Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Robin was the one who called him first.

“Did you hear?” she asked, out of breath like she’d sprinted to a phone to be the first to tell him.

“Hear what? Are the kids okay?” Steve had been about to head out to the store, and he was going over the list he’d scrawled onto the back of his arm as he’d taken stock of the kitchen. The pen cap was still in his mouth, and he dug the pen into his arm as he scratched out trash bags.

“Yeah, but I just talked to Nancy and she says that Jonathan says that Hopper says that he’s getting out!”

“Wait… Nancy says…” It took him a second to work it out, the flow of information, the answer at the end of the riddle. “Eddie’s getting out?”

“Hopper’s been calling around to get more information since he knows the court people or whatever, but yeah. He was telling Jonathan and Joyce that they’re trying to see if he can move out west to be with Wayne or not. Probably not, though, he’ll be on parole in Indiana, looks like.”

Steve spat out the pen cap. He couldn’t breathe, suddenly. “Is Wayne gonna move back?”

“I dunno. He’d have to get a job out here first, probably. Dustin said he’d ask his mom—”

“No. I’ll take him.” He didn’t know he was going to say it until it came out of his mouth, but it came out firm. “He can stay here.”

“Steve…” Robin’s voice, tinny through the phone line, had been excited. Now it was hesitant. “Is that… the best idea?”

“It’s his best option,” Steve insisted. Eddie out. Eddie free. Eddie home with Steve, Eddie Eddie Eddie. He wanted to hang up on Robin right away, call Eddie, go straight there to collect him that minute. “The couch is a pull out, he can crash as long as he needs. It’ll be fine, he basically lived with me that one summer anyway.”

“Yeah, that one summer.” Robin laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Steve. Don’t do this to yourself.”

“We stick together. That’s what we do, remember?” Steve remembered, even if nobody else did. Even if he’d somehow been left alone, stuck in a city that felt colorless while everyone’s lives moved on without him. Everyone but Eddie, but Steve was going to get him back. Back in his life. Back in his apartment. It wasn’t like he expected anything more. He was used to not getting what he wanted.

“Steve, I can already tell I can’t talk you out of this, but I just… I don’t want you to get hurt, okay?”

Steve thanked her and told her he loved her, like he knew he was supposed to. He didn’t tell her the truth.

That he wanted to get hurt.

That nobody hurt him like Eddie.

Eddie was going to kill him.

Steve was stretched out on the bed underneath him, whining into Eddie’s mouth as they kissed. Eddie had undressed him slowly, laid him down, and ran fingers along his entire body until Steve felt like he was going to combust. Eddie left little kisses and bites along his fingers, his knuckles, the freckles inside his arm, the moles along his shoulders — and was now kissing him carefully, deeply, like they had all the time in the world.

And maybe they did. But Steve still wanted to come, and could barely focus on the slow and steady sweetness in the face of the urgent need that was building inside his stomach. Eddie kissed his nose, then his jaw, then started sliding down the bed with a hum.

Steve twitched his hips up and dragged his fingers through Eddie’s hair, scratching his scalp and palming the back of his skull. Eddie kissed Steve’s inner thigh, then pushed at his shins so his knees were pushed back before falling open. “Oh shit,” Steve hissed, and Eddie chuckled into his skin.

“That’s right. Just let me get a taste, okay? I’ll make it so good, baby. Gonna give you just what you need.”

Steve nodded, then realized Eddie couldn’t see it. “Yes— yeah. Thank you, Eddie.”

“Back to Eddie, is it?” Eddie’s eyes glittered like broken glass when he looked up at Steve. “I’ll fix that.”

The first touch of his tongue was jarring. Steve hadn’t known it would feel so invasive, so dirty, but at the same time it felt too good to do anything but moan and jerk himself lazily and push back against Eddie. Eddie wrapped his big hands around Steve’s thighs, holding him open and in place so he could lick in further, making slick noises that made Steve blush, even as he pushed back against it.

Eddie tongue-fucked him loose, until he was punching noises out of Steve that sounded just as filthy as the wet sounds of Eddie’s mouth. He came like that, shocking himself, spilling over his own stomach in shivery little spurts.

