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i'm a fish swimming by (catch me if you want me)
“Stevie? S’everything okay?”
“Uh — yeah, of course. I’m just —uh. I’m kidnapping you.”
Honestly, there was probably a better way to pitch that, but once the decision had been made — in what felt like practically a literal instant— Steve hadn’t really planned much beyond the whole get out of Hawkins before his head actually maybe exploded thing .
Because he had fully intended on escaping for the weekend all by his lonesome, until he’d driven past the Forest Hills Trailer Park sign with its cracked wood and faded, peeling paint, and he’d found himself pulling off the road without a second thought, tires squealing through spraying gravel from the last-minute turn.
And now he’s standing here on Eddie’s still-slightly-crumbling front porch steps at half past the ass crack of dawn like a friggin’ idiot. Or a lunatic, maybe. That’s kind of how Eddie’s looking at him at least, although, to be honest, that could be the fact that Eddie’s clearly just rolled out of bed. Looks it, at least, those trademark big brown eyes of his narrowed to bleary squints and dressed in a pair of pajama pants, red plaid and a little too short, revealing bony ankles and, what Steve realizes with an inexplicable pang in his chest at the sight, is a tattoo Steve hasn’t noticed before (which is pretty impressive, considering Steve’s sort of become an expert on Eddie Munson’s tattoos, what with all the pathetic pining he’s been doing all summer). It’s some kind of flower, he thinks. Delicate and pale pink, a little ribbon (in pretty recognizable green and gold) tied around a delicate stem.
It’s pretty. Like the rest of Eddie, his brain so unhelpfully provides. How long has it been since he’s said anything?
Steve is gonna throw himself off the porch.
“My parents have this lake house they don’t use anymore, and I’m just — I gotta — I’m getting out of here for the weekend, okay? And I thought, I don’t know…I thought you might want to —”
“You — you want me to go with you?”
Yes, Steve thinks desperately. A million times yes. Was the yes, god, yes! part somehow not obvious or something? “Uh. Yep. I mean, if you, like, want to, or whatever.”
Oh yeah, you’ve definitely still got it, Dingus, that voice that sounds suspiciously like Robin needles at him. You are so totally nailing this.
“Where’s Robin? Are we stopping to get her?” Eddie asks, brows furrowed in what Steve feels like is completely undeserved suspicion. Especially considering the fact that it’s Eddie who's looking at him that way.
“She’s not coming. I love her more than life itself, but if I have to hear the name Vickie one more time in the next 48 hours, I’m going to go back to the Upside Down.” Maybe that’s kind of harsh, but considering Steve has done nothing else but pine for the past two months, he’s a little tired of hearing about how great Vickie is, how great kissing her is, how great dating her is.
it’s not even the Vickie of it all. It’s the fact that Steve’s been experiencing a severe lack of kissing lately, okay?
It’s kind of starting to get to him.
Eddie’s face splits into a grin, all mischief. It doesn’t help with the kissing thing at all. “Interesting. I wasn’t aware the umbilical cord stretched that far.”
Steve rolls his eyes and gives him a halfhearted flip of the bird, but he’s smiling even as he’s following Eddie into the trailer after being invited inside with a sarcastically dramatic wave of his arms.
“Well, if you’re really gonna kidnap me, we gotta leave a ransom note for Wayne.”
“I think we can manage that,” Steve says with a laugh, somehow already feeling lighter despite the fact that they haven’t even passed the now leaving Hawkins sign.
Eddie has surprisingly few questions, at least not until Steve’s thrown Eddie’s hastily packed duffle into the trunk of the beamer and they’ve piled back inside. Not until they’re back on the road, the town that’s felt more like a noose around both their necks fading farther and farther away with every foot of highway between them. Neither one of them speaks actually, not until Eddie wordlessly ejects Queen’s Greatest Hits from the car stereo and starts to go through the box of cassette tapes Steve keeps shoved under the seat, an unlit cigarette clamped between his teeth.
