Chapter Text
Eddie’s panicking.
He was able to stave off the sense of impending doom when Steve Harrington of all people brought him back to his house, did breathing exercises with him to get him out of a dark headspace from being trapped in the trunk for a fucking half hour, and even when Steve gave him a brief tour of his mini mansion.
Then he’d directed Eddie to the dedicated shower in the basement’s full bath (of course the basement had a full bath, that floor alone was probably the size of his fucking trailer), said he was gonna grab Eddie some clothes, and left him to his own devices.
Problem was, Eddie didn’t really want to be alone right now.
The shower had amazing water pressure and it was warm and comforting in a way he’d never felt from the shower in his own place. That kept the nervousness at bay for a while. He scrubbed every inch of himself, scrubbed out his hair, took his time with himself. It was probably silly for him to not have realized just how filthy he’d gotten while hiding out, but it took a good twenty minutes of dedicated scrubbing for the water to run clear as it circled the drain. Another ten for him to get through the closest approximation of his own hair routine as he could with the Harrington’s bougie products.
Point is, he’d taken so long showering on purpose. It was very much necessary, but it was also an exercise in patience. Steve didn’t know him, but he’d already been a lot more accommodating and understanding than Eddie had expected anyone to be, given the circumstances. That was partly why he’d holed up solo instead of asking anyone for help to begin with. But Steve had taken it all in stride, had mentioned casually that he’d ‘been through stuff like this before,’ had decided the best course of action was to keep Eddie safe somewhere where he wouldn’t be alone, and decided to look after him personally. It easily cracked the top ten list of kindest things anyone had ever done for him.
He’d say someone letting him crash at their place meaning so much was actually a bit sad if it weren’t for the fact that hiding a known fugitive wanted for murder is kind of a big gesture for anyone to make.
Instead, he tries not to judge himself for his heart getting a little melty.
He was already obsessed with Steve from a distance, figured half the school was whether or not they wanted to admit it, even after he’d graduated. Pretty boy with insane eyelashes and plush lips and a nice, solid form, beautiful expressive eyes, a sharp jaw…? Eddie could go on. He had before, much to the chagrin of his bandmates. But at the end of the day, Steve Harrington had a reputation as a ladies man and a bit of an asshole, so Eddie’d given him a wide berth back in school. He had the perfect body, perfect life, rich parents, girls all over him. No point in getting anywhere near him, not unless he wanted his heart stomped all over and his ass kicked. Right?
Steve had responded in kind, never messed with him, never even looked at him.
It left his head spinning, going from a guy he longed for on a purely physical level who he just saw sometimes in the hallway or around town to this guy putting him in his space, pulling him out of harm’s way at great personal risk.
But it’s far from the only reason his head is spinning.
More than that, there’s the unsavory whole… having watched someone die bit of things.
There’s the memory of Chrissy levitating in his living room after he’d barely left her alone for even five minutes. There’s the snap of her bones, the abject horror, the implicit understanding that no one was going to believe he was innocent, in part because of the reputation he’d built around himself like a shield, now caving in on him, suffocating.
As he squeezes the excess water from his hair, he can’t help but think of Steve, two floors and any number of closed doors away, a pang of protectiveness coming over him.
The last time he left someone alone…
He makes quick work of the shower after that, water starting to run lukewarm anyway.
Less than two minutes later he’s pulling the shower curtain back enough to grab towels, wrapping one around his waist, actively drying his hair with the other. There’s no stack of clothes like he expected to find on the bathroom counter, sure Steve would think nothing of poking his head in and dropping them off before going about his life upstairs.
After a moment, he opens the bathroom door just a crack, looking around the common area of the basement. Nothing. Pads out into the center of the room, over to the bedroom. Nothing, in either case. He stops toweling his hair off and just lets his towel dangle from his shoulders, gnawing at his bottom lip. Steve didn’t forget about him, did he?
Or had… something happened?
He moves forward in slow increments, feeling ridiculous in just a towel, calls out, “Steve?”
Nothing.
Creeps up the basement stairs, tentatively yelling into the main floor, “Steve?”
His voice echoes. Nothing.
Tightening the towel around his waist, Eddie darts across the living room so as to not be spotted from the windows, taking the stairs two at a time, “Steve? Is everything okay?”
The door Steve had described as his is closed, light pours out from underneath. Eddie gives a courtesy knock, calling out his name again. Waits about ten seconds for a response. When he doesn’t get one, he turns the knob, pokes his head in, “Steve, you’re starting to worry me, man…”
No one there.
There’s a stack of clothes presumably meant for him by the door, though. And upon a more thorough visual sweep of the admittedly atrocious room, he notes a door he’d first mistaken for a closet, left open just a crack, light coming from within.
Noise, too.
Eddie steps closer, feeling weird about the noise but the lack of response. There’s an uneasy churning in his gut as he aligns his vision with the gap between the door and the frame. He doesn’t know if he can take another person levitating in front of him this week.
His brain catches up to the familiar sound of skin on skin just seconds before his eyes register Steve Harrington himself, thoroughly distracted, head thrown back, one hand around his throat, one hand around his cock, mouth stuffed full of polo shirt to presumably muffle his sounds.
Now that Eddie’s this close, it’s doing a terrible job.
“Mhhh,” Steve groans through the fabric, and Eddie zeroes in on the bit of his throat he keeps rubbing. Is that… a cut? Holy shit, is that a cut?
He gasps, but Steve seems unable to experience anything on a sensory level outside of his own body, which, fair enough. Seconds later, he’s coming, dick twitching as the tip spurts burst after burst of cum, seemingly never-ending.
Eddie’s chest is heaving again, for entirely different reasons than before.
Make no mistake; he’s glad Steve isn’t being possessed or anything. Really, he is!
It’s just that he also happens to be at a loss with regard to what is actually going on with Steve. Seems like he was so desperate to crank one out the first free second he got that he all but bolted up here the moment Eddie was accounted for in the shower. Seems he’s impossibly turned on. Seems he can’t stop pressing at a cut on his neck.