Eddie pulled back, spit all over his chin, so beautiful and gleeful that Steve smiled back automatically, even though his whole chest had gone red with embarrassment. “You just love getting anything in you, don’t you? You loosen up so beautifully for me,” Eddie rasped, his grin wicked. “You could take me right now, I bet. You could take a whole fist, couldn’t you, baby?”

Steve whined out loud at that, shock shooting through him. He thought it was just dirty talk, but some filthy part of him wanted anything that Eddie would give him. “Yeah,” he panted. “I could take it, Daddy.”

Eddie groaned and rubbed his face against Steve’s thigh, leaving the hair there sticky and stuck, matted down in the wrong direction. He pinched the skin where Steve’s ass met his thigh, hard.

Steve felt desperate. He was ready for Eddie, ready for pain, and all Eddie was doing was looking up at him, eyes fond. “Do that again. Please.”

“Do what?” Eddie sat up and pinched him again. “You like me a little mean, don’t you, sweetheart?”

Steve nodded, lifting his chin up to offer his face, his throat. He loved it, but he choked on his words. “I need it. Please, Daddy, I need to feel you. Hurt me. Fuck me. Anything.”

“Oh, pretty baby.” Eddie leaned in and nuzzled his bared throat, kissed his offered cheek, nipped his lower lip where it stuck out on a pout. “You need me to hurt you? You don’t think I’ve hurt you enough?”

Steve shook his head and laid back again as Eddie spread himself over him, arranging him within the cradle of his arms. Eddie propped himself up on one elbow and rubbed his knuckles over Steve’s face with his other hand, their bodies pressed together in one heavy line. “Never enough.”

“That’s right,” Eddie encouraged. He caught Steve in another, deeper kiss, then shifted them so that he could slide into Steve. Steve was so wet already, so relaxed and ready, that Eddie fucked into him in one long motion that sent Steve’s back arching, pushing his whole front up against Eddie. “You were made for my dick, weren’t you?”

Steve nodded, eyes wide open as he watched Eddie. He was always so expressive, his eyes so big.

“Say you were made for me,” Eddie whispered, beginning to move. “Be a good boy and listen to your daddy. You were made for me.”

“I was made for you,” Steve agreed. He couldn’t take his eyes off Eddie, sure that he was just overwhelmed and imagining things, the sweet burn inside of him distracting him from a newer, wetter glimmering of Eddie’s eyes.

Eddie sped up and reached between them, seizing Steve’s dick, the touch overwhelming. “Say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” he gasped, like it was an oath. “I’m yours.”

“Say I love you,” Eddie hissed, and this time his hips snapped all the way up and back, up and back, his grip on Steve’s sensitive dick too-tight.

“I love you,” Steve said immediately, the words a relief, and now he knew Eddie was crying, and it was all he could do to wrap his arms around Eddie’s shoulders and hang on, hugging and clinging and moving with each punch of Eddie’s hips. “Eddie. I love you so much. I’ve always loved you, I’ve loved you the whole time, I love—“

“Fuck,” Eddie swore, and came with a sob, his forehead falling to Steve’s chest. Steve kept his arms around Eddie as he shook, holding him like he could keep him safe from all the awful years. “Fuck. Steve.” He sounded wrecked. “Baby.”

“I’m always going to love you,” Steve said, to the top of Eddie’s hair. It was long enough to tickle his throat as Eddie rubbed his mouth over Steve’s chest hair, tried to breathe. “I’m always going to be yours.”

Eddie’s shoulders shook, and Steve carded fingers through his hair. He felt wrung out and weightless all at once. They’d wasted so much time, not saying it.

Steve held Eddie, rubbing fingers down his back, his shoulders. He nestled Eddie into the cradle of his body, his thighs sore, his heart stuffed full. He was drifting a bit, but Eddie’s warm weight centered him. They were a sticky, sweaty mess, but he didn’t care. He could always change the sheets and take a shower, but he wouldn’t miss a moment in the meantime. His heart was slowing down from its frantic pace, and Eddie’s breath was evening out, his face still hidden in Steve’s chest. He could feel the warmth of his breath, the evening of his shudders. It warmed him, settled him, to recognize in Eddie the painful overwhelm of feeling that he’d always felt himself.

