other reason for why he's gotten to wake up like this pretty much every morning for the past year and a half (they've actually been together for a little over two, but it's been a year and a half since Ed replaced Robin on the lease for their little apartment by the harbor in Tacoma, Washington).
Maybe luckiest on the entire planet is up for debate, but, god does Eddie feels fucking lucky — and not just because he's the one who bagged Steve Harrington, king of Hawkins High (though he seriously hopes Steve will be up for attending their high school reunion whenever it comes around). Steve just loves so hard, he's like a bottomless pit of goodness and kindness and love, and by some grace of whatever God is in charge of that kind of shit, Eddie gets to be on the receiving end of it.
Christ, is he fucking lucky.
In the two years that they've been together, Eddie has spent a considerable amount of time wondering if he even deserves Steve. He's pretty firmly landed on he doesn't, but Steve doesn't seem to be with the program (and Ed is irreversibly head over heels for him, so he'll take it).
"Ed," Steve mutters from beside him as he rolls back towards his side of the bed, his sleep-addled voice rough like gravel, "Go back to sleep."
Though Eddie is far too awake to fall back asleep, he hums his agreement, molding himself to Steve's back and tucking a hand between his thighs.
Eddie's sleep schedule is kind of fucked at this point. To be fair, it was kind of always fucked, but his saving grace as a teenager had been the fixed schedule of school, and then as an adult, work. Ten months ago, however, he signed a real-life publishing deal for the book he's been working on for ages that came with an upfront payment and the expectation of writing full-time. Since then, he's had free reign to live by whatever hours he sees fit, for better or for worse.
Recently he's been trying his damndest to stick to normal waking hours, which hasn't exactly been easy for the night owl that he tends to be, but Steve's last semester in his PsyD program started up last week after a short break, so spending time with him means abiding to the same hours (and more than anything, more than any vocation or any job or any amount of money, Eddie just wants to spend time with Steve).
At this point, they've got a whole routine down —
Steve will pull himself out of bed with his alarm.
Eddie will do whatever he can to convince him to skip out on his clinical and spend the day with him, which Steve will ignore.
Eddie will then spend the morning killing time.
Steve will call home midway through the day. He'll asks what Eddie's been up to and tell him he misses him, and Eddie will fall just that much more in love.
After they hang up, Eddie might manage to put in a good few hours of writing, might have a meeting with his agent or his publishing house, and sometimes he'll go out to pick up some things for his and Steve's evening — usually groceries and a bottle of wine (Steve is becoming a wine guy in his old age of twenty-eight, and while Ed's not totally sure he's convinced, he has been noticing his taste in beer becoming less and less redneck, as Nancy ever-so-kindly describes it).
Steve is the designated cook in their relationship (thank god, because any relationship where Eddie is the more culinarily-inclined of the pair is not a relationship destined to be sustainable, and Ed needs this to be sustainable), so Eddie won't actually get dinner started per se, but he will put a tape on (Led Zeppelin's IV, more often than not, because "Going to California" reminds him of Steve), and he'll clean up the kitchen, put the wine in the fridge to chill, and get a pot of water boiling because he's usually pretty sure that whatever Steve has planned includes pasta.
(And if it doesn't, it usually works out anyway because when Steve returns home, they'll make out against the kitchen counter for so long that all the water boils off).
They might watch something after dinner or maybe they'll start a new puzzle or maybe Steve will convince him to play Mario Kart with him or maybe they'll do something else entirely, but no matter what they'll talk and rib each other and tell each other about their days.
If Steve turns in early, Ed will go with him. He'll stand behind him in the bathroom with an arm around his middle while they brush their teeth together, and once they're in bed he'll let (let, as if he'd ever say no) Steve cuddle up against him while he jots down something that had popped into his brain in the notebook he takes with him wherever he goes.
It's a routine Eddie is pretty goddamn happy with, actually.
He loves Steve — he loves him, he loves him, he loves him.
He loves his old-man schedule that has him rising and falling practically with the sun. He loves his sexy early-morning voice, loves the way he snores when he sleeps on his back for too long, loves the way Eddie can gently smush a hand into Steve's face for a moment so he'll stop.
He loves Steve and his absurd collection of houseplants and the way their coffee table is almost always consumed by a puzzle (Steve likes the tricky ones — they're a 1000-piece minimum household) and his determination to try a new recipe every week.
