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inairbinad · 1 year ago

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what doesn't kill me makes me want you more

Steddie | Explicit | 11k words | Read on AO3

Written for @thefreakandthehair's Summer Fanworks Challenge for the prompt: "That look in your eye terrifies me." Thanks so much for organizing this, Lex! It's been so fun!! 💜 tags/cw: fwb, jealousy, love confessions, consensual somno, deepthroating, semi-public sex, light d/s dynamics, cockwarming, good boy Eddie Munson, soft dom Steve Harrington, off-screen negotiated kink, meddling buckingham, one teensie reference to past stomarol, and more tags on ao3

Eddie is good for Steve, he thinks. Good in more than just the way he knows exactly how to turn Steve to putty in his hands, beyond how he can make Steve laugh, or make him feel safe, or even how he’s one of the best friends Steve’s ever had. Steve really has to start grappling with the fact that he’s in love with Eddie—the little detail might have the power to ruin them forever. Ruin Steve forever. Because he’s the one that went and fell in love when they were supposed to just be fooling around, friends with benefits or whatever the fuck Eddie had called it when they first started this When Steve’s being entirely honest with himself, he knows he was in love with Eddie long before their arrangement ever started, but he dove in head first anyway, desperate for an excuse to have Eddie in whatever way he could get him.

[read on ao3, or under the cut!]

Steve wakes up to Eddie’s mouth around his cock, and even though he’s barely conscious he’s already not sure how much more he can take.

Steve whines, a deep gravelly whimper that makes Eddie stop what he’s doing with a wet pop. The filthy sound of it, the way a trail of spit and precum dangles from Eddie’s lip as he smiles up at Steve, hair a wild mess and with nothing but hunger in his eyes—Steve has to bite down on his lip to keep from telling Eddie he loves him. If Eddie thinks he’s just stifling a moan, so be it.

“Mornin’ Stevie,” Eddie says, licks his lips and then slowly draws his tongue along the slit of Steve’s cock. Steve hisses at the sight as much as the sensation, so hard already he wonders how long it took for him to wake up.

“Morning,” Steve manages to say, brushing his fingertips across Eddie’s cheekbone and sending him a sloppy smile. “Started breakfast without me?”

“You just looked so fucking good, babe, I couldn’t wait.” Eddie lowers his mouth to lick Steve’s balls next, and it takes everything Steve has not to jerk his hips wildly in response. Eddie smiles like he can tell. “You can punish me if you want.”

And god, if Steve doesn’t love it when Eddie’s in a mood like this. He loved most of Eddie’s moods, actually. They were so in sync with their tastes, their desires, their kinks—maybe everything but their feelings for each other.

“Should I make you watch me jerk myself off?” Steve snakes his hand down his chest and grabs his own shaft with a squeeze that makes his breath catch. He watches Eddie’s eyes flare and doesn’t bother to hold back a shaky laugh. “Force you to keep that pretty mouth to yourself?”

As he watches Steve stroke his own cock—still soaked with Eddie’s spit—Eddie bites down on his lip so hard Steve wonders if he might break the skin. Steve uses his free hand to tug Eddie’s lip free, and Eddie doesn’t hesitate to suck Steve’s thumb into his mouth instead. Steve can feel the way Eddie’s spit is thicker with his own precum when Eddie swirls his tongue, sucking Steve’s thumb deeper.

Steve pulls it back and pushes three fingers into Eddie’s mouth instead, reveling in the way Eddie moans and looks up at him like he’s grateful. Steve shoves his fingers in deeper, and Eddie sucks them down as Steve moves them in time with each stroke of his cock.

“Gonna let me fuck your throat?” Steve asks eventually. Eddie’s eyes are pleading as he keens around Steve’s fingers, making a gurgling sound as he nods ferociously. Steve palms the head of his cock before stroking down again, then presses the tip right up against Eddie’s chin. “Fuck, baby. Lemme see what that mouth can do.”

Eddie sucks the tip of Steve’s cock back into his mouth like he’s starved for it. Steve moves his hand to cup the back of Eddie’s head, guiding it as he lets Eddie bob up and down a few times before he starts thrusting up into it. But Eddie seems impatient, makes a needy sort of grumbling sound as he swallows Steve down as far as he can go. His nose presses into the thick nest of Steve’s hair and he looks up at Steve with pride as he sucks in a deep breath through his nose—a plea for more.

Steve’s happy to oblige. He pushes up until Eddie gags and pulls back with a wet, sloppy smile. He comes back for more almost instantly, and Steve trusts Eddie will tell him if it’s too much. He thrusts up again and Eddie moans around his cock, relaxing his throat just at the perfect moment for the vibrations to send frissons of heat straight from Steve’s tip and licking up his spine. He holds Eddie’s head in a firm grip and lets himself get lost in how good it feels, makes sure to tell Eddie just how much.

“God, you were meant to be a pretty mouth to fuck, weren’t you Eds? Like your throat was made for my cock,” Steve says, and Eddie’s eyes roll back as he hums again, sending another wave of electricity through Steve like a serpent eating its own tail of absolute divine pleasure between them. The wet heat of Eddie’s mouth is perfect, he knows just how to press his tongue against the underside of Steve’s cock to make him see stars.

Steve wonders how Eddie can be so good at making Steve come undone without loving him back.

The problem is as much as Steve loves fucking into Eddie’s mouth until he can feel the tip of his dick pressing against Eddie’s perfect, pliant throat, sometimes he thinks he’d like waking up to a deviant round of cuddles just as much.

“Fuck, you’re so goddamn good for me,” Steve whines anyway, fisting Eddie’s hair into a tighter grip and thrusting up into his mouth again. Eddie looks up at Steve like he’s floating on the praise, tears now sparkling on his pretty lashes. The sight alone is nearly enough to make Steve fall apart.

Steve really has to start grappling with the fact that he’s in love with Eddie—the little detail might have the power to ruin them forever. Ruin Steve forever. Because he’s the one that went and fell in love when they were supposed to just be fooling around, friends with benefits or whatever the fuck Eddie had called it when they first started this.

When Steve’s being entirely honest with himself, he knows he was in love with Eddie long before their arrangement ever started, but he dove in head first anyway, desperate for an excuse to have Eddie in whatever way he could get him.

It’s never in these moments that he regrets it, not when Eddie fits him so perfectly, knows just what Steve always needs and vice versa. They’ve negotiated every kink in the book, talked through what they like and don’t, fucked each other senseless so many times by now Steve wonders how he’s ever supposed to get hard for anyone else—or love anyone else.

But that part isn’t allowed. Those words are for thoughts only, allowed to stir a yearning ache that takes over Steve’s whole body in waves but never be released aloud into the space between them.

So Steve keeps letting his body say what his mouth can’t and fucks up into Eddie’s throat, desperately chasing a high he can never quite reach. Then Eddie flattens his tongue and relaxes his jaw just right, and Steve barely has time to register the way he feels that familiar tightening in his balls before he’s coming, babbling Eddie’s name like a prayer.

He paints Eddie’s throat in his cum, possessing him in the only way he knows how. Eddie swallows it all down hungrily, then takes the time to lick Steve clean until he’s on the verge of overstimulated and writhing.

“Eds,” Steve pants, using whatever weak grip he still has on Eddie’s hair to pull him away.

“Yeah, Stevie?” Eddie asks, all faux innocence, fluttering eyelashes, and swollen lips—like all he wants is to keep his mouth on Steve’s cock for the rest of their lives.