Holding Eddie healed something inside him. The feeling sank to the bottom of him, completing the thing that had been unfinished for years.

Eddie propped his chin up at last, his eyes red on Steve. “I don’t know how we made it here,” he said, quietly. “I’m scared shitless, to be honest. It’s too much to be taken away.” I’ve never had enough to be careless with my things, he had said, and Steve hadn’t had an answer, then.

“No one can take me away,” Steve told him now. They’d tried, hadn’t they? The Upside Down, the jaws of death, the police and the prison and the fucked-up lonely years. “Part of me always goes with you.”

“I don’t want part of you.” Eddie lifted up and kissed him gently, softly, like he’d done it every day since Hawkins. “I want to own you entirely.”

“That’s what love is,” Steve said, although he thought maybe it was a fucked up definition. What had Robin said? Love isn’t an expectation. But maybe, for the two of them, love was more than softness. Maybe, for the two of them, it demanded everything.

“I never told you,” Eddie marveled. He reached up to tuck Steve’s hair back, ran his thumb across the top of his ear. “I love you, Steve Harrington.”

Steve tilted his cheek into Eddie’s palm. “I think I knew that. I just wasn’t ready to know.”

“And do you now?”

Steve sighed, watching his breath ruffle Eddie’s hair. “You once said it was better if you got out of my way. What changed?” How do I know you won’t lock yourself away again, he meant, and Eddie weighed both the questions asked and unasked.

He shrugged. “I guess… I thought I was being selfish, trying to keep you. I thought you’d move on. I hoped you would. I thought staying out of your way was the best thing that I could do for you. The noble thing. Even living here, I tried… I tried, for a while, not to keep you for myself.”

“Stupid,” Steve admonished, and Eddie cracked a smile.

“A long time ago, you asked me to stay, and I guess I finally accepted that you meant it.”

“I meant it then and I mean it now,” Steve affirmed. He used his thumbs to wipe under Eddie’s eyes, where the bags he’d come home with had finally begun to fade. Eddie turned to kiss the inside of his wrist.

“And who am I, to think I know better than you, what you really need? Isn’t it more selfish to leave you alone and make us both miserable, when I know what it is that you actually want?”

“And what do I want?” Steve whispered, checking to see that he knew. They were holding each others’ faces at this point, bodies overlapping and surrounding each other, Eddie heavy on top of him and Steve holding him close.

“You want to be my good boy, Stevie,” Eddie told him. He bumped his forehead into Steve’s carefully, gently. “And that’s exactly what you are.”

Eddie slipped one of his band shirts over Steve’s shoulders, running his hand down Steve’s spine to smooth it into place. “I wish Robin had left her eyeliner.”

“We should invite her over again soon,” Steve mused. He reached up to fix his hair where the shirt had pulled some askew. “Make her sleep on the couch.”

The sound of Eddie’s laughter was warm, pleased. “That’s one way to tell her.”

Steve hummed. “I can’t wait to let everyone know. I want to tell the world.” He felt like it was the best thing he’d ever achieved in his life, but he didn’t have a degree to frame or a scar to convey his survival. He had the burn on his palm, his oldest mark of Eddie’s ownership, but he wished he could have something else. Something new.

Eddie seemed to know what he was thinking. He pulled the black handkerchief from the top of his dresser and folded it in a few decisive motions. “Here, baby.” He tucked it into Steve’s back right pocket, on the opposite side to the one where Eddie had once worn it. “This isn’t telling the whole world, but we’ll know what it means.” Steve bit down on his lip, feeling his face heat. It was a little humiliating, a whole lot freeing. He felt possessed entirely, wearing Eddie’s shirt and Eddie’s bandana, flagging sado bottom as simply and as clearly as a handkerchief could. He touched it, making sure it was tucked in tight, and Eddie pressed an approving kiss into the nape of his neck.

The venue was hot and crowded, and Eddie started getting attention as soon as they arrived. He nodded back to people, clasped some shoulders, showed his teeth when he smiled. But his hand never left the back of Steve’s neck where he’d kissed it, rings cool against his skin. His thumb rubbed, up and down, up and down, until Steve’s shoulders were stiff with holding in the wanting.