That last bit sends a chill up Eddie’s spine outright, remembering his body crowding Steve’s, the sharp end of a bottle pressed to his neck. He didn’t remember actually hurting Steve, probably would’ve freaked out if he had noticed, but he also doesn’t remember seeing that cut in the few seconds before he had Steve pinned to the wall. Could it be?
Steve’s body slackens, the shirt drops from his mouth, he closes his eyes, a slow satisfied smile curling over his face, and Eddie bolts.
Grabs the stack of clothes (shit, why did I do that? He asks himself the second he does it, but it’s too late to turn back now), turns the doorknob in his palm so the lock doesn’t catch when he pulls it closed again, zooms down the stairs and across the living room, back into his own bathroom in the basement. Takes a second to catch his breath, looks himself in his reflection’s eye.
“We are not jerking off over that,” He tells himself sternly.
His dick protests, half hard under the towel, but he ignores it resolutely, instead pulling on the outfit Steve had left out for him. It’s all just a little baggy on him, which gives him a little shiver of delight. It’s nice being wrapped up in someone else’s clothes, in someone else’s scent. It immediately warms him. A nice layer of detachment from the shitty things that have happened lately.
Once he trusts his own body enough to not rat him out, he leaves the bathroom.
The rest of the house is still eerily quiet.
And he’s still panicking.
-
It’s not like he’s never seen another guy jerk off.
Been pretty exclusively into things of that nature for as long as he can remember being into anything that way, as a matter of fact. It’s not like he’s skittish about sex in front of his friends or anything. If he ever caught Gareth beating his meat, for example, he knows for a fact they’d just laugh it off.
This is different.
Eddie can’t pinpoint why. But that’s probably because there are dozens of reasons that it’s different to be honest. He and Gareth were buddies, for one. Gareth was one of maybe five people in this town that he felt comfortable with knowing about him. He’s not attracted to him in the slightest either. They’re too much alike.
Steve, though. Having held a purely aesthetic candle for him for years definitely makes things weird. So does recently discovering that he’s actually a decent human being. The fact that he was being a creep by peeking in at him makes him cringe with shame, so yeah, that’s probably part of it too.
Mostly though?
It’s probably the revelation that Steve’s pretty Freak-adjacent himself.
Could what he was doing be considered normal? Maybe, but Eddie kinda doubts it. He’s figured out the freaky shit he himself is into through a simple process of elimination, and he strongly suspects that squeezing your own throat and staring at yourself in the mirror while you jerk off is probably not a regular activity, especially for someone that allegedly gets as much play as Steve does. Not unless he’s as much of a narcissist as the other guys always pegged him as, which Eddie doubts based solely on how he acted today.
He can’t conceive of Steve being that obsessed with himself under normal circumstances.
The most troubling bit is that Steve was just so preoccupied with the cut on his neck, pressing his fingers into it, no doubt making it hurt, reminding himself constantly throughout the process that it was there.
So Steve was into pain. At least a little.
Eddie glared down at his own dick for betraying him, perking up at the thought.
That right there is the hardest part to wrap his mind around. The possible him of it all. The fact that Eddie was likely the one to cut him like that to begin with, while pressing him up against the wall, squirming and scrambling and breathing heavy as hell. Eddie can objectively recognize the erotic aspects of that encounter now that he’s looking back on it. But it’s almost embarrassing that Steve seems quicker on the uptake in that regard. Like a switch had immediately been flipped within him. Like he immediately had to take himself in hand and do something about it.
It’d be presumptuous of Eddie to even entertain the notion that this reaction has anything to do with him specifically. He imagines Steve doesn’t get held down like that very often, that’s all. Maybe that’s the first time he’s really felt anything like that, really been pressed down and crowded into, powerless, surrendering his only feasible option.
And surrender he had. He’d offered up his throat for Eddie like a fucking Christmas gift, and when Eddie had pressed in, doubting his compliance… What if he’d pierced his skin, penetrated him in some small way, and Steve had liked the feeling? Just the feeling. That was all. It was a little freaky, but ultimately it was understandable. No one would look at him funny for needing the feeling of being dominated in that way from time to time, surely.
Eddie can live with the scenario he’s presented himself with. He can put the matter to bed. He’s going to have to if he’s going to accept Steve’s generosity and stay here until they can figure everything else out. He takes one big breath in, one big sigh out, adjusts his posture, and turns on the TV, plopping down on the couch, pushing it from his mind.
-
There’s nothing good on TV.
Eddie knows he needs to avoid watching the news for the sake of his own sanity, but despite Steve’s no doubt exorbitantly expensive cable TV connection, there’s nothing Eddie’s interested in. So he settles on a mindless cartoon, a bird being chased by a cat, who was in turn being chased by a dog. There was a VCR atop the TV’s console, but Eddie didn’t feel comfortable rooting around for Steve’s tape collection.
He’s done enough damage sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong as is.
The sound of Steve making his way down the basement steps is almost silent, Eddie’s convinced he felt it happening before he actually saw, and then Steve was standing in the living area less than ten feet from him, barefoot, in basketball shorts and an old swim team t-shirt, still toweling off his hair.
It doesn’t really help to quell all the fantasies Eddie’s been thinking of, back from his school days with Steve, but he smothers the part of him that can’t help but ogle, willing it to fall silent.
“See you found the clothes,” Steve says, nodding down at Eddie’s clothed form.
His tone is neutral.
It’s a test.
“Yeah,” Eddie says, like he’s not scrambling to seem unassuming, “Sorry about going into the house proper, I waited for like ten minutes in just a towel and it was starting to get a little cold.”
Steve goes a little pink at that.
Interesting.