He loves how Steve ends every phone call with love you, Ed and every note with a doodled heart, smiley-face, and star, and how he cuddles with his nose shoved into the bend of Eddie's neck so he can feel his heartbeat and how he likes to keep his socks on during sex.
"I don't like it," Steve always responds whenever Ed brings this up, "I'm just not gonna put a pause on everything to take my fucking socks off if it doesn't make literally any difference to me."
Which, Eddie supposes, is fair enough.
Eddie loves him.
He wakes up every day so in love with Steve that he doesn't know what to do with it all, like there's too much of it to exist in his brain and his heart so it seeps unconsciously into everything that he does. Every word he speaks, every step he takes, every word he's written, Steve is the blood of everything Eddie does.
"Never mind, asshole, I'm awake," Steve grumbles.
Eddie lets out a maniacal laugh as he sits up.
Steve, he knows, tries to sleep until his alarm goes off (which today is in about three minutes), but if he sleeps right until his alarm, he has to pull himself out of bed to get ready for his clinical as soon as it goes off, and there's no time to spare for Eddie.
So what if Eddie tries to coax him awake just a little too early?
Sue him.
Propped up on his elbow, Eddie runs his fingers through Steve's hair — still as long as always and sticking up in every direction — and Steve tips his head back against the weight of his hand.
Eddie loves Steve most especially in the early morning, when he's groggy and pliant and just so, so cute. Eddie is not blind to the fact that Steve is a very attractive man. Hot is basically his baseline, but Eddie's favorite is when he's cute, all big eyes and mumbles and hands reaching out to find purchase on him wherever he can.
"Mornin'," Steve mumbles with a sleepy smile.
"Morning," Eddie replies as Steve tucks himself into his side, nudging his nose into the curve of Eddie's neck just like he always does.
Eddie sinks back down into the mattress, twining his arms around Steve's waist, and as Steve's breaths are just starting to even out again, his alarm clock sounds.
Like always, Steve reaches to shut it off and, like always, Eddie tightens his hold on him,
"Few more minutes," he says into Steve's shirt.
"Can't, my love," Steve replies, already sounding far too awake as he pokes Eddie in the side. Eddie reflexively retracts his arm from around Steve's waist, "Gotta rock and roll."
Ed groans, flopping back onto the mattress as Steve gets up.
He stays in bed while Steve gets himself ready for the day, brainstorming new excuses he could use to try convincing him to stay home from his clinical, though by the time Steve is heading for the kitchen, he's still coming up mostly empty.
Eddie doesn't actually want Steve to skip a day of his clinical just for him — truly, he doesn't. He loves how much Steve loves his studies and how happy he's gonna be when he's able to start working as a real psychologist — that's coming up pretty soon too.
Steve graduated from his PsyD program back in May — though it was actually a degree conferral, whatever that is (Ed thinks it has something to do with how he'd still had a semester and a half left even after the ceremony). Still, Eddie had made a big deal out of the whole thing, and practically the whole party had come to Washington, including Hopper and Joyce which Steve had been over the moon about (he'd invited his actual parents too, mailed them the invite and left them a voicemail and everything, but they didn't show. Fucking assholes). Steve had tried to downplay it all and made a bunch of nervous comments about how the mortarboard made his hair go flat, but Eddie had thought he looked so good in the ridiculous regalia, and when his name was called, Eddie had been so proud of him he'd practically cried.
Okay, he definitely had cried a little. Teared up at a minimum.
Right now, Steve is in the beginning of his last semester of the program, which at this point is just clinical placements, and when he's done in September and if he passes the big exam (he'll pass it) and does some other licensing stuff Ed doesn't fully understand, he'll be a real-life practicing psychologist.
So Eddie gets why Steve has never once succumbed to his weak attempts at keeping him for himself. Regardless, he throws on a t-shirt — Steve's, that he'd worn to bed and discarded while getting dressed — and drags himself out of bed to give it the old college try anyway.
"Stevie, stay home with me today."
"Why?" Steve asks, and he's familiar with this part of their morning so he seems mostly unamused and entirely unconvinced.
"Because I want you to."
Yeah…not his finest work, and Steve doesn't even bother responding to it.
"Because I'll be bored," Eddie attempts again, "I got used to you being around every day to entertain me. I can't just quit cold turkey like that. It's cruel."
"Huh. Okay, I'll talk to the school and let them know that they really should consider your emotions when they write the next academic calendar."
