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Seventeen year old Steve Harrington would never have been caught dead doing karaoke. It was only for losers and weirdos. Or so he’d thought, until his fall from High School grace had sent him crashing clumsily down towards one hell of a reality check, and he’d found that these aforementioned losers and weirdos would end up being some of the best people he’d ever met. Dustin was a family friend he’d never even given the time of day to all the time Steve had been snarled up in the bindings of the teenage power-struggle, looking down on Dustin’s enthusiasm and curiosity when he should have allowed himself a little of that same joy. Dustin’s friends, all around the same age - a few years younger than Steve, that is - had come as a package deal, and without so much as blinking, Steve had seemingly adopted six mid-teenagers who seemed to follow him around like ducklings.
Robin had come along a little later, bringing something stronger than friendship, as deep as family, and all because they’d both been working at the same ice cream parlor the year Steve graduated. It was a shitshow of a place, and the two of them had had to put out their fair share of fires (both metaphorically and literally), and that kind of thing really lets you get to know a person fast.
With Robin came her girlfriend Chrissy - the petite, sugarplum sweetness of her, the baby blues and ginger curls, the quick wit that would slice so sharp you wouldn’t even know you’d been cut - and with Chrissy came her best friend Eddie (and his best friend Gareth) and his younger sister Nancy. Both doe eyed, dark haired; both sharp as tacks, fierce and smarter than Steve by far. And both his type, though his flirtation had only really been with Eddie. Steve had felt almost relieved when Nancy and Jonathan from one of her college classes had started dating, rather than disappointed as he likely should have been.
It became clearer and clearer to Steve over the years that followed that the older Munson-Wheeler sibling had - and would seemingly always - captured Steve’s fascination. Eddie was as loud as he was lithe, as funny as he was fiendish, and Steve couldn’t quite get enough of him. Though he’d never allowed himself too much; Steve had never quite found the courage to transform the fascination-turned-admiration-turned-affection-turned-yeah, love. It’s love. Steve’s a big boy and he can confess that to himself, even if he can’t bring himself to say the words to the person that actually needs to hear them, and transform it into something tangible. As much as Eddie had drifted into his space, had winked and clambered onto and over his lap on movie nights, had bought him drinks and lent him his jacket when Steve was cold but too stubborn to admit it. As much as Steve wanted to. Something had always been snagging his tongue before it could form the words.
So yeah, while seventeen year old Steve may have thought himself far above the humility of (most likely) drunkenly embarrassing himself onstage, at twenty-four, Steve had outgrown that boy; he’d soon learned that a smile earned through silliness was far sweeter than a grimace through teasing. And in the third week of December, just shy of his twenty-fifth birthday, Steve gladly accompanied Robin, Eddie and the other members of his gathered family that were of legal age to Happy-Oke, ready and willing to make an absolute fool of himself if it made his best friends laugh.
He’d talked through potential song choices with Robin for days beforehand, swinging between classic and alternative, melancholy and kitschy, until he settled on a top three.
“They’re gonna have them,” Steve assured Robin with entirely baseless confidence. This was the first outing to their local karaoke bar during the Christmas season, and who’s to say whether their seasonal selection would have any of the carefully curated list he’d thought over and over.
They don’t have them. Well, strictly that’s not true, they have two versions of one of them. Santa Baby is overrepresented on the list of potential songs, with both Eartha Kitt and Michael Bublé offering their services. And Steve’s many things, but he is not a strong man; he sees Mr. Bublé on the tracklist and he crumbles. And that’s what he does - he selects that version of the song and heads back to the sprawling group of his friends, a little gooey-eyed.
There’s a general buzz around the overcrowded table that comes with Happy Hour cocktails and good company, and Steve is not immune to it. He sips at a margarita through a teeny tiny straw and just observes the pockets of conversation: Eddie and Gareth are fiercely debating something (it could be anything from an insightful dismantling of modern gender stereotypes to whether a hotdog is a sandwich - it’s not); Chrissy’s showing Robin how to fold paper napkins into little dragons, which is taking considerably more effort on Robin’s part than on her girlfriend’s, and Nancy’s watching Jon and his best buddy Argyle giggling their way through a tipsy performance of Feliz Navidad. Steve’s content simply to watch, to draw his eyes from face to smiling face. He pulls the thin-framed glasses from his face and pinches the corner of his tee around the lenses one at a time, and everything blurs just a little. In the softened focus of Steve’s spectacle-less vision, the whole place is dreamlike - the music and singing, the rumble of laughter and conversation, the overarching sweetness of sugary syrups and liqueurs tipped into glass after glass.
The song ends, evoking a round of whoops and table-smacks from Steve’s clan. He’s just slotting his glasses back onto his face when the MC ushers Jon and Argyle off the stage good-naturedly, telling the bar to ‘Give ‘em a hand! Can’t fault their enthusiasm!’ Steve’s cheeks are already beginning to ache a little with the stretch of smiling so wide and so much, but he wouldn’t trade it, no way. He watches Jon sling his arm around Argyle’s waist and laugh into his shoulder, making of the two of them a clumsy four-legged creature that lollops its way back to their cluster of high tables.
“Y’know you’re supposed to sing in tune!” Robin hollers over the bar’s chatter, mischief glinting in her smile that’s all teeth and no bite.
“And you’re supposed to actually sing at a karaoke bar, Buckley!” Jon shoots back, a little loose around the edges but coherent enough to make the group of them laugh. Steve’s about to pile on, prepared to rib Robin to within an inch of her life for the tone-deafness that leaves her a much happier spectator than a performer, when the MC turns his attention from casual crowd-warming and filler.