“Thank you, by the way,” Eddie adds, “For the clothes, I mean. And well. For everything. But the clean clothes already have me feeling a lot better. They’re a little big on me, but–”
He yanks on the neck of the t-shirt to illustrate the difference in size, and Steve all but whips his head away, going even pinker, scrubbing at his nearly dry scalp with his towel to compensate.
Very interesting.
“But that’s fine,” Eddie finishes lamely, removing his fingers from the collar of his shirt and placing them demurely, hopefully non-threateningly in his lap, “Anyway, you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Steve snaps before visibly correcting himself. “Sorry, just. Long day, you know?”
Eddie sighs, “Boy, do I. You wanna like… get a pizza and some beer and find a tape to watch and just chill for the evening? I have a little cash on hand.”
Steve seems to consider it for a minute before nodding, “Yeah, that sounds great, actually. I just… you don’t have to pay for anything just because you’re staying here, man. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the offer, but you’re in the kind of spot where I don’t know how you’re going to be able to make any more money any time soon. So just… hang on to what you have for now, yeah?”
This is just common courtesy, Eddie reminds himself, even as his stomach seems to be doing somersaults beneath his skin. There’s no reason for Steve to be so consistently nice and thoughtful, to have actually considered all this even though it seems on the surface like all he’s done is impulsively ask a complete stranger to live with him, then go home and jerk off.
“I just don’t want to impose,” Eddie objects meekly, “It was my idea.”
Frustratingly, Steve rolls his eyes at him, “Pizza, beer, and a movie is not exactly an original idea. I was going to suggest it myself, you just beat me to it.”
Eddie huffs and crosses his arms, “Fine.”
They decide on toppings and Steve goes back upstairs to call the pizza place, leaving Eddie to exhale and try to get his bearings. It’s not uncomfortable exactly, at least not in the way he’d assumed. He’s pretty sure he’s defused any suspicions Steve might’ve had by being super fucking chill and normal. It’s Steve that’s still acting off, all fidgety and nervous glances and snippy and…
Just weird. That’s the best way Eddie can put it.
It’s not like that’s not understandable. Being caught jerking it is probably a mortifying ordeal. Being perceived like that is being open in a way you just aren’t to most people, and besides that, Steve seemed to be getting off on some aspect of his earlier interaction with Eddie. But Eddie's never heard even a whisper in the halls of Steve Harrington being anything less than straight. This being a new revelation might definitely account for how unbalanced he seems now, how unsure of how to carry himself next to the person whose hands on him made him weak, made him figure out so much. Or at least brought things he’d tried to keep hidden bubbling to the surface.
Eddie shakes that thought from his head.
Steve stays upstairs until the pizza arrives. Which, really, is a little bit rude and clearly avoidant. But soon he’s stumbling down the stairs balancing several tapes on top of a pizza box, a six pack of beer dangling from his other hand, and Eddie’s scrambling off the couch to help him. Steve gives him an appreciative nod, but doesn’t look him in the eye.
Eddie’s not a particularly big fan of the whole ‘hide your feelings until you’ve repressed them’ thing. This is often to his detriment. But he also knows stewing in Steve’s discomfort until Steve decides to get over it is going to drive him mad before they can do anything about their supernatural problems or Jason.
He makes the - probably unwise - decision that they just ought to talk about it.
Of course, he’s not a monster. He lets Steve get a few slices of pizza and a beer into Risky Business (an oddly horny movie for their situation) before he speaks up. Trying to bring it up in a roundabout way, he laughs to himself a little around the mouth of his beer bottle.
“Better be sure not to break another one of these. I’m sure you’ve had enough brushes with death for one day.”
Steve’s glance flits over to him, bug-eyed. Clearly nervous. He visibly swallows, eyes dipping down to Eddie’s fingers - unusually naked without his rings, still on the bathroom counter - around the bottle, back up to his face. “Uh,” he says eloquently, “Yeah.”
“How many times have you had an adrenaline rush because of something that happened with all this crazy supernatural shit? Any injuries, any near death experiences?” Eddie asks, hoping for his tone to be neutral and not leading.
“Surprisingly? It’s been scary, but… most of the more serious threats against me have been people, y’know? Billy Hargrove, Jonathan Byers, some Russian soldiers… I’ve gotten my face beaten in half a dozen times since all this shit kicked off, easily.”
Eddie can’t help the incredulity in his tone, “Jonathan Byers? Really? Didn’t know he had it in him.”
“Yeah,” Steve shrugs, “I didn’t either. Until he jumped me. Thought you’d be more surprised by the Russian soldiers.”
“After today,” Eddie says sincerely, “I don’t think anything like that would surprise me. And honestly, I felt like something was off when the Hawkins Lab got shut down and the mall burned down. Felt like a cover up, even if I couldn’t figure out why. But I’m something of a conspiracy theorist, so no one takes my theories on stuff like that seriously.”
He takes a long pull from his beer. Steve’s eyes are on him, he can feel it. Fascinated by the shine of the glass, by the bob of his throat.
Eddie clears his throat, wrapping his fingers around the neck of the bottle.
“So, all that adrenaline from getting your block knocked off, that give you any weird side effects?”
Steve (adorably) tilts his head, confused.
“You know,” Eddie presses on, “Adrenaline junkie shit. A sudden penchant for skydiving or amusement parks, chasing violence or a thrill however you can get it. Does it make you feel dizzy? Get your motor running?”
Steve’s frame locks up, just for a second. He tries to melt back into casual posture, Eddie can tell, but it’s off. He refuses to look at Eddie as he says, “Sometimes.”
Eddie exhales.
“Alright, let me cut to the chase with it then. I understand if I need to find new arrangements if this living situation makes you uncomfortable, but I just gotta be honest because I hate all this awkward tension when there’s already so much shit to be anxious about.”
Steve’s staring down at his own hands. He nods.
“I saw you earlier,” Eddie says, and Steve just nods again, “I’m sorry I invaded your privacy, I swear that wasn’t my intention. I just got really worried because you were taking a long time, and I kept thinking about the last time I let someone out of my sight for more than a few minutes, and… Well, I saw you. And I just want you to know that um, I won’t tell anyone.”
