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Steve’s cheeks burn from the cold and from the slap when he knocks on the Munson trailer door. They are probably rosy too or they definitely will be once Eddie opens the door because despite his long, long list of dates, Eddie makes Steve blush like a fucking seventh grader with his first crush.
It’s embarrassing as shit. But every time Steve’s flustered around Eddie, Eddie gives him that look, something between a dopey grin and a smirk that spells trouble for Steve.
It’s not Eddie though who opens the trailer door but Wayne. Steve still flushes. He used to be good at charming parents, knew what to say, when to laugh and could mainly just skirt by by basking in the Harrington name.
That shit doesn’t fly here. If anything, being Richard Harrington’s son is probably the main reason why Wayne looks Steve up and down with narrowed eyes and a tight lip. He’s mentioned his shotgun once or twice, has made his disdain for Steve quietly known by barely acknowledging Steve’s presence past a grunt that could probably pass for a threat. If he were a dog he would only let Steve around Eddie with his teeth closed around Steve’s throat as a precautionary measurement.
He used to hover too around Steve in the beginning when they would run into each other at the hospital. Almost guard Eddie from him, aware that the witchhunt on his nephew had been led by jocks in the same green varsity jackets that Steve used to wear with their rich daddies’ class rings on their fingers like a secret cult symbol.
It occurs to Steve that his dad’s class ring, that he always carried with more pride than his wedding ring, is probably what broke the skin on his eyebrow. He had stopped the bleeding in his car with leftover napkins from a dinner he had been to with Robin when she had gotten back from college.
Wayne by now knows of course that Steve is not like Jason Carver and his goon teammates. But in Wayne’s eyes he is still his daddy’s son. His daddy who already spat in Wayne’s face when they both went to high school. Who makes guys like Jason look like a lamb with blunt teeth. Who won’t spare anyone from his easily provoked anger, not even his own son.
Steve isn’t quite sure if he still is Richard Harrington’s son. Steve isn’t quite sure if he still wants to be Richard Harrington’s son. Steve isn’t quite sure what’s scarier.
Even though Wayne is not most parents in Hawkins, clapping their hands in delight at the mere thought of their daughter being the future Mrs. Harrington just because Steve is taking her out for milkshakes and some hand stuff in the back of his car, Steve knows he should stick to the parents protocol.
Straighten his shoulders, smile, extend his hand, call Wayne sir, apologise for disturbing them this late at night on Christmas Eve of all eves and ask if Eddie was in and if it was possible to speak with him. Play it cool and polite. Yes, he was raised rich but he was also raised polite.
But instead the only thing that comes out is a meek, “I didn’t know where else to go.”
He doesn’t want to bother Robin since it’s her first Christmas with her parents after moving away. Dustin and Max are both out of state. The Sintclaires would take him with open arms but Steve knows they have a huge family so too many people over already. He could go to the Byers but he can’t handle the awkwardness that always lingers between Jonathan and him tonight. The same way he can’t handle being at his ex-girlfriends and be glared at by yet another subpar dad.
He didn’t know where else to go and if he is honest other than Robin’s this is the only place he really wants to be anyways.
Wayne is quiet for a moment and Steve is about to apologise and turn on his heels, spend the night sleeping in his car, when a Christmas miracle happens. Wayne’s expression softens, almost becomes wistful and he steps aside.
“Get in kid,” he says, voice still gruff but it lacks the usual contempt he has for Steve. Then he turns around and calls into the trailer, “Eddie, your boy is here.”
Your boy.
“Uncle Wayne,” Eddie whines from the back, embarrassed like Wayne sat Steve down to share baby photos of Eddie in the bathtub playing with a rubber duck. The trailer only has a shower, Steve doesn’t know much about Eddie’s childhood home other than that it burned down.
That Al probably burned it down for insurance reasons. Steve isn’t the only one with a shitty dad and a shitty childhood. He did have a bathtub though and he wonders if his mother has rubber duck pictures she’d be able to show. Or if she didn’t think his childhood was important enough to preserve. Or if she thought she’d give birth to a fully fledged adult, one who opens his mouth when she tells him to speak, one who sits when she tells him to sit, one who takes a knife, places the tip at the top of his sternum and pushes inside, slides the blade down, like hot metal through butter, slices through his own flesh, revealing his rib cage for her to crack open like crab legs or lobster tails.