"Thank you. You already graduated."
"You've got plenty to do, Ed," Steve reminds him as he shoves his packed lunch into his backpack.
"Like what?" Eddie challenges, boxing Steve in against the kitchen counter.
"Get the other room ready for Wayne," Steve starts.
Shit, that's right.
Today, there actually is something for Eddie will gain from Steve going to work.
Wayne is coming to town today.
Wayne is coming to Washington for the first time since Eddie moved here a year and some change ago.
He's probably on the plane now (by Ed's estimations, anyway), and bound to land at SeaTac right as Steve is getting out of his clinical in Seattle.
Eddie can hardly fucking wait. It's been nearly six months since the last time he'd gotten to see Wayne, which he's pretty sure is the longest he's gone without seeing his uncle since Wayne had gotten custody of him back in 1973 — twenty-two years ago.
Jesus Christ, he's getting old.
"The spare room is already ready."
"No, I tried to get it ready," Steve replies, "Two days ago, and you walked in while I was making the bed and said you wanted to distract me, and I said not on the clean sheets, and you said you didn't care. So now you have to change the sheets. Unless you want Wayne sleeping on sheets we fu—"
"Okay — yes, I will change the sheets, but that'll only take, like, an hour, and—"
Steve's eyebrows fly up.
"An hour?"
"— and then what'm I supposed to do?"
"Make inquiries about apartments."
Steve's got him there, and he knows it too, the bastard.
Eddie and Steve are moving to Boston.
Well — if all goes well with the tail end of Steve's doctorate (which it will), they'll be moving to Boston at the beginning of October, less than four months from now.
Robin and Nancy are in Boston. They're still living in that brownstone on the Charles with a handful of roommates, still with their own bedrooms because they're vehemently refusing to fall victim to the U-Haul Lesbian stereotype even though Eddie knows they have "sleepovers" practically every night. Nancy recently left the job she'd had for years with the Boston Globe for a role at a small magazine. The magazine itself is less popular than the Globe, but with national reach and a focus on the kind of investigative journalism that Nancy thrives in. Apparently, she'd leveraged a promotion at Boston Globe to get the job, which she'd acknowledged as kind of a shady move, but Eddie would expect nothing less from Nancy Wheeler.
She's kind of crazy, as it turns out. Way crazier than Eddie, which had been a humbling realization in the midst of an already humbling experience.
Robin is eighteen months into the curation job for the Museum of Fine Arts that had taken her away from Steve and given her to Nance. Steve and Robin had lived together for more than half a decade before Robin moved to Boston because neither of them had been able to part with the other until they had little other option, not that Ed's complaining. Robin's departure had given him the opportunity to move in with Steve, and thank fuck for that because, truth be told, he wouldn't have survived the long-distance thing for much longer.
The first few weeks after Robin moved out were…really fucking weird is what they were.
Steve had nightmares like Eddie couldn't believe — ones that usually ended with Eddie hauling Steve out of bed by the waist and dragging him into the kitchen to call Robin in Massachusetts, saying screw it to the time difference all the while, so that Steve could hear her voice and know she was alive.
All that calmed down after a while, albeit not enough for Steve to lose the determination to follow her to Massachusetts as soon as he's not academically bound to Washington.
"Write," Steve continues pointedly.
Eddie rolls his eyes.
That book deal he'd landed had come with the caveat that even when his novel was done, he'd still be writing, that he'd be working on a second one before the first novel got to see the light of day. Luckily for his publishing hour, he's got one in the bag — not a sequel; he's firmly anti-sequel because they're all shit and a thinly veiled cash grab riding on the coattails of the original — but similar enough to the first that he can start defining his own niche in the world of literature.
Eddie's a writer now, and he actually fucking loves it. Steve — the love of his life, the seer of his soul — had been the one to push him into it, and it was the first thing he'd ever been able to see himself turning into a livelihood besides playing guitar. Honestly, Eddie isn't totally sure how he didn't see the writer thing sooner, though it's probably because he'd been too focused on becoming a rockstar to notice how the only assignments he'd ever enjoyed during school were the creative writing ones. With the advantage of hindsight, Eddie can acknowledge that the whole rockstar thing was unlikely to have panned out well for him even if he'd tried to pursue it. For one, he'd never been able to write music — he'd tried, could usually churn out a pretty decent lyrical narrative, but setting it to music? That had never been something Eddie could wrap his brain around, and during its short reign, Corroded Coffin only ever did covers.
