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Steve’s sprawled across Eddie’s bed, and Eddie thinks he might be the luckiest guy in the world as Steve throws his head back, baring his throat, teeth digging pretty little semicircles into his bottom lip.
Eddie holds one of Steve’s thighs down and spread wide, partially for the pretty picture it makes, and partially because he can feel the muscles jump beneath his palm as he touches Steve.
And Eddie looks down and thinks that’s too pretty of a dick not to get my mouth on, and then he thinks ah, fuck.
Eddie sits back on his heels and Steve looks up at him, bewildered in that way that’s annoyingly endearing, hair mussed and mouth swollen.
“Everything okay?” he asks, and Eddie feels a little surge of pride that Steve doesn’t sound insecure about it.
“Yeah, just realized I don’t have any condoms.”
“Oh,” Steve says, going prettily red. He opens his mouth again, and Eddie plants a hand in his chest, pushing him back into the bed.
“Hush, sweetheart, and let me think.”
(And Eddie doesn’t expect Steve’s mouth to snap shut, and his eyes to go wide, but it’s definitely worth filing away for future reference.)
Eddie stares out the window, at the still bright sun, at the curve of the gravel road and the off white of the other trailers, and snaps his fingers.
“There’s a nurse a few trailers down.” He scrambles off the bed, yanking up his jeans and shoving on his boots. “I’ll be right back, just lay back and keep looking pretty,” and he throws in a wink for good measure as he dashes out the door.
As Eddie had hoped, the inner door of Connie’s trailer is open, only the storm door keeping the bugs out, which means she’s in, and also won’t mind him barging in (too much).
“Connie!” he shouts, swinging open the door. She looks up from where she’s pouring herself a bowl of cereal, one eyebrow arched. She’s in nothing but graying underwear and a giant t-shirt, but whatever, it’s nothing Eddie hasn’t seen before.
“What now?” she asks flatly, clearly picking up from his grin that it isn’t urgent. (Or, it is, but that it’s not dangerous urgent.)
“Connie, my favoritest nurse and neighbor, do you have condoms?”
Connie stares at him, a sigh heaving out of her.
“I’m not a school nurse or some clinic, Eddie. Go to the convenience store.”
“That’s so far away though, Connie, don’t you have some? Come on, I have the prettiest boy in Hawkins back in the trailer with no pants on, help a guy out.”
“Don’t tell me that,” she grouses. “I remember bandaging your knees when you scraped them up.”
“Conniiieeee,” Eddie whines, even though she’s already moving to the back of her trailer.
She reemerges a moment later, tossing him an opened box.
“Will these do?” she asks wearily.
He shakes it, assessing the contents, and raises an eyebrow at her.
“Miss Connie, what have you been up to?”
“Don’t ask for lube,” she says instead of answering, “Because I’m not giving you any.”
“Don’t worry,” Eddie grins, waggling his eyebrows at her. “I’ve got plenty of that.”
“What did I just say about not telling me that shit?”
Eddie cackles.
“Besides, don’t you have ‘the prettiest boy in Hawkins’ to get back to?” Connie says, hand on her hip.
“You are very right! But! Don’t think that I’m letting this go that easy!” he shouts over his shoulder, raising the box of condoms one more time for emphasis, as he sprints back out.
His boots pound against the gravel and he can’t keep his grin down, and as he darts past the Durham trailer, Mrs. Durham shouts something indignant at him.
“Sorry Mrs. Durham!” he says cheerily, throwing a wave over his shoulder, no idea what he’s apologizing for.
And then he’s stumbling back into the trailer, kicking off his boots, holding the box aloft triumphantly as he skids into his room.
“Quest complete,” he crows, and Steve pushes up onto his elbows, looking exasperated and fond, hair still deliciously debauched.
“You absolute nerd,” Steve grumbles.
“Remind me later to introduce you to Connie, by the way,” Eddie says as he crawls up the bed and settles over Steve’s knees, yanking down the blanket Steve’s pulled over his lap. “She’s pretty great. Although I mentioned I had the prettiest boy in Hawkins in my bed, so she might put two and two together.”
Steve goes pink. (Eddie can’t tell if it’s the ‘prettiest boy’ part, or Eddie’s hand rolling the condom down his dick, but it doesn’t really matter.)