His mother should have gotten a dog. Sit, bark, play dead. She’d been so much happier.
Any other night Steve would have taken Wayne’s words and carefully dissected them like a pig’s heart in biology class, scalpel and tweezers carefully cutting through the tendons, trying to find the superior vena cava, carrying oxygen to the right chamber, making it beat. But not tonight, his cheek still stings and his eyebrow throbs.
The embarrassment fades from Eddie’s face and is replaced by that grin smirk mixture when he spots Steve, before worry overtakes everything when he takes in Steve’s state.
He’s on Steve in an instant, very gingerly taking his face in his hand, turning it and looking at Steve’s reddened skin and the bleeding brow. Compared to every single beating Steve has taken over the years this is nothing but a scratch. But it hurts the worst.
“Sweetheart, what happened?”
“I didn’t know where else to go,” Steve repeats, like some fucked up mantra, like he got indoctrinated with those words. It’s all he can say. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Come sit,” Eddie says and gently pulls Steve towards the sofa.
The sound of the springs creaking under Steve’s weight as he sits down is familiar. He’s spent more afternoons on the worn corduroy couch than he can count. He likes the way the fabric feels underneath his fingertips as he nervously traces over the edge of the armrest.
Instantly the memory of Eddie bending him over it snaps into Steve’s mind with the same vigor as Eddie had snapped his hips into Steve, his cries and tears of pleasure muffled by the pillows.
It’s the wrong fucking time to think about that. Steve crosses his legs, clears his throat, tries not to blush.
He also has memories that don’t end up with him naked and ruining one of the throw blankets. Of getting high and watching shitty B-movies. Of flicking through a magazine with Eddie sitting on the floor, back of his head resting against Steve’s hip, working on his new campaigns. Of spring turning into a sweltering, sweaty summer. Of autumn coming and school work being cluttered all over the place. Of curling up together and sharing body heat when the first snow fall came.
It’s almost been an entire year of Steve sitting on this couch and it’s the first time he feels out of place. Eddie and Wayne stand in front of him, looking down at him like he is a muddy stray that they found, now debating what to do with him. It makes Steve’s teeth itch.
There are two half eaten turkey sandwiches on the couch table in front of Steve. Right, Christmas dinner, Steve remembers and starts to nervously shift on the couch. He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be intruding, should be with his own family and have his own Christmas dinner.
Which he was, only that instead of escargot as entree he got served a slap to the face.
Steve has the urge to get up again, to apologise and leave. But before he can move a single muscle Wayne mumbles, “I’ll get you some peas. Ed, you know where the first aid is.”
Steve wants to protest, argue that it’s just a scratch and he is fine but the look Eddie shoots him shuts him right up. He is too worn to argue anyway so he sinks deeper into the couch as Eddie and Wayne scutter to fetch the stuff.
Wayne returns first and hands Steve a bag of frozen peas while the awkward silence between them presses uncomfortably against their skin.
“Thank you, Mr Munson,” Steve says, swallows down the Sir that was drilled into him. Wayne doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who appreciates being called Sir. Based on the frown on his face, Mr Munson was already too much.
“You can call me Wayne, kid,” he says, voice still coated in that gruff softness that’s usually reserved for Eddie but never for Steve.
“Thank you Wayne,” Steve repeats, tongue slowly curling around the letters, like a kid sounding out a word when learning how to read. While Wayne’s name tickles the tip of his tongue, the apology that clogs up his throat and weighs on the back of his tongue is getting closer to bursting out of him. He shouldn’t be here. Not on fucking Christmas
“Imma leave you two to it in a second,” Wayne says, like he can read Steve’s thoughts, “picked up the Christmas shift at the plant. But you’re in good hands.”
The guilt gnawing on him trying to get into his bone marrow stops and when Eddie bursts back into the living room with the first aid kit, it withdraws its bloody fangs fully.
“You’re gonna be late, old man,” Eddie says as he sits down next to Steve and rummages through the kit, pulling out a pad and some disinfectant.