And there’s another one of those thoughts about forever that Steve has to shove away in earnest, bury deep in as many dirty thoughts as he can heap on top of it before he loses his senses.

He grins wickedly down at Eddie before pulling him the length of his body up for a filthy, salty kiss. Steve can taste himself on Eddie’s tongue, moans into it before hooking his leg over Eddie’s hip and flipping him onto his back. He pulls away slow, sucking Eddie’s bottom lip as he goes, not releasing it until he gives it a little nip.

He sees what’s left of the tear tracks staining Eddie’s cheeks and kisses them away—more salt on his tongue to temper the sweetness that is Eddie.

“You were so perfect, always make me feel so good,” Steve tells him between kisses, inching further down Eddie’s jaw, his neck, his chest as he goes.

“Can’t help that you taste so good, sweetheart,” Eddie purrs, arches his back as Steve starts to twist his nipple piercing between his fingers, before sucking it into his mouth. Steve feels Eddie’s dick twitch against his hip as he laps at his nipple—all cold metal and taut, pebbled skin beneath his hot tongue. He pulls away and looks up at Eddie, who’s watching every move Steve makes with rapt attention.

“My turn,” Steve promises, then sinks down for some breakfast of his own.

Steve almost regrets having to brush his teeth. He feels dirty to think it, shameful even, but he wishes he could keep the taste of Eddie and himself blended together with him all day, the mixture of their cum and spit that coats his mouth and reminds him of exactly how good things with Eddie can be.

“Can anyone make you come like I do, sweetheart?” Eddie had asked after they were both sated and finished, knowing full well what the answer was, is, has always been. Steve just smiled and stretched and avoided the question, but now that he’d retreated to the bathroom to get ready to leave, he can’t think about anything else.

Because he’s afraid it will always be Eddie for him. Not just because the sex is good—it’s phenomenal, but he loved Eddie well before he ever knew how well they could meld together in bed—but because Steve’s heart is so tied to Eddie he’s not sure how he’ll ever untangle those feelings without catastrophic damage.

It’s always this part of their time together that Steve dreads the most, where he inevitably starts to contemplate leaving Eddie behind and never coming back. Just Eddie’s fingers on his skin can make Steve feel more alive than he has in years, yet somehow it makes him feel so empty by the time he cleans up and leaves, that Steve’s not sure how much longer he can do this.

He’s not sure what stupid impulse ever made him think he was cut out for a no-strings-attached situation, but he curses it every time he feels like this.

Steve thinks it’s almost worse that Eddie’s never an asshole about it. He’s always more than happy for Steve to spend the night, to lay cuddled together in a tangled mess of limbs, talking and joking all night long—or at least until they’re ready to go again. Eddie’s always willing to let Steve make him breakfast the next morning, or to make Steve’s coffee perfectly and do the whole domestic thing that drives Steve even more wild than the orgasms do.

Steve never feels like Eddie’s just using him for sex and somehow, beyond all of Steve’s deductive reasoning abilities, that’s become a huge problem. Steve loves every minute of it, every ounce of affection Eddie showers him with, but once he’s left to sneak back into his own house (or Eddie’s off to do the same), reality sinks in that Steve might have Eddie, but he doesn’t really have him in the way he wants to. Needs to.

He and Eddie were clear when they started this. Friends with benefits. Nothing more, nothing less. They would be each other’s ports in a storm against the lashing tides of loneliness. Because they liked each other, trusted each other, and it seems so silly to let all that attraction, all that sexual compatibility, go to waste.

Steve caught feelings anyway.

Well, if Steve was being honest like Robin wanted him to be, he’d caught feelings before he ever even agreed to the whole arrangement. That’s why Robin was so adamantly against it. Not because she didn’t like Eddie—he was her girlfriend’s best friend. In the same way Chrissy loved Steve, Robin loved Eddie.

Both of them seemed to hate the idea of Steve and Eddie, though.

So mostly they snuck around. It wasn’t terribly difficult, even though Steve lived with Robin and Eddie lived with Chrissy, considering Robin and Chrissy stayed together most nights. All Steve and Eddie had to do was suss out whose place would be empty most of the time, and then manage to sneak back home before either one of their friends noticed they’d been gone.

Steve had memorized the exact way to flip open the mechanism on his and Robin’s garden gate without making it creak in the night, just below Robin’s bedroom window, as he came home from what was starting to feel like a clandestine affair.

Eddie, for his part, had every stair that creaked on the way up to his bedroom in his and Chrissy’s place memorized, so as not to alert her when he was coming home at all hours of the night.

It’s working out fine, except for that empty feeling that’s a growing cavern in Steve’s chest. And it’s getting harder and harder for him to ignore.

Steve knows he has to find a way to extricate himself from this mess he’s made, to somehow clean up his own sloppy feelings and shove them back inside a lock box in his chest without letting Eddie know anything is actually wrong, without insulting him and damaging their friendship in the process.

Because even if Steve knows he has to stop sleeping with Eddie, he can’t fathom the idea of losing him altogether.

The first step is probably getting the hell out of Eddie’s apartment, however.

Steve finally spits his toothpaste into the sink, watching all remnants of the morning washing down the drain with an ache in his ribcage.

Like clockwork, Eddie slips into the bathroom behind him and wraps his arms around Steve’s middle. He hums into the crook of Steve’s neck and says, “Coffee’s ready, sweetheart.”

And just like that Steve’s staying for coffee, too.

There’s absolutely no way that Steve’s gonna make it home before Robin gets up now. He knows he’s in for it, that he’ll have to make up an excuse about some one-night stand he somehow managed to pick up after he’d left Eddie’s the night before.

The entire walk home, he curses himself for admitting to Robin that he was planning on seeing Eddie at all.

Robin’s sitting at the kitchen table waiting for him when he gets home. Steve takes a quick look around, finds no extra shoes by the door, no spare jacket still hanging on the hook. So Chrissy isn’t still here to also witness his lovestruck humiliation, or however Robin’s planning to dress him down over it, at least.

Steve doesn’t bother trying to dodge his fate when he takes in Robin’s face. She looks stern, sure, but also sad in a way that Steve can’t possibly ignore. He goes to sit beside her, probably looking like the picture of guilt the whole way.

“Where’ve you been?” she asks by way of greeting. Steve bites his lip, but Robin stops even the semblance of a lie from percolating on the tip of his tongue with a tired sigh. “Just tell me.”

“Eddie’s,” Steve mumbles, then pillows his head in his folded arms across the tabletop. “Go ahead and yell.”

“I’m not gonna yell, Steve,” Robin says softly, and that only makes him feel worse.

“No, I think I really need it,” he says, looking up at her again without lifting his head.

“And that’s how I know you don’t,” Robin counters, patting the top of his head sympathetically. “Three times a week for four months seems to have finally knocked some sense into you.”

Steve can’t help it, he feels himself gawking at her. “How did you…?”

“Chrissy and I aren’t idiots, Steve,” Robin rolls her eyes at him with more affection than he feels like he deserves. “Just because you figured out how not to make the gate creak doesn’t mean you don’t come home smelling like him. Like right now.”

Steve actually thought he did a pretty good job at covering up Eddie’s scent, but he always hates doing it. Maybe he’d been subconsciously sabotaging his own efforts.

“Plus, Chrissy and I went back to hers one night and totally heard you two going at it,” Robin adds with a shrug. “Apparently you were so loud you didn’t notice us stumbling-drunk into the apartment and crashing for the night.”

“When was this?” Steve asks.