“Okay, next up is Steve, everyone welcome Steve to the stage!”
“Oh shit, man!” Argyle cracks out, face splitting into an open-mouthed smile. “You’re goin’ up on your own? Mad brave, dude!”
Steve plants a foot on the floor and slips off his stool, adrenaline prickling under his arms. He’s excited, he’s happy, totally. But he’s also kinda terrified. Because he’s a little more sober than he’s ever been stepping up onto that stage, and the amused smile that Eddie casts at him as Steve had squeezed past his chair, it’s still sticking in his mind even as he nears makes his way towards the MC. His brain is lagging a little as his feet carry him up the couple little steps and onto the small half-moon stage in the corner of the room, still caught on the tilt of Eddie’s chin, the dark shine of his eyes. He turns and catches Robin’s stare - their tables are only a few feet away from the performance area, so Steve hears the encouraging yell she lets out, even over the opening notes of the music.
“You got this, dingus! Seduce that old beardy man!”
Steve’s laughing when he shakily croons the opening lines. The screen in front of him is a little too small for him to be able to read the lyrics without squinting just a bit, even with his glasses on, and the spotlights beam bright and hot. Each burst of light flares into sharpened flowerheads in his periphery, glinting through his glasses, but he keeps his focus locked on the screen, keeping himself forcibly in time. It takes the first couple lines for Steve’s nerves to settle, but his heart’s still jackrabbiting and his cheeks are still burning - he must look like a strawberry in a shirt right now. Steve can’t really see anyone from where he’s standing; they’re all just outlines in the forced darkness, but he can hear surprised chatter, his ears pick up the whisper-shouts of encouragement to his left.
And then, voice growing stronger and more settled with each syllable that floats from his lips, Steve approaches the end of the first verse, and there’s a dramatic gasp from the table nearest the stage. It’s so unexpected Steve almost stumbles over the tail end of the lyric, but just about catches up before he’s out of time.
In the reprieve granted by the instrumental between verses, Steve swiftly sidles the few steps to the side of the stage and cups his hand over his eyes, scouring the group for the perpetrator of the gasp.
Eddie has his hand plastered to his chest, and his chin is tucked into his neck. His mouth hangs agape in typical ludicrous fashion, and he looks absolutely appalled.
“What?” Steve hisses, staring wide-eyed at Eddie, who shakes his head at Steve solemnly, much to the amusement of their companions.
“Buddy? Santa Buddy?” Eddie hisses.
Steve scoffs, gesturing wildly at the monitor in front of him; the little blue line is quickly rushing towards the next lyrics, and he doesn’t have long to make his protest before he’ll have to sing again. “It’s on the screen!”
Eddie makes a disapproving sound, and Nancy laughs. Though Steve can’t see her face where he’s turned back towards the scrolling lyrics, he knows she’ll have just smacked at Eddie’s arm for being so melodramatic. The second verse rolls around and fuck, it’s even less seductive than the first. Naturally, Eddie feels the need for some more crowd participation.
“You’re not making me believe you want to fuck this man, Steven!” he yells, much to the amusement of far too many people around him. Steve tilts the mic away from his mouth and leans down towards Eddie’s table, not bothering to shield his eyes this time to look directly at him.
“Stop distracting me- and I’ll wait up for you, dude.” Steve interrupts himself, desperately attempting to keep in time and not bomb so hard he’ll be shooed offstage.
“You have got to be fucking kidding!”
It strikes Steve then, the poor choice he’s made. Steve’s love for Bublé had temporarily blinded him, and he’d ended up choosing about as ‘no-homo’ a karaoke song as humanly possible. Like, the absolute epitome of it. Two bros chilling in a sleigh yada yada yada type beat. And it’s a weird kind of catch 22, because Steve had been hoping when he picked it that he’d be able to turn on a little of the charm that Robin and Nance always seemed to say he had none of (late high school and early college years proved them entirely wrong, but it’d been a while since he was that version of himself). Still, Steve had had one particular goofy, gangly, devastatingly gorgeous person in mind when he’d scrolled through the songs and made a note of his choice, and maybe he’d wanted to hint a little to that certain someone that he wouldn’t exactly be unhappy with them coming down his chimney.
Once Eddie quiets down, evidently having run out of exasperated remarks, Steve chuckles his way through the rest of the song, throwing a stray middle finger in the vague direction of Eddie’s table and sauntering around the stage like the big man himself (Bublé, not Santa). He’s truly having a great time, and no amount of chaotic heckling is going to dampen that joy.
The final trills of piano play Steve out, and there are cheers from not just his target audience, but some smattered around the bar too, and Steve’s quietly pleased with himself - he’s always thought he had quite a good singing voice, and validation from strangers is about as good as any other kind.
Eddie’s not on his stool when Steve hops off the low stage and out of the glare of the spotlights. His denim jacket’s still slung over the backrest, so he hasn’t actually gone, but a cursory glance up to the bar tells Steve he’s not just gone for another whisky and coke. The MC’s announcing that someone called Fiz or Tiz or something is going to sing a song that Steve can’t be sure, but he thinks he heard it called ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer’, and Steve drops back onto his stool, grabbing the melting margarita and forgoing the teeny straw in favor of gulping back the sharp coolness of it.
“Where’s Eddie?” Steve asks, trying to keep the low-level desperation out of his voice. He doesn’t think Eddie’s actually upset about this, but it’s still weird that he just disappeared.