“I’m going, I’m going,” Wayne chuckles, “Remember just ‘cause I’m not it doesn’t mean these trailer walls ain’t thin.”
Oh god, he knows. Wayne knows that they are fucking, that they are queer, that they might fuck again tonight and… and the world doesn’t end. Wayne isn’t angry or about to kick him out. If anything he seems rather amused.
“You gonna tell us to use protection too?” Eddie dead pans, absolutely unaffected whatsoever as he gingerly disinfects the cut on Steve’s brow. Steve briefly wonders how hard his father hit him. Then he wonders if Eddie can feel the heat building in his cheeks.
“I hope I’ve raised you better than still having to tell you now to use protection.”
“Don’t worry, not gonna make you a grandpa any time soon. Not before Steve makes an honest man out of me.”
“Jesus, Eddie,” Steve groans, really embarrassed now. Wayne just laughs and then leaves. Steve wishes he could bury his face in his hands or a pillow, but Eddie is still cupping his cheeks.
The thing is Steve could imagine it so well. Wayne holding a little peanut in his arms, cooing at his grandkid with Eddie’s dark curls and Steve’s hazel eyes and so many freckles on very pale skin. Doesn’t matter that it’s biologically not possible, it's still a nice thought to raise a kid with Eddie. To be part of this family. Steve bats the thought aside, it’s never gonna happen anyways.
Eddie grabs a band aid, baby blue and with little Garfields on it, and holds it up. Steve is pretty sure that he doesn’t need a band aid but he nods anyway. The smile on Eddie’s face when he carefully places it over the cut is worth it.
“Wanna talk about it?” he asks as he closes the first aid kit and hands the frozen peas back to Steve so he can cool his cheek.
It’s nights like these that Steve wishes they weren’t fucking. He can ask comfort of a friend, barely, but he can. Asking comfort of the guy you’re sleeping with is needy. Crosses that line they have drawn in the ground between them, the line that says don’t come too close.
They have no strings attached, but they have the tight bounds of friendship tying them together like a walking antithesis. His friend Eddie cares for him, his fuck buddy Eddie doesn’t want Steve to stay around and snuggle up after they did it. They are the same person and they somehow are not and Steve sometimes regrets sleeping with Eddie. Regrets splitting him in half. For that he probably deserves the punishment that is the indifference fuck buddy Eddie has for him.
Steve wishes he could merge the two back together, keep their cells from splitting and splitting and splitting. But he can’t do that. The only thing he can do to stop the two Eddie’s from existing is to kill one of them.
To stop sleeping with fuck buddy Eddie and let him starve off until only friend Eddie is left. He doesn’t want to do that.
He wants them to lie down on Eddie’s bed together, clothed. For Eddie to trace Steve’s clavicle through his shirt, to rest his finger and the little indent below the throat where both bones meet. To lean in and kiss Steve sweetly. Sweetly enough that it almost doesn’t register as a kiss. To place his palm on top of his ribs where Steve’s heart beats.
Soft hands on hard bones. Eddie's hands aren’t soft. They are rough from work with calluses from playing guitar and ink stained welts from holding a pen too tightly while writing. No, Eddie’s hands aren’t soft but the way he would touch Steve is.
“Want you to make my head go quiet,” Steve says and then adds hastily, “I can leave right after.”
No need to hold me, to endure my clingy ass, to let me cross that line we agreed on. He can get out of fuck buddy Eddie’s hair. He’s been doing it for months.
“Leave?”
“Yeah, go…”
Somewhere where he can breathe.
“...back,” he says.
Or somewhere else. Maybe a 24/7 diner, warm place where he can figure out whether…
“Do you want to go back?”
Do you still want to be Richard Harrington’s son?
Steve shrugs. There is nowhere else to go.
“Steve, you can’t leave. It’s the middle of the night and it's snowing outside.”
“Okay, I’m not leaving.”
You haven’t told me to leave yet.
He does what Eddie tells him. He’s good at it. Heels when Eddie tells him to, kneels obediently, arms kept behind his back, leaves when Eddie doesn’t want him to stick around.
“Good, I don’t want you to leave.”
Yet.
Steve takes what he can get though. For now Eddie wants him to stay. It’ll have to be enough.