Debbie was leaning against the back of the bar, polishing a glass, but pushed off when they approached. She reached behind her without looking, handed over a half-empty bottle of whiskey. “Hey, boys.”

“For little old me?” Eddie asked, pleased. He picked the bottle up and used his teeth to open it, hand never leaving Steve. He spat the cap at Debbie, who smacked it out of the air before it could hit her. “You shouldn’t have.”

“It’s so you stop coming back here to bother me,” she told them severely, but she winked at Steve. “So mind you fuck off.”

Eddie just laughed. “Have you seen the boys?”

“They’re in the corner,” she said, waving a hand vaguely in that direction. “Shock Strap is on tour, so you’re up next.”

“With me, then, love,” Eddie declared, and tugged Steve along with him. Steve gave Debbie an apologetic wave as he turned away, but she just lifted her eyebrow, smirking as she took in the bandana. Face hot, Steve leaned into Eddie. “Pass the whiskey, would you?”

Eddie paused in the middle of the crowd they were moving through and tugged Steve’s back to his chest, steering him to face the stage. Someone jostled him as they passed, and the sound felt like a solid wall around them, but most of the crowd was facing forward, faces lit by the lights of the stage and the sound of the music. In that dark confusion, Eddie plastered himself against Steve’s back and lifted the bottle, his arms going around Steve and one hand pressing down against his chest. “You want a taste?” he murmured into Steve’s ear. “Take it like a good boy.”

Steve had to gulp it down when Eddie pushed the lip of the whiskey to his mouth, and he choked on the burn. He tapped Eddie’s forearm, and Eddie pulled it away, pressing a kiss under his hair. “You’re going to get me drunk,” he said, trying for severe — but it was so sweet, to be babied and praised and held in the orbit of Eddie’s body, his claim on Eddie as clear as the way Eddie was claiming him.

“Oh no,” Eddie mocked, voice dripping with falseness. “Wouldn’t want to get you nice and sloppy. Someone might take advantage of you.”

“Someone,” Steve scoffed, and then plucked the bottle away. Eddie grinned at that, replacing his hand on Steve’s neck to keep steering him through the crowd.

The band was arguing when they joined them, and Eddie waded into the fight at once. Steve couldn’t follow the back-and-forth about the set list and speakers, but he leaned into Eddie’s side and listened to the hum of their opinions.

Eddie kissed him before they went onstage, quick and filthy, and Steve was left off-balance in his wake. He’d never stayed so close to the stage before, close enough to let the bodies jostle him, only Eddie’s eyes keeping him centered.

The sound of Eddie’s voice was everywhere, reverberating from the speakers, and Eddie never looked away. He growled and sang and fucked into his guitar, pushed his mouth against the mic, and never once did Steve feel the weight of his eyes leave him. He was pinned there, the world around him like the inside of his mind, hot and loud and buzzing with Eddie.

He was so hard he couldn’t hold onto a thought, could only sway in place and sip from the bottle, the whiskey burning like Eddie’s kiss and the hand missing from the scruff of his neck.

He found himself moving, dancing in place, caught up in the electric buzz of having Eddie’s attention for more than this moment. The man on the stage was a god, was sex personified, and he loved Steve, loved him well. Steve moved with the dark and shifting melodies, ran his hands down his chest, leaned into the feeling of good and alive. He was beautiful, he was powerful, he was happy, he was free. It felt like having Eddie inside of him: overwhelming, too much, never enough.

The moment it was over Eddie was in front of him, guitar slung over his shoulder and sweat dampening his face. He grabbed Steve’s wrist and pulled him, handing the guitar and the bottle off on the way to his bassist, whose wolf-whistle was lost in the buzz of the crowd.

Eddie yanked Steve into the graffiti-covered bathroom, pressing him into the stall. There was only one, but it locked, shutting them into their own small world, just them and a toilet and the muted boom of the next band. “We have an apartment, you know,” Steve said, grinning, his mind floating still, already.