“He got up around your third synonym for ‘buddy’, I think.” Gareth leans over Nancy to join the conversation, and Steve whips round to look at him.
“Wh- Was- Wh- Are you serious?”
“I told you he’d have a problem with it!” Robin cries, throwing her hands up in exasperation. Steve gets the distinct sense he’s slipped up here, he only hopes it’s fixable. “I said to you, I said Eddie’s gonna have a problem with all the buddy-pally stuff because why bother changing it just because you’re a guy! The song is the song! Couldn’t you have just put aside your whole macho Mr. Man bullshit for three minutes?” Robin pokes at Steve’s biceps in little alternating stabs, and her berating has no real venom in it, but Steve protests all the same.
“I wasn’t- what macho Mr- I’m not- and besides, you’re telling me that I shouldn’t have picked Michael Bublé? Daddy Christmas himself? And then- what was I supposed to do - not sing the lyrics that were on the screen in front of me? I’d look like an asshole.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just call him Da- What did you do.” Robin cuts herself off to address someone behind Steve. The twinkling cackle that Steve knows belongs to one Eddie Munson gives him away without Steve even having to twist round to look. He can’t see Eddie’s face, but judging by Robin’s sudden narrowing, and then widening of her eyes, Eddie’s expression can be nothing less than fiendish. Eddie closes his fingers around Steve’s biceps and leans in beside him; his face is so close to Steve’s that if Steve were to turn to look at him, he’s sure their lips would meet. Instead, Steve stares intensely at Robin, sitting stock still under Eddie’s playful restraint.
“Get your tight ass ready, Stevie boy. I think,” Eddie leans in a little closer, until Steve can feel the brush of Eddie’s curls against his ear, “we’re up next.”
Eddie reaches around Steve to place another margarita on the table in front of him, pecks a sharp kiss to Steve’s cheekbone and whispers that it’s ‘For his nerves.’
“Wait- but- You’re not mad?” Steve’s brain is revolving at the speed of light, skittering past the fact that Eddie just kissed him - he’ll come back to that later, no doubt - and circling back round to Eddie’s initial disappearance.
“Mad? Why would I be mad, sweetheart? Not when I can get even.” Eddie flashes his tongue between the parallel rows of his teeth and whips around; the black bandanna stuffed into his back right pocket swishes out away from the subtle curve of his ass as he moves. There’s a lilt in Eddie’s step as he walks, a loose, easy sway. The bandanna sways with him, and Steve’s train of thought switches track. Eddie’s mentioned it’s more a fashion statement than it is a socio-political one, but that he’s always open to the possibility.
As Steve reaches forward for the glass, Eddie halts his stride and pivots, clearly noticing that Steve hasn’t moved from where he’s stuck perched on his stool, gripping the table with his other hand to keep himself steady. With a faux-disapproving frown, Eddie scampers back towards him and juts out his hand, grabbing hold of Steve’s wrist and yanking his hand from its position around the table’s edge.
“Ne-next as in, as in now- oh, uh,” Steve stammers, letting Eddie pull him upright. He tries not to focus too hard on the pressure of Eddie’s fingers closed around his arm, tries not to stare too intently at any one part of him for fear of giving himself away entirely before he’s ready. Eddie tosses his head back in a shimmering laugh and begins his jaunt towards the stage, accompanied by the announcement from the MC.
Glass in hand, Steve stumbles after Eddie - he’d be drawn unwaveringly by his magnetism, even if Eddie didn’t still have Steve caught in his grasp. In a last-ditch attempt to be spared whatever torment Eddie has surely signed him up for, Steve looks back towards Robin and the rest of the gang. Much to Steve’s chagrin, they all seem to be sharing in Eddie’s joy. None of them spare even a moment’s compassion for little old Steve, caught between indulging the ever-growing obsession with Eddie Munson that he’s been harboring, and just straight up booking it out of the place.
Before he’s had the chance to even half mentally prepare himself, Steve’s tripping back up the couple steps and onto the little stage, careful to keep his drink level. And then just as quick, the opening drumbeat of - oh fucking shit are you serious - ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ starts blaring through the speakers. Eddie releases Steve’s wrist and snatches the two microphones from the MC, thrusting one in Steve’s direction. He takes it in a sweaty hand, hating the way his heart thrums at the brief touch of Eddie’s fingers against his own.
The whole group are urging them on, with Gareth wolf-whistling up something criminal, but Chrissy’s voice is the loudest, even over the brass.
“Go for it, boys!”
Steve doesn’t know exactly what the it is that he’s going for.
“Which part am I singing?” Steve hisses as the vocals loom nearer, holding his mic away from his face and leaning towards Eddie. Eddie smiles, and it isn’t in any way reassuring. It is, however, beautiful. Fuck. The bright, brass-led intro is coming to an end and Steve doesn’t know whether he’s Tom Jones or Cerys Matthews. It’s a fucking nightmare. “I don’t even really know this song- don’t make me be the woman-”
“Just follow my lead, sweetheart,” Eddie murmurs, pitching forward to peck Steve’s cheek once again. Again. It’s a good thing the alcohol and the heat of the lights already have Steve blushing. And then Eddie starts to sing. “I really can’t stay…”
“But baby, it’s cold outside.” Steve can hear the stiltedness of his voice, the nervous shake to it. He’d thought it would be less intimidating, being onstage with someone else, but when that someone else is Eddie Munson, all bets are off.
