Chapter Text
“Our next award will be presented by the reigning prize holder Eddie Munson and GLAAD’s Lifetime Achievement Awardee, Dame Bennydonna!”
The emcee gestured to the two men waiting on the side stage. Eddie grabbed the award and entered the spotlight with Bennydonna. He felt a little wistful for having to part with the trophy that had been sitting front and center of his bookshelf for the past 365 days. It was not the most widely recognized accolade in his modestly-sized collection, but it was one that was especially dear to his heart: the Queer Musician of the Year trophy.
The mere nomination had caught him completely by surprise since he didn’t see himself as one of the frontliners of the cause, but the presenters had talked about his courageous (and very public) coming out scandal that had caused such waves that it caught the eye of the general public and consequently brought some much-needed representation to the admittedly mainstream and overwhelmingly heteronormative genre of commercial heavy metal. He’d done nothing but interviews about his “queer jorney” and attended different benefits as a special guest for at least six months after violently tumbling out of the closet. Eddie didn’t think that he’d been exactly hiding his sexuality before, but was proud to be a part of the line of Freddies, Bowies, Eltons, Tracies and Janises, and to show the kids that it was okay to sing songs about devil worship and eternal damnation while also wanting to kiss other dudes… or something to that extent.
“It has been an honor to be your prize holder for the past year,” Eddie began and placed the trophy on the podium, running his thumb over its smooth glass edge. “Thank you for inviting me back to pass on the torch to one of our amazing nominees!”
Bennydonna introduced the four prospective winners, and a split-screen camera image following their reactions appeared on the screen behind them. The first nominee was a group of musicians who composed the soundtrack of a movie about a prominent queer historical figure that had been published in the previous year and received predominantly favorable reviews. The second was a country singer who had an extensive career and was an illustrious figure in the community and had won the award twice already. The third person was more known for their acting work but had dabbled in music before and had been recently lauded for their tear-jerking appearance in Priscilla on Broadway. The fourth nominee was a relatively new artist, a pop singer known by his stage name ZTE. He’d had several of his blatantly suggestive and openly queer songs from his second studio album GIRLY POP blow up all over social media over the past months.
“And the winner is…” Eddie and Bennydonna said in unison while Eddie opened the sealed envelope. He glanced at the name on the card and showed it to his fellow presenter. They smiled and exclaimed in unison, “ZTE! Congratulations!”
The audience erupted in applause, wolf-whistles, cheers, and a whole slew of other celebratory sounds when a stunned ZTE stood up and walked up to the stage. In the pictures Eddie had seen, the guy was usually in flashy, skimpy, gender-fuckery-y stage outfits, but tonight he was wearing an understated yet stylish, slightly sheer periwinkle-colored suit. Before this, Eddie had thought the kind of stuff ZTE wore when he performed wasn’t to his taste, but somehow he’d ended up down a rabbit hole of videos from his performances when he’d googled the guy after the award nominations. He’d been absolutely hooked ever since.
Before Eddie could hand the trophy to him, Bennydonna grabbed ZTE into a big bear hug that seemed to shake the man up even more than the announcement of the prize had. Eddie settled for a warm smile and a handshake that was only slightly suspiciously long, congratulating ZTE again before he joined in on the applause. ZTE accepted the trophy with shaky hands and leaned towards the microphone.
“Wow. Just wow,” he began, brushing his hair off his face. “Normally, the only way to make me speechless is to stick something very large down my throat.” The audience cackled. ZTE grinned. “Thank you. This really means a lot to me. The reason I started making music was to spread joy and queerness to people, and knowing that I’ve reached so many of your hearts and panties means the world to me.”
Eddie found it hard to concentrate on the speech, because holy shit, the guy was hot. Of course he already knew this, but up this close the man was even more beautiful. In addition to the Ancient Roman deity-esque physique, he had fluffy brown hair that just screamed for someone to put their fingers in it, an attractively straight nose, a mischievous smile, and small moles speckled all over his face and neck. He was, in one word, radiant.
ZTE finished with, “I’ll try my best to be a worthy representative of this year’s Queer Musician and continue terrifying the heteros!”
He lifted the trophy up triumphantly while the audience cheered, and then the three of them walked down the steps and back to their seats. Eddie almost tripped over the feet of the person sitting next to him as he tried following ZTE with this gaze to see which table he was sitting at.
“Sorry,” he muttered and he downed the rest of his drink. For some reason, he was suddenly feeling jittery all over.