“I’ll even let you pick what you wanna do, little Christmas gift,” Eddie teases, as if he ever does anything Steve isn’t in the mood for. As if he usually doesn’t read Steve with so much ease, always knowing exactly what Steve needs without Steve having to say it. He usually still makes Steve say it, calls him a good boy and thanks him for asking so nicely. The thought makes Steve shiver pleasantly.
“Can I blow you?”
“If that’s what you want,” Eddie says, cupping Steve’s face again and kissing him softly. Steve nods with a hum and something dark and hungry flickers through Eddie’s eyes. “Then grab a pillow and get on your knees, pretty boy.”
While Steve does as he is told, Eddie opens his fly and pulls down his jeans. He leaves his boxers on though and doesn’t take out his cock just yet. Steve knows he has to earn his treat, so he sits patiently on his knees, waits for Eddie to take the reins more and tell him what to do.
“You want it?” Eddie asks and Steve nods eagerly.
“Please,” he croaks, remembering that Eddie wants verbal answers. Eddie just smirks, eyes as dark as coal by now and reaches out, fingers cupping Steve’s jaw, thumb resting against Steve’s mouth.
“Show me how much.”
From the outside it might look like Steve’s devotion, sitting on his knees, head tilted back, lips apart for Eddie’s thumb to push inside like receiving the holy communion. Eyes faithfully trained on the man who slept for three days before he rose from the dead.
But Steve and Eddie know better, now that it isn’t what it looks like from the outside.
Eddie gives part of himself to Steve. Thanks him for giving up control and handing it to Eddie. It’s not offerings taken, it’s blessings received. And in return for said blessing Eddie worships Steve. Presses his lips into Steve’s skin and whispers orders and praise like prayer, brings him to pleasure with the same adoration as the choir sings hymns, lets Steve’s brain go quiet with a kindness people offer to a stranger with a handshake and the words peace be with you.
Steve sucks Eddie’s thumb into his mouth, lets Eddie press down on his tongue until drool spills over the corners of his mouth. Steve would spend hours like this, just sucking on Eddie’s fingers until he can have his reward. But Eddie isn’t cruel like that, never makes Steve wait too long.
He withdraws his thumb and leans back into the couch. He still doesn’t pull down his boxers.
“You may touch,” he says and gestures at his crotch. “No hands though. Not yet. I’ll tell you when.”
Steve nods, revels in the clear rules and simple to follow instructions. Things he can do. He knows even if he were to screw up, Eddie would be kind about it. Tell Steve that it was okay, offer Steve the option to make it up to him, to just be held until he feels less bad about not following Eddie rules, or if Steve is in a very specific spiral, offer a spanking.
Steve loves Eddie for giving him a choice with only right answers. Sometimes choosing is hard though and he’ll have to ask Eddie to make a choice for him. Usually that ends in a spanking, exactly what Steve needs in that situation.
Tonight he isn’t going to break any of the rules though. Tonight he is going to be Eddie’s good boy. So he leans forward and rubs his nose and cheek against Eddie’s knee like a cat seeking out affection.
He stays like that for a bit, just his face resting on Eddie’s leg, Eddie’s hand combing through his hair. He is soaking up the warmth of Eddie’s skin, his smell, his tenderness. After a while he continues, kissing up Eddie’s thigh until he reaches the hem of his boxers.
Eddie is already hard, the fabric tenting, a dark patch forming at the tip. Steve leans forward, mouths at the stain, takes a bit of the fabric and sucks it into his mouth, hoping to taste some of Eddie’s precum in it. Then he gently kisses Eddie’s dick through the fabric, getting it so wet eventually that it sicks completely to Eddie’s cock.
“You can take them off baby,” Eddie tells him and lifts his hips lightly so Steve can pull the boxers off Eddie. Part of him thinks he needs to ask Eddie to jerk off into his boxers once, twice, maybe three time and gag Steve with the cum soaked fabric while fucking him, that sounds like fun. Because sometimes when they fuck, even if they are pressed mouth to mouth, breathing each other in, with Eddie’s spit dripping into Steve’s mouth, Steve misses Eddie’s tastes. Needs more than just Eddie’s saliva, his lips or his fingers on his tongue.
