Chapter Text
It takes years before Steve feels like he can relax, and it comes in bits and pieces.
He stops jumping every time he hears something in the dark. The nail bat leaves the trunk of his car, makes its way into an umbrella holder in the back of his closet. The nightmares slow down, and he only dreams of vines or too-many-teeth or Eddie’s death every once in a blue moon.
He grows up.
The kids graduate and go off to college. Robin finishes her degree and moves to Chicago with Nance for grad school, both of them close enough that he doesn’t lose them fully, but far enough that the distance grows. Jonathan goes back to Cali, shacks up with Argyle near the mountains somewhere.
It happens gradually, until one day, Steve looks up and realizes he’s twenty-five, still clueless, managing a store at the new mall they built across the road from where the Starcourt Memorial stands–a little obelisk with a laurel wreath, alone in an empty field.
He hasn’t been on a real date in years.
But at least he’s alive and the Upside Down is locked up tight.
That’s what matters.
Or maybe the real truth is that he’s always worried it might come back, and with everyone gone–even Joyce and Hopper, all the way in Fort Lauderdale–he feels like someone has to stay behind and stand guard.
Just in case.
So it’s both a surprise and no surprise at all when Eleven calls him.
“Steve, I…” Eleven pauses, gathering her words and thoughts. “I feel something. Back in Hawkins.”
Back in Hawkins .
Because she lives in the big rented former schoolhouse in Oregon, along with all Steve’s other kids. (Not kids anymore. College students. Of legal drinking age. He hates how old he feels thinking about that.)
“Something like a gate?” he asks, already eyeing his flimsy closet door that has never quite closed right in all the time he’s had his apartment.
“No,” she says. “No, there is no gate. It is like…” Another pause. “Something that did not go through a gate. But something.”
“Something that was already here?” Because how can something just be in Hawkins. Can the damned demogorgons teleport now?
“I don’t think it was already there, no.”
“I don’t understand.”
Eleven huffs, frustrated, sounding for just a second like the carefree teenager who’d burst into Scoops with Max all those years ago. “Neither do I, Steve.”
“I’ll see what I can dig up.”
“We packed. If you need me–need us,” she corrects, “we will come.”
“Yeah, I’ll call if it looks bad.”
Steve starts digging, keeps his TV and car radio tuned to the local news even when it’s painful to listen to yet another story about the new supermarket. A Wal-Mart in Hawkins. Oh boy, Hawkins is really moving up in the world.
Maybe Steve can manage it instead of the sporting goods store. Maybe they have better benefits.
It turns out he doesn’t have to dig very much or very long.
It turns out that the thing he’s looking for is also looking for him.
He stumbles in from work a little after 11 p.m., goes right to the fridge before even taking off his shoes, grabs a cold beer and presses it to his neck. It’s been a long day and he knows it’s probably karma or something that Kevin McKinley keeps calling off work “sick” to go on dates, but ugh, the little shit is killing him.
“A green vest, Harrington. You can’t still be at the video store.”
Steve hears the sound of boots settling onto his coffee table and promptly drops his beer, glass shattering all over the kitchen floor, beer soaking through his sneakers.
On his shitty second-hand couch sits the ghost of Eddie Munson, his hands spread wide across the back rest, his head idly cocked to the side, a dark grin playing at his mouth.
Steve backs into the door of his fridge, beer and condiment bottles rattling against one another while he slips on spilled beer.
“You’re dead.”
Eddie’s grin spreads like a stain. “Well, you aren’t wrong.”
He hasn’t aged. His hair is the same dark halo of curls, hanging loose and clean around his face. He has on a Hellfire shirt, though it can’t possibly be the one he died in. It’s worn, with a few holes near the neck and one of the hems, but it’s otherwise unmarred. Which is a thing that can’t be said for Eddie's jeans, which are painted-on, possibly more holes than denim, the skinny legs leading right into a pair of laced-up black leather boots.
“You’re staring, Harrington,” Eddie says, sitting up and putting his feet on the ground. He sits with his legs spread so wide it’s almost lewd, his fingers drumming on his knees, rings glinting. “Tell me, Steve, do you like what you see?”
“You’re dead,” Steve repeats. He’d seen the body when they went to find Dustin. He’d fucking– “I checked your pulse and listened for your breathing and did goddamn CPR and, and... I closed your fucking eyes, man.”