“Go ahead, Ed, I definitely wasn’t listening to that. Please, by all means, help yourself to my music collection,” Steve says, shaking his head at the way Eddie’s sitting, one leg tucked under him in a way that feels like it shouldn't actually be, like, physically possible when he’s wearing pants that tight (which, don’t think about how tight they are, Steve. Literally do not), the other propped up all akimbo on the dashboard. Inexplicably, he also has his shoes off, which would normally be a little gross if not for the fact that Steve can’t think much beyond the revelation that Eddie Munson’s got glittery, neon purple nail polish all over his toenails.
“Thanks, Stevie,” Eddie says, winking. “First rule of road tripping is picking the right vibe, you know.”
And yeah, okay, Eddie must notice him staring, because suddenly there’s a faint splash of pale pink, alarmingly pretty, staining those dimpled cheeks of his. “You like, Stevie? Been letting Red practice on me for all her physical therapy bullshit,” he says, baring teeth wider around the cig as he shoves his foot teasingly in front of Steve’s face, “I pull it off pretty well, doncha’ think?”
Steve has to actually bite his own tongue to stop himself from automatically answering what he’s really thinking, which is I think you pull off everything well. Which, oh my god, obviously a world of no on that right now. “Sure,” Steve says, feeling himself smiling despite the way he's also wrinkling his nose, because the thought of Eddie letting Max do that, being there for her — Yeah, okay. Steve is fucked. So fucked. “I also think you would pull shoes off really well. Especially when you wear them in my car instead of putting your dirty-ass feet on my dashboard.”
Eddie scoffs, all mock indignation. “Excuse you. You literally heard me take a shower, like. twenty minutes ago. These are pristine, baby,” he says, wiggling his toes.
Okay, it’s true. He did. And Steve definitely didn’t spend the better part trying not to think of Eddie like that. Naked. Wet. Dripping. Steve really should put some ejector seats in the BMW. They’d be pretty handy right about now. He could just press a button and hurl himself right into the sky. Problem fucking solved.
“I think — uh, I think it’s really nice, you know. That you’re helping her like that,” Steve says after a long moment of quiet, Eddie humming softly to himself while still rifling through the box, occasionally muttering under his breath and tossing another tape in the backseat to join what was quickly becoming, what Steve assumes, a sizable graveyard of rejected tunes, “ — with stuff. Her mom —”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, shrugging. Steve has a feeling he really does know. In more ways than one. “Been there. Plus,” he admits. “ — it’s kind of nice. Never had any siblings. Kind of like having, like, a little sister or whatever. I’m sure you get it, Stevie — since you’re Mr. Babysitter and all, right?”
“Right.” Steve rolls his eyes. “Why do you think I finally had to get the fuck out of there this weekend?”
Eddie rolls down the window and then there’s the metallic click of Eddie’s lighter, a puff of smoke curling above his head. “I guess I can think of more than a few reasons Steve Harrington might have to get out of Dodge. Supposed to be a hell of a heatwave, right?”
“Yeah,” Steve says, “and I really do care about those idiots most of the time, but if I have to spend another weekend cleaning up after Henderson and his band of ungrateful brats — always begging to use my pool and my AC for their little slumber parties or whatever — I’m gonna scream, dude —”
“I beg to use your pool and your AC all the time. Am I included in this ungrateful brat scenario?”
“I think you’d actually have to ask first in order to actually beg, Eds. And you tend to skip that step,” Steve says. “And — and I don’t think you’re a brat,” he adds, sputtering as he feels his face redden. “Brought you with me, didn’t I?”
The corners of Eddie’s mouth twitch, like he’s trying not to laugh. “Eh, give it a couple of hours. I bet I can change your mind.”
“I’m not gonna —” The words are out before his brain wises up. “I’d never get sick of you, Eddie.”
Maybe, like, six months ago that might’ve been the case. But the idea now — since Steve had dragged Eddie’s limp body through the gate that night, sat for days wringing useless hands with Dustin, with Wayne, at Eddie’s bedside while they waited and waited and waited, since he’d first felt that inexplicable sense of relief when he'd seen Eddie finally take a breath on his own, open his eyes, actually know where he was — it’s almost laughable.