*
After a couple more speeches from the organizers, the award ceremony came to an end. An army of wait staff, some with huge plates containing tiny servings of food and others with trays full of champagne flutes, started to roam around, and guests everywhere turned to their neighbors for idle chatting. When Eddie looked over, he could see people crowding over to ZTE, which made sense, because Musician of the Year was definitely one of the biggest awards of the evening. He watched as a gaggle of well-wishers talked ZTE’s ear off before he got whisked away to somewhere in the sidelines by a couple of small media outlets’ representatives. Eddie let his neighbor drone on about some indie film he was making right now (which did sound quite interesting, to be fair) as he continued to watch ZTE’s every move. He was not planning on joining the long line of people fighting for the guy’s attention. Stalking him for the whole night would be much cooler. Eddie didn’t even know why exactly he felt the need to talk to him so badly. There were lots of cool people there, many people that he was friends with, or would like to be. But at that moment, he only had eyes for ZTE.
Eddie finally decided to shoot his shot when ZTE sat down at the table next to his. He grabbed his drink and headed over, placing himself right next to the man of the hour.
“Hi,” Eddie greeted him. ZTE had been listening in on a conversation happening on the other side of the table, so he turned to Eddie with a politely surprised look.
“Hi!” he replied.
“Just wanted to come and congratulate you again,” Eddie said. “Although I guess you’ve heard that one a couple of times tonight already.”
“It’s okay,” he said easily. “It doesn’t get old that quick.”
“You’ll take good care of that, right?” He gestured towards the award. “I’ve been keeping it really clean for you. Well, Magda, my cleaning lady has.”
ZTE laughed.
“I don’t know if I can part with it without knowing it’s going to a good home,” Eddie continued.
“I promise I’ll kiss it goodnight every night.”
“You’d better.” He extended his hand. “I’m Eddie.”
ZTE shook it. “Yeah, I think I heard your name, you know, when you were giving out the award and stuff.”
“I hope I pronounced yours correctly,” Eddie said. “I looked it up and I think that’s how you say it, though there were a lot of people saying Z-T-E instead of ZTE.”
“You nailed it,” he said. “But you can just call me Steve, though.”
“Steve,” Eddie repeated. He realized he was still holding Steve’s hand. He let go with a sneaky grin.
“Is this your first time at the Awards?” Eddie changed the subject. He was pretty sure he hadn't seen Steve here before. He thought he would remember it.
“Yep,” Steve confirmed.
“First time in Chicago?” Eddie asked.
“Hah, no,” Steve laughed. “I actually grew up not too far from here and Chicago was the closest big city, so I moved here when I first started making music.”
“Really? A true local, then.” He did remember reading something about Indiana on Steve’s Wikipedia page. “I’ve only ever passed through, never had the time to take in the sights. Maybe you could show me around.”
Without realizing it, it seemed that Eddie had decided to fully start hitting on the guy, which, yeah, probably should’ve seen that one coming. And he wasn’t even doing a very good job of it. He had in on good authority that he could be very cool and charming when it came to picking up guys, but right now it felt like his brain had clocked out for the night.
“As much as I would love to take a complete stranger on a tour around the city, I’m heading back home in the morning,” Steve said. Not unkindly. He wouldn’t be looking at Eddie like that if he wasn’t at least a little interested.
“Plenty of time between now and tomorrow morning,” Eddie noted, leaning into Steve’s space. “Maybe we wouldn’t have to be strangers anymore after tonight.”
Steve didn’t take the bait, but his eyes twinkled when he looked at him. Eddie lifted an eyebrow, and since Steve didn’t seem to imply that he wanted the conversation to end, he continued.
“When you say ‘home’ you mean–” Eddie began, “–LA, right?”
“LA, yeah,” Steve finished the sentence with him.
“Hm, that’s a shame. I might have to eat my own words.”
“How’s that?” Steve asked.
“I’ve always been saying that New York has the cutest guys.”
“Eh,” Steve said. “Guys on the East Coast are okay I guess.”
Ouch.
“My personal favorite are those Southern gentlemen, though, whoo-wee,” Steve continued.
Eddie leaned closer to him, his chin in his hand. “Did I mention I’m originally from Kentucky?”
“You did not.” Steve grinned. “But your Wikipedia page did.”
The air between them felt heavy with electricity. What had started as light flirting had suddenly shifted into blatant, all-encompassing want, at least for Eddie. Something about Steve was stoking a very deep something inside of him, and not just due to the man’s obvious charm and good looks. Eddie couldn’t remember the last time a man’s mere presence had left him this affected.
“I like your tattoos,” Steve said, changing the subject, and Eddie had to quite forcefully pull himself back into the present. Steve gestured at his hands. There was a moth on the back of Eddie’s left hand and an octopus on the right, its head occupying most of the backside of his hand while the tentacles curled around his wrist and forearm.