“Steve,” Eddie says, pushing himself up off the couch, moving to the little entertainment cabinet where Steve keeps his tape player and all his tapes. Eddie picks one up and scowls. “Steve, Steve, Steve. Stop being so black and white like you’ve never seen the gray in the universe. It’s so fucking boring.” He waves a tape at him when he says it. Eddie Money's "Can't Hold Back."
“Hey, I didn’t work a double today to have some asshole ghost tell me I have shit taste in music.”
And Eddie, he just raises his eyebrows before throwing his head back and laughing. It’s a little crazed, but it’s a lot Eddie too. Some echo of who he’d been.
Before he died.
Before the…
“Holy shit, your teeth.”
Eddie cocks his head again, smiles wide, runs his tongue across a pair of fucking fangs. “What? These old things? You get used to them.”
“You’re the thing Eleven felt.” Because he has to be.
“Um being called a ‘thing’ kind of hurts, Steve, not gonna lie. I thought we were friends.”
“We were friends,” Steve defends. “Are? Friends? Eddie, man, what the hell are you?”
A glint of red flashes across Eddie’s dark eyes. Quick as a camera flash.
“What am I?” Eddie asks, and then he hops up onto Steve’s coffee table.
“Dude, that’s from Ikea. I cannot guarantee its structural integrity.”
But Eddie just keeps talking. “Me? I’m the town freak, Steve Harrington. Was then, most definitely am now.” Eddie’s eyes go wide and wild. “Because me? Eddie Munson? Well, I’m a certified bloodsucking, cocksucking creature of the night.” He leaps down, clearing several feet of postage-stamp sized apartment.
He lands in the puddle of beer, splashing it onto Steve’s jeans. Steve doesn’t have time to complain about that though, not with Eddie’s hand curling around his jaw, holding on tight, crowding Steve up against the still-open fridge. He tilts Steve’s head to the side.
Staring at Steve’s neck, Eddie’s eyes go red again and stay that way. He leans close, nose sliding up Steve’s throat, inhaling. His lips move against Steve’s ear when he talks, voice husky and worn. “Steve, Stevie, baby , I am so goddamn fucking hungry.”
Steve shivers, a tingle starting at the crown of his head and dripping down his spine. And the fucked up thing is that he thinks if this is the way he dies, he could do worse.
And the other fucked up thing is Steve has always said dumb shit when he’s terrified. So, of course, with Eddie the Undead seemingly seconds away from literally murdering him in his pathetic little kitchen, Steve opens his mouth.
“I’m bisexual.”
Eddie chuckles low, drops his forehead against the crook of Steve’s shoulder and keeps laughing.
“Why? Of all the things to say, Harrington.”
“I’m terrified, man. What the fuck am I supposed to say?”
“No, I guess it’s fair. I come out. You come out. That’s how it’s always gone since the beginning of gay history.”
“You came out?”
“Sorry, did you miss the cocksucking part of that little speech, Steve? Because I thought it was fucking transcendent.”
Steve swallows hard. “Oh.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re just as ridiculous as ever.”
“Hey, wait, don’t you have to be invited in or some shit?”
Eddie uses his grip to give Steve’s head a tiny jerk, one that commands Steve’s attention, one that makes the tingle drip even lower. He trails an index finger up and down, right over Steve’s jugular.
“No,” Eddie says. “But I do want your permission, Steve.” He licks his lips.
“To what? Murder me in front of my fridge?”
“Oh, was I planning to murder you? News to me.”
“You’re not?”
Eddie hums. “Do you remember the RV, Steve?”
Did he remember the RV? Did he remember having to wait months before he felt like he could talk about Eddie to anybody again? Just so he could admit to Robin that he’d been having a full-on sexuality crisis since Eddie leaned into his personal space and called him ‘big boy?’
“It might ring a bell.”
“I’ve been stuck there for years. Like this. Starving in so many ways, Steve. Thinking about the way you froze up.” He keeps trailing his finger across Steve’s skin, dipping under the collar of his polo, scraping a nail across Steve’s collarbone. Eddie hums again. “You wanna know what it did to me, what I did to myself, wondering if I could poke and prod at that precious little deer-in-headlights face of yours? If I could get you to bend, to let me break you.”
