Work Text:
Steve’s headache had been a faithful companion since he’d rolled out of bed that morning and the drumbeat echoing through the stadium speakers wasn’t exactly encouraging it to fuck off. He shouldered through the crowds – one of the benefits of not arriving until the second last song of the concert was that people were already more drunk than sober and therefore much easier to manoeuvre out of the way – until he had a decent view of the stage.
He couldn’t see much of Eddie, who pranced close to the opposite side of the stage, all leather and big curls and talented fingers as he seduced the crowd. But Garrett spotted him in the crowd and sent a friendly nod his way.
Closing his eyes, he focused on the familiar sound of Eddie’s guitar, letting it dull his headache in a way that it really shouldn’t have. He’d heard all of Eddie’s songs hundreds of times, more often in the form of gentle fingers against acoustic strings in the quiet space they had carved out as their home than this version, all loud and vibrant and electric with a hundred thousand people screaming along. He loved them either way.
It wasn’t often that he had the spare time to catch one of the shows in its entirely, not when teaching took up so much of his free time, but he knew that the band, that Eddie, appreciated every second he was there so he made the most of the free passes he had and tried his best. It was worth it. Eddie was so much more on stage, the most alive Steve had ever seen him. Like the drums were echoing his heartbeat, encouraging it to pump louder, faster.
The song ended with a particularly difficult guitar riff, one that Eddie had spent countless nights perfecting, nestled against Steve’s chest with their legs tangled in a way that made it feel like learning the chords was a combined effort.
Eddie pranced back to the main stage and swapped out his guitar for a microphone for the last song of the night. Steve tracked his movements, overeager in the way he always was when Eddie was involved. Eddie’s shirt was cropped with an artful rip along the bottom edge, showing a glimpse of tattoos and scars that Steve knew as well as his own skin.
“I know, I know,” Eddie drawled, mouth close to the microphone like he was whispering into the crowd’s ear. “You have a soft spot for my guitar, I do too, but I promise…” He looked out at the full stadium, a wicked glint in his eyes that Steve recognised despite the distance, “I’m just as good with my month as I am my fingers.”
The crowd erupted, hundreds of vulgar responses to the suggestive remark overlapping each other to be heard. A few people down from him, a girl screamed out Eddie’s name so loud that several people flinched away from the sound. She followed it up with a particularly colourful proposition that would have made his mother clutch at her pearls.
Eddie’s laugh echoed through the stadium and curled around Steve like an embrace. It wasn’t the laugh he loved the most, that was saved just for him and, occasionally, Dustin and Will.
The song started slower than the rest of the album, gentle in comparison to the earlier sound. Despite the fact that Eddie had told him almost all of his sings were love songs in some capacity, this was the one that was the most obvious about it. It was one of Steve’s favourites.
Not because it was a beautifully written song, or because Eddie’s voice curled around the words with the type of talent he had just promised the crowd that he had.
It was his favourite because Steve had first heard it breathed into his ear at two AM, sprawled out on the grass of his backyard with Eddie draped over him like a blanket.
Eddie had always been better with music than with words.
“You know,” the girl near him continued almost as loud as earlier, smugness woven through her voice like syrup, “he wrote this song about me.”
Steve rolled his eyes and laughed under his breath, a quiet disbelieving scoff that came at an unfortunate quiet drop in the song.
That smugness soured as she turned to him. She was beautiful in the ways that King Steve would have stopped to appreciate, would have used that silver tongue of his to smooth the situation over and ensure he left with her number in his back pocket. Big blonde curls and bright green eyes and a dress that covered just enough to make people want to try their luck.
She was also barely older than some of his students, definitely younger than the kids – who hadn’t been kids for years but would always be the kids to Steve – pushing nineteen at the very oldest, which at his ripe old age of twenty-eight seemed impossibly young.
She gave him a critical once over that reminded him sharply of Nancy, of Bullshit.
“Are you lost?” She asked, sugary sweet with the sort of confidence that he knew the taste of all too well.
It never quite lost its sting even if he could see why people would take one look at him at one of Eddie’s concerts and mark him as Other. His baby pink sweater and second-best pair of jeans were as odd amongst the sea of black leather and chains as any of the crowd would be in polite society.
But the sweater was comfortingly well-worn and had a hole at the hem where Eddie’s rings had gotten stuck and ripped it so it was his favourite.