Nearly all his writing over the years has been done in a collection of composition notebooks, and since moving to Washington and being with Steve day in and day out, he flies through them faster than ever before.
That's kind of just Steve, though.
Steve kind of ruined Eddie for anybody else (not that he intends for there to be an anybody else; Steve is it for him, in every sense of the word).
Eddie had been in relationships before — even a few long-ish-term ones, even ones he could say were good — but not one came even close to what he's got going with Steve. Before Steve, Eddie had never been treated so softly, never been so taken care of in a relationship.
No one has ever taken care of Eddie in the way that Steve does constantly, like it requires no effort from him.
Steve lets Eddie stand on his toes whenever they hug, lets him hug like he's the taller of the two even though Steve has a good few inches on him even before the hair. When they drive together, Steve always warns him when there's roadkill up ahead so Eddie has time to look away (and once he even went so far as to reach a hand over to block his eyes entirely as they passed a massive disemboweled deer that would have been otherwise impossible to miss). Not to mention how Steve has done nearly all the driving for them since Eddie's move to Washington because he knows Eddie doesn't like to drive all that much. Steve remembers his favorite cereal, the way he takes his coffee, the brand of ballpoint pen he prefers to write with. He pulls Eddie into photo booths before he can even ask, and he can always tell when Eddie likes a movie enough to pause it when they inevitably get distracted fooling around like dumb, horny teenagers.
Steve knows him, and as someone who had spent his entire life terrified of being known and building up enormous walls so that no one ever could, Ed should be terrified. He's not, though. He's not, because instead he just feels loved.
Eddie loves Steve in return. He loves him so much it hurts, so much that he'd do anything — fucking anything — for Steve to be happy, even if that means spending the whole damn day missing him while he's at his clinical, so when Steve finally heads for the door, all Eddie can do is give him a long kiss (maybe slipping in a little tongue, just as a last ditch effort) and let him leave.
December 27, 1994 - Pensacola, Florida
Eddie's dad is dead.
As of yesterday at 6:14 AM (Florida time), Eddie's dad is dead.
Apparently, a case of pneumonia had spread through the Century Correctional Institution like wildfire, and Ed's father, a life-long smoker and old as shit (sixty-something, Ed was pretty sure, which, when he thought about it, actually wasn't all that old), hadn't stood a chance.
Eddie was…he wasn't sure what he felt. He'd always imagined he'd feel something akin to glee whenever his old man finally kicked the bucket. At a minimum, he knew he wouldn't feel sad, and that, at least he was correct about. He didn't feel sad. It's hard to feel sad about something you know nothing about, and Ed had known nothing about his father — nothing good, anyway.
He also felt a little frustrated, but that was about the timing of it all more than anything else. Eddie and Steve were supposed to be headed to Nancy and Robin in Boston to celebrate the holidays together just like they always did, but the night before their departing flight, Wayne had called from Hawkins with the news about Eddie's father, and then their own calls had been made and flights had been changed, and then Steve and Ed were on their way to Florida instead of Boston, and their plans had been ruined.
Steve was disappointed. It was the longest he'd gone without seeing Robin, probably ever, Ed was pretty sure, and he'd been desperately looking forward to reuniting with her. When Eddie suggested only changing one of their flights from Boston to Florida, though, Steve had refused.
"You're my partner," he had said, looking offended, "This shit sucks. I want to be with you for it."
He's an angel.
Somewhere above Wyoming, it had occurred to Ed that this was technically his and Steve's first real trip together since they started dating. He wasn't totally sure what he'd had in mind for their first trip, but visiting the panhandle of Florida to deal with the aftermath of his father's death after twenty years of no contact definitely wasn't it.
He would have liked it to be something better, something he'd use his years of traveling for to really knock Steve's socks off.
He'd used to travel all the time back when it was just him by himself in Marion, Indiana. He'd bust his ass at the shop for a good few months, squirreling away as much of his paycheck as he could so he could take short trips to places he'd seen in magazines and thought might give him some inspiration for his writing.
Eddie had sort of struggled with writing while he was in Indiana — more so with motivation than anything else — and that's why he'd traveled as much as he could afford to, because it was the only thing that could get those creative juices flowing. Since moving in with Steve, though — or maybe just since Steve — it was like he couldn't get them to stop.