“I think the same week you swore to us both that you weren’t going to mess around anymore, that you were ‘just friends and that was it. Pinkie swear.’” Robin gives him a skeptical look, like she thought maybe he was cursed just for breaking the sanctity of a pinkie swear to his best friend.

She was probably right.

Steve tries to think back to that week, that day even, when he and Eddie decided they’d had enough of Chrissy and Robin’s judgmental looks over their relationship, if you could even call it that. Steve was pretty sure that was the same night Eddie had surprised him with a cock ring. So yeah, that might’ve distracted him even from armageddon commencing, let alone the fact that there were people in the next room.

“Sorry,” Steve mutters. He genuinely is if Robin and Chrissy had to listen to that night.

“Remember how you caught us in the kitchen a week later?” Robin asks, and Steve does. A little too vividly for his taste, actually.

“Payback?” Steve guesses, and Robin just grins. “I guess I deserved that. What about Eddie, though? Did he get payback too?”

“Oh, we did the same to him,” Robin assures him.

“Thorough.”

“We really are,” Robin waggles her eyebrows at him before turning back to the topic at hand. “Seriously though. What happened?”

“Nothing,” Steve feels his shoulders deflate with a sigh. “It was the same as it always is—fucking amazing. And it’s not just the sex, Rob. He’s amazing. He makes me laugh and he’s so goddamn cute and I don’t even know why because he’s a dork but…”

“You love him,” Robin fills in, and Steve feels like he might cry if he admits it out loud. So instead he just nods once, stiffly, then swallows thick so he can try and move the conversation along.

“I can’t keep leaving there pretending I don’t want him for real, you know?” Steve asks, and Robin hums along like she does. Of course she does, because she seems to know everything that goes on in Steve’s head. “It’s eating me up inside. So I’m going to end it. I have to end it. Can you…fuck. Can you help me, Robbie?”

Robin takes his hand and clasps it between her own so quickly, it feels like she’s shoved a giant weight off Steve’s chest. “Of course I will, dingus.”

“Okay,” Steve lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding onto. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Robin says matter of factly.

Like clockwork, Steve’s phone dings.

Eddie: holy shit, Stevie!!!!! Jeff says Ghost is coming here in sept!!!! we HAVE to go, please say we’re gonna go 🥺🥺🥺👻👻👻🥺🥺🥺

Steve knows he’s grinning like a fool at his phone, despite the distinctly depressing conversation he’s in the middle of with Robin. He feels her eyes on him as he types out a response. If he’s teasing Eddie on purpose, Robin doesn’t need to know that. Plus, it’s not like he said he’d stop being friends with Eddie. Just that he’d stop fucking him. They could surely go to a concert together without fucking. Right?

Steve: I don’t even like Ghost

Three little dots pop up faster than Steve can blink. He prepares himself for a lot of punctuation.

Eddie: what!!!!!!!!!

Eddie: sacrilege!!!

Eddie: how can you say such a thing?!?!?!

Eddie: okay you might be teasing me so….really??

Eddie: cause you like fuckin’ e v e r y t h i n g

Steve: That’s a mean way to call someone bisexual

“Ahem,” Robin clears her throat, making Steve jerk his head back up to look at her. “What’s so funny in your phone?”

“Just a meme Dustin sent me,” Steve lies. He’ll find a random meme if he has to, but he doesn’t think it will matter either way based on the way Robin is narrowing her eyes at him. He’s saved by another ding.

Eddie: i just snorted coffee through my nose and everyone at work is staring

Steve: 😈

Steve laughs out loud as he types his reply, hits send just a millisecond before Robin snatches his phone from his hands. She gives him a disappointed look before she reads the conversation aloud just to rub Steve’s nose in it.

“Oh, apparently Gareth is reenacting the coffee snort, now,” Robin informs him as he makes a diving grab for his phone back. She dodges him easily, because apparently she’s got a measured athletic grace that kicks in when Steve needs her clumsiness the most. “He says you must all hate him.”

“Robin,” Steve grits through his teeth. “I’m sorry, okay? But he’ll know something’s up if I start ignoring him.”

“If you don’t at least avoid him for now you’re never gonna make it, Steve,” Robin says, matter of fact, and Steve knows she’s right. He doesn’t know how to maneuver this without ruining their friendship, too.

Sometimes he worries it’s already well beyond ruined, and he’s just in denial about it.

“So what do you suggest?” Steve asks, folding his arms across his chest. “I can’t…I can’t tell him the truth, Rob. He’ll be nice about it while he rejects me and it’ll kill me. And I can’t just ghost him.”

Steve winces at his lack of a better term.

“You won’t be,” Robin shrugs easily. “I’ll keep your phone for now. Pretend to be you and respond to him. You know. How friends do.”

“That was friendly!” Steve insists.

“That was flirting,” Robin counters.

“How am I supposed to get around without my phone!” Steve deflects.

“I’ll give you mine,” Robin says easily, almost like she thinks it’ll be fun. “We’ll be fine, we do it all the time by accident anyway.”

And, well, she’s not exactly wrong about that. They’re signed into all of each other’s social media and other accounts anyway, just by virtue of how they share phones like they do clothes. And thoughts.

“Fine. But don’t be mean to him,” Steve warns.

“I told you, Steve. Nothing but friendly,” Robin grins and types out a response to whatever Eddie’s saying now. Steve gets the feeling she won’t fill him in, and is proved right when she locks the phone and a wicked grin takes over her face.

Steve is a little scared of whatever plan she has cooking up.

“You know the best way to get over someone?” she asks.

“How…” Steve’s voice is so flat it can hardly be considered a question.

“Get under somebody else.”

“Rob,” Steve protests immediately. He can’t even think about someone else yet. Maybe ever.

“Come on, Nancy’s coming to town tomorrow, Chris and I were gonna take her out for a girls night. Nothing crazy. Just a bar or two. You should come with us. See if you can meet someone…distracting. And uncomplicated,” Robin puts her best pouty, puppy eyes on. The ones she knows Steve can never resist.

He already knows he’ll say yes, but he deflects anyway. “Your solution to me getting over Eddie is taking me out with Nancy?”

“I did not say you should sleep with Nancy, you creep,” Robin groans and flicks his forehead. “If anyone is taking Nance home at the end of the night, it’s me and Chrissy.”

Well that certainly achieved the distract-Steve-from-his-misery goal in a two seconds flat. He feels his eyebrows shoot up into his hair as he half-shouts, “And that’s not complicated?!”

Steve knew Robin probably wouldn’t want to hear it, but he was willing to draw on certain throupled experiences of his own with Tommy and Carol from their college days in warning of how that path was anything but simple. Robin seems to know that’s exactly what he’s thinking anyway, because she scrunches up her nose and barrels right past any opportunity for him to bring it up.

“Not with healthy communication about expectations, dingus,” she says simply.

“I thought I did that with Eddie,” Steve points out with a huff. “Look how that turned out.”

“Yeah, except you lied about how you really felt,” Robin says, voice dripping with exasperation.

“Oh. Right,” Steve mutters. She had a point. “Guess I’m coming to girl’s night, then.”

Somehow “Girl’s Night” turned into “Let’s Pick Out a Date for Steve Night” instead, and he’s already regretting agreeing to come. Robin and Nancy are really into it, scouring the bar for potential partners and rating them on a scale of one to ten based on what they think Steve will like.

It’s a little bit more illuminating about what they think of his taste than he’s willing to examine.

Chrissy at least seems to be taking pity on Steve, and is keeping up with him beer for beer as they watch a baseball game on the bar’s TV. Steve can still feel her concerned eyes on him every once in a while, though, like Robin’s told her exactly the state he came home in the morning before.

