#ok that’s sounds fetishy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nametakensff · 1 year ago

Note

oooh can i request 🥶🤬🤧 for st/eddie?

Ok, so this ended up at 13.7k 💀 it just took over and I kept going - thank you so much for the prompt! 💕

E/ddie and S/teve had been planning to go to a concert together for months. The day of, however, they wake up sick and grouchy. Everything continues to spiral from there

~~~~~~

Content:

M/M, Established Relationship, both S/teve and E/ddie have the fetish, colds, contagion, mess, handjobs, fevers, they're just generally super fucking unwell but fuck about it anyway, fetishy dirty talk

CW:

Lots of fighting and angst, mentions of homophobia, Q slur is used

Some other notes:

- I've written E/ddie as having undiagnosed ADHD - nobody knows it's a thing, including him

- The fic is set in January 1988, so S/teve and E/ddie have been in a relationship for about a year and a half

- I'm a British person who cannot drive and has been to Indiana twice, I'm trying my best to make this scenario believable haha

Fic is v NSFW, so under a readmore! Hope you enjoy 🥰

If Eddie hadn’t been teetering on the edge of breaking point for the last several hours already, the car rolling to a miserable, sputtering stop out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere would have been the final straw. As it was, he didn’t know whether to scream or cry. So he sat there in astonished disbelief as Steve attempted to start the car, over and over. He watched his boyfriend slap the steering wheel in frustration through unblinking eyes.

“Steve. Steve? Are you fucking kidding me right now!? Why the fuck have we stopped??”

He watched the muscles in the younger man’s jaw tighten, refusing to look at him and instead frowning angrily out of the front window. His knuckles were white where they gripped the wheel, and Eddie could swear a vein was starting to bulge on his forehead.

“We better not be out of gas. Steve? Are we – are we actually out of gas??”

Radio silence as he continued to stare at Steve, growing more panicked by the second.

“Ste-“

“YES, okay?? We’re out of fucking gas. God damn it!”

Steve slapped the wheel again, grinding his teeth. Before he could help himself, Eddie burst into high pitched squeals of laughter. He sounded deranged, hysterical, but he supposed he was having a breakdown and there was nothing much he could do to prevent it. At least Steve was finally looking at him – though glaring would be the more appropriate term.

“What the fuck?”

Eddie concurred – what the fuck, indeed. But no matter how much he willed it, the nervous laughter would not stop. Steve had had enough, cursing as he got out of the driver’s seat and slamming the door behind him. It would do no good to check for any petrol – Eddie had told him they were running low, but Steve just hadn’t listened. He checked anyway – the metalhead watched in the rear-view mirror as he popped the trunk and rummaged for a full cannister, coming up empty. At least Eddie’s insane cackles had fizzled down to the occasional reedy giggle. Steve got back in his seat, slamming the door again.

Several minutes of almost silence passed, both men staring blankly into space. An awkwardly loud sniffle from Steve jolted Eddie back to the present. He watched as Steve lifted a broad palm to hover in front of his gaping mouth, nostrils twitching in preparation for the oncoming sneeze. Underneath the exhaustion, the anger and utter defeat, Eddie still found himself admiring his boyfriend’s profile, eyes fixed on his crumpling expression, almost on autopilot.

“Hh-HAH!! HAAAESHHH’uuu!! H’RRIIISSHHH!! TSCHHHH!! Mother fucker –“

Steve fumbled in the glove box for a tissue, a napkin, anything to clean himself up with. The powerful sneeze had not only drenched his palm, several droplets running down his wrist, but his nose had started to run down his lip. Again, his search was futile – they had long used up any tissue or bandana they had to hand. Eddie sat in contemplation for a moment, then sighed heavily before reaching into the back seat for his things. He opened his backpack, glanced sadly at his Black Sabbath ‘Born Again’ Tour t-shirt, before wordlessly thrusting it in Steve’s general direction.

He heard Steve pause, hesitating, before he gently took the shirt from Eddie. The older man thought he heard a small ‘thank you’, but it honestly wouldn’t have surprised him if it had been a ‘fuck you’ either. Eddie grimaced at the sound of Steve emptying his poor, congested sinuses into his prized possession, arousal and frustration warring in his stomach. He turned his head in time to watch Steve wipe his nostrils dry, painfully red from hours of similar abuse.

Those sneezes had been notably louder and even messier than the endless preceding ones, which had already been amping up in intensity over the past couple of hours, making driving an increasingly difficult task. Eddie wondered if the silver lining of being lost in the middle of nowhere was that Steve hadn’t gotten them into any major accidents by sneezing them into an oncoming vehicle. The thought didn’t help him one bit, however. Silver linings, my ass. Silver linings could fuck off and die – much like he wanted to, in this present moment.

He leaned his head back against the seat, eyes closing against anxiety that flowed through his extremities in waves, engulfing him in a paralytic sense of doom. He really needed to keep his cool, but he was failing miserably. He’d just have to ride it out for now, wait until the panic plateaued and subsided.

He considered their current situation – both of them sick, with what he now suspected was the flu, given how quickly it had come on and the way his head was starting to pound. They were lost; they had no gas and their car was stuck on the side of a road with nothing but cornfields surrounding them as far as the eye could see, like some god damn B Horror movie. They had no food, no more Tylenol, no tissues. They had been fighting for hours. They were tired. It was below freezing outside, and he could already feel the lack of heating. It didn’t take a genius intellect to deduce that they were well and truly Fucked with a capital F.

As if some decidedly non-divine higher power had a personal vendetta against him – a suspicion which Eddie had entertained several times throughout his life – his nose was starting to tickle, again. More accurately, his head was abuzz with the desire to sneeze within milliseconds, giving him almost no warning or buildup before he was jerked forward by a fit of intensely itchy sneezes.

“HhdTT’chiew! Hggxt! Hig’xt! Ehg’xxt! GXXT’CHieww!!”

He had stifled the first one by sheer willpower, able to pinch his wildly flaring nostrils shut between a thumb and forefinger for the next few. The last somehow managed to barrel past his wavering grip, slick nostrils slipping free. He shouldn’t be suppressing them like this – not now, not when he was ill and the only thing it would seek to accomplish was a burgeoning sinus infection. His head throbbed anew, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the pain, willing himself not to whimper.

“…You shouldn’t-“

“I know. Please. Just. Leave me alone.”

He knew that was the wrong thing to say, even after having said plenty of wrong things today already. He had heard the genuine concern in Steve’s voice when he spoke, and he could now feel that his previous anger had been rekindled, emanating from the former jock in almost tangible waves of resentment. He had often fucking hated his life before Steve, but this was the first time he’d ever fucking hated it since.

Steve was right, of course. He knew stifling would hurt him, and he normally reserved it for when he was unable to hold back an allergic fit in public. Here it was just him and Steve – his boyfriend, with the same fetish for sneezing as him. He should be sneezing with abandon, as he normally did around him. It pleased Steve, it pleased him, it didn’t hurt – what reason could he possibly have for bullying the sneezes into submission?

If he was being completely honest with himself, it was this: Steve didn’t deserve to hear them right now. It was possibly one of the pettiest things Eddie had ever thought, and he’d been plenty petty in his time. But right now, he wanted Steve to know how fucking pissed he was at him, even though it hurt to feel the same sentiment directed back at him. He had purposely twisted himself towards the passenger window as he sneezed, biting back the sound and hiding his face from Steve in entirety. He never thought he would be in a position where he didn’t want Steve’s roving eyes drinking in the visuals of his desperate pre-sneeze expression, but here he fucking was.

Eddie leaned his forehead against the window, eyes shut and jaw clenched. The cold glass against his skin felt wonderful, but it also made him shiver, confirming that he was indeed feverish. Just perfect. Wasn’t it enough that they would be missing the concert they’d been looking forward to for months, on top of fucking hating each other right now, without both of them being sick as a dog? He felt the threatening prickle of tears he’d been holding back for hours forming at the corner of his eyes, the final cherry on top of this shit sundae that was his day.

~~~~~~

Steve, for what it was worth, was feeling just as miserable as his boyfriend. Hell, he thought he probably felt worse – the guilt of ignoring Eddie’s warning about running low on gas burning like acid in the pit of his stomach. At the time, he probably even knew the older man was right; but he’d been so fucking angry with him already for fucking up their money that he’d barely listened to him. Admittedly, he’d been a grade A asshole ever since he woke up that morning, lurching forward with a throat-scraping sneeze, a nasty head cold already well settled in his sinuses. His prickly mood had practically invited friction with his sensitive boyfriend, who was also coming down with something himself.

He clenched the steering wheel with both hands and urged himself to calm down. The anger and frustration he’d been feeling almost nonstop for hours had left him shaking. Despite it all, despite how this was the angriest he had ever been with his boyfriend, he couldn’t help his almost pavlovian response to the older man’s irritated little sneezes. His traitorous dick throbbed against the tight confines of his levi’s. The fact that he couldn’t control his physical response just made him even angrier – it was a never-ending cycle of frustration that seemed to travel through him in an uncomfortable thrum. He hated feeling this way.