Eddie was singing a song he wrote for Steve. Eddie would take him back to the home they shared after the concert and peel the sweater off of him and call him beautiful and probably end up stealing it to wear while he made breakfast for the both of them tomorrow.
“I’m not lost.”
“Sure,” she drawled out, clearly sceptical.
Whatever she had planned to say next was cut off abruptly when Eddie flounced over to their side of the stage. He pulled the crowd towards him like a magnetic force, like planets trapped in orbit. His hair had lost the careful curls that Steve had touched that morning, diffused into frizzy waves that puffed out around his head like a haze of smoke. The stage lights caught on the rings and necklaces and chains that adorned him and made him glimmer like bottled moonlight. He cradled the microphone in his hands like it was something precious and he scanned the crowd meticulously as lyrics continued to drip honey sweet from his lips.
His eyes lit up when he spotted Steve because he’d been looking for him, even though Steve hadn’t told him he would be able to make it, he’d still been looking just in case, just like he did at every show even the ones that were a thousand miles away from Steve.
Steve loved him so much it felt like he might choke on it.
Eddie took a few extra steps to the edge of the stage to lean down and sing the next line directly at him. There was still at least 20 feet between them, what with him being up on stage and Steve being safely contained behind the barricade, but he didn’t need to imagine the way it would have sounded to have Eddie whisper the words into his ear instead.
Eddie winked obnoxiously before continuing his rounds of the stage.
He’d half forgotten about the girl beside him until the end of the song when he turned his head and caught sight of her. She was stiff, her wide eyes locked onto Eddie as he moved at the far end of the stage. She reminded him of Will for a moment, half terrified and half in awe the first time he met Eddie. Maybe half in love, too.
Her eyes flickered over to meet his and then in a blink the stiffness was gone. She ran her fingers through her hair and sent a satisfied grin his way, all teeth.
She turned back towards the group she’d been boasting to earlier, a delicate blush spreading across her cheeks. “He doesn’t usually make it so obvious but we haven’t seen each other since the Seattle show last month so I guess he really misses me. I mean, didn’t you see how he was looking at me?”
Eddie’s voice cut through the stadium, half breathless with laughter and adrenaline. “You have all been wonderful tonight but unfortunately it is time for me to leave you. I know, I know. It is truly a terrible shame. I would love to stay and chat, but I have a very special visitor here tonight and we all know that it’s impolite to keep royalty waiting.”
He passed the microphone off to Garrett and stepped backstage with a flourish and a glance in Steve’s direction, a stadium apart.
He wasn’t sure how much credibility the group had lent to her earlier claims but Eddie’s presence and speech had clearly changed the tide. They looked at her with the sort of respect and hunger that he had spent almost a decade dodging.
A girl with electric blue hair stepped closer and squinted at her. “You’re Munson’s girl? Really?”
The blonde nodded, twisting a strand of hair around her fingers like she was nervous. “He usually tries to keep it lowkey, but we’ve been together forever. He’s just so protective, you know? Wants to keep me safe from crazy fans.”
The blue haired girl looked at ‘Eddie’s girlfriend’ like she was considering it before shrugging. “Sick.”
There seemed to be a blanket agreement to believe her as more and more of the outer crowd caught onto the excitement and shuffled closer.
Steve’s stomach ached at the easy acceptance. He’d spent years having to convince people that he even knew of the band and this girl could just waltz in and claim to be dating the frontman and face only mild doubt.
He understood it, though. To a degree.
This was the sort of girl that people imagined when they thought of Eddie Munson’s secret lover, all long limbs and bright eyes and perfect hair. She looked like she could step up next to Eddie on a red carpet and wrap herself around him like a scarf and no one would even think to stop her.
He’d met a dozen girls just like her, claiming the exact same thing. It didn’t even seem to matter that Eddie was always quick to deny the rumours. He was a rockstar who’d never shown up to an event with a woman on his arm, so obviously he either had a secret girlfriend or a different woman every night or both.
It would have been funny, the idea of Eddie having some secret girlfriend despite the fact that he’d never even tried to hide his sexuality, if it didn’t make Steve want to scream.
But they knew better than to reveal their relationship, even if the 90’s were shaping up to be a great deal more accepting than the 80’s had been. Besides the impact that having an openly queer frontman would have, there was Steve’s safety to consider.