“I’ve got to go away.” Eddie has affected a breathy kind of lilt to his voice, making it sound more feminine than it usually is, and Steve blinks hard, watching as he bends his knees and sways his hips. Oh Jesus. Eddie’s making him pay for ‘Santa Buddy’, big time.
The words stumble over Steve’s lips, sounding just as nervous as Steve feels. He tries to avoid looking away from the screen to glance at Eddie for too long, and not just because he doesn’t know all the lyrics.
While Steve’s stiff and wooden, Eddie seems to be having the absolute time of his life, strutting about the stage and brushing up against Steve’s side, flipping the frizzy waves of his hair over his shoulder and swinging his hips in time with the music.
The rest of the group whoop and whistle at the more suggestive lines - and at Eddie’s more suggestive movements - and the heaviness of anxiety lifts little by little from Steve’s shoulders. The longer the song goes on, the more Steve finds himself enjoying it, finds himself leaning into the flirtation of it all. It’s not lost on him, however, that Steve has to call Eddie ‘baby’ approximately every three lines throughout this tune. Steve can’t help the smile that tips up the corners of his mouth at Eddie’s cleverness. And his pettiness.
By the time they’re into the second verse, the overwhelming force of all that is Eddie Munson has swept Steve along in its current, and it’s impossible not to add a little character, a little mischief to his voice.
“Oh beautiful, please don't hurry,” Steve drawls, hamming up the performance, only to find that Eddie not only meets him where he’s at, but surpasses him with ease.
“Maybe just a half a drink more.” While Steve glances to the monitor to check the following lyric and begin to sing, he feels the warm pressure of Eddie’s hand around the back of his own. And then his arm’s being pulled sideways, hurriedly, and through the concentration of getting stupid things like words out of his mouth, Steve watches Eddie lift Steve’s drink up to his lips and take an indulgent sip. His lips come away shining, still wet with it, and it’s becoming harder and harder to focus.
It seems like every single line in this song is different, yet Eddie knows each one, sighing them out of his mouth like incense. Steve has to fix his eyes on the lyrics screen just to stop himself breathing it in too recklessly.
The song begins to go too fast, with their time in the literal spotlight rushing by faster than Steve can grasp onto it. There’s something oddly private about just the two of them onstage, regardless of whether they’re being watched, or at least heard, by dozens of people. There’s something transcendent about the two of them with the safety of microphones and pre-determined lyrics that means Steve can spill out all of the things he’s not been brave enough to say. He doesn’t clock the exact moment he starts doing it, but then he’s parading around, chasing after Eddie as he slips just out of his grasp. They’re suspended in some sort of marshmallow-soft fantasy in which nothing exists beyond the boundary of the little stage, and Steve lets the long-buried lust bubble up in his throat and spill out in his words.
“Oh, your lips look delicious,” Steve sings, catching Eddie’s eye as he does. Eddie’s standing just a little behind Steve, resting his hand lightly on Steve’s bicep. It’s a slight touch, but it’s just enough to prove he’s there, just a small gesture that tricks Steve’s heart into thinking maybe Eddie might want to touch him as much as Steve wants him too. As Steve takes in the glow that emanates from somewhere deep behind Eddie’s eyes, he loses track of everything outside the frame of Eddie’s lashes. The glare of the spotlights seems to do something to the brown of his irises, making them richer and brighter and altogether captivating, and once again the lyrics seem to match Steve’s thoughts. He glances down to Eddie’s mouth, lips parted in the stretch of a word, and Steve’s so enchanted by the plush curve of them that he forgets to sing the next line. Eddie sails through the pause, continuing on with effortless showmanship and knocking his shoulder into Steve’s playfully. It works to jolt Steve from his unabashed haze of admiration, though not without sending a rush of heated blood to the apples of his cheeks.
There’s a hushed yell of “Focus, dingus!” that Steve easily distinguishes as having come from Robin even without squinting into the curtain of half-darkness around the stage, and it forces a breathless, self-conscious chuckle out of him. Steve sucks in a deep breath, focusing once more on his little white-blue lyrics on the screen, and embraces his inner Tom Jones.
They reach the final verse without another hitch, and though Steve’s prickling with sweat under the lights and the cloak of performance, he’s smiling through the words and feels somehow entirely at home. Steve even finds has enough confidence in his knowledge of the final couple lines to turn away from the screen and throw an arm around Eddie’s waist, drawing him in near. His palm settles flat on the small of Eddie’s back, and Eddie arches into it, tilting his hips forward until their bodies are mere inches apart.
They end the song standing so close together that there’s only just enough space for their microphones between their bodies. There’s something so deep and daring in Eddie’s eyes, the enticement of rich chocolate in the thin rings of his irises. Their voices slip together - Steve taking the lower melody and Eddie higher - and it’s like a double helix, twisting and fitting like they’ve just evolved that way.
Steve almost loses his breath, caught as he is under Eddie’s smoldering gaze, but just about manages to hold the note for long enough. The sharp swing of brass instruments plays them out, accompanying the rhythmic rise and fall of their chests, the puffs of air that condense on each other’s lips. Eddie’s lips. They look so… not just kissable, but biteable, suckable. Steve wants to make a mess of those lips, that face; to cradle it and tarnish it, to use and worship it in equal measure.
It takes longer than Steve would ever admit for him to flick his stare back up to Eddie’s eyes, and he’s glad that both of his hands are filled with microphone and glass, because otherwise he’s certain he’d do something entirely foolish like tuck a strand of hair behind Eddie’s ear or stroke his fingers over Eddie’s cheek. And by god, does he want to.