His sinuses buzzed and he reached up with a fist to rub at his nose, mashing it around so harshly he could hear the resounding wet squelching noises with each motion. He glanced at Eddie, finding him still slumped and motionless up against the passenger door, staunchly ignoring him. His turned back felt like a door closing in his face, the metalhead about as distant from Steve as he could possibly be whilst still sitting less than a few feet away from him. Eddie could be moody at times, but today was a whole new level of dramatics that Steve knew he had been the cause of. The sight of his boyfriend inching himself as far away from him as he physically could was incredibly painful, so Steve turned his gaze back to the steering wheel and tried to think.

They didn’t really have much of a choice either way – they would simply have to wait for someone to come by. He should’ve brought one of the walkie-talkies that had saved him countless times in his misadventures against Vecna, The Mindflayer, the Demodogs – but hindsight was 20/20 and perhaps given all the insane supernatural danger he’d been through, he’d neglected the very real possibility that the mundane could be dangerous too.

His head gave a sudden and sharp throb, wrenching him out of his thoughts as he cursed softly under his breath. He made a mental note to track down and kill the Family Video customer that had gifted him with this real sucker punch of a bug. The second the guy had walked in, eyes streaming and nose bright red, Steve should’ve hightailed it to the back of the store. But Robin was already off with another customer, and the guy beelined to the counter where Steve had been standing. He tried his best to smile welcomingly at him, pointedly looking anywhere other than his twitching pink nostrils.

The guy had asked Steve for recommendations on a date night movie, even as he took a damp wad of tissues from his pocket and pawed with it at his nose. Good luck with that date, buddy, Steve had thought whilst rattling off a list of romantic comedies that would fit the bill. He remembered that ‘Dirty Dancing’ had just come out on VHS, and the guy seemed to brighten at that idea, so Steve went to grab a copy for him. He handed it to the guy and hurriedly typed away at the computer, eager to get this dude and his germs out of the store.

He’d been so close, too, but as he turned to tell the poor guy to enjoy his movie, he’d been met with the sight of him sneezing, uncovered, down at his counter. To his credit, he seemed completely mortified, attempting to wipe the surface clean with an even dirtier tissue, but Steve had assured him through only slightly clenched teeth that it was okay, and to feel better. The man had all but sprinted through the door, and Steve set to sterilising the counter, disgust and arousal battling inside him at the realisation that the colossal sneeze had actually left visible droplets in its wake.

He should’ve known it would be his turn to get sick. It was January, and he’d made it all the way through December without so much as a sniffle, avoiding catching Robin’s cold earlier that month even after they’d cuddled their way through a movie marathon in her living room. It was practically unheard of that he would get through Winter without catching a cold. It was unheard of that he would only catch one. He had only hoped he could count on that good luck a little while longer, just long enough that he could enjoy the concert Eddie had been planning for months.

~~~~~~

Iron Maiden was not a band that Steve had cared to listen to, nor were horror movies something he cared to watch. Dating Eddie Munson meant that he didn’t really have all that much of a choice in the matter. Several months earlier, Eddie had convinced Steve to check out ‘Phenomena’ with him. The last film they’d watched together was ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’, which had quickly become one of Steve’s favourites – and despite his griping, he knew Eddie liked it, too – but he was well overdue a horror movie watch with his distinctly macabre boyfriend. It was totally worth it watching Eddie’s entire face light up, big brown eyes practically glittering with excitement, when Steve acquiesced.

“This one’s from Italy,” Eddie had told him enthusiastically as he pushed the VHS into the player, “But it’s supposed to have a totally metal soundtrack, and the director – you remember ‘Suspiria’, that movie with the ballerinas and witches?”

Steve had remembered, but it was less the witches that had terrified him than the dog suddenly ripping a guy’s entire throat out unprompted. He’d made Eddie escort him to and from the bathroom that night. He nodded.

“Well, that guy, Argento, he made this one, too!”

“Oh, goodie.”

Steve raised an arm against the offending cushion that Eddie flung down at him, the two wrestling briefly before settling in and focusing on the movie. Steve honestly found it horribly boring – it had that one girl from ‘Labyrinth’ in it, a movie Eddie and Robin gushed about regularly, but not much else was going on to keep him interested. In general, watching his boyfriend’s animated profile was much more entertaining.

It had been in a sudden chase scene, a young girl running from some unseen pursuer and towards a gruesome fate that ‘Flash of the Blade’ by Iron Maiden had started to play and Eddie had been head-banging rhythmically within seconds. He turned to Steve, completely and utterly ecstatic, child-like grin splitting his face, and Steve’s heart had been so full he’d been unable to do much more than smile dreamily at his boyfriend. When Eddie had eased up on the frantic fidgeting and belting out the lyrics alongside the movie, he’d snuggled up to him and breathed in the scent of his warm curls until he’d dozed off.

He’d woken up just before the movie had ended. A lake was burning or something like that. When Eddie had turned to him with a huge grin and asked him what his favourite part of the movie had been, Steve honestly answered “The part with the Iron Maiden song." Eddie beamed.

“You liked that song, Stevie?”

“Yeah, it was cool.” Steve answered, not entirely untruthfully. It was less the song itself – more that it animated Eddie in a way Steve would like to see every single day for the rest of his life.

“The lyrics are fuckin’ awesome, too – kind of like a D&D, intrepid knight kind of theme!”

“Totally.” Steve smiled at him.

“You know…The Maiden are coming to Indianapolis in January – I was gonna go with Corroded Coffin but they’re all busy that weekend, so – so what if we went, together? I know it’s not your thing, I totally get if you don’t wanna go, but-“

“I’ll go with you.”

Eddie looked so excited that Steve’s heart skipped a beat. Yes. More of that. Keep looking at me like that.

“Oh, fuck, are you serious, Stevie? Fuckin’ A, man! I need to get organised!”

~~~~~~~

And so, Steve had committed to the gig, nearly as excited as Eddie for their little trip up to Indy. It wasn’t often that they managed to get the time to spend more than their evenings together, even now that they finally had their own apartment. It had taken a great deal of planning, and it should have been perfect. But it had all gone to shit.

The first thing that went wrong, as noted before, was both of them waking up sick. They’d been grouchy, neither of them looking forward to the long drive ahead. Steve was resentful of the fact that he would be crammed in an arena jampacked with sweaty, drunken metal dudes, and Eddie was resentful of the fact that Steve was resentful. Steve hadn’t mean to put a damper on their mood, but he truly felt awful and couldn’t imagine a worse way to spend his evening. He would much rather stay bundled up in bed with his sick boyfriend, where they could look after each other and enjoy each other’s company in peace. Maybe when they felt a little better, they could really enjoy their mutual cold in a more…intimate fashion. But no. They’d committed with both time and money. Car journey and concert it was.

The second thing that had gone wrong, after a bumpy but still salvageable morning, was Eddie losing their food, medicine and other supplies that he had just bought at the first gas station they stopped at. They were good for water, a six pack of one litre bottles in the trunk, and they figured since they’d be grabbing dinner later that evening, a couple of sandwiches and snacks for the road would suit them fine. Steve had volunteered to head into the store, knowing how distracted his boyfriend could get, but Eddie had waved him off and insisted it’d be fine. When Eddie had strolled back to the car 20 minutes later, backpack slung lazily over one shoulder, Steve had asked him if everything was okay.

“More than okay, dude.” Eddie had grinned at him, then opened his backpack to reveal a freshly purchased bag of weed.

“Where did you-?”

“Ran into a previous client in the store – he deals now, and he gave me an old chum’s discount.”

Steve pulled out of the parking lot, thinking to himself that smoking up later on might make the miserable experience of being sick at a concert more bearable than if he’d been sober. It was about 10 minutes later that through the brain fog he realised he hadn’t seen Eddie carrying any kind of purchase from the store, and hadn’t seen anything but weed in his backpack.

“Munson, you did – get us food and stuff, right?”

Eddie, who had been lazily leaning back in his seat and rubbing at his nose with the palm of his hand, suddenly shot upright.

“Shit. SHIT.”

Steve jumped a little.

“What, dude?! Are you okay?”

Eddie groaned and buried his face in his hands.

“I left the stuff behind the gas station – I put the bag down when I was getting the weed.”

Steve gaped at him before cursing under his breath. He looked for the nearest opportunity to turn round and swung the car back in the opposite direction.

“What are you doing, man?”

“We might still be able to find it. I mean, what the fuck, Eddie? Drug deals?? Right now?”

Steve could feel the anger bubbling up steadily, his regular patience almost non-existent. Eddie was more than willing to rise to the occasion.

“It’s not like I meant to lose our shit, okay? I just – you know, I forget things.”

“That’s why I offered to go in myself!”

“I’m not an infant, Harrington, I can function well enough to buy crap at a store.”