At that, Steve looks up at him, a little wide eyed. Another nod, an unspoken ‘thank you’.
“But,” Eddie adds, and the tension snaps back into place, Steve averting his gaze, “I’d also like to know if I um. Played any role in that because, well. You kept touching your neck where I… you know. And there’s a cut there, which I don’t remember making, but if it’s there, then… You know. Did I do that? Does it have anything to do with the fact that I did it specifically?”
Steve’s voice comes out raspy, “Why does it matter?”
Eddie rushes to answer, “It doesn’t have to, if you don’t want it to. I’m not asking because I’m mad or because I’ll be upset with you or uncomfortable or try to fight you or anything. I’m just asking because I guess I need to know what level of awkwardness I’m in for. Like if you’re going to… I don’t know, blame me. Or get mad at me for making you feel like this. For making you weird like me. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Against all odds, Steve seems to be considering this, “Weird how?”
“Like. I don’t want to presume, but into pain. Into guys giving you that pain.”
There’s a beat of tense silence. Steve seems to be fighting with himself over the right thing to say, tense and embarrassed and maybe even a little aroused if the way he’s fidgeting is any indication. He’s still looking down at his own hands as a smirk appears, and he says, “So, you know what I just said about Jonathan and Billy? Not exactly my first brush with pain. Not even with it being doled out by a hot guy.”
Eddie’s brain short circuits at those last two words.
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Steve agrees, “Oh.”
“So you…?” Eddie can’t find the right phrasing, but Steve seems to pick up on his meaning.
“Yeah,” Steve repeats, “I mean, I wasn’t really planning on telling anyone or doing anything about it before now, but um. Yeah. I think being boxed into a situation like that makes me feel very safe? And I know that makes no sense, but I just. I feel so uneven all the time. I don’t know how much I matter to other people, or if I even do. Something about being pinned down and hurt by someone, someone exerting their strength and winning out to me? It makes me feel at least certain about one thing. I know where I stand with that guy in that moment. Isn’t that kind of fucked up?”
Eddie shrugs.
“Fucked up is relative.”
It shouldn’t be easy to just ease their way back into silence and finish the movie. It shouldn’t feel less tense than it did before Steve first stepped into the boathouse. But that’s exactly how it plays out. Steve seems oddly soothed by Eddie’s nonchalant acceptance. It’s not as though Eddie is completely normal about it; he keeps stealing glances at Steve when he thinks Steve isn’t looking, as Steve gnaws on his thumb nail and stares blankly at the screen. The energy between them is frenetic, but oddly not in a way that makes Eddie nervous. He can feel his blood rushing through his veins, his fingers longing to reach out and touch, but he stays still.
The credits start rolling, and Steve looks back at Eddie for the first time in at least half an hour, grinning crooked. “Thanks,” he says, “For being cool about it.”
“Well,” Eddie says, searching for the right words, “It’d make me a hypocrite if I weren’t cool about it, wouldn’t it?”
Steve’s eyes widen with acknowledgement, “You did say… about when I was wondering how I would be weird like you. You said ‘into guys giving you pain’ right? I didn’t mean to gloss over that, sorry. I just wanted you to know that I wasn’t going to judge you for it by showing my own hand, if that makes sense.”
It does.
“I keep,” Eddie stops himself from speaking from a moment, feeling his face go red. His knees are jiggling, fingers tapping on his own thighs. He takes a breath and tries again, “I just keep thinking about wanting to um. Touch you? But I don’t know if I want to cross that line because, well. I don’t want to take advantage.”
Steve tips his head, seeming to think that over, “I don’t think you really have much leverage over me in this situation. Like, if anything, it’s the opposite. So I don’t think you could take advantage. At least, not in a way I didn’t want.”
Keeping his cool takes everything Eddie has in him. He doesn’t know where to put his hands or where to look anymore. If he looks at Steve, he’s absolutely gonna lose it. “You want me to… I mean, it wasn’t just about pushing you against the wall, the cut on your neck, but also there’s the me specifically aspect? You’re into that? Into me?”
Steve shrugs, “I don’t wanna lie, man. We barely know each other. But even though you were ready to hurt me if you had to in the boathouse, I saw the fear in your eyes, and I just. Wanted to protect you, you know? But if you wanted to push me down and like hold me there for a minute and like… maybe touch my cock while you do it, I wouldn’t be opposed. You. Seem cool? Well maybe cool isn’t the right word, but. I trust you. And you’re honestly pretty hot. And I don’t see myself getting any other opportunities to fuck around with another dude any time soon. Do you?”
The logic is sound. That’s the confounding part. Eddie’s shared classes with Steve before, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Steve doesn’t know the difference between an isosceles or scalene triangle, he probably hasn’t read a book since graduation, but… He can be smart where it counts.
Where it counts being getting someone to touch his dick, of course.
Apparently, though, Eddie stays quiet a beat too long, lost in thought, because Steve gets all red-faced and fidgety and finally says, “Look, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I mean, we don’t even really know each other right? But. I thought getting off earlier might help me clear my head, but I think maybe it did the opposite, because I can’t stop thinking about it now either.”
“So,” Eddie grins, “Should we, uh… make out about it maybe? See what happens?”
Steve nods.
They both lean in.
-
Ten minutes later, Steve’s shirt is off and across the room and Eddie’s licked the cut on his neck half a dozen times, sending a shiver up Steve’s spine every single time.
They haven’t really progressed beyond kissing, not yet. Instead, they sit on the couch with their knees pointed towards one another, leaning into the middle to kiss. It seemed for a moment when Eddie stuck his fingers up under the hem of Steve’s shirt and cocked an eyebrow that things might escalate, but… they’re still just kissing.