Steve really kind of wishes Eddie had gone ahead and picked some music already so at least he wouldn’t have to hear those words fall out of his mouth and echo through the uncomfortably tomb-like silence that Steve feels like he can’t be the only one noticing. He has a vague, half-formed thought — if this was a tomb, I would be dead and then I wouldn't have to see Eddie’s face after casually admitting that.
But then again, Steve's, like, killed monsters and shit. Shouldn't he be able to say something as simple as I like you without every cell in his body drowning in adrenaline?
Apparently not.
It might be a very long weekend.
"Dude — are you okay?"
Eddie's voice startles him enough that he actually swerves a little accidentally, the beamer's tires squealing in protest when he over-corrects, jerking them a little too roughly back over the line. "Shit – fuck, sorry — "
But Eddie doesn't seem to care. Because he's laughing. Steve is pretty sure he's the one being currently laughed at, but at the same time, there's this look, this weird glint in Eddie's eyes that's…warm? Happy? Excited? Steve's not really sure, but what he is sure of? It's a look on Eddie's face he really wouldn't mind seeing again. "Of course you would be laughing at me for almost crashing the car and killing us both," Steve says, huffing.
Eddie's laughter turns slightly hysterical. Steve’s pretty sure there's actually snorting occurring now.
"Are you done?"
"Not even close," Eddie says, stubbing out his neglected, still-smoldering cigarette, shoulders still shaking slightly from his attempts to stop giggling. "I just — I can't believe I ever thought Steve Harrington was actually boring."
“Aren’t there worse things than being boring?” Steve offers, shrugging. “Is that really the worst thing someone can be?”
Eddie cocks his head and his expression shifts to something more serious. He stares, and Steve feels even more inexplicably put under the microscope, but whatever Eddie’s looking for, maybe he finds it. Or maybe not, because suddenly Eddie is leaning across the gearshift like this close and Steve feels that been-so-long-he’s-almost-forgotten feeling of his own stomach being swallowed up by the flapping wings of, like, a million stupid crush butterflies.
He might throw up. Hopefully not on Eddie.
Hopefully.
But it doesn’t matter. Steve doesn’t have time to do much of anything before Eddie is out of reach again, having apparently snatched Steve’s Ray-Bans right from his nose while Steve was busy having a breakdown, wearing another one of those shit-eating grins stretched ear to ear. “Nah, Harrington,” Eddie says, an errant wink the last thing Steve sees before those big, dumb doe eyes of his disappear behind dark frames. “I think boring’s the worst.”
,,,
Eddie very rarely shuts up, but he’s oddly quiet through the hour-or-so drive to the lake. It doesn’t seem like a bad quiet, at least — at least Steve doesn’t think so. Because it’s not like Indiana is all that big, but somehow the farther away from town they get, the lighter Steve feels. Maybe Eddie feels it too, Steve thinks, because everytime he takes his eyes off the road long enough to take a glance at him, there’s a look of something on his face. And maybe Steve can’t quite place it yet, but feels like maybe close to happy.
And if Steve’s stomach butterflies do a stupid little wiggle inside at the thought that he could be the reason for that, even if it’s like…a fraction of a percentage point of the reason...That’s something, right?
Is he going to consider how pathetic it is that just the possibility of something is enough for that warm feeling in his chest he gets lately just thinking about Eddie glow just a bit brighter?
No, he absolutely is not.
They reach the lake house just around lunchtime. It looks the same as Steve remembers — he may not have come here since he was a kid, but he knows his parents still pay someone to look after the place.
“Well, I hope that wasn’t too boring for you,” Steve teases as they step out of the car once he finally kills the engine.
“So boring.” Eddie says, attempting deadpan, but he can’t keep the dimpled smirk threatening to split the corners of his mouth tamped down enough to really sell it. And then, it’s like Steve might as well not exist, because suddenly his eyes light up when he spots the dock and he goes running for the water, stripping his shirt off as he goes.
“Hey! These bags aren’t gonna bring themselves in!”
“Can’t hear you!” Eddie hollers, and then there’s a splash. Steve sighs up at the sky. He hopes he stopped to take his shoes off first.