“Clearly fucking not?! You left our stuff and spent our money on pot – thanks for fucking asking, by the way - when we could have easily found something closer to the gig. Like seriously, man, not cool.”

“UGH, I didn’t mean to leave it! I got distracted and I just – it was a good deal and I thought it would help us mellow out. That it would help you mellow out.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean.”

“Steve…..you can’t honestly tell me you don’t know how much of a fucking asshole you’ve been to me today?”

“I’m not the asshole who prioritised a fucking drug deal over food and medicine!”

“Ohh my god, Steve! I bought our fucking food, I bought our fucking medicine, I just forgot it, okay?! I forgot to pick the bag up off the ground, heaven forbid a guy make a mistake every once in while!”

Steve could see that Eddie was visibly upset, and he knew he felt awful about forgetting their things. He was about to apologise for overreacting when he noticed Eddie freeze up once again, patting his pockets frantically and moaning.

“What. Eddie, what? What’s wrong now?”

“….Can’t find my wallet. I think I left it in the bag.”

Steve could have sworn he saw red. They’d put almost all of their money together in Eddie’s wallet, leaving just enough for hotel fees in Steve’s, a stupid fucking thing to do in hindsight but something that neither of them had assumed would fuck them in the ass later.

“I genuinely don’t know what to say to you. Oh my fucking god.”

Steve saw Eddie wince out of the corner of his eye, and he realised he had quite possibly never hated himself more than he did in that moment. He was acting just like his father, but he couldn’t seem to stop. The anger was so palpable he could hardly breathe.

They drove the rest of the way back to the store in silence. Eddie was yanking the passenger door open before the car had even come to a full stop, sprinting towards the back of the store. Steve watched as his boyfriend emerged from behind the building empty handed several moments later, taking in his devastated expression. He swore loudly before resting his head on the steering wheel, motionless as Eddie got back into the car.

“…I found a ten in my pocket, but we might need it for gas later on.” He heard Eddie mutter.

“We don’t. We need food and medicine more.”

“No, dude, we’re gonna need more gas.”

“And I’m telling you, we don’t. Come on, I’ll buy us stuff this time.”

Steve looked over at the older man and held his hand out expectantly for the money. The look Eddie shot his way was lethal. The metalhead slapped the bill into his palm.

“Knock yourself out, mom.”

Steve got out of the car.

“Rather be a mom than a brat.”

He slammed the door behind him.

~~~~~~

“Hh-HH! Heh’ENGXT’tchieww!! HDT’Tsiewww!! Eht’tchieww! Hh’ISSSH’ieww!!”

Eddie’s head rocked forward with the force of the fit, clutching the steering wheel like a lifeline. Luckily he hadn’t veered off course too much this time. He noticed suddenly that Steve had reached out to steady the wheel while he sneezed, and though the gesture was perfectly reasonable, he was already so angry with him that it just served to piss him off more than anything. He snuffled and elbowed Steve’s hand away.

“Dude, I got this. Leave it alone.”

Steve threw up his hands and rolled his eyes, a supremely immature gesture that made Eddie resent him all the more. It was a sickening feeling, being angry with Steve, and on top of his worsening cold Eddie didn’t know how much more he could take. He was angry at himself, as well. He felt stupid, so fucking stupid. Steve was right to be pissed at him for the colossal fuck-up he had managed to achieve – hell, we would be pissed at Steve had their roles been reversed.

What really fucking stung, though, was the disappointment and derision his boyfriend had directed his way. It was nasty and it wasn’t like anything he’d ever experienced before from the former jock, even when he really had been an asshole at school. He was normally such a sweetheart. He understood that Eddie could lose track of time, forget what he was doing in any given moment. It was part of what had made school so miserable – he had tried his best but it was like no matter how much he tried to focus, he just couldn’t. Like his brain was on constant overdrive. He thought Steve had accepted that about him, really understood him. But the way he’d looked at him when Eddie had messed up at the gas station, the tone of his voice – it hurt so badly he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He knew Steve was sick, and that made him sulky, but fuck, man.

He heard Steve gasp beside him. They’d both started sneezing in earnest a few hours ago, raging their way through the small box of tissues Steve had managed to buy for them alongside a bottle of Tylenol and a single sandwich that they had split. They were down to just a few tissues.

“HAAAEEESHHH’uuu!! HARRESHHHIEWW!! TISSSSH’ieww!!”

Eddie listened in vague appreciation to the rich vocal sound of Steve’s increasingly violent cold sneezes, wishing he didn’t hate him so much in that moment so he could enjoy them in full. He was concerned at the way they had Steve tumbling forward over his knees, jerking against the restraint of his seat belt. Any thought of them actually having a good time at this concert had all but vanished at this point, but to admit that out loud would be to admit defeat, and mean they’d put themselves through all this misery for fucking nothing.

Steve swiped the last two tissues from the box and blew his nose, a thick, crackling sound that betrayed just how congested he was becoming. Two wouldn’t be enough, Eddie knew, and his suspicions were confirmed when Steve rooted in his pocket to finish cleaning himself up with a used, balled-up tissue. Eddie sighed. He had a few bandanas in his backpack – he could offer one to Steve now, but he just couldn’t stand the thought of talking to him.

They drove for another 30 or so minutes before Eddie started to pull up to a gas station. Steve sat up and looked at him questioningly.

“Why are we stopping at a gas station?”

“To watch a fucking movie.”

“Eddie-“

“We’re fucking obviously getting gas, Steve - we’re not gonna last the rest of the drive.”

“With what money are you getting gas?”

Eddie glared at Steve, patience worn completely thin. God, the way he was talking to him like he was his fucking dad, or something. It was infuriating.

“We still have the money in your wallet – it would only cost a couple of bucks.”

“No, no – we worked it out, this is just enough for our hotel. We can’t show up short, they’d turn us away.”

“They’re not gonna get the chance to turn us away if we don’t even ghh-get th-there-hh!!”

Eddie scrubbed at his flaring nostrils in a desperate attempt to mollify the tickle, but luck was decidedly not on his side today.

“Ehh-!! EGXXXT’shiewww!! HAHDT’chieww!! IGSHHH!! HIGXT’shieww!! EHH’TSSCH’ieww!! Ahh…F-fuck…”

The sneezes were intense and incredibly wet, curling him over the steering wheel and forcing tears of irritation from his eyes. He felt Steve reach out to steady the wheel again, this time not fighting it. He was almost trembling in the aftermath of that fit, an unwelcome combination of pleasure and frustration prickling at his skin. He sniffled miserably.

“Bless you.”

He blushed in response to the blessing, neither of them having acknowledged each other’s sneezing for hours. Perhaps Steve had temporarily forgotten to be angry with him, given the dramatic scene he had just made. For the first time in their relationship, he cursed their shared fetish - it was making things increasingly complicated. He did not like the mixed signals his brain was sending him – ‘never talk to Steve ever again’ and ‘fuck Steve in the back seat right now’ were about as contradictory as could be, and the confusion only made him grumpier.

He continued to drive towards the gas station, about to pull in when Steve’s hand, still firmly wrapped round the wheel, twisted them away. Eddie yelped in surprise.

“Are you fucking insane, Harrington?! What are you doing?!”

“We don’t need gas, Munson. I told you already.”

Eddie could hardly believe what was happening. He had never known Steve to behave so – so childishly. It was fucking rich, considering the brat accusation Steve had hurled his way earlier that day. He smacked Steve’s hand away and continued onward past the gas station.

“Fine. If you fucking say so, King Steve.” He got a small kick of satisfaction watching Steve squirm in response, but otherwise saying nothing.

“We’re switching in 20 minutes.” Steve mumbled after a beat.

Eddie grunted in recognition. He wondered if Steve realised he wasn’t due to drive for another hour, but he was feeling far too petty and passive-aggressive to correct him.

~~~~~

Eddie was practically tearing his hair out. Some way, somehow, they had managed to get lost. Like, middle of nowhere, cornfields for days lost. Both of them had driven to Indianapolis before without a single issue. This had to be a curse. It just had to be.

The road map spread out over his knees made zero fucking sense – it didn’t help that Steve wouldn’t let him turn on the overhead light, and he was instead holding a torch with half-dead batteries casting a flickering beam over the endless configuration of road diagrams. He was starting to feel a little car sick for his efforts, taking short breaks to peer out of the window and find his bearings. The last of the Tylenol was doing fuck all for him, and he could not. Stop. Sneezing. Case in point, his breath started to hitch yet again.

“Heh-!!”

He fumbled in his pocket for his bandana, almost but not quite bringing it up to cover his mouth in time.

“ENGXTCH’tssieww!!”