“I mean,” Steve says, “If you trust her, I trust her, and if you want her to know, then I guess I do too?”
“Stevie,” Eddie says, heart feeling full and warm, “You can’t say things that sweet while looking that indecent.”
And then Eddie ducks down and gets his mouth on Steve like he’d wanted to, and Steve lets out the most lovely, garbled noise in answer.
Afterwards, when the sun is beginning to go down, Eddie walks Steve down to his car. A recent pothole has kept Steve from driving his fancy car all the way up to the Munson trailer.
Connie’s sitting on a lawn chair outside her trailer, a beer in hand, wearing the same baggy t-shirt, but with a pair of shorts tugged on. She raises her voice just enough for them to hear as they pass.
“He is pretty, I suppose, if that’s what you’re into.”
Steve goes red all the way up to his ears, and Eddie grins, throwing her a wave.
“Told you so, Connie! Thanks for the save!”
“Oh my god,” Steve whispers, but he just seems embarrassed instead of ashamed or anxious. “Nice to meet you? Officially?” he offers tentatively, and that makes Connie burst into laughter.
“Nice to meet you too.” She shakes her head in amusement at Eddie. “Found yourself one hell of a boy, Eddie.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Eddie’s at the tiny kitchen counter helping Uncle Wayne with bills (or, more honestly, Uncle Wayne does the bills but he asks Eddie to grab specific papers from specific piles and Eddie uses the pens that have run out of ink to drum rhythms on the counter as he hums out potential new melodies for Corroded Coffin). And when Bobby lets himself in, (like he always has, since even before Eddie first moved in with Wayne,) squeezing behind them to grab a beer from their fridge, muttering about ‘stupid rich kids’ Eddie assumes it’s about something in town, and pays it no mind.
“Bad shift?” Wayne asks absently, brow furrowed as he stares at a receipt, as if staring at it long enough will make the numbers change.
“Eh,” Bobby says, “Same old, same old. Hollis managed to break that new machine Daryl ordered, so Daryl’s ripping mad. Dunno if he’ll have cooled off by the shift you and Frank have tonight.”
Wayne grimaces.
“I’m mostly just pissed because doing these morning shifts means my commute’s supposed to be good,” Bobby continues, “and some rich kid’s managed to break his car down in front of the park. Dunno what he’s even fucking doing ‘round here.”
Eddie’s head jerks up, and he can see by the tiny twitch at Wayne’s mouth that Wayne’s thinking the same thing he is.
“Oh shit,” Eddie says. “Brown-ish Beemer?”
Bobby blinks, beer raised halfway to his mouth.
“Yeah, how’d you know that?”
Eddie’s already darting into his room to search for a shirt that’s been washed in the last week, and doesn’t have a ketchup stain on the side.
“Bobby, you stupid motherfucker,” Wayne says, amused, “Harrington’s been visiting Eddie for months now, and he was giving that Mayfield girl rides even before that. How have you not seen him around yet?”
“Harrington?” Bobby says, “You mean that was Arnold Harrington’s kid?”
Eddie doesn’t quite hear Wayne’s reply, tugging on the cleanest shirt he can find, and trying to quickly tidy his hair. But he does catch Bobby’s “Huh, I guess that explains a lot,” and Eddie feels a complicated reflexive urge to defend Steve, to say he’s nothing like his father, but Eddie’s never met the elusive Mr. Harrington (though Steve had drily informed him that’s a good thing).
“Not as much as you’d think,” Wayne says, and Eddie could kiss him for it, if Wayne was the kind of father-figure who went for those things.
“Can’t believe you didn’t help him,” Eddie grumbles at Bobby as he returns to the main room to search for his boots. “It’s a million degrees out, you just left him out there to sweat?”
“Why the fuck would I help him?” Bobby asks, bewildered, but Eddie’s already heading out the door.
Eddie jogs down the gravel road towards the trailer park entrance, and sure enough there’s Steve’s distinctive car, hood popped, Steve standing in front of it looking bewildered and lost.
“You look like how I felt in chemistry,” Eddie says as a greeting. Steve looks up, and the relieved, soft smile on his face could knock Eddie off his feet.