He was hesitant to call Steve his muse or anything like that. Ed wasn't even totally sure he believed in that kind of thing, but there was just something about Steve that made him feel alive in a way he'd never experienced before.
Steve had never been to Florida, or so he'd told Eddie halfway through the final leg of their flight — Atlanta to Pensacola, after a goddamn two hour layover at ATL. Though he hadn't said it at the time, Eddie didn't think now was the best time to visit. December in Florida was sort of cold, or, at least, it was where they were staying in the panhandle of the state. The wind had a chilly bite to it, even at high noon, and all of the colors — the blue of the sky and the ocean, the green of the grass and the trees — were muted, somehow. Dull.
Wayne beat Eddie and Steve to Pensacola, his own flight having landed early that morning. He'd made it clear to Eddie from the get-go that he wanted to be the one taking care of everything relating to his brother's affairs on his own, that he wanted Eddie to stay out of it, so just as soon as he was checking in at the hotel, he was heading back out again in the direction of the Century Correctional Institution.
Steve and Eddie were still in the air during all that, their flight not landing until the evening, so by the time they were arriving at the hotel, they found that Wayne had already returned and was sitting in the lobby with the paper open in his lap.
"Boys," he said with a nod as they approached, folding up his paper and getting to his feet.
"Hey," Steve said, shaking Wayne's hand like the gentleman he is, "Trip here okay?"
"S'alright."
Eddie shifted his bag so he could give Wayne a one-armed hug.
"You doin' okay, old man?" he asked.
"Well as I could be," Wayne replied, though Eddie didn't quite believe him.
"How was everything?"
"I'll let you know tomorrow. Gotta head back up in the morning to tie up some loose ends."
"Shit. Fuckin' asshole couldn't even make this easy —" Eddie paused as Steve subtly pinched the inside of his wrist, and he realized that perhaps the wound of his father's death could be a little rawer for Wayne than it was for him, "Long day for us all, then. You hungry? Any joints in the area you remember?"
"Drove all over creation today. Not lookin' for much more than a night in."
"Pacers game starts in ten," Steve suggested, tipping his head towards the elevators.
"Sounds good to me," Wayne nodded.
Steve and Eddie dropped their stuff off in their hotel room before heading down the hall to Wayne's. Wayne already had the game on — a basketball game featuring (featuring?) an Indiana team that both Steve and Wayne followed — when he let them in. Thirty minutes in, Ed, who try as he might can not wrap his head around basketball (and he really does try for Steve's sake), got sent out into the chilly December night to pick up dinner from a diner down the street, apparently a joint that Wayne had frequented as a teenager escaping his hometown for the closest approximation to a city.
Eddie's father and Wayne had grown up in a Podunk town forty minutes north of Pensacola that acted as something of a halfway point between the city and the state prison his father had rotted away in. Eddie had been born and at least partially raised in that same town — partially because after his father, in one of his violent rages, dealt Eddie's mom a blow to the head so bad she'd died in the hospital a few days later, and landed himself in prison for good, Eddie had been handed over to Wayne.
Wayne had lived in Hawkins, Indiana practically since the day he turned eighteen — he was always a little fuzzy on the details when it came to precisely how he ended up in Hawkins, of all places, which made Ed think he was hiding something, but he didn't press. Wayne had always been able to tell when Eddie had reached his limit for sharing with the class, so to speak, and Eddie figured he owed him the same respect.
This trip marked the first time Eddie was returning to Florida since Wayne whisked him away twenty years ago. He didn't really want to be here, and while his uncle had always been a difficult read, Eddie was pretty sure Wayne didn't want to be here either.
But such was life, Eddie supposed. His old man was always gonna kick the bucket, and they were always gonna be the only ones out there to deal with it. Sick as it might be, Eddie was actually sort of glad it happened when it did, while Wayne was still relatively young and in good health, and when Eddie's life was in a place where it didn't cause too many interruptions.
Plus, it was nice to be able to see Wayne.
"Wayne's really okay handling everything by himself?" Steve asked Ed during their walk down the carpeted hallway to their own hotel room after the Pacers game came to an end (Ed was pretty sure they won, but he's been wrong before).
Eddie nodded.
"Didn't want it to all fall on me, I guess," he replied, "He knew'm better, anyways. Probably has a better sense than me of what he'd want."