Or maybe Eddie’s talked to her about the sudden shift in tone in Steve’s texts, how it’s obvious something has changed between them and it’s freaking Eddie out as much as it is Steve. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Steve’s not proud of it, the way he’s agreed to let Robin pretend to be him so he can take the space to breathe. But he just needs to not to get caught up in the whirlwind of Eddie and his charm, or the way he draws Steve in faster than any moth has been to a flame. So he gave Robin his phone, asked her to screen for anything important, and has been sticking to it for a solid thirty-six hours now.

Robin’s definition of important might differ slightly from his own, considering she hasn’t informed him of anything since yesterday, but that’s well enough for Steve. Maybe she has a point about not needing to respond to every text from Dustin within thirty seconds of receiving it, too.

She’s certainly right to keep him in the dark, mushroom style, every time he asks if Eddie’s called.

He’s stuck ruminating about it pretty hard when Robin elbows him in the ribs to get his attention.

“Him,” she says with all of the conviction Steve’s ever heard in her voice. He turns to follow her gaze until his eyes finally land on the guy in question, only a couple of barstools away from the table they’re huddled over together.

He’s not exactly an Eddie clone, but it’s close enough that if Eddie were to walk in while Steve was hypothetically talking to him, it would send a message for sure. He’s got dirty blonde, shaggy hair that’s not nearly as curly or long as Eddie’s, but also can’t be described as anything but a mane. He’s wearing a t-shirt for a band Steve’s never heard of and jeans that hug his ass so nicely that Steve’s almost tempted.

“I don’t think so,” Steve sighs and sinks further into the booth.

“Why not?” Nancy asks, and catches Chrissy and Robin exchanging a look. “What?”

“Eddie,” they say in unison, and Nancy gets a look on her face like sense has dawned on her once again.

“You’re still not fucking together, but you are still hung up on him?” Nancy rounds on Steve. “Seriously?”

“I—” Steve tries to respond, but Robin cuts him off.

“Well they’re fucking plenty,” she says, going the extra mile to rat him out fully.

“Rob,” Steve protests, giving her ankle kick under the table. Robin just shrugs while Chrissy snorts at their antics, used to them by now.

“You’re both so stupid,” Nancy grumbles before taking another swig of her drink.

Steve’s more tempted to go talk to the random hot guy now just to get away from the disapproving vibe at the table. The temptation only increases when he takes in the man’s hands—they’re strong hands, big and rugged like one of this guy’s hobbies requires some muscle out of them.

It only takes the man’s green eyes sliding over to watch Steve back, then an appreciative smirk lobbed in his direction, for Steve to make up his mind.

“He’s been checking you out for at least ten minutes,” Robin says, laying it on a little thicker. She’s lucky Steve is even willing to listen to her advice right now—and that this guy is attractive as fuck.

“At least he won’t give me shit over Eddie,” Steve grumbles at them as he goes to say hello. The stool beside the man is empty, so Steve slips into it easily and gives him one of the best Harrington Charm smiles he’s got on deck. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Woah, not even a pick up line first?” the guy asks, and his flirtatious smile is cute as hell, Steve will admit.

“Do I really need one?” Steve asks, tilting his head as he does.

“Oh, so he’s cocky and handsome,” the other man nods seriously. “Deadly combination.”

Steve laughs, and it’s easier than he expected it to be. There’s still a hole in his heart that he doesn’t know quite how to sew up tight, but having a drink with this man—whose name is Derek, he learns—and his easy smile makes it just a little bit easier to ignore for now.

He’s not really planning on going much further than a little bit of flirting, maybe exchanging numbers if he’s feeling reckless. He’s really not in a place to do anything but take whatever ego boost Derek’s willing to provide. Maybe that’s not fair of him, exactly, but Robin’s right about one thing, at least: he’s distracted enough not to feel completely miserable for a while. Steve lets himself get lost in the simplicity of it, finds the flow of flirting without the weight of confusion and a million what if’s weighing him down.

It’s all going so well until he hears Eddie’s voice clambering through the crowd, from somewhere around where the girls are sitting.

“What the fuck, Chrissy,” Eddie’s question carries, and Steve’s whole body locks up in tension in an instant.

“What?” Chrissy asks, sounding the picture of innocence. Nothing follows, so Steve assumes Eddie’s just making a face at her, since silent communication is one of their strong suits as well. Then Chrissy laughs and says, “Well, he has a type I guess.”

And oh, Steve’s not ready for whatever’s coming next.

“Did I just stumble into a scenario where you’re trying to make your boyfriend jealous?” Derek asks, and Steve really wishes he’d just stayed home.

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Steve says truthfully, yet artfully leaving out some context. He doesn’t really think Eddie has the right to act jealous in the first place, so Steve thinks a little bit of bewilderment on his part is also warranted.

“Ex, then?” Derek guesses, still eyeing Eddie over Steve’s shoulder. Steve doesn’t have the courage to turn around and look.

“He’s just a friend,” Steve sighs at the truth of it, can hear the disappointment in his voice.

Derek can too.

“He looks like he’s thinking about kicking my ass,” he says, sounding less impressed by the second.

“He is not going to do anything—” Steve’s decisive reply is cut off by a hand on his elbow. He’d know that touch anywhere. It’s gentle but demanding, soft yet strong enough to fall to pieces for.

All of a sudden Eddie’s crowding between them, somehow turning one of his more charming smiles into a sneer sent in Derek’s direction. But then his focus lands on Steve, and for a moment it seems like the rest of the room goes silent.

“Can I talk to you?” Eddie asks, eyes almost begging.

Steve can’t believe Eddie’s acting like this just because he’s talking to someone else, can’t believe that for a minute he considers going along with it. He turns to apologize to Derek. “I’m sor—”

But Eddie’s already dragging him off by the elbow. Steve just barely hears Derek say something like, “Why am I always the one that makes them get their shit together?” to his friend before they’re both out of earshot.

Eddie leads Steve out the back door and into an alley beside the bar. He slips his hands into Steve’s back pockets, manhandling him until his back is against the brick and giving his ass a firm squeeze.

“Are you trying to drive me crazy, Stevie?” he asks, an unknowable and wild look in his eye.

It feels twisted even to think, but Steve isn’t sure if he’s more irritated or elated from this reaction out of Eddie. He wonders if he should have started flirting with other people in bars sooner, but he runs with the irritation outwardly.

“What is wrong with you?” he asks, ignoring Eddie’s question entirely. “Since when did you turn into a jealous maniac?”

“That was hardly maniacal,” Eddie scoffs, but there’s this desperate sheen overtaking his whole face that Steve’s never seen before. It quickly disappears behind one of Eddie’s many masks, but Steve still caught it. It’s enough to give his pathetic heart a little jolt of hope—hope that morphs into white hot flames that envelope his whole body when Eddie slips one hand around Steve’s front to grab his dick through his pants. He grins when he feels how Steve’s already getting hard. “I’ll show you maniacal.”

Then Eddie’s kissing him, as possessive and needy as Steve’s ever felt his lips before. There’s nothing soft about it. Every ounce of desperation he saw on Eddie’s face just a moment before is now cascading into the kiss, a hot clash of tongues and teeth like Eddie’s trying to devour him whole.

Because they don’t talk about their feelings, they only do.

Steve just wishes it didn’t feel so goddamn good.

