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hairmetal666 · 25 days ago

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The first time Steve meets Eddie Munson they're booked for a little indie wrestling show in Rhode Island.

Eddie is--scrappy, untested. It's obvious the only kind of wrestling he's ever done is of the backyard trampoline variety. But. There's something there; they can all see it.

He doesn't like Steve much, but then Steve can't blame him. The Harrington's are a legacy wrestling family. His dad, uncles, even his mom was a famous valet and manager before getting married and retiring. So, he's got this name, and this look, and--earned or not--a reputation, and Munson doesn't like him.

Steve tries not to take it personally.

In between tours and indie bookings, Eddie starts as a trainer at Hopper's gym, and they start doing demonstrations for the kids together. Eddie's good, really good. Even though it's just for teaching, their styles and energy match.

They get booked in their first match against each other at a local show a few months later. The energy they had at Hopper's is nothing compared to this. Sure, there's only about 200 people packed into this high school gym, but it doesn't matter. It's electric.

Eddie's long, curly hair, lean muscles, and tattoos caught Steve's eye the moment they met, but it never flourished into anything because of how much Eddie hated him.

Now, though, they're spending time together, talking, rolling around in a wrestling ring all day, and Steve's only human.

There's a Ring Of Honor pay-per-view, it's the first time that Steve and Eddie have wrestled for a large audience. Anticipation for the match burns in his stomach.

This is Eddie's first appearance in ROH, and no one quite knows what to expect. He only gives a little Cheshire Cat grin when asked. So, Steve is genuinely startled when the arena lights go out, less so when Master of Puppets blares through the speakers.

The lights come up and Eddie stands at the end of the ramp. He's shirtless, hair in damp, loose curls around his shoulders. He's wearing pleather wrestling pants with mesh cutouts across his thighs and shins. Steve thinks he might die.

Eddie slips between the ropes to wild cheers, and Steve stops thinking about how hot he looks.

The first time they tangle up, Steve leans extra close, whispers, "that was amazing." And Eddie gives him this smile that's part menace and part joy. Steve's heart leaps, and their bodies crash together. It's the best time he's had in the ring in years.

Steve's crush aside, he thinks it was relatively normal until he catches up to Robin backstage.

"What the hell was that?" She hisses.

"Huh?"

"Oh my god, Steve. You were all over each other."

"Yeah? We were wrestling?"

"Is this wrestling?" She pulls up the picture from the beginning, of Steve leaning close and Eddie's smile.

It's, uh, way more intimate than Steve realized in the moment. His ears heat. "It wasn't like that," he says.

Robin rolls her eyes. Of course she sees right through him. "Tell that to the 5.1 thousand people who've already liked and reposted this picture."

"It's not going to be a thing," he tells her. He's certain of it.

It becomes a thing.

There are memes, fan art, fan fiction. People ship them--a couple of their trainees, Max and Erica, show them all the fics about them on ao3.

They're a hit.

They're booked against each other again, and this time, Eddie grabs Steve by the back of the head, pulls him in until they're almost kissing, until Steve stops breathing, feels his eyes going starry at the proximity.

The crowd is screaming so loud he can't hear anything, not even what Eddie is saying, even though they're so close. He leans in, unthinking, and Eddie stutters.

"They're eating this up!" Eddie shouts.

And they are, totally captivated. Which is why Steve presses their cheeks together for a several seconds before punching Eddie in the solar plexus.

Their next match, someone starts yelling "kiss, kiss!" and then it's the whole arena. Steve has to hide his laughter against Eddie's shoulder.

They lean more into it. They're having a blast. It even sort of helps his crush a little bit, to kind of make it into something the fans are in on.

He debuts on AEW against Hangman Page. Steve gets the win, and as the ref lifts his arm, he takes a blow to the back of his head. He has a second to see Jason Carver's signature letterman jacket before he goes down. He tries to curl up to protect himself, but still takes a boot to the stomach and more hits to the face and head.

The crowd is already in a frenzy, but when the noise goes up to a fever pitch, he knows Eddie's running down the ramp. He hears the thunk as Jason goes down, then Eddie is hauling Steve up by the shoulders.

They don't leave the ring right away. Instead, Eddie holds him there, brushes his hand over Steve's forehead before cupping his cheek.

As they slip between the ropes, walk to the back, his ears ring. He doesn't think it's from all the cheering.