Because half of the crowd, both men and women, looked like they wanted to bash the blonde’s head in with a brick just to take her place. Most of them looked like they were fully capable of following through with it, too.
He could almost see the appeal. But years of blood and violence, of picking gore out of rusted nails and washing his hands until his skin was worn thin, had taught him other methods.
The blue haired girl stepped forward with a sharp glint in her eyes and smiled at the blonde. He knew she was a reporter before she spoke. There was something in the set of her shoulders, the twitch of her hands for the notepad or recorder she no doubt had in her neat little purse. He didn’t need to smell the blood in the water to recognise a predator.
And maybe it was because it was only the 18th day of the month and three different girls had already convinced mindless gossip magazines to publish articles about the wild love affair they had with Eddie Munson, or maybe it was because of the smug smile she had given him after Eddie had walked away, or maybe it was just that King Steve had never fully died when it came to defending the people he loved.
Whatever the reason, he turned towards the girl before the reporter could sink her nails into her and drag her away for their fifteen minutes of fame and said, “prove it.”
Her green eyes were furious. “Excuse me?”
“I. Don’t. Believe. You,” he said, sounding out the words slowly like she needed the breakdown to understand them.
She scoffed, glancing around at her crowd of admirers, making sure she still had them where she wanted them. “Eddie said that he had royalty waiting for him.”
“So?” Steve said, cocking his head to the side and feeling the crowd around them like a single living organism.
“So,” she insisted, “everyone who knows anything about the band knows that Eddie always refers to his girlfriend as royalty in his songs. Not that you would know that.”
“No. I meant, why should we believe he was talking about you?”
“Because he was.” The crowd shuffled on their feet, a few clearly questioning her statement now that the high of the concert was wearing thin, finally taking note of her desperation, of her age, of the impossibility of it all. “He was!”
Steve shrugged, settling into the smug, self-righteous persona he had lived inside during high school. “Prove it,” he repeated.
The reporter rolled her eyes and slipped away into the crowd to chase another story. The blonde stared after her like she’d lost more than just the opportunity to lie to the public and get a few desperate photographers camped outside of her dorm room for a day or two.
Before too many of her crowd had the chance to follow in the reporter’s steps, bored of the drama unfolding, she turned back to him and pushed her hair back over her shoulder. “Okay, I will.”
Steve made a show of looking around the venue. “I think there’s a backstage entrance over there. Surely you won’t have any problem getting in?”
She hid the flash of anxiety well, but he had grown up seeking out weakness in his kids, learning the tells so that no one was ever left alone too long after a nightmare or panic attack. “Of course not. They know who I am.”
“Of course,” he echoed, turning to face the crowd. “Security will freak if a whole crowd comes up to the door trying to get in. Best if just the two of us go, I think.”
Her blonde hair bounced as she nodded along. “Yeah, they’ve told me that before. Not too many people. Don’t want to, like, cause a scene.” She smiled wide at the crowd and he let her have her final moment in the spotlight before he cut the cords and left her in the dark. “I’ll ask Eddie if he has time to come out and sign some things for you, but he’s usually super tired after a show, so no promises.”
He led her across the venue, weaving through the hordes of drunk twenty-somethings that were making their way out. She followed at his heels, barely covering her fear under that smug aura. Fear, because she knew Eddie might call out her lies.
She should have been more afraid of the stranger leading her off into the dark corners of the arena. She was one of the lucky ones, who didn’t know that there were monsters out there that were capable of ripping entire limbs off without any effort, who could peel back their face and then peel back her own with their teeth. But human monsters existed as well and there were too many reasons not to trust a man you didn’t know, especially at night.
He was relieved that his girls, that all of his kids, would never even consider letting their emotions overpower their instincts enough to follow a stranger into the dark. Even if most of the kids were fully capable of protecting themselves if it came down to it.
He didn’t want to feel relieved that she had followed him and not one of the bad ones, because next time it wouldn’t be him leading her away from her friends, from the crowds, from safety.
“What’s your name?” He asked, glancing back at her to make sure she hadn’t gotten lost in the crowd, half disappointed to find that she hadn’t taken the chance to slip away.
“Linda.” She huffed, avoiding his gaze. “What’s yours?”
“Steve.”
“You’re a real asshole, Steve.”
He let out a bark of unimpressed laughter. “Yeah, I’m not your greatest fan either right now, Linda.”