“Don’t know shit about cars,” Steve says with a shrug, turning back to stare into the engine. “Not really sure what I’m even looking at.”
“Well, Stevie,” Eddie says, putting on his most patronizing voice, “That’s the engine.”
Steve laughs, shoving Eddie lightly. “Jackass.”
Eddie shoves him back, snickering, and they devolve into a mild tussle, and it gives Eddie an excuse to get his hands on Steve’s skin out in public without anyone thinking too much about it.
And Eddie glances up, still laughing, half-trapped in a headlock, and is a little surprised to see Bobby coming down the road. His expression is a little puzzled as he watches Steve and Eddie roughhouse.
“Steve,” Eddie says, by way of introduction, “This is Bobby. Bobby, Steve.”
Steve straightens up immediately at the realization someone’s there.
“Uh, nice to meet you,” he says.
Bobby narrows his eyes.
“What’s wrong with your car?”
“I’m, uh, not sure?”
Bobby scoffs.
Eddie figures he might as well get in there and figure it out, and so he bends over the engine to examine it. He’s accepted that he’s probably gonna get this shirt greasy helping Steve fix his car, and if he’d thought ahead earlier, maybe he wouldn’t have changed, but it’s hard to repress the urge to look nice in front of Steve. It’ll be worth it anyway. He’d get all his shirts greasy for Steve. (Even one of his Hellfire shirts, but he also has four of them in varying states of wear, so it’s maybe not as impactful a sentiment as it could be.)
Bobby watches over his shoulder as Eddie runs through a series of checks to see what the issue might be. Eddie’s hair keeps falling in his face, and the third time he tries to blow it off, Steve’s hand is in front of him, proffering a spare hair tie. (Eddie can’t help but feel warm that between him and Max, Steve keeps a whole stash in his car nowadays.)
Eddie grins.
“Help me pull it back?” he asks Steve, and Steve goes a little pink, glancing over at Bobby, but he complies, moving behind Eddie and combing his fingers through his hair a few times to tidy it into a ponytail.
(Eddie’s not worried. He loves Bobby, and Bobby’s got an aunt who’s lived with the same female ‘friend’ her whole life, so he’d probably be okay about it. And also, even though Eddie loves Bobby, he can also safely say Bobby is dumb as a bag of rocks when it comes to clocking people.
When Eddie had first kissed a boy in sixth grade, and news made it back to the trailer park, Bobby had just looked confused and said “Why would you want to do that?”
And when Eddie had stumbled home after one of his first hookups with Dan, and Bobby and Frank had been over for beers with Wayne, Wayne had sighed and reminded Eddie to be careful messing around with Dan, and Bobby had looked at Eddie’s messed up hair and rumpled shirt and said, “You getting in fights with the Stevens boy? Jesus kid, he’s got like 40 pounds on you, you insane?” Frank had to grab his coat to smother his laughter, while Wayne just stared at his friend, dumbfounded.)
After Steve’s done, Eddie flashes him another quick smile and a “Thanks, sweetheart,” and Steve flushes, looking away like he does when Eddie drops a pet name that particularly flusters him. And then Eddie gets back to work.
“Spark plugs, you think?” Eddie asks Bobby, looking up from the engine block.
“Maybe. Fan belt looks okay, coolant level seems fine, can’t see why the battery would shit itself now if there was a problem.”
Steve winces.
“Could you explain that like you’re explaining it to a toddler? Or like someone who doesn’t even know how to change a tire?”
“What kind of man doesn’t teach his son how to change a tire?” Bobby grouses, and Eddie stiffens up, because that’s a little too far.
But Steve just shrugs like it doesn’t bother him.
“Don’t much think Dad could teach me how to change a tire, even if he wanted to,” Steve says, casual and a little dry, like he always is when he talks about his father. “He’s probably never changed one in his life.”
And Eddie watches Bobby’s face change at the very obvious implication that Arnold Harrington has no interest in spending time with his son. Bobby’s mouth tightens and his shoulders go back and his eyes go a little soft.