The first sneeze burst out of him, pink nostrils flared wide in desperation, dousing the map in his lap with a cloud of spray. He muffled the next three into his bandana, gasping for breath when they finally subsided. This cold – this flu, perhaps – was absolutely kicking his ass. These sneezes gave him hardly any warning, taking on a life of their own and pitching him forward helplessly at their leisure. He blinked down at the map through bleary eyes, noticing to his chagrin that he had sneezed a veritable puddle all over Columbus and the surrounding terrain of about 20 miles. Luckily, not an area they should be anywhere near – though perhaps it couldn’t completely be written off given that they could literally be on god damn Mars as far as Eddie was concerned.

He abandoned the map, attempting to fold it neatly for all of 5 seconds before he was scrunching it up in anger and jamming it back into the glove box. Steve had stopped listening to his suggestions ages ago, anyway. He just kept driving down the endless expanse of the pitch black road, sneezing explosively every couple of minutes. Eddie was no longer glancing at his wristwatch, slowly resigning himself to the fact that they would, in fact, be missing the concert in its entirety. He would cry about it later when Steve couldn’t see. Right now, he was trying not to freak out about the fact that he could have sworn they had driven down this particular spread of infinite road before – not that it looked any different, the only visual markers being corn to the left, corn to the right, corn fucking everywhere.

It's not like this could get any worse.

It was as this traitorous thought flashed through Eddie’s mind that he heard Steve curse and pull the car to the side of the road, just as it sputtered miserably and abruptly stopped dead in its tracks.

~~~~~

They’d been sitting there in silence for at least 10 minutes before Steve started to shiver. It was well into the evening now and the lack of heating of any kind was really starting to get to him. His eyes had adjusted to the dark, at least – it wasn’t that bad, out here. The night sky was even brighter than Hawkins, brimming with the light of a billion stars. He remembered the night that Eddie had taken him up to Weathertop Hill and they’d stargazed for hours, never letting go of each other’s hands. The thought of it right now made his chest hurt. He was positive that Eddie would no longer want to be with him, not after today. In a sad way, he was already in a phase of pre-emptive acceptance – a form of self-protection where he convinced himself that the worst was bound to happen, so he may as well get ready for it. Robin told him he had low self-esteem, but he liked to think of it more as emotional pragmatism.

A sudden small hiccup of breath jolted Steve out of his ruminations. He peered over at his (probably soon to be ex) boyfriend’s back and noticed it was trembling. Another slightly louder gasp of breath graced the air and Steve realised with a sickly, sinking feeling that Eddie was crying. Eddie was crying because of him. Steve had felt pretty fucking awful about his behaviour in the past but nothing, nothing compared to how awful he felt in this moment. The pain in his chest seemed to pulse outwards and engulf him in its entirety.

“….Eddie? Baby?”

His voice sounded so fragile he even shocked himself. Eddie froze for a second before continuing to cry softly, giving Steve nothing in response. Steve noticed that the trembling had become full body shaking. He opened his mouth to speak but was quickly cut off by a fit of sneezes that came on so quickly he only managed to catch the last one in Eddie’s ruined shirt.

“HEEEISSSHHH!! AEEESHHUUU!! HH’TISHHHH!! MMP’TSCHHH!!”

He blushed, wishing not for the first time in his life that he was able to control the volume and force of his sneezing. He normally loved sharing this fetish with Eddie, but in this moment it couldn’t be more of an inconvenience. He blew his nose as quietly as possible, which was not at all, before reaching out a tentative hand to rest in the centre of the older man’s spasming back. He felt Eddie flinch, but he didn’t move away. Steve frowned at the heat emanating beneath his palm, sizzling hot even through the fabric of Eddie’s long-sleeve tee. It startled him, given that he was sure he already had an elevated temperature himself – shouldn’t Eddie feel normal to him? Was he that much warmer?

He felt Eddie’s back expand under his fingertips before the older man was suddenly jerking forward with a series of tightly stifled sneezes, the first five almost completely silent besides a soft squelching sound. Steve rubbed a small circle between Eddie’s shoulder blades in a way that he hoped would be soothing, biting his bottom lip hard as concern coursed through him. Eddie continued to sneeze, finally giving in and letting them loose, the persistent cold-induced tickle leaving him gasping helplessly.

“HIG’tchieww!! Engxt’TCHIEWW!! ‘TCHIEWW!! Eh’NGXT’Tschieww!! Nnn….”

He’d thoroughly sprayed his palm with the fit, which he then wiped shakily on his thigh. Steve heard him sniffle thickly before drooping back against the windowpane. He leaned forward in his seat and placed his other hand on Eddie’s left shoulder.

“Eddie? Are you okay, honey?”

He heard Eddie mumble incoherently before a rumbling cough had him pitching forward again, muscles spasming under Steve’s palm with the effort. Steve cursed and rubbed his back through it. When Eddie’s breath evened out again, Steve used the hand on his shoulder to gently push him back into his seat. The metalhead still wouldn’t look at him, eyes stubbornly fixed to the right, but Steve barely noticed. He took in Eddie’s pale, tear-stained face, the heavy circles under his eyes, his painfully red nose which was leaking down to his lips. He looked pallid, and so, so unwell. His cheeks had little spots of colour on them, a sure sign of fever. Steve felt his heart shatter into a million pieces.

“Ohh, Eds….”

He choked out a sob. It was too much. He hadn’t cried since the aftermath of their stint with Vecna, alone in Robin’s bathroom - and even that had been measured, controlled. He didn’t cry. Harringtons don’t cry. But all the same, here he was, bawling like a little kid. He felt sick, he felt like an asshole, they were lost and cold and hungry and tired and it felt like the end of the world so he just cried and cried and cried.

~~~~~

Eddie had intended to ignore Steve to his final breath. He was too weak to resist as the younger man pushed him back in his seat and out of the passive-aggressive contortion he had worked himself into against the car door. That last fit of sneezes had left his head swimming, and he was honestly grateful for the comfortable upholstery of his boyfriend’s BMW. Even as angry as he was, the warmth and weight of Steve’s hand on his back had been, for a moment, the most reassuring feeling in the world. But Steve didn’t need to know that. Steve could damn well wait until he was ready to forgive him.

But then Steve started crying.

Eddie spun round, eyes fixing firmly on Steve’s crumpled expression. It was terrifying, like seeing a parent or teacher or other unshakeable adult cry for the first time and realising they’re just an overgrown kid themself. His boyfriend looked so vulnerable, so lost, so unbelievably sad that Eddie found that he burst into tears as well. His strong, powerful boyfriend, the same man who had leapt headfirst into a lake in pitch darkness, who had ripped a demon bat monster in two with his bare hands, who had faced paranormal monsters to protect his friends countless times – that man, his Stevie, was crying like a little boy who’d lost his mommy in a supermarket. And it was all his fault.

He reached up and squeezed the hand on his shoulder.

“Stevie…Please don’t cry, Steve, please! It’s ok! We’re ok!”

He was sobbing almost as hard as Steve, ignoring the way the pounding in head was swelling to an almost unbearable throb. He leaned his body awkwardly over into Steve’s seat and wrapped his arms around him in a fierce hug. Fighting be damned, this entire fucking nightmare of a day be damned. He just wanted Steve to stop crying like the world was ending before he actually died of a broken heart.

“Eddie-!! I’m s-sorry-!” Steve choked out where he had buried his face against his shoulder, fingers digging fiercely into Eddie’s back. Eddie shook his head.

“I’m sorry, Stevie – I fucked it up! I always fuck things up!”

Admitting it out loud sent a new wave of sadness rushing through him and he cried harder, squeezing Steve tight.

“Y-you don’t-! You’re not-! It was m-my fault, I was just….awful to you! You didn’t do anything wrong, I fucked it up-!”

Steve sounded close to hyperventilating, so Eddie willed himself to calm down for the both of them. He shushed him gently, stroking his hair and holding his body close as it was wracked with gasping sobs. He’d been such a petty tool, trying to punish Steve with his silence. Steve had been right before – he was a brat, at least he had been today, and he needed to fucking grow up.

“Shh, honey….it’s ok, we were both being fucking assholes. We are fucking assholes, and that’s why we work so well together. We’re soul holes!!”

Steve snorted a brief laugh between sobs and Eddie felt the icy fingertips of dread loosen slightly from where they’d been squeezing his temples in a death grip. He could fix this. As long as they could love each other, everything else was insignificant. They would be okay.

He continued to hold Steve, ignoring the way his back was starting to protest at the angle he was holding himself at. The younger man was starting to calm down, occasional hiccupping breaths shaking him but otherwise slowing his crying. Eddie pressed small kisses to his hair, conscious of his runny nose and trying his best to angle himself in a way he wouldn’t make a total mess of the expertly crafted style Steve was so proud of.

He felt Steve tense in his grip, and started to ask what was wrong when Steve rocked forward against the protective cover of his shoulder and sneezed violently.

“HEHH’MPPTSXHH!! MPP’TSCHIEWW!!! MPPPTSCHHH!!!”