“One of my favorites as well,” Eddie agreed, brushing his fingers over the moth’s wings.
“Do they mean something?”
“The moth represents, like, transformation and rebirth and stuff. They’re supposed to symbolize personal growth and change and shit. Google also told me that some cultures think that they carry messages from the spiritual realm to ours. And octopuses are just hella cool.” Eddie laughed. “And really fucking smart. Did you know they can, like, do puzzles and break out of places and shit? Anyways, mostly I’m just happy that my uncle didn’t let me get them done when I was sixteen or otherwise I’d have a rose and a skull on the backs of my hands.”
“Have you got many more?”
“I would be a pretty bad heavy metal singer if I didn’t, wouldn’t I?” he joked and then dropped his voice down an octave. “If you want, I’d love to do a little show and tell later.”
Steve didn’t comment, but his eyes stayed on Eddie’s when he took a sip of his drink. Just as Eddie was about to say something, a hand tapped Steve on the shoulder, and a journalist grabbed him for another interview.
*
The night’s festivities pulled Steve and Eddie apart and made sure that they stayed that way. He didn’t get a chance to talk to Steve again for the rest of the evening. Eventually, Eddie did gravitate towards his group of friends, but all the while, his eyes regularly seeked Steve out in the crowd. More than a couple of times, Steve’s eyes were right there to meet his.
It was getting late, and the crowd was starting to thin out. Eddie was waiting in one of the lines for the cloakroom for his coat so he could step outside to have a smoke when a vision in periwinkle appeared by his side, their own jacket and the Musician of the Year trophy in hand.
“Eddie,” Steve greeted him, seeming a little out of breath for whatever reason. “Heading out already? I thought rockstars were only supposed to leave a party after being thrown out.”
Eddie huffed out a laugh. “You would be correct,” he said. “I was just going for a smoke.”
“Oh,” Steve said.
“You leaving?” Eddie asked, motioning towards the jacket and the trophy.
Steve looked down at the things in his hands and back up at Eddie. “Well, like I said, I’ve got things to do when I get home.”
The queue nudged forward, and the employee handed Eddie his belongings in exchange for a number label.
He turned to Steve. “You staying at the Hilton Downtown as well?”
*
As he stepped into the Uber with Steve, Eddie thanked himself for not being a diva for once and booking a different hotel for himself. He usually preferred something with a little more character, and with the association’s limited budget, the cheaper rooms usually weren’t up to his standards. He silently vowed to himself that he’ll never book a suite again in his life if it meant that he got to go home with Steve Harrington (he’d double checked the full name on his phone earlier in the night).
During the short ride to the hotel, they chatted about their nights. While they waited for the elevator, Eddie tried to evaluate whether the distance that Steve was standing from him would be deemed standard or intimate. The signs were pointing towards a desired outcome, but then again, Steve had never voiced his interest quite as openly as Eddie.
They both exited on the 11th floor and continued down the corridor.
“Well, this is me,” Steve said and gestured towards a door on the other side of the hallway to Eddie’s. Eddie had already shown his keycard to his door and was holding it open.
“I mean, this could also be you if you wanted it to,” he said and nodded towards his room. Steve lifted an eyebrow and smirked.
“You’re just trying to lure me in so you can murder me in my sleep and steal the trophy back.”
“You caught me,” Eddie said. “But I’ll offer you a beer first.”
Steve laughed and walked in. “Please offer me a beer from the complimentary minibar paid by the association.”
While Steve meandered further inside the gently-lit room, Eddie opened the minifridge, disappointed to find exactly two watered-down bottles of beer inside – one low-alcohol and one alcohol-free. He popped them open and did the chivalrous thing by offering Steve the 2.5%. They sat down on two armchairs around a small coffee table, drinking their beers as they watched each other.
“For what it’s worth, and I’m not saying this just because I want to get into your pants, but I think the right person won,” Eddie said, nodding towards the small glass sculpture Steve had set on the table.
“Oh, so you are trying to get into my pants?” Steve asked.
“Did I not make that clear? I apologize for any confusion.”
He took a long swig from his beer before settling it onto the glass table with a clack. Steve’s eyes followed him as Eddie reached for the bottle in his hand, pulled it away and set it next to the other one. Eddie leaned into his space, leaving enough distance between them if Steve wanted to turn away or put an end to this. Steve merely held the gaze expectantly, so Eddie bent down all the way and kissed him. Steve returned the kiss eagerly, opening his mouth almost immediately and slipping his tongue in between Eddie’s lips. It was sloppy and hot as hell, and Eddie slipped his hand into Steve’s hair like he’s been itching to do the whole night, yanking him up from the chair. Something about Steve made him lose the little control he had.