Bobby was always close to his father, and Robert Senior had passed four years back. When Eddie was younger he’d always been jealous of the relationship the two had, plenty familiar himself with shitty fathers. But Bobby had told Wayne that every kid needs an old man in his life, and if Wayne couldn’t provide, well, Bobby would go ‘dig up his decrepit old dad,’ which had made Wayne laugh.
And Bobby and Robert would take Eddie out fishing (a hobby which very resolutely did not stick, and Robert had acted grumpy about it even as he dug up old fantasy novels to give to Eddie). And Robert gave Eddie his first pocket knife, and Robert had told Eddie that it was a good thing he was around, because “that damn son of mine is never gonna find a girl that’ll tolerate him long enough for me to see grandkids.” (And Bobby had groused that Robert had “never been able to hold down a girl either, hypocritical old man,” with no venom to it at all.)
And the only time Eddie’s ever seen Bobby cry was at Robert Sr.’s hospital bed, and Robert had grumpily said “The hell you crying for, boy? You’re gonna get all my inheritance,” and Bobby had laughed through his tears and replied, “Yeah, can’t wait to get that shitty ship in a bottle, a collection of dusty cigars, two working fishing rods and three that are broke all to hell.”
Eddie marvels that Steve’s accidentally stumbled into the exact little hole in Bobby’s heart, the part that still desperately wishes he had more time with his father. It’s right next to that part that had to be held back when Eddie’s dad had stopped by once to try and rope Eddie back into some new plan to boost some cars, ignorant or perhaps just uncaring of the most basic rules of parole. It’s next to the part that swings by the Munson trailer when Wayne has back to back shifts to check that Eddie’s got something to eat. It’s next to that part that first brought Robert Sr. into Eddie’s life, because Bobby had loved his dad and hated the idea of seeing a kid grow up without something akin to a grandparent in his life and the solution to that had seemed obvious to him.
Eddie can’t help but grin when Bobby gruffly nudges Eddie away from the car, to better point things out to Steve.
And look, no one can blame Eddie for stepping back and letting them have this moment. As much as he likes the idea of showing off, of taking care of Steve’s things, of how he might talk Steve into thanking him later, (of getting his hands inside Steve’s very nice car, and then also maybe making innuendo about that to see Steve blush) he likes spectating this more.
“That’s the dipstick, where you check the oil, but if you need to refill it, that goes here, see?” Bobby says.
“Okay, and uh, what does the oil do?” Steve asks, wincing like he knows it’s a stupid question, like he’s resigned to having that held over his head.
“Good god, kid,” Bobby says, exasperated, but he slaps a warm hand on Steve’s back, gently tugging him down to look at the engine a little closer.
Eddie misses Steve and Frank’s first conversation, which kills him. But Eddie’s driven two towns over with Gareth to meet the newly-colleged Jeff and Vernon for band practice, and Eddie had left his bag at the Harrington house, and Steve had no way of knowing that Wayne had a late night shift, and would be fast asleep. And Steve certainly had no way of knowing that Frank and Bobby let themselves into the Munson trailer regularly, even if Wayne or Eddie aren’t around or won’t be free for a couple more hours.
So Eddie is out and Steve meets Frank for the first time, and Eddie will always be a little sour he missed it, but from how Frank tells it later that night, it goes something like so:
Steve knocks on the door a little after 4:00, and Frank opens the door. And Frank is a big guy. Wayne may be tall, but he’s thin, and Bobby’s solid, but a pretty average height. Frank is a good six foot four and 290 plus pounds, (and once Eddie had jokingly called him a bear, thinking it would go over Frank’s head, and Frank had heaved a sigh and leveled Eddie with a very flat look.)
So Steve is standing down in front of the Munson trailer, and Frank is in the doorway, with the additional height that gives him, and Steve “looks like a puppy down at the lake for the first time who didn’t realize the dock comes to an end and ran right the hell off”, and Frank just looks him up and down and says, “Steve Harrington, I assume?”
“Uh, yes sir. I know Eddie’s out, but I just—“
And Frank had cut him off by sticking out a hand to shake, and Steve had taken it. (“Respectable shake,” Frank had informed Eddie approvingly, “though he looked like he was about to pass out.”)