Eddie’s letting his hands roam up and down Steve’s torso a bit more, maybe, enjoying the little gasps from finding the soft curve of Steve’s waist and pulling him closer. And maybe Steve was the first to veer off from Eddie’s mouth, to gently scrape his teeth over the column of Eddie’s throat. But it’s all firmly in over-the-pants territory, and Eddie’s starting to feel a little silly. It’s like they’re kids kissing at a friend’s house party and not two dudes in their twenties who have basically already agreed to fuck.
In different circumstances, it might be romantic. Eddie would be lying if said he wasn’t besotted with Steve despite not knowing a damn thing about him beyond Steve being ‘cool’ by Dustin’s incredibly dubious standards, and ‘hot’ by the general standards of their peers. Which, to be fair, seem a bit more grounded in reality, at least in this instance. But Steve kinda shot the twisty, tenuous feeling Eddie might have otherwise felt in the foot by basically saying ‘you’re hot and you’re here, let’s do this.’
And that’s not a bad thing, exactly.
For one thing, Eddie’s agreed to these terms. He could very easily have been like ‘feeling’s mutual but I’m just not down for this right now,’ and he can tell that things would not become any more awkward than they already were.
For another, while not romantic, it’s kinda… nice that they’re giving each other warm up time, getting a feel for one another. Hopefully, staying with Steve until this is over means it won’t be the last time they do this, so it’s better to go reasonably slow at first, to make one another comfortable. It feels very ‘common human decency,’ in a way that doesn’t really line up with Steve’s casanova reputation, but it does line up with what Eddie’s learned about him in the past couple of hours.
So it’s a little disappointing when Steve pulls away, says, “Sorry.”
More than a little disappointing.
In fact, Eddie’s horrified for a moment that Steve’s apology is going to be followed by an admission that he’s just not as into this - or as into Eddie - as he initially thought he’d be, that he’d rather they just didn’t keep this up.
“Sorry?” Eddie asks, instead of letting the anxiety take over.
Steve chuckles, clearly a little nervous, “I just… I keep feeling this impulse to let muscle memory take over and push you down and be the dominant one because that’s what I usually do, right? But with you, I’m just kinda waiting for you to take the lead, yeah? But also like… when’s a good time for you to just do that, you know?”
Eddie does know. He gets it. They’re sitting at least a foot apart, leaning in to neck like middle schoolers. It’s hard to let passion take hold and change the dynamic that far that fast. So he asks, “You wanna… reset the scene, maybe?”
“Reset the scene?”
“Yeah,” Eddie explains, “Like, since the vibe is kinda off, but we both still wanna keep going, what we can do instead is… Um. Say I walk away, go in the bathroom, wash my hands or something, we’re both out of each other’s heads and minds for just a minute, and then I come back in and just. Go for what you want me to do, right? Get a hold of the direction we’re going in right at the beginning so things don’t get awkward.”
There’s a beat before Steve leans away, smiles at him crookedly, looks at him from beneath his lashes and nods.
That has the potential to be dangerous.
Before Eddie lets himself be drawn back in by the look Steve’s giving him, he jumps off the couch, all but jogging over to the bathroom.
“Wait!” Steve blurts, “Should I put my shirt back on?”
Eddie turns to look at Steve, half standing and unsure, looking around the room for wherever it was flung. “Nah,” Eddie tells him, “Less work for me in the long run.”
Before he can overthink it, he winks.
Then he closes the door.
-
Eddie takes one last, deep breath in the bathroom. Looks himself in the mirror.
He looks insane.
His freshly dried hair looks ridiculous and poofy and pulled all to hell from Steve’s hands. His lips are spit-slicked and swollen and he has a raging, uncontrollable blush spreading across his cheeks.
Never mind the raging, uncontrollable boner currently tenting his sweatpants.
Steve’s sweatpants, actually. Which, yeah, that’s… certainly not helping him get a grip.
“We’re gonna go out there,” Eddie murmurs at his reflection, “And we’re gonna push Steve up against the nearest surface and kiss him til he begs for more and then we’re gonna give it to him. We’re not gonna wimp out. We’re not gonna mess up. Got it?”
He nods at himself.
And then he wrenches the door open.
Steve jolts to his feet, also still blushing, and looks like he’s fixing to say something. Before he can manage that, though, Eddie’s across the room, hauling him by the shoulders into the far wall, bracketing him in with one hand while the other’s pressed to his neck.
Just like the boathouse.
Or well, almost.
Eddie strokes the cut on Steve’s neck with a careful fingertip, slots his thigh in between Steve’s shaking legs, and presses in. This time he kisses open-mouthed and hungry, the occasional nip of teeth or the stroke of a tongue always setting something new tingling. The angle’s perfect this time, the way Steve immediately clings to his back for what little leverage that can provide, gasping and groaning into Eddie’s mouth like he’d been fucking starving.
“This better?” he asks, and although it’s a genuine question, his tone is an octave lower than normal, his voice gravelly, his tone almost condescending.
Steve shudders, “Oh, fuck yeah.”
The hand boxing Steve into the corner moves then, coming up to cup his jaw and pull him almost painfully close for another kiss, before dipping down to his waist. Squeezing. Pressing. Eddie feels Steve’s hips arch up once his spine is flush with the wall, and responds in kind, grinding his own hips down. For the first time, he can really feel how hard Steve is, and it’s earth-shattering.
His hand continues its journey down, skirting the elastic waistband of Steve’s shorts. Steve shudders and groans into the gesture, and Eddie can feel Steve’s abdomen constrict under his palm.
Before Eddie can ask, Steve all but whines, “Please.”
Well then.
Not much else to do but oblige.
Eddie slides his fingers fully underneath, finding no underwear. Which true, a lot of guys just preferred to sleep commando in general, but Eddie couldn’t help but find it a little flattering, like maybe Steve was hoping for an opening, hoping to be easy access for Eddie to press him up against something and find him ready and willing under one flimsy layer of clothing.