She looked ready to tell him to fuck off when he gestured towards a shadowed alcove at the side of the stage building. She gave him a considering look, hopefully finally recovering enough sense not to listen to him, and then slipped into the space.
He wanted to shake her, to tell her that this is how girls fucking die, but she’d already walked ahead and caught the attention of the security guard outside the backstage entrance.
The guards came with the tour, rather than the arena so Steve recognised the broad-chested man before them. Mack looked at Steve, went to give him the usual smile and greeting, and Steve quickly shook his head and mouthed ‘you don’t know me’ over Linda’s pretty head.
Mack took it in stride, instead sending Steve a stern glance and moving to fully block the door. “Crew only, there’s exits at the back of the arena and bathrooms are opposite the stage.”
Linda arched towards Mack, close enough that if either of them took a deep enough breath they would touch. From the unconscious drag of Mack’s eyes down towards her chest Steve could guess what feature the position emphasised.
“It’s okay,” she purred, twisting a strand of hair around her finger and smiling demurely. “Eddie told me to meet him here. Could you go let him know I’m waiting?”
Mack’s eyes flickered over to Steve, who let his blank, unimpressed stare speak for itself.
“Did he now?” Mack asked, not moving away but not pressing any closer either, keeping the door carefully protected.
“Uh huh,” she agreed. “He’ll tell you himself if you bring him out here.”
It was a smart move, asking to have Eddie brought out to her rather than just passing the message along. He’d seen it done a hundred times before, girls who Eddie didn’t know but who assumed that the rockstar would take one look at them – young, beautiful, willing – and take them home with him. Or at least take them backstage and fuck them in the dressing room.
“Eddie’s a busy man. But if you give me something I can see about getting you an autograph, okay?”
Linda glanced back towards Steve, cheeks flushed. She quickly shook off the embarrassment and laughed as if Mack had leaned in and told her a joke. “You must be new.” She touched her palm lightly to his chest, undeterred when he immediately stepped backwards, out of her reach. “I don’t need an autograph. I’m Eddie’s girlfriend. Did he forget to tell you? He usually makes sure the crew know so they can keep an eye out and, well, avoid this, I guess.”
Mack lost an ounce of his composure, expression dropping into a frown. “Uh huh,” he echoed. “You know, a lie like that could ruin his life if the wrong person believed it.”
“Excuse me?” Linda’s voice lost the spun sugar that had lingered at the edge of her words, crystalising into something sharp.
“He does, actually. Let the crew know who to look out for at his shows, I mean. To make sure that his partner is never stuck outside. Happened once years ago. Eddie’s been a bit overprotective ever since. So yeah, I can say pretty confidently that you aren’t exactly his type.”
Mack looked towards him again, checking that he hadn’t crossed a line. Steve smiled in encouragement and Mack glanced back over at Linda, silently asking if he should escort her away or let her keep trying her luck. His smile turned smug, a little more of King Steve slipping into his expression. Let her try, it seemed to say.
Linda stepped closer again, oblivious to the conversation happening over the top of her head. Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but the alleyway took it and amplified it. “Did you really think a man like Eddie Munson only had one girlfriend? Go on, call him over. See if he turns me away, I dare you.”
Mack looked ready to give up and tell her to get lost when the door behind him swung open and Eddie’s wild head of curls appeared.
His hair was somehow even bigger than it had been on stage, like he’d ran his fingers through it and amplified the mess rather than attempted to tame it. Those big doe eyes were vibrant against the dark smudge of his eyeliner as they caught on Mack and Linda before settling on Steve.
Honestly, he wasn’t sure how he and Eddie had kept their relationship hidden during high school. Not when all of Eddie’s protective layers seemed to dissolve whenever they were together. Steve was hardly any better. A decade of practice hadn’t made a difference. Anyone paying attention could take one look and know that the rumours of Eddie’s endless string of girls were false.
Linda moved forward, drawn in by Eddie’s polarity the same way the crowd had been all night. She raised her hands unsteadily but paused, like she couldn’t decide whether she was praying for a blessing or keeping a wild animal at bay.
Eddie settled against the side of the doorframe and sent her a grin that was all stage lights and magazine covers. “Well, hello there, beautiful.”
His eyes hadn’t shifted away from Linda’s, but he wasn’t talking to her.
“Oh,” Linda whispered, like something profound had just settled into place. She moved her hands to her hair, doing a decent job at pretending it had been her intention from the start, and smiled up at Eddie with just the right mix of excitement, awe and confidence to make a straighter, singler man falter. “Hi, Eddie.”