Eddie’s breath hitched, blood rushing south as he felt every shiver, every contraction of Steve’s muscular body in his arms. The sensation of his pointed nose pressing insistently up against his shoulder and the sheer volume of each sneeze so close to his ear had him reeling. They’d been particularly high-pitched for the former jock, making Eddie think he must have had a particularly irritating tickle in his nose. He moaned softly and stroked Steve’s back.

“Bless you, honey. Poor baby,” he sighed, noting that Steve hadn’t made any action to extract his face from where it remained pressed firmly up against him. He could feel the moistened fabric clinging to his skin.

“Did you make a mess, sweetheart?”

“….Ymmf.”

Eddie took that as a ‘yes’.

He gently sat back in his seat, extricating himself from Steve and watching as his boyfriend’s flushed, dripping face came into sight. A thick strand of mess hung between Steve’s left nostril and the damp patch on Eddie’s shirt. Steve scrambled for the shirt in his lap, gingerly wiping the mess away on Eddie’s shoulder and severing the connection before bringing it up to his own nose. His eyes were puffy and sore as he peered up at Eddie, blushing behind the bundle of fabric pressed to his face.

Eddie reached out and squeezed Steve’s thigh. A sudden sharp pain speared through his skull and he audibly groaned, pressing his head back against his seat. Steve took his hand in his own. They sat for a moment, not talking, but for the first time that day the silence was comfortable.

~~~~~

Steve’s head throbbed in the aftermath of what had to be one of the most intense cries of his life. It wasn’t something he wanted to experience in any regular capacity. He was also terribly embarrassed, even though it was just Eddie who had seen him. Robin was constantly reminding him that it was healthy to accept when you needed help, or to recognise when you were approaching your limit. Some metaphor about a pot boiling over that had just made Steve’s mind wander to the food he had planned to cook for when the kids came round to his apartment later that week. The point being, he should definitely work on his listening skills and Robin was right. Again.

He could feel Eddie shaking as he held his palm in his own. The older man was leaning back into his seat with a pained expression plastered to his face. Steve cleared his throat.

“So….”

Eddie squeezed his hand.

“Yeah, Big Boy?”

“On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being ‘this is a total downer’ and 10 being ‘I would like to request some assistance in dying’, where are you at right now?”

He heard Eddie chuckle before moaning softly.

“About a gazillion. I feel….really fucking bad, Stevie.”

Steve turned his head to take in the older man’s appearance once more. He was deathly pale, looking even worse than he had just 10 minutes earlier. Steve tried not to panic.

“You look awful, Eds…” he cooed.

Eddie cracked a crooked smile at him.

“You sure know how to make a guy f-feel…special-hh’HH!! ENGXT’Chieww!! HDDT’chieww!! IGSHHH’ieww!! Hhh’HDT’chieww-IGT’chieww-ICKKSHH!! Ohhh, Jesus…”

Steve was unable to make out the spray in the dark, but he could hear just how wet and sickly each sneeze sounded. His cock throbbed in his jeans, unbelievably still as interested in Eddie’s impressive displays of sensitivity as ever. Eddie snuffled thickly and Steve held out the soiled shirt to him. Eddie took it and blew his nose on a dry spot, of which there were now exceedingly few. Steve rubbed his thumb in circles on the back of Eddie’s hand. His boyfriend groaned before speaking again.

“Ugh, I can’t fucking stop. This has to be some new kind of super plague.”

“Well, it’s no walk in the park, that’s for sure.”

He felt Eddie squeeze his hand.

“What about you? Scale of 1 to 10?”

Steve paused, doing a quick mental scan of his general wellbeing. He felt like ass.

“…A billion, maybe? Not as bad as you.”

Eddie scoffed.

“You’ve gotta be feeling pretty bad to cry like that.”

Steve bristled, embarrassment pulsing through him.

“I-!! You were-! I just-!”

“Woahhh, dude, it’s okay – I’m not mocking you, or anything. I was cryin’ too. Before you even started. It’s no big deal, Stevie. I just know it’s not something you do very often – or, at all, actually?”

Steve sighed.

“Yeah. You know – you know my dad. How he feels about – vulnerability, or whatever.”

“Yeah.”

Steve felt the ever-present tickle in his sinuses flicker to life, suddenly and with little warning. He pitched forward with another round of messy cold sneezes.

“HH’RIISHHHH!! HAARRRESHEWW!! ITSSCHHHH!!”

“Engxt’chiew!! Hh!! HIG’Tchieww!! Ingxt’chieww!! ENGXT’TCHIEWWW!!”

Steve and Eddie made eye contact at the same time, sheepishly turning to look at one another behind their protective barriers of choice – Steve’s hands, steepled to his face, and Eddie’s elbow, which he gripped steadily with his other arm. They burst into laughter, stopping only when Steve buckled forward with a coughing fit, Eddie whacking him on the back as he proceeded to sputter and choke. He finally leant back, wiping the spittle from his lips.

“What the actual fuck is our life right now, dude.”

“You know? I think it’s actually pretty on brand for us, man.”

Steve shot a sardonic glance his way.

“Elaborate.”

“Just, you know – the first time I really spoke to you outside of the occasional encounter at school? I was literally on the run, a god damn murder suspect. We fought demon monsters in an alternate dimension. I figured out you liked me because we have this fucking obscure fetish and you kept popping boners all allergy season.”

Steve groaned.

“Shut upppp…”

Eddie didn’t shut up.

“What I mean, is this: we’ve never done anything in an even remotely conventional fashion. I think I may genuinely be allergic to conformity. What’s another allergy to me?”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I am. We are. It’s fitting that our first real fight be such a huge, dramatic affair that ends with us freezing to death on the side of a country road. Poetic, some might say.”

“We’re not going to die out here, man. Somebody’ll come by.”

Even as Steve said it, he was doubtful. They’d been driving alone for hours before the car had stopped and nothing had come from either direction since. More worryingly, though, was the fact that he could now see his own breath, and Eddie’s teeth were starting to chatter. He fiddled with the ring on Eddie’s index finger.

“Let’s get in the backseat, share some body heat, okay?”

He watched Eddie nod briskly, face scrunching up.

“Okay. Want to hold you. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too. It’s okay though, remember? It’s okay.”

~~~~~~

Twenty minutes later and the two were bundled up in the backseat of Steve’s car. They’d at least remembered to bring coats with them, but otherwise assumed due to the heat of the venue and the quick turn around from car to hotel to venue to car, they wouldn’t need such heavy padding. Luckily, Steve found an old blanket in the trunk from the last time they’d gone on a picnic, which was now firmly secured around them. Eddie complained the blanket was too scratchy, but Steve had replied that there was no way he could tell through his thick Winter parka. Eddie had eventually conceded.

Steve had wedged himself against the car door, the hood of his thick coat offering some cushioning. Eddie was lying in his arms, his back up against Steve’s chest, head resting on his shoulder. They nestled into each other, desperately seeking each other’s warmth. Eddie felt like a furnace to Steve – which, given the circumstances, was not unwelcome, but it worried him to no end that the long-haired man continued to shiver in his arms despite their combined heat.

They had retired Eddie’s Black Sabbath shirt as an honorary snot rag, moving on to Steve’s extra polo shirt as their new makeshift tissue. It was currently pressed up against Eddie’s face as he shook with yet another sneezing fit.

“ENGXT’tchieww!! HDDT’tchieww!! TSCH’ieww!! HAGT’TSCHIEWWW!!! Uhgg…”

He snuffled thickly, settling back against the younger man. Steve’s cock was hard, pressed up as it was against Eddie’s lower back. He loved being able to experience every tremor, every jerk that travelled through his poor love’s body as the sneezes rocked him back and forth. He knew Eddie could feel how excited he was, but they both ignored it.

The metalhead had suggested fooling around to keep them warm, and Steve had even entertained the idea, thinking he could maybe get past the tight band of tension squeezing at his temples. An orgasm might even lessen the discomfort. But then Eddie had all but swooned to the gravelly earth the second he attempted to get out of the car, and Steve had nipped that idea in the bud almost instantly. He sprinted over to his boyfriend and helped him to his feet – slowly, since that sprint had left his head swimming and black spots dancing before his eyes. He’d deposited Eddie in the backseat, grabbed the blanket, and arranged them as best he could.

Eddie had wanted to be the big spoon, but Steve had flat out refused, stating that he didn’t want to be responsible for squashing the older man to death in his weakened state. He had at least 20 pounds on him and the pressure of his solid musculature pressing the dungeon master up against the door was a surefire way to suffocate him. Eddie had argued that Steve was faring no better than he in the oxygen department, pointing out that he was still winded by the tumultuous journey from trunk to backseat. Steve told him to bite him. Eddie reached out and nibbled on his forearm.

So here they were, mercifully settled at last. Or, as settled as they could be, given that they were frequently curled upwards or jostled backwards by their damn near constant sneezing. As Eddie scrubbed his itchy nostrils against the fabric of the shirt, Steve pressed kisses to his fuzzy curls.

“Bless you, baby. That was a big one, at the end.”