“Take a picture, Harrington. It’ll last longer,”
It was silly to hope. It was also very silly of Steve to think he would somehow be able to be chill enough during this whole thing to keep from blatantly staring at the very shirtless, very wet Eddie now currently dripping lake water all over the kitchen floor. Sure, he looked a little like a drowned rat, damp hair sticking in a funny way to his neck and the side of his face, but there were also the tattoos. And the scars. And the…everything.
Steve opens the cupboard door quick enough, hopefully, to hide what he can absolutely feel is the most obvious blush on his face as he shoves a box of cereal onto the shelf in front of him. “They make things called towels, Munson. Heard of them?”
Eddie doesn’t answer, but what he does do is grin, wolfishly and mischievously enough that Steve really should have expected what happens next, which is Eddie shaking his head of soggy curls right at Steve and splattering droplets all over him.
And the groceries.
And the kitchen.
“Dude!” Steve makes a face. “What are you, five?”
There’s that long, pale line of throat bared as Eddie tosses his head back and cackles.
Steve swallows. Loudly.
“Five and three quarters, thank you very much.”
“Yeah, okay,” Steve grumbles, wiping water out of his eyes, “ — I could believe that. You certainly have the diet of a literal child.”
“Do not!”
This time, it’s Steve laughing. “Munson, you picked out four bags of chips at the grocery store and, like, nothing else. Have you ever actually eaten anything from the bottom of the food pyramid? ”
Eddie flashes a mouthful of grinning teeth again. "Does chip salad count? Technically, a salad is just a bunch of shit mixed together in the same bowl, ergo—" he trails off with a particularly lascivious wink (that Steve — or Steve’s dick, rather — thinks a conversation about snacks absolutely does not warrant).
And yet,somehow the combined effect of it all is adorable as fuck…
But no, chip salad definitely doesn't count. "How do you not have scurvy, Ed?" Steve asks.
"Stubbornness — and a lot of Tang, probably."
Steve sighs. After putting Eddie to work wiping up his mess (and after rolling his eyes at Eddie’s embarrassingly accurate impression of him standing there with his hands on his hips so hard he almost blinds himself), Steve grabs the cooler from the car and proceeds to throw some things in it, resolving to fix this with a slightly new plan. No — well, maybe an addendum to the previously formed plan. The plan which Steve hadn’t even realized until, like, two seconds ago while staring at Eddie’s stupidly pretty face was an actual plan he’d made to begin with.
Which was apparently to full on have some sort of weird weekend boat date with Eddie. To like, woo him.
Steve resists the urge to go jump off the dock and just let the water take him.
He must’ve been standing there looking like an idiot for awhile, because the next thing he knows, Eddie’s got his chin resting on Steve’s shoulder and peering curiously over him into the cooler.
“What’s that shit for? Aren’t we just hanging around here?”
This is distracting for many reasons, only one of which is Eddie’s still damp and Steve’s dry and it’s a gross-feeling combination, but apparently not gross enough for Steve to want him to stop or move away in any capacity. “We’re going out on the boat.”
“Hold up Harrington — you have a boat?”
…
Steve had anchored them not too far from the little island he'd always gone to once he’d been old enough to drive the boat out by himself.
“I can’t believe you have a boat, too, Harrington. Man, you are like, so Miami
Vice right now. Hawkins Vice? Indiana Vice. Does any of that work?”
“Nope. And please put sunscreen on before your skin fries, Casper,” Steve says, reaching across the seat to the huck the bottle at him with one hand, the other still firmly around the handle of his fishing pole (“Fuck no, that’s not a euphemism, Eddie. Jesus christ, I’m going to catch our lunch with it.”).
Eddie’d had a joint between his lips the last time Steve had glanced in his direction (approximately four minutes ago), so he must have been too busy taking a hit to notice anything else, let alone somebody throwing something at him. So, Steve gets to laugh at the muffled fuck-shit-christ he hears while Eddie fumbles with the still-smoldering roach and the bottle at the same time and failing spectacularly at it.
“Looks like it’s too late for your brain, Eds. l think the delirium has already set in —”
Eddie offers a pouting glare when Steve finally looks back at him over his sunglasses. “Ha ha.”