Pulling the drawstring he finds at the center of the waistband, Eddie wrenches the elastic away from Steve’s hips, leaving the shorts in a pool at Steve’s feet. He takes a step back to take in the view, hand on Steve’s neck still holding him firmly in place.
“Goddamn,” Eddie says appreciatively, “You’re a walking wet dream, Harrington.”
And it was true. Steve was dotted with moles and freckles, his skin lightly sunkissed aside from the tan lines where his shorts would’ve been, the paleness of his upper thighs and between his legs. It contrasted nicely with the soft red at the head of Steve’s flushed pink cock, glistening at the tip. Eddie’s mind stilled for just a moment, watching it bob enticingly at him from a thick bunch of dark brown curls.
“Eddie,” Steve whines, reaching out.
Immediately buckling at Steve’s tone, Eddie let Steve draw him back in by fisting his t-shirt and pulling. He nuzzles the side of Steve’s face gently, humming his appreciation for Steve’s desperation. But as soon as he’s close enough, he grabs Steve’s wrists and pins them above his head, holding them with one hand. “Stay,” he orders.
Steve nods frantically, even as he tries to extend his neck far enough to capture Eddie’s lips in another kiss. He whines a little, seemingly in spite of himself.
Eddie can’t help but laugh as he leans just out of Steve’s reach, sending another full body shudder through Steve, one that Eddie can feel from being pressed so close again. “You want me to be a little mean?”
Steve nods again.
“Okay, sweetheart,” Eddie all but giggles, lost in the head rush of having Steve Harrington of all people completely at his mercy. “I can be mean.”
He leans in and nips at the cut on Steve’s neck. Not harshly enough to actually break the skin, but certainly enough to bring the sting of it back, to set Steve shuddering under Eddie’s hands once more. One of his hands was still clamped around both of Steve’s wrists when the other, finally, traces the jut of Steve’s hip, sliding through dark curls before ever so gently circling the base of Steve’s cock.
Steve gasps.
“This is so fucking weird,” Steve says reverently as Eddie strokes him, causing Eddie to laugh against his neck.
“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, “but what would normal even look like for people like us at this point?”
And then he drops to his knees.
“Keep your hands above your head,” he orders, low, and Steve obliges with a nod. Eddie looks at Steve’s cock head on, the silky taught skin on the insides of his thighs, the sparse dusting of hair at the crease between his legs and his groin. It’s all so beautiful. He darts his tongue out to taste, flicking over the head of Steve’s cock, sliding it down the length, burying his nose in Steve’s pubic hair and tonguing Steve’s balls.
Steve jolts at that, with an, “Oh my god, what the fuck–”
Eddie chuckles, “The ladies don’t give your balls a lot of attention, huh?”
The shake of his head that Steve manages is miniscule, but Eddie still catches it. “Hm, well you don’t have to worry about that with me,” he says, pressing sloppy, open-mouthed kisses back up Steve’s dick, “I know exactly how good it feels.”
Without any more bravado, he takes Steve’s dick in his mouth. Just the tip at first, getting a solid feel for the weight of it on his tongue before bobbing further down. And then further down. Even further still, working out a rhythm. All too soon, he feels Steve’s thighs start to shake, feels his muscles tense. Steve start’s babbling:
“Oh fuck Eddie, oh my god, holy shit, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck—”
Eddie smiles around his cock, gently rolling his balls in one hand and gently pressing down on his own hardness from over his sweatpants with the other. Watching Steve adjust to this, fall in line under Eddie’s scrutiny, come apart under his hands… It's fascinating. The tips of Steve’s fingers are scrabbling frantically at the wall above his head, shaking with the effort of staying aloft, following Eddie’s orders with single-minded determination. His hips jut up from the wall every few thrusts, seemingly involuntary, lacking in any regular rhythm.
Something about that lights a flame within Eddie, something feral and animalistic, something deeply longing. He wants more, he wants whatever Steve will let him have, and the fact that Steve looks for all the world as though he’d let Eddie do whatever he wants seems to have broken down the floodgates of Eddie's desire.
Almost impulsively, Eddie pops off of Steve’s dick with a resounding pop, and orders, his voice rough with the abuse of his throat, “Bend over the couch.”
=
Steve complies before Eddie can even get to his feet, bent over the arm of the couch, ass in the air, back arched. It just about takes Eddie’s breath away. Instead of getting lost in the image, he darts into the bathroom, swiping at the Vaseline he found under the sink, bringing it back out into the living room as he unscrews the top, flinging the lid across the room somewhere.
“Eddie?” Steve asks, face half buried in a cushion, voice laced with anxiety.
“You know why I told you to lay yourself out like this for me, sweetheart?”
Steve hums, although whether it’s in sincere or feigned contemplation, Eddie can’t be totally sure, “You… wanna fuck me?”
“Bingo,” Eddie allows, pulling off his own shirt, kicking the sweats and boxers he’d been wearing across the room, “But if you aren’t ready to go that far, it’s okay, alright? We can still do plenty of stuff the way I’ve got you set up right now.”
Steve tips back just enough to look back at Eddie ruefully, “I mean, I’m nervous, but. We’re not exactly spoiled on time here.”
Eddie raises an eyebrow at him, “You sure?”
The look Steve gives him, the heat and desire it’s laced with, is indescribable in simple terms. He wiggles his hips once, slow and deliberate even as Eddie scoops the jar of Vaseline back up and gently takes one of Steve’s hips in hand, “If I weren’t sure, you wouldn’t have been able to get me to bend over in the first place. Knew as soon as you asked that this is what I wanted. Probably before that, really.”
“Aw,” Eddie says, breaking contact with Steve’s hip to place a hand over his own heart, “Blowing me a way with your smoothness, Harrington. Truly. You sure you don’t want me to pin you back up to the wall, like in the boathouse?”
Steve’s blush, creeping even to the back of his neck, is all the answer Eddie needs.
“Maybe once you get me ready,” Steve admits.