When their eyes meet once again, Steve notices a little wrinkle between the dark hair of Eddie’s brows, and the corners of them are tipped up just a little in a look that Steve can’t quite decipher. The hot cocoa depth of Eddie’s eyes is shining under the spotlights, glinting with each flickering movement as Eddie’s stare shifts from one of Steve’s eyes to the other, down to what he can only assume are his lips, and then back up again. Steve wonders what’s filling Eddie’s mind right now, what’s making him dip his tongue out over his full bottom lip and chase it with the drag of teeth, what’s making him look at Steve like… like that.
The bar lights up with cheers and whoops and not a couple wolf-whistles, startling them both, and they jump apart like they’ve been caught doing something illicit. It feels illicit, feels like they’ve just shared something altogether too private for the audience they’re standing before.
The microphone is snatched from Steve’s left hand, leaving a strange kind of prickling tingle in its absence, and then the emptiness of his palm is filled with the pressure of Eddie’s own hand, pulling his arm up like he’s just won a fucking medal. Eddie swings his hand down, bringing Steve’s in an arc with it, and then he bows, dipping at the waist. Eddie bows, sweeping one foot behind him to counterbalance, because obviously he does. Steve blushes once more at Eddie’s absurdity - it’s so endearing that Steve might just explode - and instead of following Eddie down into a bow of his own, he just gives an awkward raise of his glass and dips his chin. The cheers fizz into laughter, with someone across the room yelling “Now kiss!” which wrings out another wave of amusement from the bar.
Before Steve’s really prepared to accept its disappearance, Eddie’s hand slips out of Steve’s own, and he hops offstage, skipping down the couple little steps and back towards their cluster of tables.
“I don’t know about you, Stevie, but I could use a cigarette.” Eddie lifts his jacket off the back of his stool and swings it around his shoulders, before shoving his arms into the holes, and then his hands into the pockets.
“Yeah, yeah sure. That’d be- yeah.”
“”Sweet, anyone else?” Eddie casts his stare around the group, who all seem to look at each other like they know something that Steve doesn’t. Chrissy giggles lightly.
“Nope, I think we’re all good. You two have fun.” There’s a twinkle in her blue eyes and a blotch of pink over her cheeks. Nancy snorts inelegantly and nuzzles her nose into Jon’s shoulder in an attempt to cover the grin that’s splitting her cheeks. Steve narrows his eyes at his friends, getting the distinct sense that there’s fuckery going on here.
“You coming, sweetheart?” Eddie calls lightly from a couple feet behind Steve, having already begun his journey in the direction of the alleyway out back of the bar that doubles as a smoking area. Steve whips his head around to follow Eddie’s voice, drawn inexorably as he always is to wherever Eddie exists, and someone that sounds suspiciously like Gareth mumbles something that earns a hysterical shriek from Robin and a full on snicker from Jon and Argyle. Steve doesn’t hear the exact words, but with reactions like that, he’s not sure he wants to.
Instead of pushing the issue, Steve just reaches behind Robin and grabs his coat from the back of his stool before swinging around to trot after an impatiently waiting Eddie who’s standing with one foot extended a little away from his body, tapping the toe of his boot in anticipation.
“Alright, alright I’m coming.” Steve rolls his eyes at Eddie’s restlessness, overtaking him as the pair wind through the busy tables, receiving offers of high fives and pats on the shoulder from strangers as they go. Steve feels like the weirdest kind of micro-celebrity, and he has to laugh as he thanks them breathlessly.
The night air hangs like a chill wall at the boundary of the building, rushing over Steve’s face as he leads Eddie outside; he’s sure it feels colder still because of the tingling warmth that’s still spread over his cheeks. Steve stretches his arm back to hold the door open enough to allow Eddie through, before letting it slip from his fingers and swing shut.
“That was… actually fun,” Steve admits, coming to a halt in the middle of the alleyway. He watches as Eddie wanders a few feet away and slumps his shoulders back against the brick wall of the building, pulling the carton of cigarettes and his Zippo from his right pocket. Eddie glances up at him and smiles that crooked, instinctual smile that never fails to steal one of Steve’s heartbeats, tripping the rhythm.
“You didn’t think it would be? C’mon Stevie, when have I ever led you wrong?” Eddie croons back, his voice reminiscent of the breathy, silken swing it’d had while he was singing. Steve chuckles, shakes his head fondly, and Eddie makes a satisfied little noise high in his throat. He offers a cigarette to Steve filter-first, and without thinking, Steve dips his head forward to take it between his lips. He pauses, struck by the intimacy of the act - though it shouldn’t feel quite so charged. Eddie doesn’t even blink, just brings the lighter up to the end of the cigarette and snaps the flame into existence with a spin of the wheel. Steve sucks in the smoke deep and slow, imagining the nicotine slipping between his blood cells. He feels lightheaded with it after only one drag, though maybe it’s not entirely as a result of the smoke. Maybe it’s the way that Eddie’s watching him, studying his face like he’s trying to memorize it.
Steve can’t handle the weight of it, and looks away first. He stares down at the ground, heart thrashing between his lungs. For a little while, they just exist together, listening to the distant, muffled beat of music through brick wall, and to the rumble and rustle of cars and life occurring outside the high walls of their little alleyway. Eddie finishes his first smoke as Steve’s only just over halfway through, and immediately pulls another out of the carton. Steve is enraptured by the deft movements of his hands, and he traces the journey of it up to Eddie’s mouth, to his lips and teeth and all the things he wonders that they might do.