For now he pulls the boxers of Eddie and watches in awe as his hard cock springs out and against Eddie’s stomach. He is thick and uncut, purple veins along the shaft, milky precum just oozing out of him. Steve needs to touch and taste so badly but he knows better than to act without instructions so he waits impatiently.
“Want to set the pace or for me to fuck your face?” Eddie asks and Steve considers.
He loves it when Eddie fucks his face, let’s go off all his restrains, pushes his thick cock into Steve’s throat. A couple of weeks ago, Eddie had laid Steve out on his bed, head hanging over the edge, and fucked his throat like he would usually fuck Steve’s hole. Deep hard thrusts, hips snapping, leaving Steve no choice but to take it. His voice was gone for three days after, throat sore but Steve had loved it so much.
Tonight he wants something different though. Wants to slowly sink in that hazy feeling of floating and nothingness, wants to just sit and suckle on Eddie’s cock, have Eddie be gentle with him.
“Wanna set the pace,” he mumbles, mouth dry with how much he wants to take Eddie and swallow him down to the root.
“‘S all yours then sweetheart,” Eddie says before he adds with a shit eating grin, “dinner is served.”
“God, you’re the worst,” Steve groans but still takes Eddie in hand and gives him a couple of strokes. He loves the feeling of Eddie’s wet precum spreading over his fingers.
“And yet you can’t get enough of me,” Eddie points out, voice still unfairly steady.
Steve doesn’t bicker back, instead he licks over the head of Eddie’s dick, making sure to push his tongue against Eddie’s slit. Eddie lets out a moan and that is all the encouragement Steve needs.
He still takes his time, tries to lick off all the precum staining Eddie’s dick, tracing his tongue over Eddie’s length, well aware that it’s an impossible task but he still tries.
“Fuck, sweetheart, so perfect,” Eddie praises him, his hands having found their way into Steve’s hair, gently playing with it. “Love your mouth.”
Steve drops his head lower and lifts Eddie’s dick, mouthing at his balls and gently sucking on them. Eddie lets out another curse and Steve can feel his body trembling. He stays there for a bit, alternating between giving Eddie’s sack kitten licks and gently fondling it with his hands. Eddie lets out a continues stream of praises, telling Steve how well he is doing, how good he is, how perfect, how he was meant to suck dick and balls and Steve revels in it.
Eventually, he lets go of Eddie’s balls, not wanting Eddie to come anywhere else but down his throat and instead finally takes Eddie into his mouth. He sucks on the tip, indulging in the bitter and salty taste of Eddie’s skin and his pre. Then he slowly pushes more and more of Eddie’s cock into his mouth, until his tip nudges against Steve’s throat. Steve focuses breathing through his nose, relaxes his throat and pushes himself further down until his lips meet Eddie’s pelvis and Eddie is settled fully in his throat.
“In through your nose and out through your nose,” Eddie instructs him gently and as always Steve follows his order, wanting, needing to do good. He could stay forever just like this, on his knees trying not to choke on Eddie’s dick, cockwarm Eddie for hours.
Once again the tables the thought for later and starts bobbing, desperate to hear Eddie’s ragged breath and him falling apart on Steve’s tongue. Eddie’s grip on his hair grows tighter and Steve gets lost in the sting, gets lost in the intrusion in his throat, gets lost in the weight on his tongue and the taste of Eddie in his mouth. Steve gets lost in Eddie, barely even notices the words Eddie is babbling until Eddie says one, fatale thing
“You’re being so good to me sweetheart, love you so much.”
It feels like suddenly being dunked into an ice bath, head held underwater, suddenly far too alert, shocked awake, heart pounding, pulse skyrocketing, choking and choking and choking and fighting to survive.
Steve wants to croak red. Can’t do this, can’t fall for some false promise and bullshit again. Suddenly he is two years younger, standing in a bathroom covered in puke, punch and heartbreak.
If muscle memory is a thing and the heart is a muscle, does it remember the pain of being torn apart fiber by fiber? Will the memory make the pain better or worse? Or is it closer to a ligament? That when torn too many times it can’t grow back together again?
Steve had torn a ligament once in eighth grade. Had to use crutches almost all summer long. Is there such a thing as crutches for the heart? Eddie used to be one, Steve thinks. Now he is going to be the wound that refuses to heal.