He threads his fingers through Eddie’s hair and pours himself back into what little space is left between them. Eddie bites down on Steve’s bottom lip and growls, all grasping greed and bravado before he soothes it over with his tongue. Steve opens his mouth and lets Eddie in, just like he’s been doing all these months, can’t help it when he feels like all Eddie wants is for Steve to be his.

I am, I am, I swear I’m yours, Steve’s traitor heart chants in his chest, and he’s afraid Eddie can hear it in every beat.

Steve pushes further into Eddie until their chests are pressed together and hips flush. Eddie groans into the contact, rolls his tongue against Steve’s and slots his thigh between Steve’s legs. Steve grinds down onto him just as Eddie pushes up, not a care in the world for how they’re dry-humping in an alleyway like animals.

Steve’s panting he’s missed this so much, and it’s barely been a couple of days. He knows he shouldn’t (promised himself he wouldn’t), but he’s leaning into it. Then Eddie’s hand is on his dick, and he’s losing himself in a sea of want and need and touch and Eddie. Steve can’t believe how he’s gone from vaguely flirting with a stranger to fully hard in a back alley and breaking his promise to himself—to Robin, too—in about two minutes flat.

The thought of Robin snaps him back to reality and he pulls away with a gasp.

“We can’t,” Steve says, but not before Eddie’s already moved to kissing his neck, biting along the underside of his jaw next.

“Why not,” Eddie murmurs against Steve’s skin without stopping. Steve’s hips move of their own accord, grinding into Eddie again as he curses himself.

“Because,” Steve says weakly, trying to remember why he said that in the first place. Robin, some rational voice supplies in the back of his head. And your goddamn dignity.

Steve’s eyes fly open and his hands fist in Eddie’s shirt, which Eddie mistakes as a sign of excitement. He chuckles darkly against Steve’s neck, and Steve has to muster every bit of self control he’s ever had in his life.

“Eddie, stop,” he says, somehow managing to keep his voice flat. Eddie does instantly, before he looks back at Steve with that same quiet desperation in his eyes again.

Steve realizes he’s scared.

Eddie tries to cover it with a joke. “Not as into sex in public as last month?”

“Not into sex with you right now,” Steve clarifies, and somehow he finds the annoyance in his chest again, buried somewhere down deep beneath all the layers of lust. And love. Which is why he’s doing this, Steve reminds himself.

He loves Eddie too much to lose him over it—or to lose himself in it.

“What did I do?” Eddie asks, voice straining.

“Nothing,” Steve says, because it’s true. Eddie hasn’t done anything wrong, it’s Steve and his feelings that are all fucked up here. The only thing Eddie’s done is dare not to love Steve back, just like he promised he wouldn’t. But Eddie’s face is crumpling, and Steve can’t stand to watch it. It makes him a little mad that Eddie even gets to look heartbroken, when it’s Steve’s that’s shattering right there in between them. “I just—need some time to myself, Eddie. Okay?”

Eddie’s shaking his head already, though, and Steve’s scared he’s being too vague, that nebulous reasons won’t cut it.

“You keep calling me that,” Eddie says. He finally pulls away entirely, putting space between them that Steve feels like a knife in the gut.

“What?” he asks.

“Eddie.”

“That’s your name,” Steve deflects. He knows exactly what Eddie means, that Eddie feels as foreign coming out of Steve’s mouth as Steve does Eddie’s.

“Not from you,” Eddie clarifies.

Steve doesn’t know how to do this. He has to get out of there. “Just…not now. Okay?”

He doesn’t give Eddie the chance to reply before he turns on his heel and runs back inside.

At first Steve thinks Eddie’s not going to follow him. He goes back to the booth where the girls are sitting to find them all looking at him expectantly. He can’t try to parse what they’re thinking, how they might be judging the undoubtedly miserable look on his face, or if they’ve noticed the slight bulge in his pants. He grabs his jacket and tosses some money on the table before telling Robin he’ll see her at home.

It’s that time of night when cabs are already lined up and waiting outside for the drunks to come stumbling out, and Steve finds one with ease. He’s relieved that Eddie seems to have taken the hint and isn’t following him this time.

Steve thinks he’s managed to escape this mess in particular, at least. Avoiding Eddie’s texts and calls won’t fly, not now that they’ve fought over it. But Steve just needs the space to figure out what to do next. He knows he’s an asshole for running away, but he can’t help it in that moment.

He’s wondering why Eddie even showed up tonight, but he shoves the questions away for later. Right now he just needs to flee.

The driver just starts to pull away from the curb when the door opposite Steve flings open, and Eddie hops in the backseat. The cabbie looks startled, but satisfied enough to keep driving when Eddie slams the door shut behind him and turns his wild eyes on Steve.

“What the fuck!” Steve exclaims, because really. What the fuck.

“I need you to talk to me, Steve,” Eddie says. He’s right, the lack of a Stevie feels almost like a death sentence. “Stop avoiding the subject and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Because dragging me off in a fit of jealousy before storming my cab and nearly killing yourself seems like a healthier way to communicate,” Steve scoffs.

“You stopped answering my texts and literally just ran away from me, Steve!” Eddie throws his hands up in exasperation. “You’re not winning any medals there, either.”

“I haven’t stopped responding—” Steve tries, weakly.

“Oh, please.” Eddie’s laugh is a bitter one. “I know it’s been Robin texting me. I can tell the difference.”

Steve doesn’t point out that no one else has seemed to notice their little phone swap. Instead of trying to read into how well Eddie knows him, he tries to get back on track.

“Eddie,” Steve all but grits his name through his teeth. “When I said I can’t do this right now, I meant that.”

“But why can’t you?” Eddie asks, and as annoyed as they both sound, there’s a current of misery beneath Eddie’s tone that threatens to crack Steve’s heart into a billion shards of glass. “Yesterday morning everything was fine, Stevie. Then something completely beyond my control and knowledge seems to have happened to make you hate me, and you won’t talk to me? Or even look at me?”

“I don’t hate you,” Steve mutters under his breath. He crosses his arms and looks forward, trying to seal his lips shut before he says anything else that might bury him.

“What?” Eddie asks, and every precaution Steve has taken (and not) to avoid this moment has utterly failed him.

“I said I don’t hate you, alright?” Steve all but explodes. He turns to Eddie, who’s staring at his hands in his lap instead of looking Steve in the face. He just jumped into a damn moving vehicle, complained about Steve not looking at him, but now he’s only got eyes for the rings on his pretty fingers. Steve’s so wrung out, pulled taught with exhaustion from holding it in, he throws caution to the wind. Partly because he doesn’t know how else to deal with this, and partly because he’s lost his last bit of sense that’s been keeping it back. “Because I fucking love you. And you don’t love me like that! So I’m trying to unlove you as quickly as possible so everything doesn’t get even more fucked up than it already is, okay? There. That’s my terrible secret, Eds. Are you happy now?”

Eddie doesn’t look up, not right away, and Steve’s heart seizes in his chest. He can’t believe he finally said it out loud, can’t believe how it’s both a relief and absolutely agonizing now that it’s hanging in the air between them.

Behind the curtain of Eddie’s hair it’s hard to see for sure, but Steve still doesn’t think he imagines the way Eddie’s lips twitch.

Eddie finally looks up and Steve’s proven right—his smile is wicked but warm, and there’s a mischief dancing in his eyes where they were filled with fear just a moment ago.

It doesn’t seem like Eddie’s reacting poorly, but Steve’s not entirely sure what to make of it.

“That look in your eye terrifies me,” he admits, and Eddie just laughs. A delighted sound that pools in Steve’s belly and heats him through.