Steve didn't respond, just caught Eddie's hand in his own and squeezed tight. He didn't let go until they reached the door to their hotel room. Steve had the keycards, so he lifted Eddie's hand long enough to press a kiss to the back of it, something that still had Ed's heart racing even eighteen months into their relationship, then dropped it to fish the card out of his back pocket.
Once inside, Ed collapsed onto the neatly made bed while Steve puttered around the room.
He wanted a smoke.
He hadn't smoked a cigarette since 1986 — being hospitalized for a month and a half is a hell of a nicotine patch, and every time he'd tried to light up after leaving Hawkins Memorial, Robin had put a stop to it before even the first drag. At the time, Steve had just given him a sympathetic pat on the back and a welcome to the club, man, because Robin had apparently done the exact same thing to him after they'd emerged from the bowels of the Starcourt Mall. Eddie didn't even get stoned all that often anymore either — it's more of an occasional, treat type of thing now, which he knew was something his twenty-year-old self would be fucking aghast to learn, but growing up is an inexplicable thing, and he really just didn't have the same sort of inclination to smoke anymore, in any capacity.
He sort of did today, though.
"So was there anything you wanted to do while we're here?" Steve asked, closing the curtains on the dark December night, "Old haunts to visit or whatever?"
Eddie shrugged.
"When was the last time you were here?" Steve continued when Eddie didn't reply.
"Before I left for Hawkins with Wayne. I think I was — god, I was seven, I think."
Eddie was twenty-eight, now. His mother's death was twenty-one years ago, practically down to the day. Christmas had been coming up, and they'd been a few days into Hanukkah too, though Ed's mother had acknowledged that with him in secret.
After leaving Florida, Eddie had spent years detesting the holidays, refusing to partake, and Wayne, who was trying his best with an angry, confused, grieving boy, begrudgingly let him. It wasn't until the holidays in 1986, the first after Vecna, that he let himself get involved in the festivities again. It was easy to celebrate things after all that. Every birthday, every accomplishment, and yes, every goddamn holiday a fucking joyous reminder that there were still people and things to celebrate, that Vecna and the Mind Flayer hadn't taken everything from them like they very nearly did.
In the years that followed, Ed and Steve and Nance and Robin found their own holiday tradition, and though it involved very little official recognition of the holidays themselves, it was something that Ed looked forward to every year.
And thanks to Eddie's father, he was missing out.
Screw him.
"Any places you'd wanna go check out — even to see if they're still standing?" Steve pressed on. Eddie sat up as Steve joined him on the edge of the bed, "Ice cream shops, toy stores, playgrounds? Your old school? We can do whatever you want."
Steve was trying — trying to keep Eddie occupied, trying to take his mind off things. Eddie knew that, and god, did he love him for it, but being back in Florida after all those years had his chest tightening in a way that was evoking all kinds of memories he didn't even know he had, had an itchy sensation easing over him that made him feel dirty, wrong, and all he really wanted to do was leave.
"I dunno, man," Eddie replied, tipping his head down so his forehead rested on the curve of Steve's shoulder, "I don't really have any good memories of this place. Hawkins was always more like home to me, which is completely fuckin' insane given how the entire town hated me even before they thought I killed a cheerleader, but…"
He trailed off, and Steve gave an understanding hum.
"Now, I just…you know, wherever things with you take me, pretty sure it'll turn out good. Been that way so far, anyways."
He lifted his head in time to see Steve hide that bashful smile Eddie adored.
"Yeah, well, to that logic, I'm here now, so…"
"Oh c'mon, man," Eddie grinned, knocking an elbow into Steve's side, "Don't do that to me."
"I do what I want," he fired back like the brat he still kind of is. He leaned in, a challenging expression on his face, and Eddie closed the distance between them, interrupting whatever plans Steve might have had to instead collide their lips together.
He curved his hand around the back of Steve's neck, drawing him impossibly closer as he licked into his mouth. Steve kissed him back in kind, gripping the hinge of his thigh.
Eddie slid his fingers into Steve's hair and tugged just enough to tip his head to the side, and then he began a path of slow, wet kisses from the edge of Steve's lips to his jaw to the exposed skin of his neck.
"Ed," Steve protested, though it came out a little breathier than he'd probably intended. He leaned away, "C'mon."
"Steve," Ed protested right back, "You wanted to know what I want to do. Said we could do whatever I want."
"Eddie," Steve repeated.
"I decided what I wanna do."