“Fuck, Eddie.” Steve can’t breathe. Eddie’s hand is cold, but it feels like it’s burning into Steve’s skin, like once he pulls it away there will be something there forever, marking him.
Eddie presses a tongue to Steve’s pulse point. “So fast, that little deer heart of yours. And all for me. Do you know how intoxicating that is, Steve? Fuck, I can hear your blood rushing through your veins. It sounds better than sex.”
“I um… I really don’t make enough money to leave the fridge open.”
Another laugh. But Eddie moves them so fast Steve can’t even process it, pushing Steve against the wall, kicking the fridge closed behind him.
“If his highness is satisfied about the state of his light bill…”
“He is.”
“Steve.” Eddie moans softly. “Steve, can I taste you?”
There is a part of Steve’s brain that tells him to say no. It’s the part that says things like: do not go back into the house with the monster, do not punch Billy Hargrove, do not pull on the threads of a secret Russian plot, do not jump in a lake with a known hole to the Upside Down, and definitely do not fight a serial murderer with superpowers and a connection to a hive of monsters.
But Steve has never been very good at listening to that part of his brain. And it’s Eddie. Eddie who made him wonder and question, made him want for things that were very well and truly out of his grasp.
Except, apparently, not as out of his grasp as he'd thought.
Steve swallows. “Yes.”
“Do you know what I’m asking?”
“I didn’t miss the ‘bloodsucking’ part of your speech.”
Eddie growls and dives back into the crook of Steve’s neck, sinking his teeth into the soft skin.
Steve braces himself for it to hurt, but it’s no worse than a needle in the hands of a competent nurse. A pair of little pinches.
And then… And then, oh. Oh. Oh God.
Steve’s knees buckle, Eddie catching him, holding him upright.
Because it feels so good his brain goes fuzzy.
It’s like that point of tension right before Steve knows he’s about to sink his dick into someone warm or have someone sink into him. Coupled with how everything feels right after an orgasm, when the world is bliss and nothing hurts.
It’s heady. It's fucking dizzying.
Steve moans loud, clutching Eddie’s shoulders. He feels Eddie tense, hears him let out a groan of his own, feels that groan vibrate against his skin where Eddie is… sucking his blood.
And Steve’s getting off on it.
“Okay, holy shit,” Eddie says, pulling back, panting. “Christ, Harrington, you’re too much. I can smell you.”
“Okay.”
“No, Steve, I can smell you. How turned on you are right now.”
“Oh. That.”
Eddie makes a noise in frustration and reaches up to cup Steve’s jaw, to run a surprisingly tender thumb across his bottom lip. His eyes fade back into the deep brown Steve’s used to, with a heat that Steve is pretty sure he’s never seen before. Eddie looks him over, eyes halting on the noticeable bulge in Steve’s slacks. He meets Steve’s eyes again, tilts his head.
“Well, what’s it gonna be, little deer?” Eddie asks. “Are you gonna let me break you?”
“Clear communication would be nice.”
“Don’t be a fucking brat, Steve,” Eddie says. “I’ve been dead for seven years.”
“Six.”
“Oh, is that all?” Eddie asks. “Felt shorter, you know, with the riveting company of monsters who wanted nothing to do with me. Not that I wanted shit to do with them either, but–”
“No one’s touched you in six years,” Steve says, the realization hitting him. And here Steve’s been feeling so alone. At least he can drive to Chicago or call Dustin or try to flirt with someone at the grocery store.
“Rub it in.” Eddie scowls. “God, look at you, Harrington. So criminal even in fucking slacks. I bet you were getting fucked real good all those years, huh?”
Steve frowns. “Jealousy doesn’t really suit you, Eddie.” Steve steps close, uses two fingers to trail a line down Eddie’s forearm, watches him shudder. “But I wasn’t, no, not really.”
Steve keeps touching him. Eddie’s lashes flutter shut, the apple of his throat bouncing. Eyes still closed, reveling in the contact, Eddie speaks. “Do you wanna get fucked good now?”
And Steve answers. “Yes.”
Eddie opens his eyes, red flashing through his irises. “Shower.”
“What?”
“Right. Communication. Apologies to Hawkins’ prettiest little brat.” Eddie pets Steve’s face. “I want to fuck you in the shower. Partially because I’ve dreamed about seeing you wet since you dove into that goddamn lake. Partially because you smell like spilled beer.”