And then Frank had gone back inside and asked, “You drink?” over his shoulder, which forced Steve to follow. And he’d toed off his sneakers as soon as he came in, and Frank had laughed, and tossed him a beer, and dropped into the armchair that he and Bobby are always in competition over.
“Wayne’s sleeping,” Frank had informed Steve. “Sit.”
And Steve had looked at the beer he’d caught and up at Frank and said, “I really just came by to drop off some stuff for Eddie.”
“You in a rush?”
“No, I guess not?”
“Then sit.” And so Steve had sat.
(“He listens real nice, huh?” Eddie had said, grinning widely, when Frank told the story, Steve still on the couch. Steve had gone red and his shoulders had gone up to his ears. And Frank had said a very flat, “Eddie,” and then turned to look at Steve with an “Insufferable bastard, ain’t he?” And Steve had laughed, his shoulders dropping back into something approximating relaxation. “Absolutely intolerable,” he said wryly.)
And when Eddie asks what they’d talked about, they’d both shrugged.
“Nothing really,” Frank says, but Eddie hadn’t gotten home until well after 10:00, several hours after Wayne had already left for his shift, and Steve’s still there, and he and Frank seem comfortable in each other’s presence. So Eddie shrugs and fetches his guitar, and then sprawls across the couch, head in Steve’s lap, and he lazily plays snippets of whatever comes to his head while Frank and Steve watch tv.
And Eddie doesn’t realize that the program has switched over to football until Steve and Frank both make twin noises of indignation. “Oh, that’s bullshit,” Steve mutters, and Frank grumbles in agreement. “Stupid play, they should know better.” And Eddie looks up at them and remembers Frank was on Hawkins High’s short-lived wrestling team way back when, and goes, “Oh, I see. It’s jock solidarity.” And Steve had jabbed his fingers into Eddie’s side in retaliation and Frank had said, “Don’t talk shit about things you don’t know, Ed,” and then the two spun off into some nonsense about the game that Eddie can’t follow.
Steve and Eddie are sprawled out on Eddie’s mattress, sweaty and sticky and sated, and somehow Steve doesn’t just tolerate the weird rambling tangents Eddie’s brain goes on, but he actually seems to enjoy them.
So Eddie’s tracing lazy patterns across Steve’s bare stomach, talking about whatever the fuck comes to mind, which today has managed to works it’s way around to the his neighbor, but more importantly, her cats.
“Mrs. Durham’s the crankiest old bitch you’ll ever meet. No, actually, Mittens is the crankiest bitch you’ll ever meet. And then Mrs. Durham.
“But her shithead son used to steal fucking razor wire from the dump and string it around their trashcans to keep the racoons out, yeah? And once when I was nine, the late Richard—not Richard the second, who Mrs. Durham got after he passed—“
“Wait,” Steve’s laughing, “Sorry, are you talking about cats?”
Eddie grins up at Steve.
“I am indeed. The current residents of Casa Durham include Mrs. Durham, her son Gabe whenever his friends get tired of him crashing on their couch, and— a drumroll, if you will?”
Steve rolls his eyes but obligingly taps out a drumroll against his thighs.
Eddie straightens himself up, and sweeps his arm out dramatically like a medieval footman announcing guests.
“Richard the second, Mittens, Ronaldo—“ (Steve is laughing again,) “Alice, and Princess Sweetums CookiePie.”
Steve’s laughter has devolved fully into wheezing at the combination of the inconsistent names, and Eddie gesturing dramatically while still fully nude.
“You’re fucking with me,” he chokes out.
Eddie beams.
“Nope. Other late members of the illustrious and respected Durham line include Richard the first, obviously, Andy, Cocoa I, Cocoa II, and Cocoa III—although she was already on Cocoa II by the time I moved in with Wayne—and Rat Bastard.”
Steve has collapsed against Eddie’s side, laughter fully silent now, shoulders shaking.
“I do miss Rat Bastard,” Eddie says wistfully. “He used to do that cat thing where he’d leave you gifts, but instead of mice or birds or whatever, he’d just steal socks.”
Steve shakes his head in amused disbelief, still tucked into Eddie’s shoulder.
“Jesus,” he murmurs. “So what happened with Richard the first?”
“Huh?” Eddie asks, blinking down at him.