Eddie flicks the lighter and pulls in a deep breath, pulling in air that glows molten red at the end of the cigarette, and as he does he raises his eyes to meet Steve’s. It feels once again like Steve’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t.
“You’re looking at me like that again.” Eddie asks, flicking his stare up to the clear night and back down again to meet Steve’s waiting gaze. It’s clear he’s trying to go for nonchalance but there’s something buzzing just beneath the surface of it that means it doesn’t quite sound entirely casual.
“Like what?” Steve bounces back, almost choking on the sudden burst of his heartbeat in his throat. He takes another drag of his cigarette, watching the tip glow and burn against the blue-black-gray of the world around them.
“Like you were onstage. When we finished the song. And then just now, too.”
“I’m not- I’m not looking at you like anything,” Steve lies, and he can hear the shake in his voice at just the attempt to contain the truth. He knows exactly how he was looking at Eddie, he’d just forgotten that Eddie would be able to see that too.
“Well you’re not now, but you were. You were looking at me like…”
“Like?” Steve’s own mind fills in the words silently, because it’s so clear, it’s so obvious what Steve wants. Surely Eddie can tell.
“Like- I dunno, like you wanted to kiss me, I guess.”
And there it is. That great unsaid, out in the open. This time, Eddie’s voice is a little lighter, but it doesn’t make Steve feel any more at ease.
But fuck it, it’s Christmas.
“Would that be so bad?” Steve asks, taking a half step closer. His entire heart’s migrated up into his windpipe, shutting off airflow to his lungs.
“No. And I think…” Eddie takes another drag of the cigarette, seeming to bide his time. “I think it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve, y’know. Looked at me like that. It’s certainly not the first time I’ve looked at you like that.”
“It wouldn’t?”
“Come on, Stevie. I haven’t exactly been subtle. Thought you weren’t interested.” Eddie snorts lightly at the surely bewildered look on Steve’s face.
“I was interested. I am interested. More than interested, honestly. I’ve been- uh. I mean, for a while now- I’ve probably been in-” Steve stops himself before he says more, before he spills his guts at Eddie’s feet. He doesn’t think that Eddie would outright reject him, not now, but it’s too much to say all at once.
“You’ve been in…?” Eddie echoes, standing up from the wall a little with a smirk. It’s like he knows what Steve was going to say and he’s just daring him to. And then his stare softens, and Eddie chews on his bottom lip for a moment, before gazing up through his lashes. “In the same thing as me?”
“Wh- I don’t…”
“You’ve been in love with me.” The words fall so easily from Eddie’s lips anyone would think they were lighter than air, rather than the heavy burden Steve has been carrying for years now. Eddie takes a drag that’s far more casual than it should be and offers that crooked smile that Steve loves so much.
“The- the same thing as you…? That means… If it’s…”
“I’m in love with you, Steve.” Eddie rolls his eyes a little, but it’s fond. It’s endearing and gentle and exactly the reason why Steve loves him. Because he does. And Eddie…
Oh.
Well shit.
“Oh. Well, shit. Yeah. Me too. I’m- have been for, what, three? Maybe four years?” Steve rubs at the back of his neck nervously, splayed and split open by the honesty of his words. He glances to the ground and back up, hardly daring to meet Eddie’s cocoa powder gaze.
“That long, huh? You almost got me beat. Course, I fell ass over face for you the first time we met, so.”
“So, you wouldn’t mind if I- if I wanted to kiss you?” Steve dares, finally stepping across that line he’d never let himself even stagger near.
“Not at all. Uh, in fact- I would… actively encourage that.” Eddie draws his hand away from his face and Steve catches his wrist mid-arc. He slides his hand up to pinch the smoke from Eddie’s fingers and twists it, stubbing it out against the brick wall beside Eddie’s head. Eddie’s stare won’t stay still, twitching and flitting across Steve’s features, and when Steve brushes Eddie’s hair over his ear with the backs of his fingers, Steve’s certain that stare goes a little cross-eyed.
“Encourage me a little more,” Steve whispers, tucking the length of the cigarette behind the curve of Eddie’s ear and trailing his fingertips down the side of his face. They’re close now, closer than Steve remembers moving, but their noses are almost touching, and he can feel the warmth of Eddie’s breath over his own lips.
“Kiss me, Steve. Kiss me the way you looked like you wanted to.”
And Steve does.
He doesn’t hesitate in bringing his other hand up to cup Eddie’s jaw, drawing him in as he nudges forwards. It’s a moment of absolute clarity when Steve’s lips meet Eddie’s for the first time. Their mouths slot together soft and supple, hot against the cool night air. Eddie tenses just a little at the point of contact, before leaning in further, snaking a hand between their bodies to clutch at the front of Steve’s shirt.
Steve parts his lips, urges Eddie’s to do the same, and they follow willingly. The cool of the night tingles against Steve’s overwarm skin, burning cold against searing heat, and the tip of Eddie’s nose is cool against Steve’s cheek. Steve’s hands slide backwards into the hair behind Eddie’s ears, tilting his head so Steve can slip his tongue out and lay a cautious stripe over the seam of Eddie’s lips. A tiny, breathy sound escapes Eddie’s throat as his own tongue peeks out and meets Steve’s between their mouths, slipping over each other with increasing urgency.