“Got it.” Steve shucks off his work vest and hangs it on the hook by the door. The rest, he strips off in the bathroom, trying not to look too hard at himself in the mirror, to see if he really is still moderately attractive. He hasn’t cared in a while, but now he thinks he might care more than he ever has in his whole life.
Shirtless, he watches his reflection touch the scars on his sides, trailing up toward the only tattoo Steve has ever gotten, a–
A cold finger traces over the small outline of a guitar hidden on Steve’s rib cage. The body of it is distinct. Not just any old guitar.
“Aw, Harrington, you did miss me.”
Steve jumps. Because he didn’t see Eddie come in. Because Eddie does not have a reflection. Steve looks down at where Eddie's touching him, looks up and sees nothing.
“Yeah, it’s a real bitch trying to do my hair, let me tell you.”
In the mirror, Steve watches the button on his slacks seemingly open of its own accord, his zipper sliding down. It’s surreal, and he’s transfixed by it. His pants slide slowly down his hairy legs, and he sees the finger indents of Eddie squeezing one of his thighs appreciatively.
Steve’s breath quickens at the feeling of those same fingers dipping under the waistband of his boxers. Those fall too, leaving him naked and exposed and seemingly alone in his mirror, his cock hard, his chest pink.
“Oh, that is a sight to behold, Steve. Still the prettiest boy in Hawkins, Indiana.”
“Why are your clothes invisible?” Steve asks.
Eddie huffs. “Do we have to do that now?” Eddie runs a teasing fingertip down Steve’s erection. It jumps in the mirror.
“No. No, I guess not.”
“Get the shower how you like it. I’m getting rid of your stinky beer clothes and cleaning up the mess.”
“I wouldn’t have spilled it if you weren’t so damn dramatic about–”
“Shut your mouth,” Eddie says, commanding in a way that makes Steve want to show his belly. It stuns him into silence. He squirms. Eddie laughs. “Oh wow, that is something, Harrington. You just need a firm hand, huh? Then it’s good boy city.”
What the hell? But Steve doesn’t answer. He doesn’t answer because Eddie told him to shut his mouth and he, well, he wants to listen. He turns toward the shower, kicks on the hot water.
By the time he gets under the spray, Eddie has taken his clothes away. Steve can see his shape through the frosted glass, undressing, clothes piling up. Steve wets his hair. Eddie raps on the door and pushes it open without waiting for an answer.
“Talk about a wet dream, Harrington. God, look at you.”
But Steve can’t even process that because look at him? Look at him?
Look at fucking Eddie.
“Jesus.” Steve stares, openly, his cock twitching with undeniable interest. Eddie’s body is lithe muscle, a line of dark hair, a smooth chest, and more ink than Steve knew about. There’s a tattoo of a decaying coffin on his upper thigh, almost at the crook where it meets his torso.
Steve wants to lick it.
“Yeah? Like what you see, little deer?” Eddie preens under his gaze, grinning, swaying closer. “Liberated this from your night stand, Steve. Wanna talk about it?”
He takes a bottle of lube out from behind his back, shakes it like he just found something incriminating. Which, in another world where they weren’t standing naked in Steve’s shower after already explicitly agreeing they were about to have sex, Steve supposes it would be.
“If you’ve been in my night stand, then you know what the lube’s for.”
A laugh. “You have changed a little, haven’t you?” Eddie trails his fingers through Steve’s chest hair. “At least I assume you weren’t railing yourself with toys back in Harrington Manor. But what do I know?”
“Yeah, well, the world stopped trying to end every year and I got a little curious.”
“A little bi-curious?” Eddie puts the lube on the built-in shelf where Steve keeps his soap.
“Funny.”
“I’m assuming you liked it if you kept the supplies.”
“I liked it,” Steve says. “I do like it.”
“He knows what he wants,” Eddie purrs.
“My hot water tank isn’t that big.”
“Well, I suggest you speak up on that one because I can’t feel it.” Eddie pets his cheek. “But you can get on your knees if you’re that eager.”
Steve meets his challenge, if only to watch Eddie break a little too. “I am.” He sinks to the floor.
And, the thing is it’s been six years plus a bi awakening. Steve’s sucked dick before, and he’s, you know, he’s pretty damn good at it really. He might not have been getting fucked good, but Steve Harrington is a giver, okay?