“Mmm. They’re conspiring to kill me.”

Steve snorted.

“’They’? Your sneezes?”

“Absolutely. Always been out to get me, but now they’ve finally decided to put me out of my misery.”

“So dramatic.”

Eddie fidgeted in Steve’s arms, trying to realign himself to the choice position he had been in before his cold had so rudely uprooted him. Steve bit his lip as Eddie rubbed up against his cock, holding back a moan. The older man seemed to find a position he was happy with and went boneless against Steve, letting out a tiny little mewl of satisfaction. Steve tightened his arms around him, an overwhelming wave of affection urging him to draw his boyfriend closer to him.

“You’re so cute, Munson.”

“I know. Now tell me I’m pretty.”

“You’re so pretty.”

“Flatterer. Keep it coming.”

“You’re s-so-! Ohh, gonna-!! HH’HEH!!”

Eddie lifted the shirt in his grasp, angling it back over his shoulder. Steve frantically pressed his face into the folds, inhaled deeply enough to lift Eddie up an inch or two, and sneezed forcefully.

“HRRRRSHH’MPH!! TISHHHHH!! HAEEESHHH!! HEH-!! HEYYYESSSHEWWW!!!”

He groaned in the aftermath, head pounding. Eddie was right, this did feel like some kind of super plague. He was sneezing every couple of minutes or so like clockwork, and every fit seemed to wipe him out as if he’d finished running a marathon. He panted into the cloth for a moment longer, feeling his boyfriend clumsily wipe his nose and mouth as best he could from the awkward angle. He nodded, signalling it was ok for Eddie to lower the shirt. He felt the older man squirm slightly, curls brushing against his face as he angled himself back to press a soft kiss to his jaw.

“God bless you, Stevie. Such a tickle.”

Steve blushed at the attention, his cock giving an appreciative throb in his jeans. He once again entertained the idea of fucking in the backseat, was about to vocalise this when Eddie hissed in pain, head pushing back and digging into Steve’s shoulder. He could see the grimace on the older man’s face.

“Baby?”

Eddie didn’t answer, riding out what Steve knew to be another round of deep throbs in his skull. Brow furrowed in concern, he stroked an arm gently up and down his boyfriend’s side as the dungeon master strained against him. His erection was flagging, momentarily catching up to the seriousness and decided unsexiness of the situation they were in. The older man finally seemed to relax, a shaky exhale leaving him. Steve nuzzled his face down into his curls.

“Feel so bad, Stevie…gettin’ worse…”

Eddie was panting slightly, the small puffs of exhalation visible in the frigid air.

“I’m sorry, honey.”

He didn’t know what else to say. He could feel his own body starting to ache, head swimming with fever. It’d only been an hour since their car had died, but they’d gotten so much sicker in that time that Steve was starting to worry in earnest. He didn’t think they would die, nothing quite so dramatic as that, but they would need more water soon at the pace they were needily gulping it down, and he was worried about Eddie’s fever. If Robin were there – god, how he wished she was – she’d tell him to worry about himself as well, before rattling off about a billion different contradictory fever reduction techniques. He smiled at the thought of her, his partner in crime, feeling slightly better for picturing her face.

He reached for a bottle of water and took a long drink before offering it to Eddie, forcing him to drink as well. When they were finished, he snuggled down again into his boyfriend’s curls.

“We’ll be okay, Munson. We survived the Upside Down, we can survive rural Indiana.”

~~~~~

Eddie had no idea how long it had been by the time he heard the familiar rumbling of an approaching vehicle through the foggy haze of his fever. He and Steve were in a state of persistent half-consciousness. They would both be right on the brink of sleep when one of them would succumb to a tickle in their nose, shaking them both to full wakefulness. It had gotten progressively less jarring after the fiftieth time; it almost felt routine.

The metalhead could feel Steve’s cock, half-hard, pressing up against him. He ought to be surprised his boyfriend could still feel arousal given their less than stellar circumstances, but then he would absolutely be the proverbial kettle calling the pot black. His own erection would come and go with every fit of sneezes from either himself or his boyfriend, making him feel like a horny middle schooler. He was almost glad he was too sick to be embarrassed about it. Almost.

He had just finished mumbling a blessing to Steve, his boyfriend having sprayed down the front of his coat with a fierce triple, when the unmistakeable crunch of tires on gravel perked him up faster than an espresso shot.

“Steve? Steve! I think there’s a car – no, yeah, there’s a fucking car, man!”

“Holy shit!”

He felt Steve start and attempted to shuffle off him, but found himself flopping helplessly backwards, entirely winded by the effort.

“Ugh, sorry…”

Steve gently rocked him forward and quickly arranged him so that he was sitting up in his seat, before kissing his cheek and scrambling onto the road.

“Be careful-!” Eddie shouted, immediately regretting raising his voice as he doubled over with a hacking cough. He brought the nearby water bottle to his lips with shaking hands and took a generous swig, gasping. He could make out the headlights of a van pulling up behind them, then the rumbles of a conversation. Alongside Steve’s voice, a rougher, deeper voice registered. A man, then. He swallowed the fear that this guy might clock them as a couple of queers – or maybe he was a serial killer? They were screwed either way. He closed his eyes and listened. No shouting, just a gentle back and forth. He heard Steve sneeze, then the other man chuckle. It was a friendly sound. He relaxed a little.

He started slightly at the sound of the door beside him opening, looking up to see Steve leaning over him.

“Hey, Eds. Great news, this guy – Leonard – he’s heading straight to Indianapolis. Before you ask, don’t worry, I saw his ID. He’s delivering deckchairs, or something? Anyway - he’s got some gas for the car, but when I told him we were sick he said we could ride in the back of his truck and he’d tow us the rest of the way.”

Eddie smiled softly, happy to see Steve looking a little more animated, even if he did look like death warmed up. The eye bags he was sporting made his droopy brown eyes look even lazier than usual. It was worrying, but still cute. Steve held out a hand and helped him climb out of the car. He felt shaky on his legs, like a baby deer. Glancing over Steve’s shoulder he spotted a jovial, middle-aged man approaching with a tow rope. He was sporting a flannel shirt over a pendulous beer belly, peaked cap on his head and a huge copper beard engulfing his face. He looked rough, but his eyes were kind and his smile was soothing.

“You must be Eddie!” Leonard said, walking over to them. He frowned a little as he took in the sight of the two of them up close. “Christ, boys, you look just about dead on your feet! Pardon me sayin’.”

Eddie huffed a small laugh.

“No, you’re right. We’ve been…better.”

Leonard smiled at him, looking paternal and endeared. Eddie liked the guy already – he sort of reminded him of Wayne, albeit a much more chipper Wayne.

“Well, don’t you worry. You and Steve just hop on in the back of the ol’ dream machine and I’ll take you far as you need to go. Y’all said you’re heading to Indy?”

“That was the plan.” Steve confirmed, trying to sniffle as discreetly as possible.

“Great – like I said, I’m heading straight over there, but if you’d prefer, I know a decent little motel just outside city limits that’ll have some vacancies?”

“That would be great,” Eddie almost moaned, thinking that even the grubbiest motel mattress in the world would be heaven right about now.

“Sure thing, sure thing. Well, we should be there in less than hour, give or take.”

“Um, Leonard? I meant to ask but – where exactly are we?” Steve asked.

“Just outside of Rushville.”

Eddie and Steve gaped. They’d somehow managed to clear straight past Indianapolis altogether and keep on south. Their faces must have successfully conveyed their almost comical shock, as Leonard bellowed out a rumbling laugh.

“You boys really got the short end of the stick today, huh? Come on, get your asses in the truck – I’ll finish up here and we can get on the road.”

“Thank you, Leonard, really – this is – we were really in a rough place-“ Steve started.

“Don’t you worry, now. Go on, get – there are tissues in the back. I get hayfever something fierce come Spring.”

Eddie watched Steve nod before his strong arm was wrapped around his waist, supporting the metalhead as he walked them both to the Truck in question. They had to pause briefly for Eddie to sneeze, a helpless little fit of six partially stifled paroxysms. Leonard offered a cheery blessing from where he was securing their car, and Eddie blushed. It was going to be a long hour.

~~~~

Steve woke up, slowly, pulled out of sleep first by the slow halt of the truck and then the gentle rumble of Leonard’s voice.

“Boys? We’re here. Rise and shine, now.”

Steve blinked open his eyes, taking in Leonard’s kind expression as he leaned back over his shoulder to look at them. The former jock was aware of the weight of Eddie’s head on his shoulder, and with a sudden icy rush of panic moved to gently push him away. It wasn’t that he thought Leonard would do anything to them, per se, but they needed to be careful. Eddie already attracted so much attention, not that Steve would change anything about him for the world – but still.