Steve panics and his jaw automatically clenches which is incredibly unfortunate because it makes Steve bite down on Eddie’s dick.
Eddie screams, frantically tries to get Steve to let go and off him. Steve, somewhere between dazed and panic paralyzed, struggles to move, eventually flounders when Eddie shoves him hard enough and stumbles over, teeth no longer digging into Eddie’s dick.
“What the fuck, Steve?”
“You told me you love me!”
“And your first instinct upon hearing that is to bite my fucking dick off?”
“I panicked!”
“Jesus Christ,” Eddie mutters and holds his hand over his crotch. It’s kind of funny, like really really funny. And if it was in any other context Steve would probably laugh. And after grumbling for a bit Eddie would laugh too. It’d turn into a funny sex story, the one time Steve accidentally circumcised Eddie with his teeth.
But it isn’t funny and Steve can’t laugh because the panic is still coating the roof of his mouth like chalk. He can’t swallow, he can’t breath right, he can’t fucking think. Not with Eddie’s words echoing in his brain like a pounding headache after a night of drinking too much.
“Did you mean it?” Steve asks, because Eddie is the kind of person to sink his teeth into Steve’s flesh until Steve’s skin blooms in purple and red stains under his lips, like water colour bleeding all over paper; and Steve is the kind of person to press his fingers into the bruises over and over again, little bursts of pain and a lingering ache to remind him of Eddie.
Eddie could hold a knife to Steve’s throat and Steve would happily step forward until the blade was pressing into his arteries and the finest trickle of blood would run down his Adam's apple. Eddie called it masochism, Steve would call it being stupid.
It’s a stupid question as if Eddie fucking meant it. It’s a big compliment to Steve’s blow job skills that’s for sure. But it’s not a love confession. Eddie doesn’t love him. Not like that. God, Steve feels so dumb for asking. What did he expect? For Eddie to say…
“Of course, I meant it.”
It takes Steve a solid moment to realise that the voice of the little version of Eddie that lives inside his head and the voice of the real, in the flesh, Eddie in front of him have perfectly overlapped.
“I…you…what?”
“Was kinda waiting for a little more romantic moment than during a blowjob,” Eddie mutters, crossing his arms in front of his chest and shoving his hands under his armpits, caught somewhere in the middle between grumpy and vulnerable. “But yeah. I love you.”
All Steve can do is stare. His scared, chafed heart is beating as fast as hummingbird wings. It doesn’t make sense to him, nothing makes sense to him. He feels like he woke up and people suddenly insisted that the sky is actually bright red when for Steve the sky was still blue. Eddie can’t be in love with him. That…that’s insane. Something he would daydream about, not something that Eddie would actually say.
“But you never want me to stay after we have sex?” he manages to stammer eventually.
“ You are always the one leaving, I didn’t think you were into cuddles and pillow talk.”
“I love cuddles and pillow talk.”
It’s almost the best part about sex for Steve. Lying in each other’s arms, coming down from the dopamine high and endorphin rush. Giggling and being silly, drawing patterns on each other’s skin and blowing raspberries on throats. Blissful exhaustion and blessed intimacy. Could he have had all that with Eddie all along? Everything he yearned for?
“Then why do you leave?” Eddie asks, looking stricken, like he is having the same realistation as Steve. They could have had each other all along? Maybe even had, were just too dumb to notice or to communicate.
“Because you didn’t say anything after the first time, you just lay there fucking silent and when I asked if I should leave you didn’t say anything!”
“Well, I’m sorry I needed a moment to recover after having the best sex of my life with the guy I have been harboring an unholy crush on since fucking middle school.”
“You had a crush on me?”
Eddie pinches the bridge of his nose and looks exasperated for a moment. He sighs before he drops down onto the floor in front of Steve, gently cups his face and says, “Steve, I just told you that I am in love with you, so yes I had a crush the size of Mount Doom on you. Still do.”
“Since middle school?” Steve asks because apparently his brain is still unable to process anything and has to ask stupid questions instead. But Eddie doesn’t call him stupid, doesn’t roll his eyes, or mocks him for asking.