He takes Eddie in his hand, lets his lips slide over the tip of Eddie’s cock. Eddie tastes a little strange but not in a bad way.
Just different.
Above him, Eddie lets out a breath that sounds like a gut punch, hand tangling in Steve’s hair. He grips tight and pulls, like he might slip right off the edge of the Earth if he doesn’t hold onto something.
For a little while, Eddie forgets to be mean to him. It's a little disappointing, but mostly it's a lot. To know Steve can do that to him.
“God, that’s good. You’re so pretty, Steve, you really are.”
Steve takes care of him, caresses his thighs, runs his hand down Eddie’s toned stomach. It’s intoxicating, the way Eddie responds to his touch, the way his muscles jump beneath his skin, the way his eyelids go from staring down at Steve to fluttering wildly.
And then, somewhere along the way, Eddie remembers. That he wanted to be that nice kind of mean.
Steve knows it, because there’s that flash of red again, Eddie’s gaze boring into Steve’s soul, shooting right to Steve’s dick.
Eddie takes hold of his hair with both hands.
“Slap me on the leg if you want to stop.”
And then he pushes himself down Steve’s throat, groaning like he’s dying. Steve gags, twitches, but latches onto one of Eddie’s hips, digging in, taking it.
“Oh, no, you do not love being throat-fucked Harrington. Tell me you don’t.”
He lets Steve breathe, holding him like a marionette with his fingers curling against Steve’s skull. Steve blinks at him through tears and shower water and answers by opening his mouth.
“Oh goddamn it, you do. Fuck. Where have you been all my death, Harrington? Where?”
And Steve smacks him on the leg, just so he can look up at him and say, “You’ve been saving that one all night, haven’t you?”
Eddie smiles, an edge of cruelty to it, but in the best possible way. He tugs on Steve’s hair. Hard. Hard enough to make Steve’s eyes roll back in his head, a little moan curling up his throat. “What did I say about being a brat, Steve?” And he forces himself back down Steve’s throat, fucking his mouth.
And the world, it goes a little hazy. It narrows to hot water and Eddie’s hands and Eddie’s cock and Eddie .
Steve feels drunk on it. Even with tears in his eyes, even as he gasps for air and feels the burn at his scalp. Or maybe he feels drunk because of all those things.
“Oh, Harrington, are you floating away? Look at me.”
Steve snaps his eyes to Eddie’s. Brown-red-brown.
“You are, just right up there in the atmosphere, aren’t you? Oh, we have a lot of time to make up for, don’t we, Steve? So much we could’ve been doing for six whole years.” Eddie pets his head, and Steve? Steve leans into it, nuzzling at Eddie’s palm. “Fucking hell, Harrington. Get the fuck up here.”
Eddie has to help Steve to his feet, has to hold him, but he’s so strong now. Or was he strong before and Steve just didn’t notice? Steve leans forward, tries to steal a kiss.
“No. Ask for what you want like a good boy.”
“Eddie,” Steve slurs. “Eddie, I want to kiss you.”
“That’s not a question, Steve.”
“Kiss me?”
Eddie sucks on his teeth, on his fucking fanged teeth. Hot. God, it’s unfairly hot.
“Lackluster delivery, Harrington, but I suppose it counts.” He pulls Steve against him, kisses him like he wants to eat him alive. And, okay, Eddie is kind of a vampire. So.
Steve moans into his mouth and holds on, shivering.
“Harrington,” Eddie pulls away, Steve trying to follow. “Okay, Ground Control to Major Steve here. Come back down for one second.” He pats gently at Steve’s cheek. “Hey. Hey .”
“Hm?”
“You’re shivering.”
Steve looks up at the shower head, spitting ice cold water at them. “Oh.”
Eddie whines. “God, you are unbelievable.” Eddie kisses his forehead and shuts off the water. “Okay. Change of venue in order then.”
He puts the lube into Steve’s hand and closes his fingers around it. Steve waits for an order to follow Eddie out of the shower, ready to be led around either metaphorically or literally by the dick.
He definitely does not expect for Eddie to pick him up and put him over his shoulder like a sack of flour, carrying him down the hall to his bedroom, depositing him–wet–on his sheets.
It all happens so fast. The bathroom and then his bed. The in-between a blur.
“Wh–” But Steve looks down, finds Eddie already settled between his knees, crawling over his torso, tongue raking a line from his navel to the little dip between his clavicles.