Eddie glanced around the alcove like he was taking it in for the first time and coming up wanting. “Mack wasn’t giving you any trouble, was he? I’d hate to think you were stuck out here.”
Linda was extraordinarily pretty when she blushed. “I was looking for you actually. He said… he said you wouldn’t want to see me.”
Prove him wrong, her eyes whispered.
Eddie leaned in closer. “Is that so?”
“Uh huh,” she murmured, moving forward like she couldn’t help but follow his lead and get as close as possible.
Eddie’s gaze finally flickered back to Steve, but only for a moment. “Friend of yours, sweetheart?"
She startled, taking a moment to shift her focus over to Steve as if she’d forgotten he was there. She blinked up at Eddie with expressive eyes and, as if sound hadn’t already proven willing to travel to unintended ears in the small space, she whispered, “he’s been following me. Please, Eddie, he’s scaring me. Take me away from him?
A strand of her hair slipped forward and Eddie reached out and tucked it gently behind her ear. It was a painfully familiar move to Steve. Eddie sighed, a loud disappointed sound that washed the air clear of her words. “That’s too bad.”
“I,” she leaned back from the haze of Eddie’s presence, confusion crinkling the space between her brows, “what?”
“That’s too bad,” he repeated. He removed the hand he’d had in her hair with the same smirk that got him accused of leading cults back in high school. “Any friend of Stevie’s is a friend of mine.”
Linda whipped around to stare at Steve. The strand of hair that Eddie had touched came untucked at the motion.
He waved his fingers at her.
“You’re friends?” She accused, and it was back there in her gaze, Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit.
Eddie’s laugh was the one that he only reserved for the people who threatened his family, for people who threatened Steve or Robin or the kids. He reached out and Linda flinched back, her instincts finally kicking in, but it was Steve he held his hand out to. “No. We aren’t friends.”
Steve slipped his fingers between Eddie’s, a fraction of tension releasing from his shoulders at the familiar calluses against his skin. There was a hunger in Eddie’s eyes, something dark and possessive and rich. He wanted to drown in it.
Eddie pulled him forward, past Linda’s confused face and Mack’s satisfied grin. He pulled him into the warm corridor and made sure that Steve was firmly, safely behind him before he turned back towards Linda. “Like Mack said, you aren’t exactly my type.”
Her gaping mouth and startled eyes were the last thing he saw as Eddie pulled the door closed in her face.
Steve didn’t even attempt to hide the delight he felt at the sight.
Eddie curled an arm around him, pulling him close to his side as they made their way back towards Eddie’s dressing room. The hallways were empty, the crew too busy with escorting the last of the crowd out of the venue and pulling down the stage sets. At some point, Eddie would need to report in before leaving to ensure his manager that he hadn’t been kidnapped by a crazed fan, but for the moment he was all Steve’s.
Eddie was wearing platform boots that pushed him just that bit taller than usual, taller than Steve. It meant that Steve got to look up at his partner and settle into that familiar feeling of safety that he’d only ever really felt with Eddie and Robin, his soulmates, platonic and not.
“How long were you listening in?” He asked, half distracted by the mascara that made Eddie’s eyelashes criminally long.
Eddie looked down at him and cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t act coy, Stevie. We both know that you brought her to that door because you knew that I would be waiting on the other side.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he lied. “I was just doing my duty and delivering the young lady to her boyfriend.”
Eddie pressed his face into Steve’s hair and groaned deep. The sound made its way through Steve’s bones and settled there. “God, I can’t wait to see the headlines tomorrow. Bet I knocked her up too. Father of the year.”
Steve leaned into his touch, hating the trill of jealousy he felt. Sometimes it felt like it was always there, lingering hot to the touch under his skin just waiting for something to bring it to the surface. Like an old burn scar reacting to fresh heat.
Eddie pulled away just enough to see his face and immediately stopped them in their tracks. “Stevie.”
“I’m fine.” His voice was unconvincing, wavering unsteadily like a teenager on the cusp of puberty.
“Baby. Look at me, hey. Steve.” Eddie’s eyes were wide and gentle as they encouraged him to look up.
Not Stevie, not Sweetheart, not Baby. He was only Steve when Eddie needed him to get out of his head and really listen.