Eddie groaned and sat up gradually, squashing his fists up against his eyes and moving them in slow circles. Steve noticed that his boyfriend had left a little pool of saliva – or was it snot – where he’d been resting on his shoulder. They’d both fallen asleep within minutes, the blessed heating of Leonard’s dream machine wrapping warmth around them like the plushest of blankets. Steve was relieved, having been prepared for the embarrassing scenario in which he and Eddie sneezed nonstop all over the inside of the poor man’s vehicle for 50 minutes straight. He was already extremely grateful and a little shocked that Leonard had taken in the sight of their painfully obvious illness and let them ride with him in the first place.

“You boys went out like a light. Sure is nice to be young, huh?”

Steve felt Eddie jump beside him, and realised the older man had temporarily forgotten where he was. He patted him on the shoulder before turning back to Leonard.

“I’m so sorry we just passed out on you, sir. We didn’t make for good company at all.”

“Don’t you worry about that, son. You looked like you needed a decent night’s sleep. Speaking of, you should be able to get some more shut-eye at this little establishment. ‘Rita’s Motel’ – sure, it’s not the Ritz, by any means, but she’s served me well.”

Steve unbuckled his seat belt and leaned forward to look past Leonard at the small building in front of them. The motel was like any other, perhaps slightly homelier than most.

“Thank you, Leonard, for everything. I, uh, I really want to pay you back, but – we’re running low on cash, probably just enough for a night here, and-“

“I won’t hear it, Steve. You boys are clearly in a pinch. Not a single penny will I take. Now, come on, let’s get you inside. I’ll fill up the car while you sign in, then I’ll be on my way.”

Steve mumbled his thanks, over and over, feeling and sounding like he was about to burst into tears at any moment. The relief was overwhelming. Leonard slapped a broad palm down on his shoulder and chuckled, assuring him it was nothing. They were interrupted by a sudden burst of sneezes behind them. Steve turned and watched Eddie catch another three exceptionally loud and sickly sounding sneezes in his upraised hands.

“ENGGXXXTCHHH!!! IGXXT’SHIEWW!! Hahh’ENGXT’Tchiewww!!”

Steve’s heart lurched in his chest. He willed his cock to calm down; the last thing he wanted or needed in this very moment was to shield a mighty erection from their kind-hearted saviour. Eddie snuffled, the sound thick and incredibly messy. The older man blushed deeply behind his hands as he noticed both pairs of eyes trained on him – if he hadn’t been fully awake before, he sure was now.

“Good god, bless you!” Leonard exclaimed.

Eddie blushed an even darker shade of red, mumbling his thanks and frantically searching for something to clean himself up with, or perhaps a hole to go die in. Steve reached back beside Eddie and grabbed the almost full box of tissues Leonard had mentioned earlier. Eddie hesitated for a moment, and both Leonard and Steve seemed to realise his situation as he made no move to shift his hands from their steepled position over his face. They turned around to give the metalhead some privacy, Leonard making his way out of the truck and offering Steve a hand down out of the side door, having climbed over the seat to follow him.

“You take those tissues with you,” Leonard directed at Eddie as he opened up the exterior door for him to climb out. “Won’t be needing them for a while, anyways!”

Steve reached out to steady his boyfriend by the elbow, supporting him as he jumped down from the truck on shaky legs. True to his word, Leonard escorted them inside the antiquated reception area and got to talking with the small owlish looking woman behind the desk. Steve quickly realised this was the titular Rita, and that she was just as friendly and parental as the trucker.

“Oh, you poor things!” She cried, taking in the sight of the two of them, shivering pathetically behind Leonard’s great bulk. Both of them blushed to their ears – the attention was nice, but more than a little overwhelming.

Within minutes, Rita had signed them in and handed over the keys to their room. She had given them a discount, the cost far cheaper than Steve had been expecting. He wondered if it had anything to do with the violent triple of sneezes he had pathetically muffled into a balled up tissue as he gave her his details. Maternal to her core, she had even thrust a bottle of Tylenol and another of cold medicine their way, free of charge from the little supply she kept on hand. It felt like the universe was righting itself for all the bad luck they’d suffered that day, putting such kind and generous people in their path. Eddie tried to offer the left-over money to Leonard when he came back in from topping up their car, but he refused.

“You boys take care, now. You need anything, you go to Rita, okay? You’ll help these kids out, won’t you, old girl?”

“I don’t know this ‘old girl’ you’re referring to, Len, but I will certainly be here if you need me, boys.”

Leonard gently slapped them both on the back before saying his goodbyes, and then Rita was leading them to their room. Eddie and Steve thanked her and closed the door behind her. They wordlessly shucked off their coats, climbed into the double bed, and were asleep in seconds.

~~~~~~

“Hello?”

“Uncle Wayne?”

Wayne paused for a moment, recognising his nephew’s voice but taken aback by how worse for wear he sounded.

“You okay, son? What’re you doin’ callin’ me at 6 in the morning? I thought you’d be out all night at that concert.”

He heard Eddie sigh deeply before the unmistakable sound of him smothering a fit of coughs crackled down the line. Worry spread through his chest, that old paternal panic gripping him.

“Eddie?”

“Y-yeah, sorry. Actually, we, um? We didn’t make it. We got lost. And then we ran out of gas. In the middle of nowhere. And we’re both down with the fucking plague. So. I’m at a motel right now, a couple of miles outside of Indianapolis. We stayed here last night.”

Wayne blinked at the sudden overload of information. When he’d registered everything Eddie had told him, he sighed wearily.

“How in the hell did you and Steve manage to pull that off?” He light-heartedly jabbed.

“Ughh, I don’t know. We were fighting, like, all day, Wayne. We’re okay now but it was just awful. And so fucking stupid.”

Wayne sighed again.

“Well, as long as you’re okay. Situations like this are the kind of thing that make or break a couple, so if you’re both doing just fine now, I’d say you have successfully navigated your way to the next stage of your relationship.”

“You think so?”

Wayne smiled. Eddie seemed to have perked right up at that, just as intended.

“I do. Now, what do you need me for, you menace?”

~~~~~~

“HHHR’RRISHHH’IEW!! HRRRSHHCH’UU!! AESSSHHUUU!!!”

“Oh my god, Stevie. Bless you, angel!”

“Mmn. Thank you.”

Eddie closed the door behind him, shivering as he came inside from his trip to the payphone. Rita’s Motel had comfortable mattresses but was alarmingly lacking in working telephones. He kicked off his shoes and pulled off his coat, unceremoniously dumping it on the floor, before stripping off the rest of his clothes. He took in the sight of Steve bundled up in bed, looking painfully adorable with his messy hair and little red nose, before climbing in beside him. He nuzzled up to him, rubbing his cold nose up against Steve’s.

“Hi.”

“How’re you feeling, big boy?”

“Like shit, still, but better. The cold medicine worked. Headache’s gone.” Steve pressed a small kiss to his lips. “What about you?”

Eddie kissed him back.

“Compared to last night? Waaay better, man.”

Steve furrowed his brow and reach out to press the back of his hand to his boyfriend’s forehead.

“You’re still really warm, but not quite so bad. I was really worried about you, honey.”

Eddie closed his eyes, pushing his thigh between Steve’s legs and bringing the younger man’s hand down from his forehead to clutch it against his chest.

“Worried about you too, baby.”

They lay there for a couple of minutes in comfortable silence before Steve spoke up.

“Did you get through to Wayne?”

“Oh yeah, shit. Sorry. Yeah. He’s coming through with Hopper later. Should get here around mid-day, he thinks.”

Steve blinked at him.

“Hopper’s coming? Why?”

“He said he owed him one. Hopper’ll come down with Wayne, then he’ll drive your car back up while we die a slow, miserable death in the back of Wayne’s car.”

“Oh…”

“Why even call Wayne to come down in the first place if we have a car full of gas, y’know? He just didn’t want us to drive, and towing the car would be a huge pain in the ass.”

“Right. Sorry. Took me a moment.”

Eddie leaned forward and kissed Steve right on the tip of his nose.

“It’s okay, baby, you’re sick.”

Steve’s nose wrinkled up at the teasing touch of Eddie’s lips against the sensitive skin.

“Eddie, Mm’gonna…gonna snee-!”

“Don’t hold back, baby. Let it out for me.”

Steve obeyed, taking in a final gasping breath, chest swelling to capacity, before sneezing unhindered onto his boyfriend’s face.

“HAAARESHHIIIEWW!! AEESHHHUUUU!! GITSCHHH’EWW!! TISSSSCHH’IEWW!!”

Eddie moaned in appreciation at the sensation of spray drenching his features, eyes closing reflexively against the force of it. Steve’s sneezes were already so loud and cock-teasingly desperate on a regular day, but the never-ending tickle his cold had inflicted upon him made them even more powerful. Within moments, Eddie was almost completely hard, the sudden rush of blood to his cock leaving him more than a little dizzy.