“Hi again,” Eddie says, before nipping playfully at one of Steve’s nipples, one of his hands slipping, slick with lube, between Steve’s thighs.
Steve tries to find words, to say something before...
“Steve, Stevie, baby. You’re wet .”
“Yeah, I...” Steve glances at the nightstand, and Eddie follows the line of his gaze. His eyes light up, hungry, red.
“Oh, did you, little deer? Today? When?”
“I had a shitty morning and knew I’d have a shitty afternoon. I took a long goddamn lunch. At, you know, 6:30 p.m. because that’s when I finally had someone to cover.”
“Fucking hell.” Eddie laughs darkly, pushes a finger inside of him, makes it look like it’s the most decadent thing in the world just to touch Steve there. “Legs open. Now.”
Steve happily complies and just as happily fits them around Eddie’s hips.
“I hope I’m making your bad day marginally better,” Eddie says. “You’re certainly the highlight of mine.”
“That almost sounds nice. You’re being nice to me. Do you mean to be?”
“Oh, Harrington. I am nice.” Eddie shows his teeth, starts easing his cock inside of Steve. “Let me show you just how nice I can be.”
Hands wrap around Steve’s wrists, push them down into the mattress. Hips roll between Steve’s legs, Eddie pulling out of him, thrusting back in.
“See? Nice.”
The hands go tighter, Steve’s wrists giving a weak throb. Eddie must, like, literally feel it because he brushes his nose against Steve’s. “Wrists. Yes or no?”
“Yes,” Steve gasps. “All of it, yes. Do what you want. I’ll stoplight you, okay?”
“God, you die for six years and Harrington knows the goddamn stoplight system.”
“Eddie, please.”
A rough growl, a low rumble close to Steve’s ear. “Say that again.”
“Please,” Steve whispers.
“Again. My name, Steve. Say my fucking name.”
“Please, Eddie .”
“That’s it, Steve,” he says, forcing Steve's wrists together so he can hold them with one hand. He pinches a nipple hard, pinches the other harder. “So good.” His hand winds its way around Steve’s throat. Eddie squeezes his thumb and fingers just right to leave Steve an airway, to send all the blood rushing to his head. “I’ve got you, Steve. Go ahead. Fall.”
Steve lets his head slip back underwater, lets the world go narrow and quiet. He rocks his hips, meeting Eddie’s thrusts. It’s all that matters. Eddie. Listening to Eddie. Being beneath him. Fucking him.
Close. Steve’s been close for a long time now, he thinks. Maybe since the kitchen. Just teetering, Eddie holding him there.
“I’m…”
“I know. Not yet.” And Eddie breaks for just a second to give one little plea of his own. “I waited so long, Stevie. Please, not yet.”
Steve locks his feet behind Eddie’s back, pulling Eddie deeper and closer with every thrust. He wants to feel Eddie in all the hollow places that life has carved out.
On top of him, Eddie loses himself again, forgets to be mean or to even talk, pressing his body flush with Steve and making these desperate noises Steve knows are burned into his brain forever.
“Okay,” Eddie says, his voice on edge. “Whenever you want, Steve. You’ve been so good.”
“Bite me?” Steve asks. "Please."
“And they called me the freak,” Eddie says, but he sinks his teeth into Steve’s neck, locking his lips on Steve’s skin and sucking hard.
The world goes white, bright.
Goddamn supernova.
Steve’s not entirely sure he doesn’t pass out. The moan that comes out of his chest sounds like it belongs to someone else. Steve has never made a sound like it in his entire life.
His nails dig into his own palms.
“Wrists. Yellow. Please, Eddie. Hands.”
Eddie lets them go, and Steve claps them onto Eddie’s back, digs in deep enough he can’t believe he doesn’t break skin. It feels like he comes for hours, like it just keeps going, so long as Eddie keeps suckling at his neck.
And maybe that’s exactly what happens, because when Eddie finally stops, Steve goes limp. And Eddie looks at him and the mess between them and says, “Hmm, that’s interesting.”
And Steve, all he can do is breathe, grope for any part of Eddie he can find, squeeze. He tries to say something and only manages a squeak.
“Hey, hey ,” Eddie slides onto the bed beside him, wraps Steve up, pulls him close. “I’ve got you. I said I’d have you.”