“There’s a fine line between terrified and turned on, Stevie,” Eddie practically crows. The teasing lilt of his voice has Steve’s stomach doing backflips.

“What does that even mean?” Steve’s pretty sure it’s not bad, but he really can’t be sure when his anxiety is blazing through his senses like wildfire.

“It means I fucking love you, too.”

The force of it hits Steve head on, sending him careening into a cloud of relief and shock and unadulterated joy. He stares at Eddie, gobsmacked, can’t possibly believe this is the outcome from finally admitting how he feels.

But he did. He said the words aloud, and then Eddie said them back. Tentatively, he reaches out for Eddie’s hand, brushes his fingertips across the back of it. Eddie smiles again, almost shy, and wraps Steve’s hand up in his own.

Then he pulls Steve in to kiss him.

It’s sweet, this time, careful like they’re afraid to tread on thin ice. But Eddie’s lips are the same as they ever were; and now they’ve gone and told Steve that Eddie loves him, too, so Steve cherishes them even more than with all of the other kisses that came before. Eddie squeezes his hand, smiles against Steve’s mouth.

“Can I take you home now?” Eddie asks. “I promise you can keep yelling if you need to.”

Steve laughs, and it’s the lightest he’s felt in ages. “Yes, please.”

He catches the driver grinning at them in the rearview a few times on the rest of their way home.

Steve’s hard-on only grows more urgent on their way from the car up to his bedroom, even though Eddie’s barely laid a finger on him. It’s the anticipation that’s getting to him more than anything, the promise of this night and many more to come.

Because Eddie loves him.

They’ve both already peeled their shirts and shoes and jackets off and discarded them along the way to Steve’s bed, and Eddie’s shoving Steve up against the bedroom door before Steve even has it closed behind them. Then he’s kissing Steve everywhere, his jaw, his chest, his mouth, like he’s checking that every fiber of Steve is real—that his loving Eddie in return isn’t some kind of mirage.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Steve asks as Eddie works on sucking a mark into his neck.

Eddie pulls back, searching Steve’s eyes for any sign that he’s joking—like he thinks the answer should be obvious. “I didn’t want to lose this. Lose you.”

Steve doesn’t point out the irony that they almost lost each other for the same stupid goddamn reason. Instead, he says, “I’m not going anywhere, Eds.”

Then Eddie’s kissing him again, feral, like hearing Steve say the words has awoken a new hunger inside of him. Eddie’s slender fingers move to take Steve’s pants off in a hurry, shoves them down just far enough to free Steve’s erection before moving to take off his own—he’s in a rush, and Steve can’t exactly blame him.

Eddie manages to get his pants down around his ankles before Steve can get hands on him. Steve spits in his own hand to add to the slick of precum already leaking out of the tip of Eddie’s cock.

“Fuck, Stevie,” Eddie hisses as Steve gives him a few firm pumps. But he replaces Steve’s grip as he crowds in closer, nudges his cock against Steve's in a slow but urgent slide. “Ah, shit—that’s better.”

Steve laughs through a moan, finds it cute that Eddie thinks he’s gonna stay in charge for long. For the moment he leans into it, though, grinds back against Eddie at his pace, accepting the sloppy glide of their cocks against one another just for a little bit of relief through the friction.

Then Steve’s cock catches Eddie’s frenulum at just the right angle, and Eddie lets out a strangled whimper that tells Steve they have to slow down. This is the first time they’re having sex after saying I love you, and maybe it makes Steve a hopeless romantic, but he wants to savor it.

So he grabs two fistfuls of Eddie’s hair and drags him in for a kiss, laps his tongue against Eddie’s and swallows down his shallow breaths with greed. Then he gives Eddie’s hair a tug until he’s looking back at Steve through heavy lidded eyes—they know each other’s signals so well by now that Eddie gets the message to slow his hips without anything more.

“What do you want?” Steve rasps before tugging Eddie’s earlobe between his teeth.

“Just you,” Eddie replies with ease, and Steve’s stomach swoops. Still, it’s an answer that won’t do.

“Use your words, baby,” Steve tuts.

“I am,” Eddie retorts with a playful whine. Steve looks at him skeptically. “I mean it! Are you really gonna boss me around when I just told you I love you?”

“Well, I did say it first. So, yeah,” Steve shrugs, nonchalant. It’s too easy to get Eddie worked up, he can’t help himself. “Plus, I’m pretty sure you love me because I boss you around.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Eddie’s whole face softens, and Steve knows they’re not teasing anymore. He cups Steve’s cheek and somehow inches a little bit closer, until Steve can feel the cold metal of Eddie’s nipple ring pressing into the overheated skin of his bare chest. “I love you for so much more than just that.”

Steve melts into Eddie’s hands, wants to ask him to list all the reasons without sounding needy. Instead he decides they’ve got time, that right now he just needs Eddie, however he can get him.

Steve pulls him back in for a sloppy kiss as he moves them towards the bed. As soon as Eddie hits the edge of the mattress he sits, and Steve takes the break between them as an opportunity to get his pants the rest of the way off as Eddie does the same.

Eddie looks up at him, waiting, like Steve could literally demand anything in the world from him in that moment and Eddie would do it. He does wrap his hands around Steve’s hips and make a request, though.

“I want you to do something really devious, Stevie. I’m talking filthy stuff,” he admits. There’s mischief playing in his gaze, and Steve can’t wait to find out why.

“Oh?” he buys in. “What’s that?”

“I want you look me in the eye while you let me fuck you,” Eddie leans forward to kiss along Steve’s stomach, looking up at him with wide, pleading eyes the whole time. “I want you to see just how much I love you, while you tell me exactly how good it feels to have my cock so deep inside you that it feels like we’ll never be apart. Because I never want you to doubt it again.”

Steve holds Eddie’s gaze for a breath that catches deep in his lungs before he feels a slow smile take over his face. As if he could deny such a pretty face, asking so nicely.

As if he could deny Eddie anything.

“Lay back,” Steve instructs, and Eddie hastens to do just that. Once he’s propped up on the pillows, Steve grabs his bottle of lube from the bedside table and tosses it on the bed. Then he climbs in, straddling Eddie’s waist and sliding their cocks together once more just to get another breathy moan out of the beautiful man beneath him. He slicks his hand with lube before jerking Eddie off a few times with it. “You wanna watch me ride your perfect cock? Watch how good you make me feel while I come apart on it?”

“Fuck, Stevie,” Eddie hisses. “Yes, please.”

“What’re you gonna do for me?” Steve asks, likes drawing it out until Eddie gets whiny about it.

“Gonna fill you up, be so so good for you,” Eddie promises. “I’ll leave you full of my cum just so everyone will know you’re mine, and I’m yours.”

“You’re so fuckin’ perfect, Eds.” Steve smirks down at him, and Eddie preens. Steve uses more lube on his fingers and reaches behind himself, slicks his hole before slipping two fingers inside. He fingers himself just to make Eddie watch, delighting in the way Eddie’s cock leaks a little bit more when Steve groans at that first stretch his knuckles provide. Once he’s desperate for more, Steve leans down and grabs Eddie’s chin before licking into his mouth.

“Gonna ride you until we both come, but only if you’re good for me,” Steve murmurs, and Eddie shivers beneath him.

“Anything you want, Stevie,” Eddie agrees in a single breath. “Use me, claim me, I don’t fuckin’ care I just need—fuck—”

Eddie’s blathering begging is replaced with a high whine as Steve lines up his cock and sinks down onto it slowly, inch by inch until Eddie’s bottomed out and fisting Steve’s sheets like it might kill him.