Steve’s chest is tight like he’s forgotten how to breathe, and maybe he has. He wants to convert the smoky, spicy-sweet taste of Eddie’s lips into something like oxygen and breathe that instead. Eventually, Steve has to pull away, and when he does, he opens his heavy lids to find Eddie swaying towards him, lashes still fanned out over the tops of his cheeks.
“That’s the way I wanted to,” Steve breathes, nudging forward again to press a light peck to Eddie’s mouth. Eddie smiles against it, twisting up and tightening his lips against Steve’s own. Steve pulls back once more, dropping his hands to rest gently on the sides of Eddie’s slender neck, thumbs stroking arcs over the corners of Eddies jaw, and this time Eddie’s eyes flutter open. He might as well not have irises, the way his pupils are blown so wide in the semi-darkness. They glow like embers under the warm light of the streetlamp not far away, and it’s almost enough to ward off the cold.
“Thought as much. You can do that again anytime,” Eddie whispers with a coy smile.
“How about now?”
“Now is good,” Eddie smiles, pushing at Steve’s chest gently until he gets the hint and begins stumbling backward, pulling Eddie with him. Steve’s back hits the cold opposite wall with a thunk that shocks his breath from his throat. Eddie swallows it down just as he had Steve’s drink from his own hand.
Steve sinks his hands back into Eddie’s hair, curling his fingers to take fistfuls of it between his fingers, and there’s a little skittering over the back of his hand as Eddie’s stubbed-out cigarette falls from its place behind Eddie’s ear.
Eddie pauses against Steve’s lips, pouting out a disappointed little noise that’s so unbelievably adorable Steve giggles into Eddie’s mouth. Steve draws back, cradling Eddie’s head in his hands, and Eddie tilts his head to search the ground beside him for the smoke.
“Oh- well, I mean we can stop if there’s something you’d rather be doing,” Steve teases, dipping his head down to nose at the skin behind the hinge of Eddie’s jaw, peppering it with kisses that begin
“No- no, believe me, there’s nothing else on Earth I’d rather be doing right now.”
"Are- are you sure?" Steve asks faux-concernedly, fixing Eddie with a downturned stare and a condescending pout of his own.
Eddie rolls his eyes, tipping forward to kiss the moue from Steve's lips in a flurry of presses that has him laughing within seconds. And then the kisses deepen, and Eddie's hands clutch at the back of Steve's shirt inside his coat. He pants, "I'll pick it up later."
“Sanitary. Fuck, I wanna- I wanna feel you,” Steve murmurs in return, sliding one palm down the front of Eddie’s chest and twisting his hand, leading with his fingers until he reaches the growing bulge straining against the tightness of Eddie’s pants.
“Then feel me. Touch me. C’mon big boy, show me what I’m workin' with here,” Eddie babbles, skating his own hands up over Steve’s chest and back down to grab at his hips. He pulls Steve away from the wall a little to grind into him, and Steve’s entire body becomes one giant goosebump.
“Fuck, baby.”
“That’s not so hard now, is it?” Eddie teases, nipping at Steve’s earlobe.
“Huh?” Steve’s not concentrating on what Eddie’s saying, occupied as he is with flipping the loose end of Eddie’s belt out of the loops of his jeans and tugging on it until the buckle dangles in front of Eddie’s zipper.
“Calling another guy baby, easy enough, right?”
Eddie’s meaning sinks in fast and Steve can’t help but chuckle breathily at Eddie’s inimitable sense of humor, still fumbling blindly at Eddie’s button until he manages to unhook it. “All this to- to prove a point?”
“You know me, Stevie - once I get my mind set on something…” Eddie shoves at Steve’s jeans, forcing them down beneath his hips, before hooking his fingers into the waistband of Steve’s boxers and shoving at those too. Steve gasps as the cool night air hits his skin, but it’s not an unpleasant feeling. It might be cold out, but the heat between their bodies will provide enough warmth to keep their dicks from falling off.
Under Steve’s watchful gaze, Eddie brings his hand up to his mouth and spits into his palm, slicking it quickly over the two of them. It isn’t enough and Eddie seemed to realize that pretty quick, glancing up with a wicked smile that crooks just one corner of his mouth.
“Your turn, sweetheart.” Eddie leans back, making a little space between their stomachs, and Steve has finally relocated the part of himself that is able to one-up Eddie Munson. He keeps his stare fixed on Eddie’s eyes - near black in the overhead light - and sucks on his bottom lip, building a swell of spit over his tongue. With a dip of his chin, Steve purses his lips and forces the wetness out in a slow, shining thread. It drops between them, slipping over the flushed head of his cock and down to pool in the webbing between Eddie’s thumb and pointer finger.
The corner of Steve’s mouth pinches up in a smirk, satisfied at the awe-struck widening of Eddie’s eyes.
“Y’like that?” Steve murmurs, rolling his hips forward gently to encourage a little friction between them. Eddie takes the hint, spreading the new wetness over them both before slotting their legs well and truly together and curling his fingers around both their stiffened cocks.
“I like it messy.”
“Bet you do, baby. Next time, I’ll make sure we can get as messy as we want, yeah?” Steve doesn’t dwell on the fact that he’s already talking about, thinking about next time, but honestly, it’s not all that scary a thought.
“Yeah, want that, want everything,” Eddie pants, stroking up and down their slick lengths in rhythmic, looping motions. Steve buries his hands deeper in Eddie’s hair, drawing his lips back to Steve’s own. Steve licks into Eddie’s mouth, chasing the taste of him, reveling in the mingling of their saliva. When he pulls back, a shining thread of spit extends like spider silk between their mouths, stretching until it snaps and clings to Eddie’s chin. Steve feels entirely wild as he leans forward and laps up the wetness, swiping up and over the peaks of Eddie’s lips.