Eddie takes that as permission enough, sliding two fingers through the Vaseline before placing that hand at the small of Steve’s back, “It gets to be too much, or I do anything you don’t like? Speak up. I know we’re kind of on a trial basis here, but I don’t mind trying different stuff to get this to work out as good as possible for both of us.”
“Just do it, Eddie,” Steve hisses, arching his back a bit more, burying his face in the cushion once more.
The playful slap Eddie gives Steve’s left asscheek might be pushing things a little, but between Steve wanting Eddie to be mean and boss him around, Eddie’s pretty sure he’s reading the room right. His suspicions are confirmed when Steve shudders and groans into the cushion.
“Don’t be a brat,” Eddie warns him.
He runs a teasing, slicked finger over Steve’s hole, playing with the rim just a bit. Steve’s still rock hard, his cock bobbing between his legs, head occasionally grazing the arm of the couch when his hips sway a little too far. Like when Eddie presses the pad of his finger in, for example, chuckling as Steve whines from these sensations.
Eddie slides his first finger in to the bottom knuckle easily, working it in and out, Steve driving his hips back for more friction.
“How’s it feel?” Eddie asks, petting Steve’s hip with his unoccupied hand, pressing kisses to his shoulder blades.
“Weird,” Steve allows, voice muffled, “Not bad, want more, just. Weird.”
That’s as much a go ahead as Eddie imagines he’ll get, so the next time he inserts one finger, he adds a second alongside it. He feels Steve tense, just a bit, before he bottoms out and Steve’s hips flex back against them, hungry for more.
“That good?” Eddie checks in again, rubbing calming circles into Steve’s lower back.
“Yeah,” Steve says, tilting his head to the side and taking a deep breath, “Want more. Want you to pull me over up against the wall again.”
“You okay if I pull you by the hair?”
There’s a pronounced pause.
Eddie laughs a little, retracting his fingers, slathering them in more vaseline and then stroking his own cock with a newly slickened hand. “Alright,” he acquiesces, only a little breathy, “Cool with me grabbing you by the neck then?”
“Hair’s fine,” Steve mutters, “Just don’t yank any out.”
“Say no more,” Eddie replied, sinking the fingers of his unoccupied hand into Steve’s artfully askew tresses, finding purchase a few centimeters from the root, fingertips brushing against Steve’s sensitive scalp before curling into a loose fist and pulling.
The grip is solid, the hand sure and steady, leaving Steve no choice than to surrender his movement to it immediately, arching his back until he’s upright again, unstable feet walking him backwards until he’s unceremoniously thrown up against the wall. Before he can get his bearings, Eddie’s hooking a hand under his left knee and pulling, until his weight is balanced on the wall and the tips of the toes on his right side.
“This probably isn’t the most comfortable position to start off with,” Eddie allows diplomatically, “So if you end up wanting to do something else, just say the word.”
Steve gives a stubborn shake of his head, “Kinda want it to hurt.”
Eddie hums at that, pushes Steve’s right thigh a bit, spreading the V between his legs just a bit more, and lines up his cock. Brushes it against Steve’s entrance once or twice before the tip catches enough for him to no longer be able to put it off. He sinks himself in a little at a time. Slow. Careful. Steve’s arms come up to wrap around his shoulders for leverage as he seemingly tries to spread himself even wider, accepting even more of Eddie inside of him.
“Fuck,” Eddie hisses as he bottoms out, teeth gritted and fingernails leaving divots in the skin under Steve’s knee. “You’re so tight.”
“Feels good,” Steve answers, “Hurts a little, but feels full.”
Eddie kisses him again, and even then, it’s different. It’s not awkward teenagers necking in their friends’ basement, shyly and sloppily slotting their mouths together. It’s not desperate, horny twenty somethings, all teeth and tongues. It’s slow, indulgent, timeless, the perfect balance of heat and passion and sensuality.
While Steve adjusts to the full length of Eddie inside of him, they kiss like they might on a wedding night. Indulgent and passionate, but not desperate, not messy. It’s in stark contrast to the rest of their bodies, Steve’s heaving chest, the slickness of Vaseline smeared on the inside of one of his thighs, or Eddie’s all-consuming feeling that he’s about to vibrate out of his own skin. The kiss is everything the moment is not, everything they can’t say, everything it would be foolish and illogical to feel so strongly so soon. Their bodies revel in this brand new experience, their mouths are making promises to one another that should probably never be voiced.
Then, Steve groans, “Move,” and Eddie does, and the world spins even further on its axis.
Sliding back out from this delicious, all consuming, velvety heat, Eddie finds himself never wanting to leave, imagines himself fucking Steve over every available surface of this house, even right in front of the windows, unobstructed, claiming Steve for everyone else to see. On each thrust, he imagines a different position, a different room. Missionary in Steve’s room, Steve riding him on the living room couch, doggy style on the stairs, one of Steve’s legs drawn up against Eddie’s chest as he fucks him open on the kitchen counter, bent back over the basement couch, driving his cock into Steve while he’s face down on the carpet, hands and knees scrambling for leverage, begging for more.
He wants more, wants it all, wants it all of the time.
Would’ve wanted it in the boathouse, if Steve had been quicker on the uptake, would’ve chased everyone else out and fucked him up against the wall then and there just to cleanse his mind of all the other fucked up shit going on in their lives for a good five minutes.
“Steve,” he groans, pushing his hand from the back of Steve’s knee to the back of his thigh, spreading him open just a bit further, pressing down just enough to get a little more leverage, knowing his fingerprints will probably leave bruises later, “You feel so fucking good.”
“You feel good,” Steve counters, using his leverage on Eddie’s shoulders to angle himself up just a bit, drive his hips back down as Eddie thrusts up, creating delicious, borderline painful friction, friction that Eddie chases with a widening of his eyes, “Feel so good in me, Eddie, I knew you would. Knew you’d know what to do, to just put me where you wanted to and make me take it.”