“Fuuuck, baby! Such big sneezes. Bless you.”

~~~~

Steve reached for a tissue from the box lying between them – Rita had gifted them with another several alongside Leonard’s gracious offering – and gently wiped the spray from his boyfriend’s face, blushing slightly to see droplets starting to roll their way across Eddie’s cheeks to the pillowcase.

“Damn, those were big!”

“Mmhmm. Just how I like them. You’re so gorgeous when you have a tickle, Stevie.”

Steve reached down between Eddie’s legs, smirking at the gasp the older man choked out as he gave his cock a teasing squeeze.

“You really are feeling better, huh?” He started to pump the length, long, slow strokes that squeezed the head of Eddie’s cock before making their way back down.

“Fuckk, Steve-!”

“Is that good, baby?”

“So good, always so good, holy shit-!”

Eddie bucked involuntarily in his grasp at a particularly hard squeeze to the base of his cock. Steve’s breath stuttered, feeling Eddie’s thigh press up against his own budding erection as his body jerked against him. Moaning, he pressed their foreheads together.

“You wanna get off with me, Munson?”

Eddie laughed breathily.

“Is the pope a catholic?”

“Ugh, don’t make me think about God right now, man.”

“Why? I’m right here.” Eddie grinned at him, looking far too pleased with himself. The cocky expression was somewhat weakened by his miserable complexion and swollen pink nose.

Steve wanted to think of a witty retort, but any thoughts of meeting Eddie with some cleverly formulated response vanished the second he felt his boyfriend’s sweaty palm wrapping around his cock and jerking it with several fast, hard pulls.

“Ohh, yeah,” He moaned, losing himself in the sensation, eyes fluttering shut and teeth biting down on his bottom lip. He was already embarrassingly close. His own hand faltered only temporarily before returning to stroking his boyfriend in earnest. Eddie pushed his thigh up harder between Steve’s legs, and he gasped.

“Mm, you like that, big boy?” Eddie moaned, mouthing at Steve’s lips. Steve closed the space between them and kissed him, both groaning as Eddie sucked hard on Steve’s tongue. They couldn’t keep it up much longer, though, noses far too stuffed up. It didn’t matter; they exchanged small kisses again and again, hands working each other in the ways they knew they liked best.

Steve peered down his nose at Eddie, his boyfriend’s face a rictus of concentrated pleasure, eyelashes fluttering above blushing cheeks as he panted and moaned. He looked so good like this; Steve felt himself lurch even closer to orgasm. He pictured the older man sneezing messily, an endless fit on loop for him in his mind, even as he stared at Eddie’s nose just at the end of his own. His nostrils would flare every now and then, in pleasure rather than in response to a burgeoning tickle. The subtle movements were such a tease – Steve wanted to watch those poor pink nostrils flare to capacity as Eddie built to a powerful sneezing fit. He cock throbbed against his boyfriend’s fingers.

Mind made up, Steve pushed their noses together and rubbed them back and forth. Eddie glanced down at them, slightly bewildered and looking temporarily cross-eyed. It was so cute – Steve chuckled under his breath, all the while continuing to rub his nose against Eddie’s, hoping to coax a sneeze (or five) out of him. He felt Eddie’s nostrils flaring wildly as he rubbed his nose down the side of the metalhead’s twitching appendage. His own nostrils flared minutely in a sort of sympathy twitch.

“Hh-HH!! Ohh, Stevie, s’gonna make me – make me-!!”

Steve groaned, just about managing to hold back from coming at his boyfriend’s words. He loved that Eddie played up every tickle for his pleasure, knew just what to say to work him all the way up. He nuzzled their noses together, slowly, feeling every tick of Eddie’s nostrils against him as they flared wide. A few more breathy, mewling gasps escaped from the older man before he was pulling back with a frantic urgency.

Steve started to come at the sight of the metalhead poised right on the precipice of losing all control. His eyebrows arched, mouth hanging slack as his nostrils twitched and twitched. He buckled forward at last, aiming each sneeze down between them. Steve’s orgasm engulfed him as he felt his boyfriend’s fit bathe his cock in spray, huge, cold-induced sneezes that he himself had helped to tease out.

“HIDDDTT’SHIEEWWW!! AHDDTT’ZSHIEWW!! EHh-NGXTCH’CHIEWW!! GXXTSH’TZSIEW!!”

A few more desperate, hitching gasps before a final, definitive “EHH’DZZTT’TSCHIEWW!!!” burst out of Eddie, so strong he trembled with it.

The orgasm continued to pulse outwards from his cock and throughout his limbs, the sweetest pleasure, leaving him shaking and moaning the metalhead’s name, coming in heavy spurts into the cage of his fingers.

He wound down from his peak, feeling sleepy all at once but willing himself to stay awake. Eddie was staring at him with a look of such intense desire that Steve’s spent cock pulsed pitifully in response. His grip retightened on Eddie’s cock and he resumed his stroking, desperate to watch his boyfriend fall into an orgasm of his own.

“Bless you, baby, fuckkk. That felt so good. You’re incredible.”

Eddie groaned, sniffling at the slight mess that dripped from his nose after that body-bending fit. He looked up at Steve before raising his hand to his lips and licking at the mess the former jock had left all over his fingers.

“Mm. You taste amazing, Stevie. Not that I can taste all that much right now.” He flashed a cheeky grin at Steve.

Steve grinned back and pulled Eddie closer to him with his free arm, pressing their chests flush together. It made jerking his boyfriend off a little harder, but they both sighed in satisfaction at the skin contact. Steve felt Eddie’s thighs starting to twitch, saw how his face had started to screw up – sure signs of his approaching orgasm. Not to mention the filthy, nonsensical ramblings pouring from his mouth that normally started up when he began to fall to pieces.

Eddie reached up to cup Steve’s cheek with his clean hand, tilting his face towards him.

“Do you have a tickle, baby? Sneeze for me?”

Steve sniffled experimentally. His cold had left him with a near-constant tickle just on the edge of fully culminating. He reached up briefly to rub the tip of his nose in small circles, feeling his breath catch as the tickle started to build anew. He sniffled a few more times for good measure.

“Yeah….oh-hohhh, yeah, definitely gonna…gonna sneeze..!”

“Unnnhh, Stevie!”

As Steve’s eyes started to flutter shut, he took in the sight of his boyfriend frozen right on the edge of orgasm. He was flushed all the way down to his chest, tattoos standing out in stark contrast. He was so damn pretty. Steve gasped, burying his nose in the crook of Eddie’s neck.

“Get ready, baby-! It’s coming…gonna sneeze for you...HH-HAH!!”

One more final inhale, chest expanding against Eddie’s, before the tickle crested and he was pitching forward helplessly.

“HAHH’TISSSCHHH’IEWW!! ITSCCHHHIEWW!! HH-H-HUHH!! HUHHRESSHHHOOOhh!!”

Eddie’s strangled moan was loud in his ear as he snuffled against his neck, strong arm wrapped around the older man’s slender waist, feeling him strain and shiver against him. It looked and sounded like a particularly intense orgasm for the metalhead, and Steve felt a sort of pride mingled with affection spreading through his chest. He loved making Eddie feel good. He felt his hard cock jerk in his grasp, painting his fingers and both of their lower stomachs in hot stripes of cum.

Steve was almost asleep as his boyfriend came down from his high, mumbling and giggling as endorphins rushed through his system.

“Ohh, Steve, holy fuck!”

“Mmf.” Steve snuggled closer to Eddie, nestling up to him with the intention to pass the fuck out.

“Stevie. Steve. Not yet, honey. We need to clean up. And put some clothes on before Wayne gets here.”

Steve stubbornly did not budge, even as Eddie’s captured cock softened in his limp grasp.

“Noooo. They won’t be here for hours, anyway…” He nestled further into Eddie, then moaned in displeasure as his boyfriend wriggled free.

“Nuh-uh. Up, now. I don’t trust you to wake up in time. Not after that nut, and with that fever.”

“Ungggg……okay……”

Eddie helped Steve sit up, both of them swooning at the effort. Now that their orgasms had cleared their heads, the discomfort of their sickness was starting to filter through the afterglow. Eddie wiped Steve’s hand clean with a fresh tissue.

“Let’s jump in the shower – just for a couple of minutes, dude, stop whining! We smell like sick people and cum.”

Steve nodded. Eddie may be blunt, but he was right. He squeezed his hand in his own.

“Okay. I really, really love you, by the way. Let’s not fight over stupid shit anymore. Please?”

Eddie kissed him softly before wrapping his arms around Steve’s muscular shoulders.

“Yeah. No more fighting. Love you so much.”

They held each other for a couple more minutes before stumbling to their feet, shaky on their legs en route to the small bathroom and finding it hilarious. Their weekend might not have gone even remotely as planned, but neither of them regretted it, knowing they’d look back on it all one day and remember only the love they felt for each other as the tepid shower water sluiced over their feverish skin.

#it's.....a lot sappier than I usually write #sneezefic #nametakenfic #s/tranger t/hings #sneeze kink #snz fet #snz kink #snzfucker #snzblr

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