“I’ll give you anything you want, honey,” Steve confirms, taking in the glassiness of Eddie’s dark, wide eyes, the blotchy pink flush of his skin, the nipped pinkness of his nose.
“There’s… there’s a couple things I want,” Eddie starts, smiling loosely. Then he leans in, pressing his cheek to Steve’s. “Stevie baby, just slip a Sable under the tree for me. I’ve been an awful good girl,” Eddie sings quietly, lips brushing against the shell of Steve’s ear and sending a thrilling tingle down his neck.
Steve knocks his head back against the wall and groans at the gravelly richness of Eddie’s voice in his ear, so close that his breath condenses against Steve’s skin. He’s never going to be able to listen to that song again without popping a boner. And then his lust-hazed mind snags on Eddie’s choice of the original lyrics. Sure, it could just be his disdain for heteronormativity, but there’s something in it that Steve wants to latch his teeth onto.
“Good girl, huh? Didn’t think you’d- think you’d be into that,” Steve pants, swallowing the excess of spit in his mouth - though there’s a couple better places that it could go. He feels the moment Eddie’s shoulders tense, hears the hitch of Eddie’s breath as his bluff is well and truly called. The stiffness is momentary, however, before Eddie melts back into something fluid and ever-moving, preceding his words with a low, satisfied hum.
“Call me whatever you want, Stevie, ‘s’long as I’m yours.”
Something swirls between Steve’s hips, heady and sweet and strange. Steve tests it out, still light-hearted in case it was a joke - even though he’s pretty sure it wasn’t. “My good girl?”
“Oh fuck.” Eddie’s eyes honest-to-god roll back until his pupils are only two cocoa-colored crescent moons beneath the fan of his lashes.
Well shit, Steve thinks, yup, guess this is a thing. It’s not exactly something he was expecting, but he can’t say he’s entirely surprised.
“C’mon, baby, a little faster.” Steve’s grip tightens in Eddie’s hair, and Eddie takes the instruction so well, speeding up the looping strokes of his hand over their lengths until he reaches the perfect pace. “That’s it, just like that. Squeeze the tip a little, you’re doing so good.”
Eddie whimpers softly at Steve’s words, and it sends a sizzle of heat from the top of Steve’s head all the way to the base of his spine. Eddie follows Steve’s instructions so easily, it’s like he was made for it. There’s something crackling between them now, something full and needy and urgent, and it’s making Steve’s world go soft at the edges. He knows it’s not going to be long before he’s unraveling under Eddie’s desperate touch, and just one look at Eddie’s panting mouth and screwed up eyes tells him that maybe Eddie’s not too far away either.
“Good girl, honey. That feel good?”
“Uh-huh, yeah, shit- feels so good.” Eddie’s eyes are clamped shut in ecstasy, his mouth hanging open as he breathes heavily against Steve’s mouth. Steve tips his head forward, knocking their foreheads together and letting his tongue loll out over the cushion of his bottom lip. Eddie pitches forward to suck it into his mouth, and it’s like someone’s just jolted Steve with a cattle prod. His nerve-endings spark up like a string of Christmas lights and he’s hurtling towards oblivion. Eddie’s lips slip off his tongue with a squeaking pop, and Steve takes the opportunity to pull Eddie’s head towards him, yanking at his hair so hard he gasps.
“Oh fuck, Eddie. Eddie- I’m, don’t stop- fuck,” Steve stutters against Eddie’s cheek, rocking his hips up into Eddie’s sure hand. “‘m gonna- Eddie, where- shit.”
“Me too- me too, just- fuuuuck,” Eddie whines, his pitch raising as he’s pulled over the precipice of pleasure just as unexpected as Steve.
Though it’s blurry this close, Eddie shifts in front of Steve, and Steve watches as Eddie pulls the bandanna out of his back pocket and cups it around them, catching the most part of their spend before it can spill onto the tails of Steve’s shirt. Steve’s heart is thrashing against his ribs, his dick throbbing as he spurts out the last weak strings of his desire.
Steve tips his chin to kiss Eddie once more, and then again, pressing affection into his lips so certainly that he’s sure Eddie has to feel how much he means it. Eddie kisses him back, breathy and sweet, even as he’s wiping up the evidence of all that’d made a mess between them.
“Baby,” Steve whispers against Eddie’s lips. It’s more breath than it is voice, more emotion than it is sound. He’s so unbelievably enamored by the man in front of him - Steve’s already picturing Christmas morning in bed with coffee, New Year’s Eve kisses and crisp early January walks through the park. But more than that, Steve’s finally allowing himself to imagine beyond the immediate future, to months and months and years from now. He wonders whether Eddie is picturing the same.
“I fucking love you, Steve. Can you believe that?” Eddie’s voice crackles in a light laugh, and he accompanies it with a peppering of kisses from Steve’s mouth to his cheek, his earlobe, down his neck. The heat of lust is cooling on their skin, and Steve realizes they’re both still very much exposed to the elements. And if Steve’s going to have any chance of Eddie coming down that chimney of his, Steve needs to rectify that.
“I… If you can believe that I love you, too. Yeah. Hey- we should head back in. Everyone’s gonna think we got abducted or something.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Eddie nods against Steve’s neck. “And honestly? It really is fucking cold outside.”