“Shhh,” Steve soothes, even though he’s the one that feels so full he might split in two. He rubs careful circles around Eddie’s nipples while they both adjust, enjoying the way it makes Eddie twitch beneath him. Slowly, Steve leans down to lay more of his weight on Eddie until they’re chest to chest. The extra stretch of his hole around Eddie’s cock as he moves is so delicious, nearly consuming when coupled with the way his own cock gets a little bit of friction as it rubs against Eddie’s stomach.

Eddie closes the rest of the space between them, kisses Steve messily as his hands find their place on Steve’s hips. Neither of them move yet, happy just to feel each other for a blinding moment of anticipation.

Once Steve catches a little bit of his breath he leans back a fraction, brushes some of the hair away from Eddie’s face and just breathes him in.

“You feel so—” Eddie whimpers as Steve clenches around him, “—fucking good, Stevie.”

“You too, Eds,” Steve purrs, and Eddie grips his hips harder. “You ready?”

“For you?” Eddie’s eyes light up and his voice slips back into something velvety. “Always.”

Steve can’t help it, his cock twitches between them, leaves a fresh trail of precum leaking on the skin of both of their stomachs. He groans, fully aware he can’t take it anymore as he starts to ride Eddie’s cock. The wet slide of it is intoxicating, the way Eddie fills him up so perfectly it feels like they were always meant to do this. He stays pressed close to Eddie to start, setting a slow enough pace to drive them both wild with every roll of his hips. Eddie stays patient though, doesn’t try to speed Steve’s pace or even thrust up into him as he moves.

“You’re doing so good for me,” Steve praises as he sits up again, plants his hands on Eddie’s chest for better leverage. Steve’s cock bobs between them as he grinds his hips into a rhythm, and Eddie watches it and bites his lip like he’s straining not to touch it. Steve smiles down at him. “Look so fucking gorgeous beneath me, Eds.”

“Fuck,” Eddie gasps, squeezes Steve’s hips tighter as his hips finally stutter up at the praise. It’s barely a thrust, but it’s timed just right for Eddie’s cock to graze Steve’s prostate. Steve groans as he rides the shockwave of it, a hot gush of arousal straight up his spine. “Wanna touch you,” Eddie says, eyes pleading again.

Steve considers it for a minute, but slaps Eddie’s hand away when he takes Steve’s pause as permission.

“Not yet,” Steve chides, deciding to slip his fingers through Eddie’s instead to hold his hand in check.

“What about my other hand?” Eddie asks in a challenge, somehow managing to be a smartass in such a compromising position. He waggles the fingers on his left hand for effect, and Steve has to bite back a laugh. He does slow his pace down to a near stop, earning a pathetic little whimper out of Eddie in return.

Steve grins down at him sweetly.

“I could always tie you up instead,” Steve threatens with a raised brow.

“Tempting.” Eddie swallows thickly, gives Steve’s hand a squeeze. “But no thanks. Hold my hand, please.”

“Sap,” Steve smiles. He takes Eddie’s other hand in his own, too, before pushing both of them into the mattress beside Eddie’s head as he leans forward again, grinding his cock into the solid yet soft flesh of Eddie’s belly again.

“You started it,” Eddie grins up at him—a dopey, lovesick sort of grin that Steve really should have realized meant Eddie loved him back ages ago.

He can’t get caught up in that now.

“So you wanna jerk me off, huh?” Steve asks as he starts to grind down on Eddie’s cock again. Eddie just nods, biting his lip like he’s afraid he’ll say something bratty and make Steve stop again. Smart boy. “Gonna make you earn it, Eds. Use your pretty cock as a ride for as long as I want before you get to touch me. Before I say you can come, too.”

Eddie whines aloud, but doesn’t complain further. “Anything you want, Stevie.”

Steve hums as he presses down on Eddie’s cock again and can’t help but let out a low groan at this angle—knows he needs more.

“Go ahead and fuck me, Eds,” Steve locks his eyes on Eddie’s again, just like he asked for. “I know how bad you want to.”

Eddie doesn’t hesitate, fucks his cock up into Steve’s hole with a perfect, fluid motion that leaves Steve seeing stars. He can’t believe how well-timed Eddie’s thrusts are with hardly any leverage in his position. The drag of his cock inside of Steve is unbearably good, hitting his prostate over and over and leaving that tight ring of muscle burning and clenching for more.

Steve knows he won’t last long like this. And based on the mess of satisfied sounds falling out of Eddie’s mouth with every filthy, slick slap of his hips against Steve’s ass, he won’t either.

“Say it again.” Steve grits out the command through clenched teeth, holding on for dear life as he feels another dribble of Eddie’s hot precum inside of him.

“Wha—” Eddie sucks in a deep breath through his nose, like he’s fraying at the seams trying not to come apart before Steve tells him to. “Say what, Stevie?”

“You know what.” Steve licks Eddie’s top lip, keeps riding him without mercy. Eddie’s already a whimpering, needy mess. His cries are just about the most beautiful thing Steve’s ever heard—at least until the next words out of his mouth, anyway.

“Fuck—sweetheart, I—god I fucking love you so much,” Eddie groans.

Steve clenches to hear it, rolls his hips a little more on Eddie’s next push up inside of him. Eddie whines in that way he only does when he’s near tears, and Steve feels like he’s on fire. “What else?”

“What?” Eddie asks, desperately squeezing Steve’s hands, now. “Stevie, please, I’m so close.”

“Tell me what you need, gorgeous,” Steve coos, genuinely wondering which answer he’ll get out of Eddie.

“You, you, you, y—goddamnit—you,” Eddie babbles. “I only ever need you, sweetheart.”

“F—uck,” Steve hisses, his voice carrying the word out of control like a song with the next drag of his cock against Eddie’s stomach. “You’re such a good boy, Eds—” Eddie groans at that, a guttural sound that Steve feels down to his toes. “Love you so much, need you to come inside me.”

Eddie’s responding moan is so desperate, it’s almost violent what it does to his voice. His hips stutter, and Steve knows hearing the words affect him just as much as they do Steve.

Eddie doesn’t let go right away, though. Instead he nods at Steve’s aching, swollen cock between them. “C—can I? Please? Want you to come with me.”

Steve groans and just releases Eddie’s hands as his permission, wonders if the red marks he left between Eddie’s knuckles will bruise. Eddie’s almost giddy in the way he wraps his ringed finger around Steve’s cock, hitches his other hand to the curve of Steve’s ass in a tight grip to guide his movements.

“Go ahead, pretty boy,” Steve encourages. “Let me see you come.”

With Eddie’s cock buried deep in his ass, Eddie’s hand wrapped around his own cock and jerking him off in perfect strokes, Steve has to hold on not to come right away. But he wants to watch Eddie first, doesn’t want to miss a minute of him losing control. He watches as Eddie’s face contorts and his mouth falls open, drinks in every blissed out sound Eddie makes, rides Eddie faster and somehow keeps himself together until Eddie falls apart.

Eddie’s orgasm is shattering, leaves the very air around them buzzing with the force of it, and his whole body is shaking as he comes with a throaty scream. Steve feels the hot gush of cum inside him, feeling it pushed further in with every broken thrust of Eddie’s hips as Steve rides him through it.

It’s enough to make Steve lose his hold on the edge. He finally goes tumbling over into an all-consuming pit of ecstasy once Eddie’s grip on his cock tightens through the last gasps of his own high.