He blindly walked them towards the bed, his lips never leaving Steve’s, and pushed him on the bed when the backs of Steve’s legs hit the edge of the mattress. They laughed together when Eddie fumbled with the buttons of Steve’s suit jacket. He almost wanted to rip open the finicky buttons and accept the price of replacing the designer item, but the outfit was nice and looked good on Steve so he didn’t want to ruin it for him.
When he finally managed to conquer the last pearly button, he pushed the piece of clothing off Steve’s chest and immediately attached himself to his nipples. He sucked one tightly into his mouth and circled it with his tongue, flicking the metal bar running through the hardened nub as he did so. Steve sighed happily and arched his back, pressing his body tighter against Eddie’s mouth. He had been kind of able to see Steve’s chest hair through his jacket before, but now that he got to feel the soft scratch of hair against his face and inhale the faint odor of sweat hiding on the skin underneath, he appreciated it that much more.
Steve was a delicious concoction of contrasting visuals: his stage outfits usually leaned towards the feminine with short skirts, bodysuits, high heels and pastel colors, and the dances he did in his shows oozed traditionally feminine sexuality, but right now he looked like he might’ve stepped out from one of the skin magz Eddie used to hide under his mattress as a teenager. The way Steve’s presence made his brain swirl and his body tingle was honestly something he’d never experienced before. It stirred something new and strange inside him, but he decided to ignore the feeling in favor of getting his leaking dick inside the man as soon as possible.
*
A couple of orgasms later, Eddie slinked to the French balcony in his boxers to smoke the cigarette Steve had previously interrupted. He was old enough to know that smoking wasn’t actually cool, especially when your paycheck depended on using your voice, but some situations just weren’t complete without a little nicotine. He tried to be quick, snuffing the cigarette out before it was fully finished and clambering back into bed where Steve waited for him, his lower body wrapped in the puffy white blanket.
“So. I’ve been thinking,” Eddie began.
“During the five minutes you were having a smoke?”
“I’m a fast thinker.”
Steve sat up and was now face to face with Eddie. “So what’s on your mind, rocker boy?”
“It’s–” Heavy metal, not rock’n’roll. Whatever. He kind of liked the nickname. “We should make this a standing arrangement.”
Steve nodded solemnly. “Fully agree.”
He cleared his throat. “The sex part, I mean. I am kind of… unavailable for anything else right now. Think of it as a sort of a business deal, no strings attached.”
“Again, a hundred percent agree,” Steve said. “No offense, I’m sure you’re a great guy, but I barely have time to have a piss on most days so I’m really not interested in anything else besides your dick right now.” He reconsidered this for a moment, giving Eddie an exaggerated once-over. “And maybe a couple of other places.”
“Great. We have an understanding, then.”
“We should have some rules,” Steve suddenly suggested. “To make sure we’re on the same page.”
Eddie laughed. “Rules about being fuck buddies?”
“You said it yourself, it’s a business deal first and foremost, so we should make sure we both agree to the terms of the transaction.”
“That does sound important,” Eddie allowed.
“Got a pen and paper?”
He got up to rummage through his small suitcase, returning to the bed with the hotel’s promotional pen and his battered notebook he usually used for writing down prospective song lyrics.
“So, what did you have in mind, Mr Harrington?” Eddie asked, putting on an overdone businessman-voice which made Steve laugh. The pen hovered over a mostly-empty page of lined paper.
“Well, this is a casual thing, right? So I was thinking that we don’t make, like, separate plans to meet. We only hook up if we happen to be in the same place at the same time.” Dutifully, Eddie wrote down “No separate plans to meet, only hook up if we happen to be in the same place at the same time.”
“We exchange numbers, but we only message each other about possible hook-ups. No smalltalk,” Steve continued. Eddie added this onto a new line.
“We only hook up if neither of us have nothing else to do. We don’t blow off other plans for each other. If we’ve already agreed to meet but something else comes up, we are fully in our right to cancel, even if it’s at the last minute, and the other person can’t get upset about it.”
“Great,” Eddie said. “Anything else?”
“Do you have any suggestions?” Steve countered.
“How about, ‘We don’t spend the night together. We do our business and leave?’”
“Seconded,” Steve said. “Hit it and quit it.”
“When we’re together, we must be having sex at all times,” Eddie continued.
“There should be something in there about eating,” Steve pointed out.