“Couldn’t wait. Couldn’t stop watching you. You’re gorgeous, Stevie.” Eddie backed him into the flimsy wall and nosed along his throat. He slid his hand up under Steve’s shirt, all the way up to his throat, rucking the fabric up to expose his stomach as he squeezed. “So perfect.”

“You’re hot as fuck when you play,” Steve informed him, buzzing with all of the things he could just say now. “I wanted you the whole time.” Eddie held him in place and kicked his legs apart, crowding in until they were lined up, denim-clad bulges nudged into one straining center.

“Yeah? I bet you’d suck your daddy’s dick in front of everyone, huh?” Eddie leaned in and nipped Steve’s earlobe. “My little groupie.”

Steve tried not to moan, but with Eddie’s hand on his throat, he could feel even the noises that Steve swallowed down. Eddie dug his fingers in and shook a little, pushing Steve’s head back against the stall.

“You’re going to have to be quiet if you want to come,” Eddie warned, his voice low and dangerous. Steve did whine at that, and Eddie smirked, some evil idea darkening his big, sweet eyes. He pulled away from Steve and leaned back across from him, sliding a cigarette from his jacket and lighting it as he kicked up one foot behind him. “Give me your bandana, sweetheart.”

Steve frowned as he untucked it and handed it over. He’d liked wearing it — but Eddie didn’t keep it for long. He tucked the cigarette to one side of his mouth and let smoke rise from it as he wound the bandana around one hand, pulling it off in one tight ball of fabric. Steve’s pulse sped up as he realized what was happening. Eddie didn’t even have to say anything— just lifted his eyebrows, and Steve opened his mouth.

“Good boy,” Eddie praised, his expression pleased. He tucked the black bandana into Steve’s mouth, then pinched Steve’s nose until he started choking on the fabric, trying to breathe. Steve groaned, half in annoyance, half in painful arousal, and Eddie grinned at the muffled sound.

Eddie took a drag from his cigarette and took Steve in. Steve crossed his arms, humiliated and turned on, and Eddie chuckled. He flicked ash onto Steve’s forearms, and Steve hissed through his nose, uncrossed them. “Now keep them up,” Eddie warned, and Steve reached back, flexing his arms up over his head as Eddie undid his jeans one-handed, freeing his dick. “There’s a fucking picture.”

Steve protested into the bandana. He was over-salivating, drool soaking the material, his dick bared and his hands frozen where Eddie had said to put them. His biceps strained, and Eddie stepped closer, undid his own jeans.

His hand was too dry when he pushed their dicks together, jerking them both off, and it burned like the whiskey. The bathroom door slammed open, and voices came in, laughing. Eddie locked eyes with Steve through the sounds of pissing, chatter, through the door closing behind them again — all the while smoking, slowly, not stopping his fist as he studied Steve like he was a butterfly pinned in place. Steve twitched and jerked forward, his hips twisting away from the stall. Eddie gripped them harder, and Steve fucked up into the pain, coming over Eddie’s hand, over Eddie’s dick, the new wetness making a filthy mess between them that made Eddie finish quickly, too. Eddie threw the cigarette into the toilet and plucked the bandana out of Steve’s mouth, switching hands quickly to press his messy fingers against Steve’s tongue. “Fuck, I love you. Suck me clean, baby,” Eddie gritted out, his hair matted and his eyes wild with love.

Steve did what Eddie said. He always did.

“Tell me again,” Eddie murmured. They were laying on the floor in the kitchen, Steve’s head on Eddie’s chest. Eddie was holding his hand up, playing with his fingers, low music coming from the living room. Eddie had collapsed dramatically, relaying to Steve how exhausted work had left him — the brewery was going to be renovating for a month, and he’d had to move half their inventory with a busted hand cart. Steve had tried to pull him up, been pulled down instead. And then they’d just… stayed there, backs flat against the tile, staring up at the ceiling like it would show them something new.

“It’s embarrassing.” Steve protested. He pinched Eddie’s hand, and Eddie wrestled his arm down to bite at his fingers. Steve laughed until Eddie kissed them instead, letting him go. He shifted around so he could tuck his face into Eddie’s shoulder, inhaling sweat and beer and the scent of Eddie — their shared soap, layered over something indefinable.