“You’d let me, wouldn’t you?” Eddie asks as his pace quickens, feeling Steve’s thighs flex with overexertion, “If I’d have seen fit in that boathouse, you’d’ve let me run everyone else off and spread you open and take you right there, fuck you so hard you can’t help but scream my name, couldn’t help but beg for it even like that. Would’ve wanted me to keep that bottle pressed to your neck the whole time, yeah?”
Steve nods, “Oh my god, Eddie, I wanted it so bad. Wanted you so bad from the second you touched me like that, I can’t take it.”
They both know they’re embellishing, just a little. Eddie knows he was in no state to have put the moves on anyone in the boathouse, knows that it took a minute for Steve to come around and trust him. If he’d have tried anything, Steve probably would’ve kicked his ass and taken everyone and left him to get arrested, innocence be damned.
But there’s something hot about that, too, about the fantasy being just a fraction of an inch removed from reality. The fact that Eddie can go from this dubiously untrustworthy dude to someone gifted with the honor of being the first person to take Steve apart the way he is in a matter of hours? It’s dangerous in a safe way, the way their implicit trust and attraction have torn down walls it’d take months to demolish in any other circumstance.
“You can take it,” Eddie insists, “You’re gonna take it everywhere I wanna give it to you, right sweetheart?”
Steve whimpers.
“Where do you want it next?” Eddie continues, “In the shower? Your bed? The basement bedroom? The couch, the floor, the kitchen counter?”
“Anywhere,” Steve pleads, “Anywhere you want to give it to me, just please don’t stop.”
“Oh don’t worry,” Eddie promises, “Not stopping any time soon. Gonna mark you up and fuck you anywhere I can think of, gonna cut you open again all nice and pretty under me.”
“So fucked up,” Steve groans, but his eyes are rolling back in his head as he says it, so it’s not exactly reading like a complaint or a criticism, “God, Eddie, want you to hurt me—”
So Eddie does.
He pulls out, grabs Steve by the neck, pets the pretty little scar on his neck with calloused fingertips and then pulls him back over to the couch. Arranges Steve so he’s sitting on the arm of the couch with his legs spread wide. “Hook your hands under your knees,” he orders, “I’ll hold you by the waist so you don’t fall.”
Steve complies instantly, body bared and open, hole gaping and red and twitchy as he catches his breath, waiting to be reentered. Eddie appreciates the view for just a moment until his grip on Steve’s waist tightens and he lines his hips up, sliding back in.
This angle immediately does something new to Steve, his pine straightening and legs twitching as Eddie bottoms out inside of him. “Holy shit,” he breathes, and Eddie agrees. This new angle is probably a little sluttier and more embarrassing from a third party perspective than just being pressed up against the wall, but it’s also easier access and more comfortable. Eddie doesn’t have to worry about losing his grip on Steve’s knee or Steve’s thigh cramping up when the worst possible case scenario is Steve just falling backwards onto the couch.
And if that happens, Eddie will just follow him over, rearrange him as quick as possible and plow back in as Steve just lays on his back with his legs wide open, taking it.
But it doesn’t happen, instead Eddie’s hands provide all the balance Steve needs and more, to the point where Steve reaches out briefly from holding his own legs apart to grab one of Eddie’s wrists, dragging the hand up to his throat.
“Touch it,” he whines, and Eddie doesn’t have to be told twice, pressing his thumb into the cut, just above Steve’s adams apple. Feels his breath catch, feels the full shudder of Steve’s body as the tip of Eddie’s thumb nail scratches over the scabbed flesh, whimpering as the skin pulls.
“Fuck,” Eddie gasps as he fucks into him, leaning forward to kiss him again, “You’re a little bit of a whore, huh Harrington?”
“So I’ve been told,” Steve grins, breathless, “Although I’ve been thinking about retiring lately.”
“Yeah?” Eddie cocks his head, his thrusts becoming slower, more deliberate, “Why’s that?”
“Been thinking about becoming a one-man whore a lot lately,” Steve admits, “When you find what you need, why would you want to settle for less anywhere else?”
Eddie doesn’t know how to feel. It’s a bit ridiculous to feel shy in this circumstance, balls deep in a dude who’s implying that he’s really interested in just fucking you for the indefinite future, but somehow, Eddie manages it. He can feel his cheeks heating up, feels his expertly calculated pace stutter, feels the crooked grin breaking across his face without his permission, “Yeah?”
Steve grins back at him, “Yeah. I mean, it might be on a sort of probationary basis, pending him getting his shit together and fucking me til I can’t keep saying dumb shit while my emotions are compromised but. It looks promising.”
The only thing Eddie can do in light of that is comply. He pulls back til he’s standing pretty much upright, legs bracketing Steve’s hips and bent at the knee, and fucks like his life’s depending on it. Steve can’t do much more than take it, his hands clamping once more to the backs of his thighs and spreading himself back open with several short, stuttered gasps.
Once Eddie gets his rhythm back, he asks, “Like this?”
“Just like that, Eddie, oh fuck–” and then with a muffled cry, Steve comes, untouched, all over his stomach. “Fuck,” he whispers as his cock continues to twitch, “Eddie, keep going, don’t stop, want you to come in me.”
It doesn’t take long for Eddie to deliver on that front either, feeling his own length truly enveloped as Steve’s hole contracts around him, all but milking his own orgasm from him. Steve’s gone a bit limp with his own release, legs dangling loosely around Eddie’s hips, eyes fluttering closed, fingers seeking purchase on Eddie’s upper arms as Eddie just keeps going until he’s fully spent.
Before the comedown can take hold, Eddie leans forward and kisses Steve again, soft and slow and sweet, possibly the most chaste kiss of the evening. Steve kisses back, his arms climbing upward to wrap around Eddie’s neck, tipping them both back onto the couch cushions. They kiss, languid and lazy until they drift off together like that, Eddie still inside.
Clean up, along with a dozen other things, can wait until tomorrow.