He reached out and twisted one of Eddie’s rings around his fingers, holding his partners hands in his own. “Yeah.”
“You know that I’d tell everyone, the whole fucking world, that I’m yours in a heartbeat if I didn’t think it would just backfire on us and end up hurting you. Right?”
Steve shrugged.
“Steve. Say the word and I’ll tell them all.” He insisted, closing his fingers around Steve’s and holding his hands hostage. “You know that I’d do anything for you, announce how much I love you to the world, run away with you to Australia or Antarctica or the middle of the woods, tattoo your name on my forehead.”
Steve snorted softly, pressing his face into Eddie’s neck for a moment and just breathing him in. “I know. Don’t do any of those things, you big idiot. I’m just being stupid.”
Eddie gently pulled away to catch his eye, more serious than he usually was, regardless of the situation. “It’s not stupid if it’s making you sad. Talk to me, baby.”
“I just…” Steve let out a breath in frustration, letting his mind still for a moment and figure out what it was that set him off. “They just believed her, so easily. Because it made sense, because the two of you fit together and, and the two of us don’t.”
Eddie hummed, not brushing him off or rushing to fix it. Just listening and absorbing the anxiety, letting it soak into his body and out of Steve’s as he decided on the best way to handle the situation. He slipped his hands free and moved them to cradle Steve’s face instead, coarse fingertips smoothing over sharp cheekbones.
“I don’t know about that. The way I see it,” Eddie leaned in and brushed their lips together, not quite a kiss as much as just a drag of skin against skin, “I know from first-hand experience how well we fit together. I know what you look like first thing in the morning before you even touch your infamous hair. I know that Max and El are tied for second place as your favourite children. I know every scar that you got almost getting yourself killed to get me home.” Eddie’s grin turned sly against Steve’s lips. “I know what you sound like when you’re right there on the edge of wrecked, after I’ve spent an hour taking you apart.”
His tongue darted out to wet his lips and Steve felt it against his own like a promise. “Eds.”
“I know you, Steve. And I don’t even care enough to learn her fucking name.”
Eddie slid his hands to the back of Steve’s head and tilted it up for easy access as he pressed their lips together properly. He didn’t ease into it, but slipped his tongue directly into Steve’s mouth and swallowed the whine that the younger man let out.
Steve twisted his fingers into the back of Eddie’s shirt and pulled him closer. He gasped into his mouth as Eddie walked him a few steps back and pressed him firmly against the wall. Eddie’s hair was a soft dark cloud hiding Steve away from the rest of the world, equal parts hairspray and sweat and weed and something more.
He brought it home with him every time, the sort of static electricity that clung to him after a big concert. Steve preferred it like this, when he could taste it on Eddie’s tongue, still fresh from the stage.
As jealous as he was, as he always got every time a new girl told someone that Eddie had chosen her to take home, the jealousy never stemmed from the thought of Eddie actually wanting someone else.
Not when he knew that he was the only person who got to see Eddie like this, the only person who was allowed to move their hands up to his wild frizz of curls and feel the strands slip between their fingers. Not when Eddie groaned into his mouth and pressed closer like the only oxygen he wanted to breathe was in Steve’s lungs.
One of Eddie’s hands drifted down and fingered at the hole at the bottom of his sweater. He pulled back just enough to glance down at Steve’s outfit. “God, I love this sweater. You look so fucking cosy.”
Steve blushed the colour of his sweater and tried to pull Eddie back to his mouth. Instead, Eddie pressed a kiss to the arch of Steve’s neck and breathed out, hot and wet against the skin.
Steve gasped into Eddie’s hair, which tickled his shoulders as lips locked down on the tender spot. He dragged his teeth over skin, rough and messy and so good that Steve was grateful that he was pressed so firmly between Eddie and the wall.
Steve’s moan was only barely muffled, echoing far too loudly in the corridor.
Eddie hummed against his skin, a small pleased sound, before continuing the action on his neck and sending thrills through Steve’s body. His teeth were a little too sharp, drawing blood almost to the surface and turning Steve’s neck into a heat sink as the rest of his body went numb. It grounded him and made him weightless at the same time in the way that only Eddie had ever figured out how to accomplish.
He was surprised he even noticed, with the attention Eddie was carefully granting his neck, but something caught Steve’s eye in the periphery, a movement from down the hall. From between the mess of Eddie’s curls, he could make out two people paused less than a hundred metres away. The smaller of the two was stiff, eyes wide at the display that Eddie and Steve made as Eddie continued to ruin him with carefully violent teeth and lips and tongue.