“Eds—fuck!” Steve cries. He manages to keep his eyes open to watch the spray of cum he leaves all over Eddie’s chest, the way Eddie opens his mouth to try and catch some of it like snowflakes on his tongue. It’s so filthy, so beautiful, that another searing shockwave crests through Steve, his whole body crackling with electricity as the next spurt of cum hits the corner of Eddie’s mouth and chin.

He laps it up greedily, and Steve whines as he watches, mesmerized. Eddie pumps every bit of pleasure out of Steve that he can, until the last fragments of his orgasm are an echo through his limbs and he’s nearly ready to collapse from it. Somehow, Steve manages to stay upright on shaking legs long enough to drag his fingers through some of the cum on Eddie’s stomach. Eddie’s eyes widen as he watches, anticipating what Steve’s next move is with ease.

Steve brings his fingers up to Eddie’s lips, and Eddie’s mouth is already open and waiting for them. Eddie moans around Steve’s middle and forefingers, swirls his tongue around them and lets his eyes fall shut like Steve’s cum is a full-course meal.

“Fuck, you’re so perfect,” Steve praises again, and Eddie hums before releasing Steve’s fingers with a slurping noise that makes Steve’s spent cock twitch pathetically between them.

“All mine,” Eddie says, wipes the last bit of cum from his chin and licks his fingers clean of that, too. “Will never get enough of you, Stevie.”

It’s unbearably sexy, but more than anything it makes Steve’s love-wrecked heart soar.

“Love you,” Steve murmurs, stroking Eddie’s face as he does. Eddie leans into his touch, and even though Steve can feel Eddie’s cock softening inside him, he wants to stay right there forever. “Can we stay like this for a while?”

“God, yes,” Eddie agrees with a low rumble, wrapping his arms around Steve’s middle and bringing him to lay against his chest. Steve goes happily, mess between them be damned. For now he just wants to keep Eddie inside of him for as long as he can, feel the stretch and the fullness and the cum leaking out of him in sated bliss.

“You were so good for me,” Steve tells Eddie, running his fingers through his tangled, sweaty curls. He presses soft kisses to Eddie’s face, revels in the fact that he’s not losing this—that he doesn’t have to go anywhere. “Gonna take such good care of you.”

It feels like a bigger promise than for just that moment, and Eddie hears it too.

“Love you, Stevie,” he whispers before catching Steve’s lips in a kiss. It’s languid, almost lazy with satisfaction. Once more Steve can taste himself on Eddie’s tongue, and instead of it leaving him feeling empty this time, he feels full to burst.

Steve’s not sure how long they stay like that, holding each other tight and unwilling to let go. But eventually Steve moves to get something to clean them both up with before they freeze or end up uncomfortably stuck together. There’s only a slight wobble to his gait as the best kind of soreness starts to set it, even if his legs are still a little shaky. When he makes it to the hallway—stark naked and still with Eddie’s cum leaking out of him—he notices the light beneath Robin’s door is on. Realizing exactly how there’s no talking their way out of this one, he keeps his dash to the bathroom short. He wipes himself down in a hurry before wetting a fresh washcloth and taking it back to Eddie.

He winces as he carefully closes the bedroom door behind him, because he knows there’s a good chance Robin will come barging in if she knows they’re done.

“What’s that face for?” Eddie asks, voice still sleepy.

“Robin’s home,” Steve says guiltily. “And probably Chrissy, too. Which means they’re gonna kill us, because we were loud as fuck.”

For some inexplicable reason, Eddie smiles. With all the conviction in the world he says, “They’re not gonna kill us.”

Steve gives him a confused look, but his curiosity unlocks his body enough to move towards the bed and start taking care of Eddie like he meant to.

For a moment, Steve tries to focus on wiping Eddie’s skin clean. Eddie watches Steve’s soft, deliberate movements as he clears the last of the sweat and cum from Eddie’s chest, careful to get the rest of the lube off the sensitive skin around his now softened cock. Steve’s slept with people who thought this part was gross, who hated the intimacy of sharing it with him. Eddie’s so comfortable, though, soaking in everything Steve does with such affection—no, Steve can say that it’s love now—that it makes Steve’s heart stutter a little happy tune against his ribs.

He loves that Eddie lets him take care of him, that Eddie takes care of Steve right back.

“You’re so good to me, Stevie,” Eddie hums as Steve finally settles back into bed with him. He thinks it’s some kind of minor miracle they didn’t wreck the sheets, too. Or maybe it’s a sign they didn’t try hard enough this go around.

“Yeah, well,” Steve smiles as he snuggles into Eddie’s side, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him close as pillows his head on Eddie’s shoulder. “That’s ‘cause I love you.”

Eddie’s returning smile is so bright, Steve would happily go blind just to keep looking at it. “Mm, as luck would have it? Love you too.”

Steve kisses him with abandon, relishing the way he can leave his heart open and soul bared now. There’s still fear there—that things might go wrong somehow, that Eddie will change his mind and run—but knowing that Eddie feels the same soothes some of that ache, keeps it pinned to an undercurrent that Steve can choose not to focus on. Instead he can let the love float to the top, the way Eddie’s hands in his hair and lips pressed up against his own makes him giddy with the possibility of a future.

“What’d you mean, before?” Steve eventually asks. “Why won’t Rob and Chris kill us when they’ve been trying so hard to keep us apart?”

“Aha, but I suspect they haven’t been, not really,” Eddie says with an almost appreciative smile.

“Explain.”

“Chrissy definitely waited until you were talking to that guy to text me and ask me to come down to the bar,” Eddie says, and Steve feels his jaw drop open more than he allows it.

“She told you to come?” Steve asks, probably more surprised than he should be. “But the whole point of tonight was getting me away from you!”

“Pretty sure the actual whole point of tonight was triggering enough jealousy to make me break,” Eddie shrugs.

“Oh my god,” Steve says, realizing Eddie has it right. “Those schemers.”

“Absolutely conniving,” Eddie agrees. “But it worked.”

“Mmm,” Steve says skeptically, unwilling to give them all that much credit yet. Especially since Steve’s really the one who broke. He doesn’t get to make the distinction before a sharp, loud moan erupts from Robin’s bedroom, however.

Apparently Robin and Chrissy’s payback will be swifter this time around, and Steve wishes they’d taken the cab back to Eddie’s place instead.

Eddie’s eyes go wide as two more distinct voices follow the first. “Is that…?”

“Nancy,” Steve nods with equally wide-eyed realization. He isn’t grossed out by Robin’s sex life, and he knows she’ll tell him everything in the morning whether he hears it happening in real-time or not. He’s more concerned with the fact that he’s going to wake up with three expectant and smug faces waiting for an explanation in the morning, and he’s really not sure there’s any way to prepare for that. “Robin did warn me they might bring her home.”

“How thoughtful of her. Chrissy didn’t bother,” Eddie laughs, but seems willing to let it go as he presses soft kisses into Steve’s neck.

Another round of noises from the other room interrupts their flow, though.

“We’re going to have to come up with a system for choosing which apartment everyone goes to at the end of the night,” Steve points out with a pout. “Between us, and now them? The neighbors are gonna think we’re porn stars.”

Eddie laughs again, clearly delighted that Steve’s apartment has turned into the Horny Place. Steve can’t remember a time he’s seen him this happy. Eddie rolls on top of Steve and brushes two fingertips against his lips, a devious smile playing on his own. “Well, we might as well live up to it the rumors and give them a show, don’t you think?”

He kisses the pout off of Steve’s face and spends the rest of the night giving the performance of a lifetime.

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