“Yes sweetheart, since middle school,” he grins so fondly, “since the moment you walked into Mr Clarke’s science class in your pressed jeans and ironed polo shirt hair all done up, handing out candy to anyone who sat near you.”
“Oh,” is all Steve can reply. Oh.
“Yeah, oh ,” Eddie repeats, thumb brushing over Steve’s unbruised cheek.
“I… uh… I love you too,” Steve says, voice cracking slightly. Part of him thought he would never ever say it again. Heart too cracked to be put together again after Nancy. In his mind, saying those words always felt akin to taking a knife and skinning himself alive, laying all his arteries and muscle tissue bare, stripping the meat until the bone was left, before breaking that apart too to suck the marrow out. Nothing left of Steve Harrington but a pile of skin rafts and collagen.
But this, confessing his feelings to Eddie, knowing that he is allowed, knowing that they are returned doesn’t feel like a metal blade gliding through him. It feels more like collecting the broken shards of his heart and gluing them back together with liquid gold until the fissures and cracks are bright beautiful scars, striking through the fibres of his heart like lightning. That’s what telling Eddie those three little words feels like. Like electricity coursing through his heart, making it beat again.
“Yeah?” Eddie asks, a gigantic smile plastered all over his face, like a kid that just got let loose in the candy store after being told it could eat as much as it wanted.
Steve just nods.
“So, did I bite your dick too hard to fuck me now?” Steve asks with a shit eating grin and Eddie just groans, presses his palm against Steve’s face and pushes him away.
“You’ve caused a fatale injury to little Eddie, almost resulting in his death, and all you can think about is getting fucked?”
“It’s not that little.”
“You know what I changed my mind, flattery does not always work on me!”
Steve just laughs and gets up. He pulls off his sweater and throws it into Eddie’s face.
“I’ll be in your bed just so you know,” he says and walks towards Eddie’s room. “Naked and waiting if you change your mind.”
Eddie has caught up with him, almost tackling from behind before Steve can make it over the threshold. He wraps his arms around Steve’s waist and hold him tight, his face burrowing into Steve’s neck.
“Don’t be a brat,” he growls before he sinks his teeth into the slope where Steve’s throat and shoulder meet, marking Steve as his.
It doesn’t really matter anymore, it occurs to Steve in a brief moment of surprising clarity before hazy pleasure takes over again, if he is Richard Harrington’s son. All that matters is that he is Eddie’s. And Eddie is making sure that Steve will never forget.
Somehow they make it into Eddie’s bedroom, Steve’s upper body covered in more hickeys than he can count. Eddie gently maneuvers him onto his bed and pulls his jeans off in a surprisingly smooth motion. There is hunger in his eyes as he climbs on top of Steve.
“Should have tied you up, made sure it was impossible for you to leave, kept you in my bed all this time,” Eddie whispers into Steve’s skin with his lips wandering down Steve’s torso.
“You can still do that now,” Steve points out, a little breathless from being wanted so much. From Eddie wanting him that much.
“Later,” Eddie promises and pushes Steve’s legs apart. “Right now I want to have you just like this.”
He looks at Steve’s hard dick like it’s a work of art and the apex between his legs the way to salvation.
“You have me,” Steve says before his voice gives away to a moan when Eddie licks over his hole.
“And you have me,” Eddie replies before he dives in, licking over Steve’s rim, circling his hole before slowly pushing his tongue inside.
Steve grips the bedsheets, knuckles turning white, his mind going all quiet like static on the television. Eddie doesn’t let up, eats him out until Steve’s legs are quivering and his breath is ragged.
“Fuck, soooo good for me, Eds,” Steve moans, trying his hardest not to come on the spot. He hasn’t been given permission yet, he also hasn’t asked yet, only wanting to come feeling Eddie inside of himself.
“Be careful what you say sweetheart, or I might accidentally bite down on your hole,” Eddie teases and Steve just groans and throws a pillow at him.
“Less talking, more fucking,” he demands, knowing it’s probably a bad idea.
“You’re lucky I’m feeling nice tonight,” Eddie murmurs as he grabs the lubes and pours it over his fingers. “Otherwise I’d edge you for that comment for hours until your voice was hoarse from begging me to let you come. And once I would let you, I’d make you come over and over and over again. Until every last drop has been milked from you and even once you were coming dry I would not stop. You could cry all you want, I’d only stop when I’d be satisfied that I wrecked you completely and ruined you for everyone else.”