And Steve, well, Steve starts to cry.
It’d be embarrassing if he didn’t know by now that sometimes sex just ends up that way. Release has more than one definition, after all.
“Oh.” Eddie hugs him tighter. “Yeah, okay, that’s normal.” He rubs soft circles on Steve’s back. “Let that shit out, pretty baby. You’re doing so good.”
“I know what your eyes look like when you’re…” Steve shakes, and Eddie grabs his face, forces him to look at him.
“Look at them now. I’m here.” Eddie puts Steve’s hand over his chest, presses it down on his Master of Puppets tattoo. “They’re not like that anymore, right?”
“No. Not like that anymore,” Steve says, still trembling, catching his breath.
Eddie sniffs the air. “Hey, Steve, Stevie, baby .” He pets Steve’s damp hair, and Steve never wants him to stop. “Did you actually eat lunch?”
“I…”
“Yeah, thought so.” Eddie kisses his forehead. “I want you to count to thirty, okay? I’ll be back before then. Clean you up. Help you eat something.” Eddie nods. “One...”
“Two.”
“Good.”
“Three.”
He’s back before Steve gets to ten, a wet towel in one hand, a plate in the other. He cleans Steve up with soft strokes, kissing the clean skin after. He cradles Steve’s head in his lap and feeds him cheese and saltine crackers.
It’s kind of a lot for one night. To go from the hungry, feral vampire in Steve’s kitchen to this–Eddie, soft at the edges, feeding him poor man’s charcuterie.
“You back on Earth with us mere immortals?” Eddie asks.
Steve rolls his eyes and sits up, leaning onto Eddie’s shoulder. “Yeah, yeah I’m back, man. You been saving that one up too?”
“Hey, I could only abuse myself to memories of that hairy chest so many times, Steve. Six years, dude. I had to entertain myself.”
“Do you wanna talk about it?” Steve asks.
“Probably. Not right now.” Eddie curls a hand around Steve’s wrist. “You’d actually use the safe words and tell me if you didn’t want to repeat anything, right?”
“I’m an adult, Eddie.”
“So you are.” Eddie looks him over, waggles an eyebrow. “I want to fuck you again. Cool?”
“Cool. And I want you to be the big spoon.” Steve sprawls on his bed, pulling his comforter up, lifting it to invite Eddie in. “So yeah?”
“Yeah, okay.” Eddie puts the empty plate aside and fits his body behind Steve’s, knees curved into knees. He’s a little cold, but Steve sleeps hot anyway.
It could kind of work, he figures, if Eddie sticks around.
“Do you have to, uh, leave before dawn?”
“No.”
“So sunlight is...?”
“Fine.” Eddie kisses his shoulder. “Work tomorrow?”
“Afternoon shift if no one calls off.” Steve laces their fingers together on his stomach. “Does garlic, like, do anything to you?”
“I mean, probably. Food in general makes me go full Exorcist, so…”
“Holy water?”
“Are you planning on killing me, Steve?” Eddie asks.
“Only in bed.”
“Mutual. I can feel it, you know, when I’m taking too much.” Eddie nuzzles into his hair. “I probably shouldn’t have bitten you in your kitchen though. I didn’t exactly know that, since you're my first. I just sort of didn’t think I was capable of killing you, of killing anyone really, but definitely not you. That, and I was superrr blood horny.”
"Please never say that again."
"Blood horny."
"Eddie." Steve sighs. "We both know I probably would've volunteered anyway. Eventually." Because that's the kind of shit Steve does and he's still the same Steve who jumps into portals to the Upside Down. "Is it enough? Do I need to, like, rob a blood bank?"
“It’s enough. I didn’t eat for six years. Pretty sure it’s not strictly necessary. It’s a craving. Like, well, like sex.” Eddie trails a finger across the guitar tattoo again. “Fuck, you would actually do it too. Steve Harrington would steal human blood for me and keep it in his refrigerator next to his wilted lettuce.”
“I would. I'd keep the baking soda fresh too, so your blood never got that weird fridge taste.”
“Careful, Harrington. A guy could fall for you, saying things like that." Eddie brushes a kiss to the shell of his ear. "And it’d be pretty hard to explain a vampire boyfriend.”
“Not really.” Steve squeezes Eddie’s hand a little tighter. “Not to anyone who matters.”