“You were talking about Richard the first, when you were nine.”
If Eddie’s heart wasn’t already melted, it would at Steve remembering the thread of his inane and meandering ramblings.
“Right! So, this was back when my old man was still technically my guardian, but I was living with Wayne more often than not. But I hadn’t talked to Mrs. Durham once yet. And Gabe used to leave razor wire out because he thought it’d stop the raccoons from getting in the trash, and Richard gets stuck real bad in there. And of course I can’t leave him, and of course he doesn’t like the situation, so Mrs. Durham opens her door at 1:00 a.m. to nine year old me, bloodied all to hell from the razor wire and Richard’s claws, and Richard also bloodied all to hell, yowling bloody murder, and of course Mrs. Durham screams like it’s judgment day, and wakes the whole damn park.”
“Jesus, Eddie,” Steve says, serious this time, sitting up.
Eddie presses a quick, placating kiss to his cheek.
“Shh babe, it all turned out fine, yeah? Connie patched me up, and none of it scarred too bad, and point is, Mrs. Durham’s a cranky old bitch, but I think she likes me, even if she doesn’t act like it.”
Steve frowns, and twines their hands together, slowly turning Eddie’s arms, and running his fingers over the very faint echoes that really are only visible now if you know they’re there. They’re practically nothing, even if you don’t take into account the truly gnarly new scar tissue Eddie has all over his chest and stomach and thighs now, but Steve still looks at them like they’re causing him personal grief, like the proof that Eddie was in pain once cuts him to the core.
So Eddie distracts him with explaining how to recognize all of Mrs. Durham’s cats—that Mittens is the oldest goddamn cat you’ll ever see, and meaner than a demobat. Richard (the second) is a gray tabby with a kink in his tail. Ronaldo is a very dumb orange cat, but easy to win with treats (“the best bet if you want to earn one of the cats’ love, and therefore Mrs. Durham’s begrudging respect.”) Alice is, despite the name, a tom, and not neutered. And Princess Sweetums Cookiepie— “No, you can’t shorten her name or Mrs. Durham will hate you and Princess Sweetums Cookiepie will try and murder your ankles. But otherwise she’ll just ignore you, and even food won’t get her to pay you any mind.”
And by the end of it Steve’s laughing softly again.
“I’m not going to remember all this, Eddie.”
“Only gotta remember Ronaldo and tuna, sweetheart, and you’ll be all set. And don’t shorten Princess Sweetums Cookiepie’s name. And don’t try to touch Mittens at all.”
“Ridiculous,” Steve mutters.
There are no words for Eddie’s betrayal when, days later, the two of them are sitting in front of the trailer, and Mittens, face scrunched all to hell, apropos of nothing, pads over and immediately settles in Steve’s lap, purring like a broken lawnmower.
“Wow, you weren’t kidding,” Steve murmurs, running his fingers through Mittens’ scraggly white fur, “This really is the oldest fucking cat I’ve ever seen.”
Eddie just stared, bewildered, and then he’d tentatively reached out a hand, because maybe this isn’t actually Mittens, or maybe Mittens has suddenly grown a heart, and Mittens had opened one crusty eye in a glare that immediately had Eddie yanking his hand back, because he knows too well the consequences of ignoring it.
“What the fuck, Steve, that’s not fair.”
And Steve had laughed hard enough that it had drawn Mrs. Durham out of her trailer, and to add insult to injury, she’d looked at Mittens in Steve’s lap, and then Steve’s face, and then appraisingly at the span of his shoulders, and she’d nodded approvingly.
“Mittens likes you,” she said. “And no one’s as good a judge of character as Mittens.”
“Mittens is not a good judge of character,” Eddie muttered when Mrs. Durham returned inside. “She only likes you because you’re pretty.”
“Are you talking about Mittens or Mrs. Durham?” Steve had asked, laughter in his voice.
“Both,” Eddie said venomously, and Steve leaned over to press a quick, placating kiss against his mouth, and it’s almost worth the way Mittens shreds the stomach of Eddie’s shirt and catches just a bit of his skin while she’s at it.
Steve brings dinner when he comes by.