Mack and Linda.
His eyes locked onto hers and despite the distance between them, he could almost feel her jealousy like an oily weight in the air. She glanced between them and Mack accusingly, just like she’d done earlier when Eddie had pulled him backstage without her.
He let a touch of King Steve bleed into his expression as he smirked, twisting his hand into Eddie’s hair possessively.
Before Steve had the chance to do anything more, Eddie pulled away from his neck and kissed him, deep and messy, pressing him back into the wall hard enough that it would have hurt if not for the way he was still carefully cradling the back of Steve’s head.
Steve’s eyes fluttered shut without conscious decision.
Kissing Eddie was his favourite past time, had been since the first time. He had been eighteen years old and terrified and already half in love the first time he’d had the courage to kiss the older man.
There was something indescribable about kissing him, so different than Nancy or any of the girls who had come before her. Different than kissing Tommy at fourteen and never talking about it again.
It wasn’t quite like being struck by lightning, but more like being struck by a defibrillator. Like the push and pull of soft lips against his own was the only thing keeping his heart beating and there was no telling whether or not it would stop the moment they pulled away.
It was his favourite trauma, the delicate way Eddie broke him down and then decided how to rebuild him.
It was almost enough to block out everything else.
Except, he was still vividly aware of Linda’s lingering eyes, could practically feel them burning into his skin. He relished in the sting.
He wanted to open his eyes and watch her watching him, watching them, but then Eddie did something wicked with his tongue inside Steve’s mouth and he refused to pull away from one second of the sensation of being completely immersed in Eddie.
It wasn’t that he liked the watching part, necessarily. He wasn’t looking for a voyeur to stumble across him and Eddie in a back hallway. But he and Eddie’s relationship had been hidden from everyone outside their little found family for almost a decade and he would be lying if he said he didn’t take a thrill in being seen.
Of someone else seeing that he was Eddie’s and Eddie was his.
Eddie pulled away just enough to create a little pocket of air between them, warm breath ghosting across Steve’s lips.
Steve whined at the loss, opening his eyes and catching Eddie watching him already with those big, expressive eyes that just about killed him every time.
Eddie slipped a hand up from where it had been resting on Steve’s hip, sliding it up along the matching scars on his ribs, across the still blooming bruises on his neck, and settled with it cupping his jaw. He brushed the pad of his thumb across Steve’s tender lips and Steve watched his eyes dilate like he had glanced up at the sun.
“Did she see?” Eddie asked, voice even more wrecked than it got from hours belting out lyrics on stage.
“Yes,” Steve breathed out against Eddie’s thumb.
“Is she still here?”
He peeked out from behind Eddie’s hair. “No.”
Linda was gone, likely being given the standard lecture from Mack. Not that anyone would believe her even if she decided to talk. It didn’t matter whether or not she decided to continue with her lie about her and Eddie, she would know the truth and it would haunt her and that was enough for Steve.
“Good.” Eddie leaned in and kissed him again, slow and gentle and thorough. Like Steve was something precious and worthy of being handled with care. He moved his other hand from the back of Steve’s neck to cup the other side of his face, so that Steve was surrounded by Eddie Eddie Eddie.
It was different to the previous kiss, still a fire burning against his skin, but as if someone had come along and changed the setting down to a simmer. Enough to keep him warm but never enough to scar.
That time, it was the easiest thing in the world to block out everything that wasn’t the slow drag of Eddie’s lips against his, the brush of warm callused palms on his skin, the soft scratch of curls. A thousand girls could have stood in the hallway watching them with poison in their eyes and Steve would be none the wiser.
But he knew that they weren’t, because this Eddie was solely for him.
When Eddie pulled away his eyes no longer held any of the manic energy of that first kiss. He pressed his forehead to Steve’s and held his gaze steady. “The rest of the world can say what they want about who is and isn’t mine. I’m yours.”
“You’re mine?” Steve whispered back, twisting his fingers deeper into Eddie’s curls. It wasn’t really a question.
“Until the day you stop wanting me, baby.”
Despite the lack of space between them, Steve pulled him impossibly closer “Forever, then?”
Eddie’s grin softened, hopelessly fond. “Forever.”
They deserved that much.