Any sense of victory Steve has over this interaction is fleeting and Eddie knows this if his reappearing wicked grin means anything. “You do my back and I’ll do yours?”
Steve can’t tell if he’s joking or not, but the mere thought is enough to lead to so many worse (better?) thoughts. Thoughts involving warm skin and even warmer hands and maybe mouths, and Eddie pinned right where he — “No. Do it yourself,” Steve finally grits, shifting now in uncomfortably tight swim trunks.
“Mean.”
“I’m busy providing,” he growls, but really, can he even call it that? Steve’s still wearing sunglasses but he can see it anyway already in Eddie’s eyes, that knowing glint in them that he gets because this is the thing they do now. Whatever this is, Steve realizes. This thing where Steve says no but really, he means yes, and even if he doesn’t at first, he gets there in the end. Because as the months since Vecna have gone on, any resistance, any willpower he’s had to say no to Eddie has eroded away to nothing. Zilch.
Less than zero. Whatever that was. If that was a thing.
Eddie laughs, bark-like. “Yes, you’re the master provider, all right, Stevie-boy. It’s been half an hour and you haven’t even had a fuckin’ nibble. I just don’t think we’re gonna make it, man. The odds aren’t lookin’ good. We might starve out here,” he teases solemnly.
It’s been closer to an hour, really, so the estimation is a kind one. But it’s not like Eddie’s been truly suffering considering he’s on his second beer at least, and has already made it through half a bag of chips by himself (Steve had watched him shovel them into his mouth in a way that, somehow, despite being so oddly gremlin-like, he had found kind of endearing).
Steve’s brain is definitely the one getting fried out here.
“First of all, that’s not even that long. And second of all, you’re probably scaring off any fish because you can’t sit still or shut up for longer than five seconds.”
“I’ll shut up if you come over here.”
“No, you won’t.”
“No, I won’t,” Eddie agrees, but the grabby hands have come out and Steve is powerless.
The fishing pole is set aside and Steve makes his way over to Eddie and tries to mentally, like, will away his hard-on in the next thirty seconds.
Not that it really seems to matter, because he’s barely sat down for thirty seconds when he finds himself with a lap full of Eddie. Which apparently his dick has, like, zero issues with, but as far as knowing what the fuck is happening, well, it’s pretty obvious his brain’s current batting average is zero.
His mouth still works, only he kind of wishes it didn’t, because the first thing that tumbles out of it is, “This isn't your back.”
“I got bored,” Eddie says, wearing an entirely too satisfied smirk. But it falters slightly — Steve’s guessing the blank, wall-eyed stare he’s offering up has something to do with it, because Eddie starts to try to move, pull away. Steve’s brain might not be entirely up to code at the moment, but at least he’s reflexively smart enough to realize that’s the last thing he wants. His hands go to Eddie’s hips and hold tight.
“I didn’t say you had to move,” Steve says, trying not to wince at how breathless he already sounds. “Unless, you know — I’m boring you, now.” Steve's got enough self-confidence to hazard a guess that’s not true, but his stomach flips, nonetheless.
“No — “ Eddie starts, definitely, maybe a little uncertain, too, which is comforting, “I mean, I got bored waiting for you to kiss me.”
The last part comes out a little muffled because it ends up sort of pressed into Steve’s shoulder.
“Oh.” Steve's heart flutters.
“Yeah,” Eddie mutters, choosing to let his head fall with a soft sigh against Steve in a way that feels like it reaches right into his chest like a fist, squeezing his lungs.
It feels automatic, the way one of Steve’s hands finds its way into Eddie’s hair, gripping, pulling, gently and just enough that Eddie’s looking up at him. Wide-eyed. “Well, I had a plan. I think.”
“You think?”
“I mean, I do — I mean, I only just realized it, like, five minutes ago,” Steve says. Because I’m an idiot is the unspoken here.
“Oh,” Eddie says, giggling ( and, god, Steve just really fucking loves that sound). “So, you’re catching up, then?”
Steve smirks, pulls Eddie’s hair again. “You’re not surprised?”