---

In their next appearance on AEW, Jason attacks Steve backstage. The cameras cut to them right as Steve is thrown into a brick wall. It's supposed to be violent, supposed to get bloody. When he crashes into the corner of a backstage crate, he lets it catch him just above the eyebrow.

The blood starts flowing, warm, down his eyelid and nose just as he hears Eddie burst through the door. There's yelling, the sound of Jason running off, then a warm hand is on his back.

"Steve?" Eddie yells. His voice breaks. "Stevie?"

Hands are on his face, his shoulder, pushing back his hair, pressing against the cut above his eye.

"Ed," he mumbles.

"I'm here, I've got you. Paramedics are on the way, okay? You're going to be okay."

The cameras go down, and the medical team rushes over to patch him up.

Eddie's waiting for him when they're done.

"You're okay," Eddie says. "There was blood everywhere."

"Yeah, I'm alright. Crate got me a little more than I meant for it to."

"Can I?" Eddie asks. He reaches towards Steve, like he wants to touch.

"Course." Steve's voice is thick.

Eddie gently presses his hair back, revealing the butterfly bandage on his forehead. He hisses in a breath. "Got yourself good. I--I don't like seeing you hurt," he says, soft. "I didn't expect--I mean, I know it's not--I didn't like seeing you hurt."

Their eyes lock, the air between them charges. Not like when they're in front of an audience, the cameras. It's just them, alone; just them, standing too close.

Eddie's eyes dart to his mouth, and he leans forward until their breath mingles. Steve's eyes drift closed as the warmth of Eddie's mouth ghosts over his own.

A door down the hall bangs open with a clatter. Eddie and Steve spring apart, the moment fizzling.

Later, Steve tells Robin he thinks he imagined it.

---

Steve isn't on TV the next few weeks, the story is that he required surgery to repair internal bleeding and ended up with a grade-3 concussion. His timeline for return is unknown.

Eddie is set to wrestle Jason at the next pay-per-view, Revolution.

During Steve's two week break, he gets a text from Eddie. "Miss you, Stevie. Not the same here without you."

"Miss you too," he says back.

He's so in love with him.

---

The night of Revolution dawns, nerves thrumming in his stomach. He stays low-key, out-of-sight. He isn't going to make an appearance for a while, and he and Eddie agreed to not see each other before the match to make the reunion all the more real.

So, he hangs out in a backstage room, watching the show on a small TV, and psyching himself up for what's to come.

He makes his way to gorilla position as soon as Jason and Eddie finish their entrances, watches the match play out on the producers' monitors.

It's an even fight at the beginning but it gets nasty at the first appearance of weapons. Eddie takes a steel chair to the face, Jason sets up a table and Eddie dives from the top rope to crash him through it. That mat is littered with thumbtacks and sticky with blood, and then Jason grabs a chain from under the ring, wrapping it around Eddie's throat.

Steve runs down the ramp and the crowd goes insane, distracting Jason and allowing Eddie to scurry free. Jason disappears over the barricade and into the crowd, but neither of them go after him. Instead, Eddie runs around the ring, pulling Steve into a tight embrace. The fans scream.

They hold each other tight, the roars from the stands washing over them until they coalesce into one word, "kiss."

"Should we give the people what they want?" Eddie asks. His eyes are bright.

It's not real, Steve knows it's not, and maybe this will hurt more than landing in a pile of thumbtacks once it's over, but he nods. He's smiling so hard his mouth hurts.

He expects a stage kiss, a quick peck, but Eddie's hand cups the back of his head, draws him in slow, their lips meeting in a gentle press.

Everything around them melts away and he sinks against Eddie, lets the kiss carry him away. He wants more, wants to taste, wants anything Eddie will give.

"Guys," a voice says next to them. "Guys, you gotta ease up. We have to re-set for the main event."

The audience noise comes back to him in a tidal wave chant of their names and "They're in love" accompanied by a rhythmic clap.

They walk backstage together, close but not touching, and Steve thinks he can't be disappointed if it was only for TV. It was the closest to bliss he's ever been.

In the bustle of backstage, Eddie pulls him into a quiet hallway, hands immediately going to Steve's face.

"I meant it." He says. "The kiss. I meant every second."

For their second kiss, no one is there to tell them to stop.