“Full brood of Harringtons,” Eddie prompted, his voice gentle. He pulled Steve closer and kissed his forehead, his eyelids. Steve’s hip was digging into the tile but he didn’t care.

“Six little nuggets,” he agreed, finally.

“Three boys, three girls. Although we overshot that with three girls and four boys, I think.”

“Yeah, well. They’re barely kids anymore. But I’d still like to do it. See the country. You know, the Rockies, Grand Canyon, maybe Yellowstone. End up in some beachside town in California, spend a week parked in the sun. Learn how to surf or something.”

“I think if we get there by spring break we can take them to at least one of those. And then maybe over the summer, we can hit the rest.”

“Yeah?” Steve grinned into Eddie’s shoulder, picturing it. “You think we could do it?”

“I think you can do just about anything, Steve Harrington. And besides, I already talked to Dustin. He’s getting the Sinclairs and Wheelers on board, and then we can meet the rest out on the coast.”

Steve propped himself up over Eddie. Eddie’s grin was so lovely, so potentially wicked but so frequently fucking angelic that he couldn’t help but kiss it. “You mean it? And you’ll come, too?”

“I told you I’d stay with you,” Eddie reminded him, leaning up to kiss him properly, until Steve’s smile made it too hard to continue. “I’m all yours, big boy.”

“I’m all yours,” Steve swore back. He held up his hand like he was making a pledge, and Eddie traced the burn with his fingertips. “Always have been.”

“Always will be,” Eddie agreed, surging up to bite Steve’s lip, and then his throat, and then they ran out of things to say, but they stayed on the floor for a long, long time.

On the day that Eddie’s hair was long enough to tie into a ponytail, they loaded up the truck.

The brewery renovations were fully underway, and Steve had taken advantage of the break in basketball season to quit his job altogether. Debbie said she’d let him barback, when they returned. They were still planning to come back, for the team and the band, but Steve was starting to feel like they could make a life anywhere, now.

They were picking up Robin at college, and then the kids, out in Hawkins, where they would rent and latch up a trailer, and then they’d start the drive west together. First California, to scoop up the rest of their weird little family. Then up to Oregon to stay with Wayne, hugging the coast for as much of the drive as they could. Eddie wanted to swim in the ocean, wanted to see the top of a mountain, wanted to sneak away from the kids to fuck under a canopy of trees. Steve wanted to spend days on end driving beside him, switching off drivers and music and awful combinations of fast food, moderating arguments between the kids the whole way. Wanted to camp in the truck bed with the bedding they’d brought so the kids could have the trailer, wanted to sleep beside Eddie in a dozen different states, wanted to see what it was like to finally live out his oldest dream.

“I can’t believe we’re doing it,” Steve marveled, as they swung down the end of their street and toward the highway. “We really can go anywhere.”

“Can we go to a gas station first, though?” Eddie asked, shifting his hands on the wheel. “I feel like we didn’t get enough beef jerky.”

Steve made a face at him — the back was stuffed with snacks, tapes, maps, and the bat he never traveled without. “We bought a pound yesterday.”

“I ate it last night,” Eddie admitted. He flicked the hair that was escaping from his ponytail back and reached out for Steve’s leg. “You wore me out, I needed protein.”

“I wore you out?" Steve asked, rolling his eyes at the thought of the way that Eddie had laid back last night, surrounded by boxes and suitcases as Steve rode him. “You’re going to need more than protein to save you if you eat the rest of the snacks before we even get out of Indy,” Steve grumbled, but he shifted his knees so that Eddie could keep a hand on him, rings resting against his jeans.

“Wait, shit, serious question,” Eddie said, and squeezed his thigh. “Steven Beverly Harrington. Did you or did you not pack the shorts?”

“That’s not my middle name, have you been talking to Robin?” Steve groaned and shoved at Eddie’s arm, but Eddie just clamped down harder with his hand, cackling. “Keep your stupid eyes on the road, Munson.”

“Still gonna need a yes or no on the shorts, pretty boy,” Eddie crooned, and drove them forward.