Eddie grins back, all teeth. “Dude, you woke me up at the crack of dawn and whisked me away for, like, a fucking romantic weekend at the lake. Even I know that’s not something just bros do. I took an educated guess.”
“I — there was no whisking — “ Steve stutters. Okay, there basically was, he can sort of see that now. “You know, like I said, if you weren’t so impatient and stopped talking for like, five seconds, you’d let me, like, finish wooing you.”
Eddie rolls his eyes, groans. "Consider me wooed, man! I'm wooed! I wanna get to the good stuff!"
Steve raises an eyebrow and Eddie blushes, almost reflexively, and it’s just so pretty on him that Steve sort of blanks out — couldn’t tell you with a gun on him which one of them moved first.
Like it matters in the end when Eddie’s tongue slides past the seam of his lips, just as hot and urgent and searching as the hands Steve slides under Eddie’s shirt. It’s different than the girls he’s kissed — Eddie's lips are soft, but the kisses certainly aren’t. It’s hungry, rough and demanding, Eddie nipping his way down Steve’s throat, letting his teeth scrape unforgivingly across his collarbones.
Steve whines, less from the pain — that feels good, too good — and more from the fact that Eddie’s mouth is currently too busy leaving a trail down Steve’s bare chest to keep kissing him. Finally, Steve yanks Eddie’s hair to get his attention, hard enough to earn a growl that sparks like flint hitting steel all the way up his spine until his skin is covered in gooseflesh.
Steve’s pretty sure he’s never been as hard in his life when he feels Eddie continue to grind his hips into his, still seeking friction even when he’s staring right at him. And fuck, if Eddie was pretty before, god, the sight of him now, it sort of sucks all the air out of his lungs, like the way Steve used to get the wind knocked out of him sometimes playing basketball. Lips swollen, pale cheeks flushed the prettiest pink. Eyes with pupils so blown they practically look black.
Okay, so maybe Eddie had a point. About getting to the good stuff.
Because it’s so good when he gets Eddie to raise his arms enough to rid him of his shirt, when Steve gets to trace his scars with reverent lips and tongue and teeth — scars, so many of which seem a mirror image of the ones Steve always sees on his own skin (in a weird way — or maybe, maybe it’s not weird at all, Steve thinks, they just fit).
And it’s even better when he finally slides a palm past Eddie’s waistband, takes him in hand and starts to stroke. Because Eddie, he doesn’t seem shy about it all compared to the girls Steve’s been with. For one thing, he never shuts up, which is driving Steve crazy, because it’s not just more, like this, faster, harder.
It’s also Eddie murmuring, sweet and filthy, against Steve’s thrumming pulse, the cut of his jaw, the shell of his ear, all of it punctuated with a wicked tongue swirling an untraceable pattern across his flushed, freckled skin.
Please, please, please — you’re so good, Steve, shit, you’re so fuckin’ good to me.
That, along with all the other gorgeous noises Steve’s been able to pull out of him, is enough to make Steve’s own cock throb so hard he nearly comes in his shorts right then and there.
The prettiest one he makes, a moan strangled between Eddie’s teeth burying themselves into Steve’s shoulder, is when he comes, shuddering and shaking with a shattered cry, right there in Steve’s arms.
It’s not even awkward, the silence that follows when Eddie’s breathing finally quiets, and he melts against Steve’s chest with a satisfied sigh. “When I move again,” he drawls, turning his head from where it’d been buried to blink drowsily at him, “m’gonna suck you off, don’t worry.”
At that, Steve just snorts and shakes his head. “We don’t have to get through all the good stuff before lunch, Eds. Besides,” he says, twirling a few of Eddie’s stray curls teasingly between his fingers, “I wanna finish wooing you.”
“Oh my god,” Eddie says, “I can’t believe you’re still so serious about that.”
Maybe it’s stupid, but really, Steve is, and maybe he doesn’t completely understand why yet. But it’s Eddie, and for whatever reason, it matters. “I just — I wanna do it better this time. I wanna do it right.”
“Do what better, sweetheart?”
“Everything.”
Maybe the kiss Eddie presses to Steve’s forehead isn’t quite everything — not yet — but in that moment, it kind of feels like it.