Steve shivers at the thought with anticipation. They’ll definitely have to do that at some point. But not tonight. Tonight he wants Eddie the same way Eddie wants him, just like this.
“You’ve already ruined me for anyone else,” he confesses quietly and Eddie’s head pops up to meet Steve’s eyes, surprise in his eyes. “There’s only you and there will only ever be you.”
“Oh sweetheart,” Eddie says and leans up to kiss him, pouring all of the love he has for Steve into his kiss. “You’ve ruined me for anyone else too.”
“Now that we have established that can you please just fuck me?”
Eddie laughs and nips at Steve’s lips.
“Getting to it baby,” he says and finally pushes a lubed up finger into Steve.
They exchange sweet kisses and whispered words of affection while Eddie opens Steve up. He takes his time, makes sure to brush over Steve’s prostate with every thrust and once he deems Steve open enough Steve is already a whimpering mess.
Eddie looks deep into Steve’s eyes when he pushes his cock inside. It’s so incredibly intimate Steve once more feels flayed open but in a good way. He’s slept with girls in missionary before but it was never like this. So close, so vulnerable, so everything.
When Eddie is fully inside him, hips pressed against Steve’s ass, Steve loops an arm around his neck and pulls him down into a kiss until their chests are flush against each other, and Steve can feel the faintest hints of Eddie’s heart beat.
“Ready?” Eddie whispers, his nose rubbing gently against Steve’s.
“Please,” Steve rasps, feeling like he might fall apart, crumble like a sandcastle in the flood, if Eddie doesn’t start moving. But Eddie is holding him together, only letting him fall apart so he can rebuild him again, shaping him with love and devotion, like a sculptor may cut his lover’s likeness out of marble or a perish build a church on a hard rock.
Eddie moves, fucks him slow and gentle, sometimes even forgetting to thrust, too lost in the taste of Steve’s lips. They’ve fucked like this before, languish thrusts, neither of them in a hurry, allowing themselves more intimacy than they thought they deserved at the time, feeling like they were getting away with something, taking more than they should.
Now they can thoroughly enjoy it and when Eddie whispers I love you into Steve’s lips again, like Prometheus breathing life into the first humans he built out of clay, Steve comes in an instant. Hot come splatters on both their torsos, making them only stick more together. Eddie follows Steve right over the edge seconds later, spilling inside Steve filling him up. The slightly depraved part of Steve’s mind thinks it’s like they are marking each other. He makes a mental note to ask Eddie later if at some point he could just stand over Steve and jerk off over and over again, covering Steve in his cum and his love until it soaked through Steve’s skin, nestling around his cells, covering like a second membrane, unable to ever shake Eddie’s mark off.
With a little uffft Eddie collapses on top of Steve. He doesn’t bother pulling out, just lies there panting, letting the cum drying on their skin.
“If you even just think about leaving I am honest to go chaining you to this bed and never letting you leave it again,” Eddie grumbles as he snuggles closer, nose resting below Steve’s ear. His hair is tickling Steve’s face but he doesn't mind, revels in their closeness instead.
“Promises, promises,” he laments and Eddie laughs dryly against his skin.
Steve grabs Eddie’s hand and intertwines their fingers. They fit together so perfectly, slotting together like cogs or jigsaw pieces, like they were carved out of the same stone, pulled apart but never truly lost, always connected by a red string tying their perfect hands perfectly together.
Steve isn’t quite sure if he believes in soulmates, but it does sometimes feel like the universe made Eddie just for him, like they made out of the same stardust, their atoms having witnessed millenia passing while sticking together, like magnets unable to pull apart.
His body curves so well against Eddie’s ribcage brushing against ribcage, sharp hip bone poking against sharp hip bone, legs tangled together, cold feet rubbing against warm feet, Eddie’s face in Steve’s neck and Steve’s lips on the crown of Eddie’s head. Doesn’t matter if they were meant to fit like this, point is that they do. And with that thought Steve falls asleep in Eddie’s arm, knowing that he is wanted, knowing that he is loved, knowing that he is meant to stay.