Eddie poked the pen approvingly in his direction. “Good point. It’s important to keep our energy up.” He struck out the previous bullet point and wrote down “When we’re together, we’re either fucking or eating at ALL TIMES” instead and then, after Steve agreed, “We always order in. We don’t go out to eat. We absolutely do not go on DATES, because we’re not DATING.”
“That reminds me,” Steve said. “Since we are definitely not in a relationship, we can do whatever we want with whoever else we want and the other person can’t get upset.”
Eddie agreed and added it to the list.
Steve leaned in to see what he’d written down so far, and his messy bed hair tickled Eddie’s cheek as he read the paper.
Steve poked one of the lines. “You should add that we always meet at a hotel, never at each others’ place here.”
“Good call,” Eddie agreed. “Should we also write something about being discreet?”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
“Like, personally, I don’t care about what the press is writing about me, but it’s usually easier when you keep the paparazzi out of things,” Eddie clarified.
“No, yeah, absolutely,” Steve said. “Write it down. Oh, and that reminds me, should we add something about actual business stuff too?”
“Like what?”
“Something about keeping the industry out of it. That this is strictly about fucking, we’re not working together or weaseling contacts out of each other or whatever.”
“I’ve been in the biz for almost ten years, I have all the contacts I need, thank you very much.”
“No, I just mean… Shit, I don’t know what I mean.” Steve groaned. “I just want to keep work stuff out of it. Like, if one of us is doing great and the other’s tour is tanking or something, I don’t want to make a weird competition out of it. Or that either one of us has to worry that this will turn into some exploitation thing.”
“Right, gotcha,” Eddie said.
“You know what I mean?”
“No, I totally understand and fully agree,” he said. He wrote down “Music shit stays separate.”
“Also, this means that if things go south, you’re not allowed to write a song about how small my dick is,” Eddie said.
Steve laughed. “Didn’t feel that small a minute ago.”
They continued reading through the rest of the list.
“Should we also write that we’re not, like, part of each other’s personal lives either or whatever?” Eddie suggested. “That this is strictly a sex thing and nothing else?”
“Definitely, yeah. Your handwriting is really awful, by the way.”
Eddie ignored him, jotted down a couple of more lines and showed the list to Steve again.
“I had fun tonight, though,” Steve said. “At the awards. I feel like we could go out to parties together, provided that we have sex afterwards.”
“Or during,” Eddie added with a waggle of his eyebrows, and Steve gave him an appreciative grin. He added it to the list, too.
“I say three drinks maximum,” Steve declared. “I’m not interested in dealing with no whiskey dick.”
“Three?” Eddie exclaimed incredulously, followed by a small laugh. “Fuck off. I’ve had way more tonight and didn’t hear you complain.”
Steve lifted an unimpressed eyebrow. “Maybe not, but excessive drinking is still bad for you. What are you doing?”
Eddie had started roaming his hands over Steve’s body, lifting his arms as if he was checking something.
“Looking for your temperance movement membership card.”
Steve swatted his hands away with a barely concealed laugh. “If you want to get shit-faced, be my guest, but don’t expect to get a piece of this after.”
“More than three drinks hardly makes you shit-faced,” Eddie argued. “I’m going to write down six.”
“No you’re not. Three.”
“Five.”
“Four.”
“Fine, four,” Eddie grumbled and added in the new clause. “Anything else? Having to say grace every time I go down on you?”
“I recant my earlier statement, you’re a jerk,” Steve said and gently smacked him with a pillow.
“Good thing we don’t have to do much talking after this.”
“Thank God.”
There was a moment of silence when both of them read through the finalized list.
“Lastly, the most important rule,” Steve said.
They locked eyes, and Steve looked serious as he examined him.
“The second either of us starts to catch feelings, we stop immediately. Deal?”
“Deal.”
If this was some cheap romance novel, Eddie would say that he wanted to drown in Steve’s twinkling brown eyes that were watching him so intensely. But he wasn't going to, because this was not a Harlequin book and he was not interested in Steve for anything else besides semi-impersonal, semi-anonymous sex.
“Should we agree not to kiss each other on the mouth?” Eddie asked.
“Like in Pretty Woman?” Steve laughed. He pretended to consider it for a moment before he shook his head. “Waste not, want not.”
“Are you saying you enjoy kissing me?” he teased Steve.
Steve rolled his eyes. “I enjoy kissing, period. You just happen to be there.”
“Hmm,” Eddie hummed. “I also happen to be here right now.”
“How convenient.”
“Ready for round two?” Eddie asked.
“Fuck yes.”
The agreement got unceremoniously dumped over the edge of the bed as they sealed the deal with a kiss, and another, followed by various other things.
*