And look, Eddie’s made no secret that he’s inviting Steve over to fuck, and by the attractive flush on Steve’s face when Eddie had asked him to swing by, and mentioned that Wayne would be gone for work by nine, Steve definitely knew too. And when Eddie had informed Wayne that Steve would be over, he couldn’t help the little waggle in his eyebrows, and Wayne had heaved a deep sigh, but Eddie knows his uncle well enough to recognize it’s mostly for show.
So Steve knocks on the door when Eddie’s still debating which pair of jeans hit the right balance between making it look like he actually has an ass worth grabbing, and not being too annoying to peel off. And it’s early, so Wayne is still home, and Eddie briefly thinks about running to grab the door before Wayne does, but his jeans are halfway up his thighs, and definitely not the pair he wants to go with because they are not moving either way at any real speed.
And the walls of the trailer are thin, so Eddie can hear the muffled conversation between Steve and Wayne, and at this point they’re already talking, so there’s no rush, and he returns to his jeans while he idly listens in.
“Evening, Mr. Munson.”
“Harrington.”
“I, uh, brought subs? I think Eddie mentioned once that you liked cheesesteak, but if I remembered that wrong, I also have a turkey and an Italian. And there’s fries and chips.”
A pause.
“Cheesesteak is great, thanks.”
(The walls aren’t nearly thin enough for Eddie to hear Steve breathe a sigh of relief, but he can bet it’s happening.)
“So, um, how is work?”
“Eh, work is fine. I work with a couple shitheads, and I work with a couple of my best friends, so it all evens out in the end.”
Steve laughs.
Another pause.
“Jesus,” Wayne mutters, not quite under his breath. “Starting to see what Eddie and Frank are getting at when they describe you as a puppy.”
“Sorry, what?”
The muffled screech of a stool being dragged across the floor.
“I feel like I’m overdue on giving you a threatening talk about treating my boy right,” Wayne says wearily, and Eddie laughs to himself because he can imagine the wide-eyed look on Steve’s face, “But somehow I end up feeling like I gotta warn Eddie off of breaking your heart, and ain’t that some nonsense? That boy carries spiders out in cups and tries to talk me into adopting a stray every few months.”
“It’s very impressive you’ve managed to hold your ground on that one,” Steve says. “I feel like Eddie could talk me into adopting a dozen raccoons if he put his mind to it.”
Eddie grins at himself in the mirror. (These jeans are good, but not with this t-shirt.)
“Had to try and maintain some rules when raising that kid,” Wayne says, amused. Then— “You ever think about that? A future? Adopting strays together?”
Eddie freezes, staring into space, because what the fuck, Uncle Wayne? Where the hell did that come from? Who the fuck blindsides a guy like that?
Steve is very quiet for a while, and Eddie considers going out to reassure him, because god knows Steve’s got baggage, and expecting him to be at that point yet is unreasonable. But Eddie’s not sure if revealing that he’s been listening in might make things worse.
And then Steve catches Eddie off guard, because of course he does, because he always does, because when has he ever failed to take that opportunity and run with it?
“Sometimes,” Steve says quietly. “I didn’t used to. I didn’t think— I didn’t think I could. I didn’t think I was a person who was capable of loving like that. But Eddie makes it easy sometimes, to imagine a future like that.”
Eddie’s heart feels like it’s going to burst, and fuck finding a good shirt, he opens his door without one on at all and strolls right up to Steve and tangles his hands around the back of Steve’s neck.
“Oh,” Steve says, eyes wide and startled.
Wayne snorts, amused. (He must’ve known Eddie was listening, the bastard.)
“I love you terribly, you know that?” Eddie grumbles petulantly. “I wanna adopt a million fucking strays with you, Steve. God fucking damnit.”
“Oh,” Steve says again, softly.
And what is there for Eddie to do but kiss him senseless?
(Wayne laughs drily and grabs one of the bags of food, and heads out the door with, “I’m gonna go eat at Bobby’s. You two be good.”
And Eddie pulls back just long enough to grin at his uncle and say, “I dunno how good I can be after hearing Steve make a confession like that.”
Wayne rolls his eyes and Steve hisses a scandalized, “Eddie!” before Eddie’s hooking his fingers in Steve’s belt loops and dragging him back to his bedroom.)