"Jesus Christ," he muttered, only sounding half as annoyed as he theoretically could as he chased Ed's lips, and Eddie took that as permission to resume his slow trail of kisses down Steve's throat while he shoved a hand up his shirt.
Eddie swung himself around so he was straddling Steve's hips, a motion that had Steve tumbling backward onto the mattress and letting out a punched-out whine. As Eddie began to shift further up the bed, Steve pushed a hand against his chest.
"What?"
"Are you an animal?" Steve asked, looking at something behind Eddie with an affronted expression on his face, "Dude — no shoes on the bed."
Eddie gaped at him, but Steve only raised an eyebrow, so he let out a huff as he pushed himself to his feet.
"Fuckin' fancy-boy…" he muttered as he toed off his worn Reeboks and kicked them in the direction of the closet, "…can't have shoes on the fuckin' bed."
He turned back and saw that Steve was propped up on his elbows and watching him with an amused expression on his face. His hair was mussed up and his lips were swollen and pink, and he was just so, so pretty, and Ed didn't even remember whatever shitty feelings he'd been having about being in Florida, and Steve's hands on him were chasing away that itchy feeling like some kind of sacred cleansing.
He felt his lips quirk up.
"What?" Steve asked, confusion in the way he looked up at him as Eddie returned to the bed, returned to that space between Steve's thighs he fits in so perfectly it's as if it was made with him in mind.
"I'm so fucking in love with you, Steve," Eddie replied, and before Steve could respond, Eddie was kissing him again, cradling his face in his hands like the precious thing he was.
Eddie was young when he left Florida, too young to yet know the word gay, too young to yet know it as a word that described him. Still, he'd known even then that he was something, something that meant love had an extra few steps to it in comparison to the other boys in his first grade class who chased after girls on the playground and pulled at their pigtails.
He'd spent years — years — thinking he'd never get to experience real love, that he was good for a good time, for a roll in the sheets with a faceless stranger, but that he was too gay, too weird, too much to be anything more.
He'd tried to convince himself that he was fine with that. He'd tried to convince himself that there was more to life than romance, and that he could still have a fulfilling life without it. Still, he'd never been able to shake or even to dampen how desperately he wanted to be loved, how much he wanted someone to hold his hand and tangle their fingers in his hair and smile at him and want him, in every sense of the word. But Eddie had a shit childhood and even worse self-esteem and a brain that was probably trying to kill him, and he'd convinced himself that gawky gay losers from Indiana don't get to be wanted, so he filled that desire with music and books and complicated RP games even though he knew that it was a weak substitute and wouldn't hold up long.
And then Steve barreled his way into his life just like how he went into every endeavor and changed everything, fucking everything, for Eddie.
The first time they had sex, up in Steve's old bedroom at the House, Steve had held Eddie's hands. He'd run his fingers through Eddie's hair and smiled against his lips and wanted every bit of him, and then he just…didn't stop. Steve held Eddie's hand over the gearshift of his car, while they fell asleep, while they walked down grocery store aisles and quiet trails and, as of today, goddamn hotel corridors. He'd harassed Eddie into taking better care of his curls, had helped him perfect a scandalously long haircare routine and executed it for him more often than not. He smiled at his stupid jokes and long-winded rants about nothing and any time their eyes met after any amount of time apart.
Steve wanted him, improbable as it might be (and Ed did think it was improbable, worse chances than a snowball's in Hell). He wanted him in his bed, in his home, in his future, in his whole goddamn life that spread before him, till death did them part and all.
A younger Eddie would have tried to deny it, to downplay or minimize it into something not so significant and scary, but Ed now had lived enough life to know how foolish that would be.
Steve wanted him, and Eddie wanted Steve, and they would have each other while that remained true.
As Eddie held himself up above Steve, as he rucked up Steve's shirt practically to his neck and continued his pathway of wet kisses along the faint scars that still decorated Steve's side, he had a sneaking suspicion that it would remain true for as long as their days would allow.
fingers crossed the format makes sense. it's supposed to be mornings in washington and nights in florida, but i'm not sure it translates (i'm also not sure if I'll be able to change the format if it doesn't make sense, so, again, fingers crossed)
author notes:
- if anyone was interested in a basic history of hotel keys - physical keys were used until the 1970s, when 32-hole punch cards were introduced. Those were replaced by the magstripe key card was in the 1980s and which are still used today by places that haven't updated to RFID.